Chapter 14.
The
Clashing
Of
Waves;
Act III
Part V
ME: Okay, first, thank you for not skewering me after the last chapter! Second, remember what I said about things not always being what they seemed?
Third, the next chance you get please check out :icon14Amychan:'s newest Arch story! She's off to a truly promising start with these prompts (issued by the challenge made by yours truly!)
Well, on with story!
"Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma . . .
Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma . . .
Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma . . .
Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma . . .
I . . . I can't get these memories out of my mind . . .
And some kind of madness has started to evolve . . .
Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma . . .
And I . . . I tried so hard to let you go . . .
But some kind of madness is swallowing me whole, yeah . . .
Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma . . .
I have finally seen the light . . .
And I have finally realized . . .
What you mean . . .
Ooh, oh, oh . . ."
"Madness" – Muse
~X~
SNAP!
The bridge's last upper line broke.
Riley and Tuff watched this happen in silence. The both of them instantly knew what the other was thinking.
Oh, bull shark.
The bridge fell with frightful instance; the wind instantly howled into the ears and ripped through their hair as they began to be propelled towards the giant canyon of death.
So they did the only sane thing that anyone else would do in this situation.
They screamed to high heaven. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH~!"
Riley felt himself being twisted as they fell; he held on desperately to the rope in his hand as he ended up going through the now plank-less space with Tuff whipping right up after him, clutching his foot for all that it was worth. With the force of physics twisting his body, Riley could see the blinding terror his twin held in his eyes as both Tuff and his feet rose above him.
He tried craning his head back in an effort to look down, – Hey, if he was about to die, he might as well look to see what he was in for! – But his sight could only go as far as the rock wall adjacent to the one he and Tuff were on just a moment ago.
A rock wall that was actually starting to look really,really, really CLOSE–
BAM! THUD!
Riley let out a pained grunt as his back hit the rough and unforgiving rock. His head bounced off the wall's surface, making him lose focus and almost his grip. Yep, that was gonna hurt tomorrow . . .
Tuff, from below him, in his shock, let go of his foot and would've surely fallen to his death, had he not grabbed on to his own section of rope with a yelp. He let out a hiss at the slight burn that grew through his arms from the ridiculously hard exertion of holding up your own body weight with only your hands. Thank goodness for that wilderness survival course when he and Riley were younger . . . He looked down into the still steep and still very deep canyon below them. From this distance, he could just barely make out the smell of salt and hear the small clashes of waves from the shadows that enveloped the earth within the chasm. He gulped nervously. "Hooooo boy, that's a looong way down."
Riley let out a noise of amusement, throwing his other hand up so he could grip some more rope and offer some relief to his other burning arm. "Betcha it's even higher then that one cliff we jumped off over at Berea Island to get away from that hungry Manticore."
Tuff made a face up at him. "How could I forget that? You're the one who made us jump off it!"
"We're still alive, aren't we?" Riley countered.
"Yeah, at the moment." Tuff said, warily.
". . . . nooooo! . . ."
They both looked up at that voice. They both obviously knew who it was that was screaming, although due to drastic change in miles, it sounded like nothing but a whisper floating on the rough breeze. Cassie . . . .
Cassie was up there.
Up there, alone with that monster.
And they were supposed to be there with her.
Dammit.
Riley only let out one breath through his nose before he heaved himself up, ignoring the fibers of the rope stretching in protest under the skin of his palms and quickly grabbing onto the equally as weak plank closest to him before the rope could snap. "Let's go, Tuff, we got a beautiful lady in distress up there waiting for us."
Tuff rolled his eyes but copied his brother regardless, but not without throwing up at him, "Only you would think that at a time like this."
"Oh, and you don't?" Riley breathed as he started to carefully climb up the side ropes of the now downed bridge.
"Of course, I do!" Tuff grunted this time. He made use of the barren and solid rock wall and pressed the bottoms of his feet against the surface and shuffled them as slowly as he could while lifting himself with each grab of rope. "But that's not the point, erf, there's a time and place for everything; and this," He exclaimed when he lost his footing for a second, setting him back half a step from his brother and nearly half a step closer to his frikin' death for the second time that night. "Is definitely not the place or time!"
