Legalities: I do not own Darkstalkers or any characters thereof.
[]- Indicates thought.
Hey people. Here's the next chapter for my loving fans (all three or four of you!). For my reviewers:
To Tiger5913: On your reviews... no comment. (Pyromania + WAY overcharged sex drive = Tiger5913 :)
To Galandria: Mental breakdowns are fun! Trust me. I have them all the time :). And yes, the tall stranger is Donovan, as you'll see soon enough. Good guess!
And now, ladies and gentleman, it's...
"SHOWTIME!"
Chapter 16
Essence of Hate
Dimitri stared at the figure before him. Although his mind was still dazed, he knew that what stood before him was not good news. The eerie light, which Jon and Dimitri had unwittingly labeled "corpselight" at the same time, filled the hall. Even the walls seemed to flinch from that unholy, pale blue light.
" Who are you?" Dimitri asked, pointing Ebonrule at the figure. " And how did you find us?"
The figure chuckled. The laugh was the aural equivalent of the corpselight, and Jon and Felicia visibly flinched at it. Morrigan was unnerved, and even Dimitri's stony mask trembled under the force of the laugh. It sounded like the laughter of the insane. The figure moved forward as it talked.
" Me? I am the purger, ridding this world of such as your kind. My name, such as I have one, is Donovan." The figure stepped into a shaft of moonlight from a window, and as he did so the Darkstalkers saw it was a human male, wearing nothing but a pair of blue pants and a necklace upon which an amulet of gold hung. Several scars crossed his body, long and ragged gashes like fault lines in the rock of his chest. His long brown hair was tied back into a ponytail, and his jaw was square and solid, undercutting a face seemingly made of rock. All of this was normal, but the eyes would have convinced anyone they were dealing with something monstrous. The eyes were brown and totally insane.
However, it wasn't the clear-cut insanity in them that made them odd. The strangest part about Donovan's eyes was the fact he had three. One was set in the middle of his forehead, and it's pupil was blood-red. It glanced about madly, randomly, as if physically showing the madness of the brain inside.
" As for how I found you," he said, and as he did Dimitri thought he saw fangs, such as a vampire had. " it was simple enough. I smelled the taint of hate and hurt on that one."
He extended a finger towards Morrigan. " It reeks off her unclean flesh. It was simple enough to follow her. Eventually, we reached this castle, and here we are." He laughed, mouth thrown open, and Dimitri saw that his eyes hadn't been playing tricks on him; there really were fangs inside his mouth.
" I'll give you credit, freak. You surprised me and Pyron. You defeated B.B. Hood, even though she was a Fragment..." he shook his head. " Stupid girl. Always wanting more. That's why she became a Fragment of Greed. She was crazy... even her name was crazy. " B.B. Hood." It's a joke on the "Little Red Riding Hood" story. She said it meant Big Bad Hood. Damn fool." He laughed again, and once more it grated on Dimitri's mind as if it were a metal grinder and he was a knife being sharpened. Dimitri cut him off with a single sentence, shouted at him over the echoes of his laughter.
" Why are you doing this? Your a vampire too!"
A shriek of such inhuman hate and rage rippled out from Donovan's throat that Dimitri's blood didn't just run cold; it completely froze over. That sound was not something any natural creature could make. Donovan leaped through the air, clearing the distance in seconds. Dimitri barely had time to lift Ebonrule before Donovan struck. His sword, glowing with it's hellish corpselight, shook when it hit Ebonrule, but held it's ground. Donovan, still shrieking, pushed down with his sword.
Out of nowhere the azure fire of Ebonrule blazed out. Donovan was pushed back by the flame, and the corpselight of his sword diminished suddenly, as if it was trying to protect itself by withdrawing it's sphere of influence. The cleaner, somehow purer fire of Ebonrule lit up the forgotten halls of Moongrace. Donovan, rage still clear on his face, raised his sword again. Off to one side, Felicia, Jon, and Morrigan stood, stunned.
