4WHEW! Whoa boy, this one was a doozy, between writing my novel and gaming..and depression and life issues, i FINALLY GOT THIS BEAST OUT! I Feel empowered! Oh also i have begun to stream and do LEt's Plays on my Youtube channel, just type in 'Drag0nK1ngMark' in the search bar. I've done Three successful playthroughs and Two discontinued ones, but i hope you like them. For now, enjoy this new chapter.
Chapter 20: Terra Lobos Part 2 (The Broken Pack)
The black mud began bubbling, sloshing around like something was writhing inside it, bulges appearing periodically every few seconds, as if something was attempting to be born into the world. Christine's senses were screaming to get away, shivering, her hair standing up on its end.
"Mark's inside that thing…" she looked at the boiling sludge, then to the Tyrants, rage burning inside her, "What did you do to him?!" she shouted at them.
"Hey that wolf thing was drawn here, don't look at us!" Kenny stated defensively. They heard hissing and saw the bubbling mass was rising, a large bulge rising from the black tar, then soon the bubble burst, and a humongous claw emerged, large, imposing the grass tainted and changed into black strands. The nails grinded closer to the puddle as something began emerging.
First the ears and horns appeared, the twisted horns looked like branches of a dead tree, red eyes glowed like coals as the muzzle emerged, opening up. Black tar escaped its maw and drooled down, dripping into the puddle and the ground, hissing and absorbing the matter it touched. Next came the chest, and inside was making anyone grimace.
The body was skeletal, showing the bones and skin, it looked like a ragged wolf that barely got any food on it. Its other arm looked smaller compared to the hulking appendage of the right side of its body. The twin hulking legs climbed out of the puddle, the black ooze sliding off, revealing two tiny wings on its back.
The beast looked up, eyes blinking slowly, its throat vibrating, as if it was choking out something or attempting to speak with liquefied vocal cords. It gaged out more black gunk, the chest area started to glow, the Tyrants watched, though their contractors took a few steps back. It's chest suddenly burst into flames, the body igniting like someone lit a match on a puddle of oil, bathing the creature in an almost etheric blue glow as it screamed out a roar.
Bloodborne: The Old Hunters OST- Lawrence, the First Vicar
Luna backed away as the beast's claw swiped at them, then it stumbled out on its legs, shaking a bit like a lamb's legs would be after it was just born.
"Will someone tell me what the hell is that thing?!" Luna screamed, dodging the monster's attacks and lunges as it skidded on the ground, upheaving it into a trench.
"Fascinating, it appears to be able to fight despite just being born into this world…" Zolt mumbled, eyeing the burning beast as the ground became charred and the fire spreading through the ground and woods.
"Shit, Zach, help me douse the flames, if we can at least stop the damage done by its fire and hopefully weaken it!" Talia ordered. Zach nodded as he held a hand up, the water started to rise form the lake and like a serpent, lunged and splashed on the raging inferno.
The beast saw this and lunged, swiping its claws and smashing its hands together on the ground, sending up dust and obscuring its movements, but also dirtying the water. Talia clicked her tongue and shot the dirty water at the beast, but it didn't do a thing to its flames.
"What are these magic flames?!" Zach wondered aloud, dodging another flaming claw swipe from the monster. It used its larger arm and propelled itself towards the sage of water, however a bolt of lightning hit it from Matt and Booli, making it scream from the electrical charge rushing through and making it skid, some of the black fur falling off and crumbled into black husks.
The boy's body burned, making him scream as skin was torn off by the black hands, all wailing and screaming as thye reached out to him.
"GO AWAY! LEAVE ME ALONE!"
"Direct hit!" The aspect cheered, earning a scream from the beast as it reared its head, inhaling.
"Zach, combine attack!" Matt called his hands charging with electrical energy. The water sage nodded as he got more water from the lake and shot it back, combined with the lightning blast Matt shot out, surged forward. The beast jerked its head forward, lava erupting like projectile vomit form its mouth and it touched the water, hissing and solidifying into black rock, the lava piling up into a protective mound as the beast stopped puking then looked at the black rock pile.
"Wow…he's good" Zach panted from overexertion.
The beast snarled and flared up again, the flames licking its body and it jumped on the pile, then up again, smashing its arms hard onto the ground and sending the two sages flying. It reared its head, cheeks puffing up like a chipmunks and fired a fireball, hitting Zach as it exploded on contact.
"Zach!" Matt cried out before the monster smashed its large claw, wrapping its digits around him and slammed him into the ground, cracking the dirt. Matt gasped blood out hard, wincing as he felt some bones crack from the impact, then looked as the beast raised its leg, the shadow hovering over him as the flaming creature growled menacingly.
