Chapter 8: March towards death.
"Endlich... vorbei." The seemingly endless onslaught of the Rikishin, which stampeded only a few minutes ago through the countless pipes of the subway, finally came to an end. The soldiers carefully checked themselves and their comrades for any injuries. "Los bringt Pit zum Sani, schnell. Es hat Ihn am Bein erwischt!"
The tallest of the men pulled out a large knife and equably stabbed every single Rikishin. The creatures lay spread throughout the subway, some dead and some grievously injured. When the last Rikishin squalled its last breath, the man cleaned his weapon with a dirtied towel that he kept in his pocket and slowly approached the group of teens.
"So." He began. "Who are you?" Zira frowned and finally let go of the man she had been choking for at least two minutes. "Shut up! Who are YOU and why are we HERE?" Anger and spit smashed against his sweaty face. "Right... If we hadn't brought you down here, you would probably be inside a kharnivean's stomach."
The girl's angry face turned into one of surprise. The two groups kept their distance from each other, wariness and chagrin throbbing through the stuffy air. Kenji gave a long sigh as he approached the tall soldier. "Where are we right now?" The addressed man looked down to the boy, in the back of his head still wondering how this young man managed to shapeshift into a lethal blade, and raised his eyebrow.
"We are within Toamasina's canalisation right now. We ... discovered all of you at the southern coast of Anderovanto and are currently heading towards Antalaha, turbulence included."
"What the flip? Where the hell are Mikune and Damion?" Suzumi flailed. "A second group of us went a different path with two of your group..." Raising her eyebrow, Chaos hadn't dropped her gaze off this man. "Why would you separate... seeing that you can barely withstand these ...things."
"They seemed to have some sort of allergy-like feature when in contact with a kharn's miasma. Our two best medics and a few guards travel via our best support line, with them." The soldier raised his hands and gave a faint smile in hopes of loosening the tense atmosphere. "This entire world is drowning in all kinds of miasma, what kind of bad breath does this kharn thing had to-" Nila was cut short by the soldier.
"A kharnivean is a being of Rikishin origin. We assume it's some sort of hybrid, a crossbreed or whatever. This, truly monstrous, creature bears little resemblance to any beast arisen in nature. It is the organic consequence of a malevolent intelligence bent on creating weapons. The kharnivean is a walking slaughter engine with a deadly payload. Its blighted explosions can rip through our infantry and the walls they hide behind. Once they close with the kharnivean, its heavy talons finish the job begun by its blighted breath. It exhausts a paralyzing gas with every step. And one of those beasts was watching you long enough for the gas to slowly take effect."
The man calmly explained, Nila choked, Kenji and Zira began to sweat, Momo smiled, Chaos chuckled and Suzumi shook her head in disbelief. "We didn't even sense its soul... nothing." "Sense its soul? Ah, oh. Yes of course. Now I understand how you even managed to fight back these Rikishin, and survive." Clapping his hands, the soldier looked back to his group.
"Jungs das sind Verbündete. Meister und Dämonenwaffen, alle samt." Whispering and sudden movement emerged from the remaining men. "Medusa's minions do not possess souls, that's why you could not sense the creature." The voice became louder as his face turned to gaze at Nila and the others again. "Ara ara..." Suzumi robbed her forehead. "I should have stayed behind with Starr and Strike. Waiting in the tower with Donk sounds more comfortable all along..."
The reinforcements from a nearby station arrived when the two groups were all resting on the lower pipes and rocks. A man with countless badges mounted onto his uniform walked amid the squad albeit limping and heavily breathing. "From where am I supposed to get a team together? Conjure them out of my soddin' hat! What, what. How many are left from the german squad? Seven?"
"What do you mean, Goda Konkowo." asked one of the remaining squad members that was revealed as a german hit-squad. "Siegfried wants to send a reconnaissance troop to investigate a nearby bunker complex. Beyond Parkultury. He's windy because of our ammunition dump being nearly depleted. But what troop? Out of all the times he comes up with dumb ideas..."
