Tomes of Nevermore: Shattering Light

Chapter Thirteen: The Woeful World Of Petan The Clown

"Best friend Tarah Weird!" Pal said hovering over Tarah's beaten body as she slept. "Best friend Tarah Weird it is not okay if you are not okay! Please best friend Tarah Weird! I do not wish to be alone again! Wake up now please!"
"P... Pal." Tarah said. "Where are the others?"
"Ty is everywhere." Pal said pointing to all of the strewn about pieces of her brother. "And the others are asleep over there. This is very bad Tarah Weird. You are very hurt."
"I know Pal." Tarah said trying to stand and falling to the ground.
"Tarah Weird it is not okay for you to move." Pal said laying several eggs full of medical supplies in a panic.
"No." Tarah said leaning against a tree to keep her balance as her legs shook beneath her and purple light leaked from the cuts all over her body. "I need to make sure everyone is okay. Everyone... Everyone needs to be okay."
"Everyone is okay Tarah Weird." Pal said playing back a recording. "Omi was able to manifest his animus just in time to save everyone from a fiery demise. My dear beloved Phoenix is in critical condition. I think I am in love best friend Tarah Weird and I am afraid that I will lose her."
"Ugh!" Ty's skull said lifting itself up with chunks of dirt and grass stuck in the mouth and eye sockets. He spat out the clumps and as his broken hands pulled the chunks from his eye sockets. "I didn't even feel that and it hurt!"
"Ty!" Tarah shouted picking up her brother's head in a far less creepy way than it sounded.
"Tarah!" Ty shouted looking around at the crash sight. There was a long fiery crater with broken pieces of ship scattered all over. "We just crashed out of the sky! In the name of all of the stupid gods that is the coolest thing that I have ever done!"
Alister stood up, his entire body wobbling from side to side. "I tried to make the whole ship intangible. That was all my fault!" He punched the bark of the tree and dented the wood with his fist. "I should have been stronger."
Omi lifted his head up from the ground, his helmet spun around backwards. "That was very bad." Omi said in pain holding a deep wound in his side. "We need to get moving as quickly as possible. There is no telling how long it will take that ship or anyone else to find us. I need you three to go by yourselves and find the parts Pal and Alister will need to repair the ship. Pal, please give me something for the pain."
"Yes friend Omi Hall." Pal said hovering over too Omi. "But my best friend Tarah Weird is very hurt. Are you sure she should go? She sustained damage where the other two were able to recover from their abilities. Ty cannot feel pain and Alister vanished when he tried to make the ship intangible.
"Very well." Omi said looking at Alister and Ty. "But this is not the time for you two to be at each other's throats. If you do not hurry back with parts I will die."
"I'm fine." Tarah said taking a step and falling to the ground.
"No your not." Ty said putting himself back together and helping his sister up off of the ground. "You two need to rest. You're both mortal. Me and ghost boy over there can handle this. We almost destroyed a whole ancient city working against each other. Who knows how much we can get done together."
Alister gave Ty a curious look as Ty turned around and extended his hand to Alister. "We're both squires now." Ty said. "But more importantly we're teammates. I'm sorry we got off on the wrong foot or whatever but I say we start fresh. And... for what it's worth, I'm sorry for almost like killing you or whatever."
"I'm sorry too." Alister said shaking Ty's hand. "But you didn't almost kill me."
"Very good." Omi said. "May the god's be watching over us all. I have no idea where we are and the ship is too broken to make a map."
"I can make a map." Pal said laying an egg.
"Such a good mech." Omi said handing them a strange looking map with a big picture of a clowns head on the back.
"We landed near some amusement park?" Alister said looking at the map.
"Alright!" Ty said running down the dirt. "The only ride I have ever been on was that giant clock ferris wheel in The Clockwork city and that's the most boring ride in Nevermore."
"Don't worry." Alister said looking at Tarah as she rested against a tree. "Everything will be alright I promise. We'll be back. And I won't let your brother do anything stupid."
"He's so arrogant." Tarah thought watching Alister slowly walk away as her brother sprinted ahead of him like an excited puppy.
"Wow." Ty said coming to a screeching halt in front of a clown's head gate surrounded by rusted metal fence. The ticket booth was smashed open and broken glass laid all over the ground amongst melted carnival tickets. Plants had woven themselves through everything that once stood.
One eye of the clown was ripped out and frayed wires kept it dangling back and forth. The paint on the clowns giant red nose was chipped and falling apart. But the worst part was that the clowns giant tongue dangled down into a creepy metal gate that led to the entrance of the amusement park, locked tight with rusty metal chains.