"Matt!" Christine called, firing off several blasts of wind to attempt to stop the monster or at least distract it. The blasts were hurtling fast at Mach 3 winds, but the beast got hit, winced, then snarled and looked at her, giving John just enough time to encase Matt in stone, swallowing him before bringing him up right next to him and helped Matt up.
The beast's head jerked under its foot, then around, snarling as it smashed its claw into the ground, pulling the appendage out then vomiting lava into the hole. Suddenly the ground began shaking and started to turn red along the cracks. Like fissures, the lava erupted out of the cracks in the earth, traveling and flooding the area in fire.
"Ok, I know that Mark's inside this thing, but what the heck is it even trying to do?" Joanne wondered as she watched the carnage.
"The Dark wolf cares little, only seeking to cause death and destruction. It is a symbol of the end times, it heralds the long night, the sun blocked by smoke and ash, leaving cold and darkness in its footsteps" Chakal murmured.
Josh looked at Chakal, then the devastation, the lava and fire rising into the sky as the flames spread. At the center, surrounded by the whirlwind of smoke and ash, in the heart of that maelstrom stood that monstrous amalgamation of the wolf and flames.
"It makes you think though, did the wolf create this monster when it absorbed Mark using his sage abilities? Or did it just channel the darker emotions inside of Mark instead?" Josh wondered aloud.
"Given what Ethan's told us, I would not be surprised if it's the latter" Joanne shrugged.
"Hey, that's my friend you're talking about!" The human exclaimed.
"Really? "Joanne shot him a sideways glance, "From what I've seen you all trash talk him, it's no wonder he hasn't incinerated you. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he allowed himself to get transformed to take revenge on you all for his treatment" she stated coldly.
Ethan opened his mouth to object, but the beast's scream rang and made them cover their ears as it suddenly fired off another fireball into the air, it rose high into the sky, at least twenty feet in the air until it exploded, sending shower of fire in streams like small meteors as it began to combust and explode on impact.
"Shit, we gotta evac now!" Josh yelled.
"Are you kidding we can't leave the ratings are huge!" Joanne looked at the rising ratings and the sheer amount of comments the viewers were seeing right now were generating.
"Are you seriously focused more on ratings than actually surviving?!" the muscleman roared at her.
"Yes!"
The beast stumbled, looking at Christine as she stared down at it, surrounded by the smoke, flame and ash, "Mark, listen to me! If you're even still conscious, wake up! You're destroying everything!" she called.
The beast's head turned to Christine, snarling and bearing its teeth at her, then raised a claw, swinging at her while roaring. She dodged thankfully, though the embers lightly grazed and almost burned her fur.
"Ow, hot! Hot! hot!" she patted the flaming bits briskly, leaving them smoldering as she dodged the flaming monster's attacks. The sage of winds had to think of something, if Mark kept this up, who knows what it could do.
Then a thought hit her, Igneous, she realized and looked around, "Chris, get the fire medallion, I got an idea!" she called to the older sibling.
"Where is it?" he cried out, looking frantically for the medallion, then saw it on the ground, having been dropped during the chaos, and dove, grabbing it just before a burning tree destroyed it.
"Got it! Now what?" he called, clutching the circular creation.
"We got to get me close, if I can get into contact with Mark, the sages and I can purge the dark spirit from him before it does irreparable harm to his soul!" Igneous exclaimed in their minds.
"Well that's all well and good, but how can we get closer with that flaming maelstrom?" Matt called, gesturing to the flaming torrent around the beast that was once their friend.
Before the aspect could elaborate further, a gold streak blasted past them and struck, the flaming monstrosity screamed form the explosive impact of the shot and stumbling. All eyes soon turned to the owner, revealed to be Solarius himself.
"Who the hell is he?" Josh and Zach both exclaimed in unison.
"Wait, you're that bastard who dumped us into the trashbin on Capo Luna!" Richie explained, a finger gestured to the man.
"Yes, I had hoped you'd have cleaned up, but you two now reek of Tyranny…despicable" Solaris grimaced, as another man roared and charged forward, smashing the beast's face with a massive hammer and in three swings, sent it flying into the water.
"Ha! Maybe that'll teach it to cool down for a bit!" the man grinned. He was a behemoth of a creature, covered in yellow hair, black on his shoulders with white lines to separate the yellow and black parts. Joseph recognized him as the alien that Ben transformed into, Shocksquatch, or rather, the species the Omnitrix copied him from.
"About time you showed up, where were you?" Solaris looked to the Gimlinopithecus as he holstered his hammer on his shoulder.
