Earth God

by Jon Messenger

  Sammy shook her head as the blue flooded back into her eyes. “Father?” She looked confusedly toward Xander, who merely smiled and nodded. She glanced back toward Balor, who slowly descended the stairs onto the court.

  “Get out of my daughter’s body, beast,” he ordered.

  Sammy lowered her gaze and shook her head once more. It was a very different voice from the scared blonde woman that escaped her lips when she spoke again. “You can’t have her. She’s mine!”

  Xander climbed to his feet and placed his hand on the small of her back. “You’re no one’s. You’re the strongest woman I know, physically and mentally. And if this doesn’t prove just how many people love you, I don’t know what will.”

  She arched her back as an internal battle raged just beneath her skin. The room grew dark once more, though the effect was very different. It wasn’t a silhouette of a dragon that stretched behind her, but a semi-transparent image of the dragon itself. Its red scales shimmered in the dim light, even though Xander could see the broken concrete through its skin. Its tail and lower legs remained invisible, still fully absorbed within Sammy’s body.

  “Fight it,” Xander said.

  “Release my daughter,” Balor demanded.

  Sammy writhed in anguish, a combination of physical pain and mental torture she endured while trying to force the Elemental out of her body. The dragon had fused with her, infesting every muscle, every organ, and every bone. Forcing it from her body felt like trying to pluck one bone out of her body at a time, straight through her chest.

  The dragon howled, its voice echoing in the building. It was growing more and more solid, losing its ghostlike transparency. Even so, it refused to be evicted. Its lower body still slimmed impossibly as it remained merged with her waist.

  Lord Balor reached the court floor and rushed to her side, Sean and Jessica running at his heels. He grabbed one of her outstretched arms, ignoring the burning pain that touching her searing skin caused. He held on tightly, staring his daughter in the eyes.

  “I raised you to be tougher than this, stronger than even the dragon,” he said through clenched teeth. “Force it from your body.”

  “We love you,” Xander said from her other side. “We can’t end this until you’re free. I won’t end this until I know you’re safe.”

  She wanted the pain to be over, to be fully separated from the dragon, but it refused. Her heart ached for both men. Knowing her father was at her side, that he had battled through so much, and clearly escaped the dragon’s prison just to be with her was almost enough on its own to drive the dragon out. Having Xander there, professing his love and begging her to return, gave her a strength she didn’t know existed. But she was fighting an Elemental, a primordial power that had existed as long as life on the planet. It wasn’t so easily defeated.

  “I can’t,” she panted, sweat pouring down her face. “It’s too much. It won’t let me go.”

  “If I could fight this battle for you, I would,” Xander said. “It wants you as its host. You just have to be stronger.”

  Sammy licked her dry lips and panted heavily from the exertion. She turned toward Xander, tears welling in her eyes. “I was made to be its host, the perfect body to harness its power. So long as it has this body, it won’t let it go.”

  In a flash of movement, she wrenched her arm free of her father’s grip and dropped to a knee. Her hand scooped up a sharpened sliver of concrete. As she stood, she looked apologetically toward the two men.

  “Forgive me.”

  She plunged the stone into her stomach and collapsed to the ground.

  The dragon’s roar shook the building. It could feel every flare of pain in its abdomen, connected as it was to Sammy. The shard of concrete remained lodged in her stomach, and blood poured down the stone and pooled on the floor. Panicked, it flooded her body with its power, trying to heal her as it had done before with General Abraxas. As its power coursed through her, it could feel the internal damage healing, but in response, Sammy twisted the stone, tearing through muscles and piercing organs.

  It rocked backward once again, feeling every drop of anguish within its own body. It glared at the blonde woman, curled into a ball on the basketball court at its feet. Its back legs and tail still dissolved into the woman, connecting them. She wasn’t going to let the dragon survive, not in her body.

  Its strength was weakening. Fatigue was settling over it like a blanket as its host slowly died. The Fire Elemental could keep her body alive indefinitely, but to what end? Every time it started to heal Sammy, she regained enough strength to drive the stone deeper into her abdomen. The effort of healing and suffering the same pain as its host was taxing.

