Mutiny

The three-headed serpent slithers around it's master, dashing toward Cage at an impossible speed. All three heads stretch out and pounce on their prey with jaws open wide. Cage's mind clicks into that familiar tunnel vision, his black eyes wide as he watches the giant heads bare down upon him.

Cage leaps backward, leaving one head to crash into the deck. Another means to close its long fangs around him while airborne, but his black arm stretches out and grips the side of the ship, and the serpent's jaws snap on empty air. Cage lands and rolls to his feet, spinning to see the final head barreling down from above.

Cage leaps, pushing with his black arm on the deck. The black hand pulls from the wood and explodes to a massive size. Each head looks up and moves to charge him all at once, but a swipe of that hand rips them from existence, leaving behind three headless bodies to squirm and flail in the air.

Cage lands with bent knees on the deck, standing and watching the main body of the serpent retreat back to its master. He's getting a bit more used to that bloated feeling, it no longer makes him want to vomit. It's not enough to transform, not yet.

The serpent's heads regrow quickly, and the middle one looks down at Huli. It speaks in a rattling voice as if the beast has some rare speech impediment, "General, I-"

"I saw," Huli interrupts in a flat tone, his golden eyes never leaving Cage. He hums, scratching his chin, "I wonder..." the General mutters. He kicks up a lost spear from the deck, catching and swinging the blood off it, then he looks up at the serpent and nods.

The main body of the three-headed serpent dissolves into those crimson particles, leaving behind three smaller—but still at least three times the size of Cage—serpent bodies. Their phantasmic figures blur as they zip around and above Huli, and if he wasn't focusing on them and nothing else, Cage wouldn't be able to track the serpents.

The serpents suddenly bolt through the air toward Cage, and Huli sprints calmly behind them, spear held down at his side. Cage throws out a massive shield before him, and feels one of the serpents sink into the blackness. However, the other two round on either side of the shield and fly into Cage.

His torso and one leg are engulfed by the two serpent's massive jaws, their fangs sinking into his flesh easily. Cage clenches his teeth to resist the pain of his body being crushed and skewered, his bare feet slide back on the deck, the black arm returning to him. Darkness takes the serpents, leaving behind empty fruit-sized holes in his sides and leg. More, Cage thinks, it's still not enough.

A spearhead hurdling toward his throat deprives Cage of a moment to catch his breath. He catches the weapon with his black arm, meeting Huli's calm demeanor with narrowed eyes. The General releases the spear and sweeps his opponent's legs out from under him, moving with trained and experienced efficiency to sink a fist into Cage's face and slam him onto the deck.

A pale hand grabs Huli's arm, and those black eyes stare at him from under his fist. Huli raises his brows, "So you can't absorb me?" he says. Suddenly, he frowns, feeling his magic being drained from him slowly, "Well..."

Huli pulls his arm back, but hums with confusion as it doesn't budge. Then, a black shape blurs and the General feels his elbow shatter. Cage releases Huli's arm and sinks both feet into his stomach, sending him tumbling through the air.

Huli bounces across the wood, eventually flipping and landing on his feet with acrobatic nimbleness. His eyes meet black ones as Cage stands across the deck from him. Huli frowns down at his now useless arm, noticing that it bends in the wrong direction. However, he seems upset at something else, "Of course. Blood always finds its way onto my clothes."

The General sighs, looking at Cage, glancing at that pulsating black mass resembling an arm, then at the holes across his body, the pitch-blackness visible through them getting smaller by the second, "Where did you get these... powers of yours?" Huli asks.

"Up your ass."

Huli's frown deepens, "Rajin humor? I'm almost surprised... Almost," he says, reaching into a pocket on the front of his uniform and pulling out a piece of clear crystal, the shape, and thickness—or lack thereof—akin to that of a playing card. At the same time, those three serpents materialize above his head, "Keep him busy," he says casually.

Cage's black arm pulses as the serpents strike like lightning through the air. Then, he falls into a rhythm of dodging, grabbing, and absorbing the serpents. Cage is fast faster than ever before, especially after the meal of Utherians from earlier. However, he still gets caught at every other dodge attempt, earning more large holes and crushed bones across his body.

