Andrew

He cut through a path of heavy rainwater as he blazed a trail across the tall wheat fields to reach the burning barn. Certain that he was closest to the field’s exit, he maintained his pace. The echoes of battle faded behind him. He continued running until he heard the sound of steel, crying sheep, and the crackling of wood. Emerging from the fields, he saw the burning barn. The heavy downpour had slowed the flame destruction, only half of the barn remained. There was a door facing the unblemished side. If he was quick, then he could perhaps save-

A human scream tore through the roaring rain. Andrew’s blood ran cold as the sound of dread passed through him. A sinister man stood over the steaming corpse of another. A blood-red glow of light in the attacker’s hand drew Andrew’s eye like a northern star. Recollection to the news Flynn told them in the farmhouse rang in his mind. It’s him, the one he warned them about. The assassin.

He’d killed Lawrence. He’d talked and nodded to him not so long ago.

Tightening his grip upon his sword, Andrew leapt over the fence and slid down the slope. The bastard’s back was to him. Although he could not see the male hunter, Andrew could just make out the woman over the killer’s shoulder.

She held her weapon, but was not in any position to fight. The heavy rain masked his approach as he ran towards them. Channelling his dark energy upon his blade, Andrew threw down night slash at the attacker. The beam hit true, exploding upon its target. An eruption of soaked leaves and mud filled the air. Masked by the chaos, Andrew was almost caught by a beam of flame that cracked through the mess like a whip. Had it not been for its intense brightness, he was not sure that he would have been ready for it. The heat of it was so intense that it turned the torn grass into ash from its mere passing. Deflecting it with his sword, Andrew retreated.

Landing atop the nearby apple tree, he groaned as he blew at his burned hands. The sheer heat that ran down his weapon was staggering. Even with the downpour, the heat ran along his face where the flaming whip approached before he blocked it. Placing one of his burned hands on the cool wet bark of the tree, he began to puzzle out just what the hell had just happened. It was a flame attack no doubt, but he had his knight’s armour up, which should have taken the brunt of most of the heat. 

It ‘did’ take the brunt of most of the heat… that realisation made him lose focus for a fraction. 

His sword glowed red from where the flaming whip struck it. It too was covered in knight’s armour. Although admittedly not as much as normal since he’d just depleted most of it unleashing night slash, even still… The flaming whip hardly touched his blade and yet he felt its heat had run down to the hilt. As if it’s been sitting on stoked flames for a while. 

This bastard is a flame knight, no doubt about it, an abnormally powerful one to boot. Andrew’s face darkened. What benefit could someone of his skill get from terrorising a village and cutting its means to get help or feed itself?

The downpour of rain sizzled on the face of his blade, sending up steam with an angry yellow glow before it faded. Andrew felt the sword once more cool down in his grip. Standing atop the branch, he eyed the spot where the attacker countered his night slash. He’d not moved since his counterstroke. He simply looked up at him now, an air of curiosity on his face. The attack not only turned the surrounding grasslands to burned ash, but it also caused a plume of smoke to rise from the sheer heat. Between the man-made mist and the glowing of his weapon, Andrew could barely make out the figure.  

Damn it! No time. The animals stuck in the burning barn screamed as they rattled at the front door, trying to escape. Hearing the scream was making him lose his game. Overhead, he saw a smattering of demons, some alive and some dead. There seems to be less spawning thank the cycles, but that little that was left began to converge on their location. He needed to get a grip. The woman hunter still kneeled there, her face in a daze. 

“Hey! What happened here and where is your partner? I thought you guys had things under control!” Andrew shouted. He knew it was cruel to say, but he needed to get a rise out of her. She blinked before her features evolved into a sour expression of disbelief, grief and bitter rage all rolled into one. 

“I’ll kill you…” she whispered. This finally made the killer turn his gaze to her. The raindrops began to slow their descent and gather around her as she rose to her feet. Not only was she now shrouded in water, but that body took shape as it undulated around her like some giant serpentine creature. “I’ll kill you for what you’ve done!”

Covered in a flaming mist of smoke, it was hard to make out his features, but Andrew got a sense that, underneath it all, the assassin found the whole thing amusing. The woman charged at the killer. The serpent-like water snapped at him as fast as a cracked whip, only for the man to avoid it as he proceeded to flee to the forest. With a twisted glare, the enraged woman chased his tail. Failing to get her attention, Andrew cursed to himself as he dropped down from the tree to catch them. Just as he was about to give chase, however, he heard coughing. 

“Lawrence!” running over to the dying man, he placed his hand on him. He was as cold as ice. He won’t be long now. The grass where he lay was soaked in blood. With nobody around to help him, he had moments to live. “What happened here?! Where is the other hunter?”

