It turned out to be a veritable spectacle that for a few seconds brought the entire battle to a standstill.
The sphere of flaming white light expanded until it dissipated in a horizontal shockwave that displaced the air at high altitude causing a thunderous sound. Almost the entire upper part of the citadel came apart, so to speak. Towers and walls volatilized leaving only an elevated, smoking base on top. Only the lower levels and the outermost towers remained standing.
The air displaced by the explosion reached the ground, accompanied by a slight tremor that opened some cracks in the surface. Many of the combatants, both extra-dimensional visitors and resident shadow monsters, had to make a conscious effort not to fall to the ground.
Eamon had shielded his wife and children. Friday, Dora and Theo watched everything while wrapped in the arms of the huge lycanthrope. Thursday and the gargoyle Enid had to lean on each other to keep from falling. Saint-Clair transformed completely into her werecat form and used her claws to secure her position.
Next to her, Woe merely stood with her arms crossed, immovable. It was as if the explosion meant nothing to her. Her gaze remained focused on the heights of the half-destroyed citadel, where she could make out movement despite the distance.
"I presume our enemy has been responsible for this and is up there, dealing with Enid and Wednesday," said the ever-stern Addams.
"Yeah, those look like The Bright One typical fireworks," said Saint-Clair, dropping her full werecat form and shifting to a hybrid form, "Weds & Enid must have either flipped them good or put them on the ropes, they didn't do anything of that magnitude in our first encounter with them."
"Enid and Wednesday are here too?" asked Friday.
"Yes. This whole rescue operation is Enid's doing," Dora explained to her mother, "It's a bit of a long story. The truth is... Wait, how long have you been here, Mom?"
Friday couldn't help but feel some apprehension as she answered. From her first excursion between dimensions and her return she remembered well the lesson of how time passed differently between realities, "I can't tell you for sure, my little chomper, but maybe a few weeks..."
The twins exchanged a glance, in one of those moments of silent communication Friday had seen countless times between her children. Finally Theo returned her gaze, with some restrained nervousness.
Afraid to say something that might cause me pain, Friday thought.
"It's been months for us, Mother," Theo said, "It's been...the wait has been long."
Friday didn't answer. There were no words. She just hugged her children again. She felt the weight of Eamon's muzzle resting on her shoulder with a pained whimper, trying to comfort his wife. The relief and her love for her family was still there, and the happiness of being reunited was still the predominant emotion. But it had been joined by a tinge of sadness at the thought of what her family must have suffered and feared all that time, shaken simultaneously by hope and uncertainty. And the thought of it caused another emotion to well up in Friday.
The Addams in pink parted from her children, gently, offering them serene smiles of comfort before giving a final caress to her lupine husband's head. But when she turned to Woe, there was no serenity on her face.
Woe would never admit it, but she had to tense every muscle in her body to keep from flinching in surprise. Beside her, out of the corner of her eye, she could see Saint-Clair's fur bristle in alarm.
Friday's normally affable and cheerful face had turned into a mask of cold wrath worthy of Woe herself. But the main element was her look. The warmth in Friday's eyes had given way to an icy, steel-like stare. And behind it burned an indescribable fury. It was not homicidal rage, nor hatred born of irritation or misanthropy. It was not even the anger generated by a desire for justice or vengeance.
It was a mother's fury.
"Let's go up there. I've got a few serious words to have with that so-called Bright One."
"Yes ma'am," muttered Saint-Clair, slightly intimidated. Woe for her part merely nodded.
"I'm going to stay here," the gargoyle Enid interjected, casting a glance around and taking note of how the fighting was being resumed, with Shadow Hydes popping up everywhere, "There are still cells to open and monsters to exterminate. Good luck getting up there. If I could I'd try to take some of you, but my thing is more gliding than flying and I don't have many options for taking off from down here."
