Glimmering Oil: Next Chapter Preview · 12:35am Mar 19th, 2019
I've been permanently going through a lot lately, so the next chapter of Glimmering Oil, which I'd intended to release yesterday, will end up being delayed. That said, I do have a good amount of it already written, so just to let you all know where I am here's a preview. Head below the break to see more.
Standing before the monster in front of her, Sunset couldn’t help but feel woefully insignificant. The very same being that activated the contagion was now standing right before her eyes, like she was staring the apocalypse directly in the face.
Yet even still, something about the creature seemed oddly... majestic. It may have been an angel once, or a being of similar divine power. Its porcelain skin was pristine, unblemished, reflecting far more radiance than should have been possible from the dull florescent lights. Yet the ethereal glow was not warm and inviting but sickly and harsh, its merest gleam making Sunset’s skin crawl.
Starlight approached the beast, her grin dripping with oily saliva and self-satisfaction. “Lady Atraxa. I’m happy you could grace us once again with your presence.”
Atraxa’s long, spindly fingers drummed against the pole of her spear. Though the porcelain face held no eyes, Sunset could feel them bearing down on her with pure contempt. With a disinterested turn of her head, Atraxa faced Starlight, her mouth held tightly in a pencil-thin frown.
“This being is one of the uncompleat giving you trouble?”
For a split-second, Starlight winced, but quickly managed to regain her ever-present composure. “Yes, well... things have been just a tad more complicated than we anticipated. That is why I called you here.” Raising a single hand above her head, Starlight snapped her fingers. “Take care of her. When you’re done, find her friends and kill them.”
The corners of Atraxa’s mouth turned ever-so-slightly downward. “And who are you that would command me?”
There was a momentary pause. Starlight’s left eye began to twitch, almost too subtly to notice. She gave a bitter, humorless laugh, more emotion than Sunset would have ever expected her to be capable of. “Ha. That’s funny. Because if I recall correctly, and I’m sure I do, the Praetors of Phyrexia put me in charge here. So as long as you’re here on my world, you’ll be answering to me.”
Atraxa stepped forward, her motion cold, deliberate, and menacing. “You exist only by the Praetors’ will. You would do best to remember your place.”
“My place is right here!” Starlight said with a scowl. “And right now, I am here to tell you to get rid of these interlopers! Did you forget which side of the portal you’re on? Your Phyrexia can’t reach you here, so as long you’re in my Phyrexia, you’ll be answering to me!”
What happened next had happened almost too fast to describe. Atraxa’s grip on her weapon shifted, almost imperceptibly. Then, the very next moment, there was an intense, all-consuming flash of light. Sunset instinctively dove to the floor as overwhelming magic surged across all of her senses. And as her vision was engulfed by white, Sunset could hear a blood-curdling scream, silenced just as quickly as it had cried out.
When her sight returned, Sunset looked up, and Starlight was gone. In the far wall behind her, facing the center stage, was a massive, smoking hole, a place where a blast of power had torn through the wall like wet paper. Sunset’s heart skipped a beat as she realized that she, too, had only barely avoided being in its path.
And as she remained prone on her stomach, she could only feel a hundred times smaller as Atraxa stepped forward, without so much as a word. She raised her spear, swiftly and precisely...
...and Sunset rolled out of the way as its tip impacted the ground where she had been lying, not even second earlier. She scrambled to the feet as the monster charged her again, intent on plunging a deadly spears straight through her abdomen. Acting in a blind panic, Sunset’s body flickered out of existence in a flash of light, and reappeared a dozen feet away.
The impromptu teleport did not keep Atraxa’s attention off her for long, but it did grant her just enough time to channel her magic into her body. Bright wings sprouted from her shoulders — even brighter than they were the last time, no longer made of flesh and feathers, but from brilliant orange flame. The light continued to flow through every inch of her body, yearning to be set free, begging for release, demanding that it be unleashed upon the horror that had brought Phyrexia to her world. It was a power that engulfed her from within, guiding her with a voice beyond her hearing, whispering of an ageless, incorruptible purity.
But whatever the source of her strength, Sunset did not have the time to question it. Atraxa’s body pulsed with sickly, oozing magic. With a point of her spear, a mass of oily black tendrils burst from the ground, lashing out at Sunset with glistening putrescence.
Sunset’s body pulsed with light, and the tendrils disintegrated as they approached her body. Yet this had only proven a small respite from the assault, as Atraxa charged forward once more, her spear brandished with deadly intent.
The spear’s whiff came much too close for comfort, the displaced air blowing strands of hair across Sunset’s face as the spear tip just barely passed by her head. She responded swiftly thrusting both her hands outward, and launching a burst of intense plasma from her palms.
The assault sent Atraxa reeling backwards, but it otherwise left no visible injury on her body. Sunset was left with barely an instant to respond as Atraxa redoubled her assault, rushing down with a flurry of precision strikes. Each missed thrust of her spear was only inches away from a lethal blow, and no distance she made between herself and her opponent lasted for long.
The spear whiffed by her head once again, and Sunset was able to channel her magic just fast enough to manage a teleport. As she reappeared to the side of her enemy, her hands glowed with the radiant heat of a solar corona, already prepared to strike once again. Plasma erupted from Sunset’s palms, bursting in an explosion of orange and yellow. Smoke billowed out from the impact site of the blast, obscuring the battlefield in a cloud of thick gray fumes.
As the smoke assaulted her sinuses, Sunset gave a ragged cough, forcing the lingering soot out of her lungs. With watered eyes, she peered through the smoke. She wasn’t sure whether to be horrified or completely unsurprised.
Atraxa had survived the assault — but not at all undamaged. The right half of her face, neck, and shoulder were all completely burned away, revealing a ragged mass of charred bone and sinew. Further cracks in her bodily armor spread out from the wound, oozing viscous, oily blood out of every crevasse. There was a sickening crack of bone as Atraxa’s head swiveled to face Sunset, little spurts of oily blood spraying out from her exposed muscle. She reached over with one of her opposite hands, grasping at the edge of the wound, digging her fingers beneath the opening in her exoskeleton.
Sunset turned her eyes away, but the ear-splitting, wet crack that followed did not leave much to the imagination. The sounds of splitting bone, spurting blood, and twisting flesh tied her stomach into knots.
When the noise halted, she turned again to face Atraxa. The creature’s former exoskeleton now lay on the ground in pieces, torn and stained with oil — and on her body it was replaced by a new layer of shining porcelain, still soft, wet, and glistening with beads of thick fluid. But above all else, Sunset noticed that all of Atraxa’s wounds had completely vanished.
“That’s disgusting! ...And also totally unfair. Crap.”
Do not poke the bear, especially when the bear is actually a nightmarish cyborg angel.
Also, hax.
Ui. Atraxa.