This was going to be a long night.
I was beaten up for no reason.
The girl, Alicia Min-Hua, tore my jacket to shreds, destroyed my bag, and gave me nasty bruises all over the place.
That same girl was now standing back to back with me.
She was close enough that strands of her long hair would occasionally get right into my face and it was really annoying.
She was scared now, and at this point, I think I should be scared too.
I had just gained problems I have no business having.
A 5-man band of gigolos, led by Owen Wilson, was standing in front of us.
They were also ignoring the local 'Keep feet off lightposts and traffic lights' ordinance.
All while brandishing their guns and knives, like a B-list action flick.
As usual, no witnesses, just more darkness and silence.
Oh, and I'm sorry. Let me clarify that the leader's name was 'Epilogue the Sandman'.
I couldn't hold it in anymore.
"What? That's his name?" I asked Alicia.
She nodded, without turning to see my disbelief.
Crazy Kung Fu Girl was already taking a fighting stance.
The fact that 5 vampires were standing around us wasn't as intimidating as I thought it would be.
"Why, yes! I am the famed Boon-ty Huntah, Epilogue the Sandman!"
His accent baffled me; I couldn't tell which British colony he came from.
"Err, why?" I asked.
"Whot?" He asked back, cocking his head.
"Why are you called 'Epilogue the Sandman'?" I clarified my earlier question.
I noticed that his lackeys were looking at each other funnily.
"Epilogue - because I'm the Epilogue... of your life," he said coolly.
"Huh?" My jaw dropped.
He probably thought he sounded cool, because he was pointing at me flamboyantly.
"Sandman, because I kill at night."
He then pointed at the moon.
My jaw couldn't fall any further.
"... and death is sorta like... Sleep! That is deep stuff!"
I watched him try to justify himself further, utterly slack jawed.
He even made a sleeping motion with his clasped hands on his cheek, cocking his head to the side.
This guy can't be serious.
"Mmm. Okay." I just agreed and nodded, having heard enough.
"So, uh... What brings you here, Sir Epilogue?" I then asked, my voice now sounding sullen and lifeless.
I am tired of dealing with crazy martial artist girls and self-styled vampire poets - that mundane life of mine didn't have me staying up late for this.
"We're here to take the lass, if you don't mind," he said.
The guy drew his two silver Desert Eagles and pointed them at both of us.
I held up my hands quickly, dropping my bag, and its contents scattered onto the floor again.
A notebook with an abstract illustration design for a cover particularly slid away from the rest. It was a predominantly white picture, with black lines randomly zigzagging all over the place, and on the corner of this design was a flat, gray, long oblong that broke up some of the lines.
"I have nothing to do with this girl!" I screamed at them.
Behind me, Alicia jolted.
"In fact I'll help you detain her if you let me go!" I pleaded.
"What!?" She yelled at me.
"I don't feel like dying because of you... after narrowly surviving you," I said coldly, maintaining my raised hands.
"You coward! Loser! Creep! Asshole!" She angrily yelled expletives at me.
"At least I don't punch people around and then cry like a baby when they threaten to sue," I replied.
The Sandman pointed his gun up in the air and fired a shot and we both got off each other’s case immediately.
"Okay, okay." He pointed at me with the barrel of the gun and motioned for me to move aside.
"Just scoot on over there, stay put, we'll take some refreshments from you later, and then we'll leave ya be."
Refreshments? That didn't sound good.
"Please don't suck my blood, I need it to live!" I said, like an oblivious child stating the names of the organs that separated men and women.
They laughed.
Alicia was the only one who didn't find this funny.
"Sorry, guv'nah! We've been chasing this naughty girl all over the place so we're pretty thirsty. Boss says we can't touch her though, so that leaves you," Epilogue said offhandedly.
"Don't worry, it'll feel so good you'll wonder why we didn't do this any sooner," he continued, winking at me.
That sounded all sorts of wrong.
I hope my physical unattractiveness would deter any future fangirls from thinking otherwise.
