Merry Christmas Everybody!
Hope you all had a great time like I did. This is just a little reminder that I'm still alive :'), sorry about not posting I had a lot of work to do over the past few months so I had to put writing off for a while. However I'm almost finished a lot of the new chapters for my fics so I'll be sure to post those with haste. For now I'll post this chapter so you know whats coming next. Au revoir and have a good new year!
As per usual if you can guess why I named the Title of this chapter Oppenheimer's Anguish many rewards and hypothetical money's will be coming your way!
Oppenheimer's Anguish
Soft swaddling comfort. Like being wrapped in a blanket of clouds and marshmallows. A warmth pressed against him. The warmth of a girl. Smooth fabric caressed the skin on his arm. An arm that looped over anothers waist. Holding her close, closer than the most exquisite diamond.
As he took in a heavy breath, she shifted. Shifting so slightly that she nestled in closer to his embrace. His nose nuzzled into the space between her lascivious golden hair and the crook in her neck. Happy thoughts of last night still clouded his mind, and he didn't mind. He planted tender kisses along the length of her neck, the definition of elegance.
She stirred once more he could sense the smile on her face. She was ever so suggestive. She slowly twisted exposing more of her neck to the foreign lips. He moved upwards, between his lips he softly nibbled on her ear. She giggled from the sensitive location.
He felt his belly begin to rumble. The noise wasn't harsh, it was like the cooing of a bird, Amber responded to it in kind.
"I'll make you something." This time when she sifted, she heaved the bed covers up with her. She used them to cover herself while she equiped a yellow flower dress. Once fully standing she brushed her over her shoulders. With fleeting feet, she bounced towards the kitchen, the hem of her dress just covering her thighs.
Marcus wasn't used to the morning after, and thousands of thoughts darted in and out of his head. Should he go? Or, should he stay? The answer to that was obvious. Instead he chose to focus his mind on the house.
The curtains were see through allowing a healthy dose of sunshine to enter. The house itself was warm, an open window allowed a smooth breeze to blow to and fro. It ruffled the curtains in its unique pattern. The bed itself took up most of the space, it was large so soft you could bounce a bowling ball on it.
He could tell that she wanted to make this his house as much as her own, yet he could see faint traces of areas Amber had added her feminine touch. All the curtains were lace with feminine designs and delicate trimmings. The beds sheets were embroidered gold and white much like her hair and skin.
The smell was intoxicating, it overpowered every sight and sound the house could provide, even the swills of the lake and chirping of crickets was nowhere near as pleasant as the smell. Whatever Amber was cooking, it smelt incredible. Like a bakers shop, the smell of cinnamon and peaches lofted through the air. And sure enough with a smile just as sweet, she entered with a single slice of pie. He could tell the type by the smell.
"Your favorite! These aren't real peaches they just smell like them. Sorry." Amber was fussing she looked a little lost, she didn't know what to do. So she laid the pie on his stomach and crawled up next to him. She trailed her finger up and down his bare chest. "What do you want to do today?"
"If I'm going to go back to the Belladonnas, I have to see Blake. After that she'll probably delegate me some menial work to do. After that…. I'd just like to spend the rest of the day with you."
"Well then. Eat up. We got a long day ahead of us." She kissed his forehead.
Little did they both no. Fate had a cruel way of proving people right.
Blake sat at her throne. The long table in front of her filled with her top lieutenants. The giant known as Lucifer stood by her side. The right side of the table was Rena, Oroboro, and Nikoru. The left side only one sat. Drake. The two seats closest to her were vacant.
"We'll begin." Blake had her fist wrapped around a great big sword. The blade was dug deep into the ground and she continuously fidgeted and tightened her grip on the handle. With a cough she clearer her throat.
"We have traitors amidst our ranks." Nobody at the table seemed surprised. "As you know we've lost three battles this week. With many of our people captured. Including some of your squad members. These defeats, all share the same MO. These fights are always unexpected yet they have all been secret missions. There is no way Dragon Alliance scouts can get close enough to see our movements. So somebody is tipping them off whenever our people set out. As of late, the Oni are doing an internal investigation and so far have no leads." Blake pressed a little harder on the sword making it bend and strain under her gauntlets. The sword threatened to snap in two, but her grip eased.
"My usual contacts are being silent. I'm guessing they've been payed to keep silent. So we aren't getting information that way." In the absence of Marcus, Rena had gained lots of political power in the wake. Not that she needed, or better yet wanted it. But lots of eyes turned to her. She seized that opportunity and earned her seat on the council.
