XXXIX.
BP clung on tight, awaiting the sudden jerk of the lift setting off, but after a few minutes of nervous anticipation she let go. “Are… are we moving?” she asked with a stomp to the floor. “Was this the trap? This is kinda reminding me of the office debacle.”
“No, we’re moving,” Vagari replied, “very fast in fact. It’s probably mag-lev or something of the sort. I can feel a kind of energy pulsating beneath us… Sends me south every time it does,” Vagari said, tapping the spot between his eyes. “But we are going deeper into the ship for sure.” The journey itself only lasted around ten minutes at best, and then the lift came to a slow and steady halt with the A.I. voice announcing practically in song, “Bridge: Sublevel-1. Watch your step, and have a twice blessed day!”
“Jesus Christ,” Vagari cursed with a groan, “no wonder he’s such a cunt, if he had to listen to that all day…”
“Sorry for the climb,” Xu’s voice rung out through a blip of static. “I could have brought you closer, but there’s something you have to see first.”
“What are you playing at, Xu?” Vagari called out as the pair cautiously left the lift behind. The room beyond was only half-lit, leaving the far side cast in shadow. “The only thing I need to see is you dead.”
“Ha-ha-ha… You still might,” Xu uttered with an agonized groan. “My luck does seem to be running out, doesn’t it? Oh, and what luck it is… But – I just… want to gage your reaction to something, so you’ll have to humor me.”
The rest of the lights flickered on, painting the bisected room a bright white. The sublevel was octagonal in shape with a smaller one at the center. It was an all too familiar chamber, one made of transteel with a obelisk at the heart of it. “Ah – you know what this is, don’t you?” Xu’s voice rung out with a chuckle. “Judging by the surprised look on your face, it takes you back to an unpleasant time, doesn’t it Dr. Valentino? Oh yes, I know who you are now,” he announced with both a groan and an dramatic gasp. “The absolute irony of this is lost on you, I’m sure.”
“Am I supposed to care?” Vagari exclaimed. “Is this supposed to be some big reveal to stop me in my tracks? You know my name – or… Who I was, rather. What does it matter to you? I’m still going to end your trail of blood here and now, either way. My name is Death as far as you’re concerned, and yours is at the very top of my list.”
“Fwoo – spicy,” Xu exclaimed with a wheeze. “Did you just come up with that line, or have you been… sitting on it for awhile? What does it matter though? What does it matter…” Xu sighed through his teeth. “More than you’ll ever know at this rate. If the Udug doesn’t pull through – uh, the thing you call my parasite – we’re all well and truly fucked. And you refuse to listen! But it’s hard to, isn’t it? Once she’s got her hooks in you… Let me tell you straight: she will kill you, if you free her. She will kill everyone. That is her purpose, her design.”
“Why would I take the word of a man who murders indiscriminately?” Vagari asked before seething through his teeth, “A man who slaughters children in their beds? No… No. This only reaffirms that this, freeing her and killing you, is the right thing to do. You can’t deter us, Xu, no matter whose name you drop, or what lie you spin. This ends, here, today!”
“Fine,” Xu uttered darkly, “then lets talk, face to face. Follow the stairs to the left. The door is unlocked. And, ‘Vagari’, don’t expect me to make it easy from here out… I cannot let you succeed.”
The mic hissed and the feed cut. Vagari stood for a moment, staring across the room at the obelisk, trying not to be distracted by Xu’s words. They were just the rambling of a soon-to-be dead man. He motioned to BP. “Stay behind me, okay?” he cautioned.
“Oh – I plan on it!” she replied quickly. “As eager as I am to… face him… I’m not. I’m not eager at all. I don’t know what I am, honestly. Scared? Some part of me is even scared for him… and I’m sorry about that?” Vagari turned and placed a hand upon her shoulder. “There is nothing to be sorry about, BP,” he said firmly, “nothing at all. The significance of this is not lost upon me… But I know we both agree that he has to be stopped, and I know you know there’s only one way to do that.”
“I know,” BP returned with a reassuring nod of her fanged maw. “I’m with you… He’s as much a monster as any we’ve faced. I just… hate that I feel conflicted.”
