Vengeance Chronicles 12

     Malice was watching the progress of the fighters, there were twenty teams of three people in the maze and five of the groups were already slaughtered by his rampaging pets. One group in particular had fallen to a personal favorite of his, he dubbed them Bone snatchers due to their voracious appetite for high amounts of calcium or bones to be more specific. Dark Malice pressed a button on the holoscreen to get a closer look on his precious little B.O.W's. It had a humanoid shape, but the similarities end there, it had a wiry body with a lanky and slender frame, it's yellow eyes with snake like irises and pupils showed off a cunning and animalistic intelligence. But the odd thing about this creature was that it looked like it was skinned alive, it's sinewy muscles were a dark red with black blood constantly dripping off of it's body. Part's of it's skeleton were also exposed, mostly it's skull, hand and feet, giving it the impression that someone had turned the skittery creature inside out. It's skeletal claws looked more like oversized steak knifes, it's face elongated and shaped like that of a lizard with rows of sharp gnashing teeth, it's tongue looked long and whip like with an unnatural shade of black.

     Malice noticed that another group of survivors were near the bone snatchers, but out of reach since the maze's imposing walls were blocking them from being seen and would at least take them forty minutes to reach that current spot, bone snatchers are smart and swift, but strength wasn't something they had an abundance of due to their fragile bodies.  Dark Malice fidgeted with the holoscreen and the wall separating the fighters from the bone snatchers slid down, for him, he thought that even vicious monsters should get a reward for their efforts. The beasts wasted no time in attacking the unwitting fighters, one started to thrust it's claws through a man's gut, spilling his blood all over the floor, once it stopped lacerating him, his intestine flowed out of his gaping wound and he slumped against the wall, his body no longer moving. Another one leaped on the back of a young women and bit into the back of her neck, the women barely had time to get it off before a loud crunching noise was heard and she dropped to the floor instantly, her neck was broken and her head was hanging at a peculiar angle like a dead fish. The last fighter was wrestling with a particularly bold bone snatcher that was snapping at his face, it's cruel jaws just mere inches from ripping his face apart. It suddenly started to make a gagging sound as it's neck extended, the man wonder what it was doing, those few moments of distraction was all that was needed for his fate to be sealed.

     It barfed a clear, viscous fluid all over the man's face, soon there was a putrid smell coming off as the man's face started to dissolve and burn, his screams of agony soon turned into pained gurgles as he started to choke from his own liquefying tissue. He fell back on the floor, his skull and neck bones were all that remained as it settled into the meaty liquid paste that was his flesh. The other's were doing the same with their recently slain victims, melting the flesh down until there was nothing left but bone. They started to break off pieces of bone and chew on them like a starved dog, easily crunching the bones before hastily swallowing them. Their mealtime however was soon rudely interrupted when Necro and Cyrus came rushing out of the corner, the masked man instinctively pulled out his sword and lopped the heads off of two of them with a swift motion. Cyrus fired small plasma bolts in the remaining two, they let out pained shrieks as the bolts of plasma burns through their exposed muscle, the smell of burning flesh soon permeating the air. Both the beheaded ones were still twitching as if their bodies couldn't comprehend that they were dead yet, a third one was completely blackened with bits of blue flames still lingering on it's charred body. The last one was barely alive, half of it's face was badly burned and it could barely move, let alone fight and yet it still persisted, crawling towards it's assailants with a clawed hand reaching out for them, hoping to perhaps deal a serious blow to the partners. Necro decided to put the miserable being out of it's misery and walked up casually to the weakened beast and brought his foot down on the creature, it let out a weak whine, he holds one of his kitanas in front of him "whatever you are now, may the taint that flows through your body be destroyed!" Necro brought the blade down and Cyrus watched as the blade cracked open it's skull, the bone snatcher's body seized up and then relaxed as life had left it's body, dark fluid leaking from it's wound and through it's eyes and mouth.

