Chapter 14 – Crow
The trip back to the ground floor of the Tower was much easier than the trip up; with all of the walls flashing red, light was no longer an issue, so Paem did not have to lead Chrono and Coppelia along. The route was fairly direct, so they dashed down the stairs at top speed and made their way to the gate. Paem opened up the gate with her staff, and she ran out onto the bridge. Chrono and Coppelia followed, and what they saw in front of them surprised them both.
Out in the middle of the open waters of the lake, Chrono saw a huge, red Gate. It had no hint of the usual bluish tint most Gates had. It was a mass of pure, swirling red. Coming out of the Gate, rising out of the sea like a mythological leviathan, was a massive ship. Its majestic sails flew far higher than the Tower; its bulk was as solid as a mountain; its deck was as smooth and flawless as a beach left undisturbed for centuries by everything but the tides; and on its bow there stood an unimaginably grotesque figurehead that looked like a terrible cross between a dragon and an imp. Standing on the bow was a man in a red cloak with a white mask over his face. Behind him stood a woman in a tight purple dress and a pair of darker purple wings, her face twisted into a murderous expression and her hands clutching twin daggers. Next to her there was another man in a long gray cloak but no mask. A brown scarf covered the lower half of his face, and a wide-brimmed hat obscured most of the rest, but his eyes peered through the gap between the two. He carried a large hook in his right hand.
"Three of them?" Paem shouted. "I thought there were two. Something is wrong."
"Are they familiar at all?" Chrono called to her.
"The two in back are, but their leader is not. Never seen him before. This could be really bad."
The man in the red cloak spotted Paem and pointed at her. Chrono, Coppelia, and Paem all stopped running as the ship turned its port side toward the bridge, pushing up in front of it a wave of black water that crashed up onto the bridge and lapped at Chrono's feet. Shortly, with a flash, a yellow magical platform materialized between the bridge and the ship, an otherworldly boarding plank. The three figures at the head of the ship walked slowly over to the plank. Ahead of them poured an army of uniformed imps wielding scimitars.
"I see you have a sword, Chrono," said Paem. "I hope you are good with it."
Chrono drew his weapon. "No worries there."
"Mister Chrono, Miss Paem," said Coppelia, "I wish you luck."
"Here is where I tell you not to worry," Paem whispered, just loudly enough to be heard.
The battle commenced when the first squadron of imps charged Paem. She did not flinch. Instead, she chanted for a second and watched as a shadowy snake figure burst from her staff and struck the imps with its fangs, knocking them down through the magical plank and into the water below. They disappeared with a splash. The next squadron angled its course away from Paem and toward Coppelia. She met them with a lightning fast retreat followed by a dash from the side and a pummeling with her fists. The lead imp went flying into those behind it, and Coppelia gave chase, continuing to pound them until they all fell over the brink into the lake. A third squadron took aim at Chrono, but he easily parried the blows from their swords and hit them with a lightning spell. The entire squadron vaporized before his eyes.
Chrono yelled up at the deck: "You can send these guys all day and we aren't even going to break a sweat. Come down and fight us!"
The man in the red cloak laughed and waved his hand, sending a fireball hurtling at Chrono. Chrono batted it away with his sword and turned his attention back to the imps.
"I guess we're going to have to kill all them, then," he said.
"These are just to tire us out," said Paem. "The ones remaining on the ship are far stronger."
Chrono tightened his grip on his sword. "Then I'll hold back a little. No reason to waste all my energy on imps, even if they do have fancy uniforms. Who are those other guys, anyway?"
Paem shook her staff above her head and called forth an explosion of shadow to ward off a group of imps before she replied. "The lady in purple is an assassin known as Plum Blossom. She is quick and deadly. The man in the hat is a sorceror called Yu the Fisherman. He snares his opponents' souls with magic and tears their bodies asunder with his hook. It is not something you wish to see."
"I'm almost sorry I asked," said Chrono. "Still, I have no intention of losing to them."
"Please be careful," said Paem.
When the last imp fell into the lake (courtesy Coppelia), Chrono looked back at the man in red. "You're out of imps, are you?"
Chrono received no reply. Instead, he heard a rumbling as a hatch to the lower decks burst open and a new group of pirate demons charged all at once for Chrono and his friends. These, however, were not imps.
"Reptites?" said Chrono. "Where did they come from?"
