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An Act of Desperation (Gecko's final RP post for Revamped)
A small, scaled form shudders as it limps through a field of snow. The night sky provides stark contrast to the brilliant white of the earth, alienating the land from its embrace.
The figure eventually reaches a path of worn cobblestone leading through a forest of restless trees. Soon, a house can be seen. The figure stands before the door and stares for a long time.
"Erm... Hello. Who might you be?"
"I am Inkscale. Pleasure to meet you."
The figure shakes its head and enters.
The air within the house is cold with the absence of life. The owners left long ago to build elsewhere, but the walls echo with the gravity of events past.
"What is... tickling?"
Giggles. "Here."
Laughter. "That is the strangest sensation I have ever felt." More giggles.
The reptilian form smiles faintly.
"Old friend, surely you must remember something!"
"I am sorry, Cerce, but I think you are being too hopeful..."
The figure enters the room to her left.
"I warn you, the risks are many."
A scoff. "I don't care. I must know the truth of what Mr. Tentones is saying."
"There must be another way. Trusting Varutil with your mind-"
"I have decided. Demon, lead the way."
The being descends a ladder hidden in the corner of the room. A set of stone stairs leads across a jagged ravine into a hallway.
"It's this room, here. Step inside."
"Inkscale, I-"
"Draconian, I choose my path. No harm will come to me. I promise you that."
An iron door, and behind it, a room riddled with glowstone and blocks of Lapis Lazuli.
"My name... It... Begins with ’Ge’..."
A concentrated, solemn voice. "Keep searching. What is your name?"
The figure steps into the room and closes its eyes, placing its hands on the walls.
"My name... Is Gekk-va-Ro-Kaa... And I am a god!
Gekk’s eyes shoot open as she whispers, "My child... I am sorry." Her gaze drifts downwards as she turns and leaves.
The goddess finds herself ascending a ladder that leads to a spacious attic.
"Draconian, I think you would be surprised to find just how aware I am whilst meditating..."
Another smile crosses her lips. She turns to face a space that once was occupied by a small library, but is now bare and cold.
"I have a proposal for you. A while ago, an android had an idea..."
The dwindling god stands at the long window stained by permafrost.
Without turning, she speaks. "How did you find me?"
A tall black form stands behind her, projecting a raspy, ethereal voice. "The pig." A black and white swine is placed on the ground. It runs to Gekk and nuzzles her leg. She looks down at the creature and sighs. "Inkscale thought it was dead. Deviant was its name."
She turns. "I suppose you are here to kill me, time-leaper."
The voidspawn nods once and withdraws a jagged blade. "I must prevent you from defeating me. Surely you understand."
Gekk chuckles. "And how do you plan on doing that?"
With a snarl, Enderscale lunges at her, sword outwards. Gekk withdraws the daggers containing the remnants of her soul and arcs them downwards, sending the assailing sword into the floorboards. As her opponent struggles to pry it free, she leaps at him. Her advance is met, though, by swirling mist. She whips around too late; a clawed hand grabs her by the throat and clenches. The deity smiles. "You know very well that I don't breathe, my child. Strangling me won’t achieve anything."
Enderscale snarls and throws her through the attic window with bone-shattering force. Gekk comes crashing into the thick cover of snow that hugs the ground outside the house, blurring her vision. She blinks repeatedly and sees two long legs land next to her. A cackle slices through the frigid air as a single arms is brought up, ending in an opening fist.
Suddenly, a circle of dark forms surrounds the ground-ridden god. She slowly staggers to her feet and surveys her surroundings.
An endless legion of voidspawn stretches past her vision, undoubtedly covering several miles of space. A smiling voice juts in. "Oh, don't be rude, dear mother. Say ’hello’ to my army."
She remains speechless.
"Please, don't act so surprised! You know very well that with enough effort, I could easily teleport an entire army to any place touched by the void."
Gekk struggles to find her words. "But... You would have lost all of your powers by coming here, so who would have been able to-"
A mirror image of Enderscale walks to stand beside him. Both smile with teeth.
The new one speaks: "Mother, meet my future self. Dashingly handsome, no?" Sensing her confusion, he continues. "In the not-so-far future, you come very close to killing me. Now, you thought that I came to the past in a frantic attempt to save my own life." His expression darkens. "I am not nearly that stupid." He advances towards the baffled Gekk. "Do you truly think that I care about the Imagian Isles? Hah. My master has no need for territory... Not in the physical sense, anyway. He wants to be the lone deity, the supreme ruler of every creature in existence. You are the first step in accomplishing that end."
The deity stammers, "But... The daggers..."
Both Enderscales laugh, and the other steps forward. "We need the daggers to kill you. The fact that they contain most of your essence is enough to destroy you forever. That was always the goal. The army was an attempt to keep you from getting to them, but unfortunately, you were more skilled in this pathetic form than we had anticipated. So, I made sure that you thought I was marching on the Imagian Isles in order to stage the time travel stunt. Your future self, thinking I was dead, continued onwards and claimed the Isles, allowing me to transport my entire army here through the fact of my own presence in both places. However, killing you now will set things on their true course, for I have come for the daggers. Give them to us, and your death will be a quick one."
Gekk’s head reels. "Inkscale’s whole purpose... my whole purpose... A trick." She looks into the eyes of her enemy and utters two words: "Take them."
With that, she launches herself backwards, leaving behind black, inky mist.
Both Enderscales look about angrily, both shouting in broken unison, “FIND HER. Take the daggers, or none of you will make it back to the void intact!”
