Chapter 173 - Seventeen

XXXXII.

El had been drifting in and out of consciousness since the rangers had found her, as the serpent's venom continued to run its course through her body.

Upon her eyes being uncovered, she was skeptical of the sea of faces that greeted her.

She wondered if this was really a hallucination, or a dream.

Frogman was still giving his speech, but she could barely make sense of it.

"Infiltrated...devil living among us....face punishment!"

Suddenly, the feeling of a sharp, cold blade of a knife pressed against her neck brought her to a startling sense of clarity.

Typhon got off Bridgette's back, not content to simply stand by and watch. 

He pushed his way through the crowd, approaching the balcony, until Rangers swooped in and halted his advance.

"El didn't start that fire!" He protested. "You don't even have any proof!"

Suddenly, Jed stepped forth into view on the balcony.

"I've seen it," he said sternly. "Like a devil, she can light a fire with a wave of her hand."

The people of Bethel were furious.

How could she betray them like this, after they'd accepted her?

Typhon just stared at Jed, shaking his head in disbelief.

Bridgette couldn't believe it either. Looking around, she could sense the mood of the crowd. Their righteous indignation. Their fear. 

Their desire for blood.

Frogman's word was law, and Jed was someone whose word they trusted.

At this point, there would be no point trying to reason with them.

El's fate was already sealed.

Unbeknownst to Bridgette, however, was the full extent of El's hidden power.

And in that dire moment, now finding herself pushed to the brink, El knew if she unleashed all of it unto the scornful crowd before her, without restraint, she might at least be able to take some down with her before the knife fully severed her throat.

Best case scenario, her attack would startle her captor enough that she could free herself.

There was nothing to lose, and it would be so very easy.

People are cruel, and deserve to die. 

And yet, when she scanned the faces of the mostly angry, bloodthirsty villagers again, she glimpsed a few outliers. 

Many were faces that she didn't even recognize, looking away or looking scared. People with no say in the matter, who only saw an innocent girl being held up before them.

The old women who called her 'Snow' were huddled together, crying.

Bridgette was there, shaking her head with an anguished look in her eyes, silently pleading for her her brothers-in-arms to stop.

And then, there was Typhon. 

She saw him there, stretching out his arm as far as he could to try and reach her, but only touching the empty space between them.

El smiled, holding out her hand, and dipping it into that desolate void too.

"If only I had wings, to carry us--"

Before she could finish, Frogman drew the knife across her throat, silencing her.

Everyone gasped, and watched silently as the blade was dug deeper, eviscerating the flesh and muscle of her neck, going as far as the bone and then around it.

Blood sprayed out like a fountain, prompting screams from shocked onlookers.

Typhon screamed, his heart pumping as he flew into an uncontrollable rage. He drew a small knife -- the only weapon he had on him -- and made a dash toward the balcony, only to get rushed by rangers.

Through mass of their bodies piled on top of him, barely pinning him down, he could still see.

Saw El's body fall, as Frogman held her detached head up in triumph.

And those among the crowd of villagers who allowed it to happen all rejoiced, and cheered. 

XXXXIII.

The people of Bethel were on their knees, sweating by a roaring bonfire set in the middle of the square, crying as they heaped their thanks unto the almighty.  Others, still seeing the red in the sky, brought livestock to offer up as sacrifices in his honor. And Frogman, through all this, played master of ceremonies for it all, continuing to stoke the fears of his people into making more and more frenzied attempts at gaining God's good favor.

Bridgette ran from the town square where all of this was happening. She couldn't stand it.

From what little interaction she'd had with El, she knew this outcome wasn't right. That this time, the villager's fears had been completely unfounded.

As she knelt over, leaning against a tree for support, she felt a shadow pass over her.

She turned, and came face to face with the last person she wanted to see.

"It had to be done, Bridge," said Jed.

Bridgette stood upright, clenching her teeth. "You bastard," she seethed.

"There was that other fire, yesterday," he said. "Even if she never intended to harm the village, who's to say one of her fires wouldn't accidentally spread to the village?" 

