BASILISK: Book I - 2012

by GrimdarkAO

Summary:

A titanic battle from a long begotten time brings itself to the doorstep of the Hollow Earth, and the greatest threat that the Hollow Earth has ever seen makes it's mark as the nightmare for all titan-kind.

Chapter 1: Prologue: Ancient Skull Island

Rows of shimmering turquoise danced like snakes along the dark sky, their silent ballet was accompanied by a roaring battle down below among the valleys and peaks of the twisted island’s surface. The silhouettes of hulking frames lunged through from peak to peak, in one of their hands was a primordial glaive strapped together by thick vines and a bloody, long blade made of black and sepia bones that formed a toothy edge. The beast that clung to the side of the forested mountain was raked with claw marks that stretched all along his body in jagged red curves. Its shaggy body trembled in pain, but if it stopped too long to catch its breath then it would be torn apart.
It kept moving, leaping across the mountain peaks, leaving crimson stains smeared along pillars of earthy stones. It kept launching itself through the cool air, every time its large body slammed into a mountain there was a rustle from within the island’s emerald guts. Chirping and snarling groans and roars all around, it was too much noise, and the beast was starting to run out of high peaks to leap from. The giant mountains grew smaller and smaller as they came upon a great bog, festering with humid air and fat insects waiting to sink their pincers into your flesh. Bruised and shredded palms shook as they clamped around the last mountain that the old titan could cling to. The beast swung its beaten face around violently, and a snarl twisted along its face as it held the glaive ready. It stared into the haze that blanketed it with a menacing squint, its green eyes rushing around to notice anything that didn’t look right. It knew that its challenger must be hiding close by, the devils were never one to give up easily, and certainly not their largest demon either. But the more that the primal titan listened, the less it heard, all of the nightly choruses it stirred up had faded away. It was just the breath of Mother Earth along the titan’s old gray and black fur and the rustle of huge flat leaves brushing against each other among millions of towering trees. It groaned with an unnerved look on its face, puffing its chest for a brief moment only for the pillar of stone it clung on to suddenly crack and shake, erupting with falling boulders.
The beast grumbled and leaped from the mountain in a hurry, flying through the air one last time as it splashed into the thick bog around it and watched as the mountain exploded, with a titanic shape rushing out from the crater it dug out from under it. The mountain of slithering scales snapped and roared as it pulled with its strong, armored claws dragging a fat body along the ground, and a long, snake-like neck with a long jaw filled with hundreds of thousands of teeth. The great devil’s body was already partially mangled with slashes and deep wounds that slithered along the meaty fortress of evil scales and jagged spikes. The twisting mound of scales and scars dragged its knuckles up and through the air, gaining speed with each stride, throwing mounds of sopping wet earth in great chunks. The old titan lifted his spear into his arms and wrapped his tired, leathery fingers around its long wooden handle before jabbing the bony mass of ribs and teeth through the air, rushing the bloody point toward the devil’s shoulder plate.
But the serpentine demon threw itself into the air, hurling itself around the titan’s frame and colliding with the bog in a great splash, throwing mountains of earth across the island’s slimy biome. The beast had no time to react as it was swept off its feet by an enormous tail swinging towards him from the other direction, with the collision of furry muscles and scarred, leathery skin being soaked in the murk. The giant’s body was slow and chained by the wet soil that caked the bog’s floor, but the devil behind him was charging at full speeds, and only getting faster with each leap of its long arms. The primal titan shifted his gaze from the serpent behind him to his blade in front of him, which was partially wrapped in moss, vines, and mud. The stench of the brown-green water and rotting skeletons chained the titan’s crawl even further, everything was moving so fast but so slow simultaneously. Its giant hand finally made contact with the reddish-black handle, and the primal titan found the power to swing its entire mass around as the serpent was throwing itself onto the primal warrior. The wide and long jaws were halted by the thick bone lodging itself in its jaws, the teeth cracked and bent the handle’s form.
The titan was still pinned, but now its back sank into the bog and all it could do was stare into the red devil’s black eyes. The serpent’s talons finally reached the titan’s chest, they raked more and more deep gashes along its body. The titan and the serpent had been battling since the sun rose and set, and now the titan feared its body couldn’t keep up much longer… so much blood.
The titan-sized head of the serpent was only biting down with more and more force, and the titan could feel the handle begin to snap and break in the devil's maw. The old warrior roared a deep howl at the serpent, using its strength to tear the bottom half of the handle apart, letting bony splinters spring through the humid night of the bog. The split end was jagged and ruined… but sharp, sharp enough to kill, and the titan slammed the pike into the serpent’s side over and over. Each jab cut deep, leaving wretched tears that split with a ghastly crunch and gurgle, the crude pike found itself ravaging the serpent’s neck, side, and arm, each oozing gash vomited with dark green blood that was littered with bony splinters that dotted the serpent’s side. The devil reeled back, throwing itself back in a flurry of twisting and turning that was followed by screeching and howling that could tear the very sparkled heavens asunder. But the warrior titan had no time to bask in the devil’s turmoil, it had to keep fighting. The titan gathered its primordial strength together, finally ripping itself from the seas of brown-black mud in a wave of blood and soil then rushed towards the serpent’s body and leaped onto its tail, flying up along its winding surface ravaged by tooth and claw the titan flung itself around as the demon’s neverending tail wind around itself and into the air over and over.
The titan found itself reaching that devil’s spiny back, which reeked with oozing blood that spurted out in vicious gashes that were torn across its body. The demon flailed its scaly form around wildly, and the titan found its grasp hard to hold onto the rocky back of the monumental serpent, but the warrior countered with the broken handle which was still in its bloody palm. The titan slammed the handle into the serpent devil’s back, another spout of dark green blood screaming out and into the air, soaking the titan's fur as he climbed up. The ferocious titan stabbed that terrible serpent’s back over and over, pulling it closer to the neck as it dodged the vicious barbed tail that whipped through the air like a tornado. The red serpent slammed its body into the ground over and over, grounding up thousands of trees and turning mountains into hunks of shattered boulders, screeching for its enemy to peel itself away from his back. Each scar that poured blood felt like a hole of burning lava melting into its flesh and bones, and the titan finally reached the neck of the titan where it lodged the broken handle deep into its right shoulder. The titan used its free hand to grip the remaining blade tightly above its scarred and hairy head, aiming the blade through the wide, long, and muscular neck of the red devil.
The titan bellowed a great call as the blade swooped through the air and punctured the neck and pulled the blade down the serpent’s neck, spilling open pools of thick gore upon the corpse of what was left of the bog around them. The serpent finally peeled its body from the earth in a mighty screech of agony, a mist of blood firing from its mouth as the blade brutalized it. The titan that clung to the bleeding back of the demon pulled the long blade from the oozing neck, ready to strike the killing blow but was halted by the mighty jaws of the devil swinging around and clamping around its arm, sinking hundreds of rows of teeth that were as long as blades into the warrior’s old skin. The giant roared out an agonizing cry as it was tossed through the air, in a mix of cracking bones and splitting skin. The giant could feel its grip on the blade loosening, the feeling in the arm waning as everything from the side of its chest to its finger.
The shape of the red devil grew smaller and smaller as the titan was thrown back into a tall stone mountain, and the last thing it felt was the shattering of its arm as it crashed into its side, hundreds of boulders collapsing and falling onto the titan as it cried in horror. It could barely hold itself up on its battered knees, it shook as if the gods were once again at war with each other. Up ahead the great devil snarled and began to throw itself forward once again, charging at full speeds even with pieces of itself hanging from its mangled frame. The titan had lost all power in its destroyed hand, twisted and broken in terrifying shapes that it could barely stomach to look at. The pain burned like a million extinctions ravaging along its back and neck, the blade had been destroyed, and the crafted bone blade was shattered and stuck into the remains of the mountain behind him, it would do no good against a demon. The bleeding titan’s failing vision fell upon the scar torn open by the devil when it reemerged earlier, the twisting, smoldering tunnel had not collapsed yet, and the titan was going to make a bold move. To survive, the titan threw itself down the tunnel, using the strength left in its good hand to control its fall downwards even if it meant slamming and punching its body against the stone walls. The titan just missed the unholy jaws of the devil snapping shut around the maw of the scar, and it snarled as it pushed itself back down, following behind as it pulled itself through on powerful talons.
This fight will be finished on ancient ground.
Hollow Earth.
The titan kept falling and falling, grabbing long pieces of crystal and stone that it could hold onto loosely with its one good arm. The reddish-orange light that glowed and pulsated grew more and more vibrant as the beast fell. As the tunnel grew larger and larger the titan was able to walk again, although it was constantly falling into the sides of the tunnel, shaking what little focus it had left. The titan fell into the open cavern of gargantuan red crystals and hanging vines, it had never seen anything like this before. The cavern stretched high and low, bridged by shimmering pillars of hardened rock that created long ribs that stretched on and on for as long as the titan could see. The beast turned to face the tunnel, it could hear the beast crawling closer, and it could feel the earth shake and crackle once again. The beast grumbled, tasting thick blood as he gasped for air in a deep sigh, and it turned to face the closest red crystal before it and leaped with all of its trembling might. The beast clung to the edges, barely holding on as it pulled itself up, dragging its shattered arm along as he slipped and tumbled onto the top of the crystal. Its chest was already wheezing while it stood there, it felt like the titan had climbed out of hell itself yet all it did was jump. It felt defeated and humiliated.
The titan took little time to jump again, grabbing long, thin crystal branches that branched from the thicker crystals that ran between the warm space of the bleeding cavern. The titan hurled itself forward once more but gasped as its chest was slammed into the scarlet, glassy formation that it fell on. This feeling of weakness was alien to the titan like a thousand devils were pressing their vicious claws onto its heart. It couldn’t bring itself to move, it had to rest, even for a little bit, so the titan threw its body around, laying its back on the smooth rock, and breathed like it had never breathed before. Its gaze tumbled through the stretching cavern’s dangerous peaks, a part of the warrior was almost admiring how gorgeous it was… how it would have loved to bring its mate and infants here to gather. The warmth of family and the sight of crimson burned deeper than any broken body could, the titan wished it couldn’t see the twisted faces of its mangled family when it came home those many moons ago. It could still remember the deep gashes of teeth raking along the half-eaten corpses of his troop. The titan had seen the devils eat others before, they could devour everything and would vomit it back up for later… but what the warrior saw… wasn’t hunger, this was a call to war and it was a war that the titan answered with fury.
A fury that still burned inside, but the titan knew that it barely had the strength left… if it could just hide from the red devil a little longer, maybe it could see one more day.
But the titan had little time, the red devil finally dropped from the gargantuan tunnel that the titan had limped out of some time ago. While still bleeding, the giant serpent was just as vicious as ever and ready for another blood-soaked round of mindless violence. The titan threw itself onto its legs with a mighty shove of its arm, wincing when it felt the mangled bones of the corpse of a limb rattle around in the shattered flesh. The titan had to move, and fast, but its condition couldn’t allow it, it needed something to guide it along the underground… the long blade would have been helpful right now. Instead, the titan reached for a long and flat crystal, yanking it from the ground with a thunderous force, the crimson slab was unmoved by such a power, good, that meant it was sturdy.
The serpent was throwing itself along the crystals, its slithering shape was so long and powerful it was far more careless about where it threw itself too, wrapping itself around several crystals with its tail and neck as it crawled closer to the titan. Whatever rocks it didn’t grab onto it smashed into waves of red pebbles with its flat and long bone-white head. The shower of rocks flew through the air before falling into the glowing void below them both, and the titan fell with them as it leaped downwards before swinging its red tool into a thick bridge of red glass, the blade sliced a deep and thin cavern into the bridge before sinking deep enough for it to lodge itself inside. The titan growled as it used its legs to push itself onto the bridge and leap down again, jumping at a rate that kept a needed distance between the warrior and the devil. More red rain pelted the titan’s hide as it climbed through the cavern, feeling the walls shake with each vicious slam of the red devil’s claws. It hurried along, throwing itself along with the blade…
But then it stopped, it couldn’t move! The blade was too far deep to remove.
Not now! The titan pulled and pulled, feeling the malicious power of the serpent grow closer as the warrior tried to free its only hope of escaping an endless mountain of teeth and claws. The beast roared as it wrenched the crystal blade from the shining rock over and over before finally there was a terrible ‘CRACK’ and the blade finally pried itself from the hole it carved and sunk right into the jaws of the serpent which nearly engulfed the titan warrior. With the titan’s minute power remaining it fell backward, but the serpent fell with it as its claws were too bust flailing, trying to grab the new blade. Unable to control itself, both it and the titan fell farther and down. The titan used its anger to punch and ram its working limb’s into the devil’s body over and over as it tumbled into crystal formations which shattered like nothing as it collided with the spiny red back of the giant. The glow from beyond grew brighter as they fell, and the titan was unsure of what would happen at this point but if it meant killing the serpent along with itself then it would gladly do so.
However, as the glow began to engulf them both, the titan could see that it was not some great aetherial pool but instead was… daylight? The titan’s suspicions were confirmed as it fell through the massive crack, exposing it and the great devil to a warm shining light that spanned across thousands of arching mountains of dazzling colors, filled with huge trees that were nearly as tall as the warrior. But it wasn’t his home, no, it was far too large, clouds didn’t shroud the sky… instead, the earth seemed to be reflected into the sky, with more mountains running along the horizon. The titan and the devil kept falling, but they were falling upwards… or downwards? What was this place? The giants fell through a cloud, seeing the world around them spread out even more now, some huge mountains bent around each other like giant teeth, and others let waterfalls the size of islands spill off into great seas filled with life. The titan was bewildered by the strange world but was even more bewildered when it and the devil stopped falling in mid-air… then fell back again the other way.
They were both now falling towards the top of the world, or was this the bottom? Either way, the devil and the titan roared as they fell with the giant serpent falling faster than the giant, its huge body crashing into a mountainside and spiraling down in a cloud of soil that exploded from the beast’s collision. The titan fell as well, but the beast grabbed its side of the mountain to slow its descent, however, this didn’t help as the earth’s power dragged it by faster than it could understand, and it fell again. The beast threw its arm around, trying to grab at the earth again and again before it finally wrapped itself around a stony pillared peppered with long, scaly trees and thick vines covered in moss. The titan gasped as its descent finally ceased, using its legs and one good arm to drop itself down further and further until its feet were surrounded by the familiar feeling of shrubbery and plant life. The beast looked upon the vast open world around him, so much of it was like the island, but now the beast felt smaller… much smaller.
Lighting crackled between the worlds, rivers of fire sizzled around mountains and rocky plains, and vines as large as the beast twisted and wrapped around huge mountains. It was incredible.
But the titan’s admiration would have waited as it was tossed through the air by the serpent’s gargantuan tail, its body crashed into a heavy tree, splintering and timbering down behind it. The pain rocked his body, like a thousand lightning bolts pinging around his body, but then… feeling returned. The red devil had not given up yet… but neither did the titan. His torn arm could move, and while it struck a horrible burning pain, the titan could move it, so the beast snarled and instantly grabbed the fallen tree and shaved off its thousands of branches with its bare hands, leaving a sharp end pointing to the floor. The beast snarled and launched the tree through the air, which the serpent countered by throwing its armored wrist along the spear, shattering it like nothing, but the ape was already in the air, a huge boulder of stone and crystal in its hands was thrown down straight onto the titan’s head, plunging the devil’s head into the dirt. The titan quickly swooped up two pieces of crystal that fit in both of its palms and began pummeling the devil’s skull over and over with the sharp rock. The serpent’s skull bounced around wildly as it was ravaged by stone that split its scales and tore flesh from bone, each rocky fist exploded with a wave of power that leveled forests with its extreme force.
The serpent’s rage boiled over as it finally used its claws to swipe at the titan, batting it into a cliff face filled with glowing veins. The titan looked up, watching as the serpent’s head reeled upwards, gurgling while it's scaly and scarred next pulsated and writhed, and the titan could only roll as an arching like of hideous green, flaming bile shot through the air, boiling and melting the rocks that it fell onto. The titan rushed along the pebbly wall, feeling the heat of the bile that spewed from the gaping maw barely wash over its shoulder and back, and as the giant howled in agony it fell into the forests once again. Now that it was still, the serpent blasted another stream of hot bile from its jaws, but the titan’s blood kept it from staying still as it reached for an entire piece of the cliffside ripped it from the earth, and slammed it down in front of the corrosive titan acid before it could reach the warrior. The titan could feel the rock melting just on the other side of the stone, and almost feel that wretched sting that broke down the hearty rocks into sludge. The scarred titan threw itself forward, running with the melting stone as fast as its tired legs could carry it, and bashed the wall right into the titan’s face, a grotesque crunch and a mix of splattering and squishing followed as the wall came apart, falling over the devil’s face in a tidal of sharp stones.
The titan grabbed the closest and sharpest crystals and started to throw its entire arms into the serpent as gashes split open all along it, but the serpent threw its horrible strikes against the warrior, tearing open new wounds, which would trail into old wounds that would once again bleed. With each vicious strike from one beast, the other would have ten more, and they tore each other apart as their battle trailed into a deep chasm of water that roared over into a waterfall. Neither of the giants paid attention to the drop-off closing in on them, and as the serpent leat forward to clamp around the titan, it dropped over the waterfall as the warrior ducked. But in a last-ditch attempt the red devil grabbed the foot of the titan and dragged it in with it, and they both fell far into the gargantuan lake. The explosion of water from the titan shifted the water level, but when the serpent dropped, the entire lake itself seemed to rise upwards before falling back down in a shower of floods that tore down earth and titan alike.
But as the water stilled, and the lake grew again… nothing rose out.
There was peace.
However, this peace was short-lived as a monumental scaly talon reached up from the water and stuck deep into the sandy and muddy shores. The red serpent pulled itself from the water, pulling half of the lake with it as its torn shape crawled away, roaring a victorious call into the horizon as it slithered off. But the serpent underestimated the power of the titan.
Behind the waterfall, a deep maw stretched long and wide, where the titan was pulling itself out and hurling up fountains of water and half-digested food. Half of its fur was gone, and there were more scars than skin raked along its body, but the titan was alive, it could see another day, but it wouldn’t be another day on the island. The titan crawled to the side of the waterfall cavern, gasping and breathing like it was an infant all over again, tired, dizzy, and blurry eyes fell over the sight of the rising light piercing through the waterfall. The titan hadn’t won… but it didn’t die, maybe that was all that mattered now, to live, for them…

Chapter 2: I: Horrid-Tooth Plains

Summary:

CopperSaw of the LeafWings is a beast that has lived a life where she's supposed to stay in her lane. She's never expected to fight back, because she's so soft spoken, but today- in the Hollow Earth she gets her wish.
The LeafWing swarm stumbles upon a great corpse, and CopperSaw may think this might be a fallen titan... but what could kill such a mighty beast? And how will her fate be written?

