For those of you wondering where Revya and Ragna were, I hereby introduce them into SinnerBlue with open arms.
And for those of you who are easily offended by coarse language, you have my condolences. But you probably should've seen that coming since Ragna and Gig tend to utter obscenities on a frequent basis. You should also know by now that this isn't exactly a kid friendly story, but this chapter kind of starts to show the edgier side of things. And as a side-note, yes, Dark is a mediocre womanizer, why do you ask?
"A fool whines of how unlucky he is; a hero makes his own luck."
-006-
I spun across the hard ground as I snatched up the demon within my hands. My blazer was speckled with dirt here and there, but it's a small price to pay. I stood up triumphantly and chuckled.
The tiny Chihuahua-like creature squirmed around and yelped.
"I hate to break it to you pooch, but I'm afraid you're going to make me some quick cash."
Quite frankly, I felt kind of good. I can't even believe it...for once, I genuinely felt happy. Why, I felt so good that I could whistle the final movement to Beethoven's 9th.
"Or maybe I could make up my own song to sing whenever I feel this good. Yeah, but before I do that, I have to hand over this pooch to—Wait, what the?"
A slight prickle of pain latched itself onto my feeble arms. Bright flashes of blue light occurred in a rhythmic display. The demon growled as it twisted its neck in a half-circle towards my direction.
The eyes and fangs of a monster were made known in the cold winter light. A glare of killing intent made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
Through some twisted way, the tight hold I had around it became its ticket to freedom. Sharp black spikes protruded from the demonic creature's body. Before I would let the spikes dig any deeper into my skin, I let go of it and watched the small hellish creature slither off into darker parts of the woods.
Only one single thought ran through my mind.
"…What just happened?"
I really wasn't expecting random stuff occurring out of the blue like that. And here I thought that job was going to be easy. What a ridiculous notion. Ah well, you can't say I didn't try. 3,000 dollars was more than enough for one day, so…I decided on going back home for the day. I sighed and started to head back to my car with a fatigued mindset.
"If I can't accomplish something in one fell swoop, then there's no point in trying again," I muttered to myself almost conceited.
"So you would rather give up on a task that is seemingly laborious instead of continuing to pursue a goal?"
Oh look, I'm so tired that I'm starting to hear voices in my head. Wait a sec, that voice belongs to-
I spun around, and wouldn't you know it, Nyx was there leaning up against a dead tree.
"Nyx! Hey, is that really you? I'm not hallucinating or anything, right? You didn't just ditch me last time?"
Something within me wanted to give her a hug, but I stopped myself halfway into it.
"My, my. Perhaps you missed me? I can kindly assure you, I am right here beside you and I shall always do so. I would never stoop so low as to abandon my familiar."
"But, where did you go? You left without a word. You could've created closed space and told me about it."
"Ah, but I took my leave with good reason. You see, in my absence I reflected upon my misbehavior and how I caused you to end up in such a predicament. So in order to apologize for my outburst, I traveled through alternate planes in search of proper protection."
Uh...sexual connotations aside, what did she mean by "proper protection"?
I took an educated guess. "You mean like a bodyguard?"
"Yes. I scouted around for an afternoon's passing and found two perfect candidates."
Bodyguards, huh? Having a couple of Ignis' around didn't sound too appealing though.
"So what's so special about these candidates? What made you pick them?"
"I cannot say for certain. Regardless, my faith in this choice is inexorable."
"Okay? Any info on them?"
"Nothing I know is truly worth remarking."
"…"
"Forgive me. I had little time to gather information regarding who they are."
"Then why are you so unwavering in your selection?"
"I just have a feeling. Please trust me on this." This phantom of a girl, walked up to me without a sound as she fixed her starry eyes that seemed to beg for attention on me.
I contemplated if there were any hidden meanings or words of wisdom secretly spaced within Nyx's enigmatic ways. I'm never too sure if I can trust her with anything, but I made a vow to have faith in her for better or for worse and damn it, I intend to try and keep a promise for once.
