What followed, was a series of acrobatic moves, where I ran, jumped and spun like a metamphetaminic monkey in a Korean fantasy battle game. After slicing off a long, densely smoking strip off another tentacle, I somehow managed to reach beneath the thickest part of the creature’s body. However, in such close proximity I had to deal with the unpredictable gusts of disintegrating winds while dodging the continuously spawning appendages that never ceased their attempts to reach me.
I raised my partizan and extended its blade further in other to at least land a solid hit before I got sent flying again. Or, as a thought passed my mind, got directly squashed into the ground by its bulk that loomed above me. I did not aim at the thick intertwined mass that formed its main body, but at a reasonable-sized feeler that was a grotesque mockery of a leg keeping the body steady.
Without hesitation, the edge sunk into the wriggling flesh, obscuring the blade in a dense puff of putrid smoke. However, even before the high-speed slash could bisect the feeler, numerous strands uncoiled from it. With several sharp whistles merging together into roar, I was repeatedly stuck all over my body. The armor clanked as the hits glanced off and I was shoved away, leaving deep furrows into the rocks beneath my feet.
---
These think tentacles could not show much strength against me and I remained unharmed. Except that some of the thin strands of corrosive darkness got blown into my face. The exterior of my armor sizzled slightly as the energies cancelled out each other. However, some of the blackness got in through the holes in the visor. My vision blurred and I felt how the surface of my eyes got corroded away before my internal energy managed to disperse it, but it was more of an annoyance than impediment. Worse was the fact that now I was wide open for direct hits from the larger tentacles.
The wound I had inflicted immediately drew the instinctive attention from the creature. And while it did not roar, the surrounding space trembled as the powerful vibrations shook the portal and everything around it. The alien being coiled up, its contracting mass shoving against the edges of the dimensional hole it had crawled out from. Under such strain, the blood frame supporting the portal bent further, visibly strained by such activity. Another push came, and suddenly, with a loud crash similar to breaking glass, one side of the frame shattered into tiny splinters.
The splinters remained hovering the air, marking the edges of the portal, but now the damaged side was being stretched out without any control and limitations. I was not far away, and immediately felt a slight sense of vertigo. In my vision and perception, the surroundings of the portal were experiencing a very dramatic distortion, stretching into the spinning, progressively thinning space. The effect closely resembled the so-called spaghettification that has been so badly misused in science fiction. I had a spare thought to hope that no black hole was going to appear here any time soon, as that would make the task of surviving the ordeal really difficult.
While I stood dumbfounded, the alien felt the portal ‘loosening up’ and immediately seized the moment to drag in a massive, wriggling, deformed aggregation of disorganized flesh. It did not even look like a heap of tentacles, but more like a dark, ominous cousin of the rumored ‘pink slime’ from recent yellow press.
---
The situation was escalating too fast, and there were still several minutes before the victorian duo could finish their preparations.
I charged forward again while circulating various ideas and plans in my mind. I even succeeded in cutting off a few thinner tentacles that whipped at me by simply blocking my front with the blade. Nevertheless, the closer I got, the less maneuvering space I had and the more tentacles could strike at me at once.
I managed to use the floor-skidding maneuver to avoid several frenzied attacks, but I had no way to avoid the one that came at me next. Just like in slow-motion, I felt how slowly my body moved as the physical matter had to deal with such factors as inertia and air resistance. The tip of a twenty-meter long, three meters thick appendage approached me at a speed that left vacuum in the space it had passed through.
That tiny fraction of a moment was barely enough for me to adjust the partizan in my hand. I pointed its tip at the approaching tentacle, hoping to use its force against it by concentrating it all at single point. The tentacles did feel somewhat squishy, so I hoped for a hydraulic shock with an effect similar to the one that some of the more powerful firearm ammunitions are known for.
