Chapter 67 - Undead

Fairy Tail: Paths of the Soul

Shelly took a few deep breaths, still recovering from almost being strangled by their pursuer. Her eyes never left Amber, watching the doorway for any sign that they where followed. "A-Amb..." She choked, feeling her lungs burn for air the moment she tried to say anything. She half expected her to fade away like a hallucination the moment she took her eyes off her. "Amber, you're-."

Without warning, Amber dashed away from the door and yanked Shelly to her feet, pulling her into the next room. She dragged her into the far corner, tightly wrapping her arm across her chest with almost suffocating force. Shelly gasped suddenly, and Amber clamped her hand down over her mouth as well.

Though she tried to fight free at first, Shelly froze when she saw the man in the cowboy hat through the door. He was searching for them, but hadn't spotted them in the shadowed corner of the next room. It was now that Shelly noticed something strange about the man, something she hadn't caught when he'd tried to strangle her. He was, to put it bluntly, rather sickly looking. His limbs where thin, almost emaciated, and his skin was covered in patches of sores. A long, stitched scar stretched across his chest, and his eyes where dull and grey. What was more, the stink of rot had suddenly gotten worse, and when he turned his head, Shelly could have sworn she could make out a hole in the side of his neck.

Shelly had never been a fan of horror movies, she'd only seen one or two throughout the course of her life, trying to show up her brother on both occasions. But now, cowering in the darkened corner of an unfamiliar location with what looked like a zombie hunting after them, she was beginning to feel like she was in the middle of one.

"Dammit..." Amber growled through gritted teeth, almost right into Shelly's ear. "Go away..." The man scanned the room over one more time, before dropping his fighting stance and turning to leave. The shadow in the moonlight disappeared from the door, and the man's sifting footsteps disappeared into the night.

The seconds ticked by, and Shelly began squirming out of Amber's uncomfortably tight grasp. She pried her hand away from her mouth, only for Amber to practically drop her onto the ground. As she gasped for air again, she watched Amber return to watching around the door, making absolutely certain the sickly man in the cowboy hat had left. "W-was that... A zombie?" Shelly muttered in disbelief, not knowing how else to explain what she'd seen. The thought quickly faded, and she looked up at her friend again. Shaking her head, she rushed forwards and threw her arms around Amber's shoulders. "You're ok. You're really-."

Something suddenly hit her in the stomach, knocking her back onto her butt. She looked down to see Armeria hugging her tummy, her small face pressed into her chest. "We thought we'd never see you again." She said, her monotone voice almost cracking.

Shelly smiled and got up again, holding the small imp against her stomach. "We where worried about you too." She said to Amber, who had yet to look her direction. "How'd you get away? What did that masked guy do to you?" She spoke quickly, trying to vocalize every thought as it came to mind. "He didn't hurt you, did he?"

"I'm fine." Amber spat, hurrying into the next room and peering into the ally to see if the coast to be clear. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Shelly stopped dead in confusion. "We... Came to rescue you." She glanced at Armeria in her arms, but she too didn't look back at her. "That masked guy kidnapped you, Amber. We had to do something."

Amber shook her head, slowly venturing out into the ally. "How did you even get here?"

"Umm..." She didn't know how to put what happened into words. So much happened so fast that she was sure there where details that she'd missed. "Geno... Found this thing... It looked like a bug. Then Axel zapped it, and there was this bright light...." She knew she wasn;t doing a good job explaining, but carried on anyways. "The next thing we knew, we where-."

"We?" Amber finally turned to look at her, looking almost angry. "Who else is here?"

"E-everybody?" Shelly stuttered. Why was Amber acting like this? She should be happy they where here, shouldn't she? "Jak, Rift, Geno, Axel, and-."

"Axel's here?" She could see Amber tense up.

"Y-yeah..." Shelly nodded slightly. "And Zeke too."

Amber continued to stair at her, wearing an expression that Shelly couldn't identify. Something was off. She wasn't afraid, or didn't look it at least, but nothing else described how she was acting. Shelly glanced at Armeria, who did nothing but stair back at Amber. Suddenly, she spun around to leave, waiving for Shelly to follow after her. "C'mon, you should go."

Shelly nodded slightly. "Wait, I need to get my bag first. I can't use my Pict Magic without my sketchbook."

