Valkyrie's Lament

Gate #6 - Day 2 (Part V)

Four large sumo-looking cats came storming towards Silver. Their fat flopped in a jiggling motion, and their heavy steps caused the ground to tremble.

Brianna's face contorted into weird shapes as she saw the obese cats. “You gotta be kidding me!” Her gaze widened in horror at the thought of being swallowed up in that jiggling fat.

On the other hand, Sliver couldn’t help but think the fat cats looked cute. It reminded her for a moment of those fat lazy cats that one would see sitting on the windowside lazing around, but that thought was quickly doused by Sam’s voice that spoke close to her head.

“Weird....” Sam frowned at the obese cats. He slightly balled up his hand, forming a small condense wind in his palm. “I say we play some bowling?” With a mischievous grin he threw the wind ball in his hands like a pro baseball player. Upon impact, the ball let out a torrent of air, causing a deep indentation in the fat cat’s stomach, making him belch out in pain.

With bulging muscles, the fat cat coughed as he leaned forward to brace himself so that he wouldn’t fall backwards. Suddenly, the wind around the cat dispersed as hot steam erupted out from the cat’s body, making the air heavy.

Sam’s lips twitched at the sight of what the fat cat did. He stared in disbelief that the fat cat didn’t kneel over dead. The fat cat stumbled, catching himself. He then hacked up bile, wiping his hand against his lips. A glimmer of hatred shot across the fat cat’s eyes as a snarl erupted on his lips.

Brianna started with an open mouth from shock that the huge cat could withstand the sheer power of wind that would even knock back a car. “You completely lost this one.” She whispered under her breath.

“Shut up.” Sam gave an annoyed snarl as he gritted his teeth. He started to form three torrents of air the size of a quarter around his hands. Silver could tell that the force of air condensed inside the balls of air was strong as a small dust tornado.

Without thinking twice, Sam whipped his hand and shot the ball of air forward. The first one stalled the bumbling fat cat, and the second tipped the fat cat backwards. Then Sam ran forward with his hands clenched tightly into a fist. Jumping forward, combining a punch with the condensed air energy ball in his hands, he completely made the fat cat in an upside down L-shape as he dominated the enemy with one shot.

The fat cat went flying backwards into the second fat cat that was right behind it. With a crash, the walls were broken through as their large bodies created a hole. Sam wiped off his hands on his shirt and blew on it as if he was blowing out fire.

“Now that’s more like it.” Sam grinned ear to ear. “A perfect ten.”

A smile erupted on Silver, when she heard the loud crash from Sam’s side. She couldn’t help but feel more at ease at having Sam and Brianna with her. They were strong and didn’t even need her help. On the other hand, on her side, two fumbling fat cats were bouncing around the small hallways as they ran side-by-side. For a moment there, Silver couldn’t help but think of them as two children fighting among each other, trying to get to Silver first. They were causing quite a ruckus by creating dents into the walls.

Silver rushed forward, striking with her fist. The first cat's body absorbed the blow. She didn’t quite want to kill the cute cats. However, not killing them was a lot more difficult to her than outright killing them. It was easy to use her wicked blade to kill her enemy with no remorse, but fighting against innocent creatures that were under other’s mind control made her blood curdle.

There were times when she would mercilessly kill monsters without a second thought, but to use another as one’s shield was not something that she herself would ever want to do. Whoever this ‘it’ player was, she was going to make them pay for using such cute cats.

“Come and get me!” Silver yelled. She punched harder as she bent her body into a hook. She pulled back and turned away from them. Running, she kicked off the wall and did a perfect roundhouse kick. Her foot smacked with pinpoint accuracy at the fat cat’s temple. The force knocked the cat’s brain back and forth, causing a small concussion.

With a heavy thud, the fat cat fell onto the ground completely knocked out. Silver landed perfectly on the ground with her silver hair fluttering backwards without a single injury to her body. She felt satisfied that her kick landed perfectly as well as not using a single ounce of her magical energy to bring down her enemies.

The second fat cat, nimbly moved out of harm's way and came bulldozing towards her. Silver moved a second too late, and was grabbed from behind.

Alarmed, Silver felt her arms and chest, being crushed by the strong weight. He tightened his arm, making it very difficult to breathe. She struggled, but the fat cat’s arm didn’t let her go.

“Silver!” Brianna called out when she turned around and saw that Silver was entrapped in the fat cat’s arm. “We’ve got to do something!” She was just about to dash forward when Sam stopped her.

“Don’t.”

“What? Why not?” Brianna was flustered at Sam’s sudden intrusion.

