Chapter 11
Inconsistency
The world wisped away to darkness around Sam and Vincent as they found the roof access. They climbed up; the roof itself was decaying, and looked dangerously unstable. Other buildings in the area did likewise, along with the ground and everything else. The place was once again covered in a darker, worst case scenario-type, existence.
"Do they know we're here?" asked Vincent.
They walked over to the edge of the roof and looked. Heading toward them was a huge mass of the Grey Children, wielding knives. In the mix were some other strange creatures that appeared to have no arms. They sort of staggered on two shaky legs, and had a blank orb that obviously was some kind of sick substitute for a head.
"I suppose they do," Sam muttered, he pulled an object from nowhere and handed it to Vincent.
Vincent took Cerberus from Sam's hand.
"Figured you'd want the original back," Sam said, "at this point it doesn't matter anymore. There's just so many of them that it's like fighting Shadows again."
"This appears to be a very hopeless situation," Vincent commented, checking his triple-barreled weapon.
"I'm hoping on some back up," Sam said, "until then, we just kill as many as we can."
Sam drew his sniper rifle; he didn't want to use his staff until the last minute. Sam was fairly weak as it was and using the staff would only drain his energy more. He took aim at one of the Grey Children and fired.
Vincent also began to fire, knowing his powerful firearm would easily make the distance from the roof to his enemies. The gun's triple shot killed three of the strange grey creatures.
"Three dead, one shot," Sam muttered, "I almost forgot how useful you are."
Vincent said nothing and continued to fire.
Sam's sniper shots combined with Cerberus dealt heavy damage on the approaching enemies. However, there was no shortage of enemies and for every one that was killed there were more than enough to take its place. Sam aimed and blew the head off one of the armless creatures.
"How does one come up with such horrid designs?" asked Vincent shaking his head at the creatures below and reloading his gun.
"Konami," Sam muttered.
"What?" asked Vincent.
"Nothing," Sam said and blew away another creature below.
Vincent emptied another round of ammunition into the creatures below.
"There's too many," Vincent growled.
"That's an understatement," Sam said and fired another shot from his rifle.
"They're trying to break inside," Vincent warned.
"Those things without the arms can spit this tar stuff; it'll burn right through—" something hit Sam and sent him to the ground hard.
Vincent fired some more shots and turned to look at Sam.
"Son of a bitch!" exclaimed Sam sitting up, hands over his face. "You fucking, stupid…son of a bitch!"
"What happened?" asked Vincent.
Vincent looked to the left and noticed something burning through the roof. Like acid, it made its way right through what was left of the decaying structure.
"You mother fucking! Son of a bitch-fuck!" Sam yelled falling back down on his side.
Vincent knelt down, "What happened?"
Sam seemed to calm down and got to one knee, he removed his hands.
"That armless fuck just burned out my right eye!" Sam growled.
Indeed, there was nothing left where his right eye had been.
Vincent couldn't think of anything to say.
There was something of a black smoking crater where an eye used to be. Whatever the stuff was had completely burned away anything that suggested he'd ever had anything there. If Sam was even capable of bleeding, the heat of the substance probably would have cauterized the wound.
"Fucking, ouch!" Sam yelled putting a hand over the mutilated eye. "I'm gonna kill that bastard."
"Go downstairs, I'll cover the roof," Vincent said.
"Hell with that," Sam growled throwing the rifle on the ground and pulling out his dual SMGs. "I'm gonna kill that bastard."
"Sam, wait," Vincent tried to stop him.
Sam ran at full sprint and jumped off the roof.
Vincent cursed and followed suit, jumping off the roof. Vincent fired all the way to the ground, clearing a space with dead bodies. There were hundreds of the creatures all around. He saw Sam a few feet off, SMGs on full auto and clearing out creatures left and right. He had to run out of ammo eventually, though.
Vincent emptied Cerberus to make a path toward Sam. By the time he got there, Sam was emptying an entire clip of an SMG into an already dead armless creature.
"If you had a right eye, I'd blow it away!" Sam yelled.