"I expected as much. I want everyone to keep their eyes open. See or hear, anything message me without hesitation. Dismissed." Blake banged the edge of her blade on the floor, a makeshift gavel. Everyone stood disbanding. Most meetings people didn't speak, they were just for show more often than naught.
Blake got out of her seat. She strolled towards the balcony, leaning out staring out into the mores. The swamps never seemed to change. The mobs outside sticked to the usual roaming code. Never straying too far into the swamp, they traveled in a revolving dynamic circle. A metaphor for life in this game. A revolving dynamic circle.
It was times like these. That Blake truly felt at peace, the only time actually. She could stare out - sometimes for hours at a time. Nothing would really change, the cycles continued. A revolving dynamic circle.
But out on the moors, a paradigm shift occurred. A fundamental change that threatened to change the very laws of everything she knew.
A black hooded figure. A scythe so elegant the darkness of its shape cast a shadow across Blake even from a great distance. The way it walked, like the trickling of sand in deaths hourglass. She had grown accustomed to the way Makasu looked from a distance. It was always unsettling.
The way Amber skirted around him jabbing her spear like a valkyrie's blade sending the souls of the undead to rest. They both reeked of death. Blake knew the stories of Makasu, the Scythe Wielder, the Reaper. After all it was Rena who helped spread them.
But for now she finally understood them. It was the way he walked, soft steps almost like his feet never touched the ground, gliding across the ground. The black cloak with the hood pulled low, his face masked in darkness. And finally the scythe…. It was truly an image she would never forget.
Marcus sat at the foot of the table. It was small, quite quint. Enough to hold a chess board and leave some room for the defeated pieces. Blake sat at the other end. She had chosen the white pieces, while he was left with the black.
Both were using strategies cultivated from years of practice. One could say these two were veterans of the game. That no matter how good they got, or how strong they grew in SAO. The two were always better at Chess.
An hour glass trickled sand on the right side of the table. To keep things interesting. If the sand reached the bottom on someones turn it would be an automatic forfeit. So the mind was constantly being tested.
"Knight too A6." Blake moved her knight swiftly striking down Marcus' bishop. This however was a sacrifice he was willing to make.
"Rook too B5." Blake's Knight was trapped. If it moved to take a pawn Marcus would surely execute the Knight. And if she moved back to where her knight originally was, it was in direct fire of Marcus' final Bishop.
"Interesting." Blake looked at the hour glass. It was just over halfway she had roughly another 20 seconds to think.
The only way she could win is if she put the pressure on him; cracked his strategy. She moved her knight without saying a word. Flipping the hour glass to signal his turn. Marcus made his move almost immediately returning the piece to its original position. Blake fired back, and so did he.
It was only 13 moves later. Most of the pieces had been eliminated. All Marcus had left was a Knight, his Queen, three pawns, a Rook and his King, Blake on the other hand was looking a lot more grim. She had her queen and a knight and a bishop with only two pawns to wall her King. The realization that it was almost over between them, that made Marcus stop. He hesitated not knowing which piece to move next. This made him laugh.
"You've lost Blake." He forced his queen all the way to the other end of the board. Blake was taken back by the sudden and idiotic move she moved her queen and swiped the elegant piece of the board.
"Doesn't look that way from here."
"I'm exactly two moves from finishing this."
He moved his knight. It too was now in direct fire of the queen. Blake laughed, his plan was chaotic and clearly on the spot. She removed the Knight with her queen. Her queen was in sight of the rook, and Marcus removed it. Marcus cocked an eyebrow to gauge her reaction.
"Do I look worried?" Blake smirked it was a worthy sacrifice. Marcus had only his rook left to attack with.
"I see you made your focus on the rook." This peaked Blake's interest. "You see Blake. The mistake you made was focusing on the Rook. You failed to see the threat right in front of your nose. I mean you taught all of this formation. You call it the Phalanx."
It was a simple formation. One pawn in front with two pawns flanking it diagonally on either side, the King lay in between the flanking pawns. The rook was on the far side of the board. Blake saw its purpose now. It was a blocker. To prevent her from setting up against the Phalanx and with the queen out of the picture. There was no way she could block the formations advance.
"Zugzwang." Marcus uttered the strange phrase. Blake was confused, the automatic translator didn't register.
"What does that mean?" Blake moved her bishop looking for a gap in the armor. "Check." She uttered confidently. Marcus moved one pawn forward blocking the bishops line of sight. Blake frustrated, moved her bishop to take out the pawn. The second she did, Marcus moved the King justly, swatting aside the Bishop.
