Phasing
His sight was blurry. Phesx couldn't tell for how long has he been on his fours, with his back aching, but no more than his heart, his soul even. When his vision started clearing, Phesx continued looking down. Pheli's eyelids seemed peaceful, resting after he gingerly closed them. Phesx's eyebrows gently arched, soft. His left eye caught sight of an open storage back room.
Kissing her forehead with his, Phesx closed his eyes before standing up to walk into the back room. When he went inside, many things were still littering and being stored, but most of them were organized in some boxes, cases, and cloth bags.
Teetering weakly across these things, Phesx walked further to the bottom, where a small freezer 1 meter long lied. He opened the lid and took one bag before looking at the rest in silence. In the end, Phesx grabbed all of them and stored everything except one bag.
He returned to Pheli before carefully placing her body in that bag. It was a cryobag, transparent and quite a bit heavy from its cutting edge-model. After she was inside, Phesx rotated its panel before pressing the button somewhere in the upper front enter. The bag started frosting, but the bag remained flexible, and Pheli wasn’t turning into an ice of block, just her body being frozen.
“…” Phesx caressed her face and hair one last time before he closed the bag. Now, as she looked at her lifeless body, he couldn’t take his eyes off, but he must. Placing her on the ground with care, Phesx was just about to take his medium pistol out and look for more ammo, when he looked at one of the big suitcases surrounding Pheli.
He opened one of them, revealing a bion exoskeletal arm stored at the side. Phesx stared at it without blinking, bent on being silent until the end. He grabbed it with his right hand, and with much struggle albeit slowly, he latched it onto his right arm.
Phesx stared down before looking around for some of his bions and more ammunition. Only then, he returned to Pheli and said in his voice, “One more little thing. Then I’ll bring you home.”
With that, Phesx left Pheli behind and walked outside the main workshop, now destroyed by iconic weapons worthy of a supercontinent’s choice. As soon as he came out, Phesx saw 2 Artistas slowly and carefully approach the workshop. When they noticed him, they lifted their weapons, but Phesx, along with his new bion exoskeletal arm, was much faster, as it is natural.
Things had only just begun for Riverlye… for the end of Riverlye.
… In a resting room in a training area. Imán, Gesán, Waleks, and the rest of the circle were relaxing and chatting after resting for a bit. They would resume training to get their heads off things and not dillydally too much.
However, as some things seemed to happen, they looked at each other with frowning expressions. That was until the door opened to Phesx, whose body was bloodied and half-naked. They were wide-eyed, no doubt.
“What are you doing?” Asked Waleks’s first girlfriend. The other medics and communication Artistas around the room looked at Phesx with dreadful comprehension. Phesx didn’t talk, though. With his pistol on his right thigh, Phesx stepped further in. Waleks cried out, widening his eyes, “Careful, noo!”
Phesx’s right arm swoop into the air. Each in between of his fingers, further supported with the bion arm, threw 3 small, thin flying daggers each. The Artistas tried to run, but after so many missions with Phesx, whereas those who had to be replaced weren’t too acclimatized with the circle, not one of them could escape Phesx, who knew them better than they thought.
All those who weren’t part of the circle’s most powerful Artistas died, including Waleks’s first girlfriend. Phesx barely glanced at a few of them once before striding inside with strength. His right hand flashed, grabbing his pistol and aiming at Waleks and the others as the latter shouted with tears streaming down his eyes. “PHESX! How dare you! AAAAARRGGH!”
“Phesx, stop this right at this moment! Now!” Imán shouted after Waleks, who ran towards Phesx with hatred and loathing him to the bones. Neither Phesx nor Waleks listened to Imán. Waleks ran, while Phesx aimed. Waleks wasn’t as proficient in speed and nimbleness as others and was one of the ‘worst’ in their circle. While Phesx was on par with Pheli and Teon, supposedly. There was no comparison.
Bang bang! Phesx only needed 2 unseemly shots to blow Waleks’s sternum before firing his collarbone off. Each had a sizeable, bloody hole. Waleks only fell backwards when his collarbone was shot. His eyes dulled as he landed on his back, flat on the floor.
Gesán stood away from the bench he was sitting on. When his feet landed on the side, and he started rising his hands, with Imán looking from the side, slowly standing up, Phesx fired twice again. This time, Gesán’s stomach was shot first, followed by another to the bridge of his nose.
Immediately after, with his body barely moving from the recoil, Phesx aimed his pistol to Imán, who shook his head with both hands up. From everyone, he was the only one who didn’t seem scared to face Phesx, and even seemed prepared, or at least expected it.
“Phesx-” Imán would of course know what he thought, but unfortunately for Imán, he wasn’t in need of answers. Only raging, pure revenge would quench the insatiable thirst. Thus, Phesx fired thrice, 3 shots were all he needed to end Imán.
