"The Portal" - Chapter 4: Unlikely Allies

            Helixea and her squad soon reached the outskirts of the town they had seen in the distance. It consisted of a small settlement surrounded on all sides by a wall made of bricks of this land’s stone and with a heavy, metal gate barring entry. Outside the gate stood Erebus, backed by a double line of armed and armored enderman militia as well as a few watchlings, blastlings, and snarelings. The snarelings looked like slightly hunched-over endermen with yellow arms that bend backwards in a sickle-like shape. Each one had a translucent, yellow-green lump on its back that seemingly connected to an opening in its chest.

            As both sides began to draw their weapons, another enderman appeared in a violet cloud, standing between the two forces. This enderman wore loose, purple robes and dark hand wraps. She motioned for the other endermen to lower their weapons as she approached the members of A.L.E.R.T.

            “Greetings, I am Tenebrea,” the enderman spoke.

            “You’re the first enderman we have met that speaks our language,” Dr. Bones thoughtfully commented.

            “I have learned to harness my ki to allow all intelligent races to understand my speech, and me to understand theirs,” the monk explained.

            “So, you can translate between us and Erebus then?” Helixea hopefully questioned.

            “Certainly. First off, I believe that you were attacked because Erebus is this town’s captain of the guard, and he saw you as invaders. It did not help that you were making eye contact, which is considered a sign of aggression in our culture.”

            “I assure you that we have not come to invade this land. The company we work for accidentally opened a portal to this dimension and we were sent to investigate. We are here for peaceful research,” Helixea detailed.

            Tenebrea turned and relayed the message to Erebus in the language of the endermen, and the two of them had a short conversation before the monk turned to face the group once more.

            “Erebus apologizes for the misunderstanding and says that we can have peace,” she translated.

            “Excellent! With that out of the way, I want to propose a trade partnership, seeing as each of our dimensions appears to have materials the other does not,” B.I.L.L. suggested.

            “Who is speaking in my mind?” Tenebrea warily questioned.

            “That is B.I.L.L. His name is an acronym for Ball of Integrated Lore and Learning. He is a sentient crystal ball that is monitoring our journey on behalf of our company’s leader,” Kethra clarified.

            “May we stay the night in this town while we discuss the trade deal and wait for the other half of our group to return?” Helixea asked.

            “Yes, you may,” the interpreter acquiesced.

            “The other half of our team went through some kind of gateway to another part of this dimension and were attacked by a masked enderman with telekinetic powers. Can you give us an explanation for that?”  the team leader queried.

            “They must have traveled to the city of Choros,” Tenebrea explained. “The enderman who attacked them was Lord Aurack, the governor of this region of the End. He is very distrusting of outsiders.”

Ì

            A short while later, Morthos flew over the town’s wall and landed in the square. He almost immediately spotted the rest of his squad and sprinted over to them. As he reached his teammates, he pulled the bag from his back and dumped his injured allies out of it.

            “That did not go well,” he affirmed with a sigh.

            “I can see that. Give me a few minutes and I can have the others patched up,” Kethra responded, summoning her medical supplies from within her gloves.

Ì

            Cries of alarm rang out from atop the town walls as the sentries spotted an army approaching. Erebus drew his greatsword and teleported atop the wall, motioning for A.L.E.R.T. to follow up the stairs. The guard captain looked out over the terrain in front of the town. Assembled before the gate was a small army of robed and armored endermen. At the head of the army stood a dark figure with glowing, white eyes who was flanked by two endersent, giants that looked much like endermen, but stood much taller and had massive clublike hands. Above the army hovered a ship much like the one that the members of A.L.E.R.T. had spotted above the city of Choros, except this one was armed with cannons.

            “Who are you and why are you threatening my town?”  Erebus shouted in his native language.

            Null stared up at Erebus for a moment before motioning to his troops and shouting, “Destroy this worthless town in Nihil’s name!” in the language of the endermen. A few seconds later, the end ship’s cannons began firing on the town’s walls. Erebus and his men quickly teleported outside to meet the invaders, and the members of A.L.E.R.T. charged through the space where the now-destroyed gate had been.

            Darvin was taken by surprise as Null emerged from his shadow and kicked his legs out from under him. He rolled out of the way of a punch and regained his footing just in time to be sent sprawling by an uppercut to the jaw. The entity kicked the security guard in the face in rapid succession until the man was unconscious. Null knelt down, snapped Darvin’s neck, and took the electric baton from his cold, dead hand.