" I am not one of your damned kind! I am a human!" he shrieked, still holding his sword aloft. " And I'll kill each of your bestial kind until their is nothing left of you!"
Felicia was suddenly hit with understanding. She knew what he was.
" Your a Dhampir, aren't you? One of the vampire and human half-breeds?" she said, her face looking puzzled.
Shrieking once more, Donovan flung himself at her. She leapt out of the way, and kept talking as she dodged his attacks. Her voice was completely even, as if she was having a calm discussion at dinner, rather than ducking and weaving through the attacks of a crazed madman.
" I understand now. I met a Dhampir once. He hated himself. Neither the humans nor the Darkstalkers accepted him... he was a lot like you. And he was full of hate, so much so that he enjoyed killing. He always tried to control it, though... tried to control it so he wouldn't hurt anyone. But you never tried, did you? You just decided to take your hate out on Darkstalkers, hiding behind the idea that we were beasts." She flipped over his next attack and kicked him square in the face. When she landed, she looked up with a look of pure fury in her face. Jon had never seen her so mad. Her voice portrayed that anger and fury into the air, seeming to fill it with her emotions. " You just decided to hate for no reason, didn't you! It's people like you that have ruined our world! Pitiful people who can't simply grow up and do what's right, regardless of how hard it is!"
She hissed then, and launched herself forward, claws extended. She leapt over his swing and slashed his face. Her claws left ragged lines in his cheeks. He shrieked at her again and, abandoning his sword-swinging, simply punched her with his left hand. She stumbled backwards and fell, and he raised his sword to strike.
Ebonrule flew through the air, a blue missile, and struck Donovan in the face. He crumpled and fell, writhing and kicking. Felicia got up, looking at Dimitri.
" Thanks," she said. " Thought he had-"
Her sentence was cut off as Donovan's hand grabbed her leg and flung her to the side. The hand then grabbed the spear in his face and pulled it out. It made a sickening sucking noise as he pulled it out. The hand threw the spear aside, and then Donovan got up. His entire face was a single long gash, with the exception of the eye in his forehead. It remained whole and untouched.
" Good shot," he said, and then, horrendously, he grinned. His lips were in four pieces, and grinning caused them to split even more. " But this is not my truth. Count yourselves lucky. Not many people live long enough to see this. "
His face split apart, along the gash where Ebonrule had struck him. Coming out of it, like a moth from it's shell, a nightmarish face emerged. The entire body split as new muscles were made, and the skin sloughed off like a nightmare coat. The thing before Dimitri, Jon, and Morrigan opened it's mouth and laughed.
The face looked like a dog's jaw, but elongated and mutilated. A single gigantic eye still sat in the middle of the forehead, and two smaller, beady eyes sat behind the jaw in wrinkled folds of flesh. The creature shut and opened them twice, quickly in succession, making a noise - clack! clack! - that echoed in Moongrace's halls. The arms were thick and muscular, and the hide an unnatural faded purple color. Human and vampire faces, all with looks of utmost agony on their twisted faces, moaned and screamed upon his torso. Coarse black hair cascaded down it's back like a horse's mane. The hands were titanic claws, and one clutched the sword. It took two steps forward and roared at them.
" I am the Fragment of Hate," Donovan said, and a sickening tongue lolled in his mouth as he spoke. Thick ropes of saliva coated it, and horny buds grew all about it. " I live for malice, and exist for pain! I am the abomination of life!" It clacked it's jaws again. " And with Pyron at my side, I will purge this world in flame!" It leaped at Dimitri, swinging the sword. Dimitri rolled out of the way, and the enormous broadsword created a shockwave when it hit the ground. Dimitri got up and swung Ebonrule at him. Donovan dodged backwards, and then the faces on his body emitted a piercing scream. The air rippled with the force of it, and then it hit Dimitri. He was blown backwards and into the wall behind him. He fell to the floor, and lay there, dazed.
