Cassandra Pendragon
Distorted screams thundered against my ears, waves of ugly grey poured from the gaping tear and ravaged the very air they touched while the presence of something wrong… something forgotten bore down on us. The witches' magic behind me flickered and petered out before it could even form properly and Aurelia's flames and Viyara's glow began to dim as a wave of undiluted hatred gushed from the rift.
A sardonic smile tugged on the corners of my mouth when my core answered my call and a surge of ice cold clarity pulsed through my mind. Absurdity, the whole situation was utterly ludicrous. It wouldn't have taken but a wish for me to close that thing, to annihilate its very essence, but right here and now I couldn't even turn on a light bulb without the risk of alerting my siblings. The last thing I wanted was to step through the forming gate, but unless Viyara and Aurelia could stem the tide without immortal intervention, there really wasn't much of a choice. Once inside I'd be hidden, my powers contained, and I'd be able to use them to my heart's content.
Without a second thought I flared my wings, the smell of ozone intensified and time slowed down. Even the cacophonous noise of a failing reality died away, but before I could act I felt a tickle in the back of my mind and Viyara's thoughts reached me, muted and hazy as if across a vast distance. "Trust us," she grunted, the pressure almost too much for her to handle. "Damn it, Cassy, that's why we came with you in the first place. Just… stay back. Please."
My heart thundered in my chest, my veins bulged with barley suppressed power, but I didn't act. Not yet. It went against every fibre of my being, but for once I might just… a single note, like a clarion call of doom, tore through me and my vision splintered. In slow motion I saw the witches crumble, blood gushing from their ears, I heard Aurelia's defiant scream as she was thrown through the air like a discarded doll and I felt Viyara's magic rear up and tether on the brink, but the crystalline dragoness persisted.
She roared, the strength of her voice finally shattered the dome of glass and a shower of sparkling, razor sharp gems rained down us, just as a golden, scaly leg with a hissing snake's head for a foot pushed its way into our world. Judging from its size the rest of the monster would equal the dimensions of a mythical giant and even the gate frothed and quivered in response to its power. Its challenge didn't go unanswered, though. Her face drawn into an ugly, animalistic snarl Viyara pounced, her hand-long fangs closed around the alien limb and silver golden fire poured from her throat.
A sickening crunch made me flinch when Aurelia collided with a steel beam, but the vampire only hissed and nimbly got to her feet, despite the bloody indent on the back of her head. With a single beat of her wings she was at the dragoness' side again, fangs bared, claws raised and a spell on her lips. Her red and golden tresses danced around her like a halo and the taste of fire and magic swallowed the blossoming stench of blood and pain. As if they had already done it a million times before, the two creatures of legend combined their might and I could only watch in amazement as silver, gold and red became one devastating wave of pure strength. In the blink of an eye it crested and thundered against the gate, ready to devoured the abominable limb the grey wound had spewed out. An explosion followed that made our skyscraper light up like a Christmas tree while the battling forces became a maelstrom of warring powers that inexorably began to pull us in. Then the broken safety glass rained down on us like a thunderstorm from hell.
I was torn, torn between the need to help my family, the urge to protect my sister, the desire to guard my friends and the wish to fight. For a drawn out instant I hesitated, my wings froze mid step in their eternal dance and the world tethered on the edge of stillness while blots of an even colder grey claimed my vision. I knew I wasn't supposed to, I knew that halting time would expose me, but I couldn't watch Anna and her coven fall under the razor sharp rain, I wouldn't allow my sister to feel its bite and I'd never hide behind a girl who could as well have been my daughter.
Roaring cold flames set my blood ablaze and a suffocating wave of ozone drowned out every other smell, but before I could move, before my magic could claim time's passage, my sister reached out and her fingertips brushed against Greta's wooden, gnarly hand. A deafening thunderclap shook the night and blew away the descending daggers of glass like leaves on the wind. The entire skyscraper groaned in agony and with a snap like hawsers breaking Gaya touched her distant sister.
Everything around me trembled when the magic of another world claimed its own corner of Earth. Reia, Lamia and her mother vanished in a flash of silver green light and in their stead seven figures shimmered into existence, one of them wreathed in transcendent flames.
