V A Case of Incidental Vengeance (Unmaking Quest - A Swarm of Locusts)

[King Ghidorah]

Above me the vaulted stone ceiling glitters, lit by a jagged petrified river of massive luminescent sapphires which winds the entire length of the cavern. It is a singular sight, a mineral formation of ten-thousand uneven facets, rippling deposits of flawless azure crystal forming a serpentine mockery of flowing water. That spectacle is as nothing, however, next to the banquet laid out before me.

I stand, glittering golden-green in the dim blue light, upon the lip of an escarpment, a geological discontinuity in the granite floor some several meters in height, and look down upon a group of seven bedraggled hominids. Dressed in ragged uniform jumpsuits and sturdy helmets, heavy gloves and heavier boots, they are filthy, wounded, and to my deprived sensibilities utterly beautiful: It has been many hours since I killed something which the universe might actually miss, snuffed the flame of a life which had not already been ruined by Darkseid’s taint.

I think I shall take my time; perhaps these latest victims may teach me something new about this diseased little planet. Though my indefatigable body has already recovered from my most recent trials in magnificent fashion, some recreation is most definitely in order.

These people have not noticed me yet, though I loom above them in glory both majestic and terrible – they are too focused on each-other, tending to their wounds or participating in some petty disagreement. Discarded tools, augers, energy projectors and overbuilt drills lie scattered around their feet.

“I’m telling you” says the largest, a male I believe, with bony protrusions upon his brows and chin, “We need to go back! Even forgetting about the damn sapphires, do you know what they could do with that equipment? If they get the big drills working, let alone the sonic bore -”

The one he is addressing is considerably smaller, their face almost entirely concealed by meticulously groomed masses of hair. They do not seem pleased by his assertions.

“Are ye out of your simple little mind? Go back and do what, exactly? There’s two bloody dozen of them, and we’re not exactly fresh as daisies now are we!”

“Will you two please,” says another, seated with their back against the escarpment and cradling their helmeted head in their hands, “Shut up!”

‘No,’ I hiss, projecting my words into the minds of all present, ‘Please. Continue.’

As one, they jerk in surprise. As one, they look up and see perfect golden terror backlit in sapphire blue.

‘I would like to know more. Two dozen of what? What has caused you all such distress?’

With the barest twitch of my powerful legs, I leap, alighting amongst them with barely a sound. They scramble away from my point of impact, their heavy footwear scraping loudly upon the moist rock. There are exclamations of surprise, of fear, but no answers are forthcoming. Undaunted, I continue.

‘What, for that matter, do you know of the corruption which afflicts this foul little world? What of its fallen soul?’

In three quick strides I grasp the short one by the beard, raise them to meet my crimson gaze and bare my multitudinous reptilian teeth. One of the others, moderate in size, its countenance simian and hairless, hastily retrieves a weapon from the moist and rocky ground.

I am in a good mood; I refuse to let it be ruined by such audacity.

Before they can even raise their pitiful accessory, let alone fire, I flick my effulgent wrist and obliterate them with a lazy arc of crackling cosmic force; The weapon, some manner of gun, explodes in their hands. Their clothing turns to ashes, their flesh to charcoal, their helmet to blackened ceramic shards as they are blown across the floor, bones scattered like dry leaves upon the stone. As the light of their life goes out, the taste of their demise is nothing short of sublime; they have left a hole in the world, and the nihilistic thrill of their passing serves more than adequately to reinvigorate my resolve.

‘What do you know of Darkseid?’

 

[King Ghidorah]

There follows a moment of stillness. Then the small one shouts, his voice somewhat muffled by my grip on his voluminous facial hair.

“What’re ye waiting for? Get the golden beasty!”

I respond by adjusting my grip, digging my claws into the front of his jumpsuit. I draw upon my well of power, a sudden storm of astral charge crackling across my gleaming form, tendrils of golden energy singeing my captive’s beard and earthing themselves in the floor of the cavern. The scent of water and stone recedes, replaced by the sour tang of ozone.

The one leaning against the escarpment, evidently the voice of reason, once again makes themselves known.

“Fucking wait! Goddammit Hank, does that seriously seem like a good idea right now? Look at him! Look what he did just did to Gabe!”

