Ch 2, reg 6: Powers of the Senator

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Chapter 2 - The Legislature

Regulation 6: Powers of the Senator

Subject to these Regulations, a Senator shall have powers granted upon them to maintain the peace, order, and good government of their domain and, therefore, the collective of the Other Side.

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Higi watched as Gemma and Eve rushed into the inn. Midari kept his eye on the confrontation on the platform. Madame S and the man in the white suit stared at each other, the tension between them palpable, draining the sound and colour from their surroundings.

“Will you yield? This can end without your blood being spilled.”

“Have you not taken enough from us already?” Madame S asked. “That you now come to steal our home?”

“I have come to save your dying realm from your own foolish decisions.” The man in the white suit said. “Something I should have done long ago before you destroyed everything your family stood for.”

“Do not presume to know our family’s business. It is none of yours.”

“Our domains once stood as one, child.” He sneered. “I know more of your father’s mind than you could ever dream to.”

“Then you would know that he was blind, and arrogant. The Council was just to exile him.”

He laughed in a cruel jeer.

“Just? The Council are fools! They are weak in their reliance on their laws, blindly binding that which cannot be bound. They could never understand your father's vision.”

“You risk much if you suggest we stray from the Regulations.”

“We risk everything straying from the Old Ways. With our domains combined, we can rally the true faithful. The Other Side will be ours to lead once more.”

“You will destroy the only peace our time has ever known.”

“A false peace, bound temporarily by parchment and ink. I promise an eternal peace, forged in the fires of our conquest.”

“You truly learnt nothing from the Old Days ending.”

Madame S had heard all there was to hear, and there was nothing more to be said. She unwound her scarf from her neck, and wrapped it about her clenched fist. A column of her shadow legion marched down the sleeve of her coat to clamber into the scarf’s knitted pattern. The man in the white suit took a deep, slow intake of breath as He shrugged off His coat and threw it to the attendant. The size and weight of the clothing knocked the man completely prone, the sound of a pitiful groan providing a sign of life. With a finger, the man in the white suit drew a small line in the air, perforating the edges of space. He reached his hand into it and withdrew a broad sword of immense length. Its metal, a great piece of blue steel affixed to a hilt that any normal person would need both hands to wield, shone in the dim light passing through the clouds.

The air cracked as Madame S closed the distance in a single step. The flat of His blade caught her swinging kick, giving slightly with a half-step to absorb the buckling force. He turned her foot down and swung the blade up in a vicious slash. She bent backwards as the blade shaved through the space vacated by her head, catching her fall on her hands and launching a booted foot into His side. He grunted as He pushed her leg away, giving her the momentum to swing herself just beyond the reach of His pursuing thrust.

He followed with a great leap, blade arcing in an overhead swing that slammed into the space she dove from. The piercing strike sunk into the concrete of the platform that they stood upon, cracking the ground and causing a tremor that reverberated through the earth and up to the inn. Madame S twisted as she dove off the platform into the farmfields, flinging her hand out. The scarf wrapped about it shot out like an arrow, and streamed towards His head as she landed heavily on the flattened crops. He brought the blade in front of him in a casual attempt to shield against the oncoming projectile. The figures within the fabric called to each other in an otherworldly whisper of a long-forgotten language, and the scarf twirled about to avoid the sword. With each shadowy pull and push, it twisted in its direction and flipped past the block to then lash back and flick against the side of His skull. The whip rocked Him to one side and caused him to stumble. In an instant, the scarf returned to Madame S and she ran it through her fingers. The chatter of the figures settled into a purr as they enjoyed the sensation of their master’s praise. The man in the white suit held up a hand, and pressed it gingerly against the point of impact.

“You fight with parlour tricks. It’s little wonder your father never took you under his wing.”

Madame S launched her hand out once more. He pre-empted its trajectory and swung His blade into the path of the scarf. It flipped about itself to wrap about the blade, the figures running about its cloth to twist it into a tight embrace. The man in the white suit struggled against it, straining and turning his grip upon the handle of his sword, as the scarf threatened to pull it from his hands. With a roar, he wrenched it towards him and let out a whisper of an ancient word beneath his breath. The sword glew for a brief moment before it erupted into blue flames. The pyre stretched into the dark encroaching clouds, tearing a space between them. The tension upon the blade loosened as the scarf caught alight, the figures within letting out an anguished yell; a devilish chorus to the sky as the spirits were dispelled from their cloister. A flashing kick flew through the dissipating ashes as Madame S jetted through the smoke. He saw it coming, twisting his body and thrusting the pommel of his sword into the inside of her leg. She winced in pain as the impact turned her about, and a follow up came in the form of His fist into her stomach. Spittle flew through clenched teeth and she jumped back in an attempt to find some distance to recuperate. The man in the white suit closed quickly, swinging the blade in a lateral chop at her torso. Caught in the mid-air jump, she could do nothing else but wrap her coat about herself as the blade impacted her ribs. The impact launched her several metres into the fields, a trail of flattened crops chronicling her journey.

The man in the white suit stepped into the field, swinging His blade to carve a path through the crops. The foliage sparked into cinders at each touch of his flaming sword, contributing to a growing flame from the heat of his blade. As He approached where Madame S had landed, He stepped into a depression in the land. He stumbled and watched as steaming, sizzling water oozed into the ditch. The subsequent erupting geyser of boiling geothermal water struck Him straight in the face. It pushed Him back, and he was blinded for an instant. A high kick caught Him in the chin, and He was pushed a further step back into another bursting fountain that drenched Him in a burning heat. The following strike at His head was caught with an open palm, and wrenched back around to release Madame S in a throw through the boiling water. He blinked through the pain of scalded eyes to witness Madame S’s changed form standing in the pool.

The land about them had transformed. The earth beneath them shifted in its stability and the loam of the flowerbeds had become molten. The crackle of their heating was a constant cacophony with the bubbling of boiling water and earth, large percussive moments were the sounds of grand wellsprings popping into existence. Steam erupted in thick clouds about spurting geysers, and the air became stale in the oppressive heat that it carried. It carried an odorous stench of sulfur and the sky richened in its hue to a deep, dark red.

“This is more like the place I once knew.” The man in the white suit smiled.

The figure of Madame S heaved in the shadows as the cloud of smoke and steam dissipated around her. Her shortened horns had extended into long, sturdy hooks from her skull. Her manicured hands had morphed into long-nailed claws. She panted to catch her breath, revealing her sharpened teeth. Her hair was loose from its knots, flowing about her in a whirlwind of silver locks.

“And there’s the family resemblance.” He laughed. He spread his grey wings out from behind Him. With a boom, they propelled Him through the air, dodging in a flash around the bursting geysers to collide with the form of Madame S. She clawed at his side and face as He launched himself up into the air with her, tearing the fabric of His suit into pieces but not drawing blood.

Their deathly entanglement pirouetted and corkscrewed in the air, before descending in an instantaneous plummet that collided with the ground in a cracking quake. The foundations of their earth rumbled, the concrete of the train platform cracked and crumbled, and the inn far up the path shook at such a pitch that the lanterns swayed to threaten to fall from their hooks.

A dark cloud of smoke and soot exploded from the impact point. The receptionist and the attendant peered into its formless cloud, trying to make out the shapes in the darkness. They could hear the sound of rushing air as His blade carved through the space, and bursts of blue fire collided with red flame spurting from within.

“Can you see what’s going on?” Higi asked his companion. Midari did not reply.

There was a deafening silence that emerged from within the cloud. The smoke dissipated and revealed the conclusion of their battle.

He stood above her collapsed form, the point of his burning blade held at a mere handspan from her chest.

“Will you yield?”