"All right, all right. Just stop giving me that look."
"Thank you very much. Now if you would politely step back."
I did as she said and waited tolerantly. Nyx raised her right hand as she closed her eyes. She appeared to be experiencing a calm reverie. I can't help but admit how dainty she looked.
My eyes couldn't really believe what they saw. As she slowly opened her eyes, Nyx's bright blue iris color became replaced by an upsetting shade of red. Using her raised hand, she snapped her fingers and space itself gave in. Space was nothing more than a colorful feast for my eyes. Two maelstroms of every tint imaginable danced around in a festive celebration. What they were celebrating I don't know.
These multicolored things started to form definite shapes of their own. One of them, coated in a bright red, shifted with a popping sound, scattering thousands of drops of condensed space in all directions. The other distortion, one with a touch of green and white, followed suit.
In their place, they left two people as a memento of their enchanting show. And I stood there awestruck. When I saw my friend, her eyes had returned to their usual color of the sky. I wonder if I only imagined her eyes changing color. I locked my sights upon the people from other worlds.
A slim girl with cherry red hair wielding an onyx blade and a muscular man with white hair and a bigass sword behind his back are the so called 'perfect candidates'?
I'm no fashion designer. I can't find the proper words to describe their outfits, but I'll give it a shot. The girl was wearing what could only be described as an anachronism mixture of medieval fantasy armor and modern attire. Going in the order my eyes maneuvered across her body, she wore a pair of matching earrings, a leather choker fastened around her neck, detached green sleeves bridged together by gold, a pink bra made of metal by the looks of it, and white baggy pants.
Despite my values telling me otherwise, I couldn't help but notice that she was completely shirtless besides that peculiar bra and those pauldron/sleeve things. Don't they have common decency in her world? Any man wouldn't know where to look…if you know what I mean. *Ahem*, but I averted my eyes from the area between the collarbone and solar plexus before she noticed.
As for the man with snow colored hair, he wore this red coat embroidered with two huge belts and numerous other buttons and details that I'm going to skip over, a black undershirt with a white stripe that ran vertically down the middle, black hakama (Japanese pants?), and these futuristic steel-tipped shoes, with a bright red shade to compliment them. The worlds where they both come from have an interesting sense of fashion.
Both of them were still adjusting to the implied aftershocks of dimensional travel.
The man in red scanned his surroundings. "Rachel? No. Where is this?"
The man seemed utterly shaken upon the sight of Nyx. "Saya! Is that you? ...No, never mind."
Nyx drew her hood over her head, submerging her face in the shadows. She curtsied, but kept the formalities to a minimum for a while. Nyx walked up to the man in red and spoke bluntly.
"You there, you will assist this man with his arduous task."
He snapped out of his daze and established himself. "Excuse me? Who the hell do you think you are, talkin' down to me like you're some goddamn princess?"
"I am Nyx. The man over there is named Dark."
An uncouth male voice shot out. "Dark? What kind of retarded name is that?"
Nyx shot a dirty look at the girl. "How rude. I think Dark is a fine name befitting of a gentleman."
Why was Nyx looking at her? She couldn't have said that, right?
"What was that voice?" I asked mystified.
The lady twirled a lock of her hair around her finger. "Oh that was nothing..."
Was there another person that Nyx summoned?
"Then who said that?" I questioned.
"Me, dumbass. The one and only Gig! What's with the stupid look on your faces? I'm guessing you wanna know where my larger-than-life voice is coming from, don't ya?"
"That would be nice to know," I said, looking for someone that wasn't around.
"Hahaha, it's coming from the kid right here," said Gig. Meanwhile, I knocked on a tree. "No, not over there you idiot! It's coming from the girl in front of you!"
The girl shrugged.
"You mean...from you?"
"Yup," the girl said.
Another weirdo has come along to join the 'Ruin Dark's Chances of Having a Normal Life' parade.