“Exactly!” screams my captive, practically frothing. I can see his eyes beneath his heavy brow, wide and black and filled with a rage that is almost respectable. “We’ve already lost too many people today and I’ll be damned if I -!”

I kill the tall one, the one with the bony facial protrusions. He is not participating, enraptured by back-and-forth and the spectacle of my presence, but I cannot help but feel that I am, on some level, being ignored; that is something I will not tolerate. I open my jaws and a bolt of cackling cosmic fury takes him full in the chest, vaporizing his clothing, boiling his flesh and shattering his bones; he proves sturdier than the last one, his body retaining its shape. Blackened, steaming flesh still clings to his fractured skeleton as he crashes to the ground in a broken heap.

The little bearded man screams incoherently and bites me on the hand. It doesn’t hurt, barely even registers as a sensation, but it does lift my spirits. Destroying such a bright little mote of life will be a true joy.

‘I am a curious creature,” I tell the five who remain. “There is much I would learn from you all – many questions I would have you answer. But I am also old, and powerful, and increasingly impatient. I will kill as many of you as it takes to focus your attention.’

A new participant speaks up. Seated upon a small boulder, they are sturdy and weathered, grey hair protruding from beneath their helmet and a freshly-applied bandage wrapped around their arm. “Well, we’re focused! So you can stop. Just… just stop. And you too, Hank – he’s obviously some kinda dragon. I don’t think anything short of a super-hardened hydraulic bit is going to actually hurt him.”

“Then pick up the one by yer feet and stab him in the goolies!” Hank screams. I ignore him, focusing instead on the elder.

’You will answer my questions?’

Bafflingly, they spit on the floor. “If it’ll stop you killing my friends, yeah.”

It won’t, of course. But there is no reason for them to know that yet. They will learn soon enough.

What follows is both fascinating and troubling in the extreme. I am informed, after much prying for further specifics, that the solar system in which I find myself, ‘The Crossroads’, is the product of a group of quasi-godlike beings known as Arbiters. They are the creators, and indeed the souls of these worlds – and the soul of this one, Inverxe, is fallen to Darkseid. My unseen antagonist is a mad renegade, I am told, previously expelled from the Arbiters’ ranks and now returned to claim dominion over all.

Vengeance, ego, and wounded pride. As a motivation for aggressive hegemony, it is woefully pedestrian.

The encroachment of Darkseid’s tasteless Anti-life is a known problem: a threat throughout the Crossroads. They call it the Unmaking – and some of its most vicious heralds are what has brought this little group to the dire straits in which I found them.

“People call them Parademons,” says the elder, spitting once more. “Not the usual unmade bullshit – they’re Darkseid’s personal foot-soldiers. The Chief says if we see them we’re supposed to drop everything and evacuate, but they hit us so damned fast. I’ve never heard of so many showing up in one place, let alone this far underground. ”

One of the other members of this little band, short and bearded like Hank and seated leaning against the elder’s perch, silently expires, their already-limp body going deathly still in the crystal-blue light. Their flame of life had been fading since the moment I became aware of it, but even so it comes as a mild surprise. In the moment, I believe that I am the only one who notices – and there are more important things which now occupy my thoughts.

Parademons. Darkseid’s personal guard. I have shattered enough armadas and crushed enough competent resistance, driven enough slave-armies across the stars to know that one does not send their elite troops to attend to menial tasks. If they are here in numbers, then disrupting their activities would no doubt further my goals.

Besides which, strategic concerns aside, they may prove more satisfying to kill than the other unmade wretches I have slain.

‘And what of yourselves?’ I ask my informants. ‘What brought you to this place? Are you prospectors? Miners?’

“We’re Rock Raiders,” says Hank. “We're who miners want to be when they grow up. And on any other day we’d have kicked yer shiny ass.”

I pause. Hank is delightful. He may have just made a pun, and the intricacies of language are one of my greatest joys. His vivacious aggression and misplaced bravery put me in mind of other acquaintances, hot-blooded opponents slaughtered in better times. However, I believe I have had my fill of him. There is, after only, only so much disrespect I can tolerate.