"Ah well I was just minding my own business when I smelled charcoal and burnt wood, naturally I couldn't just let whatever was burning these woods get away with it" the alien responded, before grinning and grasping Solaris's shoulder, "Good to see ya again Sol, been a while, eh?" he asked.
"Good to see you too Volte" Solaris nodded, smiling to his friend.
"Now, where are the other three? Shouldn't we all be here?" Volte looked around, then saw rain clouds gathering and a torrent of rain down poured on them, already extinguishing the raging inferno.
"Well, we found Tenzin" the gold man mused, looking as they saw someone on the lakes surface. That someone turned out to be a man, garbed in what looked to be ornate armor, sleek and engraved, looking almost like a high-tech samurai, complete with a glowing katana that rested on his palms, while the man balanced on the water with just the tip of his toes.
"Oi! Tenzin! Quit being all mystical and get over here!" Volte called, waving his massive arm over. The samurai's helmet flashed as he soon lowered his other foot, then immediately ran across the water with the skill of a ninja and soon stopped in front of the other two.
"Who the hell?" Joseph looked at the ninja before seeing him run, "Space ninja!" he exclaimed in excitement, as ninjas were his favorite.
"Heh, got yourself a fan, eh?" Volte nudged Tenzin, who just looked at Joseph, then to Zach, spying the medallion on his person then looked to Solaris.
"We should hurry up, already the beast stirs and writhes, it will try to kill us" the ninja spoke, his voice was male, yet…robotic almost.
"Not yet, we need to wait for our other two to arrive first" Solaris ordered before something shot out of the water, the former flaming monster from before now soaking wet and no longer inflamed. Without the fire, it looked like a monstrous wolf dog hybrid with an exposed ribcage and ash fur, disgusting really.
"Yeesh, really let itself go" Volte grimaced as the beast hissed, embers flying off its body as it attempted to reignite itself.
"Perhaps this is its true form, without the flames wreathed around it, a pitiable creature, both of darkness and hate…" Tenzin stated, glancing over at the monster.
"Which is why we must save Mark trapped inside it" Solaris stated.
"Anyone got the medallion?" Volte called to the sages, with Joseph tossing it and Solaris catching it.
"It's been too long sir; though I wish it were under better circumstances that we'd meet again" the gold man spoke, looking at the medallion as it glowed with a faint warmth.
"I do too, but now we must save Mark, get me onto the creature, I will attempt to purge Mark out of it, but we must hurry" Igneous ordered. The beast glared at Solaris, then snarled and soon reignited its body again in fire, only these flames were a shade of blue rather than red.
"Oh we made him mad now!" Volte grinned, readying his hammer, eager to smite it.
"Then use it to distract him, I need to get close enough to get Igneous inside" Solaris ordered, then felt something whiz past his head, striking the beast's eye. It screeched as an arrow lodged itself into its eye, stumbling back, attempting to remove the arrow.
"Bullseye" a new voice spoke, this one was a female's, and said female emerged from the burnt woods. Her clothes seemed to be reminiscent of the outfit of an outlaw, a dark muddy brown tattered cloak over her shirt, however the clothes themselves seemed more…futuristic almost, having hexagonal blocks in the pattern. Her bow also had special mentioned, as it was a metallic looking with glowing trimed lines on it, flowing through the bow like energy, even the bow "string" was glowing.
"There you are Becca, where were you?" Solaris asked, looking at the archer as she fixed her hat.
"Heh, sorry Sol, was busy getting some people away from the fight, and don't worry, I brought friends" the archer grinned, before a loud roar escaped from the top of a tree and someone leapt from the top and dive-bombed, crashing as the sound of an explosion echoed through the woods, mixed with the monster's screams.
The demon fell, its back burnt as a figure jumped down, this man was brandishing a large curved sword, a two handed curved great-sword that crackled with electricity. The man himself was covered in a poncho, covering his features in a dark yellow cloth over his body, his face meanwhile was covered in a sand colored turban, safe his eyes, which were uncovered to reveal a set of orange eyes. The armor was deeply engraved with scars and signs of battle, though the oddest thing was on his left side, it looked to be some sort of satchel in the shape of a large onion. As for the features, it was clear the man was a giant, given how he easily towered over everyone minus Volte.
"And here's Amin, where were you?!" Volte exclaimed as the armored man rolled his free arm.
"Sorry, I was in the middle of a nap before all this commotion woke up" a low deep voice answered from under his helmet. It was hard to tell from how muffled it was, but it sounded Arabic.