"So you're not a talking sword or anything?"
"No, don't be idiotic. But that would majorly suck if I was. My soul was bound to the sword, but I share this girl's body. Now if only she would freaking hand it over already!"
"Sorry, not going to happen," said the young girl.
The white-haired man let out some of his unhappy emotions with a yell. "Look, I don't want to get in the way of your chit-chat, but could you hurry up and tell us what we have to do? I want to go back as fast as possible!"
The way he talked made me feel insecure.
"S-Sorry. Right then," I paused, cleared my throat, and continued. "We were hoping you would help me fight a demon. Please?"
"Yeah? You want us to wipe your ass too?" the man barked.
"What? N-No, look, hear me out real quick. Nyx and I are nicely asking you to help us out with something. Once you do that we will send you home as soon as you're done. Isn't that right?"
Nyx nodded.
"I'll even pay you for your troubles if it's of any use. What've you got to lose?"
The man snarled at me. "My time. Can you pay me back in lost time? Huh?"
"Crap. What do I say?"
"Yo Nyx, help me out here."
She nodded, brushed the left side of her hair behind her ear, and said, "Your world has not begun to notice your disappearance. The 'lost time' you speak of would currently amount to no more than a few nanoseconds. Even if the day were to end in this world, less than a minute would have passed in yours."
Whoa, awesome reasoning skills. He'll have to say yes to our request now.
But the man said nothing. However, I took his silence as an affirmation. I turned towards the girl with red hair.
"What about you?"
"If time isn't a problem, then I'd be glad to help you out for free."
Gig bemoaned his partner's decision. "Ah c'mon! You're just going to do this free of charge? Lame."
"Thanks. All right then. Let's go catch us a demon."
I pointed towards a random direction and stood there like a heroic statue.
"Dark, I believe the creature ran off in the opposite direction," said Nyx in a deadpan voice.
"...Uh, I knew that. Yeah. Okay, let's go that way!"
I pointed to the correct direction and hid my humiliation from the other people beside me.
Our small gang of four searched around. We searched for a really long time and all the while, Gig would not shut up. The irritated man in red mumbled to himself through the whole thing. I wanted to call it quits and apologize to the redhead for dragging her out here. However, in the end she was the one to spot what we were searching for.
"Is that it over there?"
I leaned in close and squinted. Yup, that was it. The darn thing was sleeping its life away. It couldn't seem to remember that there were people still after it.
"Yes, that's it exactly. Good job," I said as I gave her a thumbs-up.
Snow white hair thumped his feet against the ground. "Okay, we spotted it, now what?"
"Isn't it clear enough? We go and catch it."
Gig flung an insult at me. "Wow. You really needed our help for something that pathetic? What a candyass. The kid here could chop that up and feed it to your mom to choke on. And she's a girl for crying out loud."
'Yeah? And you can go to Hell for all I care.' That was what I wanted to say, but it wasn't in my nature to go through with it.
"What's the matter? Did that insult hit a little too close to home? Heheh."
The girl made a gesture with her hand that said, "I'm sorry about that." And I in return made a gesture that said, "Don't worry about it."
After all that hustle and bustle, I decided to just rush the demon. After all, I had back-up this time. I snapped numerous twigs laid out on the ground in my dash.
Please just come along quietly, pooch and we all call this a day.
"…Eh?"
Bloodshot eyes opened up. The jewel on its forehead started to glow violently. It opened its grotesque mouth and shot a huge blue ray that rammed itself into my stomach. Lightning? Did it shoot lightning at me?
Thankfully, the attack was more or less set to 'stun' instead of 'kill'. I fell to the ground gasping for the air that was knocked out of me.
The black beast gradually grew three times its original size. I couldn't believe it, but I didn't do anything to stop it. The wolf sized beast lunged at me with fangs set upon feasting on fresh human for dinner.
