Midnight Shadows
Part 2
By Mieren
Kento
shifted uneasily in the darkness, groaning softly as the muscles through his
shoulders and back screamed in protest. It was bad enough that he had been tied hand and foot, curled backwards
in a painfully awkward position, but to have been hung from the ceiling by the
bonds holding his wrists to his feet was downright excruciating. The weight of his subarmor increased the
pull on his weary muscles, almost making him wish that he wasn't wearing it.
He
stiffened suddenly, ignoring his body's quivering protests, as the chain
holding him roughly five feet off of the ground rattled softly. He craned his neck futilely around to see
who or what had come in to torment him this time. For the past three days someone had come in every few hours at
the very least to thrash him into oblivion. Growling softly, he wished fervently that he had the strength to resist,
eyes misting in hopelessness as he waited for the blows to begin. Much to his surprise, he was dropped roughly
to the ground. This was new. His heart clenched in horror at what that
might mean, his mind turning to the decision the Warlords had forced him to
make.
The
chains and shackles still binding Kento were slowly pried off, releasing
trembling muscles from an impossible position. As he was hauled to his feet, Kento lashed out in a blind fury and was
rewarded with a deft backhanded blow across his jaw. Staggering blindly in the perpetual blackness around him, he
could only blink in confusion as a shoulder was placed lightly against his
abdomen, heavily muscled arms encircling his upper thighs. He uttered an undignified cry as he was
abruptly lifted to hang limply across a well-defined shoulder. Within two paces his captor reached the wall
and promptly proceeded to release the hold on his legs, leaving him balanced
rather precariously as they began a swift, if unsteady, ascent.
Not
relishing the idea of falling to the floor below in his condition, Kento held
on tenaciously to the lithe form beneath him. After what seemed like an eternity of climbing, his captor jerked him
roughly from his ever-shifting perch. Kento grabbed desperately at anything loose on his captor, frantic to
find some sort of hold that would prevent him from being dropped to the ground
far below. A second crack across his
face stopping any such nonsense, Kento was dangled in midair by one ankle for a
moment before promptly being yanked into a hole in the wall.
Panting
furiously, he attempted another swing at whoever was holding his ankle. A firm hand caught his wrist, pulling him
steadily along. Spitting out a curse
resulted with a hand held across his mouth for a moment, only to be jerked away
with an outraged gasp as Kento sunk his teeth into the tender flesh of the hand
holding him. Another slap followed,
this one hard enough to send a flash of light dancing across his vision. Blinking uncertainly at whatever held his wrist,
he gasped in horror and tired to back away as he spotted unmistakably glowing
eyes. Bucking only earned him a fist
slammed into his jaw. Spirit utterly
crushed, Kento followed along brokenly.
After
what seemed like an eternity in the tunnels, the two reached an opening in the
passages below them. Shifting slightly,
the dark figure in front of Kento swung him out into an opening, an abyss that
nearly made Kento wet himself until he realized that he wasn't going to be
dropped by whoever held his wrist. Sliding rapidly down the wall, he was abruptly flung into another
opening to a tunnel, this one leading to a small cavern, Kento thought by the
echoes. Something shifted in the inky
blackness beyond him, and he couldn't stop himself from crying out softly.
"Is
that you?" a familiar voice whispered tremulously from just beyond Kento's
reach. Head snapping up, Kento jerked
his wrist away from his abductor, staggering purposely forward.
"Ryo?"
he asked softly, voice quavering uncertainly.
"Oh,
God, Kento! It's you!" Ryo called out
quietly, but unmistakably wearily. A
hand clasped firmly onto Kento's shoulder for an instant before pulling him
into a rough embrace. "Hungry?"
The
very idea caused Kento to return the embrace fiercely before asking, "Food?" in
an unsteady murmur. Ryo handed him a
loaf of somewhat stale bread. Not
complaining, Kento began bolting the food as quickly as he could get it down
his throat, asking around a large mouthful, "Was that the girl?"
"Yea…" The answer was so slow in coming that Kento
had almost asked again, thinking that Ryo hadn't heard him. He paused for an instant in stuffing his
face, appalled by the uncertainty and fear that he heard in his friend's
voice. As he turned to look for the
glowing eyes, Ryo spoke up, sensing his movement. "She already left. She
was gone almost before you freed yourself from her grip."
* * *
Sage
blinked in absolute bafflement as he was slowly lowered to the ground. Too stiff and weary to struggle, he waited
limply as the shackles holding him were torn away. This had never happened before. He knew that another beating was coming, but had long since ceased to
care. Bucking wildly like he had the
first few times had only added exhaustion and stiffness to the injuries
inflicted upon him.
When
he was lifted carefully to his feet, his head snapped up in utter confusion as
he tried to get a look at this session's tormentor. Seeing the blood-red eyes glowing brightly back at him, he made a
pathetic attempt to jump away, swinging one foot out in a feeble attack so
poorly performed that the others would have stalked away in disgust had they
seen it. Unsurprisingly, his kick was
blocked and he was seized again. One of
his wrists was snagged, pulling his hand up towards the molten gaze. He tried to pull his hand away to no avail,
freezing in shock as his armored fingers encountered a mass of silken
hair. Gripping a lock of the hair
gently, he stepped forward and ran the strands across his cheek slowly. This could not possibly be who he thought it
was.
Sage
was cut off from further contemplating the situation as he was lifted
skillfully to rest across a set of surprisingly broad shoulders. He tried to relax as the girl below him
began to scale the wall, every movement bringing soft crunching noises. After being stuffed somewhat gently into a
hole in the wall, Sage did not resist when his wrist was seized and he was
pulled silently through tunnels that he though might be a ventilation
system. After some time of crawling and
one terrifying drop, he was greeted by the voices of Ryo and Kento, a grin
breaking out on his face for the first time in over four days.
* * *
Cye
shifted slightly on his feet. It had
taken him the better part of a day to find a place in this infernal pool where
he could touch the ground. The areas
had grown dimmer and dimmer until all light had finally vanished, leaving him
in perpetual darkness. After a little
while, he had found what appeared to be a wall. After following it for a while, he decided that it was indeed a
wall, enclosing him well in the tainted pool. Whatever he was in was most certainly not water, he decided for at least
the hundredth time that day.
At
first, a slow throbbing in his head kept him from drifting off. Little by little, the pain enshrouding him
increased until he had begun shrieking in agony, muscles quivering as he held
on to Rowen tightly, refusing to let his friend drown. After a few hours of this, his throat had
grown so raw that he had begun spitting up blood. Now he merely twitched on occasion when there was a particularly
bad jolt of pain, tears spilling unending down his face.
Rowen
had thrashed in his sleep, crying out loudly in time with Cye's screams. Cye had slowly come to the realization that
something was tearing at his mind and very soul on his second day in this
nightmare. He had done his best to
fight it, but grew more worried by the minute as Rowen writhed and growled in
his arms.
Not
more than an hour ago, Rowen had abruptly jerked awake, pushing himself testily
away from Cye. Neither of them spoke to
the other, Cye sensing that Rowen would rather rip out his tongue than speak to
him. Not understanding this feeling
that was radiating from his friend, he had simply held his thoughts in check,
hoping that Rowen would snap out of it and say something to him. Anything.
A
malicious chuckle drew him from his thoughts. "Are you ready to give up yet, Ronin whelps?" Dais's acrid voice
sneered. Cye drew himself stubbornly up
to snap out a reply, cutting off short as the Warlord spat out a startled
vulgarity. A loud splash a few feet
from him immediately followed. Rowen's
grunt made Cye launch himself forward, catching his friend as he was knocked
out again by the weight of a falling Warlord. Dais's voice started to rise sharply, but was immediately cut off by a
sound that Cye knew all too well, a fist slamming into a jaw.
Cye
only had time to curse as Rowen was torn from his grasp, spitting out another
vulgarity as he was tucked under someone's arm. Rowen was immediately placed beneath him, the well-muscled arm
straining to hold the both of them in such an awkward grip. A few short strokes led them to the wall,
and they began to ascend, Cye realized as he was pulled clear of what felt like
too-thick water. After being stuffed
headfirst into a hole, he and Rowen were promptly abandoned as their abductor
shot down the passage ahead. Cye was
about to start moving in the direction he had heard their captor take when
whoever or whatever it was shot by him again, diving into the pool below.
* * *
Dais
had just surfaced, spitting out a mouthful of that foul liquid from the pool
when a barreling projectile slammed into his chest, sending him under
again. He felt something, much to his
horror, being wrapped around his wrists, tying his arms effectively behind his
back. His attacker stood on his
shoulders for a second, launching itself into the air. He blinked as something rained down on his
head. Dust?
