Armageddon

by Erik Schubach

  She formed a corridor right through the incoming horde of every imaginable creature from so many other realms. Some humanoid like us, some looking so foreign and alien I couldn't define them. But it seemed that all were susceptible to the touch of death provided by the merest scratch from one of the thorns. As the vines pushed through, moving a mountain of bodies aside in front of the charging unicorn which came out of everyone's worst nightmare.

  Illya stood eight or nine feet tall, her blackened flesh oozed blood and ichor, and it seemed to be rippling. Her hide looked to be made of dozens of human limbs, burned by hellfire and writing in pain. There was agony in her bellow of rage. I could feel that rage wash over me like a wave, and it incensed me, pushed me to want to attack anything and everything. I could barely control my response even after experiencing the effect a few times when Illy lost control and transformed.

  My blood went cold. There was only one person who could calm her in this form, one person who could soothe the beast... but Belle was dead now, at the hands of the would-be god we were charging. I feared for everyone if we survived. Illya could become a threat, and only us Avatars would be able to stop her... our friend... our sister.

  That thought just enraged me more as we bore down upon the Elder with no resistance as the walls of sickly black brambles and thorns continued to grow upon itself. I thought I could hear weapons fire, both concussive and energy behind that wall of death as the horde tried to blast their way through.

  Just as Rose's walls of death stuck the Elder and was disintegrating as fast as it was fed into him, Illya lowered her head and impacted his leg with her huge black, gnarled horn.

  The bellow that came from the being was deafening as it backpedaled as fast as my mother had whenever she saw a mouse in the kitchen. It looked down in shock at its leg, eyes wide at the wound that oozed blackish blood, like it couldn't understand how it had been hurt.

  It spoke, or I think it spoke, even though I more heard it in my head than from its mouth. “A demon? In the mortal realm?” It backpedaled again to avoid the raging beast as she rose up on her hind legs and windmilled her massive hooves in the air while issuing a challenge with the screams and screeching from a thousand tortured souls uniting in the promise they would taste the flesh of their enemy soon.

  He opened his hands and looked prepared to... clap? Gretel screaming, “No!” was all Rose needed as her hands lashed out and even more vines and thorns tore out of her chest, blood flying and blackening at the touch of the sickly plants that tore through her flesh. Massive woven vines wrapped around the Elder's arms, hundreds then thousands more joined them in thick trunks as the first ones began to disintegrate and snap, but... she stopped him. Her screaming seemed to have no end, just like the curse that was forced upon her.

  Then he was bellowing again as Illy's horn slashed into his leg again. He tumbled, snapping the vines holding him and grabbed the demon unicorn's horn, his flesh sizzling at the point of contact and he flung her. I watched as her body was flung over the bramble barrier at high velocity. She'd land a mile or so away. How strong was this monster? And how could we stand against it?

  The Elder stood tall and glared down at us as some of his horde who had devices that allowed them to fly, came flooding high over the deadly walls. Rose cocked her head at us at an inhuman angle and said, “Go kill, splat, squish the enemy. I've got the big one. The bigger they are, the louder they scream.”

  Umm... ok, that was frightening. I didn't have time to contemplate that as some sort of space knight fell out of the sky and hit the ground where I had been standing a moment before. Moving at wolf speed I had stepped out of its shadow in the bright sunlight and struck out with a fist as it almost cratered the ground.

  I sneered as the armor, that felt to be some sort of pressure vessel; a spacesuit?; cracked under the impact. The knight looked down at the cracked chest plate then to me in what seemed to be in slow motion with my enhanced senses. Then just as it started to raise some sort of powered lance, I finished a spin and delivered a roundhouse kick to its chest. It went tumbling back into the wall of brambles that seemed to pull him inside like a hungry beast when the knight struck it.

  An aborted gurgled cry was all I needed, to know that the vines had found their way through the cracks in its armor, killing him instantly. I ran at the group of adversaries who had started landing all around us.

