Legends of Orlea

Chapter 9:

"Drop your weapons! Or your friends die."

"..." Zirem dropped his swords, then the Specter Knights advanced, their swords held near Alicia and Akil's throats. His Aflune was still deployed, still controllable. He'd already learnt that if he gave way to it, it'd take over, destroying his body in the process. In return, he'd be granted temporary strength that allowed him to destroy anything from any world. But in real life, the consequences were devastating. After all, he only had one life...

Shaking the idea from his head, Zirem kept it steady, imagining a conversation in between him and the beast called an Aflune. In the beginning, in LoO, he'd thought of it as a skill, a power that could be used at any time. 

In Hollow, he'd learnt that it was the cause of his 'Unhinged' state, and he'd started thinking of it more as a disease. But later on, he'd been forced to partially take power from it, like a being. It resided in him,and he could converse with it, but it would usually end with the beast raging at his proposal. It wasn't very tame.

Now, he said to it, I need your help. 

Only on one condition.

What?

I can do whatever I want with their corpses. 

Why?

You wouldn't understand, kid. Now either say yes of no and go fight!

Okay. Do whatever you want, but don't get me killed.

Of course I won't. You're the only person who's good enough to keep around.

Actually, it's the opposite.

Shut up, kid. I've had more than one host, you know? 

With that, Zirem left the conversation, and returned to reality. "Oy! Specter 56! I said deactivate whatever those tentacles are!"

Surprised, Zirem did as he was told, and a voice resonated in his head, I'll cooperate for now, since you promised.

It was the Aflune. All of his tentacles disappeared, save two, which hid behind his legs, right out of sight of the Specter Knights, digging into the ground. Zirem realised what the Aflune was doing, and distracted the Knights.

"Hey, I've got a few things to show you."

"Specter 56! You're not fooling anybody with that trick."

"Am I?"

"You're no-" The Specter was interrupted when the Aflune pierced his back. They both fell to the ground simultaneously, leaving Alicia and Akil unharmed. "Are you guys okay?!" asked Zirem as the Aflune dragged the two corpses closer, sucking all their life force away, until they were empty husks. And then it absorbed even the armour.

"Y-yeah. I thought I was gonna die there!" exclaimed Alicia, grabbing her sword from the ground where the Knight had dropped it. Akil did the same with his axe. 

"Can you guys secure the edges, make sure nothing gets away?" asked Zirem, not wanting them to have to face himself from Hollow. No doubt he would come.

"Okay. But what is this?"

"It's a game called Hollow. Apparently it's based of LoO, ao that's why all this is happening."

"..." Alicia got up, following Akil, who'd already started running to stop an escaping monster. 

A crash came, and Zirem instinctively turned. It was no doubt his own avatar. A weird feeling had appeared, no doubt because it was his first time facing himself in a fight to the death. Zirem looked for the shadow, and found it, charging with a battle cry.