._.

Ima post new chapters soon. If those don't get any comments, I'm gonna be dissapointed. D:

._.

Well, I finished chapter 29... And fortunately summer vacation has started, so now I can really get writing.

Does any of the origional cast still read this, other than Tagtag?

Chapter 29 – Ka-ley: Frozen Fire

Ow…

I slowly opened my eyes. Light filtered through the gaps between my eyelids, and blinded me. I shut my eyes, opened them again, and blinked several times to adjust to the light.

I was lying in a pile of leaves under a tall, dark tree, directly in a beam of sunlight. Bushes, trees, and other flora filled my vision. I saw a lone Chromalisk walk by, followed by several tinier Chromalisks. One of them looked at me and stuck its tongue out.

“I must still be in the Wildwoods.” I mumbled to myself, as I tried to get up. But a lightning bolt of pain shot down my muscles, and I settled down again. Ow.

“Phake it eashy.” A familiar voice barked. “Youf been out por a day. Your muszles are ahl shtif and taght.”

I turned to the direction of where the voice had come from, wincing as my neck muscles experienced a brief blast of pain. Dyrus was trotting towards me, something in his mouth. That would explain the garbled words. He dropped the object out of his mouth and sat down in front of me. I looked down and say a mangled, slightly burned snipe on the ground, the spark of life gone from its eyes.

“And that,” Dyrus said, spitting feathers out of his mouth, “Is your dinner. Or lunch. Possibly breakfast. You can’t really tell in this here forest.” He picked a feather out of his teeth with one of his claws, and tossed it away.

“Erm… Thank you.” I replied, staring at the dead Snipe. I slowly got up, loosening up my muscles, and crouched down. But before I began eating, I looked up at Dyrus.

“Are you-”

“Don’t worry about me.” Dyrus waved a paw in the air dismissingly. “I already ate something while I was hunting.” I opened my mouth to ask another question, but he interrupted me again. “And yes, I will tell you what happened. After you eat. Like I said, you’ve been out for a day. Your stomach will be empty.”

I began to protest, but suddenly realized how hungry I was. I shrugged and began devouring the bird. Once I was finished, and spitting out bones and feathers, Dyrus began speaking.

“I see you’re done, so I can begin.” He paused for a moment, allowing me to pick one final feather out of my mouth, before continuing.

“Now, as you can probably remember, you were with that Knight, being chased around by the Gremlin, who was in turn being chased by me. There was a battle, which at some point the Knight began the shoot explosives everywhere. You were caught by one of the explosions, and knocked unconscious against a tree.”

Remembering the experience, I rubbed a paw against the top of my head, feeling a nasty bump.

“The explosions blew dust into the air, creating a fog of sorts. I managed to drag you out of the battlefield and to safety, while the Gremlin and Knight had their vision obscured.”

There was silence for a moment. I waited for Dyrus to say more, but he didn’t.

“And?...” I prompted him.

“And… That’s it.” He said awkwardly.

I frowned. “You know, for some reason, I expected some epic story where we were chased by the Gremlin and Knight some more, or there was some kind of attack by other Wolvers, or something.”

Dyrus rolled his eyes. “I tell the truth like it is.” He replied. “Although the Gremlin has come close to finding us several times. I’ve had to move us around a lot to avoid being discovered. I haven’t seen the Knight at all, though.” He added.

A small worm of worry wriggled itself into my mind. “I hope he’s okay. He was pretty nice to me, not to mention he saved me from that Gremlin.” I said.

We sat in silence for several minutes before Dyrus stood up. “I suppose we should get moving. We’ve rested and eaten, so we should be able to make a lot of progress before we run out of energy.”

I frowned. “Why do we still have to keep moving around? Why not stay where we are?”

“Well, one, the Gremlin might find us if we stay here, and two, you’re not supposed to be here. Exile, under pain of death, remember?” Dyrus answered.

“Heh. I sort of forgot about that.” I admitted. “Although I must ask why you’re coming with me. You don’t have to, you know.”

Dyrus shrugged. “It’s boring here in the Wildwoods. I want to go out and see the world, experience new things, and all that mumbo jumbo. You know what I mean?”

And that’s how we ended up in a freezing wasteland with nothing but snow dunes for miles and miles. My coat of fur was holding up nicely against the sub-zero temperatures, seeing how my ancestors had lived and adapted to these kinds of places, but I was sort of worried for Dyrus. His fiery fur should have kept him warm and comfy, but he was shivering, and I could see frost forming on his fur, when it should have melted.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Y-Yeah! Never f-felt better!” Dyrus replied, teeth chattering.

I raised an eye suspiciously. “You sure? You don’t look so hot. Pun not intended.”

Dyrus opened his mouth, but sneezed, spraying embers from his mouthyyyyyy. Quickly recovering, he said, “T-this is no natural storm. Normal b-blizzards, I c-could stand. This is not a n-normal blizzard.”

“So you’re saying that someone, or something, is creating this storm?” I asked.

Dyrus nodded. “With the h-help of something powerful. Gremlins could easily c-create a snowstorm like this, but e-even they can’t make something so c-cold that it overwhelms a Dire Vog’s f-fire defenses. Only someone like S-Skolver herself could create something like t-this, but she’s a b-being of creation, not destruction. T-this is destruction.”

We slowly trudged across the snow, wind blowing in our faces, for some time. Dyrus began to look worse and worse. I figured that we should stop for some rest, when Dyrus’ head perked up.

“I smell something odd…” He mumbled.

“What is it?” I questioned. I sniffed the air myself, but couldn’t smell anything out of place.

“I smell… Knight, I think.” Dyrus slowly said. “And a Chromalisk of some kind. But there’s something else… Something ancient… I can feel their body heat… It’s coming from over… There!”

He began running up a snow dune, which proved to be quite difficult do to the several feet of snow on the ground. I attempted to follow, but ended up tumbling down the mound of snow. By the time I tried again and made it to the top, Dyrus was nowhere to be seen.

Fortunately, he had left a trial of dying embers on the ground. I ran along the trail, hoping they wouldn’t die out before I found Dyrus. But they did.

“Gah… Where did he go?” I grumbled. I swung my head left and right, looking for a sign that Dyrus had been there.

I was about to give up when I heard a load roar from somewhere beyond the snow dune in front of me.

