Zaldizko - Chapter 28 Hells Labyrinth Pt. 2

“Wait!” I heard a familiar voice call out. “Famine!?”

I lowered my arms, eager to believe what I heard and the sight I was seeing.

“Wilfred!” I rushed to him.

Wilfred examined me for a moment before lowering his guns.

“Thank god we’ve finally found you. We’re the hell you been?!” He madly nudged my shoulders with the nose of his guns. “War’s been on this scary rampage to get to you!”

“Wilfred?!” I heard Lita desperately call out behind him.

She stepped into view with a short sword raised at Brystagg’s head. “Colonel! We’ve you been? What the heck are you wearing?”

Her head tipped to one side with a quizzical frown at the rugged outfit Brystagg wore. She lowered her sword.

Colin enclosed us in a protective barrier.

“Colonel?” Brystagg frowned.

“He’s Your Royal Highness Prince Brystagg,” I corrected Lita.

“Really? But if you’re High Prince Brystagg that means” Lita nervously gulp.

“Walls aren’t the only aspect going haywire.” Wilfred finished off for her. “The fact that you’re not in our data loads is proof.”

“What about the others? Where’s War?” I pressed them with my questions.

Wilfred telepathically provided an explanation. His mind replayed events not long after the time I had been pulled into the mirror.

The squad had been called to an emergency summons to be a taskforce backing on duty knights who were struggling against a sudden, abnormal revolt of demon and prisoners.

“Teagan, my former captain, her squad was the first to fall to the wall break downs. Some of my colleagues” He expelled a sigh of remorse and continued with his telepathic update.

“We made it to a pivot landing when, literally, all Hell broke loose.”

I saw his perspective of when the Wisteria Garden Squad had reached the First Tier to find the tunnels rebuilding themselves into an uncontrollable tangle. Some tunnel entry points had destroyed a few pivot landing platforms. The knights had no choice but to jump into a moving tunnel. None of the maplink paths were leading them back to other pivot landing points. If they did, the landings were destroyed.

“What’s worse, none of the link paths trace back to the Lotus Bridge. Your brother was able to work out a method for the path’s next direction, but even that was for the next path contact. We’re roaming blind,” he continued to explain in thought.

“Was War with you guys?”

I bit back the worry I felt at seeing War skilfully fend off revolting prisoners and demons with a longsword from his thoughts.

“Yeah,” Wilfred carefully answered.

“He convinced Jensen to take him. Glad we did. As you can see, he’s an impressive swordsman. I’d almost wager he’s a combat specialist equal to our captain. He saved our hides a few times.” He telepathically finished off his update.

Impressive fighter or not, it was War the hiruda was after. If the demon found out that he was right under his nose, all would be lost.

“Where’s War?”

“With the others before we were separated,” Lita carefully answered. She had been keeping a careful eye on the others up to this point.

I calmed myself down and briefed the twins on my situation, introducing Buru and Lyra in the process.

“It’s worse than I thought,” Wilfred nervously commented.

“Per chance your name be Lyra Kazama, house leader for the Neska Gudari Kazama Head?” Lita politely asked Lyra with a bow to change the subject.

“You know me?” Lyra asked.

She nodded her head at the sight of the maplink covering Lita’s right eye. “Of course, the maplink.”

“Actually, I know of you from somewhere else Kazama-sama.”

The expression on Lyra’s face was one of delight. She sidled up close to Lita. “Finally, someone with intelligence and manners.”

I was unable to contain my knowing chuckles.

“Something funny you want to share?” Lyra eyes narrowed.

“Oh nothing.” I zipped my lips.

Familiar grinding sounds from the walls drew our focus back to our surroundings. Fortunately, the floors didn’t dissemble themselves.

Every red brick wall was magically rearranged to form an enormous circular chamber with no roof. At least, one that wasn’t visible.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I shouted out my frustration.

“Well, well, we meet again,” sniggered Homburg Banshee who was backed with his remaining spider party.

“Indeed, we do,” said a deep and threatening voice.

My heart thumped madly at the sight of a well-built man stoically walking towards us. I was able to see the deep X-scarring on his neck.

Amos Dillen.

I squinted in the image of the approaching man, unable to believe the face I had recognised.

He was obviously a lot older and taller since that time we had worked the zirconia vein together.

Those simple, calm brown eyes of a thirteen-year-old boy now carried a deep and serious undertone of a thirty-something adult. His head was almost bald with a shorn carpet of brown hair lining his scalp.

Gone were those innocent boy freckles. Instead his face was smooth, set with a hardened expression. His ear lobes were pierced with studs of glass-silver material, similar to the texture of the dermaleeches attached to the lantern room’s night table.

