Calix dipped a needle into the pool of glistening oil, disgusted by his newfound surroundings.
He had finally traced Elspeth to this retched plane, one drowning in seas of viscous oil and covered by cold metal. He had followed her here from Dominaria, where he watched as she left the plane with a group of others like them - Planeswalkers, he heard someone call them. Yet, once he had managed to make his way through this world's defences, he saw only three Planeswalkers with her, none of whom he had seen leave with her. Perhaps whatever mission they were on had failed. All the better for his own.
He held up the needle, now coated in the oil. He watched as the oil infused itself into the needle, excising the parts of Nyx that it held and replacing it with a porcelain layer. He dropped the needle and kicked it aside, turning his focus back on his quarry.
He watched Elspeth as she fought a tall, skeleton-thin porcelain figure with a giant triangle for a head. He observed as Elspeth struck at the monstrosity over and over from the skies with her newfound wings, wings Calix hadn't remembered her possessing during their last encounter. He read her lips as she hurled insults at the machine. He remembered the exact arc of her sword swings from his dreams, watching as she gracefully parried the figure's attacks, keeping her hellous claws at bay. He kept watch as she retreated - retreated! - from the fight, leaving the figure screaming at her. Calix quickly followed pace, escaping notice as he followed the angel deeper into the plane's core.
Calix felt a tugging at his soul as he waded through the machine legions, feeling a calling to return to Theros. But with his bounty so close, he knew he couldn't give up. He feared what would come after completing his duty, but he feared Klothys' wraith far more. Even down here on a battlefield, fighting machine after machine, he knew exactly where Elspeth was. Even without her new angelic presence, she shined like a beacon in Calix's eyes, never escaping his notice. He shot a needle through the neck of a mechanized leonin, vaulting over its body towards her.
"Elspeth Tirel! I have come to return you to the end fate has laid out for you!"
Elspeth turned to face him from the skies, her angelic light seeing his mind as he felt her full focus falling upon him. Sweat broke on his brow as her intense glare bore into him, studying him. "Calix?"
Calix gulped, the needle he shot into the leonin returning to his side. "You are correct, Tirel. Come now, let me return you to the death you wrongfully escaped from."
Elspeth shook her head and descended in front of Calix, lighting out a blast of angelic light that created a clearing amidst the fighting. She gestured at the machines around her.
"Now is not the time for this, Calix. Look around you, all of existence is under threat, and you're worried about returning me to Theros? At this rate, there isn't going to be a Theros to bring me back to."
Calix raised an eyebrow, confused. "What threat? Theros is safe, I'm sure of it."
Elspeth sighs, grabbing Calix and flying him into the sky. He struggles against her grasp, his needles trying to pierce her wings. "Release me at once!"
Elspeth grabbed Calix's face and forced him to look at the sky. There, he saw holes ripped into the sky, the very essence of this plane. Mechanical tendrils crashed through the holes into the worlds beyond, innumerable machines crawling along the branches to wage war. He saw titanic monsters crushing juggernauts, oil returning the dead as corrupted spirits, unperceivable geometries crashing down on invaders. He saw Theros, oil bloating out Nyx, a many-limbed Heliod laying waste to a polis. He saw giants toppled by swarms of mites, minotaurs with furnaces burning in their hearts, released titans devouring mechanical outsiders. He saw a horned woman, fighting back against ever encroaching battalions of invaders with a spindle and spear.
"Klothys…"
"Theros, the multiverse, is in danger, Calix. Defend your home, like I do mine."
Calix looked through the omenpath, staring at the ruined walls of Akros, where a converted Purphoros lays waste to its denizens.
"But what of my mission? I will be a failure if I return empty-handed."
Elspeth wrapped a strand of her hair around her finger and pulled it out. She gently placed it in Calix's hand, closing it tight. Calix looked at this closed hand for a moment, feeling her soft hair in his hand, before nodding. The tugging in his soul grew stronger, pulling him towards his home of Nyx, of Theros. His needles circled him once more, threads of fate coiling out from them as he tapped into his spark, planeswalking out of New Phyrexia.
And into an apocalypse. Calix appeared near Lagoona, the polis of Meletis towering in the distance. Upon the horizon, he saw Kruphix fighting against the compleated Colossus of Akros, his many arms grappling and crushing the construct. He saw a Phyrexian Erebos being assailed by Pharikos, her poisons pouring over his copper shell. Mogis cut into the etched exoskeleton of Nylea, his bloodlust fully unleashed against the corrupted goddess. He saw Ephara standing tall at Meletis, blocking the invasion tree's branches from entrenching into the city.
Calix was surrounded by the corpses of Therosians, slaughtered and maimed by the invaders. He saw the indents in the grass where the Phyrexians had taken the bodies of fallen men and added them to their own numbers. The needles around Calix quickened in their orbit, reacting to the emotions bubbling up inside of him. He wadded through the ruined battlefield, careful not to disturb the dead. He bent down to the ground when he noticed large tracks heading deeper inland. His needles pierced the air around the tracks, digging into the owner's thread of fate. He saw the path that destiny laid out, his eyes following it over the landscape. There, looming over the Nessian Forest, he saw his quarry, spewing glistening oil and ruin onto the flora underneath it.
Calix drew his cloud of needles close to him before planeswalking, weaving his way through the Blind Eternities closer to Polukranos.
Nikaia led the charge of Setessans into the Forest. Having witnessed the first steps of the invasion in Arkos, Setessa had managed to evacuate the polis' children and men before the Phyrexians arrived. Most of Setessa had fallen, with their queen Karametra leaving to help defend the rest of Theros. That left the warriors of Setessans to defend what was left of the Nessian Forest from the invaders, with Nikaia falling as the defacto leader.
Above them, the hydra continued spilling oil onto the canopy, seeping beneath the barrier of branches and to the wildlife below. Nikaia gritted her teeth as she led her people towards the beast, hoping to kill it before it corrupted too much of Nylea's domain.