Years later… 2012.
The sun rose high into the horizon, illuminating the arching mountains and towering trees. As the sun washed over the underground world, it began to wake up, screeching and roaring rumbled through the vile realms.
CopperSaw’s eyes pulled themselves apprehensively, and she rubbed them clean of any gunk that built up around her eyes overnight. Her claws tapped on rugged stone floors when she dropped her arm from her saw-shaped face. A creaking yawn ached from her prickly mouth of teeth, and she skittered out from her dug-out den to see streams of other Leafwings fly by the moss and shrub-layered stony splinter that stretched into the air. CopperSaw soon joined them, stretching her arms out wide and flapping them to feel the air engulf her body like a blanket. The swarm’s routine began as it did every day, and she was another part of the great flying mass. Her stomach groaned, hungry, thirsty, so many things all at once!
She and the swarm swooped around the stone shape before diving down far, just above the tree line, their swarm rustling the leaves as a great wind titan had come by. Their swarm broke off into many branches as they fell upon a great slithering river that spilled into a black, sandy valley filled with the fat, spiny crawling ones. They barked and snapped, their flabby necks gurgled as they tried to launch up and eat some of the Leafwings, but the smaller swarms just dove right over them, leaving the beasts be. CopperSaw and the swarm saw their goal just ahead of them, steaming pools, great sources of energy.
They dove again, and the swarm wrapped themselves around the banks of the river, landing next to each other and huddling around stony outcroppings. As CopperSaw landed so did two more familiar Leafwings, SnaggleWing and HagScreech, her closest mates. Their long heads bent to snap up as much water as their tiny heads could fill, they felt their bodies warm and wake up. Not that they were tired, Leafwings were easy to stir, this was something deeper inside them, something that all creatures of the underworld shared.
“What took YOU so long to get up?” HagScreech squawked with a head nudge to the bottom of CopperSaw’s neck. “Just a good dream,” CopperSaw came back finally with her voice lower than the rest. “Can’t imagine that’s much different from any other time- hah!” SnaggleWing interjected with a laugh, although HagScreech seemed to take more offense than CopperSaw because she lunged her head and neck forward, and bit the air between her and Snaggleiwng, leaving CopperSaw in an awkward position. It wasn’t untrue, CopperSaw was known among her swarm as just being a little off, it was like being dragged by the other side of the world, but instead of another piece of land, it was something small like a shiny bug that had nestled itself on a tree branch, or a waterfall that had so many branching streams it looked like a hydra.
“You’ve got some nerve! Saying that after what you did last sunrise!” HagScreech snarled, eyes pointed like talons at SnaggleWing who was still cackling his head off. “HagScreech please, it’s fine,” CopperSaw huffed quietly before a larger Leafwing swooped over her head, making the small knife-nosed reptile duck down. SnaggleWing had some jokes that could bite even harder than his jaws, but he meant well- probably much more than most other Leafwings in the swarm. HagScreech waved her sword in front of SnaggleWing before looking back up at CopperSaw, her expression entirely melted away into a soothing grin.
“You should have heard it last night, there was something fierce just beyond the Emerald Highlands, something BIG shook the world from the Eastern Great Gulch to the Northern Black Mountains, RavageClaw even said he saw one of the mountains entirely crumble after one big rattle shook the earth!” She went on. SnaggleWing would drop his thoughts into the chittering soon after HagScreech. “Most of the Elder-Leafs just say it was an earth-shake, but there was something out there that sounded like a tita-” The oldest of the three ducked his head as three of said oldest Elder-Leafs swooped past, MaimJaw, StrangleTalon, and the almighty BruteSword, Mega-Wing of his Leafwing swarm. CopperSaw was already big for a Leafwing, but BruteSword was over twice her size and had a bladed nose that could cut the tallest trees into splinters. Legend says that when he was a hatchling he tore a Foetodon’s head clean off with his talons, and CopperSaw wasn’t one to doubt the power of BruteSword…
Because BruteSword was her father.
“I heard something that sounded like a titan!” CopperSaw heard SnaggleWing finally chirp, which made HagScreech bat at him with her stubby fore-talons. ‘A titan… what a sight that would be…’ CopperSaw echoed in her head. She had never seen a titan before, almost none of the swarm had, and based on how that word is passed around maybe it was better that way. Whenever she would ask BruteSword about it, he usually fell silent, but he would often echo what his father and his father before him spoke of. Great giants that transformed the land as they walked, could bring either incredible life or horrible destruction. There were giants down here, the Warbats that flew between the worlds above and below. The echo of her father’s voice came from the back of her head “It’s more than just size, it’s about what’s inside you and what it takes to hold the world on your back.” Although CopperSaw was old enough now to know her father was just repeating what his grandfather told him, and so on. But if that were the case, why would Titans be so feared among the swarm?
“Keep it down! That’s the kind of stuff to cause a panic!” She hissed, keeping her eyes locked on the Leafwings around them. “Did you see anything?” CopperSaw asked finally. “Besides CrookedTooth up before the sun eating something he shouldn’t have, no,” SnaggleWing replied before dipping his head into the warm pools. CopperSaw turned her eyes to HagScreech, who shook her head to the largest of the three. CopperSaw rubbed the bottom of her chin, she could feel the warm water left from her drinking still drop from her teeth and rub over her talons.
Coppersaw’s gaze turned to her father, who was standing on the highest, sharpest rock that could look over the entire swarm. There was a part of her that will always be in awe of her father… “Why aren’t you a titan then?” She could hear the conversation in the back of her head when she was still young, small, and frail. She remembered BruteSword being quiet when she asked that question, and he seemed to find it amusing even. “I don’t need to hold the weight of the world on my wings, just the swarm, and you.” He said those many suns and moons ago.
“So you got to take care of a lot of swarms as a titan?”
“Every swarm, the whole world, above and below, beyond the horizons, everywhere…”
She always wanted to ask why such an important- and what felt like grand creature was feared, shouldn’t they be loved and embraced? But every time she tried asking he was either busy or couldn’t find words for it, so she gave up asking, but that didn’t mean the question still didn’t dangle from her fangs like a loose piece of flesh.
SnaggleWing and HagScreech’s faces lifted with CopperSaw’s as they heard BruteSword’s mighty call rise and explode into the air, then each and every other LeafWing would pull themselves from the dozens of pools and take to the skies, their hundreds of thousands of wings mixing looked like a living bush or tree rising into the air, with the three chatterboxes following behind them. The swarm swirled into a beautiful spiral of greens, yellows, reds, oranges, and purples, and CopperSaw watched the world shrink below her talons as she flew and dove forward with her swarm.
It was time for a hunt.
The swarm had entered the Horrid-Tooth plains, a stretching world of swirling rock that was filled with life that hid between the crevasses or stomped above them. Plateaus and sharp cliff faces were everywhere here, so it was one of easiest places for a Leafwing to spread her wings… if only she wasn’t surrounded by so many other Leafwings at the same time. It wasn’t that CopperSaw disliked the swarm, she loved it, every one of them to death. But there was such a sprawling world out here for them all to see, and weird little things to find, something that the other Leafwings didn’t get. Every time CopperSaw would bring back some strange creature in her talons or talk about a new little hideaway she discovered while scouting, the Leafwing would always be met with strange eyes and turned heads. But when you’re this small, in a place this large, swarms were how you kept each other- and more importantly yourself safe. If only CopperSaw had the power to keep herself safe without relying on the bodies of others to shield her from the jaws of some horrible beast lunging at them.
A Leafwing barked as CopperSaw’s arm smacked against his head, and he bit the air around her. ‘Daydreaming again…’ She told herself before catching back up with SnaggleWing and HagScreech, which promptly gave a laugh and a friendly nudge from the oldest, “Never change, Copper,” SnaggleWing laughed, which made CopperSaw respond with a soft smile. She would soon start to drift off again, her nose being drawn to a scent that reeked like flesh. She wasn’t the only one being drawn to it as well as the rest of the swarm was moving in the same direction as her.
What a rare feeling that was.
As the Leafwing continued to catch the horrid smell she only grew more puzzled, this wasn’t a smell she had picked up before, yet some parts did smell familiar to her, the kind that made her stomach roar like a warbat… food. But this food had the strangest scent ever, what kind of food smelled like that?
The Leafwing's question would soon be answered as the swarm arched over a tall cliff face and spilled down onto the sight of a massacre.
Giant ribs pierced and bent through the air, strung together by loose flesh that was being picked away by small pincers and biting claws that ran all around the mangled carcass. Its huge winding tail was now crushed spines that waved along the plains of rock and stone, with Foetodons pulling at the remaining scraps. “By the bones of earth…” Hagscreech gasped underneath CopperSaw, who was at a total loss. She had never seen a creature like this before, its many limbs were strewn across the air, stiff in place, or torn from the bone and thrown across the fields of Horrid-Tooth. CopperSaw and the rest of the swarm turned around to get a better view of it, blanketing the air around the titanic corpse that lay wildly across an incredible stretch. CopperSaw had seen large creatures before, huge crabs that carried forests on their back, Warbats that could wrap around mountains… but this… was like its own world. The spines stretched so high that CopperSaw was sure that not even sure if she could sit up there and feel safe, flying that high was one thing, but sitting on land that high was another.
CopperSaw heard the caw of BruteSword from the nose of the swarm, the signal to be cautious around the body, it was unfamiliar territory. The swarm broke apart once again, flying to different reaches of the body. The three LeafWings flew over several ribs before diving down over an open scab with a pool of steaming blood inside of it, landing on the huge scales that could easily outsize boulders.
However, the beasts that crawled around the remains snapped in the air, and the three Leafwings watched as several fights broke out, the gnashing of teeth and swinging of claws was drowned out by all of the sound of squawking of Leafwings and belching from Foetodons. “Smells like a Warbat swam in a volcano!” SnaggleWing barked as he leaned his head into the bleeding would to sniff, “That can’t be, it looks nothing like one… Look at all those arms and legs!” HagScreech jumped in with awe flooding her voice. “Did you guys see the head? It was as if eight Foetodon mouths were all melted together…” She said in amazement, her eyes locked onto the bending, broken, and half-eaten neck that was wrestled over several sharp peaks and oozing something steaming from its broken, multi-tongued mouth.
“I knew it! I was right?” SnaggleWing proclaimed with a mighty leap. ‘That couldn’t be right… was this a titan?’ She looked at the body from horizon to horizon, it would certainly earn the name of such if so.
CopperSaw turned her head back the other way to look for her father, who was sitting at the highest rib, he was panicked, but only CopperSaw could see it. His arms were practically crushing the rib and he was as stiff as stone.
CopperSaw didn’t know how to feel about this. She had only seen her father be like this before, and it was usually when the swarm had to move to another shelter because of some great fight that erupted… but this, it was mountains worse than she had seen before. It felt like a great shadow was being cast over CopperSaw, what did this mean- the strongest Leafwing doesn’t just get scared of a corpse for no reason… she needed to talk to him. Though when she started to move, she soon realized that the shadow was very much real, and was right behind her.
She spun her body around just in time as a huge armored claw slammed into the scab, sending the three Leafwings through the bloody air and hitting the hills of scales and scabs with a powerful SMACK. CopperSaw’s head flew around like a small bug being thrown around in a horrible storm, and she could barely watch as the giant ArachnoClaw crawled straight toward her. CopperSaw crawled to her side as the giant crab lunged its arms forward and let the open wounds across the hill wash its body in blood. The Leafwing crawled and scurried along the thick scutes and bulky ridges, barely escaping a vicious swipe from the rock critter as she glided over the peak of the hill and slammed down once again. But the ArachnoClaw kept charging forward, though its rampage was halted by SnaggleWing and HagScreech bolting through the air and cutting deep wounds along the crab’s shell and arms, leaving oozing gashes that splurted like rapids. Now CopperSaw feared for her friend's life more than she did her own… how could a Leafwing of her size… daughter of the mighty BruteSword run away in fear while her friends wrestled her problems away from her?
CopperSaw quickly took to the air and rushed the ArachnoClaw with a deep slash along the armored beast’s segmented face, her bladed nose now carried loose trails of ArachnoClaw meat from their spikes. “We’ve got this devil beneath our talons CopperSaw, just fly!” SnaggleWing gestured as he flew in front of the larger LeafWing, although his efforts were useless as the crab was already swinging its claws through the air faster than the flyers could move. CopperSaw’s instincts made her explode forward faster than she had ever moved, rushing right in front of Snaggle wing right as the claw met her face, and they both collided back into the corpse-ground as the claw smashed them under its weight, leaving HagScreech to cry out in anger and begin to tear at the beast’s shell over and over. ‘No no no, stop!’ CopperSaw rambled on in her head, but she could barely bring herself to pull her arms up, both she and SnaggleWing mewled, feeling something thick ooze from their teeth as they shook in pain. But her heart gasped when she heard the incoming screech of a greater power…
BruteSword.
Her mighty father lunged through the air like lightning, and with all his force his claws crashed right into the ArachnoClaw’s shell, the power of his talons shattered the entire lip of the beast’s armor. With a strong wingbeat, the Leafwing tossed the ArachoClaw up, and through the air, its bleeding body slammed into a large spine, which snapped on impact. But the ArachnoClaw refused to die and hurled itself back onto its feet once more and charged at BruteSword who dashed forward with a swing of his blade, cleaving a chunk from the ArachoClaw’s bruised limbs.
If there was any creature that CopperSaw didn’t have to fear losing, it was her father.
The Leafwing was diving through the air before swooping down at an angle, dodging the ArachnoClaw’s slashing which only tore holes into the corpse’s rotting flesh that rocked its very foundations. The ArachoClaw was continuously battered and torn apart by the Mega-Wing’s power, but it refused to submit or perish, it laid across from BruteSword, who was perched atop the smallest great rib, ready to make the next move. The beast gagged on its one gore and it reeled back for one last attack, springing forward and jumping through the air before BruteSword charged forward with another final slash, tearing an arm clean off with a spray of blood. The crab howled in pain as it fell on its back, with its remaining arms and legs waving into the air like angry tentacles.
BruteSword huffed as he landed right in front of the three LeafWings, his glare falling upon them all. “Are you all alright?” He asked with a rocky voice. It was booming and powerful like a storm took the place of his very heart. “They’re… They’re fine Pa…” CopperSaw finally moaned out as she limped off of SnaggleWing, who pulled himself from the scaly ground, and while he was dazed, he was fine. “But what about YOU???” BruteSword boomed, practically growing over his daughter with concern. “Pa… I’ll be fine.” CopperSaw groaned. “You’re not fine, you’re bleeding… a lot,” Hagscreech said when she dropped beside CopperSaw. Unfortunately, they were right, CopperSaw could taste the thickness in her mouth, and she felt its cold trails run down her body. “You’re staying with me, come on,” BruteSword huffed as he started to move towards the rib again, she would have to go away… away from her friends, they’d be unprotected. CopperSaw could already feel her body moving with her father, no… No!
“Pa, stop,” She groaned loudly, but BruteSword ignored her. She could feel something boiling inside her now. “Pa!” She spoke up again, pushing it out of her like a boulder just left her body. “I’m not going!!” She shouted finally, stomping her claws into the flesh of the giant. BruteSword paused and looked back at CopperSaw in total bewilderment. “Everyone keeps thinking I’m lazy or slow! I’m fine!” CopperSaw shouted again as she pulled away from her father and sat between SnaggleWing and HagScreech. What was this feeling inside her right now? She couldn’t pinpoint it, a part of her felt bad, but that other part was so tired of being just CopperSaw of the Leafwings. But then there was the part of her that felt bad, the part of her that made her want to just stay inside the swarm and not be a bother to anyone.
CopperSaw couldn’t tell what BruteSword was feeling now, usually, she was so good at it, but now she couldn’t tell what emotion was swirling inside the giant Mega-Wing, was that good? Bad? This felt so strange… maybe she shouldn’t have said anything, after all her father just saved her and her friend's life. Though as BruteSword was ready to say something, they could all hear the snarl of the ArachnoClaw grow greater and greater and the shadow of its remaining claws loomed high over the Leafwing’s who barely missed a terrible swipe that punctured the skin for the titanic carcass. CopperSaw and the others dashed back, and swung their heads back at the sound of the tearing of flesh.
The ground of the carcass was rupturing and splitting apart, tearing away and caving in, dragging the great ArachnoClaw with it. The huge crab swung it’s arm in their air wildly, snapping viciously, but then it started to aim for the LeafWings.
They whipped and ducked around, barely missing the sharp pincer’s grasp… but CopperSaw wasn’t so lucky, as she tried to swing her claws at the beast’s arm it grabbed her as it fell, pulling her down with it. “CopperSaw” BruteSword shouted as he charged forward. CopperSaw’s claws were reaching out as she was pulled into the dark red nightmare, and as she looked up at BruteSword and the others she could feel her heart sink with the rest of her.

Chapter 3: II: Fortress of Carcass

Summary:

CopperSaw is lost in the guts of a rotting giant, and she's not alone, an ArachnoClaw has found her and is hunting her down! Now she must escape, but the rotting innards have their own horrors and mysteries. Now CopperSaw must find her way out, but she finds something that will change her life forever...

