Chapter 12

Silk slapped her face and drank from a flask of water. Apparently, they couldn’t leave without winning or Victor would have to stay on the island, much to their chagrin. She then asked Victor a question.

“Do you have anything that might help me?”, said Silk.

“Uh, yeah. I have this thing called “chili sauce”, so just flick it into her eyes and then you’re clear to go-”

Victor was interrupted.

“Anything that doesn’t involve kicking them below the belt, or tactics of a similar caliber?”

“Uh, use combat mo-”

“Shut up. No one aside from you even understands what combat mode is or how to use it.”

“I got nothing.”

With that, Silk unsheathed her blades and walked back to the arena.

“You ready?”, said Acna. Her cloak of feathers was nowhere to be seen, most likely thrown off beforehand now that she knew Silk’s strength.

“BEGIN!”, shouted the rotund man with the horn. Both sides leapt at each other, Acna’s staff clashing against Silk’s blades. Her staff was whipping about in a blur, with it bending more and more until it looked more like a curved arc than any normal weapon. Moreover, she seemed to be hitting silk in light taps that knocked her into another hit, giving the effect that Silk was a ball bouncing between strikes. Just as the pole was going to hit Silk’s head, Silk struck repeatedly in a solid, blurring wall of steel. Acna simply shrugged and nonchalantly blocked her Thief’s Blades, even showing off a little by adding a small jape.

“Didn’t you try this last time? They say that madness is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results, after all”, she said.

“No, that’s called practice. Either that, or you didn’t finish the task like I did.”

“What task could you have possibly finished -”

Silk struck one last time and chopped clean through Acna’s stave. Indeed, her clashing with Acna had been at four specific locations that slowly but surely chipped away at the mysterious substance until it was nothing more than a couple of useless sticks.

“Surrender.”, intoned Silk.

“Not yet.”, said Acna. She then looked at the hourglass and made an odd motion with her arms, waving them in odd gyrations and placing them perpendicular to one another occasionally.

“ROUND TWO GOES TO NEWCOMER SILK IN A DEVASTATING VICTORY”, said the man at the horn.

“AND NOW, FOR THE FINAL ROUND: HAND TO HAND COMBAT!”, stated the person who apparently was the announcer.

“Wait, I didn’t agree to this-”

Acna’s fist clipped Silk’s chin in a brutal uppercut, sending her sailing a good three feet as the crowd let out a sympathetic “oof”. Silk wiped the blood from her mouth.

“You wanna go? Let’s go”.

While Victor’s style was reformed and calculated in hand-to-hand combat, Silk’s was anything but. Bundo cheered her on as she proceeded to leap forward and land a right hook just below Acna’s jaw. Silk attempted to get a jab in, but her opponent simply blocked it with her forearm and released a brutal headbutt, sending Silk reeling back with stars in her vision. Acna then proceeded to pounce on top of Silk and punch her repeatedly, with Silk seemingly down for the count. Just as Victor was resigned to being a literal trophy spouse, Silk somehow launched Acna with her torso and leaped into the air, landing on top of Acna’s surprised face in a brutal kick that instantly resulted in Acna’s unconsciousness.

“A KNOCKOUT”, sounded the announcer in an odd, strangely muffled voice. He then leaped into the volcanic crater and raised Silk’s hand in victory. “THE PRIZE IS SILK’S”

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“Don’t want it.”, she muttered.

“I heard that”, replied Victor, pretending to be hurt. In reality, he was just glad he didn’t have to be stuck on some stupid island. “At least I can still adventure to wash away the cold cold sting of rejection”, he said jokingly.

“Actually, I think I would like to try my hand at exploring”, chimed in Acna. “ I am going to build my own ship and crew and I am going to explore, something our people have not done for millenia. Thank you Silk, for teaching me that a life of adventure will strengthen one with new experiences.”

“Uh, thanks I guess? We haven’t really travelled that much, and my strength mainly comes from me constantly training under a guild that was famed for it’s strength since-”

“Don’t be so modest. You are indeed a worthy foe, and I hope to one day match your strength. May we meet again”, she said dramatically without listening to a single one of Silk’s words.

“Well, that happened. Who’s up for leaving this place after these guys heal Silk and Acna?” said Levi. She then did the weird cat-stretch thing that felines are prone to and sauntered away, apparently having made her decision. Bundo and Henry shrugged and wandered off, presumably to find snacks or something.

Two hours later, the crew had been fully loaded up with provisions, and Acna had gotten a dusty wooden boat from who knows where and flopped it down onto the coast, the misty surface of the seas billowing a bit. Gathering a crew of the tribe’s finest warriors, the two ships set off in opposite directions, with Acna’s crew heading south and the other heading westwards.

“By the way, we never came up with a name for our crew. What should we call ourselves?”, said Levi.

“The gamblers?”, said Henry.

“Nah. Sounds tacky.”, responded Silk.

“How about Victor’s Vivacious Vindicators?”, suggested Victor.

“No.”, responded everyone in unison, including Victor. Even Fluffy shook his head in disapproval.

