Larry Correia - Monster Hunter Vendetta

Oh God. I'm scared.

The whole universe moved. It was the Dread Master blinking. A yellow slit appeared through the red. It was looking at me.

Time wasn't right, but at the same time I could see a million years in the past, and a million years into the future, and in other directions into dimensions that I couldn't comprehend, and I was going to die repeatedly through all of them, forever. This epic thing honestly believed that I was the first mortal being to ever harm it. I just knew that this being had waged millennia of war between stars against things even more diabolical than it was, but somehow a mere human had hurt it. And I was going to pay for that. A lot.

"That whole thing with the nuke, that wasn't me. The guy you want to talk to is Dwayne Myers. That's Special Agent Dwayne Myers of the Monster Control Bureau. M-Y-E-R-S." I didn't know if I just thought that, or if I could actually speak in this place, but even if I could, I'm sure my pitiful utterances were like a mosquito buzzing around its ear.

That giant eye kept regarding me. I could feel it in my mind, poking around as it figured out what would hurt me the most. I was a bubble of linear time in this ageless place, an oddity. My universe was poison to the Dread Master, but consuming me would be the equivalent of a healthy person eating a single jelly bean. Not exactly good for you, but it wasn't like you were going to notice.

Then it spoke. The entire universe thundered with its incomprehensible voice. All I could understand was the pain. The message itself was beyond me. But it didn't matter, because this was how I was going to spend eternity.

A few minutes in this place had shattered Ray Shackleford's mind before Earl had pulled him out. Ray had never been the same. For the first time, I had nothing but pity for him. The Dread Master said something else. I experienced agony beyond anything I had ever imagined. Turning into a zombie was Christmas at Disneyland with all-you-can-eat ice cream and a free ride on the space shuttle in comparison.

When it was done, I floated there, wishing to die.

I was mortal at home. Here I was an infinite chew toy. It hadn't even started yet. It got closer. Ten thousand feet of sleek carapace attached to millipede tentacles crackling with electricity. The eyeball creature was snagged by the forest of limbs and absorbed, digested for eternity to fuel the fires of chaos.

Then, in the abyss of confusion, there was a presence of something familiar, another bubble of familiar reality. A blue light intruded into the red, and it was as if time began to move again. It was coming from the opposite direction of the Dread Overlord. "I've never failed a mission," the presence said as I turned.

"Agent Franks?"

He was different here. The physical body was just a shell, housing a spirit that was clearly not that of a normal human, but rather something simpler and older. The recycled organs, bones, and sinew that served as Frank's avatar showed me the ward stone. It boiled with the power of pure reality. "Won't start now." There was a clear trail of energy connected to the ward stone stretching back to our universe.

Julie had explained it to me. As far as I understand how the ward works, it's basically a focus point for our reality. Like a magnifying glass under the sun. Undead are an unnatural thing in this world, so it just blasts them. Things from outside this reality can't take the heat. And now that I could see what it really was, I could tell that it was far more powerful than any of us had realized. The ward was huge, crackling with potential. The alchemists of old hadn't just created a defensive device. They'd created a doomsday weapon. It was like the seventeenth century's version of Mutually Assured Destruction.

If our reality was poison to the Old Ones, then Franks had just brought a keg of VX nerve gas into their living room.

The Dread Master assaulted us both with hate. As alien as we were to it, it probably didn't even understand what was going on, but it didn't like it one bit. Terrible visions and alien memories pounded my psyche. Bombarded by pain, Franks still pushed toward me, finally shoving the ward stone into my waiting hands. "Break it," Franks ordered. "I can't."

Of course not. It had been built by a human, for humans.

The Dread Overlord propelled itself forward.

In this place, I could see the stone for what it really was, a mere shell, a container, harnessing a violent reaction of raw physics and possibility. Four hundred years ago, a combination of dark wizardry and powerful alchemy had bound it to the shell, letting just enough leak so that it could be used as a shield against the forces of the other side. Franks had prearranged all of the numbers on the sphere using his creator's mathematical codes. It was ready.

The Dread Overlord was right on top of us. I would never make it in time.

My fingers sunk into the stone as I wrenched it apart. The field fragmented and energy lanced through the spreading cracks. I let go of the stone and it floated away from me, power building toward a cataclysmic reaction.

"Take my hand!" Julie… She had come after me. I reached toward her voice. "Hurry!" Then she grabbed me, pulling me down the chain, back to the real world.

The container shattered. Unleashed, a blue tidal wave of linear time invaded the reality of the Dread Master. If consuming me was a jelly bean's worth of bad health to it, then this was the equivalent of suck-starting a double-barreled 12-gauge. The yellow eye focused on the approaching wall of deadly reality. Incompatible matter collided, splitting atoms and releasing energy in an algorithmic multiplying fury. Ageless infinity broke. Every bit of the ancient squid god became disjointed, fractured, down to the subatomic level. The galaxy quivered.

The Dread Master simply… ruptured.

The explosion billowed outward, consuming planets.

I gasped for air.

There was dirt under me, real honest-to-goodness dirt. Flat on my back, lying in the center of the now solid stone circle, the Tree blotted out the sky above. Gunfire and explosions came from all around. A ten-foot-tall ogre lumbered past, on fire. I was never so glad to be home.

One of my arms was stretched out. Someone was holding my hand. My head hurt and I was so dizzy that it took me a moment to roll over and see who it was.

"Julie?" I whispered. She was lying facedown, perfectly still, but she had a death grip on my hand. "Julie?" Slowly, she took a deep breath, then finally raised her head. Tears stained her cheeks. "You came after me…"

Julie smiled weakly. "Well, duh."

"Thank you," I croaked.

She just pulled herself closer, resting her head against mine. "Don't ever make me do that again."

I didn't know if she meant the portal, or having me abandon her so I could sulk off to die. She'd had the courage to follow me someplace that nobody should ever have to go and had dragged me back out. "Deal."

"Ever again…"

Something stirred at my feet. Franks sat up abruptly. He looked around slowly before staggering to his feet. "Never killed anything that big before," he said, sounding almost, but not quite, proud of himself. "It was… satisfying."

We had killed an actual Old One. We'd blown up the Dread Overlord!

"Is it really dead?" Julie asked.

Franks didn't answer. He just pointed.

Illuminated only by the burning remains of the shoggoth, Hood was on his knees. His cowl lifted, revealing black-oil tears leaking from his eyes and dripping down his face. "Oh, Master, what have they done to you?" he cried. Behind him, the undead automatons were not moving, frozen perfectly in place like statues. Then one by one, the joints began to give away, and they toppled, metal screeching, into the dirt. The High Priest's body seemed to wilt as the shadow energy dissipated from him.