Radical-9

CHAPTER 9: Still I Rise

February 23^rd, 2022

5:52 pm

Athena bends down to the child, her face shifting to a mix of compassion and worry, “Excuse me, do you mind telling me your name, sweetie?” The child nods his head, holding his hands up to his face in fear.

“S…Sam.” He mutters in an almost inaudible voice.

“Do you have any friends nearby, Sam? Anybody maybe on the first floor to stay with?” Klein asks.

Sam shakes his head, tears fill his eyes, “Not really. I’ve been here for a long time. I don't really know where my papa went,” he says.

“Papa?” I ask.

“My papa brought me in here, he was a little mad, said something about power. Now he's gone,” he says, his eyes glazed over.

“What do you mean gone?” I ask.

Sam shrugs his shoulder, a depressing frown crosses his face. He looks up to me, “My papa said he was disappointed,” he says, his mouth scrunched up.

I look to Athena, she gives me a look back and then turns to Sam, kneeling down again, “Listen, we’ll keep you safe, okay? Until we can find your dad we'll be your friends, does that sound like a deal?”

He takes a hesitant step closer towards her, he puts his hands behind his back and looks down, “I don't know, papa said to not talk to anybody else,” he says.

“We can find your papa,” I say. “If he were here would he tell you to not speak to us?”

Sam looks at me, his lips creased, “Well, I guess not.”

I offer my hand. Sam takes it and smiles.

“You are...my friend?” He asks.

“We can be friends, Sam. Yeah, sure, and so can the rest of us,” I say, nodding my head.

“I'm Athena, okay Sam? We can be friends too,” she says, standing up, fixing her bangs to the side.

“Guys, I think we might not be out of the danger zone quite yet,” Klein says, his face tightens. “We have to go,” he looks around himself.

“What do you mean? More wolves?” I ask.

Klein is shaking his head, “No, something worse,” he says.

I see it then, a figure looming in the underbrush, human-like. I don't know how long its been there, maybe it just arrived, but it begins moving—slowly at first, with a sort of grace. I stand fully, Sam hides behind my leg, he grips my pants hard. The figure emerges into the light, and my suspicions of it being a player are correct.

It's a woman, an older woman to be specific, probably in her twenties. She has her light brown hair curled around her shoulder, covering half of her face as if it were a snake under her command. She looks as high strung as the whip tucked at her side. Her clothes seem to be less about covering her body and more for presenting her features. A complement of fabric to the human body, a body she works like no novice. Her face on the other hand is an entirely different story, callous doesn’t even begin to describe this woman's expression.

“Oh there you are! I’ve been looking everywhere you, darling,” she says, her voice is smooth but strong. She slowly walks over, one foot over the other, every step perfectly calculated, Sam cowers behind me further, grabbing my leg for support once more. “Hand over the kid and you can mosey on and pretend we never met. That does sound fair, does it not?” She says, cocking her head, her hair bouncing off of her shoulder and revealing her other eye, a sort of hazel.

“And who are you?” Athena speaks up.

“Me? Oh, I'm the boy's caretaker, don't you know? I've been simply so distraught with worry, but now that I've found you darling I don't have to worry anymore,” she says.

“Do you know this woman, Sam?” My eyes shift down towards him.

“Of course he does, and all of this extra stress you've been putting on the boy is certainly getting to be too much, so now I'll take him and you can Move. Along.” She says, her voice gets deep.

“You...you're an admin of the Python Guild, are you not?” Klein asks.

“Pythons?” Athena asks.

“The Pythons are some of the nastiest players of the game, they're built on the foundation of player killing and everything under the sun,” Klein explains, “And it just so happens we found an admin,” he says.

“What?” The woman asks, turning towards Klein.

“How do you know that, Klein?” I ask.

“I may have...uh, spoken to her before,” he responds, his voice cracking.

A realization crosses the woman's eyes, her mouth hangs open slightly and then returns,“You're the creep who kept asking for my number! I knew you were familiar from somewhere, damn.” She spits out harshly. “And to think this was going to end easily. Well, that stinks for you, now doesn't it?”

“What the hell makes you think you can take us three on one?” I call, unsheathing Elcor. “Even if you did come from the beta you're severely outmatched.”

She grins, “It's as Scruffy here said it, I am the admin of the Python Guild, sent here by my boss to fetch this kid,” she says. “My name's Rose, any who see me call me the Rose of Death, at least, that's what they say before I kill them,” she licks her lips. “You honestly believed I’d come here alone? You’re more foolish than I thought.” As she says it, about twenty other players emerge from the trees, all variations of the robes I'd seen on the players in the castle dungeon. Some of the players are wearing the robes, others are wearing light cloth with the Python insignia, and others have heavy armor with the black and red markings, all Python material.

