The amount of pain Chris had gone through today alone was enough for him to consider having a compartment built into his armor to store nothing but pain killers. He lay once again buried into the earth with his fellow knights all around him in equal states of pain, defeat, dread and for those unfortunate ones, death.
He looked around and watched the lifeless bodies of the unfortunate knights who he had met on the way here and who had fallen to Nimue. Their dull lifeless eye's felt like they were digging into his very soul, asking him why he led them into this death trap.
Tears stung his eyes and Chris despite how much he fought it, let out a silent sob as his heart felt like it was in a vice grip that made every breath harder.
His weeping was shorts lived however as the ear piercing sound of a explosion sent much dust and debris flying everywhere including on top to of him. The cause of the explosion were his parents who stood back turned to him, facing Nimue.
"Mother, father?" But they did not turn and face him, their whole attention was on Nimue.
" Nimue, stop! " He heard his mother shout in panic.
He managed to pull himself off the ground and he looked into the strange room in which they had found Nimue. The sight that he is beheld was jaw-dropping, and his parents both stood there looking forward just as shocked as he was.
Were Nimue once stood was a creature that was both magnificent and frightening. It was a woman, dark purple and lacking a mouth with four white eyes. Her flesh was a living nebula of stars and her sword burning blade that seemed equally composed of the nights sky as she was.
Nimue took a few deep breaths as if she was finally her lungs after a long time. With each breath, waves of magical energy rolled off of her and made Chris hair stand as he shivered.
A long silence followed like the calm before the inevitable storm. Nimue looked at her arms and her sword, inspecting her new body with a childlike awe.
"Nimue..." His mother was aiming to say something but when the new glowing Nimue looked sharply in their direction silencing his mother.
"Goddess..." Nimue's voice sounded like a intermixing of her ordinary one and a strange male voice.
"Impossible" his mother whispered in shock and like his father, they seemed to have gotten afraid.
"I am Nimue, the goddess of your world, the Archetype-King of Arthurian legend and the Shadow. Kneel before your king, your savior, your god!"
"This oddly feels like dark energy." he thought as he felt a cold tinge from the energy rolling off Nimue.
His parents looked at each other and had another one of their internal conversations. Chris saw his father's hands giving off some sparks that signified that a fight was about to start.
" No." his mother said and she almost sounded tired. "You are insane, look at what you have done to yourself."
"Mad?" Nimue asked his mother before erupting in a deranged laugh that went far longer than it should have.
" I was hoping that you would show some intelligence, Natalia. What Is there to fear, we are the same now." she stretched her arms wide open. "So bow and repent before your savior. While I still allow it."
" Nimue, we are not the same. I refuse to be a twisted corrupted thing. I am not her!"
Nimue let out a furious snarl that only an angry rabid dog would match. She raised her hands as the energy in the air increased more and more, Chris could feel the very molecules vibrating at a high frequency.
But his mother was faster as she swung her sword upwards or so Chris thought, after all, Natalia was so fast that she appeared to be nothing more a blur and from her blade came her Alpha-Spell. But that wasn't the oddest thing happening, in his father's hand a white ivory horn materialised.
He had heard of this artifact, but he had never seen it in action. This was the horn, Oliphant, and remembering what it did, he couldn't help but smile and turn to face his friends who look as terrified as he had been not too long ago.
He opened his mouth and mouthed to them. "Brace yourself."
They looked at him with questioning faces, unable to understand what he meant. And that was when his father blew hard into the horn and the sound that escaped it shook the very room.
The reality around all of them began to warp and blur within seconds. Focus began to return to the world and the concrete floor that he had rested on was now a soft wet patch of grass. The roof was replaced with gray stormy clouds and the pitch silence that had been a feature of the blur that transported them was replaced with the sound of many voices speaking in confusion and the sound of a great raging fire.
They had been moved to a hill that was crowded with thousands more than those who had stormed Nimue chambers with him. He could see Marzhin and Artorias in the fray with their knights, the rest of the Avalonian forces and the freed captives.