Dyrus?

Then I heard another roar, a scream, a shout, and several gunshots.

“Oh no, Dyrus, what have you done?” I ran up the snow dune, and reaching the top, I saw a Knight-made structure some bit away from the bottom of the dune. Four Knights were standing there, one with a smoking gun in his hands.

And in front of them lay the unmoving body of Dyrus.

Chapter 30 – Dyrus: Fiery Ice

I tromped through the unnatural snow, heading toward the area where I sensed heat and smelled Knights. There were several Knights and a Chromalisk of some kind, that I knew. But there was something else I couldn’t put my nose on…

Reaching the top of a snow dune, I saw a makeshift tent dotted in the snow. I turned around and yelled at Ka-ley that I had found the source of heat, but she was nowhere to be seen.

“Ka-ley?” I scanned the sea of white, looking for some sign as to where Ka-ley was. Had I left her behind in my haste? Probably.

“Eh, whatever.” I murmured to myself. She could always track me down and catch up. I ran down the snow dune towards the camp, scattering snow as I went. I could see a small purple lizard buried in the snow in front of it. A guard, most likely. A guard that had fallen asleep. Four Knights were also fast asleep under a canopy. At least they looked like Knights. One of them smelled nothing like a Knight, and another smelled of… Slime?

So, Two Knights accompanied by a Jelly in armor, an Arcane Salamander, and an ancient being. What an interesting group. I thought.

My stomach rumbled. I hadn’t noticed how hungry I was. Being frozen tends to do that to you. It was a new experience to me, feeling cold. My fiery coat would keep me nice and warm during any other blizzard, but the current blizzard was unnatural. Anyway, it had been… About a day, I suppose, since I had last eaten. I’d lied to Ka-ley when I said I’d eaten my own Snipe when I’d been hunting for her.

I suppose this group would make a nice feast. I decided. I soundlessly trod my way towards the small camp. The Arcane Salamander wouldn’t be very nice to eat, I though as I passed it. Too many scales, and Chromalisks never had much meat on them. The ancient being, who knew what powers he had? Too risky to attempt eating him.

The Knights wouldn’t be very nice to eat either. Under all that armor was flesh, but also metal and wires. Biomechanical creatures were always a pain to eat. But one of them was wearing the hide of the Snarbolax, leader of the Beasts. Or the hide of one of his clones anyway. It certainly helped to live in a forest with the ruins of an ancient civilization that had cloning devices, hmm? I frowned. Even if I couldn’t eat him, I could certainly maul him.

That left the Jelly Knight. Under all that armor would be a nice blob of pink gel, tasty and surprisingly filling. Yummy.

I walked up to the Jelly Knight and experimentally licked him. He stirred and slapped me on my snout, hard. I pulled back in surprise and bared my teeth. He yelled something at me and quickly sat up.

He found himself face to face with my fangs. Then moment of surprise was lost. I growled and leapt at him.

The Jelly Knight quickly rolled to the side and bumped into the Knight wearing the Snarbolax hide. The Knight propped himself up with his elbows, rubbed his eyes, took one look at me, and screamed. The scream woke the others, and I suddenly found the statistics changing to one against four.

I spat fire out of my mouth and barreled into the Knight who had screamed. I knocked him to the ground and was about to tear him apart when the second Knight shouted something, and tossed an object to the Jelly Knight. At the same time, the ancient one, features obscured by a cowl and robe, thrust his hands out. I felt myself blast backwards, off the Knight and back into the snow. I picked myself back up when-

Pain erupted in my side. I staggered and fell to the ground. Then more pain. I shifted my head and saw the Jelly Knight holding a smoking piece of grey metal, a gun, I groggily remembered from past experiences with other Knights.

So I lay there, semiconscious, while the two Knights slowly advanced on me. The Jelly Knight was still standing behind them, gun still pointed at me. The fourth just stood there, watching the entire affair with no apparent interest. One of the Knights poked me with a pointy stick thing – a sword. I flinched slightly, and the Knights jumped back.

Suddenly, the snow behind the two Knights exploded, knocking them to the ground. I saw a flash of claws and teeth, and the Snarbolax Knight, as I had come to call him, fell the ground clutching his face and screaming, blood pouring from a gash in his face. It seemed the hide of a Snarbolax didn’t retain its invincibility after being cut from the beast itself. The other Knight retreated and joined with the Jelly Knight.

The snow exploded again. The Jelly Knight fired his gun blindly into the mist of snow, while the other Knight brought out a sword with a semitransparent blade of blue crystal. He slashed it through the air, and a sheet of ice sliced towards the explosion of snow.

There was another explosion. And another. And another. The Knights kept attacking each explosion area, the Jelly Knight pausing every now and then to reload his gun. By now the pain had slightly faded, and my vision cleared. With each explosion, I could know see a small white-furred Wolver burrowing in and out of the snow.

Ka-lay?

An explosion erupted between the two Knights, blowing them to opposite sides. Ka-ley stood there pressed to the ground, snow in her fur, fire in her eyes, and teeth bared.

The Knight with the ice sword jumped up, yelling something to his allies. Ka-ley froze him with her breath in a chunk of ice, his mouth still open.

The Jelly Knight backed up, another gun in his left hand. Ka-ley jumped at him and spun head over tail in the air, ice shards flying from her whirl of fur. They impaled the Jelly Knight all over. Then Ka-ley impacted into him, smashing him to the ground.

It seemed that Ka-ley didn’t know the Jelly Knight was a Jelly. Assuming he was dead, Ka-ley headed for the ancient being. She seemed genuinely surprised when the Jelly Knight sat up, grabbed Ka-ley by the tail, lifted her into the air, and smashed her down. Ka-ley looked dazed by the impact, but managed to speak out.

“You should be dead!” Ka-ley exclaimed in the universal language of the Clockworks. She seemed even more surprised when the Jelly Knight replied in the same language. Spiral Knights didn’t know the language she had just spoken in.

“It takes more than icicles to kill a Jelly, girl.” Then the Jelly Knight picked her up again and flung her through the air to land besides me.

The ancient being slowly clapped. “Very good, very good!” He commented. “Not bad for a Skolver barely 13 months old. Not to mention a small one too.” He took off his hood to reveal… A female’s face. The ancient being was a ‘she’ then, not a ‘he.’