"OK." Amber nodded slightly, avoiding looking her in the eye. "But after that, you need to find the others, then you need to go." Shelly nodded again, noticing that, for the second time, Amber said you, and not we. Something was definitely wrong, but she decided it was better to regroup with the others, rather than press the issue. Maybe being with friends again would get Amber to calm down a bit as well.

Axel rushed through the sand filled streets, following his nose towards Amber. He'd ducked for cover a few times, occasionally spotting a figure jumping between the rooftops. For the most part though, he remained bothered in his search. "How close is she?" Zeke asked anxiously, hanging off Axel's shoulder.

"Close by." He huffed back, sliding around a corner. "Go find the others. I'll bring Amber back to the road where we split up, then we're all getting the hell out of here."

"But Axel..." Zeke shivered. "What if you need help?"

Slowing to a stop, Axel took Zeke off his shoulder and crouched down to place him on the ground. "I'll be fine, I don't plan on fighting anybody.” He assured. "Go get the others, and as soon as I find Amber, we'll all run like hell. Ok?"

Even as his eyes began to water, Zeke nodded slight and wings sprouted from his back. Axel stood up, and Zeke flew at him to hug his chest. "Be careful Axel."

With that, Zeke flew off into the night, weaving into and out of the open building windows to keep out of sight. Axel turned around, clenching his fists as he approached a new structure. It wasn't just Amber he could smell, but the stink of death was getting stronger the further into the city he traveled. Every instinct he had told him to turn around and leave, but he was so close now. He had to get Amber back.

He continued forward, approaching a large building with what looked like a pyramid on the roof. That wasn't the most impressive thing he saw through. Next to the building, attached to it by an array of cables and suspended bridges, was a massive machine. It looked like a massive water strider, standing almost sixteen stories tall and held aloft by four, multi jointed legs the size of tree trunks. The “body” of the thing was a huge, bulbous head, lit up with a vast array of blinking blue lights. It didn't look real, but given how many times he'd thought that tonight, it'd lost a lot of it's meaning by now.

Axel cracked his knuckles and, despite telling Zeke otherwise, he knew that a fight would probably be waiting for him inside. Amber's scent was leading him in there, and if he wanted to help her, he'd probably have to face the masked man who took her. As he strode forward though, he couldn't help but feel a strange, growing sense of familiarity with his surroundings. It wasn't the machines, and he'd definitely never been here before, but something about the chill in the air felt oddly familiar to him. He couldn't tell why, but it felt him with a sense of foreboding that he couldn't shake, even as he stepped into the building.

Shelly gathered up her belongings, which had spilled from her book-bag when she was attacked by the man who'd been chasing them. Just as she packed her sketchbook away Amber grabbed her by the collar of her shirt and began dragging her along the street again. "C'mon, we need to hurry up."

"OK, OK, I'm coming." Shelly urged, shaking out of her grasp. She glanced at Armeria again, still hanging in her arms, to find her still staring at Amber's back. "I know you're scared Amber, but we'll be fine." She tried to sound assuring, but her shallow gasps for breath made her sound less than convincing. "You already escaped from that masked guy, and we can help you get away as soon as we find the others."

"I'm not scared." She mumbled, not looking back at her.

That was it, Shelly couldn't take it any more. She had to say something. "Amber..." She began. "You're lying."

"I'm not." She argued, still not looking at her.

Shelly stopped, but it was Armeria who spoke up this time. "Amber..."

"I'm not!" Amber screamed, spinning around to glare at them. Shelly clutched Armeria tightly, shocked by her outburst. It looked like she was about to say something else, when a dull crash echoed over the hollow buildings. The three of them turned in the direction the noise had come from to see a plume of smoke over the rooftops. Amber took a step away, then gritted her teeth and broke into a sprint. "Dammit..." She muttered under her breath.

"Amber wait!" Shelly called after her, failing to catch her as she dashed away. She readjusted the strap of her book-bag, then ran after her.

Amber was nowhere in sight when she rounded the corner of the next building. Shelly's eyes darted to the almost half dozen directions she could have gone, when Armeria extended her tiny arm to point. "Go that way."

Shelly sprinted off, but couldn't think it was a little strange that Armeria knew where Amber had gone. This didn't change the second time she told her which direction to go. By the third time, Shelly had to ask. "How do you know where we're going?"

The tiny imp only shook her head. "Just keep running."

