Chapter 7: Fun Time
'...Fun'
The Template felt a surge of joy and something barbaric. The feeling of someone strong or cunning against them was exhilarating. Then, like a bucket of cold water, the feeling was doused by the sense of John. 'Will…Mother be…Mad?' They thought to themselves, and the thought made them shake a little. The man saw the slight shaking because of their distance and misunderstood it as fear towards him, making him proud and confident in taking them down and returning them to his base.
He moved his arrogant gaze to the boy, who managed to hide his flinch when the masked man's eyes locked on him. "This day gets better and better," The man said arrogantly, using their left hand to reach for his back and grasp the handle of his sword. "The name Arize (Ah-rise-zeh), the Black Slaughterer; I'll be beating all of you senseless and sell you to the Market." Arize pulled out what looked like a slightly rusted, one-edged geom sword. He pointed the sword to the ground, spreading his legs a little, preparing for combat.
The Template jumped away slightly before squatting down and widening its stance, hands on the ready, distorting the air around it and its eyes looking pointedly at the man. A sudden click pulled everyone's gaze toward the boy, who now had two guns, and pointed them toward Arize. His expression was neutral, but with the slight quiver of his gun's barrel, one could tell that the boy was nervous. However, The young warrior rushed away from the elder and slid stop behind the Template. "Elder Bromn, regroup with the others!!!" He yelled, squatted down a little, and spread his legs wide. He positioned his left arm to his front and tilted his body to the side before putting the crude swords fuller on his forearm. 'Fight.' The Template thought before shooting off from their
spot and appearing beside Arize like a blur. 'Shit!!!' Arize thought, his eyes quickly looking towards the Template before jumping to his right to distance himself from them; suddenly, a force pushed him towards the Template, who had their right arm out and directed at Arize, like a vortex. Stopping just a few inches away from the Template's outstretched hand, the wind blew against Arize. Before he could think anything further, his body was shot out like a cannon and collided with a tree. The tree he crashed with was shattered and blown away while colliding with another tree. After the third collision, only then did Arize drop down to the ground, back supported by the tree bark, and vomit a large amount of blood on the ground. He weakly held tightly to his sword. He heaved and coughed, trying to get his breathing back to a more normal pace.
'Weak…?' The Template thought before silently changing his stance into a proper stand and walking toward Arize with a confused glint in their white orbs and black sclera sockets. Arize, on the other hand, managing to fix his breathing, moved riggedly and tried to stand up from his position. He shakily stood up with his sword as a cane before twisting his blade and facing the still-nearing Template. "Y-you bastard!!!" He yelled before tilting his body forward and charging at the Template, who prepared by spreading their shoulder and braced for impact. Their dulled senses suddenly blared to life, ringing danger and death. Following the sudden feeling, the Template quickly dodged to the side with surprise in their eyes when the man, Arize, appeared in front of the Template's previous position and slashed the air. The slash created a powerful force that created a fissure on the ground. The fissure was deep and webbed out cracks; another sense of danger assaulted the Template before they tilted their spine backward, and Arize's sword slashed where the Template's neck should have been if not for the timely alert. The wind from the slash sliced a tree behind them in half before it fell to the ground. The Template gathered energy in their hand and clenched it into a fist before sending out a punch toward Arize's torso. Arize twisted their body a little and let the punch slightly graze his side. Arize smirked somewhat and prepared to taunt the Template before pain shot throughout his body, and he quickly looked down.
His side, which was lightly grazed and dirtied from Template's punch, now had a gaping semi-circular hole squirting and dripping blood to the ground. Arize dashed away from the Template and lightly held his side. "Fuck! You bastard! I'm going to kill you and tear your body apart!!!" He yelled, tone filled with rage and bloodlust, tightening his grip on his sword. His other hand pressed on the wound to try and stop the bleeding. The Template stared at Arize for a second before dashing towards him, an idea struck them and started focusing the energy in their hands forming two translucent magenta blades that slightly crackled with electric energy. The Template grinned widely and growled with excitement. 'Fun…Fun…FUN!!!' They increasingly yelled inwardly before pouncing towards Arize, who prepared his weapon to stab the Template. "DIE!!!" He yelled angrily before his muscles suddenly bulged like they were gonna explode, his clothes stretched to their limit and if Arize made agile movements it would mean ripping his clothing up.
The sudden action surprised the Template, but since they were already a metre from one another, they ready themself for the impact before swinging the blades towards Arize. One towards Arize's sword and the other towards his already injured side. Arize gritted his teeth when he noticed his opponent's action but continued his momentum. 'Die, you bastard!' Yelling in his mind, he directed his sword towards the distorted air that was coming towards his shoulder while trying to tilt his body to minimise the damage from the other.
When they both met in striking distance, the Templates right blade managed to slightly stab Arize. But his tilted body managed to evade the stab and only let part of his jacket stabbed. The stabbed part of the jacket visibly tore itself from him and twisted itself into various shapes before slowly turning into pieces. On the other hand, when Arize's sword met the Template's blade, a powerful blast managed to throw the Template away through a tree before unceremoniously hitting the ground and rolled back a few metres. Meanwhile, Arize was only pushed back a few steps but his blade was shattered into pieces with the remaining only a third of the blade and the hilt. "Fuck…" Arize was stunned from what he saw. When he saw how the destroyed air tore up a piece of his jacket to pieces and shattered his blade from just one clash, made his body tense up in fear. 'Should I just run away?' He temptingly thought, not noticing how his body stepped back unconsciously. The ground, where the centre of their blades met, had a crater in the middle with cracks spreading outwards in a web-like style.
