Chapter 11
"The Valley of Death, part 4"
They stopped after a couple of hours when the dark night engulfed them. The Mantis leant up to a tree catch its breath, exhausted from all the hours of sprinting. Grace looked back at it and stopped as well while she asked in an impatient voice.
"What? Why did you stop?"
The Mantis panted in attempts to get some air. It looked at her and responded between the breaths.
"We have been running for fourteen hours!"
"I will rest when I am there! How much further is it?"
"What´s the hurry? Can´t you spare five minutes to recover?"
"None of your business!"
"Or did you forget something in that town?"
"As said… none of your business…"
The mood grew tense and the Mantis just sat down for a while. She talked with itself in a displeased complaint.
" It doesn´t matter, if you have forgotten something there, then the scavengers have already taken it…"
She looked at it in slight suspicion and narrowed her eyes in unpleasant surprise.
"What? What did you say?"
"You heard me… I have been in many ruined towns and villages, and have seen the same pattern… five days after the destruction, scavengers start to appear and take anything that got left behind… Be it possessions, gold, or survivors… nothing escapes them…"
"Tell me… the nature of them…"
"It is different each time, but usually something like this; first, the bandits arrive and steal anything of value, and if they find anyone, they take them to a slave trader to earn some extra gold or if it is a woman, who knows, they might keep her as a "plaything"…"
Worry upset her mind and an urge to hurry back to the town drove her to move on. She wanted to make sure Eliah was still safe. The Mantis talked away with an informative tease.
"…Then, a day or two afterwards, the yoma arrive, four or six of them… and if the bandits missed any survivors, then they will sniff them out and eat them. And after that, the city turns into a complete ruin…"
Grace had heard enough and with an iron forged determination triggered by this information brought to her attention, she walked forward.
"Hurry up! I can´t see the town yet…"
The Mantis, still in human form, shook its head at her and answered with defiance.
"I won´t go any further until I get some minutes to rest…"
"And I won´t waste anymore time… just point me in the right direction!"
The Mantis pointed in a south east direction and through the darkness upon them. The light of the dusk was unable to break through since the clouds had not disbanded yet.
"That way, straight ahead for four miles and…"
Grace just rushed in that direction and left in mid-sentence. She didn´t want to waste more time. The sunlight behind the rainclouds faded faster for each minute and who knew how long Eliah had waited in that church.
She didn´t want to just abandon her like that, it would be too cruel for her. With the added knowledge that there could be bandits and yoma loose in the same town, Grace felt there was no time to waste. She left the Mantis behind and considered their arrangement settled as they left the valley. The promise that they both would be alive afterwards had been fulfilled and she decided to not stay around with it any longer, not around the one thing that she been tutored to hate as a enemy to the Organization. The forest around her grew thinner after she had run for fifteen minutes straight.
Someone awaited her further ahead.
She stopped in her tracks and to her hidden shock, the Mantis sat there with its back against a tree. It looked at her in slight surprise and a little amused grin.
"Back already?"
Grace wondered to herself how it got here so fast and it seemed to understand her question while it remained unspoken.
"You are not high ranking I can tell that… but you started well… You went straight ahead for a mile, then slowly returned in a half circle, and got back here…"
The Mantis clapped its hands in sarcasm.
"Bravo…"
Grace felt tempted to draw her sword at it but held back, letting her slight rage store itself somewhere else for later. The sun had nearly gone down and the clouds still had not dissipated. It was unsure if there would be a moon in the sky tonight.
She tried to explain to it in a stressed and annoyed tone.
"I am not used to walking in the dark, if you need to know!"
"Got that, but why such a rush? It has been five days since that town's destruction by now, and if I am correct, then there is no need to rush like this…"
"Keep that to yourself… I just want to go back there and you can go back to admire the results of your handiwork somewhere else…"
"Hold…"
The Mantis suddenly scowled displeased and insulted at her. The hostility returned in the air between them.
"I did NOT tear that town apart!"
"Who else? You were the only one there…"
"When I got there, that town had already been destroyed; I simply looked for survivors…"
"To eat?"
"NO! Well, maybe… but that is not the reason! I searched so they could tell me something…"
"And what is that?"
"The details of the being that did destroy the town…"
A small interest appeared in her mind and it seemed like there was more to it than she initially believed. She asked with a little less hostility to her voice.
"And why would you, an awakened being, hunt another one?"
"That…is personal, but let´s just say that I don´t intend to just drop dead until I have killed that precise one…"
"What? No explanation?"
"Remember my kill account? 22 fought, 21 killed? I am after the last one…"
She looked at it with an emotionless face and came to a conclusion with arms crossed.
"You just want a clean record before you die?"
The Mantis gave her a mean look in return as she replied.
"I am going to ignore the last part for now, and it is not just that simple…"
The silence took over here and the being looked at her with a puzzled look. There was an odd absurdity in the whole situation and they both knew that. The Mantis pointed it out.
"This is just too strange… The first person in years that I am actually talking to, and it is a claymore…"
"And you think I am not confused? An awakened being is sitting right in front of me, and I have not slain it yet!"
"Keep dreaming, you can´t beat me…"
"Is that a challenge?"
"From what I have seen, you are not going to stand a chance against me…"
A slight trace of superiority in the voice and Grace felt tempted to draw her sword to shut the Mantis up.
No, I made a promise, and I intend to keep it until the end…
She stayed calm and asked a different question to divert her anger.
