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Chapter 7

Legacy of Man and Machine.

"Now then..." Salvis started calmly as he stepped down off the body of the Rotted King, stepping onto the mucky ground with a light squishing noise. His gaze locked onto One-Eye, the Foxen flinching only a moment before gripping his sword tighter with both his paws on the hilt.

"My dear One-Eye...Why in the world would you want to betray me? You do know what I can do to you, right?" He scowled, his glowing eyes in his hood slanting as he furrowed his brow over them.

"I...I'm not afraid of you..." One-Eye tried to snarl back, but his voice cracked in his nervousness.

Salvis shook his head, slowly starting to chuckle and building up to a loud laugh, "Oh please! I know how you work. Act all tough if you want but I know your fear...Wolff...Folvar...I can easily DESTROY YOU!"

The evil lord swung his arm, slashing the air with his katana, which glowed white and produced a wave of energy as it sliced through the air. The wave sped out at One-Eye, who stood frozen in surprise.

*Clang*

Liki pushed out with his daggers, the wave of energy dissapating into the air in front of him. It sparkled and shined, quickly fading away and Liki snarled and bared his teeth. How did Salvis know the names of the children in One-Eye's head, he wondered as he stood with daggers at the ready, his body becoming engulfed with Shadows as he entered his Shadow form.

Salvis watched this, lowering his blade down again to his side and he grinned, "Humph. Puppet of the Gods..."

Salvis reached up, and he drew back his hood, his glowing red eyes stopped as he revealed his face.

"Wha- No..." Liki stuttered, "That's impossible."

Liki was looking at an exact copy of One-Eye, except for that he had the other right eye and was missing the left one that One-Eye himself possessed.

Salvis only grinned again, baring his teeth, "That's right, the two glowing eyes were just a magic trick.You think there wasn't a reason why One-Eye isn't inherently evil? The moment you put your cursed presence in his head and muffled out mine, why he no longer wanted to rape and pillage?"

Salvis started to walk back and forth a few steps as he spoke, almost singing what he said like he was musing to himself. "About fifteen to sixteen years ago, two young boys, a Foxen and a Fangren, the best of friends, went exploring in the mountains near their home in the Midlands. These two boys names were...?" He asked it as a question, looking at Liki with a knowing grin as he strode back and forth in front of him.

"Wolff...and Folvar..." Liki finished, keeping his gaze firm on his opponent, while One-Eye listened intently behind him.

"Quite hmmhmm." He chuckled and hummed as he continued, giving his katana a single twirl in his paw, "It was a normal mountain really, but that day, the two boys managed to stumble upon an old ruin buried inside the hills. A ruin of which was originally a research and tech facility built by humans living in what was known as the country Germany. There, they found a machine, built with the most advance technology of the era known to mankind. A cloner."

"A...cloner?" One-Eye asked softly.

"That's right One-Eye. What Gaia's pet here told you is indeed true, you are being controlled by two children." The evil fox tapped his head with a finger, "In your head."

"How...How were you always able to control me? What does this have to do with me? Why are there two of us?!"

"That's very simple, you see." Salvis covered the one side of his face that didn't have an eyeball, looking at One-Eye, who possessed the other eyeball, "I'm your twin...I was cloned with you. You and I were created from the two young children who vanished that day in those hills. The Cloner was built to create two from one, then four from two and eight from four...an attempt to create an endless army."

Salvis lowered his paw, "The machine they found that day first destroyed the mind of the young fox, who was the first to mess with the machine. As such, the machine cloned us in his image, as Foxen. However, Wolff, when seeing his friend dying, even while the ruin caved in around them, tried to pry the machine's device free of his companions skull. A surge of electricity from the ancient and worn machine shocked and killed him before Folvar's agony even ended, but it also took from the shock a piece of Fangren dna with it. It combined it with Folvar's, who remained the dominant donor, so we took on mostly Foxen form. Our skills, our mindset, and our hehehe...libedos...were taken from the young teenage wolf instead."

"If the ruin caved in, how did you get out?" Liki frowned, still grimacing.

"Oh, the data was sent to another facility by the machine before it shut down. Deep in the sands of the Ves'tan Desert just south of us. Rows upon rows of vats, all used in cloning, like fake wombs. We grew in two of those vats for five years, kept sustained by the automatic systems until the day, like a female's body in labor, the vats expelled us onto the cold metallic floor of the lap. We grew at an advanced rate in the vats, in only five years, we had grown to the size of full adult Foxen. Unfortunately, as I discovered sometime later after learning how to understand it all, the date got corrupted, which is what resulted in this..." He pointed back and forth between himself and One-Eye, "Eyeball thing."

