Wow, I haven't updated in like, forever! Sorry to those who still read this junk, but with the moving and new school and all that, things had been rather hectic (That and my incurable laziness). But this time, I REALLY swear to update more often if there are enough reviews and hits. Thank you for your continued support.
Disclaimer: I own nothing... getting tired of repeating this...
Chapter 14: The Other Presence.
Drake tried to stand, but his body shook badly. He hated to admit it, but that blasted Selemoss had been beyond his capability to handle. Rena somehow managed to muster enough energy to drag herself next to her brother. The two exchanged a quick glance, then turned to where Shuyin was standing. The very air seemed heavy, Drake swallowed uneasily as he watched the dark aura around Shuyin become stronger with each passing moment.
'Damn it Shu... what the hell happened to you?' Drake thought, then the last words of the accursed mage rang in his head. Prepare for Hell, now that the Dark Shuyin had awakened, once again...
Suddenly Shuyin gathered up the darkness into him. He brought his arms together in his chest, then gave a mighty cry, expelling the energy all around him. The heroes, completely battered up by the previous fight, were tossed around like rag dolls. Only Fayt and Maria, who haven't really fought as much, were able to hold their ground against the forceful gale caused by the release of energy. Shuyin sighed, floating above a 50 feet crater he had just carved out.
Apparantely satisfied with what he had done, judging by the smirk on his face, he then turned to face his companions. Only, he didn't quite look like himself at all. The two red stripes across each of his cheeks and the purple streaks on his arms were glowing even brighter. His blue eyes were now completely red, or rather, burning. The shoulder-length red hair seemed different as well, no longer sleek but spiky. However, the biggest change was his expression. He was smiling. But it wasn't the kind of smile that put one at ease. It was cold, malicious, and foreboding.
'No... this can't be him, it just can't be... He feels... different,' Drake spoke to himself.
"Hey Shu! Are you alright?" Cliff's voice sounded in the air.
Shuyin turned his gaze to the Klausian, who had managed to get back on his feet at last, after having crashed his way out of a pile of rocks. Instead of an answer, Shuyin pointed at him with two fingers, from which a thin black light shot out. Cliff swiftly dodged it, and the light merely struck the huge boulder that was behind him. Cliff stared wide-eyed as the boulder in question suddenly shattered into thousands of tiny molecules. Shuyin began laughing, which was also quite out of character for him. Everyone began to get nervous. This guy seemed to have cracked or something. Suddenly, Maria dashed towards the laughing warrior and and grabbed his arms.
"Shu! What's wrong with you? Get a hold of yourself!" Maria pleaded.
Shuyin stopped laughing and looked down at the girl. Maria shivered slightly as those crimson orbs bore into her own eyes. Then, with an even colder smirk, one of his hands seized her throat and lifted her off from the ground. Everyone was shocked as Maria struggled to pry apart Shuyin's deathgrip. Without second thoughts, anyone who were still capable of moving charged at the apparently insane lanceman. Shuyin merely smirked again as he saw the group approach him, and tossed Maria straight at them.
"Hey! What do you think you're doing! Snap out of it, its not funny!" Fayt yelled.
Shuyin's laughter began to disappear, although that malicious smirk remained.
"Hehehe... At last... at last... After 14 years..." He seemed madly overjoyed by something, as he held his hands before his face.
"I'm free once again..."
Fayt and the others watched incredulously as the dark energy began to swivel again, gathering in Shuyin's raised right palm.
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"Say, just what was with Shu all of the sudden? I've never seen him like that before." Shienka inquired the senior Overseer as their ship slipped into warp space.
"Well, you two are relatively new, so you didn't see him like that before. But there was one time when he... transformed I supposed. That was about 14 years ago." Selemoss looked slightly uncomfortable as he explained.
"What happended then?" Shienka caught the wary look on her superior.
"Sigh... You remember lord Kaiser and lady Karin?"
"Of course, the previous members of the Overseer, we WERE their apprentices you know." Selemoss ignored Shienka's child-like rudeness.
"Yes well, the three of us were sent on a mission to capture Zero back then as well... But..."
"But what? Wait... don't tell me... they...?" Selemoss nodded slowly.
"Shuyin changed into what you saw earlier... and killed them both, along with 500 hand-picked troops."
"That's... not possible... is it? By himself I mean." Shienka said after a lengthy pause, with an uneasy grin.
Meanwhile, Braz was in his quarter on the ship. He was still shivering slightly from that experience recently. He remembered Shuyin's eyes when he suddenly... changed. He detected no anger, no grief, no sadness, nothing. Only joy. The joy to destroy. He shivered involuntarily again as he recalled that moment.
"All I can say for sure now is, everyone, no, every THING on that planet, are as good as dead." Selemoss told Shienka.
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The heroes stared open mouthed as the darkness swirled like a miniature hurricane above the seemingly-possessed Shuyin. Drake couldn't shake off the feeling that there was something familiar with this current situation. The lanceman began to rise up towards the heavens, the darkness now becoming more compact at his hand. The energy became a small sphere, surrounded by purplish-black flame, hovering just above Shuyin's open palm held high above his head.
At that moment the realization struck Drake. The horrible image of a blackened field, shriveled corpses with their insides turned out, and dark purple flames flooded his vision from a memory of long ago.
"Oh, &#!"
"Hey! Watch your language!" He heard his sister snap at him.
"Never mind that, RUN!"
Shuyin's maniacal laughter reverbrated throughout the plains.
"Burn in agony! NECROSIS HOLOCAUST!" He flung the orb down towards the crew.
