The Creators Ch. 10

An enormous silhouette emerged from Night Eyes's territory, standing over a hundred feet tall. It was a stone monstrosity in the shape of Tulipfall, whose big innocent eyes and smile contrasted the terrifying immensity of her form. She lumbered forward, each step shaking the earth and bringing her shadow closer until it cast over all of us. Riding atop the head of the moving statue, was Night Eyes and her team, waving tauntingly down at us.

"Well," Brandon sighed, "fuck this."

"It's slow," I mused, "we could run over to her side, take the flag, and run back before she even gets to our base."

"In case you didn't notice, she brought her flag with her," Brandon said, pointing to Tulipfall, who was waving the flag over head.

"So... we win?" I laughed.

"Does it feel like we won?" Brandon grumbled. "Goddamn it, she flipped the board on us."

Giant Tulipfall stepped over us, her footfall so tremendous that I had to hold on to a tree to keep from toppling over. After five more such steps, she leaned forward, examined the fortress of trees Brandon had made to guard our flags, then raised her massive foot. She gave the defenders just enough time to come screaming out of the fort before she crushed the trees to woodchips. She removed her foot, sifted through the wreckage, then triumphantly held up the two flags between her stone thumb and forefinger.

WILLOWBUD

Grok and his cohorts ran down Giant Tulipfall's arm to gloat. They were met with cries of 'cheater!' and 'that doesn't count!' and 'you actually lost, you know,' but when the outcome of a game is uncertain, the side who claims victory the loudest is the one that wins, and after seeing a one-hundred-foot statue demolish their fort, Brandon and Sister Julia's team didn't have that victorious spirit. I smirked down at the pair of them, noting with some satisfaction that Brandon looked away the moment our eyes connected. Beside me, Tulipfall reenacted the scene by roaring and stomping on imaginary trees. She cackled manically when her foot snapped a twig, and she rose her arms above her head in an exaggerated show of megalomania. She reared back her head for another victorious roar, and when her light-green hair tumbled from her horns, I saw it. An orange amaryllis was tucked right under her left horn. My breath caught in my throat, and my heart slowly sank. I reached forward, my fingers trembling, and I gently pulled the flower from its hiding place. Tulip immediately felt its absence, and she reared on me, snarling, baring her teeth, forgetting who I was, or maybe just not caring.

"These only grow in Tentigo. Is that where you're from?" I asked her, my voice barely coming from me. She didn't listen, she just clutched desperately for the flower in my hand. "Answer me, Tulipfall."

She stopped, her eyes brimming with tears, their droplets spilling in streaks down her caramel face. She nodded.

"Do you know what happened to your parents?" I asked her. Her bottom lip trembled, but no sound came out. I knelt until our eyes were level. "Did their eyes go black, like mine?"

Her face contorted, her chin bunched with creases, her brow knitted. She let out a high piercing wail, and dropped to her knees. I didn't know what to do. I just knelt there, staring at the girl whose parent's I'd buried under a thousand tons of rock. I'd thought there'd been no survivors, I'd thought Corruption had gotten all of them, but no; there had been one left. Just like me on that ship from Arbortus before it crashed into the Drastin docks. Only I killed those men. I killed those men, and I killed everyone in Tentigo, and this is the one I missed. Part of me wanted to kill her. Part of me wanted to correct the mistake, to bury that part of Willowbud where she'd died. But another part of me, a quiet part of me, told me to let her go.

She's a survivor like you were. A hider. A scavenger. A thief when she needs to be. I was none of those things anymore. I was a bandit, a reveler, and a murderer when I felt like it. This girl wasn't anything like me! This girl had a future! Unless I take it away from her.I reach forward, I grasped Tulipfall's head, and I pressed her against me. I held her as she cried, rocking back and forth. A secret tear threatened to fall from the corner of my eye, and I brushed it away before it could stain my face. I knew what I had to do.

BRANDON

The sanguine picture of Willowbud embracing Tulipfall was warped by the shadow. It was writhing, shifting unnaturally, white irises rolling into her head, her face contorting in great agony. Her eyes caught mine, and she stopped. Her neck striated with her pain, and her black body trembled with the tension, but she stayed perfectly still, like a stalking predator who knows she's been spotted. Her eyes narrowed. I quickly dropped my gaze, trying to quell the pounding of my heart as I tried to look innocuous by kicking at the grass. I slowly dared a glance upward, seeing the black sinuous length of a leg, the gentle swell of a belly, the protrusions of breasts, and then the burning white gaze of eyes staring at me from above a knowing smile.

