This chapter has experienced a major overhaul. Again. This is the third time its been altered. Hopefully it'll be the last.
Many things felt wrong at this moment in time. Unfortunately it was difficult to discern what exactly they were, as Archangel's world was dark. He was somewhat aware that he was waking from unconsciousness, and barely registering that things were not as they should be. Something about the ground he was on felt wrong, just as something about the temperature was off.
As Archangel was roused to full wakefulness, he clutched the ground beneath him with stiff fingers, expecting to feel the cold metal floors of the terrorist facility; but instead he came into contact with the coarse texture of sand. He slowly opened his eyes, only to be blinded by a bright yellow sun. Rubbing the stabbing pain out of his eyes, Archangel noted that something was very, very out of place here. The heavy atmospheric changes that had occurred because of NOVA had long since affected the sun's rays on Earth; from the surface, the sun appeared red at most times. Yellow light from the heavens had been unheard of for years.
When he could finally see clearly again, Archangel cast his azure gaze to the sky, further confused by the lack of a ceiling, which had definitely been present before he was rendered unconscious. He saw pure blue sky and fluffy clouds. A few birds even. Wild birds were nearly extinct on Earth.
So this begged the question: where the hell was he? Certainly not Greenland. Certainly not anywhere on Earth that he could think of. As he looked to his left and right, he couldn't see the ocean or cliffs that had been his previous locale. He couldn't see any of his team either. As a matter of fact, he couldn't see anything for miles around. He was in a desert. A massive, burning desert. There were no people, no buildings, and definitely no trees. He had no idea where he was or how he had gotten there.
Unable to make sense of his surroundings through observation, the Legion commando tried to remember what had happened instead. It only took a few seconds to recall his mistake in the hostile facility. Upon damaging the console that had partially shielded his target, the EMP device behind him had begun making crazy sounds and emanating large amounts of heat. Just as he turned to pull his sister away from the malfunctioning machinery, he had been engulfed by a blast of blinding white light that originated from somewhere within the EMP device.
That was all he could remember. He assumed he had lost consciousness after being hit by the wave of light, but that was as far as his logic could take him. He had been in Greenland... and now he was in a desert. A desert with birds and a yellow sun, with rays unaffected by apocalyptic atmospheric changes. The explanation for how such a thing was possible eluded him. As far as he knew, nowhere on Earth was still in this condition.
Worried about what had happened to him, but knowing a self-inventory was more important at the moment, Archangel glanced down at his own form. He noticed as he craned his neck to look down at himself that all of his gear was gone. Only his casual clothing remained; his jeans, black t-shirt, and the crimson red jacket that had once been his father's. The strange thing was that he didn't remember wearing any of this outfit under his armor earlier. Then again, nothing that he had observed so far made any sense anyway, so the young soldier didn't dwell on it for long.
He quickly figured that his best course of action was to locate some semblance of civilization, so Archangel pushed himself up on one arm in an attempt to sit up. Halfway through, he gasped in pain as a sharp pain in his side stopped his efforts short. Looking down, he noticed a nasty puncture wound just under his ribcage, burnt around the edges and bleeding profusely. At first unaware of what had so grievously wounded him, he came to the conclusion that the EMP device itself had exploded; sending heated, razor-sharp shrapnel into him when he turned to grab his sister.
He gently pressed his fingers inside the gruesome injury, feeling for serious damage. Although it pained him greatly, the wound itself was not so bad; it had missed all of his major organs, and he couldn't feel the actual shrapnel anywhere inside him. The furthest extent of the damage was his shredded and charred muscle in that area. Thank God the projectile had been small; any larger and he'd be incapacitated from the pain, only to bleed out while unconscious. Of course, he didn't know how to explain the absence of the shrapnel that had wounded him, as there wasn't a hole on the opposite side of his body that it could have exited from. But since the shrapnel was nowhere to be found, Archangel simply accepted its mysterious absence, since it was preferable to having it stuck in him.
Finished with his analysis, Archangel gingerly removed his fingers from the hole. Despite his best efforts, he still flinched at the pain it caused him. If he had his gear, he could have properly treated the wound, but it was still nowhere to be seen. Instead, he took off his jacket and tied it around his body in an attempt to stop the bleeding. Unfortunately, that did nothing to ease the pain, and he cringed several times as he stood up.
He couldn't help but let out a few tears. Although he had been through much worse, more than once even, the injury still hurt like hell. More importantly, he could already notice his vision fading ever so slightly around the edges. If he lost consciousness now, he would almost certainly die. Either from blood loss, the sandstorm brewing out on the horizon, or even worse, some type of predator. Archangel had already almost been eaten alive a few years back, and he had no intention of letting that happen again. God only knew what kind of creatures were out here. If experience was anything to go by, then they were probably vicious animals with an uncanny knack for killing their prey in such a harsh environment.
