Results 1 to 8 of 8

Thread: Ghost Blade - IC [M]

  1. #1
    Member
    Mr.Cynic's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2010
    Location
    ****
    Favourite Roleplay Genres
    ****
    Posts
    9,373
    Mentioned
    15 Post(s)
    Rep Power
    269

    Default Ghost Blade - IC [M]

    Rated M: Fantasy Violence, Language, Gore

    OOC
    Codex


    Half Moon - Strong

    Did these damned fools not know they were part of a cycle? Or did they believe, like all damned fools believed, that they were somehow special. Did they simply assume that they were meant to coexist forever alongside these beings that were beyond their capability? And just like those before them, they seemed to be mixing with them. Creating vile diseases they considered their saviors.


    He cocked his head to the side, a bang swept across his forehead into one of his eyes, but it didn’t seem to bother him at current. As a merchant panting heavily on the first floor of the Sanctum was trying to speak, but only spouted a breathy language that even Kay gave him a shrug of his shoulder.

    “F...cough...it...was…..cough...fly….flying…” the merchant stuttered through breaths of air.

    “I mean lots of things fly,” Kay remarked.

    “It was….cough….” he continued to pant, “it was a...big...bird..cough.”

    Big bird could mean anything to the both of them. A gurr, siren, or something as simple a harpie. Reyis crossed his arms across his chest and gave the man a narrowed side eye. The merchant seemed taken aback in surprise and fear, and only coward at his gaze.

    “Anything else to go by then a big flying bird?” Reyis asked stiffly, “How big was it? Covered in feathers? Body of a ghoul?”

    The merchant coughed trying to regain some semblance of composure.

    “It was big. The wing span of one of those,” he pointed to one of the stores made out of the spare vehicles from the old era, “It had feathers all over. And huge talons the size of a man’s biggest finger.”

    The man had to be exaggerating about the beast. From the sounds of it, it could be a gryphon. But they didn’t come out to the forest very often and spent their time in the caverns. Why would he lead it here? Reyis fixed his head posture and looked at Kay silently.

    “Ah yeah buddy we can take care that for you,” Kay told the merchant sardonically. Kay looked at Reyis. Reyis raised his brow, but shrugged and walked past the merchant.

    “I don’t like long drawn out battles,” Reyis told Kay.

    “Yeah and I don’t like long drawn out deaths. If I am going to die today make it cool and quick,” Kay told him.

    It was not worth discussing with Kay, if his time came his time came. As all things came and went. Reyis just walked down the tunnel. Until they emerged out from the steel dark into the brightness of the red sun. Reyis shielded his eyes for merely a second. He scanned the reddening skies, with hues of violet still lingering for whatever was flying around. He didn’t like the idea that he would have to fight something brought to him. He was careful with his battles. Decisive and knew when to strike. He didn’t purposely go picking fights with things bigger than him.

    “Uh Rey, that’s…..” Kay turned him around, he was staring face to beak with a gryfon standing one of the metal huts. Reyis eyes widened open.

    “RAWWWWW!” the gryfon called out, Reyis grabbed Kay and pushed him out of the way. Kay took the opportunity to get into a better position while Reyis just hoped he had time to react as the beak came crashing down.

    He managed to barely escaped the chomping power of the gryfon, before it took to the sky with one of the huts in its talons. Dropping it down to the ground with a crash. Dust in the air, the sound of broken metal, and trees being uprooted by the shear force of the wind created by the gryfon.

    The gryfon screeched in the air, “MY TRESHUR!”

    You had to be kidding him. It was beginning to make sense, the merchant must have taken something from its treasure pile while it was away and brought it here. He unsheathed his scythe, while Kay was lining up a shot with his guns.

    Except his handguns weren’t going to shoot from that distance. Rey sighed, he’d have to draw the damn thing to the ground.

    “I am going to lure it,” Rey told Kay.

    “Okay and how in the hell are you going to do that, that’s a lot bigger than expected,”

    Pull something out of his ass most likely. He liked plans. This was not a plan, it was survivability now. Reyis stuck his hand in his pocket as the gryfon flew around squawking. Taking out an Essence Platinum Coin, allowing the moon to hit it at the right angle.

    “Treasure right here!” Reyis shouted, hopefully it heard him.

    “Nic-o..shit!”

    The gryfon took a dive and began to fly at full force his way. Reyis only gave Kay a quick glance, now shoot now. He heard the trigger of K and then he heard the trigger of T go off. The first bullet struck into the side of the gryfon breast, but it was just a glancing shot and barely did anything. While the other completely missed. Reyis dropped his hand and began to run. He liked plans. He liked efficiency.

    Its talons barely missed him as his own senses allowed him to slide underneath, only to be picked up by the scythe. He was dangling in the airs. Eyes blinded by the winds and force. He was hanging by his scythe alone. Kay was probably screaming something down below, but he couldn’t hear it. It was high he could see the forest stretching for miles and miles, he could even see the gates despite how far away they were from them. Here they seemed so close.

    Reyis grunted as he began to climb up his own scythe. He would want it back later, as he began to force his way up. Till he touched the leathery skin of the gryfon’s leg. He sighed, but continued to ascend his way up. The creature was doubling back toward the Sanctum, that looked like a disheveled square hole in the ground. He nearly lost his grip, but the gryfon seemed occupied at the time.

    He managed to heave himself up onto the feathers of the gryfon. The gryfon still seemed occupied good. He heard one of Kay’s guns go off. Missing both him and the gryfon. Exactly where was he aiming? He continued up. Tree line completely vanishing in the reddening feathers of the gryfon till he was sitting on the shoulder of the gryfon.

    Nearly losing his footing he continued to scaley, feathery neck of the gryfon. Kay, what were you doing? Reyis merely groaned. He was already tired from climbing up this. Getting a hang of it being up here, the gryfon doubled back, but he kept tightly bound to the gryfon now atop his head.

    The gryfon looked at him with his eyes.

    “How uuuuu getttt upppp thurrrr!” it squawked.

    Reyis shrugged. He couldn’t really talk up here, but he protruded his claws out. The gryfon tried to fling him off, but he managed to keep steady and slashed at the eye of the gryfon. He felt his nails sink into the eye of the gryfon, the lens was a lot harder than you’d consider it to be, while his fingernails seemed to be swimming in blood and eye juice. Reyis pulled his fingernails out of the warm, fleshy eye, as Essence and blood sprayed out of it.

    Reyis heard the gryfon screech in pain. Currently blinded and distracted with the pain it reared in the air. He dropped back a bit onto the neck just to keep a steadier grip. Please Kay. As the gryfon’s talon grazed passed a tree and the gryfon was going for a crash landing.

    He heard one of Kay’s gun go off, managing to clip the right wing of the bird. The gryfon began to heavily lean, it screamed out as a second bullet went through the other right wing. It crashed into the forest and Reyis finally lost his footing on the bird, slamming into one of the trees as he landed, the tree also losing its rooting as it too came crashing into the ground.

    Reyis took a second to gain his stamina before standing up. He heard footsteps running his way.

    “Rey!” Kay called out.

    “Nice shooting,” Rey grunted.

    “You try shooting when you have a gust of wind pushing you back,”

    “I climbed it with the gusting,” Rey mumbled. He dusted himself off, looking around for his scythe. Kay stared at the gryfon with a cheeky smile though.

    “Not so tough though, huh,” Kay joked.

    “It’s not done,” Rey told him. Rey was scanning where they had landed and the crash sight. He needed his scythe. It must have landed anywhere in the gryfons falling trajectory. He saw it stuck into the ground a few feet away.

    Rey began to walk towards it, while the gryfon sprung up from its daze.

    “MY TRESHUR!” it screamed loudly, “MY TRESHUR!” it roared so loud that its own scream blew back Kay and some leftover standing trees. As Essence surrounded it and its eyes glowed red. Its aura surrounding it in black.

    It stood up and took a powerful talon swiping it through the forest. Trees crashing from its swiping motion. Kay managing to dodge a tree and Reyis grabbing his scythe, while seeming to managing to have any trees crash even near him.

    Reyis twirled his scythe. He snarled, the only emotion he had shown this whole entire time. Launching himself from the few feet he was at. And sliced through one of the talons. Essence began to pour through the severed talon.

    Kay managed to shoot another bullet through its already injured right breast side. Reyis was swiped away by one of the other talons, landing into one of the tree rubble. Reyis got up seemingly unaffected by the swing, Kay looked at him.

    “Should we ask for backup?” Kay asked.

    Reyis spit some blood onto the floor.

    “If you want,” Reyis responded.

    Reyis glared at the bleeding wounded gryfon. In reality he wanted to tear it to pieces, rip its wings off its body, dismember every single one of its talons off its foot and make it curl in pain and agony while it bled out. But he closed his eyes. What would he have done in this situation?

    “Rey?”

    “Gryfon!” Rey called out strongly.

    “TRESHUR!” Gryfon screamed at him in angry fury.

    “I will get your treasure, but you need to leave this place or I will dismember you,” Rey gave the gryfon a strong glare.

    “ALL I WANTS TRESHUR. GET TRESHUR FORRRRR MEEE.”

    Rey looked at Kay then back at the gryfon.

    “And you will leave?” Rey asked.

    “YESSS,”
    “Go get the merchant,” Rey told Kay.

    “Uh….you’re not going to kill him, right?”

    “Either you trust me or you don’t, there is no if about it,”

    “Right,” Kay brushes his hand through his hair, and turns on his heel. At that instance a sound of lighting was heard. And he saw a strike of lighting out of nowhere hit the gryfon in the back of the head. The gryfon screeched in pain and yelled, “UUUU LIEE! UUUU LIE! UUUU HOOMAN LIE!!!!!”

    In that instant as light scattered Reyis saw a half naked half fiend landing from her blow as the gryfon got up weakly trashing up. Reyis wondered in that second how she protected herself from any strike coming her way as most of her body. She was not dressed efficiently. And he favored efficiency and plans. None of which these were, again.

    Reyis gave her a side eye and a glare.

    “You have made things much worse half fiend,” Reyis said dryly. Gripping onto his scythe tightly. The mysterious Half-Fiend slashed greedily across a tuff of feathers, separating the flesh under the soft layer and feeding her sword in coated Essence. A vicious shaking of the Gryfon challenged Ethela to keep mounted upon its back. A whiplash of silver hair blocked her view partially and she squatted in the same motion used to plunge the four pronged sword into the depths of the creature’s back, anchoring herself still.

    Ethela stared straight faced at the man who goaded her. There was an energy in him she hadn’t felt from the felled humans on the path to Sanctum. But one look at him denied him humanity, his face was Corrupted.

    She had jutted her sword through the base of the neck, he watched her shake like she were a ragged toy to the gryfon. Her inefficiency irritated him.

    “So I am staying,” Kay kind of joked.

    “Apparently,” Rey replied.

    Kay managed to pull off a shot, continuing to corrode away at the wound he made earlier. While Reyis was slowly analyzing the best strike. Perhaps, yes the breast Kay was working on. While the gryfon was busy with the unplanned disruption, Reyis went in for the strike. Managing to open the wound wide, exposing shoulder muscle, ligament and arteries tangling together barely sewn together flesh. Bone exposed through red blood, beginning to glisten by the moon’s light, and slowly beginning to harden. The gryfon screeched and reared up from its back legs in hopes to ram whatever was in its neck into the ground.

    Ethela roared, her abdominal muscles flexing to keep her legs from dangling in the shadow of the threatening, and standing gryfon. Her raised legs wrapped and clung themselves tight against the raging beast. Her movements were passionate and entirely free of calculation. The expression on her face had once been cold and disconnected but in her freedom the grays of her eyes flickered with an instinctual kind of thought.

    The Boom Blade’s serrated hooks lunged out of the fleshy sheath, raining hardened blood bits of Essence. It buzzed with crackling bits of white streaked energy. Lightning encircled Ethela’s sword, the gryfon was preparing to fall back on her, the gap between her and the ground was narrowing.

    Ethela moved in a speed her eyes couldn’t follow, a stinging sensation of releasing energy moved through her nervous system, down her arms and into her hands. Ferociously The Boom Blade swung three times, chopping away and ripping apart the head from the neck. Faster than a jiffy, quicker than reason, the body was decapitated and its wounds cauterized. A scabbed stump gave back her vision to the Half-Fiend and the monster’s head lopped off, rolling to Reyis’ feet and standing nearly as tall as his 5’3” figure.

    “Ethela!” A soft voice, female, said with a delicate concern as she came out from the bushes with a sylvan crafted staff in her hands.

    Reyis narrowed his gaze. Whoever this half fiend was before him had no training, she was unskilled and unrefined. Even Reyis knew not to cut the off the head of a gryfon while it was falling. Who did that?

    Ethela crash landed onto the forest ground, only after slamming against a tree the gryfon’s corpse grazed in its death descent. This victorious battle maiden felt the crushing bite of her metal bra press hard into her breasts and her face flatten in a mass of mud and grass. Her vision turned white for a second, a loud thud told her the gryfon fell.

    “Here…” she raised a hand up for Ahava to see, mumbling face first into mud and tasting it in her mouth.

    He noticed the fairy demon accompany the half fiend as well, that was not something you saw everyday. In fact. Looking at the blond, with the flora crown. Something about both of their presence had an air of familiarity with him.

    “Hey you lad-” Kay stopped talking when Reyis put up his hand to stop him from running toward them.

    “Your friend has done two things that do not bode well with the relationship of demons or the relationship with humans. Gryfons alignments do not align with the kings. And you are law breakers,” Ahava’s amethyst eyes fell over to the two men and she gave a faint smile before walking over to Ethela’s side and helping her pull her face out of the mud. A gentle hand began to wipe away the mud.

    “They’re angry at you…” Ahava cooed softly. Ethela’s stoic face broke a second time to flash her a smirk. Her mouth went for one of the Fariy’s fingers.

    “I have some mud here too” Ethela flirted, sucking one her fey textured index finger.

    Reyis saw Kay’s jaw drop and Reyis cocked his head to the side with a side eyed.

    “I am speaking,” Reyis told the two woman. Ethela sighed, grabbing The Boom Blade and standing up with Ahava. She put a hand on her hip and stared at the corpse.

    “You shot it and cut off its talon” Ethela mentioned in a serious tone, suddenly changing the energy of the dynamic between all four of them. She spoke matter of factly while Ahava continued to work on cleaning the mud off her face, the Half-Fiend didn’t even seemed phased by it.

    “I incapacitated it, then negotiated with it. Damage is still damage,” Reyis told her, “It’s treasure had been taking. It wounds can heal, the Sanctum no longer threatened. It was the more efficient method. Now its pair may come and put the Sanctum at risk.”

    “Okay, and?” Ethela asked turned her cleaned face to meet eye to eye, down, to the other Half-Fiend. “Why would you care?” He was like her, it made her very curious. But his general behavior reminded her of Korris, she was half expecting this short Half-Fiend to try and punish her by lugging around bags of rocks for a day.

    “Efficient?” Ahava softly asked, observing the conversation.

    Something was uncomfortable about this half fiend, the face was familiar, the laws were not. But Reyis did not let it impact him at current, his current concern was discipline that needed to be put into place. It just felt uncannily uncomfortable doing so that face, something was wrong about it that made anxiety stir in Reyis. Before he could put any words behind his thoughts the Fairy spoke up once again with a smile, standing behind Ethela and looking around her at the two men.

    “We are looking for someone, hm” She charmingly tilted her head.

    Reyis narrowed his eyes and glared at her.

    “I am still speaking,” Reyis told her, “I care because I made a promise to them that I would keep the Sanctum safe. Now I must travel to the caverns to negotiate peace, more work for me.” He gave another glare to the demon, “Efficiency, it means thinking before doing.” He paused one more time to collect what he was thinking, “And I don’t care who you’re looking for. You are law breakers and must repent for the irresponsibility and damage you have caused to human and demon kind.”

    Ethela openly laughed, tossing her sword over her shoulder and casually holding it. She stared down from Reyis’ eyes down to the radiating thing on his chest. It hummed with purple light and she stepped closer, Ahava clinging to her free arm.

    “I like the color of that” She said, entirely dismissing any gravity to the Half-Fiend’s statements, yet still speaking with her own serious focus.

    “The Hunter Database has marked you as fugitives of Sanctum,” Reyis didn’t seem at all phased by her distraction, he was merely trying to get her to understand the weight of the situation, “You killed humans that should have not been killed. You will come with me so I can arrest you. Then I will leave to the caverns.”

    “Arrest us? That would be horrible…” Ahava said sadly, frowning. “Sanctum is a very controlling place, are you sure Yore was here?” She asked Ethela. “Ethela!” She tugged on her mate’s arm and Ethela shook her head to get out of the stupor.

    “It’s what the Harpy said, ‘Yore’ and ‘Sanctum’ my one clue”

    Reyis felt his heart flutter hearing the name. Reyis didn’t allow them to see him as he somewhat winced at the sudden sensation.

    “Yore,” Reyis was controlled in his delivery, “Has been dead for years. Why do you need him?” Ethela’s face turned grim. They went all this way for nothing and if this guy was any indicator of what was inside - no thanks. It didn’t matter. She never knew other Half-Fiends, but this one outright irritated and disgusted her.

    “We’re leaving” Ethela told Ahava, but the Fairy tried a more diplomatic approach.

    “You see, we were looking for her remaining family. We are distressed and in such strange land we’ve never been to. How sad he is gone, she wanted to know him.”

    Reyis didn’t want to talk about Yore. He was alive, then he was dead. Like all things. So instead Reyis stayed focus on his task at hand.

    “You have two options. Come to the caverns with me, negotiate with the gryfon and apologize for the others death. Or be arrested,” Ethela continued to walk back into the forests where she had made her sudden appearance.

    “Oh, we are leaving. Goodbye!” Ahava continued to smooth over her silence.

    Reyis walked forward and a lot quicker than some would expect and grabbed the half naked woman.

    “You do not have my permission to leave, I will be forced to use lethal force if you resist,” Ethela looked over her shoulder at him. The Boom Sword fell from her grip without warning. The stinging of light formed in her hands, turning into a lasso of soft white. Its creation brought to the forest a new source of radiance and it snapped, reaching for Reyis’ neck. He just dodged, feeling the heat of the lightning construct tickle the skin over his jugular.

    Ethela surged in her speed, an aura of lightning emanating from her fists into her lasso and it struck. One moment Reyis was standing, the next the very lasso he dodged previously was wrapped around his neck, his body and he felt the stinging sensation of a kick behind his right knee kneel him down. He was forced to make eye contact with his docile and unresponsive friend, Kay. Ethela glared over the lowered Half-Fiend to the human standing and staring.

    “Hey I’ll need you to get off my friend,” Kay laughed, “Reyis just takes his job very seriously. Don’t see why everyone has to be so hot headed. We listen if you speak. I was going to help a gryfon get its treasure back for fuck sake. But if you aren’t going to say what needs to be said Reyis will continue to pursue you. He’s like that. I just let him do him because he’s the half fiend. I am not. I’d get chewed up by most things around here.”

    Ahava listened to the human and stared up to Ethela. The Half-Fiend woman stared with a rageful, cloudy colored, yet sharp eyes the human. Her very body was bent on conquest and gaining lost respect. Her arm was tugged by Ahava. Ethela sighed and looked down at her, taken in her soft features she cared for.

    “I wanted to find my uncle, he was my last hope for blood family and he’s dead. There’s nothing you can do to give me family” Ethela said coldly to him.



    Stepping out into the Chasm, the first sight he saw was the light of the moon and its strong presence. The second sight was of the utter destruction the merchant spoke of the gryfon.

    Holding onto the Magatama stone he wished to return it to its rightful owner. But as he was staring at torn trees and seeing Essence in the sky that some probably could not see. So then it meant the poor creature had passed on.

    While he remembered the horror of the Sanctum’s attack that bore the birth of his blade, he moved towards the scene of the most impact. Allowing Essence to guide him. It pained him to know that it ended this way, holding the greater stone in one of his flowing sashes instead to keep it as a memento. He might have felt a tremor pass over him, but he moved anyway.

    Till he came upon the sight of a gryfon’s head, slowly hardening into crystal, about to rupture. A headless corpse also hardening. And Reyis in a current disposition of weakness, as a lasso was around his neck, made of crackling magic, that had the air of lighting and the light of fire. Reyis was glaring at Kay. Kay wore one of his smiles.

    And the young woman holding down Reyis had a peculiar appearance to her. In some ways Kaja understood all too well the face of someone he once knew. But the aura and Essence was all wrong. Impulsive and chaotic, it churned like the lighting that had created her lasso. It was clashing, heated, enraged, and disappointed. Sadness perhaps.

    Kay looked at him at first and Kaja smiled.

    “I got worried when you did not come back,” he told Kay softly, “How did you get into this situation?” Kay shrugged.

    “Honestly I have no idea, Reyis has his scythe stuck up his ass again and she took the bait,” Kay told him, “Except painfully.”

    “I can see that,” Kaja told him.

    He felt it would be rude to continue to not address the young lady.

    “You are not a Fairy…” Ahava said with a whisper between her pouty lips. Her words had a small shake in them, some sort of harder emotion not native to her submissive voice. Ethela swallowed hard and gripped tighter onto the lasso. Her face flushed and she caught herself staring at the human of flowing golden hair and soft draping clothes she wasn’t used to in the dunes - too colorful. Ethela looked away, pressing her foot harder into the back of the Half-Fiend’s knee.

    “I defended myself” She shyly justified, juggling strange emotions.

    Kaja looked at her then at Reyis.

    “I know that you are upset right now, and I am sorry,” Kaja told her genuinely, “For something is causing you a great pain, but I don’t think Reyis likes that position much. Do you?”

    “No,” Reyis mumbled trying to look away from Kaja.
    “How about we all settle down?” Kaja asked again with his soft, calm demeanor, “What is this about?” Kay being the one with the loudest voice was the first to step up.

    “In a nutshell,” Kay began, “She killed a Gryfon when we negotiated with it. Reyis got butthurt about it. They are also the ones responsible for killing Sanctum folks. And she was looking for Yore. Who is her uncle.”

    Kaja stared at Kay.

    “That is a lot of events to happen all at the same time,” Kaja told Kay, he looked at the young woman, “Your day seems to be eventful. But would you like to speak with me instead? We do not have to go into the Sanctum.” Kaja raised a hand that had spasmed at the same time, “There are plenty of fallen trees to sit on.”

    She wanted to kiss him. Her lips felt the stinging hot pangs of lust so used to being sated across the soft skin of women. Her eyes were dilated, but her face fell to a neutral expression before she unwound her lasso and kicked Reyis in the back, sending him to fall on the grassy and muddy forest floor. She let go of the lasso and it faded away, picking up The Boom Blade and staring at this gathering of people.

    “If I could sit close to you, I don’t mind” her voice hummed and Ahava stared at Ethela with a bemused expression. Her behavior to this man was certainly...out of character.

    Reyis snarled in the mud before getting up and dusting himself off.

    “Very well I do not mind, whatever makes you comfortable,” Kaja said before heading to one of the fallen trees that seemed stable enough to sit on, “Reyis, are you okay?”

    Reyis looked to Kay, then to Kaja.

    “I’m fine,” Reyis responded, “I am going to figure out where the gryfon came from.” Ethela walked around Reyis, holding Ahava’s hand and leading her down at her side, the blonde on her other side. Her bra rattled, the metals at her hips making a bunch of noise as she dropped onto her backside gracelessly. Ahava was staring at Kaja curiously, sitting down politely on the wood and placing her bo staff neatly across her lap.

    “You are interesting for a human…” Ethela expanded conversation with Kaja, scratching an itch off her breast from a fallen leaf from a tree.

    “I think everyone is interesting at some point,” Kaja told her, “My name is Kaja. And yours?”

    “Kaja,” She softly repeated, putting her hand down on the wood next to his. “Ethela, and this is my mate, Ahava” Ahava smiled, and it was a strained expression to Kaja.

    “Your name is very wonderful,” Kaja told her, “I assume you have been informed.” Kaja looked mournful, “I am so sorry. If the elders at the time would have known, we would have opened our doors to you. At least I know I would and am.”

    “Why would I want to be around humans? Humans who want to arrest me, think they can?” She asked, shooting a look at the other Half-Fiend’s back as he was walking further away.
    “It hurts doesn’t it,” Kaja responded, “Losing family or not knowing you had any in the first place. I lost my mother and while Reyis may not be forthcoming, he was raised by your uncle a parental figure.” Kaja paused, “Those humans had family too. And the hurt you feel. The hurt I feel. Or Reyis feels. That’s what they feel too now that their families are gone. Those humans who want to arrest you, simply want someone to be responsible for their pain. Putting you in a cell is in a way like you lassoing a lighting lasso around Reyis neck.”

    Ethela stared and felt one of her hands begin to shake at his revealing of the other Half-Fiend. The loss of her mother, father, uncle, and now the only one who knew her family was him. An envy flared inside and the stormy woman stood urgently, the cloud of hair flying around till it settled.

    “He knew my uncle.” she grunted, wanting to go right after him.

    Kaja looked at her gently.

    “A lot of people knew your uncle in the Sanctum,” Kaja told her, “It wasn’t just him. But your uncle saved Reyis because he didn’t believe hurting demi-fiends was the right path to go. I know it seems confusing right now. It’s a lot.” He stood up himself, folds of his hair and clothes settling, placing a cold object into her hand, “Would you do me a favor and return this stone. There’s another family also hurting now too. If you understand this pain. Then all creatures feel it. Maybe along your way you’ll realize there is a lot more in common with someone then when you just first meet them.” Ethela took the stone and wandered her eyes over all the various lengths of his hair and guided them back to his face.

    “If I do this, will you kiss me?”

    Kaja turned away sheepishly for a second. He hadn’t been asked to be kissed before. He had never kissed anyone before actually. No one had ever. He had never felt the lips of another on him or their taste. Kaja held onto the cloth of his fabrics.

    “I,” Kaja stumbled to find the words, he was good at guiding the hearts of others, but not at this type of conversation, “You would be my first.” At that he saw Kay’s head turn towards him. Where as he saw Reyis head turn to him. Oh this was not. He felt like the kid who hid in tunnels all over again.

    The Magatama stone almost caressed Kaja’s cheek for Ethela’s pinky and ring finger were tracing down some of his bangs slowly. She could hardly remember he was a man, his embarrassment only made her more aroused.

    “I know how to be soft…” she promised. Ahava cleared her throat and poked Ethela’s stomach before rubbing it romantically to get her attention.

    “We should go with the other Half-Fiend now, hm?” She proposed and Ethela nodded, taking in Kaja one more time. “You are the exception to the rule” she told him and walked off after Reyis, a man who certainly had all the shapelessness and none of the attractiveness of female kind. He took away her uncle. He grew up with him. “Don’t touch me and I won’t have to defend myself”

    Reyis simply gave her a look.

    “The past is defined by the past, the present defined by itself. I do not hold such simple grudges after the situation has been settled,” Reyis told her honestly and stiffly, “I do my job. Kaja trust you. Therefore I put my trust in you. Do not betray Kaja’s intuition, I respect him too much for you to do so.”

    Ethela walked past the small man without further acknowledgment and Ahava giggled, pulling some of her hair behind an ear.

    “This is more enjoyable. Goodbye” She waved to Kaja and Kay.

    Kay shrugged his shoulders and cracked his neck, that gryfon really was a piece of work. He began to look at Kaja. Kaja’s lips. Nah he was getting distracted right now.

    “Hey Reyis, wait up, where are we going exactly?” Kay asked.

    “The Dust Rocks,” Reyis responded.

    “Shit, that deep into the caverns, you certain we’re not going to meet any more freaks?” Kay asked.

    “Who would chose to reside in the caverns?”

    “Dunno, freaks,”

  2. #2
    Member ShinobiSpirit's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2017
    Posts
    41
    Mentioned
    1 Post(s)
    Rep Power
    17

    Default


    Half Moon - Strong
    1 Hour
    At the Base of the Makoshin

    A group of traders had begun to gather around the base of the Makoshin, the air of the caverns was cool and the moon bright in the sky. But it didn’t quite have its ruby coded color. Instead it was ripening and fueling Essence with power slowly. The merchants seemed surprised that they were standing there, stopping them from going through the pass.

    One of the older merchants stepped forward. They did not trade with outsiders often and when they did it was often planned. These two merchants were not expected, Shoza watched them stiffly. One of his ears twitched though as one of his softer hairs underneath his guard fur brushed across his ear as a chilly spring wind picked up.

    “I knew it!” the older merchant said excitedly to the other one standing next to him, smaller, slim figured one, “There are people here. We would like to trade our goods with you.”

    Shoza lowered his gaze and stared the man in his eyes.

    “Why?” Shoza asked, his voice was respectful and polite, but it was also a commanding presence at current.

    The older merchant laughed.

    “Look between me and you there’s a lot of market business that goes into the Sanctum and the other out post, you’re an untapped economy,” the merchant told him.

    Was that an answer to his question? He cocked his head, stiffly to the side narrowing his gaze. He moved his head back to look at the man.

    “Am I supposed to understand this response?” Shoza asked him.

    The older merchant looked at him.

    “I’m Ibo, come take a look at my wagon,” Ibo waved him over with a hand that he’d like to cut off. Shoza only gave him a stiff look of annoyance.

    “No,” Shoza told him quickly..

    Ibo sighed looking him over, except that he could tell there was hesitation in the man. The Human was afraid of him. As most outsiders were. Shoza looked to his side, accompanied by a hunting party of his choice. Ingsen who was happily floating ignoring the situation. Toboe with a quiver hidden in the shadows, Zeik sitting on a rock in the shadows.

    Shoza ears flickered when he heard a rock scatter off an edge of the caverns and looked at Ibo. Who was now trying to persuade him through an odd expression. Sympathy, the man wanted him to express sympathy? Or was it pity?
    “I took the opportunity to come here, you must have rare goods to trade, I’m running low on Platinum and Chroma. Independent traders have it tough you know,” Ibo spoke defensively. Was he suppose to care?

    “I will give you two options,” Shoza told him, “You either leave on your own accord. Or you are killed for trespassing.”

    Ibo gave him a dumpy look one of those human expressions they make when they want you to feel bad for them, before looking at his slim, younger partner for a second. A younger lad with blonde hair, adolescent from the looks of it, nodded before turning around. At least they took a hint well enough Shoza looked to Toboe, who was running a finger through his oddly violet hair. Then Zeik whose black hair had always remained in his face.

    Ingsen came gliding over.

    “Man they seemed really pushy,” Ingsen squawked.

    “Wonder why,” Toboe shrugged, “Should we follow them Shoza?”

    “From a distance, people who are not expected showing up here means we have to be better on guard,” he said as his ears twitched when Zeik scrambled up from the rock he was sitting on.

    Zeik scoffed.

    “Only answer is up to no good,” Zeik told him, “No one goes out this far.”

    Shoza only turned on his heel to walk in the distance that the merchants had walked. He would give them a few more seconds ahead before he fully walked in that direction. Which was easy because he could still hear their footsteps distancing themselves from them.

    Shoza counted the distance before he started walking. Ingsen floated ahead brushing across his guard hair.

    “Are they trying to steal from the Makoshin?” Ingsen asked a question that sounded more like speculating statement.

    He heard Toboe shrug his shoulders. But they rarely talked this seriously. When they distance themselves from the Makoshin and rocks that spied and reported back to their Father. Zeik curiously touched one of his ears, which tickled and made them twitch again.

    Zeik just laughed.

    “Do you move them on your own or do they move on their own?” Zeik asked.

    “I have no control over their movement,” Shoza responded.

    “Where are they going?” Toboe asked.

    “I do not know,” Shoza replied.

    “Do you feel your own ears move?” Zeik asked.

    “Yes,” Shoza responded.

    “What are we going to hunt today?” Ingsen asked curiously.

    “If these merchants are unlucky, the merchants,” Shoza told Ingsen, “If they are lucky. Then a demon.”

    “I like both options,” Ingsen eagerly nodded his head.

    They left the pass that lead to the Onahrai temple. Out here brought out something more wild in him. His blood began to dance and he wanted to kill. But he still had duty and responsibility, so he continued to follow the footsteps into the distance.

    Till there was a large snap and the sound of a falling rock in the distance of the caverns through him off. Shoza narrowed his eyes at a rock, not the one that fell as that was far off somewhere else, but he’d pretend this was the rock.

    “What’s wrong?” Toboe asked.

    Shoza put a finger to his lips.

    “I’m trying to find them,” Shoza said his ears twitching listening for the two merchants.

    “Noooo, we lost them,” Ingsen cried, curling his head into his body sadly.

    “I found them, again,” Shoza said, “Follow.”

    At least the rock hadn’t thrown him too off track. They continued without a work, till they got to the Dust Rocks. Why had they stopped?

    Ingsen fur stuck up and he curled up sharply.

    “There’s powerful demons here,” Ingsen said, “We should turn back.” he then suggested.

    “Yes well the humans are here,” Toboe looked at Shoza, “That’s why we stopped.” Shoza nodded.

    Shoza could feel it, something here was powerful. Stronger than him, but not his father. Then suddenly, a gush of wind passed through them. Shoza’s eyes looked up the sky, as he heard the screaming of a human being held by huge talons. The young man was flailing until he became a dot in the sky, till released freefalling from the sky. Someone rushed past them. The merchant from earlier Ibo. Shoza’s eyes narrowed.

    “Uh Shoza, it’s coming back this way,” Toboe tapped his shoulder.

    They managed to take cover behind a rock, when another gust of wind ripped through the cavern pass. Soaring quickly after the merchant. When the gryfon was pass them, Shoza frowned.

    “THIEVES!!” they heard the caverns scream.

    Toboe looked at him and he looked at him back.

    “We better follow,” Shoza told them.

    “Oooo, this is more exciting than just hunting today,” Ingsen said excitedly.

    “I agree,” Shoza smiled at him.

  3. #3
    PREACH FORGIVE ME PLEASE I BEG OF YOU!
    Minkasha's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    In a world I struggle to understand.
    Age
    31
    Posts
    11,885
    Mentioned
    46 Post(s)
    Rep Power
    316

    Default

    Most of the trek had been met with silence. Ethela spent most of the time shooting daggers at Reyis, the other half of the time she was playing handsy with Ahava. Who in turn only managed to pass as one thing to Kay, really pretty and nothing else. Ethela had spirit, but Ahava seemed hollowed. He looked over to Reyis. Who in turned look at him.

    “You okay?” Kay asked him, “You did take a pretty nasty beating. You fell from the sky.”

    “Thank you for your observation, I’m fine,” Reyis told Kay.

    It’s true Reyis could take a beating, but falling from the sky was not exactly what you would call exactly his everyday. He was starting to feel sore, but he had enough stamina to last. Except he wasn’t going to do if Ethela decided to attack the next gryfon they saw because it got a little angry.

    Speaking of Ethela, stirred up his current train of thought. That left him moodier than usual. Yore was a guardian to him. Yore had sacrificed a lot for him to survive. Put himself at risk to make sure that sacrifice did not go into vain.

    He did not murder Yore. Two he did not know how to feel about Ethela. They did not grow up together. Clearly they came from different backgrounds. He had no attachment to her, nothing stirring him towards her. He was impartial to her presence at this moment, till they stopped and she thrusted her hand out in front of him.

    Her hand out towards him in some form of asking for something without saying a word to him. No in fact she continued to glare at him. So he gave her a serious look as well. Ethela’s expression was stone faced, and her metal plated breasts were assertively shoved in Reyis’ personal space. Ahava hung off of her girlfriend, watching with a tilt of her head and fluttering of her lashes.

    “You didn’t share, I get my share of the shiny” Ethela cooly told Reyis. “Give me.”

    Reyis narrowed his eyes, but really he was studying her face. It’s familiarity was disturbing, like looking at a resurrected corpse not quite the same. None of the features were quite exactly right.

    “You mean Essence,” Reyis responded dryly, though secretly between him and his thoughts he was doing it to be mean to her. Ethela fell for it quickly, sighing heavily and pulling her hand back onto her hip. The other hand shifted the weight of The Boom Blade a bit on her shoulder and she stared down at him with an easily taunted irritation.

    “Yeah, the Essence. It’s shiny and I killed it. You went off about it, remember?” Ahava giggled, poking at Ethela’s lean stomach.

    Reyis gave a small glare.

    “I did not forget. I do not forget simple mistakes,” Reyis told her. Ethela raised a feminine brow.

    “I don’t forget small mistakes” Ethela jabbed, keeping herself, and her battle maiden bosom hoisted up above Reyis.

    “Well that’s good, I am glad you won’t forget who I am when you finally get yourself killed through inefficient, reckless action,” Ethela’s brows furrowed.

    “You were at my mercy” she growled. “It’s efficient enough”

    “You’re still accountable and under the law I uphold,” Reyis told her, “Being a slacker does not count as an excuse to let you go.” The Fairy watched with her eyes going back and forth, diagonally up and down, to follow her girlfriend and this new Half-Fiend go at it. She raised a finger up between them, a dainty digit from a very pretty hand.

    “We did walk a great expanse” She hummed and added sweetly. “It took a great deal of effort”

    “I’m not lazy!” Ethela yelled at Reyis’ seeing flashbacks of Ahava’s father forcing bags of armor on her back to slug around. The insult thrown at her almost brought back the aching feelings across her limbs and the crushing sensation of her vertebrae. He took all of her emotions, exhausting experiences, and spit on them. Ethela growled again, leaning forward with a hunch to cast a womanly, yet, martian-like shadow over Reyis.

    “Seems that way when you have no sense of yourself, just charging in with your inefficient, dressed like that, reckless action withou-

    -Okay,” Kay laughed, stepping between the two of them. Reyis being so short made it pretty easy for him to do so, “Essence right.” he gave another nervous laugh, “I did the calculations you each get 1,960 Essence.” Kay raises his hands up excitedly, “Yeah!” he cheers. Except the reality of the situation was he was just trying to defuse the tension between the two of them. Ethela stepped back, Kay being a bit taller than she was. His human appearance made him look vulnerable and frail - despite his height. But she’d rather look up to his face than his flat and otherwise unappealing chest.

    “I think that is missing one” Ahava smiled diplomatically. Ethela stared down at her and up to Kay, blindly trusting her math.

    “Are you trying to rob me?”

    “I was trying to get you two to focus,” Kay said, he brushed a bang out of his eyes before continuing, “Not rob. This.” Kay pointed to Reyis, Ethela, and Ahava, “Can only work. If you two aren’t trying to cut each other. Or whatever you are doing. Yeah we just met maybe fifteen minutes ago, half n hour. But shouting isn’t helping the situation. The discussion was about Essence. Now we’re talking and cooperating. Better than yelling and trying to measure,” Kay looked down at his own legs before looking back up, “Whatever we have down there.”

    “What she has down there is pleasant. And she enjoys yelling, I think it soothes her” Ahava said with a calming focus. Ethela stood there gritting her teeth.

    Kay shuddered, which was odd to him because he found them both attractive, but despite all his bolster he had never actually mustered such intimacy with someone before. Ahava studied the social cues Kay was emitting, connected some before and tossed out a distraction subject with a mischievous giddy common to the fey demons.

    “Both of you enjoy Kaja’s company as I enjoy Ethela’s?”

    “Oh don’t do this again” Ethela told her mate. Ahava did this thing where she enjoyed social discourse and causing all sorts of shit. It got Ethela in trouble so many times by Ahava’s father that she had wised up to it after the fifth sunrise-to-sunset lashing.

    Kay suddenly turned away, “I mean Kaja pretty, but I’d never….he’s like family.”

    “Family includes lovers and partners, don’t they?” Ahava teased, tilting her head just so while she studied the mortal. All of her games threw off Ethela’s anger, turning into impatience just as she had planned.

    “I just want my half of the shiny.” Ethela said with a much more calm and monotone voice, her anger blown away by all the navigations it failed to pass in Ahava’s mind games.

    Kay made a sound, “Ewww, Family and Lovers are separate. I’d never think of doing that with family.”

    However, Reyis was still thinking about the earlier question about Kaja. He wasn’t sure what to think of Kaja. He wanted to eat him. He was powerful, which made Reyis want to hunt him. But he wasn’t sure. Actually as he begun to think about he wasn’t sure what they were even talking about or considering.

    “Well,” Kay extended his hand out, “How about we have healthy corporation for the 1 Essence?”

    “What’s that?” Ethela asked with a roll of her free shoulder.

    “Out in the Outpost, they often kill each other. I do not think they often do what you are thinking about” Ahava filled in to Kay.

    Kay cleared his throat.

    “Well we’re not in that outpost, am I right, so that’s how we do things here,” Kay sort of laughed with a smile, “It’s called, rock, paper scissors, About the only thing that has survived the Demonpaclypse.”

    Ethela looked at Kay and Reyis with disgust. “I know what scissors is, I’m not doing that with either of you.”

    “Uh, eww, here let me demonstrate,” Kay turned to Reyis, “And here we have my volunteer ladies and ladies.” Kay was trying to put on the charm, even turning on a voice that may have sounded like a game show host, “Rock, paper, scissors is a game you play with an opponent.” He points to Reyis. “You have your rock.” He balls his hand in a fist. “You have your paper.” He keeps his hands flat. “And you have your scissors.” he makes a scissor shape with his hand. “These are your tools to winning the ultimate gameeee! Reyis would you like to demonstrated with me.”

    Rey looked annoyed, but put his hand out to do so.

    “Rock, Paper, Scissors,” they said together.

    Reys ended up with a pair of scissors.

    Kay ended up with a rock. Kay lightly tapped Reys rock and made an explosion sound. Ahava gasped and clapped.

    “And there you have it folks,” Kay shouted excitedly, “Remember. Rock beats Scissors. Scissors beats Paper. Paper beats Rock. Do we understand the rules of the game” Ethela wrinkled her nose and pridefully looked away. Ahava stuck up one of her hands after brushing back some of her blonde and violet hair.

    “I will play on Ethela’s behalf.”

    Kay smiled and turned to Reyis.

    “Sorry buddy but I been keepin count, man you suck at rock, paper, scissors. So I’ll be playing for you,” Kay said stepping forward, he looked at Ahava, “I have you know I am the rock, paper, scissors champion of the Sanctum. 40 games winning, 0 loss. Against Reyis.” She slowly nodded.

    “I will remember this, but who is stupid enough to lose at something forty times?” She wondered out loud and slipped away from Ethela’s waist to stand in front of Kay. The height difference was now between the tallest person and the shortest, being a healthy nine inches apart. If Ahava had any opinions behind it, her beautiful amethyst eyes were much more alit with learning something new. Ethela watched from the corner of her eyes - too proud to play, but too curious to not want to see what happened.

    “To be fair he’s not really an opponent he always chooses scissors so he’s easy to beat,” Kay told her. Reyis muttered in his direction, probably only to him, “One day scissors will cut something.” Kay slightly turned to him, “Only works if it can cut it, buddy.” Kay turned back to Ahava. “Okay! Are you uh ready toooo play a game of rock, paper scissors.” Kay extended out his hand as if he were getting ready in a rather casual fight stance. Ahava saw Kay lowered down and cowered back.

    “I thought this was a non-violent game?”

    “Yeah, but this helps you get into it. Just gets ooo pumped,” Ethela put a hand on her shoulder and became a still observer. Her face rid itself of emotion but she brought a more shadowy and warding presence, bringing some tensions back into the dynamic. Ahava raised one of her hands gently.

    “Alright, I am ready to play. I am sorry, you startled me” she fluttered her eyes up at Kay, glancing down to show humility and returning her gaze up gradually.

    “Okay I’ll begin, gotta move your hand shapes as quickly as you can,” Kay raised his hand, “Rock, paper scissors. Go.” Together they chanted the initiation of the game and Ahava presented a closed fist up to Kay.

    Kay’s hand remained flat. It took a second for him to process and he whooped.

    “YEAH! 41 wins, 0 loses,” The crowned Fey looked down at her hand in defeat.

    “Oh Ethela, I failed” Ethela pulled Ahava close to her and stared at Kay.

    “Your rules are weak” The Half-Fiend flaunted a defensive emotional shield. “You won with hand gestures, keep your 1 Essence”
    “That’s the name of the game,” Kay told her, “It’s probably how our ancient ancestors before all of these demons won their battles.” Ethela stared at a length longer and wondered how Reyis, who proclaims anything and everything about ‘efficiency’ was friends with this guy.

    “My part of the shiny now” She extended her hand out impatiently.

    Kay handed it to her.

    “I am trying to lighten up the mood,” Kay told her, “Both of you need to learn to have fun.”

    “Shiny…” Ethela mumbled, staring at her pile of earnings now amassing in her pouch. She smiled at the twinkling crystals. “Oooo”

    Kay shrugged and Reyis looked back at him. Rey only nodded, but Kay knew what it meant. He smiled. Placing a hand on Reyis shoulder.

    “This is why we’re friends,” Kay said, “Now where are off to?”

    “East,” Rey responded.

    “You never answered the question” Ahava said to Reyis while Ethela continued to enjoy her view of glowing things, entirely distracted.

    Beginning to make their way to the demon gate, Rey responded with a very stiff “What question.”

    “You have such a deep fondness for Kaja. Why do you not explore it freely? It could be a pleasant series of experiences”

    “I am not sure what you are speaking of,” Reyis was truthful, “I do not find Kaja compelling in that way. He is overflowing with Essence. If any Demon King wanted to, they could harvest him of Essence and surely become more powerful. Other than eating and killing him.” There was a hint of a smirk on Reyis face considering it, “I do not seek anything else from Kaja.” Reyis paused wait that sounded mix, “But! I do not eat him or kill him because I respect him and he guides us and gives us advice.” As if to only taunt him more, Ahava gave him a knowing smile and no words to clear his verbal stumble.

    It was hard to explain. Kaja was overflowing with Essence, so much so it overwhelmed the senses. Which made his relationship with Kaja complicated and interesting. On one hand a part of him loved him like a brother, respected him and was honored to have him around. Then there was a side of him, a hungry, greedy, urge to rob Kaja of everything he had.

