Twilight of a Hybrid

by Ryan Johnson

  Vaeludar whiplashed the Basilisks with his tail and wings. One of the chicken-headed creatures made its eyes glow, trying to turn the hybrid to stone. Vaeludar was immune to this power to it to the creature in return, turning the Basilisk to stone.

  After the chicken-head-snake creatures were annihilated, Vaeludar flexed his eyes upon two Minotaurs, bearing the likeness of the first Minotaur he killed with his bare hands. Vaeludar placed the sword onto his back and went to go do a fist fight with the Minotaur duo.

  The two Minotaurs saw Vaeludar running toward them. They shifted their prowling eyes away from Galvin and went to fight the lone hybrid creature. The Minotaur waved their heavy weapons toward Vaeludar who thinned the weapons with his skin and wings, which sustained no damage as always.

  Vaeludar smiled vilely and punched the two legged bulls on their heads, apparently crushing their brains within their skulls with great ease. The strength he was empowered by the single armor had really helped and with the great strength from one armor, Vaeludar sent the bulls across the platform and toward piles of rubble.

  Before he could turn to see Gurro, Vaeludar heard screaming of children coming behind him. There was a crowd of a dozen children covered in dust and their faces plastered with moldy mud. Above the young crowd, a long figure with wielding two daggers was cutting apart a large section of a cracked boulder, planning to crush the children. Vaeludar was horrified at this site and immediately reacted quickly and come to their safety. What even horrified him more was the figure was the Piper; Vaeludar recognized the scar across the Piper’s face: the scar Vaeludar himself placed on his rival’s face.

  The Piper stabbed across the stones and within several stabs, lots of stony debris fell upon the children.

  Vaeludar growled furiously and ran toward the children’s aid. Vaeludar stopped in front of the eyes of the terrified children and blew a warm air that turned the falling debris to a rain of falling dust. Then Vaeludar clapped his hands together and sent out a wind gush toward the Piper who jumped across Vaeludar’s head.

  Vaeludar saw the Piper landing on a pile of rubble. Vaeludar was angry at the Piper not for just trying flute away children; the Piper now tried to kill them. Since the witches were dead, the Piper was now on his own freewill and didn’t seem to be siding with the Shadow King. This choice must have been an act of revenge of what Vaeludar did to the Piper’s purpose in life.

  From Vaeludar’s perspective, the Piper’s main goal and purpose for living was to serve the will the witches.

  With the witches dead and no other master, the Piper was a free menace and instead of fluting young life away from their parents, he was now trying to kill them and Vaeludar had to put a stop of the Piper’s complete madness.

  The Piper wielded twin daggers in his two hands. He skillfully showed off his knife skills. The Piper was swinging the daggers with his mere fingers, without cutting off any his fingers or any fingernails. His eyes gazed at Vaeludar’s eyes, without taking a blink or look at what his fingers were doing. It was like he had many ghosts swirling in his mind and body.

  Vaeludar puffed at the sight of his longest rival and drew out his sword. Vaeludar has experience in dealing with the Piper and seemed to be more skilled than the hybrid when it came to blades. Vaeludar seemed to have more strength and muscle while the Piper had more flexible and speed. Both knew each other’s skills and battle tactics, and both knew each other the longest, when it came to knowing your enemies.

  Both seemed to be at odds. But for the Piper, it would be a self-serving death sentence; Vaeludar still had the armor-like skin that no weapon could penetrate. Still the idea hadn’t brought fear to the Piper’s mind, for he had strong self-determination that Vaeludar’s skin was penetrable and willingly to take the risk to find a weakness, even if the Piper had to die trying to find a single bit of a weakness. It was the matter of knowing what kind of earthly metal or weapon could cut through the hybrid’s skin.

  Both long rivals gazed at each other’s eyes for long periods of time. The fight started when Vaeludar swung the Crystal Sword, creating a blinding light that dimmed the Piper’s eyes. Vaeludar jumped forward to his most hated rival who quickly regained his eyesight and struck with his two knives. Vaeludar’s longer blade crossed with two smaller blades, which didn’t break from Vaeludar’s Crystal Sword.

