Kin of Exile

by Tyler Bunyard

  From his appearance, Johnny was still in bad shape. His skin was drained of all color, and if Karrel did not know any better, he would have pegged him as a dead man walking. His shoulder had been professionally patched-up by Puck, but in the end, he was still freshly missing his right arm.

  Karrel did not know why Puck had brought Johnny back to the battlefield. It was obvious he was in no shape to fight. However, he did not care. It mattered not to him whether his friend would live or die in this battle. All that mattered was that he annihilate his opponent.

  “I know, I know!” Puck insisted, as he approached Karrel. “Why the hell would I bring him? But, he’s an insistent bastard, and we’re going to need all the help we can get.” Puck, finally getting a good look at the battered body of the wind-demon, gave a bewildered look to Karrel. “What? Were you holding back this entire–” Puck’s voice stopped. He stared at Karrel, who had not removed his sight from his target. “Your eyes…” he stammered. “They’re glowing…”

  Karrel did not respond. He did not want to waste any more time with needless conversation. There was a demon to kill.

  “Right… later then,” Puck put his game-face on. “It’s my turn now!”

  Aerozthcz was in the process of shattering the chrome spears that held him. Puck welcomed the opportunity and launched himself toward his opponent, wrapping dirt and stone around his body so that he was fully encased in an armor of earth. He decided it was best to try for a punch to the face.

  Karrel immediately felt himself hurrying after Puck, into the battle. Johnny stayed behind, dropping a large quantity of his chrome polyhedrons onto the ground, before using his nose to fiddle with the lights on his remaining arm. The sight would have been comical had it not been for the gigantic construct that began to form at his feet.

  As Puck and Karrel began their scuffle with their winged opponent, Johnny’s chrome structure began to grow larger and larger, building upon itself to form an enormous weapon. Half a minute later, a Gatling turret the size of a large truck, stood at the ready. Johnny tapped his arm once more, giving the final instructions needed to rain death upon his enemy. The multiple barrels of the emplacement began to spin. Faster and faster they circulated around each other before finally letting loose the projectiles they held. Noticing what was about to happen, both Puck and Karrel quickly dodged out of the way before combining Johnny’s efforts with their own.

  An onslaught of heated, chrome projectiles sprayed their way down range. The unsuspecting demon turned to face the weapon emplacement, attempting to drop its wings and block the assault, but the attack had happened too fast. Slug after slug bashed its way across the demonic scales causing them to glow red with heat. To their surprise, a few of the shells managed to pierce through the dense, demonic skin. What seemed to have been impossible, Johnny had managed to accomplish. He had gotten through the demon’s thick hide.

  Aerozthcz curled back in pain as the turret continued to pelt it with a burning blitz of bullets. It’s pain and anger had hit an all-time high, and in its fury, it began to glare at Johnny, staring death into the one-armed man.

  Johnny recognized what was about to happened and looked to the closer of his two friends for aid. “Karrel!” he shouted. “Cover me!”

  Karrel heard Johnny’s words. Why should he listen? His target was injured and ripe for the slaying. There was no point in wasting his efforts elsewhere. His thoughts paused as he continued to attack his opponent. No, he thought to himself, Johnny needs my help. The fury within him surged once more, and the only thing he could imagine in his mind was himself tearing the demon apart limb from limb with his bare hands. Instinct pulled him toward his opponent, yet again.

  “No!” Karrel shouted. In a moment of clarity, he shook himself awake from the trance he had been in all this time. If he did not support Johnny, his friend was likely to die.

  The wind-demon began to lift off from the ground, though it stayed only inches above the earth. Karrel had a bad feeling about what was about to happen next. As quick as he could, he began to make a break for Johnny’s position. He knew what he had to do and hoped that the protective orange light surrounding him had enough strength left to keep him alive.

