FATE\Deus Decipit

Chapter 117: The Mind Who Made Heaven Out of Hell

In the Dark Forests of a Darker Mind, a Place Where Time has no Meaning

Across an empty abyss, Dionysus, back in his bespoke suit, his horns and hooves nowhere to be seen, trudged along an empty plane, his black loafers echoing as if against a tile floor. He was fiddling with his cufflinks.

"Drat. Drat. Damn it all!"

All pretenses disposed of, he met the shadows of his mind with an undisguised growl.

"Damn them all! They think they can kill me!? They think I'll go down that easily!? I'll show them! I'll show them all! That damned brat!"

He cast out his hands, and the darkness parted in front of him as if drawn curtains on a stage, revealing beyond them a forest of eternal dusk, bathed in indigo light: a scenery that wrapped around him on all sides, embracing him like an old friend, this familiar manifestation of his inner mind-

He stopped.

His mind, somehow, in some way he couldn't possibly fathom, had been deforested. So far as the eye could see, there was no shade, no vegetation, only an endless meadow of cold grass littered by stumps that disappeared into the low fog.

"What-" His initial shock fell, consumed by a blaze of hot anger, "What is the meaning of this!?"

He searched the dead forest for answers, for hope, and there, in the distance, was a single remaining tree. Beside it, sat upon a stump, was a woman with a slender build and a cunning face, her coffee-like skin contrasted by bone-white hair that fell like dry straw from her head. Her skin, once smooth like porcelain, was now shattered like the same material: rough cracks divided her body, giving her the appearance of a doll. She was wearing a dress made of brown and green cloth which exposed her shattered midriff. In the dim and foggy light, her eyes seemed to glow: one green, and one violet.

She smiled.

He glowered at the familiar face.

"You."

"Me."

He marched towards her, the mud squelching and grass crunching under his feet.

"What have you done!?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Her smile grew ever-wider, "I've outplayed you."

...

In the streets of Athens, as Saber and Caster battled in the skies overhead, the thralls scattered among the buildings like ants.

One car sped down the streets, careening into every thrall that crossed its path, its driver watching the carnage with empty, violet eyes. It swerved from street to sidewalk and back again, being sure to hit every zombie it could, before finally smashing into a store window and catching fire- the man inside flying through the windshield and finding his bed among the shattered glass and blazing inferno. On the rooftop overhead, another thrall walked up and stepped confidently over the edge, falling to the pavement below, and lying motionless from then-on. One thrall walked into a crowd of his kin, pulled a pistol from his hip, and moved the barrel mechanically from one body to the next, shooting each through the skull without err, creating a rhythm from the -CRACK- of the pistol and the -THUD- of the bodies against the ground. When one bullet remained in the chamber, he placed it up to his own forehead...

In this way, each of Caster's thralls, living and dead, one-by-one, were eliminated. The trees were cut down one-at-a-time, chipping away at Caster's forces while he was none-the-wiser...

...

The shadow of Aisha Alghul looked up from her seat, "I'll admit. You planted your seeds well. A bunch of little phylacteries running around... each of them carrying a piece of your soul; a seed ready to blossom into a perfect continuation of yourself."