Beginning's End
By: Lazeralk
Standard disclaimers apply.
"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." – Semisonic
Part 10
Don't be mad at me! I'll fix it I swear! It's all my muses fault, blame everything on her!
*
"MASTER!" screamed Seras as pain lanced through her body as if her soul were being torn out of her. Blood tears poured down her cheeks and her spirit broke. Her whole body went numb. Nothing mattered anymore, she didn't know why she was there. Her master was dead. Her whole world came crashing down around her, the tiny shards of her broken dreams slicing into her heart. Her master was dead. The man she loved was dead, and she never even got to tell him.
Rage replaced heartache, rage for the ones who had dared to take the most precious thing in her life away from her. They would all die. Every last one of them. The bloodthirsty beast that lived inside of her took full control of her body and she threw back her head and roared.
She charged the self-proclaimed God at a blinding speed and jumped up into the air upon reaching him. He aimed a slow swipe at her but she dodged and punched him square in the face. She landed on her feet, her back hunched, arms dangling at her sides before growling like an animal and charging again. She raked glove-covered fingers across the wolf's belly and spilled his guts onto the floor.
The wolf-god howled in pain, took one last swing at her that knocked her to the ground, then turned and fled. Seras screamed in primal rage at being denied her kill, then caught the scent of more wolves and grabbed the nearest one but he crown. She bent its head backwards and tore open its neck with her teeth, gorging herself on the blood before tossing the still living beast to the floor. She crushed its face under her booted foot, and searched for her next victim.
Shadow drew both of her Shadowblades down in parallel strikes, hitting the demon on both shoulders and neatly cutting it into three pieces. The demon reformed and got back up again only to be cut down a second time. The shadow walker had been going on like this for most of the battle, completely ignoring the wolves and vampires and focusing solely on the demons. No matter how many times she killed them they just kept coming back.
"Why don't you just die?!" she raged at it, holding her blades braced against her arms and spinning, chopping the demon to pieces that were considerably less neat than the one's she made before. A group of tired and bloodied vampires moved to help her, tearing the pieces into even smaller bits and chunks until there wasn't enough of the demon left for it to regenerate.
She put the tips of her blades into the two inches of standing blood on the floor and leaned on the swords as she caught her breath. The blood around her feet suddenly moved, as if some great animal were stirring just below the surface. She frowned before dismissing it and pulling her blades up to fight again.
Ahmiyn, a set of long gashes running down her flank lifted her scorpion's tail and fired that last of her poisonous barbs. The manticor shuddered as a wolf bit into her back. Ranja lifted one frying pan sized paw and knocked the wolf off his mate, pushing his nose under her chin in an attempt to comfort her. Galina stepped in front of her last children and prepared herself to fight with the only weapons she had left, her own two hands. The wolves' numbers were dwindling, but so were the vampires, only a third of the original force remained standing.
She looked around but couldn't seem to find Arucard. His missing manic laugh made the battle seem somehow fake, as if it wasn't real without him there. Ahmiyn fell on her side, her body shaking with the pain of her injuries. Ranja licked her wounds for her as she dipped her own cats tongue into the pool of blood around them and began to drink.
Isabella's bat like wings beat the air as she continued to pick out targets for her bats. Several of them had fallen, returning to their true size in death. As she hovered over the carnage, she watched Arucard go down, her face expressionless. She dove as quietly as possible and snatched up Loki's discarded blade.
Instantly, the voice of the sword entered her mind.
-Put me down! Take me to my mother! What have you done with her? Why won't she answer me? You stupid vampire wench, you aren't worthy of wielding me! Put! Me! Down! –
Black power coursed through her veins and wracked her body with pain as the sword fought against her. Isabella growled and dropped it, watching as it crashed into the ever-growing pool of blood. The dark liquid splashed and then swallowed up the blade, hiding it from view. Isabella marked the spot mentally and then went back to directing her bats.
Loki was laughing manically, his back bowed, head thrown back in pure psychotic ecstasy.
"I did it! I really did it! I killed Arucard!" he exclaimed before going back to his convulsions inducing laughter.
"Oh shut, up." Came a voice from all around them. Loki abruptly stopped laughing, his insane glee turning into panic.
"No! No its not possible!" he screamed, bringing his hands up before his face as if to ward off a blow.
