Chapter 21 - Battlefield
Viridian's POV
I never thought all that training with Frobert would come in so handy. These prison guys, they look tough, but they're not actually great fighters when it comes down to it. I stare down at the purple gorilla who I just delivered a slash to the leg to. I probably could have taken her down with just my bare hands, honestly. It was clear to me that she had never swung an axe before.
I guess when all they do is put the cuffs on you and walk you around, they don't need to be all that handy with weapons. Just strong and intimidating.
"Kelsea!" I hear Jayden shout. I look over to see our mayor with an axe sticking out of her, and I gasp.
"Oh no," I say, sprinting across the battlefield. Jayden is crouching over Kelsea, a look of panic on his face.
"What can we do?" he asks me, distraught.
"I'll be fine," Kelsea says, wincing as I gently pull out the axe. There's so much blood. Too much. She's trying to remain stoic, but the pain is clearly getting to her. "Go on and fight. You can help me after… after you win."
"Okay," I say, feeling guilty about leaving her there, but knowing I need to help out in the battle. There are a few injuries on both sides, but I think we're doing better. Slightly. The kids from the jail must be really good at channeling their hatred and desire for revenge into their fighting.
"Viridian," says Kelsea weakly, "in my pocket, there's a cell phone… call Copper."
I reach into Kelsea's pocket, rifling through various objects and scattering them on the ground before I find a silver flip phone. In Serenity, we don't have many cell phones. We mainly have the ones with the cords. I guess she gets one because she's the mayor.
"Jayden," I say. He looks up at me, and I toss him the phone. "Call Copper and get him over here as fast as possible." I'd be more useful in the fight than he would. He rapidly dials and I turn back around to get back in, gripping my axe.
Immediately, a searing pain scorches across my arm, and I gasp as I turn to face a towering brown hippo, brandishing a knife, going right for the kill this time. I suspect he'd have stabbed me in the heart the first hit if I hadn't turned in the nick of time, leaving me instead with only a bloody scrape on my left arm. I nimbly dodge the blow and retaliate with an axe to his face, but he protects himself by whipping his knife at my axe with such a surprising amount of strength that the axe spins right out of my hand, leaving me totally vulnerable against the hippo's wrath.
Now I'm on defense, waiting for him to aim just so I can dodge his knife. Five times in a row, his knife slashes through empty air. But then the back of my shoe lands the wrong way on a rock, and I find myself tripping backwards, staring up into the sky until the hippo comes into view again.
The hippo grins as he lunges with his knife again, and I try to dodge it but I'm not going to be able to get out of the way in time. Just when I think I'm doomed once and for all, the hippo wheezes suddenly, drops the knife, and slips to the ground.
A tall boy with shaggy inky blue hair stands behind the hippo, and takes out the axe he plunged into his back.
"You can thank me later," he says as he runs off. I remain lying there, and sit up to feel the cut on my arm. It's bleeding, but luckily it's not that deep. I've had worse.
I run off to retrieve my axe, and as I return, I notice Keaton a distance away, watching Kelsea intently.
"Keaton!" I say.
"Hello, Viridian," he says. Something about his expression is disconcerting. "How's our mayor enjoying my axe?" My jaw drops.
"You threw that at her?" I ask furiously. I can't believe it. He couldn't have.
"Not directly," he says, shrugging. "I was aiming for Jayden, but she took it to save him."
"But why?" I exclaim. The knuckles on my right hand turn white with the strength I'm gripping the axe handle with.
"I was a part of this from the beginning," he says, smiling and speaking casually as though we have all the time in the world. "I poisoned the town tree the day I moved to Serenity. I used a slow-acting poison so it was never noticed until four days ago and you couldn't trace it to my arrival. I was the one who switched Jacob's calerite with my revonite. I encouraged Vivian to try and turn everyone in town against you and make them all aware of the wickedness of humans. I helped scheme with Hamphrey to banish you from town if you remained uncooperative. I led you here on purpose so we could kill you." He pauses as he lets all this information sink in. "You thought I was your friend. You never suspected that I secretly hated you and the others. I was the ultimate undercover agent."
With a battle cry, I slug my unarmed ex-friend in the neck. He doesn't scream or cry out as he falls. Instead, he grins wider.
"Go ahead and kill me," he says. "Rolf will win. The humans will fall. It won't matter. All you're doing is emphasizing the fact that humans are cruel, ruthless beings."
If looks could kill, Keaton would already be dead with the intense glare I'm giving him, invisible laser beams shooting out of my eyes and boring through his head. I take a deep, furious breath and grit my teeth.
I turn away. I can't do it. But then Keaton laughs, and I snap.
I whip around and slam the flat part of the axe blade on top of his head. I don't wait to see how he reacts; I'm headed back to the real action.
Immediately, I see another familiar face that I saw just a few minutes ago. Snooty. She dusts grass off her dress and she puts a hand to the scratch on her face. She gives me a dirty look when she sees me.
I hear a scream from a distance. It's Carli's voice. Soon this fighting will be total carnage, and I can't let that happen.
I do something different this time, and wrap Snooty in a tight headlock that Frobert taught me. He's used it on me several times before. I hold the axe blade to her neck.
"Drop your weapons or she dies!" I roar in my loudest voice. It ripples through the crowd and every head turns to look at me. A white tiger in the back eyes me with a curious smirk, and while some of the animals drop their weapons to be picked up by a few humans, others grip them tighter than ever, including the tiger and his knife. Everyone is silent and frozen in place, and it continues for what feels like forever until the tiger speaks up.
