I was finally able to fight for the computer against my sister, who shouldn't be here, and should be on her way to college, grrrr. Anyways I won, HA, so here's chapter 15. Sorry it took so long!
Ch.15 A Day With The Gods
Liz looked around, panting. She groaned, they were back in the Divine Realms, or the Realm of the Gods. She was exhausted, tired, and grumpy. And most of all, she was frustrated that she had grown up her entire life thanking that she was human and had just found out she was an avatar. And she was fed up with the Goddess inside her taking over her thoughts, it was annoying when they visited Kel. Liz had wanted desperately to end all the stupid riddles and tricky language, she wanted to just blurt everything out. But she couldn't, the Goddess was stronger, and she was already weak to begin with.
She looked down; she was still holding the man's hand. Guarire's hand. She blushed and dropped it as if his hand was an oven burner. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, and saw that he was inspecting himself with his green eyes. Instead of wearing what was in Liz's opinion regular clothes, he now wore an elegant green tunic with gold trimmings and brown breeches. His boots were the same dark brown as his unruly hair. A large blade hung from his hip on a brown belt. He also had a bow in a brown leather tube across his chest, as well as a quiver full of arrows.
She glanced at herself, and saw the same green silken gown. Helen was dressed in the same crimson red dress/toga. She pushed her crown of fauna from falling into her eyes and raised herself. It was strange, instead of feeling more exhausted from the unexpected journey, she found that she was slowly becoming stronger. She became weary of that fact, now she was certain this all wasn't a drug induced dream. But she wished it was, things would be much simpler than.
She looked over at Helen who was inspecting her bare arms for any grime from the nothingness. Liz rolled her eyes, "You're perfectly fine, nothing's wrong…" she paused. She felt that horribly familiar sensation. It was the sensation that always happened before the Goddess tried to get out. She gritted her teeth and locked her knees to try and steady herself.
"Are you going to finish your sentence?" asked Helen, unsure of what was going on.
"Damn it, not again," Liz said while rubbing her now throbbing temples.
"What? What's going on; are you okay?" Helen rushed over, unsure of what to do in this predicament.
"No, I'm not okay," Liz said in a way of making Helen feel much like an idiot.
She took a step and almost fell back as her entire surroundings whirled around her, until she dropped to her knees before Mithros and the Great Mother Goddess. "Well," she said dryly, "not that that wasn't interesting or anything, or that I haven't enjoyed these 'visits' we've been having, but I really should go back. You see my body is down there," she paused and pointed down, "…locked up in some place, and because my, whatever you'd like to call it, isn't in my body, I have no clue what's going on down there. I mean, if it's anything like jail, people could be raping me, or"
"SILENCE!" Mithros roared. "You always did rant an awful lot, I see our punishment hasn't rid you of that, but maybe you have indeed learned your lesson."
"I'd do anything to be back there, here, let's make a deal. You can go back to the day I was shot twice, kindly put my body back there, and make sure the good guys don't find me and cure me. Just let me rot, seriously I'm fine with that. Just as long as I don't keep having my body possessed and going into the Realm of the Dead with the Black God, who is apparently our brother. Just kindly put my 'soul' back to that time, and let me join ole Blacky. It's a win win situation. Com"
The Great Mother Goddess thrust her right arm out and Liz fell backwards and slid painfully on the floor for around fifty feet. Once her momentum decreased she rested her head against the marble floor painfully and kept hitting it repetitively. She felt cool hands grasp the back of her head lightly to keep her from whacking herself on the floor repetitively and she saw Helen mending her gown that now bore a large slit from abdomen to hip in the side.
Instantly, she felt the Goddess take over, but for some reason, she let Liz keep her mind intact, allowing her to have her usual first person point of view. The only thing the Goddess controlled was the newfound strength Liz found inside herself and her body, for now Liz was standing up. But then the Goddess returned the control to Liz, she frowned; this had never happened before.
There was something different, something immense pumping through her veins. It tingled and gave Liz the sensation that she could do anything. It was like she was on drugs but still had the full mentality in tack. She laughed at herself, this was magic. This was what it felt like, this was how it felt to be a god, or in her case, goddess.