    Reyis didn’t feel he needed to explain it to her. Reyis did not hide much. He was straightforward and serious, when something he felt could compromise his position he often informed those involved. Kaja would say something like, that confusing side of you will always stick around. It’s part of what makes a half-fiends life so difficult. Being able to have both sides, one emotional, one driven instinct coexist will take you many years to develop. But it’s good you got a head start with someone like Yore.

    “It’s safe to say,” Reyis continued, “That we have enough Essence to pay the demon gate.”

    “Silver lining” Ahava smiled. Ethela had been on auto follow, staring at her bag and following the Fairy who was tugging and leading her by one of the chains from her bra. She only noticed her actual walking at this moment when she put the pouch down and back at her hip.

    “Where are we going?” She asked crisply. Her pride prompted her to look quickly at Reyis before staring straight ahead. Vesa always teased her drive to take and hold onto reflective things, called her stupid for doing so. She didn’t care, but she wondered if she had just humiliated herself in front of Reyis. But, she didn’t care.

    “Dust Rock Caverns,” Reyis responded, “The forest is too crowded with trees and as you can see a gryfon can easily tear trees down. So they prefer the spacious cavern environments.”

    Kay cracked his knuckles though and interjected himself into the conversation.

    “Been hearing rumors from merchants and other traders that a secret society lives underneath the caverns,” Kay began he lowered his voice and head as if he was about to say something terrifying, though he already probably knew Rey would not be terrified, still clearing his throat he carried on, “I heard the society is made nothing but dolls. That an ancient doll maker lived in the caverns, refuged himself from the demon initial introduction to the world. And made dolls to keep him company. One day he was slaughtered by a demon. His angry vengeful spirit haunts the caverns and his dolls remain empty, scattered across the dolls. Marking the way to get revenge on the demon who fell him.” Ahava listened intently while Ethela gave a flatlined expression. The Fairy gasped, Ethela opened her mouth to speak.

    “Where would you hear something like that? Sounds like a waste of time to talk about” Ethela tugged onto Ahava closer to her. “Are you scared of dolls?”

    “You should be,” Kay said, “One of the Aurahky mentors told me that dolls are harbors of souls. That when an individual passes their spirit can move on and possess a doll.”

    Ethela looked away.

    “Alright.”

    “We don't know who they are, they have a very active imagination” Ahava smiled to cover Ethela’s rough edges.

    Reyis looked at them.

    “Of course you wouldn’t know who the Aurahky, it’s a secret the Sanctum is keeping,” Reyis mentioned, “Kaja is their leader. They are humans more like demons, but still human. They do not have what makes us human and demon. They bloom with Soul Essence. Human Essence is weak. Often not strong enough to produce anything from it. But the Aurahky have an abundance of them. Though they are used to keep the Sanctum’s energy demands.” If he was going to be involved with these two, they would need more efficient skills. And better education. They needed to be willing to learn.

    “So you do kill your own, Ethela you may not be so different” she giggled sweetly. Ethela stared over at Reyis. The Half-Fiend stared with a dark hostility but she kept back evenly and Ahava continued her girlish sounds.

    “Why would you build a city off of people? Isn't that going to get people like Kaja killed?” Ethela asked now with a hint of interest.

    “They volunteered,” Reyis told Ethela, “Your uncle.” he said it darkly so it would hurt her when he said, “Chose to give his Essence to help those people. We don’t purposely kill them. Kaja keeps his people safe and doesn’t allow anyone to make that sacrifice. The death rates have been slowly lowered since Kaja came into leading the place. But the Aurahky felt it their duty to protect the people of Sanctum, by giving their lives. As the Hunters have given their lives. Not prance around in your naked clothes and kiss a demon's fingers and do whatever you want without consequence.” Something had broken in him, that made him beastial right now, “The Aurahky knew the risk. They demand the overseer them allow this sacrifice. And understood consequences. Unlike you. Do not ever compare the people who did something for the good of all to someone of selfish indulgences.”

    It worked because Ethela was taken aback. Kay wasn’t sure how to react in this situation. He was good at cutting and defusing the situation, but while he was conflicted. There were probably other ways to say what Reyis said. But Reyis had a point. The Aurahky chose to make that sacrifice. And that comparing the Sanctum to outlaws to the Aurahky was not an appropriate comparison.

    Even Kay was a little irritated with that comparison, considering he knew how much the Aurahky were respected by the Demon Hunters like himself and his father. Still Kay clapped his hand, “How about we not tear each other down, huh.”

    Reyis stared at Kay.

    “Do what you will,” Reyis told Kay turning on his heel.

    He had never been more disrespected than in this moment. He had put a promise to the people of Sanctum to protect them. When demons heard him and saw him and knew him, they feared him. While a woman who sought family, but did not understand the closeness of a connection towered over him without the same fear or respect that others gave him.

    She gave him neither respect. Nor fear. Reyis was the type to take responsibility and duty to obsessive perfection. He was obsessively perfected and efficient. He did not put his faith in circumstances he felt would conflict with his ethical morality.

    Kay could play mediator all he liked. Reyis decided in this second he would go to the caverns by himself. He did not trust Ethela to be diplomatic. He did not trust Ethela to understand the heart of responsibility nor duty. She was an untrained outlaw.

    He began to walk forward.

    “Where are you going?” Kay asked.

    “You may decide to go to the caverns if you like Kay, but I will go ahead on my own. I work best solo anyway,” Reyis told him.

    Kay began to watch Reyis slowly, but confidently begin to walk off. This was starting to become a disaster.

    Ethela’s skull drummed with a tension at her temples while she viewed his leaving. Reyis, this other Half-Fiend, continually taunted her with the knowledge of her uncle. He also pranced around demanding to be respected and heard. The whole thing pissed her off: he was pissy and yet acted as if he was the epicenter of control when he was only a man fighting the urges natural to his blood. He thought his cage he put himself in was a shining beauty, but beauty never held someone back. The only cages Ethela knew about were prisons.

    Ethela narrowed her eyes and gently peeled Ahava off and put her near Kay. The Fairy watched Ethela’s face in a bemused way while she was shuffled around.

    “Where are you going?”

    “With him” her voice was husky and brimming with anger. Not only would she have Kaja’s sweet lips, she would prove Reyis wrong.

    “Why? He's going to do the task himself. We are free to do as we please” the smile on her well crafted face was a persuasive argument to Ethela but she was so angry her singular impulse was to follow after him. Ethela looked up to Kay, raising her shoulders just somewhat.

    Much like Reyis, Ethela too often took a very serious expression to her face.

    “Watch her” she commanded the mortal and walked after Reyis; it wasn't difficult because his legs were stubby, he was short.

    As if he’d let Reyis do it alone, he gave Ahava a silent gesture before following those two.

    While Reyis felt a sting to his eyes, but he would not shed a tear in front of strangers and had a good eye for keeping it to himself. Of course the woman followed him. Of course she had something to prove they all did. But he had overheard her friend.

    “Your friend is right, you are free to do whatever you like,” Reyis told her calmly. He had taken the moment to adjust himself emotionally. Ever since Yore had passed on, metaphorically giving him the torch so to speak. This was his duty and he took his duty seriously. He took out his hand, “This is my burden. Not yours. Just go. And I’ll take responsibility for the death of the gryfon.”

    “Tch.” Ethela swung from one hip to the other in a gesture of rebuttal. The Magatama stone was pulled out from a pouch on her waist. “Kaja asked me, and I'm going to do what he asked of me. If you respect him so much you would realize you're just getting in the way of what he wanted.”

    Reyis looked at the soil for a moment. He was trying to collect himself, it’s why he had tried to distance himself. But the group seemed persistent on following him.

    “I respect Kaja,” Reyis told her, “I respect his decisions and I respect his plan. But that doesn’t mean you have earned my respect or my trust. I respect people who can own up to their mistakes and I respect people who respect others. Kaja is not just some beautiful individual. His soul is pure of thought. You either are doing something for him because the only thing you respect is his individual beauty. Or you do it because you respect with what he says and open your mind to the things he said.” Ethela looked over her shoulder briefly at Kay and Ahava.

    “I do it because I want to” she said impatiently, unable to meet his revolving need to dive into the thoughts of these things. The longer he went on the fog in her mind, irritation, grew heavier. Now they weren't doing anything. “I can like him for my own reasons and you like him for yours. Let's get this done.”

    Reyis brow twitched.

    “Then I ask one more time to give me the stone and I’ll do it. I least have a reason,”

    “No. I was asked, I'm doing it” Ahava cleared her throat in the background and kindly, but urgently, shoved her elbow into Kay’s hip as signal for him to do something.

    Kay looked at Ahava, several minutes ago she had been flirtatiously kissing the other woman and now she was jabbing him to do something. He didn’t get Reyis and Ethela arguing, but had heard conversations about demons getting into disputes with one another over minor things. Except that Kay could not consider having a whole entire trip with these two arguing all the time.

    So he stepped forward, slipped between the two of them. What would Kaja say in this case? He wished Kaja was here. He had seen Kaja in action before, Kaja had been taught well by his mother and the Peace Striker was a formidable weapon. Kaja could have made this trip less of a pain to even get to the demon's gate. And they barely even knew what they were going to meet in the caverns.

    “What if we lived in a world,” Kay began, “Where things were reversed. Demons were so prevalent, that there were only a few rare humans now and then.” Kay was trying his hardest here, “And I had lived my whole entire life alone. Not knowing if I was the only one or if there were more. Than one day, I met another human.” Kay didn’t know where he was going with this, “I’d want to know that other human being. I’d do my best and make the best effort to try and talk to the other humans.” Kay paused one more time, “In the twenty years Reyis you have lived. This is the first other demi-fiend you have met. Probably the same for you too Ethela. Right? We all have our shit. My dad is dead.” Kay added, “But that doesn’t drag me around. Ankled to my feet. I try to be the best Kay I can be. Cause if we’re arguing all the time. We’re getting nowhere.” Ethela got quiet and looked at Reyis, really took in his features. In all the ways he was different, and irritating her to the point she wanted to explode - he was the only one she knew was like her and he knew her uncle. He was her only...clue to know anything about what she had been asking and wondering her entire life.

    “I…” Ethela looked away to a random spot and lowered her giant sword to the ground in a lazy fashion. She appeared more vulnerable in the way she stood, her breasts not shoved so up and out like the badge of strength and forceful womanhood she'd been using them for. “Well yeah,” she tried to articulate some form of agreement. The stoic face of the battle maiden fell on Kay. “I'm here, what else am I supposed to do?”

    Kay stuck out his hand.

    “Hey! I am Kay!” he greeted excitedly, “Now you shake my hand.” Ethela let go of her weapon, the large Essence Weapon sticking prominently from the ground. She shook his hand, staring. She'd never done this with a human before. Actually, she never did this before whatsoever.

    “Why are we doing this?”

    “Because we didn’t have a proper greeting,” Kay said and looked at Reyis. Reyis stared up at him. Oh Reyis, was this all this was about? Kay thought to himself looking into Reyis expression, he silently understood what he was saying, “Now Reyis.”

    Reyis sighed and took out his hand.

    “Reyis,” he said. Ethela raised a brow: she already knew his name. But she followed. Her hand fell in his, because of the size difference despite her femininity their hands were about the same size.

    “Ethela” she repeated, confused, mildly irritated, submissive to what this ritual would lead to.

    Kay breathed in deeply and let it out, excitedly. Cleaning out his lungs.

    “Doesn’t this feel clean,” Kay said, “Now that we’re not at each other’s throats, and we’ve laid down our weapons. You guys might be the only ones of your kind. You obviously want to work together. Or why would you have accepted his hand?” Ethela met Reyis’ eyes. Together the both of them stared with a prolonged silence while she sorted everything out herself.

    Reyis took a moment, at first he studied Ethela though he still generally didn’t understand or know how to feel about it. So his eyes drifted from her eyes to look at Kay, they met each other’s gaze. It was always a conversation without words between them. Over the years of working together, sometimes Kay more forcefully than Reyis would like, they began to understand each other with merely a gaze.

    Reyis lower lip twitched before he began to speak, “Perhaps, you are right.” Reyis said dryly, turning his attention back to Ethela, “I may have judged you. It was rude of me to assume you lived the same life as I have. When I was younger I wondered how many demi-fiend's may be looking at the very red moon I was. I should be more receptive of the fact that we share the same condition.” Ethela looked away and dragged her boot across the ground below her.

    “It’s who we are, it’s not a condition. But...we are fine” Ahava had quietly approached from behind, the ruffle of darkened robes presented her presence. Reaching past Ethela’s waist, she stuck her hand for Reyis to take. A smile came armed with her offered touch.

    “Hello, I’m Ahava. I would like to formally meet you”

    Reyis took a second and extended his hand.

    “Reyis,” he said.

    Kay gave a brief smile.

    “See, now we can really focus on what we need to focus on,” Kay said, clapping his hand together, “Right, right.” he affirmed. Ethela stared at the Magatama Stone. Ethela held the stone with a promise. Proving Reyis wrong would require her following a promise. It wasn’t bound by some sort of honor or sense of duty he thought was right, but a promise could be done out of wanting and desire. What difference would it matter if the promise is fulfilled?
    She hauled her giant sword over shoulder and let Ahava lean against her body.

    “Right” she echoed and took the first steps, bringing back the rattling noises of her wispy garments and various chains.

    Reyis merely turned on his heel. It was hard to consider that there were demi-fiends who had not lived with the same customs. No that wasn’t hard. It was hard to consider that some were more demon in their nature than they were human. Watching Ethela today kill without hesitation or consideration had him thinking about other kinds of demi-fiends. Were there more? Were they the only two? And what do you do with more of them?

    How different could they be? He use to think he was the only one and now he had to think of the future of two of them, but how many more futures did he have to think about?

    “The demon gate is a few miles ahead,” Reyis muttered to break silence and the plague of thoughts.

    It didn’t take much longer to get to the demon gate, right now it looked merely like a dilapidated wall falling apart. A large arc, that those who traveled through before knew of the spiraling vortex, was blocked off by a wall that made the zones look like dead ends if you hadn’t traveled further than your zone.

    A large, green hand extended up from over the wall and a massive eye looked over. Most of the creature's body was hidden behind the wall.

    “Essence to pass or not pass at all hoomans!” the creature spoke, but its voice was so loud it sounded as if it were shouting.

    “I will cover my mate” Ethela said, fumbling for her Essence Pouch with an annoyance. “Here hold this” She whispered to Ahava, handing over the Magatama Stone. Ahava busied herself by softly hum and study stone in her tender hands.

    Reyis extracted Essence from his large crystal into smaller crystals into his palm. Handing one to Kay who just smiled and the other he kept in his hand.

    Stepping forward he presented the Essence crystal to the creature, placing it onto the ground and getting out of the way. There had been stories of Hunters who accidentally were squashed by the large hands of the demon even after they paid. The demon swiftly snatched it up.

    “Oooooo yummmy, I want your friends to pay before I let you through hooman,” the demon laughed, it's laughter shook the wall. Pieces of it crumbling off. Kay quickly showed the crystal, placed it on the ground and hurried out of the way next to Reyis at a safe distance. Ahava frowned, she pondered to herself what a disgusting demon the thing at the gate was. Ethela came forward and tossed her crystals on the ground for the demon to take.

    “Enjoy the shiny” She almost growled, envious of her glittery materials being taken from her. “I wanted it…” she mumbled, pouting and most certainly walking away to not become a flattened gore ball.

    “Yum yum Essence is sufficient, you may go through,” the demon said as the swirling portal magically appeared in the center of the wall. The ogre demon suddenly began to melt and where he had stood behind the wall, had now repaired the broken bits of the wall.

    A swirling pool of Essence began to touch them as they walked through the portal. The Amala Network as it was called was a binary network, a terminal of Essence, that glew. Spiritual demons who rarely stepped foot onto the land, watched them. As they zipped through the portal in a matter of a few seconds. The tubing network eventually had them land in the caverns.

    An oddly peaceful, but barren place. What stood before them were jagged cliffs hanging above them, a hot beating sun beaming down at them, toughs of green appearing from crags and cracks of the canyon walls. Some rocks leaking bits of ground water. And while the sun was hot, and dry. The wind was chilly and carried moisture, only to fade as relief into a still nothingness

    Reyis looked around.

    “The way seems clear,” Reyis said, “We better go before we are jumped.” He was surprised they hadn’t been. Scavenging demons, mostly Preta and Yaka could live about anywhere and take advantage of every situation they could. Jumping merchants, traders, and even demon hunters at demon gates when they are clearly vulnerable and recovering from travel.

    Ahava rolled her shoulders and smiled to her new companions.

    “It would be a means to retrieve our fees back” She threw in the silver lining with a sophisticated chuckle. Reyis looked at Ahava.

    “Weak as they may be,” Reyis told her, “But I don’t want to deal with them. Preta tend to attract much bigger things.”

    Preta and Yaka did not often miss their chance to jump unsuspecting individuals, which meant something was already here that had scared them off. Scanning the area there was an odd presence here today in the canyons. He took the opportunity to look at Ethela.

    “Do you sense that?” he asked. Ethela’s wandering eyes only confirmed his suspicions. She bit her lip in thought.

    “Yes”

    “I don’t,” Kay joked to lighten the mood.

    “I think we are being serious right now” Ahava lectured Kay, reaching for her bo staff in her backpack.

    “Yeah I got that,” Kay responded, putting a hand on one of his guns, “I was just hoping we’d have a better sense of survival instead of becoming lunch or dinner.”

    Reyis cocked his head to the side, “We should go. We need to get to the Dust Rock Caverns were the gryfon resides.” Fixing his head, “I agree I do not want to deal with whatever has a hold of this place.”

    Reyis began to lead, he was cautious, but hadn’t reached for his weapon. He was trying to listen out for an ambush, but he didn’t have that good of hearing to decipher. Another power he’d like to have, he hated being ambushed.

    Walking past the rocky crags, the canyons began to close up on them. Big rock faces were hanging above them. Creating ghoulish shadows like claws digging into the clutches of the earth. And the Essence that was here made this situation feel more enclosing than it had to be. Hurry up. He rather be attacked than to feel this paranoia.

    The knot in her stomach made her muscles tingle with anticipation. If there was something to swing The Boom Sword at, she would. Her body had a more stoic walk, translating every bit of uncertainty she felt. Action was only planned to the next step with Ethela and her steps had become cautious. It was a strange tickle inside her mind, pouring down her spine as if it were a stinging poison. Dreadful, be careful it said to her.

    With the two demi-fiends so on guard in the group, even though Kay could not read Essence he did not have the gift. The canyons were starting to give him the creeps and while he was uncertain what he was feeling surrounding them, he didn’t like the fact that his two biggest players were so on guard.

    Then he heard the rumbling, as the enclosed space began to open up just enough. To expose a death defying sink hole in the center of a rocky chamber. While rocks began to pour down from the edges of the canyon structure like sand being poured down from the dunes. The exit was the first to close, the path to the dust rocks blocked by a boulder.

    Rocks began to fall all around them in the natural circular structure. There was really only way this landslide was telling them to go. But they did not know how deep or far the sinkhole went. They either had to take the chance of reaching the bottom safely or be spiked or flattened falling down the hole. Or being flattened by the boulders falling from the edge of the cliff.

    It seemed like a simple solution. Ethela’s natural urges pushed her to reach forward in the mess, her fingers brushing against Ahava’s in the quickness of things occurring. Ahava tried to reach over but her body was embraced by Reyis. Ethela’s screams were being drowned by the moving earth and she tried to bolt after the falling duo into the darkness but Kay grabbed her by a shoulder. The demi-fiend slapped Kay’s hand off of her as if all the trust they had just begun to built vanished. The look in her eyes was primal, aggressive and fueled by love - the brutal and rageful aspects of it.

    “Get off of me!” Ethela barked at him.

    One last rock fell from the ceiling of the canyon into the hole, a hair away from taking Ethela into a stoney grave. Kay sighed with relief.

    “It’s okay, Reyis will keep her safe,” Kay told her, now looking at their enclosed space. Oddly the only path that remained open was the one they had entered from, “What we need to do is find a way to get out of here and meet up with them once they surface.” Ethela’s face boiled with rage and a salty sting came to her eyes while she jerked her head in all the directions of her surroundings. She looked the most emotional she had been up to this moment, afraid.

    The rock where her corpse would have been silenced her from following her instincts further into a lovestruck madness however.

    “Then I have no choice but to trust him.” If her uncle was the person these people had been praising him to be, then maybe Reyis would be taught enough to keep her safe. Considering she had put him in a weakened position herself, she didn’t know how to gauge the other Demi-Fiend. Ethela felt nauseous. “We have to move these stones” she commanded Kay.

    Kay stared at her.

    “Or we go back the way we came,” Kay suggested pointing to the open path, “Don’t see either of us moving these rocks out of the way.”

    Kay watched Ethela give him a look that reminded him of Reyis sometimes. Reyis was easier to budge though. Kay smiled though.

    “At least we didn’t come to a rocky end,” Kay joked.

    “Oww,” Kay said rubbing his bicep as Ethela punched him, “Okay okay. I was just trying to get you to cheer up.” Ethela was a storm zooming past him, a bounce of silver and white hair while she stormed back where they came. Each of her steps a grumble, a cursing, and heavy falling feet.

    “Who is that?” her voice barked, seeing the silhouette of a draped figure. Dirt kicked up from the rocks clouded who could have been standing so arrogantly at the end of their path.

    “I don’t know, maybe it’s just a rock,”
    Thank you MayhemsCurse <3


    Spoiler: Memorable Quotes 

  4. #4
    Member
    Mr.Cynic's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2010
    Location
    ****
    Favourite Roleplay Genres
    ****
    Posts
    9,373
    Mentioned
    15 Post(s)
    Rep Power
    269

    Default

    What do you think it’s going to be like?” Toboe asked. Shoza’s ears twitched as a breeze picked up. His under hair brushing across the more sensitive inner skin of his ears. Walking along the edges of the cliff the forest was in a distance at this height, but the reality of the situation was it was much further away if not for the gates.

    “What?” Zeik asked.

    “When Asmodeus becomes Emperor and Shoza is leading,” Toboe added as Ingsen slithered past them floating in the air and flexing his snake like body. Perhaps in the way someone might flex their biceps.

    “The world will grow big and strong,” Ingsen added.

    Ingsen looked at Shoza. Ingsen was the only who ever expected a response from him.

    “Asmodeus would not let his followers down,” Shoza spoke calmly, “He will make the world prosperous. And I will strengthen his followers.”

    Toboe smiled and Zeik merely nodded. Shoza always wondered about Zeik’s hair, while Zeik might have been curious about his ears. Shoza was curious about Zeik’s hair, he would have made a comment if the portal had not opened. Shoza cocked his head curiously to the side as people came out of it. Not merchants.

    Shoza ears twitched. The smell. It was visually obvious one was demi-fiended, the other not so much. But the scent of her Essence. And the sword. Today merchants came into a gryfon lairs and stole their precious treasure. Now a group of four, one slightly insignificant than the other.

    “Shoza,” Toboe, but he saw Shoza put a finger on his lips.

    “Sssh” Shoza quietly hissed and turned to follow the group from above. Why were they here? Were they looking for the Makoshin? Did they work for the merchants? Who were they? Hunched only slightly the hunting party followed the group. Shoza stuck his hands in his coat sleeves, Ingsen fur was standing up, Toboe slightly unsheathed his bow. But Shoza looked at him.

    “What’s the plan?” Toboe asked.

    “Put away your weapon,” Shoza told him. Toboe raised a brow and Zeik didn’t say anything, hand on the hilt of his sword slowly recoiled.

    “But,” Toboe tried to understand.

    Shoza put his pointer and middle finger up, signifying two. A Magatama stone between his fingers.

    “Two Demi-Fiends walk into the caverns,” Shoza said quietly, “The human we can figure what to do with him later. But I don’t want them dead. I want information.”

    Toboe’s eyes focused on the stone.

    “So, then what are you doing with that?” Toboe asked.

    “Making it easier to speak with them,” Shoza said.

    Zeik stood up.

    “There’s the caves,” Zeik added. Shoza nodded.

    “We do not know how they will react, but if all goes according to plans the smaller numbers will make them less inclined to attack and give us the advantage,” Shoza looked at Toboe. Toboe nodded.

    “Got it,” Toboe told him, tapping Zeik’s shoulder, “Come on let’s go.” Toboe ran off, not too far from where they stood would be an entrance into one of the caverns that so gave this zone its name. Shoza waited till they were out his sight and felt Essence flow through the stone. The ground began to shake and the stones began to fall into the chamber the guest had been lead to.

    (Reyis, Ahava & Toboe, Zeik)

    Before the rocks began to fall Toboe and Zeik managed to find the hidden entrance into one of the caverns. This was their home and their playground, they knew the ins and outs. Toboe being the taller one and declared prettier one often liked to take order.

    “Now how shall we do this,” Toboe ran a finger through his hair, “I suggest we surround them.” He heard a shuffling and Zeik had found a large boulder to sit on.

    Toboe scoffed.

    “Is that how we’re doing it?” Toboe asked. Toboe scoffed and sat down criss cross on the floor just as earth began to shake. The both of them watched as two individuals and stones to fell through the hole, till it was enclosed and they were left with the full demon. A beautiful blond, fairy. And one of the demi-fiends. White hair with black that replaced the white of the eyes and red pupils.

    He looked at Zeik. Who shrugged his shoulders. The Fairy screamed, her noise filling the caving descent her and Reyis were falling into. For how long she felt like she was in the air, it was faster than she processed. A deep rocking impacted her for it was Reyis who took the brunt of the the damage. It knocked the air out of her, Reyis’ arms loosened. Ahava figured it was good sign for her freedom, but a poor sign for the Demi-Fiend who just saved her life. It significantly fascinated her more that Reyis was able to save her, a failing of Ethela that she wouldn’t forget. She felt her love for Ethela dampen a notch.

    Ahava pushed herself up, and got off of Reyis. The mortal was transfixed on starting up, almost losing focus. She could see in his eyes the fading expression.

    “Reyis?” Ahava asked, placing a glowing hand on the Half-Fiend’s forehead. “Will you stand please? I do not think this will be the time to lay down. Oh, and thank you. That may have killed me”

    When he had landed he was initially stunned, wounds from the previous battle made him wince in pain and the initial impact had him staring at the rocky ceiling. He felt his strength fading slowly, there was a numbing to his arms and legs. His vision beginning to flutter. He knew he shouldn’t lose his focus now, but the previous wound and pain had him beginning to lose control. Lose the fight. Until he felt his energy beginning to pick up. He heard Ahava speaking to him kindly and when his vision slowly returned in the dark of this cavern, and what little low light vision he had she looked beautiful. It was a strange emotion or consideration at this moment in time.

    “Thank you,” he said dryly, standing up slowly.

    “Ethela must be in a screaming fit without me, please get me back safely to her” Ahava said with a peaceful neutrality while she follow after him, getting to her feet as well.

    “I promise to do so with what power I can,” Reyis responded, slowly scanning the area. He froze when he noticed two individuals watching them. One had kept their distance about 15ft away from where they had landed another individual remained closer to them, sitting criss cross.

    One of the individuals was a purple haired individual, long, but not Kaja long. Softened featured, but not Kaja softened. In a leather, cloth battle robe, with a quiver on his back as well as a bow. Leather gloves and leather boots with metal over the toes. The decoration and ornation of the outfit was unusual, nothing someone in the Sanctum would wear. It seemed ceremonial, but what was the ceremony? What was the elaboration meaning?

    The other individual farther away had hair in his eyes, in his face. He too wore a much lighter robe with ceremonial traits he had never seen before. A sword at his side. Was he staring at them? Could he see with the hair across his eyes?

    Still Reyis stepped in front of Ahava to defend her if they decide to attack.

    “State your intentions,” Reyis told them.

    “We should shake their hands, it would be more diplomatic” Ahava suggested with a tap on Reyis’ shoulders. “You first” She smiled.

    Toboe looked disgusted.

    “Touch your hands,” Toboe said, he looked at Zeik who still had not done anything, “I would much rather touch a demon corpse then shake your hands. I don’t know where they have been.” Ahava smiled onward but her fluffy eyes narrowed.

    “Maybe they will” She said sweetly to his proposal. Arguably a smiling threat.

    Toboe laughed.

    “Oh that’s cute,” Toboe replied standing up, “Sadly we’re not allowed to hurt you.” He saw Zeik swing his legs for a second, but continued to sit on the rock.

    Zeik finally said something, “Today a merchant visited us. He stole from the gryfon. Then you showed up. Shoza would like to discern your intentions. You have trespassed.”

    Reyis narrowed his eyes at the purple haired individual, slight intimidation before addressing the one speaking.

    “If you are implying we are working with the merchant,” Reyis paused, “Then no. We came to return the stone.” Ahava presented the stone from her backpack on cue with Reyis’ words.

    Toboe ran a finger through his hair and gave a haughty expression.

    “Or you could have killed the merchant after he told you the story of treasure in the caverns and are looking to take more,” Toboe responded. Ahava sighed softly, seeing much of Toboe’s actions in line with what she was used to growing up.

    “The only treasure worthy of my attention is beauty. This is a quest of ethics, hmm Reyis?” She placed a hand on his shoulder encouragingly.

    “I have taken the sole responsibility of being the law of the Sanctum. I would not allow a merchant to steal from a demon and impacting the good relations with demons we have,” Reyis added.

    Toboe raised a brow, flipping his hair back he was about to speak, but it was not his voice they heard because Zeik spoke first, “I believe them.”

    Toboe glared. He was suppose to be the boss. But Zeik gave no response. He just sat stiffly.

    “Very well,” Zeik continued, “If you truly are here to better relations between the demons and humans. May we invite you to speak to our King?”

    Toboe looked at Zeik and looked impressed, running up to where Zeik.

    “That’s a brilliant plan, we have the demi-fiend and the demon,” Toboe told him, “Think about all the praise we would get.”

    Zeik looked at Toboe. But waited for an answer. Ahava raised a finger and cleared her throat.

    “I would love to add the technicality we were to smooth things over with the Gryfons. Is your King directly in relation to such neutral creatures?” She curved balled the narrative with the faint hint of a snide in her pleasant words.

    Zeik smiled.

    “In light of the current circumstances they have been more willing to affiliate with our king. Surprisingly our goals are similar, our leader has spoken with the gryfons being who he is and we too were to smooth things over with the Gryfons,” Zeik replied.

    “Good question though,” Toboe added.

    “I wonder how impactful in diplomacy you and your faction are if you too have ruffled relations with the Gryons. How humours, isn’t it?” She giggled to Reyis.

    A slight smile could be seen. Reyis would have chosen similar wording.

    “Well we are between a rock and a hard place,” Reyis added.

    Zeik smiled again.

    “You misunderstand. They are neutral creatures, normally affiliation would not have been in the cards. If not for your Merchant from the Sanctum,” Zeik replied. Ahava cleared her throat and daintily placed a hand on her chest, fluttering her eyes.

    “It is concerning such an associated King would have leading men who give way to grievous misunderstandings. I might surmise things could be far more clearly resolved between my companions, myself, and the gryfons directly. Fairys have ways with words; misunderstandings say otherwise”

    “You may have ways with words, but ways with words does not imply ways of understanding or appropriately listening,” Zeik responded, “My informing you of a misunderstanding was not a failure on my part to speak, but your failure to understand. Or perhaps you just wanted to hear what you wanted to hear.” Zeik slid off the rock, “But if you want me to make this more clear. Than I shall. This is our King’s territory. And it has been a land we have been cohabitating with other demons and humans who have given themselves up to our King freely. You are in our territory, under our King’s rule. You are a fairy belonging to the plains. You are very far from home.”

    “Yeah, so if want to continue dancing with pretty words keep dancing. But Shoza will rip your pretty little half fiended girlfriend in half if you refuse. Yeah we were watching you,” Toboe said.

    Zeik looked at Toboe and rested his forehead in his palm for a second shaking his head. Ahava gasped in offence.

    “My intimacies are none of yours to know. And, I do hope wherever we go no more fateful landslides so happen to fall on our gathering. It would be terrible.” She slid behind Reyis to hide behind him “And...thank you for calling her beautiful” She stroked her blonde hair.

    Reyis was unsure of their intentions. Were they threatening him or inviting him? The invitation was a bit mixed.

    “Kay usually does the talking part for me,” Reyis responded, actually Kaja did, “But I know some things. An invitation doesn’t usually include death unless it's a trap.”

    Zeik stared at the two and put his point finger up for an intermission. Turning around he looked at Toboe expecting the same. Toboe turned around.

    “What?” Toboe asked.

    “Shoza would want you to have invited them to the base of the Makoshin, not threaten their company, let me lead,” Zeik replied.

    Toboe made a disgusted noise.

    “But your small and look like a squirrel,”

    “I am also a priest and meant to take over Soku’s position if anything was to happen,”

    Toboe grunted. “Fiiiiine,” Ahava cleared her throat, looking over Reyis shoulder and not braving to stand equally at his side, she prefered him as a shield.

    “How can we believe you follow any sort of king? What king would have you in tandem?”

    Zeik turned back to face the demon.

    “Demon Kings aren’t really known for being the sharpest drawer, we all know this. The Fairy Queen is obsessed with post world ancient shoes,” Zeik added, “But we’re just children in this cycle. We are still learning. The Onahrai are important in this cycle. Toboe and I are very young. I hope my show of humility would let us sidestep the constant need for questions.”

    “I cannot apologize for being inquisitive, as all learning peoples are”

    “We have the same goals in mind. Return the stone. All we were going to do was guide you to do so. And in turn for us helping you, you met with our King. I am all for people learning, but when they don’t understand what’s been said several times now then the bigger they need to learn is how to use their ears,”

    Reyis felt a poke in his back. Reyis sighed he just wanted to move from the same location they had been standing in. With Ahava and the other individual going back and forth with words like they were blades of Essence.

    Still though. They had announced there was a Demon King here, and it was important to understand what kind of threat the Sanctum face. Or perhaps another ally. He considered what Kaja might have wanted in this circumstance.

    Cautiously he responded, “If you will lead us to the gryfon to return the stone. With a guarantee that you and the gryfons have an easy relation. Then we will meet your king.” Considering these two were speaking of another individual. It was safe to assume that’s where Kay and Ethela would be, if they met another individual who worked for this same King, and with these same people.

    Toboe huffed arrogantly and fixed his hair, while Zeik looked at the other short individual. Why was everyone so short?

    “I can guarantee your safety,” Zeik told him.

    Reyis narrowed his eyes at the purple haired individual.

    “Very well,” Reyis responded, “Reyis. I am Reyis.”

    “Zeik,”

    “Toboe,”

    “Ahava” She slipped the stone back into her backpack and only now came side to side with Reyis. “Kay and my mate are missing. They should be found” The Fairy went on to suggest their next action.

    Reyis looked at Ahava, right she didn’t understand his gazes. For a moment he had forgotten Kay was not around.

    “I assume,” Reyis looked at Zeik, “The other individual working with you had intercepted them at some point. And they would be also obliged to bring them to your King?”

    Toboe looked at Reyis, what kind of name was Reyis. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t very scary either.

    “You are smart, here I was thinking your fairy friend was the only one,” Toboe remarked.

    Zeik looked at Toboe for a moment, “In other words, yes.” Ahava frowned, rubbing her arm with insecurity.

    “Then I suppose I will have to wait.” she pouted.

    Zeik said nothing instead he began to lead. To Toboe’s disappointment. The caverns were their home. Were where they were born. Flesh dried by mud and blood, tied to life by Essence. They knew the caverns because the caverns made them.

    The bond with this demi-fiend was very important. Asmodeus needed him. They were a key. A bridge between both worlds. Merged together, and that merge would bring prosperity to the land once Asmodeus was given the Emperor’s throne.

    **

    Shoza held his ground till the earth stopped shaking, walking along the edges his ears hurt from the landslide. He kept his hand out for balance before descending down the rock face, hearing returning. Was this destiny, he wondered? For a long time he had doubted that there were demi-fiends. But this was more than just one demi-fiend, but two.

    Had his father finally earned something. Was this a symbol of fate. An offering to his father’s hard work over the years. Shoza stood in front of their path. This road symbolized the path of going back to an old life and the one behind them to start a new life. This was destiny.

    “Who are you?” Ethela barked, only now the dust settling and starting to paint a clear portrait of who was in front of her. Because she was so distrustful she had already charged ahead of Kay, The Boom Blade held behind her offensively. Then, he was revealed. The thick particles pulled apart and what she came to see was a pair of yellow eyes foreign to knowledge she had. They peered, unblinking with an uncanny valley between something disgusting and something understandable. Ethela stopped, the speed of her run making her stagger a step - almost in arm’s reach of this man. Ethela sneered in defense, touching her shell while her interior begun to crack. A white, radiant, monster of a man.

    The face was covered in powder, her eyes wandered for several seconds. Ethela was already forgetting she wasn’t moving. Stillness to mirror his. The eyes of Korris and her commanding trainers had a focus in their eyes, even if harsh. These orbs, staring into her, had no sort of palpable focus but rather a state of being that was cold and pervasive. They saw forward, through, and past into everything. Ethela lost her will to speak.

    There was someone in the distance, he wanted so badly to believe it was a rock. Trees look like people in the distance. So could rocks, right? Nothing weird about rocks and seeing shapes in objects. To be honest he was a little terrified without Reyis. Not that big sword, big tall Ethela couldn’t do anything. It’s just he hadn’t worked with her. This might be it. This might be his end. Then she ran off. Oh fuck. If that wasn’t a rock, then what.

    Please be a rock. Please be a rock. He chanted under his breath as he ran after he. Hand on the hilt of his gun, ready for anything. Anything, but he came to a full stop when he met gold eyes. The slit pupils told him a story of someone dangerous. But he felt himself becoming detaily hypnotized by white face paint, red eye tips and markings.

    An odd sense of dress. Yet, a part of him didn’t trust this individual, he couldn’t quite move. His willpower beginning slip away from him. What was going on here? Why couldn’t he move? He hadn’t fallen this deeply into someone’s presence before beside Kaja. It was very disconcerting.

    Ethela’s huge ridged weapon collapsed out of her hands with a thick thud and she fell to her knees, hands catching herself and staring up to this Half-Fiend. Another...she was compelled to lay eyes on him and yet he was a man. It wasn’t his beauty it was....she lacked the sophistication to find words or thoughts to describe it but she was powerless.

    Ingsen had come slithering out from a rock where he had hidden during the landslide. Staring at the human and half fiend who had fallen stiff, he flew over to Shoza.

    “How rude they just fell,” Ingsen barked.

    Shoza snapped out of his own thoughts.

    “It seems they have,” Shoza responded.

    “How do we fix them? Or are they broken?” Ingsen asked.

    Shoza broke out of his stillness something he was naturally use to in the underground of the Makoshin. Ethela gasped and quickly fumbled for her sword, staring at the ground.

    “Get away from me” Ethela said in absolute confusion to what she had been subjected to.

    Kay too began to recover from being held hostage and quickly whipped out his gun.

    “Better start talking fast, you poisoned us,” it didn’t sound near as cool as he wanted to. Shoza’s ears twitched and he stared at the weapon the human had chosen as his defensive arm.

    “I am not use to social customs,” Shoza responded, “I may have been still too long. I apologize.” he gave a bit of attention to the human, “For future note there was no chance between the landslide and me standing here to poison you. You ran to me. I had no time to react.” Ethela never tried to walk around with her eyes entirely plastered downward while simultaneously dragging a two handed sword longer than four feet. Her steps were awkward at best and the sword tanged, and clanked while it slapped against the rocks and divots of its path. Ethela didn’t bare her back to the strangers, using guesswork to get back to Kay.

    “Who are you?” Ethela asked a second time, far more impatient in this one.

    Shoza stared at the female demi-fiend. She had a fair complexion, her Essence was mingled with a demons. The one they saw earlier. Her portions could have been less exaggerated, females in the Onahrai wore beautiful robes. Fabrics that danced around them and their faces painted like beautiful statues. They moved stiffly without freedom or fluidity. This one was naked and while her fabrics were flowing, her body was toned and trained as a warrior. Which was fine his father would not mind. But for him he prefered a stiffer woman.

    The human was odd company. He looked like a human. Willowy. Trained perhaps, but he was no demon nor specially trained. The human would be easy to take on, if negotiations did not take well. The woman would have to be subdued afterward.

    “Shoza,” he bowed. Ethela didn’t know how to talk to someone she couldn’t look at.

    “Uhhh, you are in my way” Ethela said with a raised pitch, almost sounding like a question yet not hitting the mark.

    “Here to help actually,” Shoza told her.

    Kay looked at Shoza.

    “I mean your face doesn’t say very trusting,” Kay told him. Kay watched Ethela stumble up and he tried to guide her a bit with his unoccupied gun arm. Hopefully by doing so it get her on his side and they would fight this guy or something. Why would anyone choose to wear terrifying face paint then tell strangers they were here to help? You don’t look terrifying if you’re a nice person.

    “Thanks” Ethela whispered, staring now at Kay, up at his face as her only situation awareness to what was happening behind her. She did however speak over her shoulder, using the fullness of her ample hair as a visual shield between her eyes and the opponents behind. “How are you to help us? We are missing people”

    Shoza made brief eye gaze to both of them. While Ingsen flew between the three of them.

    “Before you is a choice,” Shoza said calmly, “Here is a path. Behind me is a way back. With me there is a path that takes us on an adventure.”

    “Adventures are always fun,” Ingsen piped up, “You are here to play, right?”

    Kay saw Ethela looked at him. He understood he was good at getting the jist of things from a simple gaze.

    “So, here’s some advice. The face paint is a no, you want someone to trust you, the best thing is to not look like a clown,” Kay paused, “The second thing is before you is a choice is a terribly bad preface. Is that a threat. Are you about to give us balloons. Or a dagger in our backs. Like is it a fun choice or a bad choice.”

    Shoza’s ears twitched. The human spoke to him in odd tongues. Had his casual social conversation failed? Should he try a different tactic?

    “I apologize, I do not associate well with those outside of my commune. Speaking in simple terms can be difficult,” Shoza said, “But I am like the both of you.”

    Ingsen spun in a C formation.

    “He’s a bridge,” Ingsen added.

    “I’m leaving.” Ethela grunted, turning around to lean forward enough to see the ground, jabbing outwardly randomly with The Boom Blade. “Keep away from me”

    Shoza looked disappointed. He had tried it the nice way. Tried to speak like the commoners of the surface. But their language was not delicate. It was clumsy, it’s mannerism were not poetic. Beyond the lack of empathy these people seemed to have, not that he was looking for one. Shoza crossed his arms across his chest. Coming out from the rocks were eight or so shikigami who had hidden in the rocks that had fallen.

    “Like my friends,” Shoza said as the shikigami surrounded the two, “I made them out of demons. But.” he looked at the human, “I can wait till all the Essence comes out of you and do the same to the both of you. I tried to be nice with words you understand. I was here to help. Was. I tried to play to what we share in common. Clearly that’s not enough, my intention was not to stun you. And my intention is not to kill you. Before you is a choice. I can subdue you into submission. Or you can go with me peacefully.” Ethela didn’t wait for the silence of his ending words to end before she followed her eyes to her senses and cut through three shikigami surrounding her.

    Kay watched Ethela begin to run off. He would have ran after her, but the shikigami blocked his path. He would have cut through them, but felt something bite into his side.

    “Fuck!” Kay shouted, jumping from the cliffs was the preta that hadn’t ambushed them from before. A dagger had landed in his side from one of the preta. Ethela cut away and lunged back from the last demon in front of her and heard Kay’s sound of pain behind her. Her brain raced with curses and she had to drop The Boom Blade. Flickering alive in her hands came the lasso of lightning warming the metal coating her touch. Ethela’s speed jolted to something that couldn’t be followed, the light of her element coating her in the briefest of times. She tossed the loop of her lasso to enclose Kay and jerk him to her. Kay came flying at her and she had to catch him with a gunt.

    Ethela only had two actions left but at the speed she needed to pick them was impossible to do with tactics. She had to pick her choices prior to igniting her speed and what was left between saving Kay and the mass of demons, was the threatening Half-Fiend. Whipping the lasso off of Kay Ethela threw it onto the radiant figure and wrapped him from afar. Her speed died down instantly and she was panting, the greatest depth of her power just spent. The man may have been bound, but if she looked at him he would be free. If she let go, he would be free and if she dissipated the lasso, he would be free. Kay had been let go and she looked over at him at her side.

    “You want peaceful terms, you let us go and I’ll do the same” Ethela barked, worriedly staring down at Kay. “We don’t know you” Ethela’s sorry attempt to meet force and diplomacy with the illuminated Half-Fiend was cut off by the startling leap of a Preta, it’s member swung in her face before it landed on its feet in front of her. Revusled, scared, and angered the Preta took great opportunity to ambush and cut her across the arm.

    The woman hissed, blood dripping down the soft skin of her lean arm but the knife was far too dull and mundane to cut through inner hide.

    “Erra!” Ethela screamed, kneeing it in the gut against the wall, headbutting it, and when it was fallen to the ground she stomped on its genitals with a cruel, cold, metal boot.

    Shoza smirked. Bound by the lasso, his tough hair was flexible, but uncomfortable.

    “You are now in no position to negotiate,” Shoza responded, “The poison will slowly weaken your friends immune system and he will die as every organ of his fails. And it will affect you too. I know of a place to heal your poison and keep you safe. Or we all die in this canyon because we took too long.”

    “You can save his life?” Ethela huffed, stoic, yet frantic.

    “My people, yes,” Shoza responded.

    Shoza felt the lasso loosen on him, he quickly moved back from the preta and yaka standing behind him. Had they been more receptive to less forceful measures they could have out beat the preta and yaka coming. Scavengers. Ingsen looked at him.

    “Would you?” Shoza asked.