“It’s only natural,” he told her, “and I don’t blame you one bit. In a way, he’s your father… I’d understand if you want to hang back.”
“No! No… I… I need this,” BP said sharply before composing herself. “I need to see this through too, for myself, and for my siblings. For all the people he hurt.”
“Then lets end this,” Vagari said, turning away, “together.”
With one last glance at the pillar in the center of the room, they left the chamber behind. There were twenty-four steps winding up to the open door leading to the bridge. Vagari couldn’t help but count each in turn as he ascended with growing apprehension in his heart, trying, as he did, to anticipate which step would finally spring the trap they were surely caught in. It never came, not even as he ducked into the great room beyond. No one waited in ambush. As he stepped through the doorway, there came no barrage of turret fire, nor did any of Xu’s husks appear to bar him from their master. No, it seemed that Xu was a man of his word. He was alone, truly, his parasite nowhere to be seen.
The first thing Vagari noticed was Xu, propped up against a console on the floor, unceremoniously dying before he even laid hands on him. The man offered them a curt wave in greeting as the pair entered. BP gasped as she saw him. “What… What happened to you?” She couldn’t help but ask, seeing his ruined body even more mutilated than she remembered.
“Oh this?” he gestured to the massive scarring that painted what was left of his entire left side a bruised red color. “The price of survival is seldomly low in cost, and the Udug requires much of me.”
“BP,” Vagari interrupted, warning her from engaging too much with a cautionary glance. “Reach out from here… Can you feel the prisoners? Or… anything?”
Her gaze lingered on the tortured looking man for a moment longer before she turned to Vagari and nodded. “I’ll try…” she uttered before reaching out once more with her mind. Her eyes shot wide and she stumbled back with a sharp inhale. “I feel something… this time… Not the people, but something terrible, Vagari! It’s… the demon, I think… The one we felt in the desert! It’s very near now.”
“Then we’ll have to make this quick, won’t we?” He turned to Xu and jutted a sharp clawed finger at him. “Where are they?! Where are the people from the dam?!”
“Out of Her reach,” Xu said smugly through half a face. “Did you really think I’ve been idle this whole time? Waiting patiently for you two to tromp through and muck things up? Don’t be so daft, Ed. They’re gone, all the First Seeds are, except for yours truly. The Godhead will never have control of this world again.”
“Y-you killed them?” BP exclaimed with hurt and shock plain to see in her bulging eyes. “Why? What did they ever do to you?!”
“No-no-no, I didn’t kill them,” Xu said as if her accusation was truly outlandish. “I moved them, through the gate, to place she wont be able to sense them. What they are is far too valuable to lose, at this point anyways.”
Vagari reached down and grabbed him by the tatters of his robe and yanked him up off the ground. Xu let out a yelp of pain, but it was one accompanied by spiteful laughter, not fear. “Where ARE they?!” Vagari shouted in a fury.
“Is that you asking,” Xu prodded with a sneer, “or Her?” He struggled a laugh. “They’re safe! Safer than they’d ever be on that wall, that’s for sure! Safer than they’d be with you. You don’t exactly have a stellar track record keeping your friends alive, do you?” Vagari threw him. Xu’s crippled body bounced off the back wall with a sickening thud before falling wetly to the ground. Unfortunately the blow didn’t seem to leave him any less vicious in his humor as a pained chortle arose from the floor. Vagari stomped around the console to him where Xu struggled to sit up. “Woah-woah… Don’t… don’t lose your head now,” Xu sputtered through bloodied teeth, “like… What was his name? Something musical, right? Alto? His head popped like a fucking pimple.”
Vagari cried out in anger before kicking the man in the chest with enough force to send him spinning across the room. Though grossly damaged and seemingly near Death’s door, Xu once more proved more resilient than he looked. Some part of Vagari was glad for it – that it wouldn’t be a quick death for him. Xu wheezed painfully then choked up a mouthful of blood onto the floor. “A bit touchy are w-!” Xu began before a scream erupted from his throat in the place of words as Vagari sunk his nails into his shoulder. He found himself being slid up the wall and pinned there. “I’m going to ask you one more time,” Vagari uttered through clenched teeth. “Where are they? And where is the Godhead?!”
