Chapter 45: Here She Goes Again
Betsy thought she did well. For a while, Vargas let her get her hits and sometimes even looked like he reeled on his heels. She thought her enhanced speed kept him off-balance and away from his sword. She thought her strength hurt him. She thought she was a worthy adversary.
She thought wrong.
The high of battle made her lose track of where she was. If she stopped to look, she would’ve noticed a lack of demons attacking either she or Vargas. She would’ve noticed Belasco’s aura close by. Her fist struck Vargas’ jaw but instead of budging, he snared her hand.
Wonder snuck into his voice. “What manner of beast are you? I killed you. Your fate is sealed...”
The psychic knife flared to life in her other hand. “Guess what? I got better.”
This was how the scene was suppose to go: Betsy would turn Vargas into a drooling vegetable, pry his sword from his clammy hands, shove it into his gut, do a little dance (maybe the Electric Slide or, God forbid, the Macarena), and rejoice.
Uhh, no. This was how the scene really went.
Two distinct varieties of pain crossed Betsy’s eyes. The first: him crushing her hand in his grasp. Given how the man could go toe-to-toe with Rogue and win, this simple attack hurt a whole lot. It was a hot pain, one which made itself known immediately and repeatedly, one that pulsed with a heart all its own. The second: him lodging his sword between her breasts. Now this pain, this was an icy, “death becomes you” pain, the one that didn’t make itself known because the body failed to realize it’s been skewered. After the iciness passed, her nerves disintegrated themselves in a concerted crescendo of desperate, fatal pain.
Vargas twisted the blade and ripped it out her side so it cleaved her already stilled heart in two.
Muted, Betsy gaped in horror. It couldn’t end like this, not again. For all her demonic traits and regained powers, she wasn’t enough to even make this an interesting fight. Like last time, he looked at her, shrugged, and tore her to pieces without breaking a sweat.
Adding insult to injury, he pushed a finger against her head and toppled her over. “You cannot escape your fate.”
Boom, boom, boom rocked the landscape as Betsy bounced against the ground. She couldn’t move--probably something important got severed--but she could see, hear, and feel. She saw Belasco emerge from the tower of flames, devilish grin on his face and not a speck of dirt on his golden clothing. Although dying howls in the air, he appeared unconcerned. Her inner demon salivated and strained for release. Bolstered by the dancing fires, her shadows took on lives of their own while darkness ooze out of her gaping wound like living blood.
And she heard laughter.
Belasco’s grating laughter. “You,” he pointed at Vargas, “You are the one who stems the tide of my minions.” Slitted eyes darted at Betsy’s mangled body. “You also defeated that parody of the Braddock child. I am impressed.”
*Emma, where are you?*
No answer. If only Emma was here, she could... she could...
Despite Belasco’s intimidating stare, despite the bombs going off, despite being surrounded by now encroaching demons, Vargas held true to his anti-“everything not homo sapiens” mantra. Front leg extended and back knee bent, his sword nestled in his steady hands and pointed at the sorcerer.
“I shall cleanse your kind from my world.”
Of the insults, bargaining, banter, questions, and declarations Belasco expected, he didn’t expect a self-confident threat, especially the one he heard. Most would’ve been cringing and blabbering, especially these weak willed mortals, but this mortal not only talked, he talked like one about to continue running roughshod over the best his hellish Otherworld had to offer.
That, Belasco sneered, wasn’t happening. The ones he destroyed were only shades; the others here were more intelligent, hearty, and fearsome than any amalgam of appendages dispatched thus far. Magic flinging imps, hypnotic succubae, elemental shamans, and gruesome flayers charged, the ground shaking like an earthquake hit.
Trees fell. Dust kicked up. Sidewalks cracked. Everything from shrill cries to bluish energies converged on Vargas, but he remained still, and soon, obscured by debris, blood, and bodies, he disappeared.
Before feet trampled Betsy to unrecognizable pieces, a crushing, disembodied force hauled her into the air over the stampeding horde. It rose her high enough to see the endless sea of demons moving into Manhattan streets, spreading as only a disease could, one avenue at a time. At the center of this cancer: the red portal and the lone, unidentifiable figure floating in it.
The ground came rushing back, but it stopped and left her inches from Belasco.
Betsy would’ve shuddered if she could--the demon in her jumped for joy at Master’s call.
“Stubborn,” the magnus grinned, “I remember you well, my pretty thing. You brought me endless days of entertainment with your staunch refusal to fight against your brother. I take great pride in knowing I broke such a powerful spirit as you. Look at you: a mortal wound hewed into your chest yet you hold the darkness away. Why? Because you know if you so much as lose a slip of your control, the pitiful semblance of your former existence will be wiped out by the basest needs of your new physical vessel.”
Stubborn,” Belasco repeated, running his palm around the unmarred side of her curvaceous body.
“I like stubborn.”
A hand pulled her closer. “I do not need to know how you resisted my beckoning or regained your will. All I know is that you will be mine once again. You will bow to me and call me Master: it happened before and it will come to pass again. Perhaps you need a refresher on our splendid time together.”
The mental barriers and hazy memories surrounding her afterlife renewed themselves, every burn, every cut, every torturous moment. She remembered talking to Bishop, then a crushing hand wrenching her spirit away from heaven and straight into hell. No, it wasn’t hell because hell didn’t cover everything. Whatever Dante saw in his Inferno amounted to a vacation in Belasco’s realm.
Let’s just say that the only thing worse than an inescapable hell was an escapable one. Why? Because the prospect of escape gave a woman hope, and day in, day out, that hope died a slow, terrible death. No escape, then no hope to crush, but Belasco dangled the many exits before her and dared her to reach them. She failed, and the torture went on with a new ferocity each time. Her existence blurred into an unending tragedy, and piece by piece, her sanity escaped.
The Shadow King escaped, and then even her spirit wasn’t her own.
Betsy tried to brave the avalanche of her ghosts, but one too many excruciating remembrances slipped past her resolve, and from there, more followed. Her inner demon smashed into her consciousness and a numb, muted darkness swallowed her soul.
Inky tendrils she dammed burst forth. Wet rips rose above the commotion of war. Even so far away, she felt her body heal itself... feed itself...
Meat. Meat of demons.
*Emma!*
No answer. Desperate, afraid, and now healed, her voice returned.
Hunger. Hunger for destruction.
“EMMA!”
No answer. She wanted to cry, but another voice broke through.
“M... Mas... Master...”
Belasco laughed. From one of his many pouches, he produced a leash attached to an engraved hook. The sharp end lodged itself between Betsy’s shoulder blades; bony hands collapsed her to her knees.
“You belong to me.”
A final, painful tug of the leash extinguished the last embers of rebellion.
“Prove yourself worthy and you will keep your life.”
An inhuman roar called to the night. Bloodshot eyes peered about like a newborn’s watching the world for the first time. Fangs protruded and claws lengthened. Saliva pooled at the ground. Elisabeth Braddock receded, and in her place stood something less than human but more than demon.
“Take me to the ones you call X-Men.”
The obedient hound fumbled for traces of those its host befriended. It couldn’t find this Emma person, but it did sense the one called Brian.
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- To be continued...
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