Orso Fiction 043

Orso Fiction Chapter 043-The Penultimates-The Witch and The Princess (Part 1 of 2)
“Now, child, perhaps I’ve been a bit cruel.”, Sonia sneered. “But I don’t have anything against you, dear, so I think I’ll teach you just a little bit.”

Taylor Houston, sitting across from her, said nothing. Sonia’s nephew Vincenzo hung his head, watching this. After a moment, Sonia smiled a bit wider.

“You’re a smart girl. Someone with a little more pride would have told me they didn’t want my help. But not you. You’re a smart one. You know your betters when you see them, and you’re willing to let them help you. Very unlike that Adelina girl I’m trying to keep a leash on…”, Sonia said, drifting off. “Oh, but I was teaching you…Now, look at the situation right now…Six against six…You won the first battle, we tied the second, you won the third, and lost the fourth. Now, I’ve told you already that the final three of my girls are by far the strongest, when they use the special weapons I gave them. One of them has already mortally wounded one of your girls. Malvolia is just as strong as that one is, and Adelina is even more deadly. Now, tell me…Your Mist and your Cloud, your last two to go…how competent are they?”

“Sabra…is just as strong as Allison is.”, Taylor said, not betraying any emotion. “And Jess is slightly stronger.”

“Allison would be the girl with the heavily bleeding wound?”, Sonia asked, giggling evilly. “So, it’s safe to assume that if Sabra fights, the result will be exactly the same as that battle?”

“When you word it like that, yes.”, Taylor said, refraining from screaming at the woman.

“And I’ll tell you that Adelina is at a frightening level…’slightly stronger’ than Allison will not be enough to stop her.”, Sonia said, smiling. “Now…consider this. When these battles are over, we will settle this with a battle royale. We’ve already decided that the final result of these individual battles will be that my three strongest girls succeeding. You, however, will only have the two that won their battles. You’ve admitted that one of your champions, who has already won, is as strong as Allison, so we can assume that she will be no help in this battle. The other is that boy, Michael. From what I’ve been led to believe, he’s especially talented…but that’s hardly worth mentioning in the face of the strongest half of my team. Tell me…is this Mike boy as strong as more than three Allisons?”

“…He isn’t.”, Taylor said, gritting her teeth.

“I see. So, naturally, the only outcome is my success.”, Sonia continued. “But, I am a merciful woman, and I’ve come to like you. I don’t want to see you upset over the sight of your deceased comrades…If you give me your Orso Ring, I will let you all retreat peacefully.”

“And if I don’t take you up on this generosity?”, Taylor asked.

“Well…who knows what my girls might do to your allies?”, Sonia sneered. “You made a fatal mistake in assuming I’m some kindly old lady. As Sun Tzu said, ‘All warfare is based on deception’. I made you believe that you had a chance at winning, and let you get complacent. In the end, that doesn’t matter, but I feel they’re words worth remembering. He also said ‘Know your enemy, know yourself, and you need not fear the results of a hundred battles’. Knowledge is everything, my dear. It was foolish to assume I wasn’t getting intelligence on you and your allies…”

---

Sabra Bushey, the Primo Mist Agent faced Malvolia, of the Seven Roses. The wild-looking girl licked her lips.

“Looks like you’re one of the last ones left…”, she murmured. “Are you any good?”

“I’m alright.”, Sabra sneered. “Just the best damn illusionist the family has to offer.”

“Ooh, that’s not a bad title at all.”, Malvolia replied. “Can’t wait to let the second best bump one spot up the ranks…”

“Oh, you’re not bad at trash talk.”, Sabra said with a surprised chuckle. “I’d ask if you can back it up, but that’s a waste of time. Wanna dance?”

“Let’s do this.”, Malvolia said with an evil grin.

---

Osvaldo shouted in rage. If the last three failures had made him angry, this one made him furious. He had personally taken over Arduino’s body’s power supply, to distribute the boy’s life force into power perfectly. But that girl, that damnable Megan girl…she had ruined it. He looked through his crystal ball once again, watching the one called Guerino face the Orso named Rachel. He took a deep breath, and then smiled. There was still one step further he could try…It was a bother, but it seemed his only option, now…

---

Rachel Larkin, Primo Thunder Officer, watched Guerino carefully. The boy’s blackened eyes signified Osvaldo’s control over him. The boy had creeped her out before, but to be controlled by someone like this Osvaldo guy…she didn’t think even he deserved that.

“Guerino.”, Rachel declared. “I’m going to save you.”

The Thunder Skull said nothing, but, maybe it was just Rachel’s imagination, but he smiled slightly. Rachel ignited her ring, opening her box. Juno the Thunder Serval leapt out, growling at the giant boy across from her.

