Rangers Endgame

Chapter 132: Race Against Time

The twisted remains of the wilderness flexed and groaned as the wave of humanoids trudged through. The air quivered with the haunting melody of collective bellows as the creatures closed in on the patch of boulders and thick trees perfect for taking cover. However, the rugged terrain mattered little, as they simply tracked Yakeru and his party through it with mechanical precision.

Their lumbering steps grew louder as they crossed between a narrow set of trees. The closest humanoid outstretched a hand in preparation to seize its victim. Then…

The line of rope at its large feet snapped, pulling free the top of the cylindrical casings clustered at the end. The moment the air touched the philorium housed inside, they ignited in a spectacular explosion of raging white that instantly engulfed the humanoids.

Yakeru and his party planted themselves firmly against the cover of thick trees and boulders to let the roaring winds barrel past.

“Move!” Yakeru signaled as he and the others sprinted out of cover.

They sped past the blackened humanoids, staggering after enduring the full brunt of their improvised trap. As expected, the few rear humanoids remained undeterred, but they easily slipped past their slow attempts to grab them.

The spire of brilliance coming from the Core lay beyond the next wall of humanoids. Kenji quickly drew his vapor siphon, the bottom now tied down with torn fabric. Pushing the top down, he hurled it above the incoming wave.

The fabric bulged with stored water rushing out of the artifact. When the pressure became too much, the fabric burst open, and a blanket of moisture splashed onto the humanoids. Yakeru readied his pulse emitter and spun the dial to its max setting, pushing it down so the button below it would pop up on standby. The rangers rapidly approached, but he waited for the optimal timing.

“Now!” Kenji roared as the closest bellowing humanoid reached out its hand.

Yakeru slammed down on the button, and an electrical discharge ripped out from the artifact. The current latched onto the first humanoid, seizing it in a violent contortion of muscle spasms before aggressively jumping to the next conductive target. A horrible cacophony of distorted bellows and crackling air clawed at Yakeru’s ears as a surge of lightning tore through their numbers in a feral web of jagged light.

The electricity dissipated as suddenly as it came, granting their party safe passage as the humanoids twitched and stumbled uncontrollably around them. The racing trees gave way to rocky plains, the infinite deterioration carving gorges in their surfaces.

“We’re not out of the woods yet,” Yakeru warned as they approached humanoids dotting the fissured plains.

The creatures were already stamping towards them, but the open space and scattered enemies afforded them wiggle room to maneuver past and save resources. Still, after experiencing their iron grasp firsthand, he knew they couldn’t afford any mistakes. One wrong move could spell disaster for the group.

Yakeru gave the others a knowing nod, and without verbal communication, they loosely peeled off into separate groups to better slip through the gaps in the humanoids. Kenji and Fuyumi veered left while Dash tailed Itsuki on the right. Yakeru kept moving straight as he let radiance pour into his legs. When he got close to the first humanoid who’d reached for him, he blurred out of sight as it only managed to capture air.

His vague form drew a zigzagging line of gold through the generous openings in their numbers and over the fissures until he skidded to a stop at the end of the rocky plain. The stale winds tugged at his locks as he turned back to check the status of his party.

Itsuki and Dash weaved through the reaching limbs. The path they took led them along a fissure that yawned into a series of narrow platforms below. Itsuki ground his teeth against the decay of his body, and despite his rigorous training regimen, his fluid movements became more forced. Dash whined as the decay gnawed away the last remnants of his fur and began greedily devouring his flesh.

They approached a cluster of humanoids, and Itsuki tossed his vapor siphon into the group. As the fabric burst to coat them in water, he fumbled with his pulse emitter to stun them, but a painful jolt in his shoulder sent the artifact careening from his grasp and tumbling into the midst of the stamping creatures.

Yakeru heard him curse, and he channeled Blitz Step to stun the oncoming threat himself, but Dash suddenly sped through the gaps in their wide strides, ignoring the claws of decay. With impressive verticality, the fox leaped over a large hand meant to grab him and slammed his two front paws on the button. An electrical shockwave ripped out, catching everything conductive in a snare of connective, wild tendrils.

Finding his grit, Itsuki pushed himself to his feet and ran past the jittering humanoids. “You earned a buffet when we get back,” he thanked.

