Glasya Ren (glasya_ren) wrote in thegalaxy, @ 2016-06-09 11:35:00 |
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Entry tags: | !locale: umbara, alucard, glasya ren |
split your lungs with blood & thunder
Who: Glasya & Alucard
What: Two monsters and a fight for control.
When: evening
Where: Umbara
Rating: R for brief graphic violence
The surface of Umbara was dark, as it ever was. The native fauna cast deeper shadows over an already shadowed surface, creating pools of blackness as dark as the void just beyond the atmosphere. Glasya Ren sat in one such pool, his black robes spread out beneath him as he looked to the red stars above. He was alone in the gloom, with only his cleared mind and the slow pulse of dark energy that resonated through this world. The place reminded him a bit of Dathomir, a planet that was not his home, but which held comfortable memories for him all the same. He nearly smiled to think of it, but curbed the expression as soon as it came.
He had arrived more than a little early: nearly a standard day, in fact, the better to center himself and prepare for the trial that lay ahead. In that time he had rehearsed the steps he had to take, had fought through his own doubts and uncertainties until nothing remained but pure, distilled will. His weapon would not be tamed easily, and if Glasya failed, not even Issan would know where or how to reclaim what was left of him. Still he looked to the sky with an unflappable calm. Whatever came, Glasya Ren would face it head on.
Alucard disembarked from his ship, a shiver of delight in his blood. Darkness laid heavy on Umbara’s surface. The No-Life King could feel the long absence of the sun in the soil beneath his boots. Life had found another way on this planet, and not without sacrifice. Alucard crouched to run his gloved fingers through the dust. He lifted the fine coating to his nose, sifting through the scents trapped in the earth. Death was an old friend of this planet’s.
The vampire straightened, his focus turning to other matters. Glasya had requested his presence. Alucard was happy enough to grant it. He had made little headway with the First Order as of yet. He’d killed when asked, stalked the shapeshifter, and waited patiently for further opportunities to gain access to the deeper workings of the Knights or Ren or their allies. Had he won over the suspicious Force-user at last? Or did Glasya have another test for him?
Glasya felt his guest before he saw him. The tangle of varying presences preceded the creature like an ominous cloud. The knight rose from his place beneath the monstrous fern's curving frond. He smoothed out the wrinkles from his robes, and passed a hand over one of his lightsabers as though to reassure himself of its presence. The black ring hung like a lead weight around his neck. He did not touch it; did not so much as think on it.
"Alucard." Glasya tipped his head in greeting as the vampire drew near. "Thank you for joining me. I thought it might do us both good to venture a little farther afield this time. Gain a better appreciation for this vast galaxy of ours."
The vampire’s skepticism was clear as he came to a halt several arms’ lengths from Glasya. One dark brow arched beneath the ragged fringe of Alucard’s hair. He was without hat or glasses, this time, tall and spare in his red overcoat and charcoal suit. “I didn’t take you for the bonding type,” he remarked. “In fact, I thought you found my company tiresome.”
Alucard crossed his arms and surveyed their surroundings with a quick glance. They were alone, with nothing but the planet’s native plant life around them, and the miasma of a place that had seen little kindness thick in the air. Alucard canted his head to the side, curious. “Have you changed your mind? Or is this another test?” He did not trust Glasya, but he did not fear him, either. The man was only mortal. Alucard could be done with him in the space of a breath if he so chose.
Glasya chuckled. "Everything is a test," he said. His hands folded at the small of his back; on silent steps he closed the distance between them. "This place has already seen its share of them, or so I've read. Some say that at one time there was a Sith academy here. They trained assassins. So they say." A caveat to everything; a hedging around the truth.
"How did your meeting with the shapeshifter go?"
The vampire waved off the mention of the shapeshifter. “A distraction. Nothing more. I had hoped to be better occupied by the First Order’s endeavors.” How he missed the constant aggression of Anderson and the Vatican, and the looming promise of war with Millennium.
“What test are we to complete here? Do you wish to see me kill again? From a distance this time, perhaps? Or do you hope for something else? My time may be infinite, but it is also valuable. I do not offer it to you for free.”
The Knight of Ren smirked. "I seem to remember you approaching us," he said. "But perhaps my recollection is muddled." He shrugged. "Regardless. I'm a little disappointed to hear you found the shapeshifter uninspiring. There are those who think it has great promise. But I find myself agreeing with you rather than them, and I wonder, what should I make of that?"
He strode past the vampire, taking up a faintly worn path to a great ruin beyond. Dusty grass bent beneath their feet, muffling their steps.