  With a howl of anger, the dragon fled from her body. It lost its spectral visage, becoming more and more solid as it fully separated from Sammy. As its tail pulled free from her spine, the dragon became fully formed and settled heavily onto the court.

  “If you want her, she’s yours,” the dragon hissed. “Enjoy her as long as her pathetic life lasts.”

  Sammy sighed and her fingers went limp. The stone slid from her slowly as her muscles contracted. Blood gushed from the wound, leaving the floor slick with filth. Xander started to rush to her side, but Lord Balor clamped his hand firmly onto his shoulder. As the Wind Warrior turned toward the older man, he saw Balor’s stern glare.

  “We will take care of her,” he said, motioning toward Sean and Jessica. “You need to end this, now.”

  Xander looked up at the dragon, towering over them all. Its head shook from side to side as it tried to focus after Sammy’s betrayal. Its mind was cloudy from the lingering pain that rolled through its torso.

  “It won’t go easy,” Balor explained. “It’s weakened, but you’ll have to defeat it before you’ll be able to absorb its power.”

  Xander nodded. “It won’t get away from me, not this time.”

  The dragon’s head whipped around, glaring at Xander. He saw something in its eyes that he hadn’t seen before—a twinge of fear. It knew it was vulnerable. The one defense it had against the combined might of the other three Elementals was Xander’s love for Sammy. He wouldn’t destroy the dragon so long as it resided in her body. Now that they were separated, nothing would stop Xander from summoning all his elemental might.

  Rather than fight, the dragon spread its wings and launched itself into the air. Xander could hear its telepathic cry, reaching out to its minions nearby.

  “Come to me,” it called to the Fire Warriors within the city. “Come and destroy the Wind Warrior.”

  The dragon launched through the hole in the Staples Center roof, spreading its wings as it did so for greater lift. Xander shook his head as he summoned his cushion of air and launched skyward after it. The Elemental flapped its wings furiously, trying to achieve lift, but Xander quickly gained on it.

  He could feel his anger boiling just beneath the surface. He had fought, risking the lives of himself and his friends, all to find and save Sammy. After all they’d been through, after all the death, he found her only to have her take her own life to save the world. Tears stung his eyes as he flew upward. The dragon was responsible. No matter how much Sammy had taken her life into her own hands, it was to do what no one else had been able to do—release the Fire Elemental. Now, she lay bleeding on the ground far beneath him, trying to be saved by his friends. Everything she had done, everything they had all done, wouldn’t be in vain. The dragon wouldn’t leave this city.

  The ground below shook violently as Xander extended his hand upward. Fingers of stone emerged from the street outside the Staples Center, a perfect imitation of his hand. The stone arm shot upward, drawing more and more earth to it as it grew. As it reached the dragon, Xander closed his hand. The stone arm latched onto the dragon’s tail. All its upward momentum stopped abruptly as the hand held the Fire Elemental firmly in place.

  It craned its draconic neck and glared at the Wind Warrior hovering just beneath its long body. A glow started in its
chest as it stoked its deadly furnace. The neck turned fully so it was looking over its shoulder, even as it beat its wings wildly in an attempt to escape. Slowly, it opened its mouth, liquid flames dripping from its jowls as it prepared to belch fire.

  Xander sneered at the dragon before twisting his outstretched hand. The stone arm holding it in place mimicked his motion. The dragon, still held firmly in its grasp, was swung in a wide arc. The fire in its belly was forgotten as the stone arm ended its swing, slamming the Fire Elemental into the asphalt. The ground fractured under the impact and a cloud of dust filled the air.

  The Wind Warrior dropped to the ground as the stone arm settled back into the ground. He wanted to say something threatening, to tell it to make right with God before he sent it to see Him, but nothing seemed fitting. He didn’t want to mock the dragon. He didn’t want to taunt it with witty one-liners. He just wanted it destroyed, to beat it badly enough that it couldn’t resist when he absorbed its power.

