Retribution, p.60
Retribution, page 60
Ellie conjured an arrow. “Now what?”
Activating Realmheart, I wrapped my hand around the arrow and sent out a small amount of aether, the aether and mana shifting slightly to mingle together. I looked at the arrow and felt a frown creeping onto my face.
“It’s just going to bleed out. It needs to be…”
The mana particles moved, leaving a sort of reservoir in the arrow’s head that would be completely surrounded by Ellie’s mana.
“Like that,” I said, moving the aether. I focused on pushing it through the outer layer of mana until it was fully shielded within.
She took her time setting up the shot. It was a long way to the door she was aiming at.
From this distance, I wasn’t able to see the monster forming to attack Regis, but it was obvious when it did. Regis, glinting like a purple jewel, leapt on a shadowy silhouette and tore it to pieces.
Ellie’s arrow trailed through the dark like a shooting star, striking the distant door with a quiet but satisfying thwack. She turned to me and grinned.
“Now, the other one,” I said, and we repeated the process, Ellie’s second aether-infused arrow sticking into the bottom corner of Mica’s door.
“Don’t overdo it,” I cautioned.
Ellie waved me away, closing her eyes. “I won’t.”
Her eyes moved back and forth beneath the lids for a few seconds, then with a soft burst of mana, both arrows detonated simultaneously.
I held my breath.
Mica vanished from the door. When she didn’t immediately appear in front of us, I hurried to the edge, peering into the darkness. Regis had a second monster by one arm, shaking it violently. His pain radiated through our link as its other claw tore at the flesh of his back, but so did his intensity. He ripped the arm off and spit it on the ground, then pounced, slamming the skeletal horror in the chest with both paws and driving it to the ground. Finally, his jaws closed around its throat, and it dissolved beneath him.
When Mica stepped out of the door a few seconds later, her hammer already in hand, she jumped into action, fighting side by side with Regis as another monster climbed out of the void.
“Woohoo!” Ellie exclaimed, jumping up and raising a hand to Boo, who gently met it with his paw in a sort of high-five.
I let out a relieved breath, but with the mystery of how to move my companions across the zone solved, I felt anxious to get through it as quickly as possible. “Let’s send Boo next, just to make sure it’ll work for him too.”
Ellie sobered slightly as she exchanged a look with the guardian bear. But when Boo pressed a paw to the door, I was able to send him in, and Ellie’s trick with the aether-infused arrow worked just as we expected. With Regis, Mica, and Boo on the distant platform, the continually manifesting horrors were taken down one by one.
Lyra went next. It wasn’t until only Ellie and I remained that we realized the flaw in our technique.
“So…how do you think I get over there?”
“Shoot your arrows, but don’t make them explode. Then I’ll send you into the door,” I suggested.
Shrugging, Ellie worked with me to infuse two arrows, shooting one into the door on our platform and the other into the distant platform where the others were fighting for their lives. With that done, she pressed a hand against the dark rectangle of mana, which I imbued with aether.
She vanished. And the instant she did, her connection with the arrows was severed, causing them to shatter with a slight pop.
My sister’s image vanished from the doorway in front of me. It was with a growing sense of unease that I waited for her to appear on the other side, watching as the others took down two more of the horrors. It wasn’t until she finally stepped out of the far door that I was able to relax and follow her through.
By the time I stepped out of the portal, my companions had formed a protective ring around Ellie. Her bow was drawn, a glowing arrow of mana against the string, and when a skeletal monster dragged itself free of the darkness, she let the arrow fly. There was a dry crack, and the monster’s head snapped back as the arrow pierced its skull. Slowly, it tumbled back into the void, vanishing.
“All right, Regis, head for the next platform,” I ordered, moving to Ellie’s side.
Regis wasted no time with banter, vanishing first into a door on the opposite side of the platform, then from the door as well.
