WWK: Fight in the Lair

The Lair of Orochi
Unknown Location


Argus remained here for the past few days, merely waiting. However, while days passed on Earth, it was mere hour here. Even the strongest of the Primal Gods found it awkward staying in a place like this. He kept a watchful eye out, expecting the arrival of Darklore’s followers any moment now. In the silence of the darkness of the massive caverns came footsteps and voices. Argus turned his head, browm eyes narrowing as he expected their arrival…

But only two figures appeared in the dim light. Scutes and Shendar, both of them in their human forms. The younger warrior nodded when he spotted Argus, “Expect us?”

Argus smiled, “Never been so glad to see you two.” He commented, “Did you stop Atroxa?”

“Somewhat.” Shendar responded quickly/

Scutes shook his head, “Don’t give us the credit. Was that dragon thing that did most of the work.” He spoke, referring to Syntrox’s sudden arrival in the battle of Athens.

“I can assure you that will not happen again.” A female’s voice came from the darkness, causing all three warriors to turn around. The sound of footsteps followed, the impact of footsteps hitting the dry rock echoing through the huge cavern that acted as Orochi’s lair. Atroxa emerged from the darkness, her form as beautiful as ever. Her cold, gray eyes glared at the three Heavenly warriors as Demortis and Milenko appeared behind her, the clown’s face still bandaged and stitched together after his failed attempt to recruit Saberon Tchove and the Klenthurians.

“Hi guys.” The clown demon waved to his archenemies, gloved hand stained in blood.


Immediately, Scutes’ body began to shift. He hunched forward, arms extending and bulging with muscles. Teal fur exploded through the material of his shirt as three ivory claws emerged from his arms, completely replacing his fingers and hands. His skull extended into a rodent-like muzzle, triangular ears facing backward. From his back, overlapping, armadillo-like armor clanged together and a long, fur and quill-covered tail slapped the rocks. “If you think we’re going to let you do this, you’re mistaken.” He warned with an angry hiss following.

Demortis tilted his head, holding the Necronomicon in his left hand. “What makes you think we require your permission?”


As Shendar also transformed by Argus’ side, his lengthy body extending out like the world’s greatest anaconda and beautiful antlers extending from his box-shaped snout, Argus raised a brow. “Where’s the rest of your party?”

Atroxa smiled childishly, “What makes you think there’s more than us?”

Argus crossed his muscled arms against his thick chest, “Because you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t have the souls you needed. And there’s only one being that can give you those souls.”

“I applaud you, Argus.” Came a familiar voice to the Primal God from above. He looked up, eyes peering into the darkness. Soon, over a dozen crimson orbs appeared high above, all of them looking down.

“You haven’t changed a bit.”

“You’re one to talk.” The owl-like entity cooed as he lowered himself, gigantic wings adorned with many eyes gently flapping. “I suppose you’re going to try and play defiance yet?”

“So long as we stand, we’ll never let you do this.” Scutes cut in, hissing at the demonic avian as he circled overhead as if a buzzard waiting for its next meal to perish.


Milenko broke out into maniacal laughter, his body bulging as if balloons were inflating underneath his pale, white skin. His multi-colored hair exploded outward, forming a sort of rainbow mane around his neck as his head sunk into his shoulders. He slumped forward, thick arms slamming the rocky ground while the bones in his knees popped and cracked, reshaping themselves into a gorilla-like stance. Black, snake-like scales tore through parts of his flesh, blotching his entire body with a glimpse of the demon’s true, unholy flesh. “Then I suppose we should just skip the formalities!”

As his face continued to change and shift, his teeth becoming thicker and larger to the point they emerged from his jaws, the demon of fear charged. He lifted up on his stubby legs, hoisting both muscular arms over his head. Instantly, all three heroes leapt away just as his hammer-like fists pounded the ground.