"You said you recognized this…"
She held up the medallion in its chain and the Mantis looked at it with a hint of hate and interest.
"…when did you meet Blanc?"
The Mantis leant back at the tree and got an expression of past anger in the eyes. It began to recite with a distant and unfocused gaze away from her.
"That was years ago… don´t know how many, but I was a claymore back then, and a damn good one to top on that… Just ask anyone who still remembers me…"
It looked at her with slightly raised expectation in the eyes and asked hopefully.
"…You know who I am…right?"
Grace could honestly say that she had no single clue and shook her head accordingly. The Mantis seemed a little depressed from it and muttered for itself.
"…figures, the Organization never ever acknowledges when a claymore goes beyond the limit… only number ones… but having me erased completely? That is just too much…"
A tone of sincere sadness in the voice, a deep isolation and Grace wondered if her guide would go and curl into a ball and a deeper depression from that. That would be problematic so she considered an attempt to cheer it up a little. She wondered if there were rules against it and could only think of one.
All awakened beings will be slain on request…
It went through her mind in a second thought and a search for loop holes.
…True, but the rule never states when they will be slain…
That way she wouldn´t break the rules. She could at least try to get it out from the heavy depressed state it entered. She talked to it with a forced comfortable tone.
"…But then of course, I only recognize warriors by their symbols, so if you can show me what yours looked like, then I might know…"
The Mantis looked up from the ground and her eyes contained doubt.
"Okay… before I do that, tell me one thing… how many generations do you know about?"
"The current…"
"And how many past generations do you know about?"
"…none…"
"Then… how are you supposed to know about me?"
The mood went back to its former tension between them and Grace didn't know why she bothered, had she tried to make a, "Awakened" feel better? She answered in slight hostility over the turn down.
"If no-one knows about your name, then it is your own fault! You awoke and got erased from history for it!"
"You are saying it like I actually had a choice… and for your information, it was death or awakening… and I wanted to finish some unfinished business with the ones on my black list…"
"You have a black list?"
"Yes, I made it after awakening… There are not that many on it…"
"How many?"
"Two…three of them… One, the being that got away. Two, the Claymore who put me in this situation and three…"
She looked at the medallion without its owner noticing and changed subject completely.
"… Speaking of black lists… what is your reason?"
"Excuse me?"
"Let me remodel the question, what type are you? Defensive or offensive?"
She remained plain confused by the sudden change of topic and crossed her arms over her chest in defiance.
"And how did we get into this topic again?"
"I know from memory, that when you train as a trainee and either become offensive or defensive, it´s the motivation you have that determines it… if you are fighting to kill the enemy, then you are an offensive type, if you fight to survive, then you are a defensive type… so which one is it?"
Grace couldn´t believe this conversation and where it was heading.
"I am… I don´t know… never thought about it before…I always think about myself as an offensive warrior…"
"Yeah right… Let´s find out, right now…"
"What?"
Before she got a chance to react, the Mantis transformed one arm and sliced her right forearm clean off. She pulled out her sword, held it with the tip on the Mantis being´s throat and it started to defend itself verbally.
"Wait…wait wait wait!"
"Why did you do that for? I said that I would not kill you for now!"
"Just curious…"
"Oh really…but don´t you know…" Grace made one swing and cut one of the Mantis´ arms off by the elbow. It shrieked a little and glanced down at the stump. "…that curiosity killed the cat?"
"This is nothing…" The Mantis replied while Grace picked up her own arm and put it up back to its place, reattaching it with yoki and reconnected the tissues in favor making new ones.
The Mantis regenerated new tissues, muscles, bones, flesh and skin from the stump.
Grace finished her recovery before the awakened one and the process took twenty seconds. The Mantis finished after thirty and looked surprised.
"So you have a little shorter time recovery?…Big deal."
"You cut my arm off for that!?"
"Why not?"
Grace raised the sword and prepared to swing it back at the Mantis, scowling with a tired sigh.
"It´s not worth it…" Grace put the sword away and the Mantis raised an eyebrow in surprise.
"You are not going to attack me?"
Grace shook with her head and continued to scowl.
"I have been through worse in my trainee years…" Grace muttered and glanced back to the Mantis´ forearm on the ground. "That is going to give you away one day…"
"Not for long…"
The Mantis picked it up, turned its arms into the bladed appendages and tore the arm into incredibly small pieces. It transformed the blades into human form again.
A compact silence showed up between them and the mood went from tense to awkward. Grace had not seen many "awakened beings" yet and had assumed from the first encounter that they were ruthless monsters. But it seemed like as long they stayed in human form, it was possible to reason with them. The Mantis looked at her with a similar curiosity and asked.
"So… I will be free after leading you back to that town?"
"That was the deal, you lead me there, and I will let you go…"
"Can claymores do that?"
"Well, it is a promise only I can keep…"
"Well, look at that… the Claymores have gone diplomatic since my era…"
"Don´t take this the wrong way… the only reason I am giving such promise, is because killing you right now, would be the same as stabbing myself in the foot… plain stupidity… and there´s no order to kill you if you weren´t responsible for it."
"So would you say that there´s nothing wrong in talking to awakened ones before judging them?"
Grace didn´t reply and let the suggestion sink in.
The clouds scattered and the moon appeared over them. The Mantis suddendly reacted like a deer which heard a branch snap in two, turned her head in the direction of the sound.
It turned its head toward something in the south and the eyes started to go grow wide from something only she felt. Grace remained confused since she lacked any high level of perception skills. The Mantis talked in a nervous voice that sounded completely different from before as she got back up.
