Chronicles of Eden - Act XII

by Alexander Gordon

  Sheal and the goblin ran over along with the elves and started picking up bows off the tables while the three arachne were skittering around on the wall, throwing off corpses that Rio had strung up on the hooks and quickly grabbing the elven armaments in bundles. As the monsters worked to pack the bows into crates near the doors on the far side of the workshop, Squeak was carefully backing up towards the other end while watching the monsters cautiously. The building rumbled with a tremor rolling through, screams were heard echoing outside along with the sound of another tree crashing to the forest floor, chains and pulleys clattered and swung above from the rafters, the dangling wire from the large spools near the assembly beam glistened in the light, and Squeak jumped with a small squeak as she felt her abdomen suddenly bump into something. Spinning around she came face to face with Rio, the scorpia watching her with a blank expression while her eyes held a cold malevolence behind them.

  “Where are you going?” Rio asked, slowly walking forward while Squeak quickly scooted back. “Actually, what are you even doing here? I wasn’t aware we had any ant girls in our little club.”

  “Hey, Rio!” an arachne shouted. “Get your ass over here and help us!”

  “In a minute,” Rio said while holding up a claw towards Squeak. “I just want to nip this little mystery in the bud first.”

  She snapped her pincer hard, prompting Squeak to jump back with a squeak as the scorpia took another step closer.

  “Leave her alone,” Sheal hissed at the scorpia. “She’s with us. Not to mention we need her help, she’s strong and can help us get these damn things out of here.”

  Squeak nodded with a nervous smile as the scorpia stared at her constantly, the ant girl turning to head over towards the others before Rio’s stinger whipped by her head and halted, with Squeak stopping with a sharp squeak as she saw the large needle hovering beside her.

  “We don’t have any ant girls in our group,” Rio said while eyeing over the trembling monster. “I’m quite sure of it.”

  “Yes we do,” Sheal snapped, the salamander shoving a crate into the goblin’s arms before marching towards Rio with a snarl. “Her nest has allied themselves with us. She even saved my life before we got here. Now stop messing with her.”

  She smacked aside Rio’s stinger and pulled Squeak over behind her, eyes glaring at Rio who merely watched them with a blank expression on her face as another tremor struck the area. The scorpia casually glanced to her stinger as it hovered over her shoulder then faced Sheal while more screams were heard outside the building.

  “I really don’t like others treating me so rudely,” Rio plainly said.

  “I really don’t like you,” Sheal hissed, her bared teeth having cinders and smoke coming out from behind them. “Or you threatening my friend like that.”

  Squeak slowly looked around as she felt tensions running just as hot as the burning forest outside, seeing the other monsters behind her busy packing up the elven bows into crates and blocking the exit while Sheal and Rio stood before her and the other way out.

  “Funny how she’s the only ant girl I’ve seen around here,” Rio mentioned. “Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the red ant girl nest the only one in this part of the land? Where exactly is her nest from?”

  Sheal glanced to Squeak while remaining on guard, the ant girl shaking her head at her and squeaking a few times while waving her hands before her.

  “Oh my fucking god,” an arachne groaned loudly. “Would you bitches knock it off and help us? I’m not dying here today, and especially not around you wretched cunts.”

  “Rio!” another arachne called over, the monster skittering on the wall while pulling off bodies of elves with a frustrated growl. “For crying out loud, why did you stick these mutilated elves up here like this? You got their blood and entrails all over the bows!”

  “It’s called art,” Rio dryly quipped. “I thought they looked divine strung up alongside their precious sticks.”

  “You are such a pain!” an arachne yelled while pulling another body off the hooks. Upon doing so the elf in her arms started screaming while weakly flailing her arms and legs, the woman still alive despite having large gashes all over her body and covered in blood. The arachne jumped with a startle before quickly throwing the crying elf over onto the floor with a thump, the monster hoarsely screaming while her sisters nearby stared at her in horror.

  “Oh fuck! Callie!” one cried out as she started to rush towards their friend, only to be immediately pulled back by an arachne.