The Jelly Knight was busy picking Ka-ley’s ice shards out of his armor, flinching whenever he did so. “You could have helped, Grimalkin. Subdued them before…” He pointed at the Knight that Ka-ley had first attacked, still clutching his face and moaning, then at the other Knight that she had frozen in ice.

Grimalkin, which I took to be the ancient being’s name, shrugged. “What can I say? I enjoy watching a good fight. And I did help. Blew the Vog off Dusk so you could shoot him, remember?”

The Jelly Knight sulked and walked over to the Knight with the torn face. “We’ll need to do something to stop Dusk’s bleeding.” He said, and shot Ka-ley a dirty look. “And we’ll also need to melt Frostrex. Can’t you do that?”

“I’m an assassin, not a healer!” Grimalkin said indignantly. “But yeah, I can heal him.” She murmured under her breath. She walked over to the Snarbolax Knight propped him up so his face was facing her, said a few words, and waved her hand over his face. Then she put him back down.

“His face should heal in a few hours, although he’ll be unconscious for some time.” She said. “And now we need to melt Frostrex.” She walked over to the ice-incased Knight and placed her hands on the ice. The ice began to rapidly melt, and soon, an unconscious Knight toppled out of his prison and fell face-first into the snow. Grimalkin flipped him over so he wouldn’t suffocate, and turned towards me and Ka-ley.

“Well!” The Jelly Knight exclaimed. “Now that that’s done with, there’s the matter of these two.” He pointed at me and Ka-ley. “What shall we do with them?”

“Heal them and send them on their way.” Grimalkin replied, crouched and already putting her hands over me. I could feel something sliding out of my body. Bullets. Grimalkin tossed the bullets behind her, at the Jelly Knight.

“Take those. I don’t know if you can reuse them, but they might be useful later. Bullets covered in a Dire Vog’s blood have special powers. Makes them resistant to heat or something.” The Jelly knight picked the bullets out of the snow and placed them in a pouch by the tent.

She put her hands over me again, and I could feel warmth spreading through my body. The pain slowly dissolved into nothing, and I settled into a more relaxed position.

Grimalkin moved on to Ka-ley, healing her cuts, bruises, and broken bones. When she was finished, she stood up and dusted her hands off.

By now, the blizzard had turned into gently falling snow. Grimalkin looked around. “Say, Red, have you seen Vesper? He was on guard duty before all this happened.”

“Probably asleep under the snow somewhere.” The Jelly Knight said. Or was his name Red, as Grimalkin had said? Red kicked the snow, looking for signs of Vesper (the Arcane Salamander?). “He can sleep through most anything. I wouldn’t be surprised if he never found out what had just happened.”

He kicked around some more before hitting something solid. He bent down, dug through the snow, and picked out an Arcane Salamander. He seemed rather annoyed that he had been awoken from his sleep.

“Gah! I don’t understand why you had to kick me to get me up.” He grumbled. He yawned, jumped out of Red’s arms, and landed on the snow.

Grimalkin walked over and kicked Vesper. He yelled indignantly. “You were supposed to be on guard!” Grimalkin scolded him.

“I was on guard. The entire time!”

“You were asleep!”

“Um… Doh, fine, you got me there. But it’s was so cold! And Chromalisks hibernate! Cold plus Chromalisk equals hibernation.” He explained. Grimalkin rolled her eyes.

“It’s true!” Vesper pouted.

There was silence for some bit. Vesper broke it.

“So, what did I miss?”

._.

Chapter 31 – Umbra: Bad Day

“AAARGHGHRHG!!!”

“Will you stop screaming? For Vog’s sake, stop being such a wimp.”

I screamed again. Anyone would if they were having several shadow bullets pullet out of their body with no anesthetic.

After being shot full of bullets by that little nasty Gremlin, I’d been left for dead. He’d gone off to hunt my Skolver, which he seemed to be obsessed with. He’d taken my money, dignity, and nearly my life. I wished I could do the same to him.

After writhing in pain for some bit on the ground, another Knight I’d recognized as Kantint had stumbled upon me – literally. My head hurt along with the rest of my body, where Kantint had been running, kicked it, tripped, stepped on the bayonet of his Valiance, and – after jumping around on one foot, clutching the other one and screaming out some rather creative swear word chains – noticed me.

“Such colorful language.” I had told him, after he’d noticed me.

“Oh, shut up!” He growled, kicking me again with his injured foot, thus leading to a sequel to his previous list of swear words.

Apparently, Kantint was looking for several of his own friends, who had been saved from The Swarm by a person called ‘Grimalkin.’ Technically speaking, his rescue mission hadn’t exactly been allowed by Spiral HQ. Only Kozma had stood up for him, and Feron had reluctantly given in. He didn’t dare to wonder what Ozlo and Barrus would think. Best not to dwell on the bad stuff, he told me.

So, right now, Kantint was picking the Sentenza bullets out of me before the infused shadow energy permanently damaged my body. And boy, did it hurt.

“ARHGRGHR!!!”

“All right, all right! This is the last one!” Kantint yelled at me. He threw a black bullet behind his back, and inserted a thin pair of tweezers into one of my bullet wounds. I screamed once more as he pulled the final bullet out.

“Done!” Kantint threw done the bloody bullet and tweezers. “Feel better?”

I gasped for air, lungs depleted from screaming. Spots filled my vision. Pain still racked my body. “Ask me later.” I took several deep breaths, and the pain slowly faded. My vision cleared, and my breathing slowed and became normal.

“Okay. Ask me now.” I told Kantint. He rolled his eyes.

“Feel better now?” He said with a hint of sarcasm.

“Yes. Yes I do.”

Kantintn grabbed the tweezers and shoved them back into his belt pouch. He dug around the pouch and brought out several small bandages. I grabbed them and placed them over the bullet wounds. They would heal over the course of several days, but scars would remain. Then Kantint picked out a red and white pill.

“Well, looky here! A painkiller!” Kantint exclaimed. He tossed it over to me.

“And the painkiller is finally found after the excruciating bullet extraction.” I grumbled, but I swallowed the pill nonetheless. Better late than never.

Kantint stood up and dusted himself off. “Can you stand up?” He asked me. I struggled to prop lift myself off the ground, and ended up falling over.

