To Kill a God

The extract and illustration were inspired by a series of continuing stories me and shadowfoxxx.deviantart.com/ created where our characters met up and interacted.
Now, these stories serve for great illustration fodder! And provide some excellent practice

Calliope snarled and ripped the metal from her, a pleased laugh issuing from the depth of her hood.
"None can defeat the great God of the Cleansers, my power is immortal and everlasting in it's fury and strength!"
She turned on Malicia now.

Jurich came round to the sound of thunderous banging and rain, hot on his face.

His head panged awfully and pain shot down his arm and through his ribs until breathing hurt. He sat up slowly, the world swimming back into focus...the red light of dawn an unnatural hue, the wind raging, he jumped in shock as something huge and burning crashed into the metal near him, sending it juddering and taking the end of a gantry off with it.

"Where am I?" he didn't remember getting here...or where

was in fact.

He looked up to see his father, on the ground in some kind of agony, a strange tall black figure being peppered with metal shards.

The next thing that happened was his father collapsed with a horrible popping noise, blood splattering the metal.

"Dad!"

He scrambled over, confused and afraid.

"Dad! Dad wake up!"

His eyes were staring and going glassy in the classic dead stare. Tears of frustration came to Jurich's eyes, what had he missed? What had happened? Why was he here and why couldn't he remember anything? The frustration began to boil into anger, anger at his own confusion and uselessness!

He looked up as the black figure approached a woman with grey skin, he didn't know who this person was, but he

know that the figure in the black had done this! His fingers grabbed a piece of metal shrapnel, anger bubbling up inside until it became impossible to control.

He got to his feet with a yell and ran at the hooded figure's back, stabbing it through the back with the metal shrapnel, growling in wrath.

Calliope let out an awful shriek, clutching at her chest where the spike protruded.

"What? What...is...this?" blood was on her fingers. "Blood? I'm bleeding?"

She turned in a rage and lashed out at Jurich with her nails, scratching him on the face and knocking him over, hissing with venom. She towered over him, her imposing form seething in fury as the ice and fire rained down, Shlorin's black clouds growing nearer and nearer as the Great Wyrm was drawn towards the foundry, feeding on the hatred and destruction.

"Insolent filth!"

She grabbed Jurich by the face and dragged him to his feet, pushing him out over the gantry edge as easily as if he were a cloth doll.

"Gaze down upon your death!" she howled letting him drop.

She turned away and froze. across the gantry was a man, a bone mask obscuring his face.

"Another pathetic mortal come to challenge me? You will die like the others!" she snarled, enraged that so many should dare approach her, the God of Cleansers, the Twister of Reality!

"I think not Calliope." he hurled the scythe in a whirl of fire.

She imagined it wasn't there, twisting and shaping the Reality she saw before her...but it kept coming and coming, unhindered by her powers, unchanged and Real. It hit her in the chest and she fell to her knees clutching it.

"I...cannot die...I...am a God!" she gurgled.

Nereon leant on his scythe, pushing her flat.

"God's don't bleed." he hissed.

Calliope screeched, her body disintegrating as time caught up with it suddenly, skin melting and turning to ash, bones crumbling until all that was left was a heap that blew away on the raging winds.