Ex Lacrima Remnant

Track #26 – Dead Roots Carnival

Robin screamed, stepped back inside the tunnel. There was no doubt. The tall figure standing in the bunker. The rhizome with snow-white hair. With tangled vines as her left arm. A white rose in her left eye socket. The one responsible for managing all the rhizomes in New Babylon. Was there. Standing in front of them. Strangling a civilian before their very eyes.

Dobrio remained frozen in place, his eye darting all around the room, trying to ascertain the situation, to understand what happened. Lacrima gritted her teeth, her fingers closed around the hilt of her blade.

Kryzalid.

No, Mimi.

Could do nothing.

But listen.

As her heart started to beat faster. As her breath became irregular. As her whole body writhed and coiled. As every nerve, every fiber of her brain sent danger signals. As her ears picked up that voice.

Again.

After so much time.

Lily’s voice.

Mocking her.

“Took you long enough, ‘Lady Kryzalid’.”

The blade shone in the rhizome’s hand. Longer, sturdier, bulkier than Lacrima’s. As black as the night. As splendent as the dawn. Kryzalid growled, broke her stillness, walked inside the room, slowly, one step at a time, her foot seeking a safe path, without stomping on a corpse, recording the vibrations, following them. Breathe. Breathe. It was fine. It was fine. She had it. She could do it. She wore a grin, her best fake grin.

“Oh, look if it ain’t the bitch in chief. Long time no see.”

Breathe. Breathe. Kryzalid moved through the room, measuring every step, keeping her distance from the rhizome, using the vibrations of the ground, the echo of her voice to locate her. Her bow slid on the strings, started playing a melody, slowly, downtempo, without ever stopping. There lay a boy. There an older man. There a woman. Still breathing. She could feel their chests going up and down, just by the vibrations of their bodies. Up. Down. Unconscious, but breathing. Kryzalid’s pace slowed down. Everyone. Was still alive.

She was still in time.

She could still save them.

Relief flowed through her veins, made her anxiety recede, gave her a boost of confidence. She performed a curtsy in front of Lily, swinging her bow on the side.

“So… shall we dance?”

Lily didn’t lower her sword.

Didn’t answer her question.

Instead.

She just thrusted forward.

Aiming for her throat.

Kryzalid pirouetted away before Lily even started moving, avoiding the stabbing strike, deviating the blade with her bow. Then, she turned around, hitting Lily’s chest with a roundhouse kick. The Peacekeeper armor stopped all the momentum, blocked the blow without damage, made Kryzalid recoil back. Only for Lacrima to jump in, with a majestic vertical slash. Lily saw that coming, stepped on the side at the last second. The blade chipped at the floor, the tip cracking from the impact. Lacrima raised her guard, her platform shoes dancing on the tiles, keeping clear of the bodies. Lily circled around in the other direction, stepping on the backs, on the bellies of the breathless people she downed. In the corner of the room, more civilians. Frightened. Packed like herrings in a can. Shielding each other. Cursing. Crying. Trembling. And, in front of them, aunt Caro. Her lips smeared with blood, blood on her cheek too. Yet, a cigarette lighted between her teeth, as a last sign of resistance. She growled like a caged lion, clenching her metal fist. Her thoughts ran wild, words she churned without uttering not to distract her niece, not to open her to a counter attack.

Mimi, you bloody idiot! Why did you come back? Ya’ll should have bail’d out as soon as the bloody alarm rung!

As the two rhizome circled each other, massive steps echoed through the room. Dobrio. Barging in with a tackle. Lily didn’t even move. Her tendrils expanded, recombined, turned into a huge flyswatter, slammed the giant against the wall. The concrete trembled, broke down, showing naked rebar underneath. Dobrio’s shoulder bounced. Scratches, bruises all over it. His eye glanced at the rhizome, at her vines. Only to be smacked again, sent flying on the opposite wall, close to the packed people. He landed on his nape, rolled on the dust, till he finally stopped, belly up, right under Ms. Frankberg’s horrified gaze. He coughed. Shook his head, sat, stood up, raised his fists.

