Lonely Island Inn

[NicTei]

Alright, some of you may already know what's going up here, but I'm not going to say.  It'll actually be up sometime today, as far as I know, but I'd still like to keep you guessing.  Not that I want you to do that here; I'd prefer if you did it elsewhere.  I don't want my topic loaded up before I can upload anything.
   Night Abyssion has become bored with the life he leads at the aptly named Lonely Island Inn.  Even with his foster father and tutor Old Tim, things are going too slow for him.  But when he decides to explore the strange and foreboding Monolith, his perspective is quickly changed, and he will have to fight to make his way home again.

Table of Contents
Prologue:  Journal Entry 1
Chapter 1:  Old Tim
Chapter 2:  The Monolith
Chapter 3:  Seledonia
Chapter 4:  The High Council
Chapter 5:  Luna
Chapter 6:  Dark Side of the Moon
Chapter 7:  The Valley
Chapter 8:  A Narrow Miss
Chapter 9:  Doppelganger

[Chinaren]

Sorry, been a bit busy.  I'll catch up with this soon. 

[Angel]

I really liked the last chapter of this!
And I would like to point out I would have replied if I hadn't been chucked off the computer by my sister. -grumbles incoherently-
I liked the whole thing with her going and killing everyone! Gutta love a bit o phyco killing! INteresting how you had her 'putting them to sleep'. That made me wonder about her past a lot and what would cause her to think that.

[NicTei]

Chapter seven is at the end of six pages right now; it should be done either today or tomorrow, depending on how much time I get to work on it.

[NicTei]

   Light, Night, and Luna burst into the crowded bar just as another loud thunderclap echoed around the valley, the fact that the door was open making it sound much louder to the patrons of the bar, who turned around to look at the new arrivals.  After a while, however, they turned back to their drinks and conversations, paying little attention to the three kids that had just entered into their midst.  Night was the first to voice the observation that all three of them had made, whispering to Light.

“They’re all elves,” he muttered, and Light nodded.

“We must be in Pearl Valley, then,” the Terraphim replied, making his way to a table in the back.

“Pearl Valley?  Never heard of it,” Night remarked before he could stop himself.

“Of course you’ve not heard of it; you’ve lived on the other side of the world for most of your life,” Light retorted as he sat at the table.

   The leather-lined seats gave off various squeaking noises as the sopping wet trio sat down, Night staying as far away from Luna as he possibly could, though the blood had been washed off in the rain.  She didn’t seem to notice; she was too busy inspecting everyone in the room, having never seen elves before.  Light was leaning back in his chair, surveying the room cautiously and glaring at anyone that turned to look at them in turn.  Finally a waitress came to their table, white teeth almost shining as she smiled warmly at them.

“What can I get you, dears?” she asked, pulling out a small notepad.

“Wait,” she said, cutting Night off, “perhaps you’d be more comfortable if you were dry?  I’ll see to that first, then.”

   Waving her hand while muttering a few words in the flowing, enchanting tongue of the Fair Folk, Night began to feel warm, the feeling spreading from the top of his head to his toes.  All of their clothes made slight crackling noises as they dried out almost instantaneously, leaving the trio far more comfortable than they had been when they came in.  The waitress beamed at them.

“That’s better!  Now, what would you like?” she asked, pulling a quill out from behind her ear and brushing some of her bright golden hair out of her face.

“I’ll just take some water, I guess,” Night replied, looking away shyly from her kind smile.

“Water,” Luna replied absentmindedly, still looking at the other patrons.

“I’ll take a glass of Vin Pearl,” Light replied, his usually cold glare softening slightly.

“Okay, and what year would you prefer; 1865, 1836, or 504?” the waitress inquired.

“Well, they’re all rather new…I’ll try a bottle of 504,” Light replied.

   The waitress nodded and walked off, leaving the three to themselves for a moment.

“What was it that you ordered?” Night asked, curious.

“Pearl Wine,” Light replied, glaring at an elf that was looking at them curiously.

“At your age?  Old Tim wouldn’t let any customers under 25 have any kind of alcohol,” Night answered, confused.

“Elves don’t often take to limiting things to age; they’re immortal, after all.  They believe that everyone should live their lives to the fullest, especially since they have until the world ends to do so,” Light answered.  “They take pity on mortals like you.”

“But…the wine you ordered was from over 1500 years ago!  How could they possibly have that?” Night asked.

“When you don’t die, you tend to keep things around,” Light replied, sounding almost amused.

“Wait…did you say ‘mortals like us’ earlier?” Night asked.

   Before Light could reply, the waitress returned, a tray on her hand that was laden with three glasses.  Placing the two glasses of water in front of Night and Luna, she set the other glass in front of Light; it was full of a pearl-colored liquid that gave off a heavenly aroma.  Light swirled it around in the glass for a few moments before taking a sip.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Night said after a moment of silence, “why is this place named ‘Pearl Valley’?  We’re far from the sea…”

“Remind me to show you in the morning,” Light replied, “but keep in mind that you wanted to know.”

   Night was about to say that didn’t sound promising, but at that moment the door was thrown open again.  Two figures, one slight and short and one wide and tall, stepped in, both covered in black cloaks with a strange emblem on the clasp; it was a white shield with a small circle on it, the circle inscribed around a shape reminiscent of a ‘D’ with the straight side colored red; the crest of the Order that Light hated so much.

“Great.  And here I was hoping for even a slight reprieve from violence,” Light muttered.

“What do you mean?” Night asked quietly, looking at the two strangers.

“Any writer will tell you that a story that’s nothing but violence cannot advance, and recently I’ve been thinking that the author of current events has been replaced with an amateur,” Light replied, garnering a confused look from Night and Luna.

   Light’s predictions of violence weren’t to come true, however, as the two members of the Order simply looked around and left, never even taking off their hoods.  It was then that Night saw that everyone’s hands were on their weapons; some elves had been reaching for arrows, and others had been gripping the handles of concealed daggers.  A deadly silence had fallen in that time, but the normal clamor of the crowded bar returned after a few seconds, when it became apparent that the Order members weren’t returning.

“So, it seems that they’ve made enemies of the elves here, as well,” Light remarked with a smirk.

“They’ve made enemies of other elves, too?” Night asked.

“I said before that the elves believe in living life to the fullest?  Well, many of them also have a complex system of gods based on the very real spirits of the elements, not unlike the Druids, but a little less…obsessive,” Light replied.  “When it came to the Order announcing they would kill the elves’ gods, however, the elves weren’t quite happy with that idea.”

“I see,” Night said, only understanding half of what was said.

“No you don’t, but it’s a start,” Light sighed, taking another sip of his wine.

“Um…Light?” Night suddenly asked.

“What now?” Light replied.

“Where’d Luna go?”

   Nearly choking on his wine, Light looked to where Luna had been and saw that it was indeed empty.  Lifting the tablecloth, he checked under the table, but only found a flyer for ‘Leah LaVine’s Sexy Servant Services.’  Snorting in disgust, he sat back up and scanned the bar.

“Where’d she go?” he muttered.

“There she is!” Night said, pointing to the bar.

   Luna was, indeed, where Night had seen her; it was hard to miss the teenage girl standing on the bar looking at the bottles lined above it, after all.  After doing a perfect ‘facepalm,’ Light got to his feet and started towards her, uttering a ‘tsk’ when he saw that at least one young-looking elf was taking advantage of the perfect up-skirt shot.  Pulling the offending party back, he got Luna’s attention by saying her name several times, he motioned for her to come down.

“Blood,” she said, pointing towards one of the bottles.

“Excuse me; can you get her down from there?  We don’t let even our regular customers on the bar, you see, and she’s making them jealous,” the bartender asked sarcastically.

“Of course, sir,” Light replied coldly.

   It took a little bit of coaxing, but Luna finally got off the counter, jumping down and landing almost silently.  Some of the elves stared at her as she walked past, but Light stood in front of her protectively.  When they got back to the table, Night took Light aside.

