I awoke to the cacophonous roar of combat, my arms and legs draped over something metallic as I was rattled up and down. Whoever I was being held by was moving at a quick pace.
"W-what the, fuck, is going on?" I tried to blink away the white flecks inside my eyes as the sounds of battle slowly bled into my eardrums. Clanging of steel on steel, the splashing of sanguine liquid upon the dried ground ground below, a mix of grunts and verbal spell-casting... I could barely process it all.
"OH shit! You're AWAKE! Great!" What sounded like a Spanish accent slipped out in a girlish squeak below my face as the head turned to the side. I was met with the visage of a certain blue-purple woman that had all the personality of a cupcake and a devil.
"Jester? Where are we and why am I still in the battlefield?" The white specks were flaking away now, my eyes catching flashes of fireballs and a distinct red glow from a massive axe.
Before she could answer, a dire wolf lunged toward us. The creature was drenched in crimson, patches of stark white jutting through its coat, and its ravenous yellow eyes were locked on us with feral intent. She swore under her breath before a massive lollipop spun end over end from behind the creature. Blinking away the flecks of light still impeding my vision I found chainsaw teeth along the edge of the sweet-implement, a fascinating discovery just as it revved to life and began burying itself into the neck of said of the wolf. Naturally I was sprayed with the blood and viscera of the Dire wolf as she dodged to the side, its body crumpling into a fleshy lump behind us.
"Oh... You know, killin stuff! Beheadin' a king~?" She placed a single index finger on her chin before grinning, her incisors poking out predatorially.
"And you thought it was wise to bring an unconscious person to a battle like this?" Her only response was emphatic nodding and the spraying of more blood across my face as a goblin was impaled onto her lollipop.
I sighed before letting go of her and dropping to my feet, my head still throbbing somewhat.
"What have I missed...?" A chuckle resounded behind me.
I turned to see Loki holding his sceptre and dagger in hand, with his full Asgardian regalia and armour on display. A green duplicate of himself emerged from nothing a few metres away and backstabbed a Goblin that was getting too close to us.
"No much my friend. Truly, you have been but unconscious for an hour... Are you certain you aren't Asgardian or have some in your ancestry?" I shrugged and pulled on the ground to my side to impale a small little Gnome that had been trying to stab Jester up the ass.
"Don't know, possibly? Anyway, that's not important. What is, is whether we are finished here or not. Because, and not to sound arrogant or uncaring, a barbecue with a very sexy woman sounds really nice about now... better than fighting." The God grinned before shrugging and turning on the spot.
"Just have to kill the king now and the axe-man seems to have that sorted already." He pointed at the distance where a man was deflecting sword-blows from a very rotund Goblin, his axe sparking in crimson.
"That's very dramatic..." I chuckled out in a huff.
"Pffft, it certainly looks fun!" Jester exclaimed whilst rocking backwards and forwards on the balls of her feet.
"Why don't you join in then?" My question was promptly ignored by her as she snapped the neck of another Goblin soldier with her lollipop. She was obviously avoiding the topic since she had a small pout on her lips.
Shaking my head I stuck my hands in my pockets and strolled towards the massive combat between Crusty and the fat king. I was still a little shaky but that was ebbing away as I felt some form of energy bubbling beneath my skin. It was an odd sensation but I just shook it off as a 'being in another universe/world' thing.
~~~
It was as Drecarios was walking away that Jester remembered that he had been glowing all the time he had been unconscious. He was already near the king and the Crusty guy though, so she just shrugged it off and continued to batter away as many little guys as she could so they didn't interfere with the 'boss' battle.
~~~
Crusty was having the time of his life as he cut into the tough, stringy, flesh of the Goblin King. Every ounce of his body was vibrating in jubilation at the blood that curdled out of his enemy's body. He swore he could hear celestial singing from his axe as it curved upwards into a crescent arc and then dropped with the lethality of an executioner's swing.
*BOOOM*
A wave of pressurised air followed in his weapon's wake as the King's shield was split in half and multiple digits from his hands fell to the dirt below. His grin grew wider in feral ecstasy all the while the red aura that hung in the air in a nimbus around him grew thicker.
`That's right... Bathe in its blood, cherish its pain, sing in delight as it screams in agony...`
His own voice caressed the inside of his head, the sensation not unlike receiving the touch of a lover during sex. All of the hairs across his body sprang up in surprise and enjoyment whilst his pants tightened.
`Mmmm, you know you want to watch this creature collapse before you and quiver...`
A rictus of emotions swept through his body and mind as his axe swung by itself, carving another chunk of flesh from the Goblin King's face, the cheeks of the pitiful creature now completely made of bone and muscle; all skin and fat flayed away.
`Fear, you can smell it... It is afraid and scared... Bleeding, Snivelling, Disgusting...`
He dodged a pathetic upward swing of the creature's longsword, the blade snapping in half as it blasted against the red aura his axe was projecting outwards. There, he could see it, what he was looking for... FEAR... It permeated this things entire existence at this moment. It was afraid of him.
`Oooohhhh, yes...! You know you want to... Just end him... Split his skull from his body... Bathe in his blood and embrace the slaughter...`
"I-" His voice was cut away as another caress shuddered through him, a red tendril from the aura slithering onto his head; unbeknownst to him.
`Come on...! J-just say it... Declare it... You know, what to say...`
"Blood-" He winced and started twitching all over, his vision becoming tainted with red.