"Amin, you can sleep anywhere, even a plasma storm, and this woke you up?" Becca gestured her hand to the beast that was slowly getting up, shaking off the attack, wondering who did it.
"It's screams made my helmet ring like a bell" Amin pointed out.
"We can kick each other's asses later, right now, we got to save Mark from that thing!" Solaris ordered, going to the beast as it reared its head and planting the medallion on its forehead. Instantly it began glowing and the demon began screaming, as if the blinding light was purifying the darkness out of it. Solaris concentrated, attempting to establish a connection with Igneous while the aspect was busy tearing through the darkness.
"Hope we're not too late" the guardian muttered as he felt his soul slip out of his body and into the medallion.
Slowly awareness began to come to Solaris as he opened his eyes, observing the world around him. He had never attempted to enter the body of someone before, to see the inner world of a person. He read about it being done, but actually testing was something he never tried, nor could for that matter. He deemed it too invasive of one's privacy. However, in situations like this, his own thoughts on it had to go out the window in order to save a life.
The inner world of a Sage of fire normally would do predominantly with fire, though that was due to the medallion. Mark's inner world was…abstract to be blunt, floating islands and landmasses mixed in a starry sky around them, however, the air felt…wrong. It felt like pestilence and death, something unholy was amok, something that wanted out.
An inhuman roar escaped and shook the area, Solaris stumbling and felt his back rest on something thick, looking up he saw Igneous's corporeal form loom over him, his eyes slit and teeth bared. Solaris had only seen Igneous mad on three separate occasions, and all three times Igneous ended up burning something, whether it was a building, a city or even once an entire planet. So seeing the aspect enraged by something meant it was serious.
Soon the guardian looked to where the head of the dragon pointed, and then paled when he saw it. Mark was busy dodging the attacks of some massive sludge-based creature, but Solaris realized immediately it was the dark spirit that invaded him, except, well, a sludge wolf with seven red eyes. However, what really startled him was the person walking beside the wolf, the twisted white-haired doppelganger of Mark that was grinning like a maniac.
"Oh come on don't tell me that's all you got?" The doppelganger asked, his voice twisted and distorted version of Mark's, adding to the nature of the monster. "Aren't fire sages supposed to banish the evils of the world? Or maybe you don't want to let go?" it teased.
"Shut up you fucking monster!" Mark yelled, his voice laced with fear as the sludge crept closer, maw opened up. Solaris knew what was going on, no matter how many times Mark attacked it, blasting fire blast after blast, it wouldn't stop approaching. "Hang on Mark!" Solaris called, making Mark falter to turn to him, surprised, then back to the sludge wolf as it paused, giving the fire sage the chance to blast another fire blast as Solaris went and joined with Igneous in stopping it with fire, erecting a wall to stop it from approaching.
"You guys came!" Mark sighed with relief as he got up, panting and sweating, "I don't even know how he got out! He ambushed me!" he stated.
"It's alright now" Igneous spoke, consoling the young sage, "We are here now, let us deal with this beast and expunge him from this body" the fire aspect ordered to Solaris, who nodded in agreement and got his weapon ready. Mark nodded, but heard a growl and turned to the firewall, seeing, much to his horror, the seven eyes staring and slowly emerging from the fire, dousing the flames with an audible hiss sound as slid forward.
"Why won't you die?!" Mark hollered, mostly out of anger than fear as the sludge latched onto his leg and began molding around him, climbing up his body as Solaris tried to claw and burn it off, but to no avail. Soon the tendril that had crept up his leg pulled him back towards the beast.
"Mark!" Igneous cried out and lunged forward, blasting fire to try and burn the sludge away as it suddenly wrapped itself around the sage.
"Sorry, old fart, but he's mine now, and I'm not letting him go" the white haired doppelganger spoke as the sludge encased and wrapped tighter, suffocating Mark and muffling his cries. "Besides, I wanna see if his friends will take kindly to seeing what he really thinks of them" he added as the white haired mirror jumped and sank into the sludge and it vanished.
"Damn it, we gotta get out of here!" Solaris cursed, regretting he wasn't able to do much, "If I used a bit more fire maybe…"
"You can sulk later, right now we gotta move!" Igneous spoke as they felt the medallion return them out of the collapsing inner world.
Solaris felt his body jerk when he returned to the material world, stumbling as Volte caught him, "What happened in there?" the giant asked. Before Solaris could explain, the great beast's body started to jerk, the sound of something moving inside it began to get audible. A bulge appeared, followed by another bulge, like something was about to be born into the world.