"Three days have passed. Three bloody days since we've sent them to our neighboring station and no response." The commander felt as if his men where talking behind his back and threw skeptical gazes at him. Even the most intense discussions ceased when he approached, when he got close, and with the tense silence that followed after he had passed, the commander believed he could sense their notion: Justify yourself, what happened with our men.
But all he did was his job. He cared for their safety and welfare of their station whilst guarding the remains of Desertascar's wastelands. He was a strategist but not a twisted tactician. And they were lacking manpower since weeks, how should he be able to cut off even more men and sent them on a mission that could possibly end in a disaster.
"You weak, pathetic humans." Lucian snorted with disgust. "Ever since we have arrived on this pathetic piece of surface you all have been tainting my mood. With Rickter and Draco gone there are no capable cretins left. These german, polian and madagascan soldiers aren't any better!"
"Lucian you pathetic, depressed little bastard!" Nila hissed at the mage. When their gazes met one could feel how their corrupted souls flashed and beamed at another. The insanity-tainted soul of Nila and Lucian's Sway of Magic collided in invisible sparks of tremendous power. Kenji and Momo, sharing a close bond with Nila, could feel how the atmosphere instantly intensified as the two souls clashed.
"Are you Shibusen or Kataki employees?" The soldier who had been talking toZira and the others introduced himself as Mikael. "Shibusen." Suzumi swiftly answered and waved her hands. By doing so she successfully caught the attention of most soldiers whilst Nila and Lucian were being pushed away from each other by Zira and Kenji respectively.
But before their chat, and row, could continue the ceiling itself began to quiver and dust fell down. With rocks shaking and Momo almost tripping, the men around the complaining commander began to panic. "Damnation!" Commander Goda Konkowo roared. "The kharnivean found us! ... Männer, schnappt eure Sachen und nichts wie nach Antalaha. Das ist ein Befehl!" Quickly taking lead alongside the glaring Nila and beaming Lucian, soldier Mikael proceeded to command his squad with german shouts and orders.
Hyped from the sudden hazard, Chaos launched herself forward and quickly caught up with Nila. "Do you feel it too?" she asked. The addressed Pre-Kishin slowly cocked her head. "What do you want Organize?" "The insanity. The madness. It feels as if we are swimming in it, its coursing throughout this entire tunnel." The group now moved as one with a swift walking pace and soon the quaking began to fade.
"Yes, over time we've lost more men because they have succumbed to madness than fighting off these twisted Rikishin beasts." Mikael joined the conversation after overhearing the words 'insanity' and 'madness'. "Veijka, the female Kishin who fought against Dais on this island. She tainted the surface with every bit of her cursed essence. And to this day the remains of her bottomless, utter lunacy pulsates with the wind." The two Pre-Kishins quickly found themselves in utter awe of the godlike powers of the female Afreet.
"I wonder..." Nila carefully began. "How it feels to be a deity of pure insanity." Chaos smirked faintly. "It's ecstasy." Slightly disgusted at the sudden change of niveau, Mikael turned his attention back to Kenji who appeared to be the most normal one of the Shibusen group. "So..." the soldier began whilst falling back to be side by side with the young man. "What is your mission?"
Kenji cleared his throat. "We were brought here from New M. We found a tower called Solaris' Pride and-" "WAS?" The sudden outburst, in german apropos, caused half of the entire running group to halt. "Err what?" The young Demon Weapon looked confused. Did he just say something he shouldn't have? Donk and Khohm never said to keep their discovery a secret, or the mission itself. ... or?
"A Solaris' Pride resides in New Madagascar? Incredible!" cheered Mikael. Even the grim commander Goda began to celebrate. "These towers were constructed by Kataki men in order to contain Dais' and the Kishin wavelengths. We thought the exemplar on Madagascar was destroyed when the island was torn asunder. But..." He raised his eyebrow. "Why are you here and not activating the tower?"
