The Knights of DVIN

Nessa roared and thrust her hands forwards. The metal surged towards Loki, who disappeared in the mass. Marlo took one step back but felt something squelch under his foot. He looked down and saw to his horror that he had stepped in a giant eye, set into the flooring tiles. There were hundred stretching out across the room. They all rolled to look at him and fro a second he was terrified. Then he realised Loki could easily have snapped his fingers and had the sound masked by the mass of crushing, jangling metal. He turned, and as Loki lunged at him with a blow, smashed him with a mechanical arm.

The illusion of a body he had hit blew away into mist, and he looked around frantically, in time to see the dust of the impact clear, and Nessa swipe with a giant mechanical arm at what must have been the real Loki. He flipped over it, and in mid-air jumped into a portal, emerging much closer to Nessa and swinging both his heels down on her back. Marlo yelled, but a sheet of steel slid in between them, and wrapped itself around Loki’s legs, trapping him. Nessa turned her head back, bit into the metal hard enough to leave imprints, and jerked her neck, slamming Loki down into the ground. He yelled in pain, but portalled out before she could bring her great mechanical arms down.

He appeared next to Marlo, but he was ready, half his arms pulling him back to make distance, the other half swinging for Loki. Loki ducked under one, jumped over a second and ran along a third towards him, his hands mutating into fierce claws as he ran. He leapt at Marlo, claws poised to gut him, but the arms doubled back on themselves and slammed into his back. This Loki too, burst into mist, and Marlo reacted instinctively to the sound of movement on his right, having his remaining arms roll over him in a curtain that blocked the incoming blows.

He couldn’t do much this close though, so he tried to have his arms grab tiles off of the floor and hurl them at Loki. He dodged them all easily, grabbed two of the arms and forced them apart, the metal screaming as it tried to deny him access. He hauled them open, and grinned at Marlo, before Nessa slammed into him from the side, tackling him to the ground with a “Do not dare mishandle my creations!” She drew back a hand, and metal collected around it, forming a deadly spear that she stabbed down. Loki jerked his head to the side and the spear pierced through his thick black hair and into the floor to the side. He jerked a knee into Nessa’s gut, and as she was pushed up from the force, already curling into the foetal position, he kicked both his legs up, sending her rocketing away and freeing himself in the process. Marlo ran backwards like a baseball catcher, and his arms grabbed Nessa, catching her as she fell.

“Your creations?” Loki panted “you’re telling me you made those arms? You?” He straightened “Well, why not come to DVIN? We’d be able to make great use of a smith like you. The pair of you can come together, how does that sound-”

A giant metal spear formed from the wreckage near the console and stabbed at him. He caught it just before it hit him and growled as Nessa declared.

“The entire world deserves to see the masterpieces that are my creations. Not just you and those of your kind. I have nothing whatsoever to make for creatures like you.”

Loki shook his head in disbelief and hurled the spear backwards. The windows, already weakened by the multiple pulses of noise and harsh impact, shattered in its path, sending it plummeting down to the streets below. “Fine. Fight me. But I hope you don’t expect to win. After all…”

He clicked his white fingers twice, and with a group cackle, there were suddenly a dozen Lokis stood in front of them. “You don’t even know where I am.”

“Friend!” Nessa said, hopping down and placing herself between Marlo and Loki “Get to the Seancer. Once we have broadcast our message, we may leave.”

“Why not you? You’re faster.”

“I am confident I can hold off Loki for several minutes. And it must be you who spreads the message. Make your death a message friend. Become a martyr!”

Wimund and Julie crashed down, in a shower of rubble and dust. The pair twisted their bodies to avoid being impaled on the strange structures, and both landed well.

“Ye work at DVIN, so tell me,” Wimund gestured around. “Why do they have all these strange pieces of art? I’ve never got what they see in them.”

“Ah, I’m afraid it’s a company secret.”

“Oh don’t worry darlin,’ it’s nae secret your company’s got nae taste.”

Julie’s eyes narrowed “You’re the wrong sex to be calling me that.”

“Darlin’ is a gender-neutral term. Like lad. Or cu- Ah Monticello!”

