Lo-Nine

Ruth/S’yliska

Into the dark of the unknown they tread.

Ruth marched along, hands bound by grey rope as she was escorted by black-clad men. What was a venture of exploration quickly turned grim as soon as the others vanished. Lost in this land of the Watchers, she was ambushed by Lucifer’s Chosen. Now she marched along with her new escort. They were in a loose column formation, with her and the leader in the center. The captain halted, raising a fist as he scanned ahead. The others stopped as well, weapons trained ahead with two looking behind. Muffled death rattle gasps echoed off from afar. Silently they leveled their weapons as they advanced, getting closer to the grizzly scene. Imps tore into the bodies of fallen goblins and demons alike. She could immediately see the change. The first Brawler was covered in dark scales, appearing more reptilian than their simpler and more base forms. She could see the bodies of many now. Who were the first victims of which group, she could not say. The leader opened fire and the screech crack of his rifle rang out as the lead Brawler dropped with dinner-plate sized holes, easily tearing through the new hide.

More demons scrambled as the kill team opened fire. Rakes fired back with their clawed hands, striking one of the Chosen in the chest. He dropped silently as the other four mopped up the rest, riddling the final imp to pieces.

The leader tended to the fall Chosen, pulling free the embedded claw and getting the man back on his feet. The other sprayed a medical canister on the wound and gathered up his rifle. It would take more than a three foot blade to the chest to bring one down. She stared on with a sullen look. One of them pushed her ahead, forcing her past the bodies. Many of the fallen were still conscious, viewing her in silence. They passed them without aid, skulking back into the empty dark.

The question of how they were found by Lucifer bothered her. Were they being tracked this entire time? And seeing Genius Loci’s minions. That was a known quantity. He would be stalking her until the end of time itself. Or until she gained enough strength to slay him outright. But the fact that Lucifer and her Chosen, as described by Soltana and Diniel, had arrived was even more disconcerting. The slayer of gods and demons, traitor to Adonai, a creature of madness and wrath was here. She prayed it was only her followers that represented her will that were present.

She held onto hope that Soltana and the others were well. She could survive the rigors of capture and torture. After all she had been under the transformative and cruel care of Genius Loci, breaking her very molecules down and reforming her to the chimera monster that she was now.

"You are no monster."

S'ylska's words echoed in her head. One of the curses of the Emerald God was forcing her to hold the souls of thousands of others. One she carried had been born into the physical world while another had awakened during great conflict, adding their Ancathic power to her own. She and S'yliska had become fast friends, with the wiser guest helping to ground her from the madness of her new nature.

She silently marched on, reaching a large wall of black stone. She could sense the massive lifeform all around her. The rock was a large beast and they were the insects on its back. Which flowed into another question that bothered her.

Why here? Why Lo-Nine? Why these Watchers? Where is Gideon and the others? Why all of this theatre?

She had vague recollection when Soltana mentioned the man. He sounded familiar, but she couldn’t place it. A type of déjà vu, except she was sure she had never met him before. She had only one Emerald god to blame for her amnesia. The mysterious hung over her as she continued her trek amongst the enemy. The leader gestured to them to march along the rith side of the wall, with one of the Chosen hugging close to it as they pried for an entrance. More gunfire and screams rang out as many different groups intruded upon one another. The strange bizarre energies swirled around her; all of it familiar to her senses.

“The Watchers are supremely talented in dimensional and gravitational forces. For the Proturans, they were a ghost among the stars; even for the Ancath. I suspect we only see them because they deem it necessary,” S’yliska added her thoughts to Ruth’s.

But why allow these other parties?

“I suspect we may discover soon.”

She went silent, staring on as she was pushed into a thin hallway. They marched single file into the chasmous corridor. If one were to feel the fear of tight spaces, it would've felt like the walls were the closing jaws of a slab-made beast. Such primitive feelings were long extinct for her.

The hall began to widen as she spotted lights ahead. Another kill team of Chosen. They hailed them.

