by Ramy Vance
Rasputina stared at Bennington blankly for a few seconds. “No, no, that can’t be.”
Energy swirled around his hands. “Once I rip the bones from your bodies, I will use this power to do what the Dark One could not. I will kill the Light One, and I will rule everything.”
Rasputina pointed her wand at Bennington. “You will do no such thing. This ends now. I defeated you before, and I will do it again.”
The former butler leaned over, clutching his heart in feigned concern. “You defeat me? Maybe before when you had true power, but look at you now. A third of a soul, hardly able to tap into the true power of a lich. Face it, Rasputina, you’ve gone soft, and as long you cling to that pathetic semblance of humanity, you will never defeat me. You simply don’t have the strength.”
Rasputina flew at Bennington and drove her blade into his shoulder, her flashing bright green eyes mad with rage. “Do not insult my power!” she screamed.
Bennington grabbed Rasputina by the hair and tossed her away.
Rasputina spun and opened a portal behind her, passed through it, and came out on the other side behind him. She slammed her dagger wand into the floor and spikes shot up, impaling Bennington.
He screamed in pain and rage as he tried to lift his body off the spikes, nearly tearing his stomach open, then flopped back onto the floor. Black tendrils snaked again into him, healing his wounds.
Rasputina gripped the blade of her dagger and split open her palm. She smeared blood across her face and floated into the air, green balls of energy circling around her hand. Then she rushed at Bennington.
He threw up a magical barrier, and flames burst from the lich’s body as she passed through. She collapsed onto the ground, her skin melted off, nothing more than bones and muscle.
The bloody mess plunged her hands into the floor, drawing out the Dark Melody and coating herself in flesh again. She drew sigils in front of her and then blew gently, and a giant ball of green flames streamed from her lips.
Bennington leaped into the air to avoid the fireball, but Rasputina appeared behind him and drove her dagger into the side of his head. The butler cackled as he turned around and grabbed Rasputina. “Yes, Mistress! Give me the pain you’ve so long denied me!”
The two of them hit the floor hard. Rasputina scampered away as fast as possible, then whirled, trying to find where Bennington had disappeared to. The air in front of her tore open and Bennington’s arm flew through, cutting in from the Netherverse, and slashed Rasputina across the face.
As she stumbled back, Bennington stepped out of the portal and lunged after her, cutting her across the stomach. “From where I stand, it doesn’t seem as if you have even half of your power as a lich.”
He grabbed Rasputina and lifted her into the air. “Perhaps I should show you some of the exquisite experiences you’ve gifted me over time?”
He rammed two fingers into Rasputina’s eyes as she screamed and writhed. He dropped her body, and as she tried to crawl away, he brought his hand down on her head.
The butler let out a triumphant roar as he stood tall, then his eyes fell on Sarah. “I believe all that is left is you.”
Sarah shakily got to her feet, swaying as she tried to keep from falling over. “So be it.”
Across the room, Anabelle heard Sarah’s voice, and it stirred her. Her eyes opened, and she could feel the deep pain in her heart again. No, there was something else. Her friends—they were all that mattered now.
The small flames on Anabelle’s skin bloomed, covering her entire body, and her hair became a mane of fire. Electricity crackled inside and across her skin as she let herself succumb to the pain within her. She crawled forward, the ground exploding beneath her touch. As she got to her feet, she let out a scream of rage.
Bennington stopped walking and turned to look for the source of the noise. “What’s this?” he asked.
Anabelle glared at him, her body made of fire and electricity. She seemed to be some demonic elemental from a plane of hell not yet discovered. When she spoke, her voice echoed. “The Dark One is in there still, isn’t he?” she growled as her eyes narrowed.
Bennington took a step back. “What does it matter? Just because you’re made of fire now, it doesn’t mean you’ve changed anything.”
Anabelle took a step forward, melting the floor beneath her feet. “He’s responsible for this. All of our pain, all of our suffering. He’s responsible.”
