The Demon Disposal Service
"Oh, is the little baby getting angry?" cooed Tibbly, the villainous and evil and meanPlaneswalker.
The ice in the air had begun to clear on the ridge-top, and the bright sunlight was shining down on the small snowfield where Caprifexia and Tibbly were standing. Beneath them, in the glacier's gully, the powderised ice and dust still hung heavily, however, obscuring the devastation wrought by Caprifxia's breathtakingly impressive but perhaps somewhat unadvisable knocking down of one of the kilometre-high wardstones that guarded the plateau.
But… but it wasn't Caprifexia's fault. Well, it was sortof her fault. But she'd been tricked! Tricked by the evil and villainous devil-Planeswalker who had just been pretendingto be sympathetic and kind and polite, and had given her hope for the future before brutally taking it away.
Of course, she'd suspectedthere was something amiss, she was an incredibly intelligent and cunning dragon, after all, but- well, she hadn't quitefigured it all out in time to avoid smashing the ward-line.
Breaking the defences was, apparently, part of some kind of centuries-long plan of his which Tibbly hadn't been able to affect without her. Which was… bad. But she had learnt from her encounter with the Not-Friendly Lich. She now knew that if you accidentally released or aided a villain, all you needed to do to make up for it was to kill them – ideally before they hurt any stupid and suspicious mortals.
"Raaaarghh!" roared Caprifexia.
Burning orange light shone through her coat as her inner furnace ignited and deadly magical fire roared from her gullet in a large plume, washing over Tibbly entirely. She kept up the stream for five, then ten seconds, before releasing it and…
Tibbly cackled with laughter from within the flames. "Oh, you are soarrogant," he said. "You think dragons are the only creatures who cannot be harmed by fire? Allow me to educateyou, child."
A blast of twisting shadow erupted from the flames, and only extensive sparring in her destruction class let her reflexively summon a shield. Still, the force of the blast was massive, and the spell had been formed in a strange, unfamiliar manner, so despite blocking the umbramancy she still went flying, out over the side of the ridge.
She transformed as she fell, catching herself with her wings even as she hurled a massive blast of lightning at the still smouldering figure of Tibbly.
He laughed and battered the spell aside, sending the lightning bolt arcing away and smashing into the glacier far below. He snapped of his fingers, and deep crimson and purple portals manifested around him, through which poured three large, winged demonic figures.
Caprifexia gulped as she remembered what Einar had said about her future's battle with Mirael, that they had used some kind of magic portals to conjure entire armies. She had thought it nonsensical, but… apparently Tibbly could do that kind of magic. That wasn't good.
Tibbly cackled with laughter as the trio of demons swarmed through the air towards her.
"Don't kill her!" called Tibbly after his conjured minions. "I want to savourher despair."
Caprifexia yelped and dove down towards the shattered glacier and into the still settling ice-cloud. Visibility fell away, and the shapes of broken, shattered rock loomed from the frigid gloom. She swerved to avoid the oncoming pieces of broken wardstone as small blasts of darkness, launched from behind ripped past her, ripping apart pieces of rock and ice. One of them clipped her, and her trajectory wobbled for a moment as a burst of pain radiated from the strike. It didn't actually injure her, however, and seemed to be designed to cause pain rather than damage.
Tiblat was toying with her, as if she was… prey. He had been the entire time. Caprifexia's rage ratcheted up another notch as she wove and tumbled and dove down into an icy crevasse. She glanced back, the imps were still on her, and seemed to be faster than her. Faster… but not more manoeuvrable, she noted, as she saw them struggle to keep up with her sharp dip.
She had studied, briefly, aerial combat against other dragons back in Blackrock Spire on her home-world, on Azeroth. It had been largely theoretical, but they had done some mock battles against drakes. What the instructors had hammered in that while fully grown dragons were infinitely stronger and deadlier, and could reach far higher top speeds, whelplings and young dragons had much greater manoeuvrability and agility. That could, especially if you were doing precision flying in an enclosed space, give a young dragon an advantage against a larger and more cumbersome opponent.
She swerved sideways before pulling up into a sharp roll, cutting through the gloom like a razor. Back and back and back, rolling until she reoriented herself to the same angle she had been – this time, however, behind the far less agile demons who were still trying match her manoeuvre and didn't realise she was behind them.
Ivory talons flashed as she rammed into the back of one of the winged demons – some kind of succubus-like facsimile of a creature. Burning, sulphurous blood played over her tongue as she tore at where the demon's wings met their back, and with a tearing of muscle and a shattering of bone as she ripped off one of the demon's wings.