Two more turns later, she skidded around a corner only to run into Amber's back. The two of them stumbled out into a large, round plaza. A huge fountain sat in the middle, it's water having long since dried up. A building on the opposite side of the plaza from them had just collapsed, spilling rubble into and crushing part of the fountain. Rift stood in the middle of the street with his back to them, staring down a man covered head to toe in bandages with a sword resting on his shoulder.

An ear-piercing screech filled the air, and a large bat soared over the roofs, the woman with the bandanna covering her face clutched in it's talons. The bat flung her into the corner of one of the buildings, before morphing into a large ape and slamming into the roof like a cannonball.

Part of that building came down as well, but the woman slid out of the dust cloud on a slick of ice. Jak, human once again, rolled out of the debris cloud, landing on all fours and growling at his opponent. Geno came sprinting down the street behind Rift, and the sickly man in the cowboy hat jumped off the building to land on fountain's center spout.

Just as it looked like they where all about to lunge at each other again, Amber rushed forewords. "Wait, stop it!" The guys all looked her direction, becoming stunned the moment they lay eyes on her. Shelly reached out to try and stop her, but stumbled and fell to her knees.

The sickly man hopped down to the edge of the dry fountain, summoning a multitude of red tendrils from his wrist. "You're open." He sneered, raising his hand into the air.

Gritting her teeth, Amber spun and held out her arms to block him. "Keel, stop it."

The ruined city fell silent, that one action stunned everyone. What was more surprising though, was when the man listened to her and the tendrils retracted into his wrist. "Keel...?" Rift repeated in disbelief. "What the hell-?"

"What's the plan, girly?" Asked the sickly man who Amber had addressed, crossing his arms under his cloak. "You know what we're here to do."

"Orders... Are orders." The woman said in a scratchy voice.

"I know that, just... Let me talk to them." Amber pleaded, slowly stepping closer to the three of them. "I'll make them go away. Just don't hurt anyone."

The others where stunned. She was talking to the one's who'd attacked them like she would anyone else. "Amber...?" Asked Shelly with a shake in her voice. She slowly crept towards Rift and the others, clutching Armeria against her tummy. "What's going on?"

Amber continued to stair at their attackers, until the man named Keel pulled a small pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of his pocket. Smoke bellowed from the hole in his neck as he took a long puff, and Amber finally turned back to her friends. "These guys... Guard this place." She mumbled. "Keel is the one smoking, She's Siri..." She gestured to the woman, then to the man covered in bandages. "And that's Nico. And they..." She trailed off, apparently weighing how much to divulge. "Look, I can't explain. I just need you guys to leave."

"You need us to leave?" Asked Geno, sounding unconvinced. "You hit your head or something, lass?"

"No, I'm fine." She growled. She kept glancing over her shoulder, watching to make sure Keel and the others didn't jump to the attack the moment she turned her back. "You guys need to go. You aren't safe here."

"What, and you are?" Rift questioned.

Shelly quickly stepped foreword, trying to stop the conversation from going in circles. "OK, OK... We can go." She slowly extended a hand, beckoning Amber forwards. "You don't have to tell us what's going on. We can all just leave together, alright?"

As Shelly approached, Amber took a step back. She turned her eyes away, staring at the sand. "I... Can't go."

"Why?" Rift sneered, crossing his arms and nodding to the trio gathered around the fountain. "Because of those three? 'Cause I'm not going to lie, I think we can take 'em."

Keel snickered, and Nico spun his sword between his fingers, ready to strike. Shelly however, spoke up first. "Is it because of that masked guy?" She asked earnestly. "Did he threaten you, Amber?"

Still not looking them in the eye, Amber shook her head. "No, he-."

"Guys!" A tiny voice called from overhead, and Zeke came swooping down into the street. "Guys, I-." He stopped dead In the air, his eyes filling with tears the moment he saw Amber. "Oh my gosh, Amber! You're ok!"

"Wait." Rift caught Zeke by the stuff of the neck as he soared at her, eyeing the others. "Something's up."

Amber turned around, only to find Keel, Nico, and Siri all staring back into the deeper part of the city. "One got past us..." Keel mumbled, snuffing what was left of his cigarette out under his boot. "The boss is busy."

"Intruder..." Nico mumbled.

Ciri suddenly lurched, slowly stumbling towards a side street. "Must... Protect master..."

Amber's face went pale, and she frantically glanced around the intersection, counting faces. "Axel..." Her hands began to shake the moment she realized he was the only one not with them, and she broke into a run. "Wait, Siri, don't go back!"

