When Jessica said that there were a lot of those monsters heading our way, I had thought that I knew what she meant. But I''d really had no idea. These things just kept coming over and over again, like ants swarming, if the ants were all different shapes and sizes, with some of them big enough to eat an elephant and go back for seconds. No matter how many we killed, no matter how many the Cryptseeker took out before they could even reach the cave, there were always more. It made me wonder how much of the wildlife all across the mountains they had already killed just by trampling over it, or eating it for fuel. Hell, they were probably doing some pretty bad things to the landscape itself. And worst of all, for whatever reason, most of the things weren''t even giving any sort of boost when they died. I wasn''t sure if that was because Godfather had somehow designed them not to, or what. But it meant that the majority of these monsters weren''t actually making any of us stronger. They were just wearing us out bit by bit, blow by blow. We couldn''t afford to make any mistakes, couldn''t afford to let too many of the things get past us to reach the rift. And who knew what too many meant? It could be as few as two. We just couldn''t let that happen.
The only saving grace we had was that the Phoenix Egg was stopping them from calling for their master. If it hadn''t been, we would''ve had all these monsters plus Godfather himself, and none of us were ready for that. I was just thankful that he had been content to leave his minions here thinking they would call him in once the rift appeared. Which, to be honest, I couldn''t really blame him for not anticipating this whole Phoenix thing. Really, who could have seen that coming?
On the other hand, what I did see coming, just as that thought passed through my mind, was a massive bone spear that was doing its level best to literally go through my mind. It was ten feet long and two feet wide, and had been launched out of the mouth of this octopus thing that was scrambling up the wall trying to reach the rift that way. I had been taking aim with my bow when it noticed me and shot the bone spear right out of its mouth. Fathom barely managed to slow the thing down slightly with a quick glance as she used that power that increased resistance to movement. It was just enough for me to safely hurl us out of the way an instant before the thing drove itself into the ground right where we had been standing a second earlier. But we still couldn''t relax, because the whole thing immediately exploded into shards of bone that shot off in every direction. We managed to duck while lifting the staff to send a blast of concussive force into the incoming bone shards, knocking most of them out of the way. But a couple still cut through us along our arm and shoulder, and I could feel the venom in them immediately try to go to work. My arm started going numb just that quickly. Yeah, that was probably a bad sign. As was the sudden onset of wooziness that I had to blink away. Fortunately, we did have a solution for that. It was just going to take a second. Or thirty. Fathom immediately began to switch out, trading with Locke. I was just going to have to keep going until they made the shift and hope my regeneration could keep me on my feet that long. Because that venom was pretty nasty.
Fortunately, I had plenty of things to distract me from the fact that my arm had been badly envenomated and was currently barely usable. Namely, dealing with that octopus thing. I owed it for the venom. Especially considering it was already scrambling up the wall as though content to leave me like that. It thought I was out of the fight and it had a clear shot toward the rift. Well, I was just going to have to show that fucker how wrong it was. Even if it was getting kind of hard to see through the blurry shapes that kept wandering across my vision. And was that my dad doing somersaults across the ceiling next to a rowboat with David Duchovny and Cher?
Yeah, probably not. I was going to go ahead and assume that venom was getting worse. It had only been a few seconds, but I could feel myself rapidly fading. God, what the fuck sort of shit had been in those bones? If I had been hit by more than two shards, I would''ve been dead already. This octopus thing was dangerous beyond belief. I had to put it down, now.
Ignoring the venom as well as I could, I started to run forward. The stuff was making its way from my arm down through my body. Which meant my legs still had a few seconds before they would even be affected. That made sense, right? I was going to go with yes and dismiss any evidence to the contrary. Running toward the wall, I held my staff in the hand that wasn''t envenomated, gripping it tightly before triggering the kinetic burst. My rings were already positioned above my head, so I was launched up after that monster like I had been shot out of a cannon. It was so focused on the rift itself that it didn''t notice me coming. As the thing started to stretch its arms out and prepared to make the leap from the wall, I collided with it. The blade of my staff went right through with the thing’s hide, making a hole. The second that hole appeared, while we were falling toward the ground with the monster squealing and grabbing onto me with all its tentacles, I pumped all my sand from my staff into it, and sent the super-heated grains all through the damn monster. It thought it could get away with envenomating me, we''d just see how it liked having something deadly and painful running through its fucking body, goddamn it.
Apparently the answer was that it didn''t like that very much, because the whole thing disintegrated from the inside out and fell apart before we had even reached the ground.
Oh right, the ground. I really should do something about that. But I couldn''t even think by that point. I could barely understand the concept of what the ground was, let alone stop myself from hitting it. It had taken everything I had just to fling myself at that monster and kill it. Now I just… couldn’t. The whole world was blurry and the distant part of me that was screaming to do something was getting quieter and quieter by the nanosecond. And it was about to be silent permanently.