However, Imán still dashed to the left. Only the last shot following Imán’s body hit him squarely in the neck, bleeding him out as his head swayed on the ground, gradually turning limp.
Phesx watched when Imán stumbled against the wall with his brains on it, which then rapidly slid down. He didn’t look at everyone’s bodies again before leaving. His rifle hung from his right shoulder, not wanting it taken away from him during battle without being able to do anything with his useless left arm.
For a time, the raging of a fox reverberated across Riverlye HQ. Wherever Phesx appeared, Artistas would drop to the ground in their deaths. Even those who realized something was happening were shot fast and nicely killed before they could utter a word or empty a magazine on him.
Phesx was most understandably unstoppable and complicated. Everything he saw, any living being he saw moving became his prey, and he was far from finishing. Phesx only saw a couple dozen of Instructors, not many more.
When he arrived at an important area, the security post in the HQ, Phesx opened it with his rifle aiming ahead before moving inside. He had taken a bit of armor to cover his bleeding torso and some new shoes. However, as Phesx went in, he saw only 1 person standing, and dozens of others dead.
Layo stood with her back facing him until he looked back above the entrance. The sensor was broken, and the people here were all struck from behind by a cutting edge firearm that was now beside Layo, leaning against the panel desktops.
Phesx aimed at her. Layo, now looking at him, bled from her tummy and shoulders. He couldn’t tell from the bullets around her chest how many gunshots she was shot, but her neck also had a few small gunshot wounds bleeding out, albeit stopped and with dried blood streams.
“Phesx-” Layo spoke as the screens behind her showed the camera angles of many things, including his murderous road. However, Phesx aimed at her left knee and pulled the trigger. Bang.
“Ah!” Layo cringed from the pain as her thigh bled. Phesx changed his aim at the very last moment. Nobody knew why, not even the current Phesx himself. Layo held her thigh but didn’t grab her close-by weapon. It was a DLM model, the one the military forces in the Moonblue supercontinent use.
Phesx walked to her with weight on his shoulders, somewhat hurried. Layo stood near the panels, leaning on the desktops for support. Phesx looked at her from up close and casually asked, looking straight into her eyes. “What the hell have you all done?”
“There’s no time to explain,” Layo lowered her head in shame. She forced herself to look up, staring at him with pained eyes. “I have done… what I should for you and Pheli with my past actions. This is what I can do, so please just let me do this before killing me… before I die.”
Layo turned around and showed him the images of various Artistas and Instructors in the HQ currently. Some of them were Instructors Cala, Mel, José, and Bael. Whereas the Head, who was also shown by a camera in his study that definitely shouldn’t be there, showed he was none the wiser.
“Is this Emer’s doing?” Phesx asked, walking to her side. Layo didn’t say anything, but she tacitly responded with her silence. Then, Phesx looked at her and asked, keeping his eyes looked on her. “Why did you do that? Not this, I mean throw me and Pheli to death’s arms?”
“You’re not like this, you couldn’t have been compelled to do this neither. What was it?!” Phesx got a little loud. Layo turned to look at him, appearing afraid. She couldn’t look him in the eyes, and not just because of guilt, Phesx noted. Layo spoke, shaking her head and holding her abdomen with a bloodied hand. “It doesn’t… matter. Not now. What matters now is I can do something to help you… b- both. That’s what Emer promised me. Now take it and go… They won’t take long to decipher everything you left them… Enact your stuff.”
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“…” Phesx looked at Layo. She started crying when mentioning them both, and continued to sob a little. He blurted, “And you?”
“I’ll aid from here. They’re trying to escape, or come after you. They aren’t deaf, and some already noticed things before you arrived. His help can only do so much, I believe. I won’t survive anyway.” Layo looked at the room’s walls after speaking, with thin, transparent tape and some ‘wrapped gifts’ with dark green leaves attached onto them.
“I’ve prepared medicine for you in case you need it,” Layo told him, nodding towards a few open, large crates with plastic on top of them acting as lids below some desks. There were green, yellow, and red syringes, all bulkier and slightly longer syringes than regular ones.
But there was another with small, white boxes with medicine descriptions on them. Layo added, “Those are to stop the bleeding. But it might hurt a lot, and you’re ‘allergic’ to them, so grab as many re-”
“First the yellow ones and then the other syringes, right?” Phesx said, moving to the crates before plunging his only, right hand through the plastic. Layo nodded, slightly sweating. “Yes, or they’ll either stop the yellow from spreading or counter it… Are you going, now?”