Xu’s head rolled on his shoulders, and for a second Vagari thought he actually had managed to kill him, but then a grin spread across red teeth. “Alright… Alright, I’ll tell you where she is,” Xu offered with a nudge toward the console. “The red button, on the far side… the one labeled ‘Shield’… Press it. She’s right beyond that big bay window.”
“If this is a scheme…” Vagari began before looking to BP over his shoulder. “Do you see it?” At first she only stared back at him, still shocked by the display of violence she had just witnessed, but then she snapped to, running over to the console. BP could barely see over the edge, but all the same she found it. “Y-yes, I found it, I think…” She sputtered out. “Should I press it?”
Vagari turned his black-eyed gaze back to the man he had pinned to the wall. Xu just hung there breathing harshly in his grasp. There didn’t seem to be any tell in the mans eyes, or even a hint of fear for his life. There just was no telling whether it was lie or the truth. “Push it,” Vagari answered solemnly with a hard swallow. The room began to shake when she pushed the button, and the back wall which had appeared to be solid metal began to part, exposing a glass one behind it. Instantly the temperature of the room dropped, changing from pleasant to a bone chilling cold. The glass behind the steel veil was fogged and caked with hoarfrost, but even still they could see the Being of Light burning through.
She was beautiful, a silhouette of humanity made from a star. Vagari sighed as he felt the warmth of her wash over him, pushing away the frigidity like the sudden embrace of a lover. It felt like all the kindness and love the world had to offer was being draped upon his shoulders – like Sephora’s lips pressing against his own. He could almost taste her on his lips; after two-hundred years, he could feel her skin up against his own, and all by looking into that light, that all-encompassing light. “It’s hard… to look away, isn’t it,” Xu choked out, “from this… abomination?”
Vagari dropped Xu to the floor, his anger and wrath towards the wretched man seemingly exhausted as he turned to face the Being of Light. He staggered towards her and slid his long arachnoid fingers down the glass. She was trapped in a jar, a chamber of transteel not dissimilar to the Gate device below. “Vagari… What now?” BP asked, drawing to his side. She only offered quick glances to the glowing entity behind the glass. “Something’s not right here… You feel it right? How… How do we get her out? We need to get her, and we need to go.”
It took all of Vagari’s effort to break away from the Godhead’s light, and his head churned when he did so. “What?” He muttered, BP’s words slow to reach his mind. “Y-yeah, you’re right… Something’s not right. This was too easy.” He turned back to Xu. Despite his diminished state he sat smirking, obviously knowing something that they didn’t. “How do we free her? Tell me!”
“And what, you’ll let me live? Or kill me quickly?” Xu asked mockingly through staggered breaths and bloodied teeth. “It hurts, doesn’t it? To be so close and yet so far away… You don’t open it. You don’t free her. I told you before, I simply cannot let that happen.”
“I don’t see how you can stop us,” Vagari uttered darkly. “Look at you. You’ve been abandoned. You have nothing and no one left to help you. You’re through.”
“Abandoned? No, no-no-no, not at all!” Xu exclaimed, cocking his one brow. “Sure, I’m dying here all to my lonesome,” he coughed out a chortle, “but I wasn’t abandoned. I sent them away as a precaution after what you… did. Tehom, my benefactor, has need of my Synbio soldiers. I can’t have them wasted upon you.”
“And your parasite then?” Vagari asked, disbelief plain in his voice. “I suppose it just had other places to be? You’re delusional to the end. You were left to die alone because you failed to recover the book.” Xu spat out a glob of blood onto the floor and gave a hapless shrug. “Mistakes were made, I’ll give you that,” he stated nonchalantly, “but you’re wrong. Unlike you, Doctor Valentino, my companions know the value of loyalty.” There came a sound of thunder, and with it a quake that nearly threw Vagari off his feet. Xu cackled through gnashing teeth and sighed dramatically. “Jesus… About damned time,” He exclaimed, rolling his head back against the wall. “Fucking slug had me going for a minute.”
Vagari stumbled across the center console of the bridge, frantically looking all around him for the source of what felt like a bomb going off. “V-Vagari, what’s happening now?!” hollered BP, clinging onto the station for dear life. “What was that?!”
