The Enemy of the Slayer

Gaia... if we are truly among your chosen... then aren't we wrong to deny ourselves?

Three dozen Knights had mobilized the moment they had been alerted to Moira’s plight; most were still in their plainclothes, having headed down straight from the recreation center with only swords and rifles as arms. They expected reinforcements; the attack soon changed that, but they couldn’t dally while their Warden was in danger. In a tight, three-wide formation, they marched down the stairs until they reached Level D, the final prison level above the sealed zone. The secret stone wall leading down was already open; it had to remain so during this kind of alert, lest sabotage or malfunction cut off reinforcements.

A Slayer is a killer... but the world ill needs killers, now. Slayers must take care in what they destroy or else be branded monsters and put down, just like those rival clans of yore... but what if those who are dust were once right?

As one of the most venerable Knights on site, Captain Apaio led the growing knot of gold and red with his fencing sabre drawn in his right hand and a .50 caliber pistol in the left. A fire burned in his eyes that nearly distracted him from his surroundings; he had watched the little Warden grow from infancy, and the thought of some deadly mage cornering her, as one had her mother, filled him with a personal drive.

Father... the ancestors... the teachings... what if they were the perversions? A Slayer cannot be a champion of life... not without surrendering their very nature. A Slayer champions life only by refusing to act. Father... you taught me control... but control is what brought me here. Is the alternative truly worse? I must see it for myself... and perhaps in doing so, I will remind those who would humiliate me... those who forgot, as you forgot, Father... what a Slayer does.

[MUSIC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNkQMtZAMAw]

The only Knights on duty on this level were the one patrolling the hallway’s length and the two by the only occupied cell: a cage with pink curtains hung up for decency, though the illusion was sparse at best. All three men turned and saluted before promptly pressing themselves against the nearest surfaces: two against the cell, and one against the far wall.

A Slayer kills.

The sound of human bones being crushed was too distinct to miss... and it echoed here like a scream.

A sudden movement. A ripple in the sheets. The closer guard’s head jerked forwards as his eyes went wide. He began to stutter. It had been enough to snap Apaio from his dark brooding... but even he didn’t know what to think of the perfect, smoldering hole punched through the sheets just behind the silenced Knight’s head.
The room erupted into shouting when the young man’s remaining brain matter rolled from the back of his ventilated skull and splattered to the ground.
The stunned Knights watched as he soon followed, twitching, to lay face-first on the ground. The other nearest to the cage heard a soft rip and spotted the tear in the sheets just behind himself. It had barely crossed his mind to escape the cage’s perimeter before something grabbed him by the waist and pulled him into the bars.

The soldiers watched as whatever pulled had enough strength to overcome the resistance of a human body in armor: the Knight struck the bars only to then be rung through them by the fierce grip on his waist. Armor popped and creaked, bones snapped, and all the man's innards were squeezed up into his shoulders and neck until, with a hideous rupture, it exploded to pour organs and meat out through the newest hole in a twitching, decapitated form. The whole human body filtered between the two magically-reinforced bars faster than the man could scream. More wet splatters glistened in the light as the Knights panicked and drew arms to point towards the cage. The dismembered Knight's meat and popped-off head sagged and bled along with the brainless corpse to fill the room with the stink of iron.
Apaio was no less horrified than his men, but he knew who was still in there with whatever monster had infiltrated the same cage. “Hold your fire! The Moon Clan’s girl is in there! You might hit her!”

“B-But, sir,” cried a keener-eyed youth, “the hand I saw, it...”

A disturbing quiet fell over them as the sheets by the cell door parted... and the keys to the cell, once attached to the crushed Knight’s belt, slowly came into view. They were completely soaked in glistening crimson... as was the dainty-seeming hand of a woman holding them. Sir Apaio shook his head, horrified. The Slayer was a servant of Gaia. Why would she...?

“Sir!”

The hand turned. The key neared its home. The Knight across from the door shook as he pointed his rifle. Ten Knights fell to a knee, and twenty more fell into ranks behind them to train thirty automatic rifles upon the cell.

To kill a Slayer would be only so far from shooting a Warden dead by his order. Captain Apaio was out of options.

The key slid into place.

The Lady did not speak to Apaio... and more than ever did he need guidance. Faced with a final, human calculus, the veteran nearly wailed, “Damn it all-!”

The door's mechanism clicked.

“FIRE!”

The scream of gunfire and muzzle flashes made the suspended pink sheets dance in light and in truth as they were peppered full of holes by live fire. The gate had flung open, and soon the **** of repeated impacts had torn the curtains from their knots at the top of the bars. It fell in sliced pieces, but a huge piece fluttered out of the cell, cut from the rest by gunfire. The guard unloading into the cell right in front of the door gasped-

Captain Apaio already had his pistol trained on the fluttering tatter before the rest realized the ploy... and so he was the first to see her: the crazed grin of sharp, carnivore teeth, the huge and gleeful eyes, and the blood covering this long-bodied girl from head to toe. Her form was unhealthy, even sickly... but lean muscles proved their hidden strength as she outpaced the awareness of the alarmed Knights. The guard opposite of the cage door had barely trailed his rifle’s tip up before she was already upon him.

