Chapter 21 The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed

Max

April 24, 2014

Unknown

Unknown

Elysium

After subsequently destroying the conduits of the heart on the tree, our struggle was far from done. We had been teleported to somewhere a little less paradise and a little more wasteland. The atmosphere and temperature was more humid than the deserts of Nevada and Arizona. The three of us had been transported to some land with molten ground and blazing lava. Never did I think Elysium would take us to a place more like hell than heaven. But like Nathan said, the world of Elysium can be whatever it wants to be. Can't imagine who would want to live in a volcanic wasteland after death, however.

The three of us stand around in the volcanic area puzzled. We had just destroyed the three conduit to escaping this world and we were trapped in an imaginary land turned hellhole. Were we missing something? If we weren't, we still wouldn't be here.

"What the fuck, Max?" Chloe griped. "Where are we now?! I thought we did everything we were supposed to do! Where is here anyway?"

"I don't know, Chloe," I admit. "Wherever we are, it's pretty...volcanic here. It feels hotter here than a boiling pot of stew. Who the fuck would want to live here after death?"

"Uh, guys," said Rachel. "Look over there."

Rachel pointed out far into the distance where another conduit was in our sights. This time, the conduit was even larger than the ones we deconstructed. This conduit was huge. It was the size of a boulder and it stood on top of a tall platform above a narrow pit of lava. There was bridge of some kind that would allow us to get across the narrow pit. We destroy the conduit, we save the world from mayhem and get out of here.

"There's our last conduit," said Rachel. "It's huge. If we destroy that, then that'll be our way off this one way trip for good."

"Your right, Rachel," I said. "It's been a hell of a ride, but now it's time to get off this one way trip and stop this time fracture for good. Time to end this nightmare once and for all."

"You said it," said Chloe.

Before we could walk one inch to the conduit, we see someone emerge from the smoke on the molten ground. We held our guns up at the figure approaching. It was no other than the man, the menace, and the monster himself, Derrick Crosby. The man was stripped out of half his leather with his jacket and coat missing and only his pants still be worn. The bedeviling maniac himself approached us in clear view. Staring down at us with a sickening grin.

"I should've killed you months ago...Max," hissed Crosby.

"You're mistake," I blunt. "It's over, Crosby!"

"Over?" the man giggled.

The egomaniac chuckled with a malicious laughter.

"I'm just getting started," said Crosby.

Crosby throttled his fist into the burning ground and something out of the ground came swarming onto his arm. Some kind of organic matter mounting on Crosby's arm had been wrapping around him like a dozen jungle snakes slithering around a tree branch. The material began devouring his skin from his arm to his harness.

The organic matter caressed his arm into a goop of parasites and transformed his hand into a razor sharp blade the size of a battle axe with spiky metal now growing out of his parasitic arm like an Iguana. The organic matter frenzied his harness into a dark parasitic matter and ignited his chest into an inferno heart. Then his skin stained into black mold. Whatever the fuck Crosby was turning himself into, however the fuck he was doing, it was just a metamorphosis of the monster Crosby dreamed of being.

"Time to die, Max!" growled the demonic Crosby.

The three of us stood there in shock and awe. Still holding our guns up high. Now things were really getting over the top with Crosby morphed into a Universal movie monster. Before we knew it, the half man and half monster began attacking by rampantly swinging his sharp tentacle around. We start shooting at the morphed up Crosby, but our bullets don't put a ding or a dent on the man that one-hundred percent lost all his sense of sanity, reality, and humanity.

"Why can't you understand, Max?!" growled Crosby. "Do you really believe the world is worth saving?!"

"Fall back!" I order to Chloe and Rachel.

We all run away from the Crosbeast and over to a bridge that overpasses the lava pit. When we're on the bridge, Rachel and Chloe make it across, but I don't. The rocky bridge collapses on my feet and I fall through to lower ground on the lava pit. Thank goodness for lower ground or otherwise I would've been cooked into a deep fried chicken. I recover from my fall as Crosby leaps over to my ground away from Chloe and Rachel.

"Max, get to high ground!" warned Chloe.

