Cassandra Pendragon
I didn't have to explain, they knew what I wanted. Ahri's flames expanded and her wings touched the edges of the rift to keep it in place. At the same time Viyara gracefully manoeuvred her towering body towards the ground and coiled herself around the two small humans. "Go," she sent, "don't worry about us." I only hesitated for the merest moment, right until I saw her dutiful, fanged shadow appear at her side. With Aurelia there I couldn't quite imagine how they'd get hurt.
I brushed past Ahri, our wings made contact for a split second and I deepened our connection in case I somehow got stuck on the other side. With another beat I quietly soared past her warming flames and pushed through the hole in the sky. It was a strange sensation, almost like passing through a sheet of cold water, and then my vision splintered.
Understanding struck when I flooded my brain with energy and accelerated my thoughts. What I saw on the other side was a kaleidoscope of moments, all jumbled together into a headache inducing, ever changing scenery. Flashes from my childhood overlayed our recent struggle with John, the day Nero had torched Rome became the background to my first kiss amongst the ravaged ruins of Boseiju and the night Lucifer had hidden the Source in the Vatican and set his wards around it played over and over again. From there everything unfolded as the artefact slowly but inexorably connected the past to the present.
It drew transcendent forces in like moths were drawn to a flame. The power I had unleashed on Gaya had followed the call across uncounted leagues and wreaked havoc on its way. The Gate was a mere stepping stone, a vehicle, an outlet for much more potent magics that had now not only poisoned my world, but also Earth. Which also explained why I hadn't known about the Gate. In the past it had been an oddity, an interesting side effect of the dormant powers within Earth's structure, but combined with the infinite potential of the Source it had become much more. A door to a different reality. A reality that would soon lay siege to our own.
In a way we had been lucky. In hindsight it was a surprise that Constantine's passage, as well as Lamia's, had been quiet, almost peaceful. One second they had been in their own realm and the very next they had stumbled through the woods on Gaya without any fireworks to accompany their arrival. Lilith had chucked it up to the realms merging, a quick and seamless process, but she had been wrong. Once again. There had been no light show because the Source had drawn almost everything within the realm towards Earth. The cultivators my imperial friend was afraid of, the master Lamia had been running from, hells, even my flames that had consumed the realm of nightmares had been sucked across the cosmos and been assimilated by a maelstrom of immortal power. The gods only knew why those few souls had managed to withstand the pull, why Constantine and Lamia had found their way home while everything else had been lost to the eternal vortex I now saw, but unfortunately it didn't change much. The damage had been done.
I bit my lip until I drew blood, my eyes darted from one implausible scene to the next, searching, always searching for a foothold, for a single thread I could tug upon to unravel the looming disaster, but wherever I turned I was only met with further chaos as the past and the present became one, the order of creation crumbling into dust before me. Mephisto had been right. There was no stopping this. It could only be channeled somewhere safe, some place powerful enough to contain eternity.
A place where the shadows of the dead kitsune lost on Boseiju could rise again, where the dreams of an entire world could be born and given flesh without annihilating everything in their path. Hell, aside from hell there weren't many options. As I watched, gods and monsters, the hopes and fears of Gaya and Earth, rose and vanished like bubbles in the ocean. I saw nine tailed foxes, dancing through the fog of memories, I felt the presence of the dwarfs, concentrated into a stalwart, towering warrior clad in pristine armour before he disappeared into the vortex again, I smelled the blood of the dragons, enduring and powerful, as their dreams became reality in the form of a looming, domineering seven headed hydra that bent reality with its gaze alone until it was consumed by the frothing maelstrom it had come from.
Ancient battles, the fall of Troy, the siege of Carthage, the last defence at Thermopylae, they all played out at the same time. Heroes, young and old, took up arms, fought and died in the blink of an eye. I watched the titans rise against Olympus, I heard their defeated cries when they were cast into the depth of Tartarus, I felt the thrumming power of the gods as they marched to face the giants, I accompanied Sun Wukong on his ascend through the realms and I lived through the fear Amaterasu experienced when she was lured from her cave. The line between fact and fiction blurred. There were only memories filled with enough power to make them real.