First I thought that I had achieved an unexpectedly impressive result when the tentacle broke into pieces and began evaporating just before it reached me. The jolt transmitted through the partizan did not measure up to the incoming attack, but had rather been the shockwave that had continued moving on after the tentacle had stopped. The presence of the familiar figure in shadowy, flowing clothes standing by the tentacle mince also blatantly hinted at an intervention.
---
“One can survive everything, really, but not your dillydallying.” - I heard her monotone, but still pleasantly soft voice.
She slightly turned her head, observing me through her long bangs. A sharp whistle was cut short, as from her hand flashed a long, curving shadow and easily cut through the approaching tentacle. Again, I could see how the relaxed wave of her hand somehow interrupted the attack that I could barely react to.
She kept looking at me for a while, before arriving to some sort of conclusion: “Mmm, well, too early for you yet, boyo. I’ll help to push it out, else it corrupts more. Don’t want to deal with the mess if it happens.”
Suddenly, it clicked in my mind, as I understood why she felt familiar.
“Missy, you know the dark one with pearly stars? Speaks like a redneck, knows more than he should?” - I recalled the figure I had met in the space between the worlds.
She twitched, raising her head. That revealed her face. Her face had a shape that gave her an ageless look, with delicate beauty resembling carved alabaster. The sudden movement parted her bangs, immediately drawing the attention to her eyes. The black, bottomless scleras stood in stark contrast with her pale face. In the middle, pure golden irises highlighted the vertical pupils that refused to dilate even in the surrounding gloom.
“You’ve seen that, salaputiu.., I mean, prick?” - emotions appeared in her voice. Unfortunately, not the positive ones.
The shadows danced, surrounding her. She wrinkled her small nose, and said with a soft snort: “Fate, what a joke for his soul.”
Looking annoyed, she stomped the ground. Like a puddle of water, the shadows splashed and she appeared next to another tentacle. In the blink of an eye, with another flash of shadowy blade, multiple tentacles were cut apart and left to slowly dissolve in a heap of weakly-twitching flesh.
---
I shrugged, and sharply flicked the partizan in my hands to confirm that everything was alright. Then I jumped towards the nearby tentacle. The extradimensional invader was in frenzy, trying to get rid of the ‘shady missy’, and its feelers wrecked havoc in an attempt to protect its main body. That limited the amount of tentacles it could use, greatly reducing my chances to continue the cannonball career.
I hacked the tentacle in front of me, also using it as a cover while switching position. With a second, well-placed strike, the keen edge of my partizan bit through the area already wounded by the earlier attack. With a loud plop, dozens meters of alien flesh dropped on the ground, immediately beginning to dissolve into smoke as the natural laws started eroding it.
That was also the first truly significant wound I managed to inflict on the being. Without waiting for an imminent counterattack, I used the forward momentum of the strike to pull me onwards. There I threw myself sideways, that led me towards another tentacle of suitable thickness.
I faltered for a moment, when a huge, football-sized eye appeared on the surface of the body next to me. It stared at me, without blinking and revealed no intelligence. However, the way it slided across the body to keep up with my movement was unnerving. I quickly formed a thick, solid gauntlet over my fist and smashed it straight into the eyeball. It burst with a puff of smoke and gooey ichor, but I had already gone past it.
“Good.” - I heard next to myself over the whistling air, as the shadow miss appeared from the darkness.
Stolen novel; please report.
She even kept up with myself, with unhurried steps as if she was having a leisurely stroll. With another flick, she cut off a tentacle that tried to strike at her from above.
Considering the fact that she was walking with the speed I was running, that in turn might rival most record-breaking vehicles humanity has constructed, I blurted out: “How you do it?”.
Some shadows crawled up her hand, colouring it black like an exquisite glove.
She waved her shadow-covered hand and showed a tight-lipped small smile- “Hmm, last I cared about the details, some called it excathedra. Tiresome to come up with new terms every few centuries. Anyway, you need to link your Word first.”
“How do I do that?” - I left a long, smoldering gash across a suitably horizontal tentacle, while she bisected another one that tried to hit us.
