Chronicles of Eden - Act XII

by Alexander Gordon

  “This is exactly what we wanted to happen. Everything is playing out as it should. Now be quiet and enjoy the show, the best is about to come.”

  “The best?” Flarah repeated. Kindra glanced back to the chronofly with a curious eye and wagging tails, seeing Aeon keeping her sights solely on Daniel as she too was eager for what was about to happen.

  “Oh yes, it will certainly be worth all the trouble I’ve gone through to witness. The only thing left to do now is simply to wait; wait for Daniel Sorres to receive one last push.”

  “One last push?” Kindra asked. “What does that mean?”

  “It means he’s almost ready to grasp victory,” Aeon answered. She giggled and eyed over the fighters standing alongside Daniel, her gaze then resting on one in particular.

  “With his loss comes his triumph.”

  Chapter 11

  Last Stand

  In the world of Eden everyone had their limits, both physical and emotional, that when tested could possibly thrust them further beyond in surprising ways. Though they might just as easily break, either in body or mind, the desire to succeed, to retaliate, or just to survive, their abilities could shine unexpectedly bright and even prove to be more formidable than first imagined. All it would take was the right push for someone to ignite with unbridled energy and potential to surpass their limits by extraordinary means.

  And nothing would push them harder than that of heartbreak and revenge.

  *****

  In his hands the Hellfire’s Edge resonated with a dreadful demonic aura, its fiery power and heated wrath contained within the dark obsidian blade making Daniel feel as though he was holding a sliver of hell itself in his grasp. Though as ominous and frightening as that was, even the Hellfire’s Edge paled in comparison to the two horrors that stood before him and his group of monstergirls.

  “Well, well, well,” Jovian said with a bitter smile. “Squeak. It’s been so long since we last met. I wasn’t aware you had accompanied Daniel into our neck of the woods. How very nice to see you again. You’re looking absolutely delicious as always.”

  Squeak merely squeaked once at her with a stern glare, her fists tightened and ready to strike the foul monster in the face again.

  “And Felucia,” Jacqueline spoke with a menacing leer. “Looks like you came back to play with us again. That warms my heart, seeing our beloved dolly returning to be toyed with once more.”

  “Fuck. You,” Felucia retorted. “I only came back to drag my stubborn daughter out of this place, but I don’t mind rearranging those fucking faces of yours in thanks for your horrendous treatment of me before we leave.”

  “Is that so?” Jovian remarked, her eyes then noticing Sheal standing amongst them. “And what’s this? Seems we have a traitor siding with you annoying pests. Have you no honor, little fire lizard? You know, betrayal to The Sisterhood isn’t forgiven I’m afraid.”

  “Honor?” Sheal scornfully replied. “How dare you speak about honor and betrayal to me! You murdered my sisters in front of me, your followers left me to die in the chaos; it is The Sisterhood that has betrayed me! You two lied to us! You said we would be given respect and better lives in return for serving your cause, but all you’ve done is take my family away and sentenced me to death for wanting to help you people! To hell with The Sisterhood and to hell with you!”

  “Such hurtful words,” Jacqueline sneered. “Speaking to us with such spite, I don’t think I want you to be our friend anymore.”

  “Though I suppose we do need to make up for the trouble we caused you,” Jovian chuckled as the sisters held up their swords. “In retribution for everything you’re blabbering about, how about we send you straight to the underworld and reunite you with your beloved family?”

  Daniel and the girls tensed up as the gemini’s weapons began channeling growing auras of electricity and ice around them. Clover kept her aim steady on the wicked sisters, her eyes then slowly turning to see other monsters approaching from around the clearing through the smoky haze. All the fighters carefully looked around as grunts of The Sisterhood slowly approached the battlefield. Goblins, gremlins, trolls, salamander women, mites, arachne, and a large ogre surrounded the clearing while keeping a sharp watch on them.

  “Sisters!” Jovian called out as she held her sword towards Daniel. “Kill those girls and rape that man to death!”

  The gemini laughed in unison as they ran towards Daniel, with the surrounding monsters letting loose feral roars as they rushed the group from all sides.