    Ingsen floated in a C formation and howled. A gust of wind had pushed some of the preta back. While Shoza unsheathed his sword from his parasol, flinging the umbrella open shielding himself. The preta that had been standing had actually been stupefied earlier. When he moved the preta looked at each other. Throwing their hands in the air, swinging them as they ran off climbing back up the cliffs to regroup. Shoza sheathed his sword and rested his parasol on his shoulder.

    The woman had now been attending the human. Who was already showing signs of the poisons flowing through his body.

    “We have quite the walk,” Shoza told her, he was placing his hands in his sleeves to take out a fabric pouch with a soft green fabric, “I do not have medicine. This will slow it down though.” Ethela looked up at him behind her, swallowing hard and quickly moving her eyes to the pouch, taking it, and getting her eyes of him as quickly as she could.

    “Thank you” She quipped, very aware this Half-Fiend was behind her unarmed back, she was poisoned, and he seemed particularly obsessed with Fairy like pleasantries. “Hey, take this…” Ethela told Kay quietly, a tension headache getting to her. She fumbled her fingers to undo the cloth and take out plants she hadn’t seen before. Guessing this man wasn’t lying about the antidote or at least stalling of these herbs she had no choice but to trust him now. She put them in Kay’s mouth, tending to a human was not something she had expected she was going to do today. But if she didn’t, she didn’t see it about Reyis to kill her girlfriend in retaliation, also, while she didn’t want to admit it...she wanted Reyis’ friendship. And Kay, wasn’t bad for a human…

    “Please swallow this....” Ethela whispered as softly as a husky lesbian could tenderly.

    Kay could feel his whole body shaking, despite there being numbness he was slowly beginning to lose a sense of the world. Shit, he was not planning on dying today. He still needed him. Reyis needed him. He was the only person who had stuck by his side, beside Kaja, after his father died. Reyis might be a stick in the mud, yet in their private conversations Reyis had extended a gratuitous amount of sympathy and empathy to him.

    He needed to pay him back anyway he could. Any way he should. Ethela soft voice was piercing in the darkness, swallow. Swallow something. These herbs? Given by who. Kay grabbed them weakly, swallow herbs?

    “You put it in your mouth, the herbs oil mixes with your saliva, do not eat the twig.” Shoza said while wiping his face with the sleeve. The half-fiend female who had avoided his gaze seemed scared. Maybe not of him. But she was worried about the human.

    Smearing as much of the paint as he could off his face.

    “Look at me,” he told her. Ethela placed a hand on Kay’s shoulder, and breathed deeply. The woman paused, but did so. In her own feminine ways, the stormy clouds of her hair tumbled off her shoulders when she turned and Ethela looked up at and saw a rather ordinary, pensive looking face. Except the unnerving eyes.

    “I see you” Ethela said, trailing. This day was a draining on her adrenaline...or was that the poison?

    “I was being very much serious when I said I do not communicate with those outside,” Shoza told her, “I do not know you. Today a merchant tried to steal from my people. Immediately after these merchants stole from the gryfons. We came to investigate, then your party came. We do not know if outsides are friend or foe. I have to be harsh, to be strong. The Preta,” he touched his ear, “I heard them.” Ethela’s eyes softened and moved their stormy gaze down to his feet in thought.

    “I know, harsh is a good thing. I understand” She didn’t need to be explained to what he was talking about. Image, strength, discipline. They had been whipped into her for a long time, she never took to them well - wasn’t her nature. But if she had been free to do what she wanted, she would have been crushed to a rock to death, and Kay would already be dead. Ethela scolded herself, harshness and shame were shadows behind her aggression and endless inertia. “I did not know Half-Fiends like me lived, until I met two today…” Ethela changed the subject, putting Kay’s guns back in his clothes and picking him up to toss over his shoulder. Her world felt mildly loopy and she had to stand a moment longer to process the bothersome lethargy getting to her.

    Training in the sands made her strong and she managed to continue without interruption beyond this, turning and picking up her sword and look at Shoza.

    “You do want to help, then…” Ethela finally could agree with his previous words. HEr eyes flickered to Kay’s legs draped down her, then to her hand holding The Boom Blade and remembered something. “Oh yeah” She slammed The Boom Blade tip first into the ground and extended her hand out. “I’m introducing myself with my hand. My name is Ethela”

    Shoza hesitated as he saw the hand extended out towards him. His ears twitched as he heard the scampering on top of the cliff floor. His hand with a bit of an odd motion accepted the hand, surface customs were unusual.

    “Pleasure to meet you, we should be on our way before they come back,” Shoza stared at the human. The Paradise Weed should give him enough strength to make it.

    The herbs, whatever he had been given tasted minty and grassy at the same time. And Kay had tasted his fair share of grass before after a demon had piled drived him into the ground. Through his weakening vision he saw the strange demi-fiend had removed his makeup. While he looked more ordinary than Kay had imagined. It was an odd juxtaposition that only made demi-fiend that more frightening. Well he certainly was still intimidating he was also ordinary like Reyis.

    Speaking or thinking of Reyis, he really hoped he was okay. He took a brutal beating earlier today. Why did he Ahava with him? Was she treating him well?


  5. #5
    Member
    Mr.Cynic's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2010
    Location
    ****
    Favourite Roleplay Genres
    ****
    Posts
    9,373
    Mentioned
    15 Post(s)
    Rep Power
    269

    Default

    This whole day was slowly becoming more and more inefficient. He had spent many of his years training and learning how to be discreet with every action. Now he was following some strangers through a cavern, making deals with them to meet with a Demon King. There was a significant importance to this, Demon Kings were powerful. Few ever actually got to the point where they sat on a throne and had human followers.

    But they were not human. Were they? Reyis studied them, their Essence felt odd. Not corrupted. But they were not demons, but they were not demi-fiend's nor human. Something else then. He wasn’t sure. Ahava was at his side, which was an odd set of circumstances.

    While decidedly it would be be best to keep Ahava alive for a truce with Ethela, her safety overall was not his biggest concern. He’d protect her, he’d keep her safe as best as he could. But all demons return to the great cycle and are reborn again. Somewhere, he wasn’t sure, but demons spoke of it sometimes. Reyis did not have super hearing, super speed, or super sight, but he was trying to take in every detail of the tunnels as they passed them.

    It would be information needed to know eventually or if things went wrong. To be honest this whole day was wrong. Gather information about your enemy. Negotiate if you can. Killing should be a last resort with those who do not negotiate or try to kill you during negotiations. Know the demons that surround you, know their weaknesses, and follow their path. You only really understood the way a demon thought by walking in the footsteps that they had walked.

    “May I ask who this Demon King is that you follow?” Reyis asked.

    “You may ask that,” Zeik responded.

    Reyis narrowed his eyes.

    “But you won’t give me that information?”

    Toboe snapped his fingers.

    “Bingo, we don’t just tell anybody who he is or what the Onahrai believe,”

    That meant the gryfon was a test to see if they really were who they said they were. Reyis had to shield his eyes when they popped out from the other side of the canyons. The sun was bright, halos of rays bounced off of the rocks. Toboe and Zeik scanned ahead, as did he.

    “What of the Preta? Or other demons? Beast? Other flying creatures?” Reyis asked them.

    “If they show up, we got this,” Toboe said with an arrogant smile and a finger running through his purple hair.

    Reyis narrowed his gaze even further.

    “You were chosen by your king to patrol out here and you know nothing of the creatures that actually live here?”

    “You’re worse than Zeik, in another lifetime you could have been brothers,” Ahava placed a soft chuckle to decorate the sentiment. The Fairy seemed content on listening to all of them and following quietly. After being so wordy before, now she was in silent observation. The purple of her eyes glinted while she watched them all.

    ----

    The Dust Rock Caverns seemed like such a dramatic change from the earlier canyons with grass and bits of liquid seeping from crying rocks. It was dryer here, just a little, but moisture wicked the air. The landscape changed from mostly gray flat stones, to dusty colored rocks, stalagmites and other jagged edges made the landscape look like you were walking on the backside of a dragon, not that of a rocky surface.

    They had said nothing after their previous exchange and the mood had changed from that of being escorted, to everyone being on guard as rocky edges threatened either a nasty fall or being enclosed in a claustrophobic environment.

    Maybe there were voices. Maybe there were things watching them in the rocky crevices, it was unsure. The hunting party, Toboe and Zeik seemed nervous. Reyis wondered why.

    “For hunters you seem on edge,” Reyis told Toboe.

    Toboe ignored him with a haughty hair flip.

    “Well you’re not on your guard,” Toboe responded.

    But he was, he just didn’t want to give his opponents any sign of his own weaknesses. He also didn’t want to disclose that this aura felt weirder. The Essence here was stifling powerful. There was something here more powerful than anything he had dealt with before.

    Was this the demon king’s domain then? If so how far did it spread and was this to be stopped? He felt more powerful in this demon king’s domain, his power was reaching, growing. Still a part of recognized that if this was the power of this particular demon king, then was Kay really okay?

    Ethela was with Kay, but would the Demon King provoke her to attack him. And considering her reputation for being impulsive, would she do so? And would she get Kay killed if that were the case? How would he feel if he lost Kay?

    He was all that he had left in this world. That had him connected to his humanity it seemed. He stared at Ahava.

    “I have to ask,” Reyis spoke to her, “Kay is all I have. I am sure you can understand that. Do you trust Ethela on Kay’s life?” Ahava’s light, charismatic smiled slowly fell after he finished speaking.

    “She has been able to keep me safe thus far, but it is you who saved me from the fall. She is not perfect, does that answer your question?”

    Answered, yes. Relieved him, no. While he had to admit his own flaws as well, Reyis could feel a pit beginning to develop in his stomach.

    “Yes,” Reyis responded as dryly as he usually did, he was better at shielding himself emotionally. He knew one day that Kay would die. He just wished it would have to be that way. Yore died eventually and he tried to deny that as well.

    Reyis placed his hand in front of Ahava, he stopped, he was rigid and while he could not hear the enemy he felt them coming.

    “Something is coming,” Reyis responded. As soon as he said, Preta jumped down from the cliff side that overlooked them. That had created this cavernous tomb in the first place. Six of them held their daggers, but had not surprised them. Well Toboe was busy with his hair, only realizing with a cheeky smile before taking out his bow. While Ahava came closer to his back.

    “HOOOMANS! WE SMELL URRRR SCENT DOWN WIND! WE KILL UUUUUU! JUST LIKE THE OTHERS!” one of them threatened with its dagger.

    Like the others? Ethela and Kay? Kay was dead? Unless someone else came through the tunnel. That was a distraction right now he needed to kill these pest. Unsheathing his scythe he merely told Ahava, “Stay behind us.”

    Staring at the Preta with no immediate surprise Zeik had foreseen them long ago in broken images, he held onto his sword’s hilt. It was clear to him that Reyis blade was slow. He chose such an exuberant design. Holding tightly onto his held he stepped forward, then charged forward toward one of the preta.

    Going through the Preta as if he were not physical. The preta fell in two halves, each half oozing hardening essence. He stood behind the preta too slow with their eyes he may have had become invisible to their perception.

    He watched as Zeik stepped forward and in a quick blink had dashed straight through one of the Preta. Cleaving it in half as if it were made out cloth. Reyis stood forward, he made sure he had enough distance between him and Ahava. Taking an acrobatic step, he managed to run along the wall of the cavern, before jumping off onto a rock, landing a strike against an unprepared Preta’s side.

    With a sweeping crescent arc the Preta was cleaved in half, it’s friend managing to jump out of the way as the wide turn had nearly caught it in the arc as well. Now two Preta lay in four Preta halves. Hardening Essence like tree amber seeping into the dirt, making it soupy, and glow. In the glory of Reyis’ work, Ahava watched him with eyes hinting with more than simple, calculative interest. Yet also she took a moment of time to sweep her fingers through a similar arc - through her hair.

    Why did they have to be so flashy? Toboe made a disgusted grunt at the Preta, they were so ugly. Why did his pretty arrows have to touch them? He’d just burn them so he didn’t have to look at their ugly corpses afterward. Grabbing one of his arrows with a symbol that almost represented fire on the feathering tip, he drew his arrow back with strength and grace.

    He released it, it went soaring and struck the Preta that jumped back from the scythe’s arc. The arrow ripped through the shoulder of the preta, but as it had done so paper stuck to jutting out inferior bones. Toboe just gave a small sigh before snapping his fingers and the Preta ignited in bursting flames.

    “That’s better,” Toboe said.

    The three Preta remaining looked at their fallen comrades and scampered up the cavern walls. Leaving their last ally burning on the grounding, rolling in agony. Sparing no time to take advantage of the situation Reyis stepped forward to the Preta.

    “Tell me what you meant about the humans you killed and I might put you out,” Reyis told the Preta.

    “WE AMBOOSH HOOMANS BEFORE UUUUU. AAAAAAITHURTS….MAKE IT STOP.”

    “Oh my” Ahava said under her breath, running carefully around the burning visual blight and stepping behind Reyis’ back to attach herself to him. “You are doing so well in Ethela’s place, thank you” Ahava whispered sweetly into Reyis’ ear, the light of the Preta’s flames being taken by Reyis’ thicker frame in front of her lithe body.

    “What about the humans you ambushed, what happened to them?” Reyis frowned though as the Preta turned into ash. He heard Ahava, he was not so easily persuaded he knew Fairy’s tricks. Yet he tried to smile anyway, “They won’t be coming back for a while. When they ambushed us their numbers were small, which meant who they ambushed took a large number of them out beforehand.”

    “Mmm” Ahava said with a polite sound of acknowledgement, not wasting a moment to ease past Reyis with a caressing of his shoulders and crouching down to pick up the Essence crystals from the ashes left behind.

    Reyis stuck out his hands.

    “Those are mine,” he said. Ahava didn’t miss a beat, a toss of her full hair over her shoulder and a smile up to him.

    “Are you sure, the others might have discussion about it?” The Fairy Demon tilted her head with a smooth ease, engaging dialogue with the others.

    Toboe brushed his hand through his hair, “It’s so dry.” He complained. Zeik simply stares at Ahava.

    “Our King would like to honor demi-fiends unlike the Sanctum, a mere 128 Essence would not suffice for him, nor Shoza,” Zeik mentioned.

    “Terribly offensive” Ahava agreed, pocketing the 128 shards. “Let pure breeds take such slander”

    Reyis stared at Ahava.

    “I killed, it’s my Essence, I am someone who notices deft hands,”

    “Taking it would be an insult, it was just said” Ahava reasoned with injected concern. Zeik stared at the fairy.

    “We would like to gift the Essence to the demi-fiend who has hunted with us,” Zeik said one more time. Ahava huffed and tossed the Essence onto the ground, as exactly where she found it in spite rather than hand it to Reyis. Gracefully she stood up straight and walked away with a neutral disinterest so detached from her soft voiced and soft touched companionship to the Half-Fiend before.

    Reyis knew the trickery of the fairy’s. He would not share a kill with someone who was not here. He would not hand an Essence to Ethela with a kill that was not hers. He might have to believe she kept Kay alive and protected him, but he would decide whether or not he wanted to pay her depending on the state she returned Kay.

    Reyis stepped forward and stood before an entrance of a cave. He points.

    “Is this where we need to be?” Reyis asked.

    Zeik only nodded silently, he stepped before Reyis. Heading into the caves Zeik said nothing. The Fairy would be a nuisance to Asmodeus. She was not an ambassador of her kind and only seemed to suck up to demi-fiends. The demi-fiend on the other hand was skilled, he’d give him that. Not skilled enough. Asmodeus would polish him and sharpen him.

    Toboe followed behind Zeik without a word for the first time. He stared at Zeik, he liked Zeik, but Zeik scared him just a little in the way Soku scared him. Always silent and manipulative, unlike the fairy.

    “I’ll have to condition my hair after this,” Toboe said.

    “I have herbs well suited for that” Ahava smiled.

    “Do they smell good?” Toboe asked, “The last time Shoza gave anything was to trick me and make my hair smell terrible.”

    “I would have nothing less than pleasantry touch my hair” She assured.

    “See you get it,” he stares at Zeik, whose hair he was always envious of because it was so light and fluffy. “She gets it. My hair is important.”

    “Mine is too,” Zeik responded.

    “Really because you look like a shaggy cu sith,”

    “Cu Sith are loyal creatures, you would be reminded of that Toboe,”

    Reyis ignored their banter.

    “What are in these cave systems? Anything we should worry about?” he asked.

    “We’re not sure,” Toboe responded.
    Reyis narrowed his gaze.

    “You’re not sure?” Reyis asked, “Didn’t you come this way to speak with the gryfon?” Toboe looked at Zeik and rolled his eye to the side with a laugh.

    “You deal with this,” he told Zeik.

    Zeik pointed up.

    “We came from the top last time, not the bottom,” Zeik told them. Reyis gave them both an angry glare.

    “Why did we not go from the top then?” Reyis asked. Zeik simply turned his back to Reyis and continued to walk forward. Because they had to make sure they could assure the demi-fiend's strength before letting him speak with Asmodeus. It did make things difficult not have Shoza’s ears though.

    “If that would have been accessible after such an odd occurring landslide” Ahava reasoned with a cold drop of poisonous suspicion gifted through her mostly present smile.

    Toboe shrugs.

    “You ask to see the gryfon, you did not give a preference of how you wanted to be guided there,” Toboe replied.

    “I never recall us asking for you guidance” Ahava said cordially to Toboe and nearing Reyis yet again in mid stride.

    Toboe sighed.

    “Here I was thinking you were the spirit demon that spoke to my soul,” Toboe said, twirling his pointer finger around the tip of his hair, “Considering we know this landscape like the back of our hand, ewww why does anyone say that the back of the hand is so ugly it’s bumpy and not smooth because of all the bones. Anyway, your only option was to die because you’d be loss in the infinite circle that this place can spit you through till the preta hunted you down tired. Or trust us and follow us. You haven’t died in our hands, I think we’re doing very good as guardians and guides.” Ahava ran her hand through her hair again, giving silence to the conversation and a look to Reyis. He proclaimed to know of the land, yet calls ignorance to it as his first card? How strange these unusual entities between Demon and Human were - a little dimwitted with their words if she was ever asked for her opinion. Loopholes were like trips in the dance.

    Reyis continued to watch them. Were they planning to spring a trap? No they wanted him to trust them. They wanted him to meet their Demon King. Why? What were they planning? Who was Shoza? They had to have taken them through the caves for a reason. He was not an idiot.

    This was a test. But it wasn’t. If he died, he would be weak in the eyes of their King, if he lived this then he would be worth speaking to. Reyis didn’t like this. None of the rules were inside of his control today. First with Ethela. Now this. He liked knowing. He liked having all the details. All the answers and using it as his advantage. He was going in dark.

    He was going to try as they walked in the caves, slowly beginning to warp from a single tunnel to several entrances.

    “Who is Shoza, you have mentioned him twice now,” Reyis responded.

    “Have we?” Toboe asked, “Never noticed.”

    Reyis narrowed his eyes.

    “I am beginning to lose my patience with you. You will explain things to me,” Reyis told them. Toboe swayed his head side to side.

    “Will we? You can’t demand things like that, if you kill us you won’t be able to talk to our Demon King and Shoza will definitely kill you, oh I mentioned him a third time,” Toboe remarked.

    Toboe’s bold crass was not refutable, and also not align with the games of the Fairy. A spark of envy touched her, his words magnetically silenced conversation where The Game perpetuated them.

    “So you did…” Ahava said in not humbled defeat.

    They were stopped in a large chamber, while it was a cave it felt odd. The floor was not stone, but marble as if this had once been part of a structure of some sort or was forming a structure. The stone walls were smooth and turning white, almost smooth and polished and there was a powerful wash of Essence that called to any demon. It was tantalizing, almost like teasing bait.

    They stood before three paths. Reyis did not like being the one without the control, he had been poking to see where he could find their break. They had none. They were devoted to this Demon King and Shoza, whoever he may be. And they would not give him the answers. So Reyis cooly sat back, crossing his arms across his chest and throwing out a challenge, “Guide us then. You know this place.”

    Zeik looked at Toboe. They were really missing Shoza’s ears. It suddenly dawned on them, was this Shoza teaching them something? Zeik grumbled and Toboe huffed.

    “He did this on purpose!” Toboe shouted in the caves. Shoza wanted them to realize how important he was to their team and split them up so that way they didn’t question his decisions. He knew he should have said nothing earlier.

    Zeik turned to Ahava and Reyis.

    “We’ll do a test of trust,” Zeik told Reyis, “Ahava and you will take a path with one of us.”

    Reyis cocked his head to the side. Did they know where they were going or were they covering it up with the game?

    “I will go with Zeik,” he’d play along, but he was not going to stand the game with the tall, magenta haired young “human”. Ahava crossed her arms in protest yet sauntered beside Toboe.

    “Kill me and you’ll never learn of the correct combination to most beautifully condition your hair” she warned. Toboe brushes her off with a hand gesture.

    “There would be no point in killing you,” Toboe told her, “We’ll go this way.” At his dismissal of threat Ahava lightened up.

    “Oh wonderful, bye!” She waved off Reyis superficially.

    Reyis looked at Zeik. Should he have left them together?

    “Then we go this way,” Reyis said stepping forward. Zeik only nodded. He was beginning to miss the ears though. He didn’t like navigating the old fashion way.

    ----

    In a chamber where the roof was missing, the floor was made of marbling Essence that had not been consumed, but had hardened then bleached over time. Behind a Gryfon were chambers to many treasures it had taken from merchants or from ancient human ruins of their old time. The time when the world was not so natural and wild. Sleeping, with its tails furrowed around its body, wings folded, something in the Gryfon awoke. A symbol of power perhaps. Maybe a trace of something she had remembered.

    “MY TREASHURRRRRR!” she screamed as it echoed through the caverns, “I SENS UUUU. I SENS UUUUU WHO HAS MY TREASHURRR. RETTURRRN IT! RETURRRN MY TREASHUR!”

    ----

    Reyis heard the echoing call of the gryfon, had the Magatama stone they brought back had some significant link to the Gryfon that it could sense it? He had known Gryfon’s were connected to the treasure, he never knew that connected though. Taking a second he stared at Zeik who was standing beside him. It was the first real time in Reyis’ life someone was shorter than him.

    “Do you think we can locate it by its screaming?” Reyis asked.

    “It’s loud enough,” Zeik told him.

    ---

    Ahava kept quiet, giving Toboe occasional side glances, upward, at him. Had anyone told him that maybe he was too tall? How evenly would his complexion have stretched across so much surface she had to wonder - if only to spite him for his victory prior.

    Toboe covered his ears as the creature screeched and he huffed.

    “We were having a nice moment of exploration and then you have a flying beast monster now yelling,” Toboe mutters, “Well at least we don’t need Shoza’s ears.” Ahava grit her teeth and covered her own. The way Toboe spoke of Shoza, was it a lover? So often, such passion and need.

    “You will have him soon”

    Toboe furrowed a brow. Did she? Oh gross. Shoza was not meant for him.

    “I have you know I have a healthy admiration for him, but nothing like that,” Toboe told her, “He is an honorable and respectful person.” Ahava gave him an awkward look as Toboe’s far away, inches far above her, lips moved in attempt to speak past the roaring screams and her plugged ears.

    “I said you will have him soon!” She repeated to make herself clear through the loudness.

    “Yes! But I don’t want him in the way you are implying!”

    “Oh! I see! Why!? You speak of him so fondly!”

    “I am not allowed to tell! Till later!”

    “You have to tell me later!” Ahava sighed under her lips, eager for gossip. It was the conversation piece of the Fairies.

    “When you meet him!” Toboe frowned, “Can we make this quick so it can shut up!”

    “Alright!” Ahava nodded, stepping forward first - stopping to realize what she did and walked up to hide behind Toboe. “You know where you are going!” She insisted.

    He actually did though, the screaming was so loud this must be what the world must sound like to Shoza. It was actually kind of fun chasing the sounds of the screaming gryfon up a pair of stairs, into a grand hallway, shaping itself to be a grand cathedral.

    “HELLO!” Toboe shouted down the hallway, “WE ARE BACK! WE HAVE YOUR STONE!” his voice carried and echoed through the hallway. Oh he sounded kind of cool with the echo, so demanding Toboe how kind of cute.

    The Gryfon stopped thrashing. Yes. Yes. It remembered the strange visitors. Who came from the powerful mountain. Far away. Hidden behind waterfalls. She made promise with them. If they return stone. She aligns herself with Demon King. She remembers.

    She charges forward into the hallway, large enough for her to fit. She stares at them. Smells the both of them. One of them is a demon, a fairy. Should eat her. Won’t eat her. She has treashur. The other one is a thing, it’s human, it’s demon, it’s not either.

    “U prom is treashur,” she says, “U give treashur. I align with King of the Mountains if give me treashur.”

    Toboe nudges Ahava.

    “Go on, give her the stone,” Ahava had to pull off her backpack and snatch it out from her contents. A brow raised hesitantly while she presented it. She wasn’t entirely sure what the most diplomatic behavior between her and this Demon would be. If she tossed it, perhaps if she kept the toss low to the ground and gentle that would be seen as graceful.

    In a motion similar to bowling she wrapped her fingers around it and rolled it forward across the ground. Her swing swayed her hair, elegant and serene in her motions. And the stone, it clunkily wobbled forward, beating the hard surface and rolling only three times as Ahava’s beautiful toss was a weak one. It was not hard to imagine her having little body strength, and Ahava may have showed some restraint in her toss.

    Now it was six feet away from Gryfon, and three feet from Toboe’s body. Ahava’s toss could have been...better.

    Toboe watched as the Gryfon lowered its head to stare at its stone. Inspecting with its beak. Stepping forward, now that it was appeased with a smile.

    “Does that mean you accept our alliance?” Toboe asked.

    The Gryfon bowed, allowing Toboe to put his hand on its forehead.

    “I accept,” the Gryfon told him.

    It felt as if the winds had changed and even Ahava could feel something was not entirely right. As the walls began to melt like candle wax, and the Essence was flowing into the Gryfon. Dark shadows, no blue Essence that had once glown with purity, had now turned black, as electricity flew through the clouds of black Essence.

    The Gryfon silhouette began to distort, before it completely ruptured into Essence. Till the Essence began to shape something else entirely. In the black aura, was a distorted, green body, silver winged creature, with the head of a bat, the hair of a human, and the tail of a reptile. The body of a dog, it bowed.

    “I am Manticore,” it says, “I have accepted your alliance and will go to the Mountain.” Ahava watched with such distaste, one slow step she took to go backward. Fear wasn’t quite the emotion the Demon felt, not betrayal, but certainly there was an ounce of both that made her apprehensive.

    “And what have we done?” She asked Toboe’s back, raising a foot to slowly backward again. Toboe felt proud. He had done the PuppetMaster’s work. He fell to his knees and raised it to the sky.

    “Oh father hear me, I have done as you asked, I have created something in your image, praise and admire me, as I praise and admire you,” Toboe said to the sky. He opened his eyes slowly to look at Ahava, she sounded hesitant.

    Oh so a Demon could feel hesitation? She could feel fear? Toboe gave her a smug smirk.

    “We have done the work of our creator,” Toboe told her, “Now there is no Gryfon, the treasure can be all yours if you like. We have no need for it. But soon, you should know the cycle. Soon a Demon King will be chosen to be the Demon Emperor and rule all of the demon kind and annihilate the remaining humans. Don’t you want that? Don’t you see how amazing that will be?” Ahava paused and lowered her hands to her sides.

    “I do not mind, you said I could have the treasure?” She asked with more eagerness for this instead.

    “With your friend, yes,” Toboe said, but he grabbed Ahava’s hands with enthusiasm, “Don’t you get tired of being yourself. You’re pretty. But I know we can make you prettier.” Ahava looked from left to right, insulted.

    “I know I look windblown from my travels, but I think I am salvageable with bathing”

    “Then come to our mystical waters, it flows with Essence and Asmodeus will protect you under his wing, you will be more powerful than you’d ever know,”

    Asmodeus was a powerful name. One she would be cautious of if only in respect to such power. Ethela was a power she could cling to, and love. Asmodeus was not such a thing. Asmodeus could not be read and understood simply like Ethela. Ahava stared at their hands, his large hands in particular.

    “I would prefer a mundane bath with my prefered company, I hope to find her soon” Ahava navigated with a sheepish expression. “Congratulations, this endeavor has truly made you happy” Toboe stared at her and laughed just a little.

    “Well if anything went according to plan your company is meeting with Asmodeus as we speak,”

    Reyis and Zeik emerged from the other end. The Gryfon was not in the center of the chamber and the walls had turned black. Reyis looked at the scarred landscape of a once beautiful forming cathedral, had been burned and scarred by what appeared to be lighting. Or the stone had completely melted as if it were clay. There was a very dark energy about this chamber. Dark and corrupting. It was a tempting whisper. And a clue to who these people worked for.

    Ahava and Toboe were in the hallway, Toboe was holding onto Ahava’s hands with an enthusiastic stare. No an eager stare. Like predatory hunger.

    In the center of the chamber Zeik was impressed Toboe managed Conversion on his own. For someone so beautiful he always had the habit of making the ugliest of followers. Falling to his knees in prayer he did so silently.

    Oh father. We have created in your image. Your power to create flows in us. And we gift you the life of others.

    Reyis cocked his head to the side. Something in his gut was saying something was not right. He didn’t know what it was, but he didn’t like it. It made him feel sick and dizzy. Taking out his Scythe, he held it to Zeik who’s guard was down.

    “Answers now,” Reyis demanded.

    Zeik stared at Reyis.

    “That would not be wise,” Zeik told him, “There’s a small part of you tempted by all of this. I can see it.” He only pulls back his hair ever so slightly to expose his right silver eye. Eyes like mercury they were so piercing and in the center of his forehead was an eye painted on with ink or so it seemed, till the ink faded into another working eye, lowering back his hair, “I see the past. Future. Present. I see the Essence. I see the Soul. I see Danger. If you want to see your friend again I would put away the blade. Right now he struggles for his life as poison seeps in his veins. You would not want to sour our hospitality.” It was the first time he felt something run down his spine cold. No one had ever made him afraid before, and this was different when he was small and vulnerable.

    “I...un..derstand,” Reyis said his heart racing, and he turned to Ahava in the hallway, “Ahava….they have Ethela and Kay. I know it. We have….to go with them.” he said with reluctance.

    “Yes of course, but Ethela would want some of the treasure, if only some of the shiniest of items. Do you mind?” Ahava asked Toboe, jerking slightly on her hands to want freedom.

    Reyis looked at Ahava. If she had any sense of actual compassion for Ethela. It was like something was projecting in his mind.

    “Ethela has been poisoned as well, she has a slim chance of making it, if she dies she won’t worry about treasure,” Reyis told her, “And this place isn’t going anywhere. We can come back. I..” He had to take a second. Taking a deep breath. He inhaled slowly, and exhaled slowly. He had to slow down his racing heart for a second before continuing.

    “Well...if does survive I would love to gift her a trinket. It would be so charming and she would love me more.” Ahava reasoned happily.

    “But you can come back, the last gryfon is,” Reyis looked around, “Gone. And the other is dead because Ethela killed it. So it’s not coming back. You can come back. You can get her a trinket later.”

    “Come on, I have decided I like you and I want to do something with your hair,” Toboe demanded and began to drag Ahava with him towards a spiraling staircase that would lead to the top floor caverns. Zeik picked himself up from the floor. He looked at Reyis one more time.

    “I trust you will not be able to use those tactful skills of yours with Shoza, that is the only warning you will get,” Zeik said following Toboe. It seems he found himself a pet. He never kept them for long though, growing bored of them.

  6. #6
    PREACH FORGIVE ME PLEASE I BEG OF YOU!
    Minkasha's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    In a world I struggle to understand.
    Age
    31
    Posts
    11,885
    Mentioned
    46 Post(s)
    Rep Power
    316

    Default

    Resilience. He would give them that. Shoza’s ears twitched whenever a breeze picked up. He felt ominous winds and he knew something had been done, changed. He had faith in them. Though he wondered if they had faith in him sometimes. He would see in time wouldn’t he.

    The Human had earned more respect in his eyes, standing and keeping up with the both of them. He would have to calculate his approach better next time with the woman.He had heard the Preta, had he said anything he would have given away he knew. But her caution was warranted. He of course did not lack sympathy for both of them. But they were not finely tuned swords. All blades needed to be weight, polished and sharpened.

    Neither had the skill to serve him. The Half Fiend provided sheer power. That would be useful in the coming times. The Human provided another body with no home to go. Once Souls left they left for good in the Amala Network. Unworthy. If they could not cure the poison, perhaps he would offer mercy by having the human accept his creed. He was unsure.

    He was guided by what he heard and familiarity. When they reached the Makoshin, the Moon had become dull, the evening was slowly creeping up. Dissolving the afternoon like fine brush strokes. The mountain was surrounded by cascading waterfalls that froze when it snowed and a natural lake. He urged with only a gesture for them to take a drink from the lake. Cupping his hand and partaking in the refreshing drink.

    They needed it more than him, but he was trying to show a sense of solidarity among them before continuing into a cut open mountain pass. Cut into the pass was a doorway, made of smoothed, angular and rectangle stone. The light of the moon now fading, bathing carved hallways in red, as torch light was what they grew accustomed to.

    Shadows. Stillness. Poltergeist of life lingered in these walls. The Essence was tempting, powerful. It spoke, danced, vibrated. The power made any true hunter hungry. Not a word spoken and yet the halls could be heard, “Creator, Creator, Shape me to your Form, Seal me by the Rite of your Blood”, “The Creator is the Creator is me, is you. Our souls molded like clay. Like puppets we are bound by his blood”

    All around words ebbed and flowed. Like tides. In and out. Praise and worship. With not a single body. Not a single person to see in the hallways that spoke.

    Ethela, pushed through the path to save a Human’s life, stood at an entrance her gut said to never go through. Ethela, most keen on anger and the empowerment it gave her instead had to suffer through another feeling churning. A cold and wet emotion peeled strength in sensitive layers. The design, though she could not perceive the details with a mind like hers, felt the warnings in the rocks and in the emptiness. In her lower abdomen, her stomach digested this with repulsion; she felt sick.

    None of this was right. But if she didn’t do it, Kay would die and by that she would lose all she had known or wanted to know: Ahava and Reyis’ history. Why did what she want in this world have to lead her into this hallway? To this entrance?

    “I don’t like this” Ethela said outwardly, wiping back sweat stuck silver hair from her forehead and glided it back on top of her scalp. “You said Kay would be cured in here?” Ethela despised the tone of her voice when it bounced off these walls - it sounded hesitant, vulnerable, girlish.

    Holy Essence, but this place was not the place you go to get cured of poison. He was not like Reyis, he couldn’t feel Essence, but even this place made his skin crawl. He rather take his chances licking rocks till he found a cure. Fighting dizzying nausea and standing up straight. But this looked like the labyrinth you chose to design if you were up to a lot of evil.

    You don’t see good guys making temples of odd shaped carved rocks, and torches lighting hallways. There were lights. Was this Creepy Sanctum? Yep he was dubbing it Creepy Sanctum.

    “You know, your home is really lovely, but maybe I can get the cure somewhere else,” Kay kind of gave a smile, but he felt sickish, his skin was clammy and sweaty. He was losing strength. But he continued on for Reyis. For the hope that this was not his end.

    Shoza’s ear twitched picking up the sound of their voice, before he turned to look at them. He moved his head to the side, then straightened it out. He seemed in his element in these halls.

    “We have healers here,” Shoza told her, “I do not lie. I am honest. Not saying everything all at once is not a lie. Unless you are making one up.”

    “Your answer is strange” Was Ethela said, turning her sweaty face to Kay and pushing him forward. “We have no choice now, move it” she said with a husky voice and shoved him along.

    Shoza turned away from looking at them and continued to walk with a slow, steady walk. His stiffness was unusual perhaps to them. Ingsen had flown off once they had entered the hallway. Oni with large clubs protected the doorways and they gave him a slight bow.

    “I am taking them to see a healer,” Shoza says, “Inform my father we have guest.” A rectangular door with red Essence flowing through its square veins opened. At first it looked like a dead end. But there were buttons on the side of odd smooth, stone, that did not look like stone, but it did not look mechanical either. It was hardened Essence, all of it. Pressing a button the room began to move downward. When the door swung open, they were greeted by another long hallway. Except in this room were pools of flowing Essence. It moved like water, but swimming in their liquidus state were freed souls. It wisp that went deeper and deeper with no bottom.

    He extended a hand out, but not to stop the half fiend, more like to point at the pools or really gesture at them.

    “I would not go into that, it would rip you apart and you’d be one of the souls wandering in the pool,” Shoza tells her. The swirls of magic strangely reminded her of home and of her guardian Vesa. The swirls and hums of cosmic, cloudy, colors was akin to her natural childhood environment. Ethela had common sense enough to hear Shoza’s words, but the curiosity and the impulse to touch and feel brought her to limp and fall to her knees with a metallic thud besides the water.

    Her hand pushed in, expectant of some reward after all the trouble she’d gone through today. The fingertips singed with the waters that took in her fingers. Ethela’s face grimaced, like constant poking and prodding took her fingers’ sensations.

    Ah!” Ethela sounded out and pulled her hand out, straing at her fingers. It was so reflective and expansive. The tease of water made it feel like it was so much deeper than the cutting striations of magic flung into the cavernous air at home. “No…” She sounded out in disappointment, quiet and to the curling fingers.

    Shoza watched he figured she’d learn by touching it. When she was done entertaining herself, he continued to walk without a word. Only to another brightly lit rectangular door that slid up and wide open. To a room with several beds and a woman in robes, with a headpiece, it had a lot of pieces on it. Her eyes glew like fire in here, but she was beautiful.

    Her movements stiff. But there was a fluidity to her movements. You heard every move she made as if she were not even human. Every stiff joint that moved and there was rather no emotion on her face, till she smiled so stiffly it looked like someone had put it on her with invisible hands.

    “I thought I heard screams,” her eyes move slowly, they look like someone is controlling them to move, “We have two strangers. Are they your new followers?” she ask her stiff neck bending to the side as she looked at Shoza with plastic perplexion.

    “They are not, they are to speak to my father. Followers will be determined,” Shoza said, “Unfortunately they are not ready to see my father. They are threatened by Preta poison.”

    “Oh that is a shame, it must be very painful,” she brushes past Shoza, her body doesn’t move at the joints like a normal individual, and every joint seems to make a noise like she is a marionette, “My name is Ukumo. And I will take care of you both. Please find a bed.” Ethela gave a slight perplexed look.

    “You don’t look like other Demons” The Half-Fiend scanned her with her eyes. Her face was interesting, but the creaking noises turned her off, if she could ever be aroused with how worried, and unnerved she felt here.

    The. Fuck. Was. This. Shit! If anyone told him today he would have been meeting a man who paints his face and looks very suspicious, he would have laughed it off as a ghost story. If anyone told him today he would be going into an expansive underground mountain temple with woman who move like that. He would have laughed it off and said you were crazy. But he was at the nope part of this whole trip.

    “Can we just….get the antidote and go….those beds look really comfy, but I am attached to my bed, at my home,”

    Shoza’s ears twitched as a piece of his under hair brushed in the pink of his air.

    “You are guest,” Shoza tells the human, “You will not be harmed unless there is an order.”

    Kay raised a brow.

    “Oh I am glad there’s an order for that, here I was worried that you guys didn’t have-” he would have finished his statement, but he was beginning to feel his energy fade. Ethela twitched from her female appreciating stares to hold Kay and steady him. Ethela was in a deep need to make sure this human made it, dying wasn’t on the table.

    “Well…” Ethela stared over at Shoza, “what would get us killed?”

    Shoza stared at her with stillness. He did not make an extra movements, his gaze was always focused.

    “Betrayal,” Shoza tells her. Ethela stared longer, her more neutral and harder to read face meeting with an expression of cool focus. She stared longer, wondering how sensitive to expectation Shoza and the darkness down here had. She hoped there wasn’t going to be a million social cues and rules she didn’t know about, breaking all of them and getting herself into deeper trouble when she was already in the depths of whatever this eerie place.

    Kay keeps himself steady with Ethela’s help. He is beginning to feel fire coursing through his blood, but he still seems to have enough strength to ask a few questions.

    “It’s nice to know you can answer questions, but what constitutes as---” he takes a second, “woah there woozy” he gives a slight laugh, “as betrayal down here.”

    Shoza cocks his head to the side.

    “What constitutes as betrayal on the surface?” Shoza ask, “Thou shan’t kill their brother. Thou shan’t start war. Thou shan’t betray the trust of another. And and so and so forth. The Onahrai do not ask for your blessing unless you so ask it. Then betrayal changes its meaning.” Ethela looked away and navigated Kay to the bed.

    “I’m going to help you sit down now…” Ethela moved the subject away from his reply, with a huff.

    Ukumo moved with stiff elegance as she went to the bedside without word. Opening a drawer like joints being moved by invisible hands. She took out a needle and old world vials. Faded lettering was illegible, sticking the needle into the vials she drew a few milligrams of clear liquid. The medicine infused with Essence, sometimes it flashed when catching the fabricated light. Sticking it into the human veins Ukumo lips moved stiffly, like the caged soul she was it was devoid of actual emotion. Ethela looked transfixed at the needle when it caught her eye and she placed her hand on Ukomo’s hand to stop her halfway.

    “Hey, why is that shiny? What’s in there? Is that what I think it is? Is there more?” she said with a half curious, half maybe-she-should-be-concerned-for-Kay tone. But her mind was weak to the two things Ukomo had in her possession: beauty and shiny things.

    “When the father becomes the Emperor of this world, he will have many things to make this world better. This is one of those many things. Don’t you want the safety of this world, this is how you get it and save your friend,” Ukumo replied. What might have read as highly suspicious was instead disregarded by Ethela curling some of Ukumo’s hair over her ear and using a fingertip to play with her tassel dangling from her hair.

    “Sure, whatever you say…” Ethela purred. She enjoyed the way Ukumo talked, it was soft and frail like her words could be broken, or sheltered.

    Ukumo stuck the needle into the vein finally and injected the serum into the human.
    “Now you will be all better, when you rest today may the father speak to your heart and soul,” she said, then she turns to the half-fiend female and smiles. Placing her unoccupied hand on the young woman’s cheek and stroking it stiffly, “May I give you the antidote as well?”

    “Ohh…” Ethela’s cheek felt a warm stimulation, even if the touch wasn’t as soft as she was used to with Ahava it was attached to a very graceful being. Ethela flicked her hair back with a grin, one hand to pull back her bangs at her forehead with a handsome bravado. The other hand tugged at the woman’s folds at her chest. “What do you taste like? Might be better than the antidote you have…”

    Here he was in and out of it, then there were two woman at his bedside beginning to stroke each other. He felt a tingling sensation in his body and was starting to feel aroused. He was terrified, but very much attracted at the same time. Why him? Why was this happening to him? How was he going to explain this? He hoped this was just a wet dream.

    A weird wet dream. That was also a nightmare. But a wet nightmare dream. Because why were their two woman stroking each other right now in front of him.

    Ukumo smiled at the girl.

    “Perhaps you’d like to find out,” Ukumo said leaning in to kiss the girl on the lips. Ethela wasn’t shy to grab the frail woman up against her body fiercely. The thudding noise of Ukumo’s stuff body sounded hard against the metal sparsely over Ethela’s exposed visage. The force of the uniting woman made the chains of Ethela’s bra rattle and her cloudy hair fluff back. Her lips took Ukumo’s, enjoying a plant, cool, sensation she hadn’t had in her mouth before.

    “Mmm” Ethela moaned, curious to explore further, she was here - might as well enjoy herself, she reasoned. Strong touch, womanly body, the Half-Fiend opened her lips to delve more and then something else was tickling her tongue. “Eh?” Ethela stopped, not enjoying it as much as the cool promise she had begun kissing into. She spat some of it out into her hand and stepped back. “What was that?” with a snap of reason coming back to her Ethela recalled it was only minutes ago everything her disturbed her. Now there was a mysterious substance in her mouth….Ethela you’ve done it again… she inwardly sighed at her impulsiveness.

    Ukumo looked at the young woman. Softly smiling.

    “You asked what was in the vial, and you asked to taste me, I gave you both,” she says, “I taste that you are strong. We need someone like you. And we’d flourish you with beauty.” Ethela narrowed her eyes. What?

    “Are you hitting on me or insulting me?”

    “Didn’t you want me?” Ukumo ask brushing some of the fabric of her robe to expose a part of breast. Ethela stared. Her answer didn’t skip a beat,

    “Yep” She answered in the brisk affirmative.

    Kay cleared his throat as he start to feel sleepy. He’s staring at a woman’s breast. She just whipped it out. Unsheathed it from her robe like it was a weapon.

    “Privately, right?” Kay asked. Ethela ignored him. Guess the deed was already done, at least she was cured, Ethela wasn’t particular to the deception but it was also a bit kinky. She grabbed Ukumo by the loosened fabric at her chest and pulled her back, exposing the whole of the nurse’s chest.

    “Do you want me? Here? I can be pretty quick, or slow” Ethela winked.

    “I want whatever way I can feel your soul closest to me,” Ukumo responded.

    “...” Ethela wasn’t sure how to reply to that, which way...closest to the soul….She had to think about for a moment, finger? Mouth? This was a bit theological for her foreplay. “How about the closest to my heart instead?” She suggested and unlatched the metal fastenings of her own bra, letting it clank gracelessly against the floor. Soft skin met another bosom, a delicate mashing of their womanhood.

    Slam! Ethela shoved her up against a wall to pin her.

    “There, do you feel my pulse?” She inquired, sucking on Ukumo’s neck.

    “It seems you are getting well acquainted with our guest,” a voice from the darkness spoke. It was disembodied, but trailed from a man emerging nor morphing from the shadows. His face covered by a veil wearing plain looking robes and pants gathered at the ankles giving them a minor ballooning effect. Ukumo’s moment of delicacy turned to fear. She pushed Ethela a little to give herself birth to squeeze out of her grip before falling to the ground.

