DISCLAIMER: Yeah I know I'm slow. But you know what? Winter sucks. And December really sucks. Um... so happy frakking end of 2010. I am oh so very sad to see you go.
So glad to see how many people are still reading this even though it contains characters in situations that may be bothersome to them. -.o Just realize that any complaints about major plot points probably won't get you anywhere unless you log in so that I can get a better idea of what you want. I'm willing to compromise in some areas but not in others, for one reader I even redid major portions of the plotline in these later chapters to try and make it into something they preferred to read. Ultimately though, if what you want is a simple romance between two of our favourite characters where everything and everyone else takes a backseat... You may simply find that this isn't the fic you are looking for and that you should seek another that will leave you feeling less frustrated and unsettled. (For everyone else, I promise never again shall I address this issue. Consider it closed!)
To end this too long AN on a happy note, I hope that everyone got to see the amazingly beautiful lunar eclipse that happened on Monday. I love lunar eclipses, the way the whole moon turns a rusty red colour allowing the stars to come out brightly even when she is shining at full. Especially if you have a decent pair of binoculars it all looks amazing. ^.^ Of course the moon looks lovely through binoculars any night that she's visible, but in eclipses... Let's just say it was well worth freezing my tuchus off for!
-MH-BtVS-MH-BtVS-MH-BtVS-MH-
The slightly winding path through the hellish lake looked much narrower once Natsuki was on it than it had from the shore, and dangerously longer. The Slayer really should have known better than to assume that she could correctly judge the distance to the far side of the lake without any reference point for scale, and now she was paying the price for acting rashly as she always did. Natsuki growled uncomfortably as she felt her eyes start tearing up and her nose running in reaction to the thick fumes coming off of the now furiously boiling lake. Its foul smelling surface churned with yellowish white froth that would be nearly as unpleasant to fall into as the lava further ahead, since someone falling into the acid might live long enough to suffer more than a few moments.
The volcano wasn't spewing too much ash by itself, but the lavaflows were now running at a steady pace into the already boiling lake. The molten rock was so hot that it was a pale orange and only slightly more viscous than the water it was flowing into and it very quickly created even thicker clouds of corrosive sulphuric acid vapour around the new mountain's wide sloping base. In all other directions the huge red sun's rays continued to shine cheerily overhead, uncaring of the new hellish conditions on the strange little planet it warmed.
Just as Natsuki had gotten far enough from the shore that even her Slayer-reflexes wouldn't be able to get her back in time if something were to go wrong, as if on cue the whole plateau began to shake with violent seismic activity. The sound of rocks breaking far below was loud enough to be heard even over the hissing of the boiling water. Natsuki cursed, her voice breaking with the burning pain in her throat that was familiar in an unnerving way. The snake tightened its grip around her, squeezing its coils more snugly but not tight enough to interfere with Natsuki's already laboured breathing. Whether the animal was acting out of fear of their situation or trying to offer Natsuki a vote of confidence she couldn't tell. She had no time to contemplate the strange creature, as the narrow pathway of rock separating her from a most painful death suddenly began shaking even harder and the dark haired hero almost fell to her knees.
As it was she only managed to prevent a dangerous uncontrolled fall by leaping several feet forward and landing in a crouch on the slippery wet and steaming rock, her hands and knees both burning painfully from the heat and strong acid. But she had no choice but to grip desperately to the violently shaking rock, her claws also ripping through her knuckles and trying futilely to find purchase on the slippery surface, their sharp points scraping loudly at the hard stone. The snake's coils now gripped tighter but what might have been uncomfortable under normal circumstances now served to remind her that it wasn't just her own life on the line here. Involuntary tears of pain and irritation streamed down her face as the skin and muscle around her knuckles was burned down to expose the sensitive nerves and tendons underneath when a particularly powerful tremor splashed several millimetres of the deadly liquid across them. The familiar stinging of the fast healing flesh of her knuckles attempting to heal itself soon followed. She knew that her lower centre of gravity might be the only thing keeping her from toppling directly into the lake, but the shaking was growing more violent with each passing second. For precious moments Natsuki was frozen and a sudden primal fear ignited in her as she endured the pain, clinging to the burning rocks with all of her considerable strength, further heightened by her desperation. Duran, I know I always say I understand what it means to be a Slayer... but I really don't want to die.
