War of the Races Ch. 23

Running hard and fast I skirted wide around Shahad, Coella, and the woman still covered to her neck in the mud and rock of the lower half of the golem. I knew I could have ended the fight much sooner if I had stayed in my bee-form, but this felt so much more gratifying. As I closed in on the nightmare wolf I swiped and slashed its belly and chest, I ripped and pummeled as it staggered to its feet.

It snarled and bit at me. It slashed and clawed. Deftly, I sidestepped, dodging several attacks as I continued my assault.

Dark black fur became matted with black blood. I don't know how long we fought. Moving as if in a savage dance. We were both tired, and I began to take more than my fair share of bleeding wounds. I gritted my teeth and growled as I sped up my pace. Ignoring the pain in my arms and shoulders. The wolf fell back. I was on top of it. Roaring in anger!

Coella's hand on my lower back as she screamed for me to stop that finally brought me back to myself. She was far enough back to not get caught by my flailing arms. She was far enough back to retreat if I turned on her and attacked.

I blinked as I stared down at the monster. It was an almost unrecognizable black paste of blood, bone, and muscle.

"It's dead, Virdy!" Coella screamed, "It's dead! Come back to us! We need your help!"

I raised my huge white maned lion's head up to Coella, her face was suddenly stricken with fear and she took an inadvertent step back from my glare.

I had never seen her afraid. Mad yes. Contemptuous yes. Admiring yes. Thoughtful yes. But never frightened. It shocked me to my core. Releasing my lion-form I stood up and hugged her tight as I whispered, "I'm sorry!"

She gave me a quick hug in return and then we were both looking toward Shahad and the diseased, possessed, woman covered in mud and rock. Shahad was zipping back and forth claws and secondary chiton sword arms slashing and clawing at the rock and mud but she didn't seem to be making any progress.

The three black tendrils connecting the woman to the shadow behind her caught my attention. They were as thick as an alfari man's thigh. The lowest one was connected to her lower back just above the crevasse that divided the cheeks of her buttocks. The second was attached to her back directly behind her heart. The third and last was connected to the back of her head.

"I think those tentacles are feeding her power," Coella said thoughtfully as she scratched her head, "But, at the same time I think it's draining her as well. I think those tendrils of darkness are connected to her Wells of Power, Soul, and Spirit!"

"I think so too," I agreed with a nod. Pointing toward Shahad I commanded, "Go help Shahad. Keep distracting this poor woman. Goddesses! I hope she is at least. I will attack the tentacles and the shadow!"

Coella nodded before dashing off.

Calling on the power of Seline, the same power I used to clear the north wall. I heard a small giggled from Quebracho as she released the Barkskin and Entangling Roots spells she used to make coverings for me with. Burnished red wood platemail armor evaporated into fine red wood shavings that flew away on the wind.

Naked now, my skin changed as I felt Selines power flood my body from a chestnut color to a glowing moonlight white. Golden wheat colored hair turned as black and vast as the night sky, and showed nearly as many stars. Glowing emerald green eyes turned black and depthless with little points of light sprinkled all about like stars. White Moonfire covered my whole body now. Not just my arms and shoulders, and as I walked it was not on the ground where I might burn the grass or start a fire. Rather, I was walking a foot above the ground, in and on the air as it shimmered and sent out small impact ripples like water.

White Moonfire seemed to rise out of my fingertips and thumbs and twist around them like tendrils of smoke until it collected above the palm of my hands into two balls of roiling white light.

"I don't know what you are," I yelled, my voice somehow booming, "But you are not welcome here!"

Bars of white hot Moonfire shot out from the globes in my hands and burned across the skyline. One hit the vast shadow where the tentacles came out, and the second bar of Moonfire burned a fissure in the ground, blowing dirt, rock, and grass into the air. Where the beam of power hit trees, limbs were severed in an instant, when trunks were blasted the whole tree simply ceased to exist leaving only small red fires burned at the edges of a great gaping gap a mile long where foliage and trees no longer existed. When the Moonfire hit the bottom most black tentacle a scream pierced the air in so many dissonant tones Shahad and Coella grabbed their ears and antennae as they fell to the ground.

Staggering from the scream, I fought to keep my footing and the Moonfire trained on the shadow and tentacle alike. Sparks of white and black and a myriad of rainbow colors cascaded outward where beams of white and tendrils of darkness collided. I fought to cut the black otherworldly ropes, but those ropes and that thing on the other side of the darkness fought just as hard to not be cut off from the woman, and with it severing its anchor to our world.

Dissonant howls rang out from the void to harmonize with the screams of the woman on the ground as she held her head as she rolled around on the ground thrashing and clawing. The resistance keeping my bar Moonfire from cutting through the first black tendril suddenly vanished, and the woman stopped screaming. Her head snapped around to glare at me.

The dissonant howl coming from the shadow also ceased allowing Shahad and Coella to stagger to their feet.

The woman that was Gaia's Oracle snarled as she scrambled to her feet and dashed towards me, hunger and murder glinting in her dark eyes. Coella and Shahad were sprinting after her in an instant.

It only took seconds, and then my bar of Moonfire connected to the second tendril of darkness connected to the woman's back behind her heart and she went tumbling across the ground, thrashing as her screams pierced the air and broke my heart. Those screams were of more than the agony felt by severing the lines between the darkness and her. Those screams were the howls of a soul that had lost all hope. Had given up on life, and redemption. They were the screams of someone hoping for death to take her quickly, and put her out of her misery.