As Milenko bellowed in fury, his words muffled by the awkward shape of his mouth and teeth, Atroxa’s own stance shifted. Her legs molded into a slithering, serpentine body. The she-demon appeared in her Reaper form, arms elongated and fingers stretched out into bony, yellow claws. Her eyes flashed with supernatural light as she hoisted up her bow, firing several arrows at her sworn enemies. Scutes’ body rolled into a protective ball, bouncing several of the arrows off and flinging them into the surrounding rock walls. Shendar lifted high into the air, using his own length to twist and turn, avoiding volleys of the energized arrows.

As she focused on the guardians, Milenko charged after Argus. The Primal God’s entire body exploded into a flash of golden light. In just a second, he transformed into a humanoid ceratopsian. His bronze skin became thick and gray, his muscles nearly tripling in size, and a tail tearing out of his spine. His toes combined into three, tipped with a stubby nail on each. His head stretched out into a beak tipped with a pointed, ivory horn. Where his clean cut head once was, a frill extended upward. Crowned with many spikes as if a styracosaurus, it too had the horns of a triceratops.

Milenko swung his muscular fist again, but Argus’ entire right arm swelled with power. Such power that his skin became coated with light. He launched the closed fist, meeting Milenko’s far larger hand in mid-air. The demon clown yelped, his entire body flying back several meters as the energy transferred from Argus’ fist and into his arm, shredding his pale flesh and revealing more of the dark scales underneath.

“Do you have any idea how much that stings!?” The demon clown barked, slobber rolling from his chin in thick sheets.

Argus cracked his knuckles, “That’s only a taste of what you’re in for, demon.” The Primal God warned, stepping forward. However, movement caught his eye. Rising from the ground a few dozen meters away, horrible things of nightmares. Zombified remains of fallen soldiers. The warrior God looked past Milenko, eyes narrowing as Demortis fingered through the pages of the Necronomicon. The zombies moaned and groaned, several missing limbs and others nothing but half a torso crowned with a skull with a few patches of skin and hair here and there.

Demortis grinned, black eyes and awkward shaped head rolling as he muttered the words inscribed in the Book of the Dead, the very book written by Raza. Suddenly, the rolling of his head seized and his gaze fell directly onto Argus’ eyes. “Necronaught!” The demon shouted, closing the book with a thump. A shockwave emanated from the Necronomicon, forcing Argus back and dropping the many zombies into piles of flesh, bone, and decay. The pile of death quickly began to move, arms and legs meeting as if a twisted jigsaw puzzle. A thunderous roar echoed through Orochi’s lair as a monster formed from the dead.

It loomed over the heroes like a giant. Standing over twenty-feet tall, the Goliath of evil bellowed. Body parts rained from its every movement as it stepped toward Argus. As Milenko chuckled and backed away, the Primal God tilted his head. Energy continued to course through his arms, making wisps of light rise from his bulging muscles. The giant outstretched its arms and opened its hands, fingers composed of entire torso squirting gore in every direction. It lifted a gargantuan foot and screamed in fury before dropping it.

Argus leapt to the side, keeping low to the ground as the giant turned around. It lifted its other gargantuan foot, entire limbs and torsos unraveling from its woven body. Argus leaped up, his four-fingered hand charged with power. He drove the blow directly upward, his body spinning and turning the powerful uppercut into a sort of pseudo drill. The Necronaught bellowed its nightmarish fury and stumbled back, right leg starting to fall apart when Argus hit it. The undead abomination nearly fell before several grasping limbs collected the loose parts, pulling the ugly leg back together.

