Larren Island
July 5th, 4:27 pm

Aunt Lin was a blur as she rushed toward me with Oddrún in hand. She had completely stopped holding back her speed and agility against me during our training sessions last week, and for the past couple of days, she had been pulling out all the stops. She was fast enough without her andivapn boosting her speed, but with Oddrún’s power, I could barely keep track of her movements.

“She’s going for our right side,” Demona warned.

That wasn’t surprising, since I had purposely left an opening on that side. One of the first things my aunt had taught me once we started getting into the advanced lessons a few months ago was that when dealing with an opponent who is quicker and more agile than you are, it is often difficult to control the flow of battle and gain opportunities to strike. In those cases, you have to create your own opportunities and try to remove their advantage.

So, since Aunt Lin was so graciously taking the opening that I had left for her, I was already moving Penny into position to parry her lightning-quick thrust with Oddrún, though that wasn’t all there was to the opportunity I had created for myself. Almost as soon as Demona’s warning rang through my mind, I replied, “I see it, Demona. Chain, now! Angela, light it up!”

Even knowing where my aunt was going to strike beforehand, I only barely got Penny in position in time to deflect the intended thrust, then quickly used my free hand to whip the flaming chain that was rapidly growing from the pommel around her legs. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to completely entangle her legs and knock her off her feet with her current speed, reflexes, and agility. It was, however, enough to get her to cautiously skip away in retreat without attempting a follow-up attack.

Once she had gotten out of range, she took a breath and let Oddrún vanish as she nodded and gave me a smile. “Nice feint, you nearly had me there. I think that’s good for now. You can take a ten-minute breather, and then we’ll get into some aerial combat practice.”

I nodded and let myself relax. We had been going at it hard and fast for almost an hour there, if my watch was to be believed, and I was starting to get a little winded. We had been on this island for more than seven months now, and it showed in our training sessions. I could keep up with my aunt, for the most part, unless she was using Oddrún, and my stamina had greatly increased along with my martial skills.

In part, this was because my aunt still insisted on training from dawn to dusk, despite the days growing steadily longer during our time on the island. We started our training at roughly five thirty this morning and would likely not finish until nine thirty or so tonight. The gradually increasing time and intensity of my training had come with huge downsides for my personal time, especially over the last month or two, but I couldn’t argue with the results.

I had become adept enough with all the weapons my aunt was training me on to satisfy her high standards almost two months ago. With that, and my ability to move between Planes without the Holy Plane transforming everything that I was carrying with me, we had been spending the past couple of months focusing on the advanced lessons, magic practice, and continuous fighting to try and get my instincts, physical abilities, and combat awareness on par with Aunt Lin’s. Privately, I thought that I was almost ready for whatever test she wanted to give me to complete my training, but that was her decision, not mine.

I was so ready to leave this island and see Lydia, Erin, and my girlfriend again. A phone call and some texting (and occasional sexting) every night just wasn’t enough. I missed all of them, and while it was nice getting to know Alice better through our nightly text chats before we got serious, some nights I just wanted to fall asleep snuggled up in the Mermaid’s embrace.

I probably would have daydreamed about Alice if such inattention would not have been immediately and painfully punished during training. My aunt had been mumbling lately about finding a suitable challenge for me, though, so maybe there was hope that we could go home soon. Still, I wasn’t homesick enough to not be grateful for the brief break before we threw ourselves back into training.

We had been going at it pretty hard, after all. Even Aunt Lin was breathing heavily, and I figured that contributed to her decision to announce this little break. Of course, that wasn’t the only reason. I had nearly gotten her that time, and she didn’t want either of us getting hurt seriously enough to set back the day’s training any further than this short break would.

She knew all too well that if I had made good on that chance to entwine her in Penny’s chain, I would have prevented her from escaping, restricted her movement, and kept her up close and personal, where I could make use of my superior strength. Then I would have won that spar. She also knew to be extremely wary of allowing me to entangle her in Penny’s chain on general principle after the last time, particularly when Angela’s pale flames coated it. Honestly, I couldn’t blame her for avoiding it now, even if it made these bouts harder for me, especially when she was going all out as she had been.

We had learned a few things about Angela’s flames and how they affected people. The first two things we discovered were during and after a particularly brutal sparring match, when I managed to break some of Aunt Lin’s ribs and give her a few nasty wounds with Penny. During that fight, we learned that if Penny currently saw a person as a hostile, and they were firmly entangled in the chain with Angela’s flames coating it, it was very difficult for the person wrapped in the chain to escape without manually unentangling themselves from the flaming chain. This was particularly true for teleportation since the flames seemed to prevent extra-planar travel by anyone within.

