17. Taylor VIII
Numen
Long Time Creeper
- Location
- Canada
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Important Retcon: The refugees were told to head North-East. Towards Sydney, not Bateman's Bay. The appropriate changes will be made to the previous chapters for this.
Editing of grammar and spelling mistakes will be undertaken sometime. It's just so un-fun.
Editing of grammar and spelling mistakes will be undertaken sometime. It's just so un-fun.
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King Arthur wasn't really a corpse. I mean sure, he looked dead- but paying attention now, I noted that he was taking in shallow breaths.
"Entirely metaphorical." Nimue assured me. That was how this spirit world was ran apparently- make believe physics. Here, noetic activity was predominant.
I had no idea how this resurrection thing works, but Jesus did the lay on hands thing right- or did he just tell them to get up and they got up?
"Up!"
Nimue gave me a weird look, then elaborated. "You might want to try lay on hands. While it's true the spirit world is largely dependent on intent, your physical actions here is equivalent to mental action. So laying your hands would demonstrate your intent much more acutely than simply speaking."
That made sense. Kind of.
I laid my hands on King Arthur's dessicated torso- fortunately it wasn't rotting, or at least it didn't feel like it was rotting. Maybe magically static corpse rot nicely and smell like fresh fragrant flowers? Or was it because this was a representation of his soul and his present state of being?
I was losing my strain of thought.
I focused on the King and tried to pay attention to Nimue's instructions.
"Now, I have no idea how this works because I've never held an infinity stone. Simply try and will him to die- and the tether will show itself hopefully. Um, do not wish him to be annihilated, or to perish nor to transform. But simply to die. We want this to be natural, not to end up vapourizing his soul."
Wait. What.
"Um, you want me to resurrect King Arthur by killing him?" I asked incredulously. Am I missing a frame of reference here or something?
Nimue give me a weird look. "Wait, your mother never give you the rundown on how Light Elves are made?"
"Not really. I thought you guys had sex and have babies?"
I mean sure, Nimue told me to reincarnate King Arthur into a light elf- but that wasn't normal, right? I had asked Mum whether light elves were like people and she had said yes. I then asked her whether they had mommies and daddies and she said yes. I was like, six, okay- give me a break. Then I found out Dark Elves were way weirder although the specifics was never illuminated for me.
"Oh definitely the former. The latter- the babies, not really. I mean they still exist certainly- but they are rare outside of hybrids we have with mortals and the occasional Asgardian." Nimue explained.
"That was interesting to know." I told her. It really was. It just didn't help me understand why killing the half-dead King Arthur was supposed to "reincarnate" him.
Nimue rubbed her face with a hand. "Alright, so one piece of Artorius' spirit- you may refer to this as a psychological organ- was still tethered to his corpse. The rest of his noetic organs were dissolved into the atmosphere, and the body organ is feeding the maggots underneath Glastonbury Abbey. I wasn't really sure how many partitions he managed to manifest while alive aside from this one spirit and his body. Because he was nominally Christian, and they have this strange disposition to mind-body dualism. But Artorius also had a largely indigenous outlook on life, having interacted with magic and supernatural beings his whole life- Merlin and myself being major figures. Yes I like being famous. Anyway, the Earthbound Elves of Avalon casted a powerful spell to keep that one remaining spirit alive all these centuries, in the hopes that he could be brought back in some way- but to do so, we needed to break Morgana Le Fay's geass that prevents his soul from separating wholly from his corpse."
Wow, exposition moment. Okay, I kind of get that. So in summary I wasn't really going to kill King Arthur; he was more or less already dead. I doubt his half-dead state was tolerable anyway. I just need to liberate that one piece of his soul left- the one lying asleep in front of me.
Looking at the state of his soul in the spirit world told me that he had suffered slowly for a long time. It would be a mercy even to just destroy his soul right now.
Taking an entirely imaginary deep breath, I reached out with hands once again.
"Okay. So I just, what- cut the tether?"
"Yeah. It sounds straightforward, but none of us elves could break the geas that makes the tether inviolable."
Okay. I reached out with my senses and my hand instinctively plunged into Artorius and to my shock, my hands actually sank into the King's chest. The heck.