"Dude, man, that guy is so full of cholesterol," I overheard one of his lackeys say to the other.
"Don't worry, pare, we don't have Lechon that often." (Pare means bro/dude/man in filipino. Lechon is a local roast suckling pig dish.)
I frowned at the vampire who said that.
Okay, negotiations have officially fallen apart.
... In my heart.
I turned to Alicia and shrugged.
Her eyes communicated her reply : 'Go die in a fire!'
I put my hand on my torn jacket's pocket, drawing her eyes to an intricately designed pen sticking out of the seams - it was a red-bodied pen, with a long golden abstract fixture as its clip.
"If I were you, I'd run from them," I whispered to her. I pretended to dust myself off, hiding it once more.
Her expression changed, puzzled, then she quickly turned away from me, all tsundere-like.
I then turned my back to her, raised my hands as an indication of surrender, and walked to my corner.
I watched the Twilight fanboys (do those really exist?) jump down from their perches.
The goons were all armed with knives and pistols, although they didn't wield them both at once.
2 guys had knives drawn, and 2 had pistols drawn.
I just stood at the sidelines, watching them surround her.
Alicia was being backed to a corner by these four vampires, but they were very careful with her, as if they knew what she was capable of. They all slowly approached, trying to maintain reasonable distance from each other, and I wondered why she didn't take the initiative this time around.
Probably because I tired her out.
I waited a little more.
"Okay, boys. I'll handle this."
Finally, I saw Epilogue hop down from his lightpost.
Though my eyes followed his fall, he was gone before he even touched the ground. All I saw was a blur, leading straight through the crowd.
He appeared right next to Chinagirl in an instant, gun at her throat.
"What's wrong, girl? You were casually throwing us around back at boss's place - surprised to see us again, and so soon?"
He whispered, sticking the barrel of his gun at her chin.
In a golden flash of light, Alicia struck the barrel aside, and assumed a different pose.
It reminded me of Xiaoyu, with her crouching down like that.
The other vampires stepped back, clearly threatened by her gesture.
"You're not supposed to touch me, Mr. Huang said," she warned him, faking a smirk.
She then looked at the others.
"... Much less fire your gun at me or wound me with your knives. It's unfair, I know-"
Bang!
A lock of her golden hair fell to the ground.
It then turned black, losing it's strong aura signature shortly after separating from her body.
Epilogue held the smoking Desert Eagle near her face.
He had missed on purpose.
"Don't take things too literally, lass." He then pointed at her arms and legs, reminding her of her scratches and cuts from earlier.
"You're already damaged goods. I'm sure he can't tell the difference once we're done. He'll not mind as long as you're alive and kicking," he snickered.
Alicia now literally had her back to a wall.
"Hold up guys!"
I suddenly interjected, holding the fancy pen from earlier and waving it around.
With the exception of Mr. Shanghai Noon, they all turned to me.
Epilogue had his other gun aimed at me, without even turning to look at me.
I quickly held up my hands, again dropping my bag, the stuff inside scattering on the ground once more.
I cursed under my breath.
"Uh, before you start having a wuxia gun-kata battle, I'll just get my stuff out of your way," I said, pointing at my notebook with the abstract design cover, which was a few meters behind the crowd of angry vampires and shiny girl.
They all looked at me with black intent.
"Sorry, excuse me," I said, humbly lowering my head and putting my hands together.
I quickly moved towards the notebook, trying to be as discreet as possible.
It had the opposite effect.
"Hold her," the Sandman ordered.
The other goons held down Alicia, their tight grip on her arms and legs. She struggled a bit, but gave in eventually.
With a blur, Epilogue was already next to me, pointing a gun to my head.
"What is that? Lemme see that," he said, motioning for me to stand up.
I held up the note book to chest level with both hands, and in the fingers of my right hand was the pen from earlier.
He took it from me, opened it up and flipped a few pages to see that it was all inane pencil sketches and useless crap.