Looking
upwards, he gasped as he saw a slender black-clad girl gripping the ceiling
with one hand and a chain connected to him with the other. He could only watch in a blend of horror and
astonishment as he was lifted up to the ceiling far above by a girl using only
one of her arms. He blinked in
recognition. That was the girl that had
been fighting alongside the Ronins. Cursing in disbelief, he watched as she shifted to grip the ceiling with
her feet so she was free to use both of her hands to attach the chain holding
him to a thick stalactite.
Quickly
popping off Dais's helmet, the girl rolled a piece of chain in a thick cloth,
prying his mouth open forcefully to insert her gag. Tying the ends of cloth behind his head, she reached to her side,
pulling up a strip of cloth with three things hanging from the end, squirming
frantically. Snakes. Dais tried to cry out past the gag, bucking
wildly. He hated snakes. Grinning, the girl pulled the cloth away
from the snakes' necks, and tore a small gash on the end of each of the
reptiles' tails, making them trash almost as wildly as the bound Warlord. Dais swore silently that when he got out of
this, he was going to kill each and every snake in the Dynasty, screw what
Sehkmet thought. The girl smirked at him,
forcing one of her hands down the front of his armor, quickly following by stuffing
all of the creatures, slimy from their brief exposure to the pools below, into
his subarmor. Dais bucked ferociously,
his one eye promising a variety of excruciating horrors to the girl whenever he
got out of this. She merely snapped his
helmet back into place to ensure that none of the snakes got out of his armor
while he hung there, powerless to do anything except scream from behind his
gag.
* * *
Cye
squinted into the blackness above the pools, bewildered by the muffled cries
that echoed softly through the air. Someone or something slid by him, picking up Rowen in passing. Lurching forward, Cye managed to catch his
friend's ankle. A hand clasped his
wrist gently, pulling him forward, urging him to follow into the passage. He growled, preparing to fight with what
little strength he had left, only to have his hand seized roughly and placed in
a matted mess of long hair.
Mind
reeling in recognition, he followed dully, holding onto one of Rowen's ankles
as he was pulled slowly through the unending gloom. After a little while, a hand was placed on his chest, pushing him
gently to the wall. He reached out,
only to find himself utterly alone. He
cried out softly, curling into a ball. On the verge of breaking into tears, a gentle hand prodded him carefully
in the shoulder, gently leading him onward. Cye was only too happy to comply until he reached the end of the ground
below him, the girl hanging over a ledge just in front of his fingertips. As he moved to pull her up, she instead pulled
him over, a cry of stark terror escaping his lips.
A
moment later, he was shoved into a wide passageway. An utterly disbelieving and blissful smile broke out on his face
as he heard his friends' voices calling his name in relief.
* * *
Kayura
watched silently as Dais was bound, gagged, and hung from a stalactite, shaking
her head in disbelief. She knew that
the Warlords were idiots, and had been frankly amazed that they had captured
four of the Ronins, but this was ridiculous. How could he be beaten be an unarmed girl? She was about to move out of the shadows to prevent the slender
black-clad form from slipping off with the two boys but froze in shock in
sudden recognition.
Memories
drifted back to Kayura. Battles so
violent that an entire dimension was nearly wrenched from existence. That girl, she thought silently,
tears welling in her eyes in horror, I thought we destroyed all of her kind. She moved further away from the opening that
the girl had disappeared into, trembling violently. Vanishing from the area, leaving Dais alone in the immense
cavern, she went to her room to collapse bonelessly on the floor, tears finally
spilling from here eyes.
Power
danced wildly across the battlefields and skies, the air crackling even to
those long since deafened by the roar of the chaos raging across the
planet. The air was no longer
breathable. The very earth below them
was long since molten. Kayura made a
near fatal mistake, pausing to look at the carnage below her. Several dozen blasts of pure energy shot
towards her horrified eyes. She dodged
wildly, clutching a scorched arm to her chest. Something dropped onto her from above, thick talons sinking into her shoulders,
leathery wings ensnaring her arms. Merciless jaws sank into the back of her neck, oblivious to her
screams. A fiery whirlwind slammed into
her from below, spinning the fiery blades in burning hands to leave them
planted in her chest and throat.
As her vision faded,
the image of the floating man engulfed in flames still burned into her eyes,
Kayura teleported away from the battle, away from the man with a soul of
fire. Slumping to the floor in her
room, she fumbled for a healing potion as her lifeblood ran freely across the
floor.
Kayura
cried out at the unbidden memory, clutching her scarred neck in trembling
hands, tears running unchecked down her face.
Returning to the
battle in a blind fury, Kayura promptly decapitated the wretched winged beast
that had attacked her only moments ago. She spun to the side, narrowly avoiding a blast of molten light that
left an after-image burned into her vision. Blocking a second blast with her Starlight Swords, she pivoted sharply
to again face the slender man engulfed in flames. The short twin daggers of fire blazed, elongating into one-edged,
slightly curved swords with a small dragon etched in black flames on each
blade. The two circled each other,
leaping about wildly, blades flaring in blinding flashes as they connected with
each other.
Both
already sported numerous cuts, darting to gain an advantage in position, forms
blurring from their impossible speeds as they each struggled to avoid the
hissing blades of the other. Kayura got
in a lucky hit, cleaving a trench in her opponent's skull from nose to pointed
ear. As he staggered back, she finished
what she had begun, turning calmly to face another who had walked up to oppose
her.
Tossing
aside a cloak colored to make the depths of Dynasty look to be bathed in
daylight, a slender girl raised her arms to fight, completely unarmed. Kayura smirked at the black-clad girl who
stood before her, unbound onyx hair whipping about her wildly in the crackling
winds. The eyes that looked back to her
own shimmered in the pale face before returning to the color of new leaves in
shadow.
Kayura shifted on her
feet swiftly, swinging into the girl's range to bury both of her swords into
the chest of the too-thin girl. At the
last instant, her arms snapped down, slamming Kayura's swords off of course,
both slender blades sinking into the flesh of a well-muscled leg. Bony hands shot up to the swords, wrenching
them from Kayura's grasp. The girl tore
the blades from her flesh, staggering slightly, only to repeat Kayura's moves,
the thin blades sliding home in her chest before her disbelieving eyes. Turning away slowly, pausing only to pick up
her cloak, the girl simply walked away, leaving her sprawled motionlessly on
the ground.
* * *
Although
Kento had been the first to have access to the food supply, plenty remained,
thanks to Ryo. Cye listened to his
friends' voices, every now and then laying a hand on a still unconscious Rowen
to check on his friend. Rowen's
breathing was steadily improving, the rasp that had worried all of them almost
gone. After a few minutes of waiting,
the rasp had vanished entirely. When
Cye reached out to check him again, he bolted upright at the touch, crying out
softly.
"Hey
Rowen," Ryo called softly, "glad to see you're finally up. None of us really wanted to wake you. We like our limbs where they are, after
all."
The
guys chuckled softly as Rowen scowled, interpreting his look as annoyance at
being teased this soon after being woken. With a wordless growl, he launched himself into Ryo, intent on
strangling him with his bare hands, having nothing better to fight with. Sage and Kento stared in shock for the
instant that it took a black clad figure to separate the two combatants.
"Jeez
Rowen, it was just a joke," Ryo croaked hoarsely.
Rowen
was not listening. Separated from his
initial target, he immediately settled on taking out the girl standing in his
way, slamming his fist into her stomach. A soft grunt escaped her lips as she stared at him in
mystification. She was snapped out of
her shock as his fist cracked across her face, scowling back at her
attacker. As she reached out to slap
him into oblivion, he spun on the ball of his right foot, slamming his left
heel into her temple, grinning maliciously as she crumpled. Kento and Sage were similarly baffled, but
not waiting for any further explanation, proceeded to tackle Rowen and hold him
to the ground. After a moment, Ryo
moved to help hold him down.
"Get
off of me, damn you!" Rowen spit at them, thrashing in their hold. "Cye, get your ass over here and get these
bastards off me!"
Cye's
head snapped up and he blinked uncertainly, squinting in his general
direction. Without thinking he stood to
move towards his friend, freezing as he stumbled over the limp form of the
girl. He reached down, running his
hands through thick hair spilling across the ground. "What the hell…" he murmured. His head snapped up again, eyes narrowing dangerously. "Where are you?" he called softly, looking
vaguely in Rowen's direction.
Ryo
tossed a disbelieving look at Cye. They
had lit a torch that the girl had pilfered from somewhere in the castle. The small area was well lit by the single
flame. "Can't you see us?" he asked
slowly, almost afraid of the answer.