The succubus plummeted downward, their blood turning to purple and crimson dust until they hit an icy protrusion in the crevasse and exploded in a pulse of magic. And then there were two.
Caprifexia peeled off again, darting down another crevasse as the summoned demons struggled to keep up with her far greater manoeuvrability. A large blast of energy smashed into the ice and rock below her, but then she was swerving back and around, looping around the shattered remains of a wardstone and releasing a pulse of terramantic magic, bringing a whole host of rubble under her command as she stabilised and aligning herself with the back of the second demon. This one, showing some simulacrum of intelligence, tried to turn and fight, but Caprifexia flicked her claws forward, and they were knocked from the air by a barrage of rubble.
And then there was one.
Caprifexia rolled to avoid a blast of magic, and responded with her own pulse of lightning that struck the ugly, pestilent, many eyed demon. It exploded into aetheric energy as she roared with triumph again. Her leg was still hurting from where the pain curse had hit her, but her innate magical resistance would deal with it in short order. Probably.
She pulled up, leaving behind the icy gloom, and rising high into the air before rolling over and putting herself onto a course for Tibbly. The villainous red Planeswalker's face took on an irritated aspect when he saw that his demons were not following her.
"You thought that was enough to stop me!?" roared Caprifexia. "I am Dragonqueen Caprifexia, daughter of Neltharion, Saviour of-"
Before she could reach him, or finish her heroic monologue which no oneever let her finish, Tibbly spread his arms and clapped his palms together. A pulse of darkness radiated outward, too fast to block, and Caprifexia screamed as every nerve in her body exploded with liquid agony. She lost control of her wings, and plummeted down, crashing into the snow and rolling until she found herself lying in front of Tibbly.
The pain continued to radiate through her body, although her titanforged body's enhancements began to react, shutting down pain responses and dulling the ache from overwhelming to simply incredibly awful.
The devilish Planeswalker grinned widely and grabbed her by her throat just below her skull, hauling her up off the ground "Oh, child, I'm not even trying," he said as she squirmed, trying to focus past the pain. She needed to- she needed get away. "I traded blows with Sorin himself, with Avancyn. And, yes, I needed to retreat but… you? Beyond your interesting void magic, you are nothing. An irritating-"
Caprifexia bit him.
"Ahh!" he said, dropping her. "You- you bit me!?"
But Caprifexia wasn't listening, a portal opened beneath her, and she tumbled into the Blind Eternities and onto the glittering bark of the World-tree. Tibbly's eyes boggled as he looked down into the portal, and his anger gave way to curiosity. He knelt down and reached through the portal-
Caprifexia snapped the aperture shut.
She heard a veryfaint snippet of a scream as the portal cut through the devil's arm, and his red, now separated arm landed on the trunk next her, bounced once, and then rolled over the edge. Caprifexia exhaled as the pain curse began to marginally recede, watching as the severed arm landed wetly on a floorboard section of platform from which the World-Tree of Kaldheim grew.
She lay back. That had been close-
There was a flash of gold, and a furious looking Tibbly appeared. Caprifexia yelped and scrambled back as he stepped towards her. Of course! He could follow her! She couldn't get away! He would-
Her mind slowed as she stared up at his golden features as he came to a stop next to her, standing impassively as golden blood slowly dripped down the from the severed stump just above his elbow.
Of course, hehadn't travelled with her. Hecouldn't replicate her incredible method of Planeswalking. He just used the far inferiorversion, or 'fast-walking' as she thought of it. And like Chandra had, when she'd been mean and following Caprifexia after the 'Daughter' Incident of Bretygart, he was just sort of trailing after her…
Caprifexia bared her teeth. Perhaps he was, marginally, too strong for her to take in a straight fight. But black dragons, even amazing heroic ones like her, never fought 'fair.'
She picked herself up, ignoring her protesting body and shifted into her mortal, elfin guise. Tibbly, for his part, just stood there like an angry, bleeding puppy, totally unable to perceive the terrible un-realm. Vulnerable.
Caprifexia reached up, grabbed his neck, and twisted sharply.
Rather than a snap, however, she found that, for all her strength, she couldn't move his neck past the normal range of motion. She huffed and tried gouging out his eyes. That didn't work either. She tried punching and hitting him and biting him, and although that could make him move, she didn't seem to be able to inflict any real damage onto his body, or even his clothes. She even pulled out her new sword and whacked him with it hard enough to split him in two, but it didn't do anything, either because you couldn't actually physically harm other Planeswalkers in the Void, or because the weapon Serana had given her was rubbish.
Probably both.
