Written By: Epicstu Wyyvernwriter

Seemingly closer than ever now “ting” the sound rang loudly at a plateaued pace, but what else was new? T’was the sound of moving rock upon rock that had caused Noah and Maggie to turn around and find that the sleek metal door they had entered through was now rugged stone.  Burning torches replaced fluorescent lights and the guards guns became spears. “Finally, we arrive where we began,” Drak’s voice came down from the room at the end of the hall and his Fennecs stood at attention, allowing Noah and Maggie to pass. “Which is also where we end, and whenever we end,” staring down his adversary as he and his daughter enter before his throne, Drak grinned, “we begin.”

    “What do you mean when we end we beginnnahhh!” This time the strike of the hammer was ear piercing and made Noah and Maggie fall to their knees.

“You can see them can’t you?” Drak stood up from his throne and began to circle them. “Every time we’ve done this. Round and round we would go. Round and round we always go. Sometimes you win. Sometimes I win. Each and every time the clock resets and the Multiverse is either under my control, or that decaying feline’s protection. Every time we end up here at the apex of Mt. Conquest or on another world somewhere far from my home. Every time we begin anew and nothing is ever the same.”

Noah could see every time he had been here as though he was there in each alternate scenario omnipresently. “Maggie,” in all the ones where Drak lost, she died.

“They are both, but only one can be or neither are,” Nids words echoed multiple times from each scenario where Maggie dies, at the moment she died.

“Let’s find out who wins this round, shall we,” said Drak and Noah found himself forced, once again, to choose whether his daughter dies or Drak wins. 

“I’ve never died,” Noah realized and without a moment’s hesitation pulled the portal gun from his coat and shot a portal underneath Maggie as her assassin’s bullet flew through her hair, near-missing her scalp.

*          *

    An eight year old girl, scared and alone, shivered in the cold rain. Lights hit her as locale law enforcement discovered her and took her back to their station. They gave her a blanket and some hot chocolate, then asked her name. “Miller?” the Chief’s voice shook. ‘You’re Noah’s kid. Get her home, before Mr. Miller comes looking for her.”

    “He’s retired isn’t he?” an officer asked.

    “If he wasn’t before, he is now,” replied another. “We just got reports of an explosion at his apartment. There are no survivors.”

*          *

Nineteen years after her father’s funeral

Standing at her father’s empty grave stone as she often did, this time with a gun in hand. She had spent her every waking moment searching for him, but found nothing and no one. Rain fell hard as she brought the barrel to her mouth with a once steady hand driven to shake. Shouting into the muzzle she held her finger on the trigger as the thunder cracked and the lightning illuminated her father’s grave. A shadow from behind caught her eye so she turned, put the barrel to the stranger’s head, and pulled her trigger at the morbid site before her. Kicking the lifeless body she could not believe what she was seeing, “some sort of rotting cat zombie?”

“Sabertooth Cat, actually,” said a voice from behind her.  She turned around and saw an identical body floating before her. “Sorry for the intrusion, but I…” She shot the Cat dead before it could finish. “I would like to extend…” Again she interrupted the Cat with a bullet through the skull. “Alright… Fine… I… Wanted to see… What… You… Could… Do…” All around her the Cat seemed to respawn instantly after each death. She turned and shot one in the gut, then the head. Turning again, she shot one in the heart, another in the chest then head, and aimed to take out a third only to have her gun click with the sound of an empty chamber. Dropping the weapon she took a small metal case out from her jacket pocket, opened it pulling out a hand rolled joint, lit it as she put it to her lips, and inhaled. Before the Cat could say anything, she snapped its neck, but, “Feel better?” it had spawned again behind her.

“Fuck you,” she turned to face her father’s grave again.

“He told me you’d be a mess,” the Cat said to her. “He never mentioned marijuana.”

She said nothing in reply.  Falling to her knees and putting a hand on his head stone. “Who are you?”

“The Wyyvern of Undeath,” the Cat replied. “My friends call me Stu, the Nekolich, Writer. Meow do you do?”

She turned to the floating feline corpse held together by emerald green light and shook the outstretched paw-like hand before her, “Meow do you do? What do you want? My father better not be a fucking zombie.”

“Your father is with his afterlife. He is worried about you,” Stu put a paw-like hand on the grieving daughter’s shoulder. “He has asked me to help you.”

“I don’t need your help, Pussybitch?” She flipped Stu over her shoulder and snapped his neck before walking away only to suddenly find herself back staring at her father’s grave. “What the…”

“Allow me to rephrase,” Stu cleared his throat. “Your father signed for you. You work for me from meow on.”

She sighed with disgust at the black Cat’s pun, “what will I be doing?”

“Making sure this never happens to anyone else,” Stu replied. “If that is what you chose. Diplomatic immunity wherever you find yourself. Freely explore an entire Multiverse as your own boss doing essentially whatever you want. Only catch is you can never return to this Realm.”

She inhaled the herbal smoke from her joint into her lungs and held it there for a moment before exhaling, “When do I start?”

*          *

Current Reality Present Day…

“There,” the Nekolich gave the hammer one last swing, finishing his work and quenched his latest Wyyvern Masterwork. “and with that, Time is reset.” Of gears and Gyros in endless rotation and glowing with the origin and ending of all Time, the Wyyvern Clockwork Hammer rose up and applied finishes to itself. 

“This is my favorite part,” Travvurse beheld exquisite designs in the archangel of Time’s likeness etching themselves into the weapon as imperfections became corrected and smoothed over.

“Beautiful,” the Nekolich smiled at the newly found hope for his Multiverse. “You have already chosen your wielder. Go forth and claim him.

*         *

From a circle in Hell, that does not exist, the Devourer could hear the final strike of the Wyyvern Forge’s hammer. Anchored, his limbs pulled taught within the Undead puzzle box built around him, he cracked his knuckles with clenching fists and grinned a vile toothy grin that made all the Multiverse tremble, “finally.”

To be Continued…

The Wyyvern Knight Volume 2

Coming this Fall…

Special Thanks for help with Volume 1:

Mick39: Original creator of the Sergal Species

Mr. Migs: Season 5 Co-writer

Robert Whitmore: Season 7 Avisern Crossover

Pillowyspu: Season 9 Co-writer

Word Press: Publisher

E.P.I.C. : Every Possible Inspiration of Creativity aka You

Thanks for reading and thanks for being Epic