I raise him above my head, and I spike him into the ground with an audible crack. I do not know whether the sound is his helmet, the rock, his bones, or all three, but the glow of his life disappears from the tapestry of my cosmic senses, and he lies leaking upon the stone, a mass of blood and hair. His departure, though brief and to-the-point, is sheer bliss: such vibrancy, given way to stillness.

‘You would not have,’ I tell the two who remain. ‘I am beyond your comprehension – the ending of worlds. You should be flattered to receive such personal attention from an entity of my significance.’

The elder sighs, visibly sagging. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. I met a dragon once before, you know. Wasn’t as crazy as you, but there’s enough overlap that I’d already figured we weren’t getting out of this. Just tell me this: you going after those Parademons?”

“Wait,” says the reasonable one. “what do you mean we’re not getting out of this? We answered his questions!”

They turn to me. “We answered your questions! You said you’d –“

I stride forward and stomp their head into the wall with such overwhelming force that my foot sinks into the face of the escarpment almost to the ankle. Their skull provides almost no resistance, but I can feel the stone behind it crumble and fracture, grinding between my toes. Crimson blood leaks from the resulting footprint, flooding over the front of my victim’s jumpsuit as the body twitches.

Part of me wishes I had taken the time to learn more about them, specifically, but even so the spectacle of their demise makes my spirit sing. And after all, I do have more urgent matters to attend to. I turn to face the one who yet remains.

‘Darkseid and his hackneyed little apocalypse are an offense to any who would rightly claim the title of Destroyer. What use is a ruin with no tale to tell? Yes, I will kill the Parademons – and anything else that I should happen to meet along my way.’

Bizarrely, gazing upon the burned and broken ruins of their companions, the elder begins to chuckle.

‘That’s actually a better outcome from this shit-show than I was expecting. Even before you got here, we were all but done: the others just hadn’t accepted it yet. But hey, this way either they’ll kill you or you’ll kill them – so I get to die knowing someone I hate is going down. And they killed more people I like than you did, and you also killed someone I kinda couldn’t stand, so I guess I’m rooting for you.’

They point with their good arm. “There’s a fissure at that end of this cavern, 'round right-hand edge of the wall. It’s opens out wide, and its about a kilometer long, but if you follow it down you’ll find the chamber we were excavating when it all went to hell.”

The elder grins, and takes off their helmet. Their hair is longer than I had thought: freed from the protective shell, it tumbles around their shoulders. Impishly, they grin at me.

“I don’t suppose you’ve got a cigar on you before I go?”

I backhand them upside the head, and the power of my blow knocks the skull from atop their neck in an explosion of bone and blood.

2077/5000 words total thus far

 

[King Ghidorah]

My path forward is precisely where I was told it would be – a narrow, jagged fissure in the far wall of the cavern, almost hidden by the dim web of crystal illumination and complex shadows. I squeeze through into the throat of the crevice – and behold a gauntlet. The claustrophobic gap opens onto the floor of a subterranean canyon. Had I my proper stature it would barely accommodate the width of one of my toes, but with circumstances as they are it makes a serviceable throughfare. The ground is covered in broken slabs of uneven grey stone, descending into the hazy distance at a shallow angle between walls that are jagged and not quite vertical, sloping inward ever so slightly, meeting each other somewhere far above. A horizontal forest of massive quartzes stretches between them, opaque crystal buttresses of pale blue and green braced between the walls like the uneven skyways of an ancient, petrified city. Seams of glowing sapphire gleam within the floor, lighting my path in shades of blue.

All of that, of course, is merely geology. What has captured my attention is what is growing on it.

It would be innocuous if it were not so out of place: little patches of greenery, nearly black in the azure glow. Bushes and shrubs are present, tucked behind boulders and sprouting from cracks within the stone floor, lichens and creeping ivy clinging to the walls. They are tasteless and grey in the glare of my astral awareness, a surface-level symptom of the unmade rot which waits within the walls. The path appears deserted, but I am not so easily fooled.

Nor, however, am I easily deterred.

I take off at loping run, surefootedly striding from one crumbling slab to the next, leaping over fallen quartzes the size of my own body as I charge headlong down the canyon slope.

I make it barely one hundred meters before I am challenged once again by the Arbiter’s chicanery.

