41 Red twilight Demon of the Flowers chapter 41

Chapter 41 She who eats the Moon

Realm: Phawks

Place: New Vinlin

Chrono Sphere: 20-05

Tatsu runs hard, he charges over the snow with the fervor of a man possessed by grief, he runs with a single-minded purpose. He must run, only the feeling of ice cracking under his feet shields the demon of the flowers from despair. Fate wants Tatsu to fight. Fate, she has been dropping puzzle pieces at his feet for years, but always has the wolf been distracted. Hunger and lust have blinded his eyes. Fate even conspired to place Seeker in Tatsu's path to try to open his eyes, and he just couldn't see it.

But now Tatsu's eyes are open, he sees the pattern so clearly, he must run, he must find the one thing on this dead world that will glue all the pieces together. Jessica has had a massive clue to the nature of the Nothing in her grip since the two first met. Now if only…

Jessica breaths hard as she and the other girls chase Tatsu across the endless ice, "would you kindly slow down, I am not a young woman anymore."

Tatsu calls back, his voice carrying little emotion as his focus has numb his senses "You aren't old you are fat. You are a spawn of Ceto, Ceto's children don't age."

Jessica huffs "You mangy mongrel. I…"

Tatsu cuts her off "Jessica what is the emblem on your staff?"

"It is called the Black Swan Vestige, it is the symbol of the goddess Kari" Jessica loses her train of thought "why?"

Tatsu growls to himself "And where did that symbol come from?"

"It was modeled off of a…"

Tatsu cut her off "Let me be clearer. Who designed the symbol itself?"

"Odidimus the Gray of Graywall keep. Of course, that was before Graywall was constructed, Odidimus had covered this emblem to be the icon of the new church." Jessica explains.

"so the Black Swan Vestige was the icon of a church on Nimh, made by a kobolt less than a century ago. Right?" Tatsu asks

"Yes." Jessica expresses

"Vita," Tatsu yells over "You were raised on Nimh, does this icon appear anywhere other than kobolt churches?"

Vita calls up to her father "All bird alters are crafted by kobolts."

Tatsu smiles "Then if I am right…" he almost laughs in satisfaction, by this time tomorrow his tattoo of the yellow rose will have earned a new thorn. Seven god-kings have been consumed by Kingslayer's fangs, and soon he will get to taste the flesh of an eight.

The lot comes to a city sinking into the ice, Tatsu sniffs around he barks as he is looking around frantically "It is here, I know it is here!"

Ami yells at Tatsu to calm him or at least get him to look at her "What! What is here!"

Tatsu slows himself to try to explain "there is a museum here. There was a traveling exhibit of the early churches that was coming here. I read about it in the fish-wrapper. What I am looking for will be in and amongst said artifacts."

Now with a greater understanding of what they are looking for the team fans out. It is Vita that is the first to let out the howl to let the party know she has stumbled across something of interest. Through the ice, a glass dome can be spied. Jessica holds up her staff to call down a pier of flames to break apart the ice and let the lot of them jump down into structure underneath.

There is little light to guide the way. Tatsu picks up a discarded mop in his fangs, he whispers a few words and the mop cast a bright orange ember-light. Ami looks around "I wish I was a wizard." No one pays mind to the statement.

As the group searches, they get to enjoy all forms of oddities. Golden cats, a mummified dog, a biplane with leather wings, an eighty-foot long skeletal dragon. Then they see it, Tatsu lights up dropping the mop, a stone tablet, mostly in pieces, but still readable. "Jessica!" Tatsu yells to the Weaver. Jessica approaches, Tatsu points "What is this?"

Jessica brings her hands up to her cheeks as she sees just what Tatsu had seen. A golden bird, wings held overhead, tail pulled across back, legs together, knees locked, eyes turned downwards. Jessica whispers to herself "The Black Swan Vestige. It is unmistakable."

Tatsu looks at Jessica with cold fire in his eyes "What do you think it is doing on this planet?" One hand moves from Jessica's muzzle to her breast, the Guardian around her neck shimmers and flashes. "Let me tell you what I think." Tatsu explains "Seeker mentioned a monster called the Missionary before she died. She asked me to give her the spirit. Seeker was a void worshiper, so was your lover Jessica, now tell me, has Cravixs ever been to Nimh?"

