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Chapter 2: Castle Of Plastic |
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Chapter 2: Castle Of Plastic
Three Weeks Prior
Sly sat upright in his throne. It had been a long day and he only wanted to relax. The problem? He knew Kojin wasn't far off and he was headed in this direction. He pressed his fingers against his temple as the doors to the throne room swung open. He wasn't looking forward to this confrontation. It wasn't going to be long before a battle was going to spark. He knew this because he knew Kojin. They were once good friends, but now they were sworn enemies as their rivalry was sparked in a lust for power.
Mainly Kojin's lust for power that is. Kojin didn't like the fact that Sly was the one with the strength of a god. He wanted to take all that for himself. After a moment of silence, Sly pushed himself to his feet and grabbed a black weapon that was beside him. The blade was Legion, a super-powerful weapon with omnipotence in the form of darkness. This was all but Sly's signature weapon, seeing as it had a mind of its own, and much like Kojin, this mind didn't like Sly all that much either.
"Kojin, you're out of place. You don't belong here anymore, so why is it you're here?" He pointed his blade at Kojin as words cycled through his head as spoken by the blade itself. He knew why the blade spoke to him because he knew why Kojin was here. He wanted power, and he had finally figured out how to do it.
Kojin was holding a gem in his left hand. He held it up and the light glistened between his fingers. "You already know what this is, Sly."
Sly nodded. It wasn't a standard gem. It was an artifact. A very powerful artifact with the power to banish people and things to other dimensions. "Why am I not surprised that you found the Gem of Damnation?"
Kojin lowered his hand and raised a spear in its place. "If I can't have your power, I'll take it from you."
Sly scoffed. "So the instant you realize you can't beat me in a fair fight, you use Artifacts to cheat. Typical."
"You use what's needed as long as you come out on top." Kojin said with a grin. He started turning to the left as he predicted Sly's move early. Lifting his heel up he kicked as Sly shimmered into view. Kojin's foot hit solidly in the gut, throwing Sly across the room and through one of the pillars sending shards and debris in separate directions. Sly's pre-emptive attack turned into a fluke as Kojin was one step ahead of him. Then again, with how many times they had fought in the past, it wasn't a surprise.
Sly pushed himself to his feet and zig-zagged at high speeds, arcing around the remains of the shattered pillar as he closed in on Kojin. He saw Kojin rear back for a stab with his spear, and with a subtle shift of his body, the spear slid past him without touching him. It was a solid stab, but Sly had always been faster than Kojin. He turned his lean into a separate form of momentum bringing his knee up and into Kojin's stomach.
This caused Kojin to keel over, and leave him open for a powerful hammerblow. Sly hit hard using the base of his hilt to get extra power behind the hit. Kojin hit the floor, splintering the fancy tiling. One bounce later, Kojin was on his hands and knees already. He rolled to one side as Sly slashed downwards, causing the blade to carve through another section of tiling. Kojin's stabbed into the floor with his spear and used that as leverage as he rolled over Sly's shoulders and pulled him into a solid lock. Sly felt the gem against his chest and he cursed under his breath. It was all over too quickly. The gem glowed and Sly vanished in a burst of light.
Legion fell to the floor and Kojin walked over to it. Reaching down, he didn't dare grab the handle. Instead, he placed the gem to it and watched as it too faded from existence. Kojin walked over to the throne and took a seat. It felt good to be king. From just outside the front door, Narusei looked on in silence. The once mighty Sly had just been taken down. He needed to do something, but he knew he couldn't handle Kojin on his own. Instead, he ran for help...
---
Current Day
Narusei sat quietly as the people at the table took everything in. It was a difficult story to believe. A gem that can banish people from the dimension is hard to come to grasp with. Even if they were to see it, they probably wouldn't want to believe it. With Sly gone, that Made Kojin the strongest being on the planet. Jin scratched the back of his head in frustration before running his fingers back through it. They needed to figure out something. The question was; What?
If Kojin had his way and had already made all the swords vanish, they could be in trouble about now. They would have no countermeasure against him. This made taking him down an almost impossible task. What they had to do was get Kojin's weapons away from him, but if he's the one with the gem, then their only hope of taking the weapons are to kill him first. It was a lose/lose situation...
