Seorsia's Vengeance

There you stumbled, lost in a sea of pain, clutching the torn wreck that was your shoulder. The absence of your arm threw off your balance with every step. Blood slipped down your chest in slow, heavy lines. You felt… oddly numb. It must have been shock alone that kept you upright. Ribs cracked, skin shredded, arm torn off, frenzy gnawing at your mind. Today had to be the worst day of your life… so why were you smiling?

As Lady Morrigan spoke on, taking her time with you, two shadowy figures swept in at her flank. The hulking Irish vampire with the cauldron-shaped iron mask smashed into one of the werewolves at your side. Such was his tremendous strength that he lifted the beast by the throat like a toy and, with a roaring belly laugh, hurled it aside. The other you recognised from your last encounter. The leprechaun vampire sauntered toward Flora as if he had simply wandered into the wrong room. He flailed his arms like a madman as Flora snarled and snapped at him, her massive claws tearing through the space where he had just been. He yelped and bolted, sprinting off like prey as Flora gave chase.

However… another leprechaun, identical in every detail, stepped forward instead, casually brushing a fleck of ash from his emerald lapel.

“What an unpleasant creature. I sure hope she doesn’t get a’hold of him. Me… Him? No me. Hehe.”

“CHIP!!”

The voices came through thick and distant, as if heard underwater. You weren’t sure who had called out. Namina, maybe. Cleo. It hardly mattered. The world had narrowed into a dull ringing haze.

Morrigan’s lips were moving as she approached, twirling your severed arm in front of you like a baton. You couldn’t make out the words until her hand closed around your throat and she pulled you close.

“You think you’re fucking invincible, don’t you, Baby Drake? Smile all you want, with this lovely bit of kit…” She tapped the featureless black mask that covered her face. “Our little face to face issue is dealt with, and I am finally free to kill you. No more distractions. No more interruptions. My strength against yours. Me brothers and me sisters will be avenged.”

Her voice dropped low, almost tender with hatred.

You laughed, or tried to. It came out broken.

“K… killing me… proves… nothing… Seorsia… you… will always… be left wanting… alone…”

For a flicker of a moment, something in her shifted. A hesitation. Then it was gone. Her arm lifted, fingers straightening into a neat row of razor claws.

“Your words mean nothing. And you’re supposed to be the Purest? Pft… slán, Baby Drake.”

Her arm drew back, savouring the moment. Around you, the battlefield roared on. Gunfire, claws, steel, the rush of mist as your Noxium surged toward you.

For a heartbeat, everything quieted.

You closed your eyes. You thought about letting go. Letting the pain slip away. Letting yourself fall into something still and final.

Then Diana’s smile surfaced. Vicky in the library. Rose pulling you close.

“There ain’t no rest for the wicked.”

PERFECT OVERDRIVE!!

Your eyes shot open, stretched wide. Your body became tense and coiled with muscle as the veins bulged and the blood flowed. A cloak of crackling crimson sparks rippled and lashed around you. You felt only a brief resistance from within, but it was suddenly followed by a bottomless well of vigor.

And in a single fluidly blinding motion, you kicked yourself into an impossible spin, breaking Morrigan’s hold.

She stumbled back, caught off guard as she raised her arm like a judge laying sentence.

You sensed it at once, Dagda’s booming footsteps as he rushed at you from the west, the Leprechaun’s nimble steps as he darted at you from the east.

As you spun down in a spiral, you snatched up Lugh from the hilt with your one left hand. In a whirlwind of otherworldly speed, you sent a devastating kick to the west and, simultaneously, flashed up Lugh’s flaming blade to the east.

Your heel caught Dagda’s massive fist, the bones in his knuckle cracking beneath the **** of Overdrive. The Leprechaun’s open claw, which was meant to cut into your neck, slid cleanly along the white-hot blade of Lugh, the flesh sizzling as it cut through flesh, bone, and sinew like butter.

“FUCK YOU!” the thought hammered into your mind.

The huge Dagda recoiled, roaring in what sounded like some strange mixture of a laugh and howl of pain, clutching his shattered hand.

The Leprechaun didn’t even get the chance to scream. You thrashed against the ground, forcing the blade of Lugh, which had cut the vampire’s arm clean in half to the elbow, even further, slicing it into a pair of fleshy ribbons all the way down to the root of the shoulder.