An aura of flame and electricity encircled Anabelle. “I’m going to pull you out of his body and burn you both alive.” She shot forward and slammed into Bennington before he was able to put up a defense. She brought both hands down on his head and smashed it on the floor.
As he tried to crawl away, Anabelle grabbed him by the scruff of his neck. “You aren’t going anywhere.”
The butler laughed maniacally as he rolled over. “That’s what you think.” He slashed beneath him, opening a portal into the Netherverse, and slipped out of Anabelle’s grasp.
The elf screamed in rage. As the portal started to close, she grasped the edges, distorting space and time, and held it open. She looked over her shoulder at Terra, who was stirring. “Help me!”
Terra rolled onto her feet and ran over to Anabelle. She didn’t ask any questions, just grabbed the tear in reality and lifted with everything she had, her muscles and veins bulging as she tore the Netherverse rift even wider.
“Wider!” Anabelle screamed.
Rasputina, who was only a few feet away, was quickly healing herself with the Dark Melody, pulling it from the foundations of the spire. As her skin regrew, she came over to Anabelle and Terra, pulled out a dagger, and carved into the tear, widening it even more. “We can go after him, but he’ll be even more powerful in there. He’ll have even more access to the Dark Melody. His reality manipulation will be even stronger than it was here.”
Terra yanked on the tear. “Can you do the same?”
Rasputina nodded. “Yes. With less affinity, but I can.”
“Where’s Abby?”
“Right here,” was the answer. Abby was shuffling over to the Netherverse tear, her body healing itself with nanobots. “Are you guys ready to go?”
Rasputina shook her head. “Before we go, you all need to understand: this version of the Netherverse is drastically different than the last time you were there. Even before Grok and I left, it had become unstable. Dangerous. Wait, where is Grok?”
Grok grunted from afar and limped over with Sarah hanging on her shoulder. “She won’t be able to fight, and I’m not sure how much help I’ll be, but we can’t leave anyone behind.”
“If we do this, there is a chance that none of us will come back. But if what Bennington said was true, if this really is the last of the Dark One’s power, we can end this here, now and forever. It’ll finally be done.”
Anabelle’s body returned to normal. She was tired, not physically, but emotionally and spiritually. The idea that this could finally be over was almost too much for her. “We can’t know what to expect in there. Unless the bastard redraws the sigils in the Netherverse, which I don’t think he knows how to do, we won’t be bound by the one-on-one combat rule like we were here. So, everyone play to your strengths. DGA, we’ve been doing this long enough to know what those are. Don’t waste time. We go in hard, and we go in fast.”
Terra chuckled. “Play to my strength. You know, I almost had him. He’s strong, but I’m fairly sure I can get stronger. And whatever you did earlier—”
Sarah and Grok interrupted Terra at the same time. “The Path of Pain.” They looked at each other awkwardly before Sarah continued, “I don’t quite know what it is, but Cire helped me find it. It was how my body could hold all the energy of the Light One. Maybe it’s even stronger than the Path of the Lost.”
Terra narrowed her eyes at Sarah. “How did you get there?”
“I had to experience a lot of pain.”
Terra turned to Anabelle. “And you?”
Anabelle l
ooked down into the Netherverse. “Roy died. I felt it.”
Terra nodded solemnly. “I’m sorry, Belle. I’m sorry you couldn’t be there with him.”
Anabelle sniffed as she wiped away tears. “Not now, Terra. We focus now. Do you think you can get there too? The Path of Pain?”
Terra nodded as she stood up. “I can try.” She leaped down into the Netherverse.
Anabelle followed her, as did Rasputina and Abby. Grok went last, still supporting Sarah.
If there had been an order to the Netherverse before, it was gone now.
Bits of rock and planet jutted out from nowhere, tearing through the fabric of the realm. Dark Melody dripped from the gashes. Shimmers of other realms drifted across the sky and the ground like reflections in a lake. The elder gods were nowhere to be seen.