  Aerozthcz let loose a screech of pure rage before it launched itself straight toward Johnny’s position, seemingly ignoring the pain that the shower of bullets was bringing upon it. Karrel swore, witnessing exactly what he had feared was going to happen. Johnny was too injured to avoid this attack, and Karrel knew it. He made one final leap toward his friend, putting himself in between the flying demonic entity and Johnny. With a final, desperate move, Karrel placed his hand outwards, red symbols already wrapped around his wrist. The wind-demon closed the distance, looking to ram Karrel out of the way to get to the one-armed man, but as soon as it was at point-blank range with Karrel, he unleashed his attack. The blast of energy knocked the demon astray, sending it rolling across the streets of Flarepoint, while both the tackle from the winged demon and the explosive recoil from his own attack slammed Karrel into the dirt and asphalt. The resulting detonation shattered Johnny’s construction, sending shards of chrome shrapnel flying.

  Karrel felt bones crack as he hit the ground and found it impossible to breathe for a few short seconds. A few moments ago, an attack like this would have felt like nothing more than a solid punch. Now, he was gasping for air. One thing was for sure. Whatever extra power that had been bestowed upon him had surely disappeared.

  Karrel struggled back to his feet. Had his protection worked? He found his friend giving him an anxious gaze, which meant he had succeeded in deflecting the attack. Johnny stood in disbelief. There seemed to be something worrying him.

  “F- For a second there, I didn’t think you had my back…” Johnny stuttered.

  “Yeah…” Karrel gulped. “Yeah, I know what you mean…”

  Karrel had no idea what had just happened. His empowerment, the bloodlust, the inability to control his instinctive behavior. He did not like losing control of a situation, let alone losing control of his own actions. Something strange was happening within him, and he did not know what it was. He was starting to doubt himself.

  There was no time to think about it, however. What Karrel hoped was the corpse of the winged creature began to move once more. Though the exhaustion was starting to show, it effortlessly picked itself off of the ground. The creature was leaking blood, and several of its scales had been cracked or shattered.

  They had finally done some tangible damage, but at a heavy cost. Karrel, Puck, and Johnny were all panting heavily. Their bones had been cracked, some broken, and it was getting exceedingly harder to maintain oxygen levels in their lungs. Puck’s shirt had been completely torn off, revealing the many future scars he would have on his abdomen, while the bandages covering Johnny’s right shoulder were starting to turn red, a telltale sign that he had yet to stop bleeding completely.

  His own clothes in ruin, Karrel regretted seeing that the protective orange light surrounding him had dimmed greatly and was almost gone. Soon, he would be fighting this dangerous creature naked. It was something he did not look forward to, considering the miracle of it having lasted this long. With that thought in mind, he wondered where his pyretiff had run off to, but he quickly got an answer, feeling a heavy nudge on the side of his waist.

  The blue pyretiff brushed Karrel’s side, revealing that it had caught up with its master. It was panting heavily, attempting to maintain its dangerous smile, though its weariness was obvious. Karrel did not know how much longer the beast could keep fighting. He did not know how much longer any of them could keep fighting for that matter. There was no point in stopping now, though. Their opponent had taken damage and shown that it could be hurt. In fact, as Karrel watched the creature flail angrily, it became apparent that it was not happy to have shown such weakness.

  Seething in anger, the wind-bearing demon let loose an ear-piercing shriek. It stared at the three friends, its eyes glowing with hatred. It paced b
ack and forth, as though the burning contempt it held drove its animation, and with a final roar toward the group, Aerozthcz began to express its animosity.

  “What is happening here!?” it screamed. “You are nothing more than cattle! Pathetic flesh-bags that belong on my dinner plate! I refuse to take livestock seriously!” The ground beneath Flarepoint began to shake. “You will all lie disemboweled on the streets of your pitiful city, while I enjoy picking the meat off your bones!” The shaking ground intensified, with each earthquake becoming more and more violent. Aerozthcz began to suck in air with its wings, readying a massive strike against its prey. “Nothing is greater than Aerozthcz! Nothing is more powerful! THERE IS NOTHING BIGGER THAN ME—”

  With a thunderous crash, the apartment building beside the wind-demon exploded into a thousand pieces. Metal cracked, and windows shattered, raining death upon anything below it. A massive entity came tumbling through the ruins it had just created. Through the extensive cloud of debris, two enormous, orange, glowing eyes attached to a massive cranial frame rapidly descended toward the ground. As the eyes closed, its head slamming into the earth, the rest of the monstrosity’s behemoth-sized body followed, toppling downward right on top of its master. The shouting demon’s speech was cut off as its body was consumed underneath the gargantuan form of its pet.

