City of Thraben, Gavony, Innistrad, Saturday (Fandom Time)

[deathsmajesty]

After leaving the cathedral, Jace had Planeswalked away, babbling about the Gatewatch, the group he'd formed with three other Planeswalkers while defeating two Eldrazi Titans on a plane named Zendikar. He promised to return by morning and with the six of them together, they stood a chance of defeating Emrakul. It would have been better with seven, but Sorin had vanished. The vampire had made clear he had other priorities and they would receive no help from that quarter. Sigarda also departed; she had promised her assistance to Thalia, protecting the innocent from the madness overtaking all of Innistrad.

But nowhere was it worse than right here in Thraben. The misshapen werewolves and other creatures that had been rampaging through the countryside had been caused by the barest touch of Emrakul's influence on the plane, what little had been able to permeate past the barrier that had been Avacyn. Now that the great Titan was here, her full corrupting effect had been unleashed onto the populace and the High City had transformed into a nightmare. Tamiyo and Ignis had caught a few hours sleep in the cellar of the cathedral, exhausted by the battle against the maddened angel and her twisted abomination of a sister. But as they made their way to the outskirts of the city to the planned meeting point, they learned the extent of the horrific changes the Titan of Corruption had wrought as she'd made her way from Nephalia to Gavony, slow but relentless.

The city was crowded with horrors; masses of latticed flesh and knobbed tentacles, distorted features and malformed bodies - things that once were farm animals, wild beasts, or the more ordinary sort of monsters. Some were unrecognizable as ever having been a natural creature at all. And many, all too many, had once been human, with varying degrees of anything that could be called a face remaining amid the monstrous features.

By comparison, the hideous skaabs that Geralf Cecani had sent to Thraben - amalgamations of human and animal parts arranged according to his twisted imagination - seemed sane and normal. At least a clear intelligence had formed them—-a mind with an abhorrent aesthetic and utterly lacking in any moral compass, but a mind nonetheless. These things could only have been imagined by an utterly alien consciousness, some mad god dreaming in the restless sleep of eternities.

And more were converging upon Thraben, too, shambling on boneless legs or writhing tentacles or pulling themselves along the ground with what used to be hands. Some flapped clumsily through the air on membranous wings, and some simply drifted on the wind, as though gravity were just one more natural law they could blithely ignore.

Emrakul was a being of ceaseless hunger and had come to devour Innistrad's mana and life energy until the plane itself burnt out--but first, she would remake it in her image.