They all didn't seem at all concerned with the fact that they had been teleported. Their attention was glued were the Zodiac facility was engulfed by an inferno whos very blistering heat could be felt on this hill and Chris felt his mouth lose its moisture from the scorching flames.
"One day, I am going to make flames like that too." Joan had a wide eyed expression on her face like a child.
"Joan, you worry me. You worry me a lot." Chris said as he got up and walked towards her.
"Dear brother, don't be a wet bag." she said as she playfully punched him in the shoulder.
"If you kids think that was something, you should have been there for great dragon war." their father coming from behind enveloped both of them in a hug. "Up to this day I have never seen so much fire in my life. But how did your day go?"
"I nearly got killed today... three times." those words just rolled out of Chris's mouth.
"That's... Um....that's interesting I guess... I mean just don't tell you're mother about that."
" Tell me what" the very voice of the Ddraig family matriarch made them stiffen in fright.
"Mom!" Chris was first to shout.
" Honey! " followed by his father.
" Old lady!" And finally Joan.
Natalia sighed while behind her Ishtar struggled to hold back a chuckle so hard that her puffed out cheeks were scarlet red and tears were now streaming down the said cheeks.
"Is that Artalia, the king of Gamalaot and slayer of the white dragon" Cai's voice ranged out and the knight came towards them with Artorias, Marzhin and some other knights in tow.
Cai was covered in dirt, his armor was dented and his lip had a cut that let blood flow down into his beard. Artorias and Marzhin had just as many equal wounds though Artorias somehow managed to have both a cut on his cheek and left black eye that made him look slightly hilarious.
"Cai, my blood brother" his mother dropped Excalibur to the ground as she welcomed Cai into a hug.
"Cai, my friend" his father hugged Cai after his mother finally let go.
"Roland." Cai took a step back and looked at the two of them before saying. " You two have come a long way. King and Queen of Avalon. I forgot, this is Artorias and Marzhin, the king and wizard of Cavallon."
"It is a pleasure to meet the legendary king of Gamalaot, the unmatched king of Avalon and the parents of the heroes of the battle of three armies." Artorias bowed as he spoke.
" Roland the unmatched, I like that." his father rubbed his chin clearly enjoying the name a little too match.
" Don't get too big headed." his mother then playfully smacked him on the head. She then turned to Artorias and asked, "Heroes of battle of three armies?"
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
"Your son and daughters saved my realm from falling to the Zodiac. Prince Christian with few men, came to my aid and slew the Zodiac Scorpio in personal combat before princess Ishtar and Joan arrived to give aid."
His parents looked to him in suprise and Chris felt a bit of pride within him and he . "Don't act surprised, I am your son after all."
Before either of them could respond, the fire's of the facility parted and something flew out of them before landing Infront of the burning structure. It was easy to tell that this was Nimue and out of the fires came not Zodiac troops, but Night Terrors of many kinds.
" Leaser Kings!" The Archetype-king called to them. " I stand before you as the new god of you're world, draped in power and bound with a glorious future. I implore... no, I command you to stand in you're place at my feet as I bring the worlds to a new utopia!"
The crowd was stunned by this rather passionate and frankly ridiculous demand, Nimue simply stood there with hands behind her back awaiting their answer as if this was the most normal thing in the world.
"No!" His mother answered raising her sword into the air in open defiance of the so-called goddess.
And like a domino affects everyone including Chris began to chant the word No, over and over again with their weapons raised in open defiance. It was hard to tell what Nimue felt since she lacked a mouth, but her angry screech told him everything.
Nimue's army of monsters charged the hill in a great roar that matched the thunder in the sky. Chris watched as the Avalonian and Nexus troops with spears made it to the front forming a wall of spears while the ranged units formed up behind them.
He pushed his way through the bodies of a soldier's all getting ready for battle ignoring his mother's shouting for his name. He didn't get far though as a hand grasped a hold of his right arm stopping him in his tracks.
He turned to face the person whose grip had held him in place, it was his mother who was not happy with him and demanded.
" Where do think you're going? "
" I have to go find my friends, they could be at the front line!" He tried to pull himself out of grasp, but he failed against his far stronger mother.
"Are you crazy!"