"I do not like where this is going..." Josh muttered warily as they watched the corpse. Suddenly something emerged, a hand shot out, bursting from the bulge as more tar escaped and pooled all over the body. The fur that touched it began dissolving on contact, rapidly decaying as a figure began emerging.
White locks of hair stood out amidst the black tar, gasping as the human…thing emerged, dripping and nude like a newborn. Yet, just standing in full few the Tyrants sensed an incredible amount of dark power, swirling like a vortex with the teen at the center.
But what followed next chilled everyone to the bone.
The tar molded, shifting, forming, another hand emerged, talons grazing the ground as it gripped and began pulling. Like a newborn, the head emerged, it wasn't natural, it was inhuman, a monstrous head, one side having a twisted, gnarled horn, one eye half opened, on the other side, three pitch black eyes that all darted around, looking sunken. The humanoid monster crawled out, dragging behind it a massive looking weapon, an amalgamation of flesh, bone and steel, covered in pulsing red orbs that looked disturbingly like the innards of a body. Then, the tar around it dissipated, but dripped down along it's back, forming an organic looking shroud.
It slowly emerged and gave all a view of its visage. The body was long and lanky, malnourished and incomplete, it's ribcage exposed to all, but the bones looked more like the teeth of some beast, protruding out from it, waiting to be open. Its head was elongated on one side, the one with the horn, the other side was sunk in, three eyes darting around as it's misshapen maw opened, gasping for air.
"What…the fuck?!" Joanne whispered, more horrified by the creature than shocked.
"Is…Is that…Mark?" Ethan wondered.
Slowly the creature lumbered, the fleshy weapon on its arm dragging behind it, like a misshapen umbilical cord, as it went to the lake. The tar had seeped into the water, spreading like a virus as the fish all emerged, blackened and dead, and the creature just stared at it, all the death before it.
Then the rain came, and the thunder too.
Then the creature let out a soft cry, at first like a newborn, then twisting into that of a wail, and a sob, like some inhuman thing crying that it was born deformed, a monster that had nowhere to belong. IT was difficult to be saddened, revolted, or scared of the beast, not even the Tyrants knew what to do…except one.
"Aaah, it's so good to finally be back" the white haired doppelganger spoke, cracking his neck as he formed some clothes from the remnants of the tar on his body, wearing a black ensemble laced with red. He turned to the Tyrants, his smirk now a frown, "What the fuck took you so long? All you had to do was attach my fragment to him and let me do the rest" he asked them.
"Well, excuse us, it was hard finding a planet that had a suitable dark spirit to draw you out, though…" Zolt looked to the malformed abomination that stared at the lake, "We weren't expecting that…" He added.
"Really? You never wondered how it'd look like? Well, it's not complete, it needs two more pieces…but" the white haired man looked to the monster, "It'll serve for now…" he mused. Then it whistled to it, the elongated head turning towards him, then it saw the Tyrants, or rather, their holders and it let out a growl.
"Right…aren't these the ones who hurt you? Whose machinations and words birthed you into the world?" the white haired man spoke softly toward it, as the claws began to clench into a fist and the teeth on its chest began to open, revealing no internal organs, just a second mouth that stretched up to its lower jaw and mouth. The lower jaw opened in conjunction with the chest, revealing the extended mouth that awaited the next meal.
"Right…well, go get them"
Bloodborne: The Old Hunters OST- Orphan of Kos
A hellish scream pierced the air as the monster lurched and lunged forward, closing the gap in seconds, the fleshy weapon swinging towards the Tyrants, who immediately bailed and let the creature focus on their retainers.
"Whoa! I didn't even see it move!" John exclaimed, raising form his seat as the humanoid monster swung and screamed. The impacts of the attacks missed but it managed to leave a sizeable crater from it, showing just how dangerous it was. Luna immediately felt her instincts screaming 'GET AWAY NOW!' inside her head, but seeing the monster fighting the Tyrant's contractors, it seemed unreal. Was this creature truly what Mark harbored inside him?
"Like it huh?" The white haired man spoke, suddenly beside her, unnerving her further, "Yeah, that's well, a piece of Mark's power, unrestricted by the Sages and brought out…granted, it's not the fully matured one. This is just blind rage" he shifted his hand up and down slightly at this statement.
"Whoa wait, you're telling me THAT is what's inside your friend?" Joanne asked Ethan, confused and slight afraid, something John never thought he'd see in his career.
"Hey, I didn't know that that is what he hid inside him. I mean we always toyed around but it was just harmless" Ethan blubbered out, nervous and slightly panicking.
