by Eric Vall
“Ohhh, I remember Zander,” Todd noted, “wasn’t that the demon your cultists iced like, a couple of months ago? I remember Ollie telling me they split his head open like an overripe tomato.”
“I would have loved to see that.” Deja smiled. “That dude was a total fucking asshole.”
“They all are,” Eclipse noted.
“The only silver lining is I did get to watch Jacob and my sisters kill my pimp,” Tris said as her depression turned to amusement, “I watched it on the magic mirror in our castle, and it was fan-fucking tastic.”
“Do you Physical World dwellers always banter this much?” Zilla interjected.
“This ain’t nothing, Gojira,” Todd snickered. “One time, we spent nearly an hour going back and forth about what characters were in what season of Power Rangers. Even though Super Sentai is way better.”
“That sounds … exhausting,” the Shadow Person noted.
“Uh-oh, Jakey,” Todd whispered, “she seems like a major introvert. You might have to really put your charm into overdrive if you wanna clap that trap.”
“Again, I don’t even think she has one of those,” I reminded the imp, but he just shook his head.
“Bro, how else do these things reproduce?” he shot back.
“We don’t,” Zilla spoke up in a booming voice that caused us to both go silent. “As I told you before, the Caliginis in Umbra are the last of our kind. The rest were either killed by the Divine and Demonic in the Great Purge, or executed by Tenebris for disobedience.”
Damn. As freaky as these Shadow People were, I kinda felt bad for them. It couldn’t have been easy to be the last of your kind, but it was even worse to see any scrap of hope killed off by a brutal dictator.
“So Shadow--er, Caliginis can’t reproduce?” I questioned as Zilla began to float down a nearby aisle. “How did you ever intend to grow as a species?”
“We weren’t supposed to,” Zilla said as her glowing red eyes narrowed. “That is not our intended purpose.”
The Shadow woman continued talking, but then Todd reached up and tugged on my pant leg.
“Ya hear that, Jakey?” Todd whispered as he tried to be much quieter than before. “She can’t reproduce. That means you’ve got the go-ahead to do the fancy king clancy when you two finally get it on.”
“The what?” I hissed back under my breath.
“Ya know … the ‘ol creampie. The baby gravy six shooter. Tsunami in the tunnel. Icing on the cake. Filling up her jacuzzi with your hose. Buttering her biscuit… ”
“Where the fuck do you come up with this shit, bro?” I whispered as Zilla continued to monologue.
“The Toddster’s mind is a fucked-up playground,” he snickered.
“ … And that’s how the Exalted One came to use us as his cleansers,” Zilla finished her story, even though I’d been distracted the whole time by Todd’s antics.
“When you say ‘cleansers,’” I asked as I air-quoted, “what exactly do you mean.”
“I just went over this,” Zilla sighed. “The Caliginis were created for one reason, and one reason only. As a human, I’m sure you’ve heard of the great plagues.”
“I have,” I nodded, “but I definitely don’t remember any of the plagues involving dark creatures with red eyes.”
“Those aren’t the ones I’m referring to,” the Shadow Woman continued. “I’m talking about the plague. You know, the one that wiped out all of the giant reptilian creatures that used to dwell on your planet.”
“Wait … ” Todd gasped. “Are you talking about the dinosaurs?”
“The giant creatures with scales and feathers?” Zilla asked. “The ones twenty feet tall?”
“A-Are you telling me Godzilla killed the dinosaurs?” the imp stuttered with amusement.
“Well, we didn’t kill all of them,” the Shadow Woman corrected, “some of the smaller ones escaped our wrath and went subterranean. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were still on your planet to this day, only evolved to be more humanoid.”
Slowly, Todd’s mouth fell agape, and at the same time, his eyes lit up and his mouth stretched upwards into a happy smile. Then his head twisted around to look at me, and the tiny imp had an expression of pure victory on his face.
“Lizard People, bro,” Todd announced as he thumped his chest, “just another one of the things everyone called me crazy for believing in! I told you our landlord was a Lizard Person, but did you believe the Toddster? Noooooo.”