Doubts paralysed me and for a while I simply hung between what was and what might yet come to be. My mind was in shambles as I tried with all my might to force some sort of reason upon a realm beyond comprehension, but I failed. Time and again. And then it… whatever it was, reacted to my presence. Like a behemoth on the cusp of waking the entire world I had stumbled into quivered and groaned, the crystal clear images I saw became blurry and then shadows began to move just beyond my vision. I felt them grow and fear, as as strong as I hadn't felt in months, gripped me. Eyes, filled with malevolence and power, locked onto me from behind the veil.
It wasn't only my own, ill begotten meddling that had been attracted by the Source. The fall of hell, the decline of heaven, every last transcendent mark my siblings had left on creation since I had claimed the Source had its mirror image here and now they had found an anchor, a presence strong enough to sustain them should they manage to draw me in.
Vanquished immortals, Gabriel and Metathron, Hecate and Delilah, every last one of them, they were all here. Twisted and changed for sure, fuelled by a corrupting power that wasn't their own, but deadly nonetheless. They saw me, just as I saw them and their hatred, their anger, their pain tore through the vortex like a hot knife through butter. They were still immortals and there was no force in creation that could keep them at bay. Tens had been changed, even more had fallen and the last remnants of their legacy were imprisoned here. Legion, I thought, for there were many.
My ears began to bleed when the pressure mounted. Uncounted dreams, numberless nightmares and forgotten legends quivered and disintegrated, their demise nothing but fuel for the echoes of eternal wrath. Gaya's gods, who had been lost to the flow of time, took their last breath as their essence was ravenously torn from the amalgamation of energy, titans and creatures from Earth's past whimpered and vanished forever when their power became nothing but a spark in an ocean of immortal fires and the souls, who had been lost to the ether, finally burned up irrevocably to sustain the ugly, corrupted shadows of my kin for a little while longer.
I fled. I didn't think, I didn't try to fight, I didn't even spare a thought for everything and everyone I might have been able to carry from this infernal nightmare. I simply ran without ever looking back, but still I had to pay. This… this was wrong, this was what would consume the cosmos if I couldn't make my siblings stop and every fibre of my being begged, demanded that I'd turn around, that I'd try to resist, try to best what I would have to face one day, because, even now, there was a way.
Deep within me my final transformation whispered, begged… screamed at me to simply give in, to set the Lightbringer free and cleanse this place with eternal light. A simple choice and I'd have the power to resist, to challenge whatever this godforsaken place had become, but the price… the price I wasn't willing to pay. For should I give in now my future would be filled with real immortals, prepared to burn down the world around me and as strong as I was… without Amazeroth there was no way. This much I came to understand in that fleeting but unending moment. I needed him, I needed every fibre of what I was if I wanted to survive, if I wanted to set it right. And now I simply had to make it out alive. Thus I flew, as fast as my wings could carry me, towards the tiny, failing line that would lead me back home.
An instant turned into a small eternity and I was forced to fight entire wars between one wing beat and the next. I had to pay in blood and pain for every inch, I was assaulted, my mind and body became the single target for the relentless hatred of transcendent creatures caught in a single, crumbling moment of immanence. It was all they had and I was the key, the key for them to return to life in all its glory and they wouldn't let their one chance slip through their grasp.
Even now I can't tell you how I managed to survive. In all honesty, I shouldn't have. As impervious as I was to magic, I was still a living, breathing being caught between the most ravenous forces of existence: desperate immortals. My memories are still hazy, I can only recall pain and light and blood all around me. I suffered and I cried, I screamed and I fought for every second, but the tear simply didn't come any closer. In the end I closed my eyes, my thoughts hardened into a single desire, one that had carried me through similar nightmares before. A beautiful vixen with fiery wings filled my mind and all that mattered was to reach her again. I wouldn't allow her to waste away in the middle of nowhere for all eternity, for that was what she'd do if I couldn't make it back.
Like a fly caught by children I was being mutilated. My tails were pulled from their sockets when I struggled on, even though I felt a grip as strong as time itself close around them. My arms and legs were crushed to a pulp, my back was being flayed and the breath squeezed from my lungs, but I never slowed down. Sulphur and acid enveloped me, fear and desperation besieged my mind, but I didn't give in. As long as there was a will there was a way. I wouldn't surrender and for as long as I could still move my wings, I would. I became a mindless, senseless thing with a single goal. Get to that wriggly line and don't ever look back.
