The Battle For Blogland Chapter 8: Detonate

I finally made it of a better quality, so here it is!

Theme: "Tired" by Stone Sour
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwOzPaYBhqQ

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8

DETONATE

Instinctively, a circle was formed by us, everyone already drawing weapons and facing the Hollow Men. There was not a single gap between our enemies, and they were everywhere, in a perfect round of the city, walking their slow, lumbering walk towards us. There were ten of us. There were an uncountable number of them.

The odds weren’t exactly in our favour…

Sparky had her makhaira. Nixion had his machete. Flame had a billowing fireball in his hand. Lynxia and Lavender had their loaded bows poised. Star had her sword raised and Johanna had her gun out. Ivy had summoned shadows to her side. Gabriel had tapped two sigils on his arms and had assumed a fighting position, his body glowing slightly. I had both my knives out.

And the Hollow Men drew closer, incredibly slowly. It was almost painful, having to wait for them to draw in. We could have run straight forwards and met them earlier, but the end result would have been the same. There were too many backed up behind the front lines and by the time we hacked our way through the first few rows of Hollow Men, the ones approaching from the opposite direction would have reached us. So they dragged onwards, coming closer. And closer…and closer.

And then, finally, they were in range, and each of us struck at once. Shadows and blades sliced through the air, bullets flew in every direction, balls of flame buried themselves into the crowd, and Hollow Men fell to the ground. Their papery skin gave way to the attacks and at once the putrid gasses rose into the air. We were beginning to suffocate again after a short ten or so seconds. Our eyes begun to water as our throats started to clog up with the gas and soon it was less a challenge of trying to fend off the endless army of Hollow Men but more a challenge of trying to find clean air through the mass of gas released.

The first row or so of the incoming Hollow Men were torn apart by our vicious attacks, but we couldn’t hold them off at the same distance forever. It was inevitable that they would draw closer and they did so with speed. During the beginning attacks, us with melee weapons had left the bulk of the group and ventured towards the Hollow Men while the others struck from the safety of the circle previously formed. But as the enemies drew closer, we were forced backwards again, and soon we were all battling from the circle.

Quickly, the flying shadow knives and soaring fireballs became less open. Instead, Ivy sent pulsing blades of darkness through the heads of nearby Hollow Man and Flame pushed fireballs into his enemies from arm’s length.  But the Hollow Men attacked ruthlessly, having no care for their own personal safety which made their skills as annoying as they were intimidating. Their heavy fists collided with our temples and stomachs and then torn apart by our attacks as quickly as it had happened.

All of our efforts seemed to be futile, though, for the Hollow Men did indeed seem to be close to limitless. They just kept coming and coming, no matter how fast or how many we destroyed them. If one Hollow Man fell, two came to take its place. They were a mindless horde, bent on taking our lives, pouring from the depths of who knew where. It didn’t help that the more enemies we obliterated, the more gas sunk into the air.

The Hollow Men that met the wrath of Sparky’s electricity became covered in the stuff and quickly melted under the tension. Her makhaira cut down as many as she could in a single swipe. Nixion forced his machete deep into the skin of the Hollow Men, becoming increasingly annoyed that there were no bones to break inside them. I sunk my knives into the open provocations of the things and staggered back as jets of gas seeped out of the wounds. Arrows soared from the two bows that belonged to Lavender and Lynxia. Star’s sword fell again and again, taking out multiple Hollow Men at once. Flame changed his tactic and went for long streams of fire that propelled themselves into the creatures. Different forms of shadow techniques billowed towards them at Ivy’s command while she seemed to struggle with the decision of whether or not she was enjoying killing things that did not even feel pain. Johanna’s bullets tore through the skin of the Hollow Men and bursts of energy slammed into them as Gabriel tapped various symbols on his body.

But still they came, and we were all now gasping for breath, making our attacks become weaker under the lack of oxygen. Time lost meaning quickly, I still don’t know how long we were there, spinning attacks at the Hollow Men. Before finally, someone shouted,

“We have to move!” it could have been anyone. My head was throbbing from trying not to breathe. No one made any confirmations, but we all quickly went for different directions, hacking away at the Hollow Men in different paths. More gas was released into the air, but as we each took out more Hollow Men to move away from the circle of defence he had once had, the further away we moved from the enormous cloud of putridity we had created. It hung over the scene like a looming cloud, though not nearly as dense as the ones still high in the sky above. Pitch black, still spitting rain down on us.