"HARMLESS?!" John roared, "You're toying pretty much birthed that thing, I'm surprised it hasn't decided to try and kill us yet!" the muscle man yelled angrily. "Do any of you humans even think when it comes to bullying or are you all naturally aggressive to each other?" he asked Ethan.
"Look, we get it, bullying is bad, but how were we supposed to know that it would make this?!" Ethan retorted back.
"Uh…guys?" Joanne interjected, making the men look and see a boulder come flying at them, "Hit the deck!" the newswoman screamed and dove down as the boulder smashed and shattered the glass and monitors, the robots scattering around the room but a few got crushed by the rock. Ethan grunted, looking and seeing the desk had toppled over on the side, papers scattered about and looked around at the huge hole, just in time to see the monster jump into view, looming over him.
The black eyes, like that of a fish, stared, unblinking, the maw opening and closing as it panted. It lumbered towards Ethan, grabbing him by the collar and slowly dragging him toward the boulder. "Mark! It's me Ethan, remember?!" the Terran cried out, fear laced in his tone, "W-we're friends, r-right?! Come on l-let's not let bad memories taint our friendship r-right?" he squeaked, tears streaming down his face as the grip tightened around his neck and he felt his body slam on the wall.
"C-Come on man!" Ethan cried, "Please don't do this!" the hands clutched his head, digging into his scalp and the maw's teeth jutted and prodded, sniffing him as he soon began to sob into a blubbering mess. The beast's maw opened and screamed at him, the jaws tightened around Ethan, threatening to devour him, only, they stopped before they made contact.
A chain wrapped around the creature's waist, making it stop, letting go just as it screamed and got dragged out of the blimp and dragged back down, crashing into the ground.
"Got him!" Volte exclaimed as the chains began receding and once more nestled into the contraption that looked a lot like a mechanical grappling hook. The monster stumbled up, glaring at the guardians and screaming again, jumping into the air and smashing down on them, wildly swinging around his immediate view like an animal.
"Mark, control yourself!" Solaris called, trying to reach him in that maze of darkness inside him. "Listen to me, fight the darkness, it'll consume you if you don't!" he cried out.
The monster just roared and punched a skinny fist into the fire guardian's face, despite how frail it looked, the punch had enough force to send Solaris flying two feet and crash into a boulder.
"Holy shit!" Richie gaped from the force of the attack.
"Could he always do this shit?" Kenny wondered as the beast's attention turned to them, eyes flashing as it swung down, lunging toward them, all while the white haired doppelganger was watching with a grin on his face.
Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen OST- Coils of Light (Boss Version)
"Man, no matter how many times I see this, I can't believe this is what I get. All that bottled up hatred, all that aggression, all the negative emotions formed this! Kind of a shame really I can't have time to incubate it to its full form, but least this'll do" he spoke, then heard something rush toward him as he sighed, casually blocking the attack from the enraged looking Christine and Luna.
"You bastard, what did you do to Mark?!" the sage of wind exclaimed, her claws blocked by the wispy looking weapon the doppelganger held.
"Change him back!" Luna added, eyes slit and fangs bared, trying to break through the grip.
The doppelganger chuckled, then began maniacally laughing, eyes widen and looking at them with the wildness in them, "Oh wake up girls, I'm the real deal. Now that fucking pussy you call a mate. The name's Thanatos, and I expect you to remember it!" he snarled, then swept his leg under their knees, making the girls lose their balance and allowing him to complete a turn and roundhouse kick the tow into each other and send them skidding.
"You guys are supposed to be sages? Pah! You're all fucking pathetic! None of you couldn't even tell what was going on in your leader's mind? The hatred he felt? The jealousy he felt seeing Luna and Gersham together? Man, you guys really suck" Thanatos taunted.
Luna heard that last part, then remembered when she talked to Gersham, she never told Mark what happened, nor could with all that happened. He probably thought he saw her go back to him and ran off, feeling angry and betrayed. But the fight she had had on Masr with him, they forgave one another, but now…did he still hate her for this?
"Luna!" Christine's voice snapped the wolf out of her stupor, "Focus, we gotta get Mark out of that thing's control" she spoke, her medallion glowing a green energy. Luna gave a nod, she would tell him later, hopefully, right now she had to save him.
"Ah well, won't matter, yo, Mark!" the dark aspect called to the beast, turning toward him as he let go of the bloodied Kenny, who immediately bolted to a portal and vanished. "If you really want to get some payback, kill that Gersham guy over there, he's the one you're pissed at, right?" he inquired.
The monster glared at the werewolf man, then snarled, teeth dripping, "Good, now go eat him, I'll handle these brats" Thanatos ordered. The beast complied as it lunged at gersham, grabbing and swinging him into the forest before giving chase.
