Chapter CIX: From the Depths
“Way to go, Sam!” Drake hollered. “Show that bastard what it means to be a pirate!”
BOOM
Even with Forneus’ attention now solely on him, Bellamy did not turn around and retreat. He kept up his attack, and his cannons belched smoke and flame and black iron death without pause or hesitation. As though his very life depended on it, he continued his unflinching assault, firing over and over and over again.
“Fuck yeah!” crowed Drake.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM
Forneus’ black flesh ripped and tore as more cannonballs smashed into its body, gouging away chunks of its body. The rapid staccato of the Whydah Gally’s cannons echoed, and yet more cannonballs exploded against Forneus’ twisting body and massive eyes, and each one dealt even more damage. Paltry, perhaps, compared to something like Aífe’s Thunder Feat that obliterated everything in front of it in one go, and Forneus was slowly healing it all even as it accumulated, but it wasn’t nothing.
“YOU WRETCH!” roared Forneus.
If he said anything in reply, Bellamy was too far away for me to hear, and it didn’t really matter anyway. Bellamy had distracted Forneus, and that gave us an opening to work with.
“EVERYONE!” I shouted. “THIS IS IT! GIVE IT EVERYTHING YOU’VE GOT!”
“Yes!” said Atalanta. She pulled back on her bow, nocking two arrows again, and aimed straight up into the sky. “I offer these arrows to the twin gods, Artemis and Apollo! Phoebus Catastrophe!”
The two arrows went up, and an instant later, down came a rain of light. Like a meteor shower, they descended upon Forneus, carving away grooves of its flesh and even popping one or two of its enormous eyes. Forneus shrieked, high pitched and grating, but the noise cut off before I could even slap my hands over my ears as more cannonballs slammed into it and compounded the damage from Atalanta’s Noble Phantasm.
Arash joined in a moment later, firing volley after volley of his own arrows. They didn’t do nearly as much as Atalanta’s, just because they were regular arrows instead of a Noble Phantasm, but I realized, after a second, that he was specifically targeting the injuries that were already there instead of trying to open new ones.
It was hard to tell how effective it was, but even if all it did was keep those wounds open, that was enough.
“Well, goodness,” said Artemis, “if even little Atalanta is getting into this, it looks like I don’t have any other choice!”
“You got that right!” Orion told her. “Now hurry up! Fire it off! We need to kill this thing before Apollo decides to take notice and show up!”
She just smiled, not the least bit concerned.
“Don’t worry, Darling! I’ll protect you from everything, even my big brother!”
Artemis pulled back on her own bowstring, and the arrow that formed grew strange, curling protrusions from the head that matched the curve of her bow. She took aim at the nearest eye, the one that was level with the curtain wall and so close that it dominated my field of view.
“This is the proof of my love, made manifest! Tri-star Amore Mio!”
The arrow took off like a rocket and became a streak of pale blue color. Before I could even see it leap from her bow, it had already scythed through that enormous eye, boring a hole into Forneus body that was big enough to drive a car through. Black ichor spouted from the wound, spurting all about and splattering across the battlements and our shoes.
This was going to be a pain in the ass to wash out, I was willing to bet. Da Vinci was probably going to file a formal complaint when she found out.
“Well, hell!” Morgan laughed, grinning broadly. “This is the end of it, isn’t it? Guess there’s no more reason to be holding back, is there? Might as well put all my cards on the table!”
“That’s what I’m talking about!” said Drake, answering his grin with one of her own. “Hey, Morgan, that fleet of yours worth a damn, or is it all just for show?”
Morgan cackled. “You know what they say, Captain!”
Up in the air around us, particles of light shimmered, coalescing into the familiar shapes of the fleet of ships that had greeted us when we came down to this archipelago. Just like the Whydah had when we chased Blackbeard, just as the Queen Anne’s Revenge had when Blackbeard ambushed us and took off with Euryale, they sailed the winds just as surely and just as easily as they did the waters below. Eyeballing it, there must have been something like fifty ships in total, each of them a galleon fit for war and loaded for battle.
Morgan strode quickly over to the edge of the rampart and planted one foot between the “teeth” of the crenellations, taking up his iconic pose.
