Against All Odds

Chapter 15- The Confrontation

Víbora let out a ballistic roar as he tried in vain to go through the barrier Xibalba had summoned around his castle, staring with acidic hate at the highest tower, where he had taken his love. He had heard the baby wailing on his way here; the brat had been born already. He had never been so angry in his entire life.

"XIBALBA!" he cried out, so loud that he was sure the dark god would hear him. "COME HERE AND FACE ME, YOU COWARD!"

Xibalba had instinctively wrapped his wings around his wife and newborn daughter as soon as the ground trembled. When he heard Víbora calling out for him, he realized the blood serpent would never leave them be. La Muerte immediately tightened her grip on her daughter and bounced her in her arms to try to soother her; Xibalba saw the fear in her eyes. He had to finish this.

"La Muerte…" he gently said to his wife. "I have to go."

She glanced up in shock at her husband, but it soon changed into horror upon realizing what he was going to do. "No, Balby!" She grabbed unto his hand tightly, holding Marigold with the other. "Don't go! Don't leave me!"

"Someone has to stop that madman, the barrier won't hold him off for long."

"What if he does something to you? If something happens to you I won't stand it!"

"La Muerte!" Xibalba grabbed his wife by the shoulders and looked into her eyes, his eyes reflecting her pain and fear. "I'm not letting him go free any longer. I'm not letting harm you or our baby, if I don't do this then who will?"

"Please, Balby…"

The baby continued crying her lungs out, struggling in her blankets. La Muerte looked down at her child and continued to bounce her, in vain trying to calm her down.

"La Muerte, promise me something."

She glanced up at him. "What is it?"

"If something happens to me-"

"No don't tell me that, my love!"

"If something were to happen to me…" he continued, his eyes swelling up with tears. "Promise me you'll take good care of our baby."

"Xibalba…!"

"Promise me!"

"I…" La Muerte sobbed as tears rolled down her cheeks. "I promise. But you have to promise me you'll be back to see our little one grow!"

"I promise you, mi corazón."

The two shared a quick kiss, before Xibalba looked down at his daughter and stroked her little head. "It's okay, mi pequeña… Papi's gotta go, but he'll come back. Be a good baby and stay with mami, okay?" he planted a kiss on the baby's forehead, and surprisingly this seemed to calm her down as she settled down and buried her face into her mother's chest. How it pained him to leave them like this, but he had to take care of Víbora once and for all before he did any more damage. Before leaving, he changed Ponzoña back to life and placed him on top of the bed.

"He'll protect you if the barrier fails." Xibalba whispered at his wife, holding her hand briefly.

Ponzoña seemed to know what his master was going to do, for he immediately tried to wrap around his arm, but Xibalba gently pulled him away.

"Not this time, old friend." The dark god smiled sadly.

Xibalba flew out of his chambers, leaving La Muerte, Ponzoña and his newborn daughter behind; La Muerte started sobbing once again as she looked down at her baby and stroked her little head, praying with all her might her husband would return to them. Once Xibalba was out of the room and at the gates of the castle, he snapped his fingers and summoned a sword sheathed in an ivory case; the dark god stared down at it for a few seconds, before unsheathing the sword out of the case, and examining it closely.

The Sword of Seven Sins. Xibalba had forged it himself for the years he went to war, but after his marriage to La Muerte he opted to put it away and never use it again, and look what he was about to do. Xibalba carefully ran his gloved finger down the blade to test its sharpness, and found it was still as good as new. There was an eerie green glow coming from the carvings engraved at the side of the blade.

Clutching the handle of the sword, he went through the gates and took off, towards the direction where the barrier was being struck. He spotted Víbora's familiar shape trying to go through the barrier, just at the foot of the bridge; before the Basilisk could strike again, he was blown backwards by a wave of dark, sharp feathers that dug unto his flesh; his back met the rocky ground. Xibalba landed a few meters in front of him, his feathers bristling like cat's fur, his teeth gone sharp, his whole aura irradiating the fury of a demon.

"You will not touch my family!" he roared.

"Give me La Muerte back and I might spare your spawn." Víbora retorted with a viperish hiss of hatred.

Both men locked eyes with each other, letting their anger and hatred for the other known. Xibalba clutched the handle of his sword, and the glow on the symbols became brighter. All their disdain and ill emotions for the other, which had been bottled up for eons since their childhood, burst out of their containers and contaminated their bodies and minds. Their reasons for hating the other were different though, but almost similar. Víbora wanted the tar-made god dead for stealing the love of his life from the first moment, while Xibalba wanted to kill the blood serpent for endangering both his wife and daughter's lives for a sickening obsession.

"This ends now." Xibalba growled. "Only one of us will leave this place alive."

"You don't know how much time I've waited for this." Víbora hissed. "I will finally make you pay for robbing me the love of my life!"

"I robbed nothing from you! She was never yours to begin with, but you never accepted it!"

Enraged by the comment, Víbora flew towards his hated rival with exposed fangs, but Xibalba took off with a flap of his wings and dodged the bite, quickly cutting a line through Víbora's thick scales. Víbora let out a blood-chilling roar of pain, but he managed to knock Xibalba off the air with his tail, sending him against a rock. The red-scaled snake then slithered towards him, eyes glistening with malice.

Xibalba felt a sharp pain on his wing bones and clavicles, but nevertheless stood up, picking up his sword, which dripped with Víbora's black blood.

