Chapter 531: Come to Papa
“I can’t…”
Becky was in tears as she smashed her hammer into another stone-demon’s face. They wouldn’t fucking attack her. They just ignored her and went at the others, and there wasn’t a God damn thing she could do.
She couldn’t move her Aegis without mana. She’d tossed it up on Seamus when Mason pointed him out, and probably saved his life. But now he was safe up there and she was down on the platform and she couldn’t help anyone else.
Fucking Demi! She almost screamed.
But she knew it was her own mistake as much as anything. She should have listened to Phuong and waited. Now here she was in the damn fight of her life and everyone desperate for help and her as useless as tits on a bull.
“Fight…me!” she screamed, slamming her now mace-formed Familial Shield with one hand, her crafted ‘earth-hammer’ in the other. But the demons didn’t seem to care. It was like they knew she couldn’t really hurt them much, and had nothing else to stop them.
She chased, and she smashed. Mason yelled for cooldowns and she almost screamed because she had none left. Then Annie turned into a God damn monster. Everyone was doing their thing and the platform was going crazy. Everything stunk like mouldy bread and the air started…exploding.
Flying demons shrieked and fell covered in Demi’s magic. Becky stopped long enough to stare, amazed as she saw how effective it was. The flyers couldn’t help but swoop through it, and every sticky spore melted faster into their bodies.
It was when she stood still and looked around when she saw it—the skeletal demon’s chest glowing with black magic, sucking up power from the air. She blinked as she saw the arcane energy building, the familiarity hitting her like a slap.
It was like some darker version of her own reflective shield. Cold water splashed in her guts.
“Mason!” she shouted, running towards him. “It’s gonna reflect or somethin’! Stop hitting it, y’all! We have to get everyone back!”
The skeleton turned and stared right at her, jaw shaking as it cackled and held up a finger to its non-existent lips. The black ball of energy pulsed, then exploded.
Everything went dark and silent in an expanding circle, like the magic was taking instead of giving. The last thing Becky ‘saw’ was half the players sliding towards it like they were being pulled.
**
Darkness swallowed Mason’s vision in an expanding sphere from the demon. He activated Essence of the Stag without hesitation. Then he charged through the blackness to get his hands on the thing’s bones.
Magic pulled at him but his titles and resistances flared. Air whooshed as the snake heads dove right at him. The first clamped over his raised arm, fangs uselessly scraping his Sleeve. The second bit his shoulder, sharp teeth puncturing his armor and strong flesh, blinking his poison title. The hissing, rattling, awful noises of the things made his skin crawl.
He could hear the skeletal demon trying to keep away from him, but his hearing was too sharp, his willingness to charge headlong without sight too unexpected. He caught the bastard’s leg and closed his grip, holding up his other arm for the inevitable…
Sharp pain lanced all down one side, the demon’s claws slashing him in four hits from shoulder to knee. The blindness was worse than the pain—the knowledge that more hits were coming but he didn’t know from where. He decided to focus on the thing he could control—doing damage back.
With both hands he gripped the demon’s bone and tried to snap it. Transformation was knitting him together already, but Duality of Strength started to glow with renewed power. He cried out as the demon clawed the side of his head, then smashed him from the opposite side with a fist.
“The master said it was strong. Oh yes. Papa will have to take it in pieces. But not its pieces.”
Mason grit his teeth and tried to protect his head, keeping low as he pulled. Again that brutal strength slammed into his shoulder, again the claws raked him deep. He growled and stomped on the thing’s leg as he yanked, and the bone snapped.
He’d have smiled, except it exploded.
It was like he’d broken a stick of dynamite and set it off. What felt like hot, filthy water sprayed his face and chest. He turned away and held his breath, trying to keep hold of the thing. But whatever had come out was slick as oil, and his hand slipped off the smooth bone.
The demon leapt away, scrambling with a new clack as it used one broken leg. Mason blinked because he could see a soft glow in the dark, maybe from Ranger’s Mark. He chased his enemy as the glow increased, knowing it didn’t have far to go on the platform.