Perhaps a different person would have been tired enough after nearly a decade of constant fighting to want to give up. But Natsuki had so much to live for, so many people who cared about her. Mai, Shizuru... Midori. She swallowed hard as she thought of how much her death would devastate either of the girls she loved; and poor Midori. With all her knowledge her Watcher understood the dangers Natsuki faced better than anyone, but Natsuki knew that Midori would never be ready to face what they both suspected to be the inevitable end of their relationship.
Green eyes were glowing brightly as she finally lifted her head and stared with determination through the thick burning clouds to the newly formed island that was merely a short Slayer-speed sprint away. And despite it being riddled with rivers of melted rock, she strongly suspected that facing whatever manner of evil creatures or spirits lived there was her only way to leave this place. Mai's only way to leave. A sudden surge of strength greater than any she'd ever felt flooded through her muscles at that thought. She wouldn't fail. She would kill whatever she had to. For Mai and Alyssa, for Shizuru and Midori, for her new animal friend, and even for herself; she would send the rulers of this cursed world screaming back into an even deeper level of Hell.
It was just as well that she had found her resolve, because soon the whole platform began shaking even more ominously, and she thought she heard the sound of crumbling rocks falling beneath the boiling water behind her. A ferocious growl rumbled deep in her throat loud enough make Duran proud as she leapt to her feet and recklessly started a mad sprint across the ever narrowing pathway. Her feet slid on the slick surface many times during her short run and only throwing her body weight in the opposite direction of her fall and leaping away from the deadly puddles kept her on her feet. Soon Natsuki's already daring sprint looked more like her going through one of her martial arts kata. Her unsheathed claws whistled through the thick steaming air as her strong legs powered her from one small momentarily stable patch on the rock bridge to the next. All the while behind her the bridge was crumbling and falling off into the lake, the Slayer sometimes only a few leaps away from losing her fast disappearing lifeline entirely.
After what seemed like an eternity of her dangerous dance, with death clawing at her from either side, Natsuki finally landed with a most ungraceful thud at the relatively more stable edge of the volcano's island. Her claws retracted as the Slayer allowed herself a moment's relaxation, lying prone on the blessedly unmoving and dry ground below her. The snake slowly undid its coils and slid to the ground in front of Natsuki, its great length seeming to hug at the newly formed rock with almost spiritual gratitude. Like Natsuki, its breaths seemed to be coming fast and heavy even though all it had done during their dangerous journey was to hang on. Still the Slayer understood that staring death in the face like they just did was an exhausting business, so she didn't hold it against her brave animal companion. "We're still alive though, so that's something." She croaked out conversationally as the snake stared at her incredulously, its pretty red eyes seeming to ask her if she did crazy things like this all the time. "Well, I'll admit that I live dangerously, but this place has been pretty crazy even for me." She sighed, "I just hope Mai and Shizuru are alright. I hated leaving them alone here, but it had to be safer than bringing them along. I mean that bridge wasn't even safe enough for one person."
Finally she reluctantly looked away from the pretty snake, whose presence in this alien world was unexpectedly comforting. Its absolute faith in her ability to keep it safe combined with its insistence on helping gave her a bit of hope for success.
Green eyes widened as there, barely half the length of a football pitch away, on a hard black volcanic rock altar, was the unmistakable form of a fitfully sleeping Alyssa. The small girl looked even frailer than usual, dirt and ash was smudged liberally over her body that was clad in simple filthy grey rags, even her hair that was once again its traditional gold was thick and dark with streaks of dirt. She was separated from Natsuki by two forks of a deceptively gently flowing lava river. Her pale, thin arms and legs were chained to the rock with heavy dark metal chains. Natsuki felt her heart stop with remembered pain. She knew that the similarity of Alyssa's position to her own when she was made into a Slayer could not be mere coincidence.
Natsuki sighed slightly in relief that her little sister at least didn't bear any disfiguring scars on her body, but her stomach turned when she saw the slowly pulsating ethereal golden eye in the centre of the girl's heavily sweating forehead. It seemed to pulse in time with the little girl's ineffective struggling against her chains as she slept. The fearful and troubled expression on her face was so unlike the uncannily calm young child Natsuki had first met at the church on campus.
At the sight of her little sister looking so frail and helpless the last of the Slayer's fear burned away as though it had been consumed by the surrounding molten rock. She sprinted forward, briefly losing sight of the snake behind her, now focused completely on somehow reaching Alyssa's side and freeing her from her chains. Maybe then the two of them could go home. Her plan was ill formed. Floating in her mind was the vague notion of simply leaping over the treacherous rivers. She had no idea at all of what she could do to get back across them with Alyssa, her instinct to protect the little girl that she finally recognized as her sister simply demanded that Natsuki get closer to her.