Through it all, Cage can feel the pressure pushing harder against his skin.

Cage backflips through the air, his tunnel vision focus faltering as he glances to the side mid-air. His eyes widen as he sees Ingen leaning tiredly on his warhammer, the sweat on his violet scalp sparkling in the light of the colors beyond, black diamond covering his body. Craters, holes, and cuts riddle the deck before the Rajin, and past the wreckage, that tanned woman stands surrounded by glowing blades.

Cage lands on his feet near the forecastle of the ship, standing and bracing himself against the incoming wave of pain. He feels the serpent's fangs dig deep into his body, cracking his bones in some places. Darkness explodes from him, engulfing all three instantly.

Huli, who was speaking quietly into the crystal in his hand, finds himself speechless as he stares ahead, his mind suddenly weighing heavy with a feeling of foreboding doom. A gargantuan mass of black rages where Cage once stood, sending out violent tendrils that whip out, parts of the deck disappearing everywhere they touch.

The terrible mass thrums, then compress upon itself in an instant, the tendrils reeling back with a speed that makes it seem as if they were never there. What is left behind is smaller than the chaotic mass from before, but no less traumatizing to Huli. A voice that no one but himself can hear sounds out from the card-like crystal in his hand, and he listens through his fear, nodding and putting it back into his pocket a moment later.

"They want me to capture this?..." Huli mutters, terrified to move, much less summon the serpents again. The General has always wondered if there is a limit to curiosity. His answer lies in those two points of light resembling eyes.

Cage looks down at the swirling blackness in his hands, feeling the power thumping through them. He misses this. Cage glances at Huli, noticing the frozen terror on the General's face. The sight fills him with smug satisfaction, however, as much as Cage would like to tear Huli's heart from his ribs here and now, there are bigger problems to be dealt with.

Cage looks over at Ingen just in time to see a bolt of solid light strike the back of Ingen's diamond armor. A larger one flashes and lands just before the Rajin, shimmering and transforming into the shape of a man. Nemari.

He breaks into a sprint across the deck and leaps near the edge, four long tails of black trailing behind him. Nemari pauses with his light-morphed hand inches from Ingen, looking up as Cage's black form bears down upon him. The Utherian's body shifts back to light and streaks away as Cage lands and snatches at him.

Cage straightens up in front of Ingen, eyes following that streak of colorful light as it lands a few paces from the tanned woman and takes the shape of Nemari again.

Cage turns and meets Ingen's eyes, jamming a thumb at the two enemies, "Can you... do that?" The same as when he spoke to Ludan, it takes some effort just to speak in this warped, buzzing voice.

Ingen chuckles weakly, "Turn my body into diamond? Not yet," he says. The Rajin takes a deep breath, lifting his warhammer. He can still fight.

Ingen rolls his shoulders, nodding to the slightly unsettling form of Cage, "Thank you."

Cage returns a distorted sound resembling a hum, "Be careful. I... can see you're... low," the mouthless words sound in Ingen's mind, earning a hesitant nod from the Rajin.

Cage snaps his vision around and raises one arm, a radiant bolt of light sinking into his palm and disappearing. He expects that bloated feeling to come, or at least something similar. Yet nothing happens. Cage lowers his arm, slightly disappointed as he gazes at the Utherian man across the deck.

Nemari's hand materializes as he lowers it. He looks over at the ship Cage came from, raising his arms in confusion, "What happened, General?" he exclaims, his tone akin to a child throwing a temper tantrum.

All eyes land on Huli. The man seems to have recovered from his bout of crippling fear, a blank look on his pale face as he stands at the edge of the ship. The General ignores the complaints of Nemari, gazing at the tanned woman instead, "Handle this, Shari," he says loud enough for all to hear, not an ounce of concern in his tone.

Then, he turns and walks up the stairs to the castle.

Cage looks at the tanned woman named Shari, who returns his gaze, looking a bit fearful, but not surprised by the General's actions. Her hand tightens around the hilt of her long sword, and those blades hover silently above her head.

