Holy Sheoly

by Hunter Blain

  I willed my manifestation to retreat into my palm like a fishing rod, effectively pulling me forward like a winch, until I grabbed ahold of the ice giant’s arm.

  His other hand was arcing to crush me, so I willed a lance and put the base on the forearm I clung to right as the swinging palm smashed into the tip of my weapon. Fortunately for me, both sides of the lance pierced Ymir. Unfortunately for me, both sides of the lance pierced Ymir.

  I was crushed between flesh that had at least attempted to halt, but he had put too much effort into the move.

  “Oh Lilith,” I wheezed as he yanked his hand away reflexively, “My balls. He-he got my balls.”

  I fell to the ground some twelve or thirteen feet below, holding my dangly bits and rolling in the thick snow while groaning. He had also crushed my pelvis and bent a leg backward, but only my testicles were getting a pain signal through to my brain. Something about priority access or whatever.

  Ymir didn’t even grunt from the pain as he quickly recovered. A trickle of dark blue blood oozed out of both wounds and gave me a modicum of hope. My manifestation remained in his forearm, and I pictured myself using it as a foothold to jump up toward his head. Kind of like what you’d see in a video game or awesome Hu-Flix show.

  Healing my leg, pelvis, and nads, I shot to my feet while summoning a spear in my free hand. I was about to run toward my makeshift foothold when Ymir swiped his hand down his forearm and broke my lance in half, destroying the energy it had taken to create my manifestation and stunning me.

  As white-hot electricity bounced from head to toe and back again, I collapsed to the ground, stiff as a board.

  Ymir picked me up, making me drop my freshly created spear, and hoisted me to his childlike face. I strained to keep focus on the connection between the manifestation and me.

  Without waiting for whatever he was about to do, I mentally grabbed at the spear on the ground and telepathically hurled it to slam in Ymir’s ample abdomen.

  Blue, glowing eyes went wide as my weapon struck home, and I immediately began siphoning his ancient blood through the air and into my open mouth.

  As the first of the stream disappeared down my throat, hairs began standing on end as a euphoric moan escaped my lips. Oh Lilith, it was so good.

  The sensation of flight brought me out of my bliss, as did losing the connection, as apparently—in my euphoric inebriation—I had been hurled through the air. Lightning rocketed throughout every cell as I lost the connection to the manifestation that had been lodged in Ymir’s guts.

  The wall came up fast and I burst through it like it was nothing more than a thin sheet of ice, landing in a thick pile of snow before sliding several yards.

  “Hey, remember that time...when I suggested we kill him? I think we might need to revisit the plan,” I moaned as my hand lazily wiped at the ice flakes on my face. “Maybe add some details or something.”

  You don’t say?

  There was a crash, and I jerked my head up to look down past my feet, and saw the giant burst through the wall after me. He was growing as he went, no longer constrained by a relatively small cavern.

  “I’m willing to bet this isn’t good.”

  I climbed to my feet, placing my hands on my lower back and pushing my hips forward with a few pops that reminded me of bubble wrap.

  Ymir’s wings fell away as his body shifted to flesh instead of ice, though his skin tone remained the dark blue of the deepest ocean. The giant continued to swell to dimensions that defied the laws of physics.

  His size bothered me, and not for the obvious reason. I shot a glance around to see we were in an infinite expanse of nothing. It resembled what I imagined Antarctica to be like at night, with a pitch-black sky above and sheets of white covering the ground for miles in all directions. The new battlefield would allow for impossible growth for the first giant.

  What the fuck do we do?! I cried out to Baleius.

  You killed Asmodeus. We can kill this bastard, he reminded me with forced confidence.

  A palm that was now the size of the island of Manhattan began plummeting through the sky, with lil’ ol’ me standing at the equivalent of Central Park.

  “Shit?” I wheezed before Baleius took control, willing a sledgehammer that was the freaking size of a freaking car and slamming it into the freaking ground with a Viking’s bellow.

  A sharp crack rang out as snow and rock exploded from the impact site with a rumble of thunder.