    “Soku,” Ukumo said robing herself back up, “I did not know you would arrive so early.” Ethela’s hot, reddened face glared and put her hands on her hips, openly having no regard to cover the healthy sized breasts. SHe seemed, and was, starting to get irritated with the back and forth.

    “Soku? Who are you? Why is a man here?” She said with frustration, forgetting Kay entirely behind her on the bed.

    Ukumo kept her head low and didn’t gaze at Soku. While Soku peered at the young half fiend woman through his veil. She might be the one Asmodeus was looking for. In his visions he saw a powerful queen by his side. Who would break their cycle.

    “I am the High Priest, I am second in command under Asmodeus order,” Soku told her while bowing, he moved with more fluidity and grace, but there was an aura of darkness that swallowed him whole enough to make him seem like he disappeared in the shadows, “I came to greet you as our guest. Though it seems both you have enjoyed yourselves.” Soku took another second, “Your name? I was given it by Shoza, but I’d like to hear it from you.”

    “Talking to a man is not anywhere near as fun a greeting as the one you got in the way of. That’s my name” Ethela said, crossing her arms at her breasts and standing firmly with her feet a bit apart to give her slender shoulders a powerful impression.

    “I see visions dear, I knew this day would come,” Soku tells her, he points to his head, “I see what motivates you. I see there are important people you are looking for and have found. And I’d like to remind you that can be easily taken away. And I can have that arranged.” Ethela’s eyes widened and she slapped herself across the face.

    “Ahava! Oh shit I forgot” The Half-Fiend scrambled to grab her battle armor bra, glancing at Kay who she recalled was actually here too. It was hard to avoid the new shape coming from his black pants, ug. Her breasts were shoved back together and she nimbly worked the latch back on behind her hair. The tingles in her body were quickly sobering up. “No, leave her alone, and Reyis. They need to stay alive, I need them” she said urgently.

    Soku just smiled.

    “I am glad we have come to an understanding,” he told her, “Your friends should arrive. I have been informed they have completed the task. The gryfon has been helped.” he turns to Ukumo, then back to Ethela, “Oh and if you do desire to enjoy yourself we have places for that.” He melted into the darkness and disappears.

    Ukumo looked at Ethela.

    “Next time I’ll direct you to our room for that business,” she said turning from the open, soft woman, to professional. Ethela looked away from the beautiful woman.

    “Not going to happen, I’m committed, you should go”

    “I am the nurse, where am I to go? This is my hospital,” Ukumo replies. Ethela tugged at her hair.

    “Fine then I’m going outside” She stared at Kay one more time and marched out the door with hands over her face while she tuned out everything to process what just happened. Ethela walked back to the vast pits of glowing, acidic burning pits that stung her before. There was a flickering anger hitting her at the heart, she would have thought she’d get the lesson right now. Time and time again she got herself into trouble today...where was Ahava? Reyis?

    The longer she thought about the man that had just left in his ominous way the greater the ominous feeling she felt in her built up. Lowering herself to her knees she stared down at the pools from a distance where she wouldn’t be tempted to touch them and shook her head. Soku was speaking nonsense, misdirections. All of this was supposed to be just a simple detour.

    **

    Thousand of steps that rose to a 9ft throne, hid all, but the sandalled feet of Asmodeus. In the center of a hundred steps sat the priest chained to burning pillars. And at the first step, a rectangular table was presented, with several different foods lying on it. He sat with his knees folded on the floor. With a dish shaped cup in his hand. They were surrounded by women in different assorted clothes. Who mostly prayed unless were called.

    Shoza was studying all of their guest now. The half-fiend female intrigued his father the most. But there was something about the half-fiend male that should not be discounted. He read strength from merely his Essence alone. But strength was not enough if he was merged with his own humanity. Instead his humanity hung around him like an external link in the form of his human friend who had recovered from his ordeal.

    This meal was a courtesy of his father. It was a bargaining tool. They wanted the half-fiends in his father’s army when the time came. But to prove their worth they need to show generosity. Raising his cup with a clear liquid his father had called underground to his followers as the God’s Blood.

    “To our humble guest and followers, my Father, our Father that we all share, has created a feast in honorary welcome to our family home,” Shoza says, “We partake in God’s Blood. As a way to share on Essence to the next.”

    Shoza places his cup to his lips, as well as some followers sitting around in the darkness. To think this was beside the Sanctum. The amount of energy and presence the Demon King had even when not visible was palpable. It made a part of his demonic being burn with desire and passion. It made him feel powerful, but he knew that this was the influence Demon King’s had upon those who they eventually recruited. Their powerful Essence influencing their alignments. But another part of him understood the risky threat this Demon King possessed.

    And all these followers he had with him. This was not a sanctuary for a present, but a sanctuary for a future. A future they were promised. This explained a whole lot though. Kay reclusive nature, he was use to Kay lightheartedness.

    But this was the first time he saw Kay wearing a rather serious expression. It was unusual for him. It was unusual for Reyis to feel fear, but staring at the feet of the massive Demon King who hid himself from view made even him tensed.

    The half-fiend, known by Toboe and Zeik was Shoza was also intriguing. He almost forced onlookers to look at him through captivating, elegant movement, that was not wasted. No extra movements, no superfluous movement. It was straightforward, you got what you saw which was captivating, hard to look away and hypnotizing.

    He had a bad feeling about all of this. How do you prepare for something that was in the making one hundred years ago?

    Kay would have been more glad to see Reyis if not for all that he had experienced in these circumstances. From strange magical pools where souls were trapped in them forever. To the big feet of the demon king. To the fact he witnessed Ethela trying to get down with a stiff woman, he had a very long, very long, very long day.

    Should he drink the God’s Blood? He looks at Reyis. Reyis looks back at him. Is Reyis afraid? Kay hadn’t seen Reyis afraid in a long time. Since the time of Yore’s death. I am with you there buddy. How do we even navigate this?

    Ethela’s had a very, long day. What had once turned out to be another Half-Fiend was also the guy who grew up with her uncle, who of course was dead long before she ever arrived to Sanctum. Leading her to help these guys by killing a demon in her way, leading them the most beautiful man she’d ever saw, who led them to the mountains that became a landslide, leading to...oh she didn’t want to go on anymore. Her back was a little achy from carrying Kay for hours and not only did he get a peep show, he got a free ride and he is acting as if she did something wrong. Maybe it was just a human weakness thing, to shy away like that.

    Ahava wouldn’t touch her, and considering there were hundreds of ears around her and Ahava...she didn’t feel like admitting at the table she almost cheated on her.

    And then there was the looming power overhead, blaring into her senses and telling her head down. Maybe for once she could do the smart thing and just keep quiet. But it was hard, not following the urges of the body. It was all she knew, but she also knew she was in deep trouble - staying here.

    Ahava was openly nervous, kept decorated with smiles but the lines of a worried brow or a glancing eye to the shadowy feet hidden hundreds of steps up from the table, and the power built behind the feet was telling the Fairy to activate every cordial bone in her body for survival. She was patiently waiting for anyone to make a joke because she was prepared to be the first to graciously laugh and start conversation with it, to be likeable and to stay alive for another day. Ahava put a hand to her cheek and drank readily.

    “Oh delicious!” She cheered, pushing her reaction only a tiny, but highly motivated bit.

    Shoza’s gaze turned to the fairy that spoke. In her state, as it was now, it served them no purpose. Fairies were self fulfilling. He sat back down and turned his attention to Toboe and Zeik. Who were honored this chance to have one of their father’s feast.

    “It was awful, my hair is all dried out now,” Toboe whined to Zeik, then turned his gaze to Shoza who was staring at them, he practically leaned over seizing Shoza’s robes, “Shozy. My hair is not well moistened, why am I here when I am not at my best looking?”

    Shoza felt slight embarrassment for Toboe’s behavior in front of his father nonetheless. First he yanked Toboe’s hands off his robes and smoothed them out. And glared at Toboe. Saying nothing with words, but all with a gaze.

    Toboe shrunk down and simply sipped his Ghost Blood without another word. While Shoza eyes scanned the table turning to the half-fiend woman his father had set his eyes on.

    “Ethela,” Shoza spoke, “I would like you be the banquet host. We will follow after you, Honored Maiden.” Ethela had her eyes downcast the entire time at the table, startled that her name was called but delayed looking up. Then she did, so many eyes were on her at the table. Uhh...normally this didn’t scare, but she was terrified.

    “Me?” Ethela said in denial, having the most feminine gesture she’d shown thus far with a faint gesture to herself, touching her chest over her heart. The fearful Half-Fiend looked away from Shoza’s eyes for a moment and fixed her hair out from her face. “I’ve never been called that before” She tried to joke, “Heh”

    “Oh that is funny!” Ahava laughed forcibly on reflex, sipping more to quiet herself.

    Shoza stared at them.

    “Yes, you,” he says straightforwardly. Ethela was left to question if she didn’t say anything that could constitute as betrayal and they’d all be murdered.

    “Right, me…” Ethela’s shaking hands grabbed the cup in front of her. Her cogs slowly spun, “None of you would mind me giving a toast to…” She looked at the tattered group of friends and lovers she was making, the three faces all scared and gloomy. “The long term health and safety of these three people, and, me” Ethela bit her lip and raised her cup. “To our lives!” Ahava laughed again, raising her glass.

    “To our lives ehe!”

    Reyis stared at them, that wasn’t very subtle. And he doubt it convince them. But Kay raised his glass.

    “YEAH! To our lives! Woo!” Kay says thrusting his glass in the air.

    Shoza stared at them. He cocked his head to the side and looked perplexed. Before slowly raising his glass.

    “Then so it be,” Shoza said. Everyone drank in silence, Ethela stealing glances at Ahava for some social cues and help but there were none coming from her. Even the Fairy didn’t know what to do. Everyone was still staring. Ethela grew increasingly more nervous. Maybe she was to make small talk?

    “The carpet is beautiful…” Ethela said while still everyone stared at her.

    “It’s magnificent” Ahava echoed and embellished.

    Toboe made bubbles in his sake trying to fight back laughter. This was a wreck. A rocky wreck.

    “Um hun, if you don’t mind, we have had a long day and most of us have had fought something without getting poisoned. So if you could just serve the food, that be great,” Toboe huffed at her. Ethela raised a brow at the smooth faced man. She grew up in a cave…

    “...What do you want?” Ethela asked him.

    Toboe crosses his arms. Their guest were stupid.

    “You chose and we follow,” Toboe said while watching Shoza not allow one of the woman to pour him more God’s Blood and just take the flask of God’s Blood instead.

    “Dear, look at this delicious plate you could pick” Ahava suggested, putting a hand on Ethela’s back and pointing to a crisp meaty dish with a touch of browned flecks and sauted with a brown liquid kindly poured. Ethela pressed her lips together, her stomach felt sick. The pressure was building on her, along with the shame and anger.

    “I’m not that hungry you pick it” Ethela shrugged off to Ahava. She grabbed the plate and put it in front of Ahava, looking away to a wall of the room with easily read worry. Ethela stared at the pair of feet and down to her hands under the table.

    How many social faux paus have they broken in one sitting? The demon’s presence looming over them, watching them. And they have made about as much of an impression as sand dunes make an impression on the landscape. Reyis sipped some of the God’s Blood.

    Shoza said nothing as she passed the plate off. He simply drank from the flask slowly. His eyes staring at Ethela. This woman was meant to be their honored maiden? Who’d break the cycle? The image now grossed him out. And one by one the plate was passed with no one taking anything.

    Ahava slapped Ethela’s back.

    Eat something” Ahava whispered harshly under her breath to Ethela, smiling at the guests.

    “They are passing it around, if they wanted it they’d eat. Common sense” Ethela whispered back, Ahava sighed and stared at Reyis hopelessly.

    Reyis looked at Ahava. This was going nowhere. He was starting to mirror’s Toboe’s agitation as well. It be nice to actually eat instead of posturing.

    Toboe groaned.

    “Okay I am going to age by the time we get to eat, are you daft?” Toboe asked, “Shoza asked you to start the banquet. It means you take the first bite so we can all eat!” Ethela pressed her hands on the table, leaning forward to glare at Toboe.

    “That is a st-” Ahava covered Ethela’s mouth and foricbly grabbed a fork, the Fairy’s hands trembling as the daftness only promised a cold knife to her throat. “Huh?” Ethela was only able to ask before her hand was wielding a fork, stabbing some food and Ahava shoving the food into Ethela’s mouth.

    “Oh you made such a wonderful choice!” Ahava said loudly for everyone at the table observer. “Wonderful, great choice”

    Did that count? Shoza wondered. It seemed a lot of people were confused as well. Some taking from the plate. Others just passing it around unsure to take it. Shoza sighed.

    “You have permission to eat,” Shoza said sharply. It was only then that people began to grab things and pass around plates. This was a disaster. He stared behind him to his father. Was this woman from Soku’s vision? If so, how?

    Reyis grabbed some grilled meat off the serving plate. It was in some thick brown sauce, like gravy. Except it didn’t taste like gravy. Not that he knew of. Kay also looked glad he could finally eat and get out of here, his words.

    “Oh that’s good…” Ethela finally was convinced to eat now that was in her mouth and continued to do so. Ahava sighed in relief because at least Ethela could eat with utensils. Ahava felt sweat on her brow, grabbing a cloth to neatly pat it and start eating too.

    While there were distracted with food, there was a conversation that was spoken in only darkness. Asmodeus and Soku images disappeared from the great hall. Only leaving the followers and Asmodeus son to tend to the banquet. Ethela sighed, the weight on her chest lifting some.

    “Mmm, for a creepy temple of doom, you’ve got great food, better than the Sanctum can make, need the recipe,” Kay says, “But preferably from someone who looks human.” He could only imagine the chef being an oni in a chef hats.

    He noticed his father’s departure. This debacle may have ruined his reputation. He stared at the half-fiends with resentment. The male half-fiend was nowhere near as powerful or trained as he hoped he’d be. And Soku’s vision located the wrong woman. Still his father could find some use for them. But they were in no way deserving of this banquet.

    Shoza drained his flask. He felt his followers eyes on him as he shifted through his thoughts. His followers deserved hoped, but only the most knowing, most well educated followers would know she was not their honorary maiden.

    Shoza kept his mouth closed, but licked alcohol off his canines. They were the only half-fiends he knew of beside himself. But they were not special that he knew of. He was given a role at a very early age. His place. Ye they were given none. His father wished the Half-Fiends under the Onahrai. But if they were all like this. With no place or purpose how fitting were they for his father’s teaching and education.

    Should he kill them? But they were half-fiends. But they served no purpose. Shoza bit his tongue lightly with his canines.

    All of this was to prove his worth in his father’s eyes. He hunted and gathered his own strength. His father expected him to find his own strength in order to guide the Onahrai to glory. Shoza stared at the Human and Fairy companions. What purpose did they serve? If they were not followers or a sign of their importance. What purpose did they serve?

    Shoza’s ears twitched. He wanted them dead. But his father may not. Yet his Father left him to make a decision.

    “I have a question for the surface guest,” Shoza finally spoke and Toboe handed him another flask with a brimming smile. What did he want? Shoza would deal with it later. “What is your purpose?”

    Reyis looked at Shoza. Something had changed about the Half-Fiend. Pleasantries had turned to bloodlust and there was a killer instinct in Shoza’s eyes. His true instinct had come out. Reyis wondered what brought it on, though he could only imagine.

    “Someone important to me died,” Reyis told Shoza, “He protected all. And I promised after his passing to protect those who could not protect themselves as he had done. My purpose is to be the surface’s protection from evil.” Ahava smiled, placing hands on Reyis’ and Ethela’s backs.

    “And the fated chance that the man who raised Reyis was Ethela’s uncle she never met!? Isn’t that such an interesting story you would love to inquire about?” Ahava asked Shoza with a smile, appeasing in all the ways the Fairy could.

    Evil? What did the Half Fiend define as Evil?

    Their lives seemed empty in Shoza’s mind. What simple goals and task. The male Half-Fiend was very determined, but Shoza did not see anything extraordinary out of his reasoning.

    “What do you consider evil?” Shoza asked.

    Reyis looked at Shoza.

    “For one, ambushing people,” Reyis responded, “Then keeping them hostage in a place where they have most advantage. Using threatening blackmail to make them afraid because they are not in their natural element and the one making the threats is.” Ahava quietly shook her head in protest of Reyis’ boldness, fearful.

    Shoza stared at Reyis. He might have simple goals and task, but he was very brave of trying to call him out.

    “Speak with straight words or don’t speak at all,” Shoza told him, “You think the Onahrai is evil?”

    “Depends on what the Onahrai wants to do with the Sanctum,” Reyis responds.

    “Depends on what the Sanctum can offer the Onahrai. If nothing at all. Then it is raised to the ground or I supposed caved in. If it can provide something, then it remains,”

    “That’s not something that should be determined by you or your organization,”

    “And what would you have?”

    “Coexistence,”

    “Is this what your dead friend would have wanted?”

    “Yes,”

    “Interesting. Your goals are so simple and narrow minded. They don’t strive for a greater future. Humans struggle to use the Essence potential to its fullest, and would never be able to live to demonic potential. Yet you defend them and believe that their impending death is avoidable because you so justly justify demons killing humans as evil. Is that the jist of this?”

    “Yes,”

    Shoza stared at Reyis. What a simple minded creature? Yet he believed with passion and determination that his future was plausible. What gave him that strength to think that way? So short term. Why?

    “Are you willing to put your words to the test?”

    Reyis narrowed his eyes at Shoza.

    “Depends on what you plan,”

    “Prove to me humans are capable of coexisting with a force like the Onahrai. And show me what they plan when the Demon Emperor is to be crowned,”

    Reyis stares at Shoza. That was an impossible promise he could not keep. He didn’t know what needed to be done to prove this to Shoza. Or maybe he didn’t need to make a promise. Simply have Shoza speak to the right individual for this task. Kaja came to mind.

    “I can’t prove that with words alone, but if you’d like you can speak with the Sanctum’s Inner Leader, he can speak to you about his plans for the Sanctum and maybe he can give you the answers you want,” Reyis tells him.

    Cocky little bastard wasn’t he? Challenging him in his own court. It irritated him. He wanted to take his life right now. But that would not prove superiority. But this creature was trying to play invisible cards in his hand.

    Though maybe this was a way to prove to his father some worth. If he could get the name of the human leader, who might resist the Onahrai in the close future. Then it make up for this disaster at the banquet hall.

    “Very well, I’d like to speak with your leader,” Shoza told Reyis.
    Thank you MayhemsCurse <3


    Spoiler: Memorable Quotes 

  7. #7
    Member
    Mr.Cynic's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2010
    Location
    ****
    Favourite Roleplay Genres
    ****
    Posts
    9,373
    Mentioned
    15 Post(s)
    Rep Power
    269

    Default

    “Kay...what happened back there in the hospital…” Ethela began with a scratching of her head and swinging The Boom Stick over her other shoulder. They were walking back through the forest, being robbed by portal-point by the demon hungry for all of their sparkling goods. She despised the portal demon got away with it. But right now she was trying to sort of fix the tensions with Kay, pushing herself out of her comfort zone because she was already uncomfortable with the whole of today. She gave a friendly punch to Kay’s shoulder to make things lighthearted “It wasn’t that bad, right?”

    Kay had been in a state of shock since they headed back. The light of the red moon had faded leaving the sky black with millions of other dots in the skies as stars. He was unsure any more if they looked at the same sky as their ancestors did or if this sky was some kind of demonic sky only the demons knew and always knew.

    He was one impressed they were even still alive. He was afraid during the argument that they would have died in Shoza’s court. Instead they were alive and now he worried for Kaja’s safety. What was Reyis thinking bringing the prospected leader of the creep mountain to the Sanctum? It gave away their location.

    It gave away Kaja’s presence. It could end up ending very badly for them. Or it could end up surprising. They nearly escape death already. Well him twice in one day. First from deadly poison, then it could have all ended up there in banquet.

    Actually three times. And the woman responsible for these scenarios, was asking him to be lighthearted. After! She was naked in front of him, having sex with a robe wearing nurse. Where was the responsibility for one's actions here? He didn’t want to be the downer, he also didn’t want to admit to Reyis that maybe he was right about Ethela.

    It’s just. Everything that happened today could have been avoided. And he didn’t want to repeat today. Though he feared it may haunt him for a while.

    “Right, I am trying to find the words to describe naked nurse and naked woman I just met who killed a gryfon and that’s the reason why we were in gloom death mountain,” Kay looks at Shoza who’s decided to look like a circus freak again, “No offense.” then turns back to Ethela, “in gloom death mountain. That ended up being very much our graves mountains.” he turns to Shoza again, “No offense.” Ethela kept her neck craned up to Kay.

    “We didn’t have to return the stone. Angry gryfons would have been way easier to deal with later on” than all of this...This was dramatic, heart racing in a dreadful way. Only starting to put the pieces together of her past and the center of that past was now the target of the most powerful force of demonic power she had ever felt. Ahava was persistent on punishing Ethela by walking along side by not touching her, crossing her arms with discontent.

    “Not killing the gryfon would have been easier to deal with, then making the gryfons angry in the first place,” Reyis retorted. Ethela shot her serious gaze over at Reyis.

    “It was in my way.” She answered simply but raised a hand in defeat, remembering the conversation they had when they were walking to the mountains. “In the dunes it’s what you do, I did what I knew” She said defensively and looked forward to shield her eyes from both males with huge tuffs of cloudy hair.

    “And I have my own way of doing things,” Reyis paused, “But I am not about to beat a dead oni around. Thank you. For keeping Kay safe…..for the most part. At least he’s in tact. And not in pieces.” Ethela took a few steps before she nodded.

    “And thanks for doing the same with her” She lightly elbowed Ahava who broke some of her angry features to giggle from being poked.

    Reyis turned only slightly giving Ahava some acknowledgment with his gaze.

    “Yeah and I guess we made a great team too,” Reyis said to Ahava with a smile. Ahava stared at Reyis with a tilt of her head.

    “I have never seen anyone master sarcasm so well, and so unintentionally. I cannot tell if you are being earnest or not.” His mix of deadpan delivery and dull smile was certainly strange. “Maybe you should leave Kay to smile, he is better equipped for it. I am sorry”

    “Telling you, Reyis actually sheaths his scythe up his ass and it makes it hard for him to emote anything beyond what we see here,” Kay jokes, but it feels hollow. The day has been long and he’s so drained. Humor was his defense, but nearly losing Reyis today brought him back to thinking about the men he has lost on demon hunting trips. His father and the men who followed his father. Ethela wondered if her uncle was the same, but considering all the hell she pulled everyone, and herself, through today...she luckily wasn’t hit by an impulse to ask and kept quiet. Maybe later. Ethela did look over her shoulder once at Reyis in that wonder and looked forward again.

    Ahava peered over to Shoza who was silent and detached, thinking in her mind how to best pull him into conversation. “Your smile would be interesting, should you ever be inclined to smile” Ahava flipped some of her pink dipped hair back from her face.

    Shoza ears twitched after being spoken to. He was listening to all the sounds of the forest. They were different from that of the caverns. Those sounds of rocks and earth were hollow, as holes that lead to caves and pathways bounced sound from place to place. The trees hear sounded like running rivers, demons scattered across grass making different sounds than rocks made. Claws did not scratch, they rustled and then faded into dirt.

    “Smile is a vague word,” Shoza responded to her, “I feel inclined to smile for different occasions. On the hunt I smile from bloodlust. When something is ceremonious I smile ceremoniously.” Ahava blinked her eyes.

    “And I am sure all of those smiles would be interesting. A few of those smiles may appear more than the others…” Ahava mumbled to herself and stepped closer to Ethela, keeping herself small.

    “I admit bloodlust is one of those smiles I use the most,”

    “Oh great,” Kay mumbled, “Please don’t use the bloodlust smile on Kaja please.”

    “A smile of lust could be complimentary” Ahava giggled.

    Shoza’s ears twitched. Beast in the deeper brush. Not a threat at the moment, as he cocked his head to the side to the conversation.

    “I have had lust only for one individual in my life,” Shoza responded. Ahava smiled, she never got to finish that conversation with Toboe!

    “I know, Toboe and I were talking in the caves but we couldn’t finish our exchange. The inconvenience of such loud creatures, gryfons. He must be missing you terribly right now”

    Shoza looked at her confused. He had not considered Toboe had feelings like that for him. His ears twitched.

    “I was going to say my mother, but-” Shoza ears twitched and he looked around lost. Ahava shared an exchange of eyes with Reyis.

    Reyis scanned the forest for threats. He was trying to ignore what was just said. Where as Kay was trying so hard not to say anything.

    “What the fuck is wrong with you!” Kay shouted, “You live in your mountain of death and weird chants. And now you’re admitting to people you tried to kill hours ago that you liked your mother.” Ethela swallowed and looked down to her feet, well more so her breasts that were far too big for her to see her feet, in shame. Vesa had been able to creep away from her mind during the inspiration to leave the dunes and come to Sanctuary. But it was the woman she left behind, the one she knew would be furious for her leaving without permission. The woman that raised her and she ran away...the feelings were complicated, happiness for being away, sadness and fear now that she had tasted with real power felt in Asmodeus’ airs.

    “It’s pretty weird” Ethela said without any emotion, giving an empty agreement with Kay. Shoza moves his head to the side and the other before even responding.

    “I see, that was not something I was suppose to say upon just meeting individuals. I will make a list of the things considered taboo,” Shoza says.

    Kay is the first to make any noise after a minute of silence befell them. Even the creatures of the forest seemed embarrassed. Kay looks at Reyis and sort of sighs.

    “Hey can we sidebar for a moment?” Kay ask.

    “What?” Reyis ask Kay.

    “Need to talk privately,” Kay says grabbing Reyis’ arm without hesitation, “Okay everyone piss break! Five minutes! Haha!” Kay waves at them and drags Reyis into the bushes. Ahava looked at Shoza and over to the bushes they were dragged into. They were aware the Half-Fiend would hear them from the distance they chose? Ahava shrugged and sighed, hugging Ethela.

    “The punishment has ended” Ethela hugged her and smiled to herself. Her eyes stared over at Shoza and the mask he painted on his face, trying to blend together the man who saved Kay’s life, with the man who has threatened them, and also some dark emotions. He was a fuck up to the Sanctum world, like she’d be once they walked inside. Or so she suspected.
    Reyis looked at Kay.

    “You realize he can hear us speaking?” Reyis ask. Kay stares at Reyis. Shit he didn’t think about that. He drags Reyis out of the bushes.

    “Okay we’ll just make this a team decision,” Kay says, he points to Shoza, “Look man. You have a big, spooky, demon king, who tells a bunch of people what to do. He’s very power. You saved my life. Thank you. Then you threatened our lives. Not thank you. So, I can’t really trust you. You see why. I am suggesting we blindfold him before we reach the Sanctum so he can’t lead his people back to the Sanctum.”

    He had to admit he had his moments of genius. Ahava sighed.

    “Any chance of evolving the diplomatic relationship just ended” she said holding onto Ethela tighter, “And she’s considered the socially ignorant one.” she said sardonically at Kay’s expense.

    Shoza’s ears twitched and he he titled his head only slightly. This human was not very bright. Did big ears mean nothing to him? Still the fairy wouldn’t be able to discern what the extent of his powers were. While Reyis knew he could hear, he doubt any of them knew he could map a place out by memory through sound.

    “Oh that’s fine, I do not mind being blindfolded,” Shoza said, “Whatever makes you feel safer.”

    Ethela stared at Shoza and poked Ahava. She was socially crafty but that was suspicious.

    “Ow. Yes, I suppose I will have to council everyone on social dynamics since the three of you all need my help. Your behavior is now too agreeable and warrants suspicion because your previous aggressive and distant actions. All of you, except you my dear” she rubbed Ethela’s skin “Are truly tragic in human interaction, or is this human and Half-Fiend interaction? I doubt the rules are much different and all of you fail hehe” Ethela pointed to Shoza

    “Ha my girlfriend is smart! I knew something wasn’t right”

    Shoza looked at Ethela and Ahava.

    “Except that you fail to realize that I have been agreeable. It’s a part of my nature. If someone has said something that I determine is of some worth or I understand its practicalities I will agree to it. I am no longer on my own home turf, I have no advantages at my disposal. Thus I agree to your terms for fear of what you may do now that you have the advantage,” Ahava sighed and closed her eyes.

    “I leave this up to you two, Ethela I suggest you stand quietly and watch” she resigned to the social daftness of her former host and perhaps new friends. At least it would be to her own amusement.

    Reyis stared at Shoza. He agreed with Ahava that he was being suspicious. So the thing to do was simply take the card off the table.

    “No blindfolding,” Reyis said, “Shoza and his hunting party directed us to their temple without blindfolding us. We know what we saw. He has the same courtesy and hospitality as he gave us.” Reyis said turning on his heel and starting to lead the way again.

    Shit. Kay thought to himself. What now? Can’t Kaja meet out here? The Sanctum was home. No temple. He knew what he saw at that temple. It felt wrong. It didn’t feel right. It feel dark and heavy and maybe even oppressing. He was trying to do his job as a hunter and what if they were leading a predator into the nest of its prey. What then?

    Ethela had proven to be impulsive. And Shoza had proven to be untrusting. This was his home. This was their home. What was Reyis thinking? He trusted Reyis and his decisions, but this was one the decision he had no idea what results Reyis was expecting.

    He sighed. He hoped this was not to go horribly wrong.

    **
    They had brought with them great darkness. Black auras trailed on them like blood stains. And there was an individual swallowed by this aura. He rarely felt worry, but looking at the visage of the aura brought him worry. He had never desired to close his doors to any half-fiend, but this half-fiend they brought. Was of energy they could not possibly understand. An old, ancient, chaotic energy, soaked into him like when rain soaks a towel.

    “You have returned the stone I imagine?” he ask the four he had sent to do so and then stares at the fifth, “And brought something back as well.” Ethela slide her way out of Ahava’s hands who let go knowing what was to come next. Ahava had come to accept some leeway, but with a man, this was strange. She watched with a tilting of her head. Ethela felt smug about surviving and flipped her hair back out of her face, letting it pour over her shoulders confidently.

    “I did what you asked…” Ethela whispered to Kaja and stroked some of his blonde hairs from his face to get a better view. “I’m going to kiss you now” Ethela smiled through Kaja’s hesitation and curled her fingers around his jaw to make them meet eye to eye. Her other hand tenderly touched his earlobe, picking up all the tricks her succubus mothers taught her, and moved in closer. Ethela enjoyed something strangely sweet and gentle with his lips that reminded her of women, but the harder, breastless body against her didn’t leave her to forget what women had. Ethela gave Kaja as romantic kiss, pressing her fingers on the side of his neck, and sliding her tongue across his teeth as a tease to a deeper kiss but not going through with it - pulling back with a victorious smile on her face.

    She went through with it, is what Reyis and Kay thought as they stared at each other. With her lack of impulse control it was bound to happen. But Kaja was to be respected, not kissed like he was someone who walked the same path as they did everyday.

    How curious? Not the first thing he would have expected to see when walking into the lair of the humans. Still his eyes were focused on this Kaja. He was not what Shoza expected. How could someone so not a demon be so dizzyingly and powerful?

    There was something compelling about this individual’s presence. But it drained him. It actually pained him to be here. What was this suggestion? His father’s power had always embraced him like a comforting, knowing hand. But this leader’s power rejected him, and burned him like he were a sin. It slowly dawned on him this individual was not human.

    How had the others not?

    Shoza stuck out his hand as Ethela had done before him earlier. “I am Shoza.”Kaja was distracted at first. He had forgotten the promise he had made and when it happened it was so sudden. He had no time to digest the situation though as the one with stained hands stuck out his hand.

    Two alignments were conflicting right now. He found one of his hands jerk when he didn’t want it to. But he stared at Reyis. Had he known what he had done? Or expected him to know what to do? Kaja took the individual's hands, but their alignments clashed upon each other’s touch.

    “I am Kaja,” he says. He would have told the individual to leave, but there was a scar in the aura that trailed around him. It must have been whatever was left of the Half-Fiend’s humanity.

    When they touched the others, whatever he was, aura burned his own. His Father would proud to know the face and the lair of the Sanctum’s leader and facilities. But Shoza wondered if this individual could actually touch his father?

    “Why have you come today?” Kaja ask in his usual warm demeanor.

    “I asked the purpose of the Half-Fiend’s known as Reyis, he says he believes the Onahrai and the Sanctum can coexist, but that’s,” Shoza stares at Kaja.

    “You recognize it then,” Kaja tells Shoza, “Impossible. Chaos conflicts with Order.”

    “It would seem so,” Shoza replies.

    Kaja frowned and looked sadly at the individual washed in a dark aura.

    “But just because the two clans cannot coexist. I see in your aura that you are missing a part of yourself. If you allow it so, you can be purified. Or spun in another person’s web,” Kaja says, “You do not have to follow this path.”

    On the other end of the tunnel, the Aurahky had been murmuring to themselves. A stranger had never been allowed in this halls before, nonetheless to speak to Kaja either. Talk was what the hunting party had come back to. Whispers and speculation.

    Signore was the tallest of the group in leather garb, with metallic pieces fashion as armor. A strapping man with a square jawline, a streak of gray in his dark, chestnut hair, was the only indication of his age.

    Hi Yuni was the youngest in flowing garb with floral patterning you almost would believe that she had been rescued, except for the flicks of blood on her robes at the ends and at her side was a sword crafted much like Kajas. Though it clear the redhead not to have any blood ties to Kaja.

    While Moon was the youngest male of the group, he was a mousy haired, heart shaped young man, who trailed behind Signore like he were hidden in a tree's shadow. Two daggers were at his back, with odd tassels at the ends of the hilts. He was not a bad looking boy, but not boy could match the elegance and beauty of Kaja’s angelic qualities.

    Hi Yuni’s eyes narrowed and she crossed her arms across her chest. Before Kaja in the tunnels, were two strangers. One was a woman, who seemed for her sake not to care about keeping oneself clothed from tunnel eyes. And white, white, white, long hair.

    Signore’s heart fluttered staring at Kaja though being the oldest of the group he tried to bury that part of himself. It was better for the group as he tried to toughen the youngsters up through their training and hunting.

    Kaja caught his steely eyed glance and the both of them only slightly turnt from each other’s gaze.

    “Not to intrude,” Signore’s baritone of a voice rattled through the tunnel halls, “But we just finished the hunt of the oni.” Ethela turned her eyes over to the people behind her and saw three humans and pulled her girlfriend close, clinging her arm around the Fairy’s back.

    “Well you are intruding” Ethela corrected them and rolled her shoulder The Boom Blade rested on.

    When she was addressed them it brought to Signore attention the demon fairy standing next to her. His hands slightly hovering over a hand crossbow strapped to his leg.

    “You are a stranger in my home,” Signore told her, “It’s best you do not address those in that tone when you are not part of this home.” Ethela didn’t looked moved by the gesture of command. Ahava clapped her hands together, coming to the rescue as often as her duty required.

    “Hello, I’m Ahava and we are in the most stressful of times in our lives. Oh, so stressed” She pointed with a hand to her forehead in distress, guiding direction to Kaja and Shoza. “We are so distressed about this particular conversation. Here, listen” The Fairy said adding enthusiasm if only to cut through the tension brewing before the cult leader and the unique blonde of Sanctuary.

    Hi Yuni was finally able to get a closer look at the strangers. The woman who spoke to them had a strange sense of charisma for a woman. She was loud and forceful and stood up to Signore, and Reyis allowed her? Hi’s eyes took him in for only a brief moment, he seemed to be holding something in. She wasn’t sure what it was, but the fairy had addressed others in the room. So far all she provided was what fairies were good at providing ways of avoiding conflict in order for others not to notice them.

    She was stricken aback from the man standing in front of Shoza. His face was painted, he must have delicate hands as every line and every detail was so masterfully crafted. His white robes indicated to her a purity others probably could not see and he had unusual ears well blended into his layers of white hair. She had never felt emotionally overwhelmed before. She had suitors before, but she felt this man. She needed to speak with him, now. Something told her in the fate or the stars.

    “I believe,” Hi Yuni spoke cordially in Kaja’s presence, “I have the remedy of that. I believe stranger that we are to speak.”

    Shoza’s ears twitched he had noticed their arrival, but he was considering Kaja’s words and an answer. He would not have said anything or looked at the others until they left. He shifted his head to the side once, and adjusted his position. His ears twitched again the man’s voice was so loud, he did not like the sharp deep tones. Ethela spoke. Ahava spoke. He should get back to delegations with Kaja. Then a woman spoke.

    He had not been struck to his core in a long time. Something about the woman’s voice was an air of familiarity. Someone reincarnated. Shoza turned his attention to the woman’s voice expecting to see someone else, only to see a red headed woman.

    Currently wearing a peach, floral robe, the bits of blood and sword told him she was a warrior of some sort. But her beauty was supple and soft. Warm and living. Something he had not experienced before. Yet called to immediately.

    Shoza shifted his full physical attention.

    “May we exchange names before we speak? It would be troublesome to be called stranger the whole entire time,” Shoza told her.

    Light suddenly struck from an aura of darkness. It had been overwhelming, weakening to stand next to it. Then suddenly without warning there was a flash from the darkness something else. Something else that reach towards the scar of the aura. Kaja only slightly glanced to Hi Yuni’s whose own aura was pulling Shoza’s towards her. When they mixed together it was destiny. This was meant to be was the two auras swirled together into a hypnotizing cocktail of light and dark, to fade into gray.

    He caught the brief glimmer of blue escape from Reyis own aura. He could feel the heartbreak and lost as if Kaja was experiencing it as Reyis was experiencing. Kaja had known how hard it had been for Reyis to connect with others on that deeper level. Kaja looked away to stare at the rail tracks. He felt overwhelmed by it all.

    Blooming love as two souls intertwined and called for each other. He felt love come forth inside of him as if it were his own love and he felt the rejection, the pain of heartbreak. All at the same time. Together. Destiny was a palpable sensation, it felt right, powerful, and broke between alignments. But not all love could. But this love could. He knew that.

    He felt foggy from this moment.

    “Kaja!” Ethela and Signore shouted, dashing at once, leaving Ahava ripped out of Ethela’s grasp. Signore raised a brow as Kaja was seizing on different sides of this woman and him. Who did she think she was? Coming in here. Thinking she owned the place and that she had any persuasion over Kaja.

    “I have dealt with these before, thank you, but he no longer needs your help,” Signore told her. Ethela’s breasts mashed metal overgarments and skin into Kaja’s arm in her grasp. The man before her had a degree of strictness that felt hollow.

    “Unless you’re going to whip me, I don’t care what you have to say” Ethela challenged, vividly recalling her Fairy commander back home. “Do a better job and I wouldn’t have to catch him.” Ethela smirked, “His sweet lips were mine, it’s the least I could do - catching him”

    Kay sigh, could this day just end? Scratching the back of his head, “I am going to go get my mother.” He turned on his heels to go get his mom.

    Reyis grumbled. He stepped forward to Signore and Ethela.

    “It doesn’t matter who caught him, he’s not going to do good seizing in either of your arms, lay him down,” Reyis told the both of them.

    His lips? She kissed Kaja? Signore would have come back with another quip, but turned his attention to Reyis. Did he bounce back that fast? Or was he putting on a brave face? He had known the kid for a while.

    “Right, Kaja is our main concern,” Signore said, “Lay him on his side girl.” Ethela’s weapon wielding hand gripped tighter. She outright dropped The Boom Stick, allowing the weapon to live up to its name with dramatic tension when it crashed to the ground. The intended path of her free fingers across the human’s face was stopped by a Reyis’ grip on her wrist. The storm cast apart, her hair, revealing her face after she turned her head and looked down to their shared contact.

    “He insulted me” Ethela defended her desired actions without a moment’s notice. The heat of anger tickled her abdomen, shooting up to her chest and extended out to the fingers denied slapping the ass in front of her.

    Reyis pointed to Ethela’s breast with his free hand.

    “You are a female, girl, woman,” Reyis told her. Ethela was like taming a wild horse, she stared meeting his flat face with a cool face of her own. The stoic face Ethela had could not be as expressionless as the other Half-Fiend, her stormy eyes sparking too much, too vividly, into Reyis’ darkened orbs. She stared longer, debating the new feelings of companionship she was making with Reyis and the trust it came with the sweet taste of instant gratification from following her anger.

    “Uh, ow…” Ethela’s brows furrowed as she was being forced to make a choice and not follow an impulse. It stung her mind like a terrible headache and she tugged back her wrist, wanting it to be freed and wanting the man’s face slapped. “Stop you’re...getting in my way” The crease in her brows furrowed deeper while she had to juggle options in her skull.

    Reyis did not let go of her wrist and continued to point to her breast. Which felt odd. But, how could she say or admit she didn’t like men, acknowledge Ahava’s femininity, and not her own.

    “Breast,” Reyis mutters, “Or are you a man, like him? All flat chested and gross. You said it yourself.” Ahava gagged, the idea alone...

    “Gross!” Ethela in shock dropped Kaja’s hold, sending the limp body straight into the insulting old man. “There, you men can have each other. Gross…” Ethela had to repeat, the flat chested, ribby, bodies of men turning her off entirely. “Ahava, baby!” She ran back, taking her back. Ahava turned her back and crossed her arms. The Fairy swept her hair back and sighed as she lingered eyes on Shoza and the human girl - why couldn’t she be loved like that? She guessed Shoza would do anything and everything for that human girl, and would have an entire faction of people to keep her safe. Why didn’t Ethela have an entire army to keep her safe? Didn’t she love her enough?

    Reyis sighed. Another disaster dodged. Somehow they didn’t end up dead after dinner and now Signore didn’t end up dead over Kaja. Sure Ethela may have kissed Kaja before Signore, but the two had something more than just a kiss. Reyis brushed his own hair out of his black sclera eyes and just looked at the groups gathering.

    Ahava and Ethela. Shoza and Hi Yuni there was something there. Signore and Kaja. The people in the tunnels itself. It reminded Reyis of why he was an outsider.

    “I am going to go get Kay, save him from his mother,” Reyis told the groups.

    **
    She led him away to a secluded spot on the tracks. In the distance were tents made of materials scavenged by the demon hunters such as herself. Finders of the relics in the past that only gave a vague glimpse to their ancestors before the demons emerged.

    She couldn’t possibly begin to understand their world and before her was someone whom she vaguely familiar with. As if she had known him her whole entire life. Perhaps he was a reincarnation of someone’s soul in her past before she was she and he was he.

    “You were to give me your name,” Hi Yuni tells him, before all the commotion happened.

    “Shoza,” he says with a twitch of his ears, sound ricocheted off of the tunnel. There was an odd conversation going on in the hallway. It was a distraction. This woman before him. She was not like woman he knew. They were often stiff prisoners, souls inside shells. She felt alive. Something pulled him towards her.

    “Hi Yuni,” she responds. He is a demi fiend, half of the things she vowed to kill, but there was something captivating about his gaze.

    Hi Yuni, not the name he expected. He cocked his head to the side.

    “That is highly - different,” Shoza tells her.

    She finds herself of all people respond with a giggle that didn’t quite sound like hers at first.

    “You’re not from around here then I take it,” Hi Yuni responds.

    “No,” Shoza says, his ear twitch, moving his head he looks around the tunnels. The sounds here were different as well. In the chambers of the mountain sounds bounced off like sacred rites and chants. Here sounds sounded like noise in a metallic coffin.

    “Are you a hunter where you’re from?” she ask.

    He takes a second. He hunts. But if hunter was to imply some kind of title.

    “I am the destined to follow in my father’s footsteps to lead my people,” Shoza tells her.
    She takes a second. That was a mouthful of an answer and it wasn’t even really an answer, was it? She understood when someone wanted to leave their past behind. But when they talked so proudly of their future. Then, why hide where they were from?

    “That’s,” she takes a moment, “Not quite what I meant. You speak odd.” He spoke like someone had taken his personhood from him. Or perhaps he chose to not show himself to her. But unlike the others, perhaps she saw some good in him that they could not.

    “You asked if I was a hunter, I answered, as for where I am from, that is an answer to be given for another time,”

    She narrows her eyes.

    “That’s…,” odd she wasn’t sure what to say.

    “You are from here? These tunnels?” Shoza says pointing to the railways.

    “Yes,” Hi Yuni responds, “Our ancestors used them for transportation.”

    “Transportation,” Shoza repeats.

    She played with the buttons of her robe for merely a second, her mother had embroidered the pattern that surrounded the buttons before she passed.

    “Do you have any parents?” Hi Yuni asked.

    Shoza shifts his weight onto his left foot now. What does he tell her? She was not something he expected or anticipated. She was not part of any visions or plans that broke the cycle, that he knew of. But in Soku’s dreams and visions a name like Hi Yuni was never mentioned before or a woman like her. Shrouded in the mystery of destiny she was hidden in fates shadowy background.

    “I have a father,” he finds himself cultivating only the seed of a discussion that took expanses to speak. It was a hymn. A chant. A sacred spoken word. An oath. Oh father that I share blood from. Whose flesh sewn unto me. “My father and I share many things. Blood and flesh. We are bound.”

    She kind of laughs. It’s meant as a joke, right? He was a very awkward individual. Had he not spoken to people before, she wondered.

    “I think we all share that with our parents,” she says, “You say some odd things. Not that, that’s a bad thing. Or I don’t know what to say. Just people don’t talk like you do often. It’s...different is the word you used earlier.”

    She laughs and even in this man made shell of metal it rings with harmonious melodies. It is not harsh like this place is harsh. A tone he is not use to is this harshness that feels fractured. The things people are saying down here are not the same things they say up there. It meant the power was divided and that they were not united in thought.

    They had no cause. No leader. He was in a conversation that had no purpose to the Onahrai. Like the people here seemed to speak casually with no purpose or goal. How? What made them so happy to know they had no destiny?

    “You share blood with your father? He has sewn you into your body with the flesh as well then?” Shoza ask.

    Poetic wasn’t he? He didn’t mean it literally did he? She gives an awkward laugh and smiles.

