by Ramy Vance
Lightning cracked above, illuminating the elder ones, the giant floating gods of old hidden by the distortion of the Netherverse. Dark Melody flowed from their bodies to Rasputina, who etched sigils into the air in front of them. The fabric of the reality started to shift.
Suddenly, Bennington’s universe no longer seemed to be as large as space and time. The planets were diminishing, and he grew smaller. Now he was only the size of a skyscraper.
Anabelle and Terra flew forward, the elf taking the lead. She crashed into the butler, sliding between the energy orbs knocking them out of their strange orbit.
He swiped his hand down, and a meteorite hit Anabelle. She careened away from him.
Terra hit the butler next, her boots coming down on his chest. He grabbed her ankles with a speed that shouldn’t be possible for someone his size, then drew back his arm to launch her into space.
Grok came up behind him as he continued to shrink and threw her arms around his neck, then pulled as hard as she could to flip him over.
Bennington raked the black and tore it open, and a host of Dark Melody versions of him scuttled through the hole.
Across the black, Sarah stood with Abby, who was sitting quietly on their floating asteroid. “You have a plan, don’t you?” Sarah asked.
Abby opened one of her eyes. “Hold on, I’m focusing.”
Sarah paced, watching the climactic battle happening ahead of them. “I should be out there.”
Abby stood up and shook her head. “We have something we need you to do.”
Sarah smiled weakly. “Yeah, about that. You remember I can hardly walk, right?”
Abby opened her palm, revealing two obsidian balls the size of walnuts. “Take these. The smaller one is for you.”
“What are these?”
“Nanobots to heal you, and the other is a nanobot infusion of the Dark Melody. They’re timed for an hour max, which means you don’t have to worry about becoming like me. It should give you all an extra push.”
Sarah took her nanobot ball and rolled it over in her hand. The ball exploded in a faint cloud of dust, which she breathed in. She coughed for a second, then stood up straight. “Oh, shit. I feel better. A lot better. I’m ready to get in there.”
Sarah floated up, her eyes glowing.
“Wait,” Abby called. “There are two more things. All you have to do is throw that at Anabelle or someone. As long as it bursts, it’ll work. Second, the Path of Pain. You said Cire showed you. How?”
Sarah shrugged. “He practically tortured me to death. Why?”
Abby opened her other palm, which held a red sphere. “Tell Terra to take that into consideration when she’s ready for the Path of Pain.”
“What about you?”
Abby took a deep breath. Millions of nanobots flew out of her mouth and streamed from her pores. Hundreds of small lasers were created across Abby’s skin. “We’re not finished preparing yet, but we’ll be ready soon.”
Sarah didn’t ask any more questions. She sped off to join the fight.
Abby closed her eyes, focused her breath, and drew a sigil in her mind’s eye. It was her own creation, designed by synthesizing everything she knew about the Dark Melody as taught to her by Persephone, plus all of the runes and sigils she’d memorized. She and Martin put all of their processing power into creating something new and potentially terrifying.
Sarah joined Anabelle, who was blasting Bennington with an ongoing stream of electricity and fire. The butler screeched in pain as Rasputina tried to rip him from his tethers to the Netherverse. Grok and Terra were busy hacking pieces off his legs. “Here, it’s an upgrade from Abby!”
She tossed the sphere at Anabelle, and it exploded. The cloud of nanobots split up, some of them heading toward Grok and others to Anabelle. Then she flew down to Terra, who was standing atop a comet that was sprouting trees which instantly bloomed and then died. “Hey, Abby says when you’re ready for the Path of Pain, take—”
Terra grabbed the red sphere out of Sarah’s hand and bit into it. “Bring it on!” As soon as Terra bit into the sphere, she bent over and clutched her stomach, her eyes bulging as she coughed blood.
Sarah knelt beside her. “Holy shit, are you—”
Terra waved Sarah away. “Take care of business. I got this.”
Sarah flew over to aid Grok.