After that match, Penny felt pretty bad about trapping Aunt Lin and the injuries she had gotten during the match. So, when she surrendered, and we tried to entangle her, we accidentally discovered that the flames could heal people. We weren’t quite sure yet how versatile the ability was, if it only worked on Valkyries, or if it was something that would work on anyone that Penny (Angela in particular) wanted to heal, and we wouldn’t be able to experiment with that until my training was over and we could leave Larren Island. For now, all that we knew for certain was that it did work on both me and my aunt (at least when she wasn’t trying to beat us into the ground during our training sessions).

Aunt Lin was pretty sure that those flames would also have a nasty effect on Demons, or anything else aligned to the Death element, if Penny saw them as hostiles. Perhaps even if she didn’t. The healing and possible purification properties, and just the fact that those flames felt like Divine magic, made her almost certain that her guess on that matter was true as well. In fact, she was relatively sure that Penny was pretty much purpose-built to fuck up Demons.

Divine flames that could prevent Demons from teleporting away while they were theoretically burned to ash would be enough on their own to make sure any Demons around me had a bad day. Then there was the fact that Penny (or at least the demonic-looking sword that embodied Demona’s part of their body) greatly resembled a Kryztic’kol. Aunt Lin did not think that was a coincidence, given my heritage and the fact that my grandfather was an Archdemon.

My aunt knew very little confirmed information about such weapons, aside from the fact that they were pretty much unbreakable, could cut through practically anything, and could usually erupt in hellfire on command of their wielder. Going by the stories she had heard, a Kryztic’kol usually only comes into being when a Demon ‘evolves’ into an Archdemon, usually once that Demon has caused an unbelievable amount of death, destruction, and atrocities. The weapon isn’t just proof of what they are and a symbol of their status; it makes them much more powerful and gives them dominion over other Demons, because the rank-and-file Demons apparently fear those weapons nearly as much as Divine magic.

Demona’s blade looked uncomfortably similar to one of those weapons, according to Aunt Lin, though she had only ever seen two, and only one was close enough for her to make out any details. The massive double-edged sword had the same sheer size, the slight curve to the blade, and was serrated on the back edge. It even seemed to be made of the same darkly gleaming black metal that reminded me of obsidian, and the glowing crimson gem set in the bat-shaped cross guard.

Also, Angela’s flames were almost like a Divine parody of Hellfire. Aunt Lin suspected that Penny might have some other similar qualities to the demonic weapons as well. She couldn’t be sure what quality made the rank-and-file Demons fear those weapons so much, but she figured that there was probably a pretty good reason for it if it could keep Demons in line.

Most of what she knew about the weapons came from a Paranormal academic that she and my mother had met during the height of World War 2. That was around the same time that she got a somewhat close look at the real thing. It was wielded by a newly evolved Archdemon, but the weapon had turned to ash along with the owner under an assault of Divine magic from four experienced and powerful Valkyries. For them, it had marked an escalation in the war, and it was not long after that battle that their last two Valkyrie companions, Unne and Syn, were captured by the Demons working for the Germans and tortured to death before my aunt and mother could mount a rescue.

I tried not to linger on such dark thoughts and just enjoy the break, brief as it might be. Aerial combat was much harder than what I’d just gone through, especially with my aunt using Oddrún and not holding anything back. So, I knew that I was going to need all the energy I could summon for our next bout.

It was after our aerial combat practice that I spotted something concerning. We were high above the island and obscured by Divine magic from the admittedly unlikely accidental sight of normies, and my aunt had just announced a break, so we could head back to the Wings of the Sea to make and eat dinner. Instead of following Aunt Lin, I peered intently at the distant spot. It was still there.

Catching up with my aunt, who was winging off in the direction of the yacht, and the opposite direction, I called out, “Do you see that over there?”

A few powerful beats of her wings halted Aunt Lin’s forward and downward movement, and she turned to follow my pointing limb with her eyes. She immediately frowned. “Yeah, there’s something out there, probably a boat, but it’s hard to make out at this distance. I doubt that either of us would even be able to see it at all if we didn’t have a Valkyrie’s long-range vision and a bird’s-eye view.”

“Maybe it’s passing by, like a shipping vessel or something?” I suggested, though I wasn’t sure that I believed it.

It was a few minutes later that my aunt confirmed my own suspicion. “It’s not moving.”

