Chapter 10: The Headhunter
Marco and company stayed in the Dojo Dimension for a little longer to catch up on what had happened at the Council meeting. The MHC were shocked to say the least, but were relieved to hear that Marco had joined them as apart of their 'Enforcers'.
After awhile longer everyone decided to go to the Diaz Household to celebrate Marco's victory in the sparring match, except for Star, who once getting home excluded herself to her room. Marco was worried about her, she had been distant for a while now.
After a few hours of partying, Hekapoo notices that Marco seemed distracted, "Hey what's up?", she asks wrapping her arms around his waist from behind him.
"Oh, it's nothing, I'm just thinking is all.", he says, putting his hand on hers.
"Thinking huh.", Hekapoo says, knowing what he was thinking about, she looks up the stairs, then back to him, "You should go talk to her, I know she's been feeling weird about us having a baby."
Marco looked at her with surprise, but he then realized that Star at one point did have a crush on him and her finding out that he's having a kid. Marco give a sigh and turns around to give Hekapoo a kiss on the cheek, "Thanks, I'll be right back.", Marco says as he goes upstairs. Hekapoo just watches as he walks off with a smile on her face, she then turns around and joins the others.
Outside of Star's room
Knock*Knock*
"Star, are you okay?", Marco asked, he had reverted back into his 17 year old body after coming home, he had also put on his regular outfit, seeing as his gi was completely destroyed.
"Yeah, I'm okay, just a little tired is all.", Star responded.
"Alright, but remember if you ever want to talk, I'm always down the hall, okay?", Marco says knowing very well that there was something wrong.
"Okay, I'll see you tomorrow, goodnight.", Star says walking away from the door.
"Goodnight.", Marco says, he then walks over to the stairs when out of the corner of his eye he sees a shadowy figure down the hall. He whips his head towards it, yet doesn't see anyone there, he stares down the hall for a moment, the door to his room was wide open. He squints his eyes, 'I didn't leave the door open, did I?', he thinks to himself, as he tiptoes over to his door.
As he gets closer he peers into his room, a small cloaked figure was going through his a chest of stuff while muttering something to themselves, "I can't find it, I can't find it anywhere!", they said in hushed, yet frustrated and high pitched voice. Marco narrows his eyes, trying to make out what it was, but then felt a cold shiver run up his spine. He rolls into his room, dodging a green lightning bolt hitting right were his head was. He gets up to see the cloaked figure startled, "Wait a minute, you're not supposed to be here yet.", it says backing away towards the window.
Marco starts to walk towards the short figure, but feels the same shiver, he rolls to the left, dodging yet another bolt of lightning. As he rolls, he spins on his left hand and lands back on his feet, right into his defensive stance with one quick motion. Marco looks intensely at the doorway into his room, a new, larger cloaked figure was standing in it, they held out a black metal gauntlet with sharp, metal claws on the finger tips that had sickly green sparks dancing in between them. Marco squints a bit, trying to make out a face under the hooded figure, but only saw two green dots that were looking back at him through the shadows.
The green eyes shift to the smaller figure, "Go. Now.", said the larger figure, in a low, distorted male voice. The little one shakes uncontrollably for a second then runs towards the window, jumping right through it, shattering the glass. "Now as for you." the figure said staring at Marco, "Where. Is. The Eclipse Blade."
"Why do you want the Eclipse Blade?"
"That's none of your business. Now. Tell. Me. Where it is.", the Stranger said angrily.
Marco stayed ready, not showing anything that could possibly betray what he was feeling.
"Marco, are you okay?", Angie yelled.
The young man eyes flashed fear when hearing his mother, and unfortunately, the mysterious figure caught that, "If you won't tell me willing, then maybe she will." The figure then takes a slight motion towards the hallway, but Marco charged forward before he could get any farther. The figure, who still had his hand trained on Marco, let loose a green lightning bolt, however, the young man was far faster.
Marco ducks under the bolt and tackles the figure. The lightning was far stronger than the last two and explodes on the far right side of the room, causing both Marco and the Stranger to be thrown out into the hall. Angie had just made it up the stairs to see Marco on top of a complete stranger fighting one another, "Marco, who-", Angie got out before Marco stopped her.
"Mom, get help!", Marco yells while getting punched in the face.
"O-Okay.", she says running for the stairs.