“Take a man’s measure through his actions!”
He jabbed one finger at Forneus. “Now, you so-called Demon God, see for yourself the might of Captain Morgan’s Expeditionary Fleet!”
Several of the ships caught fire, set ablaze for no apparent reason, and of those that didn’t, every single cannon swiveled and turned towards Forneus. The sizzle of what had to be nearly a thousand fuses hissed.
“Fire!”
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM
Morgan’s fleet of ships joined the Whydah in bombardment, and the ones that had caught fire tilted and sailed forward, collapsing in on Forneus and slamming into it with the crack of splintering wood. Where they collided, Forneus caught fire himself, and it clung to the wounds unnaturally, like tar or oil, and continued to burn. The cannonballs from both the Whydah and the fleet ripped into it all the while, tearing out great chunks in sprays of black ichor that seeped into the water and stained the island.
“PESTS!” shrieked Forneus. “VERMIN! INSOLENT WRETCHES! HOW DARE YOU!”
One by one, its eyes flashed, and the remaining ships of Morgan’s fleet — the ones that weren’t supposed to be — were set ablaze. With us, Morgan reeled, flinching as though he had taken a strong blow to the gut, but an instant later, he caught his second wind and snarled, “I’m not done yet!”
Beneath our feet, the fuses of the fort’s cannons lit once more, and with Forneus in the way, I couldn’t see them, but the cannons in the other forts throughout the rest of the archipelago must have as well.
“Port Royal Cannonade!”
The thunderous roar of more cannons echoed, and the entire fort beneath us seemed to shake under our feet as the ones below went off, too. From all sides, the bombardment continued, and Forneus jerked under each one landing as they all ripped into flesh that hadn’t even finished healing yet. Larger and larger chunks started disappearing from its body, eyes popping under the pressure of the assault, and a veritable flood of ichor flowed from its wounds.
And it still wasn’t enough. Forneus twitched and jerked under each hit, spraying yet more ichor all over, but appeared no closer to being defeated. If we could have kept up an assault like that, I think it would have eventually been enough, just based upon the amount of damage we were doing.
But it wasn’t, and we couldn’t. Morgan kept it up for as long as he could, but that was his third use of his Noble Phantasms in less than an hour, and he had no backup from one of us Masters to keep him going. Eventually, inevitably, he had to stop, panting, his face beaded with sweat from the effort, because if he pushed himself too far and ran himself dry, then the fort beneath our feet would disappear and drop us onto the island.
Bellamy, too, stopped firing, although whether that was because he was running low on energy as well or just because he was waiting for his cue to start up again, I had no way of knowing. In the next Singularity, I think I was going to have to be more insistent about forming contracts with the stray Servants, even if they were only temporary ones.
A lull developed in the aftermath. The haze of smoke from Morgan’s cannons drifted lazily upwards, leaving behind a thin smog that burned my nostrils and made me want to cough. Rika, face twisted into a grimace, tried to wave it away with a hand, to not much success, and Ritsuka hid his nose and mouth in the elbow of his sleeve, squinting and eyes watering.
“Damn it.”
The remains of Morgan’s fleet flickered and vanished. He himself looked on the verge of unraveling at the seams, such was the amount of energy he’d used up to bombard Forneus with everything he had, and whether he was holding on through sheer tenacity or if he had some trick that was letting him replenish himself, somehow, he was staying solid.
The problem was, so was Forneus. It was pockmarked with pits and holes, missing what had to be almost half of its flesh and several of its eyes, and it had taken enough damage to make even Herakles flinch, but it was still standing. Its wounds were slowly filling back in, restoring the missing flesh, and the eyes it had lost were slowly being replaced.
Morgan gritted his teeth. “All of that, and it still stands, does it?”
“It’s sturdier than the last one,” Arash noted.
“Fucker just doesn’t know when to quit,” Jeanne Alter agreed. “Damn. That bastard just takes everything we can throw at him, doesn’t he? Shit!”