"You're seriously going to risk your life for some stationary?" He had this same face that I was making when I heard the explanation for his name.
He threw it at my chest, and I awkwardly caught it before it fell to the ground.
"Well, it's work related," I said, smiling nervously. "... A-aaand art is life for some people! It's deep!"
He smiled back, and kicked me down.
Oh, this was much more bearable - he hits like a girl compared to her.
With a blur, he reappeared next to his posse, his gun still pointed at me.
"Maybe we'll just get rid of you, eh? We're just about done here and we don't mind slightly colder pizza, anyway!"
All eyes were on me, clutching that notebook for dear life.
I looked at Alicia, her golden form blindingly radiant.
She said it herself: Getting into her head won't work.
I can't say the same about the others.
Immediately, I took my pen from my right hand, covering the gray portion of the abstract art cover with it.
A new pattern was made when the pen's strangely shaped clip seamlessly connected with the zig zagging lines of the notebook's design, completing the magic circle and triggering the spell.
They all witnessed it.
Through their eyes, they received a message which reached their minds and unraveled its contents.
A reality, which, just by existing, eradicated the world provided by their senses.
Sight, Touch, Hearing, Smell, Taste.
These all became alien concepts under their new understanding of the universe.
That paradigm was burned into their memory.
Thus, to them, it was as if the material world completely disappeared.
There was silence.
Then a scream.
They all fell into disarray, doing random things and losing all sense of being.
I saw Alicia's surprised expression when their grip slackened on her arms and legs.
She quickly broke free from them, and ran towards me.
They couldn't care less - they probably didn't even know she was gone.
I ran up to Epilogue as he clutched his head, screaming incoherently.
His hands shivered uncontrollably, reminding me of a fish out of water.
On the floor was one of his Silver-plated Desert Eagles.
I took it and ran away with whatever of my items I could take.
There was a golden flash at the corner of my eye, and Alicia appeared in front of me, her pose a fighting stance.
"Oh! Oh god! What!? I just helped you pleasedon'thurtme-"
I put my arms and items in front of my face and raised my leg, feebly trying to ward her.
"You're not hurting from earlier?" She asked, and I saw a look of concern for the injury she had caused earlier.
Her pose was merely cautionary, but I was hopped up on adrenaline, and literally abusing the phrase 'Mind over Matter' at this time.
"Screw that. I'm better off hurtin' than dyin'!" I said, running past her.
She smiled and followed me.
"What did you just do to them?" She asked, her pace slowed down to match mine.
"I just showed them a world of nonsense," I said. "That's gonna end soon though, since they only saw a picture."
Behind us, the vampires still could not tell what the hell was going on.
Alicia then ran ahead of me easily enough, pointing at lights in the distance.
As I said before, I'm not fit, so I was actually heaving and my chest was hurting from just running a few blocks.
Compound that with the fact that my side's bruise was really hurting like hell, despite the adrenaline buff I had boasted about earlier.
I had to stop.
"I'm really, really sorry, girl, but I can't run anymore," I said, sitting down on the ground.
"Our chances to survive increase if we split up. That way each of us can serve as a distraction for the other."
I then waved at her to leave.
"You and your distractions!" She said angrily, turning her head wildly to watch for our pursuers.
I explained that currently, she was slowing herself down to keep pace with me, and that this was the logical thing to do when I can't catch up with her anymore.
Besides, I knew they'd chase her with me being a secondary objective. (Well, I hoped they'd forgive me for what I did.)
I actually had my own plans to escape this situation, and I didn't want to show her my other tricks.
Then she did something I didn't expect.
She slid her tiny arms under my armpit, and under my knees.
Then she literally swept me off my feet, carrying me.
Thus, I present my case: that my dignity as a man was definitely, viciously beaten to death, murdered in cold blood!
And it was this girl, Alicia Min-hua, who perpetrated this heinous crime!
In front of my knight in shining silk, I just grumbled.
"Okay, Princess, we go my way. If you have any more tricks, use them now! My hands are busy, as you can see," Alicia said, taking a step forward.