"When I found Tulipfall, I knew it had to be fate," Julia pontificated beside me. "How else could you explain—"

"Quiet!" I interrupted. Corruption was easing back into Willowbud, the pain that had wracked her seeming to dissipate. Whatever conflict there had been was over.

"Brandon?" Julia asked, then lowered her voice. "Brandon, what can you see?"

Corruption stared at me, longing, loathing, love, hatred, expressions alternating with the subtle changes in her burning eyes. She fixed on one; a smile above irises that halved beneath her drawn brow. Her smile spread, revealing perfect white teeth that contrasted the blackness. The smile curled into a grimace, and the eyes that raged above it were manic.

"She's going to kill her!" I gasped. Julia exploded next to me, the shockwave blowing me off my feet, sending an impulse through the trees. She rocketed toward Willowbud, but Willowbud paid her no heed. Atop the statue she'd made, Willowbud pulled Tulipfall away, wrapped her hand behind Tulipfall's head, and placed the other on her chin. She was going to snap the little girl's neck. Corruption watched me intently as Willowbud's elbows flared for leverage. Julia was a missile of white heat, moving so fast that the air exploded in thunder around her, but she was still too slow. Everything was too slow. The world seemed to move like molasses in the space between heartbeats. Julia's streams of fire cascaded from her in flowing sheets, Willowbud's arms locked beneath their elbows as her hands curled to gripping hooks. Corruption gave me a final look, then smiled down at the little nymph. She kissed her. Willowbud pressed her lips to Tulipfall's upturned mouth, and Corruption breathed her gift into the child. It flowed into Tulipfall, somehow glowing black, then it settled into every inch of her, and Tulipfall's body relaxed into Willowbud's arms.

JULIA

I stopped above them, my heart thundering in my ears, my body roaring with flame. Tulipfall rolled out of Night Eyes's arms, and looked up at me. Her eyes were completely black, seeming to bear no irises, nor pupils. She grinned at my horror-stricken face as if nothing amused her more, then she leapt from the top of her own statue, skidded down her arm, and flipped into the trees. I heard the fading sound of her child-like giggles, but the mirth was void of innocence. The tiny outline of her body popped from the other side of Brandon's newly-made forest, then she disappeared into the alleys of Drastin without a look back.

"Why?" I asked Night Eyes.

"I wanted to take her pain away," Night Eyes responded, her eyes distant as she regarded the place Tulipfall had been.

"You ruined her," I whispered.

"I saved her," Night Eyes whispered back. It sounded like she had been crying, but that couldn't be true. She looked at me, but I couldn't see if those black eyes had been bloodshot. "You wanted me to see myself in her."

"Yes."

"Well, I did. Tulipfall was just like me, and that's why I gave her Corruption's gift. Now she can do the things she has to without fear. Now she can survive."

"You turned her into a monster," I hissed.

"Drastin would've done that to her anyway. Willowbud would've died out there, but Night Eyes survived. Tulipfall would've died out there, but whoever she is now will thrive. You can't save everyone, Sister Julia."

"You could have let her go."

"So could you have!" Night Eyes yelled, and I was surprised to hear true anger in her voice. "You could have let Tulipfall be, but your vanity got in the way, and you threw her into my jaws just like you did those three men yesterday. But they're just sinning orphans and whores, doomed to burn in hell forever, so who really gives a fuck about them, right?!"

"Night Eyes, I—" and I was cut-off by the press of her lips, the clasp of her hand on the back of my neck, the entanglement of my tongue muting the words that my own wanted to speak. She breathed Corruption into me, and I felt myself grow languid with the euphoria of it. I pressed to her, feeling my pussy flush and swell, feeling my cock grow hard against her belly. Mostly, I felt the sweet fire in my veins, the self-assuredness, the power. Apprehension leaked from me, guilt leaked from me, pity leaked from me. I felt the blackness scorch through my lungs, and I didn't breathe it out. I held it deep. I took a breath from Night Eyes's mouth, and pushed the blackness deeper. Good Mother, it was intoxicating. I could feel myself changing, feel the woman I wanted to become move to the forefront. The Flame of God; her voice, her judgement, her will. I closed my eyes, hooked my arms around Night Eyes, and pulled her deep into my body. She moaned as our lips rotated, as our noses touched, as our breasts deformed, and our heat throbbed. Diamond, Lucilla, God. I pushed Corruption out of me, my eyes welling with the regret of it, with the horrible vacancy she left behind. Just keep a little, like last time. You're strong enough; you've already proved it. I sucked back in the last of the black gift, and felt it surge within me. It was more than just a taste; it was a full drink of the Sentient. My eyes rolled into my head with the relief, and I grabbed Night Eyes by the supple domes of her ass, and hauled her legs up to wrap about my waist.

