85 | tiger; oh catalyst killer

The ground crumpled all around them, splintering into a dozen, hundreds of flimsy paper that gave way at their feet. Echos of screams bounced off each other, a chain of terror stringing in the air.

The blue-eyed man fell with a painful thud onto a red carpet, in a room carved of gold and luxury. He made no sound, rolling over and leaping to his feet within seconds, alert and tense.

His first action was to plant his feet on the ground, raising his powerful arms, ready to fight.

His second was to slowly gaze around the room, printing every minor detail into his mind. This was a cautious person, careful in his actions, all too aware of his surroundings. He wore a loose white shirt, sleeves rolled up to reveal the defined lines of his arms, and black trousers.

There were jewels graced over his exposed collarbone, telling of riches. He looked down, tugging it with confusion—clearly, it wasn't his common attire.

His caution was clear, but he managed to remain calm. It was the calmness of youth, a steady resolution prepared for whatever came. It was the sign of somebody who would survive through anything, be it reality or apocalypse.

"Are these jewels mine to own?" he muttered to himself, as if contemplating the worth of the necklace.

Lucas had never seen Elias' materialistic side, though that part of him might have faded with many deaths, many horrors. He felt an itch of amusement trickling into his chest.

This was Elias, exposed and true, yet to be clouded with his disinterest for humanity and lost hope.

An Elias that was entirely different to the one he knew, but he supposed if he really considered it, there were traces of who he once was.

To begin with, being a businessman involved with a high scale gang, it made sense for him to be interested in the monetary value of things. It also made sense that he was alert and ready—some fights couldn't be predicted, and for an important figure like Elias, it would be no surprise if he got ambushed frequently.

Lucas felt a little bit of regret for never having an interest in his boss. Had he known Elias' irritating character, he would've considered ambushing him for a fight.

A dishevelled Elias was of great interest to Lucas.

The rest of the Story followed a similar pattern, only instead of Lucas, Elias had the role of the prince, and the first to realize that any killing was needless, that the entire Story's purpose was to manipulate and encourage darker thoughts to brew.

However, Elias did not seek out the True Ending.

He gazed at the mockery of humanity, the rushing crowd. The cluster of sweaty, bloody bodies that wailed and killed, sacrificed and pleaded. Elliot appeared, bursting through the doors with wild laughter, and a dead, blonde-haired corpse in his grasp.

"Hahahahaha, come on! Murder, kill, be true to yourselves! In the end, I will survive this massacre!"

Elias, dressed in the heavy robes embroidered with dainty, elegant designs, gazed down from the balcony of the halls coldly. Disgust hung over him in a cloud of misery, a glimpse of his future disconnect with society.

He shrugged off the robes, leaping from the balcony, slowing his fall from the drag of a hanging chandilier, and collided to the ground. Holding a sword, fisted in his angered palm, he slammed it into the ground, splintering the glide of sleek marble..

The crowd—taken by the noise—all turned to him with fear and bewilderment.

The sweet, mystical music hymn continued to play in the background, the musicians playing as if nothing were happening. They sped up, and the classical tune hastened, turning dark and threatening.

With a swing of the blade, Elliot's head rolled. The youth's mouth was parted in surprise, surprise striking his amused features at the last second. The strike had been so unexpected, and too sudden to dodge. Too merciless to predict.

Elias held out the sword point to the crowd. "The next person to kill will die at my hands."

Of course, with the variety of personalities mixed within the horde of people, and the adrenaline of chaos pumping in their blood, not everybody listened. A muscular man, towering over Elias, snickered crudely and stabbed a kitchen's knife into a woman's chest.

Her body fell over a young boy, a child, whose face speckled with red in deep written horror. The boy trembled, shakily reaching out for the woman.

He whispered her name, words slurred and his pronunciation poor. He shook her frail shoulders, bottom lip wobbling. And then he wailed, his cries circling the entire room in its rooted despair.

Elias stared with disgust at the man, swallowing harshly. The man raised a thick eyebrow to taunt him, and Elias narrowed his gaze with undisguised murder before his features softened suddenly, and he laughed out loud.

The man frowned in confusion, but before he could lunge out, Elias' sword had already cleanly sliced through the bones in his neck.

Another head rolled to the ground.

Elias smiled, the curves of his lips sinister and dark. "Well, I'm thankful he was willing to demonstrate what I would do. Does anybody else wonder if I was serious or not?"

The only means of completing the Story was to prevent more deaths—because it was the collective total of glass slippers collected that mattered, and not one's sole accomplishments. Elias had already known that, discovered it while watching.

To those who knew, they were confused at his villainous actions.

But Lucas, who had watched Elias for the duration of the days, knew something else.

That instead of focusing on collecting glass slippers, Elias had noted down players—the real humans—watching from high rooftops to watch their progress. He discerned who collected the most, and who had and likely wouldn't collect anything worth counting for.

He knew exactly who and who not to kill.

Lucas watched as this version of Elias, young and cynical but free, continued to fight through manipulation of threats of violence. He completed the Cinderella Story by killing everybody who attacked him, and who he deemed unnecessary.

It was in the very way his sentences formed, dripping with charm and confidence that couldn't be refuted. He trapped everybody, forcing them into separate spaces as he walked circles at the center, sword point dragging along the marble floor casually.

The Story ended with success, and Elias breathed a sigh of relief, sweat beading his forehead.

The man continued to barge through Story after Story, making many comrades along the way. He was quick to get along with others, teasing and playful while powerful enough to be a reliable ally.

Elias had once been a hero.

Akin to Kane's existence in Lucas' novel, Elias saved many more than he killed, waving with a ridiculous smile, casual and relaxed. He was cruel and merciless to his enemies, but teasing to his allies.

After befriending a few teenagers, a pair of siblings, he high-fived them every time they completed a Story.

There was no disguising the softness in his gaze, watching the young pair as if they were his own flesh and blood. He was kinder to them, joking and always listening. Although the apocalypse had sharpened his edges, the teenagers smoothened them back out.

Of the pair, one girl and one boy, the latter was particularly attached.

After exiting a massacre, as grand scale as the Prison Story Lucas had done, filled to the brim with treachery and murder, the the girl had been killed.

The boy collapsed to his knees, a shivering wreck as he screamed for his sister, already long gone.

Day faded into night, and then back to day. The boy remained curled over the entrance point of the Story, sobbing bitterly as his frail shoulders shook.

The entire time, Elias watched him quietly.

Only when the teenager looked up, his fair plastered and stuck to his cheeks by the wetness of his tears, miserable and stricken, did Elias crouch down. The boy wondered, "What should I do?"

"Live. Live to the end, for her sake." Elias lifted his head to the skies, an endless blue. Already, the stars had winked out until night was nothing more than ink seeping into the world. "I heard if you manage to claim the Forsaken Throne, you'll be granted any wish of your choice."

"The... the Throne? But Elias, you'd have a better chance than me—"

"I have no wish I want to make, and no person I want to save. Don't worry about me, kid."

The teenager sobbed, sniffling as he nodded, furiously wiping away the tears in his eyes. He looked up again, a gaze of renewed determination.

Elias' lips curled with affection.

The two of them, man and boy, became well-known in the apocalypse. The Twin Slayers, the Brothers of Crimson—death followed their wake, wherever they went. And yet, they were making little progress, and already the fourth Starfall had passed.

Humanity's light was burning out faster than they could move.

Elias' charms allowed him to befriend many others. Sylvia made her appearance, following Alastair like a second shadow. Elias made an agreement to bring any interesting equipment or rewards in exchange for powerful weapons.

Sylvia treated the man with scorn, disdain clear in her beautiful eyes every time he neared. Alastair would snort and claim that one day, she would have his head.

Elias would joke that he'd offer it, if she so wanted.

It was a teasing nature that came naturally, mixed with the air of elegance and also a casualness that made it easier to approach. It was something Lucas had seen glimpses of, when Elias would relax and tease, make jokes and slide beside without changing the texture of the atmosphere.

He was a man who could do whatever he wanted, and not be questioned.

Then one day, when he visited Alastair's extraordinary mansion, no doubt bought with dirty money, an unsettling feeling washed over it. His body immediately tensed as he drew back, clutching a sword tightly in his hands.

The oaken double doors swung open, and a figure with its head hanging low stood. Rain crashed against the ground, the patter of dreary weather.

Elias frowned. "Alastair?"

"She's dead." mumbled the man hoarsely, lacking the obscurity of his movements and words. His hair was a rat's nest, and eyes sunken as he clutched a body in his arms. "She died in a Story, protecting me."

Elias fell silent, casting his gaze onto the cold woman who'd always trailed near Alastair, as a bodyguard, a servant, a friend. She hung limp in the man's slender arms, stubble running along his chin and jaw.

Elias stepped closer.

He hesitated—he'd seen many deaths, many friends gone, but he wasn't sure what to say.

Alasteir seemed to know that as a small snicker left his lips, then wild, howling laughter. He cast his head back into the rain, the harsh drops pattering his skin. He laughed and laughed and wobbled as he took a step closer to Elias.

"It's been an amusing, splendid time, if I say do myself." chuckled Alastair, smiling.

