Worlds Combine #8-

Bloodstone

I am Uatu, a member of a cosmically powered group known as the Watchers.

There are few in the many and varied universes that can match my power,

But though I can intercede in the events you are about to hear of, such is not my place.

Mine is but to watch and record, but never to interfere…

I am the Watcher

            Arwyn cast a desperate glance over her shoulder to see how far back their pursuers were, even as she whipped her horse into a faster pace.  Mordath’s trolls were gaining on them, largely because she and Jason Blood were riding double and the horse wasn’t used to the extra weight.  They had started on two mounts, but the trolls had killed Jason’s, riddling it with arrows so that it fell right out from beneath him.  Arwyn had had to circle back, losing precious time and allowing the trolls to close the distance in order to pull her ally up behind her.

            Now they were desperately making for a distant treeline, hoping beyond hope to lose their pursuers within it, Jason’s arms tight about her slender waist, the motion of the horse causing her firm butocks to rub against his crotch repeatedly which was in turn causing an unexpected and, due to their current circumstances, unwanted reaction.  “Really?”  she called to him over her shoulder, her expression stern even as she secretly marveled at how well endowed it felt like he was.

            “Is it my fault you’re so beautiful?” he called back and swore he saw the flash of a grim smile cross her full pink lips just before she turned back to the front.  Then it was his turn to check behind them and he grimaced, seeing the horde of trolls gaining on them.  “I’m slowing you down Arwyn!  We should separate!”

            “No!  There’s only one way you could survive them and I know how much you hate bringing him out… not to mention what he’ll probably do to me if you do!”  She shouted back.  “We’ll make the trees!”  No sooner had she said this than movement from the treeline drew her attention and her blue eyes widened in horror as a second wave of Mordath’s trolls emerged in front of them and started to charge.  “Damn!”

            “Arwyn…” he called and she turned her head just enough to meet his eyes with one of hers, “...there’s no choice here.  We have to stand and fight… and that means we need Etrigan.”

            She closed her eyes, her head lowering slightly both knowing what it means for him to transform and fearing what it will mean for her after… assuming she and the demon survived.  “Go!” she cried.

            Jason planted his hands on the horses rump and as he pushed himself up and back he chanted, “Gone, gone the form of man…” and then he was sailing backward as the horse ran out from under him, as he had intended, “...rise the demon Etrigan!”  Arwyn turned and watched over her shoulder as the human male transformed in mid-air, his body swelling disproportionately, his shoulders going wide and his arms and legs swelling with muscle even as the hair on his head vanished and his legs seemed to shorten in spite of the added bulk.  As she watched his skin took on a yellow tint, his eyes turned red and his nose flattened and expanded as his mouth became a toothy maw… a hideous tongue dangling from it.  His ears too changed, being made to resemble bat wings that stuck out to either side of his head.  His clothing changed as well for Etrigan wore a red suit with a cape that billowed behind him as he landed in a crouch, head turning left and right as he took in his surroundings.  

            Arwyn saw the demon’s gaze fall on her and felt a shiver run down her spine as his visage lit up with lust and she spurred her horse faster, wanting as much distance as possible between her and the demon.  She was facing front again by the time he noticed the two waves of trolls converging on them from the back and front.  She reined her horse to a stop with the trolls at their front within range of her magical longbow and then slid nimbly from the saddle, removing the aforementioned weapon, a legendary relic of her world known as Ayden’s Bow from the boot on her saddle.  Hearing a familiar roar she twisted at the waist and saw Etrigan airborne, having leapt with a merry smile through the air and disappearing among the trolls that were racing toward them from the rear.  

            Putting that temporarily out of her mind, certain Etrigan would at least distract them from her, Arwyn turned her attention to the other wave of trolls.  Drawing an arrow from the quiver on her back she nocked it to the bowstring and drew back to her high, sculpted cheek.  She sighted on the foremost troll in the crowd, centered on the horde and released.  She was already drawing another before it struck home, and when it did there was an explosion that sent trolls careening through the air, cartwheeling and flipping, body parts landing within yards of her.  The advancing horde slowed, given pause by the power of the weapon many of them had not yet experienced for themselves.  She smiled grimly as she fired the second arrow, this one aimed a little left of center and another explosion erupted in their midst.  Her frown melted away as the trolls, angered by her attacks howled and renewed their charge.  She had dwindled their numbers considerably, but there were still well over twenty of the monsters charging at her.  