"You said that you just wanted to get there as fast as possible?"
"Yes…"
"Then let´s hurry up then! No need to stay here for much longer…"
The Mantis prepared to run and Grace found it a little odd over the newfound enthusiasm from it, but it repeatedly turned its head towards the south and just wanted to keep going; it whispered something that was not audible for Grace.
"I better be far from here before that thing catches up with her…"
After two hours of fast paced walking, the forest seemed to have gotten thinner and they stopped for a moment. The clouds had scattered even more and Grace saw a familiar sight at the distance. The silhouette of a ruined church tower that was clear as day with the moon behind it. The Mantis also watched it and then turned its head nervously back into the forest again while she spoke with stressed emergency.
"See? There it is… now, I am off…"
It turned its back at her and took three steps to walk away. Before it get anywhere she called out to stop it.
"Wait…"
The Mantis stopped on the spot, exhaled a frustrated sigh, and spoke with a voice that contained some fury. One of the arms slowly turned into awakened form as it turned its head around to face Grace, the eyes of the Mantis had gone gold.
"WHAT! What is it now?!"
Grace looked at it, smiled a little and then spoke in a calm gratuitous voice.
"Thank you… and good luck."
The Mantis stood speechless and immovable from this and every thought in her head just came to a standstill. The arm reverted back to human form from the plain shock over the sincerity within those words.
Grace nodded at it and then headed to the ruined town, left it behind to grasp what just had happened.
The Mantis started to walk away from the town on impulse while she tried to collect her thoughts again, but only one constantly repeated itself.
"Thank you…and good luck…"
She walked without her eyes on the road, only staring out into and beyond the forest with a strange feeling in the back of her head that wouldn´t go away. She had to sit down for a moment and tried to gather the pieces of her mind. It was an overwhelming feeling, one that she had not sensed since her days in the hunting teams. What was it called? A feeling between warriors in a team. A feeling she had enjoyed during all those hunts. The feeling where everyone cooperated to bring an awakened being down and the satisfied smiles on their faces after it had been killed. What was that feeling called again?
"Thank you…"
She thought about it and then the word shaped itself in her mind...
"Trust? That claymore actually trusted me?"
No matter how the Mantis looked at it, it still had been honest gratitude in those words and it made her feel good. A pleasant feeling to not be treated like an abomination for once spread a small smile on her face.
But there was still something that put her in a high alert.
Her perception skills picked up something in her vicinity and she turned her head to the west.
Something had entered the range of her perception, near vicinity and it was a strong yoki that got the Mantis off the pleasant feeling. She stood up and close to a tree so she might blend into the darkness. The large yoki aura appeared as a dreadful force and moved slowly five hundred meters from her. The Mantis could tell from experience that the yoki had the same intensity as her own. But it was a lot more predatory and she didn´t wanted to cross paths with it.
The yoki aura stopped for a moment after it broke a thick branch and the heart in the Mantis´ body beat faster. Ten seconds passed while she stared at it from behind the tree. She couldn´t see anything between the numerous trees but the yoki aura remained there and it listened for any sound.
The mantis focused to keep her breaths hidden and muffled. She prayed that her heart beats would not give her away. She looked into the same direction as the yoki aura and hoped it would move on soon.
One second it was there…only to be gone in the next.
The Mantis let out a small sigh of relief, one that she immediately choked on.
The yoki aura appeared right behind her without any warning. Along with a massive pain that impaled her through the back. She could not turn her head but the shadow of the one behind her fell over her body and the surroundings. A distorted voice with satisfied cruelty whispered in her ear.
"Wrong… wrong… insect not rabbit… You are not tasty at all… but useful…"
That voice, clearly female but now barely recognizable, made the Mantis open her eyes in fright since she knew who it belonged to.
No way… I saw her yoki… she couldn´t have got here that fast…
It giggled a little.
"Got you… off guard. Ah this feels great…"
Whatever had been used to impale the Mantis to the tree hurt a lot. It didn´t pull away either and appeared to be a spike of some sort. She could not regenerate the wounds or damages caused while it still stayed in the wounds.
"By the way… where is the little rabbit? I can´t seem to find her… Do you know where she is? I´m going to teach her what happens when one tries to screw me over…"
The Mantis just spilled it out, as it tried to get away from the dead serious situation that now occurred.
"See that town? Take one good guess from there…"
The voice spoke again and closer to her ear this time with wicked satisfaction.
"Good… as a reward… I will not kill you yet… When I kill the rabbit… then I will kill you… and after that…"
It took a pause and seemed to fantasize about what to do after that.
"…I will hunt and eat… until I am satisfied …and then kill that…man…"
The pain went away as the spear-like thing that stabbed the Mantis being in the back got pulled out. She fell down on the ground, coughed blood and tried to heal the large hole in her chest. The massive yoki leapt away from her and headed towards the town.
The Mantis got a new feeling and not a pleasant one. One that made her clench her fists in sad anger.
"This is bad… must do something… that claymore… won´t stand a chance… I need to at least warn her…"
She got back up on her shaky legs, stood up and the large wound through her chest closed. She stood between the choices of running or not, an easy choice any other day, but now a difficult one as she turned her head towards the town.
Grace smiled a little as she walked among the ruined buildings and headed for the church. The night was clear and free of clouds, not long until dawn. But strangely enough she had this feeling of déjà-vu over it and not a pleasant one either. No birds, no sounds, only her footsteps and the hint of heavy suspense in the air.
