Black Bloodstains
Chapter 10: Achilles Last Stand
“I still don’t get the difference between a lance or a spear,” I told Shawn as I held my spear or lance? , In my right hand. We were in what seemed to be some dojo. The room was even bigger than my own house. White walls, targets, hard and soft floor, and some human-shaped dummies on the corner. “And what’s so special about this place anyhow? Shouldn’t we train outside? Isn’t it safer since we won’t be able to destroy a wall.” I told Shawn as he materialized a Spartan sword on his left hand, I knew God of War would come in handy. Meanwhile, Kalyn had her huge ass sword resting on her shoulder, while dragging a dummy with her left hand and whistling a tune.
I was drenched in sweat, even with the light all around the place I still was dying after Shawn’s ‘warm-up’ session. We ran, we did push-ups, we did burpees, we did any warm-up exercise that you can imagine. Afterward, we began lifting weights. I was lifting way more than I was able to before I died, but both Kalyn and Shawn surprised me with the amount of weight they can carry. Mainly Kalyn, who practically could lift the weight of the three of us combined, without sweating, and with only one hand. We practiced some positions, doing the same type of movements at the same time, pretty much looking like kung fu monks. He then taught me some basic combat on a dummy, involving punches and kicks. It was my first ‘class’ so you could say it didn’t seem gas well as I would like…
“Technically, it’s still a pike,” Shawn answered me as he moved my body into a proper combat position. “Keep your back straight all the time.” He continued moving my hand along the pole, and how I should place my arm and where to grab it from my other hand. “Perfect.” He knows I moved towards the dummy and did some things on the base. “It doesn’t matter right now, as you learn new techniques and develop your combat skills, your weapon will slowly change. Depending on what you prefer you might end up with either a spear or a lance, or even a pole if you’re into that stuff.”
“Now, about the room… Kalyn? Why don’t you do the whole thunder thing you love to do?” She asked Kalyn who immediately squealed in happiness. She lifted her left arm in the air, and suddenly a lightning bolt appeared on her hand. She then threw it towards a wall, which ended with a mighty roar of thunder and the wall covered in dust. “The walls are specialized to absorb energy, so no matter what you do it’ll be absorbed by them.” After the dust drifted away, the wall remained intact and untouched. “Any more questions?”
I just shook my head worried about what they are about to do. “Good. Up next, your weapon can work as an extension of one’s self. What do I mean by that? Well, you can use witchcraft on your weapon, shooting fire from your sword, engulfing your sword in lighting, etc., etc., you get the point. The cool thing you have right now is using the length of your pike and send your gust blast from the tip of it. We give you a shield, and you’ll be able to send the blows from cover.” He began to make some snakes made of water and covered his sword with the same water. “If you can remember how to make the blast, do it but from the spear. Concentrate the energy on the tip of it.”
I try to do the same thing I did last night, and it was a bit tricky making the two-meter-long pike as if it were part of my own body. At first, nothing came out, and I just looked ridiculous stabbing the air with my weapon. But finally, I felt the connection. I felt my hands were glued to the pike, and I concentrated on shooting the blast and, BAM! It went out straight from the tip of the pike, and it even made me bounce back a few meters. I didn’t hit the target, it flew right next to it and bounced back towards Kalyn and Shawn. They didn’t get hurt, and only their hair waved towards the same direction. “I did it!” I shouted from my sitting position on the ground.
I did the same thing for over an hour, canalize the energy into the weapon and being able actually to hit the target. It took me a few shots to catch where I was supposed to beat. I don’t know how heavy that dummy is, but it barely even moved. Shawn taught me a little about combat with my pike. And told me that depending on the way I used it, it might also change its function. If I used it while riding a horse or something, it'd turn into a lance. If I keep using it as a pike, it’ll turn into a spear, and depending on my combat it might change into a halberd. And if I throw it a lot, it’ll become shorter and turn into a spear. We did some training battles between us; both of them were easy on me, stopping the fight to show me how to attack and such correctly. But between them was intense! They weren’t allowed to use magic. It was swords only.
