Chapter Eight: The Midnight Gardens

"What kind of flowers are those?" NiGHTS asked, pulling my arm up to point at a large bundle of stubby purple flowers.

I rolled my eyes. Those, NiGHTS, are African Violets. Like the last four groves you asked about…

"Those too? Wow, there's a lot of those flowers around here."

Maybe because you've only noticed the ones that are the same color as you? NiGHTS, are you colorblind or something?

The jester giggled. "You're looking through my eyes, why don't you tell me that?"

I sighed. NiGHTS had very enviable vision from the position of a nearsighted guy like me. And yes, she could see full colors. I'm very sorry, NiGHTS, you're just too much of a twit to pay better attention…

She yanked me over onto my back, so now I was doing a back paddle. "Hey, I can't do sightseeing and flying all at the same time, you know!

If I can drive a car and sightsee all at once, then I'm pretty freaking sure you can do the same, NiGHTS!

The jester seemed to take it as a challenge; she cackled, spun around in a tight loop, and started to accelerate. How about we test that theory, huh?

NiGHTS couldn't remember flowers for beans, but shamierdes, she was crystal-clear with how to warp my logic. Yes, it was hard to sightsee when we were flying around really, really fast, at that special speed that the jester had perfectly measured for maximum, mindless, thrill-provoking free-flying. All I saw was what was directly in front of me, and then, even only in snapshots, fragments, blurs of color and light whipping past so quickly they all blended together, a panorama of vision perhaps five degrees wide at best, where sight was meaningless and all that mattered was speed, speed, speed…

A pearlescent streak slashed by my face, like a bolt of lightning. I kicked out my feet forwards to brake, to stop—a little too hard, because I didn't stop, but was sent tumbling forwards.

The earth fell up beneath me; I crashed into it like a felled airliner. I probably would have broken half the bones in my body were it not for the soft sod I landed on, and the bed of flowers I smashed into the topsoil. The force of the impact was still enough to knock me end over end, and quite frankly I bounced, skidding to a stop several feet away. Spitting up stems and blossoms, beating the earth from my clothes, I arose to my knees, and then to my feet. I whirled around, the lingering ache of bruises unnumbered spread sporadically about my person, searching wrathfully for the source of my downfall.

There, ten or fifteen feet away, another white-headed javelin was buried, the gleaming head and ebony handle peering up malignantly from a tomb of soil, thrown indignantly at a rising angle. I eyed it strangely. It was not the first time such a javelin had pulled me away from NiGHTS. I had no intention of reliving the occurrences of the last instance, and instead fixated myself on searching for the weapon's caster, and seeing if I could locate NiGHTS, who, with all probability, would take a few moments to notice my absence. The garden had stone walls and some hedges, but nothing that would deter the jester from finding me; after all, there was a lamppost a few feet away, giving a good illumination of the place where I stood.

There was no obvious source. There hadn't been the last time; as a matter of fact, the thrower had only tossed one javelin then, even though I was vulnerable to a second strike. With all likelihood, he had taken a shot and moved on, thinking that he had hit me, and that was good enough. I had merely been brushed by the javelin, though, and felt nothing save a little irritation at being interrupted from my flying.

I examined the javelin. It had a short handle made from a black wood I could not identify, and from what could be seen above ground level, a large, wide head of pale darkmetal. I extended my hand, to grasp it, and lightly hovered it over the handle, seeing if the weapon would activate some defense against me. Sensing nothing, I grabbed it and pulled it up. The head was about eight inches long, tapering to a super-fine point I knew was razor-sharp. Shaking some of the dirt off of it, I noted that it was barbed in several places, so that it could go in but not come out with such ease. I had no idea how Dreyer had managed to remove such a weapon from my person without tearing out half my insides in the process. Perhaps he used Power to melt the weapon's head; it wouldn't have been hard, the white blade had enough of a darkmatter composition to be brittle, and would have fallen into pieces had he done such thing.

