Destiny Hates Me

I feel like I might have used this post name before... Regardless

Of course my next fight is against Sal. I'm going to die here... And you know what? I'm less concerned about my own death than I am that if I die here I can't do anything to potentially help Cerise. Well... I wrote this before going in. If I die Cerise promised to post it for me.

If I do die... It was... Fun talking to all of you. Mocking your pain, reveling in your misfortune, killing your girlfriends...

It was so much fun and I appreciate all of you.


-


Okay so nevermind I lived. I take back everything I said before. Ignore everything before this point.

I get into the arena and there's Sal. I figured I was gonna die pretty much immediately, but... Well the fight started out pretty... Normal. Well as normal as a fight between the two of us could be in an arena where the arena is constantly moving. He didn't use any of his terrifying arena manipulating powers and just made his way towards me as I did the same. We reached each other and clashed. He was skilled. Probably one of the most skilled fighters I've fought in a long time. It's the kind of fight I haven't had in a while. The two of us trading blows, deflecting each others attacks. He had a gun, but he didn't use it at longer range seemingly knowing that trying to deal with the Children's defense mechanism at range increased the change of wasting bullets as he only started to pull out the gun once he had a better idea of where I was compared to the image of me. This also resulted in me getting in a few early hits before he figured out how to deal with me. Perhaps if I had tried capitalizing on that more I could have ended it much faster.

It didn't take him too long to adjust which is an unfortunately common trait among my opponents and then the fight was on for real. As I said the fight was pretty exciting and one of the more fair ones I've had in a time. Especially once he figured he had a good bead on where I was and started using the gun as well. Using his sword to pressure me and deflect my attacks while trying to shoot me with the gun forcing me to attack, defend against his longsword and stay on the move to keep him from getting a good shot off.

The good news is my earlier successful hits had left pretty deep cuts so while the fight was going on he was bleeding out and his actions started to slow letting me get in even more hits though he also managed to get off a shot that went through my side and stunned me long enough that he got another strike in that slit open a long gash along my shoulder down to my elbow of my right arm which is my sword arm. So... I had to use my offhand for a bit which was not helpful and the switch was difficult and involved a bit of running and dodging through the moving arena. I dropped my machete when the strike hit and dodged his next few strikes before starting to run, jumping to a lower section of arena to force him to move in order to try and shoot me and I kept moving using the arena to keep myself out of his line of sight until I could double back and grab my sword with the other hand and continue the fight. At this point both of us weren't doing to well, but luckily for me his injuries were worse.

Unfortunately at this point he also seemed to realize that he was losing despite everything and well...

I got another strike in managing to stab my machete through his gut, it was a pretty serious blow, but not quite a game ender. Unfortunately it was enough to make him stop playing and next thing I know the floor beneath me suddenly launches upwards knocking me onto my ass and then the floor starts collapsing on me. I had to dive out of the way and the terrain moved causing me to fall off the platform entirely. I managed to land on another platform only for the ground to start shifting causing me to struggle to maintain my balance. I could see him up on the platform, gripping his bleeding stab wound as he manipulated the arena.

I don't know if it was the blood loss or just that unlike the other guy I knew what to expect, but he never managed to quite pin me even as the ground riled and bucked and I was buffeted with entire sections of the arena. Eventually everything settled as I saw him collapse to his knees and I wasn't about to let him possibly get a second wind. I rushed in to end the fight once and for all as I saw his eyes close and he pitched forward to the ground. I reached him and was about to stab him through the head and claim my victory when the ground moved again. This time it opened a hole beneath me and I fell the hole closing trapping me. I thought it was a trick. That he might have been feigning his injured state and I was about to die when one of the Diamond's... Er the Ace of Diamond's actually reveals that she had been the one to do it. I was going to complain when The Game Master beat me to it. Demanding to know what she was doing. She explained that since Sal was unconscious from the blood loss the fight was already over and challenged The Game Master to deny her reasoning. I was a bit confused. I expected him to disagree or something. He seemed angry, but instead he agreed and she seemed... Strangely relieved.

I was freed and Sal disappeared. I don't know what connection The Ace of Diamonds and Sal had, but whatever it was I'm kind of glad I didn't kill him. For one thing he's kind of awesome and the world needs more awesome people and for another I'm pretty sure The Ace of Diamond's would have killed me and she's pretty scary.

Regardless I won and I'm sorry this took so long to get out, but with my own injuries especially to my dominant arm I had quite a bit of trouble typing this... I'm feeling quite a bit better now though. The Hearts are real good at medical aid... I wonder if I can get one to join The Children when I get back. Would be useful to have a skilled healer. Maybe they could even help Tiff.

Well...

So... I just watched... Um... Sally or something? Whatever I just watched the last fight.

More accurately I just watched a guy take complete control of an arena to completely butcher his opponent. I am... Honestly pretty terrified. After watching it I went to talk to Cerise and she was visibly ill. Neither of us want to fight this guy. I mean... Damn... Fighting servants is one thing. They have powers, but they can be dealt with. Fighting a guy who can just make the room you're in crush you? That's out of my league and that is me saying it. I'd say I hope someone else takes him out before I have to fight him,  but... I don't think I'd want to face anyone tough enough to take him out either.

I think... This might have stopped being fun...

I don't think I've felt this scared in a long time... Not since Nathan at least...

Oh god could you imagine if Nathan was also in this contest. Luckily he's dead and I'm pretty sure The Archangel can't enter this tournament.