"Of
course I can't. If you would have
bothered to have brought a light, then maybe. I can't exactly see in the dark you know."
The
three Ronins pinning Rowen stared at their friend in shock, noticing for the
first time that his eyes held a slightly glazed look. Rowen bucked in their grip. "I'm over here. Get these idiots
off of me!"
Cye immediately started
forward again, pausing once more when he heard the soft sound of subarmors
hitting each other. "Guys, why're you…"
he began slowly, not sure how to continue. At Rowen's growl, he took another step forward, ready to push the others
off of him, freezing again as he realized what he was about to do. "Oh, God…"
"Cye!"
the commanding voice snapped. "Whose
side are you on?"
Cye
couldn't see anything, but he felt his friends' shock radiating back to
him. Shaking his head slowly, he leaned
down and fumbled slowly for his friend's head. A gentle hand guided his. He
didn't pause to wonder why someone else could see when he couldn't, merely
placing one hand on either side of Rowen's head. The jumble of chaos that radiated from his friend's mind nearly
caused him to cry out in agony, tears building behind his closed eyes. "Oh, God, Rowen…" he whispered softly,
choking on his next words. "You weren't
awake to fight back."
Ryo
immediately grabbed the younger Ronin by the shoulders, shaking him
gently. "What do you mean 'fight
back'?" he asked, voice barely audible.
"Something
was pulling at me the entire time we've been here. It hurt…" he trailed off, whimpering.
Kento
had been studying the floor intently for some time now. "It's my fault," he said slowly, rushing to
explain as his friends' incredulous gazes fell upon him. "The Warlords told me to choose what would
happen to us. They held a knife to
Cye's throat and said that… that I had to choose what they did to him. They said that they were going to kill him
if I didn't choose. They said that I
had to choose if they would kill him or… or if they would bring him to fight
for the Dynasty…" he ranted madly, looking as though he had signed his friend's
death warrant.
Sage
moved one hand off of Rowen's shoulder to grip Kento's. "It's not your fault, Kento. We're all still alive because of you. We can do something about Rowen and Cye."
"I
think I'm okay," Cye said shakily. He
pushed Ryo off of him and moved again towards Rowen. "I'm not on a side, Rowen. You remember who you are, right?" He didn't wait for Rowen's answer, pushing on. "We'll fix what they did to you later. Right now you just need to stop fighting us." Cye's kanji flared on his forehead brightly,
bathing the area around him is a soft sea-blue light. Rowen went limp, blinking uncertainly at the others.
Cye
motioned sharply. Sage and Kento
regarded him carefully for a moment before rising slowly, ready to tackle Rowen
again if he tried anything. He merely
stood up, looking around, obviously disoriented. Sage made a face and turned to Cye.
Sage
walked over to peer into his friend's glazed eyes, appalled at the hollow
shells that stared right through him. Taking his friend's head in his hands, Sage peeled the eyelids back one
at a time to get a better look. His
hands flared green for a moment as he tried to heal his friend. Gasping when nothing happened, he called his
armor, swaying slightly from the strain. Cye flinched as Sage grabbed his head again, obviously confused but not
willing to fight one of his friends. An
eerily beautiful green light began to burn around Sage, the fires reaching out
to Cye, engulfing him. Moving back, he
shook his head slowly in disbelief. In
backing away slowly, his foot came into contact with something soft, bringing a
soft groan from behind him. Oblivious
to having stepped on someone, Sage fell to his knees. The others didn't need to ask to know that Cye was still blind.
A
shaky black-cloaked form shambled past Sage, kicking him in the shin on the way
by with a look that could have cut steel. "You need to learn what you're doing," Cye murmured softly to Sage as
the girl snagged his head in both of her hands. A preternatural silver light surrounded both of them for an
instant.
The
girl looked at Cye's eyes with the depths of her soul. The eyes themselves had been burned away,
leaving a shell of the eye for her to work with in healing. Not precisely sure how an eye was supposed
to look, she quickly modeled his eyes after her own, the only alteration she
made was in choosing the color. She
seemed to remember that the boy had sea-blue eyes.
Stepping
back, she inspected her handiwork. Cye
blinked uncertainly, immediately squinting at the dim light produced from the
flickering torch. "Oh man, is that
bright," he complained, moving deeper into the shadows of the tunnels. Once safely out of the light of the torch,
he uncovered his eyes to regard his friends, baffled by their horrified
expressions.
"What
the hell did you do to him?" Ryo all but shrieked, shaking the girl roughly.
"My
God…" Kento breathed, unable to tear his eyes away from Cye's.
Sage
and Rowen only stared in shock, unable to say anything as they stared at Cye's
eyes, glowing softly red from the shadows.
* * *
Cale
walked slowly down the hall, utterly baffled. That Kayura had locked herself in her room and refused to speak to him
was no shock. She made a point of
avoiding the Warlords. Dais and Sehkmet
had been fighting when he walked by. No, that wasn't quite right. Sehkmet had been laughing his ass off while Dais proceeded to pulverize
him.
He
shook his head slowly, turning down another corridor to look in on the
pretty-boy Ronin and perhaps have a bit of fun with him. Opening the door to the cell, he gasped. Chains were strewn about the stone floor,
but the boy was nowhere to be seen. Growling deep in his throat, he sprinted down the halls to check on
Hardrock. Upon finding the second Ronin
missing, he knew there was no point on checking on the other two. As he spun to leave the cell something
caught his eye. Running along the
height of one wall were a series of small finger-sized holes, ending abruptly
nearly twenty feet off of the ground at an open air duct.
Sneering
contemptuously, he trotted to the one place where the ducts let out
safely. The traps lining the narrow
passages prevented movement through the tight spaces unless you knew exactly
how to avoid them. The maze of tunnels
was such that whoever freed the Ronins must know their way around with
extraordinary detail. If that someone
knew how to get in, then they would also know the way out.
He
chuckled at the thought of the 'safe' way out. No one had ever passed through the under-tunnels and survived. For hundreds of years now, every creature
created by the Dynasty that was deemed too violent, unstable, or untrustworthy
was tossed into an enormous chamber deep within the bowls of the castle. Over time, the monstrosities trapped there
had tunneled out, deep caves undermining the entire area.
He
trotted unconcernedly down the tunnels, knowing full well where the Ronins and
their savior would emerge.
* * *
After
fighting off Ryo and Kento, the girl moved over to Cye, gesturing slowly while
watching him intently. Growling softly to
herself, growing increasingly annoyed, she gestured more sharply. Cye snapped his head back, gasping. His eyes began to swirl slightly, the molten
ruby pools flickering slightly before shifting into a clear sea-blue. Nodding contentedly to herself, she motioned
for the Ronins to follow, silently disappearing down the tunnel leading out.
Cye
was the first to follow, mainly to get away from his friends' incredulous
stares, moving out to the edge of the tunnel to stare calmly at the seemingly
endless drop before him. After only a
moment's debate, he lowered himself over the edge, grateful for the slender arm
that slipped around him. Within a few
minutes of climbing down, the girl crammed him into a narrow tunnel where he
immediately settled to wait for the others.
Turning
to climb back to get the next Ronin, she launched herself across the wide pit
she had just moved down with Cye, slamming into the other side roughly before
sliding a few feet down the ragged stone in an attempt to stop her descent. Hissing in vexation, she moved over to Cye
once more, stuffing a very surprised Kento into the tunnel with him.
"Slipped,"
he murmured ruefully, still trembling slightly.
Kento
turned to apologize for his behavior a few minutes ago, only to have an appalled
Sage deposited in his arms. Snickering
softly at Sage's wide-eyed expression that was apparent even in the blackness,
he set his friend down, moving slowly away from the opening of the air duct. A frenzy of cursing made the three Ronins
grin. Rowen. After waiting for a moment, Ryo and a very indignant Rowen were
deposited in the tunnel with them.
Tapping
each Ronin on the shoulder as she passed, the girl moved deeper into the duct,
glancing back occasionally to make sure all of the boys were still there. Weaving through the tunnels swiftly, she
paused at the final opening, indicating sharply that they needed to stay there
for a moment, vanishing into the inky blackness before them. The other Ronins squirmed uncomfortably, all
of them looking like they wanted to bolt, Cye thought.
Cye
blinked suddenly. How did he know
that? He was sure that his eyes were no
longer glowing, their meager red light no longer present. He had seen Ryo and Kento quite clearly as
they pounded on the girl earlier. He had
moved to stop the fight, only to be intercepted by Sage, who grasped his head
firmly while looking into his eyes. Cye
had nearly had a seizure when he had seen the glowing red points of his eyes
reflected in Sage's. Chewing his lower
lip softly, he glanced around. Nothing
was in vivid detail like it had been earlier, but he could still make out faint
outlines of things around him. Not
wanting to worry his friends, he remained silent.