From amidst the canopy of crystal crossbeams they descend, dropping upon my shoulders and clawing at my face – tiny simians of living quartz, their angular bodies glowing red from within as they grasp and claw and bite. I pull one from my face and crush it in my palm, producing a handful of soft silicate gravel and a clatter of falling sand. I catch another beneath my foot and I grind it into the floor. I slam back-first into the wall, crushing three more between the rock-face and the much harder surface of my unyielding body; I catch the last between my jaws as it claws futilely at the undeveloped draconic head which forms my left shoulder and I bite down hard.

Brak!

Predictably, the little creature tastes like sand. Spitting shards of quartz and now thoroughly annoyed, I turn to continue on my way – only to discover that the vegetation which lines this crevice is now growing rapidly, forming vines and tendrils studded with crystal thorns.

I growl, raising my hands, and with a grim lack of enthusiasm I stalk forward, lashing the floor and walls with molten, forking tongues of cosmic energy. The unnatural growth is driven before me, scattered and burned

The sand in my mouth has more flavour than this busywork. Roots and tendrils erupt periodically from the uneven slabs beneath my feet, attempting to restrain me in what I am sure is intended to be a strategic move, but although they possess a certain amount of strength they lack the durability to be more than a momentary inconvenience. I tear free, and I continue on, ever downward. Blasting glowing trenches in the stone and leaving a trail of burnt and riven unmade greenery, I make it another two hundred meters along the canyon floor before the banality of slogging my way through the Arbiter’s latest unmade obstacles begins to wear upon my nerves in earnest – just in time for something genuinely interesting to happen.

 

[King Ghidorah]

The ground rumbles, and a scintillating shower of crystal flakes rains down from above amidst a breaking-glass tinkle and one thunderous crack after another; Bits of fractured stone clatter down the walls. As the tremor subsides, I reign in my astral fury, the sudden absence of the searing amber-white flash of my power jarring to the eyes, and, overtaken by a sudden apprehension amidst the return of the placid sapphire illumination, I look up.

A crystalline agglomeration looks back.

Several stories above, amidst broken crystal causeways, truncated quartz columns entwined in vegetative fiber in rough imitation of a humanoid form brace themselves between the walls. Four prismatic protruberances form the limbs, cracked at the joints and bound together by a web of roots and vines. A trio of fractured prismatic columns form the trunk, cradled in thick fronds of verdant pseudo-musculature, with a massive broken geode, a many-faceted concave violet hemisphere, glittering in manifold mockery of a face. The thing must be three times my size, possibly more – and no sooner have I seen it than it relaxes its grip upon the walls.

I attempt to spring clear of its plunging form - I should have plenty of time. However, a thick root streaked with motes of sapphire erupts from the stone floor, catching me around the waist with an audible smack just as my feet leave the ground. I am pulled back, caught flat footed – and have just enough time for a disgusted grunt of understanding before I am punched by a three-tonne slab of broken quartz.

It knocks me unconscious – it must have, for the next I know I am embedded in a shallow crater of shattered stone, bound by roots, looking up at the raised leg of a titan of crystal and vine as it prepares to trample me. The metallic reek of my own blood fills my muzzle, nose and mouth both.

There is not time for thought – only rage.

My eyes narrow, unfocused, and a serrated stream of cosmic power bursts from my throat, erupting from between my predatory jaws in a cloud of evaporating silver ichor and a shower of broken teeth. The crystalline limb crack beneath my astral onslaught, fractures as a sustained stream of gravitic lightning drills into its core, and as it plunges towards my face, blows apart in a shower of multifaceted shards. Abruptly absent a leg, the arbiter’s golem overbalances, and once more the subterranean canyon shakes as the creature tumbles to the floor. The sound is almost nostalgic – it could have been one of my footsteps, in better times.

I try to focus, but everything seems strangely distant – I have that sensation again, that I am watching myself do things from somewhere outside. Fortunately, the immediate situation calls only for brute force. I attempt to tear free of my bindings, roots and vines encircling my arms and chest, crawling up my legs.

Snap.

Snap.

Crk-crack!

