Now, Mexico
Mockeries of men. Of ancient Mayan warriors, priests and regular people poured out of the ruins. Their weapons, shields and armor appeared fused to their bodies. Their flesh looked bright red, though it was hard to tell through the markings in what looked and smelled like blood.
Red lightning struck from the sky. A dozen bolts raked the entrances of the ruins as the monsters charged out leaving charred corpses.
Cal sighed.
He held up a hand stopping the obsidian axe aimed for his head. He noted that Tlaloc had aimed to hit him with the flat of the blade. Progress.
He pulled Tlaloc’s fingers open with a thought and with another he sent the axe spinning into a clump of monstrous warriors bisecting them horizontally.
The giant rain god leapt in with wild, looping haymakers.
Cal was much closer to the ground than his counterpart, which made it easy to duck under the punches and circle to the side and land a pair of his own hooks.
He had the speed edge even without boosting his physical capabilities with his mental powers.
Tlaloc definitely had the strength and durability edge.
He would’ve broken his hands on the rain god’s rippled midsection had it not been for the telekinetic shield lining his entire body.
Tlaloc clipped Cal on the head with a wild backhand sending him spinning and stumbling across the muddy ground. The strength of the blow momentarily overpowered his ability to fly.
Cal looked up to see Tlaloc leaping with axe in hand once again. “Damn you and such.” He grabbed Tlaloc with invisible hands and threw the man into the thickest group of monsters. “C’mon, dude! You’d fight me in the middle of all this?”
The monsters slashed, stabbed and clawed at the towering figure in their midst.
Tlaloc ignored them all for none of their weapons could do more than scratch his skin.
The rain god glared down at Cal from a hundred yards away. “These insects are no concern.” He punctuated the statement with a burst of red lightning that charred the monsters surrounding him into ash. “You’ll have a chance to tell the truth.”
“Okay… great… but…”
“I’m going to knock you out first.”
“Awesome,” Cal sighed. “You might want to look up there first,” he pointed to the top of the partially ruined pyramid.
A cluster of monstrous priests gathered around a stone altar where another monstrous humanoid lay on his back.
They chanted to the stormy sky.
Cal felt the magic in the air begin to take shape as the main priest pulled a jagged bone knife out of his own arm. “Your magic rain can do anything about that, rain god?” he said lightly. “Should I? I mean this is your land and I wouldn’t want to overstep.”
“Contemptible person!” Tlaloc snapped.
Red lightning streaked down from the dark clouds only to shatter on a magic shield over the ritual.
A spell cast by the other priests.
Monstrous humanoids continued to pour out of the ruins.
Cal had scanned beneath the surface.
The spawn zone stretched out nearly a mile beneath the entire ruins complex.
There were thousands of the monstrous humanoids swarming to the surface.
He continued to build the mental threads connecting all of their minds to his own.
The rain began to fall like needles. The drops stabbed into the monsters even as they continued to threw themselves at Tlaloc while the rain god ran toward the ritual pyramid.
The chanting swelled to its zenith just as the main priest cut the sacrificial monster’s heart out of its chest.
The dark organ pulsed its last as the priest raised it high.
It exploded into a bright yellow light that coalesced into an orb.
The priest pushed it upward.
The orb slowly rose until it settled at the top of the pyramid’s highest point.
Cal strengthened his telekinetic shield.
The light wasn’t the sun’s comforting warmth.
It was the harsh glare. The kind that scoured and made it impossible for life.
Except for the monsters, the light burned what it touched.
“How you doing there, rain god?” Cal called out.
He watched the giant man continue to push forward shielding himself as best he could behind the broad head of his axe. Steam began to rise from the Tlaloc’s bare arms and torso. The last tattered remnants of his pants burned away to ash.
The storm roared in protest.
The torrent of rain somehow grew even more powerful.
Those with eyes wouldn’t have been able to see beyond their own noses.
Cal saw it all.
Tlaloc tried to drown out the burning orb.
Pillars of water turned to steam before they could reach it.
The monstrous priests continued their chants as another monstrous sacrifice took her place on the altar.
“Might want to hurry. They’re doing another one.”
A growl was Tlaloc’s answer.
Red lightning burst from the rain god even as bolts lanced down from the sky.
