[Teddie]

011: Michael
I stared at Michael in awe. His clothes were in tatters, each individual mark of my blades causing the shirt to hang looser. However, these jagged gashes of fabric revealed his perfect, untainted skin below. I looked, and below us, where he fell, a small pile of slowly fading incandescent blades, surrounded by a small pool of sparkling blood, shone in the moonlight. “But...how?” I asked, dumbstruck.
Michael smirked, and grabbed me by the hair. He slid his blade out of my leg in one fluid motion and proceeded to throw my body down the steps. I bounced and spun, slamming my head against each stone step until my frail body slowed. Every time I slowed, explosions of light caused me to continue down the steps. I was in intense pain, and finally, I stopped in a heap at the bottom of the stairs. Blood streamed out of my head, as the stones cut my flesh, and a torrent of blood flew out of the wound in my leg caused by Michael. The angel in question floated down to my position, smiling patronizingly, as the blade in his hand slowly expanded.
“You know, Lavernius, you have a very interesting gift there.”
“Shut the hell up,” I muttered, turning my body towards him. I thrust my hand in his direction, and three of the blades appeared and flew blindingly fast at Michael’s throat. With a single sweep of the blade of light, Michael laughed, and sliced each blade, causing them to disintegrate mid flight. I slammed my hand onto the ground, and white, skeletal hands shot up, grabbing his legs. Without even looking, Michael stabbed down, severing all of the hands from their wrists in a single fluid motion. As I attempted attacks such as this again and again, Michael’s counters became increasingly simple, and at the same time, held a reverent beauty, as if he was dancing more than wielding a blade.
“Lavernius, please. The resistance you’re mounting is simply unneeded. You are going to die. It’s inevitable. All people die.”
“Don’t give me that , you said yourself that you can’t die.”
“Well literally speaking, I’m an angel, not a person. But that’s beside the point. I can see that you are simply attempting to stall for time, a ploy that would work on those that aren’t me. However, God chose me for combat, in all its ways, shapes and forms. So I don’t think simple ploys like yours will work on me.”
“Well there’s always a first time,” I said, smiling, as a skeletal skull reached around Michael’s neck, biting him vampirically. Michael grunted, ripping the skull off his neck. He wound up, and threw the skull at me, which shattered against my skull. The pain was less than I’d expect, as the skull was more fragile than mine, but there was still pain. I couldn’t muster up much of an attempt retaliation at this point.
“Fourth Arcana – Necto.”
Suddenly, thick beams of light extended outwards, wrapping my arms and legs and dragging my body into the air. I squirmed, trying to escape, but to no avail. The beams were unmoving, thick massive handcuffs. I couldn’t even move my hands, and I soon found that my swords wouldn’t attack long range with out my hands moving. I could create swords for defense, but that wouldn’t last long against Michael’s onslaught.
“And so it dons on you that I really have won.”
“It ain’t over till I say its over,” I said.
“How cliche. You should try and fix that. Be a little more...creative!” he said, lightheartedly. “You could really try something new, shaking up your lines! If you’re going to die, I want you to die with style. You seemed like a good enough kid up until now.”
“Oh, now that’s rich. This coming from the guy who just stabbed me in the leg. To think you could go from bloodlust to badgering in a single second just means your insane.”
“Now now, Lavernius, don’t be mean. It’s just that I’ve seen enough battles to know that one against such an inexperienced fighter such as yourself wouldn’t be worth my full attention.”
“Shut up. I’m done with talking to you.”
Michael sighed. “Fair enough Lavernius.”

