Tread Lightly – Among Monsters And Men

Virgil tussles with the massive Bakwa for a few moments before extricating himself away from it, obviously knowing how dangerous it is to be up close and personal with the progenitor of the horde of ghosts. He swings his bowie knife in a wide arc and grazes the Bakwa before expertly side-stepping around the spirit's counterattacking lunge.

The man with Sigils of darkness leans into their traits while dodging and uses his Ether to create small whips on his left hand without the bowie knife. He wraps several around the spirit's deformed and malnourished legs before ripping them away, trying to knock the creature prone. But unfortunately for him, the legs of the creature disappear right before he yanks the ground out from under the spirit, and his whips pull nothing but dead air.

Light footsteps of returning Bakwa ring out behind my limp body. The directional whirlwind I sent out must not have done much for behind me because the slow spirits have already begun to near me once more compared to the ones on the other side of Virgil that are still very far away.

I ignore these oncoming threats and focus on Virgil’s battle, taking in each and every detail just hoping that he will win. As long as he kills the damned thing, the rest should die or, if they have been turned for a very long time, scatter into whatever plane the Bakwa is from.

Virgil continues to press the Bakwa and slice into it here or there carefully. He uses tendrils of darkness to keep the creature from touching him whenever it gets close or tries to attack him, but he quickly loses steam as the Ether in his body builds up without a way to quickly expel it. Every attack he initiates makes him use even more Ether to protect himself while the progenitor just eats or dodges most of the attacks from the knife without being phased in the slightest.

We’ve all been fighting a desperate battle for quite a while now, and it’s honestly impressive just how long Virgil’s hung on. The rest of his team has fallen, yet he stands. Shadows flying, dagger stabbing, and expert footwork keep him from getting caught in the clutches of the progenitor Bakwa.

But he can’t keep it up forever. One by one, the whips he has conjured from nightly Ether fade and leave him with less and less protection. Eventually, he is left with no more dark whips to protect him and veil him from the Bakwa’s touch.

All the Bakwa needs to do is land a single grapple to win, but Virgil needs to kill the thing with a weapon that is not that effective against it. To me, it resembles a woodsman stabbing a bear with a knife until it dies, just that the bear is a massive deformed and half-transparent ghost. Because of the risk, Virgil begins to slow and play the battle even more carefully as sweat drips down his face and he frantically swallows a handful of pills.

Pills that I assume are painkillers to block off the massive headache he must be feeling at this point from Ether exhaustion. He can hold up against it much better than his younger brother who passed out when he reached his limit.

But the man acts like nothing is wrong or that he is dancing on the edge despite him now fighting a creature that possesses three Sigils and a small army of ghosts without any Ether. The great equalizer is no longer in the equation. It’s man versus monster in the most primitive and teeth-grinding ballet of death.

Virgil moves with an agility that I’ve only ever seen in Edmund as he rolls underneath a swipe from the Bakwa and shoots himself upward. This maneuver lands a puncture with the bowie knife to the face of the Bakwa as it reels back in pain and screams with an unearthly pitch.

C’mon. You got this Virgil.

The man who fights for me, Vernon, and Dakota presses onward with the onslaught against the oversized and inhuman ghost as the horde begins to close in on me. I can’t even turn my head to see how Dakota and Vernon are doing and can only hope that they are fine.

Swipe. Stab. Dodge. Leap. Roll. The expert bounty hunter and once Hunter fights tooth and nail to win, doing everything he can to not be grazed, touched, or even just breathed on by the progenitor Bakwa. But the other Bakwas close in on him and give the man less space to dodge and more pressure.

Armed with only his bowie knife that at this point only emanates vague sparks of Ether, he presses onto the progenitor with a courageous yell, but this time, the massive spirit is expecting it and grabs hold of him as he does so, stopping him in his tracks with a bearhug.

Both the spirit and the man’s sides face me in a struggle as I lie on my stomach watching them. Virgil maneuvers just barely enough to twist himself out of the grapple as he stabs the chest of the apparition, but it doesn’t even flinch and reaches for him again. This time, it wraps several long tendril-like fingers around the man’s neck and lifts him into the air.

