Chapter 71: To Slay a Beast
Perspective: Kay/Fire
I had given up trying to be quiet. All around me, this branch quivered here, or that owl hooted there, or a gust of wind set the bushes cackling at my efforts to remain quiet whilst an unseen fox whined in something I hoped might have been sympathy. Amidst all that cracking, whooshing, snapping, and howling, it really didn't matter if I stepped on the odd twig or jostled the odd shrub. The only pretense of stealth I kept was the cloth I held over the glowing scanner, occasionally lifting it to ensure I kept moving in the right direction.
That's not to say I was at ease though… I'm not quite sure what I felt. On the one hand, every time I heard a sound I couldn't be certain I recognised, I would whirl around, sword in hand, teeth bared like an animal and my heart hammering away so violently it should have knocked me flat on my back. In every shadow I could have sworn I saw… well, Shadow, waiting to eviscerate me as she had My Book. And every change in the wind seemed a prelude to another attack from Astro.
"Piece of shit!"
The phrase echoed in me, and each time I reached up to the cracked right lens of my goggles for reasons I didn't quite want to understand. Maybe I just couldn't believe I'd not only alienated myself from Helix, but that this alienation had been expressed in the sort of grand, symbolic gesture I'd thought only existed in old tragedies. Accordingly, I'd believed myself to be the last speaker of this dead language - apparently, I'd taught it to him as well - perhaps the last thing I'd ever teach him.
I felt my legs, chilled by the night, grow sluggish and weak. I steadied myself on a tree. A searing pain shot through the knee which Claw had broken - a wound I thought I'd cast off.
All these fragments of what I'd done suddenly coalesced - sank right into me. I had been given power, political, magical, personal, and I'd used it to almost kill a child. My breath became thick, wheezing, as though I were drowning in mud. I could have built them a kingdom like none other if only I'd kept them with me! If only I'd kept my reliance on the Book under control! If only I'd kept them from her influence. And now my crown lay broken, and all my charms overthrown…
But no! They would understand once I did this. Once I killed Claw. That I had always been working towards victory. That, fool though I was, I had always had their best interests at heart. I had to do this. For Destiny, in case she failed to kill the Entity. For all of them. And if Shadow wanted to kill me, she could go ahead. Perhaps Fire had been right when he said martyrdom was nothing to be afraid of. A new phrase began to echo:
"...it is a natural part of everybody's life."
But all my thoughts stopped in their tracks as I saw it. A fence. Steel, barred, very high, gleaming in the moonlight. The bars sat too close together for me to get more than a fist through. Nausea swept through me at the thought of climbing it in my condition. Then, I noticed the architects had added a few horizontal bars at intervals for good measure. Thanking the mods for these prospective footholds, I began to climb.
I made it no further than two rungs up before the weight of my armour and the pain in my injured knee brought me back to earth. I landed on my knees, with my armour giving off a worryingly glassy sound - perhaps I had picked up something in disrepair - but a quick glance revealed nothing had broken yet. And, not seeing any activity beyond the fence, I knelt there for a while, panting and groaning silently.
Eventually, I stood up. I reached into one of my pockets and produced an ender pearl. I had hoped to use it to escape if I alerted anyone, but apparently this is what I actually needed it for. I readied to pitch a throw, only for my shoulders to violently spasm in objection. I hadn't realised just how much I had been relying on My Book to keep me going - how far I had pushed myself. Instead, I slid my hand through the fence, and, quaking, dropped the ender pearl onto the ground. It shattered. Nothing happened.
"Different world, different rules," I sighed.
It took a few minutes of steeling my resolve, but I forced myself to climb that fence, my teeth clenched together so tightly I could have sworn they'd just fused together by the end of it. Finally, I landed on the ground on the other side and fell to one knee again, in a gentle, glassy rattle. I fought the urge to punch my injured knee, both because I was afraid of my armour's condition and because I was afraid of attracting any of the house's servants or defenders.
"Alright," I calculated. "The signs on the nearby road called it Graves Manor. 'Manor', to me, suggests servants. Moreover, I can't rule out the possibility that the Tower have deployed people to guard Fire. Or, I suppose, Graves as I should be calling him. But what's his first name… Oh, I'm about to break into his house and kill what's left of him for mods' sake, common courtesy isn't a top priority."