Arize drily swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. Sweat pouring down from his forehead, eyes dilated and the feeling of adrenaline kicking in. The Template however, slowly stood up from the ground and looked towards Arize, their blank face slowly changed into a malevolent glint in their narrowed eyes and the ever widening smile. The Templates body was roughed up and covered in dirt and dust. Some black liquid slid down from their left shoulder to their forearm that fell towards the ground. "Fun~" The Template said in a creepily song-like manner, their voice was hoarse and somehow staticy, throat rumbling like a beast towards its prey.
"You fucked up bastard!" Arize shouted, his voice filled with fear. He stepped back a few metres away, trying to keep as far away as possible from the Template. The warrior who was still in his spot was too shocked to do anything. The sword he held was dropped to the ground and blankly stared with his mouth wide open. 'What power…' His body shaked with awe and slight excitement. On the other hand, the hazel haired boy was frozen in shock before he shook his head to snap out of it. "Fuck this!!!" He yelled out before turning around and ran as quickly as he could. Then a green flare shot out from the direction he went, taking the notice of the remaining three. The Template looked back at Arize and pointed at him with the tip of the translucent purple blade. "KILL!" The Template's voice was now filled with a static of different tones of voice before they hunched their back a little and tilted forward, blades to the side, preparing to thrust themself towards Arize as quickly as possible.
Arize dropped his broken sword before using his other arm to pull out the other from his back. He dropped into a crouched stance, widening his legs to keep his feet to the ground. The Template shot out from his spot, leaving a deep crater and elevated the ground from the force. Like a speeding bullet, they flew towards with the blades pointed directly at Arize's chest. The said man felt fear and had thoughts to dodge to the side, but the feeling of dread and death made him welded to the ground.
BANG!!!
WOOOOSH!!!
BOOM!!!
A cloud of dirt exploded and covered everyone's vision. Merelia coughed and tried to swat away the cloud from him, trying to see through on what happened. Arize in the meantime was on the ground coughing and heaving, attempting to get some air, he covered his mouth and nose with his other hand and slowly stood up. He lost his sword when a strong blast of wind pushed him away and made him tumble and rolled on the ground from the force. When the cloud did settle down, both of them looked around and noticed that there was a large crater on the ground 5 metres away.
On the centre was the Template with a deep diagonal wound that travelled from the left of their stomach and ended beneath their lower chest. The wound squirted out a few black liquid, creating a small puddle on the ground. The Template coughed out the black liquid, from the wound itself, there was no sign of any organs, just an empty spot the size that can feet a volleyball. Other than those large tentacle-like things that release a river of the liquid, these tentacles were wiggling and twitching. Inspecting closer, you can gleam that the wound was slowly regenerating with the tentacles mending onto each other. Albeit slow, the process was beginning to bear fruit. Such a short time has passed and the wound noticeably gone smaller.
Arize saw the opportunity and quickly turned around to run. Once he did, however, a blade was against his throat. The blade draws a little blood. "You, Humans, are always the same," Merelia spoke through gritted teeth, his grip on the hilt tight end, "First, you destroyed our Village, then you killed my Tribesmen. Now!" He shouted, spewing out spit that landed on Arize's cheek. Said man's expression did not change or even flinch. He had already lost quite a volume of blood and what little energy he had left was the only thing keeping him standing. Arize grunted when Merelia slightly moved the crude sword. "And now, you and whoever helped you, injured an Ashen one." Merelia gave more pressure on Arize neck, drawing more blood and another grunt. "Don't you know this means war?"
"I was hoping for that actually." A new voice came from behind Merelia, making the two jump in surprise. The young warrior tried to swiftly turn his head but something hard hit the back of his head, he lost his vision as he silently dropped to the ground with a thud. Arize, with the sword on the ground, swiftly reached his hand where he felt the bleeding on his neck. There was only a slight sting and looking on the blood in his hand, the cut was not too deep. "Thank Fuck! You came at the perfect timing!." Arize complicated his ally. Said ally was wearing a full on robe with the hood up. Their face was covered with black gas mask with the glass tinted green. "We need to fall back, now." They ordered, their voice was modulated and a little muffled. "Our scouts found one of the stupid Lion's people heading towards the village." The robed figure turned around and began to walk away. I've sent a few men to hunt down these moon loving fools." The figures left and silently vanished once they went further into another direction of the forest. Arize peeked on the downed template before staring at the knocked out warrior. He clicked his tongue before walking away, every step he took and the way he tried to balance himself looked like he was drunk to anyone else who might see him.
"I hate this job."
A few hours passed and Merelia woke up with a start. "Agh!!!" Merelia held the side of his head with his right arm, the other supporting him to stay up. "Ugh…" Merelia rose from his position, vision blurred, he weakly shambled away and into the forest. "Elder Bromn?" He weakly called out. "Brother Ludix?" He slowly disappeared, calling out different names as he went in a random direction of the forest. A few moments passed before the Template sat up slowly, spitting out the blood in their mouth, they propped up their left knee and used it to stand up with a little difficulty. Once the Template was standing up straight, they stepped on the craters slope and slowly got out. The previous wound was no more, other than the regeneration scar and the tentacles trying to rewrap itself into their original clothing. 'Where…?' They looked around the area before a strong scent attacked their nose. The Template turned and looked towards the direction of the smell. Feeling curious, they moved towards the direction to check the origin of the smell. The smell smelled like resin mixed with the smell of rust. Exiting the tree line and pushing away some branches of the bush.
What met their gaze was a dozen bodies on the ground with blue blood all over creating pools or small rivers. The bodies varied from the same robes of Elder Brown, to some that wore linen clothes with weapons beside them and leather armour on them to smaller bodies with various clothes.
Then the sense of something came over them and looked slightly above the crowns of the trees. 'What the…'
'Mother…Oh no…'