All the Bakwas in the area stop moving and just stand oddly still while watching the scene of their progenitor lifting up the only remaining threat. The deformed spirit then begins to choke Virgil as it peers into his eyes.

Virgil doesn’t give up, though, he continues to swing and stab at the creature without pause as he erupts with strength one can only possess at death’s door just before she welcomes you into her cruel embrace. Something I’m fondly aware of.

I look around searching for anything I can do to help despite my bleak situation, and I find the Colt, Mercy, several feet away from me in the dirt. Pushing with all my exhausted might, I extend my arm out to the gun. My fingers stretch and my body pop as I grasp desperately for the Colt on the ground that is beyond my grasp. Dirt is clenched and swept as I try my best to reach it.

I’m too far from the gun, I cannot reach it. The only effect is that dirt and dust cover my arms and some fly into my eyes from my futile struggle. My eyes glance back over to Virgil in sadness as he is lifted further into the air and starts convulsing painfully, the Bakwa attempting to control him.

This can’t happen. This damned Bakwa won’t take another.

I stretch my arms as far as I can to the gun and try to crawl closer to it. About a foot of dirt is crossed in several seconds as I scramble weakly against the dusty earth of the dunes, but a foot is not nearly enough. The gun is still too far out of my reach.

Giving up is not an option for me, though, and I continue to try to crawl. Eventually, though, the vessel does not agree with that sentiment. My lower body stops responding to my movements and I feel like a whole ton of lead, too heavy to move anymore.

Screams exit my exhausted body as I watch the Bakwa slowly drain the life of my new friend, but as the feet of the experience bounty hunter and monster slayer in front of me begin to turn transparent, I hear small paws hitting the ground behind me that grow in volume.

I turn my eyes and see Dakota, the small fox standing before me. Just as I begin to feel sorry for the kit who's about to die, he looks at my outstretched arm and the fingers that point to the object just a foot away. Then, he peers back at me with his orangish-red face and tilts his head, questioning.

“YES! Get that thing, Dakota!”

The young fox watches me yell in excitement-filled hope and flail the fingers of my right hand, the only parts of me that yet work with any measure of strength, at the Colt. Dakota’s eyes follow my finger to the Colt and he trots over to it and grabs it with his tiny mouth. He tries to move it, but the Colt is quite heavy and at first, he is unable to.

Then, I hear a short low grunt before I sense a minute amount of Ether within the young fox begin to flow, the instincts of the animal teaching it how to use Ether rudimentarily, similar to how I used it without knowing how to originally. With this Ether, the fox's strength rises.

Dakota’s feeble and petite, still-growing body, increases by just enough to allow the little guy to drag the heavy Colt over to me, dropping it with a pant for air in front of my hand.

“Thank you, boy! Nonstop treats after this!”

I pant just like the fox next to me in effort as I slowly wrap my fingers around the Colt and its trigger. Then, I tilt the gun with my wrist to point at the Bakwa, aiming just through guts and feeling with the hilt of the Colt keeping it up in such a way that my position does not allow me to see down the barrel. At this point, Virgil’s entire lower body from the waist down has turned ethereal and see-through.

Desperately, I aim the Colt at the giant spirit and squeeze the trigger.

BOOM! A deafening bang resounds in both Dakota’s ears and mine and the gun falls out of my weak hand, my fingers unable to keep the recoil in check. I peer through flying dust and sand with open eyes despite the sting to see the effect.

I missed, the shot landed just next to the Bakwa on the right. Fuck. Frantically, I do repeat my actions and fire again. Another miss, this time to the left, with a resounding echo through my ears. Fucking hell! At least the gun didn’t fly out of my hand this time. Glancing at the bullets in the cylinder as they rotate, I see three remaining. Virgil wasn’t kidding about being low on ammo, he didn’t even have a full cycle.

Once more, I try to hit the Bakwa as the etherealness reaches Virgil's stomach and he finally stops struggling against the spirit. This time, I pull the trigger, trying to meet both in the middle. Another bang reverberates throughout my whole body, and as dust clouds my eyes, I hear a painful wail.

The dust clears from my eyes and a smile touches my burnt lips and cheek that has a hole in it. I hit it! Right in the side. The Bakwa turned to look at me and threw Virgil to the ground. Then, it begins to walk at me, with a small limp from both the injuries Virgil and I’ve left.