The legion of wretched creatures disperses, searching every inch of the area.
Suddenly, a cry comes out from near the house. Then another. And another.
A dozen voidspawn are found dead in the snow before a dark green form rises from the underbrush. Daggers out, it leaps into the fray.
Metal meets dagger and dagger meets flesh as the dying god dances through this sudden battlefield, slaying her enemies with the swiftness and precision of a fighter steeped in battle for thousands of years. A throat slashed, a chest split, a stomach opened, a limb removed... every death blurs into a single brush stroke of black essence that lays itself over the ground, a curtain of drained life.
The leaves on the surrounding trees begin to rustle, and the snow slowly shifts. Gekk stops mid-stroke with the realization of what is about to occur. She pulls a dagger from the lifeless body of a voidspawn and puts the side of her head to the ground. Something is moving deep within the earth. She exhales slowly. The army around her is scattered and confused, all turning to Enderscale for an explanation. Both his past and future self stand dumbfounded. “No...” the latter whispers. Pointing to the ground: “Is she...?”
The deity stands with difficulty. “Yes,” she says gravely. “Kiwike is awakening.” She turns to the inquiring Enderscale with a smile. “I wish you luck, child. It’s a shame that you have no remaining void magic left within you...”
The other Enderscale has begun reciting a teleportation chant. “On ko ra, on ko ri, on ko re-”
He is cut off abruptly by a sharp pain in his chest, and begins to choke. A dagger is pulled from his midsection by the hand of his mother. She says stoically, “I am deeply sorry that it had to come to this.” He looks at her through bleeding purple eyes and whimpers once before crashing to the ground.
The earth begins to shake. Gekk falls to the ground as the rocking grows in intensity. The thousands of voidspawn still standing run about in panic, trying desperately to escape their doom. Enderscale, refusing to accept his death, runs into the lone house.
Then, the ground begins to split. Hills rise up as the landscape bends and twists, a patch of skin on a far larger being. Across Kiwike, walls crumble and cities fall to ruin.
Yet here, the house remains intact. It rocks back and forth, flinging the remaining Enderscale from wall to wall as he struggles to maintain balance. He falls to the ground and heaves dust.
A scaled form breaks through the door with ash, dust, and banners of light streaming past her. Gekk pulls her son from the floor and yells into his ear, “There is a gate to the Nether realm in the basement. If we make it there, both of us will be saved. Do you trust me?”
Gasping for air, Enderscale nods quickly.
Mother and son stumble to an adjoining room and down a ladder, unable to remain upright for long. The shaking grows in intensity with each passing second; the rafters begin to creak and a steady rain of dust precipitates from the ceiling.
Soon, an iron door looms before them. Gekk pulls a lever on the wall next to it. “The portal is through here. We must hur-”
Before she can finish speaking, Enderscale swiftly pushes her back, rips out the lever, steps through the doorway, and swings the door shut, locking it and trapping his mother on the other side. He smiles victoriously at her astonishment. Backing towards the portal, he says, “I apologize, mother, but there’s only room in the Nether for one of us. I do hope you understand.” With that, he steps into the swirling mists of the gate.
With a lurch that seems to move both heaven and earth, the foundations of the house separate themselves from the ground, completely collapsing the framework into a churning mass of splinters and pebbles. Gekk is flung from the wreckage into the air.
She falls past bending trees and draining lakes, sideways-falling snow and shifting sand. The desperate god reaches out and grabs hold of a tree limb, which breaks, but positions her closer to the ground that races past. She grits her teeth and drives her daggers into the earth. They drag through the ground for a tense few seconds before coming to a halt.
A tiny scaleskin is hanging by two daggers from the downturned hand of a being far larger than she. Looking before her, Gekk sees a face of gargantuan proportions looking back. Two eyes shifting as seas stare directly into her, bordered by a face of infinitely detailed terrain, a patchwork jigsaw of indescribable intricacy and alien beauty.
A mouth with lips of clay and silt forms words of ancient craft. "Small god, you are lost, and here you lie at my mercy."
Gekk lets out an astonished breath. "Will your mercy grant my safety?"
The head shakes, and Gekk sighs. "Then please, mighty being, fling these daggers to a faraway world. Perhaps they will be found and broken by some miraculous twist of fate so that I may be released."
Kiwike speaks. "You fought to preserve my mighty shell. For this, I will honor your final wish."
Gekk closes her eyes and exhales slowly.
She tightly grips the daggers, feeling their ancient leather-bound hilts, and lets go.
As she falls, a hand of lush green sweeps across the sky, flinging two nearly imperceptible objects through space. Gekk smiles, the world racing by. She twists to see that another land is speeding towards her. She feels fear for the first time in her existence and closes her misty blue eyes. The ground comes ever closer...
Blackness. Blue mist rises out of the clearing where a scaled form just fell. It moves slightly and opens its eyes.
They are orange.
The being picks itself up and looks around confusedly. It abruptly gazes at its hands and steps back.
In a deep, faintly raspy voice, he says to himself, "Who and where the hell am I?"
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On a distant world, a young man with a gun catches a glimpse of something embedded in the surface of the planet. Two handles appear to be protruding from the ground. Intrigued, the boy frees them from their buried prison and examines them closely. They seem to be made of finely cut diamond. He smiles slowly and places them in his shoulder bag. Quickly, he withdraws a large device and begins to speak into it as a battle rages around him.
"Dare Price, audiolog number seventeen... I have just found my purpose."
Love,
Gecko
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