The Grim Legion

by Kindred Ult

  His mind screamed within him. 'There must be something I can do. I have to save them! They came here because of me, and now they are dying to save me. I cannot let them die. But what can I do? I am not strong enough to get out of here, which means that I am not strong enough to kill him on my own. I need more power, more...' An image flashed through his mind of Wulf's arms being ripped from their sockets, swiftly followed by another of Varus in his Other form being slammed into the wall by Demenn's reddening hand. He then knew. No, he had known all along that it must come to this. He had deceived himself into thinking that having E's sword would even the odds and allow him to fight without Lucifer's power, but inside, he had always known that he would give in. And yet still, he remembered those feelings when he had first met Lucifer, had seen his power and his face. He knew that this was wrong. Power in and of itself would only destroy him.

  At that moment, Brand was slammed back like a rag doll by a huge knee to his chest from Luke. His limbs went flying in all directions, but before he even hit the ground, Luke had caught up to him, grabbed him in one hand, and slammed him down. Demenn watched in horror as Luke raised his right hand above his head and shot his fist down at Brand. But then his fist connected with Brand's upraised palm, and it stopped dead. The ground and tiles around Brand broke down from the sheer strength of the smash, but Brand's arm remained taught, and one moment later Luke was blown away and onto his back by another palm strike to his ribs. The expression on Luke's face was one of bewilderment and, for the first time, fear. Demenn was just as surprised. How could Brand have suddenly become so powerful.

  Brand stood back to his feet. He looked fine, and just for one moment, Demenn allowed himself to believe that he would not have to make the difficult decision, but then blood began to pour from Brand's mouth and he fell to his knees. Spit, blood, and vomit came from his mouth, staining the tiles under him, and Demenn realized that this must have been one final attack from Brand. Luke stood shakily, and for a moment he did not seem to be able to process what was going on, but then his grin returned. He began walking toward where he had dropped his mace.

  It was then that Demenn lost all hope. He looked up at Lucifer, who he found was staring at him intently. Lucifer for once looked completely serious, almost saddened, and he extended his hand, palm up, toward Demenn. Demenn knew what was being offered. He needed to use his Other form, but he could not without Lucifer taking control. He knew that he would have to damn himself to save those around him. His eyes met with Lucifer's, and then dropped to the ground. His body slumped in the ice.

  Luke, having recovered his mace, walked toward Brand, who was still spewing bodily fluids. The weapon began to swing in his hands, but then he stopped, grimaced, and reached his hand into his ribcage before pulling out the wooden knife Brand had pushed through them with his last strike. His smile turned savage. "Well done, Brand," He wondered which of his organs had been punctured, and hoped it had not been a lung. Being in this demonic form made every weakness harder to recognize. He began swinging his mace over his head once again. "but now it is goodbye. I hope that your sins as a werewolf keep you from whatever paradise the elves believe you go to." He swung the flail over his head one more time before letting go with his left hand and flinging the ball a full fifty feet at Brand.

  Brand stared at his death slowly becoming bigger in his sight and wished that he could move his body. For reasons he could now understand, he thought last of Nasoren. 'At least now I won't have to see her die first. That's a relief.' The ball was almost upon him, and he forced himself to sit back on his heels, refusing to look away from what was coming. He did not even allow himself to blink as he stared down his death. For no reason, and not brought about by his mind, a short, sharp, angry laugh burst from his lips. It made him smile. 'I guess this is what it means to laugh at death.' He was ready.

  But then something blocked his vision. Everything in front of him was simply a dark blur, before he saw the ball go flying by him, its speed no lessened by being redirected. He slowly lifted his head and saw, with his mind's eye, another demon standing in front of him. In its hands was the Sword of Office, and the evil emitted by the creature battled against the purity shining from the blade. The demon's hands were steaming from where they held the sword, and blood dripped from them. Bones were already beginning to sprout from every imaginable area on its body.

  "Well, that makes... No sense." He slurred, before falling to the ground, unconscious.

  "You are unfit to wield me!" The Sword of Office screamed in Demenn's mind. He knew it was right, too. More so than it had ever been. He could feel his body, and was disgusted by the changes he felt taking place. He was growing no wings, but spiked bones were shooting from the bottoms of his feet, and when he began sprinting at Luke, he found that they increased his already-impressive speed to dizzying levels. Luke looked to be the least affected by Demenn's change, and did not change his face as he quickly retracted his mace and stood swinging it in the air.

  Demenn could tell that he had grown. He was not as tall as Luke, but he was pretty close. When he yelled out, though, he was surprised by the gravelly, low-pitched voice that came from his mutated voice box.

  "It ends now, Luke."