"Sam, behind!" Vincent yelled.
Sam spun and backhanded a jumping Grey Child. It flew off to the side and tumbled into a group of others.
Vincent turned, he was trying to keep track of all of the enemies around him, there were too many. He spun and slashed away with his golden claw when the enemies got too close. One of the armless things tried to spit some of the black stuff that got Sam in the eye, Vincent raised his clawed arm and the deadly substance landed on the golden armour that covered it. The stuff seemed to burn itself out after a while. The gold armour seemed to neutralize the stuff, not a scratch was left on it, as if it had never been hit at all. The creature was unable to register shock, but if it could, it would have. Vincent raised Cerberus and blew the armless creature away.
"Interesting, I wonder what exactly you are," said a voice, female.
Vincent turned and aimed. Alessa stood behind him a few feet away.
"You aren't like Samael," Alessa said, "you can't be killed it seems, so what then, I wonder."
Suddenly a string of barbed wire seemed to shoot from somewhere behind her and shot at Vincent. It pierced right through Vincent's chest and lifted him in the air.
"From what I've seen, this must be but a minor inconvenience for you, no?" asked Alessa, another barbed wire knocked his gun away. "What exactly makes it so you can't die? Maybe this other thing inside of you perhaps?"
Vincent felt like he was being torn in half, Alessa seemed to be using some kind of telepathic power to bring out Chaos. It was as if he and Chaos had become two different creatures, his alter ego floated upright beside Vincent.
"I don't know what exactly that is," Alessa said, "but it is connected to you like it is you yourself. I wonder which your true form is."
"Unfortunately…for you," Vincent growled, "it isn't my only one."
Alessa looked at him curiously.
Then Vincent wasn't Vincent anymore. In an instant he had changed from his usual appearance to a huge creature with what appeared to be a goalie mask, more notably, he now wielded a chainsaw.
"Hellmasker, bitch," Sam said smashing one of the armless creatures across the face with the butt of his SMG, "Leatherface but cooler…and not from Texas…"
Hellmasker chopped off the barbed wire with the chainsaw and moved toward Alessa. She tried to fire off another of her barbed wire strands but Hellmasker slashed it with the chainsaw.
"Kill him!" Alessa yelled.
"Well that's a stupid order, now isn't it?" asked Sam. "You said yourself he can't be killed."
The mass of creatures seemed to converge on Hellmasker. Who swiftly spun in a circle and sawed off all of their heads. Blood sprayed in every direction.
"Dude," Sam muttered, "that was cool."
Hellmasker walked up to Alessa and seemed to stare at her for a moment, and then he swung the chainsaw and severed her head from her shoulders.
"Damn, man, you're psycho with this dude," Sam said.
Alessa's body flopped to the ground, her head a foot or two away.
Vincent was himself again, the Chaos that had been floating outside of him before must have returned because it was gone. There was no real way for Vincent to know, he just did. It was like Alessa had said: Chaos was a part of him.
Sam sprayed his SMGs, clearing out the creatures that had moved in to attack after Alessa's beheading. Sam stood beside Vincent a moment later.
"Why isn't the Darkness leaving?" asked Vincent.
Alessa's body shuffled to the side and managed to grab her head. She reconnected it to her shoulders and stood up. A crackle announced her head becoming one again with the rest of her body.
"You're a powerful creature, whatever you are," Alessa commented, "but you're still in my world."
"Alessa, dear," said a male voice from behind her, "I thought we talked about this a long time ago."
Sam smiled, "About damn time, dude."
Sorin stepped up behind Alessa, the monsters around him seemed to back off, as if afraid.
"Sorin," Alessa growled turning to look at him.
"I thought I made it clear that your world wasn't to exist outside of your world," Sorin said, calmly. He wasn't in disguise this time, he just looked like himself. He had a bright red shirt on with a long dark red jacket that appeared to be made from some kind of lizard scales, maybe alligator, or something more exotic. "Why are you people showing up all of a sudden, what's the scoop, eh?"
Alessa smiled, "What's with you, Sorin, why you always assume something's going on when I'm around?"
