Late February. The temperature around the Stick City are is starting to warm up, as flowers and plants start coming back to life, waking up from that hibernation state that they take during the winter. Animals start populating again the woods around the city, as birds, bears and wolves now prowl through the wilds.
A bright beam of light entered the cave where Serena was sleeping, lighting up her pale face. She smirked as the intense light forced her to open her eyes. The amber iris shined when hit by the light, putting her eyes under a beautiful perspective. She slowly gathered her energies and stood up, carelessly scratching the back of her head and looking around the cave: the light was coming through a small opening in the wall of the cave, and it was working as a lamp, illuminating almost the entire cave. A circular formation of rocks was set in the middle of the cave, with burned branches and sticks lying inside of it. A small, half eaten roaster was hanging from a stick just above the ashes, looking that it was about to fall into them.
Serena took a deep breath, as she slowly walked towards one of the corners of the cave, where she put, earlier that day, her bag and her clothes. She started dressing up, the sunlight illuminating her sinuous body. In matter of minutes, she had her gear on, and she was ready to go; she took one last bite from that roaster before tossing it onto the ashes, raising a small cloud of dust. She gathered her gear and she headed towards the entrance of the cave.
Serena wasn’t enjoying that life: every day struggling to find something to eat, to find a place where to sleep, avoiding all the dangers of the wilderness. But there wasn’t much that she could do about it: she was a stranger in a strange world. Serena more than once contemplated the idea of putting an end to her life, but she always failed at it. She was too shy to live in cities, and all of the technological evolution confused her. But living in the wilds wasn’t the most exciting thing, not talking about everybody that hunted her down: she was constantly running from some sort of assassins, sent out to find her and slaughter her. These events made her break her promise more than once, and that demoralized her even more, throwing her in a state of semi-depression. She never intended to kill anybody, but she was forced to do that a couple of times. And for someone like Serena, that’s a pretty big deal.
Serena was thinking about today’s programs while heading towards the exit of the cave, when a bright light blinded her. She kept on going forward, believing that the bright light was only the sunlight. She covered her eyes with her forearm, and exited the cave. Serena was about to stop when something else did, delivering huge amount of pain to her left ankle. She violently shouted, shaking the trees around her; when she looked down, she remained astonished when she saw that her left foot was trapped into a bear trap, as she was violently bleeding, spilling blood all over the trap and the ground around it.
Serena started shaking, trying to free her ankle from the trap in a very clumsy way. The pain overcame her, as she was moaning loudly. She gave a quick look around, but the light was still too strong for her eyes, and the pain was distracting her. Thanks to an adrenaline burst, she managed to open a small gap in between the two claws of the trap, allowing her to free her ankle. Quickly after that she dropped on her knees, trying to suppress the pain.
“Not even worth our time.” A female voice reached Serena’s ears, apparently coming from just in front of her. She slowly raised her head, shaking: 3 figures stood tall in front of her, a woman and two men. The woman was proudly standing at about 5 feet from Serena, staring her down and aiming a crossbow towards her chin. Her hair was pitch black, and the left side of her face was covered by a special mask. The mysterious woman wielded two semi-automatic crossbows, meaning that she was a specialized sharpshooter. The other two men were standing in the back, one of them wielding a claymore, the other one having an M4 in between his hands. They both had their faces covered by masks similar to the one that the woman was wearing: one of them had it on the lower part of his face, the other one on the higher part. One of them was bald, and the other one had shoulder length blonde hair. They both seemed waiting on the woman, hinting that she was the boss.
Serena shook her head, trying to understand why a bunch of perfect unknowns would ambush her in the middle of the morning, but after she thought back at her question, the answer came up spontaneously: they got send to kill her. The situation was very tight: Serena was grounded, her ankle was heavily wounded, meaning that her movement was heavily reduced, the woman seemed to have no intention on hesitating any more, but the men let their guard down. She analyzed her options, even though there weren’t many. When Serena attempted to open her mouth, the woman shot a dart into her right leg. Serena screamed in pain, as she dropped on her back, almost hitting the bear trap that she got caught in a couple of moments ago.
