VFX FINAL: Poppy "Popinjay" Jeremiah VS Va'Ul

The energy excessed by the blade with it's every attack was now tangible, craving groves of molten sand as the sword jumped around, twisting to outmaneuver the giant. It chased him to a cliff of pitch black obsidian sticking out of the mass of land. From afar one could see that he was standing on an ancient wall.

Beyond it was a vast pit, the walls below constantly lit up by feeble flashes of light, souls trying to climb out, unwilling to accept their fate to be forgotten forever.

Va'Ul always kept distance between himself and the blade. Even if barely noticeable as the blade flicked from place to place at speeds beyond common perception, it became apparent as it suddenly embedded itself in the ground. The impact revealed more polished obsidian as the soil was blown off. Va'Ul stopped close to the edge and observed as with all of the sword's momentum, a giant monster pounced on him, spawned from within the blade.

The huge creature was stopped just out of it's reach, one of it's bladed tails falling short as the metal giant took a quick step back. Headless, massive hooves tearing at the ground and hard muscles bulging from beneath the jet black hide, it was an abomination that forced all but the greatest lords of hell to jump back. Runes akin to the ones on the sword's edge were branded along it's back, following up over the chest and down the thighs. Fuming blood dripped from these never healing wounds as the monster tried to reach it's master.

It was held back by giant anchors driven through it's shoulders, spraying the hot blood as it struggled, frenzied by it's pain. The heavy, spiked chains diminished to glowing strings as they disappeared within the blade, dancing as they restrained the corrupt being. The sword was embedded deeply within the cliff, the rock already melted stiff around it.

The battle cry of the monster forced Va'Ul to fall flat on the cliff and scratch at the hard surface. Hooves stomped at the ground, throwing Va'Ul into the air. Unluckily for him, the metal construct was adept at acrobatics so he managed to stay in the safe zone.

Another roar filled the air, stirring dust from the ground, all the way to the far horizon. The battle cries coming from the severed throat were the stuff of true nightmares, the sight of the beast losing significance as it howled in despair, unable to reach it's target.

 

Amongst the multitudes of infernal dukes and barons, an unnatural menagerie of horns, fangs, wings, extra appendages and surplus orifices all, there was one who at a first glance seemed misplacedly normal.

He was hardly as tall or otherwise physically imposing as the gigantes of Malebolge, rather appearing as a slender and well-proportioned frame. He carried not the wicked arms and armour brandished by the Sires of Phlegethon, wearing nothing but simple white clothing. Imposing antlers, hooves and tails he eschewed, appearing as nothing but a handsome, graceful man, his blond hair waving in the brimstone breeze.

What he did possess however, was a presence so tangible one could swear one could touch it.

The lesser rulers of Hell cowered in fear, trembled and shook as they cleared a path for Him.

He had fallen, yet his face was still undefeated, his eyes still proud, his pride forevermore untarnished.

He was the Lightbringer, and with a mere glance from his golden eyes, he incinerated the daemon who had disobeyed the order not to interfere.

 

What was once an extensive facility among the blasted plains had become a web of pits, corpses and machinery scattered across the quaking isles. For many kilometers the ground has parted with the ancient wall, producing a chasm that consumed eons worth of work, including a large part of the workforce itself.

"Welcome back, old friend," said Lucifer, now standing behind Va'Ul's back. "I knew you'd return someday..." He interrupted as another cry came from the beast before them. Silence allowed the howl to echo through the broken plain as the monster's throat shut itself, closing without a slightest scar. "...yet your visit now was unexpected," he continued as the behemoth struggled for breath. "Have you come to educate us in the ways of war? Again ?"
"I already have", responded the metal giant, unmoved by the mockery. The light dimmed across the horizon -"I remember it well..." - echoes of battle whispered through the air. And they faded, the tension dispersing as the golden eyes met with Va'Ul's. "As much as I admire your work..." He turned to the headless beast, as it was trying to scratch at it's throat "...I must ask you to restrain yourself while in my domain". The giant monster gave up, it's arms unable to reach the neck, metal studs blocking it's shoulders "There is no war here. Your presence is not justified. Have you come just to slay her..." he pointed at poppy hovering above "...in my domain... Have you gone to all this trouble, construct..." slight tremors shook the ground with Lucifer's every word, "to insult me?"

Va'Ul stepped closer as Lucifer's thundering voice echoed from the countless pits around them. There were slight ripples passing through the armor, he was about to be blown to dust. He looked down on Lucifer, their eyes locked together. "I've had a change of plans." Something was off. The Devil twitched - "You insolent..." He started, lava shooting from between the cracked ground, demons rushing to destroy the intruder. Yet it was too late, the living armor had already cracked open, engulfing the ruler of hell in a tight mesh of dark tendrils.