  I heard the Elder in my head speaking to us, “I am Themis, Elder of Xiltrylnyn, and it is useless to resist, mortals. Only your demon could do us harm, but this realm will cease to be when we reset it so the balance can be found and achieved again.”

  It pointed at Rose and I heard myself screaming her name as a huge torrent of energy shot out from his hand to slam into Rose. The ground around her exploding and super-heated as it vaporized under the onslaught. Dear God in heaven.... had he just killed our...

  I blinked, and even our adversaries paused to look at the smoking crater which held a steaming molten slurry of melted stone, when the maniacal laughter of someone whose sanity was a long forgotten memory, cackled out from inside the billowing smoke.

  There are no words to describe how inhuman our Rose looked as she glided out of the crater, her clothing burned away and all pretenses of trying to assimilate back into humanity discarded as she propelled herself back up to the Elder. A carpet of vines and brambles churned under her like so many demented spider legs, moving in an unnatural gait, her eyes were bereft of whatever sanity she had tried to cling to when around us as she hissed.

  Her voice was just some sort of approximation of human as she cackled out, “Do you think that you can kill me Themis? I would welcome that. I pray for that every day, but my curse ensures that I suffer for all of time. The gods cannot remove it, nor give me final peace, what arrogance you have to think that you could do what even Perchta cannot.”

  Then her head pivoted almost upside down as she seemed to scrutinize the Elder and then she hissed in a tone that chilled even the Alpha in me, knowing I wasn't the biggest predator in the room as she said, “Now little godling, know my wrath, know my pain!”

  With an inhuman screech, she thrust her hands forward and vines exploded from her, not just her chest, but seemingly from every pore of her body and they all impacted the still bleeding wounds that Illy had given him. And that is when I learned that gods... could scream.

  Vines tore into his leg and she just kept feeding them in an endless rush as he bellowed his pain while she smiled and seemed to shudder in almost sexual pleasure as she savored the screams, and it just seemed to urge her on.

  This was the Lady Thsalias of legend. The bringer of death that even the reaper fears, and I was afraid of our gentle Briar Rose for the first time since we met, the Alpha wolf in me almost wanting to bow to the apex predator of predators.

  Vines started exploding from the elder's leg, slowly climbing as his power tried to disintegrate them but not being able to keep up as Rose tilted her head back and laughed in glee as her vines lifted her to look Themis right in the eye as she shuddered in delight over his agony.

  I was barely able to avoid a strike to my back, reminding me that we too were in battle. I tore my eyes away from the spellbinding sight to engage the enemies that were more on the level I could face. Dodging, slapping away strikes and counterattacking.

  I worried about Gretel, who slung magics that just tasted wrong. Black magic, corrupted magic, instead of the druidic magic she had trained with, to keep the addictive influence of the dark magics squelched. The rest of us formed up on her, to mitigate her use of those magics that had seduced so many to do evil. But part of me understood and was not stopping her. They had killed the woman she loved and I couldn't imagine that kind of heartache that would drive you to do anything just to feel something else, if just for a while.

  I glanced over at my Raz as she whipped her nearly unbreakable hair with the hundreds of razor-sharp silver leaves in it, at the enemy, slicing them to ribbons as t
hey closed. Dear God she was spectacular.

  Some sort of vibrating spear sliced through my back and out my left side. The pain was dulled by my rage and the animalistic instincts thrust upon me by the mantle of the Red Hood. I think I shocked the insectoid being who wielded it when I slapped down with wolf strength to snap the spear in half then spun away to face him, pulling the remains of the spear from me then roared in its face, my elongated canines bared in menace.

  I could feel my body stitching itself up as I lashed out, wielding my hands like claws to rake across his face, tearing off half of its mandible. I dove on it and hacked away as I shared, “Only another wolf can kill me.” I saw fear in it its eyes as the life left him, then I rolled off him and growled as I dove on two humanoids in futuristic armor who were trying to get at Rapunzel from behind.