Anyway... Yeah I really hope I don't have to fight this Sal guy.

At Last

I was talking to Cerise about her recent fight when the next fight was announced. It was finally time. My match was against Hella. Cerise seemed almost disappointed she wouldn't be the one to kill her, but you can't always get what you want I guess.

I mean I guess I can. Killing Hella is definitely something on my bucket list.

I headed to the arena and Hella was already there. I was psyched about the fight, but admittedly also a little nervous. Hella is still pretty scary and I definitely don't want to get touched with that heart stopping thing even if it's not the killing blow I thought it was it might definitely slow me down enough for her to get in an actual killing blow. I Momentarily found myself lamenting the fact I didn't have the birds anymore. I very quickly chased that thought away. Fuck The Convocation.

I drew out my machete and waited for the fight to start. Hella was holding a large kitchen knife. The fight started and I leapt forward with a slash. My plan was to hit and run. Just wear her down while keeping my distance. It... Didn't work.

Hella apparently really wanted me dead, far more than she wanted herself alive. Her first action was to run right into my attack trying to reach me. My machete struck her shoulder and she didn't even care as she just pressed towards me. I was immediately back pedaling and throwing strikes at her. She blocked what she could, but didn't seem to care much as long as they weren't likely to be serious injuries. Before long however she had pressed me up against the back of the arena and she managed to deflect one of my strikes and reach out and touch me.

Immediately I felt pressure in my chest and pain. I dropped to my knees and I thought... This is it. She swung with the knife and I managed to toss myself backwards, but her knife clipped my mask knocking it off.

Hella looked at my exposed face and spoke.

"Wow... I think you probably looked better without a face and that's saying a lot considering I'm racist against faceless people," she remarked and before I could really think about what she said she stabbed towards my face. The pain however was subsiding. My heart hadn't actually stopped at all. I swung my machete and knocked her knife away, in her surprise she didn't manage to keep her grip and the knife clattered away as I stood. My chest still felt tender, but I was otherwise fine and also a little bit pissed.

Her powers didn't seem to work on me. Which meant she had no threat to me and I wasn't about to let this little punk insult my face. She was surprised and confused and took a step back, but I moved quicker. I grabbed her by her face and slammed her down onto the floor hard. I heard her let out a surprised gasp as her head impacted the floor.

"You said something about wanting to die, didn't you? Well I'm a nice guy and seeing as we're such good friends. I'll make sure that you get your wish," I stated before stabbing my machete into her chest and through her heart. I wasn't done yet though. I drew out my machete again and stabbed her again and again... and again. I kept stabbing her until she was definitely dead and the cards came rushing over.

They declared her dead and myself the winner. I was breathing heavily and there were lots of thoughts running through my mind. Her face had been so cold to the touch and her blood was dark and thick... More sludge than liquid. It was like fighting a corpse...

Also that line about being racist against faceless people... Why did that seem familiar. Wait... Did I just kill my beloved Fien?!

Aww well now I'm depressed.

Well... Fuck...

So the first match happened and it was pretty cool. I vaguely remember hearing things about Malkator. He took out his opponent pretty easily. Might be a challenge... I wasn't paying that much attention.

The Game Master said that it was to the death or unconsciousness now... That's... Not good. I'm not great at knocking people out without killing them and even if I was it's almost impossible to knock someone out without at least causing brain damage. I don't want to kill or harm Cerise. I don't... I need to come up with a new plan to get her out of the fighting.

I don't want her to die. I was hoping after all this we might... Still be friends in the outside world... Me and Cerise... Working together. Fire forged friends...

I need... I need to do something. I can't let her die.

I need her.

Oh also apparently the audience is now made up of our families. That doesn't really affect me... My parents died of natural causes many years ago, I don't have any siblings and I killed my wife and children myself a little while ago. So... I don't really have any family left.

Man... You'd think that would bother me, but nope. I'm pretty sure Cerise said her family was killed by some kind of psychopath or something shortly before she became a proxy so I doubt she had any family in those stands either. I guess I'll know when she posts about it.

Endgame.

One minute you're watching your new friend resting and the next minute you're both teleported to the finals. I was wrong. There are seemingly quite a few more than my original estimate still alive. Also I'm pretty sure one of them is an actual Fear... That seems unfair. Also Hella's here. Hi Hella. Looking forward to killing you. I waved. Cerise elbowed me in the ribs. Cerise might be enjoying killing now, but she doesn't seem to have quite grasped the joy of friendship.

Looking around the room... I'm thinking I've got a pretty good shot of winning this. I mean the fear guy isn't completely unkillable, just difficult. I'm sure I can figure something out. As for the rest. They look tough, but not tougher than anything I've killed before.

Honestly Cerise could probably even take some of them and of course I already have a plan for her.

Yeah I think this is gonna go great. We were ushered towards our rooms. I tried to get as close to Hella as I could during the movement... You know just to tease her. I bet she enjoyed that.

We still exist.

There can't be many more people alive unless it's literally just us, Hella and I guess the guy with the Scythe... What was his name? Justin? I think it's Justin. I think... I honestly can't even remember whether he's in the tournament or those friends of his... So much going on with him and I do not care enough to keep track.

Anyway whoever's left, we have to be nearing some kind of end point soon right?

I mean I've seen maybe one person since Cerise fried that coward. I've mostly just been hanging with Cerise and talking about what we'll do when this is over. I invited her to become a member of The Children, but she declined. I'd like to continue working with her afterwards though.

