Larry Correia: Monster Hunter International

I had to try something. I could not just let her condemn us without a fight. If only I could access the power just enough to fight her and save Julie. I had controlled time once before. Maybe I was strong enough to hold back the Old Ones.

"Yes. You are the strongest one yet… you can control it," Koriniha whispered. "I feel your mighty will. Surely you can do it."

Maybe I could… Maybe I had a third option… I had defeated every other monster that this world had thrown at me. I could defeat these as well. Koriniha licked her oily lips in anticipation. The sphere above her roared, huge now, a world of its own, blotting out the storm-drenched Alabama sky. We stood at the intersection point between two spheres. When they connected, a new world would be born.

I stopped, realizing what I was about to do. The Old Man had warned me about this, only I had been too ignorant to understand. Good, but sometimes stupid. Brave, but proud. Too proud for own good. If not more careful, pride will kill you and blow up world. Think you can solve problems, but no patience to learn. Want to rush. Do things now.

That was what she wanted. She wanted me to fight. The Old Ones would eat my soul for breakfast. She waited for my move, so intent on subverting my will and destroying me the instant that I unlocked the gate that she did not see the tentacle slither past her feet and slowly wrap around the battle-ax and drag it away.

"I can beat you," I lied.

"We shall see."

BETRAYER.

The ax blade exploded from out of Koriniha's chest. She shrieked in rage. The broken Lord Machado rose behind her, encircling his tentacles around her form, lifting her upward, and tearing the blade free. He slammed it into her again.

I lifted Julie in my arms and carried her away as they battled. Lord Machado hoisted Koriniha over his shattered skull, the black tissues of both creatures separating and tearing up into the sphere, drawn irresistibly home. The energy pulsed and surged. Growing larger by the second, the wall approached us, shapes twisting and clawing at the other side.

My boots slipped in the puddle of blood from Thrall. We landed next to him. He was still and his lidless orbs stared into the distance. I began to lift Julie. We were too close to the whipping tentacles, and without the power of the Old Ones upon me, one furious strike would be certain death. I heaved her up into my arms.

Suddenly a red hand grasped my wrist.

"Wait-" Thrall croaked through his lipless mouth. I struggled to hear him over the storm. "-was wrong. Thou truly art a warrior without guile." His grasp was still amazingly powerful and he pulled me closer. "So much death… I give thee back one life…" He held up his other fist. Squirming between the muscle of his clenched fingers was a tiny bit of black energy, the last vestige of his unnatural immortality. It struggled to escape. He opened his hand and pushed it against Julie's neck. She gasped, her eyes suddenly flared open, then she passed back out. The ancient captain uttered one last thing, "Until Ragnarok… my friend."

The hand fell limply away. The last bit of power flew home like a bolt. I turned Julie's head. It was a blood-soaked mess, but I could no longer see the entrance wound. Thrall's lungs rattled as he gave up the ghost.

"See you in Valhalla," I whispered.

The sphere was only a few feet over the pyramid now. It blotted out the sky in its terrible majesty. Lord Machado and Koriniha still battled, more and more of their ichor being stripped away by the second, leaving only filthy bones and angry souls.

"Machado! I curse you!" Koriniha's skull screamed as her face was torn off. "Curse you!" She struggled in his tentacles as he forced her toward the sphere.

TOO LATE FOR CURSES… MY LOVE.

He thrust her body upwards. She broke the surface of the rift. The last bits of alien tissue were stripped away. Her skeleton quivered, and then exploded, the winds whipping bones about like missiles, snapping out into the forest and embedding into the trees. A jagged femur pierced the ivory next to my head.

Lord Machado's voice screamed inside my brain. His limbs were extended into the rift. It was a fatal connection. His flesh was stripped, withering, disappearing into the maelstrom. I covered my eyes as the black light began to sear my retinas.

There was a roar, followed by a wet explosion, a concussion of sound and fury. Bits of the Cursed One splattered across the pyramid, showering us in gore, and then all was quiet.

I opened my eyes. The sphere was gone. The night sky was bright and clear, and I was lying on a pyramid, in the middle of a little forest valley, which appeared to be floating unsupported several hundred feet above rural Alabama.

Julie was breathing, though it was shallow and her pulse was weak. Her wound was closed, sealed by Thrall in a final act of mercy. I stood up. Amazingly enough, I felt fine, no broken bones, no blindness, no shattered eardrum. The breeze was natural and clean. The moon was descending over millions of stars. It was beautiful.

Something moved from where the Cursed One had last stood.

"Oh, give me a break," I muttered. I looked around for weapons. I found both of my pistols, put the thumb safeties on, and shoved them in my waistband. Abomination was still where Thrall had dropped it. Empty, but it still had a good bayonet. I walked toward the shape that was moaning in the pile of burnt garbage that had been my enemy.

I held the shotgun like a spear, silver blade extended. Kicking aside the charred mess, I searched for the movement. The remainder of Lord Machado's body had turned to ash, and was slowly blowing away in the wind. I saw small glints of the armored breastplate sticking out from under the cinders. It rocked slightly. I readied myself.

Slowly, shakily, a person emerged from the remains. He was a short man, and his features were hard to distinguish beneath the soot. He was naked except for the remaining armor, and a few tatters of the once opulent robe. He struggled weakly to his hands and knees, a tiny creature amongst the ruins of his former body.

I waited.

He spoke slowly, not used to forming words. The medieval Portuguese was still very familiar in my mind.

"The curse is lifted. I am a man again. Human at last."

"Yup."

He looked at his hands in wonder, and brushed the ash away from his skin. He began to cry, tears rolling down the soot. "Five hundred years of torment. I am free. You have freed me from my curse… Somehow it is broken."

I tied Abomination's tattered strap over one shoulder and drew the full-size. 45 from my waistband. The click of the safety was eerily loud. I carefully put the front sight in place and placed my finger on the face of the trigger. He looked up at me warily. "But… but I have been redeemed."

"I'm not in the redemption business."

BOOM.

A hole appeared in his forehead. The silver bullet mushroomed perfectly through his brain tissue and ruptured out the back of his skull in a spray of red and white. The single brass case bounced on the ground. A thin line of blood fell from the entrance wound. Lord Machado's eyes rolled slowly back into his head and he flopped into the ash.

I kept the gun on him. His leg kicked spasmodically a few times. There was no magic. He was not coming back.

Lord Machado was dead.

I slowly lowered the gun to my side. It was over.

The pyramid shook violently. I stumbled, but somehow managed to stay upright. In the distance the edges of the little valley began to disintegrate, collapsing as the unnatural force that sustained the pocket dimension began to dissipate. Trees dropped through the ground, disappearing in showers of dirt and snow. Gravity was a jealous bitch.

I sprinted for Julie. I lifted her into my arms and looked around. The spot where we had entered the little world was gone. The portal was no longer there. The rocks that had supported it were now plummeting hundreds of feet to the earth below. It was shrinking fast, and the ground was falling away, forming a boundary that was heading quickly for the ivory pyramid.