“Apparently not.” Kantint shrugged. “You still need some time to recover your strength. I’ll find something to eat while you rest.”

“Gimme my Magnus first.” I told him. “I don’t want to be lying here defenseless, with Wolvers prowling around.” Kantint walked over to where he had piled my weapons, and tossed my Magnus over. I fumbled it, surprised, and it went off it my hands, the resounding bang more or less deafening me. The bullet had narrowly missed my head, and had embedded itself in a tree across the clearing. I slammed the gun down on the dirt and glared at Kantint. He had his arms raised protectively in front of his face, just in case the bullet hit him. He lowered his arms when he realized that the bullet had gone wide.

“I don’t need any more bullet wounds, especially not in my face, thank you very much.” I told him. He looked somewhat embarrassed and murmured a quiet apology before heading towards the tree line. His legs changed gait as he entered, switching from casual to stealth mode. Couldn’t go around trying to hunt while making the amount of noise an agitated Trojan would make in a fine jewelry shop, could he?

Kantint gone, I could think. No shadow bullets, evil Gremlins, painful tweezers, or friendly fire to interrupt my train of thought. My mind wandered and found a grip on the Skolver. She had been so small and precious. Rather cute. I wondered where she was and if she was okay, and what her connection was with that Vog that had appeared. They had seemed to know each other.

So that made five rare monsters that I had seen in my lifetime. A Love Puppy, the infamous Impostocube, Rock Jellies, and a Skolver and Vog. Those last two creatures were supposed to be long gone, though. Hunted to extinction for their coats.

I suddenly felt extremely guilty for wanting to upgrade my Ash Tail set to Skolver.

When Kantint came back, he found me staring at my Ash Tail set with my Magnus pointed at my head.

“DUDE! What are you doing?” He exclaimed.

I looked up at him, confused. He pointed at my Magnus.

“Oh.” I hadn’t noticed I’d been doing that. I lowered the gun and dropped it. “Just a brief explosion of extreme guilt, I suppose you could say.”

“Uh huh.”

Kantint slowly approached me, as if afraid I might pick up the gun again and shoot him. I rolled my eyes.

“So, what did you get?” I asked him. He held out a pouch stuffed with food, and tossed it at me. Remembering how the last time he’d tossed something at me hadn’t gone very well, I glared at him. He glared back.

“I got a Snipe, some berries, a Forbidden Fruit, and something I can’t exactly identify.”

I took the items out of the pouch. “You know that the Strangers are gonna skin us for eating this Snipe, right?” Kantint nodded. “And these berries might be poisonous. Forbidden Fruit is poisonous to anything that isn’t a Devilite, and I’d rather not eat something that might have come out of the behind of a Wolver.” I scooped up the piece of something big, green, and lumpy on a convenient huge leaf nearby and tossed it away.

Kantint shook his head, disappointed. “I thought you’d know better after living in the wild for so long, tracking down the Great Colony.” He walked over, forgetting his previous caution, and picked up the Snipe. “One, these are wild Snipes, not the domesticated ones the Strangers have. This kind can fight back. And they HURT.” He absentmindedly touched his face. I could see a blot of blood on his finger when he lifted it off. “I don’t think the Strangers will care much if we hunt these little buggers.” Then he picked up the berries, which I just noticed to be semi-transparent. “Two, these berries are known as Gel Berries, and they taste delicious. They’ll also pump you full of energy, which you’ll need soon. And they’re not poisonous at all.” Then he picked up the Forbidden Fruit. “Three, these things aren’t poisonous. That’s just a rumor that Devilites spread so everyone else is put off from eating them. Then they get them all for themselves. Think they’re delicious, those Devilites do. In truth, these taste disgusting, which makes one wonder how Devilites define ‘delicious,’ but they’re full of nutrients and good for you, just as most disgusting things are.” He put down the Forbidden Fruit, and glanced at the green thing. “Although I suppose you were right in throwing that away. I saw a Wolver eating another one of those things, so I supposed that it was edible. But I suppose we’ll never know.” He clasped his hands together. “Now, any questions?”

“Yeah. Did you bother to stick around and see if the Wolver keeled over and died after nomming on this?” I pointed at the green thing.

“I refuse to answer that question.”

After eating the stuff Kantint had brought back (no, we did not eat the green thing), I barfed.

“Ew.”

“I can’t help it!” I protested, wiping… stuff from my mouth. “Raw Snipe is DISGUSTING. I can’t hold it down.”

“Well, you didn’t have to barf all over my bomb sack.”

“Oh. Sorry. But EVEN SO.”

“We don’t have an oven out here, Mister I-must-have-my-food-cooked.” Kantint commented sarcastically. “Besides, if you didn’t eat Snipe while hunting for the Great Colony, what did you eat?”

“Umm… Snipe.”

“And?...”

“It was roasted. So it tasted nice. Couldn’t we have made a fire to roast the Snipe over? Roast Snipe is so much better than raw.”

“Yes. But it would’ve been too risky. Enemies could be anywhere. Best to keep a low profile out here.”

“…”

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to find a new bag to stuff my spare bombs in. No, barf is not easily cleanable. It’d be faster for me to get a new sack than wash this one.” He held out the soiled sack and dumped all the bombs out, careful not to trigger any of them.

I frowned. “You really think that you’ll find a bag in the Wildwoods?”

“No. But it can’t hurt to check, can it?”

Apparently it could hurt to check. Kantint wasn’t gone for long before the screaming and yelling started. Wounded as I was, I couldn’t get up and see what was going on in the trees. Perhaps it was for the best, though.

Kantint suddenly came blundering out of the trees, bleeding from all over. Claws marks and tooth punctures covered him. He was carrying a worn sack, bulging with who knows what.

“What’s going on?” I asked him. He thrust the bag into my hands. I fell over from its weight.

“Take that!” He commanded frantically. “Now, tell me, is there a Beast Bell anywhere nearby?”

I sat up. “Um… No. Not that I know of.”

Kantint cursed.

“Cmon, what’s going on?” I asked him a second time. He glanced behind his back.

“Oh, CRAP! GET DOWN!” He screamed. He dove to the ground.

I didn’t have time to process anything after that. A dark blur suddenly shot up from behind Kantint, and smashed into my face. Then the searing pain began.