Apaio fired a .50 right into her temple. The bullet was an explosion of blood... and beneath the glistening wound, her smile grew wider.

The girl-creature's heel came down to splatter the young Knight's head between bone and stone. She launched from that ruined face as she ran on the wall, and then on the ceiling, as she launched herself headfirst into the pointed rifles. Black hair flowed from her head like the robe of a reaper; it washed over Apaio as he tried to train his gun back onto her just as she jumped from the ceiling to pounce, feet and hands first, onto a female Knight in the center. Screams and the many notes of a crunching ribcage followed the impact.

"To your blades!"

"For the Lady!"

"We cannot let her-aaaiieeee!"

Fingernails like iron tore meaty gulps from throats, battlecries became gurgles, and gunfire was abandoned for the **** drawing of blades lest they kill each other in the crossfire. Four of the rank-and-file were dead before the first bite of steel was attempted.

The katas, the forms of the Slayer, had been useful in the way that a wheelchair was mobile. They held magical power, they funneled the Slayer's might into useful abilities... but the leaps and bounds of an unfettered Slayer, forbidden as it was, could never be replaced. Freed from her training, Kim Moon's body was a chaotic ejaculation into the rancorous melee she had begun; hands became feet as she spun her body's weight to break arms or tear out eyes with the tips of her toes. She followed the spin to launch herself into a **** and dangerous roundhouse; her body twisted in the air, her muscles rippled and shifted unnaturally under the skin, and her ankle rocketed towards an old Knight's head. Her leg swelled with the flow of power and nearly shattered itself as it connected with the target skull. The kinetic **** had traveled perfectly through her frame; his head popped off of his shoulders and was nearly cleaved in half as it smashed into a prison bar.
Her screaming ankle landed her foot on the twitching corpse and shoved her down to the ground as she rapidly crawled towards the only man to shoot her in the face. The old Knight stabbed his sabre downward to try and cleave into her skull, to take an eye or brain or spine or anything else that might put this beast down once and for all... but he found only her mouth.

Animal eyes glared back at him... and sharp teeth clenched the flats of the blade. He pushed and then pulled his weapon, but she did not surrender her grip as she stared at him with deep, terrifying pupils. The nearby Knights not yet blinded readied to stab their blades downward, and Apaio brought his pistol to bear, but she had already flipped herself into the air... with the snapped tip of Apaio's blade in her bleeding mouth. Terrified, but too war-worn to be stunned, Apaio tried to stab her out of the air with his newly shortened blade; she balled up briefly, touching her feet to her mouth unseen, and kicked at his face just beyond her long leg's range.

The broken sword tip made the difference and sliced the old man's throat open.

He gurgled his commands as Kim continued to work, a broken blade stabbing its shattered end into the webbing of her largest two left toes as she held the blade between them. She continued these kicks, never letting her foot stay still enough for anyone to notice as she tore open jugulars or gouged out more eyes. Swords tasted her flesh; her flesh laughed its blood before she found her ****, driving fingers into jugulars or shoving noses into brains. She caught one sword arm and twisted it once, twice, and then ripped it from the young man's body while she stabbed the broken blade tip too firmly into a ginger woman's eye socket to comfortably get out. Satisfied, Kim swung about and shattered the dismembered limb on the nearest skull, breaking it in turn and sending that Knight into a coma.

This twisted display continued, along with the pain of being cut, stabbed, shot, and made to fight bleeding. Her flesh had become dark with blood and severed bits of men and women, her hair was matted into a crimson mess, and her lungs burned. Her soul was alight with the hideous guilt of ****; her body screamed for rest. She laughed and smiled all the while, save for when she ducked by and behind a Knight who had lost most of his shirt when she sliced her fingers across his chest in a near-miss. She was under his left elbow and, with a mouth of monstrous teeth, sunk her maw into the dorsal muscles rippling in the man's back. With a merciless tear, she ripped it away from him.

A Slayer slaughters.

She guided his limp sword arm to parry another before dipping four fingers into the two eyes of the offending party.

How have I avoided this until now? Was I so blind? Perhaps I never had need...

Her arm withdrew to crash her elbow into a recovering woman's temple, killing her instantly. A thrill ran through Kim that was only recently familiar.

This exhilaration... this fulfillment... am I truly damaged, as those Order healers say? Could this really be thanks to the Cabalist?

The Knights had dwindled to eleven, three of which stumbled blindly with ruined eyes, but they were sure the beast was nearly slain. Her constant movements splattered blood from her body; though most was from their friends and allies, her body was riddled with enough wounds to inspire confidence. She should have passed out by now; they were certain that her continued excitement was a bluff. Not even a Slayer could fight this long, and take this many wounds, and continue.

They were wrong.

The Knights closed down upon her as she rose from among the corpses, with half a **** Knight’s throat now in her teeth. Her bloody maw left it behind as she ran headfirst into the one nearest to the wall, felt his sword cut through her side as she rolled away, and ripped four ugly gashes across his eyes, nose, and ear. Her feet scrambling up the wall and again onto the ceiling as her arms reached down and pulled the slung rifle from the wailing victim; with a swipe, she sliced the strap to get it loose. One of the wounded Knights, a young man with a popped right eye, screamed as he neared. Kim extended the rifle like a spear, shoving the barrel through the poor bastard's remaining eye. Her body flexed as he shrieked.