     Necro quickly pulled the blade out with ease and wiped the black fluid off of his sword on the wall. "Let us move, our pursuers are still on our trail and we want to put as much distance between us as we can" Necro said coldly. Cyrus merely nodded his head and followed the masked man, though they have been running for three hours at least and it was hard to tell if they were actually making any real progress. More than anything though, he was exhausted, all this running was making his face red, his body covered in sweat and his legs throbbing with exhaustion. His breath was getting more shallow with step and his head to beat hard on him, he needed water and soon, the thing that impressed Cyrus though was that Necro didn't show the smallest sign of fatigue, he couldn't help but feel more envious of him since he could do without the loss of stamina. Watching from his floating perch, Dark Malice was starting to wonder if he should end the game prematurely or not, if anything, more people were surviving then expected and at the rate this was going, more then one team was going to make it, which didn't put him in a pleasant mood. He stroked his cold metallic chin inquisitively for a few minutes until a rather cruel idea hit him, smiling sinisterly, he decided he better do his little rule changer now or never. He was getting giddy just thinking about it when he pressed on an icon labeled "Berserker"

     Necro was slowing down a little to give Cyrus some much needed relief, he figured it should only take a few more hours until they reach the center at this rate. "How much longer do we have to run, it feels like it's been hours!" panted Cyrus, his face all red and sweaty. "I know this maze well, so we'll probably reach the center in half an hour by my guess, though what I'm worried about is that Malice seems unusually generous today, something must be up"  Necro mumbled to himself, his voice deep with concern. After a few minutes of rest, Cyrus and Necro got back on the move again, keeping a steady pace through the maze's winding stone walls, after twenty five minutes they suddenly stopped in their tracks as the distinct sound of a fight was going on. "Sounds like there are others nearby, they could use our help!" shouted Cyrus, rushing ahead of Necro only to be pulled back by the masked man "Necro, why did you stop me, their in trouble!" "Don't bother, you heard what our friendly announcer said, only ne team get's the get out of jail free card, I doubt their going to be all tea and crumpets with us" Necro calmly stated "This is a test of survival and nothing more, do you really think they'll give two shits about strangers they have never met before?" Necro argued. Cyrus opened his moth as if to say something, but closed it when he realized that Necro was right. They both peeked their heads around the corner to observe what was happening. Two human males and a female were firing at what looked like a human who had it's arms chopped off and replaced with giant centipedes, the human part was letting out a low wail while it's arms screech furiously under the gunfire. It's body flailed and writhed as bullets shredded through it's body, letting it's blackened blood seep through it's wounds. It eventually fell backwards and twitched a little as it's tattered body's life slowly drifted away before staying completely still.

     The humans prodded the creature's corpse to ensure that it wasn't just faking being dead, after a few seconds, they all breathed a sigh of relief. The human female quickly noticed Necro and Cyrus spying on them and alerted the others, they quickly opened fire on them, forcing the duo to reel their heads back just in times as a storm of bullets and plasma flew past them and collided with the nearby stone wall, causing bits of burnt broken stone to fly everywhere. "You may as well stay where you are, we're getting to the center first and we'll kill your ass if we catch you trying to follow us! But I doubt that matters now, we can literally see it a dozen yards away, cya later assholes!" The women gloated, signaling the rest of her group to follow her. A loud guttural roar suddenly stopped them in their tracks, fear was plastered on their faces. "Uh Necro, do you know what that was?" asked Cyrus. "Oh ten different kinds of shit is about to hit the fan, stay quiet no matter what!" whispered Necro, Cyrus nodded, not questioning him as he knew that the masked man had experiences with this maze that he was glad he didn't have to go through. The enemy group started to panic as the very ground itself seemed to start vibrating, the roar getting ever closer as the vibrating soon turned into rumbling. "Screw this shit, the goal is within our reach!" One of the human males yelled and made a quick dash for it with the rest of them following suite. The wall to the left side of them suddenly exploded as a large figure busted through it and rammed into one of the males, pulverizing him into a meaty smear on the wall to the right. The other two humans opened fire on this new threat, but that only seemed to aggravate it as it let out a deep roar as it swung with one of it's huge arms, sending the other male human flying at Necro and Cyrus they rolled out of the way just in time just as he flew by them and hit the wall with unbelivable speed, the sound of bones breaking was easily heard as the man's body hit the wall, fractures in the wall appeared as his body slowly drooped back onto the floor, his body devoid of any life.

     The women, having just witnessed her two compatriots being slaughtered by this new beast, tried to make a break for it, but the beast quickly snatched her up with one of it's huge hands and slamed her back on the ground. She let out a gasp as all the wind was knocked out of her, her mind dazed by the amount of power this creature has, she tried to move her body, but to no avail as she was too dazed to move properly and her body felt like a lump of meat. As her mind finally got it's bearings back together, the last thing she saw was the creature plunging it's right fist down at her face as she screamed. It slamed it's oversized fist into her face, causing it to cave in from the strength and force of it's blow, a distincly loud crack was heard as it pulled it's fist back out, covered in the now deceased human's blood. Necro put his hand over Cyrus's mouth and gestured for him to be quiet. The dust from the monster's explosive entrance started to settle down, giving the duo a good look at what the beast really looked like. It looked like an oversized human shaped being completely covered in black body armor that seemed to give off a sense of the dark ages on Earth, the only part of it's body that was exposed was it's mouth, it had enlarged canines with drool vigorously foaming from it's mouth and it's labored breathing gave it the impression it had rabies, it started to snarl and sniff the air. It's cycloptic visor was giving off a distinct humming noise as the creature started to check it's surrounding, it grabbed the corpse of the human female and bites into her ravaged body, tearing out a huge chunk of her abdomen, causing ripped pieces of her intestines to spill out messily on the floor. Bit's of her flesh hanged from it's mouth as it ate it's food with the manners of a caveman as it didn't care that it was making a mess all over itself and the area around it.

