Story:Kings of Strife/Part 8

Part Eight
Slowly, Vik’s eyes opened as he awoke. They looked around with a confused and dazed look before settling on a vaguely familiar structure. The boy they stared at looked right back and adjusted his short, midnight blue hair upon realizing the eye contact. Hasey Troblum watched intently as Vik sat up from his bed and rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

Vik was more than a little unnerved by the staring youth, but he tried his best not to show the emotion, even though it was obvious to the both of them. "How long have you been awake?" He didn't ask what Hasey knew he wanted to, but the boy still felt the silent probing. "How long have you been watching me?" Hasey let an innocent smirk cross his lips.

"Oh, not that long,” the boy replied. He looked away for a second, adjusting the tank top he wore over his body, before looking back at Vik from underneath his eyelids. “Just been a bit bored after all this time,” he finished with a smirk. Vik looked away and tense relief washed on him as he began to get up from his sleeping position. "Three hours, to be precise."

Vik froze, alarmed at first but then tense and pained. Hasey could feel him reverting to his default, condescending attitude. He continued to stand and smooth himself off, forcing a smile onto his face. "Right. There, uh... isn't much to do here, is there?" Hasey's fists tightened. His tactic wasn't working. Vik adequately controlled himself behind a barrier of emotions. He must have felt restrained by his idea - no, his duty, to return Hasey to his home. As if he were some package to be delivered, a letter to lost recipients. The level of arrogance was appalling to the boy.

Hasey's face muscles didn't move, but his eyes followed Vik as he went about his morning facilities. He knew the soldier could sense his gaze, and it showed in his awkward shuffling. He decided to speak. "How much longer, do you know?"

Vik looked down and sighed at his torn shirt. Scratches and torn sleeves were visible from his frenzied climb and descent of Mount Gulg, and he hadn't bothered to re-equip himself when the two returned to the capital. His left hand rubbed thoughtfully at his chin, which sported a short but visible beard and goatee after almost two weeks of no shaving. All that was on his mind for priority was his human duty to save this hopeless boy he saved from an erupting volcano. How he regretted that decision now.

"Yeah, I think we're supposed to dock today. Sorry it took so long, but given the circumstances... We couldn't take an airship. They weren't launching for a while, anyway." The two were on a ship - a traditional one - to North Norzaven, a barren region of ice and snow, on the hunch that it was the locale that Hasey spoke of.

Vikcent Hyusei tightened his belt and looked to his traveling companion, said Hasey Troblum, who had soon proved to be more trouble than he was worth. When Vik ventured up the impossibly tall Mount Gulg, it was chance and fate themselves that willed him find a chamber that led throughout the inside of the mountain. There, he found a flame-red Crystal and Hasey Troblum, asleep and helpless, and when he took them both magma erupted from Gulg for the first time in millenia. Now on the run from the law himself, Vik couldn't well just dump Hasey somewhere lest he risk getting caught and captured, the Crystal lost.

And his dead allies would never forgive him for that. He would never forgive himself.

So he took it upon himself to take Hasey back where he belonged, for he obviously wasn't born and raised inside the largest mountain in the world. And yet this goal quickly grew too much to handle when Hasey's only real memories were in a snowy village, leaving Norzaven as the only possible origin for the boy.

As if his commute wasn't bad enough, Hasey was... awkward, just plain confusing. He had the looks and appearance of a young teenager, nowhere as old as Vik was, and yet his eyes conveyed a sense of experience and deadly wisdom. His arms had a slight outline of muscle, and his hands were calloused, as if he were used to using a weapon. And the way he spoke and carried himself betrayed mannerisms of one well versed in the world who had witnessed its every injustice themselves.

Every voice of reason had said to abandon the kid in Nures while he slept instead of buying the two of them a trip across the world on a shady jet skiff. Every voice except the one Vik felt obligated to, had been born to listen to - the voice of duty, of chivalry. He couldn't dump this kid when he needed him. But something in the back of his mind told him that he should have.

Vik attached his small pack to his belt and held it a little longer than he needed to. It was improbable and technically impossible, but the Crystal emanated warmth. Vik could feel it through the leather of the pouch. Sometimes it was a gentle pulse, sometimes it seemed to burn through his skin. It was addicting. It was worrying.

****

"We're here," Vik called from the doorway of the cabin. Hasey was sitting inside on Vik’s bed still. About an hour had passed since Vik awoke, and by now the skiff had finally arrived. The chill of Norzaven was already penetrating Vik's meager windbreaker and scarf, and tiny snow particles coated the air under a slight breeze. His more heavy coat had gone to Hasey, who himself had been found with a simple tank top and cargo pants. Hasey walked out of the cabin and up the stairs onto the deck.

