They were losing.
He didn't need to sugarcoat it. He didn't need to hide it.
The truth of their situation burned as bright as day. These psychotic macrophages were slaughtering them at a rate faster than they could stick their gladius blades into their beating mitochondria.
The mauled corpses of his brothers littered the battlefield, and he could see that their lines had grown thin. They started this battle vastly outnumbering the enemy, they clearly had the advantage in strength, but these maniacal maids proved to be far more brutal and relentless than they've anticipated. Their numbers had started to come into parity with theirs, and he knew it would only be a matter of time before the macrophages succeeded in utterly wiping them all out from this world.
As the acting commander of the battalion after Lady Em decapitated his superior, it was now his duty to order his comrades to fall back.
"Fall back!" He bellowed to his brothers while keeping the pressure on the macrophage leader. He checked Lady Em's hard swing of her scythe before lunging a counterstrike of his gladius directly into her throat. "Into the liver! Fall back!"
Without hesitation or fanfare, a dozen horns scattered in the battlefield howled a loud tone, signaling the remaining KT cells to disengage from combat and relocate back into the liver.
Almost immediately, the KT cells started their tactical retreat toward the organ's main ventricles with extreme discipline, bleeding the macrophages for every ground they relinquished. With such skilled rearguard actions, they evacuated first the wounded inside, followed by the exhausted and the spent. A number of the neutrophils, those who successfully evacuated the non-immune cells into the liver, also decided to fall back inside.
Gradually, the KT cells' battle line began to shrink, but they never faltered. Those that chose to remain as cover for the rest did so with no illusion of ever surviving the next hour. Death was not only certain, it was a given.
And yet that fact didn't even hinder them one bit.
The rearguard fought with such ferocity, such madness, that they dealt massive punishment to the maids they once called their sworn sisters-at-arms.
"I am surprised lieutenant," Lady Em quipped. "I thought the KT cells never retreat."
The KT sub-commander snorted. He unleashed another thrust of his blade aimed at the maid leader's chest, to which she blocked with Plagueharvest's metallic shaft. "This is not a retreat... We are charging in the opposite direction."
"Hah!" Lady Em, let out a genuine giggle. "That is a good one, I admit."
Blade and scythe spun around like a music-less dance... slicing, sweeping, clanging.
"You will not succeed traitor," the KT sub-commander growled, his eyes burned with raw fury. "I will end you!"
He launched himself toward Lady Em, swinging his faithful gladius to battle once more. They traded blow after blow with such ferocity that each strike of their weapons boomed like cracked thunder. The blade master versus the angel of death... they fought like legendary cells of old back when the world was still young, and antigens roamed free to spread their corruption.
The KT sub-commander wielded his gladius for another batch of blazing slashes, but this time, Lady Em went in the offensive, swinging Plagueharvest in deadly, looping arcs, with all intention to eviscerate him. He blocked and parried the macrophage's great swings, but now he was on the defensive, and slowly, he started to give ground.
One step back... Two steps... Three...
Lady Em's offensive started to increase in pace, and soon they clashed with blurring speeds. Their weapons no longer sang a rhythmic cadence, but now they shriek in twisted metal agony.
The KT sub-commander never wavered, never faltered, but the pressure against him had driven him to his limit until finally, a chink in his defense appeared, and his deranged opponent struck the coup de grace.
Lady Em slashed her scythe in a downward angle to which the sub-commander parried with his blade. The archtraitor, however, abruptly changed the trajectory of Plagueharvest at the last second, avoiding the gladius entirely. The sub-commander realized the feint too late and the next thing he knew, his weapon fell to the ground along with his fingers, hand, and elbow.
Crimson cytoplasm burst out from the stump of his right arm, but instead of writhing in pain, he took out his side dagger and then lunged forth toward his opponent, his mouth wide, open in a visceral scream of pure hatred.
He would end this rebellion right here, right now. If he was going to hell, then he'd drag this diabolical abomination with him.