With a mighty heave, my left arm is free. I rip the bindings from my chest, burn the offending vegetation from my legs in a blaze of golden fury. The full force of my own power stings terribly, but I am dizzy and distant, angry and in pain, too distracted for subtlety. As I rise, swaying unsteadily, I turn to face the construct which ambushed me – and see that it has managed to kneel, facing away from me, using its remaining leg.

It truly is, relatively speaking, massive, its shoulders of knotted plant-matter measuring almost half the breadth of the crevice. The golem’s central trunk looks to have been damaged by the fall, massive cracks running through the crystal columns.

I take a moment to collect myself, allowing my healing abilities to do their work, feeling the horrible itch of my teeth growing back, the strain and snap of my jaw realigning itself. The world begins to become a little bit less abstract.

The golem’s geode cranium turns fully around to face me, the verdant tendrils which support it creaking audibly as they twist, and a prismatic blast of violet coherent light erupts from the manifold facets of its interior, shrieking as it strikes me full in the chest.

Breeeeeen

It burns, but it is a strictly optical attack. Violent purple energy refracts off my shining chest, beams of backscattered laser-light tracing scorch-marks on the granite walls and fractured floor; Still unsteady I backstep, raising my arms to shield my face, almost stumbling on the uneven ground, but there is next to no actual impact from the blast, only the sizzling metallic scent of my scorching scales.

After what seems like far too long, the attack subsides. My golden chest is tarnished and blackened, my scales trailing wisps of smoke.

I feel a vine wrap around my ankle.

Enough of this.

I have regained enough presence of mind to fully draw upon the well of my power, and the fact that this puppet has managed to injure me as badly as it has demands to be answered in definitive terms.

My jaws, still stiff, open wide; astral charge sparks within my throat, rises dancing its arcing patterns across my brow, my chest, arcing to ground from my knees and heels, from the tips of my clawed talons. I raise my hands, outstretch my effulgent arms, and in front of myself I trace a circle; I define a lens of golden gravity. It hangs in the air, shimmering – and through its centre I fire a three-fold blast, hands and throat erupting as one.

The result is almost worthy of my former glory; the bolt spans the breadth of the canyon, an arc of golden lightning fit to shame a sun. Over the course of moments the golem is broken, shattered and scattered, blown to flinders and sand. The way I have come is ravaged, the walls left melted and smoking, the floor fused into a blackened avenue shot with veins of dully glowing molten sapphire. In the silence which follows, amidst the crack of and tinkle of rapidly cooling stone, several of the overhead crystal crossbeams break off and shatter upon the riven ground with a discordant crash.

I place a hand upon one side of my jaw, and I push until my vertebrae realign with a relieving crack. I have thwarted another attempt to stop me, and there is some small satisfaction in that. But by all the gods I’ve eaten, the lack of substance to these unmade opponents is nothing less than appalling.

3766/5000 words
Ghidorah used 1 point of focus to make a big-boy lightning

 

[King Ghidorah]

I walk the remainder of the underground path with caution, my talons scraping gently upon the granite. I keep a wary eye out for attacks from above, but encounter little in the way of serious resistance: There is more animate vegetation, and more of the little crystal simians, but nothing on the order of the make-shift golem whose sudden assault proved so unexpectedly forceful. I dispatch them with flashing lightning and crippling scorn. By the time I reach the end of my road, I have almost fully recovered, the only outward sign of my trials some lingering streaks of blackened scale upon my gleaming chest.

The meandering fissure opens out onto a plateau overlooking an underground ampitheatre: an uneven, roughly hemispherical space the size of a stadium with a series of terraces carved into the ground, descending into a levelled central pit.

Every graven surface, every fold of ancient black stone, is shot through with forking veins of sapphire. As with the other crystal deposits I have encountered here, it is lit from within by some unknown quirk of the local geology, illuminating the space with a placid blue glow.

Although the cavern may have originally been a natural formation, it has obviously been heavily altered by intelligent hands. The terraces are lined with metal scaffolding, railings and catwalks connecting prefabricated plastic structures and enormous industrial fixtures of arcane purpose. Stairways extend upward along the walls, connecting further walkways, lifts and pulleys. Huge machines bristling with conical drill-bits and mechanical armature of arcane function rest upon caterpillar treads several stories high, parked along the terraces or half-concealed within tunnels they have evidently been used to dig. Within the central pit, a gantry crane constructed of enormous steel beams straddles a rail-system, the track of which vanishes into a darkened tunnel nearby, and a complicated machine of unknown function, all pipes and cables, gears, belts and grinders. The crane’s jaws dangle above the top of the mysterious device: a hopper fit to swallow a small aircraft filled with enormous uncut gemstones.