  “This anarchy ends now!” Daniel declared as he ran towards the sisters. Squeak quickly took off along with him, the ant girl swiping up a goblin’s sword from the ground and charging the gemini alongside her mate while the other fighters turned to face the approaching horde of monsters. Cindy quickly backed up closer to the others while holding her arm around Pip in her chest as the remaining fighters each faced a different direction while readying to fight for their lives.

  “Bring it!” Clover yelled, the elf quickly firing her arrows in a blur at the flanking monsters to their left. She drew and fired her arrows faster than could be seen by her foes, sending a flurry of the steel-tipped bolts soaring through the air and into the approaching monsters with rapid strikes. Goblins, trolls, and mites were struck down while an arachne took several arrows to her chest before dropping with a heavy thump. The elf spun around and fired two more bolts past Cindy’s head into approaching salamander women on the other side of the clearing, fired another high up into the trees and sniped an arachne out of the branches with a painful scream, and then proceeded to fire wildly in all directions at any targets she could see.

  “Payback time!” Sheal hoarsely shouted, charging forward and firing a molten blast of bile at approaching monsters, striking an arachne who burst into flames with a gurgled scream while fire erupted around her and clipped another two trolls. The salamander woman struck a goblin’s face with her claws, smacked a gremlin away with a swing of her tail, then jumped aside as an ogre swung its club down and narrowly missed her while smashing the screaming goblin into a bloody smear. The salamander woman swiftly jumped onto the club and raced up along it onto the ogre’s shoulder, spat molten bile onto the brute’s face, then jumped off and pounced a gremlin into the ground, the fiend’s alchemic pouches exploding into a fiery blaze that incinerated the gremlin without harming Sheal in the slightest. The salamander stood up amidst the fires burning off the monster’s corpse while the ogre behind her dropped onto its back screaming with its face slowly melting into its skull.

  “I’ve been waiting for this!” Felucia yelled, running forward and plowing right through a crowd of trolls and goblins that she knocked flying. She grabbed a mite from the air, slammed it into the ground with a splatter, backhanded a troll whose head snapped all the way around her neck, then took two goblins’ swords through her stomach while a salamander woman rushed up and grabbed hold of her shoulders. The fiery monster opened her mouth with swirling flames growing inside while the goblins stared in surprise at seeing their swords sticking through the sandy woman’s body to no effect. Felucia grabbed their hands and weapons, yanked them up through her body and sliced the salamander’s head off, then slammed the two flailing goblins into the ground with hard crunches. Standing up again the sand wraith snarled at approaching monsters while holding the two swords in hand, sandy patches slipping through her appearance on her hip and breasts as she felt her anger at her captors driving her into a vengeful frenzy.

  “Go away!” Cindy shouted, punching a goblin in the face and launching the monster into a spiral back into more of the grunts that were knocked down from the forceful collision. The sand wraith jumped back with a scream as molten bile struck the ground next to her feet, her fearful eyes turning to a salamander woman that hoarsely yelled at her with fire building up in her mouth. The monster wound back to spit another blast at Cindy before an arrow struck into her heart and neck, knocking the monster down with a cry and molten bile spilling out of he
r mouth onto the ground.

  “Stay down, Cindy!” Clover ordered as she took another shot before spinning around and doing so again.

  “But… but I want to help,” Cindy worried as she looked around at the growing battle that surrounded her.

  “Daniel!” Jovian screamed as she and Jacqueline rushed forward with their swords trailing magical radiances in their wake.

  “Scream for us!” Jacqueline yelled as they both slashed towards the human with their weapons, sending out a torrent of snapping lightning and swirling icicles that tore apart the ground beneath it. Daniel ran towards them while gripping his sword tightly, taking a few more steps before coming to a halt and throwing all his weight into a heavy swing at the approaching electrical icestorm coming his way. The Hellfire’s Edge cast out a wide arc of fiery energy with black light flowing through it, crashing into the gemini’s attack and detonating it with a powerful boom of fire, lightning, and ice that exploded backwards into a large cloud of smoke with arcs of energy zapping through it.

