Though Seth stood calmly and confidently, Dahye could see sweat forming around his brow. Him having to take a little breath before speaking sealed the deal on his nervousness.
“I take it you’re one of those GLYPH agents I’ve heard about?” he asked.
Dahye nodded. Though her situation was quite dire, the obvious uneasiness in her opponent was helping calm her own nerves down, if only a bit. “I am.”
Seth glanced off to nothing in particular, and his jaw clenched. “Shit…Fat load of help you were, Ghoul…”
“We’re here for the FORMA, and to destroy this facility,” Dahye stated. “We’ve already set the explosives, and taken down most of your men. If you hand the FORMA over, I’ll allow you and the remaining members of your men to evacuate before we destroy the building. You don’t have to die here.”
The Blue Dragon Spirit appeared beside Dahye, turning to her with a low growl. “What did we just discuss?”
Dahye waved her off, figuring this was worth a shot given Seth’s apparent reluctance to fight. Not having to kill would also help Dahye’s own consciousness, so if the opportunity was there, she would be better off making good use of it, no?
Seth fidgeted in place, looking down at the FORMA in his hand. Truthfully, he wanted to take the deal. Ghoul’s warning of the capabilities of these GLYPH agents had certainly proven true, given they’d fought through an entire building’s worth of guards, as well as Ghoul and his men, apparently. Living to fight another day after getting overwhelmed out of the blue by their sudden appearance would surely be the smart move?
But he hesitated in accepting Dahye’s proposal. What was he supposed to tell the higher-ups in Diabolus? Hey, one of the bases that you gave me the responsibility of watching over was infiltrated by a mere two enemies, and was bombed to smithereens. I gave up the FORMA you advised me to hold onto in exchange for my life. Oh, and also, I went behind your back and hired Ghoul’s men, and I still lost the base, too. My bad, guys, haha…
He’d surely be severely punished for a fuck-up like that. Probably demoted to a grunt, if not outright excommunicated from the organization. He’d never have another shot at rising through the ranks, and just when he was on the cusp of finally making it through to that elite circle…
“Shit…!” he spat, turning around and pacing around the office, at a loss of what to do. He glanced over at Dahye, still bound by the FORMA chains. It didn’t seem like she was capable of breaking through them, so he probably didn’t have to worry about her right now. Could he finish her off himself, though? And even if he did manage to do that, he’d been alerted of two intruders – so her accomplice could be right on her tail making their way up here. Surely if all of his guards, along with Ghoul and his men couldn’t stop these two, he had no chance, right?
A chill suddenly ran down his spine, and his vision became momentarily clouded in blackness. An unnaturally low, whispery voice dug into his mind.
YOU SEEM TO BE IN NEED OF GREATER POWER…
He clenched his fist around the FORMA card. He recognized the voice from one single conversation he’d had before. It was the voice of a devil – one who’d offered its services to him before.
I CAN GRANT YOU THE POWER TO KILL THIS WOMAN…
Seth looked over at Dahye again, still patiently awaiting his answer to her proposal. Though he’d been fearful of her when she’d first stepped foot into his office, next to the devil’s voice in his mind, she was starting to seem like a comforting presence, in a strange way…
He then felt his head turn away from her – not of his own volition, but as a reaction to a pain beginning to sting at his throat. A pain whose only cure came from looking back at the nothingness in front of him. A nothingness that soon began to morph into the shadowy shape of a massive monster. The details of its form were impossible to make out, but the broad strokes of its silhouette – leathery wings, long, gnarled horns, six serpentine tails, and bulging muscles from head to toe – had Seth’s imagination and paranoia running rampant.
IN FACT, I CAN GRANT YOU THE POWER TO CLAIM THE THRONE OF DIABOLUS…
“R…really…?” he asked, not aloud, but in this strange mental space he found himself completely trapped within.
YES… SO LONG AS YOU FULFILL THE TERMS OF MY CONTRACT…
He gulped. “Wh…what do you want from me…?”
Ghoul’s gatling gun was practically doing the explosives’ job for them.
Bullet after bullet blasted from his arm, slowly tearing the entire room to pieces. Each time one struck a metal rack, chunks of the shelving went flying in all directions, and when enough of those had been dislodged, the entire structure came down. Pallets collapsed onto the ground in waves, and those, too, soon found themselves bursting from gunfire.
