Spires

“Let’s git ‘er dun! First one in gits first pick of ‘em bitches! Wooo!”

They were a band of brothers following their leader into battle.

The tattoos on the old man’s bald head seemed to glisten and not with sweat for the night was chilly.

An intricate shield with old Germanic heraldry flashed on the back of his head.

At the same instant an enormous ethereal copy appeared in front of them absorbing fire from the top of the makeshift wall of old, rusted cars and random street detritus.

Moving closer gave shooters on top of the buildings and in the upper floor windows angles to add their fire to the mix.

Tommy McClintock was a young man.

He couldn’t keep the smile off his face as he whooped along with his brothers in arms.

They were going to get stronger while taking out the unworthy.

Could a true Aryan warrior ask for more?

Well, some hot bitches after would be nice.

Like his daddy had said before the old man took a glowing axe to the face.

“Son, there ain’t no better pussy than the one you take from your enemies. Ya kill their men and take their women. Breed them out, ya know?”

He had been just 10 at the time, so he didn’t really know what his daddy had meant until a few years after the old man had bit it… literally.

The shield shattered.

The old man’s tattoo of a tub of grenades flashed.

The base of the wall erupted in fire and smoke.

When it cleared, a gaping hole stood open like a hot bitch’s legs.

“Do ‘em deep, boys!” the old man whooped. First into the breach, spraying an unending supply of bullets thanks to the tattoos’ magic.

Tommy dashed in somewhere in the middle of the pack.

Enemy fighters fired from the barricaded front doors and boarded up windows of the building.

Some kind of spa according to the sign.

Whatever the fuck that was.

Like a hotel?

He didn’t know.

Didn’t care.

Enemy fighters fired from the top of the building and the wall behind them.

Shit!

The enemy somehow caught them in one of them ambushes.

He saw some of their faces depending on the kinds of helmets they wore.

Light, dark and everything in between.

“Fucking traitors!” he roared.

Leap Charge carried him up to the wall, burying his machete in one man’s dark face.

He squeezed the trigger on his .50 caliber pistol.

Triple Shot.

One squeeze. Three shots.

The first two broke the magic shield.

The last one broke the traitor’s fair face.

He took a moment to spit on the corpse.

“Wut you git fer mixin’ with darkies, traitor.”

He glared down the top of the wall as the rest of the soft bitches retreated. He stuck his tongue out and flexed bare arms bulging with rock-hard muscles.

“Dat’s right! I’mma fuck y’all up, then I’mma fuck yer bitches all night long! Wooo—”

Sudden pain lanced into his back.

“Wut…” he stared at the red-sheathed blade jutting out of his chestplate. “But… I got’s armor…”

“It’s called armor-piercing backstab.” A high-pitched voice spat in his ear. “The only fucking you’re going to be involved in is all the demons in hell fucking your racist asshole with their spiky dicks. Enjoy.”

Razeena Bondar was a product of said mixing, which is why she took the dead slasher wannabe’s words a little personally.

She was a rogue and before the spires had decided to ruin her home she had been more focused on the sneaking around, stealthiness of the class rather than the violent backstabbing and bleeds.

She was all about stealing vital supplies from the rich assholes, like those in that big tower looming over them as they fought for their lives, and giving them to everyone else.

Bullets sparked off the metal beneath her shoes.

She took a deep breath and hopefully vanished from the marauders’ notice. She relocated because one didn’t stand still in the thick of a battle even if they had used a Skill to hide.

A prescient choice as bullets whistled through the space she had just been standing in.

Razeena leapt off the wall and ran for some bushes to the west side of the spa’s entrance.

The racist marauders were breaking through the barricade behind the strength of several enraged members.

The telltale haze of red around their suddenly bulging bodies that seemed to ignore the damage being poured into them screamed of rage Skills. Literally, with the sounds coming out of their frothing mouths.

It always creeped her out to see ostensible humans behaving like mindless monsters.

She climbed the wall with a Skill and entered through an open window.

She disengaged her hiding Skill so as to not catch friendly fire and announced her presence as she ran through the hallways filled with frightened children and elderly.

All hands on deck.

Men, women, older kids and older people that could still use a weapon had taken up positions overlooking the front lobby and the barricaded stairs.

She bypassed them all to get to the stairs leading to the roof.

A proper rogue needed good intuition Skills for detecting danger.

Danger Sense was a good start, but it was a general sort of Skill.

One that could give you hints on the nature and direction of said danger was a lot better.

