WARNING: THIS WILL BE A SHORT CHAPTER AS IT IS BUILDING UP THE FINAL TWO CHAPTERS WHERE THERE WILL BE THREE FIGHTS HAPPENING AS ONCE. PLEASE UNDERSTAND AND THANK YOU.
CHAPTER NINE: THE DESERT BATTLE
Meisters, Weapons and reanimated corpses fueled by Black Blood began their battle for survival, the yellow desert sands slowly becoming the colors red and black as fighters from which side fell...
"Look out!" Ox yelled out to Kim, who ducked a attack and swung Jackie at a Blood Zombie, the latter instantly setting the zombie ablaze. The moment of victory did not last for long for the zombie continued it's assault as though the flames that burned it did not hurt at all.
"What?" Kim groaned. "What's it gonna take for these things to die?!"
"They're fueled with Black Blood, remember?" Ox pointed out.
"Shut it." Kim ignored her fellow Meister's moan and jumped out a attack's way. "And to think that Crona kid's blood created this..."
"Gotta feel bad for him, even if he did betray us." Jackie gave a pointed look at Ox, who sweated.
"Hey, I wasn't thinking straight when I attacked him yesterday, OK?!"
"Could we focus on the battle at hand here?" Harvar snapped.
"Fine."
More zombies came and more fell.
Mifune and Stein stood back to back, surrounded by Blood Zombies. To those who never heard of them and had the foolish thought to underestimate them, they looked easy to kill. But those who knew what they were capable of...
"How many your side?" Stein questioned.
"50." Mifune counted. "You?"
"The same." Stein turned his screw. "Kid would be proud that we're facing a symmetrical number of enemies."
"Hmm." Mifune spat out the twine in his mouth, his eyes narrowed. "Ready?"
Stein only smirked and that was all he needed. The two separated and got to work: Mifune was slashing limbs off at a rapid speed, almost looking like a blur that slowly became black with each slash, all with a look of pure concentration. One zombie charged; and it's face introduced itself to the sand a second ,on the other hand, looked as though he was having the time of his life delivering blow after blow on the creatures, thoughts of dissection making all the more giddy to finish them off...it both sickened and amused him.
"All this black blood..." Stein grinned, high kicking a head off as the blood spurred out like a fountain, staining his face and coat. "It's fascinating...but sad! This is too easy!"
"Oh, is it?"
The grin was gone at the sound of the newcomer's voice, yet Stein didn't even need to turn around to see if he misheard.
"Hello, Medusa." he greeted blankly. The battle around him seemed to slow down ever so slowly as he felt thin arms around his shoulders and a heard a hiss in his ear.
"Hello, Stein." the voice purred in the tone Stein always hated; overconfident, collected. "You seem to be enjoying yourself."
"Pretending that these creatures are you does that to you." Stein shoved the arms off, now turning to face Medusa, who looked exactly as he remembered; black robe, blonde hair with frontal braid and yellow eyes, her signature grin plastered to her face. Stein nearly recoiled. The Madness has it's "mother's" eyes and grin, for sure.
"I trust you seen my experiment?" Medusa asked.
"Yes, I have...and I'm sad to say that it looks like your son." Contrary to his words, Stein was not at all sad, in fact he smirked when he saw Medusa's grin fade a little. "Disappointed?"
"A little..." Medusa confirmed. "But...it's more stronger than my greatest mistake."
"Don't call him that!" Stein snapped.
"Oh, protective of the child, are we?" Medusa's curious tone had a hint of mocking. "Why care for him when he is nothing but a coward, a spineless fool who can't get anything done right?"
Stein's eyes narrowed.
"Crona is a student of mine...all students are under not only Lord Death's protection but also mine; Crona is no exception. And for your information, he has just willingly gone with the defeater of Asura to destroy your little experiment."
"But you surely don't want that to happen, correct?"Medusa asked, circling Stein, who stood unflinching, just glaring down at the witch.. "The Madness is part of you, you took to insanity like a drug all those months ago...you miss the feeling, admit it." she held out a hand. "Come with me...I can give you that feeling again...surrender yourself to the Madness...regain the freedom you had before."