I rummaged around in his chest, somewhat embarrassed. Notably, there wasn't anything like internal organs or bones. Just a heavy liquid that my hands had trouble moving through.
"The spirit world is largely imaginary. We are colours and shapes, not flesh and bone."
Right.
I grabbed what felt like a cord and pulled it out. It was a shining golden cord, roughly the thickness of a Jotun spine, much thinner though, more like a human's- it's also creepy how I knew that now.
"That's it! Snap it." Nimue said with bated breath.
Gods, this felt weird. I gripped the cord with both hands and pulled it apart. It was effortless.
The King gave a gasp, then stopped breathing.
Oh my God! I killed him!
"Good job Taylor." Nimue said, clapping her hands with delight.
King Arthur began to dissolve into motes of light- the lights merged together into a shining entity of golden light that flew off into the sky. It hung there, a man shaped star that casted a golden glow across the entire world.
"YES!'
Nimue turned towards the waters and shouted. "AVALON! THE PROPHECY HAS BEEN FULFILLED- YOUR SLEEP ENDS AT LAST! HONOUR YOUR OATHS!"
From across the lake, hidden in the mist, I heard trumpets answer her call.
Then from the waters wisps of light begin to emerge and shoot off into the sky- they circled the King like angels around God's Throne.
Rings after rings of light joined their liege until they looked like a strange celestial wheel- and as one the entire thing became a solid disk of light. Then it moved in oblique angles and danced across the sky, bouncing from cloud to cloud before vanishing from my sight.
"What was that?" I said, in awe at the surreal spectacle. This Spirit World continued to surprise me with how insane its physics were.
"You just saw another explanation for UFOs Taylor. But also the preserved souls of all those who died for Camelot. Avalon's own army."
I turned to stare at Nimue who smiled.
"They will corporealize in London, for that was where Avalon's Flesh Forge was located- but they will come to aid you, rest assured. We will not tolerate Jotun dominance over the Earth Realm. And you must return to the living world."
"Ah, okay. How do I do that?" I asked.
"Simple. You were there all along. The Aether is still in your corpse. Just imagine it!"
I groaned. "Really? That's it? You could have just told me that."
"And lose an opportunity to bargain for the return of a major actor in Elven politics? You must think me some neophyte elfling." She said, smiling.
I tried to imagine myself waking up.
Nothing happened.
"Let me help you with that." Nimue said. She raised her arms and all sound in the world vanished. I could hear my heart pounding in my chest, my blood roared in my veins. Then even those basic sounds were gone.
And then the lake's water surged forth in a violent tide and flooded across the land. So sudden and so quickly, I barely had time to register what had happened before I Immediately found myself submerged underneath an ocean's worth of water. Around me, the entire world was filled to the brim with an impossible amount of water, higher than mountains, higher than the atmosphere.The heavens itself drowned in a great deluge.
The sun shone through the worlds, even as it too was drowned. I held my breath in and struggled to swim to the surface, but there was no surface that was reachable, for the entire universe was an abyss.
Nimue smiled in front of me in the dimming light- or was that my vision?- and spoke, her words echoing all around me in the water.
"To get you into the correct mentality to leave this space, I had to make it intolerable for your conditioned instincts. You believe you will drown. And so you shall. But that's how you shall live again."
I choked on water, water filled my lungs and my vision blacked out. The last thing I saw was Nimue giggling before she fell limp and became impossibly flat, like a two dimensional sheet of paper- she allowed herself to be carried away by a vortex of water which pulped her into pieces of wet paper. She laughed and laughed and laughed- her mirth booming across the universe and pounded my ears as I died.
+++
I opened my eyes and found myself standing on the bridge where Laufey had skewered me like a Shish-Kabob. It was still just as damaged as I had left it. No Jotuns were in sight, however.
It was eerily quiet, save the howling winds blowing snow across the frozen landscape.
I noticed a crumbling corpse in front of me. It was a Dark Elf. Or rather, it was myself- but you could hardly recognize it aside from the largely intact armour and skin suit. My face had crumbled inward like I was a porcelain doll. And the inside of my body was clearly hollow.
Creepy.
I examined my current body. I looked down and saw my pale torso. My first reaction was that I was disappointed. My chest was still as non-existent as ever. Curse you God, why do you hate me? Wait, no, I was the Aether. Damn you Aether, why couldn't you just fulfill one subconscious desire!?