" Yes... I mean no, no" he knew that he needed to control his tongue more. "I... I just need you to trust me, mother. I will be fine, I promise."
She looked at him as an entire list of emotions flowed across her face and Chris could feel his heartbeat ever increasing in anticipation of her answer. At last, he felt her iron grip let him go as she sighed.
" Go."
"Really." he couldn't believe it.
"Do it before I change my mind, boy." her voice broke a bit and Chris wasn't interested in pushing his luck.
So he turned and pushed his way through the crowd. He moved deeper and deeper through them, though at times he was himself pushed aside or forward by the sea of bodies. Unfortunately in this sea of armored combatants so closely packed together with each baring brightly colored armor none of his friends in theirs stood out.
He reached the front line but he stopped as he saw the Night Terrors nearing with their own spears out and their projectile's flying towards them that the Avalonians and Nexus answered in kind.
He could hear the words "BRACE YOURSELVES!" being echoed as dozens of spearmen readied their spears for the attacking force.
The clash between the two sides was earth shattering, as literally hundreds of meters of earth underneath them was torn and shredded by the shockwaves unleashed in the clash.
Chris felt his body get rocked and he was pushed by the bodies rushing for the front to kill the Night Terrors who tried to break through the front line.
He didn't remember how many time's he swung his sword down as the lines were broken and the two forces mixed into a violent melee. It was a wild ever shifting hell of screams, metal, blood and death. At some point, Chris had picked up a mace and he started to duel wield it with all the skills of a drunk elephant but it served its purpose in helping him bring down more and more Night Terrors.
This chaos of battle only intensified as some of the combatants began retreating in a panic which almost knocked Chris down. He saw the thing that made them flee and he beheld Nimue, the self proclaimed goddess floated through the air swinging her blade and easily felling hundreds like a scythe in a field of wheat.
She must have seen as well because she turned to face him and she roared from her noneexistant mouth. "Ddraig!."
She raised her sword towards him and a hue of golden energy surrounded the weapon with a burning intensity. But before this attack could be fire, he saw his parents jump on Nimue and they both began wrestling with her. They both grabbed her sword hand and aimed it for the heavens as they cast their own spell work around it.
The contained power within the sword was unleashed as a beam of power into the heavens. The clouds were parted and day turned night, as if the sun had fled from Nimues blinding power. After the sword had finished sending out the power, Chris and everyone who looked to the skies gasped in horror as they saw a circular void within the nights sky where a hundred stars should have been.
It was almost as Nimues power had just..."Destroyed the stars, she has destroyed the stars!"
Screams of panic filled the air and many turned their backs to flee, even as some Night Terrors struck their backs and Nimue herself found a match in both rulers of Avalon.
Chris didn't know what to do, he could only cut down a nearby Dullahan as he drunk in this display of cosmic power. That was when he saw them, Hamanymu, Ursa, Thor and even Pyrrha standing back to back against the Night Terror wave that beat through the remaining defenders.
He rushed to them and seeing a Shadecan behind Pyrrha, he used Lucius-Aurora to cut the twisted shadow in half, bewildering the elf who had not seen him coming.
"We are even." he declared as more Dullahan and Shadecan met their end at the tip of Lucius-Aurora.
The battle between Nimue and his parents had become mobile and wherever they passed, a wasteland of torn apart land and kilometres turned glass remained. Many other Arthurs and Merlins had joined in, even the legendary Paladins came down on the self proclaimed goddess.
But Nimue kept them all at bay and in her arrogance she bellowed. "Now, do you recognize my...."
" Shut up Nimue, we have all done with your inferno rumblings!" His mother shouted as she struck Nimue across the jaw and shook the world and yet Nimue was not even bruised.
"Did you really think that you could take me on your own little girl king. Here as the Archetype-king, I am the strongest and the best King Arthur. I embody the legend to a fault!" Nimue taunted her.
Before Nimue could move forward all the Merlin's began to chant something and magical energy flowed over them like water. Nimue could have attacked them but she was probably as confused as everyone else not a Merlin.
Nimue began to flicker in and out of view while groaning in pain for a full minute. She then stopped her screaming as her image solidified as well.
