#koil

“Mister! Mister, help! You’re a soldier, right? Slesnee-any or something? Please, she’s going to kill me!” Happy Jr.’s claws scrabbled at cobblestones to turn around, as the cyclops roared and charged at the pair. The child kept flying without apparent effort, babbling at Koil, who had difficulty following through his pulse roaring in his ears. Fear magic, perhaps. The child didn’t seem to be doing anything, and who’d ever heard of a cyclops mage? How on earth was he feeling the effects from so far away, with the plaza cleared out from the fight?

Servis had obligingly curled up under Koil as he rode forward to intervene, and now he groaned and slapped his forehead. The child, just look at her! Maybe she could get away with claiming the Simic gave her rabbit ears, but solid black eyes? Innate levitation? And any Ravnican three-year-old can say “Selesnya”. The girl was obviously a planeswalker. The cyclops probably was, too. They were never going to get to the restaurant. His husband was just too good to say no to someone in trouble. Servis loved that about him, any other time.

“Fine.” He swung around and up, giving Koil room and deftly balancing on his favorite good girl’s back as she ran away from the grey cyclops. “Come on,” He told the young planeswalker. “Hi! My name’s Megumi. What’s- waaaah!” He snatched her by the leg, no room for argument, and pulled her down into his previous place. He could feel fear magic affecting him, even this far away, and it was probably going to mess up both Happy and Koil soon enough. That wouldn’t do.

Whoosh. Fog spilled out from Servis, slipping from any crack in his clothing it could find. By now though, the unbelievably athletic cyclops had already caught up with them, and Koil turned Happy Jr. to meet her. Her aura was terrifying up close. Koil nearly froze, but enough of his training kicked in in time to swing his small shield up, the thing denting like a tin can under the cyclop’s fist. Happy Jr. was bowled over and threw her riders from the impact. Koil barely held it together after that. She would have killed him. All to get after this little girl.

“No!” Wham, and the human from before was back, miraculously recovered. She didn’t appear to have a scratch, and now she was edged with a faint white-and-gold halo, tainted with black. She tried again to hit the cyclops, who barely looked fazed by the blow.

“How many times do I have to show you!? This little display is pathetic.” The cyclops turned around to engage the figure. Human? Angel? Spirit? Planeswalkers were a dime a dozen today, it seemed.

Koil indulged his impulse to run, get away, and signaled Happy Jr. Koil hauled the stunned girl onto the massive wolf and leaped up himself. The wolf again clawed for purchase down the cobblestones of the Promenade. Servis had somehow hung onto her, and her scrabbling turned into galloping as his fog surrounded the group riding her, enveloping them and slipping them out of view. He crafted it as dense and wide as he could, anything to protect his husband. That should stop her.

The cyclops had buried the other planeswalker in the street again, and turned to face where the pair riding the wolf had been. She squinted and searched.

“You can’t hide from me!” She pointed a clawed metal arm. K-Chang! Her hand detached and shot out, trailing a long chain behind it. So that’s what that it was for. It shot wide, missing Servis’s head by several feet, but the fact that she even knew their general direction was a bad sign. The claw buried itself into a nearby building, and ripped out a huge chunk of stone as she jerked it back, already running forward at that incredible pace.

Happy Jr. leaped right, then left, then right again, getting lost in the maze of side streets that makes up Ravnica. The cyclops roared past behind them on the Promenade. Koil eventually had Happy Jr. slow down. She gratefully sat and dumped her passengers into a side alley, then flopped onto her side, panting. Now Koil’s pulse roared from normal adrenaline. “W-what was that?”

“Grii.” The girl said. “She’s a planeswalker, like me, and she got here only a second after me and Sophi did. She hates me because of my parents and she’s been hunting me for so long and I don’t know what to do and, and…” The girl became more and more frantic as she told her normally well-practiced tale. Koil simply got down on one knee and embraced her as she cried, or tried to, her tears obviously spent long ago. She sniffled. “…I hope Sophi’s okay.”

“Koil.” Servis said. Koil looked up, still holding Megumi. “The cyclops, she can find us. That weird claw came close even though she couldn’t see us. Planeswalkers are completely unpredictable, and I don’t want to assume that whatever it is only works in short-range.” His fog was still flowing, pooling around his feet and out. It rose up and clung around the forms of the panting wolf and the three riders, spilling into the wider street. Neither was worried that anyone would find it odd. They had to notice it at all first.