She stopped and unsheathed the sword while she assumed a stoic expression.
You can´t be serious…
She moved slowly with the claymore ready and the broadside turned so she could look into it. She prepared for anything that would come at her since the suppressants must stopped having effect at this hour. And when that happened they would unleash the only person that she knew would come after her.
"I know that you are here Medea… and if you want to play games, then you better tell me first…"
Nothing happened, Grace waited in silence for any noise or indication of a second presence. After a minute, she sheathed the blade slowly and the moment the sword clicked into place…
She leapt forward as a shadow came flying from above and threw its appearance across the ground.
She rolled over the ground and stones crushed behind her by great force. Grace looked in that direction and saw nothing but an impact crater. Something sneaked up to her from behind without making one single sound. She pulled the sword at and swung in the other direction, blocked an attack by a sharp pointy appendage.
She stared at the creature that stood there and scratched the ground beneath it.
The distorted voice sounded startled, but mostly amused from her defense.
"There you are…"
The moonlight revealed the entire creature and she tried to grasp the sight with her eyes.
At first sight, it appeared to be a newborn spider-like monstrosity from the deepest forests of Hell.
A beast, four times bigger than a human being and with eight legs covered in a dark mixture of exoskeleton and human skin. Each jointed leg ended in large points, like spikes and looked dangerously sharp. The rest of the body appeared organic, soft and pale.
The middle body had a naked female torso on its back that ended right below the bellybutton. The abdomen appeared more spider-like and ended in a large fleshy bag with two sharp stripes along the sides. Two human-like arms converted by the elbow to fangs that bended in front of the head as if it stretched out in a yawn.
A female face was mostly human with the exception of the three sets of eyes. The middle pair contained slit irises and they all glimmered in the moonlight. The legs were placed so they came from her spine and the head bended the neck backwards over the spider head. The long thick hair covered most of the front part of the spider-like body. It had two mandibles with large claws, definitely spider-like in a demonic way protruded out in from beneath the air.
The hair that had hung in a soft cut before revealed the forehead and the extra eyes in it. The skin and exoskeleton had a pale tone in the same ghostlike color of bone. The mixture between spider and woman appeared so perfect that it was hard to notice the abomination in its whole horrifying glory.
A Top Five Awakened.
It looked at her and then spoke in a delirious, distorted, voice.
"Little rabbit… yes, there you are… Difficult to find, harder to track, easy to snare… Easy to kill…"Grace still remained a little stunned by the sight and Medea talked away while she didn´t make one single move to set her off. "…Are you happy now... Look at me…" The human mouth gritted teeth and the distortion increased, "LOOK AT ME! I had it all under control until you came along and RUINED IT! Why? Why? Why? WHY!""
"Medea… What have you done?" Grace said in confused shock over the sight. The idea of guilt nagged her conscience but hadn´t registered the danger that surrounded her from this awakened.
Medea didn´t ease up in the slightest over Grace´s reaction. The human mind spoke under the influence of awakened hate as all it saw was a world of red spider-webs.
"You woke me up!" The spider maws punctuated each word with a hiss "I hate you…You… You ruined everything I tried to do! I tried to help you and this is the gratitude I get? You barehanded bitch! How am I supposed to face her again like this!? You ruined everything I have done!"
Grace raised a hand and waved it in an attempt to ease the hostility.
"Wait! Medea, please listen to me!"
"You don´t have the right to your number, this is treachery! You filthy barehanded traitor…"
The legs on Medea prepared to leap as Grace´s pleas fell on deaf ears.
"…pay for what you have DONE!"
Medea vanished in the blink of an eye and Grace dodged forward to dodge another attack from behind. Medea had grown stronger in the initial transformation when compared to before. One hit would be enough to impale Grace´s and destroy it. No healing or treatment could undo such an injury, Grace knew that. She turned around and the spider body of Medea pulled out the two legs used from the ground. Their movements were jerky and inexperienced, lacked finesse.
Grace responded immediately in defiance and no fear behind her eyes.
"Medea! Stop! I don´t want to hurt you!"
"It´s far too late for that!"
Medea leapt off the ground and charged at Grace with the front pair of legs raised to slam down on her.
She turned the claymore sideways.
She blocked the attack and the blade clashed against two of the legs, it failed to cut through and its strong exoskeleton protected them from any injury. Medea raised one of the legs in the block and shot it forward to impale her in the chest.
Grace swung the blade in the other direction to divert the attack elsewhere. Medea leapt backwards, thirty meters in the blink of an eye after the failed assault. She vanished into hiding.
She could not see her and Medea´s voice spoke all around her as the presence circled out of sight.
"Let me tell you a little story, about a strong number two that was respected and loved among the other claymores. A shadow on the battlefield, a caring captain and beloved leader that ensured that the weak would not get killed in action. A woman who had to kill her brother, her only surviving relative, when he turned into a yoma, stabbing him in his sleep. She endured, she resisted and wanted to never be seen by the enemy again. She had killed five awakened ones, and proudly could say that nobody lost their lives under her command. This was a thing she was proud off. Her accomplishments were renowned, and one day, she got assigned to lead a team of warriors to kill a certain target. A renegade creature that escaped the Organization´s grasp for quite some time… Blanc the Barehanded."
Grace resisted asking to not break her concentration. Medea talked away from the shadows, a movement in the corner of Grace´s eye that could as well be an illusion.