Meh. I suppose embedding sounds better than impaling. When you think of the word 'impale,' you tend to think of something long and pointing shishkibobing someone. I'll change it.

Working on Spyash's chapter now. SHould be out by monday. After that will be Blitz's.

And I just realized I typed NOW wrong in the same chapter. Typed KNOW instead. ._. MUST FIX

I see I'm getting new fans.

Chapter 32 – Spyash: Not ANOTHER Knight!

Cursing my bad luck, I used my Acheron as a machete, chopping through the dense foliage in front of me. Large bushes blocked my passageway across the Jigsaw Valley, as I advanced further and further through the area.

After my brief fight with the Knight, I had gone back to tracking down the Skolver. She had disappeared after the Knight had fired exploding bullets everywhere. The Vog that had been chasing me had disappeared as well, most likely accompanying the Skolver. If – no, when - I captured the Skolver, a Vog wouldn’t be a bad bonus.

I had tracked them all the way to the Elevator, where’d I’d lost track of their direction. Undoubtedly, they had used the Elevator, but had they gone up or down? That was my problem. Go the wrong direction, and possibly loose them completely. And even if I had gone the same direction they had, there was no guaranty that I’d end in the same area as they had.

I suddenly realized that the Clockworks Lords could launch an attack on Haven, since everyone knew how to use an Elevator. Fiends, Beasts, Undead, everyone. How come we hadn’t yet? Strange.

Anyway, I had chosen to go down, and ended up in the Jigsaw Valley. There had been no sign that the two Beasts had gone the way I had, although I could tell a Knight had passed through recently. There was no other choice but for me to find the other Elevator and look for them somewhere else.

Unfortunately, the flora in the Valley seemed intent on keeping me stuck there forever. It had been several hours ago since I had arrived in the Jigsaw Valley, and I was still cutting my way through a dense forest of bushes. BUSHES. Why did the bushes have to be so large?

And so I kept hacking and slashing away at the mass of green, slowly cutting a path towards where I thought the Elevator was. I figured it would take several more hours of slicing and dicing through the bushes until I reached my destination. So imagine my surprise when the forest of bushes ended several feet in front of me. I quickly deduced the good news and bad news.

Good news and bad news. The good news was, I was out of the bushes and could see the elevator. The bad news? The Elevator was on the other side of a massive void.

So technically, I had been heading in the direction of the Elevator. Too bad the direction I had chosen lead across open air.

I cursed, rolled my eyes, sighed, and began looking for a path around the gap. Fortunately, the ground nearest to the edge of the floating island was free of vegetation, so I could walk along the border of the land to get around the void.

I made a lot more progress than I had when I had had to slice my way through the bushes. After an hour, I had gone around the gap and was looking for the Elevator again. The amount of bushes had thinned out, so I only occasionally had to use my sword to clear my path.

During my entire excursion, I hadn’t come upon any of my brethren. Jigsaw Valley was a popular place to get the wood needed to manufacture more Roarmulus Twins. Gremlins were constantly cutting down trees here to provide that wood. Why hadn’t I seen any of them doing so yet?

I continued walking, when I saw something gruesome. Black, smoky cinders of… Something, lay on the ground. The metal slag of a fuel tank was poured on and around it. It was the burned remains of a Gremlin Scorcher.

There was a similar sight a few feet away. Another pile of ashes, mixed with melted metal. Judging by the present evidence, two IronClaw Scorchers had been attacked, killed, and cremated here. Most likely something had blown up their fuel tanks, thus killing them, setting them on fire and turning them to ashes, and melting the tank.

“Interesting…” I muttered, poking my Acheron through the ashes, looking for a clue as to what had killed them. I didn’t find anything, except for a melted lump of purple metal. A Black Hawk line bullet, possible? The bullet could have penetrated the fuel tank and blown it up, melting in the process. It made sense.

I stood up and took my sword out of the ashes, thus sending a plume of black dust into the air. I sneezed, causing even more ashes to rise. I quickly jogged away to avoid it, coughing and sneezing as I went. Inhaling ashes was not something I’d recommend to anyone.

Maybe I’d tell another Gremlin about what had happened here later. Maybe not. I still had to find that Skolver, I reminded myself. I began searching for the Elevator once again, pushing the thoughts about the dead Gremlins out of my head.

The Elevator was in my sights when I heard footsteps coming from behind a bush. I figured that it was a fellow Gremlin, and so raised my hand to greet him, when a Knight emerged from behind the bush.

I instantly thought that this must have been the Knight who had killed the Gremlins I had found earlier. A Sentenza was holstered in his belt, the perfect suspect for what had fired the purple melted bullet. I stepped back in alarm and drew my own Sentenza, holding my Acheron in one hand and Sentenza in the other.

The Knight saw me and halted, leaving us staring at each other for several seconds. Then a wicked, nasty sneer appeared on his face.

“What’s this? Another victim for me?” He then frowned. “Hmm. No fuel tank. Oh well. Guess I’ll have to do this the normal way.” He whipped out his Sentenza, and a black rapier, possible a Final Flourish. “Let’s dance.”

I rolled to one side and came up on one knee, firing bullets at the Knight. He shrugged a black shield from his back onto his left wrist, blocking the bullets. He used his own Sentenza to fire bullets at me, but I used my Acheron to fire off a series of explosions that blew them out of the air.

The Knight charged at me, shield in front of him. I holstered my Sentenza and thrust my Acheron at the Knight. It bounced off his shield, and I staggered, my arm feeling numb from the solid blow. He leapt forward and bashed the shield into my face, causing me to fall backwards.

Spots momentarily filled my vision. I felt my nose, which felt slightly crooked. I could feel fluid leaking out of it as well. Blood. I recovered just in time to roll aside and avoid the Knight’s strike with his black sword. He pulled it out of the ground as I got back up to my feet.

Once again, he leapt forward to smash me with his shield, but I was ready. I stepped backwards, and neatly sidestepped the shield. But it had been his wrist that was wielding the shield, leaving his left hand free. As I dodged the shield blow, he stopped him arm, leaving it pointed at me. In the pointing hand was hi Sentenza. He fired off a round of shots.