"Mind if I tag along, winged companion?" asked Thursday, "I've been months stuck in one of those cells and I wouldn't wish it on anyone, variants of mine or not." The gargoyle Enid merely shrugged, but there was approval in her gesture. Thursday turned to Friday, "I'm going to lend a hand to the rest of our counterparts still awaiting release. Do what you have to do and I expect you to come back and tell me the story."
Friday took Thursday's hands in a parting squeeze, "Thanks for the company. I'm sure I would have lost my mind if I didn't have anyone to chat with."
"Ah, but how much fun would that have been?"
With the farewells done, the group set out on their way to The Bright One's citadel. Before doing so, Woe approached Friday.
"Dagger, sword or crossbow?"
Friday raised an eyebrow, with curiosity, "Dagger, always. Why?"
Woe pulled out a pair of daggers that seemed to materialize from the sleeves of her dress all the way to her hand. She offered them to Friday as she raised her crossbow, "Enid variants, like your husband or my paramour, can wound those monsters with no problem. For the rest of us, weapons have been prepared that can get the same result. The effectiveness is greater if you manage to catch them by surprise, that they don't see the attack coming."
Friday took the daggers, weighing them. She spun them around in her hands and between her fingers as if she were a juggler before finally grasping them by their hilt. She glanced at her children and could see that Theo had his own pair of daggers, while Dora was now clutching a sizable sword, making good use of her werewolf strength.
Finally, they set off, racing through the wide corridors of the cell block. They ran in a line, with Saint-Clair in front and Eamon covering the rear. Occasionally one or more Shadow Hydes made feints of intercepting the group, but they never posed a real problem. Besides, most of the monsters seemed to have more to worry about.
More and more variants of Wednesday Addams were being unleashed and more and more variants of Enid Sinclair seemed to be making an appearance to make life difficult for the shadow creatures.
Friday watched as a semi-transformed but seemingly cyborg-like lycanthrope Enid ripped off one of the cell doors before her, not only freeing the imprisoned Wednesday but using the door to deliver a surprise blow to a Shadow Hyde who had attempted to ambush her from behind. Said Shadow Hyde saw its end come when a vampiric Wednesday landed on its head, skewering it with a long spear.
Up ahead, a lycanthrope with dark black fur was butchering a group of Shadow Hydes. Friday at first thought it must have been a lupine variant of herself, but that didn't fit with the information on the enemy's vulnerabilities she had just received. The answer, that the black-furred werewolf was actually an Enid, came from the platinum-blonde-haired Wednesday next to her who was effusively applauding the spectacle with positively maniacal euphoria.
At the last intersection, coming almost to the end of their route, Friday's heart shrank for a moment at the sight of a group of about five or six Wednesdays, all of them young in age. The oldest was undoubtedly no more than seven years old. Fortunately, they were well protected. Any Shadow Hyde who made the slightest attempt to approach them was destroyed by a single brown-haired Enid. She wore a curious orange garb, similar to that of a martial artist, and destroyed her enemies either with direct blows from her fists or her staff, or by emitting what seemed to be blasts of energy from the palms of her hands. The speed and strength she displayed was even greater than one would expect from a lycanthrope. And she must not have been a werewolf, something that Friday noticed when she observed how this variant of Enid possessed what seemed to be a monkey-like tail.
After more minutes of advancing that had begun to seem interminable, they reached the outside of the cell area.
In front of them stretched the space between the prison block and the citadel, an open courtyard of enormous size. If the corridors of the prison were a chaos of confrontations, their current location had become a full-fledged battlefield. A tide of Shadow Hydes covered the premises, being repelled by different more or less organized groups of fighters, thousands of counterparts mostly from Enid, but there were also several Wednesdays. Even from a distance it was appreciable how a large number of them were lycanthropes, with different forms or peculiarities but in greater numbers than any other variant
"Σκατά! That damned building is still a good distance away," said Saint-Clair, "And getting through all that is going to be tricky."
"We have to try, we can't turn back now...", Friday started to say before she was interrupted by Eamon grabbing her to pull her away from a Shadow Hyde's clawing attempt. The monster had materialized from the shadows on the floor cast by the prison walls next to them.