Oh no, I thought, my lips creasing with overwhelming euphoria, my eyes leaking with it, oh no, oh no, oh no...

ANGELA

I came whirling back to reality to find that all five and a half inches of my cock were buried in Tera's butthole. Her bronze glutes were molded to my pelvis in pillowing warmth, her sinuous back was resting its comfortable weight on my belly and breasts, and her head was resting on my shoulder, her face staring into my eyes with a wicked smile stretched across it.

"Hey traveler," Tera's snakelike tongue slithered from her mouth, and tickled the crease of my mouth, "welcome back to the real world."

"Oh... fuck..." I managed. My cock was aching, throbbing as though about to burst. Between my legs, I could feel Justina's tongue exploring my leaking femininity, and her wet fingers teasing the circle of my puckered rim.

"We decided it was mean to keep using you like a cow," Tera began shifting her hips slowly, pushing her glutes firmly against my crotch, impaling my skin-splitting erection deeper into her delicate tight filth. "So this time, we waited until you were back before we made you come. It's been so hard for us," Tera's breath was hot on my lips, her eyebrows were knitting into a needful, almost desperate expression. "You can't know what you do to a woman, Angela."

But Tera had a very good idea of what to do with a man. Her channel clenched around my length, her sphincter slid along it, squeezing the tension upward. Her seductive body molded like clay to mine, her flesh wafting her sweet aroma into my nostrils, mixing with the floral scent of her hair. Justina's reptilian tongue slid along the slit of my virginity, gently probing my pleasure centers, finding my weak spots and caressing them wetly. Her fingers never penetrated my anus, but rubbed it, massaged it, compelled it to dilate on its own until the congruence of pleasures was too much, and I was bucking and heaving, turning Tera into a squirming mess as my antlers scraped the headboard with my manic ascension. We collapsed into a sweaty heap, and Tera entwined her tongue from mine, her violet eyes brimming with gratitude.

"Well?" Justina asked, her chin resting on her mother's pubic mound. "How was your first female orgasm?"

"I thought we agreed to let Brandon give it to me," I said, recovering my breath.

"I didn't go inside you," Justina smirked, then sucked on the finger that had just been circling my ass, "I just licked the frosting. Now, how was it?"

"It could've been better," I smirked at Justina, but the look I gave her told her she was amazing, and the lecherous expression she returned told me she already knew that.

Once Tera had soaked all my seed into her flesh, we set out trying to decipher what we'd learned from Diamond's foray with Greed.

"...so," Justina continued her last thought, "Greed remembered being Sorrow, and Sorrow didn't remember being Greed, but Greed is actually older than Sorrow. That means Sentients lose something when they move forward through their evolution, but regain it when they go backward."

"That's right," Tera said, "and if our theory holds true, then Corruption wouldn't remember being Chaos, but Chaos would remember being Corruption if she went backwards. It's more than likely there are more iterations of what we know as 'Corruption,' but they're too ancient to have been recorded."

"Here it is!" I exclaimed, pointing at the text from an ancient goblin tome. "The Gate of Fedar was excavated by goblin miners over fifteen-thousand years ago. It was later condemned and barricaded, as no goblin that ventured through it ever returned. On what would later be called 'The first day of Aurum Amas' a man threw himself through the gate in an attempted suicide, and later returned claiming to have seen the goblin god of riches, Aurum Amas. Every day there-after, a sacrifice was sent through the gate. The final day of Aurum Amas ended a thousand years later when another sacrifice returned with great wealth. Clerics noted in both instances that the sun was a blood-corona-sliver, a millennial astronomical phenomenon where the entire sun is tinted red except for the bottom curve, which remains yellow."

"That's why Greed has a sundial in her realm," Tera pondered, "but what is it about the blood-corona-sliver? Why does she care about an astronomical—" and Tera's sunroof caved in with a loud crack, and a flash of white. A set of massive folded wings streaked with gold stood at the center of the room, then unfurled to reveal Bianca with Brandon in her arms.

