The sound of Pop’s scream could’ve been heard across the whole floor, the opened doors to Isaac’s office letting the noise filter out into the rest of the tower. She had left them open on purpose, no one else would’ve been able to find the hidden room so quickly after all and Pop wanted to give Scratch a clear indicator for where to go. He was never good with directions, she knew that.

  Her hand hovered over the jutting handle of her sword, resisting the urge to rip it out of her body, hoping the imbedded blade would stop her bleeding even if it was by a small amount. But then again, how did it matter? She wasn’t sure how much time had passed but it definitely wasn’t enough time for Scratch to search the whole floor, and now she was stuck with a man who looked at her with the same endearment that someone falsely attached to an injured bug would have.

  “Oh?” Isaac said lowly, alerting Pop groggily back to her surroundings.

  Isaac was glaring at the open door, more specifically the small child in a red cape stood in its entrance.

  Scratch! She mouthed his name, still winded from the fight.

  “Don’t move” Scratch’s voice was trembling, “You know the drill, pull that out and you die. Don’t speak either okay?”

  “Awww,” Isaac sighed, “You and Poppy are just adorable”

  Pop froze upon hearing her real name spoken out loud with Scratch nearby. Uncertain how he would react, she turned her head away to not look him in the eyes.

  “I’m gonna gut you,” Scratch snarled, tightening his grip around Caliburn “For what you’ve done to Poppy, to the pillars”

  Isaac’s eyes widened, “…. You knew about Poppy? That she came from… Wow!” he clapped lazily, “I really should have given you all some credit, I expected you especially to be more shallow!”

  “Fuck off,” Scratch wanted to say more, but couldn’t think of anything that summarised his anger more than that. Instead he raised Caliburn up to declare a silent threat.

  Isaac furrowed his brow, the act of fighting child after child agitating him, “You know…” a vein pricked up from somewhere on his hand, and his eyes tightened with anger, “I always thought those masks of yours were interesting. In my opinion-“

  He vanished in a blur, seemingly materialising in front of Scratch in an instant. There was no noise but the soft sound of his tailored shoes scuffing the floor as he came to a complete stop. His sword was tensed under his arm.

  “-Its more polite to look your executioner in the eyes.”

  Isaac’s arm shot up, slicing cleanly at the centre of Scratch’s yellow mask demolishing it into small fractured pieces. The cut itself didn’t do much more than lightly graze his forehead, but the feat itself was more than enough to catch him off guard. Isaac flexed his body and whipped his leg into Scratch’s side flinging him across the room. He slammed into the weapon rack, still opened on the wall, and stumbled in place trying not to fall over from the sudden relocation.

  Isaac’s sabre crumbled away, defeated by the pressure of his own swing, turning into a small heap of cogs and screws.

  He scoffed, tossing away any remnants of a handle he still had.

  Scratch’s eyes darted around the room, trying in vain to understand what had just happened. His arm ached from Isaac’s kick, and the small cut on his face stung in the cold air. There was a feeling like vomiting, nothing came up from his stomach, but the feeling persisted there in his dazed confusion. It rose up into his chest, attempting to burst out of his throat before quickly banishing itself back down.

  It took a second for him to realise what this feeling actually was, only truly understanding it when he saw Isaac approaching the wall analysing each blade with curious intensity.

  This was fear, Scratch was afraid.

  “Your sword,” Isaac said, snapping Scratch out of his stupor, “I haven’t seen Caliburn in a while, how’s it holding up?”

  Scratch said nothing,

  “There was a weapon I found, back in the war, that messed with everything. It didn’t follow our laws of physics, it could do things that just- didn’t make sense, you know?”

  Scratch, still, said nothing, looking down at Caliburn with a raised eyebrow.

  “I based engine blades off of it, weapons that could transform over themselves to do anything.” He grabbed a sword, one that appeared to only have one bladed edge to it that curved slightly towards the end and a perfectly flat yet thin back. Its handle was wrapped in black thread, the hilt being a small flat decorative disc and the steel itself was coated in a thick, perfect gold.

  “None,” he continued, “None came close to the original, the way it could meld into things, the way it could change itself depending on what the user wanted. Nothing came close to that weapon I found under the snow.”

  Scratch smirked, finally regaining his composure somewhat, “Yeah, nothing’s came close to Caliburn from what I could tell, you must’ve been brain-dead to leave it in a pill,”

  “Caliburn,” Isaac said slowly, barely looking Scratch in the eye, “Caliburn was the closest I got to recreating it,” He moved his finger along the gold plated edge of his sword, “…The closest I got to recreating Caladbolg.”

  A chill ran up Scratch’s spine, and he felt the sudden overwhelming sensation that he was in danger.

