Chapter Two
[We ball]
Luka hit the floor with a thud,coughing.Slowly, rising to his feet, he took in his surroundings. Nirvana. He was back in Nirvana. One of the floating islands in Nirvana. He approached the edge of the island he was on.
"Agni…" He muttered, remembering what happened to her… to everyone there. "It's… all my fault…"
Luka stared out with a hollow, haunted expression. If he was just a second faster, just a smidge stronger… No. He can't be focusing on that. Agni, everyone, they're all gone, but he's still here.
"Why…" Luka paced back and forth, shaking his head in confusion. "Why am I the only one left..? Why did he spare me…" He couldn't wrap his head around it. Everyone else was killed without mercy except for him. What made him so special? He needed to know, to figure that out.
"Yo." A voice rang out, snapping Luka out of his pondering. He spun around, blue sparks popping around his palms.
"Ha, woah, calm down pal." The voice belonged to a man with shaggy brown hair and mismatched eyes, one yellow and the other red. He wore a red jacket and flared jeans. A hockey mask with a string made of thorns rested neatly against the corner of his head. "Don't you know how to greet a new friend?"
"Who are you?" Luka asked, his hands engulfed in blue flames as he took extra caution, trying to discern this new individual as friend or foe.
"Ah, fair's fair. Name's Isaac. Nice to meet ya." Isaac held his hand out to shake, a friendly, laidback grin on his face.
Luka stared for a moment, narrowing his eyes before hesitantly reciprocating the handshake. It seemed fine until- SHINK! A spike went through Luka's palm.
Reflexively, he yanked his hand back, staring at the bleeding hole in his hand. "GAH- WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!"
"Hah! Oh, the old spike in the hand trick, a classic." He sighed, before glancing at the hole in Luka's hand. "Ah, knew it."
"Knew what, you psycho?!" Luka exclaimed, furious with Isaac's actions.
"You, you're a monster."
"You're one to talk."
"No, literally, you're a monster." He gestured to Luka's hand.
The flesh in the hole was beginning to mend itself back together, weaving in chunks of muscle, sinew and bone. "What the…"
"Yeah, see what I mean? Only monsters regenerate like that… knitting their flesh together, creepy." Isaac pointed out, his arms going into his jacket pockets. "That and you have horns and a tail… well, you aren't like most monsters I've seen."
"Most monsters?" Luka's tail flicked behind him as he raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean by monsters?"
"You don't know?' Isaac looked genuinely caught off guard. "Y'know, like, the MONSTER Legion? That ring any bells? Anything at all?"
"Nope… I don't remember much from my younger years, only a specific dream… A guy in a lab coat, his face was obscured, he grabbed me by the shoulders and told me we needed to go… and then the wall was blown open and several people in white combat gear detained him… he told me to go and burn the multiverse down and sent me down a portal…" Luka recalled the events, looking at Isaac.
"Mhm, yep, sounds like the MONSTER Legion… and the OMEGA Faction." Isaac nodded, confirming his suspicions. "The MONSTER Legion creates, well, monsters to cause havoc across Nirvana… and the OMEGA Faction isn't really a fan of that stuff. They're sort of the police around here, containing monsters and anything that poses a threat to Nirvana… Where did you say you were coming from anyway?"
Luka paused for a moment, taking all this new information before looking back at Isaac, registering his new question. "Oh, I was just coming from… the King's.. Assembly." His voice quietened, just remembering what happened there. "He… killed everyone there, with another girl… Thalia I think…"
"Thalia? You're serious?" His eyes widened as he stared at Luka with a concerned expression. "Dude, how are you even alive? She should've killed you, no offense."
"None taken… I guess the King just took pity on me…?" He shrugged "He just sent me out of there before I could sustain any real damage."
"Ah, King's interference… that explains a lot more then. Probably noticed you weren't an anomaly and saved your ass." Isaac explained. "Either way, you've got a monitor and target on your back."
"Pff, please… I'm barely known." Luka rolled his eyes.
"Then what about those guys?" Isaac pointed to a rift opening behind Luka, several operative agents wielding railgun-like rifles stepped out. They donned white gear and immediately locked onto Luka and Isaac.
"FREEZE! You are hereby under arrest by the Multiversal Authority of the OMEGA Faction. Resistance will result in force, comply now." One of them said, steady grip on their rifle. "Get on your knees and put your hands behind your head."
"Funny, that's what I said to your mother last night." Isaac snickered, not taking the situation seriously at all. Instead, he turned to Luka, tilting his head. "I don't know much about what you can do, break a leg kid."
Luka shrugged, before igniting his hands in a blue flame, launching cinders everywhere. In the blink of an eye, Luka blitzed past Isaac, coming a hairsbreadth away from one of the guards. His hand shot out, clasping around their head and igniting them in a turquoise blaze, scorching them.
The other soldiers immediately opened fire onto Luka, zooming lasers whizzing past the pyrokinetic as he used his tail as leverage, using to balance and flip off of. Mid-air, Luka used his hands to create a nozzle around his mouth, spewing searing flames at a cluster of them, reducing them to piles of ash.
Luka landed back next to Isaac, grinning. "What'd you think of that?"
"Bravo.. But I think you missed one."
"What do you me-" A fist slammed into Luka's cheek, sending him flying.
A man clad in white armour, taller than the other soldiers stepped out the flames, brushing cinders off his shoulder. "Remember. You forced me to do this."
"Shit…" Isaac pulled his mask down, a cleaver appearing in his hand.
The armoured soldier's cape billowed behind him as he took the hilt of a blade out from his hip. The crossguard flicked out with a flick of a wrist and a large blade made of glacial magic emerged from it. "Come." He ordered, standing at the ready.