"Well that's unexpected." Alister said glancing as he came walking up. There was a smashed roller coaster cart half stuck out of the ground with gears and wires all fraying out of the sides.
"This is awesome." Ty said throwing a rock at the giant clown head.
"No this is dismal." Alister said staring into a bush as the leaves shook and something took off in the opposite direction.
Ty scaled the square fencing the surround the steps leading into the clowns mouth and dropped down on the opposite side. "Come on." Ty said walking ahead of Alister without a single care. "There has to be something here."
"We're not here to play around." Alister said making himself tangible and stepping through the fence. "We're looking for people or for something that we can... Wow." Alister froze as he stepped out of the skeletal back of the giant clown head archway.
All around were streamers blackened with age and melted candles all strung up along the buildings. A putrid inky black water ran along the pathway up to a stone fountain with water logged vines of lily pads wrapped around the broken apart clown figure that stood in the center. The ferris wheel was a giant bloodshot eye with sparks dancing from the frayed wires. A car had apparently crashed in the center of the inky black water and someone had managed to turn it into what looked like slide covered in dark green weeds. There was a castle, like most theme parks, but it looked to be just a giant wooden painting with a door covered in the black dirt and chipped paint that decorated everything else.
"Look at this." Ty said pointing to the creepy children's graffiti along the gray cement walls. All over were poorly done chalk drawings of tiny people with sad faces being chased by much larger people with red eyes and sharp teeth. Above all of the pictures of people were all different clown heads looking down from above the clouds with knives raining down. "What do you think that it means?"
"I have no idea." Alister said. "But I don't like it."
Ty began skipping stones across the inky black water and watched as the ripples dancing their way to the decayed blacktop shore. "So what's your deal?" Ty said trying to make conversation.
Alister either didn't hear what Ty said or simply ignored him and continued following the sparking trails of wiring without giving a response. Ty turned and followed behind Alister, watching the sparks sizzle in puddles as they passed a shooting gallery with termites wriggling through the piles of rotted wood.
"So." Ty said walking close enough to Alister that he had to be heard. "How did you become half a ghost?"
"How did you become a whole idiot?" Alister said still following the sparking wires.
"Probably close to the same way that you became a whole jerk." Ty said spitefully.
"Listen things will probably go easier if you just don't talk." Alister snapped back.
"Things will probably go easier if you go lick that oily water over there." Ty said in a mocking voice as Alister went back to blatantly ignoring him.
Alister and Ty clearly didn't like each other very much. But even at this point in their relationship their was a certain admiration that neither of the two would ever admit. Ty had never met anyone who blatantly would fire back at him the way Alister would and deep down he wished he was as cool as Alister was. Alister wished he was more light hearted like Ty, a term which here means 'possessed the capability to walk around a destroyed theme park with the amazement a child might have walking through a real theme park'. But these feelings they had for each other came off as the two of them constantly trying to out do each other. A friendship may never have budded, but a rivalry was certainly being born.
"What are we even doing here?" Ty said removing his bladed glove and bouncing his skull against the gray cement walls.
"We're looking for a power source." Alister said. "If I can't get the phoenix started then I won't even be able to figure out what's wrong with it. I'm sure your stupid little mech will be able make anything that we need. We just need to figure out what it is that we need and to do that we need to jump start the phoenix."
"Don't call Pal stupid." Ty said angrily as he nearly lost his balance while he walked toe to toe on a railing that lined the pathway.
"I suppose you're right." Alister said. "A stupid person would be able to identify one of their own better than I can."
"You know." Ty said. "You're face might look just a little bit better with my fist in it."
"Good one." Alister said. "Have you been thinking of that come back the entire time we were walking or did you see it in a bad movie somewhere and were just waiting for the right time."
Ty gritted his teeth in rage and leapt down off of the railing in front of Alister. They locked eyes just before the two dimensional wooden castle. Ty raised his right clawed hand threateningly in Alister's face. Alister gave no response and just kept his hands held at his side, with a smug smile on his face.
"Hit me." Alister said. "And I'll knock your teeth out of your skull."
There is a quote commonly used that says "timing is everything". This quote is absolutely true besides the fact the everything itself doesn't exist, which leaves time as a very important factor of most things. For example if you are a five year old child who wants to be lawyer, not only are you among a very elite few, but you are also at a great disadvantage because of your timing. However if the same child is a few years older and is faced with the same decision the path the child will take will not only be a great deal different but also a great deal easier. For that reason, timing, though perhaps not everything, is always a very important factor of defining a situation.
The timing that Alister and Ty had currently found themselves in had left them both distracted by how angry they both were at each other for no reason. Which for the person standing in the shadow of the roller coaster plotting an attack made the entire situation a great deal simpler for him, because, as I have said before, though timing is not everything, it is certainly important and timing was certainly not in the favor of Alister or Ty.