“Who is god?”

The leader of Ruth’s group clicked open his helmet, an intense look that was part smile, part killing intent.

“Lucifer, lord of all!”

The squad leader barked a laugh as he neared. The other squadmates kept their weapons ready as they scanned forward and behind.

“I see you have a prisoner! Is it one of those that our lord has deemed worthy of capture?”

“Aye, a Seal Holder- plain as day on her neck.”

Ruth shied away, but not before a Chosen behind her gripped her shoulders, forcing her to face the other squad leader. He meandered to her, as if he owned all the time in this dark place.

His large and powerful hand gripped her jaw hard. She winced as spikes of pain ran through her skull as he gently forced it to one side, inspecting the Seal. She reached out with her senses, feeling no other group nearby. The one holding her let go and resumed his alert position off near the wall.

“I can feel it- that’s the real deal. A good catch; and a pretty one, too. Lucifer will enjoy... Getting to know her.”

They were a spilling well of arrogance. It was a shame she and Lucifer would never meet. And these Chosen would never return. She gave a slight smile of confidence as the squad leader’s face contorted in sudden confusion. She stared hard with a slowly blooming smile.

The pain. The capture. All of it was deception. Well learned and well trained deception from a torturous, insane, emerald god.

A long barbed lance of bone whistled from afar, spearing the other squad leader in the eye, punching through the skull. He barked a cry before dropping in a slumping heap as the men around him shouted.

“Contact- contact!”

“Man down- return fire!”

One of the Chosen in the back of Ruth’s ‘escort’ went down with several long barbs in the side and chest before he could respond. Another sprinted over and grabbed under his torso and began pulling him to the back line. Ruth dropped to the ground with a cry, as if struck by something and went dead still. They all fired into the darkness, exploding the corridor with light, noise, and deadly pulse sabots.

“Soul Shield.”

More barbs returned fire, but the Chosen were prepared as one cast a spell, projecting a gaseous wall that rejected the sharpened bone into shattered bits. The Chosen trapped on the wrong end of the wall went down in a hail of boney shrapnel and lances. There were eight inside the shield and two fallen outside.

But she had already won.

The surviving captain moved with a quiet purpose to the spell caster, dropping his rifle and hugging the man tight. The other let out a scream as the captain’s flesh writhed and shifted, ripping open to reveal sharp teeth that bit down past the other’s combat suit.

The first squad had never captured her at all. They were quickly defeated and converted to pawn copies, used as cover for her incognito.

The fallen squad leader seizured and snapped to stand on all fours as a twisted beast, back towards the ground. His ruined skull split open as it rushed to the closest Chosen, biting down on their leg as they in turn opened fire into the pawn. Her other pawns that were hit by friendly fire was another deception. And now they were on the inside of the shield. They rushed to the uneaten Chosen in a frenzy.

"Mimics! They're mimics!"

Screams, cries, and gunfire rang out.

A Chosen was pinned against the wall as a pawn’s writhing limbs began gripping into his flesh. He let go of his rifle as he shrieked, gripping his pistol and unloading into it. The pawn broke apart, limbs still burrowing into the man’s flesh. The Chosen turned the pistol on himself, blasting his own head apart rather than being converted.

Another thrashed and howled as a pawn crawled atop him, merging its flesh with his own. The Chosen pulled out a grenade and clicked the detonator. A thunderous clap and wall of smoke rushed up against the wall as body parts and dust scattered throughout the hall.

The battle went quiet as debris rattled throughout the black corridor. The bodies of both sides littered the ground.

The silence lingered as she waited.

Ruth rose to her feet with a glint of satisfaction in her eyes. She felt the invisible umbilical cord running from her spine, down her skirt and off into the darkness. The natural biological veiling was a holdover from her run in with the Daer-seehn, an escaped Proturan’s experiment. She remembered their fruitless effort to revive their fallen Ancath gods. The flesh cord refracted before becoming visible, revealing itself as the organ slowly slugged forward on gripping limbs. It was bulbous, ugly, and covered in holes that sprouted new barbs. It had simply peeked around the corner before firing, keeping in cover.

