by Katie Vack
He crouched down, grabbing Grayson by the collar and dragging him halfway up into a sitting position. "Do you know what I'm going to do, lumin? I'm going to turn you. I'm going to watch you die. I'm going to watch you rise. And then I'm going to watch as you go and slaughter all those little people you tried oh so hard to protect." His face contorted into a rictus of hatred. "Can you hear me, scum? You're going to hunt down every one of your friends, one by one, and eat them alive."
He held Grayson's head back, baring his vulnerable throat. He opened his mouth to reveal what would have been a terrifying array of bloodthirsty fangs; although Grayson couldn't bring himself to fear them in his apathetic state. The leech's head began to lower, ready to tear out a chunk of his throat. Grayson's eyes followed him down, able at last to check out his surroundings.
Down on the road, Sora's corpse had been nailed theatrically to a wagon. He felt a little sad at that, which was surprising considering that it made his life a lot easier. There was a crowd of robed soldiers crowded around her, and Thief bearing down on them, likely about to get himself killed too. That was unfortunate.
There was a slight breath of air from the descending jaws of the leech. Grayson cast his eyes further down and found himself looking at his left hand. It was very dirty, and there was a little blood on it. That was nice. It was familiar. His hand was lying calmly on his torn cloak. On his... cloak. Cloak. Torn. Torn cloak. He tried futilely to wrap his mind around it. His cloak was torn. Somebody had torn his cloak. Some halfwit had had the balls to tear his cloak.
The fangs brushed against his exposed throat, whispering lightly against his bare skin, but they didn't get any further. A shadow-wreathed hand clasped itself around the leech's neck with an iron hard grip, both crushing and draining the unlife out of him.
The leech leaped backwards in a panic, shocked by the sudden attack, and Grayson jacknifed up to his feet, incandescent. The energy from the dead thing in front of him hadn't been enough to blot out his pain, but it had swept aside his fatigue and resharpened his mind. And he was angry. Nobody tore his cloak. That cloak was his cloak. He had a history with it, and he couldn't let anybody get between the two of them. Killing him; fair enough. But tearing his cloak was crossing the line, and he couldn't forgive that.
The leech, still trying to figure out what had happened, made the mistake of throwing a punch his way. Grayson caught the clenched fist in his shadowed one, stealing yet more energy from his undead opponent.
It was incredible, unlike any energy he had felt before. Casters were aligned to death and the dead, and taking the energy from a dead thing, especially such a powerful one, was unbelievable. He felt a thousand times stronger, faster, and far more powerful than he had ever done in his life.
The leech stumbled backwards, realisation dawning. "You're a Caster."
"I'm a half-blood."
"But..." the leech seemed genuinely stunned, "why? Why are you fighting for them? Why are you working with those idiots?"
"I'm a mercenary. I work for the highest bidder." He paused, considering. "Your name?"
"What?"
"I like to know who I'm beating the hell out of. What is your name?"
The leech overcame his surprise, grinning at the challenge. "Josiah Lyka. You?"
"Grayson Hunter." He was back to his usual self, flawlessly in character, and right now he was the soulless demon who was going to destroy the little ant before him. He cracked his knuckles ominously. "You tore my cloak."
"I did... what?"
Grayson didn't answer. He charged the parasite before him, already swinging.
* * *
Thief reached the site of the first caravan, firing away as he ran towards it. He saw a hooded figure topple, and then his slide locked back into the rear. He let the magazine fall to the ground and levered a fresh one in from his belt, a difficult procedure with only one hand, then released the working parts and brought them forward again.
He was suddenly in the midst of the surprised fighters, who seemed to have formed an inwards facing ring for some reason. There were signs of recent fighting, and a couple of corpses, but neither Grayson nor Sora were anywhere in sight. He crossed blades with his first warrior, striking twice before he broke the guard and stabbed him in the stomach. He turned to face the next, who was thrusting at him with a spear. He turned aside the thrust with ease, stepping forwards and half decapitating the man. He turned round and blew two holes in the chest of a man who was trying to catch him from behind.
The quality of the terrorists, or the lack thereof, was simply astounding. These men might as well have been non-combatants with zero training, hauled off the street and handed equally poor weapons. If these were the kind of opponents they were going to be running into, then this would be a very easy assignment. An expression referring to monkeys and machineguns came to mind.
Still, quality could sometimes be overcome on occasion by quantity, and he could only hold out so long. Finally recovering from their surprise, three men came at him at once. He shot the first in the head, parried the wild sword swing of the second, and stung him in the throat with his tail. The third came on with lethal intent.
A shadow passed over the group of them, like some kind of monstrous bird passing overhead. There was a low humming sound, and a screech of jet engines, and then something fell from the sky like a meteor.
Thief was thrown off his feet by the tremor, as was his assailant. He took the opportunity to shoot the man before he could rise, then looked over to figure out what had just happened.
