The Comfort Of The Knife

“Help us,” moaned one of Melissa’s would-be killers. “Please.”

Despite the rush I was in, I did consider it; Stylistically, I trended toward the direct when it came to killing—cutting a man down, setting him on fire, or a thrust through the soft palate to sever the brainstem—direct, quick, debatably merciful. Melissa, as I realized racing down the path toward Fort Tomb, was the opposite in all aspects. She was creative.

In running away from the idea of killing a single man she’d Mutated the forest into a gauntlet of biohorror torment. The man who’d groaned out the request was suspended in the deceptively dainty fingers of the tree’s branches which squirmed beneath his skin. Sewing around nerve clusters as the tree drugged him with a potent sorcerous variant of dopamine that hoisted your spirit to the highest heights of ecstasy. The rest of his comrades were so far gone that any attempt at language was rendered down into arpeggiated moans.

It was on the cusp of granting him mercy that I saw what he clutched in his fist…a lock of her hair. I raised my glaive and with it the light of hope in his eyes. Swish. One swipe, his hand fell like an overripe fruit. Fingers uncurled from the shock—their last command—releasing the lock of Melissa’s hair into my custody. The hand I left in the dirt as Sphinx and I continued on.

“We all make choices,” I said. “Some, better than others.”

“Wait don’t goooo,” he yelled before it became a dragged out moan.

We sped through the psychedelic scenery of bodily transmogrification that Melissa left behind like breadcrumbs. I’d stopped relying on the map at that point; my love’s creations became the signpost for navigating every turn or bend. As Fort Tomb’s grandeur dominated more and more of the sky, the clues that Melissa was being run ragged were increasingly apparent.

Her creative means to avoid taking a life were replaced by methods both simple and effective. Grass twisted to be sharp as a mosquito’s proboscis skewered trackers through their limbs, slime mold nets melted flesh into earth, and vines swung as killers kicked at the air struggling against their vegetative noose. It was in one of the traps that I passed a summoner whose claws had impaled and tore away a fat leg—Melissa’s leg.

Then came the sign that she had pushed herself too hard. Plants scattered the path broken, burned, wilted, hacked through, and melted in their futile attempts to stop or even stall those who’d kept the chase going. Amidst their remains was her arm. Stomped into the dirt by a hundred feet until it had become more mush than limb. It was here that I’d caught the scent of Bloodlust on the wind—no longer smothered beneath Mutation’s twisty aroma and Melissa’s flagrant abuse of her new power as a Baron.

Sphinx and I broke past the treeline arriving at the base of the hill Fort Tomb claimed as its own. In the dipping sun, the shadows of the mob stretched to the trees in an umbral carpet. Slowly shifting as they made their bitter ascent toward my love who stood silhouetted in the dying ruby sun ready for this to be her last stand.

She was magnificent, the scene, however, was a torment—alongside the limbs I’d passed she had been stripped of an eye, missing a chunk of her torso, and the birch hair she maintained as if a religion was torn and bloodied. Despite it all, there wasn’t a trace of melancholy on her face. Instead, I only saw conviction—to grant them no pleasure, to grant them no easy win, and to hold faith that her friends would arrive. That I would arrive. She didn’t need me to be sad on her account. She needed me to be sharp. A knife that would cut a path between the obstacle that was everybody which stood between her and me.

Under the Omensight, the crowd’s Bloodlust speared the air in the form of carmine war standards dancing along to the fluctuations of the mob’s murderous impulse. It was on those carmine standards I fixed my sight and inhaled. Flooding every gap of my spirit with Bloodlust’s sticky savagery until my eyes dilated and time dripped slow as a blood nose.

I wove my hands into the seal of a Fivefold Atomic Glory. Took aim at one of the knots in the crowd—a figure whose commitment to Bloodlust had ensnared those around him. Infinities upon infinities spun a wreath of possibility around my fingers—none of them mattered if Melissa wasn’t in them—so I split it all and watched as these killers' futures burned.

