Eve Langlais: Hybrid Misfit

I made a wish. Gene, I need you.

Simon saw Gene’s face blanch.

“We need to go now,” the Djinn announced. “Beth’s in trouble.”

Simon clasped his friend’s shoulder and without a word of warning to the assembly, they popped dimensions right into a scene of nightmare.

And noise.

Simon winced as a siren’s song vibrated loudly around them. It only took a moment to take in the scene and it wasn’t hard to figure out what had happened given the players. The stakes with hanging strands of rope stood sentry to Lana who sang her siren’s heart out. Claire, brandishing a dagger, stood by her friend, protecting her from two armies that while frozen for the moment, were fighting against the siren’s spell. All that, however, paled at the sight of Beth’s form crumpled on the ground. Even worse, the figures of a demon and angel stood over her, their arms lifted to deliver fatal blows.

He let his fury go. “No!” With a roar of rage which thundered and shook the ground, his dragon burst forth. It startled the pair who thought to end his one ’/s/ life, and he gave a snaggle tooth grin as they turned to face them with their puny weapons.

Now they die.

Simon wasn’t the only one enraged. Gene finally lost his cool, his human form disappearing in puff of smoke to reveal his true Ifrit shape. Massive, and formed of a black cloud with glowing eyes, Gene’s voice boomed. “Death to the ones who hurt my beloved. War to those who supported them!”

Simon bellowed in agreement, the ground before him frosting a path to the two whose life would be measured in seconds. Gene whirled from the leaders leaving them to Simon’s mercy-or lack of. While the Djinn threw devastating bombs at the armies, Simon lumbered after the heads of the angelic and demonic forces.

Ice dragons might not get involved often, but when we do, the enemy dies.

The cowards finally stopped scurrying to face him. Simon spared them no quarter. He inhaled and blew out, directing the stream of icy breath. He froze the demon and angel, turned them into living sculptures, unable to move, unable to scream, but able to see their destiny approaching. Simon grinned, a fearsome sight on his dragon visage, then, with a sweep of his paw, he shattered them.

Turning about to aid Gene in destroying the armies who’d gathered, he discovered the tides had changes. Their newly found allies from the meeting had joined them. Ranks of fairies, gnomes, dwarves and a host of other creatures advanced on the armies of Heaven and Hell, who in turn backed away, their resolve wavering without their leaders to bolster it.

A flutter of movement caught Simons’ eye and he turned, only to have his eyes caught by Beth’s still corpse. His rage evaporated in a wave of grief, and he shrank back into his male form. He’d barely changed before was running to her side. He knelt beside her.

Across from her prone body, Gene fell to his knees as well.

“Oh, Beth,” he whispered.

Simon couldn’t stand to see her lying face first in the dirt. Gently, he turned her body with Gene’s aid so she lay on her back.

He couldn’t stop his tears from falling, and they fell on the ground atop the blood sprouting green grass.

What the fuck?

And then shit happened.

As Simon watched with disbelieving eyes, the green fuzz spread outwards from Beth’s body and the blood pooled around it. Simon stood to look and watched as the vivid emerald color rolled across the open plain, its shocking appearance stopping the combatants in their tracks as they watched with slack jaws.

But that wasn’t all. From the ground turned green, vegetation sprouted. Flowers in a rainbow of colors popped free of the ground along with twigs that grew into small saplings with leaves of every color.

Simon pivoted, his eyes tearing as he realized that in giving her life, Beth had woken Limbo. And when the ground quaked a few moments later, it wasn’t hard to surmise that the walls penning Hell and Heaven, good and evil, had come down.

She’s freed everyone. He wished he could be happier at the thought she hadn’t died in vain, but he was dragon and selfish. He would have forsaken just about anyone or anything to have her alive.

A gust of wind blew up out of nowhere and he turned at the tickling breeze’s insistence. He gasped.

Beth floated above the ground in an upright position. Her arms were spread wide and her head tilted back. She wore a beatific smile and when she opened her eyes, they blazed with a violet light. He sank to his knees, his eyes brimming with tears. Later he’d castigate himself for being less than manly, right now he couldn’t contain his joy that Beth lived, despite her actions.

I honestly thought I was going to die. I lay there face first in the ground and listened to Lana sing, cursing my stupidity.

When the boys arrived at my call, it broke my heart to hear the anguish in their cries of battle. I wanted to lift my head and tell them I wasn’t gone yet. But that took too much effort.

Instead, I closed my eyes and in the greyness of my mind, the tingle that was Limbo became more pronounced. Having my blood bonded with the soil of this place had deepened my connection with it, and more than ever, I could sense the life that brimmed just below the surface.

Well, what are you waiting for? I asked.

As my heartbeat slowed, I realized what it wanted. Me.

I’ve given you my blood. I’m about to give you my life. What else do you want?

The answer, so simple would have made me laugh had I not rested on the brink of death.

I agreed to the terms.

My choice made, the snowball I set in motion started rolling and changing the world as we all knew it.

The pain that bit so deep into me faded as my body knit itself back together, a gift for the deal I’d made. My heart sped up and the hard ground beneath me disappeared as the power I set in motion lifted me up. I opened my arms wide and took what Limbo, almost an entity in itself, gave me. My lips curved into a smile as it taught me what I needed to know.

Then I opened my eyes and beheld the new realm-my realm.

The first thing I noticed was the color-vivid color everywhere, but on the heels of that I saw the stricken faces of my lovers. Poor Simon on his knees, and Gene, looking grey under his tan.

“You are in so much trouble, my darling,” Gene said in a shaky voice.

I smiled and laughed. “If it’s anything like last time, I can’t wait.”

My body drifted down until my feet touched the new ground of the world I’d helped create. Not that I touched it for long because Simon swept me up in a dragon hug of massive proportions.

“Don’t you ever scare me like that again,” he whispered fiercely in my ear.

“Okay,” I squeaked.

He might have never let me go-which was fine with me-but Lana and Claire came running up and insisted on hugs of their own.

Claire had quickly rediscovered her bounce, even given their ordeal. “Oh, wow, that was totally cool the way you came in like some Lone Ranger with wings and flew to our rescue.”

I cringed, knowing my lovers probably wouldn’t see it in the same light and judging by Simon’s whispered, “That’s going to earn you a punishment,” I was going to reap the benefits later.

Lana also gave me a fierce hug. “Thanks for coming.”

“I would never have forsaken you,” I whispered back in a tight voice. “And damn, that was some wicked singing.”

“Don’t remind me,” Lana moaned pulling away.

I frowned. “Why? It was because of you that things ended up working out. Without you stopping the armies like that, we would all have been dead before the cavalry arrived.”