Chapter 8

Rillia had to quickly gather a sense of her destroyed surroundings. As she looked up at she found the entire tower was collapsing in on itself but in multiple ways. The right wall of the tower fungus was falling right while the left wall fell to the left, the building so broken by Garret’s slamming of his brother its structural integrity was well beyond utter disrepair. Above them was no longer the white ceiling but the clear blue sky, debris above them falling downward toward them.

She looked to see that Vesha and Melsil were near her, falling at essentially the same pace and roughly the same location in the air as she was. Jason, his brothers and the other two Duchil family members on the fifteenth floor were nowhere to be seen. Their screams shrieked through the air, forcing the ant to react instantly after understanding her bearings. At first, Rillia was too scared to do anything, paralyzed with an expressionless, blank stare before remembering her promise. What she swore to Distir on that day was so integral to her that it was what her mind defaulted to in the face of death.

Dying here… She thought. I’ll prove Distir right in that it was foolish and dangerous to go to the Primeval World...and that promise will go unfulfilled.

She didn’t even really begin thinking. Rillia instinctively secreted venom from all six of her limbs to channel the flowing green liquid around them. After channeling as much green fluid from her body as possible, she created a spherical shaped river of the substance to encapsulate the three of them inside with some of it. After hardening the portion of the venom used to create the sphere around them, the portion of the liquid venom that was not used to create the sphere was pushed downward at a horizontal, sloped angle.

This blast of venom that reached the ground before most of the debris above them did acted as a jet that blasted them out of the trajectory of the falling debris. Rillia, Melsil and Vesha bounced around in the ball of blackish-red dried venom as they flew through the air, trapped within. Rillia could feel them blast skyward, at an angle of course, before quickly falling down to the earth below. The ant hoped with all her might they would survive the fall as they did.

They did but it was a rather hard landing. Melsil fell on top of Vesha, an audible crack being heard beneath them as the bottom of the ball of dried venom shattered like the tower around them. Rillia, who was connected to the sphere of venom around them due to the channels of venom extending from her body chaining her to its interior, stayed in midair as they landed. She looked down to see Melsil groaning moreso in surprise while Vesha shrieked in pain. One could here debris of the tower falling on top of the sphere the ant had constructed but what debris they did not manage to avoid was light enough to bounce off without affecting them.

Rillia, exhausted from her display of the Venom Drench martial art, used the last of her strength to break the venom channels chaining her in the air. She fell down, hurting the stinger at the end of her back as she fell onto a piece of the broken solidified venom. She struggled in pain and discomfort, barely able to move as she had used too much strength to protect them as well as literally all her venom. It wasn’t her that got herself out but Melsil.

The mushroom swordsman grabbed both Rillia and Vesha, doing his best to drag them out from the sphere of dried venom. The bottom half of the sphere was broken up enough that there were spaces where one could crawl out from underneath. While Melsil was able to bring the ant out with little trouble, the crawfish was too big for him to lug out on his own. Vesha had to help the mushroom swordsman, scooting herself out from underneath with her six legs.

Upon them getting out from underneath it, Rillia looked down to see Vesha had managed to turn herself over to attempt to stand up on her legs. While she was definitely alive, she was bleeding through her robe. Rillia staggered up to her to feel beneath her robe as the crawfish raised herself up on her six legs to feel a thin crack in her body. The crawfish tried to walk forward but just couldn’t seem to be able to, falling down soon afterward.

“Vesha…!” Rillia said. “You’re...you’re injured!”

“Nothing I haven’t dealt with before,” the crawfish said. “I’m a fast healer...I, ouch...can eat some red algae and be over this in a day or two. It’s...ow...rather common in the Blue River and has...uh...restorative properties.”

“I’ll go gather some as soon as we find Jason!” she said. “Where...where is?!”

“I don’t know,” Melsil said as he stood rather uninjured. “But look at the wounded around us.”