And her Skill was telling her to get to the roof.

She burst through the door and into the cold, dark night.

Her eyes widened as her Skill shouted at her to duck.

Wind whipped over the top of her head, cutting the top of her ponytail right off.

“Ninjas!” she screamed at the top of her lungs before throwing herself forward with dodge roll.

Short straight blades, dark stars and whirling spiked chains hit the rooftop, but more importantly missed her.

She sucked in a breath and vanished.

Danger didn’t leave her senses.

She ran erratically, using her dodge Skills liberally.

Shit was crazy!

There was no way she would’ve survived had she not gotten so many levels over the three and a half weeks of the Slasher’s Spree.

Fuck you very much, Spires!

The real fighters on the rooftops finally turned to face the ninjas.

Since when were ninjas a thing?

Shadows struck with bladed death while bullets and fireballs lit up the darkness.

Razeena figured her job had been done.

She wasn’t a true fighter after all.

Thus she leapt down to a lower rooftop on the east side of the spa.

“Sneaky, sneaky.” A high-pitched voice tickled the back of her neck.

She heard the snip of scissors as she turned.

Her body spun, crashing to the rooftop as it partially-completed the turn.

Her head remained pointed forward until it hit the dirty rooftop.

Before her vision went dark a second later, she caught a glimpse of pink sneakers and white knee-high socks.

Giggles sent her off to what came next.

She hoped that it wasn’t hell.

“Scissors-sama. Are we attacking them?” Kenta Takaguchi said.

The young man was a shinobi in the style of the modern pre-spires era. Unlike the black-clad ninjas that took their class from even further back.

He was clad in dark, tactical-styled clothing and armor, resembling many of the soldiers that had also taken the slasher class to be eligible for the contest.

Had he been given a choice he wouldn’t have done so.

He was a shinobi, not a slasher.

It wasn’t that he had a problem with killing. It was because he feared a dilution of his personal strength if he failed to one day integrate the two classes.

Unfortunately, he was honor bound to serve the mahou shoujo and she had wanted to come.

“Nah. Let them fight.” She regarded the battle in the park to their north between the most powerful and therefore worth the most points people and the fishmen. “We’ll sweep in when they’re tired.” She absentmindedly snipped her giant scissors, spreading the young rogue’s blood across the razor-sharp blades. She suddenly turned her gaze to the tallest building in the city.

Vancouver seemed small and quaint compared to Tokyo.

That one tall building a few blocks to the south would have been one of middling height among many back home.

“Scissors-sama?”

“A thought cut through me just now, Kenta-kun. The stinky necromancer lady will have started her attack by now. Why did she want that tiny tower all to herself?”

“I believe she intends to kill the people. Low points, but the collection isn’t something easily ignored. But her true purpose is to turn them into her undead with which she will hammer us against the people we’re fighting. She kills everyone, leaving her and that Holly Foster the sole survivors of any consequence to the contest. Whether she gains enough points to take first place doesn’t matter. She’ll be happy to take 2nd.”

“Why didn’t you say this earlier?”

He shrugged.

She always yelled at him when he volunteered his thoughts regarding operational things.

“Then stop her!” she pointed at the tower imperiously. “I choose you, Kenta! Use…” she wiggled her fingers in his face. “I don’t know. Your best techniques, I guess. Clone technique? That’s always cool!”

He bowed.

Transformation Technique turned him into a bird.

Scissors-sama cheered and clapped as he flapped over the raging battle.

“Do your best, Kenta-kun!”

Tiny wings beat for his life as stray shots streaked through the darkness all around him.

Over the wall.

Across the street.

A rush of cold wind battered him from below as if he had flown into a storm.

He tucked his wings and dived just under a flash of steel and a young man’s cursing voice.

The young man hung in the cold for a moment before vanishing and leaving an outline in mist.

Kenta scanned the street and found the young man teleporting across the battlefield, cutting and stabbing one of their crude, temporary allies before disappearing and reappearing behind another.

It looked like a fun, challenging battle, but he had a command to follow.

The gleaming tower drew near enough to see his bird-y reflection in mirrored glass.

As did a flock of dark-feathered birds.

They cawed at him and rose in pursuit.

Well… he had enough of being a tiny sparrow.

The bird disappeared with a pop of white smoke.

Fingers danced in front of his mouth.

Fire-breath Technique consumed the crows in an instant.

He slammed into the side of the tower.

Wall Run Technique fixed the soles of his tabi to the glass.

