Armageddon: The Broken Man - ACT 1

Chapter 11 - Red Raven Flies

Chapter 11 - Red Raven Flies

>KANRIS TANDIR

By the time Leonara managed to drag Willow's soggy ass out of the ocean, the Red Raven was already in pieces. Shrapnel was everywhere, shit was on fire, and half the crew was dead or unconscious. The stray cannonballs lodged in the deck really didn't help, either.

And, of course, Chaos was going batshit with a dismounted puckle gun.

Nobody could move without getting shot into a bruised lump of flesh. I couldn't even duck out of my cover to look without getting my cheekbones shaved by a bullet. Sanret keeps trying to chuck flaming bottles of liquor onto the Muertrier; the distance isn't a problem, but he has no clue where the actual ship is.

Half of my brandy is in the ocean - on fire - Chaos is having the time of her life, and I'm starting to get a little pissed off.

I really hoped that I wouldn't have to do this, but fuck it, I'm using the stone.

Not the little ones from my boots. Those are power-pebbles compared to this thing.

No, not even that. They're power-minerals.

And I crave that mineral.

Of course, I'll have to get belowdecks to get it, and Chaos knows I'll try to make a run for it. She'll shred my ass before I make a foot.

Someone boards the Red Raven; their cackles resonate from the belowdecks stairwell, and the clicking of their sword against the kegs of black powder signifies just how cocky they really are.

There's no way it's not Chaos.

Willow springs out from behind a keg, sopping wet but wielding a weapon. Leonara and Sanret follow her, and they all charge Chaos, screaming and hopefully drawing her attention.

God bless you all, you reckless bastards.

My bee-line to belowdecks completely disregarded kegs and cannon shells. It didn't matter how many insane maneuvers I had to pull to get there, but I knew, I had to get my ass to the stone.

I didn't bother opening the doors. I barreled straight through, breaking them in halves; I can fix it later, if I'm not sitting at the bottom of the ocean.

Chaos threw the other three to the ground when she realized I had slipped past. That only gave me about a 20-second gain on her, and that's not anything a gun can't cross. Luckily for me, that's also not anything a stray glass bottle can't cover, either.

Leonara catches up with Chaos and tackles her to the floor just before she probably would have caught me. I don't even need to glance back to check; Chaos' hyperspeed swearing is more than enough proof, and Leonara's screaming over her, telling me to keep going.

I don't need to be told twice, that's pretty damn obvious.

//SEQUENCES//PLAY//MINIS//RETALIATION__02//

When I came back down that hallway, Chaos kicked it into overdrive. She saw the centimeter of the stone I had left exposed, and automatically knew that if she didn't get off the Red Raven, her ass was grass. Leonara was thrown to a wall, and when Sanret tried to get revenge, he was shoved out of an open porthole.

Willow was waiting for her outside, but she didn't stand a chance. Chaos must have taken her by surprise with that paramerion, and hopefully the wound isn't too deep.

Well, Chaos is smarter than I thought. I can either jump straight after her and catch her in a state of panic before she sails away, or I can heal Willow.

If I leave, Archer dies from blood loss, because Chaos managed to stab her through the stomach and up through her ribs, slicing straight through the center of her diaphragm.

She's not even breathing that heavily, but I can still hear it rattle in her chest.

"What's it gonna be, Tandir?" Chaos cackles, tossing aside her paramerion. She steps up onto the Raven's railing and opens her arms, leaving herself completely open for attack.

"Do you end the reign of terror across Foren, but rob her of her greatest hero?" She waltzes back and forth on the rail, taunting me with every aspect of her being. "Or does everybody walk out alive?"

She couldn't sound any more smug: "You can't kill me and save Willow, because I know that stone has a damn slow recharge." She finishes, folding her arms over her chest.

It only has a slow recharge - or a recharge at all - if the user has no will to fight and/or was born on Foren. That's only because when the gem was taken from her, Chaos cursed it so that it was near useless to anyone or anything originating from Foren.

I'm a full-blooded Exalian, and you had better believe I'm ready to kick some ass. I mean, sure, you can crack jokes about being a space pirate all you want, but Exalian blood is powerful on Foren.

The stone glows with stray magic fractals, all reflecting in blood red. Chaos smirks and plops down on the railing, absolutely sure that I can't fight back. Willow's wounds sew themselves shut, and within seconds the skin has meshed back together. She'll be unconscious for quite a while, but she'll live.

"Oh, wow, I didn't see that coming." Chaos scoffs and swings her legs back and forth. "It's so surprising that, yet again, you choose not to fight, even though you're strong enough to karate-chop a redwood in half. "

Yet again, underestimation from Chaos. I can chop two redwoods in half, dammit.

By the way, that was a joke.

She sighs overdramatically and leans backwards, closing her eyes for a split second, and that's all I'll need.

The heat from the magic fractals burns in my hand, tempting me to drop the stone and break the charge. The stone isn't a true magic source, especially with how I use it, but it's a hella powerful stabilizer gem.

I think a phoenix would be appropriate to summon right about now.

The flames from Sanret's brandy spiral upwards and weave themselves into feathers just behind Chaos' back. The phoenix spirit approaches, and Chaos notices it only a second before it opens its inferno of a maw. She can only scream and flinch before it swallows her whole and flies away into the sky, straight towards the sun.

The phoenix must have hit Foren's sky boundary, because I'm pretty sure it just crashed and burned. Chaos screams profanities to the open air, and Leonara snickers to herself about the creative insults - all pointed at me, naturally. Leonara calls out a low warning, and tosses a musket in my direction.

I set Archer down and catch the musket with my open hand. My legs protested to the way I stood ever so slowly, but I ignored the pain, waiting for Chaos' return to surface level. That fall won't kill her; nothing short of a deity weapon - or Misery's chains - would kill her, much less mark her skin. She was like an Oracle in that sense, and that was only because she fused the blood of the last generation's Prophet with her own.

Well, I guess my estimate was off by a few yards. Instead of landing right at my feet, Chaos took a dive into the brandy-tainted ocean.

She resurfaced to a gem-fused musket in the center of her forehead.

"How come everybody has a Gewie except for me?" She whined, treading water and pinching her nose at the scent of whiskey. She never was one for anything besides vodka, fancy cocktails, and fine wines.

"Quit your whining, you sour old bitch."