Sadly this chapter is a bit late... Very sorry. Not much else to say. So yeah, read if you wish!
Hale followed the trail. The rain had come suddenly, drenching him and everywhere around him, but the trail remained; if a bit more difficult to follow. There were traces. Mainly the faint etching of footprints, barely visible. Hale doubted he would have seen them without his eyes that now occasionally detected living things from far distances.
It was his best bet. The trail had taken him to the Bullseye, and it was natural that it would bring him to the next weapon.
'It's all for the better, you know.'
He tried to ignore the voice. No good would come from arguing with Daedelus. Just follow the trail Hale.
'You wouldn't need these weapons if you allowed me to take control, remember the brief time you had my power? The power to tear through your enemies so easily…
Hale nearly snapped, was nearly ready to start arguing. But he heard something.
He froze, slowly shuffling and slowly descending himself to the ground, so as not to make much noise.
The forest was not silent; the wind howled and the rain roared down. But it may as well have been silent. Hale ignored all those sounds, they were natural, what he wanted was something out of the ordinary…
There it was! Footsteps; light footsteps, but footsteps nonetheless.
Hale shifted slightly to look in the direction they were coming from.
It was an individual wearing a long black cloak that concealed all their features aside from two human hands, a giant key in each of them. They moved casually, which was at odds with the weather, the muddy earth, and the scenario they were probably in.
From the lack of visible features and the almost comedic giant keys, he was difficult to take seriously.
'Focus Hale, that guy is probably a lot stronger then he looks.' Hale aimed the Bullseye at his opposition.
Yet still, he found himself hesitating. If the guy was as dangerous as he thought, his weapon would probably have little or no effect. If the guy wasn't, it seemed like a terrible thing to do, or at least a waste of his ammo.
So he went to plan B. His Bullseye had a secondary fire, a small tag that would pierce flesh or get a footing on metal, causing minimal damage and allow Hale to keep track of whoever it hit. The guy would feel a sting at most, and Hale would just have to slip silently away.
So, he fired.
That's when things started to go wrong.
The key, which had seemed to be rather loose by the cloaked figure's side, glinted as it rapidly moves to block the tag, which didn't seem to manage to attach at all to it and fell to the ground, Hale quickly deactivated it.
'Who's there!?' The cloaked figure turned around, both giant keys at the ready.
A sword of what appeared to be made of solid light materialized above the cloaked figure and sliced cleanly through a tree near where Hale was hidden, the sword hadn't been thick enough to go through the whole tree though, but the sword kept going, slicing through another tree before vanishing from sight.
Suddenly killing the guy seemed a much better option. He squeezed the primary fire trigger.
Small orange spheres erupted from the gun, although the noise wasn't so much an eruption as a shrill whiny noise, headed right for his opposition.
In a flash the giant keys were there, right in the path of the glowing spheres which struck and left no mark, and the opponent held firm, ignoring any impact that may have occurred. Now the key-wielding opponent knew where Hale was. He quickly got up just as his opponent started moving rapidly towards him.
Hale got off a few more shots, one missed entirely and the others hit the key as the attacker struck followed by the Bullseye going empty. A solid whack as Hale brought an arm up and blocked the two giant keys, his arm became numb from the pain and a large bruise started forming. But using his other arm Hale gave an uppercut to his opponent's stomach using the bullseye.
His opposition stumbled back, hale took advantage of the time to take out the Bullseye's empty clip, jumping back from a dazed slash by his opponent, and then putting in a new clip. A stab at the forehead required him to shift his head, but the stab diverted his attention away from his opponent's legs, which delivered a swift kick that took Hale down to his knees. Hale swung his gun towards his opponent to fire, but his opponent swung one of the keys into it; when Hale pulled the trigger it tore into the figure's hood, but not flesh.
But the hood no longer covered his face; Hale could see the spiky blonde hair and blue eyes of a teenage boy. 'Not bad…' His opponent murmured.
'What's a kid like you doing in this tournament?' Hale would have shaken his head if he hadn't seen what speed the kid was capable of.
'Same as everyone else, I guess.' He replied evenly, his giant keys in a defensive stance.
You got a family waiting at home?'
His opponent laughed, but what made Hale almost shiver was the lack of any emotion in it. It wasn't true nor bitter, it was simply a laugh. 'No family, I don't even exist. I'm Roxas, a Nobody. Soon you won't exist either.' A flash of what was probably killing intent flickered in his eyes.
This was a bit of a surprise, but Hale still threw his fist at the visible face.
Instead of flesh, his fist met metal as the key intercepted his strike yet again. Pain jolted across his arm. Hale had a plan, he just needed to force 'Roxas' back…
But the boy wasn't going to make it easy, although his face showed what may have been dull surprise as Hale brought his fist back, only for another punch. Once again there was pain, but Hale pushed himself forward and his opponent back, even as the bones in his fist protested. It helped that while Hale had found a tree root, his opponent had only mud to try and hold his ground with.