    “Maybe not literally, but you do have a point,” she tells him.

    Shoza twitches his head. He shouldn’t have expected to find another truly woven by their father’s flesh, but he’d accept her response.

    “There is something wonderful about sharing everything with your father’s words,” Shoza told her.

    “Sure,” she says, “But I wouldn’t want to share everything. I wouldn’t look good with a beard.” Shoza stares at her. What did beards have to do with it? Asmodeus did not have a beard. She was not Asmodeus daughter. Shoza frown and gave her a confused look.

    “Why wouldn’t you want to share everything? Every creature looks for simplicity in survival,”

    She looks at him. Then he was being serious? How could anyone be sewn from their father anyway? The thought coming to her mind was not one she thought she would ever imagine. Who was his father? Where did he come from?

    She crosses her arms across her chest.

    “Simplicity of survival isn’t just it. There’s also free will to take part in it as well. If you are everything your father is or your mother or whomever then you have no freedom of your own,”

    Freedom of your own? Why? Did it bring them happiness?

    “Why?” Shoza ask, “Why strive for freedom of your own? Does it bring happiness? You seem very proud to have freedom of your own. But it comes at a cost. I do not see your Sanctum surviving very well with this freedom of their own.”

    She stared at him. She never met anyone like him before.

    “Wherever you come from, do you survive all the time? Or do you lose people as well?” she ask him.

    Shoza stares at her.

    “The ones with freedom of their own are sacrificed,” Shoza tells her.

    “But you don’t know if freedom of their own was the problem or not. Do you? People with their own freedoms can come up with their own ideas and have solutions you might not have thought of. Because you sacrificed them,”
    There was something about him. That drew her near. That drew her close. Perhaps it was something in his soul. But his words were cold.

    “Perhaps no one has shown you what freedom of your own, but people’s thoughts are not dispensable. They have their own value,”

    His ears twitch. She spoke adamantly. He could hear her confidence, not a shake in her word. She firmly believed in what she said. As he firmly believed in the things he was told as he grew up. He still narrowed his eyes and cocked his head to the side.

    “Very well, you seem confident in this,” Shoza tells her, “Show me your freedom then.”

    She stared at him and held her head up high.

    “Your challenge is accepted,” she tells him. She might have written him off if he denied her. She might have turned her back to him if he had not said those final lines. But it showed to her he was willing to listen. There was patience in his eyes. A steadiness and a slowness.

    **
    Out in the woods was different from being in the Sanctum. There were disputes. Anyone who painted it off as the picturesque sanctuary were only fooling themselves. The Aurahky pleaded for their own citizenship, but the people on the top floors did not like this view. It meant exposing everything that was ever meant.

    The fact the Aurahky have given up their life to power the Sanctum. The fact that there were even people in general who near the strength of magical energy as a demon, but obviously weaker than a demi-fiends or a demons.

    Secrets the Overseer wanted to keep from the public. Afraid of the pandemonium it would cause. She wanted to believe that they would find a balance, but she didn’t know if it were possible with Kaja’s state. People were beginning to talk among the Aurahky. They asked if Kaja was well enough to continue to lead them. Then there were questions about his age. And whether or not they really could trust Kaja.

    Here though. When she was hunting or looking for prey. She could get away from all of that and today she had a stranger at her side. It made her nervous, she only had ever hunted with Moon, and Signore. She trusted them with her life. This man, the one with white hair and ears. Something in fate told her to stick to his side. But she never hunted with him before. How he moved. How he would protect her or not when she needed it.

    “There’s a Nue that’s been causing Sanctum some grief,” Hi Yuni says, “It’s have been attacking merchants along the trade routes. Stealing food and stealing magatama stones.”

    Shoza raised a brow.

    “Odd behavior,” Shoza said, “They are often guardians. Not thieves. Why has it taken to thievery?”

    She never knew much about Demonology. Moon often did know more than her when it came to that thing. All she knew was that it had killed people on Sanctum roads and could kill more innocent people as well.

    “Want to ask it?” she asked him.

    Shoza looked her way.

    “Why would I?” Shoza asked her.

    “You seemed to be defending its choices,”

    “No it corrupted its purpose, there’s no use for it when it abandons its purpose,”

    Nue guarded doors and vaults. The Onahrai had few of their followers down below in the chambers left for sacrifice or rite. But a Nue that did not guard, killed for meager amounts was not of any use to the Onahrai. It didn’t know how to be a guard. Simply a thief.

    She looks at him now. What did that even mean? Better yet she wasn’t going to ask.

    “So I have a plan,” she says taking a stick and unraveling her sash, “I am going to walk along the road as a merchant to lure the creature out.”

    Why? It wasn’t like the Nue was very good at sneaking around. He had been hearing it walk a few miles ahead of them this whole entire time. Heavy footed steps and snapping twigs and branches. There was no point in luring it out if they could simply track it.

    “It’s heavy walking, it’s not even hiding, it’s blind and dumb with its back turned towards us,” Shoza tells her.

    How did he know that?

    “How do you know that?”

    Shoza twitches his ears.

    “I hear him,” Shoza told her cocking his head to the side.

    He heard that well? What else had he heard then? Why did Reyis bring him into the Sanctum if he could hear that well? She was still uncertain if he was an ally or a fair weather one.

    “Okay, but he’s in the bushes, on the road he’ll be more exposed and clear,” she tells him. Then it dawns on her. Looking at his robes. Looking at his parasol. His sandals. Where was his weapon?

    He took out his hand.

    “Then I will be the bait and you deliver the blow,” he tells her.

    Wait! He wanted to be the bait? She cautiously handed him the stick with the pouch she made look like it was filled with goods.

    “Why do you want to be the bait?” she asked.

    He didn’t answer. Simply began to walk to the trade route she had pointed out in the first place. What was he supposed to do in this circumstance? What do Merchants talk about? Shoza’s ears twitched. It was being cautious. Probably could smell Hi Yuni. She could have a better hiding place. Still Nue weren’t known for their intelligence either.

    “I-must...make the trade...deal at the Sanctum,” Shoza said stiffly to himself hoping it was persuasive enough to have the Nue lower its guard.

    It smelled the hooman. But it didn’t care. Merchant was on road. Merchant had goods. Merchants were good and tasty. They had lots of Essence. It was to become Emperor. It was to become King. If it ate enough Merchants. It be good King.

    Walking into the road. It stood in front of Merchant. This Merchant look funny. This Merchant had funny white face with funny red lines. Merchant wore robes too. Lots of clothes. How was it to it Merchant when it had so much clothes.

    “Hooman urrr giv meh uh Essence. I king. I king,” it growls. Merchant are scary type. They get scared. This Merchant weird. This merchant make him feel funny. Why he feel spinny.

    King? It set aside its purpose to be a King? It’s Essence was weak and poor because it chose the weakest of targets. And then it insult him with words like a king. Beings of worship like his Father were meant for greater. To break the cycle. To become Emperors. And this thing steals from others and believes itself a king hunting things that could not fight back. It irritated him to think this thing felt it worthy enough to call itself a King.

    Why did the Nue stop? She had expected the Nue to attack the white haired man. But it stopped dead in its track. Why? It didn’t matter he didn’t have a weapon, she needed to help him.

    He unsheathed his blade from his parasol and sliced the creature in half with a lung forward with a quick draw. Before sheathing his blade back. The last living emotion the creature felt was shock. He saw it in its eyes. But it was no king. He turned his back to it, discarding Essence from the weak creature that deserved no ascension.

    He moved with such careful precision, his blade one minute there, and the next not. His step forward wasted no effort and he moved without extra movement. His swords skills were perfect, balanced. He was not just an efficient Hunter. No he was like a warrior from some past she could not recognize. Her heart stirred. She felt herself gasp. Her breath was stolen from her chest.

    Her knees were weak. Her heart fluttering. She never found herself in a state of such vulnerability before her. She was staring at the Essence beginning to hard into crystals as the creatures silhouette ruptured in Essence crystals.

    Raising her hands to her mouth quickly before rushing over to him as he began to walk into her direction.

    “Don’t you need that Essence to survive?” she asked him, in a far more feminine voice than she was use to using. It didn’t sound like her, but she felt like a little girl right now watch an awing display of swordsmanship. Like she had found in some way in this demon infested world a knight in white robes.

    Shoza looked at her. Something in her demeanor changed. It was not worship though. Most who knew him worshipped him or tried to defame him. This was not worship. What emotion was she displaying now? It felt different than worship. It made him feel pride.

    “I will survive,” Shoza tells her, “Besides there is no use for something so weak it fell in one strike.”

    She took a moment.

    “Well,” she fidgets, “You are skilled with your sword.” She looks at his parasol. Should she have ever doubted him? He seemed so confident in his skills she should have known why.

    “I’d like to see your skills with yours,” he mentions her blade at her side, “But the Nue’s arrogance stirred irritation.”

    She nervously flushes before responding, “I am no warrior like you. But we could spar later. This was the only contract I had left.”

    Shoza nods.

    “Very well, I would like to see your training in practice,” Shoza pauses, “When you get more of these...contracts. Then we can hunt more. I liked pretending to be a merchant.”

    She laughs.

    “Your merchant needs work, what was that about trading negotiations?”

    “I do not talk to merchants. I do not know their language,”

    Who was he? Why did he speak like that? Where did he come from? Who trained him? There was something about him that was deeply complicated about his aura, but it was also deeply simplistic as well. She didn’t know how to pin him. Or where to place him.


    **
    Kay had nearly died today because he had lead him astray. They were separated and Reyis did not have the power to protect or be at Kay’s side. He should have seen through Shoza’s trap. He should have been more cautious. Aware. He was not. And Kay had to pay the price for it. Something Reyis never wanted to happen. For Kay to die under his watch would be unforgivable. How could he look at Yuu with any confidence? Or Kaja for that fact of the matter?

    But that was not what disturbed him. It was part of it. But there was something trapped inside of him. Creating a rotting hole of heartbreak. When he was brought here to the Sanctuary years ago, Reyis had been trained before by his mentor. Ethela’s uncle he guessed now. He was then trained under another for a while. Signore, and that is how he met Hi Yuni. She moved with a grace no other Hunter could achieve. She moved like she was dancing in combat, rather than killing in combat. She made every step look effortless and flowing. Moving like water. It’s how they bonded. She took to the way he thought and he took to the way she stepped.

    It was a foolish thought of his that they had anything other than commonality. When she saw Shoza today. He knew. He knew. It were as if light struck down upon the hallway that gave the answer. He had known her as a strong huntress, he had known her as elegant and free flowing, he had known her as an equal, a blooming developing nothingness. Because it was stolen as if it were magic today in the hallway.

    She was the first person he believe he could use the word deep care for in a long while. One that was strongly formed. One that was created by sharing memories together. He knew her father before he passed on a hunting party. He knew her mother. Invited to spend time with them when they sat around to share food with the community.

    He was there for her when her father passed. He held her in his arms, her red hair spread across him, her tears dampening his clothes. Stolen.

    It was time then to move on. He’d protect the Sanctum from a distance for Kay’s sake. And for the Sanctum sake. Ethela’s displeased appearance stood in his way, the folds of his tent were pull aside only to see one of the motivations to leave staring down at him. Ethela looked, and felt more vulnerable than she had allowed herself to be since knowing Reyis.

    Her eyes flickered with discontent, such was the after effect of Ahava’s dismissal and the harsh reality of Ethela’s own impulses. Still, stubbornly, Ethela followed her own impulsive nature to stomp in front of Reyis’ tent, seeing her own fast pace desires lead her to him just at the right time. His eyes were low and he was hauling a bag over his shoulder. Ethela could almost see the tail between his short legs. Him leaving would have defeated all purpose of her ever coming here, having to endure the strangeness of today.

    One of her fingers briskly pushed locks of hair from her eyes, buying time to brace herself for whatever Reyis would do next.

    “Where are you going? I just met you” Ethela blurted to cut off the other Demi-Fiend’s quiet train of thinking.

    Reyis only gave her a slow look.

    “And?” Reyis asked her, “Did you plan for us to have a future as companions for all time? If that’s you trying to convince me to stay or something, it’s not the right answer.”

    “Hmph” Ethela’s nostrils shot air with pride taken from her yet again. Reyis really knew how to be an ass sometimes, she had come to realize. Had she ever thought of anyone that way before? “I didn’t think that far, but I didn’t expect you to be running off somewhere. I thought this was your whole life or something”

    “I am not leaving, just not sleeping here or letting people get in the way,” Ethela’s face cringed with doubt and confusion.

    Of course she didn’t get it. She had only ever followed her whims. Did what she liked. Killed whomever she wanted and didn’t discipline herself. She didn’t know what it was like to care for others. Ahava was a Fairy if Ahave died she only be placed back into the cycle and Ethela may be reunited with her again. Maybe not wholely her. But her in some form. Ethela didn’t know what it meant to know those around you could be permanently lost.

    He nearly lost Kay because of his carelessness. In a situation that could have been muchly avoided.

    “I am still keeping my duty, just not here,” he clarifies and tries to walk past her.

    “-Why would you leave when the creepiest of men is sleeping in your city?” she challenged. Defeat, and the fear of it burned her insides. His turning back triggered the loud fear that possibly her one string of fate would be cut and lost. Why her family, her uncle, invested in a brooding short guy she’d never understand. Still, this is where her blood history led and he was trying to walk away from her. “You think something bad won’t happen here!?”

    Ethela sounded desperate, oddly so. It was out of her character, the rugged femininity of her voice was being curbed by a yearning that might have been her version of humility - yelled at the back of his head.

    He knew something bad would happen here. Whether he stayed or went. That was life.

    “I need to draw the enemy elsewhere, the Sanctum is in danger no matter what,” Her pale skin grew redder by the second, rage building. Reyis’ steps kept growing and she chased after him.

    “Why would he care where you go!? He wouldn’t care like I do!” Ethela bombastically rationalized, grabbing his shoulder to stop him. Again, when had she ever thought something like that about someone, and how did it up being said to a man? Shit, it was already said.

    Reyis was taken aback. She cares? How? She just admitted they just met. How could she easily so care about someone she barely knew? That’s not how relationships work. It isn’t how the world work. There she was going again. Bombastically declaring what she wanted, when she wanted, and expected to get it. She may have been a demifiend like him. But she had none of the humanity or at least the human discipline to understand the dynamic of life.

    “No one cares for me. That’s not how this works, I care for them, they don’t have to care for me,” Ethela’s brows danced with frustration. Was she more embarrassed or pissed off?

    “Did you not hear me?” The female Demi-Fiend ran around to stand in front Reyis and stare at him in the eyes again. “Yore chose to be with your for some reason. If you leave…” Ethela pulled her hand back from his shoulders, brushing the heat of her cheeks with the metal covering her palm. “How in the hell am I supposed to figure out why he did…?”

    What did Yore’s decision to raise him have to do with any of this?

    “Yore raised me, he didn’t chose to be my side for a reason. I was a baby when he took me in. I don’t even remember that time. But they would have killed me without Yore’s intervention. It wasn’t because I had some quality that inspired him to protect me,”
    Reyis frowns.

    “Kay almost died today because I got him involved in the danger, it's better that I don’t,”

    “-ak, er, no it’s not.”

    How not?

    “You don’t….know,” Reyis looked away and began to slowly walk forward, “what it’s like to be….how do you know that?” Ethela’s eyes followed him intently, retreating into an expression of neutrality betrayed by hot, embarrassed cheeks and glistened with beads of sweat above her brow. The urge to grab him and throw him back into his tent was relinquished with a replacement.

    “FINE! GO THEN! I DON’T CARE!” Grunting she turned her back to him, pacing in a brooding circle.

    Reyis sighs and sits with his back facing Ethela.

    “Kay and Kaja are all that I have left. They have no cycle. They cannot be replaced. They cannot be remade. When I lost Yore….I felt purposeless and empty. He guided me. All I could be is the person he might have wanted me to be. And even that I don’t know if I am doing right or not,”

    “...Why is everything with you complicated and a question?” Ethela muttered under her breath, taking passes in her circle to glare at his back. Yore meant something to him too, what he was choosing to do could not make sense to her. If he cared about these people, leaving them when they were in the most danger wasn’t the smartest thing. “I don’t know my uncle but I’m guessing he’d not want you to leave Shoza the mother-lover alone with the people you say you are about!”

    “Maybe….because I am really not sure,” Reyis pauses, “This isn’t about Shoza. It’s about being strong enough. Stronger than I am so that way things like what happened today don’t happen again.”

    “Running away isn’t going to make you any stronger”

    “It honestly isn’t running away I was going to watch the Sanctum from not here,” A flimsy rip abruptly filled Reyis’ ears. Ethela had transformed her restlessness and ineptitude into a swift kick into his tent. A hole caved and fell the size of her plated foot. Actually the action generated no pleasure for the Demi-Fiend woman, pushing past her barrier of patience. Stomping harder than she had come, she began to leave with shaking shoulders.

    Reyis felt a tear roll down his face. He couldn’t lose Kay or Kaja. He didn’t know how he would live with himself knowing he had the power to keep them alive and couldn’t. What did she expect him to do? How did he do exactly what others expected of him?

  8. #8
    Member
    Mr.Cynic's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2010
    Location
    ****
    Favourite Roleplay Genres
    ****
    Posts
    9,373
    Mentioned
    15 Post(s)
    Rep Power
    269

    Default

    [COLOR=""]
    Three Weeks Later - Zone 4 - Hollyhead Village
    Half Moon - Waning

    There is a nice wind blowing
    Fleeting like floating leaves
    Ominous storms are blowing

    Biting the tip of his pen looking at the paper with several other scrawlings on it. Up, sideways, down, in the corner, scrawled so small he couldn’t read something of them. A faint of glowing text began to take permanence on paper and he flipped the book around to read an upside down poetic phrase. Twunk. A pebbled bounced off of his worn leather shoes. He slowly brought down his journal, the spine cracked and papers slipped out onto his lap. Also written back to front in every corner he could see. He saw a kid with rocks in his hand staring at him.

    “Aren’t you going to make me care hermit?” the kid asked.

    He slowly eyed his sign, Performance for Essence.

    He grabbed one of the papers off of his lap. Flipping it around, he found a spot he liked. The permanent text glittered a little with excitement as if the passage new it was to be read.

    “Important memories
    Fill a space in hearts and minds
    Burning fragrance called love,” he read out loud.

    The kid sneered.

    “That’s lame, can’t you juggle or something? Play an instrument, don’t you have anything more cool,” the kid barked at him.

    “Children at my feet
    Stones thrown
    But knows no humility,”

    The kid threw another stone and turned on his heel.

    “Whatever, you’re not cool at all,” the kid said and walked off.

    He slipped his papers back into his book. Leaning his back on a pillar he closed his eyes just to feel a breeze pass through him. The plains were always breezy and when the flowers bloomed petals would be carried off in spring flurries.

    There was tranquility here. But the wind was an ominous song. Something wasn’t quite right. Wind carried with it sounds, feelings, and scents. Someone cast a shadow over him and he opened his eyes to see a large man carrying with him an axe. A woodcutter perhaps?

    “Is it true the things I have heard about you?” the man asked him. Em fixed his bang out of golden glowing eyes.

    He didn’t recognize the man. Em closed his eyes again.

    “What things?” Em asked slowly.

    “Your eyes glow, are you not human?” the man asked him, “That’s what I heard.”

    “The sun is in my eyes,” Em replied.

    “Please if you’re not human, maybe you could help?”

    Help? Em felt the etchings of his writings.

    “With?”

    “There is a demon in the woods, he’s been killing woodcutters, if you’re not human maybe you could kill him,”

    Em remained silent and drooped his head low to the side.

    “Zzzzzz,” Em responded pretending to sleep.

    The man grabbed him by the collar of his coat. His hands were shaking and trembling.

    “Please I’ll pay you anything, my friend….s..” the man sounded desperate. Em opened an eye, looking at the man.

    “A bed, in the town’s hotel, and 1,000 Essence,” Em told him.

    “A thousand Essence!” the man exclaimed.

    “A man’s hands trembling
    Desperately
    Sweat runs down his spine
    Hesitates with price,”

    The man backs up.

    “A thousand Essence you say, I’ll get...the funds,” the man says with a nervous laugh. Em stands up and puts on his hat.

    “Where is this demon?” Em ask.

    “He has a cave near the edge of the forest,” the woodcutter says.

    “Very well,” Em says.

    Yes wind carried many things. It carried leaves. It carried voices. There was a storm coming. It tingled on his skin like when your hair stands up right before you get electrocuted. Walking from Hollyhead village into the tall, blooming grass of the plains, he hoped this was a simple fair. Something easily able to disperse. He didn’t want to exert a lot of energy.

    Whistling a tune made up on the spot, he mildly hummed to himself. The forest close to the meadows. Could be an oni? They hit hard. Could pass this onto someone else? Though it dawned on him that he needed the Essence. This was starting to now sound as fun as it did earlier. He continued heading in the direction he knew the woodcutters walked. You could tell by the way the grass was cut and flattened down. Footprints embedded in dry soil. Bits of wood.

    Maybe they could not smell it in the wind. Was that rotten flesh? This was starting to sound like a bad idea. He could move onto the next town and fake his own death. But he really needed the Essence. Biting his lip. If this was as dangerous at the woodcutter made it out to seem. Then wouldn’t the Sanctuary get involved eventually?

    A crooked half grin came onto his face. Grass began to fade into clear forestry. Trees weren’t as close together here or clustered. And there were bits of the meadow were still scattered across the trees. Collecting a unique collection of vegetation. The wind was picking the scent of rotten meat. It was getting stronger around here. So the cave mustn’t be far.

    He continued to follow the dark miasma in the wind. Flickering like flames and fading whenever the breeze no longer blew. There were other scents too. Like the smell of sweat. This was starting to become a poor decision. Hearing a crack of a twig he looked under his shoe. Not him. Someone was following. Slipping behind a tree trunk. He closed his eyes to listen.

    “Need mur…..”

    Then it would fade as the wind faded. He guessed more Essence. Or more humans. Em continued forward towards whatever was in the forest. Only to see two yellow skinned demons talking to each other. One reminded him a bit like a pig and the other well he wasn’t so sure how to begin to describe its bat like ears and ugly triangular face.

    “Aaa it’s a hooman,” it squawked pointing to his direction, the pig with the sword on its back that stood at 5ft looked at him.

    “Hurrr that’s no hooman,” it growled.

    “Two demons
    Conflicted by the origins
    Of one before them” he frowned it didn’t sound very poetic.

    “Wut you want, we eatz you,”

    Em stared at the smaller the size of the child who threw stones earlier.

    “How about no eat me?” Em asked.
    “Why not?” it squawked.

    “How about you take me to your boss instead?”

    “Hurrrrr, what do you want with our boss?” the pig asked.

    “Clearly he’s very powerful and I stand no chance against you his army nor him. I am so weak and pathetic, that I stand before you speaking and have not attacked you. I have no confidence in my combative skills, instead I have knowledge for your army,”

    “Hrrrrr, you do look weak,” the pig responds, “I am Orc Senshu. What information do you have for our Demon King?”

    “The Sanctuary comes for him. He has killed many in this forest, and I wish to pass along information to ensure his safety,” Em pauses, “And aid your army.” he hears the Gremlin cheer, while Senshu nods.

    “That seems reasonable,”

    Senshu had him followed. It was true the Sanctuary may come after them, but not for a while. There needed to be something that could speed the process up. Something that could get the Sanctuary to respond much quicker. Following the Orc and Gremlin into a cave, the scent of Orc sweat, the smell of rotten flesh, and something vaguely sweet from the Gremlins was overwhelmingly powerful. He was ushered to a demon sitting on a makeshift throne. With purple skin, covered in thick black fur, and red hair. It stared at him.

    “A hooman, but not,” it growled, “Why have you brought him here?”

    “He would like to help us,” Senshu nods.

    “With what?” the Wendigo snarled.

    “He said he had information about the Sanctuary coming after us, hrrrr,”

    “Of course they’d come after us. We have killed many hoomans and hoomans will always protect their own,”

    Senshu looks at him and he just smiles.

    “What do we do? Uijen?” Senshu ask.

    The Wendigo slams his fist into his own stone throne, breaking a piece of the edge off.

    “Kill him like you should have,” the Wendigo says. Em puts up his pointer finger.

    “How about we don’t kill me?” Em ask.

    “And why shouldn’t we?” Uijen ask.

    “A king needs a performer,” Em said. Uijen looks at him.

    “And you’re some performer, where is your instrument?” Wendigo ask.

    Em points to his mind. He opens his trench coat and takes out his worn journal. Pieces of paper scattered on the floor. He quickly picks them up and flips one over.

    “The true ruler of this land
    Is the one that bind us together
    Brothers, Sisters, Daughters, and Sons
    Of Elements,”

    Uijen looks at him and raises a brow.

    “That’s it?” Uijen ask.

    He flips his paper around.

    “Spring brings flurries
    Petals dancing like feminine
    Silhouettes if only we could join them
    In union,”

    Uijen went silent. The cave seemed silent. Em waited. Tears? Uijen wiped away tears.

    “That was beautiful, I could really picture the female petal dancers. Do you have more?”

    He flipped around the page.

    “Water cuts through stone
    Forging roads and paths
    Mountain her lover,”

    Uijen sniffs.

    “I never thought of river and mountains as lovers before,” Uijen said, “Very well. I will allow you to perform for me when I become the Demon Emperor. Everyone will hear your voice. Name your price? What do I call you?”

    “Em,” he pauses, “My price. You see is difficult.”

    “Please anything for such an emotional experience,”

    “Well there’s this troublesome village behind some tall grass and I was thinking with your strength you’d attack the village me,” Em told him, and put out his hands, “Oh and make me your prisoner.”

    Uijen raises a brow.

    “You want me to take you as a prisoner after you asked for your life to be spared?”

    “Well yes,”

    “Why?”

    “More believable,”

    “What are you going on about?”

    “My lord if you don’t mind me speaking so boldly, you do not want your enemies to know you have such a flair for the arts. They may try to take advantage of this weakness. If you make me your prisoner then they will never believe I swayed you,”

    Uijen puts a hand on his chin in a thinking manner.

    “You do have a point,” Uijen says, “Very well we will put you in shackles until I become Demon Emperor. And I will destroy this village for you. If you continue to write me beautiful poetry.”

    “Anything my lord,” Em smiles.

    That should get the Sanctuary to come faster.

    **The Sanctuary
    These last three weeks had been trying his patiences. He asked himself what Yore would have done in this situation. Though it seemed painfully obvious to him what must be done. Hi-Yuni was one of their best. For someone who was not like him nor Ethela she was the best. He didn’t understand then how one of their best could so easily be brainwashed by that man.

    It became a constant realization where she really was right now, like an itch he could not scratch and make better. But there were problems. Storming that temple would have been war, it make the Sanctuary a target if it was not already. And there was only five of them. Siegfried and Moon were as eager to find Hi-Yuni as Kay was, while Ethela came along for whatever her motivations were. He didn’t claim to understand her any more than he already understood when he first met her.

    He was standing at the place they had agreed to rendezvous at. Kay was beside him, he looked extra pouty and mopey as of late. Which was not usually how their dynamic went.

    “Do you think he has powers to control people’s minds?” Kay suggested.

    “He may very well,” Reyis replied.

    Why else would Hi Yuni abandoned everyone? Shoza must have influenced her somehow. Maybe with all that spiritual nonsense he must have brainwashed her.

    “He was a creep Reyis,” Kay tells him, “Did you see the paint on his face? Only creeps do that. Only creeps with creepy creep mind powers could take Hi Yuni.”

    Reyis shrugged. And what if she really did love him? But in a day? How did love like that work? Maybe Kay was right and Shoza had other abilities Reyis didn’t know about. He leaned on the tree trunk and waited for the others to return.

    Ethela was heavily sighing, swinging her obscenely large sword over one shoulder to the next. Sweat made her skin glisten, her bosom was brightly reflecting red moonlight from their metal crafted place. Doubt touched in her mind, wondering what her mother would do if she ever returned back to the dunes. A tickling thought that came and went whenever her eyes fell on Reyis. Did she want to go back to the dunes? Why would she? Regret was hardly a part of her experience since coming to Sanctuary. But it felt sickly, poisonous, to have braved the detachment from Vesa.

    Ahava was smiling, bringing her usual backpack of travel goods and carrying a sweaty cloth in her hand. Accompanying her partner she was stroking across the warrior maiden’s sweaty body and cleaning her up with it.

    “Nothing” Ethela said casually to Reyis and Kay, hand on hip, not bothered by the Fairy’s invasive wipe down.

    “I figured,” Reyis responded cooly.

    Kay watched Ethela being rubbed by Ahava, to say he liked Ethela when she was human would have been an underestimation. When she was human she seemed softer, despite the outburst she often had. A bit of vulnerability came out when she was human. Here she seemed too manly for his liking.

    “Damn it! We need to find her! We need to bring her back!” Kay shouted in an uncharacteristically unfunny way. Ahava frowned, her serving hand swiping across the wet small of Ethela’s back. It was very clear to the deamon that their search was going to be empty handed and where this human would be would only reside in one place. Ahava had no intention of returning there.

    “Need is a strong word…” Ahava chuckled meekly, dissuading the serious tensions in the air. Ethela ran her free hand through fluffy white hair. She stared at Reyis, down to him.

    “How much longer do you want this keep happening? This hasn’t worked for days now. She’s gone.”

    Before he had time to respond Moon jumped down from one of the tree branches he must have been spying from. He looked at Reyis and shook his head.

    Not even Moon could find her? Not even a few seconds later Siegfried came through the brush without much tact. Twigs snapping and branches breaking as he did so.

    “Nothing on my end either,” he said bitterly.

    Reyis closed his eyes. The emotional side of him pulled towards finding her. Like Kay he was passionate about not leaving her. But on the other hand, looking at all the faces that had come to help out and search for her he also could not let them die in that place. That temple haunted him. The Demon King they worshipped was significantly more powerful than anything they faced. They did not have the strength to fight him. It would be suicide if they even tried.

    “Then she’s gone for good,” Reyis said slowly, “She was either converted into someone’s puppet or dead. There’s no time wasting more effort on this.”

    Kay looked at him.

    “Are you serious? You’re giving up that easily,”

    When Reyis gave him a look he knew what it meant and just turned his head away.

    “Yeah, you’re right,” Kay said scratching the back of his head. Siegfried looked at Reyis. Reyis could see regret and resentment in his expression.

    “We...should focus on other contracts,” Siegfried told Moon. Moon looked at Siegfried and nodded. “Thank you Reyis. Good luck on your endeavors. With everything.” Ethela watched Moon and Siegfried exit the area with her usual unmoving expression. It was disgusting to imagine what Shoza was doing to the Human woman with his male-looking body. Maybe he ate her, with Shoza it was all left to guessing.

    Ahava finished her wifely duties, putting the sweat rag on Ethela’s hip and moved near the other Half-fiend to hug him. Empathy was a civil act for her kind, but in this particular case it was also something he seemingly needed. She, unlike Ethela, smelled clean and flowery - void of sweat and other bothersome things of the human condition.

    Ethela watched Ahava’s action with a noticeable frown, jealous how casually Ahava could do ‘bonding’ things with Reyis when she wanted to be closer to him. She watched on, extending her sympathies for Reyis in her subtle and less emotive ways.

    Reyis looked at Ahava. He was unsure how he was supposed to feel when a Demon was hugging him. He remembered to remember the good demons that came along in his journey. But he was uncertain if he drew any emotion from the gesture.

    While Kay watched Ahava hug Reyis. Now that you think about they were in the mountains alone for a while. Maybe? No there’s no way. But maybe.

    Meanwhile there was a quiet rustling in the bushes. Guided by heavy emotions of defeat and despair, it was not hard to find the auras he was searching for. Demon auras were different and difficult to read sometimes, but to see Ahava embrace Kaja only seemed to make the evidence clear that perhaps not all of them were willing to murder for the status.

    Still he looked at the group with a grave expression.

    “Hello,” he said kindly. Ethela’s stares ripped off of Reyis and Ahava to Kaja she did not expect to be out here. Tilting her body back she stared at him with a bit of shock. How did he? Why now? What?

    “Hey?” Ethela asked, staring at his sweet lips she had taken their virginity from. Ahava let go of Reyis and patted him on the shoulder kindly, staring up into his eyes. Kaja’s take of Ahava’s actions became more clear: her sociable nature being the center of her motivations. Ahava’s purple fey eyes fell on Kaja and smiled, a knowing smile as she was aware of Kaja more than the others.

    “You join us too late for the search. We have submitted to Hi Yuni’s disappearance as out of our hands” she informed the blonde beauty with a soft spoken, yet easily delivered factual tone.

    As he expected. Though he wondered if the team understood that Hi Yuni was not taken. He could not convince Siegfried and the others barely understood fate and destiny. He was no fortune teller, but the auras were clear. Their auras were a perfect harmonious match. She would change his shape and he would change hers.

    His hand tremored without him asking it to do so. Taking a second he responded with, “How tragic.” in a way it was. Hi Yuni had left people who respected and loved her. But now she was on a journey of personal growth and in a way he hoped the character of Shoza would join her on this path, “But that is not why I am here.” Placing a hand across his heart, almost as if he were praying, “Tragedy has been reported to me. A village in Zone 4 is being attacked by a strong and powerful Demon King. Some Hunters who were in the area have tried to delay the demons efforts, it is how I got the message. But haste is needed. For tonight everything changes.”

    Reyis narrowed his eyes.

    “What do you mean by that?” Reyis asked.

    Kaja looks at him.

    “We don’t have much time,” he says, raising his hand in the air as if to touch something invisible, Essence in the air others probably could not see, “All Demons. Even you two. Are connected through Essence. A demon does not die, but goes through a cycle. In short. The moon changes today. It will awaken more powerful enemies. More powerful kings who want to become this Emperor we hear them speak of.” Daintily Ahava put hands over her small, moist lips with expected shock from someone of her feminine charms. Ethela stabbed The Boom Stick into the earth beside her and wiped sweat from her brow. More pressure, not what she wanted now.

    “Then…” Ethela began forming her thoughts, dabbing her face with the sweat rag. “Why is one villiage of people important if things are about to get worse? There’re going to die anyway, sounds like it. Should focus on Sanctuary” Ethela shrugged.

    Kaja frowned.

    “Then why should anyone care about The Sanctuary?” Kaja asked, “If we are the Sanctuary. What does Sanctuary mean?” Kaja held his hands together, “Safe. A haven. A place to go to. But if that Sanctuary does not save. Then where do they go? Turn to? Why trust in a time of need? Whether or not people will die should not be the point. What should be the point is doing everything in one’s power to make the best decisions they possibly can in life. Defeatist, neutral or negative options do not pull forward better futures. Remember inaction is still a choice.” Ethela knew and didn’t know that her question would spark ethical quandary. She didn’t know because she thought her question small and simple, she knew because it was Kaja, who released lengthy message of doing good for Humanity from his sweet lips constantly. Half way through his speech Ethela’s eyes drifted from his serious eyes to his mouth, taking in the shifts and turns they did to lecture her.

    “Mhm” Ethela finally said, lulled into a shapely spell by his kissers. “The best decisions and things” Ethela turned from Kaja and stared at her new friends, Reyis she wanted to feel closer to him. “Eh-” Reyis was already walking off and Ethela ran off after him. Ahava walked closer to Kaja and smiled.

    “I think you made a great choice with your hairstyle today” she flattered the powerful mortal.

    “This?” Kaja looked confused, “It seemed convenient for the circumstances.” Ahava watched her girlfriend and the weak human Kay leave - ensuring they were alone. Ahava giggled and pressed a finger onto the man’s shoulder.

    “When are you going to be more honest about your being with the others? I’m curious” The demon asked and gave him a smile trained by her social ways.

    Kaja took a second.

    “When they are strong enough to realize it themselves,” Kaja told her and smiled, “Sometimes the answers have to be discovered to know how much more you have grown.” Ahava sighed and brushed her soft body against his playfully at the arms.

    “I should say thank you for the work you have done to make Ethela more manageable. I wouldn’t have been able to love her with how wild she had become for the truth of her Human family without your hand to tame her some”

    Kaja smiles.

    “No matter the work I have done. In truth it was your love, no matter how baseline it is that kept Ethela open enough to the concept. You didn’t let her heart forget about loving,” Kaja told her. The Fairy stared with open sign of discontent from his kindly delivered shive between words.

    “Thank you…” Ahava pulled herself away from Kaja and ran off to join Ethela’s side. Kaja stared at the moon that was slowly going to sleep. Noon would soon wear and they would be into the evening. But the moon was to enter truly its two hundredth cycle. To defeat Demons like Asmodeus he needed to harbor growth in Reyis and Ethela to become as strong and more powerful. It dawned on him how tired he was, being drained of Essence with the other Aurahky with a secret to keep. Either way he needed to continue for a better future for Demons like Ahava and Humans. To enter a world of coexisting and rid this world of its impurity.

    **
    Zone 4 - Holleyhead Village
    HalfMoon - Weak
    As night began to fall, the sky a beautiful color of royal purple with the glowing blue of the moon giving out light. A strange aura began to appear in the sky, and aurora borealis beginning to create rings around the moon and energy of Essence pulsed in waves in the sky.

    Uijen licked his lips. The moon might not have been full tonight, but he felt more than energized tonight. The moon was entering its 200 cycle and any demon worth its salt understood those rings meant the Heavens were finally calling on the tournament to find the Demon Emperor.

    He had been waiting for this moment. Gathering his army. Feeding on Human Essence from the woods. His army of Gremlins and Orcs were loyal. And now he had a Demifiend under his ranks. Except that he wasn’t sure how to describe this Demifiend. He seemed well less frightening than the ones he knew on the other side of the moon. He didn’t seem like much of a threat.

    Abruptly the serene peace of night was broken when the sky burst into orange and red, as the tall grass caught on fire. As the Gremlins ran through it with torches lit. Uijen marched behind them, creating quakes with his powerful steps. Small craters the size of his feet were made every time he took a step forward. He brought the Demifiend, Em with him to show him with his own eyes the destruction of the village he requested to be destroyed.

    Uijen smiled when one of the houses abruptly caught flame. The smoke beginning to rise in the sky. Then there was a new smell in the air. Hoomans.

    But not any ordinary Hoomans. The Sanctuary came out from the tall grass that was now burning. A gun went off, shooting one of the Gremlins down to the ground. Demon Hunters meddling with his plans. As the Demifiend Em said they would.

    One of the Orcs unsheathed its sword and thrust it into one of the hoomans abdomen and with immense strength disemboweled the human. Innards falling on grass that was quickly beginning to burn. There was a haze of smoke that made visibly hard to see.

    “Keep them back,” Eren said, leading a team of six, he was on his way back to the Sanctuary when he noticed the flames. All he needed to do was stall them and hope that Kaja got his SOS. They would bring the Elite team. Either that Demifiend Reyis with them as well. But soon Siegfried, Moon and Hi Yuni would be here surely.

    Fleeing from the tall grass he entered the center of the village. Pointing to one of the girls on his team and one of the guys, “Take the villages to the town hall, rescue as many as you can.” He unhooked his foldable shuriken and threw it into the smoke like a boomerang.

    Uijen saw the gremlin front lines sliced into half by an Essence spinning blade with four blades. To him it looked like what those hoomans called helicopter blades. Uijen growled. Stupid meddling. Stupid meddling.

    Jumping high in the air, about 8ft high and bounding into the center of the village crushing the hooman under his feet. The hoomans bones snapped, popped, and he felt his blood under his feet. Uijen walked out of the blood pool, and bent down to take a claw to his claw at his feet, scraping the bits of the hoomans intestines out from under his nail bed.

    Orcs and Gremlins came rushing in. Knocking down doors. Some hoomans tried to flee, but only became pretty red splatters. Senshu kept the Demifiend at his side and looked at the poet.

    “Is this inspiring you to write any poems of our lords victories?” Senshu asked.
    Em looked at Senshu.

    “Plenty of inspiration,” Em responded.

    Senshu just laughed.

    There was no doubt in his mind that it was to be Uijen’s victory tonight.

    One of the Gremlins grabbed a young girl by her wrist. She screamed. The woman who had been ordered from Eren to rescue them from the demons looked over. She would not let another little girl be taken away from their family. Taking her gun out she shot the Gremlin in the head.

    “Come on, you’ll be safe,” she said.

    A sword plunges into her backside. It is rendered out so fast that she too is cut in half by the blade, entrails spilling onto the ground. Mixing with the blood. The little girl screams. The last emotion on the girl’s face fear as her head comes clean off.

    It was no doubt to be Uijen’s victory tonight. The Hoomans who resisted him were all too weak. They would not be victorious.

    “Come on, inside the town hall,” Wei looks away from the horror, he has no time to react to their deaths right now. They were Hunters. They knew the cost of their job. But all this slaughter. All this carnage. Some demons really, truly were bad, weren’t they? Malice to the bone. He was ushering villages into the town hall as fast as he could. An orc jumps in front of them, “Keep going,” he says as he unsheaths his broadsword, “Come at me you ugly bastard.”

    The Orc comes charging in with its sword, as he does the same. Deflecting a swing, Wei goes in for another. The Orc moves out of the way. Right now he was strengthened by his rage. If he could just kill one of them, for those two, he would feel victorious tonight.

    The Orc goes in for another swing, he deflects with his broadsword and sweeps under the Orc. And slices it half. Then another on his left side and an another on his right side. These guys were using unfair tactics.

    “You guys have no honor, you fight like Preta,” Wei spits at them. He deflects another Orc attack. Another comes in and slashes him across his side. Another attack gets through his defense. Motherfuckers. Fuck. He needs to stand strong for Eren, for Kisa. He deflects another. A sword cuts deep into his leg. “Fuck you!” He says swinging his sword twice as hard to slash another half. But he barely had the strength to keep up with the overwhelming demonic swarms. He’d continue fighting. He knew the cost of his job.

    Suddenly out of nowhere the demons that were swarming him were cut in half in a circular motion. Blue blood spilled onto the ground, their yellow innards, and Essence beginning to disperse in the air.

    “What the hell,” Wei says as he looks up to see Reyis. His white hair ruffled from the motion. Black eyes with glowing red pupils, “Thanks.”

    “We have a handle of this,” Reyis told him, “They will pay twice as much for what they have done here.”

    Wei gets up.

    “Thanks,” Wei leans on the leg not bleeding. Shit. He was going to be completely useless now, “There were six of us. Two of us have been taken. Rescue my team or...recover their tags.” Wei’s eye look, Kaja is here? And strangers he didn’t know. A Fairy. He could simply tell from years of experience. And a woman with big breast and wearing few clothes.

    Ahava walked through the masses of carnage and forming lakes of blood to meet the human. Ethela stared at what was going around with her and flared her nostrils. She had killed people along the travel to Sanctuary, but she never imagined herself causing death like this. It disturbed her in some way...was it...sadness? Probably not.

    “Let’s go Reyis” Ethela pushed. Ahava meanwhile put her fairy hands on Wei, letting a warm glow touch his body.

    “I think there is more you can do” Ahava suggested charmingly. Wei stares at her and smiles. He fist pumps in the air.

    “I never give up, it’s what it means to be a Demon Hunter,” Weit tells her, “Thanks.”

    Ethela jumped forward, sending The Boom Stick forward in her charge. She was ruthless, diving the tip through the chest of an Orc and finding the strength to lift the blade with him on it. Screaming, Ethela’s greatsword spun, breaking the corpse into two and smashing the opening guts across the face of another Orc who had raised his arms to shield himself. The entrails wrapped around his limbs, The Boom Stick ate through him, collapsing the man into a conjoined pile of bodies where his upper half was left to bleed out in panic.

    Swinging his scythe to get the blood off of it, he saw Ethela jump forward. He decide then to work on his right side. The Orcs were already trying to get to him before he got to them, taking his hand off of the shaft of his scythe he raised his hand in the air and created an blacken orb and threw it at the demons. The orb ate away at the earth and created a sizable explosion that launched the Orcs in the air. Most of them were startled or confused, but he took that opportunity to acrobatically leap in the air and cut as man as he could with his scythe. As they came back to the ground, blue blood, and limbs raining down into the crater causing a body pit of orcs. Limbs falling on their alive combats who had not been launched.

    Ethela swirled her sword, chains rattling against her metal bra, red garments flapped with a rageful dance. Dragging from the earth Ethela’s foot kicked into the kneecap of an Orc charging her. Her face grimaced and blood showered acrossed it after The Boom Stick plunged into his neck. The head of the standing corpse rolled down the slope of her sword and fell to the side. Crackling up the metal mass of her weapon, lightning thundered with terrifying presence. It lorded over the sound of the battlefield and in the blinding light Ethela’s bolt of lightning dived through 50 demonic souls. Through the charred holes of the lined bodies, Ethela blinked into existence at the other side, a massive lake of bodies collapsed behind her.
    This was a nightmare. All this blood. All of these bodies. And what did Kaja mean by the cycle changing? Did anyone notice the sky? What were those circular rings? Why was the moon pulsing? Why was Kay the only one who had a bad feeling about all of this? It put a bitter taste in his mouth, all of this. He had enough of things not making sense.

    He shot one of the Orcs in the head, then another with his other gun, then another with his other gun, back and forth till he was out of magazines. Dropping them to the ground, he quickly tried to slide magazines into their places. Out of the corner of his eye he saw some Orcs creeping up on Kaja. Shit, he forgot he was here. Why was here? Come on magazines get into the barrel.

    Kaja looked at him.

    “Save your bullets,” Kaja points towards Kay who had more enemies coming up, “I will be fine.”

    Kaja looked up to the sky staring at the circula rings, true he had not fed in a while. But the moon was powerful tonight. More powerful than it should be on a half moon, but this was a temporary cycle. He stared at the Orcs coming closer.

    “I am sorry your skills will not be enough to touch me,” Kaja told them. Provoked by this, the eight of them charged him. Clearly they didn’t believe him. But his mother was always with him in spirit. Kaja could see it, he didn’t just see the swords coming, but saw the way the tips of their blades cut through an Essence and aura he could only see.