Strains of animus blacker than the ink colored water coiled around Alister like serpents. Before Ty could even make a noise to respond a spike of black animus energy shot up from the ground and shattered him into 206 pieces.
"Wha..." Alister said as the black animus tightened around him. "What is this?"
"This is the end of the line." A strangely deep child's voice said from the shadow of the roller coaster. With all his strength Alister raised his head and faced the man who had ensnared his body.
"Aidan." Alister growled trying to move with all of his strength. Even going intangible wouldn't work because it was impossible to phase through a person's animus.
"I have wanted to kill you for a very long time." Aidan said stepping out of the darkness. His hair was as black as the cloak he wore on his back and he had the same icy northern eyes of Tarah or Ty before he became a literal skeleton of his former self. "But your brother has forbidden me from doing so."
"You always were a follower!" Alister said still trying to break free. "Where's Zero? Hopefully hanging from a tree somewhere for murder and treason."
"The treason you speak of belongs to you and you alone Alister." Aidan said as his black animus ripped up into the air. "You have committed treason against men and gods alike. You have disgraced your entire family. Your blood is poisoned."
"Your mind is poisoned Aidan." Alister said. "Ser Aidan, Knight of Obsidian Animus, the youngest man to ever be knighted, yet you're still only my brothers tool."
"And you're still a defiant little waste of a king's animus." Aidan said scornfully. "Your name is disgrace to a long line of power. Alister Wildeheart, The King's Greatest mistake. You got lucky with my mechdragon. But you will go no further. In the name of Zero Wildeheart, and the almighty Scarlet Grove Pantheon, I will bring you before my god and King."
"Hey!" Ty said as he finally put himself back together. "You haven't killed me yet!"
Ty leapt forward dragging his left hand on the ground leaving a trail of flames. Aidan however was not the least bit phased and just kept his arms crossed with the same dead emotionless stare that his face seemed to rest upon.
Black animus raised up in the form of a wall just between Ty and Aidan. With all of his might Ty swung his bladed hands leaving flaming scrapes on the surface of the wall, but doing no real damage.
"You're life is meaningless." Aidan said as the wall began to spike outward like shards of broken glass. "And your death will pave the way for a new more perfect world. It is destiny."
"Who in death's abyss talks like that?" Ty said leaping back still swinging at the animus trying to do any kind of damage. "Let me guess your parents never hugged you did they kid?"
"I am no mere kid. I am Ser Aidan of the Obsidian Animus!" Aidan shouted as Ty continued to leap backward evading the strands of Aidan's animus. "And I will have dogs rip out your cursed tongue!"
"I don't have a tongue." Ty said. "I'm not even really alive."
"Another blasphemy?" Aidan hissed in rage. "You have sunk so low Alister. And yet your hatred has not grown. Tell me Alister? If I kill your dancing skeleton would you hate me the way you hate Lord Zero for killing your parents?"
"I'm not his skeleton!" Ty said using his grav shoes to propel him almost ten feet up in the air. "I'm a squire!" Ty swung back his arm and sent his hand blazing toward Aidan with plumes of fire rolling around it in all directions. "And I'm gonna be the greatest knight that has ever lived."
A pillar of fire the height of the decayed roller coaster shot through the air in blinding light and smoke. The strands of black energy vanished around Alister. The abandoned theme park, the rotten buildings, the ticket booths, the fallen roller coaster tracks, the dimensional wooden castle of chipped paint, and everything that was flammable became swallowed up in fire.
Ty smiled with excitement as he watched the manifestation of his strength. Then black energy blanketed over the flames, extinguishing them without a sound. Leaving crushed black wood on the ground.
"Wh... What did he did he do?" Ty said in shock.
Aidan's black animus, that was smothering the flames, had formed a ten foot tall wall between Ty and Aidan. Slowly the wall began to separate directly down the middle. As the wall pulled apart veiny black strands wriggled around like worms after a rain storm. Standing directly across from Ty was Aidan, holding one hand out in front of him with eyes full of emotionless hate.
"Before my eyes," Aidan said without ever changing the dead look in his eyes and the emotionless monotone of his voice. "Everything that you can ever do, everything that you can ever become, is nothing."
Ty could see the five blades of his hand stuck deep into the black animus. No matter how hard Ty tried his hand couldn't pull itself free from the black animus.
"Let the darkness swallow you as you're consumed in my hatred." Aidan said. "I've wanted to kill something for so long. You're whole existence, everything you are is nothing. Only fools allow themselves to believe that greatness even exists. None of this matters."
