Floor 13 - Chapter 4 - Gods & Monsters

For the first time in a long time, Sanya felt truly scared. The stone hand was now pressing down on her collarbone, and much to her shock... she could feel the sensation of pain, as the grip tightened. Her coat did much to mitigate the cold tingle of stone pressed against skin, but very little to stop the discomfort of the vice like grip that was getting tighter as the seconds ticked by; the fingers digging further and further in as she fidgeted.

Sensing that she may not have long left, she said a quick prayer in her head, before she made her move. Pulling against the stone hand, her shoulder came free and with the shock of the pain now coursing through her nervous system, she screamed at the top of her voice, the noise echoing throughout the village.

Now free, she turned to face her would be captor, and much to her surprise and horror, she only saw a statue. An aggressive looking one at that, its face contorted so as its once human features became a cruel bastardisation of themselves. Fangs had replaced what she'd been sure was just a normal mouth, whilst coursing orange veins ran across its body.

Without saying a word, she turned and ran from the statue. In her head, she knew this was the wrong thing to do; after all, the statue had snuck up on her whilst her back had been turned in the first instance, and now she was repeating the exact same mistake. That didn't matter right at this moment though, she needed to get away and find a quieter part of the village to heal up in. That bought her onto the next concern... why was she in pain? There were pain absorbers in Aincrad, that much she did know, and yet her shoulder felt almost as if it were broken. She reached up to her shoulder and clutched at it, in the vain hope it would reduce the pain.

It didn't, and she knew that she could not fight like this. Her sword was a two handed weapon, and she could barely move her right arm, without being in agony. That sensation of pain unnerved her more than she would have cared to admit, as whatever was going on, it simply did not make any sense!

That was the last thought she managed, before she felt herself go rigid and the world disappear around her...

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For Koharu, tonight had put a new thing on her list of ''things that had no rights being as creepy as Aincrad made them'' - statues. Her new found dislike of the stone figures was admittedly irrational to most people...

Except to those currently present, who were now being encircled by at least ten of them, with each of them a more disturbing visage than the last.

''No one move...'' Jet hissed to the group, before completely disregarding his own advice and moving around with his eyes closed. Normally, his sense of humour might have raised a slight giggle from her, but now was really not the time for humour!

''An' what, may I ask, was the point'a that lil' exercise!'' Argo asked the question that she reckoned was on everyone's mind.

''Just checking a theory. Thankfully, Kayaba isn't that much of a dick to put those in here.'' Jet muttered, whilst everyone else looked blankly towards her. Whatever they were expecting her to say, she didn't; instead she chose to walk towards one of the statues.

''I don't understand though, why would anyone want living statues?'' Phillia asked, staring blankly at one of them. ''It's not like they'd be much use in a fight...''

Koharu looked back towards Phillia, a questioning look on her face, before she felt a cold and sharp grip around her neck - the hands of a statue, clasped around her throat, and her body beginning to lock up. She didn't feel to proud to beg, fighting back tears in her eyes as the world began to go fuzzy and the oxygen heading to her brain decreased...

The final thing she heard as the world around her faded, was a scream - not a terrified one, but an angry one. A very angry one...

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As the head of the statue disintegrated, the rock torn apart and particles scattered to the wind by a hammer blow fierce enough that it could've been heard on the other side of the village, Jet stood there, a war hammer in his hands. He had had quite enough of this floor, and he was not going to lose Koharu to it. If those statues wanted a fight, then he'd bring out the hammer and chisel, and bring them down a size or two!

The now headless statue turned to face its new target - him. He gave the statue a smirk, one only seen in horror movies, and usually before someone or something dies a very painful and very brutal death... and he planned to ensure that fate would befall the statues, rather than them.

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Released from the statue's grip, the almost unconscious Koharu had dropped forward, and fallen into Rain's arms. Holding her friend in her arms, as she came round, this whole evening had proven an unnerving experience for Rain. From watching almost helplessly as one of her best friends was throttled by a statue, to watching another snap so completely and thoroughly. She'd heard about Jet's outburst on the Sixth Floor, against Kysala, but even then, Koharu had described him as being a berserker during that...

What she was watching was absolutely not a berserker. Berserkers fought with little concern for their own safety, their attacks wild and ill considered... what Jet was doing with that hammer was considered, each strike aimed at the point to do the absolute maximum damage he could, whilst the speed and viciousness of the attacks showed that he was definitely in control of himself... he just no longer gave a damn.