I was only partially kidding about falling in love earlier. She really is growing on me. I've already decided when it comes down to it... I'm not going to kill her. I know exactly what I'm going to do.

Oh and she told me her real name. I'm not gonna share it though. Not unless she wants me too.

We got her a new device so she'll be making her own post soon. Maybe she'll tell you what she told me, maybe she won't.

I really hope we both survive to the end.

Cerise is awake and the killings have begun again.

So, I spent some time recovering from the fight with Frederick. Brought Cerise and I back to the hospital and got us nice and healed up. Cerise was fine except she needed rest and I mostly just needed some bandages. All in all we got out of the fight with very few injuries really. It seemed a lot worse than it was even if death had been a completely possible outcome of the fight.

Once we were both recovered we headed back out and it seems Cerise now really wants Hella dead. Apparently we're now going looking for her. Not that we've been able to find her. We did find someone else though. There was some guy. I have no idea how he managed to survive this long. He was just hiding and we stumbled upon us. He begged us not to kill him. He'd been hiding from everyone. He wanted to surrender, but was scared the other contestants would prefer to kill him then let him surrender. I never wanted to kill someone as much as when I saw this sniveling coward.

Apparently Cerise agreed. I feel like I've been a good influence on her. She walked up to him smiling and I thought she was going to let him go, then she brought her flamethrower up pointed directly at his face and let forth a jet of flame and didn't release the trigger until he was just a charred corpse on the ground.

I think I might be falling in love.

Oh also Cerise has stated that she'll get back to posting on her own site as soon as she manages to get her hands on a new device since her old one got broken. Shouldn't be long with the points we're racking up.

Now Freddy is Deady and Hella is still Scary.

So, it came at last. It was less fun than I expected it to be.

Freddy and his girlfriend showed up at last for our big confrontation and almost immediately Cerise went down. See they got up close before we managed to properly notice them and before the fight had even properly started Hella just reached out and placed her hand on Cerise and Cerise dropped to her knees clutching at her chest before pitching forward facedown. I was shocked and honestly Freddy looked pretty shocked too, but when I went for Hella Freddy recovered. He attacked and I was forced back and when I tried to counterattack Hella was there reaching for me and I definitely didn't want the same thing so I was forced back again.

The Children's Defense Mechanism wasn't much help here. Freddy obviously was told about it and Hella seemingly knew about it or maybe I was just getting panicky. I mean I didn't really give her much chance to reach out so she could have been going for the fake, who knows I wasn't about to risk it. When someone can just reach out and stop your heart you generally try not to get too close.

I managed to get a few good hits on Freddy, but that just made things worse really. Frederick is a nest and so every successful hit I got off slowed him down maybe a bit, but just let out birds I'd then have to contend with. Honestly if it wasn't for one thing I think I was probably going to die there.

That one thing was Cerise wasn't dead. I saw it out of the corner of my eye as she slowly got back up, she was breathing heavily and holding her chest still, but she seemed more surprised than pained. I started to simply keep my distance as I watched her grab her flamethrower as she got up to her feet and then she ran over and fired out a jet of flame towards Hella.

Frederick stopped and moved back from the flames like any proper nest would and Hella got... well arguably lucky. She must have heard a sound or something, but she just managed to get out of the way of the jet. Not far enough out of the way though. The heat of the flames scorched the side of her face as it roared past and ignited her hoody. She tore it off in a hoody and she seemed panicked. I don't know if it was just how close she came to being charbroiled or surprise at seeing Cerise still alive, but whatever it was she shot a hateful glare at me and then fled. Cerise tried to give chase, but then collapsed breathing heavily again. I was smiling, even with Cerise seemingly back out of commission I felt like I had won.

I was wrong of course. Frederick wasn't beaten so easily and he attacked again while I was soaking my presumptuous belief of victory and he scored a hit. I stumbled back and slashed out at him again scoring a hit, but just causing more birds to come flying at me. I dealt with them, but even without Hella I realized I was at a disadvantage.

I'd stocked up on incendiary weapons just for dealing with this event, but Cerise had all of them and she was back lying face down on the ground, possibly dead for real this time. With just my machete I had no chance of beating Frederick.

I took a chance and tried to dive past him. As I did he reached out and I saw a small cut on his hand that he pressed to my shoulder as I passed and a burst of electricity shot into me and launched me. I felt my body twitching and everything hurt, luckily for me Frederick seemed a little stunned as well and I forced myself to crawl over to Cerise. Frederick had recovered and was coming for me so I didn't have time to think. I grabbed Cerise's bag, stuck my hand in and took out the first object I touched. It was a grenade of some kind. I pulled the pin and threw it as hard as I could at Frederick.

I saw his eyes widen and I knew that it was all down to luck now. If the grenade didn't kill him I was probably dead. Luckily for me I had chosen well. The grenade hit and sent out a burst of flames in all directions. I saw Frederick for a moment covered in flames, standing perfectly still and then he began to panic as he burned. I lay my head on the ground and just watched him burn.

You did well Frederick. You did well, but not well enough.

P.S. Oh yeah Cerise is still alive. Apparently her heart is doing fine too. Not entirely sure why she's okay, but she's okay.

Freddy isn't Deady.

So... Yeah seems the dead nest who showed up was some guy named Glenn. Apparently a friend of Freddy's. Although seeing his response I'm guessing they were friends in the same way Oliver and I were friends. Which means that Freddy is still alive.

