Chapter 36: That Hybrid, Final Fight
"You are more of a demon than I could ever be, Ellis Jennan."
Ellis leaped off of his right foot and lunged at me with his mace.
"Die, you fucking demon!"
I jumped out of the way of the scythe, missing it by a hair as it brushed against my wing. I propelled myself further away with a thrust of my wings. His mace crashed onto the ground out of sheer gravity. I staggered backwards but stayed upright.
"Guess you've finally snapped, eh?"
"DIE, DEMON! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE!" Ellis screamed, swinging relentlessly. I dodged relentlessly.
"No, thank you." I politely declined.
He swung his scythe again, long ways this time. I ducked as it barely missed my head, popping back up and slicing his chest with my fingers. He winced and staggered backwards, staying upright like I did. I thought in the moment that his mace was much like the training scythes at school, just with longer range and weight. His actual fighting was no more better than the students I sparred with at school.
Except he intended to kill, of course.
"How embarrassing. You lunge at me with that big scythe of yours, only for me to land the first hit with my bare hands."
I slashed his right side with my fingers in a twirl, spinning away to get some space between us. I had already noticed his weakness on his right ankle, and I was going to exploit his Achilles heel, literally.
I jumped to the left, knowing that he would try to swing weakly from his injured right.
He tried turning around to swing his scythe at me long ways this time, but the swing of the mace was limited by the wounds he had on his right. He did as I predicted, and I twirled around his back and dug my claws through his right side.
"Gah!" he screamed in pain. As he was hurt, I slashed his left side, too. He was frozen, as if he had never actually gotten hurt in a fight before.
"It seems like overconfidence is your downfall."
I dug my fingers into his back and was ready to impale him fully. I wasn't looking for a long fight.
After all, beasts didn't look for a fight, but an end.
Ellis's movements stopped as he realized the danger he was in.
"Any last words, Ellis Jennan?"
Out of the corner of my eye, something was wrong. I looked at his side, and I saw that it was covered and blood, but I didn't see the wound I gave him.
In that moment, I realized that only death scythes and weapons made for grim reapers truly did any real harm to grim reapers.
Anything else regenerated in moments, including the wounds I gave him.
Ellis laughed, spitting out blood.
"I don't think I'll need them right now."
He straightened his back in an instant, flinging me off. I tried to swipe back, but he swung his mace and hit me in the hip with such sheer force that I soared backwards across the room, taking a tumbling landing against the door of the stairwell. My body crashed against the door, bursting through it and landing against the inner railing of the stairs. I clutched my side, as the immense pain ripped through it. Crimson blood seeped through my white shirt as the hole in it exposed my wound - well, wounds, caused by the multiple spikes on Ellis's mace. My right wing had snapped underneath me when I landed, and it was completely numb. I looked at the dangling half of an appendage and had to force myself not to vomit.
I pushed myself onto my knees, trying to shift my arms back. I didn't have much time until Ellis came to me.
"Who's overconfident now? Did you really think a that a demonic cunt like yourself can stop me?"
He grabbed my broken wing.
"Just because you have this?"
He broke it off. He took the dangling half of my wing and pulled it off. He tore it all the way down the skin until it laid limp on the floor.
"GYAAAAAAAAAAH! MOTHERFUCKER!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. The pain was indescribable as hot tears rolled down my face.
"That's the plan." he said casually. He grabbed me by the throat. And lifted me over the center of the stairwell, which had a wide enough gap that he could drop me into a long, long freefall to the bottom. I thrashed and clawed at him violently.
"Fuck you! Burn in hell! Die in a fucking fire!"
"Now, why don't you just scream like that on your way down?
He let go.
The wind surrounded me as gravity pulled me down like a magnet. If I didn't figure something out, I would die from a fall from that height in a matter of seconds. Since my wing was broken, I couldn't even try to fly. It hurt too much.
Think quick, Mara. Think quick.
The inner railings next to me as I fell had bars. I could grab the bar and pull myself up. I could live.
I used all the strength I had in my body to grab onto the bar with my only hand. My fingers dug into the bars for dear life. The world stopped scrolling past in a blur and became still once again. My fall stopped just as my feet grazed the bottom of the stairs.
I pulled myself up and over the railing, landing on my back on the stairs. I took deep breaths to calm myself from the shock.
Holy shit, that was close!