"The claymore accepted the mission of course, she got a team with her of trustworthy comrades that she swore to keep alive like the rest of the teams. Guess what happened? The male claymore went for the captain first, cut off her tendons in both ankles and elbows, when that failed to stop her, he jammed the claymore into her spine and paralyzed her. She had no choice but to watch as the rest of the team perished, one by one… in front of her eyes. She wanted to stop it, she wanted vengeance for the lives that weighed her down: she wanted blood and increased the yoki higher and higher until she was about to step over the line. And then he stepped in, put a hand to her face and did something with her head. He told her to give up and did the one thing that she could never forgive him for." A short pause. "He let her live."
A piece of rock fell down from a wall and Grace turned in its direction, nothing but dark shadows in a back alley.
"When the captain got back to the Organization, she immediately became a test subject for the Retrieval department, they marveled over that her yoki constantly increased out of her control and fixed the injuries after three days, but she had to ingest yoki suppressants to keep the force down. And she had been stripped of her rank, as no failure was allowed; she became property of the Retrieval squad for experimentation. They involved her in a suppressant project to improve the concept. The ex-captain couldn´t sleep, the nightmares of her subordinates´ deaths haunted her every minute of living, the pain refused to go away and she felt a hate for this man. The man that made her existence a living hell. She swore to make him say the names of the people he killed. The years passed and the Retrieval squad tested all kinds of drugs on the former number two. Kinds that never saw the outside world. Yoki suppressants, pain suppressants, sensory enhancers, performance enhancers, hunger suppressants. Depression suppressants. Some of the stuff they injected her felt good and temporarily made her forget all the pain and guilt, but they always ended too soon. Most of the time, the drugs brought out a dark world full of cobwebs full of entrails and gore with a dark spider in the center. Her yoki constantly increased in rate with the memory of this man intensified with pent up hate. The smug grin he displayed and how easy he dispatched those she swore to protect. Her body slowly broke apart, the days blurred out as the rainbow of suppressants made it difficult to think. She was forgotten and strapped down on an operating table most of the time when she wasn´t stuck in a large birdcage. She was mostly suppressed and delirious to such degree that she didn´t racted when some of the more… despiteful… members of the Retrieval squad, took advantage of her. Who would ever notice? Her mind slowly mowed down piece by piece until nothing but hate for the barehanded remained. A force that grew stronger and stronger for each year until she could no longer handle it without large quantities of yoki suppressants. The years of captivity slowly broke down the former number two´s body, her muscles shrunk and most of her blood was replaced with the chemical soap they pumped into her to see the effects. They became her whole life and all she could do was to smile like a idiot when they came to inject them. She had lost her dignity, her respect and was forgotten by the outside world. She had become their little toy of amusement."
A large shadow appeared on the roof top behind Grace and she quickly turned around with the sword turned forward. Nothing but the dark night in her sight. Medea talked away and the steps of spider feet teased Grace with their presence.
"But one day, thirty years later, something changed. The sad wreck of a claymore, the fallen number two, was pulled out from her cell, half-dead, and strapped to a chair. The surgeons attached multiple tubes to her naked body, all with a large needle in the end, and strapped her down to the chair, hard. Before she knew it, they pumped in all kinds of drugs, suppressants and enhancers into her. Brain stimulators, muscle enhancers, blood transfusions, yoki suppressants to keep her yoki in check during the surgery. Her body regained its former glory. Her mind cleared up from the drug induced fog and the pain returned to her body once more. Once she was restored, they pulled out the tubes and needles; she used her technique to vanish out off the chair and nearly killed two of the surgeons in a fit of rage. She got stopped by a man, one of the handlers, a smug weasel in her eyes, which asked what she wanted to do most of all. She answered with hate in her eyes of the first thing she could see clearly. She only wanted to kill the Barehanded bastard. The handler was pleased, and allowed her to re-enter the ranks of the current generation. She despaired to learn that everyone that loved and respected her already perished decades ago. She was robbed of her former rank, her past, her reputation and worst of all, the name she was given at birth. She would never be able to go anywhere without yoki suppressants to suppress the flames of yoki that burned within her. Never be able to escape the beast that haunted her nightmares, never be free of the guilt. She got involved with others that shared her predicament, which shared her hate for the Barehanded and welcomed her with open arms. But in contrast to them, she was not a monster. She still cared for her fellow warriors, the one thing the Retrieval squad could not rob her off. She adapted to the new identity, got assigned as number five and came to like her new nickname. But she could never be accepted, no matter how hard she tried to help the ones weaker than her. And she still to this very day, sees the faces of the comrades she failed to save long ago."
Grace turned around and a small movement got her to stare at the rooftops. Medea´s voice rose up behind them.
"I will not let their deaths go unpunished…!" Medea hissed.
A shadow in the corner of Grace´s eye and she side-rolled to the right as Medea ambushed the spot and leapt away in an instance. Grace got back up on her feet and looked around at the ruined buildings with the sword raised.
"…The Barehanded is MINE!"
Medea´s voice moved all over the place and Grace tried to focus on her next move against her.
Medea leapt from the roof of a building and the sound of the large body landing over the roof gave her position off.
Grace turned around on the spot and Medea shot forward with the four front legs raised. Two of them got blocked and they went down into the ground so hard that cracks formed from the impact holes. She didn´t waste a single second as she twisted the handle in her hand.
The two blocked legs moved forth and the blade got behind them. She got caught in the cage of legs as Medea rushed over her. She increased her yoki to ten percent and stabbed Medea´s body from underneath with hindered momentum. She lay down on the back and the sharp blade caused a superficial injury, not enough to cause damage but it would inflict some pain from the attack.