The world was suddenly swallowed by black, and Loki found himself standing alone in a vast nothingness, his ankles buried in blood. The silence was complete and it rung in his ears louder than anything he'd ever heard before. Eyes, red as the blood he was standing in appeared from everywhere, some were normal sized, some spanned over three feet, all were focused on him.
"You're dead! I killed you! I won! Do you hear me you bloody monster? I WON! The Throne of the Night is MINE! I won, I won, I won damn you, you lost, you lost so why won't you DIE?!" he screeched at the eyes that watched him with pity and disgust, his voice balanced precariously between desperate and stark raving mad.
"You know Loki, as the only one to ever come this close to killing me, I was going to give you a special death. I though you might appreciate it. Now though, now I see that any death would be mercy to you. Still, I would have truly died had I not conveniently landed in a pool of blood with power strong enough to revive me." Said Arucard even though he didn't exactly have a mouth.
"No! No!" screamed Loki, rage twisting his face.
"Yes, yes. Now watch carefully because I'm only going to do this once."
The eyes directly in front of his shifted, moving away from a swirling red mass that grew as the eyes moved. Loki's eyes widened as he looked in horror at the one thing he hoped he'd never see used against him. Fire licked at the edges of what he recognized as a portal to the demon realm.
"Not possible...you...have a...demon portal inside...your body..." he whispered, terror freezing his limbs.
"Why, yes. Where do you think I get all my Hellhounds?" replied Arucard casually, as if trying to make conversation.
"Hell...?" was all Loki got out before the giant head of black dog pushed its way through the portal, the head was followed by a second and then a third. One massive paw slammed into the ground, sending a shower of blood in every direction although not a drop seemed to even touch Arucard's many eyes.
A second paw joined the first and Loki saw that it was not three Hellhounds as he'd first suspected, but one giant three-headed beast. The monster pulled the rest of its body out of the portal and stood before the quivering form of the usurper in all its legendary glory.
"Cerberus." Hissed Arucard, causing the mythological gate guardian to toss its three gargantuan heads and bay.
"Destroy him." Commanded the vampire.
Cerberus lifted one blood-soaked paw and slammed it down on top of his prey, Loki screamed as he was dragged backwards, towards the waiting jaws of the three headed monster. The middle head snapped its jaws at the head on the right, who snapped back. The head on the left joined then and bit the ear of the middle head. They growled at each other, seemingly fighting over which head would get to devour the squirming morsel.
"Now, now boys, play nice. I'm sure you can share your little snack." Chastised Arucard, amusement coating his disembodied voice.
Loki sucked in a breath and screamed again as the teeth of the middle head picked him gently up and held still. He screamed louder when a new set of teeth locked around his legs. His breaking voice was lost as the third head clamped down around his shoulders. As one, the three heads pulled, and Loki was torn into three bite-sized pieces that each of the three heads ground to bits of raw meat and blood.
"Very good Cerberus. Now back you go." Said Arucard. The Hell's Gate beast howled before pressing three slobbering tongues to the black spaces between the eyes, then turning the way it had come and disappearing back into the portal.
The many eyes closed as one and the black faded to reveal Arucard returned to his proper body, standing in the middle of the room with the most annoyingly satisfied smirk on his lips. He turned, his eyes searching for familiar faces.
Seras had gone totally insane, her conscious mind suspended from reality as her body ripped through friend and foe alike. Arucard watched her for a moment, enjoying the sight of her fully embracing her vampiric side. Galina was tending to her last two manticors, one of which was lying on its side. Isabella was still up in the air, not a scratch on her lovely face, her bats swarming around her. There were only a handful of wolves left and they were being backed into a corner of the room by his loyal subjects. Shadow was finishing off the last of the demons, her face impassive as she efficiently chopped the demon into tiny stir-fry sized pieces.
He spotted Hallow's unmoving form and frowned sadly. He walked quietly over to his old friend, his boots sloshing in the blood that still covered the floor. Katrina was nowhere to be found. He looked around for his little redheaded child and could not find her alive or dead.
Seras stiffened her fingers and plunged them into the chest of her last opponent, then she put her other hand into the same wound, the palms facing outwards. She gripped the edges of the rib cage and pulled with all her might, the wolf splitting open, the two halves flying in opposite directions.