At the same time, it swept its huge hand low. Its fingers, many tipped with zombie heads of their own, moaned as the bodies composing them bent awkwardly. Argus tried ducking, but the brute’s colossal grip grabbed him tightly. Immediately, the Primal God began to struggle, but even his strength found it hard to break that of the Necronaught’s in this smaller form. The giant began to chuckle, the decapitated heads acting as its teeth adding to its sounds as it applied pressure in an attempt to crush the God. Argus continued to struggle, but the more he did, the more he realized it was futile…

There was only one option…

Argus’ crested head looked up into the demented, empty eye sockets of the mass of undead corpses. His entire body began to glow, wisps of light lifting from his body like smoke. The foul thing tried squeezing more, but something was wrong. As the light engulfing Argus grew, so did his body. The giant mass of zombies’ hand began to snap and break as Argus took on his beast form. An explosion of broken body parts erupted from the tip of the Necronaught’s arm as Argus fell, his now two-ton body slamming hard on the ground. Nearly the size of an elephant, the Primal God appeared as a sort of triceratops with a styracosaur’s frill.

The Primal God charged, head lowered and horns already surging with holy bliss. The giant lumbered, lifting both of its disgusting arms high above its head. Just as Argus collided with it, the huge arms came down, including its broken hand. Argus’ jaws opened wide and released a thunderous war cry as his back was pulverized, but still he forced his energized horns into the abomination. The Necronaught was carried against its will as energy coursed through Argus’ horns and into its decomposed parts. Pieces of ash and bloody limbs fell from its stomach before it was pinned against the massive, scaled hide of Orochi itself. Once more, the mass of decay swung its large arms in an attempt to crush the Primal God. Argus pulled back half a step, allowing half of his horns to pull from the beast’s body before he thrust his body forward, attempting to completely impale the unholy nightmare.

Milenko and Demortis looked at one another before the crimson fiend nodded his head. Milenko’s twisted grin stretched ear to ear as his multi-colored tongue unraveled from his awkward set of jaws. The demon of fear charged forward, remaining silent in order to take the Primal God by surprise. However, just as he came within a few dozen meters, a purple flamethrower cut directly into his path. The star-shaped pupils of the clown beast looked up, narrowing as Shendar’s lengthy body looped in the air.

“I can handle you.” The oriental dragon hissed, box-shaped jaws opened wide as another spray of lavender inferno erupted from his muzzle.

The clown growled, slobber continuing to drop from his mouth and tongue as he lifted a thick forearm to protect his ugly face from the burning, heavenly rage…

Argus pulled his horns out of his opponent’s gut, allowing the twenty-foot Necronaught to collapse to a knee. The horrible thing’s mouth opened wide, vomiting a mixture of blood and broken body parts. The Primal God dug into the rock with his front leg as he dared the damned creature to stand. Just as it began to climb back to its feet, Argus’ body spun. His tail swung like a bat, colliding with the head of the zombie mass. A sickening crack of bone and flesh filled the air as the cranium of Demortis’ creation shattered like glass. Immediately, its body slumped and fell apart. A wave of decomposed parts and bodies piled onto the rocks where it once stood.

The warrior God turned around as the mound of gore settled on the rocks like a landslide. He glared at Milenko, whom had stumbled back to the side of Demortis, and the crimson demon that summoned the Necronaught. “You’ll have to do much better than that.”

“We’re counting on it.” Atroxa’s voice shrieked.

Argus’ head turned to the side, eyes widening as her serpentine body coiled around Scutes’. In her arms, her trusted bow and arrow was pointed directly at the back of the forest guardian’s skull.

“Revert. Now.” She demanded.

A puff of lavender flames emerged from Shendar’s jaws as he looked and awaited orders from Argus. The Primal God looked once more at Atroxa as she pulled back the arrow in her bow. “You know I’m not bluffing.” She assured him.

Scutes shook his head in an attempt to order Argus not to.

Argus nodded, “Do it.”

Shendar landed next to him, his serpentine body rolling back into his human form. Argus’ too shrunk in a flash of white light, the complete ceratopsian body returning to the chiseled mortal form. Argus snorted as he continued to burn through Atroxa with his eyes. “Release him.”

“You really are far too trusting.” Raza commented from above the two heroes. With a flap of his dark, feathered wings, gigantic limbs outstretched from the ground. Clawed fingers grasped at the ankles of both Shendar and Argus. Upon contact, their heavenly flesh began to darken. The feeling of their flesh burning and dissolving caused both to cry in sudden pain, collapsing to a knee as more limbs stretched out, grabbing at their necks, backs, and arms.

