Chapter Twenty

Lust’s Final Assault

      Christian was able to summon his katana before the flash in his palm dimmed away while Kenny was staring in horror at the pile of blood that was now around his feet. Shawn had to yank him back as another black wire slithered out again and his Protector had slashed it in defense. Ivan was beginning to hyperventilate when Kenny took him around the shoulders.

      “What in-in the hell is-is going on?”

      “There’s no time,” Christian was scanning the forest and the sky which was growing darker, “We have to get out of here now! I can’t transport anyone out.”

      “Of course not.” Shawn snidely remarked, aiming his gun around, “The best thing I can suggest is going toward the lake.”

      The heckles grew closer and Ivan shook more but Kenny kept his breathing level as the bushes started to rustle. Christian tore through the foliage as Kenny pulled Ivan to follow and Shawn came up behind. They could hear demonic hissing in the shadows and the sound of enormous flapping overhead but before they had made it to the lake, a skinless winged creature swooped from the sky and knocked Ivan into a stomp. Shawn shot his gun, but bullets didn’t eject.

      A blinding purple beam zig-zagged out the barrel and pierced the heart of the creature, combusting it to ash. Kenny ran over to Ivan to help him sit up and saw that his shoulder had been badly gashed and arm twisted.

      “Kenny, what’s happening?”

      “Remember that blue flash I saw over the City?” Kenny had taken off his button up and was pressing it against the gash, “There’s more to life than really meets the eye, especially with me.”

      “Oh shut up and let’s go!” Shawn yelled, noticing the sky swarming with winged creatures and funneling down into the forest. Kenny helped his classmate to his feet as they sprinted toward the other two, but something in the dirt shore of the lake shifted and under Kenny’s feet started simmering with heat. Ivan jumped over suddenly, knocking Kenny out the way, as the ground suddenly opened up and swallowed him with the same wires that killed Garison.

      “S**t!!” Shawn yelled as the ground closed up. Kenny had inched his way to Christian while his friend’s gun automatically added a scope on its top. He began shooting multiple zig-zagging beams that tore through the swarm and combusted into random spheres of purple irradiating light. But when a dozen were destroyed, hundreds multiplied in its place. Christian had encircled them in a fortress of blue flame from the throwing star and was slicing and slashing the creatures on the ground. Each time the blade hit, it flashed into a dozen more strikes around it.

      “What are these demented winged things?!” Kenny ducked and shielded his head as a few creatures swooped down.

      “They’re called sa’tans!” Christian answered, striking a few demonic creatures.

      “What?! You know what, don’t explain.” Shawn ejected a dozen more beams, creating more and more spheres of light, “I think I can blast a way out of here across the lake.”

      “What’s stopping you?” Christian had dodged a shrieking sa’tan as Shawn sucked his teeth, aimed his gun directly ahead of him and shot thirty beams rapidly. But when they all strung together creating a huge blast of sonic energy, the lake evaporated and they broke off into a dash toward the opening that was slowly closing. They jumped over bushes and stomps, fighting the darkness in the trees when the three headed snake looking scorpion demon plummeted on them. They hissed violently as Shawn blasted his and Kenny’s demon and Christian’s demon fell onto his sword. More began to rain down, as hopelessness set in when they saw their escape closing. The Protector immediately began attacking around them, whistling up the throwing star that sliced into a few scorpion creatures.

      “We can’t keep this up!” Shawn screamed, shooting more and more, “Where’s Percy?!”

      “It’s safe to say that if I can’t get out,” Christian diced two demons that sprung in the air, “He can’t get in whatever we’re trapped in.”

      Kenny noticed the huge funneling swarm expanding into a storm cloud that thundered and flashed from the inside. More demons fell from the trees in groups, trying to overpower their defenses, when Kenny had ducked again the shimmering white of his gauntlets etched out of his skin.

      “So what do we do then when we die in this goddamn forest?!”

      “Stop being so negative!”

      The two attacked and argued while Kenny peered down at his arms; the gauntlets were in full form and shimmering with radiant light. When the four blades sprung out, they began to slowly rev up, rotate and opened like a jet engine. And just everything started to overwhelm their attacks, Kenny uncontrollably stretched out his arm with the rotating gauntlets and a thunderous gong sound emitted with a blinding rippling wave of golden white energy following. Demons on the ground were obliterated into vapor while the funnel was shattered apart, beaming the light from the sunset.

      “Holy s**t, batman.” Shawn gasped.

      “Awesome.” Christian smiled, putting his sword at the ready as Kenny’s blades retracted back into the gauntlets, “You’re definitely worth saving. But we can’t just stand here-”

      A howling laughter of a women pierced the sky, startling the three, when in a split second Christian had conjured the blue dome of protection over them as a ball of fire and black energy hurled down on them. It splintered the dome and knocked Christian off his footing but Shawn had ran up, twisted the silencer to the right and a green electric beam began to seal the cracks. Kenny saw the trees in the park and hills were consumed with a blaze and a wall of fire was now towering over their protective dome his Protector was welding from the spinning star.

      But everything horrifically changed in front of Kenny’s eyes; two separate dark wires burst out the ground, wrapped around Christian’s ankles and Shawn’s legs while snatching them into the earth.

      “NO!” Kenny ran to the spots where they stood, no blue dome around him and his friend’s gun and Protector’s sword lay motionless on the ground.

      “What did you do to them?! I swear to God you better not hurt any of them! Give them back right now!” He screamed around into the darken sky burning with dancing flames. He half expected not to be answered but the ground shook and in the distance the wires burst out again, swimming in the sky like an eel, with Christian and Shawn at the ends of it, strangling their necks. They continued to fight themselves free but each squeeze made it harder to breath.