Shawn had to use both of his hands each time Kalyn was about to strike him down. Kalyn had the strength and Shawn had the speed. But Shawn was a bit in a disadvantage. His sword could flip over and get attached to the other’s blade, and without using a lot of strength flip the sword around destabilizing the other’s stand. However, Kalyn’s edge was too thick to get attached, and she was too strong even to flinch. You couldn’t see a lead or anything, and they pretty much were tied. After a while, both decided to give up, or take a rest from their battle. Both stared at each other’s eyes and showed a bright smile of satisfaction and happiness. And it lasted for a while, and both couldn’t remove their gaze from the other. I coughed loudly trying to get their attention. “Shouldn’t you guys start explaining about the job?” I said breaking the silence.
Kalyn gave me a dumbfounded gaze for a second, whatever she was thinking before clearly distracted her from real life. “Oh yeah!” She said breaking into a huge smile. “You asked Floyd for her talc right?” Shawn said showing a small white stone covered by a small cloth at the top. He threw it to me, which I couldn’t catch, and ended up hitting me in the stomach. “That’s the most important thing for our job, that’s from Floyd, but it’ll still work for you. I think Laurie is making one for Elizabeth and you while we speak.” She and Shawn took out their stone, which pretty much looked the same, except for the length and how wide they are. “Our job is to be a white phantom. And what we do is to help or assist anyone who manages to call us.”
“We leave our signature with the talc, on any surface that you’d like.” Shawn continued Kalyn speech. “And anyone who knows the meaning of the message, and knows what to do with is, will be able to call us anywhere we are.” He placed his sword on his hip, and Kalyn did the same thing but on her back. “From there on we do whatever they need us to do. Luckily if their proposal is way out of our boundaries, we can reject it and erase the sign we had left.
“But that rarely happens.” Kalyn interrupted happily. “We are only allowed to do jobs that don’t break any of the rules. We can’t kill, we aren’t assassins, nor steal or anything that involves a direct sexual encounter. We leave that to the red wraiths.” I lifted my eyebrow, wondering what then do we do. “Our jobs usually consist of two things, the easy one being a companion. We stay with them for a determined time and do whatever they want us to do. Usually, people who live by themselves are the ones in need of a company or satisfy a need, which involves more than one person. The second one is the most common of them all, if a combat starts and a team is missing one of its members, we function as that missing person.”
“And rarely, rarely, some other of our kind call us when a trespasser is invading him,” Shawn told me as we began to pack up the material we used, and leaving it in their place. “A trespasser, invader, red wraith, whatever you like to call them, are the most dangerous things you could randomly encounter. They suddenly start a battle, without even noticing it. You could be anywhere and suddenly Bam! Time stops, and you are in an arena. And so somewhere nearby a portal opens up, and a red wraith comes out of it. The worst part is that you can’t do anything; you’re trapped until one dies. It’s a two enter one leaves kind of scenario.”
“That’s where we come in,” Kalyn said as we began to walk outside the room, and entering the library. “We can be called during a fight, and help the host to kill the trespasser. We then get a share of the energy they drop, if we succeed obviously, and we then are transported back to where we were.” We were now outside the shack and heading to the small plaza that’s nearby the school. “That’s the main reason we should never leave our territories or our base without a partner with you. That’s the reason the white wraiths always travel together, so in case one of us gets invaded we have more chances of winning the fight. And never forget to bring your talc, red wraiths know when you are without a partner or in a place with few signs.”
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There was some inner instinct inside of me, as soon as the creature looked at me, I knew I had to move. I tackled Floyd away from the impact zone, as the thing jumped and crashed his sword on the ground. Both Floyd and I were on the floor, as the situation slowly stood up repositioning itself. We crawled away from another of its attacks, which made him land right over me. I felt how the sword cut a bit of flesh from my right arm, but it didn’t distract me from the thing’s mask. The holes in its mouth and its unequal eyes were terrifying, like if you were staring at nothing. It had some carved curves, which resembled hair and a beard, and also some wrinkle details.
