Chapter XLV: The Thirteenth Watcher (Cont. VI)
“BLACKHEART!” Samden looked to Donovan from his place on the ground, “Help him!”
“Are you crazy? I’m not getting myself killed…” Donovan said, stepping back from the fight.
Baen turned and stared at the mercenary, “You are a consumate coward….I would crush you in a second if I didn’t want to relish the deaths of these brave, brainless heroes.”
“That’s what I’m banking on,” Donovan said with a guilty shrug. He turned to catch a fist to the face that left him unconscious.
West rubbed his hand, “Asshole. Too bad we needed to bring him along.”
Baen smirked, “Well West, looks like you remain to be dealt with. You are the only one still standing who may yet save your rogue friend.”
West nodded, “Guess I’ll just have to take the risk then.” The Preston lunged and swung, stopping it halfway, and bringing his other hand around and striking Baen in the temple with a closed fist and sending the Watcher rolling out of the way. “Sucker punch, that was,” West said, rubbing his hand again. “Damn…getting out of shape. Used to be that these fists were like hammers.”
“Oh..they feel close…”
West turned to see Baen already on his feet and next to him. The dark watcher’s hand shot out and caught West by the throat, lifting the giant man off the ground with inhuman strength.
“THIS ENDS NOW! I’ve grown tired of wasting time. I wanted to make you suffer, but as long as you have breath in your lungs, then you will keep fighting without a single sign of true pain. Fine…death is the only remedy to make me at all feel happy.” His hand closed around West’s throat and began to crush the burly man’s giant neck.
“NO!” Blackheart leapt, landing on Baen’s back and trying to choke the man, his sword abandoned.
Baen stumbled away, letting go of the Preston as he tried to grab at the rogue who clung to him tightly. “Cowardly pest! Don’t you ever give up!?”
“Not my style, Baensy!”
The Dark Watcher screamed, catching Blackheart by his shirt and hurling him away. “IT IS OVER!” Baen closed his eyes and all around them, the sand began to close in tightly, biting at the five warriors who slowly drew together. They could hear on the edge of the sand Baen’s old voice, screaming out to them.
“For all the centuries I have spent suffering, so to shall the world, for it is my duty to bring them the vengeance they deserve for spurning something made by God. I am as divine as all other things, yet my nature is such that I must be shunned, though no ill have I caused directly to any of you. I am but a carrier of things that you frown upon and thus I must be purged, well I shall purge you for you carry things that I cannot gain nor acquire, and your jealousy of my existence is what furthers you to slay me, thus my jealousy of your existence fuels me on!”
As the sand began to close, energy began to roll from Baen’s palms, great balls of turquoise flame that rolled down and around him, spiralling around him like a sphere of protection and slowly drawing towards the five. “THIS IS THE END!”
ENOUGH! The voice was not so much heard as felt through the entire body as a bolt of energy ripped through the dark sand and through the flames and struck Baen so hard it hurled him out through both of his forces of evil. The sand at once dispelled, crashing down into the lava below, where a thousand high pitched scream slowly rose. The energy buckled inwards on Baen and then exploded, hurling the five backwards and laying them, stunned and somewhat paralyzed, on the ground. The smoke slowly began to clear as the five opened their eyes to see Baen, standing in his leggings, his upper torso naked and writhing in agony from the fires that consumed him from within. He was a frail and almost dead white body, the dagger and Vigile’s blade still buried in him and undisturbed. Blood oozed from the wounds as several more cuts and scars were seen all over his body and face. He was staring, his eyes no longer filled with the lustre of victory, but rather open in wide-eyed surprise. The five turned to see Laura kneeling on the ground, panting and sooty from the ash and sweat. Next to her stood Adelia, her eyes crackling with lightning as it rolled across her black and empty eyes.
“You think that you have the right to destroy the world, Baen? You think that your revenge, that your anger shall be fulfilled by ending all time and existence. Does your hate for God have no end?”
Baen heaved and panted as he tried to regain full control of the darkness and shadow that slowly pooled around Adelia, filtering away from him. The walls of the citadel of shadow that had slowly built itself were melting away and gathering around Adelia now, not him.
“Do you not know your role? Do you not understand what this means? Have you no honor…do you seek to erase all knowledge of your own existence….of the suffering that occurred in your name. No world can be without evil, Baen. No world can understand joy without sorrow and hate, no world can truly love if they have not felt the other. Man is a being of opposites, he lives in a binary world: good and evil, life and death, nature and magic, peace and war, light and dark, love and hate…..we cannot break this into singular, we cannot make it triplicate…..binary is all that may exist for the good of man. God knows this and though the Watchers do not understand, they have struggled to maintain such a world. Do you disobey the oath you swore, for your castigation never made you exempt from the words you swore by.”