In the spur of the moment, I used both of my hands to prevent it from biting down. One pushed down on its lower jaw, the other pushed up on its upper jaw and as a result, I kept the voracious creature at bay. Hot drool gathered near my fingertips. I was expecting someone to come help me out, but like everything else, it never happens the way I want it to.
"Um…shouldn't we help him?" The girl asked behind me.
"Tch, I ain't doing shit for that guy." The white-haired man said, "He can deal with it himself."
Gig's maniacal voice echoed in agreement. "Heh, yeah, and it's more fun to see him get mauled up by that thing anyway."
I wish they wouldn't talk about me while I was still in the vicinity. Sheesh, can't a guy get a break around here?
Bones snapped and twisted within the creature. Or at least that's what it sounded like. A black tumor rapidly formed on the demon's left shoulder, and all the while the creature grunted and growled. To further my reprehension of the demon, a large hand popped out of the large lump on its constantly shifting body.
It shot me with another beam at close range. I was pretty sure that my face was going to be bruised tomorrow. With its new appendage, it plucked me up like a ragdoll and threw me hard at the white-haired man. He and I crashed into a tree behind us with frightening force. I think I heard my back bones crack a little.
My head was spinning, but at least the man caught me and lessened the impact. But I guess it wasn't exactly his true intention to do so, because he inflicted more pain before I could even thank him.
"Get off me!" the man shouted as he threw me aside like a child's cheap toy.
My body rolled around a few times before coming to a slow halt.
The red-head sprinted over and came to my aid. "Are you okay?"
I'm just fine, don't worry about it. Just give me a couple of hugs and kisses, maybe some band-aids and it'll all be sugar and rainbows—No, I'm not okay! I looked up at the girl for a sec and felt hot under the collar. Feeling that it would be uncalled for, I kept my comment to myself.
"Yeah I'm all right, I'll toughen it out, thank you."
I can't help but lie whenever a cute girl asks me if I'm all right. Come to think of it, I lied to Nyx about hurting myself a while back. I have some serious issues for falling for three different girls. I fell for two of them on the same day!
She smiled warmly and offered me a hand. Embarrassed, I returned the smile and let her soft hand help me up on my feet. I caught my breath in the middle of all this.
Fine, if I can't thank him, I suppose I should thank that black creature for getting the man to take action.
"I really didn't want to do a damn thing, but if that asshole wants to start a fight, then let's bring it!"
As if in answer to the man's decree, the creature shrieked louder than any banshee or siren could ever hope to surpass. Another hand grew on its other shoulder. It was like it had a pair of oddly malformed wings.
But then—I kid you not—everyone suddenly began to float up like balloons filled with helium.
I latched on to a thick tree branch above me. "Oh for the love of—what's it doing now?"
"It's faintly negating the gravity around it," Nyx stated coolly.
"How is that even possible?-!"
Paying no attention to me, the echoing voice happened to be amused with the laws of physics being broken. "Hey kid, check it out…We're flying."
"You don't say! Thanks for stating the obvious Sherlock!" I exclaimed from close by.
"Who's Sherlock?" The puzzled, red-headed girl asked.
"Would you all shut up! God, you're all a bunch of kids. Can we please return to kickin' that black piece of shit's ass over there?"
Why certainly my foul-mouthed cohort. You go first and I'll be here for emotional support.
A moment of silence.
Nyx floated upside-down with no remarkable expression to speak of. The young red-headed girl floated with her arms crossed and her head tilted to the side and making sounds like "Hmm" or "Ahh". I wondered if she was still trying to figure out who Sherlock was. And finally, the man in red…was kind of struggling against some unseen force. I wasn't sure if I should laugh or not. Gravity nullification on a small scale can apparently create invisible pools. How interesting.
"Well? Aren't you going to kick its ass already?" I inquired.
"Shut up. I'm workin' on it," the man said whilst fighting against the invisible tides.
He 'swam' towards a nearby tree. I looked on with curious fascination. What exactly was he trying to do? The man grabbed hold of a tree branch and reached for the huge slab of metal behind his back. I still can't picture what he's up to.
