God Rising

Chapter 116

Written by: AtheistBasementDragon

Edited by: The Usual Gang of Drunken Perverted Idiots

AN: You've waited for this, enjoy it. If you want to support various God Rising projects from illustrated pdf creation to turning it into an audiobook, you can do so at p a treon dot com slash godrising. I will never personally profit from any of this, all funds will be used for supporting the fan projects for this community, if there ever is any overage, it will be donated entirely to charity and I will not keep a single red cent.

...Prart…

"Remedios!" Neia shouted as the woman stared at her, hatred burst from her breast as if from Tinamoc's heart. Despite the desperate melee, nobody came near to her. She could see Red Paladins fighting the Holy Paladins of Remedios. She could see the screaming undead flying into the melee with the abandon that only the unliving are capable of offering up. She could see Black Scripture fighting Black Justice, and she made a mental note to thank Gustav when she saw him next time, drawing away their best had no doubt saved many lives.

The army before them was truly massive, but the crushing weight of her god's power had killed many and wounded others, while those neither wounded nor killed had lost their heart's will. Remedios herself did not look her best, she stared at Neia as if she were seeing something unknown, some dread beast she did not truly believe existed.

"I warned you at Wenmark that I would kill you! Now I'll keep that promise! In the name of the elves of Wenmark, in the name of my followers, in the name of His Majesty, the Sorcerer King to whom I have sworn my life, today I bring death to you, an end to your legend, an end to your terror! Your life belongs to me, Remedios Custodio!"

Neia held her sword in hand and pointed at her. "Now get over here!" She shouted, a head exploded behind Remedios as CZ took down a scripture member. In the corner of her eye Neia saw Lakyus take the heads of a trio of soldiers with her floating swords, the snow turned red and churned with the earth beneath, soaking the frozen ground to make an icy mud.

"Pronounce all you like! But you are the one about to die!" Remedios said as she held her sword pointed up at Neia, each one mirroring the other's gesture. "I'll tear your cult up root and branch, I'll light all your worshipers aflame on stakes from here to Hoburns, and BURN the evil out of this country!" Her voice was filled with anger and hatred, a zealot's gleam in her eyes, but she did not meet the black hollows that Neia's eyes had become.

"You wanted this!" Neia shouted at her as the Paladin's face twisted. "I never did! You were my hero, damnit! You ruined everything! You're a butcher! A traitor! A monster! You brought this end on all of us!" Neia's voice was a hammer to the soul, her hatred, wrath, and fury had but one focus.

"You're right!" Remedios said in a thunderous voice, "I did want this, I wanted to kill you for the undead worshiping monster you are before you brought my country to ruin! I should have killed you last time! I WILL kill you this time!" Her voice was hard and hot with wrath of her own as she gutted a soldier who dared come too close. She drew closer across the space between them. "I'll present your head to that damnable undead, and I'll make sure that whore you married sees your corpse before I wipe this city of evil off the map! Now that you're in reach again, no walls, no guardians or monsters, there will be nothing to stop me from finishing what I started."

"Not… no guardians." Skana said as she kicked aside the body of a woman who did not know yet that the Vice Commander had killed her.

She approached to stand near to her wife.

"Ah, good! Together, it'll be that much better to kill one in front of the other, and I get to answer one burning question." Remedios said with sick, twisted smile splitting her face. "Does evil mourn the death of evil?" She asked, and shot towards Skana the Bold.

Her sword flashed down in a terrible arc, but Skana flipped backwards out of reach, only to bounce on her feet and spring forward in an attempted lunge against the aggressive Remedios. The fallen paladin twisted out of the way of the lunge, then leaned in and flung her body hard at the crouched Skana, throwing her off balance. Before she could bring her sword in to finish her off, Neia closed and slammed hard into Remedios's side, flinging her off balance instead.

Neia's visor was gone, in its place only eyes dark as death's own shadow held sway. She locked her gaze on the paladin, the dread drumming that Remedios remembered, the fractures and cracks, they were all gone, purity was all there was, the force within had broken through and threatened to annihilate and consume, an aura whirled around her, smaller by far than when she'd been on the wall, but it was like the grasping hands of spirits trying to tug the paladin's own from out of her body.

She slammed her elbow into Neia's jaw, then kicked Skana back and tumbled away, buying herself, and them, distance.

While neither individually was as powerful as Remedios, both Neia and Skana were augmented by the finest equipment available and ample experience. While fighting together in perfect synchronized motion, it was a dangerous combination. As Skana flew back, Neia flew in, sword flashing towards Remedios's eye, the fallen paladin stopped the blade but forgot that the way of Black Justice focused on adaptability, the sword was not the only weapon, they had their hands. Neia grabbed the blade hand of her enemy right at the wrist and twisted, Remedios yelped and kicked Neia in the knee, only to find as the Pope went down that Skana was already coming forward before the sword could deliver a killing blow to Neia. For Skana, it was just a more complicated and deadly dance, she was not only bold, she was a sword dancer and every opponent was, to her, a new dance partner. The whistling of blades cutting through the air was her music, and adapting to the rhythm was her speciality.

