Tales of a Lost Sword 96

It’s been a few weeks since we’ve heard from the others. Here’s another giant chapter.
Episode 96 Undetected Snake
Madness engulfs Tau’s eyes as he hunts his prey, swinging his heavy spear recklessly to and fro. Silver deftly sidesteps every attack with her lithe feet; she dodges a particularly close thrust by Tau with impressive agility, her silvery eyes narrowed with intense focus.

As soon as Tau’s Stormshear shaves past her, Silver returns fire with a Strafe out of her bow. With expert precision, four arrows strike Tau directly across his right shoulder, drawing blood. The crimson liquid runs swiftly down his right side, splashing wildly in the air as Tau continues to move, never breaking his stride. Some of the blood leaps onto his face, where he licks the blood clean.

The crimson blood glowing on the tip of his tongue for a brief moment, Tau bursts into a wide, demonic grin. “Now you’ve done it!” he cackles, his eyes glowing momentarily with an eerie red light. “My Fatalist power is activated when my own blood is drawn…”

Twirling his Stormshear expertly between his two hands, Tau strikes downward with a devastating vertical strike. Silver steps quickly out of the way, but is struck by surprise as Tau’s spear makes contact with the ground. A huge crack forms in the ground, and with an earsplitting screech, expands into a hulking crater in the middle of the battlefield.

Taking in a gasp of breath, Silver narrows her eyes as she watches Tau with renewed caution. She tightens her grip on her bow.

Sneering arrogantly, Tau raises his Stormshear, resting it over his broad shoulders. “My strength rises exponentially the more my own blood is shed!”

“I see what you mean,” Silver hisses. However, unexpectedly, Silver returns Tau’s sneer, bursting into a sly grin of her own. “Unfortunately for you, though, my arrows are loaded with poison. No amount of strength is going to save you from a slow, painful death from the inside out!”

“No, that is my job,” a third voice suddenly rings out. Out of the shadows emerges a new figure, robed in the familiar black garb of the Fatalists. Seraphe steps forward, her face masked as usual. A brief glow of white light surrounds Tau as Seraphe passes.

Turning resentfully to Seraphe, Tau frowns at her. “Hmph, I didn’t ask for that.”

“You would have been rendered incapable of fulfilling your contract with His Majesty had I not healed you,” Seraphe retorts matter-of-factly.

“Tch,” spits back Tau venomously, “what do you know, you’re just a tool created by Arai!”

Silver watches with shock as Tau leans forward with his Stormshear and tears straight through Seraphe’s chest from behind with it. Seraphe stumbles, nearly thrown off her feet; however, no blood falls to the ground. Instead, a glowing blue core has been exposed exactly where her heart should be.

Repulsed, Silver takes an unconscious step backwards as Seraphe staggers away weakly. “How could you do that? She’s your own ally! She healed you! You really are despicable scum…”

“I’m not one that likes having to pay back debts,” Tau mutters back bluntly. “Besides, she ain’t even human! The people who deliberately hurt innocent people are the real scum…!”

Silver sniffs dismissively. “You seem to have a rather perverted view of who is ‘scum’ though.”

“You’re wide open!” shouts a new voice from behind Tau. Silver turns with surprise as Wake darts into the picture, his pistol raised as he heads straight for Tau’s back.

“Wake, no!” Silver shouts. She gathers her bow, but fails to react in time.

Wake fires two shots, both of them penetrating Tau directly in the back. Blood flies into the air behind Tau as he jerks forward slightly, taking the blows with icy stoicism. “Too late!” he screeches, his eyes bulging madly. Pivoting to face Wake, Tau launches a fist sideways straight into Wake’s head.

With a sickening squelch, Wake is thrown off his feet, crashing into the ground several feet away. A trail of blood traces the path his body took over the ground. He does not move.

“That settles it…” Silver growls under her breath, her teeth clenching tightly with repressed anger, “I’m going to enjoy watching you plead for your life!”

Tau licks his lips greedily in reply. “Hmm, let’s see you try.”

The lines of armored Fatal Knights approach relentlessly, their Eviscerators gleaming in the air within the cavernous cathedral-like building. Silently they continue approaching the ragtag huddle of Rift World soldiers before them, their soulless eyes hidden behind their cow skull masks.

Rill summons a Lightning Avenger in his right hand, allowing it to crackle threateningly as the Knights approach. He gulps, frowning. Charging forward, Rill moves into action as the Knight closest to him takes a swing at him with his Eviscerator.