I turned the weapon over in my hands. Engraved on the side of the javelin's head was the Dark One's symbol, an eye, staring with a restless fervor. I didn't really need the extra hint. I already knew the Dark One's foundries had produced this malignant weapon, laced in the darkmatter he fostered twisted life with, doubtlessly used by a Fright of some renown. White blades were difficult to make, and only given to those Frights that had proven themselves 'worthy' enough; all others got either the outdated, flimsy black blades, or the hefty brute-force crimson ones. The Dark One's craftsmanship with weapons knew no bounds, as no two white blades looked exactly alike, and yet all of them fostered the same ominous feeling of despair to their intended victims when seen.

There was a sudden, reverberating sound from behind me. I turned around to see a mass of black clouds glowing crimson behind me. It looked like something was teleporting in—something very large, and doubtlessly powerful. I watched in growing apprehension as the clouds swirled, flashed, and finally dropped a giant metallic mass down to the ground in front of me.

The ground shook when it landed, and the Fright drew to its great total height, resting on long, armor-plated legs, like those of a spider, jutting out from its body in all directions. The creature bristled, leaning forwards; I could see its small, insectoid head, fitted with a single menacing eye, equipped with a short pair of pincers right beneath. The eye shifted from side to side, and then downwards, towards me. The creature pulled backwards, its jaws glowing mysteriously blue…

It fired a huge, glowing laser blast, a giant blast of white-hot pulsating plasma that could have engulfed a semi truck from bumper to bumper. I made a motion to move out of the way, but by that point, it was already too late—I was about to get my pompous posterior disintegrated, an experience slightly less fun than getting heat-rayed by a Tripod in War of the Worlds.

Right before my ashes were scattered to the winds, however, someone grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled, yanking me out of the way. The blast screamed past me perhaps a foot away, hurling a huge amount of churned earth into the air as it slammed into the space I had previously been occupying.

NiGHTS didn't bother returning my desperate gaze, as she was too busy watching the Fright. "How very strange," she said softly. "Reminds me a little of Arachnafear…"

The creature twisted itself around in position, clumsily realigning on its crooked legs. It emitted a roar, and then charged for another shot.

This time, it was my turn to do the pulling, as NiGHTS sat staring like an idiot until I grabbed her and pulled her forcibly out of the way. Another laser blast impacted the ground beside us, blowing a low stone fence and a large clump of bushes to kingdom come.

"What is wrong with you?" I demanded. "Can't you see it's trying to kill us?"

NiGHTS gave me an odd look. "Are you afraid of spiders, by any chance?"

"Spiders? Oh, no, not the little ones, but the big, armored, Dragonball-Z-laser-shooting ones, YES! Let's get out of here before it starts getting smart on us!"

The jester once again ignored me, looking back at the creature. "It's definitely Arachnafear, but with some funny new armor on. But how did it get the upgrade, and how…"

Apparently getting sick of the laser-shooting, the creature began to meander forwards, a hobbling, clattering, growling mass of biome and darkmatter-laced iron. I wrenched on NiGHTS' arm, but apparently the jester had no aspirations for self-preservation, as she stayed firmly glued in place, thinking. "Come on! Do you want to get killed? I don't!"

NiGHTS shrugged. "I'm sure he won't be easy to beat."

The spider-creature came closer, and shifted its weight onto its back legs, hurling its two front ones forwards. Its giant claws shot out towards me, intending to grind me into an indistinguishable pile of white and crimson on the ground, while NiGHTS took her time finishing her train of thought. I yelped and recoiled, burying my face in my arm.

The Fright's arm, however, diverted sideways, missing me completely. Its claws snapped around NiGHTS. The jester gave me a single, pitiful glance, and a sheepish smile.

The arm snapped backwards as the Fright pivoted, searching for a good solid object. The claw that held NiGHTS slammed against the side of a building with an impact hard enough to rend the structure's side, driving the Fright's arm to the wrist into a jagged pit of shattered paneling. I watched in horror as the demon withdrew its arm, shaking off its now-empty claw, and returning it to its side, knuckled down as an extra foot. The creature's head turned back towards me. Its mandibles spread, emitting another strong sapphire glow. I twisted sharply sideways and broke into a sprint, narrowly dodging another superlaser.