Helen grinned broadly at her master, she was beginning to feel that strange sensation as well. Liz turned to the man, who was now looking at his hands. His entire body seemed to emanate a dark green glow, the same green as his eyes.
Liz whirled around, with newfound confidence. She laughed as she giddily ran towards Mithros and the Great Mother Goddess, the others followed, but at a much slower pace. She felt energy flow through her veins, she wanted to run forever, to see how far she could go, but forced herself to a stop in front of her siblings. She held out her arms and twirled, her gown rippling around her slender legs. "Brother, Sister, can't we just get along?"
Mithros cocked his head to one side. "Do not be foolish Vidi, we must show you what is to be done."
Liz jutted her lower lip out in a pout as Helen and the man came to her side. "Must we? I haven't the slightest clue of what home is like? May we first visit…"
She was interrupted by the Great Mother Goddess. "Yes, I do believe we will began at your…home. It will explain a lot." She snapped her fingers and the lot of them were instantly transported to another part of the realm.
Liz looked around, grinning. There was a flourishing jungle in their midst. And strangely, she found the idea of leaping into a tree and napping a great idea. It was becoming hard not to go with that plan, but she trekked on, following the two gods, her two siblings.
She stopped in her tracks. A myriad of memories rushed her, they were all the goddess' memories. And she felt tears rushing to her eyes, but she blinked them back. There was an immense crater in the leafy jungle. Thousands of trees were burnt, the earth was black and gray, ash was everywhere. She knew what once stood there. Her home, the place that was her home for centuries and it was all gone, and thousands of animal gods that were her friends had died. And she knew why, it happened during her war with her brother and sister.
She jutted her jaw out, teeth clenched in anger. It was strange, she wandered, that something she thought she'd never seen could do this to her. The young man was frowning, his forehead crinkled in thought, and Liz knew memories were swimming in his mind. Finally he spoke, "I don't understand, why me? Why now?" then he turned and looked at Liz, "Why did you call me Guarire? I'm Neal, Nealan Queenscove, not Guarire."
Mithros turned to him, "You are Guarire, at least in the avatar form. You are one of the healing and earth gods."
"Riigghhttttt," drawled Neal.
Mithros eyes flashed and his skin gave off a red glow, Liz was certain this meant he was angry. "Do not think you know better, it is what you are. Now we must show you what has to be done for our punishment to cease."
He spread his large black hands out and stood in the middle of the city sized crater. His sister, the Great Mother Goddess, followed and spread her arms out. A black light emitted from Mithros while a white blazing white emitted from the Mother goddess. Their power touched each other lightly at first, then swarmed away and came back with a great force and a thunderous boom. Liz saw Helen and the man who claimed to be named Neal flinch, but she remained watching them. The power rushed towards each other and formed a marble color and an immense square that slowly became translucent.
For what felt like days the three watched their lives as gods or goddesses. They watched the meeting of Vidi and Guarire, Occhio always just a step behind her master, Vidi. They gazed upon the large image of a fierce battle, in which Vidi transformed into a large panther and thrashed and bit at her siblings, Occhio helped, she transformed into a gorgeous ocelot. And Guarire fought along side them, as a jaguar.
The battle was bloody, all of the gods blood fell onto the earth in a terrible storm of raining blood. But the other gods chose side, and to the trios dismay most of them sides with Mithros and the Mother Goddess. And the ones that did side with the trio eventually surrended to the other side. In the end, the Great Mother Goddess, as a large wolf, slashed at Vidi's muzzle and bit her behind the neck. Vidi also had a gash on her stomach, paining her with each step. Vidi dropped, she was the last remaining, as Occhio lost a leg and Guarire was imprisoned in a magical cage, all the other gods bestowing torture on him.
Liz swallowed hard, bile was churning in her stomach, and she was certain Helen had thrown up when she saw her leg severed. To her amusement Helen was testing her right leg, to make sure it was still there and still worked.
Neal's adam's apple was bobbing as his mind was working every little detail out. Liz wasn't sure if she was shaking or if the jungle was. She continued to watch as she saw various forms of her features and the others be born as avatars, each failing and dying horrible deaths, no doubt by the hands of the gods, as they couldn't find each other.
