Ummm...hi?
Okay, well this is more than a little humiliating, not to mention its like 1, and I am praying mother doesn't wake up and find me...
You have every right to throw rotten fruit at me. This is inexcusably late. All I can is, forgive me; I am a senior, and school had to take priority for quite a while. Plus my muse kind of vanished, and I kind of lost faith that anyone was still even looking at this story. But I got the kick in the butt I needed. Riseu, honey, thanks; this one's for you.
Enjoy!
Fire & Ice and Everything Nice Chapter 7: A Lesson in Squatter's Rights
I love when people underestimate me and then become pleasantly surprised. - Kim Kardashian
..:oOo:..
A fun fact for all those insofar reading this tale: most of the Amazon Rainforest remains unexplored by man.
What this means in spirit terms is that this melting pot of biodiversity and undiscovered wonders doubles as a supremely strong collection of natural energies from the lifeforces of so many living creatures left untouched by the corrosive influence of the modern age. For the purposes of the Guardians and the Pitchiners, it was the number one hiding place for a Selenian magician/warrior in hiding.
Deep under the dappled cover of the canopy, three blurs of blue, teal, and tawny flitted through the branches sharing carefree laughter as they risked leaving the other four of their party behind. Nia and Jack had started up a game of tag with Tooth as referee.
"Ack! No fair, Nia!" Whined the winter herald when the Huntress had him successfully tangled in a thick bunch of vines. She giggled from the curve of another vine, lounging in it as though it was a hammock. She laughed even more as Jack struggled.
"Aww, how cute - you actually think I'm gonna play fair!" She cooed mockingly, and her pouting lips did a number on Jack's heart rate. Nia swung closer on her vine, chucking Jack's chin with a purring chuckle. "Law of the land, Jackie - big fish eat little fish and so on and so forth. I don't write the rules; I just enforce them."
The winter child forced himself to not blush."Yeah, just so you can break them, I bet. And who you callin' a little fish?!" He demanded, struggling even harder against the vines. His staff was just out of reach, the crook hanging in the curve of one of the infuriating crawlers; he strained his fingertips towards it in vain. Meanwhile, Nia laughed at him with some more of that golden, musical, bad-girl giggle.
She surprised him when her slim fingers turned his chin towards her, the tips of her long nails just ghosting over the sensitive skin under his jaw. He shuddered from the sensation as well as the hint of warmth emanating from her skin. Just a taste of what it would be like to have her whole hand cup his face or trace his lips...
And oh, holy Moon, she was leaning in closer oh crapohcrapohcrap!
Finally, she whispered just inches from his mouth, her warm breath fanning over his lips, her scent of passion fruit and hibiscus making him dizzy. Her golden-green eyes seemed to lull him into putty in her hands, hypnotising him in their intensity. "Oh, I doubt that you're little in any way, Jack."
Holy. Frikkin'. Moon.
And just like that, she laughed and flitted away, as swift and graceful as a tropical bird, her hair turning to flames in the patches of sunlight.
Jack's mouth opened and closed with a really embarrassing choking sound. He was sure he looked like a dying flounder, so he shook his head and continued to to struggle in his leafy prison until he heard a soprano giggle off to his left. Stiffening in dread, he slowly turned and confirmed his fears; Tooth had seen everything.
The fairy queen tried to suppress her laughter behind her hand as her adoptive son flushed a shade of indigo she never thought she'd see on his face. It was no use. He was too adorable. She burst into laughter.
"Oh, Sweet Tooth! I have never seen you like this!" Tooth chortled as she started untangling him from the vines. Jack blushed even harder and threw his hood over his head when he was finally free and had his staff back securely in his hands.
"Like what, Tooth? Dunno what you're talking about..." He mumbled stubbornly, looking at everything but her and flitting away. Tooth shook her head, smiling fondly after him.
"Teenagers..." She chuckled under her breath, biting her lip and casting a glance down to the ground where Bunny and the others were trudging through the foliage on foot. Well, Sandy was floating - he simply shook his head when Nia and Jack had asked him to join in on their game, signing that they go ahead without him.
Speaking of that lovable narcoleptic star pilot, he was currently watching General Pitchiner's every move out of the corner of his eye, noting a great many similarities between him and his daughter. There was that pride in his raised chin and ramrod straight back. That spark of confidence in his intense, cat-like eyes. His long legs moved fluidly, his reaching gait eating up the trail, even as he dodged roots and vaulted over logs. His amber eyes flashed like steel blades as he constantly scanned his surroundings, as though expecting an attack to come from anywhere at any time.