The ant took in the aftereffects of Garret breaking the Tower Fungus to find that he was right to draw attention to it. Both the structure of the tower lay in white pieces everywhere around them, the mushrooms and other fungus torn to pieces from the destruction. Everywhere around them were dead or near dead fungus people. Barely any were still alive, the few trying to move with half their bodies broken but most of them were nowhere near able to move properly. Groans of pain and confusion could be heard around them, the sound of which was more painful than Rillia’s own wounds. Melsil alone stood tall.

“I know this may sound sarcastic of me but…” he said as he turned to Vesha. “You broke my fall. So thanks.”

“No problem,” the crawfish said. “Better...uh, better me than you. Our defenses are pretty high. We...we can take a lot. But none of us would be alive had it not been for Rillia.”

“Yeah,” the ant said as she managed to stand up without much shaking. “But...too bad that drained me of all my venom. The venom is naturally produced by our bodies and if we use too much of it...we have to wait to restore it. Mostly by eating.”

“Well…” Melsil said. “I need to go find my brother.”

“But why?!” Vesha shrieked, lurching after him. “You...you...don’t you need to help...those still alive?!”

“And how do you even know you can beat him?” Rillia asked. “He must be just as good as you are, isn’t he?”

“There’s nothing you can do for them,” he said. “You see the overwhelming majority of the fungus people here are dead? Fungus peoples’ bodies are weak and we can’t survive much. And those remaining...there’s little hope for them.”

“You’re going after your brother at the expense of the survivors?!” Rillia asked.

“I will never get another opportunity like this,” Melsil said. “If I can kill or capture both my brother and father the Red Fungus are finished. The mob has only ever bowed down to one bloodline and whatever remains of the organization will be nothing without Juchil. I can end this here and now.”

“Then what about the crawfish soldiers invading the other Red Fungus hideouts?” Vesha asked. “It wasn’t just for kicks, was it?”

“My reason for coming here was multifaceted,” he said. “Believe it or not, this place is actually not as heavily guarded as the other Red Fungus concentrations. It’s seclusion and hidden nature means it doesn’t have to be. With a light force I knew I could storm this place and take down my brother on my own before taking in my father. The reason a large force of soldiers had to invade the other headquarters was that there was a far greater gathering of swordsmen there. I wanted to come with few or no companions because I knew I had to be the one to end the Red Fungus’s bloodline.”

“You sure they’re not dead?” Vesha asked.

“A master swordsman like my brother would find a way to stay alive after this,” Melsil stated. “If an ant could, so could he.”

“Seems a little selfish,” Rillia stated. “Why do you have to be the person to kill the Duchil heads?”

“Because the sins of my ancestors remain with me even though I never committed those atrocities,” Melsil stated. “I must atone for the bloodshed of others or I am as guilty as they are. Stay here and stay safe.”

And he ran off to leave them behind.

Jason stood up from the blow he received, not as hurt as he thought he would be. He was glad to know that his mushroom hat was still on top of his head. While he was bleeding from the back of his head, the wound was not that severe and Jason had sensed he had experienced greater wounds in the past. What really made him hesitate was his brother looking down at him with dissatisfaction and disappointment. Jason had felt like he had seen that same look before rarely but when he saw it, it always meant bad news.

What’s more was that the hit his brother gave him was oddly familiar. As he stood up, this time on the wet ground rather than the floor of the tower, he vaguely remembered Garret doing this to him when they were children. The two of them fought hard, if his instincts served right, and his brother would grab Jason by the face and slam him down into the ground. Even boys this was pretty rough but they didn’t mind it as they could weirdly handle the pressure of such strong blows.

We were never normal human beings. He thought. Always strong enough to be thrown through brick walls without much injury.

Being thrown to the floor that way was now not only reminding Jason of their play fighting but something deeper. And far darker. They were from a different world. A world of chaos and violence. This world that Jason couldn’t name but certainly felt in his gut was where only the strong survived and the deaths of innocents was a daily occurance. And he was a part of that evil. He could not remember specific details but he felt like he had done wrong things before, possibly killing people who didn’t need to die.

Am...or was I a murderer? He thought.

