Scot and Shannon hesitated in the forest brush, watching a modern-day demon move across the clearing. The demon they were looking at stood approximately 14 feet tall; it had dark, scaled skin, but it was very female. It was actually darkly beautiful, with a very voluptuous feminine figure and a feminine face, but its mouth stretched ear to ear and was full of very sharp titanic teeth. From its head sprouted long, straight black horns. Its hands were huge, ending in sharp talons. There were short wings on its back; it couldn’t actually fly but seemed to move with an odd, dark grace. It carried a longsword in its hand, which was bloody and notched as though it had seen much battle recently. The demoness was dressed in tattered and battered leather and armor. The tall demon woman was limping. There was a bad gash in her left thigh; something sharp had pierced her tremendously tough, scaly skin.
Suddenly, several dinosaurs that resembled the Tyrannosaurus Rex species came out of the brush at different angles to attack the woman. Looking again, Scot realized they weren't actually Tyrannosaurus Rex—they were even larger. They were a type of Megasaurus dinosaur, almost like Godzilla, with very long upper arms that could be used in battle, ending in huge-taloned hands. The three dinosaurs were clearly working together; it was probably a family unit, a mother, father, and the youngest was about a head shorter than the 25-foot tall creatures.
All three of the green scaled dinosaurs rushed the demoness. She moved with a fluid celerity and incredible agility that was hard to follow. She dashed and her sword flashed as it slashed and nailed the neck of the nearest dinosaur, hacking the head clean off in one powerful, precise strike. The headless dinosaur dumbly stumbled several steps forward, pouring gore on the forest floor, and the demoness sidestepped the humongous hurtling body.
The next dinosaur was almost upon her, but she made a smooth move lunging and spinning with a slash that crashed home cleaving its cranium, splitting the skull to the teeth, killing the colossal creature in one sure stroke.
But the demon woman looked around at that point because her sword was briefly hung up, stuck in the creature's cleft skull. The other dinosaur almost had her as it lunged to bite at her back, but the demon woman was incredibly quick and slick as she ducked and chucked a punch that crunched as it erupted upwards in an uppercut that jarred like a jackhammer in the jaw of the dinosaur, slamming its open mouth shut. It blundered by her, stumbling and stunned. With odd predatory power and grace, the angelic woman leaped atop the creature's back and scrambled up its neck, digging her claws to thrash through its throat, opening arteries and jabbing through the jugular—almost decapitating the dinosaur with a mighty grip and rip of her talons. Then she kicked clear, landing and rolling.
Scot and Shannon both gaped in disbelief as three Megasaurus dinosaurs collapsed in the clearing, killed by the female demoness basically half their size. Scot didn't know what to say, but he had no time to think about it. It was at that moment that numerous other demons appeared in the clearing. These were male demons. They stood taller than the woman, most of them averaging between 15 to 17 feet in height. They were more muscular; much like her, they wore leathers and bits of armor and carried massive swords, axes, and spears. Two clutched behemoth bows and arrows easily eight feet long.
The female demon crouched with her sword ready and waited. The archers almost smiled as they drew their bows to aim at her. What Scot and Shannon would have done next is up for debate, because the next thing they knew, they were warned by Shannon. "Look out, two more coming! This way, Scot!" she pointed.
Scot and Shannon barely heard the demons as they approached through the brush, and they quickly tried to dodge. But they were caught, with the clearing near them and the other demons coming in too quickly. Shannon looked over at Scot. Shannon was an immense wolf—a black wolf. Her mouth was the size of a hippo, with teeth like a Tyrannosaurus Rex, and her claws reached well over seven inches in length. Shannon was actually a were-beast. By day, she was typically a beautiful woman with long dark hair, very green eyes, and a voluptuous figure; but by night, a dark matter symbiont—an alien symbiont inside her—turned her into a black werewolf.
Scot was a short, very muscular man with rugged good looks, blond hair, and blue eyes. His left hand was dark robotics, and in his right hand, he held a plasma knife with a foot-long flaming blade that he had not yet ignited. Scot was physically augmented due to his genetics being enhanced from the bite of a creature known as a "Slypher." It had made Scot several times faster, stronger, and more coordinated than he had been before; and Scot had always been a skilled MMA fighter and street fighter. Scot had also previously been psychic and remained so; he could see human souls that were earthbound.
