14 Doom Quest III

Obligatory Disclaimer : I do not own anything (except maybe OC characters) all characters, places, worlds, universes…etc mentioned here belong to their respective owners and/or companies.

This is purely a work of fiction. Not meant to offend or incite, but to entertain and (maybe) inspire.

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DOOM QUEST III

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One Million BC

Vibranium Cave.

Can you call stepping on ants a massacre? Or is it more fitting to call it a decimation. What I was doing to these creatures was worse, it was an extermination.

The whole dozen of them ran into the cave, eagerly anticipating the taste of my flesh and blood. I] approached, vibranium coated claws colliding with fangs and tough hide. The resistance of flesh against mono-molecular edged claws was barely noticed.

Flesh ruptured open, blood, tissues and guts fell out of cleanly cauterized wounds. I withdrew the flames, it was making it all too easy. I jumped into the slaughter. Each swipe of my arm separated heads from bodies, tearing entire midsections apart cleanly. Each strike buried the entire length of my arm through entire torsos.

Screams. Oh, the shrill screams that filled the cave, making it seem like an isolated section of hell dedicated to torture and gore. The terrifying screams, turned to screeches. They begged, they cried mercy with heads bowed and bodies prostrated, I could understand the gesture, I just didn't care. Skulls were crushed beneath my feet.

I was allowed to let loose without care. Pure brute fore, no schemes, no plans, just slaughter and murder.

Once in a while, you have to go into the dark and clean up. You can't let filth build up in your basement just because you're afraid of venturing down there. Repressed desires have nasty ways of creeping up on you when ignored.

I let one run into the forest, thinking it had escaped me. Bounding silently from one tree to the next I followed after the creature.

Scared animals will always run into their homes.

The deviant led me deep into the forest, disturbing the peace of its inhabitants as it wildly ran, meandering through secret paths and routes which surprisingly led to a naturally formed circular fort of gigantic trees. It was the perfect hideout – naturally camouflaged and easily defended and hidden.

I watched the little deviant run into the fort, screeching and gesturing towards the general location of my cave. The all-speak couldn't interpret their language but I understood a call to arms when I saw one.

Standing atop the tallest gigantic tree, part of the fort. I roused my Doom-force, the energy buzzed in excitement, waiting to be unleashed to whatever ends I desired. There was only one end I had in mind – one of a whole race.

Why? Why do you want to exterminate them, Hammer? I asked myself. Other than the primal instinct I had towards ending them, why else did I really want to commit genocide…

Because I can.

Don't be fooled by my actions, you should know me better than anyone else, you should know exactly how ruthless I can be. You can romanticize it by believing that I am doing this for the human race, perhaps this was always meant to happen, if not by my hands then the hands of another. As the homo-sapiens spelled the end for neanderthals, I am here to put an end to these things for the hominids.

The air shimmered around my hands from the heat of the flames that blanketed them. I brought both hands to close proximity, pushing the flames against each other, causing it to ball-up and rapidly expand.

I raised both hands above me, the rapidly expanding ball of white-hot flames caused the tree I stood on to combust instantaneously. The deviants noticed the second glowing ball in the sky before they noticed me. Some roared and snarled, tossing rocks and weapons at me, others stood, curiously observing the man who held the sun in his hands.

Is it murder if the creature isn't human? No, it's slaughter. But if the creature is sentient and possesses adequate intelligence, then it can be termed as such. But human rights weren't invented yet, and as I have said before, in this time period; might makes right. Tyranny is the name of the game.

When in the prehistoric age, do as they do

I let the mini sun fall on them. Flesh melted like it was boiling butter sliding off a stick, bone turned to ash. All things scream the same throaty, harrowing screechy sound when burning, whether human or not. Then the giant fireball exploded, the fort was leveled at once, the ground glowed a bright orange from the heat, parts of it even turning to flowing glass. The blast radius not exceeding the extremity of the fort – I wasn't trying to burn the whole forest down.

I controlled the boundary of the flames. Willing them to burn within what used to be the circular fort. I searched my heart for a feeling, be it regret, sorrow or elation. I barely felt anything at all. My emotions were rock stable, my heart calmly beat within my chest without any fluctuations whatsoever. It was functioning properly.

Metal hearts can make you cold.