The ground shook, and I could even feel how the energies were trembling as the battle area kept sinking deeper into the bedrock.
“Mmm, reading dictionary won’t work usually, boyo. It requires a moment of understanding, an opportunity. Many do not ever manage that.” - she waved her hand dismissively.
While we kept fighting, a part of my consciousness was thinking about my situation. Even now, it felt surreal how I was part of all that. In a way, that was fantasy alright with tropes pouring in like poor students to a free party. Now I was having an important conversation while slicing up something from H.P. Lovecraft’s nightmares. Well, there was my troll great-grandfather to think about too. Perhaps chainmail bikinis, giant swords, infinite final forms and blabbering while in combat were completely normal in supernatural community, and all the ridiculous movie, book, art and game designs actually had a grain of truth in them? I shuddered - would that not mean that a horde of teenage espers and secret wannabe superheroes were a real thing? I almost prayed to Cthulhu that it was not so, but then thought better of that. I had too many tentacles to deal with even now.
---
The extradimensional invader kept retreating, its mass shrinking because it was losing more and more of its tentacles. In an attempt to protect its formless mass, the creature had retreated a bit back into the portal. However, that only made it easier for us, as such move significantly reduced the reach of its attacks.
I heard missy clicking her tongue in annoyance, as the splash of goo from a destroyed fitness-sized eyeball dirtied her dress. I sliced open another thick feeler and jumped to her side before the creature smashed the area into dust.
“Well, boyo, you learn.” - she showed a thin smile.
However, I thought that it lacked a proper feeling behind it. The smile felt fake, with overly tightened cheek muscles and leaving eyes uninvolved.
She looked around, her golden irises glowing in the dark pools of her eyes. She stared not at the creature or the portal, but somewhere upwards I could not see.
“Oh my, there will be a mess above. And nobody to fix the mess but me. Unreliable.” - she commented.
“Me? Sorry about that, missy. You said yourself, I have no idea what is my Word.”- I went defensive.
She lightly shook her head, did a small sidestep and her curved shadow blade flickered again, cutting off a tentacle that had been aiming at us.
“Not you. I mean, governing Words. Like that prick.” - she stressed the last word.
Now, I thought, did she not say Fate, what a joke for this soul? Perhaps, it was not just a reference to the destiny or providence, but actually the Word? Back then, that person did use a term from Pratchett’s Discworld, right? He called himself as anthropomorphic personification, and that was a unique term there, unless I missed some really specific reading in my life. Did that mean, I had met with Fate, in person? And then another question, who could call Fate as prick?
I had a feeling that I did not like the implications of my conjectures.
---
The flickering shadows around us were illuminated by a bright flash from behind. The sound of squealing rubber made shadowy missy wince.
Finally, Albert and Philip had finished creating the escape path. I could see SAS team and Arthur looking towards us, and there were even Maple and Elm waving at me, either cheering or signalling for me to come back.
“Finally. Go, and now have a look, I will show you my excathedra for our meeting gift.” - missy said, parting her bangs with a shake of her head.
I watched, how the blackness spread out from her eyes, casting shadow upon her face. Starting the ground, the surrounding shadows spread upwards, covering her figure by an impenetrable cloak of darkness. From within, only glowing irises of her eyes remained visible. Suddenly they shifted, staring straight at me. Different from before, I now felt confusing things from that stare - an unexplainable fear and cozy intimacy, irresistible attraction and bonebreaking repulsion, piercing cold and snug warmth. All these contradicting feelings could be felt from these eyes, as if these senses were directly sent into my soul.
I stood, mesmerized, analysing the feelings I was experiencing. Then, a sharp, emotionless voice shook me up.
“I said, go!”
The energy contained within that short order hit my spiritual side. The mind core in my head, that linked the body to my spirit, shook. I twitched disorderly, as for a moment, I lost the control over my own body. I turned around and ran.
---
While I ran, I could clearly observe how the human-shaped shadow floated upwards in defiance of the gravity. The huge stones that dropped from above turned into sand as the curved blades of shadows intercepted them before they reached her. What caused me concern, however, was the distance I had to run. It had clearly increased since the fighting began.