A long chitinous tail with a bulbous stinger at the end stabbed down from the void as another monster appeared. Lyra deflected the attack with a burst of wind, and Ellie sent an arrow into its chest. It fell on all fours, scrambling like an insect. Mica brought her hammer down at its head, but it jerked away erratically, and her hammer rang against the floor.
The tail swung wildly, whipping around like an untethered electrical wire. I pulled Ellie down with one hand as I conjured a blade in the other, slashing across the shiny black skin in the same motion, slicing the deadly appendage off. Boo pounced on the monster, crushing it lifeless.
In the distance, I saw the next platform appear, followed a second later by Regis.
“Mica, go,” I ordered, rushing to the door. She met me there, and I sent her in with a pulse of aether. “Ellie!”
As Boo and Lyra worked to corner a new horror—this one with four clawing arms and two mouths where its eyes should have been, each filled with needlelike teeth—Ellie disengaged, conjuring an arrow with a reservoir for my aether in its head. The next monster to appear crawled out of the void right beside us as I sent my aether into the arrow, and its claws sank into my shoulder.
Vibrations rippled visibly in the air, so strong I felt my skin tingle, and the monster crumpled, letting out a horrible squeal. I stomped down hard, and the noise ceased.
Ellie shot the arrow first at the far platform. When it hit its mark, we repeated the process with Mica’s door. Ellie wasted no time in bursting the arrows and releasing the contained aether. With the connection formed, Mica vanished.
“This is going to get difficult,” I said into the momentary quiet between attacks.
Boo was ready the moment Mica passed through the other doorway, and I sent him in. This time, I worked with Ellie with one hand as I held my blade in the other. With only Lyra on the platform with us, defending Ellie became my entire priority.
But we were getting faster. Only one monster appeared, and was subsequently cut down, before Boo was on his way.
“We can do this,” Lyra said firmly, standing by the doorway, some dark spell crackling on her fingertips as we waited. When the next horror oozed out of the darkness, her spell crashed into it, sending it flying off the platform and out of sight.
Then it was her turn. She watched us nervously from within as Ellie hurried to form her arrows, and I filled them with aether. When a two-headed horror dragged itself onto the platform, I reabsorbed the blade, focusing it into a single point in my hand before releasing it as an aetheric blast.
The two-headed horror dodged to the side and launched itself at Ellie.
With an aether-infused arrow already on her string, she adjusted her aim and released. Instead of arcing toward the next platform, the arrow struck the monstrosity in the stomach. Then, it exploded.
The monster was ripped apart from the inside, showering our platform with black gore, which rained down around us with a heavy, wet splattering.
Without missing a beat, Ellie conjured another arrow and held it out to me. Beside us, a chunk of oozing black mush ran down Lyra’s two-dimensional face.
Once Lyra was gone and Ellie was inside the door, I felt better. I’d entirely forgotten to track the other group’s progress on the third platform, but Regis’s thoughts were filled with the glow of battle and success. I dispatched two more monsters before I could make the jump myself.
“Shit,” Regis said a minute later, stepping back out of a door on the third platform, which was large with several doors lining each edge. He had just tried multiple doors looking for the way forward. “There are three platforms.” Sidestepping a claw, Regis dragged down an attacking monster with its arms and head in the wrong positions on its torso. When it was finished, he asked, “Do I just pick one or what?”
“Yes, just go,” I said, shielding Ellie from the swiping claws of another creature. “But make note of your choice. If this place turns into a maze…” I left the rest of my meaning unsaid, certain we all understood the danger of getting lost or having to backtrack while under constant attack.
In the twenty seconds it took Regis to reach the next platform, we dispatched three more monsters, which were appearing much more quickly than on the second platform. Already, Mica had a deep wound in her side, and Boo was bleeding from a dozen cuts all over his massive body.
“Their damned claws go right through mana and steel,” Mica said with a grimace as she took another shallow cut across her forearm. “They may break like shale, but with so many of them…”
‘It’s a dead end,’ Regis thought back to me. ‘The doors only face back.’
Come back and try another, I thought, suppressing my frustration.
