Over the next few days events ramped up. That first time the Chosen emerged they were quick to move and attack anyone spotted moving around. Battles erupted but they stayed minor—in those first days the Chosen were a little battle-shy, not going for big fights and tending to retreat if they suffered any losses.
The Coalition lost people but simultaneously gained new recruits. They grew, and reached towards the numbers held by the Chosen.
In response the Chosen became more aggressive than ever, and Vikrum was frequently seen as the man came forth, hunting for Nicolai, accompanied by a hulking level 2 Cyborg.
Nicolai avoided the man. Via the drones and scouts who were posted to watch the exits from the Chosen’s base, he was able to know when Vikrum was abroad.
Even with all that Nicolai had gained, if he got into a serious fight with Vikrum, one where he wasn’t able to utilise hit-and-run tactics, he would lose.
So, he and the others went to ground whenever the man was about. However, this caused some issues.
Some of the groups who had joined the coalition had been targeted. Two had been hit hard and lost many members. One had ended up joining the Chosen after they’d encountered Vikrum in person.
As a result the Coalitions growth began to suffer. It was necessary to remind people of the fact of the castle’s imminent collapse, that the Trade Link was their only safety, that forming into the Coalition was the only way to survive. Nicolai had been meeting with some of the groups, along with Maxine. Her pure passion for the Coalition’s formation meant that in spite of Nicolai’s own efforts, she was looking to be the natural leader of it.
This, he felt, was acceptable. He didn’t need to lead the Coalition, he just needed to make sure it did what he wanted it to do: fight the Chosen—which would require buying his guns.
All of this was simply because he needed to improve his cultivation, to grow in strength, to acquire resources. All of this as quick and in as much amounts as possible.
Some might have thought that in the face of something as otherwordly and mysterious as a Demon, there would be nothing that they could do, that no amount of guns and blades and technology and magic could make a difference.
Nicolai held to a different view. Perhaps in a direct fight, these would not matter, but his method would lie in avoiding such a fight via the Contract. It all came down to the matter of the dark, the hole, and simple self control as, in a way, it always had.
But finding his way to the place where he might seize victory would not necessarily work on the same principles. He suspected getting to that point would require tools and strength and resources. The more he had, the better his odds at getting there, at defeating Paxolnaz, at keeping his life.
He also needed to kill three more Cultivators and capture their Souls for the Lotus Blossom Soul Trap. He’d heard there were now some more Cultivators amongst the Chosen, though only a few. There were also some amongst the groups joining the Coalition.
Nicolai wasn’t picky as to whose Souls he took, and in the chaos of battle he would be free to choose. The group was off-limit due to his Mask’s attachment to them and what they represented to the internal battle within him, but anyone else was fair game.
His shadow hovered in the corners of rooms, watching him. He could feel it there, and knew what it represented. At the same time, there was a continuous, faint chill in the air, and he knew he was watched by another.
But with the augments he had purchased there was a space in his mind that was beyond the observation of that being.
On wafers of silicone, artificial minds plotted and planned.
###
Nicolai stood and breathed slow, staring at the words on the wall and actions of his blood-coated finger that wrote them, while most of his focus was on settling and firming the Zero-Twelve state.
He was not completely in the state. It was difficult to manage when not engaged in combat, and this fight had not been nearly difficult enough to bring it forth. He was on the steps of it, his mind feeling somewhat askew. Like looking through a cracked crystal, everything he experienced slightly warped. It was difficult to be sure what was real and what was not.
The pressure of the dark was significantly reduced. Over the days it had been building and building, and Nicolai had found himself with no choice but to vent it at times. His recent memories were confusing and twisted, as the pressure of the dark had come close to overwhelming him. Now the darkness pulsed through him still, but it was slow and relaxed. Sated.
The reason for this coated the walls and the floor and the ceiling. Blood and broken bodies surrounded him.
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He lowered his bloody finger and took a step back, casting a critical look over his work.
ALL WHO ARE NOT CHOSEN WILL DIE! screamed the blood on the wall.
The silent dead around him were sideliners, as they’d become known. One of a significant number of groups which were—had been—unwilling to join the Coalition or the Chosen. These people typically didn’t believe Maxine’s claim that the castle would be falling down and only the Trade Link was safe, or thought the place they were at would be spared, or various other reasons. They were opting to simply sit everything out and hope it all worked out in the end.
As internal pressure rose, he’d found himself with little choice but to vent the darkness within him. Initially he had hoped to find a band of Chosen, but as the walls pulsed and the shadows writhed and the dark within him worked itself into a position to seize control, once and for all, his time had grown increasingly slim, and he had headed to where he knew a group of sideliners were located.
Now those sideliners decorated the room.
Nicolai knew he should feel something, now it was vented and he was calm—as calm as he could be, at any rate—once more. But his Mask was far from him at this moment, barely still attached to his face. Without it, he felt he was somehow unbalanced. The hallucinations had not stopped even though he had sated the Dark, and he believed this was because of the distance of the Mask. He needed to do something to perk it up.
It was a difficult balance. He had to vent the dark urges lest they grow strong and hungry enough to seize full control of him, which would lead to his defeat to Paxolnaz. But each vicious act damaged and weakened the Mask, the assistance of which he needed to control those very same urges, and which he believed would be integral in the big finale he sensed was fast approaching.
So, Nicolai reached up, touched on the Mask, and twisted it tightly into position. It was quiet, so he tried to think the kind of things he imagined it would normally say.
Not much different from the group, he thought as he looked over the corpses. A woman with a bionic leg who he’d torn in half reminded him of Cait. A balding man reminded him of Daksh. Looking at the corpses on the floor, his vision rippled, and then they all had familiar faces. John, Perro, old Ben, Katie, Jo, Azure.
‘Why, Nicolai?’ spoke Dead Perro. ‘Why did you kill me?’
‘I had to kill someone,’ murmured Nicolai, gazing at the blood on his hands. ‘I had to vent it.’
‘Why not just let it seize you, why not just give up? Then we’d still be alive,’ said Dead John, speaking from the side of his mouth that wasn’t a bloody ruin.
‘No,’ said Nicolai, hunkering down beside the talking corpse. ‘You’d be dead for real.’
‘I thought you were going to look after us? That’s what you said,’ whined Dead Azure at him.
‘You promised you would,’ added Dead Jo. ‘We even had a Contract. And what of our night together?’
‘That night was a mistake.’ He replied. ‘Your feelings for me are ridiculous, Jo,’ he added. ‘I’m literally insane.’
‘I could have helped you.’
He sighed. ‘I’ve tried that before. It doesn’t work out.’
‘I always knew we shouldn’t trust you,’ said Dead Old Ben. ‘You’re a murderer, a criminal, a madman.’
Nicolai eyed the corpses, frowning slightly. ‘I know you’re not real, by the way,’ he told them. ‘And you died some time ago,’ he reminded old Ben. ‘Not that I’m saying you’re wrong,’ he admitted. The dead fell silent, but their eyes continued to stare glassily at him.
‘Why?’ said one of them.
Something squirmed in his hand, and he looked down to see writhing gunmetal. ‘Because he enjoyed it, that’s why,’ snarled his assault rifle. ‘Because we wanted to.’ Its barrel flexed and twisted as Nicolai held it up, seeing it resembling nothing more than a hungry mouth, jagged teeth split in a savage grin. ‘More corpses for the pile,’ it said, and laughed.
‘Because it had to be done,’ said the Mask, speaking through his mouth, suddenly activating and surprising him. The trembling of the world faded slightly, and the assault rifle was still. ‘Better these people, than our people.’
Nicolai blinked. ‘It was fine to kill these people?’
‘I know it is stupid—I know it makes no sense. But I care about those ones we have met and spent time with. I know you feel the same, in your own way. They are more real to us. They matter more.’
‘But if we had met these people instead…’ Nicolai looked over the dead, unsure why he was arguing when the Mask was so surprisingly forgiving, yet unable to stop. ‘Then perhaps now I would be standing over the bodies of the others, and seeing the faces of these people. It is senseless, random.’
‘It is,’ agreed the Mask. ‘But that is being human.’
Nicolai nodded, finding these words strangely profound. ‘I will do my best to only kill Chosen,’ he murmured, ‘the next time this happens.’
‘That is good,’ said the Mask, surprising him again.
Nicolai, though quite pleased by his Mask’s acceptance, couldn’t help but dig a little deeper. ‘But aren’t they, in truth, little different to these? Just people doing what people do. I imagine that comparatively few amongst the Chosen actually deserve death. Plus, neither I nor you are in any position as being able to act as judge over true humans.’
‘They are just people. Still, they are the enemy. Our people come first. That is human.’
‘That is human,’ echoed Nicolai, nodding. He smiled. ‘Beautifully flawed.’ Time to get on with things. He needed to make use of the sanity he’d bought himself.
He rose to his feet, considered the layout of the room, then moved to position himself in a specific spot. He activated his eye-lense and cast a slow gaze around the room, recording what he saw.
‘Fucking Chosen,’ he hissed, and now his voice sounded very different—higher pitched with a slight accent—and there was a furious, horrified snarl in this voice. ‘Look at this. They killed them, killed them all!’ He jerked his head about, giving a view of the carnage alongside an impression the recorder was hyped up on fear or anger. ‘All because they wouldn’t join the Chosen. I tell you, we have to do something about this, we have to deal with them, the Chosen have to pay for what they’ve done. Sitting on the sidelines, it’s not an option, not anymore. We all have to join Maxine’s Coalition and buy guns to fight them. That’s the only chance…’
His gaze ended up on the wall and the words he’d written in blood, and he let the recording run for a moment longer to ensure a future viewer had plenty of time to read the words.
Once circulated, this footage should help encourage the sideliners to join the Coalition. He figured he might as well try and get something from this.
Nicolai felt a faint trembling from the hole within the cage, the air turning chill. Then the words of blood began to shift as he stared at them, twisting and turning until they read:
YOU ARE AN ANIMAL.
Nicolai nodded to the words. ‘I’m aware.’
Before leaving he stole everything of use from the dead. The corpses complained incessantly about this until the assault rifle snarled at them to be silent, and then at last the Mask flexed more strongly and the hallucinations ended.