I couldn’t stare at it for long, the thing grabbed me from the ground and tossed me away. I crashed into a store that sells skin creams, I broke the glass door and hit the counter with my back. I felt the shards of glass embedded deep in my skin, and even some of the blood beginning to pour out. Lucky, if you like to call it that way, I can resist more damage than a normal human would have, I could still receive damage, but it is significantly reduced. For example, if I were stabbed in my leg, I would still be able to run a stand without any problem. And that’s what I did. I stood up and summoned my blades into my arms. I knew that the thing wouldn’t stop until either of us is dead, so I better use all that I’ve learned to beat it.
The thing slowly walked towards the store, the job pretty much was as tall as the ceiling, and half as full as the store. The top of my head reached just under his chest. He was a giant compared to me. From what I could predict his attacks were slow, and he doesn’t have a lot of short range. So, if I decided to attack him, my best bet would be to remain as close as I can, his sword covers a lot of areas, or I could also try to stay just enough distance away from it. I took a head start and ran as fast as I could towards him, and with enough distance between us I jumped so I could impale him in an upward position. The thing wasn’t very fast, as I predicted, and couldn’t attack me before I did. However…
He covered himself behind his shield, and my blades ended up piercing it. If I wasn’t nervous, I could have easily jumped away and attacked him once more. But I was terrified, and I couldn’t move, I felt as if I were stuck on his shield too. The thing placed the sword the ground and grabbed me by my neck. He began to strangle me, I felt the air stopping from entering my lungs, and I instantly rushed to try to remove his grip off my neck. But it was too strong, and the thing wouldn’t even budge his fingers also if I moved them with both of my hands. I started to feel numb, and my chest beginning to hurt. I thought fast, and instead of trying to remove his hand, I charged up my arms and threw a blast of dark energy towards him.
The whole store shook, and whatever that was standing blew up into smithereens. It was now him who flew across the mall, but he landed down the first floor. Meanwhile, I was on the ground coughing and panting loudly. But I knew I couldn’t stay here for too long, I snapped myself out of the coughing, and looked at the gigantic sword standing to my left. It was a bit tough, but I managed to remove the sword from the ground. The thing was heavy, and I ended up dragging it as I moved. I walked out of the store and saw the thing still recovering from the blast. I took two steps back and then jumped towards him. I placed the sword in front, so it would be the first thing that hits the ground. I landed cracking the ground and landing on his left arm. He grunts in pain as the thing pierced the part of his arm.
My victory didn’t last long; he swung his body and punched me right in the stomach. I was sent flying once more, but this time crashing and completely breaking and escalator structure. I saw as the thing removed his sword off his arm, and grab his shield, which was nearby. Then he looked straight at me, as I was still recovering from the impact, and then his gigantic sword light up in flames. The thing charged against me, preparing to swing his sword down as soon as I was in range. I rolled away from his attack and then used him as a platform to jump to the upper floor.
I landed heavily a few feet away from Floyd. She was intact, without a single scratch in her body. However, she was prostrated in the ground. It looked as if it was a lot of a challenge to her, as she slightly tilted her head off the ground. Sweat began to pour out of her face as she did that. “I-I’m sorry Elizabeth.” She said between her teeth, barely words coming out of her breath. “I am not allowed to assist you. Y-Y-You are on your own.” Her head returned to the previous position, and I saw as red chains began to appear around her body, closing her hands and legs, and chaining the rest of her body into the ground.
The ground shook once more, as the creature landed right next to me. I saw him starting to swing his sword once more, and I covered the blow using both of my blades. The hit pushed me back some inches, and the glass behind us broke when both edges crashed into each other. My feet never left the ground, and I continue to stare into its emotionless mask. Both of my arms could barely stand against one of his. It started to push me away, taking one step at a time, shortening the distance between me and the edge of the floor. I made one risky move, I shifted my body to the side, and so he charged into the level. And before he fell, I grabbed him from his shoulder.
