15 – ONI MASSACRE

September 23, 2017

September twenty-third, just another day. But for Arika it was a very crucial one. Being in the finals of the worldwide championships for Archery, something she looked at almost ritualistically. This could mean that she'd be respected as much as the people with superpowers.

But it was the twenty-third…

Arika couldn't shake the feeling of. Her numerology, which she deeply believed in, said that her 'lucky number' was 22. Something regarding the letters adding up to 22. Arika panicked when she found out the date of the finals, she even wanted to have her name changed to 'Aarika' or 'Arika A', she just needed one more A.

But even if she were to have successfully done that… with having registered and everything… and having a new legal name, it'd have been a massive pain. She was ready for it, but yet… not as successful as her aim.

"Ten," they call the point.

Arika just stares at her opponent calmly setting down his how.

"Bull's eye," the commenter says. "As always, he didn't miss any chance to go for one. So perfect that his opponent is fazed and has missed her cue."

Arika wakes up, and aiming out her arrow: she shoots.

"Ten."

"Even when her eyes seem fazed, Arika is not."

Even when her opponent, Beverly Ward, was a Speedster – Arika was still the naturally best marksman. And one of them was ought to become a hero, if this went on.

But Beverly… he was a tricky one, never made it obvious that he was a Speedster. Just silently fiddling with the direction of the arrow, as it went.

"Ten!" "Ten!" "Ten!" "Ten!"

A draw attention the first set, sure keeps the crowd murmuring. It wasn't quite common… three tens in a row, by both opponents. But both had to receive a set point each, now.

"What a PERFECT start for the under twenty archery tournament. The whole world is watching. THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING!"

It echoed in Arika's head… it was obvious.

"The whole world is not watching!" the big guy grunts.

"Indeed, they do not know," a guy says, and disappears as a roaring beast jumps towards the big guy – Super-Pack, or Mandabo Brown. "And you need to open your eyes too and stop pretending."

Brown finds himself far from where he was – in front of the beast. "What?" he asks, sounding clueless. The other guy, George Traitlon – Point-zero, was fast enough to get Brown out of the tight spot.

Brown's heartbeat hastens with George's words… for he knew deep down that George knew about Super-Pack's secret… of not being the strongest punch, but also just another speedster. But if the world were to find out…

"No," he says.

"Oh come on, it is worth trying," her echo plays back in his mind, as she just smiles to him. Quivering on her smile. And speechless. Silently just stepping back from Brown, as he watches her.

"You said…" he says, and tears roll down from her eyes as she tries to hold her breath – but her body bops back and forth. "Please no."

"Mandabo Brown… guilty," the judge had said. Echoing through his head always, it kept his secret, making a cage for it.

The murder he had committed: wouldn't just be impulse of strength as they ruled it eventually. Because he knew he had felt each of the hundreds of punches he beat into her chest.

"You are stronger. You… are our chance to take him out."

"It is pointless if he kills us here," a lady says while calmly walking up to the team. The oldest member of this lot – Rem… she was too old for this. And powerless.

"We are in a very tight spot. We need more space."

"And eyes," Rem says. "People need to stay wary of this monstrosity. And not concentrate on some… archery tournament."

The monstrosity… runs to them like an earthquake, crushing down everything in his jog – with his massive body and his large spiked club. An Oni on his fours, pounces forward.

Two large horns above his head, and one at his nose – like some rhinoceros. Pointy ears, thick hair from inside his ears, above his head, across his chin, and around his body.

One smack from him could break a tree… a person would be easily crushed – hero or not. She shoots straight to the three.

"Ten!"

"Another set tied up. This would be impossible to evaluate if this goes on. Our only hope would be that either of them gets tired, or that we change the very rules of the game for them."

That was merely a comment. Neither of them would back down.

Beverly gets ready again, picking up his bow, loading and aiming his arrow… getting ready to run. As the arrow shoots out, he chases nudges it once while also coming back, as it goes off direction he nudges it again. And when halfway, he goes towards it again.

Arika takes a few steps back and looks at Beverly on the ground, panting. Her eyes had caught on on something being in between Beverly and his target, but she goes ahead to give him a hand instead. And as she helps him up, she looks where he is.

"Is that-?" the announcer asks.

The man in black clothes, as if he were some vampire. The leader of the superhero organisation 'Pack', Point-zero. Arika knew about him. But she couldn't understand why he'd be here… holding Beverly's arrow.