  It squirmed on the ground, rolling over, revealing a bent and twisted wing. It flapped its wings feebly, but the leather of its leftmost wing was shredded and wouldn’t support its weight. Infuriated, the dragon turned sharply toward Xander, its chest aglow with its internal fire. It rose up on its back legs, towering over him. Its body blocked the sun, and Xander fell into its deep shadow.

  It threw its head forward, and a jet of flame shot from its maw. As the fire launched toward Xander, a manhole cover exploded between them, spraying filthy water into the blaze’s path. Hot steam rose as the fire and water mixed, blanketing the city block in a humid haze. Stunned, the dragon glowered at Xander.

  “You think you can intimidate me with your size?” Xander said, suddenly aware he did have something to say after all. “You love showing me how big you are. Well, I can do big, too.”

  He rose into the air as the ground beneath him shook again. He stopped only when he was eye to eye with the dragon, matching its intense hatred in his gaze. Rubble from ruined buildings rolled across the street, coming to a rest beneath the floating Wind Warrior. Boulders piled atop one another, held together by twisted pylons and rebar. The debris formed two pillars, which fused together halfway to Xander. More and more rubble piled atop one another, forming a towering facsimile of a body. The torso appeared, followed by arms and a hollow hood for a head. Xander stood in the hollow, his body taking the place of the face. Before the dragon, a stone giant stood more than thirty feet tall.

  At Xander’s command, the giant reached down and grasped a load-bearing column from the center of a ruined building. He ripped it free, swinging it around until it stretched from his hand like a club. The filthy water spraying from the manhole was redirected, splitting in two as it approached the stone giant. Half the water climbed the club in his hand, forming the head of a massive hammer. The other half flattened as it reached his other arm, forming the shape of a rounded shield. The arctic wind that washed over the street froze the water into weapons and armor made of ice.

  The Fire Elemental ignored the still-spraying water and charged the giant. Xander handily swung the massive mallet, catching the dragon in the neck as it tried to bite the head from the giant. Scales splintered and sloughed free as the dragon was knocked aside. Its broad body slammed into the wreckage of a skyscraper, collapsing the few remaining low walls.

  Shaking its head, it tried to rise, but Xander raised the shield in his arm and slammed its sharpened edge down on its chest. The dragon’s body lurched in surprise, its legs flailing wildly as a gash appeared across its underbelly.

  Lashing out with its tail, the dragon struck the shield holding it in place, shattering the ice. Xander released the broken shield, its enormous slab of ice crashing into the street below. Rolling over onto its belly, the dragon snapped out with its jaws, latching firmly onto the giant’s exposed arm. Its jaws were massive, and clamped down with incredible force. The stone shattered and with a jerk of its head, the dragon ripped off the left arm below the elbow.

  Xander didn’t feel any pain when his golem was partially destroyed, but he staggered backward to regroup. The dragon pressed its advantage, trying to knock Xander from his feet. Instead, the Wind Warrior summoned the air around them. It filled the space beneath the dragon as it leapt. The dragon’s momentum was accentuated, carrying it high into the air, where it hovered helplessly, entirely at Xander’s disposal.

  It flapped its wings futilely, trying to fly higher and escape the vengeful Wind Warrior, but its ruined wing wouldn’t support its weight. It looked up in surprise as Xander brought the hammer to bear. It slammed down on the dragon’s spine just as the wind beneath it vanished. The force drove it downward, slamming it back into the asphalt.

  Xander raised the hammer once more, but the dragon was quicker. It tilted its head upward and breathed a jet of flames. The fire washed over the giant’s outstretched arm. Its broad shoulder saved Xander from being caught in the blast, but the flames melted the head of the mallet. Its ice crumbled to the ground.

  The dragon didn’t ease its flames. They continued to pour over the giant, fracturing stone with the intense heat. Irritated, Xander raised an enormous stone foot and stomped it down on the dragon’s opened lower jaw. The dragon’s head shot downward again, slamming into the ground. Its elongated teeth fractured with the impact, and the flames belching from its maw poured harmlessly onto the road instead of onto Xander. He looked at the pillar in his hand—what had, until recently, been the shaft to his mallet—and tossed it aside. With his good hand, he reached down and grasped the dragon’s upper jaw.

