Tomes of Nevermore: Shattering Light

Chapter Five: The Weird Family

"I'll tell you about the best scheme I ever had." A skinny man sitting at the bar said laughing as he sipped his ale and spoke to his friends. "There's these three orphan brats, I'll tell you, got a whole fortune when they're parents bit the big one! So I married the youngest one secretly in the Fire lands where the marriage laws aren't such a big deal and then I just had all three of them taken care of in the dead of night. In the end no one was the wiser!"
"Treating orphans poorly is how you anger that freak god Petan The Quiet One. They say that freak kills adults with wicked intentions like you." Said a fatter man who was also laughing as if what the skinny man had said was funny and not horrible. "But if killing orphan's pays for my drinks for the time being then I curse that stupid lesser god."
"I curse all of the gods." Another much taller much darker skinned man said. "Have any of you heard about this demon witch?"
"Demon witch?" The man said picking his teeth with the antenna from his telecomwatch.
"Aye." The darker skinned man said. "They been saying this girl lures victims to a cave to her cave to feed them to her monstrous lover. They say her lover is some kind of evil rotting god not worshipped by men."
"Sounds like a tale to scare children." Tarah said pushing past the men as she made her way up to the bar. "Here I thought this was a place where the strongest outlaws in the world could gather. And as I come here I hear grown men telling ghost stories like a bunch of frightened little girls. Perhaps I've come to the wrong place."
"This lass has a mouth on her." The one man said touching Tarah in a way that made her both extremely uncomfortable and extremely angry. "Was my story scaring you girl? Don't worry you got a brave man like Eren the Busted Blade in your presence."
"More like Eren the busted head." Tarah growled as she smacked the man in her face with her new arm made of cold black steel. The black hair covering her mechanical eye moved from her face as she struck the man. The entire noisy bar fell silent as the sound of the smack echoed through the room.
Two of the other men grabbed their blades ready to cut Tarah in half where she stood but the man who called himself "Eren the Busted Blade" struck stuck out his arm and stopped them before they could.
"Now, now." Eren the Busted Blade said. "There's no need to deal with this problem here with all the nice kind witnesses watching our every move."
The men grabbed Tarah from behind. "We'll take her back to the hideout." One of the other men said. "We'll teach her to mind her tongue around men of our esteem."
"Or maybe we should just cut it out." The other man added.
Tarah smiled from ear to ear as she began to kick and scream trying to hold back her excitement. "These guys are even dumber than they look." Tarah thought as she glanced over at Pal as Pal watched from across the bar. Pal left the bar without saying a single thing, trying not to watch as his best friend pretended to be carried out against her will.
The men laughed and cackled the entire way back as they drug Tarah who secretly scanning the men with her eye so she could send the information back to Pal. "Please I'm just a little girl I didn't mean anything by what I said! I'm so sorry please oh please don't hurt me!"
"Should have thought of that sooner." The one man said.
"I've always wanted a little slave girl!" The skinny rat looking man holding Tarah's feet said as his tongue slagged out of his mouth like dim witted dog.
"Little girls should be more respectful to men." Eren the Busted Blade said holding Tarah's arms said as he scratched crumbs from his beard. "Little girls end up like this when they are told."
"Please I didn't mean it!" Tarah tried to force tears but she was a lot closer to laughing than anything else. She wasn't very good at playing damsel in distress, but this would work better than most nights because instead of just leading some desperate man into the woods she'd tricked three into "kidnapping" her and carrying her there.
"I don't think she's much of a girl at all." Eren the Busted Blade said as he spat up a huge wad of green sticky mucus. "Look at her, she's got a scanner for an eye and a mech arm. This ain't no normal girl. She's more mech than she is mortal now."
"Aye I think that girl that they said was feeding strangers to her god had a mech eye!" One man said.
"They're onto me." Tarah thought as she began to kick and flail trying to put up a struggle.
"Who cares what kind of combat this girls seen!" The skinny man said. "We can buy a small army for what her arm is worth. Plus her eye as well. This little girls a mechanized gold mine."
"That's another strange thing." Eren the Busted Blade said giving Tarah a nasty look with his narrow bug eyes. He pulled a knife from the rope he kept tied around his waist. "Tell me. How's a poor little brat like you end up with a mechanized eye and arm? Ain't you the same little mutt that walked the streets of the Clock Tower City stealing and standing in line for potato soup? I knew I recognized your face girl. It jus took me this long to figure it out!"
