59.
Capricious Chaos, Delusional Discord
The long hallway that Vance, Eden, and Cliff followed had been a
strenuous one, but they finally made their way out. A few stragglers had
crossed their path, but no one had been able to stand up to the three of them
together. As they reached the end of the tunnel, it widened out into a chamber
connected to a dozen branching hallways.
Most of the hallways were filled with overflowing mobs of people fighting
their way into the room, while another group of at least fifty tore at each
other in the center. The competitors wielded all manners of weapons, from flamethrowers
to spiked chains, pulsating with bloodlust and desperation.
The sounds of clanging metal, ripping flesh, and screaming flooded Vance's
senses, nearly throwing him off-balance for a second. These people were different
from the men he had fought in the waiting area: experienced, bloodthirsty, with
a knack for combat.
He watched in shock as one man brought a two-sided axe down on a shorter
man wielding a spear. The spear wielder was initially cleaved from the impact, but
then his opponent turned the axe and pulled it back through the man's side, brutally
eviscerating him.
"This is barbaric..." Cliff watched in horror as the competitors
openly murdered each other, some out of sport, and others out of pure survival.
"How can they get away with this?!"
"More importantly, how are we supposed to get through this?" Eden
muttered with wide eyes.
"We're going to have to circle around the mess." Cliff shook his
head. "There's no point in getting involved with that."
"Alright..." Eden nodded slowly. "Let's stay close together."
Vance tried to look away from all the chaos. Death filled his vision, and
he suddenly felt very forlorn.
I don't want to end up like that.
"These hallways don't look any different than the one we came from,"
Eden said, trying to keep her eyes off the carnage. "How are we going to
tell which one is the exit?"
"Well, we sure as hell can't ask for directions." Vance snorted.
"I mean–"
Vance went silent. Cliff and Eden turned, focusing on him with curious
expressions. Vance’s eyes whizzed through the crowd. I know I saw them just
now...I can feel them.
There they were again, just barely visible as they soared up from the
crowd: two bloodstained hand sickles. Vance could still remember the sharp,
lingering pain he’d felt when those sickles first cut through his shoulder blades:
the pain of inferiority.
"Go on ahead," Vance said absently. "I'll be right there."
"Vance?!" Cliff shouted. "Where do you think you're going?!"
"Vance!" Eden called after him, as he disappeared into the
crowd. "Not again!"
"Great," he sighed. "We don't have time to go looking
for him!"
"Wait, Cliff!" Eden grabbed his arm. "I just realized
how we can find the exit."
"Yeah?" he asked curiously. "How?"
"It's bound to be the place with the most dead bodies around
it."
Meanwhile, Vance swerved and dodged his way through the mob, using his
eyes as much as his psynergy to pre-empt each swing that someone made at him. He
slid under a big man's legs, hopped over the bent back of someone who was frantically
trying to retrieve their sword, and twirled around a nunchaku-wielding girl. A
hooded being tried to throw some darts at him, and he barely managed to flip onto
his back to avoid them. They went sailing overhead and stuck into the back of a
skinny man equipped with some very sinister-looking claws. The darts ripped through
his skin like a fork through meat, and he went flailing to the ground, helpless.
"Geez!" Vance hissed, desperately scrambling to his feet and
looking for a quick escape. "Chill out!"
The dart wielder dove in to pursue so him, but Vance deftly hopped over
the body of the claw man and disappeared into the crowd. He soon found a safe spot
midst the confusion behind a small pile of bodies.
He's close, but I can't see him anywhere. Is he hiding?
Vance closed his eyes and tried to concentrate, keeping tabs on his surroundings
in case someone tried to attack. That tawny glow felt like it was almost next to
him, burning and pulsating like a fluorescent parasite.
Where is he? Vance opened
his eyes and looked up. There's nothing but people and corpses around here...
Wait a second.
Vance turned around and took another look at the pile of bodies.
"Winslow!" Vance charged up his fist and struck one of the bodies
on the back. The hill crumbled, revealing the single living body beneath it all.
"Vance!" Winslow sneered as he hopped out from the pile.
"I could smell you a mile away, but I didn't think you had the brains to
find me."
"Shut up and get out of there," Vance retorted. "How cowardly
can you be?"
"All's fair in love and war." Winslow caught his sickles and
licked his lips. "What, would you like to be my next victim?"
"Shut up and let’s go."
"You won't even lay a finger on me!" Winslow laughed, then shot
his sickles forward. "Die!"
Vance swerved backwards and deftly dodged the first sickle, but failed
to remove his body from the course of the second. It ripped through the side of
his black cloak, slicing the surface of his skin.
Vance's upper lip curled, and his eyes took on a new furious light.
"That's it!"
He shot forward. Winslow regained his sickles and brought them up,
prepared to parry Vance's fist. When the Albavitrean reached Winslow's face, he
suddenly noticed that a dark shadow had been cast over both their bodies.
Vance backpedaled just in time as an eroded iron mallet slammed down
between the two young men.
"Little runts...my favorite!" An ogrish man with rusty metal
armor cackled. He was missing one eye, and had a mouth with purple, swollen
lips that looked as if they had been sucking down sewage for the past few
years.
Vance briefly glanced at the monstrous killer, and then looked back to
Winslow.
"Stop interrupting us!" Winslow screamed, and sent out his sickles
again.
