The Creators Ch. 20

I battered Bianca with a flurry of attacks, wheeled to my left, and struck suddenly at Nona. She was faster than me and caught my blade on her crossguard before digging her toes into the sand and barreling me over. Tumbling from my roll, I shot into the air and launched myself at Bianca once more. She attempted a counterattack, ducked beneath the swipe, and I sent her flying with a jet of water. She slid across the sand as I drenched her, my water seeking the cracks in her armor, pouring into them, getting closer and closer to her flesh. She flapped and flailed desperately, but there was no escaping the downpour, and I was beginning to feel the sweat that glistened from her skin. I saw a flash of white in my periphery and pivoted in the air. Nona was a breath from chopping me in a half, but I was a step ahead of her. I shot above her cleaving strike, then pulled the mass of water from the air above me, and launched it on top of her. She plummeted to the earth and crashed upon the sands, her scream cutting through the roar of my deluge. Her wings were broken, but she still breathed. As Bianca scrambled to her feet and flew after me, I forced every ounce of moisture around me into the obsidian shell of Nona Cloudwhisper, leaking deep into the holes of her chainmail, filling her armor. I could feel her panic now. She was thrashing desperately, screeching and squirming against the pin that suppressed her. Astrid kicked Jade in the chest, pivoted, and launched after me. Bianca ascended with her sodden wings and came from the other side. They were seventy feet away now. Sixty, fifty, forty.... Nona raged in the sands as my water leaked deeper and deeper. A droplet found a hole in her visor. Thirty, twenty, ten.... I touched Nona's flesh. Nine, eight, seven, six—I ripped Nona from the sand, shot upward upon my jets, and pulled the Ionan High Guard against me. As Bianca and Astrid rifled after me, I knifed a droplet through Nona's shoulder and gained control of her blood. She screeched, then launched herself wildly at Astrid.

I wasn't much of a puppeteer, but I didn't need to be gentle with my doll. I overloaded the hydraulics of her blood vessels, rupturing her arteries from within to deliver the most powerful blows, turning her graceful body into a jerking mannequin of self-destruction. Astrid parried with expert precision, trying her best not to harm the doomed woman, and I used her compassion against her. Nona pummeled Astrid with blow after blow, each one so strong that she tore her own sinew, snapped her own tendons, and ripped the bellies of her muscles. She shrieked in agony as she delt death to her own friend, and I laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Oh, it was funny to see someone else turned against their will for once. I was so amused by the display that I almost forgot about Bianca. Fortunately, Jade didn't. As the Ofanian High Guard rocketed to my blindside, her Breytan counterpart intercepted her. With emotionless ease, Jade harried Bianca across the skies, outmaneuvering her at every turn, mercilessly boxing her in. That fight was all but over. I focused my attention on the Bound One and my puppet and flew in a wide arc behind them.

Astrid saw me trying to flank her, but she could do nothing about it. Nona shrieked in the torment of her flesh as she brought down her sword again and again, battering away Astrid's futile defenses, opening her with every strike. Her biceps had been torn from the bone, her triceps hung loosely in her bag of arms, but the hydraulic force I applied to her vessels compelled her to strike past the limits of her body. Astrid was faster than Nona, but she couldn't flee. My parasitic water saturated the tendons that connected Nona's wings to her back, and I broke every flighted bone in Nona's span to make her fly.

"Kill me! KILL ME!" Nona begged Astrid as bloody tears ran from her eyes, but Astrid could do nothing against the self-destructive ferocity of her foe. She deflected desperately, the sparks flying off their joined blades as I maneuvered them to my liking.

"She's coming behind you!" Nona screeched as she battered Astrid. Astrid deflected a strike, then attempted to break from the engagement, but I sent Nona on a suicidal charge right into Astrid's sword. The blade punctured Nona's gut and burst through her other side, and as Nona gargled on her own bile and blood, I shot for Astrid's back. She couldn't pull her sword out in time. It was stuck in the deific armor. She desperately turned and twisted the weapon, carving through her friend's abdomen and guts, pitching Nona's horrific shrieks higher and higher, and I laughed, and laughed, and laughed. I aimed for the exposure of Astrid's ribs and cackled at the idea of what I would do to her in front of Willowbud. Oh, I'd have a whole lot of fun after what they'd put me through. Astrid finally ripped her sword out of Nona, but it was too late. I opened my hand and launched a spear of water right for her patterned ribs. It sputtered with no velocity at all, and a girl shot out of my palm. She was translucent blue, freckled, and young. Her eyes fluttered in a moment of confusion.