"That's enough police-girl." Said Arucard. Seras immediately came back to herself, her eyes widening with confusion and then horror for what she'd done and then joy that her master was still alive...er...undead.
"Master!" she cried happily as she ran the short distance that separated them and threw her arms around him. She'd been so scared that she'd lost him forever. She'd been so scared that she'd be trapped in this world without him.
"Easy now police-girl. I'm not that weak." He told her, running his gloved hands through her blood matted hair.
Seras suddenly stiffened, she backed away from him and clamped one hand over her mouth and nose.
"What's wrong police-girl?"
"Master." She said, her voice muffled by her hand.
"You smell awful." She told him, her eyes both laughing and disgusted.
Arucard frowned then looked down at his coat. It was covered with a thin film of transparent goo, he touched it and it pulled away from him in a sopping mess.
"Ah. Hellhound slobber." He said with a laugh, remembering Cerberus' parting doggie kiss.
"Police-girl, have you seen Katrina?" he asked, once again searching the room for his elder child. He'd felt something from her during the battle but he'd been so preoccupied with Loki that he'd completely ignored it.
"She's dead. Some big wolf thing ate her. It actually ate her." Said Seras, her voice trembling as recalled the sight of her 'sister' dangling from the wolf's claws.
"Some big wolf thing?" repeated Arucard, his face confused and angry at the same time. Not only was his best friend dead, but now his child was slain also?
"Fenrir." Said Shadow, as she moved to join them.
"What happened to him anyway?"
"Looking for me?" came the gravelly voice of the afore mentioned wolf-god. Behind him stood a hundred fresh werewolf soldiers.
"Here we go again." Said Seras.
Galina and Ranja moved to join them also, leaving the wounded Ahmiyn to recover on her own. The manticor roared loudly, a fresh volley of poison barbs ready in his arching tail.
"Can't you see that you've already lost? Loki is dog food and you are sorely out matched." Said Arucard.
"You are out numbered, and out of bullets. I don't think you have enough power left to take me on." Snapped the fallen deity.
"That's not quite true." Said a new voice from the door. Dragging a large wheeled cart with a massive steel box on it, was Olivia.
End part 10
See, I didn't kill off Arucard! Ah, there is love and death in the air, pretty no?
Part 10
Don't be mad at me! I'll fix it I swear! It's all my muses fault, blame everything on her!
*
"MASTER!" screamed Seras as pain lanced through her body as if her soul were being torn out of her. Blood tears poured down her cheeks and her spirit broke. Her whole body went numb. Nothing mattered anymore, she didn't know why she was there. Her master was dead. Her whole world came crashing down around her, the tiny shards of her broken dreams slicing into her heart. Her master was dead. The man she loved was dead, and she never even got to tell him.
Rage replaced heartache, rage for the ones who had dared to take the most precious thing in her life away from her. They would all die. Every last one of them. The bloodthirsty beast that lived inside of her took full control of her body and she threw back her head and roared.
She charged the self-proclaimed God at a blinding speed and jumped up into the air upon reaching him. He aimed a slow swipe at her but she dodged and punched him square in the face. She landed on her feet, her back hunched, arms dangling at her sides before growling like an animal and charging again. She raked glove-covered fingers across the wolf's belly and spilled his guts onto the floor.
The wolf-god howled in pain, took one last swing at her that knocked her to the ground, then turned and fled. Seras screamed in primal rage at being denied her kill, then caught the scent of more wolves and grabbed the nearest one but he crown. She bent its head backwards and tore open its neck with her teeth, gorging herself on the blood before tossing the still living beast to the floor. She crushed its face under her booted foot, and searched for her next victim.
Shadow drew both of her Shadowblades down in parallel strikes, hitting the demon on both shoulders and neatly cutting it into three pieces. The demon reformed and got back up again only to be cut down a second time. The shadow walker had been going on like this for most of the battle, completely ignoring the wolves and vampires and focusing solely on the demons. No matter how many times she killed them they just kept coming back.
"Why don't you just die?!" she raged at it, holding her blades braced against her arms and spinning, chopping the demon to pieces that were considerably less neat than the one's she made before. A group of tired and bloodied vampires moved to help her, tearing the pieces into even smaller bits and chunks until there wasn't enough of the demon left for it to regenerate.