His players were screaming. He could hear and smell their fear and panic. But the fighting sounds had fallen away, and either the flyers were mostly dead or they couldn’t see well either. It sounded like his players were all close to the middle of the platform, huddled and trying to protect themselves and figure out what to do.
Another light appeared—a faint glow from Seamus above, the fire mage’s staff held high and pulsing orange. The cave returned in dim shadow, the players scrambling up in a circle as the gargoyles also saw enough to attack.
Mason stayed on target. He crossed the platform and cut off the demon’s retreat, deflecting a diving snake-flail, then two, before getting close enough to strike. The demon held its ground and swiped at him, still chuckling with a sound like boiling oil.
They both slashed and smashed their Claws together, Exploiting Strike and Mason’s overall power sending his weapons whistling through the air. The force collided with huge clangs and ringing violence, the power shivering up Mason’s arms.
“No, no, not it,” the demon said casually. But each word made its voice deeper, more menacing. “First, Papa takes what it loves. Then it sins for itself. For itself. Papa hates lies.”
“Patron!”
Mason turned at Phuong’s voice to see new flying demons come out of the portals. These were larger, more like the soldiers with wings. They had spears and long, barbed tails, and they flew out with speed and purpose, more like flying leaps as they arced towards the platform.
He knew his people had blown most of their cooldowns. Becky was out of mana. He at least saw a few of the big creatures hitting Demi’s spores in the air, the dangerous nature magic sizzling on their skin. He had to help them. But how? He couldn’t just ignore the demon and its flail.
“Help them!” Annie’s chorus of voices rang. “This one is ours!”
The flaming monster charged across the platform, and Mason didn’t hesitate. He jumped and rolled away from the demon, coming up with his bow again and a Crippling Strike that smashed a flying soldier with a rain of reverberating hurt.
The other melee players met the new flyers from every angle, Phuong and John holding their ground as Jason and Garet fell back with a flanking Streak.
Alex was still standing there in the middle of everything, eyes frantic as he turned. His shields flashed everywhere. He was glowing with power now, arms outstretched, a symbol on his metal breastplate shining with golden light. He looked like some ancient king, or an angel. Just in a pretty flower necklace.
Mason ripped flying demons apart in a hail of arrows. One went at a still floating Seamus and he exploded its head with a Power Shot. Only after a few of the big demons were down did he allow himself a glance back at Annie.
She was still there, still fighting, holding the demon to a corner of the platform with sweeping slashes of that terrifying axe/sword. Just a little longer, he thought, switching targets as Carl literally cut through the chest of one of the soldiers. Then we’ll focus the bastard down.
He and the others brought the soldiers low one by one, the smaller gargoyles now almost all shattered or broken too badly to fight.
“Back off, Annie!” Mason shouted, turning and waiting for a shot. “Annie, move!”
She did. Straight backwards, as the demon’s claws slashed her throat. She flailed with her weapon, blood like liquid flame splashing on the ground as she stumbled and dropped.
The demon tried to follow, but Mason’s Power Shot knocked it physically back. He walked forward loosing a hail of arrows, aiming at the ribs and skull. He tried not to notice Annie convulsing on the ground, her head half severed.
The magic flame around her extinguished, the exaggerated size seeming to shrink and shrink until only the tiny body of the little red headed teenager lay sprawled on the stone.
Mason got close enough, and charged, nothing now in his mind but the destruction of this creature, no more thought about ‘learning’ or anything else. The demon was waiting, malevolent eyes turned on him as its snake-flail spun and hunted the others.
“Yes, come to Papa,” it said. “It will show him all its violence, all its hatred, all its…”
Mason slammed into the demon’s legs, lifted him into the air. Then he jumped off the edge of the platform, straight into the lava. They struck the glowing hot, molten stone together, and the demon made a sound like ‘oh’.