There were few instances of there being anything like a surface. Even when there was ground, it could easily swallow itself like a cannibalistic Venus flytrap.
It was this chaotic maelstrom of bastardized reality the DGA found themselves in, floating around as they tried to make sense of the madness the Netherverse had devolved into.
Stars were born and died within a blink of an eye, and souls bloated and withered within seconds. They transformed into giant spiders, only to break apart into birds and eventually melt into skulls that floated atop nothing like wax on water.
The DGA agents searched for each other, calling out in this blackness reeking of sulfur and honey. In the dark, they could not see each other, but they could all hear the tearing of flesh and the snarls of the gluttonous.
Bennington.
They each found their way to him, working through the mind-numbing madness of the Netherverse as they thought through their best course of action. If he was stronger here, they were going to have to be as well.
Abby was the first one to reach real consciousness and she spread it among her allies, watching Bennington hunched on a comet, ripping into the flesh of a defeated elder one.
He stood tall, his mask dripping with blood as he held the entrails of the elder one in his hands. “So, foolishness is a trait you all share?”
Anabelle landed on the rock first, her skin crackling with flames and electricity. She didn’t waste any time. She surged forward like a bolt of lightning, delivering dozens of punches to Bennington’s body. There was no grace, no technique, only pure and simple aggression.
Grok landed behind him and slipped into the Path of the Lost.
Arms tore out of Bennington’s back, blocking Grok’s attacks as another head burst from his shoulder, breathing fire as the Dark Melody latched onto his back. His front forearms grew thicker, splitting down the middle until they were as sharp as blades. He slashed back and forth, forcing Anabelle to step back.
As the elf took a second to breathe, Terra came flying in, drop-kicking one of Bennington’s heads and forcing the monster off-balance.
He stumbled backward, his abdomen splitting. Dozens of hands shot out and grabbed the corpse of the elder one, pulling it closer and pulling it into the chasm he had opened, the stomach’s teeth gnashing and gnawing.
A plasma blast the size of a small car hit Bennington’s stomach, ripping clean through it. The butler hit the ground, still trying to pull away as he laughed. Abby flew in and used short blasts of plasma to tear through his chest arms before slamming her hands together and firing a plasma blast that tore through his chest.
He swung around, ripping apart at the waist, his lower half separating from his chest. His halves ran in different directions as the elder god’s guts began to pour into him.
Rasputina ran past the bottom part, heading toward the piece that was directly linked to the elder god’s entrails. She severed the connection between him and the elder one with her dagger wand.
The bottom half of Bennington ran away and leaped into the darkness of the Netherverse. Lightning cast by Anabelle struck Bennington’s bottom half and destroyed it.
The rest of him howled with laughter as his guts reached out again to the elder one. They covered the comet he stood upon, giant mushrooms sprouting from his entrails as he tried again to combine with the corpse.
Anabelle slammed her hands into the comet, sending fire and lightning through it until the rock broke apart from the inside. “Everyone, hold on!”
Terra whirled, looking for something to grab. “Onto what?”
Rasputina raised her dagger wand and cast a field around the DGA, keeping them afloat as the comet exploded.
Bennington bit the black space between him and the DGA and tore it open like a rabid dog. He reached into it and dragged out another elder one’s body, which he quickly started to consume.
“Why is he doing that?” Abby asked.
“He’s trying to synthesize the Dark Melody into himself to gain more control and power,” Rasputina answered.
“We’re stopping this now,” Anabelle said. “This is our final push.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Abby wracked her brain to figure out what she could do to make the situation better. From what she could see, there were only so many approaches to handle Bennington. The butler had the use of the Dark One’s ability to manipulate the Netherverse. The only thing the DGA had was brute force, and that didn’t seem to be enough.
She could see Bennington in the distance, warping reality around him. He was intoxicated by his power. Unsurprising. The only thing he had said he wanted other than revenge was power, and it didn’t seem as if he had any plans outside of that.