For a brief time, each statue around them fell with little interference from the rest of the group and in increasingly violent ways, as stone limbs were devastated by strikes of a ferocity that Rain hadn't seen before, even when Jet's life had been on the line. Even against the Pyroville, Jet had fought defensively, only briefly stopping to release an attack on the boss. She'd been the one throwing every attack she could at it, and it was that which spurred a revelation in her head...

He'd been putting himself in the line of fire so she was safe.

Her eyes went wide as that realisation struck her, and she turned to the others, who were watching Jet's systematic dismemberment of each and every statue with expressions somewhere between astonishment, and absolute horror.

That had been until the statues had decidedly had enough of being torn limb from limb, and what felt like every statue in the town had descended on them. Outnumbered fifteen to one, at the very least, that had been more than enough to spur her and Phillia into action against them. Even with every attack landing, it felt as if for every statue they destroyed, another three took its place.

''We can't keep this up!''

''You three, get Koharu out of here! We'll clear a path for you!'' Jet yelled back, his hammer obliterating another statue's head as he did so.

''What about you!'' Yuna called out, a hesitation clear in her voice.

''We won't be far behind you!'' Phillia shouted back, dodging under a statue's outstretched arm.

With some degree of hesitation, Argo managed to persuade the younger players to help her carry Koharu out of there. It hadn't escaped her attention that neither of them had wanted to leave, and had basically had to be pried out of there.

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Had they not been in the middle of a fight, Jet would've snorted at the optimism that Phillia was displaying. They were at increasingly long odds for the three of them to fend off, and the win condition seemed to just be surviving.

''This is insane!'' Rain shouted, her sword taking the phrase ''shorter by a head'' rather literally, as a statue disappeared in front of them. Despite his annoyance, he found himself agreeing with her there - this was absolutely insane! The odds were getting worse at every breath they took, and now-

''Crap! One of them-'' Phillia yelled out, her body turning grey and rigid as she did. With absolutely no chance to save her, she'd become a statue, frozen in her final moments...

''You-YOU BASTARDS!'' Rain's arms shook in anger as she yelled out, before lashing out in a flurry of strikes and ripping through the statues as if they were nothing more than paper. In her anger, she'd forgotten something fundamentally important - the post skill motion. Her body froze in place for only a second, as she exited the skill she'd just used, and that was the last mistake she realised. ''N-no!'' She cried out, as her body turned to stone...

Jet looked back briefly, and felt a rage welling up inside him. He'd lost both Rain and Phillia, and not only was he left to fight on alone, but he'd have to-

That was the last thought he managed, before he too became a statue, the feeling of stone covering his nervous system being a bizarre sensation, before the world disappeared from view around him...

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The four had run practically into the wastelands that surrounded the town, before they set down to look back. To their horror, the brief moments that they believed the others to be, soon became minutes, and despite the reassurance in her mind, Argo soon found herself with a sinking feeling. Yeah, they'd always had a pretty lousy sense of timing, and they all had days where she knew they'd seen her messages and just glossed over them, but this was a very different feeling.

Taking a few seconds to look at the party HUD, she noticed something - a strange status effect that she'd never seen before. It looked unusual, sort of like the paralysis symbol, but with a brick symbol instead of the fork lightning.

Sat off to one side, on her own, Koharu was almost oblivious to the world, watching intently for the trio to come running from the distance, any second now. It didn't matter that Argo knew something was very badly wrong, but Koharu didn't, or if she did, she was refusing to accept it.

''Ya okay, Ko-chan?''

''They'll be here soon, right?'' She asked quietly, almost as if she didn't want to talk.

Argo thought carefully about her answer. On one side, she knew that whatever had happened wasn't going to get any better by outright ignoring it, and lying to anyone was something she rarely did. She teased people often, and played fast and loose with how much of the facts she included in a story, but she only really lied when there was absolutely no other option,

On the other side though, she knew that Koharu would blame herself for whatever had happened to the trio she spent her time with, and would be inconsolable should anything actually happen to them. Looking up at her party tab again, the strange status effect had disappeared, and she visibly exhaled in relief. Though, that still didn't answer her question - what the hell was that status?

She turned to the raven haired girl with one of her trademark grins on her face, an attempt to hide the trepidation in her mind, and gave her some reassurance. ''Ko-chan, it's those three. They'll be alright, I'll betcha!''

''It's my fault they're not here. If I hadn't-'' Argo shushed her. This was emphatically not her fault. It was arguably no one's fault, except perhaps the entire group's for failing to notice the moving statues! Seriously, she wondered... how had they missed that!

In a hope for an answer, she shot each of the trio a message... only to get a notification telling her that the message could not be sent. What the hell was actually going on with this floor? A floor boss being faced before any mobs, an ever changing environment, and now disappearing players? This was wrong, and she knew that they'd need some backup for this one...