    He unsheathed his sword. To an outside observer the arc of his blade look like the crescent of the moon. As light came from his blade. His blade barely touched the Orcs. But the light touched them and they burst into merely Essence. Glittering in the air. Nothing of them was left, but their life force. He finished his half circular spin, his hair trailing after him, as light glittered around him.

    Staring at the Orcs who had watched this he smiled at them.

    “I told you,” Kaja told them kindly. Ahava pulled her hands from Wei, starring concerning deeply at the bright sight that pulled her vision. The visual effect and the light were beautiful, and Ahava knew that Ethela would be in danger.

    “No don’t do that!” Ahava screamed at Kaja. Ethela prepared herself for another swing, now teleported in the mass by herself. In the distance something tickled her eye and an adrenaline rush told her to LOOK at it. An itch she had to scratch Ethela lowered The Boom Stick and craned her neck to see the final moments of the dazzling display of Kaja’s magic. Her mouth drooled, Essence pouring and evaporating in each direction.

    “Ah! Shit!” Ethela screamed, a sword had cut into the side of her stomach, stopped by the inner layers of scales beneath her flesh. Still, the sword ate hungrily at her skin and the fire caused her to wince. Another blade cut at her face and she had to jump back to create some distance. Her metal foot kicked one of the lightning struck corpses and she had to leap up upon a corpse or else had tripped on it. But now Ethela was distracted and surrounded by enemies. Even after what had just happened, Ethela still looked back in Kaja’s direction for another shimmering visual, if it would come. Ahava stared at the distracted battle maiden worrisomely.

    Shit! Why did she go into battle by herself like that? And what was that light. Reyis turned to help Ethela out. Even if it meant he had to cut down as enemies as he could just to do so. Sticking his scythe into the ground quickly. He’d make a pathway with his orb and then use it to cut through the path. Forming an orb with his hand he threw it out.

    He grabbed his scythe, but was stopped from making his path when he felt a strange energy. Reyis looked around to catch a distant look from a purple skinned demon with toughs of black hair covering his arms and his back. Red hair covered his face, but his eyes were glowing red from rage.

    “RRAWWWW!” Uijen growled at the top of his lungs, it was a shout that was so loud and doused in enough Essence to cause a shockwave that tore down five buildings. Uijen jumped into the air and landed in the middle of the demons attacking Ethela. Crushing his own allies under his feet. Ethela ears rang with the power of the voice, it challenged if not conquered the sounds of her lightning. His call of power pulled her from her distractions. The cracking and popping sounds of demons in front of her imploded and squirted blood up and down her body. They had been entirely crushed by Uijen, innards having to find new space to occupy in a faction of a second.

    The battle maiden shook, the corpse she stood on wiggled from the force. Her reflexes saved her, one foot landing on the back of another dead Orc behind her and she hopped onto his body. “Tch” Ethela hissed, the two cut sides of her pale skin leaked her own blood down feminine hips. A matted mess of white hair and blood Ethela kept The Boom Stick in front of her and stared at the powerful demon, gritting her teeth.

    Ahava ran directly to Kaja and grabbed his shoulder with an urgent touch.

    “Please don’t do that again. You might get her killed. She has a compulsion to all things bioluminescent or simply reflective”

    Uijen uses his hand gestures to have the rest of his army spread out. Holding their weapons and looking at Uijen he growls, his canine dripping with saliva.

    “Not hooman, hooman,” he grumbles, “You do not know what you fight for. Or what this is for. You break a cycle made centuries ago. Millennia ago. You would barely understand in your cursed blood. Who is your general?” Ethela slapped her blade on the ground.

    “You’re asking the wrong one. I don’t have a general, I do what I want” she said defiantly.

    “Naturally I do not expect one's with your kind of blood to be nothing more than hedonistic children,” Uijen snarled at her, “Then, if you do what you want, why follow the rest of them.” He points to Reyis who has come behind her, “Why protect these humans? Is this what you want?” Ethela laughed. This guy was a walking force of strength, using it to be as barbaric as he wanted and he was curious about her? She found his lack of focus irritating, just get to the fighting already. Laughing tugged on the cuts at her hips, punishing her for doing so. Blood ran down her belt and began to drip down her thighs.

    Reyis was beside her and she stared at him for a moment.

    “Because I want to be with him” She answered confidently. “Are we fighting or not?”

    “No, I am not fighting you,” Uijen tells her, “I asked for your General. Answer me child. Where is your General?”

    Reyis looked at Ethela’s wounds. He didn’t understand Kaja’s strength in the battle earlier, but he also knew the extraction was tough on Kaja. Reyis stepped forward.

    “I take it you’re Uijen,” Reyis told the demon, “I heard tales of you from my mentor. I am the General you are looking for.”

    Reyis looked at Ethela. Do not argue with me. You are bleeding. I have not been touched yet. Do you understand? Is what his eyes told her. He could see her swallowing her pride but looked away in submission, hiding behind her clouds of hair.

    Uijen laughed.

    “You are their General then,” Uijen huffed, “You look pathetic. More so than the girl. Fine come at me child.”

    Reyis grabbed his scythe and watched Uijen. He was powerful. He was on a completely different level than demons he had fought before. He felt like that weak child again. The one that watched Yore die. This whole scenario had an air of familiarity to it. Staring down an enemy far more powerful than him and feeling anxiety in his heart.

    But he promised to protect the Sanctum. He promised to take on Yore’s role as a guardian. They expected him to do so.

    Uijen raised a pointer finger for him to come at him. Reyis was looking for an opening. Any opening. Uijen was quite large, his body looked strong. Reyis went in without a thought, he thought he saw what he hoped was an opening.

    He scratched across Uijen’s tough skin on his right leg. There was a benefit of being much smaller than Uijen. But as he came around to cut the leg Uijen kicked him out of the way. Reyis went flying into the roof of a villager’s house. He crashed through the roof, wood pieces cutting through him and landing on the ground with a thud on his back.

    Uijen took no time to leap from the center of battle through the broken roof of the house and land where he thought the Demifiend had landed. All he did was manage to do was create a hole into the floor. How had that pipsqueak had time to react that fast after something like that?

    Reyis body reacted in time sensing danger. Wooden pieces were stuck to his winds and he coughed as the wind was taken out of him. He threw one of his orbs in Uijen’s direction balancing on a beam of wood still standing. Uijen turned in his direction. The orb stung at his face, but he didn’t feel it much. Uijen punched the wall that connected the beam Reyis had been standing on.

    Reyis managed to land outside of the house, as the house came down. Uijen’s body standing in the settling dust. Reyis quickly got out of the way in case Uijen decided to leap again. It became painfully obvious this was like the past. Staring down an enemy he had no chance to defeat. But something had to be done? Didn’t it?
    Uijen stepped over the last bits of crumbling house. He picked the scythe out of his skin and threw it in front of the kid.

    “Is this all you have?” Uijen asked.

    Reyis grabbed his scythe, taking it out of the ground. What did he do? Ethela stood no chance? Who had the power to take Uijen down? Kay was a human and so was Kaja. Damn it! He couldn’t fail again. He couldn’t fail! Reyis growled under his breath. The marking on his face glew a little of Essence and so did his shard. His aura blackened.

    Reyis charged in again with his scythe, scraping a chunk of flesh of Uijen’s arm before landing behind him. He couldn’t fail them! They were counting on him. If he didn’t do something they would all die. He couldn’t let them die.

    Uijen turned around with a swiftness for his size, to land a roundhouse kick as the little Demifiend landed. Managing to hit the little Demifiend, Reyis was thrown back into the last bits of crumbling wall.

    “It’s a shame that’s all you have little brat,” Uijen said as he went in for a punch to the little Demifiends body. Crushing him through the wall. How much damage could this little Demifiend take though? He resisted a lot of his pain.

    Somehow Reyis managed not to be splooshed, the wall taking enough of the force and rebound. But Reyis could barely stand. He spit out some blood. What was he suppose to do? Reyis looked at Uijen. Sticking his scythe into the ground, and weakly falling to his knees.

    “I give up,” Reyis told him, looking at the ground, he was trying not to show his pain to Uijen right now, “Please do not kill everyone. But you may have my life.”

    Spectating, Ahava’s voice had summoned Ethela to run from her position up to the city hall. She watched with anger what had become of Reyis. Ahava’s touch healed her wounds, but she was still covered in her own and demonic blood. She looked battered, but the fire inside of her yearned to fight and kill the demon pulverizing Reyis. She took her first steps to run after him when Kaja’s words interrupted her.

    “Look at Reyis,” Kaja told her, “At his strength he can barely stand to fight Uijen. You both have the potential to be better. But with your power. All you will do is die as well. You and Reyis have the power to be so much more. But that is if you want to.” Kaja stepped forward, “Watch what you could be capable of.”

    Uijen would have taken the offer of the little Demifiend when he felt something gazing at him. Something powerful. Uijen turned to see who was gazing at him. Eyes the color of the cosmos, he saw the universe inside of them. A beauty no human could possess and the aura of the heavens itself.

    “That’s quite enough of that,” Kaja told him, “I will not permit you kill him.”

    Uijen glares.

    “What right do you have permitting me or not?” Uijen asked.

    “It depends on whether or not you stop or not,” Kaja told him.

    “Stop?” Uijen asked.

    “Your attack,” Kaja told him.

    “Or you’ll what kill me?” Uijen asked.

    “That’s precisely what I’ll do and I’ll cut you from the cycle for the rest of your eternity. You will be nothing, but a spec in the sky,”

    “You do not have that kind of power,”

    “Do you want those to be your last words?”

    Uijen turned back and raised his fist. That human might be powerful, but there was no way he could save his friends from being killed. He was bluffing. He went in to finish the little Demifiend, but his body would not move. He saw a golden light.

    Kaja had swiftly unsheathed his katana and sheathed it back throwing an arc of light at Uijen. Uijen’s body at first cut in half, but the light began to expand, and rapidly consume the creature's body. Until it exploded into nothing, but specs of light. There was no trace of Essence left or Uijen.

    He looked at Ethela.

    “Do you understand now what you must do?” The impact of Kaja’s words post his powerful action were entirely missed because Ethela was staring off at the speckled lights fading. Ahava raised her hands in sheer surprise of the power displayed. Nothing Kaja said was bluffed, she sensed it as Uijen was no more.

    Then the silence kicked in, Ethela was still staring. Ahava paused her own awe and kicked Ethela in the back of the knee.

    “Ow!” Ethela almost fell, saving herself and staring down at Ahava. The fairy was raising her brows and pointing at Kaja. “Oh, what? You said something? That was…” Ethela trailed, too prideful to say the final bits of her thoughts. Amazing.

    Kaja just smiled.

    “We should help Reyis, I think he is in quite a bit of pain,” Kaja said. Ahava raised her hand to volunteer herself. The other she used to grab Ethela’s and they ran past Kaja to the Demi-Fiend willing to sacrifice himself.Ahava laid Reyis down while Ethela kneeled next to him.

    “He was talking to me first, you should have let me tried instead. I’m bigger than you” Ethela lectured to the small man.

    Reyis stared at the sky. The rings were fading in the sky. They were so pretty. He wondered if spirits existed. If Yore was up there. Would he be disappointed in him?

    “Maybe,” Reyis responded weakly to Ethela. Kay ran towards the crumbling building, once again Reyis was a big dumb idiot and hadn’t considered tricking the demon in a way to get them all to help. He could have died and Kay believed that this time. It was the second time he saw Reyis close to or nearing death. He looked pretty beaten up. Did Ahava enough healing to make it better?

    Meanwhile, the standing army looked at each other. They were squabbling amongst each other. And Kaja turned to them. He smiled at them.

    “Now then,” Kaja said kindly.

    “We’re sorry!” they all said and threw their weapons onto the ground and began to scamper off. Why did they run? All he was going to do was talk to them. Ahava smiled down to Reyis.

    “It’ll take a few minutes but I will treat these wounds” She promised and Ethela ruffled Reyis’ hair, realizing what she had done only after she was doing it. In her chest something warm was bubbling as her hand remained on his head. She stared at the white locks so much like her own threaded through her fingers and felt a closeness about Reyis.

    “You can’t die. I don’t really know you yet” She complained quietly.

    He didn’t know what to feel when she touched his hair. Embarrassment. Humiliation. That’s twice in two weeks he could do nothing. Even if he wasn’t dying or Ahava was healing him he felt dizzy. He grabbed Ethela’s hand.

    “I..am just...going to take a nap,” he told her before his head drooped and he went unconscious. A quiet gasp fell out of Ethela’s lips and she stared down at the limp hand in hers and blushed from how emotional she was acting. She dropped it and stood abruptly to find Kay. At the lanky human she pointed at him.

    “You’re carrying him” she left no room for debate and crossed her arms at her blood soaked breasts.

    “Yeah yeah,” Kay said, “He’s going to be all right, right Ahava?” Kay looked around. What was that power Kaja displayed? It was far more powerful than any magic he knew. He scratched the back of his head. He was often the goofy guy he could shrug mostly anything off, but this. This was different. It was hard to shake something like this off, “Maybe we should look for survivors.”

    **
    The scent of death
    Flowers of blood
    Iron

    The sight of so much death disturbed him. Had the Hunters from the Sanctum grown weak? They certainly took their time getting here. Watching from the center of town near grass that had once been up in smoke, blazed with orange. The wind picked up and burned the embers away. He watched figures in the distance walking out of a building. They would be searching then. Now that the one with long hair and supernatural beauty displayed an ungodly amount of power.

    It wouldn’t be too believable if he sat here unharmed and bound. Managing to take his bound hand and feeling through his side pocket he felt the handle of one of his hidden knives. Flipping it in his coat he drove the blade till it pierced his abdomen. He winced in pain. Now he’d wait.

    Kay sighed. All of this was just a damn mess. With the whole Shoza stuff. Then Hi-Yuni missing. Now this. Life was turning out to be really shit lately. How do you make a joke out of the most depressing stuff in your life? Like this was bad. No jokester in his heart could laugh at all this death and destruction. And Reyis. Reyis was hurt again. Emotionally and he guessed now physically. He didn’t know how to pick up those pieces.

    He wished he was stronger too. He wished to be stronger. He was just some weak human, with a fairly okay accuracy. But Ethela and Reyis were doing their own fighting, in their own league, of their own caliber. And he was afraid he’d get ripped into pieces, smooshed like the piles of blood and entrails, people pudding.

    “Gah!” he shouted out to the sky, as he rummaged through the scattered buildings looking for any survivor. Just one person, anyone. He wanted to start to feel like a hero of justice again. Not someone so out powered and out matched that these battles felt like a struggle of survival, not a great victory.

    He caught, glowing eyes in the distance? A survivor? But no ordinary person would have golden glowing eyes. Taking out one of his guns he pointed it in that direction and slowly moved forward. Closer. Closer. To see a man? With green hair? Okay seriously what the fuck is up with the hair. Why couldn’t anything be normal?

    He was tied up by some rope. And bleeding? Shit. He holstered his gun.

    “Hey are you okay?” Kay asked.

    Em slowly inspected the human who had come to his aid. He simply smiled.

    “That is to be determined by my rescuer, isn’t it?” Em asked the human with a raised brow, “Captured once. May continue to be captive, if you are not the merciful type.”

    Kay just looked the green hair guy.

    “Look man I have had a shitty few weeks and I am not going to put up with any more bullshit. You want to tell me what’s going on?” Kay asked.

    Em breathed in deep and slowly exhaled. The wind felt like a mourning breeze.

    “Ah yes, straightforwardness. I will not lie to you, as you can see I am a Half fiend not too unlike your friends. When the demon found out what I was, he wanted my Essence during the second phase of the moon,”

    Right, he didn’t understand that crap. Kaja was talking about it earlier and honestly all of it blew over his head. All this talk about moon phases and emperors. It didn’t make much sense. Why did demons need emperors? They seemed all too happy to kill anyone in their sight.

    “Right, that makes sense, I mean the whole wanting eat you, he did like to smoosh people a lot,” Kay said, “Let me untie you. Uh, you’re injured.”

    “Upon my capture yes,”

    “Yeah, we got people for that,” Kay says beginning to untie the guy, “You got a name?”

    So far he seemed in the clear. The Human was not very perceptive. He hoped that of the others as well.

    “It is Em,” he told him, “And yours?”

    Em? Why couldn’t?

    “Is Em short for something? It’s Kay,” he helped the demifiend by helping him lift himself off the ground.

    Dusting himself off Em looked at Kay.

    “Is Kay short for something?” Em asked.

    “No….” Kay paused, “...okay I get the point.” Kay looked around for Ethela. He wasn’t sure how’d she react. She wasn’t Reyis. “My team is around here. Can you walk?”

    “Mourning wind, too many lives taken, justice,” Em murmured to himself, looking at Kay, “I am standing so I believe I am capable of walking.”

    Kay just raised his brow.

    “Okay before I even like get you to meet my group. I need to ask a question. Are you shivvy stab in the dark type? Come from some borderline psychopathic group that worships dolls and or lives under a mountain?”

    Em cocked his head to the side.

    “I do not believe so. And if I lived under a mountain, how would I be here?”

    Kay sighs.

    “I don’t know, you talk weird man,”

    Em opens his right side pocket to take out his worn journals.

    “I am a poet,” Em tells him, handing his journals, “Flowing words together into elegant phrases is what I do best. But I see you’re not a man of the lost arts, I apologize for coming off rude or unusual.”

    Kay scratches his head.

    “Yeah, you’re better off talking to Kaja or Reyis about,” Kay flips through the journals a little bit. Blooming flowers, warm spring, life. “This.” Kay says handing the journal back.

    At least he wasn’t terrifying and there was actually something peaceful about this man’s aura. He didn’t seem to want to attack him. That’s always good.

    He begins to lead Em through the town looking for where Ethela is next.

    “Ethela! Ahava! Kaja!” he shouts their names, “We got someone! He’s not murderous either, that’s a bonus!” Ethela stared at Ahava and the white haired Demi-fiend tilted her head a bit. Ahava tapped her chin in ponder.

    “We kill and murder quite frequently, has that been ill?” Ahava wondered, they did however, just slay an entire mass of demons.

    “I don’t know but Kay is being loud, so let’s go see” Ethela walked over with Ahava following, her arm looped around the battle maiden.

    The poor thing. He probably had to take responsibility for what happened to Reyis. Except now this was a way to encourage the both of them to become much stronger for the events to come. Still he couldn’t help, but feel a slight pain in his heart. He should have stopped this, but he wasn’t sure there was much way of motivating Reyis into action unless he failed. Wiping a tear away from his eyes, he heard their names being called and heard Ahava’s words.

    “This is a truer observation, I wish violence was not the way we could solve this, but some respect violence too much to let it go,” he told her, before following to see who Kay had found. The three of them walked to where Kay’s voice had come from and Ahava stared at the bleeding, eccentric man. Another Demi-fiend, she sensed, and yet this one had green hair - not white. Was that normal?

    “Oh, what happened to you?” Ahava asked cordially, sounding with no empathy. She eyed him with hopes of entertainment while he continued to bleed.

    Em stared at the Fairy. Fairies were known to be perceptive, some even spoke to the wind. He’d have to tread carefully.

    “Hopeful new friends, a crowd gathers, greetings,” he wrote on some space he could find on his paper, he looked to her again, “I explained to your friend I was captured by the demon who terrorized this village. When I tried to assist in the recent battle one of his men stopped me from doing so.”

    “Hmmm” Ahava almost sounded appeased, leaning her head on Ethela, “Your wound is so small, their blades must have only tickled your skin and yet you are fallen. I hope you are stronger than that” she smiled. Ethela looked down to her girlfriend and then to the new guy.

    “Yeah, how many did you take out before they captured you?”

    Em simply smiled.

    “I’m afraid beautiful fairy, I am not as strong as your friends, I was captured upon discovering the demon marching towards here. But bound and seeing all this needless bloodshed I could not sit idly by. When I tried to stand even in my bindings one of the Gremlin’s nicked me with its claws,” Em told them.

    Ahava chuckled behind a hand neatly.

    “I am sorry you fell as you had. The Gremlin poked you very hard I am sure. I can help with that wound” The Fairy offered, pulling herself away from Ethela and walking closer to Em.

    Em only brushed a bang out of his eyes.

    “I am not afraid to admit I am no fighter, I am a traveling poet,” Em told her, “I have no fear admitting when I lose.”

    “Okay, what should we do next?” Ethela asked Kay, moving on the dynamic off of Em and his past she particularly didn’t care about. Ahava quietly hummed and healed the wound in the abdomen.

    Kay just looked at Ethela. Usually Reyis was in charge and to be quite frank he had better ideas than him. He was no thinker.

    “Uh, Kaja,” Kay looked at Kaja. Who stared at him.

    Kaja only looked at the new half-fiend, at least there was a good sign there. His aura was pure enough for him to have no worries, even if his words didn’t seem strictly honest. He meant good. And hadn’t tried to harm them in anyway.

    “I may make one suggestion,” Kaja said looking behind him toward the building Reyis now lie in, “The Demon King’s who want to become emperor will show no mercy. To be fair the one you fought today was quite frankly fairly weak compared to those that lurk in darker shadows. You need to get stronger. To become stronger. You cannot stay at the stage you are at.” His eyes scan Ethela, then the new stranger, Kay, and he looks behind to the building, only to turn back to them, “You need to make the choice now. Be free to live your life on your own whims and gain your own independence. Those you leave behind will die horribly as people have today. Or give up your own independence, make the sacrifice to forge the world you want, and get stronger than what you are now. The times have changed. The enemy's stronger. And you’re still weaker than them.” Ethela felt a prick of confusion hit her.

    “Why do I have to not be free to become stronger?”

    Kaja smiled gently at Ethela.

    “When we choose to aid people. They rely on us. They rely on the fact we have a strength they do not have. I am free, but I am not. My priority is my people, the Aurah-Ky rely on me to be their word, their strength, their armor. If I chose to do what I wanted, if I chose only for myself, then I am not thinking of others,” he told her tenderly.

    “...but I want to be stronger. So I will become stronger because I want to anyway” Ethela shrugged, missing the entire point Kaja shared. Ahava pulled her hand away from the new Demi-fiend and stared into his glowing eyes.

    “What choice are you going to make?” She asked gently, teasing him and redirecting the conversation all back onto him to see how he would react. Demi-fiends made her very curious.

    Her healing was useful, he watched the unnaturally beautiful man speak. He was rather enigmatic wasn’t he, like an angel. He had never seen someone so alluring before, it was rather hypnotic to the eyes. He turned to the Fairy who spoke to him. His choice? So then he had no choice. Already living as freely as he had. He had no desire to be stronger, but the Hunters did seem weaker.

    “I clearly want the world to survive, to damn them all to live more life, or to live more life damned myself. I may not be a fighter, but I can aid in anyway I can,” Em paused, “So. I will entertain the idea of what your leader decides is how to get stronger.” Ethela pulled Ahava by the hand and slung her back to her side. The cloudy eyed woman stared at Em.

    “This one doesn’t have white hair, is that a good thing?” Ethela asked to Kaja, wanting to see what he’d guess.

    Kaja stared at the stranger’s answer. He wished he could get Reyis to understand that a bit better and less recklessly so. Still Kaja looked at Ethela when she asked her question.

    “I suspect that it has everything to do with the way everyone’s hair is passed down, in the Aurah-ky and humans, it’s genetics,” Kaja says untying his own hair, “in this case it might simply be a connection to the type of Essence that influences your demonic corruption. I think you and Reyis are familial so you both have white hair. But Em is not related to you, and his hair is green. Which correlates to perhaps the type of Essence that influences his blood or maybe he’s tied to a certain element in his Essence that influences the color.” Ahava held tighter onto Ethela, shocked.

    “Familial?” Ahava had to gather herself after Kaja dropped his beautiful hair to fall so freely, but his slip of tongue snapped her out of the beauty trance. She never sensed it, what was he talking about? “Perhaps their connection in this world is odd, but not familial in the literal sense...”

    Kaja strung a finger through his hair to take out a knot. Had he said that? He wasn’t thinking. The demon they fought was small time compared to his mother’s power. He took a second. There was on one hand no point lying to Ahava, she was the type to ask a lot of questions to get what she wanted out of others. But he was uncertain if Ethela could handle the news that she was actually Reyis’ sister.

    “It’s true,” Kaja felt this fight wasn’t worth arguing over, “But only merely by half of the concept. No one knew who his father was, but my mother had her….reports.” that sounds bad like his mother was spying on someone who was once her best friend. But she was worried for her, “they. You share a father.” Ethela’s face paled. Her skin turned cold. Her past understanding of her life was cracking.

    “What..? I mean…” She wanted to be close to him, she cared about the little guy, but…Ethela clung to her hair, tufts of white hair flared up around her squeezing fists. “I…” she was speechless. “That’s my brother…”

    Kaja nodded slowly.

    “Yes,” Kaja told her, “He is your brother.” Ethela pulled away from Ahava and began to run over to Reyis in a burst of speed.

    “Ethela!” Ahava cried out, the demi-fiend wasn’t that great...did she really want to be related to him? He was so short. “Calm down, you might trip!” Ahava warned but Ethela wasn’t listening.

    Kay coughed. Half siblings? He wasn’t sure how Reyis was going to take that. He didn’t know much about Ethela’s life. But all Reyis had was Yore, and all Reyis knew was a distant relationship with Yore. Beyond that Reyis lived alone in mind, soul, and in existence.

    “Uh...so,” Kay looked at Kaja, “Wow!” he laughs nervously. “Just wow. Ethela’s dad was two timing. Huh.” he laughs nervously again and fidgets with his fingers.

    And he saw her half naked. Shit.

    Family
    Fortune finders
    A new beginning

    Em scribbled on empty space. He’d have to find some way of acquiring more paper soon. Staring at their beautiful leader.

    “I didn’t quite get your name,” Em told him, “And everyone seems so busy with newfound information.”

    Kaja looked at the green haired demi-fiend.

    “It’s Kaja,” he smiles, “And yours?”

    “Em,” he responds, “You’re human?”

    Kaja hand jerks without his consent. He takes a second. Then gives Em a nod.

    “I am an Aurah-ky, we are a new kind of human, but yes. I am sorry if my appearance is unsettling to you,” Kaja points to his journal, “You write?”

    “Unsettling is not the word I would choose, hypnotically beautiful I cannot keep my eyes off of you for more than a second,” he shuffles his journals, “I write poems. An angel, stands on steps, intoxicating beauty.”

    Kaja blushes and tries to hid his face. He’s feeling a little nervous.

    “Oh...please….I” Kaja looks away, “I am not….good with compliments. I am no angel.”

    Modesty a rare sight to see. For a leader he didn’t look like one in this second. Cowering, these were genuine emotions of embarrassment and humiliation. For a liar he was also a humble one. How curious, maybe there were the same kind of breed.

    Em looks around the town.

    “From a leader’s point of view, were these many lives an acceptable amount before you stepped in?” Em asked.

    His heart was still racing as he was trying to gain some composure. In his mind no lives should have been taken. If the choice of an Emperor required less death then it make everyone’s lives simpler. But demons were not humans nor were they half-fiends. He understood why half-fiends existed, they were the ones who could brace the power of a demon with the conscious of human morality. It seemed they needed more demons who were conscientious, not blood thirsty.

    “No extermination of life is acceptable,” Kaja told him.

    Em looked at Kaja.

    “An angel, fallen and corrupt, pure ideals,” Em responded, “Yet there seems to have been a lot of death. Curious. Either way I would like to provide you my services. I would like to help with whatever you have in store for those children. And maybe they will live under your guidance. We’ll see.”

    Kaja stares at Em.

    “I look forward to your assistance,”

    **
    “My arms are aching, ug” Ethela cursed to herself, shaking and shaking Reyis. After a while her eager shakes which had violently moved the half-fiend around all over the place, now became weak tremors of his shoulders because her body was aching. She had been rattling at him for almost an hour. “REYIS WAKE UP!” The excitement and uncertainty made her too damn impatient and without control of her impulses all she could do was helplessly shake Reyis’ body every which way till something happened.

    Dr. Yun, older perhaps than when she was when she was younger, had an odd resemblance to Kay, they shared the same black hair, hers lined with gray now, she had almond shaped eyes, and wore a tattered, old lab coat. Putting down her clipboard watching the girl shake Reyis to no avail. Crossing her legs together, she sighed.

    “It is in my professional medical advice to say he’s not going to recover very well with you shaking him,” Yun told her.

    “I’m shaking him because I need to. He’ll wake up eventually” Ethela huffed.

    “Yes, because every time a patient has come into my medical bay the best medicine I could give them is shaking them for several hours. You’re going to rattle his brains, that’s how people kill babies,” Yun tells her.
    “He’s little but he’s a grown man, lady!”

    “He has a hea-” but she paused when she saw Reyis beginning to stir.

    Why was the world moving so much? Ahava had healed him, right? Or did she leave him halfway complete? The world was jerking up and down, and it honestly made him feel a little sick. He barely caught flashes of white hair.

    “Pl-ea..se st-op,”

    “Reyis!” Ethela squealed, laying herself on top of him to embrace around his neck. Her white hair filled his face with suffocating locks. And it was going to make his face hot soon if he did pull them out of the way.

    Ethela was happy he came around? He wasn’t sure what was going on. She didn’t quite sound like herself. His hand shaking a little as he placed his hand her head to pat her.

    “I’m..okay,” he muttered. The demi-fiend female sighed and held onto Reyis a bit more calmly, contently. This new feeling felt great, belonging. Belonging without hatred or confusion.

    “Kaja told us something amazing” Ethela shared with a breathy tone touched with happiness. She pulled her body away and looked down at him with her more classic serious expression much like Reyis’.

    “Us?” Reyis asked.

    “We’re siblings, we share the same dad.”

    They? Share? A what? He had just woken up and it sounded like she said they shared the same father. Was this some kind of joke? Something to pull on him for taking her battle from her? Reyis just stared at her in disbelief. Ethela glared, he was passing out on her again. So, she began to shake him.

    “Reyis listen to me don’t pass out again my arms are too fucking tired!”

    “Don’t shake me again please, it’s uncomfortable,” he tells her, “I appreciate the enthusiasm, but telling me we’re related is a worse joke than Kay’s normally bad ones.” Ethela jerked her hands away and pulled them to her chest, looking rather offended.

    “Excuse me? What? You think being related to me is that bad?”

    She was….serious then? Reyis just stared at her. It was true they shared similar features, but that would mean that. He had more than dead people in his life. Yore and his mother. Did Yore know? Yore knew a lot of things. Reyis glared at her.

    “Who told you this?”

    “Kaja, I already said that” Ethela said impatiently. “We share the same dad, which I already said”

    Reyis tried to push her off. How long had Kaja known? Was he ever going to tell them? What did this mean? What did any of this mean? He couldn’t. He didn’t know how to believe it. He wasn’t sure how to feel about it. It was like the moment came into his life all over again with some kind of information that knocked down everything he knew about his life.

    “I need...to speak with Kaja,” he told her. Ethela stood up and huffed, and then she marched out of the room. Why couldn’t he accept it as she had? Wasn’t that feeling of belonging good enough?

    Yun had been watching the two of them impatiently tapping her pen to her clipboard. As Reyis got up the bed.

    “Young man I still need to exam you, you rarely ever come by to get-”

    And he walked off. Could never get any work done around here because her patients had legs. Maybe she needed to start binding them with rope to the beds till she was done.

    Where was Kaja? Where was he? Reyis stormed through the tunnel, he wasn’t even sure if he passed Ethela or not. This. This was. Crazy. Untrue. He wasn’t so sure. His mind was going through so many thoughts right now and his own heart was rushing. What? How could this be? No he wasn’t sure what questions he wanted to ask.

    But he was angry and confused and didn’t know how to take this. On one hand he wanted to choke Kaja out. On another hand he wanted answers. Spinning through the tunnels, he eventually found Kaja looking over some papers in the cafeteria.

    He slammed his hand down on the table.

    “How long did you know?” he yelled at Kaja.

    Kaja looked up to Reyis. He must be talking about his earlier slip hours ago. Oh dear. Kaja tried to smile.

    “Since Ethela arrived I had my suspicions, but my mother always believed your father was someone recently deployed on a mission. We don’t have exact birth records, but,” Kaja paused briefly, this comes out bad. He never wanted to lose Reyis trust, “when Ethela came. I had Yun look into it.”

    “You mean you checked on our DNA and didn’t tell us,” Reyis remarked.

    “Reyis I know how that may look and sound, but you two had only come into each other’s life. It was already difficult for you to realize Yore may have had family beyond yourself. I wanted you two form a natural bonding relationship before throwing on more things onto your plate. I wasn’t sure how either of you were going to handle it,” Kaja told him, “I never did it to hurt you. But you needed time to process things one at a time.”

    Reyis looked at Kaja. There were many things he wanted to do right now. Hurl him across the room, but he didn’t have Ethela’s strength and he was shorter than Kaja. He didn’t know how to register any of this.

    “Well!” Reyis shout.

    Kaja cocked his head to the side.

    “Yes?” Kaja asked.

    “Who is my father? Is he alive? Dead?” Reyis asked.

    “Presumed dead a long time ago Reyis,” Kaja told him.

    Figured. Reyis scowled at Kaja.

    “What am I supposed to do?” Reyis asked Kaja.

    Kaja smiles.

    “Well first you should sit down, I am impressed you came running in here when you just woke up, but you need to settle down,” Kaja told him, “Relax. I know this is a lot. But you can’t stress yourself out. The next thing is, what do you want to do?”

    Reyis sat down across from Kaja. His heart racing, but for the most part he was fine. No head rush or sharp pain.

    “I don’t know,” Reyis said, “I don’t know what to do. That demon at the town was stronger than me. And the moon phase. And this. What am I supposed to do? Please tell me.”

    Kaja sighed, but smiled tenderly, he gently brushed one of Rey’s bangs aside.

    “Do you want to be stronger?” Kaja asked him.

    He couldn’t keep being defeated. And there was Shoza to tend to. He would be the one to take his head.

    “Yes,” Reyis responded.

    “And you want to be there for the people?” Kaja asked him.

    “Yes,”

    “I know how you can, but you have to make me a promise,”

    “What is it?”

    “Do you trust me Reyis?”

    He had known Kaja for the last ten years, living in the proximity of the Aurah-ky’s struggle. Hearing the desperation of the Humans who rejected him. But he never doubted Kaja’s judgment. He had guided him well, lead him to important pieces of his life.

    “Yes,” Reyis responded.

    Kaja leaned into him. The side of Kaja’s profile to his ear, closer to him Kaja wasn’t just beautiful, his skin glowed, and he smelled sweet. It made Reyis demonic urge to kill him strong, but he kept that in check waiting for Kaja. He was uncertain what he was doing, as he held onto both his hands.

    ”This stays between us” Kaja whispers in his ear, ”Because you’re the only one who has chosen to truly sacrifice yourself for others.”

    “What does that me-” but Kaja put a delicate finger on his own’ lips all he heard was Kaja tell him, ssh.

    ”Will you fight in my name?” Kaja asked.

    Reyis wasn’t sure what that meant, but he nodded.

    ”If I ask you, to allow me to become Emperor, would you allow me?”

    “How?”

    Kaja shook his head.

    He flutter his heart flutter a little. A Human could become an Emperor? That meant a better future for everyone? Didn’t it? Kaja was the most kind and selfless person he knew.

    “Yes,” Reyis responded.

    ”Then I will tell you where you need to go” Kaja told him.

    In a brief second Reyis saw a glimpse of a circle form on his hand, it was blue in color and he stared at Kaja. The circle faded into his skin.

    “What is that?” Reyis asked.

    Kaja leaned away from Reyis.

    “A sign of a Demon King,” Kaja told him quietly, “I want to make the world a better place. To save humanity and all kinds of good. You have chosen your alignment. All Kings bind their soldiers through a contract, but through alignment. You have chosen Law.”

    He chose Law? Reyis looked at Kaja. But only Demon Kings were Demon, it was part of the name. He looked at Kaja.

    “I,” Reyis paused.

    Kaja smiled.

    “Go to Meteor City, there you will find the truth of existence and find the power you need,”

    “What about Ethela?” Reyis asked.

    “She has not chosen yet,” Kaja told him.

    “I can’t tell her?” Reyis asked.

    Kaja shook his head.

    “Unfortunately she would die,” Kaja told him, “That symbol protects you. It grants you protections those without don’t. Neutrality do not warrant strength, it warrants stagnant action. Berserk is needless violence, and bloodshed, it is convinced from power. Law and Good are persuaded by just action. It promotes active activity. You can strive to be strong alone, without an alignment, but it will never grant you a purpose. Humans and Demons are alike in that they share the need for purpose. Demons more than humans. The more you deny a purpose. The more useless and weak you are. Remember that.”

    Reyis stared at Kaja. He supposed he understood. Reyis always felt a call to action, but he didn’t know how to perform that call. Now he was told to go somewhere and find what that was. To be able to achieve such an action.

    “Okay, how long do I have?” Reyis asked.

    Kaja smiled.

    “Up to you, to decide how long you want to wait on someone who may not make the same decisions as you. You may be related, may share some traits, but not all of them can be raised to be a guardian. Desire and temptation raised the other one. You see it in her mannerisms. Disciplined restraint doesn’t work to convince her much. She’s better off aligning herself with a Berserk Demon King before the time comes, then someone of Law or Good Alignment, discipline, and self restraint is a trait of Law,”

    Before the time comes?

    “Before, what time?”

    “If a Demon doesn’t ascend to Emperor, the world you know, ceases to exist entirely,”

    The world will end.

    “The world will end then?”

    “It already had, it’s on limited life support, an Emperor refreshes the land, and brings it’s renewal based on the things they value,”

    “What do you value?”

    Kaja smiles.

    “Should have asked that before accepting the contract,” Kaja told him, “But if you must know. I value justice. Mercy. Law. I cannot stand the sight of blood and I cannot stand demons who needlessly kill the weak and innocent. That’s no show of power. That’s no display of strength. It’s just a lack of self discipline. It’s a lack of an existence if all you know is violence.”
    Reyis nodded.

    “I agree,” The sounds of two females fighting grew audible around the bend of a corner.

    “No, dear let it be!” Ahava was trying to dissuade Ethela but the demi-fiend was already marching out in the open.

    “What is this!? He’s my brother” Ethela stormed in, angry and entitled to her new, and only living family.

    Kaja smiles at her.

    “You can join him if you like,” Kaja told her.

    Reyis felt a little nervous looking at Ethela. He still wasn’t sure what to say. How to say it? He looked at Kaja, then back at Ethela.

    “I…” Reyis paused, how does this work? “You….surprised me earlier….being….your…” he fidgeted, “brother isn’t...bad. I just not sure how I can be. But either choice you make, I will….still keep you safe.” Ahava rushed to Ethela’s side and the half-naked warrior stared at Reyis a bit wide eyed.

    “I...like Kaja and I want to be at your side. Is that good enough?” Ethela asked Kaja, while her answer was very surface Kaja could feel the depths of her desire to be paired with Reyis and her yearning for a place of belonging not festered with cruelty and abuse where she had grown up. Much of this Ethela didn’t know, but the hedonistic woman was actually trying to find balance, the siblings were extreme opposites that perhaps could make a balance.

    He grabbed Ethela’s hands. He smiled at her.

    “Your soul is much different than your mind. I see a woman who is a strong brave warrior, who could be the people’s hero. But your mind doesn’t reflect that woman imprisoned inside,” Kaja told her, “I will accept -”

    “-I really want to kiss you right now” Ethela interjected, shaking her head at Kaja’s angelic appearance.

    “-oh..I..” Kaja remembered the last time, he still was unsure how to feel about it the last time? And he always thought his first kiss would have been with...no he had to stay on track right now, “accept your contract with me. When the time comes and you are much stronger than you were, we will fend this land from power crazed -”

    “-Can I kiss you?” Ethela’s eyes were dilating and he smelled a beautiful sweetness she never experienced in the dunes. It was consuming, even if he was a man.

    Kaja stared he was starting to feel even more embarrassed. He looked away nervously and shyly.

    “Oh…” Kaja murmured.

    Reyis sighed and walked up to Ethela putting a his hand on her mouth, “Shoosh.” he told her.
    “Kaja continue,” Reyis told him.

    He cleared his throat.

    “Right,” Kaja said, “I accept this contract and your words to be true. That when the day comes we fend the demons at this world’s gates and save this land from their horror.”

    As Reyis symbol before, a magical circle formed on Ethela’s hand before fading and disappearing into her skin.


    “Mmm! Mmm!” Ethela yanked her hand away to look at the bright colors but they faded faster than she could spend time staring at them. “Ommm” Her lips muffled in disappointment.

    Reyis removed his hand and sighed.

    “Welcome to the ranks of Law,” Kaja smiled again. Ahava clapped ceremoniously in the background.

    “Now, uhem, how does this work for me? Tehe” She asked with a flick of her hair.

    Kaja stared at Ahava.

    “You realize the price if I do?” Kaja asked her. Ahava smiled charmingly.

    “I was hoping for a workaround?” Ethela’s shoulders dropped and she went to grab Ahava’s small, soft hand.

    “What are you talking about?”

    Kaja sighed.

    “The way a demon becomes more powerful, is either by consuming the Essence of bigger things than them, which changes their shape. Or changing their alignment, which changes their form and personality. She would not be the Ahava you know,”

    “No. Not going to happen.” Ethela cut out sharply. She had a brother now, but...without Ahava…”Ahava is the one who helped me leave the dunes to get here” Ethela protested “Why can’t she just stay the way she is?” Ahava pleaded the same question with her fluttery purple eyes.

    Kaja stares at Ahava and Ethela. He sharply looks at Ahava.

    “I am going to say something quite frank,” he makes sure both of them are listening, “You are a demon, a fairy. I have met many. Ethela if you went out to the field and met any other fairy, they’d be the same as Ahava. Demons don’t change. Demons don’t have much of their own free will. They live baseless on instinct. And you Ahava foolishly believe you’re immortal or can’t die as long as Ethela will protect you. Hate to break this to you, but you will die. The stronger Ethela’s enemies become, the more you are the weakest link in the chain. You will lose Ahava in two ways. She changes for good because she accepted a new alignment, a new entity to embody. Or she dies. And there is no way of getting her back at all. Ahava is made of simply energy. She is not a person.”
    Ahava gasped dramatically. This was so insulting! She wasn’t just like the other fairy girls. And there were safe arrangements that could be made.

    “Love can work from a distance” Ahava rationalized, nuzzling herself into Ethela’s breasts. “Can’t it?” Ethela’s eyes were watering but holding back. Could it work from afar? She wanted her body, her softness, her pretty-ness when the nights were cold and empty. But she wouldn’t want Ahava to change and obviously, never, dead.

    “She loves me like a person…” Ethela mumbled.

    Kaja stared at Ethela.

    “What is love?” Kaja asked Ethela. Ethela held Ahava close.

    “Sex, talking, laughing, and helping each other”

    Oh dear, Kaja wish at these moments he could pass on the auras he saw. The feelings and not the feelings. He saw Ahava for what she was. He didn’t fault her. But he also saw her as a leech. It was hard to watch. It pained him to see it.

    “Except that you throw yourself into the fray more than she does. Love is not about one person sacrificing themselves for another,” he gives Reyis a look towards, “Love is of equivalence, Love is shared. Love is interconnected and the person you are connected with is not weaker than you nor stronger than you. They are your sole equal. Do you understand what I am saying? If Ahava loved you. If you loved Ahava, you might, maybe not in the right way. Then love is about equal sacrifice. If she loved you. Wanted to protect you. Keep you safe. We would not be having this conversation. She would be leaping into the fire with you and holding my hand and changing. And If she loved you. The spirit inside of her Essence, if it stayed in tact, would continue to still love you. But she seems to dodge it because all she wants is a perfectly good meat shield.”

    “I heal her wounds and those of any she calls friends. That is a sacrifice of my energy, excuse me” Ahava retorted. Ethela bit her lower lip, caught staring between her brother, Kaja and her girlfriend. Kaja could feel what the fear was: the fear of never finding love as the violent, wild, woman she was - from the arms of another woman. Ethela felt unlovable.

    Kaja stares at Ethela and holds her hands. He smiles at her tenderly.

    “Look at Reyis,” Kaja tells her, she does so, “He is your brother and he just told you he would do anything to protect you. He’s trying to adjust and learn, but he wants to love you. But he hurts inside, just like you do. He only knew one person’s love and everyone’s hate for him. It is difficult for him to understand, but I am certain one day he will love you.” Kaja pauses, “now look at me.” Ethela’s eyes gave way to tears, blurring her vision of Kaja. Ahava swallowed nervously and tugged on Ethela’s arm, the fairy was starting to get nervous.

    “Ah!” Ahava screamed in fright, summoning Ethela’s attention to stare at her with concern. Ethela’s eyes fell on the fairy but it was Kaja who wiped away her tears and brought back her vision to him. “Ethela!” Ahava cried out, looking at Reyis with a frown and staring at her pinned hands.

    “I want to learn who you are Ethela, sometimes that is hard, sometimes I sound like I am scolding or hate something about you,” Kaja told her tenderly, “But I love you. With all my heart. Even if we are not related. We have something that connects us together that makes us family of Essence. I want to help you. But I cannot help you, if you stay afraid.” He gives Reyis a look, “it’s the same for you. We are all scared of things.” Kaja turns back to her, “I’m scared to lose the world. Scared all the promises I made these people of keeping them safe, that I won’t be able to. I am scared of dying. I am scared of losing the people I love. I am tired of seeing so much pain and despair. But I need to keep moving forward. Even when something scary happens, and I am afraid. I cannot retreat. I must take a step forward and leave my fear behind. Not all of it. But I cannot let it define me. You cannot either. There will be people there that love you. Who will love you. There will people who won’t. But recognizing that is all part of growing up.”

