Artificial 3: The Valla Chronicles

Chapter 23: Second Wave

Now that we all had a moment of rest, we camped out until the equivalent of dawn.
Everyone took shifts watching the fire and surroundings.
Once everyone was fully rested,
I followed Brandon's scent out of the cave and into the open again where light greeted our vision.
Clouds in the infinite white void,
portals that showed the sun in areas, we exit the fortress,
and in our line of sight, there were large puddles of water,
at first,
they were still,
then rocky,
then bubbly until it morphs into a small army of Brandons.
The numbers were slightly larger,
but they were water clones nonetheless, me,
Terra and Chace used lightning plus our elements to dispatch them quickly by using the very water itself only for those water familiars to be replaced with more,
next thing we know,
it's a small warzone, everyone breaking out into their skirmishes.

"Dark Matter, Cannon!"
I charge up a shadowy black energy beam in my index and middle finger then fore it out of the palm of my hand. The water familiar quickly dies along with any more that were unlucky enough to be behind it.
Frost and his daughters simole use an ice rune to freeze nearby puddles or to touch the enemies for an instant death,
no water for them to reform with,
and if they do,
then it will be long after we leave.
Reina solves her problems with a more explosive swing of Tetsubo.

The Oni's back her up by punching and slashing things with an ignited blade and fist, evaporating anything they hit, Keiko and my siblings use their respective weapons or martial arts.
Now that all enemies were dealt with for the time being,
we break for the forests ahead where Brandon's scent is larger and more active,
but apon entering,
it was all over the place,
everywhere.

We investigated high and low,
but alas, nothing.
I travel to the edge with Niel,
and he points to a set of smaller islands down below with his Shujinko No Yumi. "Let's investigate down there. If nothing turns up, we can always come back." Niel says in a low tone,
I nod,
and he glides down in his demon form,
I just fire a shadow and swing down to the lower islands.
It's a great idea if this turns out to be a dead end.

We examine smaller islands as mutltiple wooden rope bridges connected to each smaller island.
"Buddha statues....... this place reminds me of holy places in Japan."
Niel remarks, I look at the statues and wonder how much of that statue is accurate to the real Buddha.
"Raaaaa, grrrruuuuh."
Zombiefied armies get conjured onto the island and make their way to us,
Reina comes running in, jumping off the higher island,
making hand signs then blasting five fireballs from her mouth,
each one bigger than the last.

The zombies fall off the island as Reina lands by us,
then Chace cutting each bridge conneted to this island,
Sora comes in and creates ice walls that we can use as bridges.
The Oni's, Frost,
his children,
and Keiko come in and land on the tree, I tell everyone to cross the ice bridge and use their aura as a bungee rope. Everyone does so without complaints except for Frost,
who complains how unelegant it is.
"Old man, if you don't want to die, you'll do it. We have no need for useless people."
Sora says rather bluntly,
after the Lars fiasco,
she has become rather short on patients with just about everyone,
even her own biological brother if he does something dumb which is rare but still happens.

Once we crossed over to a smaller island that was connected via bridge,
we prioritized long-range combat,
Frost and his kids were our iron rock hard walls or,
in this case,
ice, everyone else plucked at the zombies rushing us.
A few start to slip past dour defenses, then a few more,
now a lot more until we fall back into the trees of the small island.
Seeing as how my guns are useless at this point,
I incase my right hand in darkness from the shadow rune,
then lunge myself into the hord and shape that darkness on my fist into a long, double-edged blade,
splattering a long line of heads.
Chace jumps off the tree,
morphing into a yellow thunder bolt,
in less than a fraction of a second,
Chace cuts off more heads than I can count.

Sora uses an ice rune alongside Flecia and Crystal,
freezing a good chunk of the horde in place,
then Frost is coming in with his staff and Tome,
making a giant ice tree that impales each zombie and inflicts a type of necrosis through frostbite.

In a less scientific term,
limbs are falling off faster than magic can keep limbs attached.
Terra, Keiko, Reina,
and the Onis engage in hand to hand combat, slicing, dicing,
squashing, crushing,
and shattering skulls.
The zombies that remained either got knocked off or were called back by a rune I never saw before,
but it looked like a water dragon if I ever saw one,
now that we had time to recover,
we ate,
poored water over ourselves,
and just waited until we got strength back,
or at least that was the plan.
Yeah, no,
Brandon is too smart to let us rest,
and the bright yellow light that flickered for a second from a bigger island across from us in a gladiator style colosseum confirmed my thoughts.

"Let's get going. If we don't come to it, it will come to us, and with a brand new wave."
So we speed walk on over to the edge,
I fire two shadows,
then catapulted myself into the arena,
followed by everyone else teleporting. "In the name of my King, Valla, I welcome you to his territory."

A voice says in a mature womanly voice, a knight in bluish silver armor appears. She looked stern but devoid of life.
She was also a zombie but one that could speak,
apparently.
"Greetings out of the way. It's time to die!"
She shouts as she knocks Chace by us and into the wall with a simple charge! What the fuck?!
Keiko, Sora,
Reina and the Onis jump her only to find out that their fist and weapons hardly did any damage!
I get out of everyone's way and act as support by making a shadow bow and firing multiple arrows that explode against the armor,
only for the zombie knight to still be standing!
"Hear me, sword of heavens: the legendary sword that pierces even the heavens! EXCAAAAAAAAALLLLLLIIIIIIIBUUUUUUR!"

Holy yellow light flashes off the sword, and the zombie knight slashes horizontally,
followed by an AOE attack.
There's only one person that weilds THE Excalibur,
King Arthur,
or rather I should say Queen Arthur, even with all that armor,
anyone should have been able to tell that,
that was a womanly voice,
hell even the armor and skirt were a dead giveaway but I guess the older generation of humans were a bunch of morons,
then again as a demon looking into a human window,
humans do nothing but fuck up and screw over each other's lives,
cause wars,
political drama,
mass shootings because some guy asked out his high school crush only to be rejected,
or cops refusing to save a bunch of kindergarten children from a crazy shooter because their higher ups didn't give them the orders to netralize the shooter.

So yeah,
bunch of morons and even as a human,
I always saw myself above the normal human except those that earned my respect,
which was rare.
Anyway,
back to the action.
I keep bouncing around everyone and Queen Arthur,
firing target shots at the same spots I originally hit,
plus the joints.
At first,
it didn't look like it was effective,
but after about five arrows hitting the same spot five times,
each arrow with more power and force than the last one,
it was only seconds before the armor was blown up and destroyed.
Queen Arthur keeps slicing and dicing everyone in her way,
Sora and Terra avoiding each slash with their speed,
everyone else tanking the sword slashes and stabs head on.

"Everyone, press on without me, I'm going to have some fun before our main event."
Chace says,
popping his knuckles as he comes out of a dust cloud,
whipped up from the holy energy,
the dark energy over his right eye spreading across his nose and down his left eye.
"It matters not who faces me. You will all die eventually."
Queen Arthur says,
pointing Excalibur at Chace,
who summons Raikiri Rajinto.
"I'd love to see you try and kill us all."

Chace flexes his aura,
shaking the very island we're on.
I nod and tell everyone to follow me, then catapult myself out of the arena with shadows and onto a lower island. Everyone else followed behind quickly, Sora and Terra arriving last,
likely to tell Chace not to kick the bucket on them.
I wish we could stick around,
but saving the world tends to march to the beat of its own drum.
Oh well,
I'm sure it'll turn out to be a legendary battle.