As we each moved away from the circle, it was a few minutes before we realised that we seemed to have separated ourselves from everyone else. There were probably three or so groups, each heading in different directions. With me was Nixion and Star. Sparky, Lavender, Lynxia, Flame, Ivy and Gab were elsewhere, and I couldn’t see any of them, for we were all distanced by a sea of Hollow Men, still attacking us.

“Let’s just get out of the city!” roared Nixion, socking a Hollow Man in the head and finishing it off with a vicious swing of his machete.

“Okay, go!” Ink shouted, and we pressed, on, moving away from the old circle and towards what we could see as the end of the battle-worn city.

Everything was mostly a blur. Everything was a huge chaotic explosion of images that barely even registered to me. I could see the masses of papery things that was the Hollow Men. I could see the two angry figures around me, Nixion and Star. I could see the grey things that were the buildings. I could feel the rain beating down on me, and the knives in my hands. I could smell the gas, and behind that the oxygen. But it was still a blur. Everything was so confusing, and time still had no meaning. I have no idea how long we three attacked our way towards the end of the city, but we kept at it. I was sure the other two were as tired as I was. None of us gave way, though. The scene was dark, the storm clouds adding to the horror kind of effect.

And then Nixion was facing me, shouting, looking around, glaring. It took me a second to comprehend what he was saying.

“Where’s Star?” he shouted, taking out Hollow Men almost absent-mindedly. I whirled around, accidently taking off the head of a Hollow Man as I did so, searching for the girl that was no longer with us.

We each cursed at the same time and backed up against each other, searching and still attacking. The Hollow Men rushed towards us, the endless swarm, and we quickly formed another deadlock of futile cutting and suffocation. We couldn’t see Star any more than we could see any of the others. For all we knew, they could be out of the city, they could be fighting for their lives, or they could be dead. At least the others were most likely still in groups, but as far as we knew, Star was on her own.

“What way did she go?” I asked Nixion, half choking on gas as sent a Hollow Man flying backwards with a push at the air.

“No idea!” he yelled back, sending his enemy to the ground as he withdrew his machete from its chest.

We stood there for a few minutes more, cutting down as many Hollow Men as we could, but again, a doubled amount replaced any that fell and we were running out of oxygen again. We still couldn’t see Star.

“We have to go now!” yelled Nixion again, struggling to breathe. I felt cold inside, but I knew he was right.

“Fine,” I yelled to him, moving away. “Move!”

We tore away from the place at once and turned to move on in the direction we had been travelling in. Nixion hacked down a few more Hollow Men from behind and I snapped my palm to the ones in front of us. A fair amount of the paper-skinned creatures shot backwards, clearing a deformed sort of pathway presented itself to us.

“Go!” Nixion growled, and we bolted forwards, ignoring the dozens of Hollow Men struggling to get up. The pathway quickly ran out and we ran head on into the next wave of enemies, our blades falling onto them again. We didn’t stop this time. We hacked down the Hollow Men in front of us and kept stepping forwards, always moving, always making for the end of the city where ocean of Hollow Men ended. The gas and skin of the Hollow Men were left for the rain to batter as we moved on, our attacks aggressive and strikes powerful, fuelled by the threat of loss.

My hair, drenched by the rain, fell over my eyes and the rest of my face as I struck the Hollow Men, but I didn’t stop to brush it away. There wasn’t time for that now. My breathing was heavy and I could hear Nixion’s similar inhales beside me. The rain fell alongside the creatures and the buildings stood awkwardly in the middle of the swarm of Hollow Men. We sliced, we stabbed, we cut, we attacked with everything. Finally, the end of the city begun to draw nearer. There were Hollow Men all around us still, behind us and to either side, but we didn’t focus on them, only on what was right in front of us, and what was right in front of us was a rapidly decreasing amount of Hollow Men. We were tired, injured and bleeding, but Nixion and I simply doubled our efforts. Only a few waves of them left, and then finally we burst from the battle, running from the city, the sounds of the footsteps and battle left behind.

We ran for a bit, making sure to put distance between ourselves and the city, but stopped fairly quickly. We were exhausted, we were bruised. Breathing heavily, we stopped and turned to see if there was anything that had followed us. Four Hollow Men had pursued out of the city, but the others seemed to have lost interest in us and had begun marching towards the centre of the city.