Archangel realized that the sun had arced towards the horizon a bit even in the short time he had been analyzing his surroundings. After berating himself for wasting so much time thinking, he stumbled down his first sand dune in an attempt to find civilization. He had no idea which direction he was going, where he was, or even the time and date, but whatever had landed him in this desert could be solely described as a total bitch. It was all he could think as he began his trek, all the more irritable because of the sand in his shoes.
No rest for the weary was a maxim no one wanted to live by. Airi knew this for a fact because she was one of those weary people who could never catch a break. Menace ran off at every chance she could get, and Melona was more interested in staying out of the swamp for as long as possible, rather than doing what their master told them to. That left only Airi to be responsible, leading her to let out a heavy sigh as she hovered ever so slightly above the ground, which strangely didn't attract any attention from the passing citizenry. Now that she thought about it, she and Melona had been almost completely ignored since they arrived in Menace's new "Kingdom of Amara" which made her believe that the people here were likely under one of the ancient princesses' many curses.
None of that truly mattered to her. All that mattered was getting Menace out of this god-forsaken desert and back to the swamp and her rightful master as soon as possible. Airi had no intention of being punished again because of her two companions' incompetence, which unfortunately led to another problem. She had no idea how to get Menace to come back with them; she was terribly stubborn about ruling her reborn country. And if she didn't manage to bring her back, the Swamp Witch would no doubt be the most displeased with Airi, since she was supposed to be the reliable servant. Melona had already mentioned forgetting about the swamp and not going back, but Airi wouldn't allow it; it went against the will of her master, which was entirely unacceptable.
"Hey, you bastard! I'm not finished with you! Get back here!"
Airi glanced towards the commotion that had disrupted her thoughts, that being some sort of scuffle across the sandy alley in another street. It looked like a few drunkards were messing with some sod who had gotten on their bad side. There was a feeling of pity and even slight sympathy for him, but Airi knew she had no time to waste on the petty fights of drunkards. With small effort on her part, the wraith ignored it and kept moving along the mostly beige and terracotta streets of Menace's city. She didn't notice that Melona had stopped following her until a few feet later. She looked back to see the pink nuisance staring at the fight that had broken out across the street with peculiar interest. Before Airi could practically beg her to ignore it however, the whimsical slime dashed into the alley that would take her to the fight. Left with no choice, Airi sighed and turned to follow her, the redhead's thoughts taking a morose turn as yet another distraction cropped up to ruin her plans, since she could hardly return to the swamp with neither Menace nor Melona.
Why am I the only one who can stay focused?
As she followed Melona through the alley between two squarish sandstone buildings and the commotion came within her line of sight, she noticed that the slime had already intervened on the situation for some reason. She had one of the men who had started the fight pinned against a wall, each of her fingers transformed into sharp and deadly blades. Airi tried to identify what could have possibly made the typically callous and cruel slime intervene on the behalf of some stranger, but upon looking at the victim of the brawl, the wraith was able to hazard a guess. A young man with unusual blue pants and a strange red top tied around his stomach was curled up on the ground in a small pool of blood that she assumed was his own.
To say he looked foreign was an understatement. The fabric of his clothes was extremely unusual, and that made it obvious why Melona was helping him: he was interesting. Melona liked interesting things because they kept her from being bored, and she hated boredom. So the fact that she wanted to investigate the nature of this mysterious individual was enough reason for her to help him out of a tight spot. After all, he couldn't be a source of entertainment if he was dead.
As for Airi, she was more concerned with his state of injury. She was in the service of the Swamp Witch, that was true. But that didn't mean she wasn't capable of righteous anger or empathy. After all, she herself had been the victim of many unfair twists of fate when she was alive; in fact, one of those unfair twists was the reason she was dead. Used to being the weak and helpless victim in life, Airi found herself growing very angry over the current situation. Despite the fact that it was not personal, the nature of the situation made it so. How could these drunk bastards ruthlessly beat up someone already injured so badly? He needed help, not a fight. And now, even if it was more to appease her own selfish sense of retribution than to actually help someone, Airi was going to make sure he got it, at least in the sense of disposing of the thugs that were troubling him.
Airi summoned her scythe, the weapon materializing from apparently nowhere, and moved towards one of the men who seemed to be the leader of the group. He was on the ground and coughing up blood, having either been hurt by the man they had beaten up, or by Melona. Either way, Airi was seriously considering killing him, or at the least maiming the bastard. Instead, she dropped her scythe to his neck and pinned him on the ground with her heel.