I do exactly what Chloe tells when I see the higher platform that would take us to the main conduit. There was a ramp that would take me to higher ground and retreat from Crosby. I did just that to run away from Crosbitch. This fight with Crosby in a volcanic wasteland began to remind me of the Anakin and Obi-Wan duel from Revenge of the Sith. And it did. Call me Ms. Master of Film References.

"Natural selection leaves the living stronger and better!" snarled Crosby, still whip lashing his sharp tentacle. "Humans have escaped this winnowing for far too long!"

Once I had the high ground, I couldn't underestimate Crosby's power as he leaped onto the higher platform where my feet were now tangible on using his tentacle axe as a boost. Chloe and Rachel were on the other side and I was left alone between a bloodthirsty Lex Luthor aspirant and a puny hipster turned action heroine. Crosby's flaming heart appeared to be vulnerable but there was no way I could shoot it our with the organic matter infecting him that had been protecting his chest and I had less than all the ammo in the world to attempting shooting through the matter.

Luckily, Rachel was a good enough shot to bring him down. Crosby's inferno chest was more exposed from his back than his front allowing Rachel to get a clear angle from behind.

"I got him, Max!" shouted Rachel on comm.

Rachel's bullet from her FAMAS rifle penetrated into Crosby's that instantly damaged him, but only for him to be upgraded with more organic matter growing out of him. Crosby had grown another super organic tentacle arm with four organic claws. That bullet to the back was a start, but no where near cigar. The more monster than man himself leaped twenty feet in the air with his tentacle boost to land on Chloe and Rachel's ground. Now he was after the other girls.

"Damn you!" the monster snapped. "War and pestilence wherever you go! Everywhere, nothing but loathsome humans!"

The two girls retreat from the Crosbitch monster as he kept mumbling his self-infliction and shot him couple time just to attain to my location. The could just deal with him on their own. They needed their fire support and I was all they had to be.

"Max, shoot that mother fucker, Crosbitch!" yelled Chloe on comm.

I aim my pistol to shoot Crosby at long range just to waste what was left of my ammunition but by the two time enough to reach me. The damage by bullets do is minimal, but enough to divert the organic infected superhuman from pursuing my allies. When they got closer to me, they hit a dead from the low ground and needed a way across.

"Max, we're close to you but we hit a dead from below," informed Rachel. "I think there's a big rock from your side that you can use to help us."

"How am I supposed to get a big rock in the road to help you get across?" I ask.

"I don't know, Max!" bickered Chloe. "Your the superhero. I don't care if you have to waste your chronon juice just to pick up the finger! Just do something! Doctor Crosbitch is getting closer as we speak!"

Chloe was right. It didn't matter if I had to waste my juice to knock the bolder down. Even if I wasn't limitless, it's not like I had a lot of choice either. I rush down to the low ground to get to the boulder. Though it would take the might of the Incredible Hulk or the Thing from Fantastic 4 just to push the boulder over, I had to remember my time blast. I get in front of the boulder close enough to charge my blast power and thrust all the energy I had at it to shove it off the edge and build a large stepping stone for my partners to jump across.

My trustee Arcadian steeds hop across my side with the boulder floating on the lava for them to jump. As soon as they safely jumped across, Crosby was now close enough to be dead ahead in front of our eyes. More furious than ever in his desire and crave for killing the three of us for good. The man's face stared at the three of us with his eyes glowing evil red and face molded from the organic matter.

"The human race requires judgment!" thundered Crosby.

"And your going to judge us?!" I queried. "You get your ideas from Marvel or DC villains?!"

The three of us race back to the upper ground. Upon walking back on the high ground, Crosby takes the shortcut up with his extended tentacles to reach the high ground quicker. Mr. Crosbitch himself lands on his feet with a loud thud and a ferocious attitude.

"Maaax!" roared Crosby.

It was now the three of us with guns against a psychopath twice as psychopathic than Jeffershit with two organic tentacles with a razor battle axe bayonet attached to one of them. It felt fighting a video game boss from Final Fantasy but nothing compared to fighting one in real life. But just like a video game, we needed a strategy to defeat Crosby.

