[GamerShadow]

Chapter 10:

Specforces’s jungle-camo boots oppressed the soil that was unfortunate enough to be lying beneath him. Each thunderous step left a depression in the ground, each step left many of the bystanders bewildered. Each step made a gigantic thud boom through the air that only progressed the crescendo in power that Specforces was experiencing. He said nothing, but the veins that had popped up on his ultra-jacked arms gave the message, simple and clear. His eyebrows nearly formed a “v,” being that they were tilted so far downward. The double-barrel shotgun that Spec wielded was resting on his left shoulder, appearing as if about to snap in half from the snake-like grip Specforces had on it.

Both Tokzic and Cbr felt this hidden rage approaching. They halted their current combat, and turned their heads to stare at Specforces. Tokzic knew he was getting the worst of the torture that was about to come; Cbr was merely a mercenary, a soldier that was hired to fight, and not ask questions. Beads of sweat trickled down both of their faces as their legs began to tremble. Tokzic’s teeth began to chatter, creating a rattling that could be heard from a good distance away. Cbr nearly vomited from the insane fear that dominated his body at the moment. Seconds transformed into hours, and everything began to slow to a hellish crawl. The anticipation of the terror was almost worse than the terror itself. But almost didn’t count.

Specforces selected his first victim as soon as he was within a prime range for unleashing his rage. At once, the shades snapped, and the glass shattered. The pieces of the mess simply fell to the ground, and the violet eyes behind the optical mask were revealed to the world. His pupils were dilated to the extreme; they filled almost three-quarters of his fearful eyes. And before anything else could happen, the death siren rang.

“Tooookziiiic!” Specforces blasted. His voice was the only thing that could be heard for a mile. Everything else was drowned out. Even the symphony of battle could not compete with the power of true rage. So it gave way as Specforces unleashed everything he had.

“Just WHAT did you think you were doing attacking an ally!? Do you wish to ruin our relations with foreigners we have just met!?” The two faces nearly made contact with each other. Specforces was beside himself with anger; he had no regards to politeness or personal space at the moment, and he wasn’t about to let up.

Tokzic nearly lost his mind with trepidation with just one sentence from Specforces. To be yelled at normally was one thing; it occurred quite frequently. This time was different, however. Specforces was the angriest he had been in over five years. “There is logical reasoning behind this.” Tokzic thought; “I did break the biggest rule there was to break in our army.” Specforces gave him a stare that was not even describable, because he was so enraged. Tokzic was beginning to feel suicidal now, but he knew that if he lived through this mental beating, he would eventually come back. However, the best reply he could manage in his current state was a stuttered, “I-I-I-”

Specforces was not going to have any of this. Not only had one of his most eliete soldiers attacked a sworn ally, but now they were making a mockery of the army with their pathetic attempt at making worthless excuses. He could not come up with a punishment humiliating enough for Tokzic at first. As he subconsciously bellowed out meaningless speeches of lecture, he dug through his mind, searching for something that would make an example of this soldier. At last, Specforces came up with a solution to his problem at hand. It was drastic, and it might shake the army’s confidence a bit, but at this point, the Army had done their job.

The next few moments of Tokzic’s life would be burned into his memory forever. They would repeat themselves in increasingly horrible and twisted ways, and even the slightest reminder of the terrible sentence would hurtle him back into an endless cycle of misery.

“Turn around,” Specforces quietly foretold Tokzic’s death sentence, “This won’t hurt a bit.”

Tokzic did not speak a word. He had been broken like a toy plane that had been crushed in half by the family dog. His eyes were wide open, his pupils were wide, and his posture was slumped over, giving him the appearance of a hunchback. His shades began to slip off of his nose as he shuffled his feet, legs, and body one hundred and eighty degrees counter-clockwise. Tokzic very quickly found that Specforces was a man true to his word after all. With a mighty whoosh and crack, Tokzic fell to the ground, lifeless. “Five days. Treason.” Read on the back of his head. And it hadn’t hurt a bit.

“I’m ready, Shashakiro,” Engler spoke in a soft, but exceptionally deep tone, “fight me with everything you have, unless you are in a hurry to die.”

Shashakiro did not bother replying to the basic taunt that Engler had just used. Instead, he quietly and stealthily took out a large bunch of red, blue, and yellow arrows, and gripped them in groups of four in his right hand. Engler noticed Shash’s arms flex, and immediately shifted into intangibility as a staircase of red, blue, and yellow arrows flew through him. Immediately, Engler floated to the left with great haste, as Shashakiro leapt to his right, throwing two red arrows simultaneously, as well as two blue arrows right after. Engler shifted out of intangibility and leaned backward as both pairs of arrows grazed his left cheek. He did not allow the pain to flow through his body. Instead, he rolled to his right and phased into the same intangibility as a red blur shot past the spot where Engler’s head had been.

“Very good,” Shashakiro stated as he pulled red and purple arrows, and randomly began to toss them at Engler, who was now hastily drifting to his left. “It seems you can keep up with me. Very well then, Engler. Warm-ups are over.”

Engler stalled from becoming surprised at this statement as two orange arrows shot into his left arm, snapping him back into reality. Blood was already flowing down Engler’s injured limb, but that didn’t stop him from fighting back. He took control of the next red and yellow trill that came his way, and reversed it while returning it back to Shashakrio at an even faster speed. To this, Shashakiro formed four grey arrows, and with perfect accuracy hit every note in the trill, causing them to vanish into thin air. He counterattacked with two jacks, which Engler jumped over to exploit a vulnerable point in Shash’s attack pattern. Noticing this, Shashakiro attempted to raise his hands in order to block Engler’s shadow tendril, but all he could do was avoid being struck in the neck by letting his left hand take the hit. A quick punch to the gut from Shashakiro sent Engler reeling backward a few steps as he struggled to regain his breath and stance. Before he could even do that, however, Shash sent a red arrow into Engler’s right leg, which caused him to fall over due to a lack of balance.

Now grinning, Shashakiro informs Engler of the bleak situation he is now in. “So Engler,” Shashakiro started, “Have you been fighting seriously this whole time? It’s not like you to use you full potential before you know what your opponent can do. I’m only asking this because I have been fighting halfheartedly this whole time, but it seems as though you have been putting forth some serious effort.”

Engler knew that Shashakiro knew. There was no way that Engler was going to win at his current power level, and there was no way to influence the match with the abilities at his disposal. He needed somebody to do the dirty work for him. And from that thought, Engler hatched a devious plot to finish the fight quickly and brutally.

Everybody stared at Tokzic’s dead body, the “banned” that had been burned on the back of his head being his most noticeable feature. All were in shock, and all were speechless. Did one of the greatest soldiers of the TGB Army just get banned? What if that happens to me? Has Specforces gone out of his mind? Innumerable amounts of thoughts floated through everybody’s heads. All focus had shifted off of the current task at hand, except for Specforces. His mind was still on the job, and he walked over to MalReynolds, calmly and confidently. As he approached, he began to talk.

“Mal,” Specforces started, “Would you mind coming with me into the base? We need to purge the remaining forces in order to take back what is rightfully ours.”

At once, Mal agreed. “Yes, Spec, right away.” He saluted, and followed his commander into the front entrance of the PYP Agency. All others stared, still unable to comment or move a muscle. It was as if they had been stupefied, or they had lost the ability to speak. After a long silence only being filled by the whistle of the wind, GamerShadow broke the silence with a question that nobody wanted to answer.

“Who is going to carry him back?”

Although he had been the one opposing Tokzic, Cbr raised his hand, which was quivering, and was the first to answer. “I’ll do it. Even though I did attack him, I still want to help him. He didn’t deserve to die like that.”

GamerShadow was not expecting many others to accept the offer that he had made, but he was proven wrong just moments after Cbr decided to help carry Tokzic’s body. From the crowd, a total of five other hands rose into the air, and GamerShadow identified them all at once.

“Very well, SethSquall, Afrobean, Reaper, and Carbo.” GS projected his voice so that all could hear him, “Please help Cbr transport the body back to TGB. If you meet any moderators, inform them of what happened.”

“What about you?” asked Afrobean, who was a bit confused as to why GamerShadow was not accompanying them, “You’re not coming with us?”

GamerShadow sighed, “I would come back with you guys, but there are other orders of business that I must get to. I am very sorry for not being able to help.” The others watched silently as GS shifted into the indigo shadow form, and melted into the ground.

Another awkward silence. This time, it was not fear or confusion that gripped their voices, but rather, their indecisiveness. What to do next? Specforces had not bothered to leave them with orders, as he had simply raided the base with Mal after banning Tokzic. The group assigned to carrying Tokzic’s body was not affected by this, however. They knew what they had to do.

“Well then,” started Reaper, “We should get started. It’s a twenty mile walk from here to The Garbage Bin, and the day is not getting any younger.” The others nodded in agreement as they lined up evenly, and began what would be a two-day march back to The Garbage Bin.