“Couldn’t you have just let the crazy killer-!”

“Careful what you say,” Light interrupted, looking at the elves. “They’ve got very keen ears.”

“Oh, I guess I’d forgotten about that,” Night said, looking to the floor.

“How’d you recognize them as elves, anyways?” Light asked.  “I thought you’d lived on the other side of Inverse.  Unless Old Tim’s an elf?”

“No, he’s human through and through,” Night replied.  “We just had one elf pass through a year or two ago.”

“Do your guests ever say how they got through the teleport barrier?” Light inquired.

“I never even knew that there was a teleport barrier.  Old Tim tried to explain it to me once, but I was more intent on going out to watch the sky-jellies,” Night answered.

“I see.  I think it’s time we found lodging for the night; it’s been a while since I’ve slept on an actual bed,” Light said, looking into his empty wine glass.

“Are you three done?  If you need to stay the night, there’re rooms upstairs.  Last I checked, there was one left,” the waitress said, appearing as if out of nowhere.

“Thank you, miss,” Light replied, nodding and reaching for his coins.

“Oh, you needn’t pay; the water was free, and the cook said that anyone who chose the 504 Vin Pearl over the beer had better taste than any of the other passersby he’d seen, so it was on the house,” the waitress said, smiling.

“Well, thank you again,” Light repeated, a little thrown off.

“You’re welcome.  The stairs to the rooms are just through there; lodging is free as well,” she answered, pointing towards the end of the bar and nodding to them in turn before walking off.

   Light began to walk in the direction she had pointed to, but Night stopped him.

“Aren’t you going to give her a tip?” he asked.

“The Fair Folk are proud, especially the elves; she would probably rather get a job with Leah LeVine than take a tip,” Light answered as he started walking again.

“Who?” Night asked, confused.

“Nevermind,” Light muttered as he ascended the wooden stairs to the quarters.

“You’ll be in room 8,” the clerk said, handing them a key.

   Light took the key and walked briskly down the hallway, inserting it into the keyhole on the doorknob of the room with a golden ‘8’ nailed onto it.  Pushing it open, he ushered the other two in before stepping in himself, closing it and locking it behind him.  Once inside, however, they noticed a problem; there were only two beds.

“Well, at least there was one more than I’d expected,” Light muttered to himself.

“Who gets which bed?” Night asked.

   It appeared that Luna wasn’t going to wait for Light’s answer; she ran across the room and jumped onto the farthest bed, rolling around on it almost like a dog would before finally pulling the covers back and climbing in.  Mere seconds later, she appeared to be asleep.  Pushing Night further into the room, Light pointed at the other bed.  Night looked at him.

“What, you don’t want it?  Are you…are you going to sleep with Luna!?” he asked, looking shocked.

“Good Lord, no!” Light hissed.

“So where are you going to sleep?”

“I’m not; I’ll keep watch,” Light answered.

   Night didn’t ask; he simply shrugged and climbed onto the bed, gasping in shock at how soft the feather-stuffed mattress was compared to the old, straw-filled mattress he’d slept on back at the Inn.  Like Luna, he was asleep quickly, the strain of the day and the fact that he’d not slept on a bed since he came to this side of the planet coming together to knock him out in seconds.  As he started to snore, Light rolled his eyes, then pulled the only wooden chair in the room to the side of the window and sat down, crossing his arms and bowing his head slightly.

{+}

“Stephan, I swear if you’re wrong, I’m wringing your neck.”

   The three knights and Stephan were now riding through the same storm system that was just preparing to leave Pearl Valley as they approached the low-lying land from the opposite side, miles away from the mountain that held Orband and the elf-populated city that sat at its foot.  The sight that met them as they surveyed the land from a small cliff was as disheartening as it was awesome; a sea of trees that stretched until they couldn’t see it anymore through the veil of the rain, the other end only becoming visible when a flash of lightning made the entire landscape as bright as day.

“I’m pretty sure the book said Orband.  We’ll make a brief stop in the elf colony before heading into the mountain,” Stephan answered over a loud roll of thunder.

“Can we just get going please?” Rin shouted over the storm.  “I don’t want to be out here longer than we have to, especially in this weather!”

   Not waiting for the answer, Quix turned his horse around and started down the rocky path that led into the green sea.  Vance was quick to follow, and then Rin took off after him.  Only Stephan remained on the cliff, looking grimly out at the trees and lightning.  Shaking his head as if to clear a thought away, he turned and set out after the other three; he didn’t want to be left behind.

{+}

   Night was in the middle of a rather interesting dream in which he was chasing a flying cake around the Lonely Island Inn in the dead of night while being followed by a miniature Maeteor when he was suddenly awakened by a strange sound.  At first he thought it was an enemy, so he clenched his fists and tensed his wings, but as he listened again, he realized that it was music; a very clear, yet also fragile whistling noise, coming from the other side of the room.

   Despite his desire to sit up and see where it was coming from, he couldn’t move; it was as if he was paralyzed.  With no other option, he sat and listened, and though there was only the whistling noise, he could’ve sworn he heard an accompanying harmony played on a lute or harp.  Finally finding the power to move, he sat up and turned around as quietly as he could.

   With his chair back on two legs with his back resting on the wall, Light sat by the window, a small object in his hands.  Upon closer inspection, Night saw that it was an ocarina; the same elf that he’d been telling Light about earlier had played one for him once.  The difference was that the elf had been playing a traditional elven melody, happy and light.  What Light was playing, however, put the young Rayven on the verge of tears; it was like a dirge, laced with sadness and regret.

   At length, Light hit what Night assumed to be the final note, for it was long and drawn out.  His assumptions were correct; after the Terraphim had released the held pitch, he simply sat there, looking out the window, with the ocarina still in his hands.  Night realized that it would be a good time to stop staring and started to lay back down as slowly and quietly as he could, but at the last minute one of the bedsprings creaked.

   Everything fell completely silent.  Glancing back at Light from his half-sitting, half-laying position, he saw that the Terraphim was indeed glaring at him, and he cursed under his breath.  Strangely, Light didn’t say anything, but just sat there quietly by the window.  At length, Night spoke.

“Er…I just woke up?” he tried.

“How much did you hear?” Light asked coldly, the temperature in the room seeming to drop.

“Pretty much all of it,” Night replied, grimacing.

   More silence followed this statement, and when it became apparent that Light wasn’t going to say any more on the subject, Night laid back down and feigned being asleep.  Fortunately for his act, he was still rather tired, and sleep came easily, even with the thought that Light, the most powerful person he’d come into contact with so far, was apparently angry at him.  From there, his dreams seemed to resume, though now there was an ocarina-playing Terraphim sitting on the front porch of the Inn watching the chase scene.

{+}

   Vance was the first of the party of four to become aware of the fact that a strange silence had fallen over the forest, through which the faint sound of a flute of some sort could be heard.  Motioning for the others to stop, they listened for a moment, Quix fidgeting impatiently in his saddle for them to get moving again and Stephan and Rin looking thoughtfully into the distance as the music played.  They started moving again after a moment, but even with the sounds of their mount’s hooves cracking the occasional twig on the rugged path through the endless trees, they could hear the music carrying on the slight breeze, as the storm had abated and the moon was out, full and shining through the gaps between the wet leaves.

“It’s so sad,” Rin breathed as they went on.

“It’s just a song, Rin,” Vance remarked, eyes scanning the trees for any signs of enemies.

“She’s right; I believe it’s a dirge from the realm of the Spirit of Water,” Stephan replied.

“Don’t tell me; the Spirits have their own minstrels?  What would a Spirit need a dirge for, anyways?  They’re immortal, aren’t they?” Quix replied.

“Do you just love to hear the sound of your own voice, or what?” Vance snapped, irritated by the noise.

“Yeah,” Quix replied with a happy grin.

“To correct you, Quix, it’s only the Spirit of Water that would have anything to do with music in its realm; it’s sort of its secondary medium, if you know what I mean,” Stephan answered.