     Necro has seen this creature before, it was a Berserker, these savage beasts put all their power into physical stength and have the anger issues and hunger to match. The only good thing was that their creatures of pure instinct and are rather dumb, making them easy prey for traps. But what made him so concerned was that they didn't have the proper weapons to deal with one safely, they were going to improvise with what they got not to mention that these things have sensitive hearing and smell. Another problem that is obvious to Necro is that it's having a little picnic right in front of the their goal, karma has always been a bitch to him like that. He turned back to Cyrus and gave him an update on what a Berserker is exactly, but to his suprise, Cyrus just nodded and accepted the creature for what it used to be and what it is now. This human was more strong willed then what he gave him credit for, he was just thrown into the Pit today and he's already adjusting to the place after a few hours, which made him alright in Necro's book. "Okay, we need to come up with a plan to either distract that unholy abomination or destroy it outright, got any suggestions?" Necro asked. "To be honest, I was hoping you would have some kind of brilliant strategy by now cuse I really have no experience in fighting this type of enemy" Cyrus said calmly. Necro look a bit peeved at this, but still tried to come up with a plan anyways, when inspiration suddenly hit him square in the face. "If I'm not mistaken, these weapons have an overload feature in them, casing intense amounts of energy to build up in them before exploding violently, I say we give this dumb bastard the treatment he deserves" Necro said with great confidence. Cyrus smiled and merely nodded his head in approvement, he then quietly moved to the hallway adjacent to them, making sure not to disturb the beast as it savagely devoured large portions of human flesh.

     Necro and Cyrus motioned at each other to start the plan and started to fidget with their weapons, when a little beeping noise started to go off, the weapons started to tremble in their hands as the energy inside of them started to become unstable, they both tossed their guns around the corner and they landed near the Berserker, interupting it's mealtime as it sat on a pile of it's mutilated victims. It turned it's head and looked at the energetic weapons with annoyed curiosity, it sniffed them but was soon cut short as a large explosion engulfed it's body, the corpses and the walls shattering them in the process with it's immense energy. Large amounts of dust get swept up into the air, completely obscuring the area with dust, Cyrus got up, thinking that the beast was now dead and dashed towards the smoke cloud with much enthusiasm, the goal was literally the only thing that was occupying his mind now. A large hand bursted ot of the smoke and snatched the man up, lifting him haplessly into the air, it was the Berserker or at least what was left of it, it's entire left side of it's torso was gone, both of it's legs twisted and fused with each other into a singular twisted and unmovable limb, the left side of it's face was twisted and burnt from the explosion, it's jaw was ripped on the side, making it hang on a rather peculiar angle. It started to crush Cyrus with it's immense strength. Cyrus couldn't let out so much as a yell as his windpipe was being restricted by the creatures fearsome grasp, it let out a gargled snarl as driplets of black ooze from it's throat and it's open wounds. The singular visor covering it's helmet suddenly shattered as a kitana was thrusted into it, the beast let out a gargled roar as blood and glass splattered everywhere, it loosened it's grip on Cyrus, letting him fall roughly onto the floor, though he quickly got his bearings and moved out of the way at the crippled beast's rage. Necro suddenly ran into the scene and jumped high into the air, landing a flying kick on his kitana and driving it further into the creature's skull until it penetrated it's brain, causing it to slowly slump into the floor on it's side, a pool of blood forming in it's mouth.

