Ashtyn stood in the shadows, hidden back by the door, watching. She didn’t know what to do. What power did she have to stop Grath? This wasn’t her world. She hated to admit it, but she was terrified.
She watched as the tentacle forced it’s way into Bobby’s mouth, as another one started to snake up the leg of his pants.
She needed to do something!
She ran to Juktha’s side.
“You need to do something!” She grabbed Juktha’s shoulders and shook her. “You can’t let him do this to them!”
Juktha looked at her. The deity's eyes were pale, her skin staring to wrinkle. The life was being sucked out of her.
“You... you... are their last chance.” Juktha’s voice quivered with age.
“Me?” Ashtyn couldn’t hide the shock in her voice.
“Your gift.” Juktha smiled, looking at Ashtyn’s hands. “Use the gift I gave you.”
Suddenly she remembered what had happened when the spore had touched her in the computer room. A normal person would have been possessed by Grath, but when it had touched her skin it had vanished.
Ashtyn knew what she needed to do.
She got to her feet, taking a step towards Grath. For the first time he notcied her.
“Would you like to play, too?” He laughed. “There’s enough of me to go around.”
“Bring it on.” Ashtyn took a deep breath, and rooted her feet to the floor.
A tentacle came soaring at her, and she reached up catching it mid air. The second her hand wrapped around the slimy, phallic object it burst into a cloud of dust.
Grath howled, every inch of his body going taught. The tentacles that had been invading Kurt and Bobby suddenly went slack, releasing them.
“What... what are you?” Grath turned his head towards her, taking a step back.
“I am a disciple of Juktha.” Ashtyn smiled, her body seeming to be overtaken with a sudden surge of power.
Grath growled, raising his arm, and swinging the blade on his wrist towards Ashtyn’s head. Before the blade could even make contact with her, it burst into dust, cracking Grath’s arm in half.
Ashtyn, with renewed confidence, took a step towards the weakened god.
“I am her exorcist, her cleric.” As she spoke, her words no longer sounded like her own. It was her voice, but the words themselves seemed to be coming from somewhere else completely. A different time. “You will release your host, and fade back into the obscurity where you belong.”
“Never.” Grath held his ground, his body bracing for an attack. “My followers will give me their strength. How many does Juktha have? Three? Four? I have dozens, and my disciples are growing in numbers as we speak. You cannot defeat me. Not with Juktha so weakened.”
Ashtyn smiled, her confidence coming not from herself, but from the strange power that was growing inside of her body. Without warning she rushed Grath. She threw an uppercut, her fist connecting with his jaw.
His head exploded into a cloud of dust on contact. The rest of him stayed standing, unmoving. Slowly, starting with his crumbling stump of a neck, he began to break down, turning into nothing more then a pile of dust and sand.
Ashtyn looked up at Megan, and watched as the barbed wire that had snaked around her leg vanished, releasing the young woman.
Within a matter of seconds the room began to change around them. Everything became bright and new. No signs of Grath’s decay could be seen anymore.
She had done it. She had saved the day.
“You are much more advanced then I had expected.” Juktha’s now youthful voice made Ashtyn turn. “I have chosen well.” Juktha smiled, her face restored to its former beauty.
Megan’s mind scape was safe.
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