The surprised, scraggly gray-bearded man looked up at her. "What the hell? Get this thing of of me! I-!"
Airi cut off the objection by digging the edge of her weapon into his skin. She gathered as much malice into her voice as she could before speaking. It wasn't hard, considering how personally she was taking his offense. "I'm giving you and your friends one chance to leave. If you so much as talk to this man again for any other reason than to apologize, I'll kill you. If you come back to hurt him after I'm gone, I'll find you. In fact, I want you to leave this city and never come back, or I'll drag you to hell myself. Understood?"
The man nodded as well as he could with the scythe pinning him to the ground, obviously too terrified for words. Airi looked at him with disgust as she raised the edge of her weapon away from him, allowing him to shakily get to his feet. "Then get going, before I change my mind."
The man hesitated for a moment, perhaps a little too shocked to react as quickly as he should have.
"Now!"
Without a second thought, the scoundrel dashed off as quickly as he could, and his cronies had gotten the message loud and clear as well, each scrambling off in a different direction like cockroaches caught in the light.
Melona walked over to the traumatized man that had been assaulted. Kneeling, she uncurled his fetal position and rolled him onto his back. It wasn't a pretty sight; he was bruised and cut in many places, some of the injuries clearly from the group of thugs. It almost made Airi want to call them back here so she could return the favor. Again, not quite for his sake, but because she knew the pain of a helpless victim, and avenging it for someone else sort of gratified her as well.
But aside from his fresh injuries, some of the wounds looked several hours old. What could this man have been doing before his encounter here in the city? Especially in reference to the injury just under his ribs, which was particularly gruesome, although Airi couldn't tell what had actually caused it. It was ragged and burnt around the edges, and pretty deep by the looks of it. She had half a mind to stick her fingers in and see just how deep it really was, but dispelling that thought didn't take much effort on her part.
Melona picked the battered man up and gently slung him over her shoulder, however 'gently' one could do something like that. The slime smiled mischievously at her ghostly companion. "Well what are you waiting for? We have to take him back to our place!"
Said companion cocked an eyebrow at her, seeing absolutely no reason to do so, and confused as to why Melona would want to. As far as she knew, the slime was definitely not a good person with an altruistic heart. She had at least proven as much in Airi's experience with her. "Why? I think we've done plenty already. Besides, since when did you start helping people out of the kindness of your nonexistent heart?"
"Well it's more along the lines of why help him at all if you're gonna leave him here to die anyway? Besides, I'm not doing this to be a good person. I'm just curious is all."
Despite knowing why this was, Airi' hoped she could offset whatever trouble Melona was about to make for her by acting ignorant. "About what? He's probably some guy from a bar who got into a fight. What's there to be curious about?"
"C'mon, just look at the way he's dressed! I've never seen clothes like these, and I've been around for a pretty long time y'know."
"You saved someone's life because his clothes were interesting?"
"More or less. Besides, I always thought you were the one who at least had some semblance of a heart, Airi. If you seriously want me too, I guess I'll just leave him here, but you know he'll probably bleed out before anyone helps him right?"
Unfortunately, Melona's words struck a chord somewhere in what was left of Airi's morality. Considering her occupation, the redhead tried to suppress that morality as often as possible, but anything that somehow reminded her of her horrible living experience tended to bring out some semblance of humanity from her. In this case, Airi was reminded of all the times she wished that someone would help her out of the simple goodness of their heart. She had always been so bitter about the fact that people were too selfish or uncaring to help others who really needed it; was she going to do the same here?
With a sigh, the wraith decided that she wasn't. Dead or not, she didn't want to be the kind of person she had hated in her past life. "Fine, we'll make sure he at least doesn't die. But after that we are going back to our original mission and having nothing to do with this person. Got it?"
Melona shrugged, pleased that she had convinced Airi to help her satisfy her curiosity. To be honest it was nothing more than a stroke of luck that any of this had happened anyway. Had the man over her shoulder been a little more boring in appearance, she probably would have ignored his plight completely. After all, she didn't do this kind of honorable stuff unless it could entertain her in some way.
Regardless, the man the two Underworld minions had rescued was very lucky. He may not have been saved out of the goodness of anyone's heart, but at least he had been interesting enough to save at all. As long as he didn't know he had been saved simply to sate a certain someone's curiosity, there was nothing to complain about.
