Chapter Fourteen: The Loudest Cries of the Nameless
Zachwell was awestruck…How was this possible? In all his uncounted years of existence, He'd not tasted this kind of fear. He clenched his fist around his sickle; he gripped it so tightly that the pale color of his knuckles faded to white.
Eight Dragons, that human had the power of eight Dragons on his body. The strain should have torn him limb from limb, joint from joint…molecule from molecule. Yet there he stood, as real as the fright that turned Zachwell's black blood cold.
Sparks of vibrant, powerful magic discharge shook off of the enormous wings. A reptilian growl escaped the muzzle on the terrible head of that human, Sean! The thought of the human body within that armor , however strong, filled Zachwell with rage. He was powerful, but Zachwell's revenge would be realized. His muscles tensed, and he kicked off, speeding in Sean's direction.
The next three seconds were a blur. Something struck Zachwell's back, cutting the flesh and throwing him to the ground sprawling. He looked up, to find the Dragoon standing behind where he'd been, with dark blood dripping from a clawed gauntlet.
"You filthy human" Zachwell spat. Muscle, sinew, and bone reconfigured and bound together again, and he stood. He readied his sickle, but stopped in panic when he saw the glow. It was intensely bright, and Zachwell saw every color within the shine.
Sean plunged his glowing hands into the earth, and the light surrounded the entire area around them. Zachwell prepared to protect himself, but no harm came to him. Instead, the light died down, and everything was the same, or so he thought for the moment.
Suddenly the ground began rumbling, and lush, green grass and plant life sprang up from the ground. Thick, unnaturally strong vines wrapped around Zachwell's feet, he leapt up, but they pursued him. Soon he was surrounded, and brought down to the ground. Slowly they began constricting, and long thorns grew and dug deep into his flesh.
"New Life for the Worthy," Sean growled. He looked down at the thick rays of light engulfing his friends. Soon it faded, and vanished, leaving them standing, without a trace of any harm every coming to them. They were completely dumbfounded, until, in unison, their eyes fell upon the nine foot tall Dragoon. Some gasped, and some yelped at the sight of him.
"…Sean?" Ben cautiously asked. He peered at Sean. They all stared strangely at the Dragoon before them.
He raised a hand, slowly, somewhat ominously, but as fear rose in the hearts of his friends, Sean gave them a thumbs up. The Dragoons sighed in relief, but something was different about the air around Sean. They couldn't quite place it…
Sean could, he was aware of everything going on inside him at the moment. This gathering of Dragons around his body should have torn him apart, yet he held. The strain was terrible, but there were eight voices more than the norm, seven of which confessed secrets of their former hosts: friendship, admiration, reliance, and love. His own ambition, love, and anger filled him with the will to continue on fighting this incredible burden on his body, and to hold this enormous power.
The abilities of every element were at Sean's disposal, and more, as had previously been demonstrated. But Sean would not let himself see too many of the things he was capable of. He didn't want to ever be enticed to do this again.
This is something I've never dreamt of, The Divine Dragon spoke. Sean, stay strong, and be careful, this power can kill you.
I know, and I will, Thought Sean. This wouldn't take long. Perhaps Zachwell couldn't die, but Sean could separate him from his limbs, and scatter them across Endiness. Or perhaps the World of Light missed its favorite victim.
Either way, Sean knew that Zachwell would not be able to fend off this new power, no matter how strong he'd become. He'd be beaten, and put away forever. That is, if Sean didn't find some way to kill him.
He put his hands before him, and two of the spires on his forearm guards stuck out. An intense fireball burned suddenly within them.
"Flameshot," he growled, the fireball launched with a boom, and Zachwell fled to escape being scorched. Zachwell threw his sickle, and it flew in a straight path a Sean, who caught it and threw it to the ground. It was unwise to toy with the cunning demon. It should end right now.
Sean widened his stance, and all eight prongs clipped out and started glowing. Sean's wings became even larger, and the six inner wings stuck into the ground, while the outermost two connected to his legs. The transformation left Sean strongly resembling an anti-aircraft cannon.
"Rage Behind the Dead," Sean said. The spires' glows intensified, and they began spinning around his arms. A whir sounded out, and soon discharge lanced out in all directions, displaying the power of the magic force gathering in Sean's hands.