With his sword swung down in a perfect arc, he sliced off the entire branch. Like everything else, the branch floated tamely in the air.
"Hey, ugly! Choke on this!"
I wish I was making this up, but the man did something that only he would do. He laid out the tree branch in front of him, balled up his hand into a fist and then—
"Hell's Fang!"
With a spontaneous echo at the uttering of an attack name—don't ask me why it did—and a punch fueled with dark power, he launched the branch fast enough for it to ignite into black flames. The branch, now a weapon for killing, shot past flesh and bone, leaving a gaping hole through the creature's head as a reminder of the man's anger. The demon didn't even have time to dodge, or cry out in pain, or even see it coming for that matter. It's just a poor thing drenched in its own blood now. I wanted to look away, but I just couldn't seem to tilt my head in disgust.
"Whoa! Holy shit, Red! That was kickass! Not as kickass as me of course, but I give it five stars. Hey soulmate, what'd ya think? Heh heh."
My mouth hung wide open in astonishment and, more importantly, in frustration. "What did you do? I thought you were just going to beat it up a bit, not go all the way and kill it!"
"What? What else was I supposed to do? It's not my fault that it stepped up without puttin' up a decent fight."
"That's not the point! I needed that thing to be alive so I could get paid in full!"
"Well excuse me. I just did what I was told to. You got a problem?"
"Who told you to kill it? Not me!"
"Pfft, well shit man, what the hell crawled up your ass and died?"
I wanted to punch his teeth in so badly. But I knew I couldn't stand up to a guy like him. Not after what I just saw. All I can really do is grit my teeth, clench my fist, and bitch about how much my life sucks. I can't get a girl of my own, I can't fight, I'm a terrible brother, and I have a screwed up personality. I'm so damn pathetic that it's not even funny. …No wonder Nyx had to go out and get bodyguards. But…who cares? I'm just a regular human with a streak of bad luck. Complaining isn't going to change anything. Why should I even bother?
I exhaled loudly and shook my head without any life into it. My grip on the tree branch was so strong, that my hand started to hurt.
Hold up, I'm still holding on to the branch? Everybody is still in the air as well. But that thing is supposed to be dead, so what is going on?
Watching the demon's lifeless body bore some fruit. It looked like melted puddle of tar at this point. To me, it looked beyond dead, but some weird paranoia crept up inside me. No matter how hard I stared at it, no matter how close I looked for something that wasn't there, it wouldn't move. But I could've sworn something was up.
The girl in the unique outfit spoke up. She knew something was wrong too.
"Hey, why are we still floating?"
"Maybe Red over there happened to break the gravity switch on accident. You guys should be grateful that you get to experience flight! Ain't it just bitchin'? It's one of the abilities that I, the indestructible Gig, happen to enjoy!"
The bastard in red shrugged any blames away. The only person who might know something is the ever mysterious Nyx.
"Nyx, do you know what's up? —!"
Massive black spikes jutted out of the ground quickly and unexpectedly. One came close to impaling me in the head, but Nyx came out of nowhere and pushed me out of the way fast enough for it to graze my right cheek instead. Dozens among hundreds nearly killed the young girl from another world, but luckily she moved out of the way with inhuman reflexes. The white-haired man cut the spikes down as soon as they came close to him.
The tar puddle was no longer there, seemingly long gone. The demon's unnerving shriek reverberated through the neglected trees as we all rose higher and higher into the sky. We rose about thirty feet into the sky until at last we began to drop down.
"Looks like it's come back to play!" said Gig, "All right, soulmate! If you need any help, don't be afraid to ask!"
I thought I saw a small grin plastered on the young girl's face. "Gig, you should know by now that I don't need your power."
"Whatever. You should learn how to use it."
"How is it that those two can have a normal conversation when we're about to plummet into a field of black spikes? Man, I'm not cut out for this! My life is a total mess!"
