63. Turning point
Dead.
Dead.
You are dead.
But you do not have to stay dead.
Refuse it.
Fight it.
Claim it.
Become me.
*****
Celia came to with a gasp. Spears of searing heat cutting through her. Pain, the oldest and purest kind made itself known.
She should've been dead.
There was a hole where her heart should've been. Ruinous heat and static crackling green stone. A shard of the crystal, of E-10's life force had punched straight through her chest and into her heart.
Again, she should've been dead.
She should've been, and she knew it. Somehow that was the worse part. Knowing.
But Celia didn't let that keep her down. Slowly, she rose to her feet as the world came roaring back to life. Noise blasting into her ears from every side. And it sounded like war. Lightning and shattering earth, the drowning deluge of various projectiles and burning trees.
She could hear the bodies hitting the floor before she saw them. And the first corpse she saw was one of E-10's. Serpentine necks severed a few feet below it's dull heads and laying at her feet.
It was not alone.
Surrounding it were several dead Beyondlings. Members of Haet's crew who had gone a long with her plan. Members of their crew, she corrected herself.
And then she saw the rest of the battlefield. A domain of chaos and battle. What remained of the crew fighting against E-10 with all they had, screaming and bleeding as they did so. But the battle was no longer contained to them. The balance of power in the forest had shifted and everyone, everything, knew.
Such was the nature of the beyond that they sought to fill the gap.
Beasts of every shape and size had joined the battle. From the smallest bottom feeder to the largest titans within this corner of the beyond. And they fought with reckless abandon, choosing no sides but their own. Turning the little war Celia had started into a near free for all that had captured the attention of the whole forest.
She was no exception.
Something she learned as a tide of ravenous leeches, each sporting sixteen feet, came upon her. A carpet of crawling death on the floor.
She diverted their efforts with a blast of fire that sent them scattering.
In the next instant something jumped at her. Black and white and red, with an octagon of arms that assailed her. A roulette of strikes that she barely felt.
Teeth grew from her face and impaled her attacker. It's body dropping to the ground a second later. And then she was turning, running towards the only battle that mattered in the lair turned arena.
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Haet was fighting three of E-10's heads alone.
And he was losing.
Forced onto the defense, and losing ground with every second that passed.
Celia arrived in noise and flame. A shrill note of stone cracking sound launched at one of the heads. Followed by teeth filled with heat and thrown like a fan of knives. Knives that were swatted aside with contemptuous ease, and noise that only made one of the heads flinch.
But that was enough to give Haet a brief reprieve. A moment and nothing more. It was also enough to get Celia the full attention of one of the three. A bouquet of arms growing from the head that had come to face her.
Looking at it made her want to puke. And not because it was nasty - which it was - but moreso because it seemed to exude some sort of psychological nausea the more she looked at it. And give her a headache too, for good measure.
She didn't even see it strike.
This outcome undone
Celia's blade swung upward. Heated edge singing as it passed through two of her attackers arms. Limbs coming off with a spraying of blood and a hiss.
She was afforded no time to breath. If the carousel of arms felt any great pain, they made no show of it. Striking at her in repetition. Each arm turned to offense, each strike pressing her guard more and more till at last one made it through.
Celia felt her feet leave the ground. Felt the rushing of wind as she went flying. She felt her heart burn. The shard buried deep aggravated, twisting, becoming a nest of cuts that bled her will to endure. And then she landed, hitting the dirt and cratering into it, the force of the blow sending her sliding still. Further and further till she crashed into something else.
Pain spiking, reaching new levels as whatever it was exploded from the impact. And before she could stand, the head was on her. Arms descending for her throat.
This outcome undone
Celia roared her outrage. She became a thing of claw and teeth. Her cry a bludgeon she wielded against the world. Notes striking the hydra like a fan of blades and making it flinch back.
A second of reprieve. Robbed in the next when the circle of hands above her grabbed rune stuff out of the air. Caustic energy building in mass, bubbling and hissing death over her.
A crown of horns came to her rescue. Crashing into E-10 like a living avalanche and shoving him aside. Serpentine body coiling around a nine legged giant and trying to squeeze the life out of it while beat and cast spells of destruction at its back. Celia took that as her chance to check on herself. Eyes locking on to the hole in her chest and the green glow spilling forth from it.
She felt it. Alien. Intelligent. Alive. And like all living things it hungered. And it hungered greedily. Not for flesh or food of any kind, but power. It hungered for life.
And between Celia - Vice - there was a shared kinship there.
She fed it.
Vice! What are you doing?
"What you never thought to try you strict brained-"
Celia stopped and dodged, ducking under a fist the size of her whole torso. The blow crashing into the ground behind her. Shockwave pulping the ground beneath her feet and sending her forward.
She rolled onto the ground as she landed. Teeth grit as pain burned at her heart.
She fed the crystal again. Connecting it to herself like Discipline did her sword. Letting her very being nourish it's hunger. Letting it's hunger become hers. Intuition her guide as she did so.
And then the brute was back. White fur made of worm and bone coming to life as it let out a beastly roar. One Celia thought to match with a note of her own.
She was cut off as writhing coil and scale came crashing into the beast. Another of E-10's heads thrown about. Slamming into the dirt as a wave of mass and muscle. Set upon by every beast near him. Titans and parasites and everything in-between seeking to bloody the hydra with a near single minded focus.
Celia looked to check up on Haet, and found him facing off against one head now. A thing of swirling shells and wings, beak serving as a sword that danced through the air with fire and speed.
But it was not enough to catch Haet. Who moved as blackened thunder. Striking as lighting from out of a cloud. Suddenly and too fast to dodge. Their battle a thing of one-sided attrition.
And as the chaos reigned on, Celia had an idea.
A terrible, terrible greedy idea.