“Cruz… is gone,” Lawence pushed out.

‘Cruz,‘ That was his name. Andrew felt a wave of guilt. He was demanding answers from a dying man. With the amount of blood coming out of his chest and how laboured his breaths were, having him talk now would only rush him to his grave. The demons were slowly closing in on them.

The heavy rain and the flaming barn were the only things keeping them from instantly seeing them. He needed to go after the female huntress and the killer. Conflicted, Andrew looked around for a safe place he could put Lawrence. He could not leave the man to this fate. As he wrecked his mind for such a place, the old man pointed a weak, shaky finger at the burning barn.  

“Leave me, just get them… out, ” he squeezed them words out with effort before going limp in his arm. He was dead… with a heavy heart, Andrew obliged the man’s wishes. Breaking the lock on the barn, the sheep, horses and cows came bursting out in a stampede of panic. The panic attracted the few demons on the field. The demons, seeing such an abundance of food running towards them, began to gather up all in order to kill and feast upon any they could snatch up.

The stampede of animals ran a few meters beyond Andrew, now before each second, coming closer to the small gathering of demons. But before the demons could draw first blood, Andrew, in a blink, had not only covered the distance, but had sliced through three of the six demons before they even reacted.

The last three had some time to react, but that did them little good, with all demons dispatched. Andrew skidded to a halt from his blitz; he felt a twinge of pain in his ankle. Although his little stunt relieved some of his pent-up anger, it did little good to him. He was still not fully recovered from last night. With the animals free, Andrew took a deep breath. He needed to get a grip on himself. 

I need to stop the assassin first! Andrew began following the marks of battle. As he guessed, the assassin had run into the forest. Seeing no bloodied corpse of either him or the woman all the way to the forest’s mouth was a good sign. It made sense that he’d retreat. He was a flame knight; the woman was an aqua knight. The matchup was not in his favour.

Put on top of the fact that the woman (he should have asked for their names.) was not only enraged but was in her element under this heavy rain turned the ordeal of fighting her was too tasking for any knight. For a flame knight, however, the fight was hard to survive, next to impossible to win.

Running away made sense. It was what he would do in his shoes; it made sense, and yet Andrew could not shake that feeling he had when the killer turned his attention to the woman. Like he was not phased, like he was having fun, it was not the persona of someone being hunted. As he jumped over the fence leading to the forest, he heard the sound of steel slapping steel. 

Strengthening his knight’s armour, Andrew raced to the sound of battle. The rain came in a slower cadence thanks to the thick canopy above, with less water to gather within the forest. Andrew caught up to them as they kicked off a treetop in the distance, the spark of their weapons exchanging blows a guidepost. The woman was a waterfall in pursuit.

As she unleashed torrents of aqua cannons, the sheer pressure of her barrage shattered branches and sent timber cascading onwards. A slash of her spear sent jets of water so intense that it cleaved a small group of tree tops and slowed her speed from its sheer momentum. Cursing her reckless display, Andrew had no choice but to avoid the falling branches and keep out of the firing line of this enraged woman.

Although most of her strikes were well placed, the killer was able to avoid and deflect everything she threw at him, all the whilst not throwing a single counterstroke of his own. The calmness he displayed before this power unnerved Andrew. 

The woman was a whirlpool of rage, an absolute torrent of anger as deep as the ocean and will as unyielding their depths. She was vengeance made into a tidal wave. And yet the flame assassin dealt with her attacks like a patient adult waiting out a child’s tantrum.

Andrew wanted to jump in and even the odds, or at the very least try to make the woman see enough sense to notice that something was very wrong, but his mind was at a crossroads about what to do. With how she was fighting, he was likely to get harmed by her. Calling out to her now would only distract her, and so Andrew thought it best to hold his ground, keep his eye peeled for an opening and-

“-This is for Cruz, you bastard!!” In a blind rage, the female hunter sent a crashing torrent of water atop the killer. The strike fell upon him with a smothering, suffocating force of a waterfall, hard to replicate with any other affinity but water. As the female hunter slammed the killer into the ground, Andrew landed on a branch behind her to observe at a safe distance. He could not see the killer but could make out the woman looking down at the path of distorted branches she created with her last attack. 

Did she get him? At first, Andrew tried to see if she managed to wound or kill the man until he noticed her shoulder shaking with suppressed sobs. She was crying. Feeling a weight fall on his chest, Andrew called out to the woman. Although he did not know her name, she turned to him, almost in surprise. She’d forgotten that he was there. Her eyes looked hollow, vacant, like she released all that was her into that last strike, and in a blink when he called for her, some spark of that spark came back. 