He thought back hard, trying to remember if he had ever killed anyone who was innocent. At first it was difficult but then he remembered when Garret grabbed him by the face and slammed him into the floor. That blow his brother gave him caused a chain of memories that led him to remember a time when his hands were stained with blood.

It was just metaphorical either. Jason could vividly remember his hands becoming slick with blood of those slain by his bare hands, so slippery he couldn’t even grasp anything without it sliding from his fingers. And not only was there blood but there were bodies. Lots and lots of bodies. Jason could remember destroyed buildings and ruined cities around him. And he smiled at that.

No. He thought. No. I’m...I’m a good guy. I’m a good guy! I don’t do bad stuff! I only destroy evil! I only protect people from destruction, not cause it! Speaking of which…

He began looking around at the carnage his brother had caused. That guilt and intimidation Garret instilled in him with his downward expression vanished once he took in his surroundings. The pieces of the tower were strewn about all over the ground and not a single fungus person in his gaze was alive. The corpses turned his gaze red with anger, Jason’s hands balling into fists as he stared down his brother.

“Why?!” he yelled. “Why did you do this?! Why...why did you kill this many people?! They weren’t attacking you and posed no threat! You...you’re just an animal! A monster!”

His brother shook his head.

“No,” he said. “They are.”

“What did you say?!” Jason yelled.

“They are nothing but animals,” Garret said. “Creatures lower than ourselves. The ant, the crawfish, even the fungus are nothing but beasts for our use.”

“Animals?!” he yelled. “They have feelings and desires just like anyone else does! I don’t know who you are exactly but I would never call someone my brother who thinks of people like that! Because that’s what they are! People!”

Garret stomped his foot down with enough force creating a small shockwave that made Jason stagger.

“Have these people affected your mind so much that it’s turned to mush!” Garret said. “Do you even know who you are?! Or do you have such little of a brain left you don’t know up from down?! These people are the creatures our ancestors fled from. Their world is small and their might is puny compared to ours. We alone rule this world. We alone have conquered it. What...what caused you to think of these people as equals to us?! Don’t tell me...they became your friends?”

Jason leered at him before stomping back at him, the wave of force sent throughout the ground doing little against him as he stood up tall without stumbling even a little.

“Yeah!” he said. “They’re my friends! And I’m proud to call them that!”

Garret began laughing.

“Friends?!” he shouted. “Friends with a bunch of worms?”

“You’re right!” Jason called out. “I’m friends with them even if they were worms! Rillia...she’s amazing. I know I can’t remember anyone from my past but I doubt there was anyone like her. She wants to go to the Primeval World but not to gain anything from it. It’s only because she has this insatiable desire for adventure and excitement. She’s someone who never lost her sense of wanderlust and wants to see everything in this world, just to see how amazing it all is.”

He paused, trying to put into words his gratitude for them being friends.

“I want to go everywhere with Rillia,” he said. “And it’s because she doesn’t want anything out of the world beyond Wassergras. She’s not looking for wealth or power but merely something that will rejuvenate her soul. She has the heart of an explorer and that can’t be anything but rare. And Vesha...she will do anything to help her people. She’d sacrifice anything if it helped other crawfish.”

“So would anyone of her species,” Garret said. “They do that to survive...selfish animals.”

“How is that any different from you?!” Jason yelled. “As if you’re any different claiming our species is superior and it’s okay for us to be selfish!”

“Hmm,” his brother shrugged. “False equivalency. Them looking after their own species is detrimental and dangerous. However, our species is in a unique position in the world.”

“But Vesha actually realized what you just said,” he replied. “When I came back from hunting she told me about how the sword that Melsil had revealed that she was being selfish by only looking after her own kind. And now...Vesha’s a changed person.”

“Oh please,” Garret said as he rolled his eyes.

“And Melsil is the most selfless person I know!” Jason said. “He wants nothing more to rid the world of evil and he’ll stop at nothing to fulfill that goal! Melsil will sacrifice everything to punish those who oppress others and try and get others to see the err of their ways!”

