Abaddon, Mira, and Mateo watched the cosmos pass them by.
Stars burned, planets rotated, and asteroids tumbled across the horizon.
They waited for a while before they started to see evidence of the coming threat.
A shrill scream filled their ears, one that sounded like a dented mix of a senile old shrew and a pregnant goat.
Mira grinned monstrously as she put the twins back into their enclosure.
"Now do you see? That wasn’t so hard, was it?"
The twins whimpered fearfully as they held each other for warmth.
All at once, the screaming beca louder and louder until the fabric of reality shattered like glass, and a black beast ca rushing through.
The Black Goat was an upsetting creature to behold. Appearing as no more than a coil of tightly bound tendrils, the four stubby legs underneath it’s body barely looked strong enough to keep it afloat.
Greedy, glowing mouths were decorated across it’s skin. With the creature being roughly the size of a large mountain, it had as many mouths as there were trees in a forest.
It was difficult to tell where the creature’s focus lie due to the absence of eyes on it’s face, but Mira could feel the malevolence the creature was directing at her.
"Wonderful to see you again. Fancy a round two?"
The Black Goat bleated in response.
The moons around them were suddenly pulled into a circle surrounding the creature.
A heavenly white light shone from within the masses of rock that were greater than the sun they surrounded.
Beams of white energy burst from the moon and struck the black goat in unison. She howled in pain as her skin was attacked with an icy magic so cold that it burned.
Thick sheets of frost enveloped her elephant-like legs and held her in place.
A grey flash whizzed past her head, and she roared again.
"It’s far too early for you to be whining already."
The figure above the Black Goat may have been much smaller than her, but no less intimidating.
As a vampire of the highest order, Mateo was head and shoulders above his descendants.
He was in possession of the true face of the vampire. A primal appearance that was used in the days before the creatures had to endure centuries of hiding.
Tough, leathery skin was wrapped tightly over a lean, muscled fra. His ears, teeth, and fingers were all abnormally long and sharp.
The wings protruding from his back were over fifteen feet in length. With a single flap, he generated winds strong enough to lift a grown man off his feet.
His red eyes were bone-chilling and deeply profound. His incredible good looks were no longer visible.
"Ugly as hell!" Abaddon yelled obnoxiously.
"Are you fucking serious right now?"
The Black Goat swung one of her tendrils at Mateo like he was an obnoxiously large fly.
Before the thick appendage could reach him, there was a flash of red light and the attack stopped in it’s tracks.
All at once, the tendril was cut apart into several awkwardly shaped pieces no bigger than a basketball.
Mateo hefted his weapon over his shoulder.
His macuahuitl had grown into sothing far more intimidating along with it’s user: a double-edged weapon; requiring almost as much strength as it did grace.
Longer and thicker than any greatsword, the serrated obsidian edges had a life of their own and longed to know the feeling of shredding flesh with every mont that passed.
A weaker individual would have been crushed under the demands of the sentient weapon, but Mateo hadn’t noticed it for years now.
"Amateur." Abaddon yawned.
"Dude!"
The pieces of serrated flesh Mateo severed began to move on their own.
They squird and writhed like worms on a hot sidewalk as they endured a forced growth.
Mouths full of sharp teeth opened up out of nowhere, and the creatures let out shrill screams like the mother who had birthed them.
"We’ll have no more of that now!"
A frigid cold, made worse by the boundless chill of space, swept over the newly created monstrosities and froze them completely in blocks of ice.
Mira appeared on top of the black goat and took a ravenous bite out of the crown of her head.
The creature scread horrifically as black blood ran down her body, only to freeze from the cold around them.
Mira was not yet done, as she manifested the nurous weapons she had brought along on her journey.
With extre prejudice, she buried them in the skin of her adversary all at once.
"Leave sothing for the adults to do, mija!" Mateo flew in to join her.
"I am an adult?"
"Not until you can do your own laundry, you’re not!"
"I can, though!"
"Without magic!"