She just keeps rubbing salt on my gaping wounds, doesn't she?
"Yeah, yeah," I grumbled.
We began moving once more.
Even while carrying me, she was able to maintain that inhuman speed and grace from earlier.
Then behind us, I heard a shout and various profanities.
So I decided to become a marksman.
I focused on the gun I took from Epilogue the Sandman.
Desert Eagle : From the design, I figure it's a Mark VII. Effective range 50 meters. It seems this particular piece uses one of the largest, most powerful pistol calibers available: the .50 Action Express.
Silvery finish, most likely a custom job. The gun barrel's surface seemed soft enough to be actual silver. That will cause problems after continued use.
I released the box from the magazine, counting the bullets inside. I remembered that the previous user haphazardly discharged one bullet earlier. That left 5, because the 6th was already chambered.
"Hey, uh. What's with that glassy look in your eyes? It's creeping me out," said the girl, breaking my thought process for but a moment.
Just then, I sensed movement behind her. From a poorly visible area, a humanoid target, standing at about 1.7 meters entered view, about 200 meters away. He was running at what I judged to be an unnatural 20 meters per second, southeast of our position, heading northwest.
"Why are you mumbling? Just shoot him already!" She said, her voice rising with some urgency.
I drowned out her voice by slowly exhaling loudly, relieving tension from my hands. The girl's movements are erratic and difficult to match, but luckily wind is minimal to non-existent.
The man entered optimum range within 5 seconds. I anticipated his movement and was already locked in on his position. I aimed the gun slightly to the left of his central body mass, and squeezed the trigger.
The loud report knocked me back a bit, as I was not yet accustomed to the powerful recoil. Luckily the girl's arms were strong enough to address this.
I expected the bullet to miss the mark, since he made a last minute maneuver, displacing 5 meters to the right in a split second-
But then he fell over, missing a chunk of his shoulder.
Then I stopped trying to be a marksman.
"Whoa, this gun homes in on targets! I don't even need to aim or whatever! Literally just point and shoot! I'm keeping this for sure!" I exclaimed, a bit too excited for my own good.
"What the hell were you doing?" She asked. "You looked different, and were mumbling the entire time, so I thought you snapped or something."
I overdid my little roleplay session, it seems.
"I was pretending," I said cryptically. “Playing make believe.”
Before she could respond, gunfire erupted behind us.
Alicia gasped in surprise, her golden aura flaring a bit as she did.
I heard bullets whiz past us harmlessly.
Then I saw the other 3 goons following us, running with the same supernatural speed.
They were letting off shots once in a while, none of them hitting their mark.
Looks like they suffer from the Stormtrooper syndrome.
In their midst was a blur, too fast even for them.
"Bloody cunts! I'll fookin' gut you both!" I heard Epilogue's telltale quasi-south-english-australian-african accent.
I pulled up the gun I stole earlier, and fired wildly.
3 shots hit 3 unimportant mooks in the head, ending the sub-stage in an instant.
They fell over, hilariously flip-flopping and rolling violently due to their speed.
"You got them!?" My carrier asked over the grunts and screams.
"All but one," I said looking for the leader.
I found their main man zigzagging around, trying to approach us from unexpected angles.
Time for the boss fight.
Then he stopped and dashed straight towards us rapidly, covering the ground between in an instant.
I simply pointed my newly acquired gun at him and pulled the trigger.
Instead, my gun clicked, the next bullet failing to combust.
I tried again.
It clicked again.
Then the blur called Epilogue the Sandman was so close that I could make out his pasty face and it's features.
How does he keep his hat on while doing all that?
"Hah, sucks to be you, wanker! This particular set of guns can't fire at their owners!" I heard Epilogue shout. "A bit of security for thieves like you!"
"What? What did he say!?" Alicia turned back, trying to see what was going on.
We both saw him hold out his own pistol, aiming at my forehead.
Oh crap!
He pulled the trigger.
It clicked.