The Stranger seeing her flee, punches Marco again, but this time sending him through the wall, back into his now burning room. The Stranger gets up and extends his right hand out, sending a weak bolt her way. As Angie makes it to the stairs, time slows down as she sees the bolt of lightning inches away from her, as she closes her eyes, preparing for the end, but while doing so, she hears a familiar voice from behind.
Rainbow Bubble Barrier
A rainbow tinted, translucent bubble surrounds Angie and deflects the bolt of lightning right back at the stranger. The bolt hits the stranger in the shoulder, stranger snarls at the pain received, "Who dares.", says the Stranger, turning his head to see Star standing a few feet behind Angie, "You're gonna regret tha-", the stranger says while extending his right arm, only for it to be grabbed by a large hand. "What the... oh.", the Stranger looks to their right to see a huge man with familiar features coming out of the hole in the wall that he had thrown Marco through.
Marco, who had seen the Stranger send the bolt of lightning at his mother, was now filled with anger and hatred for the Stranger that he had turn back into his other form. His eyes turned crimson and he growled an animalistic growl at the stranger while showing his teeth that looked more like sharpened fangs. With his left hand he jerks the stranger's arm to the right of him, then lifting them up, reels back his right hand and punches them right in the face, sending them through the wall at the end of the hallway. The stranger landed on a car outside of the Diaz Household, they groaned in pain, 'This was not part of the plan.', the Stranger says in annoyance.
Back Inside
Marco climbs out of the hole in his wall, and turns around to look into it, he see his room on fire. In a calm manner he lifts his right hand up and put it into the room, a second passes as the fire starts to flow into his hand. After a few more seconds, the fire dissipates until it is entirely gone. As he does this several people start rushing upstairs. "What is going on up here?", Moon says with Hekapoo, Kelly, Janna, Tom and Raphael in toe.
Hekapoo sees Marco and rushes over to him, "Marco are you okay?", she asked worriedly.
"Yes, I'm fine, but I need you all to get out of here.", he says in a stern manner while walking over to hole leading outside.
Angie grabs his arm, he turns to her to see a few tears in her eyes, "Marco Ubaldo Diaz you are not going out there to fight whatever that is." she says as the tears start rolling down her face.
Marco looks at her unmoved by her plea, "I can't take any chances, he's after the Eclipse Blabe, meaning he's a threat. Also he tried to kill you to get to me, and I can't let that go.", he says as he continues to walk to the hole. He stop right infront of the hole, "Hekapoo."
"Yeah.", she says meekly, she's never seen him this way before, it kinda scared her.
"Take the Eclipse Blade and get everyone out of here, this is gonna be a bad fight.", he says without turning around, he then jumps down onto his front lawn. Marco looks around to see where the Stranger landed, but before he knows it a car door comes flying towards him like a frisbee. He batted it away with one arm, as if it were an insect, the car door bounces off the lawn before embedding itself in the house next to his wall. Marco looks to see that the Stranger was standing on top of a crushed car.
Stranger grabs their hood with one hand and with a quick motion tears off their cloak to reveal black armor. Marco stops for a second to study the Stranger's armor; the armor was made from what looked to be black metal, similar to the Eclipse Blade's handle, and he was covered with it from head to toe. However, a few things stuck out, there where runes all over the armor, but only the ones on the gauntlets glowed a sickly green while the other runes did not glow at all. Next was the helmet had the appearance of a human skull that has enlarged canines, practically fangs and had only one rune that was centered on the forehead.
The eye sockets of the helmet had two putrid green, beady dots stare out from them, looking right at Marco, "Well then, let us begin.", the Stranger says, jumping down from the crushed car. Marco did not respond, he just started to walking over to the stranger with nothing but killing on his mind. Marco began to charge at the Stranger, who only stood there, but whispers something under his breath. The runes on the gauntlets changed color from a sickly green to a blood red. As Marco bolts on to the street he reels back his right arm and with all his might, sends a devastating jab right at the Stranger, but as Marco does this the Stranger sends his own left jab, that collides with Marco's, creating a shockwave that sends the cars next to them flying twenty feet in all directions and shatters the windows of all the houses on the street, as well as setting off car alarms for several streets.
Marco, wide eyed at the display of the Stranger's strength is taken a back, 'How did he...', he thinks to himself, a little scared.
However, the Stranger doesn't stop there, as he readjusted himself and reels back his right arm.