Above Scot flew a gorgeous, glowing ghost with long blond hair, blue eyes, and a flawless feminine figure; her name was Sharon. She was a former FBI agent and had been Scot's partner on Earth and on this alien planet called Tier for many years. "Scot, that way! That way!" Sharon urged, pointing. Scot led the way, calling to Shannon softly. Shannon couldn't see Sharon, so she followed Scot's lead.
They were running parallel to the clearing, trying to avoid the encounter, when one of the creatures in the forest saw them and launched an immense arrow. The arrow slammed into Shannon's side like a crane's wrecking ball, and the impact from the arrow bulldozed her body from the brush, sending her rolling into the clearing. At that moment, several demons in the clearing and the demons in the forest all spotted Shannon.
Scot, without hesitation, moved through the brush as one of the demons that had shot Shannon came closer, knocking a new arrow. Scot moved as quickly as he could in a blur of speed and stealth. The demon creature still heard him and turned as it was knocking its next arrow. Scot's leap was a stupendous spring that carried him onto the demon's flank. The demon tried to spin and hit him with a blow of the bow while also reaching one of its huge, clawed hands at him.
But Scot was a bit too quick and managed to stick his blazing blade, knifing into the neck of the daunting demon. The plasma knife rived and raked deep into the meat, jamming into the jugular and inflicting a fatal injury on the immense entity. Scot immediately kicked off to get away as the enraged demon lashed at the air, trying to catch him. Scot landed and continued his run, dodging through the forest to evade the monster.
The other demon saw Scot's movement and tried to give chase, raising its sword, but in the brush, Scot was quicker. He evaded the demon and burst out of the brush by Shannon's side. Shannon’s incredibly hard dark-matter exterior had withstood the wallop of the immense arrow's broadhead ramming into her ribs, but the point had pierced a bit, drawing blood and inflicting a painful injury.
Now, Shannon was all mad, and killing was her only thought. For the briefest fraction of a moment, Shannon, Scot, and the tall female demon all exchanged a quick glance. In that instant, the trio seemed to realize they were facing the same enemies—the male demons in the clearing—and then the battle erupted.
The female demon was the first one to take advantage of her opportunity. She made a sudden spring aside. One of the archers had swung his bow towards Shannon and Scot when they broke into the clearing; that left only one archer aiming at the female demon, and he unleashed his arrow.
The female demon managed to slightly slip aside, but the arrow passed so close it actually rasped her ribs in passing. And then, she was charging the archer. The archer tried to bash her with his bow while also drawing his dagger, but the female was too fast. Her sword smashed the bow haft in half, and she followed through with a fluid thrust that punctured his pectoral, impaling the demon.
His half-drawn dagger fell from his fingers, and he aimed a killing claw-blow, attempting to eviscerate her; but with a dancer's fluid grace, the demon woman yanked her blade free and leapt back so the claws lace only grazed her.
The other archer’s arrow arced at Shannon. With alien agility and celerity, Shannon dodged the dart, and the arrow scraped her shoulder in passing. Then, she was charging the archer in a blur of fur and frantic fury. The archer actually tossed his bow in her path as he tried to draw his dagger and extended a clawed hand, intent on catching Shannon by the throat in mid-leap to keep her from his neck and body. He also lashed his leg in a low gigantic kick.
But Shannon did not go for the high leap or fall for the giant’s leg sweep as the demon expected. She feinted as though she was about to jump up and then slid on all fours across the grassy ground like a baseball player sliding into home plate. Her low vector brought her within reach of his knees, and Shannon’s teeth trimmed into his testicles as her claws sawed open arteries, flaying his femoral artery apart. In an instant, she had neutered his nuts and opened his arteries. As Shannon raced away, the demon aimed a claw swipe that hacked her hindquarters, ripping along her rump in a superficial wound.
Scot found himself facing two giants charging him from each direction. With clear swordsman instinct, both warriors’ weapons whipped in accurate arcs, intending to cleave Scot in twain. Scot managed to reverse direction and abruptly sprint away from the swordsmen. Both swords dug into the dirt where Scot had just been, and the pair tried to chase him as he rushed into the brush away from the clearing.