I dropped to the ground, ignoring the searing pain that had erupted in my right shoulder. Most of the bullets had entered it, but they hadn’t gone in too deep. They wouldn’t hinder my movement too much. I rolled forward and kicked my feet up, knocking the Knight over. In a tangle of limbs, I got up and stabbed down with my Acheron, again and again. The Knight kept blocking my blows with his shield, but I broke through his defenses and impaled my sword through his left arm. He visibly winced, although he didn’t cry out. However, he did drop his Sentenza, which he’d been holding in his left hand.

My sword had gone into the Knight’s arm and out the other side. As I yanked it out and prepared to stab again, he wildly brandished his sword at me, forcing me to move back. He rolled backward and stood up, one arm hanging useless at his side. Sheathing his sword and switching his gun to his right hand, and pointed it at me, warily looking at me as he fumbled around in a belt pack. How he did so with his gun in his hand, still trying to point it at me, I’ll never know. He pulled out a red and white pill and popped it into his mouth. He immediately straightened up, and flexed his left arm a bit.

“Not bad, not bad.” He said sarcastically. “Been a while since I’ve fought a Gremlin with real righting spirit.”

I shrugged. “I haven’t fallen out of practice. In fact, I dispatched another one of you Knights earlier this morning! He was pretty simply to defeat. Just play dead and most Knights will fall for it.”

The Knights eyes narrowed. “Is that so? Well, I suppose now I must kill you, to avenge my comrade’s death.” I supposed I should have said I didn’t kill him, I’d just left him for dead. But it probably wouldn’t have made any difference. The Knight lunged forward, Final Flourish magically appearing in his right hand again. I parried with my Acheron. I stepped and thrust at the Knight, who narrowly blocked the blow with his shield, allowing my sword to slide off the sheet of metal. With his shield occupied, I brought up my Sentenza and fired at his face, point blank range.

Unfortunately, his shield was still somewhat covering his face. The bullets imbedded themselves in his shield, thus leaving his face unscathed. He struck out at me with his sword, leaving a thin line of blood across my face. I scowled and kicked at him under his shield. He mustn’t have been expecting that move, because he toppled over again.

I kicked at his shield, finally knocking it off his wrist and several feet away from him. He’d dropped his sword and gun, leaving him unarmed. He was completely at my mercy.

In a final act of defiance, he sat up and lunged at my foot. I stepped back and fired a bullet into his left ankle, crippling him. His face contorted in pain again, but he stayed silent.

The Knight scowled at me. “Well? Aren’t you going to kill me like you did to that other Knight?” He spat. “Just like your kind did to my parents?”

I snorted. “Why bring your parents into this fight?”

“Because Gremlins like you killed them!”

I frowned. “In self defense, yes. You Knights think you can just waltz into the Clockworks and pillage everything, don’t you? I bet they deserved to die.”

The Knight’s temper exploded. “DON’T TALK ABOUT THEM LIKE THAT!” He lunged at me again, grabbing my legs. I fell over. He got up on his knees. Then he punched my face, breaking my already broken nose. I scrabbled for my Acheron, which had fallen out of my hands, but he saw the movement and punched my face again.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you right now.” He growled, venom in his voice. He had one hand on my neck, the other restraining my hands, and his knees on my chest, pinning me down.

“You shouldn’t, just like you didn’t spare those Scorchers back there.” I retorted. “It was you who killed them, right?” The Knight didn’t respond.

“I think I’ll just kill you. Rid the Order of another problem.” He snarled. He reached out and grabbed his sword. I wriggled and squirmed, trying to get away, but I was held tight. He pointed his sword at my throat.

“Prepare to die.”

Aw, crap.

meh. Steal your money, steal your dignity. I based a line off that in your latest chapter, I believe. >:D

NU. Spyash shall not die.

RANDOM TRIVIA:

In SpPyash's chapter, I had written an alternate ending where Dark Ace is about to torture him so "You can feel the pain that I've been feeling ever since your kind killed my parents!" But then I decided to not use that, for obvious reasons. ._.

But don't worry, Spyash. Even if I had used that ending, I was gonna have Kantint, Blitz, and Shadownox appear and tell Dark Ace to stop before he began in a later chapter. Or, in an alternate ending to the ending, Ace was gonna tell himself that he was better than that, and not torture you, but kill you anyway. :P

So, yeah. Just some interesting stuff.

Blitz's chapter should be out by wendesday. Dark Ace's by Sunday. I've only written a single chapter in Dark Ace's point of view... :P Sorry Ace, if yer reading this. Ima make it up for you.

After that, I'm gonna rewrite chapter 1 to make it past tense. I HATE present tense stories; way too awkward. I don't know why the first chapter is present tense. :P

Then after that, Another Julius/Commander 360 super chapter. ANd then blahblahbalbhab

TL;DR: BUMP.

Spyash = gremlin. That should help.

OH

The Knight's name is Ace. Or rather Dark Ace, as he calls himself. He's another on of the submitted characters. THe app is on the top of the 2nd page. I've only written 1 chapter in his point of view though.... XP

And at the beginning? I don't recall any Knights fighting at the beginning. Beginning of the story?

Derp. For some reason I remembed it was as the bottom.

LOL. Debating over the placement of an app. How silly. XD

I might finish Blitz's chapter early and post it today. Stay tuned.

Congrats to Shurine for figuring out where I got the name Grimalkin from. :3 Although it also has another meaning. It means 'old woman' or something like that. XP

Yeah, this isn't dead. In fact, gonna post chapter 34 with this post. :3 It's just that last week, my mom and sister went to Georgia for a harp competition (my sister ins international/world-wide level. ._.), so there was just me, Shadow, and my dad. We did a bunch of random stuffz and I sort of never really got any time to work on this. :P

So.. Yeah. Chapter 34.

Chapter 34 – Dark Ace: I Don't Even...

I had just watched the strange Mecha Knight topple over the edges of Jigsaw Valley. He had been retreating across a strip of land, when I had shot him. How the bullet I had fired at him knocked him over the edge, I have no idea. How it had even hit him from such a far distance, I don’t even want to think about. But it was the results that mattered. The Mecha Knight was long gone, falling head over heels into the abyss of the Clockworks, if he hadn’t smashed into something and shattered already.

