Had actually wanted the chapter to be published yesterday, but I thought I did yesterday, and then a crisis occurred.
Here we go. The start of chapter 5. Leggo.
Sorry about the long waiting time. I was experimenting with a genre that I had once written before and was trying it out in this series. You could probably guess what that genre is as you read.
This has action! Hooray!
Fun fact: The flashback scenes to the past were all inspired by Gintama. You'll only get fragments of it. Thank you, anime.
I followed Ripred to a circular cave somewhere deep beneath Regalia, which was pitch black. I didn't bring my belt along as Ripred had instructed me to, so I decided to pass it to Miravet to work on her replica. I was weaponless. I felt naked without my daggers.
"So, what are we doing here? Please don't tell me it's echolocation." I asked Ripred, using my voice to echolocate, only to 'see' him slouching against the wall.
He slid down and lounged along the wall of the cave. "No. To control your... fighting urges."
"What?"
"Don't be so confused, boy. I know that you fight in a certain way. A way like me. A rager."
"You call it that too?"
He waved his paw lazily, dismissing it. "It doesn't matter what it's called. It only matters on how you use it. Say, for instance, if you are unarmed in the dark with another rager."
I tensed up. I 'saw' his tail coming and lifted my hand to block, but a hind foot incoming meant that it was a feint. I tried to trip him with mine, but it changed trajectory at the very last second and slammed my foot down, hard. I howled in pain, and Ripred used my whining to his advantage, using his paw to shove me down.
Once my back hit the ground, the familiar buzz resonated within my head. I felt much stronger, faster, and more aware. I was mostly in control. Quickly picking myself back up, I aimed my left fist at his snout, which was intended to be a feint before hooking a right. He swiftly dodged them both and swiped his claws at me. I used my new metal bracelet and my free hand to block them and push them away from me respectively. Unfortunately, Ripred was powerful enough to leave deep scratches on it. To give myself more space, I kicked him away, in which he blocked with both paws.
Excitement was pumping through my veins. Energy crackled within me. The buzz was as loud as it got. I hadn't felt like this since the fight with Gregor. Was this a rager-on-rager thing?
"Good. You're in control," he said, his voice echoing. He took a sniff. "I can smell your excitement." He made it sound like it was a bad thing.
"Yeah?" I said, smiling widely. "This feels great! Reminds me so much of my fight with another rager."
This interested Ripred. "Oh? And who would that be?"
"Gregor." I shrugged. "Why would you-"
Before I could finish, Ripred charged headfirst with a flurry of claws. I backtracked and had a hard time fending them off. My vision splintered and became hazy; a sign that I was losing control. My hands started to move in a blur and was bleeding badly. I was pushing him back. I was winning! But...
"Focus, Overlander!" He then slapped me with his paw, forcing me back to my senses. But the strength of the slap and my shock combined made my body fall to the floor with a loud thud. The buzzing stopped, and it took me a moment to register what had happened. Realization came before the pain. My breathing was rapid, almost gasping for air.
I 'saw' Ripred staring at me for a few seconds in slow, deep breaths. "Good enough. Now let's go get some sleep. We're both done in."
"What!?" I exclaimed in between breaths. I stood back up, which took quite a lot of effort. "I'm not done yet! I can still fight!"
Suddenly, his nose was inches from my own. His eyes were narrowed in anger.
"Listen, Warrior," he hissed. "When I say we're done, we are done. Do you honestly think you still can fight me?"
To answer his question, I threw a punch at him with my lesser injured hand. He grabbed and squeezed it tight, cracking my bones. I grunted in agony. I tried kicking his paw to stop it, but his tail wrapped around my ankle and slowly twisted it. I now stood on my left leg.
"Are you done?" he asked fiercely.
With sheer willpower, I mustered all of my strength to drag my right foot back to reel him in and headbutt his snout. I missed my target, but I still did hit his scarred eye. My sadism and pride were quenched.
He pulled back and growled at me; his paw covering the eye. It looked like he was going to attack, so I took on a defensive stance, but sadly, with only one leg.
We glared at each other for what felt like an eternity before he turned his back on me and signaled him to follow him. I limped towards him, feeling quite satisfied yet not so at the same time as we headed back to the city.
He told me where the hospital was, which was the opposite direction to where the prophecy room was, and went to who-knows-where after I had understood the directions.
While walking, well, more like limping and dragging my one leg, I noticed that the door of the prophecy room was cracked open. I had, at first, thought that Lizzie was inside, but that speculation was cleared as soon as I hobbled inside.
"Lizzie? Are you in the prophecy room again?" I asked as I stepped into the faint light the torch held, which was next to the Prophecy of Bane. No one seemed to be reading it.
Before I could use echolocation to track whoever was in there, someone stepped out of the shadows. I turned my head, only to look at...