In their haste to pursue Scot, they had forgotten about Shannon briefly. Shannon hit them like a freight train flying through the air, knocking into the neck of the nearest one and bashing into his back. Her immense maw and claws were like chainsaws, chewing and chiseling through the dark, heavy scales and shredding through his throat, killing the creature before it realized the danger.
The other demon spun as he heard Shannon’s movements and saw his friend going down. That demon was quick to jump and pump a quick kick that clipped Shannon slightly as she sidestepped. He swung his sword in a lethal low blow, his thrust intending to skewer Shannon like a shish kabob. But as Shannon dived aside, his steel caught her at a glancing angle, skidding along her shoulder and side, not making a direct impact, just inflicting another superficial scrape on her tough dark matter.
Scot did an immediate about-face. Quicker than the demon realized he was in trouble, Scot had sprinted back the way he’d come to catch the demon's back. As Scot leapt, the demon was turning; in that half-turn, Scot knew he would not be able to reach its neck. So, Scot angled low with his plasma knife, cleaving into the crotch of the demon and knifing into its nuts.
The demon was clearly male and hunched up in agony, but it still managed to use its free hand to launch a blow that partially clubbed Scot and sent him flying through the air like a rag doll to hit the ground, falling over and rolling. Beaten and bloody, the demon went to one knee, grasping at its gored groin. It had no chance against Shannon as she leapt and swept her claws through its throat; her immense mouth snapped like a titanic bear trap on the nape of its neck, severing the spinal cord and killing the creature.
Back in the clearing, the demon woman was hard-pressed by two experienced warriors. One of the warriors was wielding an immense axe and shield; the other warrior just had a sword and shield. The demon woman used her superior speed and agility, and clearly superior sword skills, to keep the two from putting her between them and cutting her down. But she was moving slower due to her wounded leg, and she was tired.
Scot got up. His Kevlar vest, with a space-age plate inside, had saved him from more serious injury where the creature's claws had cleft the Kevlar, partially puncturing the plating. He had a nasty gash along his arm and hip; he was feeling beat up from the blow. He looked over at Shannon. She was sporting some superficial scrapes but seemed okay.
Together, they looked over at the female demoness as she danced and slashed and clashed in sword dance with the pair pummeling her. Scot and Shannon could have fled at that point, but Sharon made the comment, "That female demon knows the area. She's obviously enemies with these people; she could become a powerful ally. We still have a lot of ground to cover, and there are a lot of big predators."
Scot sighed. "I was afraid you'd say that." Scot looked over at Shannon and said clearly, "We can leave her to her own defenses, or we can help her. What do you think?"
Shannon looked at him and then at the demon woman. After a brief moment, Shannon gave one bark for "yes."
Scot inquired, "Oh, are you saying we should leave her?"
Shannon gave him an ugly, obviously irritated werewolf look and barked twice for "no."
Scot sighed. "So we should help her?"
Shannon barked once for "yes."
"That's it. All right. She's doing pretty good, but let's go. We'll try to distract the others."
Scot and Shannon rushed toward the battle. The distraction actually proved to be all the help the female demon needed. The sword-wielding male demon saw Scot coming from one angle and Shannon from the other, and it took his eyes off the female demon for an instant. That was all she needed.
The female demon's move was very smooth as she stepped and swept her sword and chopped through his chest and lacerated his lung. He looked very shocked at the sudden, fatal blow. Then the female demon danced back as the axe-man's immense axe almost decapitated her. She deftly ducked, but it knocked the sword from her hand. Not missing a beat, the female demon lunged low with her horns, impaling the abdomen of her enemy—punching through his plate armor to skewer his stomach and impale his intestines.
The axe-man used his shield; the slam sledged her head, and the powerful punch clubbed the female demon down, stunned, at the axe-man's feet. The demon grasped at his gored gut, gasping at the agony of his intestines. Despite his fatal injury, he still tried to defend himself against Scot and Shannon. Scot feinted low, rushing over and waving his sword to distract the demon, while Shannon made a quick lunge at his Achilles' heel. The axe-man aimed his shield at Shannon, blocking her bite, while his axe slashed at Scot and chopped into the dirt as Scot narrowly and agilely skipped aside.