            The dark monster turned just in time to block Erebus’ shadowy copy’s greatsword. Null delivered a mighty kick to the echo’s midsection, which caused it to burst into smoke. The entity leapt back, barely escaping the reach of the real Erebus’s swing. Null formed an orb of darkness in his hand and hurled it at the enderman commander. Erebus disappeared, allowing the orb to pass through the space he had been standing in and hurtle into the void.

            Tenebrea faced down one of the hulking endersent. She stood for a moment, concentrating her ki. As the towering creature approached, a wave of astral power shot out from the monk in all directions. The endersent put its arms in front of its face to protect itself and was pushed back a step, while several of the endermen under Null’s command were knocked from their feet. Tenebrea stood, her body enveloped in her astral form. Her face was covered by an expressionless spectral mask, and translucent arms hovered above her own. The endersent swung its massive fist down at the monk, but she nimbly leapt over the attack. Tenebrea delivered a flurry of spectral punches to the giant’s leg, causing enough pain to force the beast to fall to one knee. She sprung into the air attempting to deliver a blow to its jaw, but the creature teleported out of the way, reappearing twenty feet behind where it had been.

            Thunder appeared behind the second endersent in a cloud of mist and slashed his energized, twin scimitars across the back of its leg. The giant emitted an otherworldly howl of pain as it slammed its fist into the ground where the tabaxi had been standing. As the endersent whirled around looking for its assailant, it was struck by a blast of arcane energy from Arveene’s rifle. The hulking creature teleported in front of the human security guard and swung its terrific arm down at her. She leapt to the side of the endersent and fired off a duo of shots into its arm.

            Thunder returned from the ethereal plane, standing atop the wall. He leapt down and stabbed both of his blades into the giant’s shoulder. Before the diplomat knew what was happening, the beast’s massive fingers closed around him and plucked him from its shoulder before flinging him bodily against the town’s wall. As Arveene fired more shots into its torso, the roaring monster put its hands together and slammed its fists into the ground, the resulting shockwave sending the security guard flying. Arveene landed prone next to the injured tabaxi.

            Morthos landed upon the deck of the end ship. Before him stood an enderman wearing a captain’s hat and a fancy coat made from some dark fabric. A cutlass materialized in the captain’s hand, and he motioned for the six guards scattered around the deck to attack. Morthos summoned a small, metal box into his hand, which he tossed to the ground. The cube rapidly unfolded and transformed into a miniature, arcane ballista attached to four spiderlike, metal legs. Mort blocked the first guard’s sword with the shaft of his spear and drove him back. Before he could swing again, the cultist was struck in the chest by a shot from the ballista and stumbled back. As the demon impaled the guard on his spear, the captain reached out his hand and Morthos’ mind was assaulted by dark whispering. Mort managed to shake off the whispers, but was distracted just long enough for one of the cultists to slash him across the shoulder.

            Dr. Bones looked out over the battlefield, seeing that the defenders were outnumbered. The skeleton chanted an arcane incantation and summoned a sinkhole in gravity itself that sucked in and crushed several cultists.

Kethra ran to an injured member of the militia who was lying on the ground, then summoned a syringe from her dimensional storage. She jabbed the enderman with the needle and he was quickly revitalized. He got back to his feet as the medic’s construct bodyguard hoisted a nearby cultist into the air by the throat and hurled him away.

            Luth the Wight and Kethoth the mummy stood back-to-back, fending off several of Null’s soldiers with their blades. Luth grabbed a cultist’s arm and drained the life from his body as, on the other side of him, Kethoth impaled another foe upon his sword. Above them hovered Stedd the ghost, who shot a cultist between the eyes with his spectral revolver.

            Erebus lunged forward, swinging his greatsword down at Null. The entity leapt to the side and jabbed his stolen baton into the enderman’s midsection, delivering a painful shock. Null kicked Erebus from his feet and pulled back his arm, preparing to deliver a devastating baton strike.

A moment later, the entity was thrown to the ground by an impressive blast of electricity and thunderous force. He rolled out of the way of Helixea’s incoming fist, which slammed into the ground. Null leapt to his feet and swung his baton at his new foe. The medusa pressed a button on her armored wrist, and her armor was wreathed in thin, wispy flames that did her no harm. As the entity’s weapon connected with Helixea’s shoulder, her aura of flames flared out for a moment, scorching Null’s arm.

