Chapter 38 - The Final Battle
Lara looked up, the force pushing down against her finally lifting. The shapeless form had transfigured, and now stood in front of her, his shadow falling against her skin. Before her stood a man not much older than herself, incredibly beautiful. He had long black hair and pale skin, with eyes that burned like rubies. High cheek bones slid down towards a perfect mouth, full lips turned up in a haughty sneer. He was bare-chested, and all he wore was a pair of billowing pants dyed royal purple and hemmed with heavy gold coins. They clinked as they brushed against each other with his movement. His massive arms lay crossed against his great chest, and Lara noticed his pale feet were bare. She slowly placed a hand on her right pistol, glaring at him with hatred and indignation. He chuckled lightly, a rich and almost dreamy sound that made her feel a strange sense of desire, sickening though it was.
"I know your mind, simple one," he spoke. His voice was pure, deep, and black as night. It was the voice of a dark god. "You cannot destroy me now. Even you must know this."
"I'm not sure what the hell I know right now you son of a bitch, but if you're breathing I can make you stop."
"Such arrogance in the face of evil. And yet I sense it is not false. You are truly unafraid."
"You don't scare me, Mason. No matter what happened to you." The black voice chuckled again, the hulking body shaking slightly in rhythm with it.
"Mason is very dead, I assure you. He has served his purpose. Although in reality, he was dying from the moment I found him. Not much left after all this."
"Then who are you supposed to be?"
"I am Xavier, keeper of darkness."
"Xavier is dead. What's more, he died a forgiven man in peace."
"Only a part of me has gone on. But this... what you see... it has lived and remained here. Attached to this ball hurtling through the cosmos. I have existed all these many years so that I might be returned to what is mine." With that, Xavier opened his pale palm in the air. A flash of light and the Amulet of Immortality appeared resting in it.
"It was meant for me. No other in this world has the ability to wield it as I do, to unleash its full power. The Immortals could only hide it from me, but they were too frightened to use it themselves. And yet they could have ruled the world had they so chosen."
"They believed in keeping the amulet from someone like you who would use it to destroy innocent people! I've seen in my dreams the terrible things you've done in the long-forgotten past. I know what it is you want to use the amulet for." Xavier only shook his great head, his smile never fading.
"Do you think I would bind myself to this earth for so long just to use it against a few people? I have lain in wait for countless decades upon decades, awaiting the arrival of someone strong enough... dark enough... empty enough... to use as my vessel. I found what I needed in Edmond Mason. I used him, just as I've used you. And now that I have been brought to my prize, I shall use its power to destroy all light and all human life. The undead shall walk the earth, rulers of festering flesh. I shall disband all nations and all civilizations, and in their stead erect a new order of death and chaos. I will rule supreme for an eternity of blackness and evil. I will no longer be an obscure name lost to history. I will be the last emperor to rule before the yellow sun disintegrates amongst the stars."
Lara's heart was racing, sweat running down her neck and back in icy rivulets. What this creature spoke of was the Apocalypse. The End Times. The end of all things. Whatever you wanted to call it, one thing alone was true. Xavier was the key. He was going to create hell on earth, and she had no idea how to stop him. She heard Bradshaw and the others coming up behind her. Xavier threw a sharp glance towards them, and blinked quickly. Immediately, the rock bridge began to quake, and a great cracking was heard as the portion of it which Alex, Bradshaw, and his team were standing on separated violently from the rest. They all started yelling and calling out as the chunk of rock began to drift slowly with the flow of lava. They skirted away from the edges, huddling together in a silly mass at the center. Alex called out to her, but his voice seemed a thousand miles away. She saw Bryce huddling at the entrance to the great temple room, barely visible from her vantage point. She hoped he had enough sense to stay where he was and to keep himself out of danger. An absent tear slipped from the corner of her eye and slid quietly down her face. She barely noticed it was there at all. She felt so helpless. The world seemed as though it were ending, and it would indeed if she couldn't figure out a way to stop Xavier. She looked back at him, her eyes slitting. He had levitated ever so slightly off of the rock floor, his arms at his side now. He watched her with amusement, like a cat with a wounded mouse. He knew she was powerless.
"I am unstoppable, Lara," he said softly. Lara closed her eyes. She had heard that voice before. She couldn't say where, but it had whispered to her in the terrible blackness of her nightmares. It was the voice of her own sinister nature. It was the voice of the abandonment of reason. It was the collective cry of an army slaughtering thousands of innocents. It was the sound of children crying out as they were beaten. It was the sound of slavery and oppression. The voice of destruction and of evil itself. Another tear, and this time Lara felt it sting as it slid away. Her eyes opened again, fresh and fierce and angry with the injustice of it all.