Terra shook as her body convulsed. It was worse than anything she’d ever experienced. She felt like she was going to die.
But she knew it was going to pass, and once she crossed the threshold, she’d be stronger than ever.
Terra let loose a roar of anguish as wounds broke open across her body. Her eyes glowed flaming red as her muscles tensed and pulsed, growing larger and then shrinking. She straightened and noted smoke coming off her body, then looked down at her hand. A nearly psychotic calm washed over her. “So, this is the Path of Pain?”
She grabbed Bennington’s leg and ripped it off, causing the monster to fall over.
He was growing again, still sucking energy from the Dark Melody, regardless of what Rasputina was able to pull away from him.
Terra let out a feral roar as she jumped onto his thigh and ripped through his skin, continuing to climb and tear and bash every part of his body as she made her way to his head.
Then everything froze.
Abby’s voice was heard in everyone’s head. “We will separate him from his power source. The rest is up to you.”
Abby walked toward Bennington and the DGA agents. Her armor was gone. Instead, billions of nanobots floated around her like an eerie black aura as she glided toward the fight. As she moved, the tentacles of the elder ones floating above reached down to her and connected to her nanobots, which connected to her.
Rasputina looked at Abby and gasped. “Oh, gods, she’s done it.”
The Dark Melody and the tentacles pulled Abby toward the elder ones, and her eyes burned with black fire as she opened her mouth and shot forth ether flames. The nanobots surrounding her took on the form of an elder one, and a mass of tentacles reached toward Bennington.
The tentacles wrapped around the sections of his body that were connected to the Netherverse.
He screamed, his eyes mad and frantic as he struggled to get away. Abby’s tentacles held him fast while she tore him away from the Netherverse, then plugged into what he had been drawing power from.
Terra and Anabelle observed Abby’s awful power. “Dude, she would totally kick the shit out of us in another fight.”
Anabelle nodded. “She almost looks like a god.”
When Abby lifted her hands, the Dark Melody of the elder gods flowed into her and the world exploded in white light, blinding everyone.
When the light faded, the Netherverse was different. Rolling green hills stretched as far as the eye could see and the sky was a deep black where stars twinkled, the tentacles of the elder ones hanging overhead.
Bennington stumbled forward, back to his regular size. He let out a howl and shook his head. “I will not be defeated.”
Abby landed, her nanobots circling around her as trees and flowers sprouted around her feet. Rasputina walked up behind her and placed her hand on the girl’s shoulder. “I guess you were paying attention to what I said.”
Abby smiled and nodded. “We figured if we used those sigils on Persephone’s arm to control the Dark Melody within her, we could use a similar one to harness the power of the elder ones and their Dark Melody. That way we could cut off Bennington’s power, and we figured this place could be spruced up as well, the same way you took care of hell.”
Bennington let out a roar. “You’re not done with me!”
He raced toward Abby, his chest arms reaching out.
Anabelle waved her hand and a wall of fire rose around Abby and Rasputina. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Terra stepped between Bennington and Abby. “You still owe me a dance.”
Anabelle stepped forward, but Abby stopped her. “You should let Terra
handle this. She’s the only one who is physically strong enough. Bennington might be able to warp your magic since he still has the Dark One’s power, but there’s nothing he can manipulate in a full-on fistfight.”
Anabelle nodded and took a step back, joining Grok.
Bennington sprinted at Terra, knocking her to the ground, then brought his fists down on her.
Terra in turn head-butted him, then pushed him off her and leapt up, bouncing from foot to foot as she spat out a tooth. “Come on, puppers. You told me Rasputina taught you all about pain. Let’s see how our lessons match up.”
Bennington and Terra circled each other, their eyes locked. The Hand waited for the first sign of attack, and when she saw the slightest twitch of Bennington’s leg, she prepared herself.
The butler lurched forward with speed on par with Anabelle’s, but Terra was ready. She turned to the side, grabbed Bennington’s striking arm, and let his momentum do the work of tossing him onto his back, then snapped his arm in three places and took her time straddling him. She brought one fist down on his head.