The stunned female demon still had the presence of mind to realize she was in danger and moved, reaching over to grab his ankle. That brief trip was all that was needed. Scot rushed with a leap and a sweep of his plasma dagger, knifing into the knee of the giant. The giant managed a kick that nicked Scot, sending him flying, but his distraction ended the demon's existence as Shannon bolted onto his back. Her claws and maw mutilated the monster, slashing through his throat and killing the creature.
In the aftermath, Scot rose, feeling stiff and sore, but his enhanced alien genetics were hard at work. Supernatural healing was already beginning for his bruising and possibly cracked ribs and hip. He hobbled over to Shannon. She was scraped in several spots and bleeding a bit, but she had been injured far worse in the past.
Scot turned his plasma knife off and watched as the female demon gradually got her feet beneath her. The trio all stared at each other, and Scot broke the silence by asking, "Do you speak the human language?"
The female demon looked at him, and her answer was in a harsh, grating, inhuman tone, but he could understand it. “A little,” she rumbled.
"I assume there's more of these guys after you," Scot inquired. She looked around and nodded.
"Well, my name is Scot. This is Shannon. We're trying to get through your territory, and we're running into all kinds of problems. We're heading toward the city of Born. Would you care to travel with us?"
The female demon looked around at all the bodies on the battlefield and realized she would be one of them if not for his help. "Yes," she said simply, and rose to her feet.
Scot added, "Good. We don't want anything from you except some help passing through the territory. You're free to leave whenever you want. Just don't try to do anything to hurt us. I know some of you demons eat humans on a routine basis. Don't try eating us; it won't work out for you. We can all use each other's help for a little while. Call it an alliance of sorts."
The female demon said nothing. Scot asked her, "What do I call you? What's your name?"
The female demon responded, "Orissa."
"Well, we should probably be going," Scot said.
Sharon flew over to Scot and said, "I can see other male demons in the distance—probably about a dozen of them. They're coming this way. They’re miles off, but I saw them crossing a clearing. You should get going. I think there's a way you might be able to lose them ahead because there's a river. You can use that."
"Yeah, that was my plan," Scot agreed. "Let's go."
Scot started off, and the huge demoness named Orissa followed. She first helped herself to a bow and arrows and some other items from the dead demons’. As they traveled through the jungle together, Scot and Shannon were careful to keep a close eye on the female giantess. Although she was completely alien, with her very thick, black-scaled exterior, her eyes were a bewitching blue and her lips were actually lush and lascivious. Unfortunately, that very wide mouth and all those sharp teeth made her smile very, very scary—as did those sharp horns and those titanic talons of hers. Her clothing was tattered in spots, offering views of her breasts and her buttocks; from what Scot could see, she looked very much like a woman, except instead of skin, she basically had scales.
When they reached the river, Scot told Orissa, "Look, I know pretty much all predators are afraid of your kind; you're the top dogs around here. If Shannon and I try to cross the river, we're going to be fighting everything in there. Would you have any problems with carrying us across?"
The female demon looked surprised at the request. She looked at Shannon dubiously. Scot said, "No, no—you don't have to carry Shannon. I know she's probably heavy. But if I am on your back, I should be okay, and Shannon will just follow close to us. We're kind of counting on you to scare away most of the predators."
Orissa considered it and she nodded. Scot informed her, "There are about a dozen more of those armed giants a few miles behind you. We saw them when they crossed the clearing. So, if we follow the river down a ways, we can probably confuse them, and it'll take them longer to find our trail. How does that sound to you?"
Orissa considered it and then nodded in agreement. When they reached the river's edge, Orissa got down on one knee trustingly to let Scot climb onto her back. Scot did so with some slight trepidation. He climbed up behind her and wrapped his arms around her neck from behind so that he was basically her backpack. She easily stood with him dangling off her back and entered the murky river.