The thunder of rocks crumbling again sounded over the steady hissing of molten lava pouring into the boiling lake and melting the rocks under it as it flowed downhill. However this time the results were nothing as natural as a simple, if particularly destructive earthquake. Natsuki skidded to a halt just in time, her already scraped and bleeding feet protesting as the sharp new rocks cut into them further. The faint residue of acid from the lake made the shallow wounds even more painful to her raw flesh. Mere inches from her bare and bloody toes a small fissure in the newly formed earth opened up, its dark depths that glowed ominously promised certain death.
From within the rift came a slow and rhythmic scraping. It was more regular than the random convection of the lava bubbling inside, causing the Slayer to slowly back away. But until the hell beast crawled forth, Natsuki's scientific mind had a difficult time accepting this particular explanation for what her ears detected. She hadn't realized that even hell beasts could survive such temperatures, but the eyeless, glistening black scorpion longer than she was tall certainly seemed no worse for wear.
Presently the scorpion was completely still, every bit the ambush predator. Its shiny black exoskeleton blended in almost completely with the newly formed rock, and if Natsuki looked away she knew that even so close she would have a hard time picking its form out again. The scorpion was crouched low to the ground, its pointed feet digging into the still soft rock, the small sensitive hairs along its thin legs waiting to feel the slightest vibrations on the ground or in the air to alert it of nearby prey. The many toothed pinchers were splayed out in front of it, held slightly open in an almost relaxed posture, while the venomous tail spike was held completely still, curled over its back.
Natsuki had heard from various sources that usually scorpions with large claws such as this one were only mildly venomous... but she knew better than to think that such rules would apply to a hell beast. And besides it was so large, perhaps almost two meters in length from its twitching mandibles to the base of its tail and at least half again as wide, even fairly mild venom delivered in such quantity would be problematic... especially when the nearest hospital was in another dimension.
Experimentally the Slayer grabbed a nearby chunk of recently dried lava that must have been broken off by the plateau's violent shaking. The rock was still warm to the touch, but not painful. Narrowing her eyes she chucked the rock gently in the scorpion's direction, hitting it squarely on its wide armoured back. The creature immediately shifted into a more aggressive stance, its tail now arched forward of its eyeless head and the large claws displaying in a threatening manner. Long trails of viscous black fluid began to drip from its mandibles, and Natsuki watched apprehensively as the creature began methodically coating the teeth of its claws with the sticky substance. Somehow I think getting cut by those would be definite badness.
The Slayer took a sideways step, her feet as silent as an arctic wolf's in newly fallen snow, but the scorpion still quickly turned to face her new position. Its massive claws now swiped in her general direction as it charged forward several steps with lightning speed. She leapt back reflexively and her own sharpened boneclaws coated with her blood thrust from her hands as she responded instinctively to the more forceful threat. Green eyes widened in horror as large drops of her blood dripped from her claws to splash onto the bone dry rock. In a blur of shining black the scorpion lunged for its apparently wounded prey and even with her supernatural reflexes Natsuki barely jumped out of its way. She had only seconds before the faster but less agile arthropod changed course and made another lightning speed charge at the tasty morsel of meat that was so frustratingly evading its deadly weapons.
Natsuki growled as she again landed softly, this time directly behind the confused predator, her long dark hair falling forward into her face. Green eyes narrowed as she tried to let go of the million thoughts flying around her always active brain and allow her own inner predator free reign. The Slayer quickly shifted onto the offensive while her opponent was still baffled by her disappearance. She lunged forward, one bare and scraped foot stomped down hard on a spindly armoured leg as her clawed hands got a firm grip on the beast's deadly tail. Sharp white teeth flashed in a ruthless grin at the sound of the scorpion's exoskeleton crunching under her iron grip. Overhead bright bluish lightning flashed as the steady flow of water vapour from the lake finally coalesced into many layers of thin grey clouds.
The scorpion struggled angrily in her grip, reacting more in fury than in pain at being turned on by this wily soft bodied creature. Its struggling was in vain. The more agile Natsuki effortlessly stayed well out of reach of its claws while her own attempted cut into the scorpion's tail through a small chink in its armoured plate. Her other hand maintained its crushing grip a few segments below where she was performing her indelicate dissection. The last thing she wanted was to sever the tail only to be poisoned by the claws as it whipped around on her.