“I have absolutely no idea what in the world you’re talking about,” Quix said in a monotone voice for whatever strange effect he thought it would add.

“It would seem that all of the Spirits have their secondary mediums, not just the elements.  For instance, Water is also Music, Fire is War or Battle, Wind is Regeneration, Light is Love, Darkness is Hatred, and so on,” Stephan replied.

“What about Earth?” Quix asked, with the air of someone giving trivia.

“Earth is Destruction,” Stephan answered.

“Nature?”

“Nature is the Arts,” Stephan replied confidently.

“How about…Metal?”

Stephan’s confident look faded.  “I…I…don’t know…” he murmured.

“Ooh, that’s a trick question!  Metal isn’t an officially recognized element as its Spirit hasn’t been found, nor has it appeared to anyone!  I’m afraid you didn’t win the grand prize of this brand new tree,” Quix answered, pointing to a sapling just off to his right as they passed.

“Oh, shut up…” Stephan muttered.

“Hold on, it appears you’ve got a chance to redeem yourself!  Just answer what the so-called ‘secondary medium’ of the element Lightning is, and you’re saved!” Quix replied.

“I told you to shut up!” Stephan roared.

“For your information,” he added after a moment of silence, “the secondary medium of Lightning happens to be Loyalty.”

“Knew you couldn’t resist showing off your knowledge,” Quix replied with a smug grin.

   The four figures rode on in silence for a while, listening to the music from the ocarina, which still hadn’t stopped.  At length, it reached the final note, and then disappeared altogether.  Quix started to clap, but Vance slapped him over the back of the head.  With his gauntlet on, the action was substantial motivation for the other knight to behave himself.

   Out of the blue, a swarm of small, black creatures exploded from the trees on either side of the path, hurtling up into the air before dive-bombing the four travelers.  Quix shouted out and put his helmet on, and Rin and Vance followed, drawing their swords.  Muttering something about getting full plate armor, Stephan covered his head with his hood and got as low as he could on his horse, following the other three as they urged their horses to go faster.

“What are they!?” Quix shouted.

   In response, Vance grabbed one out of the air and hurled it at him.  Upon catching it, Quix saw that it was a strange-looking creature, a hybrid of a bird and a plant.  Its wings were leaves, and it had a beak-like formation at the front of its body, roots underneath it attaching to Quix’s fingers as its beak snapped at them.  Ripping it off, the knight threw it into the woods.

“They may be an evolution of the Diverweed,” Stephan bellowed, “or they may be a direct result of a Doppelganger plant, if there’s one in this forest somewhere!”

   Rin shuddered at the thought of the oppressive, giant flower.  It would grab anything near it and devour it via its blossom; though it looked like an exotic flower, it was actually a large mouth.  Whatever it ate, it would then copy through some strange DNA coding.  The copies would then be released from inside it by way of strange buds that looked like eggs.  At one time, she and the other two knights had fought an army of creatures made in this fashion, among them humans and even a werewolf.  She’d been wary of any plant larger than herself ever since.

“I see lights up ahead!” Vance shouted, pointing just before them.

   As suddenly as the barrage of plant-bird hybrids had started, however, it stopped, the creatures disappearing once more into the trees.  Vance looked around, expecting something bigger and meaner to come at them, but the forest was silent once more, the only sound being the occasional chirp of a cricket.  Removing his helmet, he looked at the other three, who had managed to escape the attack without too much damage.

“And here I was worried that we’d have a boring trip,” Quix said with an amused smile.

{+}

   Light looked out the window at the full moon, and the droplets of water that reflected it off the leaves of the trees.  At a whim, he let his wings out and leaped out the window, flying into the air to view the forest from above.  As he might’ve suspected, it sparkled like the surface of a lake in the light of the luminescent orb.

   A sudden twinge in his right hand brought him out of his thoughts, and he slipped of his glove to look at it.  He’d been hiding it since he’d blocked the lightning, and now that he took the time to inspect it, he saw that there was definitely some damage.  The skin had blackened, and smelled burnt.  Grimacing as he slid the glove back on, he was glad he’d taken his glove off before intercepting the strike.

“Such an idiot,” he muttered, flexing his fingers.

   Movement below, however, caught his eye and took his mind off of his injury.  There were four figures on horseback rapidly approaching the elf colony.  He debated flying down to check out the situation, but stopped when he saw that three of them were holding swords.  Returning to the room, he checked to make sure that the other two were asleep before setting his chair by the door, sitting there with his hand on the pommel of the sword strapped horizontally to his back.

   If anyone was going to get in, it wasn’t going to be without a fight.

[Chinaren]

Pretty decent read there NiceT.  There are a couple of sentences that are a bit convoluted and could use a rework, and I'm not sure about 'modern' words like 'facepalm' and DNA mixed in, but I guess there were flying robots...

And...

“Any writer will tell you that a story that’s nothing but violence cannot advance, and recently I’ve been thinking that the author of current events has been replaced with an amateur,”

 

[NicTei]

Any examples of sentences that need reworking?  And if you're not sure about the 'modern' words in this, just wait until later on when they enter a certain city (or series of cities).

Re:"Any writer...replaced with an amateur."
I enjoy sticking a random bit of humor in my stories, as evidenced here, and I just decided that I'd poke fun at myself while I was at it.

[Chinaren]

Any examples of sentences that need reworking? 

Well, I seem to remember two that stood out, but without digging through it all again, the first sentence...

  Light, Night, and Luna burst into the crowded bar just as another loud thunderclap echoed around the valley, the fact that the door was open making it sound much louder to the patrons of the bar, who turned around to look at the new arrivals.

...it's a but 'run on'y.  Perhaps if you split it into two, with the second starting just after 'valley'.

Also, reading it again, I'd probably change 'making it sound' to 'made it sound'.     MMmm. 

[NicTei]

Okay, thanks.  I'll go in and change that on the Word Doc when I've got the time.  Working on HeartEater right now, and I don't want to stop doing that to fix the error in something else.

Even though you're talking to about fifty people while you're supposed to be writing.

That's an exaggeration!
...
It's more like thirty-two.

[NicTei]

Changed the name of Chapter Eight from 'Four Plus Three' to 'A Narrow Miss.'

Don't know why I felt I had to inform you of that, but I did.  And it gets me groats.

And I just changed the sentence Chinaren pointed out.

[Chinaren]

And I just changed the sentence Chinaren pointed out.

That's good, but there are others too, go through it and find them!

[NicTei]

I've got the strange feeling that Light's becoming the main character of this one, which was something that I wasn't going to do...any ideas how to counter this?  I thought of pulling Light out of the group, but the only way to do that without getting the other two hopelessly lost would be introducing another character out of the order I'd decided on.

Maybe I'm just imagining it.  Whatever.  Forget I mentioned it.

[Chinaren]

Just make sure you focus more on the feelings and thoughts of Night as they go along.  It's okay to have Light do stuff, but just do it from Night's POV.

[Saint]

Yeah, I'd say the same.  Make sure it's definitely Night watching Light do the things, and not the reader having to follow him.

[NicTei]

Okay, thanks for stating the obvious.

You did ask for help...

Shut your glowing piehole.

At any rate, I've got a good place to change to Night's viewpoint, because I've also noticed that Night hasn't done any of the fighting he was training so hard for in the first chapter or two.

Hehehe...

[Saint]

Shut your glowing piehole.

FREEZE!

[NicTei]

Sorry about the delays on this; I seem to be taking requests lately.   I've got so many personal projects going right now that I'll be all written-out by the time I get through them all and back to this.  I've got a pageful of them...  Ah well.  Best not waste time complaining about it, then.

[NicTei]

   Morning found Light still at the door, resting his head on his hand on the arm chair and apparently asleep.  When the clerk walked by and rapped on the door, however, he was instantly up, his hand gripping his sword tightly, preparing to draw it.  Realizing that it was just the wake-up call he relaxed and moved the chair back to its place in the corner, hoping he could get some sort of coffee to keep himself awake before Luna and Night woke up.

