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Chapter Text

Chapter One- The Fall

Atraxa soars above New Capenna, fending off any angels who attempt to dive at her with bladed weaponry, blocking projectiles with her wings. She’s high enough to see droves of the compleated citizens strip down the city, smashing intricate stained glass windows, toppling towers that had threatened to pierce the clouds. Those who attempt to oppose her are so miniscule and pathetic that fighting takes little effort.

It is… good, to have time to contemplate. This plane keeps doing something to her thoughts. Elesh Norn had warned her how the Halo in the air was Phyrexia’s antithesis, but it was worse than she expected. She had not felt entirely herself since she visited the museum, where she had seen what the Capennans believe beauty to be. The city is filled with lies and self-centered hedonism, everyone obsessed with their imperfect beauty. There is no unity on New Capenna. She would demonstrate how wrong they've been, once everyone in the city had become one with Phyrexia, then they would see...

Atraxa stops for a moment, hovering in midair. That was not correct, was it? As the Mother of Machines told her, it is her duty to wipe the plane clean, to dismantle everything here that stands against the Orthodoxy to be used for parts. After the invasion has succeeded, there will be nothing left of the city. No more museums. Why is it that Atraxa feels that would be such a waste? Despite these… doubts, Elesh Norn, New Phyrexia’s resplendent leader, must know best. Atraxa reassures herself. There can be no redemption for the Capennans, not even through compleation.

Snapping out of her trance, she notices that the pavilion beneath her is much less populated than it was before, and that those who remained in the area seemed to be retreating. Let them run, then. Phyrexia cannot be stopped.

As if in protest to that line of thought, a massive explosion and sound of creaking metal comes from behind her. A large building, no, several large buildings had been simultaneously destabilized, with a clear trajectory right to her very location. Atraxa attempts to escape the rubble, dodging and parrying chunks of stone and glass, but Park Heights is too large, and too heavy, and too fast. A gilded fountain, adorned with a statue of a winged horse, slams into one of her wings, tearing it from her body. The pain causes her to drop her spear and sends her falling to the ground below. Is this really it? Atraxa, voice of the praetors, lain low by a mere pile of rocks? Is she to be outdone by these insignificant heretics, meeting an end without even the chance to drag down her attacker with her for their sins against Phyrexia? Is she to meet the same fate as the Phyrexians who came to Capenna long ago, whose failure resulted in Norn sending her here in the first place?

As Atraxa hits the ground, the rubble rushing to meet her, a deep pit forms in her stomach. Some might have called it fear. She would call it shame.

All is dark.

When Atraxa wakes, she can instantly feel that something is wrong. She is no longer buried beneath a mountain of debris, instead laying in a dim and quiet room. But more than that, something within her feels as though it is missing. Throughout the siege on New Capenna, there was an urging within her, a drive to finish what had been set out for her. But now, that drive is gone. The glistening oil in her veins is silent, dormant, dead. She does not know why.

Remembering what had happened, what felt like moments ago (how long has it been since she fell? Days? Weeks?), Atraxa tentatively reaches a hand towards her back. Movement feels stiff, difficult. Her fingers confirm her fears. Her wings are gone. Worse yet, the porcelain armor across her body is chipped and shattered. One of her four arms seems to have received massive damage, crushed down to an unresponsive and sickly thinness. One of her horns, made in the perfect image of the crown of the Mother of Machines, has been snapped off. Atraxa whimpers at the thought of Norn discovering how she has been damaged.

“You’re awake. Glad to see it,” comes a voice. Only now can Atraxa pull her attention away from her injuries and notice the other person in the room. She is a muscular human, with a short crop of dirty blond hair, dressed in a loose-fitting shirt, suspenders, and pair of trousers, similar to those Atraxa has seen many New Capennans sporting in her time on the plane. The human is draped lazily over the arms of a cushioned chair, holding a small paper book open with her thumb, the cover of which seems to be decorated with the image of a partially dressed elf. To Atraxa’s annoyance, the human seems to be giving more attention to the book.

“Where am I, fleshling?” Atraxa internally winces at the sound of her own voice, once a piercing instrument and weapon in her campaign for Phyrexia, now sounding as damaged as the rest of her, chipped and out of tune.

“’Fleshling,’ huh? Well, I’ll give ya points for originality at the very least, can’t say I’ve heard that one before,” the woman says, not once turning her eyes away from the book. “Atraxa, was it? Did I get the pronunciation right?”

“How do you-”

“Your little army made it clear enough who their kingpin was whenever they weren’t busy havin’ their heads bashed in by us so-called fleshlings,” she said, turning another page.

“That ‘little army’ will crush you and the rest of your insignificant city to dust and feed it to the mites, fleshling.”

“I’m sure they would, if not for the fact that most of em kicked the bucket and stopped moving not long after Park Heights fell.”

“Impossible,” Atraxa spat. Her protest was mainly for her own sake. The silence of the glistening oil still hung heavy on her mind. She was not certain where within New Capenna this room was, but it was far too quiet to be an active war zone. “Phyrexia cannot be defeated. We are merciless. We are perfection”

“Wasn’t aware perfection meant getting crushed by thirteen tons of masonry, but if that’s your spin on it, be my guest.”

“How dare you-”

“Listen, this conversation ain’t exactly all that at the moment, how about we start over? Jaxis is the name, Trouble is the game. Nice to meet you,”

Nothing the fleshling says makes any sense. Atraxa can feel her frustration growing exponentially.

“This is usually the part where you say: ‘Thank you for not letting me bite the dust underneath a city block,’ not necessarily in those words exactly,” the woman whispered conspiratorially.

“I could slay you where you sit, insolent fleshling,”

Her captor turns to look directly at her for the first time in their conversation. Atraxa inhales, only slightly, upon seeing her eyes: bright orange, almost glowing. The woman smiles- why is she smiling? She shuts the book and tosses it to the side, before correcting her posture and leaning forward in her chair.

“Go ahead then. Give it your best shot.”

Atraxa hesitates- but only for a moment. If this fool wishes to invite her own demise, so be it. She props herself up on one of her better arms, and starts to drag herself out of the bed, before her diminished strength gives way under her own body weight. She drops to the floor, accompanied by the clumsy clatter of porcelain.

“That’s what I thought, doll,” the fleshling says, before approaching Atraxa and grabbing her under the shoulders to lift her back onto the bed.

This is her chance- the fleshling isn’t even trying to defend herself. Atraxa wraps a claw around the woman’s neck and squeezes as hard as she can. The fleshling, unimpressed, puts a calloused hand around Atraxa’s and easily removes it.

“Knock that off, would you?” she says, mildly annoyed more than threatened.

“What have you done to me?” Atraxa spits. She is the voice of the praetors, Norn’s highest ranking general, how could it be that she was so easily and shamefully taken hold of by this fleshling?

“I didn’t do a damn thing; you just came face to pavement with decades of Riveteers engineering,” the fleshling says, having brought Atraxa all the way back onto the bed. “I’m only trying to help you. What you need right now is rest, then you’ll be hitting on all eight.”

“What do you know of Phyrexian biology? We have surpassed any need of rest or sustenance; we are made in the image of the praetors and exist to tirelessly spread the glory of New Phyrexia.”

The fleshling shrugged. “I’ll be the first to admit I’m not exactly wise as to how you metal freaks operate but believe me when I say I know injuries when I see ‘em. No one can work forever,” She turns to leave, making it to the door before Atraxa speaks up one last time.

“Why are you doing this? Why aid your enemy?” It takes the fleshling several seconds to turn around and respond.

“Curiosity, self-interest, generosity. Whichever works best for you, doll,” and with one last contemptible smile, she leaves the room. Atraxa stares daggers into her back the entire time.

Never before had Atraxa met such insolence. For ages now, she had been surrounded either by other Phyrexians who knew to respect her power and authority, or Mirran and Quiet Furnace rebels who knew to fear it. But her, this fleshling, this Jaxis, knew neither such proper feelings. This humiliation could not stand. Atraxa vowed that the next time the fleshling entered the room, only one of them would be leaving alive.

The thought brought her some solace, or perhaps distraction from the void steadily gnawing at her stomach. Why had the invasion failed? Why did she no longer feel connected with the other members of New Phyrexia? Had something happened to the Mother of Machines? These questions taunt her. Despite Atraxa’s earlier protests, consciousness becomes to be hard to grasp, and her vision steadily closes around the edges.

Darkness returns.

Atraxa is back in New Phyrexia, deep within the Dross Pits. Yes, she remembers this. How is it that she is back here now? An illusion brought on by proximity to New Capenna’s Halo? The vision continues before she can question it further.

Long ago, back when she had not been the Praetor’s voice for long, there had been a group of Mirrans who had somehow avoided capture up until now. They had holed themselves up in Sheoldred’s territory, and so Atraxa had been tasked with finding them and bringing them to the judgement of the Praetor. Sheoldred had requested that Atraxa stay and watch the Mirrans face trial through the bloodshed of the arena. Norn may have played the largest part in her compleation, but Sheoldred was nevertheless instrumental in the process, and thus Atraxa always believed it best to defer to her and the other praetors.

And so, she stayed, standing aside the Praetor’s throne, observing the combat dutifully. The rebels were doing surprisingly well, even defeating a necrobeast many times their size. Several had fallen so far, however, and the final match forced the survivors to fight against the corpses of those who had not made it, resurrected and made one with Phyrexia. At the end of what Atraxa was starting to consider a very drawn-out affair, only three rebels remained, one of whom was weeping inconsolably.

“Monsters!” shouted one of the remaining Mirrans. “What have you done to her?!” Much to Atraxa’s surprise, the elf was pointing directly at her. “She was a hero!” he continued, “She protected Mirrodin! But now you’ve made her just another cog in your insidious machine!”

Sheoldred seemed to find this final interruption amusing. “They appear to know you, Atraxa,” she said, voice like a skittering insect.

“So they claim,” Atraxa stated, keeping her gaze fixed downwards towards the group. “I presume they refer to the incompleat me, before I was taken in by the glory of phyresis.” No one had ever recognized her in this way before. It was a curious sensation.

“What shall be done with them?” Sheoldred drawled, turning her attention to Atraxa’s face.

“They are rebels. Phyrexia wills them to be given death or compleation,” Atraxa said. The words came naturally, like they had been rehearsed.

“And is that what you want?”

Atraxa paused, looking down at Sheoldred. Was this a test of some sort? Had she not answered correctly?

“Yes, Whispering One. I am an enactor of New Phyrexia. I have no will beyond what is best for all of us.”

Sheoldred frowned, sending a shiver up Atraxa's spine.

“Very well then," Sheoldred finally said. "You could hardly be blamed for that. Perhaps one day, though.”

As Sheoldred gave the final judgement, and as Vraan descended into the coliseum to pass it, Atraxa pondered on what Sheoldred could have meant. As the vision comes to a close, the arena around her fading into black smoke, she realizes she never quite got an answer.

Chapter Text

Chapter Two- A Thing of Change

 Atraxa wakes to the same dim room, and a muffled, musical sound coming from behind the sole door. She lays in silence, listening to it for a moment. The vision of Sheoldred lingers on her mind, and she laments the loss of her wings, of her horns. To have felt them so vividly in the dream makes their loss all the more palpable. The sound from outside the door stops, and after a few seconds the fleshling backs into the room, holding two bowls and two cups. She closes the door with her foot, then places the dishes on a low table between the bed and the chair. She holds one bowl in her hand. The other is clearly meant for Atraxa.

“What is this, fleshling?”

“Breakfast. Not grand, but it’s what I have,” she responds, bringing a spoonful of food to her mouth.

Atraxa looks down at the bowl disparagingly. It contains a gruel-like substance, with several yellow-white chunks floating atop it. She wrinkles her nose, and attempts to slap the bowl away, but only manages to hit the cup, which bounces off the wall and spills onto the carpet below. She regrets doing so, wincing from the stress of sudden movement.

“Rude,” the fleshling calmly states.

“Were you not listening to me before, fool? Phyrexians have surpassed all need for sustenance.”

“I’m not too keen to believe that: You said you didn’t need sleep, but you sure as hell were knocked all night. You’ve got a mouth for a reason, can’t just be for gabbing about the ‘imperfections of the flesh’ or whatever,” she said, adopting a mockingly raspy tone of voice.

“Never have I seen anyone so indignant as you, fleshling.”

"I’ve never seen anyone afraid of a bowl of oatmeal.”

“I do not fear your food.”

“Eat it, then: It’s healthy, I put some fruit in it.”

“…I am not hungry.”

“Of course you’re not. Eat it anyway.”

“What do you hope to gain by making me eat? Is this some form of trick?”

“Right, sure, I dragged you all the way here from the ruins of Park Heights because I wanted you to croak to a bowl of oats.”

“Why, then? You vex me, fleshling.” The fleshling smiles.

“Food, rest, and medicine are the best ways to heal. Doesn’t seem like you’d get too much of that if left on your own.”

“Do you really think I would believe you have our best interests in mind? The angels of your plane humiliated our kind, locking us away,” Atraxa says. The fleshling looks at her, confused.

“Can you blame ‘em? You were coming in, all guns blazing, smashing up the city and turnin’ people into more of you. Only natural people fight back.” She does not know of the plane’s first Phyrexian invasion, Atraxa realizes. Of course, a plane so obsessed with immaterial pleasures would not hold onto their past, always discarding it for something new. She saw no point in correcting the fleshling.

“Compleation is a gift. Your kind should have welcomed the embrace of Phyrexia.”

“We’ll decide that for ourselves. You can’t just go givin’ people gifts they don’t want. That bowl’s a gift, but you still haven’t taken a bite.”

“…No, I have not.”

“And I haven’t come over there and shoved it down your gullet.”

“Why not do so, if you want me to eat so badly?”

"’cause I’m not an asshole,” she responds nonchalantly. “I’m not gonna make you do anything. I mean, did you want to become a Phyrexian, back whenever that happened?”

Atraxa recalls the process vividly. How could she forget? It is as though she can still feel her back restrained against the cold metal slab within the Surgical Bay, the machines covered in needles that tore apart her skin and sowed porcelain plating to her sinew, the saws that opened her bones to replace the marrow with glistening oil. A sharp pain shoots through her chest as she recalls. She never felt this way about her compleation before, why is she paralyzed by the thought now? This was her greatest moment of glory, and yet all she feels now is dread. She feels the fleshling’s calloused hand on her shoulder and comes back to her senses.

“Are you ok?” The fleshling stands close above her, brow furrowed into a picture of genuine concern. Atraxa cannot remember if anyone had ever looked at her like that. She is transfixed for a moment, before she tears her gaze away from Jaxis’s red-orange eyes. Atraxa’s face feels wet. She touches her cheek gingerly, finding an oily tear.

“…The memory of the process is… painful,” Atraxa says, coming to terms with that fact. “I would not undo it; I welcome being part of Phyrexia. But it is painful, nonetheless,”

“…I’m sorry.”

“You think… that you can apologize to me?” Atraxa says, her anger towards the fleshling rising once more. The human sighs, stepping away from the bed and sitting back down with her bowl.

“I’m fairly sure I just did, doll.”

“We do not need your pity, fleshling,”

“If not for my pity, you’d still be crushed, and some ugly mug probably would’ve come by to finish bumping you off by now,” she replies, then scoops several spoonfuls of oatmeal into her mouth.

“…You show no respect for the forces of Phyrexia. Why, then, did you drag me from the rubble?” Atraxa asks. The fleshling chews for several seconds before answering.

“So that you’d eat your damn oats,” she says, then stands and leaves the room.

As soon as the door shuts, Atraxa is hit with a wave of lethargy, as though her hatred for the fleshling was propping her up. She recalls her unfulfilled promise to end the fleshling’s life. The fleshling’s sins have only increased since then, undermining the glory of Phyrexia and even questioning the angel’s dedication. No quarter could be given. Atraxa swears to herself that as soon as she regains her strength, the fleshling will fall. Somehow, this promise does not comfort her like the one she made the night before. For all the animosity she felt for the fleshling, it was clear now that, for whatever reason, Jaxis truly wanted her to get better. She did not know how to feel about that. The newly familiar drowsy sensation climbs into her peripheral vision, and Atraxa glares at the bowl left on the table until she falls asleep.

Atraxa finds herself within another memory. This one happened far more recently than her encounter with Sheoldred in the Dross pits. Atraxa had not spent much time within the Quiet Furnace, as entrance was cut off to the rest of Phyrexia since before she had joined them. Her impression so far was that the name was inaccurate. As far as she could see and hear, Phyrexians were working tirelessly on massive metal contraptions or repurposing older machines for scrap. One such Phyrexian was the reason she was here, and she finally spotted him underneath what appeared to be a large, four-legged foundry.

“I see Norn’s dog has finally deemed us worthy of a visit,” said Urabrask. Some part of Atraxa, one that was aware this was a vision, found it comforting to hear someone speak Phyrexian again, even if it was the memory of a heretic. She came to a careful landing underneath the metallic canopy. The ground was pockmarked with large pools of molten rock and metal that threatened to devour anything that made a slip.

“Urabrask,” Atraxa spoke, “You stand accused of continuing to allow rebels to reside within your sphere. What say you?”

“Straight to business, I see.” Urabrask turned from the metal pillar he had been tinkering with to face Atraxa. “You understand you aren’t allowed to be here. Am I going to have to replace some guards?”

“Answer the question, Praetor.”

“You first, Unifier.”

“…I am not here on a mission of warfare yet, merely inquiry. Depending on your answer, that may change,” Atraxa cautioned.

“Oh yes, very verbose, you’ve done a fantastic job at not actually answering whether or not the guards are dead.”

“…They refused to allow me entrance.”

Urabrask clicked his metallic tongue. “That’s a shame then. I’ll have to contact Brudiclad later, have him forge some new scraplings.”

“…You appear different,” Atraxa said, gazing towards the axe-like protrusions on his forearms.

“I’ve been travelling. These are cumbersome though, I won’t lie,” he responded, clenching a fist.

Atraxa had only a few brief encounters with Urabrask before now, but she could see why the other Praetors considered him such a thorn in their sides. In this short time, he had been able to disarm any pretenses she had entered the Furnace with and wrestled control of the conversation. There was something about him, his strangely affable attitude and vocal mannerisms that Atraxa felt answered, at least partially, for how he was able to keep control of his subjects and sphere for so long. Vorinclex was the strongest Phyrexian in all of the Hunter Maze, Jin-Gitaxias the smartest of the Surgical bay, Sheoldred the most ruthless of the Dross Pits, and Elesh Norn the most glorious and absolute of them all. But Urabrask was, for lack of a better word, charismatic. She attempted to right the path of the encounter.

“Why do you continue to allow the Mirran rebels to live within the furnace?”

“Question of the hour, isn’t it?” Urabrask drawled, approaching a pile of tools and scrap metal.

“Surely their forces do not outnumber or outpower your own?”

“They don’t, but you’d be surprised at what they’re capable of,” he said as he rummaged through the pile. “Fantastic craftspeople, for one,”

“Then why? Why allow them to continue to wreak havoc in your domain?”

“Hard to add any more havoc to the Furnace, wouldn’t you say? But past that, I don’t compleat them because they don’t want me to.”

"…You do not add them to Phyrexia’s forces because they do not want you to?”

“Simple as.”

“Why? What in the spheres does it matter if they do not want to be compleated?” Atraxa asked, entirely baffled.

“Allow me to answer your question with a question: Why do the Mirrans not want to become part of Phyrexia?”

“Because they are fools, putting off the inevitable. It is a natural response to fear change, and yet a futile one against our unstoppable march of unity.” The words came naturally.

“Perhaps that’s how Norn sees it. If not everything is part of Phyrexia, is that really such a bad thing?”

“Of course it is. It is our duty as Phyrexians to spread the glory of our kind, until everyone has been welcomed into the embrace of the Mother of Machines. All will be one.”

“Quoting drivel straight from the Argent Etchings, I see,” Urabrask said. At Atraxa’s silence, he glanced up from the pile of scrap, “You seem surprised.”

“You have read the Etchings? And yet you still remain steadfast in your false beliefs?”

“I found the prose repetitive.”

“I understand now,” Atraxa said, compelled to defend the philosophy of the Fair Basilica. “You and your kind are slothful, wasting your time on these pointless creations rather than—” she was cut off as Urabrask threw a red hot railway spike right past her head. There was a rage in his already fiery eyes, smoke poured from his jaw.

“Say what you will about me and my kind, but don’t dare undermine the Great Work.”

Atraxa was stunned into silence. How was it that he could uphold what he does with such conviction? Urabrask walked past her towards the spike, embedded in a boulder. He pulled it out and began to tinker with the metal, tearing it into small pieces.

“Atraxa, I get that you might not get why we do it, but please try and understand. This is what I do for Phyrexia. This is how I show my devotion. I live and let live, I show the fleshlings what Phyrexia is capable of, and, eventually, they come to me.”

“You think the rebels will ever join Phyrexia willingly?”

“Some have. And if others don’t, why worry? Maybe their descendants will. And until then, the rest of us can focus on what we do best.”

Urabrask had fashioned the remains of the spike into a metal flower, petals still softly glowing with heat. He held it up, examining his work. He is mocking me, Atraxa thought, with this recreation of incompleat life, with this philosophy that goes against everything the Grand Cenobite stands for. She could tell he had some ulterior motive but could not tell what it was exactly. Regardless, she resolved not to let him get the better of her.

“I liked that about Ixhel,” Urabrask continued, “She knew how to love her creations.”

Any thoughts of composure instantly fled Atraxa’s mind.

“Ixhel? You have spoken to Ixhel?” Atraxa had not seen Ixhel since Ixhel had brought that… thing back to the Fair Basilica. When had been rage at Ixhel’s disappearance had gradually turned into a different feeling, one more sour. Hearing that the Heretic had seen her, that she had not fallen to an unknown fate, gave her a sense of… relief.

“The Furnace is closed off to the other Praetors, but I allow the occasional traveler. Besides, she didn’t seem to quite be on Elesh Norn’s side anymore.” Liar, Atraxa thought, but bit her tongue.

"Where is she?”

“How would I know? I’m not her keeper; that’s your job. You know she never killed Vishgraz? Didn’t have the heart, I suppose. I imagine that’s why she hasn’t come back to you since, too ashamed to show how she disobeyed-”

“Enough!” Atraxa demanded, slapping the metal flower out of Urabrask’s hand to the ground and thrusting her spear to impale him in a single swift movement. Her spear found no purchase however, as Urabrask quickly leapt back and assumed a combat position on all fours.

“Finally got a rise out of you, eh? Come on then!” Urabrask dashed towards Atraxa. She assumed a defensive position, but at the last second, he dived down into a pool of molten metal, disappearing beneath the flames.

Atraxa kept her guard, wary of how Urabrask fought. In a burst of heat, he appeared behind her and swiped claw marks into her back. She whipped one of her tails after him, but he was already beneath the flames. Again and again, he made quick attacks, appearing randomly from out of the magma. Atraxa blocked most but could not muster a counterattack. Aggravated, she drew on her final weapon, the one that truly made her the voice of the Praetors. Urabrask appeared once more, this time right in front of her.

“Stop!” Atraxa shouted, loud enough to send tremors across the ground and echoes throughout the cavern. Urabrask was blown backwards, slamming into a leg of the foundry. Seizing the opportunity, she flew towards him and stomped into his chest to immobilize him, before stabbing her spear through his arm with a hideous crack of bone. She allowed herself an elated moment of victory, a crazed smile cracking across her face. It was short lived, however, as Urabrask’s cry of pain morphed into a low laugh.

“What is humorous about any of this?” Atraxa spat.

“It’s good to see you’ve got some spirit in you after all,” Urabrask said. This only added to Atraxa’s rage. Was he still mocking her? Was nothing serious to him?

“Did you really think you would win, heretic? I am the apex of Phyrexia’s efforts, the combined creation of all the Praetors.”

“Oh, we both know why that’s not true, Atraxa,” Urabrask wheezed. Loath as she was to admit it, he was right. Urabrask was the only one of the Praetors who played no part in her indoctrination into Phyrexia. She always knew he was a traitor, that he was undeserving of being a part of her compleation. And yet, there was a small part of her, one that only poked its head up when she was alone and was always quickly silenced, that wondered if five would have been better than four, wondered if she was somehow missing something. In an isolated corner of the deafeningly loud sphere, she allowed her curiosity to get the better of her.

“Praetor of the Quiet Furnace, although my mission here was not to slay you, doing so would be a boon to the rest of Phyrexia. Before I end your life, answer me: why did you not participate with the other Praetors in my compleation?”

“I don’t even get to choose my final words?” Atraxa twisted the spear further into the wound. Urabrask winced. “Really, Atraxa, I would think you could figure out the answer to that from the talk we’ve already had. Why didn’t I compleat you? Why don’t I compleat the Mirrans?”

“Becoming one with Phyrexia is the greatest source of happiness I have ever known. You would deny me that, Heretic?”

“I would’ve gladly prevented you from entering the service of a tyrant. I would have given you ambition beyond what the Mother of Machines has planned for you. For all Norn’s talk of unity, she’s never truly been one for collaboration. All the other Praetors were invited begrudgingly. You think she’d want a Heretic to help build her perfect weapon?”

Atraxa chided herself for indulging this pointless feeling. Elesh Norn did not prevent her from being finished because there was nothing unfinished about her. What reason would she have to look towards Urabrask for help in her compleation? He may be in charge of this sphere, but at the end of the day he was a worthless traitor about to die by her blade.

Before she could deliver the final blow, Urabrask twisted his body to throw Atraxa off and, with a shout, ripped his arm from the spear pinning it to the ground, severing it just beneath the elbow.