“Juno…This fight’s important, alright?”, Rachel murmured. The cat nodded to her.

---

“Hold on a second…”, Bradley said, interrupting Adrien and Alphonse. “Right now…Rachel just started fighting.”

“Are…we supposed to help her?”, Adrien asked. Bradley took a deep breath, then shook his head.

“She told me she’d drain the pool if I interfered…”, Bradley said, chuckling lightly. “And I have no idea how I’d go about refilling it…”

“She’s serious about this, then.”, Adrien said softly. Bradley nodded.

“She’s not going to take any more babying, that’s for sure. Even if the boss does call her the family's princess...The Rachel we see fighting today will be at a whole new level.”

---

“How about you show me some of those illusions, to start off?”, Malvolia asked. Sabra grinned in reply.

“Sounds like a plan.”, she answered, snapping her fingers. Immediately, various rotting hands forced their way out of the ground. Malvolia watched as dozens of zombies rose from the earth. She laughed.

“The living dead?! That’s your starting move?!”, she shrieked. “I LOVE IT!”

Malvolia drew a knife, and ran Mist Flames over it. With all the elegance of a chainsaw murderer, she jumped from corpse to corpse, cutting them to pieces. When she had finished, she beamed at Sabra.

“Come on…give me something else to cut up!”, she laughed. Sabra raised an eyebrow.

“So…you’re CRAZY. That makes sense.”, she murmured. Then she grinned. “But that’s good. I get tired of being the crazy one when I’m fighting.”

Sabra ignited her ring with indigo flames, then inserted it into the box she wore on her belt. The box opened, and a white rabbit, ears burning with indigo fire, burst forth, landing on her shoulder.

“Lapis, she’s a lunatic. We’re going to have a lot of fun.”, Sabra said. The rabbit squeaked happily.

“Lunatic?”, Malvolia laughed, igniting her own ring, opening her box. “GOOD WORD!”

A wolf launched from the box, and howled at the sky.

“Lycaon…She’s a feisty one…”

---

Nerina, as she ran to Adelina, paused.

“Mal…please, don’t…Something is wrong here…She might be the enemy, but don’t…don’t pull your usual tricks on her…”, she whispered, shivering as she remembered how Malvolia preferred to deal with enemies. But then… “But…don’t lose…Adelina’s falling back to her old self the more we lose…It’s just you and I keeping her from coming out…”

---

Sabra cracked a smile.

“Zombies not good enough for you?”, she asked, laughing. “Oh, you will be fun to mess with. Maybe I’ll just warn you now…The Orso calls me, affectionately…’The Wicked Witch’. Everything I can think of, is mine to control, in your mind. I’m not just some phony…I’m a real psychic. I’m worlds away from the kids back in the base learning little magic tricks. My power of illusions…is light years beyond Laura’s or Katie’s.”

“If you can control ANYTHING in my mind, I’ll be surprised.”, Malvolia giggled. “I’m not as much of a softy as Nerina…you might trick her, but me, my mind’s a fortress.”

“I’ve heard that one before.”, Sabra laughed. “Oh my…But you’re not out of Level One just yet.”

---

Beginning slowly, Guerino lumbered toward Rachel, fists up. Suddenly, he sped up, throwing a powerful punch at the girl’s face. She expertly dodged to the side, and grabbed his arm. With only a little bit of effort, she flipped his massive body. He caught himself in a handstand, and spun, kicking at Rachel. She leapt back too quickly for Guerino to touch, but scowled at losing her advantage as the giant boy stood up.

“I won’t go easy on you if you keep coming at me.”, Rachel warned him. “Whoever you are, whoever’s controlling Guerino, stop, or you’re risking bringing the entire family hunting you down. That’s all the warning you’ll get.”

Guerino closed his eyes, and began to chuckle, in a voice not his own.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”, he said, opening his eyes, to reveal his pupils, now a disgusting white, and his sclera, neon green. “It’s nice to speak with you face to face. My name is Osvaldo Ferraro. Guerino’s far from anywhere your words could reach him.”

---

Eddie continued typing, his Cloud Penguin Eddie bringing him something to drink, and his Cloud Bear Eddie sitting with Rocky, Mary Reiter’s Rain Tiger, watching. Mary sat beside him, reading his code to double-check it.

“It’s such a simple idea…but it’s going to be almost impossible to manage.”, she thought. “A barrier at all would be impressive, but he’s going to make this a Dying Will-sensitive barrier…anyone that passes his check can go through, but the ones who don’t, are locked out.”

“Pass me the sample!”, Eddie exclaimed, a little pleased with himself. Mary passed him a pile of old webbing, long dried out. “And remind me to thank Jake for this.”