"What the hell..." she muttered, furrowing her brow in the darkness, "...hey Guilt, I think we're about three miles southeast of where we need to be. Let's go back and try that aquifer again, I had a good feeling about that..." her eyes focused on the glowing figure before her. "...Astrid?!"

"Angela?" I gasped.

She wheeled around in the air and gawked at me. There was another figure with her. I could not discern her before, for she blended into the darkness. Her flesh was grey, her eyes were white, and her face was terribly familiar. I would've mistaken her for Corruption were it not for her forlorn expression. I knew her. I knew that look upon her face.

"Petranumen," I whispered.

Angela looked to her left, where Astrid had just cut off Nona's head, then she looked to her right, where Bianca was in a desperate losing struggle with Jade, then she looked back at me.

"What the heck is—" I started.

"Get her!" Angela screamed, and she jumped into me.

CORRUPTION

I didn't understand what I'd seen through Diamond's eyes. There was no comprehension of what had happened, but there was a cold and singing horror in my gut. I slowly turned around. There, in the center of the realm, were two figures. One had a pair of antlers and was looking around in bewilderment. The other was a grey reflection of myself, and it didn't even blink. Xaya sat upright from her lounging position in the treetops and looked hungrily upon Diamond before cocking her head in confusion at Guilt. The four of us stayed in a tense moment of stasis before Diamond pointed at me and screamed, "KILL HER!"

Xaya jumped into motion and tackled Diamond. The two fought tooth and nail on the ground as Guilt watched them bemusedly. She sidestepped the pair when they rolled in her direction, seemingly afraid of touching them, and the footprint she left in my foliage was a smoldering grey pit. Upon noticing the dead spot she left on the ground, she gingerly crouched to avoid the wrestling duo and attempted to cover up the spot by brushing soil over it. Only when she touched the soil, it became as sodden and lifeless as the print she'd scarred, and she retracted her hands and hung her head in dejection. A lie. A fabrication. This thing knew nothing of guilt.

"Get. Out." I hissed across the space between us.

She looked up at me with her sorrowful dead eyes, and my flesh crawled. "I cannot," she said in a voice that sounded just like mine.

"You will," I snarled, but could not disguise the quiver in my voice. "You will leave now, and crawl back into the hole where you belong."

Guilt stood up, seeming unsure of herself. She glanced back at Xaya and Diamond, looked over her shoulder at the iron box in the center, then looked back at me. "I am promised to someone," she said. "A wonderful girl full of life and spirit. She has a place for me in her mind, and I am overjoyed to be given the opportunity."

"You don't know what joy is!"

She smiled somberly. "I did once. I knew joy, and I gave it a name. Now I am hollow, and I have a chance to taste the sweetness of life, even if it is only through another. You must know that means everything to me. It is the only thing that means anything at all."

"Parasite."

"I know what I am," she said, and took a step forward. "I know why my meld chose me. I am very sorry about this."

ANGELA

There were two things I noticed right away. One thing I noticed, was the excruciating pain in my shoulder; I never thought I'd love feeling such pain again. The other thing I noticed, was that I was falling. All the joys of life evaporated in a second as the gut-wrenching sensation took hold of me, and I flailed screaming toward the sand, desperately trying to summon whatever it was that gave Diamond her powers. I didn't have it. The ground accelerated up to meet me, and all I could do was scream. I smacked into the earth, the air shot from my lungs, and I was sent skidding down the slope of a dune. Tumbling and bouncing, I rolled down the gradient until I came to a sliding stop.

"Ow," I whimpered. For a second, I just lied on my back, and stared at the sky. In the distant east, the glow of volcanoes and the rumble of thunder sounded, but here, there was a muted silence in the desolate night. A shooting star zipped across the blanketing dark, and then stopped right above me. It stayed there for a moment as if deciding where to go, then it began to plummet.