The monstrous warriors barring his path with their bodies vanished into ash.
Tlaloc picked up the pace as he climbed the pyramid steps against the burning glare.
He reached the priests just as the main one pulled the sacrifice’s heart out.
The obsidian axe fell once shattering the magic shield protecting the monstrous priests.
Tlaloc roared as spells struck his body with barely any effect.
He cleaved the priests with a handful of wide swings.
The axe rose and fell.
The main priest’s body fell in two parts like a split log.
The burning orb winked out in an instant.
Yet, a glare remained.
This was from Tlaloc to Cal.
The rain god stood naked and sun burnt. He had lost some of his long, coarse black hair.
“Those priests made you work.” Cal clapped. “Nice job, though!” he gave the rain god two thumbs up.
Angry thunder cracked the sky.
“What? You did fine and you’re the one that doesn’t want my help.”
A bolt of lightning hit him in the chest and knocked him through a stone wall.
More ancient heritage destroyed.
Cal pulled himself out of the rubble and flew up to hover above Tlaloc. “There are thousands of those things underground. They’re all coming. You still think you can handle them and fight me at the same time?”
Tlaloc glared.
“These monsters have spread out from here, right? I saw the recognition in your eyes. How many people have they killed? How many do they continue to threaten? Wouldn’t it be best if we cleared this place? I won’t contest your claim. Like you said, this isn’t my land. You can turn it back into an encounter challenge or turn it into a safe place.”
“I can handle it after I deal with you.”
“Will you have enough left for the boss and true boss?”
“You bargain to stop great evil,” Tlaloc scoffed.
“I’m going to be honest since you keep calling me a liar. No, I won’t. I’d clear this place regardless of you.”
Monstrous humanoids emerged from the ruins at a run.
They quickly filled the complex grounds with their foul presences.
Over a thousand and quickly growing as they swarmed toward the pyramid Cal and Tlaloc occupied.
“We’ve kicked their hive open,” Cal nodded sagely.
“Ants die when you step on them,” Tlaloc said.
The rain slowed the monstrous humanoids. Made their limbs heavy with fatigue.
“That’ll do. I’m getting tired of this. So, I’m going to end it. You can keep being an asshole and try to stop me, but this place needs to be cleared. Help would be nice, but I don’t need it. The least you can do is not try to kill me while I’m dealing with the bosses,” Cal snapped his fingers and sent a single thought through the thread connecting his mind to every single monstrous humanoid in the Palenque spawn zone.
He shredded their minds in an instant.
Thousands dropped where they stood.
Their minds empty of all conscious thought.
Their bodies would continue to breathe for a time but Cal had wasted enough of it.
He stopped their hearts in the next moment.
A loud chime rang in Cal and Tlaloc’s ears.
The spires message flowed in their vision.
“What? Was that you? What did you do? How?” Tlaloc regarded him with surprise verging on horror.
“Got rid of evil. Made the world just a little bit safer. Isn’t that what you’re trying to do?”
The message asking them if they wanted to fight the boss monster floated in their vision.
“Stay and fight or leave,” Cal said as he accepted.
Tlaloc nodded stiffly but made no aggressive move toward Cal.
The earth rumbled.
“Get ready. I’m… sensing something big, possibly a giant snake— with wings and feathers… a feathered serpent,” Cal shrugged.
“A difficult fight,” Tlaloc nodded.
The earth exploded.
Out came an enormous feathered serpent.
Brilliantly-colored feathers rustled in the strong winds. Gleaming scales shined in the red lightning that struck it.
It screeched more like a bird instead of hissing like the snake it resembled.
The feathered serpent reared up to its full height with might flaps of its four wings.
“Small,” Tlaloc said.
Cal thought of looking up at a redwood. “Saw a dragon snake once… that one was much bigger,” he said.
The feathered serpent attacked with a mighty gust of wind that buffeted the two superhumans off the top of the pyramid.
Cal went tumbling through the sky before he was able to right himself and fly out of the wind path.
Tlaloc was less fortunate. He crashed into the jungle several hundred yards away.
The feathered serpent went after the target it could see.
Balls compressed of air struck Cal driving him higher into the stormy sky.
A fanged mouth opened wide enough to swallow him whole, probably poisonous too.