He had taken the fall quite lightly, landing perfectly on his feet. However, I was still holding his shoulder piece of armor. So I swung myself back and stabbed him in the back using my blade. He yelped in pain as my blades pierced right through his armor and ended exactly on the other side. Whatever my knives are made of, they are sharp enough to ignore whatever material he was wearing. Using his right hand, he grabbed me and slammed me into the ground just below him. He accidentally cut himself, since my blade had to break anything in its way to leave his body.
I staggered a little when I hit the ground, which gave him enough time to grab his sword with both of his hands and placed himself in a position to merely burst my guts out in a single movement. With my spare hand, I threw at him a dark orb, which made him lose some balance, and I threw a massive flame at it, forcing it to step away from me. As he repositioned himself, I rolled away and stood up. Then I covered my body with my dark aura, which after learning gave me a stronger armor than just standing there with my school’s uniform. Then I surrounded the place with a dense fog, which prevented him from seeing correctly.
I could see his sword shining brightly in the distance, and with the night vision I have, I could see the silhouette of his body. I created a dark spear in my right hand, and then proceed to throw it towards his leg, piercing right through it and getting stuck on the ground. I engulfed my fists in flames after I threw at him two fireballs that hit it right in the chest. I ran and jumped, and then slammed my fist down creating a firing explosion as it hit his body. Since he was still planted in the ground, I followed with a punch in the chest, which also provided a smaller explosion but my blade pierced his body with my blow. With my right arm, I cut its left hand off its body, which landed heavily with the shield still being held. I jumped and kicked it with both my legs, just in time when my javelin broke which send him flying back.
It was mad, and it screamed in rage as it recovered its stand. Then it began to swing his sword at where I was, but since he wasn’t precise enough it only ended cutting part of my skin as I rolled away. I began to run in circles around it, as I knew one of its random attacks could do a heavy blow in my body. As I ran, I threw at him both fireballs and spears, which exploded as soon as they got in contact. I didn’t stop until it stopped swinging around his sword, and when it did, I jumped and landed on its shoulders. He tried to shake me off his body, but I remain in place as I had stabbed him right in the shoulder.
Its armor wouldn’t let it grab me, it got in its way and prevented its hand from reaching my body. I’m not sure if its mask had some magical property, so with my spare hand I grabbed it and removed it of its face. The red aura prevents me from seeing the color of its hair, but it fell out as soon as I the mask was out. It continued grunting and trying to shake me off its body. I placed the cover in my mouth, as I know one single objective. I swung back and made my blade pierce right into its head. Its grunting stopped, as it landed on its knees. It stopped moving and hit the floor as I removed my knife from its head.
My fog naturally cleared itself, and I saw the several cracks on the floor repairing themselves, the escalator re-building itself, I felt some pain as the shards of glass quickly left my back, and I saw them flying into the upper level of the store. I saw the clock quickly moving forward recovering the time it had lost. People around too quickly moved as if they were to improve the time lost. I saw several white sprites of energy coming from the thing’s body, fast flying towards me, duplicating whatever amount I had before the fight. The thing’s hand return to the body, as well as the flesh I had in my blades. I made both my armor and blades disappear, as I knew time was about to restart.
And it did, I felt the wind hitting my face again, and the people moving naturally around the mall. Sound, which I didn’t notice, also returned. People were talking, the constant movement of the escalator going up and down, and the pure music of people walking it was now charming news to my ears. I still had the mask in my mouth, which I grab to inspect it. Inside there was a weird rune that somehow brought sparks to my memory. Had I seen this rune before? Perhaps I did, maybe on the book that I was reading this thing appeared. I looked up and saw Floyd with the most nervous yet satisfying face I’ve ever seen her with. She was as pale as if she were the one who fought the thing.