“It says only that you have less use for the creature than others.” Alucard fell into step beside Glasya, hands tucked into his pockets, as though taking a casual stroll. “It has potential if it can be controlled. I doubt that such control is worth the required investment. One must also consider that there are many in this galaxy whose powers are more useful for their subtlety. The shapeshifter can be identified by any being with superior senses once its scent is known. That limits its usefulness.”
Glasya nodded. "We share the same concerns," he said. The first thin shadows of his thoughts crept into the corners of Alucard's mind, prodding the boundaries he felt firmly in place. Recent fights with Kylo Ren had left him loathe to show his hand too easily; he veiled his true intent beneath a thick veneer of simple curiosity, as though he only intended to sense the veracity of Alucard's assessment of the shifter.
"Easily detected, difficult to control… and beyond that, it has a childish, petulant streak that makes it unpredictable. All deeply undesirable traits in an ally." He cut a look to Alucard, eyes glittering beneath an arched brow. "Your arrogance is off-putting, but I understand it comes from a deep well of experience. A tradeoff worth making."
“Experience and birthright,” Alucard corrected with a smirk. “Or did I neglect to mention that you are treating with royalty?” The prince of Wallachia had become a king of the undead, and he held fast to the old ways of noble blood and obligations. Glasya was sufficiently tolerable that Alucard relaxed his guard sufficiently to share small pieces of himself, details that were of little consequence should the man one day turn on him. Most men did, no matter their protestations of friendship or fealty. Whomever had decided that women were the fickle sex had been an idiot.
“Manipulate the shapeshifter, if you must, but do not rely upon it.” Alucard would rather the creature retain enough independence to be more hindrance than asset to the First Order.
Glasya made a small sound of agreement. They had reached the ruin, a place of stone and alloys that, after all this time, still seemed somehow defiant where it burst forth from the ground. The crags of its broken walls bore no small resemblance to a compound fracture jutting out of ruptured skin. Dark energy coiled around their feet; to Glasya, it felt like walking through a fine mist, its touch faint but still there.
"Can I rely on you, then?" he asked. His thoughts slid deeper into the vampire's, nimbly circling the disparate forms that marked the souls bound within his unnatural shape.There were far more of them than Glasya had anticipated; he moved farther down, seeking out the darkling places that marked the host body rather than its symbiotes. Still he kept talking, kept feigning normalcy. "From what I understand of royalty, you are as beholden to your own whims and petulance as anyone else. Sometimes more so."
Alucard drew to a halt at the edge of the ruins. Foreign architecture reared overhead. Shattered walls and twisted girders evoked memories of carnage from the Great War and its more destructive successor. Hellsing had used Alucard to control the ranks of the undead who sought to profit from the chaos and rampant violence. He’d entered the conflict with glee. Few things satisfied him more than the eradication of vermin and scavengers on a grand scale.
“You do not understand the House of Dracul, then,” he corrected Glasya, with an impatient glare. “We were the final defense against the Ottoman Empire. Our people suffered and died while an entire continent cowered behind our defenses, reveling within their walls as though war were not upon them. Why bother to reinforce the defenses when the bodies of another nation’s slain conceal your enemy from view? I served my people, my God, and the legacy of the Dragon. In return, I received derision, scorn, and betrayal.”
The souls within Alucard shivered and writhed, unsettled. His eyes narrowed as he watched Glasya, but he could sense nothing of the man’s intentions. He could feel the darkness of the planet, the way it gathered around them, and frowned. “What is it you truly want, Knight of Ren?”
In all their prior interactions the vampire had never shown such fervor. Anger coiled within those words, a restrained fury born from long-suffered pain. It bled into the world around them, bolstering the Dark force that already surrounded them. It was an untapped well from which Glasya longed to drink. The quirk of his brow grew sharper. He pressed farther into the black forest of Alucard's mind, skirting close to the souls that occupied his space. In those depths, Glasya's grip began slowly to tighten.
"I want to build something entirely new," he said. "And I want you to be a part of that."
“A new order.” Alucard scoffed. “I’ve heard such proposals many times before. They are never anything more than an excuse. An indulgence of personal pride and selfish intention.” It surprised many to learn that the vampire loathed many of the greater human evils of the world. He was a monster born of suffering, prepared to unleash his anger upon innocent and guilty alike. Alucard’s greatest sin had been his desperation to fulfill his duty, his sense of responsibility turned to irrational fanaticism. He had tried to compensate for his human weakness by becoming one of the undead. He’d gained the power he’d so desired, but at a cost that many would have considered far too high to pay.