"So . . . The fact that you find her particular shade of skin color attractive makes no never mind to you at all?"
". . . . . . . Just keep climbing!"
~X~
Cassie stared down into the now bare gap before her.
No. No. No, no, no, no, no . . . .
Hot, salty tears leaked out of her wide, orange eyes, dropping from her cheeks and onto the grass. Her knees had given out minutes earlier, allowing her to collapse on her knees almost in perfect sync with the fall of her heart.
No, no, no, no, no, this couldn't be happening.
Her blank white tail cocoon was wrapped around her again, her weak shield against the world that did nothing to repel the weight of the horrid reality crashing into her. Her hands gripped the blades of grass spasmodically just as two lone tears dripped from her cheeks, hitting the skin on the back of them.
Please, dear mother of the Maker, someone tell her this wasn't happening.
She couldn't even see them anymore. The other end of the bridge had fallen so far that it almost seemed to disappear into the shadows of the gap. She couldn't even see the surface of the water where Tuff and Riley had . . .
Where Tuff and Riley had fallen.
A sharp pain jarred from Cassie's chest. She heard herself sniffle and felt her teeth bite down hard on her bottom-lip, most likely hoping to draw blood.
Oh, god. That really did happen. Tuff and Riley really had just fallen to their deaths. She had tried to warn them but it was too late. They were gone. All. Because. Of. Her.
She thought she would be protecting them when she ran off; by god, how could she be so stupid?! She should've known that Tuff and Riley would come after her. They were gentlemen and kept their word, so when they promised they would protect her, they meant it. Even with themselves at risk.
Why didn't she see that earlier?
Because you didn't count on them being like Faust.
Tears were now starting to gush out of her eyes; her hands went up to her face, making no mind of the cold and dry dirt caking her fingers and smudging her cheeks, allowing the tears to glide down her fingers and over her knuckles. Cassie's heart ached painfully and biting down harder on her lip, she certainly could taste iron now.
Stupid, foolish fish-girl.
She dragged two kind men into her troubles and they paid the price for it.
Why did this have to happen?
A deep chuckle answered from behind her.
"Sending others to their ends, woman? Heh, and I thought that only I would be enough for you to torture."
Cassie's blood ran ice cold. Oh, no . . .
She looked behind her. There standing tall and proud was him. The Master.
He looked almost exactly the same as before; same furry limbs, same scars, same Manticore pelt, some chilling look in his eye. The only difference was this time, an ugly burn mark was running up the left corner of his mouth and spanned all across his left cheek like rivets of water.
The appearance of the new scar did nothing to ease Cassie.
If anything, the scar made him seem all the more terrifying.
The Master saw her stare and drew one clawed digit up to his face, tracing over it slowly. "Ah, yes, you see your handiwork don't you, woman?" His low tone sent another set of chills down her spine. "I don't know how you can even cast the Evil-Light from that tail of yours. Oh, well," His teeth glinted as he gave her a wide smile that left her shaking. "It won't matter much now that you're here. I'll just rip it off and give it to my comrades; they can use something to chew on." He held an arm out behind him, drawing her attention to the uncountable pairs of glowing yellow eyes watching her from the shadows.
She knew they were hungry. She could hear their growls from where she was and she could almost make out the sheen of saliva on the teeth they bore. They were indeed hungry beasts just waiting for suppertime.
In other words, her.
She had no idea how many there were. The same number as last time? Not likely. She didn't get a decent count of them earlier since last time it was either stay there and get eaten or run away and save herself. Whoever this Master was, he probably had dozens of them just waiting for his command. Not good.
Cassie looked back at the chasm. There it still was, now holding no ways of escape. Nothing that she could use to her advantage. Such as drawing him to the bridge and allowing him to make him fall to his death.
Just like Tuff and Riley had done.
That brought another set of tears coursing from her eyes.
That's right. She had acted stupidly. She thought she could face this problem alone without anyone getting hurt. Oh, look at how wrong she turned out to be . . .
"Your heart's in the right place, but that doesn't do you much good if you're not going to be around for us to thank you."
"We promised we'd protect you and that's what we're going to do."
So much for that promise . . .
"No need to shed tears for them, woman," The Master reassured her in a voice that was more mocking than sympathetic. "You just did to them what you did to me."