Donovan was going to leap at the vampire and kill him when Morrigan's tentacles struck his arm. The points buried themselves in his arm, and began drawing him backwards. Donovan snarled, and jerked forward hard. Morrigan was flung upward, then down as gravity asserted it's hold. Her tentacles snapped back, black blood gushed out of the wounds she had made. Donovan snarled at her, then snarled again as Jon leapt onto his back. Grabbing his head, Jon meant to jerk off his head, just like he'd done to the Fragment of Greed. The eye in Donovan's forehead looked up then, and Jon felt a rush of sheer hate. The world turned black and white before him, and before he knew what had happened he had fallen to the floor. Donovan turned and lifted his sword.
Hissing the whole time, Felicia had launched herself at Donovan's arm from behind. She sunk her right claw into his meaty forearm and slashed at the back of his hand with her left. The unholy tendons sheared off, the monster's hand twitched and relaxed, dropping the sword. Howling with rage, Donovan shook his arm and tried to batter Felicia senseless. She held on, kicking his face and hissing.
Morrigan got up, madder than hell. She had never been tossed aside so easily before, and she was pissed.
[ Got a present for ya, big boy,] she thought, forming a fireball in her hands.
Snapping out her right hand, a fireball streaked across the room, and it struck Donovan in the back of the legs. He shrieked and tumbled. Felicia, seeing her chance, leaped off and then pounced on his face, slashing away. Blood splashed as her claws rended at his face.
The faces on his body shrieked again, and Felicia was blown off like a leaf in the wind. She rolled as she hit the ground and turned about. In front of her, Jon was standing, but he wasn't moving...
" Jon!" she said, approaching him. " What are you doing?"
The only answer she got was a snarl and a snap of his jaws. Jon was attacking her! She leaped backwards, wondering what had happened to her love. Jon advanced, growling at her.
Inside his own mind, Jon saw a field of black rent throughout with electricity. Bolts flashed across this endless dark.
[Looks like the inside of a thundercloud,] he thought.
In his mind, an eye suddenly opened in the middle of this blackness. Though he didn't know it, the lightning-torn darkness about him was Jon's own subconscious. The eye was twice as large as Jon, and was as red and insane as the one in Donovan's forehead. The eye looked at him, and Jon felt it trying to take over. He howled in his mind and resisted it, but it was carrying him away in a black tide of murderous rage, an ocean of hatred he could not help but drown in....
Screaming, Jon summoned all his energy to fight it. Thinking of Felicia, he tried to drive back the hate.
In the real world, Jon suddenly stopped moving. His whole frame shuddered, and then he fell to the ground on his knees. He started hacking and coughing. Felicia, still too scared and surprised to come near him, stood back.
" Felicia," Jon said, and his voice was thick, like he had a sore throat, " get... away... Uwaaak!"
This last was the sound of Jon suddenly regurgitating something. A black liquid poured out of his jaws, dripping onto the stone floor and spreading out. A single hellish eye gleamed out of the mess on the floor. Jon glared at it, and then drove his claws into it, puncturing the eye. More black fluid sprayed out between his claws. The liquids on the floor slowly dissipated away afterwards.
Felicia looked at Jon. " Jon, what was... that?"
Jon looked at her, breathing hard. That had taken a lot out of him. " Don't know. Did I... hurt you?"
She shook her head. " No. Are you all right?"
He wiped his jaws with the back of his hand. He still felt woozy, but okay. " Fine. Never been better." Getting up, he looked back at Donovan, currently tangling with Morrigan and Dimitri. " Let's get him," he said, running back towards the battle. Felicia ran beside him.