A step back, and Hale's eyes glinted. Success! That thought was contradictorily punctuated by a key being slammed into Hale's face, making blood leak out of his nose and leaving a large blotch on his face. Growling as he stumbled back, he fired the Bullseye.
Roxas had his keys ready to intercept, but didn't expect the projectiles to change course and shred his left leg. Instead of blood or indeed most normal reactions, black particles began seeping into the air, obscuring the area around his leg even as they faded into nothing. But as it began to stop Nathan could see a stump instead of a leg, and his opponent was forced to kneel.
Roxas gave a look of pain, but there was something… Fake about it. And his eyes never left Hale. Just as Hale moved to insert another clip, those light blades materialized and shot at him, one pierced the bullseye and travelled straight through, another narrowly missed his neck and a third pierced his stomach, missing the organs but hitting an artery. Blood spurted out.
It was then that Hale blacked out. His mind seemed out for the count, but his body remained standing.
Then it let out a roar. A roar that terrified the nearby animals into scurrying away, and gave contestants all around the island a shiver of discomfort. Whatever was controlling Hale was now sprinting on all fours, a savage look in those golden eyes heading right for Roxas even as more blades of light materialized and shot forward.
But the boy in black underestimated the speed of Hale's body. Most fell too far, or were avoided. One actually drove into Hale's leg, sending him off balance, yet he kept moving on all fours despite the increasing amount of blood trailing him like bread crumbs, Hale's skin paled, but it was too late for the boy. Hale was upon him.
Before the keys managed to go into a defensive position, Hale pinned Roxas' arms to the ground. Both pairs of arms strained; both had legs dangling uselessly.
Then Hale opened his mouth, revealing a set of carnivorous all-too-sharp teeth. He drove them into the unprotected face of Roxas.
Black particles obscured the area; Roxas' arms weakened.
Hale brought his head back, and rammed it into what remained of the unfortunate boys' head.
POOF!
There was a sudden explosion of darkness, as the rest of Roxas', the blades of light, and the two keys he wielded faded away… to nothing.
Snarling, Hale rummaged the dirt, expecting meat. But there was nothing, no food, only a scrap of metal, a 'keychain'.
It was at that point the gold eyes dimmed. He collapsed with a much more human groan.
Slowly, his mind returned to normal. Gasping, he crawled next to a tree in an attempt to limit the rain pelting down on his head. Not knowing quite why just seconds ago he had pocketed the keychain left behind.
Closing his eyes, he tried to even out his breathing. His wounds almost seemed to hiss as they slowly healed. But his head still throbbed, and his limbs barely responded.
'What a temper you have Hale…' Daedelus' laughter echoed through his head.
'I won't be so weak next time…' Hale almost immediately regretted thinking it.
'I only wish I could take full credit…' Hale sensed bitterness from those words.
Then the full extent of those words hit him. He frowned, struggling into a sitting position. 'What do you mean?'
'There is another manipulator of the mind on this island, he took advantage of your struggle with me to seize partial control, then left when the fight was over.'
'But… why?'
'I suppose it's one of the ways they keep the people in here fighting each other instead of trying to team up and free themselves.'
Well, things were just getting worse now.
Speaking of worse…
Scanning the area, he noted that the trail he had been following was just about gone, the vaguest of impressions. Hale needed to rest, but he also needed another weapon considering the Bullseye might not work after the blade had cut a hole in it and he had only one possibly waterlogged rifle and three magnum bullets. And if all his opponents were as fast as the previous two, the grenades were probably useless.
Groaning, Hale crawled along the ground, his blurring vision making it nearly impossible to follow the trail. The mud was almost a spider's web, every bit forward took effort. 'Follow the trail, Hale.' Although since he had his face in it, he was getting rather sick of the trail.
He didn't know how long it was. But the trail got him to a mound. It was little more then mud, so he reached out and pushed his hand through, dragging out a weapon that seemed to be a rifle, but instead of a scope it had a small screen which showed heat signatures, of which at the moment there seemed to be none.
As he tested the screen, he noticed where he was. He probably should have guessed from the sounds of the waves crashing.
He was on a cliff, rather close to the edge, but far enough to feel safe.
'Dead man's point…'
Even as he thought of these things, the blood loss and the exertion forced hale into unconsciousness even as it started to heal…
So yeah, hope you enjoyed it. I'm sure most other entrants in the tourny will know who the other mind manipulator is :). I'm so egotistical...
Anyway, I don't seem to be showing mercy hey? well, the tourny seems to need a bit of a speed up anyway, even if i sorta took too long to post this... It is rather amazing actually how much damage you can do yet keep it PG or M so long as it isn't human hey?
Well, hope you enjoyed!