     "Next time wait until we can be sure that their dead, these bastards can be quite persistant" said Necro, his voice thick with annoyance. "I'll try to keep that in mind" Cyrus said in embaressment "but the goalis right in front of us, we're going to make it!" Cyrus said with cheery enthusiasm, but then they both heard a noise behind them and turned around to see what was making that racket. It was a menagerie of monsters, they let out snarls, wails and roars of excitement upon finding more hapless prey to rip apart with their various appendages and teeth. "Shit, let's get a move on Necro, we can make it!" yelled Cyrus. They both made a run for the goal with the savage abominations hot on their heels, snapping and slashing at the air around them just so they can get a piece of their warm and vunerable flesh, but to their dissapointment, the duo got to the center where an energy field suddenly popped up and blocked their path. the monsters let out their yells of dissapointment before returning back into the depths of the labryninth. "So you two fools are done dancing around and have finally made it to the goal, I'm dissapointed Necro, I thought you would make better time than this, but I guess that's what happens when you have play babysitter for a human, their so weak, I'll never get why you've always tried to protect them" A familiar, yet sinister voice boosted. They both looked up to see Malice standing on his hovering platform, it slowly yet gracefully descended down until it was but a few inches above the ground. Malice jumped casually off of the platform, his glowing blue eyes seething with evil, his mouth spread to a wide, maniacal grin with his sharp teeth glinting in the light and his metal fingers fidgeting with the air, as if he wanted to strangle the two of them with his bare hands just for the sheer enjoyment of it. "Still, I suppose some form of congragulations are in order, so good job for running around like idiots while almost having your meat pulverised by the maze's various cranky inhabitants, shame about the robot dying though, I would have loved to keep him around in the Pitt, even if he was a douchebag."

     Malice then walked over to the hovering platform and pressed a button, this caused energy fields to start covering the other entrances to the goal area. Cyrus had mixed feelings of disgust and dread coming from the hooded mechanical creature, like it could easily kill him without even paying any attention to him, the sense of bloodlust this fiend was giving off was overwhelming to say the least, like it's very presence was snuffing out his life, yet it only seemed to make him hate the creature more, like he wanted to sock it in the face with his fist or better yet, blow it's head off with a well placed shotgun blast. Suddenly a loud scream was heard, causing Cyrus, Necro and Malice turned their heads to see a group of humans dashing out of one of the maze's many winding passages. Upon seeing the goal in front of them, their weary faces were filled with hope and relief, their bodies heavy with exhaustion and injuries as the headed towards the goal, apprently not aware of the humming blue wall of energy in front of them. The all too familiar sound of beasts and monsters started to sound off and judging by how close they were, the humans literally had seconds before a wall of teeth and claws would descend upon them. However, they were stopped in their tracks as they collided head first into the energy wall, it flared up and sent them flying back as if they were nothing but pebbles in a full grown human's hand. As their dazed minds tried to comprehend what just happened to them, it was tragically cut short as a flood of the maze's denizens descended upon their hapless human prey and proceded to rip them to shreds, painting the walls crimson with their blood, their pleas of pain and help drowned out by the sound of flesh ripping and bones breaking. Seeing the slaughter unfold before him, Cyrus turned to look at Malice, hoping to plead with it to help save them if it could, but all he saw coming from it's face was pure pleasure possibly boardering on ecstasy. "Tell me little human, have your every witnessed a thousand wars unravel before your very eyes, mind you that question is purely rhetorical since you humans have the life spans of flies. There's nothing quite like watching two nations who were formerly alligned with each other from some previous war only to become paranoid and start hiding secrets from each other, until the knife is posed to strike the back of the other. What about when a righteous rebellion overthrows an oppressive government, only to become the very thing it tried to destroy decades later."

     "When you think about it, war is a perfectly natural thing, all those obdient soldiers being slaughtered, buildings crumble and women and children getting raped and executed, it's really quite the exhillerating experience once you get hooked on it. But in the end, it's to keep all you meatbags from destroying your species completely, better to have a portion of your race destroyed rather than the whole, keeps you from being soft as well, considering how soft you already are, you need all the toughening you can get. So think not of us in a ill matter, it's just a normal part of nature for..........." but his little speech was cut short as Necro did a right swing into Malice's face, though the hooded being didn't budge at all, his face was ripe with dissapointment. "Shut your mouth you sick bastard, your war, your destruction of countless galaxies and species will never be justified, I hope you get the most agonizing death that's possible, the same goes for your weird bastard of a boss, Darkseeker too!" yelled Necro, his voicce aflame with passionate anger. Malice turned his head at Necro, he had a scowl of annoyance plastered over him, but it quickly changed back into his demented smile, his eyes tingling with muderous insanity "Now that's no way to speak of my lord, he has been gracious enough to let you live with your free will intact, naughty creature, I know just the thing to straighten you out!" Malice said in an eerie sing song voice. He made a simple gesture of his hand, Necro felt the air around him suddenly get cold, his bones grew stiff and his muscles numb as ice appeared out of noweher and started to envelop his body, soon leaving nothing but his head unfrozen. Malice strolled up to Necro at a leisurely pace, he then grabbed the masked man by the chin, forcing his head into eye level with him. "You know what the funny thing was, we had grown bored with you, your will to live had dried up and we were going to put you out of your misery, but seeing you act all fierce all of a sudden, I think it's time I process you, that little fighting flame you have in your heart s going to serve your soon to be lord oh so well, but I'm not going to spoil the suprise of what specifically I'm going to do to you since I'm such a nice guy, but I better deal with the other unwilling contestant first." Malice pulled out a strange looking gun and fired it at the frozen Necro, his body sheathed in an aura of white energy, the glow started to glow brighter around him, soon becoming so bright that nobody could see what was happening to him. The bright light then faded away and Necro was no longer there, it was almost as if he was never there to begin with in the first place.