  All the blades seemed to be fit to fight with any metal blade. After many short swings, Vaeludar swung up high while the Piper made an X shape with his daggers and kept the hybrid from delivering a killing blow. The Piper showed no emotion on his face, as he always does: a way of showing he wasn’t a human being, which reflected on how Vaeludar was losing his own humanity with the current events going on.

  Then the Piper swung one knife from the hardening push of the blades and slashed at Vaeludar’s right eye. Vaeludar didn’t flinch as the blade he saw coming touched his skin, but didn’t leave a mark on his. His skin dulled the Piper’s dagger, which was tossed away so the Piper pulled out a spare one hidden in his clock. The Piper was still armed with two daggers.

  Vaeludar grunted that the Piper was willing to commit suicide in order just to find a weakness in Vaeludar’s skin. “You really are becoming an annoyance in my life, Piper,” said Vaeludar. “You fight with nothing but daggers and a flute. Unlike me, you have nothing to lose. The only thing you ever had in life was obedience to your masters: the witches. And yet you will fight either on your own terms, the witches’ terms, or the Shadow King’s terms. Your roll in life has to come to an end, and I’ll make sure to end you this day.”

  The Piper withdrew his daggers and hid his arms in his clothes. He closed his eyes and held up a small bag. Vaeludar grunted again and charged, not before the Piper was able to throw the bag to the ground.

  A wide fog of smoke exploded from the small bag, concealing the Piper inside and stunning Vaeludar’s eyes. Vaeludar’s skin could be immune to harm, but his eyes has some form of weakness erupting from the small smoke bag. Vaeludar backed away from the smoke and blew a hard wind from his wings: the Piper wasn’t there when the smoke cleared.

  “So you cowardly flee and live to fight another day?” shouted Vaeludar. “Foolish, but wise.” He quickly stretch his feet on the concrete ground before heading toward Galvin who finished taking down a lone Minotaur. “He looks good.” Vaeludar turned his head away and took to the sky once again.

  As he was soaring through the higher levels of the city, he saw a hundred soldiers easily being dispersed by trio of Manticores, with the lion heads easily chewing through the armor and the scorpion tales tearing through the shields. The soldiers were easily being overrun with the creatures they hardly being trained to fight. The soldiers had been trained fight, but with other people; the soldiers hadn’t been fight against creatures with great speed and strength. One-by-one, the soldiers started to disperse into different directions.

  Vaeludar hastened to the dispersing troops and called to them as he remained floating in the air. “Don’t move anywhere, soldiers! If you all scatter now, you’ll be hunted down one-by-one. Stand as one!” Vaeludar held up high the Crystal Sword, which gleamed into the soldiers’ eyes and suddenly brought hope into their minds.

  With a few wave motions, the soldiers gathered into a circle in seconds. Vaeludar issued a few words of giving orders and, without a question to ask, the soldiers started to obey every command of the half-half creature was giving them. Vaeludar, without any proper military training, was bringing about the soldiers into proper a battle formation and when the evil creatures were about to strike, the soldiers were ready. Their shields were ahead and their spears were pointing at the enemies daring to attack the reformed soldiers head-on.

  Vaeludar saw the soldiers defending on their own against the lions with the scorpion tails. Then, to ease off the pressure of the soldiers, Vaeludar charged forward and brutally killed two last Manticores he saw before him. Another quick victory for Vaeludar, before he took to the air once again. With each level being heav
ily attacked by evil creatures, Vaeludar seemed to be doing the heavy work while the rest of the soldiers try their best to fight back against the lingering threat that dares to crash his personal wedding day, and he didn’t like Lusìvar’s wedding gift at all. A rusty blade or a worn down goblet would have been nicer than a small army of evil creatures of nightmare stories coming to life.

  After he dealt with the Manticores with the reunified unit of soldiers, Vaeludar flew away from the unit. He headed toward the higher levels and tried to find Teutates. Vaeludar couldn’t find the man with his eyes or the man’s scent. If Vaeludar could help the exiled man with his strength, Teutates could prove to be a potential ally in the fight against Lusìvar, if Teutates would never belief of magic, sorcery, and ancient Shadow Kings coming back to life.