“I don’t know!” Answered Vagari truthfully as the rhythmic sound of grinding machinery filled the air. Bang. Bang. BANG. BANG! It was getting closer, whatever it was. And then the realization of what that first sound was struck him like a club to the back of the head. The sound of thunder, it was a pneumatic ignition; the incoming strike of some faraway Gate. Vagari’s gaze shot towards Xu, grinning like a cat upon the ground. He hadn’t been abandoned, he had just been buying time. “Take him…” Vagari said, quietly at first before louder as he had to shout over the metallic drumming. “Take him, and… bring him to the Gate!”
“Take him?!” BP exclaimed in disbelief. “You… You want him with us?!”
“We need more answers,” He admitted, as much as it pained him to do so, “so we need him alive! I’ll… I’ll take care of whatever this is – GO!”
Xu was laughing so hard it was hard to tell whether it was the quakes that threw him to his side or his vicious cackling. “Yes, BP 2-8-57, be a dear and take me away,” Xu said, his laughter breaking into another pained coughing fit. “You’re not going to want to see what my friend is going to do to yours, I’m sure.”
“Shut it!” BP ordered, raising a balled fist threateningly. She let out an exasperated hiss before dropping it to snag him by the arm. “Just… Shut up!”
Vagari could still hear him choking on his murderous humor as she dragged him from the room. A moment after, the sound came to a sudden stop, and with it so did the shaking. Vagari steeled himself and waited, eyes wide as he stared out the thick glass window for what surely lied just below view. Tendrils of bruise colored flesh shot up around the Being of Light, hundreds of them as thin as his fingers. They spiraled around the chamber, lashing on tight before erupting in branches like the proboscis of a ribbon worm. Vagari rushed to the window and slammed on the glass. Whatever it was appeared to be absorbing her, chamber and all. He shouted defiantly as the chamber’s supports twisted and bent under its grasp as it pulled against them. Vagari slashed at the glass, carving deep trenches into it. Unlike the chamber beyond, it didn’t seem to be transteel. He placed his hand firm against it and drew up the willpower within him, unleashing it in a kelhsterg. “Skel-Tehk!” He shouted with all his might. The glass steamed angrily as it began to bubble and twist before bursting outward in an explosion of semi-melted shards.
Vagari shielded his eyes and began to jump through but a force lashing across his midsection sent him crashing back inside and up against the console. Now he was the one to spit up blood. He grit his teeth and started forward again, only to see his goal torn away from him. The metal supporting the Godhead’s prison sheered away and the chamber fell into the void below. Vagari stood at the shattered glass, eyes wide as he scanned for any trace of her. There was a spark, far below, no larger than a matchhead to his eye. The room that had held her was much larger than it had appeared from the bridge, being a great carved out space at the core of the ship as deep as it was long and wide. Vagari cursed and stepped out on the torn metal branch that was all that was left of her encasement. All he could see around him were mirror-like panels and a sort of vein-like blackness that coated them. Vagari spat out another curse and prepared to jump, but the return of the quaking sound froze him to the ruined platform.
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Far below the light ignited, transforming from a candle’s light to a fire bright enough to burn away the darkness around it, and when it did an ethereal voice cried out with it, a thousand pained screams bound together as one. Vagari clapped his hands to his ears and sunk down to one knee, and even then he could hear the tormented cacophony of voices in his head. Then, as suddenly as it rung out, the voices stopped, and the light dimmed with it. He could see it now, the demon, lit by the golden light of the Godhead, her prison now a part of it’s back. It was monstrous, a grotesque mass of meat and metal, as much machine as it was a living being. A hydra, it’s ghastly maw of iron teeth were threefold. The trio of serpentine necks craned about, eyeless but seeing. They saw him, staring back down at them. They saw and rose to meet him.