As this scene was playing out, Morrigan had hooked her tentacles into Donovan's arm as she had done before. He did the exact same thing, jerking his arm back. But as she left the ground, Morrigan spread her wings. The push of her wings against the air stopped his arm and made Donovan stumble. She began flapping her wings, dragging Donovan along. He jerked back, and she was dragged forward, but she kept flapping and eventually got her control back. She threw a fireball at him and he dodged. The dodge cost him, though, because Morrigan used the time to grab onto a nearby stone pillar. With this secure anchor, she began dragging Donovan towards her, like a fisherman who's caught a large fish. She planned on wrapping him up in the tentacles and crushing him when he got close enough for it. Donovan screamed at her, but her tentacles were sunk in the arm with his working hand (the other was useless from Felicia's assault) and he couldn't hold his sword to cut them off. Growling, he began hammering on the tentacles with his torn hand, using it as a club.
Dimitri had recovered from the shock of Donovan's screams and looked up. He saw Morrigan dragging Donovan to her, and he ran forward to help her. Donovan had hooked one massive table with his arm, and the weight was keeping Morrigan from dragging him any farther. She bared her teeth and pulled as hard as she could, but got him no farther. Donovan's horrid teeth gleamed at her as he grinned, and the faces on his body opened their mouths, ready to loose a hellish scream.
Dimitri got there first, though, and he ran Ebonrule into Donovan's side. The holy spear cut through his flesh and jabbed into his vital organs. Donovan screamed as Ebonrule's fire flared up and seared most of his internal body systems. The pain this brought gave him tremendous strength, and he snapped his arm back. The heads of Morrigan's tentacles were ripped off, still embedded in his flesh, and she screamed in pain. Blood shot out of the severed ends of her tentacles. Dimitri was struck by Donovan's flailing hand and was knocked backwards, into another of the great tables in the hall. Donovan staggered around to face him. Morrigan was still on the pillar, drawing in her wounded tentacles. Her look was a mix of pain and anger.
Donovan had trouble drawing breath, and the world swam before him. He knew the end was near, and had a wonderful plan. He was going to consume Dimitri with hate. The others were good fighters, but Dimitri and his spear were the greatest among them. If he was consumed by hate for all life, he would kill them and succeed where Donovan had failed. The eye in his forehead concentrated on Dimitri, and Dimitri felt a rush of madness descend on him. The world went black-and-white...
Ebonrule's sapphire glow suddenly surrounded Dimitri, and he felt the madness rush away. Donovan stood before him, stunned. What could possibly drive back his power? Pyron himself had granted it to him! Snarling, he raised his sword for one last attack. He roared, and black blood pouring from his wounds, he leapt forward.
He was met in mid-air by Felicia, who had tackled him from behind. She had rolled her body into a ball, and the force of her blow knocked Donovan past Dimitri. The abomination was knocked onto one of the tables, laying spread-eagled. Felicia jumped onto the table over him, and he tried to get up. Felicia's claws flashed. The eye in his forehead, the one that could infect others with Donovan's consuming madness and rage, was ripped apart. Donovan screamed once, and then lay still. Felicia, breathing hard, got off the table. As she did so, they all saw a ghostly image of Donovan's human body lifting out of the demonic corpse on the table. Several horned imps appeared next to it, grabbing it and slobbering their laughter as they did so. Donovan's screams rang in the hall, human now. The entire thing dissappeared like smoke as they watched.
Turning to his wounded companions, Dimitri said, " Everyone okay?"
Morrigan looked back at him. Her tentacles were still bleeding, but not so badly; her tentacles could regenerate, though at the moment they hurt like hell. She would be okay. " Yes."
" Same here," Felicia said. She sounded tired.
" Yeah," Jon said, still spitting. Sometimes his spit would have black flecks in it. He still hadn't got rid of the taste yet, that god-awful bitter taste of whatever had been inside him.
Dimitri nodded towards them, and then saw Jon grin. " What?" he asked.
Jon, still grinning, said, " Who says we stay here tonight? Because I sure as hell don't feel like hunting for a campground."