Monticello had rushed over and stopped staring at the two. “Wimund, who’s this?”

“Security. Masterful job keepin’ 'em out by the way.”

“I… I didn’t-”

“Ach, I’m only messin’. Come on, let’s stomp this broad.” He looked back to her, and his eyes widened “Monticello get down!” He jumped for the younger man and hauled him down as, with a perfect contralto’s note, Julie span on her heel, and waved her rapier around. The soundwaves reflected on her dress’ hem and waist augmented her blade, lengthening it with a ghostly, pale white visage which sheared through every statue in the room, stopping just short of the walls. The men staggered up and looked around. The statues, as one, fell, neatly sliced in half.

“Ye’ve got a hell of a set of pipes on ye, lass.” Wimund admitted.

“Please, enough with the compliments, they’re not going to get me to like you.”

“Dinnae want em tae, just sayin’ it how I see it.” Wimund raised his arms, and twin cutlasses sliced out, unfurling from the forearms, using the knuckles as a hinge until two serrated blades pointed at Julie. Behind him, Monticello’s mechanical fingers span around his wrists like circular saws, as his shadow bubbled and writhed.

“Then I’ll say it how I see it.” Julie readied her blade and took in a breath. “I don’t think you’ll survive one verse.”

She began to sing, her beautiful voice so distracting it almost offset the terror of her sprinting at the men. Her tones were clear as crystal, and gorgeous on the ear, like refreshing mountain water for the soul. Her dress blasted the sounds of the rest of the orchestra, creating the sounds of dozens of instruments to back her up as she sang. The same dress which had looked so stiff and bulky, now flowing like it wasn’t even there, giving way to her legs whenever she wanted, like oil on water being disturbed by a stick, moving with and around the motion without a trace of impediment. Her clothing gave her complete freedom of movement while also defending her the bulk of it resisting blasts from Wimund’s cannons and allowing her to continue her rush and leapt, coming down on the pair, blade first as she erupted into La Clemenza di Tito, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

The soundwaves went berserk on her dress, and every time she hit a note, she swung, with inhuman precision and strength. She fought the two men at once, her light footwork making sure they couldn’t pin her down. Despite her strenuous movement, her vocal control stayed absolute, delivering a performance that would be a joy to listen to were it not so deadly for the current audience.

“Ach shite.” Wimund thought, deflecting her rapier and blocking a follow-up that would have skewered Monticello’s heart. “It’s Decimancy.”

Loki, mid grapple with Nessa, paused and cocked a head to one side. “Oh dear, Julie’s off on one of her performances again. I feel sorry for your friends.”

“Feel sorry for yourself!” Nessa growled, grabbing him around the lower back and falling backwards, slamming his head into the ground. It burst into mist on impact, and she rolled, her steel flocking to her and coating her in thick armour as more Loki’s tried to take advantage of her position.

Marlo ran past, eyes set on the Seancer. Loki reached for him, but Nessa slammed an uppercut into his jaw, sending him staggering. He growled, and swiped for her, but she blocked both, and kicked him in the gut. She raised a leg over her head, and the metal flowed down it, forming a huge, spiked boot that she stomped down with. Loki clicked his right hand, and a rift opened over him, defending him. Nessa’s head snapped to Marlo, who had just had a portal opened over him. He looked open, eyes widening as the shadow of the metal that would crush him to death filled his vision. Nessa grabbed at the air and hauled. The metal stopped dead, just over him, and then was pulled back viciously. Nessa was flipped backwards by the force, and as the shrapnel scattered in all directions, she landed awkwardly on all fours. She got up, face wincing. Loki smirked.

“Well done. You have more self-control than a lot of rebels. I’ve killed a bunch like that, and it’s always so sad to watch the murderers collapse under their own guilt. They say shit like “Oh if only I’d thrown that punch seven centimetres to the left” or “If only I had been two point four milliseconds faster he wouldn’t have reacted.” Human ability to whine always amazes me. But stopping metal while you’re pushing your leg into it at full force and then pulling it back can’t feel good. You feeling it in your ankle? Your calf? Your knee, your thigh, your hip?” Nessa was indeed leaning more on her left leg, the one that hadn’t attacked, but she raised her fists all the same.