"And here I thought you were smart." With ease she pulled her mech arm from her captors grip and slammed the hard steel against his head causing the man to drop Tarah to the ground where she smacked her head on a gnarled root that stuck up from the dirt.
"I'll gut you street rat!" The man holding Tarah's feet said dropping her and pulling out the sword from the rope tied around his waist. At the very last second Tarah blocked the man's blade with her mechanized arm.
The man slammed his blade again and again at Tarah's arm but his cheap blade wasn't even able to put a scratch in the sort of powerful metal that could be forged inside of Pal's plastic eggs.
"What's the matter can't hit a girl?" Tarah said laughing in the grown man's face.
"He can't but I can." The fat man said kicking Tarah in the side. "This girl is some kind of special. Tell me special girl how do you intend to pay me for your wretched life?"
Cowering on the ground a field of purple energy surrounded Tarah. The man with a sword swung it with all his might trying to strike Tarah but his blade just bounced off of the energy as if it was some sort of armor.
"The girl is using animus!" The fat man said backing away slowly. "She's some kind of witch!"
"What is this girl?" The skinnier man said still trying to bash his way through the wall of growing purple energy.
There was a loud thump as something fell from high above. Tarah smiled and watched as the fat man was grabbed from behind and lifted up from the ground.
"She's my sister." Ty said as the rotting flesh on his face stretched so that he could talk. "And she told me that you guys are both very bad men."
"Took you long enough." Tarah said mockingly.
"The hero always arrives late." Ty said. "Besides I thought you could handle a bunch of bandits on your own."
"I could have handled them just fine but if I killed them you'd have no way to feed." Tarah said as both of the men looked at Ty practically wetting themselves as they looked at his horrible rotting appearance.
"It's the evil god this witch freak worships!" The man with the sword said as he chopped Ty's clean head off of his shoulders. "By all of the gods I'll kill you both!"
Tarah gasped in shock as Ty's rotting body still held the fat man in mid air. Ty's head rolled several feet away and stopped against a tree.
"Well that hurt!" Ty said angrily as his headless body punched the skinny man in the face sending him flying into a tree as he dropped the fat man too the ground.
"Please!" The fat man said falling to his knees. "If the gods are just I will be spared. If you as a god are just then please spare me sir! I will be your loyal servant! I swear it too all of the gods living and dead! Please milord!"
"And what god's might those be that are just?" Ty said as he picked up his head and placing it back on his shoulders. There white light that formed between the severed pieces of Ty's neck. When the lights faded his head was reattatched. "Look at me. I'm a horrible rotting monster? If the gods are just then would I exist?"
"Oh please my god spare me please." The fat man said.
"I'm not a god and you can go ahead and stop begging." Ty said as anger began to boil inside of him. "I heard about what you did to those orphans. Bragging about killing their parents and stealing their fortune and then bragging about killing them. If the gods were just would they have let a sick little pimple of a man like you ruin the existence of those innocent children? Tell mister busted blade did those children beg?"
"Please, please spare me! I'll change my wicked ways I swear by it." The man screamed trying to crawl away only for Ty to grab his foot and rip him back with his freakish undead strength.
"No." Ty said sadly. "I need to feed. I'm sorry but this is how it has to be. I don't like it anymore than you do believe me." He looked at the fear in the man's eyes. "Well I probably like it more than you do because well I'm not the one being absorbed. But I don't like doing this. You just should have thought about not being a horrible human being before. You wasted your life and now your life is going to keep me... Not alive but in a better condition." Ty held up his rotting hand into the light and looked at the bare bone poking through his flesh.
"Did you notice I don't bleed light anymore?" Ty said getting off topic. "It's strange nothing about me is even really alive anymore. Honestly I knew I couldn't die but I was wondering what happened when I cut off my head. I've cut off my own hand before and I could control and reattach it but even as a dead person the whole decapitation thing scared me." He pulled on his neck. "But it looks like I'm all fixed up goods as new. Well not new, but we'll see how I'm feeling after I'm done with him."
"Would you stop talking and end this." Tarah said getting up off the ground and looking up at Pal as he waved down at her as he hovered from above. "Playing with your food is just a waste of our time."