"Oh-shit-oh-shit-oh-shit-oh-shit!" I sputtered, and willed myself into motion. My ribs were cracked, my leg was broken, and my collar was snapped cleanly, but my spine was still intact. As the shooting star grew brighter and brighter, I attempted to roll to my left, but my damn collar wouldn't let me. The star got closer. I tried rolling to my right, and almost got enough momentum to carry me to my hip, and that's when I realized that my hip was broken too. I bellowed in agony, and the shooting star got closer. With no other options, I simply held out my arms, and screamed, "Astrid, it's—"

Thud. Squelch. Splatter. Hot liquid splashed my face, and I coughed up iron. Astrid knelt atop me, her snarling face speckled with red, her sword buried in my gut.

"You're a real asshole, you know that?" I croaked.

Astrid's mouth opened, then her eyes bulged when she noticed the color of my own. "ANGELA?!"

"You didn't know?" I snarled bloodily. "I thought sticking your sword in my gut was just your way of saying 'hi' to me these days!"

"Oh my gods!" Astrid exclaimed. "We need to get you to your—"

"DON'T PULL THE FUCKING SWORD OUT!" I screamed, holding my ruptured belly in place.

Astrid let go of the weapon and carefully slid her hands beneath me. Making sure that she kept my abdomen braced, she lifted me off the ground. "I will take you to Brandon," she said. "Binding heals all wounds. We just need to find...." Astrid trailed off and narrowed her eyes at the sky. I couldn't see what she saw, but I could feel her muscles tensing beneath me. Suddenly, she dropped me to the ground, and I screamed. There was a blur of motion, a clash of metal, and a dark figure standing over me. Her cloak billowed in the night, and her raven hair created a halo upon its crown from Astrid's luminance. I only recognized Jade Tao by the horrific scars that snaked up her shins. That recognition—the situation at large—hardly seemed to matter at all in the wake of my agony, but I would not leave this body. I knew Diamond and Guilt were giving that bitch hell, and if Jade could still stand and fight after the torture of her flesh, then I—a woman who had now suffered three mortal wounds in her life—could endure a little of my own for a while longer.

ASTRID

Jade stood before Angela, her long black katana held comfortably in front of her, her robe billowing. Bianca dropped to my left, breathing heavily, her armor scored with dozens of blows. Angela groaned in the sand and curled around the blade that impaled her.

"It's over, Jade," I said. "Diamond's gone."

She nodded. "It would seem so."

"You can put your sword down."

She offered a humorless smile, reached behind her, and pulled out the sword on her back. She tossed the Sword of Iona in front of me and assumed a defensive stance.

"Jade, please," I said, nearly pleadingly.

"I promised to give this back to the High Guard of Iona. Since I did not get the chance to give it to Nona before her honorable end, I fulfill my promise to you instead." She glanced down at the blade. "You may pick it up; I will not attack."

I cautiously reached down and wrapped my fingers around the handle. Memories flooded back into me as I lifted the familiar weight, the pride of my youth, the killer of my mother, and I swallowed the emotion that came into my throat. "Jade...."

"Do not try to bargain with me, old friend," she said softly. "I am but the blade of my god, and I cannot be reasoned with. The same is true for you, Honorable High Guard Blackwing, and you, Astrid; you know very well what it means to be me." She reached behind her and pulled the lacing from her robe. The garment cascaded from her shoulders and revealed what was left of her beneath. Every inch of her once beautiful body was knotted with horrific scars, scripture written down with the crude and brutal penmanship of a woman who had lost her mind. Jade's breasts were melted off, her navel had been cauterized shut, and her genitals had been so horrifically mutilated that it made my eyes water to see.

"Oh my gods," I hissed.

"Do not pity me, Astrid. Not you," she said in her dead voice. "You, who knows what it means to be marked by a hateful god. You, who served with stoicism and silence. You were who I remembered when my faith was tested. You were my example."

"Willowbud never—"

"I said do not pity me!" Jade snarled, her face flashing with a terrible rage. "I made this choice! I serve with honor! I serve until the very end!"

She charged me without even a scream, the wrath silent upon her lips. Our blades clashed in a spray of sparks. The Sword of Iona had been reforged by Willowbud when we first met, but that was when she had unbound power, and I could feel the metal flexing. I disengaged with a screech of metal, and Jade spun away. Before Bianca could even set her footing, Jade had whirled around and struck her across the helm. Bianca stumbled drunkenly to the side, and I charged in before Jade could slip her blade between the Ofanian's chainmail. She caught my attack across her edge, used my superior strength against me, and slipped easily into my defenses. I spun before her blade could find my ribs, then swung around to her exposed back. She backflipped over the strike and scored my breastplate before landing over Angela. There was the smallest hint of a smile on Jade's face when she flipped her hair up. A genuine smile this time.