Isaac burst forward in a flurry of speed, blitzing all around the OMEGA soldier as scars etched into his armor, faint and shallow. Without word, the OMEGA soldier stuck his arm out, flexing his hand before suddenly clenching and grabbing onto Isaac's grip. "Pathetic."
Frost began to creep down Isaac's arm as panic began to wash over the butcher's face. "Ah shit…" He muttered. Wriggling and squirming as he tried to escape the soldier's grasp. When all seemed bleak in the icy grip, his eyes widened with a genius thought. He dropped his butcher's cleaver into his opposite hand "Catch."
With a sinister grin, he threw the knife watching it slice through the air, however the OMEGA soldier simply moved his head. "Was that your pla-" The cleaver returned in the air, much like a boomerang, yet, again, the soldier moved his head. "Was that your whole plan?" He asked, disappointment washing over his face behind the helmet.
However, Isaac's was anything but disappointed. "Nah, much smarter." The cleaver shot up mid-air, striking down onto the butcher's arm and severing it. He caught his butcher's knife and jumped back once free, his expression smug. "I'm a man of many talents, I know."
The soldier seemed much less impressed, tossing away the severed arm as he approached Isaac. "You've only crippled yourself. How does that help you?" His steps landed with a resounding thud as he made his way over to him, each one with purpose. "You were better off freezing to death."
Isaac bit his tongue, he knew that the bastard was right. He couldn't fight him, let alone with one hand… best option is to flee, but to where? Subconsciously gripping his weapon, he took a step back, wondering what to do. It wasn't any good that there was smoke- wait, smoke?
Like a demon from hell, a bolt of blue flew past Isaac, striking off the soldier's armour and latching onto the severed arm. With a swift yank, it returned back to it's point of origin, arm in tow. The twisted cook turned, locking eyes with… Luka. Isaac smirked, "Yo, could've come back a bit sooner?"
Luka rolled his eyes, betrayed amusement in his eyes. "Don't blame me, that dick knocked me pretty far." He tossed the severed arm back towards Isaac, who promptly reattached it.
"Well… jump him?" The butcher asked behind his mask.
"Oh yeah." The monster replied, his arms coating in blue cinders resembling claws.
"I see. Two on one. Very well." The soldier replied, pointing his sword at them in a taunt. "En Guarde."
The monster and butcher looked at each other and nodded, bolting towards the soldier as they launched their attacks at him. Isaac closed the distance first, parrying the cryokinetic sword with his cleaver as a carving knife appeared in his off hand. He suddenly lunged with the knife, directing the smaller blade towards the gaps in the helmet, only to be grabbed and forced down. Before any follow up could occur, Luka flew up behind the soldier blasting him with a spout of blue flames.
"Ghk!-" The soldier winced, tossing Isaac away and swiftly turning towards the Monster. Encasing his fist in a gauntlet of ice, he launched a haymaker at Luka, directed towards his chest only for the demi-beast to spin himself out of the way as two large hands made from the blue blazes sprouted out from his back, holding the soldier in place. Isaac suddenly appeared behind the soldier, taking advantage of the burnt back of his armour, using both his cleaver and carving knife to mince through it and exposing the back of the soldier. With pinpoint precision, Isaac dug dozens of blades into the soldiers back before hopping off, giving Luka a thumbs up.
Luka nodded, the blazing blue hands coiled around the soldier, holding him down as wings made out of the same flames grew on the monster's back, carrying him into the air. Staring down at the soldier, his eyes narrowed and his face soured with disdain. "People like you are the sickest parts of Nirvana, imprisoning and executing things you don't understand, things that don't understand themselves. You choose to get rid of an inexistent problem and that's what makes you the worst scum in the multiverse."
As he spoke, flames began to coil around him, sparking and crackling with a shimmering blue. The flames grew and grew, enlarging to monumental sizes as it can be seen as a star from all across Nirvana. It eventually began to coalesce into a dragon shape, like that of Chinese folklore, coiling around Luka with reverence as it stared down at the soldier with the same disdain as it's master. "This is not revenge or vengeance. It's simply atonement."
With a flick of his hand, the dragon soared into the sky, before crashing down onto the soldier with a deafening roar, mouth wide open as it swallowed the poor soul. All that soldier felt was an immense burning sensation as it charred every last bit of him until the dragon stopped, dissipating into loose cinders after it all had crashed. With an exhausted sigh, Luka relinquished all his other pyrokinetic constructs, lowering himself to the ground.
Isaac rushed over to Luka, a wide grin on his face. He swiftly lifted his mask and helped prop up the Monster. "DUDE! That was INSANE!" He patted him on the back, before looking over at the charred corpse of the soldier. It was missing an arm. "You alright?" Isaac asked, biting into a charred arm.
"Yeah, just a bit tire- WOAH DUDE WHAT THE FUCK?!" Luka exclaimed, staring down at the arm that Isaac was eating.
"Hm? Oh, yeah, I eat people, hope that doesn't bother you." Isaac shrugged, biting into the arm again, tearing off the charred flesh with much effort.
"I guess… wish you could've told me before."
"Yeah, sorry."
The two sat there for a bit, before Isaac spoke up again.
"So… you don't have a gig, right?"
"Hm? Oh… uh yeah?" Luka raised an eyebrow, trying to see what he was getting at.
"Dude, hear me out, a merc for hire gig, me and you. We're the furnace duo." Isaac replied, a grin on his face.
"Huh… I guess that could work!"
"I knew you'd understand… for now, let's just rest for a moment."
The two sat, staring off the floating island they were sat up on.
[End of Chapter]