Salvis tapped his head lightly then, "In my head, I have...memories...like One-Eye does as well...memories of a childhood...I never had." The fox lifted his arms up to his sides a bit, shaking his head and laughing a bit. "Me and One-Eye, we spent our time surviving off the rations in the facility for awhile, alone together. We managed to find the way out of the empty facility, into the rough barren of the desert and quickly found civilization with the Lizarians and Anubians."

He laughed again, "Of course, we were both nothing but a pair of clueless CLONES! We had no idea what to do with our lives, what kind of job to get or anything of the nature. To both of us, the last thing we could remember was living as little cubs in the Midlands! Folvar would have grown up to look just like us, Wolff to think just like us!"

He stopped, holding up his Katana and saying, "So, I just got to thinking. I had to make my own life, I had to be my own person. I mean, one person certainly can't be two at once can they? I tried looking to Gaia for answers, but she didn't give me shit." He spat out her name like it was a swear, which made Liki growl.

"Then I tried praying to Ragnora, who answered me," He snapped his fingers, "like that. He told me in a dream, that he would give the power to be whoever I wanted to be, if I would do what he wanted of me."

"And what was that?"

The Foxen laughed loudly, bellowing, "The Destruction of the Earth OF COURSE!" He waved his paws up to his sides and gestured, "Look around you fool! I did this! With the darkest of magics, I plagued the very Earth! I corrupted the minds of the Knights of the Seven, attempting a coup on the King! I convinced the Anubians to attack EarthEnd! Ragnora has given me the power to do his bidding, and he promises more once I finish my work. He'll destroy this world, but he's promised me the power to create my own, one in which I control everything."

Liki stayed silent, taking this all in, when suddenly, One-Eye stepped up beside him, a new look in his face.

"Brother...why...why don't I even remember you?" He stared sadly at him, sword at his side.

"Oh dear brother." Salvis feigned his own sadness, paws up on his chest, katana pointing up over his shoulder in the air, "You were always so happy to help me during my little crusade, but I knew you, cause I'm you. If ever the chance came, I knew you would try to kill me and take my place as Ragnora's agent. So, I used my magic to brainwash and control you." He lowered his arms and growled, fists clenching. "Now, this blasted rogue...or Shadow...blessed by Gaia...used his magic to counter my own, and you're now your own person again."

Salvis stared again at One-Eye, "Then again, with his sad ass look you're giving me, perhaps you don't have the balls anymore...Why don't you come back to me hmm brother? I promise, I won't destroy you if you help me."

The Foxen stared at his twin for a long moment, minutes passed of silence, until One-Eye began to take steps forward.

"One-Eye don't-" Liki started, reaching out to him.

"Quiet stupid wolf." Salvis scolded, "One-Eye knows where he belongs. I'm his only family."

Liki closed his jaw, watching with pangs in his chest as the Foxen joined his evil twin, turning back to face Liki, avoiding his gaze.

"Now then, brother, step back, while I take care of Gaia's champion." Salvis began to step forward, raising his katana. Liki crouched, readying himself for anything, just as One-Eye stepped up behind his twin quickly, stabbing out his sword.

A splatter of blood spilled from Salvis' chest as the giant two handed sword pierced through him from behind, jetting out from the right side of his body, probably just missing his heart.

Salvis, at first, appeared slightly surprised and pained, but he suddenly began to laugh loudly. One-Eye stared surprised, as his twin turned his head at him. "Oh please...that was classic bro I'll give you that!"

He disappeared in a large cloud of black smoke, which slithered through the air and reformed a few feet away from Liki and One-Eye, again returning to the same footing they had had before, but now the Rotted King's body was beside them both. The gap in his chest healed slowly, closing up as the flesh seemed to latch back together, his beating heart visible in the hole until it closed, leaving a hole in his robe which fur soon grew out from as it recovered his skin.

One-Eye padded up closely beside the Fangren, holding his large sword up over his shoulder to let it rest there. "You don't control me anymore. I'll be my own person too. Liki's...he's my family now."

"One-Eye..." Liki started, and he felt his hand burn, the flame mark had suddenly woken up.