All we could do while waiting for Regis to return was keep fighting. One particularly horrible manifestation with a vertical mouth down the middle of its face and three eyes on each side, lunged at me. I brought the aether blade up, severing its outstretched arm, pivoted to the side, then carved through its torso as it flew past.
Boo reared up in front of Ellie, bringing both huge paws down on the shoulders of another creature, which collapsed under the guardian bear’s weight. Mica was doing her best to conserve her mana by launching stone blades out of her hammer from a distance. Lyra had pinned two of the creatures beneath a wave of sonic vibration that was pulling them apart.
As my target fell, I scanned the platform for any more.
Ellie was braced behind Boo, firing off arrow after arrow. My attention caught on her face, which was a mask of determination. No fear, no hesitation. Pride warmed me.
Lyra and Mica had gravitated to opposing corners of the platforms, fighting separately. Most of the creatures were focused on them. Even as I watched, a clawed hand crept over the edge of the platform and slashed at the back of Mica’s leg. She went down to one knee with a suppressed cry of pain, holding off another horror with her hammer.
I cleared the platform in an instant, slashing twice through the three-armed monster on the platform and allowing her to spin around and slam her weapon into the other one’s face, sending it tumbling off the edge.
“Thanks,” she muttered, pressing a hand over the fresh cuts.
“A-Arthur?” The sound of Ellie’s voice drew my gaze back across the platform.
Staring with wide, wet eyes, Ellie was pressing both hands against her sternum. Blood was gushing freely between her fingers and running down her front.
Her stomach was a red ruin, and I could see clear through her to the emptiness beyond.
Boo roared, his claws rending and tearing through the monster that had appeared behind Ellie while I was helping Mica, ripping it to tattered pieces.
With a sick lurch, time slowed, and the distance between me and Ellie seemed to grow wider and wider.
Ellie’s knees buckled and she started to fall. Moving in a daze, I swept her up in my arms, gently easing her to the ground, my hands flailing against hers as I futilely attempted to help.
“I d-didn’t think…” Ellie said, struggling to speak as her body and voice both shook uncontrollably. “I’m s-so sorry.”
“No no no.” Desperate, I empowered Aroa’s Requiem, remembering my visions in the keystone. I only need better insight, maybe I could…but no, there was nothing. Like God Step, it was dormant, a useless mark on my skin. I pushed aether into the wound, urging it to do something, to heal her the way it could heal me.
My vision was growing blurry. The bloodstained hands at the ends of my arms didn’t even feel like mine. They were trembling so hard flecks of blood were splashing off them. I didn’t know what to do.
‘Arthur, what’s wrong?’ Regis thought from the next platform, but my mind was buzzing with static, and I barely comprehended his words.
Boo was trying to get to Ellie, his roar blending into the hurricane rush of blood pounding in my head. When I pushed him back, his claws slashed across my shoulder in fury, but I barely noticed.
Because even as I watched, Ellie’s tear-filled eyes lost their spark and rolled back, her body going stiff as a final labored breath came out of her lungs, and then she sagged in my arms.
All life was gone from her.
420
BLACK DOORS II
A choked sob lodged in my throat as I stared down at Ellie. My mind was blank. I grasped for sense, but the image of her ripped open and crimson with her own blood seemed so impossible, so unbelievable, that all reality shivered to a halt. The only thing to penetrate my brain aside from the horrible sight was the mournful roaring and tramping of Boo behind me, which felt like a manifestation of the emotions I couldn’t shake loose myself.
“…thur!”
A hand was on my shoulder, squeezing and shaking. A heavy wave of aether rolled outward from my body in response, and the hand pulled away. Distantly, I was aware of Mica and Lyra struggling against the monsters.
A shadow crossed over Ellie, and I looked up into Regis’s bright eyes, now full of our shared despair. He phased into incorporeality, then took on the shape of a wisp as he sank down into Ellie’s body.