"Fools, I am the damn Archetype-king. I am interwoven into the very fabric of reality itself, while you leaser beings are leaf's resting on a lake I am a part of the damn lake. How did you think that you would undo my very existence !".
Nimue then made a grasping motion with her hand and many of the Merlins screamed in shock and terror as they were instantly crushed into bloody chunks.
Artorias and Ishtar rushed Nimue from the back and their respective blades made it to Nimue's neck and struck gold but strangely the swords bounced off easily without even leaving a single scratch.
"How?" Ishtar shouted in shock.
"I am in a completely different space time to you, child. I am a god!" Nimue then smacked them aside like one would with flies.
"I have seen gods in the cosmos and gods in the Nexus, you fail to live up to them, Nimue." His mother said as she stood with help from his father and they were both panting worse than Chris had ever seen them.
"Keep uttering you're worthless taunts, little King." Nimue chuckled as she floated towards them. "I have come too far, stretched my very self into the Nexus itself. For a thorn like you to stand before the new age!"
Nimue raised her sword and they met her with their own. The battle that commenced tore hundred kilometer long fissures within the earth and brought forth a storm of heavy rains.
" How the hell are we supposed to fight that." Hamanymu whispered in shock and awe
"We have to." Joan responded behind Chris and he almost jumped in suprise to face his twin sister.
"What?"
"My visions, it showed me this. We have to fight... please, trust me." she pleaded and though Chris wanted to cast her opinion aside but they had come too far.
He raised Lucius-Aurora overhead and the loud rains to contend with he roared. "For Avalon!"
Charging through the rain and wet earth was difficult, but Nimue was easy to find even if eighty percent of his vision was obscured. He could see her standing over his downed mother, ready to strike and kill the queen.
As he got closer he saw Excalibur on the ground and he picked up the sword as he got closer and closer. He then swung Lucius-Aurora inch from Nimue's face but in a flash it was caught in her grip stopping him from pulling it away or pushing it further.
"Hello boy."
"Hello wench." he then slammed Excalibur into her face with his other hand and in shock, Nimue let Lucius-Aurora go and staggered back. His mother got up, covered in mud and bleeding from her nose.
"I believe you dropped this." he said as the legendary blade was returned to its master.
"Thank you." she said before returning to her battle with the self proclaimed goddess and their blows sent him flying off his feet.
But he never got to hit the ground as someone caught him in a bridal style much to his humiliation and it got worse when he realized that it was Pyrrha of all people.
"I guess you owe me one again," she said with a wink.
"Kill me now. " he mentally groaned as Pyrrha set him down.
"Did we just interrupt something?" Chris heard Ursa ask and to his horror he saw the rest of his teammates there, no doubt having seen Pyrrha carrying him.
"No, no, no, no, no, its not what you think!"
"Regardless of... this." Ursa said while giving Pyrrha some strange thumbs up. "Joan give us something."
Joan turned to him. " Nimue is bound to the Nexus of Narratives as the essential Arthur. Arthur was bound to his fate by his childs hand, remember that."
Chris wanted to yell at her and make Joan give a much more clear answer but that wasn't happening as Nimue seemed to shimmer into existence in front of them.
" Oh you poor little delusional things, " Nimue cood. "I have bested some of the greatest warriors this realm has to offer, what are you child?"
He tightened his grip of Lucius-Aurora and looked from the left to the right where his friends stood looking Nimue dead in the face and getting ready to fight her. Chris cleared his throat and he answered " We are team Phantom, knights of Avalon and your destiny and your doom."
Thor was the first to attack with the largest bolt of lightning Chris had ever seen, it was the size of a skyscraper and it totally engulfed Nimue's body whole while Ursa fired arrow's into the bolt before it gave way to Nimue who stood there unharmed, even has the earth she stood on was rendered to glass.
Joan came with her flaming sword and this time Nimue sidestepped her and backhanded her into the earth. Hamanymu charged next and his sword struck her across the face and like Artoria's sword it bounced off without leaving a mark. Nimue grabbed and headbutted him, sending him flying right into Ursa flooring them both.