"Gersham!" Lorie screamed, making a step to where her boyfriend went before Thanatos appeared in her vision, grinning.
"Oh don't worry about him, you should worry about yourself sweetheart. I've got plans involving you" Thanatos grinned, before Lorie had any time to process this, she felt something enter her stomach. Looking down, her eyes widened as her skin parlor began to pale, seeing Thanatos's hand inside her gut and going deeper. At first she felt nothing, but a split second later and she screamed as the dark doppelganger tore it out, red life-fluid escaping from the hole, and something else…something glowing.
Thanatos watched the wolf topple as he held her soul, smirking as he clutched it in his claws, the soul was like a glowing ball of wispy light. Like the headlights on a car driving in the fog, it wasn't a pure white, but rather a dull grey color, with a few specks of red and black and a myriad of colors thrown in. This was a soul who had done many bad things as well as good.
"Huh…so the she-bitch actually had good in her…a balanced soul…mixed with other emotions…oh my" he saw the soul flashed green a few times, "Envy…interesting…she was jealous" Thanatos's expression was different, instead of wild and insane, now it was calculating like a scientist's, studying the object in his hand.
"It's almost…pitiable…really" he mumbled, then licked his lips, "Let's see how good this will taste…" he opened his mouth, saliva dripping from between the fangs as his mouth closed in on the defenseless soul.
Before he could, an arrow pierced his hand, the soul dropping onto the ground before a gust of wind bellowed and whisked it to the female archer. She looked at the soul then the body it was once held in, "We have to be fast gentlemen, before it fades completely" she told her friends, who nodded as they all bull-rushed towards Thanatos.
The dark spirit ripped out the arrow from his hand, the hole sealing up as he snarled, eyes flashing menacingly as it growled and gathered a small pillar of dark flames that transformed into a twisted one handed sword. The metal was a deep steel color while the core of it was black as night, maybe obsidian. Inside the core the sword trailed a mysterious red energy that traced the core, the pommel was silver looking and shaped like bat wings with a black leather guard around it.
Thanatos blocked the curved sword's strike from Amin, the metal grinding against one another and sending sparks. The dark spirit hissed as a ball of dark energy gathered in his hands, then shot his hand forward and expelled the blast. The energy sent the giant skidding, but Amin didn't falter from it, instead it seemed more like it hardly affected him at all.
Volte charged and shot an electric blast at Thanatos, roaring as the energy current blasted forward, striking the dark clone in the chest as he skidded. The white haired twin smirked and wiped the soot from his chest, the black stain on his chest being brushed off. Volte growled and raced, punching the shade in the face and grabbing him, but the shade gripped the wrist of the giant and threw him aside.
"Damn, something so small can throw me?!" Volte wondered before crashing into the ground. Solaris growled and charged, slashing a blast of light that made contact with the shade. An inhuman scream tore from its throat as black mist escaped from the slash wound, looking like embers off of charred wood.
"Light and fire, of course!" Solaris realized, "Quick, cover me, I have an idea!" he called to the three guardians, "Sages, work together with your Guardians, I think I know how to beat the shade!" the man spoke. The sages nodded, Christine and John flashing their medallions before they felt the energy of their aspects course through them.
Christine twisted her body into intricate movements, almost like a dance, as the wind flew through and blasted, hitting the shade with the force of a moving car as it skidded back. John followed suit, pounding his fist into the earth and pulling out a spear, then with the speed and power of an Olympic champion, threw it forward. Thanatos barely had time to collect his thoughts before the spear embedded itself into his arm and sent him flying, a dust trial following and immediately stopping, a line of fallen trees showing how far the spear had been thrown.
"Holy crap folks, I am literally unable to tell what just happened and I have front row seats to the actions!" Josh stated in shock while some robots were tending to Ethan's wounds. "I think the sages might have an upper-hand on Thanatos, but where is Gersham?! Quick, someone get a camerabot on them stat!" Juanne called, rubbing her forehead with an icepack as she looked at the monitors…well what weren't complete wrecked by the malformed monster that is.
"Sorry guys, but that beast cut off most of the monitors, and the camerabots aren't picking anything up either!" one of the assistant robots called, trying desperately to repair one of the broken monitors while another behind him was, strangely enough, trying to resuscitate another robot by attempting to give CPR to its fallen friend.
"Well, find some way to get a feed on that thing" Juanna hollered, grabbing one of the robots and hurling it out the shattered window as it screamed until a distant thud was heard, followed by a faint 'I'm ok!'.
"Joanne how can you think about money when we are literally seeing a battle of the ages here!" Josh exclaimed, gesturing to the battleground below.
