Transcending Limitations

by Brian Wilkerson

  “Third Class Rookie Reaper Neuro,” Samael said, “on behalf of our glorious Lord Death, co-lord of the Abyss and First Facilitator, I thank you for your sacrifice.”

  Neuro bowed. “It is my honor, Special Class Reaper Samael.”

  “Now that I have a competent clerical reaper to assist me, I can finally put Lord Death’s local affairs in order. Are you ready for this task?”

  “I am.”

  “Good. Our first order of business is to kill Eric Watley.”

  “WHAT?!” Priestess shouted.

  “Erm, forgive me, Special Class Reaper Samael,” Neuro said, “but did you just say our first task is killing Eric Watley?”

  She turned her cold eyes and cold smile on him. “Yes, I did. Doing so before he finishes his ascension will guarantee that he becomes a reaper, and it will also complete Wish Reaper Gruffle’s Final Wish. You are required to do this for Lord Death. As his right hand, I invoke his authority upon you.”

  Neuro sighed and wielded his new and improved scythe at Priestess. “Please forgive me.”

  She struck the ground with her staff. “Oh, come on!”

  Chapter 16 Consequences of Spilling Bad Blood

  Priestess stared down the foes assembled before her: two rookie reapers and Death’s second in command. Glancing at Omnias, she debated whether or not to count him. He hadn’t made a move for or against her, but she was still suspicious. Her only backup was her familiar because Zettai was out of her depth and Ridley’s chief concern was the girl in her arms, not the boy behind her. As she opened her mouth to say Tasio’s name, Samael teleported to crush her throat before she did, and in the time it took Zettai to blink, there was a severed arm on the ground.

  Tasio stood perpendicular to Samael and Priestess and his right arm bit into the volcanic rock as a golden ax. Samael’s right arm dissolved next to it. The Trickster turned his head to glare at her and she retreated.

  “This matter was closed,” Tasio said to Samael. His voice was like fire. “You lost our wager. Why are you here?”

  “The wager was for stealing the power,” Samael said, her voice as cold as ice. “Using the stolen power is a second offense.”

  “The safety of my chosen is not negotiable,” Tasio said. “All three of us here are powerful enough to outright kill reapers. If you continue this course of action, then you will not respawn in the Abyss.”

  His appearance shifted and his clothing became a golden-brown cloak. In his right hand, a scythe shimmered into existence. It was colored in a gold-to-brown gradient from the purest gold at the tip of the blade, to the darkest brown at the end of the shaft. He brandished it before setting a fighting stance. Tasio the Trickster was gone and replaced by Tasio the Reaper of Gods.

  “Generate your Door of Death, now.”

  “Leave my boyfriend alone!” Priestess shouted.

  “ARF!”

  Instead, Samael recreated her arm and then generated her own scythe, a marvelous creation of orichalcum and mythril. “We have our orders. Only you can end this peacefully.”

  Neuro’s stance hadn’t changed. “I will follow my beliefs wherever they lead.”

  Gruffle looked nervously left and right. “Uhh...doesn’t that contract exempt me from anything that might kill me?”

  “Nope,” Omnias said. He brought out the contract and pointed to the relevant clause. “As clearly stated on page 5, section 3, subsection 15, lines 13-27, now that Zettai has been absolved of her death violations, this contract has been fulfilled and is thus no longer legally binding. Poof!” It disintegrated within black flames.

  Gruffle heaved his moldy scythe into place. “Then I have no choice.”

  “GOD FIGHT!” Omnias shouted. He was standing in the doorway to Eric’s ascension chamber. Ridley and Zettai had already retreated there. “READY......BEGIN!”

  Samael shot towards Tasio, who chambered his scythe to receive her. Then, at the last moment, she vanished. Tasio slashed upwards and she slipped around his blade, only for it extend and wrap around her. Tasio slammed her into the ground and created blades all along his shaft’s length. She vanished again before it could slice her to pieces.

  Tasio spun in place and snatched at the air behind him. His divine fingers closed around her essence and, maintaining momentum, he tossed her back down the corridor. Then he tossed his scythe to the entrance and it became a shimmering golden-brown net.