I blinked my eyes and rubbed them. They still sort of felt weird. When we were fighting, the Mecha Knight had fired a burst of flames into my eyes. I’d though my eyeballs had turned to ash. But after rubbing my seemingly empty eye sockets vigorously, I realized that I could still see. If those had been real flames, I most certainly would have gone blind. But since I could still see, I reasoned that they were not flames, but possibly just a burst of embers and light. And heat. Definitely heat. Even if my eyes hadn’t dissolved, they had certainly rapidly dried up to the point where blinking was painful.

I had decided to go back to the Elevator and return to the Surface, but having chased the Mecha Knight around, I had traveled away from the Elevator, and now had no idea where it was. That meant that I’d have to go through the grueling work of searching the entire valley for it. Not exactly the best way to spend an afternoon, especially when there’s a high chance of getting a nasty sunburn from long exposure to the sun.

And so I had eventually found the Elevator again. Fortunately, no more Mecha Knights camping out besides it. Unfortunately, there was a Gremlin. A Gremlin with weapons. A Gremlin who knew how to use his weapons. A Gremlin who impaled one of his weapons through my arm. A Gremlin that had insulted my parents.

In short, a soon-to-be-dead Gremlin.

And that’s how I ended up with a bruised and bloodied Gremlin under the tip of my blade. I’d bested him in combat, and now he was mine to kill. And he certainly deserved it, the bastard. A Knight insulting my parents’ memory was one thing, but a Gremlin, one of the members of the species that had killed my parents, was something different altogether.

The Gremlin looked me in the eye. They were a swirling mix of fear, anger, and pain. But there was a hint of something else… Defiance? Disappointment? A solution of both, it seemed. How very interesting…

I shot a stare back at him. My own mixture of anger, hatred, and absolute satisfaction at being able to kill him seemed to somewhat crumble his defiance. I could feel his body slightly sag, the resistance draining out of it.

“Here we go.” I muttered. I raised my sword, black blade flashing in the artificial sunlight. The Gremlin closed his eyes, muttering a quick prayer.

And down my sword went, poised to pierce his heart, when…

“STOP!”

BLAM!!!

A heavy impact blew my sword out of my hand. The Gremlins opened his eyes in surprise.

“NO!” I yelled. I leapt forward to grab my sword. The Gremlin scrambled to get off while I was momentarily distracted. I kicked him in the chest and knocked him back down.

Another blast sounded, and a hole appeared in the space where my reaching hand would have been a second later. A smoking piece of metal lay inside it. Magnus bullet.

“I said, STOP!”

I looked back in alarm and say a grim Knight, donning an Ash Tail Coat and Cap, advancing, smoking Magnus in his hand. His eyes were set, and malice was pouring out of him. It wasn’t directed at me, though.

“You again!” The Gremlin exclaimed.

I noticed a second Knight wearing the Mercurial Demo set, carrying a large bulging bag. Probably holding bombs. His armor was burned and blackened in several areas, and dotted with dents and pits. A small bundle of black fur was curled around his neck. I couldn’t make out what it was yet, though.

The Gremlin was on his feet again, Acheron in his hands. His eyes were wild, like a cornered animal. Although I suppose there isn’t much difference between a Gremlin and an animal. Savage, wild, nasty. The Knight wearing the Ash Tail Coat was now several paces away from me and the Gremlin, and had just brought out a Shadow Driver. He was pointing it at the Gremlin, while pointing his Magnus at me.

I slowly raised my hands. The Knight took a quick glance at me, and dropped his hand holding the Magnus. He looked back at the Gremlin. I could tell what he was thinking.

“You know, if you want him dead, he would be by now if you hadn’t shot my sword out of my hands.” I told him. He nodded.

“Exactly. That’s why I shot it. I want to kill him, and I couldn’t have some Knight in black steal my kill.” The other Knight responded, never taking his eyes off the Gremlin.

I nodded. “So you have a problem with him too?”

“Tried to kill me.”

“Thought so.”

I glanced back at the Gremlin. At this point, he had somewhat lowered his weapon and was looking extremely bored and impatient, a big change from the savage look he had been wearing several seconds ago. Tired of us talking about his killing Knights hobby, it seemed.

The other Knight stared at the Gremlin. “Alright now, you’re going to drop that weapon-”

“He will?” I heard his companion mutter besides him.

“-and walk on over here with your hands up. No tricks this time.” The Knight finished.

The Gremlin raised an eyebrow. The other Knight flicked his hand. “C’mon. Drop it.”

The Gremlin slowly put his Acheron on the ground, and put his hands up in a mocking way. Then, with his hands still up, he slowly walked towards the other Knight.

“Kantint, you got any rope or cloth? Anything to tie this creature’s hands with?” He asked the Knight besides him.

“Um….No.” Said Kantint, which I assumed was his name. “Bombers like me don’t tend to carry around stuff like that, in case you haven’t noticed. But I do have something we could knock him out with.”

“Yeah, and then we’d have to lug him around.” The Knight in Ash Tail retorted.

“Less troublesome that having to drag a resisting Gremlin.”

The Gremlin was eyeing the two arguing Knights. They seemed to have momentarily forgotten about him, even though their argument was about him. With the two Knights distracted, the Gremlin made a break for his weapon (again). I grabbed my Sentenza, still in its holster, and was about to plug the Gremlin full of bullets, but the Knight in Ash Tail was quicker. He turned his head, swore, and fired his Magnus, blast sound ringing in the air.

Unfortunately, the gun was still aimed at where the Gremlin had been, not where he was now. The massive Magnus bullet zoomed past his head as he ducked, rolled, and picked up his sword. He then got to his feet with the speed of a Wolver, and made a break for it, sprinting towards the Elevator.

I drew my Sentenza out of its holster and fired off several shots. The Gremlin staggered and faltered momentarily, but quickly resumed his mad sprint, albeit with a noticeable limp.

“Umbra, get him!” Kantint yelled, already sprinting after the Gremlin. It must have been hard to do, wearing a suit of bulky armor as he was. The Gremlin, even with his limp, was still pulling ahead. He was nearing the Elevator, and was soon only about 15 yards in front of it.

The Knight in Ash Tail, whose name I took to Umbra, brought his Magnus up to his eye, carefully aimed, and fired. I could see the Gremlin stagger once more, and fall to the ground several feet in front of the Elevator.

