Chapter 31: Illusionary Mary
With the situation fully resolved at Sancturia, it was up to Mew and his friends to deal with the remaining threats on their end. Perhaps things are going a little better than they were last time?
"RAAAAAAAHHHH!"
Dracula has been slammed into a mountainside and his girth brought most of the rocks down upon him. Lunis didn't see those as an obstacles, and wildly started stabbing her sickles through the rocks to get to him. Blood quickly filled the cracks.
The rocks parted as the vampire rose like from a coffin. His eyes were in a constant state of ecstasy and refused to blink, even as his body looked like a pincushion oozing with blood.
He raised his hand out towards the angered goddess and her fury seeped into his skin, sealing his wounds shut. He then murmured, after enjoying the brief whiff of confusion on her face, "Dry your throat of screams girl...I am barely fed."
He then thrust forth, carrying her by the face into a tree below to split it in half. And, upon hitting the ground, the sheer force of impact threw the broken halves hundreds of feet into the air.
The thrill of this game, to him, seemed like the most fun he'd had in a long time. All it did to Lunis, however, was continue to piss her off.
She whipped her sickles out faster than either could see and cut the monster's hands clean off. She then threw herself at him, disregarding the hand still clutched to her face, and rammed him back into the mountain. She then got on top and railed him with a mad flurry of kicks, driving him all the way to the peak.
And she wouldn't stop screaming. There was no room for her patient, demure self in that raging inferno she now called her heart. He needed to suffer, and die in agony.
She punted him down the opposite of the mountain but quickly threw her sickles in pursuit, attached to her wrists by a set of burning chains. Once she got them in his chest she ripped him right back up, feeling the bones shatter in his rib cage.
Yet when he arrived back at her, his eyes were thrust open with the most ecstatic pleasure, and his hand swung out to grab her face yet again. He raised her high overhead with the ease he would a child, and dropped her into the peak of the mountain.
Her body was driven straight to the bottom, smashing the rest of the mountain full of cracks. He then raised his hand towards the sky. Blood seeped from his pores to create a liquid sphere whose size overlapped the glistening sun, and drenched the battlefield in crimson.
He calmly shoved the orb all the way down the crater, where upon reaching the bottom it burst into a glorious flood of blood to overload the cracks. And then, the mountain shattered. Chunks of stone went flying everywhere.
Mew had been engaged in a deadlock with Grimmley for a bit now but this sudden catastrophe was more worthy of his attention.
"Crap! Not the house!" He quickly shoved the werewolf off with a forceful slash of light and thrust his hand towards his home to cover it in a protective barrier.
And Grimmley saw his chance to charge in and try to tear him to pieces. Mew pivoted his blade around in a circle to deflect the beast's wild swings.
"Is this really the time?!" He blurted out with mild frustration. A quick glance up gave him an idea, however.
He hopped away and kicked one of the falling rocks at his foe. They caught it on their claws and ripped them apart with one downward jerk.
At least by that point the catastrophe had passed. Though if that had just been the opening to what Dracula had to offer, Mew could only think of one thing, "This is going to be such a hassle to clean up afterwards..."
He swung a few light crescents at Grimmley and then dove at him when he cut them down. He tackled him with his shoulder and whipped around a few times, bashing the werewolf into the ground. Then he repelled off and tried delivered a hard slash to his body.
The beast sliced through as he lunged up, locking blades with the boy, "I've wasted enough time on you...!"
"Yeah, and you've done a terribly job making me scream. What's the matter wolf boy? Your master regenerating his head throwing off your game?" Mew retaliated with a smirk
"I-Its no surprise that his power is beyond all mortal reckoning!" He gave a very unconvincing answer.
"Ha! You didn't know at all, and now you're freaking out!" Mew had a good laugh at that.
"Silence!" Grimmley scowled as the two of them landed and broke off their little clash, "You do not know what true power is! You can barely beat me, and yet you think you stand a chance against my master?!"
Mew closed his eyes and let out a subtle sigh, "He's...sort of got a point. I'm wasting my time on him when I should be helping..."
An explosion of power went off behind him, and he glanced over his shoulder to see Lunis rocketing into the sky and slicing up Dracula's front into ribbons. She then wrapped him up in her tails and spun around, building momentum on the way down for maximum impact.
Once she hit him against the ground she unraveled her tails and slashed through his chest. The second strike was caught through his palm, while the other lifted towards her and blasted her into the sky with a thunderous shockwave.
