Artificial 3: The Valla Chronicles

Chapter 24: Raikiri Rajinto Verses Excalibur

(Chace's POV)

We stare each other down,
swords in hand.
This ought to be the most fun fight I'll ever have for a while,
I should savior it while maintaining my seriousness.
Queen Arthur takes a stance perfect for parries and stabbing.
Meanwhile,
I'm over here with a Katana,
and I don't even know how to use it.
I'm not a swordsman,
nor will I pretend to be one,
but it's not every day one gets to fight a legendary fictional icon in their own field.
She bolts towards me faster than any human,
let alone a zombie human should be able to run and ram into me full speed!
I firmly plant my feet and skid a few inches.
Nevertheless,
it still hurts.

She stomps on my shoes,
locking me in place,
then headbutts me!
I fall onto my back,
and Queen Arthur takes the chance to end me.
She half swords and thrusts for my brain,
instinctively,
I rolled out of the way and fired a bolt of lightning from my Raikiri Rajinto.
Queen Arthur tanks the hit and drops to her knees,
I attempt to finish the fight with a single all-powerful destructive slash only for her to roll towards me,
catching my foot by her cross guard, then uses the sword as a club and hits me a few times.
I roll to left and right,
block with my steel toes sneakers,
and push kick her sword away.
She takes a stance as I roll up onto my back,
then fling my body back onto my feet, grin,
then take a Kendo stance even though I've only seen it in YouTube videos.

I do my best to dodge the slashes rather than blocking them,
since it's a holy weapon,
I have no real clue what it can and can not do,
so observing will only help me in the long run.
I duck under a diagonal slash,
then snap kick Queen Arthur away.
It may not look like I did much,
but I could feel the chest and back plate weakening.
With each successful hit,
I began to use blocks now that I felt more comfortable.
My arms were smoking from constant interaction with a holy sword,
but all it did was cause me minor discomfort at best.
At worst,
it felt like someone was smoking in my face.
I focus on parrying,
blocking, observing,
then taking the counter offensive.

"Fight back, you lowly demon!"
Queen Arthur starts backing off as I start to focus more on offensive strikes from my Raikiri Rajinto.
"Funny coming from a zombie that's being a pawn to another demon."
I retort,
we lock swords,
or as my brother Seth would call it,
the sword bind.
Queen Arthur attempts to justify her actions by calling Valla some sort of god that is possessing Brandon Yeets,
I wasn't having any of it,
so I knee her in the chest plate,
making her stumble back and cutting off her sentence.

"Sword binds are so overused in fantasy movies these days. So, ya gonna get up, or did you find something more important than me?"
I attempt to take her head only for her leap back into a defensive sword stance. "We'll settle this fight at a different time, and next time, I won't hold back!"
She vanishes into a rune,
I could only sigh in disappointment. "Famous last words and soo cliche."
I folow my siblings scent back up an island only to notice a stream flowing off the side.
"River? That's weird."
I demonic leap up there only to see more zombie freaks,
so I followed behind them without them noticing.

When I made it back to my siblings and crew,
they were surrounded,
so I made my presence known by walking between two zombies and obliterating their heads with one punch. "Sup, ya miss me?"
I say with a smirk.
"Maybe a smidgen, we got someone new to look after, a human servant of Brandon Valla."
My brother says.
I look at the human everyone is protecting, and I can see it's clearly a trap,
my brother clearly sees it's a trap,
the only ones I think didn't catch on were Frost,
his kids,
and Reina.
"Alright, surrounded by zombies again, big river with strong current, everyone thinking what I'm thinking?"
Moments later,
we're yeeting zombies left right and center off the island's edge or in the river where they still float over the edge of the river.
That takes care of that.
Now then,
let's see where this trap leads us.

(Seth's POV)

The human named Antonio makes us follow him down a patheay to a lower island with some trees.
Walking through the breeze felt good, and it was a nice change of pace,
a good opportunity for us to cool off.
We sat in some shade and ate food together.
It's a good thing I always have chicken, fries,
pizza, fishsticks,
mac and cheese, ocra,
corn,
broccoli, rice,
peppers and fruits stored in a pocket dimension,
I hate to admit it,
but sadly, I'm a picky eater,
I don't eat hamburgers or hotdogs, and yet I'll eat steak and corndogs as long as the latter comes with souce.
But yeah,
this is just my travels foods,
I tend to eat out more than anything else,
I'm loaded with money,
I can replicate any money I see with a creation rune so I never run out,
on my down time,
which is rare,
Terra is teaching me how to cook,
my siblings,
on the other hand,
well,
we tend to learn how to cook together, or we take turns going out to dinner at some restaurants like La Fogata,
Olive Garden,
Texas Road House,
Outback Steakhouse,
Cracker Barrel,
Epic Buffet.

Those are just the ones I can name off the top of my head,
byond that,
we watch movies,
I got them into the Marvel Cenimatic Universe,
we love superhero movies,
action flicks,
anime, video games,
sadly,
that's where our interests go separate ways,
yeah,
we all love different game genres, though every once in a while,
me,
Chace and Terra will find an online game we'll play together on the PS4.
Sora tends to read manga.
Lately,
we benged Akame Ga Kill together,
and I even created Akame's katana.

Sadly, no poison enchantment, but I swear to God,
if I find a poison rune,
you can bet your ass,
I'm enchanting that katana with it.
"We should get going, I don't want my master to know I'm aiding you all. The quicker I get us back to the castle, the safer my neck will be."
He rubs his throat as if motioning decapitation.
We all get up and set foot toward the cave,
no light sources,
no torches, none,
not a single light source in sight,
so I make one with a light rune and cast a small orb of light on my fingertips, lighting our way.

My senses were tingling like the Spider's sesnes in Spiderman,
I could see the human boy's aura by concentration on seeing the soul.
Back in 2015,
when I was still human and a mercenary,
I tied a hard knot on my blind fold and was unable to get it loose for two days. In those 48 hours,
I unlocked my ability to see aura,
I've always had a natural affinity for it with my Taekwondo background from studying under Grand Master Kim in Simpsonville,
South Carolina.

He taught everyone by yelling kiya or keya,
it channels words of power and turns the words into power,
doubling the damage I inflict as well as increasing speed and durability. Whether or not I believe it is a different story,
I believe it did help me unlock the next level of aura training,
but that blind fold for two days,
focusing on everything else to compensate for my eyesight gone,
I learned aura comes in all shapes and sizes,
Chace is a red aura with a crimson red dragon flying through lightning,
Sora is a rock being frozen by in a billazrd,
Terra is a storm that causes fire with each lightning strike.

"Wait, right here, I have to flip some switches."
The human runs off and somehow navigates the cave systems,
a minute passes,
and now,
five minutes,
Sora and Terra keep track of time while Froat uses echo location to help us navigate.
Ten minutes now,
and it sounds like gears are moving,
and it stopped feeling like a cave,
a bright light comes on the floor,
bright LED lights,
followed by green looking runes and bubble looking symbols,
I sigh.
"You son of a bitch, I knew this was a trap and yet I still blindly walked into it."
I say with a deadpan tone and facial expression,
joy,
fucking joy.