Felicia agreed. " Neither do I," she said.
[]- Indicates thought.
Hey people. Here's the next chapter for my loving fans (all three or four of you!). For my reviewers:
To Tiger5913: On your reviews... no comment. (Pyromania + WAY overcharged sex drive = Tiger5913 :)
To Galandria: Mental breakdowns are fun! Trust me. I have them all the time :). And yes, the tall stranger is Donovan, as you'll see soon enough. Good guess!
And now, ladies and gentleman, it's...
"SHOWTIME!"
Chapter 16
Essence of Hate
Dimitri stared at the figure before him. Although his mind was still dazed, he knew that what stood before him was not good news. The eerie light, which Jon and Dimitri had unwittingly labeled "corpselight" at the same time, filled the hall. Even the walls seemed to flinch from that unholy, pale blue light.
" Who are you?" Dimitri asked, pointing Ebonrule at the figure. " And how did you find us?"
The figure chuckled. The laugh was the aural equivalent of the corpselight, and Jon and Felicia visibly flinched at it. Morrigan was unnerved, and even Dimitri's stony mask trembled under the force of the laugh. It sounded like the laughter of the insane. The figure moved forward as it talked.
" Me? I am the purger, ridding this world of such as your kind. My name, such as I have one, is Donovan." The figure stepped into a shaft of moonlight from a window, and as he did so the Darkstalkers saw it was a human male, wearing nothing but a pair of blue pants and a necklace upon which an amulet of gold hung. Several scars crossed his body, long and ragged gashes like fault lines in the rock of his chest. His long brown hair was tied back into a ponytail, and his jaw was square and solid, undercutting a face seemingly made of rock. All of this was normal, but the eyes would have convinced anyone they were dealing with something monstrous. The eyes were brown and totally insane.
However, it wasn't the clear-cut insanity in them that made them odd. The strangest part about Donovan's eyes was the fact he had three. One was set in the middle of his forehead, and it's pupil was blood-red. It glanced about madly, randomly, as if physically showing the madness of the brain inside.
" As for how I found you," he said, and as he did Dimitri thought he saw fangs, such as a vampire had. " it was simple enough. I smelled the taint of hate and hurt on that one."
He extended a finger towards Morrigan. " It reeks off her unclean flesh. It was simple enough to follow her. Eventually, we reached this castle, and here we are." He laughed, mouth thrown open, and Dimitri saw that his eyes hadn't been playing tricks on him; there really were fangs inside his mouth.
" I'll give you credit, freak. You surprised me and Pyron. You defeated B.B. Hood, even though she was a Fragment..." he shook his head. " Stupid girl. Always wanting more. That's why she became a Fragment of Greed. She was crazy... even her name was crazy. " B.B. Hood." It's a joke on the "Little Red Riding Hood" story. She said it meant Big Bad Hood. Damn fool." He laughed again, and once more it grated on Dimitri's mind as if it were a metal grinder and he was a knife being sharpened. Dimitri cut him off with a single sentence, shouted at him over the echoes of his laughter.
" Why are you doing this? Your a vampire too!"
A shriek of such inhuman hate and rage rippled out from Donovan's throat that Dimitri's blood didn't just run cold; it completely froze over. That sound was not something any natural creature could make. Donovan leaped through the air, clearing the distance in seconds. Dimitri barely had time to lift Ebonrule before Donovan struck. His sword, glowing with it's hellish corpselight, shook when it hit Ebonrule, but held it's ground. Donovan, still shrieking, pushed down with his sword.
Out of nowhere the azure fire of Ebonrule blazed out. Donovan was pushed back by the flame, and the corpselight of his sword diminished suddenly, as if it was trying to protect itself by withdrawing it's sphere of influence. The cleaner, somehow purer fire of Ebonrule lit up the forgotten halls of Moongrace. Donovan, rage still clear on his face, raised his sword again. Off to one side, Felicia, Jon, and Morrigan stood, stunned.
