Rows of long, armored legs emerged from the cloud of swirling dust, pulling Shabboleth’s massive body further into the vault. Something which resembled his human body had begun to grow from the front end of his carapace like a rancid parasite, the flesh there rupturing and sliding in order to assume a humanoid shape. The nude upper half of his body took general form, quickly gaining more detail, and the congealing eyes in his clammy face immediately settled onto Jezebel.
“You murdered Hippolytus!!!” she screamed.
“Murdered?! Murdered?!? He nearly killed you!”
“He was trying his best to help and you slaughtered him!!!”
“No!!! Listen to me, my darling girl—”
“I hate you!!!” she screamed with all her might. “I despise you from the bottom of my heart!!! You’ve kept me trapped here like a canary in a cage!!!”
Shabboleth fell silent, and panic entered his expression as his gaze searched her up and down. Amara shot a nervous sideways glance at Evander, and after making eye contact with him decided to risk taking a single step backwards. He did the same beside her, and when Shabboleth failed to take notice they both took several more steps.
“I do not expect you to understand,” Shabboleth said with obvious pain. “But it had to be done. I am willing to accept your hatred if it means you are safe.”
“You’ve never cared about me!” Jezebel raged. “You only think about yourself and never about how what you do hurts me!”
“I do care about you—”
While they continued to argue, Amara and Evander retreated further backwards. After retreating far enough to leave Shabboleth’s line of sight Amara suddenly stopped, taking a moment to pocket the elixir she still held in her hand before impatiently gesturing to Evander for the potion he held in his. His face was full of nervous fear, but he handed it to her immediately.
Amara motioned silently at him for what she wanted him to do.
I’ll throw this at him first, she mouthed while gesturing. Then you throw the grenades.
He gave her a quick, nervous nod and looked down to reach into his pockets, but before he could she regained his attention by grabbing his arm.
Don’t. Miss.
The second nod he gave to her had more confidence in it, and Amara felt almost satisfied as she released him.
She then turned to Shabboleth and assumed a throwing position, and Evander did the same beside her. Even as her stomach churned with fear, Amara threw the potion at Shabboleth’s enormous back with all the strength she could muster.
The potion collided with Shabboleth’s carapace and the glass immediately shattered, splashing golden fluid all across him. It sizzled loudly where it made contact with his skin, and the scream that Shabboleth let out was one of a surprised predator caught in a trap. But before he could turn to face the source of the pain, the first of Evander’s grenades sailed through the air towards him and bounced off his carapace.
The explosion that followed was the loudest thing Amara had ever heard. Her entire body flinched involuntarily at the noise, and she cringed while bringing her hands up to protect her face. Smoke filled the air around Shabboleth’s body, and she watched as Evander’s second grenade sailed through the air and soon disappeared into the cloud.
A second explosion followed, but this time Amara was better prepared for it. A short flash of yellow-white light erupted within the smoke, and in the same moment Amara felt a spark of combustion within the grenade. The abruptness of the reaction had taken her by surprise, but nevertheless she’d felt it.
If grenades are ancient weapons then the ancients must’ve been so unbelievably powerful, she thought.
An otherworldly groan sounded from the far side of the smoke. When it finally cleared out a bit Amara could see Shabboleth’s body collapsed upon the ground. Blood seeped from dozens of small and moderate wounds peppering his carapace, and many of his legs had been grossly mutilated or even severed entirely by the explosions.
But only the areas of his body which the potion had splashed across seemed to have been damaged by the grenades. The areas which hadn’t received any of the liquid appeared to be completely unharmed.
For a moment, Amara allowed herself to hope that they’d done fatal damage to him, until Shabboleth’s massive form began to move. He lifted himself slowly off the floor, and his human horn twisted about to level a murderous glare upon her.
“Run—” Evander began before the rest of Shabboleth’s body savagely whipped about to face them. He leapt at them from across the room, letting out an ear splitting roar that could have just as easily belonged to a demon.
Amara’s instinct to leap out of the way of his lunging pincers just barely saved her, but Evander reacted to the danger by facing it down. He planted his feet, clearly trying to meet Shabboleth’s strength with his own, only to be knocked away by the momentum of Shabboleth’s pincers. Evander was flung into the air, flying at least a dozen feet towards the far end of the vault. He slammed into one of the still-intact shelves on the far side of the room, disappearing beneath a landslide of books and trinkets.
As Shabboleth turned to face Amara, she pulled out her lighter and clicked it on. A stream of flame leapt from it towards him, and sheer desperation caused her to summon more willpower for her flames than ever before. The stream from her hand expanded into a tremendous flood of flames which filled most of the vault, and for just a moment Amara imagined herself as a being far more powerful than the grotesque abomination before her. She was like a dragon, obliterating an obstinate river crab beneath the sheer volcanic power of her breath.