Shannon stayed hard on her heels, moving through the waters close to the demon. Soon the demon was up past her chest, moving through the river, and Shannon was swimming close behind her. Nearby, colossal crocodiles and snakes of stupendous size veered away from the demoness; the reptiles had a healthy respect for the demons that routinely haunted the river to kill and eat them.
Through the waters, there were giant fish and small sharks. Several attempted to attack; Shannon was bitten by a supersized shark, but her dark-matter haunches resisted the bite. She spun, launching and landing a bite of her own, along with a slash of her claws that ripped it to ribbons in seconds like a blender of blows, slaying the shark.
Orissa felt bites at her ankles and body, but her tough scales withstood the teeth. She used her sword and her long claws adroitly to stab, smash and slash several of the vicious predators, killing them. Soon the river was bathed in blood, and the predatory fish and sharks focused on the dead prey.
Sharon, as usual, was flying on patrol. She would quickly zoom ahead, looking around at everything. She could fly above the forest and see a lot, but the jungle was so thick that not even her eyes could detect it all. She did find a good pathway for them, and she led Scot along. Scot, in turn, guided Orissa, pointing out where he wanted her to climb the opposite shore. To her credit, Orissa followed Scot's exact instructions as Shannon followed them up the bank.
It was very rocky there, and the demoness, Scot, and Shannon were able to move over the stony shore, leaving fewer signs of their passage. Sharon guided them from the rocky shore into the jungle, where the tough terrain continued with lots of daunting boulders and a warren of caves along the mountain's edge.
As they moved, Scot considered how everything had come to be. Scot and Shannon had come from Earth. Back on Earth, wormholes had begun to open as aliens probed the planet, and through some of those wormholes, strange creatures emerged. One of those creatures was a dark-matter werewolf that had bitten Shannon. Shannon had survived the bite and been infected with a symbiont.
The Earth was being probed by vampire-like aliens. Scot was a psychic who worked for the government hunting the alien vampires. When the alien vampires killed Shannon's boyfriend and kidnapped her, she had slain several in her wolf form. Once she and Scot met, they had started hunting the alien vampires together. This had led them to a wormhole machine the alien vampires were using to try to bring more of their kind over to invade Earth. In destroying the wormhole converter, Scot, Shannon, and Sharon had all been sucked through to the planet of Tier.
They had gone from the surface of Tier to hide in the Inner World, traveling underground to avoid a war that was occurring on the surface between the alien Greys and another species known as the Skenders. The top-side surface had become a holocaust of horror as spaceships raged in battle, destroying huge swaths of the planet. Many of the sentient beings were being taken and their souls extracted and used in what is called a "soul forge." Their souls became energy for the Skender aliens to use in their starships and energy weapons, but the Skenders were unable to harvest human souls for some reason.
Scot and Shannon had been down in the Inner World and had helped dozens of humans survive, who would have surely died, and escape on a ship. But recently, the ship had been attacked by a pair of monsters in the river. During the battle, both Scot and Shannon had saved the ship but fell overboard doing so, and the humans had sailed off, leaving Scot and Shannon behind. On that ship was a fortune in gold and silver, of which Scot had a partial claim to. He knew the humans were going to the nearest city, called Bourne, and he wanted to reach it, find them, and claim his fortune.
It was his intention to reach the surface world again. Because in the Inner World there was no daylight—only night—and with it being eternal night, Shannon remained in wolf form all the time. She could not return to a human form until she reached daylight again back on the surface. That was their goal: to reach the surface so Shannon could be the woman that Scot loved again, at least by daylight. And the strange demoness named Orissa had just become an ally in that mission.
Bio:
Tom Kropp’s work has appeared in The Horror Zine, J Journal, Chiron Review, Churches, Children and Daddies, Down in the Dirt, Freedom Fiction Journal, Short-Story Me, Blood Moon Rising, Dark Harbor, Flash Phantoms, You Phantomaniacs Anthology, The Listening Eye, Evening Street Review, Conceit, Spotlight on Recovery, Outdoor Life and Muscle and Fitness. His play Jailhouse Confessions was performed at the Kennedy Center in 2019. He has numerous novels and audiobooks available. You can read more of his writings at https://tomkropp.wordpress.com. He has numerous audiobooks and eBooks available free at Google Play Books.
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