Also apparently he doesn't like being called Freddy and so I'm going to call him that exclusively from now on. I'm a people pleaser.

Also Cerise won't be typing for the next day or so. Her hands are damaged so I'll be talking for her. She can still use her fingers which means she's still useful, but she injured her hands and so she can't move them very dexterously without pain and so typing is currently beyond her. It's a fairly minor bit of damage and should be fine within a day or two.

I suppose since she can't tell you what happened I should.

She was buying more fuel for her flamethrower. She got jumped by some guy. I wasn't there at the time so couldn't help out. She managed to fight him off, but he was too close for her to use the flamethrower so she used her knife instead. She claims she cut him up real good, but he wasn't going down so she started to focus instead on getting distance. The man was fast, faster than her and so this proved difficult. If he had a weapon she would probably have died, but luckily the guy seemed content to try to kill her with his bare hands. Eventually she became desperate and ended up using the flamethrower despite his close proximity, she managed to set him aflame, but he continued to attack her as he burned and she held him off using the thrower part of her flamethrower which was quite hot after it's use and holding it to hold him off burned her hands quite a bit. Luckily he didn't last much longer and succumbed finally collapsing dead after a few minutes of being ignited. When she got back to me, her hands were red, severely burned, skin peeling and she was crying.

I honestly felt kind of bad for her. Helped tend to and bandage her hands and agreed to post for her for the next little bit though I refused to post on her blog so it will be inactive until she's ready to post for herself again.

Good as new.

So, I'm out of the... hospital? and feeling ready to kill some people again. Also seems like Frederick wasn't kidding about finding me yesterday. Unfortunately I was still stuck in bed, so didn't get the chance to kill him myself. Seems like Cerise did a good enough job on her own. Still a shame, also no sign of Hella so I still have that to worry about. Maybe I'll be lucky and she'll turn out to be the same amount of build up to anti-climax ratio as Frederick turned out to be.

As for what actually happened... I'm sure Cerise will talk about it. She'll undoubtedly want to gloat about it to you guys. She already spent a while gloating about it to me.

Feels like forever since I last posted.

So... Cerise isn't happy with my plan. Which obviously, but she raised some pretty good points about why it might not be the best plan. I mean yeah I don't really need her to be in great fighting shape. Again I don't really rely on her for combat, but... Admittedly it would be useful to keep her at a helpful level of combat ability at least until Frederick and Hella are taken care of.

So... Congratulations Cerise. Your reasonable arguments have swayed me. It totally has nothing to do with anything else that may have happened that if you put on your blog I swear to god I will skin you alive.

Update...

So, not much has been happening. We haven't had much free time. Just fight after fight and I've been putting my plan into action. Less and less have I been helping Cerise during fights and she's definitely noticing. Injuries are mounting and she's come close to death a couple of times. She's not a fighter. She might be someday with more practice, but right now. She wouldn't last long without me here and I'm making sure she knows it.

Of course she knows what I'm doing and has stubbornly refused to acknowledge that she needs my help. Now you might be wondering... If I need her I obviously can't just let her die and she has to know that so this isn't going to work, except there's a bit of an assumption there...

That assumption being that I need her. She's here for all the reasons she said and because companionship is fun. None of those are really necessities though. If she died I'd find some other loser who managed to survive this long and force them to be friends with me. I just want a friend to talk to and help alleviate my boredom. There's no specifics on who that is. Besides it's not like she's the only person who knows how to throw a grenade weapon.

So, yes she's expendable and if she doesn't acknowledge that she needs my help she won't get it and eventually she'll die. I've also told her that if she's good and doesn't betray me I won't even kill her when the time comes. I'll let her live. Which is probably her best chance of getting out of this alive.

So some of you may have learned

I've found me an ally for now. Cerise who previously helped us out with The Scarecrow and Legion is apparently in this tournament too. She tried to kill me which is just adorable really. I suggested we help each other out again. I'm not gonna go into too much detail since she already did...
Here

She also outlined her plan to kill me there too, which... Since as you can see I found her blog I know about. Generally not a great idea to write things like that somewhere public.

Oh also while I was getting that link I found a comment from someone calling themselves Frederick... Which god that is just the worst name.

I followed his comment to his blog and found that he's a nest and wants to kill me... Not a surprise I guess, he also has a friend who also wants me dead. She seems interesting. Can't wait to run into both of them.

I feel like I should say a little something here...

We have a lot of fun you and I. We make jokes, I do stupid things that often get me and others hurt, but I should clear something up...

People may have the impression that I'm not very smart. Which in a way is true.

I do often make mistakes and don't really think clearly, but... That's because I'm impulsive and possibly have slight delusions of grandeur... These are to account for my occasionally boneheaded actions. I don't tend to think things through, but that doesn't mean I don't think.

I made the offer of friendship to Cerise, for all the reasons she stated, but I didn't do it without thinking. I took the first chance I had to rifle through her stuff, make sure she wasn't lying about her supplies situation and also did what I could to find out if she had a blog I could use to keep tabs on her.

Even before reading the blog I also figured she'd want to betray me before the tournament logically forced us to turn on each other, because that's just common sense, which is also why I have a secondary plan... A plan to make sure that she needs me for as long as possible.

Now... Some of you are probably wondering... This entire post could be construed as me telling Cerise that it was stupid of her to put her plans on her blog where I could potentially read them, but now I'm doing the exact same thing and I have no doubt that Frederick probably knows of my blog and so even if Cerise doesn't know about it, he'll probably tell her just to screw me over... Well here's the deal...

