Sorry for the huge space of time that has passed between this and my last update. Ah well, thanks to all reviewers and replies are in the usual places.
Chapter 40: Someone should pay, (part two)
This will probably sound like mindless quasi-macho bullshit but, sometimes, I like being stabbed. In the instant where a knife passes into your flesh there's a strange moment of clarity and quiet, your problems all seem to drown out through the gaping wound in your body, and for a brief moment the world seems to make sense, although you can't understand why.
I guess it's different for those that feel the full force of the pain and die as a result of the knife wound.
There was no such feeling as the seemingly omnipotent program I was fighting buried a second tuning fork shaped blade into me, this time in the neck. It just hurt, a lot. I hastily pulled the thing out of me and tried to stay upright as I waited for my body to repair itself.
Almost cutting him in half seemed to have annoyed my opponent somewhat. His appearance of amused contempt had been replaced by an attempt at a deadpan facial expression, with unmistakable traces of anger.
I dodged two more blows, one at my throat, and another at my stomach. I slashed sideways again with one of my arm mounted swords only to have it pass through the green mesh. I wasn't as bothered this time however about failure seeing as a high kick from Hawk then landed on the program's head.
You'd think, considering what had happened; he would have learned to watch out for people sneaking up on him. Apparently not. There was an audible crack which was presumably his digital skull shattering, and he fell to the floor.
I decided not to take any chances and slice the guy in two whilst he was on the floor and in one piece. Even with a shattered skull however, he was able to reach out and take my legs out with two outstretched arms. What the hell was it going to take to kill this guy?
As the program was pushing himself back to his feet, swinging round in the process to face Manticore and Hawk, Manticore sent two bullets into his stomach, and a third cruising harmlessly through a green, shimmery head.
Manticore grabbed me by one arm and hoisted me to my feet. Sending a surge of pain through my battered cranium in the process. As I tried to steady my swaying self I noticed distantly that some random person in the distance was punching numbers into a mobile phone. I assumed that she was phoning 999 and found myself uttering a quasi-delirious laugh at the absurdity of it.
I snapped my mind out of its happy, vacant state as best as I could and searched for the pipe I'd left on the floor. Only to find that Hawk had stolen it and was trying, with limited success, to smash the skull of the Twin.
To my left, I noticed that two other humans were dealing with the second program, or at least they were attempting to, Morpheus I noticed was trying his best to tend to Niobe's knife wound.
I seriously considered killing her myself. A life for a life hmm? Fitting revenge or just senseless murder? The latter of course, but it took me a few seconds to realise this.
If we were still going to exact vengeance after all was said and done then the only life we would take would be Morpheus'.
I didn't have time to scold myself for the thought. I noticed now that Manticore had been flung into a building's wall by the program. There was an opening, and I couldn't sit back and watch.
Three against one is unfriendly odds, even if you can shift 'out of phase' or whatever the technical term is. More blows started to land on the enemy; I was even able to pierce his stomach at one point, but he healed himself without too much trouble.
I narrowly avoided being caught in the face by Manticore's flying form. My first instinct was to turn around and make sure that he was ok, but after listening to Dragon's scolding of me for poorly timed compassion, I decided against it.
I lunged yet again at the program, who was at the time busy hurling Eric in Hawk's direction. He waved his arms as he flew in an attempt to slow himself. I noticed that Hawk effortlessly and swiftly moved out of his way and left him to fall face first on the hard concrete floor. Poor guy.
Anyway, I managed another flesh wound with this shot, one of my arm mounted swords buried itself into his abdomen, I lifted my other sword to sever his head, all the while expecting to see him shift himself into full health.
But he didn't.
Confused, I stupidly looked to where his shocked facial expression was pointing, it didn't look like he'd realised the sword in his gut.
To my right, I noticed an angry looking Seraph staring at the second program, with the first one's head resting close to his feet. I also noticed Morpheus helping Niobe to her feet, she seemed fine, you'd never know she'd been mortally wounded. I guessed that this was somehow Seraph's doing. How he get here so fast anyway? And how did he know we were here? To this day I never found out for certain.
I made a few more sword motions, severing the second twin's head and slicing through his abdomen. His face still looked shocked as he fell to the floor in three different pieces. This time he didn't get up.
After a few seconds of revelling in the triumph of a victory that really had very little to do with me, I moved over to where Eric was and inquired as to his wellbeing.
His response was to spit a mouthful of blood into my face. It looked more like an involuntary spasm then an act of spite, but still it wasn't exactly appreciated.
"Sorry." He said, his voice distorted, either by more blood building up behind his teeth or several missing teeth.
"Are you alright?"
He glared at me for a second, a glare which basically said, 'not really and I don' especially wish to point that out as it would make me lose what little dignity I have left, hence I shall just give this glare and hope it looks like I'm saying 'that's a stupid question.' I'd given it enough times during my first weeks with the Ascended ones, stumbling in ignorance and hoping to maintain dignity with well placed glares. It rarely worked.
I was brought out of my train of thought by Seraph, he wandered over to us and placed hands on both our shoulders,
"We must leave." He said before turning away.
To be continued.
Right, now for replies:
LiMiYa: Again I think I should appologise for the huge wait. Trust me, the next chapter will be up in at least one tenth of the time I took to get this done. Anyway, glad you're enjoying it and thanks for reviewing. I just hope I don't get any twin fans hunting me down with knife and shotgun in hand.
Tai Wilson: According to this, this review is just under 4 months old. I think I replied to this in a reply I wrote on another fic, ah well, I'm glad you did start writing again, and again I shall say update with great speed, I'll try and do the same. Thanks for reviewing.