  The dragon’s eyes went wide as it realized it was trapped, Xander’s foot on its lower jaw and a hand grasping its upper. Its vertical reptilian eyes looked up pleadingly, but Xander refused any mercy. He jerked upward with his hand, fracturing the dragon’s jaw.

  Releasing the Fire Elemental, Xander watched as it flopped about in agony. Stepping past its head, Xander straddled the dragon’s back and ordered the giant to sit. Tons of stone crashed down on the dragon’s back, pinning it to the ground. It squirmed, but it was clearly defeated. Its jaw broken, it lacked the ability to bite or properly breathe fire. With its wing torn, it couldn’t fly away. Now, with tons of stone on its back, it couldn’t even move.

  As Xander gloated in his place atop the dragon, a small fireball crashed into the giant’s chest. Another quickly followed, striking far closer to the hollow in which Xander sat. He looked around confusedly until he noticed the Fire Warriors emerging from the alleyways nearby, flames in hand as they prepared to defend their master.

  Frowning, Xander flicked his hand as a hurricane-strength gust of wind crashed into the Fire Warriors, scattering them. When the road ahead of him was clear for blocks—Fire Warriors still tumbling away as the maelstrom blew over them—Xander slipped from the giant and floated down to the dragon’s side.

  “It’s over,” he said, winded. The exertion of summoning the giant, controlling the water, and summoning the hurricane winds had taken its toll. Nothing, however, matched how emotionally drained he felt. He wanted this over so he could return to Sammy’s side.

  In response, the dragon mewed through its broken jaw and halfheartedly raised a claw. A stone hand emerged from beneath the dragon and grasped the wayward claw, pulling it back to the asphalt. A second emerged, grasping the dragon’s neck in a vice-like grip.

  “It’s over,” Xander repeated, more sternly than before.

  The dragon stared at him defiantly for a second longer before closing its eyes. Xander stepped forward and placed a hand on the scales of its shoulder.

  The dreamscape was different this time. It wasn’t a sea of ice, stretching to the horizon. There was no arctic breeze swirling the snow. Most importantly, there weren’t avatars of the Elementals emerging from their respective elements to help Xander along his path.

  As the lights dancing before his vision began to settle, he found himself in an endless plain of white. There was no change in elevation as far as he could tell, nor
did he really have a point of reference. The bright sky overhead was filled with puffy, white clouds, which grouped closer and closer as they reached the horizon. In the far distance, they became a solid sheet of white, merging flawlessly into the ground.

  “Hello?” he called out, surprised as his voice echoed. There were no walls or canyons from which his voice should echo, but he could hear a continuous repetition, each rendition of his voice growing only slightly quieter than the one before.

  A gentle wind blew across his face. He closed his eyes to the cool breeze but quickly opened them again as it increased in intensity. Caught in the breeze, the clouds above were dragged across the sky. Their edges turned from white to dark grey as a storm brewed. Before him, the wind swirled in a loose circle before tightening, winding itself tighter into a tornado that hovered a few feet in front of him.

  “It’s done,” the Wind Elemental said, her voice, like his, echoing as she spoke.

  A drop of water splattered on his cheek. He arched his neck, knowing already what he’d find. A single dark cloud hovered overhead. As he watched, it opened up and poured water in a torrential downpour. Within seconds, Xander was soaked, his shirt and pants clinging helplessly to his body. At his feet, the water pooled as though collecting in a slight depression. The water quickly rolled away from him, however, as though alive. From the pool, large droplets nearly the size of Xander’s fist rose into the air before hovering beside the tornado.

  “Our champion has succeeded,” the Water Elemental remarked.

  Where the water had fallen, a bed of green grass sprouted from the unremarkable white plain. Flowers bloomed from amidst the blades of grass, fed by the sunlight that slipped between the heavy storm clouds. Beside the floating drops of water, a sapling sprang from the ground. It grew unnaturally quick, until a six-foot oak tree stood, the next element in line.

  “The four elements have been joined once more,” the Earth Elemental stated.