Chapter 9The Fight: Part 2
Saphir tries to get out of the way... but with two hurt arms, there's only so much scurrying on the floor that a man can do.
Just as Skree brings down a clubbing blow that is meant to crush the Warrior's head, Saphir leans back, and twists slightly to the left. This puts his dislocated right shoulder directly under the attack.
The blow that is meant to kill still hurts a hell of a lot, when it connects, a loud pop tells Saphir that his shoulder is back where it should be... but he nearly blacks out from the pain, so it doesn't actually help that much.
Skree is angry though. He wants to end this fight...
“Just let me kill you and be done with it.”
“Oh sure!” Saphir shakes his head to try and fight off the coming black out. “Yeah... that's just what I'll do!”
As Skree takes another step closer, Saphir plants his now working arm on the ground, and kicks out against the demon's knee. Skree stumbles sideways, and trips... and falls face first into the magial barrier surrounding the Card. There is a high pitched scream as the demon general's body is shocked with the power of the magic and thrown a good distance away.
Saphir fights to get to his feet... but by the time he does, Skree is also standing. The Warrior quickly takes the scene in... a good number of Maylor demons standing around watching the honourable one on one combat between their leader and the Warrior... Skree standing well out of arms reach, looking more ready than ever to simply rip Saphir's head off... and the Glaive of Cereulus, lying on the floor just at Skree's feet.
The demon lord smiles, and picks up Saphir's weapon from the floor.
“This is it? This is the weapon that has brought fear to my species for a dozen generations? Without your Cards, this is nothing... and without that Card...” Skree points over at the captive Card... and just stops talking... gazing with that 'deer in the headlight's' kind of look.
Saphir hears a familiar voice off to the side...
“Hey... over here!”
It's Justin. Saphir smiles a little bit. Justin must have finished off the Knights, and come to help him.
He turns to give thanks... but Justin isn't there. Not to say that Saphir isn't totally happy at what he sees... the magical barrier around the Card is... just gone.
Saphir reaches out, and takes hold of the Card... he draws it close and examins it.
The CRUSADER... the picture on the Card is of three noble warriors of good... a Knight... a Mage... and a demon Warrior. He remembers stories that say the picture represents the three forces which shape the world... humans, magic, and demons...
Skree looks a little scared...
“... okay. So... you've got the Card... but without the Glaive!”
A force field surrounds the Glaive, and pulls it from Skree's hands. It gently flies across the room, landing gently in Saphir's hands.
“Here!” Justin's voice sounds out through the temple.
Again, Saphir looks around for Justin... but he's still not there.
Doesn't matter... he's got the Card... he's got the Glaive... Skree is very, very afraid... he looks around in panic... and motions toward his Maylor followers.
“I revoke the honorable combat! KILL HIM!”
Just as the Maylor take a step toward him, Saphir touches the CRUSADER Card to the blade of the Glaive. Saphir shouts out...
“LUNEE-KUAE-TEAHN BAEOO-FEAHN!”
The Card shatters into rays of light... pure white light, which push out from the point where the blade touched it, and curve around the weapon, and are absorbed by the blue star saphire at the base of the blade.
The Glaive of Cereulus glows faintly with a warm light. The Maylor, not seeing anything imediatly threatening, rush at the very happy Dragoon Warrior.
When the first one gets near enough, Saphir slashes out, and cuts a deep gash along its stomach. The demon flinches... and then bursts into flames, and falls to the ground as nothing more than ash.
Before the others can even react, Saphir swings wide, and sends a force wave at the largest part of the group. When the ripple in the air hits the demons, they are all thrown back, as usual. But... in a rather unusual twist, their flesh boils from their bones, and the only thing that hits the floor on the other side of the temple is a pile of demonic skeletons.
Saphir turns and points the Glaive at Skree. A blast of magic errupts from the gem in the Warrior's weapon, and rushes toward the demon lord, who, just at the last moment, pulls one of his own fighters in the magics path. The unlucky demon explodes in a shower of green and pink entrails, which blanket over Skree.
By the time Skree has wiped all of the guts from his face, Saphir has rushed the entire length of the temple, and is standing right in front of the demon general.
“You know... if you had time to think about this...” Saphir plunges the blade of the Glaive deep into Skree's chest, “You'd realize that it's kind of ironic for me to kill you with the magic you stole from my family!”
Skree throws his head back, and screams loudly. Bright light errupts from his mouth and eyes, and the sound of burning Maylor fills the temple. After a few moments, the light fades away, and all that is left of the powerful Maylor leader is its skin... all organs, and even bones, have been incenerated...