The
girl returned to the group of Ronins after scouting the area carefully. She grimaced as she remembered some of the
things that slunk around in the dark here. Tossing the Ronins out of the tunnel opening one at a time, ignoring
their startled squawks, she trotted over to where they had landed, fumbling for
a moment to light a torch. In a single
violent swirl, her eyes shifted from ruby to a shadowed jade.
Moving
over to Cye, she tugged on the chest-plate of his subarmor, shaking her
head. Cye blinked in confusion, eyes
narrowing slowly.
Before
she could make a second attempt to make herself understood to the boys, a soft
noise caused her to spin sharply, dousing the torch. Her eyes flashed red in an instant as Cye watched her intently. Pushing the Ronins into the corner of the
room furthest from the cave openings, she snagged the blond one, the only one
she thought had enough brains and common sense to do this right, and trotted to
the center of the room with the squirming boy over her shoulder.
Sage
shifted uneasily from atop the girl's well-muscled shoulders, squawking as he
was abruptly dropped to the ground. A
hand immediately slapped across his mouth, forbidding any further sound. A hand was similarly placed across his
chest, indicating that he was not to move. The hand on his mouth moved quickly but gently to pull his eyelids shut
and pry his mouth open. Something warm
and wet slid across his throat, only to be quickly rubbed into his skin by
slender hands. He tried not to squirm,
hoping that wetness wasn't what he thought it was. A slender hand was placed on his chest again for an instant
before the girl vanished into the darkness.
Sage
hesitantly cracked one eye, swallowing nervously as he saw a figure with a
torch near him. Recognizing the shape
of the armor, it was all Sage could do not to move as Cale approached. He snapped his eyes shut, stilling his
breathing and forcing his muscles to go limp.
* * *
Cale
heard something scurry about in the shadows around him and began to finger his
no-dachi nervously. Seeing something
glint in the torchlight just ahead of him, he moved on stubbornly, ignoring the
erratic pounding of his heart.
Drawing
nearer, he gasped as he recognized the pretty-boy Ronin sprawled across the
floor, blood covering all of him not protected by his subarmor. "My God," he breathed. Prodding the limp form with one armored toe,
he stepped back quickly as something darted in front of him, claws clicking
softly on the stone floor.
A
blood-curdling snarl rang through the blackness around him, a pair of red eyes
slowly beginning to circle him. Cale
swore. The darkness here was unnatural,
and he was unable to see through it with his usually exceptional vision. Clutching his no-dachi firmly in one hand,
Cale twirled on the balls of his feet to make sure that thing stayed in
his view, keeping the torch directly between the two of them.
The
red eyes winked out suddenly, thoroughly unnerving Cale. Where was it?! Hearing a soft breath behind him, he tried to spin, losing his
torch when something slammed firmly into his arm. The light flickered and died immediately. Lashing out wildly, he cursed when his
no-dachi connected with nothing but air.
He
looked about frantically for the red eyes, spotting them two paces to his
left. He shifted to swing at it,
freezing when another pair of glowing eyes appeared on the far end of the
room. Crying out, he stumbled back,
landing hard as the first creature tackled him, thick fangs sinking into his
exposed neck. Thrashing wasn't helping
him any. This creature was too
strong. He kicked feebly as flashes of
light began to dance in his vision, eyes glazing as the seconds ticked by.
Without
warning, whatever held his throat released him, allowing his helmet to fall
back into place. Head spinning, he
staggered to his feet, bolting unsteadily to the door, slipping out
quickly. Resetting all of the locks and
barriers holding the door, he held his neck in trembling fingers.
Whatever
had him had purposely let him go. He
had obviously lost, but that thing hadn't finished the job. His head spun too fiercely to ponder why he
had been released, instead staggering unsteadily down the halls, oblivious to
the red trail he was leaving.
Lurching
into the room where Dais and Sehkmet were yelling loudly at one another, he
opened his mouth to speak, producing only a soft gurgling sound. Dais looked in his direction, his one eye
widening as he saw his fellow Warlord clinging to the door, blood running down
his armor to pool at his feet. Sehkmet
reached out to steady him, face twisting in horror as Cale crumpled to the
floor, breath rasping loudly in a shredded throat.
* * *
Cye
blinked in the blackness, frowning at the scurrying he heard after Cale dropped
his torch. Concentrating fiercely, he
felt his eyes ripple, shifting. A
choked off gasp from Kento told him he had succeeded, not to mention the clear
view of the two combatants before him.
His
throat seized when he saw the girl tackle Cale, pulling back his helmet to sink
her teeth into his neck. Cye trembled
violently, not noticing the comforting hand Kento placed on his shoulder.
* * *
Waiting
for Cale to dart out of the cavern that had once been a huge dungeon-like room,
the girl trotted back to the Ronins huddled in the corner, pausing to pull Sage
to his feet. Carefully fanning the
torch that Cale had dropped, the girl reverted her eyes back to jade as a dim
flame sprang into existence, causing Cye to cry out, covering his eyes
frantically.
Ryo
glanced worriedly at the youngest Ronin, chewing his lower lip forcefully. It tore him up inside that there was nothing
that he could do for Cye. He was the
leader of the Ronins; it was his responsibility to take care of the
others. A fine job I'm doing too,
he thought angrily. Cye was acting
strange and having problems with his eyes, and Rowen had become temperamental,
violent. Kento and Sage had obviously
been beaten repeatedly, both of them moving stiffly, but were trying not to let
him see.
Sage
recognized the expression on Ryo's face and moved to snap him out of his
guilt-trip. Ryo made an odd sound in
his throat as he approached, hands fumbling at Sage's neck, searching wildly
for the wound.
"Don't
worry, Ryo. I'm not actually hurt," he
said softly, grinning at Ryo's frankly disbelieving expression. He tried to wipe the sticky blood off of his
neck with the back of one armored hand, tried being the key word. Snagging the girl away from gesturing at
Cye, he held up her hand in front of Ryo, showing him the row of self-inflicted
teeth marks along the side of her hand.
The
girl watched curiously as Ryo calmed at the sight of her hand, a slow grin
forming on her face as she realized the reason. She snorted wryly. Like
she would really hurt one of them. Forgetting
those two, she turned to Cye again to make another attempt at getting her point
across to the young warrior. When he
still didn't understand, she turned to Rowen, gasping when he backhanded her
for daring to approach him.
Cye
grabbed Rowen's shoulders, forestalling him from continuing his attack. Rowen shook forcefully, struggling with
himself for control, forcing himself to relax much to the relief of the four
Ronins watching him. He couldn't help
smiling guiltily at his friends' horrified expressions before grimacing to
himself.
Snorting
disdainfully, the girl approached him again, watching his hands warily. Tugging on the chest-plate of his subarmor,
she shook her head, hoping he would understand where Cye did not. When his eyebrows rose towards his hairline,
she hissed in vexation and moved on to Sage and Ryo, trying again to make them
understand.
Cye's
head snapped up suddenly. He cried out
loudly, dropping to his knees, clutching his temples with shaking hands.
"Cye,"
Rowen cried out softly, dropping to hold his friend's trembling form to him,
ignoring what this must look like.
Sage
moved over, taking the younger boy's head in his hands, blinking in confusion
when Cye pulled away, looking at the girl, who was still shaking Ryo. As if sensing his gaze, she dropped the
startled Ronin, and turned to face him, eyes narrowing thoughtfully.
Cye
pushed Rowen away from him and stood unsteadily, never once breaking eye
contact with the girl watching him intently. His head felt like it was packed with cotton. He blinked uncertainly at the feelings pounding within his
skull. No armor, he thought
slowly, or is it armor off? He
deliberated with himself for a moment before looking up at the others.
"I
think that we need to take our subarmor off," he said slowly, earning himself
four appalled stares and one satisfied grin. Swallowing nervously at the expressions of his friends, he banished his
subarmor, standing in a wrinkled shirt and blue jacket, jeans bunching slightly
around his sneakers. As the others
followed suit slowly, he pulled the girl off to the side. "That was you, wasn't it," he accused
softly, scowling at the answering grin.
The
others waited for Cye to turn back to face them once again. He did so slowly, his head throbbing
anew. Mulling slightly over the stark,
unrefined thoughts spilling into his head, he was about to open his mouth to
speak when the inside of his head suddenly felt as though it were on fire. He dropped to the ground, convulsing, not
hearing the worried questions from his friends, not noticing their comforting
hands. The images that flashed in his
mind burned with a fury, the horrifying thoughts and pictures raging through
his mind threatening to push him over the brink of sanity. The blood, pain, and carnage that washed
through his thoughts overpowered him. He dropped to the ground, convulsing.