~

Agravain smiled as he watched Gareth scream. He had slowly begun to drag the blade already inside of Gareth across his body, slowly inching towards Gareth’s heart. He was surprised by the durability of Gareth’s skin, as Agravain’s blade was slow cutting through. Agravain wasn’t really upset in this regard, as the pain of electricity constantly being inside of him caused Gareth unimaginable pain. He writhed, unable to muster the energy to fight back.
“How far the mighty Gareth has fallen. You disgust me. To think the man who murdered everyone I care about, the man who murdered everyone he cared about, falls this fast. You are despicable.”
Gareth attempted to respond, but could only muster howling and screaming in response. Agravain laughed. “This is fun. Maybe I wont go for the heart just yet.”
As he said this, Agravain slowly drew the blade from Gareth. He deliberated, waiting for a second to decide which bone to stab, before bringing the blade down swiftly.
Agravain was sent flying across the room, as Gareth brought up a foot sharply into Agravain’s stomach. As Agravain slowly attempted to get up, Gareth did as well, balancing on the top of his axe. He staggered, his left arm useless. This isn’t going the way I planned.
Agravain broke into mindless cackling. “Let me guess, Gareth my boy, this isn’t going the way you planned! Well lucky for me, I only planned on killing you, so I’m doing damn well fine.”
Gareth chuckled. “Until I’m dead, your plan isn’t working well.”
“You make a good point Gareth my boy. Pudistaa!”
The skull of lightning launched at Gareth, screaming towards him, as another wall of stone rose to counter. The two collided, and through the resulting smoke and rubble, an assault of arrows flew through. Gareth turned, slamming through the wall, as an array of arrows stuck themselves in his back. “What the hell do you think your doing,” Agravain yelled. “Get back here you damn coward!”
Gareth continued down the steps running towards Michael, as Agravain sprinted forward as well. Gareth made it halfway down the stairs, before Agravain launched himself into the air, blade of lightning humming through the air. Gareth spun, swinging Garm to make contact, as the clash sent the sound of metal through the night.

~

Far below, Suri stared up at the spectacle in the sky. The sound of steel clashing against steel raged into the night, and continuous bright flashes of light shone from the building. Chunks of rock littered the ground around Suri, as the massive mountain that once hung over Suri’s head was annihilated by some strange kid. Suri wasn’t sure, but he was almost positive that he had seen swords flying around the boy, in a massive circle. Then some guy had started flying, with wings the size of cars. Suri was flabbergasted, his eyes fixed on the spectacle unfolding above him. He was riveted to his seat, unable to move, unable to turn away.
“Dear Lord...What is going on up there?”

~

Far away from Makai, a man turned and stared at the mountain. On his back was a large metal box. As he witnessed the flashes of lights and explosion of soil, a smile broke out on his hooded face. Without speaking, he turned and walked towards the nearest town.

~

Michael finally reached Vern. He had removed his shirt entirely, and his toned muscular chest shined in the moonlight. In the center of his chest, a tattoo appeared, a “1” flanked on each side by beautiful white wings. His own wings spread out, Michael walked closer to Vern.
“Tell me, Lavernius. How did you die in the real world?”
“Like you care,” I spit back. “If you’re going to kill me, don’t waste my time with baseless banter.”
“Don’t antagonize me more than necessary. I don’t want to kill you, you know.”
“Bull . Tell your empty lies to someone else.”
Michael grabbed my shirt angrily. “What killed you? What made you this way? Why you and not someone else?”
“Heh. I dunno. Maybe because the world owes me.”
“What are you talking about?” Michael screamed.
“The world took from me until I had nothing left to take! It took my parents, my home, and my safety. It took my only friends, and then the love of my life. Then, when I had nothing left, it took my life! There is nothing the world doesn’t owe me!”
Michael burst into laughter. “No, Lavernius, that’s not why you’re the evil one. That’s simply your punishment for being born evil.”
I stopped. My breathing, my heart, for a pair of seconds, stopped entirely. It was impossible. I did nothing in my life to warrant total anguish on the world’s account. I had never, in my human life, hurt anyone. I had never intentionally harmed another person. I did what I had to do to survive. That doesn’t make me evil.
Or does it?
Maybe I really was evil. Maybe, deep down inside, I did all I did out of revenge towards the world, subconsciously of course. I stole so as to survive, for both myself and for Jan. But maybe, just maybe, I stole because it was my nature. Maybe I stole because I was rudimentarily evil. I wasn’t directly hurting people, but Gareth was right. By stealing, somewhere, I was probably ending a life. And in the real world, I had no qualms with that. I didn’t care.
Back in reality, Michael was so transfixed on my anguish to notice a skinny man with six blades sprint past him. Michael slowly placed his palm on my chest.
“It’s over, Lavernius. I’m sorry. I was wrong about you.”
He drew his hand away, and a pentacle appeared. He smiled sadly, and the pentacle began spinning.
“Twentieth Arcana – Defungo.”
The pentacle stopped spinning, a small depicture of an angel in the middle. I screamed outwards, and three blades appeared, covering my whole body, a hundredth of a second before the angel opened its wings, releasing a beam of light that spread across the entire industrial district. The light collided with the blades, pushing my backwards, tearing my restraints. We flew for miles, the beam decimating the entire district. Buildings simply ceased to exist, as well as pathways, trees, until we flew into the park district. The beam suddenly stopped, which I figured out later was because there were people in the park district, and most of the buildings in the industrial district were either defunct or of little consequence to the countries in question. However, when the beam stopped, I did not, and I flew for miles, smoldering, through the park. Finally, I crashed in a large pool of water, which cushioned my fall.
I immediately blacked out.