A ghost. It was emaciated, with eyes shining huge and hollow in the torchlight, underscored with dark purple crescents. Its hair which fell down far below its waist was loose and tangled. Even though it was wrapped in a thick cloak, it acted as if it was freezing. It looked strikingly familiar. I searched through my memories for an answer, which was helping but also triggering an unwanted one.
Unfortunately, the latter emerged out victorious and slithered into my core memory, no matter how much I tried it not to be. There was another female, but this one was in her late-teens and bed-ridden. She was breathing heavily, as if she was on the brink of death, which she actually was. Another memory popped up. I remember that she was the daughter of a rich bastard, and that he himself hired me to "take care of her", as he said. I remembered he was paying a fortune for her... beauty sleep.
I remembered her face. It wasn't the horror filled one that I had anticipated, but a serene expression. She was staring at me. My memory played our conversation.
"Do you want to know who sent me?" I had asked her, standing right in front of her and twirling my dagger so that she could see it.
"It's fine," she had said in a soft voice, almost whispering. "I know my father did."
"Aren't you scared?"
Her head shook slightly. "No, not really."
"Hm. A shame. Any last words?"
"Make it worthwhile." And then she closed her eyes and smiled. Her muscles relaxed. She was ready for her death.
Then I plunged the blade into her throat. The memory ended there and then.
"Overlander." A feminine voice said.
I blinked and looked at her face once more. I recognized that voice. It was Nerrisa, Luxa's frail cousin. The second Sandwich. The last time I'd seen her, she had given me a copy of the Prophecy of Gray.
I dipped my head in shame. I must've weirded her out. How long had I been standing there for?
"Uh, sorry. I thought Lizzie was here. Guess not. I'll take my leave." I started to back out of the room.
"No, wait, Overlander," Nerissa said in a tremulous voice. "Stay a moment."
A strange request. Didn't she see my wounds? "Okay?" I said, desperately trying to find a topic for me to get out of here. Sadly, the one that came out of my mouth was definitely the worst subject. "So, what did you think about Henry?" My stomach flipped after I had blurted those words out.
Surprisingly, she didn't take offense to that. "I think it is best he is dead," said Nerissa.
"You do?" I quizzically asked, taken aback by her bluntness.
"When one considers the alternatives," she said. "Had he been successful in banding with the gnawers, we would all be dead. You, Lizzie, her father. All of my people. Henry, too. But, of course, I miss him greatly."
She was braver than I thought. "Do you know why he did it?"
"He was afraid. I know that. And I think somehow in his mind he felt that joining with the rats would give him the security he longed for."
Which was completely illogical to me. I mean, drawing comfort from those who killed his parents? I'd seen others do it before, first hand, and it always ended disastrously.
"Do you think he was wrong?" I ventured to ask.
"Was he?" Nerissa answered, and she smiled creepily.
I shrugged. "Didn't you just say... If he'd got his way, we'd all be dead?" I highly doubt it, but I asked anyway.
"Oh, yes. His methods were undoubtedly flawed." Nerissa lost interest in our conversation and wandered over to "The Prophecy of Bane." Her bony fingers reached up and ran slowly across the letters as if she were reading Braille. "And what of you, Warrior? Are you ready to face the Bane?"
"The... prophecy?"
"Vikus did not tell you?" I bet that I was going to hear that a lot. He had been keeping way too much information from me. "We call the white rat 'the Bane,'" said Nerissa. "Do you know what that means?"
The Bane, huh? What a perfect name for a soon-to-be nemesis.
"Obviously. Lizzie said that I was a threat to it, or something like that. I'm supposed to help you guys and kill it."
Nerissa must've misheard me, as she looked bewildered. "Help us? Oh, no, Ryan, you must drain its light. See, it is written here." Her fingers rapidly passed over a line on the wall.
WILL THE WARRIOR DRAIN YOUR LIGHT?
I signaled her to stop. "No, I mean, as in... I'm helping you guys by killing it." I tried to make it as clear as possible to fix up the misunderstanding.
She didn't seem to hear me. "The Bane must die by your hand alone."
"Yeah, I know that." She was very weird.
Feeling as though it was the end of the conversation, I quickly got out of the room and went straight to the infirmary, where I saw Howard talking to an Underlander doctor. There was only the two of them. The doctor looked dead-beat tired and eyed at me in relief as if he wanted to find an excuse to end his talk with Howard.
"Ah, Warrior!" He bowed. Howard then noticed me and reluctantly did as well. The doctor turned to him. "Use the skills you have learned and mend the Warrior's wounds. I will be leaving." And with that, he left us.
Howard stared at me awkwardly. I didn't have time for pleasantries and just hopped onto the bed, showing him my injuries. Probably by the sight of blood, he snapped back to reality and hurriedly grabbed the required tools for my treatment.