The transformation to his body shocked me the most. He was covered, neck to toe, in a black body suit. It made his abnormally long limbs obvious. I noticed the silver marble scaring of his skin between the cuffs of his sleeves and black gloves.

His whitish X-scar was a traumatic, deep gash wound that ran from the top of his collarbone to the underside of his neck. The scaring seemed evident of a knife attack.

“Amos?” Lyra carefully asked.

“Lyra Kazama. It’s infuriating to see your sickly pretty face unaged. I guess coming back from Minos had its perks.” Amos snarled.

“And you Sire. I had a million words to say about your cowardly departure. Abandoning the ones, you called your people.” He stepped before Brystagg, so they were standing eye to eye.

Brystagg averted his gaze.

“As I thought. No words are worth speaking to a coward prince. No wonder you lost the crown, your wife, kids. Like they could love a bastard prince, lonely boy, loser freak, worthless gutter snipe!” Amos spat out his acrimonious words.

“HEY!” I shouted, stepping between them with my guns raised at Amos. “Try saying that again with a bullet in your gut!”

“Ha! Your hands are shaking, you can barely hold them Famine.” He stepped back towards Homburg Banshee and his restless spider gang.

“What the hell? I’ll grant you the shot Mister Demi-god.”

Amos smirked as he stepped into a clear line of sight with his arms stretched wide.

“Famine don’t take the shot!” Death’s voice broke through the stillness of my mind.

“Why Death? I can take him down!” I raised my guns to fire.

“You do that, you’ll cause the walls to dissemble prematurely. It’s something I’ve noticed when you’ve been fighting. The gun noise and jarring movements triggers the change. We don’t have the numbers to fight of them off in a changed space if it becomes smaller.”

I glanced about the walls and noticed some tell-tale trembling to the red bricks.

“You wish X-man freak.” I placed the guns to rest in their holsters and heard a few sighs behind my back. So, Death wasn’t the only one who had noticed.

“What’s the meaning of this Aidoneus? What you up to this time?” Wilfred stoically questioned the man, his hands in close range of his guns.

“Aidoneus?” I frowned. “Who?”

Lita pointed to X-man freak with her short sword. “Aidoneus Dillen, former Map of Hell’s Labyrinth who was court-martial for murder.”

“Ha! You Smithsonian side characters haven’t changed. Damn boring, righteous brats.” He snarled. “This is getting tedious.”

I gasped when a claymore of sliver-white light formed in his hands.

We braced ourselves for the fight.

“I’m going to rip your heart out of your puny chest!” He came at me with his claymore aimed for my chest.

I yelped and dodged the stab attack.

Aidoneus skilfully swung the blade down towards my neck. It was in a position for a clean shot to my Adam’s apple.

Clink-chink!

Lita’s glinting short sword stopped his blade’s momentum inches away from my throat.

I rolled out of their path and into the clear line of sight of the BHT banshee redback spider gang.

My hands grabbed a fist full of shrill marbles and pelleted advancing banshee to make them implode. Glitter filled the air.

Meanwhile, I spied Lita still locked in a spar with Aidoneus; her short sword breaking his blade’s long-range attacks. He surprised her when his claymore instantly transformed into a pair of sais. They continued their fight on an even level.

She danced around his swipe attacks to skilfully apply her own, only to be blocked by his low angle swings or other unorthodox stab attacks. His sparring was rapidly exhausting her arms. He attacked ferociously.

Maniacal brown eyes were fixed on hers with purpose. She gasped when his eye colour gradually filled to an evil red the harder they fought. He moved faster, stronger and more brutal.

Her voice involuntarily cried out with pain when a sai attack slashed across her arm, knocking her sword out of her hands. She slumped to the ground, gripping her bleeding arm tight.

Aidoneus’s attacking form was raised with the pair of silver saisheld in sinew black-gloved fingers about slice off her head.

“Ihes egin ezazu orain!” Wilfred shouted. “Bastard!”

Aidoneus went flying away from Lita before he could land the killing blow.

“KILL THEM ALL!” He vehemently spat out, picking himself up for another attack.

The chamber became a fierce battle arena.

Redback spiders shot web threads at moving targets and hitting dead air. They leapt for heads only to implode and fill the air with dirty silver glitter. Slashing leg attacks were blocked with razor sharp steel.

Chinking of steel on steel charged the atmosphere. The chamber stank of iron fillers, astringent spider guts, blood and sweat. Heat and pain were felt all around.

“FAMINE! DON’T YOU DARE RUN FROM ME!” Aidoneus shouted, pushing spittle out of his mouth.

He rushed at me with his claymore, intending to joust me to the wall.

I stood firm, replacing the shrills with the portspell pocket mirrors.

“Famine, what the heavens are you doing?! Move out of the way!” Death’s frantic yelling in my head stirred prickly pain to my temples.

