A Lust for Pride

The Dragon made its way back into the realm of the avatar picking up signs of Will being here; Pride was stronger now as bonding to the dragon had made her more capable of simple task. She could talk and be understood now but she still looked old a feeble, she had only found enough strength in her body to slightly move her hands, but had taken more physical control of the dragon that she was being parasitic on.

The area was filled with black clouds and lightning bolts, and underneath he clouds once could see a solid flat land, no plant life just one giant rock the seemed to go on for an infinite amount of space. As the dragon made its way into the realm one could see a girl dressed in armor lying on the ground. Pride weakly whispered having sensed wills omnipotence there. "Will?" The Dragon swooped down and landed gracefully as a means to get closer to her. Pride opened one of her feeble eyes, and it transformed into that of the dragons eyes as she began to see everything that the dragon saw. They observed the girl and had decided that it was not Will but indeed one of his champions.

Curious as to how the girl had arrived there, the dragon nudged hatch in an attempt to go retrieve her, from the desolate realm of the avatar. They would do this in hopes of figuring out where will was as his abilities were probably the only ones that could reverse the effects of time.

Everything happened so fast that Asei just could not comprehend any of it. Watching Will fall down, knowing that Lust was close by, and him just offering himself in order for her to be able to fight and live on. Her blood boiled like no other, not at herself, nor Will but at this Avatar that was making all this trouble, and for what reason? All that seemed to fuel her at this point was to hunt this being and end her. As she crouched in this unknown area gripping tightly the gift he had given her, her fists began to punch the ground below her.

"I am going to kill that bitch!" Feeling her knuckles break open and some blood spilling out she stopped and completely fell on her side. Feeling helpless to aid Will. It had almost seemed anyone she would ever care for would be ended with death. Her friends long ago met this fate. So it would be the fate of those who were near her now, a destiny of destruction. Feeling tears fall from her eyes not knowing what to do. She heard behind her the movement of others. As footsteps approach closer her emotions so intense not being able to control herself. "If you are going to kill me, you'd better do it now and quickly." Her voice almost so quiet that it would seem impossible to hear. She had not moved but still clenched the hair in her fist. Almost feeling as though something inside of her snapped. Something she almost feared but unsure what.

Vaulting down from the dragon's back, Hatch approached what seemed to be the realm's sole inhabitant. It was a young woman with long light-brown hair who looked to be in her twenties; she was kneeling on the ground, apparently very distraught about something. As he approached the assassin didn't bother to conceal the sound of his footsteps so the girl would hear him coming. He stopped about ten feet away, shifting his weight onto his left foot and holding Pride's sword in his right hand with the blade resting on his shoulder . The girl said something, but all he was able to make out was "If you're going to kill me...".

"I take it you're not an avatar then." Hatch replied, tapping the blade against his shoulder and sounding indifferent. "No, I'm not here to kill you... at least I don't think so. I assume we're here to find someone, and since there's no one else around I assume that's you." A gentleman would offer his hand to the lady to help her to her feet; Hatch just stood there staring down at her like she was a sick puppy.

Pride let out a few coughs as her voice loudened a bit, her thoughts echoed there way into Hatch's mind. The dragon got a little closer himself and exhaled a gust of oxygen and something that smelled of gasoline followed. "Will? where is Will?" The words were faint but were loud enough to be heard. The Desperation in the Avatars voice was clear as day. She was realizing that the girl was either a decoy or somehow she had picked up on wills powers. Upon further inspection the dragon realized what ever gave off wills aura was no longer present... that or any trace of him that was their was now cloaked somehow.

Ichiro the phoenix swooped down in a burst of flames in an attempt to seem threatening. He let out his loudest screech as he stepped up to Hatch in a odd attempt to keep him away from Asei. His masters wishes were his purpose.

The Lightning in the area grew more turbulent as a wind had managed to pick up and a tornado formed in the distance. The dust clouds were whipped around in it making it look muddy as it ripped its way across the area surface. The dragon noticed this and had its attention locked on the strange phenomena.