Expertly, Rill leaps over the wildly swinging polearm with fantastic timing. He fires his Avenger at the same time; the giant shuriken strikes the Knight directly under the helmet. Remarkably, the Knight’s head remains screwed tightly to his body, though he is knocked off his feet.

Rill lands again a little bit further away from Zack and Mira, his eyes darting frantically back towards the two of them. “Damn it,” he curses, “these guys are not gonna be easy to deal with…”

“Ya wouldn’t know if they have any weaknesses, would ya, Rill?!” Zack shouts, teleporting out of the way and dragging Mira along as several of the Knights form a circle around the two of them. He stops some feet away, dropping to a knee from the effort of dodging attacks and dragging Mira as well.

“No,” Rill replies, “even I was not aware that the Fatalists had such an army at their disposal!” He furiously takes a swing at one of the Knights nearest him, forming a new Lightning Avenger and charging at the Knight with it.

Yet as soon as Rill reaches the Knight, the Knight raises his hand, casting a spell. In a flash, Rill’s Avenger blurs for a moment before evaporating into thin air. “What?!” Rill cries, his eyes widening. The Knight punches Rill heavily in the abdomen, sending him crashing to the ground with force. The Knight raises his Eviscerator over Rill.

A bullet of white light pierces the Knight’s hands at the last moment, causing him to drop his Eviscerator with a grunt of pain. Zack lowers his Kage and teleports over to Rill, inspecting him for injuries. Mira hurries over to join them as well.

“What…was that?!” grimaces Rill, rubbing his stomach.

“It must be a Fatalist move,” Mira remarks, “I’ve seen Kunai do something like that before.”

“I thought these guys weren’t Fatalists?!” Zack howls, watching the Knights around them with newfound apprehension.

“Yeah, they aren’t,” a voice says, “but they’ve still been equipped with powers you can only dream of!”

Zack, Rill, and Mira each scatter wildly as Tau barrels towards them, his spear swinging madly through the air. The three of them breathe heavily as Tau’s berserk spear crashes into the ground once again. Zack sneaks a quick glance at Mira, who is watching the battle unfold with a clear sense of fright in her eyes. He frowns.

In the meantime, Silver sprints after Tau, watching the chaos he leaves in his wake. Out of her line of sight, a Fatal Knight creeps up on her, his Eviscerator gleaming evilly in the dim lighting of the hall. “Lady Silver!” cries one of the members of the Rift Army.

Silver turns at the last second and spots the Fatal Knight grappling with one of her own men. “Maxwell!” she shouts, as the feeble Rift soldier attempts to repulse the Knight with nothing more than a wooden rake.

“Lady Silver!” Maxwell hollers in response. “Get away while you can!” At that moment, his rake snaps clean in half against the Knight’s Eviscerator. The poor fellow is thrown to the ground as the Knight raises a foot and stomps on his head with a sickening crushing sound.

With horror, Silver turns her face away from the sight as blood splatters across the ground at her feet. “Maxwell…!” she hisses helplessly. Drawing her bow again, Silver breaks into a sprint as the Knight turns his attention towards her, smashing his polearm into the ground.

Silver slides away, her light feet treading quickly across the stone tiles on the ground. She raises her bow, aiming straight for the two narrow slits for eyes in the Knight’s helmet. Both of her arrows pierce each of the Knight’s eyes. He drops his Eviscerator with a clang as he grabs his face, blood running down from the sockets for his eyes.

Taking her chance, Silver leaps into the air and kicks the Knight around the jaw, throwing him off his feet. He crashes into the ground with a clatter of armor; a loud snap sounds as though his neck has been broken.

As Tau engages Rill, their weapons flashing like blurs of light, Zack catches Mira’s eye. He carefully looks down at the crate still held in Mira’s hands and then back into her eyes. Mira nods with understanding.

Zack holds up a hand. “When I give the signal…” Rising to his feet, Zack raises his Kage and takes aim at Tau’s back. At the same time, Tau agilely deflects a blast of lightning from Rill’s fist and turns, using his spear to shield himself from Zack’s sneak attack.

Tau cackles gleefully as he approaches Zack, his green eyes lighting up with mischievous excitement. Zack jumps backwards, craning his neck to face Mira. “Now!” he hollers.