"Dammit! RENA!" The Raiyu siblings immediately performed the shield spell they had used against the Vendeeni ship before. The others gathered what power they had left and unleashed symbology, projectiles, energy balls, and what not at the purple orb, which was growing in size as it came closer to the ground.
Then the sphere landed. The next thing the people in the town of Peterny saw was a huge dome of black flames erupting out in the fields not so far away. Those who had witnessed the battle of Airyglyph castle long ago went stark white as they recognized the black fire.
The flames subsided almost immediately, although a light black mist permeated the air afterwards. Still laughing like a madman, the Black Lance slowly descended towards the center of the destruction, then gazed upon the people he had once called companions. Rena seemed to have passed out, while Roger was twitching on the ground, Albel was propped on one knee using his katana for support, Nel was on all fours with her arms shaking madly, Cliff was lying on his back next to Fayt and Maria, coughing out bits of blood. The two youths were gasping for breath while practically stuck in a huge chunk of rock, which had been part of a mountain just seconds ago, they had crashed into. However, Drake had taken the worst of it. He was still standing, but his legs were shaking furiously and both of his arms were limp by his side. His Serpent Blade lay discarded on the ground beside him, and he stared up at his past comrade, red liquid trickling down from the side of his mouth. The effort of trying to ward off the attack had been too much that Rena had passed out and the the others' attempts were simply nullified. Drake had somehow managed to hold out the brunt of the blast, sparing them all from the horrific fate that could've befallen them, but it had cost him dearly. He took an unsteady step forward, then his body went limp and collapsed.
For once, Shuyin's face held a different look, a look of disappointment.
"Tsk, I must have held back too much..." But then the murderous flame in his eyes, which were now narrow like a snake's, returned in a flash.
"Oh well, I guess it means I'll be able to have some more fun with you all. Then I'll pay a visit to the nearest town around here to have even more fun, hehehe..." Licking his lips in anticipation of the carnage, he looked around to see who he should have fun with first. Not the unconscious ones, he thought, they won't scream and writhe in pain. Having made up his mind, he began advancing towards Cliff, who was the closest to him and still remained awake. As he raised on hand, black electricity coursed throughout the Klausians's body, who was flailing on the ground wildly screaming in pain. After a few seconds the lanceman lowered his hand, then swung his weapon, leaving a gash across Cliff's chest. Not too deep to be fatal, but still plenty painful as hell. Chuckling sadistically, he was about to hack off one arm when something struck his head from the side. He turned around and glared at whoever that had the nerve to strike him. Maria had her gun aimed at him while Fayt's hand was also up (Shuyin could sense the recent release of symbology). Snarling, he made a pushing motion towards them with his free hand, which shoved the two offenders deeper into the rubble as if an invisible wall was pressing against them, until the whole thing shattered into peaces. Sneering, Shuyin kicked aside Cliff's battered form and headed towards the pile of rock. Fayt groped for his sword nearby but Shuyin brought down a feet upon his wrist, causing another cry of pain. He was about to skewer him with his lance when another blast went whizzing past his face. Face contorted in fury, he jerked his head to the side to see Maria barely standing with one of her guns firmly in her hand. Contemptuously, he sprang and his fist struck her hard in the stomache. The pain was so intense that she couldn't even scream. The lanceman followed up by grasping her throat tightly and held her in front of him. He then pointed the lance directly at her heart. No messing around with this one, she was far too annoying. As he drew the lance back, tears dropped down from the girl's eyes as she mouthed 'Shuyin'.
There was a splatter of blood, but Maria felt no pain, at least, no new pain. Shuyin's hand still had her throat in a deathgrip and she was starting to feel lightheaded. Then what everyone (who still retained their consciousness) went wide-eyed at the sight in front of them. The blade of the lance was indeed embedded in flesh, but it was not that of the blue-haired girl. It had pierced through the arm that held Maria. Gasping in surprise and pain, Shuyin dropped the girl and backed away, dropping his lance and clutching his wounded arm.
"Gaah! Wha, what happened!" He was now completely hysterical as he stared at his bloodied limb. Suddenly he clutched his head and began screaming.
"ARGH! STOP IT! STAY DOWN YOU FOOL! DON'T INTERFERE!" He dropped down onto his knees and continued to scream and clawed at his head.
"WAAAUGH! WHY DO YOU RESIST YOU USELESS PIECE OF SCRAP! I WILL HANDLE THIS MY WAY, SO GET LOST!" He threw his head back and uttered on last outcry, "AGH, YOU WEAK-HEARTED FOOL!"
An enormous blast erupted around, no, from within the shrieking warrior. A brilliant red light engulfed him as a miniature explosion took place, but affected only the lanceman himself. When the vision cleared, everyone had managed to dredge up enough strength to drag themselves to where the explosion took place. Rena and Roger regained consciousness while Nel and Albel had to help Drake and Cliff move.
There at the center of the wreckage sat Shuyin on his knees. The streaks on his face and other parts of his body began to disappear, and his eyes slowly changed back to its normal blue state. He lifted his head up and saw Maria who was clutching her throat staring back at him, tears marring her face. Shuyin raised one shaking hand towards her, and whispered "Ma...ri...a..." Then he fell face-first onto the earth, clearly knocked out. But what happened next was even more of a surprise. Small cracks began forming on his black armor and lance, until they eventually shattered into fragments. Even the bracelet he wore changed, the golden markings faded and then disappeared altogether. In fact, all of the strange markings, on the lance and the armor, just vanished, leaving behind nothing but wrecked scraps of plain black metal.
Maria, despite Nel and Rena's insistence that she remained still due to her condition, trudged her way towards the fallen lanceman, her eyes filled with uncertainty and fear, before everything blacked out.