Chapter 8 - Names Aren't That Important

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“Not going to tell me your name?” Cat asked Quizzical again, his bottom lip pouting a little in mock upset. “Depriving me of something so intrinsic to a Guardian like yourself.”

Quizzical didn’t reply, just staring, stone-faced at the unsettling Noble standing before her. She intended to walk herself around so she was closer to the building just in case she needed to make a hasty escape through the Candelaum, Cat was making this rather difficult by not responding to her sword being pointed at him.

The Noble clicked his tongue and pushed himself off the warehouse he was leaning on, beginning to walk towards her purposefully. Quizzical instinctually bared her teeth at him, hissing like a cat would toward something from touching it. Cat hesitated a moment before chuckling and standing with his feet about shoulder-width apart as the battle raged on around them; they contained their standoff in a bubble of worrying calm.

He looked horribly in his element, surrounded by the destruction of his own and the Abstract soldiers. The man wasn’t even wearing any armour, but he looked like he was exactly where he wanted to be and that unnerved Quizzical. This Noble, Cat, was far too confident in himself to be standing out in the middle of the battlefield in a casual pair of jeans and a short-sleeved shirt suitable for a summer’s day.

“All right, I guess I must kill a nameless Guardian.” Cat declared a moment before shrugging. “Pity really, I wanted this to be a little more enjoyable for both of us. Names are important, you know.”

Cat’s arms began to seep a dark red smoke like a broken tap gushing with water, the Noble removed one of his hands from a pocket and stuck it into the crimson tendrils of the cloud forming before him. From within, he drew a sword identical to Quizzical’s and levelled it at the Abstract’s neck.

Quizzical hissed a second time before accepting the challenge and lunging forwards, Cat’s pulsating red blade easily parried the strike. A moment after deflecting her blade, Cat twisted and drove the heel of his boot into Quizzical’s chest. The Guardian bore the blow and slid back over the ground, digging her heels into the hard tarmac-like-material under their feet.

The Noble rolled the sword around the back of his hand and advanced on Quizzical, forcing the Abstract to step backwards. Quizzical parried and dodged one-armed swings of the sword but was never fast enough to get a swing of her own off. She rolled away from Cat, making the Noble narrow his eyes at her refusal to be struck down by his blade.

“Come on Guardian, you’re clearly outmatched.” Cat chided her, standing tall and resting the blade on his shoulder.

Quizzical snarled at the Noble and connected herself to the candelaum, her body flickering about the place as if it were trying to move in eight different dimensions at the same time. The Noble’s eyebrow raised a little as if he were expecting more from the Guardian before him.

Quizzical rushed him, briefly stepping into the Candelaum to gain some ground on the Noble. She appeared mid-jump, sword raised high above her head – about to cleave Cat’s skull in two. The Noble flinched and raised his own sword above his head to block the blow, Quizzical landed and the two swords clashed loudly. Cat grit his teeth, Quizzical was much stronger than he had expected and he was struggling to keep the Abstract-made blade from biting into his skin. The Noble swore and pulled his other hand out of his pocket and pressed it against the flat side of his own sword to keep the Guardian from cutting him.

Cat grunted and his knees began to tremble and buckle under the Abstract’s shocking strength, Quizzical forced the Noble to one knee before he finally found some level of purchase against the Guardian. He twisted and slid his own blade down the length of her sword until it was just under the hilt of her sword. He glanced at the Guardian’s bared teeth before pushing up with his legs and throwing her off balance; he took that moment to sweep her legs from beneath her and throw her over his shoulder.

Quizzical sailed through the air towards the warehouse, impacting the wall hard enough to force the breath from her lungs in an agonising rush. She cried out and hit the ground hard, pain blossoming like a rose in her arm.

Cat grinned, walking towards the prone Abstract with his sword arm limp by his side. The Noble dragged the sharp point across the ground, the pulsing blade rattling along the with a dangerous snake’s hiss. The sound was as if there was a venomous reptile slithering across the ground towards its injured prey to seal its kill, but it was to be disappointed.

Quizzical managed to gulp a breath of air into her lungs and worked on autopilot, she connected to the candelaum and began to flicker violently before rolling straight through the wall as if it weren’t there. The Guardian struggled to her feet and stumbled against the wall to catch her ratcheting breath. She put her hand to the back of her waist and felt a little bit of regret; her sword was still lying outside where she couldn’t reach it.