I loped cautiously across the lawn towards Graves Manor. It was a large, angular, three-story building of strange make. Much of its walls were made of glass, which reflected much of the moonlight in large, diagonal white bands. What remained appeared made from a smooth, gray material. At the centre of the manor was a block housing the main entrance, its second and third stories were largely replaced by a roof balcony. Connected to the central block were two wings, both identical, topped by slanted roofs. The entire thing rested against a sheer rock face, making it look small by comparison even though it could probably house at least a dozen people and their servants very comfortably.
I was approaching a side door on the central block, hand drifting slowly closer towards Apotyre. The door was much like the rest of the manor, a pane of the same reflective glass dominating most of its surface. The rest of it was either made from or plated in polished steel, including the handle.
I stopped to the left of the door and finally drew the blade Apotyre. I contemplated the obsidian cladding on the flat as though it were a dark mirror. This was the last of the equipment Herobrine had bestowed upon me, the sword I had been awarded for my service at Arcadia, and which I had used at Zine Craft. This was the last physical evidence of General Kay Mandy, the Lap Dog of Herobrine, great hero.
I closed my eyes, tensed my body, and rammed my elbow into the glass. Both glass and armour shattered. Blood ran down my elbow, but I successfully breached the pane. I quickly reached through the hole and opened the door, sweeping in with Apotyre before me.
A quick scan of the room revealed no one, but that could change quickly, particularly if there were Endlings involved. I hugged the wall as I advanced, patting it with the palm of my hand to remain grounded. Then, my hand touched something hard and smooth. It clicked. Light revealed the entrance hall, it was wide open, and its ceiling got taller towards the back. Polished marble tiles covered the floor. I saw a staircase to either side, leading up to the second floors of each wing. The walls were lined with display cases with large photographs above them, each lit by its own lamp. There were also some dark glass hemisphere fixtures higher up on the wall, which I assumed to be decorative. At the back of the entrance hall was a massive vault door, apparently made from solid metal.
Seeing no obvious opposition, and hearing no immediate sounds of reaction, I went up and tapped the vault door with my knuckles out of curiosity. I wondered what he could be hiding in there - and whether this could be the place he sat hidden. Seeing no obvious way to open the door other than a panel full of numbers and a flashing image of a hand, I decided to come back to this later, once I had a notion of what it was.
I also conducted a brief inspection of one of the display cases to see if it might be useful or informative. It had some sort of oblique weapon inside, made of metal and with many moving parts. A plaque and a photograph explained its purpose. Not much of it made sense to me, but it was a prototype, and it had been used in active service.
"So, the Graves really were warmongers," I reassured myself with a flourish of Apotyre.
I approached the stairs toward the left wing, reasoning the bedchambers were more likely to be upstairs and arbitrarily choosing between left and right. I passed more inventions. Some of them reinforced the mental image I wished to have of the Graves. Canisters with ominous symbols on the side. A model of an older version of the manor, still similar to how it was now but with a decidedly different style, something about it gave off a sinister feeling.
But then there were others, which unsettled my resolve. A device apparently designed to deliver medicine to troops. An electrified baton specifically designed to enable non-lethal capture. And, after climbing the stairs, a great number of photos of people of whose identity I could not be entirely certain. One caught my eye, a family photo exactly as tall and twice as wide as my torso. But not a complete one. The parents were there, cool and superior, like so many of the aristocrats who had snubbed me in Mojang, after I had helped to save their nation, to restore it to glory. I felt my grip tighten until my fingers seemed to sink into the handle of Apotyre. Between them, a small girl… barely two years old, pale with dark hair and oddly piercing green eyes.
I knew immediately that this was my enemy, the architect of my downfall: Shadow. I breathed a sharp, quivering, furious breath and strode onto the landing. There was a long line of doors on the right-hand side, with only windows on the left. I rushed forward and began to open the doors with barely any regard for silence or stealth. A bathroom. A spare bedroom. Another bedroom. A sort of lounge or living room. No one in any of them. And each door I lurched towards hurt my body more, and each empty room left my mind wilder with anger. And I kept seeing more and more of those decorative hemispheres all over the ceiling, in between various skylights.