The captain of the ship sat on a stool on the top deck, watching his only two passengers leave the ship. Vik's face took a sour turn as he gazed over the captain and two crew members. He had paid a lot of his travel money to these shady men, but he had to admit it was worth it. After Gulg erupted, all airships were put on indefinite delay, and all ports closed. This captain risked his neck getting the two of them off Nneoh… but Vik was a bit too honor-bound to admit that it was anything other than a necessary evil. As he walked past the captain, he flipped him a few extra gold coins. He would need the ship to stay at the port so that he could make a quick getaway - he wasn't planning on staying in Norzaven any longer than he had to.

Vik and Hasey stepped down a ramp and into the very shallow water on the shore before wading onto the small rocky beach. It didn’t take long at all for the snow to take over where the rocks were. A quick look around told him that this area wasn't populated, but he could see a faint outline of buildings and smoke in the horizon.

“Ah, Hasey, we aren’t very far off from a town. Let’s go over there and see if they have any information, alright?”

The boy said nothing, his silence more unforgiving and frigid than the temperature. The two simply continued to walk without exchanging anymore words. The journey was cold but not very long, albeit extremely uncomfortable for Vikcent. Looking around again, he wondered how anyone could settle on this continent. It was so flat, so barren. “I need excitement in my life. This wouldn’t work...”

“You say something?” Hasey’s question didn’t even come from a look backwards.

“No, nothing.” He looked to Hasey's back, and bitterly noted that not a shiver went through the boy. "I assume you know where you're going? I don't think we have time to wander this whole place."

Hasey nodded. "Yes, I feel a sort of... calling. It's almost as if my memories are... pulling me in." Vik noted his tone of voice, serious yet with a hint of mocking, and was annoyed. The boy’s footing was sure and unwavering.

The two walked the snowy plains for about an hour or so. Trees grew scarcely - most likely they couldn't penetrate the ground's permafrost. The lack of life disturbed Vik. He was thinking of the smell of Nneonian shores when Hasey stopped and he came to his senses. Now the two stood on a hill overlooking the structures that Vik had seen before, now outlined as a small town blanketed in even more snow. The buildings were small, yet oddly tall, and the roads between them were covered in footprints. Despite that, no people could be seen from where the two were.

Vikcent looked to Hasey at his side. A smile had formed upon the boy’s lips, and his eyes shone with a triumphant glow, but his fists were tightly clenched and one hand held onto the edge of Vik’s coat. Neglecting to make eye contact, Hasey continued down the hill towards the village. Vik followed in his wake, their journey silent and awkward.

They reached the settlement in another ten minutes, but found that its emptiness was not just an optical illusion. An eerie silence took hold of the environment and filled Vikcent with an uneasy sense of dread. The empty buildings seemed to call to him with an unnatural voice, their usual purpose huskily disregarded by their loneliness. Vik, frustrated, let go of his instinctual feelings and took charge by knocking on the first hut house he met. His breath misted around his face and seemed to frost as he waited for the door to open. A minute passed, and then another. Impatiently, he knocked again. Again the building let out its melancholy whisper that chilled his bones and raised his hairs on end. Looking back at Hasey with confusion, Vik blew out a hot breath and burst through the door with his shoulder. The inside had a small ceiling and stairs to a second floor as well as an underground level. It was completely empty. Successive searches proved the same thing and filled Vik with increasingly rational senses of fear and dread. The houses were all empty; no sign of life, no provisions left, not even any signs of violence or struggle. Just... empty houses. Vik searched thoroughly, but there proved to be nothing for him to find. While he did so, Hasey seemed to wander around the village without a word. In his unease, Vik barely noticed.

Near the end of his search, Vik approached the house farthest back into the village. The cold was beginning to get to him; his fingertips were beginning to become numb. He wished he brought extra gloves. “What the hell is going on in here?” This time, perhaps from his rising anger and confusion, Vik only looked inside the windows of the house instead of going inside. After a minute, he was able to confirm that the inside was completely empty.

“Oh, what the fuck…” He still hadn’t broken his habit of talking to himself. “So where the hell is this kid now? All that bullshit about being called to this ghost town and he ends up deserting. Did he know this was going to happen? Does he want to wander around this country until we both freeze to death?!” With a huff, Vik shivered and began to walk away from the largest building. At that very moment a sort of flare went off in Vik’s mind as he heard a tiny noise and the sound of movement. Years of military training kicked into gear as he dove to the ground away from the door and rolled forward to his feet. Just behind him, mere miliseconds after absconding, the wooden door of the house exploded outward in a blast of noise and debris. From its previous position, a large blunt weapon and a black figure rushed forward in an attack.