  I caught glimpses between opponents of the battle that raged between the Elder and Rose. The sheer amount of power he was throwing at her was staggering, but how do you kill the unkillable? Her vines took the brunt of the attacks, doing as the curse demanded of them, to keep her alive to suffer forever. And it was frightening to watch in action as she just kept throwing herself at the being, all the while, her vines were slowly eating away at its leg from inside, grinding and tearing in an unrelenting wave as they tore from her flesh to rip at his.

  Once I dispatched them, Nicole called out, “Rapunzel, Eve!” We followed her gaze as she ran at us, her bloodied sword gleaming in the sunlight, a woman with hawklike wings was bearing down on our group, firing some sort of rapid-fire crossbow that seemed to have an endless supply of bolts.

  We crossed arms and grasped each other's hands as the first Wolf Hunter ran at us as we crouched. As soon as she stepped into our hands we lurched up, thrusting her skyward with all our might. That woman was a thing of beauty. She seemed to almost soar in a slow somersault in the air, her hair billowing behind her like a cape as she landed on the shoulders of the hawk, woman, burying her blade down through her shoulder and into her chest. It was brutally efficient and Nicole just hit the ground in a graceful roll that looked effortless to us.

  I shook my head in wonder. She, like my Raz, was human, yet she fought like an Avatar. True they were touched by magic, but they didn't use it in a fight. Their natural fighting ability was so honed that it bordered on the supernatural, and most magics just slid off of my girl.

  Rapunzel spun away from an attack, grasping at her waist and pulled a rope made of her hair, with weighted silver blades tied to the ends, at the same time as I did. And we stood back to back, slinging those blades on their tethers, slashing and piercing through the enemy defenses.

  I glanced over my shoulder as she looked back at me, a wicked grin on her face as she said, “Just like old times, huh scullery maid?”

  I smiled back as I lashed out with the rope, the blades striking deep with my enhanced strength and reflexes as I muttered to her, “Watch it, lady, I still have a cast-iron frying pan with your name on it.”

  She chuckled as we separated and slid to either side of Gretel. My girl said to her, “We could use some cover from above.” Like a switch was flipped, Gretel's magics went from sickly and corrupting dark magic to magic full of life and nature as she chanted and made intricate motions with her hands.

  With a rumble, the ground cracked and a rapidly maturing tree tore up through the cracks and exploded into a giant oak tree. Now the enemy would have to come at us on the ground instead of from above. I nodded once to the grieving woman. “Great job.” She nodded once back with a sad smile and I was happy to feel she was leaning toward her druidic magics again.

  With our backs to the trunk of the mighty oak, we took a moment to catch our breaths before we were overrun again.

  My sensitive ears heard screaming over the Elder's agonized roars... something beyond the walls of deadly vines and brambles. Screams, so many screams, and the sounds of battle, of dying. Then a familiar screech of a thousand tortured souls was issued in a challenge and I whispered in building fear, “Illya.” She had fought her way back to us. I could imagine she had but one overriding thought, an overwhelming need to make the one who took away her peace, her love, pay.

  She was a berserker in that mode, striking out at anything in her path. I told the others as I heard crashing and crackling then massive hooves coming down to crush the thorny vines in her way. Most demons could not survive Rose's poisons and were dispatched back to their realm as their magic constructed bodies died. But Illya was no average demon. She, like a greater demon, could withstand it.

  A moment later a beast of nightmares, it's flesh oozing black ichor from thousands of cuts from the vines came stomping through the living wall, its great gnarled horn slashing from side to side, making quick work of the almost impermeable barrier.

  She huffed, her nostrils flared, hellfire licking from her eyes. She reared up and windmilled her legs at a large bullish man who held some sort of rifle, firing uselessly at her over and over, her massive hooves crushing him to the ground like he was made of tissue, and he fell like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

  She stomped then trampled his lifeless body as she lifted her head, her nostrils flaring again, then her eyes narrowed to dangerous pinpoints of red light as she saw the Elder frantically trying to get away from Rose's onslaught. She bellowed and charged, her hooves sparking on the ground, the thrumming of her passing vibrated up through the soles of our feet.

