Chimera, Chapter 3

Chimera, Chapter 3

~Chapter 3~

Mitch stood at the main gate, surrounded on all sides by a large crowd of people, all of which were gasping and shouting quite loudly, giving him quite the headache just from being near them. He inched his way through the crowd trying to get to the front of it, shoving quite a few people out of his way as he went, thinking he’d never make a sandwich again after this. He stumbled from the barrier of people finally, almost tripping onto the ground. It only took him a moment to look upwards from there, to see why this herd of people were just standing around stupidly like cows eating grass.
There were four wind monsters right there in front of the gate as if standing guard over it, attacking the people nearest to them with their sharp, heavy claws. It wouldn’t have been so scary a sight, if it weren’t for the fact wind monsters made no noises at all, even when they slashed through things, so it was almost like watching a mime play. Mitch simply stood watching, transfixed liked those behind him, for a moment watching the violence unfold, then snapped out of it, determined not to fall in with the crowd he barely made it through.
He ran forward quickly, kicking up dust with his boots as he dashed forward, his world shaking left and right with each step as his gloved hand grabbed the hilt of his sword sturdily. He jumped forward and landed before them in a wicked crouch, his sword in his right hand as time seemed to freeze completely, the beating of their hearts like drums in his ears. Very slowly, things started moving again, then like a picture he snapped, swishing his sword backwards then forward in a graceful arc through the first monster, sliding his right foot forward as he did so feeling his boots dig into the ground. His eyes narrowed as his mind raced, thinking of all the possible moves he could make from here, and their consequences in but a split second.
His sword traced downwards from the slash as Mitch let himself fall to his knee, narrowly ducking under a slash from another monster as he countered with an underhand slash upwards, connecting clear across it’s chest before bringing the blade back around in a silver flash, hitting it’s legs so it would fall over.
This is as far as Mitch’s style went when it came to his sword, attacking only two monsters at once. More so he hadn’t even actually finished either one of them off, so all at once they surrounded him, and each in turn gave him a heavy over-head claw, before giving him a finishing underhand blow heavy enough to knock him a few feet away onto his back.
A moan escaped from Mitch’s lips as he opened his eyes, the world swirling all around him, before a large object suddenly obstructed his view “Look you fool, no matter how strong one can be, it’s never smart to fight alone. How often have we told each other that?” It was the voice of Cless, and as soon as Mitch recognized it, his vision cleared up and he could see Cless, towering above him, his vicious reaper sword in both hands.
“Your style is unique, but weak, especially alone. You can attack multiple targets at once, but it’s useless if you’re alone.” Cless spoke very much as if he were reading from a manual, which just helped to bother Mitch even more,
“You shouldn’t have gone so far ahead, if you die now It’ll be like a lose of my money!” Came that annoying voice just from behind Cless. Oh haha, that’s just what Mitch needed…to be ridiculed even more for trying to be a hero,
“Stand up, we’ll fight these like a team, or else it’ll be pointless to even try and go further.” Cless spoke loudly, grabbing Mitch’s hand and roughly tugging him onto his feet, throwing his sword into the air for but a moment to do it, catching it as it came down with a brilliant glare from the sun “Now…Let’s go!”
Mitch was ready in a moments notice, getting himself back into stance “Fine, I’ll finish the two I started on, you go for the other two.” He shouted before leaping off at them, landing just before the two he had slashed earlier, giving them just a moment to notice he was there.
Cless lifted his sword up onto one shoulder without much of a struggle, though it looked as if it weighed a ton “Sorry, some of us are more suited for one on one combat.” He said as he simply walked up to the closest wind monster, tensing his body as he prepared for the strike. In what appeared to be a flash of light, Cless swung his sword right from his shoulder in a strong diagonal slash, right through the wind monster in front of him. He stood frozen for a bit there, just holding his sword so the tip was just above the ground, then all of a sudden straightened himself and spun his sword into it’s sheath, gripping the hilt tightly still while gazing downwards “I’m done.” He said as the monster stiffly fell backwards onto the ground.