“What else can we do?” said Bradamante. “Queen Aífe has already struck it, and now so have Sir Bellamy and Sir Morgan, and even Lady Artemis’ Noble Phantasm wasn’t able to defeat it. No offense to King David —”
“None taken,” King David said. “You’re right, I don’t have anything that would do more than make that thing flinch. The Ark might be enough to finish it, but moving it is too much of a pain, and I don’t have any method of throwing it Forneus’ way. And, uh, I’m not sure I want to know what’ll happen if the Holy Grail that thing has makes contact with the Ark. Nothing good, I want to say.”
Because, of course, it would have been too convenient if it was that easy.
“— and I don’t think my own Noble Phantasm will do much,” Bradamante went on.
“Is there aught else you might attempt?”
I wasn’t the only one who was startled and nearly jumped out of my skin, whirling about to find a familiar gaunt face among our group. How had he snuck up on us? On me?
“Davy Jones!” Rika squeaked.
Atalanta, Artemis, and Arash had also turned, aiming his way with all of their bows drawn and arrows nocked. He ignored them completely.
“Have you nothing else?” Davy Jones asked. “No more tactics you might utilize against this foul creature?”
I glanced Aífe’s way, and she was flickering, like she was mere moments away from vanishing, then down at my Command Spells, and then again over at Jeanne Alter. Already, a few ideas were percolating in my brain. No, we hadn’t exhausted all of our options yet. Even if we had to get a little more desperate, we could still call Siegfried back here a second time and have him use Balmung once or twice, and if that still wasn’t enough, then I would start worrying in earnest.
“A few.”
Davy Jones bobbed his seaweed-covered head. “Then I shall provide you an opening. It will be up to you, champions of proper history, to ensure it is used to its utmost.”
With this message delivered, he melted, quite literally. His body just…collapsed into a puddle of water, and Rika recoiled away from it as it spread across the brickwork.
“Ew,” she said. “If I accidentally step in that, am I stepping on soul juice?”
Orion eyed the puddle with similar unease. “Pretty sure that’s just regular water, but I’m still not gonna touch it.”
“Do we trust him?” Arash asked.
“I’m not sure we have much of a choice,” I said.
“Whatever you’re planning, make it quick,” Aífe warned. “I’ve barely enough energy to maintain my form, and even that won’t last much longer.”
I opened my mouth to start explaining.
“HAVE YOU EXHAUSTED YOURSELVES, WORMS?” Forneus thundered. “IF YOUR ARSENAL HAS RUN DRY, THEN STAY THERE AND DIE, LIKE THE VERMIN YOU ARE. HARKEN —”
BOOM
And another cannonball slammed into Forneus. Several of its remaining eyes swiveled around, focusing on the Whydah as Bellamy fired off more shots — BOOM, BOOM, BOOM — to keep its attention off of us.
Forneus’ patience, however, seemed to have run out entirely.
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“I TIRE OF YOUR PERSISTENT MEDDLING! BEGONE, WRETCH!”
The eyes flashed, all at once. A rumbling, deafening BOOM echoed across the whole archipelago, and off on the other side of Forneus, the Whydah exploded in a shower of splinters and flame. Jagged wooden planks and tattered scraps of canvas splashed into the water, the only remains left behind. Moments later, a wash of heat kissed my cheeks.
Drake threw herself against the battlements again. “SAM!”
“Sam!” shouted Ritsuka and Rika.
“Damn it,” said Atalanta.
There was no reply. At this distance, it wasn’t possible to make out fine details, but even just with what I could see, there was no sign of Sam Bellamy amongst the wreckage of his ship. Not even his hat.
“Is he…?” I muttered to Arash.
“I don’t see him,” Arash replied just as quietly. It was as good as confirmation.
It felt cheap. Sam had been with us against Blackbeard, and he’d made it through all the rest of the stuff that had tried to kill us since we met up with him. He’d managed to hold out long enough to chase after Blackbeard, then after Hektor, and then he’d brought us down here to the archipelago without a break in-between, and after all of that, a giant tentacle with some special eyes did him in.
“SUCH IS THE DESTINY OF THOSE WHO STAND AGAINST MY KING.”
