CHAPTER 556: LOVE AND DEMONS

Mason was using his Claws to dig a tunnel towards the giant demon’s brain when something grabbed his legs. He assumed it was the thing’s tongue, and did his best to get an arm down to slash a chunk off. Then something bit him.

“Son of a bitch!”

It was more surprise than pain. He let go and dropped out of his gory path through flesh, tumbling into a demonic creature that looked like an ape made out of half melted crayon. He shoved and raked, then saw a half dozen more crawling up. Out of the demon’s throat.

So it had some kind of animal/demon, gastro-defenders. In its stomach. Or something. And they were marching up to stop him like gross little soldiers. Mason did not have that on his apocalypse-creature bingo card.

He used his elbows, forehead, and feet as much as his Claws in the shifting, narrow space. The demons hit him with big fists, always trying to sink their teeth into his limbs. Fortunately, they didn’t seem that bright. But then they did live in another creature’s stomach.

They kept biting his near invulnerable, Sleeve’d forearm like suddenly it would work. It did not.

But they sure kept him busy. There were also smaller, monkey versions coming up now. And those ones spit acid. It didn’t hurt much, but it stunk like vomit.

“I’m gonna be sick.” Mason swallowed and ripped off an ape head, throwing it at a monkey. “Seriously, fuck you guys. I’d rather be buried again.”

The monkeys were crawling up on the top of the mouth, spitting down at him while he tangled with the apes. If he was on solid ground he could have killed the bastards at twice the speed. Fighting at the back of the thing’s throat was like attacking while jumping on a wet trampoline. If the trampoline smelled like Satan’s asshole.

He considered trying his bow, but he could hardly keep his feet, let alone shoot. He had no mana left for a lightning bolt, or anything else, and had no choice but to rip the things apart as he went. He regretted all his choices.

An ape managed to bite the side of his thumb, which made him swear before he slashed the thing’s face off. When he finally had a breather he tried his bow anyway, managing to pick off a few monkeys with ridiculous, inhuman reflexes and balance.

“Would you just…can’t you see I’m trying to dig into your mom’s brain?”

Some acid got in his mouth as he talked, and he spit and fought a dry heave. He deserved it, that was the truth. Mostly he was just glad Carl wasn’t there.

He switched to shooting apes until he lost his balance, then went back to the Claws. He killed three, six, ten more apes. But they just kept coming. When he glanced back at the hole he’d been digging, he was pretty sure the thing was closing. Did Demon-zilla fucking regenerate?

“This is getting…ridiculous.” He smashed another crayon ape into oblivion with a haymaker, then ripped the creature behind it open from chin to waist with his Claws. “I’m not going down into a worm stomach. Not again. Not doing it.”

He went to rake the next when Demon-zilla must have jumped, or fallen, or something. The demons all latched onto the cheeks with practiced skill. Mason lifted off his feet despite his ‘heavy’ boots, flying backward, scrambling to grab anything.

With no other option, he dug his Claws into the long, flexible tongue. It thrashed and clobbered him from side to side, then stretched and darted out like a disgusting red carpet in some old cartoon, carrying him straight out of its mouth.

He held on, but the thing bounced and threw him a hundred feet up and down in a second. The same moment he realized he should have dropped his boot-weight, his Claws ripped right through the tongue, sending him soaring off in a shower of ichor.

The shake-up inside the mouth, at least, made more sense. He fell about half the distance he expected, smashing into the ground with a grunt. One of the demon’s legs must have given out.

Mason’s danger-sense screamed, and he got up and dove just before one of the thing’s huge claws smashed into the rock where he’d been standing. It was roaring and spitting blood, thrashing as it tried to get back up as he rolled and scrambled to its side.

He blinked in confusion as he ran head-long into something metallic. Also, it was ticking. He thought he saw Becky running off carrying Lodie’s scooter. After way too much time spent staring, his brain screamed: ‘bomb, do something’.

He activated his long-neglected Shield Gem, seeing the bomb through a blue tinge as he held it forward. Was it a second? Two? Time felt very slow.