"Alright, everyone pack your shit, we are leaving!" Brandon announced. "Diamond, you can come with if you want, but there's not gonna be any 'goodbyes' with Mommy if you do. Justina, I'm sorry, but we've got to leave Ursa here; she's too conspicuous. Tera... get some fucking clothes on. For that matter, all of you get some fucking clothes on! Come on, chop-chop! Your god commands you!"

"Brandon, what the hell is—"

"RIGHT NOW!" Brandon yelled over Tera, and his voice was high with panic. He ran over to Tera's trunk, heedless of the state of the room, and began shoving random items into the trunk. Bianca, much more collected than Brandon, examined the piles of books, the taped-up pages, and the bulletin board.

"What have you three been doing?" Bianca asked.

"Fucking each other, obviously!" Brandon yelled, seemingly unaware that he was tossing unwashed dildos and butt plugs into Tera's trunk. "That's all anyone does, isn't it?! We all fuck each other without even thinking! We fuck when we're horny, we fuck when we're happy, we fuck when we're sad, and we fuck when we're angry! We just fuck, fuck, fuck, not giving a shit about who, or what we're actually fucking!" Brandon slammed Tera's trunk closed, then hauled it under the twice-broken sunroof. He looked at the three of us. "Why are you all just lying there?! Your god gave you a fucking command!"

"Brandon, what happened?" Tera said slowly, cautiously getting off the bed. She moved toward Brandon, staying Bianca's intervention with a dark look.

"No time for questions; we need to leave now!" Brandon said. "We'll go to... Arbortus! No one lives there anymore! You probably know all the best hiding spots, and I can work on fixing Passion's womb. We'll just hunker down for a decade, and see how the world is afterward."

Tera put a hand on Brandon's shoulder, and he tensed, then immediately relaxed. Instead of succumbing to lust, all the frantic energy seemed to seep from him. He exhaled, pressed his back against the wall, and slowly slid down it.

"I've been such a fucking idiot," Brandon mumbled to Tera as she cuddled into his side. "You all told me about what was inside Willowbud, but I guess part of me always thought it was a lie. Not a lie, exactly, but that you were all exaggerating. I thought Corruption was like an illness, or some kind of mental disorder. I mean, I knew it was something... alive, they are called 'Sentients' after all, but I didn't think..." Brandon gulped, "...I didn't think it was an actual fucking person! But now I've seen her face, and I realize I've been such a fucking tool." Brandon curled his arms around his bent knees, and looked up at me, real fear in his eyes. "I'm so sorry, Diamond."

"What?!" I hissed, my heart thundering in my chest.

"I think..." Brandon swallowed, "...I think Corruption got her."

JULIA

"Diamond, Lucilla, God," I muttered under my breath. It was an impulsive thing to say, some vestige of me stammering nonsense like a man succumbed to fever whispering the apparitions of his tortured mind. I knew what the names were, but only one of them held any real meaning to me. I glanced at the baptismal water, and looked apathetically at my reflection. Blackness rimmed my eyes like liner, and reached tendrils toward my irises like veins. My face was shadowed by the cowl of my white cloak with the crescent symbol of the Holy Mother embroidered at its peak. There was no use in pretending anymore; I was the messenger of God. The Maternal Order would bow to me, or I would burn them as heretics. The world would bow to me, or I would burn them as heretics. I would do it for their own good, for it is better to suffer the agony of hell here, then it to feel it forever in the depths below. I am the Flame of God, and I will wash the world in her cleansing fire.

"Diamond, Lucilla, God," I muttered unconsciously again. Before me, Night Eyes's whores prostrated. Their naked bodies were bathed in the crimson candlelight that now illuminated the atrium of Night Eyes's house of sin. Their foreheads were pressed to the floor, their backsides were high in the air, and the arms were stretched before them with their hands turned upward in offering. To keep them in this position, I'd asked Night Eyes to shackle their necks, wrists, and ankles to the floor, and she'd done so enthusiastically. In her own way, Night Eyes was my messenger, and the message she carried, was Corruption. Corruption was the temptation of Satan, and I would hold her offering within me forever to show Satan that I had turned his temptation against him, that what he'd sought to weaken me, only strengthened me. Night Eyes would be my trophy, and I would keep her alive as such; to help me when I required it, and to please me when I needed pleasure. If she disobeyed, I would simply kill her.