“I want to see what she can do.” Sam just stood there watching everything that was happening before them.

“Oh come on. You’ve already seen how strong she was when she literally iced a block of cats!” Brianna pulled from Sam’s grip, but Sam did not let her go. Instead, he held harder making it even more difficult for her to get free out of his grasp. “Let me go! We need to help her!”

“Calm down. She doesn’t need our help.”

“What are you talking about?! Even if she kicked ass a moment ago doesn’t mean she won’t need back up. Why are you trying to make this difficult for her?” Brianna was fuming at Sam’s total nonchalant reaction to the whole situation. It seems as if he didn’t care at all what would happen to Silver one way or another.

“Just watch. She got this.” Sam finally let go. Brianna brushed off Sam’s hand feeling frustrated at his reaction.

At that moment, Brianna's eyes became wide from shock. Sliver literally head butted the fat cat in the nose, causing it to reel back and untighten its hold. This gave Silver a chance to break apart the fat cat’s hold; she dropped down, viciously stomped on his feet as she used the wall to flip the cat over onto its head.

With a twist of her legs, she wrapped it around the cat’s neck, choking the fat cat in the process. She didn’t let go; even though the cat’s chubby arms were beating at Silver's body. Instead, she endured and tightened harder, becoming an immovable vice grip.

The pounding of the fat cat’s attack became less and less powerful, until finally the fat cat dropped to its knees. Silver waited until the fat cat fell completely down onto the ground unconscious. She then used her ice magic to create thick handcuffs that interlocked both the fat cat’s arms and even jumped off to do the same to the other one who was lying unconscious on the ground.

Brianna was staring at Silver with mouth agape. She knew that Silver was amazing, but to be the point where she didn’t even use her own magic to knock them out was shocking in itself. Even Sam's lips curled pleased at the outcome that Silver showed.

“What did I say?” Sam spoke with glee that he was right. He knew that Silver was definitely special in some way, and he was absolutely right. “I told you she would be fine.”

“I…” Brianna didn’t have any other words to retort back at Sam.

“Well, princess.” Sam walked over casually towards Silver. Even kicking one of the fat cats that was starting to awaken back to unconsciousness “When this game is over and done with. Fight me.”

“Hah?” Brianna's voice went up a couple octaves higher. “Are you nuts?” She couldn’t believe in what her brother was saying.

Sam brushed off Brianna’s words, ignoring her completely. He took a second to examine her for a moment, noticing more things about her that he didn’t expect. She was actually quite thin for someone who could create such force, and the only thought he had was that she must’ve been bed ridden to lose her muscle and she was purely going off on her skill. Still, the thought of the prospect of fighting someone possibly stronger or of equivalent power made him excited. “A clean fight with magic.”

“Weapons too?” Sliver asked, she tilted up her head towards Sam curious what he would say.

“No weapons. I like to fight bare fisted.”

“Why?” Silver curiously asked. “Isn’t fighting the enemy right now not good enough for you?” It wasn’t that Silver didn’t like fighting, it was just that her preference was to fight when necessary. Fighting all the time was something that she didn’t want to do for the rest of her life, it was only until she accomplished her goals would she lay down her sword, but that was a while away.

Silver could tell that Sam was a powerful opponent. She wasn’t sure if Jasper could go head to head against Sam who was a battle maniac. Even still, she wanted to know how much Jasper could hold up against someone who was possibly equal or higher level than her.

“Hardly.” Sam scoffed at the idea that these cats were even a challenge. “Don’t you think so? It just doesn’t get my blood pumping. Plus, isn’t this game supposed to put our lives on the line to see who's stronger? I thought that was the whole premise of this game.”

“Well yes and no, but it all depends on how you see it.”

“Either way, except for that skeletal dragon that we had a run in with, I haven’t had a decent fight where I can test out my strength.” Sam started with disdain at the game.

“Was the giant rat monster not good enough?” Silver asked, she got the feeling that it was still not enough for him. She wondered how far Sam needed to push himself to be at ease at the thought of fighting.

“What monster?” Sam asked as if he had forgotten about everything that he went through.

“The giant rat.”

“Oh, that.” Sam stated in such a way that killing it was way too easy. “That was a complete let down. Though you on the other hand...” Sam smirked, for a moment there Silver felt a shiver. “You're a whole different beast in itself.”

“Why me? Why not Jasper?” Silver waited for his answer. She wanted to know how he thought about fighting someone else.

“Jasper?” Sam asked as if he was hearing the name for the first time. “That kid?”

Silver nodded.

Sam thought it over for a moment thinking about what she said. “I don’t mind at all. Actually, I wanted to see if he is even worth my time.”