And you couldn’t trust goblins. Maybe the stupid bomb wouldn’t go off at all. He dropped the weight of his boots down to nothing, just in case, hoping maybe if he didn’t weigh much the force of the thing wouldn’t…

It exploded.

**

Demi watched as her volcanic allies ripped out of the rock. A half dozen elementals the size of monster trucks grabbed at the lizard-demon’s legs, or started swatting or stomping the smaller ones.

They weren’t just big brutes. She sensed the natural power radiating off them, earth magic surrounding them with auras that grasped at their enemies and interfered with other powers and spells. She shivered at the alien feeling of having summoned something so powerful.

Demonic magic and weapons bounced off the elementals from every direction. The stone creatures didn’t look impressed. They crushed and flung, battered and pulverized. Three of them crashed into the huge demon’s legs and rooted themselves, gripping it from moving forward.

The struggle was violent, brutal, and short. The demon screeched and stumbled, smashing one of the elementals to pieces with his head and a shoulder before collapsing to one side.

The players near Demi cheered.

“Those Mason’s?” shouted Carl, appearing just ahead of a tower. “What the fuck is even happening right now?”

“No,” said Alex the Russian, giving Demi a nod. “They are hers.”

Carl blinked and stared, then whistled.

“That’s some hell of a power, little lady. Glad you’re on our team.” With that he warped off or just vanished, and Demi couldn’t help but smile.

For a moment she felt things were in hand—they were safe. Until something exploded with so much light she closed her eyes and screamed. A noise like the loudest thunder Demi had ever heard boomed and echoed around the cavern. Her ears rang, and a feeling like a physical wave of hot air pushed against her face.

Pain shivered down her body. She had a hand to her stomach and expected to find some piece of shrapnel lodged in her side. But it wasn’t her. It was Mason.

Her divine title was flashing and she could feel his suffering. Players and goblins were shouting and pointing and scurrying around. But she didn’t care why or what happened. All she knew was that Mason was hurt. Badly. And she had to find him.

She activated Floating Bloom, letting her magic fly freely, telling the mountain what she wanted.

Help me. Help me find him and protect him.

Then she activated Bloom Cloud, and her physical form blew apart into the mana it really was—the natural energy that could bend and shape and re-shape if only you knew how.

A gust of air from the bottom of the cave carried her past the others, past the ignorant flying demons, and away from the battlefield.

She found him at the edge of the cavern, hundreds of feet from the bomb she knew had gone off right next to him. He was twisted and lying horribly, totally still on the ground.

She re-formed beside him, one hand to her mouth as she tried but failed to touch him. She had no idea where.

“Mason?” she whispered, afraid even he couldn’t survive such an injury. She activated Chloro-Reform, her healing power, which at least didn’t just ‘fail’. She took a breath as she saw little spores growing out of his mangled body.

He made a sound. Maybe even said

something. He was alive! She lowered herself to hear, and he said it again. It sounded like ‘flip me’. She took a deep breath and fought the shudder of terror, but she did as he asked. It was like moving a CPR dummy.

Mason’s face was black, his eyes a bloody ruin. Blood leaked down his ears and nose and mouth. He looked up at her and fucking smiled.

“That’s better. Did we win?”

She blinked, mind not working.

“What…are you…”

“I’m fine. Well, not fine. My spine shattered. I’ll need a minute. Maybe a few minutes. Is the thing dead?”

“We…” Demi swallowed bile. “It’s…”

“And who set off that fucking bomb? I’m gonna kick their ass. Unless it worked. Did it work?”

Demi looked at the absolute state of the ‘battlefield’ and shook her head. The huge demon was down and being beaten by the surviving elementals. The players had advanced and were now hitting it on the ground, too. The smaller demons were scattering.

“I think…I think we’re winning.”

Mason groaned, his face twitching as his neck rolled.

“Hurray. I can feel something again.” He said it with no enthusiasm whatsoever. “Can you help me up to see? And maybe wipe some…oh wait, I got it.”