“Hey, can we kill these rooks?” One of the players calls out, his voice is harsh like a monster's. “I want the girl! Oh please let me have her!” Another calls. “I want to rip them apart!” A girl cries out from under her hood.

“You'll have to excuse them, they're new recruits, we couldn't afford to take our higher ranked members away from the ceremony,” Rose says, a new harsh tone in her own voice.

Ceremony? What could she be talking about?

“Okay, enough chitter chatter, we all ready?” Rose calls out, extending her arm, calling the Pythons forward. They begin walking closer, making the circle they've trapped us in smaller and smaller. Klein, Athena and I all move back, we're all in a triangle with Sam inside.

“What the hell are we going to do, Klein?” I ask, raising my sword.

“I…I don’t think we have a choice, Dex, they've got us surrounded.”

“So, fighting will be our only way out then, right?” Athena asks.

I grit my teeth. They begin walking, closing in on us.

“Now, before I gave you the choice to hand over the boy, and you wouldn't have gotten yourselves killed, but now we'll take him and kill you,” Rose begins. She reaches down and takes out her whip, cracking the tendrils against the nearby tree. Scorch marks are left where they connect, and the tree begins to burn. I grip Elcor tightly.

The Pythons begin charging at us all at once. One of the assassins makes it to me first, he cuts into my side with his knife. I see a prompt open for my invisibility skill, I press it and vanish. I can see the confused look of the assassin as he yanks his knife out. I use his confusion against him, swinging Elcor upwards and catching him off guard.

It sends the fighter off balance, falling down. His health drops about 20%.

“Why don’t you come here and let me carve a smile onto that face, pretty boy? Show yourself!” The player says, standing up. He and a healer behind him are looking around, she begins healing his wounds. “Where the FUCK are you?!” He yells.

I charge up Elcor, my blade beginning to glow, and he seems to notice, just under his hood I can see a grin as he moves for a quick strike. Just in time I manage to transfer the energy to the aura blade and block his knife with it. The impact with his knife sends his hood flying off of his head. I see underneath it is the snob I'd met earlier on the first floor. My invisibility runs out, and we're left staring at each other.

“Oh, so you're the vermin I've been hired to kill? This is going to be a good day!” He says.

“Oh, why does it have to be you? You're annoying as all hell,” I say, pushing him off of me.

I twist my blade and send his knife flying in the air, and use his forward momentum to shove him back into his healer. They fall on top of each other, muttering their own curses. I see Athena jump in and thrust the Wo Dao straight through the center of them, reducing their health to zero. She doesn't miss a step and moves on to take the fight close range to a nearby archer. Thank you, Athena.

I rush back in, deftly dodging a fireball aimed right at me. They're going for range now, huh? It just looks like I'll have to adapt. I turn and lose grip on my aura blade, it shoots out like an arrow and pierces the mage's side, causing him to falter and taking some of his health down. I stare for a second as the sword re-materializes in my hand. Looks like I can use this in more ways than I thought. I'm going to have some fun with this. I throw out the sword again and see it throw back the mage, the rest of his health vanishes and he shatters into pixels. The sword comes back, but this time less opaque, it seems to flicker. It must have a limited amount of uses as a skill. I open my inventory and take out a potion, ducking from a stray arrow headed my way. I drink up and my health rises to about 90%.

In the distance I see Klein slashing his sword in a nasty arc, catching three players all in one strike, but then I see two mages off aiming at him. I run to take care of them, but end up tripping and falling. I feel a tingling sensation around my ankle and realize that Rose had caught my leg in her whip. The tendrils on the end of the whip begin to burn and they sear as they attach themselves to my leg. She yanks the whip back and I’m dragged across the ground. I grunt and watch my health drop to about 85%.

The mages assault Klein and he takes heavy damage, falling to one knee from the dual assault, their fire attacks pierce his armor’s special effect. Athena is swinging her sword, it leaving only a shimmer of light before it cuts through the enemy forces. I turn to see Rose approaching me. I use my sword to slash at her, which takes her off guard. The aura sword launches itself once more, it's power weakened from continuous use, but it loosens her grip on the whip and I pull my leg free from the burns. I hop to my feet, my leg hurting slightly. I look for Sam, I cannot see him and can only hope he's hidden himself somewhere. I rejoin the fight take down one of the mages who'd attacked Klein, he screams as his health reaches zero. Klein turns and then lunges his sword through the other. I hear Rose cackle and I look over, she’s readying her whip again, recovered from the sword blast. She flicks her wrist and I see the whip coming straight towards my face, tendrils blazing.

