Rangers Endgame

Chapter 102: One Big Happy Family

SOKUBA:

Faint strands of radiance kept the woman suspended as the combined vacant gazes of her and her unfortunate victims bore down on Sokuba and May, locking them in a state of tangible fear. Her spindly fingers cracked with each micro movement, the mangled corpses jittering with haunting anticipation under her influence.

The rising tide of dread crept up on Sokuba as his limbs grew stiff and his heart thudded against his ribs. Forcing his head to turn, he found May pale and sweat beading around her child-like face, her doll trembling in her arms.

"A lean one, you are." The woman's voice writhed from beneath the chipped mask. Her neck twitched and her attention settled on May. "What an adorable young lady. And matching attire?" She let out a horrible, fragmented laugh that scratched at the air. "You both seem very close. How wonderful."

He detected a trace of bitter longing almost hidden underneath the rasp in her voice.

"This freak is unwell." Sokuba whispered, gripping his nerves to calm himself from the initial shock.

"Mm." May agreed as she controlled her breathing.

"Stay alert."

Sokuba subtly unraveled his wires at his sides as May discreetly trickled radiance into her doll. Without warning, the corpses sprang forward with uncanny speed. His wires pulled him and May off the rooftop before the corpses crashed into it, leveling the wooden structure and leaving behind a dust cloud.

As he set himself and his comrade down on the street, May's doll transformed into its monstrous form. Two corpses surged through the smokescreen, and the doll intercepted both, its oversized hands snatching them by their heads. They flailed for a moment before blackened radiance coalesced around their cold bodies and fired off two spikes from their sternums.

The spikes impaled the doll's stomach, ripping through the fabric and punching out the other end. May's eyes widened with surprise before Sokuba yanked her out of their paths as they burrowed into the earth. What was supposed to be a fatal blow ended up as two gashes on her arm.

Three more corpses were launched toward Sokuba, but leveraging the wires he'd already set on either side of him, he pulled his arms inward and performed a backflip over the corpses as they smashed into each other. Five more figures flashed into his periphery and he found more corpses flinging themselves toward him at frightening speeds, hoping to catch him mid-air.

Keeping his focus vaguely forward to track his attackers more easily, he clawed his hands and slashed across his body. The wires responded to his command, snapping into alignment to form a protective web around him.

The corpses sped through mindlessly, his interconnected defenses slicing cleanly through their flesh and bones, vandalizing the streets and nearby homes with a downpour of blood and entrails. Thanks to his special soles, Sokuba landed safely on a wire above ground to assess the battle.

May was now fending off three corpses, the doll defending against their relentless onslaught. She flicked her finger and the doll dashed to catch a corpse by the throat that went for her blind spot. Pivoting away from a beam that roared past to slam into a building in the distance, she refocused on the body still in her doll's firm grasp.

An ominous black-tinged golden light was now oozing from the many deep lacerations littering its form. Without hesitation, she jerked her hand back and the doll hurled the body into another just as it erupted into dozens of spikes that eviscerated itself.

Another corpse lunged from behind her, but her hand was already at work. The doll responded instantly when she whipped her palm toward her flank. As her doll's arms curled protectively around her back, she rerouted most of its radiance to the top half to further enlarge it. The corpse crashed into its bulk with enough force that the body's head caved inward and its lower half drilled into its torso with a sickening crunch.

Figuring she could handle herself, Sokuba returned his gaze to the witch. The woman had already found more bodies to control, implanting them with her own strands of radiance into their backs to "reanimate" them. Sokuba loosened the wire he stood on, then snapped it back to length, launching him toward the witch.

As if protecting her, the corpses surged to intercept. Shooting his hand out, his wires seized their limbs to lock them in place. However, his snare didn't hinder them; their relentless speed dragged the wires to shear their flesh and expose bones to free themselves. He evaded with as much grace as his merciless attackers would allow.

"You seem to be good with children, darling." The witch noted, her black fingers moving with uncanny elegance. "It's kind of you to give them a little playdate."

Not having the time to dodge, Sokuba crossed his arms and wrapped his wires around them, creating makeshift gauntlets to absorb the shock when a headless corpse careened into him. Attaching a couple of wires to nearby bamboo to dampen the impact, he tumbled onto a rooftop and gingerly rubbed his arms to soothe the intense throbbing.

Before he had the chance to get his bearings, strands of dirty white began to coil around his feet. He immediately jumped back just in time to avoid them before the strands could close around his ankles. Two corpses leapt toward his flank, but Sokuba's wires lashed out with lethal elegance as he flipped over them.

Using his downward momentum, he yanked the two corpses into the street with a resounding crash. Taking advantage of the mild dust cloud, he guided his wires around the witch's throat before slamming his fist shut.

A thick, rotten white oozed from her neck, catching them firmly before they could close and shielding her from the fatal blow. "You wish for me to play too? I'm most flattered."

The wires groaned as Sokuba tried to retract them, but to no avail. Pouring more radiance into them in hopes of strengthening his hold on them, he tugged harder. Her rotten-colored radiance darkened the complexion around her neck the longer she held it there until the wires sheared apart with a howling screech.

The bony woman tilted her head, but he couldn’t tell her expression behind her aged mask. His eyes went from her black fingers to her now darkened neck.

Her physical appearance suggested she was a volunteer for the first trial of the elixir, but the volunteers' channels were rotted beyond repair. If she were a Second Grade, she wouldn't be as effective at combating two Sentinels at once. Her control over radiance was exceptional, but her mental state was too far gone for her to be considered a Third Grade.

She was an anomaly, but one with radiance that seemed to inflict a mark of decay, even on the caster.

Moldy white seethed from her skin, coalescing into strands that lashed out at him. Dodging backwards, the strands lodged themselves into the bodies still left on the streets, lifting them up before thrusting them after him.

"It's important to get acquainted with our children, darling." Her grating voice clawed at his ears.

He remained calm as the deceased delivered an onslaught of attacks from every direction, evading and countering their efforts with graceful lethality. Opening his palm, wires coiled around his hand with a thought, threading themselves into a shaft, which then hardened into a blade of blazing brilliance.

Using the web he'd woven, he combined acrobatics with swordplay to carve a path forward in a blur of precise slashes. The corpses he didn't bother cutting down chased after him as he rapidly approached the slender witch. Even as he was just a few inches away, she never flinched, undoubtedly putting her trust in her decaying radiance that began to seep through her pale skin.

Winding up his sword, he thrust it toward her chest. Her makeshift armor cushioned the blow in a shockwave of amber and white that blasted away the corpses attempting to stop him. She leaned forward to ward away his strength as he adjusted his grip, his power of blazing gold and her writhing sickly white wrestling for dominance.

"How lucky I am to have found someone extraordinary," she said over the screeching struggle of their power.

Threads of her radiance wriggled out from her chest, but before he could disengage, they had latched onto his sword, holding him in place. She severed the threads connecting herself to half the corpses, the bodies dropping limply to the ground, then plunged the threads into Sokuba.

Immediately, his body began to seize as he felt the witch's tendrils of influence snake through his innards. 

"Welcome to the family." He could practically hear her inhumanly wide grin of satisfaction.

He gnashed his teeth against her power until his gums began to ache. His channels flared with scorching pain as her threads began to embed themselves into them. He clenched his fist white, her authority clashing with his will as he refused to allow her dominion over him.

"How strange," she said, confused. "It's as if you're...rejecting me." Her grating voice dropped to a somber tone. "No. You wouldn't."

Reaching a shaky hand into his satchel, he pulled out a pair of cuffs and clamped one around one of her wrists. Immediately, her radiance was ripped away and her influence receded. Her hold on the corpses severed and they tumbled from the sky limply all around them. The cuff groaned painfully as the rotten white sludge convulsed violently in resistance around it.

He gasped for air and, without wasting this opportunity, Sokuba drove his blade into her chest then carved up into her mask. She let out a terrible howl as she dropped to the ground on her knees.

As he raised his sword again to deliver the final blow, her radiance tore apart the cuffs partially suppressing her power before a sickly white tendril caught his sword mid-swing as if acting on its own accord.

"My shield," her hands fumbled over her face, her head angled away. "I need my shield."

She frantically grabbed at the dirt until she'd found her mask, or what was left of it. Scooping the shattered pieces together, she held the shards in her cupped hands.

Her thin frame trembled as she grasped the shards until her hands bled. "What have you done..."

He tried pulling his sword out but her radiance tightened its hold further. As she raised her gaze from the shattered mask, Sokuba's blood went cold.

It wasn't her radiance that prevented him from prying his sword free this time, but his overwhelming fear that strangled his insides.

Her nose was a twisted mesh protruding from her gnarled skin, and her thin, leathery lips were as dark as obsidian. Patches of her scalp were missing, leaving only remnants of her dark, wiry hair. An incomplete set of jagged teeth stained yellow jutted from her blackened gums at crooked angles, making it impossible for her to close her mouth.

But it was the pair of misshapen eyes piercing his very soul that filled him with dread. There was a darkness in her milky gaze he couldn't begin to comprehend. Unbridled despair. Manic desperation.

"Are you going to leave me too?" She reached for him with a possessive hand, making him wince involuntarily.

Quickly shifting the flow of his radiance through the sword, the blade erupted into wires that slashed at her already bloodied hand, making her reel back. He still couldn't fully free the handle, so he did the only thing he could think of. He removed his right glove, sacrificing half of his weaponry to escape.

Using the wires still attached to his left hand, he yanked himself away just as the witch angrily drilled a tendril into the ground where he once stood.

"What did I do to deserve abandonment?!" She cried, but it didn't seem like her words were directed towards him.

The bamboo around them shook under the weight of her screech, blades of sunlight flickering throughout the canopy.

Sokuba slid into May's doll, cushioning his stop, and gathered his strength after the witch had sapped most of it. May hurried to his side, her doll protectively positioning itself between them and the wailing woman.

"I'm alright." He breathed.

May nodded, and her hardened gaze went to the witch.

Sokuba tried to make sense of the new information he had after she'd tried to implant her influence into him. Although his resolve helped ward off her control, it wasn't nearly enough to stop her. Despite that, she was still unsuccessful in killing him and seizing his body for herself, regardless of how easily she'd executed his prisoners using the same method.

'Is it because my channels are more developed?' He theorized, his breathing evening out.

It was the only working theory he had. If he was right, he and May wouldn't have to worry about the witch taking control of them. However, even if their channels' natural resistance was enough, he'd like to avoid that unpleasant feeling.

As he relayed his thoughts to May, radiance began to surge violently from the witch, engulfing her in an inferno of raging yellowish-white. Tendrils slithered from her body and plunged into the corpses around her, igniting their bodies in rotten white flames. Flesh was ripped away, leaving rough silhouettes of their skulls burning inside the fire-like radiance. Additional tendrils smashed into the ground and lifted her and her corpses into the air.

"She's even more volatile now, and I doubt backup will arrive on time," Sokuba warned. "Holding back now will be fatal."

"Mm." May gave a firm nod.

Hardening her features, May opened the floodgates of her power. Her threads thickened considerably, allowing her doll full access to her strength. Its features turned demonic as radiant horns burst from its temples to crown its head. Serrated blades ripped from its arms and its fingers extended into jagged claws. Draconic wings exploded from its back, their full length tearing through bamboo and buildings on either side.

The dead hovered around the witch, their silent cries lost within the sickly white flames, as they unwillingly guarded their master.

Wires infused with amber coiled around Sokuba's form, eagerly awaiting instructions. "She's more familiar with my tactics by now," he looked down at his right hand, now bare. "And I won't be of much help in attacking her directly anymore. So I'll protect you instead."

With another nod, May thrust her hands forward and the demonic doll launched itself towards their assailant, leaving a crater behind. In the same instant, the dead surged to intercept.

The doll's blades carved rifts through space as it soared into the volley of white trails. The dead met it head-on, only for its claws to shred through their radiant armor and disintegrate flesh and bones. The dead who tried flanking the creature were caught in the rifts it left behind, their forms spaghettified into embers that shimmered against the dim canopy.

The doll cleaved through the wave of dead with feral ferocity as it rapidly approached the witch with frightening speed. Abandoning the thought of defeating the demonic creature, the witch focused her attention on its master. She contorted her torso, narrowly dodging a slash, as she plunged her tendrils into spare bodies she'd noticed earlier, igniting them instantly, and sending them after May.

May, pale and heaving as she was draining most of her energy to keep the doll's form intact, couldn't avoid the attack. But she didn't need to as Sokuba casually flicked his wrist to conjure a cage of interconnected wires around her and himself.

Each dead that raced through the cage was dismembered, their parts rolling at May's feet but she paid it no mind as her concentration stayed on her doll. The witch's unsettling flexibility allowed her effortless evasion as the doll hunted her relentlessly, but with each dead she sacrificed to reach May, the more desperate she became.

Her radiance flickered in exhaustion as she now had to wreathe herself in its protection to stave off hits she couldn't dodge. Flicking his finger, Sokuba whipped a wire in her path, tangling with her ankle. As she jerked to a stop, she tried to recall her dead to protect her only to find she'd exhausted every deceased she could've used.

Her eyes, flashing with panic, darted back to her pursuer, but it was already too late. The demonic doll lunged as she redirected every ounce of radiance she had left to her sternum. The collision produced a shockwave of white and gold wrestling for superiority. The two women were locked in a struggle for dominance, the canopy quaking under their might. May grew increasingly weaker, her connection to her conduit flickering as her reserves plummeted. The witch’s wicked grin twisted further in pleasure as her power began to consume the doll, ripping and tearing its fabric as May’s radiance struggled to hold its form.

Seeing his ally’s pained expression, Sokuba acted with haste and dismissed the cage before sending his wires to the doll. He wasn’t sure if his idea would succeed, but they were limited on options now. Before the white flames could envelope it, he drove his wires into the doll’s back and pumped his own radiance into it.

It reacted immediately, its eyes flashing with renewed vigor and its body flaring with rejuvenation. The witch’s smile vanished as the tables began to turn. Amber flames swallowed her own as her armor started waning. She grabbed onto the doll’s claws, attempting to push it away, but it was no use. Her armor quivered from overexertion, blood spilling from her mouth as its claws started to burrow into her chest.

She looked back at Sokuba and May and something left her eyes that made even his face soften for the briefest of moments: her will.

The moment she let go, the claws punched a hole through her chest. As its claws erupted from her back, their raw power unleashed a cone of violent gold that devoured the landscape behind her, darkening the heavens and removing the essence of life in its roaring wake.

As the wave of cataclysmic destruction swept across the land, a deafening silence descended, broken only by the hissing remnants of houses and the billowing steam from the evaporated river. Sokuba retracted his wires. A team of rangers from the Saberclaw Clan had finally arrived, but halted when they saw the scene.

"It's alright," Sokuba eased himself to the ground. "It's over."

Blood poured from the witch's mouth and nose. Her radiance dispersed and her tired, sunken eyes went past the demonic beast still holding her suspended.

"Ironic." She gurgled as her body peeled away into golden embers. "I'm the one leaving now. My only regret is failing to find someone who cares."