Jace Beleren, Telepath	Jace shuddered involuntarily as he opened his eyes on Innistrad. The air was quite a bit colder here. It had a different smell, too, a different feel. The scent was strange, almost metallic, and when he exhaled his last breath of Zendikar's air and breathed in Innistrad, he felt it. There was a thickness to the air here. That first breath hurt, just a little. The sky was tearing itself apart. Storm clouds swirled, as if there were a gale in every direction, and no sunlight escaped the horizon. The plane's eternal dusk had given way to a purplish glow. His eyes didn't want to adjust to the dark; they fought him every moment of the way. He squinted toward the horizon, toward the hole in reality, and tried to focus. Focus. Focus. His mind felt heavy, here. Like a sack of wet rice on top of his neck. Sloshing, grinding, sliding away... There was a chime in his mind. Or the memory of a chime. A reminder of himself, courtesy of Tamiyo, and his eyes cleared. He stood atop a hill, looking down on the rolling fields that surrounded Thraben. He could see the city now, and half of it was ablaze. There were battles raging in the streets. Torches. Shouting. Screaming. He wasn't sure whether he was hearing the screams from this distance, or feeling them. And above it all, up in the sky, squatting over the city...he couldn't bring himself to focus there. Not yet. A second set of sounds brought Jace's focus to a more clear and present issue. Growling. Snarling. Eyes glowing a sickly green in the dark. "Werewolves again," Jace muttered to himself. He reached out into the darkness and lightly touched the minds that he found there. Three of them, ravaged by madness and changed into something he could barely recognize. As they crept out of the shadows, he saw the werewolves clearly. Their fur was patchy, their skin infused with the same latticework pattern that he had seen all over the organic matter of Innistrad. Jace looked around for an escape route and found none. Options raced through his mind, and were discarded one by one. His illusions, semi-substantial, tried to crowd the beasts, buying him more time, until...
Gideon Jura, Invulnerable Soldier	...a flash of light, the sound of a whipping blade and tearing flesh. The horrors dropped into a mangled, whimpering pile. Gideon. "It's fine, Jace. I've got your back." Jace straightened his coat. "Did you get lost on the way? Make a stopover in Ravnica for snacks?" "It's not easy following you to a place I've never been. Hmm." Gideon stared down the hill toward Thraben. If he was having a hard time with his senses, he wasn't showing it. "Bigger than the other two. And it's got quite the force between us and it. What's the plan?"
Chandra Nalar, Pyromancer	A heat shimmer appeared in the air, and a woman stepped out of it. Chandra rubbed her hands together. "Same plan as last time, right? Fire? I guess that wasn't the plan at the time, but it did the trick. Usually does." She put her hands on her hips as she looked down at the chaotic scene below.
Nissa Revane, Elf Supremacist Nature Shaman	The hill rumbled slightly, the only herald of Nissa's arrival. She frowned as she knelt down, placing her palm against the ground. "The mana here is dark. Twisted. It's in the soil, the trees...Emrakul did some of this, but..."
	"This is your first time to Innistrad, right? 'Dark and twisted' is kind of a regular feature." Jace said, still refusing to look at the sky. "So what's the plan?" Gideon rumbled again, patient as the mountains. "We wait here for our last two companions, and then we defeat Emrakul like we did Ulamog and Kozilek." He tried to model a confidence he didn't really feel. ...Yes, he was copying it from Gideon. Hush.
Ignis Scientia, Tactician	It was honestly a bit of a pity. Sure, Thraben had been an absolute nightmare, but it had actually been almost nice defending it without Jace there. Ah, well, all good things, so on and so forth, and Ignis would hardly deny the fact that the help, even his, was greatly appreciated and needed. Having arrived at the rendezvous point, Tamiyo dropped the veil that had been cloaking and protecting her and Ignis, just in time to catch the last of that conversation. "At least," he said, to announce their presence further, "you needn't wait long. So that's one box to check off; let's move on to the next."