The gargantuan black shadow landed on the snow with a crushing slide, and as Vik landed and rolled to look back behind him, he realized that he had just missed having his head crushed by the missed strike of a hammer. Adrenaline pumped through his veins and warmed his blood as he immediately stood up and rocketed his rifle into his hands, wasting no time in aiming at the figure and moving his finger over the trigger.

Later he would regret not shooting, but there was no stopping how his body froze up once he looked straight onto the black-clad figure. Though he had not seen the man’s face the last time they had met, just the imposing height and body mass of the man was enough to strike fear into Vikcent’s heart. Every muscle within him roared and cried for him to pull the trigger, destroy the murderer before him, but the hesitation had returned and Vik was once again unable to move. The man in the black armor, already smiling in the face of his demise, now let out a toothy grin upon seeing that he was not actually being shot at.

“You’re a friendly ol’ chap, now aren’t ye?” The man may have worn black body armor, but his head was exposed and his face was almost covered by unkempt, shaggy blond hair. The man began to move towards Vik, raising his one-sided axe this time, and swung at Vik. “Allow me to repay ye the favor.”

Fed up of being held back, Vik’s reflex kicked in once again and he dodged the attack. It was all he could to do backstep and stare at the figure with his wide blue eyes and frantically mutter to himself. “This man, he’s here, what do I do, I cannot,” The man in black flashed another toothy smile. “Show me your back, son, so I can cave it in for ye!” Vik continued to dodge the wide and powerful swings of the armored man but could not bring his rifle up again a second time. The figure’s nightshade armor was a sore contrast to the pure white snow, quickly becoming soiled from the flying dirt and footprints. “You see, it’s give and take, really, and I think it’s about time you give me your life to take.”

Without warning, Vik found himself filled with guilt upon making eye contact with the man and taking a look back at his indecisive thoughts. After all that preparation and hatred, he thought to himself, and he responded to a divine situation by running and hiding? By whining “don’t hurt me”?! He felt sickened with himself and suddenly filled with a burning resentfulness, not just at the man in black armor but at himself as well. With the next strike the man attempted, Vik did not dodge away but under the wide swing, landing beneath the man’s arm and inside of his guard. Surprised, the blonde man moved to swing with his axe, but his range was too close and Vik had the upper hand.

Thus Vikcent blocked the axe’s attack by elbowing the shaft of the handle, leaving both of the man’s arms wide open with no hope for defense. The air around the two seemed to move in slow motion as Vik’s rifle jumped with enthusiasm in his hands once again. While he was too close to shoot at the man, he eagerly stabbed at the knight with the bayonet that was attached to the rifle, and the knife pierced the black armor in a smooth motion.

The knight didn’t let out a cry of pain but instead twisted away from Vik as soon as the injury was received. This caught Vik off guard and he found himself losing his grip of the rifle, allowing it to fly from his hands and stay embedded in the knight. Both of them stepped backwards from the other, panting heavily and glaring at the other. The blond knight flipped his hair and spat out a glob of blood onto the snow, dying it red.

“Well that was a surprise. Don’t you want to join your little buddies down in hell? Why make this hard for me, ol’ chap?” Another gunshot resounded through the snowy plains now as Vik’s pistol shot another bullet straight into the man’s chest. This time, the attack was somewhat deterred by the shiny armor that the blond man wore, but the skin was still pierced and this time he grunted in pain along with his backwards stumble. Vik found himself pleasantly surprised by his speed in unholstering before remembering his burning hatred and shooting the knight twice more.

“You fucking bastard! Die already, you goddamned shithead!” Pure venom laced Vik’s words as he blasted out the rest of the six shots left in his pistol’s magazine. Now that the man had backed up a fair distance and Vik found his hands shaking increasingly harder from his incredible rage and fear, his next six shots all missed the black knight. The resulting empty clicks from the trigger silenced Vik’s rage.

“Ah… So you’re finished already?” The black knight’s cocky tone was now strained by pain, and his words were considerably slower. “It’s not my time to die yet. I’m not finished. As for you… You should have died before, but I had hoped you’d get the idea and quit going after us. Just a casualty of summer ambitions, eh, ol’ chap?” The knight coughed violently into his hands before wiping them onto his waist. They left behind bloody handprints.

There was nothing for Vik to say, and nothing to feel but despair. His pistol ammunition exhausted, he threw the useless weapon onto the snow beside him. He bitterly remembered leaving his emergency ammo in the inside pockets of his heavy coat that Hasey had worn. The only thing left was the knife that he kept tied to the back of his left boot, which he brandished and waved weakly in front of him.