Could they have broken down? No, that seemed like a reach, even to me. The whole reason I chose this island was that it was isolated, and people didn’t come here. Something about that speck on the distant water was making me nervous, and I muttered, “I don’t like this.”

“Me either,” Aunt Lin admitted. “They’re just sitting there, well out of visual range for most people and Paranormals who could be on this island. On the opposite side of the island from where we’re moored, too. That can’t be a coincidence. I’ll be right back.”

She vanished from sight, probably slipping through the Holy Plane, and a moment later, she returned with the pair of powerful binoculars that we had on the Wings of the Sea. Once she was beating her wings again to hover in place, she peered through the binoculars and adjusted them to her satisfaction. The frown on her face only deepened, prompting me to ask, “What is it?”

“Demons,” she confirmed, as she tossed me the binoculars so I could see for myself.

Yeah, that yacht was bigger than ours, and it was crawling with Demons who looked a lot bigger and stronger than those who had attacked me on Halloween. That was not a reassuring sight. “Well, shit,” I muttered.

Forty minutes after spotting the Demon party boat, we were on our own vessel and sitting down to eat dinner. Both of us had hardly said a word during the meal preparation, and my aunt had an annoyed look on her face that very much matched my current mood. “So, what does this mean?” I asked. I didn’t think I would have to elaborate; she would know what I was talking about, given the expression on her face.

“It means a lot of things,” my aunt grumbled bitterly. “It means the PDA has sprung a leak, not that I’m surprised. It means that they’re probably here to kill you, get your blood, or whatever it is they’re after. Most of all, it means your training is over. Those fuckers are your final exam, and if we survive, you graduate. So, I hope you can come up with a plan by the time we’re done eating.”

Her response was pretty much what I was expecting, but then, I had gotten to know her pretty well over the past months, and she had drilled me incessantly on Valkyrie ‘lore’ and our code of honor and such. One thing Valkyries never do is run from a fight or challenge. Even when we make a strategic withdrawal, it is only to regroup and hit the enemy harder from another angle, one they don’t expect.

Technically, this was my fight; they were after me. My aunt would fight by my side and do everything she could to help, but I needed to be the one to figure out how we handled this, using the skills that she had been teaching me since we arrived on this island. I needed to think, to put myself in the Demons’ shoes and come up with a way to get us out of this alive.

I had spotted almost two dozen Demons on that boat, and those were just the ones I could see. It was fucking overkill for two of us, especially since they looked like actual fighters and not just errand boys this time. Demon claws are one of the few things other than enchanted weapons that can cut a Valkyrie’s skin, and their regeneration was likely better than mine. There was no way that we were going to beat them all at once in a straight fight.

That wasn’t to say that we didn’t have advantages of our own, though. For one thing, even if they did know we’re Valkyries, they probably didn’t know even half of what we were capable of. That’s the very reason that our kind is so secretive about our people, and it would hopefully play to our advantage here.

My aunt and I had also been training on this island for over seven months. We had explored every inch of this island during that time of training, so we knew the territory, and that would allow us to use it against our enemies. If we could do that and prevent them from properly organizing their forces, then we could make this whole battle descend into chaos, and chaotic battles are where Valkyries thrive.

Then there were our andivapn. Between the massive boost that Oddrún gave my aunt to her speed, agility, and reflexes, and Penny’s abilities, I was certain that we had more than a few surprises in store for our opponents when they arrived. And that was the final advantage; we knew they were coming, we even knew where they were moored right now, and that gave us a little time to prepare.

As I ate, I quietly considered this, made and discarded various plans, and decided on the game plan that I wanted to propose. I had barely finished my last bite of venison when Aunt Lin asked, “So, do you have some sort of plan, or did we waste seven months of training?”

“I’ve got a plan,” I told her with all the confidence I could muster.

“Lay it on me, Kiddo,” she said as she leaned forward across the table to listen, her chin resting upon her entwined hands.

“They’ll wait until dark to attack, when their night vision gives them a tactical advantage,” I began. “It’s probably why they’re moored out there waiting and trying to keep out of our sight until they’re ready to make their move. When they do make their move, I think they’ll throw the bulk of their force against us, probably teleport around a lot if there’s enough open space, to make themselves hard to hit and so we can’t get an accurate guess at their numbers.”

“That sounds about right. They would be fools to give up those advantages,” she agreed, nodding in approval. “So, what do we do about that?”