I looked up. I had fallen down far enough that Ellis couldn't see that I saved myself, but not far enough to where a fall from that point would be deadly. I pulled myself over the closest railing and broadened my senses to reach Ellis's soul above me. He couldn't sense I was alive, as I suspected. Now, he thought that he should go downstairs and check the damage.
I had an idea.
I concentrated on my arms, focusing on how they normally looked. Just like before, I was silent as they transformed back to normal. To my surprise, it even regenerated my broken off limb.
Oh, that's nice.
Ellis was many flights above me.
I brought out Amelia's death scythe and ran silently up a few more flights - for safe measure for what I was going to do - and sat on the railing, twisting my feet around the bars so I wouldn't fall.
Ellis was a few flights above me.
I hung upside down, like a bat. How ironic. I took a breath, adrenaline running through me. This was it.
Ellis was right above me.
I curled up and grabbed him.
He was shocked into immobility and I pulled him over the rail. His weight almost pulled me off the railing and down to the bottom with him, but I used all my strength to pull him up onto the stairs, on his stomach.
I pulled out my death scythe, pushing him down by the neck.
"This is for Erican and Stace Jennan, your family that preferred death to a life with you!"
I dug the scythe into his right shoulder and dragged it from there to his right hip.
"Gah, Fuck!"
"This is for William and Amelia Spears, the family that you've split apart for your own gain!"
I dug from his right shoulder to his left hip.
"Fucking hell, that hurts!"
I flipped him over.
"This is for Dr. Adrian and Adrianne Crevan, the family you murdered!"
I dug deeper and agonizingly dragged the scythe from his right shoulder, across his stomach, to his hip.
"To hell with you!"
"And this is for Sebastian Michaelis, Grell Sutcliff, and myself…"
I sliced across his chest down to his hip as hard and deep as I could.
"A family that you're never hurting again."
I picked him up by the throat and threw him over the railing.
His soul fell, and fell, and fell.
Until he hit the ground.
I sat on my knees, taking a deep breath of relief.
"It's over… it's over… oh god, it's fucking over…" I panted.
Not yet.
Ellis Jennan wasn't dead yet. His soul wasn't disconnected from his body.
I looked over the railing. I had to go down there and free my mother anyway, so what did it hurt to go down and collect his soul?
I changed my arms into wings, seeing an opportunity for practice. I climbed over the railing and flapped my wings steadily, and it slowed my ascent greatly. Surely, it wasn't soaring through the air, but it felt great to use my wings for part of their intended purpose. I turned them back into arms when I landed on the ground.
There, in the middle of the stairwell, his body bloodied and sprawled out on his stomach, was Ellis Jennan.
I knelt to his side and turned him over.
I raised my scythe.
"Good riddance, Ellis Je-"
His eyes shot open and he smiled his most evil smile. My blood stopped.
"I don't fucking think so."
"Wha-"
He grabbed me by the throat. This wasn't lightly done, like earlier. He had it in a death grip even worse than Erican's from that morning.
I dropped my scythe.
"N-no, let me go!" I choked, clawing at him.
"Not gonna fucking happen, bitch." He growled. He stood up and pulled me off the ground, pushing me into a nearby wall with such force that it nearly knocked me out.
Still keeping a death grip on my throat, Ellis put his body right up against mine.
"Oh, sweet cheeks, did you really think that a little fall could kill me? Did you really think those cuts you gave me were deadly?" he whispered in my ear.
"I-I really fucking hoped so…"
"Too fucking bad, you halfbred little whore!"
I had to close my eyes to avoid his lustful, evil gaze, and I heard the cocking of a gun at my temple.
"I bet this will, though." Ellis said, referring to his gun.
I froze in panic as my eyes shot open again.
"You don't want to die how Dr. Crevan's daughter did, do you?" he asked.
I tried to shake my head, gasping for air when he let go of my neck. I was terrified of what he would do with his now free hand.
"I could kill you right now if I wanted, but if you let me use your body to relieve some tension…" he trailed his hand up my thigh and between my legs, "I may reconsider blowing your brains out. What do you say?"
I kicked wildly at him to get him to move his hand.
"Aww, don't tire yourself out too much!" he said, unaffected. He laughed, as if - no, because a woman's suffering and helplessness was a joke to him; something for him to get off to.
I screamed in fear and despair, and it turned into terrified, stifled sobs that I never wanted Ellis to hear. If my tears got him hard, I wasn't going to cry.