Mateo rushed in to partake in the fight before Mira wrapped things up all on her own.
anwhile, Abaddon had grown less concerned with watching them and more focused on trying to analyze the hole the black goat had co through.
The breach was rapidly closing, and Abaddon wasn’t going to let his best opportunity to reach Percival go to waste.
His ethereal head appeared in front of the opening. Just beyond it, he could see a world of disorder and turmoil. Exactly the kind of place demons would like.
He tried to use his power to hold the gate open. With his strength still yet to fully return, he was resorting to this crude and rudintary thod to not lose his chance.
Were he at full strength, he would have simply stopped ti on the gateway and held it open for as long as he liked.
But now, his best bet was to hopefully establish a small foothold in the realm. A way to leave himself a path into the realm later.
He hoped- he prayed that this might work.
-
"It didn’t fucking work."
In the laboratory, Abaddon slamd his head on the desk and let out a groan from the pits of his stomach.
"I was as discreet as I could have been, and yet he still sensed . He’s achieved greater symbiosis with the realm than I thought possible."
Sei was sitting on a stool beside Abaddon. She was half listening to him and half working on cooking a vial of liquid on a Bunsen burner.
"Don’t hit your head on things. K’ael is starting to pick up your habit, and I’d prefer my grandson not get brain damage before he’s even a year old."
Abaddon grumbled sothing unintelligible.
Sei briefly glanced at her son-in-law through her safety goggles and felt the tiniest bit bad for him.
It seed like ever since he’d co back, nothing was really going the dragon’s way.
"You seem like you’re having a hard ti."
"With what? Living?"
"Being back."
Abaddon lifted his face off the counter and looked at Sei halfheartedly.
"Just... trying to make up for lost ti, I suppose."
"Who asked you to do that?"
He scoffed. "No one, but I kind of pride myself on doing things even if my family doesn’t ask for them."
Sei went back to focusing on her project that she delicately removed from the heat.
"Yes, I’m aware... your whole ’diligent son’ thing is one of your most endearing qualities. But no one needs you to be the answer to everyone’s problems all the ti. We’ll get where we need to go eventually. Even if you don’t spearhead the way."
"Hmph."
Even absorbed in her work, Sei couldn’t help but notice that Abaddon was uncharacteristically broody today.
The only other person who could have noticed such a thing was the black goat, who, thanks to Mira and Mateo, was diced into small pieces and sitting inside of a test tube.
"...I didn’t think failing to get into the shadow realm would get you this down." She admitted.
Abaddon absentmindedly tapped an empty vial with the tip of his claw. The rhythmic clicking noise was perhaps the only thing preventing him from going insane.
Sei kept an eye on him as she stirred her concoction and occasionally sprinkled various powders into it. "...Am I missing sothing?"
Abaddon swallowed. "...Thrudd asked how she ended up as my daughter."
Sei was glad that she was a person with good control of her emotions. If not, she would have assuredly dropped her beaker.
"That’s... not wholly unexpected, I suppose." She sighed. "What did you tell her?"
"Nothing. To drop it."
"Abaddon..." Sei put down the glass and rubbed her temples.
"She’s my daughter. Nothing else should matter."
"It doesn’t matter per se, but Thrudd wants to know about how she ca to be. You should tell her."
"And what should I tell her exactly? That she’s here because I killed her father?"
"A version of her father, and you didn’t kill him for no reason. Sif was hurt; she would have died if you hadn’t saved her. Any one of us would have killed him for what he had done."
Abaddon held his hands together and rested them against his temple. His eyes were tightly shut, and his voice trembled.
"...I don’t want my daughter to think she’s an accident."
Sei finally finished her potion, and it turned a sparkling blue color.
She slid the glass over to Abaddon and touched his cheek affectionately.
"How very kind of you. But you need to ask yourself- are you doing this because you want to protect Thrudd, or because you want to protect yourself?"
With that, Sei stood up. She removed her gloves, goggles, coat and started making her way towards the door.
"Think about that a little while you go and save your sister in law."
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