"In German, it loosely translates too. Compulsion to move. In chess, this refers to the loser. Who may or may not know they've lost yet, but they move anyway. Inching closer and closer to their inevitable downfall. So move." Marcus' eyes were cold. The usual fluorescent that illuminated them swirled into a black mess, staring her down to oblivion.
"What are you talking about. We have the same pieces. Two pawns and our kings." Blake had this feeling. A feeling of vertigo, his tactics this game made her sick. He would bait her into frustrating captures then swiftly remove a vital piece while keeping the timer on her. It forced Blake out of tactful thinking and into rational thought. She thought like she would in battle, and it wasn't working. Blake moved the Pawn flipping the hourglass, Marcus moved his just as fast flipping it back on her. This repeated process happened all the way until Marcus moved his pawn to Blake's end of the board. Its image shifted turning into a queen.
"Checkmate." Marcus called in a monotonous way. Blake sighed. If Marcus called checkmate, she knew he wasn't bluffing. Her pawn was two moves away from reaching the other end of the board. Marcus could take all her pawns in 4 moves. The death of the king was inevitable.
"Forfeit." Blake called. The winner icon popped up above Marcus' head.
"So I guess you aren't taking everything I own." Marcus' features changed becoming softer. For the first time in their 30 minutes of chess he smiled.
"Shame. I thought I was really going to win." Blake stood chuckling her way over to the main table in the throne room.
"I decided to pull out the Blake buster. You never were good at thinking on the spot."
"Is that why you brought the hourglass. To catch me off guard?!" Blake gasped, she thought he just wanted to make things interesting. He planned this from the start.
"What else was it for! Only old people and the dead play with hourglasses!" Marcus twirled the object of time in his hands. Thats when Blake noticed his gloved hands. He always wore those gloves. For as long as she could remember. Yet she never asked the question.
"Why do you wear those gloves. You've had them from day one, yet you've never changed them, their stats are pretty poor. You could easily get a replacement?"
"Surprised you never asked earlier. The thing is. I can't change it." Marcus clenched his fist receiving an audible strain. "These gloves, and my coat. They're a permanent attachment to my armor. I can take them off to wear clothes. But if I try to equip different armor it puts these on instead. I think it has something to do with the scythe..." Marcus trailed off, his memory sparked on that moment he almost died. The words 'Immortal Object'. The subsequent message. "Blake I have something to tell you."
"Mortimer! Why haven't we moved yet. Its been too long!" A man fidgeted with his war axe.
"When our contact said he'd give us the order, we move. Not a moment later, or a moment too soon." Mortimer tried to reassure his men but they couldn't take it anymore. The no 'killing' rule had really thrown them on edge.
"I'm sure we can taste death soon! After All they said it would only be a month or two!" A girl with red hair tied in pigtails twirled her blade in her fingers. "And besides! Don't you just love twisting the knife into someone who trusts you!" She thrust the knife into an imaginary target, snarling wickedly as she slowly animated the motion she described.
"Cool it Kusuri. When we get the code phrase. We move. The DDA will pay us well when this is over." Mortimer pushed the hand holding the knife downwards.
"I just can't take it anymore! I can't wait for these pricks to be in a die!" She grimaced with pleasure bouncing up and down with absolute delight. She slashed crazily with the knife
carving up an imaginary opponent.
Rena was picking flowers. It wasn't something she liked doing. Nor was it something she derived any form of enjoyment from. It was the sight of those delicate objects shattering into millions of shimmering polygons that truly intrigued her. Why was this the universal symbol of decay? Whenever something broke, hit the ground, or when someone died. Was it the creators choice, to have things go out one last time in a flash of brilliance. Or was it something else, a image of the deceased's shred of life evaporating into code, moments before their brains fried.
Whatever the case. Rena was juxtaposed about its true intentions or whether it was a sloppy process rushed into the game. She had to keep reminding herself that. That it was just a game, it had nearly been a year and sometimes she couldn't tell the difference between the two. She twirled the green stem within her fingers, the fluttering red petals peeled off as it began rotating. Soon the stem was bare. She twirled it back behind her back. Holding it like an imaginary dagger. She charged the sword skill hurtling the small stem dozens of feet into the swamps.
Further down, she could see the War Camps. The DDA was set up hundreds of meters back. Out of range from and projectile attack, and they could see a frontal assault before it could even be fully organized. All the war had become was attrition they couldn't attack. Even though the DDA had superior numbers they couldn't attack due to the Belladonna's guild location. Not only was the castle heavily defended it was within town borders, so the NPC guards would defend the town.
