Ronin Warriors Fan Fiction ❯ Into the Dark Night ❯ Chapter Ten ( Chapter 10 )

Into the Dark Night

Nagia

Chapter Ten: The Battle's Beginning

Part B: Where the Master Fell

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Got the shit bored out of me on The Great West-Bound Adventure, which we departed on at 5:30 AM on July 18. Yeah. So toward the end of today, when I wasn't reading or making sure Nonna was on course, I decided to write this. Chapter title taken from the third room in the same level of The Gabled Hall, but I can't remember the level title. Chapter ten's collective title (The Battle's Beginning), is taken from a room in a later level.

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They are completely and totally alone, without even the dead to watch over them. They now stand on the top of the canyon, with the screams and moans of the damned and dying coalescing into the darkness and surrounding them. The darkness is profoundly black and eerily oppressive, and seems to ripple and cling to them while an evil wind howls about them. Seiji is the first to attack, bringing his power to bear against Lloyd's, and he finds that Lloyd is nowhere near as powerful as his creation, the darkness, and this angers Seiji, for here is more hypocrisy, and still more power flows into him. Seiji strikes Lloyd with his magic, and he strikes Lloyd with such fury and power that his earlier insanity, his prior slaughter of the murderers, becomes a childish temper-tantrum in comparison. Lloyd strikes back, but Seiji finds that he can deflect this attack with such ease that perhaps Lloyd is not as strong as he thought. And suddenly, it occurs to him, that if Lloyd is so weak, and his own attacks are so strong, then why is Lloyd not destroyed?

Finally, it occurs to you that I should not have remained alive in the face of your powerful onslaught.

Seiji snarls. Son of a bitch, you're draining the collective life force of your people to save your own miserable hide!

With this exclamation, Seiji blasts the enveloping darkness with light so bright that it illuminates the dark and all around it, including some of the canyon.

Lloyd bristles with vehemence at this mostly harmless attack, and he brings the darkness back down to leech at Seiji's superior strength.

Seiji howls in pain, making a primal sound that somehow goes bone-deep and brings forth a chorus of screams from the Canyon's inhabitants.

Lloyd recoils in pain at this sound, but Seiji wonders if he truly sees the expression of horror on Lloyd's face that he imagined. Thunder rumbles and lightning flashes through the sky, an obvious indication and result of Seiji's anger.

Lloyd simpers and draws energy from the storm, then brings this energy in a lingering and raging onslaught against Seiji. Seiji tumbles to his knees, a pained inhuman cry of horror and anguish springing from his lips. He begins to glow and his screams begin in earnest, tears stream down his anguished face. Something silvery and luminescent emerges from his chest, and suddenly he is holding a sword that oddly resembles the Korin Ken.

Lloyd smells of revulsion and pure agony, and the pale luminescence of the sword reveals shock and terror on the Cultist's face.

Seiji ignores Lloyd's desperate outcry and calls unto himself the power of the Soul Saber. This power suddenly uses the storm to strike at Lloyd, and the overpowering smell of scorched flesh fills Seiji's nostrils.

Someone, apparently Lloyd strikes him from behind, and he falls to his knees in pain on the scorched earth, howling curses and spells. He stands at the sound of alien laughter, and prepares to deliver a powerful elemental attack, sensing grimly that the source of the laughter will be utterly destroyed if he can aim properly and call forth enough power.

He calls forth this power, calls it forth from the golden substance now flowing in his veins, and deals a powerful blow to the source of the laughter. With a shriek of such sound as to call to mind a banshee, the darkness is gone, and they are truly alone.

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I'm really proud of this one, because of its high grade level and lack of true violence. I was listening to Counting Crows' Black and Blue (on infinite loop, of course) song while writing it. The present tense is really fun to write. Something to think about is "who the hell was the Alien Laugher?" For any LOD fans, it sure as hell ain't Mebul Frahmahn (sp?). Nope, not. And it isn't Ben Shadows, either.

Well, AL is John Doe for now, as I haven't named the dude yet. But I'll name him soon.