On the upside, I had returned to the form of a Dark Elf. Nude of course- but that seemed to be the way the universe operated. Anything interesting happens, bam! You're naked! Just like in real life. Or like real life in the classical legends and myths anyway. Everybody comes back from the dead naked! Except for all the people who didn't. Like Jesus.
I was confusing myself.
Right, let's just continue with my inventory check, to make sure I was still female and everything and my index finger and my thumbs weren't swapped- that could happen!
I held up both arms- holy shit. I had both arms.
"Yes!" I said, giving myself a fist pump- and almost cut my face off with the gladius that sliced a lock of my hair off.
"Holy shit!" I yelped, dropping the sword and fell on my ass. I was so excited at having two arms, I barely register the sword I gripped in my right hand.
Excalibur. I had forgotten about that.
Scrambling over to pick up the sword of King Arthur, I quickly stood back up and examined the gladius styled blade. It was a tremendously simple piece of work, but under the sunlight, I could glimpse the fairy runes engraved on it. I also caught sight of my own reflection.
I gasped.
All of my burns were gone. My skin was unblemished for the first time ever. Without that blight on my face, I realized that I actually looked like a supermodel. My skin was flawless. Ha! Suck on it Emma! I had legitimately more face than you!- ahem, I hoped "more face" was a proper idiom.
But wait, my chest size hadn't changed, but my skin was made perfect? Seriously, Aether, you made my skin A, but also kept my chest A? You know that A isn't always good, right? Real life wasn't based on school grade standards. Stupid Aether!
Leaving aside the fact I had just insulted my own soul, I needed to come to terms with what the fuck had just happened.I had seriously legitimately died, had a vision quest, met Mom's acquaintance- who was a light elf- resurrected King arthur (like whaaaaaat!?), and then got to rent out Excalibur.
And then I came back from the dead, spontaneously regenerated my missing arm, and all my injuries.
That was crazy. And the Aether, the thing that the Dark Elves tried to kill the entire Universe with was my soul. Like, I wasn't sure how to resolve this.
I had thought being a Dark Elf was special enough, that it made me different from the mortals. But I realized that now I was even more different than was possible for most beings in the Universe.
And Malekith was chilling in my subconsciousness, subdued but not dead. That was creepy to think about. So basically I had the power of the holocaust for my soul, and Space Hitler was in the back of my head.
The allusion made me want to retch. Oh God. I need therapy.
Wait, Malekith was in my subconsciousness- that means that...that bastard. My small chest size is clearly his revenge. Curse you Malekith...the Accursed. I guess that's how he got that name, everybody ended up cursing him.
I inhaled deeply and clear up my jumbled thoughts. Okay, so all the pieces of my body was in its proper place. I mean, I don't know about my internal organs, but they seemed to be in the right place.
I also realized that I felt pretty good too. I felt alert, my mind sharp. Odd, how that was possible when I wasn't dosed up. Wait no, this was how I would normally feel anyway, I was just so hooked on the combat drugs that I had thought that taking those drugs was the only way to feel alert and clear headed. Like coffee addiction.
It was honestly scary how I got so used to the drugs. I was never doing drugs again, that was messed up and it messed up my mind. Fortunately, it seems coming back from the dead in a new dank body flushed all of the drugs from my system, I had a clean bill of health, possibly cleaner than I had ever had in my entire life.
Thinking back, I could scarcely believe the insane amount of shit I had pulled off in the past day...two days? It was all blurring together.
Wait, how much time had elapsed while I was dead?
"Oh no, Gwen! Aegis- the refugees!"
I panicked.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. And Laufey and his damned Dragon- how would I even fight a giant flying reptile and the King of Jotunheim? What if he just dropped ice bombs from the air, like a boss fight?
I gripped the Sword of Power- sans the power stone, sadly- in my hand.
"Okay. If I run...um, I could probably catch up in time."
God, I hoped I wasn't too late.
I started running. Then paused.
I was naked.
"Goddammit."
I hurried back to my crumbling corpse.
"Ugh, this is so awkward."
I stripped my own corpse of my armour- my former body was very brittle. Where I had touched, it just crumbled into ash. At least it wasn't disgusting and there wasn't any blood.