"You've lost yourself Salvis." One-Eye continued, "The reason Gaia didn't just answer you like the Doomed One had is because she puts forth challenges for you to overcome, to become stronger." He looked at his side to Liki, "Liki has faced those challenges, he's become very strong." He looked back at Salvis, who was glaring at One-Eye with contempt, "You ran away from those challenges, and instead signed your soul away to be handed power."

Salvis stared a little longer. Liki expected laughter again, but instead, he sighed lowly, lifting up his blade to hold it pointed out at them with both paws. "And so my brother becomes a pawn...very well, I shall take you down as well."

Liki felt his flame mark burn again, and he wasted no more time with talk, and out his paw with palm open. "Hah!" He shouted, and a blast of Shadow Flame shot at Salvis. The fire covered his cloak, the fox too slow to dodge the quick shot.

"What!? What is this?!" The Foxen shouted, "This is not Shadows!" He began trying to pat the fire out, but it only spread more onto his robe as he tried.

Liki grinned, "No it is, it's a hybrid. The flame is from a Fire Elemental, the darkness is from the Shadows. Fire that is alive. You can't beat that."

Salvis grimaced, and he grabbed his cloak as he landed after his jump throwing it off his body and into the air. The cloak burned up completely, and Salvis stood before Liki and One-Eye, with a kind of suit on that baffled Liki's eyes. It covered most of his body except for his chest, silver in color and it looked like it fit tightly onto his skin.

"Behold, the legacy of man!" Salvis shouted, tapped a few buttons of the suit on his wrist and he suddenly became invisible.

"What?" Liki gasped.

"Like the Shadow Cloak...but that's not magic...I'd feel it if it was. Technology?" Liki's eyes darted back and forth rapidly. "I can't feel where he is..."

"Relax..." One-Eye said, his one eye steadily gazing across the clearing, and he lifted his sword off his shoulder, "I can see him!" He jumped forward, swinging his massive sword through the air as he did.

"Blast!" Salvis shouted as he jumped, his suit's invisibility fading as he jumped incredibly high in the air. The evil fox drew his sword back as he flew up into the air, the blade glowing white as he then swung it, throwing a blade of energy at One-Eye.

The warrior fox dodged by jumping back, keeping his sword held in front of himself as he landed and Salvis gently floated down onto the top of one of the hedges.

"You can't beat me brother. This suit increases my abilities ten-fold, and Ragnora's power as well." Salvis lifted his hand up into the sky then, his paw glowing a black fog as he clenched it.

The bushes of the clearing began to rustle, as Rotted began to shamble, called to come forth by their master.

"Humph." Salvis grinned, vanishing again as the Rotted started towards One-Eye and Liki, both of the Beasts coming back to back as the Rotted surrounded them.

"Can you see him still?"

One-Eye shook his head, "There's too many...I've lost him in the crowd..."

"Keep your guard up, stay close." Liki stated and they both began to slash the Rotted apart.

"Don't get separated now!" Salvis voice laughed over the battle from somewhere in the mass of undead Borean.

"Face us brother! Why do you hide huh?"

"I'm not afraid of you my twin brother." Salvis answered, "I know I can handle you just fine. However, as you've just seen, that blasted rogue's Shadow magic is one of the very few things of this world that can harm me. And to combine it with the power of a Fire Elemental? The Shadows were already alive and also blessed by Gaia. He's combined it with another magic that's also alive? That's too much power..."

"So you admit, you are scared."

"No, merely using caution. And, I also know one of the Shadow's weaknesses."

It was now, as Like slashed at the nearest Rotted to him, that the undead Borian responded by quickly grabbing his wrist, holding it up in the air. Liki reacted, trying to trust with an upper cut with his other arm to slice the undead's arm off, but then it also grabbed that wrist with it's other arm.

Liki blinked in surprise, this Rotted was amazingly fast, and then even more surprised, it spoke to him. "You can't see through anything that is created by technology..." The Rotted shimmered, it's body flickering rapidly now.

"Wha-what?!" Liki gasped, as Salvis appeared, lights on his suit flickering out. Liki gasped, as Salvis twisted his wrists. The wolf dropped his daggers, paws opening up in pain. He struggled against his captor, but even with his Shadow form's increased strength, Salvis was able to hold tight to him thanks to the suit he wore, and spun him around, holding his paws behind him with one paw and holding his katana against his neck with the other.