He angrily clicked the gun over and over again.
It just refused to fire.
Alicia turned away, laughing.
"I assume you didn't read the user manual," I told him, chuckling.
It seems that they can't fire at people who possess the same kind of gun, not something as vague as ‘ownership’.
I have his other gun in my hands, and I don't see his name on it.
"Think you're so clever, eh? Well how about this!?" He yelled. He aimed at Alicia, who now didn't realize what was going on.
Oh crap.
She just had to be carrying me!
I saw the following events in slow motion.
I could see him bare his fangs and slowly pull on the trigger.
There was a loud noise.
His face was brightly lit by the nearby golden flash...
Of headlights.
He was hit by a speeding car.
He screamed as he was dragged across the asphalt, his blood smearing all over the pavement.
The car stopped, and he flew a good distance before hitting a light post, bending it slightly before crumpling lifelessly on the pavement below.
With his face ground to a fine texture of asphalt and bits of flesh, I'd say he earned the nickname 'Sandman'.
This was also probably the Epilogue... of his life.
Probably.
One good thing after another.
This was too unnatural.
Suddenly, Alicia quickly jumped up so we could avoid notice.
In a flash, we were on top of a nearby building's rooftop - about 5 stories off the ground.
I clung to her like a scared cat.
I'm not very fond of heights.
We landed quite roughly, and I winced in pain as my bruise was quickly stretched and compressed.
Then suddenly, I realized that we weren't in the black haze anymore.
The dim office lights and bright street lamps returned, and we saw people once more.
I immediately got off her hands, and looked around quickly for a police car.
I didn't have to look far.
They had one of those Police checkpoints set up right below.
The policemen were already moving to investigate the 'accident' that had occurred a few blocks down.
I was just overjoyed to have survived that ordeal.
"Okay, fine. Let's go to my house," I told the girl, while watching the police below do their work.
"I'll at least hear you out," I then clarified my intent.
No response.
"Well?" I asked, turning around.
 |
| Art by ananagi |
Behind me, I saw a black-haired petite young girl smiling weakly, her long-lashed, dark-brown eyes downcast.
Her fair skin, marred by countless cuts and bruises.
The girl's ruined red cheongsam, a golden dragon smeared with dirt and blood.
She tried hard to conceal a section of her abdomen that had a dark patch of blood, which was slowly growing.
Alicia was hunched over, barely standing up.
"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea," she said so softly that it was almost a whisper.
"Oh shit," I exclaimed, going up to her and slowly setting her down.
He had pulled the trigger, and there was a discharge.
It was the same kind of gun as the one I had stolen.
It homes in on its targets.
Even vampires couldn't dodge it.
What more with her?
I looked over her small form, looking for the bullet wound.
It was very large, considering her petite frame.
I don't think she can survive missing a chunk of flesh this large.
She needs an ambulance - but at this rate, she's dead before the medical team even gets here.
I... didn't know what to feel.
I’m used to death.
I’ve caused death.
This girl tried to kill me just a while ago.
But images of that brown-skinned girl with the hidden left eye flashed in my mind, echoing similar circumstances.
“I hope this covers… everything I’ve done to you…” she said weakly.
The blood continued to flow, and I tried my best not to gag.
“How does this repay anything!? How can you say that!?” I asked angrily.
“You said… you don’t believe in luck… but I gave you as much of mine as I could.”
The golden flashes.
Setting the vampires up for my memetic spell.
The magical gun just happening to have that property.
Bullets whizzing past us harmlessly.
Finally, that abrupt resolution with the car.
Everything went too well, and things were resolved too conveniently.
“So… I ran out… for myself,” she explained.
But this is not how I wanted things to turn out!
“I could have dealt with the consequences! I told you that I didn’t need your luck!”
It was just like this back then.
“But… you’ll die… if I didn’t do that…"
It was the same circumstances, with different faces.
"Please… just keep my destiny… and see it through to the end,” she said, trying to smile.
It began to rain, making the memory all the more vivid.