She jumped down from the second floor and ran directly towards me. The first thing she did was to hug me, she was shaking and had tears on her eyes. “I’m sorry!” She squealed with her mouth shaking. “I completely forgot about this, and that it might happen. But I’m glad that you are alright.” She hugged me tighter, and I flinched from a pain coming from my chest. “I’m sorry! Are you hurt? We need to get back to base as soon as possible!” She began to drag me towards the exit, but I stopped cold and pointed at the creature.
“We just can’t leave it here, what if he wakes up and goes on a rampage?!” I stammered firmly, as the wounds had begun to take effect on my body. Floyd looked at me with a surprised face, but she knew that I was right. We both walk towards the creature, which still was on the ground passed out cold. Both Floyd and I grabbed one of its legs and tried to drag it towards the car. It, however, was too heavy, and we could barely even move an inch. A group of football players annoyingly walked inside the mall, shouting and laughing as they walked past us.
That gave me an idea, and I threw my tentacles at all eight of them, which made them stop talking and walking. Then, treating them as puppets, I forced them each to take one part of the creature and lift it. It took a few minutes to synchronize all of them and made them carry the thing towards the car. Anyone who walked nearby, or noticed the massive thing we were moving, soon had their memory erased by me. A few minutes afterward we had the idea in the back seat, with its legs out in the window occupying the entire rear position of the class. I send the guys back to where they were, and soon Floyd got Sideburn on the run.
Floyd couldn’t get the car to run at its full potential, and there was a massive gorilla-like creature weighing it down. While placing him on the back seat, I discover that he was indeed human, or had the typical characteristics a person would have. He was male and looked just under thirty. But knowing how “we” grow up, I couldn’t tell his exact age. He has a very square like features, with somewhat big ears and big nose. His jaw practically looked as if someone had used a ruler to cut it straight. Aside from that, I can’t tell more, I didn’t care to open his eyes, and only noticed his long black hair, which might even be longer than mine.
I grunted as I applied pressure to my wounds, blood was still coming out, and the pain wouldn’t cease. We were now back in the highway, a few minutes away from the school. Floyd was passing cars left and right as she made small talk with Laurie, I believe, about getting some equipment ready. Both Floyd and I jumped in our seats as we heard grunting coming from the back seat. I turn around and saw the thing placing his hands on his face, and slowly grunting as his consciousness returned.
I only saw for a split second Floyd’s face filled with fear as I jumped to back seat, and landed just above him. I engulfed my fists in flames and began to punch the living breath out of the creature. I was mad for him almost killing me, and I wouldn’t stop until he goes back to sleep. In the position he was, he couldn’t move his hands in order the push me away. However my fists were not enough, soon they too began to bleed, and I even heard some knuckles cracking. But he was still awake. “Take this!” Floyd shouted at me as she tossed me an ax.
I turned the thing around and hit him with the blunt side of the weapon. Soon he was back to sleep, but with several bruises on his face, and a black eye. I didn’t have enough energy to move back to the front seat, so I ended up just resting back here. Then I realized that there was another reason for people to stare at us. I’m a complete mess. I have scratches, bruises, and my clothes are practically inexistent, the skirt has several holes that leave nothing to the imagination, the knee socks are now normal ones, the upper part of my uniform is gone, I can see parts of my skin and even my bra.
Thankfully we reached the school without any other problem. Floyd drifted to get inside the building quickly and ended up painting the wheels on the floor. She didn’t even care to leave the car properly, she just got outside and yelled. “Kalyn! Shawn! Laurie! I need your help now!” But with the top of her lungs. It wasn’t high pitch since it wasn’t a scream, but it carried a lot of authority with it. All of them, including Sam, furiously ran inside the room. Floyd opened the door and gestured me to crawl over. I slowly did and tried not to give the thing a show when I passed on top of him. “Kalyn get this monster and chain it up with the strongest ropes or chains we’ve got. Shawn run and get Alice. She needs to see what Elizabeth caught. Sam, you’ll carry Elizabeth to were Laurie tells you, she needs to get some treatment quick.”