I duck and the whip extends past me, digging its way into a Python behind me who had just gotten ready to sneak up on me, the five tendrils dig into his front and he screams as Rose yanks them out in an angry rush. He is forced to the ground and slams his head, taking away the rest of his health. Behind Rose I can see Athena finishing off the remaining players arrogant enough to take her on. Her health is sitting at about 45%. There are three Pythons who stop attacking and begin running into the woods behind them, “This isn't worth it, I quit! I'm not dying for this stupid game!”

The remaining follow him, they disappear into the shadows beneath the tree line. Rose is the only one who remains, Athena behind her and Klein and I in front, I catch sight of Sam hiding behind one of the trees and breath a sigh of relief.

“Fools, I’ll be sure to get recompense when I’m done with these…” Rose begins saying, until Klein, Athena and I have our swords pointed on her, a triangle now around her.

“No, you’re going to surrender and we’re going to be taking you in,” I say, letting a new kind of confidence work its way into my body. “You're going to pay for all of those lives you just threw away.”

“Threw away? I didn't kill them, dear. That's all on you, and where do you suppose you'll take me? Hm? This land succeeds on the failures of others. There isn’t any jail in Elysium,” Rose begins laughing.

“I’ll make one if I have to,” I say.

“You don’t know who that kid is, do you?” Rose asks, cocking her head, sass entering her voice.

“I don’t need to. He's a child and I'm not letting him anywhere near you. Now, lie down your weapon.” Rose looks downward for a few seconds. She grins and looks back up.

“Okay, big boy. I’ll surrender, take mighty nice care of me, you hear?”

She lays her whip on the ground and takes out a knife she had hidden in her back pocket and it joins the whip.

“Dex,” Athena begins.

“Hold on,” I say to her. “Now, I want you to remove them from your inventory, I don't want this shit reappearing anywhere near you anytime soon,” I finish. She does so. Not an ounce of defeat or regret, what the hell is with this woman?

“I’ll be fine, I'm going to go get Sam, you two tie her up, okay?” I ask.

Klein nods, and then looks towards Rose, “You know, now, I don't even want your number.”

Athena rolls her eyes as I lower my sword and walk past them. I head into the brush, Sam has left the spot I saw him in. “Sam? Sam, where are you?” I call out. I feel a tug on the back of my pants, and I turn, there he is. His eyes are wide, he's been crying.

“D...Dex?”

“Yes? I...I don't recall actually telling you my name, I'm sorry,” I say.

“Dex, A...Athena said it. Your leg,” he begins to say.

I look down to my leg, the one he points at, the one that was hit by the whip. There are several tiny white glowing spots where the whip’s tendrils ripped at my leg, a sort of liquid begins to form at the base of the skin.

“I'll be okay, Sam. We can heal that up, but the important thing is that you’re okay.”

He looks hesitant, but he nods his head. I stand back up, feeling slight pain from my leg. I carry him piggyback style over towards Athena and Klein. Having no rope or anything similar, they simply used Rose’s whip to keep her at bay.

Athena walks over to us and looks at Sam, “I’m so glad you’re okay, we’re going to punish her later, okay?” Sam looks from Athena to me.

“Would you be my new mama and papa instead of finding my old papa? I don't...I don't like him very much,” He asks quietly, looking at Athena and me.

The question takes me by surprise. I almost begin stumbling over my words, but Athena cuts in. She puts her hand on his face, clearing some soot off of his cheek. “We’ll take care of you, no doubt,” she answers straight. I don’t even have to look at him to feel his smile.

I give a look of “What the hell are you agreeing to?” to Athena. She gives me one that means something like “I’ll talk about it later.” I hear Klein in the background singing,

“Dex and Athena, sitting beside trees! Adopting a kid, isn’t that the bee’s knees?”

Athena must’ve read my mind, because the next thing I know, Klein is doubled over in pain, I can guess where she kicked him.

“Isn’t that precious?” Rose interjects sarcastically. I’d almost forgotten she was there. I take a deep breath.

“I’ll take her, Athena, take Sam,” I say. I hand him off and he’s now piggyback on Athena. I take the handle of the whip in my hand.

“Hey, be more careful! Wouldn’t want your bitch over here to believe you’d do anything with that whip and little old me,” she says, letting her tongue dance around in her mouth.

“I can leave you in the jungle to rot, you know.” I reply.