Kneeling in a newly made crater, jump pack still glowing white from the massive release of heat, was the mountainous form of Crayton. The mechsuit rose to its feet, half hidden through the massive dust cloud it had thrown up, and drew what appeared to be its version of a sidearm: an enormous handcannon which was only slightly smaller than the primary armament of a main battle tank.
Crayton fired off three shots, and three bodies disintegrated into clouds of red mist and a few small lumps of unidentifiable meat. Thief stumbled shakily to his feet, clutching his ringing ears and dearly hoping that those discharges hadn't dealt him any lasting damage. He walked slowly over to the mechsuit, rolling the aches out of his shoulders.
"I got here too late," he called out, foregoing any greetings or thanks, "I've no idea what happened. It looks like there was fighting here, but I have no idea where Grayson of Sora..." he caught sight of the caravan for the first time. "Oh, my god."
He pistol fell from his numbed and nerveless hand and he sank slowly to his knees, mind refusing to believe what his eyes were telling it. He fell forward, catching himself subconsciously, vision blurring as he began to shake with shock and break out into a cold sweat. Death was unfortunate, but it was just another problem for a mercenary; nothing to fall to pieces about. Yet looking into her clouded, sightless, eyes as she dangled there was just too much. Something irreplaceable had broken deep inside him when he looked upon her warped form, run through and then left to hang there like some sick kind of martyr.
Fury raged through him, overcoming all rational thought. Whoever had done this to her was going to die, slowly and painfully. He didn't have a clue who the culprit was, but there was no problem with that. He was going to burn his way through every last terrorist until only his man was left standing, and then melt the demon down to ash.
He rose to his feet, oblivious to his surroundings, caring for nothing more than the hatred in his heart and the wrath in his blade. He raised his bonesword up before his chest, gripping the blade with his left hand hard enough to draw blood. Karolus seemed to be calling to him, but he ignored the pilot. His lips curled into a snarl, and the red runes of binding seemed to flare brighter for a second. "Release restrictions levels one though-" he stopped, turning to the vanis. "What? What did you just say?"
"I said," Crayton emphasised, "that she is still alive."
Breaking Point
Grayson ducked under a sloppy hook, stepping past his opponent
and launching his own kidney punch. Lyka spun past it with ease, hitting him in the side of the head with a second strike. Grayson fell to the ground, already rolling to avoid the follow up kick as his power infused body thrust aside the new injury. He twisted round, switching from evasion to aggression in a moment and attempting to sweep the leech's legs- Lyka somersaulted gracefully over it, landing on his other side and lashing out with a booted foot towards Grayson's skull. Caught off guard and practically defenceless, Grayson barely managed to escape the worst of the blow, picking up a bloody gash along his jawbone.
He flung himself away from the leech, trying to gain as much space as possible. Technically he was vastly more skilled when it came to unarmed combat, but the unnatural speed and strength of his foe was leaving him severely outclassed. He ignored the blood oozing out of his wounds, half-masked as they were by the dark energy flowing through his veins, and thrust aside everything but the enemy before him.
Grayson never lost his head-no matter how angry he got, how injured he might be, he never let it overcome his reason. One of his first actions upon initiating the fight was to lead the leech further up the hill, out of sight, and because of that he was now able to fight at his full strength. Even now, between launching and avoiding blows, he was still planning exactly how he was going to win this one. If he could follow Lyka's movements, or predict them at the very least, he could pull it off. And failure wasn't an option; the leech was going to pay for his transgressions.
Lyka came at him again, a bolt of lightning, lashing out with another kick towards his face. Grayson swayed backwards and the foot whistled past him, leaving a vacuum in its wake which tore at his hair and blinded him for an instant. He threw himself further back, working purely on instinct to mitigate the damage of the next kick as it cleanly broke his nose. He threw his hand down at the last instant, arresting his fall and using it to spring a few more metres away from his enemy.
He backed up against the solid support of a tree, mind racing. Outclassed he might be, but he still had his shadows and he wasn't down yet. They didn't seem to be paralysing the leech like they did most people, but then that was to be expected- trying to drain the life from a dead thing was fighting fire with fire and besides, he had never relied upon that particular aspect of his power anyway- regardless, he made up for it in this instance with the enhanced energy drain.
The leech was going for his head, always for his head, presumably out of habit more than anything else- for a being like him it would be fairly simple to crush an opponent's skull with a single blow, and he was probably still adjusting to fighting someone vaguely competent. It was that habit, however, that was going to spell his downfall.
Lyka came at him again, not giving him a second to breathe, but Grayson was ready for him. He focussed all his willpower on the darkness within and without, dominating it through power of will, forcing every scrap of it into his right hand. It struggled vainly to break free and he only barely managed to resist it- the flipside to wielding such power was that it was far harder to control than usual.
He didn't have the time or speed to react; he had to risk everything on this one gamble, on what he had learned from his enemy in the few blows they'd traded. He began to duck down into a crouch, even before Lyka lashed out with another kick. It flew by him, whistling just over his head as he dropped, and swung round towards where he had been a split-second beforehand. With a crack like a hundred broken bones, the leech's foot hammered squarely into the tree trunk Grayson had been standing just before.