"Lightning Strikes", says the Stranger, which made the runes on his arms and shoulders glow a dirty yellow as he sends a punch at lightning fast speeds. Marco managed to send one of his own just in time to collide with that one, but caused another shockwave that cracked the asphalt underneath them and shook the houses all around the two. Marco had had enough as his eyes flashed red, he sent a flurry of blows right at the Stranger, yet they were all met by the Stranger's own lightning fast counters. The resulting collision of fists caused shockwaves that created a somewhat significant earthquake to happen which shook the entire town.
After a few minutes of the two colliding fists with one another, Marco breaks away, jumping back twenty feet on to his lawn, to catch his breath. He was still a little exhausted from the fight against Damien, but there was something else, Marco looked at his hands, they looked as if the muscles in them were starting to shrivel. Marco looked back at the Stranger, this guy was far more dangerous than he originally thought. In fact, he didn't even land a hit on the Stranger, which got Marco thinking about his next move very carefully. The Stranger, however, knew exactly what he wanted to do.
The Stranger slowly walks forward, not making any sudden movements, Marco gets into a defensive position. When the Stranger gets ten feet from Marco he vanishes from sight. Panicking, Marco looks all around him, to see only glimpses of the Stranger before he disappears again to be in another place. Marco continues to look all around while keeping trying his guard up, but to no avail as the Stranger lunged forward and slams his fist into the young man's face. Marco reels back his right arm and tries to follow up with a right hook, but the Stranger disappears before he could make contact. However, Marco then feels a sharp pain in his left side, as if someone had just punched him in the kidney. With the momentum from the right hook he spins around on his left heel and swings downward to only yet again see a glimpse of the Stranger before the vanishes once again. Marco then sees the Stranger appear right in front of him, he had no time to react as the Stranger uppercuts him. Dazed, Marco stumbles backwards to get hit repeatedly in every direction by the Stranger, this lasts for several minutes until a voice rang out from behind the Stranger.
"Hey!"
The Stranger stops his assault to see the new possible threat, which to his surprise, was actually a small group of people, he recognized one of them, but not the rest. The one he recognized was a blonde girl who had reflected his lightning back at him, there was also a large man with a crystal for a head pointing what looked to be snakes at him, a woman in a royal looking dress with six arms and large butterfly like wings, and a giant floating skull with antlers made from swords. However, the one that stuck out the most was a short, extremely pale woman, with red hair, yellow horns, and yellow dress, but had what looked to be the Eclipse Blade in her hands. The Stranger was pleased by the sight of it, he held out his right hand to her, "Hand it over and I'll spare him.", the Stranger says as Marco collapses right in front of him, the Stranger then puts his foot on Marco's chest to keep him there.
Hekapoo looks over Marco, he was covered in bruises, gashes, and blood, he breathed weakly, and looked as if he had lost some of his muscle mass. Hekapoo shakes with anger at the sight of Marco in the condition he's in, she then looks at the Stranger, "I'm not giving you anything, now who are you and why are you doing this.", Hekapoo says glare the Stranger down.
The Stranger sighs, "This all could have been avoided if you'd only have given me what I wanted and unfortunately for you I'm done asking.", the Stranger says sinisterly, as he lifts his right foot in the air and slams it down onto Marco's chest. Marco cries out in pain as the metal heel digs into his back, crushing bones that causes Marco to cough up a large amount of blood before passing out.
Hekapoo's eyes flash a burning hate as Rhomulus rushes infront of her with both of his arms pointing at the Stranger, "Don't worry I got this.", he says while firing a crystallized ray at the Stranger, who holds out his right hand and flicks it back toward the group. Rhomulus, who is too surprised to get out of the way, is pushed by Moon, who ducks under the deflected ray, but the ray manages to hit Omnitraxus, crystallizing him.
As the floating skull falls to the ground, the Stranger looks at the chaos of the group, something clicks in his head, and he starts to shake his head, "I've heard of you, the Magic High Commission, you're the offspring of Glossaryck, it's no wonder why he has introduced you to the Council, you're all pathetic.", he says with disregard for the group. TheStranger holds his position and raises both of his hands above his head, his gauntlets start to glow a darker red, "It's time I ended thi-", he starts to say, but is interrupted by a frying pan hitting him in the side of the head, he lowers his arms and looks down at it, "What the hell?", he mutters to himself.
"Hey!"
The Stranger looks up to see the brunette woman he tried to kill from before standing in the front doorway, hold a wooden baseball bat, "GET AWAY FROM MY SON!", she yells charging at the metal brute. When she makes it to him she swings the bat with all her might, but as bat makes contact with the Stranger's armor it shatters into splitters. Angie looks at what's left of the bat, she then looks at the Stranger, who's beady green dots stare back at her, sending a chill up her spine.