"I don't give a flying Blarg Snagglebeast's hide about spiritualism, I just wanna get paid! Also medical assistance I think I might have internal bleeding!" she shouted, then paused, then collapsed on the ground clutching her stomach.
The male sighed, shaking his head as he tuned to the battlefield, "I do not get paid enough for this…" he murmured then looked to the camera, "folks, this might be the last you see of me or our commentators, but I just want everyone at home to know this…this was all Blackwell's fault!" Josh shouted before the dirigible shook and he clung onto a wall railing, watching the desk fall, "Nooo my desk! I left fifty grand in there!" he cried out in dismay.
Josh hollered as he smashed a stone fist into the face of Thanatos, sending the shade flying before burying a hail of boulders down on him. The shade screamed as he was buried, the sages and Guardians panting heavily from their onslaught. "I think…we got him…" Zach panted heavily. The mound remaned still, a pebble bouncing off the top of the pyramid, before the ground began shaking and the rocks started cascading down.
"Oh you gotta be…" before Joseph could protest, two midnight black wings erupted out, black smoke and tar seeped out from the cracks as a clawed hand emerged, clutching a head-sized rock in its hand and crushed it in an instant.
"You kids did it now…I'm so fucking pissed off…" Thanatos's voice growled, laced with venom as a guttural sense of hatred bubbled out with every word it spoke. The rock flew away, revealing the battered and beaten shade, only, a dark aura surrounded him. Bones snapping could be heard as it lurched forward, the broken body instantly snapping back into attention, Thanatos grabbing his lower jaw and snapping it back into place.
The shade had black and red veins along its face and eyes, its nails began to elongate, it's four front fangs imitating the nails, growing and sharpening as it hunched itself over. "I feel so man, like I wanna…wanna rip someone's throat out. Grab them and snap their necks like twigs. Tear out their jugulars so they choke on their own screams. Yeah…heh yeah" Thanatos let out a demented chuckle, "I can do it too, oooh those pricks are in for it now when we get back to Earth…well…IF they even let us back after this" it muttered.
It looked up, eyes wide and wild, hungry, then took a step forward and tensed up, then coughed black blood from it's mouth and panted. "What the hell?!" he looked and saw his hand was smoking up, "Tch…now?! Guess either the kid passed out, he's dead, or something took him out…" Thanatos muttered, wiping his mouth with his right arm and looked at the group.
"Don't you brats think I'm done, just gotta go take a breather…" he spat as his lower body started disappearing in smoke, "Just remember this: So long as that kid's alive, I'll be watching you from his shadow!" he shouted as he faded away into the smoke.
The clouds parted, light shining through onto the battlefield, and to the group, it was a chance to relax and earn a brief moment to look around. The trees were ruined, some broken down, other charred and burnt. The rotting stench of blood and corruption hung in the air, but the Tyrants were nowhere to be seen.
"We won…at least we have that" Amin muttered, looking around, "But at what cost?" he mused.
"Wait…Mark!" Christine realized as Luna raced off to where she saw the monster that was their mate ran off after her ex-boyfriend. She felt her heart and mind race with anxiety, where they ok? Did they really kill each other? Would Mark still hate her for talking to Gersham? Did he hate her? Those thoughts raced through her mind as she ran, jumping over a log, following the decayed path of destruction and into a glade…blood hung in the air as she arrived, despair hitting her like a truck as she sank to her knees.
"No…oh gods' no…" she whimpered as the other arrived behind her, gaping at what they saw. "Holy shit…" was all Joseph could muster when they saw what Luna was seeing.
All riven, kith and kin
All given for this never ending riddle
My flesh worn, heart betorn
Mind, by mem'ry begyved
They saw what remained of the Wolfen, fur torn asunder, meat and sinew and bone ripped apart and scattered everywhere. The grass stained red and black, and some legs and a tail were scattered all over the battleground. However, one thing stood out, the intact body of Mark, lying unconscious against a tree nearby. Chris raced down and shook his brother, Luna watching the scene without hearing anything, no voice, no sound, just staring blankly at the remains of her ex, then slowly turning to Mark, her eyes spotting a distinguishing feature.
Around Mark's mouth, there was blood all over it, and judging by the tint, it was recent.
'Mark…why?'
Well That went heavy all of a sudden huh? Also the songs i do not own, but give alisten to them as you read this chapter, it's gonna be wild, trust me, and since i haven't done this in a while, Achievements!
Strength of the Pack- Complete Terra Lobos
In the Dark, where all evil dwells: Defeat Thanatos and Corrupted Mark