Asei's eyes glared up at this figure, normally being able to determine out if someone was a threat to her she really could not tell. Staring upon her as if to say she looked pitiful, she pulled herself up and turned to face what had been there. Disregarding his comments, and looked past him at what seemed to be a large lizard creature, and what she would call types of God's, Dragons in her world. Questioning where Will was. "Will?" Asei pointed her finger towards where she saw Will fall into the large open water only moments ago. "Lust might know more than me, since she insisted on bringing the both of us down! Who are you two!" Almost wanting to pace but at the same time trying to calm her emotions.

Ichiro made a quick entrance to the front of her. As though this figure of a man was a threat, understanding his want to protect her she felt inclined to calm the creature. "Ichiro, calm yourself please." The last thing she had wanted to was bring Ichiro into an unnecessary end. Not wanting to see more death before her. Need to calm. Barely noticing how strongly she clutched the hair clip in her fist.

When the phoenix appeared, screeching and flaring its fiery wings, Hatch dropped into a combat stance immediately. He bent his knees slightly and slid the ball of his right foot around behind him so his left side was partially turned toward the avian. His left arm came up defensively and he leveled the avatar's sword horizontally with the tip aimed at the phoenix, poised to strike at a moment's notice. The abrupt change in his demeanor and body language was startling.
However, once the girl managed to calm the phoenix down Hatch relaxed and returned to a normal standing position. He hooked the sword onto his belt at his left hip and tugged on his lapels to adjust his coat.

"I am Hatch, the decrepit avatar on the dragon is Pride." The assassin replied, his voice businesslike and clipped. "We were attacked by the avatar of Time, Pride sacrificed herself to bring us here."

Another portal opened in front of them as laughter echoed from it. "Well I guess this is what humans refer to as how the mighty have fallen" A purple haired figure emerged wearing a brown tunic and dark blue leggings. He was tossing six blue dice in the air as he casually stepped out to observe how distraught his Avatar brethren were. "Both of them being stupid enough to give away their immunity... and for what... humans... that just doesn't make any sense..." The male walked in a circle around the group eyeing them up and down, but from their point of view it appeared as if they were moving and he was standing still. "So I suppose you want to know who I am... I will tell you... don't worry... have a little... Hope..." He shook his dice in his hand and rolled them on the ground one by one each one of them was six sided and he had a total of ten die that he threw down. "Well would you look at that I rolled a forty two... talk about lucky for you guys...”

He casually walked up to his dice that had landed in front of Asei and pet her on the head, "The name is Hope, if you didn't catch on... hope you lads have it memorized... anyway onto my point... you two lucky winners just won the help of!" Seemingly from nowhere the dice seemed to cast a light on hope as he began to glow; fireworks seemingly from nowhere shot up in the sky and illuminated the dark atmosphere as a few words formed by the sparks in the sky. Hope put on a top hat, and tapped a cane that also appeared from nowhere on the dirt three times. "The best Avatar Ever!" He exclaimed as he pointed his cane at Hatch. He held a huge grin on his face while doing so. "So what can I do to help you poor Heralds of the Avatar... as my dice lead my path and my path has lead me to you!"

Pride and the dragon were sitting in the background, not really much saying anything but it was almost clear that there was discontent for this particular avatar. As if he was the annoying little sibling Pride had wanted nothing more then to sweep him underneath a rug and pretend he had never existed.

Panic filled Asei quickly, with this new portal opened, and another Avatar joining in. She really did not know what to expect at this point. Defensive seemed the only possible position at this point. As this Hope threw around his dice, the way he moved seemed confusing. His hand touching the top of her head Asei froze in place, what type of gesture is this? It did not seem as though it was a horrible one but perhaps more disrespectful? Odd looking lights came from the sky above him, at this point she found herself moving to a better position. Knowing Will was trying to take her some where place, without Avatars she remembered. Because from what she saw already, Avatars only wanted to kill Champions.