“Don’t even think about it, sunshine. You are not spitting a single sound.” The woman stated firmly, as she pressed the reload button on the handle of her crossbow. With a pale mechanical sound, another dart popped onto the lining, as the chord got pulled back into launching position. Serena, on the other hand, was suffering: the dart penetrated deep into her flesh, incapacitating her. Another burst of adrenaline made her stand up instinctively, almost ignoring the pain. The men were surprised by her capacity of suppressing pain, but the woman didn’t even flinched: she pulled the trigger once more, popping another dart, this time into her left leg. Serena screamed once more, but this time it was no regular scream: the whole atmosphere around her changed, as the woman felt the air missing. She started gasping, looking for air, but as Serena kept screaming, the air was disappearing more and more. She fell on her knee, dropping one of her two crossbows. The men got caught off-guard, and by the time that they reacted, Serena was already summoning her Symphony of Winds.
“Don’t you…stand…there…GET HER!” the woman angrily addressed the two men. She was holding her chest with her free hand, and was attempting to aim her crossbow towards Serena. But she was weak, and the absence of air made that action slow and clumsy, giving enough time to Serena to create a small vortex and throw it against the woman, knocking her down. Serena’s beautiful voice was resounding from the cave, almost like the cave itself was working as a diapason: her voice was propelled all around the area. Her enemies might have considered this a dangerous fact, but for common people was a beautiful experience.
One of the masked men, the one wielding the claymore, dashed towards Serena, trying to engage her in close combat. But for just a pure case, Serena happened to be preparing her Symphony of Force to finish up the woman, as the pitch of her voice went a bit deeper. The man got caught completely defenseless, as Serena violently shouted in his face. A massive shockwave hit the man, flying him across the area. The impact was so devastating that he lost his handle on his claymore, dropping it a couple of steps in front of Serena.
The other man, the one wielding the fully automatic M4 Carbine, observed astonished as his partner got blown away by a mere attack. He prepared his rifle, removed the safety, and aimed at Serena’s head. In the meanwhile, Serena observed him as he was messing with that strange device, but when the man finished the whole process, Serena understood that whatever that thing may be, it was nothing good for her. She quickly spread her arms open, and as she was looking straight up at the sky, she shouted a suave song with a high pitched voice. Suddenly she got surrounded by a bright ring of light that split into 5 parts in matter of moments. The timing was just perfect: she managed to summon her Song of The Elders just before the man pulled the trigger. The 5.56 millimeter bullets exited the barrel of the gun, reaching Serena in about two tenths of a second. Her reaction was instinctive; she shielded herself with one of the 3 feet wide octagons. The bullets violently impacted the crystal, most of them ricocheting off of it, but a couple of them penetrating the structure, crippling it. It took the man about 20 bullets to tear into pieces the crystal octagon, but as soon as the first one went down, Serena quickly shifted her attention to another one, parrying the last 11 bullets shot by the M4.
The boy nervously mashed on the trigger, later noticing that he ran out of bullets. He quickly dropped the empty magazine from the gun and grabbed another one from a small bag that he had on his back. But Serena had enough of it: she destroyed the damaged octagon, and focused her attention on the next one; she took a deep breath and started charging up an attack. The man was quickly trying to reload the gun and fire every single round that he had into that monster. A quiet, mechanical sound reached the ears of the man, putting a smile on his face. He quickly pulled the bolt of the gun with one, steady motion, and aimed the American firearm towards Serena. But by the time that he loaded his gun, Serena already summoned her Symphony of Force, and used one of the octagons as a catalyst, making the attack stronger. The man noticed a strong shockwave coming towards him, as the grass was moving and the trees were shaking. He only managed to slip his finger from the trigger before he got hit by that devastating shockwave, flinging him into a tree at about 20 feet away. The impact made the cortex shake, making a couple of leafs fall from the branches above.
Serena thought that she was safe now, but the destruction of one of her octagons made her panic. As she turned around, she saw the woman struggling to stand on her own feet, but quickly recovering, and with both her crossbows in her hands. Serena remained surprised by the fire that she saw into that woman’s eyes and, even though her main objective was to kill her, she admired that determination, something that Serena never experienced or felt before. The woman aimed her two crossbows at Serena, and shot two deadly bolts that penetrated her last crystal octagon, completely shattering it and almost hitting Serena.