  "Yes it does, Demenn." His mace was swinging in a wide arc low to the ground, forcing Demenn to circle him instead of run straight. "It's funny, I always knew it would be you who accepted Lucifer's gift. You were always so preoccupied with saving, or avenging, that you cared nothing for what it was you were doing. You convinced yourself that you were doing the right thing because it was for other people, like your family, your people, or your friends, but in reality, we both know you just want power so that you can kill and try to make yourself feel better. Try to salve your pathetic psychological scars with violence and—"

  His voice was cut off when Demenn disappeared in front of his eyes. He was still startled when Demenn reappeared right at the the edge of his vision, his sword held in both hands and swinging upward so as to not attract attention. Luke saw it a second too soon, though, and was able to step back, retract his morning star to four feet, and slam it down on the blade. The weapons clashed, and Demenn's sword went limp directly before major impact, so that both weapons passed by one another without any force wasted. Luke spun after the strike and swung the mace around him, hoping to sweep Demenn's feet out from under him, or at least make him dodge so that Luke could gain momentum and distance on him. But Demenn instead tightened his excruciating hold on his sword and slammed its edge into the mace. The two weapons connected right at Demenn's sword's apex, but too soon for the mace to gather its full power. As such, when the two weapons clashed, they both lost their momentum and stopped.

  Luke growled and kicked out with his large boot just as the ball hit the ground, but Demenn shifted to the side, let the attack pass him by, and then stabbed his left elbow spike into and through Luke's foot. The bone started at the back end of Demenn's forearm, and as such pointed away from his hand, allowing him to yank his arm in and pull Luke toward him. With Luke off-balance, Demenn was free to pull his elbow spike out, lift his left arm up, and slash four large furrows into Luke's closest shoulder before kicking him back and away. Luke grunted as the bones in Demenn's foot left a shoe print of stabs along his ribs, but felt more pain from where the strike aggravated the wound previously given by Brand in that same area.

  Demenn was already charging by the time Luke had managed to stop his movement, which caused Lucifer's champion to curse and lengthen the chain before whipping his flail out at the steadily increasing figure. Once again Demenn planted his feet into the tiles, cracking them, and slammed his sword into the spiked ball. This time, however, the added power from the extra chain, along with the fact that Luke had manged to perfectly control the sling so that the mace hit Demenn right as it snapped, forced the vampire demon back several feet before his clenched muscles finally released and he shoved the weapon to the side with a heave of his shoulders. Despite his best efforts to remain
stationary, two large troughs had been carved in the ground where the bones in his feet had caught them, and Demenn had been forced back.

  Faster than any would think possible, Luke pulled his mace back top him, lengthened the chain while winging it behind his head, and sent it back out as it came back around to his left hand. He wasted no movements, and was already sprinting at Demenn before his mace had even reached his sword. Once again Demenn was forced to clash with the attack, as it was sent too fast for him to dodge to the side, and once again, when the weapons clashed, he was sent even further back than the first time. This time the lines went slightly off to the side, the slashes along the ground proving a perfect guiding path for Luke, who was on Demenn before the vampire had even managed to bring his sword back from his previous strike. The flail was considerably shortened now, which allowed Luke to fight with it in close combat with no handicaps. It came down from the side with the inevitability of the setting sun.

  Demenn swung back with all of his strength, and since the chain was shortened, was able to launch the ball away without moving back, but Luke would not be denied. He came back with another swing from the other side and, when that one was deflected as well, came back with another and another and another and another. Demenn met each of Luke's attacks with his own perfect counter, and even though Luke swung from all angles, he kept his eyes directly in front of him and shot his sword out, ignoring the searing, unbearable pain in his hands that only extrapolated with each contact. Each time they met, the mace snapped, and for a moment it looked like Demenn would break, but then he sent it away just like all of the others, making it look like he could take thousands more. Luke himself followed each attack with a slight hesitation, mimicking Demenn's, before ripping his weapon around and beginning again. They would swing, meet, hesitate from the strength, break, and start back again. Luke sent far more attacks than Demenn, but every counter Demenn sent his way forced Luke to abort an attack to either bend out of the way or catch it with his weapon.

  At first they stood still, only moving their upper bodies and occasionally bending at the knees or twisting at the hips to gain power, as they threw their countless blows at one another, and just absorbed each others' attacks while never letting their feet move as much as an inch. Then, however, they began to move. Never letting up their countless attacks against one another, they slowly began shifting, side-stepping, dodging, and spinning as they continued their dance. Their standing battle slowly turned to one of kneeling, dodging, rolling, leaping, and running, and yet they still picked up the pace and moved faster.

  Instead of just swinging their weapons with all of their power, they sent out kicks, trips, slashes with their hands, and headbutts. And every time they spun or rolled, they tried to sweep each others' legs out from under them with their tails. As they struggled in their battle to crush the other, they began to use traits only available to them. Luke began sweeping his wings low, flowing them behind him to try to distract Demenn, and sometimes simply punching them out to hit him, while Demenn used the spikes that had sprouted from his elbows, fingers, feet, knees, and tail to stab at Luke when he least expected it. They looked like complete opposites, with Demenn covered in jagged spikes and attacking in straight lines, and Luke looking completely smooth and attacking in circles.