In a split second, Mira grabs one of the canisters containing a soul capsule. She flings it into the air. Tau’s eyes widen with surprise, as he spots the canister flying towards him. At the last moment, he pivots out of the way, changing directions in midflight. No sooner that he does so than the capsule bursts open. A plume of black smoke rises high into the air, obscuring everybody’s sight temporarily.

His breathing rattled, Tau comes to a cautious stop feet away from the blast. He narrows his eyes suspiciously. “I didn’t know you guys had something like that. The hell was it?” he growls.

“Care t’find out?” Zack shoots back, lobbing another of the soul capsules into the air threateningly before catching it again.

“I’d like to see ya try!” Tau roars, cackling tauntingly again at the same time as Zack hurls the canister straight at him.

Raising his hand, Tau magically summons one of the Fatal Knights towards him as his hand glows with a blue light. “Magnet!” The Knight involuntarily takes the worst of the blast from the soul capsule, as it explodes all around him. Tau dodges out of the way, flying through the haze of black smoke to bring his Stormshear hurtling heavily towards Zack’s face.

“Out of the way!” Rill cries, slipping in at the last moment and pushing Zack onto the ground. The two of them roll safely away as Tau’s Stormshear again tears up the floor, leaving a massive crater in his wake but still not managing to connect with anybody.

From several paces away, Mira watches with her breath held, still clutching the box of soul capsules closely. She glances at the motionless Fatal Knight on the ground. “He just sacrificed one of his own men just like that…without any remorse at all?!”

“’Course I did!” Tau hollers, showing his canine teeth as he swings wildly at Zack. With a sudden change of direction, he flies straight for Mira, his spear raised high in the air. “Anything goes when you’re on a battlefield! Speaking of which…”

Mira raises her arms fearfully in front of her, ducking and bracing for impact. However, Zack teleports in front of her at the last minute, barely managing to block Tau’s attack with his staff.

His legs quivering under the weight of Tau’s Stormshear, Zack looks over his shoulder at Mira. “What’re you standin’ around for?! Get the hell out of here! Use your soul capsules to help the others, we’ll take care of this guy!”

“R-Right!” Mira nods. In an instant, she rises to her feet again and begins sprinting away into the thick of the action all around them.

As she sprints breathlessly past a huddle of downed Fatal Knights, Mira catches a glimpse of a blond head slipping out of sight. Turning her head to her left, she narrows her eyes, searching through the chaotic scene for a sign. “That’s strange…” she mutters to herself. “I could’ve sworn…”

With a slight breath of trepidation, Mira turns and plunges forward into one of the passages leading out of the hallway, chasing after the brief glimpse of gold still flashing vividly in her mind’s eye.

The frantic din of desperate battle wages on in the distance. Recelo slowly stirs, opening his eyes slowly. He stares up at the blank ceiling, his black eyes strangely glazed. Then, as if in realization, he raises himself slightly from his bed.

Recelo stares around at the silent hospital. Only the bed next to him is occupied. A sleeping girl with long green hair rests on her back in the bed, her chest rising and falling gently with every breath. Recelo feels his shoulder and chest, where heavy white bandages have been bound.

He glances again at Midori, who shows no sign of consciousness. Sliding his feet onto the ground, Recelo slowly pushes himself to his feet, using the stand next to his bed as an aid. Swaying slightly, Recelo grabs onto the stand again to stabilize himself.

The roar of distant battling continues to drift in through the half open window by Recelo’s bed. As several loud explosions rock the tiny room, Recelo glances out the window. Something appears to catch his attention momentarily as he gazes out into the night. Quickly recomposing himself, he strides wordlessly out of the room without looking back.

Silver watches horrifically as two more of her men fall to the ground, blood splattering after them as a Knight withdraws his Eviscerator from their bodies. She bares her teeth angrily, but before she has a chance to react, another Knight assails her from behind. He fires a beam of black light from his hand, throwing Silver into one of the walls of the cathedral.

The first Knight sprints at Silver, slamming his Eviscerator into the wall and pinning her in place with its crescent edge. Silver issues a strangled cry as she chokes, struggling to extricate herself from the Knight’s unyielding grip. “Damn it…!” she hisses.

Meanwhile, with a shout, one of the Rift soldiers raises his makeshift spear warningly, attempting and failing to hold off a Fatal Knight. The Knight merely continues to saunter slowly towards him, his Eviscerator raised confidently in the air.

