.^^ Apep Avatars ^^

— James —

I don't know what I expected, when I drew my weapon, but having it bulk itself up really wasn't it. The new weight made my swing go wide, and stab the riverbank, instead of the snake in front of me, who reared his head, and lunged at me with the speed of any venomous snake.

My forearm took the fangs of the beast, but to my surprise, my skin turned gold, and the fangs barely punctured. I grinned, and cut off the snake's head with one swing, letting my sword take it into itself, and absorb the Golden Water that represented Power in this realm.

It pulsed painfully in my hand, as if the lava was too much for it to take in, but I gritted my teeth, forcing it through like a carrot through a cheese grater. The resultant power made even more room than before, and all of the energy itself crystallized and condensed inside the blade, leaving more room for the physical stuff, such as the other snakes, all swarming towards me now.

I got an idea, and looked at Bast, directly to my left. "Hey, when you make this many Avatar's, doesn't it weaken your true form by a lot?"

She nodded. "Yes, it does. So?"

"So what's stopping us from locking Apep away into something?" I asked.

"We don't have the something to lock him into." She responded easily.

"Is that so? Interesting." I pulled my sword out of another corpse, ripping all the magic and power out of it, instead of taking the corpse itself. My portal responded to my mental Command, and I reached deep into the deepest reaches of this realm, far to the East, (opposite of the way most would look, the West being the Cursed Lands,) and found rolling, vibrant golden sand dunes, some as tall as literal mountains.

That didn't seem like enough, so I kept going, until I couldn't actually reach any further with my one portal, which was an interesting prospect, seeing as it could reach the end of the cosmos. Then, I stepped through the portal, and opened another. After several iterations, I couldn't sense the energy of my ancestors and family anymore, something that I could feel anywhere in the nine realms. I went a few more times, just for luck, and then decided I was far enough away.

I created a small pinprick Beacon/Portal in the Sky above, connected to the interior of my Bag, which would enable me to send things to this location no matter where I was, and without all the portals and nonsense, as well as alert me to any activity in this location, just like a security camera.

That finished, I began digging, until I was so deep that the sands would not uncover it for quite some time, in their shifting and shaking. I created a box of Egyptian Gold from thin air, and set it down in the hole, melting the sand into glass, and carving Runes of Holding and Concealing, in every language known and unknown.

I took a chance, and did something particularly dangerous, next. I carved my own true name, in a Cartouche, (the hieroglyphic way of writing your name, or showing possession and control of something,) filling it with my blood. That meant that the only way to even touch the other Runes was to kill me, and destroy my entire bloodline.

As long as a single person holding my blood existed, (or, I guess, if someone more powerful than my entire bloodline combined appeared,) this barrier would hold. I spilled blood into every single Rune, and finally picked up the box itself, deciding it wasn't good enough.

I used my own golden blood, and even pieces of my bone and the Crystals in my skin, to create a new box, then carved a single Rune into every side, the Jiahu Symbol for 'Prison'. The Oldest known Rune, in the Oldest Known Language, carved into the solid blood of a powerful being.

I called a separate dimension into the box, one filled with ice and glass, but no heat, light, sound, or even ground to lay on without being stabbed by glass spears. I also created a powerful illusion, which would trick the inhabitants of the box into believing that they were in their perfect world, that Chaos had won, and almost all enemies had been defeated.

I left illusionary enemies, to keep the inhabitants preoccupied, so that they would not even question the world around them, and wouldn't attempt to escape. If someone, somehow, managed to help them escape, they would not even want to leave.

Also, Time itself was inherently warped, both with this illusion, and in reality as well, so that they believed no time at all had passed, even though centuries passed by, every few hours. The spells from the Dark Dimension inspired me, with the dissonance of time between the dimensions.

Throughout the process, I'd been laying hidden traps, little bits of nastiness for whoever tried to break this thing open, whether by way of force or magic. And, of course, the most important part was a hellish curse, or I suppose a collection of curses, placed on anyone who attempted to break the barrier by way of killing my family, which would enact every single one of the Egyptian Curses that I could think of. They were many, and varied, and I was quite sure that their presence would dissuade all but the most foolhardy, (or devout,) of minions.

The final, nastiest bit of hurrah I could do, was to pull all the souls of those who enacted the curses, and instead of allowing them the afterlife, they were taken into my Wand, with the other tortured souls and demons that Aunty Durham had gifted to me to torture my enemies.

Also, should the spell ever be broken, (God forbid,) it would use the life-force of everything and everyone inside the prison, all the souls in the prison and even, hopefully, Apep, to achieve one final spell: it would call my soul back from wherever it was, and the souls of all my family members and ancestors, and resurrect us all, in our primes, with our memory and power intact.

