Chapter 49: A Fearful God

XLIX

Ignoring the beast's boastful words, Jo-Mel hopes that its conceit will keep it too occupied in self-aggrandized banter, keep it from ending both her and Monique with a single stroke.

“I think perhaps I'll walk about, take a look around,” the Great Beast says. “This new world is delightful, so intriguing. There's so much to explore, so much to see. They don't even know what they've done.”

She can see the spectral frequencies conjoining thousands of devices, forming an intricate web, ensnaring the users in a peculiar sort of enchantment. The air was filled with these signalings. The beginnings of a new plane of reality was forming around these electronic signatures, creating a near infinite, nearly empty cyberspace that connected them all.

Oh, the possibilities.

These people were advancing much more quickly than she could have imagined when she had first been scattered and driven down into the Earth. They had harnessed energies and mastered ideas that allowed them to challenge the magical hierarchies themselves.

There was much for her to see here, to learn. And with this world's withered and shriveled access to the Source, there would be none to challenge her. None to dare try and stop her from indulging in her many carnal delights.

She'd lay waste to this world and find refuge in their newly formed cyberspaces, adrift amongst the immensity of their imagined possibilities.

She'd be the first of her kind; evolved into a new kind of god. A fearful god.

She laughed and showed these potentials to Jo-Mel, to Monique. Gave them a glimpse of the charred ruin that she'd leave behind in her wake, implanted a sense of the tragedy, the suffering she'd create within their minds. The malevolent imagery drove them both to the brink of insanity.

Monique's struggles had been negligible at best until then. The horrors she saw led her to double and double again her efforts. The black weaving which held her fast in place began to fray against her growing determination, its twines snapping and popping loose.

The Shitani's bindings constrained her fires, turned them back upon her, driving them down deeper as the pressure continued to build. Monique felt squeeze even as her form struggled to expand, to grow into its fullness.

Jo-Mel continued to cautiously circle away from the beast, allowing it to continue on with its pleased pronouncements. The images shown to them by the Shitani still burned darkly within her mind; dark flames flickering, entire cities reduced to charnel pits.

They could not allow any of this. This monster, if set free on Earth, would not stop here. The Merchant King's had given it the perfect place of refuge where it would grow unchecked within their electronic havens. It would be ravenous and near unstoppable.

Nothing or no one, not even in the Incata, would be safe.

Circling closer, slowly towards Monique, Jo-Mel considers her limited options and prepares to make her move. She knew that it would likely lead to the end of her and figured that this would be a good place and time to die.

“I see you, little wildling,” the beast warns.

Jo-Mel lunges regardless, drawing her blade. In a swift, fluid motion, she feints towards the beast, spins at the last moment and strikes at Monique's bindings, hoping that she doesn't slice the woman open.

As the force within Monique continued to swell, continued to fight back against the increasing pressure of the bindings, Jo-Mel's blow snapped through enough of the Shitani's steel strong threading that she can finally flex.

Her dagger razes through the remaining webbing and she rolls free, fully sheathed in flame.

“How impressive, little felani,” the beast says mockingly. “You can summon your flame and steel. Do you presume that will be enough?”

With that, the Great Beast strikes, rising up into the immensity of her form. Its limbs segmenting, she digs the wicked talons forming at the tips of its razor edged talus deep into Monique's consciousness, ripping through layers of her mind.

Monique screamed from the pain and violation. She fought hard against the monster's touch, but it dug in deeper, seeking purchase within her heart and mind. It sought to rip her apart, to shred her very soul.

The Shitani sought to empty Monique of the more troublesome aspects of her will to resist. It would hollow her out, turn her into a barren vessel to occupy, to deploy, to nourish upon. She would tuck this one away beneath the Earth with the other or destroy it altogether.

The Other.

The Shitani, her sharp claws slipping deeper, cutting through Monique's defenses, slipping down into the well-spring, the fount of her power, is taken aback to see that this was indeed the offspring of that which she'd stolen and stashed away beneath the Earth.

Her surprise is so genuine, that she inadvertently allows Monique to see it as well.

At that moment, Jo-Mel struck it from behind, her blade, the TruthSeeker, hungry for the heart of the beast.

The Majora Shitani, a creature of malevolence, though, turns aside her blade, the blade meant to cut through all deceptions and lies.

Roaring with rage, the beast violently shakes Monique free of its clutches, slamming her into the far wall and turns on Jo-Mel with a rib-cracking swipe of the hand that sends her flying.

The Breaker had been shattered by the beast's initial battering but still managed to dispel the brunt of the blow, leaving Jo-Mel broken but still, barely, alive. The Great Beast descends upon her.

“No!” Monique shouts, struggling to her feet. “You get away from her!”

With a sneer, the demon struck, its talons tearing through Jo-Mel's body. It finds purchase in her aura, her shading, and rips it apart, shredding what was her animus.

“Ah,” the beast purrs, Jo-Mel's blood soaking its hands as it shifts back into its human form. “This is why you fight...”

Bending over the ruins of Jo-Mel's body, the beast extracts from her bloodied remains a glowing ember. Rising and holding forth the rarest of jewels, a heartstone, she turns to Monique. “You fool's would feed me so?”

Monique seethes with rage. She can't stop looking at the bloodied mess that was Jo-Mel.

“You bitch,” she spews between clenched teeth.

The Great Beast throws back its head, swallows down the stone and laughs great booming peals of laughter.

Monique summons and raises her blade and the beast stops laughing.

“You cannot harm me, little one. Not with that. These games amuse no more. Put down your guard. This won't be long. You'll feel no more pain than this one,” she says menacingly while gesturing towards Jo-Mel's tattered remains.

“And when it's all done and you are bound tight beneath the Earth, if it helps, you can think of it as a family reunion.”

Screaming with rage, Monique rushes forth blindly and strikes.