Tamiyo, Story Sage	Jace visibly startled, and then grimaced when nobody else did. "How did you manage to sneak up on me?" he demanded. Tamiyo smiled serenely. "I am also a telepath, Jace. One that has mastered subtlety." "I'm subtle!" Jace protested. Chandra chortled in the background. "I can be subtle," he amended.
	Gideon didn't seem to notice Jace's consternation. Instead, he was giving both newcomers a thorough and professional once over. Whatever he saw seemed to be enough, he held out his hand. "Gideon Jura, from Theros. This is Chandra Nalar from Khaladesh and Nissa Revane of Zendikar. Jace has said the two of you assisted him in discovering what was happening here and are willing to stand with us against Emrakul. For that alone, you have my appreciation. There aren't many who would face the Titan of Corruption head on."
	"Titans have, unfortunately," said Ignis, a bit wryly, and hopefully Gideon wouldn't take it too personally that the proffered went unnoticed, at least by him, but he'd had a nod for each introduction, "become a bit of a specialty in my time. Ignis Scientia, if Jace has yet to disclose as much, and this is Tamiyo. And I assure you, I am even more grateful for your assistance in this matter, it is desperately needed." There was a slight pause before he added, "And forgive me for being short, but the more time we spend here, the more time this Titan has to spread that corruption. The sooner we get back to the fray, the better."
	"Right, yes, the plan!" Jace said. "You can put your hand down, Gideon, he didn't see it. He's blind, but don't worry, he can still fight." "Why would I be worried?" "That's the spirit! Anyway we've basically got the same scenario as last time, with a couple minor wrinkles. Emrakul is already here in Thraben, probably because it's got the highest population density. Gideon and Ignis will clear us a path to get close to Emrakul. Nissa will use her planar glyph to tap into the leyline network - maybe you can help with that, Tamiyo? We channel the plane's energy through Chandra, and she does her thing."
	Nissa shook her head. "It's not going to work. The leylines have already been redirected. Into that." She gestured towards the maddened city. Jace tried to force a grin. "Well, yes. The cryptolith network. They're focusing all the leylines toward Thraben now. That center point should amplify the glyph's effects. Quite similar to the hedron network, actually." "If we can get close enough to it. But if we get that close, Emrakul will destroy us." Nissa's voice was quiet, but firm. "And if we don't get that close, I'll be able to tap into one or two leylines from any other vantage point. Three at most. It won't be enough."
	Chandra put her hand on Nissa's shoulder. "Hey. One leyline or twenty, you tap me in, and we'll make it enough."
	Gideon sighed. "Nissa, do you believe you can do this? We're not going to try a plan that we're not all committed to."
	Nissa picked up a handful of dirt and sifted it between her fingers. She glanced up to the faces of her companions. Gideon, concerned. Jace, impassive. Chandra, excited. And the newcomers. Tamiyo, serene. Ignis, impatient. She closed her eyes and listened for several long seconds. To her heartbeat, to the blighted soil beneath her, to her memories. "Yes."
	"Good." Ignis' sigh of relief followed all but immediately after Nissa's confirmation. "Then let's not waste a second more." And though he said that, he was, of course, still a strategist through and through, so, with the outline that Jace laid out for them, he filled it in with further helpful details, to make it at least slightly less of just a mad dash for the enemy. "Gideon?" he asked, attention shifting in his direction. He took a moment to try and get a sense of the other man, and presence that was strong and steady in a familiar way that almost tugged the corner of his mouth with a reassured smile. He nodded, drawing out his daggers. "Follow my lead." And he might not really have much choice otherwise, since Ignis didn't seem interested in delaying any further.