My plan doesn't matter if she knows or not and also Frederick... I'm not giving you the satisfaction of telling her about this. I'm going to be showing it to her as soon as it goes up.

Anyway... Intrigue and backstabbings to plan for and murder to be done. Oh... Right... Since Frederick is a nest I'll have to buy myself some incendiary with the points I have. Not sure how to deal with Freddy's friend though... Ah well I'm sure I'll figure something out. 

I missed this...

I missed this so much... I have killed so many people since I've got here. Just find someone and kill them and I get rewarded for doing so. I haven't even spent most of the points I've gotten. Just bought some food and stuff when I was hungry.

The vast majority of people I've run into have been normal humans. Most of them not even fighters. The few fighters or servants I have run into still didn't give me much problems. Even those who can actually fight can't land a hit on me since I still have The Children's Defense Mechanism and it's not widely enough known for most people to figure out how to counter.

I feel like a kid in a candy store... and the candy is the destruction of innocent lives.

Actually I don't understand that metaphor even without the intentionally stupid inclusion I added.

Are we supposed to assume it's just the range of choices? Cause I mean yeah, but it still costs money? Or are we supposed to assume the kid is alone in the store and can just take as much candy as they want?

Either way I don't care. The point is I'm really happy here... Honestly it's the happiest I've been since my neighbourhood was destroyed.

I kind of don't want to leave... Though I guess that won't last... I'll have killed everyone else eventually.

Maybe when I go back...

Hmm...

I'll think more about that later... Let's go kill people!

Well... That was interesting.

So, I haven't been talking, cause we've been super busy just resetting things up at the new headquarters for The Children of Nothing. Plus nothing of interest has been happening. Just boring work stuff about setting things up figuring out sources of income and stuff... Kind of wishing we had 2 here, according to Facet he was really good at getting The Children lots of income.

Anyway that's not what's important. I appear to have ended up in a very strange place where a bat told me I should kill a bunch of other people to get home. Well it didn't specify that I needed to kill anyone, but you know, it's me. If the option to kill is there, I'll probably take it.

I've been told not to kill the people with the masks with suits on them... Er card suits... Like diamonds, clubs, etc... Not like three piece or business... Anyway... Normally I'd ignore such an order, but I get the feeling that wouldn't be a great idea this time.

Anyway as annoying as it is to be suddenly dragged into some death tournament against my will... there is one consolation to this... That being the whole death tournament part.

Time to go kill some random people. It's been so long since I've been able to really just let loose and kill people without consequence.

It almost feels like stepping back into my old life before all this craziness... I hope it doesn't end too quickly...

Oh... Um I'm sure Sandy and Facet will be able to handle things fine in my absence of course...

Now lets go find me someone to kill!

Right so... Let's continue this story...

Upon making this realization we realized we might still have time. We might be able to catch Legion off guard.

We started to search the building and eventually found a room from which inside a voice was coming. The voice sounded familiar, but at the time I didn't have much time to think about it as Tiff!Facet approached the door a click was heard and we all backed up shortly before a barrage of bullets tore through the door. The fight started for real, immediately after that. Legion was an army unto himself. His strange ability to copy his gun multiple times meant it was like trying to fight a firing squad. The difficult part was getting to him. Cerise tried to use her last flashbang, but that, did nothing to stop him. He didn't need to aim to simply keep firing wildly at a door. It was The Facet that managed to actually get into the room, once again using his ability to teleport. He's the only one who can teleport with any sort of accuracy... the rest of us are still random due to having to use Coda's realm.

Facet jumped in and slashed at Legion who stepped back from the attack and turned all his guns on Facet at which point the rest of us rushed in. Legion was better at fighting off multiple enemies than most solo fighters would be, but he was still alone and while he could focus on multiple people with his attacks he could only defend himself against one attacker at a time which meant we were capable of keeping him on defense forcing him to dodge our attacks so he didn't get time to shoot. The entire time however, I felt like something was wrong.

Eventually we managed to back him into a corner and disarm him. Of course most of us just wanted to kill him, but Cerise reminded us she needed him alive and we did owe her. We helped her contain him and she pathed out with him. I still felt like something was wrong and as the others started to walk out I noticed it. There was someone in the room. During the entire fight this person was watching. I glanced over at where the person was and froze. I saw my life flash before my eyes as Nathan grinned at me from the corner of the room, a shotgun held casually on his shoulder.

"Hello, Sergei. Did you think dying would stop me from getting my revenge?"

I staggered back as the familiar voice filled my head. I knew what this was. I wasn't fooled, but knowing that The Nathan in front of me wasn't Nathan normally, but The Archangel didn't make the situation better. If anything the idea of Archangel!Nathan was infinitely more terrifying. I didn't even wait. I vanished and when I got back to the others I announced immediately that we were leaving. It didn't matter if there was more to do we were leaving. Anything that wasn't packed was being left.

The others were confused, but I was too freaked out to give a proper answer until much later. Anyway after that we fled and moved elsewhere and we're setting up here. I'm gonna be laying low for the next little while.

Busy busy busy...

Tiff is taking things fairly well...

You know all things considered...

Also according to facet sine of course she isn't communicating with us directly and we're actually just taking Facet's word on what's happening with her.

Anyway before I get to what is happening now... Let me tell you about that second confrontation.

This is what I've been waiting to talk about...