  “You girls aren’t done!” she yelled, shoving the elves over towards the tables and knocking one to the ground with a scream. “I’m not going to say this again! Pack your shit up right now, or so help me I’ll let Rio do whatever she wants to you! Do you hear me?”

  The elves stared at her in fright while the monster shook her head in disdain at them before glancing over to crying woman on the floor with a scoff.

  “Oh my,” Rio plainly said. “Seems she hasn’t died just yet. That’s no good. How about we have our new friend here do the poor woman a favor and put her out of her misery?”

  Squeak turned to the scorpia with wide eyes as the stoic lady walked towards her, with Sheal shielding the ant girl with her arm and pushing her back as they stepped away from the menacing monster.

  “Go on,” Rio urged as she waved to the crying elf. “Do it. You’re one of us, right? Killing a wounded and worthless elf shouldn’t be a problem for you. It’s alright, she can serve no other purpose for us, no need to keep her around now. Prove to us you’re really with The Sisterhood and finish her off.”

  Squeak slowly glanced around to seeing the other monsters and elves watching her now before turning her gaze over to the mortally wounded elf, the woman lying in a growing pool of her blood while hoarsely gasping for air.

  “Just do it, Squeak,” Sheal roughly said. “Prove her wrong and shut her up so we can get out of here.”

  “Yes, please do,” Rio insisted, her eyes never leaving Squeak as she just stared at the wounded elf. The ant girl glanced to the salamander woman with a clear look of trepidation before slowly walking over to the elf, stopping right above her head and watching with remorse as she was struggling to stay conscious with her injuries. The elf’s eyes wearily looked up at the ant girl who stood over her, unsteady whimpers and coughs being made as she tried to shake her head with a fearful grimace.

  “Well go on,” an arachne urged with a wave of the hand. “Just get it over with already. I want to leave.”

  Squeak watched the elf whimpering at her feet, seeing that although her body was mangled she was still clinging to life with all her might. The ant girl slowly breathed out then lowered her head and kept silent while the monsters all around watched her closely.

  “Squeak?” Sheal asked.

  After a pause Squeak glanced to her and slowly shook her head, the salamander lowering her stance with disbelief coming over her while the elves nearby showed curiosity towards the ant girl’s refusal to execute one of their own. The other monsters in the building however were now expressing stern looks towards the ant girl except for Rio who retained her passive guise.

  “I knew it,” Rio calmly said. “You’re not one of us. You never were.”

  “You’re not… with The Sisterhood?” Sheal questioned, with Squeak shaking her head while keeping her eyes on the stunned salamander woman.

  “I don’t believe this,” an arachne groaned, rubbing a hand down her face before shaking her head at Squeak with annoyance. “Who the hell are you then? Why are you here at all?”

  “Maybe she is with those bothersome ants that have been attacking us,” another sharply accused. “The same ones who have been demolishing Eden in an attempt to scare us off. I bet this whole disaster is because of her and her filthy sisters. This is all your fault, isn’t it?”

  Squeak shook her head and squeaked a few times at her before a loud crackling was heard. The building rattled with a tremor striking through,
followed almost immediately by a large burning tree crashing through the ceiling on the other side of the room, completely demolishing the workbenches where the bows were made while the roof was set ablaze by fiery branches landing on it.

  “Alright, that’s enough!” an arachne shouted before quickly grabbing a box filled with elven bows. “All of you, grab whatever you can carry, we’re leaving now!”

  “But we can’t carry all of these by ourselves,” another pointed out with a troubled grimace at the crates they had stacked up. “We need to wait for the others to get here and-”

  A ball of molten rock struck down through the nearby corner of the workshop, destroying the wood with a fiery eruption and a few of the boxes that were quickly melted away by the glowing magma.

  “Fine, stay if you want,” the first arachne scoffed. “I’m getting my ass out of here now!”

  She turned to skitter away then stopped, glancing back and seeing the elves, goblin, and arachne choosing to grab what they could now rather than wait any longer, and also Rio, Sheal, and Squeak who were watching the opposite end of the storehouse quickly turning into a roaring firestorm.