She typed out a message quickly and sent it:

From: Argo

To: Kirito, Asuna, Mito

I need yer help. 13 Floor is weird. Knight-boy, Rain-chan and Phillia MIA. Field boss defeated already.

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Feeling his skin turn back from stone to, well, skin, Jet looked around. The light they returned to was almost painful with how much it overstimulated their senses, whilst the heat in the room assaulted their refreshed skin. They'd returned to flesh and bone in a far larger cavern than they'd found before, with a strange floating orb in the centre. The rock walls weren't as sheer as before although no doors leading to hidden rooms could be made out, and rivers of lava ran down the rock faces, into channels on the floor that lead to the orb.

''Worst nap ever...'' Phillia mumbled, stretching as she looked around displeased.

''What even happened?'' Rain attempted to look around, but evidently her sleep encased in stone had taken something out of her balance, as she wobbled and leant on her sword.

''I think... we've been summoned.'' Jet looked towards the floating orb and reached out towards it, before Phillia stopped him.

''We find ourselves in a strange room, the first thing we see is a big floating orb with lava around it... and naturally, your first reaction is ''Ooh, must touch.'' Have you ever seen a horror film!?'' The treasure hunter, as prone to taking shiny things as she was, was at least a bit more savvy than her magpie of a friend apparently.

''Well, uhh, no, but I get your point.''

''YOU ARE THE HUMANS THAT WILL RETURN ME TO THE PANTHEON.'' A voice boomed through the caverns, snapping the trio to attention. Around the orb, and not far from the bickering pair's arms, a swirling vortex of flames danced, before disappearing into the orb. A blue light pulsed throughout the orb, coating the room in a strange glow of blue and orange light.

''Uhh... whoops.'' Phillia admitted. Jet, as clueless as he was occasionally, was at least savvy enough to know just how bad of a situation they found themselves in. Whenever some strange floating being mentioned the word ''Pantheon'', it was usually about time to start running...

Which was exactly why he chose to taunt the probably a god instead. ''So, what happens if we don't? You start bouncing around the room like an out of control tennis ball?''

''HUMANS DARE TO DEFY ME!?'' Phillia and Rain looked at him with looks of complete annoyance, almost certainly wishing he'd close his mouth.

Despite that wish from his two closest friends, he kept on going. ''Well, guess you aren't one of the nice gods then. Let me guess, god of fire or lava?''

''I AM ALAZ, THE FLAME SHOOTER.''

''That's a rubbish name, isn't it? You'd have thought a god would've been able to pick a better name.'' Jet mused, as the orb lit up angrily. Along with Rain and Phillia, who were about to gag him if he provoked the monster again... ''Still though, with a name like that, you'll have humanity on its knees in no time. We're a malleable bunch really, all that fear of fire... you'd think we hadn't evolved in the past few million years.''

''I WILL FEED ON THE LAND ABOVE! I AM THE GOD OF ALL FIRE ON THIS WORLD, AND I SHALL RETURN TO IT SOON! HUMANITY CANNOT STOP MY FEAST!'' The ''god'' bellowed theatrically, as Jet grinned.

''And that was exactly what I needed to know! Ta muchly!'' Jet gave a grin at the orb, before turning to the two girls, and pointing towards the door. ''And now... we run!''

Needless to say, that was exactly what the trio did, leaving the ''god'' alone once again.

''RISE, MY STONE GUARD! KILL THE HERETICS!'' The ''god'' called, and suddenly the trio found themselves running even faster through the door...

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Leaving the cavern, Rain had decided that she wasn't going on holiday after this boss was dead. Looking over at Phillia, she had a sneaking suspicion that she would be more than okay with a vacation after this was over and done with too. The same couldn't be said for the male member of the trio, who despite everything, seemed to be loving the situation they found themselves in, a small smile on his face as he talked to himself. ''So that gives us a bit more to work with, it's planning to detonate the volcano, and create some kind of hospitable environment for itself. I was right, it is a bit of a rubbish god. Not exactly the primordial force I'd have expected.'' Jet spoke to himself, as he made notes in his message window. Unbeknownst to him, she and Phillia were staring at him, and for good reason...

''Did you seriously just taunt a god into revealing its plan?'' Phillia asked, a sense of complete disbelief in her voice at the sheer audacity on display. She didn't blame her; she'd been there and she didn't quite believe it either!

Jet gave a smile and a thumbs up in response. Seriously, she wondered just how he'd come up with that plan. It was insanity personified, it made little to no sense, to the point that even a madman would've disavowed it, and it shouldn't have worked by any rationale whatsoever... and yet, it had. All things considered, it had been a plan with the word ''Jet'' written all over it.