The fall was long, CopperSaw saw the small gap of their collapse in on itself with blood clots and old flesh when she was pulled in by the crab. She swung her body around wildly, trying her best to steady herself and begin flying back up into the air, but CopperSaw’s body was slammed and pummeled as she fell, sharp broken bones slapped her from one side of the fleshy walls to another, and her body was tossed around by thick ropes of rotting muscle. The ArachnoClaw below her swiped its bleeding limbs around, stabbing and piercing the air to get a lucky shot on the LeafWing’s smaller body.
Its descent would halt fiercely as its shell cracked against a tough pile of something that crunched and squished beneath the impact. CopperSaw fell right on its belly soon after, groaning as her head went snout-first into the armored belly of the crab, but she couldn’t stop now, the ArachnoClaw was swiping and stabbing at its stomach to try and take CopperSaw down with it, she leaped and pounced from one side of the stomach to another and was ready to leap into the air before the mass that the two beasts found themselves on cracked once more and collapsed under the ArachnoClaw’s weight, giving way for CopperSaw’s claws to slip on the mucus-covered carapace and begin descending again, this time she was tossed between ropes of flesh, each one more disgusting than the last. She leaped forward as much as she could, but it was so hard to see! Blood was pouring everywhere, it was like a jungle of muddy vines that was constantly falling! She scurried along, evading falling veins and guts with her hooked claws, CopperSaw was practically throwing herself forward before the ArachnoClaw shot up from the darkness, swiping at the air and splitting the vine of meat that CopperSaw so desperately clung to in half. The LeafWing screamed as the rotting flesh fell through the air, with her claws desperately scrambling up towards the top of the carcass, and once she got a good speed going she leaped forward and spread her wings to glide. She could hear the ArachnoClaw scuttling beneath her in the darkness, hear its thick legs crawl through murky blood lakes, and dig through tree-sized bones.
CopperSaw kept trying to flap as far as she could go, but the blood was making it hard to keep herself aloft before eventually…
She plummeted.
CopperSaw screeched as she fell, waiting for any form of impact to swell and crush her entire body as her long arms waved in vain through the air. She begged for her bones not to break too hard when the collision hit, but it was not a moment more before the slash of hot, murky blood exploded around her and engulfed her in a thick pool. It reeked and it tasted even worse when it flooded her mouth, she could barely bring herself to get out, only keeping herself afloat because her arms thrashed enough in the blood pools. Coopersaw kept trudging through the murk like she was going to war with another swarm of LeafWings, if she was gonna stand any fighting chance she needed to get somewhere where she needed solid ground… or as solid as it could get inside a giant dead beast like this. Behind her, The ArachnoClaw was charging through the bloody mess, its claws outstretched and ready to split CopperSaw in two.
There it was again, that feeling when she yelled at BruteSword, it was fiery like she had the heart of the morning sun inside of her. The fire seemed to control CopperSaw more than she controlled it because before she knew it she had swung her whole body around and ripped a piece of the crab’s mouth from its face, making it reel back and writhe, gurgling on its blood that spat from it’s dangling half-open mouth. CopperSaw would launch herself forward, her leg talons piercing what remained of the ArachnoClaw’s face as her body collided with the huge crab and began peeling pieces away from it. The beast thrashed its shell around, whipping and snapping its claws, before finally catching CopperSaw by her tail.
She screeched as she felt and heard a horrifying crunch along her tail, and she was ripped away from the ArachnoClaw’s torn face and tossed across the murky darkness. Her body instantly collided with a wall of flesh, splitting and falling right inside as she tried to grab onto anything around her.
CopperSaw groaned, staring up to see the ArachnoClaw’s huge arm fly in the gap and snap down towards her, she barely had time to duck the claw’s mouth as the LeafWing tossed herself to her right. The claw continued to bite and snap but gave up its chase as the ArachnoClaw stared into the hole, roaring with malice before crawling away and into the darkness once again.
CopperSaw spat a sickening pile of blood from her mouth, and she could feel more oozing out from her trembling jaw. The entire left side of her body stung and burned like a million blazing volcanoes inside of her body, her arm could barely even move. Her dark eyes were barely able to pull themselves up to look around where she had fallen into. It was some kind of thin, winding cavern… circular, from the bottom of her claws to over her head. The meat that made up the wall was slimy, but also smooth, not like strong compacted flesh that covered bones. She could barely see, but fortunately, there was just enough to make out that this tube of flesh had a lot of branching pathways, not hopeful.
CopperSaw gasped… she was beaten. She lay in a corner, wheezing for air as thoughts piled onto her like the top of the world was coming down on her. Would she ever see her friends again? What about her father? Was her last argument going to be her defying him?! Why would she do that?! Her whole life she was always put behind others, expected to let them do the dirty work. At first, CopperSaw never minded it, to have someone protect you was great… but then things started to make her feel less than useful. Everyone always thought she could never do anything on her own, or was so entirely incapable of doing even the simplest things on her own. Ever since she could fly and hunt she’s been seen as some kind of just… fat on the swarm. Even her father treated her with way too much protection, even though she’s larger than almost any other LeafWing in the Swarm! Was she different? Was it because she enjoyed the little weird things along the way? Was it because she laid around and ate a lot? Why? Unfortunately, CopperSaw feared that she would never get a chance to ask another soul why…
“... No…!” She shouted with a soft wheeze. CopperSaw wasn’t going to let herself rot with the rest of this thing’s innards, if she wants to find out why the swarm treats her the way she does, she’ll ask her father himself WHEN she escapes this thing. Then, with a great heave, CopperSaw began to pull herself back up onto her talons.
It was rough, she stumbled and nearly slipped into a pile of something that smelled like a mix of blood and mud, but it was too dark to see what it was. She grunted and looked down the slithering cavern, admittedly, the LeafWing didn’t know where she would end up, but she would find out.
She started to walk, carrying with pain and bravery… bravery that she had never felt before.
The more CopperSaw, the more strength crept its way back into her body, it was slow, but she was able to carry herself on a little bit more with each step. The LeafWing found herself making progress, which was a good sign, right? The cavern was beginning to open up a little bit more with every path she took and even found some branches connecting back with each other. Her gaze never broke from the path, she kept pushing herself along, and anytime some worm of doubt wiggled its way into her thoughts she would squash it. If she wasn’t going the right way, she would fight her way out!
CopperSaw hadn’t heard or seen the ArachnoClaw in a while, ‘could it have escaped?’ she wondered, and if it did, where would it escape from? ArachnoClaws were great burrowers, and they could stay buried for an extremely long time if necessary, they could have just started to dig into the giant carcass until it reached sunlight and punched its way through. If only a LeafWing had that much power. Their blades and claws were only good for digging through smaller beasts and leaves and clinging onto rocks, granted LeafWings always had different shapes and sizes. There were the Hammerheads to the south that crushed bug shells and rammed each other for entertainment. The ShovelSnouts west of here could actually dig, but it could only be in the soil, they were useless against stone. Even if a LeafWing burrow they had no shells… It started to make sense why LeafWings always traveled in swarms.
CopperSaw’s attention would be taken from her thoughts and towards the commotion up ahead. There was movement, it sounded like… slithering?
She scrambled up ahead as far as her wounded arm could take her and pulled herself over the winding hill that exploded open into a massive pit, it was far wider than it was tall, arms of flesh stretched from the top to the bottom, oozing with slime.
But the pit was alive, thousands of humongous writhing bodies covered in thick layers of muck slithered through and around each other. Thick lines of bristle stretched from one end of their body to the other, and CopperSaw couldn’t even tell which part of the bodies were these thing’s faces. She was ready to turn back if it weren’t for the hole at the end of the lake of nightmares that glowed brightly, a sign of escape. CopperSaw couldn’t fly, she knew that, but a LeafWing was good for more than just flying, they were scurrying crawlers.
So CopperSaw leaped from the edge of the tunnel and into the mass of living guts. It wasn’t even halfway before a huge muscly tendril of patchy-colored flesh exploded from the pit. The blunt, wide end of the creature peeled back, and six huge bony jaws pulled themselves from its innards and snapped at CopperSaw viciously. She gasped and swerved her body so her back faced the titanic festering living sea of red and pink, and the jaw clamped shut around humid air, ropes of spit splurted from its jaws. The creature arched through the air, as CopperSaw fell, bending around and forward, aiming for another horrifying bite. But CopperSaw was ready this time, and she tossed herself around again, this time sinking her talons into the creature right as it snapped at the air furiously once more. CopperSaw couldn’t help but gag a little as her body collided with the slithery-smooth surface, the creature’s gunk climbing around her skin that shivered her. But she couldn’t let the vile skin slow her down, and she began to drag herself up along the creature’s body as it waved through the air one last time before it crashed back into the pit.
CopperSaw was left to toss herself right into the fleshy masses, and leaped from lump to lump, evading striking jaws and whipping tails. She scurried along the bending neck of a particularly large serpent and leaped right over the swinging jaws of one beast that snapped its jaws right past the LeafWing and clamped right over the larger creature’s neck. She pounced onto a pillar of flesh and looked behind her to see the exploding bloodbath.
The creature that bit into the bigger one was now being torn apart by the larger one, dark-green blood spewing from its de-gutted body which caused a feeding frenzy of other worms. Each beast that had bloody rain splatter across their slimy skin and thick bristles thought that was the sign of food and lunged at the closest beast, tearing into that one, which responded by tearing into the other’s guts.
CopperSaw had seen feeding frenzies before. When she was young, she saw a Foetodon that had gotten crushed by a larger bull and was left to be feasted on by a drove of BrambleBoars were fighting between each other to get the fattest piece of gut they could find. Ultimately a few BrambleBoars gut gutted by the larger ones, which were also feasted on in the feeding frenzy. But this, this was so much more vicious, it’s like they didn’t care if they lived or died, they just knew that they wanted the taste of bloody flesh in their mandibles. But the LeafWing had distracted herself too much to realize that a creature had lunged up the pillar she clung to and nearly split her in half!
If it weren’t for the strength her father gifted her, she would have been meat chunks right now, because her arms were pushing the spiny bone-jaws away from her body. The world blurred into shades of black and muted red as the creature flung and wrenched itself around, crashing into fleshy walls that were crushed and bled under its massive weight. CopperSaw snarled and finally used her leg talons to slash and rip at the serpent’s face, allowing her to go free and finally land on the other side of the erupting feeding frenzy, and instantly began to dart her way out.
She ran and ran like she never had before, her arm burned from using it so much… she hoped that she would still be able to use it after this. ‘Just a little bit farther!’ She shouted in her head. LeafWing’s weren’t the best runners, so the best she could do as a run was skipping along the slimy ground with her long arms, and it was starting to make her dizzy. She gasped for air and nearly burst out in a gagging fit as she finally decided to pull herself over to catch air, the LeafWing’s just bursting in and out like bubbles of lava. But as her rest longed, she could hear slithering grow behind her, and she spun around in a flurry!
Three creatures from that horrifying pit had found their way out and were charging up the tunnel! Suddenly, CopperSaw was starting to doubt herself again, this whole place, this thing she fell in, it was a nightmare!... But she had to keep going- she HAD to! So she began to sprint again, keeping as much of a distance between the serpents as possible.
TheLeafWing found herself sliding and jumping across impossible landscapes, barely reaching some ledges as the giant mandibles sunk into the meaty walls as she kept running and running. Her claws dug a bleeding patch of scars and scabs up and along the fleshy cavern, it was rumbling and shaking, and most likely being reshaped by the warbat-sized worms behind her that were slamming into each other with the force of a thousand falling boulders. But she was so close, the light was glowing brighter and brighter! Just a little bit farther and she would escape! But… escape wouldn’t come so soon.
It was no exit wound at all, it was just another part of the body, and the strangest of them all…
The heart of the monster.
It was unlike any heart or gut CopperSaw had ever seen before, it was fat and swollen, and gargantuan veins bridged the horrifically large gap between the walls of the heart’s cavern. It seemed that there were a lot of torn veins, some still oozed something too mixed in color to identify ‘I’ve been inside a giant vein…’ she told herself in awe.
The glowing shape shined a viciously bright- but deep blue. It was incredible, it was like staring at a living piece of the earth… this thing had to be a titan, there was no doubting it now. The heart wasn’t throbbing anymore, in fact, it was already bleeding with glowing blood that filled the fleshy and bony cave’s floor with a vibrant swirling pool. CopperSaw had to turn around, but it was too late…
As she swung her body around she was met with the crushing blow of the worm’s slamming into her, sending her flying through the most air of the humongous cavity. CopperSaw waved through the air before smacking into the heart and howling in pain… she wasn’t sure how much more of this she could take. The worms were already slithering into the heart’s cave, wrapping themselves around the veins and dragging themselves closer to the LeafWing with snapping mandibles that oozed for the taste of flesh. CopperSaw groaned as she ran along the top of the heart, leaping over pools and jumping along veins. The LeafWing threw herself through the air as a worm crashed down onto the vein she had perched on, the fleshy tube exploded with ooze as it was snapped right in half. It was only a second before The LeafWing had to start moving again, as one of the serpents was starting to corner on the dangling vein, but she couldn’t even jump off this time as her legs slipped causing her to tumble downwards. If it weren’t for a second vein above her snout she would have been meat chunks for the worms, as two huge mandibles snapped right around her, with the vein being crushed by the weight between the spiny pincers. The LeafWing was running out of options and places to hide… what was she thinking?!
CopperSaw dashed down near the glowing pools of the cavity and hid behind several veins that had fallen onto each other, creating the vague shape of a reeking and rotting pillar. She gasped for air, her throat burned and her arms quaked… and for the first time in a while, there were tears, maybe she overestimated herself way too much, and now she was paying the price. Food for a rotting carcass and its parasites, in a last-ditch effort, the LeafWing pulled itself around to look and see where the serpents may have gone, unaware of the growing shape behind her. The largest serpent had found her and was opening its mandibles around her before-
BAM!
CopperSaw threw herself around to see what had just exploded next to her, and saw something huge wrestling with the serpent as it threw the new shape down… it was a LeafWing! It was BruteSword! He was covered in muck and had a few bleeding scars on him but it was nothing the Mega-Wing hadn’t already tanked before. The worm tried to snarl and roar, but there was a sickening crunch as one of the pincers had been completely shattered and broken from the mouth…
BruteSword snarled and rustled his shoulders before charging forward and wrenching the creature’s flesh from its body over and over with thunderous swipes from his boulder-thick claws and bladed snout that arched like a titan-sized talon. The Serpent only ruptured by swinging each oozing segment of its body through the air, and nearly escaped before BruteSword’s huge jaws wrapped around the worm’s tail and flung it into a vein and then the wall. The Mega-Wing then leaped through the air on its huge wings and tore into the serpent’s face again and again before the twisting massacre thrashed one last time before dropping limp.
The other smaller worms were already retreating, barging past each other to slither back into the vein from which they had nearly eaten CopperSaw.
CopperSaw always had been overwhelmed with warmth to see her father, but for this time it felt like she had loved him all over again. She rushed towards him and rested her head next to his neck. “Pa!” She shouted.
“I’m so sorry! I’m stupid-stupid-stupid! I didn’t mean what I sai-”
“We’ll talk about it later Copper! We need to get you out, now!” BruteSword demanded. She could tell he was worried, very worried. But CopperSaw couldn’t exactly tell why, the way he moved and how his eyes were darting all around looked like he was torn between 500 different things at once. But if this thing was a titan, as CopperSaw had already discovered, then I guess he had every right to be worried sick. CopperSaw watched as BruteSword slowly lifted his talons over her back and firmly pinched her back. It burned, just a little, but she felt safe now as she began to get lifted out of the heart’s cavity, her dark eyes still drawn to the glowing mass of flesh and blood.
But then there it was again, the chitter of claws and the stabbing of pincers… no!
The ArachnoClaw was back, and with a vengeance this time as it crawled over the heart and jumped straight at both of the LeafWing’s colliding as some of the pincers around it’s face snapped onto BruteSword’s chest, tearing deep into him. The MegaWing responded by cleaving away at the ArachnoClaw before they slammed back onto the side of the heart and began sliding farther and farther down it. CopperSaw was loose from her father’s grasp now, and her talons weren’t going to slow her down in time! “CopperSaw” She heard the SwarmMaster shout as he rushed down towards her and clamped onto her arms with his claws, halting her descent. But now BruteSword was stuck as the ArachnoClaw was already back up on its claws and roaring with pure hate.
The ArachnoClaw seemed to have had better luck than the LeafWings, it had significantly healed since CopperSaw last saw it and now most of the claw that her father had torn off was regrowing into a horrifying spear. The Mega-Wing groaned as he tightened his grip on the arm of CopperSaw before starting to lift her with great speed. “Get ready!” He shouted before finally wrenching her through the air and over the ArachnoClaw’s rocky carapace! The shell was covered in prickly rocks and small craters, it was like a piece of the world itself was on the creature’s back!
CopperSaw finally landed and nearly face-first but managed to impact the blow with her back. She watched as the ArachnoClaw whipped its new spear arm through the air, jabbing at the heart and igniting glowing spouts of blood. BruteSword ducked and flew right over, but the tears he was inflicting on the ArachnoClaw were nowhere near as deep this time. ‘The shell… it hardened!’ That was one of the crabs' greatest defenses, if you didn’t kill them the first time they’d just come back with a bigger and better shell. BruteSword plunged onto the top of the ArachnoClaw’s shell, barely missing the jaws of its original arm and biting the air above him. But now he was wide open, and the spear arm crashed right into his side and hurled the Mega-Wing through the air and towards the edge of the heart’s bulging surface. “Pa!” CopperSaw shouted, “No! Stay there!” He roared back to her, his teeth and claws bared to the ArachnoClaw even though he was losing ground and fast. But CopperSaw’s claws were already on the move!
She wrenched herself across the organ’s glowing and erupting landscape despite all the cindering pain that sparked all along her body now. The LeafWing threw herself into the air and right back over the ArachnoClaw’s shell, bringing her blade right down on the flesh of the ArachnoClaw’s head and neck. The beast howled and began to whip and toss itself, bucking its claws up and back, but CopperSaw just dug her blade deeper into its flesh. “CopperSaw! Get off, now!” she could hear BruteSword demand with fear, but the Mega-Wing’s words were dodged by CopperSaw’s stabbing and digging. The claws of the beastly crab couldn’t reach CopperSaw, and when they did she swiped back, chipping away at the arms which made the ArachnoClaw screech more fiercely.
But now the two interlocked giants found themselves spiraling closer and closer to the other side of the heart, and this time there was no one to save either of them!
The ArachnoClaw’s legs found themselves slipping off the edge one by one, with the titanic weight of the shell ultimately dragging the rest of the crab’s hulking chitinous frame into the side of the heart’s cavern where the pool boiled and festered. CopperSaw barely reacted in time, she and the crab watched as the luminous blue blood charged up toward them before there was a gargantuan splash!
Both CopperSaw and the ArachnoClaw swirled in the blood, she could feel its thickness nearly choke her in the sea of glowing blue. CopperSaw was completely helpless, her energy was spent and she could already feel herself sinking. The most she had left in her were a few kicks and fails… but… then there was something else. Her chest… it began to glow!
The energy was starting to return to her and she could feel her arm… repairing?! Her chest glowed brighter and brighter as power started to overwhelm the LeafWing, it was doing more than just repairing her! She was growing! She could feel her chest broaden and bulk as if she was becoming one with a very mountain! Her shoulders throbbed as flat scales armored her thickening arms that were now stretching to great lengths. The wings under her arms were stretching and growing beyond the shape of a LeafWing’s! That’s when she could feel something punch from inside her chest, at first it hurt, she could feel herself curl up in pain- but then the pain felt… natural… and then it started to not hurt at all! That was when the LeafWing looked to see she had an entirely new pair of arms beneath the ones that were already mutating! ‘Incredible!’ She wondered in total awe. But that was when a huge mass struck her right in her growing chest… the ArachnoClaw! Or whatever the crab had turned into!
The crab’s legs had been stretched out to outgrow even the tallest trees, and where two arms used to be there were now six, and two thick, teeth-filled heads! But now CopperSaw and the crab were the same size! She rolled with the crab in the blood, fighting back harder and harder before she started to use her thicker jaws to snap down on the ‘GigantoClaws’ carapace. As she did, he looked at her bladed snout, it was overgrown and entirely covered by some black, glistening armor that pulsated like the titan’s innards! What just happened to both of them?
As she and the GigantoClaw tossed themselves from one side of the shrinking pool, they burst through the surface again, with CopperSaw’s new arms striking at the crab’s pincers, slicing and stabbing at each other. The roof was starting to come down on their heads now… but CopperSaw didn’t even feel it, it felt like sand washing over her body now as she used her titan strength to shove the GigantoClaw through the wall of the heart’s cavity! The crab roared, biting and snapping as the wall bent, caved in, and exploded in blood as both of the mutants fell right through it. The giant’s vision was covered in this goo that washed over her entire body, for a moment CopperSaw was entirely blind, but she could still feel her power shoving the GigantoClaw through walls of guts! But then… there was light!
CopperSaw was outside of the titan’s carcass! At last! But now the GigantoClaw’s pincers were right beneath her body as she was kicked through the air and she slammed her body right into the stoney ground. ‘The ground! Normal ground!’ Earthy boulders and muddy blobs that stuck between her talons, she had never been more in love with a big covered-in muck than she did right now!
CopperSaw turned to the sky, the swarm was encircling the corpse now. She recognized the formation, usually a sign that the swarm was on heavy guard right now… but where was her father?! Where was HagScreech and SnaggleWing?! But questions like that would have to wait, the LeafWing looked down to see the GigantoClaw was back on its pincers, slamming its army of claws into the ground with rage… this ended here and now!
CopperSaw let out a vicious roar, it sounded nothing like her anymore! Her roar was so deep, and fiery! Like a million swarms roared with her at once! The GigantoClaw’s roar was also mutated beyond recognition, it sounded like a volcano was living inside of it as it charged forward towards the mutant LeafWing. The giant did the same as she used her four claws to throw herself across the earth before tossing her body into the air and flying back down on the GigantoClaw. Her legs’ talons sunk into the crab’s shell as two of her wickedly large arms reached forward and gripped the crab's legs and used her weight to drag it across the ground of the Horrid-Tooth Plans and slam it right into a cliff face with a mighty throw. But the GigantoClaw countered by digging its claws into the cliff tearing the earth from the stone wall and chucking it at the LeafWing. That was when something spectacular rushed through CopperSaw’s body…
Her head bucked forward, and she watched as luminous shades of lavender, violet, and pick swirled around her body, past her neck, and over her snout, before igniting her new bladed snout in a flurry of colors that exploded in a hellish cut through the air. As the colors made contact with the mass of cracking rock they sizzled and crackled with vicious electricity before the entire mound of black and brown earth shattered in a flurry of huge dusty explosions that sparked with the remains of the energy that was just dispelled through her blade. CopperSaw couldn’t believe it… did she just do that?! Was she a titan now?! Was this what the power of a titan could do?!
That was when she used the strength in her claws to cast herself into the earthy cloud of smoke and drop onto the GigantoClaw’s shell with a deep slash along its entire back. The mutant had little time to react as one of its gangly and thick legs was sliced clean from the cracked chiton! As the leg spiraled across the air, CopperSaw flew into the air and grabbed it with her talons then swung it beneath her before using the crab’s claw to smack it across both of its faces, sending the beast tumbling into a pillar of dusty claw. It felt amazing to fly again! To feel wing pass under her arms and rush along her neck and dance down her back, to feel the gaze of the sun bathe her in light! The mutant LeafWing brought the severed leg up to her mouth and began to chew on it, CopperSaw thinks she earned this after traveling inside a beast’s guts! It was only when the GignatoClaw finally got back on its remaining claws that CopperSaw tossed the bony remains of its claw aside and snarled down at it.
She dove down one last time, using her leg talons to grab the crab’s splintered, and bloody shell and pull it into the air with her mighty wings. She used two of her claws to grab and hold the arms of the crabs down as she passed over the swam and the corpse of the titan, and with a great intact of air, she swirled the beast through the air before tossing it off the cliff, sending the creature falling into the trees of the Emerald-Tooth Valleys!
‘Stay dead this time!’ She cursed in her head pridefully. All these new feelings, new emotions, it was like that blood brought out something buried deep… deep inside of the LeafWing that was now out for the whole world to see. Did she like it? She wasn’t sure just yet but so much of her wanted to say yes. She finally turned to face the swarm again and landed close by, on top of the huge, rotting, and half-eaten corpse of the titan’s neck. The titan was still huge… but now she could see where it started and where it ended now, meanwhile, the swarm looked so small now. “Copper?!” She heard a familiar voice shout beside her head.
The mutant turned to expect a bigger body, but it was three small shapes flapping beside her head… they looked like- SnaggleWing! HagScreech! BruteSword! “CopperSaw is that you?!” HagScreech asked with bewilderment. “Give her some space! This is… new to her!” BruteSword gestured, putting some space between the three of them and CopperSaw. So many things looked so much different now, a lot were still bigger than her, but they didn’t feel impossibly tall, they felt tangible, like CopperSaw could do it all by herself.
CopperSaw was just about to speak, but now that her body finally slowed down… for the first time in a long time… her head felt lighter than a cloud, she felt dizzy and the world spun a little as the mutant LeafWing tumbled onto her side and fell asleep…

Chapter 4: III: Stone Peaks

Summary:

CopperSaw's return to her home leads to a confrontation with her father... what exactly is a titan? Why are they so fearfully revered? Most importantly, what will CopperSaw do with her new Titan Powers now...?