***
"Look at it, Gared. Pretty, in a way. Your world is ending." Liliana watched as Thraben burned and tentacles reached down from the storms to rake the earth below. The sky swarmed with angels, and the ground beneath the titan just swarmed. From this distance, she could make out only the movement, an unending, writhing mass of creatures, pressing as close to the source of the world's end as they could.

"Yes, mistress. S'what it does around here, mostly." The geistmage's apprentice, with his bulging eye, looked forlornly down at the chaos.

"Ah, there they are. See the fire and the flashes of light? Jace must have gone to fetch his little friends. Looks like they're headed straight toward the center of it all." Because of course they were. And she had no doubt Ignis was right there with them.

Gared tilted his head, an interesting effect atop his already asymmetrical body. "Yes, mistress. I couldn't help but notice, you've raised this lovely little army to help, but we're staying up here, and the others are down there."

There was nothing little about her army. Undead spread out behind her nearly to the horizon. "Hmm. I suppose that's true. Well then, shall we go make an entrance?"

***

	Chandra was screaming. The others couldn't tell whether they were screams of pain or joy or rage, they just heard the screams and felt the overwhelming heat. She was incandescent, an inferno that walked, and she projected fire in every direction, scorching her friends but charring wave after wave of the mutated remains of what had been the people of Thraben, just days ago. The screaming stopped, and the fires went out. Chandra dropped to her hands and knees, and Gideon leapt forward to cover her. They were trapped in what had been a market square, two of the four entrances blocked by rubble and fallen buildings. A dilapidated, lattice-scarred tower leaned tenuously over the cobblestone road that led farther into the heart of the city—but both it and the road they had entered on were blocked by rank after rank of Emrakul's legion.
	Some of them were still recognizably human. Their voices were a screeching whirl of screams and gibberish. Some of them were what remained of beasts, of angels, of things unrecognizable. Some moved with purpose, others merely lumbered and moaned, their limbs limp and their flesh melting like candle wax. And behind them loomed the storm. The body of the titan was still mostly hidden from view by the roiling clouds, but her presence was everywhere. Emrakul. The storm raged, and impossible forking lightning thrashed and slashed the city below. Tentacles would emerge from the black clouds, scraping low along the ground, rumbling as city blocks were reduced to ash and stone.
	"Options. I need options." Gideon surveyed the square, sural unfurled. "Ignis?"
	Ignis breathed out, careful and slow; that, and the diminishing electricity of his lightning being the true hints to his exhaustion. "Just keep pressing, we must be as relentless as our enemy."
	This pulled from Gideon a rumble of dissatisfaction. "Nissa," he tried. "Elementals?" The elf shook her head. "I could call, but we wouldn't like what would answer."
	Gideon grunted his frustration. "Chandra? You ready to go another round?" Chandra was doubled over, hands on her knees, breathing hard. She raised a hand and gave a weak thumbs-up gesture. "Sure thing, boss. Just getting started." She coughed and straightened up—her face was covered in soot and ash, but her smile seemed genuine enough.
	"Jace." Cue an irritated grunt from Ignis, surely just for all his sustained injuries. "What have you got?" Jace scanned the area again. "We're not going forward. We've got a defensible open space to work with. I say we use the glyph here."
	Gideon nodded. "Nissa, can you do it?" Nissa knelt down, putting both of her palms on the ground. A green glow snaked up from the ground, wrapping her arms in a verdant light. "Two leylines. Three if I push."
	"I suggest, then," said Ignis tightly, "that you do, indeed, push. The rest of us will cover you in the meantime. It feels as though the resistance we've met thus far has been incidental; there's a good chance that we haven't even been noticed yet."
	Jace gestured toward the tower that overlooked one of the entrances to the square. Two illusionary marks appeared on it. "Chandra, I need you to hit the tower here and here. When the lattice transforms stone, it is quite resistant to damage, but expands when exposed to extreme heat. That should topple the tower and block off the street." "What?" Chandra glanced back, hands already ablaze. "I read it in a book. Trust me." Chandra thrust her fists toward the tower, and two arcing fireballs struck precisely where Jace had marked. Seconds later, the entire structure collapsed, blocking off most of the street as it crashed into the inn on the other side.
	The market square came alive—new growth sprang from the packed dirt and cobblestones, and the air, sour and foul, cleared slightly. Nissa stood motionless in the center of it, as glowing runes appeared on the ground around her, snaking their way from her feet until the complex glyph was complete.