Null retreated a few steps and summoned an inky tentacle from the ground, which wrapped itself around Erebus as he attempted to charge the shadowy monster. Erebus concentrated for a moment, and a new dark echo of himself materialized next to the tentacles’ base, slashing it with its inky blade. The militia commander barely managed to land on his feet as he fell from the dissipating tentacle.

            Tenebrea dashed towards the endersent as it got to its feet. It punched down at the monk, but she vanished in a lavender cloud and appeared atop its arm. The enderman sprinted up the giant’s arm and delivered a flurry of punches to its face using the spectral arms that hovered above her own. The endersent staggered back and forth before finally collapsing to the ground with a tremendous thud.

            Thunder got to his feet and sidestepped a blow from the other endersent’s fist. The tabaxi’s blade glowed with green light as he slashed it across the beast’s hand. Several vines sprouted up from the stone ground in response to the blow and began to wrap around the giant’s arm. Meanwhile, Arveene regained her footing and fired her arcane rifle into the monster’s leg. With its massive strength, the endersent pulled its arm free of the vines and grabbed the human security guard, lifting her into the air.

            Thunder sprinted toward the endersent, but a stomp of its foot generated enough of a shockwave to keep him at bay. Arveene struggled against the giant’s grip as it began to brutally squeeze her. A moment later, a series of sickening crunches echoed across the battlefield as the security guard’s bones were crushed within her armor and the endersent tossed her mangled corpse aside.

            The cultist was blasted by a wave of fire from Morthos’ hands and stumbled off the ship’s edge while trying to put out his robes. The captain teleported out of the way of a shot from the demon’s miniature force ballista and reappeared next to the turret. The warlock grabbed the ballista with one hand, hoisted it above his head, and tossed it over the side of his vessel.

Morthos jabbed a guard in the stomach with the butt of his spear, then shouted in anger as another foe slashed him across one wing. The demon turned to face his assailant and knocked the guard’s next strike aside with his own. The spear’s head briefly separated into two halves as a beam of arcane power fired from the weapon’s end and fatally struck the cultist in the chest.

The captain pointed his cutlass at Morthos, and the weapon’s blade glowed with malevolent green energy. Two bolts of eldritch power shot from the cutlass and painfully struck the demon in his armored chest. Mort furiously plunged his spear into a charging guard’s chest and then howled with pain as another cultist stabbed his uninjured wing.

            Null channeled his hatred, rage, and spite into his baton, and the crackling of electricity was joined by that of shadowy power. The entity lunged forward, swinging wildly and ferociously at Helixea, but the medusa avoided the attack with serpentine grace and delivered a thunderous punch to Null’s midsection. In the moment it took for the dark figure to recover, a few of the snakes that comprised the A.L.E.R.T. commander’s hair lashed out and bit the entity, but the venom had no effect upon him.

            Helixea blocked her foe’s strike with her armored gauntlets, but was taken aback by the incredible force of the blow. Null followed up with another swing that struck the mask from the medusa’s face, shattered the reinforced visor, and knocked Helixea to the ground as her armor blasted the entity with flames.

Before Null could swing again, he was sliced across the back by a greatsword. The entity spun around and struck his assailant in the head, dissipating Erebus’ duplicate. The real Erebus leapt at Null, but the entity’s baton bashed his weapon out of the way. The dark creature furiously slammed his weapon into the enderman’s chest, and before he could recover, the militia commander was struck in the leg, causing him to fall to one knee. With a scream of rage, Null slammed his weapon against the bottom of Erebus’ jaw, sending him sprawling. The entity swung his weapon down a final time, but his blow connected only with stone, exhausting the last of the baton’s dark energy in the process.

            Null was caught off guard as Helixea wrapped her tail tightly around him, knocking the weapon from his hands in the process. Null struggled against the medusa as he was painfully constricted and burned by her armored body, and he found himself unable to teleport due to the bright light the flames emitted. The A.L.E.R.T. commander’s eyes locked onto those of her foe in an attempt to petrify him, but the dark creature easily shook off the effect. In his desperation, the entity managed to reach up and grab a handful of Helixea’s snake hair.

The medusa cried out in pain and momentarily loosened her hold on her foe as her hair was yanked to one side. In her brief moment of distraction, Null managed to force his way out of her coils and deliver a powerful kick to her abdomen. “Get her!” he furiously shouted in the endermen’s language as he pointed at the squad leader. Holding one hand on his injured midsection, he limped to the nearest shadow and plunged into it as several nearby cultists rushed at the winded medusa.