CopperSaw’s vision faded back slowly, everything was so dark, and her eyes felt so heavy, like boulders were weighing on her head. Despite feeling so tired, she felt as if she had slept on a million leafy branches and never wanted to get up. But the more she started to move, the more she realized that the darkness that swallowed her never disappeared from her dizzy gaze, and in a burst of speed she tore through the air in a flurry of scales! However, as she tore through her dark surroundings she found her head cracked against the stone roof above her, which made the earth rumble and quake underneath her tremendous power. It was only then that CopperSaw realized that the darkness was just that- darkness… night had washed over the above and below.
CopperSaw’s wakening eyes waved across her surroundings, and that was when she finally recognized the shapes of Stone Peaks.
Home.
The Stone Peaks was an elaborate structure that BruteSword and the other big wings had found many years ago. It was unlike any other den that CopperSaw had gotten cozy in, and part of that made her love the Stone Peaks for that.
The peaks were made of humongous stalagmites that stabbed through the bottom of the earth below the swarm’s talons and were decorated with a variety of crystals and shiny rocks that glowed and pulsed within the earthy flesh of Stone Peaks. But what made Stone Peaks so unique were its Plates. Flat plains or rock that had been uplifted by the Stone Peaks and were raised into the air, that firmly sat around the rocky path in dozens of sizes and shapes, each with their own, smaller stalagmites as well- those too also had their stone plates. These plates offered a lot more room to the swarm than any small forest territory could- usually whatever was on the forest floor was trying to eat you. But here? Every LeafWing- tall and small could walk from den to den without worrying about becoming a BrambleBoar’s or Endopede’s lunch. Then, each pillar of iron and clay earth was dotted with tens of thousands of dens that had either been found naturally by the swarm when they first migrated here or were dug out, thanks to the help of the larger LeafWing’s claws of course.
CopperSaw felt a thousand heavy boulders lift from her back- nothing could ever go wrong here.
The LeafWing found herself at the bottom of the Stone Peaks, even underneath the lowest stone plate, which looked like it could be cupped in between her two claws now… or- four claws. ‘I guess that should be normal… now,’ she told herself, there was a part of CopperSaw that was going to miss huddling into her den and sleeping her worries away. Where would she have to live now? Down here? Maybe it wasn’t too bad- now that she was filled with this feeling that she could tear through anything- so odd, now that she had the power to defend herself- it felt a little scary to hold in her very claws, it would be something else she should expect to be normal now.
CopperSaw took her eyes from admiring Stone Peaks and down to her body, she still couldn’t believe how much she had changed- more than physically. These arms were humongous, even folded and pushed together she could hold them beneath the Stone Peaks at all! They also bent weirdly now, they bent a lot more than a normal arm should- almost like her arms were Warbat’s now- twisting and bending all strangely like vines. Her tail was just as long as a tree was tall now as well! It whipped and cracked through the air like those vicious sky snakes too- and the very tip of her tail was wider than even her torso, it looked like she had a whole extra pair of wings attached to her tail. Then there was her blade- it shimmered like the brightest stones, but looked sharper than the most razor-thin teeth, like fire had melted into a solid structure and became her blade. Speaking of shimmering- her whole body glowed like the large fish in the great pools to the south! Her body was dotted with decorative splotches that danced with each other along her spine, wings, arms, legs- everywhere! It was like she was her own little glowing crystal! Though CopperSaw’s admiration for her brilliant new form would be shattered by the sound of BruteSword’s voice.
“You’re awake…” He spoke firmly behind her. How long had her father been there? All day and night? Was he mad, concerned- CopperSaw was so good at this but how she was at a loss.
“Pa!” She roared, and much too loudly as her voice roared across the Stone Peaks, awaking many families of LeafWings which squawked and cursed before growing quiet again. BruteSword had snarled to the higher plates above them both, a call that was frequently used to keep in line when some of the swarm was going out of place. Her voice was so deep now- it boomed like a hundred BruteSwords speaking all at once. “Sorry…” She uttered in a whisper- but even a whisper just sounded like how a normal LeafWing should speak now… but CopperSaw was anything but normal now.
“How’d you guys get me back?” She asked.
“I reached out to the RockCracker swarm, they were all more than willing to help,” BruteSword answered with a tone of admiration. The RockCrackers were a swarm of ShovelSnout LeafWings that lived close to the Horrid-Tooth Plains, right in between the plains and Stone Peaks. They were a smaller swarm but made up for it with their extra-large snouts that did as they were named- cracked entire rocks in half, a powerful swarm- one of the few older than CopperSaw’s.
“You handled yourself well,” BruteSword finally said.
What did he mean by that? In the titan? CopperSaw guessed so- it wasn’t until her she started raging against the ArachnoClaw that she felt like she truly stood up for herself, before that, it was mostly just running and flailing around. “I tried my best-”
“As a titan,” BruteSword quickly cut her off, there was a shift in his voice now, like how sand gets displaced in wind- you don’t notice it unless you have a good eye, and CopperSaw did.
“Ti- wha-,” So not only was that thing a titan… SHE was a titan now?! “Pa- you’re not making sense-”
“Don’t act like you hadn’t already figured it out- I did not raise a naive daughter,” BruteSword interjected again. CopperSaw could only sigh- there was no dodging anything with her father now.
“Fine… Since I’m a titan- tell me WHY you never let me know anything about them?!” CopperSaw said as her voice started to grow like thunder. That fire inside her- it felt like it burned inside her now, more than ever, but now it felt good- it was like her and the fire had turned into one beast. CopperSaw didn’t feel bad for raising her voice… but why? Why didn’t she?
The LeafWing could see the look on her father’s face, it was torn because BruteSword knew that there was no choice left, but there was something that loomed over him that he was scared of. BruteSword, scared, those words tasted wrong in CopperSaw’s mind and it almost made her reel back and spit something out of her mouth that wasn’t there. “You always say that they are these powerful beasts that can control the land, but you seem to hate them- have you ever seen one?!” CopperSaw snapped- which BruteSword did not like. His glare exploded straight into the giant LeafWing- even now when she was several times larger than her father- that glare made her feel like a weak little hatchling again. It took a moment for BruteSword’s glare to fade into mist and he was able to gain control of himself again.
“... Yes,” BruteSword finally huffed. She could tell that just one word took an unstoppable force to say, a force that not even a MegaWing like BruteSword could stop, and just that one word, changed CopperSaw’s entire composure.
“... What?” CopperSaw gasped… maybe she misheard him? No, the LeafWing knew what she heard.
“It’s how I lost your mother…” BruteSword nearly choked on those words this time, and CopperSaw could feel her shoulders fall like they were as light as raindrops now.
CopperSaw’s mother, BrambleEater… was always a subject she never knew how to approach, she never had a heavy idea of her, mostly because BruteSword solemnly spoke of her. But when he did, it was of extreme praise, a kind of praise that CopperSaw made her wish that she met a LeafWing she didn’t even know of.
Now CopperSaw knew why BruteSword barely spoke of BrambleEater.
Whenever she asked about how BrambleEater died, CopperSaw always said the same thing “She flew a mountain that was too high and never came back down.”
“Why? Why take so long tell me?” CopperSaw asked.
“And let you live in fear? Of knowing that the world housed beasts that not even the largest Warbat could stop?”
“She was my ma! Your mate!”
“Don’t act like I didn’t know what she meant to me.”
‘Maybe I would if you said more about her…’ CopperSaw growled in her head, which felt so heavy… and fuzzy right now. “How did it happen?”
“You and your clutch-mates had just been laid only moons ago,” Clutch-mates? CopperSaw never had Clutch-mates…
“It started with the ground shaking beneath us all, and the entire world felt it too, then the trees began to topple over, and the entire earth was uprooted by claws larger than mountains! The Swarm was in a panic, I could barely see through the smoke, and that’s when I saw it… it was large, with a huge back full of golden bristles, and three mighty horns that swooped behind its thick head. There was another, green and black, walls of claws longer than the longest river and a beak filled with jaws… They glowed like the sun, as they collided with each other, blasting us through the air, ripping the smaller ones apart. My wings were torn, as I had to crawl between the titans tearing themselves apart, there was so much blood, so many pieces of flesh being flown through the air… I had to use all the strength I had left to pull your ma from the collapsed den… your clutch-mates, they had all been crushed, except for yours. When one of the titans finally retreated, your ma… she exploded with anger and burst toward its mouth… and in one bite, she was gone…” BruteSword’s voice had melted by now, all of that power and muscle was gone, just a sad and tired LeafWing remained inside now.
“Their blood, it’s not like ours, it can turn the land inside out, make it worlds worse than it already was… that’s what happened to you and that ArachnoClaw, it turns you into them!”
CopperSaw’s words were ash, nothing could escape her mouth right now. She didn’t know what to feel!
“Now you see why? Titans are unstoppable, unbreakable… and that thing out there… it was killed by something BIGGER!” BruteSword’s voice was growing stronger again.
‘Unstoppable… unbreakable…’ Those words bounced back and forth around CopperSaw’s head like a hive of wasps. ‘He thinks I’m a danger…’ CopperSaw’s thoughts stung at herself. “I need you to stay here, something’s wrong out there and I need you to stay put-”
“No-”
“Copper-”
“Pa, no!”
“If I’m a titan- like you say I am now, I can do this!”
“CopperSaw for once in your life I NEED you to stay where I tell you to stay! No running off because to hunt Earth knows what!”
“... You don’t trust me!” She snarled. “You think I’m gonna hurt someone! What? I’m too much of a monster now?! Afraid I’m gonna snap?!” She bit the air with a powerful clamp! BruteSword bounced back, his blade pointed at CopperSaw… only for them both to realize what they had just done… Maybe it would be better if she just stayed here…
BruteSword sighed and pulled himself into the air with his wings, meeting CopperSaw at eye level. “Look at me,” he spoke softly, but still firm. CopperSaw’s eyes full of thick waterdrops bubbled towards BruteSword’s own, who drooped and hung. “I don’t fear my child, I lost the rest of our family because I wasn’t strong enough, I will NOT lose you, Titan or LeafWing, you are my daughter,” BruteSword spoke, brushing his blade against hers. The bone and scales rattled against each other, but not gruffly like battling swords, more like rocks slowly rolling over each other. “You’re strong… stronger than any of us now… I’m going to leave in a couple of moons if something out there is eating titans-”
“We’ll have to move again…” CopperSaw’s voice waved like a vicious ocean. She lived here most of her life, and there was that itch behind CopperSaw’s mind that told her that this was part of living as a LeafWing. But that didn’t mean she would have to like it.
“Be ready, okay? You’re a strong LeafWing, I know you are.” BruteSword told her. She could feel his love melt onto her, it still made CopperSaw feel safe after all these years- she wasn’t a hatchling or Small-Wing anymore, but her father knew how to make CopperSaw feel protected. She nodded, feeling a couple of puddle-sized tears fall from her chin. The splash of her tears was so loud that it surprised even her- which made both CopperSaw and her father laugh to themselves.
BruteSword turned his head to look at the stretching dark horizons and yawned, today had been a hard day for the MegaWing, not that he was physically worn out, but worried you were going to lose your only daughter- it must take a lot out of him. “Get some proper rest, you need it, CopperSaw.” He told her. She tiredly nodded, curling herself up as best as she could beneath the Stone Peaks, watching the night go by as her head rested on her arms.
BruteSword was already crawling up to the points of Stone Peaks before he paused, and looked back at CopperSaw. “I love you… please don’t think I don’t, just because you’re different, doesn’t make you any less of my daughter.” He spoke again with a soft voice.
CopperSaw could only smile… it felt nice to be reassured.
“Goodnight Pa.” She told her father as he flew up to the top of Stone Peaks. CopperSaw’s head knelt into her elbows as she felt her tiredness take her over, and her eyes drifted back to sleep.
It was silent, serene.
“CopperSaw!” A voice shouted with a harsh whisper, and the Mutant LeafWing’s head shot upwards once again ‘Ugh… I just started dreaming…’ She groaned in her head while rubbing her crusty eyelids.
It was HagScreech and SnaggleWing.
“Wha- What are you two doing here? It’s late…” She groaned.
“We listened to you and BruteSword,” SnaggleWing informed plainly, only to be nipped by HagScreech.
“SnaggleWing!” She squawked.
“What?! We did!” He came back before they both dropped from the stone plate and sat in front of CopperSaw. “Are you… alright?” HagScreech softly spoke.
“SnaggleWing- Did you know my Mom?” CopperSaw asked him. The broad LeafWing was the eldest of the trio, by five years, maybe if he knew anything- something- it could untie that strange knot that CopperSaw felt inside her.
“I only know that your father loved BrambleEater more than anything I had ever seen… sometimes it felt like she was the real Mega-Wing of the swarm, he was just following behind her ideas- your father asked I never tell you until you were ready.” He explained.
“... Thanks, that helped- a little,” CopperSaw sighed while balling herself up just a little tighter.
HagScreech had gotten glued to the shimmer of CopperSaw’s glow, crawling up and down her arms while the Mutant LeafWing watched. “What does it feel like?” She asked.
“... Strong- like I can move worlds- but everything feels so tight and small now.” If there was ever a time that she wanted to spread her wings- it was now.
Strong… she was strong now- so why was she just laying here doing nothing?
‘No- I won’t.’ She shouted in her head with a verbal snarl as she began to pull herself from the ground.
“Copper??? What are you doing?” HagScreech asked as she flapped to keep up with CopperSaw’s lifting face.
“I’m going back out there.”
“What?! Why?! Your father said-”
“I know what he said- but I’m not listening…” CopperSaw snarled as she strode forward, ducking out from the bottom plate and looking to the bluish-black horizon of the above and below. “Stay face, okay?” She asked before taking to the air.
CopperSaw’s wings felt powerful, she could hear the wind beneath her strong wings make the forest roar with a thick breeze as she aimed for a straight line back to Horrid-Tooth Plains. It was that titan corpse that made her like this- she was going to find out why!
“Copper wait!” She heard the squawking of her two friends behind her. When she heard their voices it felt like tentacles as powerful as an Earth Giants choked her neck- and it nearly burned her arms to push herself forward.
“You’re not gonna stop me!” She shouted back.
“We’re not stopping you!” SnaggleWing said as he barely managed to cling onto CopperSaw’s shoulder.
“What-”
“We’re coming with you!” HagScreech said from her other side now, doing the same as SnaggleWing who was now perched on her body.
Part of CopperSaw wanted to tell them both to go back, but they were already latched onto her, they weren’t gonna budge. ‘Maybe help wouldn’t be such a bad idea’ she told herself as began to pick up speed, carrying herself into the dark horizon. She turned to face the shrinking shape of the jagged Stone Peaks “Sorry Pa… I need to do this…” She whispered to herself before taking off towards the lumpy shapes of Horrid-Tooth Plains.
They’ll do this… together.
~
It wasn’t long before they arrived back in Horrid-Tooth plains, it was easy to spot after all with the bubbling cracks and pools of vicious lava that snarled like hungry Foetodons. The reddish-orange glow glimmered off of CopperSaw’s belly, contrasting with her vibrant glowing scales. They had been flying for hours now, and there was no sign of the titan's corpse anywhere. ‘Did the scavengers finish it off that fast?’ CopperSaw wondered. Endopedes were infamous for carving through mountainous beasts in just a few hours, and they were more than abundant here in the Horrid-Tooth Plains, but there would at least be bones still- yet there was nothing.
“CopperSaw! Look!” HagScrech shouted.
The LeafWing Titan turned to look at the commotion- and there she saw it; the titan's remains. It had been torn apart, far worse than it was this morning. There was rotted flesh that was now scrawny ropes of rotting flesh that were hanging on by a discolored thread, bones had been flayed from the body and thrown across the plains like chew toys and there were visible, deep bitemarks torn into the near-black ribs and leg bones.
CopperSaw swooped down slowly, HagScreech and SnaggleWing were barely able to hold on as she dived down. They finally let go once she landed with a wide gallop and folded her arms in tightly to start crawling towards the jagged shape of the mauled titan corpse. SnaggleWing was already climbing up to a partially chewed rib that curved into the air over a stony hill.
“These bitemarks are too deep to be Foetodons,” SnaggleWing remarked.
Before CopperSaw could say anything, she heard HagScreech gag and fly back over to them both. “What happened?” CopperSaw asked.
“I… I found what was left of the Foetodons…” HagScreech gagged before crawling beneath CopperSaw’s wing. The titan turned to stomp over where HagScreech just fled from and gasped at what she saw.
A mound of regurgitated Foetodon carcasses had been built up into a steaming, reeking pile, their flesh melting into sticky pools and discolored bones half-digested by oozing stomach bile. SnaggleWing landed on CopperSaw’s shoulder before peeling his head back in disgust at the smell that could rot entire forests. “CopperSaw- do you think-”
“SkullCrawlers… I know.”
“What?! What would SkullCrawlers be doing out this far?!” HagScreech squealed.
“Look at the size of that titan, HagScreech- they could have easily smelt that thing from mountains away!” SnaggleWing came back.
SkullCrawlers… just the word alone felt like an omen. CopperSaw only saw them twice in her whole life, and the stories that she heard about them were even worse. They lived in gargantuan nests inside the earth, they ate anything with a pulse and collected the bones of their food for shelter and sadistic trophies. They slithered through the earth faster than Endopedes and could chase you down as long as they wanted to. If you wanted something wiped out, redirect SkullCrawlers to your foe and let them do the dirty work. CopperSaw had seen an entire heard of Sker Buffalo being massacred by a horde of young SkullCrawlers, it kept her up for many long nights… and if SkullCrawlers were in the area, they needed to get off the ground! “We need to get into the air… now!” CopperSaw shouted as she scooped up her friends in her claws, and started to take to the air! But it was too late, there was the gurgly chitter of snarling behind her…
A long, black shape lunged through the air, CopperSaw watched as its shadow descended upon her own and she felt the crushing power of thick claws and a heavy skull smash into her back and sent her falling into the earth with a terrible smack!
CopperSaw held her friends close to her chest as the impact ruptured along her overgrown scales, but she recovered nearly instantly as she got to her feet and swung her body around to face the SkullCrawler, holding HagScreech and SnaggleWing underneath her.
It was an older serpent, its face was long, and jagged teeth pierced through the edges of its jaws and mouth. Clawmarks and scars from the battle were marked along its bending body, and tougher, spikier scales grew in their place.
It lunged forward with its jaws aiming for the LeafWing’s!
But CopperSaw tossed her head through the air, her blade connecting with the beast’s jaw and tearing thick bony plates and leathery skin from its face! It flew through the air before smacking into the rocks again- but just like the titan LeafWing, it recovered almost instantly and slithered deep into the earth. Its claws tore and punched at the earth with a tenacious speed that not even CopperSaw could reach up to she tried to bite its tail to pull it back out, only to miss as it slapped the side of the tunnel it buried. It was gone…
It didn’t feel right, SkullCrawlers didn’t know fear, they could be missing an entire limb- but as long as its heart still beat it would keep moving to kill… that was when she heard it. The earth beside her snapping and splintering into smoking pebbles.
The SkullCrawler pounced!
The beast was high into the air, its claws outstretched as it threw its weight down on CopperSaw! The slam sent both of the giants tumbling, CopperSaw and the SkullCrawler bit and gnashed at one another, she could feel its claws tearing into her while she did the same. But the LeafWing would gasp as the hard, cold surface of the plains was replaced by warm nothingness! They were falling!
CopperSaw turned to see the glow of hot lava bubbling and rushing up towards them, they had fallen into a crevasse and now the SkullCrawler was wrapped around CopperSaw’s body! She used her last free arm to snatch the side of the deep scar and hold on. Se could hear both SnaggleWing and HagScreech grunting and squealing in her grasp, but the SkullCrawler’s head was slamming and biting into CopperSaw. To make things worse, the rock she had grabbed onto was already starting to give!
The LeafWing was running out of time and ideas.
She roared as the SkullCrawler peeled away at her scales, to which she responded by kicking her talons into its gut and tearing downward over and over- but the kicks were weak due to the devil’s constriction over her. Her anger began to bubble like the magma beneath her, and her blade began to glow and smolder once again! She roared, and it charged up shades of lavender and violet as she kicked and pushed, with electricity sparking between the two giants as a wave of titan energy blasted from her blade! The seething wave of fire split the SkullCrawler right in half, and dark green goo sprayed along the crevasse as its roars were cut short!
As the rock fell from the crevasse walls, CopperSaw’s wings unfolded and she took to the air once again, dashing upwards and out of the crevasse. The SkullCrawler’s remains were sizzling and melting inside the pools of lava, its mouth and claw still reaching up to the LeafWing as if its very soul hungered for the taste of flesh. “Good riddance!” She snarled to as the eyeball of the SkullCrawler’s melted face popped and faded into the molten rock.
She pulled her claws from her chest and opened them to see SnaggleWing and HagScreech looking back up at her. “Are you alright?” She asked.
“We’re fine- are you?” HagScreech asked.
“Just some small deep cuts-” She started to say, only for CopperSaw to see that all of her wounds were already closing back up again with a purple glow! ‘Incredible…’ She wondered in awe.
“No I mean- are YOU okay? You’re not this loud usually,” HagScreech asked again.
That was a question CopperSaw wasn’t sure how to answer, it felt like she had the power to say things now that normally she would just keep to herself, but how was she to put that into words?
“Must be that inner titan in me!” CopperSaw laughed as she took herself higher into the air above the titan skeleton.
She wasn’t exactly looking for it until she saw it, Clawmarks. Deep gashes that waved and slid across the plains like engravings of snakes. “There!” CopperSaw said as he began to dive down- but it wasn’t until she got close that she saw how massive they were, they were mountains larger than even she was. “Titan clawmarks… I think if we follow these, we’ll find our beast!” CopperSaw explained.
“These are giant, what are you gonna do when you find it?” SnaggleWing asked.
“I’m… not sure yet.” CopperSaw sighed, which made HagScreech and SnaggleWing trade concerned and curious looks before turning back to CopperSaw. “I’m working on it, trust me!” She exclaimed while the LeafWing’s pulled themselves up and rested between her back and her shoulders.
“Try not to move too fast- I don’t think my last meal will stay inside me much more if you do.” SnaggleWing gurgled lowly as CopperSaw slowly pulled herself into the night sky. Her wings shuddered with powerful wings, but no force was going to make the titan turn back now.
“DevilChasers!” HagScreech announced.
“What?” Responded the others.
“DevilChasers! We’re gonna need a name!” She laughed.
“DevilChasers… I like it!” CopperSaw laughed with her as they flew into the horizon.
They weren’t sure what the beyond had was readying for them, but they were going to use tooth and claw to keep Stone Peaks safe!

Chapter 5: IV: Crater of Demons

Summary:

The Devilchasers have tracked the clawmarks from Horrid-Tooth Plains to a world of brimstone and fire. Here, they find a world filled with SkullCrawlers, an unexpected ally, and the root of bloodshed and demons!