“Great then.” Silver replied on cue with his words. “Fight Jasper first and if you beat him then you come find me.”

“Fine.” Sam shrugged, not really bothered by the thought of fighting Jasper first. “That easily kills two birds with one stone anyways.” Sam was dripping with happiness at the thought of fighting someone who he deemed worth his time.

“Why did you agree?” Brianna's voice was filled with concern at Sliver. She was hoping that Silver would say no and let this slide by without as many incidents. “Isn’t it just a better idea to just live a peaceful life?”

“Yes, but eventually Sam will continually bother me now. It’s better to get this over and done with as soon as possible.”

“Oh.” Brianna slowly worded, still not understanding why they have to go through this ordeal. “Still, I think it’s just stupid.”

“It doesn’t seem like it to him though.” Silver pointed at Sam who was pumping his fist in joy.

“Yea, that’s the problem.” Brianna sighed.

Silver understood siblings, she too had a hard time persuading her sister, making her understand Brianna’s predicament. Someone like Sam was definitely hard to control or even give advice too when they are so hardheaded. “We should split up”

“I was just thinking the same thing. Let’s get this over with, so I can beat the crap out of Jasper, so I can fight you.” Sam hastily picks the side he’ll go towards. “We’ll meet back here later.”

“That’s fine by me.”

Sam and Brianna went together from the opposite hallway from Silver. Silver didn’t mind splitting up into two groups. It wasn’t that she was self confident that she would be okay, she knew that she didn’t have the patience to watch over Brianna who seemed to be overcome with worry every time Sam went on his own rampage.

She needed someone who could watch her back, not someone who was always worried. With that being said, breaking apart, they continued down the hallway. From the looks of it, Silver could tell that the building was more of a square and from her memory, she knew that the way she was going was possibly the same room where the ‘it’ player stayed.

Scanning the numbers on the door, she was getting closer. The number from her guess was room 3D. She stopped exactly in front of the door, her hands reaching towards it ready to turn the knob.

Suddenly she stopped, her intuition telling her that this was a bad idea. She quickly pressed herself against the wall next to the door, waiting for anyone to come busting out. With slow hands, she reached up towards the door knob and slowly turned the knob.

She could feel her hands slightly getting sweaty, but even still she did not back down. With a twist of her hands, she opened the door to the door that was unlocked.

Bang!

The door was suddenly burst open by some strange force of energy.

Zap!

Crackle!

Crackle!

Pop!

Zzzzzzzzt!

An electrical energy shot out from the door, causing the door to shatter into millions pieces. Luckily her hands let go before she completely got zapped by the high intensity electricity.

“She’s here.” A very familiar voice called out in disappointment. “I told you she would come back to fight.”

Sliver immediately realized who the voice was.

“Jasper?” Her voice was soft. She was shocked that such an outcome happened.

Peering into the side of the door, she saw Jasper sitting on the edge of the window looking towards her nonchalantly. What shocked her next was that his vest was also red with a bunny ear on his head. If she wasn’t in this predicament, she would’ve thought he looked adorable, but right now the person next to him was a redhead beautiful lady with perfect curves.

Did he get charmed? Silver thought for a moment confused, but looking at his disposition she got the feeling that he didn’t.

“So it’s true. She did come back.” The lady in red smiled a devious smile. “You actually sold out your friend.”

“She’s not my friend.” Jasper chuckled, twirling a piece of white flower in his hands. “From the looks of it they should be two more here on this level.”

“Sweet. That’s exactly the number that we need. What was it three in total right?”

“Yea, so I leave the fighting to you.with her.”

“Are you kidding me? You think I’ll let you just run scott free with that?” The scarlet lady grabbed the scruff Jasper’s neck and threw him on the floor in front of the door. He rolled and got on his feet, staring back at her with discontempt.

“What’s your problem? I gave you what you wanted.”

“True, but you can turn on me anytime. I want you to kill her.”

“Me? Seriously?” Jasper wiped his hands on his pants and stared at her funny. “Someone who's weak and small like me goes up against a pro like her? Are you kidding me?”

“Don’t bullshit me. You just destroyed that door to smithereens. Do you really think you can fool my eyes?”

Jasper sighed. “Fine.” He held up his hands in the air.

“Good, now be a good boy and fight.”

With a frown, he gave the lady in red a disdainful look. He then turned towards Silver with a gentle but mischievous smile. “You know you can come out Silver.” He gently called out towards her in a so angelic voice that she almost fell for it.

“I’m not so sure that would be a good idea.”

