by Katie Vack
He tried to raise his head up to see what was going on, and where Sora had gotten to, but an overwhelming sense of apathy had seeped into him and it just seemed like too much effort. The ground was feeling much more comfortable than it had a few seconds ago. It felt soft. It felt warm. He decided he would stay there.
* * *
Thief tore down the road, Sunrise roaring beneath him like a wild animal. This was not what had been planned. He should have been waiting for the third caravan to flee back his way, not charging towards the action with no clue what lay in store for him just around the bend. If it turned out to be a real mess his clothes might get damaged- or worse, he might receive some kind of permanent scarring in the fight.
But then there was a hell of a lot of gunfire, and his friends were stuck right in the middle of it. Clothes could be replaced, but friends were a much rarer commodity, and he had no intention of letting them die. Karolus could spend all day bemoaning his overturned plans, but he, Thief, thought it better to step in now and consider the consequences later.
He screamed round the bend to find the last vehicle about thirty metres away, and a firing line of six hooded gunmen standing just before it. He swerved off to the right as bullets began to pepper his bike. Furious at being caught out by such an obvious setup, he found himself forced off the road and into the forest, hanging on to dear life as he brought his swerving bike to a stop and leaped off, finding cover behind a thick and sturdy looking tree.
He slid down into a kneeling position with his back against it, drawing his pistol and flicking off the safety. He could feel the tree shaking from the torrent of lead it was suffering, and rounds kept flying by on either side, pinning him in place. He poked his head around the tree in an attempt to return fire, only to have it nearly taken off. He quickly slipped back around to his sheltered position, reeling from his brush with death. As much as he wanted to help, there was no way he was going to attempt that again. He was in just as much trouble as Grayson and Sora must have been.
A deafening scream echoed through the valley, a bellow of hysterical fury, followed by a chain of ear-splitting concussions. The gunfire came to an abrupt stop, and Thief found himself showered by a rain of gravel. Some kind of unidentifiable object landed next to him and he poked at it distractedly with his bonesword. He flipped it over, idly interested, then leaped back with a shriek. He had been looking at the butchered remains of somebody's hand.
It lay there, blackened and gashed, blood slowly oozing down the hill, and he stood frozen staring at it. It wasn't that this was the first time he had been faced with this kind of thing- normally he could handle gruesome sights, and it was more shock than anything else. It seemed impossible that he'd been toying innocently with a severed hand.
He suddenly remembered where he was, and realised he was no longer in cover. He looked down towards the road and found that all that remained of his opponents were a few scraps of flesh and clothing, scattered amongst a cratered and scorched road, and a blood-soaked caravan which seemed to have ripped itself apart from the inside out. It appeared that Crayton had taken it upon himself to engage.
Thief shook off his lingering sense of revulsion- regardless of the messy way in which he had done it, the mech pilot had given him the opening he needed to get to grips with the enemy. Screaming his own war cry, he charged down the hill towards the second caravan.
* * *
By the time Sora reached the first caravan, two of its occupants had disembarked and joined the leech in front of it. The fire ceased for the most part as she darted out of the treeline, presumably for amateurish fear of friendly fire. She leaped past the nearest henchman as he tried to draw a sword, bringing her glaive around in a furious arc which took both his arms off just below the elbows. The second swung at her with an axe and she rolled beneath it, cleaving through his hamstrings as he rose, and spinning to a stop to face back towards the pair.
The first one was stumbling backwards, screaming as he stared at the stumps of his arms, blood streaming off of them and falling like scarlet raindrops to the stained stones below. Looking at the ridiculous sight, Sora couldn't help but laugh at the stricken man- it was simply too funny to do anything else.
She strode towards him, planting her glaive squarely in his chest, further painting the road before her. Life slipping away from him, he raised his arms pleadingly towards her as she drove him down onto his knees. Reaching out with her inner voice, she grew a pair of arrows, plucked them out of the ground, and then drove them straight through his eye sockets.
The man toppled backwards like a falling tree, thudding to a halt against the ground. Sora began to giggle as she twisted her glaive free of his mutilated corpse. Blood blossoming from his chest and eye sockets, arrows sticking up into the air, he looked like some sort of twisted pincushion. It was beautiful.
She strolled casually over to the second fighter as he tried futilely to drag himself to safety, whimpering in pain all the while. She kicked him hard in the ribs, flipping him over onto his back. He gazed up at her, terrified, and she grinned contemptuously back down at him. She drew her bow, growing and nocking more arrows.
She fired one into his left kneecap. It was at times like this that you felt truly alive. She stuck another arrow into his right. This kind of thing made up for having to put up with her worthless teammates. Left shoulder. She realised that Grayson was missing. Right. She decided to finish this quickly and figure out what had happened to him. With luck he would be dead.
