Right, this fight definitely wasn''t over yet. The arrival of Jessica and Avalon might have cleared out the monsters that had been forcing their way into and through the cave, but there were still hundreds of them making their way here. The ship was doing its best to slow them down, as were my ghosts at the entrance. But they would rapidly overwhelm us again if we waited too long to finish this. Which, in this case, meant cleansing that damn rift so I could finally use it and put an end to this whole thing.
Jessica immediately called for me to go with her and Avalon, while Sean and Roxa worked with the others to do absolutely everything they could to hold those things off for just a little bit longer. She was urgent, but not panicked. Even in the face of this and what it would mean if those monsters made it to the rift, she maintained a sort of very important balance. Powerful and inspiring without any sort of fear or anxiety. Just to make sure the others had help while we were occupied, she created a wall of fire right at the entrance, forcing those fuckers to walk through an inferno before they could get inside.
Without wasting a second, I ran with Avalon up the winding dirt ramp. Well, we started to run. Then the other girl stuck a hand out to grab mine and the next thing I knew, we were flying. My hand felt warm, not uncomfortably so, but definitely noticeable. Which made sense, given Avalon was basically made of fire in that moment. Her skin still looked like the surface of the sun, so thankfully it wasn''t quite that hot. Wide flaming wings had appeared from her back, as she lifted off the ground. Despite the fact she was only holding my hand, she somehow extended that flight to me, so we rose straight into the air and reached the spot where the rift was a second later. As we came down, a spray of flames went up in every direction, though they seemed basically ornamental, since nothing was burned in the process. The walls of the cavern were completely unsinged.
Murmuring an apology and adding that she had no idea what she was doing with this, Valley immediately asked if I was okay. All I could do was stand there for a second and gape at her before giving a slow, overwhelmed nod. I couldn''t find my voice. Why the hell was she apologizing or saying she didn''t know what she was doing? That had been amazing. Yes, it was just a quick flight from the floor of the cavern up to a spot near the ceiling basically, but still amazing. And this was only moments after the whole Phoenix-bond thing had been passed to her. What would she be capable of once it had time to settle in her, and she actually understood what she was doing with it?
While I was still trying to find the words that could express how beautiful and awesome she was, Avalon seemed to focus intently for a moment, shifting back into her normal human form. Well, not that she''d ever been normal in all the time that I’d known her. But at least her skin wasn''t basically made of the sun right then. She looked like the old Avalon again.
After giving me a brief, clearly embarrassed smile that told me she had noticed the way I was staring, Avalon turned to Jessica and quickly, bluntly asked what we were supposed to do now. In the background, we could hear the fighting picking up again. There was absolutely no time to waste. The creatures down there had obviously recovered from the devastating arrival of these two, and were already basically pounding right at our doorstep, pushing their way through those flames. It didn’t matter how many hundreds of them died, they just kept coming.
In answer, Jessica turned to the rift, a glowing crack in the air that I could feel energy pouring off of. This was bad. This thing really shouldn''t be here. No wonder those monsters wanted to fling themselves into it. Standing there, I almost wanted to do the same thing right then. And not only because it was what I was supposed to do. I could feel it pulling at me, calling for me to go through it. Even though I knew it would be a disaster if I did, the temptation was right there. It was like that thing where you stand on the edge of a cliff or the roof of a building and are tempted to jump to your doom.
If Jessica was tempted to go through the rift, she didn''t show it. Instead, she held her hand out and little flames flew from her fingers to hit the ground. She was burning symbols there. It was a spellform, I realized belatedly. She was drawing a spell by shooting fire out of her hands. Yeah, that was honestly pretty damn cool. Especially given she was basically making ten different symbols at a time, using one jet of fire from each finger. It seemed like she didn''t really have to focus too much on each individual piece, she just pictured what she wanted to draw, and her fire did the rest. And I had thought my instant inscription power was a neat way to draw out spells.