The morning sun had finally crawled over the horizon, blanketing the Highlands and Lowlands in its amber-gold warmth.
SnaggleWing and HagScreech had fallen asleep hours ago, balling themselves up behind CopperSaw’s head, who hadn’t rested since Horrid-Tooth Plains. But the Mutant LeafWing never felt exhausted, not once did she feel like she had to stop at some nearby cliff face to catch her breath or rest her wings- it felt like she wasn’t even exerting any strength at all to pull herself through the air. She was amazed by how much strength was inside her now, even after feeling normal again… although normal was a strange word to use now.
What was normal now? Was this the new normal?
CopperSaw had been thinking about it all night, was she going to have to hunt down larger beasts now? Was she going to have to sleep on her own Stone Peak? Is that what life meant to be for a titan? Was she even going to be able to fly with the rest of the swarm now? Would she be outcasted? Was she going to have to fly alone for the rest of her life? All these questions felt like rocks stuffed into her throat that she couldn’t get out and it made the Mutant LeafWing more restless the more she thought about it… so she tried not to.
CopperSaw tried to do what she did best, lose her mind to the world around her. The world was alive again and it moved with millions of shades of color.
CoralMouths rested on the banks of lakes on the Highlands, their strong but spindly bodies resting over one another while a family of Spirit Tigers watched from the cliff face, grooming their cubs. Below her in the Lowlands, Mother Longlegs were stretching their gargantuan legs across the bamboo forests, heading towards a deep, foggy valley to the northwest.
But the beasts and jungles would start to grow more faint and faint and be replaced with black rock… not the black rock of Stone Peaks that she was used to, this stone was almost dark enough that it barely changed shade under the gaze of the sun. The stones were jagged and piled over each other like SirenJaw teeth, which was more than difficult to land on. Crystals were a seldom sight as she drew further in, and arms of molten lava spewed into the sky, as trials of red slithered from the black teeth that were wrenched by the earth. Great pillars of dark earth stretched from the Highlands, through the air and connected down to the Lowlands, there were even some trails of lava so long and thick that they poured from the Highlands and onto the Lowlands as well. ‘How could anything live here?’ CopperSaw wondered. The air was hot and dry, and the smoky fog grew thicker as they drew further into the black maw of this strange world that CopperSaw had flown into. This was unlike any place CopperSaw had ever been to, even for a world made up of rocks, it felt unwelcoming, like the earth itself hated you and wanted to eat you alive. When CopperSaw was a hatchling, BruteSword always spoke of stories about flying too close to the edge of the world, and it would just drop off into nothingness… and CopperSaw was starting to hope for that instead of whatever this was. But, this was where the claw marks led, and she was going to figure out what was the root of all this.
“What is this place??” HagScreech gasped behind CopperSaw’s head. Her little talons were gripping onto the scales behind her eye, which looked like it was wings away from the Mutant’s face.
“I’m… not sure, this is farther than the swarm has ever flown,” CopperSaw remarked, with her eyes chasing after each dark shape that flew by her wing and every growling tongue of lava that melted out from a jagged crevasse.
“I’ll be damned,” SnaggleWing chimed in.
“Have either of you seen anything like this?” CopperSaw asked, taking her gaze away from the black landscape around them.
“I know CragFang is always talking about places he sees in his dreams!” HagScreech said first.
“CragFang hasn’t been able to think straight since we had to save him from that Vine Strangler!” SnaggleWing barked.
“How do you know?! You’re not CragFang!” HagScreech hissed back.
CragFang was one of the older Elder-Wings, and it was true, an incident with a Vine Strangler had made the LeafWing go crazy. He always spoke of worlds he saw in his dreams- like a world where all the trees were more red than blood, and each leaf with covered in sharp fangs that would eat anything alive! Or the time he said there was a world made entirely of water, and pockets drifted between both the Highlands and Lowlands of the world. One of the weirder ones was about a world where there were no Highlands, it was just one side of the earth. CopperSaw always hoped that one could be real, a world where she could fly higher and higher without end, and stretch her wings like she never had before! It was something even she started to dream about once or twice. It made the LeafWing laugh when she remembered having her first dream of it, she thought she was going mad like CragFang! She cried to BruteSword for days, and the Mega-Wing reassured hatchling CopperSaw that she: “Just fine, CragFang is just bringing out her ‘wanderer’s’ side” whatever that meant.
“CopperSaw! Look out!” SnaggleWing shouted with horror. CopperSaw’s senses exploded with a tickling and tingling sensation that flooded her entire body, and her neck cracked through the air to see some kind of brown and black web made of vines and twigs flying toward her! The Titan clapped her wings below herself and in a rupturing burst, the Devilchasers blew high into the air, her tail barely evading the web that arched through the smoky sky and fell onto a jagged stone. CopperSaw’s legs kicked wildly as she was barely able to contain her flight path, and barely missed another attack as a huge branch with bone and stone smashed onto its tip and struck the air, nearly piercing her shoulder as she used her claw to snap it in half, and sent the chucks spilling into a lava stream.
All while CopperSaw tossed herself through the air like a hatchling going on its first hunt, SnaggleWing, and HagScreech pinched their talons and claws deep into her scales, squawking and squealing as the titan dashed around madly.
“CopperSaw! Could you slow it down a little?!” SnaggleWing roared with frustration.
“Please?!” HagScreech shouted after him with fear.
But the Devilchasers' problems weren’t done yet, now there was a third vine-web! This one was smaller and had round stones woven around its edges, which clamped around three of her arms and one of her legs! With no control, they all started to plummet into the rocky teeth that were now shooting toward CopperSaw’s belly- only surviving because the LeafWing used her tremendous arm strength to shatter the jagged hill as the world grew up and over her while craggy floor. The Devilchasers shouted as the ground crashed to them, and the weight of CopperSaw’s body smacking against the stone tossed both SnaggleWing and HagScreech into the air.
Fortunately, if it weren’t for the LeafWing’s quick reflexes they would have been splattered across the earth. But both of them survived, their wings carrying them into the air as they met back up with CopperSaw.
“What was that?!” HagScreech shouted with horror.
“I have no idea, but I don’t think that’s the last time we’ll see those webs!” CopperSaw snorted, looking to the air to watch for any more flying weapons. The titan lifted herself onto the spiny rock walls, pressing her body close to the Earth as she moved slowly, listening for any sign of movement or living beasts. HagScreech and SnaggleWing were already close by, crawling and leaping from spike to spike just above her body. In all truth, CopperSaw wasn’t sure what she was doing, but she called back to memories of hunting with her father. A LeafWing would always press its body as close as it could to the surface and climb while lifting as little of its body as possible.
There was one time when she was hunting alone with BruteSword, it was meant to be bonding time but unfortunately, it didn’t last that way for as long as she wanted it to. They were hunting Spore Mantis grubs, and that was the best time to hunt them, they were young, fat, and had no trunk to hide all their juicy gooey bits. When she started to stalk along a treeline, CopperSaw got distracted by a MundiBug that flew across her snout, and she flapped after it, trying to take its shell and collect it. When she caught it, she was heavily scolded by BruteSword, it was the first time she learned about how a lot of people saw her, her eyes had minds of their own, they wandered a lot, and she had paid the price for it that time… and several more times afterward.
CopperSaw’s body crawled to a halt as the stone walls made a sharp turn. SnaggleWing and HagScreech had jumped onto her back, turning their heads around the same sharp angle that the Titan LeafWing was peering over.
“What do you think it was?” HagScreech asked.
“Maybe a titan?” SnaggleWing proposed, which wasn’t the most unbelievable idea. They all already believed that it was a titan that was killed and an even larger one that committed the blood-spilling.
Everywhere the air was thick was smoke and ash, and it was starting to build up in the space between CopperSaw’s scales.
There weren’t any wide open spaces here, everything was a deep gulch, a river of lava, or a steep mountain that was in the middle of an eruption. The heat made everything shimmer like water, and it burned the tears from CopperSaw’s eyes. But the Titan’s scouting would be engulfed by a dark shadow…
“CopperSaw!” HagScreech shouted in a blaze of movements that tore the LeafWing from her back.
She turned around to see a huge, sharp claw made of bone and stone wrapped around a thick tree trunk swing through the air, and the titan burst backward with a mighty clap of her huge wings! The long blade split the prickly black earth into a molten scab that growled with hot spouts of smoldering magma but was only torn from the ground a moment later by a gargantuan, black, and hairy paw covered in old scars. She couldn’t believe her eyes, the sight was like something from a dream! Broad shoulders, a long, white beard, fiery red eyes, four huge fangs… It was a Kong!
The Kongs were always spoken about in stories amongst the swarm. The greatest beasts that ever roamed across the High and Lowlands of Earth… suddenly just- gone. They only left behind their gargantuan dens of complex stone carvings that no other being could even understand! They carried this special relationship with these tiny- squishy moles known as SmallFangs. They were entirely useless, they had no claws, teeth, or scales, just shaggy fur, but they had intelligence, an intelligence that was revered as terrifying but also a gift. CopperSaw was always told about legends a cataclysm between millions of titans that reshaped the very earth, many of the titans disappeared- with the Kongs being one of them. It was whispered that when the Kongs disappeared, the SmallFangs walked into the horizon, disappearing into the stars that were inside the earth… whatever that meant. CopperSaw was never sure what that meant. But here one was, staring right at her!
The angriest glare she could ever see twisted across its face as it was in the process of curling its paws around a hunk of hot rock and chucked it across the cindering skies at CopperSaw! The LeafWing rolled her body backward and used her strong legs to kick and trash, and as her talons connected with the rock she could feel it split into hundreds of pieces and wash past her, falling back through the air and out of sight.
“HagScreech?! SnaggleWing?!” CopperSaw shouted, trying to see through the dark air. Every time she thought she saw a wing flutter by her, she was struck with the reality that it was just glowing ash swirling down to the earth. The Mutant was starting to fear the worst, she hadn’t seen them since they took to the air when the Kong arrived. The fear would be replaced by anger as the smoke passed by the Kong’s giant arm, revealing that both of the LeafWing’s had been caught in its grasp, its huge palm had been twisted around their legs and tail, and now they were flailing around viciously as they picked and stabbed at the thick skin.
CopperSaw howled and tore through the air, bringing her wings in close to her chest as she swooped down and used her blade to tear into the Kong’s shoulder, cleaving a chunk of furry skin from its side. The beast reeled in pain, its back crushed the rocks along the obsidian wall as it fell into its surface, only to pull it back into the air. But CopperSaw was already diving back for another hit and run as she curved through the air before swinging back down and charging her blade for another deep gash, this time splitting the skin along the titan’s chest as rushed along its mountainous body.
It was when CopperSaw’s eyes caught the shape of huge fingers flying up towards her she spun around, and her luminous blade glowed with titan energy before exploding with might, tearing open old wounds and ripping open new ones in the process along the palm of the Kong. The giant growled as its hand fell, quaking in pain as the other hand released the other Devilchasers from its grasp! SnaggleWing and HagScreech flapped high into the air, using all the power their parents and the earth had given them to escape the range of the Kong’s great arms.
But CopperSaw didn’t retreat!
She dove down again! This time she opened her talons wide and sunk them into the thick, bleeding flesh of the Kong’s chest and dragged the entire weight of the beast along the surface of the dark, smoldering earth, bashing its head and back along outcroppings and jagged peaks. Finally, in a mighty swirl, the Titan tossed the Kong threw the air and into a giant dark toothy cliff.
CopperSaw couldn’t even believe that she was capable of that until she did! But she never stopped to wonder if she did, it was like it just came to her!
As she landed on the Kong’s chest and stomped forward, sinking her claws into its skin and starting to charge her blade once again, those brilliant shades of lavender and violet glowed along the titan’s face as it pierced the air above its face. The beast wasn’t scared of her, it only glared with rage and roared a mighty call as CopperSaw began to throw her blade back down on the titan!
“Skullcrawler!” She heard HagScreech call from a distance, and suddenly CopperSaw’s head cracked through the air and her blade split through the head of a long, toothy jaw! The SkullCrawler’s body practically flew through the air, crackling with burning sparks as it fell back onto the ground. It wasn’t even a moment before CopperSaw could hear the snarling and gnashing of teeth, four more large SkullCrawlers were slithering and crawling over huge craggy gaps in mountain peaks, stalking close to the titans with drooling jaws.
The LeafWing took to the air, leaving the Kong as she focused her angry eyes on the hungry jaws below her. These were large, bigger than the one she fought last night at the plains… could this be the world of the SkullCrawlers? It didn’t feel impossible, deep caverns, dark crevasses, this was perfect Skull Crawler territory. Even the world itself looked like the huge, open jaw of a SkullCrawler, a place of nothing but teeth and malice.
CopperSaw flapped and tossed herself through the air faster than the LeafWing even realized, spiraling around like leaves in a storm, but there was a vague sense of control over how she threw herself around. However, this would only get the Titan so far as the SkullCrawlers snarled and launched their slimy pink tongues from their tooth jaws. CopperSaw thrashed and fought in the wet grasp of the slithering tongues and was tossed into the earth, she tried to take flight again, but was slammed down into the dark earth once again by the snarling and hungering beasts. So, she turned and fought the walking maws head-on!
CopperSaw threw her body around, with her blade cleaving across the smoky air, and one of the Crawlers got a taste of a deep, burning gash tear across the side of their face and traveled down their back. But another one of the charging jaws ripped through the air and used its larger claws to swipe at CopperSaw’s face, the impact dazing her as she felt her entire body spun across the earth, only to feel something long and scaly slither and wrap over her! CopperSaw only responded by tossing her blade and jaws around, but her face was smashed right into the ground, her nostrils choked by the smell of burnt scales and smoldering rocks. The SkullCrawler had pinned her, with her arms either tied up awkwardly around the beast’s tail or another SkullCrawler holding it down. CopperSaw’s body was practically sinking into the earth now, and it was growing in pain as her arms were cracking along the strangled pose she was mangled into.
The SkullCrawler launched its mouth toward her face, but was struck back by a boulder being launched at its skull, erupting with magma that melted the scales from its body! The beast threw itself into the air, and CopperSaw’s body stretched out under the loosening weight of the Crawler who was too busy peeling the smoldering skin from its face. So the Titan took the opportunity to smash her side into the SkullCrawler’s chest, sending it falling onto its back while it continued to maul itself free of the burning lava and was too busy to stop the LeafWing from using her claws to pull it into the air and toss it at the two of the serpent devils who were in a mid-air leap. The now twisting pile of claws, tails, and teeth gnashed and stomped over each other to try and get back into the fight as soon as possible. But the fourth, scarred SkullCrawler was already behind CopperSaw, and had a clear shot of her back!
The beast leaped forward, throwing its claws at the LeafWing before she could see how close it was. But before the jaws could wrap around the Mutant LeafWing and twist her body into bloody chunks, it was caught midair and was suddenly thrown backward, the other way and in a steep bend.
It was the Kong!
It had grabbed the SkullCrawler’s whipping tail and tossed it into a mountainside, the impact tore dark green chunks from its face as bone and scale split into boulder-sized clumps. The Kong’s other hand gripped the tool in its hand, and lodged it in the remains of the serpent’s mouth, twisting and slicing as it stabbed holes in the beast’s writhing neck. It choked on its blood but kept thrashing its arms through the air, tearing the Kong’s skin off before the choking of its blood drowned it. The Kong would then tear the bony blade from its mangled jaws and turn to face the other charging SkullCrawlers, and it roared with the voice of a hundred storms. But what caught CopperSaw’s attention was the burnt SkullCrawler, it was splitting away from the other two… it was chasing after SnaggleWing and HagScreech!
CopperSaw gasped and burst forward, kicking herself over the peaks of mountain tops of the faces of cliffs to give her a speed boost, but no matter what she did, she could reach the SkullCrawler, and it was starting to gain on the LeafWings!
CopperSaw watched as both of the small colorful shapes of her friends were chased up a mountain that had fallen to its side, and was only hanging on by the rocks that had melted underneath it. The LeafWing screeched in her mind ‘NoNoNoNoNo!!!’ as she tried to flap her wings as fast and as hard as she could, but it felt like they were already gone as the SkullCrawler leaped forward, its jaws wide around the LeafWings who could only try to keep flapping away! But CopperSaw’s gaze was caught by something flying over her head… another LeafWing? No.
It was the Kong’s bladed tree!
It rushed through the air, spraying the Crawler's blood along its path before sinking into the splitting spine of its back and piercing through its chest with a crunch as it finally lodged itself into the burning earth below it, which left its twisted jaws just a few branches away from SnaggleWing and HagScreech. Even with the blade cutting clean through the bleeding giant, it still tried to snap and bite, but with the blade keeping it in place, it was just exhausting itself. As CopperSaw flew past the dying maw it swooped over the smaller LeafWings, covering them with her wings in protection as the Kong stomped forward and used its feet to cave in the rest of the SkullCrawler’s head, which exploded into a pile of mush.
CopperSaw stared Kong down, who was doing the same as it finally pulled its blade back into its paw once again.
“Is that a Kong?!” HagScreech shouted, but she already knew the answer.
“You would do well to keep your tongue low,” A voice said a deep voice, a thundering voice, one that erupted volcanoes and brought forth storms.
A voice that came from the Kong.
The Devilchasers couldn’t believe it! The Kong spoke… and to them! How could they understand it, how could the titan understand them?!
“It speaks!” SnaggleWing hissed with fear and hiss.
The Kong stared down at the LeafWings beneath CopperSaw’s arms with a dismissive, fiery look in his eyes, like they weren’t worth his time.
“You try to snatch us up, now you’re telling us to keep our voices down?!” HagScreech squawked.
“HagScreech- shhh, I’ll handle this!” CopperSaw said, keeping her voice low, and holding the LeafWing back by throwing her blade in the way of HagScreech.
“Mangy beast…” HagScreech growled between her teeth.
“You just tried to kill us, why save us now?” CopperSaw asked. Did the Kong want a fair match? To have the pride to claim the kill of a LeafWing titan for itself? That wasn’t exactly the best thing to boast about… and who would he boast to? There were supposed to be no Kongs left, yet again, here one stood in front of them.
“Before? It was for food,” The Kong spoke again, before lifting his blade to CopperSaw, who responded by snarling and letting her blade flutter with shades of color.
“But you… you’re different, never seen something like you before… What’s a group of LeafWings doing out here in the Demon Craters?” It asked.
“I could ask the same for you, what is a Kong doing here? Everybeast thought you were wiped out ages ago during the Titan Wars!” CopperSaw questioned back.
“They did… the less fortunate suffered worse fates,” The Kong answered with a gruff sigh before its red eyes turned to face the sounds of snarling and growling in the far distance. “Quick, this is SkullCrawler realms, they are everywhere,” The Kong responded as it turned to the horizon and began to make haste on all its paws and knuckles before turning back to face the DevilChasers. “Whether you're as stupid or as brave as I think you are… you’ll make the right choice…” it growled before turning to stomp away.
The LeafWings stared at each other, their faces mangled with confusion. “He just tried killing us! We shouldn’t follow that thing!” HagScreech snarled.
“What choice do we have? He’s got a lay of the world, and he just warned us about more Crawlers!” SnaggleWing exclaimed.
CopperSaw wasn’t sure what to do either, part of her felt like this was a horrible idea, but what choice did they have? “We’re following him!” She spoke proudly before she wrapped the other Devilchasers into her claws and set them on her back as she took flight into the direction of the Kong…
Deeper into the maw.
CopperSaw could tell the sun was starting to shrink behind the teeth of this ‘Crater of Demons’ when they finally caught up with the titan, who was waiting for them attentively, still like a boulder near a flattened chunk of black rock. The rock was twisted, and it was almost pretty, thousands of shards of earth were split and layered over each other, spreading out around the flat mound of stone like petals on some dark, evil flower.
Even on all fours, the titan dwarfed CopperSaw, but her wings still stretched out farther than he stood tall. Then, the Kong lifted itself back onto its two back legs sunk its blade into the side of the rock, and used its strength to wrench the boulder from the cliffside and slid it over with earth tearing and ripping beneath it. CopperSaw watched the feat of strength behold to her, the ground was caved in deep, and splinters of dark earth remained only to get snapped into smaller pieces by the moving earth.
“Come, inside, it’s safe,” The Kong gestured, but the DevilChasers remained still.
“... Quickly!” The Kong groaned with annoyance, and the LeafWings finally budged, moving inside slowly, crawling beneath the giant’s humongous arm.
The guts of the stone shape were among the sights CopperSaw had seen in her years of flying across the Highlands and Lowlands. The inside dipped inwards like a smoothened crater, layers of rock had melted over each other from what the LeafWings could only imagine took the earth to create. The walls were decorated with piles of tools, some were like the ones that the Kong still held in his hands, and others were piles of the vine-webs that had been tossed at the DevilChasers earlier. Tree logs had been cut and reshaped to create structures to lay out the skins and scales of beasts that the titan had caught, skinned, and eaten. Around them all several streams of lava oozed from stoney jaws around the walls, oozing into a ring of lava beneath the flat crater.
“So… Who are you?” The Kong asked, stomping past the DevilChasers slowly, keeping its eyes locked onto them as it set its bladed weapon onto the wall.
“I can ask the same for you,” CopperSaw asked again.
“I am SkullKeeper, as your allies have already established, I am a Kong… but I fear I am one of the last of my kind…” He finally answered.
“... CopperSaw, this is HagScreech and SnaggleWing,” She gestured to the two LeafWings who were hunched forward, ready to pounce the instant SkullKeeper tried something.
“Now how can you understand us?” SnaggleWing spoke up before CopperSaw could.
“All titans can speak with every beast, it is one of our gifts from the earth, your friend has that same power,” He pointed to CopperSaw. Was that true? Could she speak with Warbats now as if they were just like her?... That would make hunting a lot more painful for everyone involved…
“Now… Why are you here?” SkullKeeper asked.
“We came here because our swarm found a titan corpse, it was torn apart… its energy turned me into this,” CopperSaw spread her wings as an example, but her wings could only reach about halfway before they grew close to the walls. “We followed the claw marks to this place, there have been SkullCrawlers everywhere, we don’t want them attacking our swarm up north!” She continued.
“What?!” SkullKeeper gasped with a deep growl, which had the two LeafWings on CopperSaw’s back jump. The Kong remained quiet for a time, there was a conversation that he was having with himself in his mind, CopperSaw could recognize the faces he was making. “Then it’s worse than I thought…” He finally spoke again.
“What are you talking about? Are the SkullCrawlers onto something?!” HagScreech finally intervened.
“Not all of them… no,” The was a twist of pain and hate that flew by on SkullKeeper’s face for a time. “Have you ever heard of The Bile King? Basilisk?” He asked.
The Devilchasers were taken aback, they had never heard that name in their life! Even thinking the name made something slither down their spines that they hated, it was like a living omen. It was common to tell hatchlings den stories about beasts and horrors that could eat the meanest titans and devour the very earth around them… but they never named anything specific.
“No… that’s not something we know of…” CopperSaw responded with the pressure of fear growing in her voice.
“It’s a terrible SkullCrawler, their king, the largest of them all… a monolithic serpent that can stretch from horizon to hell, and still have more than enough size to loop back around… I once fought the giant, he took my family ages ago, and I will not- cannot rest until I see the Bile King burn!” SkullKeeper growled.
“Wait- how old are you???” HagScreech bewilderedly asked.
“Tens of thousands of winters old, another gift of Earth,” SkullKeeper came back. Which made CopperSaw wonder about herself even more.
“In our last battle, ages ago, Basilisk disappeared into the horizon, when he disappeared… this place, the Crater of Demons arose!” SkullKeeper gestured to the world around them all.
“A single SkullCrawler did all this?” SnaggleWing said with awe.
“They are capable of many horrors when they grow, but none like Basilisk… I think that beast lies right beneath our claws and paws, and if your titan corpse is a sign of his return… he’s growing hungrier!”
“Then how did he survive all these years?” CopperSaw questioned.
“His acolytes and lesser serpents feed his disgusting maw every passing of the sun, but I fear now that is no longer sustaining enough for the beast,” SkullKeeper growled with worry.
“Then we have to stop him!” CopperSaw immediately shouted, throwing her claws into the ground as energy immediately rushed throughout her body.
“CopperSaw… I have tried for years to hunt the Bile King down myself… I fear that now the only way I will find him is when he wrenches himself from the ground to consume us all…”
“We can’t let that happen! You already lost your family to him, I won’t let the rest of the High and Lowlands suffer like you have!”
“But how are we going to get inside the earth?! LeafWings aren’t burrowers, and if a Kong can’t find it, how are three LeafWings supposed to?!” HagScreech commented.
That was a good question, one that CopperSaw wasn’t sure how to answer… if only it were as simple as being led straight to him… or maybe it was!
“Wait! You said that the other SkullCrawlers feed him, right?!” CopperSaw asked widely, to which SkullKeeper responded with a slow nod.
“Then we follow the SkullCrawlers, they find their food, and we follow them!” CopperSaw suggested.
“But all the caverns they dig a cave in as soon as they start to burrow, how can you expect to follow after them?” SkullKeeper prodded, but CopperSaw pointed to her blade, which glowed in response.
“Trust me, the power from that titan’s blood has gifted me incredible things- just like you said… we can do this!” CopperSaw said… she could feel the room fill with her hope.
“Hmph, you’re bravery, your confidence… I wish I still had it… Right, CopperSaw of the LeafWings… what’s our first move?” SkullKeeper asked.
That night, the Devilcahsers would plot out how they were going to get the SkullCrawlers' attention, and what to do next when they found the Bile King, while none believed it was entirely foolproof… they had hope, a hope that CopperSaw gave them!
~
That morning…
The sun crept high over the smoking teeth that pierced that black air and the Devilchasers were sitting in place.
CopperSaw was pressed against a mountaintop, keeping her wings tucked in and her claws clenched tightly around the toothy piece of jagged and uplifted earth. Meanwhile, SkullKeeper was lying below, on the ground with his back pressed against a mound of dark earth.
With the help of SkullKeeper, they had managed to find a giant BrambleBoar that had wandered around the spiny border of the Crater of Demons and used its body as a lure for the hungering Serpents. The belly had been split open wide, to let the smell of fresh blood thicken the air around it, the perfect meal for a SkullCrawler. It wouldn’t be long before their lure paid off because the ground began to rumble…
A great burrow exploded forth, and they watched as the giant claws of the SkullCrawler pulled the beast out from the steaming, earthy maw.
This one was different, even larger than the ones from the other day, and great red streaks slithered along its arms and spine. Its skull was longer, and its teeth were larger, everything about it was gigantic. It snarled and dragged itself towards the bleeding carcass, chittering and gurgling with its teeth bare to the world. ‘Come on, take the bait…’ CopperSaw begged in her mind.
Then, the serpent reached forward with its jaws wide and clamped around the thick, bleeding beast and lifted it into the air! It turned to face the burrow it had just dug and crawled back in, and it used its tail to rupture the mouth of the cavern, causing jagged stalactites to fall over the entrance, but CopperSaw was already swooping down to where the corpse and the serpent had just laid and used her glowing blade to cut and tear away at the mound of rocks. With her powerful claws, she tossed the larger chunks to the side before she could feel her blade start to fall through the cracks. So, she kept digging and blasting away at the mound before the cavern reopened!
SkullKeeper looked at the stones that CopperSaw had thrown so easily and pressed his paw against it. “In my many years, I haven’t even seen Titans move these rocks as easily as you do,” He commented before following the DevilChasers inside on his knuckles.
The cavern was jagged and hard to crawl through when your wings were as wide a mountain range, but CopperSaw was able to squeeze through thanks to the way the arms could bend in and out. The near-black rocks that lined the walls of the clawed-out cavern made stumbling and walking over each other’s claws more than common, but then there was light up ahead… a red light.
Not red like lava, this red was more like blood.
CopperSaw turned to look at SkullKeeper, who nodded, this was the right way. They kept pushing through, with SnaggleWing and HagScreech clinging to her back. The closer they crawled forward, the more the Devilchasers could feel their scales, fur, claws, and paws shutter and hum. It didn’t hurt, but it felt like millions of tiny Sker Buffalo herds were wandering across their body all at once. It was only when they finally approached the end of the cavern, did they found out the reason for the body’s humming.
It was a web of gargantuan red crystals, that stretched out from every angle. It wasn’t like the Highlands or Lowlands, it had true top or bottom, just dozens of jagged shapes all clumped together in a maze of crimson while lava pooled from every black rock outcropping.
“My last battle with Basilisk was held in a place much like this… but now it’s- grown since I was here last… we’re close,” SkullKeeper commented. “Welcome to Bleeding Gash Rock, the realm of the demons!”

