“Alice, go help him! Try to cauterize the wound!”
“Will do!”
I clawed for my scythe, which laid on the ground a few feet away, but before I had the chance to collect it, Death picked it up and examined the weapon in the palm of his hand. “Such a tiny little thing. This is the weapon of the greatest Elemental to live?” he snickered to himself. He spoke as if he were a being who had never met me before, who knew nothing of me beyond who I was meant to become. I was confused by this but had other concerns at the moment. I huffed horrified breaths as he tightened his grip and snapped the weapon in half,making it shriek an ungodly sound as a thousands-year-old relic was destroyed.
If he could destroy my unbreakable scythe, what the fuck could he do to me?
Death was growing tired with the lack of Human life to destroy. He wanted to continue killing everything in his path, and my feeble attempts to stop him were nothing but aggravating. He threw the pieces of my scythe at me before summoning a massive portal to what looked like the streets of New York, where many people were already experiencing the effects of Famine and Pestilence from before.
I wobbled fiercely as I attempted to stand, pointing a broken finger at him. The finger was at almost a ninety-degree angle, but it got my point across. “You are not going to take any more lives, not today! I don’t need my scythe to eviscerate you!”
He turned to leer down at me. “What can you do, puny little God-to-be?”
“What can I do…?” I breathed to myself.
Before I had the chance to think, his bony hand came down after me. I gasped and rolled out of the way before bolting forward, letting my legs carry me as far away as possible. Death stormed after me, howling ungodly cries of frustration. He used his scythe like a weed whacker to try and decapitate me. Claude and May raced alongside me. “Ok kid, we need to think, fast. What can we do to stall for time?”
“A lot of my spells use my scythe to cast, so we’re shit out of luck on a lot of our arsenal. We only need to keep him together long enough for Magnus and Gene-…”
“NICODEMUS!” Odysseus screamed my name when Death brought his hand down on me, smashing me to pieces under his oppressive strength. I felt the bones in my body crunch and wheeze under his fist, like he had broken every bone in my body, and could only gasp for air and wiggle to try and free myself.
Death chuckled in delight. “Look at the little worm wiggle beneath me.”
“Hey asshole! Why don’t you pick on someone your own size!” Odysseus yelled as he pulled his massive sword around, his eyes ablaze with fury.
Death titled his head at him. “Another false God looking to be slaughtered?”
“Atlas, this isn’t you! You’re literally killing your own son! How can you not realize this?” Odysseus tried to reason with him.
“He is nothing but a false God! I am the true God of Death!”
“THAT IS YOUR SON! YOUR CHILD! KNOCK SOME SENS INTO YOURSELF YOU BONY ASSHOLE!”
For a moment, a split second, Death looked back down to me as if something Odysseus said had truly struck a chord with him. His soulless eyes bore into mine, watching blood spill down my nose and the corners of my mouth as I wheezed painful breaths. My struggling was growing weak; my hands slipped down the sides of the one he pinned me down with before I slumped, unable to continue fighting. Death lifted his hand carefully and continued to stare at me as realization took over his senses for a brief moment. “Nick…?” he murmured.
Odysseus lit up. “Yes, that’s Nick you’re trying to kill, idiot!YourNick! Your son!”
Death paused before shaking his head rapidly. His hands flung up to grip the sides of his skull as he writhed wildly, fighting back against the monster within him. He stumbled in circles, crying out as he tried to bring back any semblance of his mind. Famine caught sight of this happening and hissed, flashing forward to wrap her hands around his face. “No, stop it! You bitch!” Odysseus tried to uppercut against her arms, but whatever shedid to Death was enough to snap him back into his murderous state.
Death plucked me from the ground and held me in the palm of his hand, surveying the damage he had done through the long battle. Abruptly, he raised his other hand and smashed it down on me, making everyone watching cry out. I spat a thick spray of blood over his bone fingers, coughing harshly amongst broken ribs. “You, fucking, asshole…! Stop fighting dirty and face me like a man!” I gurgled out delusionally.
He chuckled, a long, drowned out sound, before flicking his wrist. With that flick, I rocketed through the air and into a boulder, where my body hung like a broken jack-in-the-box. Death raised his hands. “You want to fight like men against a being that is not man or woman, but everything and anyone? I shall meet you on your own playing field.” He began to shrink from his massive form to a regular-sized Grim Reaper, but his scythe still held his dozen-blade form. He poised himself like a cat ready to strike. “Get up, false God, and fight!”
“We have to help Nick! He’s going to get fried if we don’t do something!” Sebastian called down to the Life Elementals.
“We found him!” Geneva cried as she appeared before Mom and Odysseus. Her eyes fell on the devastated state I was in and made her throw her hands over her mouth. “Dear Gods, what has he done to Nick?”
“Let’s worry about that later! Where is Ambermourn?” Odysseus said as he shook her back to reality.
She stammered wildly before handing him coordinates. “The Everglades. He has a home there, under a tree grove. His Shadows are there protecting him.”
“Go, Odysseus…” I wheezed.
He gave me one solid nod before waving Soren and Griffin on. “Guys, you’re with me. We need to get to Ambermourn and end this craziness.”
“Nick, can you hold him off for us?” Griffin begged.
“Trying…!” I dragged myself upright and hastily healed my broken ribs, as they were the biggest issue for me currently, while the three disappeared through a portal. I stood, wobbling to and fro, and held two hands up. “Come on, you son of a bitch; hit me with your best shot.”
