The fall of Terra fortress. Chapter 6

The man with the claymore moved ahead, analyzing his options before entering through the open door to the main room. After a moment, he decided to jump and roll into the room, giving his back to the wall to protect himself from any attack from the back.

Lawrence could see everything even before he got near the door and quickly weighed her options before they launched into the fight. Fighting both men by herself would be too dangerous, but if she managed to take them one by one she could stand a chance. In moments like this she usually would shout for Ernst’s help, but as long as the man’s eyes illuminated the place he could not come out.

Her spy eye was still on the roof of the room, moving silently until it suddenly threw itself to the claymore’s man head. He noticed the sudden attack at his left and made a wide slash to stop whatever had been launched towards him. Lawrence expected that reaction, and midway made the eye shot itself back to the roof. But she had no time to control its speed, hitting the roof and causing herself an acute pain inside her head when it did.

The man was confused, but he noticed the sounds of the ye hitting the roof and noted that the thing had dodged his attack. The man with the shining eyes was surprised by the sudden attack too, and glanced to the roof until he found that strangely shaped spiny metallic sphere that was sliding over them.

For Lawrence, the situation was only getting worse and worse, having her hopes of at least hitting the man with the eye shattered by his reaction and her eye exposed for everyone to see. Knowing that she had no more options, while the man did the slash to the eye, she had launched herself to the attack from the opposite side of the room where she had hid. The man noticed her and did a second wide swing, missing her by a slight margin and instead finishing its arc and hitting the wall behind him that fell apart under his strength.

The swing had nearly cut Lawrence’s head and avoiding it meant pulling back and falling to the floor, which unfortunately gave the man enough time to pull his sword back from the wall and start walking towards her.

As fast as she could she got up again and got into a fighting position, but another wide swing made her step back again.. Her sword was long, but it was nowhere near enough to outrange the claymore the man was swinging. If she reached the opposite wall again she would have nowhere to run again, but she also could not find any chance to move away and win more space. The man with the shining eyes had started moving towards her too, fire starting to creep through his arms as he prepared to support his partner.

Lawrence saw no escape for her predicament, but finally help had arrived for her. Trevor had managed to sneak behind the man with the shining eyes and stabbed him in the back with his knife, distracting the man with the claymore just before he made a new swing, stopping in midair. Using his momentary hesitation, Trevor kicked the shining eyes man towards him, making him stumble a bit, but both soon recovered their stepping.

Trevor tried to stab the man again, but he swiftly dodged the knife and grabbed both of his arms with his hands that were now enveloped in flames. Trevor dropped the knife, screaming in pain as he felt the flesh on his arms burn away.

The man with the claymore had stumbled when he was hit by the shining eyes man, but even that wasn’t enough to take him down. Lawrence had attempted to cut his head before they separated, but he stepped back in time to avoid her blade. Her attack did manage to grace his neck, but not enough to actually cause any damage. Before she had time to attack again, he rolled away to the side, dropping his claymore where it was.

Lawrence was on the attack now, kicking his weapon away and running after him to slice him before he could step up again. Unfortunately, her swing was stopped by the claymore, which had dematerialized behind her, and appeared back in his hands just in time to protect the man’s head.

When she got blocked Lawrence quickly reevaluated the situation again, trying to find a solution to the problem she now found herself in. The man was clearly very experienced in fighting and his weapon was transmuted out of karma, so unarming him was effectively impossible. With the capacity of making it disappear and appear at will, she suddenly started fearing that killing him could be an impossible task for her.

Refusing to give up even then, she thrusted the sword to his throat, but the claymore had once again reformed in front of the man, stopping her sword instantly. Instead of repeating the same attacks, she took the chance to try to jump over the claymore and block with it the man’s sight, trying to get behind him.

The man knew what she was trying to do and dematerialized it, turning around and reforming it to block what he expected would be an attack from the back, but he didn’t notice that he was not her target anymore. When she jumped over him she had used the chance to reach the other assailant while he burnt Trevor’s arms. With a single slash, she cut the man’s face, effectively blinding him.

In a moment, the dim light that enveloped them disappeared, remaining only the fire from his arms as the single light in the room. By instinct, when he got cut, the man had taken his hands to his face, not noticing the grave mistake he had made. The fire that enveloped his arms wasn’t actually touching him, only orbiting around them, but when he touched his face the fire made contact and started burning his head as he had not turned it off before he did. With a single horrifying scream, the room fell completely in darkness.

“Ernst!”

The spy eye on the roof deactivated and a metallic shrill resonated through the room at the time that white erratic lines appeared on every surrounding surface. Lawrence was completely blind and simply dropped to the floor, but Trevor could now see how the claymore man had raised his weapon to cut Lawrence in half.

Trevor tried to launch forward, but could not step up from the ground as his burned arms failed him. He fell again, being unable to do anything as the sound of the claymore cutting through the air shot above him. He closed his eyes in terror, but after a moment, nothing had happened. When he opened them, both the man of the fire and the claymore were gone.