As Winslow’s sickles sliced into the man's legs, Vance closed in on his
massive face. "I've been waiting to kick this guy's ass for months now, but
every time we start, some asshole like you has to butt in!"
"Wh-what?!" The man sputtered. "I-"
Vance's fist exploded in a flash of purple light, smashing his assailant's
jaw. The man's enormous frame fell backwards and landed on two other people behind
him.
Vance hopped off, feeling satisfied, then felt a flash of tawny psynergy.
He turned around, only to watch as Winslow's sickles ripped through the man's
neck in a splatter of blood.
"Hey!" Vance screamed. "What did you do that for?"
"That weak punch of yours wasn't enough to do him in." Winslow
snorted. "I was merely finishing the job."
"You didn't have to kill him!" Vance stared back at the corpse.
"He was already down!"
"Oh, come on!" Winslow laughed. "I didn't know you were that
soft!"
Vance stared daggers back at Winslow.
"No..." Winslow's smile widened, and soon he broke into an
uncontrollable laugh. "No, wait, it can't be! You've never killed anyone, have
you?! Oh, man! That's too hilarious! What a loser!"
"You know what, Winslow?" Vance said, as he began to walk away.
"Forget it. I’m not doing this here."
"What are you talking about?" Winslow shouted. "You're
running away, aren't you, Vance? I can't believe it! You're actually running away!!"
"I'm going to make it to the finals." Vance cast his nemesis
one last glance through the chaos. "And I'm going to take you down, one-on-one,
in front of everyone."
"There's no need for that." Winslow's smirk didn't waver.
"It'll only take me a few seconds to kill you."
"I'll be waiting, Winslow." And with that, Vance dove into
the crowd.
"Get back here!" Winslow screamed. "You're mine, Vance! Mine!"
Vance ignored the cries of his rival, burying them deep beneath his own
thoughts. So what if I've never killed anyone? What does that have to do
with anything?
Across the room, Cliff and Eden found themselves at an impasse. Directly
in front of them stood a corridor filled to the brim with frantic, frenzied combatants.
"Yep," Eden sighed. "That’s probably the exit."
"There's no way we can get through." Cliff stared ahead in dismay.
"Not with all of these people here."
The room slowly became more claustrophobic as the mobs of desperate people
grew larger on every side of the two Knights. Cliff and Eden stood close together,
auras flared, ready to protect each other.
"Eden..." Cliff said. "In case something happens, I just
want to say...I’m sorry."
Eden glanced up at him. "For what?"
"I took it hard when you told me how you really felt at the beginning of our
training," Cliff said. "Even though I just should have accepted it,
like a true friend. I acted cold just because you didn’t feel the same
way...that wasn’t the mature thing to do."
"It’s okay, Cliff," Eden said quickly. "I just want you
to know, I respect you, so I knew I had to be honest with you."
"Thank you," Cliff pushed the words out. "It was the right thing
to do. And I want you to know that no matter what happens, I’ll always be here
for you. No matter what."
Eden looked up at him, feeling sadness well up inside
her. But you won’t able to be...I just know it. Not with the path that God has
set for me.
A thin, sharp voice chuckled behind them. "Why, if it isn't the noble
Knights...stuck in yet another crisis..."
A long gleaming knife shot out past Cliff, shish-kebabing a row of fighters
in front of the passage.
"A..." Cliff swerved around. "Averyl?"
"Go quickly," Averyl smiled, curving his red lips up. "I'll
take care of things back here."
"Wait, stop!" Cliff shouted. "I don’t want you killing
all these people! We don’t need your help!"
"Who said I was helping you? I just need you to move so I have a better
shot at the rabble."
Averyl raised his arms, giving Cliff and Eden only a brief second to
duck out of the way. Soon, a swarm of pristine blades exploded out from his
black cloak, filling the passage with shrieks of terror and splatters of blood.
Both Knights could do nothing but shield themselves as the carnage continued.
"Why did you do that?" Eden called up to the phantom with pain-stricken
eyes. "They weren’t even attacking you..."
"Just move on, little girl," the smiling devil said, waggling
a hand at her as he moved on. "I have no use for you."
"Just whose side is he on?" Eden whispered, crawling over to
Cliff.
"Hell if I know!" Cliff shouted. "Don't look a gift horse
in the mouth!"
As they warily moved through the gore-ridden hallway, they could hear a
high-pitched, insane laughter echoing from up ahead.
"That's him, isn't it?" Eden muttered, trembling slightly.
"Run!" A panicked man came running back toward them from the
tunnel. "There's a crazy guy on the loose up ahead!"
At the end of the hall, Averyl cackled evilly as a plethora of blades impaled
over two dozen more people within seconds. His eyes rolled back in his head and
he raised his arms upward, reveling in the mayhem.
As Cliff and Eden slowly approached, a severed leg flew by Eden's head,
nearly mixing in with her flowing red hair.
"This is a massacre." Cliff swallowed uneasily. "And the
worst part is, it's just begun."
"Die, die, die..." Averyl sang, as his blades continued to discombobulate
and decapitate. "Let your blood pave the way to the true battles."
"Why?!" an impaled man cried. "Why are you doing this to
us?!"
"Oh." Averyl turned to face his victim. "Well, you see,
I–"
A blade leapt from his arm and skewered the man's forehead.
"...simply can't control myself."
Next: Knights X Assassins