Shawn immediately ran outside the room, and Sam approached me, and he slowly picked me up. I yelped in pain when he had to grab part of the side of my thorax, and my shoulder burns when he repositioned myself. Laurie quickly guided us towards another room in the shack, which I still don’t know the total amount. There was a small bed in the middle of it, and it was surrounded by shelves and different vile type setups to create potions. Sam slowly left me on the couch, which surprisingly didn’t feel any soft or comfortable. My back was killing me, and my chest and several other parts of my body were filled with a prick like sensations. Laurie was behind already wearing a robe and gloves. And Floyd quickly entered the room putting on a lab coat. “Sam we’ll take care of this from now. Go and see if they need you out there.” Laurie gently said. Sam looked down on me, and nodded back to Laurie, he then ran out of the room and slowly closed the door. “Now… Missy… I’ll try to be as gentle as possible. But he messed you up…”
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“That’s the last lock,” I told Kalyn as I finished chaining up the colossal bastard. I have no idea how Kalyn managed to carry him all the way to the living room. Not only he’s a massive man by himself, but also the armor he was carrying weighted more than all of us combined. We brought him to the living room, and as soon as Kalyn placed him in a chain, she began to remove his armor. When I came back from carrying Elizabeth, Kalyn was removing the gauntlets. When we removed them, we encounter a robust, muscular hand and forearm. We continue to remove the upper arm part of the armor, and we face bicep bigger than Kalyn’s head. I couldn’t lift the chest part, so I had to raise his arms, while Kalyn took care of the rest. And you know the drill, each time we removed a piece of his armor we encounter a vast mass of muscle. Whoever this guy is, he must have gone to the gym ever since he crawled.
We left him wearing only a small piece of leather that worked as underwear for him. Don’t ask how I know its leather. I thought it was a piece of armor that didn’t come out as we removed the leggings. After leaving him almost naked, we began to tie him up in a wooden chair, with both ropes and chains. Floyd told us he was a very dangerous individual, and we must take care of it as one. We tied up his hands and arms, legs, and pretty much made him a vest out of the chains constricting his body. Kalyn said we should leave his head alone. We don’t know how he will react as soon as he wakes up.
While we were doing all of that, we could hear some yelps and several sounds of spells being made on the room where I left Elizabeth. When I picked her up, she honestly looked fucked up. I mean, from what I heard this guy attacked her. And she somehow won… Even if he’s the one which came with some light bruises and a black eye. Nevertheless, we were reunited in the living room. Alice was sitting down in her same couch, while we finished locking this guy up. “Floyd told me that we should check something with this mask,” Shawn said throwing a horrible looking mask at Alice. “She said that Elizabeth had some weird feeling with the rune which is written on the back.”
Alice stared at the mask for a while, inspecting it from every corner. “I do find this rune familiar…” She said softly to herself. She stood up and left the mask on the table, she walked towards the small library and began searching for a book. Afterward, she came back with a bible easily heavier than her. It was the biggest thing on the table as she placed the book on it. “Shawn you’re good with runes, investigate whatever the mask has on its back. Tell us exactly what it is, covenant symbol, magic effect, whatever it is.” Shawn nodded as he sat on the ground, and began searching for the rune.
Twenty minutes passed, and we were all searching for the meaning of the rune. Alice had brought up several more books when Shawn said it didn’t say anything about it on his third bible. Even Alice sat down with us as we searched the meaning of the weird satanic pattern on the backside of the mask. Floyd came out helping Elizabeth to walk. She was now wearing more normal attire. A pair of pants and a hoodie that is bigger for her size. “Total damage report.” Laurie came out saying as she held a small clipboard on her hands. “Three broken ribs, fracture on left leg, right shoulder dislocation, left arm broken, both hands were broken, light columnar fracture, hip dislocation, three missing teeth, and a total amount of one hundred ninety-five flesh wounds in her body. If you had to pay me for this, I'd be able to buy an average size apartment in New York.” She looked up and saw us still looking for the rune. “What are you guys doing?”