“We’ve spoken long enough. Kethek!” Urabrask slammed his remaining fist down against the rock, sending a crack through it. All at once, the ground around them started to tremble as the four-legged foundry shook to life. The goliath’s legs attempted to crush Atraxa, and arms tipped with flamethrowers belched infernos towards her. Adding to the chaos, gleaming hot goblin-like Phyrexians fell from the forge above, quickly moving to attack her. The bodies of those she felled were quickly snatched up by the long, spindly arms of the newly built Phyrexian and thrown into the crucible on top, melted down and rebuilt into new warriors. Before long, she was forced to take to the air to avoid the onslaught. Urabrask came to a stand in front of the foundry, blazing eyes fixed on Atraxa.

“I believe it’s time you left the Furnace, Atraxa.”

“The Mother of Machines will hear of this.”

“I know how Norn operates,” Urabrask shrugged. “She’s already decided to kill me, your presence here’s just so she can pretend she gave me a chance. I’ll never bow to her. She may as well have not wasted either of our time.”

Urabrask motioned to Kethek, who leaned forward and poured some of her store of liquified metal onto the ground. Urabrask plunged the stump of his arm into the pool with a steaming hiss, then slowly pulled it out. As he did, metal coalesced and formed into a new white-hot claw, replacing the lost limb.

“This is what Norn’s worldview lacks: a chance to be challenged and grow from it. You said it was natural to fear change, maybe you’re right. But know this: change is what makes us alive. And as long as the so-called Mother of Machines keeps trying to spread her false and stagnant peace, I’ll be here to destroy it.”

The clamor of the Furnace fell into a near-silence. The factories in the distance dim, and Atraxa watches as they fade into a black smoke which quickly creeps up on the Praetor.

“Big things are coming, Atraxa. When they do, I hope you give some thought to who and what you serve.”

And with that, the vision ended.

Atraxa stirs. The quiet room around her seems darker and quieter than it was before. She pushes herself up into a sitting position. The bowl on the table is precisely where it had been. She stares at it, stewing in the memory of the dream, the memory of Phyrexia. Out of boredom, hunger, spite, or some combination thereof, she grabs the bowl and chokes it down. The gruel is cold, and wet, and sticky, and leaves residue on her tongue, but she chokes it down all the same.

Chapter Text

Chapter Three – The Pursuit of Knowledge

“Ah, Grand Unifier. To what function have you entered the Surgical Bay?” Jin-Gitaxias spoke through silver teeth. Atraxa flew down to a platform in front of him and kneeled. She was dully aware that this was a memory. These visions had become so frequent that she was beginning to accept them as a fact of life.

“My abilities as Grand Unifier are in need of improvement. The Mother of Machines has granted me permission to use the machines of the Surgical Bay to create a new weapon,” she laid out her case to the Praetor as factually as possible. Jin-Gitaxias responded best to such logic.

“I see,” Jin smiled. “The apparatuses we have assembled here are second to none, allow me to assure you. I am certain we can find something fitting. Follow me,” he said, and led Atraxa down into the twisting chrome-plated hallways of his sphere. The high ceilings seemed to have been made with his stature in mind. Even with Jin’s permanent slouch, he still towered over many other Phyrexians, coming to about the same height as the angel. As they walked, small pustule-like clusters of glowing mechanical eyes went from neurotically flicking from side to side to gazing fixedly at the pair. Their footsteps echoed along the corridors, mingling with the low whines of invention.

“You have done well in your duties as Grand Unifier,” Jin-Gitaxias said, after a few minutes of travel. “It has been a long time since enforcers of the Progress Engine have captured a stray Neurok or Vedalken.”

“It would be ideal if all the spheres welcomed compleation in the same manner,” said Atraxa. The two came to an atrium, with a rivulet of quicksilver pouring through a hole in the roof into a small, dark pool. Cables drooped from the ceiling like metallic vines, ending in more mechanical eyes.

“I will confess, I do miss the reliable inventory of vivisection subjects,” Jin said, gazing up through the skylight. “The Progress Engine’s eternal pursuit of greater perfection is demanding, after all. There is no limit to the optimizations we can grant Phyrexia, to that which we can imbue on the rest of the-”

“Rubbish!” a loud voice growled, cutting him off. With heavy footfalls, Vorinclex rounded a corner into the atrium, wires dangling from a small Gitaxian drone crushed in his massive fist. He had devoured its organic components, oily blood still dripped from his bony jaw. Small, thin wires poked out from his hairy, muscular hide, seemingly torn out of a larger machine.

“Ah, if it isn’t the brute. I presumed you had already departed the premises,” Jin responded coldly.

“Do not listen to this fool, Atraxa! He lost his chance at perfection long ago! All this artifice is to hide the fact that he is weak! He belongs at the bottom of the food chain!”

“Yes, yes, we are all cognizant of your inability to fathom the true path of progress, Vorinclex.”

“Your progress is a petty thing that stands in the way of evolution! While you were wasting your time on baubles, I was proving my inherent strength! It is why I have been selected for the mission to Kaldheim, and not you!”

“Do you believe you are the only one with proceedings to attend to on other planes?” Jin questioned, stoically unaffected by the larger Praetor’s shouts. “Elesh Norn is familiar with how my talents can serve the greater agenda of Phyrexia.”

Atraxa was not certain what the two were discussing. Her own matters kept her busy within New Phyrexia itself, quelling the remnants of Mirrodin and putting brakes on the overambitious schemes of the Steel Thanes. She was certain whatever Elesh Norn had planned for them would contribute greatly to Phyrexia.

“Ha!” Vorinclex guffawed, “Then your sphere will fall to chaos while you’re gone!”

“I’ve presented Unctus and Malcator with detailed instructions for how to carry on the experiments in my absence. We share a collective vision.”

“You admit your weakness, allowing yourself to be replaced!”

“As though the company you keep is any better?” Jin sneered, “As though Glissa isn’t waiting for an ideal moment to stab you in the back.”

“Glissa knows her place,” Vorinclex spat. “She is my champion. We stand at the top of the Vicious Swarm, the greatest predators in all the Hunter’s Maze. Our strength is unbeatable!”

“And yet here you are in my domain, receiving the augmentations necessary to withstand the transit to Kaldheim. Really, you ought to cease your commitment to the imperfect flesh, it’s such a fragile material.”

“You think I wanted your so-called enhancements? The strength of my own body is the only thing I can rely on. It has never failed me, whereas your relics fail you every day! For all your talk of progress, you still can’t even make blinkmoth serum!”

Atraxa clenched her jaw as the two bickered. For as much as the Praetors claimed they hated one another, they enjoyed arguing even more. It wasn’t her place to say anything, but it sometimes seemed to her that Vorinclex’s ideal of evolution wasn’t too different from Jin-Gitaxias’s musings on progress, that the two argued as much as they did not from a difference in philosophy but from a clashing of ego.

“Praetor,” she spoke firmly, reminding Jin-Gitaxias of her original goal in coming to the Surgical Bay.

“Hm? Ah, yes, of course, your new weaponry. Vorinclex, I presume even you can locate your own egress.”

“These artificial halls are nothing compared to the Hunter’s Maze!” Vorinclex growled at Jin. “You are welcome to prove yourself there once Jin-Gitaxias’ tools inevitably fail on you, Atraxa.”

Atraxa bowed.

“I am honored to receive such an invitation,” she said. Vorinclex gave an affirmative grunt and tossed the small drone in his fist against the wall, then lumbered off back the way he came. Jin-Gitaxias turned and walked down a hall in the opposite direction without even a glance towards the drone. Atraxa hovered behind him.

All the Praetors deserved the greatest amount of respect and deference from the other denizens of Phyrexia, this was something Atraxa knew innately. Whether it be Vorinclex or the Mother of Machines herself, each one was deeply powerful and ingenious in their own way. But Jin… she never quite felt fully at ease around Jin. Her thoughts felt… loud whenever she was close to him or the syringe-covered machines he operated. It felt as though there was something in the oil that felt constantly reminding her of the glory and loving caress of Phyrexia would be able to fully obscure a dull pain at the back of her heart. She was thankful for it, however, to not have to face that same pain unmitigated.

The two finally reached a workshop, where Jin-Gitaxias launched into a lengthy monologue regarding the latest advancements in Phyrexian weapon technology: blades honed to points microns wide, sentient wires that could ensnare and trap anything that came close, drones that could imbue someone with glistening oil with a simple touch. As Atraxa examined the room, her eyes settled on an ovular glass tank filled with small, squirming, amphibian creatures. Their twitching movements kept her fixated on them, and it felt as though an instinct that had laid long dormant in her was awakening.

"What are these, Core Augur?”

“These, Unifier, are the future of New Phyrexia. Newts made utilizing my own genetic code. They will grow into a perfect image and inherit the march of the Great Synthesis.”

As soon as she had the thought, there was something that told her that following through was of great importance, beyond simply fulfilling orders. She would contribute to Phyrexia in a way she had not before. As Atraxa gazed at the small creatures, she could feel the dream around her starting to fade. She had recognized it from the start. It was one of her most treasured. The fluid in the vats turned to the familiar black smoke, and the words she had said then slipped from her lips:

“…Would it be possible to form such a progeny using my own flesh?”

This was when she created Ixhel.

Atraxa stirs to the sound of speech from the other side of the bedroom door. After a few moments, she is able to shake the sleep from her head and tries to decipher what is happening. In addition to the fleshling’s husky tones, there is an additional voice, one higher pitched. Someone else is here.

She moves herself into a sitting position, then slowly, keeping her hands on the bed, starts to push herself up. Atraxa’s knees almost give way to vertigo as soon as she puts her full weight on them, and she has to steady herself against the wall at the head of the bed. As she does, she notices a slim wooden club propped up against the edge of the bed. She grabs it with her functional lower arm, using it and the wall to stabilize herself as she carefully moves across the room. She places her back against the wall next to the door, then focuses on the voices in the other room:

“-orry again for makin’ you come all the way down here, I’ve been preoccupied and haven’t had much time to hit the streets,” the fleshling says.

“Oh, it’s no issue!” says the other voice, with a strange, bubbling accent, like their throat is filled with liquid. “To be honest, I’ve, uh. Actually been a fan of you for a little while now, been to a few of your matches,” they stammer, with a nervous chuckle.

“Really? Want me to sign somethin’ for you?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t wanna impose...”

“It’s my treat, really.”

“Well, I mean. I do have my notebook here, so if you wouldn’t mind…”

“Queza, right? How do you spell that?”

“Just how it sounds,” says the unfamiliar voice: Queza. Something about the interaction sets Atraxa’s teeth on edge. She does not bother trying to understand why.

“So Queza, gimme the run-down. What’s the report from the outside world?”

“Well, the Maestros probably took the worst hit from the invasion. Anhelo’s grasp on the rest of the crew was always a little shaky after Lord Xander’s death, and that hasn’t gotten any better since he kicked the bucket. Errant and Parnesse are trying their best to keep things under control, but it’s slow going. All made worse by the fact that not too many Maestros came out of the whole ordeal without gettin’ all, y’know. Gooped. On the other hand, the Brokers and the Riveteers are doin’ pretty finely for themselves. Riveteers are working on rebuilding the city now, of course, bein’ led by Ziatora to make sure they don’t destabilize anything as they melt down the debris for materials. Falco’s leading the negotiations with the angels about what they’re gonna do with all the Halo they’ve stored up now that they’re coming back. Brokers also got away with a lot of contracts during the invasion, so there’s a lotta people who owe ‘em a favor now.”

“Sounds about right, damn bastards,” the fleshling mutters under her breath. Atraxa remembers Falco: she had briefly met the aven’s eyes as he organized a battalion of shieldmages to prevent the Phyrexians from moving onto his headquarters in Nido Sanctuary. The efficiency with which he led his forces suggested to her that he had been preparing for this, or something like this, for a very long time. Ziatora must have been the massive dragon she had seen in the distance several times, whose flaming emerald breath once incinerated an entire branch of the Invasion Tree before it managed to hit the ground.

“And the Cabaretti, well. They’re the Cabaretti,” the agent continues, “Hard to keep ‘em down. Still planning on holding the Crescendo this year, which some people aren’t too happy about. They’re starting to see Bess’s side of things: she’s organized a lotta charity work for people not involved in any of the families who lost their homes to the Invasion. The Cabaretti sent out Rocco to try and do the same, but only after Bess opened up her kitchen, so most think it’s just a publicity stunt. A lotta people also aren’t too happy that the Cabaretti didn’t seem to do much to help defend the city.”

“And what have the Obscura been up to? Not sittin’ idle after Cloud Spire fell, I imagine?”

“Sorry chief, we’ve got our secrets for a reason!”

“It was worth a shot.”

The unfamiliar voice was a member of the Obscura, then. During the invasion, Atraxa had interfaced with the minds of the newly compleated, pulling on their collective memory to determine the best way to annihilate the city’s angels. She recalls that the Obscura were one of the five main crime families which controlled the city, mainly concerned with information and subterfuge. Strangely, she couldn’t recall ever witnessing the memories of a compleat Obscura member. Either they had been especially judicious about not allowing their agents to become one with Phyrexia, or the silence of the glistening oil was worse than she thought, clouding over such memories.

“Speakin’ of,” the Obscura agent continued, “everything you’ve asked about so far’s stuff you could’ve figured out by checking the paper. Surely, you’ve got a better need of me hotfootin’ it all the way down to the Caldaia?”

“I can’t want to get my news from a doll like you?”

Doll? That is the term the fleshling uses for Atraxa. Why would she use the same term for someone else? Atraxa tries to remember the word’s exact meaning, but the glistening oil remains unhelpful. Regardless, she adds lack of consistency to her mental list of the fleshling’s sins against Phyrexia.

“Flattery won’t get you anywhere, chief!” the agent responds, sounding unreasonably pleased despite her protest.

“You’re right, though,” the fleshling says, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial, hushed tone. “I did have something a lil’ more detailed I wanted to ask about.”

“I knew it! Lay it on me!”

“…Would you happen to know what the whole deal with the Phyrexians was? I’m curious as to where exactly they came from, why they all pretty much shut down, that sorta thing.”

“Well, that’s a real humdinger of a question. Why d’ya wanna know something like that?” Atraxa had the same question. The fleshling had shown nothing but disrespect for Phyrexia, so why was it that she was asking about them now?

“Plain curiosity enough of a motivator?” the fleshling answered, vexingly unspecific as always.

“Well, Kamiz (that’s my boss) told me about a report she had read a report from another thoughtmage who overheard some stuff about that from this guy who was all dressed in funny-lookin’ clothes that seemed like he must’ve been from out of town somehow, since he had only like a glass or two of Halo and he was already smoked, and kept mutterin’ about a buncha different cities that you can’t normally get to, but he could? So, they brought this guy in for a brief back-alley questioning, y’know, just takin’ a little peak around in his head to make sure there wasn’t anyone who was gonna start tryin’ to step on Obscura turf, or at least no one besides the usual. Kamiz says that our agent’s report after the fact didn’t make a lick of sense, but I think she might’ve just been tryin’ to read it too literally, she can be a real downer sometimes, never even seen her crack anything approaching a smil-”

“Queza.”

“Ah, whoops, sorry! I ramble sometimes. Anyway, y’know the big angel general the Phyrexians had, Atraxa?”

“I’m familiar.” Atraxa can tell by her tone of voice that the fleshling is making a strict effort to not glance towards the room in which Atraxa resides.

“Well, turns out her boss was this even bigger, meaner lady named Elesh Norn! And she had kidnapped this guy, Corn? Karn? Something like that. Apparently, he was like Elesh’s grandfather or something which is a weird dynamic but I’ve seen weirder honestly, like the Cabaretti family history is all kinds of- I’m getting’ off topic again. So Karn or Corn or whoever was this big metal guy, like one of those wind-up toys except like, person sized? And with person feelings. Kinda like in that moving picture I saw recently, have you seen it? Where there’s the rich guy who gets a crush on this lady and then goes down and replaces a guy who looks like him, but then the pipes start floodin’ and the whole city-”

The fleshling coughs.

“Oh, right, sorry. So, point is, Karn had some other friends who were also out-of-towners, like these two guys Teferi and Koth, and this plant lady named Wrenn, who did some real important stuff but the guy wasn’t sure how exactly I think? And oh, this is the real interestin’ bit, do you remember when Lord Xander kicked the bucket and The Adversary started tryin’ to take control of the city?”

“It was a hard thing to miss.”

“Well, the lady that stopped him was this dame named Elspeth, and apparently, she was also an out-of-towner who was friends with Koth and this Karn guy. And she swooped in at the last second and stabbed Elesh through the chest! And then Karn was able to finish her off.”

The agent’s speech was altogether rambling, hard to follow, and full of small falsehoods, but Atraxa is taken aback by the end of her tale. The Mother of Machines is the centerpiece of the glistening oil. Could it really be that she has been undone? It would explain the silence Atraxa felt, the failure of the invasion effort- but no, it was too a reality too dire to be possible. Elesh Norn was Phyrexia- if she had fallen, then that meant Atraxa was truly alone. The thought rings out in her mind, lasting until she hears movement from the room beyond. Whatever ending payments or niceties the two had left to discuss have ended, and the agent now seemed to be leaving.

“Thanks for everything, you’ve been a real help.”

“Anytime, chief!” the agent says. There is the sound of movement, and then a door closing. The fleshling sighs, and then is still.

Slowly, silently, Atraxa twists the doorknob, pushing it open. The room beyond is about as sparsely furnished as the one she had been confined to. She notices a door in the opposite corner, and a window with curtains drawn, but her focus is fixed primarily on the fleshling, sitting in a plush chair with her back to Atraxa. She hasn’t been seen. This is the first real chance she has had to enact her plan for vengeance against the person who dared to show pity to a Phyrexian. The person who saved her.

Silencing any reservations, Atraxa raises her makeshift cane above her head and brings it down with as much strength as she can muster.

Moments before it connects, the fleshling snaps her head around towards Atraxa. Her eyes shift to a pure hearth-like glow, and a thick shadowy arm materializes, blocking the blow. The thin club splinters nearly in half, falling to the floor. Carried forward by the momentum, Atraxa is forced to stabilize herself against the chair.

“Are you fuckin’ serious?!” Jaxis shouts, standing up. “First thing you do after gettin’ the strength to walk is try and bash my head in?!”

The fleshling had some form of conjuration magic, then. Atraxa would have to find a way around it if she were to defeat her. She would not allow Phyrexia to appear weak. Able to stand for the first time since her fall, Atraxa takes the effort to stand to her full height, coming to a head and chest above the fleshling.

“Cripes, you’re tall,” she says under her breath. Frustratingly, the fleshling does not appear intimidated, but at least is not ignorant of the difference in stature between the two. “Still gonna claim food doesn’t help you heal?”

“Be silent, fleshling.”

"…I assume you heard all that?”

“Lies, all of it,” Atraxa says between deep breaths. Standing at her full height is taking more effort than it should.

“How’s that?”

“Elesh Norn is not ‘mean’,” she protests, her claws digging into the upholstery. “And it is impossible that she has fallen. She is our most glorious leader. There is no Phyrexia without her.”

“If she’s your boss, she sounds pretty damn mean, if I’m bein’ frank. Not exactly a first rate employer, if you get what I- ah damn it this was my favorite bat,” the fleshling says, crouching down to examine the remains of the club.

While she is distracted, Atraxa looks toward the door on the opposite side. She limps towards it, the seconds feeling like they stretch on for hours. As she grasps the doorknob, the fleshling finally looks up, quickly moving to Atraxa’s side.

“Woah-hey, what do ya think you’re doing?”

“I am leaving.”

"Wh- leave? You can’t leave yet, you’re-”

“You said you would not make me do anything,” Atraxa states, exhaustion starting to creep into her voice. “If that is the case, fleshling, you will not keep me captive here any longer.”

“…Alright, alright,” the fleshling backs off. “I’m a woman of my word. If you really wanna leave, you can leave. Just know that I don’t think it’s a good idea. You’re still not anywhere close to fully healed, I doubt you’d get far. And if you did, well, folks out there aren’t likely to be very hospitable. But if you’d still rather part ways… then we can part ways.” There’s something ever so slightly sad in her tone of voice that reminds Atraxa of how Jaxis had looked at her yesterday, the picture of concern.

Atraxa keeps her hand on the doorknob… then lets it fall. The reserves of energy she pulled on to walk have fully dried up. In a daze, she feels herself suddenly accelerate towards the ground, stopping short as the fleshling catches and lifts her into an embrace. She can feel Jaxis’ tight muscles against the porcelain plating of her back.

“That solves that for us, eh? Let’s get you back to bed.” To Atraxa’s horror, Jaxis adjusts her grip beneath the angel’s thighs and shoulders, then picks her up, carrying her into the other room.

She wants to scream at the fleshling, she wants to shove her claws beneath her tanned skin and tear it apart, and yet can summon neither will nor strength. The way the fleshling treats Atraxa is unbecoming of a Phyrexian, let alone one as powerful as her, and yet… and yet there’s a part of her that wouldn’t mind staying just a little longer. A part that’s tired of fighting. A part that wants Jaxis to look at her like she did yesterday again. Feeling drained and only half-awake, she is placed back on the mattress with no comment or resistance.

Darkness encroaches her vision once again, and she falls into slumber.

Chapter Text

Chapter Four – The Mother of Machines

Atraxa opens her eyes to darkness and silence.

Her vision slowly acclimates to the lack of light, until she can make out the vague shapes of the walls and ceiling. The other times she had woken up here, there had been some small ambient sounds, movement in the adjacent room, the occasional rumbling of unseen large vehicles from outside the building. But now, there is only the sound of her own body, as her chest rises and falls. Something has changed.

As she adjusts her position in bed, she realizes that her body is lighter than it had been before. She rises to her full height without any pain or imbalance. She slowly crosses the room towards the door, feeling her way through the dark. She places her hand on the door, then draws away momentarily. The handle is cold as ice. Something has changed.

Atraxa pulls as hard as she can, but the door will not open. Something touches her toes, and she glances down to find a dark puddle slowly soaking into the carpet beneath the door. She instinctively steps back, then traces her fingers along the bottom of her foot where it came into contact with the substance. The liquid is sticky, and a deep ebony color in the lightless room. She cannot tell if it is blood or oil. Something has definitely changed.

She hears a small, crumbling sound from behind her, turning to find part of the wall at the foot of the bed has fallen away, revealing further inky darkness. It appears to be a tunnel. To where, Atraxa has no idea, but it is the only option that has presented itself thus far. She makes a concerted effort not to look back at the door or the still-growing stain beneath it. It is not something that should be of her concern.

It is unclear how long the tunnel is, only that it closes tighter and tighter upon her with every foot forward she moves. Her hands only ever find shards of glass and stone, and she winces whenever the scars on her back brush up against the splintered wood above her. At several points she comes across small cracks in the ground, which leak a swirling black fog. Finally, she falls from the cramped tunnel and is met with a metal platform.

Atraxa rises to her feet, brushing off dust from her palms and knees. It is brighter here than in the tunnel, but not by much. Atraxa’s eyes slowly adjust to the red light rising from the edge of the metal platform, then widen at what it illuminates. Deep beneath her lies flaming ruins, piles of chaotically twisted metal support beams and collapsed stone. Her eyes follow the light up past the edge of the metal platform, and the full scene becomes clear.

She stands on a branch of the Invasion Tree, reaching forward out of an enormous portal back to New Phyrexia. The stoic silhouettes of Phyrexian bishops contrast against the bright white and red backdrop of the Fair Basilica. And in front of them, rising above all others, stands the most glorious of all Praetors, Elesh Norn, beautiful and perfect. Atraxa feels the unseemly weakness return to her legs and falls to the ground, attempting to pass it off as a respectful kneel.

“Mother of Machines,” she says, keeping as even a tone of voice as she can so as not to betray her shocked elation, “highest and holiest of authorities. You are here. You are alive.”

“We are indeed,” states Elesh Norn. Atraxa shudders at the sound of her voice. “Was there ever any doubt?”

“Not at all! There had been… rumors that you had perished at the hands of the incompleat, that Phyrexia had fallen, but I knew they were false.”

"We would expect nothing less from this former den of lies. We have come here to set things right, to finish what was started. New Capenna finally knows justice at our hands.”

“The plane is… decimated, then?” Atraxa asks. She glances down at the fiery rubble below, picking out the cracked remains of the architectural flourishes that had lined the city’s buildings. She recalls the dark stain beneath the door. “Its inhabitants… killed?”

“Without exception,” the Mother of Machines answers. “We gave no mercy to the foolish sinners of this plane.”

“That is… good.”

“’Good’?” Elesh Norn tilts her head expectantly.

“It is perfect, as you always are, Grand Cenobite,” Atraxa corrects herself. An acidic taste rises from the bottom of her throat. Phyrexia is where all her loyalties lie, and it stands before her having achieved its final, glorious goal of bringing Compleation to the multiverse. So why does something seem wrong? Why does it seem as though something has been lost?

“Grand Unifier,” Elesh Norn says, dragging Atraxa back out of her thoughts. “Praetors’ Voice. Atraxa. Why did you allow the invasion to fail?”

“I- I did not.”

“Would you call your efforts a success? The faithless angels of this plane spread their insipid Halo throughout the multiverse, hampering the efforts of Phyrexia. We still defeated them, of course. They were no match against our inevitable tide. But we would have been far more efficient had they not been granted the chance to interfere. A massive wrench in the gears of the Machine Orthodoxy, all because you failed.”

“I tried, Mother of Machines, I did-”

“If you had truly tried, you would not have failed us. You would not be in the sorry state we see before us now.”

“I am not the one to blame for the damage that has done to me,” Atraxa pleads. “The infidels of New Capenna proved more resourceful than we had anticipated. They were able to unify against us and fought dishonorably. It is their fault that I was left indisposed, that their angels were able to meddle in the affairs of Phyrexia. I did precisely as you said, but it was not enough.” She prays that Elesh Norn will understand.

“Do you attempt to lie to us? We told you directly that the creatures of this plane were not fit for compleation. And yet when we came here, do you know what we found? The corpses of compleat denizens of this plane. You chose to go against our direct orders. You chose to grant compleation to the unworthy.”