There are no corpses, which I think is odd. I was led to believe that many had fallen here. Even from my perch on high, even over the scent of pulverized rock, electrical current and oiled machinery, I can smell spilled blood and the lingering tang of plasma-fire. There are tools and weapons scattered about the terraces, complicated drills and hand-held energy projectors, but of their wielders I can see no sign.

At first, I do not see the parademons. Then, as one, they open their eyes, and every dark corner, every shadowed surface stares at me through baleful, round red lenses.

There are, as I was told, dozens of them. Perhaps as many as fifty. These creatures are shorter than I, though only just, their flesh grey, their form simian. They wear black mechanized armor, segmented helmets and chestplates, armlets and greaves, leaving only their fanged mouths and muscular upper arms exposed. They begin to stir, and from within the segmented bands of their chestplates an orange glow begins to shimmer. As they peel away from the walls I note that they appear to have wings, reminiscent of an insect writ large, though whether that is the armor or their own biology I cannot say. Some of them wield spears, long and wickedly barbed. Some of them carry energy rifles of a make which I have never before encountered; All of them seem to be waiting for somethinI take a step forward, craning my neck and peering deeper into the pit – and I almost do not spot the parademon descending upon me from above, wings buzzing like leaves in a hurricane and a black spear clutched in his armored grip.

The creature screams; I step forward and to the side, take hold of the parademon’s weapon as it whispers past my gleaming flank and use it to pull the thing closer, altering the trajectory and momentum of its dive just enough to bring it in range of my waiting claws. It plunges directly into my grasp, its body jerking as it is brought to an abrupt halt by my mighty hand upon its neck. I squeeze, and am intrigued to discover it is too strong for me to simply remove its head. The creature swings a fist, striking me upside the head with its free hand. The blow rings like a bell, powerful enough for me to feel it, for the impact to turn my face aside, but not enough to evoke any meaningful pain.

These parademons are durable and they are strong – but I have fought stronger opponents since awakening to this diminished life, far stronger even within the past hour, and durability is relative.

I demonstrate; I release the parademon’s weapon, grasp its leg, and, gripping the misshapen pawn by throat and thigh, with a surge of savage strength I break its armoured body across my knee! The sound is cacophonous, a metallic shriek and an organic, meaty snap. Neon green blood fountains from between its pointed, rotten teeth, and the orange light shining within its chest flares and turns dim.

The creature’s companions shriek as one in an empty pantomime of rage, a throaty mechanical roar of challenge and accusation. As one, they open fire. Searing fist-sized bolts of twilight energy trace comet-trails across the cavern, blasting glowing divots in the rocky walls. The projectiles burst on impact, almost liquid as they splashes against my burnished bronze body, unable to harm me in any significant way, but scoring blackened blemishes across the shining surface of my armoured hide. I can feel their impact, their tingling heat, almost enough to burn.

There are dozens of these creatures. As much as I despise the concession, in my present state they must be acknowledged. It is not impossible that they could injure me: I should exercise some slight degree of caution.

With that in mind, I raise my victim’s twitching form in front of me, using its broken body as a shield as I leap into the cavern. It jerks in my grip, its armor rapidly failing as blast after molten rifle-blast tears it pieces, the body turning to gore and ash in my hands – just in time for two of its fellows to crash into me as I arc towards the cavern floor, bearing me away on a horizontal arc. A spear shrieks a trail of crimson sparks across my ribs, scoring my scales but failing to penetrate; grey hands scrabble at my flesh, attempt to restrain me. A pale stony face with blazing red eyes screams incoherently mere inches from my muzzle.

I scream back, a bolt of cosmic lightning erupting from my jaws. The parademon’s headgear glows, melts, the crimson lenses shattering as the flesh is blasted away from its blackened skull. I sweep its limp body aside as we tumble through the air and grasp the spear-wielder by its weathered face – at which point we collide with the gantry.