But it barely fazed her and she grappled with him once again, dragging their combat right past the frazzled Mew.
"...I-I guess she's holding up just fine right now..." He narrowly got his blade up in time to stop Grimmley's lunging strike. The beast then used his katana to flip over and cut him down his back. Mew grimaced and spun around, managing to cut him across the chest.
It took until now to notice that his body was a mess of red over white. And he probably had more cuts than he did skin at this point. Still, this wasn't much to worry about. If push comes to shove he still had his ace-in-the-hole.
He took a moment to glance over and see how Joe Dark was faring. It didn't seem like much had changed. Joe Dark was still swinging and missing while the pale-faced girl didn't seem to be doing anything in retaliation, despite the pain he looked to be in.
"That girl...is she an illusionist?" It seemed like the right answer given the circumstances.
But illusions weren't the problem for Joe Dark. At least as much as they had been before. The flaw of making these "illusions" feel so real is that he could fight back against them.
No, it was getting to the girl making them that proved troublesome. How she threw out constant waves of spears made it come across that, despite her longevity, she was very inexperienced with her powers. Yet in spite of that, this onslaught was keeping him from getting closer.
He was constantly swinging around, making sure he wouldn't miss an attack. His dagger cut and shattered each spear, filling his vision with purple. He could make out the girl floating beyond the "glass" petals. Her eyes gave a weak gaze, mired with confusion.
He forced his hand out and had to restrain himself a ton when he fired off a dark blast. But it didn't matter. The girl was yet another trick of the mind.
And then he found himself surrounded with a ring of spears plunging inward. He levitated away as they thrust in, only to be surrounded by a second ring forming. He dove down and tried looking around for the girl. She was floating a few feet away over the house with a couple spears over her shoulders.
They thrust out towards his face, caught by the brisk swing of his hands with the tips floating dangerously close to his eyes. He shook with gritted teeth as a sharp pain shot out from the objects, forcing them out of his hand.
The lances now had thorns like from a rose, and more were coming his way. He dashed to the right in a quick burst of speed and pushed a little bit closer, then shifted to the left and thrust diagonally towards her location.
When he was directly under her he flew up and tried to snag her out of the air. One blink later and she was gone, replaced with a ring of lances around him.
He flipped over the ring and landed back on the ground, shaking his head around until he caught sight of her to his right.
He dug his feet into the ground and prepared to run. Suddenly, Lunis and Dracula's scuffle tore their way through in front of him, forcing him back. He couldn't see the girl anymore beyond the tower of dust, and the glint of her lances grew in her place.
He raised his dagger to slice through one lance, but the other scraped through his left shoulder. He turned around and whipped up a slicing field to break the surrounding lances, then took to the sky a few yards off the ground.
When he tried looking around for her he was interrupted by a pair of lances going for a pincer attack on his neck. He pulled his head back, then the rest of his body away in time. And, inadvertently, he wound up bumping into her.
Or was it really her? He was playing this game entirely by her rules. He turned around and the moment he reached out, his hand went right through her.
Frustration was growing. He tiredly lowered his eyes and glanced over his shoulder, finding her floating away with the usual bouquet of lances surrounding her.
He took up his dagger and flipped it into a backwards grip, then covered his other hand in darkness. The others could make as much noise as they wanted fighting. He only had his focus on her.
"You'll get tired of running eventually." He muttered to himself.
The lances came flying three at a time, curving their flight to try and throw him off. But he barreled straight between them and tried a very light slash towards her. She vanished, and he was surrounded in a double-layered sphere of weapons.
The first layer drew back to strike, but in doing so gave him the opening to speed out. The moment he was out, he blinked, and suddenly, found himself back in the center of the sphere.
Had he even gone away? Or was his perception flipped around? It was such a hassle to figure that out. He was better off just escaping.
He sliced open a rift with his dagger and tucked inside as the weapons came piercing down. He then gripped the side of his head and gave it a quick shake. This was an unknown feeling, perhaps this is what they call "being intoxicated".
Yes. That's fair. Her power is a poison of the mind, making one doubt everything they see. Fatal, like a thorny rose.
But in here, in the darkness, he was safe. For now. He'd have to return eventually and settle things with her. Now, it was time to plan.
"I can't sense where she's at. There must be some way to figure out where she's hiding..." He closed his eyes and tried thinking long and hard about how their fight had been going so far. He quickly got angry over a lack of progress.