Atraxa clenches her hands into fists. In the remote corners of her mind, an oft-neglected voice flares up, saying this is not fair.

“…I just thought-” In an instant, Elesh Norn is upon her, lifting Atraxa off her feet by the neck.

“What did you just say?!” the praetor speaks, her voice seething with venom.

“N-nothing, Praetor, I-”

“We did not tell you to think! You are an extension of our will, nothing more! We made you what you are, and now you have the gall to place your failure on our shoulders?!” Elesh Norn turns towards the edge of the Invasion Tree’s branch, threatening to let Atraxa plummet to the fiery ground below. More than ever before, Atraxa wishes she had not lost her wings. “Perhaps Sheoldred has left too large a mark on you. Perhaps you intend to betray Phyrexia just as she did.”

“Mother, I would never!” Atraxa chokes out. “I worked tirelessly for Phyrexia, for the Machine Orthodoxy! I would sooner die than betray Phyrexia!”

Atraxa quickly realizes her poor choice of words. For a moment, it seems as though the Mother of Machines is going to let go. And for a moment, Atraxa considers that falling would be better than continuing to face Elesh Norn’s disapproval. Before she can entertain the thought further, Norn turns and throws Atraxa to the ground. She would not be getting through this so easily after all.

“You are unworthy to further serve us like this. You are a broken thing.”

Atraxa whimpers. A hopeless abyss threatens to swallow her whole.

“But-” the Mother of Machines speaks, offering a single point of light. She reaches a perfectly polished finger down to Atraxa’s chin, lifting her gaze towards the Praetor. “We recognize the actions which you have performed for us before. There is still material within you that can be repurposed for Phyrexia.”

Atraxa nods fervently. She knows that whatever Elesh Norn says next will be her only chance for redemption.

“You are going to come back to New Phyrexia. You are going to be disassembled, down to your core components. And you will be remade, renamed, and born anew as a more perfect servant of the Machine Orthodoxy.”

“Yes. I will do as you say, Mother. Anything.”

“And then,” Elesh Norn smiles, “the thing which you have become will undo your other mistake for us. Only then will you be forgiven. Only then will you once again be perfect”

“Of course,” Atraxa responds automatically, before her ears catch up with her brain and she processes what was said. “W…It is not my place to question you, but… what other mistake? What must I remedy?”

Elesh Norn frowns. “Do not pretend you do not remember. The truant. The one who disobeyed you and abandoned the Machine Orthodoxy. The one you created. Ixhel, we believe you named her. You are going to exterminate her.”

Atraxa feels as though the world has fallen out beneath her. Her thoughts are scrambled and incoherent. She could not do that to Ixhel. Ixhel was her most perfect creation. Surely there was another option. But there was not. Elesh Norn’s judgment was absolute. Never before has an order from a Praetor felt this way. Their instructions should not feel like anything at all. Something terrible has happened to her, that has weakened not only her physical strength but her faith. Oil-slick tears form at the corners of Atraxa’s eyes. She scrapes her claws across the porcelain plating of her torso, trying desperately to remove the painful heat from her chest.

Logically, she knows that it would technically not be her to kill Ixhel. The Phyrexian she was to become would be cured of the heretical attachment she feels towards her newt. All she had to do was follow the Praetor’s orders as she had always done, and everything would be right with the world. She would be back with Phyrexia. All she had to do was follow Elesh Norn’s guide, just as she had always done.

But doing so would mean knowingly endangering Ixhel. And however much she wants to follow the Mother of Machine’s orders, she cannot bring herself to create a Phyrexia without Ixhel.

She is disobeying orders through her silence. She has already disobeyed orders. She is being selfish. She is a failure to New Phyrexia. She is a wretched creature.

“Stand up,” Elesh Norn says.

Atraxa’s legs refuse to move.

“Atraxa, you do not need to make this so difficult,” Elesh Norn sighs, holding a finger to her brow. “Surely you understand. We must have order if the Machine Orthodoxy is to propagate. Failure must be punished. Victory, rewarded. If we allow you to return without consequence, what message will that send to our enemies? This is all for the greater good. All we need from you is to stand up.”

Atraxa attempts to say something, make any sort of noise to cement her own existence, but it feels as though she is choking on her own throat, drowning underneath the Praetor’s expectations. Never before had she been so small in the face of the Mother of Machines.

She shakes her head frantically, eventually choking out “I- I cannot.”

“You would rather sit here like a petulant newt than perform the simplest of tasks for us?” Elesh Norn spits. Her voice takes on an almost mournful tone. “You were such an effective servant before now. We gave you purpose, we fulfilled your mission here when you could not, we even gave you mercy when you failed us, and now this is how you choose to repay us? Was what we gave not enough for you? Was our love not enough for you?” Elesh Norn questions, cutting like a blade through the angel’s heart.

“I... I…” Atraxa scrambles for something to reaffirm her loyalty, to find anything left she had not already given to Phyrexia. Words fail, and Atraxa’s breath quickens as her arms curl in on herself like a dying insect. The palm of one of her hands presses against her shoulder, triggering a strange sense of familiarity that almost calms her.

And then she realizes why that might be. Not too long ago, a calloused hand had placed itself on that same spot.

Jaxis. Why does the fleshling stand out in her thoughts, even now? An enemy, even a defeated one, should not be lodged in her mind in this manner. But the fleshling vexes her, a complete oddity that she cannot categorize. The fleshling is, or was, a stubborn, crass, and foolish woman from a city that stood against the virtues and morals of the Fair Basilica. And yet despite or perhaps because of all of that, the way Jaxis acts towards her is unique among all the people Atraxa has ever met. Phyrexians are tools to be used, cogs in an enormous, intricate machine for the ultimate goal of compleation. But Jaxis regards Atraxa as though she is something to be cared for.

To treat another Phyrexian like that would be an accusation of weakness. To desire to be treated that way would be an admission of weakness. And yet, there is a horrid corner of Atraxa’s heart that wants to know that sensation again. And as foolish and illogical and downright heretical as it was to think, none of the Praetors had ever made her oatmeal.

“…What love?” the words slip from her lips before she can stop them. Fearing the worst, Atraxa gazes up towards the Praetor. But Elesh Norn does not respond. Did she not hear? Or is she as stunned as Atraxa that her loyal commander would say such a thing?

And as Atraxa questions these things, her mind finally starts to pull away at all the small threads she had tried to ignore since she woke up. How was it that the Phyrexians triumphed over the Halo-fueled multiverse? Why did the Invasion Tree portals to New Capenna close, only to reopen? Why did all the Phyrexians on New Capenna fall catatonic after the collapse of Park Heights? Each thread she pulls on unravels, and realization rears its ugly head.

“…I should have been there,” she says.

"Been where?”

“I should have stayed with New Phyrexia. I could have helped. I could have helped protect us.” Elesh Norn says nothing. Atraxa continues, emboldened by her epiphany, or perhaps just accepting of her fate. “Protection is where my skills have always lied, even… even before I joined Phyrexia, but the Machine Orthodoxy sought to use me as an invader. If I had stayed on New Phyrexia, then with my aid, maybe-”

“Stop,” the Mother of Machines states with a sterile frigidity. Small shards of bone split off from her armor, forming into brilliant white needles that aim towards Atraxa. “After all we have offered you, you now claim to know better than us. You claim that you are anything before a Phyrexian. You have insulted the very name of Phyrexia. Do you expect to be forgiven for this final act of defiant heresy?”

“No,” Atraxa says. She forces herself to look at Elesh Norn. Even now, she wants to memorize the details of the Praetor’s face. It may be the last chance she would have to see it. “But I am not speaking to you. Not the real you.”

Before the Praetor can say anything, Atraxa turns her head back towards the ground.

“Show yourself, dream weaver.”

Atraxa winces as a sickening crunch and brief scream of agony comes from in front of her. She slowly raises her eyes back towards where the Praetor had stood.

There, lounging on a stone slab and holding a glass goblet filled with an unidentifiable black liquid is the planeswalker Ashiok.

“My, my, you are a clever one,” they smile, their raspy voice echoing behind Atraxa’s eyes. Behind them, the Phyrexian bodies lining the portal to New Phyrexia collapse lifelessly.

“I was warned of your interference. I should have realized this all was your doing long before now,” she says. Atraxa recognizes the spiraling dark fog between the horns Ashiok had in place of eyes. It had heralded the end of the memories she had been seeing when she slept. “Phyrexians do not dream.”

“Elesh Norn said the same thing, it’s as false now as it was then.”

“…Is it true, then? Is she really dead?”

“As dead as dead can be,” Ashiok says, rising to their feet.

“And you chose to create a false puppet of her, mocking her in order to-”

“Mmm,” Ashiok holds up a finger, downing the contents of their glass, before tossing it to the side. “I did want to ask you about that, briefly. What gave me away? Norn figured it out when I visited her because she was too egotistical to accept that something outside of her control was happening, but the other Phyrexians I’ve seen usually show such deference to their superiors, never willing to question them. So, what was different about you?”

Atraxa could give Ashiok any number of answers, or even no answer at all. She does not owe them anything. But she cannot find the effort to say anything other than the truth.

“…It was all too horrible to be true. When I refused to stand, and she did not depose of me on the spot, that was what finally gave me the evidence I needed. The real Mother of Machines would never have abided such obvious imperfection,” she says, glaring down at her lower left arm, crushed and bruised by her fall. Even in the dream, it aches.

“Hm,” Ashiok’s lips split into a wide grin. “Funny that you should say that.”

“And why is that?”

“Oh, I’d rather not get into it.”

“Do not force me to drag the truth from your wretched lips,” Atraxa scowls, mustering the strength to move to her feet.

“Well, if you simply must know, I was just wonder if you would still sing Norn’s praises if you had witnessed her downfall.”

“…What happened to her? What happened to New Phyrexia?”

“It’d be easier just to show you,” Ashiok says. They wave a hand, and the towering portal to New Phyrexia rushes towards them, transporting them to Elesh Norn’s throne room, located at the lowest level of the Fair Basilica, with the branches of Realmbreaker creeping up from the Seedcore below.

And Atraxa watches in horror as Phyrexia is not just defeated, but humiliated.

The mighty predator Vorinclex is beheaded by a humble foot soldier. The brilliant inventor Jin-Gitaxias gives way to petty infighting and ends up devoured by his own creations. The Invasion Tree, pride of the Machine Orthodoxy, is turned against New Phyrexia itself, shunting the plane into a dimensional pocket to face an unknown fate. And worst of all, glorious Elesh Norn, who screams in fear at the sight of an incompleat angel, who acknowledges herself as an individual rather than a mouthpiece for all of Phyrexia, who the Machine Orthodoxy turns against at the call of Jin-Gitaxias, and who finally dissolves into nothingness at the hands of the false father Karn.

“This… this is a lie; it has to be,” says Atraxa, as the scene rewinds to its beginning and starts to play out once again, this time in silence. “Another vision you’ve concocted to torture me.”

“Oh, believe me, I wish I could come up with anything that would frighten you more than this. The part that makes it all the better is that it’s true.”

Atraxa drops her eyes toward the ground. She does not want to see any more. Ashiok continues, if only to fill the quiet.

“Wrenn, the dryad, certainly did the bulk of the work, although the time mage probably got the best deal, saving the multiverse and his homeland of Zhalfir in one fell swoop. You know, he had a recurring nightmare in which all of his friends and family dissolved into immaterial light through his fingers as he desperately tried and failed to bring them back. I enjoyed watching that nightmare. I don’t suppose he’ll ever have it again. Blech,” Ashiok gags, sticking out their tongue. “I do so dislike happy endings.”

“And how did you come to know all this? You speak of this battle as though you were there yourself.” She can feel tears forming in her eyes and tries to push them back with anger towards Ashiok.

“Why, I wouldn’t miss dearest Elspeth’s performance for the world!” Ashiok muses wistfully, turning their smoky horns towards the angelic figure flying above the whole ordeal. “Beautiful, isn’t she? She who gives nightmares to nightmares. I’ll always treasure the expression on Norn’s face when she appeared.”

“…It was you, was it not? You gave her this obsession with Elspeth, that made her prioritize Theros and New Capenna during the invasion efforts.”

“The seeds were already there, I merely watered them.”

“Do you mean to convince me Elesh Norn held thoughts of Elspeth before you interfered?”

“I don’t mean to convince you of anything, I’m only showing you the truth.”

“Is that your only reason for being here, then?!” Atraxa nearly shouts, exhausted from Ashiok’s coy half-answers. “Just to taunt me with Phyrexia’s defeat?”

“Basically, yes,” they say, examining their fingernails. “The nightmares of Phyrexians have become something of a fascination of mine, to be honest, although I wouldn’t want to be trapped on the plane forever. Variety is the spice of life, after all.”

“You are a terrible person.”

“I try my best. But enough about me, what about you? Seeing what you’ve seen, knowing what you now know, can you still claim to be a noble servant to your Mother of Machines? Or are you now just another of the many heretics you’ve hunted down?”

Atraxa shuts her eyes tight in a feeble attempt to dam out the rest of the world, especially Ashiok’s taunts. But the despair leaks in regardless, and she caves.

“…Jin-Gitaxias is right. Elesh Norn’s ego undermines whatever else she has to offer Phyrexia. She is a tyrant.” Even now, with the knowledge the nightmare mage has granted her, she speaks in a subdued voice, as though someone is going to punish her.

“Should be past tense, but go ahead,” Ashiok says. Atraxa does her best to ignore them.

“She would have me destroy the Phyrexian forebears who came here long ago… Just as she would have me unmake my scion. She inflicts violence on the other sects of Phyrexia. She even inflicts violence on her own. Such a ruler is not worthy of the title of Mother of Machines.” Atraxa finds no joy in this declaration, to find that the doubts that she had worked so hard to stifle were right all along. Ever since the invasion began, every single stable part of her world has fallen down around her, the defeat of New Phyrexia being the final nail in the coffin. She has no leader. She has no guide. She is wholly alone in the Multiverse.

“Fascinating,” Ashiok whispers under their breath. They smile like a snake that just found an unattended nest.

The ground beneath Atraxa’s feet quakes. She looks around, only now noticing the two had reached the end of the memory of New Phyrexia. Realmbreaker was starting to shunt New Phyrexia into the void Zhalfir had arrived from.

“I’d love to stay and chat more, but it seems as though our time is coming to a close.”

Atraxa turns back to Ashiok, to decry their actions one last time or to beg them to end the chaos, she is not certain. Before she can speak, a chasm created by the geomancer Koth opens beneath her feet, rapidly causing her to lose her balance.

“We’ll be seeing each other,” Ashiok says in a sing-song voice, then leaves Atraxa to fall.

Chapter Text

Chapter Five – Homesick

Atraxa falls for what seems like an eternity, occasionally passing rocky outcrops and gnarled remains of gargantuan Phyrexians. How far she has fallen, she does not know. How long the dream weaver wishes to plague her nights, she does not know. The darkness of the nightmare creeps closer and closer to her, until she is left fully blind, with only the stinging wind against her spine. Even that dies down eventually, leaving her alone in a senseless void. Atraxa waits there for what could be minutes or hours. The darkness surrounding her slowly brightens into a very dim orange. She realizes, strangely, that her eyes are closed. She opens them and is met with the blank white ceiling above her.

She slowly lifts her head, her heart still pounding in her chest. Light streams onto the carpet from the wooden blinds of a window on the far wall. She can hear clattering in the next room over: a sign of life from Jaxis. She lets her head fall back on the pillow. At the very least, her environment is familiar. At the very least, she is no longer dreaming.

Atraxa takes slow, measured breaths to calm the pounding in her ears, and the adrenaline drains from her system. As it does, the events of the night’s dream reveal themselves in a cold, clinical light. Shame weighs heavy on her heart. She feels horrendously sinful for thinking of the fleshling during Ashiok’s nightmare. Why should their presence comfort her? Phyrexians should not have such thoughts, should not show emotions towards anything, let alone one of the incompleat. And how could she have so blatantly disobeyed the Mother of Machines? Had she seen another Phyrexian act the way she had, she would have given them swift mercy at the end of her spear.

She knows it was not real, of course: Elesh Norn was dead, and the thing she refused to follow the orders of was merely an illusion. But if it had been real, would she have acted any differently? If she did it again, would she be able to put aside the parts of herself so clearly damaged by the fall and rejoin Phyrexia with open arms? She cannot know for certain. That uncertainty is worse than any answer. She is filled not with a lack of ability, but with a complete lack of motivation to leave her current position, to move towards any hypothetical goal. What would be the purpose? Phyrexia is dead, and she did not even have the due diligence to die alongside it.

As these thoughts crowd the angel’s mind, her eyes are inexorably drawn to the wall next to the bed. She had not noticed it before, but the wall is not a solid color, but instead contains a print with a slightly different shade and texture, forming a tessellating arrangement of leaflike shapes. As her eyes trace along the endlessly repeating pattern, her worries slowly numb. The mindless activity of gazing at the wall is preferable to drowning in her sorrows, and so she lays there, motionless, trying as hard as she can not to think.

Her investigation into the wallpaper is interrupted by the fleshling, who loudly opens the door and stomps into the room, carrying two porcelain cups, one of which she places on the low table near Atraxa.

“Afternoon, doll. Y’know, for someone who says she doesn’t need sleep, you sure as hell do it a lot.”

Atraxa stares at the fleshling for a moment, glances down at the cup, then rolls back over to face the patterned wall. Based on her experience with the oatmeal, it would be pointless to try and reject whatever drink the fleshling had brought her.

“You alright? Usually, you’ve at least called me foolish or obstinate or somethin’ along those lines by now.”

Atraxa refuses to speak. She only wants the fleshling gone.

“I’m not leavin’ until you say something. Ain’t got nothin’ better to do today.”

As if to illustrate her point, the fleshling struts to the other side of the room and retrieves the paperback novel with a half-naked elf on the cover, which had been sitting on the floor since Atraxa first awoke here under Jaxis’ purview. She sits down in the plush chair opposite the bed and flips open to where she had left off.

“…You are, at the very least, correct about being foolish and obstinate,” Atraxa finally relents, after several minutes of silence punctuated by the sound of turning pages.

“There she is. Glad to have you back, doll,” the fleshling smiles, shutting the book and dropping it on the table. She gestures towards the cup on Atraxa’s side of the table. “Made some tea, figured you would need something to drink by now. Some people prefer coffee, but I figured it’d be a bit too strong for you.”

Atraxa pushes herself up into a sitting position, head hanging low. She had spoken, and now, with any hope, the fleshling would follow through on her promise and take her leave.

“What’s got you so quiet?”

“…Elesh Norn is dead,” she admits.

“Really? Yesterday you were pretty vocal about how she was alive and kickin’. What made you change your tune, doll?”

“It was revealed to me by a visitor in a dream.”

“…Gonna elaborate on that at all? …No? Guess not.”

Atraxa remains silent. It was not for the fleshling to know, that Ashiok had chosen to amuse themselves by instilling such fear in her, or the hubris that had claimed New Phyrexia in its final hours.

“…Feel like flappin’ your gums about it?”

“What is there to speak of? New Phyrexia has been removed from the multiverse, placed in a void with no hope of escape. I will never be able to return there.”

“That must be hard for you.”

“You may gloat all you like. It no longer matters.”

To Atraxa’s surprise, Jaxis scowls.

“I would never do that.”

Jaxis looks away from the Phyrexian towards the window, and the two sit in silence for a minute or so. Something Atraxa said clearly upset Jaxis. She reminds herself that there is no point to concern herself even if that is the case, that if the fleshling chooses to leave now it would be a boon to the both of them. Jaxis, however, does not seem intent on leaving any time soon.

“…What was it like over there?” Jaxis says, carefully. “Back on New Phyrexia, I mean.”

“…Why would you want to know?” says Atraxa. “As I said, New Phyrexia is gone. If you are attempting to gather information for a counter-invasion, it would be futile.”

“I’m not thinking about anything like that, trust me.,” Jaxis chuckles, shaking off the awkward quiet. “I’m just curious, is all. It’s clear as sunshine that it was important to you. That being the case, it’s worth remembering.”

Every time Atraxa thinks she has gained some level of understanding, Jaxis finds a new way to throw off her expectations and return to being an entirely vexing entity.

“Wide doorways, I assume?” the fleshling quips, tapping the side of their head and generally proving Atraxa’s point.

Atraxa stares back at her, unsure of the fleshling’s meaning.

“…Forget it.”

Atraxa gazes down at the backs of her hands, and, after a brief pause, turns and drops her legs over the edge of the bed, facing away from the wall. She begins to speak.

“New Phyrexia was… is divided into numerous spheres, stacked atop one another. At the epicenter lies the Seedcore, where the pinnacle of Phyrexia’s efforts lies. The Invasion Tree grows there, born from a divine seed and nurtured by the glistening oil, until it formed a trunk large enough to extend its branches across the multiverse. The last time I laid eyes on it, the skies of innumerable worlds reflected off the coiling metallic trunks of Realmbreaker as it brought our influence to all.

“Above is the spawning grounds for all of New Phyrexia, the Mycosynth Gardens. Thick beams of metallic fungus form a far-reaching web all the way to the ceiling, filtering the light into a grey hue. The Mycosynth coils around itself into massive, tree-like tendrils, filling the air with a dense fog of spores. It was those spores that made Mirrodin such fertile ground for Phyrexia’s return, and what allows us to thrive in the perfect synthesis between machine and flesh. It was from the Mycosynth Gardens that the Praetors and their ilk first emerged, the heralds of New Phyrexia.

“At fitting proximity to the Mycosynth stands the Fair Basilica. There, the Machine Orthodoxy marches in joyous unison through perfectly symmetrical halls and bridges, each member serving a purpose, all for the greater good of Phyrexia. The clean, porcelain-white sides of the sphere’s temples are only broken up by seams that reveal crimson musculature beneath. Within the alabaster halls lie ossified congregations of the most loyal servants, given eternal life as part of the very foundation of the Basilica. Luminescent fog casts light without shadow across the entire region, making the glory of the Machine Orthodoxy clearly visible to all.

“Acting as an effective guardian against any potential intruders to the Basilica are the Dross Pits. There, the black stone is carved into numerous ridges by acidic rivulets, congealing into massive, hostile lakes that emanate viridescent light. Some of the deadliest Phyrexians reside there, both the lords who wield their cunning like a blade, and the insectoid predators that stalk through the dark on colossal legs. Most enter the Dross Pits to continue to serve even in death: either by being risen as undead servants, or by being dismantled so that the materials of their body may be repurposed and reused. It is the vital end step to the life cycle of Phyrexia.

“Working towards the improvement and refinement of Phyrexia is the Surgical Bay. The sphere consists of stainless steel, molded into wave-like shapes and spiraling towers, topped with spherical glass viewing rooms. Information flows within the sterile laboratories as freely as the quicksilver rivers they are built upon. The upper barrier of the sphere is covered in enormous, globe-like mechanical eyes that shine a frigid light down upon the ground below, leaving nothing out of sight. The Progress Engine observes all, record every point of information in vicious detail, so as to utilize their knowledge for a better, more efficient tomorrow.

“In stark contrast is the Hunter’s Maze, where the Vicious Swarm shuns tools and enhancements in favor of honing their own instincts and physical prowess. The Maze is a massive, interconnected forest of copper, twisted into shapes mimicking the Mycosynth far below. There are Phyrexians around every corner, from small insects in the undergrowth to massive beasts making new paths through the tangled vines, all of them participating in the great hunt in turn. There is no mercy or sympathy within the maze: only the edicts of predator and prey.

“On the far reaches of the civilized sections of the plane is the Autonomous Furnace. Based on the short sojourns I made into the sphere, the Phyrexians there hold a level of industry only matched by those in the Surgical Bay. They work tirelessly in their scalding hot forges, at all times a single misstep away from a blazing death. They would be prime examples of Phyrexian tenacity, if not for their complete lack of direction. There is no great underlying plan beneath their work: they weld together steam pipes in chaotic assemblages without rhyme or reason, inevitably causing a collapse that can go unnoticed underneath the ambient cacophony.

“Above them lies Mirrex, the cast-off shell of New Phyrexia. Much of what used to be the surface of Mirrodin was either relocated down below to one of the spheres or harvested for raw materials. The light dances between the levitating hexagonal shards of the reflective landscape. At such a distance from the Mycosynth Gardens, there are very few Phyrexians who stay within the bounds of Mirrex for long, leaving the sphere nearly absent of life, besides feral mites eating what they can find, and rebels tucked away in caverns. Remnants of the ancient tyrant of Mirrodin wander aimlessly: massive machines that grind down all that comes into their path and small inquisitive constructs scrounging whatever resources they can find amongst the rubble.

“Finally, at the outermost strata stands the Monumental Façade, where the efforts and achievements of Phyrexia are commemorated with towering statues and obelisks. The plane’s five suns each shine their multicolored light down across the ground below, mixing into infinitely unique hues. The sphere demonstrates the glory, ambition, power, and brilliance of Phyrexia to any and all who may witness it. It is the capstone of all of New Phyrexia, all disparate parts honored as one.

“And it was all…” Atraxa trails off for a moment. “…Beautiful.” The word leaves a stain on her tongue. How could she describe her home plane in such a way, when it was New Capenna’s obsession with beauty that had doomed it in the eyes of the Machine Orthodoxy? How faithful to Phyrexia had she ever truly been in the first place? She pushes down those thoughts as far as she can.

“You certainly put a nice spin on it,” Jaxis says.

“And now, it is all gone, and I am trapped on a backwater plane, coddled by an insolent human who refuses to leave me be,” Atraxa sighs.

“You’re welcome.”

“I did not thank you, fleshling.”

“I know. I can wait, though,” says Jaxis, before taking a slow sip of her tea. “So where in all that did you live?”

“Live?”

“Yeah. Did you have a house somewhere? Apartment, maybe?”