"Never mind what they are," said Paem. "Just get ready. These are tougher."
"I've faced them before," said Chrono. "I'm not worried."
In fact, Chrono found the next wave of attackers even easier to fend off than the first; his lightning magic startled and stunned the Reptites en masse, enabling his companions to slaughter the few that survived each blast. Coppelia got the idea to break pieces of the bridge off from the ground and hurl them at distant targets, making the Reptites' progress even more difficult. The entire wave of them perished before any could cross the boarding plank.
With the Reptites gone, the man in red actually applauded.
"Well done, Paem," he said in a voice that sounded very human yet very sinister. "I didn't think you had it in you to win by yourself, but I guess you found some new friends."
"New friends?" said Chrono. "What's he talking about?"
Paem blinked. "Sajo and Mal? What have you done with them?"
"We've distracted them," the man said. "If they even survive, they won't be around to trouble us until we're completely finished here. They won't be coming to your rescue. Your pitiful substitution for them will not be able to save you. I'll have your key now."
Chrono's face flushed with anger. "Pitiful? You call that pitiful? You sound like a sore loser."
The man laughed again. "We haven't lost. We've only just begun the first step in our conquest. Surely you don't think the scum we've already thrown at you represents even a minute fraction of our military might, do you? You've got to be even dumber than I thought. Soon I'll have the Golems, and then I'll have it all!"
"Golems?" said Chrono.
"The Golems are our miners," said Paem. "I'll tell you more after this battle."
"Golem miners? That's a new one." Chrono readied his sword.
"Who are you, anyway?" Paem shouted at the man. "It's usually just those two punks."
"I am a man of many talents," he replied. "For now, you can call me Crow, the Angel of Death."
"Should not a crow be dressed in black, not red?" Coppelia taunted.
"This cloak is red like the blood I spill," said Crow. "You do bleed red, don't you?"
Coppelia clenched her fist and glared at Crow. "If you wish to know that, you should come down here and fight with us."
"My warriors will have at it first," said Crow.
With that, Plum Blossom stepped out onto the plank. Yu followed her, floating about a foot off the ground.
"Let's stay back a ways," said Paem. "You don't want one of these guys doing to you what we did to the imps. It's a long way down to the water, and it's even farther back to dry land."
Plum Blossom attacked first. She leaped into the air, spread her wings, and glided across to the bridge. When she was directly above Chrono, she dove for him. Chrono managed to flip out of her way, half expecting her to crash into the ground, but she turned herself over, landed gracefully, and charged without even stopping to balance herself. Before Chrono could ready a counter maneuver, however, Coppelia kicked Plum Blossoms's legs out from under her and sent her sprawling.
Meanwhile, Yu sent a blast of magical energy flying for Paem, who had been watching his chant and anticipating the attack; she blocked it with a reflection spell and sent it back at him. What she failed to anticipate was that he would cast another reversal and send the spell in a third direction. Paem barely had time to shout a warning before the attack struck Coppelia square in the middle of her back and sent her rolling on her side over to the far edge of the bridge.
Chrono saw Plum Blossom's temporary incapacitation as an opening, so he went into the start of his Confusion Technique. He took a deep breath and circled around his opponent, engaging in a mad flurry of feints with four actual strikes mixed in. Plum Blossom managed to spring back to her feet fast enough to catch Chrono's hands, with the intention of plunging a dagger into them, but Chrono reacted by kicking her in the side and sending the both of them flying in opposite directions.
Chrono landed awkwardly and lay still for a few dangerous seconds, but Plum Blossom redirected her attention to Coppelia, who was in even more dire straits. She hadn't yet recovered from Yu's attack, and suddenly she had Plum Blossom bearing down on her. Just before Plum Blossom struck, however, Coppelia stood up on her hands, kicked her feet above her and planted both of them in Plum Blossom's torso. This didn't slow Plum Blossom down, but it won Coppelia enough leverage to flip back onto her feet and into a position to dodge.
"Have you seen Miss Orchid?" she asked her opponent.
"Insolent!" Plum Blossom hissed. "You talk to me in the midst of battle?"
"Have you seen Miss Orchid?" Coppelia repeated. "I must ask everyone, even those who wish me harm. I have lost her, and I must find her again."
"I doubt you really know Orchid," said Plum Blossom. "She never mentions you."