“Don’t you give me any of that bullshit!” Vik rashly replaced his creeping fear with headstrong hatred once again, and found himself shaking with a paroxysm as he rushed the black knight. “I’ll kill you! I’ll fucking kill you!” He moved to stab the man once again, but found himself blocking the man’s hammer strike instead.

The block was awkward, and despite his wounded state, the knight’s hammer smashed into Vik’s hand with crushing power and instantly opened up his left hand. The soldier found himself screaming in agony as he held his ruined hand in front of him, fingers bent at odd angles, and the knife fell to the floor.

“Is that all I am to you, my friend? An object to be violently removed?” His hammer hand still recoiling, the black knight swung his axe at Vik’s face. No matter how painful his crippled hand was, Vik’s instincts still worked, and so he anticipated the attack, but knew he chose the wrong decision as soon as it had happened. Instead of ducking and missing the slash entirely, Vik kicked himself backwards and his forehead was grazed by the axe’s sharp blade. Within seconds, his forehead had opened a wound and spilled blood blinded one of his eyes.

Vik thus felt more pathetic than ever as he found himself curled up on the cold ground, his left hand pulsing with pain and his vision blinded and fading. He snorted and breathed heavily along with instances of frenzied hyperventilating and enthusiastic cries. Almost with futility, he occasionally rolled and dragged himself through the snow, further and further away from the black knight. After about a minute, he was able to wipe most of the blood out of his eyes on his shirt and tilt his head backwards so that the falling blood no longer blinded him. What he saw following that was the black knight, having removed the rifle from his torso, staggering slowly towards him. Various open wounds stained his black armor with a dark crimson.

“You…” Apparently the black knight was having trouble breathing and had to pause and catch his air. “You don’t have the crystal with you, do you? I can sense it. If I wasn’t… If you hadn’t… Ugh. I will be back, and I will take the crystal. Just wait on my, agreed, ol’ chap?” There was nothing for Vik to say to him, nothing he could have said. The man in black let out another grin before it was toiled by his grimace. “I swear it, my friend. When next I return I will smash your head in.”

Just as swiftly as the man had appeared, he now turned and limped away. His blood dropped behind him in fat droplets, marking his path behind him if one wanted to follow. No matter how grave his wounds were, he left with a speed that betrayed his apparent weariness. The village was once again cloaked in a veil of screaming silence. Vik was hesitant to breathe, not only because of his terrible pain but also because the dread was in him once again. He took a moment for himself, standing sluggishly and cradling his hand, to study what had happened in the past minute.

Every bone in his body now urged him to go after the knight. The rifle had been left behind and would no doubt allow him to strike down the bastard as he ran – for Vik’s hand was no doubt too useless to shoot, considering he couldn’t even flex it without a wave of extreme pain and pulsing agony – but the bayonet still existed for that very purpose. But he couldn’t, not at all because he was injured, but because he was afraid. No matter how hard he tried to obscure it, from the world and from himself, Vikcent Hyusei found himself trembling in fear from the encounter that had just transpired and would not doubt repeat itself. Had he performed admirably? Somehow, he had survived, but a nagging feeling in the back of his mind asserted that he could have won. What had just happened was no doubt a defeat, or at least a draw.

“But how did he know I was here? How did he know about the crystal, and that I left it on the boat?” As he began to walk towards the entrance of the village after clumsily retrieving his rifle, Vik wondered just how the black knight could have known all of these things.

“Am I being watched? Was that captain a spy?” This was a scenario he did not enjoy because no matter how hard he distrusted the skiff’s captain, he would still have to rely on him for further transportation. If anything, at least, it was pretty much confirmed that the black knight and Ouroboros were indeed searching and attempting to retrieve the Crystals. “How many are there? Does this mean I’m no longer safe?”

“Further more… Where is Hasey? Surely he is safe?” That was what he kept coming back to, along with scathing and deprecating remarks against himself. The more that he thought about it, the stranger it was that Hasey had not shown his face since the two entered the village. Maybe, upon hearing the sounds of battle, he had gone into hiding or even returned to the boat.

As Vik then returned to the boat, following the footsteps left by him and Hasey as the two entered the silent and hellish village, he bitterly shivered from wrath and cold. After his stint on the snowy floor, his temperature was cold and his pride was heavily wounded. He felt no qualms enduring the cold of the journey by himself this time, not a single one. He quietly spoke to himself as his tired feet in their dirty boots sluggishly trod back to the vessel awaiting him. “I’ve failed you all, once again… Please, give me the strength to fight. Give me the strength to keep moving. Give me the strength to find Hasey, to safeguard the crystal… And to destroy all those who stand before me.”

...End of Part Eight.

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