With a sickening shiver, he lurched as if he would fill the inside of his cartoonish leprechaun mask with vomit, but you did not let up.

Twisting the blade clockwise, you corkscrewed his mangled arm ribbons around your sword. Tilting back your head, you thrust forward, the hardness of your skull collapsing into his face.

He crumpled like a wet towel as the shards of his mask sprayed in all directions. The **** of your blow buried him deep into the stones, and the shamble ribbon that was his arm popped free, now ornamented on your black blade.

As his body twitched in the stoned drive, you twisted around, pointing Lugh at Dagda, who shirked back violently.

“Shitting hell!!” he bellowed, cupping his broken hand.

You stared with manic, brutal eyes. Lugh’s heat intensified, and Dagda watched in horror as the Leprechaun’s flesh melted, then burned to ash before his very eyes.

“Angus!? You antsy little fucking prick. You may have felled me brother in arms, but today is the day that you face Dagda. The Good.” He raised his arms and flexed his bulbous muscles. “TODAY IS THE FOOKIN DAY-”

You watched as the earth beneath him began to tremble, and you watched in brief confusion as an arm suddenly burst from the stones at Dagda’s feet. Its hand constricted around his bulky calf, and with a violent lurch, the entire ground beneath him caved and his huge form was sucked down into the stony earth.

Through the dust and dirt, you looked down as Dagda was buried up to the neck in soil and shingle, and standing beside him, completely covered head to toe in dirt, stood Rudy Vulcan, an insane shark-like grin cut into her pale freckled face. Her eyes burned a hungry magenta, the mangled, ugly, gigantic hammer rested on her shoulder.

“What horrible noise! I could hear your hollering all the way down there!” she cried out with a laugh.

“What the fuck, who the hell, what the-”

The hammer came down on Dagda’s head, denting his round cauldron-shaped mask into his skull. A river of dark blood began to drip from its hem.

Rudy sauntered over to you, her lips curling in mild interest at your lost arm as you smiled at her.

“Eh… I’ve had worse.”

“I thought you were gone…” you whispered.

“Stupid. Boss, very stupid,” she chuckled. “Let’s kill this bitch.”

You both turned to Morrigan, who stood with her hand on her hip, flexing her fingers.

“You done?”

The shadows behind you grew thicker. More and more, the forces behind you flanked. Hughie, Moonie, Octavia, even Namina, and all the other Boneheads who had flanked with you, returned to your side.

You nodded as Hughie tapped your shoulder.

“We’ve got your back, Boss.”

You turned Lugh up to Morrigan.

“No. You’re done,” you said, and so the skirmish began.

With the strength of the Noxium, you challenged the Morrigan. You all rushed at her and, despite her clear disinterest, you flipped your sword and sunk the pommel deep into her jaw. Huginn slashed at her side with a claw, Moonie stomped on her knee, multiple others cut at tendons and broke bones, but it was Rudy who landed the final blow, swinging her hefty hammer into her chest and sending her flying backwards towards the mansion ruins where the Crusaders and Wolves still fought.

You felt the urge to take pride and celebrate the successful barrage, but you snatched at their thoughts as you surged forward.

“Don’t let up, fan out and push forward. If any one of us gets isolated, then that one of us dies.”

In a broad fan, the forty or so of your ranks were more than enough to form a storming wall of claws and sharp fangs. With you at its center, you approached the main fray.

The werewolves were brutal. The second they got their paws on a Crusader they tore them into pieces. But against all odds, they kept coming back. They would reform in a tangle of brambled flesh, pick up their muddy silver blades, and dive back unto the wolves. They had actually done a fair amount of damage.

One wolf had its face half torn off, another was missing its back leg, one had its hide filled with bullet holes… The mangled corpse of a heavily muscled man with a wolf mantle lay in the muddy stone.

They had actually managed to kill one?

In their fury, one of the wolves with a pale auburnish pelt had collided with Morrigan mid-flight. In a bloodlusting rage it had grasped her in its massive claws and closed its gnarled canines into her side.

You watched in horror, as casually as one gets out of bed in the morning, Morrigan got to her feet, the wolf jaws still closed around her bleeding mid-section, and clamped her powerful hands on the top and bottom jaws.

She opened them… like a child opening a stapler. It yowled as its head was slowly wrenched open, the fur, skin, and sinew separating with a frightful ease.