As she shakes with fear, Raphael, Kelly, Tom, Janna and River come running out of the the Diaz Household, "Charge!", River yells. The new group was wielding an assortment of weapons, Raphael had a golf club, Kelly had her sword, Tom had his fire magic, Janna had a knife, and River had a hand axe. As they reached the Stranger they proceeded to attack all at once, Angie even picks up the frying pan she had thrown before and starts to hit him with it. After several minutes of the group's attacks, Raphael's golf club was bent beyond repair, Angie's frying pan was dented in, Janna's knife broke in two, Kelly's sword was chipping, River axe head snapped off, and Tom was getting exhausted from using a lot of his magic, however, the Stranger was unfazed by the assault, in fact, he merely stood there with his arms crossed and right foot still on Marco's chest.
As the group settled down Hekapoo stood her ground behind them with Moon and Star next to her, Rhomulus was trying to uncrystallize Omnitraxus, but for whatever reason it was taking longer than it should, which made him panic. After a few more hits from the various objects, he held up his left hand, "Are you done? Because if you are I'd like to point out that if he couldn't do anything, what makes you think you can.", he says rather bluntly. Everyone who had been hitting him was exhausted and were now catching their breath while listening to the Stranger, who, to their dismay, was right. The Stranger looked down at Marco, who was still passed out from both his weakened state and the pain he had sustained, the Stranger thought to himself, he shrugged and looked over to Hekapoo, "Here, I feel a little generous, I'll give you one final chance, give me the Eclipse Blade and I'll spare him."
Hekapoo thought on it, but shook her head, "I can't, this was entrusted to him by-", she was says before being interrupted by the Stranger.
"I know who made that blade, that's why I want it.", he says sinisterly.
Hekapoo a little surprised, then thought of something, "So you know Vivek?", she asked.
The Stranger shakes furiously at the mention of the name, "Yes, I know of Vivek, the bastard who took everything from me.", he says with anger in his distorted voice.
"So, I'm guessing that you want revenge."
"Yes, vengeance, is the only reason why I live, and the Eclipse Blade is the only thing that can kill him."
Hekapoo and several others were shocked, 'The Eclipse Blade is his only weakness?', Hekapoo thought to herself.
'Actually, he has other weaknesses, but that is the most straightforward way to kill him.', said a familiar, calm voice in her head.
Hekapoo eyes widen and a smile crosses her face, 'Reliquary, is that you?', she asks eagerly.
'Yes, I'm currently on my way for our scheduled conversation, however, I can see that you and Marco are in a predicament. Do you require my assistance?'
'Yes, we need help, Marco's in trouble and this guy in this scary looking armor is demanding that we give him the Eclipse Blade.'
'...', Reliquary doesn't respond, making Hekapoo panic.
'Reliquary. Reliquary?', she kept asking, but he did not respond.
The Stranger notices her brief expression of happiness to her now current panicked one. He thought for a moment, and then realized what she was up to, "You little... you kept me talking to contact someone didn't you!? I gave you chance after chance, and you squandered my generosity away."
Hekapoo realizes that the Stranger is on to her, "What!?! No, no, I'm not trying to-"
"LIES! You were trying to contact Vivek, well if that's the case then I'll send you all to OBLIVION TO SEE HIM!", the Stranger says while raising both arms above his head, angling them a bit, keeping his hand apart from each other by six inches. The runes on his gauntlets started to glow a deep red once again, but this time red sparks started to come from them, and started to form some sort of ball in the gap between his hands. The ball had a pitch black center with a deep red outline, it was small, maybe the size a tennis ball, but it started to grow little by little.
Everyone around the Stranger started to back away, not knowing what to do, the Stranger started to laugh, "Hehehe, you should've given me the Eclipse Blade, willingly, but prying it from your cold dead hands will SUFFICE!", he says maniacally, the ball was now the size of a bowling ball.
CHAOTIC DISCHARGE
The Stranger yells as he hurls the ball of pure chaos at Marco, everyone braces for the inevitable, but to their surprise, it never came.
