The figure smiled at Vas. Time was up. It held its hand out, and Vas watched it curiously. He sent thoughts towards it, tried to communicate with it. It just smiled.
Vas jerked awake. He looked around. Miiche was pacing and hopping to warm herself up. "Up so soon," she teased, "I'm glad I didn't have to poke you awake from your peaceful slumber." Vas cracked his neck. Everything felt stiff and sore. "This is what I feel like after a peaceful slumber?" Miiche pursed her lips in thought, "well, it was peaceful for you. You were still rolling around like usual. I tried to stop you from rolling onto your sword, but you were not to be swayed." Vas stood and stretched. He fastened his sword to his waist and checked the makeshift bandage Miiche has put over his arm in the dark. The bite hadn't been very deep, and it didn't look worrying.
"We should get going," Vas said, "No telling how far the Risen got last night. Need to warn Sun that the Risen could attack our backs at any moment."
There was a bang from inside the elevator shaft. Miiche glanced at the closed door unconcerned, "They've been banging away all night and still haven't figured it out. They're probably going to be trapped in the Wall for the rest of eternity at this rate." Vas shook his head. "I would have agreed with you once, but I know better now. Not all of them are smart, but some of them are. They're sort of like people. Different kinds, different strengths. Don't underestimate them." Vas started walking down the tunnel and Miiche followed. They walked for a few moments in silence, then Miiche cocked her head. "Did you really fight a special Risen? Alex called it Hades." Vas nodded, "That might be one of the stories she didn't exaggerate." Miiche nodded to herself at this, "I'd like to fight him. If he's here, you know, fighting." "Be my guest."
It took about ten minutes of walking before they could hear shouting. Fighting. "They're already here," said Miiche, "That means they must have beaten at least the first two lines of fighters during the night." Vas nodded, his stomach twisting, "Not everyone can fight like you in the dark, Miiche." Miiche turned and gave Vas an incredulous look, "I killed maybe three of them, but I'm pretty sure the crushed skulls and blood all over the floor didn't have much to do with me. I swear I tripped over at least three or four bodies that I didn't make." Vas smiled wickedly at the memory. He could barely even remember the fighting. He thought about it a bit, "We were lucky they didn't have weapons. If they'd found the backup armory already we would have been run through in a heartbeat."
When they exited the tunnel it was a scene of blood and death. The Risen were fighting with humans, and it seemed to be the last line of human resistance. Each man was matched by a dozen Risen. The monsters seemed endless, and their numbers covered his entire field of vision to the south. Vas drew his sword and moved towards the nearest skirmish that blocked his path to Sun's command center. The final line of defense was still holding, but there were many pockets where men had been encircled and were forced to fight off multiple monsters at once. When Vas approached, a few Risen dashed his way. Vas knocked the first one's spear out of the way and shoved the creature past him. He heard a gurgle as Miiche finished it off. There were two left now, and Vas engaged the closest one before the final one was in range. Vas charged and knocked aside the Risen's sword, then followed through with a decapitation. The last Risen was upon him now, but Miiche took it to the ground with a swing. She finished cutting its head off after knocking its weapon away.
They had to get to the base of operations. Vas knew that it was unlikely, but since there still seemed to be some semblance of order he thought it was possible Sun was still in command. Vas parried a blow from a nearby Risen and kept moving. One of the defining things about a battle was that there was danger on all sides. Focusing on any one area or target had a way of being deadly for those involved. A random bolt or ricochet could end your life if you were just a bit too slow. Vas dodged to the right as a human fighter was stabbed through the chest and fell over. Vas decapitated the fellow without a second thought and kept moving, while Miiche finished off the Risen who had dealt the killing blow. Things went in a similar fashion for the next few minutes. Vas fought to keep himself from focusing on any one thing, and tried to keep note of the things going around him all at once. He devoted the majority of his attention to his front and left side, which was the direction he was heading in. Miiche would cover his back, so he never turned around. He would glance to his right occasionally, but since he was moving left he was often able to avoid and danger coming from that side. The whizzing sound of a crossbow bolt flying overhead made Vas cringe, but only momentarily.
They moved through the battlefield easily at first, but as they started to near Vas's objective, there were fewer and fewer humans. Vas was forced to engage a new enemy for almost every step he took, and Vas started collecting wounds. Little by little, scratch by scratch, Vas weakened while the enemies grew stronger. Miiche kept Risen off his back, so the injuries were all very small, but after sustaining multiple cuts and bruises Vas was feeling far less the warrior than when he'd begun.
At that moment, as Vas struck down the Risen in front of him, he caught a glimpse of the command center. The small shack had a defensive perimeter around it, and seemed to be the central location for the last line of human defense. Vas struck another monster and glanced up to see a figure nearly twice as tall as every other figure on the field. It had a long sword sheathed on its waist, and used a huge maul as its main weapon of choice. Vas recognized the maul as having once belonged to Ham, the pudgy captain. The giant monster used its maul to clear human and Risen alike out of its way. Vas knew this creature. "Hades," he said through gritted teeth. He knew he should be terrified, but at this point he was just annoyed. What chance did they have when the already unkillable Risen could pull out a beast like that?