In the meantime, Mitch was viciously blocking several hits at once from both monsters he was surrounded by, continually ducking and jumping, landing on one claw after the other; back flipping off the first monster just to land behind the other. He drew his sword up quickly, before tracing it several times all along the monster’s back; finishing it with a heavy kick that threw it into the other monster.
He started spinning his sword for but a moment, then lifted it up high and flung it forward at the beasts, piercing both of them at once with the blade “There, one left. Let’s take this one together Cless.”
But before he could even really finish his own sentence, the last monster was ridden with flashes of blinding light and almost appeared to be dancing, before falling over flat and still on the ground. Both Cless and Mitch couldn’t help but stare at it as if waiting for it to jump up and do an encore of it’s previous dance.
“What are you waiting for? It’s gone, I blew it to bits!” Yeah, it was probably the thing Mitch least expected to hear. Standing there, with both hands holding a large caliber magnum was that annoying girl from before…Ellia or whatever her name was again,
”You...you wield guns…?” Mitch asked slightly dumbfounded. He knew all about them, and had moderate training in using them, but he never actually met anyone that used them. At least, on his own side that is.
”Yeah, if you listened for a minute more, I would have told you, you idiotic Ranger.” She growled, slamming the gun into it’s holster, which was almost invisible, hidden deep in her robes.
”Ugh, I don’t care anymore. Let’s just go already…the connecting bridge is only a day’s walk from here.” Mitch said with a twang of annoyance in his voice as he clipped his sword onto his belt before walking out into the beautiful field of grass that was just outside of the town.
He stood there for a moment feeling his spirit lift up again on the wind; a few leaves blew about from the tall trees that were in town and gave him even more of a boost “That’s better…I love being out here.” He said to himself, not expecting to be answered. But of course, he was.
”Tch, you should see the lakes we have over near my town!” Came that screechy little voice of Ellia from behind him. Well, it wasn’t really screechy; Mitch had just already taught himself to associate Ellia with screeching banshees.
”Fine then. Let’s just get going…” Mitch started, but then Cless said something,
”You forget, I’M the leader of this little group, so I’ll lead, then once we get to the connecting bridge, Ellia leads.” He said in his ‘leader’ voice, meaning Mitch couldn’t argue.
”Fine.” Was all Mitch said as he simply started following Cless, resolving himself to not talk again till they set up camp, or reached the bridge. For the whole walk, all he thought about was standing out in that field of grass in front of his home like he used to, playing hero with his wooden branches…Those pretend games were the things that brought him to where he was today.
Before Mitch really knew it, he was sitting out under the stars looking upwards to the sky while a fire burned brilliantly just in front of him. He looked over to the two lumps on the ground near him, each one just barely illuminated as the fire danced about as if it were listening to some unseen beat.
Mitch sighed and stood up, looking over towards the overbearing building just several hundred feet away from them. Even in the dark you could tell it was the connecting bridge. Estrik was a land where the water stream was almost always plentiful, and for that reason it was covered in hundreds of lakes and swamps, and was usually referred to as the Sunken Continent. The bridge connecting Elkmata and Estrik was only made a few years earlier, and was widely celebrated on both sides of the continent. It took 12 years just to build it, and it was closed for a full year once it was made to make sure it was stable.
Mitch didn’t know all the details of the bridge, or even how it worked, but he did know it took a good five or six hours to cross it. Thankfully, being a Ranger, he was allowed free passage from one side to the other. Normal people had to buy a pass to get across…and passes were pretty damn expensive.
Oh well…Mitch couldn’t care less about what normal people had to do. He was dead sleepy…the day started good, and ended with a ridiculously long walk. So he simply let himself fall backwards onto the grass with a thud, feeling himself drift off to sleep while just watching the stars…