"So now what?" Harken spoke up, breaking the silence. "How are we supposed to kill someone who's virtually immortal?" He was the only one to say it, even though it was on everybody's mind.
"I don't know," Narusei spoke up in response. "His weapons are a good source of his power, but even without them, he's a monster, and none of us can beat him..."
"Alone." Jin said, breaking his wall of silence. "We can't beat him alone. We'll need help."
"Who?" Harken spoke up, almost annoyed. "Who can we get that can take this guy down?"
Jin looked Harken in the eye for a moment. "There's more than just us out there that want to live. If we can get them to fight back against Kojin, we can win. If nothing else, Kojin won't. The point is, as long as we all work together, win or lose, Kojin fails." Jin stood up. "In the meantime, I'm going to get some sleep. It's starting to get dark, and I want to be out of here before sunrise. We'll make our way to his last known location to find him. If we know where he is, we can look elsewhere for people before confronting him." He didn't wait for responses. Instead, he headed up the stairs on one side and into a room, closing a door and not making another noise.
Everyone started talking again for a moment or so, but nothing of note before heading to bed themselves. All but Narusei. Instead, he headed out the door and into the night. He was going to do what he could to slow Kojin down, or keep him in one place before he could get too far.
---
Just before sunrise the crew was all packed up and ready to leave to their next destination, which was Sly's Castle. They had to get a clue as to where Kojin was. When Narusei was brought up, it was only for a moment before he became a dropped subject. They didn't really care. They didn't have reason to hate him for bringing this to their attention, although Jin found it quite unusual that Kojin's brother would just happen to show up and give this information, only to disappear a moment or so later. However, he dropped the thought and kept his eyes peeled as they traveled. Two days and two nights passed of nothing but travel, and mid-day on the third day they finally caught sight of Sly's Castle. It was majestic, rising from the side of a mountain with gorgeously weaved tapestries hanging from the walls. As they drew near, they realized the door was still open.
Jin immediately went on the prowl, pulling his weapon and preparing for a fight. He couldn't smell anything, but that had no real meaning. He had already encountered enemies that had the ability to take power from someone, and then their life force. They carried no scent, but they were threats, for sure...
Luckily the area was clear. While there was no threat that they could find, jin refused to lower his guard for fear of finding something, or someone, of significant threat. It was only a matter of time at this point. Stepping inside the marble bound walls, they realized there had been combat from the damaged pillars and recent burn marks. The area was just as tall as it was long, with walls about fifty feet tall in almost every point of the main chamber. Jin's first thought was to spread out and search the castle. Ironically everyone else had the same thought and they dispursed, spreading throughout the chambers of the fairly small castle. It didn't take long to search the whole of the castle. Not even a full 20 minutes later, everyone was back in the main room. Harken was the first to speak.
"So that's it? The castle's empty. I know we're here for clues, but without an idea of what may be a valuable source of information, we're pretty much screwed over here." Harken ran his fingers back through his golden locks. Nothing seemed to be falling into place. However, Jin seemed preoccupied with something. His nose seemed to be working at double it's standard speed, scouring the main chamber. For some reason he could smell something, but he didn't recognize what it was. He knew Kojin's scent, but what remained was familiar, yet so distant. He hesitated before stepping over to the throne.
He stopped his approach when something caught his eye. He looked up over the throne. Way up where the ceiling met wall, a sword was protruding from the stone wall. He recognized it immediately. He didn't say a word, though. Instead, he leapt up onto the back of the throne. The sword was still a good thirty feet above him. He pulled his sword and with a single leap, stabbed his blade into the wall just to the left of the embedded weapon. He grasped the hilt and a smile crossed his face. He pulled it from the wall and jumped down, sheathing both swords. Looking up at the group, his smile pierced through their eyes and into their soul. Jin knew something they didn't.
"I know where Kojin's going..."
Kojin Fuyuki · Tue Aug 21, 2012 @ 01:01am · 0 Comments |
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