Chapter 6: Betrayer

The battalion sub-commander scrambled forward toward the archtraitor macrophage immediately after seeing his commander getting decapitated by her hands.

"Comrades! We are betrayed!" He roared as he unsheathed his gladius from his scabbard. "Kill them all!"

A hundred blades and a hundred throats answered his call as the rest of his battalion charged forward with swords and shields at hand.

Like an unstoppable upheaval of stomach acid, they clashed with the cloaked macrophages' line with a frenzied zeal and unbridled fury.

The traitorous maids responded with a blur of their own attack and counterattack as they unveiled together their unholy weapons of war for everyone to despair. Halberds, broadswords, maces, great-axes, and warhammers… They wielded these weapons of war with elegant mastery and finesse, and they battled the surging KT cells with an unnatural glee for carnage.

Screeching and crackling of blades echoed throughout the plaza, with the two battle lines quickly descending into a brutal fight that the world had never seen before.

-0-0-0-

The KT sub-commander clashed with Lady Em as he allowed his rage to fuel his attacks. A blade master by his own right, he fought the archtraitor with a flurry of thrusts and slashes of his sword, but she parried each blow with ease.

After decapitating the head of his commander, the linen wrap that covered her weapon fell off, revealing a large retractable scythe with an obsidian blade and an unholy name…

Plagueharvest.

He ducked a wide arching swing aimed for his head, immediately shifting his footing to deliver a hit trained directly at Lady Em's chest. The traitorous macrophage swerved to her right, barely evading his blade before quickly launching her own counterattack. Sword and scythe both shriek and clang each time their metallic edges kiss.

"You fight well, sub-commander," Lady Em giggled. She twirled Plagueharvest as if it weighed no less than a stick. "Your commander will be proud of you."

"Talk is cheap, traitor!" He snarled as he lunged himself again towards her.

The macrophage leader responded with a high-pitched cackle.

-0-0-0-

The battle between the two immune cell factions would serve as a preview of the carnage that would yet unfold in other parts of the world.

Battle lines were drawn by the heaps of corpses of the first of the attacking KT cells piling up under the boots of the cloaked macrophages.

Bouts of deranged laughter could be heard coming out from the ranks of the battle maids, but their beefed-up muscled enemies responded with their own roars of rage. The macrophages held their ground, with each maid fighting three or more opponents at a time, swinging and pummeling their heavy melee weapons, and shattering shields, blades, and membranes in their wake.

The macrophages seemed to be invincible, but the KT cells were determined to prove to everyone that these traitors bleed. Retreat and cowardice did not exist in a KT cell's vocabulary, and those first to die did so fighting them with ruthless abandon.

"Death to traitors!" bellowed a KT cell before a battle maid cleaved him in half with her broadsword, his riot shield regrettably useless in stopping her onslaught, but barely useful enough to delay her recoil for a millisecond.

The infinitesimal delay cost the macrophage her life, the first to fall of her kind, as four KT cells descended upon her from all directions, and stabbing her repeatedly with their gladius swords.

The battle maid screamed with agony, but she still fought on, and even managing taking down two of her attackers before a sword to the eye silenced her, and the rest of her killers soon followed when one of her sworn sisters obliterated them with her warhammer.

"We are the maidens of death!" the macrophage wielding the massive hammer heckled. Her hood had fallen off from her head, revealing a sickly pale face, black lips, and ruby eyes… A far cry from her former dignified, elegant self. Her usual white cap had now been replaced with a horrifying beret with thorns and spikes protruding everywhere on its surface. "We are death incarnate!"

The nearby KT cells answered her with the clashing of their swords.

-0-0-0-

Explosions boomed and blossomed around the battlefield as the rearguard of the macrophage entourage began to split up from the fighting in order to wreak destruction at nearby blood vessels and cell walls with krak-grenades and melta-bombs. A few of the deranged maids even moved to conduct genocide by culling non-immune cells who have failed to flee from the fighting.

Screams of the dying filled out the air with the walkways of the streets and surrounding blood vessels running red from the spilled fluids of a thousand victims.

Neutrophils who waited in the sidelines observing the stand-off between the two immune cell factions now moved to confront the murderous macrophages, buying more time for the non-immune cells to escape. They fought with the same fervor as their lymphocyte comrades, and they similarly got mowed down by the traitorous maids. Still, they fought on with no care for their own selves or their own security.