The spiderlike body made it troublesome to get good hits. The edges of the sword hit too many places on the hard legs without enough force. Medea leapt right up in the air to get away and she pointed with the sword upwards to stab her once she came back down.
A thin thread shot out from Medea´s back body and landed on the corner of a building.
The spider body of Medea moved in a half circle through the air and landed vertically on a tower.
She hid her surprise and Medea giggled at her confusion. It leapt off the tower and behind some buildings to get away from her sight. The giggling, distorted and plain sick, came from all around her and it seemed like it was near impossible to tell from where.
Someone waved from behind a corner to an alley and she turned her head in that direction.
The Mantis, in human form, waved with its arms for her to get closer. A large hole in its rags partially covered her chest that regenerated a fresh injury over it. Grace ran over to the Mantis and uttered in great surprise.
"What are you doing here! It is dangerous!"
"Oh, no kidding?"
The giggling stopped and the being looked around in slight fright. Grace refused to waste more time in hesitation and just asked out loud to spare some time.
"Why did you come back? I thought you were going to run off somewhere…"
"I got ambushed… and considering that it will kill me after killing you… I am just here to make sure you won´t lose…"
"I can handle it myself!"
"I doubt that… this is a top five awakened being you are talking about… they are incredibly dangerous for double digits… especially if these double digits are alone…"
"I can handle it!"
"Yeah right… you see this?"
The mantis points at a large wound in the chest that was still regenerating…
"It did this to me in a sneak attack, and I have a perception radius on THREE MILES!"
"Doesn´t matter! I will kill this thing before it gets to the church!"
"And what is…?"
The giggling emitted to the left of them and Grace said one more thing before she ran in the opposite direction.
"She´s watching us…"
"How predictable…"
"Just get out of sight! And let me deal with it!"
A large shadow moved over the roofs and it jumped over to the other side before it landed down on the ground in front of her.
Medea attacked with the sharp legs again.
Grace attacked her with three rapid swings, blocking the leg´s attacks, and aimed to stab the body of Medea. The spindle body just lifted itself up and stood on the tips of the pointed legs in response. She tried to cut them clean through and it only bounced off from the exoskeleton instead. A quick change of strategy as she aimed a swing at one of the joints in the legs.
Medea jumped up and she missed as she cut through empty air. The spider form pointed with the four middle legs towards her opponent while she spun more thread to make another aerial movement through the air.
Grace made a small jump in a horizontal pirouette and when the four legs landed in a collected bunch into the ground, she landed with a sure foothold on them. Before Medea got a chance to react, she grabbed the claymore and pointed it up at the center of the legs, towards Medea´s exposed body. She thrust upwards with the claymore and stabbed the body of the spider. Blood squirted out from the wound and Medea shrieked from the pain.
She flew backwards through the air without the use of her legs.
Grace landed on her feet and Medea landed on the roof of a building, scratched the bleeding back with one of the legs. The expression in Medea´s upside down face turned unpleasant while it spoke to her.
"You and he are the same… you on the medicine? Or are you a freak like him?"
And she vanished out of sight again.
"How can such a large body just vanish like that?"
The Mantis stood on the sideline and didn´t wanted to get involved any further in this mess. She found herself satisfied to watch and tried to find something to exploit, a weakness or a flaw on Medea. But the yoki from her moved all over the place and the Mantis being refused to even leave the spot, in fear for being assaulted.
She knew from experience that a top five awakened wasn´t something to take lightly and looked at Grace again.
"That is just plain suicidal… it takes four to take one of these down, and she is a double digit on top of that… Why did I even come here? I should have run off as fast as I could…"
The yoki moved somewhere high above to the left of the warrior and a giggling noise accomplished it.
The Mantis looked in that direction and Grace also did that as well. The Mantis looked back at her and saw it.
Medea, slowly and without even one single sound, crept down behind Grace.
Her movements were precise and careful without a noise from her joints. She had an upside down grin on her human face and her eyes shimmered gold in the moonlight from excitement. It was close to incredible that Medea could sneak with such skill in that body, without even the faintest of sounds in the process.
She stood a bit right behind Grace and prepared to leap out in a single lethal attack. "Death´s Embracement". The Mantis opened the mouth to warn her temporary ally.
Medea jumped forward with the fanged mandibles raised and the front legs ready, all without making a sound.
Three seconds later and Grace charged twenty percent of yoki while she swung the claymore so it got under Grace´s armpit. She thrust backwards right in between the mandibles of Medea´s body and it screeched in fury.
Medea´s screams of pain from her maw sounded oddly human in that moment while she tried to remove the sword with her arms. She had tried to avoid a direct confrontation, she couldn´t handle it, which was the flaw she possessed. She shot forth with the two front legs, aiming to impale Grace.
Grace used the sword as support while grabbed the handle and flipped backward in the air. The front legs missed and stabbed the street right in front her. She landed with her feet on the crossed front legs with bended knees and used the spindle legs as foothold. She still maintained twenty percent of yoki as she pushed forth from them. The claymore sank deeper into Medea´s spindle mouth. Blood flowed out between the mandibles.
Medea screamed again and tried desperately to stab her with the second pair of front legs.
Grace bent her knees again and the attack missed. It thrust into the ground and shattered rocks beneath her. She got a new foothold on this new pair of crossed legs and repeated the process as she pushed the claymore even deeper into the spindle mouth. The hilt didn´t have long until it reached the mandibles and she found herself right next to Medea´s human face. They looked at each other for a couple of seconds.