Her musing on the intricacies of the plan were soon interrupted, as a rumbling came from the cave floor, her thoughts passing to that developing situation instead. Two days they'd been on this floor, and in that time, they'd been in a landslide, burnt, chased, burnt again, soaked, scared witless, attacked by statues that weren't, turned into statues, and now they'd annoyed a god. Even by their standards, it had been a hectic 48 hours!

''I don't get it though, volcanoes can't just be detonated like a bomb. It involves shifting tectonic plates, and all things like that...'' Phillia took a seat on a nearby rock, and almost immediately regretted it, the scorching hot rock burning her backside, and singeing her skirt slightly.

''To be fair, we don't know how Aincrad itself works. There had to have been something that detonated that volcano before, right?'' She questioned, and noticed Jet smiling at her, a look of pride on his face. She made a note in that moment to ask him not to do that, it was kind of unnerving, especially when they weren't out of the woods yet... or the volcano, even. On that note, she looked around at the chamber they found themselves in... they'd thrown themselves into a corner.

''Maybe, but then again, we don't know how long ago that was. Maybe it was pre-separation?''

''I suppose, but I have another question.'' Phillia's confused tone had been replaced by a more serious one. ''Jet, you've been... off since we got here. When we were back in the village, you snapped. Koharu told me about that whole berserker thing, but that wasn't it. If I didn't know better, I'd say that wasn't a violent outburst, that was outright sadism.''

''Yeah, I... I don't know why, but something in my head just went into overdrive.''

''Is that why you've been acting like... well, that?''

''I let Koharu get hurt, because I wasn't taking things as seriously as I should've been. The whole ''talk like your life depends on it'' thing, that's me reminding myself of the person I want to be, not what I am.''

''The person you want to be?''

''Call them a role model, if you will. Someone who fights for what's right, damn the consequences to themselves. Someone who won't just snap like that.'' Jet clicked his fingers.

''If it helps, I think you'd be kind of stupid to be like that. It's a nice ideal, sure, but what happens when the day that what's right is that one of us has to die, to save everyone else? Could you really handle that?''

For the first time in a long time, Jet didn't have an answer for that and remained quiet, whilst Phillia looked for an exit. For Rain, it felt kind of disconcerting to see the usually talkative knight completely silent, working through things in his head. Even his breathing had become quieter, and he almost refused to bring his head up from his hands...

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Minutes passed by, and the strange silence in the air was punctuated only momentarily with grunts and sighs from Phillia, who had taken to climbing the walls around them to find some kind of exit. Much to her annoyance, they were stuck down here, with a pissed off wannabe god outside, and a moping knight. Even messaging Argo to check on Koharu had gotten nothing, suggesting that they found themselves in some kind of anti-messaging area.

She really hated Kayaba right now, that much was certain.

''Absolutely nothing. Not a single way out of here that isn't past that thing out there. We really are trapped.'' She accepted, sitting on the floor to avoid another scorched backside.

Rain seemed just as quiet as Jet, but that was nothing new to her. Not that the redhead was ignorant, but she seemed to consider her words a lot more careful, and only really spoke when talked to. This would become one of those exceptions, ''Guess this is it, huh?''

''I'm sorry, to both of you. I shouldn't have been so cocky, and we wouldn't have been in this mess.'' Jet sighed from across the room, his voice only barely audible.

For some reason, she found that mildly amusing. To see Jet of all people apologising for his attitude, well, maybe there was chance that the room outside had frozen over...

''Whatever you are! You shall not harm the players of this world! I shall see to that!''... Well, the room hadn't frozen over, but the attitude on display outside could certainly have been described as frosty. As could the person that said attitude belonged to. From across the room, Rain suddenly sprung to attention.

''Sanya!? What's she doing here?'' At that moment, Jet appeared to pull himself out of his moping, and snap back to something resembling his usual attitude.

''Whatever it is, she's got the bugger's attention.''

''We aren't leaving her here.'' Rain stated, moving to face off with Jet. In Phillia's eyes, that was certainly a strange thought - those two actually being confrontational with each other?

Or at least it would've been, had Jet not given off the first sincere smile he'd managed since earlier in the evening... ''Never said we were. Let's go get her backside out of the fire...'' Jet announced, an odd sense of confidence radiating off him. She almost laughed at the declaration; it was only two minutes ago that he'd been moping, and now, he was almost back to normal. As if someone, somewhere had slapped some sense into him...