She put the tips of her blades into the two inches of standing blood on the floor and leaned on the swords as she caught her breath. The blood around her feet suddenly moved, as if some great animal were stirring just below the surface. She frowned before dismissing it and pulling her blades up to fight again.
Ahmiyn, a set of long gashes running down her flank lifted her scorpion's tail and fired that last of her poisonous barbs. The manticor shuddered as a wolf bit into her back. Ranja lifted one frying pan sized paw and knocked the wolf off his mate, pushing his nose under her chin in an attempt to comfort her. Galina stepped in front of her last children and prepared herself to fight with the only weapons she had left, her own two hands. The wolves' numbers were dwindling, but so were the vampires, only a third of the original force remained standing.
She looked around but couldn't seem to find Arucard. His missing manic laugh made the battle seem somehow fake, as if it wasn't real without him there. Ahmiyn fell on her side, her body shaking with the pain of her injuries. Ranja licked her wounds for her as she dipped her own cats tongue into the pool of blood around them and began to drink.
Isabella's bat like wings beat the air as she continued to pick out targets for her bats. Several of them had fallen, returning to their true size in death. As she hovered over the carnage, she watched Arucard go down, her face expressionless. She dove as quietly as possible and snatched up Loki's discarded blade.
Instantly, the voice of the sword entered her mind.
-Put me down! Take me to my mother! What have you done with her? Why won't she answer me? You stupid vampire wench, you aren't worthy of wielding me! Put! Me! Down! –
Black power coursed through her veins and wracked her body with pain as the sword fought against her. Isabella growled and dropped it, watching as it crashed into the ever-growing pool of blood. The dark liquid splashed and then swallowed up the blade, hiding it from view. Isabella marked the spot mentally and then went back to directing her bats.
Loki was laughing manically, his back bowed, head thrown back in pure psychotic ecstasy.
"I did it! I really did it! I killed Arucard!" he exclaimed before going back to his convulsions inducing laughter.
"Oh shut, up." Came a voice from all around them. Loki abruptly stopped laughing, his insane glee turning into panic.
"No! No its not possible!" he screamed, bringing his hands up before his face as if to ward off a blow.
The world was suddenly swallowed by black, and Loki found himself standing alone in a vast nothingness, his ankles buried in blood. The silence was complete and it rung in his ears louder than anything he'd ever heard before. Eyes, red as the blood he was standing in appeared from everywhere, some were normal sized, some spanned over three feet, all were focused on him.
"You're dead! I killed you! I won! Do you hear me you bloody monster? I WON! The Throne of the Night is MINE! I won, I won, I won damn you, you lost, you lost so why won't you DIE?!" he screeched at the eyes that watched him with pity and disgust, his voice balanced precariously between desperate and stark raving mad.
"You know Loki, as the only one to ever come this close to killing me, I was going to give you a special death. I though you might appreciate it. Now though, now I see that any death would be mercy to you. Still, I would have truly died had I not conveniently landed in a pool of blood with power strong enough to revive me." Said Arucard even though he didn't exactly have a mouth.
"No! No!" screamed Loki, rage twisting his face.
"Yes, yes. Now watch carefully because I'm only going to do this once."
The eyes directly in front of his shifted, moving away from a swirling red mass that grew as the eyes moved. Loki's eyes widened as he looked in horror at the one thing he hoped he'd never see used against him. Fire licked at the edges of what he recognized as a portal to the demon realm.
"Not possible...you...have a...demon portal inside...your body..." he whispered, terror freezing his limbs.
"Why, yes. Where do you think I get all my Hellhounds?" replied Arucard casually, as if trying to make conversation.
"Hell...?" was all Loki got out before the giant head of black dog pushed its way through the portal, the head was followed by a second and then a third. One massive paw slammed into the ground, sending a shower of blood in every direction although not a drop seemed to even touch Arucard's many eyes.
A second paw joined the first and Loki saw that it was not three Hellhounds as he'd first suspected, but one giant three-headed beast. The monster pulled the rest of its body out of the portal and stood before the quivering form of the usurper in all its legendary glory.
"Cerberus." Hissed Arucard, causing the mythological gate guardian to toss its three gargantuan heads and bay.
"Destroy him." Commanded the vampire.
