BEYOND 3A: BloodRed and ScaleBlack

Function Cube_87(): The_First && The_Last;

[Begin]

While hell was breaking loose upstairs, L'étranger continued to search tirelessly underground and by searching, I explicitly mean going through multiple offices and through the organs of multiple officers in hopes that the documents would turn up.

Unfortunately, none were found.

"They're not here... Damn it! Why aren't they here?! Levia said they were... Unless..." At that moment, a certain possibility hit her like a brick coated in lemon juice. "Don't tell me... Did that motherfucker lie to me to shut me up?! If that's the case, I'm seriously going to fucking kill his immortal ass!" L'étranger thought angrily, having realised that she possibly bet her entire life's work on a lie.

"Fuck it, looks like my bluff won't be a bluff for long." She muttered, considering resorting back to the lie she told Alessandro about scooping out his brain.

Before she decided, The ceiling below her crashed down, mostly in the form of dust, debris, and too many objects. L'étranger had no idea what was going on until she saw Maneki and Dece still going at it ferociously.

"Oh, fuck me sideways! He brought HER down here?!" L'étranger angrily thought. "Although... I might be able to benefit from this..."

Then, a realisation struck her like a lightning bolt, revealing not only the way to possibly escape safely, but also gain an extremely useful asset for her group. Unfortunately, she was severely hindered by her apparent lack of arms.

She let out a loud groan, tossed caution to the wind, and decided to gamble once again, all or nothing. She ran toward the light switch to repeat the same trick she performed earlier, but Dece's rotting unicorn staff came flying, a hair strand away, past her like a spear and piercing the wall, near the lightswitch. After that, in a split second, a cloud of flies swarmed the switch and formed an impenetrable barrier around it.

"And what do you think you're doing back the-" She shouted furiously before she was cut off by a swift punch to the face, courtesy of Maneki. "Fucking bitch! Will you let me finish a goddamn sente-" She complained, before she was roundhouse kicked in the head, sending her a few feet away.

At that point, applying the adjective "Boiling" to her blood would've been an extremely severe understatement, it was basically way past nuclear.

And as per the tradition of Beyonders, regardless of whether it's in spectral form inside a host, or it's possessing a human corpse, a strong influx of emotions causes one phenomenon that's been plaguing mankind for centuries; Corruption.

As if things weren't bad enough, L'étranger and Maneki now had to watch helplessly as Dece's overwhelming rage began to warp and morph her body, transforming it into a grotesque, rotting, humanoid cat-like creature with four arms, each equipped with razor sharp claws. Two of which were holding up her head which transformed into a disembodied head of a cat plush with a wide, toothy grin that let her acidic saliva dripple down her body.

What could they do? Both L'étranger and Maneki were at their lowest, strength-wise. One of them had to fight blind, the other one didn't lost her arms, and to make matters worse, the field engulfing the building prevented them from using their powers, and yet they were facing off against an enraged Horseman. The same one who mopped the floor with them half-heartedly and was now thinking of nothing but putting those two in a single coffin.

In the end, I suppose we all knew how that struggle would end.

Someone had to lose.

Someone had to win.

Someone had to die.

However, the only person equipped with enough determination to spin that wheel of fate was L'étranger.

The final struggle began when the monstrous famine aimed her unoccupied claws at them and spoke with a voice that tore through their ears like a drill: "Starve."

Instantly, the duo felt an unbelievable, sharp pain in their stomachs. A feeling so agonising it immediately dropped them both to their knees.

The Horseman of Famine lunged toward L'étranger, excited to rip her to shreds, but her plans were intercepted by Maneki who charged at the beast with his shoulder, knocking her away and realising something extremely crucial.  the upper clothes he was wearing crumbled into dust.

"You damn fool...! You're in no shape to fight something like her..." she thought about the situation, before shouting: "Don't touch her, Maneki! She rots everything she touches!"

The beast charged at them again, giving them nothing more than a split second to react. 

Thanks to Maneki's lightning fast reflexes, he managed to dodge her attack and gain some distance. On the other hand, L'étranger slid under the swing of her claw toward the underside of a table.  She used that opportunity to kick that table as hard she could toward her enemy, giving herself enough seconds of time to rush back to Maneki's side.

"L'étranger, we need to fucking run. We are not winning this one." he whispered into her ear quickly.

"I want to run as much as you, man, if not more! But we fucked up and now she's fixated on killing us no matter where we try to go."

"Do you have anymore tricks up your sleeve, then?"

"Just one, but I really wish I didn't have to use it."

"Then use it. We have no more options."

"...Maneki, be honest with me."

"In ten words or less."

"Do you really believe in my cause?"

"More than anything."

"Then... Are you willing to die for it?"

"Will it ensure your survival?"

"...Of course..."

"Say less. What do I do?"

"Distract her for at least a minute. I have one more trick, but it needs to be charged."

"Understood."

"Maneki. This is a suicide mission. That minute is how much time you'll survive without your powers."

"I'll make it work. Start charging."

"...I'm sorry, I really wanted you to see the world I wanted."

"It's alright. I never wanted that world for myself. It's for those of us who were chained to a life of suffering because of the existence of Beyonders. Make it real, L'étranger, erase all Beyonders from the world and free us all. We're counting on you."

And so, with his final words, Maneki rushed forward and began circling the room, baiting the enraged beast with taunts and insults to keep its attention from his partner, who was whispering an incantation so quickly that the words themselves were overlapping with each other.

This went on for as long as she had hoped, until the final second when everyone reached their limit. The horseman of Famine thrust her claws all the way through Maneki's guts and L'étranger finished the incantation, shouting: "ENCHAIN!" causing several unbreakable white chains to appear out of thin air and restrain the rotting monster.

In that moment of silence, as L'étranger watched his insides slowly disintegrating, another person entered the scene. A woman wearing a featureless, white mask and a red, antique dress made her presence known to the armless spy and spoke to her: "Ever the fool. Some ambitions are simply made to be unrealized, for their cost is far too great for someone with only one life. Yet you took the risk, Yosra Maggio, Perhaps fortune does favour the bold. You called upon the contract you and I forged, Now you must pay your toll. For my chains of contractual bindings, I want you to forfeit something of equal value."

"you never change, do you?" L'étranger replied, "You never learned to read the room. I gave away what you wanted. Granted, when you say forfeit, it usually means kill."

"And I truly find it amusing that the only way you could have used the contract was by surrendering the cost first. This is all I can do for you, per our contract, and you've paid the price. Farewell, and may the next time our path cross be one filled with decisive bloodshed."

[END]

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