We rushed up to get him. When we reached the Elevator, we could see that Umbra’s bullet had embedded itself in the Gremlin’s back. Blood was oozing out of the wound, and the Gremlin didn’t seem conscious. He was still gripping his Acheron in his hands.

Umbra glanced at Kantint, who stood huffing and puffing besides the Gremlins. “Well, there’s your unconscious Gremlin.” He said sarcastically.

“I don’t need your sarcasm right now, thank you very much.” Kantint replied, slowly regaining his breath.

The bundle of black fur that I’d noticed around his neck earlier suddenly fell off. I realized to my surprise that is was a tiny Snarbolax. After landing on the ground, it crawled onto the Gremlin and experimentally licked the blood coming out of the bullet wound. I glanced at Kantint quizzically. He shrugged.

“Found the little guy in the Gloaming Wildwoods a few hours ago. Nearly clawed my face off. Nearly blew me up too. Twice. Don’t ask me how we became friends after all that.” He explained. I suppose that explained where the burn marks and dents on his armor had come from. A Snarbolax who blew people up. How very interesting.

I gently poked the mini Snarbolax with my finger. Its fur felt smooth and sleek, yet tingly and strange, sort of really wavy, as if it was almost alive. Must be that shadow protection covering it. I thought.

I took my hand away from the Snarbolax and looked up at Umbra. “So, he’s your kill. Even if he isn’t dead yet. What are you going to do with him?”

“I…. Do not know.” Umbra realized. “I was planning on killing him, but he’s more or less dead already. Maybe I should take him up to Haven and give him to the Order. See what they can do with him. Maybe a dissection. Yeah, that’d be nice.” Umbra grinned wickedly. “C’mon, help me drag him onto the Elevator.”

We grabbed the Gremlin and heaved him onto the Elevator, his body landing with a dull thud. He let out a quiet moan, and lapsed into silence once more. Umbra kicked him.

“Not so tough now, with a bullet in your spine, hmm?” He muttered. He motioned for us to step onto the Elevator. “Let’s go guys.”

Kantint suddenly straightened up. “Wait a minute. I gotta stay down here. I’m looking for my friends, remember? I can’t go back up yet.” He said.

I turned to face Umbra. “He’s down here to rescue some of his friends who were captured by The Swarm.” He quickly explained. He looked at Kantint. “All right. We’ll go up first. When the Elevator returns, you can go wherever you chose. And take that Snarbolax with you too. Can’t have it running wild mauling people in Haven.” Kantint nodded.

I stepped onto the Elevator. Umbra poised to press the ‘Up’ button on the control panel. “Nice meeting you.” He said to Kantint

I was about to say the same thing to Kantint when I felt a hand grip my leg. I looked down and saw the Gremlin grinning, with his hand on my leg. He pulled and I fell over with a yell, taking Umbra down with me.

I banged my head pretty badly on the elevator rails. My vision blurred for a moment. When they focused, I say Kantint about to rush at the Gremlin.

“Oh no you don’t!” The Gremlin commanded. “Not unless you want the death of two dead Knights on your hand.” He held up his Acheron and placed the blade on Umbra’s throat. Then, with his other hand, he held up a Sentenza, and pointed it at my head. I looked down at my belt and saw my Sentenza still in its holster. So that meant that the Gremlin had two Knights weapons. Interesting.

The Gremlin coughed, a few specks of blood flying out of his mouth, and smirked. “I can’t believe you fell for the same trick twice!” He exclaimed, directing his mockery at Umbra. “Just because I look dead doesn’t mean I am dead, hmm? Although I must admit that Magnus bullet – that was yours, right? – in my back is quite painful. And you should also never leave a prisoner with weapons in his possession, dead or alive. Too risky.”

Umbra scowled, but did nothing more. There wasn’t much else he could have done, with a sword at his throat.

Kantint chuckled, but the laughter was forced. “I don’t believe we’ve met before.” He remarked.

“Names aren’t important. Not right now anyway. All that matters is that I’m going to take your two friends here down with me to the Colony. I’ve already requested backup, and they’ll be waiting to shoot holes in your friends the moment this Elevator stops.” The Gremlin grinned, flashing his teeth, which were covered in blood. “Although knowing the kind of luck that’s been happening to us all, they’ll probably survive.” The Gremlin added after a split second of though.

“How are you gonna press the button from a sitting position with both your hands occupied by two Knights?” Kantint suddenly questioned. He’d caught the Gremlin off guard. He was struck dumb for a moment.

“That is a good question…” The Gremlin muttered to himself. I rolled my eyes. Seerus- no, seriously? I didn’t enjoy using the word ‘Seerusly’ because it was based on the name of a Gremlin, and I have… problems, with Gremlins.

“Ah, I’ve figured it out!” The Gremlin announced, with a sarcastic air of achievement and discovery. Kantint motioned for him to continue.

“I suppose I would do it… Like THIS!” He dropped me and Umbra and kicked us viciously. Then he raised his Sentenza and fired off several bullets at Kantint, who dived to the ground to avoid them. Then the Gremlin slammed his fist down on the ‘Down’ button, and the Elevator rumbled.

“Toodles!” The Gremlin quickly yelled at Kantint before the Elevator shuddered again and dropped like a stone. Then he smashed my head pressed against the railing, along with Umbra’s, a weapon pointing at each.

The entire process took about three seconds.

There was silence for a moment, filled only with the sound of the Elevator clanking and screeching. Then, with a hint of amusement in his voice, the Gremlin said, “So, before I get you killed, why don’t you tell me your names now, hmm?”

._.

Toodles is what I say instead of goodbye.

XD

XD I like Gremlins. Spiral Knights suck. :P So EVIL. They come barging in killing everything in the CLockworks because they want to get to the Core. They could have probably just said please, you know! SO I enjoy killing Knights.

ANd technically, the Gremlin (Spyash is his name) only took out 3 knights. although he took out 2 of them (umbra and dark ace) twice. :P

In the meantime, have some fail artwork I did of Commander 360 some time ago for Xairathan's contest. She still never posted the results. I would have TOTALLY won the poem category. XP

Commander 360

Drawer? Like something with shelves that holds stuff?? O WAIT u mean drawer as in a guy who draws stuff. ._.

Just upload a picture of your pic and post it on google docs. :P