Blood Magic

Above a quite bank in the river Nate aligned a rubber coated chair over a white tarp. The tarp was ten by ten feet and centered in the focus of a video camera.

Nathaniel himself, was nude from the waist up. His shirt, tie, and a set of his tactical armor was laid out on his open suitcase. Next to it was a field bag of rectangular shap, roughly 36 inches by 26 inches by 3 inches.

The young man had a lightly tanned skin, betraying his italian heritage. Though he had grown somewhat pale, the results of working in the dark. His figure was impressive. His mother and uncle saw to his physical developement, however he found that remaining in prime physical condition was paramount to survival. Nate held no vanity to his appearance, concerned only with practicality, efficiency, and survivability.

Taking a seat in the chair, and taking off his glasses. and placed them in a case on his belt. the belt was similar to a law enforcement agents mixed with some sort of spy fiction heroe's. It was thick, sturdy, covered in pouches and gear, yet frieghtenly form fitting.

"After increasing my iron intact and making sure that the magentic charge I subject myself to is isolated as MCP-008, I am ready to make my first attempt. the subject limb is my left forearm and I will be bursting a concentrated bubble of MCP+008 at level one power...This tape is to document progress and to refine the technique", nathaniel explained in his somewhat official manner of speach.

The young man focused and the extended his left arm. His right hand formed a concave shape. An electric shell foremed around Nate's forearm. The young man grimaced and supressed groans and other calls of pain as his forearm started to bleed from the pores.

The blood collected on his forearm and began to drip. Sizzling as it passed through the electric bubble, it splattered on the tarp he sat on. Drop after drop fell, and a small puddle began to form.

After about thirty seconds Nate released the small spell gritting his teeth and breathing heavily. His left arm bled still as he took a nalgene container filled with water and poured it over his arm.

His left arm appeared quite a bit hairier than normal. Nate expected as such, but also knew that it was not hair covering his arm. He looked at the camera and with a heavy voice spoke.

"Experiment Success, he gave a slight groan then continued the report,"i have successfully extracted iron throught blood in my body. The pain was not quite what I was expecting. Further tests will likely increase my threshhold for pain. will only continue experimints on limbs, till my technique is refined. Must not use too much healing magic till I'm not sure if it will affect the consistancy of my success. End of phase one."

Nate stood up and clicked off his camera, using a piece of steel he collected the iron from his forearm and placed it in a glass container. After disinfecting and bandaging his wound, he began to clean up his experiment site.

Further up the scarlet river from the experiment site, there was a waterfall of approximately eight feet. The crimson cascade splashed across outcrops of jagged stone, gurgling as it was churned into a froth by the rocks. Drifting downstream, the bubbles burst one by one until not a single bubble remained by the time the flows neared Nate’s location only twenty to thirty yards away.

A series of tremors shook the earth beneath Nate’s feet, toppling some of his equipment. As the last quake peaked, its intensity enough to throw the camera and its tripod to the dirt, a loud crack split the silence. The ground groaned, as if the earth was in agony, and then everything fell silent and still again. Minutes passed without another tremor or sound from the earth.

Suddenly, the rock face behind the drape of blood ruptured, accompanied by an inhuman yell. Shards of stone sprayed outward, scything through the crimson flows. The blood sizzled upon the rocks, evaporating in a scarlet steam to reveal that each fragment of rock glowed a molten hue. Some of the stones splashed into the river, cooled by the blood before settling in the silt of the riverbed. The blood resumed its flow down the short cliff, hiding the newly created chasm behind the falls. The renewed silence was short lived as a hiss escaped the drape of blood and a blade glowing as bright as any of the stones had stabbed through the flows. Slicing upward, it split the flow like cutting a curtain, and revealed a figure dressed in shimmering armor. The smooth, shining armor was speckled with blood, each drop glistening like a ruby. In places, his platinum blonde hair was matted to his scalp by a splatter of blood, staining it the same red as the river. Holding the sword aloft, blood boiling across the blade, the man stepped through the parted falls with a minimal amount of blood splattering his armor.

As the man waded into the river of blood proper, his hand fell to his side, dipping the hot blade of his sword into the crimson flows. The fluid sputtered around the hot metal, but neither would win. The sword would not cool, the blood would not recede. Step by step, the man left the bloody fall behind him. A grating of stone upon stone, of earth shifting, signaled that the wound in the earth was already healing. In seconds, it was closed so that no one might ever pass through it again.

Two metal appendages whirred behind the man as they moved. Two silver shafts sprouted from ball-and-socket joints built into the armor that spanned his shoulder blades. Each shaft terminated in a wheel-like hinge from which an even stranger shape extended. Three spokes fanned out from a piece of metal attached to the wheel, the two outer rods larger than the inner and metal spanning between them. The metallic limbs twisted, flexing in the same way as a pair of wings might.

While the servos powering the wings finished calibrating themselves, the man lifted his free hand and ran gauntleted fingers through his matted, bloody hair, the seemingly seamless metal never catching a single strand. The visage that was revealed by that simple brushing aside of messy locks would have been enough for any sculptor to put away his chisel and hammer forever. The chin was pronounced and faintly pointed but not overly so; the lips, thin but still plush; the cheekbones, high but still allowing for a gentle curve of flesh; the nose, narrow and straight; the eyebrows, thin and dark. And the eyes were a piercing icy blue. The shape and form of the man, both in face and figure, blended masculinity with a touch of femininity to achieve beauty only angels could possess. Rightly so that the man should have it, for he had once been among the celestial ranks.

The man lifted his head, gaze raised to the heavens, and screamed--even his outcry held an harmonious quality to it. He hoisted his sword above him, a trail of scarlet steam sweeping through the air in its wake, and brandished it towards the home that was forever lost to him.