Fortunately for my poor body, I ran out of wind and began to reassess my method. I realised that all the rooms I had opened thus far had been guest or spares, so perhaps the ones actually in use were at the end. I flourished Apotyre and rushed down in a hobbling mess of ragged breath and clattering armour.
I threw open the last door at the end of the corridor and froze up. There she was. Dark hair, pale skin, eyes closed, sitting in a high-backed chair in front of an arrangement of glowing screens. She looked so much more fragile here. I couldn't help but feel a little cheated. The only thing I could recognise about her was a slight look of detachment as she slept, as though the whole process meant rather little to her.
I felt my sword-arm rise instinctively but I suppressed it. I'd needed to see this, but it was not why I was here. I thought of Destiny, almost certainly dead by now, either by the Entity's hand or by Freak's. And I couldn't think of a more noble way to go out. She had won herself some glory there, and I would try to build it further. Even if the Tower didn't lose its head that night, it had to lose its hand, or all of my… all Destiny's efforts would have been for nothing.
I straightened up one last time and tried the next door over. The telltale glow of the screen was visible immediately, so I threw the door open, sword held aloft and letting out a terrible, glorious cry of war. Imagine my disappointment when I saw the chair empty. I fox-walked up to the screen.
"Logged out," it said.
A second screen showed the door I'd just entered through, wide open and letting its faint glow spill out into the hall. I could even see the heel of my boot.
I felt a chill overtake me. My knee surged with pain. I struck it and steadied myself. The purpose of the hemispheres was finally clear to me. I marched out into the hall and with a rage-fueled blow cracked the nearest hemisphere and tore out the surveillance device within. I threw it to the floor and crushed it underfoot. As I panted, I felt my strength begin to wane. But then, I heard a creaking.
A door, just ajar. And a momentary glint of light I could have sworn was an eye.
"Come on out," I panted. "And tell me where he is."
No response.
"Listen, you're looking at a man who really doesn't have much left to lose. You're going to tell me where the Graves brother is, or I'm going to slowly kill you while you tell me."
I took a step toward the half-closed door.
"I don't know if you're hiding or if this is supposed to be an ambush, but it is not succeeding."
Two more steps. I got ready to force the door the whole way open. I fully expected whoever this was to try and jump me as I entered. So, I intended to open and spring back, hopefully catch them off guard.
"Sod it, I'm coming in."
I shunted the door forward and leapt back. As predicted, they attacked almost immediately.
A man, in some kind of leather jacket, rushed out with a rubber baton. I dodged to the side, but the blow caught my shoulder-guard and it shattered like disused pottery. With a grunt of annoyance, I grabbed his wrist and the back of his head and slammed him into the opposing wall. With my assailant disoriented I threw him back into the middle of the hall.
"Where is the Graves brother?" I asked.
Before he could respond, I smacked him across the jaw so hard the gauntlet cracked. A crude technique, but it had worked for me before. Ask the questions while you're still hitting them, so they know what to say to make you stop. I felt my knee begin to ache again but powered through.
"Where did you put him? Is he down in that vault?"
He swung back, but I danced backwards. I booted him in the chest, and he fell down. This was too easy.
I took the moment to get a look at him. He looked decently athletic, aged about thirty. Too old to be young, too young to be old. Maybe something to exploit there but I wasn't quite sure what it was. He was more than old enough to work, so I decided to start there.
"What's your stake in this? Did the Tower send you? Are you Graves staff? Because neither are particularly worthy employers."
I jabbed down with Apotyre, partly to show my willingness to kill, partly in the hopes of catching him on the leg and immobilising him. He rolled backwards with surprising explosiveness, his left hand shot to his side. I advanced undaunted.
"The Tower are killers through and through. And these Graves kids talk a good game about how awful their arms-dealer parents are, but fact is they've just made themselves into the weapons. So, you've got to ask yourself," I was almost upon him. "Is the Graves brother worth your life?"
The man's left hand shot upwards. I stepped back. He had some sort of firearm in hand. Now, he had it pointed at my chest, a little green light creating a verdant pinprick on my breastplate right where my heart would be. I halted.
