Strike Me Down

Ulrich and Lainey ran towards the graveyard, where Shin was casually walking in their direction. The evening sun reflecting off his glasses and obscuring his eyes. And naturally, the white gemstone was in his left hand.

"Ah, it's only you." Shin sighed. "I assume you two are with Ayana, correct?"

"Why, exactly?" Lainey asked, hesitating, slowly taking out her granola bar.

"Listen, what brings you here, exactly? The gemstone?"

"The gemstone, yeah." Ulrich replied slowly. "Can we…have it?"

"You have Ayana, correct? I suppose we could come to a deal." Shin adjusted his glasses slightly. "If I give you the gem, then the four of you can leave Ayana with us, deal?"

"And you'd stick to your word?" Ulrich asked cautiously.

"If my employers ask, then the gem was stolen during the demon invasion." Shin responded with a relaxed smile. "So, what do you say?"

To Ulrich, this wasn't too bad of an idea. Maybe. One girl for possibly billions? He looked towards Lainey, who slowly shook her head. Still, Ulrich considered just leaving her for a second.

And then he heard screaming from a couple dozen feet away.

Oh right, Dominic. If he let her go, then Dominic would never let him hear the end of it. And as Dominic seemed to be fighting that obnoxious looking dude, it seemed peace was off the table anyway.

"Sorry, but it seems we'll be fighting you." Ulrich sighed.

"Whatever you say." Shin adjusted his glasses with his right hand, snapping his fingers with his left.

Ulrich and Lainey saw as the hill in front of them had a small army of skeletons peer out from over them. About fifteen. Their foreheads and joints all having the same red smudge on all of them. Ulrich fired the energy from his left middle finger, hitting the skeleton straight in the head. It still moved, seemingly not being phased by the attack.

Oh right, skeletons. No nerves to fell pain.

Well, this is bad. Ulrich ducked from the swipe of one of the skeletons, sprinting towards Shin. These were just mindless drones, right? Pretty much demons. He decided he had to end this, so quickly thrust all the energy from his right hand into his mocking, unmoving face.

Shin tapped two fingers against the white gem, and a barrier appeared around him. When the flames collided, they were instantly gone, a few embers hitting the grass, not even enough for a spark.

Lainey ran up to the barrier, delivering a kick as hard as she could, throwing some granola crumbs so Oni would strike the dome. And still, nothing happened. Oni managed to strike a skeleton behind them down, dislocating the skull and limbs in a few quick strikes, leaving it on the ground. Lainey smiled as she got Oni to beat another two to the ground, before feeling the strike of one behind her back.

The same skeleton she just beat.

"What the…"

"What, you think that was it?" Shin scoffed. "These are corpses, remember? You may try to disrupt their structure, but they will soon fall back into place."

"Ah, literary professor, got it." Ulrich sighed.

The skeletons continued the assault, with Ulrich resigned to just punching the skeleton.

"You fine fightin' alongside Dominic?" Lainey yelled out, blocking a strike from one of the skeletons.

"Can you take these guys?" Ulrich screamed back.

"Long enough for you to get the other two. Now go get them!"

Ulrich ran off without a word, and Lainey ran up to the barrier, jumping and once again trying to kick it, following it with a barrage of mad slashes from Oni. And still, nothing happened.

One of the skeletons got in a direct shot to her back, and she stood frozen for a second, until a second skeleton hit her on the head, and she fell to the ground. She was unable to move her legs, she was slightly able to move her arms, but even that was a struggle, her left hand stuck in front of her. Oni was above trying to fight them off, their arms getting stuck inside his body. A skeleton stepped onto her left leg, and it felt like she got shot. She thought she let out a scream, but she didn't hear a sound, and Shin didn't react to anything.

But then a skeleton made a step onto her back. And her scream was heard. It was extremely heard. She looked up, and even Shin seemed startled by what came out. She looked up, and all the skeletons surrounding her were dismantled, so when she got the chance, she tried to stand up. Her left leg hurt like hell, but it wasn't broken. She thrust her hand towards her leg, and Oni covered it. She was able to walk up to the barrier, even if it felt like it broke with each step, to where Shin remained unmoving. His brown eyes visible, somehow looking thoughtful and blank at the same time, like he was thinking about his favourite milk flavour. Lainey let out the most violent scream she was capable of, which did nothing aside from causing Shin to look mildly concerned on her behalf.

And then, she tried screaming into her fist. As loud as she could. She slapped her guitar, and as if in sync, Oni instantly retreated into it. She slammed her open hand into the open barrier, and for one single moment, it shattered. Shin started to look terrified as Lainey closed into him, landing a solid punch into his stomach, tearing his glasses off his petrified face, and punching him until his nose bled. She tried wrestling the gem off him, but he was still holding on in desperation. Lainey screamed into her hand, trying to get a point blank shot into his face.

And then her guitar made some kind of rumbling behind her, and she looked behind her. The attack of the skeleton was the last thing she felt, before slumping over, her body finally giving up.

Ulrich caught up with Dominic and Ayana. Ayana looked slightly taller than usual, and Dominic just looked way more pissed off then he ever saw. Both of them were bleeding pretty heavily, and the other guy looked the same as usual, but slightly paler.

"The hell are you doing?" Dominic screamed. "Why aren't you fighting the other fucker?"

"My attacks aren't doing anything to him!" Ulrich screamed back.

"Oh, bloody…just don't hit him with anything sharp!"

Without saying anything else, Ulrich charged the entirety of his left arm into his hand, releasing it with a simple "Duck!" to the other two.

The fireball went straight into his back. Akira stood still for a brief second, beginning to chuckling to himself.