He
felt as though he was in a dream, watching a village below him vanish into
nothingness as a molten light passed across it. The charred remains threw ash and debris into the rising winds,
carrying the stench of scorched flesh back to him. His eyes watered in disbelief as he raised a hand in front of
him, pointing towards a few scrawny children staggering away from the chaos
below, dragging an indistinguishable figure that must have been someone they
knew. A bar of energy flew from his
fingers towards the dark-skinned children. Screams echoed through the still night air.
Cye
choked on a scream, tears streaming from his eyes. He was vaguely aware of being shaken roughly and of voices
calling to him from a distance.
He
staggered into a small clearing, slipping into a hidden area known only to a
few select people. The strange
onyx-skinned people waiting within were all injured, some barely clinging to
life. He heard himself bluntly inform
those there that help was not coming. They cringed away from him, breathing heavily. Reaching out, he snapped the neck of the closest boy, moving
silently to the next person.
A
hand cracked across Cye's cheek sharply, causing his eyes to roll back in his
head, but failing to stop the images flashing through his mind.
He
wandered through tunnels without and light of food. The unnatural blackness impaired his exceptional night
vision. Something lunged towards him,
talons extended. He rolled under the
weight of the creature, slamming it into the wall behind him. Rolling to his feet, he glimpsed small
traces of heat remaining on the ground ahead of him, leading into the tunnels
beyond. He growled. There must be dozens of them. He turned to the two companions that were
still with him, both bleeding from numerous wounds that were beyond his ability
to heal in his current state.
As
the three ran down the tunnels, a cry from behind alerted him just in time to
drop into a tight roll, narrowly missing the flying form that careened by
him. The smaller of his two companions
tackled the mass of scales and fur as it spun to charge them again. Cye felt his lips peel back in a silent
snarl. He leapt over the two
combatants, knowing that his friend would never survive the encounter. His one remaining companion and he ran on,
ignoring the shrieks echoing in the tunnels behind them. A light appeared ahead. The only person left with him spun to face
another attack, screaming for him to go. Cye cast one glance back at his lifelong friend before leaping through a
portal of glowing light, something snagging his leg as he passed through,
tearing the flesh to the bone. A flash
of light erupted from Cye's hands as he frantically tried to pull himself out
of the tunnels completely, blasting the shimmering glow of the portal. The strange light flickered, the essence of
the portal wavering as he pulled himself free, the dead weight on his leg
sliding through the light slowly, the gateway seeming almost reluctant to let
it pass. The creature with eight legs
blinked at being pulled through the light, triangular maw raising to the sky in
confusion for a moment before it escaped into the night.
Cye
sat bolt upright, gasping for breath. His four friends were gathered around him, worry painting their
faces. Noticing a pair of strong arms
holding him, he looked into Rowen's haunted eyes, tears on the verge of
falling. As he tried to stand,
supported by four sets of hands, a strange pressure began again in his
temples. "Lights," he panted. "We need to get rid of all of the
lights. They can see the light. We don't want them to see us. No armor. They'll sense it. We don't want
them to know we're here. Have to be
quiet. They hear so well…" he trailed
off, looking at his friends' mystified expressions. Thinking about what he had just said, he understood their looks
perfectly. What he had just told them
made no sense to him either.
Ryo
scowled as the girl pulled him away from his friend. He blinked in horror as she pointed to the torch, shook her head,
then put a warning finger across his mouth. Turning to the others, he called out softly, "That was her. She was trying to tell us what to do through
Cye."
Rowen
jumped to his feet, intent on killing the girl before him, thoroughly ignoring
everyone and everything else until Cye jumped between them. Glaring at Rowen sharply, Cye took and deep
breath. "We need to get going. Cale is still alive and there's no telling
how long it will take him to come back."
As
the girl motioned sharply, the five Ronins lined up doubtfully, each holding
the shoulder of the person in front of them, every one of them looking about
frantically as the girl doused the torch and led them into one of the caves
leading from the room. Cye shifted his
eyes, watching his surroundings carefully as he entered the absolute blackness
of the cave. He shuttered at the
thought, at the memory of the tunnels.
* * *
After
travelling for some time in the endless caves, passing by countless intersections,
the girl slowed her backbreaking pace for a moment before stumbling to a stop,
staring at a caved-in section of tunnels before her in horror. Leading the Ronins to a dead-end, she held
up her hands for a moment, silver flames arcing from her fingers to create a
dully shining dome in front of them, blocking off the entrance to the short
tunnel they had entered. Cye only
squinted at the dome for a moment before allowing his eyes to shift back to
their original sea-blue, much to Kento's relief.
Cye
regarded the dome thoughtfully. There
was a fair amount of light on this side of the dome, but everything on the
other side of the softly pulsing barrier was the pure, uncorrupted blackness
they had been walking through for hours on end. In that time walking through the caves, Cye had slowly calmed
down as he neither heard nor saw anything alive, excluding the six in their
group. So many of the memories that had
shot through his mind had been in tunnels like this one. Even worse, some of the memories immediately
preceding the ones in the caves had been in Talpa's castle. Although he was no longer in a frenzy, he
still watched the tunnels warily, afraid that some of those thoughts raging in
his head earlier were real.
Engrossed
in thought as he was, it took him a moment to realize that someone was talking
to him. He looked up to see Ryo
hovering over him, frowning slightly.
Having
caught Cye's attention after speaking to him for almost a full minute, he began
again. "Could you tell us what she's
doing?" Ryo asked slowly, hoping that his friend would know what was going on
better than he did.
Cye
got to his feet, noticing for the first time that the girl was trying to leave
while indicating that they were not to follow. Kento was staying determinedly in her path, much to her
frustration. Seeing him, she began anew
with her gestures, pointing to them, to the floor, to herself, and then to the
caves. Cye nodded slowly, turning to
the others. "She wants to scout, I
think," he said quietly, not sure if the barrier stopped sound. "One of the tunnels we saw had collapsed and
I think that was the direction she wanted to go."
Kento
and Sage grimaced at his casual acceptance of his new visual abilities, much to
his annoyance. If she hadn't done this,
he would still be blind. Sage had been
unable to heal him. He sighed at their
expressions, not wanting to start into this argument again, the first battle
defending the girl from their accusations having been more than enough for
him. He supposed that they would get
used to this in time. He was actually
beyond amazed that he had accepted it so readily.
He
convulsed suddenly, dropping to the packed dirt below his feet, curling into a
fetal position, arms wrapped around his head. Rowen was at his side in an instant, as Kento would have been had he not
been occupied with trying to keep the girl from leaving. Cye's lips peeled away from his teeth in
something akin to a snarl. "Damn you,"
he hissed angrily, "get out of my way. If you ever want to get out of these wretched tunnels alive, I need to
find the way out. Move!"
Kento
looked to his best friend, face paling. His eyes snapped back to the girl he was still holding firmly. Swallowing nervously, he stepped to the
side, allowing her to pass by, hoping that when she did, Cye would snap out of
whatever she was doing to him. Before
leaving, she paused, looking to the youngest Ronin, still twitching on the
floor.
"You
needn't worry. The barrier will not
allow anything from the Dynasty to pass through it. Sound and light are confined to this side," Cye said in a voice
not entirely his own, almost reassuringly but not quite. As his lips closed on the final syllable,
his body convulsed once again.
In
the tunnels, something was trailing him. Something big. He moved more
quickly, trying not to make any more noise, hoping to outdistance whatever it
was. No chance of that. It was fast. Very fast. He rounded a
corner, backpedaling wildly when he ran into the thing face to face. It had circled around him, had found another
route. The creature was an abomination,
looking like some hideous twist between a dragon and a wolf. Armor-like scales covered whatever it was
from glowing yellow eyes to sinuous serpent-like tail. Hair grew in sporadic patches between the
scales, the heaviest line running down the backbone, framing a row of
blade-like spikes running from the top of the thing's head to the tip of the
tail. The body and leg structures were
basically that of a wolf with legs a little too long, the feet ending in
hideous talons. Looking directly at
Cye, it advanced slowly, lips peeled back from horrendously long canines in the
wedge-shaped head. The thing launched
itself at him, his only thought was that he wouldn't be able to tell the others
what he had seen in the tunnels were the group was about to pass…
Cye
lurched madly to his feet, pushing the supporting hands away from him. He looked out to the tunnels where the girl
had gone. A growl rising in his throat,
he shifted his eyes to infrared once again, looking at the traces of heat still
present from where the girl had recently passed. He could follow her. Maybe he could still get to her.