Finally she felt the sharp bony tip of her middle claw slip between the thick armoured plates, and she could feel from both the give of the chitin there as well as the hell beast's increased struggling in her grasp that this area was much softer. Her grin widened as her claws now easily penetrated through the weaker armour and into the soft, stringy muscle underneath. The scorpion's deadliest weapon now hung limply over its body as Natsuki finished the job of severing it from its owner, chucking the still dangerous appendage into the fissure in the new rock that the creature had crawled from. It wouldn't do for her to envenom herself by stepping on the tail after she'd killed the beast. That would just be embarrassing.
The scorpion now struggled desperately in the Slayer's grasp, as if for the first time sensing that it was just as mortal as its tricky prey. Pointed feet scraped hard enough to scratch the smooth volcanic rock, except for the injured leg that merely dragged lifelessly, occasionally twitching with useless motion. The muscles in the Slayers arms and legs ached as she attempted to hold the huge creature still, but a helpful thought from her more scientific side meant that despite struggling against the now much stronger creature, her victorious grin never faltered. She waited until the scorpion was tugging against her grip extra hard and then simply let go, causing the animal to inadvertently sprint many meters away before it realized that it was no longer captive. By the time the injured hell beast had realized its mistake, Natsuki had just barely made the huge leap over the deep fissure that the scorpion had crawled from. Her bare legs tingling uncomfortably at the rising intense heat from the chamber of magma below as she scrambled for purchase on the far side.
When she was finally on relatively solid ground she turned to see the scorpion again in its hunting posture, or at least its new crippled best approximation. The Slayer could practically hear its grumbling as it seethed in pain and fury at being attacked by a weak and squishy meal. Now Natsuki deliberately allowed her blood to drip freely to the ground, hoping that the animal's apparently keen sense of smell would still be able to detect it even from such a distance.
She wasn't disappointed as the wounded hell beast charged her recklessly. Her lips curled up as it promptly tumbled forward into the chasm. Carefully she crawled closer so that she could peer over the edge and watch in morbid fascination as the hot magma now effortlessly burned the scorpion from the inside. In moments the still untouched and unmoving hollow exoskeleton was sinking below the churning rapids of the strange planet's fury. For a moment she simply watched the now undisturbed but still churning magma, her scientific curiosity piqued by even a magickal adaptation that would allow a creature to survive in such an extreme temperature environment. If she remembered any of this when she returned to her own world she'd have to tell RedWiccan about the creature. The college-aged witch shared her theory that magicks still acted according to most of the laws of physics, and she was curious to see if her online friend who seemed to be something of a genius could take a guess as to how the hell beast managed such an interesting feat.
Still though... she glanced up and around the once more lifeless plateau save for Alyssa in her troubled slumber. Something else had been here too... green eyes scanned the ground near the bridge that had sunken into the lake and saw nothing. Regardless that it might be a surprise from a biological standpoint to find anything living up here, the Slayer had expected to find more resistance. Lightning again flashed across the sky, the faint rumbling of thunder barely audible over the constant white noise of hissing water and the lava's persistent bubbling. The Slayer was still separated from her sister by two lava rivers, though they seemed to have cooled considerably in the short amount of time she had been fighting the scorpion. Instead of being a bright fluid orange they were now covered in a thin layer of hardened black that oozed along more slowly. Just under the surface however she could see lines of molten orange still flowing forward into the lake, and she knew that touching it would still be just as deadly as before.
A problem easily solved by one reckless and crazy enough to try, and a determined Slayer was both of those things. There were plenty of large broken off rocks littered about the gently sloping shield volcano. It was a simple matter of chucking several of the largest she could lift into the closest slowly moving lava river. She got lucky. Maybe. The lava flow was apparently shallow enough that the rocks that weighed more than Natsuki herself remained above the surface. Now she only needed to be crazy enough to see if they could support her weight as well, while risking having her limbs burnt completely off. ...Before her stepping stones whose edges were already smoking slightly melted into the rest of the river. No time to second guess now. For a brief moment she stared at the placement of the rocks in the hellish river, their exact positions being etched into her mind. Then she raised her eyes, focusing entirely on her frightened sister as she again put her powerful leg muscles to work, leaping effortlessly like a huge cat, her feet burning painfully from the rising heat. But her heart was beating with excitement as she landed more or less unharmed meters from Alyssa's stone prison. Whoever made this place obviously underestimated me.