“Please tell me that Lawrence is alive, after what Cruz did I-” Whatever she was going to say next never came as a flaming whip veered towards them, forcing Andrew to fall to a lower branch. The lick of flame brushed his face, shocking him with its sheer heat. Andrew watched in horror as the trees beside him burst into flames. He turned back just in time to see the woman slip off the treetops and onto the earth. Her sword arm was missing as it pin-wheeled the opposite way.

The women became truly hollow then. Her open mouth held a scream too big-too vast to pass her throat. As the roaring of rainfall cried in her place, she slipped off the branch and faded into the undergrowth. She had her knight’s armour on; it was fuelled by being in her element along with controlling the several streams of water. She should have been near untouchable. And yet with a single attack, she was gone…

Andrew looked in shock at the spot where she fell.

I didn’t even get her name.

“You froze,” the killer said. Now freed of his attacker, he stood atop a branch across, watching him. His flaming dagger glowing white by his side. Something about that unnerved him. Pushing his initial reaction aside, Andrew carefully righted himself upon the branch.

“What?” Andrew said. The man simply stood there, silent. Andrew shook with building tension. It took all he had to not fall upon his base instincts.

“You hesitated,” the assassin continued. “Atop the apple tree, during the chase, you doubted yourself.” With a sinister smile, the killer shook his head. “That will get you killed,”

“A hired cutthroat giving life advice? Now I’ve seen it all.” Andrew sniffed. 

The crashing report of gunfire exploded in Andrew’s ear. Before he knew it, he’d kicked off to one side whilst raising his sword to his face in defence. In a blink, he’d made it seven metres to the assassin’s right. Skidding to a halt, he looked up to see the man aiming a weapon right where he last was.

A pistol!

It was hidden behind his other hand the whole time. Andrew felt it skim off his knight’s armour. It was a powerful shot, its bullet strength enhanced with a coating of the assassin’s very own elemental energy. Had he not moved on instinct, had it struck his knight’s armour directly, then the bullet would have passed his defences and went through his right eye. As it stood now, he had a bloody graze across his temple. 

“Again you freeze,” he said. “Thoughts delay actions and dull the blade,” 

With the last of the smoke fading from the rainwater touching his flame armour, Andrew could clearly see the assassin now. He was a man with ebony skin. His short buzz-cut hair, like his trim frame, spoke of purpose and efficiency. Where his left hand held the pistol, his other hand held a militant-grade knife that glowed with the power of flame and fury. He looked every bit like the trained killer that Andrew sensed, a man who deals in death and destruction. Andrew fought the urge to blink his watery right eye. The graze along his temple burned like the seven frozen cycles of hell, but he would not blink. He could not afford to blink. Because the next slip-up he made could be his last.

“I struggle to understand why Epimetheus put so much stock in you,” the killer said. Andrew’s mouth went dry at this. It took him a long moment to react, and even then, it was barely a whisper. 

“You’re one of the seven,” he said. The assassin sniffed. He truly looked offended by what he said.

“And you’re B67’s alleged protector. The man who escaped a power that has made nations shake and kingdoms fall. Epimetheus claims that you hold the key to such power yourself, but you don’t seem capable.” 

“Why don’t you come down here and find out yourself?” Andrew said. He made a show of getting into a fighting stance. The assassin’s eyes darkened to this. Soon, however, he smiled as he glanced up at the centre of the storm in the direction of the distant village. 

“I could do that… or I could go back and ask her,” he said. Although Andrew made a show of not reacting to it, he almost took the bait. Had this been said to him a few years back then, the Andrew of then would have reacted in a fiery protest of anger. Had he not been so easily bested by Epimetheus, things would have been different. As things stood right now, Andrew took hold of what he could have and would have said and buried them deep into his core, where it burned as a cold, enduring promise. 

Rolling his shoulder, Andrew felt the tingling sensation run down his burnt arm, feeling that it was still okay. Andrew raised his sword skyward, pulling forth as much power as he could muster. Dark energy swirled around him like a black mist.

Channelling it along with his buried anger, a chilling coolness so unlike him, took over. He felt the fatigue of battle grow more distant, his focus more absolute. But as body and mind primed themselves for the fight, Andrew felt an icy pain in his chest. Pushing it aside, he eyed his target. He did not fear dying right now. A small part of him cried at his lack of self-preservation, but given all the other options, what else was there? 

The only reason why he was not dead already was because it was he who got the jump on him. If he was to survive this battle, Andrew had to toe the line between trusting his instinct and out-pacing the dealer of death in his own domain. He had to become the killer of killers-that ultimate dealer in death. Because come hell or high water, he will not allow him to go anywhere near Natalie. 

As his chest grew heavy with all the power he could summon, Andrew’s vision began to mist with darkness.