Chapter 6: V: Bleeding Gash Rock

Summary:

The Devilchasers are in the heart of the realm of demons, and they must trek through fire and brimstone to face the devil of the pits... BASILISK!

“Welcome to Bleeding Gash Rock, the realm of the demons!” SkullKeeper proclaimed.
The depths of the demon realm were an endless web of crimson stones that The Devilchasers glided over and under, with SkullKeeper leaping from crystal to crystal with mighty leaps. None of the LeafWings could believe what their dark eyes were seeing, it was like a dream!
“Do you have any idea where we’re going to find this SkullCrawler?” SnaggleWing shouted to SkullKeeper from across the orange air.
“We keep going down!” SkullKeeper told him.
“Well, that doesn’t help at all…” SnaggleWing snarled to himself before nestling back onto CopperSaw’s shoulder.
“Keep close, who knows how vicious the SkullCrawlers can get down here…” CopperSaw warned them both.
CopperSaw could feel HagScreech crawling up around her neck, close to her face. “CopperSaw- not that I would doubt any plan of yours- this takes a lot of…” She paused to stare at the lavafalls and the mounds of glowing red stone. “Bravery! It takes a lot of bravery! But what are we going to do when we find this thing? It doesn’t sound like any normal SkullCrawler!” HagScreech commented.
She was right, CopperSaw wasn’t sure what she was going to do. If a SkullCrawler had grown big and fat enough to tear apart a titan all by itself, what was CopperSaw going to do? CopperSaw was a titan, but she was a small titan. SkullKeeper was an added defense, but not even a Kong like him could take down this SkullCrawler!
‘Wait… where are the SkullCrawlers?’ CopperSaw wondered. This cavern was vast, yet it was empty! She would have expected to be swarmed by armies of snarling maws waiting to tear her apart. “SkullKeeper, where are the SkullCrawlers?” She asked.
“All SkullCrawlers must descend to the deepest pit of this hell to feed their lord, they are all waiting… at the Pit of the Devil!” He proclaimed.
“Comforting,” SnaggleWing hissed under his breath as the four beasts descended lower and lower into the orange smoke.
As they charged further down, the brilliant orange light began to shine brighter and brighter. It was like the sun was rushing up toward them! That was when they heard it, the unmistakable sound of the gnashing of teeth and the snarling of hungry jaws.
They were here.
As the smoke pulled from The Devilchaser’s eyes, they saw a vast pit spread out before them, pillars of warped stone that melted over one another, stretching above and outwards like flowers. Each pillar was crowded with hundreds of SkullCrawlers! Every single one of them was a different size and shape, some had pieces of their skulls missing and had regrown into jagged shapes, and others had cut tails or splintered armor. A couple had high spines that crested over their skulls, a few had shorter skulls with broader jaws. Every single one of them was unique, in their own monstrous way.
Every SkullCrawler that was huddled around the pillars of the pit was either dropping fresh corpses or regurgitating something they had already eaten. Creating waterfalls of gore and flesh that spilled into the glowing pit below.
The Devilchasers and SkullKeeper quickly made for a large stalactite that was hanging from a pillar and crowded behind it, peaking their eyes out from the corners. SkullKeeper’s blade was ready in his palm, clenched with such might that CopperSaw could hear the wood of the tree used to make it crack under the pressure. This is it.
CopperSaw and the rest of them waited, their eyes catching a scrawny shape move close to the edge nearby. They watched as a small SkullCrawler, frail and weak- slithered to the edge- and tossed a tiny CoralMouth into the pit. That was it? That was all it had? The pit… it snarled! Something furious and mountainous festered beneath!
Suddenly, a head larger than a mountain range launched from hell itself, devouring the SkullCrawler and the pillar it stood on! The skull was long and broad, with shimmering blue and purple teeth larger than the tallest trees and jagged like the stones around them tore the SkullCrawler apart. The jaws were decorated with dozens of bones and rotten flesh that were caught in the dozens of rows of fangs. Horns as long and as winding as rivers trialed from the skull of the red and green, spiny devil.
This was Basilisk, The Bile King.
The Devilchasers gasped in fear, they had never seen a beast of this scale before! This was a monster capable of tearing both the Highlands and Lowlands apart. CopperSaw could feel the titan’s might devour anything she had in her, and she looked to SkullKeeper for some kind of bravery, only to see the Kong’s face drop in awe.
“Skullkeeper!” CopperSaw shouted, trying to get his attention. “Skullkeeper!” She shouted again.
“He’s grown far larger than I could have ever believed…!” He said with his fanged mouth agape.
“CopperSaw what do we do?!” SnaggleWing questioned with fear.
Basilisk’s head descended into the pit of hell, only to pause, and bring its head back up. Its red eyes glowed brighter than the brightest stone, CopperSaw could see them searching. They wandered, and the LeafWing could even hear its nose taking in great huffs of air to catch the scent of something.
He knew they were here!
The titan’s eyes fell right onto CopperSaw, and both the devil and the titan locked eyes onto each other. An eye so fiery that she could feel it burn away everything CopperSaw ever loved. Stone Peaks, BruteSword, SnaggleWing & HagScreech… everything!
“This was a bad idea… we need to leave!” She shouted right before taking flight, her tail barely missing the launching jaws of Basilisk crash into the stalactite, devouring it in one horrifying chomp!
SkullKeeper leaped with the DevilChasers, and they watched as the titan’s skull wrenched itself from the fiery earth and threw itself at them once again with a horrifying roar, with the rest of the SkullCrawler’s roaring with it at the same time.
CopperSaw watched as hundreds of SkullCrawlers started to climb the jagged pillars of stone, snarling as they began to leap, trying to sink their fangs into them, only to miss or be batted away by a blade!
Basilisk snarled and threw his terrible jaws forward, snapping and thrashing at The Devilchasers, CopperSaw’s wings barely evading teeth that were as big as her! The four beasts leaped back into the smoke above them, diving and swooping over red crystals that dropped down towards them as they flew up. Each mound of rock was covered with SkullCrawlers swiping their claws and snapping their drooling mouths. Everything was moving so fast now that CopperSaw could only see everything as blurry, writing shapes. Everything was foggy now.
By the time the smoke cleared above CopperSaw’s head, she couldn’t flap her arms fast enough to dodge the incoming crystal which smacked into her head and neck with a powerful slam.
Both SnaggleWing and HagScreech screeched and clung on as hard as they good while CopperSaw was twisting through the air uncontrollably, but her body was only pounded more and more by the earthen pillars around her. CopperSaw wasn’t able to control her body anymore as her body smashed through dozens of crystals, her read felt like it was housing a raging storm inside of it that crackled with lightning most vicious.
“CopperSaw!” SkullKeeper’s falling voice shouted. His dark shape grew smaller and smaller in the few flashes that the Titan LeafWing could see of her failing vision.
“CopperSaw you need to focus!” SnaggleWing shouted with a terrified shrill. The titan could feel the poor LeafWing’s body being battered and tossed around on her back from the twisting and writhing.
The giant LeafWing’s spiraling gaze finally caught the sight of what the others had already seen.
The ground was charging up straight towards them! The earth was covered with spiny outcroppings, lava streams, and jagged crystals, if CopperSaw didn’t control herself as soon as possible they were going to be torn apart by the Earth itself! So CopperSaw used her battered strength to stretch her wings out, finally catching the hot air beneath her arms which halted their descent… as CopperSaw watched her body fall into a large, deep gash that was opened along the earth and her body crashed onto the dirt, sliding into the maw of the stone.
CopperSaw felt like she had just been torn apart, and her body was covered with cracked scales, torn wings, and chipped talons. Her body trembled like the shaking earth, even throwing her head to the other side took a mountain of strength that was barely within her anymore.
“CopperSaw?! CopperSaw! We need you!” A voice was shouting, and the LeafWing could even feel small claws shove and push at her large head.
Her bruised eyes fell to see a familiar shape pressing onto her jaw… familiar shades of purple and red… It was HagScreech!
“CopperSaw!” HagScreech shouted again. Her voice was so faint now like the wind and her squawking had become one.
Then there was another shape, this one was green… SnaggleWing. His shoving was much more violent and moving, his claws slammed against CopperSaw’s bladed snout as he tried to get her attention. His eyes were angry… no, not angry, serious.
“CopperSaw, we got to go- NOW!” SnaggleWing shouted, his voice finally piercing the echoing vale that mumbled their voices. Something about his voice pulled CopperSaw’s eyes to the mouth of the cave they had fallen into. They were about to have company!
CopperSaw’s eyes were locked onto the hundreds of SkullCrawlers that were slithering and dropping from crystal to crystal, with dozens more exploding from the Earth to charge with the rest of their horde. Already they were beginning to close in on the mouth of the cave, First, there were six, then 12, then more than the cave entrance could fit in!
The fear was enough to wrench CopperSaw back to her feet, she was smart enough to know that even for a titan, she was outmatched! So she darted towards the throat of the cave, using her claws to throw herself forward, with HagScreech and SnaggleWing following behind them. The Devilchasers kept running along the slithering cave, but the SkullCrawlers kept gaining on them, and they were losing ground fast! CopperSaw needed to stop them!
The LeafWing then threw her entire body weight around, and with a mighty thrash of her blade, a jagged carve tore through the earth above the SkullCrawler heads, which erupted in thousands of boulders and stalactites the size of BrambleBoars to crash down and cave in! The blast was so powerful that CopperSaw’s tired body slammed into the earth again, but she couldn’t stop moving, that wasn’t going to stop them!
The SkullCrawler heads were already piercing through the mountain of rubble, and claws began to shove and push more rocks from their mouths, but before their jaws could land on the Devilchasers, the entire Bleeding Gash Rock erupted in a howl that shook the earth to its core.
Basilisk.
CopperSaw feared the worst and had already headed her blade up weakly with two of her arms that still had strength, pointing it towards the demons… but now they were- retreating?
“They’re retreating?!” HagScreech squawked with shock.
“SkullCrawlers don’t retreat, that thing called them back…! or something-” SnaggleWing snarled, and he was about to ask CopperSaw something, but the titan’s head had already fallen to the earth.
…
CopperSaw’s eyes pulled themselves awake, it took every power within her to rise from the warm and rigid stones of the cave floor. Everything made her eyes burn, but when her vision began to start clearing she could tell that she was still in front of the cave-in that she caused. The rocks were now collecting soot and dust, piling onto the shades of gray more and more.
The Titan LeafWing groaned as she lifted her head from the dirt floor, pebbles that had squeezed between her scales were falling from her head and neck, and pelted the ground with the lightest thud. CopperSaw moaned when her arms finally began to flop forward, shivering in pain as she tried to set herself back up straight. Her arms still had shards of red crystals sunk into her scales from when she fell, she couldn’t tell what were crimson pebbles or splatters of blood.
“CopperSaw!” HagScreech chirped as she flapped ahead of CopperSaw to face her. “Don’t move too much, you’re still healing!” She told her as she took one final flap to sit on CopperSaw’s blade.
CopperSaw tried to keep moving, despite HagScreech’s warnings but only growled in pain as a sharp sting blasted across her body and sent her into the side of the cavern wall. CopperSaw decided to take HagScreech’s advice and laid her body against the wall, sitting as properly as possible as she could without feeling her body roar at her in agony.
“I need you to stay still for me…” HagScreech calmly told the titan as she went to the crystals around her left arm. “I don’t know how much this will hurt just… don’t squish me!” She exclaimed before her talons latched onto the crystal and began to pull.
CopperSaw felt too weak to speak right now, but she winced when the crystal slithered out of the small, bleeding gash on her arm. ‘Not so bad…’ CopperSaw commented to herself.
“I’m… I’m sorry…” CopperSaw huffed.
“Sorry? For what?” HagScreech responded.
“All of this, I knew it was a bad idea to drag you both into this…!” CopperSaw groaned as another crystal was dropped.
“You’ve changed since that titan carcass,” SnaggleWing finally spoke, appearing beneath CopperSaw’s head. “You’re wild now, not that big quiet sleepyhead from before.”
“But you’re still CopperSaw!” HagScreech again with a third and fourth crystal in each talon of hers.
“Yeah, so a bigger sleepyhead, hahah-” A crystal was launched at SnaggleWing’s head, which erupted with a snarl. “Ow!”
“You’ve nearly been eaten…! Twice! Because I thought I could take on a titan…” CopperSaw growled to herself.
“But we didn’t, because you didn’t kill SkullKeeper- he took out that SkullCrawler… and because of you’re… willpower- you didn’t give up on us in here,” SnaggleWing told her.
CopperSaw didn’t know how to feel, it was like she had to grow up and learn everything all over again, just because she was weirder now.
“Remember when we were younger, and the three of us went on our first hunt alone?” SnaggleWing asked as he flew up to CopperSaw’s blade to sit.
That was a memory CopperSaw couldn’t forget. When they were small, they had gotten in trouble for stirring a little nest of Foetodons.
“The Foetodons… yeah?” CopperSaw finally came back.
“Remember when we turned tail to run- but you refused to?” SnaggleWing reminded her.
“You had the meanest look on your face!” HagScreech commented. There a little hill of Crystals was beneath her bloody talons now.
It was true, she refused to leave. CopperSaw wanted to fight them head-on because she was always being pushed to the side… having others do what she felt capable enough to handle.
“It took both of us to drag you out of there by your wings before you decided it wasn’t worth it,” SnaggleWing pointed out.
“What are you trying to say?” CopperSaw asked, her voice growing more stable now as she felt her body’s strength returning.
HagScreech leaped from the Titan’s left arms to right arms now and began to pick those crystals out.
“Despite all odds, you stood and were ready to fight those fat crawling beasts, you weren’t even going to let them get the pleasure of your fear.” SnaggleWing proudly cheered to CopperSaw. “I always saw your capability, but out of respect for what your father told me, I chose not to, I couldn’t bear to see him go through what happened after BrambleEater a second time.” He continued.
“You’ve always had the heart of a titan, but only now do you have the power and body of one, this is who you are CopperSaw!” The Devilchaser told her with a might in his voice.
“You convinced us and SkullKeeper that we can do anything! Now you need to tell yourself that!” HagScreech said, finally meeting CopperSaw’s gaze once again.
“Be fearless, and we will follow, whether to the edge of the world or the mouth of the devil!” SnaggleWing shouted!
CopperSaw’s eyes looked at both of her friends, and mountains of tears dropped from her skull.
She loved them.
“I love you guys…!” She said with a quaking, but strong voice, bending her head to the side to nuzzle her blade with the other’s swords. There was a vibrating warmth between the blades, something that gave CopperSaw the power to stand on her talons again.
“So… what will you do now???” SnaggleWing asked proudly, with an equally proud smile written across his snout.
“First, we get out of here then we find SkullKeeper!” CopperSaw exclaimed as she turned her head to face the deepening mouth of the cave behind them all. “Then… we stop Basilisk!”
“How do you know he might be alive?” HagScreech asked.
“He’s a kong! Even then, he survived without us long before we arrived, he knows how to crawl around this place,” CopperSaw responded. “Come on, we can’t waste any more time!” as she began to run along the cave floor with her claws, with HagScreech and SnaggleWing flapping their wings close by. The cave walls made it impossible for her to stretch her wings, but she could still move along the earth.
The cave walls glowed with hundreds of different colors, CopperSaw never realized how beautiful the cave was until now, it glowed like her scales! Even the stalactites bloomed with shades of color that CopperSaw had never seen before! However, the admiration would have to wait, as CopperSaw noticed the cave walls begin to rumble and shake as the Devilchasers went deeper and deeper inside. It wasn’t until the top of the cave’s throat exploded with soot, lava, and rock that the LeafWing halted, her claws ground against the earth as the mountain of rubble slammed into the earth.
“What now?!” SnaggleWing snarled.
Through the ash and rubble, a gargantuan, broad, and thick bony snout twisted through the smoke. The red horns waved and cut through the grayness, as brilliant blue teeth snarled with thousands of broken bodies dangling from their jagged shapes.
It was Basilisk!
But CopperSaw roared back, and her blade began to hum with power as she began to slice through the air, each violet gash barreled into the Skull Devil’s face, jerking the titan around- but never cutting deep enough to draw blood. The beast seemed to laugh at CopperSaw’s fighting only to launch forward with his jaws wide open, but the Titan LeafWing threw her body to the side, using her talons and tail to kick and slap at the red maw.
As CopperSaw’s shoulder slammed into the rock wall, she looked ahead at the crumbling open maw of stone and flame where Basilisk was still dragging itself out of. There was light! That meant there was a way out!
“Alright… hold on!” CopperSaw shouted to the other Devilchasers who immediately lunged at CopperSaw’s shoulders and gripped as hard as they could to her rigid scales as the Titan burst forward lunging onto the SkullCrawler’s prickly tail and then started to climb! CopperSaw’s tail barely missed the swinging and snapping jaws of Basilisk who had yanked his head from the stones and was now roaring madly. CopperSaw was throwing all of her claws forward over and over, snatching and pulling on jagged spines and scales larger than boulders! The titan lunged from side to side as the tail slithered farther and farther down and slammed into each crumbling side of the pit that the Devilchasers were climbing out of. It didn’t take long before CopperSaw’s eye briefly shot back down to see the Skull Devil charging back up at them, and fast! She looked ahead to see that the tail was growing shorter and shorter.
“Hold on!” CopperSaw shouted as she spun her body through the air and dug her claws into the fiery walls and began to throw herself up with her powerful claws. The wind was practically snatching the air from her mouth as she sped along the pit’s throat, and before long the Devilchasers would burst from the mouth of the hole, with CopperSaw’s arms spreading wide and a furious clap of her wings through her higher into the crystalline air!
She threw her head down to see that Basilisk’s mouth had already breached the air below her and was writhing with anger. The beast kept dragging itself out, but began to gurgle and fester with smoke, and the beast’s maw dropped and a storm of bones, bile and flame spewed towards the Devilchasers! CopperSaw screeched and blasted herself through the air to the side as her blade began to roar with color once again and split the air with crackling might!
The scar of lighting and flame charged forward, and exploded across the inside of Basilisk’s jaw, rupturing with a storm of blood and bile. The Bile King wretched in pain, throwing it’s head into the dirt and air over and over as it vomited in pain.
‘Not so indestructible on the inside…’
CopperSaw rushed over Basilisk's spine while it was howling with a bleeding mouth. Scratching and peeling away at it itself with its claws. The Devilchasers swooped high, barely missing the titan’s tail whip across the skies over and over, but CopperSaw arched and ducked at blitzing speed!
CopperSaw flew upwards, her eyes catching a dark shape jump from crystal to crystal… SkullKeeper! He was bleeding and angry… but alive!
“Devilchasers!” He waved and then pointed to an open gash at the far wall.
“Almost there!” She shouted before taking off towards the dark scar along the stones, with Basilisk rushing behind the Devilchasers. The snarling beast tossed itself from crystal to crystal, using it’s armored claws to chuck itself higher towards the Devilchasers. The open mouth of the cave grew closer and closer, but so did the Bile King! CopperSaw could feel its rotten breath choke her nose and mouth, so many rotten and vile things at once nearly made her lose balance- but she kept barreling towards the exit! Finally, SkullKeeper lunged through the air wrenched his blade right over the Devilchasers, and sunk deep into Basilisk’s right eye, exploding with more green blood as the beast howled and lost control! Its claws and tail thrashed wildly as it fell, but now The Devilchasers and SkullKeeper slipped inside the dark stoney gash, chasing the light of the Highlands and Lowlands until they blasted out into the darkness!
As CopperSaw arched through the air, her eyes fell upon the world around her, at first she thought it was the Crater of Demons, but the longer she kept looking, the more she found that they were somewhere else entirely. SkullKeeper ran below them but came to a halt only a few paces away from the mouth of the cave they had just barreled out of.
“SkullKeeper, Why are you stopping?!” CopperSaw shouted.
“They won’t be following us through there, they hate this place,” SkullKeeper responded as the DevilChasers landed on a nearby ridge. But as the Titan’s claws connected with the ridge, she was surprised to feel that it wasn’t stone at all, it felt like bone! She turned to face the world around her again, they were at the foot of a massive mountain, covered in titan bones! The color of what she thought was lava wasn’t lava at all, there was orange and red, but also greens, blues, and purple- it was like the whole world was melted into titanic rivers, although it still felt just as hot as lava when CopperSaw’s head arched to look over at the closet river.
Each river trailed from the roaring mouth of the mountain’s jagged peak, it looked like thousands of claws had melted together to form the vicious volcano.
“What is this place?” CopperSaw asked while the other Devilchasers leaped from her shoulders to fly beside her.
“This is Darkmount, the graveyard of the Ancient Ones!” SkullKeeper gestured. “What you see are the armies of titans ancient and old all in one place, the rivers are pure energy, so ripe with power that no beast or titan can withstand its might.”
CopperSaw couldn’t believe it.
One of the most common stories that were told to hatchlings were tales of Darkmount, the ancient place beyond the edge of the world where titan and beast go to rest as one, but never in all her life did she think that it was real!
This was far more than sacred ground.
“Wait, you mean Darkmount as in that hatchlings myth?” SnaggleWing asked.
“No myth, LeafWing, it's as real as you and I,” SkullKeeper responded. “The Bile King or his wretch won’t follow us through, not even a beast like Basilisk is above ravaging hallow grounds like this.” He gestured again to the cave.
“I don’t think we’ll be seeing him again, you took out one of his eyes!” HagScreech cheered.
“I wouldn’t call him dead just yet, I’ve battled that beast for ages, and he always keeps coming back stronger,” SkullKeeper warned.
“Well then let's go back in there and tear him apart!” SnaggleWing roared.
“Wait no- SnaggleWing we just tried that, you saw what was in there- Basilisk has an army of SkullCrawlers under his command! We need to isolate him!” CopperSaw interjected.
The Titan LeafWing’s mind flashed to the bleeding jaws of the titan, who would be her target. But as CopperSaw was about to say something, the entire earth roared, the Highlands and Lowlands rumbled in terror as a roar from beneath the earth shattered the air around the Devilchasers.
“What in the Earth’s name was that?!” HagScreech shouted.
“It’s him, he’s angry… we might not have much longer before Basilisk rises!” SkullKeeprer growled.
“Then we stop him, here and now!” CopperSaw roared as the world bloomed with life around her through all the fog and smoke.
The sun has risen.