"You're bluffing," says the tiger, who is standing right next to a bleeding Carli. At least she's standing up. I look around at the rest of the destruction incurred by both sides. A green bear cub is passed out on the ground, while a black-haired girl is sitting up against one of the trees, pressing the fabric of her dress tight against herself to stop the flow of blood from a wound. Her blue outfit is stained purple in the middle. The hippo who attacked me is still lying on the ground, motionless. Is he dead? I can't tell. Kelsea is still lying on the ground in a pool of blood, but Jayden's no longer with her; he's sitting on the ground some distance away and hugging his knees to his chest, whimpering as he puts a hand to a gash going up his left leg. His hands are covered in scarlet and his face is drenched with tears. A blond kid is attempting to stem the gushing blood from Kelsea's chest with his shirt, while an orange rhino is tending to the purple gorilla I injured earlier, using a cloth to dab at her wounds. An orange lion stands over a boy with bright scarlet hair, holding a knife in one hand and a shovel that I'm assuming used to be the boy's in another.
"Want to bet?" I snarl as maliciously as I can, pressing the blade to Snooty's neck just enough so that it breaks the skin. A tiny droplet of blood appears and dribbles down her throat, leaving a pale red trail in its wake. I am bluffing, actually, but I can't let him know that. I need to show enough blood so that he thinks I'll actually kill her. I see the panic in Snooty's eyes and know my act is believable.
Then the tiger makes a sudden move and grabs Carli in another headlock. I'm caught off guard. That's not how this was supposed to go! They're supposed to drop everything and watch me in fear that I'll kill their ally, not take one of us hostage as well. Unfair!
"Kill her and your friend dies, too," he says, bringing a knife to her throat, the blade dipped with red.
On one hand, Carli betrayed me. She led us to be captured to save herself, when she was unknowingly going to be toast either way. That's not something I'm going to forget, no matter how much she thought she was doing the right thing. Sacrificing others to save yourself is something I really can see why one would do it—and maybe I would, too, if I was in her position, but I can never know for sure because I haven't yet—but it will always result in those said others being bitter. However, Carli is still one of us. And no way will I let anything happen to her, not today.
Everyone looks anxiously between me and Snooty and the tiger and Carli as they wait to see who takes the first move.
I finally decide to let Snooty go, roughly shoving her off and letting her fall to the ground, praying that the tiger does the same.
Big mistake. He doesn't.
Instead, he sneers as he brings the knife even closer to Carli's neck, and a river of blood starts to flow downwards. Just like with Snooty, only more. Carli's eyes bulge with fear. And I realize with horror that I did exactly what he wanted me to do. I no longer have anything on him.
"No!" I yell helplessly. And I run, faster than I've ever run before, past the crowd of people and ignoring thoughts that the tiger could just run through Carli's neck with the knife right then, and, aiming straight for the tiger's arm, I let my axe soar.
Either I'll hit the tiger, I'll hit Carli, or I'll miss both completely, but it's a risk I must take. Besides, I have nothing to lose. We'll all be killed in a couple hours, anyway. But I know Kelsea was hopeful and if we do have that tiny, miniscule chance of surviving, I want Carli to be alive for it.
Just as the tiger prepares to impale Carli right through the jugular, the axe finds a home right in the tiger's arm before falling out, leaving a bloody gash in it. He roars with pain, lets go of the knife and Carli moments before she would have become a shish-kebab, and winces as he clutches the wound. I continue to race towards Carli and just as I reach her I push her away from the tiger, who bends down to pick up his knife, and then I kick the tiger in the stomach. He collapses to the ground and I snatch the knife and axe away. I don't attack him again, but I hold the knife warily, ready to attack if he or some of his thugs start to pounce on me.
And just then, it gets even better, as Copper shows up onto the scene, flanked by some other familiar faces. Digby, Reese, Cyrus, Kicks, all three Able sisters, Tom Nook, and Blathers all stand alongside him, some armed with shovels, others holding silver handcuffs. Sable has a first-aid kit and Copper himself is holding a gun. The group looks stunned at what's happened; Mabel covers her mouth with her hand and Reese tightens her grip on Cyrus' arm. It looks like a war just took place. And I suppose it did.
"I'll take it from here, Viridian," Copper says in his official police officer voice. "Good work. And Carli, too."
As Copper snaps a pair of handcuffs on the tiger, I feel a wave of relief wash over me. Kicks handcuffs the rhino while Reese and Cyrus take care of the lion. Digby puts cuffs on Keaton, shaking his head in shame at our former neighbour. Sable rushes over to Kelsea hurriedly alongside Labelle.
"Oh, Viridian!" Carli says, hugging me tightly. She's never hugged me before. "Thank you so much! You saved my life! I'm so sorry about what I've done!"
"It's okay," I say, hugging her back sort of awkwardly, relieved that she's safe.
"Where's Kelsea?" Carli asks me. "I need to apologize to her."
"She's over there," I say, pointing. "Kelsea is badly hurt." All the blood drains from Carli's face.
"What?" she gasps. "Oh no. No, I need to see her." I follow her as she runs over to where Sable and Labelle are hunched over. Sable is crying, while Labelle looks up at both of us sadly as she shakes her head. I look down helplessly at Kelsea's lifeless body, covered in red. It's too late for her.
She's gone.
We're nearing the end of the story! The next chapter is going to be the last one before the epilogue, which is going to be split up into multiple parts, so there's still a bit left.
Also, R.I.P. Kelsea. :(