“Again I must remind you that under normal circumstances Phyrexians do not rest. We have no need for such domestic residences. My purpose there was to… bring order to New Phyrexia, I suppose. To bring the chaotic dwellers of the Autonomous Furnace under control, and to welcome what remained of the Mirran resistance into Phyrexia’s embrace.”

“Regardless of if they wanted to be, I imagine,” the fleshling mutters, so quiet that Atraxa almost did not hear it. “Did you have anyone there you were close to? Friends? Family?”

Instantly, Atraxa’s mind flashes back to Ixhel. She nearly bites her tongue in shame, remembering how Ashiok’s illusion had laid bare her unbecoming attachment for her scion. Ixhel was meant to be a weapon and nothing more, she reminded herself. Even if such a relationship between Phyrexians was not tantamount to heresy, would she even deserve to claim Ixhel in such a way? She considers how terrible it felt to be at the receiving end of Elesh Norn’s ire. Had Ixhel felt the same way, when Atraxa had rejected Vishgraaz? Was she the reason Ixhel had never returned to the Fair Basilica? Had she made her scion feel unfit to be part of Phyrexia? The thought grips tightly on her soul. She steels her resolve, refusing to let the fleshling know how she had failed Ixhel, refusing to appear any weaker in their eyes.

“…None.”

“Sounds kind of lonely.”

“How would you know, fool?” Atraxa sneers, her anger towards the fleshling reigniting. “What need would we have for such incompleat relations? I was surrounded by my kin at all times, connected to them through the whispers of the glistening oil. I was a Phyrexian in my rightful place among other Phyrexians. How could anything compare?”

“You’re not the only person who’s ever lost their home, y’know.”

“I did not lose a home!” Atraxa shouts, her voice cracking from the effort. The fleshling startles, leaning back in their seat. “I lost everything! Phyrexia was all I have ever had and it is gone forever! I am undone without it! There is no longer any purpose for my continued existence!”

Silence clogs the room, punctuated by the angel’s hollow breaths. If there was anything left inside her, she would weep.

“…I’m sorry. And I’m not tryin’ to razz you or treat you like a schmuck or nothin’ when I say that, just… horsefeathers, I’ll level with you, I’m not the best with words,” Jaxis finally stammers, scratching the back of her head. “I’m just saying the fact you feel bad now doesn’t mean you’re down and out forever. You’ve clearly lost a lot, but you just gotta look forward, see what you can find next to fill that space.”

Atraxa scoffs, disdainfully “Like what?”

“Tea, for one,” she says, nodding towards the untouched mug.

“A pitiful replacement compared to the glorious purpose of Phyrexia.”

“Maybe so, but it’s better than nothing. Good for your throat, at least.”

Atraxa stares down at the cup Jaxis had brought her. It is a plain white porcelain, not unlike the surface of her armor. Two fractured stubs jut out from the side of the mug, where a handle has broken off. She tentatively places her fingertips on the mug’s surface, feeling the warmth radiating from the liquid within. She stays there for a moment, not yet making the effort to lift it to her mouth.

“Go ahead, it won’t bite ya.”

Atraxa clenches her teeth, and removes her hand from the mug, placing it face down on the table.

“Why?”

“…Because it’s a mu-”

“Not that, imbecile,” Atraxa interrupted, sick of the fleshling’s jokes. “Why… Why any of this?”

“Can you be a little more specific?”

“Why pull me from the wreckage and bring me here? Why do you act as though I am weak? Why do you show such a disdain for Phyrexia, but go out of your way to do things on my behalf? I can repeat any number of the questions you have left unanswered.”

“I didn’t have anywhere better to bring you; you were on the verge of death when I found you regardless of how strong you may have been beforehand; and they tried to redecorate my city without asking and I’m not big on their architectural designs,” Jaxis rattles off the answers, counting each on her fingers. “Anything else?”

Atraxa had only asked rhetorically, meaning to demonstrate how impossible it was for her to trust the fleshling. Receiving solid answers to her questions was not even considered as a possibility, making it yet another vexing change of pace. There was one other question that stuck out to her, the one that was the core of why Jaxis was so lodged in Atraxa’s mind.

“…Why do you want me to recover?” Jaxis thinks for a moment before responding.

“I’d like for us to be square. See one another eye-to-eye.”

“And why is that? What do you have to gain from bringing me down to your level, fleshling?”

“Might convince you to stop attacking me, which’d be swell,” she says, taking a long sip from her mug. “Past that, though, well… I think it’d be good for us to be in the same corner. And let’s just say I’m a firm believer in second chances.”

Atraxa studies Jaxis, gazing long into the ember-like glow of their irises, before exploring other aspects of her face. The slight perspiration that sticks her unkempt, dust-colored hair to her forehead. The way her slightly upturned nose pulls her upper lip into a mild sneer. The angel’s eyes trail down towards the suspenders on the fleshling’s broad shoulders and the muscular arms visible underneath the baggy fabric of her dress shirt. Her examination finally comes to a close with the fleshling’s pinstripe trousers and askew posture, with one foot resting lazily on the opposite knee.

Everything she sees irritates her to no end. She can find no explanation in the fleshling’s appearance for their behavior. She is tired of being at the mercy of this human, tired of being defeated by her inability to understand her. No matter how hard she tries, they remain an enigma. A thought occurs: there is nothing stopping her from giving up, from writing off the fleshling as an annoyance. Perhaps there was some dignity to be had in abdicating the battle entirely.

Slowly, she lifts her hand from the table, and brings the mug up to her lips. The liquid washes down past her tongue, filling her throat with a gentle heat. She intends to take a small sip, then finds her body greedily swallowing down nearly half of the drink. She places the cup back on the table, then stares at the fleshling, waiting to see what she will say.

“Are you gonna stop trying to bump me off now?” says Jaxis.

“…Perhaps,” Atraxa mutters, turning her eyes down towards the mattress.

Jaxis’ lips crack into a raucous grin.

“I’ll take it.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Six – Observations

The conversation with Jaxis continues well into the evening, although in a rather one-sided manner. After Atraxa’s speech extoling the virtues of New Phyrexia, the fleshling decided that it would be fitting for them to describe New Capenna in a similar way. Atraxa only half-listens, taking slow sips of her tea to soothe the soreness in her throat. The fleshling’s husky yet gentle voice outlines various disconnected details:

The way New Capenna is organized so that even the lowest areas of the city had access to thin slices of the sky. How the train service is nearly always late for one reason or another, and yet simultaneously is just punctual enough to allow travelers to make it where they needed to be if they run. The street vendors whose food is frequently even more of a gamble than the Cabaretti-run casinos. The gutters in the higher parts of New Capenna which all drain out into large underground aqueducts that crisscross beneath the streets, leading to enormous reservoirs where the water is recycled and pumped back up through the city. The colonies of pigeons that make nests on any available surface, much to the chagrin of pedestrians below.

The only true break in Jaxis’ speech comes when she leaves the room after realizing the time. She returns several minutes later with a plate of toasted bread smeared with a sticky fruit-based substance. It takes only minor supplication from the fleshling for Atraxa to relent and begrudgingly eat the small meal provided.

“…So, what do you think?”

“It is somehow both sticky and dry,” Atraxa says. The fruity substance is sweet, tangy, and mildly acidic. It is a new sensation if nothing else.

“Wh- Not the toast, doll, I mean what I’ve been gabbin’ to you about for the past hour and a half.”

“Your descriptions of New Capenna are verbose yet needless, fleshling,” says Atraxa. Her throat feels moderately better after finishing the earthy tea but is still far from its condition at the height of her power. “I have already seen that which this plane has to offer.”

“Unless you’ve got somethin’ you haven’t told me, you’ve only ever seen it in the middle of a war; one you were on the opposite side of, no less. I think it’s fair to say your view’s a little lopsided. Could be handy to try and even it out a little bit.”

“I see no purpose in doing so.”

“You said you wouldn’t be able to go back the way you came, yeah?” she asks. Atraxa nods. “Well, you’re here now, may as well try and get used to it. You can sit around and be sad, or you can try and make the best of the hand you’ve been dealt.”

“I already told you, fool: I am a Phyrexian. My rightful place is Phyrexia. Nothing can ever replace it.”

“I know,” says Jaxis, scratching her ear, “I’m not asking you to turn on a dime and think the city’s the cat’s pajamas, but it wouldn’t hurt to give it a chance. Might not be better; might not be worse. It’ll just be different.”

Atraxa considers this as she chews on the second slice of toast. If she were forced to admit it, the fleshling’s description of the city’s architecture demonstrated a somewhat advanced level of coordination. This hardly meant anything on its own, only that the sinners of the plane were better at communicating than she had originally anticipated. A dull pain aches through her shoulder, grim proof of the citizens’ ability to muster a concerted defense.

“…You have told me much regarding the construction of your plane, but next to nothing regarding its inhabitants,” she says, attempting to keep her composure.

The fleshling shrugs. “I could say the same to you.”

The next morning, once the rust of sleep has been stripped away from her mind, Atraxa realizes that Jaxis is not in the apartment. No noise comes from the far door, no footsteps or clattering of pots. There is something innately different in the space surrounding her as well, as though the air is not as tightly compacted for lack of a second living body. The most obvious evidence to the fleshling’s absence, however, is the sheet of yellow paper left on the table next to Atraxa’s bed, with the following message penciled in rushed, messy handwriting:

“Leaving on some business, will be back tonight. Please don’t try to run away. There’s oats on the kitchen counter if you get hungry, instructions are on the box. -Jaxis”

The fleshling is absent, then, at least for the time being. Atraxa is fine with this. There is no reason for Atraxa not to be fine with this. The conversation from last night was irritating and Atraxa would preferred to have remained alone in the first place.

Alone.

At once, the desolate reality of Phyrexia’s defeat weighs down upon her shoulders. The night’s rest had been thankfully absent of Ashiok’s fearmongering, but even without it she can feel dread creeping like a spider up her spine.

She lays back down and attempts to fight them back, but somehow the patterns in the wallpaper are not as captivating as they were yesterday. The cataclysmic knowledge of Phyrexia’s demise has settled from the roaring storm that threatened to tear her apart into a bottomless quagmire, pulling her down. Attempting to empty her mind only gives the truths of her failure the space they need to start dragging her into the depths. It is not working. She will have to try something else.

Sitting up and examining the room, she eyes the paperback book Jaxis had left on the table yesterday. Atraxa picks it up and thumbs through several pages at random, thinking it may provide valuable insight into the fleshling’s motivations. Instead, she quickly deduces that the subject matter is one of a carnal sort, and that it should only be read as a last resort against boredom. She does not believe some of the actions it describes are even anatomically possible. At the very least, there is some insight to be gained from Jaxis’ willingness to read a work so consumed by the temptations of the flesh.

Even so, it does not solve the issue at hand. Atraxa rises to her feet, steadying herself against the bedpost and the wall. She walks slower without the aid of makeshift cane she had used previously but makes it across the room, nonetheless. She opens the door to the far room, and as she steps forward, the remaining horn on her faceplate bumps against the frame. She recalls the comment on wide doorways from last night and curses the fleshling under her breath, before stepping through to the other side. Atraxa had seen the far room once before, during her failed attack of the fleshling a day or so prior. Now, without an immediate goal, she begins to register the appearance and contents of the fleshling’s quarters.

To her right is a collection of plain wooden cabinets, some standing on the ground, others attached to the wall, leaving a space in between. They are arranged near several appliances: a sink, a stovetop, an oven, and a bulky white metallic chamber with a single thick door. She notices a small tan box on top of one of the cabinets, displaying an illustration of the bowl of food she had consumed during her second night in the fleshling’s custody. Presumably, this is the kitchen Jaxis had mentioned in her note.

Opposite the door to the room she exited is a seating area, where the fleshling and the Obscura agent had spoken several days ago. Atraxa eyes the chair the fleshling had sat in, recalling with a shiver the bright orange glow that had erupted from their eyes. A wide, dull-green couch stands beneath a window, separated from the chair by a table slightly lower than Atraxa’s knees. A glance through the window suggests that the room is at least several stories above ground level. Or street level, to be more accurate, given the way the city was built on top of itself more than actual bedrock.

Atraxa steps carefully towards the window, believing it wise to take the pressure off of her damaged legs as soon as possible. On the couch are a round pillow and two thin blankets. She pushes them to the side and sits down, propping her legs up on the cushions. She turns back to the room to continue her investigation but finds that she has already seen most of what there is to see. There is a door on the same wall as the door to the room she had been sleeping in, cracked open to show a tiled wall and a washbasin. Close by are a set of weights, a depopulated bookshelf, and a large leather-bound cylinder hanging on chains from the ceiling, with a zipper running down one side. She does not know its purpose, but it appears heavy.

It seems sparse, all things considered. From Atraxa’s knowledge, it is a compulsive habit of the incompleat to selfishly impose their internal identity onto the world around them. Even the small caves the Mirran rebels hid in for mere days or hours would not be left without signs of life: rocks arranged into haphazard stacks, images scratched into the metallic walls and floor. But this room was a place for someone to eat, sleep, and store their things, and not much more than that. The only indication that it was specifically Jaxis who resided here was the strange object hanging from the ceiling and the clothes haphazardly thrown over a collapsible rack.

A loud bang from outside the window draws her attention to the exterior of the quarters. The cream-colored curtain is translucent, allowing her to see through it when up close but obscuring her from anyone on the street below. Atraxa’s sense of sight has always been heightened in comparison to the incompleat, and she puts it to the test now, examining the city beneath her.

Two streets intersect, each lined with wide sidewalks and tall glass windows for shops. On the corner opposite the fleshling’s building is a group of wooden tables, clearly belonging to a café or similar establishment. Nearby, a vehicle shaped like a beetle belches smoke, presumably the source of the loud sound. A violent discussion is igniting between the owner of the broken vehicle and the driver now stuck behind it. Ignoring them, Atraxa looks up, noting a train in the distance, illuminated by the fiery warmth of the furnaces as it races along a raised track. The visible patches of sunlight indicated it was around midday, but the vast shadows of overlapping structures high above make it clear she is somewhere in one of the lowest areas of New Capenna: the Caldaia.

As Atraxa turns her attention to the passers-by, she is struck by the nauseating level of contrast found in the city’s population. She is familiar with the humans, vampires, ogres, leonin, and elves that walk the streets below, although they all exhibit minor differences, lacking the signature metallic growths of Mirran rebels. And yet in addition to them there are even more species: Reptilians with dull red scales dressed in denim overalls walk side-by-side with lumbering grey bipeds, similar to the loxodon of the Auriok tribes but with large horns in place of trunks. The hands of diminutive devils flick between the pockets of odd, soft-bodied creatures with glowing marks on their faces and tentacles instead of hair. In the distance she sees winged figures, most of which are birdlike avens, but a select few are the scum this plane considers angels. She nearly bites her tongue off as she watches them soar through the sky, making use of the gift she once shared.

She does not look away from the window, however. The everyday doldrum of New Capennan lives are at the very least a distraction from the dark flood of thoughts that threaten to drown her.

As she watches, she strangely starts to notice various moments, items, exchanges; the things that came to the compleated Maestros’ minds in association with the word “beautiful”. A reflection of streetlamps off a puddle in the middle of the road. The molten light that shines from the chimneys of the Caldaia’s foundries. A pattern of twisted metal in a cast-iron railing that follows a flight of stairs. A glittering jeweled necklace in a storefront window. A wall covered in ivy, gently swaying in the breeze. Two leonine men who lean in close to kiss one another, expressing the way in which flesh loves flesh. Graffiti on stone bricks beneath an overpass, in the form of a pair of magnificent wings and a list of names of people who had died during the invasion. There are flowers left beneath it.

What was it about these disparate, chaotic things that made them beautiful? What was it about beauty that was so widely valuable to the New Capennans, who were in all other aspects so different? How was it that they could all live and claim to be happy when their lives knew no unity, no purpose? Why were they not lonely?

She does not understand it. She is not certain if she ever will.

She watches anyway.

“Oh, thank the angels, you’re still here, doll,” Jaxis’ voice comes from behind Atraxa, startling her from her view.

“And where precisely would I go, pray te-” She is caught off guard as she turns to see the fleshling. Her hair is dirty and neglected, her left eye is bruised purple and slightly swollen, and there is a slight gash on her forehead that left a stain of dried blood down to her eyebrow.

Over a dozen thoughts seem to leap to the forefront of Atraxa’s mind, many of which are contradictory, and very few of which make anything approaching logical sense. Someone had hurt the fleshling, and they deserved to be thanked or hunted down, although she struggled to think of coherent justifications for either course of action. She stares for a moment longer, then recenters herself. The fleshling was an annoyance and nothing more to her, anything she may have just experienced must be another effect of the plane’s ambient Halo.

“…You are injured,” she eventually settles on.

“You should see the other guy,” Jaxis says, unconcerned. She crosses the room towards the white chamber, opening it and removing a glass bottle with a metal cap.

“Why are you injured? Were you attacked?”

The fleshling removes the bottle cap with her teeth and spits it into her hand before responding. “In a sense. I’m a boxer: It’s my job to get attacked by people. I get to give them shiners right back, of course.”

“Ah, a gladiator. We had similar arenas in the Dross Pits. Legions of fighters put one another to the test of the blade. Champions, rebels, aspirants. They fought for honor, redemption, survival, all in the legacy of Yawgmoth’s Phyrexia.” Atraxa watches the motions of Jaxis’ sweat-covered throat as she drinks. “What do you deign to fight for?”

“Money, mainly,” she answers, plopping down in the chair opposite to the angel. “Life here ain’t cheap, especially not while tryin’ to take care of your ass.”

“I never asked you t-”

“I know,” the fleshling interrupts, “We’ve done this song and dance before, no need to go through it again.”

Atraxa sneers and turns back to look at the view. A few seconds pass in awkward silence.

“…You been lookin’ out the window this whole time?”

“For most of the time you were gone, yes.”

“You mind me askin’ why?”

“I did not have anything better to do with my time,” Atraxa spits.

“…Fair enough,” the fleshling nods.

The uncomfortable silence returns, this time for several minutes.

“Penny for your thoughts?” murmurs Jaxis.

Atraxa does not say anything for a long time before she is finally able to wrestle the turmoil of her mind into words.

“…You ask me to adapt to this plane, to these people. Such a thing is not possible. I was already perfect. To change would be an insult to Phyrexia. These people… they sicken me. They are too diverse, too disparate. They only work together when it is convenient for them. Worse yet, they are the ones who did this to my body. They are the wards of the angels who proved to be such a thorn in Phyrexia’s side with their insipid Halo. So no, fleshling, I will not forgive them. I will not change to be like them. Not ever.”

Jaxis does not respond. Atraxa feels proud for a moment, thinking she has finally perforated the fleshling’s daft arguments, before she turns, and sees that their eyes are closed. She has fallen asleep, with her head propped up against her fist.

“Of all the disrespectful…” she mutters under her breath.

And then a thought occurs to her.

Slowly, quietly, she rises to her feet and walks forward. She places her hands on either side of the fleshling’s chair, and leans in close, bringing a claw beneath their chin. At any moment, she expects the fleshling to shoot awake, to conjure another shadow to protect herself, as she had when Atraxa had attempted to ambush her before. And yet, they remain still and silent, not reacting even when her claw makes contact with their skin.

This is the closest she’s ever gotten to being able to fulfill her goal of destroying them. Victory was in reach, just beneath Jaxis’ flesh. Atraxa’s lips split into a frenzied grin, and she wills herself to finally do away with the fleshling.

Her arm does not move.

She glares down at it, perturbed by her own inaction. Assuming fatigue, she withdraws her arm, stretches it for a moment, then lashes out with intent to draw blood.

The tips of her claws stop centimeters away from the fleshling’s neck.

What is wrong with her? How is it that she still remains incapable of fulfilling the promise she had made to herself? Right now, it would be so simple to defeat her, to stain her claws with the fleshling’s blood before they had the chance to react.

But Jaxis trusted that she would not. Perhaps it was not a conscious thought, but the fact remains that Jaxis felt safe enough around Atraxa to drop any sort of guard in this manner.

A voice from the back of her skull argues that it should not matter if the fleshling does not consider her a threat. If she does, it was just more evidence of their insolence. It was Atraxa’s duty to dispose of this woman for what she has done, for…

For whom? Elesh Norn, who never truly valued the wellbeing of Phyrexia in the first place? Jin-Gitaxias, Vorinclex, or Sheoldred, who were all dead? Urabrask, a traitor and a heretic? Ixhel, who likely despises her? Phyrexia was gone and she was alone. There would be no punishment for failing to eliminate Jaxis, no reward for success.

The same voice in the back of her skull screams that it does not matter: the fleshling is a sinner, a defiler, a dissident. Atraxa could be the last Phyrexian in the multiverse and she would still be compelled to destroy them.

And where would that leave us? Even more alone than we already are?

Content, says the voice. Killing the fleshling would be its own reward.

Are you certain?

Atraxa stands there for a minute or two, trembling, the debate raging on within her mind. Finally, she withdraws her hand, strangling the armrest of the chair in fury and threatening to puncture the upholstery.

She should want to kill the fleshling, but she does not.

All she wants is for things to make sense again, to not feel so pained and lost. The glistening oil has abandoned her, and she longs for its guiding hands. For all she pretends that she cannot or will not change, she knows that she already has. She has been broken beyond repair.

No, no, she would not let those thoughts occlude her once again. Looking for anything to distract her, she gazes at Jaxis’ closed eyes, and turns her mind towards the issue in front of her: the ever-present enigma of the fleshling. She focuses as hard as she can, trying to deduce what the glistening oil would have her do if it was not dormant. Or, failing that, what she intended to do now that slaying the fleshling had failed so miserably.

Was she an enemy? The inhabitants of this plane were unerringly corrupt, selfish, filthy. They were anathema to Phyrexia, not merely as a difference of ideals, but from the virulent Halo that clogged the air. The only reason Atraxa has been able to survive on the plane for as long as she has is the protection afforded to her by her previous life. And yet, if the fleshling wished to kill Atraxa, she almost certainly would have done so by now. And according to the fleshling, she believes that they could be on the same side. What that side is, Atraxa does not know.

There were sympathizers of Phyrexia who had not yet been freed of the prison of skin. Was Jaxis like them, similar to the woman who had aided Sheoldred on Dominaria? No, Jaxis was vocal about her distaste for the ambitions of Phyrexia. And yet she is still invested in Atraxa’s physical wellbeing, unaware or uncaring of the inherent contradiction.

Does the fleshling not think of Atraxa as a Phyrexian?

The utter foolishness of this idea unfortunately only makes it seem all the more plausible for the fleshling to believe. There is no Atraxa without Phyrexia. She had given everything she had to it. Is Jaxis merely projecting naïve ideals of individuality onto her? Is there actually some small part of the angel that remains without Phyrexia? Is all of this just some form of cruel trick?

She is speculating too much. She needs to step back and study this scientifically, go back over the evidence available. The fleshling is a sinner just like the rest of the inhabitants of this plane. She is a prideful imbecile who thinks she knows the pain Atraxa is experiencing. She sees Atraxa as a weak and fragile thing. And yet at the same time, she shows true care for Atraxa’s wellbeing. She encourages Atraxa to heal where other Phyrexians would have sent her to be disassembled for parts. Jaxis has kept her safe from prying eyes, has given her shelter and food (not that she needed the food), and has yet to ask for anything in return. They see something in Atraxa that might not even be there.

What does all of that make Jaxis? A pawn? A guide? An equal? It could be numerous things, but a threat was not one of them…

Disgusted, Atraxa comes to the conclusion that, in the same way that the fleshling trusts her, she has grown to trust the fleshling. Despite all the irritation they have caused, they cannot imagine Jaxis trying to harm her. And she can no longer imagine harming the fleshling either.

Atraxa realizes suddenly that she has subconsciously leaned closer and closer to the fleshling. Their faces are nearly touching. An inert and miniscule part of her stirs, telling her to do something, but she cannot tell what. She dismisses it instantly and straightens herself, gritting her teeth as her weight is placed back on her legs.

 So: she trusts the fleshling, not by choice, but by circumstance. What now?

 Just because she trusts the fleshling does not mean she likes her. They are still impossibly annoying, their motivations are unknown, and she would rather have never crossed paths with her. She just does not want them to die, either. Admitting this was not a defeat, she told herself. The conclusion to these matters was still up in the air. Perhaps now her goal should be to evacuate as soon as possible. The where is unimportant, only that she must leave this all behind her. The safest course of action was to find something to demonstrate that she could be self-sufficient, that the fleshling’s “help” was patronizing and unnecessary.

She looks over to the box of oats on the counter.

An hour or so later, the fleshling finally stirs.

“…Shit, did I doze off?” she yawns. “My bad, usually don’t have guests around after a match.”

Atraxa does not respond, having resumed her position on the couch, gazing out the window. She watches out of the corner of her eyes as the fleshling stretches out her neck and shoulders, before finally noticing the pot of oatmeal on the table in front of her.

“…Did you make this?”

“…The instructions on the box were simple. I trust we are even now.”

“I mean we will be if you ever pull me out of from under a dozen skyscrapers, but this is a good start. Thanks.”

The fleshling picks up the pot, stirring it with the small metal spoon Atraxa had found, and then stops. She stares at it for a moment.

“…I know you said you were gonna stop trying to kill me, but I should probably ask just for safety’s sake: You didn’t poison this or anything, did you?”

“I did not.”

“Grand,” she says, and digs in.

A poisonous feeling churns in the bottom of Atraxa’s stomach, as though her Phyrexian body is trying to kill her for this act of charity. She ignores it and hopes it passes.

“A bit cold, but not bad for your first attempt.”

Atraxa does not respond, instead turning back towards the window. No matter how genuine it may be, the fleshling’s praise does nothing for her. Nothing at all.