Ahri, Erya and my five forgotten, but still loyal kitsune guards had crossed over without a second thought, blades bared. In contrast to my own rather pathetic reluctance they didn't hesitated. As if they had trained for it, which, come to think of it, they probably had, constantly, the kitsune fanned out, headed for the points of a pentagram with the gate at its centre. Ahri beat her wings, her flames contained within her slender frame, but raging just beneath the surface. A warm breeze caressed my face and even though it whispered of strength and power, it was devoid of even a single spark of transcendent energy. Somehow her control had reached a level I couldn't hope to match, even though I had grown far past her. Maybe it was because of it.
At the same time Erya crouched and slammed her fists into the ground. Another tremor shook the roof as her magic formed, accompanied by the smell of wild flowers. Vines, sparkling green vines covered in thorns and blood red roses spread from where she stood and circled around the downed witches. Like a figment of the imagination made real a dome of living, breathing walls sprouted from the ground in the fraction of a second and hid my friends behind a curtain of magic and life. With a satisfied grin she nodded and when her gaze fell upon the half manifested beast, the invigorating green sparks in her aura turned dark and menacing, the refreshing smell became heavy and sweet like poisonous lilies of the valley and a threatening, almost evil, silver spark ignited in her huge, pitch black eyes.
My gaze darted back to the centre of the roof where the last of Viyara's flames turned into sparks and heat. The vampire and the dragoness had managed to char the leg of the creature and even the gate showed cracks, its smooth, grey surface covered in angry, gold and red welts, but the abomination on the other side was still very much alive. A roar, faint and distant, but filled with undying malice, made my hair stand on end and my wings thrum with the need to act. But still I hesitated, unsure if I was needed and afraid of what my magic might bring. Then the gate expanded and a impossibly large spearhead, decorated with uncounted human skulls, appeared. In its wake a hand followed, its nails polished and black and dripping with blood as if it had just been thrust through the chest of an ancient warrior. An arm came after, muscle bound, hairy and covered in Ancient Greek runes, and with it came a memory. Asterius, the invulnerable giant.
In legend Asterius was the child of Gaia and Uranus, an invulnerable warrior who would have spelled Heracles' doom, if Athena hadn't intervened. To bypass his impenetrable hide she had flayed him alive and thus had allowed the hero to pierce his heart. In exchanged she had used the giant's hide for her Aegis.
I didn't have the foggiest idea how we could cut his skin and strip it off, if it was impenetrable to begin with, but boiling him in his own juices was surely an option. Provided he held still for long enough. Which meant Ahri and I were probably going to experience wrestling a humongous monster hand to hand on top a broken skyscraper. Shit, the headlines tomorrow would be a pain to deal with, but that was someone else's problem.
"Keep them safe," I shouted at the fey and finally took to the air properly, my wings crackling with an eerie light. A moment later I was at Ahri's side. There was no need to talk. She knew what I thought and so did Viyara. Pull him through and hold him down, then turn him into the world's largest steamed dumpling. And if that didn't work… well, up until now I hadn't come across anything I hadn't been able to cut. In the back of my mind I was decently sure that he'd regenerate much faster than I'd be able to slice him up, but that was a bridge I'd cross once I'd get there. And if push truly came to shove… ah well, I'd rather fear my siblings tomorrow than bury a friend today. Goddamn, I missed my spear, but calling it was a risk. One I'd rather not take if it didn't become necessary.
"Fire, lightning, anything that can cook the freak," were the last coherent words I screamed at the kitsune soldiers, before Ahri and I turned into a stream of crimson and silver and thundered towards the gargantuan, scale covered limbs. My perception slowed down to a crawl and a myriad of impressions reached me at the same time.
Erya rallied every single plant in the garden with a silent command, her magic fortifying them beyond the realm of mortal imagination. Plums and orchids, lotus and gingko shuddered and moved, their roots tearing from the ground like weapons springing from their sheaths. The lines of a pentagram spread from one kitsune to the other, glowing with an angry, vibrant red that spelled flames and destruction. Along the glyph thick smoke rose up as soil turned into glass and grass into ash and the song of a familiar spell tore through the night. Aurelia became a burning shadow and latched onto the massive arm, but her grossly enlarged fangs broke against the thick skin with the sound of shattering crystals.
And Viyara… she didn't wait for us to reach her. Instead she turned on the spot gracefully and her long, sinewy, sparkling tail lashed out. It whistled through the air like a whip and simply wrapped itself around the monstrous leg. Her claws sank into the ground, a wave of heat spilled from her maw when she groaned and with a mighty heave she pulled the giant right through the gate. At least she meant to, but the creature was more than her equal in raw strength. The giant didn't budge, but the snake's head on his leg immediately shot upwards towards her throat. At the same time he whirled his spear around, the tip turned into a gleaming promise of death as it descended toward the young dragoness and the runes on his arm ignited with a sickly, red black glow. Then we finally came in range.