"Alastair. It's not the end of the world. In this apocalypse, maybe there'll be a way to save her—"

"I have never been one for maybes. It looks like our partnership comes to an end today, although you have been great entertainment. Let me tell you, Elias, that it wasn't she who needed me. It was never her that had to stay by my side."

He moved his arm, a black object clutched in his hand. If he was crying, the rain washed away all hints of it. "It was always me. I needed her. I couldn't, won't live without her."

Panic struck Elias' expression, twisting the lines on his face. "Alastair! What're you doing?"

"I said, I simply cannot be without her."

Bang—!

Two bodies, now both dead, fell back onto the stone stairs before the entrance of the mansion. Elias rushed forward, stopping a short distant away from the bloody mess, the intertwined corpses. His surprise faded, dulled into a haunting emptiness.

Then he slowly turned around and left.

In a way, the teenager, the boy without a name but insisted on being called Tiger, since he decided an animal nickname was cool and more dramatic, had been Elias' last life line.

They had gone extremely close to claiming the Forsaken Throne, killing the other Kings and claiming their Titles for themselves. The boy stood, sword drawn, as a Catalyst watched him with deep amusement.

"Sending a boy to fight your battles?" mocked the man, ghosting across the rubble. "Ah, that isn't so. The one with a wish is you then, child? How amusing."

The teenager roared—but Elias was nowhere in sight. Because the boy, predicting his own tragedy, didn't want his precious older brother to witness his misery. He slipped out of the abandoned apartment they shared, to fight his last battle.

Strings—from the boy's ability—manipulated in the air, the fine thread sharper than any blade.

But the fight had been short.

Elias stormed into the battlefield, shoving past rubble and people if they dared to come in his way. He rushed to the Throne, only to see a young boy shoved onto his knees, gazing hopelessly at the Throne.

His arm was bent crudely, and there was a gaping hole along the side of his abdomen, carved out neatly. Blood trickled onto the ground, and no matter how Elias shouted the boy's nickname, yelled it out, there was no response.

Because the teenager had died just like that, staring at the Forsaken Throne.

The last string of sanity, bounding Elias to mortality, snapped. He roared, a gut-wrenching and horrible shout that buried all his sorrows.

The Catalyst had jumped back in surprise, but Elias was relentless. He swung the fallen sword, once a prized protection of the teenager, and deadly shadows danced and spun in the air, betraying mortal capabilities.

He felt blood splatter over his body, uncertain if it was his own or the Catalyst, but he didn't care. He was tired—tired of fighting, living, and watching everybody else die.

Why did he continue living?

Why did he fight for humanity?

What was the point of doing anything?

He fought with a wild fever, the abandon of an animal baring their teeth. He felt blades dig into his flesh, the gape of skin and his own weakening body.

Death beckoned him, and he heard its calls. Even so, he pushed his ragged and broken body to continue fighting. He didn't care if the world ended. He didn't care that everybody died. Before his own life ended, he would have revenge.

Just this once.

And finally, with a bitter laugh, the Catalyst fell backwards onto the rubble, his blackened blood running through the debris like a fine river.

"You don't know anything." hissed the Catalyst in a rasp. "Do you think this is really the end?"

Elias' blood streaked arms hung limply at his sides, head fallen back to stare at the skies. All he saw was a never ending pitch of black, of darkness that could no longer hold any stars.

His hair fell along the sides of his face, covered in injury and gore.

"The End's Delusion adores fools like you."

The Catalyst continued to ramble, even as Elia trudged up the rubble, to the twisted black vines that shaped the Forsaken Throne.

"It loves the strong, the heroic. The one's that could become great. Want to know a secret, little King, dreaming of the end?"

Elias ignored him, but the rasping voice continued after like a curse.

"I was human once."

Elias hand had just grazed the arm of the Throne when he spun back, eyes wide. His voice shook. "What?"

"Hahahaha... it's too late now. Catalyst killers have always been guaranteed a precious spot in the End's Delusion. Make your wish, oh saviour. Make your wish, and I'll watch it collapse!"

Elias' eyes had gone completely blank, as if something were whispering in his ear. Lucas, watching above like a ghost, a mirage, couldn't hear it.

He heard Elias' cracked lips move, and then the entire world begun to rewrite itself. Crumbling to shreds of paper, bringing all stories and lives inside to ruin.

———xxx———

[Message from Lukiyo!]

I first want to say thank you very, very much for supporting me presently, in the past and for all the times to come. It's appreciated more than words can describe, for every comment (of which I am always reading and very emotional or amused by), every like, every second of your time you've spared, thank you.

We are coasting to the end, so I'll leave a more sappy spiel for then lol, I have a rough estimate about 20 - 30 chapters? We shall see!

Once more, thank you for being so wonderful!