Jessica nods "Yes." Her voice is weak as she can feel the spirits in her chest pounding, trying to force there way out. A siren howls in the sky overhead. Jessica's demons are trying to get out, trying to reply to the call of the siren.

Tatsu finishes what he was saying "Kari is Cravixs, Seeker was impregnated by the Missionary, and so where you. Cravixs isn't a person, he is a race, not so unlike Krane. Just bigger." Hetatsubachi starts to salivated, fire rolls from his eyes and smoke the corners of his lips, static crackles along his fur. The wolf starts to show his true colors. What is a sorcerer of Dis, why are they the most respected spellcasters in the netherworld

"… and furthermore, I think that Cilverant and Seeker had both received revelation that these creatures where somehow spawning in our shared reality. There are at least three of them, maybe more, and they are so big and bad that the Tamriel run away when one is born. Except for the first one. The one we are hunting now. It is hunting down it's lost, children. The void church can be found on any planet that the Nothing has visited, and the Missionary is backtracking Cravixs." Hetatsubachi stretches out his influence. He calls to his side all the weapons he can hold: four 20" long chains, four curved swords, six silver daggers, a hundred-pound iron anvil, and two crystal shields.

The siren grows loader, a mouth forms in the air, the bird-headed chimera Seeker called Missionary pulls herself out of the darkness. The crab legs in her chest reach out, her wings extend, the maw that runs from chest to pelvis gaps open showing the inverted universe in the deep. "your powers of perception do not fail you, Demon of The Flowers."

Tatsu grabs Jessica with one of his orbiting chains and pushes her behind himself. "So, what world are you from and what are you doing here?"

Missionary opens and shuts the pink slit in her body that acts as a mouth, gravity and physics in a bubble around her spasm, Missionary is a computer virus made flesh. Nothing more than her existence seemingly makes reality unstable, "but that is the part you already know? Mother of Mice, the musk of my lover's heat wasp form your breath. My beloved has been inside your body. Take me to him, give me that which is rightfully mine, and I will return to the nothingness."

Tatsu grins as his fangs show, his ears drop, nonelement flams jet from Hetatsubachi's fur, the ground cracks under his feet, just about anything less than 15lbs in weigh start to levitate from the force of the wolf's arcana. "your voice, it is small and soft next to Cravixs voice. You are nothing but a teenager in estrus, are you?"

Missionary speaks to Tatsu "my will and ability to divide should be of little interest to you."

Hetatsubachi shrugs with a nod "that is true, I plan to kill and eat you regardless. Not necessarily in that order."

"you would hunt such an elder thing as me for the honor of this dead rock?" Missionary seeks clarification.

Tatsu shakes his head. "No, for Ashley, Tia, Sarra, Hon, and Aaron. The death of one is a tragedy, the death of a hundred suffers from the law of diminishing returns, and millions truly isn't any more significant. I fell asleep last night whimpering the name of the women that loved me, I dreamed about the girls I loved. I haven't stopped crying for three days. After I am done crying for my children, I won't have any tiers left for the rest of this rock. You took my home. That is what matters to me. "

Missionary floats ever closer to the wolf, she shows off her mammoth size to him. "And what do you think brought me to them?"

"Frankly, I don't care. Pain is a personal thing, I can sympathize, I can empathize, but in the end, the best thing I can do is pretend you are me and ask myself. Is this reasonable? How much blood could I spread in the hope of forgetting my pains. I will start with one dead bird. Then see if I can find happiness in a full stomach and a warm body." Tatsu digs his claws into the ground

"you are a vile, soulless monster." Missionary comment

"I am a demon."

And with that the battle has begun, Missionary swings out with her claws. Tatsu jumps and flips backward. The wolf counters swinging his chains out at the evil bird. Missionary snaps a wing down at the wolf. Tatsu throws a shield clashing with the monster. The speed, the focus, Hetatsubachi has become one with his rage, anger, and loss bringing him power greater than the mightiest of demons, more disciplined than the highest wizard.