“…Something on your mind?” asks Jaxis. Even if Atraxa does trust her, there is no need to let the fleshling know that. She attempts to change the subject.

“From what I have seen, the area surrounding this building is rather well-populated. How is it that you were able to transport me here without anyone noticing?”

The fleshling gestures over her shoulder to the hanging cylindrical device in the far corner. “Punching bag,” she states. It takes several seconds for Atraxa to realize her meaning.

“…You carried me all the way here in that?”

“Well in the outer covering for it but, yeah,” says the fleshling. Atraxa focuses as much willpower as she can into not immediately betraying the path of nonviolence she had decided on.

“…This is perhaps the most foolish thing you have told me yet. The way you manage to outdo yourself is almost impressive.”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

“…You never cease to vex me, fleshling.”

Jaxis chuckles. Atraxa can feel a heat rising within her torso as she watches Jaxis smile, tan skin illuminated by amber rays from the setting sun flowing through the curtains.

The heat continues to rise, and she doubles over, vomiting onto the carpet.

Chapter Text

Chapter Seven- Interlude: Ixhel

Ixhel was alone.

It was an unwelcome notion. To be so unattended after spending so much time in the halls of the Fair Basilica, acting in unison with all the other servants of the Machine Orthodoxy. Phyrexians were not made to be alone, and solitude was a punishment in and of itself. And yet at the same time she knew she deserved far worse for what she had done.

She had been instructed to get rid of Vishgraz, of “it,” as Commander Atraxa had called him. She had done so, in a sense. She had sent him off to the Dross Pits and barely even thought about following him. She had not intended to abandon the Fair Basilica, not at first. Her plan was to return to her rightful place at her Commander’s side, having fulfilled what was asked of her. The trouble with the aspirant Belaxis and the traitor Geth could all be put behind them and forgotten.

But she was a coward. As time passed and she did not meet with Atraxa, her mind became crowded with doubts, anxieties. What would she say, when they did inevitably cross paths? Would she lie and say she killed Vishgraz? Admit to having followed the letter of her Commander’s orders and not the spirit? She knew that not undoing Vishgraz was as much a defiance as creating him in the first place. When her Commander told her to get rid of Vishgraz, she knew that she intended for Ixhel to destroy him. And she failed.

As these thoughts poured into her mind, a mortifying line of logic emerged: Vishgraz was her creation, made of disparate elements sourced from Ixhel herself and the things she liked and hated. He was unwelcome within the Fair Basilica, and her Commander bade her to destroy him. Ixhel, too, was a creation. What was stopping the Mother of Machines, or Yawgmoth forbid Atraxa herself from deciding she was not welcome in the Fair Basilica? She was meant to be a weapon, and she had shown that she was fallible. Was it her fate now, to be destroyed?

At first, she had tried to rationalize this line of thinking away. It would not make a difference if she were to be destroyed: her life as an individual had no value to Phyrexia as a whole. She was a weapon to cull the incompleat and was, at the end of the day, replaceable. She always had been. Yet somehow there was no calm or comfort to be found in this truth. Before her encounter with Belaxis, she had never truly examined what it would mean if she were to die. It had never been something that garnered her attention. But now, with destruction looming large on the horizon, she found herself deeply unsettled by the prospect of nonexistence.

If she were eradicated, it would mean she would never be able to see Vishgraz again. She would never hear his musical laugh or run her fingertips along his mismatched exoskeleton. He might not even know what had happened to her. Would she really lay down and accept that? Would she be so willing to allow a world without any trace of her left in it?

For the first time in her admittedly short lifespan, she had found a reason to live not predicated on her usefulness to others, and in doing so had given the Machine Orthodoxy the perfect reason to take her life away from her.

An entirely new sensation had a hold on her, and she knew that it was fear.

So, she fled, leaving as quickly and quietly as she could, out of the porcelain citadels of the Fair Basilica and into blackened hunched hills of the Dross Pits. She had intended to look for Vishgraz, to finally follow the ache that had nested in her chest since their separation. But the fear had a tight grip on her mind and said that it was too close to home, that she would be found easily and dealt with for her abandonment. She flew even further, past the churning quicksilver seas of the Surgical Bay, through the echoing forests of the Hunter Maze, over the blazing clamor of the Autonomous Furnace, all the way to Mirrex, to reside with all the other cast-off things. And almost instantly, she regretted it.

Certainly, her behavior would have had consequences, but fleeing from them was even worse. It was an admission of guilt, one that solidified her inability to function properly on behalf of the Machine Orthodoxy. How could she face Phyrexia’s enemies fearlessly when she could not even face Phyrexia itself?

So now, she was alone, perched on the rusted hull of a machine from far before her time, with the weight of shame hanging from her neck. She kept her wings and tail wrapped tight around her as a guard against the biting winds of the ruined sphere. She did not have a plan for what to do next. Running away was the third real decision she had ever made by herself. She was reluctant to make a fourth. At the very least, she was far from her home and unlikely to be able to do any further harm.

A clattering of metal drew her attention to the ground below. There was a small automaton with a beak-like head, scrounging among the scrap metal and refuse, stopping to place whatever it decided was worth keeping into a large metal capsule attached to its back with a series of aging leather straps. It looked old, incredibly old, having repaired itself time and time again from disparate parts. She watched it for an hour or so, as it stopped to arrange some of what it had collected into a stash for others to collect. She watched as another automaton approached it. Its body was a much different shape, with spindly limbs and a torso covered in harsh spikes of oxidized iron. She expected some sort of combat to break out, but instead watched as the two touched foreheads to one another, conveying some inaudible communication. They were different, yet the same.

If it noticed her, it gave no sign.

She had slaughtered several similarly sized scraplings on her pilgrimage to the surface, hoping that it would soothe her. It did not. The act gave her a small, twisted pleasure in making others hurt as much as she did, but the feeling quickly faded. Anything she could do to reassert herself as loyal now paled in comparison to her sins.

The being below had no such concerns. Why would it? It had received its directive long ago and was still following those orders loyally to this day, regardless of the fact that its master had passed away long ago. It did not have to struggle with things like feelings or doubts. It was a perfect servant.

She envied it.

Suddenly, something in the far in the distance shouted. Ixhel turned towards the source, and heard it yell once again, closer, clearer, disturbingly familiar. Was it saying her name, whatever it was? Was she imagining things? Was she in danger? She could already feel the damning fear creeping back up her spine, saying “It is her, she has come for you, that shadow in the fog is the outline of her wings, you must flee before she sees you, now!”

She ran. She chided herself for being an irredeemable coward but she ran, nonetheless. Dropping from her perch, she dropped into a low-lying flight over the ruined sphere, desperate to get away. In her panic, her legs snagged on something, and she went tumbling over into a deep pit in the ground. The last thing she saw was a metal support beam hurtling towards her face. And then, darkness.

The darkness still surrounded Ixhel when she next opened her eyes. She slowly rose to her feet, finding no trace of light no matter where she looked. Slowly though, as her vision adjusted, she could make out a tall figure in the middle distance, with black wisps of fog licking around her form. Regal, elegant, with a long pair of porcelain horns on either side of her face. Was it Atraxa or Elesh Norn? The choking darkness made it hard to tell for certain, but it was unlikely that Elesh Norn would leave her domain, so Ixhel ventured a guess.

“C-commander? Is that you?”

The apparition smiled.

“Fear not, child, for I have undone your mistake.”

She lobbed something towards Ixhel’s feet. As it rolled to a stop, she recognized it. It was Vishgraz’s head. A horrid scream echoed throughout the void. The pain in her throat told Ixhel the scream was her own.

An impossibly loud crashing sound rang around Ixhel, launching her back into consciousness. Adrenaline filled her veins as she looked around for where her Commander had gone, but there was no one there. What had she just seen? An illusion? A dream? A second, equally loud crash was enough to convince her that there were more urgent matters at hand.

She had fallen from Mirrex into the Autonomous Furnace, based on the brass steam pipes that surrounded her in a shape not unlike a cage, or perhaps a nest. She could see through the sizable gaps between some of them to a room awash in hot orange light. The fine details quickly became irrelevant as she saw what stood in the center of the chamber.

An enormous creature with a central torso endlessly dripping with molten liquid, propped up by angular tendrils of bent metal tubes, like a monstrous synthesis between a pipe organ and a combustion engine. Four arms hung limply beneath a disproportionately small head, surrounded by a large cast-iron ring in the shape of the Phyrexian symbol covered in spikes. Ixhel realized that the being was one of the Domini, although its appearance was far less graceful than the others she had seen. Its movements were stilted, violent, as it snapped joint-ridden limbs to send out spikey protrusions at something burrowing through the earth.

As she leaned forward to get a better view, the Praetor Urabrask erupted from the ground in a burst of magma.

He dashed across the loose bits of scaffolding and abandoned machinery that cluttered the floor of the chamber as giant ferrous stalagmites shot up from the ground, hot on his heels. Were they fighting? Seeing the Praetor she had only heard rumors of was strange to begin with, but this situation was unprecedented. Ixhel watched in captivated horror as Urabrask dove back into the ground, only to reappear directly behind the Dominus, using the confusion to claw his way up the creature’s body and attempt to place its head in a chokehold. The titan roared, thrashing around, before it could finally get a hold on him, throwing him to the ground. Urabrask used an axe-like protrusion on his forearm to stabilize himself, scraping across the ground as the Dominus prepared to launch another barrage of spikes.

Before it could, however, Urabrask held out his hands into a cross shape, the tips of his fingers in contact with the opposite palm. The Dominus dropped its weaponry to the ground and made a bellowing sound, as close to laughter as it could be expected to produce. Urabrask made a similar noise, flopping onto his back and staring up at the ceiling.

“I missed you too, old friend.”

‘Friend’? Why would he call the Dominus by such a petty, incompleat term? Further yet, why would he miss it? Had he gone somewhere?

There were more important things to focus on, as Urabrask righted himself and began to walk towards the wall of the chamber directly beneath Ixhel. She could tell there was some form of tunnel nearby at ground level, so she doubted he had spotted her. She leaned back into the shadows anyway and held her breath as the Praetor drew ever closer. Right when she had believed herself to have been undetected, Urabrask swirled around and smashed his arm into the pipes directly beneath her position. With a clatter of metal, Ixhel plummeted to the ground, wincing as she turned to see Urabrask squatting above her.

“You look lost, little lamb.”

She choked down her nerves and pointed her spear at Urabrask’s neck.

“I do not fear you, betrayer.”

“That’s fair,” he said, gently pushing the spear tip away, “I wouldn’t be afraid of me either. Were you sent here?”

“I… No, I was not.”

“I assumed. You didn’t have the look of someone with a cause.”

Ixhel had no idea what that was supposed to mean. She was unable to fully devote any mental faculty towards deciphering it with the titan still looming over them, hollow eye sockets covered in drips of steel like melted wax, tendrils twitching impatiently. Urabrask turned to face it, and it raised its hands and moved them in some manner of communication, which Urabrask returned in kind. To Ixhel’s surprise, the Dominus interpreted whatever Urabrask had signed as a form of direction and departed to the far parts of the cavern to gleefully send destructive spikes through the cold, empty furnaces.

“What… what dark magic have you found, heretic, to bind a Dominus to follow your command?”

Urabrask made a bemused purring sound. “Solphim, following commands? You could more easily see a vorrac sprout wings.”

“But it listened to you, I saw it.”

“She listens to me because I listened to her first. Tell me, how much do you really know about the Domini?”

“…What is there to know? They are enigmatic to all Phyrexians. Not even the Progress Engine has been able to divulge their secrets.”

“Ah, yes, but Jin’s people wouldn’t have thought to just ask, would they?”

Urabrask trained his sight on Solphim and began at length to speak.

“This plane had a Worldsoul, once. It was an enduring thing: survived the transition from Argentum to Mirrodin and Mirrodin to New Phyrexia. But it didn’t survive the division of the plane into the Spheres. Instead, we got the Domini. In a sense, they’re the ‘true’ Phyrexia, each the manifestation of their respective layer’s ideals. Drivnod tortures, Tekuthal observes, Zopandrel hunts, et cetera. Solphim, like me, like all truly free Phyrexians, is propelled by id, pure mayhem and desire. I’ve tried to wrangle her impulses into something a bit more creative than destructive, but it’s been rather futile. So I just encourage her impulses to destroy, while being careful that I only encourage her to destroy things that needed destroying. It’s a functional relationship.”

Ixhel was perplexed, to say the least. How did Urabrask know so much? Or was he lying? If he was lying it was quite an impressive lie. She had never expected the infamous traitor of the Autonomous Furnace to be so verbose. Perhaps that skill was what had allowed him to guile so many Phyrexians to his cause. Regardless, he did not appear to consider her a threat, which was a mildly insulting relief.

“I imagine you’d like to get off the floor?” he said, holding out a hand.

Hesitating slightly, she took it. Urabrask lifted her off the floor and jabbed out a claw in a fluid motion. Ixhel braced herself, assuming some type of attack, but Urabrask merely tapped a finger against her brow, then withdrew his hand. It burned slightly, but the pain quickly faded. She touched a finger to the mark, finding a droplet of viscous liquid, a coruscating shade of teal and violet, which quickly evaporated in the surrounding heat.

“Wh… what was that?”

“A precaution,” the Praetor said, examining the finger. He rubbed his thumb against it, then turned and started to walk away. “You can stay or leave if you want, just don’t interfere with anything.”

As Ixhel watched him go, a thought sprouted in her brain. The key to her salvation was right in front of her. This was a chance. This was her chance. Urabrask was Phyrexia’s greatest enemy. If she defeated him, surely, she would be praised for it. At the very least she could receive a reduced punishment for her crimes. She would return triumphant so long as she brought the heretic’s head. She raised her spear. Urabrask gave no heed. She charged forward.

But before it could connect, he dodged. Acting on pure instinct, Urabrask grabbed the end of her blade mid-thrust, and brought the blade on his forearm down onto the shaft, slicing it in half in a single, swift motion. Ixhel fell forward onto the ground from the momentum. She clenched her hands in frustration. Again, she had proven herself to be a failure. Just another nail in the coffin. How egotistical it was for her to think she could be anything else.

She closed her eyes and awaited the killing blow.

But it never came.

After a few seconds, she slowly looked up at the Praetor. She found it difficult to read the expressions of his steel-plated head, but he did not look vengeful or even angry, merely puzzled.

“…Why’d you do that?” he asked, tossing the tip of the spear aside. “What’d you hope to accomplish?”

Ixhel felt her lips tremble. “I… If I were to destroy you, then I thought… that perhaps she would forgive me.”

“‘She’? You mean Norn?”

Ixhel knew the answer should be yes. The Grand Cenobite should be at the forefront of all Phyrexians’ minds. But she could not claim that in truth. So she remained silent.

“…Your design is familiar; the four arms, the wings, the tail. Don’t tell me… would Atraxa happen to be your mother?”

There was a brief flare of something from deep within Ixhel, nearly identical to the feeling when Atraxa had called her a perfect creation. But no, it was wrong. She knew who the true Mother was, and it was not Atraxa. Ignore the feeling and it will eventually go away, she reminded herself, before attempting to reinforce what little composure she had left before she spoke.

“…There is only one Mother. Elesh Norn, holiest of all Phyrexians, the Grand Ceno-”

Urabrask cut her off partway through with a wave of the hand. “Sorry. You spend enough time around the Vulshok and other incompleat and their vernacular starts to influence your own. Did Atraxa make you, is what I mean to ask.”

Ixhel said nothing, then gave a hesitant nod. Urabrask had just apologized to her. He barely qualified as a praetor, but she was nonetheless stunned that he would admit wrongdoing so freely.

“What brought you here, then?” he said.

The simple question felt it had pierced a boil, and the answers flowed readily from her. Everything she had been keeping in: Atraxa, Belaxis, Geth, Vishgraz, all of it spilled into the air around her like quicksilver from a cracked vat until she was entirely empty. She was a fruit that had rotten on the vine, an insect suffocating in a pool of sap. She was quiet for what felt like hours, and then looked up to see Urabrask watching her, expectantly.

“…What?”

“I’m waiting for the part where you say something you did that was actually wrong.”

“…I made Vishgraz. I am supposed to be a weapon and I thought I could make something. Not only did I make him, but I made him without permission, without reason. And worse yet… I may have derived pleasure from it,” the last sentence was barely a whisper.

“That’s it?!”

Ixhel nodded. Surely her sin was obvious. She was not sure why he needed to ask at all. Urabrask stood up, and gave a throaty growl as he paced back and forth.

“Every day I’m stunned at the depravity of the Machine Orthodoxy,” Urabrask said. His voice was full of rage, but none of it seemed to be directed at her. “So full of vitriol and dogma that they consider the very act of creation a sin. And they call me a heretic.”

“They… They did not do anything wrong. It is my fault that this happened,” Ixhel said, compelled to defend her home, despite everything.

“Fecal matter! The hypocrisy is obvious! Atraxa made you, didn’t she?”

“Yes,” Ixhel muttered. She had already abandoned this familiar line of logic. “But that is different. She is the Grand Unifier. Elesh Norn speaks only truth, and Atraxa is her mouthpiece. And I… I am no one.”

After a moment, Urabrask produced a mournful tone.

“Norn’s roots run deep, indeed. Can’t be removed so simply. She’s hurt you in a way you can’t even recognize, Ixhel. They both have. My heart goes out to you.”

“I do not want your heart, I...” she trailed off. What was she doing here, receiving pity from the Heretic? Giving the Mother of Machines and all her subjects a bad name. Never before had she felt so foolish, so young. “...I think I need to go back to the Fair Basilica.”

“You don’t have to, y’know,” Urabrask pled, “You could stay here, far from prying eyes. Nothing good will come from you returning.”

Ixhel should deny it. She says nothing. When it became clear that she had made up her mind, Urabrask exhaled, and gave a small nod. Ixhel turned to depart.

“Your presence here’s reminded me, though,” Urabrask spoke, adopting a more casual tone, “Atraxa’s likely the strongest weapon at Norn’s disposal. It’d be prescient for the upcoming rebellion if I removed her from the equation.”

“No!” It took a moment for Ixhel to realize the voice was her own.

“No?”

“You… I cannot let you do that.”

“You think you can stop me?”

“I have to try.”

“No you don’t. If you try to stop me, you’ll probably die. You’re willing to risk that outcome?”

“I… I may be a disappointment to her, but she is still my Commander. I owe my very existence to her. I cannot just stand aside.”

“Why not? She’s only your Commander, as you say. If a tool fails, it’s the fault of the maker, not the tool itself. You might even be able to secure a promotion, rising to her status off her downfall.” Urabrask’s gaze was as hard as steel, as if challenging Ixhel to relent. She would not.

She clenched her fists and shouted, “I do not want to replace her!”

“You would reject a chance to act as a herald of compleation for the multiverse? Even if it was what Norn planned for you?!” Urabrask matched her fervor.

“I do not care about Elesh Norn’s desires! Her plans for the multiverse never mattered to me anywhere near as much as Atraxa does! All I wanted was for her to be proud of me!”

As her voice echoed across the walls of Solphim’s chamber, and the panic cleared away from her senses, it dawned on Ixhel the magnitude of heresy she had just spoken. She clapped a hand against her mouth, as though that would somehow put her words back in her throat.

Urabrask’s expression softened into something sly, almost smug. She got the impression that forcing that confession out of her had been the Praetor’s intention all along. She felt despicably naïve for falling for it.

He looked down, and she did the same, slowly removing her hand from her face. All four of her arms were shaking.

“What… What is wrong with me? Why am I so faulty, so inadequate? Why am I not good enough?”

She flinched as Urabrask suddenly dashed towards her, assuming some sort of attack. But he merely wrapped his arms around her, careful not to injure her with the blades on his forearms. She struggled for a moment as his tail wrapped around her legs, and his head rested on top of her own.

“There’s nothing wrong with you. I promise.”

She clenched her eyes tight and let the heat from his body spread throughout her own. He held her until she stopped trembling.

Several days later, Ixhel still was not used to the ruckus of the Autonomous Furnace. Urabrask had led her from Solphim’s stomping grounds to a settlement on the Oxidda Chain. Or, as he put it, he was walking in that direction regardless and she was free to go the same way if she desired. She had nowhere else to go, so she followed.

“You may stay as long as you want, so long as you don’t harm anyone here,” he had said, then departed to further parts of his sphere.

With some unease, she had found herself as welcome in the arms of the furnace dwellers as she had been in those of the Orthodoxy. She was not the only one to be granted this reception. Time and again she had seen Phyrexians from all across the plane, either stopping during a larger migration or making more permanent residence. Some of these were not surprising: it was well-known that the nefarious schemers of the Dross Pits were beginning to ally themselves with the fiery Praetor’s cause. But there were also sleek, copper-armored hunter-knights who honed their weapons on the furnaces’ anvils, and a handful of ruddy-skinned warriors who she originally thought to be aspirants but later recognized as Mirran rebels. Her throat tightened whenever she saw them, reminded of Belaxis’ similarly soft, incompleat flesh.

She had even spotted a zealot or two from the Basilica. Their gazes had met with a reticent awkwardness and an unspoken mutual agreement not to mention their presence here to anyone else. The only demographic that was in short supply were the Gitaxian scientists, likely far too paranoid as to the inner goings-on of the Autonomous Furnace to actually go and check themselves. There was, however, a massive lurking figure that glided on the scorching updrafts of the forges, reaching out with dozens of blood-red skeletal arms. It was speckled with countless glowing blue eyes of very similar construction to those of the Surgical Bay. Ixhel attempted to conceal herself from view whenever it passed by, but she doubted that there was anyone who had seen it that it had not seen first.

She had semi-frequent bouts of self-loathing for not upholding the Argent Etchings and removing the heads of those around her. At several points she flew to a high vantage point and tried to calculate how many of the traitors she could kill before being stopped. She never acted on these thoughts. No number ever appeared high enough to be forgiven for walking among traitors in the first place. Were they all in similar situations to her, unwilling to face their own failures? It challenged what she knew. She did not like it.

The native furnace dwellers also confused her. Every member of the Machine Orthodoxy had always told Ixhel the inhabitants of the furnace were brash, chaotic, and masterless. And, well, they were, but they certainly were not mindless. When she watched them at a distance like this, she was struck by the extent to which many were content to keep to themselves, using flaming breath to forge bits of scrap metal together into small contraptions or totems with no clear purpose.

…Their tinkering did not look particularly difficult now that she focused on it. Surely, she could do just as good a job if she deigned to attempt it. She did not have the same internal flame as the workers, but that could easily be compensated for. If she took a few discarded pieces no one would notice and held them near a magmatic channel in an isolated room, she could stick them together, like so...

“Ixhel, there you are.”

Urabrask’s voice from behind snapped her out of her line of thought, and she looked down with shock to see that her thoughts had become actions. On reflex, she dropped into a kneeling position, trying to conceal her construction beneath her back. A voice in the back of her mind berated her for showing deference to a heretic, but she ignored it. It was not as though her situation could get any worse.

“Praetor Urabrask.”

“What’s with the kneel?”

Ixhel froze. Was this a trick question? “It is a customary sign of respect to higher-ups, a-at least where I come from.”

“I’ve never considered myself anyone’s master, let alone yours. You ain’t gotta kneel.”

“I… Yes, I understand.”

She rose to her feet, only now noticing that Urabrask looked rather different. His left arm beneath the elbow had been stripped of any flesh it once had, replaced with interlocking steel plates. Fire licked out from the gaps between them.

“What happened to your arm?”

“Your maker happened.”

“…You… you encountered her?” There was a tightness in Ixhel’s chest where her heart would be if she had one. A feeling somewhere between hope and dread.

“I did. She doesn’t know you’re here, don’t worry. We had a rather nice conversation before she took off the arm. I’d like to think I go think I got through to her somehow. I can’t claim to know what she’s thinking, or the extent to which she’s bought in to the lies of the Argent Etchings, but the worry when I mentioned your name was plain on her face. Take from that what you will.”

She stared off into nothingness as she attempted to internalize this information. Try as she might, it did not seem to fit. Her Commander thought of her as a weapon, she knew this was true. So why was she worried? Would she not just build a new weapon? Was it possible Atraxa experienced that same sensation stronger than any loyalty when the two touched? Something in Ixhel’s stomach was twisted, confused.

“What’s behind your back?”

Ixhel stiffened. “…Nothing,” she lied.

“I’m not upset, Ixhel. I just want to see it,” he said, holding out his newly formed hand.

Ixhel did not move for a few seconds, then begrudgingly handed him the craft. The bolts, screws, and other scraps she had taken had been formed into an insectoid shape. Urabrask held it up to the light and rotated in his fingers. Anxiety swelled in Ixhel’s chest as she noticed different parts of the creation that were poorly done or that she wished she had more time on. Exposing it felt like exposing her insides. She braced herself for a reaction of disappointment from the Praetor.

“It’s nice. You’ve got a knack for it.”

Ixhel did not expect that. Urabrask tossed the figurine back to her. She caught it and stared down at it. Urabrask was rattling off some advice on metalworking, but she could not focus on the words. She felt… complicated, all of a sudden.

“I do not understand.”

“What’s not to get?”

“Why did I make this? No one told me to. Atraxa or the Mother of Machines will never see it, and even if they did, they would hate it. It does not serve any purpose to Phyrexia.”

“Because you wanted to.”

Ixhel stared at him.

“The Orthodoxy certainly doesn’t agree with me, and you may not either, but I believe that this,” he pointed to the figurine, “is why we are here. Creation, chaos, change. You put time, energy, and care into making something new, and that’s worth being proud of.”

A shout from outside broke the confidential silence. Urabrask clicked his teeth.

“Ah, duty calls. Take it easy, I’ll see you around,” he said, and left.