  He kicked himself forward and swung Caliburn at Isaac’s midsection, clashing with Caladbolg’s golden blade as it moved in to block the attack. It clinked with a sweet ringing noise that Scratch wasn’t familiar with, as if the material within the blade was something entirely alien, it was a noise he thought wasn’t possible from such a thin sword. Caliburn whirred under the whims of its master and spun the other two blades on its hilt around to meet the one still touching Caladbolg, slamming into it forcefully enough to send Isaac back a few feet to the centre of the room.

  He barely reacted to the change, standing with one had casually placed in his pocket,

  “Oooh,” he grinned, “That scared you, didn’t it?”

  Scratch, without breaking his eyes away from the ominous smiling man in front of him, carefully wrapped his fingers around a blade on the wall behind him. He jerked his arm forward and launched it towards Isaac, who deflected it to the ground nearby with ease.

  Scratch moved to another spot on the wall, flinging sword after sword in the man’s direction with the occasional blade flying far off the mark, clattering to the ground.

  He continued doing this, moving back and forth along the wall, until eventually he glanced at the ground around Isaac and smiled.

  In a sequence of daring and quick steps through the clutter of swords around the floor, Scratch closed in on Isaac and twirled Caliburn at his legs. He dodged swiftly, attempting to stab at the boys shoulder but ultimately being batted away by his sword spinning in a wide arc. Scratch slid to a stop and grabbed at the blade on his hilt that came from the giants chest he ruptured earlier, releasing it from Caliburn’s grasp and throwing it like a small dagger.

  Again Isaac deflected, but this time in the split seconds between him deflecting the sword away Scratch lunged for the man’s chest.

  Isaac jumped back but Scratch didn’t relent, spinning towards him with Caliburn flailing wildly, cutting through the wind. His feet touched ground then immediately pushed themselves along the floor, stepping just to the side of Scratch and breaking out into a full roll.

  The myriad of swords that littered the ground scraped along Isaac’s back, and he stood back up wincing. There in front of him Scratch stood, with Caliburn held high above his head ready to bring down onto Isaac.

  He raised Caladbolg just in time, using only one arm to support the full weight of the child’s strike who continued to apply pressure downwards as if it would somehow snap the blade in two. It was then however, that Isaac noticed something curious about Scratch’s blade. It had three blades attached to it, somehow it still had three blades.

  How did-

  His thoughts were cut short by scratch grabbing at his hilt once more, detaching yet another blade from its surface and swinging it independently into Isaac’s abdomen. This was stopped unceremoniously, as Isaac grabbed at the small boys wrist before it could get close enough to cut him.

  Upon closer inspection, the blade was different. It was one he hadn’t noticed being on Caliburn’s hilt before and was an entirely different shape from the ones he’d seen Scratch use.

  They struggled back and forth until Isaac impaled Scratch’s chest with his knee, sending him stumbling back. Before he could fall over however, he pointed this new blade at the man’s legs and pulled a small lever releasing a single glob of acidic spray that caught the material on his pants, melting it. It wasn’t enough to seep into the flesh beneath, but it stung plenty causing Isaac to grimace with anger.

  Then, he saw it. Scratch bent down slowly, dropping the acid blade from his hand and gently picking up a sword from the ground, clicking it into Caliburn.

  This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

  “Clever little shit,” Isaac bore his teeth as he spoke, trying to keep his cool fa?ade under control, “Even I didn’t think of using it like that, you would’ve made a good soldier,”

  Scratch had no comment to give back, only a look of intense anger.

  He passed Caliburn to his off hand, spinning it high above his head before slicing at the air in front of him. A small dagger launched from the tip of one of his swords, attached to a glowing hot chain that whistled and screamed in the cold air. Isaac attempted to block but misjudged the angle of Scratches whip-like attack, only managing to bring his weapon into a small stretch of bare, red hot chain. It grew taught instantly, and the blade that he would’vesoared clean past Isaac suddenly swung towards his face, using Caladbolg as a fulcrum piercing straight through his cheek.

  The wound cauterised instantly, the bellowing heat from the small, sharpened steal turned any exposed skin into burned scabs. Isaac pulled back, tracing the giant gash in face and spitting out the warm metallic blood that had initially gathered in his mouth.

  Before he got the chance to react properly Scratch had already closed the distance, swiping at the man's stomach. Isaac hopped back, but suddenly bumped into his desk unwillingly as Scratch moved in to attempt at stabbing his chest once more.

  This time, Caliburn tore ragged through the man’s suit colliding with the vulnerable meat and piercing through the other side. It was off mark of anything particularly deadly, like the heart or lungs, but it would’ve still been more than enough to put someone down, for good.