Up he went.

All the way to the top.

The leaders always took the highest places for themselves.

He was thankful that the building was already being contested and even if it hadn’t the contest had changed the rules, disabling ownership protections.

Lights in a large window.

Dark shadows of movement.

He imagined the leaders pacing back and forth, worrying about the undead army climbing their precious tower.

That was one of the drawbacks to a tower fortress.

If the defenses fell then the ones at the top only had one place to go.

He gathered his Chakra in one fist.

The hazy blue glow would give away his position, but at this height he wasn’t too concerned.

Thick glass shattered with one blow.

He dived in.

Fire spewed from his mouth.

The leaders didn’t even have the time to scream.

He turned them to ash in an instant.

A greater expenditure of his Chakra, but necessary to avoid needless suffering.

The smoke brought brought a sudden shower, which quickly soaked his hair and headband.

The boardroom was practically identical to the ones in his father’s skyscraper.

He pushed through the double doors and took a bullet to the forehead.

Instinctively, he vanished in a puff of white smoke to be replaced by a cut log the size of his torso.

The enchanted steel plate on the front of his headband had saved his life once again.

He re-appeared behind the shooter at the other end of the hallway.

Honed Chakra around his knife hand chop parted the man’s head from his body as if his neck was made of butter.

Hot pain surged up his back.

“No substitute technique for you.” A woman’s voice slithered into his ear.

She spoke his language in that Universal Translation System way.

The accent placed her as Chinese.

Soldiers and assassins.

They had skirmished a few times over the weeks, but never with a conclusive outcome.

Plenty of injuries, but no deaths.

Satisfaction mingled with the pain.

The headless corpse leaking red into the carpet meant that he had scored first.

The woman twisted the knife and grabbed the back of his head.

“My anchor stab stopping you from using your other abilities?”

“No.”

Clone Technique spawned a dozen copies of himself.

Weaker versions, but capable of using his lower level techniques.

Half swarmed the woman. The rest attacked the others that had appeared from the shadows.

The latter didn’t last long, vanishing in puffs of smoke as they took hits.

The former did their jobs, freeing him from her grasp.

He sprinted back to the boardroom.

The numbers weren’t on his side even if he might’ve had the levels over their strongest.

He’d escape the ambush and enter the building at another location.

Haste bred carelessness.

His father had always warned against that truism.

Thus, he didn’t notice the thin strands covering the hole in the window until it was too late.

Fire and shrapnel tore him apart.

His failure would reflect poorly on his family’s honor.

The last thought in his head was a mixture of hope and pity.

Their honor now rested on his sister’s slight shoulders.

“Weeb’s down! Turned into bloody mist by yours truly!”

“I don’t know about that. My predict enemy egress did the heavy lifting.”

“Cut the chatter.”

Specialist M.J. Browning hadn’t needed Lt. Rico’s order to keep her mouth shut. Unlike, the majority of her unit, she hadn’t grown lax in regards to proper discipline.

She blamed the slasher class.

Despite what command had promised, it had changed them.

The dark urge to kill was always lurking in the back of her mind. Too long between kills and she could see, despite her denials, that she wouldn’t be able to fight it off forever.

Having preferred targets was all well and good, but what would she do once they ran out of those?

Command’s answer had been that America would never run out of enemies.

That was all well and good too, but what about her retirement?

They had gotten her good.

Bitterness surged within her, as it had more often over the last week.

She was a lifer now.

A forever soldier moving from one conflict to the next.

Doomed to never lay down her weapons.

“American soldiers!”

A voice from the dark hallway.

“Chinese soldiers!” Lt. Rico said.

“You have only killed those on the slasher side.”

“Mostly… had to fight locals a few times, but they attacked first.”

“If that makes you feel better. Then, by all means, think it.”

“It’s better than what you’ve been doing.”

“We’ve only killed our enemies.”

“So, like, everyone?”

“That is correct.”

“Then what do you want? I doubt it’s the moral high ground.”

“Temporary truce. We stay away from each other until the end. We’re willing to forgo violence with your group completely. Neither of us can win this contest, so let’s all go home with our rewards, whatever they may end up being.”

“It’ll be kind of hard to avoid each other when we’re here for the same reason.”

“The shinobi got them before us and you got the shinobi.”

“I don’t mean those reasons.”

“Ever the greedy Americans, always trying to take more of the cow than you are entitled to. You have the points from the leaders of this tower and the shinobi. Maybe you should concern yourselves with the idea that those points are within you now.”