He was creating worlds around himself, spiraling black orbs of slushy Dark Melody that orbited him, expanding and contracting as he grew larger, becoming something of a feral galaxy.
The girl watched in horror as he flexed his power, obviously delighted by his strength. “We’re still going to need a plan. Something, at least.”
Anabelle shook her head. “I don’t have anything. He’s got the advantage here. Rasputina isn’t up to snuff, and we’re cut off by ourselves. All I can say is give it everything you got. You have a better idea?”
Abby thought it over for a few seconds. “I might have something, but I’ll need time to myself. I won’t be able to help for a little bit.”
Terra shrugged. “Well, if it goes anything like it did last time, that shouldn’t be a problem. We’ll try not to die until you show up.”
Abby couldn’t help but chuckle at Terra’s bleakness. “You could try not to die at all.”
Terra turned her attention back to the growing galaxy of Bennington ahead. “Yeah, but I don’t want to make any promises I can’t keep.”
Rasputina stood. “We should get going. The longer he has to get caught in his own mind, the more bizarre everything we’re going to have to face will be.”
Terra looked around, confused. “Uh, just out of curiosity, how are we going to get over there? There isn’t really a walking path.”
Rasputina kicked off the ground and floated. “The rules of reality here aren’t working as clearly as usual. The more Bennington manipulates the fabric of the Netherverse, the more we can use these things for ourselves.”
Terra jumped and slowly rose. “Are you fucking kidding me? I can finally fly? This is one hell of a fucking climax. Let’s go, let’s go. Shit, if this is the way I’m going out, I will die happy.”
Anabelle’s flaming body floated into the air. “I want him dead!” She rocketed toward the dense galaxy forming around Bennington.
Terra flew after Anabelle, easily keeping pace with her. Grok and Rasputina stayed behind with Abby and Sarah for a moment. “What are you planning?” the orc asked.
“We need more magic,” Abby answered. “We can only keep throwing punches at him for so long, and it’s not doing enough. His body reacts differently and draws in the Dark Melody to make him stronger. If he can manipulate reality, we need to be able to do that as well.”
Rasputina looked at Abby closely, her eyes narrowing and growing dark. “How are you planning to do that?”
Abby avoided her eyes. “We don’t know yet, but we’re going to figure it out.”
Rasputina sighed and glanced at Bennington. “I know you want to win this, but don’t forget what I told you earlier. There are reasons we hold onto our humanity. Remember that.”
Abby nodded slowly as she watched Grok fly toward Bennington. “We will.”
Rasputina took off after the orc, quickly closing the distance between them.
As the DGA closed in on Bennington, the monster cackled and slashed at the planets that floated above him, destroying them and sending Dark Melody flying around. His eyes doubled in size when he noticed the DGA coming for him. “Gnats? Flies? Insects to me!”
Anabelle arrived before anyone else. She stopped and watched him, the flames around her body pulsing even brighter than before. “You’re not the Dark One. You might have his power, but you aren’t him. Get out of his body, and we’ll let you go. We want him.”
Bennington sent a planet flying at Anabelle.
Anabelle pointed at the planet. “Fine. I’ll pull you out of his body myself.” A beam of fire and electrical energy shot from her palm, cleaving the planet in half. Then she turned to Rasputina. “We need to get him out of that bullshit galaxy he’s creating. Any ideas?”
Rasputina nodded. “If you can keep him busy, I can undo his reality manipulation. Then you can fight him on your terms rather than whatever this is.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
Rasputina flew over the duplicating, refracting universe Bennington was creating and raised her dagger wand, muttering arcane words under her breath. Bright green light shot out of her wand, piercing the blackness overhead.
Bennington looked up at the lich, letting out a roar as his body swelled. His mask fell off, revealing the head of a deranged six-eyed wolf, its jaw broken in multiple places. A human head had forced itself up through the wolf’s mouth. “What are you doing, you dead bitch?”
