THREE PSYCHOS WALK INTO A BAR
Maria/Amaranth/Carvos collab
It wasn't the most important battle the Fearless Line had ever seen, Maria thought, as she dropped her shield into position and flicked her spear out of the way, but it was certainly memorable. Most of the bigger engagements tended to follow a certain pattern. The weaker cultivators would pour into the field, trade blows, and then withdraw immediately when the Nascent Souls or Single Pillars showed up. This one, though. This one was nothing but Qi Condensation and a handful of Foundation Establishment experts. It looked like a maelstrom; skirmishes on top of skirmishes flowing back and forth around them all as every junior in every sect and clan in the damn war seized this chance to make a name for themselves. If that wasn't enough, the Noble Knowledge juniors had clearly decided to test every gods-damned thesis, blueprint and pipe dream they had. The field was awash with freaks and monsters like something out of a nightmare, things with too many arms and legs, appalling faces with lolling jaws and rolling eyes, and who knew how many others.
So. You know. Kind of stuck in the mind.
"Lock," she snapped and cycled her qi. Her squad joined in raggedly. The fight had gone on for a few hours, now - people had been dragged off the field to the medics tents. She in turn had picked up a few waifs and strays as she went. All Optimatoi so far, but she'd seen a hoplite earlier with a very, very confused Strength Purity at the heart of it.
Like she'd said. Memorable. Fuck, but she'd do murder for someone higher up the food chain to give her an order right now. She was trying to hold a line that barely existed.
Optimism. You're adorable.
Fuck off.
The hoplite bloomed above her, shadowy and rough as hell. The spear and shield gleamed dully, and the Qi-construct began to swing great, brutal blows down into the fray. Slowly. Too damn slowly, she knew for a fact they could do better than this. They needed more damn-
And then, for once, the heavens went blind and she got some good luck. Someone new slammed into the back of the formation, dropped into the construct-pattern like a fish into water, and sent power searing through the rest of them with the intensity of a small sun and the control of a dancer.
Fuck. Fuuuuuuck, who-
She turned her head back.
Stared.
...Okay, so one of the Indomitable Thirteen had just showed up.
"Senior Amaranth," she muttered through gritted teeth. "Lovely weather for it."
"Oh, certainly. The blood qi in this area is just fantastic stuff, really, harmonizes with my own way too well. I doubt I'd have been able to hit this Hoplite as much as I did right now without it, frankly, even after I purified the stuff."
"Well fuck," Maria said, grinning fiercely, "maybe you should be leading this."
A heavy body slammed into the shieldwall at the base of the formation. Maria didn't bother directing the construct. Instead, she snapped one hand over the top of her shield, took hold of the creature's neck, and crushed it. It died, wheezing and gurgling.
As it toppled over, Amaranth slapped his hands against the bloodstained side of the dying beast, the force of which ruptured open an even larger hole in its skin. Glowing Qi mixed with blood flowed together out of the creature into an orb on his palm, which gradually shrunk down to nothing. His body didn't hold the power long before sending the power back to the Formation.
"Reuse, reduce, recycle, as the old Clan motto goes! Not like it was doing anything with its qi anyway, after all."
"Such a good example for us innocent juniors!" She grinned again, sharply, before hitting her shoulder into his and acclimatizing her qi to his. "Have to say, big fan of your work. It's a rare clansman who can rip qi out of the corpses of their enemies with quite so much style."
Her eyes fell onto one of the bigger creatures stalking the field. A lumbering thing, eight or nine feet tall, humanoid but patched together from a dozen different corpses.
"If you feel like another demonstration, that might be a good place to start."
Suddenly the ear was split by a ROAR
"HAY, YOU GIT! YOU ARE BIG! THAT MEANS YOU HAVE BIG GUTS AND ARE STRONG FIGHTMEEE!!!"
From seeming nowhere a large muscled figure came running. His hair was long and matted. He was covered in blood-soaked rags that barely covered anything. The look in his eye could only be described as crazed. In his right hand held aloft was an enormous black and red axe whose glowing symbols looked eerie.