Remedios shouted in frustration as she had to dodge aside, only to take an open palm blow from the pope directly to her inner thigh that twisted her off balance. Skana took advantage of that to land a mailed fist into her face. Remedios fell and rolled to one side, following the momentum, she was on her feet and she charged in, hammering Neia Baraja with the force of her martially enhanced body.

The warrior pope fell backwards, and rose to a crouch, drawing her bow in a practiced motion faster than Remedios could reach her, she sent several arrows at her target, Remedios avoided two, but after stopping a rear strike from the Vice Commander behind her, the third caught her in the gut, and armor or no, knocked the wind from her.

She kicked behind her and knocked Skana back, she growled in unbridled fury. "Just DIE already!" Remedios screamed at the monster in front of her. "Holy Strike!" She shouted, and the white light came down to obliterate the evil servant of the undead.

"Neia! No!" Skana shouted, and Remedios laughed, ready to take joy in the cries of a dying evil.

But to her shock, she did not hear screams she heard… laughter.

"So, this is what it means to take holy damage! This is holy pain?! This is nothing!" Neia's head was tilted back, a shadow in the light whose night black eyes stood out all the more as they gazed into her opponent, and she laughed until the light began to fade. Skana did not have to be in front of the fallen paladin to know that shock and disbelief colored her expression, however as Skana realized what Remedios had done, she felt an overwhelming sense of relief. It had long been a fear of Skana's that Neia's growing battlefield zealotry was taking her away from the good woman that she was, and by some almost miraculously good choice of attacks, the holy strike confirmed to Skana quite firmly that her Neia was, if different than she had been, still very much herself.

"No! You serve the undead! You're evil! You have to be evil!" Remedios shouted in a kind of deep personal agony.

"Fuck you! No, I don't! I was never evil! You stupid, stupid fool, just because someone looks different or thinks different or is different, doesn't make them EVIL!" Neia shouted, Remedios could not accept what she was seeing, and definitely could not accept what she was hearing. Neia Baraja followed the undead, the undead were evil, therefore Neia Baraja was evil, evil was harmed by holy damage, good was not, therefore what was not harmed by holy damage was not evil.

She couldn't make these contradictions fit, her head hurt just thinking about it, so she stopped. "Sinner's Penitence!" Neia shouted, and Remedios was engulfed in shadow, where Neia had laughed within the light, Remedios screamed within the darkness until it faded away.

When it was gone, there were countless cuts and marks all over her body, hundreds and hundreds of them it seemed. "What did you do?! You were never this strong!" Remedios shouted in disbelief, leaping out of the way as Skana took advantage of the moment to try to get her from behind, her attempt at avoidance was successful, but not nearly as fast as it had been moments ago.

"I'm a Black Paladin. Your own sins have been turned against you! Every mark and scratch and pain is a tiny bit of the agony given to one who did nothing to deserve it. What you feel now, is what you chose to inflict on someone who you should have protected! You are a sinner! You are the weak one! You've destroyed your own power by abandoning everything that paladins are supposed to be! I am strong, it is true, stronger than I ever was! But that is not why you struggle…" Neia said confidently as she began to walk towards Remedios, Skana moved again to her wife's side, wiping blood from her face and sweeping it into the snow.

Around them lives were still being snuffed out, Fluder was wreaking havoc as he forced numerous mages to defend themselves desperately, he may have been an old man on the ground, but in the air, he was a young dragon in his prime, a dragon that shot terrible fireballs. Angels tore into one another, out of the corner of her eye, Neia saw another scripture perish when Lakyus's terrible blade proved that Unholy Roses have sharp thorns. The leader of Blue Rose fought like a demoness herself, her cursed blade reaped a harvest of death, as if every swing was intended to atone for her own unintended misdeeds towards her sister.

But for Neia there was only one view that held her interest. "I did rise, but you? You have fallen! Your sins have dragged you down by their weight, you even turned on the one you swore yourself to! Don't you get it you stupid bitch?! You swore yourself to Queen Calca! Then you tried to kill her when she came to you again!" Neia shouted as if a louder voice would penetrate a skull she now thought of as infinitely dense.

Remedios looked shocked, "But… no! No! That wasn't Calca! It wasn't! It couldn't be! It couldn't have been! I won't believe it!" Her voice was one of not hatred, but desperate misery.

"It was! It WAS Calca and you tried to take her life, the center of your duty and your oath and you betrayed her, you loved her, and tried to deprive her of all the heartbeats she had yet to experience!" Neia's forceful voice hammered the truth hard into Remedios's very core.