  The hybrid spent several long minutes trying to find the man all across the ruining capital city. What once looked impenetrable had been penetrated from within the mighty fortress. High walls and towers weren’t enough to keep Lusìvar away from this glorious city. Smoke rose from all corners of the city. Fire was burning thought solid stone. Battles were taking place all around the city, around every corner, around every level.

  The city believed to have tens of thousands of soldiers defending it and it was crumbling down by a few hundred creatures. Even the good creatures were being overwhelmed by this small number. The evil creatures fought dirty and without honor, making it easy for them to make a big mess in a big city, leaving lots and lots of people heavily injured or dead in the city’s streets.

  Never before had Vaeludar laid on a mighty siege. Great fire and smoke rose from the city, it made Vaeludar feel like he wasn’t handling it enough and getting rid of the creatures fast enough. With the help of the Dragons and all the other good creatures fighting the good ones, the city was facing a lot of damage and Vaeludar could only fight until the enemy retreats or have been completely killed from his hands or the hands of humans of the claws of the good creatures.

  After gazing at the lower levels scouting for Teutates, Vaeludar went to the top level where he had his wedding and the feast. He touched base with the ground. Before he could do anything, the spirit of Lusìvar showed up again, disturbing Vaeludar’s eye vision.

  Lusìvar appeared before Vaeludar who was trying to get to his wife or foster father and brothers, but the Shadow King had to get in Vaeludar’s way. “You seem to like my wedding gift,” said Lusìvar. His cloud form drew near to Vaeludar and seamlessly tried to engulf the hybrid in the cloud.

  Vaeludar was backing up, refusing to be swallowed in the Shadow King’s ghostly form. Even with the Crystal Sword, the Shadow King seemed he wasn’t being caused any harm from the powerful blade. Vaeludar tried unleashing icy winds and dragon fire from his mouth, but the powerful Lusìvar still remained unharmed. No matter what magic powers Vaeludar unleashed or with a swing of the Crystal Sword, Lusìvar wasn’t sustaining any damage.

  “It seems you’re out of shape these days,” said Lusìvar. “You need to relax more and sit down!” Lusìvar unleashed a giant energy blast that boomed Vaeludar toward the throne room door entrance.

  The Crystal Sword flung out of Vaeludar’s hands as he pounded on the throne room’s door. Vaeludar fell and rolled over the stairs. Taking quite the beating, Vaeludar managed to get back on his dragon feet, with his claws crunching the solid ground. “I don’t relax when I am battling, and won’t until the evil has retreated from this city or all have been killed,” said Vaeludar, whipping his nose. “And once again, I feel no pain erupting in my hybrid body, and I can you on all day.”

  Suddenly, the spirit of the Shadow King started to speak in a strange language that Vaeludar doesn’t recognize. The evil spirit sounded like he was chanting something in a foreign language. At last, he spoke:

  The celebration of the young turning old

  From the sun that paints the color of blood

  A rain of great fires shall unfold

  Islands shall be covered in a great flood

  The creatures associated with the light

  Will fall and die under the sky of the night

  From the shattered ashes of the unwanted dead

  Shall rise the eternal age of death and dread

  Lusìvar’s spirit stopped his chant he said to Vaeludar. “This is a mere prophesy that will come true. If you keep letting you’re a great darkness take hold of your body, more lives will be taken, from the skies above. The gods will send down judgement upon you and annihilate and they’ll be sending down bad plagues upon those you love. Many you come to love and respect will die upon their hands, not mine. For I am merely the massager of the gods, and they will bring harsh judgement and bad events will rain down upon you, hybrid.”

  Vaeludar breathed a few small breathes in disbelieves. He doesn’t believe Lusìvar was a messenger from the gods; he was just lying to catch the hybrid off-guard. Vaeludar knew the Shadow King was just a tyrant who lived thousands of years ago, and it was the Crystal Dragon, a god, that brought him down.

  Now, it was up to Vaeludar to bring the Shadow King down, but how would the hybrid being Lusìvar down? He was in a ghostly form, and there were no magic abilities Vaeludar has that were causing the ghost any harm; Lusìvar would need a physical body for Vaeludar to deal any correct damage to the Shadow King personally.