"Liki!" One-Eye yelled as he then noticed what had happened, as it had happened so fast he had no time to react. The Rotted around the seized their advance, as Salvis put his head on Liki's shoulder and grinned.

"Ohhhhhhhhh how so easy this was..." He slid his blade along Liki's neck, attempting to cut his neck open and kill him, but somehow, his Shadow cloak prevented the blade, the sharp edge only pushing on his skin, a surprise to both himself and Salvis.

Liki swallowed, looking into the one eye staring at him from his shoulder as he felt the blade slide along his neck. All it would take was just one slice without his cloak on...and he'd be done for.

"Let him go Salvis!" One-Eye shouted.

"Aw, is the foxy-woxy sad that his new family might die the day he becomes a part of it?" Salvis taunted, removing his blade from Liki's neck. "All right brother...I won't kill him yet...it seems I can't penetrate his Shadows anyway...if you want to save him, you know where you need to go..."

Liki felt Salvis activate his magic then, and he knew what kind of spell it was, "Get out of here One-Eye! Find the others and-"

He was cut off as he and Salvis vanished in a poof of smoke, and the Rotted began to surround One-Eye again, who cursed as he lifted his blade up once more.

_________________________

In the center of Heartwood, Kaz was busy directing the civilians towards the pathway to the coast. As the King had instructed, the druids had been stationed in strategic positions along the path to prevent the Rot from advancing to fast down it. This would give the Borians time to load their ships and evacuate.

Kaz was with the Ursine General, who had revealed his name to be Tibber, and the Borian King, who requested the large half-feral to accompany and protect him. They had stopped in the middle of the city, where Liki and Blackpaw had trapped the Rotted with their Shadow Barrier spell before departing. Most of the city was already gone, making their way down the path, only the King, Kaz, and Tibber had remained behind so far.

The King was fascinated, examining the Rotted with all due curiosity. The zombie, trapped, was banging against the walls of the barrier, the Rot also trapped with it, unable to spread through the barrier.

"Amazing, never being able to really be close to them afterall, we could possible learn how to cure them with them trapped like this..."

"King." Tibber groaned and he rubbed the bridge of his nose as he closed his eyes, "We need to move..."

"The Rot is far from here still General, keep your fur on." Kaz chuckled in the King's defense, "Can you blame him? You've got to look at these things for years, but the King only sees reports, he never could see one in person."

"Do you see how it moves..." The King said, mostly talking to himself, "It's as if it knows me..."

"You're deluding yourself..." The Ursine growled.

Kaz was about to make another comment to make light of the situation, when he saw the invisible barrier surrounding the Rotted shimmer, and suddenly the zombie stumbled free.

"Ah-ah!" The King shouted, falling back, and the zombie fell on top of him. Before Kaz and Tibber could react, there was a loud crunching noise, and the King yelled out in pain.

"Shit! Get off him!" Kaz howled and he grabbed the undead, tossing it high into the air with his brute strength, and it landed on the rooftop of one of the buildings nearby, its body snapping in half, black blood spilling as it split open. The fluid instantly seeped into the woodwork of the house, beginning to infect and spread rapidly again.

Kaz looked at the area the barrier had been then, the black infection was spreading out again. The barrier was gone.

"Kaz!" Tibbers called, and he turned. The King was on the ground, the bark of his leg ripped open by a bite from the Rotted, blackness spreading out along his body from the wound. His face already looked very ill, and his breathing labored.

"He's been infected!" Kaz cursed and he knelt, his hands glowing green and he placed them on the wound, focusing all his strength into stopping the infection.

"Fuck..." Kaz swore again, his strength and magic was not enough. He could only slow it so much alone. "We need to get more druids, we need more energy to stop it."

"Right!" Tibbers nodded and he put his arms under the King, lifting him up off the ground, and he and Kaz began to run through the city, to make their way down to the forest floor and join up with the other druids.

Kaz thought rapidly as they ran. The pathway plan would have to be abandoned, the life of the King needed top priority. If the Borians had to leave some belongings behind so be it. They had to get onto the ships right away and leave land before the Rot got there. The King would need twenty-four seven service now to stop the infection from completely taking him over as well now.

Kaz then realized, the Shadow Barrier should not have simply shattered. He knew how they worked. As long as Liki and Blackpaw were both alive, the barrier would never break. But it had.

If so...Then one of them... _Kaz thought worriedly, as he ran beside Tibbers with his paws glowing green and touching the King's leg. _Oh no...Gaia please no...