She quickly raised her elbow and hit Medea´s face with it in a fast attack to disorient her.
Blood squirted out through the maw and Medea frowned in anger. Medea bent with one of the legs in the third pair completely backwards and tried to impale Grace on its tip.
She looked up and rolled over the sword to dodge it as she got her feet back on the ground.
"You are too predictable..."
She increased her yoki to forty five percent and her face distorted with veins. She turned around on the spot while holding the handle in a firm grip with both hands on it. She flipped the sword with Medea over her shoulder in a throw and the spider body flew over it in the air.
Medea hit the ground face first with an earth shattering sound. The spindle legs twitched from the impact in short spasms and Grace finished the sentence with sad tone.
"…and I tried to warn you."
Still on forty five percent of yoki, she stepped down on Medea´s body. She made a massive pull that cleaved through it from with. A lot of blood squirted out from the massive wound through her body in a vertical red line. The legs twitched faster and she raised the claymore to finish it.
She swung down and cut the entire upper body of Medea in half, the legs stopped in their spasms and went stiff. She pulled the claymore back up and then rested it on her shoulders. Took a deep breath and walked away… while counted down from ten.
"10…9…8…"
It had only taken one and a half minutes.
The Mantis just watched completely stunned and shocked in disbelief.
Grace walked away from the dead body with calm steps.
Her steps stopped the moment she heard the organic noises behind her and she turned around slowly with denial in her face.
The spider body of Medea twitched for a second and the abdomen slowly started to pulsate and tremble a little. It rose up and sweated in the moonlight, the legs contracted, moved and clenched together. The soft organic and egg-shaped abdomen pulsated even faster, pulling tightly together around something within it. Strained veins appeared on the surface and it cracked open like an egg.
Shining in the moonlight from sweat, a "human" body of Medea slumped down on its hand with the back turned at Grace.
The sight made Grace gag and look away with a hand over the mouth.
The area at the waistline and down still remained connected to the spider body. The left side of her back was split open in deformed spider limbs of what once been ribs. A large dark sack inflated and deflated in their grip irregularly as Medea coughed. She puked out clumps of cobwebs from her mouth as she gasped for air. She stopped after an intensive pained convulsion…
…and turned around to face her.
Grace inhaled one deep breath as decades of drug abuse gazed back at her.
In contrast to the awakened form, this was unnatural and sickly.
Medea lacked hair and eyebrows, the flesh had the same color of over boiled pink fish meat. The skin wrinkled and with veins over its surface.
There were two holes in her skull where her ears been. The right side had a cluster of three spider-eyes in grotesque disarrangement. Two spider-mandibles protruded out from her chin, incomplete and too small to be useful. The human eye glowed in gold and full of pain.
Her right arm was split into three spider-legs, but in contrast to the awakened form, these looked unnatural and misplaced as if they were never meant to be there. Every inch of Medea twitched as in constant pain. Her chest was a mass of strained flesh on the right side and remained partly human on the other. Her left arm remained human, but the index and middle finger had merged together and lacked finger nails.
Grace didn´t take chances and stayed away as she kept the blade down. She stood in front of the human body of Medea who coughed and bowed down with the head.
"It hurts... It hurts… It hurts…" The awakened body shivered, shrunk slightly and stayed in its broken awakened form. White lumps of webs came out from the mouth as she spoke and she coughed the larger ones out to not suffocate."Can´t… turn… back… can´t… turn… back…"
Medea spoke in exhaustion and weak voice disfigured by hidden changes inside her. A pained expression took form as if every word been a razor. She cleared her throat and gasped for air. The exposed lung on her back inflated.
"I only wanted one more…chance… one more chance…" She said.
Medea looked up and with sadness in the disfigured face. She gave a dead stare on the medallion and then into Grace´s eyes before her voice uttered in helpless and empty tone.
"… To avenge my comrades before I died…"
Grace frowned and moved closer. Medea´s form was not considered a threat.
Medea sobbed as her body crouched forward. Her incomplete hands and spider-appendage scrapped the ground as she gazed down on them. The realization of what happened hit her like a slap in the face. Her body wheezed in pain and agony as its unnatural and mutated properties brought misery to her.
Grace asked with a pity behind the eyes.
"No,
Medea gazed up with two of the spider eyes, followed by the human one.
"And … look … at … me…" Tears mixed with blood built up in Medea´s human eye and she collapsed down into the ground. Pieces of her skin tore open and a white liquid sluggishly poured out from the shoulders. "I … failed…"
"I don´t understand, why would they do such a thing?" Grace asked and Medea looked back up while on the ground. Tears flowed down the human eye and blood down from the spider ones.
"Look…at…me…" Medea´s voice contained nothing but resignation. "…This… is… what… happens … when … you … fail." Her limbs forced the body back up as to display it all with the dead and mutilated lower body included. "…What I am … You … will … become …" She lowered the limbs as she coughed up a large lump of web and blood. "Broken." She gazed down and the spider-legs twitched in a spasm. "…This… is… inevitable …"
"I just tried to save you… I wouldn´t have reported you to the Organization… Why did you come after me?"
Medea chuckled and stopped as she nearly choked on a piece of web, spit it out and collapsed down on the ground once more. She convulsed violently as more liquid cob-webs came out.