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Sanya found herself absolutely despising Akihiko Kayaba. Of course, that was nothing new, nor was it a unique mindset to have in the world of Aincrad, but today, it certainly fit. She stared down the hovering orb in the middle of the room, as it pulled lava into itself from conduits in the walls and floor, along with pulling rocks of various shapes and sizes from the walls to form... something.

If she had to face this behemoth, she had no delusions of success. She would die, that much was certain. In her current state, her shoulder was still broken, the status effect having not worn off yet, although the pain had reduced somewhat throughout the time she'd found herself in this room.

Still, she would not go down without a fight, and she reached for her sword. If this was to be her final battle, she would at least make it a good one...

''Oi, Fireball XL-5!'' Came an unwelcome voice from another side of the chamber. Of course, he would find himself here alongside the others, she thought, before she glanced over. Rain and the ginger girl - Phillis, maybe? - were present, but Koharu was conspicuously absent. She may have had a complete disdain for them, and their usual tactics... or lack of them, but she found Koharu to be a pleasant girl, and she often found herself wondering if she deserved better, so it would've been a shame had anything happened to her.

''THE HERETICS! YOU DARE SHOW YOURSELVES!? MY STONE GUARD WILL DESTROY YOU!'' The orb screeched, as the rocks began to form into a body and limbs, the orb acting as a sort of foot to hold the entire construct together.

The construct towered over them, easily rising to four or five times any of their heights, and four dissimilar, but equally dangerous arms protruded from its torso formed of rocks, dirt and lava. Its head was found below its shoulders, with just a single rage filled red eye glaring at them. As it moved, small chunks of debris began to drop from the beast, incinerated by the lava and intense blue flame below...

Needless to say that, even with four of them instead of just herself, no one particularly felt obliged to take the fight to the creature, and even the usually arrogant tone that Jet had, had all but disappeared, replaced by looks that could be interpreted in many different ways, but with one consistent thought through all of them - ''Oh.'' ''Well, uhh, looks like you may be a bit of a hot head...'' Jet taunted, before turning towards them and mouthing the word ''Run.'' For once, she agreed with him. She may have accepted her fate, but she was in no rush to embrace it! ''If you don't mind, we'll be off now. Toodle pip!''

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Fleeing- no, tactically retreating, he assured himself- for the second time today, Jet felt a sense of deja vu with this boss. He'd recognised the Pyrovile almost immediately, and the statues were clearly someone's copyright friendly take on the Weeping Angels, but the Flame Shooter? It felt almost like the enemies before on this floor had been a sort of extended training period.

Though his next question worried him... what were they training for?

That line of questioning was very soon interrupted, as fireballs rained from the ceiling, plummeting towards them engulfed in flames like crashing meteors. This really wasn't fair in such an enclosed space! Much to his unspoken annoyance, Sanya had decided to charge on ahead, the silver haired girl rushing to the door in a desperate attempt to break out of the caverns again. How had it come to the point where he wasn't the headstrong one!?

''Sanya!'' He shouted, spotting the shadow of a fireball descending on them both.

''What!'' She snapped back, fury in her voice. Oh well, better to seek forgiveness than ask permission right now, he supposed. With no warning, he rushed her, throwing her into a corner. ''THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING!'' She screamed, her good arm reaching for his neck, as he backed off slightly. Before he could head back too far, a fireball slammed into the ground they'd previously been stood in, obliterating the floor and igniting the area.

''Saving your life, that's what.'' He shrugged, before he felt a sudden stinging sensation on his cheek. Talk about thanks, he thought bitterly.

''I didn't need it!'' He raised an eyebrow, before rubbing his face. She really didn't want to accept any help, did she? Deciding that continuing the verbal spar with Sanya would likely end up with him being impaled, he turned to face the others at the door. Phillia had a look of surprise on her face, whilst Rain just looked at him sympathetically, and mouthed the word ''Sorry.''

With the correct door open, the group raced into the caves again, with a new destination - the Village. With any luck, the others had stayed put, and...

A girl came into view, a familiar purple tunic with tanned leather armour and a white cloak, whilst her long lilac ponytail and red irises stood out against the darkness, and the dull orange hue of the cave. ''Huh, never far from the action, are you guys?''

''Mito?'' The girl laughed slightly, as she looked at each of them.

''I've found them! They're all okay... a bit singed, but fine!'' She shouted back, as what looked to be a small formation of people came down the tunnels...

{Author's Comments}

Final stretch for Floor 13 now, as the group get ready to fight the Flame Shooter...

As always, if you've enjoyed this, leave a review or send me a PM, and if you want to see more, follow and favourite!

Signing off,

Midland 2541