“We are searching for the weird symbol in the back of this guy’s mask,” Shawn answered Laurie’s question. “By any chance have you seen the brown leather is the book, that includes several techniques and probably runes?” Shawn finished as he closed his third book. Elizabeth grunted a little and pointed at her backpack. Kalyn stood up and brought her the bag. Seconds later, she pulled out the brown book she has been reading all the time at school.
“You directly healed her right?” Alice asked as she looked at Elizabeth. Laurie nodded and walked over Elizabeth, and gently brushed her hair. “No wonder you are like that. Kalyn.” She said turning her face around. “Take Elizabeth home, the best thing she could do by now is rest. And don’t be hesitant if something shows up.” Kalyn nodded and began walking towards Elizabeth, picking up her back and letting her rest on her shoulder. “Before you go…” Alice said stopping them just before they leave the room. “I need to take this so you won’t become a target.” Whitish energy began to come out of Elizabeth’s body and flew towards the hand of Alice. She soon had quite a large amount that you could barely see her behind it. “Now go.” She finished as they left the house.
“Here! It doesn’t look the same, probably because of how old the mask is, but it resembles most of the patterns in the rune.” Shawn told us, few minutes after Elizabeth and Kalyn left. “It says… Mark of the house of Romoth the Destroyer.” Shawn stopped for a moment as he flipped over some pages. “Romoth is the great dark magician of our Era. He’s the inventor of many of the spells you’ll find in this book since he’s one of the first Dark Wizards. He rules the Dark Kingdom under his power. Feared and loved by many, all his current teachings have been recorded in this book, even the ones only he can make.” Shawn turns the book around, reading another bit. “The date it was written on, would be by now on the Second Era…”
Alice nervously stood up and pointed at Laurie. “Bring the strongest interrogation potion we’ve got. I don’t care how expensive it is, but bring it immediately.” She stammered as Laurie ran back to her room. “Floyd, prevent him from doing any magic, we don’t want him to do something under our nose.” Floyd stood up and began whispering some words, which created a magic barrage around the guy, it slowly began to enclose and covered only his body. “Shawn, after Laurie applies the potion I want you to wake this guy up and keep him under the edge of your sword.” She then turned her face towards me and threw me a notebook and a pen. “Sam, write down every single word and detail of the interrogation. Don’t miss a word or a description. Got it?” I nodded. “Perfect.”
Laurie came back moments later, carrying a green liquid inside a vile. “Feed him everything, and we don’t know how strong he is,” Alice commanded her. I saw Laurie flinching of agony, as she opened the man’s mouth and poured the contents of the vile inside of him. Afterward, she took a few steps back and placed the container on her bag. “I want everyone to look as intimidating as possible. Floyd, the liquid might not be strong enough to make him spit out whatever he knows, whenever he resists or doesn’t say what we ordered him, burn the hell out of his skin.” Floyd nodded as Alice sighed. “Now, please wait for me for a second. This might take a while.”
Alice cringed and made light yelps, as a blue aura began to surround her body. I could barely see what was going on inside of it, but the only thing I could tell is that she was growing in size. The aura broke, revealing a beautiful, stunning woman on her twenties. She still had Alice traits, and her gray her now reach just above her legs, she had the same facial structure and eye color. I couldn’t know more details about her body, aside from that she was probably even taller than me. Alice’s childish apparel changed to a more serious one. She had, what you could say, a royal looking attire. It was black with light blue details here and there; the chest was completely covered and protected by various sets of hard leather and belts. She wore thick looking gauntlets, and boots that provided more height. She had more of a king like a look, rather than one of a princess.
“Let’s get this thing started.” Came out a sultry yet menacing and strong voice out of Alice’s grown up body. “Everyone! Weapons ready!” I looked around and saw Shawn creating his Spartan sword, Floyd a small looking war ax, and Laurie a bow fitting her size. I snapped out of my staring and immediately took out my pike. “Prepare!” Shawn placed his sword right under the neck of the guy, Floyd’s hand began to engulfed themselves on fire as she stood up at a close distance from the guy, Laurie created a vine looking arrow on her bow and tense it up aiming at the guy. Since I couldn’t get ready without stopping from writing, I just sat nearby with my Pike ready in hand. “Wake him up.”