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He snapped the mouth shut with a thought and punched it right in the snout. Added telekinetic force shredded steel-tough scales right off the feathered serpent.
It whipped around lashing with its tail.
He moved with the strike flying up the serpents long back until he reached its lower set of wings. He grabbed them with a thought and pulled.
They held for only a moment before coming loose in a torrent of blood.
The feathered serpent thrashed knocking Cal of its back.
A slight smile crossed Cal’s face as he let gravity take hold.
The monster gave chase, if a bit slower and less graceful than it had been.
Balls of compressed air splashed against his telekinetic shield.
A bolt of red lightning struck the feathered serpent.
Tlaloc bounded out of the jungle covering dozens of feet with each leaping stride.
He roared as he arced into the air axe held with both hands behind his head to land a shattering blow on the feathered serpent’s back.
The magical obsidian bit deep through the scales and into the thick muscles.
The feathered serpent screeched and whipped around to bite Tlaloc.
Once again, Cal forced its mouth shut.
Tlaloc pulled his axe free and fell.
Cal caught him and pushed him back onto the feathered serpent’s spine… right next to its remaining pair of wings.
Tlaloc knew what to do.
The axe rose twice.
The feathered serpent plummeted with Tlaloc hacking into it all the way to the ground.
Mud, rocks and monster parts flew in one giant, disgusting cloud of debris.
The feathered serpent screeched as it coiled around Tlaloc.
Cal flew in and battered its head with invisible force to stop it from biting the rain god’s head.
Tlaloc burst free from the coils with godly display of physical strength. His fist cracked like thunder against the monster’s scales breaking them. Red lightning scorched deep into the flesh.
Cal gripped the feathered serpent’s head and held it in place.
Tlaloc’s axe rose and fell the once.
“Would you look at that… teamwork,” Cal said.
Tlaloc grunted.
The spires congratulated them and asked how they wanted to proceed.
“Your call, Tlaloc.”
“We destroy the true boss monster and reclaim this place.”
The air seemed to shudder at the words.
The ground in front of the largest temple pyramid opened up.
It made Cal think of the mouth to hell yawning wide to spit out something truly heinous.
“Alright, here’s the plan. I’ll play defense until we get a good look at what it can do. Then you’ll—”
Tlaloc leapt into the sky with a roar axe held high.
The storm of thunder and lightning carried him into battle.
----------------------------------------
A sudden explosion rattled Cal’s guts even through his telekinetic shield.
Tlaloc was blown into the jungle again.
A wide swath of monstrous humanoid corpses around the gaping hole in the ground had erupted in a spray of bone, viscera and blood. The latter of which sizzled as it ate away every thing that it landed on. The grass, mud and even the stone ruins.
The true boss monster that slowly climbed out of the hole was… underwhelming at first glance.
It resembled a monstrous priest except smaller and more wizened.
Cal couldn’t tell if it was male or female based solely on appearance.
It wore the same mockery of Mayan attire.
Tattered robes.
Blasphemous jewelry made out of dripping bone and body parts.
A giant headdress with a human skull for a center piece.
It reminded Cal of some of the sculptures and iconography he had seen back at the museum.
“Truly a mockery.”
He crushed the monstrous humanoid with an invisible grip.
Brittle bones cracked then broke.
The bones of its exposed lower jaw clattered as it whispered in a language that made Cal wince.
He felt hands grab his legs with surprising strength.
More surprising was that he hadn’t seen it coming.
The dead rose.
A momentary distraction.
The true boss erupted with a burst of magic power that disrupted Cal’s telekinesis long enough to escape. It hobbled over to a small pile of corpses. It reached out and an ugly glow from its hand consumed the bodies of its fellow monstrous humanoids. Broken bones and dislocated joints twisted back into their proper position.
It chanted in that ugly tongue.
The corpses surrounding Cal exploded.
The good old needles in the brain started prodding softly at first.
A second corpse explosion turned the prodding insistent.
He avoided the third explosion by flying into the sky.
The monstrous humanoid chanted something different.
Unmoving corpses suddenly convulsed. An ear-splitting sound emerged from their dead throats. Ethereal forms ripped themselves free and flew after Cal, howling all the way.
Ghosts.
The true boss was attacking him with ghosts.
