Inhuman

POV Scythe

 

It shouldn't have been possible anyway. Jumping from the ground in the middle of a chaotic battle onto a speeding hoverboard with an occupant already in place, over fifty feet up in the air at that. But this guy, 001, had done it.

"005, head straight south."

"Huh?"

He turned around to see 001 right behind him in the air, and his eyes nearly fell out of his head. 001’s jacket flapped once in the wind and then his feet slammed onto the board right behind Scythe, hands closing around his shoulders to steady himself and the board itself.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE Y-"

"Stop shouting and fly," Sword snapped. "If Elemental dies, will you take responsibility?"

Scythe grit his teeth, but then his jaw relaxed and he piled on the speed.

Right. What was I thinking?

Thinking that 001 was unfit to be 001. Thinking he could do better. Thinking that if it was him, things would be different. Just because he played king in a cave.

I almost became exactly the kind of person I swore to never become. 001 must be 001 for a reason. When I first met him, he hesitated to end life even when a sword was being swung at his neck. But now, no, a long time ago, I couldn't see that man anymore.

005 'Scythe'. When he first woke up in Sector 3 of the Facility, he was in a small, dark room with twenty other people. A voice in his head told him only one person could leave this room alive. While everyone else argued about what to do, bullshitting about teamwork and rationality, only Scythe himself steeled himself to reality. He was in a room with twenty other people in god knows where with a voice speaking in his head, telling him he had no identity and no name. And so, he killed all nineteen of them and stepped outside. He was met with a hundred and ninety-nine other people, a hundred and ninety-nine other murderers who'd each killed nineteen human beings. Some of them were simply crazy. Others were staring at their blood covered hands, and others simply looked dead inside.

They were forced to fight each other. They were forced to fight and kill one another amidst the training, and then they were released out into the cave with absolutely nothing. They were forced to survive alone, and in that hell 005 Scythe rose to the top of the hierarchy. And with that responsibility he swore to himself that he would never consider himself 'perfect'. To always remember that there was someone better than him, and never to assume that he could do better. Never underestimate. And never refuse to accept someone as stronger.

His lips stretched into a grin as he stepped on it and the board raced forward, the wind screaming through his hair and tearing into his jacket. Sword's fingers dug into his shoulders to hang on.

Realistically, it should be impossible to successfully manoeuvre a one-person hoverboard with another person hanging on the back, holding onto your shoulders. Balance, physics, common sense, everything pointed to you and your 'crewmate' being painted as grease spots on the ground in two seconds flat.

But the board soared through the air at a hundred miles an hour with more stability than even most soldiers could fly on alone. Perfect hoverboard skills unmatched in the Pharo Force, and unexpected talent that didn't fit with his cruel and violent image he'd garnered in Sector 3.

(Unlike Sword's group who called the different sectors 'Generations', Scythe and those of 'G3' referred to them as Sectors.)

A hoverboarding genius with an uninterested gaze and an amicable expressions. Someone strong enough to climb to the position of 005 amongst the monsters and demons of the fused Facility Sectors One and Two. That was '005 Scythe'.

 

POV Sword

Scythe takes like what, twenty seconds to make it to the Southern side? I'm not too well versed in terms of hoverboarding but I'm pretty darn sure that's crazy fast. While he was zooming over, I relayed orders to the rest of the spearheading group now led by 004 Luc and Krim.

"Break through as fast as possible," I tell them. "It doesn't matter how many of you actually get to us but tell everyone to put their all into breaking through. 002, support them and make sure they don't get surrounded."

"Roger, boss."

"I'll be there in less than a minute!!" Luc's loud voice comes roaring through, coupled with the sounds of him smashing humans and mechs apart.

004 Luc. To me, he's a fiercely loyal friend who stands by my side, just like 003 or 006, one who I could probably entrust my back to. Probably. But when I look into his fiery eyes, blood running down his face as blood showers down around him after tearing his enemies apart, I can't help but think that there's something more to him. He wasn't anything notable in the Facility with little contribution to most of the largest events, and his position as former 003 was constantly overshadowed by Airo and Elemental. But I know.

As someone who fought and beat him to climb the ladder that was the rankings of the Facility, I know.

Just what kind of monstrous being 004 'Luc' can be.

But I guess that makes me worse. Since I'm the random guy who climbed past said monster to the peak of Pharo Force.

 

"I got eyes on 003," Scythe tells me, his voice coming clearer through comms even though he's right in front of me.

I look past his shoulder and spot them instantly. There's a tall guy in his early-thirties with piercing, hawk-like yellow eyes and cropped black hair with a bunch of crazy-looking armaments and gadgets plastered all over him, wielding a giant hammer that looks like the product of Tentee when he's high, drunk and unconscious all at the same time. He and Elemental are duking it out in a mess of blades, chains, flying blood drops and metallic blurs. Throw in a dash of sparks and a load of flying dirt and chrona blasts and you have a duel between our 003 and the Ghoulfather.

"003's being pushed back," Scythe says, circling around the duel once, as the two of them bound across rooftops of the South's dormitory district in a whirlwind of clashes.

"Soon he won't be," I say.

"What are y-"

Scythe won't get thrown off his board - he's really damn skilled, I can vouch. So I jump off.

"DOUBLE-OH OOOOOOOOOOOONE!!!" he yells after me as the board spirals about in the air behind me while I drop downwards.

Oops? Nah. Not really.

Since he used those sceptical eyes to look at me, it won't hurt to mess with him a little.