“Whelp, that was rough.”

Ms. Frankberg would have sworn that she heard a chuckle from the iron giant. That’s when he rolled his arm, patted his pecs, clenched both of his fists.

“If we survive, Mimi owes me a six-pack of lymph. No matter how she squeezes it out of Laccy.”

Then, he rushed right back in, delivering a wonderful straight punch to Lily’s back side.

Only to be stopped again by a wall of vines. Intercepting his knuckles, causing them to bounce back. Dobrio grunted. His fingers. They hurt. Cuts, gashes everywhere on them, blood dripping down his hand, thorns stuck into his skin. All his nerves ached, sent the horrifying feedback to his brain, with as much as an instant of delay.

It felt like

punching

a bramble bush.

Then, he felt something else. Pressure on his belly. A sudden spark of pain flaring up through all his muscles. His eye went wide upon, his pupil contracted almost to a dot. All while Lily’s kick sent him slamming on the floor, before he could even react. Without wasting a second to catch her breath, Lily leapt in the middle of the bunker, landing between Lacrima and Kryzalid. Her vine arm coagulated in the shape of a shield, solidifying all of a sudden. Deflecting a precise blade strike, chipping away at the black sword’s edge. The two rhizomes crossed blades, striking and parrying, blocking, in a rapid exchange of blows. Lily pushed her size advantage, slammed her opponent away with a shield bash. Lacrima recoiled, fell on her knee, stood up again. She examined the state of her weapon. It was covered in cracks, its stability compromised. Too frail to last more than one attack. She started directing her excess lymph towards her arm, producing another blade as fast as her body could muster. The only advantage of having so much excess lymph at her disposal, now coming to help her in full force. Then, she held her hand around the hilt of her quickly deteriorating weapon. And dashed forward once again.

Kryzalid glided back, up to a safer distance, keeping her heartbeat under the last smidge of control. Nothing. She could do nothing. Close range, against armor without an easy weak point frequency, fighting an opponent that could slice her dead with one single slash or drain her dry with her tendrils in no time. That was. Simply. Unfair. She couldn’t see how the others were faring either. Dobrio’s steps were nowhere to be heard. Robin had to be frozen in place somewhere. The only sound she could figure out was the clashing noise generated by the crossing blades. Lacrima and Lily, going at each other’s throat in a macabre dance of death. Breathe. Breathe.

There has to be something I can do. Anything. Anything!

Breathe. Breathe.

Lily’s armor.

Breathe.

She touched it, moments ago.

Breathe.

Her fingers.

Breathe.

Analyzed the material.

So she could.

Maybe.

Her bow slid on the strings, the fingers of her left hand positioned on the neck of her violin. She recalled her precision switches, her artificial nerves commanded microscopic movements, her fingertips slowly reached their target position. That armor had no kill frequency. It was sturdy, composed of several materials latched together. Metal, leather, kevlar. An ensemble of layers that was both light to wear and resistant to blades and bullets. Yet, everything, every single thing, had a resonance point. She just.

Had.

To hit it.

Breathe. Breathe.

Her bow plucked the strings, timidly. Notes started forming, the carrier music in which to hide her signal. A drop of sweat flowed down her forehead, onto her blindfold. A mistake would cost lives. So, she went slowly, right as the sound of clashing blades reverberated inside the bunker. Then, she started playing.

Lacrima’s blade crashed against Lily’s once again, without effect. Every impact forcing her back, more and more, centimeters lost to her opponent, the corner closer and closer. She looked again at her weapon, at what was left of it. The tip was gone. The body was held together by a miracle. While Lily’s sword was still in perfect shape. She gritted her teeth. That was simply wrong, made her lymph boil. Lily stopped her assault, circled around her position like a shark, waiting to bite her prey. For one moment, all she did was observe. Before raising her weapon again, jumping at Lacrima with a vertical slash, too fast to intercept. Lacrima couldn’t even lift her weapon in time. The blade ripped through her eyepatch, slashing it in half, millimeters away from her skull. Its poor remains floated to the floor. Leaving her red eye rose exposed. And a gash on her forehead. Lacrima grunted, wiped the lymph out of it with her hand, stared at Lily. That attack wasn’t lethal. Wasn’t even supposed to damage her. She could feel it. Its aim was just to strip her of that eyepatch. To bring her flower out, for everyone to see it. For everyone to fear her. Lily’s expression turned into disgust, pity. She squinted her eye, staring directly at the other rhizome.

Mini-her, indeed. A failed prototype that produced way too much lymph, was nowhere as stable and was way too short, compared with her. Her big sister. The genetic template that gave birth to her. Nothing more than a nuisance that should have never woken up again. Lily raised her sword, collected her vines in the shape of a shield. Lacrima wasn’t able to do that either, she could only keep her left ‘arm’ as a bunch of loose tendrils, when no sword was stored inside it. Pathetic, under any and every point of view. No wonder that horny bastard she had to call ‘father’ shelved her and put her in cold sleep.

Taller-her. Lacrima saw every trace of Lily’s existence as a defeat. Stronger. Faster. With better lymph efficiency. That was the creature that forced her to spend years of her life in suspended animation. Her white rose made her sick. Where were all the colors? Where were all her emotions? Nowhere and everywhere at the same time. She kept eye contact, straining her neck to keep her sight up. Even with her platforms, Lily was a good twenty centimeters taller. A broken reflection, something that Lacrima wanted to be but couldn’t. She sensed her vines and tendrils making a new sword, hiding it under the sleeve. She had enough lymph for two blades at most, before she had to start converting part of her body into vegetal matter. Phythomorphosis. A way to extract more materials from their flesh, at the cost of turning more into a plant.

Lacrima raised her sword once more. Lily followed suit. Then, they jumped at each other, with wide slashes. Vertical. Horizontal. Diagonal up to down, down to up. Every blow deflected, fragments of black blades chipped away at every clash. Lily swung her sword down once again, like she did tens of times. Lacrima’s blade met it head on, intercepting it on its way down, metal on metal, shrieking, growling. She pushed her sword up, shouted in rage, pouring all her strength into that parry.

But.

This time.

Her blade.

Broke.

Shattered.

And the slash followed through.

Gashing her chest, ripping through the black fabric, from her right shoulder down to her collar bone, down to her chest, to her belly, to her hip, to her left thigh, in one continuous elegant motion, slashing through skin, plant matter, clothes, as if going through butter. A sharp pain traversed her body, flared up in her brain. Lacrima fell on her knee, a scream escaped her lips, her pupil shrunk to the size of a dot. Lymph was pouring out of the wound, dripping through it, while her vegetal tissue tried to reconnect. Her belt fell to the ground, not tied anymore to the surviving fabric. Patches of her garments followed suit, soaked in green fluid. She gritted her teeth, clenched her fist around the handle of the broken sword. It was always like that. Always. Her blade was a failure as much as she was. Strong enough for short bouts, sharp enough to cut through armor, but brittle and frail. Nothing compared with the shining, marvelous weapon that just carved her way through her flesh and pulp. She gazed at Lily, trying to keep her mind awake, trying not to let her escape her sight. But all she saw. Was her blade. Again. Thrusting towards her.

And piercing her left shoulder, like a spear, right through her human muscles.

Exiting from the other side.

Skewering her.

Lacrima screamed again, closed her eye. Scream. She could do nothing but scream. She felt lighter. Her body lifted up. Her feet leaving the ground. Lily. Lily was raising her blade. With Lacrima stuck on it. Ten, twenty, thirty centimeters above the ground. Lacrima’s nerves burned. The blade painfully making her presence known, twitching left and right inside the wound, causing her to recoil, to jolt, right as the weapon pulled her up faster. Lacrima couldn’t breathe. Every breath, the pain struck her more. Lymph poured out of the hole, soaked the black blade. Lily stared at her grimace, at her desperate howls. Her expression turned sullen, unreadable.

“That creep wasn’t lying, when he said that you were just a mistake. That’s why he kept your existence a secret: because he knew you were a disappointment. A simple man, isn’t he? Drowning in his kinks, transparent like glass. First time in my life I feel like I understand him.”

She twisted her blade in the wound once more, causing a yelp to get out of Lacrima’s lips, as her mouth went wide open, gasped for air. Lily frowned. That wasn’t even a fight. That was a slaughter. And, with that last nuisance out of the way…

A sudden crack.

A massive fist hitting her elbow.

Lily’s arm bent the wrong way, inward.

Her grip on her blade lost.

Making Lacrima fall down.

Lily tumbled on her side, wrapped her tendrils around her injured arm. It was swinging like a pendulum, only barely hanging on under her suit of armor. She gritted her teeth, fiercely pushed one her upper molar teeth, almost biting her tongue in the process. The painkillers sprayed from the hidden capsule, went down her throat, started to flow into her body. Knowing that she didn’t have to endure that pain much longer, her grimace disappeared. It was just an arm. She could repair it. She was already repairing it. So, she looked up, trying to understand what happened, who struck her. And met a single, red iris, encased in an artificial flat visage. That dumb metalhead. Again. His fingers were bloodied, his hands still wounded by the impact with her shield of vines. Yet, he was still standing. Despite the wounds. Despite the beatdown he was already subjected to. Lily’s vine wrapped her right wrist, bent her arm backwards with a louder crack. Lymph poured through her vessels, flooded the broken elbow, started to fix it. But the metalhead rushed forward again, ramming against her chest with all his gargantuan weight. The rhizome tumbled back by a couple meters, stood up, gazed at the battlefield. A group of frightened civilians in one corner. A wounded rhizome in the other. A hulking metalhead in the center, keeping his guard up as if it were a boxing match. Kryzalid close to the gate she had came in from. A weird guy with a gas mask and a red cape standing just outside of it. She shook her broken arm, felt her bones being rebuilt under her skin. She lifted her fingers, thumb to pinky, in a rapid sequence. They listened to her order, moved as intended. Everything was fine. Everything. Was fine.

A movement on the corner of the eye. The metalhead again, preparing for a dashing straight. Powerful. Slow. Predictable. Lily ducked, avoided the strike altogether, pushed her palm on his belly. Then, tossed him up, in a perfect judo throw, using his weight, his momentum, against him. Dobrio fell onto the tiles back first, the impact cracked them open, close to the corner where the denizens took shelter. A grunt of pain escaped his speakers, a aching sensation spreading through his nerves. His eye darted inside its socket, tried to find his opponent. Only to see her boot, slamming down on his abs with tremendous force. A gasp. Dobrio’s air filters forced him to exhale, to expel air, making him squeak. All while Captain Commander Lily was towering over him. Turning her vines into a makeshift harpoon.

“You should have stayed down.”

No emotions, no rage, no anger in her voice. A simple statement of facts. He should have accepted his inferiority and not charged at her like that, if he wanted to live. As simple as that. But, since he didn’t comply, he would have been the first to die. That was a logical consequence of his actions. A ‘necessary outcome’. Action. Reaction. He had a choice. He wasted it. So, there was no reason to keep him alive. Thus, she raised her spiked arm, ready to pierce his heart in one fell swoop.

Till something caught her attention.

Music.

She stopped her impetus, looked around.

Kryzalid.

Was playing.

Lily’s eye focused on the violinist, on the precise motion of her fingers, on the slow, deliberate adjustments on the strings. She was drenched in sweat, barely breathing. Crying, even. But she kept playing. A weird tune, one that Lily had never heard before. Not that it could help. That armor she wore was the standard issue for special forces members, not the flawed model produced for rhizomes. It didn’t have a kill frequency. It didn’t have a way to destroy it that easily. So, whatever Kryzalid was playing, it was a waste of time and effort.

Yet.

She heard.

A noise.

From below.

She looked down at the metalhead, then at Lacrima, then at the floor, then back at Kryzalid. None. It wasn’t coming from them. But she heard it again. And again. She looked up, left, right once more. Only to finally realize what was the origin of the noise.

Her armor.

Was starting.

To break.

Under her gaze.