Clamping down on her initial urge to rush over to Alyssa, Natsuki instead approached cautiously. She expected to be set upon by dozens of powerful demons, or for the unstable earth to open up underneath her and swallow her whole... But nothing of the sort happened and soon she was at her little sister's side. A cursory test showed that she wasn't going to be able to break the chains using only her brute strength, at least not without seriously injuring Alyssa, an unacceptable option. She sighed, frustrated but not really surprised. Of course it would be Slayer-proofed. Her heart clenched as her fists gripped hard at the side of the altar, boneclaws scratching defiantly into the annoyingly smooth surface. At least the sides had an appropriately sinister look, with great intertwining melted rock rivulets, newly hardened into a glistening black.
Slowly she unclenched one fist and retracted her claws, reaching out to tenderly run her bloody fingers through Alyssa's filthy and roughened golden hair, wondering at the softness she could still feel underneath all of the dirt. At the Slayer's touch the little girl's sleep finally seemed to quiet, her face which had been contorted in fear and pain relaxing and smoothing, giving her the look of a fallen angel finally at peace. Except for the still pulsating golden eye that seemed tattooed on the girl's forehead.
Despite her surroundings and their apparently hopeless situation, she smiled at how Alyssa seemed to trust her presence on an instinctual level. Somehow knowing that Alyssa was this little piece of herself who just might be able to continue living a normal and happy life long after the Slayer had fallen in battle filled a cold emptiness inside that until now Natsuki hadn't even been aware existed. "I promise I'll get you out of here somehow. No matter what it takes, I'll protect you with everything I have." She assured her sleeping sister; briefly closing her eyes she leaned forward to place a gentle kiss on a pale and dirty cheek.
Closing her eyes was the only thing that saved her. At the chaste show of affection the golden tattoo darkened to dark blood red, and a long tendril of magickal energy lashed up like a tongue of flame. A low whimper escaped Natsuki's throat as it opened up a deep gash into her right eyebrow and cheek. Only her great experience dealing with intense pain enabled her to avoid injuring the still unconscious Alyssa with her claws as she leapt away, bringing her arms up in front of her face defensively and eyes opened wide to locate the attacker. Her eye stung as blood dripped into it, her instinct to rub it with the heel of her palm only making it worse.
Even with vision temporarily devoid of depth perception, Natsuki still saw everything as Alyssa's form here in the spirit world began to change. Steadily she began to look more and more like she had the last time Natsuki saw her at the hospital. Her golden hair darkened so that it was even darker than the Slayer's, it seemed to absorb every photon of light that touched it instead of reflecting some to show highlights. While her hair darkened, her pale skin lightened even more, going from white to nearly transparent. Underneath darkened veins became so prominent that they almost seemed to run over top of the girl's thin skin instead of under it. The entire effect was further enhanced as the meagre flesh on her body began to consume itself for energy as Natsuki watched helpless. Those eyes she remembered being such a clear and vibrant blue were now sunken into her skull, her eye sockets dark and hollowed out. Before they were thin, but now her limbs were nearly skeletal to the point that the dual bones in her forearms and shins were now easily distinguishable.
Natsuki felt her stomach turn with nausea even as tears of helpless despair mixed with the blood and ash already coating her face. Whatever sadistic entity ruled this place was showing how her sister could easily die in ways that Natsuki had no power over, and unlike some taunts it affected her intensely. Not only because of the graphic visuals, but because it was true. Anyone she cared about could one day suffer many terrible things beyond the Slayer's ability to fight.
As Alyssa darkened so did the clouds overhead. However where she became so thin that her chains were the only thing keeping the fierce hot winds from blowing her away, the dark clouds were now thick enough to completely block out the light from the red sun. The visible landscape seemed much smaller, the clouds now completely shrouding the view of the world beyond the plateau such that it might not even exist. The mountain though was still painted the same eerie orangey red, only the light shone from below instead of above as the various magma chambers and flowing lava lit clouds and rocks.
Now that Alyssa had weakened to the point that Natsuki feared she would die no matter what the Slayer might be able to accomplish here, suddenly things again shifted. The space between them began to expand. The rock stretched and reformed without ever becoming molten, the altar bearing her sister's weak body that was barely holding onto life becoming more and more distant until squinting green eyes could only just make out pale skin against the slate grey horizon. Then even the small glimpse of this precious girl slipped away, as the new space was slowly filled with a darkness. It seemed little more than more clouds at first, great wisps floating in from all directions until they coalesced into a less random distribution.