"Help? How do you intend to help." Keeping her eyes on all of the figures in front of her, not letting anyone get out of her eye sight. If Avatars could come here freely, then that means Lust would find her way here. This made Asei feel once again enraged but also fearful. Making sure all eyes were on this Hope Avatar before finally releasing the hair clip from her hand gazing at it for a brief moment, she could see that the clip metal upon the metal there had been a single white wing with a bit of her blood marked upon it. Feeling some hints of her past begin to swarm in she frantically placed the clip within her hair, tightly.

"Christ not another one." Hatch muttered to himself, but loud enough for everyone to hear.

Within the amount of the time this Avatar ran his mouth, the more Asei became infuriated. As this figure was within the grasp of the Dragons mouth, Asei's eyebrows furrowed confused and anger being tested. She mumbled under her breath. "Sounds like a trick to put yourself on top." Would not hear of going against Will, he'd saved her and she now owed this person her's. Shaking her head she looked over at Hatch, not really being able to read his expression well, but just a hint of aggravation displayed. So if that was correct he'd felt the way she did towards Hope. Now what did not seem right was Hope's information about where Will was being taken.

This was information she wanted but unable to think of a way to get it. And there was now way in the depths of hell she'd join a pact with this Avatar. She would not betray Will, nor help someone who sounded as chaotic as this. Could not sense a good bone in his body at this point. This will begin the untrusting nature as a human being, where if you turn your back for a moment it would be your grave. Right now all she could watch was the show, because in all honesty she did not know what to do.

Hatch's left hand, which rested on the hilt of his sword, tightened its grip on the blade's hilt as he listened to Hope's proposal. "You are a fool if you think we'll trust you. Hope is the recourse of the delusional and powerless; traits you seem to have in abundance. The only way you're getting this sword is point-first and buried six inches in your skull." The assassin replied, clearly having none of this shit and fed up with the shenanigans of the avatars. He was five seconds away from carving his name into Hope's smug face when the dragon intervened and saved him the trouble. Right about then he hated Pride a little less.

The dragon slug her neck to the side tossing hope out and shot fire from her mouth, pride then used her omnipotence to voice her opinion as she projected herself onto the dragon. Her voice was different as she was speaking through the flames that burst through the dragon’s mouth. "You are trash, Hope... Tell me where Lust holds the defeated!" A giant foot pinned the charred avatar to the ground as toothy smile looked down on the avatar, menacing for sure as drops of burning saliva fell onto the avatars face made of fire and liquid gas. One could see the back of the dragon’s throat build up with fire once more as it prepared another burst of flames for the avatar if he did not speak soon.

Hope chuckled wiping the char of his face "Well I tried to do things my way Pride... but you are completely forgetting that you are currently handicapped" He opened up his pinned hand as a three dye went up in the air rotating and gyrating in all sorts of directions before hitting the ground with each landing on a six. The Avatar grinned, "Jack pot!" Taking his hand he pushed the Dragons foot off him and pushed pride into another portal in the process which then pushed pride into another portal somewhere else inside the avatar realm. Because the realm was infinite it would take the dragon a while to find them again, as the portals all closed right after.

Hope then turned his attention back to the two humans. "Well you see there... I am clearly the superior avatar... how about this... you two take the time to get to know me... if you flee I destroy you... if you stay everybody wins!"

As Pride and Hope seemed to go at each other Asei began to look around to her surroundings. There had been nothing here that would be useful to her. Hope overtook Pride throwing her into a portal, his demeanor seemed so chaotic that this made Asei extremely uncomfortable knowing some thing was about to happen and she was not as prepared as she had liked. As he turned back towards the both of them his words helped her make a choice. And she would rather die than help this fool in the end. Never had she used trickery on a being to win them over.

"You are dishonorable! I'd rather rot in a corpse than help you." Angered flared in her words and Asei watched this Hatch person in the side of her eye. He clearly wanted this Avatars head on a pike and she would intend to try to help the best she could. The only question is how, she had no weapon now and the only thing she could do was get in the way. For all she knew this Hatch had a miracle assuming so and unaware if it would be useful to them. She'd have to live long enough to get Will to safety and return his omnipotence, only then would she allow her death to happen.