She clutched at the shoulder of the blue woman's dress, but this didn't do anything to stop her. Despite being of the same stature, Siri somehow overpowered Amber, pulling her across the sand. "In... The way..." She mumbled, roughly shoving Amber by the shoulder.

In the struggle, Amber's hand landed on the bandanna covering the lower half of Siri's face. After being pushed, part of the bandanna tore away as Amber fell. They all caught a glimpse of her face when she turned to stair at Amber, and took a collective gasp. Jak, Rift, and Zeke, wince away, while Shelly clasped her hands over her mouth to catch a scream, none of them believing what they had seen.

Everything below Siri's eyes was just... Gone. Sheer bleached bone and a skeletal smile greeted them. It looked like another mask, but was much too real for that to be the case. "C-cold..." The woman's jaw barely moved as she spoke, and she appeared to shiver as she covered her mouth with one hand. "Stay... Out of my way."

Amber crawled back as Siri reached out towards her, only for Jak to launch himself at her back. He landed on Siri like a monkey, rolling over and tossing her away from Amber. Nico disappeared in a flash, appearing above Jak with his sword raised overhead to strike. A dagger shot through the air to deflect his sword strike, and Rift slammed his hands into the sand. "Iron-Make: Longswords!" The sand bulged, and Nico disappeared again just as a volley of blades shot up at him from the ground.

Keel jumped from the edge of the fountain, gathering up a bubble of red liquid from his wrists. "Guess we're doing this after all!" He and Geno lay eyes on each other just as he unleashed a barrage of red spines at him. Geno rolled under the assault, grabbing a baseball sized chunk of stone out of the sand and lobbing it back at Keel.

Nico reappeared a few feet away and batted the stone aside, only to be tackled aside by Jak again, growling like a feral animal. The two tussled through the sand, but Jak landed on top. He reared back and threw a strong punch downwards, but the two of them disappeared from sight before any sort of resolution could come of it.

Geno spun and gave a wide kick in Keel's direction, who back-stepped out of range and sprinted off down another road, with Geno in hot pursuit. Rift was about to chase after him, when he heard Shelly call. "Amber, what's happening?" He looked back to see Shelly approaching her, but with every step she took, Amber took one away from her. "What's wrong?"

Amber, who since the start of the brief engagement had been shouting for them all to stop fighting, watched the others depart with her hands running through her hair. "No... No no no!" She cried, squeezing her face between her hands in a panicked frustration. "This can't be happening!"

"What is it?" Shelly stepped closer, slower than before. She'd made it only a few feet away from Amber, and slowly reached out to her. "Why are you acting like this?"

Just as Shelly's fingers brush her arm, Amber swatted her away. "You can't be here!" The panic in her eyes was unmistakable. Shelly backed away, not knowing what to think when Amber shouted. "You're all going to die if you stay here!"

A dead silence filled the air after that. The fighting had been drawn away, and Siri had slipped away unnoticed in the scuffle. The others exchanged a glance, Shelly and Zeke looking worriedly back at Rift, who likewise didn't know what to say. "Amber..." Armeria mumbled, still hanging in Shelly's Arms. "You don't-."

"What makes you say that?" Rift asked slowly, watching the street Geno and Keel had traversed. "We've been in some bad spots before. We still came out on top."

"Not like this." Amber frantically shook her head. "The guild master is gone. You guys don't stand a chance against him."

Shelly let out a small squeak, clutching at her stomach like she was in pain. "Dad's..." She started, swallowing a lump that had formed in her throat the second she thought about her father. "Dad's going to be fine. Jaina's going t-."

"No he's not!" Amber argued. "They're never fine. Nobody's ever fine after fighting him! He made those machines, and those zombies you just saw... He can do things I've never seen anyone else do. You've never seen a mage like him before."

"Zombies?" Rift repeated in disbelief, recalling something else Geno had mentioned. "The body in the arena..."

"How do you know all this?" Shelly muttered, clutching Armeria to her chest. She already suspected the answer, but had to hear it from her just to be sure. "Amber, why do you know so much about him?"

Amber froze, the panic slowly fading from her eyes. "I know because..." She stared at the ground and shut her eyes, like just the thought of saying the words was physically painful to her. "That's guy... In the mask... His name is Vax." Her hands tightened into fists, and her knees began to shake. She opened her eyes to look back at them all, but the fear was gone now. Just remorse and guilt. "And... He's my dad..."

Next Chapter - Chapter 68 - Vax Culhorn