The Purification

She had seen such sights before.

Many, many times before.

Always when the actual strike is made against the cult's secret heart, the cultists are first surprised and then driven to a frenzied rage by their fell gods to defend their blasphemous space.

They fight with every weapon at their disposal, first proper weapons like blade and bullet, but when their swords grow dull and their guns run out of ammo, they then turn to blunt objects and fists and teeth and nails in a last fit of desperation against the righteous cleansing of their filth from the world.

All of this is to buy time for their fell priests to perform a last act of desperate magic, for it is always the last act when she was involved in the purification, either to rip open a doorway to the other place, or to summon some twisted nightmare from the beyond to do battle.

When others conduct the raids sometimes the cults succeed and their cursed magic unleashes horrors upon the world.

But when it comes to her, the cults have NEVER gotten that far when she's involved in the purge.

This time was no different, she was the first one to break through the cultists last lines of defense and to behold the corrupted core of their worship. She did her best to ignore the cultic objects and statues, since gazing upon the abominations for more than mere moments invited damnation, her focus fell on the priests of the things and without hesitation she pulled out her last loaded gun. The gun she always saved for last, the Holy Gun with the blessed silver bullets.

One of the priests turned from their obscene prayers long enough to realize his doom had come before she pulled the trigger, blowing his brains out and disrupting the ritual.

The screams from the priests as the fell energies they had been generating turned on them began the instant the first bullet struck.

But even as they were being torn apart by the abominable forces they had created, she continued to fire her sacred weapon. The priests had to die to end the horror before it could begin.

She was joined in the purging by other blessed weapons, a sign that the lesser cultists were now dead or dying outside.

It wasn't long before the last priest was on the floor, gasping her last.

"You... you will never..."

She watched as one of her comrades cleaved off the bespeckled woman's head with one stroke of his holy ax.

"I always win." Brittany answered coldly at the remains of what was once a person.

The ax wielder looked up at Brittany, "Does this one look familiar to you?"

"I think she used to be Cindy." Brittany answered while holstering her gun, the cleanup crew was already rigging up the phosphorus explosives. For if even one tainted artifact survived then the whole damn cycle could begin again.

It had to be burned away completely and utterly.

All of it.

Robert sighed,"She used to be such a nice girl."

"I know." Brittany answered flatly while the pair began to leave this pustule of nightmares, there was nothing else that they could do.

Since the world had endured the Near-End, the post-apocalyptic wasteland was a lot less fun than what pop culture had made it out to be.

So much had been lost when someone, somewhere had found an artifact buried in some lost, forgotten place and the first cycle of nightmares had begun.

But with the nightmares came hope, the True Light had returned to mankind, and with it had come a means to fight back the darkness.

Every inch of the world that was reclaimed by the human race had been paid for in blood and tears. Brittany had suffered her own losses, and she knew damn well that Robert had never forgiven himself for not being able to save Ted.

But the prices had been paid, all over what remained of the world the prices had been paid.

As Brittany stepped outside and felt the early light of the dawn upon her face, she gazed upon a world that was finally beginning to heal.

A few plants were beginning to grow again, the first harvests were being brought in. No longer would people have to subside on recycled artificial food, and there were enough DNA samples of animals in hidden labs to create a new biosphere.

Not like the old world though, never again would the splendor and plenty of the old time exist. But maybe something new and pure could help life begin again.

"It's going to be a beautiful day." Brittany said in a voice that reminded Robert of her old chirp.

He couldn't help but feel just a little bit hopeful too.

The sun was shinning, and that was always good.

FIN