  “Rio,” she called out, gaining their attention as she hopped the crate a bit in her arms while balancing herself. “Kill those two before you leave.”

  “What?” Sheal questioned with a hop. “Me? Why me?”

  “Why else would that ant girl have bothered to save your life unless you two were working together?” the arachne accused. “Come to think of it, wasn’t it your own two worthless sisters that the gemini personally executed for failing them?”

  “Wait, I don’t know her!” Sheal protested. “And leave my family out of this! They didn’t deserve to die, much less be spoken of with your foul tongue!”

  “Your family is nothing but failures,” the arachne smugly retorted. “Your own kin betrayed our leaders, just as you’ve done with bringing the ants here to attack us.”

  “My sisters didn’t betray anyone!” Sheal shouted back. “They did nothing wrong, nothing to deserve being executed so unjustly! And I never conspired with the ant girls, I didn’t know why she was here just like the rest of you didn’t!”

  “Better safe than sorry,” another arachne reasoned. “Rio, they’re all yours. Make sure they don’t follow us or cause any more trouble for The Sisterhood. Do whatever you want with them.”

  Sheal and Squeak turned to each other in shock then to Rio as the scorpia merely watched them with a blank expression still on her face. As the other monsters quickly left while screaming intensified outside, Rio snapped her pincer a few times while slowly looking between the two remaining girls in the burning storehouse.

  “Well, shall we get on with it then?”

  “I’m not a traitor,” Sheal raspingly insisted.

  “Don’t care,” Rio said, then quickly dashed forward and snapped her claw at the salamander’s neck, the woman ducking down and jumping aside before Rio spun and struck her tail across the reptile’s chest. As Sheal was whacked straight through a bench and into the wall with a painful groan Rio sidestepped in the blink of an eye, moving right in front of Squeak where she struck forward with both her claws. Jumping back into a stumble Squeak squeaked in fright while tripping over her feet and trying to stay away from the scorpia that nimbly followed after with snapping pincers. After backing her up towards the crates Rio quickly stopped and struck her stinger down behind her, piercing it through the skull of the wounded elf who jerked once from the impact before lying motionless on the ground. Squeak squeaked with a pained look at the elf while Rio merely tilted her head with a small shrug.

  “That was all you had to do to keep up your charade,” she casually said. “That wasn’t so hard, now was it?”

  Squeak growled at the scorpia with clenched fists, watching as the woman yanked her stinger out from the corpse and waved it a few times to get the blood off it. Glancing behind Rio saw Sheal holding her chest while coughing out smoke, the salamander slowly getting up on her hands and knees amidst the broken workbench with a frustrated glare aimed at the scorpia.

  “You’re also weak,” Rio mentioned with a small shake of her head. “You’re not worth keeping around with us. Just like your pathetic sisters weren’t.”

  “They believed in the cause,” Sheal coughed out. “All three of us did. We wanted a better future for all of us, even you. How dare you treat us this way for all that we did to help you, you fucking monsters!”

  “Spoken like a true traitor.”

  With a loud squeak and quick lunge forward Squeak swung her fist out, with Rio blocking with her claw which was then knocked aside and into her jaw from the force. The scorpia shook off the hit before quickly shielding herself with both her claws as Squeak followed through with a strong blow to the monster, which pushed her back with skidding feet while the loud clack from the hit echoed out.

  “You’re stronger than I thought. Still, is that the best you can do?”

  Again and again Squeak threw punches at the scorpia, hitting her large pincers that took the blows without seeming to dent or waver, all while the monster watched from behind with a dull stare as she didn’t appear to grow upset or cautious from the ant girl’s attacks. Rio kept her solemn expression as she then dashed forward and snapped with her claws at the girl, with Squeak darting back just enough to avoid losing her nose before the scorpia struck forward with her tail over her shoulder. The stinger missed Squeak’s shoulder while brushing against her tunic before quickly drawing back and striking again. Squeak leapt to the side against the assembly beam to avoid the hit, ducked down to keep from losing her head by the scorpia’s snapping pincer, then jumped over to dodge the stinger which struck through the side of a bow still attached to the suspended log, snapping its wire free which cracked like a whip on the other side of the beam. Squeak scrambled to her feet and quickly grabbed a pincer which snapped towards her head, holding the two claws apart with trembling hands as the scorpia felt the ant girl pushing back against her with great strength.