Melissa, a safe distance away, stared in awe at her soul mate. She took a step forward, and then another, being drawn toward him, feeling the danger of the situation they were all in. However, Ben grabbed her wrist and turned her around. "We stay here," he said sternly. Just then, a thick bolt of magical energy arced out in their direction. Ben grabbed Melissa and fell to the ground, but they watched the bolt strike some invisible barrier, and break down into nothing. Ben looked to Sean, seeing his head turn away from looking at them. He sighed again, at least the power hadn't gone to Sean's head, and he still had his friends' safety in mind.
Their heads snapped around as a bellow and a tear broke the steady noise of Sean's gathering. Zachwell tore, bloody and furious from the cocoon of vines. His sickle flew into his hands and he stuck the bottom into the ground, until the pointed back of his skull-shaped hilt was at chest height.
He plunged the sickle's hilt into his chest, right over the jewel. "This land belongs to me. Home field advantage is mine, Dragoon," he said. A thick trail of blood fell down his stomach, but it merely mixed with the blood he was covered in. Zachwell's red eyes glowed, as did the eyes of his sickle.
"Uuummm…we should go…like…right now," Rob said. The spiritless Dragoons turned and began running, leaving the scene to Sean and Zachwell. A growing ball of swirling light, and a great ball of black and red magic contrasted the traditionally dismal and dead landscape of Mayfil.
Sean looked with one of his eight eyes to see that his friends were a safe distance away. When he knew they were, he extended his fingers, and the magical reaction threw the ball in Zachwell's direction, leaving a tail that was dozens of feet thick.
"If you think the King of Death will fall to a human, penance for your mistake is a slow and painful death!" Zachwell bellowed. He released his own attack, and the beams collided and began their struggle.
Once more, Sean looked to see that his friends were a safe distance away. Finally telling himself it was safe, he unleashed the attack's true power. It moved downwards with ease, and Zachwell's beam shot upwards, over Sean's head and into the sky. Sean's beam advanced on Zachwell, who screamed and took to the skies.
The beam simply followed him. Sean made sure that it wouldn't dissipate until it had struck Zachwell with full force. The beam gathered speed, and soon Zachwell was heading for the center of Mayfil, beating his wings furiously.
Sean watched, unsurprised when the beam caught his feet, and then engulfed him in an explosion that rivaled an atomic bomb.
All of Mayfil grew silent, and seemed to watch for Zachwell to make his come back from the ashes. Yet for a long time nothing happened. A darkness appeared to be gathering in the center of the crater. Sean's wings lifted him off the ground, and without a kick of any sort they loftily carried him to the edge of the crater.
"You are kidding," Brad said, shielding his eyes from the dying explosion. They had all stopped when they'd seen their shadows on the ground in front of them and turned around. They saw a great portion of Mayfil become dust in a few seconds, and in the blast somewhere, they had lost sight of Zachwell.
"Hey!" Brittany said. "Sean's going toward the crater!"
"Let's go!" Melissa said instantly. They all began running in the other direction, following Sean to the new hole in the Death City.
Sean touched down on the edge of the crater, he'd imagined that Zachwell would reconstruct in some ugly way, but he hadn't imagined this grotesque sight. The darkness had gathered thickest in the center of a sphere, where a small blue ball was spinning.
It slowly grew larger, and the colors varied more, until a piece of it opened, revealing yellow fangs. A struggling noise erupted from the opening, which was obviously becoming Zachwell's mouth.
Arms shot out, as well as legs. They were much skinnier than they'd been before the explosion. Sean felt that Zachwell's power had been expended to bring himself back from that state of matter.
Zachwell fell to a knee as the last reconstructions finished. He stood up, looking himself over in fury. "How dare you?" He demanded. His voice was less menacing, and induced no fear, even from Sean's childhood.
Without a word he backhanded the unwitting demon into a wall on the far side of the street. Zachwell tore up from the rubble and wrapped a black strand around Sean's neck and tugged, but Sean didn't move an inch. Sean grabbed it and yanked Zachwell in close. The clawed gauntlets gripped his blue neck tightly, and Sean brought him up face-to-face, and bellowed in a Dragon's roar.
Sean threw Zachwell into the sky and unleashed a fireball, then a gust of wind, then a boulder, then a sharp stream of ice, then a bolt of electricity, and then encased Zachwell in a sphere much like the one he'd placed Sean's friends in. The difference between the two was that in a quick jolt Zachwell was compressed to a much smaller size. When the attack released, a beam of light came down from the sky and beat Zachwell into the ground. Zachwell threw himself back up, roaring and readying his sickle, to which Sean grasped his hand tightly, and felt his magic create a new blade.