A baleful star screamed itself into the world banishing shadow in its passage. Its life short-lived as a half-thought later it collided with the earth. Exploded in four directions. So many Dream Shells popped that the sound was a thunderclap. Fire dispersed. In its wake was a scar in the hill shaped in the image of a four-pointed star—Revelation’s calling card.

The mob halted their advance, turning back to see who’d struck them. Melissa raised her head to see if salvation had arrived. Sphinx conjured an Inviolate Star above us—security and light so every would-be killer could see the face of their doom. I leveled Mother’s Last Smile and drank in the silence. In one act, I’d made this my battlefield, and none dared to move.

“Let it be known right now,” I bellowed, “you are all dead! What I offer is not mercy, but your last and only chance at Resurrection. Leave now and embrace life, or make ready as I send you to whatever Afterlife shall receive your pitiful spirit.”

The leaves rustled in an arboreal furor as a summer storm rolled in. Clouds disemboweled themselves unleashing a hateful downpour. I looked to Melissa.

“Baby, momma’s coming.”

Lightning severed the tension. Thunder set the beat. The mob roared in challenge—their reason, a chilled corpse on the altar of Bloodlust—and they descended upon me, a tide of death. I charged forth silent, focused, and smiling. They needed a mob; I only needed Sphinx.

Collision. My glaive swam through bodies carving channels of passage for my inexorable advance. The Sorcery of soldiers broke against the light of the Inviolate Star in bursts of color and Principle. Spells from Barons drilled past the shield only to melt at the touch of my body. All around me limbs and heads climbed into the sky as Dream Shells popped. I was sharp. I was a knife. I was the cutting line between here and there, and I never stopped watching Melissa’s face. Not even when she gasped.

Bang. My body snapped backward. Bang bang. I was cast to the ground. Three molten fingers had jabbed into my torso. On shaky legs I rose and beheld a mousy woman holding a gun whose barrel steamed in the rain. Not fingers, bullets. I coughed, blood stained my teeth as it waterfalled from my mouth—she’d gotten a lung.

Sphinx whirled around, her wings wide in a threat display as she tried to stare down the summoners that encircled us. None of them moved—they probably hoped I’d pop here, drop into a slumber, and allow them to go without fear of my reprisal. The woman looked around in disbelief at the unanimous trepidation.

“Come on,” she screamed, “she’s just a soldier. She—.”

“You talk too much,” I said.

I had wound the tie of bloody fate that stretched from me to her between my fingers; Atomic Glory. Her words evaporated becoming hoarse screams as chalcedony flames consumed all that she was—until her Dream Shell popped. Then she fell to her knees sleeping. I spit a glob of blood into the dirt.

“Do you want a fucking invitation?” I asked the crowd.

When no one answered I tossed Mother’s Last Smile into the air, reversed my grip on it, and threw it like a javelin. The metal gleamed brighter than lightning. Pierced through one man’s heart. Pop. Gored a second man’s intestines. Pop. Impaled a woman through the lower vertebrae, the only thing keeping her standing. As the men before her fell to the ground dreaming she met my eyes. I have no idea what she saw in them, but I wanted to have a little fun so I jerked forward—ignoring the pain that caused—chomping at the air. She clutched her chest and…pop. Falling free from her impalement as if it were just a horrid dream.

I laughed, “I’ll come to you.”

The crowd edged forward belching sacrifices my way as I stumbled forward. One carried a spinning flail that gathered Cycles of kinetic force—Sphinx tore his head off before he swung. His hand released the weapon launching it into the distance where it exploded with unfocused power. Bodies ragdolled through the air from that.

A second was prodded forward at the same time as the first fell. He wore the crown of Kings, his entity. Sphinx’s head spun to catch him racing toward my back. Noting her shift in attention I fell forward turning around before his outstretched hand could touch me. I gifted him two Atomic Glories; one through the head and a second through the heart. His crown rolled from his head unfurling into a small bejeweled lizard that snarled in disapproval of me.