"So," I started, while he was stitching my wounds with thin silk strings after he had dabbed a clear liquid on them. Probably some sort of anesthetic. "Why are you here?"
He broke into a grin. "I wanted to do more than aid others in water."
So he was sort of a lifeguard. "What made you think that?"
His expression changed, this time more fondly. "Hero and Kent had persuaded me to after I had only read a book about it once." He seemed to enjoy the conversation.
He moved on to my leg. I had one last question. "What do you think of Stellovet?"
His face darkened. "She is... I do not think much of her," he admitted and laughed it off. "She is arrogant, stubborn and jealous of the royal family. But Hero, Kent, and Chimney do not see that in her. I still love her as a family, but... She can be too much for her own good."
He sewed up the final part of my wounds and bit the string, cutting it off. He then proceeded to wrap my arms, leg, and foot with smooth bandages, the foot being wrapped together with some kind of ointment. "How fare you?" he asked, wiping his brow.
I tested it out, flexing my muscles to check. It held pretty well. Thank you, spinner silk. "Not bad."
He smiled proudly at himself and went to pack the tools up, while I said a quick goodbye to him and headed back to my room. When in there, I immediately took a shower and tried to avoid the bandages while doing so. But, fortunately, I didn't have to, as the water would just slip away from them.
When I was done, my desk had a cup of what seems like tea. It was still hot, meaning that it was placed here rather recently. I took a sip. It tasted like tea but had this unique taste that normal tea didn't have. Maybe it was one of those Underlander herbs.
I didn't want to ponder it anymore and leaned onto my bed, closing my eyes and diving into my fantasies of killing the Bane in every and any possible way.
There was pitch black again. But this time, I couldn't feel a floor, only the sensation of floating. I looked around, and there was a door which emitted light. Feeling as though it was the only way to go, I wadded towards it and opened the door. Once the door was open, there was a burst of light, and I felt the ground.
I forced my eyes open and blinked to adjust to the light. Scanning my surroundings, I was in a room. In front of me was a sickly girl in bed, breathing in deep, slow breaths. When I saw her deathly pale face, I immediately knew who she was.
The ghost. She was here. But why?
Before my question could be answered, someone spoke.
"Do you want to know who sent me?" It was... Me. But I wasn't saying anything. No one was in the room expect me and her. Yet the voice sounded like it was coming from everywhere. What was this?
The ghost replied. "It's fine. I know you did." The 'you' was harsh and full of hatred. That wasn't the original dialogue.
"Aren't you scared?" The voice that wasn't me asked.
Her head shook slightly. "No, not really."
"Hm. A shame. Any last words?"
"Make it worthwhile." And with that, her smile and eyes because wider and wider, to the point where they stretched beyond their physical limitations. She -no- it stared at me with its bulging eyes and spoke with the same distorted voice. "You monster."
It instantly leapt out of the bed and chomped my right arm, ripping it away from my body. I screamed and writhed in pain, my shrill voice echoing in its lair. I kicked it away and it hit the wall, cracking it. Blood splurged out like a fountain. I tried to stop the flow, but whatever I did didn't work as the blood leaked out. My head was getting light. I looked at the monster before me.
Its head was twisting upside down, cracking the bones loudly as it ate my arm, munching it quickly like a starving animal. And like an animal, it stood on its four limbs and growled, pacing around me to get a clear shot at wherever it wanted to hit. I wasn't going to let it do that. I took a defensive stance and faced it. I was weaponless had only one arm, but I still should be able to manage.
The bed was gone, I noticed. We were in an empty room, illuminated with dim lights.
It cocked its head and smiled wickedly, eyeing at my other arm. I reflexively brought it closer to me, afraid that it would do it again.
Suddenly, there was a tingle from my once-eaten arm. I looked over and saw it... growing back? But it wasn't my skin color. The arm was pale and had bits of dead skin. The arm that was growing back wasn't mine. It was the monster.
Once I had finished that thought, its arm finished regenerating, and the end result was a hand the size of a human head, together with nails so sharp that you could easily mistake them for claws. I screamed again, and the arm made no hesitation to grab my face and clench it tight, forcing my mouth to clamp shut and thus biting my tongue. It then forced my head to turn. I resisted with my other arm and head, but the abomination kept pressing and was so much stronger.
To weaken my resolve, it lifted one of its cold fingers and shoved the whole thing into my left eye. All I could manage was a gritted shout. The searing pain was unbearable, so much so that tears began to weld up.
My head went forty-five degrees to the right. The monster wasn't there. Ninety. The arm did not stop. A hundred and thirty-five. I could hear my bones cracking. The arm still persisted. A full one-eighty. I couldn't feel anything from my neck down anymore. I could barely breathe. I should've been dead already. Something kept me alive. But what? Was it the fear? The determination to be alive? I didn't know. I don't want to know.
