Two Worlds - Choni

Chapter 14

Rose opened the door to the master bedroom, then stopped and stared. Toni stared at her, mortified, and quickly pulled her hands out of Cheryl's hair. A second later, Cheryl removed her face from Toni's crotch and turned to look at Rose, who hadn't moved a muscle. Cheryl opened her mouth angrily, then closed it and stood up, looking closer at Rose. She snapped her fingers, and two robes floated out of the closet, with one going to Toni and the other to her. "You're covered in bruises and cuts." Cheryl said, walking up to Rose while fastening the belt around the robe. "Why?"


"They won." Rose said simply, looking and sounding exhausted.


"What?" Cheryl exclaimed.


"The Hunters won." Rose told her.


"How?" Cheryl demanded.


"They had Excalibur and Clarent." Rose told her. "The two swords of Arthur. We didn't stand a chance. The archmages were able to destroy the swords, but at the cost of their lives. The magical discharge from the destruction of the great swords caused an earthquake that leveled a good part of Riverdale as well."


"Wait, I'm confused." Toni said, frowning. "What's so special about these swords? I mean, I know about Excalibur being special and all, but why was it able to make the Hunters win the battle?"


"Excalibur and Clarent are both Heavenly weapons." Cheryl told her. "We don't know what made them, but something...divine did. Excalibur is the sword of King Arthur, and Clarent is the sword he drew from the stone. They were second only in power to Mjolnir, hammer of Thor, and were equal in strength to the Hellblade. The bright side is that now that they're destroyed, they're out of magic tricks. The Hellblade is lost, and I doubt the last owner of it would hand it over even if they did find him and it. And as for Mjolnir...well, I kind of doubt Thor would lend them his weapon, even if any of them were capable of lifting it." Rose nodded.


"The majority of the survivors headed to Las vegas or San Francisco, but I thought you'd want to know, so I teleported here." She said, collapsing. Cheryl quickly caught her before she hit the ground.


"Here, let's get you cleaned up and in bed." She told Rose, picking her up and walking out of the room, leaving Toni to get dressed.


One hour later


"How bad is it?" Toni asked Cheryl. The two girls were sitting in the kitchen, Toni eating a steak and Cheryl drinking a cup of blood.


"It's moderately bad." Cheryl admitted, looking up from her cup. "The loss of the swords takes a weapon out of our hands, even if it also takes one out of theirs. And the death of the archmages of Southern California isn't good either. On the other hand though, the vast majority of Riverdale' magical community got out of Dodge before the battle started, and I'm sure that the wizards dealt a major blow to the Hunters. Besides, like I said, Riverdale was never a stronghold. There were a lot of magic users there, sure, but there are even more in our strongholds, and the strongholds have magical protections around them as well. The swords were in all likelihood their ace in the hole, and now that they're gone they've got nothing left. They're going to break themselves against San Francisco, and then the war will be over until another group of idiots gets the same idea in their heads."


"Are you sure?" Toni asked. Cheryl nodded.


"Of course I'm sure Topaz. And besides, even if they did manage to take down San Francisco, they'd still have to deal with Las Vegas. And that's not going to be easy. You see, we made Las Vegas. The other strongholds existed before we came around, but we built Las vegas from the ground up, just like London. It's young, but it's still one of the strongest cities out there."


"Are you sure about that?" Rose asked, walking downstairs. "I doubt the Hunters wouldn't have some kind of contingency plans."


"We're not fighting the Order of Van Helsing here. Hell, the Vatican is smarter than these idiots, even they know better than to start an extinction war." Cheryl told her. "In all likelihood, they never planned what to do if you guys destroyed the swords." Toni nodded, but Rose didn't look so sure.


"I don't know, there's a lot of Hunters in this White Court of theirs, I'm sure they've got some intelligent people in it." She said. Cheryl shrugged.


"Intelligent or not, they're not going to fulfill their little plans." She said, gulping down the last of the blood. "Worst case scenario, they clean out San Francisco and are too exhausted to continue on the war."


"And the best case scenario?" Toni asked curiously. Cheryl grinned.


"We kill every last one of them and the Hunters have to start over from scratch in a few generations." She said, tossing the cup in the sink. Rose grinned, conjuring up a glass of wine and raising it in the air.


"I'll drink to that." She said with a chuckle, taking a sip. "It'll be nice to have them out of our hair for a while." Toni frowned, a little uncomfortable with all this talk of death, but said nothing. Suddenly, the phone rang. "You've still got a landline?" Rose asked, raising an eyebrow. Cheryl ignored her and picked up the phone.


"Yeah?" She asked.


"Turn on the TV to a news station." Josie said, her voice hoarse, before hanging up. Cheryl frowned, then reached over and turned the TV by the sink on.


"Breaking news!" A female reporter said. "San Francisco has been hit with a nuclear missiles. I repeat, the city of San Francisco has been hit with a nuclear missiles." Cheryl, Rose, and Toni all stared at each other, horrified. "So far, nobody has stepped forward to claim responsibility for this atrocity, and the government has not yet discovered the culprits."


"They didn't." Rose said quietly. "They wouldn't..."


"What, the Hunters wouldn't go for a total destruction policy?" Cheryl growled. "Why not, it's not like they've ever cared about collateral damage before."


"But still..." Rose said. "They wouldn't launch a nuclear strike on a city full of vanilla mortals." Suddenly, a beam of light filled the room.


"I'm afraid they did." A young man said as the light disappeared. Cheryl's eyes widened at the boy's plate armor and French accent.


"Reggie?" She asked in disbelief.