The bird dives and lashes out throwing its body at the dog, Tatsu throws out his two shields to stop the attack and push the bird back. Tatsu flings his four curved swords, the beast lashes its beak out to parry the sword slashes.

Vita snarls, her chain of beads floats off her body, Vita runs in and jumps at the monster, her string of beads slash like a whip. Ami goes to join the fight, Jessica grabs Ami by the scruff of her neck to stop her. "Ami, you can not help them this way." Jessica's glasses glow. "if you want to help them, I need you elsewhere."

Ami looks confused "What do you mean?"

Jessica knees down looking into Ami's eyes gripping her by the sides of the face "Ami, what is your name."

Ami replies "Ami?"

Jessica repeats "Ami, what is your name?"

Ami thinks for a moment "My mother called me Skoll."

Jessica nods "do you know what that name means?"

Ami shrugs "It means mother, It is a title give to all girls." She mumbles off on a side point "we used to only give girls that name after they have demonstrated their first heat. They would be asked to show their tail to an older male in the clan, and he would have to rub the blood from her womb on his nose and taste her, if he determines that she has healthy eggs then she would get the name but now…"

Jessica stops her "Follow me." She goes running out the side door from the room, she yells over to Tatsu as she runs "I am taking Ami with me, lead Missionary outside."

Tatsu shrugs as he snaps his chains grabbing a piece of dragon bone thrown at him and crushes it in his grip "yes because that is a thing I can do." The reply is snide.

***

Jessica when running for her life is more dexterous then would be expected, she can fall forward and run on all fours just as comfortable as when standing up, she can jump and grab at walls and kick off of them without losing her stride.

Ami follows behind only a few steps "Can Tatsu win this fight?"

Jessica nods "Yes, but he will not. Not until after you are dead, and he is impregnated just like Seeker was. If that happens, it will set into motion events that will be unfavorable for all of us." Jessica slips around a door leading into a split-level room, balcony thirty feet overhead and an airplane hanging from the ceiling "and if I may be selfish for a moment. I don't care for that future."

Once Ami is in the room Jessica pulls a piece of charcoal out of her sleeve and draws a marking on the door. The door locks with magical bars. Jessica mounts her staff in the ground, and it acts like a lamp spraying white light around the room to illuminate it. Using her block of coal Jessica walks around the room drawing a diagram. Jessica opens the bag on her belt searching around. She pulls out a pair of pliers, a feather plucked from the thigh of a crow and a shard of lightning glass.

Jessica sets up the room for a ritual spell "Ami your womanhood ritual, have you ever seen it outside of your baptism?"

Ami thinks "part of it was integrated into a spell Loki had cast on me, the one that created Eevee and Vita."

Jessica nods "I see." Jessica slides the pliers into her mouth and whispers to herself "I can't afford to do this many more times." Jessica grips one of her back fangs with the tool and twists it hard braking the tooth, she drops the pliers and stomps her floor choking on her blood for a moment whining.

Ami looks concerned as Jessica spits up some blood "what are you doing?" Ami, ask with harshness in her voice.

"I am drawing a tenth sphere summoning circle." Jessica regains her balance, Jessica looks to Ami "Are you ovulating?"

Ami is confused by the statement "maybe, I don't know, I haven't looked back there today, and Tatsu hasn't said anything about it. Why?"

"I need some of your RNA, I could extract it from your blood, but that takes time. The fastest and cleanest way to get it is from ones love juice." Jessica pulls some flowers from her bag next and starts crushing them up to pepper around the room.

Ami rolls her eyes up "why does high-level magic need to be so strange?" she looks to Jessica "what do you want me to do?"

Jessica points at where she had set her bag down as she is working "there is a bowl in my bag, it looks like a wine-bottle that has had the top cut off it. I need a third of a cup of your fluid in that glass. I am going to need It in five minutes or less."

Ami shows her fangs in frustration of the order "I will see what I can do." Ami lowers her head to lick herself trying to tease her feminine fluids out "what is this spell going to do?"

Jessica explains hastily "I am going to call Fenrir, the Father of Wolves to our side. he has access to a ritual spell I do not know."