Sandy internally rolled his eyes; military families...It seemed that asking either of the Pitchiners to relax or be still was like asking North to go on a diet. From his past interactions with the enigmatic Mother Nature, he suspected that nervous tics ran in the family. Ekaterina often played with the hems of her sleeves and twisted her bracelets. He'd seen Nia's fingers drumming any available surface or waving through the air as she talked. Kozmotis' habit appeared to be clenching and unclenching his fingers. All these little things appeared subconscious, and the jittery motions compared with his stoic silence made for a poor conversational mood.
But as usual, not even that could faze the determination of Nicholas St. North.
"So, Kozmotis, I vill be frank - I am curious as to your history." Began the Russian in a cheerful bellow. Bunny and Sandy shared an exasperated look; 'subtlety' was not in their friend's vocabulary.
"Oh?" Kozmotis said briefly as he ducked under a half-fallen branch. Apparently this was sufficient encouragement for North.
"Da! So many questions, about your home, about Manny! It iz fascinating - the idea of so many civilizations in de universe!"
"I'm guessing Bunnymund isn't exactly chatty on the subject." Kozmotis quipped, and the very action in and of itself was so alien coming from the man they had thought of as their enemy not twenty-four hours ago, the three Guardians paused for a second before continuing.
"Bunny?" North said "Ha! Iz like trying to force open vault door with bare hands! Can't get a word out of him!" Jested the Cossack with a nudge of his elbow aimed at the Pooka. The rabbit sucked on his teeth and stomped ahead, not dignifying the statement with a response.
Kozmotis shrugged, lifting a heavy bunch of Spanish moss out of his way. "What is it you want you know?"
North's eyes lit up like Christmas lights.
So began an interrogation that started with questions about the odd mix of technology and Victorian customs of their home planet, which Kozmotis said was called Selenia. It then developed into the exact mechanics of that technology and its power sources (solar energy and an abundant element called chandrium which was also mined from asteroids and dwarf planets, but it didn't stop there. Selenians, with support from the Pooka, had figured out how to cultivate the energy given off by stars). Eventually even Bunny got roped into the conversation with questions about the wildlife and vegetation of the planet (he'd never gotten the chance to visit the land of the Moon-Drinkers, as their people were nicknamed), which was actually only half the size of Earth and had three moons instead of just one. It also turned out that the orbit of Selenia was ten times as long as that of Earth. One Selenian year equaled about ten-and-a-half Earth years, which meant that Nia was not in fact sixteen, as she had led Bunny to believe; she was 160. And Kozmotis was 370, at which North had scoffed.
"Is bluff! Nia iz sixteen, which means her sister iz twenty; you cannot be dat young, even if you somehow look it..." North said, mumbling that last bit enviously. Kozmotis only smirked superiorly.
"I can be if I married at seventeen. Which I did." Bunny blinked as the spry General easily jumped a pit of quicksand, processing his statement.
"S-seventeen?!" The Pooka finally squawked, jumping over the pit himself to catch up with the other man. "Why the hell wouldja do that?!" He demanded; his own people weren't allowed to marry until they had passed their rites of adulthood and gotten their marks. Jack, who had been listening in to the conversation along with Tooth, laughed at Bunny's horror.
"Relax, Cottontail, in my day it was normal for a guy my age to have a wife and a two kids! I was lucky not to get carted off with someone 'cause Burgess was still tiny and all the kids my age were either guys or from the Mohawk tribe close by!"
Kozmotis laughed as well. "Well, I wasn't so lucky. In fact, I didn't even get a say in the matter; at that point, arranged marriages were a dying trend, but a few of the aristocratic families still did it, on occasion. Eurybia and I were such a case." He said, saying his deceased wife's name with love and infinite sadness.
Apparently, Nia had a penchant for sniffing out any unhappiness that happened to come near her father, and a talent for chasing it away; she chose that precise moment to drop out of the trees, hanging upside down on a branch right in her father's face.
"Ooh, I love that story! Tell it, Daddy, please~?" She begged, clasping her hands in front of her and making those irresistible puppy dog eyes. Kozmotis rolled his own eyes with a fond smile and tweaked her nose.
"I've told you that story so many times, I'm sure you could recite it by heart. Backwards." He stated, and ducked under her head. Nia pouted and flipped off the branch.
"But you tell it better!"
"Get over it!" He called back, at which Jack snickered and Nia huffed.
The Huntress turned to the Guardians, and promptly began regaling them with anecdotes of her father's youth, including the bumpy start of his marriage. Much to Kozmotis' mortification, she had them in stitches in three minutes flat.