The net grew as Va'Ul's prey tried to escape, morphing into it's true form, the power shaking the ground from beneath them, suspending the pair above the blasted void.

The plains of hell were frozen in perfect silence as the tumbling cocoon was being forced into the metal shell. Shards of dark armor hovered around the shifting wire. Whenever an opening was about to form, the mesh thickened around the weak spot. There was a delicate balance between the two, however it was shifting slowly, as one drained power from the other. Only the flapping of the leathery wings was heard, as all pure blood demons were suddenly frozen in terror. From his shrinking prison, Lucifer himself had called her name.

 

The demon struck the cocoon with enormous force, the knife penetrating the thick mesh. She flew past, never letting go of the knife, her momentum cutting an opening little over a foot across. The impact had visibly strained her arms, yet she continued to stab and chop, barely defeating the speed at which the strings wound themselves back together. The surface was much harder then it appeared, millions of silky tendrils creating a powerful trap.

Blood poured down her arms and face as metal fragments embedded themselves beneath her skin, some sparks penetrating her fire shield. The opening was now over two feet across. Powerful paws grabbed at the hole from within and with a great effort managed to tear it wider. Popinjay hovered back with her bloodied wings and the cocoon was ripped open with enormous force, a cry of rage coming from the fallen angel within.

The mesh coiled back around the broken giant and the dark winged creature made a break for it. And it howled as something held id back, tearing at the already mutilated body. Millions of tendrils were embedded in his back, wound around the broken wings, every one of them crawling beneath the darkened skin somewhere.

 

A hollow metallic thud accompanied Va'Ul as he fell hard on the ground. He looked like a wreck, the chest torn wide open, a mess of metal wires tumbling from within. The remains of his severed tendrils rained around him as be bounced of the hard surface, skidding to a stop a good distance from where he fell.

For a while he remained motionless, the tumbling and twisting of the opaque smoke marking his path being the only sign the time wasn't frozen there. Everyone and everything had run at the sight of what he'd done.

The metal screeched and cried as the jagged edges started bending back into place, cracks welding shut. Within minutes he could stand again, all of his tendrils successfully retracted.

The damage he suffered had been immense, but even a fraction of his victim's power would more then make up for it. And he drained much more then enough.

 

Va'Ul sensed her as she popped up far behind him, on the plain below the obsidian wall. He was standing on the cliff again, inspecting what remained of his sword and the beast that escaped from within. The behemoth was almost dead, the sword just a hunk of metal without a source for it's power.

He ignored his foe for just a moment more. His gauntlet cracked as he tightened the grip around the hilt and with a thud resonating through the wall, he pulled the weapon free. Casually walking over the trembling hulk, Va'Ul arrived at the neck of the beast. Cutting an opening in the throat wasn't as difficult as defeating the spell that made it grow over as fast as the blade cleared the flesh.

It was hopeless, not only did he lack the power, he was never meant to be a powerful sorcerer. There were specific constraints embedded in his very essence that prevented the giant from harnessing powerful magicks directly. The dark blade sliced through beast flesh with no resistance, quickly finding it's way to the huge black heart. Va'Ul twisted the sword as the dying beast twitched for the last time.

The anchors within the monster's shoulders retracted their claws and, along with the chains, disappeared within the blade as thin glowing fibers. Va'Ul needed a new source of power for his weapon, but the search would have to wait.

He turned to face his opponent.

 

The giant jumped down the wall and continued to charge his enemy, long strides taking him across patches of land suspended on molten rock. The knives failed to correct their course for a target approaching so rapidly. One by one they struck the ground behind him, either splitting rock or splashing lava on the nearby isles.

The axe howled as Va'Ul spun it above his head, the chain coiled in the air. Three craters formed around Popinjay, the attacks so fast they were now just a blur. But for the speed he sacrificed accuracy.

The giant launched himself into the air and made a sweeping upward strike, the axe plowing the ground, about to slice his opponent in half.

 

For a moment he observed as a streak of flame divided into four minor bolts, swirling toward him in anticipation of his attempt to evade. Thinking fast he ran toward a pile of rubble a short distance to his north, letting the bolts catch up to him and ran straight for an ancient column. He performed the typical trick involving running up the wall.

As his leg was firmly pressed against the column, ready to launch him into a wide back-flip, he noticed that the bolts had split up, only one chasing him along the ground. Others took the sides and the top, their distance much to close for comfort. He cheated them by choosing to crush through the pillar instead, observing through his shoulder as they all converged exactly where he had so recently planned to be at this moment.