Before the horror had even had time to turn the maniac - as that what as he could only be described as - leapt forward, axe raised, fully ready to bring it down on the side of the thing. The madman and axe struck like a thunderbolt. Soon, blood and viscera was flying everywhere as the axe ripped opened the side of the thing. Not stopping, the man hacked away until a sufficiently large hole had been made. Without a pause the man reached his axe into the abomination. The thing began to wail in agony clutching its stomach as the crazy inside it was swinging his axe with abandon inside abandon.
With a final cry, the thing toppled backward with a BOOM twitching but the insanity did not stop there in what was only moments an axe ripped outwards from the belly of the thing. The man that pulled himself out of the thing did not look human he was dripping head to toe in blood his eye seemed to be glowing black the air filled with killing intent. And in his left hand he held the monster's guts aloft
"SO YOU REALLY HAD BIG GUTS THAT WAS FUUUUNNN!!!!" The demon laughed, tossing the aside and looking about for his next victim.
There was what could only accurately be described as a contemplative moment. Even the monsters looked shocked. Then, as everyone realised that a nigh-artistic display of ultraviolence did not in fact mean the battle was over, they went back to trying to kill each other.
Behind the shield wall, Maria forced her mouth closed and tried not to stare.
"That," she said, catching Amaranth's eye, "was a thing that happened."
"Yeah." Amaranth was still a bit stunned, to be frank. "It was."
"Lot of… ah… lot of ripping and tearing."
"Until it was done."
"Until it was done, yeah."
They stood in uncomfortable silence for a moment, watching the… individual… continue his bloody dance across the battlefield, howling with laughter.
"...Bit familiar looking, isn't it?"
"I'm having a distinct flashback to my decade back in Xin, yes. Involved a lot of intoxication, and not all of it was battle-related. You might have heard what happened to that trio of Cannibals that was messing with the place? Still got their heads in the back."
"Vague memories of it, yeah. Me, this is Three Frogs all over again. You hear about that?"
"Yeah, I have. Good work there, by the way."
"Thanks."
She coughed.
"It, uh… it feels a lot less… fluid-y from the inside. He's pretty… messy."
"Speaking as someone who regularly covers their body in blood by necessity, yeah. While it's easy to ignore in the heat of the moment, the stuff tends to stick you up, and my body doesn't always do the cleanest work of absorbing the stuff. I picked up a technique, back in my caravan-guarding days to help with that— but I digress."
"...Yeah, but you may have to teach me it, I can never get the spinal fluid out of my hair- Oh. Oh, what's he up to now?"
Just then a loud TWACK filled the air and the madman was sent flying by an enormous tentacled monstrosity. The batshit crazy warrior immediately got up, but did not move to attack. Instead, he looked inside a bag that was so covered in blood that it had been unnoticed until the man had moved to check its contents. Whatever was inside made the man look up at the beast with a chilling fury.
YOU JUST KILLED MY RABBIT. THEODORE THE FIRST. THE MOST GLORIOUS. WISE. AND CUTE. I WILL RIP OFF YOUR HEAD AND USE IT AS A TOILET. I WILL RIP OFF YOUR BALLS AND CLUB YOUR TWITCHING CORPSE WITH THEM. THEN I WILL KILL A DOZEN MEN WITH THEM IN HONOUR OF THEODORE BEFORE SELLING YOUR TENTACLES TO THE NEAREST BROTHEL."
Setting the bag down reverently, the man charged the beast, only to be sent flying again. The moment he landed he got up again and charged the thing again, only to be sent flying again. This kept happening for at least five minutes, in which the madman was sent flying seven hundred and five times by tentacle, five times by high pressure blood, and once by the controller of the monster, as the insane fucker was starting to grate on his nerves. In response to this the man simply attacked the 9th heaven stage expert with the same vigour and fury he had arrived at the battle.
"...Yeah, he's gonna die," muttered Maria, watching him continue to bang his head against this particularly brutal wall. Seven hundred and six. Hmm. She glanced across at Amaranth.