Hope sighed, "Well I guess the girl is an easy kill... what about you sir" As Hatch had convinced him that he was switching sides, the moment he attacked him he went flying indeed and with the follow up sword through his chest and into his chin. Coughing up some blood he let out a few gurgles of confused English. "Well, guess I will have to kill you both" He then opened another portal and banked away from the blade, it opened him up a bit more spilling out more of his blood but with rapid healing Hope ultimately was fine. He then went through the portal and appeared above Hatch dropping several of his dice in the area. "So how about this..." He yelled from a safe distance... "If you prove that you can best me here then I will gladly play by your rules" He laughed as the dice each rolled on a different number. Each dice then transformed into different version of hope, each marked with a number on their forehead.

Hope Number one then put his hand through a single portal as several fist came from all over and all attacked Hatch. Another Hope this one with the number four Attacked Hatch as well this time with a beam of light from a single fingertip. Hope number three runs up to Asei with full force. He takes both his fists into the air and then smashes them down powerfully at her. Hope number two follows up behind number three with two daggers in his hands. He starts a circle around her and creates a tornado effect around her with his daggers pointed to her attempting to rip her from limb to limb. The last two clones created stand back with their eyes glowing blue. This gives them the ability to have a full view of everything. 360 degrees around with no blind spots.

The original Hope stood in a cloud above all of the action. He looked down on what he has created and grins.

As the blade came into contact with hope number four it made a clean cut as the head was removed from the body. As the head hung in the air, another head appeared on the body. To make matters worse the head without a body quickly gained a body thus making another hope clone with the number seven on it. When Asei had managed to kick the third clone another three appeared as the original number three was sent flying and skid across the ground as if hit with a form of super strength each impact on the ground caused him to make more clones. As Asei's fist landed right in the middle of the males face as with the other clones more clones appeared but the original that she had punched lost his head entirely, as it was simply obliterated, of course he regrew his head, but one cannot make clones out of nothing. Just like that things had gotten out of hand as Hope continued to look down on them. "Who needs Champions or Heralds when you are your own personal army?"

Fifteen clones all then came running towards Hatch, all of them jumping from portal to portal in an attempt to confuse him. One of them had come from below him and grabbed his feet to hold him in place as the other clones opened more portals to do light jabs against him. Hope had intended to play with the humans to show them just how far out of his league they were. Another group of clones then came charging at Asei, attempting the same strategy only this time they pulled her into the portal and reappeared high in the sky where they dropped her seemingly to her death they had hoped.

The two clones with five and six continued to observe the situation, they had not moved from their spot as a single a circle of light circled around their feet. Their eyes were glowing the same eerie white color as they held hands and pressed their backs against each other as if they were locked in a trance.

Asei pointed out that her attacks seemed to do more impact than normal. Of course, the power of will. He had been able to do things because of this and now she had hold of it. All that was left now was to understand it. Before she could continue thinking about the power the hair clip had in it, the clones were grabbing her and she couldn't figure out what was happening. Images began to flow through her mind as if she had been watching herself falling from the sky, and then to her death below. Completely being confused she's only just noticed that she was now the images she just saw. Falling, staring up at with the clones staring. Everything around her slowed down, panic once again found it's home within her mind. Asei knew she was not ready to die once again, did not want to be bested again in a battle.

Have to do something. Her mind raced with ways to not fall to her death. She had remembered once in her past she had the ability to soar through the air as she sought out the souls of her warriors, right now her having that ability would be the most helpful. Asei peeked to the side of her, noticing that she lacked time to think about these things because the ground was closing in on her. Deep inside she knew though, she wanted to be able to do this at least once more, feeling the wind on her face and seeing the beautiful views of the world from above. Asei's body seemed to jolt up then she felt solid beneath her, stunned at her not falling anymore, but seemingly still alive. A headache was better than her ultimate death.