Meanwhile, one of the masked men recovered from his injury and, after retrieving his claymore, he charged Serena, who was distracted by the woman. With that final attack he could have killed Serena, and put an end to the fight, but he committed one fatal mistake: he shouted while closing up on her. Serena’s attention quickly shifted to the man, but her wounds interrupted her from dodging the attack. Quick thinking was required in that situation: the man was at about 7 feet from Serena, preparing himself for the decisive attack; the woman, on the other side, was reloading her crossbows with their final shot. Serena was in a tight spot, but an illuminating idea flashed through her mind. She started summoning her Symphony of Winds, but she didn’t used it for offensive purposes, but just for movement: she shouted once, creating a strong burst that pushed her backwards. The burst impacted the woman, knocking her down, but the most important thing was that the man missed his attack, as the claymore violently penetrated the ground.
It was now a two against one fight, putting a big handicap onto Serena. But she knew how to solve that: she summoned a godly song, singing every note with a very high pitched voice. Suddenly a bright light fell from the sky, impacting the floor with force. After the dust settled, it revealed a humanly figure, similar to a Berserker, the Nordic warriors. But it wasn’t fully human, as his consistency resembled the one of a spectral being. The Berserker raised on his feet, standing tall, and wielding two double edged axes. He was about 8 feet tall, as he stood right next to Serena, whom is 5 feet 11. Serena continued with her song and the Berserker lunged forward, charging the man. He quickly panicked, as he tried to pull out his claymore from the ground, but it was stuck, leaving him defenseless.
It took the Berserker one, violent attack, and the man’s head fell of his shoulders, rolling downhill, into the cave. A fountain of blood started spilling from the man’s neck, as his corpse fell down on the ground, lifeless. The woman remained astonished: one of her trusted men has fallen, slain by this monster that they were sent to kill. Serena remained surprised by the violence of the Berserker, as she stopped from her song and remained silent. When the song stopped, the light aura that was surrounding the Berserker disappeared; but he was still alive, as he looked at the woman, and started walking towards her, as blood was falling from the blades of his axes.
“DIE YOU BASTARD!” the woman loudly shouted at the Berserker, aiming the crossbows towards his head. The Berserker saw her movement and charged on forward, with the intent of finishing the fight for his mistress. But something unexpected happened: the woman shot her crossbows, and the bolts penetrated the Berserker’s eyes, blinding him. He screamed in pain, but kept on going forward, swinging his axes left and right. But in those conditions, for the woman he was an easy target: with a lightning quick move she kicked the Berserker into his knee, making him fall. In the process, he tried to deliver the killing blow to the woman, but he stabbed himself in the face while doing it. The spectral body of the Berserker fell on the ground, and dissolved itself after a couple of moments.
“Your turn…” the woman silently mumbled, as she started walking towards Serena, reloading her crossbows. Serena attempted to summon one of her songs, but she got interrupted by a couple of gunshots that resounded in the area. Suddenly she felt something penetrate her legs, as she felt a gigantic amount of pain coming from her legs. She dropped on the ground unwillingly, as she screamed during the motion. When she hit the floor, everything felt so cold and warm at the same time. She completely lost the feeling around her lower body, but after a couple of moments she saw the woman come into her field of view, and quickly after that a man, wielding some sort of strange weapon. Then she realized: she got shot into the legs.
The two laughed at her for a second, before aiming all of their weapons at Serena.
“Any last wish?” the man asked, his voice having something extremely terrifying into it. Serena slowly nodded, as she took a deep breath. She started singing a very calm and peaceful melody, the notes of this song almost embracing all three of them, giving them a sense of tranquility and peace. The two lowered their weapons, smiling and looking at each other. Serena kept on singing, as the two stared at each other, smiling like two complete retards. Suddenly the song started changing, mutating; the substance was changing, but the calm and comforting form remained.
The man slowly raised his M4, removing the safety and aiming it towards the woman. She, on the other side, gently raised her arms, and pointed the tips of the bolts towards the man. They were both smiling, as they pulled the respective triggers.
Blood started raining onto Serena, and a couple of instants later two loud thuds resounded in the area, the cave working as an amplifying device. She took a deep and long breath, before passing out.