System Hunt: Regalia

Fire was the worst way a man could go, that fact was just about universally known and Sam was quite conscious of it as he gripped his weapon and haplessly watched the last of the DSF agents disappear, giving him a cheeky salute as they did.

He swerved back and pleaded with Alex paces behind him, “I-I don’t have any armour, I could get hurt, burnt!”

Alex gave a sharp shrug. “This is a war, Sam! You’re going to get hurt! Think only of your enemy and what humanity you have to fight for!”

Of course she’d say something like that, Sam thought bitterly. The Doom Tower cast its long shadow over him as more creatures crawled into view, filling the gaps the DSF agents had cleared.

By his count there were about thirty of them scattered all around the space, Alpha Ring as Alex had called it. He hadn’t seen a single one retreat or even exit the Doom Tower though, not that he could see much of the object from his temporarily safe distance.

Still, their origin was a wonder and Sam dreaded to discover it in the next moments but he knew he would or else…fire. Again, he reaffirmed his grip on the weapon meant to protect him as the little fire beings waddled their way towards him, one at a time, the two, then three and then the whole group had his time and attention.

He shivered despite the sweltering heat. The Belua were strange creatures, knee-high bundles of flame that cackled like a bonfire. Beneath the crackling embers, their skeletal forms flickered in the blaze. They’d be a beautiful sight from afar with all the colours but that wasn’t what Sam saw gaining its way towards him.

Rather than let them steal even more ground he took the initiative and bit the metaphorical bullet by releasing a true one. The gun nearly recoiled out of his flimsy grasp as it thundered the first Holy Bullet into the would-be skull of the fire sprites. The flames warped around the flung body of the Belua and Sam watched with some relief as the single bullet dissolved the creature into smoke and ash.

He sighed, panting a laugh as his hands trembled in cold sweat. But there was no time to bask in the might of the weapon in his hands, the Belua lurched at him as one, a flood of knee-high flame-borne creatures headed straight for him with the single purpose to see him crisp and charred.

Sam startled at the sudden vigour but was quicker with longer legs. He ran, sprinting away to the safety of…anywhere that didn’t have bright burning murder focussed Belua. With the gun in hand he fired off some more bullets, this time ensuring his grip was right and strong as the Holy Bullets extinguished Belua into smoke and ash one after the other.

In response the Belua did something he never glimpsed them do against the DSF agents that hounded them; fight back. What was thirty knee-high fire sprites suddenly began to merge., fusing with explosive force into three, four, five human-sized walking bonfires with a frightening imagery of a flaming skull where a torso normally would be.

The five Belua matched Sam’s sprinting speed within seconds of their formation, forming their limbs into flame throwers or outright scorchers burning hot enough to melt stray pebbles to nothing.

Holy Bullets fired frantically as Sam’s heart thundered in his chest, there was a voice coming from somewhere, yelling at him to do something but he could barely hear it over the raging sounds of fire falling down around him.

He leaped away in time to avoid a cauterizing slash from one fused Belua only to fall prey to the little ones who still ran amok. They caught onto his clothes, clung to his shirt and burnt it away in moments.

“Ahh! Let go! Let me go!” He screamed, the reality of death by fire becoming realer with every passing second. He shot over his shoulder and sent one of them to ash, but another had burnt away the back of his shirt and was now working on boiling his skin, “Arraghh! Fuck no! No!”

Desperate, Sam threw himself onto his back and wailed as the Belua exploded under his weight. Three fused fire sprites surrounded him in that instance, leaped into the air with their arms poised to strike and one even soaring on a torrent of flame with its skulled torso channelling a giant fireball.

For a moment everything slowed to a crawl as Sam’s agonizing thoughts brought him back to the moment he should have left this mess, the moment he should have turned around, minded his business and saved his now burnt hide.

But he wasn’t sure which moment that was. Was it when he first saw the Jaguar trashing those soldiers? Or before that when he noticed the delivery address would lead him into the quarantined zone? Perhaps it was after it all, when he woke up and was set free, when he wasted precious moments listening to the greater than man bullshit the General Sir kept spouting.

Why was he here? He didn’t want to be; he didn’t have to be here either did he? The Regalia called to him, yes but it called to others didn’t it? Why did he have to be the one to fight now and why would he fight in the first place?

What humanity I have to fight for… The thought rang as the searing heat of the Belua’s lances closed in on him. Sure, he had family. Not that they cared much for him or that he cared much for them but was the mere fact they were family worth this trauma? Was anything?