For a moment, she forgot about the well of sadness slowly filling within her. She forgot all about the utter despair and agony that wanted to come out.
. . . . What?
What . . . . What was he saying?
"You used them like toys. They disgusted you like they were bugs you had squished. You hated them simply because of what they looked like. And when the chance came, you left them to die. Just like you did for me, wench."
. . . . . . What?
What was he saying?
"They were just pieces for you to play with. Nothing more than pawns. Nothing more than pawns for you just to play with over and over and over and over and over again . . . . ."
Cassie looked back at him. The Master didn't even seem to be looking at her anymore. His only eye looked so vacant, like a plume of smoke was clouding him from inside his head. His gaze was aimed lazily towards the black velvet sky and his voice sounded so eerie as he mumbled, "They were nothing to you. . . Like I was nothing to you . . . Yet you still used me over and over and over and over and over and over . . . ."
Cassie had no clue what to think at this point.
He wasn't talking the same way as before.
Yes, he still talked to her as though she was someone else and spouting strange things with that god-willing dazed look in his eye.
But something was different now.
This Master seemed even more . . . . Strange than before.
It was though some switch in him was flipped and nothing was left but a broken musical box. Playing the same haunting tune, as he was now putting it, over and over and over and over again.
If that didn't creep Cassie out, what he said next certainly did.
". . . You would say the cruelest things. You never smiled at me. The only time you would was when you were hurting me with your words. You stabbed me with your words. You would stab me . . . You would stab me over and over and over and over . . . ." He finally looked back at her, gripping the part of the pelt covering his head with his claws. He was clearly relieving some bad memories as he went on, ". . . Filthy mutt. Mongrel. Pathetic beast! Damn thing! You would always call me that over and over and over . . ."
He sure liked repeating himself like a parrot, didn't he?
"And it was worse when you would sing." The Master snapped his eye back toward Cassie again, making her jump. His eye was a lit with something. Something that Cassie had no desire to find out about. "You would always be singing in front of me! Such sharp sounds and long words . . . My ears started ringing and bleeding . . . I wished you to stop but you still sang! You knew your singing hurt me but you still sang!" He grinned more widely than before, almost as manically as when they first met. Cassie immediately felt like puking. "You said that you sang for me because you liked me! Do you remember that one song you always sung for me? That one that makes my ears bleed and ring?! The one that you loved to sing for ME?!"
Cassie gulped. Okay, this Were-Dog was definitely missing a few screws in his head.
She wanted more than anything right now to run like her mind was practically screeching at her to do but she had two problems. One, where could she even go? There was no ways of escape now that the bridge was gone and the forest was most definitely not an option, not with those sick wolves in their, still watching her as though it was some sick game. Second, even she did run, her side was tearing up a storm though her body and she was sure to be bleeding a little by now. The scent of her blood would certainly drive the Master more off the edge if he wasn't already now.
Her throat felt incredibly tight with what she could only describe as outright terror as she tried to speak. A stupid thing to be doing when there was a clearly and completely whacked-out Were-Dog thirsting for her blood right in front of her, she knew, but she wanted to think that perhaps there could be some scrape of sanity left in him. She had tremor in her voice as she said, "W-what, song? I-I'm sorry, I have n-no idea what –"
Big mistake.
"LIAR!"
The Master was on her with no warning. He seemed to have a gift for appearing out of no where because before Cassie could even blink, he had lunged at her and slammed her right into the ground. He abruptly started to shake her by her shoulders like a rag doll, jerking her already aching head back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, screaming, "LIAR, LIAR, LIAR . . . !" Once again like some broken music box.
Cassie cried out as she felt the bones in her shoulders and neck pop and crack from his abuse. Maker, if she didn't do something fast, she would most certainly die now! But could she –
The knives.
Cassie relied purely on instinct now. With no force holding her back, she dipped her hand down, practically ripped the knife tied closest to her off one of her belt loops and brought the sharp blade's tip right up into the underside of the Master's forearm, past the skin and fur and right into the muscle and veins, allowing a seem of blood to spurt out.