  “Death is everywhere,” Samael said.

  “So is Chaos,” Tasio replied.

  Simultaneously, they disappeared.

  Meanwhile, Neuro and Priestess danced a hesitant combat. When Neuro tried to cut her in half, his blow was slow enough for her to dodge with ease, and when Priestess struck his chest with the butt of her staff, there was so little force behind it that he didn’t bother dodging. After three rounds of this, they stopped.

  “I don’t want to fight you,” Priestess said. “We’re too much alike.”

  “I don’t want to fight you either,” Neuro said, “because I feel the same similarity.”

  “Then why do you?!”

  “I have my duty. My personal feelings are irrelevant.”

  “You sound like an ordercrafter; a mindless drone for a deity lacking empathy.”

  “How dare you!” Neuro shouted. “Empathy is a hallmark of a good reaper.”

  “Then please understand that Eric doesn’t want to become a reaper,” Priestess said. “It will make him miserable and his performance will suffer for it.”

  “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do about that.”

  “Sure there is; you can stop fighting me.”

  Neuro brought his scythe up. “I fulfill Lord Death’s will, not my own.”

  Priestess brought her staff up. “Maybe we’re not so alike after all. I may be Lady Chaos’ cleric, but I would never do her will if it contradicted my own.”

  Neuro charged. “Hypocrite!”

  Priestess charged. “Drone!”

  While the other two fights followed their paths, Gruffle and Perrault rolled in a big ball of violence. It started when Perrault lunged to tear his throat out. Gruffle took a swing at her with his blade, but she shifted around it and bit his front hand. The pain made him drop his scythe and he pounded her head with his other hand. She grew a second mouth and bit that one too. Gruffle yelped and then bashed her against a wall to shake her loose. After several rounds of this, she pushed off the air to overbalance him.

  Now on the ground, he ripped at the inside of her mouth with his deathly claws. Then he leaned over and bit her in turn. She flared the fur and roasted the inside of his mouth. He jerked and twisted in pain, and in doing so, provided the leverage Perrault needed to rip off both of his hands. She spat them out and crushed them simultaneously. Low ranking as he was, Gruffle had to cannibalize his lower arms to regrow his hands. Then he summoned his scythe to his stubby limbs. Perrault assumed her human form solely to laugh at him.

  “Shut up!” He sliced at her neck, and when she sidestepped, he altered the scythe’s course for her waist. “A piece of you will work just as well for my plan!”

  Inside the Ascension Chamber, Zettai watched the battle. It was her fault that it had come to this. Seeing Annala take a bad blow to the head and Neuro losing part of his new wings made her lip quiver and her heart ache.

  Ridley gently rubbed her back. “Don’t worry, Zettai. It’s not your fault. This is just an unfortunate turn of events. You deserve to live as much as anyone and I will make sure you do, no matter who wins this fight.”

  Zettai looked up at the older woman. At once strong and compassionate; she wished to be like that one day. “Thank you, Dragoness.”

  “Indeed, that battle is irrelevant,” Omnias said. Zettai gasped and Ridley glared. The chaos priest held the spike of his staff against Eric’s throat. “The only thing that matters is moving our own interests forward.”

  “What do you want?” Ridley asked in a raspy voice. Zettai thought it similar to the lizard demons
she’d come across.

  “I want you to tell Annala to give me a lock of her hair. If I cannot obtain it through protecting Eric, then I shall through threatening him.”

  “You’re a creep!” Zettai cried.

  “I am everything,” Omnias said, “or I will be soon.”

  Zettai stamped her feet. Then she remembered what she was holding.

  After Neuro pardoned her, she gathered his items. As his penitent, she knew implicitly that they belonged to her now. They were currently bundled up in her arms. They gave her an idea.

  First, she asked Ridley to put her down. Next, she donned Neuro’s cloak and pulled its hood forward. It was far too big for her, but she would grow into it. His scythe was too big for her to wield, so she sat down next to it. Then she opened his copy of the Book of Death and started reading.