~

Gareth and Agravain each jumped back. Gareth swung his axe, and bullets of each flew off it’s blade at Agravain. Agravain constructed a hasty shield of electric energy, which blocked most of the shards, while some got through, slicing Agravain. Gareth palmed the ground, and a totem rock then shot out of the ground, launching Agravain into the air.
“If it didn’t work the first time, big guy, what makes you think it’ll work now?” Agravain screamed, whipping out an electric blade. Suddenly, a totem extended from the first totem, slamming into Agravain and sending him sprawling off the steps and onto the mountainside. Gareth jumped into the air, slamming the axe down directly where Agravain landed. Luckily, Agravain had time to move, but not enough time to create a counter or block, simply having enough time to dodge the succession of axe swings that followed. Agravain dodged and flipped from rock to tree, as Gareth tore the countryside. As Agravain jumped, he witnessed movements out of the corner of his eye, seconds before the ground below his collapsed inwards. Gareth swung his axe in an arc that would surely decapitate Agravain, and Agravain had no time to dodge.
The sound of metal on metal rang throughout Makai.

~


Suri jumped back when the explosion of water shot out of the lake. The water rained down with the already falling shower, which he later noticed hadn’t been falling on the mountain with the battle. He stared at the lake, as the water began to shimmer. Suddenly, a boy floated to the top, completely unconscious. Suri immediately took off his shirt and jacket, and dove into the water to save this boy. He grabbed onto him, and swam with him to shore.
The boy looked a bit younger than Suri, but only by a year or two. Suri propped the boy up on a log, and constructed a makeshift fire. He stared at the boy for quite a while, and took in his noble, yet soaked, clothes. He also noticed a sheath on his back, made for an odd shaped sword. He absentmindedly touched the four sheathed kodachi beside him, when he suddenly noticed that there was no sword in the sheath. He turned towards the lake, and noticed a shining object on the floor of the lake. He sighed, and dove back into the lake, surfacing with a brilliant blade seconds later. It was odd shaped, but matched the sheath perfectly. As he returned to shore, he noticed the boy sitting up, awake.
“Hey you! I got your sword for ya!”
“Oh,” the boy said, shocked. “Thank you!”
“Don’t mention it,” Suri said, throwing the sword in the sand and turning his back to the boy. “Say what’s your n-”
Suri was slammed into the ground, and he felt cold steel press against his neck. He looked out of the corner of his eye, and saw the boy standing on his shoulders, with the odd blade against his neck.
“My name is Vern. And you’re going to help me escape this city.”