The Guardian cursed and pushed off the wall, stumbling across the dark warehouse. The space was empty, echoes ricocheted around the vast building from the gunfire outside. The sounds bouncing off the walls made the space feel even larger than it was, disorienting the already frightened Abstract.

From behind Quizzical, there was a loud sound; Like one of the primitive grenades, the Abstracts sometimes used in battles. The wall buckled and Quizzical screamed with terror like an animal being pounced on by a predator. The Abstract acted purely on instinct and stepped partially into the Candelaum, making her body and armour turn invisible to the untrained eye. You’d still be able to see the outline of her body if you knew what you were looking for, the flickering of their body in the light.

There was another explosion outside of the wall, forcing it to buckle more, bricks and mortar straining to stay affixed to each other. Quizzical scampered across the floor towards the opposite wall, never taking her eyes off the buckling wall. There was a mysterious silence for about a second where Quizzical’s whole perception was filled with the quiet of the warehouse before the wall was blown in, the force was so great that splinters of stone, sharp as needles flew in every direction through the building.

Quizzical dove behind a stack of barrels to avoid the deadly spray of shrapnel before the smoke cleared, she didn’t have time to register the figure that was standing casually in the newly created doorway into the warehouse.

Cat smiled and flicked the last remnants of red smoke from his hand before slipping it into his pocket and letting his sword arm loosely swing by his side. He stepped into the warehouse slowly and deliberately, surveying the empty hall around him.

“I know you are still in here, Abstract, care to show yourself so we can finish our bout.” Cat declared out to the room. “Or are you a coward like the rest of your damn kind?”

Abstracts rarely took lightly to insults from other races, Quizzy grit her teeth but didn’t move. She needed to keep her cool to stop herself from being killed; she balled her hands into fists and kept her invisible body low to the ground to keep herself hidden.

She listened to the sounds of Cat’s footsteps as he walked around the warehouse, trying to keep her breathing as quiet as possible. She couldn’t see him whatsoever but could track his movements well enough with her keen hearing.

The noble spent a few minutes walking around in the warehouse, checking every conceivable place beside the barrels she was hiding behind. Quizzical could only hope that when he peered over the edge of her makeshift shelter, he didn’t see her outline in the room's dark, the problem was that she had to treat him like he knew how to spot her while she was invisible.

His shoes scuffed on the floor, the sound making Quizzical’s nerves skyrocket. The footsteps laid a slow trail across the ground towards where the Abstract was hiding, each one deliberate and planned, almost as if –

“Hello there, Guardian.” Cat murmured into her ear moments before reaching down with his free hand and grasping the neck of Quizzical’s armour.

The Abstract cried out with surprise and planted a few good – yet useless kicks into the Noble’s side as she was hoisted into the air, the grip on the back of her armour tightened the already restrictive neck of the armour she was wearing.

Her throat was becoming constricted, Quizzy’s breathing becoming laboured. She shook and tried pulling the neck of her armour away from her to no avail, her arms and legs were becoming heavy, her vision dimming and reddening at the edges as she struggled to gulp air down into her straining lungs.

Cat grinned as her body began to sag and go limp, he thought he had the Guardian caught and beaten as she swung slowly from his clenched fist. Unfortunately for the Novan, he hadn’t counted for the Abstract Guardians keeping tabs on each other throughout the battle raging outside. Cat definitely didn’t expect another of the Guardians, a mountain of a man covered in spiked armour to sprint through the wall the same way Quizzical had rolled through it earlier, just a lot faster.

Cat dropped his prize and stepped backwards, not quite in time though as the Abstract barrelled into the unfortunate Noble like a rampaging elephant. The Guardian smashed the Noble aside, cracking ribs and forcing the breath from his lungs.

Before picking his companion up, the taller Guardian grabbed the back of Cat’s head to pull his face up and slam it down hard on his armour-plated knee. The resulting crunch and splatter of red blood satisfied the Guardian, as did the stream of crimson now running down the Noble’s black-bruised face. Cat let out a quiet laugh of surprise and amusement, cut very suddenly short as his face was thrust hard into the ground again. The sharp cracking of bone breaking, the Noble’s body going still on the stone floor as he faded into unconsciousness. 

Chapter 9 - Drafted↦