He pressed his lips together and rolled his eyes. Why the hell is she such a vengeful, proud little blowhard?! Oh, wait...
She got it from him. Stupid, perfect geneti-
What was that?
Amber-and-steel eyes narrowed as a reflective glint caught his attention some five feet away, lodged in the branch of a tree. He plucked the tiny disc from the bark and squinted at it; it was about the size of his thumbnail, and seemed to be some kind of very stiff feather, almost like a scale. It was canary greenish yellow, with a dazzling teal sheen.
This was not from any of Kathy's creatures.
"Nia," he called, still holding the feather. The teen snapped her head his way, warning bells going off in her head at his tone. She flitted to his side. He showed her the feather. "Please tell me this isn't what I think it is."
Nia's feline eyes widened in alarm as she pinched the feather between her fingers and turned it this way and that in the light. She gave it a sniff, and her eyes widened even more.
"It's fairly fresh. Two, three days old."
"I thought you said you ran them back to Aztec lands."
"I did. Quetz must've thrown a hissy fit and led them right back. Argh, I'm gonna KILL HIM if he dared go back to those mountains!" Nia shrieked with a stomp of her foot, but instead of making her look like a whiny teen, the impact of her boot made the ground quiver a little. The trees groaned quietly as though in agreement.
Kozmotis arched a brow as he cast a glance at the trees. "Well, at least your sister has our backs. Now, these mountains Quetzalcoatl and his minions might be at, they wouldn't happen to be the same ones we have to search, right?" Kozmotis asked with very little hope.
Nia's tight-lipped, fuming look was more than answer enough.
The General sighed. "Yeah, I knew we couldn't be so lucky. Well, might as well go have a crack at them and skip the reconnaissance." He sniffed with a shrug. He spun on his heel and continued into the jungle, leaving one irritated Keeper and five very concerned Guardians. Tooth was the first to react.
"Q-Quetzalcoatl?" She squeaked, her own feathers beginning to ruffle in agitation. Jack looked back and forth between her and Nia, who was scowling and drumming her fingers against her arms pensively.
"Who?" He asked simply. Bunny gave him an incredulous, impatient look.
"Quetzalcoatl, Frostbite. The Feathered Snake, once worshipped by the Aztecs, Toltecs, and other cultures as the god of creation and intelligence. 'Course after the Europeans began colonizing his lands and converting the natives to Christianity, belief in him fizzled out and he and his children had to flee."
"But they fled here, where their presence was doing all harm and no good." Nia growled, glaring at the feather being strangled between her fingers. "I felt bad for him, I really did, but he was destroying mountains that were a key pool of magical energies and killing off the local tribes. He'd gone completely round the bend from lack of believers; stark, raving mad! It took me days to drag him and his brood back to Anáhuac, and weeks to fix the damage they'd done and coax the animals to return!" She spat, throwing down the feather in disgust. "If he dared come back with his ilk to stir up trouble, he'll have me to deal with." On that promise, she spun on her heel just as her father had and stormed off, scurrying up a tree and leaping ahead in the branches, as agile as a squirrel.
Jack's eyes followed her appreciatively (even furious, she was a dreamy sight) until Bunny smacked him upside the head.
"Owuh! What the hell was that for?!" He hissed, rubbing his stinging scalp. The Pooka merely glared down at him and snarled under his breath,
"What'd I tell you about oglin' a lady, eh?!"
"Jeez, Bunny, ya jealous or something?" Jack snorted, though a subconscious (and rather idiotic, not to mention paranoid) male instinct told him that perhaps his statement was not unjustified.
Bunny only scoffed. "More like concerned. Take it from someone who knows 'er well, Frostbite; Nia ain't one to be tangled with. She has a foul temper to match yours, and I don't want either of you comin' out hurt if you two get inta some kind o' disagreement. Not to mention her pop's still the Boogeyman as of now, and her big sis is Mother Nature. Your boss. If I were you, I'd stick to lookin' but no touchin'." He said with a poke to Jack's shoulder before following Kozmotis into the underbrush. Jack glared pensively after his surrogate brother, looking down at his toes. He felt North's big paw squeeze his shoulder in comfort.
"Bunny iz just looking out for you, Jack. You should heed his words."
The winter prince looked up at his father figure, seeing Tooth hovering silently but worriedly behind the Russian. He gave both of them a reassuring smile.
"Okay, North. Don't worry, I'll be good this one time."
..:oOo:..