"So much for tainted blood," Nemari hisses, "favoring his illegitimate daughter over his most loyal lieutenant."

Shari only looks forward, but her floating blades turn on the lieutenant, "One more word, Nemari," she says with cold apathy.

Nemari's face twists with anger, he curses under his breath. He looks at Cage and Ingen, his hands shining with brilliant colors, "Don't fuck up, bastard," he says, bolting from the deck toward his enemies.

Cage watches the man fly closer, black hands twitching by his side, "You take... this one," he says, his black figure blurring as he sidesteps a beam of light and zooms across the ship toward Shari. The woman meets Cage's gaze, her nose crusted with dried blood. He can tell by her quivering lips and unsteady hands that she's afraid, but nevertheless, she doesn't show even the slightest sign of backing down.

Those green blades shoot toward Cage as he runs, eight of them in all. This is why he left Ingen to face Nemari. The Rajin is by no means slow, but he's already been overwhelmed by these blades once. With the lieutenant, Ingen can put his focus on one target.

Cage raises an arm without breaking stride, his black hand zipping around in front of him, catching and absorbing each blade as they come. Soon, his path is to Shari is clear. She grimaces as he dashes toward her, keeping her weight off one leg and holding her stomach. She's injured.

Shari's blade cuts through the air, and Cage grabs it before it can even come close to him. Darkness takes the blade, and the tanned woman is lifted by her throat. Shari stares down at Cage's black form, grabbing the arm holding her. Then, she glances over at the General's ship, and suddenly, her hands fall and her body sags.

The woman's earlier determination vanishes in an instant.

Cage glances to the side to see Huli's ship moving toward Mammoria, the wisping imitation of ocean waves trailing behind it. The General is leaving his people behind, one of them being his own daughter. Cage looks at Shari, a sudden wave of anger bursting in his mind, "Why... does he leave? Why do you... not fight?" he asks, every word earning winces from the woman.

"It doesn't matter," Shari replies, her voice almost a whisper.

Cage pauses. He slowly lowers the tanned woman until she stands on the deck herself, then releases her throat. Cage expects her to reveal her lie and swing that blade, but that moment does not come. Hearing the clashes of Ingen's fight, he turns to see Nemari flying high above the deck, throwing those bolts of light one after the other. Ingen blocks all of them, some with his warhammer, others with the diamond covering his arms.

Ingen is clearly frustrated by the barrage, and as Cage looks closer, he can see that most of the man's black diamond has been melted away. Cage steps forward to help him, sure that Shari is no longer a problem—not one that he can't deal with, at least—but something halts his steps.

Nemari's legs become light that trails behind as he dives on Ingen. A vibrant spear of solid light materializes in his hands, aimed directly at the Rajin's head. Suddenly, several green shapes streak toward the Utherian. He sees this at the last moment and changes direction, bolting upward to dodge Shari's blades.

Nemari floats high above, face contorted with rage as he stares down at Shari. He opens his mouth to speak, but the General's ship catches his eye. He stares at it for a moment, then takes one last glance at Shari, waving with a wide smirk on his lips. The Utherian turns and flies off toward the fleeing ship, radiant light streaking behind him.

Cage watches him go, the darkness covering his body dissolving. There is no point in giving chase. If Huli was telling the truth, then they are returning to Mammoria. And while he is not completely sure about the reasoning, Cage guesses it has something to do with that strange crystal the General was speaking into.

Cage lowers his eyes, meeting Ingen's gaze as he walks over. The diamond is gone from his body, his bare arms are covered with small burns and cuts, and the fur covering his torso is torn in places. Rajin healing will handle the small injuries, but when it comes to the bags under Ingen's eyes and his sluggish movements, Cage isn't so sure.

Cage turns as Ingen steps up beside him, and they both stare down at a rather saddening sight. Shari sits deathly still with slumped shoulders, legs outstretched, golden eyes unblinking as they watch that ship become smaller and smaller down the branch.

Ingen and Cage exchange looks, "She stopped fighting?" the Rajin asks.

Cage nods, "You don't seem surprised."

Ingen looks down at the woman again, sighing, "I'm not."