  “Annala,” she said in a shallow monotone, “Omnias is going to kill Eric unless he gets a lock of your hair.” She turned a page. “Yeah, a lock of hair. He wants it for his stalker shrine.” She turned another page. “He’s scowling now, so you’d better hurry up.”

  “I know what you are planning, little girl,” Omnias said, “and it will not work.”

  “Oh? Why not?” Zettai asked without lifting her eyes from the pages.

  “Because I could kill you before you finished.” Omnias kept his eyes and spiritual senses on the Dragoness. She could kill him if he let his guard down for even a moment.

  “I’m not worried about that.” Zettai still didn’t stop reading to reply. She used one hand to turn pages and the other to form the magic gestures pictured on them.

  “Oh? Why not?” Omnias asked in deliberate mockery.

  “Killing a necro penitent is itself a death violation. With Neuro’s blood on my face, my entire person is inviolate. You don’t want to dodge reapers forever, and especially when you are this close,” she held up her thumb and pointer finger for emphasis, “to reaching your goal.”

  She gripped Neuro’s scythe with her right hand and placed her left flat on the Book of Death. She closed her eyes and began to chant. It wasn’t smooth and it wasn’t steady, but Omnias recognized death speech when he heard it.

  “Here’s what’s going to happen,” Zettai said with her eyes closed. “You are going to leave us all alone and you will do so empty handed.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because you are afraid of death.” A necrotic aura bloomed around her. “As of this moment,” she opened her eyes and pointed her finger at him, “I have become death.”

  A tiny sliver of necrocraft generated in Neuro’s former scythe and fired at Omnias. He used Chameleon Leap to avoid it, and in the process, gave up his position at Eric’s throat. Ridley dashed into the void he left and her guarding stance was not something Omnias dared to test.

  “Just like I thought,” Zettai said, smiling smugly. “Immortals fear death just like everybody else. No, they fear it even more, because for them, death is something avoidable. They’ll do whatever they can to keep it away. It would take years of constant effort for me to kill you with necrocraft.” She laughed. “I might die of old age before I drained it all, but you still couldn’t let it touch you.”

  Omnias smiled. “Well played, Zettai.” Raising his voice, he shouted, “Reapers! Bring me a lock of Annala’s hair and I will kill Eric for you.”

  When Annala heard this, she shapeshifted herself bald. Perrault followed suit. The only reaper reply was Gruffle’s shouts of angry gibberish.

  “Very well. I concede defeat and will withdraw.”

  He walked toward the entrance and Zettai drew her cloak tighter around herself as he passed. As promised, he slipped through the godly fray and vanished down the tunnel. Zettai looked to Ridley again.

  “Thank you for letting me do that on my own.”

  “You’re welcome. It is a joy to see young dragons roar for the first time.”

  Outside the chamber, the divine fight between chaos and death continued.

  Tasio and Samael had moved their battle to the spirit plane. There, the reaper hoped to find a route that bypassed the roadblock Tasio created in the material plane. She dashed from one area to another in less than a second. Any longer and her opponent would catch her and both of them knew that would be fatal.

  Directly in front of the blocked off entrance, Neuro and Priestess clashed shafts and spirits. Now their strikes were swift and powerful. They pushed their divine might against each other; Neuro in a body-encompassing vise and Priestess in an endless cycle of piercing jabs.

  Priestess stepped forward and swung her staff at his head. He ducked and swung his scythe at her knees. She hopped and swung again only for him to sidestep and bring his scythe back up at an angle. Priestess shifted her stance to step out of his range and then used that momentum for a third attack. From his own movement, Neuro brought his shaft to block.

  “Power without a master!” Neuro spat. “Without responsibility!”

  “Following orders without thought,” Priestess said in cold fury. “Without conscience.”

  Both jumped back and threw forward their right hand along with a surge of mana from their godly soul. Neuro pulled from the limitless potential of the world’s Mana Gates and Priestess from her equally inexhaustible Seed of Chaos. Priestess fortified her beam with a love that persisted despite years of separation and Neuro with a lifelong piety. Slowly but surely, he pushed her beam back towards her fingertips, until he was sucker punched by her other hand.