  “You seem fit to do battle for a long time to come, but there are limits in which all living things have,” said Lusìvar. The black cloud moved backward and started to fade away. Vaeludar didn’t bother into chasing the fading spirit, seeing how Vaeludar couldn’t kill the ancient undead king. “You may have killed many of my creatures,” said Lusìvar, “but I have a great many more I plan to use. Creatures that were once real animals, but tortured and mutated from dark energies. And when I strike again, you will fall, and not to mention the traitor within these walls will bring utter destruction to your personality: humanity by unleashing the inner dragon. Farewell, hybrid!”

  Lusìvar’s spirit had faded from view, leaving behind a screeching sound that made the remaining evil creatures lose their senses of fight and withdraw from the big battle taking place in the city. The evil forces were retreating with no less than a hundred creatures running by foot or flying in the air. Even that small amount of evil creatures was still enough to cause a lot of damage to the city.

  Vaeludar saw the retreating forces fade away in the cloudy sky and the mountainy horizon. He couldn’t tell if this battle was a victory for the good forces, with the evil forces retreating without trying to take the capital city. Or if it was an evil victory where Lusìvar was trying to send a message of how a small band of evil creatures could cause a big amount of damage in very little time. Vaeludar had sensed Lusìvar had lost merely two-thirds of the army he brought, but the good forces lost by the hundreds to thousands who either died or had heavy injures. Whatever it was a victory or defeat, the battle seemed indecisive.

  Vaeludar had breathed softly, taking in the air after he flew around and fought endlessly and taking the life of every evil creature that was dealing damage to the city’s inhabitants. He turned around and saw a group of people with heavy torn clothes walking to him. Vaeludar saw Marina running to him, with the wedding dress completely torn apart.

  The Siren smiled big as she saw her husband unarmed. “Vaeludar,” she yelled, running to him. Vaeludar’s wife ran as fast as she could into his arms, calling out his name loudly.

  Vaeludar seized Marina in his arms and spun her around. He was relieved to see her alive. Refusing to let go of her and she the same thing, Vaeludar saw Geraldus and Flavius walking to the wedded couple with dismay faces. Then Vaeludar turned his head backward and saw Eliana, Naìra, and Andrei exiting the throne room. Alaric seemed to be missing from the family group.

  After the family was reunited, King Uragiru joined them from out of nowhere. The king seemed to have a very, very worried expression on his elderly face. “By the gods and spirits of the dead, what on the two islands was that!
?”

  Vaeludar signed that the king seemed to be in a different dimension. “Your Majesty, this city was under attack by the Shadow King and you didn’t have a bloody army ready anywhere on this wedding day! What is up with that?” Vaeludar spoke to the king with a great dragon might. The hybrid then saw Teutates walking toward walking to the small group.

  Teutates had a mad expression on his face. Being the distant relative of the elderly king, Vaeludar was starting to consider that the exiled man should be the king of the island, not King Uragiru. He joined the others with the maddening expression of him saying, “Let’s have a long talk in the throne room while my men clean the mess up my distant family member has left. I don’t want prowling ears listening to what I have to say about this.” Teutates preceded to walk pass them and walk straight into the throne room.

  Vaeludar nodded at the others and followed after the stern man, after he forced Marina to let go of him and wind-pulling the Crystal Sword back into his hand. Geraldus and Flavius followed after the hybrid, and they were followed by the Siren and the king.

  A HEATING DISCUSSION IN THE THRONE ROOM

  King Uragiru was sitting on his throne while Teutates was freely shouting at his distant cousin for having weak and lame soldiers who weren’t ready to fight. Vaeludar, Geraldus, Flavius, and Marina were listening if they were at a colosseum watching two gladiators shouting at each other to the death.

  During the large shouting, Geraldus, Flavius and Marina studied Vaeludar’s change of appearance: his eyes changed to a corruptible look and his sun-burnt skin darkened. This made them worried that Vaeludar may be starting to head down a dark path. Vaeludar saw them studying his body and revealed Lusìvar said something about a darkness growing inside him. He told them everything the Shadow King said to him, which made Geraldus worry even more.