The darkness screamed in agony too but fear was purely selfish as it sent Coella and Shahad rolling across the ground again as they curled up on themselves with hands held over their ears and antennae.

Changing tactics, I moved my hand that was shooting the bar of Moonfire into the darkness over so that both beams of white light cut at the second inky black tendril. The amount of sparks and fire showering off of the collision doubled it not tripled. Placing wrists and palms together the two balls of Moonfire hovering between my fingers combined and one larger bar of Moonfire, doubled in thickness, slammed into the tendril of darkness. There was a sudden feeling of snapping as the second tendril evaporated. Quickly, I moved to sever the last tendril that was attached to the woman's head. She didn't even have time to stop screaming before her eyes were bulging as her face began to darken. Her screams hit new octaves as she was suddenly stood up and held hovering the air by the tendril as black power beamed out of her eyes and mouth!

The severing felt like it took eternity. It actually only took seconds.

The third tentacle vanished and I turned my beam of Moonfire on the darkness as piercing dissonant screams shrieked out across the land. Staggering to one knee, I held my beam of Moonfire steady on the roiling black cloud as it shrunk. As it grew smaller the shrinkage sped up until all of a sudden it snapped closed and Moonfire beamed out across blue skies.

The Moonfire disappeared from my fingers and body. I was breathing heavily as I came to a soft landing in the grass. My hair reverted back to golden wheat. My eyes returned to verdant green. My skin darkened to its normal chestnut brown. With the loss of Seline's power filling me, I had the vague feeling of knowing I had used every ounce of life-force before the ground came rushing up to meet me...

----(!)----

"What do you think happened here sir?" The police officer asked as he scratched at his scalp in puzzlement.

Sitting in the room was the blackened carcass of a woman, and with him examining it were two government agents. The woman was burned beyond any ability to identify. No one would know who she was if this wasn't her house. She sat in the room, in a chair, like she had been using the computer. The room wasn't hers though. If the décor was any indicator it was a young man's room. A young man who had died in exactly the same fashion, in exactly the same place, only weeks prior. That was what had sparked his call to the FBI.

"How could something like this happen," The officer asked neither one in particular and both at the same time, hoping for an answer, "She's burnt to a crisp, and yet nothing else in the room has so much as heat damage! Not the desk. Not the chair. Not even her fucking clothes!"

"Spontaneous combustion," One agent said. He had introduced himself as Agent Brown, his partner was Agent Green.

Agent Green carried a strange device with him that he waved over the woman from the crown of her head to her toes. When the officer asked what the device was, Agent Green said it was a RAD meter. He took his reading, and said that there was no radiation. Then he simply stood back and kept silent as Agent Brown investigated and asked occasional questions.

"Spontaneous combustion!" The officer laughed nervously, "I've never heard of it ever happening, and even so, how did it not set the whole rest of the house on fire?"

"She burned up from the inside out," Agent Brown answered confidently as the officer nodded agreement to the possibility.

"Well," The officer said as he shook his head at the sad situation and continued on, "Sounds plausible enough. I must say this was a weird case, I will be happy to close it. I assume the government will want the bodies."

"Bodies?" Agent Brown said for the first time with a look of shock on his face.

"Yes sir, bodies," The officer nodded, "This lady's son died first. In the same gruesome way too, and now her... such a shame."

Agent Brown nodded as he looked back at Agent Green before saying, "Yes, we will take charge of the bodies."

The officer nodded, and then they left. He released the body to the coroners, and then watched Agents Brown and Green walk back to their black Ford Crown Vic LTD.

----(!)----

Black leather seats creaked and heavy car doors slammed as Agent Brown and Green slid into the car. They sat there for a minute watching the officer watch them until the fellow finally turned away to supervise other goings on as neighbors approached to ask what was going on at Helena Reas' house.

Once no one was watching, Agent Brown asked, "So, what readings did you get? Is it the same as the others?"

Agent Green nodded, but answered also, "Exactly the same as the others. With this... Missus Reas and her son, that makes eleven confirmed events."

"Who would've thunk a kid working out of his garage building a game would break the code of the Bifrost," Agent Brown chuckled as he shook his head. He paused, and then sighed, "And he didn't even know the languages!"

"Obviously there are other factors involved in activating the Bridges beyond what the runes and sanskrit indicate," Agent Green mused, "This computerized... Bridge obviously didn't transport these... subjects... to their destinations. However, there wasn't a single micron of life-essence or life-force left in the bodies. Their Wells of Life, Lust, and Motivation were also completely empty. I wonder where it all went?"

Agent Brown shook his head, but his mouth was suddenly full of sharp teeth as darkness swirled around him as he said, "Well this is out of our hands now. The higher ups are already moving on this."

"Mm-Hmm," Agent Green agreed with a nod, "Just think what we can do once we have the source code of this game, 'Dimension', and us knowing how to translate the runes and sanskrit!"

"We have one more person to see," Agent Brown purred through a villainous smile showing too many teeth.

"Mmm, maybe this one will be worth eating," Agent Green chuckled as Agent Brown grinned as he started the car and pulled away.