Before Shabboleth was totally engulfed in light and heat, he managed to protect his wounded backside by covering it with his pincers. Through the flames Amara could feel his other limbs flailing about, trying to put out the fire he’d been coated in. But a familiar unnatural resistance greeted her upon making contact with his carapace, and Amara immediately recognized it as being similar to the one she’d felt on the wolf in the forest.
Similar, she realized. But not the same. The wolf felt different from this.
Try as she might, her flames could not harm the unweakened parts of his body, not at least until the odd resistance had been worn down. Right as she had that thought, the fuel in her lighter was used up, and the tremendous flames erupting from her hand abruptly spluttered out of existence.
Flames still coated Shabboleth, but Amara could feel them disappearing as he frantically rubbed them out of existence. She tried to save them by moving them out of the way of his grasping hands, legs and pincers, but without proper fuel to burn the flames felt sluggish and unresponsive.
When Shabboleth finally extinguished the last flames on his body, his human head turned to level an enraged grimace onto Amara.
“...And now, you sorry wretch,” he snarled. “It is time to lay Eric’s final scheme to rest!”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Fear exploded within Amara as he took a few halting steps forward. Throughout everything that had happened there had always been something to save her at the last moment, one last miracle to rescue her from danger. But there was nothing left to save her. Mattias was dead, Evander was either dead or unconscious, and her lighter was empty.
I’m going to die, she realized as Shabboleth advanced on her. I’m such a fool.
Shabboleth’s insect legs broke into a run, skittering across the debris strewn across the vault's floor. But right as he lifted both pincers above his head to crush her, Jezebel ran between them. She held her arms out wide, and faced down his charge.
“You’ll have to kill me, first!” she shouted.
A frustrated growl left Shabboleth, and he skidded to an abrupt stop before her with barely a half-dozen feet to spare. When he attempted to side step her, Jezebel matched his movement and then backed up until she was almost touching Amara.
“Get out of the way, Jezebel,” he growled.
“Look at yourself!” she shouted. “You’re a terrifying monster! How could you ever truly love me and still allow yourself to terrorize me like this?! This is exactly what I’ve just been telling you and you’re still not listening!!!”
At that, Shabboleth paused. His pincers lowered slowly to the ground, and his human body’s posture began to soften.
“I am listening to you,” he said. “I know that I hurt you. And I am truly sorry for that. But the world outside this castle is so much bigger than you could ever know, Jezebel. So much worse than you can imagine. Don’t you see? The other Seraphim would be thrilled to harm you or even kill you just to spite me.”
He then hesitated, and after everything that had happened Amara was stunned to see him suddenly lost for words.
“...I just could not have done anything else to keep you safe. I know you understand that.”
Behind Shabboleth, on the far side of the room, the pile of books and objects that’d fallen on Evander suddenly began to move. His head appeared from the pile, hair disheveled and with blood staining his forehead. He suddenly stopped moving to grimace with pain, but after making eye contact with Amara he began to urgently extricate himself from the pile. After finally freeing himself from it his hand reached down to his ribs, and he grimaced once more.
“Don’t you dare condescend to me!” Jezebel shouted. “You think I have no idea how terrible the world can be?! I’ve lived in your monstrous shadow for my entire life! You’re the one who is out of touch with reality!”
“Please, my darling girl, do not speak like this. You know how much I care for you. I know you can see it within me.”
Evander regained his feet, and after taking a look around his gaze settled on the enormous sword still hanging on the wall, which Shabboleth’s blow had sent him close to. Amara looked on as Evander took a few halting steps towards it.
“Of course I can see it! But I can also see how you’ve never let that stop you from hurting me! You’ve never once failed in your entire life to put yourself first!”
A plan began to form in Amara’s mind as she watched Evander's hand search the sword's enormous hilt for a proper grip. When he was finally ready he heaved the sword off its wall mounting and immediately swung it across the vault towards Shabboleth, baring his teeth with effort.
The sword crashed into him, but it might as well have been a mace for the effect it had. The blade failed to cut his skin, but the sheer force and size of it knocked Shabboleth off balance. Amara saw rage enter into his expression as he nearly toppled over.
The sword was so large, and there was so much debris scattered about the vault, that Evander did not have much space to swing it again. But somehow he managed, shouting with effort as he reared the sword back as much as he could in order to slam it into Shabboleth once more. Something told Amara that her chance had come, and she pushed Jezebel out of the way while removing the final grenade Mattias had given them from her pocket.
Shabboleth absorbed the second blow much better than he did the first, and whipped about to face Evander. As he did, he presented his still-wounded backside to Amara, as she expected.