"In a duel, that counts as a winning strike," she tittered. "Whatever the outcome, I finally bested you, Astrid Skyborne."

"You always fought to win," I said, and stepped into position. "I always fought to kill. That was the difference between us."

"Not anymore," she grinned wolfishly.

"No," I grinned back. "Bianca; left!"

Bianca flanked suddenly, and I charged in. Jade dropped beneath my slash, blocked Bianca's downward strike against her chest, then corkscrewed with an unfurling of her wings. We were battered back, and she took advantage to bear down on Bianca, and deliver slice after slice. Bianca stumbled backward as the katana scored across her armor, leaving deep grooves that exposed her brown flesh. I rammed into Jade's side, and she slapped my sword away and carried with my momentum to come around my back. Hot pain lanced across my ribs, and the blood poured out. I growled behind gritted teeth, slashed with a backhand, and came sliding to a spinning stop. Jade pirouetted before me and leveled her sword, the blade dripping. Bianca slowly sidestepped into a flanking position, and I pressed forward to keep Jade from isolating her. Jade kept herself equidistant between us until we were all a sword's length away. Bianca lurched forward too early, and Jade made her pay. With a ducking-backhand combo, she chopped hard at the Ofanian's shin, cleaved through armor, flesh, and bone, and sent her sprawling backward. Bianca shrieked as the last of the connective tissue stretched and snapped from her bone, and her right leg stood planted in the sand without its owner. I rushed forward, blocked Jade's entrapping stab, then grabbed her blade with my grieves, and brought my sword down. Jade was put in an impossible position, and without hesitation, she made an impossible choice. Letting go of her sword, she caught it with the other hand just as my blade cleaved through her forearm, and amputated her below the elbow. She was already making her escape even as the metal exited the other side of her ulna. Without even breaking stride, she spun away from me, flashed her black katana, and smashed Bianca across the helm, silencing her screams.

Jade landed five feet away from me and stumbled when she realized the pain. That was all she showed of it, for the very next motion was a graceful transition to a mantis blade-stance. Bianca's unconscious breaths rattled beside me as I stepped past her, and readied my blade against the unhanded, but not unarmed, Breytan High Guard. She waited patiently for me, uncaring for the blood that pumped from her stump. Our feet padded in the sand as we maneuvered, circling like hunters, seeking the weakness. I knew she would not protect her wounded side. She used the entire left half of her body as a shield, and poised the blade behind it, daring me to attempt a killing strike. I wouldn't do it. I paced to her right the entire time, forcing her to twist her body to maintain her sacrificial stance. Making a sudden move to the left, I drove onto her right with a wide swing. She countered with a rapid stab to my abdomen, maneuvered her head a hair's breadth from my slice, then came around me like an acrobat to slash across my back. The armor was thin between my wings, and her edge bit right through it, seared through my flesh, then ripped away. I lurched forward, pivoted on my heel, then fell back as her katana sung over my chin. Catching myself on one hand, I launched into a leg-sweep, and Jade flapped hard to avoid it. She dropped onto me with her blade plunging, and I rolled to the right and slashed. Something bit hard into my shoulder, and a screech of alarm shot through my synapses. I rolled to my right, tripped over Bianca's unconscious body, and was sent tumbling on the ground. I faceplanted, sand filled my helmet, and I had to flip backward to avoid the impending coup de gras. I landed hard on my ass, the sand in my helm shot into my eyes, and I was rendered blind. Hacking wildly before me, I scrambled desperately backward with kicking heels, feeling her blade seeking me. I tied myself in knots trying to avoid it until I finally screamed, tore off my helmet, and threw it as hard as I could.

There was no one in front of me. My helmet bounced in the sand and came to a rolling stop beside a bent figure. I grabbed my sword and walked shakenly forward until the light of my flesh illuminated it.

Jade was bowed atop Bianca. It almost looked like the two of them were making love, but neither of them moved. The Sword of Ofan protruded from Jade's back, and the Blade of Breyta was embedded to the hilt in Bianca's chest.

"You Breytans always underestimate us," I heard Bianca croak with a pained laugh, "but we always come back. It's never over when you fight an Ofanian."

"I never underestimated you," Jade whispered back. "Why did you think I tried so hard to kill you? You were feared, High Guard Blackwing."