"Into the liver!" an older veteran neutrophil shouted as he guided the scrambling red blood cells to take shelter inside the liver. "Get inside no-"

His receptor tingled, and he immediately turned, just in time to deflect the attack of a glasses wearing macrophage with his daggers.

"It is no use to run!" she bellowed at the running red blood cells while delivering successive slashes of her sword, all aimed at the neutrophil's throat. "The end is near, accept your deaths!"

"Shut up!" the veteran neutrophil shot back. He moved and parried her slashes and then delivered quick thrusts of his daggers at her vital points. "You cannot out best me!"

Fifteen seconds later, she did.

-0-0-0-

U1146 leaped forward toward the back of a distracted macrophage, plunging his dagger deep into her neck.

Foul smelling ichor burst out from the wound, spraying the neutrophil's grey uniform with the color of crimson.

The battle maid craned her neck as if to scream, but only bile and ash came out from her mouth.

She started to stagger. She swung her ax wide in continued defiance, but it lacked both precision and force to fend off her opponents. Wasting no time, the helmeted cell rammed her on the side with his shoulder, body slamming her down into the ground.

Her face contorted with rage, but the helmeted KT cell shoved his palm on her mouth as he proceeded to stab her again and again in the belly. In a moment of frenzy, the rest of her opponents descended upon her to take turns in thrusting their swords into her body, drenching her clothes with her own cellular fluids.

The battle maid met a brutal end, but her killers wanted more. Immediately, they scrambled toward the front line seeking for more traitors to kill.

The helmeted KT cell gave U1146 a nod before running toward the next macrophage to battle.

U1146 breathed heavily as his hands started to shake uncontrollably. He could feel his cytosol burning with anger as he watched his world descend into utter chaos.

A hundred questions in his head demanded at him for answers, but he ignored them all as he mustered all his mental strength to only focus on the reality before him.

Lady Em and her entourage had turned traitor.

They must be eliminated.

He tightened his grip on his two daggers to steady himself. The fighting had turned more frantic with the lines buckling and shifting depending on the chaotic rhythm of battle. Clouds of dust and explosions colored the battlefield with KT cells shuffling everywhere in order to fill up ranks that were utterly decimated by the traitorous maids.

U1146 gritted his teeth. He took a couple of steps toward the front line, but then he stopped. A sudden chill coursed through his body which made him completely still. An emotion deep within him burst out from inside screaming at him not to go.

He shook his head to make himself focus only on the fight ahead, but the feelings inside him only grew in intensity.

He had never felt such a strong and debilitating emotion before, and he knew it was not because he was afraid of dying. He was a neutrophil, fear was a foreign emotion for him, and yet something within was keeping him from going to the frontlines.

He forced his right leg to move forward, but again his body stopped him. He snarled in frustration at himself as he saw more KT cells getting obliterated by the traitorous maids.

I'm not a coward! He thought loudly. I don't fear anyone… I don't fear-

He stopped at mid-thought.

A single drop of sweat fell down his forehead as realization finally dawned on him.

Wait…

He turned his head toward the entrance of the blood vessel tunnel where he popped out just some minutes ago.

Oh no… Oh no… Oh no…

For the first time in his life, he finally tasted fear.


A/N:

One wonders what could U1146 saw that made him, a professional killer, scared shitless with terror hehehe. XD

Anyways, I really enjoyed writing this chapter since I love writing hectic and chaotic fight scenes.

Also, this is the first half of the First Plot Point arc that tackles the first large-scale attack of the infected macrophages against the body.

The second half will be released next week, though I have to apologize in advance if I might be delayed in releasing it.

The second half is quite tricky to write, and my work in the office has slowly started piling up. Still, I've been challenging myself to release at least one chapter each week so let's just see.

...

Lastly, so many thanks to all my readers so far. I was surprised to see so many views in my Story Stat, I've never experienced having this so many views before.

I also thank all those who are following and favoriting this Story. It really means much to me to see people appreciating my work. 3

Lastly, lastly, a thousand thanks to all my readers from the US, Canada, and Mexico for being the top 3 countries with the most readers of my story.

Muchas Gracias to you all!


Revision History:

- Originally published on Oct. 12, 2018