Deception and confusion had been her two allies in the past. And now she called upon them once again.

I do not wish to fight, but If I must, I will fight savagely.

And yet she felt pain in her heart at the deed. She slew these men, as lost and confused as they were.

"We had little choice. Using my powers to slay them would inevitably draw the attention of much greater foes."

Abezebithou.

"Preciously."

The thought of that wretched fallen angel still haunted her. Which now tied into her respect of Diniel for having rescued her after he had slain the perverse foe. The spirit wall faded away and she began her grim work of cleaning up. Grasping tendrils burst from her legs and began collecting the pieces. She didn't enjoy it, but she needed to leave no trace. She re-absorbed her barb organ, inspecting the entrance to the corridor. The entrance was flat and sharp, as if carved from living stone. She aimed her fingers at a corner and fired a long wide weave of sticky Dugrum silk, creating an angled barrier. She slithered along, collecting blood and viscera, body, and soul mote. She fired off more spider silk, creating more walls. She ate her fill, tossing broken equipment into the silk. She finished her grizzly work, reforming her legs back to normal and followed the bloody trail. A surviving Chosen was slowly turning to a pawn. It took just a fleck of her molecules to infect another human. Or any that she was capable of devouring apart from divine beings.

Except...

She felt at the locket at her neck that Diniel had gifted her. She had opened it briefly, checking the contents. It was a tiny angel's feather. She had an idea of who it belonged to. His love, Layhla, who had been slain in the Underrealm by Lucifer’s Fallen Angels.

Diniel had gifted her with a divine remnant of his love. Her hands trembled as she resisted the urge to devour and ascend to a new plane. She closed the locket as she pushed down the guilt.

"There is no shame in rejecting power that one feels unready for," S'yliska added.

It doesn't feel right. It would be like devouring L'yophin to gain strength. Layhla was Diniel's friend. Why would he give me that?

"Perhaps it is a test."

A lone unarmed Chosen was crawling away from the carnage, his leg ruined. She watched in curiosity as the man attempted to escape. She followed the end of the trail, seeing the Chosen prop himself up against the black stone wall. His helmet was discarded and face revealed. She was coiling her flesh, preparing for a strike.

"Please be delicious," she muttered, reminded of Borscha for what felt like ages ago.

He was reaching for an empty holster before shrugging and giving up. He spoke with a steady voice, empty of fear.

"Before you eat me- has anyone told you that you're pretty?”

He gave her a sheepish smile.

The world went silent as she tried to process what he said.

It took her a moment to understand his words.

She was so taken aback by the tactless flattery that she paused her slaying blow of foot long finger knives. She scowled at him. This was perhaps the oddest way of begging for one’s life she had ever encountered.

"But I’m a monster. How could I be pretty?"

He nodded with a sigh.

“I mean, you say that, but look at you! You’re pretty to me, at least.”

She put him to the test and twisted her body, splitting open to reveal a horrific array of teeth, barbs, and limbs. She growled with the voices of several hideous beasts.

The Chosen was completely unfazed.

“I've seen the horrors of hell and the nightmares of the universe. The lord Lucifer had deemed it so. Yeah, you’re still pretty. I can feel it in your soul. What are you?”

"Flattery gets you nowhere with me."

His retort caught her off guard.

"Then what about honesty?"

Her tongue was tied at those words. Whoever this man was, he was keeping her off balance.

Her flesh flowed like water as she returned to her human form. She clasped her hands together with a stern look, unsure of what to do with him.

“I sense no lies in his word, despite his allegiance with the queen of lies.”

"I'm sure whatever happened to you Lucifer can make it right," he added.

She rolled her eyes and halted her cells that were currently infecting him, allowing them to change and solidify into the man's own tissue. She pointed a hand at the wall and let loose another curtain of silk. She gripped the man by the front of his armored vest and flung him into the sticky weaving, holding him fast eight feet into the air. He let out a grunt as his free hand began working for his knife as he spoke.