I wondered what it looked when I had returned to life. Did I spontaneously manifested on the bridge? Did the Aether tore itself out of my corpse, bursting out of my face like a baby Xenomorph?
I would probably never know, unless someone had caught the whole thing on camera. But wait, that would mean they caught footages of me butt-naked. By the gods, I hoped not.
I hurriedly slipped on my armour, the skin suit at least didn't feel wet with blood or whatever, apparently all fluid had just spontaneously evaporated during my resurrection. Interesting.
My right arm, from the elbow down, was missing the sleeves and vambrace- because I had lost that somewhere alongside my original right arm. Presumably it was atomized all over Jupiter's atmosphere now, along with my short-lived Harrow.
Oh well, it wasn't like it made much of a difference. My pale greyish arm was exposed from the elbow down, but somehow, I doubt that would make me any more vulnerable. Could I tank a slash of an ice sword with my bare arms? Probably.
I was the Living Aether, just being consciously aware of this fact and having died once before had changed my beliefs about the world, on a visceral and subjective level. My mind was no longer so inflexible regarding the "reality" of my being. To an extent, I was able to grasp that how physics interacts with me was largely due to my own personal beliefs and assumptions growing up.
Having experienced death and resurrection, I was no longer so easy to kill. I was skeptical about staying dead. I was skeptical about some measly Jotuns being able to hurt me.
I ignored my Dark Elven mask, lying in the snow.
I don't need that.
Secret Identities? Who the fuck cares? It felt so stupid now. Capes- heroes and villains? What does any of that matters?
There was only survival. There was only prevailing against evil.
There was only the people I needed to save and the people I needed to kill. And the people I needed to return to alive. Dad...Emma...I already decided that when I make it back to the bay, I was going to punch Emma in the face and then give her a hug. In that exact order.
I bend a leg and leaned forward, in a classic running pose; Excalibur in hand, and my black hair waving in the cold wind around me.
The winds howled. I did not feel the cold.
"Let's dance." I mumbled to myself.
And I was off, running faster than the greatest athletes. I bursted across the snow, like a great wind, I jumped across a buried car and whooped. Pretty sure I had a decent mover rating now.
I passed stores and yet another abandoned rest station. And then I saw it, a hundred or so Jotuns ahead taunting someone, their cruel laughter pissing into the winds.
I hadn't run a very far distance; I guess a hundred or so humans simply couldn't move very fast if they also had children and the elderly to worry about and- oh shit. The people. The refugee group!
With a roar I bursted through the army of Jotuns and appeared between them and a stunned Carlos. His face was bruised and his chest looked like it was pulverized, he had pieces of his bloodied ribs sticking out. Refugees cowering behind him stared at me with stunned expressions on their faces. Another cape, the woman I had saw before I died (wow, that was weird to say) was lying in a pool of her own blood. Wasn't her name Melissa or Vanessa or something?
"Sup." I waved at them awkwardly.
"What is this! You died!" One Jotun behind me said.
I turned around and waved at them too. Cheekily, I said. "I got better."
Wait a minute-
"Where's Laufey?"
The Jotun sneered. "Our Glorious King shall lay waste to his foes- he shall recover that which was stolen! He has no time for cripples and children whom are of no challenge!"
But apparently this lowlife does? Thinking critically, I was lucky- Laufey had apparently flown on ahead to….to what, take on the Australian Army by himself? Freeze Sydney over?
Could his dragon be that powerful a weapon? For a moment, I imagine Dragon the Heroine and Laufey's Dragon engaged in an aerial duel. That would be epic to witness.
But what if Laufey was just truly powerful enough to take on everything Midgard could throw at him? Considering that my millions of year old Dark Elven uber-tech hadn't scratched him, I think the conventional and parahuman forces of Earth-Bet might actually have a serious problem.
Okay, save the refugees first and then go fight Laufey. It was simple.
I liked simple plans.
"Carlos." I said, turning to look at the still shocked Carlos.
"You should run, I'll take care of these bastards."
"Wait, Taylor, how did even survive th- wait no nevermind. There's too many of them for you to fight alone!" He said, changing his priorities halfway. I mean, yeah, survival first. Survive than talk. Good idea Carlos!