The shadow creature wasted no time and immediately spun on itself ready to launch its attack on the werewolf. But while still in Eamon's arms, Friday threw one of her daggers with such force and celerity that it went straight through one of the Shadow Hyde's eyes, hitting squarely whatever the equivalent of its brain was. The monster fell dead to the ground almost instantly, beginning to dissolve and leaving as its only trace a pool of grayish ectoplasm and the dagger that had killed it.
Before reaching down to pick it up and try to clean the weapon a bit, Friday planted a light kiss on Eamon's wolfish face, "Thank you so much for the save, mi lobo."
"Let's not let our guard down. This place is a teeming hive of enemies," said Woe, and almost as if her words summoned them, half a dozen of Shadow Hydes leapt from the battlefield toward the group of newcomers after becoming aware of their presence. The beings seemed more driven by a homicidal frenzy than their compatriots inside the prison. It was almost as if they were desperate and their attack reflected a brutality and lack of finesse befitting such a situation.
Theo and Dora took care of the first. Theo launched one of his electric shocks, drawing the creature's attention to himself and distracting it, leaving the Shadow Hyde vulnerable to an assault from Dora's massive sword. Its severed head flew through the air as its decapitated body fell.
Friday climbed onto Eamon's back, and as her husband intercepted one of the beasts by sinking his claws into the shadows that made up the monster, the Addams in pink mimicked the vampire Wednesday she had observed minutes before and leapt onto the Shadow Hyde's head, plunging her daggers deep into its skull. It didn't kill the being immediately, but made it raise its head in a howl of pain, leaving its throat at the mercy of Eamon's maw.
Woe accounted for two more herself, with the unerring precision of her always accurate and reliable crossbow. And without flinching at any point, for any other Shadow Hyde that might come near her was facing the sharp claws of Saint-Clair, who sliced through the creatures' shadowed flesh with an almost psychotic glee.
Friday leapt to the ground from the dying Shadow Hyde's body, somersaulting as she fell before sitting up and realizing that another of the creatures was closing in on her with haste, about to pounce on the Addams and skewer her with its claws. Friday raised her daggers, ready to meet her new adversary head on and without fear, but her chance was stolen by another creature ramming into the Shadow Hyde, knocking it down.
Grayish skin, bulging eyes, sharp teeth... The newly arrived creature presented a morphology very similar to that of the Shadow Hyde, but with notable disparities. Of course, the fact that it was a being of flesh and blood and not a monster made up of solidified shadows was the most obvious. The huge head was covered by a mane of curly hair that extended down its back and torso in an almost leonine fashion. Its limbs, despite being disproportionately long, seemed to possess more muscle and symmetry than those of the Shadow Hyde. Where the latter's silhouette appeared deformed and sickly, the newly arrived monster appeared healthy and strong.
So surprised was she by the appearance of what appeared to be a new ally that Friday didn't notice that someone had stepped up beside her.
"That's Taylor," said a voice next to her.
Friday turned and found herself confronted with a face almost identical to her own, though noticeably younger. The hair was black, and pulled back in the ever-familiar pigtails. The newcomer wore a dark blue dress with a high white collar and buttons of the same color. Blue stockings covered her legs and she wore black combat boots that contrasted with the entire outfit.
"You don't know how glad I am that we found you," she said, with a shy but familiar smile that Friday recognized immediately, wrapping the young woman in a hug.
"Pup!" she exclaimed, "Oh, you've grown up so much!"
"Don't remind Woe, she hides it but I think it gets on her nerves that we're older than her now," said Pup, "Wait till you see Nee..."
A crossbow bolt flew past between the two, sinking into the skull of a Shadow Hyde that had begun to materialize in the shadows on the ground a few feet from where they stood. The two Addams looked at Woe. The latter merely shrugged her shoulders as she reloaded her weapon, her face almost expressionless save for a slight twitch at the corner of her lips that betrayed a suppressed smile.