His familiars gathered more closely around him as his suspicions rose. He stepped closer to Glasya, the ruins now at his back. “Speak plainly.”
"How plainly would you like?" Glasya asked. "I believe this dichotomy of Dark and Light is false and needlessly limiting. I believe it keeps everyone, Force sensitives most of all, from becoming all they could be." He gestured to the temple at Alucard's back. "Sith and Jedi were both wrong. And yet we continue to repeat their short-sighted mistakes. I would free us all of that."
As he spoke he slipped beneath the gathering throng of souls, delving quick and deep like a swallow diving from a cliff. His presence expanded, slipping spidery tendrils all along the monstrous presence beneath its attendant horde. The Force knit a fine lacework of power, a net insidiously spreading over its would-be victim.
In an instant, the seals branded into Alucard’s hands burned into life. Every voice in the multitude howled. Alucard felt the seals slam closed against a silent invader as his army of souls turned inward. His fingers wrapped themselves around Glasya’s throat almost of their own volition.
“Freedom?” he snarled, his eyes gleaming coals of flaring anger. “You speak of freedom when you seek to ensnare me?” Only Abraham had ever had the audacity to trap the No-Life King in such a manner, but at least he had been honest about his intentions. “You play a dangerous game, Glasya Ren. More dangerous than you know.”
Glasya willed himself to calm, going still in the vampire's grasp save for one small, slight motion. The hilt of his lightsaber jumped to his hand, its white blade extending with a cold, reverberating hum. It rose up between them, searing energy that pressed against the creature's adopted form.
He did not waste his breath on speech. He jerked roughly back, away from Alucard's hands; the net of his Force abilities retracted slightly with him, only to renew their grip in other deep places. He pulled from the spring of the darkness around them, drawing it around him as weapon and shield. I know what you are, Glasya said, and I know what I risk. You'll have your freedom when I have mine.
“Insolent cockroach.” The vampire’s form blurred into shadow at the edges. The darkness writhed about him as one burning eye after another manifested. His familiars strained against the seals and the net woven by Glasya. “Releasing Control Art Restriction to Level One.”
All but the last of the Hellsing barriers against his powers fell away. An army of angered spirits sprang to its master’s defense. Hundreds of thousands of souls, some mortal, some vampire, some unknowable, hurled themselves at Glasya and the strands of power that bound him to the net he had cast about the vampire’s mind. Alucard had released every defense, save those that only a Hellsing master could call upon.
The Jackal thundered in the perpetual night of Umbara, its blessed silver rounds aimed at Glasya and the lightsaber he held. It was a monstrous gun, designed exclusively for Alucard’s use. A being of lesser strength could not have withstood the recoil. Alucard’s lips drew back from his teeth, baring a row of sharpened teeth, prepared to liberate Glasya from his throat.
The knight registered this threat, but as something secondary. The greater damage would come should his Force-woven netting snap completely. The lightsaber turned in his hands, shaping languid figure eights in the air. His steps became lighter, a swordsman's dance, as he slid away from the vampire and deeper into his mind. The web drew tighter. The souls drew nearer, all sharp teeth and claws that tore at the edges of his power. But he could not let go, would not; he tightened his grip, feeding off the pain as it came, forging it into hard links that snaked around the core of Alucard's being.
Alucard staggered in the net’s hold. His familiars were forced back, half of their number drawn screaming into Glasya’s web. The Hellsing seals faltered. To compensate, they tore Alucard’s power away from him, binding abilities that should never be permitted to be controlled by an unknown force, feeding off of his strength to remain intact. If they could not hold him against an enemy, then it was better to bind him, to limit his usefulness as a weapon.
Gun fallen to the earth beneath him, Alucard surged forward. He could not afford to allow Glasya any more time to bore through his weakened defenses. If his bullets could not reach the man’s heart, Alucard would take it himself, with tooth and claw. His form shifted in the instant before he reached his adversary. A massive black Hellhound, burdened by an iron collar etched with Hellsing’s spell, fell upon the knight.
Glasya's gaze swept over the collar's markings as he fell. They bore into his memory as hot as a brand, as sharp as the edges of the Hellhound atop him. The lightsaber swept up, searing through whatever flesh it found. Glasya's grip on it was tight, but the one he held within the vampire was tighter still. Blood poured over him, baptising pale flesh, anointing and renewing his will. He heard the snap of bone somewhere within his body. He grit his teeth and tasted blood, and clutched tighter still.