What, did you think I was going to beat him up or something?

 

My jetpack sparks into action and I zoom towards the Ghoulfather and 003.

"Incoming," I say into comms.

I'm sure Elemental heard me, since he pulls a manoeuvre on the Ghoulfather that rebounds the direction of his swing backwards, exposing his front, and then kicks him in the abdomen, pushing the two of them apart.

Nice, as expected of 003. The last thing I see before I collide with my enemy is the reflection of my electric blue eyes in his yellow ones.

Obviously, while zooming forwards at a fifty miles an hour on a jetpack going at a majorly slanted downwards angle, there's not much I can do with a sword unless I wanted to behead 003 alongside the Ghoulfather. So instead a second before I slam headfirst into his balls I put all my strength into my core and pull my legs up, flipping myself round 180 degrees so I slammed into his chest feet first. Thankfully, his crude metal armour indeed does NOT hold against the kinetic energy produced by my fall and the jetpack, and shatters into shards of metal, pinging in all direction, and my feet crush into his ribcage.

Blood spurts from his lips as he gets blasted backwards, crashing through the side of a building down below the rooftop we're currently on. Some of his ribs definitely broke from that, right?

"He was giving you of all people a hard time, huh?" I say, turning to Elemental.

To be honest, now that I get a better look at him, he isn't that injured at all. Sure, he's a little cut up and bleeding from gashes, but that's clearly just from shrapnel that he couldn't dodge. There's no real damage.

My attack on the Ghoulfather has actually split the whole rooftop we're standing apart, and we jump down into the street below until we're level with the scar he's torn in the opposite building. It belches fire and dust, but then the Ghoulfather steps out from the smoke, hammer throwing up sparks as he drags it along the ground, blood in his teeth and breath coming out heavily. His shoulder cannon's nothing but twisted scrap and he pulls the remaining scraps of armour on his body off, tossing it aside. He grips his hammer. I ready my sword, and Elemental swings his chain knives.

"Come then," Ghoulfather says.

003's knives are a blur. Four streaks of steel closing in at impossible angles. Honestly I'm glad we had the final ranking battle before he got interested in those - they looked to be a real pain to fight against. But of course, as 001, I shouldn’t be having those thoughts. I should also give Kudos to the Ghoulfather - this guy's meeting them with brutal accuracy with that big, crude hammer of his, crashing against the chains, hailing sparks.

"I should start too."

I swing Toothpick once, and a huge arc of supercharged chrona erupts outwards towards him. He ducks under it, and it tears apart the whole building behind him.

"Silvertongue's sword huh?" Ghoulfather grins. "Another inch and you'd have split me."

I can't pause. I can't let him pull anything off. I have to keep swinging at him. So that's what I do. Another slash. Another. And another. He blocks, staggers and dodges. One clips his shoulder, gouging a chunk out his shoulder, and another grazes his side, drops of blood pattering to the ground around as we continue our half-hearted dance. 003 slides through the openings, working in perfect tandem with me, and gets an attack through - one of his blades sink deep into the Ghoulfather's thigh.

Now.

I go for it, but this fucker grabs it in one hand and yanks it free. There's a shower of blood, then the flash of his hammer swinging at my head, I dodge backwards at the last moment and it just barely clips my head - even barely, there's a spurt of blood from my forehead.

"Your guard's clean," the kingpin applauds, eyes gleaming while he goes in for another strike.

Oh, so he was crazy too. Nice. Or rather, not so much.

I activate Toothpick again by applying more pressure to the hilt, and swing with both hands - as usual, the giant wave of chrona scythes forwards at breakneck speed. My opponent plants his hammer onto the ground, absorbing the brunt of the impact, but a crusty hammer wielded in a toolshed can't hold itself together under the onslaught of a military, no disaster-grade weapon like Toothpick, and the Ghoulfather gets shot backwards like a cannonball, crashing through a giant series of buildings. That's when it dawns on me. Something that should've been super obvious from the beginning but somehow I didn’t think of - and two questions form in my brains. How did a random nobody like Silvertongue get this sword? And you mean to tell me Silvertongue has this level of weapon whilst the strongest in the district is using that trash?

Yup, didn't think so.

"Lucky us," Elemental mutters. "You sent him right into his personal armoury."

I didn’t even notice we've gotten directly in front of the central part of Nexus - I can hear thugs screaming and my allies yelling, and the pounding of legs as hundreds of enemies run for their lives. They ain't disciplined soldiers after all - they were confident in their numbers earlier but now they're scared shitless.

"It's been a while since I held this in my hand," Ghoulfather's voice echoes from the gaping series of holes I've crushed him through.

For the second time in ten minutes he appears through the gap. And this time, on his shoulder, is the fucking biggest sword I have ever seen. Like, it can't even be called a sword - more like a surfboard. It was probably taller than the Ghoulfather himself, a huge, jagged blade with remarkably beautiful craftmanship. No matter how many elixirs I take one hit from that thing and I'm fucking gone. He swings it down vertically and 003 and I duck to either side. Where we were standing a millisecond ago the air and ground themselves have split - and the factory building behind us peels apart, steel plates, girders and machinery exploding outwards in showers of sparks.

"Phase two of the boss fight," I mutter. "Fine, let's go, you monstrous bastard."

Against most other people, I'm sure the Ghoulfather would've felt like a relentless, powerful storm that made you tremble in fear. But I don't feel anything. All I see is a slightly larger obstacle in the way of my slow climb to the peak.

Yup, we are some damn inhuman monsters.