Ixhel was bewildered, to say the least. The Praetor had touched on something deep inside of her, it seemed. Something hard and cold that now felt soft and warm. It was… a nice feeling. Akin to the swelling when Atraxa brushed her fingers against her cheek. Yet, it was different: while Urabrask may have unlocked it, the warmth came from her, it was warmer, larger, a more permanent, happier state of self. Perhaps Urabrask was a heretic and a traitor, or perhaps the Machine Orthodoxy was nothing but lies. It did not matter. He understood. He understood, and that meant she was not broken. He understood, and that meant she did not have to be filled with shame. He understood, and that meant she was not alone.

The Fair Basilica was far quieter than Ixhel had remembered. Gone were the endless marches of Phyrexian foot soldiers and the distant drone of unified hymns. With no one to hear her sermons, even Mondrak had fallen silent.

Large sections of New Phyrexia had crumbled down onto one another, creating far more straightforward access between the Spheres. The ecosystems had started to meld with one another, and several spires of the Basilica were now overgrown with copper vines or home to waterfalls of dross and quicksilver. The surface level damage was not the most concerning change that had transpired. Shortly after the disaster, Ixhel had made her way to the top of the world at the Monumental Façade and found that the five suns had disappeared, replaced with a greyish-blue sky and a muted sound of ebbing tides.

On her expedition back down to the core of the plane, she had gathered with small clusters of Phyrexians who were still capable of communication. Ixhel had done her best to assuage the panic and consternation that gripped the populace, sharing what she knew and listening in kind. The mental connection the glistening oil had provided was weakened, leaving many in the dark as to the exact details of what had occurred. The status or whereabouts of most of the Praetors was unclear. Two things were certain: large portions of New Phyrexia had become lifeless or catatonic, and Elesh Norn was dead. Rumors spread like wildfire as to who, if anyone, would be able to fill the newfound vacuum. It was one such rumor, from an evangel who claimed to have been at the epicenter when everything started to go wrong, that had grabbed Ixhel’s interest, bringing her down to the familiar fogs of the Fair Basilica.

She stepped carefully over the wreckage, weaving her way through the fallen bodies of Phyrexians and incompleat rebels. Occasionally, she paused to retrieve some trinket or bauble from the floor and place it in the bag hanging from her shoulder. She had woven it from fibers stripped from Tangle vines, in an effort that took several days and false starts. The process was tedious, yet relaxing, and reminded her of sinew healing. She lifted a hexgold hatchet from the ground and examined the blade. It was well-made. She took it with her as she ventured further down, past the forest of Mycosynth and into the place where the Multiversal Invasion had met its conclusion: the Seedcore.

She could still see evidence of the aftermath of the battle: scorch marks where Phyrexians had been burnt to a crisp, muddled stains consisting of oil and blood alike, the ashy husk of the tree-woman who had found the resolve to shunt the plane into the void it now found itself in, at the cost of her life.

There was one thing that was not here, however: Atraxa. If there was anywhere in New Phyrexia she would have been, alive or dead, it was here. But she was absent. She had heard that Atraxa had been sent to herald the invasion on a far-off plane, but she needed to check for herself. She had wanted the chance to speak to her, one final time. To say what exactly, she was not certain. Some combination of forgiveness and apology, perhaps.

She had witnessed some nature of dream or vision while she slept, recently. It was the first memory of her life, when she had awoken in the Surgical Bay with her Commander by her side to quickly counsel her through the early clumsiness that came with having a physical body. What had stuck out to her was the expression on Atraxa’s face: it was one of pure elation, without any demands or expectation. The fact that her creation was alive was enough. Some small fragment of Atraxa, it appeared, had shared the fulfillment that came with making something new. Ixhel had wanted to know if that fragment still existed. And now she would never get the chance. As the truth settled, she found her eyes leaking beneath the fleshy lattice of her mask. She stood there; the silence only broken by the sound of small droplets of oil hitting the ground.

“…I think I loved you,” she admitted to the empty room, “And I hope you felt the same way, even if neither of us realized it. Goodbye, mother.”

As she wiped her cheeks and turned to make her exit, there was one final thing she noticed. At the precise center of the room was a bright red stain with small chips of porcelain armor scattered across it. The trace elements that remained of the former Mother of Machines.

Out of habit, Ixhel glanced around to make sure she was wholly alone. And then she spat on it.

She would not weep for the loss of Elesh Norn. Death was the inevitable outcome she had chosen for herself when she became a tyrant. The rest, however, she would mourn, in time. Like her, they had been manipulated and coerced by the porcelain grip of the Mother of Machines, and were, in a sense, victims of her cruelty. She would remember them all. Even the tree-woman. Potential designs for monuments or engravings to commemorate the event danced in her mind as she climbed back up through the Mycosynth Gardens.

As she finally re-entered the Fair Basilica proper, her attention was drawn to a wet, chittering sound from somewhere within the throne room. She followed the sound to beneath a collapsed piece of rubble, where a Phyrexian sentry lay with their head torn clean off of their body. Feeding from the exposed neck wound was a portly mite with upturned horns and three rows of teeth.

Ixhel recognized it, strangely enough. This particular mite had been a recurring and elusive pain for the Machine Orthodoxy. It did not fall in line with the legions of other mites, going so far as to attempt to attack some Phyrexians before darting back into a hard-to-reach crevice before anyone could retaliate. He always managed to keep a low enough profile that actively devoting any resources to finding and recycling him would be a waste. Some among the Basilica had referred to it as “Skrelv,” derived from the Phyrexian word for “annoyance”.

“You are still here?”

Skrelv wheeled around to face her, raising its forelimbs and making a low rumbling sound in a show of aggression.

“I mean you no harm. I am surprised you did not fall inert like many of the others.”

She held out a finger towards the mite. Skrelv lurched forward and sank his teeth into it. Ixhel did not flinch.

“No,” she smiled, “I suppose you never were interested in following the crowd.” A meek creature, lashing out on someone showing it kindness. They were similar, in a way.

Skrelv released his jaw, sensing her lack of hostility. He tasted the air for a moment, and Ixhel accepted him as he climbed up her arm to come to a rest on her shoulder. Together, they departed.

Looking out towards the horizon, Ixhel felt lighter than she ever had while functioning within the Machine Orthodoxy. Perhaps for the first time since the death of Yawgmoth, Phyrexia was truly free. She was excited to see what the future may bring. Urabrask had said it best, once. To love was to change, and to be loved was to be changed. She had all the time in the world ahead of her to love Phyrexia. And she knew exactly where to start.

“Hold on tight,” she said to the mite. She spread her wings and started to take off towards the Dross Pits. “We have an old friend I want to catch up with.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Eight– Toolbox

Once the fleshling verifies that Atraxa’s sudden regurgitation is not indicative of any larger illness, they lift her arm over their shoulders and help walk her into the porcelain-walled room. She takes the damaged arm on her lower left side, bandages it, and fits it with a tight sling. The arm is to be bound like that until it is healed. How long that will take, neither of them know.

Atraxa gracefully allows this to take place. She pointedly does not think about the gentle pressure of Jaxis’ hands on her arm as they bind it against her chest. She leaves herself behind until it is finished.

Events settle into a maddeningly dull routine in the following days. Time passes without notice as Atraxa sleeps, wakes, begrudgingly eats, and attempts to fill her time in the apartment. Jaxis comes and goes, returning each time with a new set of bruises, departing again as soon as they are concealable.

When Jaxis is there, they speak to Atraxa about nothing that sticks in her mind for long. When she is away on business (something that happens with increasing frequency, Atraxa notices) she instead passes time by looking out the window down at the city below, not looking at anything in particular, letting the motion of people pass over her vision until the sun sets and she can return to blissful unconsciousness. And even then, she finds herself needing less and less sleep as her body gradually repairs itself. Walking is still slow and painful, but slightly less slow and painful than before, and she finds herself able to stand for longer periods of time.

Sometimes, in the reflection of the window, she catches the fleshling watching her from behind. Standing there for upwards of a minute, just watching the angel watch others. Clearly thinking, but on what subject, Atraxa cannot tell. She never says anything about it.

One morning, as Atraxa and Jaxis silently consume breakfast in the bedroom, someone knocks on the door. Jaxis places her bowl on the table and glances at a clock on the wall.

“Shit, he’s here early. Stay here and be quiet, doll.”

“That is no different from what I normally do,” Atraxa says. It lacks any of the vitriol she normally reserves for the fleshling. It is difficult to muster any of that, these days.

“Yeah, well keep doin’ it,” she says, and then walks out into the main room as the knocking intensifies. “I’m coming, ya bastard!” Jaxis shouts. She pulls the door behind her, but it does not shut all the way, leaving the barest sliver of light from the other room. She hears the front door open.

“Well well well, Ms. Foster, what a surprise,” a new voice says. It is not the same as the other non-Jaxis voice Atraxa had heard in the apartment around a week ago. If anything, it is the opposite of that voice: while the Obscuran agent spoke with a wet, mucus-lined tongue, the new voice was raspy, dry, almost cruel. Like someone had granted vocal chords to a chunk of charcoal. If Atraxa did not know any better, she would claim the speaker was an inhabitant of the Furnace, or perhaps the Dross Pits.

“This is my apartment, Henzie, why the hell would it be surprisin’ to see me here?”

“Hey, now, only two people are allowed to call me ‘Henzie’ and last I checked, you weren’t my ma.”

“Thank Halo for that, you seen your horns?” Jaxis says, closing the door behind the new voice. “Surprised she can still walk after you came out of her.”

“My point, Jax, is it ain’t every day the Troublemaker herself asks for a house call.”

“There’s only ever really one reason people come to talk to you, yeah? Certainly ain’t for your looks or the same jokes about your ex-wife.”

“I resent that statement; I’ve got enough looks to bankrupt an optometrist. And my ex-wife still misses me, y’know.”

“’But her aim is getting’ better,’ yes, we all know it, Toolbox.”

The new voice was either “Henzie” or “Toolbox,” or perhaps both at the same time. Perhaps it is just a result of the visitor being the only change from the usual repetition, but Atraxa finds herself aching to know more. If he has two names, does that make him two people? Or is one of the names merely a title? Curiosity gets the better of Atraxa, and she quietly stands to stealthily peer through the crack in the doorway.

“Gotta stick to the classics. Anyway, whaddya need, Jax? Mind if I smoke in here?”

“Go ahead. I’m in the market for a disguise, something with illusion magic. And I figured who better to ask than the Caldaia’s own serial hoarder.”

“I may be in possession of something that may help, just a question of what you’d be willin’ to give in return.”

Carefully, Atraxa peeks through to the other room, and lays eyes upon a devil with a strikingly angular figure. Sharp nails, a sharp nose, sharp teeth, sharp horns, and a sharp tail. Like he had been taken to a grindstone and worn to a fine edge. He wears a puffy vest and is bedecked in gold jewelry along his arms and tail. He is a full head and shoulders shorter than the fleshling, but carries himself as though he is larger, stretching out his digitigrade feet to their fullest length. Combined with the jewelry, his demeanor implies affluence, strength, machismo. Atraxa wonders whether he presents himself as such to counteract his diminutive stature and unfortunately dark lavender skin tone and hair color. She can see his curls poking through the well-worn holes in his driver’s cap, which casts a small amount of shade over his sunken eyes-

Eyes that were looking directly at her through the crack in the door. Shit.

She pivots away from the door but can already tell she was too late.

“The hell was that?”

“The hell was what?”

“Somethin’ moved back there; you got a guest?” Toolbox asks.

She can hear footsteps as he crosses the room towards her position. Briefly, Atraxa glances around, seeing if there was any way to conceal herself from the devil, before promptly realizing it would be futile. Even if there was a good place to hide in the small room, she was still slowed by her injuries and a head and shoulders taller than the average Capennan inhabitant. Best to face the inevitable head-on, then, with dignity fitting a Phyrexian.

“Oh- shit, don’t open that!” Jaxis yells in a last-second attempt to divert his course.

“Why? You got a cat not allowed by the lease or some… thing…” he trails off as he opens the door and stares up at the angel. Every single feature of the small devil, from his shoulders to his pointed ears to his tail visibly droops, as though he had been drenched with water. His eyes widen, his pupils narrow. The cigarette falls from his lips and extinguishes itself on his own boot.

Several seconds last an eternity, as everyone is as still and as quiet as possible. Toolbox haltingly raises a quaking finger, pointing up towards her.

“A-At-a-At-tr-tra… A…” he wheezes and stammers, teeth chattering.

“Atraxa,” she supplies.

“Gah!!” the devil yelps. He leaps straight backwards, attempting to hide behind a chair. “She’s alive! Please don’t eat me!”

“And why would I do that?” Atraxa asks, limping forward into the main room. After days of being in the fleshling’s company, it is very nearly gratifying to see someone fearfully respectful of her power. “You hardly seem worth the effort.”

Toolbox whimpers.

“You’re not helpin’, doll.”

“Jax, why the hell ain’t you freakin’ out?! She’s s’pposed to be dead, it took a lotta effort to make her dead!”

“I… I know.”

“What!?”

Jaxis says nothing, just gives a consolatory look. Fear and understanding swirl together in an ugly pallet on Toolbox’s face. “Oh flay me from head to toe, you brought her here, didn’t you?”

“Henzie, calm down, I can explain-”

“’You can explain’? You can explain!? I’m fascinated that you think there’s any set of excuses you could give me that’d make me be fine with this.” Toolbox says, increasingly manic. He grabs Jaxis by the collar and drags her down, face-to-face “I come over here thinkin’ it’s gonna be a simple negotiation and next thing I know I find out you’ve got the head roach living under your roof?!”

“I am right here.”

“Yeah, don’t talk about her like that. She’s not dangerous, Henzie, I promise. She kinda just sleeps ‘n looks out the window most of the day. She’s too hurt to try and hurt anyone else.”

“Do not confuse lack of inclination for lack of ability, fleshling.”

“Again, not helping, doll.”

The devil looks back between the two with a shell-shocked expression.

“…Herald of an invading army and you’re just… talkin’ to her like everything’s all silk.”

He removes his hands from the fleshling’s shirt and runs them through his hair with a deep sigh.

“Jax, you’ve been in some real deep shit before, but this? This absolutely takes the cake. Twenty times as bad as that gallery incident from a while back, easily. I-I gotta get the hell outta here before you drag me even deeper.”

“Hey- wait, you can’t just breeze like that!”

“Watch me!” Toolbox says, vaulting over the back of one of the chairs as he makes his way to the front door.

“But we need your help!”

“Help that I ain’t obligated to give! I’d apologize but you should know as well as I do that self-preservation comes first, and I sure as hell ain’t helpin’ you hide the ten-foot metal angel!”

“C’mon Henzie, you owe me a favor.” He turns on a dime to face her.

“A favor! One!” he says, raising a finger. “This? This is at least a dozen favors and then some. One favor gets you me not squealin’ to everyone who comes this way, my lips are zipped, swear it on my own horns, but you can find someone else to rope into this mess! Arrivederci!”

“I’ll give you half my earnings for my next ten matches!”

That gets the devil’s attention. His tail and spine tense into a sharp vertical line, giving the opposite impression of when he had first seen Atraxa.  He stiffly rotates to face Jaxis, eyes wide.

“...T-ten?”

“...I can make it eleven.”

The devil’s nature betrays him, as his pupils dilate and an expression of unmitigated greed creeps into his features. Suddenly, he draws his hands up to his eyes, pressing in on them as he mutters to himself:

“Oh, no no no you stupid mug, don’t you dare do it, you know better than to do it, this ain’t worth the trouble-” his hands shoot down to over his mouth and he lets out a muffled scream. Gradually, he regains his composure, or at least whatever passes for composure by his standards. He looks to Jaxis. He looks to Atraxa, and back to Jaxis.

“…Ziatora’s gonna fuckin’ roast me alive if she finds out. Let’s do it.”

Once Toolbox was finished switching back and forth on whether or not he would help them, he and Jaxis held a lengthy, muted discussion on the far side of the room. After which, they departed, returning several hours later with armfuls of fabric, two footstools (one much taller than the other), and a large metal case supported by a handle.

Several minutes later, Atraxa is perched on the edge of the porcelain basin in the bathroom, using a wet rag to wipe bits of grit and dirt from the cracks along the front of her armor. Jaxis is doing the same, but with her back and other hard-to-reach spots.

“Why did you bring him here?” Atraxa asks the fleshling.

“He’s agreed to help out,” Jaxis answers. “I needed someone to help make a disguise for you, and he’s sorta made a living out of doing odd jobs behind closed doors.”

“But why did you bring him here? Why not meet at another location, one where there was no chance of him seeing me?”

“I had been planning on easing him into the whole situation, but meeting you was gonna happen sooner or later. He’s not a blockhead, despite appearances, if I just asked him for a suit that would fit a ten foot tall person with four arms, he’d connect the dots. But since he’s here, he’s implicated, and can’t throw us under the train without getting dragged under himself. That, and…” the wet rag stops moving for a moment.

“And?”

“…Eh, I dunno. Feel bad leavin’ you alone in the apartment like this sometimes.”

“Oh, how very thoughtful of you,” Atraxa deadpans. “Vexing little buffoon.”

“Hey thanks, it means a lot to hear you say that” she responds, equally sarcastic. “Anyway, you’re lookin’ clean as a plate, so uh…” she picks up a hammer and chisel from the sink. “Ready for part two, as it were?”

“Ah, and here I thought you had forgotten.”

After they had returned with the supplies, Jaxis procured a measuring tape, placed Atraxa on one of the footstools, and together with Toolbox painstakingly recorded the width, height, length, and depth of everything beneath the angel’s neck. Once it was done, he delivered the unfortunate news:

Her height, he could adapt to. The spikes on her hips, he could accommodate. Her four arms would be a challenge, but even then, he could make adjustments for them. But he could not make such allowances for the large spines on her upper back. And so, if they were to proceed, they would have to be removed.

“Hey, I’m as happy about this as you are.”

“I sincerely doubt that.”

“Fair. Well. Are you ready?”

“Yes.” Atraxa had contemplated at length whether or not she would take part in such an operation. The conclusion she eventually came to was that they were already chipped and broken, and it would ultimately be better to remove such imperfection rather than continue to display it. Not that much of anyone was around to show ire at her decision either way.

“If you have second thoughts, just say so, and I’ll stop, alright?”

“Just do it,” Atraxa says. She kneels on the floor facing the tub, presenting her back to the fleshling.

She feels Jaxis’ warm, rough hand grasp one of the spines, near the base. She gently shifts Atraxa’s shoulder blade until it is in a conducive position. The tip of the chisel grazes against the spine, teasingly, before the hammer swings forward.

Tap.

The first hit is light, weak, meant only to test the waters. It does not hurt, not quite. Atraxa grits her teeth all the same. She can feel Jaxis’ eyes on her, wordlessly asking for permission to continue. She nods. The hammer swings again, harder.

Tap.

She nearly shudders at the impact this time. She goes to compose her breathing, but is unable to before the hammer swings again, harder.

Tap.

Her hands grip on the edge of the bathtub. She can feel bits of the spine cracking, splintering. It does not hurt. She will not allow it to hurt. The hammer swings again.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

It is almost there. The chisel has worked its way around almost every side of the largest spike. Atraxa has not exhaled for the last two hits. The hammer swings again.

Crack.

She breathes out heavily through her teeth. The thick outer shell is fully penetrated, and the spike is only attached by an internal webbing. It dangles from her back like a loose tooth. Again, she feels Jaxis’ hand grasp around it, as close to the base as possible.

With a sharp cry from the angel, Jaxis’ hand twists-

And she cannot feel the spine anymore. A second later, it clatters into the tub in front of her. She looks down at the spine, and she is looking at a mere object. A part of her that is a part of her no longer. There is a bizarre… satisfaction in that fact. Atraxa takes a few shivering breaths. The hammering has stopped. She looks back at Jaxis, their mouth slack, eyes unreadable.

“…Are you-”

“Continue.”

Jaxis continues. Tap, tap, tap, crack. The process repeats, several times over, starting with the largest spines and working down in size. Tap, tap, tap, crack. Jaxis starts moving closer and closer in order to chip away at the smaller spines. Tap, tap, tap, crack. Closer still, until their bodies are pressed up against one another, limbs entangled, sweat from the fleshling’s forearms dripping down onto her armor. Tap, tap, crack. The bizarre satisfaction builds and builds as more objects that were once a part of her are thrown into the tub. Tap, tap, tap, crack. A voice from within raises in volume, saying yes, cast off that which is weak, retain that which is strong. Tap, tap, tap, crack. You survived Park Heights, you shall survive this too, this is a rebirth, a-

She feels Jaxis’ fingertips touch the horn on her faceplate.

“No!” the word flies from Atraxa’s mouth without even thinking.

The closeness between the two vanishes in an instant as Jaxis retracts to the far side of the room. She holds up her hands and drops the chisel to the ground, face glowing crimson. For the first time since meeting one another, she looks frightened. Not of Atraxa, but of herself and what she almost did.

“I thought... I mean I imagined you’d been feeling lopsided, so… Should’ve asked first, sorry.”

Atraxa does not respond immediately. She runs her hands across the faceplate, checking for any impurities. Satisfied with its integrity, she turns and faces Jaxis, collapsing fully onto the floor.

“It is...” not fine, because it was not, but something else. “It is... difficult to explain.”

“…Do you want to talk about it?” Jaxis says, taking a seat on the floor next to her.

“…I both do and do not want to discard it. It was made in the Mother of Machines’ image, meant to mark me as her loyal servant. I have had it for as long as I have been alive. And now, I know that Norn was a false idol, an egotistical tyrant. And yet, simultaneously…” she trails off.

“I think I kinda know what you mean.”

“You cannot-” Atraxa begins but is cut off.

“Yeah, yeah, I have no idea what the ‘glory of Phyrexia’ is like and your pain is wholly unique. Do you wanna maybe hear what I have to say before you decide I’m spittin’ hokum?”

Atraxa frowns, but nods after a moment.

“The horn, or crown, whatever. It was given to you, and now it’s a reminder. It reminds you of both the good and the bad. And you don’t like remembering the bad, but at the same time you don’t want to forget the good. And since you’ve had it so long, it’s tough to picture yourself without it. Am I on the right track?”

“…Yes,” Atraxa says, stunned. “Yes, that is precisely it. But how? How can you put it into words so clearly?”

Jaxis smiles and holds out her hands. “What can I say? I’m full of surprises.”

Atraxa exhales, in a way that could nearly be construed as a laugh. The two stare into each other’s eyes. After a few seconds, Jaxis coughs.

“Right, well, you don’t seem to be bleeding, so better get out there, don’t wanna keep the Toolbox waiting. I’ll clean up in here.”

She nods and pushes herself to her feet.

The main room looks as though an explosive went off. Bits of pinstriped fabric are thrown over every available surface, with the space in between occupied by needles, pins, spools of thread. At the epicenter stands the metal case, now opened to reveal several unfolding layers of shelves, each with a cluttered assortment of implements made from iron and wood. Next to it on the couch sits the devil, holding an assortment of pins between his teeth as he passes a needle through two bits of textile. He looks up and startles only slightly compared to before, to his own credit.

“Every time I start to think this ain’t a positively horrendous idea I look over and see you,” he says. “No offense meant, but lord you’re one scary motherfucker.”

Atraxa smiles, savoring the way the devil quivers at the sight of her fangs. He swallows.

“Anyway, er... you can sit if you’d like, this ain’t quite done yet,” he holds up the irregularly shaped stretch of fabric.

She does so, reclining on one of the chairs relatively free of detritus. With Henzie occupying the seat closest to the window, she instead investigates the tools and leavings scattered across the floor, making a mental catalogue of them in her mind. A few minutes later, Jaxis emerges from the bathroom with a dark bag, likely filled with the waste that had been removed from Atraxa’s back.

“Gods damn this place is a mess. You need this pile of scraps, Henzie?”

“Nah.”

“Alright, good,” she says, gathering them into the sack. “Gonna throw this out, be back in a bit.”

“Take your time,” he responds automatically. “Actually no don’t do that, in fact- hey, wait!” but the door slams behind her before she can say any more.

The devil slowly turns to look at Atraxa. A bead of sweat rolls down his brow.

“…I’m hopin’ you’re willin’ to let bygones be bygones and uh, not attack me so that I can make sure all this fits you?”

“Hmmph.”

“…’s that a good ‘hmmph’? Bad ‘hmmph’?”

Atraxa does not answer.

“…Ok then. Er, if you wouldn’t mind stepping up onto that footstool again?”

Atraxa considers resisting but cannot think of a reason to do so that would not come across as petty stubbornness. Going along with the fleshling’s scheme was the path of least resistance at this point. She stands atop the footstool.

Over the course of several minutes, the devil guides her through how to adorn the newly made attire. She has never worn anything like it before, at least as far as she can remember. She had been adorned with ceremonial vestments during her time as an archangel of New Phyrexia, but those had been small accessories attached directly to her body and had apparently burned up during the invasion. Being wrapped entirely in cloth like this adds a small but unusual amount of pressure on all sides. It feels a little like wearing a carapace that used to belong to someone else.

The suit itself would be typical for the style of the plane, if not for the noticeable alterations made to fit her form. The jacket and button-up shirt have extra sleeves, naturally, although the jacket sleeve corresponding to the broken arm is rolled up and pinned shut. The trousers have small metal eyelets added to prevent the spikes on her hips from ripping them apart. Both have been lengthened considerably.

The alterations are apparently not enough to satisfy Toolbox, as he continues to busy himself with small adjustments with a collection of safety pins. He flinches whenever she moves, even if he is the one who asked her to. It is enough to make her curious why someone so cowardly had gained Jaxis’ trust.

“What is it you do, exactly?” she asks.

“…You mean in general, or…?” his eyes dart around the room.

“What purpose do you serve?”

Toolbox gives a nervous shrug. “Bit of this, bit of that. Whatever anyone’s willin’ to pay me for, really. Get around, perform minor smugglin’ jobs and skim a bit off the top hold on to odds and ends in case someone needs ‘em. Havin’ to lay low and take over that dumbass candy shop for a bit. Should maybe thank you for blowin’ it up.”