Don't worry about the repercussions of my actions. Reality is robust, this was meant to be, and even if it wasn't, the effects would be barely noticeable down into the future. If it became a problem, the timeline would split.

It is ridiculously difficult to alter your own native past. Time would rather create branches where those changes took effect than change your native timeline. Think Endgame Quantum mechanics.

There's also the possibility ― albeit a very improbable one― that I wasn't even in my native timeline, due to the method of my time travel. I did the math, but even math is flexible in this universe.

See what I did there? I just slaughtered a whole race and yet here I was musing about time, barely sparing the creatures I had killed a significant thought.

It was time for me to move on, I had places to be in, things to obtain and a devil to slay.

Hmm, that's strange.

My eyes landed on a small, silver, rock ore that was largely unaffected by the heat. The ore was mounted onto the cindered remains of a certain bone club. Picking up the metallic ore, I scraped my claws along the ore's surface and could barely even leave a noticeable scratch on it.

It seems I found something special.

Good things come to those who take it.

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Oushtur wasn't one to trust or believe in gods. That was due to the fact that she had met an actual one before. He was truly divine, a being unlike any she had ever met. A being that had stolen her love and left her with a child to raise.

She yearned to meet him again, but she wasn't too hopeful of it. After all, why would a god dwell with a lowly mortal like her?

So when her tribe said they found a god dwelling within the caves of the great white ape, she wasn't interested. Because there was no reason for a god to dwell within caves. After the elders left with the rest of the tribe to offer their worship to the 'fire god in the cave' she stopped paying attention to it.

That was until they returned with new skills, skills that made life so much more easy for them, so much so that it was nothing short of being miraculous. Life was good, too good and Ousther had learned once that when things went too good, and you didn't have the might to keep it that way, the bad wasn't far off. Oushtur prepared herself for the eventuality of misfortune.

When the Twisted came, she was prepared to run far away. But her preparedness didn't account for her inquisitive child to be caught by one of the Twisted. She fought tooth and nail, using the stone head spears the tribe had learnt to make from the god in the cave. She rescued her child from the maws of the beast, but he was too injured. Oushtur, wrapped the boy up as tight as she could to contain his blood and the smell it gave off, so it wouldn't attract the Twisted ones.

Most men facing troubles they cannot possibly overcome look to the heavens for aid and divine intervention, sometimes the divine intervene, most times they do not. Ousthur sought help not from the heavens, but the earth. She had once been touched by the divine, it allowed her to sense the energies of the world beneath their feet, she called it the earth's aura. She would channel it when she went on hunts, or when she got into battles against males who wanted to claim her as theirs – she always came out on top, victorious. Oushtur channeled that aura, as much as she could bring to her side, which wasn't much at all, but it was adequate.

It granted her more speed, added to her already impressive capabilities, it allowed her to run faster than she'd ever done in her life. Out running the cries of the tribe as they were slaughtered, out running the twisted beasts and creatures that would not leave them in peace, out running her fear. She ran towards the one place she hoped to find help.

The god in the cave. It angered her to once again seek a god after she had been abandoned by one. It angered her that she was not strong enough to secure the well-being of her child.

When she ran into the very warm cave, she expected herself to be struck for her insolence in barging into the abode of a god. But the life of her child filled her with all the courage she needed.

"Please Lord! Please!!" She begged, kneeling before the god and looking into his obsidian eyes that had rings of mesmerizing gold in each of them which when combined his features made him look even more desirable.

He had a skin that was lighter than hers, like the god's she had once met. When he looked down at her, she felt naked in his gaze, but within that same gaze she felt something familiar. Perhaps all gods were the same, perhaps they came from the same source, perhaps the familiarity she felt was due to that reason and not because she felt she had met a god like him before.

This one's divinity wasn't the blazing fire and unquestionable authority that the past one's was. Neither was he as welcoming.

She heard him sigh, and she lost all hope. She imagined him telling her that the child was too far gone for him to save, she imagined a piece of herself dying here today. But the cave god took the child from her grasp, freeing him from the hide wrapping. He walked to the part of his cave where smaller, flat walls were fixed to the larger cave wall. He picked out a small thing that held green water and poured it over her son's wounds. The child stirred a little as his wound began to rejoin like parted mud filling back into an empty line. He then poured the green water into a holding bowl and mixed it with clear water, which he then poured into the child's mouth, the wounds began to rejoin even faster, it was a miracle happening right before her eyes.