“Ooh, Kitty has claws.” Rose jokes. “You wouldn't do that, you're into that justice garbage. You wouldn't let this end until you have me take my dues or whatever,” She says.

“Can it. Even I’m getting annoyed, unlike him I don't have that sense of justice,” Klein mutters.

“Oh, come on! You need to lighten up.” She says, giggling to herself.

I stand still, thinking. She's right, I'm not going to just leave her here and give her a chance to escape to do more harm. But should I kill her now? She's defenseless, but what would happen if I didn't? Why would she get to live if those others didn't? They were only following orders, were they not? I think on the screams of the players, their faces as they shattered into a million pieces. But if it didn't happen I'd be dead, we'd all be dead. We saved an innocent child. There is going to be death in this game. I...I have to be okay with that, at least for the time being. I have to be okay with that, and I have to be sure not to lose myself in it. I have justice, hat I need to hang onto, anything that will help me get through this. A cataclysmic sound screeches out, a roar so loud it shakes the entire world, the trees seem to bend to the waves. I instantly look at Rose.

“What? How could I have done that?” She says and then continues to blow a stray hair out of her face.

I unsheathe Elcor, keeping the whip in my other hand.

“I’ll keep her in check. You and Athena clear out the way,” Klein says. “Oh, and I'll keep Sam close by, if that's something strong we don't want him getting caught up in that.” Athena nods and then lets him down, he walks over beside Klein.

“We'll be back,” I say.

“Stay safe,” Klein says.

“Yeah, break a leg, and hopefully an arm, ooh, and maybe even your spine,” Rose says. I look to Klein.

“I've got her, dude. You both go on,” he says. I look at him and nod. Athena and I begin sprinting into the underbrush, after the sound of the roar. We're ducking underneath some low hanging branches and hopping over the overgrown roots of some of the trees.

“Make sure you're all healed up, we don't know what we're going up against,” Athena says.

“I'm out of potions, only had the two that Klein had given me, I'm at about 70%, though,” I say.

“Take one of mine, just make sure you stay alert.”

The world begins to shake again, in the distance I can see some of the trees toppling over, collapsing and snapping like twigs. A sort of creature is leaping towards us, it is much larger than the wolves we had seen, larger than a building even. It looks to be a gigantic lion, but its tail is actually a snake, also much larger than any snake than I'd ever seen. On the backside of the lion head, it’s that of a goat, the horns grow and meld onto the backside of the mane, the whole creature a weird deformity of terror. It stands at its full height, its two main heads letting loose a terrifying shriek into the heavens.

“What the hell is that thing?!” I yell, ducking behind a tree.

Athena is as wide eyed as I am, “The enemy window says it is a boss, it's name is Chimera.”

“What?! Another boss?” I ask.

“I mean, I can't question it, it's right here!” Athena answers. “Wait, what's that around it's neck?” She points up. I look and notice a small orange crystal hanging from the beast’s neck like a pendant, the shape easily coming to mind.

“Athena, it has another Keystone!”

“We need to kill this thing. That's what it comes to,” she says.

“Wasn't that what it would have come to anyway?”

She shakes her head and shrugs, “I don't know, maybe if it didn't we could've waited it out and saved our health, but that doesn't seem to be the case.”

I look back to her, swinging out Elcor, “Are you ready?”

Her blue eyes shine back a vote of confidence in me, the confidence I felt back when I first met her, the confidence in securing Rose, and now the confidence in tackling this giant behemoth. I feel...strong. The Chimera comes running at us first, it covering the distance between us in mere seconds. Athena and I split off to each side, hoping to confuse the gargantuan monster. We’re near its front paws and I can see the snake tail from behind searching out for its next meal.

I don't even want to know if they went so far to program where its meals go.

Athena has taken the fight to the snake directly, deftly dodging its bites and gnaws. She's occupied the rear while I have a chance to take the attack onto the creature. I find that the best strategy will be to attack from on top of the creature, I'll be in control there, and control is what will keep me alive. I run and jump, stabbing Elcor into the beasts' leg, hanging on with my other arm. I hear a roar of pain from all three heads, but I keep going. I feel like I'm climbing a mountain of fur, using Elcor as my stability on my way up. The goat head has had enough of me stabbing its side, it starts shrieking out a sound that makes me feel dizzy, but I hang on. I can see from the side that Athena is keeping up with the snake head, getting in a few cuts here and there on the scaly exterior. The goat head closes its mouth and puffs up its cheeks, it spews out a nasty green sort of liquid. It lands just past me on the ground on the nearby trees. The ground begins smoking and some of the trees begin rotting away. This makes Jen's indigestion problem seem like child's play.