He looked around, but neither were nowhere to be seen. Lawrence and Ernst were the only people with him in the lab. With no better ideas, he looked up, and then he saw two enormous stains in the ceiling, quickly understanding what happened when he closed his eyes.

“Ernst, this… it can’t be. This can’t be.”

He could not take the shock anymore and vomited right then and there. Ernst, without a word, simply walked out of the capsule they called umbrella, nonchalantly walking towards them.

Trevor couldn’t find the words. Up until that point he had only heard the descriptions Lawrence once did, but he had never seen Ernst’s handiwork with his own eyes. He was really glad that the room was in complete darkness, he couldn’t imagine how the red splatters starting to ooze down from the ceiling looked like, and he hoped he would never find out.

“Try not to think too hard about it, Trevor” Said Lawrence, trying to find her footing while completely blind.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can”

“Yes, but although we have tried, subtlety will probably never be a word in Ernst’s vocabulary.” Said Lawrence with a sigh, far more accustomed to the gruesome methods he used to resort to. “Hey, thanks a lot for the assist. Can you clean the ceiling too?”

“No” Replied Ernst curtly. He had gone towards one of the chairs near the machine and sat in silence.

“Can you at least cover it all with something?”

Without a single word, bundles of fabric appeared out of nowhere and stuck to the entire roof. Unless you paid attention, it was as if there was nothing there to begin with.

“Trevor, can you come here for a bit?”

Lawrence had sheathed her sword back and was using it as a cane once again to avoid hitting the walls as she walked towards him.

“On my way.” Said him, still not taking his eyes away from the roof. He couldn’t see anything, but he still felt a chill, knowing what was above him. While distracted, he got accidentally hit in the leg by Lawrence’s improvised cane.

Trevor once again fell into the ground, having been hit in the shinbone. In situations like these, Lawrence did not know how to control her strength at all.

“You have to be kidding me. You should have seen me coming, I’m the one that’s completely blind in here.”

Trevor looked up and took Lawrence’s extended hand to rise up again. He rose, but then the sharp pain from the burns on his arms returned due to his efforts. The contours were unfortunately detailed so he could see how gruesome his wounds were. He was never a muscular person, but now the charred part of his arm looked as if his skin had now stuck onto the bone. He did not understand how he could still use his hand considering it all, truly, a force’s strength is not to be underestimated.

“Let’s not waste any more time, shall we? We need to do something with your arms, we don’t want that to get worse than it is.”

“Don’t worry, it barely hurts”

“Well, you may be right. You can’t even keep your voice from cracking from the pain, but if you have enough energy to lie about it, you may not be as bad as I imagined.”

Trevor started walking with Lawrence towards Ernst, who still sat silently on a side of the room. Only when they got close, Trevor could see a nasty substance dripping down from Ernst’s hands.

“Ernst, what did you do!”

Trevor shot forward, almost grabbing Ernst’s hands, but he recoiled immediately. Only then he noticed that he didn’t have anything to clean him with in the first place.

“Let me guess, Ernst used his own hands again. Ernst, can you clean them please? we don’t want to carry that kind of stuff with us.”

In the darkness, they could only see the chalky white contours that Ernst created over all things. Meaning, Trevor could see how the silhouette of a blood splatter flew out of Ernst's hands and stick itself back into the ceiling. Soon it got covered by a new piece of fabric. Truly, cleaning all of that afterwards was gonna be hell.

“Sounds like I was right. So you transformed again, did you?” Asked Lawrence softly, as she would do when speaking with a kid.

“Yes.”

“And why did you?”

“I got scared. Sorry”

“It’s fine, you don’t have to worry much about it. I know it was scary, but you can trust us, we have everything under control.” Lawrence continued, getting closer to him. She wanted to grab him by the shoulder to reassure him, but the fact that she was still blind prevented her from doing anything else.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I am” She said, trying to force confidence back into her voice.

She wanted to assure him, but she was only bluffing. It was taking all she had not to think about the two men now crushed into the ceiling or the dead man on the door. As much as she hated to admit it, they had been way over their heads during the whole situation.

Three men attacked the lab, which made no sense. Most of the time the lab was empty, so unless they knew beforehand about the experiment, it made no sense to attack it.

Three armed and experienced warriors had attacked her for a test whose objective she didn’t even know. She still thought she was right on her intuition, but again, had no proof to back her ideas. While thinking back at it and wondering how the men knew they were there, she finally noticed something that was wrong from the start and she had failed to account.

At the start, there were four men approaching the lab.

Immediately, she grabbed Trevor and shut his mouth in case he would make any noise. She once again used the spy eye outside the lab, but didn’t find anyone nearby. At the very least, the man didn’t seem to be anywhere near the lab anymore.

“Trevor, don’t say anything, but there’s still a man left. There were four at the start, but he separated at some point. He doesn’t seem to be nearby, but he could come back eventually. We need to get out of here, now”

The pros and cons flew through her head very quickly, but a conclusion was quickly drawn. The man was nowhere to be seen, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t come back and ambush them outside. They could stay in the lab, but during the day the situation would be even more precarious as they would be unable to leave with Ernst. The only option was to keep an eye open and try to escape to the refuge while they still had time.