The child's eyes were still closed. She could hear his weakened breath. She knew the sound of dying things after they had lost so much blood from their bodies, her son sounded the same. She silently prayed to the cave god. If he could close wounds, then he could give life.

And so he did. "waah!" The child cried in wonder and surprise. The cave god gave her back her restored boy.

Oushtur showered the boy in as much love as she could, nearly forgetting to thank the cave god. Which she immediately did. "Thank you, Lord! I am grateful! Thank you!" she bowed deep, showing her immense thanks.

"What is your name?" The cave god asked her. That voice sounded so familiar it shocked her, the fact that he could speak her language even more so.

"What is your name?" I asked.

"Oushtur, Lord. My name is Oushtur" This was the second time anyone had asked for her name. Those of her tribe didn't have names like she did, she liked to think of it as unique.

"Oushtur, I want you to tell me what happened."

"Lord, the tribe – my people, were all slaughtered and feasted on." She answered, the ghostly cries of her tribe being slaughtered reaching her ears. She held her child closer.

"Was it done by an animal?"

"No Lord. Worse than animals, they are monsters, they are the Twisted ones" As if waiting for her to finish, Ousthur spotted the twisted ones as they entered the mouth of the cave. Their disgusting and terrifying figures matched those of the night haunting dreams.

Slowly she moved, taking refuge behind the cave god, whom she heard whisper the word "Deviants" as he stared at them.

"Hold my robe," The cave god said, handing her the soft white ape hide that still held the warmth and scent of the cave god. To her surprise it actually smelt good, unlike the furs of the others in the tribe, perhaps the cave god did not get dirty or he visited the water frequently."this is about to get very messy." he added with a charming smile that reassured her.

She realized why the tribe called him the fire god. She saw the flames come to live around his hands.

And with a ferocity she had never witnessed before, the one who had graduated from being called a cave god to fire god slaughtered the twisted, no deviants, Oushtur corrected herself. It was a slaughter so swift it was terrible, she had never seen such one sided bloodshed before. Oushtur held tightly onto her child, afraid that the terrible wrath of the fire god would be turned towards her. Beings who lost themselves in the bloodshed could rarely differentiate between allies and foes.

When the deviants knelt before his wrath, Oushtur's mind came to a halt. These were relentless creatures that would lay waste to entire tribes and packs of animals without a hint of mortal worry. They were never bothered for their lives, they lived for death!

But the fire god was even more ruthless than she assumed, he crushed those who knelt beneath his feet and tore bodies apart with his bare hands.

The last of the deviants ran from the cave. The fire god seemed not even bothered by it as he steadily followed after. Like a predator stalking prey. She watched him go, leaving her alone in the warm cave that began to reek of blood.

Oushtur regained herself some time after he left. Setting the sleeping child down onto a warmer section of the cave. She went towards the mutilated bodies of the slain deviants. With a huff of encouragement, she began dragging their corpses out of the cave, giving herself something to do, perhaps this would also earn her some goodwill from the fire god. After all, she was the reason they followed her to his cave in the first place.

Oushtur had seen many surprises and wonders today, some had left her feeling flabbergasted and others terrified, but what she soon saw drove the fact through her that gods were called gods for a reason.

Far into the distance, she saw a sun, smaller than the one that occupied the skies above, but still as bright, being held by the outline of a being on fire. When the sun dropped, the ground rumbled beneath her feet as though the earth were shivering in fear like a small child. Accompanied by the horrible crack of thunder that silenced the world. She expected the forest to be set aflame, but the towering fires died out as though under a command.

She knew not how long she stood there, her mind trying to comprehend what it was she had been a witness to left her shell shocked.

―Step. Step

She heard the fire god emerge from the forest, his nakedness hidden behind fresh leaves. He noticed her staring and smiled at her, giving her a gesture she assumed was approval by raising his thumb.

Hello everyone. I pray you're all in good health. Please make sure to keep yourself safe and secure, corvid19 is real and it's very deadly.

I'd like to take a moment of silence for the ones we lost. May their souls find peace.

This chapter is going out to all you mothers out there, biological or not, if you're giving love you deserve it. So thank you moms for your love in our lives.

Sorry if I sound a bit down and out of it. Shit happens in life and losing people can be very difficult. May we have the strength to push on and continue living.

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