“Here come the threats. How about this? No deal. I know your empress definitely gave you orders to take out enemies and we all know that’s exactly what we are even if there’s nothing formally declared.”

“You’d pick war?”

“You should’ve stayed home.”

The hallway exploded.

M.J. dropped to one knee and leveled her carbine toward her slice of the pie.

9 to 12, centered on the open double doors clouded with dark smoke.

Assassins liked to move through the shadows so she peppered short, controlled bursts into the blackness.

Bullets struck wood.

They struck armor and flesh.

She could tell from the sounds.

The rest of her squad did as she did.

Lt. Rico dived under the huge, thick table, kicking it over for cover.

Shots came from the hallway, cracking the thick wood, sending splinters flying everywhere.

“Fortify Cover,” Smith touched the table.

“Squad: Sights Like Eyes,” Lt. Rico said.

She didn’t need it, but the others sticking just their guns over cover did.

A grenade landed in their midst.

“Delay Fuse!” Brixton snapped, pointing at it. “Someone return to sender!”

Lark dived for it, snatching it off the floor and chucking it back into the hallway in one smooth motion. She rolled back behind cover and continued firing.

Fire thumped, pushing dark smoke further into the boardroom.

Unnatural darkness suddenly fell over their eyes like a heavy curtain.

“Squad: Blind Fighting!”

Skill versus spell struggled for supremacy.

M.J. caught snatches of blades and starburst muzzle flashes.

A blade danced for her neck.

She sacrificed her carbine.

Quick Draw got her pistol in hand and in firing position in a near instant.

She squeezed the trigger as fast as she could.

The black-clad assassin fell away.

Dead or just wounded?

She didn’t know.

“Fall back! Squad: Rapid Retreat!”

Lt. Rico’s voice lent her feet wings.

There was only one way out.

She clipped the rope to her harness and hooked the grapnel around the leg of a large couch.

Then it was a straight sprint to the gaping hole in the window.

Physical enhancement passives made the rapid descent possible.

A baseline person would’ve broken bones and torn muscles.

Five floors.

Ten floors.

The rope ran out.

The sudden stop didn’t feel good.

She had been out first.

Only a few of her unit were behind her.

She planted her boots on the mirrored glass and pushed off.

Upside down, she fired her pistol.

At the apex of the swing she flipped and twisted.

Momentum slammed her into the cracked glass boots first.

Tumbling across the floor, she drew a knife and cut the rope.

Brixton and Smith were right behind her.

No one else.

She stifled a curse as she pulled another carbine out of her bag of holding.

“Let’s go.”

Smith frowned. “We ain’t waiting?”

“Follow protocols.”

She was the highest ranked soldier among the trio.

They couldn’t do anything for the rest of the unit. At least not until they broke contact with the Chinese.

Lose the tail, then figure out how to best go back for the others.

They didn’t leave anyone behind.

“I’ve got point.” Smith posted to the side of the office door.

He pulled it open on her nod.

Empty hallway.

“Make for the stairs on the opposite side of the building.”

“Got it,” Smith nodded.

She could hear gun fire, feel the occasional shake of the floor from explosions.

Above seemed quiet.

Meant that the necromancer was still below them.

They reached the stairwell without incident.

Smith reached for the handle only for it to be ripped open from inside.

“Contact!” he snapped his carbine up and fired.

Lt. Rico’s Skill was still in effect so she had the misfortune of seeing straight into the gaping maw of the fleshy abomination filling the doorway.

“Fall back!”

Skills fled her thoughts.

Fear unlike any other she had experienced pulsed from the thing’s many glowing green eyes.

Smith’s shout was cut off when it shoved his upper half into its mouth and bit down.

Fight or flight?

Brixton chose the latter, firing until it grabbed her.

Battle cry turned to terror, but she still kept the presence of mind to pull pins from the grenades on her plate carrier.

The abomination chomped down once more.

Gore filled the hallway a few seconds later.

M.J. had already fled, heedless of her surroundings.

The magically induced terror had been too much.

She turned a corner and ran right into a heavy impact.

Her face broke.

“Should’ve worn a full-faced helmet, stupid bitch!”

A young man stood over her, brandishing a bloody bat wrapped in barbed wire and studded with nails.

She reached for her pistol.

“Power Stomp!”

The boot descended.

Samuel Li spat on the dead soldier.

“That’s what you slashers get for invading us!”

Anger filled his body, kept him moving through the fear.