  Through the static filled haze the gemini sisters leapt forward with maniacal laughter, with Jovian touching down on the ground and rushing towards Daniel with a fevered swing that he quickly ducked under, then dodged, and then parried before the girl jabbed him in the chest with her fist and knocked him back with a heavy cough. Jacqueline raced over to Squeak and swung her weapon, with the ant girl holding her sword out and blocking the hit that knocked her back a few steps before she dashed forward and swung her weapon at the monster with a loud squeak. The blonde girl blocked the attack that pushed her back slightly before taking a hard swing at Squeak again, just missing the top of her antennae as the ant girl ducked down and followed through with an upward slash of her sword that collided with Jacqueline’s sword once more.

  From under a shadowy canopy beneath a slanted tree Aeon watched closely as Daniel and Squeak engaged the gemini in combat, her calm smile never flinching as she saw the human and ant girl clashing against the Dark Queen who relentlessly fought back. Someone next to her however was considerably less calm while anxiously fidgeting with all her tails shaking behind her.

  “This isn’t good,” Kindra fretted while digging her nails into a tree. “They’re surrounded and Daniel Sorres is starting to tire from his fight. Tell me the truth, chrono bitch, how the fuck is he supposed to prevail here?”

  “I’m rather curious about that myself,” Flarah mentioned, stealing a glance at passing arachne that skittered down the tree above them and jumped towards the deadly brawl. “Aeon, did you just want him to die here for some reason? Is that all this is about? Because the odds aren’t exactly in his favor.”

  “I already told you why I’m doing this,” Aeon replied with a shrug. “That reason hasn’t changed.”

  “Ragnarok,” Flarah carefully said. “Still insisting upon that fairytale coming true?”

  “It’s not a fairytale!” Kindra shouted at her.

  “Keep your voice down,” Aeon sternly ordered. “If Daniel Sorres or his friends discover us it will drastically lead their fates astray. This needs to happen precisely as I’ve planned, or else we’re all going to be in dire trouble.”

  “All of us?” Flarah questioned her. “You’re counting yourself in that, aren’t you?”

  “What will happen if we intervene?” Kindra asked the chronofly. “Seriously, I can’t let him die here, I need to know-”

  “He won’t die, provided we don’t interfere,” Aeon interrupted her. “That’s all you need to know. Now watch closely, this is the moment you’ve been waiting for all this time. You won’t want to miss it.”

  “It is? What’s going to happen?” Kindra eagerly asked, turning her sights back onto Daniel with unblinking eyes as she excitedly clawed the tree’s bark with her nails. Flarah watched Aeon closely for a moment longer before looking back to Daniel with a cautious eye, something the chronofly noticed and chuckled at as the elder kitsune was obviously curious as well.

  Monsters of The Sisterhood swarmed the battlefield while passing over many of their fallen comrades, the charging brutes being kept at bay from reaching Daniel and Squeak’s fight with the gemini as the other fighters present were proving more difficult to pass than anticipated.

  “Get away from my baby!” Felucia roared, swinging her swords around and cleaving through the fiends that rushed at her. Taking daggers and axes into her sandy body did nothing with slowing her down, the furious woman striking her blades into a pair of arachne, punching a troll down to the ground with a shattered jaw, grabbing a goblin and swinging her around into a few mites before launching her into and through a tree, and finally pouncing onto a gremlin that she snarled at with a powerful aura of malice. Felucia yanked off her belt with the alchemic pouches and threw it at a troll, exploding her and nearby fiends into flames with noxious gas dropping mites and goblins to the ground screaming in agony, then pressed her body close to the gremlin’s while her sand began spreading over the shrieking monster who thrashed about in her grip.

  “Let me go! Let me- AHHHHH!” the gremlin cried out as Felucia engulfed the monster into her body, the sand wraith swallowing her up then strenuously tensing up as a loud grinding noise was heard within her. Raising her head to reveal her face having sand falling from cracks in her cheeks and forehead she saw a salamander woman running closer with fire building up in its mouth. The monster howled at the surprised wraith before taking an arrow through her eye, dropping the monster down to the ground where her jaw and cheeks blasted apart from the resulting explosion inside. Looking back Felucia saw Clover firing her arrows like crazy in all directions, pelting trolls and arachne that charged from the surrounding woods while letting loose a furious warcry.