"I guess I'm growing on you! We should do lunch sometime? I'm not mad about the others- you were doing what you had to do just like we were. I wasn't particularly fond of them… Too zealous for my taste."

She extended her legs to match his height and gently pressed his free arm into the silk, giving him a coy smile. She did have to hand it to him, this was certainly the strangest way anyone talked her out of devouring them before. She weaved a small patch of silk aiming for his mouth.

"Are you telling me to shut up, then? I guess that's a no- mtfthnmthn…"

She gave a satisfied nod.

"Yes, that would be a no. Nothing personal, it's just I'm not much for Lucifer. You understand," she scrunched her face, giving him a final smug smile.

He gave it a brief second of thought before giving a knowing nod. She pursed her mouth. Who was this guy? She expected more braindead cult zealot than this… Flatterer.

"Done having fun?"

She turned to leave, shifting back to the ground and forgoing her meal.

I wasn't playing around. I just wasn't sure how else to deal with him.

"Ah, I see. The flirting was extra, then."

Shut up.

"Maybe you should take up his offer. He seems nice."

Shut up!

She cracked a smile at the internal banter. At least things weren't too grim. She began filtering through the thoughts of the devoured Chosen before stopping. She remembered Azazel and that Angels were very sentient in dreams and visions, even having their present selves updated with past knowledge of events that only happened in the abstract of the morphious realm. Lucifer would inevitably be present. She decided to leave it for later.

"A wise choice. Who knows how she could retaliate. Remember Soltana's dreams. Or the first time you dug through memories."

I couldn't forget. I have never seen her so afraid before or since.

She marched on, weaving walls of silk as she advanced into the dark unknown.

Ruth couldn’t help but think of the man she spared. Were they all like that? Was it really as complex is it seemed? How could those who have fallen to evil still be… Good?

“Humans are complex. I suspect many in Lucifer’s fold are sympathetic.”

I can’t believe it. No one who joins her can call themselves good.

“Did they join? Or were they pressed? Or taken? Who knows what she can do to one’s mind.”

She had to concede her argument. Who knew if this Saoirse that Soltana had mistakenly helped to capture was now being turned into as efficient a killer as Lucifer’s Chosen.

She saw light ahead in the corridor. Her eyes shifted to pick up that bead of a glow. She scanned with her mind, feeling a presence of another beyond. Her instincts prickled at the source.

It was a divine.

An unknown Angel.

She remembered that Genius Loci had captured a Fallen Angel. Lucifer and her cronies were all about as well. And it for sure wasn’t Diniel. She could sense it was also aware of her.

“Be prepared,” S’yliska interjected.

Always.

She wondered how healthy an idea that was; to be constantly coiled to strike. She suspected long term it would need to change, that she would need rest at some point.

But for now…

She coiled her body, prepping her mind for a potential assault. If Lucifer’s Angels were anything like Forcas and Abezebithou, she would need to strike with everything to have a chance. Deception of weakness was key here. She put on her best tentative, meek, and shy temperament as she made her way forward into the light.

One made of alabaster and light sat upon a black stone surrounded by sand and piles of demon ash. She was tall and slender, adorned in a robe of pure noir. Her eyes were covered with a simple cloth. Her wings were of pearlescent scales, rimmed with gold. She was staring at a demon stone, ruminating over the gem. The angel snapped their gaze at her. Her spirit trembled at their presence. They dropped the black stone to the sandy ground, discarding a source of easy power.

That act alone stayed her hand.

That was not the usual nature of a Fallen who would normally slay anything to obtain power. They gave a slight smile, rising to their feet as they hefted their strange spear.

“Hello, Ruth.”

It took every instinct not to gawk.

“And you are?” she shot back.

Deborah took a step forward, hand outstretched.

“I am Deborah, Lesser Angel of Multitudes and of Life. We have much to discuss. Come and talk.”