Ace was forced to sprint for his goddamn life to avoid the steady stream of bullets, not even having enough time to fire back at any point. He’d seen the damage Ghoul could do with his weapon of choice from a prior encounter, and wasn’t interested in experiencing it for himself.
“Running and hiding, is that all you’re capable of, assassin?” Ghoul barked, laughing aloud as he took extra time to litter the shelves on the far walls with holes. He knew there was no chance that Ace was hiding behind those, and simply took pleasure in watching the place be torn to shit. After all, it wasn’t one of his bases, and Diabolus had stopped hiring him and his men, so fuck ‘em! “Even your girl put up a better fight against me than this!”
Ace knew better than just about anyone that all that trash talk was just bait, but damn was it hard being on the other end of that strategy. He wanted nothing more than to shut down all of Ghoul’s taunts, then run up and bury him in lead, but that wasn’t in the cards. Not right now.
But then…what was in the cards? What the hell was he supposed to do in this situation?
He could maybe try and make a break for the exit, but Ghoul was close to it, and would probably be ready to shoot him down if he made a run for it. He could maybe hope for some back-up from Dahye or Gisela, but that wasn’t likely. Gisela was probably dealing with the goons who’d gone outside, and Dahye was on the other end of the building going after Seth. Unless either lady got their own shit dealt with fast, he was on his own for the time being.
He still had his ArsenALL with him, but using that had some risks. He could only conjure up 2 different types of gear from it at a time, after all. He’d used the first slot on the smoke grenades and the second on the flashbangs. After bringing out the explosives he’d set around the building, that removed the grenades. He’d then created a handgun to use when he’d disguised himself as one of Ghoul’s men.
If he pulled out some other type of weapon, the explosives would be the ones to vanish next. He’d have to absolutely be sure he could finish Ghoul off with whatever he conjured up, and he wasn’t even sure if he even had anything that could get the job done, and then he could make a new set of explosives afterward.
Of course, he could also just…give up the mission, he supposed. Bring something up to get him the fuck out of the building, flee, and hope Dahye either found her own way to escape or at the very least wouldn’t be a vengeful ghost. That was kind of the sensible, logical choice, right?
No, that wouldn’t sit right with him. Or Claire…
He suddenly remembered the FORMA he’d gotten from Malena, and reached into his jacket for it.
[Attempt].
…
…
…What the fuck was this supposed to do, anyway?
It annoyed him to no end that he didn’t know for sure, as a life-or-death situation like this wasn’t exactly the best time to be gambling on complete mystery boxes like the card. But it was a FORMA, and those things were big fucking deals, right? It had to be worth something, so…
“Alright, fuck it,” he mumbled quietly, holding the FORMA out in front of him. He wasn’t quite sure what exactly to do with it, but when he felt a wave of pressure shoot out in a bubble around him, he figured that must have done the trick.
Trouble was…what was that, exactly?
The bullets tearing through the pallets beside him stripped him of his time to think about it. He had to move, and do something.
He sprinted around the left side of the pallets and aimed his handgun towards Ghoul, aiming for the exposed lower half of the merc’s cackling face. It was a tough shot, and he missed the first two – they soared past Ghoul and struck some of the machinery he’d planted some of the explosives on, but did land the third on the side of his jaw.
But while it did throw Ghoul’s head back, the mercenary’s gatling gun arm immediately panned over to Ace in the process, firing round after round all the while.
Ace dashed like hell, taking several bullets to the side and back, which quickly depleted his remaining Armor Amp barrier. It shattered to pieces, and, just before he could dive behind another rack to take cover for the measly few seconds it would survive Ghoul’s gatling gun…
A dozen bullets ripped into his head and body, and blood splattered all over the floor and walls of the building.
Dahye and Dhara watched quietly as Seth continued to stare off into the floor, lost in thought.
“What is he doing? Why has he fallen silent?”
Dahye, however, was not especially concerned about this face, and found it a relief, in fact. For one, it could mean that he was seriously debating with himself whether to accept her deal or not, and if he did, that would put an end to this whole thing, and they could all go home.