Cerise showed up and told us she needed our help. She had located Legion and was assaulting the place with her Proxies, but they're having difficulty and she was hoping we could help out. Obviously not directly. She wanted us to simply do something to distract them so, her Proxies could use the distraction to win and get Legion. We agreed since getting rid of Legion would be of great benefit to us.

Cerise brought us to a location. We were behind a building and we could hear fighting taking place a short distance away and then Cerise told us to do what we can and then vanished to go help them out.

We took some time to think about it and came to the idea... The idea was let us show ourselves to The Timberwolves and attract their attention.  No smart plan, just show ourselves and let them try to kill us.

So, that's what we did. We approached the battle took some time to see exactly what was happening. Basically The Proxies were surrounding the base of a building while The Timberwolves held them off from the various entrances and I assume there were more inside watching for Proxies trying to teleport inside.

We waited for the right time and then we picked a building. Sandy and Facet would wait there while I acted as a the distraction as the most immediately recognizable figure.

So, Sandy and Facet went and waited and then I did a "accidental" walk by. Stopping and seeming surprised to see the battle and then after I made sure some of the people noticed me I ran for the building. My hope of course being that they'd think this was their chance.

I reached the building and... Surprisingly things worked out both better and worse than we expected.

I went into the building and found Facet and Sandy facing down a bunch of Timberwolves. Apparently they had chosen the same building to hide in as we chose to have our ambush.

Facet was hiding behind a doorframe and Sandy was beside him. I rushed over and asked what was going on.

They ran into the building and there were a bunch of Timberwolves already here. We didn't know why at the time. I asked Facet if he could do something about it. He said that he can't go in there cause it would be dangerous to Tiff's body. There were too many for him to take out quickly before they could turn on him like he did with The Scarecrow's men.

It made sense. It was one of the downsides of Facet being in Tiff's body. He can't just use her as a disposable body.  I wasn't sure what to do. None of us were and then Cerise showed up.

"I wasn't expecting much, but whatever you guys did, really worked... The Timberwolves almost immediately started faltering when you ran towards this building" she paused and looked around, "What the hell is happening here?" she asked and we informed her and she nodded, "Right... That makes sense," she said and then tells Facet to move and when he did she tossed a flashbang into the room the Timberwolves were in and told us to rush in as it went off.

The fight wasn't much of a fight after that. Facet and I easily took out the stunned Timberwolves and Cerise informed us that the Proxies had fairly quickly took the building after our stunt. We'd been a far greater distraction than we thought. However, when they took the place there was no sign of Legion.

We all came to the same conclusion. Legion wasn't in the building The Proxies were attacking, he was in this one.

Damn it I have to go again. resetting things up and dealing with new people is a full time job.

Okay so, Tiff is awake.

Well I say awake, but more like just conscious. Facet is basically just controlling the body, but allowing her to be aware of stuff or something? I don't pretend to know how Dying Man possession works at the best of times. Basically Facet is still controlling everything, but Tiff is awake and aware.

Anyway yeah so Facet needed me to help talk to her and I don't really know. I guess reassure her? Anyway that took some time. I imagine waking up and finding out you're not in control of your body is pretty shocking.

Anyway I said I'd tell you about the confrontation.

Well a group was going around looking for us and actually getting pretty close so we went to deal with them.

It was me, Sandy and Facet of course and what we found was Four Timberwolves and a Nest. Specifically The Scarecrow.

I was gungho about a rematch with that cheap copy, but The Facet convinced me that I should hold back while he came up with a plan. Considering the last time I rushed into a fight with him he kicked my ass I eventually decided the Facet was right.

We followed them for a bit. The Scarecrow had birds patrolling, but they couldn't see us, so we ignored them. Interestingly The Scarecrow's birds seemed to be mostly Robins and Sparrows and a couple of pigeons.

He and his Timberwolf friends went from building to building banging on doors. If someone answered they moved on, if no one answered they broke in searched and then moved on.

They reached a bookstore and broke in and The Facet decided on a plan. It was fairly simple actually.

Burn the entire building down.

That was it. Just toss incendiaries into the building and wait at the entrances for anyone who comes running out.

Worked for me. There was a lot of looting and stuff going on as people panicked in the darkness, so the building being set on fire might not even cause concern. So, we did...

It went surprisingly well at first. The place lit up quickly in response to our attack and at least one Timberwolf was stupid enough to run back out and immediately get gunned down by Sandy.

We continued to wait as the place burned down and no one else came out and that's when things started to go less well. See, we were all split up to make sure we were covering every exit we could find. Which also meant each of us was alone for the most part.

Sandy was covering the front exit and Tiff/Facet was at the back. I was covering a side area where a couple of windows could potentially be used for escape.

It's weird isn't it... You know things, but often times you just forget to think about them... You make a plan and forget to account for simple things that someone else could potentially easily think of.

Somehow... It's so easy to forget that Servants can teleport... I've made that mistake, my enemies have made that mistake and hell I've forgotten about my own teleportation abilities at times they'd be really useful... Like when my son and daughter tossed me in the back of a truck for instance.

Anyway the point is The Scarecrow and the remaining three Timberwolves appeared near me. It would appear they were not quite expecting me and I was not quite expecting them, so there was a moment where neither of us quite knew what to do, The Scarecrow unfortunately recovered first...

Well actually thinking back on it, I don't think he was shocked to see me... I think he had intentionally appeared there and had just not realized that The Timberwolves might be surprised and so his hesitation was the result of waiting for them to react.