But then I wasn''t falling anymore. Something grabbed me around the shoulders just before I would have hit the ground. It took me entirely too long to realize it was Lightwing. The magic owl had suddenly grown to several times its usual size long enough to catch me and bring me gently to the ground. One of the other creatures, a thing that looked like a horse with arms, tried to come at us, but the owl gave a loud screech and sent a bolt of light from its beak that tore the creature in half while it was in mid-charge. The one behind it was taken out as well.
I tried to thank my new friend, but it just came out as an incoherent mutter. My voice wasn''t working, and the rest of me wasn''t far behind. My attempt to pat Lightwing on the head ended up with me just waving my hand a few feet to the side. Fuck, this really was going to be an inglorious way to go out. I felt like I should be more upset about that, but I just couldn''t. It was like my emotions were dampened as well. Honestly, that was probably an intentional product of the venom itself. If you weren''t panicked about the fact that you were dying, maybe you wouldn''t try so hard to cure it.
Oh yeah, cure. Wasn''t I supposed to get some help with that by now?
Hey, hey, hey! Don''t go fading out on us now. I''m here, hang on! That was Locke, naturally, shifting into the copilot seat after trading with Fathom. Instantly, I felt the effect of the venom vanish. All the sluggishness and emotional dampening I had felt, along with the dying thing, were gone. Just like that, I was back on my feet. My staff had fallen to the side when I came down, and I had to reach out to grab it while looking around to take in what was going on. Everyone was struggling just to hold back the tidal wave of monsters. I could see some of them popping out of the ground, having tunneled through just to evade the spaceship outside. Roxa and Sean were fighting together, watching each other''s backs with a practiced smoothness that was honestly impressive. Meanwhile, Gidget and Moondoggie were bounding around, taking any attacks of opportunity they could get as the creatures tried to swarm right past them.
My ghosts were doing everything they could as well, but they kept being pushed back. I could feel them losing energy, weakening. Well, it was time to do something about that. Taking a deep breath, I focused on my army and pushed more Necromantic power into them. This was my biggest advantage when it came to fielding undead troops like this. Most necromancers would have to take the time to convert their energy into Necromantic magic. But I didn''t have to, and I had a very deep reservoir of power to draw from by this point. It was like watching the battery on a phone instantly recharge from near zero to full. My ghosts suddenly stopped flickering and immediately counterattacked those monsters even harder. The beasts didn''t know what hit them. They had been steamrolling over the spirits one second, and in the next, they were the ones being bowled over and knocked back away from their destination. Obviously, it wouldn''t last forever, but for those few seconds, my newly recharged army really took them by surprise and delayed them just a little bit more. That was all we could really count on through this fight, to keep finding ways to delay these things over and over. There was no way we could completely wipe the bastards out, not when there were so many of them. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Really, this whole thing was just perfect. The rift was right there, within reach. I should have been able to end this immediately just by jumping through it. That was how this whole situation was supposed to work. We were just supposed to find the rift and send me through it. Instead, we had to wait until the rift could be cleansed. I just hoped Avalon and Jessica would be done with what they were doing soon so they could do that cleansing thing, because I really wasn''t sure how much longer we could hold out here. Every second this went on, more of those things made it past the crucible that was the Cryptseeker firing at them, and into the cave.
On the other hand, we did get an immediate advantage as soon as Locke had a moment to focus. She used her animal compulsion power, which was apparently enough to work on these monsters. Not all of them at once, but she did manage to make several of the things turn on one another, slowing down their advance just a little bit more. That was all we could hope for, to slow them down just long enough. Since, apparently, Godfather had created enough of these damn things to roughly match the human population of modern day Portland.
I threw myself back into the fight as soon as I had reoriented and figured out what was going on. Tasking several of my ghosts to keep an eye on the walls for any more of those octopus things, I took a running leap toward this thing that looked like a shaggy yeti with six arms. It managed to extend those arms dozens of feet into the air, reaching up toward the roof of the cave. But before it could get that far, I slammed into it and knocked the thing over. My staff blade cut through its neck, and I brought my fist hard enough down into its face to finish the job. At the same time, even as its brain goo was splashing up in my face, I triggered the grappling hook, sending Gus out straight into the back of another horse monster that had been trying to run up the ramp behind me. It gave a loud scream as the grappling hook retracted to yank it toward me, just as I jumped and pivoted, silver knife appearing in my hand. The blade cut straight through the evil horse creature’s neck while it was being dragged helplessly to me.
Two more monsters down, only eight hundred thousand more to go. We were definitely making great progress. I sent a cloud of superheated sand to cut off a herd of these quick little rabbit things with a truly staggering amount of teeth. And that was when I remembered I had more troops I could throw into this. Even if I didn''t like to think of them as troops. Using the special gloves from Columbus, I quickly summoned each of my sharks in their own bubble of water. Just like that, they were able to swim around in the air, taking bites out of anything that got too close.