I grinned at him, showing him my perfect teeth- wait, does that mean I never have to brush my teeth ever again, the Aether will magic away all dental issues? But no, that would be disgusting. I still planned on brushing my teeth everyday. I promised. It wasn't like Dad could afford healthcare or insurance.
I heard the crunch of snow behind me and saw Carlo's face morph into one of horror.
On instinct, I spun around and swung my sword, cleaving the Jotun behind me in half. He had one arm raised- he was about to to plunge his ice pata into me. But he was now missing half of his body, the raised arm included. He toppled dead, spilling his guts into the snow.
I looked away from the corpse and stared at the other Jotuns across from me. They looked shocked I had struck down their comrade with an apparently mortal blade. Were they stupid?
"Come on, fuckers!" I roared at them. "Fight me!"
They didn't move. They were giving me the cold shoulder. That was fine. I could make the first move on this date. I raised my sword up besides me with both arms.
I started running towards them, screaming at the top of my lungs.
"GWAAAAAAARGH!"
In the first five seconds, I had cut down ten Jotuns who had the misfortune of stepping into my range. I deflected two attacks, slashed off one limb- then two limbs, three limbs, four, five and six limbs! Hell yeah!
Excalibur punched through the torso of one Jotun, before cleaving half a dozen frost giants into chunky salsa. I broke no stride and every step I made coincided with another frost giant toppling to the ground, whole or in pieces. It was like their weapons were just empty air to me- I broke through them, I parried them, I cut off the limbs holding them. Only ice shields even slowed me down for a moment, but Excalibur shatters them easily with a heavy slash.
Stab, slash, swing, stab, stab, slash. It all became a blur, but it was so easy. It was like shooting a gun- I looked at who I wanted dead, and my body just followed instinctively, wielding Excalibur with an ease I couldn't intellectually grasp.
This was fun. I mean, people were going to die if I failed. But this was fun nonetheless. Not going to lie.
Then I heard horns being blown. The sound echoed across the tundra and everyone froze.
I looked out to the side and gasped.
Dozens of the Giant Reptile things, like the one I had fought a while back were bounding across the snow. On their backs were open air carriages carrying dozens of Jotuns. All around them were what looked like hundreds of thousands of Jotuns running rapidly across the tundra, easily keeping up with the large reptiles even on foot.
They weren't headed towards us. They were all just charging towards...Sydney.
Suddenly, Laufey's decision to fly on ahead didn't seem so crazy. This was an all out assault! If they noticed us, we were fucked.
Right on que, two of the Reptile Things turned towards us and started charging this way. The Jotuns driving them must have noticed the predicament of their comrades.
Yup, we were so fucked.
Wait.
Wait, this was perfect.
I did some quick math, estimating the volume of each carriage and the average size of Jotuns versus humans.
Yup, that would work. I have a plan.
I waited until the nearest Reptile thing came close. I really needed a better name for them. I know! I'll call them Squigs, after the Ork beasties from Warhammer 40,000. Except these ones were way bigger and they had four legs. But whatever.
Anyway, the Squig came roaring, stomping its way onto the highway. It was huge. And I mean like I could fit myself inside its mouth easy. Maybe two or even three of me.
Behind him, the other Squig was rapidly approaching.
The refugees behind me screamed in horror at the sight of the monster.
"Oh, what the fuck is that!" I heard Carlos shout in fright.
"Our ride." I replied before charging right at the Squig, bouncing up one tusk- avoiding his snapping jaws, jumping off of one large incisor before landing on the skull of the monster. The Jotuns on the carriage looked at me shock.
One of them threw an ice spear at me which I caught with my left hand, twirled it around, then hurled it back to impale two Jotuns through the chest. Before they had even collapsed dead, I was dashing across the short space between us, Excalibur slicing limbs from torso and heads from necks.
It was over in moments, the carriage was stained red and blue with gore, but I figure the cold would freeze over any nasty fluids fairly quickly. The Squig beneath me rumbled angrily, but I grabbed the rune-enchanted-chains that they had used as a harness and I pulled on it. The domesticated Squig's instincts kicked in, forcing it to whimper in obedience.
"Good boy!" I shouted.
There was still Jotuns on the bridge though, looking up at me in shock. I pulled the the chains to the right, forcing the Squig to lumber over, turning towards the frightened Jotuns who began to back away.