“I do not whine. And I do not feel pain. Not when I have a job to do.”

“Ooh, very cool. Make sure to keep up!” Loki turned and levelled his hand at Marlo. He poised his hand to click but before he could do anything, Nessa slammed Loki with a right hook, driving him to the ground. She swung her leg around and a plate of metal made of several reshaped statues flew under him, and flipped him, sending him spinning into the air. In mid-air, he stretched out his left hand. The whole world blurring around him, he narrowed his eyes, picking out the smudge that was Marlo from everyone else, and clicking his fingers. He grinned in the one microsecond before Nessa dropkicked him.

As he powered into the pool, water erupted in all directions, including all over Marlo as he ran the rest of the way. He came to a stop, panting, in front of the Seancer, and stared at it. How the hell did he work this thing? He picked it up and turned it over in his hand. It looked like a shrunken head, about the size of a cantaloupe, made of some dark material halfway between metal and wood, connected to the console by a tube to the neck. He looked for buttons, switches, anything he could find. There was nothing. He tried reaching a finger inside the ears, pulling at the lips, tapping on the eyes, even trying to reach up the nose. Nothing worked. His heart dropped. He could hear Nessa fighting behind him. Buying him precious seconds. Seconds he should have been using to spread his message. But he couldn’t get the damn thing to work.

“Nes…” He stopped himself. She had to focus, had to give her everything, to keep this monster busy. If he distracted her, if he showed Loki that they didn’t know what they were doing, it would be a disaster. He tried hitting the Seancer lightly against things, pulling the ears and hair, talking into it, and when all else failed, ran his hands all over it. Still nothing.

“Come on.” He whispered, shaking it furiously. “Please, please work.”

It refused to respond. He grit his teeth, his temper flaring, the urge to throw it on the floor and kick it flaring in his head. Instead, he put it against his face, forehead to forehead, and thought furiously about his life back home.

He had been Marlo White, a normal kid living a normal life. Eighteen years of schools, exams, always failing lessons, never ever getting along with everyone. Years upon years of spending day after day alone in the woods, unable to go back home, seeing parents who loved him even though he took up so much of their time and money, and gave them nothing back. He had never come even close to having a future. That day, when he had been walking home, he had been trying to work out how to explain to his parents that he had failed all his exams. He had no chance of being accepted into a university or getting a job. Everything had always seemed so daunting to him, so much more than what he could possibly do. Everyone but him seemed to have been born ready to do something. But him. He had no purpose. Not until he had come here and discovered that was all bullshit. He had no purpose, and that let him choose one. He chose to have a rebellious soul regardless of how stupid it was.

“Please!” He yelled. The Seancer twitched in his hands, and his eyes, which he had screwed shut, snapped open. Through misty tears, he saw the Seancer begin to move, the eyes opening, shining a deep, verdant green

“Yes! Yes!” He grinned. The Seancer’s mouth opened, exhaled one cloud of greenish mist, and stopped. Marlo froze, then started to shake as the eyes and mouth closed.

“No!” He shook it, slapped it, and yelled at it. Nothing happened. He put it back against his forehead, and thought harder about his past life, how he had always let everyone down, how in the last few years no one had ever relied on him, how he had spent so long in the woods he didn’t even know if his parents would know he was dead. This new photographic memory of his meant he could engage in each shameful memory in perfect clarity. But no matter how he tried, the Seancer did not come back.

“No…” He whispered. He couldn’t do it. He had one chance, and he had missed it. He turned, holding the head limply in his hands. “Nessa I…”

“Oh don’t worry.” Loki said, sat on top of Nessa’s corpse “We noticed.”

Marlo’s whole body stopped. He didn’t blink, he didn’t breathe, his heart stopped beating. Nessa was lying, face down, in a puddle of her own blood. Loki was sat on top of her broad back, watching him with a wry smile.

“Nessa?” Marlo whispered, voice scratchy and so dry she couldn’t have heard it even if she was alive.

“She can’t hear you.” Loki confirmed “She did her best, but a regular person like her just doesn’t have a chance. Julie likely killed your friends too.”