He rushed with Pyrrha and they both swung/thrust their weapons at the same time but Nimue caught them in her grasp and again she threw him aside with Pyrrha as she caught Mjølnir which had been aimed for her head by Thor.
" I remember you... " Nimue trailed off confused by something as she held back the hammer and all of Thor's strength with a single hand "... What are you?"
" I am Thor, Nimue and all you need know is that I bring the lightning! " Thor's entire body was engulfed in lightning bolts that struck Nimue but it did nothing.
" She is distracted, come " he said as he and Pyrrha got back up.
The two of them once more went for their previous strategy. Though as they neared, Nimue once more moved so fast that she appeared behind them as both their weapons struck each other and the shockwave released floored everyone of team Phantom still standing while Nimue remained still rooted to the ground.
"That was underwhelming" Nimue sighed as if disappointed and Chris wanted to stand up and sock her in the face but the pain coursing through him right now left him stuck to the ground.
"So who dies first?" Nimue asked she picked up Pyrrha's dropped spear.
Even on the ground and pained, Pyrrha reached forward and grabbed Nimue's legs but the Archtype-king was too strong. She simply kicked Pyrrha hard enough across the face for Chris to see a tooth and blood fly out of her mouth.
" Such fine craftsmanship, it shall make a beautiful mantle piece." she began walking towards as him still inspecting the spear and Chris couldn't help but feel a sense of dread kick into him. "Your head shall hang off it as my banner, the rest of you... well I shall need a snack."
Nimue didn't take another step as Ursa, Joan, Hamanymu and Thor all came from behind and held her in place to the best of their strength. Nimue wasn't thrashing around or anything, she just stood there looking more bored than anything.
"Christian!" Joan shouted from behind her as she held the Archetype-King's head. " Kill the king of the Britains, child of the blood for her fate here is sealed!"
Chris hopped for some deeper meaning but non came until he remembered what Joan had said earlier about Nimue being bound to the Nexus by fate as the concept of Arthur is. He remembered Nimues own speech on her deeper ties to the Nexus of Narratives.
"Father!" he hated saying that but it was the only way he could get in character for this.
Nimue looked confused by his words and she asked. " Have you finally lost your mind, boy?"
"No, I have gained it. Arthur, king of the Briton's, I Christian Ambrosius Medraut Ddraig, son of Arthur am your doom!" he declared as he rushed forward praying to Leza, Sophia and every Ancient One that Joan's vision was right.
He could feel his blood pumping and his lungs taking in deep breaths as he neared Nimue with Lucius-Aurora ready to strike down the king and then... He felt nothing, he felt nothing as Nimue easily thrust Pyrrha's spear forward despite Hamanymu's attempts to stop her.
He felt nothing when spear tore through his armor and then through his internal organs until it had come out through his back with a splattering of viscera.
He tried to say anything but all he could do was cough out large quantities of blood, colouring his chin and chest scarlet red. But yet Chris could feel a strange strength pushing him forward even if his feet were without feeling.
"What is happening?" Nimue demanded as she found herself unable to move as he neared her with each step. " What sort of spell have you cast on me?!"
"None of our doing King Arthur." Joan let her go and fell to the ground in exhaustion. " You the Archtype-king born into you're role with the power to cast you're enemies under you're feet, you Archtype-king who was at your brightest, unmatched as the living embodiment of Arthur's legend, you Archtype-king who will meet the twilight of your legend at the hand of Arthur's son on Camlann."
"By Arthur's blood your fate is sealed, by Arthur's blood you are doomed" Chris just decided to add that for dramatic affect.
And it sounded epic in his humble opinion. He raised his blade and as Mordred he brought the sword with all of his might upon Nimues head. The sword was met with no resistance and like the spear it went through her skull, letting a mixture of blood, brains and bones leak to the ground.
"All kings die eventually" he whispered to the still living wide eyed Nimue as he for the last time called upon his Mana and with a newfound vigour he roared "Golau-Outlivion!".
The only thing he felt as both he and Nimue were engulfed by his Alpha-Spell was a cold nothingness crawling into him like an invader.