In unison, they spoke.
"We have to save him, don't we."
Beat. Then, again in unison.
"Yeah."
"Show him how it's done?" asked Maria, letting a psychotic edge slip into her grin.
"Naturally." Amaranth replied, his hands darkening to grey in preparation, tensing himself to leap. An intense look went into his previously carefree face.
"Great. Draconis, take the lead." She dropped her shield and lunged into the maelstrom, watching her sergeant step neatly into position as her qi tore loose from the hoplite.
Ready to impress?
Competition, murmured the Red Place, wonderingly. Then,
KILL.
Good.
She let go. It spread its tendrils through her body and her last thought, before she became a howling, laughing lunatic, was
don't lose.
Amaranth's odd green boots suddenly flared with emerald light, and he burst into the air, hurtling into the battlefield across the melee. As he slipped through the air in a sharp arc towards the tentacled monstrosity, he saw the perfect whiteness of Maria hacking wildly through the fray. It was an interesting contrast, he mused. She'd been brutal before, but controlled. Efficient. Now, she was clearly enjoying herself. Every blow was calculated to maximise agony, and followed up with a frenzy of horrific strikes, all underscored by wild bursts of laughter. It certainly seemed effective, he had to admit. As he descended into position, she was skidding to a halt beside him.
Her single eye turned to lock on his face.
"
Took the boring route," she said, in a voice like broken glass and dying soldiers.
"Boring route?" Amaranth smirked, and suddenly a shockwave struck the ground. "You know, the trick to delaying this took a bit to learn. Toads don't really tend to do that, you know?"
Bodies flew in all directions, cracks ran through the ground, and a large plume of sand ended up getting shoved into the air, obscuring vision for a few seconds. Amaranth rubbed his eyes and coughed. "Ah, now I remember why I learned that wind-art… In my defense, sand usually isn't that easily moved."
The Red Place, which had almost been sent flying itself (and only avoided that by jabbing its spear into the ground), shot him a glance that, had it been less openly homicidal, might have been called amused. "
Sand's always easily moved. Now that-" and it turned, pointing its spear at the twitching horror that towered above them, "
That'd be more impressive."
"Actually yeah, that sounded kind of dumb from an external perspective, but trust me, it makes sense in context. What I meant was—"
A sudden flare of Qi drew their attention to the crazy bastard who was grappling with the 9th heavenstage while a sword was sticking out of his back. He appeared to be winning, albeit temporarily as he had bitten off his opponent's nose and was now repeatedly headbutting him.
The Red Place grunted. "
Kill," it growled, before lunging forward, spear raised. The tentacles were tough, with thick grey skin. The spear punched through in a moment, and then the Red Place got its hands inside and started to tear.
Amaranth, in a flash of grey, was at the other side and plunged his fist into the beast. "About time to end this." And then the beast howled. At the point of entry, the qi flows, and as a result, its blood flows was twisting back and in on itself, causing ruptures to form into the interior and even on the outside, where a normal punch really shouldn't have left them.
The Red Place, meanwhile, had suddenly been handed dozens of gaping holes through which to dive into the tentacle thing. It was like its birthday. It pushed its hands inside and started to shred a path for itself, deeper and deeper inside. The results of Amaranth's works were showing everywhere; muscle tissue was seizing, nerves misfiring, organs shuddering under the stress of drastically misaligned qi flows draining second after second of every flicker of life. The Red Place found itself laughing again, a deeper, haunting noise than its usual shriek.
It had never had friends before. It liked it.
In desperation, the beast took what Qi it could through its strained meridians, and filled one point to bursting. Then, a blood-red light shot straight out of a tentacle at the people who were ripping it to shreds, bursting it apart from the recoil.