  With the hand only a few yards above us and closing in fast, Baleius blurred forward while willing the manifestation to vanish. A plump portion of palm smacked into my head, and Baleius, who was now in complete control over my body, did a baseball slide on my knees. The hole that had been made neared ever closer, but so, too, did the palm that was primed to squish us. Baleius leaned back like a limbo champion as we continued to slide over the ice on our knees.

  My legs crossed the threshold and we fell four or five feet into the car-sized hole, right as the mammoth hand crashed into the ground with a shock wave that stole my breath with an “Oomph!”

  Tiny rocks and cold snow filled the hole, and I understood the giant had turned the entire Manhattan-sized portion of ground into sand with a single strike.

  “Holy giant slap, Batman!” I cried out, placing a hand on the wheel again and assuming half control with Baleius.

  Giant slap? Baleius inquired, disappointment in his voice.

  I’ll, ah, work on that.

  The hand lifted, a cyclone of dust and snow following after it from the sheer air displacement of his movements.

  Pushing off with my hands, I shot to a standing position before rocketing out of the hole with a forceful jump. While in the air, I summoned my wings and manifested my gladius. A war cry blasted from my lips and I swung the flaming tip of my angelic sword to point at the giant.

  Ymir straightened, and all of a sudden, I knew how screwed I was. He had to be over one hundred miles in height, which would have been impossible if not for the expanse of nothingness that allowed for his full girth.

  “Heh, girth,” I said aloud.

  Really, John?!

  “Sorry!” I barked before sending a torrent of heavenflame mixed with hellfire to strike at the enormous torso.

  To my dismay, the flames didn’t even blacken his skin where they struck. He was simply too massive, even for my celestial weapon.

  Looking up, I could barely make out the giant’s face even with my holy powered preternatural vision.

  “Lilith, he’s huge...” I drawled.

  Ymir, who moved much faster than video games and movies would have you believe, leaned down until his face was only a mile or so away, and then blew a lungful of air at me.

  The wind was voracious and immediately broke my wings backward. I yelped in pain as we tumbled through the air.

  On instinct—or maybe it was Baleius—I pulled in my sword and instead shot out two grappling hooks in either direction. Ropes were attached that stayed connected to my palms.

  Using so much luck that I knew for certain that I would never win the lottery, one of the hooks latched onto Ymir and I willed the other to vanish as both hands grabbed at the connecting rope. I arrested our tumble with a hard yank and sent us flying toward the giant’s body. Good thing we did because once the world had evened out and I could process what I was seeing, I witnessed a foot slamming down on where we would have apparently landed had our hooks missed.

  There was another crack as the ground splintered for miles in all directions. What was scarier still was that the foot disappeared up to the ankle; Ymir wasn’t going to let us barely escape like we had done with his giant slap.

  What do we do, man?! I babbled, my brain threatening to snap at the absolute hopelessness of the situation.

  I-I don’t know. But for every problem, there is a solution.

  That doesn’t really help!

  Returning to my body, we slammed into the upper thigh of the monster, and I willed my gladius to swipe at
his flesh. It cut through easily enough, but didn’t even pierce the first layer of skin. I doubted Ymir had even registered it. The image of a skinny guy with a sassy lisp who worked in an office came to mind; as he was flicking through paperwork he abruptly gasped, pulled his finger up to his mouth, and whined, “Ouchy!” I guess my mind was trying to tell me I hadn’t even given the monster the tiniest of paper cuts.

  I began slicing and dicing at preter-speeds, going back and forth on the same line as I attempted to dig deeper. A small stream of blue blood began to trickle, giving me renewed hope, when the thigh that was fifteen or twenty miles thick smashed into me.

  As I flew through the air (again!), a portion of my brain that wasn’t stunned suggested that Ymir had simply shaken his muscular leg and smacked me with the wave. To make matters worse, I lost connection with my grappling hook and was further stunned by the bolt of electricity.