Suzumi laughed nervously and Zira frowned once again. "We can't. The guardian of the tower requires items. And-" "And you are here in order to find them? We will help you of course!" Their race throughout the subways soon slowed down to an average walking pace and when the group left the third merging point behind them, Mikael and Goda allowed their men to waltz and catch some air.
"So we finally found the Solaris' Pride. After sooo many yeeaaars! ... " Goda expanded his hands as if he tried to glomp the entire canalisation of Desertascar. Chaos and Lucian were at the front of the band closely followed by multiple soldiers, Kenji and Mikael. Nila and Momo were somewhere in the center of the mini-platoon. Zira and Suzumi were waltzing behind the now cheerful Goda and at the end were three madagascan veterans. They rotated with who would have to look back to ensure that no one, or better said no thing and nothing was following them.
"Why are you searching for this tower then?" Kenji promptly found a topic. "We were charged by Kataki's higher ups to ensure the completion of the tower located in Madagascar. But as fate decided, our forces were all ... well... quite literally... fan out. And since then we tried to re-locate the tower. Just think about it. The surface is a dried out no-man's-land, the only kind of intercourse possible is by foot beneath the sand. And yet those monsters managed to burrow deep enough to penetrate the walls and occasionally intercept support lines, caravans and in the worst case entire stations."
"Most of our devices and navigation systems failed, we lost contact to HQ, no intel, nothing. We were stranded, a jungle platoon in an island that turned into a vast desert wasteland." A soldier neared the chatting Mikael and Kenji with a grim expression on his face. "Hauptmann, es ist nicht die richtige Zeit, um hier zu sein. An der Station vor uns... da braut sich was zusammen. Die Männer werden zunehmend unsicher und skeptisch."
The addressed Mikael frowned. "Erm... ?" Kenji smiled stupidly. "We may have a problem at hands. The station before us...Parkultury. It has a bad reputation and brings ill luck to any who travel through. And my men have spawned seeds of fear and anxiety. But there's no way around, we will bring you to Antalaha!" Hauptmann Mikael raised his hands and whistled loudly. Gathered around Mikael and Goda were all soldiers except the Meisters and Weapons.
"What is it, why are we holding?" Nila's curiosity got the better of her. "Who cares... I need a break..." As she muttered Chaos pulled out her chalice and once again committed her blood act. "These peasants have fear of something that lies ahead of us." The annoyed mage did not deign to look at the assembled soldiers. Zira grasped her own shoulders and began rubbing her arms. "I got a bad feeling about this..." Suzumi nodded.
After a few minutes the group started moving again and Goda quickly joined the Shibusen group. No, not because of rogue mercenaries, thieves or even the Rikishin did the platoon came to a stop. The horror of a haunting beast called kharnivean lay behind them, but the sentiment of relief was miles away. The plain station Parkultury was notorious for being the ultimate destination for many subway travelers. Every poor man who accidentally arrived at a neighboring station tried to keep as much distance as possible between his soul and Parkultury. As if that would help.
As if that, which crawled and croaked out of the station's veil, was too lazy to take a few more steps and then choose a victim it fancied the most. Once you enter Parkultury, you were left alone with only your luck and whatever madness brought you here. Law and order are alien notions in this station. Sometimes caravans passed through without any harm or delay, as if it would just be another abandoned station shrouded in darkness because the lights had failed. But on the other hand, caravans barely emerged back to the light after they took a swandive into Parkultury's shadow and with only half of the original crew alive.
"There are stories from men who chronicled that the columns and pillars are drenched in dry blood and serrated, which leads to the assumption that some poor fellas tried to climb up in their final, dying moments." Gobsmacked, Zira slapped Mikael's forehead. "WHY ARE WE GOING TO THAT STATION THEN?" There is no other way...
Yours faithfully,
Skadow