After getting an incredibly intricate looking spell drawn all around the rift in just a few seconds, Jessica looked at us and quickly pointed to part of the spell, telling me to put my hand there and to recite several words one after another each time she pointed at me. She repeated the words three times so I would remember them. Then she told Avalon the same thing, pointing to another spot for her to touch. She met our gazes with fire in her eyes and told us not to move no matter what happened. It was vitally important that we stay in our spots and say each word in order when she pointed at us with one finger, only feeding energy into the spell when she pointed at us with two.
My head bobbed quickly, even as I spoke inwardly, So what’s the verdict in there?
Just a sec, came the response from Locke, voice tense. Story’s got the time dilation cranked up as high as it’ll go so she can do the right research, but it still ain’t instant.
Several long, tense seconds passed while Avalon and I moved to our spots and touched the runes the woman had indicated. Jessica, in turn, set herself in front of the rift. In the background, we could hear the fighting getting worse. The others weren’t going to be able to hold out for much longer, despite that flame wall. Hell, even the Cryptseeker was starting to have to slow down its firing as it ran through the power it had, though it was still able to use those hands to smack things away. Or just grab and throw them in some cases. I’d known those things would be useful in addition to looking cool.
About ten seconds passed while all of us were getting set and Jessica visibly braced herself for what was about to happen. I had no idea how long that was inside my Archive with the dilation turned all the way up, but the most relevant answer was ‘long enough,’ because Locke finally spoke up again, Okay, Story can’t find this exact spell in any of those books, but she found a few pieces of it and some similar--whatever, she had a whole technical thing. The point is, she thinks the spell really is meant to cleanse the rift. She can’t find any tricks or mistakes in any of it. Seems pretty legit.
Maybe it was strange for me to double-check that, especially after everything Jessica had already done with Avalon, but I couldn''t help it. We had barely met the woman. As capable and helpful as she had been already, I had still wanted to make absolutely certain that this wasn''t some sort of trick. The rift was too important, too dangerous. Hell, it wouldn''t even necessarily have had to be an intentional trap on her part. She could have been tricked into using a spell that would make the whole situation worse.
Obviously, Story’s quick check through her collection wasn''t completely perfect and unassailable proof that the whole thing was legit, but it was the best we had. And the fact that she was able to find matching or close pieces of this spell that seemed to do the sort of things Jessica had said the spell was meant for was a pretty decent indication that the whole thing probably wasn’t a nasty trick meant to explode the rift or whatever. It was the best we could do with what we had to work, anyway. Especially under these time restraints. Those monstrosities who were doing their level best to stampede over our friends and defenses weren''t going to allow us the time to completely run every possible test on this spell, or talk to Jessica long enough to be absolutely certain we could trust her completely. We had done what we could for it, and now we just had to take the plunge.
Granted, maybe I should have made sure I trusted Jessica as much as possible before leaving her alone with my girlfriend like that, but we weren''t exactly operating under ideal circumstances. We were just doing the best we could with what we actually had.
So, I pushed all those doubts and uncertainties out of my mind, and watched as the older woman began the spell. I could already feel the power emanating off her, mixing with the power from the rift itself. It was making my hair stand on end, like that thing where you touch the ball to experience static electricity. My teeth ached, and I couldn''t help but shiver. The power here--the power of the Phoenix-bonded mixing with that of the rift, seemed a bit like messing with an atomic bomb while it was in the midst of exploding. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.
Yeah, I really hoped that Jessica knew what she was doing here. As Avalon and I watched, she began to recite the spell, fire coiling around her and reaching out to various parts of both the spellform and the rift. We could feel the energy clashing, fighting one another. The rift was struggling to push all of us away. Or maybe pull us in. Whatever it was, the thing wanted to get rid of us. It wanted to stop us from doing this. Which was probably my best indication yet that we were actually doing the right thing.