Eddie removed a piece of the webbing, and put it into a small box, placing it into a machine that looked like a spectrometer, which it had been, until someone stole it from Mrs. Lunewski’s room and converted it into a Dying Will scanner.

“Scanning now…”, Eddie said, smiling. The monitor displayed a highly magnified image of the webbing.

“When Jake fought that Apostle back in Choice, he won by covering her in his worm Ken’s webbing, and draining her Dying Will Flames.”, Eddie explained.

“Why are you telling me this?”, Mary asked. “I was there. Plus, you had me fly back to that town in Bear Force One to collect this webbing in the first place.”

“Oh, wow, are you still here?”, Eddie asked, honestly surprised. “I was talking to the penguin.”

Mary looked down at the flightless bird, who gave her one of his ridiculously cute salutes. She shook her head.

“Whatever.”, she groaned, sitting at another computer. “I’m going to start writing an article for The Bear Claw.”

“What’s that?”, Eddie asked, absentmindedly.

“Hmm? The Bear Claw, the family’s newsletter.”

“WE HAVE A NEWSLETTER?”

Mary sighed. The boy was impossible to work with.

“Oh, hey, if you’re still here, get the family chemist for me.”, Eddie said.

“You want me to get HIM?”, Mary asked. “I thought you hated working with him.”

“I do.”, Eddie sighed. “But…this is more important than how much he sucks and how much I rule. But don’t you DARE tell him I said that.”

Mary flipped open her phone, and pressed a few keys. She put it to her ear until the chemist picked up.

“Hey. We need you down in the control room. 5 minutes? Alright, good. Thank you.”

Eddie sat back, looking at his work.

“Not much I can do here that he can’t do better.”, he said, a bit sadly.

---

The dragons leapt at Malvolia, spouting indigo fire from their mouths, wings, and claws. The Rose didn’t even flinch, leaping up at each, stabbing them in the eyes until they fell. When the three had faded into nothingness, she laughed at Sabra.

“I love this game!”, she shouted. “Come on, give me the next level!”

“This is obnoxious…”, Sabra thought. “When I cast an illusion over someone, for just a moment, I suspend their disbelief. From there, it becomes a mental struggle, keeping them believing in it…but I get the feeling this chick could break out of the illusion if she wanted to…she ignores parts of the illusion she wants to, but keeps believing in the big picture…it’s like she just likes killing things too much to let the chance pass. But I’m not done yet. This is the very beginning of what I can do in her mind…”

“Alright. You want it, you’ll get it. Here comes Level Two.”

---

“So you’re the guy behind the brainwashings?”, Rachel asked, watching…whoever it was that was controlling Guerino.

“That’s right.”, he sneered. It was a look that seemed out of place on Guerino’s face, as though it was meant for one smaller, less handsome. “And your friends have been quite the thorn in my side.”

“So they’ve been winning.”, Rachel said, a smile briefly reaching her lips. “That’s good to hear.”

“Oh, maybe for you…”, Guerino said, smiling. “I’m a tad disappointed. You’re killing all my guinea pigs. You’ve seen the Darkness Boxes, yes? Those were my design.”

“So the fact that they kill their user if they lose a fight?”, Rachel asked. “Your idea?”

“Hardly.”, Osvaldo chuckled. “It’s incredibly inconvenient, actually. It means I have to find new hosts for them. The boxes are unharmed, but its…difficult…to find someone willing to let me tinker with their insides like that.”

“You put them in before you brainwashed them.”, Rachel remembered. “That Storm guy, he showed us what they did, long before you brainwashed him. What made them side with you, if it wasn’t brainwashing?”

“Power.”, Osvaldo laughed. “Those seven were just starving for a chance to get stronger. They had it in their minds that they’d change the world, make it a better place for the common man…Oh, the stupid dreams of little boys…”

“Seven?”, Rachel asked. “Only six came to meet us.”

“The seventh one is horribly crippled, completely useless to me.”, Osvaldo said, waving his hand as if to shoo the thought of Faustino away. “Using this kind of technology on him would just be a waste of my genius.”

Suddenly, the air around Rachel jumped with electricity. Green lightning crackled from her ring, and the anger in her eyes grew deeper.

“You’re a pretty disgusting guy, you know that?”, she asked. Osvaldo smiled.

“I’m a man of science.”, he chuckled. “Think of what one could do, if one could only turn their inner demons into power. Imagine being able to change your sins into strength!”

“I’m not interested.”, Rachel replied coolly. “Juno, Cambio Forma.”

---

From the trees of Piney Run Park, the Apostles Malachi, Hannah, and Sarah watched Rachel’s fight progress.