He
hadn't taken more than two steps towards the silver dome before the other four
Ronins tackled him, pushing him to the ground. Eyes blazing an angry blood red, he thrashed forcefully, surprising
himself and the others by managing to kick all four of his friends off of
him. Jumping to his feet in a wordless
growl, he moved towards the opening again, ignoring the hands that grabbed at
him. He landed a solid blow in Sage's
stomach and another in Ryo's jaw, spinning slightly to kick Kento's feet out
from under him and push him into Rowen. Storming off towards the barrier, he stepped through, or tried to. His eyes widened in disbelief as his face
slammed into the silver dome, the thing as solid as any of the stone walls in
the caves.
The
Ronins stared at the younger boy in shock, the words 'the barrier will not
allow anything from the Dynasty to pass through it' echoing wildly in their
minds. Ryo was the first to recover,
darting over to the barrier. He reached
out slowly, praying fervently that nothing could pass through the barrier from
this side, that what they had heard only applied to the other side of the shield,
that his hand would not pass through the girl's shield. It did. On the brink of tears, he hopped outside of the barrier and immediately
darted back in, only to find Cye tracing the barrier with the tips of his
fingers, ruby eyes swirling gently.
* * *
Several
hours had passed. Ryo, Sage, and Kento
sat against the wall of the cave opposite of Rowen and Cye. He was the only person that Cye would allow
anywhere near him as he stared intently at the ground with molten eyes swirling
in a blend of ruby and garnet. After
sitting by the younger boy for a few minutes, Rowen had put his arm around him,
pulling the younger boy into his lap, holding the trembling form to his chest. He needed to be comforted, but the other
three wouldn't speak to him. Not that
it had any effect on the smaller boy that he saw. Cye wasn't responding to anything anymore.
After
the first hour, Sage had come over to him, attempting to heal him, giving up
quickly as he came to the realization that this was not something that could be
healed. Past that, the others had moved
to the far wall and stayed there after Cye had chased Kento off with a
growl. Ryo sat with his head resting on
his knees, obviously crying. Sage had
tried to tell him that it wasn't his fault, that there was nothing that he
could have done, but Ryo was obviously not paying attention to him.
Cye's
head raised slowly. He looked out to
the tunnels with his sea-blue eyes. Seeing nothing, he tried looking with his new visual abilities, not
seeing much past the bright glare of the silver dome. He noticed wryly that Rowen didn't pull away from him this time
like the others did whenever he tried using his alternate vision. Climbing out of Rowen's comforting arms, he
moved over to the shield once more.
Kento's
heart throbbed painfully in his chest, a fluttering hawk in too small of a
cage. It shouldn't be like this. They shouldn't have done that to Cye. The pain in his chest intensified as he
remembered that it was his fault, no matter what the others had said. He had only been trying to make sure that
Cye at least had a chance. He hadn't
meant for this to happen. He was about
to lower his head again when he saw Cye reach out to the barrier again, placing
his hand against the smooth surface.
Cye
looked at his hand resting gently against the surface of the dome. Light, what did they do to me? he
thought, nearing tears once more. He
looked back to Rowen, still sprawled against the wall, the shoulder of his
shirt damp from where Cye had been crying. His hand shifted involuntarily, and he looked at it in disbelief. It was outside the barrier. Tears spilling down his cheeks, he followed
his hand through what felt like thick jelly, stepping into the cave. He widened his eyes, looking about frantically. There. Something moved just down the tunnel and was heading this way. He was about to call out, to move to
intercept the figure in the hall, but a hand grabbed the back of his shirt and
hauled him inside of the protective dome once more.
Cye
turned to face Ryo's questioning eyes. He pried his friend's hands from his shirt, a small smile beginning to
appear on his face. "She's coming," he
said slowly.
"Cye…"
he began in a breathless whisper, cut off as a black cloaked figure barreled
through the dome, hitting the ground in a roll before careening into the back
wall of the very short tunnel.
Sage
moved to pull the girl to her feet when she didn't immediately get up,
surprised to find Cye there ahead of him. Cye stumbled back, eyes wide with disbelief. Sage didn't have to look hard to see why. The girl was nothing but a mass of
lacerations, bruises, and blood loosely held together by what used to pass for
a body. He placed his hands immediately
on her head, flinching at the cold skin and slow pulse. He began to tremble forcefully at the amount
of power coursing through his veins as he healed her, appalled by the sheer
number of broken bones and torn muscles he encountered while healing her,
refusing to stop until she was in absolutely perfect shape. Releasing her, he backed up slowly, sliding
down the wall wearily, the trembling in his muscles increasing. He had seen her fight before. She was good. Strong too, to be able to toss the five of them around so easily,
to carry them like she had so many times. What was she fighting that could have done that to her so
easily? What were they up against? He wasn't sure that he really wanted to know
the answers to those questions.
* * *
Sage
was grateful that the girl took a full two hours to awaken after being
healed. He was exhausted, but judging
from the way she trembled slightly in her sleep, she was much worse off than he
was. He leaned against the wall as she
pulled herself stiffly to her feet, trying to get another precious moment of
rest before they started moving again. As she moved towards the shimmering silver wall, she paused to help him
to his feet, a new respect for him kindling in her eyes. The silver wall vanished abruptly, two sets
of red eyes winking into existence.
The
group moved out again, Cye leading once more, being the only one who could
follow her without impeding her movements. He gasped softly when he saw the girl's alternate route, a narrow tunnel
sloping upwards in a continuously twisting pattern. For a moment, the girl seemed torn as to whom to send first,
obviously considering leading the way yet wary of what might be following
them. After only a moment's hesitation,
she reached into the tight-fitting shirt she was wearing, pulling two knives
from hidden sheathes at the small of her back, handing the twin blades to
Cye. He blinked uncertainly at the
knives, each as long as his forearm.
Cye
moved forward slowly, tugging Ryo along with him. He might be able to see in the blackness surrounding him, but Ryo
knew how to use weapons like this better than he did. Cye squirmed into the opening of the tunnel, Ryo directly behind
him with the one blade that Cye had yielded to him. A soft noise echoed behind them. Cye turned his head to see Kento struggling behind Ryo, the passage much
too narrow for the heavy-set boy. Halfway up the tunnel, Cye turned to reclaim the blade from a surprised
Ryo. As he drew nearer to the opening
ahead, he became increasingly agitated, emerging from the opening in a frenzy.
Suddenly
free of the tunnel, Cye jumped to his feet, eyes scanning the area
frantically. There was nothing
there. When Ryo stumbled forward to
place his hand on Cye's shoulder comfortingly, he nearly lost an eye as Cye
spun in a panic, lashing out viciously.
"Easy. It's just me," Ryo whispered to his unnerved
friend.
A
slender hand immediately snapping over his mouth, Ryo found himself faced with
a furious set of glowing red eyes. Lining up the Ronins in a frenzy, she began moving again at a backbreaking
pace, the boys sprinting wildly to keep up. Ryo wondered why she was rushing forward so blindly. He had barely whispered. Surely nothing could hear that.
He
was proved wrong within the span of half of a minute. A soft clicking echoed behind them, closing the intervening
distance between them at an alarming rate. The girl spun around, darting past the Ronins. Cye stumbled to a halt, pushing the others to the wall in a tight
cluster, placing himself in front of them protectively. Glancing down the tunnel the girl had raced
down a moment ago, he witnessed the chaos that ensued.
Three
wolf-like creatures circled the girl, two sets of golden eyes piercing the
darkness along with one red. Cye's
throat closed in horror as he made out the serpentine tails, the ridges down
the back, and the wedge-shaped jaws supporting the enormous canines. The red-eyed beast, however, appeared to be
nothing more than a wolf, if a wolf had huge leathery wings. It was enormous, but still a wolf for the
most part.
Flipping
the knife in his right hand to hold the blade in his fingers, Cye whipped his
arm forward, blade flying smoothly to sink into a fur-covered throat. The girl dove past the stunned creature,
twisting the blade viciously in its throat as she yanked it out, rolling
immediately to her feet.
The
two uninjured abominations lunged towards the girl as she rolled to her feet
and spun to face them, spinning nimbly on the balls of her feet, blade blurring
in her hands. He tore his eyes away
from her battle as the injured beast rolled to his feet and began a shuddering
lope in his direction.
Cye
shifted his one remaining knife to his right hand, moving to circle the thing
as it approached him. He made a
miscalculation. The creature had never
been heading for him, shooting by his shifting form to launch itself at easier
targets, the four unarmed boys who were obviously blinded by the gloom.