The hike into the nameless mountain range took about three hours. North and Kozmotis had, of course, left their heavy coats with the sleigh, but the humidity still dripped down their faces and necks, and Nia made a quick detour to a branch of the river to get them a canteen of water. Luckily, Tooth's feathers didn't give her any grief, Bunny and Jack were protected from heatstroke by Nia's spell, Nia herself seemed to enjoy the tropical climate, and Sandy, well, Sandy was basically immune to weather because he was just that awesome.
The whole hike, Nia instructed all six to keep their eyes peeled for any traces of the Aztec god and his minions. Much to her fury, they found plenty more of the scale-feathers the higher they climbed up the range. Whilst watching for the snakes, they kept their sixth senses (that is, the sensitivity to magical energies that all Legends have) on hyper alert for any glamours or ward schemes the mountains might hide. Kozmotis described Nightlight's aural signature as a clear, sharp sensation of sweet coolness. Jack, who was completely untrained in any sort of magic besides the instinctual elemental powers he used for both his jobs (no one had ever exactly offered to teach him in the past 300 years), had no idea what to make of that.
It wasn't until they were near the summit that all hell broke loose.
Nia had taken spear point beside Kozmotis since they were on a ledge trail that crawled up the mountainside with the others close behind them. North was bringing up the rear. A foreign sound, like burlap being rubbed against bark, caught Nia's attention. Nostrils flaring, she peeked discreetly over her shoulder towards the foliage to their right.
A flash of turquoise green was all the warning anyone had.
The blur of snarling, hissing feathers came striking out of the ferns right at Tooth's head. The fairy queen shrieked and ducked, kicking the assailant away towards the ledge. The group of spirits backed away from the creature as it reared up on the coils of its twenty-foot long, feathered body, the dazzling teal, yellow, and green scales ruffling against each other to produce a sound like a thousand tiny razors sliding against each other. The head was wide and flat with unblinking cranberry red eyes that glared piercingly at them and a flaring collar of sapphire, teal, emerald, and golden feather-scales bristled just behind its head. A pale forked tongue flicked out of its mouth, which opened to hiss gruesomely and flash a pair of gleaming, three-inch-long fangs.
The seven spirits brandished their weapons as the serpent swayed on its coils, feathers dancing entrancingly.
Nia suddenly hissed violently at the Quetzal, baring her teeth and tightening the string of her bow, in which an arrow sparked and fizzled threateningly. The snake hissed back just as furiously, and then made a clicking sound that could only be described as laughter.
"Behind!" Nia shrieked, whirling in the nick of time to shoot down another lunging snake with a crack of fire and magic. The first one struck as well, but was promptly sliced in two by Kozmotis' war scythe. The Big Five very nearly fumbled their weapons as a wave of the snarling Quetzals came slithering from the trees and foliage, striking with dizzying speed for creatures of their girth.
Jack went back-to-back with Bunny and slapped away one of the serpents with his crook, coating half of its head in ice. It writhed in shock and agony, hissing at him before suddenly snapping its tail around and catching him at the chest, knocking him into Bunny and sending both of them sprawling. The iced Quetzal snarled nastily at them, preparing to strike, only for its head to be impaled into the ground by the lance-like cap of Nia's bow. "
Aim for their heads, and whatever you do, don't let them wrap around you!" She instructed, her pupils blown with adrenaline. With that, she darted off to back up Sandy, who alternated between hurling the vipers over the cliff and bashing them against trees with his whips.
Jack and Bunny shared a nod and scrambled back into the fray, braining Quetzals with staff and boomerangs.
Kozmotis, meanwhile, had gotten stuck with one of the more clever serpents. He ducked under another fluid strike and tricked it into crashing into a tree more than once. He'd changed his scythe into a shortsword, having realized that using a long range weapon against the insufferable creatures' speed was foolish. He sliced at the serpent as it struck once again and was rewarded with a shrieking hiss of pain and a shake of its head. It glared vengefully at him with the eye it had left, the other now a mess of blood and fluids crawling down its muzzle.
He grinned and bared his sharp teeth with a hiss.
With a roar of fury, the Quetzal struck; Kozmotis met him halfway and used its head as a platform to spring into a somersault, flip, twist his wrist, and with the sound of tearing muscles and snapping bones, the Quetzal's head rolled away, the body twitching as the decapitated neck sprouted blood. Kozmotis simply flicked the gore from his blade and caught sight of Toothiana about to be ambushed from the trees as she struggled with two opponents at once. He rushed in, shouting a warning in time for her to see the assailant, but she couldn't do a thing without being killed by the other two. A millisecond passed in which they shared a minuscule nod.