The Master let out his own cry of pain and released her, shuffling back and grabbing his injured limb. The wolves, from where they still remained in the woods, barked and snarled at her actions. Not letting it deter her, she kept the now bloody knife out with both shaking hands and, albeit a little wobbly, quickly got to her feet. She told herself not to look down on the blood staining her new pants, no matter what.
If she lived through this, she promised to apologize to Mother Logai later.
The Master appeared greatly shocked by what she had done. He stared at his bloodied arm incredulously. "You hurt me . . . You hurt me . . ." He mumbled. A second later, he snarled and pointed accusingly towards her. "You hurt me AGAIN, WENCH! Just like all the times before, YOU KEEP HURTING ME!"
Cassie had enough of this psycho's babble. She had it about up to here, in fact.
Ever since she had met this guy, she had been chased over a cliff, bitten, almost drowned, sewn up like a dead animal, ordered around with no choice on the matter, banged on the head more times then she could count, unconscious also more times than she could count, clueless to where her friend was and hurt as she had just driven two great guys to an early grave.
She had been fairly more than tolerant at this point.
Now. She had. ENOUGH.
"I'VE DONE NOTHING TO YOU!" Cassie screamed at him. She felt a nostalgic tingle rise up behind her eyes again and allowed it to flow back into her now scribbling and curled-designed tail that she knew was poised to strike. She hoped her anger was as sparking as ever before she wanted to get the message clear that she was done with all this confusion and fear. "I've done nothing to hurt you! I didn't even know you up to now! So don't you dare claim that I'm the monster here!
His hearing must've been more damaged than she thought, because he roared right back at her as though she hadn't said a word. "You are NOT ALLOWED TO HURT ME! You are MY PRIZE! MY GAME! YOU ARE MINE TO KILL!"
Cassie mentally congratulated herself for not flinching at the volume of his roar. "I AM NO ONE'S PRIZE! I AM NOT YOURS TO KILL!" Just like him, she was screaming at the top of her lungs, desperately angry and fed up with the way things were twisting and churning madly out of proportion with no ways of repair. "PEOPLE AREN'T JUST PRIZES TO BE WON! THEY'RE LIVING BEINGS! JUST LIKE ME AND ALL THOSE OTHER GIRLS THAT YOU'VE NO DOUBT BUTCHERED FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR SICK HUNT!"
The Master looked at her like she just grew three heads. The pure fury and madness were still there but the wide-eyed glare he was giving her was sure to make anybody else collapse into a near-faint. "I KILLED NOBODY ELSE BUT YOU! I KILL YOU OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN, BUT YOU WILL NOT DIE! I WANT YOU TO STAY DEAD BUT YOU ALWAYS COME BACK TO TORTURE ME! MY COMRADES AND I HAVE SUFFERED BECAUSE OF YOU!"
His face twisted into a mask of psychopathic rage at what he growled next. "You even took my SECOND-IN-COMMAND away from me . . ."
Cassie's mind drew up an absolute blank at those words. "W-what? What are you . . . ?"
"My intended . . ." The Master practically snapped his teeth at her. "My heart who would've become my mate . . . The one you ordered one of your Half-Shark filth to kill . . ."
"That I ordered to . . . ?" Cassie could not believe what she was hearing. Even if the one saying this was deranged animal. "I never ordered them to –"
An image of a long dead Were-Dog flashed through her mind. A Were-Dog that Riley sliced like an onion.
An unbidden slice of regret sliced through her as realization came on her like a mallet. She shouldn't have felt sorry for him. After all, this guy was a cold-blooded murderer! But that didn't stop her from mumbling softly, "Oh . . ."
What else was there to say? God knows how cruel life can be.
But now wasn't the time to feel pitiful. Here at this moment, it was either flight or fight.
Riley and Tuff seemed to trust in that instinct the most. The least she could do was follow it herself.
She willed the feelings of regret and pity churning in her throat back. She tensed her hands, hoping they would stop shaking and looked the mad Were-Dog straight in his eye. For what she said next, she kept her voice cool and even. ". . . I am sorry for your loss. It is truly horrible when you lose someone you care about deeply . . . But that gives you no excuse for the fact that you have killed again and again and again with no amount of remorse, especially since you've dragged your apparent mate into your madness."