Ruth bristled at an average demon popping out from behind a rock. It was covered in black fur, its bestial face twisting into. A crack resounded up high and the demon’s head blossomed into black gore, painting the rocks and sand with blood. It dropped to the ground, crackling and crumbling to ash. Ruth glanced up, seeing an exact duplicate of Deborah, holding a pulse cannon, flying high above.

Angel of Multitudes. Right. Says so in the name.

“I have met her before, briefly. You are in good hands,” S’yliska added.

You should have led with that; I was ready to devour her!

“I doubt you would have made it that far.”

Ruth followed behind Deborah as she turned and marched ahead, deeper into the densely packed pillars of black stone.

“How did you know my name?” she asked.

Deborah spared her a glance.

“I know the children of my Lord,” she replied cryptically.

“Even those who are monsters?”

“Even those who bear the scars of suffering,” the angel added.

They halted and turned, mouth pursed. Their gentle and serene countenance hardened.

“Who told you that? Who said you were a monster?”

She stammered. Why did Angels catch her off guard? First Diniel, then this Deborah.

“I-I… It’s what I am.”

Ruth split her head down the middle, gaping it open to reveal tendril teeth and grinding fangs. Deborah took a step back, but kept calm under the body horror show.

“Fascinating. What did they do to you? Who told you were a monster?”

“It’s what I am,” she replied with a guttural rasp. Anger spilled out.

“Well that cannot be. My Lord chooses not the evil, fallen, or craven to fulfill his designs. What is that on your neck if not the Seal of the Tetragrammaton?”

“Even Adonai makes mistakes.”

“Are you so sure of that?” Deborah replied with a smile.

Ruth was about to say more when the angle continued.

“Adonai has made us all with purpose. I am unsure of your past, but I will listen to your story. Know this, though. I will not tolerate those who do not have the authority to set their own identity, telling themselves what they are in fact not. You are no monster, Ruth the Matron.”

How could she know all of this?

“Well you already know who I am- why do I need to tell you a story that you already know?” she shot back.

“I know your identity; it is as plain as the face you hide behind. Your past… Well, that is more of a mystery to me. I am no prophet or seer, you see.”

She trembled at the angel’s wisdom. She attempted to divert.

“Do you know this Gideon guy?”

“Know him? I am his Guardian Angel,” she retorted with a hand wave.

These are the people Soltana told me about…

“Then you’re no Fallen Angel,” Ruth replied, trying to trip the divine being up.

“Adonai is my God. My creator. I am his servant. Emmanuel is the Lord of Lord and Host of Hosts, whom I submit my entire being to. Lucifer’s name be forever cursed.”

“Are you not convinced?”

Ruth grumbled internally. She felt off balance since her arrival, having reverted back to previous monstrous habit. She felt lost without Soltana or L’yophin. She felt more of a monster than a person.

Deborah found an open circle of stones and sat in the middle, spear across her legs.

“Now. We have time. And a time. Tell me your story, Ruth of the Matron, bearer of the Seal of the Tetragrammaton.”

Ruth’s spirit wilted at the angel’s presence. Who was she?

She sat across from them, hands trembling. There would be no manipulation or deception here. She had a feeling that honesty was the best policy. The trouble was she didn’t want to remind herself of the pain of the past. The pain of Genius Loci. The agony of her transformation and defilement. If she said it, Deborah would slay her on principle, Seal or no Seal.

“She will not harm you. Fear not,” S’yliska interjected.

Ruth gulped down her concern, closing her eyes as she gathered her thoughts. If she started with the hardest part, perhaps Deborah would stop asking. And so she began her tail.

“A demon defiled me, breaking me down and reforming me into what you see and forced me to give birth to his spawn.”

The angel pursed her lips, nodding sagely.

“Please. Do continue.”

And so she told her story. Every detail of murder and bloodshed. Every droplet of pain. Every heartache. And Deborah listened intently, silent as a statue.

For the first time in an age, she felt a tear run down her cheek.