  She pushed it through a small, short-range portal she created next to her waist and speared his head with spiked knuckles. The blow distracted him long enough for her to overcome his mana beam. She lunged forward to press her advantage, staff tipped with a chaos energy blade, when he vanished into the Door of Death. She spun to face him but wasn’t quick enough, and the butt of his scythe dug into her side. She hit the ground hard and rolled away from the reverse scythe swing.

  Perrault and Gruffle grappled further away. It would be assumed that the larger and bulkier one would have the advantage, but Perrault’s constant shapeshifting denied him proper grips. The only time she was solid was to punch, kick, or bite him. If he were acting on his own, simply completing his Final Wish, then he would have poofed several times by now. Finally, he snagged Perrault around her throat.

  “Aw, can’t wiggle out this time?” Gruffle taunted. He punched her in the stomach, rechambered, and punched again. He repeated this as quickly as he could. “As of now, I’m officially Samael’s deputy for a special mission.”

  Perrault brought her right leg up between his. It became a cleaver of chaos and split him in two. He laughed, from both sides of his mouth, and continued punching her.

  “She’s whisperin’ in my ear. ‘Cause of her, I’m smarter than Milky over there, so I don’t have the same limits as before.”

  Gruffle positioned his right side behind her while his left stayed in front of her. Then the two pieces closed in so they engulfed her in their combined mass.

  “Now let’s see how this ‘deep spiritual violation’ thing she’s telling me about works.”

  All of a sudden, he started screaming. Her throat was burning his insides. It spread to the rest of his essence and he retreated as quickly as he could. Perrault stood on her human feet but did not resume breathing. Her form became less human without becoming anything else. It was now a shapeless mass of hostile chaotic energy. Then Gruffle’s right hand dissolved.

  It did not burn, melt, or any other physical process. It just disappeared under Perrault’s metaphysical onslaught. With Samael’s instructions ringing in his ears, Gruffle retaliated. Everything dies, even abstract chaotic familiars, and so he dissolved her just as she did him. Perrault soldified her existence with faith from her mistress and Gruffle drew endlessly more essence his own superior, who acted with the authority of Death itself.

  Thus the battle stalemated. Samael could not kill Tasio, but she moved too swiftly for Tasio to kill her. Neuro and Annala we
re evenly matched in power, skill, and determination. Gruffle and Perrault were equally eldritch beings with sufficiently mighty patrons to keep them alive despite the other’s attacks. With neither side able to overcome the other, the only thing that could tip the balance was the random chance of a mistake.

  One day passed without change, followed by another. After three days, Ridley couldn’t wait any longer. She herself could go a month without food or water, but Zettai’s constitution wasn’t so hardy. With no end to the divine battle in sight, Ridley had to risk wading through it. The Dragoness lifted the hatchling into her arms and dashed like lightning out of the door.

  Tasio and Samael didn’t notice them. Nor did Perrault or Gruffle. Neuro, however, slammed his scythe into the ground and he held up his hands for peace. Priestess paused her assault. Both of them jumped aside to allow Ridley to pass. Once she and the child were clear, they resumed their battle.

  Clash after clash, strike after strike, and dodge after dodge; for a week, this continued without pause. In this tunnel underground illuminated by the volcano’s fire and where the temperature never changed, night and day bled together. Without the need to sleep or rest, none of the six realized the passing of time. Searching for openings in their opponents and covering their own required all their attention. Two months passed before anything changed. Then Neuro found the opening he needed.

  At several points during the marathon battle, Priestess’ random teleport tried to activate, but she suppressed it. Years of being at its mercy taught her how to do so. The first time she did it without anyone noticing, but every successive time became more noticeable. She knew it was only a matter of time before Neuro took advantage.

  Each time Priestess suppressed her random teleport, it took incrementally longer. Neuro estimated how much time he would need to dart past her and kill Eric, and then waited for her suppression time to exceed that threshold. She knew he was doing this, and he knew she knew he was doing this. Thus, what had begun as an endless battle had shifted into a race against time. That time came at the two-month mark.