“Seems like an extremist,” his brother said.

“He is!” he replied. “He’s extremely good! And noble too! Melsil hates the prejudice and cycle of violence this world is cursed by to such an extent he’s waging a one man war against it! These guys are amazing and I’m beyond grateful to have met them. And now...here you are telling me I’m foolish for hopping on board with them and fighting alongside them while you ally with the Red Fungus. In fact, you care so little for anyone else that you don’t mind that you murdered nearly everyone here. Do you not even care for your comrades?!”

Garret sneered at him, his twisted smile making Jason want to pulverize him.

“They’re about as much comrades to me as my shoes are,” he said. “Nothing more than a convenience for my own ends. And the Red Fungus thought of me the same way. You don’t seem to get it...do you? No one here is our friends. We’re different species. Do you not remember what it’s like when a human makes friends with a lower life form?”

“Hu-human-?” Jason asked.

“We call them pets,” Garret said. “Things that we keep around to amuse ourselves with and entertain. You calling these little vermin friends is like calling dogs your equal.”

“Pets?” he asked. “So...humans...if I am one...are we all like you are? We treat others not totally like us as if they’re stones to be walked on...as tools for our own ends?”

“That’s what makes us humans strong,” Garret said. “And the dominant species. We’ve built massive structures and technology that can fly beyond the sky itself, all because of the intelligence we gained from eating the Black Poison trees’ thorns. If we had never done that we would have been like the other life forms here...puny, weak and vulnerable, nothing more than worms to be stepped on. But after that we left them in the dust...the crawfish, ants and whatever else squirming in the mud while we rose beyond the clouds themselves. So, tell me Jason. Are you going to continue playing this game of coyness or get real and come back with me? Are you going to help with our father’s plans or play with the critters here?”

The young man was so angry with his brother that he couldn’t even speak. It hurt him to know they were related. The vague memories of blood stains, corpses and ruined buildings with the knowledge that he and his brother had wreaked havoc on their original world was making Jason sick to his stomach. He wanted his brother gone, erased from existence. And Jason wanted to be the one to do it.

Without even thinking he leaned down to grab a piece of the tower’s walls that had shattered beside him in each hand, the objects almost as tall as Jason was. He threw one at Garret, the older man surprised by the gesture. He quickly jumped out of the way before Jason flung the second piece at him. Garret was caught off guard by the second thrown shard after having barely avoided the first one, his chest taking the full brunt of the force.

As his brother fell, Jason lunged at him with all the force his legs could carry him with. While Garret was lying down on the ground while blood soaked through his shirt and moved the piece of the tower off of him, Jason threw himself onto his brother and started pummeling him with all the force his fists could muster. His arms were basically cannons, repeatedly pounding his brother’s face, throat and area between his shoulders with punches strong enough to whip wind up around them. The crackle of the bones in his brother’s face was very satisfying to both hear and feel, blood gushing from Garret’s nose after a loud breaking could be heard piercing the air.

Just as he was fairly confident he had broken his brother’s nose and part of his cheekbones, Garret punched Jason squarely in the chest while the younger was on top of him. He coughed up spit on his brother’s face, the blow impressive enough to stun him. His brother took advantage of Jason’s momentary immobility to pick him up by the shoulders and slam his head into the younger human’s. Jason felt his world blur from the attack as Garret tossed him into the air. While in midair, the younger brother began to regain his senses from the headbutt the older had given him.

That regathering of his senses was cut short as Jason face-planted into the ground below, his world becoming pine straw and dirt invading his eyesight and mouth. As he picked himself up off the ground, feeling a little pain from where Garret had squeezed his shoulders along with the entirety of his face, he felt something grab his leg. Jason whirled around to find Garret had gripped his hands around his right legs in what felt like an iron vice before picking him up off the ground by his limb to throw him down. As the younger of the two of them was about to be sailed through the air again, he had a sudden remembrance of the move his brother was about to perform.