            The endersent pulled back its arm to strike down at Thunder with its massive fist, but stopped when a tiny meteor collided with its face. Both the tabaxi and the giant quickly turned to look for the source of the projectile and spotted Dr. Bones standing a short distance away with several minute meteors orbiting his head.

            “Seemed like you could use a hand,” the skeleton commented as another projectile flew from its orbit to hurtle towards the endersent.

            The towering beast teleported to the side of the meteor, but did not anticipate the skeleton quick-drawing his arcane revolver and firing directly into its eye. The giant roared with pain and collapsed to the ground, creating a minor earthquake.

            Morthos spun around and stabbed at his attacker, but the enderman disappeared in a haze of purple particles. Another guard leapt through the air and slammed his feet into the demon’s back, shoving him over the ship’s side. As Mort plummeted through the air, he attempted to take flight, but due to the damage to his wings, he was merely able to control and slow his fall a little and he landed hard on the stone ground.

            Kethoth swung his sword toward the advancing cultist, but he suddenly found himself unable to move his arm. The mummy turned to see Null holding onto his wrist, and before he could try to free his arm, the mummy was impaled by the blade of the cultist he had tried to kill. The entity twisted the sword from Kethoth’s grip, caught it with his other hand, and sliced the head from the mummy’s shoulders, before vanishing into the shadow of the attacking cultist.

            Helixea struggled to dodge the cultists’ onslaught as she regained her breath, taking a few glancing blows to her sides and tail in the process, however her flaming armor punished her attackers and kept them at bay. The medusa managed to catch her breath and assume a ready stance, but she realized that she had been surrounded. The cultists charged in unison, but two of them suddenly dropped to the ground as they received blows to the back of the head. Behind them stood Tenebrea, who leapt into the fray, punching Null’s soldiers left and right. Helixea turned to deal with the cultists on her other side and immediately downed a cultist with a thunderous punch. The next foe in line was unfortunate enough to meet the medusa’s gaze and became a statue. The two women fought back-to-back, expertly holding off their numerous foes.

            After her construct bodyguard had been destroyed by Null’s troops, Kethra retreated to within the relative safety of what remained of the town’s walls and began having injured soldiers brought in for her to heal. Presently, Erebus teleported, still sprawled on the ground, to appear in front of the medic. A few seconds later, the militia captain’s echo strode up to the pair, dragging behind it the unconscious form of Morthos. “Looks like you two got messed up pretty bad. I’ll see what I can do” Kethra somewhat nervously observed.

            Null stood behind his forces, observing the battle from the back. There were multiple powerful foes carving through many of his troops, but despite that, his forces still significantly outnumbered his enemies and the entity felt that it was only a matter of time until victory was his.

            The fighting suddenly ground to a halt as a roar echoed from the sky and across the battlefield. The soldiers on both sides turned to look up at the source. Flying towards the town was a huge dragon with black scales, purple eyes, and dark grey back spines, horns, and wing edges. The dragon swooped over the battlefield, expelling a torrent of lavender acid from its maw onto the entity’s army.

            The beast strafed the battlefield a couple more times before seemingly spotting Null. It flew over the entity’s head, and its dark-robed rider leapt from its back, flipped through the air, and landed a short distance in front of Null. “So, you can come back from the dead, can you?” the endermen rhetorically questioned in his species’ language, speaking in a tone that was equal parts mocking and threatening.

            “Aurack?!” the entity furiously spat.

            “Indeed,” the governor responded as he ignited the twin orange blades of his strange weapon.

            After strafing the cultists with its breath attack a few more times, the dragon glided down and landed next to Helixea. “Want a ride up to that end ship?” The dragon cheerfully offered in draconic, a language that the medusa understood.

            “That would be rather helpful,” she responded.

            The dragon scooped up the medusa with its claws and carried her through the air before dropping her gently onto the hovering vessel’s deck and flying off to rejoin the fight.

            Null conjured an orb of darkness in his hand and hurled it at Aurack. The enderman nonchalantly caught the projectile with telekinesis and flung it into the void. In his injured state, the entity struggled to fend off the many strikes of his foe’s whirling blades. Null leapt backwards and sunk into a nearby shadow, appearing a short way behind Aurack, then summoned a cloud of arcane darkness to blind the enderman.

            Lord Aurack closed his eyes and focused on his surroundings. After a few seconds had passed, he sensed the fiend’s approach and reflexively spun his weapon to block his foe’s stolen blade. Having been shocked by the ease with which his enemy foiled his attack, Null was caught off guard by the sudden wave of force that threw him from his feet and flung him backwards. Aurack confidently strode out of the cloud of darkness as beams of electricity arced from his fingertips and into his foe’s body.

