NOVEL FROG Chapter 103: The Spookout
While Candy, Nitro, and Tricky came up with a plan to defend the city gate, Indie focused on defending the seized castle. With a more appropriate outfit for combat, a belt with ammo and useful equipment, and her rifle cocked, she ran straight through the garden to barge into the throne room without hesitation. She kicked the entrance door open without fear of what was waiting behind, and with her sharp eye instantly locking on the nearest sign of movement, she met several omens marching from the left wing to the staircase on the right. They had just passed her and headed through the throne hall since the left wing was blocked, but they were caught off guard by Indie in the process, who didn’t waste a second to let her rifle do all the work and mow down as many enemies as it could.
Taking advantage of her sudden entrance, she managed to kill a few omens before they realized she had entered, and while not all of them turned to her and instead kept running, most of them drew their weapons and tried to aim. But by the time they were ready to shoot, Indie was already executing her plan to take them all out by using her surroundings. The little time they had to react only allowed the omens to notice some of their teammates were dead and the one responsible was right in front of them, but they couldn’t realize they were going to meet a similar fate soon enough.
As soon as the omens turned, Indie knew she couldn’t divert their attention, so she aimed directly above them, shooting a few bursts at the chandeliers hanging many feet above. A couple of them broke free from the chains they were attached to and dropped directly on top of the enemy, making the room ever so slightly darker since there were still plenty of light sources for the omens to see, but it was enough to conceal herself at the entrance. She closed the door behind her to let as little light in as possible, and after sticking to the wall, she seemingly disappeared into the dark corner formed next to the entrance.
The omens panicked and began looking for a target to shoot, but their hesitation to fire was what gave Indie the advantage to strike fast and the cause of their demise. She began firing as soon as she saw an opening, still standing safely next to the door, where all the omens were expecting her to shoot. But once she began shooting, she didn’t stop and made sure to not be interrupted by continuously running further to the side, flanking her enemies to avoid their line of fire as they engaged. They could only see her briefly with the muzzle flash of her rifle, though they weren’t fast enough to follow it as she ran a semi-circle around them to create a ring of death.
With all of the enemies gathered in the center, Indie didn’t have an issue connecting multiple hits in quick succession as her bullets penetrated and cut through multiple omens. But even after seeing them all drop to the ground next to the guards they killed, she kept shooting at the ones who were obliviously running to the stairs. There was a large group coming from downstairs, with even more already at the top of the stairs since they had to block Groovy, Bones, and the guests’ path. Indie couldn’t see her teammates yet, only enemies, so she kept firing at their backs while they slowly realized that the others were unable to stop her at the entrance.
Keeping a steady grip on her rifle and only having to reload twice, she made her way through the right hallway while chipping off the wall of omens gathered at the base of the stairs. The fact that they were all cluttered in that small area played in her favor, as only the back row was able to turn around to return fire, with the ones further away from her not even being able to see her approach. But once the ones that did spot her tried to defend themselves, they were met with a bullet to the head every single time. Her impeccable aim helped to save ammo, as she always went for the head to get instant kills and occasionally penetrated their skulls to hit another omen behind.
Since they were all lined up, Indie kept aiming at head level, and the collateral damage she was able to cause with only two magazines was devastating. She was almost able to annihilate everyone at the stairs by herself, but she reserved her ammo since she only brought a few magazines, and with the help of Groovy and Bones, they ended up surrounding the enemy when they noticed they had turned in the other direction to face a greater threat. Even some guests and guards got to fight back, mainly just kicking any omen in the way to make as many as they could trip, but just with Groovy, Bones, and Indie, the omens had nowhere to run or any way to avoid a merciless death.
–Take these people to safety, I’ll cover you!– Indie shouted at Groovy and Bones as they peeked out the stairs to see that their captain had shown up to save them. Despite there still being a few omens left to kill at the stairs when she started talking, once she casually ran through her victims while they desperately tried to crawl away, Groovy and Bones didn’t hesitate to follow her order.
They both ran down the stairs, leading the guests first, as the few guards left alive stayed at the back but still ran alongside them. They hesitated at first, especially when they saw all the dead bodies on the stairs, as they were scared of going down, and rightfully so since it appeared that more omens were coming from the dungeon. But to incentivize them to leave and also prevent more enemies from coming up, Indie reached for her belt to grab one of a couple of smoke grenades she brought, which she tossed down the stairs to the dungeon. A thick cloud of smoke quickly began to emerge, clouding the stairs as well but mainly suffocating the omens below, which allowed Groovy and Bones to take all the guests downstairs without being seen.
Indie stood next to the base of the stairs, keeping an eye on the dungeon, holding off the omens with some warning shots that proved effective since they didn’t dare to show up, while also waiting for everyone to come down. Once all the conscious guests were on the first floor, Groovy and Bones tried to keep them quiet as they headed for the exit. Seeing as they could control the civilians, Indie ran upstairs without looking back, right as omens appeared at the left wing to block the door for the guests. But with Groovy and Bones being almost as quick as Indie, they used their stolen rifles to shoot back at the enemies, providing cover fire for the guests to run out of the castle.
It didn’t take long for everyone to leave since they were all in a hurry to escape in one piece or alive since most of the guests had suffered injuries. There also weren’t that many enemies for them to fight, so after clearing the left hallway, Groovy and Bones ran with the guests to let them return home, waiting a few seconds to make sure they were okay with the guards’ protection before returning to the castle to take over the entrance in case others had to escape. They did try to go after Indie to help, but as more omens showed up, they were forced to stay in the throne room and secure the first floor to the best of their abilities.
However, even if they could help Indie, it was clear she didn’t need any assistance in taking down the enemy, as she kept plowing through them in the hall of the second floor. She began firing as soon as she reached the top of the stairs, not even aiming at first, only hip firing because more omens could be heard running toward the stairs. They didn’t even get to see more than half of her body when they ran through a barrage of bullets from the opposite direction. One of their bodies almost fell on top of her as she kept a good pace to reach the hall, but that’s when she noticed that the omens weren’t running at her; they were escaping from the dark hall behind.
It wasn’t fully dark, as there appeared to be one source of light at the very back, as well as some natural light faintly illuminating the sides. But since it looked like the hall was mostly empty, apart from all the bloodshed, Indie got curious once she saw the reality of the fight she was expecting to see. She peeked out the corner of the hallway before entering the hall, and it was a far different picture than the one she had before she left with Frost for their important discussion. There were bodies everywhere, but surprisingly, it seemed like there were more omen casualties as the floor of corpses almost resembled the red carpet in the middle, and the cause behind it was found in the distinguishable cuts and claw marks.
It looked like a bloodbath, but it was still ongoing since she could see a few omens at the sides of the hall firing at the ceiling and pillars, even though they couldn’t actually see what they were shooting at. Neither did Indie, but she did notice the two individuals present, who only looked like rapidly moving figures until they showed themselves when they decided to attack, jumping at the omens for a brief second before taking cover again. And while she didn’t get a good look at them, it was clear who they were instantly. Frost and Kiwy had cleared the entire hall, leaving dozens of bodies scattered around the floor, but mostly at the sides to keep the middle fairly clear. They were about to finish off the last remaining omens cowering behind pillars, but there was still a major threat found in the room that Indie took a moment to spot.
At the very end of the hall, on the platform where the princess had received her birthday wishes, greeted all her citizens, and thanked them for their gifts, those very same gifts were now burning in a big pile. This was the source of the light and showed the silhouette of the six members of the main omen squad, standing nonchalantly as they watched their inferiors get torn to shreds by Frost and Kiwy. Indie was confused when she saw them, but she then understood they were only watching the fight for entertainment, getting pleasure out of it while they prepared to gang up on Frost and Kiwy, though it only seemed to make her indignant.
Before they got a chance to get the drop on her teammates, Indie made the first move and didn’t give Spook a chance to react by hurling another smoke grenade at the center of the hall, which quickly mixed with the smoke already coming from the pile of burning gifts. She took out the last omens on the floor and jumped into the smoke, where she was completely unseen for a few seconds, long enough to allow Frost and Kiwy to finish off the armed omens that tried to attack her. But now that only Spook was left in the room, it became difficult to spot any of them now that the room was covered in smoke, though they did make their presence very clear, or at least the captain did.
–Oh, we were waiting for you… This certainly will make things interesting…– Reaper whispered in the darkness as the room grew quiet, breaking the silence with a few twisted chuckles that unsettled Indie. But his subtly suggestive tone wasn’t enough to make her lose focus, as she kept her rifle aimed at the area surrounding the platform to catch any movement. It looked like none of the omens were going to attack; they were all hiding, so Kiwy and Frost regrouped at the center but kept their guard up as they tried reaching Indie on the right side of the hall.
But before they were able to properly group up, the members of Spook jumped out of the dark one by one to catch them by surprise. The first ones were Freak and Daishi, who attacked Frost directly, with the former trying to wrap one of her chains around his neck from behind. But as soon as she touched his neck, he smashed the back of his head on her face right as the other one leaped at him with both of her kunai aimed right at his chest. He was able to back off after pushing Freak away, but Daishi forced him to block her short blades with his own, only to then shove her out of the way to let Kiwy pounce on her from behind.
Kiwy didn’t waste time defending Frost and jumped on Daishi as soon as she saw the opportunity. She seemed to know exactly where she was despite the thick smoke in her way, so she aimed for her back and got her claws near her neck, but she couldn’t even scratch her as she suddenly froze in place. Her good vision wasn’t enough to notice that Voodoo had suddenly appeared right behind her and had caused her entire body to be paralyzed in the air. It wasn’t as bad as losing consciousness, but the cat girl couldn’t even turn around, leaving her completely invulnerable now that Daishi had turned to strike back.
Indie couldn’t help since she didn’t even spot the shady girl standing in the middle of the room. Voodoo was almost invisible with her dark cloak, but even if Indie saw her, she kept aiming past her to try to get a shot at Reaper after noticing some motion at the back of the room. She couldn’t get a clear line of sight but kept the omen captain at bay, leaving only Frost to help Kiwy, and it looked like he was fully committed to rescuing her as he chose not to attack Freak and let her take cover to defend Kiwy from Voodoo and Daishi instead. He dashed and reached them in a second, though he hesitated to attack since he couldn’t see his targets very well. But only after a couple of steps did something appear in his way, which was not exactly what he was targeting.
Scarecrow jumped in between Frost and Daishi to stop him from helping Kiwy. Frost didn’t care, though, as he only saw him as a nuisance and slashed his way through his body, literally cutting his torso in half as soon as he saw him before jumping between his torso and legs like it was nothing. Scarecrow’s body dropped to the floor, but no blood came out of his corpse, and he was seemingly still able to move. But without looking back at it, Frost followed up his successful slash with another swing of both of his blades, which would have scissored Daishi’s body if she hadn’t reacted in time and ducked.
Frost scared her off to the side, but before attacking again, he jumped to grab Kiwy and pull her down to the ground, where she was able to move again as soon as she made contact. Both of them immediately turned to Daishi and tried to finish her off, but Freak showed up again to stop Frost from killing her teammate by whipping his left blade mid-swing, then pulling him to the side in order to restrain him momentarily. Kiwy continued to attack, but Daishi was almost as fast as her and managed to dodge her claws while retreating to the platform. Kiwy had to stop pursuing her when she found herself separated from Frost, and she tried to make her way back to him in the middle of the hall as he was becoming annoyed by Freak’s cowardly attacks.
He decided to retaliate, and despite Freak pulling his blade hard with her whip, she was forced to let go when he attacked from a distance with his grappling hook, almost hooking her face, which was enough to scare her off once again. However, Frost wasn’t going to let her go this time and began chasing after her through the left side of the hall. Kiwy tried to follow right behind, but she then spotted Daishi trying to sneak up on her alongside Voodoo, who was now very visible due to the bright, purple glow coming from her hands. Knowing she couldn’t fight both of them, Kiwy began running in the opposite direction, heading towards the right side, where Indie was closer, though the latter remained still in the middle, so they were all separated.
Indie still didn’t have a clear target to shoot, but she noticed some movement on the platform, where Reaper continued chuckling while Frost and Kiwy blindly approached. He wasn’t doing anything except watching the others fight, always observant of their every move. There was no need for him to step in since Frost was completely focused on ending Freak, and Kiwy was playing cat and mouse with both Daishi and Voodoo. But the longer he watched, the more eager he became, as if he were waiting for his moment to join the fight, especially when he saw Frost following Freak to the last couple of pillars in the left row, where she began running in circles to distract him.
Frost was infuriated and tried to cut her off by running in the opposite direction, but he was caught off guard by Scarecrow, who showed up in his way once again, looking exactly the same as before he was slashed in half. Frost tried to dismiss him, as Scarecrow wasn’t even attacking or posing any harm without his sickles; he just shoved him out of the way instead of attacking since Freak was taking cover behind her teammate. But after picking up on his strange behavior, the moment Frost shoved Scarecrow out of the way, Freak backed away, almost throwing herself as far as possible, distancing herself from the pillar next to them several feet with a swift jump that he couldn’t follow, mainly because he was distracted by another threat.
A few stomps caught Frost’s attention, but they were so brief that he couldn’t pinpoint the location of where they came from, only that they were growing closer. He listened closely, but as he stood still for a moment, he was caught off guard by another omen, a much more threatening one, so powerful and large that he ran straight through the pillar next to Frost, smashing it to pieces before attacking him. Onyx charged without flinching, immediately wrapping his fat arm armored in stone to pin Frost down while Freak and Scarecrow jumped back in to take advantage of his restrained state.
However, Onyx was only able to lock Frost in place for about half a second before the latter used his blades to cut himself free, using both grappling hooks to escape as well as cutting Onyx’s hands open, which almost sliced his fingers since they were one of the only parts not covered by rock. Frost regained the ability to move freely and put it to use instantly, going back to targeting Freak, who was surprised to see him slip his way out of Onyx’s grasp and certainly wasn’t ready to face Frost at a close distance, so she allowed Scarecrow to take her place to receive the blow instead.
But right as he took a swing at both of them, Frost was stopped once again by Onyx, but he wasn’t intending to keep him in place this time. Instead of restraining him, Onyx just grabbed him with one hand and swung his body away from his teammates, only to then spin him for a good second and fling him across the room, straight into one of the large windows on the right wall. Frost flew to the other side and crashed into the window so hard that not only did it shatter immediately, but the impact wasn’t even able to slow him down one bit as he almost flew off the roof. He was able to react in time and used his blades to prevent sliding off the rather large but uneven blue roof, but he was far away from the fight, and he had to take his time to recover and go back in.
With the large window now shattered, the smoke began pouring out of the room, and as the air began to clear, Indie managed to spot Onyx on the left side. She began shooting at him, but most of her bullets were caught by his armor, so she didn’t do any damage, though she did force him to take cover behind the pillar next to the one he had just smashed. The other omens began hiding as well now that the smoke started to fade away slowly, giving Indie more range to shoot, but Kiwy continued to fight Daishi off, and she was so focused on her attacks that she completely forgot about Voodoo, who had seemingly vanished, giving her a fair fight but bringing trouble somewhere else.
Indie shot at the nearest windows to let the smoke clear out faster, but even with a good view of the sides of the hall, she kept aiming at the middle, waiting for Reaper to show up since he was no longer on the platform. She kept an eye on Kiwy, even providing some cover fire to prevent anyone from reaching the right side and flanking her, but she couldn’t do much with all the pillars blocking her sight. She eventually began approaching the platform carefully since she could hear Spook hiding at the back of the room, though she still carefully checked both sides every time she walked past a pillar, as well as shooting at each set of windows to not only clear some air but warn her enemies.