He
jumped towards the wolf-like creature as it passed, lashing out with his blade,
momentarily gratified as he felt steel meet flesh. The waist-high beast ignored the sting of the steel in its back
and tackled the nearest boy. Cye
launched himself forward desperately, sinking the blade in his double-handed
grip into the thick skull, knocking the thick jaws away from his friend's neck.
Panting
softly, he pulled the heavy corpse from atop of Ryo, checking quickly to make
sure he was still breathing before spinning to return to the battle raging
behind him. Blood smeared the walls of
the cave, two unidentifiable heaps of flesh lying next to the walls. The girl trotted past him, deftly
decapitating the body of the creature beside Ryo. Handing the blade to Cye once more, she pulled Ryo to his feet, examining
the ragged lacerations on his forearms and the deep holes in his throat. Her hands glowed silver for a mere instant
before she started the group moving again. Ryo gingerly fingered the unbroken skin of his neck with trembling hands
before allowing himself to be pulled along by the others.
* * *
Being
healed took a lot of energy from both the healer and the healed. Within an hour of running, Ryo staggered to
a halt, panting loudly. When Cye felt
his friend's hand slip from his shoulder, he sprinted ahead, tugging on the
girls arm to stop her. He was
uncomfortable about leaving his friends blind in the tunnels for even a moment,
but feared the consequences of calling out to get the girl's attention. Returning to the group, he had only to point
at his gasping friend to get his point across. Mouth tightening, she pulled Ryo onto her back, resuming her lope
immediately, much to Cye's irritation. Ryo needed to rest. Swearing
mentally, hoping she could hear, he placed Kento's hand on his shoulder and
started running again.
Cye
lost track of time as they moved through the caves. Everything looked alike to him. They could be going in circles for all he knew. The muscles in his calves began to burn,
merely annoying at first, growing to a fiery pain so crippling that he could no
longer run. He stopped, not having the
energy to run ahead to catch her. Hands
on his knees, he lowered his head, gulping air into burning lungs. The girl returned after a few seconds,
scowling fiercely, blatantly ignoring the four boys' trembling. Grabbing Cye's hand, she moved as though to
start running again, earning herself a glare and a vulgar gesture. Not willing to argue the point, she pulled
him a few feet into a much narrower side-tunnel, creating the silver barrier
once more. Cye glared at her
balefully. They had all been running
for hours on end, herself carrying Ryo for some time now, and she didn't seem
as though she needed the break.
After
resting for perhaps five minutes, she regained her feet, creating a stir of
groans from the five Ronins. Ignoring
their protests, she held up one hand for a moment, looking at the five boys
sharply before loping out of the protective dome back into the blackness.
"How
the hell can she do that?" Rowen complained in a voice more a gasp than actual
words.
"No
idea, but I'm surprised that Kento didn't drop dead about three hours ago," Cye
teased softly.
"Save
it, you scrawny little punk. I can
still whip you."
"As
long as you don't try to eat me. I'd
like to keep all of my limbs if it's all the same to you."
Sage
grinned. They were speaking again. After seeing Kento and Cye avoid each other
so adamantly during their last break, it was a relief to see that they weren't
at one another's throats. He looked up
in time to see Kento lunge at Cye, getting the smaller boy in a headlock. Squirming only helped Cye get his face
wedged in Kento's armpit, resulting in a devastated, and slightly green,
expression and a loud squawk.
"What's
so funny?" Cye demanded, his eyes belying the angry expression on his face as
he managed to pull free. Unable to keep
up that deception, he grinned and tackled Sage, earning himself an outraged cry
as he pinned the older boy. Not wanting
those two to have all of the fun, Kento crashed the party, pinning them both
with a satisfied grin. A small chuckle
was all the warning he had before Rowen sent him sprawling across the floor
into a wall. Each of the Ronins looked
up from who they were grappling with, grinning like little boys.
Cye
glanced over at Ryo. He hadn't joined
in the fun, or moved at all for that matter. He lay sprawled on the floor where the girl had set him, barely
breathing. Cye wandered over, rolling
Ryo onto his back away from the wall to make sure his friend was all right,
halfway expecting to get snapped at for waking him. When Ryo flopped limply onto his back, Cye would have given
anything to have gotten the scolding.
"Oh
shit. SAGE!"
Sage
was beside him in an instant along with the other two Ronins. Ryo lay bonelessly on the floor, breath
rasping in his throat, sweating heavily, and running a fever that both Sage and
Cye would have sworn was impossible. Sage concentrated for a moment, a soft green glow enveloping him as he
tried to ease the fever plaguing his friend. When he took his hands away, Ryo was as pale as before and breathing no
easier. Sage clamped his teeth down on
his lower lip, not knowing what to do.
Cye
pushed him to the side, pulling Ryo into a sitting position despite Sage's
protests. Ryo's jaw hung slack, not
having the energy or the conscious thought to close it, awarding Cye with a
clear view of what could only be fangs. The new length of his canines horrified him. His eyes widened further as Ryo opened his eyes for a moment to
reach out towards him. Unable to tear
his eyes away from his friend's eyes, pulsing softly red, he nearly wet himself
when Ryo's hand grasped his shoulder lightly, claws pinching his skin slightly.
* * *
The
girl trotted calmly into the silver dome unnoticed. She stared at the boy gathered in the corner, about to drop for a
small rest when one of the boys, Ryo she thought, reached out to grab Cye's
shoulder. Cye spasmed for a moment
before slowly wilting away from his friend's gentle grasp. Intrigued, she approached the group, hissing
as though burnt when getting a better view of Ryo. Tossing the other four Ronins out of the way as though they were
no more than sacks of grain, she grabbed Ryo's head in both of her hands. Both of them were instantaneously surrounded
in an inferno of silver flames. Releasing
him suddenly, she rounded on the others furiously, gesturing madly, hissing in
exasperation when they made no response.
A
growl rising in her throat, she turned to Cye. He clutched his head for a moment, completely overwhelmed by the raw
energy she inflicted upon him. His
mouth hung loosely for a moment, eyes blank.
"How
long has he been like that?" the words grated out of Cye's mouth, making the
others squirm uncomfortably. "How
long?"
"We
only saw him a minute ago," Sage answered quickly, eyes darting from the
identical expressions of fury painting both the girl's and Cye's faces.
"The
things in the tunnels here are dangerous. Some of them are contagious. I
have never encountered one like the one that got him. Must be one of the newer rejects." The explanation stopped for a minute as the girl turned to regard
Ryo regretfully. "There is nothing I
can do."
Kento
exploded. "There has to be
something. You know the area and these
things. Do something!"
Cye's
blank face turned to him. "I will do
something. I will leave him here."
"We're
not leaving him," Sage snapped, scowling fiercely.
"And
what would you have me do? Bring him
with us so you can see him suffer? Watch him die? Even if he
survives, he will lose what remains of his humanity and attack us in the
tunnels."
Releasing
her hold on Cye's mind, she dropped the silver barrier, turning to leave. When it became apparent that three of the
Ronins would not follow her and the fourth could barely stand after her mind
hold, but was still scowling at her from unsteady feet, she turned back to
them, lifting Ryo roughly across her shoulders, careful to keep his head and
arms away from herself. When she moved
to leave again, the others fell in behind her, reluctantly, but following still.
She
would have to take the risk of bringing this one if it was the only way to get
the others out of here. She had never
thought that the one she had brought with her to convince the others to
cooperate would be the reason that she nearly lost all of them. The twelve that died on the journey here
would walk away in disgust if they even suspected that she was unwilling to
risk herself to bring the Ronins out. Face hardening, she tried to think of some way to keep the boy from
turning on them before getting them out of the tunnels. She could do something about him later. Her throat tightened suddenly. The tunnels had claimed another victim. She
and the others had left to fulfill the one hope remaining to them, but only she
had survived this wretched maze. Her
memories turned back to the shattered remains of her home and all those that
died at the treacherous hands of the dark ones who had betrayed them all.
* * *
Sage
watched the girl worriedly when they passed strangely luminescent areas in the
tunnels. She was obviously
exhausted. He bit his lower lip in
frustration at the entire situation. They were all tired, the girl was now staggering under Ryo's weight, and
Rowen had taken up shoving him, hard, whenever he slowed down. Staggering to a halt, a silver dome sprang
up around the group, earning a few gasps at the unexpected break. The girl deposited Ryo, tightening the bonds
holding him hand and foot roughly before turning to scout ahead. Sage caught her as she passed by him, looking
into haunted eyes that had seen too many things in life that no one should have
to see. His eyes widened as he realized
that she was on the brink of tears.
The
dark circles under her eyes were new. He had never seen anything like that in her before. They had been traveling for at least two days
in the blackness. They had run out of
food and water some time ago and no one had had enough sleep. Sage was certain that she had not slept at
all since he healed her sometime early in the first day they were
traveling. Weaving unsteadily past him,
she entered the tunnels once more. He
squinted vainly after her in the darkness, making out nothing of her retreating
form.