Hopefully, this unprecedented magical spell would weaken the God of Chaos enough that he wouldn't ever actually escape the Prison, and our return would revitalize the defenses, entirely destroying any progress that had been made to free him.

Unfortunately, I couldn't actually do anything about him controlling his Avatars, wherever they were, as that was a magic that I barely understood, but I did leave room in my creation for improvement, as well as crystal trees planted all around that would create a little oasis on top of this Pit, once I was finished with it, and they would drain the magic of anything and everything that didn't have my blood, and wandered too close.

Next, I realized the main weakness to this plan was that I knew everything about its security, and even its location, and how to get through all the barriers. So, I made the entire Crystalline Oasis migratory, constantly wandering aimlessly throughout the farthest expanses of all the different Lands of the Dead, in any culture, always drifting further away, with each passing day.

All the while, the Crystalline Trees would be protecting the Pit with their Roots, whilst draining off the magic of the occupants, and therefore adding several more, physical layers of security and anonymity, as not even I would know where the pit was, nor could I reach it, except to place things in it, or collect magic from the Oasis.

The water, I decided, would be a mixture of the Metallic water of the Golden River, Bast's Blood, and my Semi-Liquid Crystal, which would hold a massive amount of energy, and also automatically convert every bit of magic it took, into Bast's personal brand of Magic.

She would likely appreciate the boost of power that gave her, in her duties as Protector of Ra, and I knew I would appreciate it, fighting the Rebels that I had been allowing to stew and entrench themselves, giving them an entire year to prepare for me. I had no doubt they had worked up their own brand of nastiness, so my trump cards were a necessity.

But still, I realized, I would want him to be able to create more Avatars, and continuously drain him. If it was at all possible, I would want him to eventually cease to exist, his soul entirely spent and gone. But, to make that a reality, he would need to be able to make Avatars, so I created a little slip, with the existing portal, that would allow certain snakes, (such as invasive species and overpopulated species,) into the box.

Of course I knew the risks, but I was hopeful that he would treat them, (because of the illusion of him fighting his last opponents, Amun-Ra and his chosen warriors,) as simple reinforcements; but after he created them, they would be sent through a discreet portal to his current haunt, where Bast battled him every day, weakened by the Oasis to about the strength of a very weak Demigod, like a child of Hermes.

I would have liked to simply kill them all, but Balance was a pesky thing, so I knew I needed to allow them to create the same amount of chaos as always, just in a semi-controlled environment. Also, their weakened states would mean that Bast could recruit more average souls, and rest more often, another thing I was sure she'd appreciate.

That lovely bit of mischief finished, I worked on the finer details of the cartouche some more, not only empowering it, but also covering it with even more barriers, which would hide its true nature from all but the most powerful of creatures, if they made it this far. It looked like any other patch of sand, when it was finished.

Upon remembering I had a Woods God captive, which would be perfect for protecting this Oasis, I summoned it from my bag, and planted it above the cartouche, so that it would have its roots inside the fiery Lake. It's Sap would mix with the golden water, and mingle, hopefully powering up the Woods God, so that it would be a more powerful threat, and an even more powerful Guardian.

I used a Geas on it to make a contract, saying it would receive power in return for protecting the Oasis for eternity, a rather simple contract, but nearly airtight, when I finished it.

The prison was finally as good as I could currently make it, so I relaxed, and stepped back, my work finished. Exhaustion swept over me as the Oasis sprung to life, and I just barely made it through my portal chain back to Bast's side before it closed.

Bast looked down at me, concerned. "What did you just do?"

"Made a Prison... can only be broken through very difficult means... tied to the life-force of Apep himself. It will drain his power away from him, and give it to you, as your own particular brand of godly power, if you give it a decent sample, from your true form." I smirked, lying through my teeth about the first part. The less people who knew about my involvement, the better.

She blinked, shocked, and then grinned slowly. "Well then, I suppose we should weaken him as much as possible, and then send him on his way, shouldn't we?"

I nodded, cracking my neck, and stuck my hand into the river of metal. A portion of it turned Ink-black, around my hand, which shocked me for a moment. I almost made to pull my hand out of the metallic water, but I kept at it. It revitalized me, despite the effect that it likely had on whatever this river fed into, which I needed right now.

I shook my hand off, and went to Bast's side. As I walked, I made sure to tap each of the dead snakes to rip out their magic, and the piece of Apep that resided in them. After all, if I took it, and allowed Bast's power to infect it, like Thor's, Apep couldn't reclaim it, ever, and while gods's souls were massive, they were not infinite, and that meant that he would slowly weaken, for as long as we made him continue making Avatars.