Tooth whirled with an undercut that crushed the ambushing Quetzal's skull and splattered its brains all over the queen's misleadingly slender fist. In the same instant, Kozmotis jumped between her and the two other serpents, spinning in a roundhouse kick that sent one flying away with a collapsed windpipe while he stabbed the other with his sword. North finished off the asphyxiating Quetzal with one swoop of his sabre and met another with a blade through the mouth and out the head.
Jack and Bunny had come up with a beautiful tag-team system; Jack was in the air, dive-bombing the snakes that Bunny attacked as a distraction. With a wave of his staff the Quetzals became living ice sculptures that Bunny would promptly dispatch with a kick of his powerful legs, shattering them to pieces. The mess would be gruesome once it melted...
And to top the whole sundae, the damn overgrown garden worms just kept on coming! Kozmotis growled as he wrestled one into a headlock, gave a twist of his arms and let the limp body flop.
"Nia! There's too many of them!" He called out as his daughter dispatched two Quetzals at once. She had one in a Full Nelson and the other squirming between her thighs. With a squeeze of the deceptively strong limbs and a twist of her torso, she snapped that one's neck before turning to the one in her arms and biting its neck in two.
She jackknifed to her feet and spat out a glob of feathers and blood, grasping her bow once more and going back to back with her father, body tensed for another attack. "They're not gonna stop unless I can get to Quetzalcoatl!" She growled in frustration, shooting a charging Quetzal and then shouting towards the jungle, "Come out and face me you overgrown chicken!"
The only answer was another wave of serpents.
"Well, at least he knows how to roll out a welcome wagon." Kozmotis puffed, to which Nia only scoffed, and then blocked a striking Quetzal by throwing up his arm. The serpent expected to feel flesh rendering and bones snapping under the strength of its jaws, but instead felt one of its fangs crack as it bit only metal. Kozmotis' wrist cuff had blocked the deadly strike. His sword split the creature's head from its body in its half-second of confusion.
Nia decided that enough was enough when a Quetzal charged at her, and she charged right back with a war cry, her bow levelled like a lance. Before she could bring it down and shish-ka-bob the impudent bugger, it dodged to the side and knocked her down with its coils, wrapping around her in a flash and flexing its bands of titanic muscle to literally squeeze the life out of her.
Nia's eyes widened in alarm, and she struggled but didn't scream; she'd only aid the thing in collapsing her chest. The vile creature's vivid red eyes leered at her as it hissed and clicked in macabre glee. Looking around, everyone else had their own opponent to beat back; none of them could help her. The Huntress set her teeth. She arched her back and wriggled her arm where it had been pinned awkwardly to her chest. The Quetzal's fangs drew closer, reeking of acidic venom. Her breaths came shorter. Her vision danced with black flashes. Another inch. Her limbs went cold, then numb. Another inch.
There.
Nia's clawed hand shot out from the serpent's coils and gripped its throat, crushing its windpipe and shocking it into relaxing its muscles. She kicked free in seconds, wrapping her legs around it and locking her ankles while she rolled over to pin it in her hands as it writhed and choked, unable to breath, just as she had not two seconds ago. Her golden eyes burned furious and feral - a terrible, glorious beauty as raw as the heartbeat of the earth.
Nia roared as she pounded the serpent's head into the stone. One bash was all it took for its skull to collapse.
She kicked the body away and snatched up her bow with a snarl of determination. The Huntress made a beeline for the jungle, dodging strikes and bludgeoning tails as she did. She made it into the trees and leapt into the canopy, swinging and jumping from branch to branch with ridiculous ease, quickly leaving behind her father and the Guardians; they would hold out until she'd finished with Quetzalcoatl.
Jack noticed Nia's absence at the same time Kozmotis did. "Where's she going?!" He demanded as he formed a wicked icicle on the butt of his staff and let the viper striking at him impale its head on it.
Kozmotis slashed at two Quetzals and kicked away a third. "To deal with Quetzalcoatl! It's the only way these blasted worms will let us be!"
"Shouldn't we help her?!" Jack yelped as he jumped over a Quetzal's strike so it would crash into the tree behind him.
"No," Kozmotis grunted as he crushed a serpent's skull under his steel-plated boot. "This is Nia's fight - she works alone. Even if the little brat does turn me gray with worry."
"Ah, I can finally see see where she gets those anger issues from." Bunny grunted as he knocked two Quetzals' heads together.
Right at that moment, a bloodcurdling roar came screaming over the trees, and with it, the crack of Nia's bow as it shot bolt after bolt of fire.