  I sailed like a javelin to land in a pile of snow, also like a javelin because of how stiff my body was from losing my manifestation. My brain flooded with a hundred scenes from the Looney Tunes show where a character would hit the ground in a similar style as I just had, only with an accompanying twa-a-ang like a door stopper added to it.

  After a few moments, my legs relaxed and I collapsed into the snow.

  Hurry! Baleius shouted at me, feeling the overwhelming sense that another attack was close on our heels.

  Summoning twin ice picks, I slammed them into the rocky ground beneath the snow and yanked myself forward with all my might, sending me sliding over the ice like a sled going at light speed. Or, perhaps more apropos, like Chevy Chase when he went snow sledding in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.

  As Baleius had feared, another crack sent a shock wave out that lifted my feet off the ground and sent me cartwheeling. With how much this dude was throwing me around, I felt like a cheerleader who had lied on their resume about experience and had been thrown into the varsity squad only to find out that cartwheels were a way of life.

  I landed in another pile of snow and wiped my face clear in an instant as crimson eyes stared from under my helmet at the smiling Ymir. His face was no longer that of Benji and instead resembled a true man in that he had a white beard and wrinkles on his forehead and around his eyes. His horns, which had been behind his head, were now facing forward, jutting out from just above his ears. They swooped outward and down before changing directions and arching upward to intimidating points.

  How the fuck do we kill this dude?! I nervously cried out to Baleius. I had never felt this helpless against a foe before, except maybe during my first fight against Ulric back in London.

  London...I drawled as something clicked in my head that I wouldn’t be able to beat this foe with physical attacks. I would have to use my brain.

  Baleius caught on in an instant because he turned to me with eyes gleaming.

  How did the Aesir defeat him? Baleius asked with a new degree of calmness. He always enjoyed a good fight as long as the chances were at least even.

  “MJOLNIR!” I shouted as my hammer, which had been attached to my physical body, flew into my extended right hand.

  Ymir gasped as his eyes went wide in recognition.

  “That’s right, big boy! I got Thor’s hammer!” I cackled as Mjolnir hoisted me in the air and toward the giant’s face.

  “NO!” Ymir cried out, swiping his hand as if I were a pesky fly.

  DON’T HOLD BACK! Baleius cried out, triggering something inside me.

  My mind flashed with my first lesson with Ludvig outside the clinic and the resulting bolt of lightning that violated the sky with unimaginable power. I had done my best to control my attacks ever since, but Baleius was right; now was not the time for restraint.

  Focusing on my Norse weapon of the gods, I repeated what I had done outside of Doc Jim’s and sent a violent bolt of electricity the size of the Empire State Building into Ymir’s approaching flesh. A scream of malicious glee sung out from my smiling mouth.

  Wind blew in all directions around the attack, sending snow flying like laser beams as the lightning cracked louder than any attack Ymir could have utilized. Blinding light sizzled the air as my unrestrained attack slammed into the giant’s hand, sending thousands of smaller arcs traveling up and over his flesh toward his ample torso.

  His roar was both soul rattling and beautiful. It was the precious water that helped my hope bloom through the barren fields of despair. A poisonous vine grew into a hungry mouth and demanded, “Feed me, Seymour.”

  My smile went from ear to ear as Ymir’s face contorted in agony as the flesh on his arm began to bubble. Scorch marks followed the paths of the dancing electricity as it harshly traveled up his twitching arm.

  I dropped my attack, feeling a drain at my core, and understood I had poured some of my own energy into the lightning. Didn’t know I could do that.

  “Neat!” I said, admiring how my armor enhanced the Norse weapon to new levels.

  Ymir fell backward like a board while his arm sizzled and popped, spilling copious blood. His cosmically large body created a fierce hurricane as he pushed through the air faster than it could get out of the way.

  The ground ruptured like forks of lightning in all directions where he struck, and a shock wave raced out in a circle, picking up snow as it went. A sphere of ice that would feel every bit as hard as diamonds rushed to smash into me.

  “Um...” I croaked as Baleius took control and forced me into a fetal position while willing a solid ball of celestial ivory all around us. I felt like I belonged in one of those quarter machines where the plastic container would fall out and inside was a little toy of some sort.