Caprifexia grumbled and looked around. She could perhaps push him into one of the other Planes? She knew, from when she'd followed Chandra 'fast-walking' that Planeswalkers did so by sensing the 'wake' left by another Planeswalker. If shedidn't also enter the Plane, would that mean that no wake was left…?
She shook her head. Now was not the time to experiment. No, she needed a more permanent way to deal with him…
A memory surfaced, of one of her first heroic victories, when she'd stomped on the fingers of proto-drake-born or whatever they'd been called off and sent them plummeting off the platform. Sure, the proto-drake-born had been able to perceive what was happening, since she'd come through the portal with Caprifexia, but Caprifexia had been able to shove Chandra back into Bretygart without problem…
She clambered down the tree, her entire body still complaining and protesting. Tibbly followed, coming to a stop next to her at the edge of the platform that looked out into the wider Void. She peered over the edge. Down and down and down it went, with hundreds of platforms visible here and there, connected by a chaotic mess of bridges, but there were gaps between them where the distance was so great that she couldn't see anythingin the churning, twisting depths.
Caprifexia cocked her head to one side and calculated a trajectory, before grinning ferally at the impassive devil.
His body sort of twitched and jerked as she picked him up and raised him over her head, double checked her maths, and then hurled him forward.
For a moment his golden body hung in the void, but then he began to fall, and she cackled with heroic laughter as the devil's golden body plummeted out of sight, down and down and down and down, threading the needle between bridges and platforms, falling and falling until she lost sight of the burning golden glimmer of his Spark.
She sniffed, and then moved over, picking up his severed arm. He had a nice-looking ring on one of the fingers, so she took that, and then tossed the severed appendage after the rest of him.
She doubted it would kill him. She was sure there was some kind of 'instinct' for Planeswalkers to set down on a nearby Planes, or something. But even a few brief calculations told her that it would likely take him thousandsof Planeswalks to return to Kaldheim. Even Sorbet, who for some reason seemed quite good at Planeswalking despite his generalised rubbish-ness, had mentioned he could only manage around twenty or so walks a day – and that usually exhausted him. It would be yearsbefore Tibbly was able to return to this area of the multiverse.
To herarea of the multiverse.
And when he did. She would be ready for him. And if not? Well, she'd throw him away again. Easy. Problem solved.
Her rage gradually began to recede, and the despair she had been feeling rushed back to fill the void. Her fear for the future, which might have been becoming somewhat less sharp once again sat in her heart like a jagged shard of metal. The hope she had felt had been so bright and brilliant, like chains lifting from around her shoulders.
Tears spilled down her face as she made her way back up the tree to where the orb that led to Surtland was suspended. She opened the portal, stepped through into the snow and-
Something massive and strong smacked into her, and she cried out in alarm as she was picked up off the ground in a massive fist, rising rapidly into the air until she was face-to-face with a massive blue woman.
The giantess stood perhaps two hundred feet tall, had skin like of sea ice, hair the shade of freshly fallen snow. Her massive azure eyes blazed with inner light, and she had short, pointed ears – well, short relative to everything else, by themselves they were bigger than Caprifexia was. The woman's massive body was wrapped in a high necked white tunic, leather trousers with stitching as thick as Caprifexia's arm, and a massive cloak large enough to cover buildings trimmed in the fur of some colossal beast.
"Did you do this!?" rumbled the giant.
"Let me go!" said Caprifexia. "I will not be giant-handled!"
Caprifexia tried to summon her power, red magic from across the Blind Eternities, but before she could so much as manifest a spark, there was a surge of blue mana from the giantess, and she was counter-spelled.
"Silence!" said the giant. "Answer me, did you do this? Did you destroy the Wardline?"
"I don't have to answer your questions!" said Caprifexia. "I know my heroic rights!"
The giant shook her. "Silence!" she shouted again with a voice like clapping thunder, tightening her grip. "Answer my question!"
"I can't both be silent, and answer your questions, you idiot!" raged Caprifexia, correctly. "Put me down! Or I will show you the wrath of a dragon! You better watch out! I'm nearly three and half-"
"Sleep!"
Caprifexia felt the psychic compulsion ram into her mind. She tried to fight it for a moment, tried to Planeswalk, tried to escape, but before so much as a shimmer of gold could form around her, her eyes closed, and darkness swallowed her.
A.N. If you like my writing here, you might also like my fantasy novel, Shattered Moon, that is being updated weekly, or my episodic space-fantasy/horror/doctor-who-esque series, Mishka the Great and Powerful. Both of which you can find on Sufficient Velocity, Spacebattles, and the former or Scribblehub and Royal Road.