Scarlet 13

Scarlet 13

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Commissioned by Sivantic

Wordcount: 2500

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Lunatics are the most terrible opponent. If a complete novice is a danger to the unwary chess grandmaster, then those teetering on the edge of sanity and insanity are the sort that stabs the grandmaster to declare themselves the victor. While milder cases of mental disorders can be coped with or controlled, there’s no denying that those deemed both deranged and dangerous can only be assisted by being placed in a padded cell in a straightjacket. Serial killers who derive pleasure and pride from what they do can be best served by society by being locked away and taken care of for the rest of their lives.

However, I suppose that certain organizations want psychopaths. 

“Gahahaah! Wow, wow, wow! That was amazing! I ambushed you, yet you got out of the way amazingly fast, man!” The Exorcist standing atop the telephone pole was illuminated by the setting sun. In his right hand was a sword of Light, resembling something straight out of a certain science fiction film, and in the other was an equally-futuristic-looking gun. He wore a long coat blue over white, priestly vestments and his features were handsome and framed by silver hair. However, the features on the aforementioned face was contorted by a too-wide smile of ecstasy, as well as eyes narrowed to pinpricks that poured over the small scratches and burns, I’d incurred from my retreat. “And, you’re just a normal human? Fucking seriously, man? You’re out here, just living a normal life, and you’ve got those moves!? It almost makes me mad that I wasted so many years in the Church, bwahahah!”

“Asia I want you to stay behind me. Do not run. Keep yourself between me and that man.” Despite the man’s ravings and delusions, the situation was almost completely in his favor. The initial ambush had flushed me not only down the hillside, but allowed him to take the high ground. Even if he’d acted only so that he could gloat and… grow erect at his superiority… he still had the tactical advantage he needed to do it safely. A psychopathic, bloodthirsty pervert. The first two were fine, but adding the last was a bit much. “We don’t have any cover. Heal me, if I’m wounded. Do not try to save me. You will die, if you do.”

Asia whimpered and took hold of the back of my school jacket, but I barely noticed what she was doing, because the freak lording over us and rubbing his crotch against an active beam saber was groaning in absolute ecstasy. 

“Ah! What a fight you’ll be. It’s almost too bad I have to murder you now. I don’t even think fucking your skull’s going to make me happy. I want to hear your resolve to take my shots over and over again!” Not only was his finger on the trigger, with his right arm holding the weapon oddly, completely still like a poised snake, but he had magic streaming out of him. Under normal circumstances, it’d be just a waste to leak magic, but I could tell he was priming the area around him so he could cast his spells faster. He was building up firepower, presumably so he could make the fact that Twilight Healing was behind me not matter. “I know… I’ll make a doll out of you. I’ll kill you properly, so I can gather all of you, stuff you, and rape your corpse forever.”

Asia was shuddering and shivering at his words, but even without a horde of bugs to take my frustration and anger; a lifetime of experience with Thinkers the likes of Jack Slash and Tattletale allowed me to think properly, while I created my plan. 

However, the unfortunate part of every possible move I could make was that I had to resolve myself to getting shot and burnt alive while keeping Asia safe. If a bullet hit me in the leg, it was possible that I’d trip and fall, simply due to how human bodies worked. Burns could cause me enough shock that I’d simply keel over and die, before Asia could do anything to save me. I can go past pain. Nothing in this life could compare to what I felt in my previous. However, physical damage and destruction wasn’t something I could overcome. 

But those were the risks I had to take in order to keep Asia safe and deal with the threat. 

Ddraig, now!

Right, kid!

As I expected, the moment I burst into motion the Exorcist started firing on us. Only two bullets missed of the barrage he sent my way, before I got behind cover. The pain was less than I expected, most likely due to adrenaline, because the blows I took to my torso easily started spreading blood across my uniform and caused me to cough up blood immedietly. Asia’s quick use of her Sacred Gear was the only reason that I wasn’t mortally wounded, given the punctures all across my torso, but the time we got behind a thick tree trunk for cover. 