My spark of hope was doused before it even fully manifested. ‘She’s…gone,’ Regis thought, drifting around her core. ‘Wait. There’s something wrong—’
The weight of Ellie’s body vanished from my arms as she became transparent. For a moment I could see plainly how the dark wisp of Regis settled into her outline, then they both vanished, dissolving like the monster that had killed her.
I opened my mouth to yell or curse, but only a wheezing breath came out.
“W-what happened?” Mica asked, batting aside a grinning skeletal beast, but not before it took a chunk out of her side.
“Regent…Leywin, you must…release your—”
Rage flared within me, and I spun on Lyra. The Alacryan retainer shrank back and fell to her knees, succumbing to the force of my intent. Aether formed into a sword in my hand without my conscious manipulation. There was fear in her eyes, radiating as bright and clear as the reflection of my weapon.
Grimacing, I swung the blade.
It carved through flesh and bone. A brief shriek of pain, then silence.
The monster that had manifested behind Lyra collapsed into two pieces, then melted away.
Closing my eyes, I forcefully retook control of my aura. When I opened them again, Lyra was watching me warily. She swallowed heavily, then eased back to her feet, as if she was afraid that any sudden movement might set me off again. In the next instant, her entire body flinched at a roar from Boo. The bear launched itself at another attacker, ripping into it mercilessly.
What am I going to do now?
‘You have to go on without us,’ a somber voice answered in my mind.
I froze. Regis?
‘Don’t worry about us. We’re in heaven now. It’s beautiful. Nothing but busty demon babes as far as the eye can see, you know? Just like I always wanted.’
An eerie tremor ran up my spine. Before I could reply, a light bloomed in the distance, arcing across the empty black background like a flare.
One of Ellie’s arrows.
It had to be. Boo looked up from his kill, the light reflecting in his small black eyes, then he vanished with a slight pop.
Regis, you son of a bitch, explain or—
‘Don’t speak ill of the dead, princess,’ Regis shot back.
I rushed to the door that would lead me backward, but hesitated, turning to look at Mica and Lyra. Another horror had manifested, but Lyra and Mica were already unleashing their spells.
“Go, we’ll be fine,” Mica said, spinning to slam her hammer into the jaw of a faceless monstrosity.
Wasting no more time, I went through the door. It seemed painfully, impossibly slow moving, dragging me through empty space with deliberate malaise. When I finally reached the second platform, I fired an aetheric blast from my palm, ripping apart two of the monsters, then hurried back into the door.
My heart stopped.
Standing on the edge of the starting platform, staring out into the zone, was Ellie, her bow in hand. Boo stood next to her, nuzzling her and moaning deep in his chest. Ellie, who was pale and shaking, had one hand entwined through his fur, holding on as if afraid she was about to fall.
“Ellie,” I gasped as I stepped out of the door.
Twisting around, her face wrinkled up as sobs overtook her, and she threw herself into my arms, heaving breathlessly. I could do nothing but hold on to her, too shocked to even feel joy that she was alive.
Eventually she pulled away from me to wipe her face on her sleeve. Her eyes were red and swollen, and there was a sense of horror in them that kept her from looking at me straight on.
I stroked her hair and made gentle cooing noises to try and comfort her. “What happened?”
“What happened is easy,” Regis said, sitting back on his haunches. “Like our furry compatriot here, we poofed across the zone. Ellie reappeared in her door, and I came out of yours. How and why it happened…” He trailed off with a shrug.
I pulled Ellie to me, lifted her up off the ground, and pressed my lips to the top of her head. “I’m so sorry, El. I never should’ve…I—” I felt her small hands press against me, and I eased up, allowing her to pull back.
“It wasn’t your fault, Arthur,” she said, wiping her puffy tear-reddened eyes. “It happened so fast. It felt…it was so real.”
I went quiet, unable to think past one all-encompassing fact.
I had failed. My sister had died in my arms. Whatever was happening in this zone that brought her back didn’t change that.
Reaching into the extradimensional storage rune, I withdrew the Compass.