“…And is that how you learned to do… this?” Atraxa asks, gesturing broadly to the cloth covering her body.

“Not quite. I learned to sew because my mama was a tailor and needed me ‘n my brothers to help out when I was a lil’ pipsqueak. Other kids ‘round the block tried to make fun of me for it but shut up pretty fast when they realized I had quick access to a lotta sharp objects. Anyway, once I joined the Riveteers some people needed holes in their coveralls mended or wanted a hidden pocket, so I kept up with the trade. Eventually got to the point where people from outside the families were comin’ to me for it. And if some o’ their rings went missin’ while I was workin’ on ‘em, well accidents happen, don’t they? Never expected to be usin’ it like this though, I’ll admit. Er, no offense, just that you weren’t exactly high on my list of people to make disguises for.”

“And this is meant to be a disguise? I am still recognizably myself. Do you think a simple change of vestments will be enough to conceal me from the people of your plane?”

“Well no, but that’s what this is for,” he says, fishing through a pile of fabric. He pulls out a dark blue necktie, adorned with a simple pattern and a golden clip in the shape of a dagger. “Swiped it off of an Obscuran mercenary after he and I spent a night uh- you know what you ain’t need to hear about that. Point is it’s got an illusion spell baked into it: put it on and it’ll trick anyone who sees you into seein’ someone else.”

“Why bother with new garments at all, then?”

“I imagine you don’t wanna be walkin’ ‘round the sidewalks naked as a jaybird. Plus: the more that gets covered the less the illusion has to conceal. Lets it focus on the finer details.”

“I see,” she says. Despite her doubts and questions, there is a small stirring within her, that mix of curiosity and boredom that desires the new sensations that walking among the incompleat of New Capenna would bring. Atraxa turns the thought over in her head, wondering if it is what the incompleat would call “hope”.

A minute or so later, the front door opens. Jaxis enters, wearing a smug look.

“Glad to see you two are getting along,” she says.

“We are not,” Atraxa says.

“We ain’t,” Toolbox says simultaneously. They side-eye one another. Jaxis’ smug look only intensifies.

“Suit looks good. You checked to make sure the enchantment works yet?”

“I got the tie, I made the suit, but you’ve got another thing coming if you think I’m gonna put my hands anywhere near her mouth.”

“She’s not gonna bite you, Henzie.”

“I’d rather be safe than fingerless.”

“Fine, give it here.”

Jaxis grabs the long strip of cloth and approaches. Atraxa looks down on her as they throws one end around her neck.

“This is unseemly.”

“Oh so you know how to tie a necktie, then?”

Atraxa sneers and looks away.

“Didn’t think so,” she says, and tightens the knot. A blue light passes over Atraxa, accompanied by a sound like a gust of static. Jaxis’ brow raises, and she steps back to the other side of the room. The devil takes her place, moving in a circle around her.

“Ehhhhh yeah, seems to be workin’,” Toolbox says, turning his head to inspect various angles. “Not sure how inconspicuous someone this tall can really be, but ‘s better’n nothin’.”

“I thought we said she’d disguise as a Viashino?” Jaxis asks, not taking her eyes off Atraxa. “Easier to hide the tails that way.”

“’scuse me if this thing ain’t an exact science. This works, could just throw the tails over her shoulders, call it a scarf… Oh, hold on gimme a sec,” he says, and bends over at the hip to rummage through the toolbox.

Atraxa reaches up to adjust the tie, and halts briefly at the sight of her hands. They are of flesh, wrapped in olive skin and with chipped nails. She reaches up and rubs against the palm, trying to strip herself of it. When one hand makes contact with the other, she can still feel the porcelain beneath the illusion, a small reassurance against the tide of disgust.

As she moves her right arms into view, a strange effect takes place. While the arm bound to her chest has been rendered invisible by the tie’s enchantment, the two on her right side are causing a bit more trouble. Each are rendered as if half-there, each leaving a shimmering afterimage as they rapidly blink in and out of visibility.

“Gonna have to try and use those in sync with one another, looks like. Imagine the tie’d have trouble keeping up, otherwise,” Jaxis says over the clattering of assorted metal.

Atraxa nods and grasps the palm of one hand around the back of the other, collapsing the two images into one. She closes her eyes and attempts to recenter herself. The illusion is merely an illusion. When she opens them again, she finds that Jaxis is squinting in her direction.

“…What is it?”

“Weird, seein’ you with eyes.”

Atraxa sees no need to respond, and so turns back to looking straight ahead. But as she does, she can still feel Jaxis’ eyes on her, like she is a specimen being examined through a glass. It is a strange thing to take note of: the fleshling looks at her frequently. But now Atraxa cannot help but feel… self-conscious? Bah. A trifling matter to be ignored. The devil provides a more than adequate distraction as he finally finishes rattling around in the box and procures a silver piece of glass with a wooden handle.

“Aha! Here, what do you think?” Toolbox asks and holds up the hand mirror. Atraxa’s breath catches in her throat.

In her reflection is an ancient memory, a dead and buried past. There is an utterly reviling familiarity to the contours of that face: the prison of skin Phyrexia had freed her from. It is a regression from the beauty she has obtained into an offensive ugliness. Her nerves crawl at the inherent wrongness of the sight.

She hates it. She hates it with all her heart. It is not her. Not anymore.

Her arm shoots out and shatters the mirror.

A split second later, and her hands are clawing at the necktie, trying to get it off as soon as physically possible. The fleshling is there, trying to calm her. Shards of glass are scattered across the carpet. Toolbox’s tail is barely visible from under the couch.

“Doll! Doll. Atraxa, relax, relax,” the fleshling says, but her voice is distant.

Atraxa cannot relax. She cannot stop. She cannot even breath, not until she is herself again. At last, her fingers catch around the knot and she pulls it open, breaking the enchantment. Bile rests upon her tongue, aching for release.

“Vile heretics!” she shouts. Her voice strains and her throat aches but she does not care. “Do you think you can make me into something I am not? Was this your plan all along, to try and pervert me to your liking?”

“I- what? No, dol-”

“Silence!” She nearly moves to strike out at the fleshling before pain shoots up through her legs, causing them to buckle beneath her own weight. Maddeningly, unerringly, Jaxis catches her.

“Release me, you worthless ingrate!”

“I’m not gonna do that,” she says, lifting Atraxa’s arm over her shoulders. “Henzie, this is blowin’ up, I’ll get you your cash later but for now best if you get out of here.”

“Couldn’t agree more,” he says, gathering all the loose scraps of fabric up as quick as he can. “Neither of youse two ever saw me here, got that?”

“I will not forget your part in this, little devil.” He begins throwing tools back into the metal box with renewed frenzy

“Quit scarin’ him, c’mon now,” the fleshling says, half-walking, half-pushing Atraxa towards the bedroom. As soon as they are inside, she shrugs them off and limps towards the bed.

“What the hell’s goin’ on with you, doll?”

“Do not call me that, fleshling.”

“Okay: Atraxa, what the hell’s goin’ on with you?”

“Impertinence! I was a fool to think an incompleat imbecile like you could ever have my interests at heart. You tried to regress me to that hideous form. Do you intend to parade me around town like some trophy of Capenna’s triumph over Phyrexia?”

“I- no! Listen, it seemed like it’d be good for you to get out there sometime. You’re gonna start needing physical therapy for your legs soon enough, and with the way you’ve been lookin’ out the window all sad-like I figured we’d kill two birds with one stone.”

“That is where your hubris is most apparent, heretic. There is no ‘we’. There is you, and there is me. I would have nothing to do with you given the first opportunity. And did I ever ask to walk the streets of your world?”

“I mean… kinda, once, when you tried to leave after tryin’ to bash me over the head. ‘s not like you would’ve asked, anyway, you’ve got way to much pride in you for any of that.”

Atraxa scoffs. “Do not claim to know me. I have lived for far longer and served purposes far mightier than you or anyone in your miserable little life!” Furious, she stands, looming over the fleshling. “I am Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice, Grand Unifier, and I am sick of being treated like a fragile thing!”

“…I just want to help,” Jaxis clenches her fists and sets her jaw. It is clear that she is close to some form of breaking point, and if Atraxa has any mercy she will stop here. But she has none.

“Am I just some sort of project for you? An object to be mended?!” she spits. “I do not need your so-called help.”

Something in the fleshling snaps.

“No, you don’t want my help. But you do need it. There’s a difference. If not for my help you’d either be dead or dying beneath thirteen tons of rock. You might not like that, but it’s true. I’ve been trying my best here, doll, I’ve given up a shitton to even get this far, and you keep kickin’ and screamin’ the whole way through. Ever think about how that makes me feel? Do you think I’m not tired? Do you think sometimes I just feel like givin’ up on you?”

“How you feel is of no importance!” Atraxa yells, white-hot tears of rage building behind her eyes. “You are an insignificant gnat, and if I had my way you would already have died at my claws!”

The fleshling glares up at her, then turns her head even further towards the ceiling, eyes closed. After a moment, she lets out a long sigh, and walks back to the door.

“Right. Yeah. ‘Course. Fuck me for thinking we’d made any progress,” she says, and slams the door behind her.

Atraxa “tsks” and sits down on the mattress as angrily as possible. She realizes she still has the tie, clenched in one of her fists. She glares down at it, then throws it away towards the other side of the room. The golden clip bounces off the wall impotently.

Foolish little fleshling, bane on her existence. She had given her a chance, look what she had done with it. Damaged her, insulted her, made a mockery of her. It was time again to renew plans for revenge, delve into fanciful imaginings of how to best perpetrate their bloody downfall.

Slowly but surely, though, the anger drains from her, until she is just tired.

…Why did she say those things? They were hurtful, and only partially true, and yet she said them anyway. It was that face, that damned face, an ugly thing that should be forgotten, erased. It hurt to see it, and it hurt and hurt until everything hurt and she needed to get the hurt out of her. Even if it meant taking it out on someone else.

Was it fair to do so? No, of course not. Did the fleshling have any idea the illusion would take such a form, or that Atraxa would react that way? No, of course not. But it was a bit too late for such regrets now.

“Sometimes I just feel like giving up on you,” the fl… Jaxis had said. Well, if she had not given up already, she almost certainly would now. The only living creature in the multiverse likely to show Atraxa compassion, and she had driven them away. It was almost impressive. What a sick joke.

She sniffs.

The room is cold. Atraxa takes off the jacket, hanging it on the bedpost. The rest, she is too tired to take off. She lays down on her side. Once again alone, once again staring at the pattern on the wall. She curls up and waits for tomorrow to come.

Chapter Text

Chapter Nine– Penance

They do not speak to one another the morning after the argument. Nor do they speak the day after that, or the day after that. It takes until the second day of this for Atraxa to realize that she has barely seen hide or hair of the fleshling. The discovery initially prompts a spite towards her sole companion slowly, which boils away, leaving the wretched sensation of being an unwanted thing that happens to exist inside Jaxis’ home. Where once they would eat meals together in mute silence or pointless conversation, there is now an absence, a frigid stillness.

Does Atraxa miss the fleshling? No, of course not. That would be impossibly foolish. It would not be in the same way she misses Ixhel and the rest of New Phyrexia, at the very least. No, because those elements of her existence have been locked away, never to be seen again outside of her own memory. Jaxis is both close and unreachable, in a bleak oxymoron.

Bah. She is spending far too much time thinking on this.

The days become longer. She stares several holes through the wallpaper and searches for other things to occupy the time. She becomes accustomed to removing the tailored garments, and then later, putting them back on. Her first attempts end in frustration, large claws fumbling with the buttons, and creating an embarrassingly asymmetric result. Despite this, she is able to wrestle minute victories from the gradual increase in her competency. One morning, she dons each piece perfectly, and in the shortest time thus far. Satisfied, Atraxa leaves the bedroom, only to find that Jaxis had not yet left for the day. She stands with a hand on the doorknob to the hallway and turns as Atraxa enters.

Time freezes as they lock eyes with one another.

A thousand things rush through her mind. How does Jaxis feel about her? Are they still frustrated? Is there anything to be done to remedy that? She wants to say something. She cannot imagine what. She no longer has any form of mental map for how to interact with Jaxis. What place is there, among the perfected halls of the Fair Basilica, for something as trifling as apologies?

Jaxis looks at her for a few seconds longer, then shyly averts her eyes and leaves the apartment without so much as a word.

There was a dim thought in a corner of Atraxa’s mind that wanted to believe, unrealistically, that the lack of interaction with Jaxis was the result of random chance, deeply resentful of the idea that the avoidance was purposeful. Any chances of that being the case were thoroughly snuffed out with Jaxis’ departure. Worse yet, dismissing these fancies forces her to acknowledge that some disgusting part of her was drowning in longing for the fleshling’s company.

She is alone. She is wretched. She is alone.

Her knees feel week. She stumbles back into her room and curls up into a ball atop the bedsheets.

It is later that same day that Atraxa is reclining on the couch, watching vehicles go by through the window. She hears the front door open behind her, before closing again. She chooses not to look. She can tell by the intruder’s gait that it is the fleshling. She is in no hurry to reenact the events of the morning. And so she pretends the fleshling is not there, is not waiting for her to turn around, until Jaxis speaks up.

“…Hi.”

Atraxa finally turns around to look at Jaxis. For a brief moment, adjectives fail to encapsulate their appearance. Her top lip is bruised and her knuckles are bloodied. She wears a sleeveless white shirt and an unzipped jacket, leaving her clavicle and muscular shoulders on full display. Tucked beneath her arm is a long package wrapped up in brown paper and twine.

Jaxis opens her mouth, then closes it again, glancing to the side to avoid eye contact. She rubs the back of her head, strangely… demure? Embarrassed?

“I, um… I got these for you,” she finally says, limply offering the brown paper package.

Atraxa eyes it, then grabs the offered end with three of her arms. The package is heavier than anticipated, and something inside shifts slightly, producing a muffled clank.

“…What is it?” she asks. Her throat feels dry. How long has it been since she drank something?

“Open it.”

Atraxa rests one edge of the package on the ground, then inserts her index claw into a fold in the paper, tearing through the outermost layer with ease. It’s odd, the way mundane actions she would not have thought twice about before her injury are now each their own minor triumphs.

Beneath the layers of paper are two sturdy wooden shafts, with clasp-like rings of smooth, lightweight metal protruding from the top ends. Towards the middle of each shaft is a leather handle, perpendicular to the rest of the wood. Atraxa eyes a square of cardstock hidden away in the folds of the wrapping and retrieves it. On it is an ink-print diagram of a standing humanoid figure, hands wrapped around the leather handles and forearms resting within the metallic rings. A brief passage beneath the illustration explains how to use the wooden shafts, “crutches,” to support and stabilize oneself while walking.

She had not considered before now how the incompleat might deal with imperfections similar to her own. On New Phyrexia, non-functioning parts would be met swift replacement. Whether the broken pieces or the entire unit would be disposed of depended on the circumstances. The incompleat did not have such a luxury, and yet still found ways to endure, extending their forms in a manner not dissimilar to Phyrexian methods of self-improvement. Admirable, almost. Useful, at the very least, given her own situation.

The thought catches in her mind, and she processes that the crutches are for her. That Jaxis saw fit to procure such an aid, even after everything Atraxa said.

“…Why? …How?”

“You’ll need something like that at some point or another, and, well, the city lends itself to medical professionals who don’t ask too many questions.” She chuckles slightly at her own joke, then falls awkwardly silent as Atraxa continues to mutely stare down at the crutches. It cannot be that simple, can it? Where is the catch?

“Is this meant to be a bargaining chip, then? The price of my forgiveness?”

“No, doll, I-” she cuts herself off, then lowers down to one of the stuffed chairs to sit eye-to-eye across from the phyrexian. “Maybe a little bit, yes. I can’t say I wasn’t hopin’ it would help patch things up after I screwed the pooch, but it’s yours regardless. I don’t expect for this to make up for it, though.”

“I am… not certain I understand.”

“I’m trying to say you’re right to be upset with me,” Jaxis sighs, and seems to deflate. Gone is the strong, cocksure woman Atraxa had spoken to up until now. In their place is a nervous, regretful human simply trying her best to repair her own damage. “I… I fucked up. I called Henzie in without asking you about it first, I was trying to rush you before you were ready, and then… blew up after you lashed out.”

The paper packaging in Atraxa’s hands crinkles as she tightens her grip on it, a mix of shame and hurt clouding her mind.

“…You said you wanted to give up on me.” She will not let her voice crack. She will not show more weakness.

Jaxis nods, solemnly. “I did.” The simple sentence hangs in the air. “I’m not going to, though. I swear it. Even if you still wanna hightail it out of here the second you decide you’re ready enough, I’ll help you until then.”

“…Even if I were to choose not to forgive you?”

“…Yeah,” Jaxis says, disheartened by the suggestion, yet at the same time resolute.

“Why?”

“I’m in for the long haul at this point.” She speaks like the decision is out of her hands, as though her dedication is a fact of the matter rather than an active choice.

“I cannot understand you, fleshling.”

“I know. And, for whatever it’s worth… I’m sorry.”

Atraxa stares down at the crutches, still placed across her lap. She gently runs a hand across the smooth wood of the shaft, focusing on the chestnut grain. Anything to ignore the uncomfortable truth she has come to: in the same way that Jaxis has already chosen to remain dedicated and help her recover, she too has also chosen to forgive Jaxis.

“…Vexing little fleshling,” she mutters.

The silence wraps around the two of them like a blanket, warm and soft.

“…Why did you… react the way you did, when you tried on the tie?”

“You should not care.”

“Well, I do, so here we are,” Jaxis says, then winces at her own brusque words. “…I want to understand you. To… to know the ‘who’ and ‘why’ of the woman in my apartment, not just the ‘what’.”

Something in Atraxa bristles in a not-entirely-uncomfortable way at being called a “woman”. Not phyrexian, not angel, not herald nor evangel nor praetors’ voice, just “woman”. After languishing in uncertainty since the collapse of Park Heights, it is stabilizing to have such a core tenet of herself be reinforced.

“If I know why it happened,” Jaxis rambles, “then maybe I can try and avoid makin’ you sore in the future. You don’t have to fully explain yourself, ain’t even gotta apologize. Just, I dunno, somethin’.”

Atraxa’s mind flashes back to the reflection. The thing in the mirror. The sensation of choking on her own throat. The knee-jerk reaction is to avoid such memories as best she can. Her head shakes out a no with barely any input on her part.

“…No, yeah, I… I get it.” Their voice is sad, hurt. “I, um. I’ve got some other stuff I need to, uh, take care of. I’ll-I’ll be back.” Stoic façade fragile, Jaxis stands.

Atraxa’s head pounds with indecision. At once she feels paralyzed, yet her mind is racing, screaming, “Stop her before it’s too late. Stop her before one more person leaves your life forever, please,”. Is this truly such a final horizon? Is she willing to take that risk? Just as the fleshling is about to move any further away, Atraxa’s hand reaches out and grasps the corner of Jaxis’ sleeve, and she can only thank whatever cinder of impulse still remains inside the hollowed-out corners of her chest.

Her desperate act has bought her only a few more seconds of time, as Jaxis stares down at her, waiting for her to say something.

“…Can you get some water, first?” she mutters, gently as she can manage.

Jaxis nods, pulling her sleeve free from Atraxa’s grip. She fills two glasses from the sink, then places one on the coffee table, and keeps the other in her hand as she sits down, waiting for the angel to finish gathering her scattered thoughts.

“…Phyrexia… is perfection. I do not mean to boast,” Atraxa says, cutting off the annoyed look that had begun to creep into Jaxis’ face, “not now, at least. But if you desire to understand, then for the remainder of our time you must first accept this: Phyrexia. Is. Perfection. Do you understand?”

After a moment, Jaxis nods, and waits for her to continue.

“Good. That is the purpose of Phyrexia: to spread perfection, to incorporate and improve upon itself, reaching ever higher. To be less than Phyrexian, to be one of the incompleat, to be less than perfect, is one of the worst dishonors to be faced. That is what…” something prevents her from saying ‘what I believe,’ “…what has been ingrained into the fibers of my being. The truth that has surrounded me for as long as I have been allowed to remember.”

“I think I might be able to see where this is going,” Jaxis says, “I won’t stop you, though. You should tell it your way.” Atraxa stamps down the impulse to insist the fleshling cannot possibly know. That petty spite is both counterproductive and likely incorrect: time and again Jaxis has displayed an uncanny ability to empathize with the struggles Atraxa has been willing to discuss. She takes a sip of water. The final hurdle is the most difficult.

“…Only a week ago, the memory of that face was dead and gone. A long-lost piece of derelict that never should have broached the surface. To see it again, after so long, and furthermore to see it in my reflection, to know that others were now seeing the discarded prison of skin from time past, it…” Atraxa stops, realizing one of her hands was tightly gripped around another to prevent it from shaking. She breathes in deeply. Then out. Her grip loosens. “It hurt. It hurt worse than anything I had ever felt. Even the fall.”

A weighty minute passes before either of them speak again.

“…Criminy, I’m a fuckin’ dumbass.”

“On that, we agree.”

Jaxis rubs the bridge of her nose, then raises her hand upwards, sweeping the hair off of her forehead in a strangely aggravating way.

“I wanna say I didn’t know, but that’s no excuse. Nobody should be made to feel like that. Nobody. Worst part is it ain’t just people bein’ rude, it creeps into your head, starts making you say mean shit to yourself. If anyone ever tries to make you feel that way on purpose, you kick the shit out of ‘em, yeah?”

“I do not believe I am in the state to do much kicking.”

“All right, well tell me and I’ll kick the shit out of ‘em for ya. And remember that whatever they think they see says more about them than it does about you.”

“How so?”

“I just mean, well, the average schmuck on the street thinking that you’re… what was the word for it?”

“Incompleat,” Atraxa says. She will not admit it, but seeing Jaxis returning to her usual confident and obnoxious form is rather satisfying. It feels natural, proper.

“Right, that. Them thinking you’re incomplete doesn’t make them right. You’ll still know. I’ll still know. And hey, I guess Henzie’ll know if we happen to bump into him.”

“…I admit I had not considered it that way before. Still, to know that others see a false self would be… agonizing.”

“Right, ‘course, not sayin’ it wouldn’t. I’ve been in similar spots and it can get under your skin. Or porcelain, in your case, I suppose. Point is, it’s at those times that you really gotta think to yourself about how you know who you really are, and all the rest can go hang. It won’t make it all go away, but it can help.”

Atraxa frowns. Is that all it takes? A mere internal platitude to pretend she is not committing one of the worst heresies known to Phyrexia? Yet she is alone on this plane, and Ashiok’s taunts have already displayed the condemnable hypocrisy of the Argent Etchings. If heresy is what it takes to survive here, perhaps she could benefit from the practice.

Sensing Atraxa’s hesitation, Jaxis pipes up. “And hey, if you’d still feel self-conscious about usin’ the disguise, just think about how you’re pullin’ one over on all the rest of us stupid fleshlings.” She downs the rest of her glass of water to punctuate her statement.

Deep in her torso, Atraxa feels a long-dormant motor spit into motion. She shudders, then chuckles, slowly building into a manic laugh. She regains her composure before long and turns to the shocked-looking Jaxis.

“You are right, fleshling.”

“I am?”

“Yes,” she says, face split into a grin. “I am Phyrexian, resplendent, perfect, unassailable. Nothing will change that. Not even Park Heights itself could ground me, why would some lowly necktie?!

Jaxis smirks. “Not certain I fully agree with ya but it’s good see you feelin’ better.”

“Indeed.” Atraxa hums. “It makes for a comforting sentiment, yet pointless outside the theoretical.”

“Huh?”

“The experience with the disguise has soured any interest I may have had in walking the streets of this nest of sinners. I doubt you feel any differently.”

“Ah, yeah…”

“…Really, fleshling?”

“Listen, hear me out,” Jaxis placates, raising her hands. “I know how bad it went last time, and I know how I messed things up. But. I do still think you should try going out at least once. Not now, but at some point, just a quick jaunt down to a café or something. Take it at your own pace. Avoid mirrors. Maybe buy a pair of gloves if you hate how your hands look. And if you want to leave, give me the word, and we’ll leave.”

Once again the fleshling finds a new way to confound Atraxa. Of course she does not want to go. What could the city possible offer her? Unless… If she does not go, would that make her speech from before mere bluster? She may say that she has conquered the repulsion from her reflection, but she has yet to truly prove it. If she does so once, just once, then she can claim truthfully that it is not pitiful feelings dissuading her from exploring the city. Would there be anything truly wrong with humoring Jaxis? Just for a day?

“…Very well, then.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Ten – Coffee

The outdoors are far brighter than Atraxa had anticipated.

Perhaps it was the extended period of relative isolation inside Jaxis’ apartment. Perhaps it was when she had flown the skies of New Capenna, they had been darkened to a deep scarlet by the presence of the Invasion Tree. Perhaps it is how her duties rarely took her to the Monumental Façade, bathed in the light of New Phyrexia’s five multicolored suns. Perhaps it is a combination of the three. Regardless, even with the sunlight reflected and transposed through several city floors’ worth of openings and glass walkways, the midday sun renders the Caldaia in a washed-out haze that stings her visual receptors.

“You good so far, doll?” Jaxis asks, “you’re squintin’ a lot.”

“I am fine,” Atraxa glances away, disliking how much more… readable she seems to be under this disguise. She reminds herself that that is all it is, a disguise. It helps a little.

“Alright, if you say so. Just don’t be afraid to speak up, got it?”

“I am not afraid, you insignificant little-” she sees a bypassing leonin give her a sidelong glance and bites down on the rest of her statement.

Jaxis waits until he’s out of earshot to speak again.

“Not afraid then, sure, whatever. Don’t let your pride get in the way of speakin’ up, got it?”