Asei quickly pushed herself up, it was obvious now that attacking these clones only cause more and did nothing to help them move forward. Need a weapon. Her feet began to move from under her. Eyeing the real Hope in the distance above the action, intent was set on him. And she needed a weapon, something, anything at this point to do some damage on him. Hope had already driven her anger beyond, this uncaring and not so honorable being was one she would bring down. Opening her mouth as she stared at the real Hope her voice seemed almost different. Empowered. "Hope! If you can so easily kill me off then why don't you show me yourself! Stop being a coward!"

As Hatch came down on the clone they would fall from the air similar to how Asei had been falling but it was different as Hatch was using his miracle to protect himself. When he came down on the clone it was indeed smashed, and fifteen more clones appeared due to the stronger and less precise attempt of the impact. When he kicked the clone rather than the body able to be sent flying he created a chain of impacts that resulted in a clone appearing at each angle of the arch all of them simultaneously bumping into each other thus making more clones in the process. It appeared as if a rainbow made of Hopes was falling to pieces as they all hit the ground.

As Hatch carved his way through the clones they would fall of course not solving any of the male’s attempts to slay them. For each he would take down another two or more would appear in its place, and would consciously come at hatch not giving him a break. It eventually grew in an attempt to dog pile him as body parts would go flying around creating more clones. When the clone was smashed into the ground it of course also caused five more clones to appear around hatch as they all charged a laser like beam from their fingertips in order to physically kill him, as a point blank range, this was of course to no avail as he jumped into another portal to evade them.

When hatch came down on the two clones, hope nearly fell from his portal from excitement as when he came down on them they both exploded upon impact, the explosion was big enough to wear the dragon who at the moment had been a few light years away could spot it due to the flat land. Upon seeing it the dragon and pride began to make their way towards the battle field appearing almost instantly in the midst of the chaos. The dragon roared pulling attention to itself as it began to burn some of the clones to nothing. Pride weakly clenched her fist in aggression, being old but certainly not dead.

Hope chuckled at Asei's attempts to pull him in for combat. "Well dear... that wouldn't be fair to you or Will... I was hoping that I could give you a little hope in terms of beating... well you knows... Hope!" He could not help but laugh at his own badly made pun falling from the sky in doing so, only to fall into one of his own portals and then fall towards the dog pile that was attempting to stop hatch. In doing so he fell into another portal as he laughed and stopped himself in midair as the joke stopped being funny to him... "I will give you another joke... if the little bird could do anything about it then she wouldn't really need my help then would she!" He laughed again and then magically appeared right in front of her, so close that the breath from his nose could be felt grazing against her skin. "So... here I am... I love giving people a fighting chance... I can take anything you can dish out... show me how bad you want to live... show me how hopeful you are that you can save the Avatar who forsake you" His words echoed as he whispered them to her, he was quiet enough to where only she could hear him. Another portal opened beneath their feet as Hope anticipated an attack from either her, or Hatch to appear out of nowhere and strike him down.

The bottom line was he was feeding off of them, or at the very least he was feeding off of Asei. Her hope was so strong willed it seemed delicious to him, and for that he toyed with them.

The explosion sent Hatch ragdolling across the ground, wisps of smoke trailing behind him as he skidded fifteen feet across the stone before coming to a stop lying on his side. His increased inertia had allowed him to survive the explosion but the blast had briefly knocked him unconscious. Only his deathgrip on Pride's sword had kept it from being blown out of his grasp. In seconds the KOed assassin was buried under a six-foot dogpile of clones.

Asei stopped running coming to a slow halt as Hope began to jump through portals. Watching closely to each one he came from. Placing her left hand behind her back and her right at her side until Hope appeared in front of her. As he spoke to her as closely as he did Asei's emotions changed once again, from the fear to the anger her emotions changed so drastically and instantaneously. With Hatch having trouble right now, and the clones just reappearing she needed to do something to be helpful to the both of them. But nothing came completely to her mind, she knew they both had the disadvantage and for some reason she felt as if Hope was enjoying her a bit too much at this point.