"Run," his sharp voice fills the silence, while making the speakers shoot out a static.

And he disappears. But quickly reappears alongside his team and…

"What the fuck is that?" the announcer asks.

Something large slips and falls do the ground, making a mess of the floor. Pack moves away immediately.

"This is not a drill. This is serious," Point-zero's voice echoes out the mics.

Arika looks to her hand and doesn't find Beverly… he had gone away. She turns back to see the beast… the Oni, looking around with emerald eyes, through its nose. It goes ahead to lift its massive spiked club.

But Arika doesn't move. She stands. She stands still. Watching. The Oni watches her too, taking small steps, but within four of its steps it reaches her.

"My club…" the Oni whispers under its breath.

But as Arika tries to keep her eyes open, she finds herself in the announcer's room – with Point-zero holding her.

"Really not the place to freeze," he tells her.

She screams one cry and pushes herself away from him.

"I only tried to save you," Point-zero says, putting his hands up and disappearing.

She was but a human, is what must've come to Point-zero's head.

"Rem. Now what?"

"Now we wait," Rem says, through her teeth.

Pack was very infamous, to get help from other heroes that easily. But even then… Point-zero's eyes beg Rem for another way. Yet he knew deep down… they could only count on a massacre.

The Oni had gone mad. He tosses his club around, crashing a bus – making it roll down to the ground. The people scream in horror, and before they could even try to come out – he smashes his club onto the bus leading to a blast.

The screaming stops.

The Oni gets tossed back to the ground. But to his dismay… even when there were burn marks on his face, his club is scratch-less.

That is what one gets when trying to understand. It can drive them to madness. When they try to touch the untouched – left for thousands and perhaps a million years. Perhaps something not even belonging to this universe but from places the writer hasn't even written yet. Yet things find their way. And so did he.

He gets up to kick the burning piece of the bus. And only stares into the smoke, trying to find his old self. His human self.

"Mom…" a cry comes.

A little girl hides behind the bushes, looking over at the Oni. But he twitches while hearing her cry. The madness… the rage… he doesn't hold back, his club swings towards the little girl, as she innocently freezes.

Super-pack holds the club from behind the Oni, as the little girl still just stands there. The Oni willingly takes the club backwards – and the girl falls down. Whimpering. Shivering. As blood gushes out her smooth skull, punctured now.

"No," Super-pack says.

The Oni simply throws Super-pack away. Instead of going to him, the Oni rushes while scaring people, as a person falls to the ground – he gently stomps them, covering his foot with their blood. The screaming turns to wheezing, and he just lets the person be.

"STOP!" Super-pack commands while throwing hundred punches in one moment, making the Oni just flinch and look at him.

All this… he had to continue. And maybe… this would work.

"Maybe this would work," Arika hears voice beyond the rumbling closed doors where Point-zero had left her. "Yes."

And as the doors open, she slashes the stick in her hand – towards where the person should be.

"Woah, woah," the kid says, from the floor. "I'm a fan but not a creepy one… I just thought you'd be here and wanted to help."

"Huh," Arika says, after looking at her bow around his shoulder. "That is not the way one wears a bow around them."

"I'm aware… I just… was in a bit of a rush," he says, and puts his hand out. "My name's Taylor. Ernest Taylor."

"Arika. Soon with double a," she says, giving her hand.

"AAAAAAARRRRRRRRR," the Oni screams.

"Agh!" Super-pack says, puncturing a hole into the wall – with some thousand punches. "You just want me to fucking watch as this happens? People are dying!"

"And we cannot save them even if we put our life on the line," Rem calmly says. "That Nameless hero, or SOMEONE has to care. But they are hiding somewhere, as we put our lives out there."

It wasn't their lives that was out there. People died and died. Some just still bleeding and immobile, waiting for death – while they can't even move their hand to grab a knife and end themselves. Even if they had the courage for it.

The three just watch.

Streetlamps thrown through the hearts of someone. Benches sitting in the bodies of some. And the Oni just watched them, satisfied and happy. Tearing each of their limb, listening them sing their screams and not even beg for their life – for they knew it was pointless. Even the police shoot themselves, but before they die they get their bleeding heads smashed in.

As Super-pack watches this with shame, head bent but unable to take his eyes off of them, a piercing sounds makes his head tilt just a little. It even tilts the Oni's head, backwards. As the arrow shoots right into its eye.

"Ten," Rem says under her breath, while pushing herself out of the room.