Everyone looks to see the Stranger backing away from Marco's unconscious body, which had a small portal hovering slightly above it that had a hand sticking out from it. Hekapoo looks closer at the hand, to her amazement the hand was holding the ball of pure chaos. The portal started to grow larger, as the figure started to slowly emerge out of it, until a giant, well built man with a type of battle skirt on, now hovered over Marco. Hekapoo sighed a sigh of relief as she recognized the man as Vivek.
Vivek looks around with his stern, violet eyes at those around him, until his eyes met the unconscious body of Marco. He gently floats down to his right side and looks at him with anger, he then turns to see the Stranger shaking with anger at the sight of the god. "So, Cassius, it's been awhile.", Vivek says in a calm tone, but anger could be felt with every word.
"Vivek, so you finally come out of the shadows you cower behind.", Cassius says.
"Cassius, why are you trying to take the Eclipse Blade? You know it won't work for you, right?"
"What?!? But that's not what he said-"
"You think I give a fuck who says what! You dare harmed a someone under MY protection, and for that you will PAY!", Vivek yelled with pure hate. Vivek's eyes start to turn black with haunting violet irises, and grips the ball of chaos harder with starts to turn its red outline into a dark purple. His left eye starts to twitch with anger, as he reels back his right arm, the one holding the ball of now pure oblivion, with the intent to hurl it at Cassius.
Cassius panicked and with one quick motion he jumped into the air, he then made a slashing motion with his right hand that opened a portal. Cassius looks down at the large group of people, "This isn't over Vivek! Mark my words, I'll have what's mine!", Cassius yells, then flys into the portal, it closes behind him.
Vivek, looking at where the portal once was, sighs with relief, he then looks at the ball of oblivion and closes his fist, absorbing it. He turns around to see if everyonewas okay, but sees a furious looking Hekapoo marching towards him, "What are you doing?!? Go after him!", she says with fire in her eyes.
"Hmm, oh, that's not necessary my friend, and besides killing him would go against my code.", he says with a happy smile and a calm voice that was not his own. Hekapoo, as well as everyone else, looked at him confused, the giant saw this and realized what was happening, "Oh, pardon me, I forgot to switch back.", he says, he claps his hands and a blinding light emits from him.
After a few seconds the light dies down as familiar being of light stands infront of Hekapoo, "Hello friends.", Reliquary says waving his hand a little.
Hekapoo blinks a few time before realizing what just happened, "Wait, you can turn into other people?", she asks.
"I'll explain later, but right now Marco is in danger.", Reliquary says while kneeling down to Marco, who was getting worse by the minute. The being of light waves his hand over Marco's body as a faint light emits from it.
As everyone gathers around a portal appears on the side walk behind them, almost everyone gets ready to fight whoever comes through, fortunately, the only one to come out was Vivek. The giant looked around frantically, until he sees Hekapoo, who is still holding the Eclipse Blade, and moves to her, "Where is he?", he asks worriedly. She points over to Reliquary, Vivek doesn't hesitate and rushes over to help, "What happened and who did it?", he asks the primordial.
"His soul was damaged during a fight, with Cassius the Headhunter, and the damage sustained was mostly due to having his magic and life essence drained from his body. However, the damage done isn't as bad as it looks, I can stabilize him, but it'll take time.", the being of light says, reassuring everyone, Reliquary turns his head to Vivek, "Vivek, I suggest you go around town and fix the damages done, as well as remove the varvarious runes carved on the neighboring houses."
Vivek looks at him, then turns his attention to one of the houses next door, there was a familiar rune carved into the side of the house. Vivek blinks a couple times to see if his eyes were tricking him, but they were not, "Reliquary, that rune, that's the Rune of Oblivion.", he says a little surprised, and a little scared.
"Indeed.", Reliquary replied.
"Rune of Oblivion? What does that mean exactly.", Moon asks.
"It means, whoever put Cassius up to this knows how to use Oblivion, and therefore, can wield the Eclipse Blade.", Vivek says grimly.
END OF CHAPTER 10
Authors Notes:
So I've gone for awhile, and I'm sorry about that. A lot of things happened all at once and I got caught up in a bunch of shit, but I'm back. So expect more updates soon.
Now as for this chapter, there are actually two other alternatives I could've used, but this one furthers the story a little and introduces a villain that I've been working on for a while now, but there is still tweaking to be done with him.
But besides that, Cosmic Secrets, the mini series that I was writing, has turned into it's own thing, and I'll be posting that later this week.
Anyways, it's good to be back, I hope you guys enjoy, also don't be shy to criticize it, I take all criticism, good or bad, and with that, I hope y'all have a good one.