As it approaches me, I point the Colt at it again and squeeze the trigger. Another piece of lead shreds into the Bakwa’s left leg and slows greatly, being unable to turn incorporeal before the speed of a bullet.

I pull the hammer down for the last bullet in the chamber and release the trigger as it shambles at me, once again hitting it in the left leg, this time its knee. The spirit slows greatly in its attempt to reach me now that I’ve filled it with my remaining lead.

But it slowly gets in front of me despite its slow gait. When it does though, another sticks up for me. The little fox walks in front of me still panting, and Dakota growls ferociously at the giant creature. The size difference makes me tremble for him.

“No… Dakota! Go!”

The fox turns back and looks at me as the Bakwa reaches down with its tendrily fingers to touch it. But just before it does, a deep mournful howl of a horn breaks through the night, echoing throughout the ghost-filled town. The Bakwa pauses its reach and looks to its right.

Surprised by the sound that emanates from behind me, I turn my gaze just a little bit to my left and I see Vernon, on one knee barely and conscious, blowing out of the Boa Bugle with tears in his eyes.

He is looking behind the progenitor Bakwa that blocks my vision, toward where Virgil fell to the ground.

 

**********

Virgil Boone

 

I lay on the dust-filled ground struggling to breathe after the progenitor let go of me in favor of Wyatt. I used Ether to my very brink, even just another single thread of the substance within my body would push me over the edge and within my body courses a different flavor of Ether, cerulean lightning that changes me deep within. My lower body is constantly fading in and out of existence because of the lightning that is built up from the bottom, and with that comes unending assaults of pain that harass my already feeble mind.

The Bakwa is slowly walking over to Wyatt as he fumbles and tries to shoot the damn spirit. Vernon appears to have woken up from his Ether saturation-induced faint, but he is curled into a ball full of pain.

I know the feeling, buddy, and I don’t blame him. Vernon’s only had a Sigil for about three years, I’ve spent most of the past few years training him and helping him to rise to my level. But what that means is he is missing experience. Experience that you only find at Death’s Door that irons your will.

I’ve done this a long time, but this is probably the worst situation I’ve ever been in. And I was a Deadman for the Boyle’s Estate for a year to pay for Vernon’s training. Every week I’d be pushed close to death and slowly honed my instincts, but this time?

My body is literally fading in and out of existence. Every time I try to move, the etherealness that the spirit forced upon me grows just a little more from the bottom up alongside the blue lightning that leaves traces of rainbow in my veins.

My mind is catching glimpses of wherever this Bakwa is from. An ever-shifting realm of colors that put spikes into my mind every time I see a new color that’s not meant to exist in our world. And whenever these glimpses occur, all the objects fade and become see-through. The buildings, debris, and even our weapons that are Unsigiled are invisible as if they don’t exist in whatever plane I can now see into.

My will is close to breaking and giving up. I pushed myself beyond my limit already. I was just hoping that when I attacked the progenitor on my lonesome it would die quickly. Alas, that was not the case.

It is a tough bastard. But I guess we all are. We have to be.

Wyatt, despite his grave injuries, despite how the Bakwa touched him as it did to me, despite the Ether that must have left him uselessly limp in both mind and body, despite being an entire Sigil below the other fighters, he continues to try. With every step the Bakwa takes to near him, he attempts to shoot it some more.

I wish I had his will. It’s inspiring. His fearlessness. How he stares into Death’s cruel arms and sees right through them to focus on what’s at hand.

Even little Vernon is trying to get back up, I’m sure he feels guilty for dropping unconscious a bit ago from exhaustion and leaving us to fight.

But it’s not going to matter. I can see it through this broken pane of glass that is now my vision. The Bakwa is wounded, and only grows more wounded with each bullet put into it, but we’re too injured, exhausted, and outnumbered to win.

It was a bad idea for us to come here. A mistake that I made. I should have known better. I’ve fought these bastards before, but I didn’t know any could rise above 2nd Sigil, so I never even asked, assuming it would be fine.

A rookie mistake. One that I shouldn’t have ever made. I’ve been fighting this endless battle against the supernatural for over eleven years since I was nineteen. Of course, it’d be the first enemy I ever fought that’d end me.