   Yawning, he made his way to the door.  As he stepped out into the hallway, he moved out of the clerk’s way before walking down the stairs and back into the bar.  Surprisingly, there were still three of last night’s patrons sitting at the tables and on the bar stools, including the young looking elf that he had pulled away from Luna the night before.

   He took a seat at the same table they’d sat at last night, taking the chair closest to the wall so that he could watch the rest of the room.  As he watched, the three knights from the night before walked in, sans the armor, though the fourth member of their little group was still wearing a hooded cloak.  Light moved his seat back a little so that he was hidden by a wood-woven screen that was positioned on top of the final booth, mere feet away from his table.  To his relief, they sat at the bar stools; only if they got up and walked to one of the tables adjacent to his would they be able to see him.

“Good morning!  Did you sleep well last night?”

   Light gave a slight jump at the voice; he hadn’t noticed that the same waitress that had waited on them last night was standing in front of him, beaming.  Holding back a yawn, he nodded.

“Shall I assume your friends will be down soon?” she asked.

“Last time I saw them they were asleep,” Light replied.

“Well, at least I can wait on you,” she said with a smile.  “What would you like this morning?”

“Since it’s a little early for wine, I wouldn’t mind a cup of coffee if you’ve got it,” Light answered.

“Right away,” the waitress nodded, walking off.

   Out of the blue there was a commotion up at the bar.  Looking through the wooden screen, he saw that one of the knights, the tallest of the three, was lifting the young elf by his collar.  The Terraphim guessed that the elf had said something to their female companion, and that her friend wasn’t too happy about it.

   The cloaked figure put his hand on the knight’s shoulder, and he dropped the elf, who collapsed to the floor in a fit of drunken giggling.  Light rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to the waitress, who had brought him his cup of coffee.  Thanking her, he took a sip and set it down, the hot liquid stinging his tongue and lips but gradually erasing his fatigue.

   When he noticed that the perverted elf was staggering towards him, he groaned inwardly, but kept his face devoid of expression.  Slumping onto a chair, the elf pulled right up beside him and looked at the waitress, swaying from side-to-side as an effect of the alcohol he’d consumed.  Light let a brief expression of disgust pass his face, but it disappeared when the elf looked to him.

“How’d you do it?” he asked unevenly.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Light responded as if he were talking to something that had come from the gutter.

“The waitress, mate!  Do you know how long I’ve been trying to get her to come up to my room with me?  She won’t even smile at me!  But here you are, getting her to smile at you!” he practically yelled into Light’s ears.

“Go away,” Light said in as polite a tone as he could muster.

“Seriously, mate, if you could get her and that lady knight over there into-!”

   The unfortunate elf never got to finish his sentence.  If it hadn’t been for the muffled thud that seemed to resonate through the bar when he hit the floor, no one would’ve known he’d been knocked out; Light’s gloved fist barely made a sound as it impacted the side of his head.  As luck would have it, though, the knights noticed and stood, making their way towards him.  Cursing into his cup of coffee, Light kept his face down as they approached.

“Is there a problem over here?” the tall one asked, his attempts at eye contact with the Terraphim rebuffed.

“No,” Light answered coldly.

“Then why is that,” the knight retorted, pointing at the elf, “on the floor?”

“I grew weary of him, so I encouraged him to take a nap,” Light answered, his words dripping with sarcasm.  “Is that such a bad thing?”

“Assault is a crime punishable by World Law,” the knight answered dangerously, his hand on his sword.

“Isn’t that peachy?” Light muttered.

“Vance, just leave the guy alone; he was doing us all a favor,” the smaller male knight said to his companion.

   Light froze.  Like virtually everyone else, he’d heard of the many alleged feats of the so-called ‘Divine Trio,’ three knights by the names of Vance, Rin, and Quix.  It wasn’t hard for him to put two and two together; he knew who the three in front of him were, and also that the last thing he wanted to do was start a conflict.

“He broke World Law; he should be reprimanded,” Vance growled at Quix.

“You’re just angry because Stephan made us stop here,” Quix retorted.

“We shouldn’t be resting, we should be finding…whatever his name was,” Vance shot back, rounding on his companion.

“Light Phaeton, I believe,” Rin interrupted.

   Light had to fight hard to keep the shock off of his face.  Why would the Divine Trio be looking for him?  Were they agents of Chasiah?  Finishing his coffee quickly, he stood.

“Well, I must be going,” he said.

“Just hold on!” Vance roared.

“Do you want me to pay a fine, or what?  I’ve got places to go; I’m not going to wait around for this letch to wake up just so I can apologize,” Light retorted.

Vance started to say something, but Rin cut him off.  “That’s alright; you can go,” she said, glaring at her companion.

“Thank you,” Light replied, nodding to her before walking swiftly away.

{+}

   Night slowly opened his eyes, groaning as he stretched.  Two deep emerald eyes were right in front of his face, startling him to the point of him screaming louder than was necessary.  Luna pulled back, smirking at him as she sat up.  There was a slight awkward silence as Night realized she was sitting on him, but he broke it by yelling again and pushing her off, rolling over to the floor on the other side of the bed.

   As she fell off the edge of the bed, Luna’s head hit one of the posts situated at each corner, a loud ‘thwack’ falling on Night’s ears.  Horrified, Night leaped over the bed, nearly landing on her but guiding his fall with his wings swift enough to avoid further injury.  Crouching down over her, he lifted her slightly.

“Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead!” he muttered, looking for a pulse.

   When he found one, he sighed with relief, almost dropping her back to floor when he remembered that she’d massacred everyone in Orband the night before.  It was then that he noticed a strange, circular mark in her forehead, the skin there marginally darker than the rest of her skin, almost like a scar.  At first he wasn’t sure he’d seen it, but when he brushed her bangs away from her forehead and looked again, he saw it once more.

   Suddenly she jolted awake, arms wrapping around him as she pulled herself up.  She lifted him into the air, an angry, evil gleam in her eyes.  With a flick of her wrist, he was sent flying towards the wall, though he stopped himself with his wings.  Before she could make another move, Light had walked in through the door and she turned his attention to him, charging at him and throwing a powerful punch.

   Through some impossible means, the Terraphim dodged the devastating blow, moving his head to the side seconds before it impacted.  He saw the look in her eyes and knew that this was what had slaughtered the dwarves, though he didn’t have much time to think about it; she had brought her foot up into his side, knocking him into the wall.  By this time, Night was looking around for something that he could use as a weapon, but saw nothing.

   A shadow fell over him and he looked up.  Luna was standing over him, glaring down with murderous intent as she raised her hand into the air, meaning to bring it down on his head.  He closed his eyes, but felt nothing.  Opening them again, he saw that Light was standing behind her, his wings out and his hand around her wrist.  She turned around to hit him, but he grabbed her other hand.

“Calm down,” he commanded, the authority in his voice causing Night to nod before he realized he was talking to Luna.

   Strangely, she seemed to go limp for a second before standing upright again, the malice gone from her eyes.  For a moment she looked confused, but when Light let her go, she simply shrugged and sat on the edge of her bed, cracking her neck and knuckles.  Light took Night aside, still looking at her cautiously.

“Any idea what triggered it?” he asked.

“Yeah.  She scared me when I was in bed, so I pushed her off and she hit her head,” Night replied.

“So it’s probably when she gets hit in the head,” Light guessed.

“Let’s buy her a helmet,” Night suggested.

Light rolled his eyes.  “No, you idiot!  We don’t know for certain that it’s when she receives a blow to the head that she becomes dangerous,” he said, clutching his temples as if he had a headache.

“So what’re we going to do about her?” Night asked.

“I don’t know,” Light answered simplistically, shrugging his shoulders.  “I can worry about that when I’ve got you across the teleport barrier and back home.  Actually, that reminds me; how did you get here in the first place?”