My back struck the mud. I grunted in pain—a break in the illusion of invulnerability I’d maintained until then. The crowd surged at once. I tried to form the seal for Godtime, but a boot found my head a hair quicker than my hand could contort. Sphinx rushed over goring through the woman’s spine in punishment. I crawled up her tumbling body using it as cover to block a bolt of Voracity fired by a different summoner in the distance. My attention swiveled to them—another wrong decision—as an uproar of skeletal limbs surged from the dirt pummeling me into the sky. The Ghostly musculature that enabled their motion melted on contact, but the bones were real enough.

“It has to be Real,” a summoner said, I assume the one who’d launched me.

Arrayed below me was a mob—depleted but not removed—who latched onto the advice. Spears of lightning, bullets, gouts of fire, materialized swords, chakrams of ice, and boulders—not sorcerous someone just found a rock—soared up after me. Adrift between heaven and earth, I looked to Melissa. In the brief respite I’d carved out for her she’d grown a new leg, an arm, and an eye. I should’ve been happy, but the only thing I really cared about in that moment was that she was crying. I hated to see my people cry.

“Godtime,” I incanted, plunging the both of us into a state of temporal stillness.

Well, it was relatively still. There were too many summoners pushing against the constraints of my Godtime even if most were only soldiers. I could’ve loosened the spell’s reins accepting a sluggish procession of events, but I’d die then. Instead I allowed myself ten unpassing seconds.

One. I assessed the violence that sought my demise. A panoply of weapons frozen like stairs up to the sky. I could work with that.

Two. My body fell. I grasped both spears of lightning—they were the closest to me—and threw them back to the earth at different trajectories.

Three. The throw had taken my full body causing me to flip forward. I rolled over the tip of a sword, reached up to clasp its hilt just in time, and parried the seven that would’ve otherwise skewered every important organ.

Four. I threw the sword behind me—it’d come back later. Crossed my arms to steal the chakrams from the sky and released them just as soon. They skimmed the air on their way to take some other poor fool’s head.

Five. I rotated myself the best I could—there’d be no way around the bullets. They perforated my sides leaving trails of blood behind me.

Six. The gout of flame washed over me, but Real fire prefers a concentrated stream if it's to be lethal. It still fucking hurt though.

Seven. I winked at Melissa. She couldn’t hold back the laugh of disbelief and hope at my antics. It felt good to make her laugh again.

Eight. The boulder and I made our acquaintance. My bones shivered from the force, but I crawled—Nine—leaped from it to clear the circle of foes I would’ve fallen back into. Ten.

Godtime ended, and the projectiles that had refrozen once they’d left my hands went to work. Lightning struck its target, skewering them through the skull and frying their nerves. The parried swords fell with the rain severing limbs and nicking arteries which fountained blood into the faces of those nearby. Two heads—decapitated courtesy of frozen chakram—rocketed from their proper bodies. Then after came the comforting chorus of popped Dream Shells.

I soared toward the location of Mother’s Last Smile. I’d land close to it. A few steps and I’d have my weapon again. A perfect plan. An obvious plan. As a woman in silk robes that snapped in the wind proved when she’d leaped into the air beside my glaive. Her eyes wide and attentive so she’d miss nothing. With the Omensight I could see the Court which hung tight to her body in a crystalline lattice—Mastery, but a Master of what?

The answer came when her shin, hardened from decades of training, snapped my ribs in a kick that returned me to the circle I’d tried to leave. She was a Master of martial arts—fuck me.

I crashed to the ground—probably snapped my ankle—then scrambled to my feet. My body could scream in disapproval of how I treated it, but I wasn’t lying down until I reached Melissa. Sphinx ran to me—the bastards had stabbed her while we were parted. A summoner of Bondage intercepted her with his entity, a chitinous knight with the face of a sleeping maiden. The damn thing opened along seven seams snapping out with seven black barbed tongues that coiled around Sphinx’s legs, her neck, her wings.

“Sphinx, forget about me,” I said. “Drop the star. Fight back. Fight!”

“Always, Nadia,” she yelled back.