Shards and splinters of maimed wood flew in every direction and a storm of leaves fell from the heavens as the tree, thicker in diameter than Grayson's body was wide, shook like a ragdoll. Vibrations from the impact spread down and through the ground, threatening to topple the leech over, unstable as he was on one leg.
Lyka stared dumbly at the chunk he had hacked out of the tree through brute force, then at his foot, hanging misshapen on the end of his leg at an unnatural angle. His eyes widened slightly in unbelieving surprise. "Oh, hells."
Grayson didn't wait. He lashed out at the leech with all of his strength, hammering his fist uncompromisingly into the side of the man's body, just below his ribs. The hardened leather gave way beneath his knuckles as he drove them straight into Lyka's poorly protected kidneys and then, even before the blow had been completed, he released all of the wicked energy which had been pent up within him for so long.
* * *
A crack rang out through the valley, a noise like an enormously amplified gunshot, and it was quickly followed by a clap of thunder. Thief glanced up from his trance. Crayton had left to fetch Seth, the hellion's medical kit being their last hope for a comrade with barely seconds left to live, and so Thief had been left to watch over her while they were away. Karolus was nowhere in sight, so he was probably off mopping up the last few henchmen. Considering their lack of communication, he probably wasn't even aware of what had gone on.
He looked up at Sora, numbed of any emotion. She was still hanging there, looking for all the worlds as though she was already dead. That was the worst part; the fact that they hadn't even been able to bring her down. His attempts to hack through her glaive had met, confusingly, with not even a scratch on the wooden staff, and he wouldn't have had the strength to pull it out even with two hands. Crayton, encased within his combat mech, was far too bulky to manage such an operation and would probably just have injured her further.
He didn't know how they were going to save her, considering how far gone she was, but then he didn't know much about hellion medicine; and if it provided even the smallest chance he was more than willing to take it. Really, he wanted to be out hunting down the man who had done this to her, and left to his own devices that was exactly what he would have done- it wasn't like there was still anyone nearby for him to guard her from anyway. But then Crayton hadn't exactly given him a choice.
There was a thud from a short distance away, accompanied by the clanking of metal, and he looked across distractedly to notice Seth, armour clad and still cradling a smoking rifle, bounding towards him. The hellion moved in a peculiar way, leaping rather than running as his impressive leg muscles powered him many metres at a time. Crayton had been left well and truly in the dust.
The hellion touched down beside him, wasting no time to throw his weapon aside and shoot over to the mutilated silvan. "Cover me. I save." He drew one of his axes and the bluish metal blade began to glow, heating up in mere seconds until it was a bright white and radiating off a corona of shimmering heat waves. The hellion grasped it in both hands and cut loose the two horses, which simply turned and looked at him as though to ask who exactly he thought he was.
He brought his axe down mountainously on the wooden staff of the glaive: it bounced off fruitlessly. Seth stepped back, confused. Swinging it down again, he slashed cleanly through the leaf blade at the tip and sent spitting droplets of molten metal flying in every direction. Satisfied that his weapon was working properly, he again tried to split through the shaft of the glaive, only to be faced with the same result as before.
He tossed his axe aside. "Strong. Wood strong." He held an arm across Sora's collar to hold her in place and then, with a spurt of blood, yanked the glaive effortlessly out through her chest, freeing her from her torture. He carried her away, setting her down surprisingly gently on her back in the centre of the road, and then reached round beneath one of the back plates of his armour to grab a large metal case.
He flung it open, spewing out an array of devilish looking syringes and needles. He picked up a terrifyingly enormous syringe, filled with almost a pint of luminous blue liquid and tipped with something which looked more like a razor sharp nail than a needle. Ripping open her leather jerkin and undershirt as though they were paper, he stabbed it straight through her chest and into her heart, depressing the contents into her faint and fading bloodstream.
The ground began to shake, and Thief was glad for the distraction caused by the arrival of the va
nis pilot. He turned to him. "Do you think she'll be okay with that kind of treatment?" He didn't voice his true concern; that emergency first aid designed for vastly more robust individuals might just be the thing to finish her off.
Crayton, somewhat predictably, ignored the question. "What was that noise?"
"No idea. I had to stay here and guard Sora."
"Well you do not anymore. Go."
Thief paused. "Is that a good idea?"
Crayton loomed over him, seventy tonnes of threat emanating war machine. "One of us is down. Two of us are missing. If that noise is in any way related to Grayson's disappearance, we cannot afford to avoid stepping in. You will go, you will investigate, and if necessary you will back him up. This is not up for debate."
Thief swallowed nervously, deciding it was probably best not to provoke the vanis any further. "If you say so." He set off hesitantly into the woods, stopping once to glance back at the stricken silvan. It might have been a trick of the light, or his imagination, but her colour seemed to be draining away before his very eyes, leaving her a faded husk of her former self. He turned his back on the spectacle. He had no intention of watching whatever side effects Seth had caused as they altered her before his eyes.