About as reassured as I could be on that point, I immediately spoke the first word Jessica had taught me as she pointed one finger my way, then pushed a little bit of power into it as she added a second finger. Avalon was next, though hers was reversed, pushing power into her part then speaking her first word. And so it continued like that, with Jessica Trent doing most of the work, pointing at us whenever it was our turn. All while the increasingly desperate fighting continued. I wanted to help Sean, Roxa, and the others. I wanted to be out there, helping them hold off those bastards. But I couldn’t. I had to be right here, doing my part to actually stop them for good. Even if I was out in that fight, we would eventually be overwhelmed. This was the only way. By cleansing the rift so I could go through it, Godfather’s abominations wouldn’t be able to jump into it, and he wouldn’t be able to corrupt it. We had to close the damn thing.
The further we got with the spell, the more drastic the rift’s attempts to push us away were. It was like a strong wind, struggling to shove us off our spots. And somehow, those monsters must’ve known they were about to lose their chance, because they started attacking even more frantically. Sean and the rest had already retreated about halfway up the dirt ramp once more, and were losing even more ground every second.
But we couldn’t let that stop us. We couldn’t let the rift acting out stop us. We couldn’t let anything stop us, not even the mounting fear that Godfather would notice what was going on and show up any second. He still had to have some sort of connection to his creations, right? Even if that connection was being blocked right now, thanks to the Phoenix egg, I couldn’t help but worry that he would somehow still notice that this many of them were being wiped out. If he came to check on them, if--no, no, I couldn’t think about that. I couldn’t let that fear wash over me. Just do the spell, Flick. Keep going. I couldn’t do anything about whether Godfather showed up or not. All I could do was keep following Jessica’s instructions and pray that we finished before that became a problem. Because if we didn''t, I was absolutely certain we didn''t stand a chance.
Finally, after what felt like several years of doing this, Jessica spread her arms out and shouted what was apparently the last word of the spell. In that instant, flames erupted around her in the shape of a Phoenix, its sheer size literally filling the entire cavern. Once again, the monsters who had been rampaging through were turned to ash. The rest of us, ghosts included, were left completely unscathed. But every single one of those monsters screamed and died, the flames shooting out of the cave itself to burn away those that hadn''t made it in yet. She completely annihilated all of them just like that.
At the same time, I felt the rift in front of us practically turn itself inside out. The flames washed over it as well, burning away every part of the infection, every part of the corruption from Godfather. It was very dramatic, to say the least. If he really didn''t know something was going on here already, I was pretty sure he would after all that.
Even as the flames died down, Jessica slumped a bit, looking weary. The fire had gone out of her eyes. She gave me a quick look, grimacing visibly. “That’s it. That’s all I had left. I passed the bond to Avalon. It’ll grow in her, like a seed. She has some of the power already, but not all of it. Help her nurture the flame so it grows from the embers to what it can truly become. When others find out what she is now, what she has the potential for, they will try to kill her before she can fully manifest her gift. Make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Valley herself, looking uncertain and a little anxious, spoke in a soft, somewhat dry voice. “Well, as it happens, I’m used to people trying to kill me to stop me from something I might end up doing in the future. So at least this won’t be anything new. Kind of right back to basics, really.”
Sean and Roxa had run up the ramp to join us by then, the latter calling out, “Looks like we''re clear for the moment, so thanks for that." She was panting heavily, and I could see several disturbingly deep cuts and bruises in the midst of healing. “But something tells me if we''re gonna get this rift business done, we''ve gotta do it right now.” Even as she said that, her gaze was flicking back over her shoulder to look at the cave entrance.
Still looking weary and a little sad, like an important piece of her was missing and would never come back, Jessica gave a quick nod. “We can''t linger around here for long. But--” She focused again, before producing a glowing blue crystal. With another quick, indecipherable word, a dome of light yellow energy appeared all around us. “Time is sped up for us in here. We should have a few minutes to… finish things up before… before problems arrive.”
With that, she looked to me, visibly swallowing. “The rift is clear. It should be safe now. Time for you to go through and move on. As soon as you do that, these guys will be sent back when they belong.”