She pulled the pin on her grenade, and sprinted towards Shabboleth, jamming it into the closest open wound she could find. Her fingers and arm hurt where they pushed against hard as steel flesh and organs deeper inside the wound, but nevertheless she left the grenade as far inside his body as her arm could reach.
With barely a second before the grenade would explode, Amara dove beneath Shabboleth, and she readied herself to enhance the spark she’d felt earlier. When it came, she pushed all her will into strengthening it, expanding the force of it.
Shabboleth’s own invincible carapace protected her from the resulting detonation, and a tremendous shower of blood and flesh flew in a tremendous arc from the wound. He instantly let out a wail full of pain and despair. Amara scrambled to get out from beneath him as he quickly lost the strength to stand.
His legs gave out all at once, very nearly crushing her before she managed to roll out of the way, and his massive form collapsed weakly upon the floor. The human part of his body collapsed as well, falling across a messy pile of scorched and burned paintings.
Amara regained her feet, panting, and watched as Evander dropped the sword with a loud, unceremonious clatter, limping over in order to stand beside her.
They exchanged a look before Jezebel drew their attention. She rushed towards Shabboleth’s human form, falling to her knees in order to embrace him.
After holding him for a moment, she sat down and struggled to pull his head into her lap. His chest began to heave, and when he coughed speckles of bright red blood covered his chin and parts of Jezebel’s dress.
“I’m sorry Jezebel,” he wheezed. “I’m so sorry for everything I’ve done.”
“I know you are,” she said, and Amara saw that her eyes glistened with tears.
“I wasn’t always like this! I wish you could’ve seen me before all this happened. I know I’ve become monstrous. I know.”
“I know, father. I can see the fear inside you which causes you to act this way.”
“It’s true,” Shabboleth gasped. “I’m afraid! I’m so afraid. I never wanted any of this to happen.”
“You wanted someone who could understand you,” she said. “That’s the real reason why you had me. After centuries of being all alone you hoped for someone who could see who you really are.”
A look of complete exhaustion crossed Shabboleth’s face, and his eyes soon closed as Jezebel began to caress his head.
“...Allow me to rest here for a time, darling.”
Jezebel nodded, and a shaky sigh soon left her. Amara looked on as Jezebel continued to pet Shabboleth’s head in tearful silence. As she watched, an ugly feeling began to rear its head within her, one she couldn’t quite make sense of.
Why do I feel jealous of her? she asked herself.
Evander soon tapped her on the arm, and pointed at Shabboleth’s wounded carapace. Amara saw the skin there moving, shifting and sliding about just like it had done while forming his human parasite. The wounds they’d worked so hard to cause were already being sealed up by grotesque pink and yellow scabs, growing and stretching with alarming speed to seal the bleeding holes in his flesh.
“He’s going to be healed soon,” Evander said.
Amara barely heard him. The dark feelings of jealousy that’d spawned within her had somehow grown into something much worse. An unnatural hunger began to radiate like waves throughout her body, ripples of desire for something she didn’t have.
Time suddenly slowed down, and a tiny black sphere appeared in the air above Shabboleth, spinning into existence. As it grew, indecipherable whispers billowed from it, bidding Amara forward.
Evander said something beside her, but his voice was distant and hollow, like a shout heard from the far side of a wide valley. Her gaze locked onto the sphere, and the whispers grew more powerful. What it wanted was as sure as the sunrise.
Her right foot moved towards Shabboleth on its own, followed by her left. Her arm lifted, fingers stretching to fulfil a desire which was not entirely her own.
Time resumed its normal flow when her hand made contact with his carapace, and a low, unearthly groan sounded from him. The entire castle shuddered once, then twice, and all the loose objects in the vault suddenly leapt a few inches into the air.
Another shudder rocked the castle, and this time when all the objects in the vault leapt into the air it was towards Amara. A strong wind began to emanate from the sphere, whipping at her hair. What was happening was unnatural and frightening, but she didn’t care. The ravenous hunger she and the sphere now shared was the only thing she wanted to think about.
A bright light soon enveloped Shabboleth’s form, and the wind whipping at Amara’s hair became a maelstrom, throwing objects and debris across the room. In the corner of her eye she saw Evander crouch down, trying to protect his face with his hands. Jezebel did the same even as Shabboleth’s intensely bright shape in her lap contracted violently like an accordion.
The whole universe began to rush inside Amara through her hand, an entire ocean pouring into her through her fingers like water through a sieve. Unidentified thoughts and feelings which could only belong to someone else crossed her mind like apologetic intruders.
Something shifted inside her skin, and the wind abruptly ended. Amara closed her eyes, and when she opened them again the sphere and Shabboleth were both gone.
She closed her eyes again, and when her body made contact with the floor it felt strangely distant, as though she could only feel the world through a smooth membrane. Something alien occupying a new hollow within her demanded sleep, and she had no other choice but to comply.