Liz winced as she saw a plumper, strawberry blonded form of herself be crushed by a beam at a construction site that she was passing. The bile rose as she saw the body go everywhere.
She looked back, Neal was looking green and Helen was giving a look that said, 'better you than me.'
A new image formed on the screen, it was a form of the now present Neal, except he wore a top hat, had grey streaks in his hair and was twirling a cane while bobbing up and down the street, that is until both horse and carriage ran over him, trampling over his body.
Eventually, the various forms of all of them in the past faded from the screen, and it showed a lard of a man, picking at the oily pimpled on his haggard face. Liz jumped with excitement, she remembered this man from the visit she had with Kel. She looked back at Helen, who was trying to find something nice to say about him, but eventually gave up. Neal stood, lip quivering from hidden laughter. Liz raised a brow and turned back to the two gods.
"Well? This is one of the men Kel's supposed to kill, right?" She bounced on the balls of her feet, ready for praise instead of the usual scorn from her siblings.
Mithros opened his mouth, to speak, but Neal blurted first. "KEL! Keladry Mindelan? She has something to do with this mess?"
"Yes, Guarire," said the Mother Goddess through clenched teeth, trying to fight back her anger. "She is the Protector, Vidi is her Guardian, Occhio and Guarire, the both of you are to help her during the battle."
Neal rubbed his face with his hand, "Can't you leave her out of this?"
"If you want to pin the blame on anyone, it would be Vidi," smirked the Goddess.
Liz frowned, no wonder she didn't like her sister, as she'd felt everything the goddess had during the images, frankly, or at least in her opinion, she thought the goddess was pretty close to the bitchy side. But she didn't dare speak a word of it.
"I've already spoken with Kel about Blayce, but what about the other two, who are they, who else is she supposed to…kill." Liz spoke quickly and excitedly, for the goddess wanted the whole mess to be over, she wanted to go home desperately.
The image changed as the Great Mother Goddess waved her hand over it. They now watched a large muscled man, who at the moment held a machine gun. He looked fierce and determined. For some reason he was pointing his gun at various children, who were all in a line, leaving an orphanage.
Then the image changed again. The trio knew who it was. It was Maggot. He sat behind his desk, maps of Tortall and Scanra askew on the old wood. A conniving smile spread across his worn face. He had tiny red dots sprawled across the border of Scanra, and Liz knew they were the areas where Maggot had stations of troops, readying themselves to enter Tortall at his beck and call.
Neal was about to ask something of the gods when the Great Mother Goddess whirled around quick and stood face to face with Liz. "They're coming."
"Who? What are you talking about?"
"In your cell, he's coming for you," the goddess said and Liz could feel herself fading from her mind. She looked over and saw the other two were gone.
She slammed into the cold stone floor, and looked down to see herself in her regular clothes, her hair the same length it had been, to the middle of her back. Helen was sprawled out some yards away from her, dusting herself off. She too wore her usual clothes, and looked the way they had before Liz transported them to the Divine Realms.
Keys could be heard jangling down the hall, and Liz crawled backwards on hands and knees till her back was against the stone wall. A group of nearly twenty guards came to their cell, all grinning foolishly at their captives.
Helen began quivering and Liz knew she'd been beaten repetitively by the guards, maybe even raped. She looked back at the guards as the leader, the man jingling the keys, began to unlock the door. The metal screeched loudly as he opened the gate. The guards swarmed into the cell after him, it was a tight squeeze. Their leader sent only five of them to Helen, and the other fifteen guards to Liz.
Their boss obviously thought Liz was more of a fight. The leader of the guards grabbed Liz furiously, causing her head to slam into the wall, and Liz could feel blood trickle down her neck. She faintly heard Helen struggle helplessly against her own guards. But Liz didn't put up a fight. She wanted to meet this leader, and she couldn't put up a fight if she wanted to. As much as she hated to admit it, she was helpless, especially with fifteen men encircling her.
The leader along with another burly guard pulled her up violently and squeezed her biceps as they dragged her from the cell. Their steps echoed loudly in the hall, but Liz couldn't hear anything, except for a faint ringing in the background. The bars of the other cells began to blur as her eyes rolled back in her head.
Next chapter is going to be of the trio that has been left behind and Dom and Kel. Review please!
Much love,
redpheonix