The Elders Around The World: Japanese Dominoes part 1

Romania

"You're lying."

Viscol pursed his sky-blue lips, pausing to adjust the pain regulator. "What do you mean?"

"This isn't the real reason you didn't kill me. It was something else." Skromneyy paused, looking at the icy Mage's passive face as he got back to carving the sigil on her thigh. "You only spared me because you still have feelings for me."

He met her eyes. "I'm not a killer, Yulianna. I don't like killing. 'Feelings' for you have no relevance. I have never killed another person before in my life. I'm just not up to it. I was asked to go after you myself anyway by Elders Lumina and Haos. This suggests to me that they are the ones with a plan for you."

"Your little girlfriends? And where do you come into this?"

"Don't move!" She had shifted and he had pulled his hand back in alarm. "I'm right over a major vein...or is it an artery? Either way, it's major and if I slip up, you bleed." Sighing, he got back to work, gripping a scalpel between his thumb and forefinger so hard they began to turn blue. Skromneyy tried not to shudder. To her, he was repulsive. Great kisser, but repulsive. "I'm afraid I don't know where I come into this, Yulianna. All I know is this protects me and my country just a little bit more from Mevolent's forces."

"And what are these symbols you keep carving onto me like I'm just a piece of meat?"

"You are just a piece of meat. The one on your collarbone serves as...a disguise. More powerful than a façade and can be set to not work for certain people. It can only be deactivated by those who cannot see it. The one I'm working on now is an addition to the 'curse'. It promotes loyalty."

"'Promotes'?"

"I'll give no more information on the matter."

She sighed through her nose and tried to relax. It wasn't easy under the circumstances. Further more, it seemed obvious to her that Mihai still liked her. It was the way his (poorly-stitched after the last time he bit it) tongue flicked nervously over his lips and teeth and the way he refused to meet her eyes. She wasn't sure who he thought he was kidding but it was obvious. She'd seen him get that way with plenty of girls, including Elder Lumina, and some of the elders from other countries. Kerias was a prime example. Ever since then he had stayed as far away from America as possible. She put up with him being obvious for an hour or two more before she was allowed to go wandering. He told her the sigil on her collarbone had not been activated yet, which explained why everyone was staring at her like that as she walked. The wrist where her hand used to be was stuffed into her coat pocket. It wasn't her coat, actually. It belonged to one of the Elders.

Mihai, Eugenia Lumina and Valoros Haos met together in the throne room. "What exactly are you planning for her?"

Val and Eugenia exchanged looks. Val spoke first. "Essentially, we're using her for security."

"Security?"

Lumina took over. "You wouldn't like it if we told you. You'd try and stop us. But it's important this happens. For us, Russia, possibly America and Ireland and definitely France."

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "So you've purposely arranged something you know I'll oppose...and you're revealing bits of it to me by getting me involved in bits you know I'll screw up, only telling me to do the wrong thing so that the effect you want will occur."

"Yes, only less complicated." Val agreed. "And we didn't want you screwing up the symbols, you're just good at those."

"I see. Well, you've never hidden anything from me before, so now I'm suspicious."

"It's nothing." Lumina insisted. "You just have a bit of a thing...you're just a bit...soft on her..."

"What?!" His voice cracked as he leaned forward with his incredulous shout. Lumina gave a bemused smile and tilted her head.

"You do, don't you? You get the same look on your face as when you first saw Zafira, only more mild."

"Shut up about that!"

"Or when you look at Eugenia here." Val agreed.

"Oh yes, that too, Mihai."

"And when he sees the administrator."

"And the girl who works in filing."

"And that mortal woman with the three kids who drives by every weekday because this just happens to be en route to her kids' schools."

"Elder Lumina, Elder Haos, that is enough!" He got up and went to the door. "I'll just go drown myself in the fish bowl." He muttered as they laughed and went back to discussing every girl they had ever seen him show interest in.

-----

Japan

Hato stood back as Gyazara finished killing the Grand Mage. He was sobbing as he finished him off. He looked at Hato, standing by the door as she seemed to be composing herself. She put on a look of absolute horror and sunk to the floor in the corner of the room...and started screaming. Yuki froze, then looked down at himself and at the blood, then looked up at the door as the Cleavers crashed in. He tried to stammer out that it was Hato's fault, but he was drowned out by her screams and he was still holding the knife. They pounced on him, taking him away. The other workers stared, whispered to one another, and went quietly with the Cleavers, the reality of what had just happened dawning on him completely. Hato had used him and that was that. She had controlled him and now he had killed Koken'nin. He had looked up to Koken'nin.

Hato was putting on her victim act. She had been practising it for months. It was actually pretty good now, as she sobbed and sniffled and talked about how Yuki had broken her arm when she had tried to stop him. The truth was she had broken her own arm before she had even gone to see him first. How her screams had caught in her throat as gasps when he had started to overpower the Grand Mage. If all went according to plan, she would become Grand Mage. Things always went according to plan with her. It wouldn't take long to arrange. Possibly less than a day. As a result, by the end of the week Japan were officially on Mevolent's side.