But even if he didn’t accept, him turning his back and taking time to himself was working in her favor. See, despite being trapped by the [Chain] FORMA, out of range to properly defeat the Diabolus officer, and despite Dhara’s energy drained for the time being as well, she did still have one final trick up her sleeve – her BOON – an ability possessed by GLYPH agents, unique to each individual. It was the only tool she had left at her disposal of getting out of the chains in the event that Seth denied her deal and went for the kill.
She took a deep breath and focused. Everything around her began to darken – even Dhara’s glowing blue form lost its color, and she turned a ghostly white. The walls and floor of the office turned black, and everything within the room began to shift into nothing more than vague white silhouettes.
She kept her sight locked on Seth all the while. He, too, had become a blurry white silhouette, but as Dahye’s eyes further honed in on the Diabolus officer, his form started to glow brighter than everything else in the room. And then, tiny little threads began to come into vision, each a different color.
At first there were a dozen, each one spreading out from a different part of his body and splitting off into different directions, though the far ends of them simply faded away into nothingness, making it unclear what they were tied between.
In time, more and more threads began to appear. Some much thicker than others, some so thin they looked incomplete at times. From head to toe they jutted out from Seth’s silhouette, many crossing paths with other threads, some taking winding, confusing twists and turns as they distanced themselves from his body.
Dahye furrowed her brow and narrowed her eyes. Her head was starting to ache from how intently she was stressing her vision to see these threads, but she still hadn’t found her proper target. As she clenched her jaw and peered even deeper, she began to feel…sensations, images, and sounds echoing from each thread.
“Shirt”… “Name”… “Passcode”… “Schedule”… “English”… “Smell”…
No, no, no…None of those were right…
“Mother”… “Father”… “Luke”… “Kain”… “Eva”…
There were so many she had to sift through to find the right one. So many threads tangled together, each one sending pulsations of information into her mind. Information that was useless beyond listing themselves as not being the thread she was looking for.
“Ghoul”… “Time”… “GLYPH”… “Gun”… “FORMA”…
There! That was it! The thread she needed!
It was a tiny little thread, deep within the web of them sprouting all across the office. Striking it and it alone would be a difficult task, but fortunately, as her eyes followed the path of the thread leaving Seth’s silhouette outward, she confirmed that part of it was in range of her sword, even with her immobilized by the spectral chains.
Keeping her eyes locked on the part of the thread in range, she wrapped her fingers tightly around the handle of her Dragonsaber.
D I V I D E
Ace jerked violently in place, like he’d just been awakened by a splash of ice-cold whatever and a right hook to the nose.
What the…? he thought to himself, wondering if he’d somehow survived getting torn to pieces by Ghoul’s gatling gun.
But when he looked down at his body, he couldn’t see or feel any signs of being shot, nor was there any blood anywhere. That couldn’t be right, as he’d definitely felt the first few bullets tear through his torso before he blacked out.
And that’s when he realized that he wasn’t even on the other side of the building like he had been. No, he was back to the rack he’d taken cover behind earlier…
And the [Attempt] FORMA was in his hands, exactly as it had been when he’d first activated it.
It suddenly clicked in his mind what might have happened – had the FORMA allowed him to act for a few minutes before reverting back to the state he’d originally been in when he used it, giving him an “attempt” at facing Ghoul?
“That…is…awesome…” he whispered to himself, feeling his heartbeat start to calm down. Still, as cool as it was to figure out what the damn thing did, he didn’t have much time to heap praise upon it, as Ghoul’s gatling gun was very much still approaching him like it had before.
He popped the [Attempt] FORMA again, feeling its energy burst out just like before.
He then ran out again, and took better shots at Ghoul’s exposed face, landing two nice shots that tore some of the bastard’s flesh right off of his skull.
He then took more gatling gun bullets to the face and chest, and jerked back into consciousness behind the rack again.
After one more failed attempt in which he tried taking a slightly zig-zaggy path, jumping and sliding over the path of the incoming gatling gun fire (and tiring himself out enough for Ghoul to kill him before he could try to shoot him again), he awoke back at his starting position again, although the FORMA did not blast out the usual bubble of energy around him when he tried activating it once more, which must have meant it was out of juice or however that shit worked. Which meant it was do-or-die time for him – there were no more attempts, no more redos. He had to nail this in one go.