The man smiled. "I don't know Kay, am I?"
"Listen," I said obstinately. "I'm not here to weigh your worth as a person. I'm here to find and kill my enemies' greatest asset. And don't presume you're safe just because you have that trinket pointed at me. You will tell me where he is, or I will kill you."
I tried not to let it show, and maintained a fighting stance, but something was off. The man didn't seem like he'd just gotten the upper hand, he was so calm the fight might as well never have happened. It felt almost familiar… I couldn't stop thinking about taverns for some reason.
"This is my world, Kay. I know way back then in that canyon you said firearms were 'bloody irrelevant' in yours, here they are not."
I felt as though a trapdoor had opened beneath me.
"Fire?" I asked, agape.
"That's in the other world, here I'm Peter Graves."
I stepped back, and felt my leg begin to quiver. My knee joint was boiling hot and felt as though nails were passing through it every second. It should have been audibly hissing with steam and spitting blood.
I scanned 'Peter's' face. The same self-assured, tranquil gaze. Even similar features. The hair, if it had been white, would have been almost identical. Like Shadow, he had green eyes here - the same green eyes. I felt my sword begin to dip. Then, I stopped it.
"No. I fell for this once before. You beat me then, you got the Prophet, Steve 2, you almost killed Astro as well. It won't work again."
I slammed my fist into my injured knee and the expected surge of pain let me steady myself.
A second examination uncovered the beast I had come to kill. That gaze was not tranquil, it was the confidence of a hunter after lesser prey. Those eyes were not the same as Shadow's, they were an envious green, which had watched life from behind another man for far too long.
"It's you, Claw, it has to be."
I rubbed a tear away from my eye.
"You must be Claw."
I put both hands on the grip of Apotyre and lifted it until the blade was nearly touching my hair. The black cladding reflected my face, which in reflection somehow looked still more fierce and furious.
"As commandant of the 10th Legion of the Herobrinian Army, I, Kay Mandy, sentence you to die, beast!"
I rushed forward, roaring my titles. General. Commander. Lap Dog. Hero of Arcadia. King in Ash. All my strength was pouring into this one final swing. I was determined that no matter how powerful this gun was, I would push through the blow, and cleave him in two.
The gun tracked me as I moved in, but he also had the baton ready to swing back. I roared louder still. I launched myself in, feeling as though a thousand gales were trying to keep me from my kill. It was exhilarating. My teeth widened into a mile-wide grin.
Blade connected with baton. Cracks spread across the diamond, then spread to the obsidian. A noise like breaking glass followed. Apotyre shattered and sprayed about. Only a stump of a sword remained. I felt my legs give way. Claw stepped aside. I hit the ground. I couldn't stop staring at my broken sword, the symbol of so much earned, and so much thrown away.
The baton pressed against my neck. I felt the electricity jolt and my entire body tense. Then, the flow of energy stopped, and I fell limp. All went black.
Peter had no idea what Kay had been thinking, not when he decided to come to his world and kill him, not when he threatened who he believed to be a house servant with torture, and certainly not when he decided to put his entire weight into a swing while yelling an incoherent battle cry.
Now Kay lay at Peter's feet, stunned by the electric shock from his baton. But Peter knew better than to rely on electricity to keep Kay down. So, he knelt next to his former second-in-command and pressed an injector to his exposed upper arm, moving it around until the indicator at the back switched from red to green when it identified a vein to deliver its payload into. With a press on the back of the injector, Peter administered a cocktail of chemicals that would keep Kay unconscious for the foreseeable future.
Only after confirming that Kay was out cold, Peter took a breath of relief. The immediate danger was banished, but Kay still believed he was Claw and if there was any hope of getting out of this without anyone dying, Peter had to get that idea out of his mind.
Before moving Kay, Peter carefully removed his armor, taking care to cut neither himself nor Kay on the shards. Then, once that was done, he heaved Kay onto his back and carried him to the nearest lounge. Once there, he put him down on a couch and switched the light on, now finally able to get a good look at Kay's state. Kay's normally pale skin looked practically ghostly, and his wide eyes seemed shut and shrunken. His mane of hair had bits of leaves and twigs and dirt tangled in, and the fringe had separated into various greasy strands. Some blood had dried out in the auburn strands of his beard near the corner of his mouth. The dark patch looked bizarrely vibrant amidst the faintly reddish forest.