All three felt their pulses quicken back up. Grii was gaining on them, and fast. Someone said, “Shit!”. Servis and Koil looked at each other, then at Megumi. Koil murmured, “language”, for the sake of it, then they all scrambled to get back on Happy Jr.

They made it out and turned just before Grii would have blocked the alley off. Sophi staggered after Grii in turn, showing lots of wear and tear for her trouble. On Happy Jr.’s back, Servis got ready.

During his early assassin days, he’d pretty much only been able to do his fog trick. That was technically still true, but when you’re skilled enough at a particular field of magic you can find many interesting uses for it. The wind caught him and he flew directly back into Grii’s face. He pulled his now-immaterial form in, around and in her. She grabbed and pulled at the wisps as she slammed sideways and began to choke. He could delay her, if he could concentrate long enough to

“That’s enough.” Lazav said. Servis was kneeling in supplication, panting and trembling. His superiors were disappointed. They’d wanted to test his loyalty. Again. He’d failed. Again. Everything was gone. Koil, Happy, Happy Jr., his position, their date, it was all just a wonderful dream, just as he’d always feared, deep down. Now they knew all about his weakness and they were going to fix him, cut out his love and turn

He was curled up on his side, cheek pressed to more dirty cobblestone. Grii was hundreds of feet away down the long street. Servis slowly got back up and wiped off tears. “Ohhhhh, you’re not gonna get away with that.” He looked up. The street was a dead end. Koil was leaning against the wall, clutching his side. Happy Jr. was also down, curled protectively around his feet and whining and growling up at Grii. Without missing a beat Servis pulled out his long knife and threw it without even looking. Special Dimir first-grade assassin equipment. It would hit. Servis was already running forward.

Koil tried to keep himself between Grii and Megumi, pointing his spear at her as he clutched his crushed ribs. Suddenly, there was a knife sticking out of her head. Servis’s knife. She barely even reacted to it, only jerked it out in a gush of blood and swiped at Servis. A huge portion of his body tore away in a puff of smoke, resolidifying as he rolled to a stop, unconscious and bleeding heavily. Grii took the opportunity to dart a hand forward, shoving Koil aside and slamming Megumi up onto the wall by the throat.

“Finally. Finally! All those bodies, all this suffering. Your parents, they took everything from me. I trained for my entire life to kill her, and they just took that away.” Koil tried to stab her and she slapped him to the ground without even taking her eyes away from Megumi’s face, gasping for air. “I wanted to take my revenge. But you! You evaded me at every turn. Every nobody across the multiverse ran to your side. I failed, again and again. I failed!” She slammed Megumi into the wall again for emphasis. With one hand, Megumi clawed at an arm the size of her torso and with the other hand, she reached for a white knife at her hip. “Now you owe me too. I’m going to make this slow.” Grii was crying, but she was smiling. “Finally! I’ve been waiting so long to make this happen. I’ve done so much. I’ll finish off these ones first so I’ll have all the time in the multiverse to make you suffer. It’s been so, so long. What’s a few more days?” Megumi now had the knife raised to stab, but dropped it as her weakened arm spasmed. “Finally...”

Koil stared at Servis’s body. He couldn’t tell if he was breathing. Not him, not Servis. Not his laughing, playful, beautiful husband. She couldn’t take everything from him. No, that was the fear magic talking. She hadn’t taken everything. He had so much he leaned back on. Now he asked them for more, silently pleading and relying on his connection to all of the might of Selesnya, his brethren. Help me. Help my husband. In his mind, they answered in a great chorus. Koil channeled their gifts and their wishes, gathering green and blue ribbons and swirls to form a sphere of pure energy at the end of his spear. He lifted up with the tide and shoved forward, and all of Selesnya shoved with him.

“YOU. WILL. NOT. TOUCH. HER.” Sophi was back again, and glowing as golden and sick as Koil’s weapon glowed bright and warm. She slammed into Grii’s legs as Koil slammed into her side, Grii flipping like a ragdoll hard into the pavement. The stone broke beneath the force of both impacts, nearly burying Grii’s entire upper half.

Koil immediately felt drained. He coughed, and more blood than before came out. He wasn’t a mage like Servis, and his body wasn’t used to channeling energy like that. Megumi twitched and gasped and retched on the ground. Sophi crawled to curl protectively over the girl, a faint gold-and-grey aura surrounding them. Koil stumbled to Servis’s body. Strained to hold his ear above his mouth. He could feel breath. Thank the gods! Thank Selesnya! Servis breathed again, a bit more deliberately, and stirred. The group heard Grii groan and move at the same time, and they dragged themselves up and dragged themselves out of the alley, Happy Jr. leaning on all four of them.