	There was a shrieking sound from the hordes around them. As one, they turned and charged toward Nissa—and Gideon charged to intercept them, Ignis quick behind him. Gideon hit the line with powerful vertical slashes; Ignis used one of those slashes to launch himself into the air. Gideon pushed his body into their ranks, golden sparks lifting into the night air as blows deflected off his invulnerable body, while Ignis dove into them, sending a ripple of lightning through them from his quick-moving knives. Roaring a challenge, Gideon slashed in a wide circle, trying to inflict as much damage as possible and draw as much attention to himself as he could, while Ignis darted and skirted around it to swiftly deal with those outside the arc of his sural. But the creatures did not fall easily, and those that fell did not stay down. Even fully dismembered creatures stayed still for only a moment; they grew new hideous limbs from each fresh wound, and walked, crawled and skittered past, drawn directly to Nissa and the glyph.
	"Nissa, are we ready? Because I really, really think now is a good time." Chandra paced at the edge of the flaring glyph, as Nissa muttered incomprehensible syllables, eyes firmly shut. Chandra gave a yell of warning to Gideon before washing the entire street in a wave of flames. She looked back over her shoulder to see Nissa reaching down into the earth and pulling up what looked to be a spectral thorned vine, wide around as a tree trunk. She strained to pull it up from the earth, and she gasped in shock as those spectral thorns cut into her arms. Nissa grunted through gritted teeth. "Get...ready. Almost...there." She reached down again, and raised a second vine. This one pulled and buckled, thrashing back and forth in her grasp like a serpent. With a pained effort, she managed to wrap it around her waist as an anchor, and reach down to the ground for a third. Chandra paced, not sure what to do next. There was nothing she could do for Nissa, and Gideon and Ignis were doing what they could to stop a flowing mass of creatures moving their way. She glanced up, and immediately regretted it. Limbs, tentacles, and other lattice-wracked extremities were starting to climb up over the buildings and rubble, in every direction. Hundreds of them. She glanced back to Nissa, and watched her fall to her knees.
	The third spectral vine was darker than the other two, the barbs more cruel, its motion more sinuous and chaotic. Nissa was trying to get it under control, but it had managed to wrap itself around her neck, and it looked as if it was trying to drag her down into the ground. "Life cannot stop...even when it knows it must...even when it knows it is wrong! Alone and discordant! Even when it knows!" Nissa's voice echoed, her eyes glowed a sickly purple, and then she dropped limp onto the ground. The vines were gone. The glyph went instantly dark. And the hordes of creatures continued their approach.
	"Fall back!" Chandra yelled as she rushed to Nissa's side, scooping up her head as gently as she could. "Come on, come on, you need to wake up!" "There's nowhere to fall back to, Chandra!" Jace took up position next to the two, and reached down to touch Nissa's forehead. "She's still in there. Just a bit stunned. She'll be fine in a couple minutes." Gideon and Ignis came running back to the others, as the crowd of creatures slowly pressed closer. "I'll watch over her--" Gideon began.
	"Let me stay with her--" Ignis also began, at the same time, their words dancing over each other until it culminated in the same thought that both of them shared, "--until she wakes up," they concluded in unison, and a small, awkward pause followed. But it was a pause none of them could afford, and Ignis shook his head. "The rest of you," he suggested, "go. Planeswalk back to safety."
	Chandra stood, hands ablaze. "Not gonna happen. We're all walking out of here together, or..." Her bravado faded with her trailing words. "Or not at all," Jace supplied. "Together or not at all?" Chandra opened her mouth to respond, but it was Ignis' voice that spoke first, his attention diverted sharply to the side.
	"Wait..." he said, and the tightness of his posture seemed to loosen a little with....something else, "what is that? Do you hear it?"
	The Planeswalkers did hear them well before they saw them—growling, moaning, crunching, and tearing, as ranks of the undead spilled into the square. They moved in tight formations, throwing themselves, biting and clawing into the mutated creatures that surrounded the Planeswalkers, ripping them apart with terrible strength. Necrotic flesh met mutated limbs in an explosive clash, both sides heedless of pain or losses. But the zombies moved with precision and purpose. When their ranks were shredded, they were immediately replenished. And when they reached the Planeswalkers, they parted, formed a defensive perimeter around them, and started pushing outward. Then, their general appeared.