He’s about to slam me into the ground by my leg. He thought. Just like when we were kids. But sometimes...I could counter by hitting…

Just as Garret picked him up to throw him into the ground and Jason was quickly becoming reacquainted with soil, he punched downward with all the force he could muster. This gesture caused him to not only stop being thrown by his brother by his arm holding him up in the air, sending shockwaves through the dirt, but it gave pause to Garret. With his brother stunned at the move he just pulled, Justin used his other hand to plant his open palm into the ground to give him leverage to press down hard again with both hands. As he did, Jason rotated his waist with as much force as possible, causing his right leg to turn in Garret’s hand so that instead of his right heel pointing toward his brother, his toes were instead. He was now held in midair by his brother’s weakened grasp.

With his body now facing Garret, Jason used the muscles in his waist to lunge forward at his brother and punched him squarely in the jaw with one punch before sending him hurtling backward with another to the chest where Garret had already been bleeding from. In surprise and sudden pain his brother let go of his younger sibling, stumbling back as Jason fell to the ground on his back before picking himself up. Garret turned back to his brother, bleeding heavily from his face as most of the flesh in that area was either torn open or bruised. Now with his jaw bleeding the older man was shivering in pain, something about the attack feeling familiarly satisfying.

The jaw is a place that, when striking one of my kind, seems to leave us somewhat immobilized. He thought. I need to keep hitting it if I want to win.

He raced forward, hoping that Garret wouldn’t be so quick to retaliate. Unfortunately, he found that his brother was not as shocked from the punch to his jaw as he’d hoped. When Jason tried to punch him in the jaw again, Garret caught his fist, the force of the punch obviously hurting as it caused him to wince in pain. Before Jason could retaliate with another punch, his brother reached up with his leg and kicked him in the left cheek. The blow made Jason hit the ground rolling, collecting more dirt in his mouth as he did.

Garret lunged towards him as he stomped down as Jason stopped rolling and planted his foot above his abdomen. The younger brother yelled in pain as he felt something break in his body. After removing his foot from his younger sibling Jason tried to get up but slowed by the pain in his body, Garret quickly stomped down on his left forearm, causing Jason to shriek in agony. He felt something broken that time as well. His brother then reached down and picked his brother up by the shoulders, squeezing the already bruised portion of his flesh.

“You…” Garret said, struggling to speak from the bruise Jason gave him in his jaw. “You’re not playing games with me...are you? Hack-!”

His brother spat blood onto his brother’s facing, coughing in pain from the wounds he had received. He groaned in agony as he turned his face back up to his brother. Garret growled in anger.

“You…” he said. “You really...don’t...remember do...ah-!”

He coughed up more blood, this time on Jason’s green shirt.

“Do you?” Garret asked.

Jason glared at him.

“This…” he said. “It must be...the White Magnolia...only, ngh...only way...this could happen…”

“I…” he said. “I’d never...want to go with you ever again. I-I don’t care...ugh...how good of friends we...we, ngh...were in the past. Evil is evil...and I won’t tolerate it.”

“So would you rather die instead?” he asked. “Because the way I see it...I won’t be killing my brother. I’ll be killing his replacement in that case.”

Jason laughed.

“What-” Garret asked. “What’s so funny?”

“If I died here…” he said. “I’d never reached the Primeval World with...uh...with Rillia...she’d never be the same if I died...and...and be swallowed in sorrow if that happened.”

“You care for the ant so badly…?” he said. “You’re willing to sacrifice yourself to achieve her immature goal?”

With what little strength Jason had left, he swung his left leg directly into Garret’s chest. His foot hit the wound that the thrown shard of the tower had given him. He screamed so loudly that it hurt Jason’s ears. When his brother let him go, Jason did his best to land on his feet but the impact of such a landing caused him to stagger. While Garret was holding his stomach in pain, his hands being painted in blood from the resulting reopening of his wound, Jason ran at him with what force his body had left.

“So I can’t die just yet…” he said.