With no small amount of pain, Archangel finally woke from his fatigue-induced slumber. He was a little slow to actually see where he was, if only because he was nervous to find out. But he couldn't just sit around all day, so he slowly opened his eyes, fully expecting to see some form of the afterlife, though he hoped it was heaven. Unfortunately, his eyes were only met with a dull wooden slat ceiling.
Well... heaven is a lot more disappointing than I thought it'd be.
He tried to remember what had happened. By the time he had reached a town or city or whatever kind of settlement it had been, he had already been close to losing consciousness. In fact, he could barely even remember what he had done since he entered the outskirts of the settlement. Blinded by pain, he had done little else besides stumble around and hope someone would notice his poor condition. Unfortunately, the only people who had noticed were the kind he didn't want the attention of.
He knew he had been assaulted, likely because he had bumped into an unsavory group. They probably would not have been much trouble, had he not been critically injured already. But since he had been, Archangel had not fared well.
But now the wounded soldier was in a bed somewhere, looking up at a very dull ceiling with no noteworthy features. Being in bed, however, was much nicer than burning in the desert. Even so, he digressed: wherever he was, he wasn't dead and he could actually see now that his vision had cleared up. This was good, but on the other hand, he couldn't remember being more sore in his entire life. No doubt a good stretch would help him out, at least a little.
With that in mind, Archangel stretched his entire body and groaned from the half-pain, half-pleasure feeling it gave him. It felt so good actually, that he hadn't noticed his left hand had run into something soft and squishy until several seconds after making contact with it.
When the rather pleasant texture finally registered in his mind, he slowly turned his head to see what it was. What, or who, actually, was quite shocking, especially to man who thought he had seen it all. Sitting on a stool next to his bed was a pink girl. And when he said that, he meant really, really pink. Besides her skin and her eyes, everything else was pink; pink clothes, pink hair, and pink... bunny ears? Archangel had a moment of blank thought, unsure of what he should say or do. The fact that these ears looked as though they grew straight out of this girl's head, along with her bizarre and extremely revealing outfit, temporarily stopped all other thoughts running through his mind.
As soon as he realized that his mind had blanked, Archangel reprimanded himself; distraction was a fatal mistake. He mentally prepared to do whatever was necessary to kill this girl if she proved to be a threat. but he knew he probably would not be capable of it in his current state.
But apparently, that would not be necessary. The girl giggled, and Archangel noticed her face for the first time. She had a sly grin and was looking down at his hand. In his half-dazed state, he didn't notice the abnormal shape of her pupils. "Cute and bold, looks like a winner..."
Archangel followed her gaze and saw exactly what his hand had grabbed. As the reality of the situation hit him, he realized he was on a roll for mistakes today: groping a woman usually wasn't the best way to start off a relationship.
He jerked his arm back as if he had been stung. "I-I'm sorry! That was an accident!"
The girl just smiled again, although it was more disconcerting than friendly. Something about it made him think she viewed him as more of a plaything than a person. "You don't have to apologize," she said, "after all, I can't really blame you for wanting a feel of perfection."
While he certainly wouldn't have called it perfection, Archangel did note that this girl was incredibly curvy. In fact, he might even say she was a little flabby in some places, but not in an entirely unattractive way.
Either way, Archangel cocked an eyebrow at the stranger. Since when had women been so accepting of these situations? "Uh, no I uh...would rather not..."
The girl pouted a little, directing Archangel's gaze to her face. He still couldn't wrap his mind around the ears. Surely they weren't real? Bizarre clothes he could accept, but those things really did look like they were growing straight out of her head. "Oh, come on! As long as Airi doesn't find out, it's fine! I mean, it'd be dangerous if she did, but you should live a little, sheesh."
Archangel interrupted her before she got too deep into the subject. "I'm sorry, could you back up a little bit? First of all, who are you?"
The exotic girl sighed tiredly, as though she had already explained this too him, even though he knew she hadn't.
"Okay look," she said slowly, "I am Melona. MELOOOOOOOOOOOONA. Got it?"
Disregarding the unusual name, Archangel replied with a decent modicum of irritation. "I'm twenty-one, not five. There's no need for that kind of emphasis."
She made that unnerving smile again. "Oh, I know, it's just that a lot of men are really stupid, and need things explained to them in a more... y'know, simple way."
Archangel decided against mentioning the obviously false stereotype this woman entertained, content with merely rolling his eyes and offering an exhausted sigh of his own. "Are you the one who saved me?"
"I suppose. I mean, Airi had a hand in it, but it was mostly me. You can worship me as thanks later."
The bewildered man completely ignored her statement, instead choosing to pose another question. "I apologize if this is rude of me, but I have to ask; what's the deal with the ears?"