Stein just stared at the hand, a unreadable look on his face.
"I'd be lying if I'd say I didn't dislike our little team up..." the man's truthful words made Medusa's mouth widen in anticipation. " The madness I was under was exhilarating, it left me with regard for any consequences."
"Exactly, my love!" Medusa purred. "Now-"
"But there's one thing you forgot, witch."
"And what would that-" Medusa gasped as Stein suddenly grabbed her throat and lifted her up the ground. She could only look into Stein's eyes to see a mad glint; her look of arrogance slowly became a look of horror.
"I've always been a bit of a screw loose." as he used his free hand to turn the screw, Medusa struggled to frantically get free; a sickening crack later and her body was unceremoniously dropped to the sand covered ground, her wide eyes now bright orbs, staring at the sky they could not see. Stein looked down at the corpse of Medu -no, not Medusa- the Black Blood zombie as he spat out the words he always wanted to say to this one individual.
"I'm not your puppet...and now you're nothing but a dead memory." Stein paused to punch a zombie without even turning around. "Goodbye."
Nearby, Blair, in full witch outfit, was busy throwing pumpkins at the creatures rapidly. One grabbed her from behind in a bearhug, making her scream in pain; her back bared bruises from her attack last night. At the sound of her scream, the tip of her huge witch hat slowly became a hand with a sharp grin and eyes narrowed in a glare. It grabbed the zombie and threw it in the air, freeing Blair, who finished off the zombie with a "Pumpkin Cannon", it's guts raining down from above.
"Thanks, Zwan." Blair petted her familiar, which purred in delight.
Marie whacked many zombies flying with her hammer hand, even slamming down on many like they were loose screws, but she felt no enjoyment out of it. All these people...all dead and now reduced to being slaves of a madman who looked like Crona, they would have never wanted this, not even in life. The sound of feet leaving the ground caught her attention; she barley got out of the way of a huge brown wolf...one wolf they haven't seen in a long time.
"It's the Immortal!" Ox gasped.
Marie stiffened as Free's howl echoed throughout the desert, creating the illusion that there many more wolves hidden in the battle. He leered down at the small group, his yellow eyes narrowed.
"His eyes..." Kim observed. "He must be controlled by the Madness!"
"Then we have to snap him out of it." Mifune readied a kantana. "Marie, can we count on you to use your Healing Wavelength on him when we say?"
"Yes." Marie replied, turning into her weapon form for Stein to use.
"A controlled Immortal...a exciting battle than." Harvar spoke with a smug tone.
Free growled in response and brought out his claws.
The Death Room had two occupants, the Reaper himself and one of his Deathstyches and they watched the battle through the mirror. Lord Death could feel only two emotions; Pride and Regret. Pride that his opening of the very Academy he stood in had helped in the crafting of the Mesisters and Weapons he was proud to call his students (he'd even go far as to say he viewed them all as his children) and regret that he couldn't do anything to help them in their time of need. Although Spirit couldn't see his expression due to the skull mask, he knew what his superior was thinking.
"Don't blame yourself, sir." Spirit turned to face Lord Death. "You given us all the help you can. It's up to them."
"I know, I know." Lord Death sighed. "But I couldn't even defeat Asura...what kind of leader am I if-"
"You're a perfect leader, but this isn't your fight, it's theirs."
There was a awkward silence broken by the Reaper's question;
"Is he ready?"
"Yes, he left a while back." Spirit nodded.
"Good..." Lord Death faced the Mirror watching Stein whack Free across the snout. "They're gonna need all the help they can get."
He walked in silence, the sound of Death City awakening to a new day becoming distant with each step he took. If only they knew what was happening...but than again, it was for the best they didn't. They're all innocent lives; lives that didn't deserve to be terrorized by pre-Kishins, witches and other monsters that plagued this world. None of them do...And this battle was just another tedious one, led by a douche canoe who think he can do what he wants. Well, no more. It's now time for him to rejoin the battle and fight till the bitter end.
After all...he was and always will be that kind of man.
"Say that again?" Medusa demanded, her voice not even raised as she looked at her creation.
"What, you deaf or something?"the creature spoke through it's creator's dead husband's lips. "I'm done taking orders from you!"