"You're right." Ty said as he began to regret what he knew he had to do. "Even when the people are terrible it still feels wrong."
"That's not my problem right now." Tarah said. "Be thankful I found you someone."
"I suppose you're right." In a second punch Ty completely destroyed the fat man and he shatter into glittery glowing dust that was all sucked into Ty's body. Tarah could hardly watch as the horrible scene took place. Time after time had not made it easier on either one of them. But as the fat man's life energy was absorbed Ty's rotting flesh began to reform on his body.
"You already look better." Tarah said impressed. "Once you absorb all three of them do you think you'll be strong enough to find the men that killed you in the first place?"
"I hope so." Ty said absorbing the second man in another horrible destructive display that turned Ty entirely back to his normal self, besides the fact his heart wasn't beating and he had bags beneath his eyes.
The third person Ty absorbed made Ty look better than he ever did alive. His muscles were more defined and his eyes were a bright icy blue. But this would be short lasting and they knew that. For within twenty four hours Ty would again begin to rot. After almost a day and a half he would be in unending pain unable to move as he began falling apart like a broken doll.
Pal flew down and scanned Tarah. "You hit your head best friend Tarah Weird." Pal said as he popped out an egg. "Inside of the egg is an ice pack and a note with a friendly message and a get well soon sticker on it. Is that okay best friend Tarah Weird?"
"Be strong." Tarah said reading Pal's message unimpressed. "You're a lot of things Pal but you certainly aren't a writer."
"I do not need to be a writer. I am a mech." Pal said trying to correct Tarah.
"I know what you are Pal." Tarah said as she looked up at her brother as he leapt up into a tree with his grav shoes and swung around from branch to branch like an acrobat.
"I feel amazing." Ty said happily. "It's a shame about those guys though."
"They were terrible people." Tarah said uncaringly as she unfolded a piece of paper she was keeping in her shirt. "But this is the man we really need." She held up a wanted flier for the man "He's worth barely enough points to eat but this is a personal matter."
"You've got that right." Ty said angrily as he tackled a tree to the ground and the roots ripped up scaring away countless poor animals that had once called the tree home. "But some god brought me back to life so now I can get even once and for all. That jerk owes me."
"The lesser god didn't bring you back to lif.." Tarah said correcting her brother. "It was my animus that did it with death's power. The lesser god just gave me a coin he had from death so that I could pay for your life. Or undeath I guess it would be."
"And you wasted a second life on me how stupid can you be?" Ty said mocking his sister.
"Do not speak like that to my best friend Tarah Weird." Pal said.
"Tarah tell your egg laying toy too watch what it says or I'll punt him over The Tower of a Thousand Arrows for the second time this week." Ty said as he karate chopped an entire tree in half with a single strike. "Besides when are you going to let me take that thing apart and figure out how it works?"
"NEVER!" Tarah snapped at her brother as Pal hid behind her leg.
"You cannot take me apart. I am cute." Pal said.
"Yes you are Pal." Tarah said. "Besides Pal works just fine, he does everything we tell him and he seems to have an infinite supply of plastic eggs that he can fill with I guess anything that will fit inside of a plastic egg. If we take him apart, or rather if YOU take him apart we're going to lose the thing that feeds me when I'm starving. He also takes care of you and flies us around and does pretty much anything else we ask. Messing with Pal will only cause problem."
"Thank you best friend Tarah Weird." Pal said as shot an egg at Ty.
Ty carefully opened up the egg to peak inside and when he did a long red tongue spat out from the egg spitting and making fart noises in Ty's face.
"I'll rip you apart you smart little mech!" Ty shouted as he smashed the egg to the ground.
"No you won't." Tarah said manipulating a green energy around herself to stop her brother from attacking Pal. "But that was certainly something new. See Pal just keeps getting better and better."
"Yeah or smarter and smarter." Ty said punching at Tarah's energy sending cracks splintering the crystal like ball of energy surrounding Tarah. "He went from being a little baby too cocky little kid."
"I am cute." Pal said laying another egg that rolled through the wall of energy to Ty's feet.