Inside Marlo’s head, a dull oppressive tone rang out, one long note that highlighted everything he was seeing. He was barely hearing Loki, and definitely wasn’t seeing him. His eyes were locked on the crumpled corpse of the woman who had saved him from imprisonment, who had given him the same Armpak that now hung, dead limp, from his back. Nessa. His friend.

“Nessa…” He repeated. Loki rolled his eyes.

“You’re really struggling to get this, huh? Fine. Would it help if she told you?” He reached down, and with a horrific tearing sound that made Marlo’s stomach, already plummeted lower than he ever thought it could, almost fall out of him, he tore Nessa’s head off her shoulders. He stuck one hand up her exposed throat, and mimed, in a high-pitched, grating voice “Hiya bud! I’ve just died horribly, so you should give back the Seancer and come quietly with Mr Loki!”

“This… This can’t be…” Marlo stopped talking. Loki looked at him expectantly and held out Nessa’s severed head. “How about a trade?”

Marlo stared at him. Loki leaned forwards, and like it was a bowling ball, rolled Nessa’s head over to him. Marlo, eyes dull, turned his head slowly and met the still, vacant gaze of Nessa. Her tongue hung out, and her eyes were glazed over, covered in a thick white sheen. She would never make him anything again, never speak again, never go on weird rants about her superiority, or how she was superior to everyone on earth. He would never learn anymore about her. He raised the Seancer slowly overhead.

“Attaboy.” Loki said, grin widening. Marlo knew that if he accepted this, he was dooming himself. Nessa was gone, the others probably too. He would give up on his chance to ever be free, ever see anyone he had once known and change how they saw him. He would be the failure everyone believed he was. So, he had only one option. He gambled.

The Armpak, just a second ago so limp, lunged. Not at Loki, the corpse of Nessa, or even at Marlo. It reached for the Seancer, and together those super strong hands tore the cable in half. Loki’s eyes widened.

“You stupid kid, what are you doing?” He yelled. Marlo’s response was a singular, guttural scream, expelling all the terror, grief and rage he felt as he hurled the Seancer full force into the severed head of Nessa. Upon impacting both of them burst into mist, and the illusion Loki had tried to trap him in faded away.

Wimund deflected another stab, and panted, hard. Next to him, Monticello was breathing even heavier. The woman, Julie was winding down her performance, holding her rapier like a conductor’s baton. She stepped forwards, unleashing a storm of stabs. The two fell back, and Wimund noticed that while he was able to fend off the attacks fairly well, Monticello was struggling far more, not having any blades and being forced to repel them with little more than punches. He was forced to intervene, blocking thrusts Monticello couldn’t get to in time. This left him more open to attack, and they were both forced to give ground.

“Monticello,” he grunted, parrying a strike aimed at his liver. “When she winds down, get your shadows out.”

“Planning on it, but I can’t promise it’ll work well. There’s nowhere near enough light in here, so the shadows are too big.”

With one last high note, Julie stopped her performance. She inhaled and smiled. “Congratulations! You’re the first group of rebels I’ve ever fought who have lived until my second verse.”

“I don’t suppose you take constructive criticism?” Monticello panted.

“What could you possibly say that would make a perfect person like me any better?” Julie’s smile widened.

“Oh…” Wimund thought “this is what it’s like to fight Nessa.”

“Now… What shall we have next?” Julie tapped her lips, thinking.

Monticello raised his hands and made the shape of two large fangs in a mouth. His shadow burst up, into a giant snake made of darkness. Julie dodged its first step with a casual jump backwards and whistled. “Look at that, wow.”

Wimund came in from the side with a slash, but Julie continued her whistle, a single piercing tone, and blocked with her rapier. The thin spire of metal should have been shattered upon contact with the much thicker, heavier blade, but it held firm. Wimund’s mechanical eyes focused in, lenses sliding in from where they were stored in his sockets, and he saw that the cutlass was not actually touching the rapier. Around it, creating that pale, ghostly glowing appearance, was a small field of rapidly vibrating air, stimulated by her voice, Control of her surroundings and amplification of her abilities through sound, more specifically music. Decimancy, just as Wimund had feared. Julie shoved hard, and Wimund was sent flying back. He hit love half of a statue and fell over it, landing hard. He groaned, and pulled himself up using the podium, rubbing the back of his neck. He heard music start up again and jerked his head up.