All the ‘humanity’ he had left was a cat his ex-girlfriend let him keep, a job he often struggled to meet ends with and an apartment that was no better than it was five years ago when he first moved in. I have nothing worth fighting for…but even less worth dying for.

Two of the three Belua exploded and turned to ash. Time soared and his instincts roared him to dodge the flame lance moving to decapitate him. He shot a Holy Bullet into the overextended Belua and watched it dissolve to nothing, leaving behind a warped, colourful Nucleus.

“What do you think you’re doing out there, Sam! You’re a Regalia Wielder! You are the world’s true chance at survival, you can’t die to Lambda level threats, get up and fight for a stronger future!” Alex bellowed out at him, he could hear her anger and disappointment in each roar. She fired another shot, taking out a little fire sprite behind Sam and screamed at him, “I said, get up and fight!”

With one hand she picked up a crate of beer and flung it all the way over to him. The bottles shattered on impact and Sam’s senses flared with a myriad of possibilities as he gingerly picked himself up. With a wave of his hand he guarded himself in a revolving orbit of glass shards, all Belua, including the last two fused became visibly wary, going as far as leaping away from his vicinity.

He stifled a moan of agony as his burnt back recoiled at the fresh air. Sam cursed and flexed his control over the glass shards spinning defensively around him; Alex was right after all, whatever the case of his miserable life, he had been chosen for this. To be amongst the few destined for a future that would clearly be greater than anything in his past.

Sam jutted his head at a stray fire sprite fleeing to the greater fused ones and a shard bolted from orbit, piercing through the Belua with as much force as a Holy Bullet, extinguishing the creature to ash and an exposed Nucleus as soon it made contact. Sam grunted a sweaty smile and glared at the fused two watching him with caution in their every step.

Perhaps it was the pain or the ease his Regalia powers granted him in dispatching the Belua but Sam was questioning everything he’d done up until this point. It was all useless. He was useless.

That was why his life ended up the way it did, why she left and pitied him with Nyx, why his family didn’t give a damn. Why no one thought more of him than he thought of himself.

I’ve been…pathetic. He let loose another glass shard, this time at the fused Belua. The stubborn thing anticipated his strike and put up a wall of fire as sacrifice, boiling his shard to liquid before it could tear into the Belua. He wasted no time and fired a Holy Bullet into the Belua’s shoulder as the wall of fire dissipated, it tanked the shot well, only its arm disintegrated to ash and that was quickly replaced as the larger fire sprite leaped onto a smaller, absorbing it to reform the lost limb.

He grinned through the slowly dulled agony of his burnt back and stood up straight from his hunch, unexpectedly enjoying the challenge. After all, this was it, this was where he was needed, where he was...special, powerful…in control of his life for the first time as he was quite literally fighting for it.

No more day to day. No more boring work routines, no more lusting after a life I can never have…because, I will have it! Keeping the second fused Belua in his sights Sam raised a hand and his orbiting shards rose to form one long, albeit fractured spear of glass.

Alex had asked what he wanted to make out of life with the DSF’s help, told him to focus on what he could control and at the time, thinking about the possibilities felt as hollow as any day he deign to watch reality TV and wishfully think of how he’d live life in place of those celebrities. But now, with his very life on the line it made too much sense to fight for a chance at such pleasures, adventure and glory!

It was hollow because he was thinking it would be as frivolous as is on TV but there was nothing virtual about this reality in front of him. He clung and begged to go back home but right now he was grateful to Alex for throwing him to the proverbial wolves, they were tame in comparison to the background misery he called a life. Living every day the same as the last. Penny pinching, fantasizing, idle layabout with the same pathetic and lonely meals.

With the power at his fingertips, surely that pathetic Sam would turn to ash as well. He flexed his wrist, “Be gone, me.”

The assembly of glass shards shot from over his head like a thunderbolt, moving too fast for the conjured wall of flame to do any harm or for the damned Belua to escape to safety. He sensed his glass break through the creature’s inferno chest, felt the heat through them but it lasted only seconds more before ash rained and a Nucleus remained.

Sam glanced at the remaining fused Belua, wondering what it would do and if it even had the mind to realize it was going to be extinguished one way or another. Behind it, Sam noticed space warp against itself, igniting in a spark of flames to birth another Belua, a small spirit sprite.

He snorted, “They are born from thin air?” He shrugged the thought aside, not minding or caring for the otherwise reality bending sight he’d witnessed and raised his gun, “Back to whence you came I guess.”