Shadows of a Life

Chapter 12: Chaos below the Castle

    All hell seemed to break loose all at once. The tail of a gigantic snake whipped through the ground cracking the castle. The tail didn't seem real, but more of a hologram. A spirit. If a spirit of this thing could tear apart a dimension I honstly didn't want to imagine what its full form was capable of. Shade and the jackal avoided the huge chasm in the castle and came running after me and Klaus. Klaus pulled out his two pistols and yelled at me "Dark, you try and hold off Apophis,"

...Really Klaus? Take the easy job and leave me with holding off the very being of chaos and destruction's spirit. I tried to think but to my disadvantage my mind was scattered and unable to focus. Klaus was easily managing to hold off the other two. I sprinted off into the hallways of the castle. The first idea that came to my head was that the snakes head was one of the weakest and most dangerous parts of a snake. I ignored the dangerous part and tried to focus on the more positive idea. I lowered my vision into the deeper dimensional layers of the castle. The head of this Apophis creature seemed to be hiding underneath the castle, where Klaus usually kept his hydra. I jumped and before I could land I turned myself into fullbody shadow form. I passed through floors faster then running or even falling down stairs could suffice. I turned back to normal when I reached the very bottom of the castle, otherwise considered its dungeon.

    Klaus' hydra roared at my presences. It roamed freely around the floor which was a labyrinth. The labyrinth was designed so that Klaus could send humans in to feed the hydra. The paths and corridors always were changing so it was hard for mortals to find their way around. The hydra usually stayed in the center. I floated above the labyrinth. The hydra seemed to be having some sort of dramatic fit. It thrashed around madly shaking its many heads. Mythologically, the "hydra" supposedly had only four head which multiplied when you cut one off. Unless someone took a chainsaw to Klaus' hydra I have no idea how or why it has so many heads. The dragon itself had a deep purple body with lighter purple scales alone the ridge of its back. One each of its many, many heads there were two light purple horns that stuck up like metal prongs out of its head. Each head was also equipped with needle thin razor sharp poison doused teeth that could regrow if the head decided to leave its teeth in someone. As I was saying the dragon was thrashing around wildly knocking over walls with its head and stomping its feet on the ground.

     I tried to find the stupid snake god I was looking for. I looked deeper into the dimensional layers. This Apophis character had coiled itself around Klaus' dragon. The spirit of this thing was huge. Klaus' hydra kept biting at it and clawing at it trying to free itself from what I guessed either certain death or  possession. Apophis was a a very large, red king cobra currently. One of the hydra's heads managed to bite Apophis' but it did absolutely no damage. I floated closer to the two reptiles slightly mad. I can't believe that Apophis had the nerve to try and posses Klaus' dragon which nearly killed him to tame. I still had my katana's in hand. I stood before the two beasts, the dragon being about the size of a 40 story building and Apophis seemed to be unmeasurable. The rest of the huge snake things "body" was tangled throughout the labrynth. The cobra formed Apophis reared its head and got ready to strike the hydra. I threw my katana as a reflex at the cobra's head and to my surprise it stuck. Apophis hissed and turned around to face me. Why did I have such bad luck with snakes?

     Apophis uncoiled itself from Klaus' Hydra and slithered closer to me. The head of the serpent was almost the full size of the hydra at least. Apophis reared again this time aiming for me. I doubt I wouldn't be much of a meal for a thing of its size. I closed my eyes hoping that my death wouldn't be too painful. I heard a loud hiss and thud. I opened my eyes to see Klaus' hydra flying, not far above my holding back Apophis. Standing on top of the largest head was Klaus himself, shooting at the snake. Aeron ran up to my side and licked my hand. I summoned my bow and arrow and floated up on top of the hydra as well. Klaus didn't do as little as to glance at me since he was too focused on Apophis. The snake didn't seem to have any weak spots. It was covered in thick tough scales. The only place I could really think of vulnerable was inside of its mouth. Apophis reared and hissed again and when he did I aimed and shot an arrow which lodged itself beside one of Apophis' massive fangs.

