This is another Story, that serves as a sequel of events to The New Kingdoms, directly. It logs the fall of a few Steelfangs from grace, as they scheme and plot against each other.
The lady wove the spell, as she read from the dark tome that she held within her hand, her mind flawlessly translating the cosmic language needed to perform her twisted spell. Powers would become irrelevant at this point. After all, knowledge beat power. The black tome had provided her the ability to cloak herself from her myriad relatives, and given her the knowledge to bind them. Well, not exactly bind them, but her mind easily perverted the rituals within.
The woman floated in the void, her white hair flowing around her, as her eyes glowed their normal cyan colour. She folded her hands across her chest, chanting the ritual she had memorized, adding her derived wordings to it, to complete it. She was willing the sacrifice what she had. It was the only way.
Six wings extended from the lady’s back. Three white ones and three black ones. The white wings soon crumbled into feathers, stolen away by the power of the ritual. She had achieved her ultimate goal - to entrap all her relatives within the cosmic matrice that permeated the entire multiverse. This would make her the singular most powerful entity in the universe, now that she possessed the dark tome, and the immaculate power of her lineage.
The ritual had begun. It would be too late to stop it right now.
Gideon Steelfang battled his nephew Raphael. He had a nasty premonition … something bad would be happening to his family soon. He parried Raphael’s ferocious swipes, even though he knew he was gradually losing to Raphael, given that his powers weren’t what they used to be, after he broke from the cosmic entanglement inflicted upon him by his brother. Raphael himself was an extremely skilled fighter, as he punched Gideon through the void, causing their void coordinates to shift erratically.
In essence, though, Raphael was losing. If Gideon cut off his wings, he would lose his Steelfang bloodline powers, at least until his wings regrew. Gideon prevented the wings from regrowing, because he knew that was how to defeat his own relatives.
The woman smiled as she saw her relatives duelling. So beautiful, so unaware. She admired the exquisite sword work like an expert from afar, smiling to herself as she saw the crescents of energy being flung around, the blasts of power, the spells flying everywhere. She ducked when Raphael came flying past her. With a sick smile, the lady lifted Raphael telekinetically and did the same for Gideon.
“Welcome home, my dear uncle” smiled the lady.
Raphael could feel the dark powers flowing from the woman, and he noticed her three black wings. He immediately shouted “sister! No! This cannot be! What are you doing?”
The lady floated right up to Raphael and patted his cheek innocently, retorting “this is for everyone’s good! Siris is too concerned with giving mortals free will, and protecting that free will with his little bitch Lucina! Don’t you understand? Why are gods like us behaving like mortals, wallowing like them in the state of utter ignorance?”
Raphael sighed “Isis, please, I don’t like this prank. It’s not funny. We are … were mortal. We should understand that everyone is a mortal, and everyone is also a god. It’s how the world works.”
“No! You do not understand. I know better than you, and you all are just a bunch of gods trying to role play as mere mortals. How very disgusting, cloaking yourself in the same behaviors and physicalities as the mere ants that walk below our feet. Also, don’t call me Isis, my name is Eris, and Isis is no more! Isis is my mother, and my father is the darkness itself!”
Raphael looked as his uncle, who was chanting something. He nodded and he started to chant the same thing as well. With a burst of pure willpower, Raphael and Gideon broke free of the hold on them and flew straight at Isis/Eris stuck in Isis’ body. They were repulsed by a force field. Isis smiled and held them up again, choking them with raw power.
“Gideon, Raphael, serve me and I’ll let you free. You have about ten minutes before you lot are imprisoned permanently in Euphoria using your own powers. If you do not make your choice by then, I’ll just let you get imprisoned. Don’t think you can call help - Siris, Lucina, Lily, Horus, Tyrael, Azrael and Sariel, being the most powerful of the lot, they get stuck first. As for the others … they can’t beat me even if they tried. I’m turning everyone’s powers back!”
“Fuck you, Isis, or Eris, you can imprison my bloody wings. Thanks, uncle Gideon, thanks for sealing my wings” smiled Raphael as he grabbed his own wings and tore them off. The dimensional bubbles expanded and consumed Gideon and Raphael’s wings, while Raphael himself fell through the void into a universe.
Gideon smiled to himself. He had did the right thing...
Siris paced around Euphoria, noting that his powers locked him in. He had seen the interaction between Gideon, Isis and Raphael. It could have turned out this way, or Raphael could have been locked up like everyone else. Siris noticed his siblings being forced into Euphoria one after another.
"What the heck happened?" asked Abbadon as he tried to planeswalk. He failed terribly. Horus shook his head. Even Lamia, the dimensionwalker, couldn't so much as move out of the plane. They were trapped within their own paradise, imprisoned.
Horus sighed and said "Isis ... I noticed she wasn't herself as of late. This just means she has sinned against us, which I'm not too surprised about, given that she seemed to have rendered Annalyse completely unresponsive and catatonic, before taking her away, claiming to want to try cosmic power to reawaken her. By the way, where is Raphael?"
Gideon appeared last, replying "Raphael is ... on his way to becoming a hero, or die trying. I made sure he couldn't regrow his wings."
Everyone raised their voices and hurled insults at Gideon, besides Horus and Lily, who kept silent the whole time, but Siris quietened them with a wave of his hand. He said "Raphael might have lost his wings and powers, but that does not mean he lost his spirit."
"It isn't how much power you have ... but how much you can do with what you have. We were all mortal before, but we have went beyond. Many heroes, with nothing more than sword and will, have defeated cosmic foes. Isis, or more accurately, Eris, fails to understand this."