"If I can't stop you," she whispered, "Then you better damn well believe I'm gonna die trying." And with that, she whipped both pistols like lightening out of their holsters and opened fire. For a brief instant that seemed to stretch into an eternity, time slowed to a near crawl. She could see the world as it really was. She saw the bullets blasting out of their barrels, rippling sound waves following. She saw Xavier, mighty and terrible and unmoving, not fearing in the slightest her puny mortal weaponry. She saw the heat rising in shimmering patterns from the roiling river of molten lava, frozen in what seemed a desert mirage. She saw Alex and the others, arms outstretched towards her, wanting to aid but unable to save even themselves. She had come to feel for Alex in a way she could not explain. She had come to believe he would always be there to come to her rescue when all else failed. And now he was removed from this final equation, and she was forced to face the last battle alone. This one fight belonged to her and her alone. Here... at the end of all things.
Might as well kick some ass on the way out.
Time sped up once more, continuing on at its normal speed. Xavier ducked and slammed down to his feet, his eyes large with puzzlement. Obviously he could not comprehend willingness to die even with the knowledge that death would be in vain. Lara rolled in an attempt to catch him while his side was exposed, but again he proved too quick. He seemed almost to warp from place to place he moved so quickly. Lara tracked him, led him only a moment, and fired again, shots ringing in the great chamber. She could hear Alex screaming at her from behind, but she could not make out what he was saying. Her mind was blank, her muscles rigid. She leapt back, aiming carefully, tears flying now in reckless abandon. She felt her humanity rise within her, a glimmering beacon in the dead of this terrible winter. All things seemed to meld and conjoin, and the earth no longer had subdividers of black and white and right and wrong. It was all more simple and yet so much more complicated. She heard her heart beat, the rhythm of her doom. It was like an infernal drumbeat that never died, and for a split second she imagined what it would be like to hear her heart murmur for the final time before darkness enshrouded her.
Xavier flew at her like a stream of black, his pants jingling ridiculously. Space expanded around him, and she felt a huge force of energy drive her back against herself. She flew backwards, towards the entrance to the cavern, arms and legs flailing helplessly. She tried to scream, but the energy surrounding her pressed down on her lungs, trying to force the very breath from her. Tears continued to stream down her ashen cheeks, and all the old aches and pains of days long gone came back to scream at her with heat and intensity. She felt as though her bones would turn to dust under the force, and then finally she hit the farthest wall of the cave with a sick thud, her back raked into the craggy stone. She felt something warm begin to crawl down her legs, and felt it drip slowly from her knee. She thought for a moment she could smell her own blood, and it was terrifying. Never had she encountered such a force that overpowered her will in this way. She had always been stronger, even when it seemed like all hope was lost. She had been on so many adventures, been through so many trials, borne so many burdens. Could it be that her number was finally up? That she was on her way out, and that in as such all of life would be lost? She let her head droop against her chest as she hung there in the air, crushed against the stone by Xavier's invisible grip. She realized she wasn't that important. She, Lara, the person wasn't. But her actions... her actions were that important. In that instant as she saw the hovering form of the black emperor floating towards her, his face screwed up in malice, she realized the greatest truth she could ever know. It was not who she was that mattered. It was not the space she occupied on this planet or in this flow of time. It was her deeds. Her actions. The steps she took that ultimately shaped all that surrounded her. Just as it did for everyone. A person could only be responsible for their actions, and were therefore responsible for the whole world and everyone in it. She was not important, but that which she did here and now would change forever the lives of her fellow men. She began to see why it was humans were cursed to live out their lives in empty nothingness. This great truth could only come to the dying, or perhaps the divine. It was a vision that could only be granted to those about to depart, for the weight of it was too great. One man may know all of history, but if he is the only one who knows, he is truly alone in the world.
Xavier swooped towards her, his clawed hand grasping her throat in a death grip. She felt his needle-like nails puncture her flesh, and fresh blood drip-dropping to the nape of her neck. She couldn't move. Her entire body answered to the vice of Xavier's power. She tried to speak, to catch her breath, but Xavier only squeezed harder, bringing his face so very close to hers. She could smell the sickly sweet odor of death and decay on his breath, and her eyes shut tight against the terror that ripped through her body. Tears fell against her cheeks as Xavier whispered to her.
"I have a great massacre planned for the whole of humanity, but you I wanted to destroy with my bare hands. I wanted your blood to be that which started the unquenchable thirst in my belly. A thirst for the blood of man. Die now knowing that nothing can save you, and that all is lost." Lara opened her bloodshot eyes, the last of her breath waning. At that moment, something gripped her heart, and a flood of memories not her own surged through her entire body. She felt a life force grow within her, and her mind became lucid and focused. She gazed at Xavier, something like pity dancing along her features. Xavier held his breath only slightly, as if he saw something he recognized. Lara's mouth opened completely on its own, and a voice that was not hers whispered with a straggling breath.
