**

Chapter 55: So Shall It Be Done ( Bad Finale )

**

In spite of their sizes, the winged, two-legged giant reptiles were annoyingly mobile and dangerously fast. If one wasn’t freezing its surroundings with its breath, the other was impaling everything in its path with bone shards the sizes of fully grown oak trees.

Changing their course with a strong squall was no easier than dodging them, but in a battle for their continued existence, the group of rune bearers knew it was either fight or die.

With the Rebirth of Earth, Badr added an extra layer of skin made of stone to him and his colleagues, rendering a direct hit from the enemy useless long enough for a terse counter-attack.

“I thought we were going to try to fight them separately?” Idris pondered.

“I’ve tried,” replied Isa. “They refuse to deviate from each other.”

“I’ve got an idea,” Jericha said, throwing her gaze around the battlefield. She spotted Breuke making his way inside the palace. “Breuke! Where are you going?! Come here!”

Eager to see if Alba spoke the truth about Tasha’s demise, Breuke hesitated to respond to Jericha’s call. “Hurry!” she yelled, and he turned his back on the palace. If Tasha was really dead, he’ll find out one way or another.

*

Meanwhile, Aiden and his half-brother, Zaki, were clashing swords. Zaki was annoyingly astute with his blades, and if it weren’t for the Rebirth of Agility, it would have been impossible for Aiden to keep up with him. And the Damnation rune made the battle even worse.

He hit Zaki with a telekinetic blast and his body exploded into particles that drifted behind him, then reshaped into the sword-wielding menace. With little time to react, Aiden warped out of Zaki’s path.

He summoned one sword after another and sent them hurling at the Damnation rune bearer, but Zaki deflected each one with expected precision. As he motioned to deflect another, Aiden rushed him, grabbed his arm, and flung him down.

Now was his chance to put an end to the wicked rune and beat prophecy for good. Aiden grabbed Zaki’s hand and proceeded to destroy the Rebirth within him.

Zaki blew particles of the Damnation rune in Aiden’s face and they latched on to his skin as if he were magnetic.

“No!” he exclaimed. “No, no, no, no!!” Struggling against the wicked rune’s intentions as the tiny shards tunneled into him.

*

Isa lifted Tears into the air high above the icy fiend and from there he created enough light to cast a shadow beneath the beast. Breuke commanded the shadow to grow bigger, become much hollower, and slowly drag the giant under. "This isn't going to work!" Breuke said, straining to drag the massive creature into the darkness. "It's too big!"

"Hold on to it!" Isa ordered, sending Jericha and Idris sailing toward the beast. They both attacked it with lightning-enhanced weapons that proved to be no match for its dense, frozen body. Suddenly, thousands of ice needles exploded from the reptile and flew in every direction, striking everyone around it with bitter cold stings.

"So much for that plan," Breuke said, wiping blood from his cheek. Movement from the corner of his eye snatched his attention away from the fight. "Alba!"

"Forget the wyvern...!" Alba said, as he staggered out of the royal estate. "The fusion is happening! You need to stop it!"

"What fusion?"

"Aiden and Damnation! The Khalina Prophesy is coming to pass as we breathe!"

*

“This..isn’t..happening...! I..need to concentrate..!!” Staggering to his hands and knees was all he could do. The rune was inside his heart, in his blood, tainting his will with its own. With Damnation within him, Aiden’s iris’ now full circle and pulsating with negative energy. “..just one more..” Aiden began, but his desperate attempt to rewind time was halted by a blow to the back of his head.

“Not this time, brother,” Zaki said. He stood over his unconscious older brother with a front-row seat to prophecy coming to pass as Aiden’s body was engulfed in the rune’s intense energy.

“We’re too late!” Idris said as the winds carried them to the roof.

“There’s no way we can allow this!” said Isa. He fired several wind-enhanced projectiles at Aiden but they turned on a dime in midair and penetrated his skull.

“As I told poor Aiden before,” said Damnation, hovering in place. “You don’t have a choice. None of you do.”

With a flick of his finger, Damnation propelled four of the rune bearers from the roof. They streaked over the city and landed in the midst of enemies with a thirst for blood who wasted no time drawing it.

Breuke, the only one that was spared from a torturous death, was captured and twisted by Damnation’s influence. “Now my shadow bringer, snuff out every light you find.”

“Ln dsk xsuucta,” Breuke said. Ln dsk xsuucta.

“And what about me?” asked Zaki.

“Go home and do what you do best,” Damnation smiled.

Khalm

“Come on. Come to mommy,” Amara encouraged her two-year-old as he walked up to her. “That’s my little man!” she said, picking the baby up into her arms and smothered him in motherly smooshes.

It was a proud moment she expected to share with her husband, Dino, but he was no longer with them thanks to Sisten. When she left their desert-dwelling, she swore she would avenge his murder somehow, someway, someday; no matter how long it took.

“Amara! Amara!” Leah shouted, running as fast as her legs could carry her.

“What is it, Leah? You sound frightened.”

“That cloud! It’s on its way here!”

“What??!” Amara gasped in disbelief.

“You can see it! On the hill over there!”

Amara scooped up her son and dashed to the highest peak to witness it with her own eyes. Finding Sergeant there, studying the sky, came as no surprise. The towering cloud, rolling as far and wide as the horizon itself, raced over Nabiil on its journey to Khalm.

“No..!” Amara said, clutching Dino Junior tightly. “Is there nothing we can do?!”

Leah fell to her knees and covered her tears with her hands. “It’s over! We’re all doomed!”

“We may have blundered and blown our chances but it’s not over!” Sergeant said, attempting a brave tone. “We will fight this enemy until he’s destroyed!”

Jaff raised his gaze as the sky grew darker and an unsettling chill set in. Something was worse than wrong; he could feel it in his core. “Laul?” he called as he entered the store. No response.

He turned to leave and clutched his breath at the sight of Aiden standing before him. Immediately, he could tell nothing was right with his nephew.

“It can’t be...” Jaff said.

“Why are you so surprised?” asked Damnation. “Did you really think Aiden would win?” He floated the Rebirth of Morph from Jaff's body and crushed it in the palm of his hand. "You won't be needing that anymore."

“No!” Jaff exclaimed. “I don’t believe it!”

“You will. I’m willing to spare Khalm from destruction, only if you come with me.”

Jaff grabbed the young man by his arms. “Aiden! You must be in there somewhere! I know you are!”

“You know nothing! Now, decide! Your life or Khalm’s annihilation with the rest of the world.”

“If Aiden’s gone what do you want with me? Why are you offering to spare Aiden’s home!?”

Their surroundings changed instantly; they were no longer in Khalm, but on a mountain high above the world. What unfolded below stole Jaff’s breath. Huge, muscular winged reptiles enhanced by wind, ice, lightning, and bone trampled upon everything and everyone in their path. And above them hovered another, darker than the others with a rider wearing equally dark armor.

“All of this was made possible because you secured my vessel for me,” Damnation said. “For that, you deserve the longest life possible.”

“I’d rather you kill me.”

Damnation telekinetically propelled Jaff back against the wall of a mountain, creating restraints made of Earth to hold him in place. “NO! Aiden! You must stop this!!”

“Enjoy watching the fruits of your labor, Uncle Jaff,” Damnation chuckled as he slowly vanished.

"AIDEN!!!" Jaff yelled, struggling to free himself, hoping in vain that someone, anyone, would hear him. The wind carried his voice over a land tormented by eternal damnation; his words drowned out by the thousands of other screaming voices.

THE END