Coppelia stopped. "You know her, then? Mister Chrono, Plum Blossom the Assassin says she knows Miss Orchid."
Chrono ran over to Coppelia and smacked Plum Blossom across the back with the hilt of his sword. "If you know something, you'd better tell us."
"Fools!" Plum Blossom shrieked, and she batted Chrono's hand away with her wings and somersaulted behind Coppelia.
Without even looking, Coppelia hopped backward and kicked Plum Blossom in the face. Dizzy, Plum Blossom hobbled back and attempted to steady herself. Coppelia used the opening to tear the daggers away from her and hold them up to her throat.
"If you must know," said Plum Blossom, "Orchid is preparing an assault on the western desert. It's too late to stop her. She'll be gone before you can even get there. Does that make you happy?"
"An… assault?" Coppelia let her voice trail off. She landed a blow to Plum Blossom's head, knocking her unconscious, and she stuck the spoils of the battle—the daggers—into her belt.
"We're good over here!" Chrono shouted at Paem.
"We are… oh, Miss Paem!" Coppelia snapped back to the present and ran over with Chrono to assist their new friend.
Paem needed no help, however. She seemed to be more than a match for Yu the Fisherman to the point where she had wrested his hook out of his hands and thrown it into the water.
Yu spoke for the first time, permitting his raspy voice to indulge in but a single word: "Retreat."
When Plum Blossom didn't answer, Yu summoned a bit of his magic power to form a Gate under Plum Blossom, warping her to safety back on the ship, while Yu floated back to join her.
Coppelia tugged on Chrono's shirt. "Mister Chrono, did you hear what Plum Blossom said?"
"Orchid is out west," said Chrono. "I heard, so I guess that is where we should go next. After we get rid of this guy, anyway."
Crow cackled from his perch back on the deck of the ship. "You have been quite entertaining, but I think you'll find me even more of a challenge than those other two. I doubt you can even hurt me. You can't fight Death."
"We shall see," said Coppelia. "Both Mister Chrono and I have something to fight for."
"Hey," said Paem, "so do I! I have my town and my friends and my factory, not to mention my key. I have everything on the line."
"I did not intend to leave you out, Miss Paem," said Coppelia.
"I'm sure you have all the reasons in the world to fight," said Crow, "but those never mean anything in the end. I always win, whether a town is at stake or an entire kingdom. I am Death, Destroyer of Worlds. This place is naturally mine! If you won't hand over the key to the Golem factory, I'll have to take it."
"You just sound like a windbag to me," said Chrono. "If you're so strong, why do you wait back there?"
Crow pulled a long sword from under his cloak and pointed it at Chrono. "You will be the first to die." Then he charged.
First, he attacked Paem. As she readied herself for a blow from his sword, he whipped his other arm around fired off an attack spell that caught her off guard. Paem's knees buckled, and she collapsed on the ground. Crow then came for Coppelia, charging with his sword in front of him. When he reached her, she attempted to dodge his magic attack, but he corrected for her dodge and fired off to the side, connecting squarely and knocking her onto her back. As if he knew that she had a very short recovery time, he raised his hand in to the air and willed a magical explosion in the ground under Coppelia. A hail of rocks shot into the air and fell back onto her crumpled body, pinning her down.
Crow then turned to Chrono. Once again, he charged with his sword in front of him, but this time he actually tried striking with his sword. Chrono correctly guessed his move and parried the blow, and he also dodged back before Crow could kick him while their swords were locked. Crow charged again, and once again Chrono parried him. Crow changed his strategy for his third charge and attempted a magical strike, but Chrono counterattacked and raked his sword across Crow's midsection. Crow cried in agony but began yet another charge. He struck with his sword again, and once again Chrono parried him.
"You are good," said Crow. "You remind me of someone I faced in Kalinovo, only faster. I'll enjoy killing you even more than I enjoyed killing him."
"I won't… oooph!" Chrono, distracted by Crow's speech and his own efforts to remember the place named Kalinovo, took a blow to the chin and fell backwards. Crow kicked Chrono's sword away, stood over him, and laughed.
"Defenseless?" Crow mocked, lilting his head to one side.
"No." Chrono closed his eyes, lifted his hands over his hand, and shouted the name of a spell he had not cast in years.
"Luminaire!"
The air ripped apart with a resounding zap. A blast of light devoured both Chrono and Crow, and then all sounds and sights stopped.