Just as his brother raised his fists to defend himself, Jason backhanded him with the arm of his not broken. Garret's head swerved to the right from the blow before Jason punched at him, aiming for his chest. Garret caught the punch again, the resulting grasp of such an intense hit causing not only his arm but his entire body to shake. Garret attempted to punch back at Jason, aiming for his younger brother’s head, but the punch was slowed by his lack of strength so the boy simply leaned his head out of the way.

After dodging the attack, Jason ripped his fist from Garret’s weakened grasp and held it back. After pulling his arm beneath him as Garret turned back to face Jason, he swung from beneath. The resulting uppercut lifted his brother off his feet, sending him flying a little ways as blood and teeth were flung from his mouth. Garret fell to the ground on his face, blood pooling around him. He tried picking himself up only for Jason to swing his foot into his brother’s chest and flung him a fair way.

His brother was thrown so far that he actually hit the stem of a mushroom in the forest surrounding them. Jason carefully jogged toward him, wishing to continue the fight, but immediately stumbled from the pain in his legs. He looked down to see that he had bloodied his own foot with such a kick like that. His legs were not much better, so thoroughly exhausted that taking any number of steps felt like his bare feet were being stabbed with needles.

Jason looked on at his brother to find the bloodied, pulverized human turning back at him, a sorrowful expression on his face with several teeth missing and even more open wounds. Normally, the young man would be glad at the sight of downing such a bad person but he definitely recognized that face. It was one of utter disappointment. Jason felt no pride as a result, only mutual sadness as his brother, too weak to stand up, crawled into the mushroom forest, leaving a trail of blood in his wake. Jason wanted to go after him but as he took another step forward his leg gave out and he fell to the ground. He shrieked in pain as the fall only increased the agony he felt and only made the broken bones in his chest worse.

“I…” he said. “I’m...sorry...I just wish we...we could have been...friends…”

It did not take Melsil long to find his brother. Kuseen was in the middle of the ruined tower and bodies of fellow fungus people but not standing on his two feet. To find his brother, the mushroom swordsman had to look up.

As he turned upward he saw the black venom sword impaling the ground to form a long pole that reached far into the air. The blade had been extended to such an extent that it was getting hard to see the Red Fungus member from such a low angle. Atop the extended blade was a circular platform where the round handguard of the sword had been extended for his father to sit comfortably. Atop the tip of the sword hilt stood his brother, glaring down at him.

“I see you survived the fall,” Kuseen said. “Of course...you didn’t use your sword to do so? Tell me...is the White Spore defective?”

“Oh no,” Melsil said. “Not at all. I would have used it to save myself but...my friend already did. Rillia, the ant who came along with me, exhausted herself to save us.”

“How fitting,” he replied. “That a traitor like you wouldn’t be satisfied with just trying to wipe out our father’s hard work but would sell themselves to the ants of all species. You know, complain about the tyranny of the Red Fungus all you want, they’re the reason we don’t have an army to defend ourselves with. Imagine for a moment, without the Red Fungus, we would be easily steamrolled by whatever race wanted to crush us underfoot. And you still attempt to oppose us?”

“Yes,” he answered. “Because for all the trouble the ants have caused us, we are still the biggest threat to peace and safety in all of Wassergras. Our ancestors have been responsible for the deaths of almost three million and you wish to continue that bloodshed further. How on earth can you call yourself a good person and continue the ways of utter depravity and wickedness?”

“I don’t consider myself confined by such immature and childish moral divisions like you do,” Kuseen answered. “You were always so soft, Melsil, even when you were loyal to us. It disgusted me, your weakness. You were so fragile that you didn’t care if our people were oppressed and hurt by others...only that your overly sensitive conscience could be appeased.”

“I grow tired of hearing you two muttering,” Juchil said. “Now that that buffoon of a human we allied ourselves with has destroyed my ancestral home we are in dire danger. Get on with your scuffle!”

“Do you remember, brother?!” Kuseen continued. “How immature and naive you were?! Remember how you wished to survive and fight a war without stepping on anyone's toes?!”

Melsil gripped the hilt of his sword, preparing to draw it.

“Oh yes,” he said. “I remember...I remember well…”