Sighing,
he turned back to the others, sliding to the ground to get some much-needed rest. Rowen had moved to the furthest side of the
dome from the others and was intently scowling at the ground in front of
him. Cye and Kento were trying
unsuccessfully to speak to one another, neither comfortable with talking at all
for the moment. Ryo lay writhing within
the tight bonds holding him, an occasional snarl escaping his lips.
Kento
moved over to his tied friend, and began speaking to him softly like he had
every break since they found out what was wrong with him. The first time Kento had started speaking,
Ryo had frozen in his thrashing, listening to the soft words from his
friend. Now Kento's presence only
agitated him further and he began to buck wildly, wrists and ankles slick with
blood from where the ropes holding him had torn the skin from his incessant
thrashing.
Closing
his eyes in disappointment, Kento shifted to move away from Ryo, seeing that he
was no longer doing any good. A small
snapping noise was all the warning he had. He turned just in time to see Ryo launch himself at him, throwing up his
left arm to block the swing towards his head. Sinking his teeth into Kento's hand and his claws into his arm, he
lashed out with his left arm, taloned fingers slashing Kento's face from
forehead to right ear, across his right eye in the process. He howled in pain, falling away from his
feral companion.
Ignoring
the others, Ryo tried to bolt from the dome, slamming into the wall forcefully
and bouncing back to fall into Rowen. Rowen promptly decked him and was kicked in return. The two combatants proceeded to pound on
each other savagely for a moment, taking turns slamming one another into the
glowing dome. Cye didn't hesitate
before leaping into the turmoil, as many of his blows landing on Rowen as on
Ryo. The three rolled along the ground
wildly, Cye getting pinned for an instant between the silver dome and the other
two. Sage could only watch in horror.
Cye
leapt to his feet, throwing his arms skywards with a roar that echoed loudly
within the silver shield. A spark of
sea-blue fire appeared at his feet, swirling gently before rising to a
whirlwind of blue flames that engulfed the slender boy. Howling, he sent a blast of blue flames into
the two figures mauling each other, flinging them to opposite sides of the
dome.
Tearing
his eyes away from the battle, Sage dropped beside Kento, trying futilely to
heal him like he had been unable to do for Ryo. His eyes widened when the lacerations resisted healing, appearing
almost reluctant to close. Pouring more
energy into what he was doing, he didn't notice Cye approach him from behind,
nearly jumping out of his skin when Cye placed a hand on his shoulder. Raw energy rushed into Sage. He blinked in shock for a moment before he
realized that Cye was only trying to help him heal his fallen friend. Swallowing nervously, he continued working,
eyes widening in amazement as he realized that the energy Cye was providing him
with was doing more than he could ever dream of. He sighed in relief as the wounds finally closed. He inspected his work after a moment, throat
tightening as he realized that Kento's right eye did not regenerate any more
than did the two fingers missing from his left hand.
Looking
up to Cye, he tried not to flinch at the red-eyed gaze that met his own,
knowing that it would only upset the younger boy. Cye turned his head to stare intently at Rowen, then Ryo, nodding
in satisfaction as neither moved from where they had landed. Sage moved over to check on Rowen, startled
to find that he had no more than a mass of bruises, all of which vanished
easily. Hesitantly, he moved to Ryo's
still twitching form. His eyes burned
as he looked at his friend. He had been
trying to avoid looking at him since what had happened and was shocked now to
see how bad his friend looked. The
beginnings of a muzzle twisted his face into something not quite human, teeth
beginning to sharpen to match the canines. His hair had gotten longer, bushier, and his muscles larger and more
defined. The talons on his hands were
just that, retractable claws that made Sage cringe in horror.
Cye
moved up behind him, still surrounded by the eerie blue flames that he had
called up only moments ago. He flinched
as Cye placed his hand on his shoulder once more, providing him with an endless
supply of energy that seemed not to want to respond to his instructions, almost
fighting him yet giving in because Cye willed it. Looking nervously to the silver dome, Sage's mind replayed the
image of Cye slamming into it. He
closed his eyes as he reluctantly accepted the energy given to him. Knowing where Cye was tapping this energy
from did not put his mind at ease.
Tying
Ryo firmly, Sage set about healing someone that he wasn't sure he should still
call a friend. The bruises and the cuts
from the rope were simple matters to attend to. He uncertainly began to work with the unconscious boy's mind,
appalled by the chaos he found swirling in his dying consciousness. After fumbling and searching blindly for a
moment, he found something that felt almost like the Ryo he knew. Almost. Locking the rest of the mind behind a barrier, he strengthened that one
section, pulling Ryo awake with his mind forcefully before withdrawing rapidly and
scrambling away. Ryo's eyelids
fluttered for a moment before he passed out again.
* * *
Running
uncomfortably under the weight of the unconscious boy, the girl considered yet
another break as the boy shifted slightly across her shoulders. She did not relish the idea of him waking up
while she carried him. Slowing to a
stop, she deposited him roughly to the ground, immediately bringing up a
shield.
She
looked at the others carefully. The
heavy-set boy had claw marks across his face which now sported only one
functioning eye, the other nothing but a white orb staring blankly from beneath
three parallel scars. She watched him
carefully as he set down the blue-haired boy who had yet to regain
consciousness. After having arrived
back where she left them during the last break, it hadn't taken long to figure
out what had happened. She had studied
Kento for nearly an hour before she was finally convinced that he would suffer
no serious effects from being attacked by Ryo. Either Ryo hadn't progressed enough to be contagious himself, or Sage
had done something to the scarred boy that kept him from being affected. She had gotten a fairly clear account, and
if it was the latter… Her mind reeled at the implications, the
possibilities. There may yet be a way.
Rowen,
however, terrified her. When she had
arrived, he had been regaining consciousness. Seeing her had sent him into a murderous frenzy. As he attempted to tackle her, to choke the
life from her, she had calmly kicked him in the stomach to send him careening
through the wall of the silver dome. She had frozen in horror when he bounced off of it, eyes watering in
helplessness. That shouldn't have
happened. Upon experimentation, she had
found that Ryo could not pass through the shield either, and Cye could only do
it with a great deal of difficulty when he was calm. If he was angry, though, he could penetrate it no more than the
other two. Unable to get Rowen to stop
fighting her and the others, she had knocked him into oblivion, handing his
unconscious form to Kento, hoping that the Warrior of Strength would be able to
handle his added weight.
Slumping
to the floor, she vowed that she would not leave them alone to go scouting
again. Not after what had
happened. She had tried to heal the
half-blinded warrior, only to have him vehemently refuse after glancing at Cye. She sighed in resignation as she turned to
watch Wildfire.
After
a few minutes, he stirred slightly, eyelids fluttering open slowly. Crimson eyes regarded her for a moment
before he struggled to get up. Blinking
in confusion, he craned his head awkwardly to look at the bonds holding his
wrists to his ankles. Giving a
half-shrug, he twisted to move to a sitting position, swaying slightly trying
vainly to keep his balance. The three
conscious Ronins regarded him warily, eyeing the ropes holding him uncertainly,
wondering if the girl had anything stronger than those thin cords hidden
somewhere about her.
Blinking
at the light of the dome, eyes narrowing into thin slits, Ryo turned to Kento
guiltily. "Sorry," he mumbled softly,
voice not quite how they remembered it to be. Kento sat bolt upright, eyes widening as he regarded what he hoped was
again his friend, swallowing uncertainly.
"Ryo?"
He
cringed at his name, closing his eyes and turning away from the four regarding
him closely. Opening his eyes, his gaze
fell upon Rowen, lying unconscious some distance from him. His throat tightened. I didn't think I had hurt him that bad. His guilty expression was enough to convince
Cye that it was once again Ryo, and he immediately moved to untie him, ignoring
the protests from Sage and Kento.
Free
from the bonds holding him, Ryo curled into a ball, pulling his knees to his
chest and hiding his head in his arms. He shifted his head slightly so that his shaggy mane of hair would fall
over ears coming to points. Balling his
fists so that none of the others could see his hands clearly, he began to
tremble slightly, tears falling freely from his eyes. He wanted to leave, to be free from their pitying eyes, but knew
the futility of trying to pass through the barrier around them. He remembered the battle with his friends
all too well, slamming into the wall. His chest suddenly felt too tight for his heart as he remembered what
that meant for him, for Cye, and for Rowen.
TBC…
At
this point in time, I'm about to kill my computer. I'm not posting anything else until it stops acting up. Stupid oversized paperweight.