“Fair enough”, responded Victor while shrugging. Like half of the things he did, it was purely for his own amusement rather than attempting to get any worthwhile result out of it.

“I’ve got it. How about The Syndicate?”, suggested Victor.

“Okay, that’s good. That right there, that’s menacing. That’s got my vote.”, said Henry while picking his teeth.

“Eh. Let’s go with something better”, said Levi.

“Fair enough. We’ll discuss this later. I’m getting tired, and it’s Henry’s turn to stay on watch. Good night.”

“Oh! That’s it! I’ve got our name”, shouted Silk.

“What is it?”

“The Cloudraiders.”

“I don’t care anymore. Cloudraiders it is”, said Victor in a tired voice. He then trudged off and went to sleep, the day’s shenanigans leaving him tired. On the bright side, they now had something to call themselves other than “the crew”.

Meanwhile, far above the newly-dubbed Cloudraiders was the gleaming crystalline rings that surrounded the planet, a swirling vortex was hidden behind numerous chunks of various-sized gemstones. If one looked closely enough fros one of these crystals, they might even see a bat-like figure zipping between these rocks, it’s fear-inspiring form darting to said swirling vortex. As it entered the maelstrom, it cackled wildly, indicating that this mysterious figure was none other than the Demon Lord of madness Batrascu.

“WHO ON EARTH KNEW, THAT THE MEETING ON ABZU, WOULD LIE BEYOND A SKY MOST BLUE”, he shouted as he landed on the red dusty ground of the aforementioned Realm of the Demons. The “sky” in this realm was nothing more than a massive rocky ceiling tens of thousands of miles above them, gravity seeming to not exist as it would normally in such a massive place. He took his seat, one of four that surrounded a deep pit with no discernable ending in it, known only as the Abyss.

A shadowy figure with slits for eyes sighed, it’s entire body appearing to be nothing more than fabric draped over a vaguely-humanoid sillhouette, giving it the appearance of someone draping a black shroud over themselves and cutting eyeholes in it. It’s white eyes, thin slits that looked like two halves of a teardrop reflected horizontally from one another, with it’s shoulders and head being the only visible features in the shadowy fabric-like substance. “Hello, Zealot. Take a seat, we are beginning our council. Tell me, is that a scratch on your wing? I have not seen you injured since Ket’s tussle with you a couple millenia ago. You were lucky you didn’t lose your eye.”

Instead of responding, he simply planted his head into an indented part of the stone table-railing hybrid around the Abyss while sitting down and had his head release a sickening “crunch”. As he did so, the shadowy being put a vaguely hand-like appendage from the folds of it’s robe and placed the umbral limb on a handprint, his gaseous arm solidifying into a shiny black liquid and filling the handprint. A projectile of the battle between Silk and Batrascu took place, Victor having been the first to be defeated. As they watched, they saw that the demon lord got a slight laceration as he kicked Silk away and flew off, the being unaware of it.

Batrascu took his head out of the indentation and waited as his skull reformed, the crack that apparently came from a slight protrusion in the dented part of the stone table as he slammed his cranium down upon it. His silence was apparently the result of embarrassment, the bright screen floating above the abyss winking out suddenly. In a voice that was clearly struggling to appear normal, he responded to the being’s words.

“Scholar and leader, I was not aware that I took a BLEEDER- er, a cut. I am sorry for bringing us at risk. I know that a single drop can cause great danger for our underlings on this disk-, I mean, this circular two-dimensional plane.”

“Good. I am not here to scold you, I just want you to be more careful. A single drop of blood, especially from one with massive brute strength such as yourself, could easily cause this place to generate demons much like yourself. That would not be conducive to our plans, as we have plenty of shock troops and laborers already. I am also not sure if we could handle more than one of you. Isn’t that right, Siren?”

To his left, a distinctly feminine figure cloaked in white and black mourning robes responded. “I’m sure that our colleague would not do such a thing. He is madness, not stupidity. Our plans of using my blood to allow Abzu’s spawn to inherit traits necessary for spies is good enough. Also, why do we have to call each other by our titles? I’m not “the siren”, I’m queen Ereshkig--”

“Enough. You know the rules of Abzu.”, said the Scholar. Only Batrascu had the privilege of having his true name known, and that was due to the fact that you could not break what already was broken. His sanity was already far gone, and the Scholar doubted that it was even possible to break his soul and mind in such a way.

“Now, to the reason I called you here. I have reason to believe that we may have a final member to our group, and we should begin the process of training him. Given my analysis of the current Destiny, I believe that with a small amount of interference we may be able to add the destined Hierophant to our group.”

A figure directly to the right of the Scholar shifted slightly, it’s sleek and sharp armor making a slight chorus of clicking as the figure moved. “The scholar is correct. The code of Abzu states that there is room for up to five lords. I believe that given their essence, we may be able to finally add healers to assist our takeover.”

“Excellent.”, replied the Knight. It’s helmet’s blade-like curved segments shifted slightly, the interlocking plates’ movement indicating that it’s head had moved slightly in an imperceptible nod.