The man himself raised his tentacle high in air to spin it around like a drill. He appeared to be charging up something with his axe arm by spinning it around. That's when we just notice he was about to slice us in half with bayonet arm by swinging it through us like a katana blade.

"Look out!" Chloe warned.

The three of us duck to safety to avoid being diced in half like ham. That was when Crosby's incendiary chest opens for us to shoot it out. The only weak spot we needed for our strategy.

"Max, Chloe, the chest!" Rachel pointed. "It's open! Shoot it!"

I quickly bend to my knee and squat myself to aim down at the chest with my gun. The three of us hammer our bullets into it that instantly drops Crosby down to his legs. He was certainly down, but definitely not out. Crosby's arms were still functional and he instantaneously thrust one of his tentacles to snare me off my feet. Now I was really in for some deep shit.

I can feel the organic matter slither in my skin like a million snakes eating me alive. I blatantly struggle with my bare hands to free myself from the snare. It was as useless as getting permanent glue off your clothes. When Crosby raised me with his grotesquely organic tentacle, he was now using his bayonet to devastatingly drill a hole in me that would kill me simultaneously. I still had my gun in hand and I shot at Crosby a couple times to prevent my fatality. Though I wasn't remotely drilled to death, Crosby tossed me away with his tentacle sending me fumble down to the edge of the narrow lava pit.

After that, Crosby returns to Chloe and Rachel and uses his tentacle to slam it to the ground immobilizing the both of the off their feet. I hang onto the edge with both my sweaty hands for as long I could. I glance down the narrow cliff and the blazing lava twenty feet below. I was now hanging by a thread for dear life while at the mercy of the demonic Crosby who had approached me. Ready to kick me off the edge for I to fall down to my termination. The monster gazes down at my appalling face with him now having the upper hand once more.

"Do you want to live?" asked Crosby.

He kick my one hand off the edge leaving my with only one hand to hang on with. Even harder for me to maintain my grip and prevent my fall to abolition.

"Then beg!" he snapped. "Beg for your life!"

"I'll pass!" I mutter.

The man stopped on my other hand locking it down and crushing it. It hurt like hell and grunt in pain as Crosby was about to break my fingers apart.

"Look at you," he says. "Max Caulfield, the girl ever so tempted by her power to happy endings. You should've died in that dark room. Chloe should've stayed dead when Jefferson killed her. I should've let Rachel stay dead as well. But now you'll all confront a fate much worse than death. It ends here."

"Can't always get what you want, Crosby!" shouted Rachel from behind.

Rachel returned to her feet again, leap onto Crosby's shoulder and stabbed him in his rear chest blaze with her knife. He then knocked her off his shoulder, but bought me enough to climb up the edge with both my hand and all my muscle to get the drop on him myself. I leap onto his back as soon as I'm on solid ground again and punched through his organic matter infesting him just to tear and peel his flaming chest open for us to strike at again.

"Now Rachel!" I order. "Shoot him!"

"I can't without hitting you!" she shouted, getting up again.

"Then hit him by hand! Just do something! Now!"

Rachel charges at Crosby with her army knife in hand and strikes him with her combat dagger multiple times in the blazing chest. I hold the chest open hanging from Crosby's rear body wide enough for Rachel to cut through. She slashes her knife against Crosby's blazing heart with every strike she takes with all her might until she able to deliver a devastating stab through his heat puncturing it in place long enough to render our adversary stupefied.

"I can't loose!" cried Crosby. "Not to you!"

Crosby shook me off his rear struggle to fight through his punctured heart Rachel had caused. Then out of nowhere, Chloe came to the rescue by charging over to Crosby from behind armed with her combat knife, leaped onto Crosby, and furiously jabbed her knife on the rear of his infernal chest. The two exes punctured their knifes together into Crosby's chest like Cupid's arrow through the heart. Up until the point where Crosby lost all of his capability of fighting.