She could feel her courage grow a little word by word, giving her the will to speak louder and clearer. "I came here tonight with only one goal in mind; to confront you and stop you from terrorizing this town and its people. My only regret in all this is that . . ." She faltered in her speech at the names perched on the edge of her tongue. ". . . Is that Tuff and Riley Luck died because I went ahead with this plan without telling them." She shut her eyes for a brief moment out of silent reverence. "If I had only told them sooner then . . . Perhaps they would still be here . . . The both of them were kind, good men, despite what their ancestry made them out to be."
A little prayer went up to them, wishing them all the best. Along with a small hope for forgiveness that burned like a candle flame. Please forgive me, you two . . . Opening her eyes, she gave the Were-Dog her deepest frown as she concluded, "They both had promised to protect me as I was the only survivor of your attacks. And I'll be damned if I don't at least try and deliver the precious pieces I have to end this horror story. If I survive this . . . If I survive you, I will tell everyone the truth and not let the Luck Brothers' deaths or the ones of those other poor girls be in vain!"
Neither the Master nor Cassie noticed the ropes of the forgotten bridge still tied firmly to the stakes shake ever-so-slightly from behind her.
If either one had looked over, they would've seen Riley Luck, still holding on in place to the surprisingly strong aged rope, sniffling audibly with watery eyes, struggling not to bust out crying at the sheer movement of the speech he just heard.
Tuff, for once, didn't make any movements to silence or berate him. Like Riley, he simply just listened. Not very often you hear words like that mentioned with your name in the same sentence . . .
Especially from a girl like Cassie . . .
He quickly snapped out of it when he heard the – Let's face it, Brain-Damaged – Master growl, "Big words, wench . . . But you're just fooling yourself. Do you honestly think I'm going to let you get away from me again?"
"That's exactly what I think." The Brothers heard Cassie state boldly. Tuff felt his heart sink like a rock. Oh, no. He let one hand let go of the rope so he open his satchel and dip it inside At Riley's gesture, he pulled out and handed him a box that he thanked God for Dr. Marlin ordering him to bring along with him and Riley once they found Cassie. . .
Back above, Cassie's forehead was once again starting to break out into a nervous sweat. Regardless, she kept her stance steady along with the hold of the handle on her knife as she watched the Master rise back onto his feet. "Think again, woman . . ." He sneered, his wicked grin adorning his face once more, making the fierce mark she recognized as hers all that more frightening. "Once I'm through with you, you'll never come back and torture me again. Understand? This time, You. Will. DIE."
Cassie breathed shakily out of her nose. She was starting to tremble again.
She didn't want this monster to see her so weak again but what did she expect? She was sooo in over her head on this one. What was she supposed to do?
What would Vince have done?
She didn't get an answer this time.
Primarily because –
BLAM!
TSWiiiiiiiiii . . .
POP!
Cassie almost fell forward in shock. The colors of her surroundings became blanketed into a shade of exploding bright red. Whirling around, she watched as a ball of red magic ignited, lighting up the night sky and leaving a trail of white behind it as it fell to the earth.
The Master leapt away from the flare when it landed as though it was a living demon. As he crept closer to the sanctuary of the woods, Cassie could hear the wolves whine and whimper at the appearance of the flare.
Honestly, she was just as frightened as they were if not just as confused.
What on Earth . . . ?
What the heck shot that – ?
Riley's hand, gripping one of his brother's swords shot out from the edge and went right through one of the stakes, allowing him to pull himself up and slap his free hand down to the earth with a wheeze. "Tuff! What the hell?! You were supposed to shot it towards the Were-Dog!"
Tuff appeared just a second after that, gripping his other sword and copying him, this time clutching a still smoking flare gun between his teeth. "Give me a break, Riley! You try loading a flare gun with one hand and holding on a thin, decaying rope with the other at the same time!"
"At least I wasn't the one who almost dropped the box with the flares into the chasm of death below us!"
"Oh, like you have better hand coordination!"
"As a matter of fact, I do!"
"Yeah, yeah, give me a break!
Cassie was as frozen as a stone statue as she watched the both of them climb up over the edge. The only movement she made was when she let the knife slip from her hand and fall with a "Thunk!" to the ground.
Was she . . . . ? No, she wasn't dreaming.
Tuff and Riley were actually here.
They were here.
They were alive.