“Bastard!” Drake snarled. She pulled one of her pistols free and snapped off a shot at Forneus, but with her Grail still in Arash’s possession, it didn’t even penetrate. “Fuck your king and fuck his horse, too! And fuck you most of all!”
She tried to fire again, but she didn’t have unlimited ammunition anymore, so her pistol just clicked uselessly. I didn’t have it in me to tell her it was pointless.
“YOUR RESISTANCE IS FUTILE, AND YOUR PATHETIC ATTACKS IMPOTENT. IT IS NO USE. NOW, HARKEN, FOR THE TIME OF THE DRIFTING —”
And from out of the sea behind it, a ship appeared, surfacing like a whale from water that really was too shallow to have hidden it. Forneus’ eyes snapped towards it.
“WHAT?”
It wasn’t just any ship either. It was a galley, with oars jutting out from either side and a patterns of gold along the rails and the edges of the decks. The mainsail was a royal blue, and stitched into it was the image of a red dragon, large and dominating. Stripes of the same blue color ran horizontally across the hull, making the gold accents all the more eye-catching.
“The hell?” said Drake, confused.
“Is that…” breathed Ritsuka.
“The Whydah!” Rika exclaimed excitedly. “That’s Sam!”
Was it? I had my doubts about that, for a number of reasons, including the fact that we’d just seen the Whydah get sunk. It was still too far away for my regular human eyes to see so I could tell for sure, but…
I turned my head minutely to look over at Arash, and as though he sensed my eyes on him, he gave his head a tiny shake, confirming my suspicions. It was as I’d thought then. Even if that actually was the Whydah Gally and not some lookalike, and that was already a bit of a stretch, the one at the helm definitely wasn’t Bellamy.
“He survived!” Mash breathed, relieved. “Thank goodness!”
Drake grinned. “Tougher than I gave him credit for, he is!”
“No,” said Atalanta, dashing their hopes. “That’s not Sam Bellamy.”
More ships burst out of the water one after the other, all of them different, all of them from different eras. From ancient things that looked like they belonged in Classical Greece to galleons straight out of the Golden Age of Piracy all the way to ironclads from the Civil War, they all came up out of the water like a pod of surfacing whales, wet and soaked and streaming water from every available porthole. Those that had cannons opened up their gunports, and like a pack of hunting orcas, they maneuvered around to encircle their prey.
Each ship was manned by phantoms, just like Morgan’s Port Royal, and leading the whole thing, captaining a familiar ghastly ship that looked as though it had sailed straight out of a maritime ghost story, there he was. Davy Jones.
Fuck it, I was just going to go with it. If we were all wrong and he was some other Heroic Spirit, we could worry about that later.
“It’s our new friend.”
“Then,” Ritsuka began, “that means that Sam…”
“I’m sorry, Ritsuka,” said Arash. “I don’t see him.”
Drake’s grin turned into a snarl. “Bastard! Now it’s personal! No one touches my crew and gets away with it!”
“Yeah!” Rika agreed. “Let’s make takoyaki out of this son of a bitch!”
“Easier said than done!” yelped Orion.
“INSOLENT WRETCH,” rumbled Forneus. “DO YOU BELIEVE MERE NUMBERS ENOUGH TO DEFEAT ME? VERY WELL. BRING AS MANY AS YOU LIKE. I WILL CRUSH EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THESE MEAGER HOPES YOU CULTIVATE, SO THAT YOU MAY DIE IN DESPAIR!”
BOOM was the resounding report of the first shot, and as though that was a signal for all the rest, the other ships opened fire as well, all together, like a symphony. The echo of their cannonfire rent the air, sending the brickwork beneath us aquiver and shuddering through my already abused eardrums.
The first cannonball crashed into Forneus and ripped out another chunk of flesh, and so did the ones that followed. One after the other, they landed, gouging out hunk after hunk from the giant tentacle, and the wounds that had been healing up were torn back open violently, spraying yet more black ichor all over.
But I noticed almost immediately that it was less effective than Morgan’s, that these shots were dealing less damage to Forneus, and it only took me a second to realize why: this wasn’t a Noble Phantasm. These cannonballs could hurt Forneus and any other Servant by virtue of the fact that Davy Jones was commanding the ships and using them as his own personal armada, but otherwise, there was nothing special about them. They were otherwise ordinary cannonballs fired from otherwise ordinary cannons.
