Ciphia Tales

Chapter 14 All I see is Red

Launching myself through the window, I sprinted at her.

"Who the hell are you!?"

She asks.

She summons crystal shards out of thin air, sending them in my direction.

I deflect them. Approaching her, I kicked her in the stomach.

She grunts, knocking her into a chair.

I aim the blade at her neck, her blue eyes shine, as more shards surround me.

"Why are you doing this?!"

She asks, confused and frustrated.

"Because it's my job!" I yelled back at her.

The shards dart at me, at high speeds.

I put up a barrier trying to stop them all.

By manipulating the gravity in our space, but they are all too fast.

One of them pierces my thigh.

I grip my blade, slashing at her in imbuing it with lighting magic.

The shards form in front of her as a s***h, creating a shield.

My s***h is deflected.

She grips the bottom of her shield, the crystals begin forming in her hand a long crystal sword.

I catch myself using my remaining momentum.

Clashing with her, my blade slides right off hers.

"Don't hold back, do this, kid. I'm holding back."

She says, as we clash.

"That's a huge mistake."

I responded by kicking her shin, making her kneel, then I kneed her in the face.

Raising my blade, I attempted to split her skull.

But my blade felt heavier.

I turned around, looking up at the tall man who stood before me.

His bright red eyes glistened in the darkness of the apartment.

He speaks, gripping my blade with his bare hands.

"Where did they take them?"

The man asks, looking at me.

"I won't tell you anything! You freaks!"

I said, letting go of my blade. He's holding on with his monster grip.

I reach into my cloak, gripping many daggers at once, throwing them simultaneously, imbuing them with lighting to make them faster.

"You are pretty skilled," he says.

It pierces the man's skin.

He grunts as it burns through his skin.

His skin seemed to be covered in some type of metal.

He threw the blade he took from the other side of the room.

I slid under him, grabbing my blade.

Imbuing my blade with a huge amount of lighting magic.

I s***h at his calf that isn't hardened and he falls down.

"Graaa! You stupid kid!"

He yells.

I then shove the blade through his chest and he falls to his knees.

Shoving the blade deeper inside him until the end penetrates the ground.

His body becomes limp as blood splatters everywhere on the floor.

I panted, turning towards the woman, I pulled out another dagger, sprinting at the woman.

"You think you won, kid?"

She asks.

She stands up gripping her crystal sword.

She begins to focus as more shards appear around her.

"It's time to get serious."

She says

I sprinted towards her with my last dagger.

The crystal shards fly towards me.

I cover myself with a barrier shielding myself.

Breathing heavily, I continued to sprint.

Allowing her in the crystals flung across the room.

As the shards bounce off my barrier shield.

We exchange one final blow as we both dash past each other.

With our blades raised as blood drips from both of the tips of our weapons.

I turned around to look at her but I felt dizzy.

She turns to look at me with her blade on her shoulder.

"I hope I don't have to kill you." She says.

But silence grips the room like a giant hand crushing me only for a moment because I couldn't feel anything at that time.

All I could hear was something dripping on the carpet.

My knees shake as I'm getting weaker, I don't focus on my own body.

I stumbled on the door trying to catch myself with both hands.

"Sorry kid." The man's voice said, standing before me with the sword in his chest.

"Who the hell are you?" The woman asks, holding her sword up.

"Don't worry, Dale sent me to look out for his family. My name is Shepherd," he said.

His eyes glowed an even brighter red as he took them out.

The woman stands up staring at me, wiping her face off.

As her hand glows on her cheek, she uses healing magic.

I looked up at the tall man standing over me.

"I know you didn't choose this life," he says.

His hand shimmers as light reflects off his fist.

Shepherd punches me.

I only see his eyes, before the color fades away into the darkness.

Waking up, I hear voices but the world still feels heavy. Sitting in the chair, I groaned, listening to the men yell at each other.

Looking around, we are in a dirty apartment near the underworld of Ciphia.

I look at Jericho, noticing his style.

He wears a black business shirt with a white vest.

Filled with bullet holes and no wounds.

He has short blonde hair with red eyes.

He must be a Vorkhan now.

I see the same man who I saw at the apartment, the one who grabbed my sword.

At the woman's apartment.

"I'll tell you what you want to know, just let the kid go!"

A man shouted.

"Since when did you have morality, Jericho?" Another man was speaking to him and was asking questions.

"I don't know, the kid is the victim in all of this," Jericho says.

"The kid is the victim? Yet he broke into a grown woman's apartment attempting to kill her?". Shepherd asks.

Jericho sighs.

"You don't understand what they go through, so don't say that. I'll tell you what you want to know. Just let me and the kid go alright."

Jericho pleaded.

"Of course, after you explain to me how we will find Nathan's family," Shepherd says.

"The kid will know but I doubt he will explain that you took his right hand," Jericho says.

Shocked, I looked at my right arm to see my hand was gone.

"The kid is awake."

Someone in the corner says his yellow piercing eyes, he wears a business shirt with black pants, his hair long and dark brown.

He has dirty stubble and his wounds are healed, but his clothes are still ripped from recent events.

There is also that old man with white hair.

Wearing his ugly brown trench coat, his clothes were ripped but no wounds in sight. His eyes are also yellow.

It's the same man that confronted me on the street with Catherine and Eric.

It's Nathan.

"Your f*****g arm was ripped off. I'll take the next one if you don't tell me where you took my son damnit!" Nathan shouts, approaching me closer. The old man grabs Nathan's shoulder, stopping him.

Nathan growls, baring his fangs at me.

Nathan's stubble grows along with his eyebrows, he's resisting his transformation into his beast form.

"He's not going to tell us after what we did to him. Besides, we got the majority of the information Jericho had on Ohme. We know so much that Jericho also offered to draw some blueprints of their headquarters." The old man says.

"Besides, if the kid doesn't tell us, we will go straight to the boss."

The old man said.

Nathan turned away from me and turned back into the corner.

"Let's do it your way Dale,"

Nathan says.

"How do we do that exactly?"

Shepherd asks.