The beast begins running around, the lion head wanting to give Athena a piece of its mind, it makes climbing up near impossible, my body is swinging around, only Elcor keeping me attached to the beast. The goat head spews another dose of acid, I duck close to the beast's fur as it hits the side of the lion's face as it turns around. The creature begins screaming, causing the other three to scream as well. I've lost most of my hearing, I can't keep up with the intensity of their screeching, it is all just ringing now. I can see half of the lion's face had melted off, showing a skeletal interior, it is almost like it had a stroke, half of its face is just dead.

I glance over my shoulder and see that Athena had chased the Snake and stabbed her Wo Dao into one of its eyes in the midst of its screams. She removes the sword and continues to stab and slash at its other eye, blinding it. I refocus and continue once more climbing up the side of the Chimera. The second half of the climb isn’t as unstable as the first, but it isn’t a picnic at the top either. I’m almost face to face with the goat head. It begins shrieking once more and now that I’m this close, it pierces into my very being.

The goat’s head begins puffing up its cheeks once more and an idea forms in my head. I wave my arms around, taunting the goat head to fire. It opens its mouth and the green acid flies at me. I roll out of the way, causing the acid to land on the Chimera’s back. The acid has already ripped through the fur and flesh of the beast, part of its spine is visible and the flesh seems to be breaking around where the acid had made contact.

Before I can do any more damage, I can see the snake tail rising towards me, a bit of hesitation in its movements, as both of its eyes have been gouged out. I then look above and see Athena riding on top of the snake and I watch as she plunges the Wo Dao right through the snake’s body. A horrid wail emits from the goat and lion heads as the snake goes limp.

Athena jumps from the snake body, leaping into the air. I run out and reach out my arms. She reaches out and catches them and I swing her around, slowing her descent.

“Hey, drive your sword into that wound over there and then run to the other side, I'll do the same from the other side,” I say, an idea forming.

“O-Okay,” Athena replies.

The goat head begins to wail and fling its head about. It must realize it shouldn’t use its acid again. The lion head tries to turn around, but it cannot reach us. I begin running up the spine of the creature, at the side of the acid wound as I reach the tip of where it had burned the flesh. We both drive our swords into the monster’s back and we begin running up and down the rest of the Chimera's body, creating a rip right through the beast’s back.

The skin on the beast begins to tear away as we run, the Chimera falls to the ground, carrying us along with it. I tumble to the ground and Athena lands, bending her knees. The Chimera distorts and then breaks apart into millions of tiny pixels, all floating towards the sky. The Keystone falls to the to the ground. Its name is the Heart of Artemis. It shines a brilliant orange in the light and it even looks like there is a small fire burning inside the crystal just like the Heart of Ares. I stow it away in my inventory and walk back towards Athena.

“So, we've got a Heart of both Ares and Artemis, what are the odds we might see a Heart of Athena anytime soon?” I ask, grinning.

She looks down, but the faintest of smiles shines through, “S-Shut up,”

“There seems to be some theming here I'm missing with the Greek Deities,” I say.

“I chose the name because Athena is the pinnacle for wisdom. The idea of Athena represents everything I want to be, strong, wise...”

“Weren't the Greek Gods all dicks to each other?”

“Only to those they disliked.”

“Do you dislike me?”

“What?” She asks, looking at me with a new sort of look, surprised. “N-No, I don't...this is stupid. We need to get back to Klein and Sam,” She says, walking back to the trees.

“Is that a yes?” I ask, hanging back.

She stops, “No.”

“Okay,” I say.

I nod and we begin walking back to the clearing, completely silent.

Her.

I keep thinking about her. I can't right now, this is no time...not while we're fighting for our lives, but...what if there is no other time? What about when we win? (Because I'm not letting the other option even cross my mind.) Do we go back to our lives in the real world, away from each other? We live close by, so maybe...No, I cannot be thinking of this, I cannot be falling for her. I refuse it. I deny it. Friends. we're friends. Nothing more, nothing less. I just need to keep pushing it, just keep moving, keep fighting.

If I can get out of here, get as many of these people out of here, then I don't know, maybe I can learn to live with my actions here, but I need to have my full attention to get out of here. I've already learned how carelessness can get me killed here.

We step out past the trees, moving by the two that fell victim to Rose's whip, the scorch marks look like they've almost completely faded. I see it first, the clearing where Klein, Sam and Rose. I stop walking, what is waiting for us shocks us both, there isn't a sign of life anywhere.