Chapter 44 – The Ulitharid

While the first group rescued the new Samsara bodies, another team consisting of Natasha, Sabrina, Lara, Tauriel and Buffy were standing over a dead group of around 12 illithids. 

There was a huge pile of dead human bodies nearby with their skulls sliced open. It was clear that their brains were recently eaten by these  monsters.

Sam already communicated with them about their attempt of healing and resurrecting those people who were turned into illithids, but Sabrina wanted to try anyway. 

She tried using her resurrection spells and healing spells on one of the illithids, as well as on the dead bodies who had their brains eaten, but found that at best, she would resurrect zombie-like people.

Their brains were already gone, so she could not restore the victim's personality or memories, only breathing bodies who did not even react to any stimuli, unlike Prince Leopold. 

Suddenly, Sam brought them immediately into the Nexus. 

"What's going on?" Sabrina asked, as she was in the midst of trying to heal the newly resurrected people. 

"One of the other teams is in trouble" Sam said, pointing to the viewpoint of Phoebe who was in the other group. 

--

That team consisting of Phoebe, Selene, Alice, Violet, Aeon and Melinda were in what looked like a  throne room, presumably the throne room of the Kingdom of Aristal. 

However, they encountered a being unlike any other they had encountered so far. In the throne room, they not only faced a large number of illithids, but the illithids were led by an ulitharid!

A ulitharid was a superior type of illithid, being stronger and larger with 6 tentacles instead of 4, and having superior psionic abilities. In fact, illithids treat ulitharids as minor gods and had absolute loyalty to them.

The girls found that their attacks were blocked with what looked like a psionic armor and it also seemed to have some immunity to magic! 

Before they could even attack, the ulitharid sitting on the throne had discovered them. 

With a mental command, Selene, Alice, Violet and Aeon immediately dropped their weapons and were forced to walk and kneel on the ground in front of it. 

While Phoebe and Melinda tried to resist, as being mages they had stronger willpower. But at the end, they too had to kneel. 

This was the viewpoint that Sam and the rest in the Nexus were seeing.

The ulitharid approached the kneeling familiars and picked Aeon up in the air telekinetically.

With its psionic powers, its grey eyes glowed and it started reading Aeon's mind.

Aeon started making gurgling noises as her whole body started shaking uncontrollably and her eyes rolled up her head. 

The ulitharid read her memories and started getting confused. 

"What are you?" it rasped in its alien voice. 

The ulitharid got confused because it seemed Aeon was a incomplete being. It read her mind to find out about her past, but all it saw was the few cut scenes that made up her life in the movies as a rebel Monican, then her life after she was summoned by Sam. 

It was as if she was not a real person! It seemed that she had existed only for a few days!

It threw Aeon's unconscious body aside and picked up Selene. Reading through her mind, she had a longer history as she was in several more Underworld movies, then her life as a familiar was similar to Aeon's. 

The ulitharid threw Selene's unconscious body onto Aeon's and picked up Alice. 

Again, Alice had more Resident Evil movies so she had a longer history. But at most, Selene's and Alice's life history couldn't have made them more than a few weeks old. 

Unsatisfied, it picked up Phoebe with its mins, whom Sam and the others were looking through inside the Nexus.

It's eyes glowed as Phoebe's mind was assaulted.

Suddenly, everyone from the Nexus could feel the creature looking directly at them!

"Who are you? Do you think you can escape my detection?" it rasped, looking at everyone in the Nexus.

Sam immediately switched views to Violet, who was on the floor, on her knees.

As the link broke, the ulitharid threw Phoebe's body aside and looked around and looked at Melinda who looked at it hatefully. 

It picked Melinda up with its mind, but as it tried to read her mind, she tried to cast a death spell on it.

The spell only affected it for a short while as some of its flesh seemed to rot a little, but its immunity to magic ultimately neutralized the spell.

It looked at Melinda with its cold eyes pulled her close with its mind, immediately forcing it's tentacled face onto her as if it was kissing her. 

Two of its tentacles entered her ears, two entered her nostrils while the longest two entered her mouth and down her throat. 

She could not even scream as she felt the tentacles move inside her skull and burrowing itself into her brain. 

Right at that moment, the calvary appeared as the familiars in the Nexus suddenly appeared and attacked. 

From Violet's viewpoint, they could appear from as many positions within their eyesight, so Natasha, Mindy, Lara, Tauriel, Selina and Yuriko appeared behind the illithids in the throne room, surprising them and killing them before they could resist. 

Silver blood flew everywhere as bullets pierced their brains and blades cut them up. 

The Samsara bodies attacked too as Aria's body burned up looking like she was made of lava, using her duel fire and earth abilities, while Arisa's eyes lit up and she summoned a tornado around her using her wind and water abilities. 

Both their attacks killed a few illithids as did the beastly Prince Leopold who attacked them like a wild animal, his claws and fangs cutting through them like knife through butter. 