Cerberus lifted one blood-soaked paw and slammed it down on top of his prey, Loki screamed as he was dragged backwards, towards the waiting jaws of the three headed monster. The middle head snapped its jaws at the head on the right, who snapped back. The head on the left joined then and bit the ear of the middle head. They growled at each other, seemingly fighting over which head would get to devour the squirming morsel.
"Now, now boys, play nice. I'm sure you can share your little snack." Chastised Arucard, amusement coating his disembodied voice.
Loki sucked in a breath and screamed again as the teeth of the middle head picked him gently up and held still. He screamed louder when a new set of teeth locked around his legs. His breaking voice was lost as the third head clamped down around his shoulders. As one, the three heads pulled, and Loki was torn into three bite-sized pieces that each of the three heads ground to bits of raw meat and blood.
"Very good Cerberus. Now back you go." Said Arucard. The Hell's Gate beast howled before pressing three slobbering tongues to the black spaces between the eyes, then turning the way it had come and disappearing back into the portal.
The many eyes closed as one and the black faded to reveal Arucard returned to his proper body, standing in the middle of the room with the most annoyingly satisfied smirk on his lips. He turned, his eyes searching for familiar faces.
Seras had gone totally insane, her conscious mind suspended from reality as her body ripped through friend and foe alike. Arucard watched her for a moment, enjoying the sight of her fully embracing her vampiric side. Galina was tending to her last two manticors, one of which was lying on its side. Isabella was still up in the air, not a scratch on her lovely face, her bats swarming around her. There were only a handful of wolves left and they were being backed into a corner of the room by his loyal subjects. Shadow was finishing off the last of the demons, her face impassive as she efficiently chopped the demon into tiny stir-fry sized pieces.
He spotted Hallow's unmoving form and frowned sadly. He walked quietly over to his old friend, his boots sloshing in the blood that still covered the floor. Katrina was nowhere to be found. He looked around for his little redheaded child and could not find her alive or dead.
Seras stiffened her fingers and plunged them into the chest of her last opponent, then she put her other hand into the same wound, the palms facing outwards. She gripped the edges of the rib cage and pulled with all her might, the wolf splitting open, the two halves flying in opposite directions.
"That's enough police-girl." Said Arucard. Seras immediately came back to herself, her eyes widening with confusion and then horror for what she'd done and then joy that her master was still alive...er...undead.
"Master!" she cried happily as she ran the short distance that separated them and threw her arms around him. She'd been so scared that she'd lost him forever. She'd been so scared that she'd be trapped in this world without him.
"Easy now police-girl. I'm not that weak." He told her, running his gloved hands through her blood matted hair.
Seras suddenly stiffened, she backed away from him and clamped one hand over her mouth and nose.
"What's wrong police-girl?"
"Master." She said, her voice muffled by her hand.
"You smell awful." She told him, her eyes both laughing and disgusted.
Arucard frowned then looked down at his coat. It was covered with a thin film of transparent goo, he touched it and it pulled away from him in a sopping mess.
"Ah. Hellhound slobber." He said with a laugh, remembering Cerberus' parting doggie kiss.
"Police-girl, have you seen Katrina?" he asked, once again searching the room for his elder child. He'd felt something from her during the battle but he'd been so preoccupied with Loki that he'd completely ignored it.
"She's dead. Some big wolf thing ate her. It actually ate her." Said Seras, her voice trembling as recalled the sight of her 'sister' dangling from the wolf's claws.
"Some big wolf thing?" repeated Arucard, his face confused and angry at the same time. Not only was his best friend dead, but now his child was slain also?
"Fenrir." Said Shadow, as she moved to join them.
"What happened to him anyway?"
"Looking for me?" came the gravelly voice of the afore mentioned wolf-god. Behind him stood a hundred fresh werewolf soldiers.
"Here we go again." Said Seras.
Galina and Ranja moved to join them also, leaving the wounded Ahmiyn to recover on her own. The manticor roared loudly, a fresh volley of poison barbs ready in his arching tail.
"Can't you see that you've already lost? Loki is dog food and you are sorely out matched." Said Arucard.
"You are out numbered, and out of bullets. I don't think you have enough power left to take me on." Snapped the fallen deity.
"That's not quite true." Said a new voice from the door. Dragging a large wheeled cart with a massive steel box on it, was Olivia.
End part 10
See, I didn't kill off Arucard! Ah, there is love and death in the air, pretty no?