  I noted that we had all let out a collective sigh of relief and then exhaled the breaths we had all been holding.

  We saw the horde was trying to follow her through the brambles, using the corridor she had cleaved through it. Many fell dead with the slightest nick of a thorn as they pushed through, but some learned from the mistakes of the others and kept themselves as small as they could in the center of the path.

  I pointed. “Gretel!”

  She chanted, and her eyes began to cloud white and then I smirked, this wasn't druidic magic, this was something Snow had been teaching her, this was pure nature magic, from Perchta's domain. I think Gretta and Perchta have been working on making Gretel a priestess of Perchta's ways.

  Vines and trees sprang up in the path, pushing the warriors aside and into the blackened vines, killing them all, then she strained, moving her hands in grasping sweeps, as vine after vine shot out to stitch up the hole, dragging the brambles shut again, as the vines blackened from the poisons and died over and over again until the task was complete.

  I assured her, “Amazing.”

  Raz nodded and Nicole slipped back into her centuries old speech habits. “Verily.”

  She gave a weak smile to us, and I could tell she was trying not to dwell on her loss, setting it aside so that she could aid Rose and Illya in getting a little vengeance for her love.

  With that thought, the Elder bellowed anew and we all chanced a glance while more enemy landed around the tree to advance on us. Illya slashed her deformed unicorn's horn at the exposed tendons of his leg as Rose divided her flow of vines, half into his wounds and half to keep his hands away from our demon.

  This was unfortunately bad because with her attentions divided, I could see her vines that had reached almost up to his waist, start to disintegrate. His power was able to quash them now that there weren't so many.

  I was going to call out, but the Elder bellowed in rage and pain again, falling backward onto the ground as Illya buried her horn down to her forehead in his lower leg, then shook violently snapping it off inside his skin before a new gnarled horn grew on her forehead. I realized that Rose was simply allowing Illya to get her licks in, because she renewed her own assault, trying to pin Themis to the ground so that our unicorn could maul him.

  Then I ducked under a blade that was thrown at my neck and it embedded six inches into the tree trunk. I didn't wish to test the extent of the curse of the Red Hood, which ensured only another wolf could kill me, to see if it included beheading. You'd be surprised how many supposedl
y immortal beings can't live without their heads.

  Then the battle was back on. I noted not as many fliers were coming over the briers any more. It seemed only a couple dozen were left. I wondered how many of the thousands of enemy on foot on the other side Illya had killed.

  The Elder was back on his feet and backpedaling when I glanced that way again in a break in the fighting as the enemy started massing for a final push. Rose's vines were again chewing away inside of the wounds on his leg and now a blackened gash on his stomach where Illya's horn had slashed.

  It brought its hands up to attempt a clap again but then Themis froze and looked staggered as he had just been slapped. Then he bellowed out an anguished cry of denial and spun away from Rose and Illya and physically tore a hole in reality and started to move toward it.

  Illya slashed at his Achilles' tendons as Rose screamed in effort, redoubling the flow of vines which shredded her flesh. He stumbled and fell, and started dragging himself forward with his hands as he screamed in pain that took on the note of a cornered animal. And with a sickening wet sound, his lower leg was severed by the writhing and sawing, thorny vines, which exploded from his skin.

  He physically dragged himself through the portal, leaving a long wet trail of black ichor. Illya roared in rage and spun toward us and the last of the enemy who all looked confused and at a loss now that their leader, their god, had abandoned them.

  As the demon horse prepared to charge, Rose, her body twisted and contorted as she glided on spider legs made of blackened vines to her side. She rested a hand on the flank of the horse and Illya huffed and mock slashed at her. They stared at each other, like two predators acknowledging each other, then Rose said like she was talking to a favorite pet, “No, there's plenty left to kill over here first.”

  She made a waving motion with her hand and the barrier parted wide enough for our demon unicorn to see the massing enemy on the other side. The ones not aware that their false god had fled. And with the screams of the souls of the damned tied to her, her flesh writhing with the arms of a thousand grasping hands, she charged through the opening.