A crunching, cracking, and thudding built up, coming closer and closer to where Kozmotis and the Guardians were mopping up the remaining Quetzals. The last one standing realized it was cornered at the cliff edge and struck at them desperately. Tooth, seeing an opportunity, snuck into the air above it, shot down over the trapped viper, and snatched it up by the tail. The fairy queen struggled under the weight but persisted in lifting the squirming, panicking creature, giving it a spin, and then tossing it with a grunt down to the unforgiving ground.
"Cheers, Toothy." Bunny grinned with a playful salute as she fluttered back to them. She was glad that her face was already pink from exertion; it hid her blush at the Pooka's compliment. She tsked and flapped her hand dismissively.
"Eh, I've swatted bigger flies."
"Uh, guys?" Jack said with growing alarm as he pointed towards the jungle. The trees in the distance were shivering and cracking as they toppled. The ground shook subtly as a titanic weight pounded down on it repeatedly. The uproar was accompanied by savage, shrieking roars and the supersonic THWACKs of Nia's bow.
Kozmotis swallowed thickly. He trusted his little girl; really, he did. He knew she was a woman in her own right. She'd had 3,000 years to get very good at her job. Her powers had grown astonishingly, were still mid-growth spurt, if the old texts were to be trusted. She was strong, intelligent, wily as a fox, and trained by the best of the best. But his paternal instinct was going crazy. He couldn't help but be pessimistic. What if she got hurt, what if she bit off more than she could chew, the way both of them were so prone to do? What if he lost her?!
His sword shook in his hand.
It didn't help matters when there was a particularly strong tremor and then a fast-moving speck came shooting out from the jungle, growing larger and louder as it approached. Kozmotis' eyes widened.
"Nia!"
The Huntress' impact with the ground was so forceful, she actually bounced before rolling to a stop with a groan.
"Mac soith...I'm gonna kill that drama queen." Nia spat as she sat up with a hiss. She was covered in dust and scrapes with dozens of large scale-feathers littered over her. Kozmotis rushed to her and helped her to her feet. His eyes were livid, but his voice was (relatively) calm.
"Are you alright? Anything broken, bleeding?"
Nia shook her head with a cough, dust puffing from her mouth. She spit with a whine of disgust and cracked her back before taking up her bow, strapping it to her back, and glaring towards where she had been tossed from. "Alright. No more Miss Nice Girl."
Nia drew the hunting knife on her thigh and surveyed the ground they were on. "Compass points?" She asked of no one in particular. Kozmotis answered, though he was trying to guess what plan was brewing in her head.
"True North is that way. What're you planning?" He demanded after pointing over the mountains.
"Oh, just a little present for our feathered friend." Nia purred and took a few paces in the direction her father had indicated. She stabbed her knife into the ground and gouged a strange, twisting symbol into the dirt. She quickly went to the points for South, East, and West and carved similar runes in the earth. She connected the compass with a large circle, and at the center, she made an elaborate pentacle, muttering in Latin.
The tension of the clearing mounted and mounted as the unseen force crashing through the jungle came closer and closer. The six spirits stood in a unified front as Nia finished the circle and stood, sheathing her knife and drawing the string of her bow once more, an arrow materializing with an eager hiss and the thrum of a storm cloud itching to lash out upon the earth.
"Seriously, Red, whatever you're planning, it better work." Jack muttered as he fiddled with his grip on his staff.
Nia grinned. "Just follow my lead, Jackie." She purred as body tensed into a crouch, her sleek, roiling muscles twitching with anticipation. She had performed this dance too often to not know it as intimately as she did, to not fear it, as she did not.
One could say that Death would be surprised should he ever need to collect Nia's immortal soul.
The clamor neared and then crescendoed. The wall of trees directly in front of them was suddenly trampled spectacularly by a massive body that rippled and danced with thousands and thousands of those scintillating scale-feathers. A crest of ruby, orange, sapphire, and gold arced over the robust head like the crowns of the Emperors who had once revered him, and his eyes were like pools of freshly-spilled blood such as of the virgin sacrifices that had once been made in his name, many centuries ago. His fangs were like ivory as they snarled from behind his curled maw, as long as elephant tusks and twice as sharp. He was well over two hundred feet long, and as thick around as a baobab tree.
He was Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Snake, Elder God of the Aztecs.
..:oOo:..
Was I intimidated at all by the titanic body, the near-dazzling scales, the heart-stopping blood red eyes, and the promise of a swift and painful end his mere presence seemed to presage?
Meh. I'd seen worse.
But I could tell the others were intimidated. Obviously, they'd never had a direct confrontation with old Quetz, there. Even Dad seemed slightly alarmed by the sheer size of the eldritch god, though I knew there to be far fiercer and larger beasts in the far reaches of the Star Seas.