Right, so Roxa and Sean hadn''t exactly cornered the market on having animal companions. Especially when you added in Locke being able to forcibly take control of several of those creatures and turn them against the rest. But we were still outnumbered. Even with my sharks helping to clear out the area immediately around me (and they were such adorable and helpful little eating machines for that, yes they were) there were simply too many of these creatures. We started falling back, working our way backwards up the ramp so we could stay together and deal with these things more efficiently. Anything we had to do to keep them away from the rift. We were bunched up on the dirt ramp, most of us just fighting to create a barrier against the things that were charging forward, while those with ranged attacks took out the flyers and climbers. It was getting worse by the second. Hell, if I hadn''t pulled my sharks out, I would have been overrun as it was. We fell back and fell back. Inch by inch, foot by foot, we had to retreat. The swarm was coming so quickly by that point that the Cryptseeker was firing basically continuously with no visible effect. Oh, it was killing them. It was killing tons of them. But it didn''t matter. They just kept coming. No matter how many we killed, no matter how effective we were, it didn''t matter. They were going to overwhelm us through sheer numbers.
Sean stood on one side of me, firing over and over again with Vulcan. He was doing his level best to keep the flyers down, with some help from my ghosts. So far, they had managed it, but I wasn''t sure how much longer that would last. He grimaced while shouting over the sound of Vulcan firing, “You sure know how to pick the best places to have a vacation, Flickster!”
Without missing a beat, I called back, “You should see what happens when I make dinner reservations!” Even as those words came, I was already shifting my staff into its bow form, taking aim at a cluster of large bat-like things that had just flown in. The arrow went to one side of them before exploding into a kinetic blast that sent that flock of winged creatures tumbling end over end, straight into Vulcan’s line of fire without Sean needing to adjust anything.
He, in turn, took one hand off his gun and pointed it at the ground near our feet. A dark gray tendril extended from his palm to hit the dirt. Instantly, three spikes made of stone and dirt popped out of the ground about ten feet in front of us, extending out to stab into a crowd of the monsters. After the spikes drove those nearest things back, they reshaped themselves into a small wall. Just enough to give us a tiny bit of breathing room for a second. And ‘second’ was about as much as it managed, before a handful of the stubborn fucks broke their own bodies against it to shatter the wall so their companions could clamber over them and keep coming. They would have leapt over the remains of the wall to land right on top of us, but Locke directed a couple of the creatures she had taken control of to send their whip-like arms out to catch hold of the lunging monsters and yank them back.
Roxa stumbled against me, even as my hand snapped out to catch her arm and steady her. She lifted a hand with a glance my way, sending some sort of glob of tar from her fingers. The tar expanded into a large ball that hit two of the charging monsters and then immediately ignited. We could hear their screams even as that ball of flaming flesh and tar went rolling back down the ramp. It took a couple more with it before being completely swallowed up by the swarm of creatures still coming. It was like fighting a forest fire with a garden hose. They just kept piling in on top of the shattered and broken bodies of their companions.
But speaking of fire, it was at that moment, just as I was convinced we weren''t going to be able to hold out any longer, that reinforcements arrived. And they did so in rather dramatic fashion. From the top rear part of the cavern, just beyond the rift, a ball of fire appeared, careening like a meteor over our heads and toward the ground before exploding as it slammed into the dirt right in the middle of the largest collection of the monsters at the base of the ramp.
When the meteor hit, every single monster within about fifteen feet all the way around the impact point simply ceased to exist. They disintegrated into nothing. Those on the outer edge of the impact were torn apart, body parts flying in every direction. I could feel the wave of heat singe my face a bit, making me recoil with a gasp.
And it didn’t stop there. The flames that erupted outward from the fireball’s impact rocketed outward through the cave. They were like living, writhing things. No, not writhing. They were more like blades, swords and spears made of fire itself, very purposefully stabbing out into every monster they could find. Dozens upon dozens of flame-made blades cut through all those creatures. This wasn’t a mindless wave of fire, it was an army of flame-made weapons deliberately burning through every enemy they could find. In just a few seconds, the cavern was largely cleared out. There were still more coming from outside, but for that moment, every single monster that had been in the cave with us was gone.
Yeah, it was a very dramatic entrance. As we watched, those flames that had spread throughout the cavern pulled back once more. They withdrew into that center spot where the fireball had initially struck, transforming into two figures. The first was Jessica Trent, except her body appeared to be made of fire itself. Her… skin was like pictures I’d seen of the surface of the sun, all liquid fire and superheated gas. Her eyes were black, and she held a halberd made of fire in one hand.
Then there was Avalon. My Valley. Her body had been transformed as well, turned into living fire, a small living sun in the shape of my girl. If Shiori had been there, she would have had some sort of joke for it. But as it was, all I could do was stand there and stare with my mouth agape, almost dropping my staff in that moment of awe. The power and majesty that radiated off of her was as tangible as the heat itself had been a moment earlier. She was, in a word, perfection. I had already known that, of course. She had been perfect to me for so long. But this… this was an outward, manifested revelation of the Avalon I had always known.
Even as we were taking that in, Valley proved she had not actually changed all that much. Not who she was, anyway. Because while the flames were still settling down around them, her gaze, coal-black and surrounded by liquid fire, snapped our way while her voice filled the cavern. “Would you three stop standing around gawking like idiots!? They’re still coming!”