A part of the woman broke; and she unleashed a heartrending cry, then as if to extinguish the truth she hadn't the will to face, she rushed at the warrior pope in a berserker-like state, Neia got out of the way, moving as fast as she could using every martial art she knew, she felt the strain on her body as it was taxed to the limits by the exertion of keeping up with the fallen paladin who even in her weakened state was a force to be reckoned with. Twice the armor of the Grand King Busar saved her life before Skana drew close enough to hammer a fist into the side of Remedios's face and send the woman stumbling out of the way. As she tried to rise, Neia kicked her full in the face, sending her flat on her back. She was still adamantite ranked however, and pain or no, she got to her feet.

She coughed up blood, and went for Skana, her sword came down over head, flying faster than the eye could see, smashing into Skana's defenses.

Skana had her sword over head to guard, and tried to strike back with her free hand, however Remedios interrupted the blow with a kick to her chest, sending Neia's wife flying backwards over the ground, bouncing and rolling several feet away.

Neia had already been in motion though, and she slammed headlong into the paladin, but rather simply force her off balance, she outright tackled her former idol. They rolled over the ground, scattering red snow or pressing into the cold, churned up mud, but it was good enough to let Neia capture the eyes of Remedios Custodio, the black void held the fallen paladin more firmly than the muscles of Neia's arms ever could have. Terror was as pain and they were close enough that, had it been the embrace of her wife, Neia could have kissed her. It gave the former paladin pause, it made her hesitate, just for a second, nothing more.

But in that second, Skana rushed in, stabbed down, and her sword found Remedios's waist, just between where the plate armor met the armor on her legs, she hit that gap and pushed the sword into Remedios's body piercing her kidneys and stomach. Remedios swung her fist up as hard as she could as she screamed in pain, connecting into Skana's head sending her reeling away and causing her to lose her grip on her sword, then getting her leg up, she kicked Neia off her as hard as she could, sending the black paladin rolling several feet away. She then twisted and stood up, and grabbed the sword and wrenched it out of her body with a cry of agony.

Remedios coughed up more blood and almost crumpled as she threw the lost sword away, cries of pain came through the blood that was fountaining out of her mouth.

Neia was back on her feet again. Remedios was fumbling in a pouch.

"Stupid woman, you were always dense as a box of rocks." Neia shouted and pulled out her bow, she put an arrow into the air as Remedios looked to see the danger, and the arrow pierced her hand through and through, knocking the potion from her fingers and sending it skittering across the field. She screamed and broke the arrow off and pulled the embedded part out through the hole, her hand shook and trembled with the shock and pain of what she'd had to do.

"You forgot that I'm an archer first." Neia said, and another arrow replaced the first one, she began to walk closer to the impaled Paladin, putting an arrow into the slit next to the sword wound in her gut, screams came out of Remedios's lips.

"Now our positions are reversed." Neia said, "Remember before? The way you tortured me, the way I sought to get you to stop this madness before it destroyed everything?" She asked as another arrow went into Remedios's cheek and out the other side, taking off a chunk of tongue with it's passing. "I didn't want to fight you, I never wanted any of this, you forced it, and now it has destroyed you." Another arrow entered next to its mate as Neia drew closer.

Remedios toppled forward, the arrow in her hand snapped as she thrust her arms out instinctively to stop her fall. Skana closed in next to her as Neia grabbed Remedios by the hair, yanked her head back, and thrust her armored knee into the fallen paladin's face, once, twice, three and four times in a row, until there were no more screams left in her battered form.

"You did this!" Neia screamed at her as rage boiled up, "You brought us to this end, you stubborn stupid bitch!" She screamed again as Remedios fell onto her back.

Blood fountained out of Remedios's mouth, her arms moved pointlessly, nothing to speak of remained of her face, she was in terrible pain, she had no screams left, only groans.

"Neia, no more… end it!" Skana shouted, grabbing Neia's shoulder, "She's suffered enough!" Remedios continued to move her lips, desperately trying to speak.

"She could never suffer enough!" Neia shouted angrily.

"Neia! No! Just end it!" Skana shouted and grabbed her wife hard on the shoulder. The dark raging aura that was building up around Neia began to fade, little by little.

Remedios was still trying to force out words, despite her tongue being mangled… twice, and the arrows still stuck through both cheeks, but Neia was obviously not who she was speaking to, her arm went up, her hand, still with a broken piece of arrow in it, curled as if to grasp someone offering help.

Neia put her bow away and picked up Remedios's sword. She stood over the woman who she once admired so much, she looked down into the battered face, so beaten that it was unrecognizable.

"For all of them." Neia said as she brought the sword up. Skana nodded mutely, keeping her hand on Neia's shoulder.

"Calca…" Remedios said softly, getting the name out, mangled and mutilated, but getting it out nonetheless. "Calca…"

And Neia thrust the sword down through Remedios's throat, and cut off any other words, her outstretched hand closed into a fist, then fell limply to her side.