Saphir reaches out, and tosses the empty skin off of the Glaive. He turns to face the gathered, and rather stunned looking, Maylor.
“Who is in charge now?”
One timid fighter steps foward. He trembles as he faces Saphir, who, even though he was beaten nearly to death (and actually looks like he's been beaten nearly to death!), has just killed the mighty Skree.
“um... I'm the highest ranking Maylor that is still alive.”
Saphir nods...
“Okay then. Do I kill you, or what?”
The Maylor shakes his head...
“We Maylor are forced to follow the wishes of our leader. Skree was a fanatic, but I am not. I promise that there will be no more trouble from my race.”
Saphir points the Glaive right at the new leader, who shakes...
“Listen... I swear to all the gods of all the religions that have ever, and will ever exist... if you screw me over on this, I will personally hand you over to Brad and Arrowny, and give them weeks and weeks to slowly torture you to death while I burn the rest of your race to the ground... got it?”
The new Maylor general agrees...
“Good...”
Saphir makes his way to the back of the temple, tries to find that portal thing that all of the armies were using to get from place to place. He's got to see if everybody else is okay...
* * * * * *
“I don't suppose I'm going to be able to talk you outta shooting me, eh?”
Samuel shakes his head...
“Afraid not.”
Arrowny shrugs, and the pain reminds him that he's just been shot once already... and he doesn't much care for it. The pain is not really that much... but it's enough to stop him from concentrating enough to cast some life saving fire or ice magic...
... hell... a massive lightning bolt wouldn't hurt either...
Samuel is standing just out of the injured Warriors reach, but near enough that it would take a rather massive stroke of good luck on Arrowny's part to have any projectile miss his forehead and not enter his brain...
“I would like to know something though.” Samuel looks down the sight of the revolver, keeping his aim on the Protector as he asks... “Do you feel any remorse when you kill? For my daughter? For anybody?”
Ryan nods...
“I've killed a lot of people in my life... but yeah... there are two that I feel bad about... and one of them is your girl.”
“And... the other.”
Arrowny smiles a little bit...
“The other... was a hell god that wanted to destroy the world.”
Samuel looks very confused...
“You feel bad about killing a hell god?”
Ryan shrugs...
“It's a long story... involves a girl...”
“I see...” Samuel looks around, as if searching for another topic to talk about. Finding none, the Knight just shrugs... “I guess it's time for you to die.”
Ryan can do nothing but gaze down the barrel of the revolver as Samuel takes aim, and slowly pulls back the trigger...
... Arrowny hears the little click, and the hammer at the back of the gun slams foward... and there is a small flash of light... and then nothing...
... not 'nothing' like 'he's dead' nothing... 'nothing' like, no bullett 'nothing'... the gun didn't fire.
The small flash of light was back near the hammer... and, at a later point, when he has more time to think it over, Arrowny will realize that the light was, in fact, a tiny forcefield, which prevented the hammer from striking the bullett... and thus, stop the gun from fireing.
Samuel looks very angry... he shakes the gun, aims, and tries again... but with the same result.
Ryan figures this is his lucky chance. He slams his arm up, and knocks the gun from Samuel's hand, sending it across the room. Of course, all this does is bring Samuel's attention away from the weapon, and back to the Warrior.
The Knight grabs Ryan around the neck, and hurls him back into a bookshelf. More than one heavy, heavy text falls on Arrowny's head... but one in particular stands out. It hits him, falls right by his face, and opens up. What's odd about this book, is that most of the pages have had the centers cut out, so that the book itself is like a case, holding a small flask of greenish liquid.
The second odd thing about the book, is that the page it opend too is written in what Arrowny easily recgonizes as Justin's handwriting. The page has an arrow pointing down at the flask, and the phrase 'kills pain, stops bleeding, drink it!' written along the top.
Ryan doesn't spend any time arguing with the page... he just pops open the flask, and downs the contents.
Imediatly, he feels his pain lessen... and the slow trickle of blood oozing from his bullett wound stops all together. He feels stronger, fights his way to his feet, and knows that he can probably pull off some mild magic... which won't help him right at the moment because Samuel rushes foward, and throws Ryan back hard enough that the Warrior actually knocks over the bookshelf behind him, and lands rolling on the ground in a different asile of the library.
He looks around... trying to find some weapon to use... he sees Sky Render, lying back where he dropped it, far, far out of reach... there are some books... a water fountain...