`SAY IT!`
"For...The..." The entirety of his armour began vibrating as the red in his weapons aura began smothering him, covering him, cloaking him in its hue.
`S҉҉A҉҉Y҉ ҉I҉҉T҉!!!`
"Blood... GOD!" A wave of triumph, anger and sheer rapture pierced his reality as the magic that covered his axe exploded into a massive gaping purple-black light that quickly receded into him; infecting every single inch of his body.
He blinked once and then opened his eyes to the truth. With gritted teeth he hefted the axe down and bashed away the limbs of the wretched coward before him. It had no honour and did not believe in the true gods... It was only good for the slaughter, as an offering...
*SHHHHWING*
The axe slashed hundreds of times into the corpulent king below him, the slashes digging deep into the body of the Goblin, its organs squishing and splatting against bone, marrow and torn musculature. Crusty cackled as he stomped on the cock and balls of the pathetic coward below him whilst directing his axe to dig into its kidney and spine.
With sickly ease he snapped the spinal cord of the creature before dragging it up and around, slashing through the ribs and the heart before splitting the false king's larynx and pushing it forwards into the brain stem. Blood splashed and flooded out of the freshly made corpse all the while he slowly, methodically, spiritually, began flaying the creature's flesh and butchering it into hundreds of tiny pieces.
`MMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, WoNdErFuL!!!`
A voice not his own touched his mind but he could find very little scepticism or reluctance at this moment... The enjoyment of the fight, of the slaughter, of the butchering was too much...
"Holy shit... What the fuck happened here?"
Crusty snapped his head towards the new arrival, his eyes gleaming in godly expectation. He had seen the unending war, the never ending honour to be gained, the perpetual combat that he could shroud himself with and within... He needed it and it, apparently, needed him...
"Hehehe, an offering..." His subconscious pinged in concern and horror at the depraved tone and inflection he spoke with, but that was soon drowned out in the euphoria of his recent victory.
The man took a step back and frowned at him, his stance showing that he was weary of him...
`He-HEHEHEHEHE, now now, don't let the itty bitty little mortal catch on... Better to string him along, so you can later string him up...! HEHEHEHEHEHE`
Crusty coughed as a small iota of his clarity returned, enough to pass as his former limited self.
"Ahum, I apologise. I tend to get, carried away, when in battle." Internally he sneered at the snivelling but found a small finger-like tendril of calm suffuse his being, as if his gods were urging him to settle down.
The man narrowed his eyes towards him but nodded all the same. He was just another fool, like all the rest. They would fall to the gods soon, all of them, and they will see the error of their false reality.
"Okay... Sure... Um, could I ask why the corpse isn't fading into specks of light?" Crusty turned towards the body and watched as the artwork he had created slowly dried out. Its entire chest cavity was open to the sky and called out to the carrion... A wonderful dedication to his... His? His, new gods.
"I don't know, actually." The body began breaking apart into nodes of light immediately after his comment, the tendril of calm encompassing his entire being at this moment as he met the eyes of this man.
Silence consumed the entire exchange before the man slowly backed away, his eyes glued to his own.
`Drecarios needs to die`
His own voice tickled his cranium once more, a sense of determination flexing throughout his mind. He had a mission from his gods, it would be completed.
~~~
I calmly, but quickly, strode away from the slightly concerning man as my sub-conscious shook in fear and disgust. Something was disturbing me about Crusty and I couldn't figure out what it was.
Yeah he was a battle-nut and loved combat, that was something shared by a lot of different people. Did people get lost in warfare and killing sometimes? Most likely... His excuses were adequate and fairly consistent with his character... It was just something about an 'offering' that unsettled me. Not that the concept was unfamiliar to me since Paganism sometimes had warriors and kings dedicate battles, kills and various other aspects of life to the 'gods'. As far as I knew Crusty was just a follower of Odin or some other Pagan god.
His smile flashed in my mind for a moment, sending shivers down my spine, before it was blow away by a massive purple-black light in the distance that shattered an entire cliff-face.
'What the fuck is it with us and new bad guys!?!?'
~~~
Meanwhile, in a Secret facility under Cheyenne Mountain...
A woman with blonde hair and blue eyes was looking over the Star Gate as SG-3 collapsed onto the off-ramp, medics and doctors sprinting into the gate-room to tend to the injured personnel.
"Captain, what's the status of the gate?" General Hammond, a bald man with an aristocratic jawline and military disposition, questioned.
"Everything is nominal sir... There were a few energy blasts that reach beyond the event horizon and were stopped by the Iris besides that nothing is wrong."
The man nodded before leaning down into a microphone that was set up amongst the complex panels that allowed for Humans to interface with the Stargate.
"I want a full debrief Colonel, once your finished in the med-bay." The man nodded up at the general before getting carried out of the room by two nurses.
"Run the general diagnostics Captain." The General stepped away and towards the stairwell at the back of the command room. Samantha Carter just nodded and set about her work, C++ and other complex computer languages being activated one after another.
It was amidst this work that something truly strange sprung up before her eyes... Causing her to cease her typing and gawk at the display before her.
"HUH!?"
Multiple technicians turned to face her all at once.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have a Patreon where you can get exclusive Discord roles, vote on Fan fiction decisions, and even suggest Extra Chapters for me to write. Join here: patreon.com/user?u=111976696.
If you'd like to further support my work, here's my PayPal: paypal.me/RBSMFF.
Feel free to join my Discord community here: https://discord.gg/wVZXpPpUQn.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------