" I am not one of your damned kind! I am a human!" he shrieked, still holding his sword aloft. " And I'll kill each of your bestial kind until their is nothing left of you!"
Felicia was suddenly hit with understanding. She knew what he was.
" Your a Dhampir, aren't you? One of the vampire and human half-breeds?" she said, her face looking puzzled.
Shrieking once more, Donovan flung himself at her. She leapt out of the way, and kept talking as she dodged his attacks. Her voice was completely even, as if she was having a calm discussion at dinner, rather than ducking and weaving through the attacks of a crazed madman.
" I understand now. I met a Dhampir once. He hated himself. Neither the humans nor the Darkstalkers accepted him... he was a lot like you. And he was full of hate, so much so that he enjoyed killing. He always tried to control it, though... tried to control it so he wouldn't hurt anyone. But you never tried, did you? You just decided to take your hate out on Darkstalkers, hiding behind the idea that we were beasts." She flipped over his next attack and kicked him square in the face. When she landed, she looked up with a look of pure fury in her face. Jon had never seen her so mad. Her voice portrayed that anger and fury into the air, seeming to fill it with her emotions. " You just decided to hate for no reason, didn't you! It's people like you that have ruined our world! Pitiful people who can't simply grow up and do what's right, regardless of how hard it is!"
She hissed then, and launched herself forward, claws extended. She leapt over his swing and slashed his face. Her claws left ragged lines in his cheeks. He shrieked at her again and, abandoning his sword-swinging, simply punched her with his left hand. She stumbled backwards and fell, and he raised his sword to strike.
Ebonrule flew through the air, a blue missile, and struck Donovan in the face. He crumpled and fell, writhing and kicking. Felicia got up, looking at Dimitri.
" Thanks," she said. " Thought he had-"
Her sentence was cut off as Donovan's hand grabbed her leg and flung her to the side. The hand then grabbed the spear in his face and pulled it out. It made a sickening sucking noise as he pulled it out. The hand threw the spear aside, and then Donovan got up. His entire face was a single long gash, with the exception of the eye in his forehead. It remained whole and untouched.
" Good shot," he said, and then, horrendously, he grinned. His lips were in four pieces, and grinning caused them to split even more. " But this is not my truth. Count yourselves lucky. Not many people live long enough to see this. "
His face split apart, along the gash where Ebonrule had struck him. Coming out of it, like a moth from it's shell, a nightmarish face emerged. The entire body split as new muscles were made, and the skin sloughed off like a nightmare coat. The thing before Dimitri, Jon, and Morrigan opened it's mouth and laughed.
The face looked like a dog's jaw, but elongated and mutilated. A single gigantic eye still sat in the middle of the forehead, and two smaller, beady eyes sat behind the jaw in wrinkled folds of flesh. The creature shut and opened them twice, quickly in succession, making a noise - clack! clack! - that echoed in Moongrace's halls. The arms were thick and muscular, and the hide an unnatural faded purple color. Human and vampire faces, all with looks of utmost agony on their twisted faces, moaned and screamed upon his torso. Coarse black hair cascaded down it's back like a horse's mane. The hands were titanic claws, and one clutched the sword. It took two steps forward and roared at them.
" I am the Fragment of Hate," Donovan said, and a sickening tongue lolled in his mouth as he spoke. Thick ropes of saliva coated it, and horny buds grew all about it. " I live for malice, and exist for pain! I am the abomination of life!" It clacked it's jaws again. " And with Pyron at my side, I will purge this world in flame!" It leaped at Dimitri, swinging the sword. Dimitri rolled out of the way, and the enormous broadsword created a shockwave when it hit the ground. Dimitri got up and swung Ebonrule at him. Donovan dodged backwards, and then the faces on his body emitted a piercing scream. The air rippled with the force of it, and then it hit Dimitri. He was blown backwards and into the wall behind him. He fell to the floor, and lay there, dazed.