"Okay, just help me get him over the pentacle inside the circle, I'll do the rest. Hey, birdbrain!"
The towering viper swung his great head around to glare at me indignantly.
"Get your ugly carcass OFF - MY - MOUNTAIN!"
"HUNTRESSSSS! YOU SHALL PAY FOR CROSSSSING ME!" He thundered, his voice an ugly mix of rasp, hiss, and roar.
I only chuckled. "Still gotta work on that lisp, Quetzy-poo!"
The serpentine god's eyes widened at the insult, and lunged without further ado.
The others jumped out of the way, thankfully, and I hopped on the wind, racing up to Quetzalcoatl's head. I let hell loose on that grouchy old snake, a steady stream of arrows snapping away from the sight of my bow to the eldritch creature below. The strikes exploded against his hide and sent scales flying like confetti, charring the surrounding armor. Jack was running parallel to me, coating entire sections of the god's hide with sheets of sharp, crackling ice. Tooth swooped across Quetz's vision, taunting him as well as distracting him, which was aided by North's and Bunny's efforts of zigzagging across the ground, also bellowing insults while Sandy's whips lashed across Quetz's back from the air, tearing at his armor and skin with thundering cracks. I didn't see my dad until I noticed a blur of darkness zipping up the huge serpent's back; it leapt a good thirty feet in the air and the massive black blade of a war scythe swung true and stabbed into a chink in the scales, sinking a good three feet into Quetz's muscles. The god's crest flared and his cranberry eyes widened almost comically as he threw his back and roared in outrage and pain.
"WHOOO! GO, DAD!" I cheered and hit Quetz right in the schnozz with a firebolt right as he craned his head back to try and catch sight of his attacker. Dad used the opportunity to pull his scythe free and blow me a kiss before retreating and watching for his next opening, long legs carrying him swiftly across the ground as he dodged Quetz's writhing body.
I assessed the damage so far; none of us were injured, but Quetzalcoatl was. He was covered in ice and charred feathers, and missing more than one patch of the pretty outer armor. But the inner layers were simply too thick and tough for us to continue trying to hack through - my dad had gotten lucky and found a chink (or it could've been his years and years of military training, either one). Plus he was still too far away from the pentacle. I was gonna have to do a close-up.
"Jack!" I called, and within seconds, he was beside me, staff crackling and glowing with Winter's biting wrath.
"Watcha need, Red?" He asked, snowflake eyes bright with the fervor of battle, grin subtle but wry. I grinned right back.
"Help me make 'im mad?" I cooed, and watched in delight as his smile grew to mirror my own. (Oh gods, he was so cute).
"With pleasure~" He growled, and zipped down on a cold gale to divebomb Quetzalcoatl's face. With a swing of his crook, a wave of ice daggers hit him full force, right in the eyes. His scream shook the mountains and he shuddered with pain, thick golden blood ebbing from his clenched eyes, now ruined.
"Beautiful Jack! OY, QUETZY!" I shouted from above to cover Jack's retreat. His head snapped blindly in my direction, fangs dripping and hissing like a volcano primed to explode. "Love the new look, darling, is it permanent?"
He roared something in the old Aztec language and coiled into a spring to leap in my general direction. I dodged in the nick of time, his snapping jaws flashing by with speckles of golden blood and the distinctly pungent odor of his venom. He crashed back down to the ground, but upside down and all tangled up. Dad and North struck, racing up Quetz's body, blades flashing in the noonday sun. Dad leapt and North ducked; the old Cossack's twin sabres stabbed repeatedly down into Quetz's armor as he went, past the chinks of the second layer and drinking deep into his vulnerable flesh. Dad, ever ambitious, kept going up to the snake's thrashing head and springboarded from his bottom jaw.
The scythe swung and there was a sound like shattering porcelain. More golden blood, venom, and shards of something scattered from Quetz's mouth as he screamed in pain and rage, his ears helping him follow my dad's flight path over his head and the ground behind him. He was cursing in the Aztec tongue, his titanic voice carrying for miles; whatever he was saying, I was sure it would make a sailor blush. Dad for his own part cackled in mischievous delight and made his escape, clutching something in his fist. I'd have to ask to see it later, because his fall had landed Quetzalcoatl right where I wanted him: just inside the pentacle.
I landed on his body; he felt the impact and craned his head to strike at me while he could. I pressed my right hand to his body and raised the other towards the Northern sky. A flurry of Latin passed my lips, and before Quetzalcoatl could snap me up, there was a burning flash of red light before we both vanished.
...