As she tossed the huge body aside, the wolf’s skin began to deflate and fall away, revealing the split-open head of an athletic woman.

Morrigan clicked her neck and all the wounds that you and the Nox and the now-dead werewolf had dealt promptly closed as if they were never there. The only evidence of their existence being the tears and dark blood stains in her tank top, revealing her defined and toned muscular build.

You and the Nox closed in, the left and right flanks fanned out amongst the chaotic battle, striking at the Crusaders and the Wolves alike in a clash of glorious battle.

You did not follow them into the chaos, but rushed straight toward Lady Morrigan, sword clutched tight in your left arm, the stump still dripping with spurts of blood as the crimson bolts of Overdrive crackled around you.

Saturated with a quiet wrath, you swung your flaming sword with the intention of rending her torso into bloody chunks. Instead, you were jolted to a stop as Morrigan curled her fingers around the blade.

You were mere inches apart, the sunlit sword’s black flames searing against her skin, the cold dark steel biting into her flesh. If she felt any pain, she didn’t show it.

“You are strong, boy. But I am beyond strength. I let you and your swarm of ants tickle me, but that is not nearly enough.” She whispered. You grit your teeth, pushing with all of your might… but her strength seemed boundless.

“I n-never wanted this to happen, I never wanted this fight. But I will finish you. For Talia.” You growled.

A short scoff escaped her mask.

“Will you now?”

She pulled the blade aside, kicking you hard in the sternum. You felt the sensation of falling backwards, but fought against the **** as you dragged across the stones before rising to your feet. If not for the descendant power flowing through your veins, that blow would have caved in your mid-section.

Morrigan remained casual as the Vampires, Crusaders, and werewolves battled around you.

“The Threads are a powerful tool, but they are nothing more than that. It is in our true power, the power of undeath, that true conquest can be achieved. You think a little boost like that will really be enough? It wasn’t enough to save your dear old uncle Russel… or his winging little tyke.”

She was toying with you. She could sense your deterioration just as much as you felt it. Muscles tightening, pain just barely dulled as your legs violently shook. You merely sneered at her, circling one another as the bloodshed raged around you.

You had no words, no more talk, only the anger which boiled deep inside. But she was not done with her surprises yet.

“...Let me show you what a real Vampire can do.” Her tight fist beat hard against her chest as she bellowed out into the battlefield.

“ÁDH DEARG!!!”

Your face creased as a strange ominous aura began to permeate her entire being. It was clear that everyone in the vicinity felt it. She suddenly felt… endlessly ominous, highly insidious, and you felt a deep sense of dread even as you took up your blade.

In a flash, you closed the distance, face so tight you felt your blood vessels pop. Delivering a sword-stroke meant to divide shoulder from torso, you lurched as something pinged hard against your blade… your blow slid aside as Morrigan stood still, arms on her waist as if waiting.

You were thrown off, if only for a moment.

The following flurry was unlike any you had unleashed before. Even one-armed, chest ruptured, and losing copious amounts of blood, you were like a dancing blur of onyx embers and slicing steel.

You savaged her body in several dozen cuts performed with a steady precision, meant to dice her up into neat little cubes…

…You withdrew, huffing with exhaustion, looking upon your handiwork. And felt your heart drop as Lady Morrigan continued to stand there unharmed.

“W-What?”

Seorsia shrugged nonchalantly, clicking her neck on each side before marching slowly, menacingly towards you.

Launching into a whipping wisp of slithering black mist, you felt your flesh dematerialize. The black cloud swirled and encircled her and in a brutal tirade your flaming blade came raining from its depths, thrusting out to pierce into her flesh from every possible direction.

But it was as if… something was protecting her. Every time, she would simply dip her head or step aside without ever turning to look. Sometimes you just plain missed your mark… despite your certainty that the attack would land true.

Eventually, a sigh escaped her featureless face-mask and, like plucking a dandelion from a field, she snatched you out of the mist by your throat.

You felt your body reforming as the **** crushed down on your windpipe, the muscles in her arms contracting and building as she slowly crushed the life from you.

With the point of Lugh you went to slash at her throat, but she caught your arm with ease, the fingers constricting so tightly that a dizzying crack resounded through your elbow.

You felt yourself slipping away, and with the last remnants of consciousness that you had, you flailed your fractured arm at Lugh’s blade.