"Well, would you rather give yourself up and live to be my slave, or keep what little dignity you still have, and get killed right now?" he grinned, as if he legitimately expected me to choose the former. He leaned in.
"Either way, you'll just end up as another set of holes for me."
I didn't know what to do. I couldn't get away, and I didn't have enough energy to change forms. I couldn't defeat him on my own, and I couldn't let this night end like this.
"Why should I? I'd rather you shoot me than ever let you touch me! Even if I didn't let you have me, you'd do it anyway! We both know your using this vengeance plan as an excuse to fuck a teenage demon girl you've been having fantasies about for the past month! I know that even after I let you use me with a gun to my head, you'd shoot me in the head after you've spent me! Or worse, you'd keep me around as your bitch, and I'd rather die! So, why don't you do us both a favor, and pull the trigger! Do it! Do it motherfucker! Pull the fucking trigger!" I screamed at the top of my lungs.
Ellis put his gun back in its holster and smacked me, squeezing even tighter around my throat again.
"Shut up, bitch! You aren't worth my bullets!" he screamed at me.
I clawed at his hand at my throat in vain until I started losing strength. My body was going numb. As tears ran from my eyes, I prayed that someone would interfere.
Someone listened. It was my mother.
I knew she heard me screaming, because in her cell behind the wall across from me, the immense, deep blue sadness in her soul turned into white hot fury. I didn't know what sorts of restraints Ellis had her in, but by God, she was breaking out of them. I wasn't sure if she was able to or not, and that terrified me.
…Until I heard the engine of her chainsaw.
That smooth, wondrous, vibrant vroom rang through my ears and filled me with hope. She was close, and she was coming to get me.
Mum! Mum! I'm right here!
I heard a nearby door burst open. Ellis turned his head in a jolt of surprise, and ended up opening my airway a bit so where I could not only take in a gasp of air, but turn to see the source.
There she was, standing in the debris and smoke of her cell door.
Her typically smooth, crimson hair was tangled in knots around her as she hung her head low, hanging her chainsaw even lower as her back arched. Her legs were shaking, but she still had them bent almost to the ground, like her scythe. She was covered in sweat that dampened her clothes, tears that marked her face, and bruises that marked her body. Her clothes even looked all torn and tussled, except for her long red coat, which draped perfectly just below her shoulders.
"Mum!" I shouted, still strangled.
She lifted her head and looked at me with shock and fear, but when she saw how scared I was, her expression changed like her soul. Her expression turned into a deadly snarl.
Before, all I could sense in her was sadness, and my name was echoing out through that sadness. Now, my name, was still there, but it was in her fury, not sadness, and it wasn't just an echo. No, now it was a scream, a cry that a mother let out before killing someone to protect her child.
She started running to me. She was running as fast as her beaten legs could carry her to save me, her chainsaw revving and spinning it's deadly blade that would rip Ellis apart.
That's when I saw his grin. Something was wrong.
I looked in his mind and gasped in horror as much as I could with Ellis's grip on my neck. I knew what he truly planned.
"MUM, DON'T-!"
In an instant, I was too late. My mother's chainsaw was already too close. She couldn't stop herself. I was taken off of the wall by my neck in an thrust that would kill me. I was thrusted into the path of my mother's scythe as she thrusted it forward.
It almost felt like slow motion, like I was floating in silence for just a millisecond… until I wasn't.
Ellis let go of my throat.
It felt as if my insides were being ripped apart from the inside out. The deadly vibrations from my mother's death scythe rang through my ears as they were sent through my back. I arched my back in agony as the thin, spinning blades sliced into my spine and all the way out of my stomach. In front of me, all I could see was my blood gushing out from both the wound and my mouth.
Then it stopped.
"Oh my god… no… please…" my mother uttered behind me in horror.
"Oh, it's too late for that…" Ellis said, already sounding far away.
The death scythe tipped over, likely because of my mother's shock. My body lurched forward and my head was forced to look down.
I saw the front of my mother's chainsaw sticking out of me. Deep, rich crimson blood covered the scythe; my blood. That same blood stained my shirt and vest as it poured out of me non-stop. My vision was already getting tunneled. My hearing was already far away. I couldn't move at all, let alone speak. All I could do was slide off of my mother's blade, and I did. I landed face first on the ground, lying in a pool of my blood in a matter of seconds.
Despite all of that, I could still hear my mother scream above me.
"MARA!"