I approached the rest of the group and after a brief discussion, the first people were sent away through the victorian duo’s evacuation portal. Arthur gave a thankful bow to the duo and motioned for them to pass through. They were followed by the organized line of the rescued students and other captives.
Back above the invading creature, the shadows expanded, snuffing out the few remaining sources of light in the surroundings. Within the encroaching dark, a huge silhouette reaching the ceiling took shape. The silhouette flickered, but remained high in the air above the portal and the creature.
Contrary to the blackness that came from the extradimensional entity, these shadows seemed to have some sort of awareness. Even through the ongoing commotion, myriad of whispers could be heard, echoing throughout the underground hall. It felt as if the shadows themselves became alive, moving together in order to repel the intruder.
When the last liberated prisoner had passed through, Arthur turned to me.
He slowly said: “I, Arthur Wiseman, humbly invite you to a friendly talk afterwards, if you don’t mind.”
I thought for a second and nodded. He bowed deeply, grabbed the collar of Mattea who was trying to sneak a peek at the extradimensional intruder, and stepped into the portal.
Left behind, was SAS team. In Aitan’s clenched, white-knuckled hand, hung a pair of heavily corroded identity discs on a chain. Now that I looked around, I could not see Birch’s body anywhere. Just a patch of blackened, molten stone remained where he had fallen. I sighed, showing the otherwise unnecessary shoulder movement to the team.
“He was a good man.” - I said.
I had barely known him and as heartless it is to admit, did not feel much about his death. But words did not cost, but having a positive impression is an essential part of human interaction.
“Yes.” - Aitan gruffly said.
I felt a sudden buildup of energy from the direction where the missy was making use of that excathedra of hers. Next to the shadow silhouette, a massive amount of darkness gathered together into the shape of a staff and finally a long, thin curved blade extended from its top.
With a flourish, the silhouette extended a hand and grabbed the weapon. And hefted it in a way I had seen some people doing a few times. And it was not a martial arts stance, but rather agricultural. The weapon was a tool, a rather famous tool that had fed and protected generations of farmers. A scythe.
Then the pieces of puzzles finally fit together. What being could be annoyed by Fate and call it prick? Scythe as a weapon? Black and white as primary colours and eyes of a cat? Even her quotes, one from Warhammer and another was likely a part of Oscar Wilde’s ‘One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation’, everything referred to one thing.
I jerked my head to the side, in order to see it directly with my eyes.
I saw her sweep through the endless coils of tentacles, reaping them like a batch of crops and disintegrating everything into dust with the giant shadow scythe in her hand.
Understanding, I muttered: “Death.”. And then I remembered, that I had called Death as ‘missy’.
My kaleidoscope of thoughts and emotions was interrupted by a splash of shadows, that followed her swipe. With the instinctive feeling of danger, the invading being used its remaining tentacles and pushed itself back into the portal to avoid the annihilation. Even if more than half of its bulk was dispersing like smoke, it did not seem to be vitally hurt when it escaped. Then the portal, hit by the shadows, dimmed as its borders lost their shine. Even the disproportionately inflated side with broken frame began to wither, squeezing the aperture smaller. But the ripples from the splash continued on, the ancient columns degrading into sand and dust on its path. The rumbling sounded louder, as the ceiling lost more of its support. Apparently, the cave in was imminent.
Seeing the approaching shadow wave, I shouted to SAS to move and used my two hands to push AItan and Maple forward. Luckily, their training was commendable and they knew how to haul ass, even with the huge bulky bags and harnesses they were carrying with them.
Aitan helped to push the wounded Elm through and stopped for a second. Just as he was going to turn around, I simply shoved him forward and immediately followed him myself.
The sense of being pushed through the foam was hardly pleasant, but it was over soon.
I dodged sideways to avoid Aitan who had trouble finding balance after my push and looked back at the portal.