Mason’s spine cracked and popped as he lifted a hand to wipe his face. Demi shivered and looked away, grossed out and concerned and maybe impressed in some really freaky cocktail. She took deep breaths and tried not to throw up.

“Don’t you do it,” he said, watching her. “If you do it I’ll do it. And I really don’t wanna puke right now.”

“OK.” Demi was pretty sure she made a face, but she kept breathing like she was giving birth. “I’m not good with this much blood. Especially yours.”

“Demi, keep it together.”

“How are you comforting me right now? You’re like a rubber toy…with bone sticking out. Oh Jesus.”

Mason’s body kept on popping and cracking as he twisted himself back into shape. Demi closed her eyes, and she flinched when Mason put a hand under her chin. His eyes were healed, and he’d splashed some water on his face from her flask. He winked at her.

“Mason,” she said, swallowing and licking her lips. “You’re the toughest person I’ve ever met in my life.” He grinned.

“Well. You’re one of the two sexiest women in this demon cave.”

Demi couldn’t help but snort with a laugh, rolling her eyes before throwing her arms around her man.

“You had me worried,” she whispered. “I felt…I don’t even know. It felt terrible

.”

“It wasn’t great. But you get used to it.”

Yeah. He was still comforting her, and she felt tears as she just pressed herself against his chest and sniffled. It was a long day. It was a long few months. And despite all the insanity, just sitting there in Mason’s arms somehow made everything better.

“I don’t think I’d make it without you,” she whispered, fighting the sob. “I don’t want to go back.”

He pulled her back to meet her eyes, still smiling despite the fact that she could see he was in agony—could smell it radiating out of his still-broken body.

“Where you’re Gaia, I’m Gaius, right? You won’t get rid of me so easy.”

She crushed herself against him again and closed her eyes, not wanting to move no matter what was happening in the cave. Mason’s hand-claws slid down to her ass.

“Are you kidding me,” she mumbled.

“Well I’m not dead. And there’s no food around. And I can’t fight yet. And it’s right there.”

“My caveman,” she said with a sigh. Eventually she turned and looked over at the battle with Mason in her arms, and realized it was over.

The big demon was down and still, the smaller creatures all fleeing or dead. She saw a message about the dead demon, but nothing about the end of the raid.

“Not over yet?”

Mason shook his head.

“The demon is talking to me. Actually I think it is over, we just have some clean up boring shit. Also I think there was a much safer, easier way to handle all this. We chose violence.”

“You always choose violence,” Demi mumbled, squeezing herself deeper into his arms.

“You really do love me, don’t you?” he said. She opened an eye to give a ‘isn’t that obvious?’ kind of glare.

“Smelling my spores again?”

“No. I’m just covered in unmentionable demon goo, my own blood, and I’m half wolf. And you’re still hugging me.”

“Yeah,” she said, after a pause. Because he was right. She didn’t care at all.

Mason eventually stood with another series of pops and cracks, somehow able to lift her with him. He sighed and slapped her ass in typical Mason fashion, and all she wanted was to find a nice pool of water and get him all cleaned up…

“OK,” he said, kissing her hair. “Let’s go make sure everyone’s safe. Then we’ll go.”

“We?” she said, trying not to read into it. “And go where?”

“Back to Nassau,” he said, smiling like he knew what she was thinking. “Through the fey. May as well bring you along. I doubt it’s a problem for the Avatar of Gaia.”

She crushed into him again, and he laughed and hugged her back. He was right. She loved him in a way she could hardly believe, especially considering the timeframe.

She knew a half dozen other women loved him, too. And that the way she felt was maybe embarrassing and put him squarely in charge of so much of her life.

But she just didn’t care. She loved him, and she trusted him. And…damn that stupid title…wherever he went, she wanted to go too.

He let her take as long as she wanted, relaxed now as he looked around the cave, those green, cunning eyes always assessing, always watching. Like even now he expected the real challenge was about to arrive.

It made her feel safe and calm. Like she could relax. Like it was taken care of. Eventually they walked back towards the others, his big hand holding hers the whole way.

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