Half my wings closed around his weapon and with a flash of silver it snapped in two. Relief flooded through me, but it was short lived. As the broken remains tumbled through the air a chill crept up my spine and an eerie, bone wrenching cry pressed against my ears. Swaths of energy, green and frayed, rose from the crumpling tip as if the gates of Hades had opened, spewing forth the countless victims the weapon had once claimed. I wanted to watch, I wanted to see, but I couldn't spare the concentration.
As fast as we were I was already close, almost too close for comfort, and with a stifled hiss I commanded the rest of my wings to pierce every inch of the beats I could see. For the tiniest fraction of a moment I felt elated. I had been right, the wounds closed faster than I was able to inflict them, which meant I had sixteen well placed meat hooks to pull on. What I didn't realise, it was me hanging on the other side of those hooks and two could play that game.
The world became a whirlwind of black, crimson, silver and gold, my ears filled with a deafening ringing noise as I tumbled, head over tails, towards the ground. "That's gonna hurt," I thought before I turned into a pretty, Cassandra shaped hole in the ground. Clods of earth exploded outwards and the scent of crushed grass and pulverised wood almost overpowered the stench of the giant's thick, musky ichor. "Never gonna learn, are you," I grumbled while I flooded my body with as much power as I could control. My wings swelled up and tiny flames appeared around the wounds I had torn into impenetrable skin. A moment later I started to feast on the monstrous reserves my wings had tapped. Then I felt a mighty tug and my bounty was torn from my grasp.
My admittedly overzealous assault had given the creature a reason to pause. A pause he regretted almost instantly. His focus, his wrath turned on the little, glowing tick that had dared to wound him and with another roar, much louder and even a touch defiant this time around, he forced the rift to open further and allow his ugly, bearded head entrance into our world. With most of him this side of the portal and his attention solely on me, he neither saw the cataclysm of flames headed his way, nor did he feel Viyara's tail tighten around his leg.
When his mouth, filled with blocky, grey black teeth, hurled the first syllables of his war cry towards the distant stars, his beard went up in flames and a glowing, crimson red fireball slammed into his salivating maw with the strength of an immortal. At the same time the silver crystals along Viyara's body flared with a bright, inner light and a myriad of vines, roots and boughs fortified and supported her hold on his leg. This time it gave. His lower half was dragged forward, his head was pushed back and like the axe of a woodsman he spun and fell.
Erya's magic and Viyara's strength were enough to pull him through the gate entirely and for the first time I saw his gargantuan size. He looked like a human, if humans had snakes for feet, but each arm was at least twice my length and the legs were even larger. His head rivalled Viyara's and even though her serpentine body was longer, the giant was several times more bulky. He didn't wear armour, to be honest he didn't wear much of anything at all, but his gleaming hide was covered in swirling runes and his left hand was already reaching for a dagger the size of a horse. It's hilt jutted from a braided mixture of a belt and a loincloth and judging from the bulges he was either very happy to see us or he had several more toys hidden away in there. I could only hope it was the latter.
With an earthshaking crash he slammed into the ground and I could have sworn that I heard windows clink and break several floors below us. The combined efforts of the dragoness and the fey dragged him further along, his flailing limbs tearing deep furrows into the ground. He meant to scream, his blistered mouth opened wide, revealing the charred and broken stumps of his teeth, but his vocal cords had been burned into oblivion. In agonised rage he tried to swat away the burning angel on his face, but she was much too quick. Another thunderclap shook the night as he turned his own nose into pulp. Then the kitsune's chant reached its peak.
A glyph of liquid fire materialised above the pentagram, its sigils aglow with an ominous, violent red. For the tiniest fraction of an instant the world held its breath, the magic aligned with the runes and a stream of roaring flames swallowed everything within the confines of the fiery lines. Which included the hapless monster. Soil turned into glass and despite my heritage I felt my face blister. At the centre of the raging inferno the giant twitched, suffered and stilled, just as my fiancée made her way through the wall of unbearable flames. She found my gaze and smiled sweetly.
"You actually don't need me anymore, do you," I sighed as I climbed from my hole.