The Inviolate Star fell—darkness rushed in around us—this was the wrong move. The fucking jackals that these summoners were shaped their spells ready to pummel Sphinx. It didn’t take Godtime for me to see how everything slowed. Regrets slid into my mind. Why didn’t I graduate? Why not try harder to have Melissa drop out? Why not use Godtime earlier? Then, when no answers came, I shaped the seal to return Sphinx into my spirit. In the darkness she was incandescent. Something somewhat Real returned to burning glorious concept flowing free from the entity’s clutches, snaking between legs and dodging spells, before shooting into my chest. Returning to the depths of my spirit.

“No, no, Nadia don’t do this,” she pleaded from inside of me.

I said, “It’ll be okay. We’ll get through this.”

Then a kick took me in the back. I stumbled. Shifted my spirit to make use of Sphinx’s paw, and whirled on my attacker eviscerating his throat. Bang. I fell to a knee—though it was more accurate to say I lost a knee. Someone had recovered the sleeping woman’s gun.

“Fuck,” I said, before a knee crunched into my face toppling me into the mud.

That proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was gassed—I wasn’t, but I had been shot like eight times by then. Only so much adrenaline and love can do. The mob pushed and shoved at itself for each person to have the privilege to kick me while I was down. Granted it was more like they stomped me. My thigh, my ribs, and some tried my head, though I had the good sense to cover it the best I could—more training courtesy of Mom.

There was only darkness. I was so covered by attackers and blinded by my own pitiful attempt at defense that not even the sharp fangs of lightning could grant me illumination. There was only mu; up my nose, in my mouth mixing with blood. I wondered if you could drown in mud. The Dream Shell would let me find out.

Then I pondered on how alone I was. My family from breakfast wasn’t here beside me. I fought and was about to die alone. Sphinx had said it’d be only us in the end. This was a taste of that. Loneliness was dark. It was cold. It was—

“Isolating,” a voice said.

Then, raising her head from the pool of darkness was the face of the unnamed Baron who wore stars as a crown. She smiled wide and pleased with herself.

“That’s your name, Revelation Isolating?” I asked.

Revelation Isolating nodded. “I knew you’d figure it out once you had a taste. Though apologies at how bitter this must be—to learn and accept that in the end it’d be just you and me.”

“No,” I said, “it’d be me and Sphinx.”

Revelation Isolating laughed at me. Her laugh reverberated in my dark isolation. I hated how bright her laugh was. How I wanted hear it again, so at least I wouldn’t be faced with nothing.

“You have to stop being a child, Nadia,” Revelation Isolating said. “I am Sphinx, or rather Sphinx is me. The path you’re on leads to me Nadia, it’s inevitable, and when you graduate my younger sister, that lesser self of mine, I’ll emerge. Replete with all that love she holds for you—it really is so heartwarming to know that I’d be joining a real lover girl like yourself.”

She retreated into the darkness. I couldn't help it but reach out for her—my hands fell on a door knob. We were inside of my spirit in that place I’d fallen into due to Ferilala Nu-zo’s questioning. I looked behind myself to see Sphinx battered and curled up on a pillow. She raised her head with eyes unfocused and lip busted.

“Don’t let her make you—,” she groaned, before Revelation Isolating emerged from behind her screen, took her by the hair, and bashed her head into the small table at the center of the room.

Revelation Isolating whispered, “Quiet, little sister. The adults are talking—that is, if you’re ready to be one Nadia.”

Her hand redirected my head to the door—unadorned but hot. I hadn’t seen her move, but in my spirit I imagine that was unnecessary. She laid her chin on my shoulder.

“You know,” she said, “I’m one of the more popular Barons historically speaking. If you need someone to love you Nadia, then pick me. I’ll love you forever. I’ll love you completely. So much so that you’ll be full and sated with no need for anyone else.”

“I’d be alone,” I said.

She rolled her eyes, “Yes, dear, but that’s getting older. Ascending until you’re at the peak and there’s no one else who can join you. The isolation that comes natural to those who crave power. It is why you started on this path in the first place after all.”