"What's this one going to blow up?" Ty said pulling it away from his face. But it wasn't bomb. Instead it was an exact copy of the knight toy Ty had when he was a child. He'd lost it sometime after his mom's death but he never forgot it because it was practically the only toy he had back then. Attached to the sword in the knight's arm was a note that said, "I'm sorry." With a crayon drawing of a zombie Ty holding hands with a very poorly drawn Pal.
"I..." Ty began to tear up as Tarah released the misshapen field of bright emerald energy that surrounded her. "I love this little mech. I'm sorry we ever fought buddy. You're the greatest thing ever made by anyone ever."
"It is okay second best friend Tywin Weird." Pal said releasing his arms around wrapping them around Ty. "I do not hate you. You just make me mad when you say things that are stupid."
"Stop listening to Tarah." Ty said looking at the two black dots that were the little mech's eyes as he rubbed the twenty triangular glass panes of Pal's head.
"No always listen too Tarah." Tarah said pulling out a book and pushing the hair that covered her mech eye to the side, so she could read with the mech eyes night vision.
"You know." Ty said falling into the grass and looking up at the red moon and the blue moon fighting for control of the sky creating an explosion of greenin the center of the sky. "We're almost kind of like a family with Pal here now. A weird messed up family but a family. Plus our last name is Weird, so it fits kinda."
"Oh yeah we're just a weird family is all." Tarah said giving Ty a look with her mechanical eye. "Only we don't have parents, you're a life absorbing zombie that falls apart and is in agonizing pain if he doesn't absorb someone like everyday, and I'm just the girl who brought her dead twin brother back to life because some random lesser god appeared inside of my head and told me that I could. Oh also the man that killed you took my eye. Oh and Death took my arm to bring you back to life. But all of that is fine because thankfully this weird random mech that acts like a baby can lay eggs with anything in them and also perform the complicated surgery necessary to put me back together again. Oh yes, we're just a slightly Weird family Ty."
"We almost sound lucky." Ty said.
"Just when I thought you couldn't sound dumber you go and say something like that." Tarah said annoyed with her brother as she closed her book knowing that he was going to try and talk and not allow her a moment of peace to read now that he was more alive and full of energy. "We're not lucky stupid we're some kind of cursed if anything."
"It's a fun curse." Ty said. "I like stopping bad people. I just wish I didn't have to destroy them."
"I think it's fine what you do." Tarah said. "You won't just kill anyone. Which is good. I was half expecting you to just be mindless and constantly trying to eat people."
"I'm glad I can think." Ty said. "I just don't wanna hurt people. I wanna help. That's why I wanted to be a knight. Now I'm a monster. But since I'm a monster I've decided I'm going to be the best monster. A real monster that attacks other monsters. Like those men, only worse."
"You sound like a little kid trying to get us both killed again." Tarah said.
"Well I may be the only person to ever get him and his twin sister killed twice." Ty said laughing. "If nothing else at least I can say I got that done. I don't know. Sometimes I just wanna help people."
"I just want to have friends." Pal said joining into the conversation, which was a new thing for him. Pal used to only talk when addressed but Tarah had recently been encouraging him otherwise. But even when he did say something to join the conversation you could tell it made Pal uncomfortable. Which was weird because Pal was supposed to be a mech and not a person too spite the way he acted. "May I ask you both a question?"
"Of course Pal." Tarah said.
"What does it mean to be a human?" Pal asked.
"I don't know and I don't care." Ty said playing with the knight Pal had made him. "But if you keep making me toys like this then you and every other kid in the world will become the best of friends."
"I would like that." Pal said. "I like having friends."
"I don't." Tarah said. "Friends are overrated, and the more I think of it I don't know if being human really has any meaning. The god's don't seem too even care about anything. And if they do it certainly isn't about us or this world. Being human may mean nothing Pal."
"See that?" Ty said. "You wonder why you spend all your time reading in a treehouse with your dead brother and baby robot? Because you say things like that."
"Well I'm sorry I'm not the undead social butterfly you are." Tarah said. "You'd better go act like a person now before your body gets weak."
A social butterfly doesn't actually refer to an actual colorful insect that engages in social activities. Instead it refers to a person like Ty before he died who loved to go out and communicate with all sorts of people. Tarah had always been the complete opposite of her brother on that account.
"Not tonight sis." Ty said making a fist. "I'm feeling strong. We have a score to settle. If anyone, that man owes me his life."