The demon reached up with arms of twisting vines, wrenching itself up off the ground before a series of six engines fused to it’s metallic carapace burst to life beneath it. It launched upward like a rocket, the grind of it’s infernal engines filling the air once more. It was rising fast, fast enough that what once felt like looking down on the head of a pin now felt like gazing on into the oncoming lights of a bus. Vagari had to think just as quickly. It was some kind of technopath, he speculated, a being with psychic abilities that primarily influenced and manipulated technology. Maybe that would suggest an inherent weakness to electricity? It was worth a shot. “Dheht-Stenh!” Vagari shouted, drawing the power of his soul into a crackling lash of electricity that danced across his shoulders from one hand to the other. The bolt of lightning shot from his fingertips and struck the polycephalic dragon as it hurled up above him. The demon settled before him entirely unharmed by the attack. Vagari raised his hands to strike again, drawing up the energy within himself. “Hengnis!” He cried, unleashing a torrent of flame upon it.
“Mehgh-Steg,” a ghastly chthonic voice answered in kind. Vagari stared in shock and awe as his flame was bent and scattered across a transparent surface the color of an oil slick. A deep rumbling laughter radiated from behind it, erupting from each mouth of the monstrous thing. “It was said to me that you favored the power of the first tongue in this iteration,” it announced, it’s voice smoothly transitioning between it’s three mouths. “Tehom failed to mention the deficiency behind your words.”
Great, Vagari thought pessimistically, they hadn’t just drawn in any creature to face him, but some kind of arch-fiend akin to the demon Esh. It was only a fraction of the great dragon’s size, something that Vagari hoped dearly scaled to power as well. “It must be said, brother, that I am underwhelmed,” the creature droned before rearing it’s heads up tall. “Let me show you conviction. Taste my words so they may feed you in death… Stenh! Heyhn! Hengnis!” The explosion of elemental fury left the ruined platform twisted and scarred black, and the shattered glass and bridge behind it covered in a thick sheet of ice. Each of the dragon’s heads inhaled deep and let loose a collective sigh as it then uttered darkly, “I see you’re not entirely unworthwhile. Most cretins would have dove inward, try to hide behind the console. But not you…”
Vagari’s wings blurred behind his back as he shot off into the open air. Whatever the chamber’s true purpose was, it gave him all the room for aerial maneuvers he could ever hope for. Witnessing the devastation the demon’s magic had left in its wake, he needed all the hope he could get. He darted low, hurling himself down beneath the titanic creature, below the roar of it’s engines. “Nēhw-Stenh!” Vagari shouted, channeling his will into darts of ball lightning, hoping the explosive technique would fair better on the demon than Xu’s improved Synbio. Each struck true against his target, the four burning engines keeping his foe afloat. Vagari struck the near wall, sinking his claws into it to hold on. The demon leaned in to snap it’s metallic jaws around him but abruptly fell away as the infused electricity ignited, causing it’s engines to sputter and fail beneath it.
If only temporary, it was a moment Vagari wasn’t about to waste. He launched himself forward, claws at the ready. If magic was proving less than effective, maybe brute force was what he needed to bring the beast to a permanent low. It snapped at him midair. Once. Twice. A third time. Each of which Vagari deftly dodged, ducking, diving, weaving in the air until he came crashing down onto the creature’s main bulk. It’s body was a shield of layered plasteel plates, no doubt hastily stollen from the surrounding area judging by the color and design. The demon’s shell was pieced together haphazardly, leaving cracks in half a dozen places where raw red flesh shown through. Vagari struck each one as he scaled the dragon’s back, stabbing down between the sheets until his arms were covered in burning green blood. He ignored the pain and tried to make a break for the Being of Light as the monstrosity wailed in agony.
Vagari didn’t reach her. Before he could, jagged metal teeth dug into the hump of his back and wrenched him free like a tick. “Evasive pissant,” the demon bellowed as it tossed him back across the room. “Did you truly think your little bites would be enough?” Vagari crashed into the frozen-over console of the Tevat’s bridge. He was dazed, but thankful the mechanical horror hadn’t just swallowed him or tossed him into the bowels of the ship. Before he could regain his footing, however, the creature struck again. Instead of snapping its jaws, this time it used the bluntness of it’s crown pressing against him. Vagari curled up, shielding what parts of him weren’t covered in chitin and softly prayed that those that were could endure as he tried to kick away from the assault. “Pathetic thing, such dire warnings were given prior,” the demon taunted, rolling it’s head into him. “The Udug spoke of such strength, of fantastic powers! To send me, Tohu of our Mother’s Qliphoth, to deal with the likes of you… Tehom has insulted me greatly in this… I will crush you like the little gnat you are and be done with this farce.”