When I turned around, as the light bearing down from the hillside grew brighter, I turned to put another layer of cover between Asia besides the tree.

She was covered in my blood, there were tears already forming in her eyes, but there was no sign of her stopping from healing me. Because of her, I could feel my body being fixed even after multiple rounds of concentrated, anti-Devil magic had slammed into me and ravaged my insides. I had to take only one, ragged breath, before I spit out the leftover, bits and pieces of my last lung, before I breathed deeply once again to fill new blood with oxygen and force away the onset of a deep, familiar cold. 

Yeah, I was sure that I could manage my current plan now, since I was sure that Asia wouldn’t let me die.

“Keep healing me. Don’t stop. Close your eyes.”

Thus, I wrapped myself around her, as a fireball incinerated the tree behind us and washed over me like an inferno. I burned, I lost every sensation in my body except for pain, as I shielded Asia and as she continuously kept me alive. My earlier statement was wrong. Even getting shot in the head didn’t hurt as much as being burned alive and healed at the same time. However, the latter part of those words wasn’t a lie. 

I could endure it, until Ddraig gave me the all-clear.

That’s one, Taylor. Thirty more seconds to go.

Forty seconds being burned and shot from afar with someone who held nearly advantage, while I had to protect Asia.

That was all I needed to win.

So, I held onto Asia and ran from cover to cover. There was only a smattering of trees across the hillside, as a result of a recent landslide during typhoon season. A few tress that I’d have appreciated, which could’ve taken a few surging, balls of flame or bullets, were no longer present to provide me with cover. I conserved what I could of the cover that I had. Since Asia could easily heal the effects of the bullets, I didn’t bother running from them. It was the baleful flames sent my way that proved to be my greatest foe, even while covering Asia and keeping myself between her and the Exorcist. 

Twenty seconds left!

I burned. My clothes melted into my flesh, while direct hits seared flesh all the way to bone, and glancing hits set my skin aflame. Though I wouldn’t have survived without Twilight Healing, I couldn’t say I appreciated its effects. Blisters formed in seconds, burst, and revealed new, sensitive skin that would simply come alight. I felt threads and burnt rubber sink into my flesh, before being forced out by regrown muscle and skin, only for it to be seared back into my body. 

Ten seconds!

A part of me knew that if I risked Asia’s life, I could settle this fight faster and be harmed far less. If I wasn’t hiding Ddraig’s efforts, actually partaking in the power he was gathering as time passed, then I could move faster, dodge, and engage him up until I could decide the fight nigh-instantly. But if there was anything I knew about psychopaths, it was the fact that people like the one I was fighting would not hesitate to injure Asia, go after her, and retreat once I was taking care of her… or kill her outright to lure me into a trap. 

Five seconds!

So, being mobile cover, being healed, and hiding away my ability was essential. 

I had only one shot. 

One shot to finish the fight and keep Asia safe at the cost of profound pain.

Done! Go now, Taylor!

However, as always, if I could finish a fight in shot, I would. 

…

The fight was a forgone conclusion the moment Ddraig told me I amassed enough power. Exorcists utilized Light weaponry to fight Devils and monsters because it exponentially increased their abilities. Even with their magical abilities put into consideration, Exorcists are only human beings with additional abilities and excellent training. Against the likes of the Grigori, Devils, Angels, and other supernatural creatures, human beings are incredibly weak. 

Thus, because I wasn’t a Devil, once I had the speed, strength, and power that outstripped my foe’s abilities by several orders of magnitude there was only one possible outcome. Freed was faster than I expected, but not as fast as another human being amplified sixteen times over. Once I reached him, after I literally disarmed him and disrupted his magic, the outcome of the fight was purely, utterly in my hands. 

It was also something that Asia didn’t need to see, so I’d told her to run and look for help the moment I’d engaged our foe. 