"Ghhh...! How does he always come up with a plan so easily?! Am I somehow actually dumber than him?!" Shockingly though venting helped clear out his mind a bit and gave him something in particular to focus on.
"...She's still there," It was a super simple, but super enlightening revelation, "And she's not going to leave while she's still loyal to her bastard father."
It had to be restated. Her power is deadly, but her domain over it was lacking. She was a rose bud. If she knew how to properly use illusions, she could just force him to chase her shadow forever while being miles away.
But she was trapped in a cage of her own making. And now...
"Heh..." He felt his lips curls and the grip on his dagger tighten, "I know how to break you out of it."
He cut his way back out onto the battlefield and immediately turned right, looking towards the pale-faced girl. She bobbed in place and raised her aura, and thus became surrounded in lances.
"You didn't run away again?" She said with the mildest contempt she could have given.
"You're one to talk," He faced her directly and positioned his dagger below the chin, "Why are you so afraid of answering my question, mannequin?"
"..." Her eyes moved downward.
"Look at my when I'm talking to you!" His sudden yell jolted her head up and left her eyes wide open, "This is why you can't beat me. You don't have any conviction of your own! Everything you do, everything you say, its just an echo of your father's corruption!"
Her eyes started shaking, and her lips curled into a tiny frown. Some pent up frustration was beginning to show, not just in her expression, but the bloody color of her aura.
"I know what I believe. Humans like you can't be trusted at all! I won't let your lies trick me again!" She threw her arm up and the lances shot towards the sky.
Joe Dark's eyes began to glow and the surrounding area was covered in a dark mist, "Then I will expose the truth in your heart!"
The lances came crashing down in a random pattern on the ground, launching shockwaves for him to jump over. He kept his eyes wide open as she started darting around the air, leaving behind crimson silhouettes as she tapped a foot down atop each lance.
Towering roses bloomed beautifully into the moonlit sky, but with them came deadly thorns. Lances, expunged from the stems, kept him on his toes.
He widened his eyes to a straining point and focused not on her, but his darkness. He could feel her, the real her, moving among the mist separate from her shadow.
"You can fool my eyes..." He concealed his dagger inside of a rift opened behind his back, "But the darkness has always been my friend."
He ducked and weaved between the lances until he was a safe distance back, and the real her stopped moving. He then snapped his fingers, making the dagger fly in front of her face.
The sensation of fear was thick around her body, making her an easy target at long last. He flew in between the storm of lances and stretched his hand out, snagging her on the shoulder. His body was throbbing in immense, deceptive pain, but he could tell that this, this one moment, was real.
He cocked a grin as the veil of illusion disappeared around her, "Got you."
Her body was trembling. He was being a little rough, admittedly. But he couldn't let her go. Not now. Not again.
He looked her straight in the eyes and asked her for the final time, "Alura...are you a human, or are you a monster?"
She started breathing slowly, but that quickly became hasty, like a mild form of hyperventilation. Her eyes were darting around. The tear of battle across the land was distracting her.
"I-I..." Her muttering brought his attention back with brows arched, as something was becoming off about her face...More specifically, her eyes.
They were widened in an inhuman fashion. The closest comparison would be like an owl's. Her pupils expanded. Not grew, expanded, to consume the whites of her eyes, like a black hole would light. A truly mortifying, vapid stare, bore into his mind and soul.
The center of her abyss filled eyes split open, revealing a dark yellow "pupil" beneath. Her voice gained a slight echo, as his perception of reality began to shake.
"F-Father...needs me...I...I have to end this now, Joe Dark. There is no escaping this abyss...My ultimate power will plunge you into your worst nightmare, where you will wander an eternity until your mind breaks..." With one distorting thrust of her eyes she whispered this technique's name, "Rest in peace...Illusionary Mary!"
Darkness falls.
…
…
…
A beautiful meadow in the middle of spring, surrounded in trees. The sky was mildly cloud with some sun peeking out. A perfect day for a pic (slaughter) nic.
Its so gray out everywhere. Where is all the color? Needs more (blood) greens, and blues.
Alura walks through the grass and it gives off a crunch with every step. Her body distorts despite the stability of everything else. Because she does not belong. But be here, she'll remain, as she must always see what her victims' worst fear is.
And so far this is...Not disappointing. No, she doesn't know what that feels like. Curious? Doesn't know that either. Odd? Could mean a lot of things, but that sounded right here.