The demon Tohu retracted it’s head, rearing up to bring it crashing down again. But, to some surprise, Vagari didn’t take the chance to flee, or even attempt to dodge. Instead, he clung on, digging his claws into it’s face and neck. “Skel-Tehk!” he shouted, urging the destructive forces into the surrounding flesh and incorporated metals. Tohu, the multiheaded dragon, wailed and shook it’s head frantically, but before long the magic took root. The flesh beneath Vagari’s hands hissed and bubbled before bursting with such force it sent Vagari skipping across the floor, and the dragon’s severed head crashing into the back wall, leaving a bloodied dent behind in the steel.
The explosion was enough to drown out the cybernetic demon’s ensuing screams, but only so long as the ringing lasted in Vagari’s ears. It wailed silently from it’s two remaining mouths while it’s third sprayed the toxic green bile in fountaining bursts. The tonal echoes soon faded, being replaced by unbearable shrieks of pain and rage. Vagari lurched to his feet and stared as the pneumatic energies around the demon began igniting. Bursts of amaranth lightning crackled across it as it gnashed it’s teeth and roared, and with it the prison on its back began to glow, burning so brightly Vagari had to shield his eyes.
The multifaceted scream he had heard before echoed out again as the Being of Light illuminated the room before suddenly growing dim once more. As the light faded, Vagari looked in horror as the severed head had already sealed and began to regrow. It struck him then that the demon wasn’t merely holding her hostage, but feeding on her. It was using her like a battery to power it’s infernal design. If it wanted, it could drag the fight out until all three of them were spent. Vagari needed to end this quickly and decisively. He needed to draw on his own battery, the Goddess’s power, the power to defeat an army of husks, the power to capture and reflect light – the power that seemed to be well out of his reach. His revelation was notwithstanding, he was on his own. “Fuck-fuck-fuck…” Vagari cursed as all three of the dragon’s biomechanical heads turned to face him, revitalized and empowered by a force beyond his comprehension. They coiled together like the makings of a rope and uttered the bone chilling words in unison, “Dheht-Heyhn!”
The beam of pure blue light cut across the room, and as fast as Vagari ran, dove, and flew, as hard as he tried to get out of the way, it cut across him too. Vagari had managed to break free from the frigid room, but not of the ice binding his back and feet. He could hear the demon cackling, a great stony laugh of triumph as he fell over the edge into the shadowed depths of the ship below. Vagari could see it unfurling it’s necks and turning away, it’s mission apparently complete in it’s mind, and it might as well have. Try as Vagari might, clawing wildly at the ice the held him, it felt as hard as adamant and he was unable to break away, chipping only the tips of his nails. Where was it, he thought to himself, that alien voice, that sickening feeling that always accompanied it? It had always come to him in times of need, an angel despite the haunting feeling that overcame him in its presence. There came no guiding voice, no alien frigidity beyond the jacketing ice at his spine. He felt alone, helpless. Unable to do naught but watch as he sped towards his certain demise.
The Godhead, the Being of Light – his redemption, his salvation, she was as dim as he had ever seen her, and when he blinked her light had flickered out entirely. At first he saw Trois, staring down at him through the shielding glass, eyes full of dread and hopelessness, no doubt mirroring his own. “Don’t go…” her voice droned in his mind, weak and distant, but truly closer than she had ever been before. “Please… Help me… Don’t leave me again, Eddy…” With her words, a warmth washed over him, that all encompassing warmth he felt when he had first laid eyes on her. It flooded his mind, body, and soul. And with the wave she transformed behind the glass, now taking the form of his loves lost, his dearest Sephora.
Sephora, the love of his life, the mother of his child, the woman he had left alone at the shore to set the world aflame. It wasn’t the image of her he saw, not in his mind, but her – the real her. She was there, really there, right before him, right out of reach! She was staring down at him with the same pleading eyes that she had that day, watching him leave her behind, again. No, not again. Vagari clenched his teeth, deciding then and there that he would never leave her again. That penetrating warmth filled him with the fear and desperation he needed to dig deep for that primordial strength, for that divine power, for the will to remain that he didn’t have that fateful day so long ago. In that instance, seeing her again, he didn’t care if the muscle was sore, if using it would tear it irreparably or kill him outright. He, unlike the man he had been, couldn’t refuse those eyes, wouldn’t. No, he was going to one thing right, one thing in his whole damned life, and it was going to be this – he was going to save her.