"I have no idea what you're talking about!" Ty shouted as he leapt forward swing back his one good bladed hand. "But the more you talk the more I just want too..."
The black energy wrapped around Ty's entire body like a cocoon and held him in place. Even with Ty's greatly increased strength, breaking through the endless blackness of Aidan's animus was like a normal human trying to break free of a coffin of cement. No matter what Ty did, no matter how he tried to fall apart and put himself back together, nothing he did had any effect.
"Killing you will make me feel alive again." Aidan said as he raised the black energy wrapped around Ty's body up into the air. "When everything is black, when everything hurts, when you have nothing but anger and agony in your heart, you'll do anything just to feel again. But the truth is that I still feel. I just feel a purer, more divine power than you. Mine is the purest strain of hatred!"
"You're pathetic Aidan!" Alister said as he rose up from the ground laid his fist beneath Aidan's jaw, sending him flying up into the air.
As Aidan's body began to fall Alister rocketed up and knocked him to the side. Before Aidan's body began to fall again, Alister appeared behind his back and hit him again. Over and over and over again, Alister bounced around Aidan's body like a hacky sack being bounced around by a group of hippies at a concert.
Finally Alister let Aidan slam into the ground. But just before Aidan would have snapped his neck, he shielded himself in a black animus.
"Curse you rebel prince!" Aidan said as his black animus took the form of some heinous blob like monster with long dripping fangs. In a single bite the monster made of black animus swallowed Alister whole. "You have disgraced the gods, you have disgraced your father and your brother! You've disgraced the north, and you have disgraced..."
"Get off my teammate!" Ty shouted as he broke free from the weakened animus that surrounded him. Alister gave Ty an angry look, but somehow Ty knew exactly what Alister meant and stopped right in his tracks.
"I've done nothing!" Alister shouted as his lightning spear broke free from the monster shaped animus and stabbed clean through Aidan's shoulder. A white mist leaked out from the hole in the animus and the mist formed itself into Alister floating with a ghostly tail. "I am Alister Wildeheart, The Prince of The North, I was baptized in the Light of Haus, I have fought alongside men, women, and children wronged by my father. I've led thousands of people to their deaths at war with my brother and I did it all so that I could allow thousands to live! I am a King and I will never be killed by the likes of you!"
"You betrayed your family Alister." Aidan said as his animus chased Alister through the air. "Your brother..."
"My brother murdered my father and mother." Alister said. "My brother is a power mad monster!"
"As if we all aren't mad for power." Aidan said maniacally. "Your brother just plays the game to win. There's no other point to it other than that. You could have swallowed that pathetic pride of yours and been a lord or even a king someday but you had to run away like the trash you are to fight a war for the poor people who don't care who their king is!"
"I am a the people's King" Alister shouted as a bright red animus wrapped around him like a flame of candy apple red light. Alister's animus was so thick that the strands of Aidan's animus couldn't break through and were forced to wrap around him in a network of black webs. "I the true a king! A king who fought for everything that he's ever had. There are villages and kingdoms that depend on me! I am not dying here!" Alister vowed. "And I will never die by your hand!"
Alister animus began to form a powerful skeletal ribcage and head that protected Alister's body from Aidan's black animus as it tried to swallow him up. Two skeletal arms shot out from the rib cage surrounding Alister reaching as far as they could as Aidan's black animus pulled both arms to the ground with strings of wriggling black.
"You can do nothing!" Aidan said holding Alister's skeletal form down. "Everything that pathetic of Kimchi has taught you is a pathetic old form of combat. My power, my hate, my reason for existence is greater than yours! Prepare to die a young PRINCE. The forever young PRINCE who tried to steal the throne from his brother. Say your final words and I'll engrave them on your tombstone."
"Now!" Alister shouted at the top of his lungs.
Ty swung back his arm, finally free from Aidan's animus thanks to Alister's distraction and sent his flaming claw swooshing forward with flames singing behind it. There was an explosion of fire as the animus wrapped around Alister flickered out of existence.
"We did it! That's what I call teamwork! Whose gonna kill who?" Ty said smiling as he looked into the flames and saw a shadow swaying back and forth. "You've got to be kidding me! What kind of freak is this guy that he can get hit by five blades and fire and still be standing."
"I am not a freak!" Aidan shouted as his animus coiled around both Alister and Ty. "I am the Knight of the Obsidian Animus. The greatest warrior that the north has ever scene. Before my eyes everything you do is nothing! Now die for your blasphemies and die for your pathetic beliefs! That's all proud fools like you can ever find in this wretched world!"
The blackness shrouded over Alister and Ty's eyes. Not even air was able to break through. They could feel the black energy twisting and crushing them inside but nothing, not even light, could be seen in the sea of endless black hatred.