I don't know why, but pain and desperation had never been detrimental to my strength. Maybe I was simply too stubborn, but the more I suffered, the more brutal the assault became, the more my determination soared as if my agony was nothing but fuel for my own, iridescent flames. Streams of silver gushed from my wounds, my magic leaked from my eyes and ears and my wings had long since grown to the size of stars when I first felt something change. The constant onslaught lessened and a presence desperately moved in front of me, but I was having none of it. With a defiant scream my mouth elongated into a vixen's snout and silver fangs tore through magic and memories. Then I was free, tumbling through the sky, wreathed in a gown of blood and flesh and light. Crimson warmth enveloped me, soft arms circled around my waist and my world was plunged into darkness as soothing flames began to heal my broken body.
"Wake up. Come on Cassandra, you've slept long enough." I knew that voice, I trusted that voice, but I really didn't want to. The darkness had been quiet, solemn, peaceful and I just knew that there would be none of that as soon as I opened my eyes. "I even got you something to eat. If you're not up in 10 seconds, I'll throw it out and get a bucket of water instead. Your choice." I inhaled deeply in preparation for a heartfelt groan, but something soft and silky tickled my nose.
The smell of pine trees filled my lungs when I sneezed. Tears began to stream from my eyes and I groped around blindly, searching for a cushion or something else to dab my eyes with. Which of course woke the slumbering vixen at my side. Glowing, multicoloured eyes blinked at me confusedly through the watery veil I couldn't get rid off and I heard Ahri's mumbled words: "here, let me help." A moment later my vision cleared when she wiped my face with a soft, fragrant piece of cloth.
I peeked at her owlishly before my mind slowly caught up and I was able to make some sense of the impressions my senses provided. Apparently she had taken me home. We were in a living, almost empty tree cave, except for the improvised bed of pelts I had rested on. The sweet smell of cherries was a welcome, subtle presence that made me relax instantly and when I looked around I couldn't stop a small smile from spreading across my face. The soft, golden light off the rising sun filtered in through the window like cracks in the bark and painted the two people in the room in rosy colours. Ahri I had expected, but I would never have guessed that Mephisto had taken it upon himself to prepare breakfast for three. He was even wearing an apron and carried the large tray with the air of a professional butler.
"Don't get used to it," he griped when he realised why I was staring. With a small gesture he made a table and three chairs grow from the ground and put his delectable burden down. Absentmindedly I began to play with Ahri's ears, my attention entirely consumed by an impressive assortment of breads, sweets, several pieces of fruit and a truly marvellous bowl of porridge with caramelised nuts. To cap it off he had even cooked at least a dozen eggs, fried several pans worth of bacon and brewed the largest, blackest pot of coffee I had ever seen.
"Yeah, I can cook. Extremely well even," he continued without missing a beat. "But let's save it for special occasions, shall we? Coming back without an inch of skin left on you, for example." He cocked an eyebrow, but I wasn't listening anymore. My gaze had inadvertently darted to my angel, the relief and barely veiled anger I saw in her eyes more than enough for me to figure out how bad it had been.
"Thank you," I whispered and leaned over to steal a kiss. She even played along, but when our lips parted I felt her fingers tighten around one of my ears. I stared at her with large, puppy dog eyes, but that wouldn't be enough to get me out of it.
"I…," she began, but I cut her off in an almost pleading voice.
"I didn't know. How could I have? Honestly, I…," and that was when I realised that she hadn't pinched me yet, nor was she looking like someone on the verge of delivering a lecture. Her gaze had become tender, warm and the smouldering spark of anger wasn't directed at me, either.
"Would you shut up," she mumbled as her fingers began to move through my fur caressingly. "I'm not angry with you. Not really. You scared me, but that's nothing new." She kissed me again. Her hot breath tickled my skin when she whispered her next words: "I'm just glad you're alive. I… for a moment there I wasn't sure."
With the mien of someone who's trying very hard to keep his last meal down Mephisto interjected impatiently: "which brings us directly to why I've even bothered cooking for the two of you in the first place." He tapped the table and gesticulated for us to join him. "What the hell happened to you? Fiddling with dimensional portals can be dangerous, but not for you and not like that. Did you fuck up somewhere along the way?"
With a weary sigh I reached for Ahri's hand and allowed her to pull me from my warm, comfortable castle of pelts and blankets. A slight mistake, as it turned out, since nobody had bothered to dress me in the meantime. Figures. Oh well, nothing the two of them hadn't seen before.