The man before her was a gibbering wreck, writhing in agony, pinned to the ground below. She had no further use for him. She let loose her fifth and final arrow, transfixing him through the centre of his forehead. She realised that she was still laughing, even though the joke had already grown old, and she shut her mouth.
She slung her bow over her back again and ripped her glaive out of the ground where she had stuck it, taking stock of her surroundings for the first time since the fight began. She was in the centre of a large ring of shocked looking terrorists surrounding her and the leech, that man alone seeming to be enjoying himself. She didn't like the way his eyes were lingering on her.
"What are you looking at, freak?" Her voice held a lot less ice than usual, and a lot more fire.
His lips twisted into an evil smirk, revealing his pristine white fangs. "That has to be one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. I don't suppose you'd consider becoming my slave?"
"I don't suppose that you'd consider dying in a fire?"
His expression dropped slightly. "A shame. I could do with a woman like you."
"And I could do with some leech teeth for a necklace. So I'm going to rip them from your cold, dead, mouth."
"Very well, then." The leech sounded surprisingly regretful. "I suppose an excellent breakfast would be the next best thing." Eyes dead, blades thirsting, they threw themselves ferociously towards each other.
* * *
The dozen occupants of the middle caravan had disembarked and spread out by the time Thief reached them. He flung himself at the nearest as the combat runes on his bonesword flared into life. He swung it diagonally in a rising strike and split through the man's ribcage in a cascade of crimson. He continued onwards, hacking open the next man's throat as he turned to face him. The third and fourth were both ready for him with trained rifles, and he raised his handgun, knowing full well that he could never take them both down in time.
Just when he had resigned himself to an early grave there came a blinding flash, a blue streak leaving a powerful afterimage imposed upon his retinas which was quickly followed by another lance of furious energy. The men in front of him collapsed with fist-sized holes melted through their chests, smoking wounds which had been instantly cauterised during the split second in which they were inflicted. Thief didn't look around, but it was clear that Seth too had been given clearance to open fire- who had given that order, he hadn't a clue.
He fired once, twice, three times, blasting chunks out of an
other terrorist as he closed the distance. The rest of the group had locked onto him by this point and returned fire, but he found himself saved yet again.
He ran hard into some kind of invisible wall, then tripped and fell onto his back as he stumbled, stunned, away from it. More shots cannoned his way, but they came into contact with the same force- most shattered upon impact, shrapnel ricocheting away in every direction but his, a small minority deflecting into the forest behind him. He sat up grumpily, holding onto his broken nose, looking round to find Karolus walking calmly, cockily, over to him.
The aetherial looked down at him, scowling. "Why is it that I have to watch over you like a babysitter?"
"Why is it that you don't trust me to look after myself?"
"Perhaps," Karolus replied acidly, "because you're an arrogant little child who would have gotten himself killed if it weren't for my timely intervention."
Thief looked away, frowning himself, as bullets pattered harmlessly around them. "Whatever."
"I thought as much. Now, don't you have something to be doing?" He nodded in the general direction of the first caravan and Thief quickly caught onto his intentions, setting off towards it. Karolus turned back to the remaining seven fighters, shaking his head wearily. "Children."
He swung his greatsword Eversor down off his back, unfurling his wings and drawing his service pistol. He braced himself against the air behind him, ready to propel himself forwards when he dropped the barrier to the front. "Right. Let's get this over with, shall we?"
* * *
Sora circled the leech, panting, as he stood arrogantly in the centre of their little arena. He was good; supernaturally good. She was bleeding from a handful of minor wounds, gasping for air, and barely holding on. He, on the other hand, didn't have a single scratch on him, and while she wasn't sure whether leeches actually breathed, he didn't seem to be having any trouble. He certainly didn't seem tired.
"Do you give up yet?" She had gotten around behind him and yet he hadn't even bothered turning to watch her. He sounded calm, controlled, and stunningly condescending. Sora suddenly realised that it was, after all, possible to despise him even more.
"Don't get cocky, insect." She sprung at him, swinging her glaive around to sever his spine, but he was already gone, so monstrously fast that she barely even saw him move. She brought herself to a halt, already spinning around and slashing towards his new location, just to her left. Again, he simply stepped back and away from her at the last minute, grinning all the while. He even had the audacity to keep his hands in his trouser pockets.
She maintained her momentum, stepping forwards again with another looping strike, and another, slowly backing him towards the onlookers behind him. She was thinking on her feet, constantly evaluating his every movement and planning against his next. As things stood, she didn't have a hope- every second longer that this fight dragged on for was another second in which she was growing steadily weaker. Her blood was draining, and her muscles were tiring, but her opponent was ripping her apart just as easily as ever. She took him down soon, or not at all.
She swung again, again, again. He sidestepped each, skipping casually out of the way of her blades. She took it up a notch, throwing everything she had at him, glaive a shining blur in her hands, virtually impossible for any being to track, let alone react to. Her mind was focussed solely upon the monster before her and the staff in her hands. She was at her limit- it was almost impossible to move any faster, and yet one slip of the hands would leave her defenceless. But then it wasn't like she had a choice.
The leech was still evading every blow, even as they blurred together into a single fatal pattern, but at least he seemed to be keeping his eyes on her now. Tentatively, taking her time despite her screaming muscles and breathless lungs, she kept moving forwards, one step at a time. The miniature whirlwind from her glaive stole at her hair, a creating coruscating frame for her blood-stained face.
Black spots began to dance before her eyes as her vision narrowed, and she knew that it was now or never. Throwing caution to the wind she tore forward in one final push, slashing at him with a fearsome strike that split the air with a howl like a banshee. If it hit him he'd be twice dead, if he dodged again he'd have his back to a wall and she could follow through.
Everything seemed to ascend into an awful, crystal, clarity. She sensed immediately that something was wrong. He was watching her- he'd been watching her the whole time. Watching and waiting. There was the slight inclination of a smirk, hiding just out of sight, at the corner of his mouth. A sense of impending doom overcame her.
The blade rose up towards him, a blade that should have cut him clean in half. He should have died, he should have dodged it: he did neither.
Waiting until the last possible moment he withdrew his hands from his pockets, holding his left casually up before him as though to inspect his fingernails. Her glaive hammered like a freight train into his half-closed fist, striking him with the wooden staff just below the base of the blade. His arm moved slightly, as though his elbow had been nudged, and then came to a sudden stop. Her glaive reverberated off of him as though he were an immovable statue, numbing her hands with the impact. She spun round, overbalanced, tripping.
His eyes locked onto hers. There was an unspoken question voiced within them: is that it? He took a single step forwards as she began to fall. His left hand flickered out, tapping her weapon and sending it flying end over end, straight up into the air. With his right he reached out and grabbed her by the shoulder, arresting her in an instant with no more effort than catching a ghost. She felt his breath, hot on her neck, and then he took a second step, kicking down into her left kneecap and snapping her leg like a twig.
The world slowed, and it seemed like every second was stretched into an hour. There was no pain, and at the back of her mind she found herself wondering at that fact. It might have been shock, or hormones, or the pain signals might simply not have reached her brain yet, but she couldn't even feel it as her tibia was driven straight through her kneecap and flesh, splintering into the outside air.
She was driven down onto her knees, a mere passenger for what came next. She watched as though from outside her body as the leech stepped across to her right, clamping down hard on her shoulder and breaking the bone. He spun around on the spot, dragging her around like a pendulum and throwing her twenty feet into the caravan. She heard rather than felt it as her ribs snapped on the impact and she dented the armoured hull; and then the slowed time ground to a complete standstill.
The sparkling drops of her blood suspended serenely in the air, frozen for a magical instant. The leech was moving so fast it was as though he had stopped time entirely. He reached out and plucked her glaive out of the air, mid fall, twirling it expertly in one hand. Then he took aim and, leaving a blurred afterimage in his wake, hurled it mercilessly straight at her.
The glaive took her straight through her solar plexus, narrowly scraping past her spine as it forced her ribs apart on exit, carrying enough force that not only the blade but half of the staff impaled itself through her torso.
She hung limp and shattered against the armoured plating, frozen in heart, mind, and body. The pain hit home all of a sudden, as though her body could only block out so much abuse, and she lost all remaining dregs of consciousness.
The leech took a moment to stop and gaze longingly at her twisted and broken form, and then he turned and began to pace off into the forest. "I'm sorry, dear. I have no use for such fragile playthings."
* * *
Grayson felt something nudging at his cheek. He ignored it- he was comfortable here, and so tired. If something wanted pass, it could go around him- he had no intention of moving. The nudge came again, and again he ignored it. It didn't feel like some kind of animal; it felt cold and hard, like some kind of inanimate object. He didn't know what it was, and to be honest he didn't really care. He just wished it would let him sleep. There was a third nudge, poking at his head as he lay face down in the di
rt, and he sighed inwardly. It was just one of those days.
There was a sudden impact, cracking against his skull and flipping him over, half blind, onto his back. He found himself looking up at some kind of red clad and blood soaked man. He wasn't happy that this man had decided to rouse him from his slumber, nor that he had done so in a rather painful manner. After a second he recognised the man as the leech that had been driving the caravan, although he wasn't sure what exactly that spelled. After another, he realised that the man was talking.
"... Devil's luck. If you hadn't tripped, I would have hit you dead in the heart." That seemed a little strange. He had tripped a long time ago, so he wasn't really sure what that had to do with anything. He half closed his eyes, wanting to get back to his rest.
There was another blow, as the leech kicked him in the chin this time, and he was denied his hard earned respite yet again. "Don't you go dying on me, you lumin scum. I'm not done yet."