    Those words were beautiful. Ethela did feel scared now, but knew there was nothing wrong with her being held by Kaja. But as he spoke of fear and the thing that scare her, it came out of nowhere. She didn’t understand. This situation wasn’t scary, shouldn’t be, there was no threat here - no one trying to destroy or kill her.

    “Why am I scared?” Ethela asked him, lost in his eyes.

    Kaja continued to give her a tender look.

    “Sometimes we aren’t always afraid of scary things. It’s not always seeing death that makes us scared. It’s inadequacy. It’s when we don’t feel loved, or when we feel some kind of emptiness in our world,” Kaja told her, “You want to be loved by others. You are scared no one will love you, but I will tell you this. That is very untrue. There will be people who will love you. But there will be others that don’t love you, but recognize that fear and hold you down. One represent the future of a new kind of love. Another represent the past of an old kind of love one formed by the fear that there would be no one else. But they aren’t correct, are they? There are more people who love you.”

    “...maybe”

    “Will you let go of me please? She needs me. Thank you” Ahava asked Reyis, the boldness of her lashes making the purple crystalline and her clear skin giving her such an appearance of innocence. “She needs companionship, can you not see it? What a woman can give her, me” Ahava smiled cheerfully.

    “If you loved her then you wouldn’t have tried to put your charm on me in the cave, this is your nature,” Reyis told her, “I don’t buy it for a second. You think that I believe that you can give Ethela something. You already have. But you have nothing else to give. I don’t know if you can even see you’re a vampire who leeches off of her. But she needs people who want her to grow. Not people who use her for their self subverient beliefs. Is it even a belief I wonder? Do you even know? Or are you a slave to your own behavior as well?” Ahava sighed.

    “Thank you for seeing me as a person” Ahava said with a exhale and closing of her eyes. “You ask cutting questions...cruel things…”

    Reyis gave her a stone faced stare.

    “You are a demon and not very good at pretending to be a person,” Reyis told her, “I already said I am not buying this time. And the more you try to manipulate me, the more you make me angry. And the angrier I feel the more I just want to cut you open and take your Essence. You can either start with telling the truth to Ethela about yourself. Or continue to lie and you will die for those lies.” Kaja sees Ethela about to turn her head, he needed a way to keep her attention even for a few short seconds. This was what would help her develop. Oh he felt his heart nervous, but he turned her head towards him as he kissed her on the lips only mirroring the first time she did it to him.

    Ethela’s heart raced and the demi-fiend leaned into Kaja, her long wispy white hair falling over her shoulders and meshing with the angel’s blonde strands. Ahava dropped her mask, seemingly genuinely afraid as she tried to jerk her hands out of Reyis’. The fairy turned to Ethela but the woman was lost in a lock embrace from Kaja. She glared at the man. He already had power, why did he need her? He didn’t love her, he was trying to change her.

    “You can’t accept who she is…” Ahava said to Reyis with fear and anger. “She’s wild, she’s to be a killer, and a monster. It is who she is, her blood is demonic. What is wrong with you? Let her be free, I do”

    Reyis stares at Ahava with an even stonier expression. He could see her essence gleaming on the cafeteria tables. He could hear her fair screams. He wanted to tear her wings off. It was taking a lot of effort not to just do so.

    “I can accept her, I will accept her” Reyis told Ahava, “When I was a boy. I was scared of a world much bigger than me. I felt vulnerable. Maybe sometimes I think I overcompensate because I am afraid of being weak. Of failing what Yore would want from me. Of what the people want from me. But unlike you, I am human and half-fiend and I have the unique capability of becoming stronger. Not just physically, but mentally. It’s not about changing Ethela. It’s about helping her find that unique capability that makes her human and demon. And not to be a demon like you.”

    “She was raised by a succubus, her own mother used her mind and her body for power. I was the most human thing she had. You have no idea what her demonic adoptive parent did to her and you judge me!”

    Reyis looked at Ahava.

    “You’re right I have no idea what that might have been like, Succubus are dangerous, and you may have been the most human thing she had in the past. But this is no longer her past. It is her future. You claim so much, but you can’t seem to know when she no longer needs to be held down by the past, but instead uplifted and encouraged to the next step,” Reyis paused, “Her past may be dark, but her future doesn’t have to be as murky.”

    She looked scared and judging him with a look. Everything about the manipulative, charismatic fairy was reduced to what she really was. A Fairy. There was nothing wrong with that Reyis had met fairies in the past, but none of them as toxic and as twisted as this one. She had used Ethela’s need for comfort to keep her safe. He had seen that in the cave when she tried to charm him into protecting her. If Ethela would die, she would move on.

    Reyis looked over to Kaja and Ethela, she was still for the most part distracted. Secretly extending out his claws he meant to thrust it into the fairies heart. He managed to do so piercing the fairy through the chest with his claws. Keeping her close to his body and not taking his hand out.

    He looked at Kaja, but saw Kay walking into the cafeteria looking sleepy. He wiped sleep from his eyes.
    “Ah what the fuck is going on here,” Kay caught Reyis eyes, “Because it looks like a fun party. Haha.” What the fuck Reyis? As he came up to Reyis he was thrusted the fairies body. Shit. He took his coat and wrapped it around the fairy making it look like she was leaning on him, and he laughed nervously, “Sheesh Reyis could be nicer to the girl. I’m going to uh….escort her...to get her pretty for Ethela.” Kay coughed and took the body out of the cafeteria.

    “Thank you…” Ethela sighed as her lips pulled away from Kaja’s and she wiped her eyes. Maybe she’d be okay...Ahava was quiet. She turned her head a moment to see Kay and Reyis taking care of her. “This has been hard on us” Ethela thought about it “Maybe I can leave her here...I...have to think more” Ethela crossed her arms at her breasts and look away from everyone. “Maybe I am a danger to her...she might die but…” Ethela sighed again.

    “Leaving her here might be for the best, so she can protect the people around here,” Reyis told her, “And you can work on getting stronger.”

    He shouldn’t have done that. But he couldn’t contain it any longer. He believed Demons and Humans could live together, but only if they didn’t harm each other. Harm did not have to be physical, it could be mental. But this was probably not the best course of action, it was inefficient at best. But he tried to conceal the heart from Ethela.

    “Do you want to get out somewhere Ethela? We could go somewhere up in the Sanctum later to celebrate becoming siblings,” Reyis told her. Ethela wiped her eyes which had slowed their tears and looked at Reyis.

    “Yeah, could be a good idea” She gave him a small smile and looked around for Ahava. “Oh” Yeah, Kay took her. She’d see her tonight.

    “You should take a shower and I will too, before then,” Reyis told her, “Then we’ll go to Meteor City.”

    “Already?” Ethela asked a little surprised, staring at Kaja for confirmation. The man nodded and Ethela frowned. “I need to tell Ahava goodbye but…” All the things everyone said about their relationship. She didn’t want to leave her with things tense like that, but there was some doubt now...it felt bad.

    “She said, she forgives you and had a big surprise for you. It be bad luck to her before her surprise,” Reyis tells her.

    Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.

    Reyis’ sister swept her ample hair behind her and coughed, clearing her throat. For the first time she didn’t feel like running to Ahava right now. She actually, wanted to be here with Reyis. For help figuring it out she looked to Kaja.

    “And Reyis is part of the surprise,” Kaja said, “Let’s get you into something nice? I can give you a special outfit and do your hair.”

    “What am I? Not woman enough for you?”

    Kaja played with some of his accessories.
    “Sometimes it’s nice to be flashy,” Kaja tells her with a smile, “Plus a lot of my accessories and clothes are shiny.”

    “Oh? They even sparkle when you shake them around?”

    “Yes,” Ethela’s eyes flickered and she smiled, her crying face fading away into the past.

    “Will you put a few on for me” she asked suggestively with a flash of her brows.

    “Yes,”

    He takes her hand starts to lead her out of the cafeteria. Before leaving entirely he flashes Reyis a look, tell her. Then leads her into the hallway.

    “You are very bad at lying,” Em says sitting in the corner of the cafeteria. Quite exciting events that occurred today.

    “Shit! How long have you been here?” Reyis asked, sliding down and sitting. Staring at Ahava’s heart.

    “Enough to hear the angelic leader wants to be demon emperor, you and the girl got flashy contracts, and you killed the fairy demon. It was quite riveting. Only stuff you’d see in a novel perhaps,” Em tells him, “Here I was going to ask for protection from your leader. And now everyone’s left. What are you going to tell her? How are you going to tell her? Your lives are so interesting to watch.”

    So he heard all of it. Reyis sighed crushing the heart and absorbing some of the Essence.

    “I don’t know where to begin, we were at first acquainted and unrelated, but we both had the same special someone. Now we’re family, and related. And I killed the only chain to her past,”

    “Maybe that’s a good thing, but you’ll need a better lie,”

    - - - Updated - - -

    Three Weeks Later - Zone 4 - Hollyhead Village
    Half Moon - Waning

    There is a nice wind blowing
    Fleeting like floating leaves
    Ominous storms are blowing

    Biting the tip of his pen looking at the paper with several other scrawlings on it. Up, sideways, down, in the corner, scrawled so small he couldn’t read something of them. A faint of glowing text began to take permanence on paper and he flipped the book around to read an upside down poetic phrase. Twunk. A pebbled bounced off of his worn leather shoes. He slowly brought down his journal, the spine cracked and papers slipped out onto his lap. Also written back to front in every corner he could see. He saw a kid with rocks in his hand staring at him.

    “Aren’t you going to make me care hermit?” the kid asked.

    He slowly eyed his sign, Performance for Essence.

    He grabbed one of the papers off of his lap. Flipping it around, he found a spot he liked. The permanent text glittered a little with excitement as if the passage new it was to be read.

    “Important memories
    Fill a space in hearts and minds
    Burning fragrance called love,” he read out loud.

    The kid sneered.

    “That’s lame, can’t you juggle or something? Play an instrument, don’t you have anything more cool,” the kid barked at him.

    “Children at my feet
    Stones thrown
    But knows no humility,”

    The kid threw another stone and turned on his heel.

    “Whatever, you’re not cool at all,” the kid said and walked off.

    He slipped his papers back into his book. Leaning his back on a pillar he closed his eyes just to feel a breeze pass through him. The plains were always breezy and when the flowers bloomed petals would be carried off in spring flurries.

    There was tranquility here. But the wind was an ominous song. Something wasn’t quite right. Wind carried with it sounds, feelings, and scents. Someone cast a shadow over him and he opened his eyes to see a large man carrying with him an axe. A woodcutter perhaps?

    “Is it true the things I have heard about you?” the man asked him. Em fixed his bang out of golden glowing eyes.

    He didn’t recognize the man. Em closed his eyes again.

    “What things?” Em asked slowly.

    “Your eyes glow, are you not human?” the man asked him, “That’s what I heard.”

    “The sun is in my eyes,” Em replied.

    “Please if you’re not human, maybe you could help?”

    Help? Em felt the etchings of his writings.

    “With?”

    “There is a demon in the woods, he’s been killing woodcutters, if you’re not human maybe you could kill him,”

    Em remained silent and drooped his head low to the side.

    “Zzzzzz,” Em responded pretending to sleep.

    The man grabbed him by the collar of his coat. His hands were shaking and trembling.

    “Please I’ll pay you anything, my friend….s..” the man sounded desperate. Em opened an eye, looking at the man.

    “A bed, in the town’s hotel, and 1,000 Essence,” Em told him.

    “A thousand Essence!” the man exclaimed.

    “A man’s hands trembling
    Desperately
    Sweat runs down his spine
    Hesitates with price,”

    The man backs up.

    “A thousand Essence you say, I’ll get...the funds,” the man says with a nervous laugh. Em stands up and puts on his hat.

    “Where is this demon?” Em ask.

    “He has a cave near the edge of the forest,” the woodcutter says.

    “Very well,” Em says.

    Yes wind carried many things. It carried leaves. It carried voices. There was a storm coming. It tingled on his skin like when your hair stands up right before you get electrocuted. Walking from Hollyhead village into the tall, blooming grass of the plains, he hoped this was a simple fair. Something easily able to disperse. He didn’t want to exert a lot of energy.

    Whistling a tune made up on the spot, he mildly hummed to himself. The forest close to the meadows. Could be an oni? They hit hard. Could pass this onto someone else? Though it dawned on him that he needed the Essence. This was starting to now sound as fun as it did earlier. He continued heading in the direction he knew the woodcutters walked. You could tell by the way the grass was cut and flattened down. Footprints embedded in dry soil. Bits of wood.

    Maybe they could not smell it in the wind. Was that rotten flesh? This was starting to sound like a bad idea. He could move onto the next town and fake his own death. But he really needed the Essence. Biting his lip. If this was as dangerous at the woodcutter made it out to seem. Then wouldn’t the Sanctuary get involved eventually?

    A crooked half grin came onto his face. Grass began to fade into clear forestry. Trees weren’t as close together here or clustered. And there were bits of the meadow were still scattered across the trees. Collecting a unique collection of vegetation. The wind was picking the scent of rotten meat. It was getting stronger around here. So the cave mustn’t be far.

    He continued to follow the dark miasma in the wind. Flickering like flames and fading whenever the breeze no longer blew. There were other scents too. Like the smell of sweat. This was starting to become a poor decision. Hearing a crack of a twig he looked under his shoe. Not him. Someone was following. Slipping behind a tree trunk. He closed his eyes to listen.

    “Need mur…..”

    Then it would fade as the wind faded. He guessed more Essence. Or more humans. Em continued forward towards whatever was in the forest. Only to see two yellow skinned demons talking to each other. One reminded him a bit like a pig and the other well he wasn’t so sure how to begin to describe its bat like ears and ugly triangular face.

    “Aaa it’s a hooman,” it squawked pointing to his direction, the pig with the sword on its back that stood at 5ft looked at him.

    “Hurrr that’s no hooman,” it growled.

    “Two demons
    Conflicted by the origins
    Of one before them” he frowned it didn’t sound very poetic.

    “Wut you want, we eatz you,”

    Em stared at the smaller the size of the child who threw stones earlier.

    “How about no eat me?” Em asked.
    “Why not?” it squawked.

    “How about you take me to your boss instead?”

    “Hurrrrr, what do you want with our boss?” the pig asked.

    “Clearly he’s very powerful and I stand no chance against you his army nor him. I am so weak and pathetic, that I stand before you speaking and have not attacked you. I have no confidence in my combative skills, instead I have knowledge for your army,”

    “Hrrrrr, you do look weak,” the pig responds, “I am Orc Senshu. What information do you have for our Demon King?”

    “The Sanctuary comes for him. He has killed many in this forest, and I wish to pass along information to ensure his safety,” Em pauses, “And aid your army.” he hears the Gremlin cheer, while Senshu nods.

    “That seems reasonable,”

    Senshu had him followed. It was true the Sanctuary may come after them, but not for a while. There needed to be something that could speed the process up. Something that could get the Sanctuary to respond much quicker. Following the Orc and Gremlin into a cave, the scent of Orc sweat, the smell of rotten flesh, and something vaguely sweet from the Gremlins was overwhelmingly powerful. He was ushered to a demon sitting on a makeshift throne. With purple skin, covered in thick black fur, and red hair. It stared at him.

    “A hooman, but not,” it growled, “Why have you brought him here?”

    “He would like to help us,” Senshu nods.

    “With what?” the Wendigo snarled.

    “He said he had information about the Sanctuary coming after us, hrrrr,”

    “Of course they’d come after us. We have killed many hoomans and hoomans will always protect their own,”

    Senshu looks at him and he just smiles.

    “What do we do? Uijen?” Senshu ask.

    The Wendigo slams his fist into his own stone throne, breaking a piece of the edge off.

    “Kill him like you should have,” the Wendigo says. Em puts up his pointer finger.

    “How about we don’t kill me?” Em ask.

    “And why shouldn’t we?” Uijen ask.

    “A king needs a performer,” Em said. Uijen looks at him.

    “And you’re some performer, where is your instrument?” Wendigo ask.

    Em points to his mind. He opens his trench coat and takes out his worn journal. Pieces of paper scattered on the floor. He quickly picks them up and flips one over.

    “The true ruler of this land
    Is the one that bind us together
    Brothers, Sisters, Daughters, and Sons
    Of Elements,”

    Uijen looks at him and raises a brow.

    “That’s it?” Uijen ask.

    He flips his paper around.

    “Spring brings flurries
    Petals dancing like feminine
    Silhouettes if only we could join them
    In union,”

    Uijen went silent. The cave seemed silent. Em waited. Tears? Uijen wiped away tears.

    “That was beautiful, I could really picture the female petal dancers. Do you have more?”

    He flipped around the page.

    “Water cuts through stone
    Forging roads and paths
    Mountain her lover,”

    Uijen sniffs.

    “I never thought of river and mountains as lovers before,” Uijen said, “Very well. I will allow you to perform for me when I become the Demon Emperor. Everyone will hear your voice. Name your price? What do I call you?”

    “Em,” he pauses, “My price. You see is difficult.”

    “Please anything for such an emotional experience,”

    “Well there’s this troublesome village behind some tall grass and I was thinking with your strength you’d attack the village me,” Em told him, and put out his hands, “Oh and make me your prisoner.”

    Uijen raises a brow.

    “You want me to take you as a prisoner after you asked for your life to be spared?”

    “Well yes,”

    “Why?”

    “More believable,”

    “What are you going on about?”

    “My lord if you don’t mind me speaking so boldly, you do not want your enemies to know you have such a flair for the arts. They may try to take advantage of this weakness. If you make me your prisoner then they will never believe I swayed you,”

    Uijen puts a hand on his chin in a thinking manner.

    “You do have a point,” Uijen says, “Very well we will put you in shackles until I become Demon Emperor. And I will destroy this village for you. If you continue to write me beautiful poetry.”

    “Anything my lord,” Em smiles.

    That should get the Sanctuary to come faster.

    **The Sanctuary
    These last three weeks had been trying his patiences. He asked himself what Yore would have done in this situation. Though it seemed painfully obvious to him what must be done. Hi-Yuni was one of their best. For someone who was not like him nor Ethela she was the best. He didn’t understand then how one of their best could so easily be brainwashed by that man.

    It became a constant realization where she really was right now, like an itch he could not scratch and make better. But there were problems. Storming that temple would have been war, it make the Sanctuary a target if it was not already. And there was only five of them. Siegfried and Moon were as eager to find Hi-Yuni as Kay was, while Ethela came along for whatever her motivations were. He didn’t claim to understand her any more than he already understood when he first met her.

    He was standing at the place they had agreed to rendezvous at. Kay was beside him, he looked extra pouty and mopey as of late. Which was not usually how their dynamic went.

    “Do you think he has powers to control people’s minds?” Kay suggested.

    “He may very well,” Reyis replied.

    Why else would Hi Yuni abandoned everyone? Shoza must have influenced her somehow. Maybe with all that spiritual nonsense he must have brainwashed her.

    “He was a creep Reyis,” Kay tells him, “Did you see the paint on his face? Only creeps do that. Only creeps with creepy creep mind powers could take Hi Yuni.”

    Reyis shrugged. And what if she really did love him? But in a day? How did love like that work? Maybe Kay was right and Shoza had other abilities Reyis didn’t know about. He leaned on the tree trunk and waited for the others to return.

    Ethela was heavily sighing, swinging her obscenely large sword over one shoulder to the next. Sweat made her skin glisten, her bosom was brightly reflecting red moonlight from their metal crafted place. Doubt touched in her mind, wondering what her mother would do if she ever returned back to the dunes. A tickling thought that came and went whenever her eyes fell on Reyis. Did she want to go back to the dunes? Why would she? Regret was hardly a part of her experience since coming to Sanctuary. But it felt sickly, poisonous, to have braved the detachment from Vesa.

    Ahava was smiling, bringing her usual backpack of travel goods and carrying a sweaty cloth in her hand. Accompanying her partner she was stroking across the warrior maiden’s sweaty body and cleaning her up with it.

    “Nothing” Ethela said casually to Reyis and Kay, hand on hip, not bothered by the Fairy’s invasive wipe down.

    “I figured,” Reyis responded cooly.

    Kay watched Ethela being rubbed by Ahava, to say he liked Ethela when she was human would have been an underestimation. When she was human she seemed softer, despite the outburst she often had. A bit of vulnerability came out when she was human. Here she seemed too manly for his liking.

    “Damn it! We need to find her! We need to bring her back!” Kay shouted in an uncharacteristically unfunny way. Ahava frowned, her serving hand swiping across the wet small of Ethela’s back. It was very clear to the deamon that their search was going to be empty handed and where this human would be would only reside in one place. Ahava had no intention of returning there.

    “Need is a strong word…” Ahava chuckled meekly, dissuading the serious tensions in the air. Ethela ran her free hand through fluffy white hair. She stared at Reyis, down to him.

    “How much longer do you want this keep happening? This hasn’t worked for days now. She’s gone.”

    Before he had time to respond Moon jumped down from one of the tree branches he must have been spying from. He looked at Reyis and shook his head.

    Not even Moon could find her? Not even a few seconds later Siegfried came through the brush without much tact. Twigs snapping and branches breaking as he did so.

    “Nothing on my end either,” he said bitterly.

    Reyis closed his eyes. The emotional side of him pulled towards finding her. Like Kay he was passionate about not leaving her. But on the other hand, looking at all the faces that had come to help out and search for her he also could not let them die in that place. That temple haunted him. The Demon King they worshipped was significantly more powerful than anything they faced. They did not have the strength to fight him. It would be suicide if they even tried.

    “Then she’s gone for good,” Reyis said slowly, “She was either converted into someone’s puppet or dead. There’s no time wasting more effort on this.”

    Kay looked at him.

    “Are you serious? You’re giving up that easily,”

    When Reyis gave him a look he knew what it meant and just turned his head away.

    “Yeah, you’re right,” Kay said scratching the back of his head. Siegfried looked at Reyis. Reyis could see regret and resentment in his expression.

    “We...should focus on other contracts,” Siegfried told Moon. Moon looked at Siegfried and nodded. “Thank you Reyis. Good luck on your endeavors. With everything.” Ethela watched Moon and Siegfried exit the area with her usual unmoving expression. It was disgusting to imagine what Shoza was doing to the Human woman with his male-looking body. Maybe he ate her, with Shoza it was all left to guessing.

    Ahava finished her wifely duties, putting the sweat rag on Ethela’s hip and moved near the other Half-fiend to hug him. Empathy was a civil act for her kind, but in this particular case it was also something he seemingly needed. She, unlike Ethela, smelled clean and flowery - void of sweat and other bothersome things of the human condition.

    Ethela watched Ahava’s action with a noticeable frown, jealous how casually Ahava could do ‘bonding’ things with Reyis when she wanted to be closer to him. She watched on, extending her sympathies for Reyis in her subtle and less emotive ways.

    Reyis looked at Ahava. He was unsure how he was supposed to feel when a Demon was hugging him. He remembered to remember the good demons that came along in his journey. But he was uncertain if he drew any emotion from the gesture.

    While Kay watched Ahava hug Reyis. Now that you think about they were in the mountains alone for a while. Maybe? No there’s no way. But maybe.

    Meanwhile there was a quiet rustling in the bushes. Guided by heavy emotions of defeat and despair, it was not hard to find the auras he was searching for. Demon auras were different and difficult to read sometimes, but to see Ahava embrace Kaja only seemed to make the evidence clear that perhaps not all of them were willing to murder for the status.

    Still he looked at the group with a grave expression.

    “Hello,” he said kindly. Ethela’s stares ripped off of Reyis and Ahava to Kaja she did not expect to be out here. Tilting her body back she stared at him with a bit of shock. How did he? Why now? What?

    “Hey?” Ethela asked, staring at his sweet lips she had taken their virginity from. Ahava let go of Reyis and patted him on the shoulder kindly, staring up into his eyes. Kaja’s take of Ahava’s actions became more clear: her sociable nature being the center of her motivations. Ahava’s purple fey eyes fell on Kaja and smiled, a knowing smile as she was aware of Kaja more than the others.

    “You join us too late for the search. We have submitted to Hi Yuni’s disappearance as out of our hands” she informed the blonde beauty with a soft spoken, yet easily delivered factual tone.

    As he expected. Though he wondered if the team understood that Hi Yuni was not taken. He could not convince Siegfried and the others barely understood fate and destiny. He was no fortune teller, but the auras were clear. Their auras were a perfect harmonious match. She would change his shape and he would change hers.

    His hand tremored without him asking it to do so. Taking a second he responded with, “How tragic.” in a way it was. Hi Yuni had left people who respected and loved her. But now she was on a journey of personal growth and in a way he hoped the character of Shoza would join her on this path, “But that is not why I am here.” Placing a hand across his heart, almost as if he were praying, “Tragedy has been reported to me. A village in Zone 4 is being attacked by a strong and powerful Demon King. Some Hunters who were in the area have tried to delay the demons efforts, it is how I got the message. But haste is needed. For tonight everything changes.”

    Reyis narrowed his eyes.

    “What do you mean by that?” Reyis asked.

    Kaja looks at him.

    “We don’t have much time,” he says, raising his hand in the air as if to touch something invisible, Essence in the air others probably could not see, “All Demons. Even you two. Are connected through Essence. A demon does not die, but goes through a cycle. In short. The moon changes today. It will awaken more powerful enemies. More powerful kings who want to become this Emperor we hear them speak of.” Daintily Ahava put hands over her small, moist lips with expected shock from someone of her feminine charms. Ethela stabbed The Boom Stick into the earth beside her and wiped sweat from her brow. More pressure, not what she wanted now.

    “Then…” Ethela began forming her thoughts, dabbing her face with the sweat rag. “Why is one villiage of people important if things are about to get worse? There’re going to die anyway, sounds like it. Should focus on Sanctuary” Ethela shrugged.

    Kaja frowned.

    “Then why should anyone care about The Sanctuary?” Kaja asked, “If we are the Sanctuary. What does Sanctuary mean?” Kaja held his hands together, “Safe. A haven. A place to go to. But if that Sanctuary does not save. Then where do they go? Turn to? Why trust in a time of need? Whether or not people will die should not be the point. What should be the point is doing everything in one’s power to make the best decisions they possibly can in life. Defeatist, neutral or negative options do not pull forward better futures. Remember inaction is still a choice.” Ethela knew and didn’t know that her question would spark ethical quandary. She didn’t know because she thought her question small and simple, she knew because it was Kaja, who released lengthy message of doing good for Humanity from his sweet lips constantly. Half way through his speech Ethela’s eyes drifted from his serious eyes to his mouth, taking in the shifts and turns they did to lecture her.

    “Mhm” Ethela finally said, lulled into a shapely spell by his kissers. “The best decisions and things” Ethela turned from Kaja and stared at her new friends, Reyis she wanted to feel closer to him. “Eh-” Reyis was already walking off and Ethela ran off after him. Ahava walked closer to Kaja and smiled.

    “I think you made a great choice with your hairstyle today” she flattered the powerful mortal.

    “This?” Kaja looked confused, “It seemed convenient for the circumstances.” Ahava watched her girlfriend and the weak human Kay leave - ensuring they were alone. Ahava giggled and pressed a finger onto the man’s shoulder.

    “When are you going to be more honest about your being with the others? I’m curious” The demon asked and gave him a smile trained by her social ways.

    Kaja took a second.

    “When they are strong enough to realize it themselves,” Kaja told her and smiled, “Sometimes the answers have to be discovered to know how much more you have grown.” Ahava sighed and brushed her soft body against his playfully at the arms.

    “I should say thank you for the work you have done to make Ethela more manageable. I wouldn’t have been able to love her with how wild she had become for the truth of her Human family without your hand to tame her some”

    Kaja smiles.

    “No matter the work I have done. In truth it was your love, no matter how baseline it is that kept Ethela open enough to the concept. You didn’t let her heart forget about loving,” Kaja told her. The Fairy stared with open sign of discontent from his kindly delivered shive between words.

    “Thank you…” Ahava pulled herself away from Kaja and ran off to join Ethela’s side. Kaja stared at the moon that was slowly going to sleep. Noon would soon wear and they would be into the evening. But the moon was to enter truly its two hundredth cycle. To defeat Demons like Asmodeus he needed to harbor growth in Reyis and Ethela to become as strong and more powerful. It dawned on him how tired he was, being drained of Essence with the other Aurahky with a secret to keep. Either way he needed to continue for a better future for Demons like Ahava and Humans. To enter a world of coexisting and rid this world of its impurity.

    **
    Zone 4 - Holleyhead Village
    HalfMoon - Weak
    As night began to fall, the sky a beautiful color of royal purple with the glowing blue of the moon giving out light. A strange aura began to appear in the sky, and aurora borealis beginning to create rings around the moon and energy of Essence pulsed in waves in the sky.

    Uijen licked his lips. The moon might not have been full tonight, but he felt more than energized tonight. The moon was entering its 200 cycle and any demon worth its salt understood those rings meant the Heavens were finally calling on the tournament to find the Demon Emperor.

    He had been waiting for this moment. Gathering his army. Feeding on Human Essence from the woods. His army of Gremlins and Orcs were loyal. And now he had a Demifiend under his ranks. Except that he wasn’t sure how to describe this Demifiend. He seemed well less frightening than the ones he knew on the other side of the moon. He didn’t seem like much of a threat.

    Abruptly the serene peace of night was broken when the sky burst into orange and red, as the tall grass caught on fire. As the Gremlins ran through it with torches lit. Uijen marched behind them, creating quakes with his powerful steps. Small craters the size of his feet were made every time he took a step forward. He brought the Demifiend, Em with him to show him with his own eyes the destruction of the village he requested to be destroyed.

    Uijen smiled when one of the houses abruptly caught flame. The smoke beginning to rise in the sky. Then there was a new smell in the air. Hoomans.

    But not any ordinary Hoomans. The Sanctuary came out from the tall grass that was now burning. A gun went off, shooting one of the Gremlins down to the ground. Demon Hunters meddling with his plans. As the Demifiend Em said they would.

    One of the Orcs unsheathed its sword and thrust it into one of the hoomans abdomen and with immense strength disemboweled the human. Innards falling on grass that was quickly beginning to burn. There was a haze of smoke that made visibly hard to see.

    “Keep them back,” Eren said, leading a team of six, he was on his way back to the Sanctuary when he noticed the flames. All he needed to do was stall them and hope that Kaja got his SOS. They would bring the Elite team. Either that Demifiend Reyis with them as well. But soon Siegfried, Moon and Hi Yuni would be here surely.

    Fleeing from the tall grass he entered the center of the village. Pointing to one of the girls on his team and one of the guys, “Take the villages to the town hall, rescue as many as you can.” He unhooked his foldable shuriken and threw it into the smoke like a boomerang.

    Uijen saw the gremlin front lines sliced into half by an Essence spinning blade with four blades. To him it looked like what those hoomans called helicopter blades. Uijen growled. Stupid meddling. Stupid meddling.

    Jumping high in the air, about 8ft high and bounding into the center of the village crushing the hooman under his feet. The hoomans bones snapped, popped, and he felt his blood under his feet. Uijen walked out of the blood pool, and bent down to take a claw to his claw at his feet, scraping the bits of the hoomans intestines out from under his nail bed.

    Orcs and Gremlins came rushing in. Knocking down doors. Some hoomans tried to flee, but only became pretty red splatters. Senshu kept the Demifiend at his side and looked at the poet.

    “Is this inspiring you to write any poems of our lords victories?” Senshu asked.
    Em looked at Senshu.

    “Plenty of inspiration,” Em responded.

    Senshu just laughed.

    There was no doubt in his mind that it was to be Uijen’s victory tonight.

    One of the Gremlins grabbed a young girl by her wrist. She screamed. The woman who had been ordered from Eren to rescue them from the demons looked over. She would not let another little girl be taken away from their family. Taking her gun out she shot the Gremlin in the head.

    “Come on, you’ll be safe,” she said.

    A sword plunges into her backside. It is rendered out so fast that she too is cut in half by the blade, entrails spilling onto the ground. Mixing with the blood. The little girl screams. The last emotion on the girl’s face fear as her head comes clean off.

    It was no doubt to be Uijen’s victory tonight. The Hoomans who resisted him were all too weak. They would not be victorious.

    “Come on, inside the town hall,” Wei looks away from the horror, he has no time to react to their deaths right now. They were Hunters. They knew the cost of their job. But all this slaughter. All this carnage. Some demons really, truly were bad, weren’t they? Malice to the bone. He was ushering villages into the town hall as fast as he could. An orc jumps in front of them, “Keep going,” he says as he unsheaths his broadsword, “Come at me you ugly bastard.”

    The Orc comes charging in with its sword, as he does the same. Deflecting a swing, Wei goes in for another. The Orc moves out of the way. Right now he was strengthened by his rage. If he could just kill one of them, for those two, he would feel victorious tonight.

    The Orc goes in for another swing, he deflects with his broadsword and sweeps under the Orc. And slices it half. Then another on his left side and an another on his right side. These guys were using unfair tactics.

    “You guys have no honor, you fight like Preta,” Wei spits at them. He deflects another Orc attack. Another comes in and slashes him across his side. Another attack gets through his defense. Motherfuckers. Fuck. He needs to stand strong for Eren, for Kisa. He deflects another. A sword cuts deep into his leg. “Fuck you!” He says swinging his sword twice as hard to slash another half. But he barely had the strength to keep up with the overwhelming demonic swarms. He’d continue fighting. He knew the cost of his job.

    Suddenly out of nowhere the demons that were swarming him were cut in half in a circular motion. Blue blood spilled onto the ground, their yellow innards, and Essence beginning to disperse in the air.

    “What the hell,” Wei says as he looks up to see Reyis. His white hair ruffled from the motion. Black eyes with glowing red pupils, “Thanks.”

    “We have a handle of this,” Reyis told him, “They will pay twice as much for what they have done here.”

    Wei gets up.

    “Thanks,” Wei leans on the leg not bleeding. Shit. He was going to be completely useless now, “There were six of us. Two of us have been taken. Rescue my team or...recover their tags.” Wei’s eye look, Kaja is here? And strangers he didn’t know. A Fairy. He could simply tell from years of experience. And a woman with big breast and wearing few clothes.

    Ahava walked through the masses of carnage and forming lakes of blood to meet the human. Ethela stared at what was going around with her and flared her nostrils. She had killed people along the travel to Sanctuary, but she never imagined herself causing death like this. It disturbed her in some way...was it...sadness? Probably not.

    “Let’s go Reyis” Ethela pushed. Ahava meanwhile put her fairy hands on Wei, letting a warm glow touch his body.

    “I think there is more you can do” Ahava suggested charmingly. Wei stares at her and smiles. He fist pumps in the air.

    “I never give up, it’s what it means to be a Demon Hunter,” Weit tells her, “Thanks.”

    Ethela jumped forward, sending The Boom Stick forward in her charge. She was ruthless, diving the tip through the chest of an Orc and finding the strength to lift the blade with him on it. Screaming, Ethela’s greatsword spun, breaking the corpse into two and smashing the opening guts across the face of another Orc who had raised his arms to shield himself. The entrails wrapped around his limbs, The Boom Stick ate through him, collapsing the man into a conjoined pile of bodies where his upper half was left to bleed out in panic.

    Swinging his scythe to get the blood off of it, he saw Ethela jump forward. He decide then to work on his right side. The Orcs were already trying to get to him before he got to them, taking his hand off of the shaft of his scythe he raised his hand in the air and created an blacken orb and threw it at the demons. The orb ate away at the earth and created a sizable explosion that launched the Orcs in the air. Most of them were startled or confused, but he took that opportunity to acrobatically leap in the air and cut as man as he could with his scythe. As they came back to the ground, blue blood, and limbs raining down into the crater causing a body pit of orcs. Limbs falling on their alive combats who had not been launched.

    Ethela swirled her sword, chains rattling against her metal bra, red garments flapped with a rageful dance. Dragging from the earth Ethela’s foot kicked into the kneecap of an Orc charging her. Her face grimaced and blood showered acrossed it after The Boom Stick plunged into his neck. The head of the standing corpse rolled down the slope of her sword and fell to the side. Crackling up the metal mass of her weapon, lightning thundered with terrifying presence. It lorded over the sound of the battlefield and in the blinding light Ethela’s bolt of lightning dived through 50 demonic souls. Through the charred holes of the lined bodies, Ethela blinked into existence at the other side, a massive lake of bodies collapsed behind her.
    This was a nightmare. All this blood. All of these bodies. And what did Kaja mean by the cycle changing? Did anyone notice the sky? What were those circular rings? Why was the moon pulsing? Why was Kay the only one who had a bad feeling about all of this? It put a bitter taste in his mouth, all of this. He had enough of things not making sense.

    He shot one of the Orcs in the head, then another with his other gun, then another with his other gun, back and forth till he was out of magazines. Dropping them to the ground, he quickly tried to slide magazines into their places. Out of the corner of his eye he saw some Orcs creeping up on Kaja. Shit, he forgot he was here. Why was here? Come on magazines get into the barrel.

    Kaja looked at him.

    “Save your bullets,” Kaja points towards Kay who had more enemies coming up, “I will be fine.”

    Kaja looked up to the sky staring at the circula rings, true he had not fed in a while. But the moon was powerful tonight. More powerful than it should be on a half moon, but this was a temporary cycle. He stared at the Orcs coming closer.

    “I am sorry your skills will not be enough to touch me,” Kaja told them. Provoked by this, the eight of them charged him. Clearly they didn’t believe him. But his mother was always with him in spirit. Kaja could see it, he didn’t just see the swords coming, but saw the way the tips of their blades cut through an Essence and aura he could only see.

    He unsheathed his sword. To an outside observer the arc of his blade look like the crescent of the moon. As light came from his blade. His blade barely touched the Orcs. But the light touched them and they burst into merely Essence. Glittering in the air. Nothing of them was left, but their life force. He finished his half circular spin, his hair trailing after him, as light glittered around him.

    Staring at the Orcs who had watched this he smiled at them.

    “I told you,” Kaja told them kindly. Ahava pulled her hands from Wei, starring concerning deeply at the bright sight that pulled her vision. The visual effect and the light were beautiful, and Ahava knew that Ethela would be in danger.

    “No don’t do that!” Ahava screamed at Kaja. Ethela prepared herself for another swing, now teleported in the mass by herself. In the distance something tickled her eye and an adrenaline rush told her to LOOK at it. An itch she had to scratch Ethela lowered The Boom Stick and craned her neck to see the final moments of the dazzling display of Kaja’s magic. Her mouth drooled, Essence pouring and evaporating in each direction.

    “Ah! Shit!” Ethela screamed, a sword had cut into the side of her stomach, stopped by the inner layers of scales beneath her flesh. Still, the sword ate hungrily at her skin and the fire caused her to wince. Another blade cut at her face and she had to jump back to create some distance. Her metal foot kicked one of the lightning struck corpses and she had to leap up upon a corpse or else had tripped on it. But now Ethela was distracted and surrounded by enemies. Even after what had just happened, Ethela still looked back in Kaja’s direction for another shimmering visual, if it would come. Ahava stared at the distracted battle maiden worrisomely.

    Shit! Why did she go into battle by herself like that? And what was that light. Reyis turned to help Ethela out. Even if it meant he had to cut down as enemies as he could just to do so. Sticking his scythe into the ground quickly. He’d make a pathway with his orb and then use it to cut through the path. Forming an orb with his hand he threw it out.

    He grabbed his scythe, but was stopped from making his path when he felt a strange energy. Reyis looked around to catch a distant look from a purple skinned demon with toughs of black hair covering his arms and his back. Red hair covered his face, but his eyes were glowing red from rage.

    “RRAWWWW!” Uijen growled at the top of his lungs, it was a shout that was so loud and doused in enough Essence to cause a shockwave that tore down five buildings. Uijen jumped into the air and landed in the middle of the demons attacking Ethela. Crushing his own allies under his feet. Ethela ears rang with the power of the voice, it challenged if not conquered the sounds of her lightning. His call of power pulled her from her distractions. The cracking and popping sounds of demons in front of her imploded and squirted blood up and down her body. They had been entirely crushed by Uijen, innards having to find new space to occupy in a faction of a second.

    The battle maiden shook, the corpse she stood on wiggled from the force. Her reflexes saved her, one foot landing on the back of another dead Orc behind her and she hopped onto his body. “Tch” Ethela hissed, the two cut sides of her pale skin leaked her own blood down feminine hips. A matted mess of white hair and blood Ethela kept The Boom Stick in front of her and stared at the powerful demon, gritting her teeth.

    Ahava ran directly to Kaja and grabbed his shoulder with an urgent touch.

    “Please don’t do that again. You might get her killed. She has a compulsion to all things bioluminescent or simply reflective”

    Uijen uses his hand gestures to have the rest of his army spread out. Holding their weapons and looking at Uijen he growls, his canine dripping with saliva.

    “Not hooman, hooman,” he grumbles, “You do not know what you fight for. Or what this is for. You break a cycle made centuries ago. Millennia ago. You would barely understand in your cursed blood. Who is your general?” Ethela slapped her blade on the ground.

    “You’re asking the wrong one. I don’t have a general, I do what I want” she said defiantly.

    “Naturally I do not expect one's with your kind of blood to be nothing more than hedonistic children,” Uijen snarled at her, “Then, if you do what you want, why follow the rest of them.” He points to Reyis who has come behind her, “Why protect these humans? Is this what you want?” Ethela laughed. This guy was a walking force of strength, using it to be as barbaric as he wanted and he was curious about her? She found his lack of focus irritating, just get to the fighting already. Laughing tugged on the cuts at her hips, punishing her for doing so. Blood ran down her belt and began to drip down her thighs.

    Reyis was beside her and she stared at him for a moment.

    “Because I want to be with him” She answered confidently. “Are we fighting or not?”

    “No, I am not fighting you,” Uijen tells her, “I asked for your General. Answer me child. Where is your General?”

    Reyis looked at Ethela’s wounds. He didn’t understand Kaja’s strength in the battle earlier, but he also knew the extraction was tough on Kaja. Reyis stepped forward.

    “I take it you’re Uijen,” Reyis told the demon, “I heard tales of you from my mentor. I am the General you are looking for.”

    Reyis looked at Ethela. Do not argue with me. You are bleeding. I have not been touched yet. Do you understand? Is what his eyes told her. He could see her swallowing her pride but looked away in submission, hiding behind her clouds of hair.

    Uijen laughed.

    “You are their General then,” Uijen huffed, “You look pathetic. More so than the girl. Fine come at me child.”

    Reyis grabbed his scythe and watched Uijen. He was powerful. He was on a completely different level than demons he had fought before. He felt like that weak child again. The one that watched Yore die. This whole scenario had an air of familiarity to it. Staring down an enemy far more powerful than him and feeling anxiety in his heart.

    But he promised to protect the Sanctum. He promised to take on Yore’s role as a guardian. They expected him to do so.

    Uijen raised a pointer finger for him to come at him. Reyis was looking for an opening. Any opening. Uijen was quite large, his body looked strong. Reyis went in without a thought, he thought he saw what he hoped was an opening.

    He scratched across Uijen’s tough skin on his right leg. There was a benefit of being much smaller than Uijen. But as he came around to cut the leg Uijen kicked him out of the way. Reyis went flying into the roof of a villager’s house. He crashed through the roof, wood pieces cutting through him and landing on the ground with a thud on his back.

    Uijen took no time to leap from the center of battle through the broken roof of the house and land where he thought the Demifiend had landed. All he did was manage to do was create a hole into the floor. How had that pipsqueak had time to react that fast after something like that?

    Reyis body reacted in time sensing danger. Wooden pieces were stuck to his winds and he coughed as the wind was taken out of him. He threw one of his orbs in Uijen’s direction balancing on a beam of wood still standing. Uijen turned in his direction. The orb stung at his face, but he didn’t feel it much. Uijen punched the wall that connected the beam Reyis had been standing on.

    Reyis managed to land outside of the house, as the house came down. Uijen’s body standing in the settling dust. Reyis quickly got out of the way in case Uijen decided to leap again. It became painfully obvious this was like the past. Staring down an enemy he had no chance to defeat. But something had to be done? Didn’t it?
    Uijen stepped over the last bits of crumbling house. He picked the scythe out of his skin and threw it in front of the kid.

    “Is this all you have?” Uijen asked.

    Reyis grabbed his scythe, taking it out of the ground. What did he do? Ethela stood no chance? Who had the power to take Uijen down? Kay was a human and so was Kaja. Damn it! He couldn’t fail again. He couldn’t fail! Reyis growled under his breath. The marking on his face glew a little of Essence and so did his shard. His aura blackened.

    Reyis charged in again with his scythe, scraping a chunk of flesh of Uijen’s arm before landing behind him. He couldn’t fail them! They were counting on him. If he didn’t do something they would all die. He couldn’t let them die.

    Uijen turned around with a swiftness for his size, to land a roundhouse kick as the little Demifiend landed. Managing to hit the little Demifiend, Reyis was thrown back into the last bits of crumbling wall.

    “It’s a shame that’s all you have little brat,” Uijen said as he went in for a punch to the little Demifiends body. Crushing him through the wall. How much damage could this little Demifiend take though? He resisted a lot of his pain.

    Somehow Reyis managed not to be splooshed, the wall taking enough of the force and rebound. But Reyis could barely stand. He spit out some blood. What was he suppose to do? Reyis looked at Uijen. Sticking his scythe into the ground, and weakly falling to his knees.

    “I give up,” Reyis told him, looking at the ground, he was trying not to show his pain to Uijen right now, “Please do not kill everyone. But you may have my life.”

    Spectating, Ahava’s voice had summoned Ethela to run from her position up to the city hall. She watched with anger what had become of Reyis. Ahava’s touch healed her wounds, but she was still covered in her own and demonic blood. She looked battered, but the fire inside of her yearned to fight and kill the demon pulverizing Reyis. She took her first steps to run after him when Kaja’s words interrupted her.

    “Look at Reyis,” Kaja told her, “At his strength he can barely stand to fight Uijen. You both have the potential to be better. But with your power. All you will do is die as well. You and Reyis have the power to be so much more. But that is if you want to.” Kaja stepped forward, “Watch what you could be capable of.”