“I touched the Monolith on the other side of the world, and next thing I knew, I was falling into the forest,” Night answered after a moment of thought.
Light slapped his forehead.  “So if I’d just had you touch the Monolith when I found you, you would’ve gone back!” he groaned.

“Well, we can always go back there!” Night suggested.

“You don’t understand.  We’re in Pearl Valley, on the very fringe of this side of Inverse.  Once you leave this valley, you can only travel for a couple kilometers before you end up going through the teleport barrier and show up on the other side of the world,” Light answered.

“So?” Night asked.

“The Monolith is in the very center of the land side of Inverse, directly opposite of the Monolith on the ocean side.  If we were to walk, it would take months to get there,” Light answered.

“Couldn’t we take that ‘Steamline’ thing you talked about in Seledonia?” Night inquired hopefully.

Light shook his head.  “The nearest Steamline is in Ryuu, about two weeks walk from here,” he replied.

“Oh!” Night said, his eyes lighting up.  “We could fly!”

“What about Luna?” Light pointed out.

Night’s smile faded.  “Oh yeah…”

“That’s not the only problem.  Seledonia is closer to the Monolith than any other town.  Because of that stupid cat, however, I can’t go back there; they’ll be looking for me,” Light added.

“So no matter what, we’ll always end up more than a day’s walk away?  Darn it…” Night muttered.

“No matter what, we’ve got to leave here now.  There’re three knights and a cleric looking for me,” Light replied.

“What?  Why would they be looking for you?” Night asked, shocked.

“I don’t know, but I’ve got a feeling that the Order has something to do with this,” Light growled.

“Let’s get going, then!” Night urged, starting to walk to the door.

“Just wait, Night; I promised I’d show you guys why this place was called Pearl Valley,” Light replied.

“Even with the knights looking for you?” Night inquired.

“If they attack, I should be able to fend them off long enough for you to get away safely,” Light answered, shrugging.

   As he stood, he checked to make sure that his money bag was still on his belt.  Reassured, he followed Night out the door, with Luna close behind.  Further down the hall, he could hear people yelling at each other in one of the quarters, and in another room he heard a noise that he really didn’t care to think about.

“What’s going on in there?” Night asked, looking at the door.

“Er…it’s probably just the barkeep’s kids jumping on one of the spare beds,” Light answered quickly.

   He hurried them down the stairs and into the bar, where he nodded to the smiling waitress as she waved at them.  Night tried to put in an order for a drink, but Light pulled him along, not wanting to stay any longer than was necessary.

{+}

   On their way down the small, grassy road through the elf colony, something shiny caught Night’s eye, and he stopped.  Luna noticed, and tugged on Light’s shoulder, pointing back at Night, who was looking through the window of a shop.

“What is it, Night?” the Terraphim asked.

“I’ve just had a great idea,” Night answered, pushing the door open and entering the shop.

   The Rayvin walked swiftly to the window, lifting carefully the two objects he’d seen.  Gleaming in the sunlight, the two slightly curved blades extended just under a foot from the hand guards, their leather-wrapped hilts fitting perfectly in Night’s hands.  Despite the weapons all around him, these were the only ones that interested him, as they were the only ones he could actually use.

“Who would’ve thought there would be a weapon shop in an elf colony?” Light muttered as he walked in the door.

“I’m going to need some money,” Night said, still looking at the blades.

“Don’t touch unless you want to buy!” the elf behind the counter in the far corner of the shop called to them.

“Night, unless you can fight, don’t bother looking at weapons,” Light advised.

“Who said I couldn’t fight?” Night asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I’ve never seen you do anything in a combat situation.  Well, other than running away,” Light replied.

“You’ve also never seen the other side of Inverse, but it exists,” Night retorted.

“Whatever.  How much will these cost?” the Terraphim inquired, looking for anything that had a number on it.

“Those are very special blades, made in Orband.  For that quality, you’ll have to pay no less than a hundred gold coins,” the elf replied from the back.

“That’s rather costly,” Light said doubtfully.

“Look, there’s no haggling.  If you don’t have the hundred, you’ll put them back and be on your merry way,” the elf retorted.

“Fine,” Light growled back, tossing the elf the bag of coins at his waist.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” the elf smirked, putting the bag under the counter and tossing them the scabbards for the swords.

   Night walked out of the store, sliding the swords into their sheaths and then connecting them both to his belt on either side of his waist.  With the new weapons, he felt slightly safer, though the fact that Luna was right beside him seemed to neutralize that sense of security.  He couldn’t stop thinking that something would suddenly fall from the sky, hit her in the head, and cause her to kill him.

“I thought it was dwarves that wanted gold…” Light muttered as he glared back into the shop.

“You didn’t use up all your money, did you?” Night asked worriedly.

Light shook his head.  “I’ve got more gold coins than I dare show, even in an elf colony,” he replied.

“As long as we’ve got enough to get on the Steamline,” Night said, deciding not to ask where he hid the coins.

Light smirked.  “We’ve got more than enough to ride the Steamline, don’t worry.”

   Night nodded, trusting Light to know what he was talking about.  As they continued down the street, Light suddenly took them onto a path that looked like it was used less often.  Like their walk to Seledonia from the Monolith, the ground was horribly uneven, and Night was terrified that Luna would fall and hit her head on a rock.  For this reason Light was walking close to her, ready to catch her if she stumbled.

“How much further is it?” Night complained.

“Just a bit,” Light answered as he ducked his head under a branch.

   Sighing, Night ducked under the same branch and continued walking, hands on the hilts of his new blades.  He just couldn’t get over how awesome it felt to be carrying weapons; there was a strange sense of power in him, as if he could do anything.  This feeling was dwarfed, however, when Light took to the air on his wings to see how close they were and subsequently dove rapidly down, pulling up seconds before he hit the ground and landing carefully.

“Showoff,” Night muttered.

“What, can’t you do that?” Light asked.

“No…” Night grumbled.

“You’ve got to practice flying more often.  It’ll help in battle,” Light answered.

   Before Night could reply, a strange gleam up ahead caught his eye.  Running forward ahead of the other two, he stopped when a strange and glorious sight met him.  Light and Luna caught up and Luna adopted a similar expression of awe and wonder; Light had been there before, so the scene was known to him, and as such didn’t look quite as amazed.

   Gleaming in the light with the raindrops that still dripped off of them, pearls were growing on the branches of the trees instead of leaves.  Some were as small as peas, and others looked like Night wouldn’t be able to close his fingers around them, but all were the same, almost pink color.  Night stared in a while before he realized that Light was hovering in front of one of the trees, inspecting something.  After a moment he returned to the ground in front of Night, something clutched in his hand.

“What’s that?” Night asked.

   Instead of answering, Light just opened his hand.  In the middle of his palm was a small pearl, as big around as his thumbnail.  Unlike the others that were all around him, this one was a dark grey color, almost black, though the same, semi-transparent swirling pattern that graced other pearls was present on this one as well.  Night backed away quickly, drawing in a sharp breath.

“What?” Light asked, looking confused.

“Black pearls are a bad omen,” Night answered, still looking at the pearl in horror.

“It’s just a bunch of calcium carbonate,” Light replied, tossing the pearl into the air and catching it.  “It can’t move, and it has no sentience whatsoever.  It’s not going to kill you in your sleep or something.  Well, not unless you try to eat it and choke to death.”

“Whatever you say,” Night replied, though he still looked at it uncomfortably.

“We should get going before the knights find us,” Light suggested.

“Good idea,” Night agreed.

   Night followed Light after he and Luna started back toward town, though he stopped to look back at the pearls one more time.  They reminded him of Old Tim, who’d often go hunting for pearls to sell to the customers.  Night had called it a shameless tactic for getting more money, seeing as how the customers were already paying for a night’s stay, but now he realized that the customers were often spread far apart on the timeline; they’d only get a few every two months or so, if they were lucky.

“Night, come on!” Light called to him.

