"Why must I fight you all?" King Oberon twitched his arms about, his muscular biceps protruding veins. "And you all listen to Medv? I should've kept her on lock-down when I had the chance-"
"Silence! I will defeat you here once and for all, Oberon. Our rivalry will no longer continue. You're the reason for the lack of the season of Spring in our world. In the Tir Na Mabi." Belenus huffed, whipping up a huge fireball between his hands.
"If we are to defeat you for Queen Medv's sadistic showing, then so be it." Adalhelm raised a giant sword over to Oberon, the hilt gold with its blade a blinding silver.
Adalhelm de la Dragonthread looked over to Medv, Airmidon, Evrich, and Tanaka. As he held his sword, he jumped into a flip and landed a slice on Oberon's wrist. His blue cape flapping in the air current he created, Adalhelm was then quickly smacked away by Oberon's giant arm. His head aching, he got up and couldn't help seeing double-vision. His balance off-kilter, the seasoned Dragonthread laughed when he realized his hands still held his sword with an iron-grip.
His double-vision subsiding, Adalhelm got up from the sand of the beach and gave Evrich a look.
"Wait." Adalhelm put a finger to his mouth.
"What is it, Adalhelm?" Belenus turned around after throwing more fireballs at Oberon, burning the Erlking's skin.
"Evrich isn't a day over 16, or... is it 19? Hm. Just like the day I had left him, all those years ago."
"What?" Belenus's gaze grew.
"Indeed." Airmidon laughed, his wings changing color from copper to dark gray. "I've made Evrich this young for a long time. As I said once before, I've kept some people alive, brought some people back, kept some people from aging, made others age too quick."
"Wait. You did this to me?" Evrich looked at his hands and then to Airmidon. "My wife, Aiko Anohana, has grown old. But I've stayed like this."
"Oh, what's the matter? Sickened by it or something? I don't see why you should be. You've been able to retain your youth!" Airmidon cackled, his short black hair curling up and then curling back down.
"I was thinking that they had taken him from a certain point in time. But Medv actually just plucked him right from the Earth dimension as we speak? My, my. That makes me furious!" Adalhelm charged at Oberon some more. "IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT, MEDV?"
"Way ahead of you, friend!" Michael jumped behind Oberon, jamming his staff into the Erlking's spine. With a spring in his step, the aged super-soldier then flipped upwards. Dropping his staff accidentally, Michael Quinn allowed it to be caught by Oberon. The Erlking looked at it and then snapped it in two. The fangs of Oberon protruded from his mouth as he snarled at Michael. Running away to gain distance, Michael sneezed into his elbow.
"You drop a staff into my hands for me to break, and then you sneeze all over yourself. Pathetic humans! You and that Adalhelm are no match for a real king of the Seelie Court!" Oberon stomped into the sand of the beach, millions of grains flying into Michael's eyes.
"Fuck!" Michael fell back, his body soon invisible from the legion of sand which had come his way.
"After forty years of living in this crazy place, I've learned a few tricks. Take this!" Chloe sprang high into the air and clapped her hands, a square forming around Oberon.
"What? I c- can't move!" Oberon growled, more veins popping out of his arm. "If it's a fight you wanted, it's a fight you should get! This is just an unfair gang-bang."
"How does she know that spell?" Abellio put an open hand out in front of Oberon, vines and leaves constricting the Erlking's legs further. "Belenus, you've taught her well, huh?"
"Indeed I have." Belenus nodded, tossing Abellio a look. "I figured that the best way I could look after my dear Chloe would be to teach her substantial spells. She didn't want to learn any. She was very hardy in our time here, in the beginning. Still is, the pretty little rascal. However, one spell did indeed make its way into her lexicon."
"My- My-" Chloe held a fist up to her forehead as her black hair blew in the winds by the shore. "My lover Belenus taught me this one! The Square Seal. I never wanted to learn spells and I was further confused when I met Mylas because you all are gods and goddesses. What should you be doing with mages like him in this realm? Alas."
Chloe took a deep breath, her ample bust rising and falling. Her black eyes looked down at Oberon during the brief seconds where she had committed to her high jump. Landing back on her feet, small grains of sand began to dig into her nails as the tickle of the biome graced her body. Draped over her curvy torso shined a grape colored robe which folded through itself many times yet somehow still revealed the girl's bountiful and young figure.
"Lover? Wait a moment. Did she just call you her 'lover'?" Abellio's right eyebrow twitched up. "My, my, my. Belenus, you dog! Anything promiscuous you say about Aine is to be taken with a grain of salt from now on. You really did fall for a human, didn't you?"
Belenus laughed, his head cocking back a bit. "You do have a point there. I've said some uncannily rude things about Aine. Nonetheless, Chloe just called me her 'lover', yes!" Putting a hand to his face, Belenus's long greenish hair grew further down his shoulders as he pouted his bottom lip. "That would mean she's accepted my covenant."
"A 'covenant'?" Abellio scowled, his eyes narrowing. "I must've forgotten about this. You made a contract with Chloe?"
"One that would seal our love, indeed." Belenus smiled, closing his eyes. "Thank you, Chloe. I am ever so grateful to be in your presence."
