An-Garde!! (Open)

[Alphanse von Sin II]

Those who Live by the Sword...
...Die by the Sword

Do those words mean anything still, those wise words of counsel spared by our Lord Jesus Christ himself. Here I am getting all theological, completely not my style, in fact it makes my half-digested lunch want to rise back up my throat. Swords have no place in our world today outside of good fair sport.

So does that mean our world's fencing champions shall die during their matches? Of course not, literal meanings, draw us far away and make things confusing. Those who live by the sword, die by the sword, would be no different from saying those who live by the gun, die by the gun...and feel free to replace sword and gun with any other noun that you wish. In short, it was probably reap what you sow.

Needless to say, i'm beyond the sword or the gun, or what have you. Violence is out of place in my world of elite. Actually balling your fists and striking another man was frowned upon. Admittedly there were times, when i wish i could do nothing else but that.

Thankfully, such urges i can relieve nowadays, if only in my dreams...

---

There were times when the dream world was quite a bother, times when it rained things that should never have business falling from the sky (a good example being refrigerator magnets, those were deathly annoying clinging against the side of one's helm or armor) or falling from anywhere for that matter. But there were times when the dream world was exactly what one person needed, the only place where one could do the things he would never even dream of if he was still in the waking world. One such time was this one.

The streets of Paris were immediately distinguishable, the brickwork buildings, the warm twinkling lights of the city's namesake, and finally the ever prominent Eiffel tower, stabbing at the sky like the sword of the city. It may have looked like Paris, but it wasn't, for the observant eyes they'd see that the light came form both everywhere and nowhere, the sky was strange in that it was almost impossible to tell if it were night or day, and finally the streets were bare of people. Paris had existed for approximately 6209 years, and it that span of time it had never once had streets empty of people. This was only the mirror of Paris into the dream world, it's mimic, it's reflection precisely the reason for the lack of humans.

Though, it was not without activity, there were many things happening in the city, it was only that the closest thing to a human, was Alphanse von Sin II...although in this realm he was both Alphanse and not Alphanse. He existed in an essence of four riders, both one and separate at the same time. The mechanics and principles were difficult to explain, if not completely impossible...but then again, this was the world of dreams, explanations were not necessary.

The claws of the creature raked against the dark metal of the helm, sparks flew in all directions, and the man under the helm gave a loud roar, crackling flames erupted from the vertical grills of his face-guard. A spike-gauntletted hand came up and took the creature by the wrist. With superior strength he through the creature to the ground. The creature gave a screech but was quickly silenced as a gigantic broadsword impaled it through the abdomen. [red]"Vanish..."[/red] simply said the knight, with his word more gouts of flame escaped from his helm. Whatever form of sky parted above them and a shaft of crimson lightning sailed down to the pommel of the broad sword like a conductor, the torrential energy moved down the blade and into the creature incinerating it in a blink of an eye.

In the illumination of the lightning the rider was in all ways visible.He wore heavy-armor of dark metal, studded, spiked, and crusted in dried blood of old enemies. His helm was horned like a demon, and the vertical grills exposed eyes that blazed like flame, while embers spewed out of his mouth with every exhalation he made. His broadsword was menacing and looked too heavy for any one man to carry but he was completely at ease. The final thing was his horse, it was a beast of corded muscle- a War Horse-, armored like it's rider and the color of newly spilled blood. Flames spewed from it's mouth perpetually, mushrooms emitting from it's nostrils. In the waking world he was named Alphanse, in this one he went by four others, Conquest, Famine, Death and in this case War.

The lightning died out, and almost theatrically the red horse reared violently, exhuming a cloud of fire as it neighed. The slain creature was not alone, more of it's comrades encircled the rider. They numbered in thousands, all stooped over malicious creatures, simian in shape, black as shadow except for their glowing yellow eyes and rows of needle like teeth. War steadied his mount, as he brandished his large broadsword to keep them all at bay.

The creatures had come from nowhere when it was Famine who took the reins. In true Famine fashion, he did not attack but instead turned that shadowy work horse of his and let the creatures chase them half-way across Europe before War had enough and stole the reins from his brother. This place, it was home to dreams but also to nightmares. Those two things came linked together on golden chains, never existent without the other. War knew he was a dream, a dream form to be exact. So these things must have been the nightmares. And what did one do with nightmares? One destroyed them.

More of the creatures lunged at War, shrieking in their impish voices. War shouted back his battle cry as he slashed at them, his apocalyptic sword making short work. But they were many, a legion of nightmares. War was confident that he could defeat them, but he wasn't an idiot blinded by his hubris and thought that he could do it easily.

[white]"Oh please War, could you please just save from killing one or two? Think of how useful they would be under my...i mean our control?"[/white] came a lucid and articulate voice, it sounded like the ocean majestic and deep, or the sky vast and high. War rolled his eyes, unnoticeable behind the angry fires, but he did. Conquest his brother could never leave things alone, he always needed to control everything.

[red]"Silence Conquest! Else you wish all of us to die!"[/red] War didn't even bother to use the telepathic link and instead spoke aloud. War could just see his brother crossing his arms over his burnished golden breastplate. War truly didn't have time for this, he was too busy fighting thousands of adversaries.