The beasts that crawl from Satan's armpit take shape in so many ungodly forms that my stomach twists at their every elements. The stench that rises from the Earth boils over in my nose, searing my senses as I gag. I look at Ozymandias and notice the golden veins that pulse under his flawless skin.
Archer stabilizes himself and releases me, but I don't let go of him. He turns towards the king. "Is this your doing?"
The king smiles radiantly. "Of course, nothing but the best comes from a son of Ra. You have a reality marble yourself, do you not?" The Egyptian puffs up his chest. "If not, we are not to speak again."
I turn to Archer cautiously. Does he have a storage of monsters hidden away too?
He turns back to face forward, the ground crawling with snarling and snapping, wiggling and crawling. I have never seen so much motion in on place, not at one time. No holiday occasion is anywhere on the level of horror at hand. "Yes, but my merging factor between reality and otherwise is-"
"Enough speaking. Show me."
"I'm mana depleted. I can't trigger something that massive, not now."
"You have a supply of mana right here," the King puts his foot against my back, almost toppling me over the edge of his starship. I grimace under his weight and sexist/derogatory (take your pick) notation, but don't argue. Between the two of them, they're monsters in their own right.
But Archer doesn't take not of the man's assertion. It takes me a moment to recognize what kind of implications he may be suggesting, and I again gag on the situation I'm in.
Yeah, they're monsters all right.
But that doesn't change the situation at hand. "Where's Caster?"
"He's on the shore still. He's completely some sort of incantation." I grip the edge of the spaceship. "Is there anything we can do to stop him still?"
"What do you think I'm doing, commonergirl?" Ozymandias hisses. The beasts latch themselves on the tentacles, the warring sides tearing each other to shreds. Beneath us lies a battlefield of terror and absolute destruction, and yet here we are perched, unharmed as the world falls apart at our feet. I look at the king. "Can you get me closer?"
"You ask a lot of me, commonergirl. I can only regulate so much at once, and even yet, you have yet to meet my greatest achievement yet?"
"Meet your greatest achievement?"
He smiles, veins bulging as he looks down at me. "Yes. We are sure to win the day once he returns to my side."
Saber doesn't hesitate; she can't afford to, not with how quickly the tides turned on her. Red silks swaying, she charges forward despite the searing pain that courses through her side; pain is but a message, a signal, and messages can be ignored. Only the most elite of soldiers can afford to think as such.
And she charges. She knows she cannot slay the beast, not on her own – not in her current state, at least – but she is well aware of the state of her enemies as well.
Berserker falls to his knees, long, black snout curled and hacking up blood as it floods his lungs. Lancer pelts over and swoops down beside his comrade, the sane yet most beastly of the Berserker class. He throws down the lance he can barely keep in his dangling hand, just to run his workable fingers over the coarse fur now soaked in rich, red blood. It sputters out from the beast, full-power like a waterfall as his wolf-like face cringes and curls in agony.
"Don't try to move, Berserker. Don't try to get up."
It's not like he could even if he wanted to, and yet he tries. It is not panic in his eyes nor terror in his throbbing heart; nay, it is the will to continue to fight. It is the drive for blood.
But he cannot, despite trying. And Lancer is impaled by Saber from the backside, a wound not unlike the one he gave her earlier.
Same, lower left-hand side of the torso. He cries out, mortal, legendary lungs screaming as the woman twists the hilt of her blade. She retracts it like a lioness does her claws and stands above the two men, sword slowly being raised above her head. Lancer turns over and onto his back to watch his final moments. Berserker can do nothing but growl from where he lays.
And as the blade illuminates the hopeless darkness, it is then that the heroic spirits remember their calling.
It is there that they remember the instant a hesitant girl entered the darkest corner of their minds, a girl shrouded in the darkness of an unknowing mind. She entered all of their minds in that critical instant, in an accident just a day beforehand, but it was enough for them all to recognize the truth behind their titles.
Heroic Spirits.
The two lunge at the woman, hesitation evaporated like a teardrop in a desert. It is at the same time they notice the three-legged beast behind this Saber of red, its horrible jaw of human flesh covered in stone coming down over the sword.
It takes the three of them to take her down in her most vulnerable moment.
Archer decided he would take me closer so Rider could be safely away from harm as he conducted his armada. He carries me on his forearm as he jumps from tree to tree, my arms wrapped around his neck. I enhance my eyes so I can see Caster better, and we're no farther than 100 meters away when Archer sets me down.
"Do you feel that?"
"Feel what?"
"The atmosphere," He looks up, vibrant eyes narrowed as he checks his surroundings again. "It is very heavy right now with prana. I fear he has accumulated what is needed."
"Then we don't have a moment to lose." I start jogging toward Caster, the vile beast of a man surrounded by grimy tentacles. I can hear Rider's beasts coming up behind me, and for the first time in a while, my heart is in my throat. Not like, you know, end-of-the-world fear or something stupid like that. No, it's more of a battle cry type of sensation. Countless feet pound the Earth behind me as Archer lays on a hailstorm of arrows in the direction of Caster, and I pick up the pace.
Is this it? Am I really about to die?
No, not with the power behind me I reason, breathing in sharply as I hone my senses. The roaring rises into one collective tidal wave, an infinite sea of desolation at my hells. Not with what I am capable of doing.
The tentacles flay and curl in my vision, taking over everything within sight. The beasts that charged with me take to their prey, snarling and hissing and bleeding out all the same. And I can't spare the heartbeat to look. My ears that will not work take the sounds of Archer's barrage and morphs it into that of a quiet rainfall. I cannot see, I cannot hear, I cannot smell, and I cannot bear to die.
He turns around at the last moment, just as I am within three seconds of reaching him. That book cradled to his chest illuminate what is left of my poor, poor, disabled eyes, and I am forced to squint in order to continue forward. But it takes much less time for me to recognize the world-ending mess behind him that emerges from the water.
No!
Just
A
Little….
Farther!
But I am blown backward, colliding through beast after beast of Egyptian lore.
I was too late.