“What a dear little girl.”, Sarah murmured. “The Orso have had quite a winning streak, no?”

“Are you hinting that this girl might be the end of that?”, Malachi asked, smirking. “Sarah, you put on the face of such a pure-hearted girl, but deep down, you’re a little bit excited, aren’t you?”

Sarah turned her head, looking away from Malachi.

“I am who I was made to be.”, she replied. “And what about you? You make people think you’re nothing but a vicious beast, but deep down, you’re the one we trust, not Zeke.”

“Yeah!”, Hannah interrupted. “Mal-Mal, you’re the one I talk to when I get sad! You’re nicer than Zeke, lots and lots!”

Malachi shook his head.

“We all serve the same god.”, he said simply. “We were created for a purpose. Zeke’s purpose is to lead us, and our purpose is to follow.”

“But you question that, don’t you?”, Sarah asked, a sneaky smile on her lips. Now, it was Malachi’s turn to look away. “You don’t like how Zeke treats us, do you?”

“…I don’t. I think you deserve more respect than he gives you.”

Sarah smiled.

“Anyway, these Orso we’ve seen so far…”, she began. “The Rain, Mist, and Cloud were all very talented.”

“And their Sun was even better.”, Malachi murmured. “That’s what I would hope. Her twin brother IS the one I was cloned from. I would hope she was at least that strong.”

“So how about this girl?”, Hannah asked, resting her chin on her hands, sitting on the ground. “She seems younger than the other ones.”

“That’s because she is.”, Sarah said. “You were too busy catching butterflies to listen to the intel we gathered, but this girl is a full year younger than most of the Primos. She’s a special case. Apparently, Zach’s very protective of this one. She’s like a dear little sister to him.”

“Oh…Kinda like I am for Malachi, right?”, Hannah chirped. Malachi allowed himself a small smile, and knelt down to ruffle the girl’s hair.

“That’s right, kid.”, he replied.

---

“So this is Level Two…”, Malvolia said, smiling.

“That’s right.”, Sabra’s voice came from all around her. Malvolia looked into the infinite blackness and smiled.

“It’s cozy.”, she whispered playfully. “Reminds me of when Mommy would lock me in a closet when I misbehaved.”

Sabra didn’t reply to this, knowing the girl was baiting her.

“A battle of Mists is a battle of the minds.”, Sabra thought. “Now, according to that teacher of mine, there’s three emotions that make it easy to trap someone inside an illusion. I’m not good at the third one, so that leaves fear and confusion. You scare a person shitless, they’re not going to be focused on the trickery; they’re going to be too busy trying to survive. Ironically, that’s when the illusion is deadly, when they THINK it’s deadly. And when someone is too…interested, in the illusion, and their mind is willing to stay and figure things out, they’re easy to keep trapped. All during that, I have to keep things realistic. Level One was just a bunch of powerful beasts attacking her. When I made them too strong, she just ripped through the illusion. I couldn’t make a monster that she couldn’t fight, or that she couldn’t see through. That means she honestly thinks that she can kill anything that could be in reality…This girl’s not right in the head…”

“Heeeey!”, Malvolia called. “Is something supposed to happen now?”

“My favorite part of the game…fear…”, Sabra thought, smiling. A slithering noise filled the darkness. Malvolia yawned.

“About time.”, she said with a grin. “I was starting to think you had fallen asleep. Come on, let me have it.”

The slithering grew louder, and a hissing was added. Malvolia giggled.

“How did you know I used to have a pet snake!?”, she asked excitedly. “Ooh, now I miss Giggles!”

“Wow, this girl is obnoxious…”, Sabra whispered to herself. “Time to up it a little bit.”

Slowly, the cause of the slithering ran across Malvolia’s shoe. She shivered in delight.

“Ooh, here it comes!”, she chirped. Slowly, the snake-like creature wrapped around her leg, climbing up her body. Malvolia felt it cross her legs, her stomach, her breast, and it grazed her neck, as though…

It didn’t surprise her at all when Sabra blasted the lights, revealing that she had been in an off-white bathroom reminiscent of Saw, and she saw the creature for what it was-an awful, multi-eyed beast with a bug-like face on a snake’s body. It opened its mouths and made a variety of horrific noises at her.

“You’re not scary.”, she said firmly to the beast, and blew on it, as though it was a birthday candle. The wind blew it apart, turning it to dust. “Come ON. I’ve seen scarier children’s books!”

“Oh, you’re starting to tick me off.”, Sabra said, appearing behind her. “Usually, Bugeyes is usually all I need to reduce someone to jelly. I think you might be ready for a side quest. Lapiz! Cambio Forma!”

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