Queen Serene summoned vines out of the ground to try and attack the ulitharid and Princess Celestia followed as she levitated and shot bolts of concussive blasts at the creature. But again its psionic shields seemed impenetrable. 

Princess Jemina tried to attack the ulitharid with illusions but it didn't even respond as it's psionic defenses automatically blocked it and caused Princess Jemina to scream as she collapsed onto the ground because of the backlash. 

Trix, Faith and Buffy launched a frontal physical assault on the ulitharid while Sabrina and Alex helped the other familiars recover. Similarly Gwen was also helping the familiars with her white healing magics. 

"Who dares?" the ulitharid screamed and launched an area attack with its psionic powers, causing everyone to collapse in pain with its debilitating mind blast. 

They lost all coordination in their bodies and the intense pain caused their mind to short circuit as they shivered uncontrollably on the floor. 

The exception of course was Trix who charged on without flinching. 

She fired her plasma cannot at the creature, but it's psionic shields were strong enough to easily deflect the blast. 

She changed up her weapons, firing them one at a time, including a laser and flame thrower but the shields were too strong. 

The ulitharid was still carrying Melinda in the air and its tentacles were still in her head. 

She turned around and her hands waved, under the control of the creature, and blasted death rays at the familiars on the floor. 

Trix collapsed where she stood and died, reappearing inside the Nexus. 

Sabrina cursed it with a spell and surprisingly the ulitharid's clothes started burning up, even thought it was covered in psionic armor. 

However, it didn't die as it ripped off the blazing robes it wore and dropped Melinda's unconscious body. It ripped it's tentacles out of Melinda's head, breaking her skull and splashing her blood and brains everywhere. 

"That.... that's my husband!" Queen Serene yelled, recognizing the clothes the ulitharid wore under its robe. 

"That's King Richard?" Gwen gasped out loud. 

"Daddy!" Princess Celestia screamed. 

The ulitharid ignored them as it threw away the flaming clothes and looked at Sabrina coldly. 

"You! How can you penetrate my shield?" rasped the ulatharid as it moved with surprising speed and picked Sabrina up with it's mind and its six tentacles started moving around her face. 

Sabrina didn't have enough time to cast the next spell as it suddenly bent over and two of its tentacles entered her nostrils, while another two entered her ears. The last and longest two entered her mouth and deep into her throat. 

She could feel the tentacles pierce through her brain as her eyes rolled up. As the tentacles in her ears and nostrils continued moving, it started controlling her body, making her move her hands up and down. 

"You will all die" the ulatharid rasped as it turned Sabrina's body around and caused Sabrina's hands to move and cast a spell. 

Instantly Buffy's body started burning up, turning into ashes in an instant.

Buffy didn't even have time to scream. Fortunately, she reappeared the next moment, naked in the Nexus next to Melinda. 

"Are you alright?" Sam asked. 

"Yes, but that creature is terrifying. What do we do?" Buffy asked.

"I don't know" Sam answered, looking out of the Nexus. 

Trix was burnt next, as only her terminator skeleton remained. But even the metal started melting due to the magical flames.

The familiars that died and resurrected in the Nexus like Buffy and Trix immediately exited and started attacking again. 

The ulitharid was getting frustrated as everyone it killed simply reappeared seconds later. 

The familiars scrambled and dodged as the ulitharid used Sabrina's body to cast more flames at the other familiars. 

Unfortunately for them, Sabrina's spell does not shoot out of her, rather the target simply suddenly bursts into flames. 

Mindy and Natasha started screaming as their bodies suddenly exploded in flames, turning into cinders within seconds. 

The familiars were getting desperate, as everything they did seemed to not affect the powerful creature, while using Sabrina's powers, they died instantly without being able to dodge or block her spell. 

Suddenly, Sabrina's body started moving on its own, out of the ulitharid's control. 

Her hands moved and grabbed the tentacles attached to her face and all six tentacles started to burn!

The ulitharid screamed in a screeching alien scream and the psionic backlash caused everyone to hold their heads in agony.

Suddenly, one by one, all the familiar's heads started to explode!

It finally stopped screaming after a while and threw Sabrina's headless body aside while trying to put out the flames on its face.

It stumbled around, tripping over a few headless bodies before it fled from the throne room with its face still burning. 

Sam was the only one in the Nexus that retained consciousness, but as everyone's head exploded, he suddenly couldn't see out of anyone's eyes. 

All the familiars started appearing naked in the Nexus, looking surprised that they had died again. 

They immediately exited the Nexus, only to find their previous bodies with exploded heads, and the Samsara bodies who's heads were regenerating. Unfortunately Prince Leopold was dead again. 

"It's gone" Sam said, looking for the ulitharid. The throne room was full of dead illithids and the many dead copies of his familiars. 

"The cocksucker ran away" Mindy said frustrated that they couldn't kill it. 

"It's not the only problem. The last team is in trouble too" Sam suddenly said, pulling everyone into the Nexus after receiving a distress message in the mind link.