It felt like days, though it was probably only minutes before they turned and found a main street. Two Azorius soldiers were standing guard on the corner. “Holy shit.” One said as she saw the group. They resembled ground meat more than living people at this point.

Thump thump thump thump ROAR and the soldier’s eyes widened as her partner flung a spark of blue light somewhere behind them. The first soldier jerked the group behind the corner as she pulled out a crystal, requesting backup immediately, barely getting them out of the way of Grii’s charge. By sheer coincidence they’d found the same promenade that Grii had initially caused a ruckus in, and Boros and Azorius soldiers began flinging containment spells at the raging cyclops matching the initial description. At first she flung one spell aside, then two at the same time, then more, then more. But a few got through. Her movements slowed, her feet lifted off of the ground. She beat more back. More got through. A few minutes and several dozen soldiers later Grii was in a multilayered containment sphere, floating a few feet off the ground. She raged and screamed and beat great holes into the spells, but they just kept coming.

Koil eventually tugged on a soldier’s cape enough to draw his attention. He did his best to speak clearly through the pain and the blood and the burgeoning swelling. “The cyclops, she’s… a planeswalker.” The soldier nodded and spoke more into a crystal. Several soldiers pulled out mizzium cuffs with red and blue trim, with resolute faces. Before any of them could advance, Grii suddenly calmed, them vanished out of the sphere with a scream muffled by the layered spells, which collapsed into themselves after her.

 There was a pause as everyone checked themselves, then a commotion from above as Grii dropped down on where Megumi, Sophi, Koil, Servis, and Happy Jr. were receiving medical attention. Some enterprising soldiers had thought of the possibility and she was hit with half a dozen spells midair, slamming down next to her target. Before she could even lunge at the group, spells slammed into her from all sides and as they moved away from her she was eventually trapped again. If she had been raging before, now she was absolutely lost. She nearly broke through several times, reaching at Megumi, who flinched each time, before the layered spells stabilized once more. Eventually Grii just curled up in a fetal position and began sobbing. “So close… so close… if not for that damn pyromancer and that damn fencer and that damn robot and that damn angel and that… so close…”

Some Boros medics had treated the group, and while they all had long-term injuries even with magic, the ragtag group was stable again. Megumi spoke up. “She’ll never stop, you know. Even if those cuffs work she’ll never, ever stop. No matter where I go, she finds me. I can’t stay with you or she’ll hurt you again. I’m sorry.” Koil moved to stop her, but she simply vanished like she’d become a breeze. “What!? Megumi, no!” And Sophi vanished just as quickly as her medic made a grab for her.

The crowd of police milled around apprehensively while they waited for transport for Grii. She’d fallen silent and didn’t seem to have noticed that her quarry had vanished.

 “She’s here! She’s here! …Oh my gods. It’s actually her.” A curvy elf in petticoats and glasses had apparated in the square, looking around wide-eyed at the square. A curvy pure-white woman with long curly hair and ears like Megumi’s appeared next, then a thin fine-dressed vampire with short black hair. The newcomers stood slack-jawed at the sight of the pacified cyclops. A beat passed before the vampire growled loudly, and with inhuman speed and strength was suddenly clawing at the sphere to get to the cyclops inside. They hurled curses in a frothing rage. While three soldiers worked to wrestle the vampire off of the blue sphere, Grii woke up from her state and noticed the vampire. Her old rage came back full force, and she screamed loudly enough to be heard through the sphere from where Koil and Servis were standing. She stretched to her full size and pushed at her contraints, and the bubble burst, releasing a shockwave of sound that caused most of those present to be knocked over, dazed. Grii was gone. The vampire growled again and vanished as soon as they could stand. The white woman planeswalked away as well, hugging herself with necrotic black arms. The planeswalker elf milled about asking and answering questions.

Koil turned to Servis. They were both laying on stretchers next to each other. “…Maybe we can ask one of these people to pick up our orders.” Servis grimaced and turned to the medic still tending to him. “Can you smack him for me?” The medic grinned and obliged him, causing Koil to wince. “Thanks. No, I’d rather just spend the rest of the night home with you.”

“I couldn’t ask for a more perfect way to end the day.”

“I… you… that’s super sweet. I hate you. I love you.”

Koil chuckled. “I love you too.”