	Liliana floated forth, arms spread wide, the Chain Veil hovering just beyond her fingertips. Her tattoos blazed with light and dripped with blood. At a casual flick of her wrist, bolts of necromantic energy swept in wide arcs, reducing the corpses of the mutated creatures to ash. All the cancerous growth, all the twisted vibrancy was simply snuffed out. In a city of unending, unnatural life, a sphere of stillness and death arrived, and there it reigned as Death's Majesty took the field. Liliana's expression softened from exultant fury to a demure smile in an instant, as she dropped gracefully to the ground. Her tattoos faded, and the Veil seemed to diminish. Her eyes swept around the assembled group, cataloguing and dismissing each of them in turn before they settled on the one person that truly mattered. "Jace, you're still alive, I see. How lovely for you," she said, not even bothering to look at the telepath as she walked through their small group towards Ignis with single-minded intensity. "Hello, my darling," she said when she stood before him. Her voice was softer, lower; the rest of her entrance was all just show and pageantry, but this? This was real. "Miss me?" Her hand reached for him, sliding her fingers between his.
	And if Ignis thought the confirmation of his suspicions when he heard the hordes of undead approaching was a relief, it was nothing compared what went racing through him when he felt the coolness of her fingers twining into his. "Always," he murmured, a small smile pulling the corner of his mouth, and it took everything he had to not just grip onto Liliana's hand as tightly as possible. "Your timing is impeccable, my love."
	"What are you doing here?" Gideon was still in a combat stance, his sural flowing with imbued power.
	"The nice lady with the uncomfortable dress just saved our butts, Gideon. Calm down a second." Chandra turned her back to Liliana and stepped between them, so Iggy and his girlfriend or whatever could have their reunion in peace.
	Nissa stirred and struggled to her feet. "That...thing she carries. It's an abomination." She flinched from the Veil, refusing to look anywhere near it.
	In a way, Liliana was almost grateful for the inane contributions of the peanut gallery. She'd planned out this reunion multiple times during her walk to Thraben and yet had still underestimated the impact just seeing Ignis, safe and sound, would have upon her. There had been a brief moment when her throat had nearly closed and her eyes had prickled--from the acrid smoke in the air, surely, but still, poorly timed. Their nattering brought her attention back to where it should be - herself - and a smile curved its way across her face as she turned back to the group at large. Ignoring Ignis' grunt of agreement to Nissa's remark, she purred, "That's a strange way of saying 'thank you, Liliana, you saved my life, and I'll always be in your debt.'"
	Gideon grunted, and his sural retracted. "Liliana, I'm...I didn't think I'd see you again. But you're here." Jace pulled back his hood, the glow gone from his eyes. The dark circles underneath them were plain to see.
	"Eloquent as ever. Yes. You're rescued, you owe me, and now you all should really Planeswalk somewhere safe." You were included in that 'you all,' Ignis; she was counting 'make Portalocity open an emergency portal' as close enough.
	"We can't do that, Liliana," Ignis protested, and, yes, he did mean we and not I, presuming exactly what she had meant by all. There was that firm, immovable insistence in his voice, too, that same stubbornness that arguably got them into this mess, but also a desperately pleading. For her understanding in this. For her trust. "We need to finish this. We're so close. And now with you here to cover us, we can finally push through."
	Liliana pinched the bridge of her nose and, no, Jace, she didn't need you noting that new affectation. "This is not the time to be a hero, Ignis. What we need to do is leave."
	"What you need to do is take that cursed thing and go." Nissa stood unsteadily, but her sword was in hand. "I'll not fight alongside it."
	Gideon raised a hand in warning. "You fought at Sea Gate alongside vampires, pirates, and worse, Nissa. We take the allies we can get, if they can be trusted." "Ah, the meat can reason!" Liliana beamed. "But I don't know if you can be trusted. Nissa's instincts are rarely wrong, and I'm inclined to agree with her. That object is...a problem. But I don't know you. He does." Gideon turned to Jace. "So you'll decide. Tell me, Jace. Can she be trusted? You didn't seem sure after that dinner of yours I crashed."
	Liliana laughed, high and clear, before Jace could answer. "That's a ridiculous question, and you know it. Look around you. I snap my fingers, and you're all overrun. You are trusting me, right now. But if you won't leave, I can't force you. So tell me, brave heroes, what's your plan now?" She looked to each of their faces. Gideon, exasperated. Chandra, exhausted. Nissa, furious. Jace, pained. And Ignis-- No, she was not looking at Ignis right now. Looking at his sincere, hopeful expression made it harder for her to remember that she was advocating for the only path that didn't end in suicide by Eldrazi. And, unlike Ignis' expression, it was a pleasure to watch this so-called Gatewatch contort and agonize. Jace was in his favorite place--caught in the middle due to arbitrary restrictions he had made up, and wondering why life's decisions were always so difficult. You're never going to change, are you? Liliana couldn't tell whether it amused or disgusted her. Both, sometimes. "Oh, wonderful." Liliana smiled for lack of a better expression. "I'm sure this will end well."