The force of her punch smashed his head into the ground, shaking the earth around the two of them for twenty feet. The sound of Terra’s fist hitting Bennington’s head was like thunder. “That’s for wasting so much of my goddamn time!”
Another crack of thunder. “That’s for ruining our meeting with the Light One.”
Yet another crack. “And that’s for…oh, fuck it.”
Terra punched Bennington again, and his head split and spilled black sludge on the ground. The DGA, Rasputina, and Grok came over and stood over Bennington’s limp form. “Is it finished?” Sarah asked.
Rasputina shook her head. “Almost.” She knelt, pulling a dagger wand from her side, and made a cut in the body, then reached into the wound and pulled out Bennington’s shriveled body. She held it in her arms as the wrinkled flesh suit on the ground returned to Grimnir’s form, the mask still broken, the young child bleeding from a hole in his head.
Bennington looked up at Rasputina. “I didn’t think you were really going to leave me. That you were going to change.”
The lich shook her head. “You could have changed with me. “
He glared at her. “You deserted me. After you took everything from me, you deserted me.”
Rasputina pressed her hand to Bennington’s forehead, and he burst into flames. She dropped the burning corpse.
Anabelle, Sarah, Abby, and Terra stood over Grimnir, who was muttering under his breath and coughing up blood while trying to move away.
“Please, please,” he sputtered. “Not like this.”
Sarah looked at Anabelle. “I can’t believe this is what we’ve been fighting for years. He’s pathetic.”
Grimnir removed his mask. There was no face underneath, only a gaping mouth full of teeth far too large for the orifice.
Abby knelt beside him. “How did you think it was going to happen?”
Despite not having eyes, Grimnir looked up at Abby. “All I wanted was order. All of the universe, the multiverse, so much chaos. You’ve seen it. Individuality is nothing more than chaos. I thought I could fix that. Rewrite it all. A single organism to control and be spliced into everything. Then there would be order.”
Anabelle sneered. “You really think that would have worked? That it justifies all the death you’ve caused? That you’re still causing?”
Abby turned to Rasputina. “Are you sure this is him? All of him?”
Rasputina nodded, looking around the Netherverse. “There isn’t a trace of him left in this place. This is all.”
Abby cradled Grimnir, the Dark One. “We’ve all suffered because of you. I lost my father. Rasputina lost her humanity. Grok and Terra almost lost their lives. Anabelle…” Her eyes hardened. “You brought nothing but pain into the universe. You should know that. The last thing you will see as you die are those who stood against you and your insanity. You failed. You failed because you were wrong. Life is chaos. You were just too stupid to see it.”
Grimnir sighed and struggled to move, choking as he writhed.
Abby pressed her hand to his cheek. Nanobots poured from her flesh, covered Grimnir’s body, and slowly ate him alive.
Grimnir screamed as he thrashed about but Abby held him still, refusing to let him leave as he was devoured. Finally, the screams subsided, and there was nothing but bones.
Anabelle took the bones in her hand and they burst into flames, leaving only ash, which Terra trampled under her feet.
They all stood in silence for a while, letting the momentousness of the moment sink in. Finally, Anabelle said, “Come on. We need to find that valve.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
The Netherverse stretched before the DGA agents, Grok, and Rasputina. They had to find the valves and close them as soon as possible. The Light One was waiting for them to accomplish that task, and there was no way to find out how bad things were in the other realms right now.
Anabelle turned to Rasputina. "Where should we start? You've spent more time down here than any of us."
Rasputina stared into the distance, watching the tumultuous, shifting parts of the Netherverse fade and combine into each other. "We never came across the valves, and the Netherverse is too vast for us to have traveled the whole of it. Not that it would have helped, but we should have asked Grimnir."
Abby, who held a ball of nanobots in her hand, shook her head. "It wouldn't have helped. We felt his indignation as he died. He wouldn't have told us anything."