"Because when you're around something's always going on," Sorin replied deadpan. "You aren't the only one; all the Paradoxers are out to play, what's the story?"
Alessa shrugged, "You got me."
"Yeah," Sorin said, "yeah, I do."
Alessa looked at him curiously.
"Inconsistency," Sorin said, the word seemed to have an affect on her. "Sam, definition please?"
"An inconsistency," began Sam, "is when someone creates a dimension in which there must also exist an item of some kind that destroys them."
"Textbook," Sorin said nodding, "in this situation, your world is made after Silent Hill. So much so, in fact, you were forced to also replicate the one item that could destroy you."
Sorin pulled a pyramid shaped object from nowhere and held it out to her, "The Flauros, my dear. The weapon Dahlia intended for use on Alessa, guess that makes me Dahlia."
Sorin tossed the item on the ground in front of her.
"No," she muttered.
"Good bye, Alessa," Sorin said amiably.
"Wait, wait!" she cried.
Sorin snapped his fingers and Alessa burst into flames. Vincent jumped back and covered his face as she just seemed to spontaneously burst. After what was left of her charred body lay dead, the foggy world returned and overtook the Darkness.
"You had to burn her alive, eh?" asked Sam.
Sorin shrugged, "She wanted to be like Alessa, it was fitting."
"Alessa survived the fire," Sam said.
"This one didn't," Sorin muttered, then regarded Sam's eye, "sorry for the delay, you're a mess my friend."
Sam put a hand over his burned out eye, "Yeah, this one eye thing sucks."
"You'd sort of look like Big Boss if you had an eye patch," Sorin said smiling.
Sam pointed at his right eye, lack thereof, "Do I look like I'm in the mood for Metal Gear Solid jokes right now?"
"When you starting up Foxhound…Big Boss?" asked Sorin laughing.
"Go ahead, one more joke," Sam said aiming his SMG, "make my day."
Sorin ignored Sam and looked to Vincent, "Are you alright?"
Vincent nodded.
"That's good, considering if you weren't then something is seriously wrong, it's common knowledge you can't really die," Sorin said.
"She didn't know," Vincent said.
Sorin nodded, "Paradoxers don't exactly spend much time in normal existences, and she's been out of the loop for a while now. Makes me wonder why she surfaced."
"You mentioned other Paradoxers," Sam said.
Sorin nodded, "An hour or so after you left for here I started getting reports of major paradoxes forming all over. Mostly on fringe existences, on further inspection I realized they were deliberate and not created by your shenanigans a while ago. Many of the Paradoxers that dropped off Cetra radar years ago have begun to reemerge, why, I don't know."
"How many?" asked Sam.
"At least five, three of which are relatively small time, the other two are notoriously bad news, one is dead now," Sorin replied, "in any case, I managed to direct your airship to this spot. They got a little lost after that Silent Hill incident, they're waiting for you. Once we're away from here I'll look after that eye of yours, Sam."
Sam nodded.
"What about them?" asked Vincent gesturing to where Roper, Grabnar, and Rossel were.
"They weren't real from the beginning," Sam explained. "They were a creation of the paradox. Now that Alessa's gone they will be too."
"We should be going, I'll fill you in on the rest once we're on your Shera," Sorin said.
Sam limped the distance with Vincent and Sorin until they found the Shera. It uncloaked and let them on, Tifa and Cid met the on the outdoor platform.
"Oh my God, Sam," Tifa said, immediately seeing his right eye. "Are you alright? What happened?"
"Good story to tell the grandkids," Sam said, "even though I'll never have grandkids."
Tifa continued to fuss over Sam's well-being, to his constant protests, while Cid, Vincent and Sorin walked ahead.
"Are you two aware of what Wymond has discovered yet?" asked Sorin.
"Where'd he go disappearin' to?" asked Cid.
"We haven't heard anything," Vincent said.
Sorin nodded, "Then I must warn you, we all may be headed for a time of great danger."
Cid lit up a cigarette, "Ain't like we never heard that line before."