At the last second, Zack swoops in, firing a blast of white light through the head of the Knight at point-blank range. He lowers his staff, winking at the soldier, but quickly widens his eyes again as another Knight charges at the soldier, throwing him off his feet.

“Hey, get away from him!” Zack howls, forming a bow and arrow with his staff again. But before he can attack, the Knight fires a beam of black light at him as well. Zack is thrown backwards several feet; he slides on the ground out of control before coming to a stop some distance away. He can only watch as the Knight finishes off the Rift soldier, disemboweling him mercilessly.

Nearby, Rill falls to his knees as well. The two of them, Zack and Rill, exchange a brief look of worry as a whole horde of Knights surround them in a tight circle, preventing their escape.

“There’s way too many of these guys…!” Rill chokes, grimacing as he clutches a shoulder wound.

Gravely, Zack nods in agreement. “Yeah…it was gonna be a tough fight t’begin with, but this…”

The nearest Knight suddenly raises his Eviscerator. Both Zack and Rill cringe, bracing for the blow, but it never comes. A fresh gust of icy cold wind breezes past them, stinging their faces. As they look up, the Knight has been completely covered in a blast of solid ice.

“Let’s even the odds up a little bit, shall we?” says a new voice. Xavier strides into view, his crossbow raised threateningly in the air.

As the Fatal Knights now turn their attention to him, he leaps back, avoiding one of their Eviscerators. With relentless speed, Xavier fires a bolt; it flies straight through the Knight closest to him. In an instant, the Knight becomes completely frozen in frost like his companion, but as the icy tomb grows, it quickly spreads and imprisons two more of the Knights in ice. With a wave of Xavier’s hand, the icy tombs explode, shattering the Knights into thousands of tiny little pieces.

Xavier turns his attention back to Zack and Rill, helping them back to their feet. However, Zack merely looks at Xavier with a wide-eyed expression of surprise. “What’s…goin’ on?” he asks shakily.

Smirking in reply, Xavier replies, “Didn’t ya hear? The portal between the two dimensions has opened up again. I thought me and my friends should do our part to help out.” He waves his hand behind him, where Kai and Valoria both stand silently.

“What…?” Zack mutters, but Xavier merely shakes his head.

“We’ll explain later!” he howls, exploding forth with amazing speed to collide head-on with another of the enemy Knights. “Just know that you’ve got reinforcements on your side!”

Silver continues choking desperately against the grip of the Knight in front of her. She pounds furiously at his burly arms, attempting to frantically extract herself from his Eviscerator. At the same time, a blur of gold flies past the two of them; the Knight collapses to the ground in a pile.

Gasping for air, Silver slides to the ground, holding a hand to her throat as Valoria helps her back to her feet. “What are you—?!” Silver cries, but Valoria shakes her head.

Despite himself, Tau removes his eyes from the battle for a moment to stare at the new arrivals. However, it is not long before Tau finds Kai sprinting directly towards him, his dagger raised in the air. “What the—?!”

In the next second, Tau is forced back on his heels from a deceptively quick but brutal blow. He lands roughly on his heels, pivoting around to search for his target. But a heavy, icy mist has settled around him, obscuring everything from sight. “Mist?!”

At the last moment, Tau spots a dark shape looming towards him from the right. He extends his Stormshear, using it to deftly parry an attack by Kai. Sharp bristles of ice immediately emerge from the shaft of his spear where it made contact with Kai’s dagger.

Shaking them off, Tau finally finds his way out of the plume of mist. He stares blankly through the cloud of thick white mist, his breathing heavy. “Don’t tell me…these guys are Fatalists?! Hmph, the enemy’s just full o’ surprises today!”

Farther away from the cacophonous roar and din of battle, Mira hurries breathlessly onward, spurred on by some impulse. She reaches the edge of a dark and empty staircase. Still panting heavily, she narrows her eyes as they focus upon a dark figure standing at the very top of the stairs.

The figure turns towards Mira as her footsteps echo in the dim light. Mira’s eyes widen immediately as she lays sight upon the person standing before her. “You…!” she cries, taking an involuntary step back.

“Yes, me…” Flynn says, stepping out of the darkness. Chained to his wrist, magically suspended in midair, is an unconscious Ophelia. He gazes down at Mira leeringly, his aqua blue eyes lit up with a deranged, manic glow.
—END NINETY-SIX—