The Chaotic Twelve (On Hold)

Chapter 5: Yang Rising

Libra's POV:

     Snapping awake and quickly getting to my feet, I couldn't help but notice the amount of dried blood on and around me. Crinkling my nose at the disgusting site, I quickly realized that Vekten was missing. Last time I remembered seeing his emotionless face was in the astral realm.

     "Vekten! You in here?" echoed through the rooms and halls of my abode. No response. I took off my shirt, which was covered in a brownish layer of caked blood, and tossed it aside.

      "Absolutely appalling. Who knew I could produce this much blood?" I wondered to myself. Suddenly a loud clang and moans came from downstairs. Quickly grabbing my staff from my table and elongating it into a sharp sword, I cautiously left my room. Reaching the stairs, I noticed a prominent scorpion insignia carved into the stair railing lowing with sinister energy and the body of a stranger with an arrow through his chest. Crunching my brows into a frown, I barely had any time to think about what it meant when a deranged woman rounded the corner and screeched up the stairs. Her arms flailing in front of her body with a shard of glass as she got closer and closer to me.

      "Ma'am. Ma'am! I'm friendly! Let's talk this out" I yelled at the charging woman.

      "Stop stop stop stop sto...."

      I panted in shock as I pulled back on my staff, which mere moments ago was jammed into her head out of pure self defense. The body collapsed to the floor with a thud and brain matter began oozing out of the crevice caused by my blade. Holding back the urge to not cry and vomit my already empty stomach, I ran pass the corpse to the front door, only to be greeted by a unholy site of thousands of dead, dismembered bodies. Flies buzzed everywhere in the summer sun, flying in and out of the many holes and openings of the human body. Failing to contain my stomach, I threw up to the side and felt like death itself.

      "Why....why all the death." I barely whispered, feeling as if my soul was being engulfed in the carnage before me. Then I noticed Skytten's bloodied sword lying amidst the fallen bodies and immediately ran to pick it up. The blade was sleek and weightless but with considerable rigidity; perfect for a deranged psychopathic killer. Murmuring to myself, my whole body buckled as someone slammed into my behind. Leaping onto my feet, I whirled Skytten's sword around and into the torso of a turned man. His body twitches and sputters as I drove the sword deeper and deeper until I managed to slice him in half.

     Managing to save myself from vomiting once more, I quickly ran back into my house and slammed the door shut. At the base of the stairs was a pool of scarlet liquid flowing from a decapitated body.

     "Damn, should've dumped her body outside" I groaned. Ignoring the ungodly sight, I ran back upstairs and locked my bedroom door behind me. I quickly peered out of the window only to see a city completely engulfed in flames. The once peaceful harbor was littered with sunken and half sunken ships. The piers were in rambles from ships that collided into them. Sirens rung through the sky, a constant reminder that all was not well. Pulling out a pair of binoculars for a closer look into the downtown area, I could make out people attacking and brutalizing others. Flames continued to pop up here and there and I took note of some of the gun fights happening on the harbor.

     "All of this looks familiar" I thought to myself, the realization that scenes like this were happening all over the world after remembering back to my time in the astral realm. Taking a minute to ponder as to what to do next, I remembered about Leo and her brother in Portugal but that thought was soon disrupted when I heard the whir of helicopter blades flying by followed by a thunderous crashing noise coming from the nearby woods.

     Wanting to go and explore what had just happened, I quickly wrote a note to let Vetken know that I was going out to the forests to investigate a mysterious crash if by any chance he were to return. I sprinted out of the house with my staff drawn and into the woods, following the billowing smoke cloud in the nearby skies. 

      Fear plastered itself on my face as the closer I got to the wreck, the louder the horrid shrieks and roars became. Finally I was at a little drop off overlooking the crash site and immediately regret besieged me. In front of the charred skeleton of the helicopter was a mass of bloodied bodies brutally locked in combat with one another. Wincing as one body, a woman, had her head decapitated by a ravage man only for that man to be bitten in the neck by another, I felt another spell of dizziness wash over my being. 

     Suddenly something tackled me over the edge of the drop off and we both landed on the ground with a loud thud. I coughed up blood as I felt the weight of a very heavy person on top of me and with a grunt I pushed the body off of me. The moment of relief was short as the body, a burly teenager, roared and began slashing at my face with broken hands. I could only block his attacks while my breath slowly returned to me and in one push I flung the man into the wall of rock next to us. Leaping to my feet, I quickly delivered a succession of kicks into the chin of the teenager with each strike causing more and more rocks to chip off as his head bounced repeatedly off of it. Panting heavy, I sent one final kick with all of my energy and my foot entered his skull cavity. Groaning at the sick feeling of brain parts and pieces of bone that splattered back at me, I stumbled back and looked around for my staff as the body slowly fell to the ground with a thud; a dark stain plastered on the rock wall behind it.

      I spotted it a couple feet away and retrieved it just in time as the deranged mass in front of the helicopter took notice of the skirmish that had just occurred. Silently cursing to the stars, I unconsciously activated a beacon hidden on my staff and went into full combat mode; mentally preparing myself for the need of force. I charged right at the mass with my staff, now a double sided and electrified sword, and began chopping through bodies as they approached. Full of renewed vigor, I continued the push through the crowd as people dropped left and right; serrated limbs and body parts fell everywhere, each new addition contributing to the singed metallic smell of the clearing. 

      Barely able to stand after dropping the mass of people, I collapsed onto my knees and leaned against my staff to catch a breather. I glanced around and my soul ached at the scene. The clearing looked as if it were a massacre right out of a horror novel. The trees were completely coated in blood spatter, the once thriving grass and flowers were all trampled and small streams of flowing blood snaked through the landscape with its source coming from the massacred. Through it all I was able to chuckle at my prior insightfulness to install a voltage setting to my staff which boiled the wound that it cuts through preventing blood from flowing. At alone helped prevent an ocean of the crimson liquid from forming.

      My attention was then diverted to a weak call for help coming from the helicopter wreck. Boots squished into the ground as I began carefully making my way through the messy scene towards the helicopter wreck. Although I was trying to be careful, I managed to step onto several various limbs and almost slid on this one girl's brutalized head. I forced a smile in order to prevent from gagging and saying screw it, I took my staff and began swatting body parts left and right.

      When I was right next to the back, or top of the helicopter because it was toppled on its side, the beacon I pressed earlier beeped twelve times. I let out a huge sigh of relief and thanked the stars; she and her brother was safe.