Operation: Pacifica, Chasing the Beast
by DeadLock the Feral (NYAR!), deadlock@one.net


 "No...no...no!" yelled b'harnii as it waddled down the hill in
  terror.  Behind it, the crest blackened, a corona of fire consuming it.  The
  Hell Wyrm's hunter looked around briefly, spotted his prey, and crouched
  down.


 "NYAR!" cried DeadLock as he sprang from the hilltop.  He flew
  through the air, earth dropping away quickly before gravity began to pull
  him from flight.  The Maenad raised the Barney Slayer high above his head in
  both hands and brought it down viciously the moment before contact with the
  earth.


 The Barney Slayer hissed through its arc and bit into b'harnii's
  flesh.  Owsenite silently sliced to the bone and sucked greedily at the
  Lavender Lard Lord's soul energy.  The Hell Wyrm tripped over its own feet
  in shock and stumbled forward.  A deep gash extended eighteen inches from
  its left shoulder vertically down its back.  Blistered flowered along its
  wound, offspring of the Slayer's passing.


 The Indigo Infant Ingester staggered, lost its balance, and fell as
  DeadLock swung again.  The Barney Slayer, targeted for what passed as the
  plush monstrosity's neck, sliced off a thick layer of skin from the back of
  the beast's head and leaving rising clumps of blisters.


 b'harnii rolled down the hill, a bright trail of nagenta blood
  marking its passage.  What was better, the demon felt something it never
  expected to experience on Earth: Real Pain.  The gun shots, immolations,
  explosions, and beheadings it had suffered in the past were as gentle
  breezes against its face compared to this.


 Its soul was wounded, not just the bodily manifestation on Earth.
  For the first time in any sponge minion's existence, for the first time in
  recorded Lyran history, for the first time in dozens millennia: b'harnii was
  mortally afraid.  It realized it could die, that all its elaborate plans
  would be for naught, that the Great Cosmic War it was waging would end in
  failure.


 Plushy resolve brought the Hell Wyrm enough concentration to
  teleport away from the hill and down into the city.  The Maenad chanted a
  short spell, disappeared from view, and reappeared twenty yards from the
  Wyrm.


 b'harnii faced its enemy, every speck of power it could summon
  coursing through its flesh.  The fabric of Earth, unused to such
  concentrations of mystical energy, wavered and shimmered as other dimensions
  poked through the swirling vortex around the Magenta Menace.


 DeadLock charged, the Barney Slayer poised to deliver a lethal
  blow.


 "AWAY!" shouted the beast, swinging its pudgy arm at the Jihaddi.
  A torrent of destructive nagenta energy surged towards its attacker. To the
  Great Satan of Backstage Fondling's surprise, its attack split in two.  The
  vast majority of the energy bent mid-air and was absorbed by the Barney
  Slayer.  A small stream struck the Maenad dead-center and sent him flying
  backwards.


 b'harnii raised a talon in a sharp upward motion and a wall of
  thick lavender glass the street's width materialized in DeadLock's flight
  path.  The wall shattered with a deafening crack, shards of jagged glass
  showering the Hell Wyrm.


 DL landed amid tinkling glass, bounced, flipped over in the air,
  landed face down, and was still.  Fires that once swirled about his body
  were now all but gone except for tiny sparks dancing across his back.  The
  wyrm's evil chortling, punctuated by sharp, painful intakes of breath,
  echoed from building to building.  It waddled backwards a bit, keeping an
  eye on its enemy, and began to speak.


 "Our fun and learning wasn't supposed to end!" mewed the Wyrm with
  false sincerity.  Spongies left their hiding places in buildings to encircle
  the fallen Maenad.


 "NYWaR!" DeadLock growled.  Spongies froze, eyes large as
  snowballs, then scattered and turned tail as the Maenad showed signs of
  life.  DeadLock rolled up onto his haunches.  The glass had inflicted dozens
  of wounds, jagged pieces jutting from legs and arms, but had failed to kill.
  The Maenad's blood-soaked clothes clung to his body as he struggled to
  stand.


 "It's time for you to meet some every special friends of mine!"
  bubbled the Hell Wyrm.  The asphalt around DeadLock trembled, cracked, and
  burst open.  Dozens of Saethrians slithered from their holes and surrounded
  their prey.


 A Saethrian thrust a lance at DeadLock and sliced across his left
  flank.  The others, always pack hunters, moved to attack.


 "Destr.." gasped the Wyrm.  A geyser of white flame erupted at the
  center of the Saethrian's circle.  The centipede-like creatures shrunk back,
  their instinctual fear of fire dictating their actions.


 Blinding white light flooded between the Saethrians, causing them
  to shriek in pain.  b'harnii chanted a couple of words, hoping to escape
  before the explosion came.


 The shockwave slammed into the Saethrians, shattered their
  chitinous exoskeletons into micro-fragments, and snapped their carcasses
  from the ground to be jumbled about in the expanding firestorm.  Spongin
  bones and internal organs liquified on impact, the fire immolating their
  remains milliseconds later.


 Buildings collapsed and pulverized from the shockwave's brutal
  caress before the burning wind swept away their freshly broken remains.  Two
  blocks from the epicenter, structures began to resist the shockwave and
  remain semi-intact, but were quickly set ablaze by the firestorm howling
  through shattered windows and doors ripped from their hinges.


 The tempest died six blocks from DL, burning flotsam raining down
  onto buildings for another two blocks.  b'harnii looked out from its hiding
  place as sheets of flaming debris rained down upon the streets and rooves.
  It That Pirates Nursery Rhymes gasped: nothing remained inside of a two
  block radius from the Maenad.  Dozens of buildings and hundreds of sponge
  minions had disappeared in the rush of a firestorm.


 Smoke threatened to choke the sun from the sky as the fires spread
  to new parts of the city.  Fire, always gleeful to be free from the hands of
  its creator, spread to unaffected buildings.


 "This is not wonderful!" exclaimed b'harnii.  A silhouette appeared
  in a roaring fire down the street from the wyrm's hiding place.  It of the
  One Tooth gasped, the plush on its chest wrinkling in fear.  The figure
  stepped from the fire, spotted his enemy, and drew his sword.


 "NYAR!" echoed from broken buildings to shattered rooftops as the
  Maenad charged after the fleeing demon, his legs pistoning up and down
  rapidly.


 'Help!' boomed the Satanic Saurian's thoughts into the ethers. No
  one answered.


 To Be Continued!


        DLtF(NYAR!)
Copyright, Pyrokinetic Productions, Inc. (1997)