“Silver, I’m sorry I have to do this, but you see I need that patch on your arm to survive.” Jasper tapped his feet on the ground a bit impatiently. “I know you have helped me out so much, but there is a fine line when it comes to you and me.”

“I could see that.” Sliver frowned, wondering what Jasper had in mind. “Why did you team up with her?”

“Why not? Wouldn’t it make it a lot easier to catch our prey if we work together?” Jasper asked if what he said was common sense.

“You have a point.” Sliver glanced behind her seeing if she should stay and leave Jasper behind or to duke it out and knock him out.

It wasn’t until she felt a strange presence to her side, not even a second later a large heavy-set body stepped out from the shadows. A burly looking man that looked like a lumberjack came out in full swing with an ax.

Alarmed, she moved out of harm's way just in time before the ax embedded into the wall. With a grunt, the ax was deeply embedded into the wall, making it difficult for him to pull out. This gave Silver a chance as she kicked him near his knee, causing it to collapse forward.

She then jab him once in his face, temporarily stunning him. Following after she elbowed him perfectly in his jaw, causing him to fall forward. Luckily for the man, the hit was not strong enough to completely make him go unconscious.

He stumbled and got back on his feet, staring at her with hate. The man in front of her was twice as big and even physically stronger than her, but even still she did not back down. Her heart was pumping, and her adrenaline kicked in to the max.

These people wanted to kill her and steal her patch. There was no mercy in their gaze. Silver swung this time to knock him out with a powerful punch.. The man dodged her attack and even reflected it as if it was nothing. She took this chance to reorient her body and swung in a full circle. Her hands moved as quick and tight as possible aiming for his jugular. She did not miss and he shook from her dragon hand attack.

She then climbed and flipped the man with her body with her legs, causing them to both come crashing down onto the ground. Her legs tightened around his neck causing him to suffocate.

“What are you doing to stop her!” The red lady screamed pointing towards her in anger.

Once again, Silver felt the back of her neck tingle. She used her whole body to snap the neck of the man’s neck and rolled out from harm. A static electricity shot forth from where she was leaving behind a black scorch on the ground.

“Fuck! She killed him!” The lady was fuming, she pushed Jasper aside for his incompetence in his aim. Like a mad man, she rushed forward with a dagger in hand ready to kill Sliver in a matter of seconds.

Silver dodged out of danger from her wild swings. Instead she used the momentum of the red ladies attack and tripped her, making the lady come stumbling down onto her face. Her nose broke, leaving behind a trail of blood.

“Gah! My nose!” She wailed. She scrambled out of harm’s way. She was holding her nose with her hand with blood spilling out everywhere. “You damn bitch! I’m going to kill you!”

Silver sighed. The typical answer when someone is angry, she knows it in the back of her head.

The lady got up with her hands with a dagger and rushed towards her. A large force of magical energy swirled around her dagger as fire started to coat it thickly in red. She slashed sideways in the hope to gut Sliver. Silver jumped backwards from the hot burning flames.

She could feel the scalding hot fire barely missing her, but she did not stop. Instead, roundhouse kicked her in the face. A sickening crack could be heard as she snapped the second person’s neck in one go.

Silver patted her clothes, straightening out her disheveled hair. She let out a sigh of relief.

“So, you did a wonderful job of cleaning them up.” Jasper gave her a wonderful smile. “I did not doubt you for a second.”

“Jasper, did you have to shoot a lightning bolt at me?” Sliver gave him a quizzical look.

Jasper just shrugged his shoulders, looking innocent. “I have my reason.” He walked up towards her and tiptoed on his feet. “Well, I’ll be seeing you soon.”

Sliver was confused at the strange behavior that Jasper was giving. She knew that he had on a red vest with the bunny ear. He was an ‘it’ player.

Jasper walked past her without stopping. He quietly worded for only she could hear. “There are two more in this building. I suggest you leave now.”

Sliver did not move and all of a sudden she felt a tingle from the back of her neck. She whipped around and dove out of harm’s way.

Jasper turned around and sent out a shockwave of electric energy towards her, but missed a good foot away. He was not trying to harm her, but to warn her not to follow.

“Wait. Jasper!” Sliver called out towards him as she rolled up onto her knee rather than to her feet.

Jasper did not stop and kept on walking.

“Jasper!”

Another shockwave of energy shot out from his hands, stopping her from moving towards him at all. She was wondering why he wasn’t letting her come closer. Instead she let him do whatever he wanted, and waited for him to be the one to explain what was going on.

“We’ll be at the Cat Hotel tonight.” She called out towards him. “Come back alive!”

Jasper raised his arms telling her that he heard her. He disappeared into the elevator, leaving her completely behind.