	"It will," Ignis said, but the deep, determined rumble was less of an attempt to convince Liliana as it was a reminder to himself. "It must."
	The tension mounted, but before anyone could reply, Tamiyo flew back into the clearing, her eyes wide and breath short. She took no notice of the large ring of zombies protecting them, though she did look up at the grand spectacle of Emrakul; it was impossible not to. She landed next to Jace, touching Ignis to catch his attention as well. "Something is happening," she said quickly, too quiet for the others to hear. "There has been an odd disturbance in my readings--" She abruptly stopped speaking aloud in a way that would have been confusing for those who hadn't already spent a great deal of time with a telepath, drawing closer to the two familiar men as they touched minds. *She's drawn upon a great deal of the mana from the leylines! I don't know if this signals a change in her feeding pattern or if she's planning something else, but I think whatever time we have has just shortened.*
	*Well, Liliana just asked for a plan,* Jace said. *Does that mean she's willing to stay, Ignis?*
	*Willing*, Ignis' mental response was as dry and sardonic as his spoken words would have have been, *is an incredibly generous choice of words, Jace. I suggest we do what we can to finish this once and for all before that willingness grows even thinner than our options.*
	Liliana frowned as she watched the three of them confer. Another useless mind mage, just what we needed. She wanted some time alone with Ignis, to figure out what the endgame here was. She was certain that she could convince him, and once he was convinced, maybe Jace and the rest of his little club would see reason and follow them. Her zombies had brought a temporary respite. But they needed to get out of here, away from Thraben, away from Innistrad, away from Emrakul. As she thought of the name, Liliana's eyes were drawn upward to the towering figure hovering above Thraben. Why is it just sitting there? The air felt heavy, stale. Fecund with the smell of...it wasn't the dead. Liliana was comfortable with the dead and their smell. But there was a rotten quality to this smell Liliana found troubling. "What--?"
	There was a sudden shifting in the air, the smell and pressure of a spring day before a thunderstorm, and in that shifting Emrakul unfolded. Its cloud burgeoned; its long spindly tendrils lengthened and multiplied, from hundreds to thousands, to tens of thousands, more. An invisible sphere of power burst from Emrakul, rippling and hitting each of them where they stood.
	Nausea roiled her stomach; vertigo twisted her mind. She had known this combination of despair and sickness only a few times in her life. When her brother Josu's eyes had opened lifelessly, jet-black orbs portending doom; when she had first beheld Bolas's baleful gaze, hearing his spiteful laugh as he promised poisoned redemption; when the Chain Veil's power had first coursed through her veins, splitting her skin and cracking it open like a dry husk to let the blood, her blood, seep through. None of those moments compared to the wrongness she felt in Emrakul's presence. Liliana Vess had spent her whole life seeking not to die, and for the first time in her long existence she wondered if she had been pursuing the wrong goal. In the shadow of Emrakul's flowering, death seemed just another of life's superficial lies, a false hope poorly beating back the true horror awaiting all who existed. Emrakul. Emraakull. Emraaa... She shook her head with force, seeking to clear her mind. She had lived too long, overcome too much, to succumb now.
	*We must flee this plane. This...it is insanity to stay.* Not her thoughts, but the Raven Man speaking directly in her head, sounding...scared. Liliana took some pleasure in that. *So you can feel fear.* Her zombies moaned in unison, "Vessel of destruction. Root of evil. Flee." Liliana was startled. She was used to the Chain Veil talking nonsense about vessels and roots, but flee? That was new. Whatever Emrakul was, the Chain Veil wanted no part of it.
	The pressure in the air thickened, inducing a headache that watered her eyes with pain. She bowed her head, her agonies multiplying. Emrakul outside. The Chain Veil inside. The damned Raven Man, wherever he was. She stared at Emrakul, her fear receding, replaced by seething anger. How dare you... Seemingly in response, Her zombies moaned a single word. "Em-ra-kuuuull." There was another explosion of energy from the Titan in the sky, a full thunderstorm that made the earlier outburst seem a brief spring rain. The others crumpled, all except Jace, who was surrounded by a burst of bright blue light, some type of spell he case in response. Liliana herself was forced to her knees as she screamed in rage, arm outstretched towards Ignis' prone form. These are my zombies, my Chain Veil, my head. Mine! She would not succumb. My plane. My paramour. And nobody hurts what's mine but me! Congratulations, Emrakul. You just made this personal.

[Mulched, composted, and grown from "Battle of Thraben" by Nik Davidson. Finally, Liliana gets to march an army of zombies on Thraben. Enrichment for necromancers. Played with the peerless chef_chocobo. NFI, NFB, follows this.]