Anyway he tossed one of his knives at me and I managed to instinctively dodge and then the Timberwolves were leveling guns on me.

It occurs to me there have been a lot of asides in this post... Well one more... See... Some of you might be thinking that it's strange The Facet came up with this plan, but I only mentioned me forgetting about teleportation when it was The Facet's plan that failed to account for it... That is because The Facet apparently had accounted for it and just hadn't mentioned it.

As the guns leveled at me The Facet suddenly appeared behind the group of them and in one movement stabbed two of them in the throat and kicked the back of the knee of the last one causing him to drop to his knees and throwing off his shot, before The facet yanked his knife out of one of the falling Timberwolves and stabbed it into the skull of the last one. At which point The Scarecrow turned his attention to The Facet, turned back to me and vanished apparently deciding that was not the best place to be right then...

It's possible that was because since Facet was in Tiff's body what The Scarecrow just saw was the young girl he saw get shot, suddenly appearing only a day after being shot in the gut, looking almost dead and rapidly killing three of his men.

Honestly I'd be pretty freaked out too.

The Facet informed me he actually had expected them to be expecting us to be watching the entrances and teleport out and was watching me and Sandy expecting them to try and go for one of us.

I was not amused, but aside from The Scarecrow not being dead it was a success and The Scarecrow didn't reappear again so, Tiff's reappearance might have served to keep him out of the remainder of the conflict, so that was a benefit.

I'll tell you the rest of what happened later.

I should also note. Toby still wants to run away so you might be wondering how we got him to help out with the move. The answer was give Ryan a gun and orders to shoot Toby if he tries to run. Informing him of this in front of Toby and explaining that Ryan could probably complete the move with or without Toby's help kept Toby pretty obedient.

A lot has happened.

and I will inform you of all of it, but first who'd like to know where I've been?

1, 2... Did you raise your hand or are you just stretching? Okay so not too many people... Got it...

Regardless here's where I've been... In the dark.

Yeah as things heated up the Timberwolves or Nests eventually either realized we had a thoughtborn or just thought we'd suffer fighting without technology, so someone cut power to the entire area.

That's not a huge problem as I could just go somewhere where there is power, but with things heating up as they were I decided it wasn't worth it to leave The Children alone just to go off and update you guys. So, I stayed and helped out and as a result have been unable to update, but... Things have cooled down now so I can start telling you all about the interesting things that happened.

First things first... Tiff is... Alive... Sort of... We were already trying to decide what to do about her injury when the power went out... There wasn't much we could do without power and while a hospital could probably still handle a gunshot wound patient without power... I mean they have like backup generators and stuff... There were other reasons hospitals were out. For one... They knew we had a wounded member and would probably be watching hospitals... Actually given that The Facet could easily bring her to a powered hospital the lack of power was not much of a consideration for why no hospitals.The bigger reason was concern about Oathbreakers and also being incredibly unsure how a normal hospital would deal with an injured patient they could only partially see. Tiff's Child of nothing protection was still active and we have no idea how to switch it off...

Anyway given all the considerations of which there were many more... We made a decision... One that... Was arguably a bad decision... Maybe we should have chanced a hospital... I don't know, but we had one surefire way to keep her alive... Or at least active... The Facet possessed her. As such she can move and act even with her injury and The Facet says she's basically just sleeping in blissful unconsciousness for now and when her mind wakes up... Well we'll figure that out. She's basically a dead girl walking at this point, so I don't know...

As for the fighting... That continued... We got some back up. Cerise brought some reinforcements in the form of Proxies... They aren't quite allies as The Slender Man has the same Kill on sight order on us as basically all The Fears, but Cerise keeps it quiet that we're working together and The Proxies make a good distraction as long as we don't go near them. You might be wondering how I know this... Cerise told us... She popped in to our base at one point to inform us of these details. The fact she can just pop in on us like that is a bit worrying... I mean we're supposed to be super well hidden, but apparently the fact we brought her there once let her just sort of recall back there via the path... Which does potentially mean that she could be used to find this location later for less amicable reasons or even potentially lead The Slender Man himself to us... So... We were basically thinking that we'd need to move locations for a number of reasons at this point, but that is actually easier said then done.

We actually have quite a lot of stuff to move. So, we were kind of splitting our focus... While Facet/Tiff, Sandy and I were fighting, Ryan and Toby were bringing stuff to our new decided safe house. At the moment we are at said new safehouse.

But that's jumping ahead a bit. First we had some confrontations...

Before I tell you about them, let me explain why we were bothering to fight when we could have probably focused entirely on evacuation. The problem was that The Timberwolves and Nests were getting aggressive. They were searching for us and so, we'd engage them where we found them to disrupt their search and confuse them as to our whereabouts... Plus I just love killing of course.

One such fight became a bit more than it was intended.

Shit... and I'll have to tell you about it later... Facet needs me to actually do some work or something...

The Scarecrow

I was called out apparently. That's something somewhat new for me...

I mean I've called out opponents multiple times, but never really had someone call me out...

It was a pretty nice call out too... I mean would have been more effective if I knew any of the dead people... I think he might have mistakenly thought they worked for me, but I'm fairly sure they were just unfortunate people who lived in the area.

I should explain. So, The Scarecrow called me out by killing people, sticking them up on... Whatever those stick things scarecrows are held up on are called each of them with notes. The notes telling me to meet him. The cops also found these notes, however which is why I generally don't make such gruesome spectacles to send messages. Obviously then the meeting place specified is compromised so... I decided to set up my own meeting place.