     The snake hissed in rage. I'm pretty sure that I didn't do as much damage as I did piss him off more. The hydra seemed to become more weary every second and Klaus and I both seemed to know that we couldn't hold him off much longer. Out of seemingly nowhere a fireball nailed the poor snake in the head. Apophis' spirit flickered for a few seconds before returning to normal. I looked to where the fireball came from and floating in the sky was Ra. I looked down and saw that he wasn't alone. Minh had her three nagas with her and Moon was floating not too far away. Ra lobbed another fireball at Apophis and a full fledged war seemed to begin in the basement of the castle. Apophis unfortunately had some backup of his own. The snake summoned a dozen or so cobras, each about 30 feet long. The cobras weren't actual living creatures but more of holographic things made from red sand. I immediately changed my target to one of the snakes. I jumped off the hydra head I was standing on and aimed for the head of a cobra. I summoned both my katanas and pulled one back getting ready to strike. I swung just before I hit the cobras head, cutting it at the neck. Its head lolled off and hit the ground, exploding in to a pile of red sand.

    I looked over at Apophis who was being pelted with fireballs, courtesy of Ra. Klaus had jumped off his hydra which was now fighting over which head got to kill a cobra. I had turned my back to most of the enemies to see what that others were doing which was a very stupid idea. Not even ten seconds after I had turned around one of Apophis sand cobras had decided to coil around me. I growled before shapeshifting into a dragon. Shapeshifting was one of the greatest talents of all Shadow Demons and only few could do so. I'm pretty sure that Klaus was able to as well before he split his soul to create me and Shade. My dragon form wasn't anything too crazy. I've been told that I look like a combination of a Chinese dragon and a serpent and this dragon was definitely not as big as the hydra. I whipped around and whacked the cobra with my tail and watched it explode into a million sand particles. All of the cobras had been demolished and all the was left was Apophis himself. The giant snake hissed. I turned back to normal in midair and landed on the ground, katanas in hand ready for battle.

    I Apophis raised his head aiming for Ra and Moon who were floating. I threw one of my katanas hitting Apophis right underneath his jaw and the sword went right through into his mouth. Apophis turned and advanced on me, hissing. Ra, who saw this opportunity right away launched another fireball into the side of the snakes head. Apophis' spirit flickered a couple times before disappeared. At this point Anubis and Shade would have been absolutely insane (well technically they were anyways but that's not my point) to come down into the labyrinth right now.

     I hadn't noticed until now how worn out I was. My breathing was fast but short and my head was spinning. If I took another step I probably would have fallen over. Minh was busy making sure that Kon, Shitai and Inochi weren't harmed and Klaus was busy freaking out over the damage done to his castle. I leaned on one of my katanas and Ra floated over. I dropped my katana right away and fell into his arms hugging him tightly. He hugged me back. Somehow the Shadow Dimension had managed not to completely fall apart. Everything had suffered from almost unrepairable damage. I stood there hugging Ra for what seemed like only a few seconds before Anubis decided to come marching down here. Clearly he was purely insane. Shade was following the jackal headed idiot. Klaus and I both stepped forward summoning out weapons, ready for battle.

    The others looked a lot more worn out than us and Shade sort of was my responsibility to keep in line anyways. Shade was the first person to attack by lunging at me swinging her scythe. I bent backwards and dodged underneath it while sweeping my leg aiming for her feet and knocking her over. Shade was on her back laying on the floor. I put my foot on her chest holding her down. Her scythe had fallen out of her reach. Out of my peripheral vision I saw Klaus and Anubis fighting each other, equally matched and ignoring both of us. I put the tip of my Katana to her throat. Shade glared at me growling, "You wouldn't kill your sister,"

"It's a good thing that your no longer my sister," I spat with pure hatred.