“We can’t let them come after us here,” I insisted, the mere thought giving me chills. “If we try to fight on this boat, they’ll bog us down, and it’ll quickly become a death trap. We can’t use our really big advantages in an enclosed space like this either. So, we lure them onto the island, where we know the terrain and will have room to fight. We still have around two and a half hours until sunset, so we’ll build a fire and a campsite in that little valley where I broke my ankle during that second survival lesson. We’ll use pine for the fire; it should produce plenty of smoke for any scouts to notice. We should also use this time to enchant our mundane weapons and ammunition with Divine spells.”

“That’s doable,” she murmured thoughtfully. “There is a simple spell meant to make weapons very bad news for any Demon to feel their bite. In fact, it was created for situations much like the one we find ourselves in now. It doesn’t require much raw power, and I should be able to teach you the basic concept and visualization fairly quickly. Now, is there anything more to this plan, or should we leave and get to work?”

“No, there’s more,” I told her with a grin. Then I proceeded to tell her the rest of the plan.

When I was finished, for a moment, she didn’t say anything. I caught her trying to hide a smile, though, as she said, “Loki would love you, that’s the kind of plan he would come up with. Or she, depending on the day of the week and how much booze is available.”

Ultir sipped at a glass of expensive whiskey and watched the island with a smile as the sun dipped toward the horizon, the sky painted red as evening inched toward twilight. “How appropriate,” she thought, “the color of blood. A wonderful prelude to the blood we’ll spill tonight.”

She only wished that there was more of a challenge ahead. There were only two people on that island right now, if her source was right. Her informant didn’t know much about the girl; apparently, her file was restricted, and the only practical information that he had been able to provide was that she had come to this remote island for some sort of training with one of her mother’s people. As if mere training would allow a mutt to stand against a true warrior of Demonkind.

It was true that the girl’s mother had been a truly powerful opponent, but this was a mutt, neither Demon nor Valkyrie. Mutts, whatever their parentage, could never hold a candle to those that spawned them, and this girl was likely no exception. She may have eluded that fool, Reimus, but he was a weakling, and that was hardly an impressive feat.

The last sliver of the sun vanished behind the horizon, the signal that she had been waiting for. Taking her phone in hand, she unlocked it and called the number of the ambitious Troll that she had placed in charge of the forces who would be attacking the girl’s home. “Mistress Ultir, we are ready to move on your command,” she was informed almost the moment that the call connected.

“Good,” she replied simply. “Commence your attack in fifteen minutes. You can have some fun with the women, if you like, but kill them all afterward, and make sure they suffer first. Have the Efreeti burn the place down until it’s nothing but ash.” Then, as the scout she’d sent ahead returned, she disconnected the call without another word, turned to the scout, and said, “Report, Gellig.”

Gellig quickly thumped his chest in salute and informed her, “There are two of them, Commander, just like you said. They’re camped out on the island, toasting marshmallows like they’re on some sort of Girl Scouts trip. I don’t see this being much of a challenge. I heard Valks can be strong, but they aren’t Demons, and I didn’t see any weapons either.”

“Did they see you?”

“No, Commander, I didn’t make a sound,” he assured her. “They never looked my way, and the only time they stopped talking was when the stupid mutt lit her marshmallow on fire.”

“Good, teleport to their camp to act as an anchor for the rest of us then. We will be joining you soon, and then we’ll begin our attack.” This would be too easy; it was almost a shame. Ultir’s lips curled upward in a savage smile, her razor-sharp teeth gleaming as she turned her attention to the thirty warriors gathered on the deck.

Two of her men would be remaining behind to guard the vessel, but those on deck would be joining her for what would most likely not be much of a battle. She almost regretted all the planning and preparation that had gone into this two-pronged attack on both the mutt and her home. Perhaps this was a bit much for two people; most of her men probably wouldn’t even get to do anything before it was over. She would have been disappointed if this wasn't the night that she would avenge her defeat at the hands of Siv Demarco.

Even as Gellig vanished once again, she addressed her warriors. They already knew the plan, but it never hurt to reinforce their orders or to make them fear crossing her. “We leave on my mark, and once we appear, we overwhelm them with numbers. You can have fun toying with the Valk, but once there’s an opening, the mutt is mine. If anyone interferes with my kill, I will have my vengeance on you instead. It will be slow, excruciating, and you will wish you had never even heard of the word ‘regeneration’ by the time I’m done with you. Is that clear?”

Thirty warriors’ fists struck their chests emphatically in response as a chorus of “Yes, Commander!” rang through the air.

“Move out!” Ultir ordered, causing the group to vanish as one, even as she did the same. Finally, she would have her vengeance.