Tears welled in my eyes. Maybe she was right. I mean, it was my birthday when they killed Mom and Dad. I got a little older and more alone. If it was natural then…then…

“You’ll always have me,” she said. “No need for anyone else. No need for any more pain.”

Revelation Isolating pressed a kiss to my cheek stealing a tear.

“Now open the door, and we can step into—.”

The roar of a beast ripped through the air drowning the thunder. It was a bellow that vibrated in my bones and made me a bit aroused…Melissa. I let go of the door knob.

“No, come back, she won’t make it,” Revelation Isolating said—no, she was pleading.

Then I heard the screams that came from human voices. She was fighting? I turned my head freeing myself from Revelation Isolating’s grip.

Revelation Isolating screamed, “She’s Crystalline you fucking moron. Once she sees you really sees you free from the scales of your pitiful love—she’ll toss you aside.”

“She’s coming for me though,” I said. “Maybe she won’t always, but she is now. Which means…”

“No, it doesn’t mean anything. Not in the grand scheme—.”

“...I’m not alone. I’m not isolated. So, Revelation Isolating,” I declared, “Fuck off.”

My spirit shuddered as it expelled her. She flew into her silk screen disappearing into the scene within before it went up in flames so bright that they banished the darkness behind my eyes. I felt my body again, bruised and broken and bleeding, but it was my body. It was being lifted from the cold sucking mud that had nearly drowned me.

I cracked an eye open—the other one was swollen shut and caked closed with mud and blood. There above me was the towering chimeric form of my ex-fiancee. The bodies of two summoners hung from her jaws as she shook them back and forth until her teeth had severed them. Their Dream Shells popped forcing Melissa to spit out their sleeping bodies. Hearing my groan of consciousness she looked down at me with her two pupil eyes blinking with her three eyelids so she could behold me with the greatest clarity.

“Y-you killed them,” I said.

Melissa smiled—well, her chimeric form didn’t have the muscles to smile but she did flash her silver teeth the length of sabers, “Of course, they touched my baby girl. For that, I’d kill anyone.”

She then looked sad as her eyes roamed across my body cataloging every wound.

“Nadia, why didn’t you try eating the star?” she asked.

I coughed a puddle of blood into her scaled hand that cradled me.

“You all didn’t want me to anymore. So I didn’t,” I said. “Wanted you to know I was serious. About us. Everything.”

“You idiot,” she said. “You big idiot, I know. But it isn’t about the spell, it’s about how much I hate to see you like this, broken.”

“How’d you think,” I coughed, “I felt seeing you missing a leg and arm?”

“Not great. Though you know what?”

“Huh?”

“You really know how to fall with style.”

I laughed, and then groaned as I felt a rib slice deeper into some organ I knew was important. Using her thumb as a support, I pulled myself to a sitting position. Glanced to the side to see that the mob was diminished further but still had just enough people to put up a fight if Melissa planned to take them on herself.

“Hey, so it might be a weird time to ask this,” I said, “but since it’s just us against them right now, think this could be a date?”

Melissa’s laugh boomed like thirty ceremonial drums hammered at once.

“That’s this Nadia’s taste in dates?”

I shrugged, “Who doesn’t want to look cool in front of a girl.”

“Well, until that one lady kicked you out the sky you did look pretty cool,” she said. “But you should probably eat up, I can’t go on a date with you if you’re asleep.”

“Eat up?” I asked, then I understood. “Really?”

“Sure,” she said, “let me see you at your best.”

“Fuck yeah.”

I conjured an Inviolate Star, winked at Melissa—which admittedly just looked like I closed my eyes, and then swallowed the star whole. It burned going down. I relished the burn because it pushed away the cold. Pushed away the isolation. Incinerated the pain and the weakness in my body. Then, limbs and organs held together in Revelatory fire, I opened my other eye and took in the fearful faces of those about to die.

“I told you fucks, you’re already dead,” I said, jumping down from Melissa’s hands for round two and my first ever battlefield date.