"You think this will change anything?" Xibalba growled, gritting his teeth from the pain. "You think this will make her love you?"

"Once you're out of the way, she will!" Víbora's tail tried to wrap around his waist, but he was sent flying by a gust of wind from a flap of Xibalba's wings.

"You know nothing about love. You never did. It is a natural thing, it just happens, if you try to force it withers away before it even takes root."

"You think I chose this?! Do you even know what made me the monster I am?! It was her scorn! Her disdain! She chose you over me, that's when everything in y life went downhill!"

"It went downhill because you led it yourself! Don't you dare blame La Muerte for your decisions!"

Both gods charged at each other with a roar of anger, their weapons ready for the call of blood.

She would have watched from the window, but she didn't dare. She was afraid of watching her beloved die at the fangs of the murderous creature she once called friend. When did everything go wrong? When did Víbora change so much? Was it really because she couldn't return his feelings? Maybe she should have been a bit understanding, maybe he should have been less selfish.

La Muerte held her wailing child close to her chest, rocking her back and forth in her embrace to try and make soothe her. Make her know she was safe. But the baby could sense her mother's angst and fear, and it scared her.

"Sh-sh-sh. Ya, mi chiquita, mami's here with you." La Muerte whispered at her baby as she wiped her tears with the tip of her blanket, but the baby was having none of it. Ponzoña slithered next to his master's wife and rubbed both heads against her arm in an attempt to comfort her, but it La Muerte could notice he was worried about Xibalba too.

Every few seconds, or minutes there would be a temblor that shook everything around them, and it scared the baby even more. La Muerte figured she'd have to look for something to drive the baby's attention from the temblors and soothe her down. But all the toys they had gotten for their child stayed up in the Land of the Remembered, and she was in no condition to teleport.

Unless…

La Muerte glanced around the room, trying to remember where he had put it, until she spotted one of the dark ebony shelves. "It was on that shelf over there…"

Ponzoña instantly knew what she wanted; he slithered down the bed, towards the shelf and up his hat stand; one of the heads wrapped around the hat stand, while the other reached out and grabbed something from the bookshelves, before returning to the weakened Goddess. La Muerte smiled weakly at the snake and reached down to take the item with one hand, still holding her baby with the other.

It was a baby rattle.

It had the head of a snake, and a pink handle. Xibalba had crafted it especially for their child, a few months back. While crafting was not his forte anymore-he hadn't crafted anything since they were kids and he'd craft little wooden animals for her-, he remembered enough to do one little trinket for their little one. She remembered the first time he showed it to her, when she was eight months pregnant; he shook it close to her bump to see if the baby liked it, and both were surprised when she shifted and gave little kicks. She had called it a coincidence then. But perhaps.

"Look, chiquita…" La Muerte shook the rattle above her daughter's little head. "Your papi made this for you…"

Surprisingly, as soon as she heard the rattling sound, the baby's wailing diminished into sobs and she looked up at the little toy with glossy eyes; it was as if she recognized it.

"Don't worry…" her mother cooed, her heart warming as she watched her child's wide red orbs following the rattle. "Everything's going to be okay."

The rattle brought back memories.

La Muerte yelped in surprise when her husband took her by the waist and twirled her around happily.

"I'm going to be a dad!" he was laughing.

Once he put her down, she smiled at him. "Who do you think he'll take after more?"

"It doesn't matter, mi amor." Xibalba smiled at her as his glove found its way to her still-flat abdomen. "He's our baby."

"Little one…" Xibalba lay his ear on his wife's slightly-swollen abdomen, hoping to hear something from the inside. "I can't wait to meet you."

"Yeah…" La Muerte sighed dreamily, watching as Xibalba kept fussing over her tummy. "I hope we can see each other soon."

"Why does it have to be pink, my dear?" Xibalba sighed in dismay as he stared at the baby clothing and shoes, all colored pink. "What if we have a boy?"

"You can complain all what you want, but I have a feeling she's going to be a niña." La Muerte replied simply, looking down at her bump with a smile and stroking it. "And a mother's intuition never fails."

Soon, the sound of the rattle soothed the baby back to slumber, and she snuggled deeply into her mother's embrace. La Muerte smiled down at her child despite the contradictory tears. The goddess started singing a lullaby for her little one with her ambrosial voice, rocking her back and forth in her arms to keep her calm. She remembered her Balby with the lyrics of that song, recalling how she'd sing it for him when they were children. She just couldn't let those moments come to and end, and less now that they had a little baby to create new memories with.

Her heart jumped when she heard a scream and a roar of pain coming from the outside; she knew those voices! What if Xibalba was hurt? She had to help him! But at the same time, she didn't want to leave her baby alone. Her maternal instinct clashed with her love for her husband. Reluctantly, La Muerte made a small 'cot' on top of the bed with Xibalba's pillows, and placed her baby in it silently as not to wake her up, then she bent down and planted a kiss on the baby's forehead and brushed a hair from her face.

"Mami will be back soon, chiquita. Don't you worry, everything's going to be alright."

With those last words, La Muerte stumbled out of the room, barely able to stand, but willing to go help her husband no matter what. The baby didn't understand what was going on, she just continue with her nap.

My apologies for taking so unusually long, guys, but I've been working on a sketch of Marigold which I'm proud to say I've published in both my deviantart and tumblr accounts, all colored! You should take a look at it if you'd like.

Oooohhh… Last chapters alert! See you next time!