“What about you?” That was Sean, with one hand on Vulcan''s head and one on Moondoggie’s. “You didn’t exactly come here the same way we did, and… well, you don’t have that same level of power anymore, right?” He sounded like he was trying very hard to find the right way to phrase it without being insulting or demeaning.
The fire might not have been in her eyes anymore, but that didn’t stop Jessica’s gaze from sharpening pointedly. “Your concern is appreciated, but I’m hardly a helpless damsel. I was a Boscher for a hundred years before even hearing about the Phoenix. I can take care of myself just fine. At the very least, I can teleport. I’ve got my son to get back to, and a real life to lead.”
Avalon straightened up. “Yeah, you’ve done enough. More than enough. If you hadn’t been here, we--” She stopped, clearly choosing not to continue that line of thought. Instead, she simply ended with, “Thank you, for everything.” As those words came, it was her eyes that had sparks of flames flickering in them. It made me think it wasn’t just Avalon thanking the woman, but the Phoenix itself, however that actually worked.
Clapping her hands together, Roxa gave me a quick hug. “Good luck, Flick. Whatever’s waiting for you on the other side of all those rifts, I hope we can help.”
Sean expressed the same sentiment with his own hug, and I took the time to embrace and pet all their animals as well. Especially Lightwing, for that save earlier. Then I thanked my sharks, who had been floating around exploring the cave, and sent them back to their private lake where they could eat all the delicious fish they wanted. They certainly deserved it, after that whole thing. Actually, come to think of it, my ghosts really deserved some treats too. I was going to have to work on that. But for now, I just thanked them and dismissed the army so they could actually rest.
Which left me looking at Avalon. Her blush was back, which just made me blush. Then she raised a hand, creating a wall of flames all the way around us so we could have a moment of privacy. As soon as we were--well, as alone as we were going to get, she stepped over and embraced me tightly. Our lips met, and I felt every worry I had, every ache, every fear, every uncertainty melt away. I felt the warmth of her against me, as I wrapped my arms around her and held on. We kissed for several long, glorious seconds before forcing ourselves to pull back and breathe.
“I missed you. I will miss you, no matter how long this takes before I get back,” I whispered.
“However long it takes, I’ll be there,” she assured me, cupping my face with one hand before shivering against me. “So will Shiori. We’ll both be there. And when you need us, you call us. You don’t do this on your own, okay?”
With a small, grateful smile, I reminded her, “I don’t have a choice, remember? You’re the Phoenix-bonded, and I’m the Necromancer. We’re supposed to work together.”
Her smile lit up the space between us even more than the wall of flames encircling us had. “I suppose that means you’re stuck with me.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” I insisted, before kissing her one more time. God, that felt good. I wanted more time with her. I wanted another month with her before we had to deal with any more problems, at least. That seemed fair, after everything that had happened. “But I guess we can talk about all that later.”
She gave another nod. “Yes…. well, there’s a lot to get into.” From the way she was glancing through the flames toward where Jessica was standing, I was pretty sure she wanted to talk about how that whole power-passing thing had gone. But we didn’t have time to get into it. We didn’t have time for any of it, not with Godfather probably already on his way.
So, Avalon dismissed the flames, before stepping back over to stand with the others. I sent the command for the Cryptseeker to go back to where it had been, waiting for--well honestly probably waiting for the next version of me to need it at one of the other rifts.
Then it was time. Giving the others one last glance, I offered them a reassuring smile before turning to the rift. I could still feel it tugging at me, though the… suicidal sensation was gone. The rift was cleansed. Now, I just had to close it.
Wishing those other versions of me luck wherever and whenever they were, I took two steps forward, then jumped through. And as I did, as the rift took me, I heard the strangest thing coming from behind me. It was Avalon’s voice, but she wasn’t telling me to be careful again or anything like that. She only said one word, sounding basically as surprised as I had ever heard. That single word was all I got before I was gone. That single name.
“Aylen!?”