Shadow King: Payback.

[x-farouk.livejournal.com]

The rise of Amahl Farouk.



The entity fled.

Torn and wounded, trailing terror and hurt, and only inches from victory - it fled.

Its howls echoed through the screaming strangeness that the Astral Plane has become. Its shrieks cut even through the chaotic violence of power flow filling her mind and made Amanda wince as she struggled with the terrible burden of energy pouring through her.

It fled, blind - not with pain, horrific as it was - but with the agony of frustration and panicked confusion.

It had been so CLOSE.

Cain fought, for every inch and with every breath, till the very end, he fought.But he was doomed, from the moment that the mansion psies stepped onto the Astral Plane and into the Shadow King's trap.Then and there the battle was decided, the Juggernaut's defeat a foregone conclusion.

The giant had struggled, pushing back and trying to batter his way to freedom - but could not stop the steady peeling of his mind.

It had been so close!

The entity could see the end, the last flicker of Marko's independence, that was only seconds away from being extinguished. All that was remaining was one last push...

And then the universe had lost its mind.

There was no warning, no alarm. Between one minute to the next – suddenly nothing made sense anymore. The Astral Plane - the dimension that have always given gave it succor and sanctuary abruptly turned upon the Shadow King, tearing at the entity that suddenly became a stranger in its midst.

Nothing worked. Nothing felt right. The entity's instincts, its own senses suddenly became its worst enemies.

In a blink of an eye the lines toward the psies...

They didn't even snap - they simply ceased to be, as if they couldn’t be, as if they no longer should be. Its connection to Marko disintegrated, seconds later, without any warning, and the entity found itself alone, on what must have been the Astral Plane but... wasn't. Not in any form that the Shadow King could have recognized.

Every grasp for familiar, every attempt to shape the Plane or find the old focii bacfired tearing at it, clawing him open and suffocating it with the sheer alieness that the entity was now trapped within.

And then only flight - desperate, uncomprehending, panicked, bewildered flight remained as the only option.

It fled. Lost and confused thrown into the now unfamiliar currents of the Undermind, growing weaker by the second.

It was that weakness, paradoxically that proved the Shadow King's saving grace. Bled white and torn to its very marrow, the entity struggled against the forces of the Plane, but could not longer make an impact, surrendering finally to the pull ad push of the dimensions new governing force, of its new Consensus.

And the Consensus want it out.

For just like the new paradigm didn't make sense to the Shadow King, the entity's very presence was an affront to the new Plane.

It spat it out, slamming shut the doors - behind which the Cataclysm would soon begin anew.

But the entity would not be witness to it.

With Marko's mind lost to it, and spiderweb trying its captive telepaths to it shattered - there was only one place where it could seek refuge, only one path toward which the Plane could push it.

Only one mind, now free of any bounds for the first time in decades.

Amahl Farouk's astral form loomed over the torn and bleeding shape of amorphous darkness, crouching in the shadows of his mindscape.

His slow, warm smile didn't reach the eyes.

"My turn."