Shawn surrounded his head with water, and then sends what seemed to be a light energy ball, which exploded as soon as it got in contact with water. Alice stood up and walked to be just in front of the man. We could hear him grunt and shake his face as he slowly woke up. Everyone tensed their weapons as he slowly regained consciousness. His eyes slowly began to open up, and I could see his reaction on his eyes as soon as they were fully opened. He tried to stand up, but then realized he was chained up. He tried to break the chains, but they were strong enough to resist him. He then stopped and muttered some words, but nothing came after he ended casting his spell. A rusty throaty laugh came out of him. “You must be the leader.” An even more deep voice came when he talked. “Can you tell me where am I, and what exactly are you doing to me?”
Alice looked straight at his eyes. “You need to tell me the same thing squire of Romoth. And couldn’t you tell what we are doing to you?” He was about to spat at Alice, but Shawn was applying more pressure to his neck silenced him, and Floyd was creating a fire whip. “Now, if you want to make everything go as well as possible, you better answer every single thing I ask you to say. Anything that doesn’t go according to plan my friends here are ready to deal with you. So let’s start with a single question. Who are you?”
I saw the struggle of the man trying not to say a word, but he ultimately had to say it. “Name’s Achilles, I’m one of the three great knights of my Lord, my King. I must protect him at all costs and do whatever he commands me to do.” He snapped back to his angry position. “What sort of sorcery did you place on me!” He snapped to Alice. “I swear I’ll make you…” He was interrupted by a vicious fire whipping from Floyd, which made him shut up and stop shaking on his chair.
“Don’t say more than I ask you,” Alice said slamming her foot on the ground. “Now, Achilles, what do you exactly do with your Lord, what you been doing all this time and why did you end up here?”
“I’m one of the greatest knights he has ever gotten. We must go and do whatever deed he asks us to do, and we must always win. We bring the prices, and we have a seat at his royal table.” Achilles stopped as he tried not to say anything more. But Floyd once more forced him to speak. “I’ve been asleep, just like my other brothers in arms are. My Lord woke me up, after not seeing him for an unknown period.” He shook his head, and just before Floyd whipped him again, he continued talking. “I was given a command, to kill the Next One. I was brought to the scum planet and given a map to find it. As soon as the Next One got in enough distance, I challenged it to a battle. And then… Lost.”
“Who and what is the Next One?” Alice said immediately not letting him rest for a minute.
“The next one in line.” Achilles snarled. “The one that my lord fears the most. And that’s all that I know. My lord didn’t give me more information than that.” He chuckled. “And you know who She is. She was here just a moment Ago. I can still smell her fresh scent. I’ve failed my Lord. I couldn’t kill the Next One when She’s young and fresh. The easiest time to kill them.” He remained quiet for a while and looked up at Alice. “But I’ve still got time!” He shouted as he broke the chains and ropes that were covering him. In a single movement, he punched Shawn away and ignored both the whip and the arrow that him in the chest.
I couldn’t write anymore, I stood up and grabbed my pike with both of my hands. Achilles had caught one of the chains and used it as a weapon. He jumped and charged towards Alice, who didn’t flinch a bit at what was going on. I don’t know what happened. Next, I could only see a gray cloud and purple lines surround Achilles’ body in less than a second. The cloud disappeared, and Alice simply moved to the side as Achilles’ flew past her. He, however, had no head. I turned my head to Alice and saw her removing Achilles’ head, which was embedded in a claw-like weapon on her fist. “That’s enough… Thank you.” She told to the head just before breaking it in pieces with her hand. “Floyd, make sure he has no possibility for coming back. Laurie, help out Shawn who is suffering in the corner. And Sam. Notes.”
To be continued….