The four Hollow Men approaching us were dealt with quickly and then Nixion and I fell to the ground, panting, getting our breath back. We saw all the Hollow Men marching towards the centre of it, stepping over the skin of their fallen allies and through the gas that once powered them.

From there, we could see most of the city, and all the Hollow Men from around it were all drawing into the centre as well. We each took a moment to catch our breath and to examine injuries, but then we got back up again and looked around for the others. We couldn’t see anyone in the city anymore, but that was very possibly because the Hollow Men were still obscuring them from view. Instead, we diverted our examinations to the outskirts of the city, and at once we saw a group of four people.

Wasting no time, Nixion and I raced for them, replacing our weapons in our holders. Sparky, Ivy, Lavender and Gabriel saw us coming and waited. They weren’t as battered as we were, but that was probably because there was four of them. They were still injured though, still bleeding.

“Where are the others?” Nixion asked at once.

“No idea,” replied Lav. She was holding her side. “We were hoping they’d be with you…”

Nixion broke away from the group and Gabriel followed him, hurrying around to get a better look at the other parts of the near-city. Gab called back to us a moment later.

“They’re over there!” he said, and we ran towards them. Flame, Lynxia and Johanna stood around the side of the city, looking at the retreating Hollow Men with sunken faces. Star was not with them…

“Oh good,” Flame mumbled numbly when he saw us approaching. “We’re all still alive.”

“What about Ink?” asked Sparky suddenly.

“Uh…” I muttered. “She was with us.”

“We got separated,” added Nix.

At once, everyone turned to the city. The footsteps of the Hollow Men rung out with thundering volume, each step in exact sync with one another. They were all still marching for the very centre of the city.

“Damn it…” Lynxia cursed.

“Well what are we doing then?” asked Lavender sounding slightly hysterical. No one answered. “We can’t just leave her there!”

“We could empty everything we had on them,” Flame sighed. “There’d still be most of them left afterwards.”

Lavender did not speak after that. I think she wanted to, but words evidently did not come to her aid. A few people choked.

We stood there for who knows how long, letting the rain continue to fall on us, watching the city and the Hollow Men. Time was lost again in the event, and no one spoke at all. The huge explosion marked the moment when we all begun to hope again. The flame leapt into the air and a few dozen Hollow Men were reduced to ash. Everyone jumped as the shot rang through the air but no one made a sound. And then a second one went off, all the way over the other side of the city. Again, the flame shot up into the air and another bang made us back away slightly.

“She must have worked out how to set off the explosions in the buildings!” said Johanna excitedly as a third explosion went off.

From there, though, the number of detonations quickly begun to escalate. A fourth, a fifth, a sixth. The explosions kept coming and soon most of the city was littered with huge balls of flame, covering ever larger areas. With each one, a new section of Hollow Men were burnt to ashes and obliterated. We backed even further away from the city as an explosion closer to us erupted, but still they went off. Soon the sky was burning with an orange glow from the slowly dying city from below. And then, when most of the city was completely covered in different, half joint explosions, they stopped completely.

They were allowed to die down slowly, the few remaining armies of the Hollow Men continuing towards the centre. The scene all of a sudden became eerily quiet except for the march of the remaining Hollow Men. I exhaled, realising I had been holding my breath for the past few minute or so.

Everything stopped. None of us moved.

And then the ground erupted, the entire city becoming enveloped in an enormous explosion. Energy surged through the air and every single thing in the city, Hollow Men, buildings and remnants of any other thing that may have once been there, went up in flames and disintegrated to blackened ash.

There were cries of shock from some people and simply widened eyes from others. The heat rushed over us. The ground around us rumbled from the force of the explosion, and then the wind reached us. The power of the wind was so great that it blew us off our feet several metres back.

Most of us staggered back up at once and the gut-wrenching realisation of what had actually just happened hit us.

The sky was now ablaze with an orange flame.

Even the black clouds above were glowing with the heat.

The explosion burned over the city for a long time after it had eaten it up.

But slowly, very slowly, it died down.

The sky resumed its dull grey colour. The clouds returned to black.

The soft patter of the rain became audible again. The silence descended on us.

We stood there, silent, shocked, stinking of the gas of the Hollow Men. Uncomprehending.

Because Star Inkbright was dead.

And she had saved us. 




Sorry Ink!