Undead monsters. Zombies, Skeletons, that abominable thing the soldiers had taken out. So many more had poured into the tower.

His family’s room was in the lower half and they had gotten separated in the mad rush to get higher.

The fucking guards had tried to stop them at first, until they had simply pushed the bastards aside.

At least the guards hadn’t turned their weapons and spells on them.

Might’ve helped that almost everyone was armed.

Mutually assured destruction with the necromancer woman ending up the winner with more bodies for her growing army.

This was what happened when the stupid council decided that they’d hunker down rather than try to take the fight to the slashers.

Samuel looted the corpse. He had run out of ammo within seconds as he and a few others had tried to make a stand on the 7th floor. He checked the soldier’s pistol. Glock, just like his.

“Shit,” he muttered.

Wrong caliber.

He took the carbine and the mags she had left, the grenades and the bag of holding.

The soldier’s corpse jerked.

He jumped back with wide eyes.

The bile rose to his throat as her smashed face turned toward him.

Without thinking, he aimed and squeezed the trigger until her head was completely gone.

That didn’t stop her body from rising and reaching for him.

He kicked her in the chest and ran for it.

The hallways looked all the same in the darkness.

He ran into side tables, sending plant-filled vases and other decorations smashing to the carpeted floor.

The elevators weren’t an option.

The top floorers had cut those off almost immediately after the undead had poured into the first floor.

He had seen a group of people find that out to their bloody deaths and subsequent reanimation.

One stairwell had that abomination, which meant the other stairwell was his only option.

Up or down?

He didn’t know where his family was.

Were they already dead?

No!

He couldn’t allow himself to think that.

They were either above him or below him.

The wheels turned in his head.

Kill the necromancer and fix everything.

He lacked the levels, but he had grenades.

If he could catch her sleeping…

Down then.

Into the stairwell.

He winced with every step of his boots on the cold concrete.

Sound traveled well in both directions.

He stopped every few steps to listen.

Complete silence aside from his jackhammering heart.

Floor 33.

The door suddenly burst open.

He reacted as well as he could have.

Finger squeezed the trigger.

Stars burst in the darkness.

The sound hurt his ears.

He clicked on empty.

Zombies filled the stairwell, tackling him.

Instead of biting as he had seen them do before, they merely held him.

A woman in robes of dark green and black emerged from the tightly-packed mass of rotting flesh.

The bile rose up his throat once more.

“A local,” she mused. “One moment.” Her eyes unfocused for a few seconds. “Samuel Li. Not worth very many points. Pardon me, I had to consult the event page.”

He struggled to no avail.

Even the rotting dead had more strength than him.

“I see the fire in your eyes. Perhaps, there is no need for me to snuff them out while you’re so young. So, a proposal. You tell me everything you know about this tower. What sort of defenses those on the upper floors have waiting for me and such?”

He would’ve spit in her face if not for the bile.

The stench watered his eyes.

Raw flesh dripped red from bites.

Many of which looked to be from human teeth.

“I don’t know anything and I wouldn’t tell you even if I did.”

“Brave.” She tapped a delicate finger to her chin for a long moment. “But dumb. I was going to let you run off. Like I said, not worth the points and I do want to begin transitioning my preferred targets. The slasher class,” she sighed, “a double-edged blade. It’s not the killing I mind. It’s the compulsion to do so.”

“Should’ve thought about that before.”

“You’re right about that. I guess I thought I had the will to master it. But that’s how it goes.” She shrugged. “You have to risk big to gain big. Which I have. I must kill, but I don’t want to become a complete monster. They get hunted down by flying man. So, will you help me secure my place in the contest so that I can hide and rest? I’ll let you and your family go.”

“I don’t even know if you haven’t murdered them already.”

“That is a valid point. Unfortunately, the kill list won’t be updated until tomorrow. Then, no deal?”

Samuel spat for real this time.

Spit and bile splashed across the front of her expensive-looking robes.

“Strangle him to death. Leave him as undamaged as possible.”

Cold hands closed on his throat.

Darkness crept from the edges of his vision.

He struggled, but the hands were too strong, too cold.

He jerked one last time and fell still.

“Stupid boy. I really was going to let you run. A Nemesis-type Quest would’ve been quite profitable in the future. Oh well. Speak With The Dead.” She pointed at the corpse.

A faint green glow surrounded him.

Eyes shot open filled with the same glow.

“I have questions for you. Will you answer?”

“Yesss,” he rasped.

“Very good.”