  Countless times they butted horns with one another, and countless cuts and abrasions began showing on their bodies almost as if they had been created by magic. The wounds slowly increased in size and number as the battle wore on and they both scored dozens of hits on each other, but nothing definitive was landed throughout what seemed like hours of their close-quarters battle. All the time, though, Demenn was forced to ignore the sword screaming inside his head how unworthy he was, the pain in his hands that made them feel like they were being stuck in the center of the sun, and also his own nagging mind telling him that everything Luke and the sword were saying was true. The bleeding in his hands was not helping anything, either. He had to force all of those out of his mind now, though. He could think about them later. His vision narrowed, and for a time all that existed in life was the swinging of his sword, the shuffling and lunging of his feet, and the dodging and shifting of his body. He was a being of pure war incarnate.

  Their clashes continued unabated, and each of them strained every muscle as they countered and clashed with strikes again and again. Both of them moved faster than any the other had ever seen, and they appeared to only be getting faster as the battle wore on. Even with the great speed of their attacks, though, each and every one still maintained the ability to end the fight if it managed to make contact. Every blow was a deathblow, and thrown as if it were only a feint. At first there was complete parity between the two, but then the advantage began shifting, first one way and then the other. First Demenn would catch a strike too soon and would be able to lunge in and make Luke retreat, but then Luke would somehow increase the power of his strikes and put Demenn on the defensive. The momentum was almost constantly shifting, only stopped sporadically by short moments of stalemates, and yet, even through all of the ups and downs, there was still a feeling of equality that permeated throughout. Demenn's speed would catch Luke's power, or the sword would chip at the Mace before being blown back. Every little detail only served to enforce the fact that the two of them could have battled for days, or even centuries, if need be.

  But then it ended.

  Demenn brought his hands back for just another swing to defend Luke's attack, but something felt wrong. Either he shot his hands back too quickly, or the sword had finally eaten too much of his hands away for him to keep any semblance of a hold on it. Whatever it was that had caused it, though, when he realized what was happening it was too late. The Sword of Office slipped from his hands and went sailing through the air behind him. For one shock-filled moment, his mind did not register what had happened to him, but when it saw Luke's mace coming along at his left side, full control was jolted back into his body. He jumped back as far as he could in one movement, wrapped his tail around his left arm, and held it up to his side in a pitiful attempt at defending the attack. His mind was focused solely on surviving the attack he knew he could not avoid, and he barely flinched when the mace extended mid-swing until it caught up with him and slammed into his side. Even with his demonic powers, he still gasped in pain when three spikes pierced his body. The lowest one stabbed through his upper thigh, the highest went through his shoulder muscle before sticking into his jaw, and the middle one rammed through his wrapped tail and arm before sticking about three inches into his ribs. For a moment, he blacked out from the pain brought on by the impact of the weapon colliding with him and the spikes bursting into him, but he woke just in time to roll to the side and out of the way of Luke's attempted downward finishing strike.

  He had apparently been blown back quite a few feet, but he could still see Luke's grin turn feral when the champion saw Demenn's damaged body. He swung back down once again in only a second, despite being dozens of feet away and, when Demenn rolled out of the way of that one as well, swiped his weapon to the side like he was reaping the air on his way to Demenn. Demenn was still on the ground, but he was able to move faster than he ever thought possible. Bones shot from his spinal cord, lifting him into the air and turning him back to standing. Once his feet his the ground, the bones on his feet allowed him to begin sprinting away from the attack. Had he not retracted the bones protruding from his spine, they would have been caught by the mace, but as it was, he was able to dodge the strike by inches and continue running before turning around. He threw himself down, ducking under a straight shot from Luke, then jumped to the side and avoided another sideways strike.

  He was bleeding in many different places, and it hurt like hell to move his left leg and arm. He blocked out all of his pain and problems, though, and allowed only one thought to control him. 'I need to get the sword! In order to protect them I have to get it.'

  But then another thought crept though his single-mindedness.

 
'It is right. I am not fit to wield that sword. I never was, but now I am completely divorced from what it was originally meant to accomplish. I am a demon now, it is what I have chosen, I should fight the part.' He still faced Luke, waiting on the balls of his feet for the next strike he would send his way, but he risked a glance at Lucifer. 'Lucifer would give me a weapon, definitely. He's always wanted me as his champion, anyway. He would favor me, would probably even heal me. I am already fighting to be his champion anyway... This would just be a means to an end. I have... I've already accepted his power with this form, what difference would fully accepting his help make? Hell, I'm already...Scum.'

  It was with that final thought that he felt his mind shift. His face hardened, and in one smooth motion he had spun around and was sprinting back to the sword. His mind was screaming at him to not keep his back turned to Luke, that he was far too over-exposed, but he kept on running as fast as possible. He counted seconds in his head, and jumped to one side as best as he was able to, but even though his timing was perfect, he was still clipped by the spiked ball spinning past him. It dug into his right arm and the lower back of his torso, but as he turned with the strike, the spikes came out, and the ball was soon shooting its way back to its owner. He felt his arm go numb, and suddenly breathing was harder than it had been before, but he gritted his teeth through the pain and kept his feet moving. Blood was now squirting from his left thigh with every step he took, but he still ran until he reached where the sword had fallen. When he snatched it up and spun around in one motion, he expected it to scream at him, to taunt him with his faults and sins, to condemn him for his choice, but when he held it in his hands, he felt no pain.