Because Davy Jones wasn’t a naval commander, he never had been. That wasn’t his legend. He was a psychopomp. He could call on each of these ships because — if he really was Davy Jones — all of these ships had sunk at some point, and therefore fell under his domain as something just shy of a sea god, but none of them was his Noble Phantasm.
“HOW QUAINT.”
One of Forneus’ remaining eyes flashed, and with a crack, one of the ships in Davy Jones impromptu fleet caught fire as a large chunk of its deck exploded into splinters and shrapnel. Another eye flashed, and a second ship cracked open and was set ablaze, flames spreading with unnatural speed over the wood and catching several phantom crew in the crossfire. A third flash hit a third ship, and then a fourth smashed open a fourth.
And Davy Jones was well aware of his limitations. That was why this was only meant as a distraction from the beginning, and why he’d only promised to provide an opening. He was doing just that.
Which meant it was up to us to finish this off and bring it home.
“Aífe!” Her attention snapped over to me as I held out my hand, the symbols on the back aglow. “By the power of this Command Spell, use this energy to activate your Noble Phantasm, Ochd Deug Odin!”
With a flash, one of the strokes of my Command Spells faded into a smudge, and Aífe’s form solidified some more, gaining definition around the edges. She offered me a cold, shark-toothed grin. “Yes, Master!”
“Super Action Mom!” Rika added, burning through one of her own Command Spells. “Do what Senpai says and blast that tentacle monster to kingdom come!”
A flash of red light, and one of the strokes of Rika’s Command Spells faded away, too. Aífe laughed, delighted. “Of course!”
She took off like a rocket, kicking off of the curtain wall so quickly that she was nothing more than a vague maroon blur. She hit what little ground still remained below us, then leapt onwards, leaving behind a shining, burning rune carved into the dirt. Next, she landed on one of the ships Davy Jones had summoned, this one an ancient looking thing that had no cannons to fire and so really seemed only to exist to fill out the ranks or add fodder to the fleet, and on the deck, she left behind another rune.
Like that, she started bouncing from ship to ship, leaping from one to the other and finding strategically advantageous places to leave a rune that worked best for her Noble Phantasm.
Of course, she couldn’t remain unnoticed forever. Even with Davy Jones distracting it, Forneus had too many eyes not to see her going and realize that something was afoot. No amount of wishful thinking could hide her from sight.
“I THINK NOT!” Forneus thundered. “DO YOU BELIEVE ME BLIND? FOOL!”
The only question was, would a Noble Phantasm designed to work against people work on something like Forneus? There was only one way we were going to find out.
“Bradamante!”
But before I could order her to use her Noble Phantasm to keep Forneus distracted long enough for Aífe to finish, another figure in red kicked off of the rampart with us and soared like a bullet through the air, straight towards Forneus.
“I won’t let you!”
Hippolyta, of all people, swung her fist around, and with a crack like thunder, threw a punch directly at Forneus. It connected with the meatiest smack I’d ever heard, and against all sense and reason, defying the laws of physics completely, her tiny hand, curled into a ball, delivered so much force at once that Forneus actually recoiled. The crack of her punch landing was almost as thunderous as Morgan’s cannons.
She flew backwards and touched back down on one of the crenellations’ teeth, and her feet had barely made contact before she leapt away again, rebounding like a rubber ball. She shot towards Forneus again, spinning midair to gain momentum, and when she got up close, she lashed out with a bone-shattering roundhouse kick that would have made any master martial artist pause to take a moment and appreciate it.
And Forneus recoiled again, ruined body contorting and wriggling from the sheer power behind the blow. Bare moments later, the crack of her leg smashing into it reached my ears, followed shortly by Forneus’ startled shriek.
What the hell? Was she capable of doing this the entire time?
“Holy shit,” said Rika. “Chuck Norris would’ve been jealous of that one!”
As Hippolyta landed on one of Davy Jones’ ships, I honed in on her with my Master’s Clairvoyance — and my eyebrows rose towards my hairline.