   Turning, Night saw that they were already halfway down the path, and he hurried to catch up to them.  He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going to go wrong, but he pushed it to the back of his mind, deciding that it was just his superstitious upbringing.

{+}

   Vance, Quix, Rin, and Stephan were all standing in the gates to Orband, horrified looks on their faces as they took in the carnage.  Blood-spattered walls, mangled corpses, and frightened expressions on the untouched faces of some of the bodies danced into their eyes in a macabre waltz as they stepped carefully through the gore.  Vance, sensing that Rin was near collapse, put his hand on his shoulder just as Quix did.

“What could’ve done this?” Stephan murmured in horror.

“The question isn’t ‘what,’ it’s ‘who’?” Vance replied, looking away from a pile of mush that was likely once a dwarf.

“No person could’ve done this!” Quix retorted.

“May I remind you who we’re looking for?” Vance shot back.

“Light wouldn’t do this; it’s not in his personality,” Stephan interrupted.

“The dwarves could’ve angered him, and he went berserk,” Vance argued.

“That doesn’t fit his personality either,” Stephan insisted.

“How do you know what his personality is?  All you know is what some old book told you!  You can’t believe everything you read!” Vance roared back.

“Vance, even a Terraphim couldn’t do something like this without alerting the elf colony down below!” Quix argued.  “He’s probably amongst the dead.”

“All of you settle down,” Rin said, strangely calm.

   Stepping away from them, she walked to the middle of the ruined city, looking straight up at the sky through the hole in the mountain.  Letting out a deep breath, she began to kneel, her hands clasped together beneath her chest.  A large dial appeared above her as the ground immediately around her began to glow.  The dial acquired details that made it look like a clock, and as the others watched, the hands started to run around backwards.

“I’d almost forgotten that she had this ability,” Stephan murmured to Quix.

“Shut up and watch,” Vance replied.

   After a short while during which seemingly nothing happened, the dial disappeared along with the glow and Rin stood up.  She looked exhausted as she walked back to them, but there was also a different look on her face:  disappointment.  Vance took a quick step forward to catch her as she stumbled, but Quix was faster.  Leaning on Quix, she looked at the others.

“You’re not…going to believe this…” she said, breathing heavily.

“What?” Stephan asked.

“The boy we met…this morning…” she said, “was Light.”

“So we narrowly missed him?  Darn,” Quix muttered.

“He won’t be so lucky next time,” Vance swore.

[Chinaren]

I'll read this when I get a bit more time NiceT.  I see it's the usual super-length chapter.  

[NicTei]

Guess who's back.  That's right, me.  Another chapter of this is in the works, so be on a lookout for it, and I'll probably be uploading some awesome pictures on FB at some point here.

Despite a six-mile walk that resulted in illness for one night, Duluth was amazing.  Though I can't wait to get back to writing.

[Saint]

Glad to hear you're back Tei =D

Remember those three chapters of Tatter?  Yeah, I only got one.  And the deadlines been totally scrapped.

[NicTei]

I know.  I read through everything before I did any posting.  I thought I had a topic about me going to Duluth, but I didn't, so I just decided to say 'Hi' here.

[Saint]

So you're caught up to Tatter?  Awesome =D

Umm, I'll stop polluting your topic with my presence now.

[NicTei]

As long as you're leaving to write Tatter...

[NicTei]

   As Night walked down the path behind Light and Luna, he paused, seeing something moving in the brush off to his side.  Putting his hands on his swords, he started towards it, drawing his right blade slightly out of its sheath.  The small animal suddenly bolted out of the brush, taking the Rayven by surprise.  Crying out, he fell backwards as the harmless rabbit examined him, its nose twitching.

“Night, will you stop playing with the wildlife?  We’ve got somewhere to be,” Light said coldly.

   Both he and Luna had stopped upon hearing Night scream, and both seemed equally disappointed that nothing was wrong.  Picking himself up off the ground as the rabbit bolted away, Night muttered an apology and put his blade back in its sheath.  He caught up to the Terraphim and the insane girl, and the three of them continued on their way.

“Why are you so on edge, Night?  I told you the pearl is just a pearl; there’s nothing unlucky about it,” Light asked as they walked.

“I just have this feeling that something’s not right,” Night answered.

   Before Light could reply, Luna suddenly pulled him sharply back, stopping him from taking another step.  She was glaring at the ground, as if she’d seen something disgusting lying on the path.  Night inspected the ground closely and saw that there was a slight seam in the path, making the outline of a gargantuan leaf.  Light swore as he jumped back, drawing the Alpha Seal in the air.

“It’s a Doppelganger plant!” the Terraphim shouted as the leaf lifted off the ground.

   An unearthly roar echoed through the forest as strange, plantlike forms emerged from the bush, some in the shape of humans, others in the shape of animals, but all made of the same green mass.  Light released the Alpha Seal, scorching the leaf that was now blocking the path.  Night watched on in wonder, but was disappointed when it didn’t seem to do as much damage as he’d expected from the flames.

“Night, take Luna and fly out of here!  I’ll follow after I’m sure they won’t attack!” Light ordered.

   Night wasn’t listening, however.  He had drawn both of his blades and was taking deep breaths to make sure he was prepared before launching himself at the nearest of the plant forms.  With a forward thrust of his right hand, the blade, which was extending from the back of his hand, sliced deftly through the humanoid neck, the ‘head’ falling to the ground and rolling away.

“I got it!” Night called with a grin.

“Watch out!” Light warned as vines erupted from the body, grabbing for Night.

“It should be dead!” Night cried as he dodged the vines.

“You’ve got to destroy its core or burn it!” Light shouted back as he kicked a large feline form away from Luna.

   Ducking under the vines, Night got right next to the humanoid form and spun like a top, his blades cutting it in half.  With a stroke of luck, his blades hit and cut into the core of the plant doppelganger.  Both halves hit the ground, withering instantly.  For a moment, Night just looked at it in awe before he moved on to the next nearest creature, his blades flashing as he knocked it down and stabbed at it until he found and pierced its core.

   Looking up, he saw that while he had been making steady progress, Light and Luna were surrounded, with Light taking the majority of the blows to avoid Luna getting hit in the head and trying to kill everything.  His wings were already out, and he was firing off as many seals as he could, but the numbers were still overwhelming.  Taking to the air, Light sliced through the few birdlike plants that came after him and dove for Light and Luna.

   At the last possible second he pulled up and, with his blades held in front of his face, he charged through the small army of doppelgangers, not trying to hit their cores, but rather trying to get them out of the Terraphim’s way so he could release more seals.  Light returned the favor by charging forward and ripping out the cores of a few that Light had missed, crushing the seed-like objects in his hands.  Turning around, Night watched as the Terraphim launched another Alpha Seal at the main leaf, which was now trying to envelop the rabbit that had startled him earlier. 

   It hit dead on, this time with a more spectacular effect:  the entire leaf caught fire, the blaze spreading down the length of the hidden stem.  Night watched the fire weave through the forest as it followed the vine, worried that something else would catch fire.  Miraculously, the flames only hungered for the Doppelganger plant’s stem, leaving the rest of the foliage untouched.

“That’s the power of the Alpha Seal.  The flames will only devour what I request they devour,” Light explained.

“That’s useful!” Night muttered as the fire retreated from view.

“Not if you’re facing multiple opponents,” Light remarked.

“What’s going on out here?” a voice asked.

   Night turned to see the waitress from the night before walking towards them, though she was wearing a different outfit, one more fit for a traveler.  A bow was clutched tightly in her hands, a quiver full of arrows on her back.  She looked confused and slightly frightened as she took in the scene.

“I saw fire,” she explained.

“It was a Doppelganger plant,” Light explained quickly.

“That’s impossible; we rid Pearl Valley of them long ago,” the elf replied, shaking her head.

“Well, tell that to-look out!”