Scutes’ eyes widened as he watched his fellow heroes collapse in pain. Raza landed behind them, tooth-filled eye sockets grinding. “This seems all too familiar, Argus.” He looked at Atroxa and then his former commander. “Didn’t you once leave me in a similar situation?”

Argus groaned as the devilish limbs, extensions of Darklore himself summoned by the Guardian of Death, held him. “It was a time of war…” Argus fought and bit through the agonizing pain, “It was either you… or an entire nation.”

Raza’s owl-like head tilted. “You’d pick strangers over your own soldiers.” He cooed, nodding and looking back at Atroxa.

The she-Reaper tilted her snake-covered head…
The fingers grasping the arrow released…

Scutes didn’t have time to mutter a sound as the arrow flew into the back of his armadillo-like head. Atroxa’s coils released him, allowing the young guardian to fall to his knees. And then to his chest and belly.

“NO!” Argus shouted through the pain, attempting to climb to his feet as the arms of Darklore held him, but he couldn’t break the hold. Falling back onto the rock, Argus continued to struggle.

Raza’s head continued to bob as he slowly approached the trapped Primal God, lifting a taloned foot and placing it firmly on his chest. He pushed down, pinning the God’s back against the ground. “I spared your friend a fate far worse than what you gave me. At least take some comfort in that fact.” He removed his foot from the fallen hero, turning once again to face Atroxa. “I will be back to collect my payment.”

The Reaper nodded, slithering her body around Scutes’ carcass. “You will get what we agreed upon.” She declared, “As I promised.”

Raza’s head spun on top of his body, pulling a full 180 as he looked at his nemesis with empty eyes. “His. I want his.”

Atroxa nodded, “Then it shall be done.” She declared, “Once the deed is done, that is. Only he has the power to rip it from him. I’ll make sure you get your Godhood.”

Raza’s wide wings unfolded from his sides. With a flap and mighty gust, the twisted entity took to the air, vanishing into the darkness in which he arrived.


The Ruins of Hong Kong
China


Yoomanga stood outside the ST-DLX, head looking into the darkening skies. Nighttime was coming, but he didn’t mind the cooling air. The Samoan demon’s eyes narrowed as he sensed everything that was happening within the Lair of Orochi. As a breeze made his black dreadlocks move, Saberon Tchove approached the tattooed entity from behind. The Klenthurian hissed, “I know that look. You know there’s a battle and you want in. Am I right?”

Yoomanga looked back at the reptilian warlord. “You’re not so different from a demon, you know that?”

Saberon tilted his head and shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been called one. Certainly won’t be the last.” Saberon patted the demon’s large shoulder, “But we’re both different kinds of demons, you and I. And if you can enter whatever it is you’re sensing, do so. You’ve done all you can here.”

The Samoan bulldozer of a man looked away from Saberon.

“Plus, I think Gatoro is getting jealous of having an equally sized giant around.” He hissed, referring to Yoomanga’s hulking demon form. “Go kick some ass. Hell, it’s what I’d do right now if I could.”

Saberon began to walk away, heading back to the ST-DLX. Yoomanga snorted, stepping forward and rolling his shoulders. Around his body, the ground began to erupt into hellfire. Plumes of smoke and flames emerged from fissures in the ground as the demon growled. His skin began to turn blood red, the tattoos adorning him head-to-toe reshaping as if dragons underneath his flesh. His mouth parted, becoming wide with teeth erupting from his lips. A pair of pointed horns shot up from his skull and a thin tail, nearly four feet long and tipped with an arrow shape, lashed out from his spine. The clothes he wore quickly burned as fast as they tore. His lower body quickly sprouted thick, goat-like fur and his human feet transformed into black hooves.

Saberon looked back, but Yoomanga was gone.