"Father..." Xavier's eyes lit up like brimstone, his features contorting in what looked to be pain.
"Cornelia?" he asked, his grip on her throat relaxing only slightly. Lara's own mind floated in and out of consciousness, and she listened as that voice used her mouth to speak out from the depths beyond.
"Please don't do this again. You don't have to do this. There is peace here waiting for you. I am waiting for you. I have always been waiting. Waiting to forgive you." Xavier's eyes narrowed, and hatred swelled in his face as he began to take deep and labored breaths.
"Go back! Go back to your city of light, arbiter! I am here on destiny's bidding! I cannot escape! Forgiveness is not for the black!" Lara's mouth opened again as Xavier's grip loosened slightly once more.
"You once taught to live and die in honor. You betrayed your people, your family, your closest friends, yourself. And me. I have traveled across time and eternity itself to offer you salvation. To offer you the forgiveness of your only child. Please do not let him use you any longer." Xavier tightened his grip, crushing Lara's wind pipe. She felt her mind and body return to her, and the pain and suffering returned. She felt hopelessness and exhaustion sweep over her like a blanket, and she knew she was gasping out her last breaths.
Suddenly, Xavier's eyes grew large and terrible, pain and terror exploding in them. He screamed in utter agony, his voice turning into something elemental and horrible, like a tornado shredding its way through a field. He let go of Lara, and she went tumbling heavily to the stony ground. She looked up, her heart racing too fast and blood seeping from too many wounds. There stood Xavier, still howling like a storm, a shimmering energy coming off him in waves. And behind him, sweaty and filthy and ruinous, was Nicholas Howard, holding the hilt of a utility knife he had sunk deep into Xavier's flesh. Black blood ran freely, and Nicholas was covered in it. He looked on, panting, at the entity before him. His eyes were empty and lifeless, and he looked as though he had dropped twenty pounds in the few hours since Lara had seen him last. He was a skeleton almost. Xavier levitated off the ground, pulling himself off of the knife. He floated and turned, his eyes wide in wonder and terror. He gazed at Nicholas, blood seeping from his mouth and dribbling down his chin now.
"This cannot be..." he muttered, his speech slurred by the blood. "No mortal man can send me back to the underworld." Nicholas stood on shaky legs, his knees wobbling together. He tossed the bloody knife away, and it skittered across the stone.
"I am no mortal man," he wheezed out. "I am a descendent of the Immortals. The true wielders of the Amulet of Immortality. It's protector. The guardian of its existence and doom. And I am here to destroy it... and send you back to hell." Lara blinked through her tears, fighting to stay conscious. She watched Nicholas pick up the amulet where Xavier had dropped it. It immediately began to hum and glow, and the sound of it stirred her gut into greed she could not understand. She thanked the Almighty she was too weak to stand, or she would have ripped Nicholas' heart out to have the chance to touch its ruby surface.
Nicholas walked to the edge of the stone cliff, his body seeming to wither away at light speed as he did so. He became a walking skeleton, and she could see his bones and muscles trying to push through the thin filament that was the remnants of his skin. He looked back at Lara, his eyes seeming to bulge from their sockets, and a look of terrible sadness passed over him. She nodded with what strength she had left, and Nicholas tried to smile. With a terrible shout, Nicholas threw the glittering gem into the boiling lava, and it sank and disintegrated into nothingness. A great, blinding white light emitted from the pool, and a great boom echoed in the antechamber. Xavier cried out, still hovering in the air. His eyes burst and streams of blood flew from them in savage sprays. His form began to melt away, until only a pile of bones in the shape of a man floated high above their heads. Another blinding light emitted, and the bones fell to pieces on the ground in front of Lara. They quickly turned to ash and blew away into the lava.
He was free at last, she thought.
She watched Nicholas collapse in a bony heap, his breath shallow and weak. He stared at her, his eyes only hollows now.
"Promise..." he whispered, reaching a bony hand for her. "Promise... if I don't make it. Give all my... give my estate to my mother. London... promise." With that he fell unconscious, every vein in his body standing out in eerie blue against what was left of his yellowed skin. Lara's tears came fresh and slow, and she tried to crawl over to his side. She was too weak, and made it only to the tips of his outstretched fingers.
"I promise Nick," she whispered to him. "I promise." The blackness overtook her as she heard Alex screaming her name, begging her to hold on. She drifted away, and in the darkness she saw her mother's face, and she knew it was not her time to leave.