Julie bowed. “Il Segreto per esser felice, by Gaetano Donizetti. Do you know it?”

“Bit after my time.”

“I meant its name. Come now, we all share one language here, you must understand. It means the Secret to Being Happy.”

“Can’t say I do.” Wimund admitted. “Though I like to think I spend a little bit of time each day lookin’ fer it.”

“Let me put you at ease. It’s impossible in life. You’ll always be bothered by others, tampered and tinkered with, always have to fight for your survival. You’re too busy living to be happy. Sure there’ll be moments. The buzz from a well-received performance. The wink of a pretty lady. The sight of a rival falling off of your blade. But in life, it doesn’t last.”

“Awfully nihilistic, that.” Wimund said, shaking his head at Monticello in case he tried something.

“Is it? Because we’re past that here. We’re past life. Here, if you stop clinging to the things that life held you down with, morality, empathy, all that schlock people pretend makes them better, and just let go… then you’re happy. Truly.”

“Think I’ll stick to me own methods, thanks.”

“Very well. We’ll see if you can hold to your principles, once you’re faced with the power of simply,” her body went loose, and she lunged as the music swelled “going with the flow!”

Wimund parried, but now she was starting to sing she was even stronger. Monticello came in from behind, but she blocked him without looking, and cartwheeled out of the way of the snake that came in from above. It tried to follow, but she hopped into a patch of shadow, and it blanched. Her eyes flicked from one man to another, and it was clear she was trying to work out how to divide them. The pair rushed as one, and their twin assault pushed her back. Wimund hurled a statue at her, then ran in, using it as covering. He heard her voice rise, and eyes wide, dropped to his knees, sliding forwards as a column of pure sound blasted from Julie’s thrust, obliterating the statue. Monticello yelled in pain, and Wimund’s head snapped around to see him falling back, having been caught in the outside of the blast. Julie saw it too, and lunged, her superhuman strength sending her hurtling towards him, rapier poised to burrow into his exposed throat.

Wimund grabbed her ankle, reaching purely on instinct, and cutlasses shot out of his mechanical feet, stopping him dead as they dug into the floor. Julie cried out as the sudden deceleration hyperextended her leg joints, and Wimund turned, hurling her at a wall in the hope of doing more damage. She tumbled, head over heels, but when Wimund saw that she was grinning, he knew he’d made a mistake. She hit the wall, feet first, fixing her leg, and with one powerful high note, exploded back with an eruption of sound, the whole wall cracking into a fragmented crater as if a meteor had hit it. She rocketed past Wimund, much too fast to be caught this time, her face a blur of white teeth grinning as she closed in on Monticello. Monticello grinned back.

“Moron.” He said. His shadow erupted underneath her, and the snake reappeared chomping down on her and stopping her dead. She hung there, in its jaws, her grin disappearing as she stared at him silently. “You can’t have thought I would be that easy to beat, surely! You cocky bitch. I don’t know what your deal is, but are you still having fun now?”

“Hmmm. Yes. After all, this is the spot in the room with the best acoustics.”

“Acou-” Julie threw her rapier out of her trapped hand and caught it in her mouth. Her singing now blaring from it like a megaphone, she snapped her head around in a roll, and a huge column of roaring energy followed the motion, slicing through the walls of the Sessrum building, and sending a huge chunk of it crashing down to the ground far below. Monticello fell back from the sudden blast of noise, and Wimund, who had been running in, staggered.

The jaws exploded on impact, and she fell, catching her sword. She elbowed Wimund in the gut as he came up behind her, slammed a rapier butt into his nose as he doubled over, and then span, kicking him in the jaw and sending him flying away, smashing up statues in his wake. Monticello, half deaf from the blast, roared and brought both his saws in, but she sidestepped one, and drove a rapier through it, killing the mechanism. He fell back, slashing with another, but she caught it at the wrist, and, with a cheerful smile, drove her rapier through his midriff.