"You… smell ... like … him." There was sadness in the voice that turned Medea into an abandoned little child, crying alone in the dark. All the anger Grace felt towards her exchanged into pity. Medea wasn´t bluffing and the pain that ravaged her deformed body was fully visible. "And… you … caused ... this…"
"I am sorry, I didn´t know."
A heavy agony in the voice and Medea struggled to sit up, to regain a shred of dignity. She looked at Grace that stood in front of her and asked with a vengeful heart.
"The Barehanded...ruined… my … life… And you … broke the … last … pieces … of … me…"
Grace looked at her with sadness in the eyes and asked with a burdened voice.
"I know…"
"How… can I … face my … comrades … now? Nothing left … but death … do … it …"
"I will … I won´t run away from my responsibility. And I am going to kill him."
Medea smiled a tired smile and eased relief, the lung deflated in a smoother rhythm.
"Good enough…"
Grace held back the desire to walk away and leave the pitiful human abomination to its fate. Medea glanced up with the human eye closed. The webs had run out
"At last… I don´t have to take the medicine … any longer."
Medea chuckled before it drowned into pained gasps. Grace sighed in sympathy for the pain and lifted the head.
"Just sit here and close your eyes…"
Medea only breathed as she kept the eye closed and smiled with one half of her face. She leant down at the ground with the human arm and the other uselessly limp along her body.
Grace moved to her left side with the claymore raised and with the edge right behind Medea´s neck.
Medea spoke as she used all remaining force to ignore the permanent pain, the ugly truth of her suppressant addiction, and gazed up towards the full-moon. Its pale light reflected in the pale insect-eyes that permanently stared up. To Medea, a face appeared in the white circle over the night sky. Tears flowed.
"I wonder…"
Grace swung the claymore away from the neck and back at it in increased speed. Medea finished the sentence with a smile and closed eyes. The lung that protruded out on the back inflated.
"… how heaven is like?"
The claymore bisected Medea´s neck in a clean cut and her head rolled down on the ground. Her body slumped forward with a weak thump. The sack of flesh deflated slowly and remained still. The golden eye in Medea´s face remained closed and a relieved tired smile on the disfigured skull remained.
Free and peaceful.
Grace sheathed the claymore and wiped tears from her eyes. She inhaled heavy breathes and tried to calm herself down from it all. She looked at Medea´s body and decided to leave it there. The Mantis remained speechless with the exception of a single sentence.
"Look at that…"
Grace walked past her and exchanged a short stare between them before she continued. Her emotions raged behind her eyes like a hurricane and the Mantis had common sense enough to not disturb it.
"Are you…?"
Not even an answer and she headed to the ruined church. The Mantis followed while kept the distance in both respect and caution.
She reached the church and not said a single word on her way there. The Mantis walked close behind and just watched, curious. Someone came out from the gates.
A little girl that looked at Grace, smiled widely and ran towards her with open arms.
"Big Sister!"
Grace got down on a knee and Eliah hugged her with a happy smile. She remained unresponsive at first and then she returned the hug while she smiled from both relief and happiness.
The dawn rose up over the horizon.
Thank the Goddesses…she´s safe.
The Mantis just stared and felt terror grip around her as her eyes rested on Eliah. Her perception skills revealed the reason to her horrifying mood and she couldn´t say a single word.
What the…Hell… is THAT!?
Every nerve, every single cell in the Mantis´ body screamed out at her to run away, as fast as she possibly could from here. Considered what she sensed, it was heavily justified.
She prepared to sneak away without being seen by either of them.
Grace spoke to Eliah while in the embrace of each other.
"Thank Goddesses you are all right… I was so worried about you…"
"You promised that you would come back… and you did… I have missed you so much Big sister…"
She looked over Grace´s shoulder and then asked something in curiosity.
"Who is that?"
She turned around and saw how the Mantis stood there with her back turned at them. The Mantis had managed to get two meters away but froze dead on the spot once Eliah noticed her.
The Mantis cursed her bad luck without saying it out loud and turned around again. She hid the fear in a stoic expression.
Grace stood up and tried to figure out a way to explain things to Eliah and without scaring her with the true nature of things.
"She… well… she is…"
"Is she your friend?"
The Mantis, worried and nervous beyond comprehension, stepped into the conversation.
"Yes! I am one of her friends!"
"Ah…"
Eliah looked at her big sister with childish curiosity.
"Is that true?"
"Well, in a way… yes, it is one of my friends…"
"Okay then… can she come with us?"
"Uh… I don´t know…"
Grace looked at the Mantis and it fought the urge to just run away in terror.
Eliah walked right up to it and Grace kept a nervous eye over her since it was an awakened being that she stood in front of. Eliah turned her head sideways and then smiled a happy smile. She raised her hand in a friendly greeting.
"I am Eliah… what´s your name?"
"I am… I am Faith…"
They shook hands. Eliah returned to Grace´s side, who appeared relieved over that nothing bad happened. They left the town and the Mantis being, Faith, stared in shocked disbelief and slowly walked after them. Grace looked back at her and thought for herself.
How did this happen? Well, I at least can keep an eye on it so it won´t kill anyone…
The Mantis, Faith, thought a similar thought while the eyes remained on Grace at first.
I think that it would be for the best…
She diverted her attention toward Eliah who held Grace´s hand in a firm grip and smiled.
…If I tagged along for a little while, until the coast is clear.
She looked into the palm of her hand, reminded herself of her own mission, and accepted the circumstances for the moment. They took off and left the ruins behind them in the light of a new dawn.