      “Oh, god.”

      “I don’t think any of them can save you now.”

      Kenny spun around and saw walking out the fire untouched, draped in a black cloak and hair flowing wildly in the wind, was the woman who attacked him on Halloween. Her voice was satisfied and sinister but calm and superior.

      “You have no idea how much of a headache it’s been to try and capture you. Who knew it would have only been a simple bout of jealousy that would drive you to reveal yourself.”

      As Valencia approached, the gauntlets began to blink away on his arms.

      “Ah, yes, that will do quit nice. Quit. Now be a good boy, and hand over that power that you don’t understand nor appreciate.”

      “I understand it completely.”

      She laughed sardonically.

      “You toy like an inexperienced mouse around a maze. Having no idea which end leads you to victory or to a dead end. I’ve been playing this game longer than you, my dear, and I will stop at nothing to obtain the power from Dark-El. Now, I won’t ask again.”

      She snapped her fingers and another figured walked out the fire to Kenny’s horror. William stopped between the two wires, touched both and electrified the two. Shawn refused to scream and Christian’s muffled groans sent panic through Kenny’s heart. He tried to extend his arm but the gauntlets had disappeared. Valencia laughed, swiped her hand to the ground and Kenny fell to his knees by an invisible force against his back.

      “Please, stop.” He begged, tears streaming down his face, “I’ll do anything, give you anything, just please stop killing them.”

      A gluttonous smile flashed across her face and without any words she swiped her hands at the wire holding Shawn and it released him by tossing him into through the trees. Another swiped and Christian was thrown to the ground with William stepping hard on his back.

      “I think we got everything we need here.” She said to William, who was smiling fully.

      “I agree.”

      And in a monstrous blast of black energy and smoke snaking around the four of them, they vanished through the sky like a crashing star.  

 

      Inside the Black Ice Fortress, the four of them had appeared when the room filled with intoxicating smoke before dissipating into the vast crater under the narrow crystal bridge. Valencia tossed Kenny carelessly onto the bridge while William was pulling Christian by the wire from his neck, his arms and ankles in shackles. His shirt was completely burnt off his body and his chest was badly scratched and bleeding from his head to his waist.

      “You’re a cowardly piece of s**t.” He muttered to William, who spun around and had the wires tighten on their own.

      “Just give me a reason to kill you.”

      “I’ve already…given…you several.”

      “Enough!” Valencia yelled over their exchange, “I don’t need this childish distraction while I summon the Dark-El’s power!”

      Christian staggered forward when the wired loosened abruptly but was forced to his hands and knees when William magically bounded him to the floor from his shackles. Kenny had managed to his feet and was looking into his Protector’s apologetic eyes. He hoped that the small compassionate smile gave Christian some comfort as Valencia’s body vibrated with black and red energy that thundered directly down beside Kenny, into the void beneath him. He tried to get his gauntlets to reactivate by muttering random words but none of them did anything.

      “Don’t lay a hand on him, witch!”

      William punched the Protector across the face, who just spit blood out his mouth and taunted him some more. But after a blood curdling scream echoed in the dome of ice, immeasurable hands of ash and brimstone rose around Kenny, tried to block his face hoping the gauntlets would appear.

      But Valencia stood steadfast with her arms outstretched as the ash hands pried Kenny off his feet and levitated him with his arms and legs glued together. Abruptly, the ash and brimstone encircled around his stomach before shooting into it. Excruciating pain seared through Kenny’s body and he couldn’t help but scream. It was feeling like every single organ was being shredded by a garbage disposal as a gut wrenching pull tugged vigorously at his stomach. He wanted nothing more than for this to be over and he could see his friends.

      A thought he knew would probably not come to pass unless a divine miracle jumped to his aid now. But Kenny still felt the pain and the pulling and noticed a blinding sparkle that was coming out of his stomach. The ash hands seemed to be stringing along strands of radiating light until the energy in Kenny’s body gave out, he was free from the levitation and collapsed half dead on the ground.

      He felt the wind leaving his lungs and consciousness slowly creeping away while he saw a small diamond above him, rotating in a divine shimmering glow. It illuminated the entire room as Valencia had lowered her arms in victory and rushed over to the seed of light. A hungry expression etched across her face,

      “For far too long have they kept me from this extraordinary energy. No longer can the whispers say that Love sold her soul for power since now, it’s only Lust and Power that live. That prevail. Only the strongest will succeed in this life and now I will finally have that which I’ve desired so long comparable to a voluptuous manhood. I’ll have power and success by my very own hands!” She caressed Kenny’s cheek vindictively, as he lay there suffocating.

      “It’s a shame that such a handsome boy fell into the void of disease before knowing what life he truly had ahead. A Host of such an awesome magnitude shouldn’t be contaminated. So, let me be your exterminator and house the power in a cleaner vessel. Soul seed, how precious and sweet you are. And now, alas, you’re mine.”

      But as Valencia reached to grab the soul seed, two acid laced bullets shot across her wrist. When she withdrew her hands and gasped, William had jumped in front of the seed and punched a blast the demoness crashing into the thick ice. Bits of ice fell from above as he quickly guided the seed back toward Kenny’s stomach without touching it before a loud and fierce yell came from the crumbling area of the wall.

      Kenny had shot back to full consciousness once the seed fully reentered him and noticed his ex-partner, towering over his laid out body, his gun pointed at Valencia. She stumbled into the lighted part with evil and anger consuming her entire body.

      “Traitor! You’ll die a horrible death for damaging my face!” She wiped off body from her lip as William aimed his sub machinegun toward her head.

      “Then let’s dance, b***h.”