  Isaac yelled, his face flush with anger. He slammed Caladbolg down into the boys shoulder, cutting into it by some several inches and almost passing by his collar bone completely before Scratch pulled Caliburn out to stop its advance further into his body. The man grabbed the boy by the back of his neck and spun around him, pushing him into the table Isaac was previously pinned against. Scratch attempted to wiggle Caliburn up to inflict any injury he could, but Isaac prevented him from moving any further with a swift punch to the face.

  Scratch’s head bounced back from the impact, spurting blood from his now broken nose, but he quickly snapped back up and kicked Isaac away. All in all, he had inflicted a more serious wound in this exchange.

  The man hobbled in place for a second, tapping the damp wound with his hand and flinching immediately afterwards,

  “Little FUCKER!” he smiled, “that was a good hit…

  he continued to hover around the cut, feeling the burning warmth of torn flesh, “Fuck, that stings!”

  Scratch readjusted his nose as best he could, then looked at Isaac with astonishment.

  He was still smiling.

  Even after being impaled like that. The image of his crazed grin sitting atop the bloodied gold trimmed business suit gave him chills, the fact that this was the man who ran everything in the pillar made a little more sense to Scratch now.

  The suited man’s wobbling stopped and he took a large, steady breath of air. “Caliburn is just an imitation of Caladbolg… you wanna find out why?”

  Isaac spun Caladbolg in his hand until the butt of the handle was sticking out from the top of his hand, and the blade was scraping through the tattered floor. There was a small hook, one that Scratch could see now, nestled casually on its bottom as if it was designed to be hung on a coat rack, only this hook was distinctly sharp and unnaturally clear of imperfections.

  He flicked his hand down and suddenly the hook flew off on a fishing line, faster than Scratch could keep up with. It clicked itself into an engine blade that sat nearby, shooting back to the handle the moment it’s new catch was secure on its sharp tooth.

  Once the two swords met they passed into each other unnaturally, overlapping like images on paper sliding in two directions, each weapon pushing further and further into themselves until they were forced to change shape. Grey metal began sliding up the golden blades surface, whirring and clicking as it parasitically infested, infected and collected parts from the boring silver frame of the normal engine blade.

  This wasn’t like what Scratch was used to, it was nothing like what Caliburn was capable of. From every time he fused a weapon to Caliburn the hilt was as far as the claimed weapon got, he likened it to a plug slotting into its respective socket. Caliburn was the socket, and in its fusion of other objects it forced them to become the plug it

  needed.

  This? This was different. Scratch had never seen a weapon that could completely assimilate with another object, and even seeing it now he still couldn’t process if what he was seeing was actually real.

  In the end, Caladbolg took a new shape. Transitioning from its sleek and nimbly thin blade to a chunky amalgamation that only vaguely resembled a sword. The blade itself was much wider, having the surface area of a butchers knife now but still retaining the length of a longsword. It bolstered two heavy engines on either side that looked as though they were torn straight from a geobike nearby, with a myriad of lumps of metal and cogs and pipes adorning it seemingly at random.

  Scratch narrowed his gaze, sensing danger. He knew his last attack must’ve done some damage, and whatever Caladbolg was doing had to have changed the weight of the sword at the very least. He saw the opportunity to gain an advantage and dashed forward, kicking aside engine blades, bellowing a war cry.

  Isaac raised his arm, Scratch noticed. He ducked down quickly and stepped to the side of the man bringing Caliburn to his side ready to cleave at whatever he could. In spite of that, Isaac spun Caladbolg around pointing at Scratch in an odd position. He bent his back leg and leaned far back, still angling his weapon at the boy but leaving too much space between them for him to even attempt a stabbing attack.

  Just then, Isaac pressed a button on Caladbolg and tensed his entire body, confident. Air rushed around Scratch so quickly and so abruptly that it became concrete to his small body. His feet lifted from the ground and flew back, sending him hurtling in free-fall until he collided with a nearby wall. The grip the air had on his body faded almost as soon as it started, but the effect lingered on his skin as it relived the sensation in an attempt to understand what happened.

  The turbines on Caladbolg slowed wound themselves down to a halt spluttering out a few more wisps of air before it settled indefinitely.

  “Cool right?” Isaac stood back up from his crouched position,

  “big dea-“ Scratch gasped, he was still winded, “just means… we’re on the same level... asshole.”

  He laughed, then flicked his wrist across the room sinking his hook into another engine blade, “let me show just how wrong that statement is, kid.”

  The two swords fused once more changing Caladbolg’s shape again. Its blade grew fierce talons that jutted out from the sharpened edge, a hand guard materialised around the handle mimicking the same design as the sword it picked up moments ago. It showered itself in sparks and pieces rearranged themselves in a hypnotic yet clunky dance.

  “You see,” Isaac began, “this engine blade was useless, its only function was this” he tipped Caladbolg upside down and clicked a button underneath his hand guard, a small shower of sand poured out and decorated the tops of his shoes. “…its intended purpose was to blind people, but there’s many better alternatives than this heap of shit. Others are way more versatile, y’know?”