     Malice turns to face Cyrus, who's more or less nervous to say the least, Malice seemed to be picking up on that as we walked towards the human until he was right next to Cyrus, that creepy look on his face never changing, always staring. "As promised, I shall set you free to the open world that you no doubt cherish at this point, so I shall teleport you to the Wastelands, home of the vicious Kaedak! I must warn you Cyrus, their Matriarch is a bit of a nasty one she is, so enjoy!' Malice said gleefully. Before Cyrus could have any say in the matter, Malice zapped him with the same strange device that he did with Necro, leaving no trace of the human behind. "It's been a while since the Matriarch has had anyone to play with, she'll probably devise all sorts of delicious torture methods on that puny human before he begs for a quick death, real shame I have more important things to do, like start my little experiment with that demonic vagabound so to speak." Malice said to himself. He suddenly stopped in his tracks, his face in a vacant, almost dream like state, he just stood there for sevral minutes until he suddenly snapped out of it "Leave it to my superiors to always hold a meeting at the last second and ruin my fun, but Necro is just going to have to wait while I deal with this." Malice said to himself with an annoyed look on his face, he suddenly started to fade, becoming transparent before dissapearing outright, leaving the spectators to watch as the remaining survivors get killed by the maze creatures. Malice faded back into a room that was completely dark aside from a single light pointing at a non distinct spot on the ground. He strolled over to the light and whistled for a bit until a red visor shaped light appeared before him. 'Malice, I know you hate having your fun interupted, but I have assigned an area for you, though you have to retrieve information, knowing you and how violent and unrestrained you tend to be, I'm teaming you up with Blue flame so he can keep an eye on you, make sure not to screw this up since our lord is having one of his.................. episodes so to speak." said Nanotech in his usual monotone and calm voice. "Dammit, not that self righteous prick who has a habit of talking fancy all the time, his delusions of honor irritate me so badly" whined Malice.

     "You have your orders and he's a commander just like you, so you really have no right to complain about.........." Nanotech was interupted as the room started to shake by what felt like an entire chorus of tortured people screaming at once. "He's beeen getting worse every day, I'll tend to our lord, you and Blue Flame just try to get this job done as quickly and efficiently as possible." Nanotech said, his voice sounding slightly more urgent, he then faded out of sight. "I do wonder when that uptight asshole will be getting here................." "Quite frankly, my distaste for being forced to collaborate with an uncouth degenerate who not only has the audacity to call himself a being of science, but who's mannerisms and behavior would be on par with that of a psychotic neanderthal is just beyond my understanding of things bring me no joy as well." another voice said, interupting Malice. It sounded cool and collected with heavy refinement in it's voice, being very cautious as to have it's voice sound off at the perfect pitch the entire time. A deep blue glow approached Malice, it was fire, blue fire to be more precise and it seemed to be coming from a rather odd looking figure. It's arms and legs were unusually long and lanky with it's torso slightly shortened, it's entire body was covered in shimmering blue armor, the torso, head, lower arms and legs covered in bright blue while everything else is a dark blue. The head was shaped like a boomerang with blue fire silently burning out of the open portion of it's head, two blue eyes that sparked with inquisitiveness peered out of it's visor that was shaped along it's head, it also had no neck and a long blue cape that flowed elegantly in the room. "Well, if it isn't my favorite fancy man so to speak, I would ask if you were going to lecture me on how to speak and act properly, but we can be a smartass to each other later. You've probably already got the heads up on what we need to do, so let's just get this over with since I'm going to enjoy this as much as you will, which is to say, very little at all" Malice said in a sarcastic fashion. Blue Flame merely nooded his head and they both dissapeared into the darkness of the room.