"This isn't...scary." She remarked. She's wandered many grasslands like this before. Is Joe Dark really afraid of a bunch of plants? Couldn't be...So why...?
"BANG!" "BANG!" "BANG!"
Three ear-piercing sounds vibrated through the air and turned her around, her heart narrowly escaping her chest. Her body trembled loosely as she murmured, "What...is that horrible sound?"
A being, barely human-shaped, masked in black fog with daunting, red eyes, raised a small silver object at a group of humans that seemed to have gathered in celebration.
Three figures lied on the ground. Red liquid was oozing from their backs and staining the grass. The remainders screams and shrieks made Alura's stomach curl.
"Wh-why...?" She watched the figure slowly advance towards his retreating prey, and unload more of those terrifying sounds from the item in his hand.
They were drilled into her ears, and wobbled her knees. But she couldn't look away. One by one the humans fell, their eyes hollowing out. The shadow advanced, until none were left standing.
The last figure put up a defiant stand, but died just as quick as the rest. And the killer, limping back for some reason, dropped its murder weapon and ripped open its mouth, its scream calling forth flames to consume it whole.
Alura's feet felt damp. She looked down, and found herself standing in a sea of blood. Her body made an unconscious retreat, bumping up against someone behind her.
She jolted upright and turned around. Standing there was a very young boy with black hair and blue eyes in a fancy suit, as gray as their surroundings. His cheeks were lit up by the descent of blue streaks down from their eyes as he dashed ahead.
He screamed at the top of his lungs a terrifying, pained sound...of loss.
The boy dug his knees deep into the blood and shook the lifeless bodies.
"Wake up...! Please...wake up! D-Dad...!" This wasn't a voice. It was the unanswered cry of a ghost.
There was this...pain in Alura's chest. A deep, twisting pain. She slowly raised her hand towards it, and it only hurt more.
"On that day..."
She jolted and turned to the left, and found Joe Dark standing there, full of his usual color. But right now he looked...relaxed.
"I lost everything. My mother, my father...my entire family," He closed his eyes and breathed in deep, "And every night since I've relieved this moment in my head, knowing that there was nothing I could have done to stop it..."
Alura paused and looked towards the kid in the bloodbath, as they now had their face buried in their father's chest.
"...I-I don't understand Joe Dark..." She murmured, unable to look away, "It...it was humans that took your family away. But...you ally with them?"
"Humans didn't do this," Joe Dark answered with a soft gaze in his eyes, "Just one very, very bad one."
He began to turn her way and tucked his hands into his pockets, looking upon her with an odd smile, "You've had it all wrong Alura. Humans can be bad, but that's because we're flawed, not because we're evil."
He took one step closer and she turned on the spot to face him with eyes frozen wide, "But humans can be good too. I...didn't believe that myself, once upon a time."
"One exceptional guy helped restore that faith I had lost," His gaze wandered skyward and he scoffed in laughter, "He looked at me, a complete and utter low-life, and told me 'You're not nothing'. I'd been his enemy...But he saw me as a friend...As family."
"...Hic!" Alura reached up to the sides of her face and found they were damp. Her hands began shaking, and she looked upon her dampened palms with trembling eyes, "Why...why is my face wet...?"
"Because you're not a monster," Joe Dark knelt down in front of her with a smile, "You're a human, just like me. And sometimes, when humans gets sad, they cry."
"I-I...I don't understand..." Her voice broke as she shook her head.
"You don't have to. Not yet...But you can," He began to extend his hand out towards her, "If you'll let me help you."
She threw her hands out and pulled away, a scream ripped free from her throat, "G-GET AWAY FROM ME...!"
She gasped, for the sudden noise that ripped from her lungs was frightening.
He just stayed there, gesturing his hand forward with that same smile. And her own hand, guided by a puppet's string, raised to meet his.
"Joe Dark...I-I'm scared..."
"I know..." Joe Dark squeezed his eyes and a tear came out, "I am too."
He then forced a smile and said in a raspy voice, "We can be scared together, Alura."
She laid her hand down in his and this entire scene vanished into complete darkness.
In reality, Joe Dark fluttered his eyelids, his eyes feeling rather dry after that odd spell that had fell over him. He locked eyes with Alura's eyes, which had returned to their normal appearance, now moist and full of tears. And in his hand was hers, so tiny and timid in its hold on his palm.