"This…feels new. But if it's what I think it is…" He laughed, stopped for a second, and began laughing even harder. Small crimson spikes started jutting out in the dozens, and Akira immediately slammed both elbows into his sides, sending the spikes flying to towards him.

Ulrich tried burning through the spikes, but if that made a difference, he didn't feel it as the spikes stabbed him repeatedly. He certainly felt at least one go through some part of his body. He slumped over, felt his legs explode internally, and looked down. Blood was all over him, but the question was whether the blood was his or Akira's. Unfortunately, he couldn't find an answer, as his body was too busy shutting down.

"Ah, you fucking…" Dominic started his sentence, but couldn't think of anything. "Hey, Ayana! Get him out of here!"

"Where?" She yelled back.

"Your house?! I don't fucking know, just not fucking here!"

Ayana did her best to hoist Ulrich onto her back. She got him onto her back, and started walking to her house, knowing where she'd leave him. She looked back at Dominic, who was picking up his axe.

"Hm, what's this?" Akira asked, stifling a chuckle. "Bringing back the old axe?"

Dominic showed him the head of the axe. If it was angled slightly lower, the shoddy metallic sheen would be blinding him.

"You're paler." Dominic mentioned calmly.

"What's your point?" Akira asked, hiding a noise trying to escape his mouth.

"Eh, it'll explain what happens next."

Dominic covered his right eye with his hair, and sprinted towards Akira, planting his axe directly into his chest, smiling the entire time. The spike that spurted out grazed his exposed shoulder, but Dominic ducked, hacking the crystal in half. He aimed his axe for his stomach, and sure enough, another crystal came out.

Dominic stepped back from the crystal. It was smaller. Or at least that's how it looked. Akira lurched forward slightly, bending his back slightly, and the spike shot out and finished its course.

Straight into Dominic's chest.

"Well…shit." Was all Dominic could really say to this news. "Nice blow."

"So, are you finally finished?" Akira snarled, panting. "Because I am getting VERY sick of you."

"Nah. If this is what I think it is, then I'm on a timer. Around…fifteen minutes, give or take? So I just gotta kill you and speccy in that time."

Dominic took out his axe, and aimed for his neck, which he blocked with his hands, making more small crystals. These were incredibly small compared to what he was making ten minutes ago, and Akira looked like he was receiving an electric shock with all the blood he was releasing. He coughed, and small spikes jutted out of his mouth.

And then he keeled over.

Ayana was behind Akira, now lying on the ground. He wasn't moving, and Dominic gave one final swing with his axe to make sure he'd stay that way.

"Uh, what the hell happened to you?" Ayana screamed.

"This?" Dominic asked. "Oh yeah, got stabbed."

"Well, then get inside!" Ayana screamed. "We have a first aid kit in the house, and we can…"

"Yeah, we should focus on that." Dominic replied, pointing towards Shin and his skeleton army. Ayana looked at Shin, and Dominic spat out the blood that built up in his mouth while she was distracted.

"Ayana." Shin said calmly, before tapping the gem and making another barrier. "Two people got hurt because of your immaturity. I feel that now would be time to give in."

"Make that three." Dominic chipped in. "Spike guy died."

"Yeah, Akira died! We don't need to do this anymore. Just give them the gem, and I'll leave. Okay."

"I'm sorry, Ayana. But for these three to just come in and destroy our way of life, I just can't let it happen. I've prepared something else, so just cease this."

"Shut the hell up, man!" Dominic screamed. "She's not going with you."

"Yeah!" Ayana screamed, posing with her hand covering her left eye. "Strike down the nebulas of evil, or something!"

Shin just sighed, snapped his fingers, and the skeletons reacted, marching forwards. Dominic ran in, slashing one of the skeletons heads off, while Ayana downed a vial, and kicked the head off another. Dominic struck down any skeletons that stood between him or the barrier and made his best attempt to destroy it.

And nothing happened.

The skeletons behind him came back to life, and one punched him in the back, behind where his wound was. He let out a scream and a few curses, and turned around, taking out the two skeletons behind him with a few swings of his axe. Another skeleton punched him, causing him to drop his axe. The disembodied skeleton arm was next to him, so he picked that up and bashed the skeleton with that a few times. He hit the skeleton with the hand of another, until the entire skeleton came with him, crashing into the other skeleton, causing it to fall.

And then, a ray of genius started bouncing around Dominic's head, finally hitting him.

"Hey, Ayana! Throw me the bones!"

"What?" Ayana asked, kicking the head off her fifth skeleton.

"The leg bones of the skeletons!"

Dominic frantically started collecting leg bones from each of the eight skeletons on the floor. He started hitting them against the barrier, not making any progress.

"Stand next to me, this'll work!"

He kept hitting the barrier, and when he saw the other skeleton parts approaching him, he flung the legs into the barrier as hard as he could, the rest of the bones going into it.

Dominic smiled at the visible crack in the barrier, turning to Ayana.

"Hey, Ayana! Kick it!"

Ayana kicked the mass of bones, and the crack turned into a gap, which Ayana managed to get into, watching as Shin began to panic.

"Wait, Ayana! What are you trying to do?"

He tried pleading with Ayana more, but Ayana cut his neck with her knife before he could say anything else. She tapped the gem, and the barrier disappeared.

"Did we do it?" Dominic asked, smiling.

"Seems like we did." Ayana replied, breathing heavily, but also smiling.

"Let's go!" Dominic screamed, until he felt his organs drop to the bottom of his body.

"Oh right, that." He got on his knees, spitting out more blood.

"Wait, are you…" Ayana tried to find the words to say to this.

"Probably." Dominic replied quickly, coughing. "Hey, you…don't mind taking my place in the Destiny Destroyers, right?"

And with that, he slumped over.