Terra leaned over to Abby. "Hey, what exactly was that thing you did with him?"
"Ate him. Converted everything he was into something our system could process. Waste not want not."
Anabelle paced, scratching the back of her head. "Sarah, any ideas? You had the Light One in your head for a while, right? Did you retain anything?"
Sarah nodded but looked uncertain. "She left me with a lot, but that wasn't part of it. I don't think she knew the makeup of the Netherverse any more than we do."
Anabelle threw her arms up. "Well, great. We don't know where these valves are. Do we at least know what they look like?"
Grok stepped forward to offer her opinion. "In hell, they were valves. They were built into the outer circle. Looked like living plumbing. But that was hell, a place that had been constructed."
Rasputina looked up at the elder gods, who were floating above like indifferent jellyfish. "It's a living realm, always changing, made of dead and living elder gods and the souls of those who have passed. Maybe I could use the Dark Melody to find them."
Terra sat down on a rock and sank her head into her hands. "It would be a pretty shitty climax to all of this is if we managed to kill the Dark One and still didn't save the universe because none of us got our Netherverse plumbing certification."
Rasputina knelt and pressed her hands to the ground. Black tendrils snaked up and floated in front of her, and an eyeball grew on the end of each stalk and peered into her eyes. They looked from one to the other as more tendrils pushed out of the Netherverse's soil.
Abby, who was standing next to Terra, grimaced at the bizarre garden of sprouting stalk eyes. "Every time we think we can't see anything freakier than we have, we do. Never thought bean sprouts with eyeballs would be so disturbing."
Rasputina was humming something under her breath as she swayed. The eyeball tendrils watched her, swinging in time with her movements.
Suddenly, Rasputina looked at the elder gods above them. "That's where we have to go. Up there."
Terra laughed nervously. "You're joking, right? I've read enough Lovecraft to know you don't want to go toward the big ancient things that have tentacles. That's instant death."
Rasputina stood, her eyes still locked on the elder gods. "That's what this place is telling me. Whatever controls how souls get in and out of here is up there."
Anabelle's gaze drifted to the mass of floating tentacles above the clouds. "That was what the Dark One did? Braved that shit?
Even though he was an asshole, I have to admit he had guts."
Terra cracked her shoulders as she got to her feet. "So, everyone can fly now, right?"
They looked at each other. "Yeah, I guess we all can now," Anabelle finally said.
Terra's eyes flashed white as she let her energy flow through her body. "Well, doesn't make much sense to sit around and keep jabbering. Let's get ready to pump it!" She looked around, smiling at her joke.
The rest of the group didn’t seem to have noticed.
Terra crossed her arms as she floated into the air. "I swear, I give you guys quality content and you don't even care. Quality content!"
The rest of the group drifted into the air, Abby laughing quietly at Terra's indignation. They headed toward the elder gods, who were much farther away than they looked.
Thick clouds still obscured them. They no longer looked as ominous, but the elder ones still looked vast and terrifying, even if the DGA had become somewhat used to seeing them floating overhead.
As they got closer, Abby commed Creon. She wanted to know how bad things were on Earth. "Hey, Creon, you there?"
Creon's voice came through a wall of static. "Abby? Abby, is that you? How are you guys doing down there?"
"The Dark One is gone. Finally. We're done with him."
"That's good news," Creon said, hardly sounding enthused. "Glad one problem is taken care of."
"How are things on your end?"
"Terrible. Utterly terrible. The dead are running rampant. We're trying to contain them, but...gods, it doesn't look like there's a chance. They're everywhere. Myrddin's leading an assault on a group of them in the Midwest. Whatever you guys are trying to do, please make it quick. I'm not sure how long we're all going to be able to hold out."
"Will do. I'll keep you posted."
Anabelle looked at Abby. "Full-scale apocalypse?"
Abby nodded. "Sounds like it. Creon doesn't know how long the realms will survive."
"Then let's push this!" Terra shouted, blasting past everyone else.