The arm wiped my tears away with its claws, almost blinding my other eye and clearing my blurry vision. The monster was in front, smiling away.
"Want to know how it feels?" it asked in a smooth tone.
I nodded my head ever so slightly. I knew what I had done to her. I wanted this to end. It giggled like a little girl, jumped onto my shoulders and caressed my neck; its hot breath blowing on it, painfully tickling it. The coldness of its fingers didn't help, it only worsened the pain.
"Aah~ Poor you~" it said gently, stroking my neck like I was a house pet.
"Finish me off." I wanted to say that, but my deformed throat only spoke out "...ini... ...e... ...f..."
It chuckled at my failed attempt to speak and responded by biting my neck with its lips softly. Its mouth opened widely, displaying a set of razor sharp fangs. I knew what it was going to do next, so I closed my eye, not wanting to look at the monstrosity before me.
But the monster forced my eye open and chomped my windpipe, crushing it. I couldn't scream. All I could see and hear was teeth moving and constant crunching sounds. Then, calming darkness.
I opened my right eye. The first thing I felt was a liquid dripping out of my right eye. In a panic, I jolted back up and immediately touched that eye. It was tears, not blood. I sighed in relief. I then noticed someone was holding my right hand. I wiped my tears away, held myself together and focused on the figure as my blurred vision was vanishing.
It was Ella. Her head was resting on my bed and was right next to my leg; her long silver hair brushing it. Two hands were clasped in my right hand, with a finger touching the damaged bracelet, as if she was begging me to stop. I ran my fingers on her palm. It felt smooth and cool to the touch. She chuckled at the feeling while still being asleep. Her laugh and touch reminded me of my nightmare, so I stopped. Even with that haunting my mind, I smiled back to her.
"Aww, how cute."
Shut up.
He said no more. I used the silence to look around my room, to see what had Ella brought me. There, on my desk, was a refilled cup of tea and a place of food next to it. The smell told me that it was still warm. My stomach growled in hunger.
"Better eat while it's still hot. I know your last breakfast wasn't."
I rolled my eyes.
I'm well aware of that.
Carefully sliding my hand away from hers, which earned a groan from her, I got out and slowly carried her onto my bed. Her body automatic shifted to a more comfortable position. Feeling satisfied, I took a quick but quiet shower to not wake her beauty- no, to not wake her up. Yeah.
My efforts weren't in vain, as when I was done, she was still sleeping. Using the skills I had in the past, I sneaked towards my desk without a sound and ate in silence. While I was thoroughly enjoying my meal, she stirred and naturally awoke.
I chewed my food and had to cover my mouth to not show her my silent laughter because the way she woke up was pretty funny. Sitting upright with messy hair in a daze and looking around with the face of confusion, even cocking her head at me.
"What?"
To give her a hint, I signalled her to look down to see whose bed she's sleeping on. She did, and then it dawned on her. I could see the many expressions on her face. The realization, the embarrassment, the shock. I observed as red began to flush from her cheeks to the entirety of her body. It was quite entertaining to watch. Or maybe it's just my sadistic side talking.
She swiftly got out of the bed and hung her head low as she walked towards me timidly, adjusting her clothes and hair while doing so.
Before she could say a word, I put my finger on her lips. "It's okay. You don't need to apologize." She blushed deeper, probably in shame, and nodded. I returned back to eating as she stood to one side and watched, as always.
After I had finished, I said the usual "Thanks for the meal.", but this time, added in a few more words. "Sorry about this." I showed the scarred bracelet to her.
She had a twinkle of disappointment in her eyes. "It is fine. I am glad that it is of use to you."
"Yeah, this really saved my skin from Ripred." At the mention of 'saved' and 'Ripred', a smile washed away the sadness in her, clearly glad that it was.
I gulped down the last piece of food with the tea and stood up, ready for a fight. "So, training as usual?"
She shook her head. "No, Warrior. You have to go to the council meeting today. Vikus had ordered it. I am to lead you to your destination."
Oh, the Prophecy of Bane. Almost forgotten about that.
"Says the one who fantasized about killing the Bane."
Whatever. You know that my brain's hazy in the morning.
"Well then, lead the way."
Woah. Almost 4K words (if you exclude the Author's Notes)! That's pretty impressive for me. Hope I portrayed Ripred right!
And as you can see, the genre is romance. What do you think of my added writing of romance? Is it alright? Is it out of place? Please tell me. I really need to know. Constructive criticism is heavily advised.
Question: Can you find out what caused his "missing" arm to be regrown? It's quite subtle. There are hints in and out of the dream.