It was nothing, the Oni simply removed the arrow and runs towards Arika, but another arrow shoots, fiddling through wrong paths and finally a kid screaming, "TEN!" Arika acknowledges Beverly, as Taylor passes her another arrow. The two archers stay their ground as the Oni slowly but surely moves to them. But in the gap after Beverly's arrow, right before Arika could even load her's.

"Eight!" someone screams, as a sharp arrow grazes through the beast's cheek.

"Nine!" another screams as their arrow almost reached the eye but gets shoved away by the beast, now standing his ground.

"That was a zero, watch this," someone else says, but the beast runs right into their arrow, without stopping, as the person only watches.

"Yellow card!" a voice from behind the Oni comes. "Is that even a thing in this game?" A lady in a Mint-coloured suit holds the beast by its upper horn. As she struggles, Super-pack goes ahead to hold the Oni by its other horn, keeping it bent backwards.

"Even I wonder," Super-pack says, and the lady just nods.

The Oni swings the club in his hand while losing his balance, and before it could hit anyone, two arms push against the club.

"No," the Oni says, in an almost human voice.

She falls, to the weight of the club, but her bleeding hands don't leave the surface of it – but she groans to push it while failing to do so. Orange sparks light up the club, emerging from her hands. Cracking out like thunder and indenting into the club.

"Run," 'Mint' says to Super-pack, and as if Point-zero had heard them – the two disappear from there.

As they look from a safe distance… only smoke engulfs where they were. Leaving them confused. But soon enough, the Oni emerges out of it, flying, and gets tossed to a distance. The three run towards the Oni, only to find him smaller than he was. Less scary. Bleeding. Looking up as if he had finally come to his senses.

"You're mistaken," he says, now looking more like a guy than an Oni. "Looking in the wrong direction," he gasps.

In the smoke, orange sparks form like lightning into the air, but even stars seem to form a design that we look up and admire at. Perhaps it means nothing, and we give it meaning. But to people like Arika, it meant something. A sign. So one should ask her face of horror, of what she saw in this design of a human shape… which horrified her?

But one didn't really have to wait that long to know.

As the smoke clears, a statue of a man floats in the air, as the Oni holds him. Super-eye and the others look at the man besides them, and back at the Oni with orange sparks out of its hands. Covering the statue of a person, as the stone cracks… but blood spurts out in all directions.

"To you… it is a massacre… to be it is a plague. And she took it to herself."

The lady with the orange blasts out of her hands… 'Mint' looks at her with fear. She inspects the sharpness of the object in her hand… the horn that was on the first Oni's nose. And throws it towards Arika.

Super-pack sees it… but he was not meant to be seen as a speedster. He couldn't… he shouldn't… same was the case with Beverly. Can you think of the cases he'd have to face in court for falsely using his powers to win some competition? It didn't matter if he saved her. He wouldn't be in court for not saving her.

And the actual speedster wasn't fast enough to see the problem. He had stood around all day anyways.

But Ernest moves… he moves… fiddles… with the horn. As he stands at his place while moving his arm, while actually running to it and fiddling with it like Beverly does. And it misses Arika, to instead hit the wall behind her.

Afterall… her destiny must be fine. But even the Super-pack would reconsider boasting as someone with strength… if a building were to fall to him. Arika still stands… clutching onto her bow, as it breaks in her arms.

And the heroes move to fight the new Oni, as she breaks people with her touch. Dusting them down into blood.

Blood.

Blood.

Everywhere.

"Hmm. There sure is always more to a story," the guy says, calmly, as if I hadn't just told him of how fucked up the world is. "The heroes… we give them more credit than they deserve. They think they are noble."

"Thank you for understanding, Zhang."

"You can call me Mack. That's okay. By telling me yours and their… secrets. You are close to me now."

"You seem to understand where I'm going with this."

"Well… first I thought that nobody would give a fuck when there is a LEGEND like Secret-eye, a.k.a, Beverly Ward. But if you came for me… with the truth upon that, I'm thinking you want the real marksman, a.k.a, me."

"I have known you to be somebody frustrated with all of this. Being perfect yet… being late. And second to Beverly."

"Hurts."

"So we hurt them back… and form a real hero. One who doesn't have to call themselves one, to be known as one."

And with his nodding, came Blood. A remedy to the twisted heroes. This Pack. (Speed) Pack. The heroes need to be set in place.

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To know more, do check out (Speed) Pack.