            She heard the roars of Etrigan behind her, mingled with the screams of the trolls and wanted desperately to see how things were progressing there but didn’t dare take time to look as she drew and fired a third arrow from Ayden’s Bow.  A third explosion erupted amongst them, this one a little right of center and while their numbers were diminished further, still they came.  Arwyn reached out and slapped her horse's rump, sending it racing away, hoping it might escape certain death and then she started to give up ground, retreating backward as she drew and fired a fourth arrow.  Again it exploded center, but this time the trolls swerved away to the left and right and the explosion only caught a couple of them.  “Damn it!” she snarled, firing a fifth with similar results.  They were twenty yards from her when suddenly Etrigan went sailing by overhead, mouth agape and Arwyn watched, wide-eyed as a stream of fire unlike anything she had seen before erupted from his mouth.  He sailed over the heads of the trolls, the fire engulfing them as he strafed.  She heard the screams of the terrified monsters, at that range smelled their burning flesh and she lowered her bow, her eyes wide and her expression awe struck as she watched the Demon burn them.  

            Etrigan vanished behind the wall of fire he had created but as she watched, no trolls came forth.  She turned and looked to her rear, saw a similar wall of fire there indicating he had dealt with those trolls in much the same way.  Arwyn turned back the way she had been and gasped, taking a reflexive step backward as she came face to face with the manically grinning Etrigan who it seemed had crept up behind her without a sound… though in her defense the fire was roaring loudly not far away.  Recognizing the hunger in the demon’s eyes, having seen it the last time she had encountered him, Arwyn lunged backward and raised her bow, thinking to shoot him point blank even though the blast might kill her as well… she found that outcome preferable to what he intended to do to her.

            With a speed that should not have been possible in a creature of his size Etrigan moved with the sexy blonde, one arm lashing out in a backhand that knocked Ayden’s Bow from her hand, the other arm, much longer than it should have been and so muscled she had seen fully grown tree trunks that were not so wide reached for her head.  She tried to duck away but his clawed fingers closed in her long blonde hair and he planted his feet firmly.  Arwyn had been retreating and now she was halted, gasping in pain as his grip on her hair jerked her to a sudden stop.  The Demon used her hair to pull her to him, his other burly arm circling her slender waist before he adjusted the grip of his other hand, cradling the back of her head.  Arwyn struggled valiantly against him but his hold on her was absolute… he was far too strong for her to break that hold easily.

            “When last we met a promise I gave.” he said in his typical rhyming dialect, “That your body I’d use and it’s you I now crave!”  Arwyn stiffened, her eyes widening in horror as he used his hand on the back of her head to pull her face to his, his toothy maw bruising against her soft pink lips.  The point of his long, tapered tongue slid between her lips and though she tried to keep them pressed firmly together he proved himself again too strong and forced it into her mouth.  She tasted blood and brimstone and felt his hand slide from the small of her back to her high, firm ass and squeeze one of her buttocks through the leather of her leggings.  Desperate to free herself from his grip, certain she was about to be raped by the Hellspawned demon as he had promised her upon their first meeting Arwyn pounded on his shoulder and chest to no avail.  Panic welled within her as he forced her to her knees, his tongue still striving to slide down her throat, his hand holding her head in place like a vise.

            Arwyn pushed her panic aside long enough for the briefest moment of clarity and in that moment she knew she had but one chance to escape him.  Up went her hand, drawing an arrow from the quiver on her back and she spun it so the arrowhead was angled down, then she drove it with all the strength she could muster into the side of his neck.  Etrigan reared back with an enraged roar, releasing the archer reflexively as he reached up to yank the arrow from his neck, the wound spurting blood in a high arch as he pulled it free.  Arwyn dove to the side, into a shoulder roll and when she came up she was facing Etrigan, Ayden’s Bow in hand and an arrow knocked.

            “A living mate I do desire,” he growled at her as he noticed her ready to fire at him, “but shoot me with that bow and risk my ire!”

            With a snarl of hatred she released the bowstring and the arrow shot forth, covering the distance between them in the blink of an eye but Etrigan again proved himself the faster, catching the arrow by its shaft before it could impact with his chest and explode!  Her eyes widening in stunned surprise, Arwyn staggered back even as the demon lunged for her.  “Gone!  Gone oh Etrigan, resume once more the….” she tried the rhyme she had once known to return him to the form of Jason Blood but the Demon was prepared for that and he tackled her to the ground, one massive hand clamping over her mouth as they landed, Arwyn on her back and the demon atop her.  She arched her back in an attempt to throw him off but he was uncommonly heavy and she couldn’t budge him, but when she shifted her weight to the side she found that she could roll him… barely.  The demon laughed, thinking her struggles like foreplay and he merely shifted his own weight, rolling till he once again had her on her back and he was staring hungrily down at her. 

            But this time something was different he realized as he felt a wave of dizziness wash over him.  Arwyn had seen the vortex of purple, pink and blue energy appear next to them just before Etrigan had rolled them through it and now they were both reeling as the dizziness overcame them, though Arwyn remained pinned beneath his bulk as their vision cleared and suddenly they found themselves no longer in a broad, grassy field encircled by distant trees but now in a dimly lit structure of gray brick, shadow and cobwebs.  ‘Is this Mordath’s castle?’ she wondered, though she thought not for she had been there before.  Etrigan glanced around once curiously, but his mind was still on violating her and he quickly went back to that task….

            “Shit, fuck, shit… balls!”  Elsa Bloodstone raged as she stalked into the living room of her magnificent manor, known as Bloodstone House.  She was gripping her left forearm but there was blood seeping out from a wound she had sustained there just minutes before.

            “Problem?” Adam asked as he turned toward her, a book open in one of his massive hands while the other plucked a pair of reading glasses from his nose.  His bloodshot eyes fell on the blood seeping from beneath her hand and widened.

            Elsa glared at him briefly before she moved to her favorite armchair, situated in front of a now cold fireplace and sat down, leaning forward so she didn’t get any blood on the chair.  She was hoping she didn’t get too much on the carpet, it would be expensive to have cleaned.  “I hunt monsters for a living Adam, so far you’ve stayed off that list… don’t make me change my mind about that.”

            Adam, the very same creature who had assisted her father Ulysses during his long and storied career as a monster hunter, smiled as he approached her with a first aid kit he took from a shelf nearby.  Having been made on a slab in a castle somewhere in Europe hundreds of years before by a mad scientist named Frankenstein, he had once been hunted by Ulysses but Elsa’s immortal father had seen something in the creature that he hadn’t expected… compassion, and a hunger to learn.  They had become the best of friends, partners even and now the creature once known as Frankenstein's Monster, having instead taken the name Adam, passed on the knowledge of her father to Elsa, who was continuing in her father’s footsteps.  He knew her far better than she liked, so he knew she would never hurt him… not willingly anyway.

            He took a knee in front of her and she moved her hand away so he could see the wound, which was very obviously a canine bite mark.  “Werewolf?” he asked her lightly.  She nodded grimly, understanding that were she anyone else she would now likely be cursed with lycanthropy just like the creature she had just finished putting down.  They passed on their curse through their bite, and sometimes through a simple scratch of their claws but Elsa, being a Bloodstone was immune to the curses and most powers of monsters.  Most powers… there were still a few that could hook her though, which was why she tried to avoid meeting the eyes of vampires.  That never went well for her.

            “Wade called while you were out.”  Adam said softly as he wrapped her forearm in a long bandage.

            “Oh?” she said, trying to appear less interested than she was.  The Wade he referred to was Wade Wilson, the mutant Merc with a Mouth that the world at large knew as Deadpool.  She and Wade had been friends for a while now and recently… she was starting to think maybe they were becoming something more.  Adam, of course, had picked up on that but he had yet to push her for details.  He knew she would tell him, when she was ready.

            “He said to tell you he’s with the X-Men and they’re on their way to New York City, to Four Freedoms Plaza.  He says there’s some…” he paused to remember how the man had phrased it, “...hinky shit going on… I believe were the words he used.”

            “I assume it’s to do with the magic fluctuations that the lamp has been sending me to of late?  Mistaking them for supernatural attacks.”  She had been globe hopping with the power of her genie lamp for days now as it kept detecting what she had come to assume were false positives in detecting supernatural monsters on the prowl.  It was one of her primary tools in monster hunting, but it was suddenly less than reliable.

            Adam nodded, finishing up the bandage and then standing to his full seven foot height.  He looked down at her, unabashedly ogling her magnificently low-cut neckline which she ignored, as she always did.  Elsa Bloodstone was nothing if not stacked.  “Deadpool said that Richards and some of the other big brains are developing a theory about those disturbances, they’ve asked for every available hero type to attend a meeting.  Your name was apparently on the list.”

            Elsa’s eyebrows rose at that and she shrugged.  “Well, when the likes of the Fantastic Four send the invite, it’s not wise to say no, eh?”  She glanced past Adam, over his left shoulder where the genie lamp sat on the mantle above the fireplace.  It had started to glow faintly, meaning it had detected some kind of supernatural danger somewhere in the world.  “Well fuck me running.”

            “If I must.”  He said softly, and again she ignored him… she had grown accustomed to his lustful ways and knew he meant nothing by it.

            “That meeting will have to wait… I need to go and see what the lamp has detected.  Hopefully, it’s another false positive and I can be on my way to New York soon.”  The manor was in Boston, so the trip to New York didn’t take long in her family's private jet. She moved over to the mantle and reached out to gently rub the lamp, glancing at Adam as she did so.  “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”  She closed her eyes briefly and wished to be where the trouble was… then disappeared in a flash of light.

            “Watch your six gorgeous.”  Adam said to the empty room.

            In the time since their arrival in this strange stone structure Etrigan had managed to strip the blonde archer of her leathers and now she was on her knees, bent over while he had her wrists in one hand, crossed at the small of her back.  Tears were streaming down Arwyn’s face and she was sobbing in time with his thrusts as the Demon, grinning like the maniac he was drove into her from behind.  Her knees were spread wide and she was being pulled backward by her hands to match his every forward thrust, her full breasts swaying beneath her as his log threatened to split the shapely archer up the middle.

            “Amazing you feel though I knew you would,” Etrigan bellowed, his head thrown back as he roared, “but never could I imagine you’d feel this good!”

            “I think that will be quite enough of that spawn of hell!”  Came a cultured voice with an english accent that Etrigan recognized because it resembled that of his human host, Jason Blood.  He turned his head to see a tall, statuesque redhead in a low cut jumpsuit and a long jacket pointing what his memory told him was a shotgun at him.

            “With her I’ll be done soon scarlet wench!”  Etrigan said as he panted, his hips slapping audibly against Arwyn’s ass.  “Lust I’ll have left over for you to quench!”

            “Gods please help me!”  Arwyn cried, even as Elsa Bloodstone squeezed the trigger on her shotgun and said, “I think not.”

            Hellfire blasted from the barrel of the shotgun, catching Etrigan in the side and flinging him away to slam into a gray brick wall.  Arwyn went tumbling as well, carried by the momentum of the demon being so forcibly removed from inside her.  She was weak, battered and bruised by his not too gentle fucking but she instantly started to push herself upright, glancing around for her tormentor.  Elsa rushed forward to help the blonde woman, keeping her shotgun levelled at Etrigan’s unmoving form with one hand even as she hooked the other beneath Arwyn’s shoulder to help her stand up.  “We need to move luv,” Elsa said softly but urgently to the archer, “you have no idea the trouble we’re in.”

            Arwyn nodded even as she staggered forward toward where her armor and weapons had been recklessly thrown by her demonic rapist.  “Etrigan is powerful, but his alter ego Jason Blood is a friend.  I need to say the rhyme, revert him back to mortal.”

            Elsa shook her head, “It’s not him I’m worried about!”

            No sooner had those words gotten out then a woman’s voice called from not so far away, “Gone, gone oh Etrigan!  Resume once more the form of man!”  Elsa and Arwyn turned to find a tall, very shapely dark haired woman with pale skin and ruby lips standing in the doorway of the dungeon Arwyn and Etrigan had magically entered minutes earlier.  She wore a red dress that clung to her every curve like a spider web, the top graced with a neckline that plunged to her navel.  “It’s so strange when the magic words even though I don’t speak backwards!”

            “Who are you?”  Arwyn asked, even as she started to slip back into her leather armor.

            As if in answer to her question, Elsa Bloodstone growled.  “Vampire!”

            The brunette woman’s lips spread into a smile that revealed just a hint of fang protruding over her plump lower lip.  Even as she stepped further into the room, her hips swaying in an almost hypnotizing way, Jason Blood, recently returned to the world of mortal men, groaned out, “Zatanna?  What’s happened to you?”

            The brunette vampire turned her head to gaze at the Demon’s mortal host, “Hello Jason.  You look like Hell.  Been through the ringer have you?”

            Behind Zatanna a man appeared, also stepping into the room.  Arwyn sized him up quickly and felt a chill run down her spine that she was quite sure had everything to do with the evil she could feel radiating off of him.  “Zee darling, you simply must introduce us to our guests.  It seems rude of me to not know who I’m about to eat!”  As he said those words his eyes found and slid over Arwyn’s mostly nude form with obvious interest, “Hello lovely.”

            Zatanna pointed toward the man in the corner who was just standing up, though he seemed shaky.  “That’s Jason Blood, an immortal knight from the days of King Arthur who plays hose to Etrigan, a hellspawned demon.  But these two I don’t know.”

            “Ah, well the lovely redhead is Elsa Bloodstone.  We’ve met, though I’ve never had the pleasure of pleasuring her.”  He smiled at his little joke.  “It seems that her lovely friend has us all at a disadvantage.”

            “My name is Arwyn, and I have no idea what’s going on here.”  The blonde admitted.

            “Arwyn, like from the book… Lord of the Rings?”  Zatanna asked with what seemed like genuine curiosity.  Arwyn frowned, obviously not following her.

            “Lord Dracula,” Elsa said by way of greeting and also to try and explain some of what was happening, “sorry for the intrusion.  Arwyn here and that bloke over there,” she nodded toward Jason, “were brought here through one of those portals I’m sure you know about.”  She eyed Zatanna there, certain she had come through one herself.  “Meant no intrusion and we’d be very glad to just leave you in peace.”

            Vlad Tepes, the immortal vampire lord known as Dracula eyed the redhead with a little contempt and a lot of lust.  “Were it not for that stone you wear around your luscious neck, you and that blonde tramp would be joining me here for eternity.”

            “Tramp?”  Arwyn said, her strength coming back quickly now.  She had been taking this time to finish dressing too, strapping on her quiver, sword and retrieving her bow.  She felt more like her old self again and took offense to his terminology.

            “Yes, but thanks to the bloodstone,” Elsa fingered the smooth red stone on the choker about her slender throat, “you know you’re no match for me.”

            “Correction, I know I can’t feed on you.  You are formidable though, thanks to all those damnable weapons your late father left you.”  Zatanna turned and looked at her new master with curiosity.  He hadn’t told her much about this dimension she found herself in as of yet, so she had no idea what he was talking about.  “Fine… you and these others may leave… for now.  But I suspect we’ll be seeing each other again in the not too distant future.”

            “Uh… a little naked here.”  Jason Blood murmured.

            Elsa rolled her eyes and shrugged out of her long jacket, switching her shotgun from one hand to the other as she did so, then handed the jacket to Blood.  He put it on hastily and tied it closed even as Elsa retrieved the magical lamp from a loop on her belt.  “We’ll be going then.”  She reached out and took Arwyn’s arm then motioned for Blood to do the same.  With the three of them linked she rubbed the lamp and they blinked out of existence in a flash of light.

            Zatanna turned a pouty look on her vampire master.  “Why do I feel like I just missed something?”  

            “Because you did.  Elsa was so distracted by helping those other two that she didn’t take any time to focus on you.  Had she done so, she would have sensed that you’re still quite new… you haven’t even fed officially yet so it is possible to reverse your curse.  I would prefer that she not interfere till I have found you a proper meal and cemented your place as my immortal queen.”  He slipped his hands about her slender waist and pulled her to him.

            “Oh I love it when you talk all gothic to me!”  She said with a sigh, leaning back as he kissed his way down her neck and then down into the dresses plunging neckline.  He pinned her back against the wall and her long legs came up to circle his waist as he sank his teeth into the soft, warm flesh of her left breast and drank deeply….

            “So… Zatanna and I are in a dimension similar to our own, but not our own.  I’ve come here through even another dimension from whence Arwyn here hails and there are more portals opening everywhere.  Heroes are being sent back and forth through them and now, according to reports you’ve been reading from someone named Reed Richards, it seems like the realities are all about to merge.”  Jason Blood said succinctly.  “Great.”

            Arwyn, who stood a ways apart from Jason, the memory of her rape at the hands of his alter ego still very fresh, shook her head.  “None of what you just said makes any sense to me.”

            Jason turned to her, read in her body language the she was going to take some time to be able to trust him again, which wounded his chivalrous nature deeply.  “I explained to you before Arwyn that the dimension I came from originally was far advanced to yours technologically.  This one seems its equal, though it is different in many ways.”

            “And I’m stuck here?  I have some unfinished business back home I’d like to get back to.”  Arwyn said, directing the question at Elsa.

            “From what I know, yes.  You’re stuck here.  But if anyone can solve this, it’s Reed Richards and the other big brains.  I was on my way there when I learned of you two and went to collect you.  You’re welcome to join me.”  She turned to Jason Blood.  “I think there’s another of your dimension there, calls herself Wonder Woman.”

            Jason’s eyes lit up.  “Diana is there?  Then by all means, let’s go!”  Arwyn nodded her agreement with that and they all set out for Four Freedoms Plaza in New York City.