"Really? Explain!" Medusa said.
"From the beginning, I was only a tool so you could play mad scientist." it glared at the black stained medical instruments on the table as though they would come out and attack it. "And I was your little monster, attacking whenever you decided to let me off my leash."
"Is there a point to all this?" Medusa looked at her nails, not even looking up when the living Black Blood stood right in front of her, teeth bared.
"Yes, there is...me killing you!"
This made Medusa look up to see it's hand morph into a knife and bring it down, the witch quickly moving out of harm's way.
"You would go against your own mistress?" Medusa's voice was as sharp as the knife that nearly took her life..
"I have no mistress!" the monster snarled, baring no heed to the arrows erupting from Medusa until they entangled round it; with one squeeze, Medusa saw her husband's form no more and now saw only a black puddle, held in place by the Vector Arrows. She held up a pod and opened it.
"Then you are a failure." Medusa's cold reply was the last thing the Madness heard before it saw only darkness...
And now he stood in the middle of his creator's room (lit dimly by five candles), reminiscing of his failed attempt to assassinate her in his rage, a rage that never left him, especially when she had the audacity to place him inside him. The Madness girt his fangs; stuck inside that pathetic lowlife, that whiny little bitch! If it weren't for that Dark Weapon, he would have easily controlled the brat and kill Medusa herself! But than that day...oh,the day where he got stabbed...just the escape he needed, the only downside was to listen to small chest cry over him. Oh, well...least Medusa got killed. His anger diminished slightly as he grinned, thinking of the mistake that girl committed. Medusa was his kill, no hers! But so far he's returned the favor; killing off all the random nameless freaks in that city...all because he couldn't kill Medusa. The sounds of doors opening caught his attention. Company.
"Solider One...let em pass..but kill him." the Madness spoke in his head.
"Yes, my lord."
The Madness smiled, thinking of all the ways he could kill the three "chosen ones" the Reaper sent to him.
"Oh, this will be fun."
The doors opened with a creak one would hear if they were watching a horror movie. But this no horror film, this was real. Four Mesisters stepped inside, the candles illuminating the hallway they stood in as they walked, making no sound yet each thinking of something different.
Kid would have sneered at the ruined stone snake that laid next to it's perfectly structured twin and gone on a asymmetrical rant. But now wasn't the time for such trivia things, now all that mattered was ending this madness before it destroyed everything.
Black*Star could only think of what he was going to go to the Madness once it was mortal...and none of what he had in mind were at all appropriate.
Maka kept glancing back at Crona, who looked down at the floor as they walked. She sighed to herself; no doubt he was blaming himself still. What would it take for him to realize it's not his fault?
They stopped at two corridors.
"T-the left one leads to Medusa's observation room." Crona pointed. "T-the right leads to the library."
"Right than, we all know the plan?" Kid asked, receiving murmurs of agreement.
"Let's go than." Black*Star said.
"Good luck, Crona." Maka smiled.
"Y-you too."
Maka glanced back at Crona as they walked down the left corridor; he was already on the way to the library. She was so distracted she didn't take wind of the conversation the boys were having.
"Ten bucks says they get together after this." Soul smirked.
"You're on!" Black*Star said.
"I would be abusing my privileges as the Reaper's son with I betted."
"Twenty bucks?" Patty asked.
"You're on."
"Boys..." Tsubaki shook her head.
"Patty..." Liz sighed,
Crona slowly opened the library room, taking into account all the piles of books in the room; Maka would have fainted in joy if she saw this room.
"Oh, would you just focus!" Ragnarok burst through his spine. "Find the spell!"
"O-Okay!" Crona made to look through a random book, looking for the spell that the Madness must have hid. "R-agnarok...do y-you think we can kill it?"
"Of course we goddamn can!" the Demon Weapon bonked his partner's head. "Now way is he gonna fuck with-"
The ground exploded. Crona felt himself hit a bookcase hard, it wobbled slightly but stayed standing.
"Who fucked with-" Ragnarok's tennis ball like eyes widened, as did Crona's as their attacker, the Madness' Solider One stood above them.
"Ribbit."
End chapter here