A roar attracted their attention. Taylor stood now next to the two, jerking her head towards the battle.
"You said her name was Taylor?" asked Friday, eyeing the creature curiously.
"Yeah, she's... hum... she's my Hyde," Pup said, blushing slightly and trying to sound as nonchalant as possible as the transformed Taylor nudged her gently with her head. A pretended nonchalance that failed to fool Friday's sharpened maternal senses. It was obvious that to Pup that relationship represented much more.
"I think what Tay-Tay is trying to tell us is to get moving," Saint-Clair interjected.
"Yes, if we are to keep fighting let's keep moving towards the citadel," said Theo.
And so began the longest and hardest minutes of their lives. Advancing across the battlefield, intercepting attack after attack. This time it was Eamon who led the way like a lupine bulldozer. Many of the other combatants, both Enids and Wednesdays, recognized both him and especially Woe. Without need for words, orders or requests, they began to cover the advance of the group, helping them to break through.
A couple of Enid and Wednesday who looked like they had escaped from an old Hollywood western were unloading the ammunition from their revolvers into multiple Shadow Hyde as they let out cheers of jubilation.
A golden furred creature, presumably an Enid although more similar to the mythical Sasquatch than a werewolf had managed to grab a Shadow Hyde by one leg and spin it in the air as an improvised weapon against others.
Two Enids, back to back, seemed to be getting good results. One of them, not unlike the Enid they knew, wore a formal school uniform and held in her hands what appeared to be a magic wand from the end of which emerged streams of multi-colored light that caused different effects when they hit their targets.
The Enid next to her was dressed entirely in black, clothes that would look more like those of a Wednesday, along with a broad-brimmed pointy hat. But most peculiar was her green skin and the way she used a broom as a makeshift channeling staff, emitting waves of emerald magical energy that lashed out at the Shadow Hyde.
A punk-looking Enid with visible cybernetic implants in her face and limbs ran from one end of the battlefield to the other, severing the arms and legs of the Shadow Hyde with huge blades emerging from her forearms, giving her the appearance of a deadly mantis.
An Enid dressed only in a tunic and with huge white wings on her back was fighting with a flaming sword. The shape of her body appeared human but at times it fluctuated and for a few seconds something resembling a wheel of fire with multiple eyes and wings took her place.
Next to her, an abnormally tall and muscular Wednesday, demonic-looking with red skin and horns that seemed to have been cut off, fought with a normal sword in her left hand while using a disproportionately large and stone-like right hand as a makeshift shield. All while smoking a cigar.
All around them as they run, Enids and Wednesdays were fighting the Shadow Hydes, and it seemed that unaccustomed to opponents capable of defending and damaging them, the monsters had no advantage other than their numbers and even that was beginning to diminish.
So it made all the sense in the world that they would begin to adapt.
"What the fuck is that!?" exclaimed Dora.
To the right of the group, there had emerged... no, it wasn't a Shadow Hyde. Not a normal one at least. It was as if three of the creatures were merging into one and had not yet finished the process. The being was much taller than its fellows, with a smaller second head on its deformed left shoulder and multiple limbs of diverse size emerging from an abnormally long torso. It was almost as if two torsos had been wedged one on top of the other.
And it ran towards them, almost as if sensing the ultimate intent of the group, pushing aside everything that stood in front of it, friend or foe, and uttering an inhuman scream that reverberated as if three throats had emitted it.
But over the monster's scream, another, much louder proclamation took hold, as a figure encased in dark armor surged through the air, falling straight towards the creature.
"FOR THE HOUSE OF ADAMO!"
NOTES
Apologies for the delay. Holiday period here in Spain
and busy with family visits. Also, I had to go back and cut things to
move them to the next chapter. This is turning out to be more humongous
to write than my initial estimates 😅😱
Some translations!:
Σκατά!: (greek) Shit!
mi lobo: (spanish) my wolf.
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