He silently breathed out in relief and then smirked, "...Tsk! I-I hope you realize you're not allowed to mention a word of this to him, else I'll never hear the end of it."
She paused for quite a while before giving a silent nod in return.
Discord tends to come quicker than lightning. The unexpected strikes, and tends to take away those one cherishes in the blink of an eye...
Joe Dark lost a second of time. What he saw was Alura widening her eyes...as the life drained right out of them. Then there was pain. Intense, unbearable pain, shooting up his right hip.
He'd be punctured...by the same condensed stream of blood that also ripped through Alura's heart.
His body lost all sense of feeling, and gravity took care of the rest, dragging him and her limply towards the ground. As her curtain of hair fell, he saw Dracula with his pointer finger coldly raised towards them, and not a hint of emotion in his eyes.
As the two of them fell, the rest of the battlefield went silent. Grimmley turned away from his battle with Mew, and his eyes widened with a gasp.
"P-Princess...?" And the next second, Mew's katana pierced through both chest and back, blood spurting from the wound.
Mew grit his teeth, unsatisfied, and murmured to his foe, "Sorry...you...you let your guard down."
"...Hmph..." Grimmley scoffed and wrapped his claws around Mew's katana, "S-Seems...there is still one accursed part of my humanity that needed to be cut loose..."
He forced Mew's katana in deeper, tearing his heart in half. He weakly grinned from cheek-to-cheek, and chuckled, "There...now...I am...complete..."
Mew pulled his blade out and caught Grimmley before his lifeless body collapsed upon the ground. He held him up slightly, and glared across the battlefield.
Joe Dark was down, the girl he fought in an even worse shape. He felt no life from her anymore. And Dracula, it seems, was the one responsible.
"HEY!" Mew screamed to grab the monster's attention, "What the hell's going on?! Wasn't she your daughter?!"
Dracula turned his head and his eyes appeared lost. Nevertheless, he easily grabbed Lunis by the face as she tried to attack him from behind.
"Daughter...?" The Lord of Monsters turned his head and muttered, "What is a...daughter?"
Mew grit his teeth in a scowl, as a fury rose in his soul, "Your child, you monster!"
"Oh..." Even that didn't seem to spark much of a reaction from him beyond mild curiosity. He turned his head down towards Alura's body, having no response to Lunis flailing to hit him.
"Ah yes, that's right...I vaguely recall a witch who infiltrated my castle and dared to rob my body of its seed..." A smirk perked up on his face, "I humored the wench, for her lust would bear a most beautiful fruit..."
"Yet never could I have expected our contact to drive her mad...She blathered on about love, and claimed we were bound by our souls..." He spat towards the ground, "Her touch began to burn. So...I killed her."
He said with a smile.
"So...she was her child?" He said coldly, "A pity she was cursed with human weakness..."
Mew stood right up and went for the black trigger on his katana. With a dry scoff he remarked, "Alright that's it buddy. I am SO sick of you-!"
He froze upright, the hairs on his arms standing on end in the direction of Joe Dark. He slowly turned his head. The air drew silent, and cold...
Joe Dark shook, his hand refusing to let go of Alura's. A puddle of blood formed around her still body. Her skin, colder than the coldest ice.
Bodies began flashing in his vision. A different corpse every time, bathed in the same pool of blood. They started appearing and repeating faster and faster and faster AND FASTER AND FASTER. Nails scratched against his brain with a most reviling shriek.
Failure. WOOORTHLESS. death. die. DIE. die. DIE. Always alone, always forgotten...
The visions broke, a fanged grin stretching across a black horizon, wreathed in flames.
"How does it feel to continue being so worthless?"
And then, there was nothing.
His body quaked, and he pulled his hands back. He rose to his knees, and smashed the ground with his fists twice. His body erupted with darkness, and he kept beating the ground like a drum.
Thunder roared in the sky, dragging lightning down with a hellish red hue. Joe Dark's hands bled onto his fingernails, filling the cracks below.
A black armor of hate enveloped his body, as he stood to his feet like a newly crafted marionette. He wobbled to the left, then the right, as storm clouds consumed the moon's light.
Mew stared at him and slowly shook his head, "Joe...don't..."
But it was a vain whisper, delivered to a deaf beast. He threw his face forward, eyes flushed with red light, and his heart bled out a terrifying scream...
"I'LL KILL YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUU!"
And for this one moment, even the devil could not look away...
Next Time: Battle Against Rage