Using Sammy to find out where they'd be I showed up with Tiff and Sandy. Sandy still doesn't like killing, but seems to be capable of fighting and Tiff is a natural so it seemed smart to take them. Ryan has his uses, but I don't know if he can fight and Toby is still determined not to be helpful in any way and we've had to keep him locked up to get him not to try and run away.

So, we showed up. I'd brought incendiary weapons since he was a nest and most likely so were the people he might  be with and besides Incendiary weapons work equally well on Timberwolves.

So, we showed up at an area. Unfortunately stealthy and incendiary weaponry don't go hand in hand so, taking out the guy on watch who was indeed a nest alerted everyone else and soon the fight started. The birds were basically useless in a fight against us because they couldn't see us and just like with Oliver most of the nests weren't great at fighting without them and also had to deal with the defense mechanism. Which of course they knew how to deal with, but it's still difficult to keep track of what is essentially an invisible enemy that you merely know is standing near the enemy you can see, especially during the chaos of a fight and one involving bursts of fire and explosions as well.

We made pretty quick work of The Nests we were fighting is what that all boiled down to. Of course the place was now somewhat on fire. Which was... Not great for me. I don't like fire. I'm not terrible with fire. I don't become a frightened mess at the sight of it, it just makes me a bit uncomfortable... The time with Nathan was different because I was also just generally terrified of Nathan and adding in the fact I was again in a burning building is what made me panic.

Anyway... Through the fire and the flames and the charred bodies came The Scarecrow. He was a man wearing a potato sack mask with a face painted on it, carrying a large black bag over his shoulder and wearing overalls over a plaid shirt. His sleeve of the arm carrying the bag was rolled up revealing an armful of scars. He reached into the bag and pulled out a large serrated knife. "So, Sergei you came to se-" he started and I blasted him with fire. He moved very quickly stabbing the knife into his flesh and cutting a large gash from which a large amount of birds rushed out forming a wall to block the fire.

I was impressed.

"Did you just use The Convocation as a shield?"

"Of course. The birds are just a tool. It's not like it harms the convocation and I'm far more useful alive,"

"Wow... This is a little weird actually,"

"What do you mean?"

"Well you've got a mask. You're apparently a psycho killer and you treat the birds like tools... It's like running into my Ex and seeing them with someone who's exactly like me,"

"I am not exactly like you! I'm much better!"

"Oh yeah sure... I mean you might be. You might be drastically different from me, but I bet they don't care. You're just replacement Faceless to them. When you cut yourself to let them out and they come flying out of the holes in your skin I bet they're thinking about me,"

He seemed to get mad at this and tossed the knife at me. The real me. I dodged and then he'd rushed at me, another knife in his hand as birds came streaming out of the hole in his arm now. Sandy and Tiff did a commendable job dealing with the birds. He stabbed at me and I blocked with my flamethrower which his knife punctured. I tossed it at him and he pulled back as I pulled out my machete and lunged. His knife met my machete and he was pushed back, but then the bag slipped from his shoulders as he grabbed a knife with his second hand and swung it at me causing me to jump back.

 He tried to press forward slashing at me, but I managed to catch one of his knives on a machete and tried to catch his wrist with my hand, but I... Somewhat slipped up on that and instead got his knife stabbed into my hand, still... I then rushed forward slamming him into the wall and forcing my machete towards his face as he held it with his knife and tried to pull his knife out of my hand, but I kept it held in my palm, gritting my teeth against the pain.

Then the wall exploded. I was knocked off of my feet as was The Scarecrow. Tiff and Sandy turned their attention to the exploded wall and gunfire suddenly sprayed into the room. Tiff was hit and went down as Sandy dived to the floor. The gunfire stopped as a man walked in. He was wearing a blood red priests robe covered in pictures of eyes and creepy looking mouths. He surveyed the room and then walked over to Tiff who was writhing on the ground, clutching at her gunshot wound. He raised his gun and pointed it to her... The real her and a bunch of other guns. Well the silhouette's of guns appeared in the air around him. He didn't get to fire as I tackled him. The other guns vanished as I hit him and we both toppled to the floor. I got up first, but then felt the icy cold pain as a knife slipped into my back. The Scarecrow was behind me. I dropped to my knees and The man stood up and then something bounced into the room. Then it exploded. It was a flashbang and I heard myself and a number of other people scream then the sound of a fist hitting flesh and lots and lots of gun shots. When the light cleared. The Scarecrow was lying on his side clutching his face and The Priest guy was firing multitudes of guns at a fleeing figure. I figured this might have been a good time to flee as well. I crawled over to Tiff and grabbed hold of her then yelled at Sandy to get back to base before travelling into Coda's domain with Tiff. We reappeared back at base.

I'm fine. The Knife didn't hit anything important, but I can't move very well... So maybe it did hit something important... I don't know... I don't feel paralyzed, I just have trouble making my legs go where I want them too...

Tiff was in worse shape. She had been shot in the gut and well... The Facet is doing what he can, but we don't have any doctors and I'm not sure we can bring Tiff to a hospital.

The person who saved us was Cerise. The guy with the multiple guns is Legion. She was hoping to capture him there, but failed. She claimed saving our lives was an unintended side effect. Sandy did show up back at the base shortly after Tiff and I did, btw in case any of you were worried.