I charged the army of snakes, impatient for once to get home and see my family. Maybe catch a movie, or something else normal people did on a summer weekend. Was it even the weekend? I didn't know. I'd been so über-focused on my research I hadn't even talked to Zetre in weeks, and I would have to fix that, soon. Maybe take him out to a movie? That seemed like a normal thing. No magic, just a movie and some good food.

The snakes reached me as I was thinking, and I growled as one of them managed to pierce my skin, on the third try, and the venom was quickly negated, though it didn't stop me from being nauseous, and my balance from being shaken.

I ripped into them savagely, abandoning all of my attempts at remaining calm or collected, and replacing it with a Wild, Animalistic Rage. The Armies of Chaos, of all things, were something tangible that I was fighting, and the lunacy of that thought was irksome, to say the very least.

They died one by one, and then in droves, their relentless nature proving a boon to me, as none of them ran away, being too busy trying to eat me to contemplate their failing numbers.

I summoned a few thousand more snakes next to Apep, to Bast's annoyance, but it achieved the wanted effect, as he turned them into Avatars impatiently, and sent them off at us while he handled the True Form of Bast.

After a few hours, we were standing on the corpses of thousands of altered lava snakes, and Apep was not nearly as weakened as I thought he would be. He still battled Bast as ferociously as ever, shaking the beach with his savage thrashing.

An image of my vision came back to me, the one of my grandfather choking Apep with the Scarabs of the beach. They were mostly crushed now, not capable of flight, but the snakes... that might work.

I grabbed my Grimoire, and searched through it for any zombie magic, or maybe puppeteer magic, and found something from Rafaela's family. It required some very weird ingredients, but with a few well-placed portals, I gathered them swiftly, and dug a hole to use as a cauldron.

After scorching it into glass, I added the water from the river, instead of normal water, and began adding the ingredients, stirring with my hand, tightly clenched in a fist around a patch of black rose petals. Once it sat for about ten minutes, I began pouring a palmful into each snake's mouth, until I'd gotten them all.

That required me to make a few hundred more batches, but it was worth it, as the army of snakes began mindlessly biting Apep, swarming his sides and attaching themselves into him like tiny leeches, compared to his size.

His enraged screech almost deafened me, even though I'd been prepared, but it was worth it, as the snakes began to slither back to me, taking his power with them, transferring it directly into my Wand before returning for another round.

He began crushing them, whenever he had a chance between Bast's attacks, but she recognized my plan, and increased the ferocity of her attacks, reducing his opportunities to nearly zero.

The snakes I turned slowly lost their craggy, edgy, lava-snake look, smoothing out to glorious golden-scales cobra's, with gleaming white fangs. They began moving more autonomously, forming attack patterns and strategies to maneuver around Bast and Apep, and strike at the opportune moments. They found chunks in his armor, soft spots in his cobra's hood, and even a few swam down his throat, attacking from the inside.

I grinned, and gave them all the same venom that I'd gathered and mixed from the Spiders, as well as all the other poisonous beings who'd attacked me over the past year and a half, both magical and nonmagical.

Apep began subsiding almost immediately, as the blood loss and the venom worked their course, and soon enough he passed out, collapsing with a thunderous noise. The snakes immediately engorged themselves upon him, pulling magic away like an open leak in a barrel.

After a few hours, when his little Coma began to subside, I decided it was time. A portal opened at my command, as wide as I could make it, and I started at his tail, traveling up his body until his head started not to fit. Bast shrugged and shoved him in, crushing his hood to make him fit, and I slammed the gate behind him.

Next, I drew blood from Bast's true form, and poured it into the Oasis spring, letting it spread. The crystals trees, which all fed upon the spring, gained little golden veins, which amused me, as I closed the portal, and tossed away the key, so to speak.

Bast sat down slowly, and groaned in Relief as her form shrank to a vaguely human size, though the feline head was a bit off-putting. "This is the first break I've had in... mmm, twenty years? Twenty-Five? Bless you, my child, I am truly grateful."

"You are most welcome. Besides, it helps both of us, in the long run. And your break only lasts a few days at the most, as he will begin sending avatars out, instead. I had to preserve the balance somehow." I explained to her incredulous look, and she sighed, but nodded.

"True, the Balance between Chaos and Order is not one to be trifled with... but now your enemies have attacked me twice, and they will not receive a third chance. I want you to destroy them." She growled.

I smiled. "With pleasure, Lady Bast."