... a water fountain! He crawls over to it. He's not entirely sure why there's a water fountain in Morning Star's library... but he doesn't care at the moment. He just dips his hands in, and starts whispering... really quiet... really quiet...
“... blizard... blizard...”
Samuel walks slowly up behind him... shaking his head.
“I don't know how you did that with the gun... but it doesn't matter. This way, I get to kill you with my own two hands.”
“... blizard... blizard...”
“You killed my daughter... you killed my wife. You are an evil... evil man... yet the world thinks you're a hero. This is a wrong that I must put right! With your life... I will become the hero of my family... I will be the good guy, who risked his life to kill the vile monster.”
Samuel talks... and Ryan smiles. Not because of his words... but because of the fact that his hands are now covered in what would be best described as boxing gloves made of ice...
“You want to be the hero Sam? You've got it!”
As Samuel steps toward him, Ryan swings around with his ice coverd fists, and punches the Knight very hard in the face. There is a cracking sound, and when Samuel's head spins to the side, some of his teeth fly from his mouth.
“Because, let me tell you... it's not all it's cracked up to be!”
The Knight turns back to face him, and Ryan snap jabs him in the face, breaking his nose.
“All I've ever tried to do is save this damned world!”
Arrowny crosses over with his other fist, punching Samuel in the jaw.
“And all I've ever gotten in return is pain and suffering!”
An uppercut sends Samuel to the ground, and Ryan goes to one knee next to his head. He puts one ice covered hand behind the Knight's head, and repeatedly brings the other down across his face.
“I'm NOT hero!”
PUNCH!
“I'm just a man fighting a WAR!”
PUNCH!
“We all lose people in this fight!”
PUNCH!
“And we can either become obsessed with vengeance!”
PUNCH!
“Or we can join the fight and actually DO something about it!”
PUNCH!
Ryan looks down at the sevearly beaten Samuel... his nose knocked almost sideways... his jaw obviously broken in several places... and many, many teeth knocked to the floor. His eyes are black and swolen almost shut... and his one of his eye sockets has been crushed...
Arrowny stands, and takes a step back. He uses a fire spell to melt the ice on his hands, and just stares down at Samuel, shaking his head.
“Sam... I'm not a hero. I'm a murderer... I'm a bastard... but I'm a fighter. I'm fighting a war... and I can't let myself stop just because I made one bad decision... even if that decision was to kill an innocent girl.
Sam... I'm sorry about your girl.”
The Knight struggles to get to his knees. It is hard... and most of his face looks like it's going to fall off... but after a few minutes, he finally is there, facing Arrowny... steadying himself with one hand, and pointing at Ryan with the other.
“... you... go to HELL!”
Arrowny shrugs.
He steps foward, and reaches around Samuel's head. His right hand rests on the back of the Knight's head, and his left hand is clamped across the front of his face.
Arrowny pulls his arms out sideways, as hard as he can... with a loud 'pop' Samuel's neck breaks, and his head turns around almost backwards. The Knight falls to the ground, very much dead.
“Well... that was fun...”
Arrowny quickly heads back to pick up Sky Render... and sees a small black cube lying beside his sword. He knows what it is... it's the thing that Justin used to make Saphir's warp spell interdimensional...
Taking the hint, Ryan slips the cube into his pocket, grabs Sky Render, and heads off to find that portal that Minion's armies were using to get where they need to go.
* * * * * *
Brad quickly rolls out of the way, and Sharod's potential death blow misses its mark. The Warrior is realieved to know that Sharod's extra power does not grant him extra speed... so he's still much faster than the bad guy!
... which will serve him well as he runs the hell away. A temporary tactical retreat only...
Sharod rushes after him, but Brad keeps a good number of steps ahead. Brad runs around the temple, taunting the mage at every chance...
“Come on Sharod! You've gotta be faster than this!”
Rather than get angry, as Brad had hoped, Sharod simply stops running, reaches over to the wall, and rips a large chunk of stone from the temple. He throws the wall at Brad, who has to stop and duck to avoid contact.
The airborn wall crashes through one of the pillers behind Brad. An entire section of the temple colapses in. The roof above the knocked over piller falls, the ground shakes. Stone and dust and rock fall to the temple floor, knocking over bookshelves and torches, which light the books on bright red and orange fire...
Brad looks around... and sees that he has nowhere left to run.
“Damn it...”
Sharod laughs...