“Shuddup.” I answered back, focusing on the pointed tip of X-man freak’s claymore.

My hands opened the portspell. I positioned the mirrored top to the claymore’s pointed tip and turned the bottom half toward Homburg Banshee’s spider stomach.

“Not yet.” I steadied myself as the tip raced closer toward the portspell.

My heart beats slowed as my mind became a single point of focus.

“Utz nazazu!” Words resounded about the charged air, carried on the back of a determined shout.

Aidoneus’s claymore went piercing into Homburg Banshee’s exposed stomach as he was rearing for a slash attack to Brystagg’s head.

“UGH!” Aidoneus snarled, annoyance and hatred contorting his face to form an uglier expression.

“Famine,” he hissed.

Brystagg recovered from his fallen position to take advantage. He raised a short sword and pierced Homburg Banshee’s opened wound to finish off the job. The banshee reeled with pain.

“Your fault Sire… you did this… to… us… curse…yo…” Homburg spat out his curse with his final breath before going still.

Lyra threw a glass water ball at his body. It shattered on its still form and made it melt to the ground to confirm his end.

Aidoneaus grabbed Brystagg’s waist with extraordinary long hands similar to a skrit. His abnormal strength raised the struggling high prince into the air.

“How admirable of you Sire to put the BHT spider freaks out of their misery.” Aidoneaus’s smooth voice dripped with bitter sarcasm.

He slammed Brystagg to the ground. Once. Twice. Thrice. Letting him go when he was certain the man felt the pain, coolly dodging every attack we could muster against him.

My heart thumped with a realisation that he had barely been making an effort to attack us. Now that he was freer to move around the chamber he could go all out.

Our side wasn’t in good shape for an all-out attack. Colin was unconscious on the ground next to Buru, knocked out cold by using too much of his bidea power protecting us earlier. As a result, the bull-man was heavily impacted with poisonous stab wounds all over his torso and limbs when he was protecting him from banshee. Wilfred’s right arm and his left wrist had gash wounds. He had been able to stop himself from bleeding out completely, but it left him weak to move. Lita’s strength was almost spent, she had also suffered a wound to her leg preventing her from standing upright. Now Brystagg had become unmovable from Aidoneaus’s thrush attack.

Lyra threw every remaining glass ball at the black-suited freak, and was forced to dodge her own attacks from the force magic he used to repel them back on her. The near misses exhausted all her strength.

“Look at your pitiful selves. Homburg and the BHT’s lack of skill was disappointing but not surprising.” He smugly stood before me, meeting my eyes with his cocky challenge.

“I had high hopes you were skilled fighters determined to save the world. Especially you Sire. Pitiful. You deserve to lie there and revert to null.” He turned his attention to Brystagg.

“Look at you, being this badass demon. Seems like some boy never grew up.” I cockily clapped my hands at his villainous chitchat.

“Why’s your issues Sire’s fault? He didn’t turn you into a freak did he? No, you’re a kid looking for someone else to blame for your stupidity, which made you this thing.” I tested for a sore spot.

He rushed at me with the tip of his newly formed claymore a hair’s breadth away from the side of my neck. Looks like I had hit it.

“You play cute, wiggling your piece of tail about like a trollop. I’d rather be a freak than a disgusting, useless, piece of sexual diseased trash.” He maniacally laughed as his sword swung up with momentum for a killing blow.

I was able to miss its attack from cutting my neck open. My arm received the blow. I stumbled backwards, acutely feeling the searing sharp pain. I heaved painful breaths, bracing myself for the nullifying blow.

“Revert to null, Famine.” Aidoneaus raised his claymore blade high above his head to end my life.

“No!” He cried out with disbelief at the longsword retracting from the fresh stab hole in his mid-section.

The claymore fell out of his hands; it disappeared upon impact to the floor. He stumbled about with shock, turned and gurgled with laughter at the sight of War.

“Yah talkin shit ’bout meh Baby Bro,” War coolly said as he raised his light blue longsword and skilfully stab-attacked Aidoneaus’s stomach again.

“Jainkoaren eskuetan!” Aidoneaus’s gurgling voice managed to spit out a spell.

He disappeared into a cloud of silver light that triggered a traumatic blast. The walls began to dissemble.

“Lita!” I heard Ryoko cry out.

I turned my head and saw her attending to her.

“Saku, how weh gonna get ’em out of ‘ere?!” War called out.

Saku came up behind him. I noticed a key crystal in his hands.

“No one is in a position to walk.” He began to panic as he glanced about the shaking walls that were dissembling at a fast rate.

“Weh just ‘ave to protect ’em.” War said.

Saku, Ryoko and War carefully grouped everyone together on the ground near the stillest wall. They stood over us to deflect flying bricks straying our way.

We held tight for a location change.