The whole giant snake thing he could handle.
But not sudden teleportation.
"Nia!" Kozmotis shouted when the red flare of light died down and there no giant snake or triumphant Huntress to be seen. The pentacle Nia'd carved into the ground was gone as well, having left only an enormous scorch mark. "Mac SOITHE! Nia, tú bómán, ní níos fearr leat a bheith marbh!" He spat and clenched his fist to dissolve his scythe and promptly began to pace in agitation. He really would rather not have to bury his daughter one day into their stupid little road trip. Gods, Eurybia must be ripping her hair out and wanting to strangle them both up there somewhere.
"Um, was that supposed ta happen?" Bunny asked almost rhetorically, pointing towards the scorch mark. Koz scoffed and shook his head.
"That idiot child - she's always wanting to bite off more than she can chew. And why in the frozen hells did she not tell me she was studying wiccan magic?!"
Jack perked. "I thought those symbols looked familiar." Everyone turned to stare at him incredulously, and when he noticed he waved his hands in nervous denial. "I-I mean, I've only seen them once, way back in the 1700s. Witches were still around and a few of them practiced out in the open woods, ya know?"
With that question answered, they went back to waiting for Nia and hoping she and Quetzalcoatl hadn't been scattered to ashes in the ether.
They didn't have to wait long; with another flash of red light, Nia reappeared, covered in red dust, scale-feathers, and flecks of golden blood.
She straightened out of her crouch and brushed off her arms, muttering fussily, "Ugh, bloody monsters, why can't they die a nice clean death for once?"
"Nia!"
She winced and braced herself when Kozmotis snatched her up and hugged her within an inch of her life before giving her a shake. "You little fool, you could've gotten yourself killed! Honestly, if this is what you do in my presence, I don't want to know what you get up to out there without any supervision! Oh, and you wonder why you turned me gray..." He rambled, but softened and hugged her at the end. Nia hugged him back, looking like she'd enjoyed every second of his scolding, as if she was getting to enjoy something she'd been denied for a long time. Which was exactly the case.
"Worrywart," she teased, "I'm fine. And don't be a hypocrite, you did worse when you were younger than me."
Koz sighed in exasperation but grinned and stroked her cheek. "True enough. Ugh, tú laoch beag dÚsachtach."
"Do laoch dÚsachtach." She teased, giggling before clapping his shoulder and brushing away some of the dust she'd accidentally rubbed onto his clothes.
"Right then, let's get moving peeps; the giant snake-god wasn't part of the tour program and we still have a lot of ground to cover. Let's get moving!" She urged with a little twirling of her hand and waved everyone towards what remained of the game trail.
"That is probably for best." North grumbled and wiped at his brow with his sleeve, leaning on one of his sabers. Bunny chuckled, though he was rubbing the tops of his sore thighs.
"Getting too old for the battlefield, Nick?"
North scoffed. "You are no spring chicken yourself, my friend."
Jack, meanwhile, went up to Nia, who had paused to clean herself further with a canteen produced from her pouch. She had a streak of red dirt across her, her hair was a thorn bush, and her forearms were painted with scrapes. Somehow, she pulled it off flawlessly. Her gleaming eyes looked up at him as he approached and she smiled; something in his heart went thump.
"Heya Jack," "Hey Nia. You did awesome."
She shrugged it off and took a chug of the canteen. "Just doin' my job. You were awesome, too - loved the ice daggers."
Cue internal screaming. Gods, since when was he such a girl?
"Thanks." He mumbled, for lack of anything smoother, briefly glancing from her to the ground and back.
Her smile quirked for a second, and she tilted her head to the side like a cat considering a struggling bird in a snare. But her eyes softened, and her smile became wistful.
Then the spell crumbled once more and she snapped her eyes to the ground, shaking her head slightly. Jack blinked a few times, confused by the sudden unreadable smoothness of her face.
"We should go." She whispered, running her fingers through her snarls of hair in a way that was almost...anxious.
Jack watched her walk away. The gears upstairs were churning faster than a stray bullet. Nia hadn't reacted like that until just now, when he'd thanked her. Something in her eyes had been almost sad.
What about him could possibly remind her of something that made her so abruptly cold?
...:oOo:...
Aw, Jack don't be discouraged - it's not your fault she has a horrible, pain-riddled history that you coincidentally remind her of...*evil grin* But more on that later. Next time, on Fire & Ice: The road trip continues, and Sandy draws a few conclusions ;)
P.S: I now have a tumblr! My url is the same as my penname, ask anything you like about the story and the characters, I will answer. But no spoilers!
Please review!
