The hyperviolent-deranged air surrounding Josh had disappeared leaving bewilderment and more than a little frustration. On top of that, his nose was full of the sickeningly sweet stench of Fire Aura roasting his skin into pork rinds… Again! He would have loved to shift uneasily in the Essence tethers that were burning him around his neck and chest. But he was held too tightly in place by the encasing stormwinds coming from one of the gold plated giants standing in the background, flexing his hands over and under a bowling ball shaped vortex of dark clouds. Josh didn’t give him too much attention, way to focused as hi was on the extremely angry ten-foot-gold wearing god who was presently pointing a six-foot-long serrated blade right between his eyes.
~Crap…Sen. I’m … I’m sorry… I have no idea what came over me, or why. Josh’s chagrined tone made it clear that he new what a schmuck he had just been in pushing their advantage too far.
~I just had to keep pounding them… I know– I mean I knew, that Theia warned us about not ‘freeing’ our opponents’. And of course I know that there is no way we can go toe to toe with a bunch of Earth gods… But for some reason, None of that mattered.~ Josh’s voice grew far away, as if he was remembering something like an uninvolved third person would. ~My blood was boiling. And I had those bastards under my heel! They were going to pay for their insolence against us at any cost!~ Passion again threatened to fill his mental voice, but Josh forced it to ebb away into subdued regret. ~But now, everything is… stilled. I can’t explain how I lost control. But i can see what a fool I was for overplaying our hand…~ The lawyer’s voice trailed off into unresolved reflection… He then shifted into his normal, slightly pressured things-need-to-get-done mode. ~...Considering the current matter at hand.~ Josh thought of the four red tethers that the Aztec’s crush roller was pulling taunt against whatever wind power the Mesopoamians, Babalonians or whoever they were gods, were using to keep the two of them suspended in the air; as well as the tip of the jagged toothed saw stuck in his face. ~I’m, umm… fresh out of ideas, brother. What do you have, ahh, plan-wise to keep these two teams from pulverizing us? Anything??~
Sen’s fuming visage made it clear that he hadn’t quite moved on to the new topic as fast from Josh had. ~What do you mean us white man?! The Sumarian Sun god is only pointing his saw at you.~
~...I’ve been a bad influence on you, haven’t I, Sen.~ The deadpan tone in Josh’s mental voice made it plain this was not a question. But just as Josh couldn’t hide his true feelings of regret at having blasted the four gold plated Star Children free from the limits of their crush roller, he could also tell that his brother’s angry looks and angrier words had no real force behind them. Besides, Josh’s personal problems with the vengeful fertile crescent god aside. The Aztecs burning Fire Aura leashes were a problem that they both had to deal with–
“Utu, you xolopitli pendejo Sumarian! We had these tlācatl first. Release them or we will shame you worse than they already have!” The flayed man sitting in the left middle of the Fire-Aura crush roller, presently snaring Josh and Sen leaned forward and hissed loudly at the leader of the four opponents Josh had just bested. The Aztec’s bony finger actively dripping blood-tinged sinew as it pointed at the gold plated giant drawing his serrated blade on Josh. For the first time Josh also noticed that his soon to be Sumarian killer was sporting a wide yellow streak that ran down the center of his dark, chest-length beard. And that he was also emitting several solid looking sun rays that projected into sparkling points from his shoulders.
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At least now I know it’s a Sumarian named Utu that wants to skewer me like cubed steak. Josh couldn’t keep the stray thought from running though one of his channels of active consciousness while another portion of his awareness noticed at that same time that the two young female Aztec goddesses, seated on the bookends of the fire crush roller’s passenger line, along with the right-middle seated rock looking god, were obviously in complete agreement with their skinned leader. They all wore stern facial expressions and were making uncomplimentary hand gestures in the general direction of the four freed Sumarians. The exact meaning of the gestures Josh didn’t quite understand. Though from the tense atmosphere steadily growing between the two groups, he was pretty sure that scooping air from under their crotches and armpits was probably less than amicable.
The sun-god Utu grimaced at the flayed Aztec’s words and flexed his right hand into a fist. Luminescent power surged from the ground under Utu and streamed animbus of yellow-white Aura surging around him. With a sour expression the Sumarian turned from Josh and Sen. His baritone voice taking an even more ominously deep tone addressing the Aztecs.
“Xipe Totec, you and your gaba driving shabarra have already lost your chance. Moreover, you are too late making any claim here!” Gleaming light shone between Utu’s thinning lids as he looked back at Josh. “This is now personal between me and this human!” Josh gulped once at the enmity coming from the towering god in waves. The forty-four-year-old human was glad when Utu turned his frying gaze back to the Aztecs. “I won’t warn you again flayed one. Take your three munus and go!” Utu slashed his hands out to the sides indicating the universal sign for ‘get lost!’
His three Sumarian teamates burst out laughing at some part of the verbal slight that Josh’s Interface was only partially able to translate. But whatever it meant, the Aztec carved from stone took it the hardest and began shouting a tirade of untranslated words in a guttural dialect that only made the other three gods already freed from their roller laugh harder. For himself, Utu punctuated his last statement by snapping his left arm from his side with all five fingers extended into a blade. The yellow/white nimbus of power surrounding him shot out in a thick beam of yellow force and slammed into the Aztec’s roller, slapping it out of sight in a series of lopsided donuts that sent a billowing trail of dust and loose gravel flying in all directions. Whether it was the distance or the assault of the roller itself, Josh had no idea, but the four tethers of Fire Essence binding him and Sen were extinguished. Their Essence once again flowed through their meridians quickly healing the superficial burns and allowing them both to promulgate full-body Earthen shields. Josh and Sen also both reflexively absorbed Space/Time Aura. However, neither him or Sen were able to move, translocate away, or phase out of the immobilizing storm force winds still surrounding them.
Immediate concerns about the interloping Aztecs apparently dealt with, Utu spun his ten-foot frame on its heels and power once again surged into him from the star below. This time the golden/white glow channeled directly into the slashing edge of his monstrous one-handed saw and the business edge of its gleaming serrated razor slashed a brilliantly straight cut through Josh’s Earth shield, his right foot above the ankle, and mid-shin above his still healing left foot-stump. Golden/orange motes of diffusing Earth Essence floated up as Josh’s blood pumped like a pressure washer in beats, covering the two dead lumps of meat that had just been the ends of his lower extremities. It took a second for the crippling pain to explode in the dark numbness of his mind like red and white chrysanthemum sky rockets on the Fourth of July.
Utu’s expression went from sublime to quizzical as he lifted his weapon and held it at the ready for a second strike. “...What am I going to cut off next human?” Said almost to him self in a barely heard mumble. Then in apparent afterthought he looked over his shoulder to one of his teammates. “...Enlil, do you mind. I like to hear the screams.”
The Star Child behind Utu wearing the large golden peaked hat and cradling the bowling-ball-sized vortex of dark air and clouds shifted his hands from superior/inferior to right and left. Instantly the two human’s heads were free allowing Josh’s grunts of pain between ragged breaths to be heard by all. Utu’s beaded face brightened to a full smile and smaller copies of the solid sun rays on his shoulders emitted from the upturned crinkles around his glowing yellow eyes. He took a full minute and bask in Josh’s audible suffering.
