I helplessly watch the tentacles seethe downwards. They drip goo and acid, eating away at the trees, overwhelming the forest life, churning bones and screams throughout. The farm women run screaming in various directions. I blink lifelessly. A red and black blur whizzes past me, sharp claws glance across my back. Blood trickles down, pooling on my legs. I'm back in my body. The numbness is gone.
The tentacles are still there, hungry, prowling. But they're weak, confused, and for whatever reason, Mother Death's consumption hurt them.
I sprint with all my might toward MM, I have no clue what I'll do when I get there, but at the very least I'll make sure she doesn't die alone. My leg aches where Mother Death severed it. My body is heavy, like lead, my river is dry, the ritual drank from it like a trillion elephants, leaving nothing but a sandy embankment in my soul. But she's a fighter, and I know basic field medicine. What more could you need?
10 minutes later, I'm panting, drenched in sweat, my leg has almost fallen off a dozen times. But I finally see her in the distance. I see a massive puddle of blood and liquified guts around her. But still, I limp over. She's paler than any person I've ever seen, her eyes are open and empty. Horror fills me.
But my ears hear something. They're just able to make out the sweet sound of weak, shallow breath, sucking in and out from her.
I'm honestly not entirely sure how, the hole in her body extends all the way up to her collarbone, jutting fully out on the right side, stretching down to her hip. Nearly her entire chest and stomach have been fully liquified. There shouldn't be lungs to breath, there shouldn't even be muscles to push and pull the air, let alone a heart to send that blood to.
I ignore all the sense in my body. I pull and strain, reaching deep, I rake through my dried up river. I let out a small cry, pain floods my entire nervous system. Frustration fills me. Why did I even think this would all work?
Looking upwards, I see the sky still littered with abyssal nightmare. I doomed everyone. I fucked it all. WHY? As if reading my mind, the answer to my questions presses a warm and calloused hand on my back. A hand I could recognize anywhere. It's Ruby. She's alive.
Like a damn breaking, my river coughs and hacks. Somehow, someway, it's back to a meek but steady flow. I look up at Ruby, joy and happiness spread through my body, reaching all the way down to my toes. It's like all the flowers in the world bloom at once. I don't waste a moment.
Oh great Altuor, my moon, my life pull the tides of existence, of strife push the current, ebb the flow send her organs, let them grow hear my pleads, both Ruby and I, We give our all, please don't let her die
Our rivers are drained to sputtering pools, the flow stopped up again. I can feel it. MM is stable. She's fucking stable!
Ruby and I embrace, jumping around in circles, like giddy schoolgirls who managed to end up in the same class, year after year.
Blood spurts out of MM's mouth, the hole in her has vanished leaving a scar than can only be described as a crater carved directly into her flesh. Wow, she kinda does give moon energy now. Definitely too soon to say that, I think with a relieved smirk spreading across my face.
"W-where am I?", Moonlit Maiden manages to get out. Ruby puts a hand behind her head propping her up. "I was... I was at my river, I could've..." She weakly smiles, "B-but I knew you... you assholes needed me."
I smile at her, "Of course we did, teach. Then and now. Always."
We all look up into the sky.
Mother Death smiles. Her plan worked in only the utmost perfect way possible. She enters her own reality again, at last. Standing on the most pathetic manifestation of her God she's ever seen.
He's all deformed and gross. So I take it my double didn't do this. In fact, my double seems to have died. How disgustingly pathetic. I guess I take this as my answer to whether you can clone perfection. Obviously not.
Mother Death sneers, looking down at the chaotic battlefield. She grins at MM's toppled tower. But that's where her immediate fun stops, the corners of her mouth turning downwards.
She had tricked everyone, even her own God. She can't rely on anyone, only herself. That's why she had to enact a plan like this. Cloning herself 8 years ago, spending ritual after ritual sacrificing a kingdom's yearly allowance of magical energy like it's nothing, all to give that stupid thing life. She gave her time and resources to it. Training it, dedicating countless hours to perfecting the imitation. All for her most recent ritual, where she would hide herself, sneaking inside the portal, unnoticed. And why? Well that she would soon relish in.
For now, her disappointment looms. Fat Tree, failure. Swiftblade, failure. They lie battered, unconscious. Her own clone, a dedication of nearly a decade, killed by the likes of an 18 year old who couldn't cast a spell a few days ago. Penance will be paid. That's why she will rescue the two pathetic survivors. That's why she'll leave her enemies alive. Her name was given to her for a reason. She does not kill any but those who've lost their use. She does not act without reason. She nurtures each and every death like a dedicated botanist, trimming and pruning until full bloom, and what she sees now, is the perfect fertilizer for her undead kingdom to grown to a strength it has not known before. To have failed twice, yet to receive mercy. Swiftblade and Fat Tree will beg for their deaths by the end of the night.
And with that, she begins.
Our attentions were forced to the sky. Not because of danger, nor joy. But due to a simple concept. Magical density. The tentacles freeze, the eye darts around frantically.
Mother Death is alive again, I guess anything goes with her. But at least I know now what MM meant by weaker. The Mother Death who stands before us is nothing like the imposter. Her cunning, her intellect, her movements, each sharpened to a point, unparalleled by the rest of existence. But none of that can even begin compare to her magic might, her river might as well be called the ocean.
She towers above us all. Even the great summoned one, the pinnacle of my trickery, of my resourcefulness, the exhauster of my river. At once she proves this.
I watch Mother Death kill her own God. The very God she created herself, the very God she has fed an uncountable number of lives. She slices the entire tentacled monster right in two. With nothing but a swipe of her wrist. It's body tenses before going limp. It slides slowly, violently out of the portal it peered through, catapulting towards the ground. Well, fuck the soul gathering worry, I gue- oh damnable hell, it's going to crush us, our lives just always have to be at fucking stake
The falling abyssal God is then carved into bite sized chunks, but our torment is not over. We are pelted with the hail of a dead God's remains, soaked in his acidic blood and guts. Ruby and I cover MM like an umbrella in hell. After what seems like an eternity but in reality is approximately about 3 and half minutes—I beg of you to please imagine the horror that standing under chunks of a freshly killed space squid for 3.5 actual minutes would be like, 1, 1 thousand, 2, 1 thousand, all the damned way until 200 and fucking 10—Ruby and I dig our way out of the carnage. The surroundings are unrecognizable and we don't even try to take it in. Surviving, escaping, is the only thing on our minds. Wordlessly, we yank MM up and out, immediately grasping her limbs and running, stumbling towards whatever direction was furthest away from where we last sensed Mother Death.
But she appears right before us, flickering into existence. She has a wide, warm grin. So much so, that I drop my guard for a split moment.
"JESS", Ruby call out, snapping me back to attention.
I stagger backwards, but Mother Death just tilts her head to the side, as if inspecting some small frail animal. She reaches out grabbing my chin with her index finger and thumb, letting her middle finger rest on my adam's apple. She tilts my head upward forcing my face to directly face hers.
Her face is relaxed, happy, and content. She begins to blush and bats her eyelashes. Or maybe that's just how she blinks. I don't fucking know anymore.
"You were so good. I can't wait to see what you become. Do come see me again soon. Jessica." She laces her words in ooey-gooey, lovey-dovey affection. But I can see her soul is nothing short of dripping with malicious, selfish intent. Fat Tree and Swiftblade hover above the ground 2 feet behind her.
She bends over slowly placing a large wet smooch right on the center of my forehead. What is my life.
With another flicker of the light, she's gone. Like she was never even here to begin with.
I gasp for breathe I didn't even realize I was holding in. And with that, my first true encounter with the Queen of the Undead, Mother Death, has concluded. I hope. I pray. I relish in the aching pains the comedown of adrenaline pushes into my psyche.
Deep within her insidious lair, a castle filled with Undead servants, lie Swiftblade and Fat Tree. They're both strapped into chairs facing each other.
They awkwardly avoid eye contact.
"So... what brings you here?" Fat Tree finally caves in.
"Please shut up, we both know we're going to be tortured, most certainly to undeath, for our latest sins."
They both do their best to stifle shocked reactions as Mother Death staggers in with a bottle of Champagne. She loudly pops the top off sending the cork flying directly into Fat Tree's forehead with a dull, hollow thud. Foam and wine lazily spill from the gap between the mouth of the bottle and Mother Death's fingers.
"I brought y'all here... to celebrate!!!" Mother Death, very drunkenly hollers.
Swiftblade and Fat Tree share a glance, before quickly responding, "WOOHOO! YAY! MOTHER DEATH!!!" Their eyes are streaming with tears.