[h3][color=7bcdc8][b]LUCAS ROSATI[/b][/color][/h3]

Maestro was quick to take care of the shadows attempting to dogpile onto each other to create some disturbing version of a tower and Lucas was vaguely disappointed he couldn't have done anything to them himself. Something was tugging on his attention at the periphery of his consciousness--had been for a few minutes now. He couldn't exactly identify it. There was just a growing, restless urge to...step beyond himself? Something like that. If there was any buildup of the desire, it was painfully slow and Lucas had the sense nothing would really "work" tonight as far as his pathetic self was concerned. It was ridiculous. Even if he did listen to that insistent tug, he'd only succeed in dying. So why, then, was the sensation so persistent? This wasn't really him. He didn't [i]mind[/i] things like this. Not to this extent.

[color=#b4af4b]"Look out below!"[/color] a voice from above scattered Lucas's focus to the winds as a tall, armored, sword wielding nutjob divebombed the group on the platform.

Lucas's initial thought as he scrambled to get out of the way was simply, [i][color=7bcdc8]What the fuck?![/color][/i]

He might have said it, too, if he had the breath to spare. He still might have said it after catching his breath, if Solaire and his jolly cooperation didn't barrel roll Lucas off the edge of the platform.

[color=7bcdc8][i]Now it's just too late to swear,[/i][/color] Lucas figured as the shadows and the ground rushed up to meet him in slow motion, the speed of thought far outstripping anything gravity was capable of.

That tug at the back of his mind stopped tugging and simply subsumed him. In an instant, images, voices, and thoughts drowned him, the memories that were his and simultaneously not his unfolding rapidly in his mind's eye like someone was smoothing out pieces of crumpled paper where the creases of the pages mapped one disjoint memory to another.

Tears, laughter, regrets, love. None of them were strictly "his," but he couldn't deny the encompassing feeling that he was still irrevocably a part of them.

Muted skies and brilliant sunsets flashed before his eyes; he heard conversations with people he didn't recognize; he saw battles with creatures he couldn't understand.

And still the pages kept unfolding and Lucas could barely find [i]his[/i] voice to scream.

A chain wrapped tightly around his throat, the spear-tipped ends trailing after him in the air like a noose had just been cut. The material was too smooth and pliable to be any kind of metal, and too cold to be any kind of cloth. The length of chain only constricted further at the thought process.

More chains materialized in the air around him, the appearances and motions rapid enough that they looked as if they had appeared all at once. It wasn't Lucas's careful realization that identified each motion as subsequent and distinct. 

They circled around him in a writhing ball just as Lucas crashed into the ground, the impact splattering several shadows across the pavement. The protective barrier of chains instantly unwound itself and released its occupant, a strangely calm Lucas standing with his hands in his pockets and one chain still coiled around his throat. Dozens of chains sourced from small pocket dimensions that lined up in multiple columns along both sides of Lucas's spine. "He" laughed once, a brief [color=7bcdc8]"Hah"[/color] before one of the loosely floating chains pivoted and speared through his chest, dissipating as it made contact with him, the shattered remnants reshaping into a black trench coat lined with red and white stripes along its edge. Several more of the chains followed suit, stabbing at his hands, legs, and feet to form the rest of his outfit: white gloves, black slacks, and polished, black dress shoes.

The last chain, the one around his neck, repositioned its spear tip to face Lucas's forehead, then shot forward, faster than he could blink. 

A featureless steel mask with two openings for eyes looked up at the metal-clad knight jumping into the fray after him. Then the mask looked away, resummoning the spent chains and whirling them in rapid cutting motions, mowing through the nearby shadows and then stabbing outwards, piercing through even more of them. A group of shadows lunged at the figure in the trench coat, only to meet the business end of the many chains that were now forming a phalanx of death against any charges.

Dress shoes tapping smartly against cement, the masked teenager walked towards one edge of the circular phalanx formation of chains, pointing two fingers like a gun at some distant target before a 30-meter dome burst into life at his unspoken directive, scattering broken blue lines of magic sporting serrations and crenelations like an abstract analog clock had been smashed beyond recognition. The many shadows caught in the circle suddenly found themselves trapped in the very center by an almost unstoppable pull and the chains broke formation to spear straight into the ground, emerging from the floor in a pillar at the center of the grouped shadows before the individual chains split off and spun in a circular motion like the blades of a blender, puréeing the mass of creatures into a chunky soup.

The area near the platform was now almost completely clear of shadows, with stragglers in the distance [i]keeping[/i] their distance for the moment, shifting about warily.

The figure stumbled. 

And Lucas was more aware of himself again. Almost all of the chains vanished instantly, leaving behind only two emerging from the very base of his neck. The field nearby fizzled away as well, a giant smear of shadows in its wake.

He had been suffocating somewhere beneath a plethora of "hims" that weren't truly him. Movements that he didn't know. Tricks that he had never seen before. Utility he had never even thought of. More than him. Too much more than him, and still the pages continued unfolding to his limit.

Lucas looked back at the platform, staggering and almost falling before one of the two remaining chains stabbed into the nearby floor, the slack snapping straight and holding him in place. Still not his command.

The second chain mimicked the movements of the first, and before Lucas could understand what was happening, the two chains were raising him like flexible stilts back up towards the platform, dropping him off gently at the edge where Solaire had accidentally shoved him off.

He fell to his knees, hands grasping at his chest as he struggled to breathe inbetween too many intellections that spanned beyond his meager understanding. The facets of thoughts and emotions threatened to break him, and just as his mind reached that tipping point, a clapping sound like a book slamming shut resounded throughout the wreckage of his mental state, sundering his connection to the innumerable fragments of recollections.

Everything disappeared. All gone. Even the memory of the myriad lives he had seen was fading fast--fading even faster as Lucas tried to think back on it. In a second, only the stark impression that he had just lost sight of a transpiercing dream (or was it a nightmare?) remained.

Lucas sucked in a deep breath, confused, exhausted, and feeling a profound sense of...loss. Like he had just forgotten something incredibly vital--something that should have been far too crucial to simply forget. Something that he had forgotten anyway. Even that notion was already slipping away as he thought it, leaving behind only the deepest fatigue he had ever felt in his life.

His trembling hands groped at the mask on his face, pulling it off and staring at it as his vision swam dangerously in front of him. It was immense and miniscule at the same time, the realization that he was a part of this, somehow.

The mask dropped from his hands as he lost consciousness and collapsed to the side. Several seconds later, the transformation vanished as well in a spray of broken blue lines.

[@Achronum][@Trainerblue192][@banjoanjo][@PapiTan]