-----

Norway

At the same time in Norway, Loren-Magnus Skisma was just returning home. It was late and Glorianna was probably already in bed. He dragged himself up the stairs and collapsed on the bed fully clothed. He wondered exactly how much he had relied on Amber and Vrees. They had sort of worked in tandem for a while, simply because they were so close, and suddenly he felt cut off, alone, isolated...Glorianna wasn't in the bed. None of the lights were on. He frowned and got up, flicking on every light as he went and checking all the rooms to see where she was. She had been at home all day today. After all, she should have stopped coming to work almost three months ago. He had explored all the rooms on the top floor and went to explore the bottom floor. That was where he found the broken windows. "Glorianna?!" He ran through the house calling for his wife, but it seemed she was not there. He opened every door, every storage thing, went into the garage and checked the car, the bonnet, the boot, and then called her. She didn't pick up her phone first time, but he called her three more times. On the fourth attempt, the phone was answered, but it wasn't Glorianna who answered. It was a man.

"Finally. Sorry about that, couldn't work out how to get the Norwegian phone to work. Different model to mine and I couldn't understand anything."

"Who...who are you?"

"The who is not important."

"How cliché."

"As is this. We have your wife. Get as many people as you want involved, you'll never find us."

"You're with Mevolent, aren't you?"

"Afraid so. See what you can do. She looks like she could go into labour any day now, actually. Don't want to miss the birth of your child, do you?"

"She didn't do anything to you. Let her go."

"You know that isn't how it works, Mr Skisma. Anna's fine for now. Would you like to speak to her?"

"P-please l-let her g-go..."

"I'll pass you over"

"Please...please! I'll do anything! I'll join Mevolent! Just leave her unharmed for the love of God!"

There was a rustle as the mobile was passed over. "Hi honey." Glorianna sounded tired, but fine. "They're threatening to cut my ear off."

He didn't know what to say. He just told the truth. "I don't know what to do. What do I do? Where are you?"

"I don't know, Lorie."

"What do I do? Are you okay?"

"Try and find out where they took me maybe? And I'm fine, darling. Shattered, a little hungry, but fine. Don't panic."

He took a few deep breaths to try and calm himself. When he realised it wouldn't work, he wailed down the phone "I don't want them to hurt you! I'll do anything!"

"Stop blubbing. They want you dead, Lorie. They won't accept any offer you make. Call a meeting or something, tell them Mevolent's made his move against Norway. Ah, the nice man with the beard wants the phone back...I love you, honey."

"No...please don't go...I love you too..." The connection cut off and all the strength seemed to leave his legs. He collapsed right there next to the car.

-----

Czech Republic

The man looked exactly like him. Agents and operatives watched the fight from a distance, but the main difference between Rasputin and Bonifac was the magic types. Ras was an elemental, Bonifac was a Necromancer. It wouldn't take long for one of them to slip up. Simple enough, right? Wrong.

Bonifac decided to shadow walk them both out of the Sanctuary, bit by bit, dragging Ras along as he fought him. He tried to pull away, tried clicking his fingers to summon a flame, but the side with his good hand was instantly smothered against his brother's side. His right hand had always been jittery and just...defective. He could never do anything with it. Even worse, he couldn't write with his left. He was pretty certain he was meant to naturally be right-handed. Then they were outside and his brother was forcing him into the mud. The elemental tried to twist away, give himself room to push him away, but Bonifac was heavier than him and more ruthless. He grunted as the doppelgänger smashed his elbow into the Elder's face. He turned away and tried to kick out, but that was useless. He would just be kicking thin air. He gasped as he felt the blade enter between his ribs. Quite frankly, he hated himself for being brought down so easily. Boniface was an expert at killing people and taking their place, though. Taking over his brother's life was just twice as easy. Removing his ring, he slipped it on the finger of his dying brother and hoped he would be identified as Bonifac while Boniface himself would be incorrectly identified as Rasputin.

-----

England

Elliot Huzzaro sighed, taking a sip from his tea. Julia made lovely herbal tea. He was sometimes seen as blissfully unaware of his surroundings when he was drinking his tea. He daydreamed a lot. Very unusual man for a Necromancer. Anyway, this blissful ignorance was taking place now as he thought about Julia's amazing herbal tea while there was a crisis going on around him. It wasn't a major crisis anyway, surely. If it was, the others would be bugging him to get his arse in motion and actually do something. But no, he was being left alone to drink his herbal tea. He saw a duck outside and spent a few minutes staring at it. Okay, Huzzaro might have had ADHD. His tea went cold and he went for a walk, found a patch of red on the floor that he was pretty certain was wine, then went back to walking and decided he wanted some wine. No-one else was there. It was as if the Sanctuary had been evacuated without him. Probably the case as well. He wondered why they would evacuate and why no-one told him. He opened a door and saw the reason they had evacuated. It was a bomb or something. "Oh..." he mumbled. For some reason, he stepped closer to it. It didn't look like a bomb. He had seen bombs. In fact, he had once been trained to disarm them, so maybe he could do some good. It looked strangely like a creepy jukebox. Oh. It was a bomb. Actually, it was just the detonator, the bomb itself must have been elsewhere. Worse still, it was activated by proximity, and Huzzaro had just set it off. This would never have happened if he had been evacuated like all the others. Luckily the bomb wasn't in England.

It was in Poland.

((I'm doing this in two parts otherwise the length would just be ridiculous. Lookit my amazering improv for Huzzaro though. And the first strike has begun. Wrote much more for Romania than I meant to, but that's cool...))