   Light’s yell came far too late.  Before the elf knew what was happening, a bestial mass of plant matter erupted from the forest, vine-like claws running her through as it tackled her to the ground.  The Terraphim had rushed forward, but wasn’t fast enough to prevent the injury.  All he could do was throw the doppelganger off of the elf.

   Night flew forward as fast as possible, taking advantage of the monster’s momentary shock.  Running it through with one blade, he trapped it against the tree whilst he stabbed frantically with the other, looking for the core.  Finally hitting something hard, he shoved his blade forward with all his strength, piercing the hard object that resided in the creature’s left thigh.  It withered and fell to the ground, but Night wasn’t watching; he’d already turned to see how the elf was doing.

“H-help…” she was gasping, a couple tears running down her face.

“There’s nothing I can do!” Light said, almost apologetically.

   Night stepped forward quickly, a distant memory returning to him as he did so.  He remembered coming across an old scroll that Old Tim had tried to keep away from him, the strange writing apparently not for his eyes.  In an act of defiance, he’d stolen the scroll and kept it until he deciphered it, only to find that it was a Holy Art of Healing. 

   Dismayed that it wasn’t some super powerful sword technique, he’d returned it to Old Tim and apologized; he’d gone without supper for a week as punishment.  For some reason that was beyond his understanding, though, Old Tim had made him learn how to use the technique.  He hadn’t used it in a while, but he was hoping that his memory would be enough.

“Light, move.  I think I can help,” the Rayven said, drawing his swords and crossing them over the elf’s chest.

“Lord of Light, I pray that thou wouldst heal the flesh and mend the bones,” Night muttered.

   After a second of silence, there was a small, almost inaudible sound like a bell tolling, and his swords began to glow.  As Light and Luna looked on in awe, the elf’s torn skin pulled itself together and the bleeding stopped.  When Night pulled his swords away, there was only a small mark to show that the elf had been injured.

“There…” Night panted.  “That should do it…though there will probably be…a slight scar.”

“How did you do that?” Light asked, a look of shock passing over his face for the first time since the Rayven had known him.

“It’s a long story,” Night answered with an exhausted grin.
Light nodded.  “Then we’ll save it for later.  Right now we should either get out of here or go back to the colony.”

“I can get back to the colony by myself,” the elf interrupted.  “I don’t need help.”

“Not from a Terraphim, right?” Light responded coldly.

“Can we not argue here?” Night asked as another plant-like creature lumbered into view.

   Light nodded and turned towards it, cracking his knuckles and rising slightly off of the ground, his wings flapping almost lazily, though somehow keeping him aloft.  As he started to draw the seal in the air once more, Night flew past him and struck down another doppelganger that was coming towards him from the side; the elf’s arrows felled another of the creatures when it tried to take him from behind.  Light let the Alpha Seal go, burning the creature into nothingness.

“There’s one thing I don’t understand, Light,” Night said when they were done.

“What’s that?” the Terraphim inquired, though he was still watching for any other doppelgangers.

“When you used that seal to save Serena and I from the Clockwork Knight, you had to touch it to ‘release’ it, and now all you have to do is send it flying and it works.  Why is that?” Night asked.

“Partly because I was showing off then; while we were in Yggdrasil’s Kingdom, I woke up in the middle of the night, went up to the top of the tree, and spent most of the evening practicing the use of the seal, something I did nightly at that point,” Light replied with a slight smirk.

“But you were exhausted!” Night exclaimed, confused.

“You’d be surprised how little sleep a Terraphim needs to feel fully rested,” Light answered almost smugly.

“So were you practicing even when you were taking Serena and I to Seledonia?” Night inquired.

“Yes.  I’d walk a bit out into the forest, then practice the seal on any Clockwork Knights I cam across,” Light answered.

   Before Night could continue the conversation, an arrow flew past his head and buried itself in the face of another humanoid plant a couple meters down the path that had somehow escaped his notice.  Letting out a sigh, he readied his blades again as more came towards him.  Racing forward, he ducked and weaved through them, incapacitating them if he missed their core on the first strike.

“This is why,” the elf grunted between arrows, “you don’t anger Doppelganger plants!”

“How would it get angry if it’s a plant?” Light snapped as his Alpha Seal destroyed another.

“Will you use your sword and kill them a little faster?  I don’t want to be here all day!” she retorted.

“For the façade you put on at the bar, you sure have an attitude,” Light shot back, as he dashed forward and ripped out a core with his bare hand, crushing it in his fist.

“Night!  Aim for the cores!  You’re leaving too many behind!” he called to the Rayven as he leaped over a vine that one of the doppelgangers had thrown at him.

“I don’t know where they are!” Night roared back as he decapitated a humanoid and stomped on the head, luckily crushing the core.

“Look for a slightly greener spot on the creature,” the elf instructed as she fired another arrow through a decidedly wolf-like plant, “that’s an indication of where it’s keeping the core.”

   As he dodged a leafy, outstretched ‘arm,’ Night inspected the creature carefully.  The elf was correct; there was a patch on its chest that looked slightly healthier than the foliage and plant matter around it.  Stabbing at it, he grinned as he heard a familiar crunching noise and the core was destroyed.  It was then that he realized that he couldn’t see Luna.

“Light!  We’ve got a problem!” he yelled to the Terraphim.

“I know!  She ran off after a smaller one, but before I could chase after her, a big one got in my way,” Light shouted back.

“I’ll look for her; you get the elf back to the colony!” Night called.

“The ‘elf’ has a name!”

“That’s my line, you idiot!” Light retorted, ignoring the waitress-turned-archer’s remark.

“You want to chase after the crazy girl and let me take care of the elf?  Fine, but don’t ask me for any more favors!” Night replied, pretending to pout.

“Night, you’re not applying reverse psychology right.  It was an admirable try, though,” Light retorted, ripping out another plant’s core and stomping on it.

“Just trying what Old Tim did to me all the time on the island,” Night answered.

“You fell for reverse psychology a lot?” Light inquired, incredulous.

“Shut up and kill the weeds,” Night muttered, stabbing another core.

“Better idea; you shut up and kill the weeds.  I’ll find Luna,” Light answered, running into the trees before Night could object.

   Not to be outdone, Night took off after his Terraphim friend, dodging around trees as he flew close to the ground.  One of the doppelgangers would occasionally leap out at him, but he was flying too fast, and only those that got in his way were nearly successful; his blades stopped them before they could halt his progress.  For a moment, he allowed himself to marvel at how well he was handling the curved swords.

Must be a result of all that practice back home, he thought to himself.

   A commotion up ahead snapped him out of his thoughts, and he stopped flying.  Stalking forward as quietly as possible with his blades ready, he peered from behind a tree at whatever was causing the frenzied motion.  Light was ducking and diving under vines as Luna was dragged towards a large, purple flower.  Inside its center, Night could see a mass of plant matter and vines similar to what made up the doppelgangers.

   Launching himself forward with a yell, he spun in the air, his blades slicing through the vines coming towards him.  Reaching for Luna, he grabbed hold of her just as Light got through and grabbed her other arm.  Working together, they pulled her away from the vine that had latched onto her, though an ominous ‘pop’ emanated from her ankle as the Doppelganger plant made one final, desperate bid at its prey.

   Luna’s eyes snapped open, exuding malice, much like they had in the hotel room.  Night backed away quickly, letting go of her arm as she started to thrash around, throwing Light into a tree.  Rounding on the Doppelganger plant, she charged at it and started tearing at the vines and leaves, superhuman speed allowing her to dodge around its attempts to stop her.

“But…she wasn’t hit on the head!” Night exclaimed.

“Then we’ve got to assume that any pain sets her off!” Light replied as he started to draw a seal.

“Watch out!”

   Night’s cry came too late; a flailing vine slammed into the side of the Terraphim’s head, hurling him headfirst into another tree.  Luna, oblivious to what had just happened, paused for a moment to catch her breath, during which several thick vines wrapped around her, trapping her arms to her sides and holding her legs together. The malice faded from her eyes, and she was once more a frightened girl, eyes pleading for help from Night as she was lifted into the air.