            The gems on the back of Helixea’s hands flared with intense electricity as she slammed her knuckles together. The two charging guards were thrown backwards and slammed hard against the stairs leading up to the helm. Unlike his comrades, the ship’s captain managed to teleport out of the way of the blast and appear next to the wheel unscathed. The two guards got to their feet and teleported behind the medusa. As foes appeared behind her, Helixea turned around and sprayed an oil slick from a nozzle in her forearm armor. The two endermen attempted to lunge at the enemy commander, but slipped on the oil and fell on their faces before being swept over the ship’s edge with a flick of the medusa’s tail.

            The captain conjured a whip made from lightning in his hand and swept it toward the invader of his vessel. The whip wrapped itself around Helixea’s wrist and delivered an electrical jolt through her armor, and the enderman began magically reeling the weapon in, attempting to drag his foe towards him. The medusa grinned as she grabbed hold of the cord with her free hand and leaned back, pulling him with her full might in a single, tremendous tug. The captain was yanked towards her and landed unceremoniously on the ground, the whip dissipating from his hand and the sword clattering to the ground a few feet away.

            The enderman stood up and found himself face to face with Helixea, who had raised herself up on her snake-like lower body to match the lanky creature’s height. The captain prepared to cast a spell, but suddenly found himself unable to move as his form began to harden. A few seconds later, the end ship’s captain was nothing but a stone statue, which Helixea shattered with a punch before slithering toward the vessel’s controls.

            Luth and Stedd struggled desperately to fend off the horde. No matter how many foes they put down, more seemed to arrive. Just as it seemed the pair would be overwhelmed, a shadowy greatsword blade emerged from one cultist’s stomach, and an ender steel greatsword emerged from another. A third enemy was blown away with an arcane blunderbuss. Luth and Stedd turned to see that the newly healed Erebus and Morthos had rejoined the fray.

            Null lay on the ground, being blasted with lightning from his foe’s fingertips. The entity struggled to get up, but was unable due to the pain. In his fury at his current circumstance, he hurled his sword at his foe with a scream of rage. Aurack deftly deflected the weapon with his own and the alchemos sword spun off the edge of the island. In the process, however, the enderman had halted his electric barrage, and the entity capitalized by standing up and sinking into a shadow.

            Aurack was flung to the ground as his adversary appeared behind him and kicked him in the back. Null’s follow-up punch slammed into the stone of the island as the enderman utilized his race’s innate ability to teleport. The governor appeared behind the monster and slashed him across the back three times in quick succession before slamming the hilt of his double-bladed weapon into Null’s head, sending him to the ground. Null struggled to regain his feet, but found himself too injured to do so. Aurack used his telekinetic might to lift his fallen foe into the air.

            “You cannot destroy me, mortal!” Null bellowed in a furious, but strained, voice.

            “Maybe I cannot… but I would like to see you try and come back from this one!” the masked enderman responded with a maniacal laugh.

            Before the entity could respond, Aurack telekinetically hurled Null off the island’s edge and watched as the dark creature plummeted out of sight and into the darkness of the void.

            Helixea coiled herself up like a spring before leaping off the doomed vessel’s deck as the ship continued its crash course with the ground. The medusa landed gracefully on the stone ground as the vessel plummeted into Null’s remaining forces and burst into shrapnel.

            With their leader gone, their ship crashed, and the majority of their comrades dead, the remaining cultists almost immediately routed and teleported from the battlefield. Aurack turned off his weapon, replaced its hilt within his robes, and strode over to Erebus and Tenebrea, where the three enderman leaders began conversing. A few minutes later, Tenebrea appeared next to the remaining A.L.E.R.T. personnel.

            “Erebus and I have spoken with Aurack. He has decided to make peace with you and agree to your trade deal,” she cheerfully explained.

            “Excellent,” Helixea responded. “Do you think Null will ever return?”

            “Our people do not know much for certain about the void, but what we do know is that nobody who has fallen into it, without immediately teleporting or flying back up, has ever been seen again,” the enderman enlightened. “So, what will you do now?”

            “We will collect the bodies of our fallen comrades, and the bodies of some of yours if that’s OK with you, and take them back to our dimension to have them resurrected by the priests of Ravius.”

            “Yes, you may,” the monk acquiesced.

            “And I, for one, will be researching how to translate your language into ours,” B.I.L.L. excitedly announced.