  He spun his sword back upright, “however, we combine this with the wind from before and the versatility becomes… well most people are visual learners so let me just show you instead.”

  Isaac gripped Caladbolg hard enough to flash the whites of his knuckles and swung, pressing just a single button on his handle as he did so. The turbine immediately screamed to life, and the sand vault a few centimetres to its side opened up too spilling tiny rocks into the wind. Scratch could see, only vaguely, the tiny dots of sand and stone giving the wind form as it slowly shaped itself into a sweeping gale. The wind moved fiercely, as did the sand within it, and within time the wide ghostly slash of air approached the small boys midsection. Scratch knew what this entailed, the speed of the sand in the form it took would mean it essentially became its own sword. colliding with it would mean thousands of tiny rocks slamming into him with enough force to tear him in two. Yet, despite knowing what the attack would do to him, Scratch mistakenly brought Caliburn up to block the wave as if it was an actual blade and not one made of air. His sword made contact with the mixture of wind and sand, cutting straight through it.

  It whipped past him, the tiny grains of sand reaching his abdomen. Paper cuts the size of pins layered themselves onto his skin, carving as far into his body as they could physically go. Thousands upon thousands of paper cuts, until eventually they ceased.

  The cut itself wasn’t too deep, not reaching far enough into his body to warrant worry, but the wound was still there. Scratch looked down and saw a cut that scraped itself along his stomach in a ragged misshapen mess. It bled profusely.

  Isaac then began walking towards Scratch, not willing to ease up on his pressure. In his mind, the small boy had proven himself to be skilled with Caliburn, and that alone meant he could not be taken lightly anymore. He broke into a sprint, placing a second hand on Caladbolg and somehow tearing off one of the swords fused into it, launching it between Scratch’s eyes. The boy dodged, still clutching his stomach, then jabbed at Isaac in his relentless approach.

  It was deflected easily, then returned with a strike of his own clashing with Caliburn’s hilt loudly. Scratch bounced back off the wall and tried to circle himself out of the corner he was placed in, however Isaac yet again threw one of his fused swords at his path, stopping him.

  Scratch brought his weapon up and bashed the flying engine blade away with an outstretched arm, barely keeping up with the pace of the fight. As his arm began to retract Isaac lunged for his wrist, grabbing it tightly and pulling it taught. The boy struggled, kicking at the man’s side with a surprising amount of strength, but Isaac swiftly put an end to it by jutting an elbow firmly across his cheek, dazing him. Then, before Scratch could regain any more vigour, Isaac cut cleanly above the bend of his arm allowing it to fall solemnly to the ground, Caliburn still in its grasp.

  He turned on his heel and walked away, satisfied with the damage done, leaving Scratch terrified, screaming and clutching at the falling blood that now leaked from his arm.

  “SCRATCH!” Pop, still pinned to the wall, yelled despite knowing it could kill her, “FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK-“

  “alright alright!” Isaac plugged one of his ears, “Gaia, would you rather me kill the kid?”

  “pop…”

  Pop stopped screaming looking at the tear soaked face of Scratch,

  “…its okay…” Scratch faintly whispered, voice hoarse from blaring, “ill be… fine”

  “Oh will you?” Isaac turned to face the armless child, “don’t tell me you’re gonna fight me with the other hand now, you’ll bleed out if you don’t keep pressure on that-“

  “shut up” Scratch weakly replied, standing up with Caliburn gripped in his left hand, “I don’t… need…. To stop the bleeding”

  His voice suddenly grew in ferocity, rallying itself with adrenaline and anger, “Caladbolg, you mentioned its versatility right? Well, I’m a firm believer… in the person being the source of that, just because Caladbolg has the potential for versatility doesn’t make it versatile!”

  “So?”

  “So…” Scratch grit his teeth in anticipation, “imma show you… how far my versatility goes,”

  Before Isaac could respond Scratch spun the blades of Caliburn around to create an open part of the hilt, and slammed it into the fresh wound. His skin burned and twisted beyond human comprehension, pulling itself into the handles clockwork, spinning his nerves into the web of circuits inside. At first, blood flooded out of his body at breakneck pace, but quickly slowed down as more and more of his arm melded with his sword. Soon, the place where his elbow should’ve been was replaced by the ring of Caliburn’s hilt, and his forearm became a fan of large blades.

  “Oh” Isaac said, flashing his teeth in a sinister, excited way, “Oh! Oh I like you, kid,”

  As he finished, he began walking towards Scratch once more. Scratch, flexing his new attachment up and down to get a feel for it mechanisms, slowly made his way towards Isaac too, popping off the chain attached tip of one of his swords and swinging it around in his remaining hand.