    Uijen would have taken the offer of the little Demifiend when he felt something gazing at him. Something powerful. Uijen turned to see who was gazing at him. Eyes the color of the cosmos, he saw the universe inside of them. A beauty no human could possess and the aura of the heavens itself.

    “That’s quite enough of that,” Kaja told him, “I will not permit you kill him.”

    Uijen glares.

    “What right do you have permitting me or not?” Uijen asked.

    “It depends on whether or not you stop or not,” Kaja told him.

    “Stop?” Uijen asked.

    “Your attack,” Kaja told him.

    “Or you’ll what kill me?” Uijen asked.

    “That’s precisely what I’ll do and I’ll cut you from the cycle for the rest of your eternity. You will be nothing, but a spec in the sky,”

    “You do not have that kind of power,”

    “Do you want those to be your last words?”

    Uijen turned back and raised his fist. That human might be powerful, but there was no way he could save his friends from being killed. He was bluffing. He went in to finish the little Demifiend, but his body would not move. He saw a golden light.

    Kaja had swiftly unsheathed his katana and sheathed it back throwing an arc of light at Uijen. Uijen’s body at first cut in half, but the light began to expand, and rapidly consume the creature's body. Until it exploded into nothing, but specs of light. There was no trace of Essence left or Uijen.

    He looked at Ethela.

    “Do you understand now what you must do?” The impact of Kaja’s words post his powerful action were entirely missed because Ethela was staring off at the speckled lights fading. Ahava raised her hands in sheer surprise of the power displayed. Nothing Kaja said was bluffed, she sensed it as Uijen was no more.

    Then the silence kicked in, Ethela was still staring. Ahava paused her own awe and kicked Ethela in the back of the knee.

    “Ow!” Ethela almost fell, saving herself and staring down at Ahava. The fairy was raising her brows and pointing at Kaja. “Oh, what? You said something? That was…” Ethela trailed, too prideful to say the final bits of her thoughts. Amazing.

    Kaja just smiled.

    “We should help Reyis, I think he is in quite a bit of pain,” Kaja said. Ahava raised her hand to volunteer herself. The other she used to grab Ethela’s and they ran past Kaja to the Demi-Fiend willing to sacrifice himself.Ahava laid Reyis down while Ethela kneeled next to him.

    “He was talking to me first, you should have let me tried instead. I’m bigger than you” Ethela lectured to the small man.

    Reyis stared at the sky. The rings were fading in the sky. They were so pretty. He wondered if spirits existed. If Yore was up there. Would he be disappointed in him?

    “Maybe,” Reyis responded weakly to Ethela. Kay ran towards the crumbling building, once again Reyis was a big dumb idiot and hadn’t considered tricking the demon in a way to get them all to help. He could have died and Kay believed that this time. It was the second time he saw Reyis close to or nearing death. He looked pretty beaten up. Did Ahava enough healing to make it better?

    Meanwhile, the standing army looked at each other. They were squabbling amongst each other. And Kaja turned to them. He smiled at them.

    “Now then,” Kaja said kindly.

    “We’re sorry!” they all said and threw their weapons onto the ground and began to scamper off. Why did they run? All he was going to do was talk to them. Ahava smiled down to Reyis.

    “It’ll take a few minutes but I will treat these wounds” She promised and Ethela ruffled Reyis’ hair, realizing what she had done only after she was doing it. In her chest something warm was bubbling as her hand remained on his head. She stared at the white locks so much like her own threaded through her fingers and felt a closeness about Reyis.

    “You can’t die. I don’t really know you yet” She complained quietly.

    He didn’t know what to feel when she touched his hair. Embarrassment. Humiliation. That’s twice in two weeks he could do nothing. Even if he wasn’t dying or Ahava was healing him he felt dizzy. He grabbed Ethela’s hand.

    “I..am just...going to take a nap,” he told her before his head drooped and he went unconscious. A quiet gasp fell out of Ethela’s lips and she stared down at the limp hand in hers and blushed from how emotional she was acting. She dropped it and stood abruptly to find Kay. At the lanky human she pointed at him.

    “You’re carrying him” she left no room for debate and crossed her arms at her blood soaked breasts.

    “Yeah yeah,” Kay said, “He’s going to be all right, right Ahava?” Kay looked around. What was that power Kaja displayed? It was far more powerful than any magic he knew. He scratched the back of his head. He was often the goofy guy he could shrug mostly anything off, but this. This was different. It was hard to shake something like this off, “Maybe we should look for survivors.”

    **
    The scent of death
    Flowers of blood
    Iron

    The sight of so much death disturbed him. Had the Hunters from the Sanctum grown weak? They certainly took their time getting here. Watching from the center of town near grass that had once been up in smoke, blazed with orange. The wind picked up and burned the embers away. He watched figures in the distance walking out of a building. They would be searching then. Now that the one with long hair and supernatural beauty displayed an ungodly amount of power.

    It wouldn’t be too believable if he sat here unharmed and bound. Managing to take his bound hand and feeling through his side pocket he felt the handle of one of his hidden knives. Flipping it in his coat he drove the blade till it pierced his abdomen. He winced in pain. Now he’d wait.

    Kay sighed. All of this was just a damn mess. With the whole Shoza stuff. Then Hi-Yuni missing. Now this. Life was turning out to be really shit lately. How do you make a joke out of the most depressing stuff in your life? Like this was bad. No jokester in his heart could laugh at all this death and destruction. And Reyis. Reyis was hurt again. Emotionally and he guessed now physically. He didn’t know how to pick up those pieces.

    He wished he was stronger too. He wished to be stronger. He was just some weak human, with a fairly okay accuracy. But Ethela and Reyis were doing their own fighting, in their own league, of their own caliber. And he was afraid he’d get ripped into pieces, smooshed like the piles of blood and entrails, people pudding.

    “Gah!” he shouted out to the sky, as he rummaged through the scattered buildings looking for any survivor. Just one person, anyone. He wanted to start to feel like a hero of justice again. Not someone so out powered and out matched that these battles felt like a struggle of survival, not a great victory.

    He caught, glowing eyes in the distance? A survivor? But no ordinary person would have golden glowing eyes. Taking out one of his guns he pointed it in that direction and slowly moved forward. Closer. Closer. To see a man? With green hair? Okay seriously what the fuck is up with the hair. Why couldn’t anything be normal?

    He was tied up by some rope. And bleeding? Shit. He holstered his gun.

    “Hey are you okay?” Kay asked.

    Em slowly inspected the human who had come to his aid. He simply smiled.

    “That is to be determined by my rescuer, isn’t it?” Em asked the human with a raised brow, “Captured once. May continue to be captive, if you are not the merciful type.”

    Kay just looked the green hair guy.

    “Look man I have had a shitty few weeks and I am not going to put up with any more bullshit. You want to tell me what’s going on?” Kay asked.

    Em breathed in deep and slowly exhaled. The wind felt like a mourning breeze.

    “Ah yes, straightforwardness. I will not lie to you, as you can see I am a Half fiend not too unlike your friends. When the demon found out what I was, he wanted my Essence during the second phase of the moon,”

    Right, he didn’t understand that crap. Kaja was talking about it earlier and honestly all of it blew over his head. All this talk about moon phases and emperors. It didn’t make much sense. Why did demons need emperors? They seemed all too happy to kill anyone in their sight.

    “Right, that makes sense, I mean the whole wanting eat you, he did like to smoosh people a lot,” Kay said, “Let me untie you. Uh, you’re injured.”

    “Upon my capture yes,”

    “Yeah, we got people for that,” Kay says beginning to untie the guy, “You got a name?”

    So far he seemed in the clear. The Human was not very perceptive. He hoped that of the others as well.

    “It is Em,” he told him, “And yours?”

    Em? Why couldn’t?

    “Is Em short for something? It’s Kay,” he helped the demifiend by helping him lift himself off the ground.

    Dusting himself off Em looked at Kay.

    “Is Kay short for something?” Em asked.

    “No….” Kay paused, “...okay I get the point.” Kay looked around for Ethela. He wasn’t sure how’d she react. She wasn’t Reyis. “My team is around here. Can you walk?”

    “Mourning wind, too many lives taken, justice,” Em murmured to himself, looking at Kay, “I am standing so I believe I am capable of walking.”

    Kay just raised his brow.

    “Okay before I even like get you to meet my group. I need to ask a question. Are you shivvy stab in the dark type? Come from some borderline psychopathic group that worships dolls and or lives under a mountain?”

    Em cocked his head to the side.

    “I do not believe so. And if I lived under a mountain, how would I be here?”

    Kay sighs.

    “I don’t know, you talk weird man,”

    Em opens his right side pocket to take out his worn journals.

    “I am a poet,” Em tells him, handing his journals, “Flowing words together into elegant phrases is what I do best. But I see you’re not a man of the lost arts, I apologize for coming off rude or unusual.”

    Kay scratches his head.

    “Yeah, you’re better off talking to Kaja or Reyis about,” Kay flips through the journals a little bit. Blooming flowers, warm spring, life. “This.” Kay says handing the journal back.

    At least he wasn’t terrifying and there was actually something peaceful about this man’s aura. He didn’t seem to want to attack him. That’s always good.

    He begins to lead Em through the town looking for where Ethela is next.

    “Ethela! Ahava! Kaja!” he shouts their names, “We got someone! He’s not murderous either, that’s a bonus!” Ethela stared at Ahava and the white haired Demi-fiend tilted her head a bit. Ahava tapped her chin in ponder.

    “We kill and murder quite frequently, has that been ill?” Ahava wondered, they did however, just slay an entire mass of demons.

    “I don’t know but Kay is being loud, so let’s go see” Ethela walked over with Ahava following, her arm looped around the battle maiden.

    The poor thing. He probably had to take responsibility for what happened to Reyis. Except now this was a way to encourage the both of them to become much stronger for the events to come. Still he couldn’t help, but feel a slight pain in his heart. He should have stopped this, but he wasn’t sure there was much way of motivating Reyis into action unless he failed. Wiping a tear away from his eyes, he heard their names being called and heard Ahava’s words.

    “This is a truer observation, I wish violence was not the way we could solve this, but some respect violence too much to let it go,” he told her, before following to see who Kay had found. The three of them walked to where Kay’s voice had come from and Ahava stared at the bleeding, eccentric man. Another Demi-fiend, she sensed, and yet this one had green hair - not white. Was that normal?

    “Oh, what happened to you?” Ahava asked cordially, sounding with no empathy. She eyed him with hopes of entertainment while he continued to bleed.

    Em stared at the Fairy. Fairies were known to be perceptive, some even spoke to the wind. He’d have to tread carefully.

    “Hopeful new friends, a crowd gathers, greetings,” he wrote on some space he could find on his paper, he looked to her again, “I explained to your friend I was captured by the demon who terrorized this village. When I tried to assist in the recent battle one of his men stopped me from doing so.”

    “Hmmm” Ahava almost sounded appeased, leaning her head on Ethela, “Your wound is so small, their blades must have only tickled your skin and yet you are fallen. I hope you are stronger than that” she smiled. Ethela looked down to her girlfriend and then to the new guy.

    “Yeah, how many did you take out before they captured you?”

    Em simply smiled.

    “I’m afraid beautiful fairy, I am not as strong as your friends, I was captured upon discovering the demon marching towards here. But bound and seeing all this needless bloodshed I could not sit idly by. When I tried to stand even in my bindings one of the Gremlin’s nicked me with its claws,” Em told them.

    Ahava chuckled behind a hand neatly.

    “I am sorry you fell as you had. The Gremlin poked you very hard I am sure. I can help with that wound” The Fairy offered, pulling herself away from Ethela and walking closer to Em.

    Em only brushed a bang out of his eyes.

    “I am not afraid to admit I am no fighter, I am a traveling poet,” Em told her, “I have no fear admitting when I lose.”

    “Okay, what should we do next?” Ethela asked Kay, moving on the dynamic off of Em and his past she particularly didn’t care about. Ahava quietly hummed and healed the wound in the abdomen.

    Kay just looked at Ethela. Usually Reyis was in charge and to be quite frank he had better ideas than him. He was no thinker.

    “Uh, Kaja,” Kay looked at Kaja. Who stared at him.

    Kaja only looked at the new half-fiend, at least there was a good sign there. His aura was pure enough for him to have no worries, even if his words didn’t seem strictly honest. He meant good. And hadn’t tried to harm them in anyway.

    “I may make one suggestion,” Kaja said looking behind him toward the building Reyis now lie in, “The Demon King’s who want to become emperor will show no mercy. To be fair the one you fought today was quite frankly fairly weak compared to those that lurk in darker shadows. You need to get stronger. To become stronger. You cannot stay at the stage you are at.” His eyes scan Ethela, then the new stranger, Kay, and he looks behind to the building, only to turn back to them, “You need to make the choice now. Be free to live your life on your own whims and gain your own independence. Those you leave behind will die horribly as people have today. Or give up your own independence, make the sacrifice to forge the world you want, and get stronger than what you are now. The times have changed. The enemy's stronger. And you’re still weaker than them.” Ethela felt a prick of confusion hit her.

    “Why do I have to not be free to become stronger?”

    Kaja smiled gently at Ethela.

    “When we choose to aid people. They rely on us. They rely on the fact we have a strength they do not have. I am free, but I am not. My priority is my people, the Aurah-Ky rely on me to be their word, their strength, their armor. If I chose to do what I wanted, if I chose only for myself, then I am not thinking of others,” he told her tenderly.

    “...but I want to be stronger. So I will become stronger because I want to anyway” Ethela shrugged, missing the entire point Kaja shared. Ahava pulled her hand away from the new Demi-fiend and stared into his glowing eyes.

    “What choice are you going to make?” She asked gently, teasing him and redirecting the conversation all back onto him to see how he would react. Demi-fiends made her very curious.

    Her healing was useful, he watched the unnaturally beautiful man speak. He was rather enigmatic wasn’t he, like an angel. He had never seen someone so alluring before, it was rather hypnotic to the eyes. He turned to the Fairy who spoke to him. His choice? So then he had no choice. Already living as freely as he had. He had no desire to be stronger, but the Hunters did seem weaker.

    “I clearly want the world to survive, to damn them all to live more life, or to live more life damned myself. I may not be a fighter, but I can aid in anyway I can,” Em paused, “So. I will entertain the idea of what your leader decides is how to get stronger.” Ethela pulled Ahava by the hand and slung her back to her side. The cloudy eyed woman stared at Em.

    “This one doesn’t have white hair, is that a good thing?” Ethela asked to Kaja, wanting to see what he’d guess.

    Kaja stared at the stranger’s answer. He wished he could get Reyis to understand that a bit better and less recklessly so. Still Kaja looked at Ethela when she asked her question.

    “I suspect that it has everything to do with the way everyone’s hair is passed down, in the Aurah-ky and humans, it’s genetics,” Kaja says untying his own hair, “in this case it might simply be a connection to the type of Essence that influences your demonic corruption. I think you and Reyis are familial so you both have white hair. But Em is not related to you, and his hair is green. Which correlates to perhaps the type of Essence that influences his blood or maybe he’s tied to a certain element in his Essence that influences the color.” Ahava held tighter onto Ethela, shocked.

    “Familial?” Ahava had to gather herself after Kaja dropped his beautiful hair to fall so freely, but his slip of tongue snapped her out of the beauty trance. She never sensed it, what was he talking about? “Perhaps their connection in this world is odd, but not familial in the literal sense...”

    Kaja strung a finger through his hair to take out a knot. Had he said that? He wasn’t thinking. The demon they fought was small time compared to his mother’s power. He took a second. There was on one hand no point lying to Ahava, she was the type to ask a lot of questions to get what she wanted out of others. But he was uncertain if Ethela could handle the news that she was actually Reyis’ sister.

    “It’s true,” Kaja felt this fight wasn’t worth arguing over, “But only merely by half of the concept. No one knew who his father was, but my mother had her….reports.” that sounds bad like his mother was spying on someone who was once her best friend. But she was worried for her, “they. You share a father.” Ethela’s face paled. Her skin turned cold. Her past understanding of her life was cracking.

    “What..? I mean…” She wanted to be close to him, she cared about the little guy, but…Ethela clung to her hair, tufts of white hair flared up around her squeezing fists. “I…” she was speechless. “That’s my brother…”

    Kaja nodded slowly.

    “Yes,” Kaja told her, “He is your brother.” Ethela pulled away from Ahava and began to run over to Reyis in a burst of speed.

    “Ethela!” Ahava cried out, the demi-fiend wasn’t that great...did she really want to be related to him? He was so short. “Calm down, you might trip!” Ahava warned but Ethela wasn’t listening.

    Kay coughed. Half siblings? He wasn’t sure how Reyis was going to take that. He didn’t know much about Ethela’s life. But all Reyis had was Yore, and all Reyis knew was a distant relationship with Yore. Beyond that Reyis lived alone in mind, soul, and in existence.

    “Uh...so,” Kay looked at Kaja, “Wow!” he laughs nervously. “Just wow. Ethela’s dad was two timing. Huh.” he laughs nervously again and fidgets with his fingers.

    And he saw her half naked. Shit.

    Family
    Fortune finders
    A new beginning

    Em scribbled on empty space. He’d have to find some way of acquiring more paper soon. Staring at their beautiful leader.

    “I didn’t quite get your name,” Em told him, “And everyone seems so busy with newfound information.”

    Kaja looked at the green haired demi-fiend.

    “It’s Kaja,” he smiles, “And yours?”

    “Em,” he responds, “You’re human?”

    Kaja hand jerks without his consent. He takes a second. Then gives Em a nod.

    “I am an Aurah-ky, we are a new kind of human, but yes. I am sorry if my appearance is unsettling to you,” Kaja points to his journal, “You write?”

    “Unsettling is not the word I would choose, hypnotically beautiful I cannot keep my eyes off of you for more than a second,” he shuffles his journals, “I write poems. An angel, stands on steps, intoxicating beauty.”

    Kaja blushes and tries to hid his face. He’s feeling a little nervous.

    “Oh...please….I” Kaja looks away, “I am not….good with compliments. I am no angel.”

    Modesty a rare sight to see. For a leader he didn’t look like one in this second. Cowering, these were genuine emotions of embarrassment and humiliation. For a liar he was also a humble one. How curious, maybe there were the same kind of breed.

    Em looks around the town.

    “From a leader’s point of view, were these many lives an acceptable amount before you stepped in?” Em asked.

    His heart was still racing as he was trying to gain some composure. In his mind no lives should have been taken. If the choice of an Emperor required less death then it make everyone’s lives simpler. But demons were not humans nor were they half-fiends. He understood why half-fiends existed, they were the ones who could brace the power of a demon with the conscious of human morality. It seemed they needed more demons who were conscientious, not blood thirsty.

    “No extermination of life is acceptable,” Kaja told him.

    Em looked at Kaja.

    “An angel, fallen and corrupt, pure ideals,” Em responded, “Yet there seems to have been a lot of death. Curious. Either way I would like to provide you my services. I would like to help with whatever you have in store for those children. And maybe they will live under your guidance. We’ll see.”

    Kaja stares at Em.

    “I look forward to your assistance,”

    **
    “My arms are aching, ug” Ethela cursed to herself, shaking and shaking Reyis. After a while her eager shakes which had violently moved the half-fiend around all over the place, now became weak tremors of his shoulders because her body was aching. She had been rattling at him for almost an hour. “REYIS WAKE UP!” The excitement and uncertainty made her too damn impatient and without control of her impulses all she could do was helplessly shake Reyis’ body every which way till something happened.

    Dr. Yun, older perhaps than when she was when she was younger, had an odd resemblance to Kay, they shared the same black hair, hers lined with gray now, she had almond shaped eyes, and wore a tattered, old lab coat. Putting down her clipboard watching the girl shake Reyis to no avail. Crossing her legs together, she sighed.

    “It is in my professional medical advice to say he’s not going to recover very well with you shaking him,” Yun told her.

    “I’m shaking him because I need to. He’ll wake up eventually” Ethela huffed.

    “Yes, because every time a patient has come into my medical bay the best medicine I could give them is shaking them for several hours. You’re going to rattle his brains, that’s how people kill babies,” Yun tells her.
    “He’s little but he’s a grown man, lady!”

    “He has a hea-” but she paused when she saw Reyis beginning to stir.

    Why was the world moving so much? Ahava had healed him, right? Or did she leave him halfway complete? The world was jerking up and down, and it honestly made him feel a little sick. He barely caught flashes of white hair.

    “Pl-ea..se st-op,”

    “Reyis!” Ethela squealed, laying herself on top of him to embrace around his neck. Her white hair filled his face with suffocating locks. And it was going to make his face hot soon if he did pull them out of the way.

    Ethela was happy he came around? He wasn’t sure what was going on. She didn’t quite sound like herself. His hand shaking a little as he placed his hand her head to pat her.

    “I’m..okay,” he muttered. The demi-fiend female sighed and held onto Reyis a bit more calmly, contently. This new feeling felt great, belonging. Belonging without hatred or confusion.

    “Kaja told us something amazing” Ethela shared with a breathy tone touched with happiness. She pulled her body away and looked down at him with her more classic serious expression much like Reyis’.

    “Us?” Reyis asked.

    “We’re siblings, we share the same dad.”

    They? Share? A what? He had just woken up and it sounded like she said they shared the same father. Was this some kind of joke? Something to pull on him for taking her battle from her? Reyis just stared at her in disbelief. Ethela glared, he was passing out on her again. So, she began to shake him.

    “Reyis listen to me don’t pass out again my arms are too fucking tired!”

    “Don’t shake me again please, it’s uncomfortable,” he tells her, “I appreciate the enthusiasm, but telling me we’re related is a worse joke than Kay’s normally bad ones.” Ethela jerked her hands away and pulled them to her chest, looking rather offended.

    “Excuse me? What? You think being related to me is that bad?”

    She was….serious then? Reyis just stared at her. It was true they shared similar features, but that would mean that. He had more than dead people in his life. Yore and his mother. Did Yore know? Yore knew a lot of things. Reyis glared at her.

    “Who told you this?”

    “Kaja, I already said that” Ethela said impatiently. “We share the same dad, which I already said”

    Reyis tried to push her off. How long had Kaja known? Was he ever going to tell them? What did this mean? What did any of this mean? He couldn’t. He didn’t know how to believe it. He wasn’t sure how to feel about it. It was like the moment came into his life all over again with some kind of information that knocked down everything he knew about his life.

    “I need...to speak with Kaja,” he told her. Ethela stood up and huffed, and then she marched out of the room. Why couldn’t he accept it as she had? Wasn’t that feeling of belonging good enough?

    Yun had been watching the two of them impatiently tapping her pen to her clipboard. As Reyis got up the bed.

    “Young man I still need to exam you, you rarely ever come by to get-”

    And he walked off. Could never get any work done around here because her patients had legs. Maybe she needed to start binding them with rope to the beds till she was done.

    Where was Kaja? Where was he? Reyis stormed through the tunnel, he wasn’t even sure if he passed Ethela or not. This. This was. Crazy. Untrue. He wasn’t so sure. His mind was going through so many thoughts right now and his own heart was rushing. What? How could this be? No he wasn’t sure what questions he wanted to ask.

    But he was angry and confused and didn’t know how to take this. On one hand he wanted to choke Kaja out. On another hand he wanted answers. Spinning through the tunnels, he eventually found Kaja looking over some papers in the cafeteria.

    He slammed his hand down on the table.

    “How long did you know?” he yelled at Kaja.

    Kaja looked up to Reyis. He must be talking about his earlier slip hours ago. Oh dear. Kaja tried to smile.

    “Since Ethela arrived I had my suspicions, but my mother always believed your father was someone recently deployed on a mission. We don’t have exact birth records, but,” Kaja paused briefly, this comes out bad. He never wanted to lose Reyis trust, “when Ethela came. I had Yun look into it.”

    “You mean you checked on our DNA and didn’t tell us,” Reyis remarked.

    “Reyis I know how that may look and sound, but you two had only come into each other’s life. It was already difficult for you to realize Yore may have had family beyond yourself. I wanted you two form a natural bonding relationship before throwing on more things onto your plate. I wasn’t sure how either of you were going to handle it,” Kaja told him, “I never did it to hurt you. But you needed time to process things one at a time.”

    Reyis looked at Kaja. There were many things he wanted to do right now. Hurl him across the room, but he didn’t have Ethela’s strength and he was shorter than Kaja. He didn’t know how to register any of this.

    “Well!” Reyis shout.

    Kaja cocked his head to the side.

    “Yes?” Kaja asked.

    “Who is my father? Is he alive? Dead?” Reyis asked.

    “Presumed dead a long time ago Reyis,” Kaja told him.

    Figured. Reyis scowled at Kaja.

    “What am I supposed to do?” Reyis asked Kaja.

    Kaja smiles.

    “Well first you should sit down, I am impressed you came running in here when you just woke up, but you need to settle down,” Kaja told him, “Relax. I know this is a lot. But you can’t stress yourself out. The next thing is, what do you want to do?”

    Reyis sat down across from Kaja. His heart racing, but for the most part he was fine. No head rush or sharp pain.

    “I don’t know,” Reyis said, “I don’t know what to do. That demon at the town was stronger than me. And the moon phase. And this. What am I supposed to do? Please tell me.”

    Kaja sighed, but smiled tenderly, he gently brushed one of Rey’s bangs aside.

    “Do you want to be stronger?” Kaja asked him.

    He couldn’t keep being defeated. And there was Shoza to tend to. He would be the one to take his head.

    “Yes,” Reyis responded.

    “And you want to be there for the people?” Kaja asked him.

    “Yes,”

    “I know how you can, but you have to make me a promise,”

    “What is it?”

    “Do you trust me Reyis?”

    He had known Kaja for the last ten years, living in the proximity of the Aurah-ky’s struggle. Hearing the desperation of the Humans who rejected him. But he never doubted Kaja’s judgment. He had guided him well, lead him to important pieces of his life.

    “Yes,” Reyis responded.

    Kaja leaned into him. The side of Kaja’s profile to his ear, closer to him Kaja wasn’t just beautiful, his skin glowed, and he smelled sweet. It made Reyis demonic urge to kill him strong, but he kept that in check waiting for Kaja. He was uncertain what he was doing, as he held onto both his hands.

    ”This stays between us” Kaja whispers in his ear, ”Because you’re the only one who has chosen to truly sacrifice yourself for others.”

    “What does that me-” but Kaja put a delicate finger on his own’ lips all he heard was Kaja tell him, ssh.

    ”Will you fight in my name?” Kaja asked.

    Reyis wasn’t sure what that meant, but he nodded.

    ”If I ask you, to allow me to become Emperor, would you allow me?”

    “How?”

    Kaja shook his head.

    He flutter his heart flutter a little. A Human could become an Emperor? That meant a better future for everyone? Didn’t it? Kaja was the most kind and selfless person he knew.

    “Yes,” Reyis responded.

    ”Then I will tell you where you need to go” Kaja told him.

    In a brief second Reyis saw a glimpse of a circle form on his hand, it was blue in color and he stared at Kaja. The circle faded into his skin.

    “What is that?” Reyis asked.

    Kaja leaned away from Reyis.

    “A sign of a Demon King,” Kaja told him quietly, “I want to make the world a better place. To save humanity and all kinds of good. You have chosen your alignment. All Kings bind their soldiers through a contract, but through alignment. You have chosen Law.”

    He chose Law? Reyis looked at Kaja. But only Demon Kings were Demon, it was part of the name. He looked at Kaja.

    “I,” Reyis paused.

    Kaja smiled.

    “Go to Meteor City, there you will find the truth of existence and find the power you need,”

    “What about Ethela?” Reyis asked.

    “She has not chosen yet,” Kaja told him.

    “I can’t tell her?” Reyis asked.

    Kaja shook his head.

    “Unfortunately she would die,” Kaja told him, “That symbol protects you. It grants you protections those without don’t. Neutrality do not warrant strength, it warrants stagnant action. Berserk is needless violence, and bloodshed, it is convinced from power. Law and Good are persuaded by just action. It promotes active activity. You can strive to be strong alone, without an alignment, but it will never grant you a purpose. Humans and Demons are alike in that they share the need for purpose. Demons more than humans. The more you deny a purpose. The more useless and weak you are. Remember that.”

    Reyis stared at Kaja. He supposed he understood. Reyis always felt a call to action, but he didn’t know how to perform that call. Now he was told to go somewhere and find what that was. To be able to achieve such an action.

    “Okay, how long do I have?” Reyis asked.

    Kaja smiled.

    “Up to you, to decide how long you want to wait on someone who may not make the same decisions as you. You may be related, may share some traits, but not all of them can be raised to be a guardian. Desire and temptation raised the other one. You see it in her mannerisms. Disciplined restraint doesn’t work to convince her much. She’s better off aligning herself with a Berserk Demon King before the time comes, then someone of Law or Good Alignment, discipline, and self restraint is a trait of Law,”

    Before the time comes?

    “Before, what time?”

    “If a Demon doesn’t ascend to Emperor, the world you know, ceases to exist entirely,”

    The world will end.

    “The world will end then?”

    “It already had, it’s on limited life support, an Emperor refreshes the land, and brings it’s renewal based on the things they value,”

    “What do you value?”

    Kaja smiles.

    “Should have asked that before accepting the contract,” Kaja told him, “But if you must know. I value justice. Mercy. Law. I cannot stand the sight of blood and I cannot stand demons who needlessly kill the weak and innocent. That’s no show of power. That’s no display of strength. It’s just a lack of self discipline. It’s a lack of an existence if all you know is violence.”
    Reyis nodded.

    “I agree,” The sounds of two females fighting grew audible around the bend of a corner.

    “No, dear let it be!” Ahava was trying to dissuade Ethela but the demi-fiend was already marching out in the open.

    “What is this!? He’s my brother” Ethela stormed in, angry and entitled to her new, and only living family.

    Kaja smiles at her.

    “You can join him if you like,” Kaja told her.

    Reyis felt a little nervous looking at Ethela. He still wasn’t sure what to say. How to say it? He looked at Kaja, then back at Ethela.

    “I…” Reyis paused, how does this work? “You….surprised me earlier….being….your…” he fidgeted, “brother isn’t...bad. I just not sure how I can be. But either choice you make, I will….still keep you safe.” Ahava rushed to Ethela’s side and the half-naked warrior stared at Reyis a bit wide eyed.

    “I...like Kaja and I want to be at your side. Is that good enough?” Ethela asked Kaja, while her answer was very surface Kaja could feel the depths of her desire to be paired with Reyis and her yearning for a place of belonging not festered with cruelty and abuse where she had grown up. Much of this Ethela didn’t know, but the hedonistic woman was actually trying to find balance, the siblings were extreme opposites that perhaps could make a balance.

    He grabbed Ethela’s hands. He smiled at her.

    “Your soul is much different than your mind. I see a woman who is a strong brave warrior, who could be the people’s hero. But your mind doesn’t reflect that woman imprisoned inside,” Kaja told her, “I will accept -”

    “-I really want to kiss you right now” Ethela interjected, shaking her head at Kaja’s angelic appearance.

    “-oh..I..” Kaja remembered the last time, he still was unsure how to feel about it the last time? And he always thought his first kiss would have been with...no he had to stay on track right now, “accept your contract with me. When the time comes and you are much stronger than you were, we will fend this land from power crazed -”

    “-Can I kiss you?” Ethela’s eyes were dilating and he smelled a beautiful sweetness she never experienced in the dunes. It was consuming, even if he was a man.

    Kaja stared he was starting to feel even more embarrassed. He looked away nervously and shyly.

    “Oh…” Kaja murmured.

    Reyis sighed and walked up to Ethela putting a his hand on her mouth, “Shoosh.” he told her.
    “Kaja continue,” Reyis told him.

    He cleared his throat.

    “Right,” Kaja said, “I accept this contract and your words to be true. That when the day comes we fend the demons at this world’s gates and save this land from their horror.”

    As Reyis symbol before, a magical circle formed on Ethela’s hand before fading and disappearing into her skin.


    “Mmm! Mmm!” Ethela yanked her hand away to look at the bright colors but they faded faster than she could spend time staring at them. “Ommm” Her lips muffled in disappointment.

    Reyis removed his hand and sighed.

    “Welcome to the ranks of Law,” Kaja smiled again. Ahava clapped ceremoniously in the background.

    “Now, uhem, how does this work for me? Tehe” She asked with a flick of her hair.

    Kaja stared at Ahava.

    “You realize the price if I do?” Kaja asked her. Ahava smiled charmingly.

    “I was hoping for a workaround?” Ethela’s shoulders dropped and she went to grab Ahava’s small, soft hand.

    “What are you talking about?”

    Kaja sighed.

    “The way a demon becomes more powerful, is either by consuming the Essence of bigger things than them, which changes their shape. Or changing their alignment, which changes their form and personality. She would not be the Ahava you know,”

    “No. Not going to happen.” Ethela cut out sharply. She had a brother now, but...without Ahava…”Ahava is the one who helped me leave the dunes to get here” Ethela protested “Why can’t she just stay the way she is?” Ahava pleaded the same question with her fluttery purple eyes.

    Kaja stares at Ahava and Ethela. He sharply looks at Ahava.

    “I am going to say something quite frank,” he makes sure both of them are listening, “You are a demon, a fairy. I have met many. Ethela if you went out to the field and met any other fairy, they’d be the same as Ahava. Demons don’t change. Demons don’t have much of their own free will. They live baseless on instinct. And you Ahava foolishly believe you’re immortal or can’t die as long as Ethela will protect you. Hate to break this to you, but you will die. The stronger Ethela’s enemies become, the more you are the weakest link in the chain. You will lose Ahava in two ways. She changes for good because she accepted a new alignment, a new entity to embody. Or she dies. And there is no way of getting her back at all. Ahava is made of simply energy. She is not a person.”
    Ahava gasped dramatically. This was so insulting! She wasn’t just like the other fairy girls. And there were safe arrangements that could be made.

    “Love can work from a distance” Ahava rationalized, nuzzling herself into Ethela’s breasts. “Can’t it?” Ethela’s eyes were watering but holding back. Could it work from afar? She wanted her body, her softness, her pretty-ness when the nights were cold and empty. But she wouldn’t want Ahava to change and obviously, never, dead.

    “She loves me like a person…” Ethela mumbled.

    Kaja stared at Ethela.

    “What is love?” Kaja asked Ethela. Ethela held Ahava close.

    “Sex, talking, laughing, and helping each other”

    Oh dear, Kaja wish at these moments he could pass on the auras he saw. The feelings and not the feelings. He saw Ahava for what she was. He didn’t fault her. But he also saw her as a leech. It was hard to watch. It pained him to see it.

    “Except that you throw yourself into the fray more than she does. Love is not about one person sacrificing themselves for another,” he gives Reyis a look towards, “Love is of equivalence, Love is shared. Love is interconnected and the person you are connected with is not weaker than you nor stronger than you. They are your sole equal. Do you understand what I am saying? If Ahava loved you. If you loved Ahava, you might, maybe not in the right way. Then love is about equal sacrifice. If she loved you. Wanted to protect you. Keep you safe. We would not be having this conversation. She would be leaping into the fire with you and holding my hand and changing. And If she loved you. The spirit inside of her Essence, if it stayed in tact, would continue to still love you. But she seems to dodge it because all she wants is a perfectly good meat shield.”

    “I heal her wounds and those of any she calls friends. That is a sacrifice of my energy, excuse me” Ahava retorted. Ethela bit her lower lip, caught staring between her brother, Kaja and her girlfriend. Kaja could feel what the fear was: the fear of never finding love as the violent, wild, woman she was - from the arms of another woman. Ethela felt unlovable.

    Kaja stares at Ethela and holds her hands. He smiles at her tenderly.

    “Look at Reyis,” Kaja tells her, she does so, “He is your brother and he just told you he would do anything to protect you. He’s trying to adjust and learn, but he wants to love you. But he hurts inside, just like you do. He only knew one person’s love and everyone’s hate for him. It is difficult for him to understand, but I am certain one day he will love you.” Kaja pauses, “now look at me.” Ethela’s eyes gave way to tears, blurring her vision of Kaja. Ahava swallowed nervously and tugged on Ethela’s arm, the fairy was starting to get nervous.

    “Ah!” Ahava screamed in fright, summoning Ethela’s attention to stare at her with concern. Ethela’s eyes fell on the fairy but it was Kaja who wiped away her tears and brought back her vision to him. “Ethela!” Ahava cried out, looking at Reyis with a frown and staring at her pinned hands.

    “I want to learn who you are Ethela, sometimes that is hard, sometimes I sound like I am scolding or hate something about you,” Kaja told her tenderly, “But I love you. With all my heart. Even if we are not related. We have something that connects us together that makes us family of Essence. I want to help you. But I cannot help you, if you stay afraid.” He gives Reyis a look, “it’s the same for you. We are all scared of things.” Kaja turns back to her, “I’m scared to lose the world. Scared all the promises I made these people of keeping them safe, that I won’t be able to. I am scared of dying. I am scared of losing the people I love. I am tired of seeing so much pain and despair. But I need to keep moving forward. Even when something scary happens, and I am afraid. I cannot retreat. I must take a step forward and leave my fear behind. Not all of it. But I cannot let it define me. You cannot either. There will be people there that love you. Who will love you. There will people who won’t. But recognizing that is all part of growing up.”

    Those words were beautiful. Ethela did feel scared now, but knew there was nothing wrong with her being held by Kaja. But as he spoke of fear and the thing that scare her, it came out of nowhere. She didn’t understand. This situation wasn’t scary, shouldn’t be, there was no threat here - no one trying to destroy or kill her.

    “Why am I scared?” Ethela asked him, lost in his eyes.

    Kaja continued to give her a tender look.

    “Sometimes we aren’t always afraid of scary things. It’s not always seeing death that makes us scared. It’s inadequacy. It’s when we don’t feel loved, or when we feel some kind of emptiness in our world,” Kaja told her, “You want to be loved by others. You are scared no one will love you, but I will tell you this. That is very untrue. There will be people who will love you. But there will be others that don’t love you, but recognize that fear and hold you down. One represent the future of a new kind of love. Another represent the past of an old kind of love one formed by the fear that there would be no one else. But they aren’t correct, are they? There are more people who love you.”

    “...maybe”

    “Will you let go of me please? She needs me. Thank you” Ahava asked Reyis, the boldness of her lashes making the purple crystalline and her clear skin giving her such an appearance of innocence. “She needs companionship, can you not see it? What a woman can give her, me” Ahava smiled cheerfully.

    “If you loved her then you wouldn’t have tried to put your charm on me in the cave, this is your nature,” Reyis told her, “I don’t buy it for a second. You think that I believe that you can give Ethela something. You already have. But you have nothing else to give. I don’t know if you can even see you’re a vampire who leeches off of her. But she needs people who want her to grow. Not people who use her for their self subverient beliefs. Is it even a belief I wonder? Do you even know? Or are you a slave to your own behavior as well?” Ahava sighed.

    “Thank you for seeing me as a person” Ahava said with a exhale and closing of her eyes. “You ask cutting questions...cruel things…”

    Reyis gave her a stone faced stare.

    “You are a demon and not very good at pretending to be a person,” Reyis told her, “I already said I am not buying this time. And the more you try to manipulate me, the more you make me angry. And the angrier I feel the more I just want to cut you open and take your Essence. You can either start with telling the truth to Ethela about yourself. Or continue to lie and you will die for those lies.” Kaja sees Ethela about to turn her head, he needed a way to keep her attention even for a few short seconds. This was what would help her develop. Oh he felt his heart nervous, but he turned her head towards him as he kissed her on the lips only mirroring the first time she did it to him.

    Ethela’s heart raced and the demi-fiend leaned into Kaja, her long wispy white hair falling over her shoulders and meshing with the angel’s blonde strands. Ahava dropped her mask, seemingly genuinely afraid as she tried to jerk her hands out of Reyis’. The fairy turned to Ethela but the woman was lost in a lock embrace from Kaja. She glared at the man. He already had power, why did he need her? He didn’t love her, he was trying to change her.

    “You can’t accept who she is…” Ahava said to Reyis with fear and anger. “She’s wild, she’s to be a killer, and a monster. It is who she is, her blood is demonic. What is wrong with you? Let her be free, I do”

    Reyis stares at Ahava with an even stonier expression. He could see her essence gleaming on the cafeteria tables. He could hear her fair screams. He wanted to tear her wings off. It was taking a lot of effort not to just do so.

    “I can accept her, I will accept her” Reyis told Ahava, “When I was a boy. I was scared of a world much bigger than me. I felt vulnerable. Maybe sometimes I think I overcompensate because I am afraid of being weak. Of failing what Yore would want from me. Of what the people want from me. But unlike you, I am human and half-fiend and I have the unique capability of becoming stronger. Not just physically, but mentally. It’s not about changing Ethela. It’s about helping her find that unique capability that makes her human and demon. And not to be a demon like you.”

    “She was raised by a succubus, her own mother used her mind and her body for power. I was the most human thing she had. You have no idea what her demonic adoptive parent did to her and you judge me!”

    Reyis looked at Ahava.

    “You’re right I have no idea what that might have been like, Succubus are dangerous, and you may have been the most human thing she had in the past. But this is no longer her past. It is her future. You claim so much, but you can’t seem to know when she no longer needs to be held down by the past, but instead uplifted and encouraged to the next step,” Reyis paused, “Her past may be dark, but her future doesn’t have to be as murky.”

    She looked scared and judging him with a look. Everything about the manipulative, charismatic fairy was reduced to what she really was. A Fairy. There was nothing wrong with that Reyis had met fairies in the past, but none of them as toxic and as twisted as this one. She had used Ethela’s need for comfort to keep her safe. He had seen that in the cave when she tried to charm him into protecting her. If Ethela would die, she would move on.

    Reyis looked over to Kaja and Ethela, she was still for the most part distracted. Secretly extending out his claws he meant to thrust it into the fairies heart. He managed to do so piercing the fairy through the chest with his claws. Keeping her close to his body and not taking his hand out.

    He looked at Kaja, but saw Kay walking into the cafeteria looking sleepy. He wiped sleep from his eyes.
    “Ah what the fuck is going on here,” Kay caught Reyis eyes, “Because it looks like a fun party. Haha.” What the fuck Reyis? As he came up to Reyis he was thrusted the fairies body. Shit. He took his coat and wrapped it around the fairy making it look like she was leaning on him, and he laughed nervously, “Sheesh Reyis could be nicer to the girl. I’m going to uh….escort her...to get her pretty for Ethela.” Kay coughed and took the body out of the cafeteria.

    “Thank you…” Ethela sighed as her lips pulled away from Kaja’s and she wiped her eyes. Maybe she’d be okay...Ahava was quiet. She turned her head a moment to see Kay and Reyis taking care of her. “This has been hard on us” Ethela thought about it “Maybe I can leave her here...I...have to think more” Ethela crossed her arms at her breasts and look away from everyone. “Maybe I am a danger to her...she might die but…” Ethela sighed again.

    “Leaving her here might be for the best, so she can protect the people around here,” Reyis told her, “And you can work on getting stronger.”

    He shouldn’t have done that. But he couldn’t contain it any longer. He believed Demons and Humans could live together, but only if they didn’t harm each other. Harm did not have to be physical, it could be mental. But this was probably not the best course of action, it was inefficient at best. But he tried to conceal the heart from Ethela.

    “Do you want to get out somewhere Ethela? We could go somewhere up in the Sanctum later to celebrate becoming siblings,” Reyis told her. Ethela wiped her eyes which had slowed their tears and looked at Reyis.

    “Yeah, could be a good idea” She gave him a small smile and looked around for Ahava. “Oh” Yeah, Kay took her. She’d see her tonight.

    “You should take a shower and I will too, before then,” Reyis told her, “Then we’ll go to Meteor City.”

    “Already?” Ethela asked a little surprised, staring at Kaja for confirmation. The man nodded and Ethela frowned. “I need to tell Ahava goodbye but…” All the things everyone said about their relationship. She didn’t want to leave her with things tense like that, but there was some doubt now...it felt bad.

    “She said, she forgives you and had a big surprise for you. It be bad luck to her before her surprise,” Reyis tells her.

    Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.

    Reyis’ sister swept her ample hair behind her and coughed, clearing her throat. For the first time she didn’t feel like running to Ahava right now. She actually, wanted to be here with Reyis. For help figuring it out she looked to Kaja.

    “And Reyis is part of the surprise,” Kaja said, “Let’s get you into something nice? I can give you a special outfit and do your hair.”

    “What am I? Not woman enough for you?”

    Kaja played with some of his accessories.
    “Sometimes it’s nice to be flashy,” Kaja tells her with a smile, “Plus a lot of my accessories and clothes are shiny.”

    “Oh? They even sparkle when you shake them around?”

    “Yes,” Ethela’s eyes flickered and she smiled, her crying face fading away into the past.

    “Will you put a few on for me” she asked suggestively with a flash of her brows.

    “Yes,”

    He takes her hand starts to lead her out of the cafeteria. Before leaving entirely he flashes Reyis a look, tell her. Then leads her into the hallway.

    “You are very bad at lying,” Em says sitting in the corner of the cafeteria. Quite exciting events that occurred today.

    “Shit! How long have you been here?” Reyis asked, sliding down and sitting. Staring at Ahava’s heart.

    “Enough to hear the angelic leader wants to be demon emperor, you and the girl got flashy contracts, and you killed the fairy demon. It was quite riveting. Only stuff you’d see in a novel perhaps,” Em tells him, “Here I was going to ask for protection from your leader. And now everyone’s left. What are you going to tell her? How are you going to tell her? Your lives are so interesting to watch.”

    So he heard all of it. Reyis sighed crushing the heart and absorbing some of the Essence.

    “I don’t know where to begin, we were at first acquainted and unrelated, but we both had the same special someone. Now we’re family, and related. And I killed the only chain to her past,”

    “Maybe that’s a good thing, but you’ll need a better lie,”[/COLOR]

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •