Chapter Twenty-One

The Gina… the Gina was—she had—she was…

The Gina lay on the floor, glassy eyes staring at the ceiling, dead. Even after all the defenses Callana had implanted in her body, she was dead. The Von and the Nard were staring at her in shock, blood pouring from their eyes into puddles on the floor. And before her, The One stood, haughtily looming over Callana, his body fading in between the higher dimensions, as if that were impressive. Callana couldn’t speak. She just stared at her friend, her… her love.

No.

No.

She stood, staring The One down. Then, she snapped her fingers, and the Gina’s wound knitted, the faint whisps of her tiny soul snapping back to the flesh that had contained it for so long. The Gina gasped on the floor, terror echoing in her eyes.

She would not die again. Neither would Callana. Today, only one would die—The One who stood before her.

Callana took a step forward, and then another. With each step, her body grew, lengthening, reshaping, becoming much, much more familiar. Her hair, red as blood, billowed in a cloud behind her as she began to tower over The One. Once her head brushed the ceiling, she simply Willed the room to grow around her, warping space until she could stand comfortably. He had to look up at her now, but he still seemed to smirk under that long-dead mask of his.

That would not do.

“Puny thing,” she purred, her long, sinewy ears flicking playfully. “Wearing the skin of your an-ces-tors so you can steal a speck of their power. No Will of your own, just petty tech-no-lo-gy and magicks. Poor crea-ture, terr-if-ied of a world bigger than you can i-ma-gine.”

“And you’re nothing but a maggot feasting on your own corpse,” The One said.

He raised that monstrous sword of his and balanced himself in a solid, centered stance. In response, she reached to the and gripped the aged, endelwood grip of her old blade, which called out to her fingers with a gleeful warmth. As she produced the great, glimmering claymore, with its long hilt and massive, brutal cross guard, and hefted it back over her shoulder, the sting of that old wound ripped through her senses. Glancing down, she stared at the hole in her gut—jagged, ever-bleeding, piercing through her breastplate, all the way through to the other side: the blow that had slain The Daughter of Ruin. She was nothing in comparison to her old majesty—a mote of dust against a tornado.

And yet, that old thrill built up in the back of her mind, same as ever.

This fool had no idea who he’d provoked.

Gina woke up. Darkness had taken her, followed by a faint light—but now, her eyes shot open. Gasping, she watched in horror as the god who stabbed her began approaching Callana—and Callana started approaching him, too. They stood practically face to face, but… the room looked different. Callana looked different. Shaking the wooziness out of her head, Gina took a second look and realized that, not only was the ceiling far, far overhead, but so was Callana. She must have quadrupled in size, standing fifteen, sixteen feet tall, and it looked like she was wearing a set of… plate armor? But it didn’t look like any plate Gina had seen in the history books; it had no rivets or segments—everything simply fit together and stretched with Callana’s body like a second skin.

And that wasn’t the only change—the woman Callana had become bore only passing resemblance to the form she’d adopted when she came to Earth. Her nose, her jawline, even her eyebrows all looked sharper, perhaps haughtier. And her ears had lengthened, jutting perhaps a full foot behind her head. But she was bleeding! He must have already landed a hit on her—this was bad. But what could Gina do? It didn’t matter. She had to do something.

When Callana ripped a massive, two-handed sword out of some unseen dimension, Gina burst into action.

“Stop it!” she exclaimed, hurtling in between the two giants.

“Oh, quite loyal,” The One said, a hint of a smile in his voice.

“Don’t even look at her,” Callana said in a voice that seemed deeper, richer, grander than her old one.

“You don’t have to do this!” Gina said. “This is a huge misunderstanding—she isn’t dangerous!”

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“I’m plenty dan-ger-ous,” Callana growled, pushing past Gina and thrusting her weapon at The One’s head. He ducked, then dodged again as dozens of amorphous tentacles sprouted from the ceiling, the walls, and the floor and lashed out at him. With nowhere to go, he leapt back, slamming through their TV and the wall like paper. Reaching his hand forward, his impossible, wooden armor peeled back to reveal dark, human skin. The flesh on his right ring finger split open, and a bloody finger bone rocketed forward, striking Callana like a bullet and bursting into flames on impact. She reeled, a massive dent forming on her breastplate.

“Cal!” Gina yelped, rushing over to her.

Callana’s lips twitched, fury taking her. One moment, she was standing beside Gina, but the next moment, Callana was behind The One; she grabbed the back of his neck and threw him to the railing, grinding his face into the steel walkway. The sky went dark, a blood-red haze covering the rings and stars above as space and time screamed for mercy. A second bone shot out of the man’s finger, arcing around and nearly slamming into Callana’s face. But she caught it and flicked it off into the air.

Callana let out an inhuman wail, ready to run her blade through The One’s neck.

But he somehow passed clean through the floor and landed below them, then thrust his blade up into one of Callana’s feet.

Hissing, Callana leapt up and stood in midair, her ears flattening back against her shoulders as her hair bristled in rage.

“L-long time since you’ve held a blade?” The One mocked, rising back through the floor and standing on the railing again. His finger hadn’t regenerated, and his mask had cracked. His armor looked like it was in shambles, rapidly flickering between dimensions, leaking light from the splinters in the wood. Meanwhile, the dent in Callana’s armor had repaired itself, her foot had seemed to have knitted itself back together, and aside from that dripping wound, she seemed essentially unscathed.

“Please, Cal,” Gina said, “please, just stop. I promise it’ll be okay.”

“You hurt the Gina!” Callana screamed. Her form warped, and dozens of mouths sprouted on her face, only to close and disappear again.

“You killed my mother!” The One hollered back.

Callana stared at the man, her bloodshot eyes twitching in rage and terror. “L-lies!”

The One shook his head, the branches on his armor swirling with light. “She was a hero! And you ripped her in two! When The Monitor landed the killing blow, I thought that was revenge enough—even if the revenge was not mine to take. But today, I learnt that you still have the strength to pervert this reality. You—you have no right to life! Tonight, I shall obliterate what little remains of your foul corpse!”

Callana shook her head, her composure failing as she grit her teeth and blinked away tears. She raised her sword, stared at it, and then back at the man, her breath quivering. “I—I’ve… no, I was—I didn’t mean to…” Whatever invisible platform she was standing on gave way, and she fell to the railing, down to her knees. “I just wanted—I just—I just wanted…”

Gina rushed to Callana’s side and hugged her, wrapping her arms around her. Callana began to shrink, and Gina squeezed her tighter and tighter as the girl she fell in love with reappeared, tiny and redheaded, yet still wearing that strange armor and still bleeding from her side and weeping uncontrollably.

Enraged, Gina stood up and faced The One herself.

 

Shit's goin' down!

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