The Fright emitted a low, carrying growl, and began to march forwards, its claws tearing bitter marks in the ground as it moved. I began backpedaling, looking for something to hide behind, or some good place to run for. Unfortunately, the city was a little too far to shelter in—a few hundred feet, not something I'd want to risk running—and due to the nature of the scenic garden, there were a lot of terrain features, like stone fences and high hedges, great for a firefight or an ambush but useless against a giant rampaging Fright, which could and would quite easily smash past them in its efforts to get at its quarry.

My foot landed unevenly on something, and I stumbled, suddenly losing my balance. I fell over backwards, landing at an angle on my left hip. Although by no means a comfortable experience (I felt like I had bruised something), it could have certainly been worse, as I had broken bones before in such clumsy falls. Clutching my side, I pulled back up on to my knees, preparing to remount my feet. Unconsciously, I scanned the ground, searching for the object that had caused my loss of grace, and doubtless loss of distance.

I was shocked to find a long green rifle lying on the ground beneath me, as though left behind in a twist of time. I pulled it up off the ground and into my hands. It was very light, doubtlessly due to its ballistics plastic stock, and outside of the color looked very much like any ordinary hunting rifle with a scope. As I looked over its functions, though, something suddenly occurred to me. This wasn't just any sniper rifle—it came from my favorite multiplayer combat game, Starfox Assault. I'd fired hundreds of these things.

The fall of a foot about twenty feet away—too close—reminded me of the danger at hand. The Fright turned its head down towards the ground, its single eye glaring menacingly through the black iron cowling of its helmet. My expression hardened; I raised the rifle to my shoulder. Indeed, this was the weapon I knew—the crosshairs lit red when I centered on my target. I squeezed the trigger.

Emitting a soft fishew, the weapon discharged a single concentrated red laser, striking the creature head-on, right in the eye. The Fright roared, recoiling from the strike. As I began spacing out from the creature, it wildly thrashed the ground in its demonic fury, its great clawed feet rending earth and stone with ease. After a few moments of earth-shaking wrath, the creature regained its composure and straightened back up again, rearing up to hurl its legs at me.

I fired again; it moved, and the shot bounced harmlessly off its heavy armor. My third shot hit home, and not a moment too soon, as I would probably have been smashed flat into the ground had I not. Once again the Fright recoiled, screeching in fury, blindly slashing at anything that stood before it. I very narrowly escaped getting crushed in its efforts.

It seemed like the creature would once again regain itself, but this time it was interrupted by another flash of light, and it vanished, the beaten terrain left as the only evidence of its appearance.

I emitted a long, weary sigh, dropping down on a half-destroyed stone wall, my rifle slung across my lap. I turned the weapon over in my hands, bleakly admiring it. I had spent three rounds in the ambush. The gun only had a ten-shot clip, so that meant only a charge of seven remained. As I couldn't count on finding any more, I'd have to make them last as long as possible. In the game it took a while to spend the rounds, as the gun reloaded rather slowly, but I didn't have three other weapons to rely upon in combat, just the one. If I was lucky, maybe I could pick up another gun, but I did not see that as very probable. I had yet to figure out where this one came from, much less a second!

A fearsome cackle sounded from somewhere behind me. I pushed up onto my feet and turned, raising my rifle to my shoulder, searching for its source. I was quite sick of the constant stalking and ambushes!

Something sharp knifed into the back of my neck; I recoiled and yelped, feeling the movement of air as a black dagger slashed right past where my head had been a moment before. I turned and took a blind shot; the laser caught the Fright in the shoulder, lancing right through its metallic form. The creature exploded, dusting the air with a darkmatter mist. As the reddish-black mass settled to the ground, still glowering, more Frights approached from behind a high hedge and a metal gate, mostly the little ones I was familiar with (armed with stubby little black swords the ordinary human would hardly call daggers), as well as a larger, stockier-built one armed with a black shield and a dangerous-looking sword with a heavy blade, colored deep crimson. They all charged as a unit, swinging their weapons around in the characteristic half-mad berserker mode all lesser Frights used in combat. The sniper rifle, although powerful, was slow-firing and even backstepping I only got off a single shot before they closed the pistol gap and swamped me at close quarters.