When a newborn entered the world, it did so screaming, crying out for the embrace of its mother after leaving the womb, and with its body bathed in blood and other fluids. It was only fitting that Foras would arrive in similar fashion.

Had Nate been younger when his camera was jostiled to the ground he would have held a moment to glare in disapproval. Given that he had just spent a minute pulling metal through his pores, and he was wiser in his old age, he decided that he could attempt to salvage his digital evidence later.

The area was one of darker toned eldrict energy, and thusly Nate decided against using any curative magics and drawing any undue attention.

As he covers his arm in bandages, Nate assesses what to take and what to burn. He does not believe in coicidence. His camera breaking while he experimented with magic; believing the incidents not interlinked would be foolish.

When the tremors and quaking began, Nate had barely put on his jacket. After rolling onto his back, the young man held an air shield spell ready in case debris fell into his fairly clear spot. branches and some rocks of minute sizes fell on him, but nothing he'd risk magic for. Using his feet he kicked his camera into his suitcase and flicked it shut with the same foot.

Just as it seemed that things had calmed, the air was filled with a his and then several screams and then one greater one. Earthquakes were not common in europe, neither was a river of blood, but Nate realized things as quickly as he could. His gut said made a tactical error when choosing this time and spot to experiment. His experience mocked him for injuring himself out in the field, even for research. Burning blood and ungodly screams accompanied by metal pretty much equated to the proverbial shit hittting the fan. One would think that the young man would learn to avoid such scenarios by now.

Nate had a conundrum, being that he was not in the best condition for recon. He could attempt to dispose of his site and destroy some of his equipment, or he could leave his site and evidence of his existence. Keeping a low profile and out of detection was his primary goal, not exactly easy since he was wearing black in a mostly white environment.

Taking his mirror from his jacket, Nate used the device in his wounded left hand as it was wrapped in bandages. He swept the small metal rectangle slowly, just trying to get a view of the situation. So he could at least figure his best route of evasion. Inside his jacket, his right hand slipped into a holster to a trusted tool.

The Fallen’s roar echoed across the riverbanks, chasing the vanishing ripples he created in the blood flows. Long after the cry had died upon his lips, the armored figure stood staring upward towards paradise lost with unblinking azure eyes. A gust of wind stirred the halo of platinum locks around his head, and the man shut his eyes. The gentle caress of the cool breeze reminded Forrasis that he had made it. Yet again, he walked among men, the beings that had shown him and his brethren reason to rebel.

Forrasis, of the second brood, brother to the Morning Star, gifted with the form of an angel and the freewill of a man, lowered his head and opened his eyes. Icy orbs beheld the middle sphere once again. As always, it lacked the perfection of paradise but also was not awash in flames. Pressing the de-activation rune stamped on the hilt of his infernal sword, Foras banished the blade. The metal faded from the blazing orange of molten steel into a dull gray and then shrunk into the handle as the cross guard folded into the grip. Stretching his arm across his body, Foras deposited the sword in a tiny alcove in the left thigh of his armor that appeared only long enough for him to stow the disabled weapon.

Disarmed, the Fallen surveyed his surroundings with a calm confidence—what could truly threaten him? He that had lived through defeat by Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, and the rest of the heavenly host that remained loyal. He that had survived the fall into the lake of fire beside Lucifer, Astaroth, Mammon, and Beelzebub. Immortal, there was none that walked the earth that could truly harm him. Until he had determined where he was and what was the state of man, any specific mortal was beneath his notice.

The twin appendages that extended from the back of his cuirass continued to shift, the fan-like ends with their trios of spokes slicing through the air. A blue glow flickered between the spokes and along the underside of the shaft that connected to his back. While the wriggling limbs produced their own whirr, a every time the sapphire light flashed, there was another, new soft hum that challenged the gurgling of the bloody brook. Forrasis waited for the devices to finish configuring so that he might continue his journey.

Lovely, Nate thought sarcastically to himself. His mirrored gave him a glimpse of an armored figure a stone's throw away, near a waterfall up the crimson river.

Fairly certain that this being was doing the screaming, Nate refrained from moving his mirror at least to get his memory a chance to take in what information he could. Aside from being wrapped in metal and possesing a mane of near white hair, the being appeared to have large fans or wings comming from it's back.

There were no orders or languages being spoken. If this creature was a summon, then the conjurerdid not appear to be the close. The earthquake, could it be magical flux? It was a phenomeon not entirely unfamiliar to him. Tristain and The Stranger demonstrated it on their grandest of entrances.

Stop theorizing, Nate ordered himself. His mind needed to be more in the now than dealing with the future. The creature seemed to be aclimatting itself. Though he could not be sure. It wasn't making sudden movements, and Nate was not going to attempt to draw his attention.

Forrasis stretched his arms outward, metal-gauntleted finger shimmering like silver knives that sliced through the autumn air. He raised up onto the balls of his feet, steel shifting across his flesh without making a sound. Behind him, the pair of metal limbs continued to calibrate themselves releasing bursts of azure that flared along the bottoms of the shafts and between the spokes. Finally, the hinges locked and the sparking cerulean light stabilized to a steady glow.

A second later, Foras drifted upward like a leaf caught in an updraft until he hovered over the gurgling surface of the river. Sanguine droplets glistened as they dribbled down the silver armor that sheathed the Fallen’s legs, rejoining their siblings in the stream. Forrasis’s feet came together, pointed toes of his armored boots angling downward, as he hovered above the river of blood. The glimmering glow of the metal limbs grew, spreading outward like wings, and Forcas lifted higher into the air before changing trajectory. The shimmering figure flew towards Caislin Hallows, leaving the inquisitive experimenter alone, unharmed.

[Exits]