Bad Movie Night!

What happens when the mind of an author uses the Seventh Sanctum’s Generators to write about over-the top imaginary action film plots from the blurb of a one-line movie trailer? You get ’Bad Movie Night!’

In a hellish city, three monks seek the ultimate weapon and fight demons.

“You don’t belong here!” The demon roared as it charged toward Altemere with an almost impossible gait. Its yellowing fangs protruded from its maw at odd angles preventing the demon from being able to close its mouth completely. It huffed as it bounded down the wrecked street releasing wisps of smoke every time the thing’s feet hit pavement.

“That’s not true,” Altemere almost whispered as she waited for the bulky demon to enter the trap she had set up with her men. “You are the one who does not belong, but soon you won’t have to worry about that.” A wicked smile was strapped on her face. This was the part she enjoyed, the anticipation. Throughout all of the lifetimes she had lived, it was always the anticipation.

Altemere faced the demon that was half running, half jumping down the street filled with the carcasses of the burned out transport vehicles and rows of dilapidated buildings with a broadsword in her hand. She flicked her wrist causing the sword to spin in her hand. The blade reflected flashes of firelight back down the street. The thing bellowed whenever the light hit its sensitive eyes.

“Big son of a buck isn’t he?” the cold and distant voice came over Altemere’s earpiece. Altemere’s eyes glanced towards the upper floors of what was once a dormitory to where Fade was tracking the demon. She couldn’t see him, but she knew he was there.

“If the buck had mated a steaming bowl of jelly, yeah.” Valentine chuckled. He was on the other side. Altemere focused back on the demon that was moving up to a full head of steam. It was easy being bait. It was not so easy to be live bait that escaped.

“That makes no sense, Val.” Fade started, his voice was carrying that recognizable argumentative tone that had always preceded the two of them getting into a fight. Altemere frowned. She didn’t need a lover’s spat over the comlink.

“Can the chatter and focus, boys.” Altemere growled. They needed to keep the goal in mind. If she wanted the thing dead, she would have just killed it outright. She only needed it wounded in order to interrogate it. Afterwards was a different story. Afterwards the demon would be just so much flesh, bone, blood and subcutaneous waste.

“Almost there,” Altemere whispered. Her eyes were drawn to the spinning blade. She found it soothing to watch the metal flash and reflect the light from the fires burning. She found melancholy in that peace. This was not the first time Altemere had seen the city, or twice for that matter. Millennia ago when it was in its prime, it was stunningly beautiful.

Before the demons came, Yasnez was a city of culture. It was a place of worship and thought. It was of peace. Solastran Monks walked the streets clad in pale blue sarongs and posited about the writings of Xem Ti. The city itself attracted the most revered thinkers and philosophers.

The most favored of all the writings from Xem Ti could be heard throughout the city back then, “Master yourself in every way and all you do will prove true.” It was something that Altemere had been sent to learn from the Solastran Monks. It took thirteen lifetimes to for her to learn that simple truth.

There were no tears or cries in the city when the demons came. It just was. It was accepted as the way of things. The pacifism of the Solastran was not limitless, but it was overpowering. The great bulk of the populace was enslaved and slaughtered by the demon hordes before the Solastran began to mobilize to protect and defend the city. That itself took three lifetimes to achieve.

It was only the three of them that were left out of the entirety of the Solastran. The others did not come back. They were lost. There was no time for tears now. Altemere knew that there would be time for that later. The only imperative was to find the devastating weapon that the demons kept hidden from them.

The anticipation was pressing down on her. She could almost smell the beast. Altemere was spinning her blade faster causing the sword to flicker as if it were on fire. She knew that Fade and Valentine were watching, waiting for the signal to spring the trap and gather up the demon in mid-air.

“Almost there,” Altemere cautioned them. She could feel their anxiety tinged with her own rage at what the demons did to her beautiful city. It wasn’t easy for them to wait. Fade and Valentine had built up a great hatred throughout their own lifetimes spent and reborn. It was nearly as vast and as deep as Altemere’s own hatred of the putrescent beings. She admired her two companions though. It took lifetimes upon lifetimes to achieve the purity that they once had.

Their souls still reflected that wisdom when the both of them allowed the peace to settle in and express itself. When she saw them during those fleeting times, it was as if they were still sitting around the great fountain in the city square drinking tea. She could see them in their pale blue garb contemplating how the water fell or why the clouds decided to take the shape of a weasel.

Altemere hated the demons for taking that innocence and purity of thought away from her brethren and subjects. It was for that reason that she would find the weapon to transform all of the demons into nothingness. They would see their power for the fleeting thing it truly was.

“Now!” Altemere screamed as she rushed the soldier demon. Thick, steel cables sprang to life from either side of the street cinching the great net around the soldier demon that was suddenly caught unawares. The demon screamed as it was hauled up into the air by the cables and net.

“Now,” she said to the demon, “prepare to be enlightened.”