Ami snaps her head to look at Jessica "The Father Dog? He whom eats all? Worldbraker? That Fenrir?"

Jessica takes an iron nail from her pocket and squeezes it until her hand starts to bleed "The same." She adds her blood to the flowers the draws a few more symbols on the ground, these ones using the nail as a brush as she needs to be able to make smaller cleaner strokes.

Jessica works with all haste, a spell she spent a day setting up last time she performed it, she sets the stage for a second time in only a few sweaty minutes.

A mighty wind howls, Ami hugs the ground to hold her balance, Jessica nearly gets her robe blown up and off her body, Jessica needs to pull her gown down and kneel on it to hold it on after a few moments. A trimmer splits the ground. A silver-haired wolf climbs from the deep. He is a mighty wolf, thick bright hair, long claws, sharp fangs. He is everything a wolf should be, and stand three times Ami's size leaving the wolf queen looking like a puppy standing at knee level. Jessica less than that.

Jessica holds her hands up calling to the wolf in prayer "Son of Ceto, Father of Wolves, Fenrir the Zodiac…"

Fenrir looks bashful "You don't need to quote our childhood to me, I remember it."

Ami shoots Jessica a gaze "How old are you, Jessica."

Jessica shyly replies "Old enough that my age could be calculated in Deep Time." Ami doesn't understand, she just nods and watches as the two mystics talk, she keeps her head down and tail up respectfully in the presences of the wolf king.

Fenrir takes a step forward, he lowers his head to get down to eye level with the Weaver "mother of mice, why have you called me here? I have much work that calls for my attention elsewhere."

Jessica waves in Ami's direction "Fenrir, this wolf girl that stands beside me. Is this Skoll, the mother of Wolves?"

Fenrir turns his head looking at the poise wolf "I have not seen nor smelled the mother of wolves in generations. I feared her lost to the never. But should she turn her back and show to me her sacred parts I will examine her for familiarity."

Ami nods "I understand." Ami turns around a lowers her head, she wraps her tail around one leg and lifts her back end up showing it off to the wolf king just as she had done at her baptism and just as she had done for Hetatsubachi when she received the spirit.

Fenrir touches his nose to Ami's womanhood. He gasps, nearly barking as his eyes and mouth widen "there is no doubt in my mind. This wolf is 100% Skoll, the Mother of Wolves."

Jessica explains "It seems she had been asleep for a very long time. She has forgotten her name and her power. Is it within your ability to restore her holy magic?"

Fenrir stands over Ami, he brings a paw down to grab her by the underside, he pulls her in hugging her tightly "It is within my power to do this." Fenrir waste no time beginning to weave magic "you will touch your rump to my stomach, I will place my paw in your mouth. My fangs will pierce your right ear. My blood will touch your tongue, your blood will touch my tongue, my essence will flow into you. Our spirits will whisper. You will remember your every past life, and you will become complete."

Jessica crawls over to Ami to whisper with her as Fenrir is manipulating her body reading the spell "Soon you and I will be separated Ami, but I will come looking for you, and if fate allows I will bring you to Loki. But you must remember these words for only the me from this time will know what they mean 'I am a traveler from the east, I walk into the west searching for wisdom' you must say back to me 'I come from the west, I search for the same thing.' This way I will know that it is the real you I have found."

***

Hetatsubachi dips and dodges, he jumps, and he rolls, he leaps in his mouth open wide, his cloak of daggers swings around stabbing the evil bird a dozen time. Missionary can control each of her arms independently, this was unexpected. The wolf is swooped up in the tendrils lining the bird's chest.

Vita powered by loyalty darts around the monster, her speed and courage no less than her fathers. Vita climbs up the birds back. Vita calls down her shadow, the shadows forge into the shape of a paw and kick the bird at the ground. Tatsu is thrown across the room, Vita leaps sideways and runs the perimeter of the room to draw fire.

Missionary opens her mouth, she takes a breath. Just like with the other void beast the ground underfoot turns into particles warping like pasta swirling down a drain. Vita backs away, she has not the power or inclination to step in the way of this attack.