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Miiche seemed invigorated by the sight, and worked her way in front of Vas. Vas covered their backs and they quickly made it through the last six or seven Risen. When they reached humans, they were let through. Vas turned just in time to watch Hades break through the line of humans. He took a knife from Miiche and hurled it at the monster. The knife lodged directly in the creature's chest. Hades took a large step forward, crushing a man under the weight, and smiled up at Vas. "So you WERE here," it hissed in its grinding fashion. "Where did you think I would be?" "I thought perhaps you were hunting the Patriarch in the south. How lucky for me that you returned just in time to die." Vas watched the creature for a few moments, trying to decide if it was messing with him. Was there really a Patriarch? If he found out that they could have defeated the Risen by heading further south... Vas wanted to scream.
Miiche stepped in front of Vas and drew her katana. Hades smiled at her and took a huge step forward, swinging the maul at the same time. It crashed down with a speed that even Vas hadn't anticipated, and burrowed deep inside the snow. Miiche barely dodged the blow by rolling to the right, but before she regained her balance Hades swept the maul diagonally towards her. She put her katana down just in time to use it to nudge the whistling weapon of death away from her head. She redirected it enough so that it wouldn't hit her, but the edge of the maul hit her shoulder with a crack. Miiche winced and took a step back. Hades saw his opportunity and followed up with another strike. Vas took the moment to slice Hades' huge leg, and was able to take a fair chunk out of it in time to save Miiche's life. "Two versus one?" Vas raised his eyebrows at the monster. "Are you saying it's unfair?"
Hades' grin widened, and he threw the hammer at Miiche. It took her in the chest and she fell to the ground. Vas gritted his teeth but stayed focused. He used the moment to slice into Hades' leg once again. Hades calmly pulled the nodachi off his back. He drew the nodachi from its sheath and tossed the sheath aside. The giant monster took up a fighting stance. It made Vas want to cry. There was no way this was a fair fight. Vas set into his own fighting stance and glanced around. The Risen were not attacking any longer, and they along with the humans in the area were watching the fight. Hades swung. The reach of the monster's arm was unfair, but Vas knew the reach of the weapon very well. It came almost as fast as Vas could react, but Vas was slightly faster. He dodged to the side and towards Hades, and took a swipe at the monster's arm. Hades dodged away from Vas's blade and sent out another heavy blow. Vas didn't have time to dodge, so he used his sword. Hades was far stronger, but Vas didn't meet the blow head-on. Deflecting Hades' attack to the side opened up another strike path, and Vas swung into Hades' front leg, which was planted for the attack due to the monster's solid fighting stance. Hades withdrew his leg, but not fast enough. After the third gash on the same leg, when Hades put weight on it, the leg broke. Hades toppled to the ground and Vas took a swing at the now vulnerable neck.
Hades caught Vas's blade with his bare hand. Vas didn't have enough power behind the strike to push through, so he ended up being stuck there. Vas immediately let go of his sword and jumped backwards, just in time to avoid the killing swing of Hades' nodachi. It was at this moment that Miiche launched into the air and used her momentum to strike at Hades' neck. The monster laughed as the blade barely went a fourth of the way through. Miiche dodged the follow-up attack and pulled Vas's sword with her on her way back. She handed it to Vas and turned back to face Hades.
As they watched, Hades stood back up to his full height. The gash on his neck became a puffy red glob and then faded into a scar. "You are right. This does seem unfair." Hades cracked his neck and turned away from Vas. "While this has been fun, the game has come to an end." With that, Hades walked away. A body that Vas recognized stepped forward and aimed a machine gun at him. Thousands of other Risen did the same. "Jade," Vas wondered aloud, dazed. Jade just smiled back at him as the lights in the wall came on. "Fire," said Jade.
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It was in the darkness once again that Vas saw his smiling companion. He knew there was no way to go back now. He was as dead as dead can be. Yet he was still here. Vas took the smiling specter's hand and everything slowly became light again.
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He was laying on an extremely comfortable mat. When he sat up he looked around at white walls. He had the feeling that it was morning, and wondered how he knew. Bvoptins reassured him that it had been monitoring the time of the exterior world. Pretty soon, Vas lost memories of his childhood. His father. He could still remember everything starting from when he began his march to the Wall so long ago.
Beginning re-initiation. Personalities integrating. Why didn't Vas feel concerned about this? His mind was speaking to him.
Vas knew this was Bvoptins, but he didn't know why he knew. Bvoptins was a part of him, in the same way his hands were a part of him. Bvoptins handled menial tasks such as memory, thought acceleration, calculations, reactions. Bvoptins also acted as a companion when required and could have conversations with him.
Vas looked around. This was his room. He held his hands in front of him. It was a different body, but these were his hands. His name wasn't Vas, it was Atrau. He had named himself Vas. Atrau Bvoptins. In the real world, people had one name, and their personal assistant's name worked as their second name. Humanity was not on the brink of extinction, it was thriving. Atrau had been alive for many hundreds of thousands of years. Atrau could remember more now. Every month, his community would participate in a game, which would go on for exactly one week. They would use accelerated cognition to simulate between one month and one hundred years, and they would play a different game each time. The Last Stand had been a full-amnesia experience, where everyone chose their identities and given skills before entering the game, then got to experience it as if it had been real. Their memories from the real world were stored by their personal assistants, and when they died in the game the personal assistant took their place as the Risen, while the person could watch the game as it went.
Atrau's Vas character had been a celebrity, and he'd had millions of concurrent viewers. Atrau himself had never been the dark brooding type, and the experience had been extremely satisfying. Atrau checked the status of the game and found that the humans had actually won the encounter. While the majority of the race had been extinguished, a small unit had managed to penetrate south and kill the Patriarch. It had been a few days after the massacre at the wall, but it was still a victory.
Atrau stood up, accepted an invitation for an interview, and walked out the door.
The End