“Mhm,” Phesx said. Suddenly, he grabbed dozens of yellow syringes and injected them on his sides, one after the other. Layo looked with terrified eyes. Not only was he doing such stupidity, he was also ignoring the green or red ones. She couldn’t help blurting out, “Stop that…”
“Grrr…” Phesx grunted with a terrible mood before grabbing the other small medicine boxes. He took bottles out of them, with tiny syringes packed at the side, and injected himself time and again with them all over his wounds, directly. Phesx simply did not care.
All Layo could do was watch, and when he was done, he walked to her, standing right in front. Layo looked at his eyes without as much uncertainty as before. Her eyes were lost on his.
Phesx said nothing and grabbed the rifle on her left, still leaning on the panel desktops. He strapped it around his right shoulder before freeing his hand. When he straightened his back, he asked Layo, holding her head left side over her hair, “Where’s Teon?”
“No, you-” Layo’s eyes widened. She shook her head, wanting to break off from his hand, but he was barely holding her with any grip. Layo softly sighed, kept looking into his eyes, and decided at last. “Pheli threw her to a mission in Proteros. She should complete it in 1 month or so, but she’ll know… She’s smart. Teon won’t return here… but she will want to kill you.”
“Hmff,” Phesx blew through his nostrils, and what seemed tiny hints of grins hooked at the corners of his mouth. Layo’s eyes regained life and vigor as she touched his chest to grab his attention. Phesx looked down. Layo blinked before nodding, softly smiling with gently narrowed eyes. He expressed, “That’s something to be expected of her… It’s good Pheli sent her out.”
Phesx turned around and walked away, with Layo’s hand weakly suspending in the air before falling. She felt pained everywhere, and Phesx’s shot in her thigh didn’t help. But… she still had to ask. “Phesx, are you okay? Your eyes ha-”
“I don’t… like that…” Phesx stopped. His body trembled so easily noticeable and even more as he turned his head back. His voice was broken and guttural, mirroring his state of mind as he heard that word, ‘Phesx’, his name, yet again. But his voice became soft, truly soft, and remained broken, not just semi-broken, as it sounded again. “Name.”
“Fox it is, then,” Layo breathed in and out hard. His eyes were on her. When Phesx turned his head to the front, he nodded before walking away. Layo looked at his departing figure, walking to grab a seat before focusing on the screens. As for the explosives on the walls, there was still time in this life.
… Phesx walked to Cala’s study room. He was there, waiting. When Phesx showed himself, Cala looked at him. They were man to man with no weapons or bions, except for the bion arm. Phesx stepped once into the study room. Cala whispered, but suddenly attacked afterwards. “Phesx, there’s still time to amend this-”
Cala lifted his right arm, punching towards Phesx, already preparing the next punch behind his left side. Phesx also punched out with his right hand, but before both fists met each other, Phesx stopped and jolted his body to the left. His medium pistol jumped into the air, which his right hand caught before throwing his body to the ground.
Cala didn’t move too slow. It was Phesx that was fast, and drugged. So much he felt pain, so much that it made him a little mad. Maybe madder than he’s already been.
Bang! Phesx fired at Cala’s right hand. But it wasn’t just directed to break off that hand, Phesx aimed it so it would hit Cala’s left punch after piercing through the former. Cala was just squeezing his face in pain, when Phesx pushed Cala against the wall and aimed at his stomach. Phesx pulled the trigger again, blowing Cala’s intestines.
Immediately after, with Cala falling on the floor, looking at Phesx like he killed his family, Phesx punched his abdomen. Then, he put all force into his elbow before uppercut punching Cala under his chin. Phesx’s bion arm crushed Cala’s top of his head against the walls. His fingers even grabbed onto something to break whatever was left when pulling his hand out.
“You’re only doing your job, no?” Phesx used Cala’s clothes to rip a piece off to clean his hands with. Looking at the dead Cala, Phesx said nothing more and departed.
… Phesx walked into Mel’s study. This one was a little larger, and it had several walls, scarcely similar to a labyrinth. He entered casually, with the heavy rifle held high and his pistol hanging from his neck.
Phesx lowered his presence as he searched for Mel. Phesx passed by 2 thin walls as he lowered his stance even more while continuing searching until he was almost crouching. After another few walls, Phesx heard a breathing sound and movement from his left, in a hallway he hadn’t crossed yet.
Bang bang bang bang! Phesx immediately aimed and fired the rifle, but Mel showed up to his front from other thin walls with her back showing a clear gunshot that grazed her skin. She was just turning around when Phesx faced her, exposing a trail of striking red dropping from her back.
“Oh no, you won’t!” Mel furrowed her eyebrows as she took a whip out and coiled it around Phesx’s right arm, holding most of the rifle. Phesx let go of it and went for his medium pistol. Mel’s eyes contents constricted. She let go of the DLM and her whip before taking a plethora of needles from her shirt rear pockets.