Melona's smile faltered for a very brief instant as she formulated an answer. Airi had left the inn roughly an hour ago, but before she had, she had told Melona to keep their identities as inhuman demons secret. For one, there was no need to introduce themselves like that. Generally speaking, for people who performed covert assassination and espionage for the Swamp Witch, the less people that knew about their true nature, the better. Word could spread quickly around the Continent, even if the source was just one man. Besides, Melona wanted to interrogate this guy, for her own curiosity if nothing else, and he'd probably be much less forthcoming with her if he knew she was a slime. She was better off pretending to be a human for now.
Of course, that meant that she should have transformed to a more normal appearance entirely, but honestly the man she was talking with had surprised her by waking up so soon. Being notorious for procrastination, she hadn't transformed to a more common appearance yet, and had only possessed enough time to do away with the hands that usually covered her breasts, since those were the most obvious unusual thing about her. She had simply lengthened her outfit a bit to compensate. She could have tried changing into an entirely different and less questionable outfit on the fly, but she hadn't been willing to risk the man taking notice of her mid-transformation. After all, bizarre clothing could be feasibly explained away, but in the end, she had forgotten of the most noticeable things of all; her ears.
Shit, how could I forget those? Come on, think of something believable...
"It's just a headband. As you can see, I'm kinda into more... exotic clothing. Why, you don't like them?"
By making the man think he had offended her, Melona managed to change the subject. Hopefully her excuse would be accepted on some subconscious level.
"N-no, they just... attract a lot of attention is all. I suppose there's nothing wrong with them... look, just forget about it. Who's this other person you keep mentioning? The one who helped you save me? She doesn't sound all that nice from your description..."
A little irritated with all of the questions but understanding why he had so many, Melona was about to answer his query when the smooth voice of a new arrival, one quite a bit deeper than Melona's but still wonderfully feminine, replied instead, much to the slime's own chagrin. A private interrogation was out of the question now. "I think you're referring to me, and I'll have you know that Melona is the last person to get an opinion from."
Archangel looked away from his current conversational partner to lay eyes on the new arrival in the room's doorway, and was instantly captivated by the most gorgeous woman he had ever laid eyes on.
Personally, Archangel had always been into brunettes, but there was always one girl who could change your mind on such things. Like this one. The first thing he noticed was that this girl was dressed quite strangely, although not as much as the pink one on the stool was, as he couldn't remember ever seeing a girl in a maid's outfit throughout his life. Especially not the kind she was wearing. Instead of that design most maids wore in the stereotypical setting, what with the long dress and full sleeves, -which covered everything, to the disappointment of many males- she wore the kind that Archangel usually imagined French maids to be wearing, with thigh-highs and short skirts and open blouses.
Besides her outfit, her hairstyle was pretty unusual as well. He had seen twin-tails before, but none quite as long as hers. Moreover, they were the most brilliant shade of dark red he had ever laid eyes on, being a perfect contrast to her the stunning emerald green that was her eyes.
Of course, a few other "things" attracted his attention as well. She was very sexy, to say the least, and as beautiful as her eyes were, it was pretty hard for Archangel to resist ogling her body. Unlike her curvaceous companion, this girl was thinner in the waist, bringing more accentuation to her bust and her hips, both of which were extremely nice.
"What exactly are you looking at?"
Archangel snapped out of his little analysis and realized that he had probably stared at the redheaded beauty for a little too long. The girl put down a bag he hadn't noticed she was holding and moved towards him. "From this angle, it almost looked like you were examining me."
The soldier's sixth sense kicked in as an oppressive threatening aura descended on the room. He didn't feel like he was in fatal danger, but bad for his physical health nevertheless. He looked up at the stunningly beautiful redhead again, and he could've sworn there were little purple flames floating around behind her.
I must have hit my head out there somewhere, to be visualizing her anger to this extent...
Archangel worked his mind as fast as he could for a possible answer, deciding that some level of honesty might serve him well here. "I'm sorry, I was just... caught off guard. Y-you're very beautiful miss, so I couldn't think of anything to say..."
His reply actually did seem to ease the severity of the woman's expression, but it didn't last long, thanks to Melona.
"So that's just a nicer way of saying you were ogling her, right?"
In a moment, the maid's stern glare returned, the girl apparently forgetting what Archangel had just said about her in exchange for being mad again. Having ruined his brownie points with her, Archangel swore he would get Melona back for this, somehow. It didn't even occur to him that his undecided time in their company might prevent him from doing so.
Writing stuff from the ground up is much easier with a blank slate than an inscribed tablet. Sounds like some Confucius level shit right there.
