The Primordial Weapon

[PepsiWhirda]

At that moment, as the god-thing Atelos succumbed to the onslaught only his own hubris could have brought down upon him, Whirda knew the fight was over.

The war the contagion had waged on her body left her knees trembling and a sheen of sweat on her skin. The pain from the gouges in her back blossomed anew, hot and bright. Blues seemed no better off, his armor pouring smoke, dented and torn in a dozen places.

The red mercenary’s gaze darted between them, searching for a way to regain the upper hand, but with his only ally, the titan Dio Brando, still bound by wriggling shadow serpents and offering no resistance, he found himself outnumbered for the first time since their hunt for the tarrasque began. Mighty in his own right, he nevertheless recognized the futility of the situation. He backed away, his cloak shimmering as he activated his stealth.

Blues, stubborn as ever, limped forward, his arm cannon humming to life.

Whirda placed a hand on his chest. “Let him go. We got what we wanted.”

Alain winked as his stealth activated. “Until we meet again,” he said, before he disappeared. Blues followed him with his faze, ensuring the mercenary made no move to grab the artefact, but Whirda knew the pragmatic Alain was no fool. To escape with his life was prize enough.

“Check the Spartan,” Whirda said. “I’ll take care of Dio.”

She approached the fallen Prime and knelt at his side. For all his slimy charisma, even his best-laid plans had crumbled around him. Like the Spartan, his own hubris had been his undoing. Whirda had learned that lesson long ago, when she watched her mother’s eyes close for the last time.

“The pride of the fallen,” Whirda murmured. “What was it worth in the end?”

Dio stirred at her words, twisting his neck toward her with a growl of pain. One of his eyes was swollen shut, but he cracked the other open, the sclera flooded with blood, all the pent up rage and violence he couldn’t satisfy with his body present in his stare. He tried to speak, but only a low gurgle emerged.

“The world has enough Dio Brandos,” Whirda said, placing the tip of her dagger against his neck.

Dio’s expression changed then, his eye imploring as if to beg for his life, all traces of his savage hunger for victory gone. The dagger slid into his throat, flecks of blood spraying across Whirda’s face. The mighty Dio Brando jerked once, and then went rigid. His eye stared through her, toward whatever might come next in the twisted laboratory known as the Omniverse.

Whirda stood, wiping the Prime’s blood from her cheek.

“This one’s still alive,” Blues said, shifting to face her. He crouched beside the fallen Spartan, who finally lay still. The preteen machine’s next question held a trace of fear. “Are you going to kill him too?”

Whirda’s stomach lurched as the truth of the situation hit her. The power she wielded, the power the contagion offered… she had spent years disabusing herself of the notion of such power. In Faerûn, during her time as a bounty hunter in the Spine of the World, power was a foreign concept. The core concepts of her being had been survival, the protection of innocents, the cold asceticism of penitent isolation. What would her mother say if she could see her now?

She shook her head. “Let him live,” she said, with a profoundly weary sigh. “I’ve had my fill of killing for today.”

Blues nodded, walking up beside her, his attention on the orb of Omnilium that had caused all this carnage in the first place. Whirda could hear the faint hum of his arm cannon, still primed. The implication was clear. Blues had seen enough. He no longer trusted her.

With a shiver that rushed down her spine and curled her toes with discomfort, Whirda realized she no longer trusted herself.

“Whatever it is,” Blues said, “it’s yours. I desire no reward for what we’ve done today. It’s long past time I said goodbye to this place.”

“Scylla’s still out there,” Whirda said. “The tarrasque may be eliminated, but the threat of the archdemon remains.” The power of the contagion was foul, but Whirda was sure she could handle its corruption, at least long enough to cure the blight and fulfill her promise to Tyrande and the elves. So much had changed, so much had occurred since her visit to the World Tree, but all it had done was bring her purpose into focus. If bearing the burden of the contagion allowed her to liberate the Tangled Green— if it allowed her to introduce a shred of hope into Omni’s maniacal game—she would continue along her path.

“How do we find her?” Blues asked. “The drow are gone. We don’t even know where we are. What’s to say she hasn’t retreated already?”

Whirda bared her teeth in a humorless laugh. “When’s the last time anything in this gods-damned realm has simply retreated? No, she will return. She will find a new weapon, a new tarrasque, a new army. And when she surfaces, we have to be ready.”

She approached the swirling orb, her gut coiled tight with apprehension. It occurred to her briefly that the omnilium only represented further power—that she was playing right into the mysterious deity’s hands the moment she claimed it, but she dismissed the notion. It was a necessary risk. It was the only way she could complete her quest and hope to restore a measure of sanity to her life.

It was the only way she could go home.

The orb reacted immediately as Whirda placed her hands upon it. She felt a tugging sensation near her navel, and the world around her flooded with light and color, a fierce roaring filling her ears. Blues, Atelos, Dio Brando, everything was swept away. In the back of her mind, she heard a clear message in a familiar, mellifluous voice, quaking with mirth.

The time of Whirda Windstrom has come.