As expected, Trevor panicked when she said that, but could not scream as she had already shut his mouth beforehand. After a few awkward moments, Lawrence let him go and leaned over towards Ernst.

“Sorry, we’ll have to leave right now. I’ll use my spy eyes in the distance, so don’t worry about me seeing you. Let’s go with the shell plan, alright?”

Trevor sighed in relief, probably having thought of the same idea. Without warning, both Lawrence and Trevor were pushed towards the back door and outside of the lab. Losing their balance, they fell into some wall that felt like a cushion or a pillow. Soon enough, the both were seated in a chair in the middle of a contraption moving through the forest.

The shell plan, an updated version of the chariot plan they once devised. When they have enough time before the morning to spare, Ernst creates a contraption that moves through the forest by a series of dozens of vines that stick to the ceiling, floor, and anything in between to advance them forward. The only problem was how small the space inside the contraption was, so they only used it in emergencies.

Ernst lived in complete darkness for years and his senses were still particularly sharp compared to a normal force. While Lawrence scanned the distance for the man, Ernst moved them forward, making sure no animal would attack them along the way.

It wasn’t a foolproof plan, but Lawrence deemed it better than being sitting ducks in the lab that proved to be unfit to be defended.

Trevor and Lawrence had no choice but to stand in absolute darkness during the whole trip, hearing nothing but the vines of the contraption undulating and grabbing everything with noises similar to a whip.

Lawrence had no problem with just staying silent the entire journey, after all, she could not see Trevor even when his face was barely twenty centimeters apart from hers. The shell was really small, but in that kind of darkness, all she had to do was imagine that she was alone and start devising their next move once they arrived at the refuge.

Trevor on the other hand was very uncomfortable. Especially because the shell shapeshifted constantly to squeeze in between the trees on the way Ernst was choosing forward. If he wasn’t careful, he could lose his balance and fall face first into Lawrence. And most important of all, Ernst didn’t disable the contours of everything, so unlike her, he could see her face right in front of his, as if she was constantly looking at him in the eyes.

After twenty minutes of traversing Trevor was getting desperate. He got out the papers with the data from the rocket to study it along the way, but it was for naught. Ernst could make all contours visible, but could not discern the writing so it appeared as if they were blank. He resorted to peeking through the small window of the carriage, but the outside was just as dark as the inside, with the only difference being that when peeking he could hear the incessant noises of the hundreds of bugs that live in the forest they were traversing.

Of course, he didn’t need that kind of image in his mind, so he stopped looking through the window immediately.

“Lawrence, the phantom opera is not in this land, is it?” he asked, trying not to sound worried about it.

“The last sighting of them indicated that they were approaching the villages on the frontier with Gun, those that are near the oracle’s tower. That’s more than far enough, don’t worry about it.”

“Are you sure? Maybe we should use the earplugs just in case”

“If we use the earplugs we won’t hear each other nor any enemy that could be after us. We must be attentive, remember that there is probably someone still going after us.” Lawrence concluded, unwilling to give an inch.

Trevor did not like that idea at all. Worst of all, the pain from the burns had now decided to come back again. Ernst had done some improvised first aid with his ability, but that certainly did not alleviate the pain it caused. The sum of all his discomfort did nothing but aggravate his anxieties.

“What are we going to do? Ernst saved us, but if they attack us during the day he won’t be able to help us.”

“And that’s precisely why I am here, aren't I? As soon as we arrive we will prepare the refuge under the assumption that we will get invaded again, we will also communicate what happened with Terra and will await our next orders while in there. Unfortunately for us, I feel she’ll make us go to the oracle’s tower.” Lawrence answered, sighing. The idea of going anywhere near the last phantom opera sighting was extremely unappealing.

“Can’t we just go straight there then?” Ernst said, completely forgetting they were in that zone.

“No, it is too far away, we can’t risk Ernst in that way. Besides, that’s only my assumption, and I definitely don’t want to go anywhere near the phantom opera if I can do anything to avoid it.”

Trevor gave up then. He hadn’t considered that, but the only thing worse than having to deal with another assailant was the idea of crossing paths with the phantoms. Lawrence was wary of them, but didn’t seem to fear them, while he had only encountered them once and found the experience deeply disturbing.

The refuge was nothing but a little construction adapted into a hideout for Ernst so he could rest during long trips. Just like the lab, it was not created with the intention of being defended from the inside. Ernst would protect them until the morning, but what came after worried him deeply.

After trying to process his thoughts a bit more, he reached no conclusion. Drowsiness had finally started to take a toll on him, and he decided to sleep while he could. The incoming day seemed to be nothing more than a new nightmare in the making, so it would be better to sleep while he could. After all, if there’s no escape to the challenges to come, the least he could do was to be in full possession of his faculties once those problems arrived.