She headed towards Kiwy, who had almost followed her rival all the way to the back of the hall, next to the pile of burning gifts, where Indie could see that she was going to get cornered, but since the smoke still clouded her vision in that area, she decided to call the cat girl with a whistle. Kiwy reacted by backing off and trying to take cover before running back to Indie. But it seemed like her call also got the attention of the entire enemy squad, who all popped out of the left side and ran across the hall to surround Kiwy. Indie watched them run in front of her, and as much as she fired, it seemed like she couldn’t stop them as they all focused on pinning Kiwy between two pillars on the right side, right next to the one Frost crashed through.
Scarecrow was the only one that ran past Kiwy and climbed a pile of his dead teammates and onto the broken window to get on the roof and confront Frost, but all the other ones were now ganging up on Kiwy, with Onyx protecting them from Indie’s bullets until he reached to grab the cat girl. Indie tried to chase after them while trying her best to shoot at their backs, but they had already retreated and taken cover behind the pillars. Only Onyx remained, but it looked like he had gotten a hold of Kiwy, and before Indie got a chance to help, the only omen that hadn’t shown up yet finally revealed himself out of the shadows.
Reaper sneaked up behind Indie and stopped her with his scythe as he menacingly pushed it against his throat, pulling her body back to his before grabbing her by the waist. She froze still but kept fighting as she put her hand on the scythe’s handle in an attempt to pull it away and not get her neck sliced. Even though she tried to aim her rifle with the other hand to blindly shoot at Reaper, his other hand moved from her waist to her wrist, pulling her arm down to completely restrain her.
–What’s wrong? Why did you take your eyes off me?– Reaper asked with a quiet, devious, and slightly sensuous voice that instantly irritated Indie, who could do nothing but calm herself down and not breathe too much. Despite her predicament, she didn’t fully comply and huffed while looking away as Reaper tried to face her, though he didn’t threaten her to slit her throat open and instead presented a different risk. She forced her to stand still as Onyx grabbed Kiwy and showed her off like a toy to his teammates while they all laughed.
–Come on, now… You won’t want to take your eyes off this…– Reaper added teasingly, with a malicious laugh that made Indie close her eyes in fear, trying not to look at Kiwy as his threats became reality and his teammates started to torture the cat girl right in front of her. It was mainly Freak since she had many small gadgets seemingly made specifically to hurt people, but Daishi joined the fun and began poking Kiwy’s belly and legs with her kunai while Onyx held her in place.
They slowly made their way closer to Reaper and Indie, walking to the middle of the hall to continue their torturous games with the defenseless cat girl and show it off with pride. Kiwy finally broke her silence with some whimpers and groans of discomfort, not to the point of screaming in pain yet, but it looked like she would soon be. Still, Indie couldn’t bear to watch it happen, and despite Reaper holding her in place pretty tightly, she was able to grab his scythe and get a good grip on it while he was distracted by the show in front.
However, she then noticed that more smoke was coming out, and the pile of burning gifts was growing stronger and brighter. Most of the gifts had already burned, but a couple of big boxes were keeping the fire alive, though it was one in particular that caught her attention, one that was sitting at the very back of the platform. Indie could barely see it, but it looked like more smoke was coming directly out of it, despite not burning down like the rest. She had a better look when Onyx stepped aside and turned around to look in the same direction, with Daishi and Freak doing the same. And as Indie turned her head slightly to glance at Reaper, she could barely notice his eyes behind his mask, which were specifically staring at the great flame like everybody else.
Reaper seemed the most eager, barely holding his excitement as his hands shook, accidentally cutting Indie a bit, but that was the least of her worries. He continued to laugh well after Kiwy had stopped being tortured, and with all of the omens watching the gifts burn, Indie appeared to figure out what was going to happen, or what they were waiting to happen, once she looked further into that one gift in particular. It was glowing unnaturally, and unlike the rest of the smoke, this one only grew, even creating noise that was nothing like fire. While it was covered behind the gray, plain wrapping that looked more like metal, Indie seemed to recognize the object, and that’s when she realized that she had to get herself and Kiwy out of there as soon as possible.