I yanked the chain again, making my Squig stomp forward towards the Frost Giants. My Squig stomped one foot, crushing a slow Jotun. A couple of the Frost Giants shot ice spears back at me- do they not have any other ranged weapon they could use?- but my sword deflected them easily enough.
The Squig then charged towards the grouping of fleeing Jotuns, running them down like a literal monster truck.
Leaning out of the carriage with my feet wrapped around a railing, I hung upside down and cut off the head of one Jotun in a spray of blood. I grabbed the only remaining Jotun left and pushed him underneath the Squig's hind legs who crushed him into pulp immediately.
Swinging myself back up, I pushed myself into the carriage and grabbed the harness again, to force the Squig to circle back towards the refugees.
The other Squig was just coming up now, the Jotuns on the carriage behind it furious and angry. Pulling on the harness, I forced my squig to halt. I then performed a running long jump off the carriage to land on top of the other Squig, bloody sword in hand.
I give the Jotuns a savage grin, my hair whipping in my face. One tried to crush me with a large pillar of ice he swung like a club- I crossed both arms and the entire thing shattered against my limbs. The vambrace I get, but my bare skin really could tank hits like that now. I was strong. It hadn't really sink in until right about now.
Excalibur blurred through two dozen disbelieving Jotuns- their expression of shock etched on their faces as they died one by one- or two by twos as the case may be. The last Frost Giant had Excalibur thrusted through his open mouth. Was he going to say racist thing about me and crimes against all life again? Goddamn Jotuns were getting predictable. But then, they reproduced asexually- if I remembered Mum's all too brief rundown on Jotun biology correctly- so they probably had genetically similar personalities. Oh well, it was a moot point, because I ran a sword through his mouth. Goodbye Frosty the Snowman.
Grabbing the harness of this Squig, I forced it to turn towards the refugees. I did look behind me to make the other Squig was docile and standing still. These things were aggressive as all hell when unharnessed, but those magical chains overcame their primitive brains easily.
The crowd was just standing there, disbelieving expressions on their faces. Guys I get it, normal people couldn't survive a Jotun attack, they must have all assumed I had died. Then voila, I came back with my limbs regenerated and kicked ass with a sword.
Damn, I was cool. But capes do cool and badass things all the time. Look at Alexandria. Nothing I did was special or weird. Maybe it was because they had only two capes to defend them. That was probably why. I mean, I also came back from the dead, but they don't know that.
I noticed that the cape woman- Melissa? I really need to remember people's names better, but to be fair, Carlos only called her by name once and I was dying. She was being tended to by Doctor Kravitz, who only half paid attention to his patient- he was staring at me with his jaw hanging open, his mustache twitching. Well, I hoped he wasn't too distracted because it would suck if she died on us now.
Carlos was also staring at me with his mouth alternating between opening and closing. His left eye twitched. I think he was in shock. Could me having survived have been that surprising to him? Was he overjoyed and was just emotionally expressing that through catatonia? No, that wouldn't really explain the eye twitches.
From atop of the Squig carriage and looking down at him, he was so tiny looking. They all were. Squigs were really fucking big. Like, Elephants on steroids.
I extended one arm and said the classic line I had always wanted to say.
"Come with me if you want to live."
I tried to keep the accent out of my voice. But a little bit of it leaked through.
That was when a red haired girl in pigtails pushed her way out of the crowd and ran towards me, yelling with joy.
It was Gwen! I waved.
She waved back.
Then the crowd exploded into cheers.
Alright, onwards to Sydney!.....and a potential warzone with thousands of Jotuns, Squig and Laufey on dragon knight mode. Shit. I needed to think this through.
Would it be safer to stay here? Nope. Not with the Jotuns having total control of this territory, a lack of food and basic medical care. We needed to get out of here, even if we were behind enemy lines.
Okay, onwards to Sydney and potential evacuation...to Indonesia or New Zealand or another coast. Much better plan.
I hoped they had an evacuation procedure in place. And I hoped that someone saw the Jotuns coming, those aerial shields didn't look like they would block satellite surveillance, but one never knew with Jotun sorcery.
I looked down at the still frozen (figuratively) Brockton Bay Ward and frowned. "What are you waiting for, Carlos?"
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