With his free hand he reached to his throat and tore away the thin strap of leather Issan had long since laid there. He was as close to his quarry as he would ever be; another moment and he would likely be consumed. The Force drew around them, two beings a tangle of bodies and souls, of teeth and limbs and starkly contrasting weaponry, and Glasya slipped the ring onto his hand.
The vampire felt none of the wounds to his body, his rage so complete that he could feel only the warring elements that sought to control him, and taste the longing for Glasya’s blood on his tongue. He would not be taken again. Only Hellsing had the right to control him. Only Hellsing had the strength. Alucard bowed his head to Abraham and his kin in honor. What Glaysa had thrust upon him was abhorrent, an enslavement, not an agreement forged by a hunter who had won the right to tame the beast. Alucard bit into Glasya’s arm, his weight bearing down on fragile human flesh.
Of a sudden, the collar around his throat seemed to catch fire, crimson light chasing its circumference as the Hellsing seals locked down on the last shred of power they could protect from the knight’s incursion. Alucard fell away from Glasya with a cry of pain, the liberty that Hellsing’s seals allowed stripped away as the Dark Side completed its work. His familiars retreated into the depths of his mind, cries piteous as they strove to form a final battlement about the core of his being.
Alucard made an abortive motion toward the knight, then froze, straining as though at the end of a leash. His lips curled away from his teeth in a snarl, as his eyes gleamed with blistering hatred.
The lightsaber retracted with a slide of Glasya's thumb. His hand fell to the ground, splashing softly in a pool of their commingled blood. He stared up into the red-dappled sky, slowing the hammering of his heart as a smile crept over his face. Numbness seeped into his limbs; he struggled to pull himself to sit, swaying slightly as he did. He drew a long, deep breath, what color remained in his face draining utterly away as broken ribs screamed in pain. When he spoke, his voice was strained, a harsh rasp from a damaged throat.
"You said you wanted war," Glasya said. "And now you'll have it. But you'll not harm me or mine -- directly or indirectly -- in the process." He forced himself to his feet. Planted his black boots in congealing gore and watched the beast before him. "Issan Ren and Bellamy Blake are under our protection. What the three of us confide in you is for you alone to know. You will not share it in any way with any other." He drew a shuddering breath, shallower than before. "Everyone and everything else is fair game. Do you understand?"
Alucard shook his head against the mental restraints, whole body shivering in protest as he snapped at the air with bloodied fangs. It was no use. He had allowed Glasya to breach his defenses too deeply, waited too long to kill him. The Hellsing seals held on to what they could, but Glasya’s control had wound itself tight about Alucard’s mind. It hurt. Oh, how it hurt, the vampire straining to retain what independence he could as the seals and Glasya’s net warred for influence over his being. A whine escaped his throat as he squeezed his eyes shut against the pain. He wanted to rend and tear, to consume Glasya’s soul and consign it to eternal damnation amongst his familiars, but he could do nothing but acquiesce to the knight’s demands. He wasn’t even certain he had the strength left at the moment to alter his form.
Darkness bloomed at the edges of Glasya's vision. He did not have long, and the Wraith was too far away. What had earlier seemed a necessary precaution returned as a damning bit of hubris. He wrapped his unbroken arm around his ribs and took a single backward step. The growing distance between them did not lessen the strength of their Force connection; Glasya felt it as a tugging deep within him, a keen awareness of Alucard and the host of souls he bore. It was a strange sensation, a low hum of noise that echoed in his head. He pressed the heel of his hand to his temple, squeezing his eyes shut against the rising sound.
His breath came in short, sharp bursts. He turned his back to the vampire, now intent upon returning to his ship before he lost consciousness altogether. His steps did not quicken; in every motion he tried to conserve what little energy remained to him. His astromech droid would be left to pilot the ship, of that he was certain. "When I need you I will call for you," he said at last, his voice fading as he retreated.
Alucard did not move. His throat closed on the cries that begged to be released. Glowing eyes watched Glasya’s retreat, the hound’s form stiff with pain and a fierce energy it could not set free under the chains of the knight’s hold. Only when Glasya had disappeared into the forest did Alucard alter his stance. He crept into the shelter of the ruins, and found a small nook where he could curl his aching body tightly into the shadows. The blood on the ground began its sluggish return to the vampire, small pools forming, then streams, as he absorbed it back into his form. He would recover here, his mind scored deeply by the shock of the binding. Once his strength returned, he would turn his efforts to the restoration of his freedom.
In the embrace of Umbara’s perpetual night, the vampire closed his eyes, and dreamed of his hatred and the promise of revenge.