The Savages

Chapter 23: Two Demons

Shadows enveloped the concrete walls, swallowing the artificial light reflected upon their glistening royal gold paint. Perseverance backed away from the rising fog slowly, unaware of his feet moving on their own accord until his back hit something solid. Pivoting around hastily on his heel, he was confronted by the sight of a featureless monster towering above him, breathing a foul-smelling purple haze into his face.

He crossed his arms over his head and ducked, barraging all of his weight into the muscular humanoid beast. The thing made a gruff, gravelly noise he presumed to be a groan, staggering back a mere few feet from him. Physically uninjured, it reared its misshapen oval head and lunged -

A blaze of sky blue light sliced through the air in front of him, momentarily filling the entirety of his vision. When it passed, the monster was nowhere to be seen. All that remained of it were thin tatters of black jagged shapes, sifting down gently to the floor like streamers released from a party popper.

Perseverance looked up to see Maddox in its place, wiping blubbery ichor from the blade of Truthseeker. The blue hue appeared to immerse itself into the silver coating rippling along the surface, forming a solid colour once again. Perseverance blinked twice to reassure himself that he wasn't hallucinating, staring wide-eyed at the king and his sword.

"A simple thank you would suffice," he muttered, resting the knife-edge against the shoulder of his black armoured shirt. Perseverance felt comforted knowing he chose befitting attire for the fight, after rushing to his and his brothers' rescue in normal every-day clothing the betas could have easily torn through. At least with the sleek, constricted Meryl Lycra aligning to each muscle in his torso, he was better protected. He bore heavy resemblance to a hero pulled from the pages of a Marvel comic, almost. "Do you still have the weapon Slate provided you with? If you do, now would be a better time than any to put it to good use."

"I think so," Perseverance mused half-heartedly, distracted by a persistently nagging thought in the back of his mind. "Your highness, what was that thing? And how were you able to cut it down so effortlessly?"

Maddox turned to him, sliding Nagana with a silent shing into the scabbard fastened to his back. "There's very little time to explain right now. Those things have no will of their own. Someone - most probably David - sent them here in the rear of the castle to distract us, while he fights your brothers and my son in the throne room."

Fragments of lost memories stirred in Perseverance's mind, none of which were within his grasp. The last thing he could recall in definitive clarity was running down the stairs amongst the sound of mixed feet, then somehow ending up in the opposite section of the castle to where he was planning to go. He remembered standing in the throne room briefly with his brothers, but anything afterward was fuzzy; like trying to grasp at smoke with his bare hands.

"Come with me if you wish to live another day," Maddox's silky smooth voice requested ambiguously, yanking him out of his mental imprisonment. "There isn't a second to lose, Perseverance. Your brothers need you out there, as my son needs me."

There was barely a moment to react before the king marched up the hallway, his fast-paced strides proving a challenge for Perseverance's human capabilities. The clone's knees began to tremble the harder he forced his legs to keep up celerity beside Maddox, his steady breaths turning into pants from the exertion his lungs were under.

Fortunately, he made it to their destination in one piece, resisting the urge to collapse down onto the rug in utter exhaustion. The king, unaffected by mortal impediments, drew Nagana from its sheath and struck out at a featureless monster just as it swung a giant fist at Edgar.

Perseverance pulled himself to his feet, planting his hand firmly against one of the marble pillars to help support his weight. In front of him, Teemu and Emilia spun and twirled around one another like dancers performing their routine, launching powerfully charged orbs of angelic energy into the demonic beings circling them. Each burst of light pulsed through the air, exploding into thousands of tiny particles once they reached their target. The resulting blow carried enough force to propel the beasts backward, before they disintegrated on the spot entirely, leaving no traces behind of their existence. He awed at the sight in front of him, wondering how Teemu and Emilia both managed to retain their power supply with the amount of times they initiated separate attacks.