Crystals of eight colors sprang from his hand, and formed a handle and hilt, and a black blade, thick and curved, sprang up and into the air. Zachwell snarled and rushed forward to bring the blade of the sickle down on Sean, but with a quick slice, Sean's blade cut through the hilt of Zachwell's.
He ran Zachwell through, all the way up to the crystalline hilt, and unleashed a blast from his cannon that tore him back off it. Zachwell tumbled to the ground, healing as he rolled.
He could not be losing this fight! He'd lost most of his strength in recovering from the great blast Sean had hit him with, now he was little more than he'd been when he'd met that accursed Dart and his band of Dragoons. Even then they couldn't kill him, so how? How could a human, a member of a race that had grown so weak, be able to fend him off with such little effort?
It didn't make sense! Blood ran from wounds that he found himself straining to heal, as Sean's blade disappeared, and the punching and kicking resumed. Zachwell tried desperately, but in vain to defend himself, and was the recipient of too many blows to heal. Finally, Sean put some effort into a strike, and knocked Zachwell fifty feet back, well into the center of Mayfil.
Zachwell laid on his back, figuring he had time to think. He looked up at the black sky. Was he dying? Would the clouds never again cover Mayfil? Would death remain his servant no longer? The tall tower, the lightning rod for the souls of the wicked in the days of the Winglies, obstructed the view of the clouds, awakening one desperate thought in Zachwell's panicked mind.
He stood up, with some effort, he wouldn't die, he couldn't die, he had a vengeance to realize. He reconstructed his sickle as Sean appeared on the scene. "You, worthless human! Even in those cloaked eyes I see you're fantasized victory, you think you've won, don't you? I can not be defeated, I am immortal! You are a mere human! If my power cannot overcome yours, that of eight dragons, then I will acquire a new strength of my own!" He said. He raised his sickle, yet rather than throw it at Sean, he thrust the bottom point into the ground, willing it to crack and break, forming a direct conduit to the Inferno.
"The souls of the wicked, strong and weak, have been trapped here from a time when there was such a thing as strength. When there was such a thing as power. And now, I am taking it as my own! Prepare for the end, human!" Zachwell roared and dropped into the fiery chasm below.
For a moment all was silent, and even Sean did not know what was occurring inside the orange glowing Hellhole. He took a curious step forward, lowering his guard ever so slightly to peer downwards a little further, but could see nothing.
Suddenly, a chorus of shrieks tore into the sky from the chasm, carrying a beaten and bloody Zachwell in the wind. Close behind him, ever upwards, were hundreds, maybe thousands of small, fiery souls that had seen every form of pain every day in the ages since their arrival. The heat from the blast warmed Sean's armor, but the aura of the reaction occurring chilled Sean's bones. What was Zachwell doing?
Sean focused on the thrashing demon of death, burning in the fires of the Wingly created Hell. The flames doused his body, licking his skin and singeing it with every touch, and eventually it burned through the shaft of Zachwell's sickle. Sean then heard three words erupt from his mouth.
"Enough of this!"
With the hilt of his sickle turned inwards, toward his chest, Zachwell thrust downwards, cutting through flesh, ribs, and the protective jewel over his black heart, in which another small incision had been placed. Zachwell threw down the sickle and grabbed hold of his ribs.
"All evils, come to me, serve me as you should," He tore the ribs outwards, and suddenly the souls began pouring in, as if sucked by a vacuum. Sean watched in awe as Zachwell's muscles, and bones, and armor all expanded, yet the souls simply kept coming.
Zachwell let out a piercing scream, with a voice that was soon joined by the other souls now residing in his body, evil souls, malice ripe in each one.
Sean felt Zachwell's body grow as strong as it had been a few moments ago, and increase again in strength. He fired a volley of magical blasts to destroy Zachwell, but they veered off as if deflected by an invisible shield.
"Something's wrong," Mike said. They climbed up over a hill of rubble and witnessed the stream of evil souls pouring into Zachwell, and Sean behold it, waiting for it to finish.
"What's going on?" Brittany asked. They began running down the hill, eager to get closer to see what this sight would portend.
Authors' Note: Sorry for the wait, but the usual is happening and we cant seem to get to the computer as much. Please review! We'll see you next chapter!