Donovan was going to leap at the vampire and kill him when Morrigan's tentacles struck his arm. The points buried themselves in his arm, and began drawing him backwards. Donovan snarled, and jerked forward hard. Morrigan was flung upward, then down as gravity asserted it's hold. Her tentacles snapped back, black blood gushed out of the wounds she had made. Donovan snarled at her, then snarled again as Jon leapt onto his back. Grabbing his head, Jon meant to jerk off his head, just like he'd done to the Fragment of Greed. The eye in Donovan's forehead looked up then, and Jon felt a rush of sheer hate. The world turned black and white before him, and before he knew what had happened he had fallen to the floor. Donovan turned and lifted his sword.
Hissing the whole time, Felicia had launched herself at Donovan's arm from behind. She sunk her right claw into his meaty forearm and slashed at the back of his hand with her left. The unholy tendons sheared off, the monster's hand twitched and relaxed, dropping the sword. Howling with rage, Donovan shook his arm and tried to batter Felicia senseless. She held on, kicking his face and hissing.
Morrigan got up, madder than hell. She had never been tossed aside so easily before, and she was pissed.
[ Got a present for ya, big boy,] she thought, forming a fireball in her hands.
Snapping out her right hand, a fireball streaked across the room, and it struck Donovan in the back of the legs. He shrieked and tumbled. Felicia, seeing her chance, leaped off and then pounced on his face, slashing away. Blood splashed as her claws rended at his face.
The faces on his body shrieked again, and Felicia was blown off like a leaf in the wind. She rolled as she hit the ground and turned about. In front of her, Jon was standing, but he wasn't moving...
" Jon!" she said, approaching him. " What are you doing?"
The only answer she got was a snarl and a snap of his jaws. Jon was attacking her! She leaped backwards, wondering what had happened to her love. Jon advanced, growling at her.
Inside his own mind, Jon saw a field of black rent throughout with electricity. Bolts flashed across this endless dark.
[Looks like the inside of a thundercloud,] he thought.
In his mind, an eye suddenly opened in the middle of this blackness. Though he didn't know it, the lightning-torn darkness about him was Jon's own subconscious. The eye was twice as large as Jon, and was as red and insane as the one in Donovan's forehead. The eye looked at him, and Jon felt it trying to take over. He howled in his mind and resisted it, but it was carrying him away in a black tide of murderous rage, an ocean of hatred he could not help but drown in....
Screaming, Jon summoned all his energy to fight it. Thinking of Felicia, he tried to drive back the hate.
In the real world, Jon suddenly stopped moving. His whole frame shuddered, and then he fell to the ground on his knees. He started hacking and coughing. Felicia, still too scared and surprised to come near him, stood back.
" Felicia," Jon said, and his voice was thick, like he had a sore throat, " get... away... Uwaaak!"
This last was the sound of Jon suddenly regurgitating something. A black liquid poured out of his jaws, dripping onto the stone floor and spreading out. A single hellish eye gleamed out of the mess on the floor. Jon glared at it, and then drove his claws into it, puncturing the eye. More black fluid sprayed out between his claws. The liquids on the floor slowly dissipated away afterwards.
Felicia looked at Jon. " Jon, what was... that?"
Jon looked at her, breathing hard. That had taken a lot out of him. " Don't know. Did I... hurt you?"
She shook her head. " No. Are you all right?"
He wiped his jaws with the back of his hand. He still felt woozy, but okay. " Fine. Never been better." Getting up, he looked back at Donovan, currently tangling with Morrigan and Dimitri. " Let's get him," he said, running back towards the battle. Felicia ran beside him.