The killer launched herself around the blinded man, twisting his neck with sudden **** as she kept the rifle anchored in his head. She swiveled the gun's service end towards the remaining foes and pulled the trigger. The impromptu flash suppressor burst open as brains and automatic fire rained on those that remained.
How did we let the Order get like this?

Only two continued to stumble towards her, their bullet wounds superficial or their adrenaline too high to care. The moans and shrieks of their fellows continued their choir.

We are Gaia's chosen... we are her Slayers. The Order has grown sick... it must be put down. This should have been our duty.

The Slayer could barely identify the remaining guards: like her, they had become covered in viscera, sprays of vitae, and shimmering mockeries of humans in a Hell of shattered bodies and emptied torsos. Blood dripped in ropey, sinew-laden strands from the bars and ceiling. Somehow, two of the lights overhead had been broken, and each dripped with yet more human fluids. Shadows played among them in an almost romantic dimness. Kim's body continued to shake as she nearly lost herself in the iron stench of her work. The first Knight drew close and cut down to Kim's shoulder... only to have the Slayer catch the blade in her blood-slick hands, snap it with a twist of her body, and shove the broken half into his throat.

The remaining female Knight attempted much the same... and Kim now realized that she was nearly finished with this vanguard... this vanguard that must have been on its way to John Newman. What is he then? It had been a question that bothered her before, as well. An open hand grabbed the blade-wielding wrist of the unfettered Knight and crushed it. She wailed as the Slayer then delivered a series of flat-handed strikes, breaking her elbow and shoulders and then the other elbow as she hollered in agony. Two quick kicks shattered the woman's knees, and soon she fell to the ground, wailing and broken. Kim held the woman's head up; it was all that kept the Knight from collapsing in agony.

I have to find out.

Kim's fingers pressed... and squeezed... and the woman's cries were silenced.

But not from them... no. The Order... is a lie and a cancer. I will ask him myself... with my own hands.

More footsteps rang out from the stairwell, but this time of someone alone.

Kim Moon turned to consider them, and the footsteps became a leap as the newcomer cleared the steps of one-half of the corkscrew staircase in one bound. The stranger turned the corner... and stopped at the top of the stairs.

The swarthy-skinned, scantily-clad woman said nothing as she looked upon the floor... and couldn't see any of the floor. Her heart sank, but she stood firm against the wave of nausea that tried to get her attention. Her eyes swept over the bodies until she found herself meeting Kim's gaze. Her grip on her strange spear tightened.

Kim glared back at her. She knew, somehow, that this was a Warden. "Laksha Singh."

The Warden of the Spear did not flinch. She had no response; she was rather surprised that human words came from the horror standing over its kills. Laksha had only the identity of who was supposed to be on this level from when Moira told her… and the open cage, and bloody, bullet-riddled sheets, told the rest of the story. Was this the Slayer, then? Was this red omen the one called Kim Moon?

Laksha readied her spear in both arms.

Kim Moon squatted closer to the corpses as she watched with huge eyes, ready to pounce.

The moment was shattered when the scream of silver fire cut through the outer wall of the hall behind Kim.

“Sir! We have a breach at Level D in the vertical armored layers!”

Yolanda Huey was still finishing her command for air support and every Cleaner in the state when she heard the report. She slammed the red phone as she turned to the reporting room to shout down the hall, “How many layers, and don’t you dare tell me it was all seventeen layers of reinforced steel-iron-concrete meshes!” Yolanda thought that was a fair bit of gallows humor for the moment.

The Knight’s hesitation made the message clear. “... Um… then how should I tell you…?”

Neither the Warden nor the Slayer allowed the distraction to pull their attention... but Laksha had an easy view of the pillar of silver fire that had just burrowed through the wall. This also let her be the first to catch sight sight of who stepped out from the breach.

... So the cavalry’s here, too.

A six-foot-tall rabbit, hunched and wielding two black steel clubs covered in glowing white spots, stepped out from the hole and seemed nonplussed by the dozens of bodies across the hall. The river of blood had nearly reached that position across the hall; its nose twitched at the stink of it. Laksha showed no visible reaction until the second guest arrived. Kim dared a glance.

Shoulder-length blonde hair, a body wearing nothing but a skintight black suit, and glowing red lines emanating from the same were all the features of this petite girl that had followed the rabbit in. She seemed unarmed save for the glass phial she just finished drinking and tossing behind her. The teenager turned to regard them... and the dozens of black and red Eyes opened across her body joined her in assessing these threats. Her stoic expression melted into wide-eyed revulsion and fear at the shadowed hints of what was strewn all around some blood-soaked, naked woman.

Laksha almost hissed, “Gorbachev!”

Kim's eye slowly widened as her grin shrunk. She knew this girl… but not as she was now. It was so naked upon her flesh as to call so many chance encounters at school into question. The Slayer, unfettered and blood drunk, muttered the only name for her enemy: