NOVEL FROG Chapter 96: The Breach
After unknowingly hearing Spook follow Candy up the stairs, Nitro didn’t get a chance to investigate as the inmates drew his attention with their subtle laughs. They became completely silent shortly after, giving him an unnerving sense of danger that he couldn’t ignore, so he skeptically turned around, trying to be cautious and not get too close to the cell. Luckily, his precautions allowed him to dodge a burst of bullets coming straight at him from the back of the dungeon. He took cover at the corner of the stairs but peeked his head to see that the other corner of the room, the one connecting to the cell, was now exposed as it had the boxes that covered it removed. There was a long, dark tunnel right ahead, but he couldn’t keep his eyes on it for too long as a wave of armed omens ran out of there and immediately came for him.
His first reaction to seeing the omens pop out of the tunnel was to confront them, but after more enemies showed up, all armed with rifles, he was forced to turn back and leave the dungeon while cowering. Ducking to avoid the incoming bullets, he ran up the stairs to the first floor while the criminals in the cell laughed and cheered, though they would also have to protect themselves as the dungeon was quickly overtaken by omen forces. They didn’t chase after Nitro right away, but he wasn’t going to wait for them, so he tried looking around the first floor, only to see dead guards at the entrance of the office on his left and a trail of blood leading to more bodies in the throne room.
But as he stared down the hallway to the opposite end of the castle, he found a familiar face. Tricky had peeked out as well, seeing the massacre at the hall and panicking but being more indecisive about what to do. There were more enemies upstairs, but she was still assessing the situation nearby. Once she turned to Kiwy, she finally noticed the marks on the back of the stage, which she had to double-check with her glasses. It read “Spook was here” in blood, with a crooked smile next to gibberish scribbled around. But as soon as she realized the omens had breached the castle, she began running the only way she could, towards the throne room. However, Kiwy stayed behind willingly, and while Tricky tried to drag her with her, the cat girl ran upstairs to chase after the omens that were running away.
At the same time, Indie had turned around to look at what Frost was so fixated on and soon saw that the guards at the castle gate were gone, or at least their lives were no longer found there as their corpses poked out of some of the garden bushes after being taken out. Without saying a word, the two of them looked at each other, and with a decisive but simple gesture, Frost began running to the castle while Indie headed the opposite way. His eyes were immediately filled with dread and anger, but unlike the anxiety that the others suffered, his turned into frustration, which quickly evolved into deep spite and fury that he was struggling to contain.
He was already prepared to face whatever was waiting inside, even with the worst possible scenario coming to reality, so he didn’t pay attention to all the bloodshed that stained the garden as he ran past it and only focused on finding the culprits. Frost looked for the main suspects, the small group that he saw walking past him and Indie earlier, but when he got inside the castle, he found a mostly empty throne room. His only hints were the dead guards guiding him upstairs, so he ran to the stairs immediately, but on his way, he stumbled upon Nitro as he ran in the opposite direction. They stopped for a second, allowing Tricky to catch up to them from the other side and meet them at the start of the right hallway, where they exchanged confused looks for a short moment before Nitro caught his breath to reveal what they were all fearing.
–They are here! Omens! They are coming from a secret passage in the dungeon!– Nitro shouted in panic, quickly running out of breath again from all of his frantic hand movements, and still ducking and looking over his shoulder in case the omens came after him. Both Frost and Tricky were only more confused, though they didn’t have much time to question him and just had to believe his word, despite the latter carrying her disbelief from the previous room to this one.
–What?? How??– Tricky asked in shock but got no response. Nitro shrugged and took cover behind Frost as he was already on the move, heading upstairs with clear, resolved intentions.
–You two, go! Make sure the city isn’t under attack and gear up, I’ll take care of this…– Frost shouted as he began running to the stairs, but with Nitro and Tricky being left behind, they just watched him with concern as he ran straight into danger.
–But what if…?– Tricky tried to ask, but Frost was already far away, although he did listen to her hesitating and briefly turn around. But before he could get a good look at her, he was startled by the loud screams coming from upstairs. The massacre had begun, so Tricky and Nitro were forced to leave Frost behind.
–I’ll handle it, now go!– Frost shouted again, now growing exasperated as he was taking too long to reach the battle. Tricky and Nitro finally followed his orders since they couldn’t do much and ran out of the castle, but they couldn’t help but look back for a moment, trying to catch a glimpse of what was going on inside before stumbling upon the scene at the garden and making a run for it.
Facing the stairs with genuine terror, his rage took over immediately after hearing the omens down in the dungeon plotting to make a move. He ran upstairs as fast as possible, getting ready for combat in the process as he drew both of his blades from his suit, almost ripping the entire back of his clothes. He only broke a few buttons of his coat, which managed to stay on, so he remained looking stylish, though his appearance didn’t suit the demeanor he adopted as he was more aggressive than ever.
The commotion from the hall only seemed to provoke and fuel his rage even more, to the point that he was going to jump the first person he found. However, he was caught off guard when he reached the hallway connecting to the hall, where some guests managed to run past the rows of omens blocking the way and bumped into Frost. He tried to clear the way, but they were scared off by his weapons and ran back to danger. Confused for a split second, he watched as they ran back to the hall, where he got a glimpse of the increasing body count as well as most of the guards lying dead on the marble floor, either shot in the head or the torso. They were the first ones to get targeted, leaving the vulnerable guests to run helplessly until they passed out or fell into the hands of the enemy.
But the disturbing picture ahead wasn’t able to distract him for long enough, as he noticed the three omens that infiltrated the castle from the front, right at the entrance. They were struggling to keep their weapons as Groovy and Bones were disarming them and fighting back. Without a second thought, Frost jumped into action, ignoring the chaos surrounding him to solely focus on these three omens. Taking advantage of the distraction provided by his teammates, Frost sneaked up on the omens and sliced right through their torsos with two consecutive slashes from each of his blades. But as soon as he took them out, he drew the attention of all the other armed omens nearby, who turned their rifles to him but couldn’t get a clear shot as Groovy and Bones picked up the dead omens’ bodies and used them as human shields.
–Take these people to safety! I’ll distract them!– Frost shouted as he briefly stopped to check on Groovy and Bones, who didn’t hesitate to make the move and picked up a few dropped rifles to shoot at the omens cornering the guests in the hallway to the stairs. They began leading the civilians to safety now that they had cleared a path, but while some people got a chance to run away without being targeted, Frost was now the sole focus of the enemy. When he reached the center of the hall to assess the threats, he noticed that the multiple armed omens surrounding him weren’t the problem; the real one was the main squad in charge of the invasion, who seemingly were waiting for him to show up.
–Hey, look who came to the rescue! Let’s see if he can save everyone here…– Reaper shouted sarcastically, stepping closer to Frost with the rest of his squad, walking past the last rows of pillars to the intersection of the hallways, standing right in front of him while the rest of the armed omens formed a circle around him. They allowed the guests to escape with Groovy and Bones, so even though he was trapped in the center, Frost didn’t seem the slightest bit worried, just a little on edge to see Spook.
–What happened to the rest of the team? Did they all abandon you?... Or did you let them die as well?– Reaper asked with spite, continuing to tease Frost with a cocky demeanor while nonchalantly playing around with his large scythe. His comments provoked his enemy a little, making him just as furious as the last time they encountered him. But despite his hatred concentrating in a furious gaze, Reaper’s taunt prompted Frost to look around for Candy, and once he noticed that she wasn’t part of the corpses around, he adopted a rational attitude and began analyzing his surroundings to find a way out of his predicament.
Without responding, only making a mean face to amuse Spook, Frost subtly looked around the room to count the number of omens surrounding him. They all had their sights locked on him, so one slight movement could lead to him getting filled with bullets in a second. He became a little tense when he noticed all of the rifles pointed at him, especially when they were so close. But as he faced Spook, he seemingly relaxed as they all had melee or short-range weapons, including Reaper with his long scythe.
But the more Frost looked at them, the more details he noticed, specifically in their appearance. Onyx now had to wear a bone mask to cover his mouth after it was blown up by Nitro. Freak was now covering some parts of her body that her skimpy clothes exposed with black paint, and both she and Scarecrow didn’t have their weapons drawn. Seeing as they weren’t going to attack right away, Frost was able to form a plan to take them out on the spot, and it only took him a couple of seconds to come up with it. Regardless of what he did, he had to act since his silence began to frustrate Reaper and his squad, and he was just about to give the omens the order to shoot. But by the time they finally attacked Frost, he was already on the move.
Even when the omens could shoot him instantly, Frost tried to pounce on Reaper without a care, but right as he was going to jump, he heard a distinct scream, one that stood out from all the others coming from behind. He couldn’t even turn to see who it was, although he seemed to recognize it instantly and get an idea of the general direction it came from. The hallway with the guest rooms and bathrooms was still occupied by the omens, who had just started to drag guests into the rooms to take them out. However, they didn’t seem to pay much attention to Frost, leading him to change his plan at the last second.