Chapter 7: VI: Darkmount of The Acnient Ones

Summary:

In the great finale of Book I, CopperSaw, and The Devilchasers take part in an epic battle to stop the wretched Bile King, here and now!

VI: Darkmount of The Ancient Ones
CopperSaw’s eyes drifted towards the foggy air around Darkmount, huge chunks of earth had been thrown into the air and were now drifting around each other ever so slowly. The mountain of smoke had stretched up far enough to reach the Highlands and choked the land above it. CopperSaw had never seen anything like it, it made the perfect cover for anything to hide away in.
“So what’s the plan?” SnaggleWing chirped next to CopperSaw’s head. “Wherever Basilisk goes, he seems to have his horde follow behind.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure, remember, he called the hordes back in the cave, he went after us specifically!” CopperSaw commented again.
“But why? Why are three LeafWing’s and a Kong so important to a SkullCrawler titan?” HagScreech interjected.
“I already have a history with the Bile King, and he’ll be wanting to eliminate possibilities of ruining his chances of domination,” SkullKeeper pointed to CopperSaw.
“He’s gargantuan! Even CopperSaw was dwarfed by him!” HagScreech chirped back.
“There are titans smaller than her who have a heavy status on their backs,” SkullKeeper said again.
“Remember, he’s also a titan, he could already be aware of what I am,” CopperSaw interjected.
“And who’s to say that if he devours you, what’s to stop him from spreading his hunger across the lands to devour the rest of the titans and beasts,” SkullKeeper growled. That visual haunted CopperSaw, it made her scales ache, hundreds of lifeless worlds all consumed by the twisting jaws of that monster that seethed with hatred. How could one titan even be that powerful?
“SkullKeeper, you’ve fought him before, what can we do??” CopperSaw asked hurryingly. The Kong paused, his beard rustled with the ashy winds of DarkMount, and his eyes seemed to wander forever… it didn’t feel like they were going to get anywhere.
“What if we let him come up?” SnaggleWing offered.
“Out of the question! That’s what we’re trying to stop!” HagScreech snarled back.
“Wait- HagScreech- he might be onto something,” CopperSaw soothed her.
“That big bastard is already fat and slow, those arms can only carry him so much, which means that he’ll have to pull himself out bit by bit. The Crater of Demons is full of huge mountains. If we can drop one of those hunks of earth down on him, we can halt him!” SnaggleWing planned.
“I don’t know if one will be enough, his skull alone is nearly the size of a cliff!” SkullKeeper commented.
“... Then we drop as many as we can!” HagScreech hissed. It was so strange hearing her agree with SnaggleWing, so often they were at odds with each other. “But how will we even know where he’s going to appear??” She asked again.
“He won’t be hard to miss, look for the giant red jaws lunging from the ground!” SkullKeeper roared. Right as the titan spoke, another tremble deep below the earth slammed into the Devilhasers, shaking the four of them around as if they were nothing more but twigs! As CopperSaw worked to pull herself back up on her claws, she could see the silhouettes of mountains turning to pebbles in the distance and the howls of beasts across the Highlands and Lowlands reel in horror.
“That one was worse than the last!” SnaggleWing growled.
“We may not have much time left…” SkullKeeper snarled.
“Then we need to get moving, now!” CopperSaw roared as she took to the air, with the Devilchasers already latched onto her back and SkullKeeper beneath her running on his knuckles, they charged back towards the Crater of Demons.
The flight back to the smoldering plains and magma-bleeding spires of the Crater of Demons didn’t take long, but the tremors were worse than ever now. Even in the hot air, CopperSaw could feel the world rumble in shake with agony, the fire that spewed from the mountains exploded with might, sending gargantuan chunks of earth across the sky and crashing into other mountains and ashy crevasses. But that was when they saw it, in the distance to the right of CopperSaw, there were mountain ranges of fire and brimstone caving in on themselves, their jagged peaks falling inwards and pointing towards each other. Almost creating some humongous jaw that was closing in on itself.
“There!” CopperSaw shouted before drifting to the sinking obsidian, but she was halted. A great shadow loomed above her before dropping down, which jolted the titan as she held herself in mid-air suddenly.
It was BruteSword!
“Pa! What are you doing here?!” CopperSaw asked with horror. It wasn’t the entire swarm, but most of the larger LeafWings and his Elder-Leafs coven had followed him out here.
“Looking for you! Are you insane?!” He roared. CopperSaw expected her father to leave to go find her, but she never expected him to make it out here this fast! They must’ve not stopped to rest at all!
“BruteSword, you must listen to us!” SnaggleWing chirped in.
“What is that?!” A voice near BruteSword roared, it was StrangleTalon, the bristles along his head and neck were raised and shaking, all of the LeafWings were. His gaze was fixed onto SkullKeeper, who stood right below The Devilchasers with his eyes jumping from LeafWing to LeafWing.
“A kong?! CopperSaw what have you gotten yourself into?!” BruteSword snarled back at her, only for the earth to roar and split beneath them, its jagged black scar creeping towards the sinking mountains ahead of the LeafWings.
“It’s a giant SkullCrawler! We found this Kong and we’re going to stop it!” HagScreech shouted.
“What?! None of you are making any sense!” BruteSword growled again. CopperSaw could tell that he was angry, but not at them, he was angry at himself. Angry that he let them- and his daughter out of his sight. He was angry he couldn’t eternally watch over them.
“Sire, the situation is desperate, a SkullCrawler mightier than any titan is about to rise from the Earth, your daughter has flown to hell and back to try and keep him from rising, if you know what’s best for her I suggest you move out of our way!” SkullKeeper finally spoke with his storming voice. He spoke with haste, but his words still felt like a moving cliff, and it had an effect on even BruteSword.
He was split. The Mega-Wing turned to face the drowning brimstone and then back to The Devilchasers.
“... Then what can we do to help??” BruteSword asked, his voice didn’t growl like rolling mountains of gravel anymore, but there was still something clinging to the back of his mouth.
“We need to keep the SkullCrawler in that pit! It will give me the chance to take it down for good!” CopperSaw rushed out her explanation as she burst past the LeafWings and continued to flap towards the pit, with the rest of the LeafWings swinging overhead with BruteSword leading the charge above CopperSaw.
She could hear it, the snarling and gnashing of teeth, Basilisk was close. The ground writhed with rage, she could almost see his shape twisting and bending in the fire and ash beneath her talons.
CopperSaw gasped as she saw long and black claws start to throw and toss dirt around, and a serpentine neck shot from the bowels of hell and raised high into the air, its fat muscles raked with ancient scars that were decorated with thousands of craggily spikes and spines. Twisted horns swung through the air, the LeafWings split and wrapped around the vicious shapes like snakes as they rushed by to escape getting splattered along the horrible spines. The neck swung through the air with a shuttering force that tore the air asunder, and CopperSaw watched as Basilisk’s horrible jaw rushed towards her! The titan clapped her wings together and she burst ahead, squeezing her huge wings between his horrible horns that rushed only a branch away from her skull. The titan darted down the beast’s neck, dodging and waving past spines that were as large as trees before bringing herself back into the air to see The Bile King in full.
The Crater of Demons had practically been entirely uprooted, entire mountains lay upside down now, and where great mountain ranges once were, there were now rivers of smoldering lava, in just a few moments, the entire world had shifted into something unrecognizable. The Bile King’s body oozed with lava that still clung to his scales, but despite the burns, Baslislk remained unstoppable! CopperSaw could see the jagged socket along where the SkullCrawler’s eye used to be, he had clawed SkullKeeper’s spear out from its face, it was so sickeningly torn that it almost made the LeafWing sick. However, the titan was already up to his armored shoulders, but his arms were still squeezed together beneath the earth, this was their chance!
She dove past Basilisk’s crunching jaws, which nearly caught her, and swooped past a group of jagged cliffs that were half-shattered behind Basilisk’s spines and used her blade to carve along the earth, the violet and lavender fire crackled as stone burst apart and she used a fierce slap of her wings to toss the earth forward and slammed into The Bile King’s back, sending the Skull Devil into the earth briefly, only for its head to rise with lava dripping from its scales gain.
CopperSaw snarled and dove down again, but quickly snatched herself away as Basilisk’s jaws crashed down towards her, her eyes glimpsed up to see the maw of the devil, she could see just how many teeth it had. Rows upon rows of teeth, as if an endless army of SirenJaws were fitted inside the SkullCrawler’s mouth, each tooth decorated with hanging carcasses that oozed with acid and bile droplets the size of Leafwings.
“Damn!” CopperSaw shouted, as long as Basilisk had full attention on her, CopperSaw was never going to be able to get him back under.
“I’ll take the LeafWings and we’ll distract him!” SkullKeeper shouted as he lunged at a half-mangled mountain near CopperSaw. He used his paws to wrench the tip of the mountain from its stoney base and slammed it onto a broad tree trunk he found, creating a crude blade.
“What?! He’ll kill you!” CopperSaw cried back to the Kong.
“Then you underestimate me!” SkullKeeper laughed as BruteSword descended to meet the Kong.
“Let’s see what you're made of, titan!” He growled as they burst off towards the head of Basilisk, with SnaggleWing and HagScreech following behind.
“Wait! Where are you guys going!” CopperSaw shouted to them.
“We’re going to help them! You guys will get yourself killed! I can’t let that happen! I need you!” CopperSaw roared back.
“CopperSaw. You’re a titan, you already have everything you need to stop him. You don’t need us…” SnaggleWing interfered, his look and voice, he was proud of CopperSaw. It’s as if he already knew she was going to win.
But what if she wasn’t going to? What if she was destined to just become another carcass for the Bile King?
… No! She was CopperSaw of the LeafWings! A titan! This day would see the end of Basilisk’s tyranny, and CopperSaw wasn’t going to let those chains hold her back anymore!
“Now go save the Highlands and Lowlands!” The Devilchasers cheered as they turned to face the rest of the swarm and the Kong that were throwing themselves around the Bile King’s head. The jaws snapped and bit as his twisting neck swung through the air like a MireSquid arm.
BruteSword led the charge as a formation of LeafWings dove and cleaved a row of scars along the crimson scalp of Basilisk, and SkullKeeper tossed himself from mountain to mountain, driving his blade deep into the beast’s neck and pulling fountains of blood from the thick scales, but nothing was violent enough to keep the SkullCrawler down, and CopperSaw could see that the arms of the SkullDevil were beginning to free themselves from the earth around her.
That’s when it hit her! ‘Darkmount, nothing can survive Darkmount!’ She turned back to her, seeing the fiery shape of Darkmount loom in the smoke behind the horizon, and then CopperSaw looked to the Highlands above her, and the pillars of earth and stone that would connect the two worlds.
‘If he wants out, let him!’She roared in her head as she began to fly higher and higher, stretching farther into the air than she had ever gone before. The LeafWing could almost feel the tug of the Highlands drag her towards the earth above her, but right as she reached the clouds, she braced, throwing her wings out wide for just a moment before the LeafWing tossed her head back down and dove towards the back of Basilisk! Her dive began to blur the world around her, and her blade began to glow brighter and brighter as the blurry shape of Basilisk grew closer and closer towards her. The LeafWing charged farther and farther down before her blade was entirely glowing and she blasted the Earth around the SkullCrawler, sending the beast into the Earth once again on its side, its earth-shattering roar echoed with the crumbling of stone and bubbling of lava.
CopperSaw dove past the clouds of ash and soot that bloomed into the air like a gray tree and swooped back to face Darkmount, waiting to hear the sound of stones move and being crushed under claws. That’s when she turned around to see Basilisk’s shape grow behind her, his tail throwing itself across the air as the arms swung around wildly, peeling dark crystals and pebbles from the deep ridges as they flung around freely.
Basilisk and CopperSaw locked eyes, that one, fiery eye seethed with an unquenchable hunger. She had to stop him, here and now! She started to dive, her body striking through the air in jagged patterns that made little sense. She dove down passed a mangled shape that might have been a cliff at one point, Basilisk’s mouth snapped behind her as his shoulder collided with the gray, cindering stone and smashed it into pebbles. CopperSaw kept flying keeping her tail at just a tree’s length away from Basilisk’s skull that rammed through every shape that she dove passed, but she couldn’t tell what anything was anymore, it was all vague shapes as she was bursting through the air so fast that it felt like her very scales were about to peel from her body with how much rippling they were doing.
Deep inside CopperSaw, there was a part of her that almost loved this! Not being chased by a mountainous SkullCrawler, but flying through the air with no destination, just swooping past burning mountains and valleys. She felt free! But she needed to Basilisk off of her tail first!
Of one of the many shapes she dove passed, she saw a tree! No, not a tree, the swarm! She saw the blur of the purple of BruteSword’s bristles wash by her in a blink as she began to close in on a gargantuan pillar that stretched through the air and met the Highalnds above them!
‘There!’ She told herself, as if she was giving commands.
CopperSaw began to beat her wings with a dangerous might and began lifting herself upwards, shooting through clouds and feeling their chill sparkle along her thick scales as she dove upwards.
Basilisk’s head slammed into the trunk of the earthen column only to yank his jaws from the stones and begin to crawl up, his claws sunk into the long crystals and gravel that stretched through the heavens like a monumental tree! CopperSaw swerved and ducked as The Bile King’s laws swung forward and nearly slapped her out of the air. The Titan LeafWing was crashing along the air faster than anything that ever lived, and she screamed through the air as the pull of the Highlands dragged her down. Now up is down!
CopperSaw charged downwards now, her eyes fixed onto the Basilisk behind her, whose mouth was boiling with bile and acid now. She gasped right as a stream of molten bones and acid spewed towards her, it tore into the earth Basilisk climbed upon, ripping chunks of earth from its crater as CopperSaw dodged flaming acid and chunks of steaming earth as her chest flew against the ground. Just ahead, CopperSaw could see the smoke from Darkmount that shrouded the lands ahead! She just needed to lose him there!
CopperSaw kept flying ahead but gasped as Basilisk tore his entire body from the earth and leaped through the air briefly and smashed into the earth, tearing up even more chunks of stone that were tossed up towards her, the titan burst ahead, swooping past entire chunks of earth with pieces of forest still attached to them!
Finally, with one last clap of her wings, CopperSaw disappeared into the smoke.
The ash-choked air burnt her tongue and boiled her eyes, but CopperSaw didn’t take even a second to stop moving, she could already hear Basilisk storming forward behind her, as she wisped past a mountain of dark smoke clouds, the Bile King’s jaws snapped through the air, but just missed the smaller titan as she disappeared. The SkullCrawler roared as its charge came to a slow halt, the giant swung its head around, and guttural snarls bubbled with ooze and slime as The Bile King’s crimson jaws wisped around wildly, it was entirely silent now, the only thing you could hear was the roaring of distant volcanoes and the chirping of the far-off swarm.
But the beast’s head would thunder in pain as a vibrant boulder was chucked through the air and smashed into his jaws, making Basilisk snarl in rage only for a violet, crescent shape to blast into his arms over and over and cleaved chunks of thick scales from his arms. With every blast, the beast watched as the shape of CopperSaw dove past her, always out of reach. Every time one side of Basilisk was pelted with fire and violet sparks, the other was smashed with prickly boulders. Each empty bite boiled the rage hotter and hotter inside the SkullCrawler before it howled and unleashed its Acid Hell upon the smoky abyss.
Walls of flaming bile and meat chunks washed through the air, the SkullDevil threw its body around so fast that not even CopperSaw could keep up with it as she barely missed acid fall onto her scales that burned and sizzled away at her. She looked back at her, seeing her wings burn with flame at their tips.
“Now or never!” She roared to herself as she swooped and dove through the air one last time past Basilisk’s bloodshot eye that instantly snatched onto CopperSaw’s shape and tried to bite the air one more time, only to immediately begin stomping after her again.
As the Titan LeafWing swooped higher into the air, Basilisk blasted forth behind her, using its titanic claws to snatch onto the floating cores that slowly danced through the air. The farther CopperSaw flew, the more she began to feel that tug again, that same tug that yanked at her scales when she first flew up to the Highlands! The ash was starting to glow brighter and brighter as sparks started to swallow the dark air in a burning light of a thousand shades of color. But that wasn’t the only thing she was listening to, she had her ears locked onto the Bile King’s jaws, waiting for the gurgle of oceans of acid to froth at his fangs again.
She waited, diving as far as she had to before the sound of a boiling thunder arose behind her again! NOW!
CopperSaw threw her body around, with her wings stretching up far past her body and nearly meeting Basilisk’s jaws as she looked to see the titan’s mouth wide open, full of boiling green and red acid that smoldered like a volcano! That’s when her blade ignited with a fierce shade of purple and blasted straight into the devil’s mouth, and as it collided with the bile and acid, it ignited! Trails of smoke burst into tails of screaming flame, and an explosion boomed from Basilisk’s jaws as it roared in anger and pain, its eyes wide and frantic while the empty socket glowed with fire!
The Bile King roared as the smoke cleared, and the gargantuan mouth of Darkmount rushed up towards them both, burning with the blood of entire titan armies as CopperSaw closed her wings together and burst passed Basilisk’s head, rising passed forests of spines and scales!
Basilisk howled as it shot towards Darkmount’s flaming throat, and his head crashed into the smoldering jaws! His whole body rippled and shook as energies swarmed and shot through his entire being! CopperSaw dashed between spines as they exploded with color, and gasped as the whipping tip of Basilisk’s limp tail began to rush up toward her, and the tattered wings of CopperSaw flapped as hard as they could barely missing the end of the tail as she exploded past the last of Basilisk and watched as the giant failed and screamed, it’s body melting and erupting with so much power it nearly made CopperSaw sick. She could see the rest of Darkmount pulse with activity, and it’s crater began to roar louder than ever as Basilisk’s dead body melted deeper and deeper inside.
KA-BOOM!!!
Darkmount erupted in a blaze of might and color that rattled the heavens and earth all at once, and the shockwave swept right toward CopperSaw as unstoppable power blasted her away from the sacred grounds, one final time.

