Ashes, Ahes... They All Fall Down!
“What?” Jace asked.
Everyone stared as Alec rested his arms on his spread legs, one arm straight up, his head resting on his hand.
“I asked if you were enjoying the show?”
His eyes were hazy, his lids only half open giving him a dazed, blissed out appearance completed by a lazy grin.
“I don’t understand,” Isabelle chimed in, “What’s going on?”
Alec jumped up, spread out his arms, and twirled around in a circle.
“This is my stage, my dear!”
“Why are you acting so strange?” Lydia question.
Alec smiled at her, but his gaze seemed to go through her.
“Simple, darling, I’m one of a kind.”
Magnus’s left brow rose. “Aren’t you all? Isn’t that the point?”
Alec laughed merrily, “Well, yes, I suppose that’s true… but I’m one of a kind even among the others.”
He winked at Magnus and grabbed his hand, pulling him close. He brought his hand up to his lips and kissed each finger as music slowly started playing in the background.
Alec began to sway with Magnus in his arms, until the music picked up and he started to waltz with him.
“The other me’s have no sense of vision! Where’s the passion, the dramatic flare watching the memories in 2-D when you can be immersed into the story itself? Why would I be like all the others, when I can be well, me?”
Alec’s laugh was filled with delight as he continued to spin them around.
“Now Angel Boy is a bit too ethereal, too rigid to waste too much of his time on you lot- no offense of course.”
Alec’s sweet smile and amused eye roll soften the blow of his statement.
“Solider is to stern, set in his ways to loosen up and get creative. Princy’s a little too.. How do I phrase this nicely? Melodramatic? To put something like this together without it all falling apart.”
He brought Magnus back to the others before running towards the crate and jumping back on, twirling back towards them after landing. He rose to the tips of his toes and clasped his hand together behind his back, stretching his arms out wide.
“And mini-me? Well, he’s too young to know any better.”
Alec giggled and rocked back on heels of his feet.
“So I decided it was up to me to give you all the full experience! Especially since you never know who you’ll get next!”
The group exchanged looks, except for Magnus who kept his eyes fixed on this carefree bubbly Alec, wondering how much of this Alec had been broken and kept silent from years of dealing with his oppressive parents… Wondering how much time and how many reassurances it would take before Alec felt safe enough around him to let this side of him free.
“Well… that’s nice of you...” Jocelyn said awkwardly.
Alec beamed at her, completely ignoring her wary tone of voice.
“Well, that’s all I have to say about that, wouldn’t do to have the others mad at me, now would it? And as you all know, the show must go on!”
And with that Alec clapped, the lights going dark before flickering back on again.
The other shadowhunters stilled appeared as translucent but their eyes and hair were slowly filled in with color, strikingly vibrant against their ghost like appearance.
Any wounds they had also filled with color, drawing the groups attention to the bright streaks of red against transparent skin amongst the 15 or so young shadowhunters who were on this mission.
One shadowhunter was kneeling down off to the side, next to another nephilim who was lying on the ground, not moving.
Alec, was still standing on the crate, his bow drawn back and his arrow ready to fire.
He winked, or at least Magnus thought he did, it was too quickly to be sure, just before the battle resumed.
Battle cries and screams once again filled the air as the group watched on in horror as the shadowhunter were overwhelmed by the seemingly never ending demons and demolished.
One by one, the young warriors fell, their bodies returning to a state of color and solidity as they hit the ground before their ghosts appeared, once again completely see through in a circle around the group. The color in their hair and eyes once more faded and lusterless but their wounds still bright and undeniable, alarmingly lingering in color against their lifeless skin.
Those still breathing huddled closer together, as the dead closed in around them.
Alec, still on his crate gave cover to those still fighting.
Annemette was surrounded by three demons on all sides as she threw her daggers at them, which acted like boomerangs always returning to her hand after a throw.
Mabuz had a large gash through his side and was breathing heavily as he was backed into a corner by an ashy like blob of smoke that forced it’s way into his mouth.
Annemette killed two of the demons next to her before the one behind her tore into her back, Alec immediately shot and killed it before turning to shot another before it came down on a girl with dark hair. Annemette stumbled but did not fall.
A woman in a long black sleeveless dress materialized in the middle of the chaos.
Mabuz walked over to his sister and the woman watched with a smirk as the demon inside him grabbed her but her bunned up hair and threw her into the crate Alec was standing on.
He was about to jump down when she yelled for him to stay at his post. So he did, body tense like he was ready to disobey orders at any moment even as he continued to fire arrows.
Mabuz or his body at least stalked towards her, “I’m going to tear out your heart and eat, little one.”
“Ha,” She replied spitting out blood, “I’d like to see you try.”
She dodged as he lunged at her and they began a game of cat and mouse. She manage to kick it away twice before it grabbed her retreating foot and threw her to the ground.
It dove on to her and placed its fingers on her chest right over her heart, smelled her, then whispered in her ear,
“You’re a rare treat, I’ll savor you.”
Annemette used her elbow to knock its hand away and rolling them over and the escaping reach.
“No you won’t,” Her daggers began to glow and the demon hissed. She threw one at its leg and it gave out, making the demon kneel in front of her.
“You know, you’re just hurting your own, by doing that.”
Annemette threw another into its other thigh and its other leg collapsed as well, it now on its knees.
“He’ll be fine,” she responded, voice strong yet trembling just a little, just enough for it to hear her fear.
“You think so, huh?” It crackled as it pierced Mabuz’s through his chest with its hand before Annemette even had the chance to let out a terror-stricken scream, paralyzed to the spot as Alec turned just in time to see the demon yank Mabuz’s heart out his chest.
Annemette howled out a traumatized NoooOooo, as she fell to all fours in unison with her brother’s body hitting the floor.
The strange woman laughed, a laugh too beautiful for such a dark and tragic time, and for such a wicked person. No one noticed the string of smoke climbing up and around her leg.
Only Annemette and Alec looked at her as she shrugged and said, “Honestly, I was aiming for you two but this works as well, I suppose. I hope your parents suffer as much as they made me suffer.”
And with that she was gone.
Annemette looked at the bodies around her, including her brother, and let out a dry sob before grabbing the two daggers that had fallen next to her and three in her back pocket. She pulled one over her hand, rubbing the blood over it before throwing it to one of the corners of the warehouse. She repeated this action with three of the four remaining daggers. The finals one she placed the tip on the ground after soaking it with blood as well. She drew a few runes, the dagger acting as a stele, on the ground and drew a rune on her on her undamaged hand before pressing her bloody hand to the runes beneath her.
The result was a burning light that tore away at the demons bodies allowing the few remaining
Shadowhunters to overcome their enemies and kill the rest of them.
She crawled over to her brother, now openingly sobbing. She got behind him and started rocking his body back in forth, sobbing out no after no after no.
Alec sat down behind her and held her as she held her brother.
Se threw her head back and her eyes suddenly began to glow and Magnus was reminded of the child Alec’s warning and called out his name.
The others looked at him strangely but he ignored him.
The scene froze and Alec turned to Magnus, meet his gaze, and nodded.
“You’re right, of course, that’s enough of that. You don’t need to see her fall apart.”
Darkness opened underneath their feet again and they fell through another portal.
The young dead shadowhunters looking down at them as the fell were the last things they saw before being completely consumed by the abyssal darkness below.