  “God fucking dammit!” Clover cursed as she fired three arrows at an approaching trio of trolls before firing another at a mite that she struck out of the air. “There’s too many! I’m running out of arrows here!”

  Cindy watched the elf launching her bolts all around the battlefield before quickly searching the surrounding area with a nervous whine. She spotted a fallen dark ranger near the side of the clearing, the wraith’s eyes focusing on the quiver of arrows strapped to the woman’s back before seeing a troll being tackled to the ground by Sheal in front of her, the salamander spraying fire into the screaming monster’s face before quickly taking off and slashing at a goblin with her claws.

  “I can help,” she told herself. “I can help too. I can help. Hang on Pip, we’re going to help too!”

  She took off running towards the fallen ranger, screaming while punching a troll that got in front of her and sending the brute flying into a spiral away into an arachne, and kept sprinting ahead as three mites buzzed around her with a gremlin throwing an alchemic bag towards the girl.

  “Cindy!” Clover screamed as she kept firing at nearby monsters, her eye glancing back to see the sand wraith flailing her arm around at the buzzing mites while the gremlin’s bag soared towards her. Before it could hit Sheal jumped in front of it, taking the blast of fire that exploded from the pouch which flowed harmlessly against her. The salamander shot a fiery glob toward the gremlin, the furry monster leaping aside with a scream as she narrowly dodged it, and then turned to see Cindy tripping to the ground with the mites scratching apart her backside before a goblin rushed over and jumped onto the salamander’s back with a deranged cackle.

  “Get away from Pip!” Cindy yelled while blindly swinging her arm at the buzzing monsters. “Go away! Stop it!”

  “She’s a sand wraith,” one of the droned. “We can’t hurt her.”

  “Burn her,” another hissed, with the others buzzing in agreement. “Burn her. Burn her.”

  “Get away!” Cindy yelled as she rolled around and swung her fist at them, the mites flying off and grabbing flaming branches next to a burning tree that they carried back towards the now terrified sand wraith.

  “Burn her,” a mite dully ordered, the flying monsters buzzing around Cindy and swinging the fiery sticks at her.
The agile flyers struck at the girl with their flaming weapons before two were shot out of the air by arrows. Cindy held her arms around herself as the flaming branches dropped next to her, her fearful scream at seeing fire so close to her barely sounding out over the surrounding chaos, then noticed the last mite in the air tuning to glare at Clover who was now grappling with a goblin that kept jumping against her.

  “Cindy!” Clover shouted out as the fiend tried hacking at her with a dagger, the elf grabbing her arm and trying to push the monster back with her bow. Cindy looked down to the burning branches next to her, the wraith then mustering all her courage before grabbing one and stabbing it up into the buzzing mite, searing off its wing and dropping it to the ground with a scream. The sand wraith stood up and whacked the mite with the flaming stick a few times then kicked the monster away with its head coming off. Tossing aside the branch Cindy ran over to the fallen elf and quickly yanked the quiver off her, taking one step away to run back to Clover before jumping away with a scream as a fiery blast flew by in front of her.

  “Foolish bitch,” a salamander woman hissed as she built up a flaming attack in her mouth again. She opened wide to release it at the frightened sand wraith, only to have her jaws suddenly clamped shut by Sheal, the resulting backfire blowing apart the salamander woman’s mouth and neck in a fiery burst. Cindy stared at her in stunned silence before she and Sheal turned to see Clover screaming as the goblin tackled her to the ground along with another, the two monsters pinning the elf down and brandishing their daggers with drooling smiles.

  “You screem now,” one cackled as they raised the blades up. “You screem now!”

  Without pause one was whacked clear off the elf with a bone breaking impact, the other goblin then looking up to witness Felucia reaching out and grabbing her by the face.

  “You’re not even worth eating,” Felucia scorned as she lifted the monster up, her hand then crushing in the skull of the goblin that jerked slightly before hanging lifelessly by its neck. The sand wraith tossed the corpse away as Clover got back onto her feet, the elf watching her carefully before seeing a quiver of arrows flying through the air towards her. Immediately dropping her empty one behind her Clover snatched the new holder as it flew by, swinging it over her shoulder and fastening it into place as she turned her sights over to Cindy who was waving at her with a few joyful hops.