“How did she do that?”
Her stats had all skyrocketed. Strength, Agility, Constitution — each and every one of them had all gone up at least one rank, and even her Divinity had increased. In fact, as I was looking, it ticked up another rank, and the petite young woman gained a weight, a presence to her that she hadn’t had before. The whole world seemed to watch as she kicked off again, rocketing like a missile back towards Forneus, and when her fist made contact, the fabric of space itself seemed to ripple as its body jerked beneath the blow.
“One of the reasons why none of us suggested simply killing Euryale as a method of stopping Jason’s plan,” Atalanta said, seeming to understand what I was asking. “There were simply too many alternatives that would make it moot. Caenis alone would have been enough, if she pushed her Saint Graph that far, and if not Caenis, then even Hippolyta could have been a candidate for sacrifice.”
She might as well have spelled it out for me.
“She’s becoming a god.”
That was why everything about her was increasing. Why her presence was becoming heavy enough that I could feel it, that it was almost a tangible force. She was becoming more than a mere Servant, and unlike Artemis, who had to squeeze herself into Orion’s Saint Graph, or Euryale and Stheno, who were so weak that being a Servant was technically an upgrade, Hippolyta had started strong and was going to become stronger.
“Divine Spirit, technically,” said King David.
“That’s something you can do?” Rika asked incredulously.
King David shook his head. “Not normally, no. But…she was already a demigod. With that Noble Phantasm of hers, she can push past the realm of a Heroic Spirit and ascend…although how long she’ll last like that, I couldn’t say.”
Hippolyta came around for another earth-shaking blow, and between her and Davy Jones’ fleet, Aífe had more than enough distraction to flit about and find the ideal place to plant the runes needed for Ochd Deug Odin. It was just taking her longer than it had against Romulus by virtue of the fact that Forneus was big enough to dwarf not just Flauros, but the entire imperial palace.
“ENOUGH!” thundered Forneus, and once more, its eyes began flashing, and explosions of heat and flame and force ripped across the air around him like a shield. By sheer volume, one of them managed to catch Hippolyta, setting her ablaze, and she was thrown into the brackish water of the polluted shallows below.
“I TIRE OF YOUR INSOLENCE! YOU, ALL OF YOU, SHALL RUE THE VERY DAY YOU CAME INTO THIS WORLD!”
Magical energy began to gather, rapidly swelling, and out on the water, spots of light started to glow. Forneus quivered with the effort, still being slammed by shots from Davy Jones and his fleet, but didn’t flinch or stop, even as bits of flesh were torn out of its tattered, pitted body.
Aífe! I said urgently.
Her reply was terse. Almost…!
“HARKEN! THE TIME OF THE DRIFTING HATH COME!”
Forneus’ remaining eyes flashed. The spots of light grew brighter, and then beams, pillars of searing white shot up towards the sky with a loud, scintillating buzz that vibrated through my bones. Shouts of alarm sounded from the others around me, and I had to turn away and shield my eyes from the glare to stop from being blinded. A wash of hot air whipped my hair about and scorched my cheeks. Any bugs I still had left evaporated out of my range all at once, gone so suddenly that the shock of it nearly made me stagger.
It ended almost as soon as it began, and when I tore my eyes open again, a panting Mash took a step back, her Noble Phantasm fading away from in front of the fort.
Beyond her, there was nothing left of the town that had once populated the island. We and the fort behind us were the only things left of Morgan’s Port Royal. Of Davy Jones and his fleet, nothing remained, nothing except some scraps of canvas and a few planks of charred wood. Every single one of his ships had been completely and utterly destroyed.
“Super Action Mom!” Rika shouted.
“Aífe!” Ritsuka echoed her.
A maroon blur suddenly shot out of the shallows and collided with Forneus with all the force of a runaway train.
“IMPOSSIBLE!”
“Did you think that would be enough to take me out?” Aífe spat. One of her arms was gone completely, and half of her clothing had been burned away from her torso, leaving behind only a tattered black undershirt, but she was still alive. “You’re a thousand years too early to think something like that could kill me!”