Hetatsubachi digs his claws into the ground, a wall of kinetic energy erects around him. An evil smile runs across the wolfs face as he can feel Missionary is growing tired, chasing him and Vita around. "I am the demon in the snow, I am the demon of the flowers. Seven nether kings have bowed to me, you will bow too. I am Hetatsubachi Una! I am the Kingslayer!"

…And then the ceiling falls in. Thousands of pounds of snow come crumbling down on the heads of the three combatants.

The ground explodes upwards as Missionary flaps her wings breaking out of the permafrost. The bird laughs. "You are but a dog. I am a queen. I am…"

Missionary's moment of triumph is interrupted when a second explosion comes from alongside her, Hetatsubachi stands in a pillar of raw force, the air crackles, snow burns underfoot, Vita hides under her father's body. Tatsu tease. "I'm sorry, what were you saying?"

Hetatsubachi lashes out with the brunt of his elemental force. The snow and ice of the land take on a life of its own forming into giants under Tatsu's command. Missionary is forced into a defensive stance; her wings turn into a cocoon.

The giant pound on the shell with earth-shaking power. Missionary snaps her wings open, and she exhales. Energy from the inverted cosmos fluids into the land around her. Negative mater meats positive mater with an apocalyptic conscience. All the metal on the planet takes on a magnetic charge, the weight of gravity becomes seventy times greater, water is evaporated, the air overflows with uncontrollable ionic lightening. The planet becomes a microwave, radiation becomes of overwhelming that only a Worldwalker can stand through it. The destructive force of Missionary is otherworldly. The very act of it breathing creates and destroys planets.

Vita hides under her father, she is in disbelief of how dramatically Missionary can command the laws of the universe. Hetatsubachi laughs, he will not let Missionary see him sweat. "Come on you pussy. I am the sorcerer of Dis. Is this all you can do? Loud-mouthed trickery? You will find that the power to shatter a continent is irrelevant next to what I can do."

Missionary shuts her mouth. She stares at the wolf, Kingslayer is unmoving, he stands their eyes fixated on her. No beast has ever dug in its claws and held its ground against the Nothingness. No one, but Solis-Chaos. The wolf offers a toothy grin, Missionary is afraid. Missionary reaches her wings into the sky assuming the Black Swan Vestige, Hetatsubachi lowers his head and lifts his tail both beast ready themselves for what is guaranteed to be a suicide charge.

Jessica digs herself out of the snow, she shakes herself like a dog throwing snow from her robe. Jessica kneels down to grab Ami and pulls her up to her level. "that was fun." Jessica jokes, Jessica turns to look at Missionary and Hetatsubachi squaring off. "this is it. The decisive moment."

Ami watches the display, two creatures tremendous and terrible standing in a hellscape. Death hot in the air. Two beasts, one that is the essence of death, the other, from Ami's point of view, a symbol of birth. Time slows to a crawl.

Jessica looks to Ami "this is the point on which history turns. This is the path Loki had set you on. If you decline this honor, I will not hold you to blame, but if you chose to fight I trust you understand what that means for all of us. Irrespective, tonight the war ends for you."

Ami whispers "I want to stand with Hetatsubachi, I want to fight alongside you. I want to live the way wolves live and die the way wolves die."

Jessica nods humbly "then unleash the spirit, become what Loki wanted you to be."

Ami turns to mist, clouds in the sky fall, a shadow of a wolf covers the sky. Ami steps into view, she is a mile tall, she glows like a goddess in the fog, she is impervious to all harm. Ami is now the representation of both her names. She is creation, she is destruction. All the power Missionary has his meaningless, Jessica and Hetatsubachi are like ants at Ami's feet. The goddess of epic size lowers her head, she shows her teeth.

Jessica places a hand on Vita and Tatsu, she opens her portal and drags them away "We have done all we can do here." The lot of them see Missionary vanish into Ami's mouth. If they had but a moment longer, they would then have seen what happens when the unmoving strikes the unstoppable. Space is torn apart, time is broken, this world and all the worlds around it are enveloped in a cataclysmic breakdown of the laws of physics. Ami in one bite brakes this universe off from all others. This reality collapses.