That warmth turned to fire within him, and once more he felt the energies of eternity coursing throughout his body. With a defiant cry of burning fury the ice shattered, and without it or the chains weighing him down, he soared. Vagari raised his open hand towards the demon and shouted, “I won’t let you take her!” He pulled back, wrenching the colossal thing downward with forces unseen. The great demon Tohu let out a metallic groan and a fleshy hiss as it reeled about to face him. “Pestilent gnat,” it bellowed, rearing it’s heads. “What will it take for you to realize, brother, that you strike far above your station? Heyhn! Stenh! Hengn-!”
Before the demon could will it’s devastation into the world, Vagari was already upon it, digging his claws into it. And now, it didn’t matter whether it was flesh, bone, or machine, infused with the Goddess’s might he tore right through it all. The hydra roared and dove in on him, striking as fast as it could, but only succeeding in biting itself. By the time it struck, Vagari was already savaging it elsewhere, rending the demon’s impenetrable hide to shreds so fast it didn’t even start bleeding until he moved on. Tohu wailed in frustration as it snapped and snapped, always close but never successful. “Fine – bhaskwrengh,” the demon cursed in adamic, craning all three of it’s heads backwards unto itself, “you want this wretched thing so bad? Then we’ll see how much of her you can take!”
The Godhead’s screams filled the grand chamber, as did her light. Once more the monstrous dragon was draining her, but this time it didn’t seem to be focused on healing itself – instead, the contrary. Pneumatic lightning poured out its mouths like foam on a rabid dog as it prepared another Kelhsterg, a word of power that would surely kill them both. Vagari, though amateur at best in the magic, was quick learner, quickly holding up his hands and shouting the words with all his might, “Mehgh-Steg!” Behind the shimmering shield, Vagari couldn’t hear what ancient words the dragon spat, but he could see that absolute hell it released upon him. It was best described as cataclysmic – every element, every force, all wrapped into one destructive energy that it poured upon itself.
Even with Nintu’s powers, Vagari’s shield strained under the force of the sustained blast, cracking liked a bricked windshield. But, his will soon proved stronger than demon Tohu’s. The elemental fury began sputtering before dying completely as the dragon’s three heads burst into flames. It wailed horribly as it began spinning out of control before crashing harshly into the bridge where it skid across the floor, charring it with it’s failing jets. Defenseless and weakened from the attack, Vagari recognized that it was now or never. He dispelled the shield with a wave of his hand before thrusting both down into the demon’s hide. “Nēhw-Hengnis!” he shouted, pouring all his rage into the blast. The internalized flame burst free, pouring out of the demon’s three mouths as it’s insides boiled. It’s side burst open from the pressure, spilling the remainder of it’s life out in a great steaming emerald pool.
Breathing harshly, Vagari slid his hands free of the monster’s corpse and turned once more to the transteel prison upon it’s back. He didn’t know how long the power would last this time, so every second left would have to count. Immediately he lurched over to the glass, pressing his face up against it. It was her, his Sephora. He couldn’t believe it, but it was. She sat there, waiting for him, just like he remembered her. Tears streamed from his eyes as that warmth overcame him again, filling him with feelings and memories he had long since forgotten. Love, hope, everything he had seen in her came rushing back. He had to free her, he had to get her out so he could tell her what he had wanted to for so long, that he was sorry, and that he loved her more than anything in the world. “Don’t… Don’t worry,” Vagari sobbed, striking the encasement with all his might, “I’ll get you out… I’m back… I came back, Sephora…” He struck again. “I’ll never leave you again!”