She threw them to Phesx while dashing forth, lowering her body until she was at her thigh-height, hoping to get close enough to be safe from those powerful firearms. However…
Bang! Phesx ignored the needles, using his left arm like a shield, Phesx ignored Mel’s small pistol as he was shot in the left chest, above and to the side where his heart was. On the other hand, Phesx aimed his medium pistol to her upper back. Firing as he was stabbed and shot.
Thud. Mel’s body dropped dead on the floor. Her vertebral column was visible and looked broken, with half a portion of its volume pulverized, with bone bits like shrapnel flying sideways, killing her almost instantly.
“Mmmggh…” Phesx groaned before grabbing the needles from his left shoulder with his bion exoskeletal arm. He walked to the corpse and lifted her face by the scalp, dropping the needles around her head. Mel’s eyes were bloated, reddened, and even somewhat purplish, while her tongue puffed up and stuck out of her mouth, bitten with blood coating her whole mouth. Her needles' venom in full capacity.
Phesx let her face hit the ground before stabbing the back of her head with the needles. Once he was done with his work, he walked out and let the entrance open, shooting its panel above with the DLM. His next target was José and Bael…
José didn’t even try anything. He simply sat on his study room with his back against Phesx. Phesx came close until standing right behind José before shooting him in the back of the head. Then, he fired again and again until José’s body became a group of bloody circles with gore on the floor.
Bael, on the other hand, fought Phesx while sweating and fearful of all the crushing blows he could receive. Phesx didn’t want to fight melee, but Bael wouldn’t let him draw the distance. Bael hit Phesx a few times in other places apart from his arm, which was well protected.
In the end, he could only hurt Phesx so little before falling to exhaustion, having gone all-out. Phesx was the same, or his poor, weakened body would’ve stopped moving even if the sensation of pain left him, which didn’t. But he had Emer’s training.
The white boxes’ syringes countered the venom, but his body was still in pain. Bael’s fight caused him more pain, but it was just what he needed. The more pain Phesx Caolia felt, the more he felt he was becoming a lunatic. The better it felt to kill and fight on and on.
As Phesx made his way to the Head’s study, he continued killing many Artistas. Most of the Instructors were either dead or locked still, which Phesx would visit as much as he could before meeting with the Head.
When the time came, Phesx stopped before the entrance outside and yelled, “Gerardo, Fox is here to claim his reward!”
“… Phesx?” The entrance opened. A confused Head opened the entrance at once before walking around his desk. Phesx stepped in, showing the rifle he got from Layo, and his medium pistol. The latter held by his hand.
“You- pfbawhaha, what? How- how did you survive? Hahaha!” The Head laughed it off, seemingly containing his chuckles at times. Phesx tilted his head and entered. The Head continued laughing as he prepared to fight, looking at Phesx with a hot gaze.
“Might as well. Guess you will be worthwhile after all. Listen to me, Phesx. Surrender to me and no harm will come to you. Or else, I’ll make you kneel with broken legs and arms. It’s not an enjoyable experience, ah, but they never do.” The Head said. Phesx blinked, drooping his right shoulder but keeping his head in a ‘regular’ position otherwise.
“Not necessary,” Phesx stepped forth with his left foot before saying. The Head narrowed his eyes before striding towards him. Phesx lifted his pistol and fired, but Gerardo dashed forth and to the right. The Head impulsed himself towards Phesx, throwing his palms out towards his face.
But Phesx half-knelt, dropped his pistol far away, and swung his rifle from up to below, hitting the Head in the right shoulder before ruthlessly shooting several times as he fell on his feet. The rifle went into its submachine gun mode, breaking the Head’s shoulder after a brief spray.
Phesx thrashed the damaged rifle away and grabbed the Head. He began hitting him after slamming him into the wall, slightly cracking the resilient, fortified walls even from the inside. But the Head wasn’t a useless Artista, or even Instructor. He punched back, making blood burst from the same wounds he targeted as Phesx beat him with the bion arm.
Punch- PUNCH, punch punch, PUNCH- PUNCH PUNCH…!
Neither side bothered to block or strangle the other, it was all-out against each other.
Suddenly, the Head’s eyes constricted as his ears detected something else, something that came at the worst moment just as he was preparing to get another punch on the face by Phesx. He hurriedly jolted his head, but that was just what Phesx wanted.
From inside Phesx’s wrist, a blade shot out, a hidden comet positioned below his elbow, piercing through until its blade came out of his wrist and into the Head’s neck. Phesx just slightly changed his aim. When the Head felt the irreversible damage as Phesx grounded his comet’s blade in and out, his eyes began losing life as they lost spirit and became dull little by little.
…