Klang

Crunch

Krack!

We bounce off one of the device’s massive metal struts and tumble into the hopper, landing hard atop gems and ore. The creature is stunned; I am not. As it attempts to rise I bring my taloned foot down against the back of its head, crumpling its re-enforced skull against a sapphire the size of my chest.

There is a moment, as happens during most of the fights I have been involved in, where I can feel the momentum of the battle shift decisively, unfairly in my favor. I am standing atop the ore hopper, shielded from attacks from above by the gantry and looking out over the cavern floor. My enemies know where I am – the crimson lenses of their headgear are fixed unblinkingly upon me, their mindless attention unbreakable. But though they are vicious, they are equally stupid. The parademons are still catching up with events, repositioning, taking aim, altering their tactics – leaving me free to seize the initiative.

Astral charge crackles and pulses: Across my scales, down my arms, within the depths of my throat – but I do not unleash it. Instead I hold it close, bolstering my glorious golden form, hardening my body and liberating me from any concern of my safety.

Gossamer amber light, ghostly and gleaming, rises from my scales and refracts from the unrefined gemstones upon which I stand; gold and sapphire blue blend into sickly green. Haunted by a verdant aurora, I shine.

What follows is a sheer massacre.

With my body wreathed in the light of my power and astral charge coursing through my hide I am utterly impervious to the parademons’ attacks. Darkseid’s minions flood over the side of my perch in a wave of chittering madness, clutching at my body, attempting to overwhelm me; I rage and I roar and I rend: stomping feet, saurian teeth and grasping claws amidst the golden flash of my astral anger and the shriek of tortured black metal. They swoop in from the sides, weaving between the support beams of the gantry, leading with their spears; The weapons flex and splinter against my unyielding flesh, and in the moment of distraction that follows I grasp my attackers by the chestplate and I dash their bodies upon the rocks, blast them point-blank with spiralling aurelian energies. They hang back, firing their weapons; I rake their ranks with sheets of golden lightning, scoring great molten gashes in the stone and steel around us as cosmic power leaps and arcs; Wings melted and armor smoking, the vile arquebusiers tumble to the earth, crippled. I blast them again, sweeping their scorched and hobbled forms with a tide of saffron astral fury.

The hopper overflows with green blood and grey body-parts, broken armor and molten slag. I stand, a lone King, naked perfection against the chittering hoard: The gantry becomes my palanquin, the pile of uncut gemstones my throne. I defend it with a zeal that befits my cosmic station, savage and shining, by limb and by lightnng. I blast them and break them, tear the armor from bodies and flesh from their bones, until finally I turn from my latest kill, power blazing behind my eyes and green gore dripping from my gleaming claws - and find that none are left to face me.

The deceptively soft light of my transcendent invulnerability fades, and there is a moment of weariness as the energies buttressing my body retreat – but it is outweighed by a glow of satisfaction. Empty the parademons may be, their lives, such as they are, meaningless, but there is something to be gleaned from the destruction of a tool, and they are deliberate enough instruments that I can take some simple pleasure in ruining them. More significantly, however, there was doubtless a purpose to their presence here – a task they were intended to accomplish, and one which required some dozens of them. That task will now go unfinished, and some element of Darkseid’s foul tapestry incomplete.

I bare my teeth in savage satisfaction and execute an arcing leap to the cavern floor, landing with knees bent amidst the blasted corpses of those erstwhile foes who attempted to engage me at range. I turn and extend my hands, subject the gantry to my crackling fury , raking it with golden lightning until with a great rending squeal and a devastating crash the support struts give way. It caves in atop the ore-hopper in a cloud of dust and a mass of twisted metal; The deep-throated bell-tone of steel striking hardened steel echoes through the cavern. The winch-housing breaks free as the structure collapses, tumbles through the air, slamming into the rock not two meters from where stand in a spray of pulverized granite.

It is far more satisfying than killing the parademons, though not moreso than thwarting Darkseid.

As a celebration of my latest victory, I think I shall have to break the rest of this equipment.

5746/5000 words. That is wordcount!
Ghidorah used 1 point of focus to charge himself with cosmic energy and bolster his already-hefty durability