  “Not bad,” Rio commented. She struck forward with her stinger, watching as Squeak quickly and just barely moved her head side to side to avoid being struck in the face. The ant girl pushed Rio back a step, slammed her fist down onto the pincer to knock it away, and then struck towards the scorpia again with a loud squeak, only to be blocked by the other pincer quickly moving to stop the hit and hold her in place.

  “Still not good enough,” Rio plainly said. She jabbed forward with her other claw into Squeak’s face, knocking the ant girl back with a sharp squeak and a bloody lip, then dashed forward and jammed her knee into the girl’s gut with a hard impact. As Squeak was thrown back into the crates of bows near the exit, Sheal ran over and jumped onto Rio’s back, pinning the scorpia’s tail between them while digging her nails into the woman’s chest. With a furious growl Sheal built up a fiery blast in her mouth before Rio bashed her head back into her face, knocking the salamander out of her senses with a dazed grunt, then elbowed the monster hard, sending her straight off her back onto the suspended beam next to them. Sheal feebly lay back against two of the bows on the log that weren’t stringed up yet with a snarl before spitting her fiery bile at the scorpia, the speedy monster quickly darting aside then rushing forward and jamming her pincer into the log around the salamander’s neck. Sheal grabbed the claws and struggled to keep them from snapping shut, her legs kicking against the dirt below while Rio brought her stinger up over her shoulder as she coldly watched the squirming salamander.

  “You’re just like your sisters,” Rio taunted. “Nothing but mistakes in this world. They paid the price for their betrayal, just as you shall now do.”

  “My sisters served the gemini honorably,” Sheal coughed, her hands starting to slip as the pincer crunched through the wood behind her while closing around her neck. “We pledged ourselves to The Sisterhood, we followed our orders and never spoke against anyone, we believed in the cause. And what do we get for it? My sisters were murdered for
trying to serve those two monsters, and you’re all so quick to place blame and death sentences on me to protect yourselves. No, it’s The Sisterhood who betrayed us.”

  Squeak slowly sat up amidst a broken crate with bows lying on the ground around her, the ant girl shaking her head with a weak squeak before seeing Rio holding Sheal against the assembly beam. She glanced behind her, noticing the exit to the burning forest where fire was quickly spreading through the trees just as fast as the screams of those within the village were rising, then back to Rio as the scorpia held her stinger right in front of Sheal’s face.

  “To hell with you all,” Sheal hoarsely condemned. “I never liked any of you anyway.”

  “So sorry to hear that,” Rio plainly said. She slowly brought the stinger’s needle right in front of Sheal’s eye, the salamander staring with fright as she started choking with the closing pincer tightening around her throat.

  “Consider this your resignation,” Rio said before showing a very malicious smile. “Feel free to scream for me while I dig around inside your skull. I would rather enjoy that very much.”

  “I won’t scream for you. I won’t give you any pleasure, you sick bitch.”

  “That’s alright. I’ll enjoy murdering you all the same.”

  A sharp squeak was heard, with Rio glancing behind her while Sheal turned her eyes to see Squeak standing behind Rio with a harsh glare and bared teeth at the scorpia, along with holding a bow with the handle facing her and the string held out towards Rio’s tail. The scorpia merely raised an eyebrow at her with a blank expression while Sheal stared at Squeak in bewilderment as the ant girl was holding the bow backwards at the monster while fire was spreading along the wall behind her.

  “What are you doing?” Rio plainly asked.

  “That’s not how you use a bow, you stupid girl,” Sheal coughed out.

  Squeak continued to glare at the scorpia as she held the bow’s handle with both hands, her grip remaining firm while she squeaked a few more times at the monster in a threatening tone.