While this was going on the mad one was kneeing his opponent in the genitals as well as headbutting he was laughing in pure joy at the strength of his opponent whose face looked to be the one who seen a monster that was steadily pushing him to the brink in desperation then as if remembering himself the hevanstage use a technique that blasted through his opponent gut sending him tumbling away
The light that had scorched outwards didn't do much to the Red Place, deeply ensconced now inside the thing. The recoil, however, hit it like a tonne of bricks. The creature's whole body shuddered in a mad peristaltic wave, flinging the Red Place back into the wall of constricting flesh. It was only a moment, but that was all this thing needed. A muscle twitched, tensed, and locked down around the Red Place's legs, arms, chest.
Amaranth, on the other hand, was very much outside, so the beam headed straight at him. Despite his apparent impending dire injury, he smiled. "Blood Qi, huh. Not the best of choices, you know?" He reached out a hand as if he was plucking a fruit from a tree to eat, and to him, he might as well have been. The Qi surged into it, like binding to like with ease, and his pure Qi imparted a level of force that the original creature never could have been able to release.
Then, he fired it back.
The blast was simpler, from him. Sharper, tighter. No showy boom. Just a single, thin column of red-grey fire that cut through the creature like a needle through a balloon. For a moment afterwards, the thing seemed to hold its shape. Then, with an awful groaning noise, it began to collapse, inch by sad inch.
Inside, the Red Place felt the thing die. The muscle holding it in place went loose.
"
No fair," it muttered rebelliously. "
I almost had it." Then, desperate for a target for it's frustrating bloodlust, it looked up, eye-locking on where the lunatic and the creature's pilot had fought.
As the thing died, qi came boiling up out of it in a thick red cloud. The pilot gave a glad cry, opened his lungs, and yanked it back inside. The power surged through his body, healing his wounds as it went. It wasn't how he'd planned the battle to go. Still. All data was good data. He could start improving the design, too. And that wretched junior had died, at last. Breathing with a sigh of relief the cultivator turned away only for him to hear movement and laughter.
HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHHA THAT WAS AMAZING laughed the man rising like a revenant from the ground with a fist sized hole through which intestines could be seen
"You are the first who has pushed me so far. I have never felt so ALIVE!!! But i have not breathed my last. Nor have you. We can still fight."
" D-d-d-d-die you monster!", screamed the cultivator preparing another technique.
" YES COME ON HIT ME LET US BATTLE TO THE VERY BORDERS OF LIFE ITSELF FOR TO LIVE IS TO
FIGHT" with that he charged straight on towards the cultivator who not wanting to let this thing near him again, shouted some words and fired off a technique, sending a lance of actinic crackling power that made the air around it hum, but the madman charged straight at it laughing with glee.
The madman soon found himself on the ground, body checked by some stranger who had charged towards him. He was about to get up and return his charge, but a flash of light momentarily blinded him.
"Lightning is a bit trickier, you know? Blood's a lot closer to life, and therefore malleable. Only reason I'm able to pull this off is because of bronze!" The stranger held a shrinking piece of what looked like a lightning bolt, and the other cultivator looked confused.
He proceeded to stop looking confused a few seconds later, because he lacked a head to look confused with. The air gained a strange, sharp odor, for a few seconds, that was washed away by the wind. The headless body began to spasm, for a few seconds, with a semblance of movement.
The Red Place punched up, in that moment, behind the headless corpse. Its fist struck out, directly through the chest, howling with glee…
That stopped as soon as it saw the head was missing.
Beat.
It turned to glare, furiously, at Amaranth.
"TWICE?! FUCKING TWICE, YOU STEAL MY KILL?!"
"Well, you know what they say. The early bird gets the worm. Though I guess, in this case, it's the early bird brutally rips off the head of their enemies before anyone else can. You know, there probably
are birds like that, thinking about it." Amaranth looked vaguely pensive about that notion.
"Y-y-you interfered with my fight" came the whispered voice of the madman, who then walked over to where his axe lay. Picking the weapon up, he whirled around to face the two people who had saved him.
"I, Carvos, challenge you both to a fight! come at me and show me your resolve to your last breath. It will be glorious!!!"
"
...What."
"...What."
Fin.
i am extremely grateful to
@BadAtScreenNames and
@ReaderOfFate for cowriting with me