"You've seen better days, Kay." He said.
Peter left the room again, thinking the situation over. If he'd had any more time before Kay's attack, he'd have gotten a full set of combat gear from the armory, but with how things went he was only able to use what had been available in his and Shadow's room. The sedative would last for an hour at the very minimum so now he had more time.
Peter inspected his face in the mirror, Kay's gauntleted slap had resulted in a superficial cut and some bruising around his jaw. Peter cleaned the wound and put a plaster on it. With the bleeding taken care of, it was time to fetch some additional things from storage.
He returned to the lounge with his arms full. Now that he had Kay captive, Peter wanted to take no more risks. He immobilized Kay using a specialized set of restraints that was designed for maximum safety and minimum discomfort, intended for high-value captives, which Kay very much was in this situation. The restraints would allow Kay limited movement of his hands, but not enough to get anywhere close to the locks or to attack.
After brief deliberation, Peter also decided to tape Kay's mouth shut, he wanted to talk him out of his murderous intent and Peter was not in the mood for a screaming match.
After double-checking the integrity of Kay's restraints, Peter used a second injector to administer the antidote to the sedative. Now he just had to wait for Kay to wake up.
A few minutes later Kay groggily blinked his eyes open, it took a few seconds before he fully grasped the situation he was in and promptly started screaming into the tape and struggling against the restraints.
Peter sighed. "Hello again Kay. First, let me ask you a question. Do you think you'd be alive right now if I were Claw? I spent a lot of time getting to know him through his eyes and I think if he really was in control, you'd have been dead the moment you stepped foot into the manor."
Kay steadied himself and stopped thrashing against the restraints. Instead, he started trying unsuccessfully to stand up, all while shooting Peter a murderous look. After a few attempts, he gave up, but the look remained, prideful and desperate in equal measure.
Peter continued: "Listen Kay, I'm not in the best mood at the moment since half an hour ago you tried to assassinate me. I'll try to not let it affect me and talk this through. But you need to realize that that's what happened. You tried to kill Claw through me, correct?"
Kay nodded slowly, as if checking the words he just heard for traps. His eyes didn't stop burning.
"Alright. But at some point during all that you seemed to think Claw wasn't in control, but then thought it was Claw after all. Still correct?"
He turned his head away and began to glare out through the nearest skylight. He didn't nod or shake his head.
Peter had always thought that Kay's psyche was a complex one, his time as the King in Ash definitely hadn't helped with this. It was difficult to tell what he believed and what he wanted to believe. He had to tread lightly.
"So, if there was doubt, why did you still attack? Was the risk worth the reward? Or did you come too far to stop?"
He looked back at Peter. For a moment, Peter could have sworn he saw Kay's eyes begin to water, but then they snapped shut. His fingers balled into fists, knuckles turning white as he hunched over.
That was close to the truth then. Peter said: "You know, that time Claw showed up in the portal facility, he was there with a concrete plan in mind. He wanted to antagonize you." He hesitated, not wanting to reveal anything about what Glibby told Claw about Kay's future. "I'm not saying you're some pawn in a grand game, but Claw definitely wanted to provoke a reaction like this. He wanted you to go after someone to prove a point."
Surprisingly, Kay snorted with laughter. He breathed deeply, then looked at Peter with sad, tearful eyes. Then, he lowered them again, and his face began to harden, and his eyes slammed shut again. He gestured to the tape, then the green of his eyes slowly returned to view.
"Alright Kay, I'll take the tape off, and we can talk."
Peter reached over and carefully peeled the tape off Kay's face, it inevitably took some beard hairs with it, but came off otherwise cleanly. After Kay's teeth gritted, his features sank.
"I've done a lot of shitty things, Fire," he said. "I don't need Claw to tell me to do more. Or My Book..."
Peter noticed that, for the first time, Kay had started a conversation using his natural accent. No upper-class affectations which he accidentally slipped out of. No elevated language carried onwards by false energy. Just a coarse, bitter brogue.
"...She died because I wanted to feel strong."
That took Peter by surprise slightly, Kir had said that the Book was "gone", but Kay was "gone" too, but still alive. Evidently the same was not true for the Book.
"Book's dead, huh? I didn't get to catch up on everything that happened in the meantime because…" Peter made a vague gesture into the room. "But in other news, the Entity's gone too. No idea how exactly Destiny did that."
Kay shot Peter a renewed glare as he mentioned the Book, though this was dulled by the news of the Entity's death, like a pile of embers being kicked apart before they could rekindle. Like the embers, he settled for a determined, hopeless glow.
"She was always strong," he said simply. Then, as though trying to remember a dream: "Did trying to kill you buy her any time?"
"Your escape probably ensured she wasn't caught but otherwise, no. I was already out of the Tower when I learned of your intent."
He nodded, though his eyes seemed strangely vacant. He stared up at the skylight again, even though there was nothing but a reflection of the room to look at.
"I think that's what I told myself I was trying to accomplish."
Peter decided to fill Kay in on the rest of the happenings. "Just one issue, the fight isn't over. Freak is impersonating the Entity and the plan is still on track."
Kay lifted his hands and rubbed them over his face. Then, he didn't say anything for a while.
"Is Helix okay?" he asked, finally.
Peter shrugged. "I didn't see him in the brief time I was at the Shelter. From how everyone was acting I assume Destiny drugged everyone with a sedative from my supply. Amanda was there but Helix was not, I assume he needs time for himself, probably hiding."
Kay nodded. A tear ran down his cheek. Then, others.
"I broke a door downstairs on my way in," he said, his upper-crust accent abruptly reconstructed. "You might want to get that fixed. It's probably…" He lifted his hands up to his streaming eyes. "It's probably letting a terrible draft in. I think it was the kitchen."
Peter laughed and shook his head. "I already ordered the replacement for that particular door a month ago as part of the ongoing renovations. Been on a waiting list ever since, logistical bottlenecks are a real problem when ordering through civilian pathways. You found the only door in the entire manor that didn't have armored glass."
Kay, still crying, laughed back from behind his fingers: "First fucking door I tried."
Peter reached for the key to Kay's restraints. "Good thing too, you probably would have shattered enough of your armor to bleed you dry from lacerations trying to break in. But let's get you out of those cuffs, then we can think about what we'll do next."
With practiced motions Peter unlocked the restraints on Kay's arms, legs and the structures holding the entire thing together. Once Kay was fully freed, Peter extended his hand.
Kay took it and rose up, shaking horribly as he did so. He struggled to look Peter in the eye, abruptly shifting his gaze any time they made eye contact and trying to play it off as taking in the room. Eventually, with his back turned to the man he'd just tried to kill, and his eyes fixed on the skylight, he said:
"It's good to have you back, Fire. I've missed you dreadfully."
Peter gestured to the door. "I suppose it's time to go back, however that'll work. We need to get an attack plan against Freak up and running. And we need more soldiers."
"The True Court. And Herobrine. They'll help. I tried to avoid calling on them, because I wanted to believe I didn't need them anymore. That I was finally as strong as they were. They're not… they'll help us, nonetheless. Send Astro, he'll have a better chance than me."
Peter nodded. He had an idea of his own. "Remember when I told you there were more like me, the Mencur-Besh? We don't have a dedicated leader, everything is a product of collective decisions, but since I was present from the very beginning of the collective and helped it grow into what it is, I do have a certain amount of influence. If only by virtue of imparted knowledge and values."
"An army of three meter tall, scaled war machines with claws does sound pretty useful right about now."
Kay managed a fragile smirk which threatened to subside at any moment.
As Peter went to open the door, he heard something out in the corridor, his hand came to rest on the handle. Chances were this was the detachment Tyron had sent after him. Peter still took the baton in his right hand and the pistol in his left, one could never be too careful. He slowly opened the door.
"Stick together," Peter heard Astro say from the stairs. "If he's here, he'll be violent."
Peter put his weapons back on his belt and stepped out into the corridor.