Natsuki rubbed at her right eye, wondering if her decreased vision or the featureless horizon was fooling her as to this thing's size. A great brownish grey undulating mass formed, its many tentacle-like legs rivalling the thickness of the largest trees in an old growth forest, allowing it to easily tower above the Slayer. Indeed even the gently sloping cone of the new volcano didn't seem very large next to this demon, though the actual mouth of the volcano was farther away. If something so massive could even be classified as a mere demon. Its body was nothing more than an indistinct mass, cut across with a gaping maw that revealed disturbingly human-shaped yellow teeth. A single black eye that pulsated with dark magicks, its shape identical to the tattoo on Alyssa's forehead stared contemptuously down at the tiny Slayer.
And its contempt was well founded. Even the creature's eye was easily larger in height than its tiny, only slightly more than human opponent. What was she compared to a being older than her transient mortal universe? How dare she ask it anything? Putrid flaps that approximated lips quirked up into a sneer. Even if the mortal thought she could somehow win those puny young gods had promised it balance in all things, but this life... It grimaced. Life, it was not balance. It was chaos. If by some unlikely chance the mortal could disperse its uncomfortable physical shell, this would only be further proof of the instability of things. The sneer morphed into a disgusting smile. Balance would return. From the violent realms it would come forth, rising from beneath their crawling feet, to devour and rend until the endless dark returned.
Fear. It weighed her down, making her limbs feel as though they were made of something twice as heavy as lead. Was this truly impossible? Had her overconfidence in all things finally doomed not only her, but Mai and Alyssa, and perhaps Shizuru as well? She shivered as she thought of the late Sakuya's warning all those months ago. The great destructive god was still nearly motionless, his indistinct and grotesque form towering over her as the faint light from the volcano highlighted great undulations in uneven lumps of flesh. But already the Slayer felt her heart clenched tight by an intense and heavy cold that even the heat of the surrounding lava was powerless to penetrate. It was the same crushing, suffocating cold that she had felt as she entered this cursed world, only now she faced it completely alone. A large void began gathering in front of the great god's eye, as it continued to stare silently at the tiny human, its own endless consciousness unrestrained by its temporary body reached out and roughly pushed so that it took over parts of Natsuki's brain. Its cold and voiceless thoughts whispering to her about how everyone she knew, everything in her universe that she could see and even more that she could never see, would be reduced once more into the formless void.
Just as the Slayer truly realized that she couldn't win against such a being, and the intense pressure around her made breathing an imminent impossibility, everything changed. Time stopped. Or at least everyone else's time stopped. Comforting familiar warmth radiated from her chest, as Natsuki peered out from her own little isolated island of time at the unmoving world around her. Even the being that had seemed a god was now completely frozen in motion, some of its massive tentacles paused in midair. Then while she was completely aware she felt in impossible detail the very cells in her body being torn apart and slowly separated from each other. For long moments she wondered, even as she wondered how she still wondered with her very body ripped from a mostly concentrated liquid and into a loose collection of vapour, if this was the terrible god's punishment. If it was going to set her adrift into many skies, to watch as all the countless souls she was meant to protect were consumed by the great Nothing. A Nothing more literal and yet more terrifying and unavoidable than in her favourite story.
And then there was that familiar surge of ageless power that coursed through even her new amorphous self, the Slayer, her constant connection to something greater than human, greater than mortal. From a realm she suspected mortals were never permitted to enter, energy surged forth only to be slowed and sculpted into matter. Freshly created cells filled the huge gaps present between her original ones, shifting where arms were, changing her face and body into something new. When the shimmering curtain fell away, again permitting the destructive god to gaze upon this unworthy nuisance he let out an angry subsonic roar that shook the entire plateau and caused another more active flow of lava to issue forth from the volcano. The being before him was no mere mortal. He had been betrayed by those foolish gods of the light.
Her wide paws with their toughened pads and fluffy black fur now stepped confidently across now painless rocks in the putrid god's direction. The great wolf's body was larger than the house she had shared for years with her Watcher. A happy whine escaped her throat as she thought of the kind woman waiting patiently for her to return safely home, the noise sounding more like a puppy than a proper hunter. Her prey was much larger than she was, but she was a mighty and experienced hunter. Even alone she would bring this threat to her pack to the ground. A challenging howl sprung forth as she eyed the lumbering giant, before she flattened herself out and began running forward at a full on sprint towards the soon to be dead god letting out a gleeful bark in sheer joy at the power of her new body. This god of Nothing faced more than a Slayer here, it faced Duran's Champion.