As this scene was playing out, Morrigan had hooked her tentacles into Donovan's arm as she had done before. He did the exact same thing, jerking his arm back. But as she left the ground, Morrigan spread her wings. The push of her wings against the air stopped his arm and made Donovan stumble. She began flapping her wings, dragging Donovan along. He jerked back, and she was dragged forward, but she kept flapping and eventually got her control back. She threw a fireball at him and he dodged. The dodge cost him, though, because Morrigan used the time to grab onto a nearby stone pillar. With this secure anchor, she began dragging Donovan towards her, like a fisherman who's caught a large fish. She planned on wrapping him up in the tentacles and crushing him when he got close enough for it. Donovan screamed at her, but her tentacles were sunk in the arm with his working hand (the other was useless from Felicia's assault) and he couldn't hold his sword to cut them off. Growling, he began hammering on the tentacles with his torn hand, using it as a club.
Dimitri had recovered from the shock of Donovan's screams and looked up. He saw Morrigan dragging Donovan to her, and he ran forward to help her. Donovan had hooked one massive table with his arm, and the weight was keeping Morrigan from dragging him any farther. She bared her teeth and pulled as hard as she could, but got him no farther. Donovan's horrid teeth gleamed at her as he grinned, and the faces on his body opened their mouths, ready to loose a hellish scream.
Dimitri got there first, though, and he ran Ebonrule into Donovan's side. The holy spear cut through his flesh and jabbed into his vital organs. Donovan screamed as Ebonrule's fire flared up and seared most of his internal body systems. The pain this brought gave him tremendous strength, and he snapped his arm back. The heads of Morrigan's tentacles were ripped off, still embedded in his flesh, and she screamed in pain. Blood shot out of the severed ends of her tentacles. Dimitri was struck by Donovan's flailing hand and was knocked backwards, into another of the great tables in the hall. Donovan staggered around to face him. Morrigan was still on the pillar, drawing in her wounded tentacles. Her look was a mix of pain and anger.
Donovan had trouble drawing breath, and the world swam before him. He knew the end was near, and had a wonderful plan. He was going to consume Dimitri with hate. The others were good fighters, but Dimitri and his spear were the greatest among them. If he was consumed by hate for all life, he would kill them and succeed where Donovan had failed. The eye in his forehead concentrated on Dimitri, and Dimitri felt a rush of madness descend on him. The world went black-and-white...
Ebonrule's sapphire glow suddenly surrounded Dimitri, and he felt the madness rush away. Donovan stood before him, stunned. What could possibly drive back his power? Pyron himself had granted it to him! Snarling, he raised his sword for one last attack. He roared, and black blood pouring from his wounds, he leapt forward.
He was met in mid-air by Felicia, who had tackled him from behind. She had rolled her body into a ball, and the force of her blow knocked Donovan past Dimitri. The abomination was knocked onto one of the tables, laying spread-eagled. Felicia jumped onto the table over him, and he tried to get up. Felicia's claws flashed. The eye in his forehead, the one that could infect others with Donovan's consuming madness and rage, was ripped apart. Donovan screamed once, and then lay still. Felicia, breathing hard, got off the table. As she did so, they all saw a ghostly image of Donovan's human body lifting out of the demonic corpse on the table. Several horned imps appeared next to it, grabbing it and slobbering their laughter as they did so. Donovan's screams rang in the hall, human now. The entire thing dissappeared like smoke as they watched.
Turning to his wounded companions, Dimitri said, " Everyone okay?"
Morrigan looked back at him. Her tentacles were still bleeding, but not so badly; her tentacles could regenerate, though at the moment they hurt like hell. She would be okay. " Yes."
" Same here," Felicia said. She sounded tired.
" Yeah," Jon said, still spitting. Sometimes his spit would have black flecks in it. He still hadn't got rid of the taste yet, that god-awful bitter taste of whatever had been inside him.
Dimitri nodded towards them, and then saw Jon grin. " What?" he asked.
Jon, still grinning, said, " Who says we stay here tonight? Because I sure as hell don't feel like hunting for a campground."
Felicia agreed. " Neither do I," she said.