“Light, get up!  Luna’s in trouble!” he shouted, shaking Light.

   The Terraphim didn’t wake; there was a small crimson line extending from the top of his temple to his chin, where it dripped off into a small collection of droplets in the dust.  Knowing that he could only save one of his new friends, Night hesitated for a moment, unsure of what to do.  Finally, with a primal roar, he hurtled towards the Doppelganger plant, aiming for the thick vines that were suspending Luna over its ‘mouth’.  It seemed to shake its petals in triumph before dropping her.

   Seconds stretched into an eternity as Night watched Luna fall, his flight speed increasing as he tried to catch her.  All at once, everything seemed to stop.  Light was suddenly on the rim of the plant’s central pit.  Catching Luna, he leaped clear as time resumed it’s normal, relentless pace.  Changing course before he even knew what he was doing, Night flew under the petals.

   A large, bulbous growth was immediately visible; it was the plant’s core, a much larger version of what was present in all of its creations.  Despite its size, Night had the sneaking suspicion that it was just as vulnerable.  Swinging his blades with all his might, he cut a deep, ‘x’ shaped mark into it.  Having been mortally wounded, the Doppelganger plant’s actions ceased as it started to sink into the ground, a last-ditch effort to save itself.

   Night, however, wasn’t paying attention to the dying plant.  He was already at Light’s side; the Terraphim had fallen unconscious again, this time in mid-air, and upon landing had collapsed and rolled along the ground, letting go of Luna.  Even though he was afraid that she’d been hurt again and would try and kill him, Night raced over to her side to see if she was alright.

“Light…sleeping?” she muttered as she got onto her hands and knees.

“Er…yes, he’s sleeping,” Night replied.  “Hold still; I’ll heal your ankle.”

   Crossing his blades and reciting the prayer, Night repaired the torn ligaments, helping Luna to her feet when he was done.  Both of them turned their attention to Light, whose head was bleeding more profusely now than before.  As Night tried to position him so that he could heal him easier, he noticed something else:  a strange discoloration on the skin of the Terraphim’s shoulder, barely showing through a rip in his sleeve. 

   Night wanted to heal the head wound, but his curiosity momentarily bested him, and he pulled up the sleeve.  When he saw that most of the arm was tied in a white bandage that was stained red on the forearm, he started to untie it, only hesitating when Luna gave a small yelp.  Looking back, he saw that she had run away from a tree-climbing frog.  With a roll of his eyes, he finished undoing the bandage.

“What the-!?”

   Night’s cry echoed through the forest as he withdrew sharply, bile rising in his throat.  Steeling himself, he examined the wound once more.  Light’s right arm was almost completely necrotized; the tissue appeared to have been eaten away by some sort of poison, leaving it black where it still existed.  Parts of his bone could even be seen, yellowed muscle barely clinging to it.

“What kind of injury-?”

   At once the Terraphim’s eyes snapped open.  Snatching the bandage out of Night’s hands, he wrapped it around his forearm once more in a flurry of motion that Night found difficult to follow; he’d obviously had much practice in it.  Pulling his sleeve back down over the bandage and putting the hole in its cuff around the thumb of his glove, he glared at the Rayvin.

“We should be going,” he said coldly.

“Light, you’re wounded!”

“We’re leaving,” the Terraphim replied forcefully.

Night stood up.  “No!  Not until you tell me about that injury!  It’s been there a long time, and obviously hasn’t been even treated!  Why would you just leave it like that!?” he yelled.

   Rising to his feet, Light looked as if he were about to bellow back, but stopped, a neutral expression replacing his angered one in seconds.  When he spoke, his tone was deceptively calm.

“Terraphim are not allowed to get help at hospitals in this world.  I was going to have it looked over in Yggdrasil’s Kingdom, but I didn’t have the time,” Light answered.

“That’s bull!  You could’ve done that instead of training your seal!” Night retorted.

“Just drop it.  If you want to get home, we can’t waste any time with this,” Light growled, walking off before Night could argue.

“Light…pain?” Luna inquired, stringing the words together as best she could.

“I’m afraid so,” Night answered absentmindedly, sheathing his blades.

“Let’s go,” he said after a while, following after Light and bringing Luna with him.

{+}

“Do you think he’s still in the elf colony?”

“I highly doubt it.  We pretty much told him that we were looking for him.”

   While they rode back towards the small cluster of buildings that the elves of Pearl Valley called home, Stephan and Rin conversed quietly.  Vance and Quix, however, didn’t waste time with words; they both glared ahead in determination, though in Quix’s case, he was likely eager to get back to the comfortable-looking beds of the pub and inn.  In spite of their personalities, they were as close to brothers as was possible, and both knew that they could be going into battle the closer they got to their target.

“Vance, what’re you going to do if it turns out that Light doesn’t want us to find him?” Quix asked.

“If you mean to ask what I’ll do if he wants to fight, then do so,” Vance replied irritably.

“Okay, if Light wants to fight, what’re you going to do?”

“I’ll cut him down like any other enemy,” Vance answered darkly.  “Why, did you have something else in mind?”

“No, just wanted to confirm that you were still as predictable as ever,” Quix answered with a grin.

“You two…  Have you even considered that Light might not know who we are?” Rin inquired in exasperation.

“Rin, we’re the Divine Trio; everyone knows about us,” Quix retorted matter-of-factly.

“Ah, but does he know who you’re working for?” Stephan inquired.

“You don’t think he suspects us of working for Chasiah, do you?” Vance asked.

“Of course I do,” Stephan answered.

“Darn.”

“Why do you sound so disappointed?”

“Because if you’re right, and he thinks we’re with the Order, then I won’t be able just fight him.  I’ll have to ‘subdue’ him, and explain everything,” Vance answered, almost more irritated than before.

Stephan grinned devilishly.  “You’re assuming that he’ll listen the first time.”

“Why are you all so…morbid?  Maybe he won’t want to fight!” Rin suggested.

“You heard what Stephan said about him, didn’t you?” Quix asked.

“Yeah, why?”

“Then you’ll know that there’s no way in the world he’d surrender to anyone he suspects is with the Order that killed his only friend,” Vance answered.

{+}

“Mr. President, you’re wanted in the conference room.”

   Extending a pale, spider-fingered hand, the figure that had been reclining in the large, red plush chair behind the gargantuan mahogany desk pressed the button that signaled to his receptionist that he’d received the message.  Standing, he brushed his other hand through his short brown hair, his crimson eyes half-closed in boredom.  Fixing his expensive looking suit in the mirror, he examined his deathly pale skin with contempt.

“Lord Chasiah!  The Clockwork Knights and assassin that you sent to the cleric in the mountains haven’t reported back yet!”

   The cloaked Order member that had given the report was kneeling in the secret doorway that existed in the most clichéd place imagineable:  Chasiah’s bookshelf.  Looking at his subordinate in distaste, the powerful Terraphim sighed apathetically, walking slowly towards him.  Out of the blue, he’d crossed the room and lifted the cloaked Terraphim by the neck, pinning him to the wall.

“Then get out there and find them!” he hissed.

“What a tedious world,” he muttered as he left the room, closing the door branded with the SciCorp logo behind him.

[Chinaren]

Ha, I like that last line, good one!

However...

In an act of defiance, he’d stolen the scroll and kept it until he deciphered it, only to find that it was a Holy Art of Healing.

I did find this rather too convenient, and personally I'd have enjoyed the fight a bit more if they'd simply managed to escape the plant.  Not every fight has to have a 'winner' or 'loser'.  Even fantasy should be a bit realistic sometimes. 

Hope that doesn't sound too harsh.  Good writing as always.  Now repeat after me...


I'm NicTei and I'm an Uberholic.

Hello NicTei!   

[NicTei]

 

Yeah, I'm working on this right now.  Woot.

[Chinaren]

Heh, I love those cards.