  Karrel, Johnny, and Puck all could not believe their eyes. In front of them lay the wind-demon’s colossal pet, dead on the streets of Flarepoint, and underneath it, their target seemed to remain.

  A plume of black smoke came billowing down from the sky, landing hard next to Karrel, and forming a rather large hole in the ground. Angel’s human form emerged from the dark cloud, his entire body embedded spread-eagle in the crater. The dark, armored clothes that he created and wore had disappeared in several spots around him, their attempts to rebuild themselves halted by Angel’s weariness, and where his pale skin was revealed, splotches of crimson red could be seen.

  Chapter 28

  The Boys are Back in Town

  Angel’s eyes opened, and he struggled back onto his feet. He was quite bloody, though from what Karrel remembered about the night of the UWP raid, the black-eyed individual had had worse. His fatigue was obvious though, as he staggered his way toward Johnny, annoyed. “Next time,” he demanded, “you get the big guy!” The image of Johnny’s battered form finally found its way to Angel. He paused as he observed his friend. His expression was that of confusion rather than worry. “What happened to your arm?”

  Johnny smiled, spitting a wad of blood from his mouth onto the floor. “The flesh is weak,” he gave a bloody smile, “I’ll replace it later…”

  Angel was taken back by the comment. He pointed to Johnny while slowly bringing his gaze to Puck. “He didn’t… you know?” Angel extended one arm outward, bringing his other one down upon it in a slicing motion, as though he was lopping off his limb. “…did he…?”

  Puck’s jaw dropped to the floor. Disbelief utterly consumed him. “NO!” he shouted at Angel, “The demon did! Why would you even ask that?”

  “I never know with this guy!” Angel retorted. “He’s got metal snaked around half his body for the love of–”

  BOOM! Chunks of demonic flesh sprayed over the landscape as an entity burst forth from inside of the monstrosity’s carcass. A blood-soaked demon with sharp, powerful wings emerged out of the gigantic corpse.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me…” Puck moaned. “What does it take to put this thing down!?”

  “Wow,” Angel sighed sarcastically, “Glad to see you’ve all done your job. I’m kinda’ tired after my last bout, so it’s good to see that I’ll get to rest–”

  “Shut the hell up Angel,” Karrel backhanded his friend’s shoulder, causing the dark-clothed individual to smile as he winced in pain.

  The four friends readied themselves for one final stand against their demonic opponent. It no longer had its armor of wind wrapped around its body, and from the injuries that covered its form, they all knew that they were capable of inflicting harm upon it. Both parties involved were utterly exhausted from the long and drawn-out battle. The time to finish this confrontation was now.

  “We do this together,” Johnny dictated, “lest this infernal place become our graves. I won’t say we’ve survived anything worse than this before, but I will say that given a statistical review of our previous encounters, the majority of us are more than likely to–”

  “We really need to work on your motivational speeches,” Puck interrupted.

  “Right…” Johnny muttered. “Uh… Charge!”

  Angel took to the sky, a tail of black smoke trailing behind him, as he approached Aerozthcz. Puck and Karrel bolted forward, following Angel and leaving Johnny in the backline to cover them. Karrel began wrapping red text around his wrists and Puck began to rip stone and dirt from the ground.

  Angel had already begun to engage. He compressed large quantities of his dark smoke into little black balls. With a few swift hand motions, he unleashed his torrent of attacks down upon his target. The black orbs soared toward their mark, and as they impacted, they burst into concussive waves of energy. Some of the attacks had hit, however the wind-demon had seen the assault coming. It whipped its wings rapidly, leaving the ground behind and meeting Angel in the skies.

  Air burst forth from the winged demon, slicing its way toward Angel as the creature screeched, “YOU WILL PAY FOR WHAT YOU DID TO MY PET!”

  Angel maneuvered as best as he could, the black smoke around him being blown away from the tremendous torrents of wind. A few of the attacks connected with the solid portion of his body, causing navy-blue smoke to erupt wherever he was hit. Angel was able to maintain his composure and keep himself airborne, though only barely. The injuries he suffered from his battle with the monstrosity had become blatantly obvious. Struggling to keep himself in the fight, he continued his assault.

  Karrel followed the two figures in the sky, commanding his pyretiff to take cover while the battle remained in the air. He took aim at his opponent, but because it was engaged with Angel at the moment, the two figures were whirling around each other in swift and sudden movements. It was impossible to get a clean shot. To make matters worse, Puck had once again created a floating platform for himself and was taking to the sky as well. Karrel knew he had to switch variables. He flipped through the pages of his green book, finding the red text symbolizing the word “Lock” within a few seconds. Wrapping the runes around his wrists and preparing himself to unleash the attack, two green circles around Angel and Puck, and a red one around Aerozthcz, appeared in Karrel’s vision. He focused on the red circle, waited for it to brighten, and flicked his fingers outward, unleashing the volley of shots from his fingertips. Five bright blue lights propelled themselves up, homing in upon their target. Even amidst the swirling movements of the dogfighting creature, each of the bolts of energy found their way to their mark. They crashed into the winged demon, exploding with intense light. Unable to keep its balance in the skies, the airborne demon began to plummet as it attempted to regain its composure.

  Both Angel and Puck saw the opportunity and took it. They dove down upon their opponent, crashing into it with as much force as they could muster. Their goals were synchronized: ground the beast.

  The three combatants accelerated toward the earth, crashing into an old building that collapsed under the pressure, and rolling across the ground back onto the streets of Flarepoint. Puck and Angel had come up on top, and despite their injuries, were in the process of pinning the demon to the ground.

  Karrel saw opportunity, “Angel!” he shouted. “Jail it!”

  It took Angel, who was still struggling against his opponent’s might, a few moments before he understood what Karrel was planning to do.

  “Keep it pinned!” Angel barked his command to Puck.

  Puck nodded his head. While they both continued their grapple hold on their opponent, Angel’s body went dark with power, and shadows began to seep from his body.
Black smoke painted the ground, and as it poured outward from Angel, it began to form four, sharp, linear lines that boxed the area around them.

  Karrel flipped through the pages of his book, wishing with all his might that Angel would be able to buy him enough time. Red text symbolizing the word “Geyser” stared at Karrel. He dropped his book, allowing it to levitate in front of him, and placed both his hands onto the pages. He began to focus with all of his might, the swirling red runes wrapping themselves around his arms.

  “Whatever you’re gonna do!” Puck forced Aerozthcz’s head into the ground while it bashed against his side. “Do it fast! We can’t–” A sharp elbow smashed into Puck’s side knocking him tens of feet away from the scuffle. The wind-demon had broken one pin, now all he need do was break the other.

  “Karrel!” Angel still billowed smoke from his half-corporeal form. “I’m ready whenever!” Aerozthcz slashed outward, shooting sharp wind from its arm. The blade of air lopped Angel’s left arm off of his body. A mist of crimson red and navy-blue burst from Angel, but from the smoke that had been expelled, he quickly reformed the appendage and continued his struggle. “Though now would be nice!”

  The copied red text stopped pouring from the pages, and Karrel felt a surge of power that told him he was ready. He slammed both of his palms to the ground.

  Underneath Angel and the winged creature, a bright blue symbol began to appear. Slowly but surely it grew with intensity, getting brighter and brighter and covering a wider and wider area.

  “Angel!” Karrel shouted with all his might. “Dodge!”

  Angel kicked off from the demon below him, propelling himself backwards as far as he could. Aerozthcz was swift with his response. With one flap of its wings, it oriented itself upright, placing its feet on the smoke covered ground, and kicking off with its powerful legs. However, Angel had not yet vacated the fight. While soaring backwards, he raised his arms into the air. The instant the winged-creature shot forward, it found itself running its face into a pitch-black wall. The smoke that had surrounded the area lifted into the three-dimensional plane, forming a black cube that encased the creature. The wind-demon painfully bounced off of the now solid surface. It was trapped. The light at the bottom of the cage continued to grow until it filled the entire floor. For a second, it observed the luminous blue hue fill the room. Suddenly, the colorful display vanished.