As they pulled both of Tuff's swords out of the now worthless wooden stakes, Cassie did the one thing that most people would do when two people she thought were dead were actually alive.
She shouted.
"YOU DAMN JERKS!"
Tuff and Riley nearly fell into the "Chasm of death" again in shock from the force of her shout. If that didn't do it, then the look of pure and absolute, red hot – Or in Cassie's case, Blue-hot – anger on her face as she stomped towards them with tail poised high and already sizzling for the urge to deep-fry the both of them stupid did.
And they thought they had seen her mad before, but right now nothing compared to this.
"YOU FISH-HEADS! I thought you two were dead! How dare you do that to me?!" Cassie screeched, growing more and more bluer in the face each passing second.
Riley immediately darted behind Tuff, who would've done the same a second earlier were he not so petrified at the raging blonde in front of him, using him as an impractical human, er, Shark-man shield. Despite the sixth sense ringing in his head that was telling him to high-tail it out of there at the risk of Cassie shocking him like a bug-zapper, Tuff raised his hands up in defense and said carefully, "C-Cassie, now just calm down, we didn't to make you worry like that –"
Cassie wouldn't hear any of it, however. "SHUT UP! You have no idea what I went through just now! I saw you both fall like rocks! How are you not dead?!"
"It turns out the rope is a lot sturdier than we thought." Riley piped up from behind Tuff, giving his twin some help. "It was able to hold out long enough for us to climb back up here and shoot up the flare."
Cassie's glare was hot enough to melt iron with the look she gave him. Riley let a squeak and hid behind Tuff again, in no ways eager of saying anything else. Letting out a small huff of satisfaction, she snapped her glare back at Tuff's anxious face and barked, "Why didn't you two try to tell me you were alive!?"
"We didn't know if you would hear us!" Tuff said honestly. "The wind was blowing so hard down there, we could barely hear ourselves think let alone try to talk to you!"
Cassie wanted to remain furious with them.
She sooooooooo wanted to grill those two on the spot for what they did to her . . . .
. . . But the volcanic-worthy anger then decided to deflate like a balloon and sunk deep back into her chest, allowing a storm cloud of tightly-coiled pain and relief to spread; her eyes burned, this time from tears as they spilled down her cheeks, leaving thin trails on the dirt buttered on her skin. ". . . . You could've tried to, you know . . ." Her voice sounded so broken and pathetic. The two words she hated in a situation like this more than anything.
Tuff felt his heart wrench at the deep hurt in her voice. Had she really been that scared for them? Of course, she had, they had heard her say as much just a few moments ago. Maker, was he stupid . . . He and Riley only shared one glance before he begun to reach out towards her, "Cassie, I –"
Riley stopped him dead with a arm suddenly wrapped around his throat. He wasn't trying to strangle him but like Mother Logai had done before, he held him in place as he promptly pointed out, "Uhh, Tuff, Cassie, I really hate to spoil the reunion but right now, we've got bigger problems."
Tuff and Cassie would've asked what he meant were it not for the chorus of growls and barks from behind them. They turned their heads and blanched at the sight of numerous wolves stalking their way from out of the forests.
The wolves' glinting eyes and bare teeth told them all they needed to know; they were all hungry and drooling and ready for dinner.
In other words, them.
Although Riley really didn't need to, he said so anyway, "Because I think this Master guy has friends."
ME: Well, I suppose this should be the part where I apologize for my lateness . . . When in actuality, I don't need to! I mean, now that I think about it, I promised in the very first chapter that I would update this very 5-6 days and aside from one week-long hiatus, I actually have kept to that promise! I guess I just got so fixated with updating every "something-fifth" or "something-tenth" that I assumed I'd be late if I did later-wise . . .
Anyways, a lots happened these past few days; two of my most recent favorite Rio fanfiction just got taken off-line out of nowhere – which really sucks 'cause the villain of the first story really gave the inspiration for this first Arc and the Master – my volunteer work at the library, and some slight disagreements with my folks which I really won't get into here . . .
But here it is, as I promise and I apologize if I didn't describe the Master's downfall into utter chaos accurately. And for keeping you on the suspense of the last chapter. And everything else after that.
OKAY, enough rambling from my part, 'till next time!