…
“CopperSaw!” BruteSword shouted as his wings flapped through the colorful smoke of Darkmount’s sparkling eruption.
“Copper! Where are you?!” HagScreech cried out as they swarmed the foot of Darkmount. The Swarm had just approached Darkmount before they saw Basilisk fall from the dark skies and explode as it fell into the volcano, but CopperSaw was nowhere to be seen at all!
“CopperSaw!” BruteSword shouted out again, his voice boomed with fear, a fear all of the LeafWings could recognize.
“Do you think she-” SnaggleWing was interrupted by HagScreech throwing her head around with tears in her dark eyes.
“Don’t you DARE even say it!” She snarled to him as SkullKeeper scouted beside them. “She’s strong! She’s a titan! She can survive everything now! She has to!” She roared. As much as HagScreech didn’t want to hear what SnaggleWing felt could be true, she was starting to fear that he might be right for once.
“Wait- over there!” SkullKeeper shouted as his paws pointed towards a shape moving ontop of a cliff.
It was CopperSaw! She was alive!
“CopperSaw!” They all shouted and blasted towards her, instantly crowding her, and held their heads next to hers, brushing their blades together as tears were passed between The Devilchasers.
“Don’t you ever do something brave like that again or I’ll kill you myself!” HagScreech snarled with happy tears blanketing her face, which made the sore and bruised Titan laugh just a little.
“Your wings! What happened?!” SnaggleWing asked with a faint gasp.
“He nearly got me, but at least I’m still alive,” CopperSaw huffed.
“You will heal in no time, CopperSaw,” SkullKeeper commented with a proud smile across his scarred face.
“Because I’m a titan?” She asked.
“No, because you’re unstoppable!” SkullKeeper nodded to her, and so she did too. “In one day you did what I couldn’t in centuries, you destroyed The Bile King!” He cheered to CopperSaw before taking a knee and pressed a knuckle against the ground while another rested on his knee. “Today, I bow to you…” He spoke softly.
CopperSaw couldn’t believe it at all either, she had just stopped the unstoppable!
“I’m proud of you CopperSaw, I always have been, you did something no LeafWing could ever do. One day you will be the mightiest MegaWing that has ever graced The Highlands and Lowlands,” BruteSword stood next to her, pressing a claw onto CopperSaw’s own.
“I love you CopperSaw, I always will,” He said again, with a small stream curving underneath his eye.
“Thank you pa,” She smiled at him as she brushed her blade with his own.
“What now?!” HagScreech asked.
“We leave for Stone Peaks,” BruteSword said, gesturing to the horizon.
CopperSaw turned back to see SkullKeeper who was starting to walk away. “SkullKeeper, where are you going?!” She called out.
“You have your family to tend to, it’s not for me,” He spoke back.
“Who says so?” SnaggleWing inferred.
“Come with us, you won’t have to be alone!” She smiled towards him and the same smile melted onto SkullKeeper’s face soon enough.
“It’s been so long since I’ve been a part of a family… Thank you, CopperSaw,” SkullKeeper smiled, brushing her head with a finger for a moment before the swarm took to the air by the call of BruteSword.
CopperSaw turned to the world ahead of her, and marched forward!

Chapter 8: Epilogue: Exodus

Summary:

Seven years later, The Devilchasers find themselves at the doorstep of an event that will change their lives!

Seven years later… Stone Peaks.
The fog was heavy over the twisting shapes of stone and crystal, but the rain was light and misty. CopperSaw’s scales glistened and hummed with color as they flashed around her scales like Mire Squid's arms in a lake. In the last seven years, a lot has changed!
SkullKeeper has helped the swarm build powerful constructs around the Stone Peaks to protect it from danger, great tree trunks were shaven down to a point like a claw- he calls them stakes. He’s taught many members of the swarm how to decorate, almost every entrance to a den was now bedazzled with personal trinkets that each LeafWing had called their own now. For CopperSaw specifically, she and the other three Devilchasers constructed her den right next to Stone Peaks, thrown together from slabs of stone and mighty tree trunks that were webbed together in layers of mud and vine. SkullKeeper calls it the “Mighty Outpost”- which was another thing that he did a lot- give the LeafWings all these new strange words, sometimes it hurt CopperSaw’s head to listen to him. Speaking of the great ape, he has made himself at home living atop the cliffside that wraps around Stone Peaks, and every day some new shape made of the earth was growing around where he was laying, SkullKeeper’s ingenuity when he had the tools was incredible.
The Titan LeafWing turned her head to see the rush of shapes blaze past her snout, shaking the winds as they blew past her. A hunting branch, thankfully no one she recognized was in there, it looked like it was a bunch of young sprouts going out for their first hunt. That was something else she was getting used to not being young anymore, now she was seen as old to the other hatchlings that skittered around and played on her wings. But CopperSaw wasn’t here to lead a Hunting Branch, she needed to spread her wings.
She needed to be away from Stone Peaks for a while.
Once the morphing shape of the Hunting Branch slithered over the jagged teeth of the mountains to the east, CopperSaw dipped her saw-nose down and took flight, with her wings rumbling as cold air growled beneath her arms. The titan winced, she wished that she was quieter when taking off- especially in times like this.
But now she was away and alone, and she could swoop and soar around! Ever since her battle with Basilisk, she’s been taking time away to explore and fly to the horizon and beyond. It felt so good to feel air wash over her, hot or cold, it didn’t matter to CopperSaw! SkullCrawler sightings had been all but extinct since then, and when they did pop up it was to hunt like everything else amongst the Highlands and Lowlands, no more wastelands of corpses!
A SnareHunter swarm was rustled awake by CopperSaw dashing over their heads, with the Genitor queen snarling and snapping at the air, but ultimately sinking back down into their hive that was melted over treetops.
CopperSaw then barreled up high and held her wings out as she felt the tug of the earths melt around her scales, and she flew truly freely between the worlds and soared between the fog and the clouds she breathed slowly. Everything felt like it was a part of her up here, the wind, the clouds, the rain, the storm, it was like the air had become a part of her over the last seven years! The titan leafwing held herself between both worlds, practically falling asleep as her weightless body drifted and danced with the clouds. Only when CopperSaw truly felt ready did she bring herself up to the Highlands!
She felt the whole earth flip as she started to descend to the Highlands, and blurry shapes started to take stronger and stronger form as CopperSaw’s chest spun down to face the trees that waved to her with the wind. SporeFly’s buzzed near the twisted and jagged spires of stone that crawled up mountainsides and cliff faces, and just ahead CopperSaw spotted a forest of Mother Longlegs stomping through bamboo fields.
The titan finally calmed to a halt after dancing with the heavens and brought herself to a broad ledge on one of the stone stacks that gurgled with the fall of pebbles as her claws scrapped against the head of the jagged hunk of rock. The screaming wind that chased CopperSaw wherever she flew melted into a whisper as her claws folded over one another and the titan perched herself near the edge.
There was a sigh of relief as the rain dribbled from her fanged blade. This was where she was meant to be! But the Titan wouldn’t remain alone forever…
A squawk cried up from behind her as the faint sound of wings beating fluttered up to the top of the Stone Stack and claws clashed against pebbles.
“CopperSaw!” A voice shouted, filled with joy. It was HagScreech.
She had gotten bigger in the last seven years, and had a Hunting Branch of her own to command- but no mate nor a clutch of eggs. Meanwhile, SnaggleWing was making nice with many of the females that flocked towards him.
“Where have you been? You’ve been hiding all day!” She chirped as she brought herself beside CopperSaw and set her wings next to the titan’s.
“Just needed air,” CopperSaw huffed back to HagScreech, her voice soothed by the rains.
“Are you okay? You’ve been gone more than normal-” HagScreech asked with her head bringing itself up to meet CopperSaw as much as it possibly could.
“Well, I can’t say it’s bad- but it’s not great either,” CopperSaw groaned.
HagScreech burst back into the air before the titan could even get to speak. “Are you sick?! Something titan related?! Is there another titan out there that you can hear?!” HagScreech was pelted with two more questions every time she tried to answer the one before, and HagScreech had turned to face the Bamboo plains around them both, snarling at a threat that wasn’t even there.
“No HagScreech, it’s okay, nothing is wrong out there,” CopperSaw raised a claw and brushed it against HagScreech to bring her energy back down to that of a normal LeafWing. It was admirable and touching how much the LeafWing was ready to fight anything now.
“What- then, what is it then?” She asked.
It was a lot to unpack, CopperSaw felt like the Highlands were sitting on her back right now with what’s been happening these last few days.
“Well, BruteSword has been very- observational recently, he and SkullKeeper have been talking behind my back a lot and this morning- he spoke to me about it,” CopperSaw began.
“CopperSaw! You’ve grown into a mighty LeafWing!” She chirped with the mimic of her father’s old voice, but nothing compared to the real thing.
“You don’t like that he’s complimenting you?” HagScreech asked.
“I’m not done-” CopperSaw chuckled before speaking again. “I couldn’t be prouder of what you've grown into, it’s unbelievable! So that’s why SkullKeeper and I have decided-”
“To enter you in the Dragoneer Tournament!” HagScreech exploded through the air and bounced back and forth faster than even CopperSaw thought she could.
The Dragoneer Tournament was sacred, a tradition where the mightiest LeafWings were honored and brought forth in battle to become the next Mega-Wing of the LeafWing swarm. But- in all truth, CopperSaw didn’t want to lead! That responsibility wasn’t for her, she feared that even if she was in charge for a day the entire swarm would be slaughtered!
“CopperSaw! What an honor!” HagScreech beamed, her toothy smile stretched across her snout, but it started to shatter when the LeafWing saw that CopperSaw didn’t share the same happiness.
“It’s not me, HagScreech! I’m a titan, not a Mega-Wing! Speeches, leading the swarm, keeping everyone safe- that’s his thing!” CopperSaw proclaimed with a sigh.
“But… CopperSaw- you’re missing the point… I mean just to be part of the Dragoneer Tournament! What an honor! I would be pretty excited!” HagScreech tried to convince the titan before she spoke again.
“HagScreech, I… I’m just not like you, you know exactly what you are…” CopperSaw’s head turned to the slowly twisting shapes of the fog that wrapped around the world ahead. “I know I can’t be BruteSword- and, SkullKeeper and I have never found another titan… so… what does that make me?” CopperSaw sighed and dropped her head to her claws. It wasn’t that CopperSaw felt like she was a freak, but could she even call herself a titan if all she saw were their skeletons? What about THAT responsibility? Where would she even start?.. But, she couldn’t just leave the swarm either.
Silence floated lazily between both of the LeafWings, it was only HagScreech who decided to scoot in and drop her head next to HagScreech.
“Maybe the titan you’re looking for isn’t out there! Maybe it’s inside, you just gotta look harder!” HagScreech cheered quietly as she used her teeth to passionately nip at CopperSaw’s scales.
Out there…
CopperSaw looked at the worlds that boomed with life, her eyes trailing across the rising and falling mountains. But then there was the glimmer of something, something bright crackling along a valley of the Lowlands.
There was something out there.
“HagScreech… Look!” CopperSaw chirped as her head flew back into the air. The smaller LeafWing looked to see a swirling blue and purple shape crackle with light between the jagged shapes of nearby mountains. The Titan LeafWing took to the air once again, thundering with wings shuddering under the power of the winds.
The swirling shape snarled with energy and sounds that sounded like nothing that CopperSaw had ever heard before, and as she flew CopperSaw’s eyes laid upon an awesome sight.
A great vortex had split open across the mountainside, it was like a titanic eye was staring up at the world, shimmering with a thousand shades of color that bedazzled the mountain around it. CopperSaw had never seen anything like it before!
The titan was halfway through turning to look at HagScreech when her mind exploded! It burned with pain as a thundering voice crackled through her mind, her body quaked as all she saw was a burning mountain before her, the sky alight with a devouring storm, a storm so vile and so hungry that she couldn’t see anything beyond it! Atop the flaming mountain was a monumental shape, wings as large as whole worlds stretched far into the storm, and three golden serpentine necks cackled through the storming rain and crashing thunder.
A bringer of destruction, a beckoning call.
It was only a sudden flash that took CopperSaw out of the vision and back to reality! She nearly began falling out of the air, only catching herself mid-fall before catching herself back on her wings.
Then there was a roar, a call to arms! The sky was choked by hundreds of thousands of wings that swarmed around each other! It was LeafWings!
CopperSaw turned to see a cloud of blades and talons blast past her, swarms were dashing past her without care, blasting towards the vortex as they flashed through, being sucked into its gaping maw as more and more swarms charged forward.
“Where are you all going?!” She cried out, and that’s when she felt her heart sink as farther down than even Bleeding Gash Rock! Her swarm was dragging itself into the vortex! HagScreech and SnaggleWing were beside each other, steadily clapping their wings as they moved toward the vortex before them!
“SnaggleWing! HagScrech!” She cried CopperSaw tried to grab them before they slipped through the swirling realm before her, but as her talons snapped around each other- they were already gone. She turned to face the rest of the swarms moving past her, all of their eyes were golden- so golden! It’s like they were being worn by something and being dragged off! CopperSaw had never seen them so mindless before!
BruteSword’s glimmering bristles glowed with the light of the vortex approaching him, his eyes just as golden as the rest!
“No no! Nononononono!” CopperSaw blasted forward, but he too- was gone with the rest of her swarm! CopperSaw could already feel the waterfalls stretch below her as the LeafWings kept coming, swooping past her and diving into the vortex! But there were more, Warbats, Sporeflys, CoralMouths, and SirenJaws! Everything was entering the vortex before him! What was happening?!
“... SkullKeeper!” She shouted to herself! If there were any beast that knew what was happening- it would be one of the oldest living Kongs! If he hadn’t left as well, he would help her! CopperSaw charged forward, dashing by Warbat wings that fluttered above her and SnareHunter Queens that rushed past the Titan LeafWing.
But then her mind erupted again, she found herself crushed between two titanic forces! There was that golden hydra, its necks twisting and bending through endless storms that tore the ground from its roots, tornadoes that carved valleys across the earth, and lighting that set entire lands aflame!
But then there was another, a beast that sunk its jaws into the hydra, a mountain of brilliant blue fire snarling along its spiny back, and its huge claws stabbing into the Hydra’s body! Two living calamities roared between CopperSaw, as they battled one another the entire land was remade with every swipe of a claw, every blaze of fire, and every crack of electricity that nearly tore CopperSaw apart! The LeafWing began to scream, none of this could be real!
It was only when she reopened her eyes did she found herself back in the Highlands again, and a Stone Stack rushing towards her and crushing her face! CopperSaw cried in pain as the stone blasted from its formation and the Titan LeafWing felt her body instantly go limp as she began plummeting to the lands below her! She couldn’t even control herself as she landed, feeling her body spiral and twist under its own weight as it smashed into the earth over and over!
The world was growing quiet now, CopperSaw could still see the shapes above her swirling deeper and deeper into the vortex… she could see others carved along the Highlands and Lowlands.
HagScreech, SnaggleWing, BruteSword… everyone, everything was in her claws one moment, and the next the entire world as she knew it was gone… was she even going to wake up after this, or would she just melt back into the Earth from where everything once came? A groan left her aching jaw, she had been beaten this time, and it wasn’t even by a titan…
‘I’m so sorry…’ She said in her mind, for her body was too crushed to speak now. The only thing that the Titan LeafWing could hope is that she would wake up after this everyone would be back.
CopperSaw’s eyes were so heavy, they fell slowly, the last thing she saw was the glimmer of the vortex…

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of Basilisk