"Ugh, yuck. You're such a hopeless romantic." Abellio shook his head, then began to tighten the vines around Oberon's neck.
"What! What are you... doing? Are you really g- gonna kill me here and now, Abellio?" Oberon coughed up spit and began to foam out of his mouth.
"Hmph." Abellio floated in the air, his gaze jabbing down into Oberon with a smirk. "Perhaps, I'm too ruthless. But with you, there's no such thing, Erlking. You don't deserve any mercy from me, after you've ruined the Tir Na Mabi. Do you know how long it's taken me to finally get to where I am? All those days of planning with Danu by the sun. Trying to usurp Earth's cruel society. Then Medv came along and fucked everything up. Though, if it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have come to Earth in the first place."
As the Erlking winced, Abellio's smile drew further across his face. Vines from plants began to taper down on Oberon even harder than before. The king's face turned blue as he suffocated slowly.
"So, is this how it all ends?" Airmidon flew hoops in the air by Evrich and Tanaka.
"If Oberon dies, you are not to bring him back, understood?" Queen Medv pointed at Airmidon.
"Why, of course, my queen!" Airmidon nodded.
"You're through," Belenus floated in the air. He simply held out a fist in front of the Erlking and watched as Oberon cried his last breath. Flames of all colors shot out of Belenus's hand and in the next second, the king was turned to ash as a voluptuous form of fire took over the beach. "just like our supposed 'rivalry'."
"Whoa. He's... gone." Adalhelm put a hand to his chest, plunging his sword into the deep sand around him.
Michael fell onto his back. "It's over. It's finally over. We did it. We killed Oberon for Medv's entertainment." Running his hands through the grainy beach around him, he watched as the brown gradients slipped through his fingers and back into the earth. "Now what?"
"Now I find Danu, and figure out a new life to start with her." Abellio's feet dug into the beach. "Danu, how I've missed you. Wherever you are."
"Oh no. No, no, no! Lord Abellio," Michael shut his eyes. "Danu is-"
It was too late.
Abellio saw that, behind Michael Quinn, was the fallen goddess.
Her bosom was bloodied and her eyes faced an odd direction. A lifeless, unfocused direction. Her skin seemed fake and bloated. Her hair matted, legs pale.
"No." Abellio walked over to her, then tripped into the sand. "NO!" He screamed into the muffling grain. "NO!"
Medv laughed. "Hmph. This is how your journey ends, Abellio. You and all your other friends have successfully defeated the Erlking, but a pyhrric victory it proved to be. The man who was responsible for shifting the climate of the Tir Na Mabi is finally dead. But at what cost? Your lover?"
"You. You bitch!" Abellio ran over to Medv and sent vines her way, but she cut them all down one by one and sent him flying into the air.
"I am as big as this dimension now. So many humans on Earth have made covenants with me. And you are no match for your ruler. The new ruler of the courts. Seelie and Unseelie. That is who I am. I rule them both now!" Medv lifted up her giant right hand and sent a wave of sand down onto Abellio.
"No- Ugh- Agh!" Abellio choked on the sand as it filled his nose and his skin fell grazed by the brown gradients.
Adalhelm coughed. "She's killing him!"
"Oh my goodness. Medv, stop!" Belenus tightened his abdomen as he screamed.
"I won't kill him. He's much too precious to me. I want there to be a god of apple-trees, I also just want to torment him... forever." Medv spoke slowly as she lifted her hand up and down, causing Bel to be cut up by the sand.
"AGH!" Abellio screamed, blood pouring out of his skin.
"What are you going to do, really? Bring him back with Airmidon and then kill him again? This is madness! W- We've... lost." Belenus flared his nostrils a couple times and then turned to Adalhelm. "Medv was right. We defeated Oberon, but at what cost? Our goal was originally to just get the hell out of here and go back to Earth where we make covenants with mortals. Earth is where we draw our real power from. But deep down, we all had this same desire, didn't we? We were all obsessed with trying to slay the Erlking, and look what it brought us!" Belenus stomped his foot into the sand, his leg falling a tad into the thousands of tiny grains. "LOOK WHAT IT BROUGHT US! Our obsession brought our own destruction."
"Belenus. No. H- How could y- you give up like this when we've come so far? I learned spells for you! I love you. Don't quit on me." Chloe ran up to the God of Fire and kissed him.
"Oh my." Adalhelm bit his bottom lip.
"Lord Abellio!" Michael folded his hands. "This is it." The super-soldier started to yawn and tear up. "This is the end of our journey. We all die here, don't we?"
Suddenly, a thunder louder than two planets crashing into one another broke through the sky of the Tir Na Mabi. The clouds all shattered like fragments of hardened clay as lines began to trace themselves all throughout the air. All of the sand below Abellio's feet began to crack and snap apart.
"Why is reality coming undone?" Airmidon curled into a ball just then, his black wings receding into his back as he cowered behind Evrich and Tanaka.
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Final Phenomenon: E-Lunar, Route A (4) (MANUSCRIPT)
Fantasy2071. The legendary God of Apples, Abellio, was kidnapped from Earth and taken to the Otherworld. Though this world is his home, he seeks to track down and destroy those who have wronged him as they reside in this world. No man nor deity...