Luckily, he had something in mind.
Rather than rush around the left side of the rack again, he went to the right, making sure to crawl along the ground at first to move beneath the incoming spray of gatling gun fire as it tore the shelving and pallets beside him to shreds.
Once he was in the clear, he stood up and took off sprinting down the opposite side of the room as he’d done before. Ghoul quickly caught wind of him, and spun around, alternating the direction his gatling gun arm was firing.
Ace sprinted along the far side of the room as fast as he could, and hoped that A) He was actually going to be fast enough to pull this off; a) The remaining Armor Amp barrier would be strong enough to withstand this; and @) He wasn’t going to inadvertently get Dahye killed in the process…
As he passed by some of the machinery, he quickly reached under it and ripped the explosives he’d installed earlier out. He turned around as quickly as he could and launched it towards the mercenary just as Ghoul’s gatling gun closed the distance. The bullets started to strike at Ace’s barrier, and he turned away, still running like hell, and activated the explosives.
The bombs went off in a gigantic burst of flames that devoured the building. Ghoul was quickly caught in the cloud of fire, while Ace was launched from the blast, feeling the Armor Amp shield crack to pieces around him. The walls of the building exploded, and he was sent flying dozens of feet past them to the outside, his senses completely jostled by the impact of the detonation.
His body slammed right through the windshield of a car parked on the opposite side of the street in front of the Diabolus base. He was in severe pain, but as far as he could tell, he was still alive, at least.
With a groan, he rolled over from his back to his side, which put him face-to-face with the poor woman who had just gotten into the car moments before Ace had crashed through her windshield.
Amidst her understandable screams of panic, Ace reached out and patted her arm, weakly. “Yeah, I’m alright…Thanks for asking…”
The demon crept forward, closing the gap between itself and Seth. The Diabolus agent wanted to retreat, but he was no longer in control of his body, it seemed. He was forced to stand there as the monster stomped towards him, shaking the ground with each step. The demon, still shrouded in shadow, towered over him, but what unnerved Seth even more than that was the sounds it made as it moved – there were all kinds of crinkling, crackling, squishing, gushing, undulating, pulsing, and hissing noises erupting from each part of the demon’s body. Each one had his imagination running wild trying to picture what kind of grotesque features could possibly make those noises.
The demon’s massive face settled right above Seth’s, and again, no matter how much he wanted to look away, he couldn’t.
YOU… ARE A WEAK HUMAN… PERHAPS TOO WEAK TO CAST ASIDE YOUR OWN KIN…?
He thought back to his earlier conversation with Luke…how he’d supposedly given up his own family members in exchange for the power of the devil contract.
Seth certainly wouldn’t be willing to pay that price. While he’d never been especially close to his family members, nor had his parents ever taken much pride in him, especially after learning of the path he’d chosen to walk in adulthood, there was no way he could just feed them to a fucking demon. The mere thought disgusted him.
IN EXCHANGE FOR MY POWER…
THE POWER TO KILL THE SWORDSWOMAN…
AND THE POWER TO CLAIM DIABOLUS FOR YOURSELF…
He gulped, dreading the incoming answer, especially when the demon seemed to purposely delay the conclusion of his statement.
IN ONE YEAR’S TIME… YOU WILL SURRENDER YOUR BODY TO ME.
“Wh-what? What does that mean?”
I WILL USE YOUR BODY AS A HOST IN ORDER TO WALK WITHIN YOUR WORLD… UNTIL I AM ABLE TO FIND A SUITABLE REPLACEMENT.
THOSE ARE THE TERMS OF MY CONTRACT, HUMAN.
His brow furrowed as confusion began to wash over his fear. “W-well, what happens to me? Will you kill me?”
The demon…laughed? That was his initial assumption, at least, but the noise that came from the monster was so inhumanly ugly and discomforting that it was hard to truly settle on that answer.
YOU WILL NOT DIE, HUMAN… ONCE I HAVE FOUND A SUITABLE NEW HOST, YOUR BODY SHALL RETURN TO YOU.