The two of them pulled their knifes out of Crosby's chest releasing themselves away from. The three of us step back as the monster steadily attempts to walk on his feet again. The Crosby demon himself snarls at the three of us like a mad lion wanting to kill his opponent out of abhorrence. His face fueled with revulsion and detestation. Covered in organic mold and redeye pupils evil as sin. That was when at this second the edge he was standing on began to crack. Then eventually rupture off the platform sending Crosby down the deep narrow lava pit.

We all stare down at the pit where Crosby falls. We see him hit the molten lava like French fries dipped into boiling hot oil. His skin and organic matter dipped into incinerating liquid as he hollers in agony from drowning in the lava. He was now going out like the T-1000 from Terminator 2. There is much irony when it comes to film references in my life. Then we see a bridge form itself on our platform to help get across to the conduit that was just dead ahead from where we stood. Now that Crosby was finished, it was time to finish 'this' once and for all.

"The lava will finish him," said Rachel. "Let's destroy that conduit."

"MAAAXXX!!!" a voice thundered from below.

Crosby still wasn't finished. He spontaneously stormed his tentacle over on the structure of the platform we stood and slammed it like a hammer. Causing the support of the platform to tremor and make us almost loose our balance standing up. Crosby was about to take down the hole platform with us to us take us all down with him. We had to do something.

"Max, what do we do?!" bellowed Chloe as she was shaking with us.

"Max, Chloe, use these!" prevailed Rachel.

She got out one of her hand grenades and that when we remember we were carrying some as well. Chloe and I pulled our frag grenades out so the three of us can toss them down to the pit and end the nightmare known as Crosbitch.

"Ready partner?" I asked Chloe.

"Bombs away," she replied.

"Suck on this, Crosby.

"Smile you son of a-"

The three of us pull our pins and toss our frags down the pit. Like Roy Schneider killing Jaws. The grenades descend from our platform and down to where the devil shall be purged. Even now as Crosby futilely persist on our deaths, he lets out once last scream of pain and suffering when the grenades plummet to his sinking feeling and dying presence and go off with a boom. The last enemy that shall be destroyed had been extinguished by an explosion the size of an atom bomb caused by our three grenades. All molten down in the exploded lava. Crosby was dead. The most satisfying villain death of our lives. It was over. It was done. It was finished.

"Hella la vista, baby" said Chloe in her Arnie impression and flipping the bird.

I've been waiting to give Crosby his much deserved death since the first time I ever laid eyes on his true colors. Scoreboard read Super Max and Hella Punk: 2 and Glamorous But Deceiving Mentors: 0. A shot in the dark, but a long struggle paid off. It was time to complete the final phase in saving this world. And it starts by crossing that bridge and destroy the central main conduit to the Elysium tree overshadowing it's aroma.

The three of us slowing proceed across the bridge. Halfway to the key to saving our world from this one. The giant heart shaped conduit was illuminated like a gargantuan Hanukkah Menorah lit by nine burning candles on top. Little did we know there was one card left to play for all of Elysium before even laying one finger on the conduit itself. And this time, it was the true being immortal enough to be a god and not a slave indoctrinated from it's inspiration.

"You persist too long after you're own defeat," a voice started the three of us.

Indubitably so, it was Chronos waiting for our approach. He may have half expected us for Crosby to defeat us before we defeated him. It appear he was here for us to take action into his own hands. The god himself levitates above us. Analyzing our move.

"Come then, traveler," the god of time spoke. "Have your resolution."

We turn our head and aim our guns at Chronos and the god himself pushes us with a telepathic force knocking us down on our faces. Chloe and Rachel were anesthetized from the force. I however, immediately recovered from the push by sliding and crouching on my feet. The god had lowered himself on the bridge and I reluctantly but recklessly made a break for the conduit. Chronos intervened by time stopping me in stasis and telepathically raising me off my feet.

Chronos had received me the same pain from his superpower I experienced the first time with his kinetic powers during my visions. It hurt even more the second time. My body was now aching and throbbing just like the first time under Chronos's power. I can feel me throat asphyxiating from suffocation like Darth Vader's force choke. Only that was a thing of science fiction as this was a science fiction come true. Chronos reels me over the edge of the bridge like a fish on a hook. Prepared to finish me like a fried fish to be cooked down the molten rivers of lava.