Rena was aloof, she hadn't had a proper job in a long time. Her group had been taken out of the front lines. So she hadn't seen a boss room for a month. Her contacts had all but dried up, due to her inactivity. All she had now was secrets about the DDA. And Blake wasn't buying those. Her personal coffers, like her contacts were gone. What power she had was lost, she gave it all to this guild she zealously supported. Yet, she was wondering if it was the guild. Or if it was Marcus. She was his best friend and now that he was gone, she felt lost in the guild. She had her own team now, she missed the days when she was with his team. They seemed like distant memories.
"Rena." A voice, male. Soft and delicate. A voice so unmistakably recognisable to Rena. As she had heard it a million times before.
"Makasu." She called back, turning expectantly. She was treated to a hug, the first time he'd ever shown any type of affection. He broke it almost instantly to severe the awkwardness. He looked the same as he always did, with the exception of a paler complexion.
"I expected you to be taller with fireballs shooting out your eyes." Rena smirked giving him a quick jab to the shoulder.
"And I thought this whole mess would have been resolved in a week. I guess were both disappointed." He of course meant the lights in the distance. The DDA.
"You started all of this you know. Why'd you have to cut their lieutenants leg off?" Rena joked she knew why after all she was there when he did it.
"Wasn't my fault. He was whining too much and had to be disciplined. Plus its not like it didn't grow back." Rena laughed at the past, it seemed like yesterday that this war started, not a couple months.
"It is quite tedious though. Belladonna stock has dropped, people think we are war mongers. We weren't even invited to join the Clearers meeting this month." That news shocked Marcus, the Belladonnas were always at the clearers meeting. Since the first floor. They provided a 5th of the Raid party.
"You know why?"
"From what little friends we still have up there. They said the DDA promised them what we have and more. With this new Guild the Knights of the Blood Oath on the rise, they didn't need us this time round." Marcus was in thought, this changed things. If the Belladonnas couldn't clear all they had left was Alchemy, and Blake... This…. Didn't sit well with Marcus.
"I have to see Amber. We can talk more later." Marcus
The swamps were as they always were. Disgusting, yet beautiful. Revolting, yet alluring. It was such a place you could only love if you lived there. And to those who didn't it was a single stop to stock up. Never look back after that. The Guild that called it home, treated it like a holy site. Keeping it clean and keeping the peace. Their black robes like a priests own. Their faith in Blake just the same. A paradise for a queen.
A queen… Thats exactly what she was. The lower members revered her. Calling her The Violet Queen. Their queen, they followed her zealously and with twisted adoration. The Violet Queen was nickname that stuck, everybody who knew Blake thought it was title well deserving.
The more he thought about it. Her power, the more he thought, she did not deserve it. A few months was all it took for Blake to become a queen, sitting on her lilac throne. A few months and Marcus was back to being a lowly lieutenant. With power shared among 6 others. Yet here Blake was, she controlled an army and more wealth than any single player could accumulate in a lifetime. Yet she threw it away, tossed this grand power into the flames called war.
He walked through the town with Amber on his arm. Regaining memories and bearings, he talked with many of the soldiers, faces he knew and faces he didn't. Till he saw someone who didn't bare the Belladonna crest. He saw a red guild's crest. An infamous one at that. The Leader, a giant of a man, known as Mortimer. He was tactful and feral a lethal combination.
"Mortimer. I presume." Marcus held out his hand to the giant.
"Makasu… You used to run with us back in the Beta. I was wondering what ever happened to you. Never have I ever seen someone dispatch a player as fast as you!" Mortimer took his hand shaking it firmly.
"I'm surprised a guild like yours was hired here. How did you manage to get hired on?"
"I was hired from a third party actually. Someone with guild ties got us on the list."
"I know exactly why you are here Mortimer." Marcus maintained eye contact, Mortimer gripped his weapon. All of the Berserkers stood on edge. Amber squeezed a little tighter.
Marcus was... smiling oddly. Mortimer was freaked out. He knew this gaze, it was the sick grin of a killer. Mortimer was surrounded by it, but none with this sort of passion. Marcus leaned in to Mortimer's ear. His lips uncurling from their smile to the same cold and hardened gaze.
"I send my regards to Kusuri." Mortimer took a few steps back. Marcus smirked, Mortimer nodded turning his back and walking towards the town center.
"What was that?" Amber asked with peaked concern.
"Nothing my dear, nothing at all."