DO YOU ACCEPT THE TERMS OF MY CONTRACT?
It was a strange request, and not at all what he’d been expecting, but it certainly didn’t sound anywhere as bad as sacrificing his family, or anything along those lines. Besides…he’d have an entire year before he had to deal with fulfilling the demon’s terms. Should the demon not be lying about the power it promised, he could definitely be in charge of Diabolus by then too, no?
His heart told him to refuse, but his brain was ready to sign the contract. Or perhaps it was the opposite?
“I-”
D I V I D E
A massive flash of azure light suddenly washed over the space, coming from far behind him. Seth, now able to move of his own accord, it seemed, whipped around in surprise.
He saw Dahye there, sword held across her body, as if she’d taken a swing at him, though that was ridiculous. He was far beyond her reach-
Wait…His eyes moved lower, to the broken chains scattered around the floor of the office, watching as they faded away into nothingness.
“How did you-?!” he began, before a strange sensation of mental blankness overtook him, just for a moment. He’d…forgotten what he was going to say? No, that wasn’t right. He was going to ask how she’d broken out of those…chains? Wait, where had those chains come from anyway? They weren’t part of the office, as far as he knew… And they’d just disappeared? How did that happen? Had she been chained up, and simply cut herself free? Wait…why was she chained in the office anyway…?
As confusion further plagued his mind, Seth’s eyes wandered down to his own body, as if trying to ground himself and get his bearings. He then spotted a slip of paper in his hand…what was this? When had he picked this up?
There was only a single word printed on the front: [Chain].
…Huh? What was this for? Why was he holding it? Did it have something to do with those strange chains that had been on the floor earlier…?
On the other side of the office, Dhara nodded approvingly. “Using your BOON on the thread connecting him with the FORMA to break his ability to use it… Clever.”
Now freed of the [Chain] FORMA, Dahye took a step towards Seth, pointing her katana towards him. “Well? Have you decided to surrender now?”
Seth blinked a few times, still mentally out of sorts, and growing more panicked and frustrated. This GLYPH woman was clearly dangerous, but there was no way he could just surrender. His Diabolus career would be over, if not his life itself.
WELL? HAVE YOU DECIDED TO SIGN MY CONTRACT NOW?
“I-”
The entire office suddenly shook with tremendous force. Seth, Dahye, Dhara, and the demon all recognized the telltale sound of an explosion erupting on the lower floors, and the imminent collapse of the building that was soon to follow.
The room tilted at a sharp angle, and Dahye found herself flung across the office. Seth himself was thrown backwards, slamming up against the far wall and falling onto his stomach, disoriented.
I have to get out of here…! Dahye thought, scrambling to push herself back up to her feet and find some kind of exit before the building collapsed, or she was devoured by flames. The mission was no longer on her mind, and she wasn’t even going to bother with Seth or the FORMA at this point. She just had to survive, and get back home to her daughter.
Not far from her, Seth’s eyes widened, now faced with his imminent death, and the end of his analysis paralysis. Now it was impossible to take the GLYPH woman’s deal, and that left him with one decision. “I-I’ll sign it! I accept!”
That ugly laugh entered his mind again.
EXCELLENT…
A purple-and-black flame suddenly manifested in the space in front of him, and from it emerged a piece of parchment. The words inscribed on the page were of a language not of this earth, but even then, Seth somehow understood what he needed to do next, and reached his hand out towards it.
Dhara, who’d noticed the appearance of the flame, suddenly roared out, “Dahye! He’s signing a devil contract!”
Dahye spun around, her blood running cold. “What?!”
Sure enough, when she turned to Seth, still lying on his stomach, she saw that he was, in fact, reaching out to sign a devil contract. There was no mistaking the floating parchment, and the violet flames that had conjured it. He’d been contacted by a demon – one who’d seduced him into signing a contract with it.
But Seth never got the chance, as Dahye, eyes awash with a mixture of human fear and beastly hatred, leaped towards him and swung her Dragonsaber.
The blade sliced through the contract vertically, splitting it in half.
It did the same to Seth’s body, from his outstretched hand to his pelvis. One clean cut through the center of his body, before it fell into two halves, each spraying blood around the Diabolus office, and all over Dahye, too.