I just wish it didn’t have to end Vernon as well. Or Wyatt for that matter. He’s a good man, albeit with many mysteries that I’ve learned better to ask about. Things I’d plan on asking if we ever got close, now I’ll never get the chance to know the questions that have plagued me since I saw him tackle a fucking Short Horned Serpent.

These regrets flow through my body as I watch the Bakwa near Wyatt. I see to the side that Vernon struggles to pull out his Boa Bugle while looking at my fading body with teary eyes. I don’t know what he’s doing, but even the clever guy can’t fix this. No one can.

Just before the Bakwa reaches down to where Wyatt is, I can’t see well from here on the ground, Vernon blows into the horn, filling it with whatever Ether he can probably spare since he fell unconscious.

A ring of courageous and inspiring air fills the night. The Boa Bugle’s Veteran Sigil can grant those who hear it confidence and dauntlessness. And this trumpet of bravery reaches my addled and surrendered mind, relighting the bonfire within. Warm foreign, but still welcome, Ether settles into my mind.

My thoughts of defeat and giving up instantly clear and fade. Confidence returns to my mind. I can do this. I can stand once more. That is all that is needed. When the progenitor falls, most of the remaining Bakwa will die and return to their corpses while the rest will scatter and lose their tether to this realm and return to where the progenitor is from.

I never expected the artifact to be very useful when we first got it except for large battles, but now, my mind completely changes. Filled with spirit I attempt to stand once more. The flickering in and out of existence legs beneath me unwilling to help.

But the human mind is powerful, even the demons were based on us, after all. With enough strength of mind, some things can be overcome especially if they are within your own body.

And so, I yell with inspired fury and courage as I place a flickering and fleeting boot onto the ground, ordering it to not fade for just a moment. It relents, but just barely long enough for my other foot to touch the ground as well.

A heavy presence descends onto my body, that at first confuses me. It seems as though the very weight of the world presses down upon me at this moment as my feet touch the ground and make my actions even more difficult. And after a flash of thought and a struggle for balance, I recognize what’s happening.

I’ve earned the ire of the heart of the world. Who would’ve thought? A poor peasant-born orphan such as me would earn the chance to prove the Mother Below wrong. To perform an act of Absolution, a rare and momentous thing that is normally only done by Pillars-to-be and those near that level.

A smile crosses my lips despite the weight of the situation and the severity of it all. I do not know why simple me gained the attention of the Mother Below, She One Who Made All, She who created humans and tossed them aside in favor of demons and her other creations. But one thing I do know is I’ll prove the bitch wrong.

All She wants is for humans to die and when she wedges her bets against someone, it makes their likelihood to survive much lower. But if we prove her wrong, the pressure placed upon us makes us reform like coal into diamonds.

I grit my teeth even harder and push myself up with as much strength as I can both mentally to keep my limbs corporeal and physically to go against the weight placed upon me.

Using these small moments of existence, I stand and quickly begin to run toward the Bakwa, the only way for me to stay upright. Going from flickering foot to fading foot, I sprint with near-silent and unnatural-sounding footsteps.

The reduced weight but similar strength allows me to speed up to a blistering speed, one that I had only seen Wyatt move at when fighting the Serpent, and I crash into the Bakwa a split second before it accomplishes its goal.

Together, we go head over heels beyond Wyatt and his pet fox. I use the bowie knife that I never let go of regardless of the lighting coursing through my body or the sights that my limited mind bore witness to and stab the Bakwa repeatedly.

I ignore the deformed monstrosity of a ghost as it touched me once more. Its cerulean eyes and unnatural fingers send bolts of flickering lighting back into me, but as I’m now used to the feeling of not existing on this plane, my onslaught does not relent.

Gradually, the Bakwa begins to flicker similar to me because of its injuries. By the time I’ve stabbed it over at least a hundred times, it fades completely and turns to a glimmering dark blue light that emanates into the sky.

Eddoline and our other siblings will still have a protector. I sigh with relief but no air exits what should be my lungs. Then, I notice something about myself before my vision goes dark after accomplishing my goal.

My whole body looks ethereal and I can no longer feel my limbs.

It appears as though the Mother Below bet right.