He thrust his dagger into the maid's jugular.
"DIE TRAITOR!"
But Lady Em didn't evade his attack.
She just opened her wide gaping mouth and, with one bite of her sharp teeth, she bit the approaching dagger mid-shaft, breaking the blade into two.
Lady Em then followed her counterattack by driving her hand right into the sub-commander's chest and, with a feat only a debauched macrophage could do, shattered his armor into tiny pieces. Her hand didn't stop, but it went straight into his membrane, plunging deeper and deeper until she pulled out her hand, clutching one of his still pulsing mitochondria.
Streams of cytoplasm burst out from his chest, and he finally fell to the ground with a thud.
Cytoplasmic fluid began to pool around him, surrounding him with a sticky puddle.
His mouth started to quiver, but only wet gurgling sounds could be heard.
This was it... He had finally lost.
Lady Em knelt beside him, his fluids staining her immaculately white dress with a deep crimson color. She stared down directly into his unfocused eyes.
"Yes, lieutenant?" she leaned closer to his mouth. "Do you have any last thing to say?"
Tears fell down the sub-commander's eyes. In a minute or less, he'd be dead. There was nothing more for him to do. He had done his duty, and now it was time to rest.
With the last of his fleeing strength, he forced himself to utter a question that nagged him when all hell broke loose.
"W-Why... do... this..."
Lady Em didn't immediately respond. Her sinister smile had turned into a more somber frown. She then drew in a deep breath.
"I'm already dead, lieutenant," she started as she let out a sigh. "My group and I are infected. I don't deny it, nor do I hide it. I wish I could apologize to you, but I cannot. The world will end, and it will be through my hands. Before I die, I want to see this beautiful world, a world where I once enjoyed wonderful afternoon tea, burn to the ground along with me."
The sub-commander shivered and coughed mouthfuls of his own cellular fluid.
"We... will... stop... you..." he forced himself to utter. Even at the last moment, he still remained defiant.
The archtraitor shook her head. She placed a hand on his cheek as she attempted to focus his unfocused gaze with her own sickly yellow orbs.
"No lieutenant," she replied. "You will join us."
And with that, she opened her mouth, and a creature of darkness started crawling out.
--0--0--0--
"Soldier, do you believe in destiny?"
U1146 said nothing, focusing only his mind on how to put his dagger into the wretched maid's neck.
He lunged at her, got blocked, then lunged again.
"Hey, soldier, do you think destiny is real?" The glasses-wearing macrophage retreated a couple of steps to evade his attack before returning quickly to bring her blade to bear.
"Your destiny is death, traitor!" U1146 snarled. Though he could stand in par with her, he knew it wouldn't be long before fatigue stepped in and it would only need one slip-up to cause his downfall. His enemy, though, showed no sign of exhaustion. She was not even showing any sign of taking this duel seriously.
He gritted his teeth. He had no time for this, he needed to save Platelet-chan, and he needed to do it now. The time spent fighting with this monster was time lost he could use in searching for the little thrombocyte.
What's more, she'd seen AE3603 had foolheartedly sprinted toward the abyss in the hope of also rescuing Platelet-chan. He didn't like her being reckless, but with him still preoccupied, he couldn't really blame her.
The deranged maid laughed. "Hah! Death is where we will all end up, but that is not what I meant when I ask about destiny."
They crashed once again, deflecting each other's strike as the twin daggers and the blade ricocheted from one another.
U1146 pedaled a few steps back before building up momentum with his feet, then he lunged low, his twin daggers aimed below the maid's waistline.
The macrophage swung her sword in a descending angle to counter, but he blocked it with one of his daggers. That gave him the microsecond opening he needed, and he immediately aimed his other dagger squarely to her chest.
This was it. This was the death blow.
But the deranged maid managed to grab his incoming hand on the wrist, stopping his dagger mere nanometers from her neck.
The glasses-wearing maid gave him a psychotic smirk before twisting his arm with the flick of her wrist.
U1146's snarled in agony as he flipped over to the ground carried by the maid's torsional force.
He cursed at the underhanded attack, and he tried getting up again, but the maid slammed him back to the ground as she started to sit on top of him with her blade dangling closely to his neck.
He bared his teeth in defiance but that only enticed the mad macrophage to lean closer to him so that her face almost touched with hers. She then started grinding her waist in arousal.
"As I was saying, soldier," she moaned, quivering with delight. "Do you believe in destiny?"
"What does it matter to you?" U1146 spat. "There is no such thing as fate! We only have our duties to live by and-"
He stopped mid-sentence as he realized the words coming out from his mouth sounded hollow and distant.
The maid immediately spotted the contradiction, and her lips slowly crept into a wide malicious grin.
"There is only what? Duties?" This time, the mad maid's grin had reached out from ear to ear. "I hardly find the thought of prioritizing the lives of a degenerate and a little bundle of joy over the defense of the world as part of anyone's duty."
U1146 shifted his gaze to his side and said nothing. His own words, though a slip-up, cut him deep into the core. All this time, he had deluded himself into thinking that he was not abandoning his duty by helping out RBC-san and Platelet-chan and that he was just realigning his mission objectives.
In normal circumstances, this could be acceptable. After all, as a neutrophil, he had far more freedom to do what needs to be done compared to his lymphocyte comrades. However, when the world faced such a cataclysmic rebellion, there should have been no question on what was to be the higher priority.
She leaned closer to his side and then started to lick him with her long forked tongue, starting from his neck all the way to his ear. He shuddered with disgust.
"Soldier, I think it's time to stop lying to yourself," the maid whispered into his ear. "I won't say that you completely abandoned your duties, but you did leave your comrades in the battlefield to pursue a selfish desire."
U1146 wanted to yell at her to get off from him, but the icy metal blade pressed into his neck kept him at bay.
"It's not selfish!" He blurted out before shutting up again. He felt the more he said anything, the more he felt shameful of himself.
"Oh, I'm not implying that's a bad thing," she chuckled. "In fact, though what you did was indeed selfish, it was also admirable. It proves you're not just an automaton doomed to do his duty over, and over, and over again."
Suddenly, the maid sat up straight, taking her blade away from his neck. His brows furrowed with confusion, and he turned his gaze back to stare at his opponent's eyes, searching for any sign of treachery.
"It means you have a destiny," she declared. "It means you are destined to do something in the future that would have a great effect on the world whether it is for good or bad."
"I only wish to save my friends," he confessed, the admission drained him much of his strength. "After saving them, I would have gone back into fighting your ilk."
"Indeed you will," the mad macrophage concurred, almost sounding satisfied as she finally told the truth. "That is why I will not strike you down today. There are forces beyond our comprehension that desire your survival."
U1146 blinked. His mind did a double take in confirming what she just said. "You... You will what?"
"It is tempting, I admit, to defy fate and strike you right here, right now. But my organelles tell me even if I do that, nothing will happen." she asserted before standing up. "Go, soldier, save your friends. Complete your destiny."
She started to walk toward the direction of the battlefield but stopped only a couple of steps from him. She slightly turned her head to give him a smug smirk. "And once you're done, look for me, and let's see if your destiny includes me snapping up your neck."
And with that, she left him, concluding their battle.
U1146 watched her walk away still, not believing he was able to survive their encounter with his life.
In any case, he shook his head before forcing himself to stand up. He felt every organelle inside him groaning in pain, but he ignored their protest.
He had already broken off from his duty to pursue a selfish objective. After this whole incident, if ever he survives this, he knew his other neutrophil friends would shun him if they knew what he had done. Still, he had to proceed. To hell with anyone who would judge him harshly for his actions.
What matters most now was to save RBC-san and Platelet-chan at all cost.
He heard the sounds of horns booming from the battlefield. It was a call to fall back. The KT cells have decided to retreat and regroup probably inside the liver.
This should also mean for him to fall back as well, but he had already made up his mind.
He started to run but not into the direction of the liver...
He proceeded instead to the hemorrhagic opening to the abyss beyond.
--0--0--0--
The damned had risen.
Together with her fellow battle maids, Lady Em performed the ritual of ascension for those KT cells that have fallen but have proven to them their worth in battle. The macrophages regurgitated hundreds of the virus spawns out of their mouths, which then skittered away toward the scalps of their former enemies.
These creatures of pure malice also targeted other non-immune cells that had fallen victim to the macrophage's carnage. Those cells that had a nucleus were all prey for these virus spawns while they ignored the dead and dying erythrocytes writhing in the ground.
As they buried their chitinous legs deep into the temples of their fallen prey, slowly, the eyes of the dead opened, and soon they staggered back to their feet.
Lady Em saw the fruits of her group's labor and found it was good.
"And I will raise them up in the last day," she muttered to herself.
She raised her unholy scythe for all to see, and then she pointed it toward the entrance of the liver where the surviving KT cells had already started barricading it with everything they've got.
"My friends!" she bellowed. "Let us begin."
The dead responded by a chorus of a thousand rotting throats, all howling in anguish.
--0--0--0--
NT4201 stared at the wound of the world and saw nothing but darkness.
A minute ago, she saw a neutrophil drenched with cytoplasm leap into the abyss for reasons she couldn't understand.
The pain in her head was unbearable like a thousand knives had been shoved inside her eye sockets, nostrils, and ear canal all at once.
Her mind felt fleeting and distant. In fact, the very act of thinking already felt like a daunting task. Hoarse voices that sounded like kidney crystals grinding whispered raw hatred inside her head.
The voices dragged out all the repressed emotions buried deep within her, telling her of how utterly worthless she was for her senpai.
You are weak...
Senpai doesn't love you...
You are a worthless piece of glucose...
Her face twitched from the pain, but her expression remained blank and dead.
The macrophage who assaulted her had lied.
She told her that she would die, but she only damned her to hell while letting her live in torment in this dying world.
Perhaps it would have been best if she indeed died when the virus spawn injected its RNA into her. She would have preferred death than to continue on living feeling such unbearable pain.
You do not deserve death. The voices in her head whispered. You must suffer for all the sins you've committed.
Because she was an erythrocyte, she didn't possess the necessary organelles to be controlled by a virus. Unlike the macrophages or other immune cells, she doesn't have a nucleus that the virus could implant its data and reproduce. As such, the blasted virus spawn, the mad macrophage forcibly infected her, only injected its RNA inside her head. However, it could not corrupt her since she doesn't even have a nucleus. The spawn remained perched on top of her head, but it could do nothing anymore other than that.
As an erythrocyte, she should have been safe, and yet, the pure evil within the strands of the RNA virus still had a visible effect on her as they soon started making her feel sick. At the same time, she began hearing voices whispering to her thoughts full of poison and malice.
Senpai has abandoned you...
She left you for dead... She valued more the life of that platelet than yours...
"S-Senpai," she croaked. "I..."
Suddenly, jolts of searing pain assaulted her compromised mind. She immediately closed her eyes shut, clenching her teeth to ride out the agony.
She clutched her hands on the side of her head, her nails digging deep into his membrane. Streams of red cytoplasm soon oozed down her cheeks.
Finally, the pain subsided just barely enough for her to regain a sort of control on herself. The insides of her head still pulsed, but she could now at least assemble her thoughts.
She was abandoned.
She was left for dead.
Even when her ankle got twisted during the ensuing chaos brought by the macrophage's attack, nobody had stopped to help her out.
The voices in her head were correct.
She was a nobody...
And nobody loved her.
"Senpai," she croaked again, this time edging even closer to the abyss. "This... This is all your fault."
And with that thought, she descended down to hell.
-----
A/N:
Originally Posted on May 7, 2020