“Fuck yeah!” Jeanne Alter called. “Fuck him up, Super Bitch!”
“IMPUDENT WRETCH!”
One of Forneus’ eyes flashed, but another red blur smashed into him, and the blast of fire erupted some twenty feet away from Aífe, completely off course.
“I, as well!” said Hippolyta, barely singed. “We Amazons are made of tougher stuff than to be done in by a little fire!”
She bounced off, falling back towards the fort and us, and like before, her feet barely touched the ground before she was off again, delivering another heavy blow that sent Forneus reeling. Opposite her, Aífe did something similar, only her hits weren’t nearly as devastating, because they weren’t supposed to be. She was still preparing her Noble Phantasm, laying down runes like before, only this time, as though to add insult to injury, she was carving them directly into Forneus’ flesh.
“Jeanne Alter,” Ritsuka murmured, so quiet that I almost didn’t hear him. “Just in case, I want you to get ready to use your Noble Phantasm.”
She laughed lowly. “So I can get the kill on that giant tentacle fucker? Master, don’t try and get on my good side, I don’t have one!”
Battered from both sides, Forneus couldn’t stop either of them, and without the distraction to slow her down, it was only a matter of moments for Aífe to finish carving the last of the runes she needed.
“Hippolyta!” Aífe shouted. “Get clear!”
Heeding her, Hippolyta rebounded from her latest attack, and instead of bouncing right back into the fight, she retreated, rejoining our group on the fort. She was glowing a little, her skin shining with an inner light, but it had worn her thin. Just from how fuzzy her body was on the edges, I wasn’t sure how much longer she could have kept it up.
On the other side of Forneus, Aífe did the same.
“Mash!” I said urgently.
“That’s your cue, Cinnabon!” Rika told her.
“Right!”
Mash planted her shield again, took a deep breath, and shouted, “LORD CHALDEAS!”
The familiar blue rampart formed in front of the fort’s curtain wall, just in time for Aífe’s voice to bellow from the other side, “Ochd Deug Odin!”
On Forneus’ massive body, eighteen points of light lit up, and a moment later, they all ignited with a flash and a thunderous boom. Once more, I had to briefly close my eyes against it, hiding in my elbow.
When I opened them again…
“No way,” said Rika. “What does it take to kill this thing?”
…Forneus was still standing, an emaciated, ruined pillar of ripped, torn, and charred flesh, having lost at least half of its body mass. What remained behind was little more than a skeleton, a husk of the towering monstrosity, with all of its eyes gone and nothing left except raw, grotesque meat exposed to the open air. What hadn’t been seared shut was leaking a veritable flood of black ichor.
It wriggled. Steam rose from its wounds, and even before my eyes, I could see them starting to heal. We’d thrown so much at it, and still, it managed to survive?
“Y-YOU…WRETCHED W-WORMS… I-IMPUDENT V-VERMIN… H-HOW…HOW D-DARE YOU…”
“Guess that’s my cue!” Jeanne Alter said with sadistic glee. “Alright, then! Time to shish kabob this thing!”
She stepped over to the crenellations, planted one foot between two of the teeth, and pointed her sword at Forneus. A gigantic grin threatened to split her face.
“La Grondement du Haine!”
A line of fire raced down the brickwork and over towards Forneus, and when it reached Forneus’ seething base, it split and encircled it. I couldn’t see it from my angle, but a moment later, when it must have connected on the opposite side, the fire flared, and then it rose into pillars of flame that stretched up towards the sky. Stakes in the shape of the pole of Jeanne Alter’s flag erupted out of the remaining flesh, and then the pillars of flame twisted and swirled and drew inwards.
Forneus’ tortured screams were garbled and muffled behind the roaring fire, but still audible enough for me to hear them as the fire burned it. All of that thunderous volume was gone, and what came out instead must have been the equivalent of a whimper by comparison.
The flames twisted tight, compressing down, and then imploded with a brief flash. For the who even knew what time in the fight, a wash of heat wafted over us, and then it was gone, and so was Forneus. All that was left was a mound of charred, blackened flesh that was even now evaporating, leaving behind steaming ichor on the ground.
It was finally over.