He sent a barrage of telekinetic force at the ghosts. Invisible spikes tore through their translucent forms only for them to quickly re-form.
Cal flew faster.
If the ghosts could take the hits then why not just kill the one that summoned them?
He strafed the true boss with telekinetic spikes.
It blocked them with a dome of corpses.
That was fine.
It wanted to hide under the dead.
He helped it out.
A thought pulled hundreds of corpses and body parts over the true boss burying it under several tons or leaking, rotting flesh and bone.
He continued to circle and add to the pile as the slow ghosts struggled to keep up.
A sudden explosion rocked him back momentarily.
He really should’ve expected that.
The true boss climbed out of the hole in the top of the small hill of corpses and gestured at Cal.
A chill touch started at Cal’s back and ran through his body to the front of his chest and out. When he looked down he saw a withered ghostly hand pulling, clutching.
Cold and dead.
He felt cold and dead inside.
He flew forward with a frantic burst of telekinesis. More reflex than a conscious decision.
The feeling of the ghost’s hand and arm leaving his body was most unpleasant.
Red lightning scorched all of the ghosts out of existence.
Tlaloc bounded into view.
The rain god didn’t look pleased.
Cal couldn’t blame the man.
Tlaloc was naked. He had been sunburned.
And now?
He had patches of skin missing, melted away by the true boss’ explosive and corrosive attack. Bits of monstrous humanoid bones stuck in him like the world’s largest, most muscular pincushion.
Tlaloc had discovered that he wasn’t completely invulnerable.
The true boss’ magic had been strong enough to penetrate his inherent defenses.
“Looking rough there, rain god,” Cal said lightly.
“I saw the look on your face. You feared the weak spirits,” Tlaloc said.
“That was a look of surprise.”
“Sure, contemptible person, whatever you say.”
“No, whatever you say. Let’s just finish this. The stench is starting to get through to me.” He had been filtering the less desirable sensory elements of any battlefield. However, recent events had driven him to distraction, what with the burgeoning headache, and forced him to prioritize how he allocated his brain power.
“Fly like the tiny hummingbird. I will finish it,” Tlaloc intoned.
The giant rain god leapt toward the true boss with a thunderous roar.
Red lightning burned a path through the army of corpses given new life.
Sharp rain drops shredded their bodies.
Muddy water turned red.
The true boss chanted.
A hundred ghosts emerged to flow through Tlaloc grabbing and grappling. They managed to bring the rain god down before he could reach their master.
The true boss chanted.
The thick press of corpses around Tlaloc’s legs exploded.
He closed his eyes and steeled himself for the pain of his skin dissolving.
Nothing.
He opened them to see the corrosive blood and viscera sizzling on him.
No.
That wasn’t correct.
They sizzled and popped centimeters off his skin. As though on an invisible shield.
His gaze drifted over to the short American.
The man shrugged and made a shooing motion toward the tiny true boss.
The ghosts continued to grapple with the rain god but they couldn’t fully penetrate the magic of his body. They had greater weight than their ethereal nature but he had the strength to shatter and pull mountains. He spun his axe.
The magic blade sundered the ghosts sending them back to whatever hell they belonged to.
Not to Mictlan.
Foul monsters didn’t belong in the same place as his people.
He had to believe that.
He willed the rain to weaken his foes. Begrudgingly, he spared the American. Though he wasn’t willing to heal the man as he did himself.
The soothing rain warmed him. The jagged bones of his enemies were pushed free. Skin regrew. His wounds slowly healed.
“Axe it to the head!” the American called out unhelpfully.
The true boss raised withered hands to the sky.
The ground shook.
Dozens of rents opened up like hungry mouths.
“That’s, like, phase 3!”
He ignored the American.
Corpses began to claw their way out of the yawning mouths.
The American hadn’t lied there had been thousands of the monstrous humanoids underground.
A true hell?
Or the hell the spires had created on his land?
The answer didn’t matter.
All he needed to do was close the way to the surface.
He leapt hanging in the air for a longer than it seemed physically possible. His axe glowed as it drew in the power of the storm raging overhead.
When he came down it was with the strength of all the thunder and lightning in the sky.
He slammed the butt of his axe’s haft into the ground.
A great earthquake shook an area thousands of feet in all directions.
The earth buckled and broke.
Stone ruins crumbled.