His rouse was far from putting him to an advantage however, as he took much longer to recover from the unplanned evolution then the bolts needed to reacquire their course.

As he evaded them it showed that whatever power he had drained from Lucifer, a vast part of it had been dedicated to improving his speed and agility - a criminal waste in the eyes of any magic user.

For a few minutes he successfully danced with the fireballs, committing feats of acrobatics seemingly inadequate for a metal giant. He pounced, flipped and tumbled at impossible angles, hitting his landings perfectly, almost gracefully. The flames chasing him were just as impressive however, always anticipating the most likely of his escapes. But then they revealed their weakness - they learned.

While it allowed one of them to actually hit, blasting a sizable hole through Va'Ul's side, it revealed that these were no simple spells, there were little demons in charge of the fireballs. Just as the realization struck, the sword had instantly left the sheath on his back and sliced through one of the fireballs.

Barely noticeable to even the keenest of observers, as the fireball left the superheated blade, it was followed by a tiny golden strand. With speed many magnitudes greater then that of the slashing sword, the thread retracted itself, stealing something from within the bolt.

Immediately followed two clean slashes at the remaining bolts, both fireballs dispelled ,scarring the ground past Va'Ul in a characteristic V pattern. The third one flew straight into the distance as the giant lowered the sword to the ground.

A tiny demon, slightly bigger then a house cat, oozed from the blade. It looked burned, papery-thin and definitely in pain. It died before it's bladed tail had been fully regurgitated by the sword.

Va'Ul looked up as the hole in his side started to close.

 

A red glob of energy appeared above Va'Ul, hovering there as he absently watched the fire bolts charge toward him. It dropped down on him, shaking every metal plate as it passed through, and upon hitting the ground, exploded into a wave like a drop falling on clear water. Part of it expanded into a sphere surrounding the still giant, tearing bits from the ground around him. The rest traveled outward, cracking the ground further and upsetting the lava beneath.

The fire bolts extinguished as they passed the surface of the sphere. The red horizon quickly darkened as the wave approached it, lava freezing over. A large part of hell was bathed in cold gray, little crimson coronas licking the far skyline where the effect was not yet in full power. From beyond the obsidian wall a storm of frenzied souls hauled, scratching helplessly at the hard surface. Cracks where lava flowed slowly filled with blood and without a slightest warning, the portal above froze into an illusionary reflection of itself, slowly losing focus and dispersing across the sky. In a few seconds only the distant flashes of red were what illuminated the vast area of hell, silence and darkness thickest around the metal giant.

Wet footsteps echoed from one of the bloody lakes, metal claws scratched along the obsidian wall. Something screeched past Popinjay, out of nowhere appearing a winged mechanical beast, a huge metal bird made of technology far superior to that on earth. It clashed with a ball-shaped hover, dodging it's gunfire and missiles. It sprayed the confused demon with flaming debris as the predator leaped to engage other enemies.

The ground was now a light show, plasma, lasers, explosions, the brief serenity was shattered as fast as it came.

A moment later Va'Ul emerged from a huge explosion of blue flame, manning a light gunship. The co-pilot was still behind him in the shattered cockpit, pinned by the giant sword. Some flaming wreckage flew over the small plane as Va'Ul was trying to figure out the controls. Incoming mortar rounds whistled across the sky.

 

Jagged lines of craters cleared a path through the ground forces, a few shells hitting the giant wall. Just as things seemed to stabilize, another wave of odd, high-tech flying machines swarmed from the horizon, exchanging laser blasts and missiles.

Va'Ul barely managed to fire three bursts of gunfire as Popinjay before his craft was exploded by a red laser beam. He hit the ground faster then the spent cases his fire produced. One of the spherical things chased him across the trenches, each shot hitting closer then the other, before it got shredded by a set of mechanical claws.

The two flying armies engaged in melee, birds using their dexterity and claws against some sort of beam sabers produced by their opponents.

Va'Ul tumbled across the ground, dodging what looked like a dozen tons of wreckage bouncing across the ground, and emerged holding an assault rifle of some sort.

Far on the horizon, electrical discharges marked the arrival of a mother-ship, instantly downing the nearby birds with precise energy blasts. The huge spherical flyer advanced boldly, dominating the battlefield, more smaller craft launching from bays at it's sides.

Va'Ul prepared to fire a carefully aimed shot at the distracted demon but was forced to mow down some approaching infantry instead. Looking back up, she was no longer there. Pointing the sights frantically across the sky he only found explosions and debris.