Kenji and Fuyumi had almost arrived. The duo found their rhythm as Fuyumi took advantage of her agility to gravitate the humanoids in their path towards unstable ground while Kenji forced the stone beneath their feet to give way. However, their labored breaths and pained expressions reflected the deterioration of their bodies.

Fuyumi started favoring her right leg, as the decay ate through more flesh on her left. While pivoting to avoid a humanoid, her leg stalled, and she tumbled. The humanoid’s hand reached out, but Kenji quickly aimed his staff toward it, and with everything he had, harsh amber wrapped firmly around its fingers. Even then, its hand lagged for a breath, but it afforded Fuyumi the split-second window she needed to roll out of its reach. He released his radiance with a gasp and blood burst from his nose, a stern warning from his scarred channels. Regardless, he soldiered through it, and the two caught up to Yakeru along with Itsuki and Dash.

The five of them made a beeline for the Core, their pace wavering with every step. But with its brilliant light beckoning them through a dense layer of eternally disintegrating flora, they didn’t stop.

Yakeru, Kenji, and Fuyumi drew their improvised explosives as they moved on to phase two of their plan. Itsuki pulled the last ten feet of rope remaining from his shoulder and began thinning one end of it with his prosthetic.

They plunged into the jungle, hacking away at the suspended vines and twisted branches. Yakeru caught movement to his right in his periphery from deeper inside the jungle trudging towards them. A bellow then shook the air to his left, and he reflexively burst forth with Blitz Step, narrowly avoiding a leathery hand meant to ensnare him. The toll of self-infusion and decay sent a shockwave of pain through his lower half, and he wavered.

The humanoid turned its sight on Fuyumi and Kenji and swung its other hand across its body to engulf them both. Drawing Armor Killer, she leapt over its iron grasp and dragged the serrated blade along its body, spinning around to its flank. There was a lag in the creature’s attention as it struggled to register her unorthodox maneuver, allowing Kenji to slip past unharmed.

They arrived at a gaping crater with veins of white slithering through the rocky floor. At its center was a tangled mess of roots housing something of tamed luminescence that had earlier given off a beacon of light at a distance.

Yakeru wasted no time and began his steady but urgent descent. Dash barely had trouble hopping from one jutting stone to the next alongside Itsuki, who let gravity do most of the work. Fuyumi favored her right side, heeding the steep drops that she would’ve otherwise easily leapt down. Kenji, being the least athletic of the group, lagged behind slightly but caught up after reaching relatively flat ground.

Crossing over unstable ground where the white veins strangled, they rushed to the crater’s center. They passed through the tangled roots’ tall arching openings, following the light spilling from deeper within. They stopped when entering a hollowed-out space with a hovering sphere humming with lustrous light at its center, as if patiently awaiting their arrival.

The Core.

Feeling their condition worsening, they sluggishly got to work. Yakeru and Fuyumi handed off their disassembled philorium capsules to Itsuki, and he cautiously tied them to the rope’s split ends. He then gave it to Kenji, and with careful handling, he planted the explosives in spots around the Core that he deemed to be the most optimal. After planting them, he joined the others behind the cover of thick roots knotting from the ground. Nodding to his party, everyone covered their ears as he pulled the rope, ripping the tops of the capsules free and setting off a chain reaction. The deafening explosion consumed the Core in a fiery ivory, tearing through the weak roots of the alcove and bleaching the interior a blinding white.

The group broke into a fit of coughs, waving away the smoke. Yakeru surveyed his surroundings, his eyes hopeful. But when the dust cleared, he gnashed against the boiling frustration when color still hadn’t returned to the world. He examined his body, wincing when moving his arm wrong, and found that he was still decaying.

Looking around the corner, he confirmed the Core was still intact. However, its light dimmed somewhat, and cracks now webbed across its surface.

“Do any of you still have capsules left over?” He asked, coming out of cover to further inspect the damage.

“That was all,” Kenji answered, standing after the tremor had knocked him over.

Fuyumi pulled out her pulse emitter. “What about these? Mine still has some charge left.”

Itsuki placed his biological hand on the Core’s rough surface, the air around it cool. “It’s too durable for a shock to deal any meaningful damage to it.”

There was suddenly a lull in the commotion.

Then, a hideous conglomeration of bellows trembled the air. Everyone froze, as they knew exactly what was to come without having to look outside. But they did anyway.

Stepping out into the perpetual monochrome landscape, they went pale with overwhelming dread. An impossible number of humanoids were already pouring into the crater in a thick wave of inevitability from all sides.

Itsuki was the first to snap out of it, years of experience hardening his features. He unsheathed his claymore and infused it before driving it into the ground, forcing some of the stone to cave into the decaying earth.

“We need choke points!” He ordered, knowing they’d collapse if they couldn’t negate the creatures’ number advantage.

Kenji nodded firmly and infused his staff to increase the gravity around the weakest parts of the terrain, crushing the stone inward.

“Yakeru, see what you can do about the Core!”

Yakeru rushed back inside the wooden cave as Itsuki, Kenji, and Fuyumi scrambled to fortify the perimeter. Dash gathered the remaining artifacts inside: two pulse emitters and two vapor siphons. He stayed at Yakeru’s side, keeping a watchful eye as the ranger examined the Core further.

Rubbing a palm across its cool surface, the cracks the explosion had made earlier ran almost around the entire sphere. Looking at the gap of the crack, it was narrow but still wide enough for something thin to squeeze into.

A harsh eruption shook the ground, and Yakeru turned back to see Itsuki already engaging a humanoid that’d begun crossing the bottleneck. Kenji covered the cave’s left side, and Fuyumi the right side, as the unconcerned creatures funneled into their improvised restrictive paths.

Yakeru drew his blade, poured his radiance into it to reinforce its durability, and wedged it in the crack. The air vibrated with crystalline scraping as he pushed with all his might.

He jerked when a spike of pain stabbed at his ribs in warning. He gasped, waiting for it to pass, but it was relentless, now coming in agonizing waves that crashed over his being. Rings of decay clawed through flesh, and to his horror, he practically started seeing exposed muscles and tendons dissolving.

Clinging to his grit, he willed himself to stand. His fingers wrapped around the handle again and poured radiance into it before he pushed.

There was another explosion from outside, and he glanced to find Itsuki heaving for breath. A humanoid outstretched its palm to envelop him in its coarse leather grasp, but he ducked under it. He followed with a wide swing to its ankle, jarring its footing as it slid awkwardly into the deep trench he'd made.

He didn't have time to recover as another behind it marched stiffly toward him, heedless of its struggling brethren.

Kenji forced the fragile ground on his side to crumble, sending humanoids toppling into shallow cavities. The creatures behind them simply stepped over their kind and reached for him. The conjurer staggered out of range, the drain of his channels evident in his features.

Fuyumi launched projectiles, but her humanoids walked through them. She let the first one lean in before she slipped its grab and jabbed it in its thigh. It went to close its other hand around her when she dragged Armor Killer through its leather skin and across its palm, slowing its movement just enough for her to roll out of reach.

As Yakeru continued pressing his full body weight into the handle, the blade twitched, and a fresh crack snaked across the Core’s surface. Fire shot up from his soles as the decay sheared away the flesh on his feet and ankles. He readjusted his stance as best he could and pushed again.

In the meantime, Dash snatched a vapor siphon in his mouth and darted to Kenji to support. The conjurer had already retreated to the entryway of the cave, blood spilling freely from his nose and mouth as he teetered on the edge of backlash.

He took the artifact and fumbled with it until the fabric began expanding. Lacking the strength to throw it, he rolled it into the horde as Dash returned with a pulse emitter. The fabric burst, and he activated the pulse emitter, ensnaring the humanoids within a flash of webbing currents.

During the humanoids’ jittering recovery, Kenji spun and infused his staff again. Fuyumi managed to evade another grab, but when she went to counter, Armor Killer caught on the back of its hand. She no longer had the stamina or strength to move out of the way as it reached with its other hand. Kenji’s spell wrapped around its fingers, slowing their clench barely long enough for her to throw herself to the entrance of the cave.

Yakeru fought the urge to assist and continued relentlessly shoving himself into his sword handle. Existing cracks trailed further around the Core, but they were far too shallow. He pumped more radiance into his conduit, but fatigue had already begun weighing on him as his reserves plummeted.

Dash scrambled to aid Fuyumi, handing her the last vapor siphon. Pressing the top, she hurled it into the oncoming moments before it erupted into heavy rain. Dash tossed her the last pulse emitter, and she hammered her fist into the button, temporarily screeching everything before her to an electrifying halt.

Itsuki skidded back from something Yakeru didn't catch, his radiance flickering dangerously. A humanoid reached down for him, but he gathered his strength and leaped onto its closing fist before smashing his broad blade into its head, stunning it for half a second.

Yakeru pushed harder, ignoring the tendrils of pain burrowing through his left arm. His blade wedged deeper, slightly shifting one half of the Core.

‘Not enough,’ he thought, readjusting his footing.

Itsuki groaned agonizingly as his biological arm had almost completely deteriorated to nothing. The closest humanoid opened its fingers around him, and he moved back.

He wasn't fast enough.

He yelled as it grabbed him harshly by the arm and brought him to its abyssal face. Desperation took hold, and he raised his great sword and brought it down on his arm, cleaving it off. He tumbled to the ground with a thud as what remained of his limb flaked away to nothing in the humanoid’s hand.

It trudged after him again with a wall of its kin close behind.

“Inside!” Kenji warned as he willed the remaining remnants of his power to his staff.

Itsuki dragged himself up and went inside, clutching his stump. As he crossed the threshold, Kenji held his staff high and focused on the entrances to the cave. Their wooden frames glowed and vibrated violently until they shattered. The downward force of his spell caved in the frames, barricading themselves inside behind heaps of debris.

The light emanating from Kenji’s staff evaporated, and he sank to his knees, blood choking his airways as his eyes flickered.

“Incoming,” Itsuki warned as the humanoids began trekking through the rubble.

Fuyumi stood, placing most of her weight on her “good” leg, and readied her daggers. The giants didn’t bother orienting themselves through the narrow opening into the cave; their disproportionate shoulders ground against the wooden walls, the room groaning dryly in their lumbering wake.

Dash pressed against Yakeru protectively, his teeth bared, but the kid could feel the slight tremor in him. The feeling in Yakeru’s left arm dwindled as the decay gnawed through his nerves and tendons, but he kept pushing against the handle. The cracks deepened inch by agonizing inch, but the Core still firmly resisted.

“Come on, you piece of crap,” he hissed in frustration, sweat beading his forehead.

Itsuki swung his claymore one-handed, its blade crashing into the giants’ knees to stall their advance. Fatigue ate at his strength, and eventually his blade lodged into a humanoid’s thigh, unable to wrench it out.

He stepped back, abandoning his weapon and letting the humanoid’s large hand pass when it tried grabbing him. Planting himself as best he could, his prosthetic countered with a right hook to its wrist.

Yakeru ached as he was subjected to the desperate efforts of his comrades, but forced himself to concentrate on his task. The tendons in his forearm sheared, and he lost control of his fingers. He readjusted and pushed even harder.

From the corner of his eye, he watched Kenji swing his staff tiredly like a club until a humanoid seized him, ignoring his futile effort. He lacked the strength to resist, and a colorless essence drained from him and fell into the abyss. His eyes began shifting to a haunting white, and what remained of his flesh wrinkled beyond recognition.

The wave of humanoids swallowed Itsuki, his battle cry gradually dying out.

The decay had finally eaten through the integrity of Fuyumi’s leg, and she stumbled forward with a sharp, heart-wrenching scream. Yakeru hesitated, his instincts to help her nearly taking over, but he quickly smothered them.

“Yakeru…hurry!” she pleaded, heaving herself to stand, but couldn't get herself upright.

The last tendon in Yakeru’s left arm snapped, and it fell limp at his side. Gripping it one-handed, he slammed his shoulder into the handle.

A humanoid reached out and grabbed Fuyumi by the waist. She stabbed and hacked wildly with Bloodhound’s Fang, but the creature’s wounded flesh offered no blood to her dagger. Brought face-to-face with the thing, her soul began to leave her eyes, wrinkles trenching what remained of her.

Even with raw adrenaline rocketing through his ruined veins, it wasn't enough. The Core was too sturdy.

Even after all their efforts.

After all they’d been through together.

The fun times they had.

Dash’s mischievousness, Itsuki’s pact with Yakeru to avoid Akari’s scolding, Kenji’s wits, Fuyumi’s annoyance when called out…

“Not like this.”

‘𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵'𝘴 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺, 𝘶𝘯𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘶𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺,’ despair whispered, twisting Itsuki’s words to push him to the precipice of surrender. ‘𝘕𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘯𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴, 𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳.’

Something inside him burned at the thought, rejection kindling within him.

“No,” he growled.

As he'd done at the Clan Skirmish, he opened the floodgates and allowed his remaining power to rush through his being. He ignited with raging amber born from raw desperation, his suspended hair dyeing blonde.

Then he took a step.

His form exploded forward, but the reinforced sword killed his momentum, and his body jerked violently as he vomited blood. With shaky eyes, he glanced at the Core, and to his satisfaction, it was almost in two.

The humanoids converged on him.

The closest one reached out to him, but stopped halfway. Dash clamped down on the thing’s ankle, growling and tugging furiously, buying him a few more seconds.

Yakeru sucked in air, recovering just enough to infuse himself and his sword again. The bare muscles and tendons of his foot flexed, and his body rammed into the handle. Stars burst from behind his eyes and his ribs, weakened from decay, shattered despite his body being reinforced. A lung must have collapsed because it suddenly became significantly harder to breathe. He wasn’t sure if his consciousness would survive even if they captured him.

When the stars subsided somewhat, he saw fragments of the Core falling away, though it remained precariously intact.

‘One more…’

The humanoid snatched Dash by his tails. The fox cried and flailed as the thing brought him to its face, and his remains also began to wither.

The other humanoids shoved past, extending their hands to Yakeru. He summoned the last of his radiance, his being a blinding fiery furnace of pain from the combined efforts of both radiance and decay tearing him apart.

Multiple hands greedily reached for him, their encapsulating fingers closing.

A surge of determination hardened his features, and with one final step, his body flickered, and the sword tore the Core in two.

With a shrill roar, the sphere erupted in an extravagant explosion of scorching white, and he crashed into the wall across from him.

Color bloomed back into existence as the humanoids fizzled out of the new reality. He lay in the rubble, waiting for consciousness to give out, but that never happened. Instead, the dark embers of decay that once flaked at his body suddenly paused, and then reversed to piece him back together.

The transparent white essence wisped back into the bodies of his comrades.

Embers accumulated around Itsuki’s stump, then swirled outward into a restored arm. Fuyumi’s left leg reformed to match her right. Dash’s fur feathered over his bare skin.

Yakeru watched with great relief as their bodies were repaired and their skin smoothed out, returning their bodies to their original states before they were trapped inside the Inbetween. Yakeru felt his broken ribs reforming themselves as his lung shifted to sit comfortably beside its neighbor. The tendons in his arm reforged, and skin fanned over the soles of his feet.

Although his body also physically recovered to its previous state, his dangerously low reserves left him with heavy fatigue.

His comrades’ eyes fluttered open, and they sat up warily, scanning the now-empty cave with the wooden debris once littering the floor now gone and the integrity of the cave restored. They let out sighs of relief at the sight of color.

Fuyumi touched her leg, rotating her foot and bending the knee to test it.

Itsuki turned his attention to the arm he’d cut off, turning it this way and that.

“You really have to stop doing that,” Yakeru coughed.

Itsuki looked over at Yakeru. He got up to examine him. When he found no signs of injury or decay, he let his tense shoulders relax. “Seems neither of us will be hearing an earful from your sister. What a relief.”

Yakeru chuckled weakly. “After all that…” Fuyumi approached to do her own examination. Her eyes, back to their soft ocean hue, went over his form tenderly. “Are you alright?” The words slipped out even though he knew she was okay.

“I’m fine,” she said simply. “Can you move?”

He flexed his fingers and rolled his shoulders with great effort, but was otherwise okay. When he began picking himself up from the fully intact wall he’d destroyed only moments ago, she and Itsuki assisted him from both sides.

As he stood, Dash sniffed Kenji’s unconscious form to his left and called out. Itsuki gently passed most of Yakeru’s weight to Fuyumi to check on the conjurer. He felt for a pulse, and his face softened.

“He’s okay. Just needs to replenish.”

Yakeru lifted his blurry gaze to the cave’s ceiling. Although they’d been gone for several hours, light from the afternoon sun was still trickling through the gaps above. It should’ve been deep into twilight already.

When he let his exhausted neck rest, he happened to find something twinkling on the ground where the Core used to be. But it was far too fuzzy for him to make out any details.

Fuyumi traced his gaze and squinted, unsure of what she was looking at either. “Itsuki, what is that?” she asked the veteran.

The man turned. When he couldn’t identify it immediately, he walked over to pick it up carefully. He turned it over with a thoughtful expression. “That craftable rare item I mentioned?” He presented the faintly shining, cream-colored sphere. “If I remember correctly, this is the essential ingredient to synthesize what rangers call a Lazarus Fruit.”