“Mr. Jefferson wasn’t a Lizard Person,” I rolled my eyes, “he was just an asshole.”
“I swear, bro,” the imp continued, “he could make his eyes go in two different directions and everything, and I totally saw him catch a fly with his tongue once. Swear to the Exalted One.”
“Right,” I mused as I tried to steer the conversation back to Zilla, “so you purged all the dinosaurs. Then what happened?”
“There was what Lucifer and the Exalted One called a ‘miscommunication,’” she continued. “The Caliginis had been created to wipe out the Exalted One’s first creations and then leave the Earth for his next experiment.”
“Humans,” Invidia gagged.
“That’s right,” Zilla confirmed, “but that’s not what we had in mind. If we were powerful enough to wipe out nearly an entire species of creatures, then why should there even be a third experiment? Were we not good enough to populate this world the Exalted One had created?”
“I’m gonna take a wild guess here and say ‘no,’” I chuckled, “at least, not in my father and the Exalted Ones’ eyes.”
“They wanted beings made in their own image,” Zilla grumbled, “not, and I quote, ‘faceless, abominable, savage creatures’ like us. As you can imagine, we didn’t take their slight too well, and we began to go rogue. The Caliginis went around killing off every creature we could find to slight our two enemies, until they finally banded together and banished us here.”
“It’s kinda ironic,” Eclipse mused, “you wanted to be the dominant creatures on Earth, which got you banished here. But now you’re by far the most dominant creatures in this realm.”
“And we would be even more bountiful, if not for Tenebris,” the Shadow Woman sighed.
“Well, that’s why I’m here,” I admitted. “If I’m really your ‘savior,’ then I can help you overthrow this guy and give you your freedom back. Now, how the fuck do we get to Tenebris?”
“He’s probably holed up in a giant-ass castle, bro,” Todd suggested. “That seems to be where all the major boss battles seem to take place.”
“That’s not true,” Ira reminded the imp, “we also fight in the middle of a major city sometimes.”
“Or an abandoned small town,” Tris added.
“Or a desolate desert or field,” Invidia mused, “we seem to have a lot of our big fights in those.”
“Thank fuck we keep finding these giant swatches of land to fight in, bro,” Todd giggled, “it’d be pretty damn inconvenient if all our battles took place in giant populated cities. We’d be looked at like, mass murderers or some shit like that with all the destruction we’d cause.”
“Well,” Zilla mused, “today is your lucky day, imp. Tenebris is a very hands-on king who always makes it a point to come down from his castle and flaunt his royalty to the townspeople daily. If we want to eliminate him, we might have to take the fight to the streets.”
“Fuck,” Todd sighed, “I’m totally gonna have to snap his neck while he’s shooting lasers out of his eyes, aren’t I?”
“I-I don’t think Tenebris has those sort of powers--” Zilla began, but Todd was on a roll.
“But then I’ll totally scream afterwards to make sure everybody knows I didn’t want to kill him,” he continued, “and then people will hop on the internet and yell at each other over it. It’s gonna be rough, bro.”
There was silence as Zilla tried to figure out what Todd was talking about, but then she simply turned toward the rest of the group to continue the discu
ssion.
“Are you suggesting we ambush him?” I questioned.
“Yes and no,” another eerie voice, this time male, spoke up. “Trying to ambush the King of Umbra in the open streets would be suicide. We’ve already tried it with another one of our ‘saviors’ and lost both him and four of our best men.”
A male Shadow Person floated over to me, looked me in the eyes, and then bowed his head in greeting.
“King Ralston, this is Blagdan, my most trusted general,” Zilla explained. “He has been the one in charge of our covert operations for nearly sixty years.”
“Only sixty years?” Inpulsa questioned. “Haven’t you been in the Shadow World for millennia? That doesn’t inspire much confidence.”
“I’ll admit I’m somewhat fresh-faced,” Blagdan sighed, “but that’s unfortunately how it is around here. Every time one of these ‘saviors’ shows up to kill Tenebris, it usually results in one of our generals being killed with them. I’m just the most recent promotion, that’s all.”
“You don’t give yourself enough credit,” Zilla reassured the Shadow Man, “you’ve been a loyal soldier for as long as I can remember, and you’ve been a great general in your short time as a leader. However, tomorrow will be your most defining moment.”
My entire body felt like it was on pins and needles as Zilla’s words sent a chill through me.
“Tomorrow?” I asked. “You want us to attack tomorrow?”
“Of course,” the Shadow Queen retorted, “the longer you and your friends stay here, the higher the risk of our operation being discovered. Tenebris keeps up to date on the happenings of the other Realms, and I’m sure he already knows you’re the next one up to be our potential savior. Especially since you match up with the Book of Bezaleel’s description to a tee.”
“I just got here,” I protested, “I don’t think it’s a good strategy to engage so quickly.”
Cupi and Daniel were my two best strategists, and neither of them were here with me in the Shadow World. I was confident my friends and I could kill this guy without their help, but it was going to be fairly difficult if we didn’t have some time to get our bearings and work out a plan.
“That’s why I’ve asked Blagdan here to show you around Umbra,” Zilla continued, “and we already have a plan, King of the Fourth Circle.”
“Each and every day, Tenebris holds a royal court in the playhouse downtown,” Blagdan explained, “he has fools from all around the city come out and entertain him with their different acts. The rest of his schedule is fairly inconsistent, but he’s always at the playhouse three clock rotations after sunrise.”
“So, like, nine o’clock?” Todd questioned. “I dunno, Blagpipe. That’s awful early for the Toddster.”
“Me too,” Tris groaned, “I haven’t seen the time before ten a.m. in decades. I’m halfway certain the world doesn’t even exist before then.”
“Our laws of space and time don’t apply here, remember?” I reminded Tris and the imp. “For all we know, ‘three rotations of the clock’ could mean eight hours or something.”
“We will inform you when it is time to strike.” Blagdan nodded.
“Let me get this straight,” I began, “the plan is to wait until Tenebris is watching his fools perform for him, and then jump into action and kill him?”
“Sounds good to me,” Inpulsa smiled.
“Unless you have a better plan,” the general retorted, “we’ve tried just about everything else. The playhouse is one of the few places where we haven’t tried to kill the king, and that’s mostly because it’s full of innocent civilians and we don’t want them to be caught in the crossfire.”
“It’s also the reason Tenebris is bold enough to show up there regularly,” Zilla added, “even if he does surround himself with his royal guard when he does so.”
This wasn’t making sense. If they knew Tenebris was a sitting duck in the playhouse, why had they waited so long to make their move? It had to be more than just not wanting to accidentally kill their brethren.
They weren’t telling me everything. And that wasn’t fucking acceptable.
“Can you answer me one thing?” I mumbled as I rubbed my head in confusion. “Why haven’t you done this already? You know the exact time Tenebris is in the playhouse. You all surely know this city like the back of your hands, and could ambush him at any second of the day. So, what’s the hold up? Why are you waiting for my friends and I to swoop in and save you?”
Zilla and Blagdan looked at each other silently for a moment before their eyes looked back at me somberly.
“Because,” Zilla began, “as much as I hate to admit it … we’re not strong enough to kill Tenebris on our own.”
“What do you mean?” I demanded. “You just said your people wiped out the fucking dinosaurs and threatened the two most powerful beings in the universe. And now you’re telling me you can’t handle one dude?”
“Tenebris may only be ‘one dude,’” Blagdan warned, “but he’s no pushover.”
“There’s no way he’s more powerful than my father or the Exalted One,” I scoffed.
“Of course not,” Zilla explained, “but you must understand, King Ralston … the advantage of the Caliginis has always been our strength in numbers. We swarm and destroy our opponents, but that’s hard to do when there’s only a handful of us left willing to fight for the Shining Alliance.”
“Ahhh,” Todd said as the lightbulb came on in his head, “you’re into the whole ‘Zerg Rush’ thing.”
“I still don’t get it,” I huffed, “it’s still only one guy.”
“Tenebris broke the mold,” Blagdan noted, “unlike the rest of us, he’s a master tactician with unrivaled swordplay and powers that make the rest of us look like fools. We’ve tried to take him on without our savior, King Ralston, and each time, he’s slaughtered us like animals.”
Zilla floated over to me, placed her nebulous hands on my shoulders, and stared deep into my soul.
“We need you, Jacob Ralston,” she pleaded, “without our savior, we are but lambs to be sacrificed.”
Maybe it was the desperate, fearful tone in Zilla’s voice, or maybe it was just the fact it was nice to feel appreciated. Either way, I felt for these people.
I couldn’t just let them continue to be killed off at the behest of a draconian ruler. They needed my friends and me, and we weren’t going to disappoint them.
“Alright,” I conceded, “but if we’re going to do this so soon, I need to know some things. First off, if the Caliginis are bum-rushers, what makes Tenebris such an expert hand-to-hand fighter?”
I could hear Todd snicker at the term “bum-rusher,” but I simply tried my best to ignore him.
“When the initial purge happened, Tenebris was lucky enough to escape the Exalted One’s wrath,” Zilla explained. “He remained on Earth Realm with a handful of his brethren, which was where they remained for several millennia.”
“Then why would they show up here?” Eclipse mused. “I thought you guys didn’t want to be in the Shadow World?”
“Who wouldn’t want to be here?” Vidia gushed with a longing sigh.
“We didn’t,” Zilla confirmed, “but, like I said before, we’ve made the best out of our situation, and the Caliginis people have found a home a million times better than what we would have had on Earth.”
“And Tenebris got jealous.” I nodded.
“I suppose you could say that,” Blagdan shrugged, “but it was more of a cowardly move on the part of Tenebris. You see, he spent several millennia on Earth Realm, learning the ways of the humans. He eventually became a master swordsman and an expert in hand-to-hand combat, and then he and his cronies went around slaughtering men and trying to take control of the world.”
“The Shadow of Death,” Zilla added, “that’s what the humans called him.”
“Wait … ” Todd pondered as he stroked his goatee, “is that what Coolio was talking about in the first verse of Gangsta’s Paradise?”
“I’m pretty sure he was quoting the Bible,” I clarified.
“Which was based on that dude, right?” the imp shot back. “So, he was totally talking about Tinnitus!”
“Did the humans prove to be too much for Tenebris?” Deja questioned.
“It quickly became apparent he wasn’t going to conquer them like he had hoped,” Blagdan continued, “there were simply too many of them, and not enough of his men. Ironic, I know.”
“So, once Tenebris heard of the paradise we’d created down here, he set his sights on Umbra,” Zilla sighed. “When he finally figured out how to travel to the Shadow World, Tenebris made short work of our king and any Caliginis who opposed him. A large group of us realized we couldn’t face him head on and, well … that’s how the Shining Alliance was born.”
“Alright,” I nodded as I absorbed the history lesson, “so he’s a master of the blade. What else? Does he have any other weapons? You also mentioned something about his powers … ”
“Tenebris has the ability to ‘phase’ in and out of our world,” Blagdan explained. “All of us Caliginis experience the phenomenon from time to time, it’s how we end up in Earth Realm for short periods. But Tenebris is the only one who has learned how to control it, and he uses it during combat.”
“Greaaaaaat,” I sighed, “so it’ll be like fighting Nightcrawler, then.”
“Now would be a great time for you to have your Sherlock powers, Clockblocker,” Todd added, “but all our jolly green Hellfire powers are more useless than a micropenis in subzero weather. Nowhere to be found.”
“My flash-forward abilities aren’t born of green Hellfire,” Deja said in a somewhat defensive tone. “It’s just something that’s been programmed into my mind. It’s how I experience time.”
Suddenly, it dawned on me. That was how we were going to defeat Tenebris.
“Deja,” I implored as I walked over to the tan succubus, “if your flash forward powers are still working in here, do you think you could use them to predict where Tenebris will teleport?”
