Hallowed Kaline (1) (MANUSCRIPT)

Issue # 8 Adventurous Wonders Pt. 1

                    "Well, here we are. This wasn't that long of a trip, thankfully." Natalie wore a sleeveless pink shirt, lines traced throughout it.
              "Yeah, unlike last time." Tony shook his head and laughed a bit.
           The two classmates looked ahead of them at a carnival which was full of carousel rides, cotton candy machines, popcorn machines, and ring-around-the-bottle games. All sorts of lights had been illuminating even the tallest of Ferris Wheels at this place. Statues of clowns were hung from the tops of particleboard shacks as outhouse-bathrooms could be seen with crescent moons on their doors to the far other end of the amusement park.
          The classical and incessant tune of the carnival music was going back and forth between blaring and hardly audible. Kyle turned his head to the left and right, soon doing it quicker with each passing second as he couldn't make out where any potential speakers could be. Sweat dripping from his face, Max gazed at the rainbow-colored Ferris Wheel.
            "I've always been pretty ambivalent about heights." Maximus rubbed his hands together, his usual green jacket fluffing up slightly in the back. "A part of me wants to just climb up there, while another part is deathly cautious."
            "Deathly cautious? Never heard of such a thing. I'll have to remember that phrase." Kyle winked as he walked further into the entrance of the carnival. "Well, let's get started."
           Tony tapped Max on the shoulder. "Can you tell me again what Father Ignatius wanted us to do here? I feel like this mission was very much 'thrown on me', you know what I'm sayin'?"
           Max laughed, walking on by Kyle's side. "Headmaster had originally told me to tell you guys that we were to go on a mission to this amusement park, Gallop-Land. He said that a group of faeries is currently destroying it under the influence of a much stronger faerie named... M- Well. You know."
          Tony raised one eyebrow, smirking. "Right. Yeah. That."
          "I think I see one!" Kyle held his arms out then quickly brought his watch to the front of his face. "Come here and fight like a real opponent, damn it!"
            In front of Kyle and Max, the misty figure of a supposed faerie was flying right by them into another area of the park.
         "Get back here!" Kyle clenched his teeth, chasing after the misty apparition.
         "Damn. Kyle is pumped up, huh?" Natalie winked at Max.
         With a blush having just spread itself across his cheeks, Maximus giggled. "Yeah, I guess so."
        "He probably got startled." Tony crossed his arms. Dr. Carwell wouldn't have been caught off guard. Not sure why I just thought of that man.
        "Definitely. I was a little caught off guard, too." Max put a hand to his chest, watching as Kyle chased at fog throughout slot machine games, hot dog stands, and ring-around-bottle games.
         "Hey, did you forget about us?" a fifth voice, gruffy and British, came from behind Tony.
        "Huh?" Max turned. "Oh! The two expert-level hunters. Hi, guys."
        "Pffft. Saying 'hi' on a bloody mission. Pathetic. Isn't that right, Ithaca?" a man with purple eyes and long brown hair looked to another man, almost identical, with purple eyes and short brown hair.
        "Indeed, Thaddeus." A nasally and high voice, still greatly Posh, seemed to sneeze its way out of the short-haired twin's mouth.
         "It's too bad. The moon is beautiful tonight. A golden chip which lays itself across the sky. Too bad we can't be slicing these faeries to death. We were put on body-guard duty." Thaddeus spit on the ground, holding a purely white sword in his hand.
        "An utter mockery of our skills." Ithaca tightened his lips, then frowned.
          "I got you now, you bitch!" A bang was heard, then Kyle was seen being thrown into a nearby trash can. "Or maybe I don't. Fuck."
          "Kyle!" Natalie opened her mouth wide.
          "Kyle! Are you okay?" Max sprinted over to his friend, his red hair blowing in the night.
          "Shouldn't you two have gone to help Kyle when he originally ran for the faerie? You guys aren't very good bodyguards." Tony glared at Thaddeus and Ithaca.
         "Pipe it, you cuck." Ithaca closed his eyes and pointed his own sword to Tony, ridges and knots could be found in the structure of it like, those in  bones. "Our objective was to guard the group. Kyle made himself an individual the minute he split off on his own. We could only continue guarding you three. Make sense?"
         "I- uh-" Tony held his breath, his eyes bouncing between the bone-sword that Ithaca was brandishing his way and Ithaca's own eyes. "I got it." Quickly, Tony walked over to Kyle as strobing blue lights danced all around them.
         Kyle got up slowly, noticing a giant bruise on his shin underneath his gray pants. "I'm... fine. I let that renegade faerie get the better of me- Well, actually, there were four."
        "Four?" Max widened his eyes as he bent down to see Kyle's wound.
         "And that's not even all of them." Kyle nodded his head over to an area behind Natalie.
          "Whoa!" Tony widened his eyes as a pack of seventeen renegade faeries plopped out of dark clouds which hung in the air. "Shit!"
          "Hm. Completely child's play, brother." Thaddeus licked his lips.
          "I would agree. But our task was not to harm any faeries unless one of them happened to be the great Malechor." Ithaca nodded.
           "Malechor?" Tony turned around. So that's what Max was having trouble with saying earlier?
             "Leave... this area! Your limbs will become food... for our master!" the seventeen faeries spoke in unison, their eyes black as their bodies were akin to tiny babies with wings.
            "There they though go again, saying 'master'." Maximus gritted his teeth, glaring at the malicious flying creatures above them.
            "What do you mean 'again'?" Kyle turned, completely standing straight and aiming his watch at the entourage of fey.
          "You don't remember when you killed Sister Suzanna and she said that her master wouldn't like it if she died? 'Not one bit' were her words." Max raised an eyebrow, still keeping his gaze on the demonic babies above them.
           "Hmph. I don't listen to fey when I'm killing them."
          "You were clearly less hasty than I was, though. I mistakenly murdered Sister Kisandra." Max shrugged.
           "True, but it's because I have to be. I have to aim just right with this watch of mine. You, on the other hand, can just keep hacking and slashing your way through life."
         "Oh, whatever." Maximus jumped away, climbing up a nearby particleboard shack and slashed at one of the winged babies. "Take this!"
       "No! Master, we're... sorry!" the cries of the sixteen remaining babies out-pitched the carnival music which had been going on in the background, the murdered baby that Max had sliced was exploding into a cloud of black ash.
          "Hm. That ruby-haired boy really has potential." Ithaca twirled his bone-sword in his hands.
        "So he does, brother." Thaddeus grinned.
          "You... are... trouble. You cannot hope to destroy all of us... with cobalt weaponry." The remaining sixteen fey shot themselves at Max like cannons from the sky.
         "Oh. My. FUCKING. Lord!" Max gulped then raced away in fear. "They're taking fucking potshots at me!"
         "I should help him, shouldn't I?" Kyle put a hand to his shin. "But moving fucking hurts."
       "Then I'll help." Natalie pulled her gun out of her pocket, shooting at two of the baby-like fey.
         "Oh. A gun-wielder. How spicy." Ithaca bounced his gaze from Natalie to his bony sword.
       "Thanks Nat- fuck!" Maximus waved to Natalie for a split second before falling off of the particle board shack.
         "Max!" Natalie shrieked, putting her hand out.
         "Oh, dear." Ithaca charged at the falling Maximus, catching him gracefully in his arms. "Try not to fall anymore, you hear?"
         Max nodded, being set down on the ground softly. "Roger that. There's only fourteen left so it shouldn't take much longer."
          "So says you." Thaddeus narrowed a glare to Maximus.
          "Hmph." Max glared back. "Don't worry about me, tough guy. I'm gonna rid this world of- of- of all the tribunal faeries. You just watch!"
          "A lofty goal." Thaddeus stared into the night sky, the precious view of spacy stars being blocked out by the fancy strobing lights of the carnival. "I've never heard of a loftier goal. An expert hunter is lucky enough to have slain just one tribunal faerie."
           "Well joke's on you, pal. My goal is loftier than that. I'm gonna rid this world of all fey one day." Max bit his bottom lip, sticking his tongue out at Thaddeus, then racing to hack at the remaining faeries.
          "They're splitting!" Kyle's eyes widened as the fourteen remaining faeries flew into two different groups.
          "Well, I guess we'll take this group." Tony cleared his throat as he stood with Kyle, looking at a hungry group of seven winged babies.
           "And it looks like we're taking this group. Fun." Max scratched the back of his head as he and Natalie traced their own line of seven winged fey.
           "Perhaps we should split and assist each group of two, so that it is each a group of three against seven?" Thaddeus suddenly held up his bone-sword.
           "Perhaps. Though it goes against our objective, brother." Ithaca smiled a devious smile. "We were not to lay a single finger on the fey unless it was Malechor himself."
          Tony looked back at Thaddeus and Ithaca, who were standing peacefully with wicked grins, as Kyle shot at the fey with his watch. I don't like these guys. They're all too happy to  just 'follow their objective'.

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