I was holding a dying girl, and…
“I don’t need you to decide that for me! Stop arbitrarily deciding things when you don’t even-“
Images of that day flashed in my mind, echoing the wetness of blood and rain on my arms, and the endless drumming in my ears.
“- love me,” I almost said.
She and her were two different people, I kept reminding myself.
“- know me!” I snapped.
My vision went cloudy, as the rain fell and tears formed in her eyes.
“What was I supposed to do…? I’d rather have you have it, than them taking it from me…” she said pitifully.
“Then keep it! Keep it away from them yourself!” I held her now frail hand against my chest.
“I can’t! It’s not like I wanted to die here..! Especially not with a stranger…!” She gurgled.
“Listen kid,” I said, “I met you because I decided to go out late, and ignored the countless warnings I should’ve listened to. I decided to fight you, so we both got hurt and wasted time, inevitably meeting the vampires. I pissed them off, and that’s why they chased both of us… to this end.”
I grasped her hand tightly.
“So if you don't want to die, then don't die!"
She cringed from the pain.
“If you wanna live,” I choked on my own tears.
“Then live!”
There was thunder and lightning.
“I’m giving it back to you! The luck that kept me alive! The destiny you are supposed to fulfill!” I shouted at her. “I don’t want it!”
Lightning struck at that same moment.
“Take it from me!” I yelled.
She cried out loudly.
Then there was a roar from the heavens.
Suddenly, Her aura flared so brightly, that it seemed I was staring at the sun.
Horns of light erupted from her shimmering golden hair.
The girl's bloody, pale skin was rejuvenated, becoming smooth and supple.
Her eyes, now wide open, became yellow once more, with serpentine pupils.
The large bullet fell out of her wound, dropping on the floor.
Time seemed to work in reverse, as the blood stain on her dress became a tiny spot that eventually disappeared.
Torn silk knit itself back together, remaking the resplendent red and golden dragon dress from earlier.
She was already back on her feet.
“Th-this is impossible,” she said, looking at herself.
I looked at her, awestruck.
To imagine that 'destiny' could pull this off.
"How can such a powerful fate- Not even I..." She trailed off.
"Only you can change your own destiny," I muttered.
I remembered the words of countless people who had all told me the same message.
People who affected my life, and helped turn me into what I am.
The same reasons for my dislike of the idea of 'Fate'.
"What were you thinking?" She yelled, snapping me out of my stupor.
Her expression suddenly turned to horror.
I suddenly realized what she meant.
My memories were being changed.
My vision was becoming hazy.
I quickly looked at my abdomen.
There was no gun wound.
"Hah. There's no need to wor-"
There was a great pain in my chest, like my ribs were being crushed.
I stumbled, taking a few steps backward, then I fell completely.
I could only gasp and shout in pain.
She ran up to me.
"Hey! You okay!?" Alicia yelled, checking for injury.
Even on the ground, the pain would not stop.
It burned strongly now, like I was on fire.
I grit my teeth, seething with pain.
"What's wrong!?" I could hear her say.
I began to sweat profusely.
I closed my eyes, and my throat was already coarse from all that shouting.
"H-Hey! Please, answer me!" Her voice was but a distant echo now.
Then like a fevered delusion, I saw my life flash before me.
In a car, the figure of a dark-haired man in the driver's seat, his face obscured.
I'm sorry, Dad - for throwing away everything.
In a dark study, the imposing figure of a man in a brown greatcoat, his face obscured, with a white beard touching the ground.
I'm sorry, Master Rorian - for I could not complete the Great Work.
Then I saw a petite, brown-skinned girl in a white summer dress, with medium-length black hair, facing away from me.
'She' turned to me, her left eye covered by her wavy bangs.
"Please, don't leave without even telling me your name!" I heard a faint voice.
My name... the story of this man... has only one title.
"I am..."
Finally, I saw myself lying alone in a dark room, my eyes dull and lifeless.
"Another King!"
With a cry, everything went pitch black.