“Yes... it has come to an end. You tried to get the advantage... but my magics proved greater than the will of the mighty Dragoon Warriors. With my spell, I absorbed all the power of all the Hetron that died in this temple... it gave me strength beyond what I could have ever imagined... and made me impervious to harm from any weapon.”
Brad's eyes widen...
“Impervious to any weapon, eh? You sure about that?”
Sharod nods his head...
“I am sure. There is no weapon on this planet that can harm me.”
“Okay then.”
Brad steps back as far as he can go... he's almost standing in the flames of the torch and burning books...
“I give up Sharod... there's no way I can beat you.”
The mage looks surprised.
“You... give up?”
Brad nods...
“Yeah. I do. Chances are that my friends are all dead now... and I really don't feel like running any more. It's over... kill me.”
“As you wish. I will take your life... for the glory of the Four!”
Sharod rushes forward...
Brad steps back, and gets one of his feet under one of the fallen torches. He kicks the burning torch up, and catches it in mid air. Just as Sharod gets near, Brad thrusts the torch out, and slams the bright burning end into the sorcerer's face.
Sharod screams in pain, and tries to step back, but Brad keeps pushing the torch into his face... keeps pushing the mage back until he trips over one of the dead Hetron.
Sharod rubs his hands over his face, trying to get the pain to go away... but it won't. Brad laughs a little when he sees the burnt black skin on Sharod's face... and one of the mage's eyes is useless... completely white from the heat...
Brad smiles.
“You really should have worked that spell out so that I couldn't burn you to death, moron!”
Sharod waves a hand... and all the fires in the temple go out... Brad is left holding a smoking stick... and has no way of hurting the mage any more.
“I will make you suffer for that!”
“Brad! Over here!”
Brad is happy to hear Justin's voice. It's about time one of the others made it to help him! But, when he looks around for the technomage, he is nowhere to be seen.
Oh!... but there is a rather large, shiny axe sticking out of the ground just of to Brad's side! He's never seen this kind of metal before... the blade is entirely smooth, and has a slight sky bluish tint to it. When he picks it up, he is surprised to find that it is very light, and happy to see that the edge of the blade is the same as his old axe... about twice as thick as a normal weapon, and blunt... it crushes, rather than cutting.
Sharod gets to his feet... and shakes his head...
“Another weapon? It cannot hurt me...”
Brad shrugs...
“Let's find out, eh?”
The Warrior swings with a high attack, bringing the blade down from above. Sharod holds out his hand to stop the blow... but it doesn't.
The axe cuts through the mage's arm... right between the two bones in his forearm. His hand is cut in half... and his arm is split clean in two, with blood and bone falling to the ground from the mangled flesh.
Sharod screams... Brad laughs...
“I LIKE this thing!”
As Sharod continues to screach in pain, Brad spins around, and brings his blade against the side of the mage's chest. There is a crunching sound, and various vitalfluids from Sharod's body squirt from his ears and mouth... and the lifeless corpse is thrown against the far wall.
Brad nods... admiring a job well done. He looks his new axe over... and is very happy with the weapon.
He turns just in time to see Saphir appear from a portal at the far end of the temple... and Arrowny exits from one just beside him.
Brad just shakes his head...
“Where have you guys been? I've been done here for hours!”
Arrowny glances around the temple... and is impressed at the ammount of carnage...
“Nice job Brad!”
Saphir also nods his approvle.
“Yes... and, you've got a shiny new axe!”
“Yes... yes I do.”
They stand around in silence for a little while... waiting... but nothing happens. Brad lowers his axe, and is the first to speak...
“Guys... I don't think Justin is coming.”
Arrowny and Saphir nod...
“Doesn't seem like it.”
“I think we all knew that before now though.”
“Right... but, what do we do? Don't we need him to open the portal to the Nexus?”
Saphir shrugs...
“Yeah... actually, we do. Same as any interdimensional portal... I need that thing he built.”
Arrowny reaches into his pocket, and pulls out the tiny black cube.
“This thing, right? My guess is it's already programmed with whatever it needs to be programmed with for us to get where we need to go. Do you know how to use it?”
Saphir shakes his head...
“No... actually, I don't. Brad?”
Brad just laughs...
“I play videogames... I don't know anything about advanced interdimensional physics. Ryan?”
“Hell no...”
Just at that moment, the little black cube starts humming, and pulses with a blue light... Arrowny looks a little confused...
“Ooookay... I guess we go now!”
The others agree, and Saphir pulls out his FENRIR Card, and casts the Warp Spell...
“FUah-haneayn FEaen-bae”
Before them, a tear in reality opens... and they diligently step through...