Etched complete. “A lot of them.” Waiting long enough, Shay was getting tempted to find a seat of her own.
“Don’t change the subject.” Woid stood up out of restlessness and to stretch into his stitches again, compulsively. “Or - would you like to bet that I can kill more of them than you?”
“They’re monks.” She sighed that he was thinking about gambling even now. “Do you see?”
“Hmm, good to know.” His dagger shone in back-hand style. “I don’t mind what they are.”
“I think now’s good a rhyme as any.” She drew her swords. “After you.”
“Rhyme?”
“I can’t always think of the other word, now.”
“Ah, yes, not since you failed to nick those seeds.”
“Got them right here.”
Shay blinked and he was there on the camera feed, stabbing and garrotting. A monk was about to kick him square in the head but she umbrastepped into Woid’s own shadow, and all the monk felt was her swords.
∞
She keeled over a knee to her stomach, and an elbow slammed down into her back. Both her swords at once she struck in between or stabbing through another monk’s ribs, and one of her own kicks bought her some distance. Her attack had slowed the monk down, somehow not finishing them off completely: she got a bad look at them. The skin around their cheeks and lips was sagging not elderly but horribly stretched; the scars gleaming in every artificial light. Spine Eater was what Shay thought of, knowingly from other lives. Her mask took a jab for her, (three in fact, too fast to tell) and she sent a long uppercutting slice from the monks gut to their nose. Her other sword came from above to finish things.
∞
These fanatics were far more formidable. Woid learned as one of his eyes swelled shut and Shay struggled standing up straight, her midsection having taken a knee too many. Having killed only few and surrounded by more, their backs to one another, The Shadows were both weighing their options.
“Distract.” Shay reached to her harness.
Woid obeyed, umbra-stepping into their fray with such speed and surprise he opened up one monk’s neck fully, booting the dying faithful into their fellows.
“Surprise! That’s one down… and I doubt it’ll work again quite the same way.” he stepped-returned to Shay’s back, who had thrown a handful of steel marbles at the monks, crackling with sparks and screeching noise. The shatters of a small jar lay by her feet.
Exposed to the cold air the 'marbles' were louder and brighter than many could bear. From a desert world of abrasive atmosphere the tempered jar was replicating. Pearls of an extinct beast.
∞
Woid was behind every monk, their bodies shielding him from the blinding sparks though his ears bled much as the others, the marbles assaulting all sight and hearing. Shay with her mask needn’t shy away, as long went her flurrying swords of butchery. The wiser monks retreated into the facility, the most ‘far gone’ with the most stretched features remained swinging at nothing and were easily finished.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
∞
One final monk remained after much slaughter, her cheeks and lips more than those of her fellows were torn, drooping almost to her upper chest off of her face. A Spine Eater far-gone. She long anticipated and overcame every trick Shay and Woid could pull, landing on Woid’s swollen eye another crossing punch, full of follow through. He was useless for a while after that seeing eight-kaleid of everything. With more rounds traded she kicked Shay to the bloody floor as well; the skin of her feet could not be cut by swords, both palms and heels a shield. Though faithful and valiant, soon this Spine Eater (as they will later be known, or already are) tired from chasing feigns and shadows, was bleeding out from the stabs the assassins had managed to land. As pack animals bring down their larger preys so too did Shay and Woid overwhelm the monk that had been overwhelming them.
Shay spoke to Woid in aftermath, though he could hear only vague hums.
∞
“Alright…” he winced between grimaces and groans unsure what had been said. His jaw crunched as he talked. “We look bad as each other. Who carries who?”
Shay somehow had strength enough to laugh as they helped each other up nearby steps leading to a large control room. The feet of their returning enemies could be heard clattering closer through all the near corridors, the ripple of robes as flags in wind. The hangar's control room had emptied of its denizens, whom now were all murdered on the hangar floor below. Stepping or limping or being dragged inside, using each other as walking sticks, Shay and Woid did not feel the door shut behind them; it was already closed in this new lineage triggered by passing through the threshold.
“Good…” Shay sighed.
∞
The scene itself little changed until they walked over to the keyboarded panels by the window, where a far different hangar was visible. Everything had reset: the hanger doors were still sealed and no shuttle sat in the bay. Dire monks waited meditatively in dim artificial light; overseen by Violet-armoured guards with long-barrelled laser cannons. From up here (or when here) Shay could see almost where the palace began and prison ended: oakenstone piers where sea vessels once could have docked, blending mottled into steel walkways meant for starships and cruisers. Ocean weeds still clung to the ancient planks accompanied by starrier species of moss sentient.
∞
“How do you know how to use all this?” Shay asked Woid as he took a rolling seat for himself and started keying in some commands.
"I don't. I just wanted to sit down." He managed to get a display to show clear images from outside the palace-prison, where oval stars wavered. “Hmm, I wanted some eyes on the inside, not the outside. They use similar at the arenas.” He answered eventually, rolling his tongue against his fake teeth.
The cameras switched between feeds or scenes and Shay remarked: “Wait, go back. Is that our shuttle coming in?”