One final strike and the glass cracked like the shell of an egg. Vagari caught her as she fell out, and held her close to his chest, tight in his arms. He cradled her there for what felt both like eternity and not nearly long enough, until her eyes opened. Sephora smiled that same sweet smile she always had when she saw him. He didn’t know how she could recognize him, but she knew it was him, her Eddy. He smiled back as the tears kept coming, even as the warmth seemed to fade from his body along with the power he had evoked. It was perfect, he thought, a fairytale ending, the fantasy come true he had always wished for.
But it was wrong, it was impossible. It made no sense! What was she doing here? How? How did she survive? The answer was as simple as how Trois had survived to visit him when she had – she hadn’t. She had died and the Godhead had used her image to convene with him. Vagari stuttered out a breath as he stared down at the little piece of Heaven he knew he would never truly get; the chain that he could never truly break. “How did she die?” he asked weakly. “Was… Was it peaceful at least?”
The Godhead blinked and their gaze was no longer the warm one of his lost love, but one of fire, burning, scorching as the light spread outward across her body, setting the illusion aflame in his arms. The Being of Light lifted up from his embrace and floated above him like the sun. No longer did Vagari feel that overwhelming sense of endearing warmth from her, no. All he felt now was just the heat of an open flame. “No,” the Godhead said, her voice the voice of all the souls of Man, “she died afraid and abandoned – but pure enough to become a part of me.”
There it was, that cold feeling Vagari had been waiting for, creeping in from all directions. It pushed out all sense of warmth, mental and physical, replacing it was naught but cold dread. That alien aversion inched up his spine with her words. Vagari grit his teeth as he seethed out a pained scream. “Was it… Was it all just manipulation?” He asked, swallowing harshly as he struggled against that assaulting dread. “Can you even help me…? Help me save the world?”
“I will,” uttered the Godhead, “by finishing what I started.”
“I don’t understand,” Vagari admitted through a veil of tears. “What did you start?”
“The End, the Rapture,” answered the Being of Light darkly. “The purge and the reaping. The only way to save all that was lost by the corruption is to begin again – to burn out the old and rotted crop and plant new seeds in the ashes.”
“Burn out the old? The Angels…” Vagari realized, eyes wide with horror. “You, you called them here… Didn’t you?”
“They are the righteous sword of GOD, the sickle to cut clean the crop of man,” Whispered the many voices. “With my holy bastion, they too shall rise, thanks to you.”
Run – run – RUN! The voice of Troi urged him in his mind. You need to flee! Demanded Elizabeth. Eddy, run! Vagari staggered to his feet, breathing harshly, in disbelief at what he was hearing. “But why?” he asked, wiping the tears from his eyes with his forearm. “I brought the book – together we can save everyone… End the senseless killing, end the pain!” Run damn you, commanded the voice of Malcom – RUN!
“It’s fate,” The being of light answered. “It is as it was always supposed to be. There is no escaping it,” She uttered solemnly, raising one burning hand up to him. “And the fate of this world is to burn.”
Run you fool! Vagari ran. He didn’t question it, he didn’t look back, he didn’t even breathe, he just ran. The derelict began to groan and rumble as its long dormant engines roared to life at the Godhead’s command, their psionic will spreading out to every system of the colossal ship. Vagari fled down the stairs, the way closing behind him as he shouted for BP. “BP, where are you? We need to get to the chamber, to the Gate!” Vagari cried, only to find her already there, alone, collapsed upon the ground. He rushed to her side and pulled her close to him. “BP! BP, are you alright?! Please-please-please be alright…”
“Ah – I am… I’m alright,” she cawed, eyes rolling about in her head. “The thing… the Udug thing… It was waiting for us down here. It got the jump on me… It was… It was going to… But,” she stuttered, groaning, “Xu wouldn’t let it… Told it to leave me. I don’t know why he would do that…”
“It doesn’t matter right now,” urged Vagari. “All that matters is that you’re okay, and that we get the hell out of here, right now!”
“Wha-what’s going on?” BP asked, a confused fear welling in her eyes. “Vagari, what happened?!”
“Hold on to me! Tight, okay?!” Vagari hollered as he wrapped one arm around her and one arm around the obelisk besides them. He could feel the ship rising, breaking free from it’s grave. The angel of death was taking flight. Vagari shut his eyes and held BP close, willing to life those fateful words from so long ago, “SoPeth gwedh Hheme!”