Thousands of moving corpses found themselves thrust back deep into the ground, buried.
The true boss chanted in that odious tongue.
“You don’t belong in my lands, bastard!” Tlaloc spat.
“You tell it, big guy!”
The American continued to observe from a safe distance in the sky.
It was unfortunate that he had to reveal more of his powers when he still didn’t fully comprehend what the much smaller man was capable of.
Corpses continued to throw themselves at Tlaloc.
The true boss pointed and chanted with increased urgency as he continued to walk toward it.
He didn’t flinch even as the blood and viscera sizzled mere centimeters off his skin.
It wasn’t his doing, so he attributed it to the American.
A form of shielding.
Not magical, since he couldn’t see or feel it like he had been able to with mages’ spells.
The true boss hobbled toward the largest pyramid.
Tlaloc increased his pace as he scythed through the mass of moving corpses and ghosts with broad sweeps of his axe. “Are you tired?” he called out to the American. “Nothing good will come of allowing that thing to reach the altar. Did you already forget the spell those priests cast?”
“I didn’t want to steal… your thunder,” the American raised a brow.
“Now isn’t the time for jokes! Help me end this horror!”
The true boss had ascended to the first landing.
It suddenly jerked back to tumble down the stone steps of the pyramid. As though an invisible rope had just been yanked roughly back.
Bones broke, joints dislocated as the monstrous humanoid tumbled back to the ground.
Tlaloc wondered.
How had the American done that?
He had sensed nothing.
He marched inexorably toward the true boss as it reached out to heal itself by consuming the corpses around him.
Did it only consume the flesh or did it also take the spirit?
“Watch out!” the American barked. “It’s going to ult!”
“What? Speak normally!” Tlaloc snapped.
Damnable universal translation system.
He didn’t have time to guess at what the American had meant.
The true boss’ chanting reached a different pitch. High and painful, even to his ears.
Great rents opened out of nothing all around the true boss.
Dread ghosts emerged, howling and screeching. They flowed toward him like a rushing river.
They struck him with the same strength and forced him back.
He struggled to find his footing in the mud as the river of ghosts tried to drown him.
Drown him!
Water was his to command!
Ghostly fingers clawed at his naked flesh cutting him through his protections, through whatever the American had done before to protect him.
They gouged at his eyes through his eyelids.
They reached into his closed mouth and tore at his tongue.
The inherent magic that had made him all but impervious to injury had somehow been overcome.
Pain was a long forgotten thing.
Now… now he remembered.
“Well… shit,” Cal said.
He watched Tlaloc vanish beneath a river of ghosts.
A river that snaked through the ruins toward his position.
He rose higher into the sky.
Fingers, claws, tentacles and appendages he didn’t have names for reached out of the river’s surface toward him.
Fortunately, it seemed that the ghost river was somewhat earthbound.
He had lost track of the true boss despite using all of his physical and psychic senses.
Tlaloc’s presence was faint, but he was able to latch on to it.
He dragged the rain god out of the dreadful churn and was rewarded with a painful stabbing feeling in the brain. It had taken a similar level of effort to that time he had to keep half of a building from falling.
Tlaloc choked and sputtered like a drowning man just pulled out of a river despite the fact that his lungs weren’t filled with water.
“I— thank you,” Tlaloc grunted after he had emptied nothingness.
“Can you do your ult again? Disperse this stuff?”
“What?” Tlaloc eyed Cal as if he was a moron.
“The earthquake attack. Can you do it again? The ghost river seems to run on the ground like an actual river made of water,” he shook his head. He really shouldn’t be surprised by anything he saw. “Break the ground. Force the ghost river to sink. Reveal the true boss.”
Tlaloc hesitated.
He scanned the surface of the rain god’s thoughts.
So, he couldn’t do it in quick succession.
“Never mind,” he waved it away. “Makes sense you can’t spam your strongest move.”
“It isn’t my strongest move. And stop treating this like a game. It’s real,” Tlaloc growled.
“Whatever, dude. New plan then,” he pointed to the ghost river snaking its way through the ruins, “hit it with your magic rain and lightning. That should shake the true boss up and force it to reveal itself.”
“That, I can do,” Tlaloc nodded.
The storm over their heads roared with thunder in reply to its master.