"So misguided," said Chronos, indulging his upper hand. "Humanity's imprisonment is a kindness."

The time god forces my body to cripple harder and harder. I could feel organs drying, my bones shattering, and my blood draining. My blood floods through my nostrils again. I squint my eyes and grit my teeth embracing the agony and oppression of a god. That was until some little friend of mine come to rescue a damsel from her imminent doom.

Something majestically rising out of the bridge emerged like angels from heaven. First came my spirit doe, than Chloe's spirit butterfly, than Rachel's spirit blue jay, and then the one and only spirit of Nathan Prescott. The everyday heroes of Elysium here to stop Chronos from condemning my prejudice.

"In that case, you don't mind if we return the favor," said Nathan.

"Your compassion for mankind is misplaced," said Chronos.

"I'm not doing this for mankind. I'm doing this because your the last enemy that shall be destroyed. Nothing more."

Supposedly, Nathan was here to offer some improvisation after all. Even after just telling me he couldn't, he was there to prove his worthiness to me in death. The four spirits shoot themselves over to Chronos to formulate restraining beams bound to his arms and on the bridge. When the god was fully subdued, I'm freed from his kinetic power and stumble on the edge of the bridge until I break my fall via my hands and fingers that were the least bit function after my fight with Crosby. Now it was time to finish this immortal bastard before he broke loose.

I vault over the edge with all my strength I still had left in me to my feet on tangible ground once again. Once I stand on the solid bridge, I take out my last grenade and pull the pin as I charge towards Chronos. The shove the hand grenade through his chest and then he breaks himself from the restraining beams and strikes my down with his bare fist on the ground. He uses his telekinetic power another time to lift me up and throw me down the pit. Not before the grenade goes off in his chest and blows his central part of his body away. Causing him to drop me on the solidified ground and loose his balance standing his own ground.

Chronos is finished off and brought down by tilting off the edge and descending down the deep narrow molten river. I see the god himself plummet into the lava and implode through the molten liquid. I couldn't tell whether he survived the fall or his the thousand degree river for being a god of such, but at least all the matter Chronos was out of sight and mind enough for me to return concentration on breaking the conduit. Chloe and Rachel were still out from the shock of Chronos's force, but there was no time to force them and beg them out of it. Nothing more mattered saving the world and getting the fuck out of this god forsaken dreamscape of a universe.

I was left with an injury on my hip and I had to hold it down with one of my hands. Then use my other hand to shoot the conduit. I point my gun wearily at the conduit and start pullet the trigger to damage. Within five or six rounds, my clip was empty and it was the last of my ammo. Having no choice but to destroy somehow by hand, I did precisely that. I drop my gun on the ground and pull out my army knife to make my last move. I walk to the conduit with my feeble feet and busted waste. Can't imagine how badly Chronos damaged me, but it was bad enough for me to walk like a wounded warrior whose feet walk like Penguin.

When I'm close enough to where the conduit is inches away from my feet, I falter and balance myself with my hands knees for a few seconds. I turn my head upwards to gawk at the enormous beating heart on the giant Avatar sized tree. This was no time resting. There's no rest for the weary in this final struggle in saving my world in turmoil. I blatantly get off the ground, raise my knife like a vanguard, and execute the final blow to the tip of the iceberg by thrusting the knife through the fifteen foot heart like the gladiator with my last breath and a loud holler. After that, there is a boom and a white flash. And then there is silence.

Note: I must say, this has been a hell of a chapter for me in writing the final struggle between our heroes and the wrath of Crosby and Chronos. The most exhilaratingly epic climax I could've written for a conclusion the my story. A Mass Effect 2 level of epically satisfying! LOL

Before I go, I posting this late at night after watching the new season premiere of Game of Thrones and is now off to bed. Also, I by no means want to purposefully spoil the last few chapters, but they'll make you tear up a little. But for better reasons possible. There's only two more chapters for me to write in this breathtaking climax I've been waiting to write forever! Sit tight and it'll all be over soon!

Until next time, stay golden!