“Understood,” she growls. From the corner of her vision, she spots an elvish child looking up at her from their spot crouched on the sidewalk. A quick glare dispels any curiosity the urchin had, and they shyly pull their flat cap down over their eyes.

This is, at the very least, not the largest amount of people that see has seen on the street. She sneers to herself, recalling a day earlier in the week she and the fleshling had planned to embark on a similar trip. After a few days of training, she had felt accustomed enough to the crutches and the necktie to try and behold that which Jaxis claimed New Capenna had to offer. But then that morning she had looked out the window, at the mass of crowds, and imagined them seeing her false face, scrutinizing her. And all of a sudden, leaving the apartment was an impossible task.

She made her excuses. She knows Jaxis believed none of them.

Finally, after a few minutes of walking, they arrive at the café. The floor is made of dark hardwood, and the walls feature exposed brickwork covered up with old photographs of previous owners and customers. The room is filled with a pungent, unfamiliar odor and the sound of idle chatter. Jaxis leads them to an empty booth in the far back corner of the establishment, where Atraxa can be concealed from passers-by on the street. She is briefly left alone while Jaxis waits in line at the counter. She watches as they place a collection of gold coins in the hand of a tall Viashino and return a minute later with two plates and two mugs. On one plate is a round slice of bread with cream cheese and thin slices of pinkish meat on top. On the other are three rectangles of hard-looking biscuit with nuts baked into it. Jaxis places them in the center of the table, then sits down opposite to the angel.

“Bagel with lox for me, some biscotti for you.”

Atraxa grabs one of the slices, looks at it for a moment, then bites into it. The biscuit is brittle and surprisingly hard, like biting into a fossil. She grinds it to a slightly sweet dust between her steel-cored teeth.

“Yeah they’re kinda tough. I usually dip ‘em in my drink to soften ‘em up, but to each their own.” She takes a bite of the bagel, and the two chew in silence, sipping coffee intermittently. The drink is dark, overly hot, and bitter.

Two minutes pass.

“…Is coffee always this tremendously boring?”

Jaxis chuckles. “Usually people chit-chat while they drink. Was waitin’ to see if you had anything to talk about.”

“Such as?”

“I dunno, the weather. Music. How your days have been.”

“We cohabitate. You already know how my days have been.”

Jaxis shrugs, leaving Atraxa to ponder what there is to discuss. As she mulls over potential topics, her mind invariably drifts towards the paperback book sitting on the coffee table of the apartment, with a scantily-clad elvish woman on the cover.

“Why do you have that book, The Postwoman Knocks Twice?”

Jaxis’ brow furrows. “…How’d you know the name of it?”

“You have read it twice in front of me,” she states, plainly.

“Oh, right, yeah. Thought maybe you’d looked at it, definitely doesn’t seem like your cup of joe, pardon the pun,” she slyly takes a sip of her drink.

“It was not,” Atraxa says, making Jaxis freeze, her lips still wrapped around the rim of the mug. “The book was frivolous and trite. The only value I saw in it was instructions on how to improperly utilize a belt.” Jaxis coughs, spitting a mouthful of coffee back into the mug and hacking to try and clear her throat. Atraxa watches wordlessly as she gathers herself.

“Warn a gal before you say somethin’ like that,” Jaxis finally stammers.

“Why?”

“Because I just about choked to death! What, you’ve never had anything go down the wrong windpipe?”

“No. You know full well I never ate anything before-”

Jaxis gives her a stern look and briefly but firmly raises a finger to her lips.

“…Right.” Her hand curls up on her knee and her teeth clench.

They had spoken about this, before leaving, highlighted the importance of not saying anything remotely close to the subjects of Phyrexians, the invasion, or anything else that might show that Atraxa was a planar outsider, and she had almost failed just now, on the first experimental excursion, practically less than twenty minutes after leaving, and she was certain to give herself away now like the failure she was-

Jaxis rests their hand upon her own beneath the table.

Atraxa breathes in. And out. She grabs another biscuit slice from the plate and finds satisfaction in grinding the small slices of nuts between her molars. Jaxis waits for her to say something.

“You did not answer my question, from before. About the book.”

Jaxis shrugs, removing her hand. “I happen to like smut.”

“Smut?”

“Porn with less pictures.”

Atraxa simply stares.

“Hoo boy, how to explain this, to you, in public.” Jaxis runs a hand along the back of her neck. “It’s… stuff what’s meant to get you hot under the collar by lookin’ at or readin’ about other people screwin’. You… know what screwin’ is, yeah?”

“Of course I know,” she bites, taken aback at the fleshling’s low appraisal of her intelligence. “I have been forced to consult the texts on it you leave littered about the apartment in the fight against boredom. It is a fleshly activity.”

“Alright, just checkin’,” Jaxis smiles, awkwardly. “Still can’t claim I know all that much about, um, your culture, if you do that sort of thing.”

Her voice falls to a whisper. “Reproduction is… performed either through conversion or automated, divorced from any unnecessary emotions.” Unbidden, the memory of a fortnight spent carefully watching over Ixhel’s incubation tank springs to the front of her mind, as if pointing out her own hypocrisy. She takes another deep breath, her mood souring.

“So… y’never just fool around for the fun of it, I take it?”

Atraxa sighs and takes a slow sip from her mug before speaking. “No. Pleasures of the flesh are… singular, temporary. Heretical. Only fit for…” she turns her gaze to the rest of the café to ensure no one is eavesdropping, then mouths ‘dwellers of the furnace and dross’. “But not the rest. There is… a unity to the actions of everyone else. Anything they do is to be for the benefit of all. Their physical bodies only exist as gears in the immaculate machine. Pleasure is merely a byproduct of purpose.”

Atraxa pauses, shaking herself free from memory. She gets like this, occasionally, when thinking about New Phyrexia for too long: nostalgic, caught in the past like an insect tangled in Mycosynth. Emotional, part of her says with judgmental disdain.

“…You alright?” Jaxis asks, reaching out a hand. Atraxa ignores it.

“I am fine,” she lies. She feels disgusted with herself for wanting to go back to how things were, despite everything she knows now.

“Do you wanna head back to the apartment?”

Atraxa shakes her head. “We are not done here. What of your people? What leads them to lead lives beholden to vice?”

Jaxis thinks about it for a moment. “I guess we just don’t have much else to do when you cut right down to it. There’s not like a unified thing we all think we should be doing. If we’re gonna live, we might as well enjoy ourselves, yeah?”

“Is that all your people care about? Selfish, frivolous, carnal pleasures?”

“No!” Jaxis says, then frowns and nods her head to the side. “Well, maybe a little. But listen, it’s not like that’s stopped the city from getting to where it is today. People gotta have roofs over their heads and food in their stomachs if they wanna live long enough to enjoy themselves. Are your people much better off? Way you talk about it, your folk seem as dry and joyless as they come.”

“How would you know?” Atraxa speaks with sincerity that shocks the both of them. “You were not there. You were not us. How can you judge based on your own plane’s warped single-minded pursuit of cheap ‘fun’?”

“…I guess I can’t. But if you’re gonna call me out for that, you’ve gotta look at your own argument, too.” Atraxa makes a dismissive expression and is unpleasantly reminded once again of the obviousness of the false face she wears as Jaxis replies: “Don’t give me that look! Alright, here,” they shift in their seat, leaning forward conspiratorially. “I’ve been meaning to ask you this for a little bit, but if… if your folk had done it, achieved total victory, what would you’ve done next?”

“Enjoy perfection,” Atraxa responds.

“I know you’re smarter than that, doll, is that what you really think?”

“Y-yes,” she says, shakily. It’s the answer she knows, the one engraved on the inside of her skull.

Jaxis’ tone drops to a barely audible whisper. “See, but what does that mean? What would you have done once you ran out of worlds to conquer?”

Atraxa thinks, and thinks, and stares down into the black liquid in her mug and thinks. “I do not know,” she finally admits. “Imagination was never something required of me.”

“…If I ever meet your boss I’m gonna punch her square in the jaw.”

Atraxa chuckles, “I appreciate the offer, but she is already quite dead.”

“Well if she comes back I’ll make sure it sticks.” Atraxa laughs again, and Jaxis begins pressing further: “I mean it! I’ll get cement boots and everything, the whole nine yards. She won’t know what hit her.”

Atraxa devolves into laughter, and Jaxis grins. It’s a common pattern, in the quiet days following Jaxis and Atraxa repairing their relationship, for Atraxa to laugh at something small, only for Jaxis to try and make Atraxa laugh even more. She does not quite understand why Jaxis does this, what she gains from it. She knows that her laugh is by no means a gentle sound: metallic rather than melodic, cold and harsh. Yet Jaxis seems to enjoy hearing it all the same.

“See, this is the kinda thing I’m trying to say. Feeling good feels good! Why spend all your time on some abstract goal if you’re not happy along the way?”

“…Maybe,” Atraxa says. How can one measure happiness? Did her actions on behalf of the Mother of Machines make her happy? Certainly, they made her feel complete. But did they only make her feel that way because she knew that was how she was supposed to feel? What difference truly is there between small bits of happiness stolen from the world and constant, prescribed content-ness? How did they get onto this topic to begin with? Ah, right.

“I still do not think your ‘smut’ is of much value.”

Jaxis shrugs. “Agree to disagree there. Again, sex isn’t everybody’s thing, but don’t knock it ‘til you try it.”

“…Are you offering?” Atraxa murmurs, without truly meaning to.

“What?”

“What?”

“…Sorry, what’d you just say?”

“Nothing.”

“Ok, well it sounded like-”

“I did not say anything,” Atraxa says, talking over her.

“-I’m not trying to assume anything, ju-”

“Stop.”

“-if you were, then-”

“Stop,” she repeats, more insistently.

“…Ok.”

Atraxa takes a long and purposeful sip of coffee, focusing on everything except the fleshling, extending her senses to the rest of the café, to the streets outside. In an instant, she stiffens.

“We have been seen.”

“What?”

“You heard me,” she replied, barely paying Jaxis any mind.

“How can you tell?” Jaxis says, glancing around nervously.

“I pay attention, imbecile,” Atraxa closes her eyes, focusing on the sound of footsteps moving with directional intent. “…They are behind me. Short, but walking fast. Hard-soled shoes. Glance if you want to check.” She feels her hand tighten around the dull knife that had been provided with the meal.

Jaxis’ eyes flick over her partner’s shoulder, then back to her face, with a shard of relief.

“Oh, it’s just Queza.”

Atraxa’s grip does not loosen. “Queza, the Obscuran agent?” she hisses. Jaxis nods, then her eyes shoot down to the enchanted tie, made with Obscuran magic, the only barrier preventing Atraxa from being found and possibly killed. Her expression sours as she comes to understand how dour this could be. No time to say anything, though, as Queza nears.

“Heya, Jax!” the all-too-familiar bubbly voice from that evening in the apartment says.

Jaxis drops into as casual a tone as possible. “Oh, hey doll.” Atraxa nearly scoffs, recalling how the fleshling insists on using the same term for the cephalid. “Fancy seeing you down here.”

“Yeah, well, we were- oh!” Queza interrupts herself, noticing for the first time that Jaxis is not alone. Atraxa stops moving for a moment, the threat of discovery looming over her head like a suspended blade. But then the bioluminescent spots on the cephalid’s face relax from a shocked yellow to a mildly embarrassed rosy color, and she continues: “Sorry, didn’t see you there. Hope I’m not interruptin’ nothin’, just wanted to say hello to Jaxis, met her a few weeks ago and- oops, there I go again, sorry. You are?”

An implacable disdain rises from Atraxa’s chest, and she makes no effort to keep it from her face or voice. “Charmed,” she deadpans.

“Queza, this is my friend, uh, Trucy.”

The gorgon planeswalker compleated in the dross pits is the only person Atraxa knows of who can kill with just a look, but she makes her best attempt. Even if she understands the circumstances, it is a graven insult to be given a pseudonym as asinine as ‘Trucy’. Jaxis performs an apologetic shrug with just her eyes.

“Nice to meet ya, Trucy! Gosh, you’re tall. You must hit your head on doorframes a lot. Oh- is that rude to say? Sorry if it wa-”

Jaxis clears her throat. “What brings you down to the Caldaia, doll? Thought the Obscura were mainly sticking to the Mezzio these days.”

“Oh we’re trying to find someone.”

A lead drop of anxiety plummets into Atraxa’s stomach.

“You are?” Jaxis asks, which, to Atraxa, is obviously a less important question than ‘who’s ‘we’?’.

“We are,” says a newcomer, approaching with such trained, subtle movements that all members of the conversation startle at her arrival (though some do a better job at hiding it), “and if this fuckin’ mamaluke could keep her head in the game, maybe we’d have found ‘em by now,” she lightly baps Queza on the back of the head with the back of her knuckles.

“Ow. Hi Kamiz.”

Kamiz, like Queza, is a cephalid, although one of much darker countenance than her partner. She wears a dark leather trench coat in contrast to Queza’s light pantsuit, and the shade from her cap renders her indigo skin an inky black. She looms a head above her partner, looking down at Jaxis and Atraxa, eyes impassive and analytic.

“Ms. Foster. Your reputation precedes you.”

“I should hope so, don’t want all those bouts to be wasted effort. Didn’t you get fired for being a dirty traitor?” she grins, humorlessly

“Things change. I’ve gained back whatever good will I lost with Raffine after Operation Falling Star. I trust you’re not distracting my assistant?”

“Not any more than she’s distracting herself.”

“Oy. I’m right here, y’know,” Queza says.

“Correct, and ‘here’ is very specifically not the spot we said we’d reconvene at. C’mon, we’ve got work to do.”

“But boooosss,” Queza stretches out the word into a pleading whine, “we’ve been lookin’ for ‘em all morning. Don’t we deserve a break?”

Kamiz rolls her eyes. “Fine. Go get two small espressos. Small,” she raises a finger, cutting off her assistant. “We just need the energy to get back on the trail.”

“You got it, boss!” She wraps a webbed hand around Jaxis’ bicep in an overly familiar manner that makes Atraxa seethe. “I’m taking her with me, though, I wanna show her that trick with the folded piece of paper I figured out.”

“Oh! I-” Jaxis looks towards Atraxa- for permission, assurance, or some other triviality. Atraxa does not return her gaze. “…uh y-yeah, sure, I’ll come with.”

As they leave, Kamiz leans against the side of the booth in which Atraxa sits. Lights flash along her rubbery skin, and her hand performs a gesture to summon a deep-blue aperture, giving her a view of some far-away location. Periodically, her thumb twitches, and the outlines within the illusionary lens switch to different subjects, different places, different times.

Back at the counter, Atraxa can see that Jaxis and Queza are stuck in line but have wasted no time starting a conversation.

“Motor-mouthed pair, ain’t they?” Kamiz says. They do not so much as glance in Atraxa’s direction, but it is unmistakable that she is being addressed, regardless.

“You do not know the half of it,” Atraxa says, earning a slight chuckle from Kamiz in return. She feels no such levity. It is tempting to ask who the pair of cephalids are looking for, but she knows that it would raise suspicion she cannot afford to raise. She grabs another piece of biscotti and dips it in her coffee, to create some modicum of casualness.

How strange, to be so close to someone with the resolute power to undo you, and for them to have no idea. So many of the conversations she had with the Praetors had been made up of thinly veiled threats on their parts. They knew how powerful they were, and wanted anyone listening to know it, too.

Although, she ponders, recalling the vision Ashiok had shown her, perhaps they wanted people to think they were more powerful than they truly were.

…Odd. She has never been free enough to finish a thought of such obvious doubt without undercutting herself. She does not know whether that is a good thing.

Kamiz’s opens her mouth, making a small mucus-y sound as she gathers her thoughts. “If you don’t mind, could I ask…?” she gently nods towards Atraxa’s crutches, propped up against the wall in in the booth.

Atraxa swallows, wondering if she should have come up with an answer to such a question ahead of time. Jaxis had assured her that a simple glare would dispel anyone who tried to be rude about her crutches. Yet there’s a softness, an understanding in Kamiz’s voice that does not belie any form of judgement. How can she explain her injured state to someone like that?

…Why not just tell the truth, or something resembling it?

“I was injured during the invasion.”

Kamiz nods, solemnly. “…We all lost a lot.” She places her palm on her shoulder, likely massaging an unseen scar. Yet her statement confuses Atraxa: New Capenna emerged from the invasion victors. What could they have lost, compared to her?

“…Some days it feels as though I lost everything.”

“I’ve been there,” she says. “On those days, you just gotta hold tight to whatever you got left.”

“Like what?”

“Like her.” Kamiz points a thumb at Jaxis, standing next to Queza by the café counter. “Have you known each other for long?”

“…No, not long. We… met just after the invasion ended, I believe.”

“You’re lucky, to have someone who’ll stick by your side like that.”

“Tch.” Atraxa bashfully turns away, back down at her crutches. It does her no good to think of how right Kamiz might be. “…You mentioned an ‘Operation’ before…?” Atraxa trails off, letting the unsaid question hang in the air. Kamiz’s outstretched hand twitches, and the magical aperture shimmers before stabilizing.

“…Yeah, Operation Falling Star. I was… with the group that dropped Park Heights on the giant Phyrexian angel.”

Atraxa goes cold. Fear blooms within her mind and she cannot discount the possibility that all of this, Queza’s sudden appearance at the café, Kamiz telling her to get coffee, it was all just a trick to get Atraxa alone, so one of the insolent heretics of the plane could gloat one last time before finishing her off for good. “…Are you proud of that fact?” she asks, the dregs of resentment lacing her tone.

Kamiz is silent for a moment, then gives the last answer Atraxa expects:

“No. No, I’m not proud of it.”

“…Really?”

Kamiz nods.

Atraxa cannot help but continue to press the issue. “Why not?”

“…Because Park Heights was beautiful. And now it’s gone. People tell me it was the only way to stop Atraxa, and at the time I thought it was, but now… I dunno. Can’t help but wonder if there was anything I missed.”

“Missed… another way to have defeated her?” Atraxa tilts her head to the side, “…I cannot think of anything, myself. Nothing as… final, at least.”

“Eh, thanks for the condolences.” Kamiz lets out a world-weary sigh. “That’s the issue, ain’t it? Decision’s already been made. Can tell myself I didn’t come up with the plan, didn’t push the button, didn’t deliver the bomb. But I planned the route. And that makes me partially responsible for the destruction of something beautiful.”

As she spoke, Kamiz slowly turned around, absentmindedly making lasting eye contact with Atraxa. She snaps out of her speech and stiffly turns away, burying her nose back in the viewing portal. Atraxa is left to consider. Despite their differences, she cannot help but feel some strange sympathy for the cephalid. As individuals privy to the same conflict, former enemies now strangers.

Queza and Jaxis return to the table: Jaxis with her hand in her pockets, Queza with a small teacup in either hand. “The masochist’s special: no sugar, no cream. Just how you like it,” she says, holding out one of the cups.

Kamiz takes the cup from Queza, then knocks her head back and swallows the entire espresso in less than two seconds, dropping the empty cup onto the table with a satisfied exhale. “Ok, let’s go.”

“Gimme a minute, geez, we don’t all have an iron throat like you, boss…” Queza gently but impatiently blows on her cup in between small sips.

“Every minute we spend not on the trail is a minute our mark has to get further away.”

“Who were y’all looking for, again?” Jaxis asks, with such nonchalance that Atraxa herself almost believes that they are in no danger for a moment.

“Unlicensed fortune teller,” Kamiz answers, sending a hopefully imperceptible wave of relief through the concealed Phyrexian. “There’s been… exchanges in permissions, between the Brokers and Obscura, as of late,” she says, massaging the bridge of her nose. “I won’t bore you with the details, most of them are classified to begin with. Short version is the Brokers have always had more of an interest in long-term investments, so we’re undergoing a bit of a department trade, and trying to clean things up before that happens.”

“I’m gonna miss working with Tivit,” Queza says.

“Finish your goddamned coffee.”

Queza rolls her eyes, then chugs down, letting out a slightly pained cough once she’s done. “Alright, my tongue’s burnt to hell now, happy?”

“Yes. Now c’mon, let’s vamoose.” Kamiz briskly turns on her heel and walks towards the exit, without a word to Jaxis or Atraxa.

“Ciao, chief! Nice meetin’ ya, Trucy!” Queza waves, and the cephalids depart.

“…So, that was-” Atraxa raises two fingers to silence the fleshling, listening as the agents walk away, listening until their footsteps cannot be discerned from the cacophony of movement that plagues the city she has found herself in. Once she is certain they are gone, she lets out a shuddering breath she hadn’t realize had been held in.

“…We should be going as well.”

Jaxis nods, then grabs the remaining half of the bagel and shoves it into her mouth while Atraxa grabs her crutches from their spot propped against the wall and settles her upper forearms onto the wooden handholds (Her lower left arm is still in its sling. She has found that it is most comfortable to keep her lower right arm similarly wrapped tight around her midsection so that the necktie’s illusion will conceal it.). She grits her teeth as she stands, working the stiffness out from her ankles. She nods to Jaxis, and they leave the café in mutual silence.

They are standing at the crosswalk, waiting for the light to let them pass, when Atraxa finally speaks.

“… ‘Trucy’?” She does not need to say anything else for Jaxis to understand her meaning.

“I panicked, alright?”

Atraxa grins, briefly, then drops her face into a practiced neutral expression, which she holds for the rest of the walk back.

“Well. That went pretty good, I’d say,” Jaxis says as she closes the door to the apartment behind them.

“Did you miss how close it came to falling apart? It is through sheer chance that the Obscuran investigators did not see right through us.” Atraxa frowns, hearing the end of her own sentence. When did she and Jaxis become an ‘us’?

“Yes, but,” she raises a finger, “Kamiz is practically Raffine’s right hand. Paw. Whatever. Point is, if she didn’t see through it, the average Joe’s way less likely to as well.”

“Hmm.” Atraxa pulls down the knot of the necktie until the enchantment deactivates, finally breathing freely in her own plating for what feels like hours.

“You alright?”

“…I am fine.”

“…You sure?” Jaxis cocks her head, trying to get a better look at Atraxa’s face. “You seem a bit… miffed. Upset.”

“I am not upset.”

“You ain’t a very good liar, doll,” Jaxis says, and the offhand way she speaks, and her cocksure smile, and the way she uses that damnable word again without even seeming to realize what she is doing, all of it trips the guards in Atraxa’s brain and sets her on the warpath.

“Why did you call the cephalid that?” she demands.

“…Call her what?”

“’Doll’. You called Queza ‘doll’ while she was at the café.”

“I… did I?”

Atraxa’s pulse tightens, how could she not know? “You did. Why?”

“Uh… It’s a nickname I use for dames?”

“Well, stop.”

“Stop… what?”

“Do not call Queza ‘doll’ anymore.”

“I- okay, but… why?”

“You already refer to me by that title.”

“So… You don’t want me to call Queza or anyone else that, but do want me to call you that?”

“Yes.” Atraxa says, pushing down the heat in her chest and cheeks. It is a simple request that should not require this much conversation.

“Okay, so do you… like it when I call you that?”

Atraxa splutters. “Of course not, fleshling. It’s a matter of consistency. It is foolish to refer to both of us by the same moniker.”

“Ok, well if that’s the case I could just stop calling you ‘doll’ but keep calling Queza do-”

“Silence,” Atraxa says, summoning all the grandeur she is able to muster. “My demand has been made clear. You would do well to abide by it.

Jaxis raises her hands in a placating gesture. “Alright, alright, sorry, just… was trying to understand.”

Silence chokes the room. An unfair sense of discomfort builds in the base of Atraxa’s stomach, and she cannot feel as though she has somehow embarrassed herself. Graciously, Jaxis clears her throat, and changes the subject.

“So, uh. How was the trip? You enjoy yourself? Think you might wanna see some other places? Uh, assuming you feel up to it, at least.”

Atraxa leans against the back of one of the armchairs, and tilts her head upwards, tracing imaginary patterns on the ceiling as she thinks.

“…It was bright. And hot. Crowded, loud, and dangerous. The coffee shop was dull and slow, the coffee itself bitter and somehow dry. Now that we have returned I feel tired and sore. Wearing the tie still feels like gentle suffocation.”

Jaxis’ face falls. “Right, um. Makes sense, I guess, You’re probably still missin’ home, I shouldn’t’ve gotten my h-”

“Quiet,” she snaps, taking pleasure in how quickly Jaxis snaps to attention. “I am not finished, fleshling. I stand by everything I said- the experience was all those things and more. Were I asked if I enjoyed myself, the answer would be a resolute ‘no’. But-” she grimaces as the motor in her chest starts to turn, “But it is better than lying in bed, waiting to die.”

Jaxis stares up at her with hopeful eyes and a poorly contained grin. “So… you’ll go out more? Together?”

She sighs, “If you require it in such obvious terms, yes.” She has enough remaining dignity to restrain herself from saying ‘together’ afterwards.

Jaxis explodes in a burst of enthusiasm, clapping her hands with a laugh before swinging around to deliver a mighty haymaker into the punching bag. As it swings back, she lunges at Atraxa and wraps her arm around the Phyrexian’s stomach, squeezing and lifting her off the ground ever so slightly. Briefly stunned, Atraxa feels a low growl-like sound start to escape her throat, and quickly tries to push the fleshling away.

“L-let go of me, you insolent buffoon!” Atraxa sputters.

“Right! Right, sorry,” Jaxis says, releasing her. “Just, I dunno, happy. Proud of you for trying.”

Atraxa beats back the warm feeling that spreads throughout her body, turning and ducking through the doorway to the bedroom. “I- I do not need you to be proud of me, fleshling. I am going to rest.”

“Alright, I’ll see you lat-”

They’re cut off as Atraxa slams the door behind her. Atraxa strips herself of the necktie and her suit jacket, hanging both around one of the bedposts. She sits down on the mattress and balances the crutches against the nightstand. It takes almost an hour to forget the feeling of Jaxis’ muscular arms around her torso.