“Scary, scary, scary! Wow, you’re so amazing! I can’t believe people like you actually exist!” The Exorcist’s name was Freed Sellzen. He was currently bereft of both arms, an eye, and a leg. Once I activated my Sacred Gear, once Asia was no longer in danger, and once I had sixteen times the average strength, speed, and power of a human being, the results of our fight were inevitable. He was pale from blood loss and shock was already setting in, even after I tied up his wounds. Even then, he was still smiling. Unfortunately for him, he’d picked a fight he couldn’t just flip the table for. “You had me beat the whole time, didn’t ya!? That was freaking awesome. I’d thought I was blastin’ and burnin’ you up, but you were just gathering strength like in a manga, so you could kill me in one hit! Pahahah! That was great. It was super AWESOME!”

“Who do you work for? Tell me and I’ll finish you off, instead of having you healed up and wishing you were dead.” Naturally, I was lying. Asia wasn’t the sort of girl who’d heal others so that they could get tortured, even if her life had been targeted. She was too nice for that. However, dead men told no tales, so I was free to use whatever threats I wanted. And, like with all good threats, a carrot and stick were required. Mercy or pain tended to be good, contrasting options. “Tell me, so I can kill them to.”

“Man, man, man! Whoever thought you were normal fucked up, huh!? Jeez, this is great! Actually, it’s terrible. I meet someone interesting for the first time, yet I’m fucking dying. Ahahah!” Freed was slowly dying, but he didn’t hesitate to keep running his mouth. Actually, I suspected hurting him would just shorten his lifespan a bit more. His body was already something else beyond a normal, well-trained human’s being’s. He’d managed to leap back and fire upon me a few more times, before I’d collided with him and brought him down. My left shoulder was perforated and I had a cut across my chest from his sword. A single misstep and that cut would’ve torn apart both my lungs and heart. “C’mon, though! You’ve already got me figured out, man. Do you think I’m going to tell you anything? Ahaha!”

“No. I didn’t. But I wanted to try anyway.” Freed Sellzern wasn’t going to tell me anything. From his eyes alone, I could see that he was an utter lunatic who got off on pain. His own and that of others. The disgusting wet stain on his pants that formed when I’d sent him flying down onto the hillside forest floor was another strike against his sanity. Given how excited he was, he was dreaming and fantasizing about his allies and superiors inflicting pain upon me, while his eyes traced over the wounds I’d taken, both those that had been healed and hadn’t. “And, you probably already know that I’m not going to let you survive, right?”

My opponent’s smile somehow widened even further, reaching his only remaining eye and the opposite, empty socket, as I took a step towards him. His mouth opened to speak, but I elected against hearing anymore of what he had to say.

I didn’t waste time in pulverizing his skull. 

Skin came undone. An eye popped. Bone became shards. Then, finally brain gave way to more bone, and my fist entered the ground behind Freed’s skull. The mass of the gauntlet, the overlapping ridges, and the menacing edges weren’t for show. While my fist crushed, the rest cut, broke, and drove apart. When my fist touched soil, I pushed forward until I was elbow deep into the matted soil. When I retracted my arm the only remains of his skull was spread over several feet over the ground, as well as over my body. 

The rest of the body lay still in a puddle of bone, gray matter, and blood. 

He couldn’t have been much older than me, yet he’d outstripped me completely in terms of power and ability. Not only that, but he was somehow more than a baseline human being. From how he’d moved, and how he’d survived losing limbs and being essentially thrown as a projectile into the ground, he was definitely more than human. His physical advantages, coupled with magic and equipment, practically made him better than the Fallen I’d faced before, especially since the only reason I was alive was because I’d let him burn and shoot me from afar, until I could fight back. 

If not for the fact that he was a lunatic whose self-preservation was overcome by his desires, I’d have died here with Asia. This was the average Exorcist. The regular, human being sent out to fight Devils and other supernatural creatures on mankind’s behalf. He was strong, yet humanity didn’t stand a chance against the likes of the Fallen and the Hell. Supersoldiers with specialized weaponry and capable of dispatching people like me that PRT would’ve drooled to have a few dozen of could barely hold the line. 

If I had any reason to not leave Kuoh, they no longer mattered.

I needed to get stronger.