The flaming sword pierced your skin and you reached into your memories, trying to use something, anything, to get you out of her iron grip.

You were not even completely sure of the words squeezed out from your half-crumpled voice box, yet you said them nonetheless.

“D-DRAGUNZ… B-BREAFF…. SKYFALL!!!”

Despite the unfathomable agony, you managed to paint the half-remembered Skyfall blood rune with your fingers as you thrust your floppy arm into her stomach.

The blood sparked as if to blaze into life… only for a mere moment. But it quickly fizzled out.

You gasped in horror as you felt Vicky’s blood, once bubbling deep inside, fueling your power, sizzle out. It was all gone.

Lady Morrigan began to laugh, a great booming, borderline insane cackle.

“Are you fooking serious!? You tried to use Skyfall, THE Skyfall? The most powerful Blood Rune ever conceived by Dracula himself!? Haha oh-oh lad, you are not even worthy to speak those words aloud. You really have no idea what you’re doing, do you? You have no gods-damned idea what the fuck is going on, eh? Shhh shhhh shhh it’s alright, Baby Drake. Let me show you.”

She raised her claws once again, but this time didn’t hesitate.

You couldn’t quite feel it… not at first. It just felt like a few hard blows to the stomach, the kind that knock the breath out of you. But as she pulled her claws away, drenched ruby red and speckled with viscera… that relieving inhale never quite came.

You felt yourself lifted up to the night sky… before all suddenly went black.

When you opened your eyes again you still struggled to draw breath, rolling in the dirt on your back. Your legs felt… wet. You were ice cold, with this weird sensation of floating in a cold river.

Morrigan stood over you, her one arm raised as she shouted, “Look! Look, you Noxium dogs, see what I have made of your Master now! Bow before your Red Queen, bow, ya shits, hahaha!!”

“MASTER!!!”

“BOSS NO!!”

“FUCKING FUCK IT!”

You felt the Noxium’s collective panic, as if they would fly in a frenzy to your defence.

“Stay back… don’t come any closer. Just get yourselves out of here. Get Diana to safety, s-she’ll watch over you all now.”

You felt their anguish, but they could not interfere. Not now that you had forbidden it.

But you would not go out like this. Not without a fight. Not without one final push.

You pushed and pushed, dug deeper than you had ever dug before into the deepest reaches where your frenzy resided. You felt it pulsing, raring to be free… you would not let it. You kept that cage locked tight. Yet, you did pull one tiny scrap of it out and let it fuel this last piece of defiance.

The flash of power, the last residues of Perfect Overdrive thumped so hard against your heart that you thought it may explode. Morrigan wasn’t paying attention. You rolled onto your side and, curling your leg around your wrist, you trapped it tight. With a brutal crunch you pulled your elbow straight and felt the fractured bone lock into place.

Sweeping along on your own axis, you snatched up your black blade one last time, and kicked. You took a page from Remhilde’s book, flipping into the air, allowing the **** to drive you into a deadly spin which came down on Lady Morrigan.

The red-haired Vampiress turned her head as if in slow motion and, like an eel wading through a dark current, she glided around to face you in a move so unnaturally fast that by the time you felt the shock, it was already over.

Morrigan extended her fist in a clean uppercut and as it met the Legendary Sword of Lugh, forged by the Vampire King himself, heirloom of your father and your father’s father for generations before, so rigid was her pale flesh and so devastating the blow that you felt the dark steel vibrate and bend.

An explosion of black shards and jagged, warped blade segments flew in all directions. You felt them pierce into the soft flesh of your face as the weight behind your hilt gave way.

You slapped into the ground with a wet thud, without the mercy of passing out. You felt every break, every fracture, every squelch of torn flesh.

You lay there, a ragged mess of flayed skin, twisted and missing limbs.

Overdrive flickered out. You could no longer draw breath. Your head was dipped back. You could see half the flaming ruin of your home and fighting below… and half the starry night sky, crested by the pale moon.

It came suddenly, not a quiet drift as you had hoped, but a sudden pull down into the gentlest, yet most violent clutches of **** that you had ever felt… You were gone.

But not before you felt something soft swish past your ear and a dull voice whisper, a nonsensical voice, yet soothing nonetheless. Something closed your mangled fingers around a hard shaft… this object called to you, sang to you.

But it was not you that answered.