While the guests ran away from the hall with Groovy and Bones and a couple of guards that managed to survive, they made sure to look back to see if everyone had escaped. There were still people hiding behind tables and pillars, as they were too scared to run past the omens near them and end up like the other civilians lying dead next to them, even when the enemy was distracted. But when they turned around, they noticed that Frost was surrounded by the enemy, and right as they were about to shoot, Groovy and Bones decided to fire a couple of rounds to provide cover fire for him. It came at the perfect moment, as it gave Frost a brief window of half a second to make his move without being shot. It wasn’t very long since most of the omens didn’t even flinch at the gunfire, but it was all he needed to leave.
Using Groovy and Bones’ distraction once again, Frost acted as fast as possible, and instead of jumping, he ran low to the ground, coming straight at Spook with his blades out. It looked like he was heading for a clean hit on Reaper’s hit while dodging the enemy bullets, which couldn’t get near him to not risk hitting their own, though the omens couldn’t even keep up with Frost’s speed, and not even their main squad also couldn’t react fast enough. But as Frost’s attempt to kill Reaper directly prompted the omen captain to raise his scythe to block his blade, the former turned it around on him to follow up his strike with an unexpected move.
Reaper’s instinctive reaction was exactly what Frost was after, and as soon as he saw his weapon raise, he jumped on the scythe and boosted himself, leaping over the main omen squad, whose eyes followed him in awe and frustration until they found themselves turning around and facing Frost again, who was already running to the platform with all the scattered gifts. The omens with rifles could now begin firing again, and so they did, but Frost weaved as much as he could through the long carpet until he reached the platform, taking cover behind the bigger gifts at the back. And while it looked like he couldn’t poke his head out without getting shot, he didn’t hesitate to leave his cover position as soon as he found an opportunity, though it wasn’t in the direction the enemy was expecting.
Spook backed off to let their teammates shoot to their hearts’s content, filling up the back wall of the hall with bullets, destroying tables and anything in the way of their target, and also ripping apart all the gifts with the barrage of bullets, forcing Frost to move. But instead of executing him in front of them, they were all stunned when what looked like a grappling hook shot up from behind the last remaining gifts. A thin string with a small, metallic head at the end ejected from his blades, latching onto the last chandelier at the back of the hall almost instantly. They couldn’t even see that the hook was attached to his weapons, and while it was only for a brief second, the confusion of the moment allowed Frost to jump out of the gifts, and by using the new feature of his blades, he pulled himself up to the chandelier in one swift move.
–What the-...– Reaper exclaimed in shock, trying to get a closer look at what Frost had used to get up on the chandelier. But by the time he started to figure out that his blades could now close the distance on everything, Frost began to cause mayhem in the hall by cutting the chandelier loose and dropping it right in front of the platform. Right as it dropped, he leaped onto the next one in front, then the next one, and one by one, he started cutting the chains of each chandelier, which crashed down on the omens and onto the carpet, even forcing Spook to back away even further.
But since they were the only source of lighting now that all of the tables had been torn apart, his strategy also effectively darkened the room in a short period of time, which only made it easier for him to reach the other side without getting shot. The omens did try shooting, but with all the falling chandeliers that they had to dodge, they only ended up shooting each other, only getting a few glimpses of Frost making his way closer to them when they shot upwards. The other guests had to stay low to avoid the shootout, although most were already on the sides of the halls and were able to join Groovy and Bones at the stairs by sneakily crawling their way out of the chaos.
With all of the chandeliers out, the only light came from both hallways, as well as some of the last sun rays shining through the large windows on one side of the hall, which was enough for Spook to make out Frost’s silhouette. But as he was already on the other side of the hall, launching himself into the hallway with the bathrooms, they could do very little to help their teammates as he began slashing through the wall of omens in his way. And since all of the guests that tried to escape through there were either knocked out, taken to other rooms, or had run to the other side, he was able to clear the hallway up to the very same guest room where Candy and Priscilla were hiding.
He used the screams of agony and severed bodies from the omens he shredded to conceal himself. He was shielded from the incoming fire by the barrier of death he had created, and without checking to see if he was in the clear first, Frost turned to the open door of the room, only to see the only omen alive in that hallway trying to reach for Candy. He couldn’t even see if it was actually her since the omen was blocking his view, but as he recognized the screams, Frost was urged to save his teammate and the princess and didn’t hesitate to take the enemy out.
Instead of jumping at him right away, Frost used his new grappling hook to kill him from a distance. He only had to aim one of his blades at the omen’s torso before shooting, pushing the hook through his chest to then pull him back and finish him with the other blade. And just like that, he had taken out the threat that was tormenting both Candy and Priscilla, but he froze for a second when he saw their faces lit up with hope as soon as he showed up. He was worried for a second, almost in disbelief, but after taking a good look at them, he was able to smile, alleviated by the fact that he had made it in time, and they were only still safe thanks to him.