As Hope came to a defensive position Asei noted that he had prepared for her attacks. Instead of throwing a punch like she had anticipated, she move in closer to Hope with a small grin on her face. With the same intentions as his, she moved in to whisper. "You forget, I'm already dead." She grabbed a hold of him and drug him into the portal along with her. In the process of all this Asei had formed a dagger from her will, she had mimicked Will himself knowing he had once done the same and she thought about having to do so now.

Only thing she needed now was to understand this portal making. Her left hand came from behind her back and it was aimed for Hope's stomach. Using all her force to make sure it would go through.

The clones were in complete chaos as they attempted to rip the male to shreds, but there were so many of them that had all managed to get in each other way. In an attempt to save her champion the dragon came down in front of the dog pile and roared in an attempt to scare them off. The roar was quickly followed by dragon fire as it scorched away at all of the clones wiping them from existence. Hatch would surely end up singed a bit but he would survive this as pride's aim with dragon fire was relatively good. The dragon then went in for close combat grabbing and eating the clones that remained, just to ensure no more clones would be created in the process. As the dragon ate away at the clones it made the mistake of eating a clone with white eyes and a white aura similar to what hatch had done, and another explosion followed blowing the dragons head clean off. Pride immediately detached from the dragon, still weak and feeble as she attempted to crawl towards Hatch's unconscious body. If it were for any reason at all but to gain her sword, if only temporarily she would be able to fight with it and save them. This of course would fail as the remaining clones easily kicked her body, rag dolling her across the sky. The eight clones instantly diverted their attention from Hatch to Pride noting this was the perfect opportunity to kill her. Hatch was left alone as the clones surrounded Pride, and spoke in unison... "The true purpose of the Avatar of Hope is to take hope from everyone else" The avatars all rolled a single dice as they landed in circle around Pride's feeble body.

The original Hope now locked in combat with Asei was falling through the ripples in the dimensional rift as they had fallen in a portal, when Asei had attempted to stab him with a dagger forged from her will he simply grabbed her hand and locked eyes with her, she was angry and he liked it. He had grown amused with her for sure. "You know it sucks really... even if you could kill me... you would be locked in this dimension forever... locked in the realm of the avatar... you would die for certain as that fool Pride can do nothing to help you now" He then aided Asei in the process of stabbing him as the dagger pierced through his skin and went into his stomach. Blood began to drip all over Asei's hand as hope continued to sit there smiling. "You know we feel pain... we have emotions... but for some reason the only thing that ever brought any of us happiness was watching you... humans... humans were the only thing that mattered... I have to say after studying you for so long... you certainly live up to our expectations..." He began to cough up a little blood he then pushed Asei off of him and vanished leaving her in the dimensional schism that was used by the avatars to get from place to place.

Hope would then reappear above pride, with a grin on his face as he dealt the final blow to her existence. Finally accomplishing a task no avatar had been able to do until now. The dice all rolled one, as Prides remaining life energy was drained from her and pushed into the ground. The area around them began to shake; blood then began to erupt from the cracks in the ground as the sky turned red. Lightning then struck the ground in a furious blaze as Hope vanished and Pride's body took on its true form, her mortal form, as she lay there on the ground void of a soul, void of life energy, void of essence, and void of purpose. Tears could be seen streaming down her face made of blood as she had not only lost the war at this point, but she had also lost her humanity, her free will, her omnipotence, everything in that moment was taken from her. The only way to kill an avatar was to permanently steal that avatars essence. Pride was not truly dead in a sense a still beating heart, a still active mind would remain, but there was no power, no energy, no purpose, a fate truly worse than death. For avatars, it was the equivalent of an immortal purpose being buried alive, unable to see or hear the world, but to be certain that others were out there.

Hope with hope gone and Pride gone, Hatch and Asei would find themselves stranded in this realm.