  The blast struck me and we were thrown further into the endless black sky like a surfer on the universe’s biggest wave. The turbulence was teeth clattering, and I braced my hands against the sphere we were in. I may or may not have shrieked in a pitch that only Chris Tucker could possibly hit while starring in The Fifth Element.

  The sphincter-clenching sensation seemed to last a full minute before it smoothed out.

  Without seeking my counsel, Baleius dropped the sphere and extended our wings, slowing our ascent into the never-ending sky. With gritted teeth, we eventually stopped our trajectory and pivoted while in the air and located the massive giant.

  Ymir was coming to and looked positively pissed, which made me smile again.

  “I have an idea,” I said aloud to both myself and Baleius as I grabbed Mjolnir and summoned a slipstream to carry me back toward my foe at ludicrous speeds.

  As we neared closer, Ymir began pushing himself up with his good arm and scanned the area, presumably trying to locate me. Within a few miles, I felt what I was hoping for and used Mjolnir to lock onto the land under the giant. Only problem was there was simply too much of him and I could only grab a mile or so at a time, which was impressive if I were to stop and think about it, but still much less than what I needed right now.

  Adapting to the situation, I decided to fly from Ymir’s feet toward his head while grabbing the broken shards of rock under his massive frame. As I did, I willed the pieces to grind against one another, once again sending unrestrained focus and infusing the ability with the celestial power granted by the armor.

  Violent lava erupted and I moved up to the next section, sending even more of my power to speed up the process. The heels of his feet dropped into a pool of raging liquid fire, followed by his ankles, calves, and so on.

  A bellow of anguish vibrated the air, and even my helmet had trouble keeping my eardrums from exploding.

  By the time I made my way to his waist, another tornado the size of the state of Oklahoma picked up and began rocking me while in the air. I could either focus on Mjolnir burying the giant in the lava or use it to form a slipstream that would be unaffected by the outside atmosphere.

  I reinforced my wings and coated the joints with armor. All my feathers were ripped away, leaving only the stretching leather that promised it would rip in a few m
oments.

  “Fuck!” I screamed through a clenched jaw as I retracted them and formed a slipstream around me. The air immediately calmed and I directed the stream upward, thinking it would be safer the higher I was. Maybe I could get above the storm and figure out a way to attack from above.

  There was an animalistic roar that snatched my attention and I looked down to see the storm had coalesced around Ymir, covering him in cooling winds and freezing snow.

  “Damn it!” I cried out, knowing he had easily canceled my attack. I had been so proud of the idea, too!

  From the swirling clouds burst a dragon that had the head of a crocodile, horns of a ram, and body of a winding serpent. There were multiple sets of reptilian legs spaced evenly down the length that were tipped in claws.

  “Jesus!” I slurred with wide eyes as the dragon—that was even longer than the giant version had been—rushed to close the distance between us. He had no wings and I knew the monster I was looking at was infused with magic borrowed from Hell itself.

  Ymir opened its massive jaws and revealed row after row of thick, jagged teeth followed by a black tunnel leading to my doom.

  Red, green, and orange hellfire illuminated his throat before a geyser rocketed toward me, closing the distance at impossible speeds. At the tip, the attack broke the sound barrier, and a shock wave accompanied the fire like an arrowhead.

  The flames were more than enough to engulf hundreds of miles in a straight line, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to dodge the attack.

  “Welp...shit...” I conceded as the roiling flames came within spitting distance. I brought both hands and hammer to my face in a fruitless instinct to protect my exposed skin.

  The geyser slammed into an unseen wall and spilled out in all directions, curving back down. I slightly moved a hand out of the way and saw the whole attack arc like a big question mark and rush back down toward Ymir, who promptly closed his mouth and tilted his head in surprise.

  The hellfire rushed over his face, peeling back flesh as it went, and continued down his body. Ymir opened his mouth to scream, buuuuut that was a mistake, as the flames disappeared down his gaping throat.