"How dare you say that." She clenched her teeth, furious.

"How dare you stand here and tell me a little girl had to die, for the good of the village."

She grabbed him with both hands by his shirt collar, shaking him.

"Is that your excuse!?" Bridgette shouted into his face. "Is that all you came here to tell me!?" 

Jed remained calm, however, which only served to make Bridgette more angry.

"I can't even stand looking at you anymore."

Realizing she wasn't going to get any more answers out of him, she tossed him unto the ground.

"I'm going to get Typhon," she said, brandishing her axe.

"Get in my way, and I'll kill you."

XXXXIV.

On Frogman's orders, Typhon was placed on the incline overlooking the village in a wooden cage, as punishment for 'bringing the devil into their midst'. 

Typhon could only vaguely make it out at the very top of the cliff, cast against the lights coming from below. It was a ghostly pale blotch, suspended in the air, with a black hole of a mouth stretched wide open in an unnatural, twisted angle, to facilitate the spike that was pierced through it. Misty white hair, falling all around it like a funeral shroud.

Typhon laid down on his side staring at it, in the dirt, wishing only for death.

The world seemed to compress around him, into a small bubble. A small bubble wherein time stood still, and everything outside of it ceased to matter. 

He didn't so much as stir, at the anguished cries of the ranger posted outside of the cage.

Nor react to the loud thump, when the ranger had fallen. Dead.

"Typhon!" He heard Bridgette cry, and yet still didn't budge, even as she began frantically chopping at the bars of his cage, grunting from exertion.

Please don't, he silently pleaded. I don't deserve to be saved.

She broke through the bars with one final swing, raining shards of shattered wood inside.

Is this what El was feeling, on that night we met...? 

Did she feel this way all along?

All the while, a large, black shape was moving across the sky, gradually eclipsing the moon. 

Casting the world below, in darkness.

XXXXV.

An enormous, winged Goliath levitated above the village of Bethel. 

Its elongated, smooth face and aquiline nose, solemn expression and sharp jaw features, with a laurel wreath adorning its moonstone hair, gave it the appearance of a cruel and detached sculpture of an ancient emperor, come to life to mete out divine punishment unto his people.

And divine punishment, the Goliathdid bring. From its eyes rained down a constant barrage of glowing beams upon the village, destroying everything they contacted with in great, explosive bursts, that reduced people into mere smoking piles of gore, and houses into leveled husks. The people of Bethel panicked and fled from the square, futilely seeking refuge from the beams that fired erratically in all directions, seemingly without rhyme or reason. 

More machine than man, the Goliath showed no mercy, even as great rivers of blood gushed from its gaping, pitiless eyes like tears.

A troop of rangers formed up, and began firing their bows at the monstrosity. 

In horror, they watched as the arrowheads would plunge into its flesh then be absorbed within, to no apparent effect.

Through the rising smoke, a smaller entity could be glimpsed standing upon its shoulder.

It was an old sage, with white feathered wings extended from its back. His beard was long and white, his eyebrows thick and furrowed, imposing a stern expression unto his wizened face.

Israphiel derived no joy or pleasure out of making the humans suffer.

This was merely divine justice, and it would not let up until they found their missing sister.

In their wake, a flock of gargoyles descended unto the village in a cacophony of ear-piercing screeches. They were weak on their own, easily dispatched with a single arrow or well-placed weapon strike, but made a nuisance by their incalculable numbers as they continually harried and dove at people with their sharp talons. 

Another group of rangers was gathered in the square, successfully fending off a gathered flock of the winged pests.

Seeing this, Israphiel bristled, then turned to his compatriot perched upon the Goliath's other shoulder with his arms crossed. Its face was a hairless red dome, absent of eyes or nose or mouth where the flesh all had completely emulsified. Around his neck was a golden collar of a jagged, asymmetrical design, and he was dressed in interlocking plates of dazzling, ivory white armor to make for a truly imposing sight.

"Annihilate them," Israphiel commanded him.

Let them know our Father's wrath.