Chapter 9: Evil Is Rising
Author Note: I apologize for the extremely long wait! I never thought it would take THIS long to come up with a chapter. I would like to take this time to thank everyone who is actually still reading, even though I haven't updated in such a long time.
On a happier side note, Zelda-rox12 is a great reviewer. She reviewed 3 of the 6 times for my story! She has made me so happy. :D
I'm gonna say sorry in advance if this chapter seems rushed. In a way, it was. I felt bad about my lateness and wrote this up in a matter of three days.
Narrator's P.O.V.
The echoing of footsteps could be heard bouncing off the cave walls with every step he took. The sound of water dripping from stalactites made Ahriman's human-like ears perk up. It was always these same sounds that he would hear every day. "It's time for a change," Ahriman thought to himself. He couldn't wait to see Akhos bring the human girl to him. Once that was done, he would be one step closer to conquering Angel Land.
With these evil thoughts on his mind, Ahriman didn't even notice the long cone-shaped stalactite hanging from the ceiling.
*Bonk!*
"Ow!" Ahriman growled to himself. He put a hand up to his forehead to help ease the pain. "Stupid stalactites! I'm sick of this!" he snarled through gritted teeth. He began rampaging in fury through the caves breaking down as many of the stalactites that he could, but since he was focusing so much on the ceiling he didn't even bother to look down at his feet to see a fast approaching stalagmite that he would soon trip over.
*Thud* He landed face-first on the ground.
"Gaah! Stupid stalagmites!" After getting back up on his feet, he started lashing out at as many stalagmites that he could see (or run into in the future). He did this all the way through the caves until he reached his throne room where a shocked minion of his was staring at him.
"Sir? Are you alright?" asked the very confused demonic minion.
"No I am not! I can't wait for my plan to finally take effect. Where is Akhos!" Ahriman shouted while trying to relax himself on his throne of jagged rocks.
"He just arrived a few minutes ago. Would you like to –"
"Bring him in!" Ahriman yelled, cutting off the minion's question.
"As you wish sire." Ahriman watched with dark black eyes as the little demon scurried down the stairs and headed towards the large wooden door directly across from him. He placed his elbow on the armrest and rested his head on his hand, waiting 'patiently' for Akhos to enter.
When Akhos came into the room, Ahriman sensed something was wrong. There was no human girl, and Akhos was looking utterly defeated with cuts and bruises brimming his hands and arms. "This can't be good," he began thinking to himself with irritation.
"Hello Ahriman, how are you today?" Akhos asked nervously.
"Akhos?" Ahriman questioned, causing Akhos' anxiety to rise.
"Yes?" he replied sheepishly.
"For your information, my day has been just awful. Seeing you walk in here empty handed doesn't help that fact for me…or yourself." Ahriman squinted at Akhos in hatred.
"Sir, Ahriman, I can explain everything."
"Oh do explain."
"Well you see, it started off like this. I had kidnapped the girl, just like you said to, and brought her to our world. But when I arrived here I didn't arrive…..here," Akhos said flailing his arms around. "Instead the portal brought the human girl and me to the Overworld."
"Are you making this up?" Ahriman asked him with a raised brow.
"No Sir, I am not. I think her world did something to my powers that caused them to become weakened and only bring me halfway to our true destination." Ahriman became intrigued by this and listened intently throughout the rest of Ahriman's speech.
"Continuing on, as I started the walk to the North Woods, I was attacked by an angel boy. He shot some sort of 'arrow of light' at me and gave me a burn. See?" he proclaimed. There on his hand was an unusually large cut with burn marks surrounding it.
"Go on."
"After the angel shot me he grabbed the girl and formed a portal with another one of his arrows. Then he ran through it, dragging the girl in behind him." Ahriman's face became twisted in anger.
"What did you just say?"
"Um, the angel took the girl away from me?" Akhos replied quietly. Ahriman shot out of his chair and quickly ran up to Akhos. When he was face-to-face with him, Ahriman punched Akhos in the face and caused him to fall to the floor in pain.
"Fool! Those are the exact beings whose hands you do not want her falling into! Have you forgotten the point to this entire mission that I have sent you on?"
"But Ahriman, you never really told me what the whole idea behind this was. All you said was to-"
"Gah! Fine, since your feeble-headed brain doesn't seem to remember, then I'll just have to refresh it!" Ahriman turned around and walked back up to his throne to sit down.
"The whole idea behind you kidnapping the girl is because we have reason to believe that she is a 'protector'. And in case you didn't know what that is, based off of the idiotic look you are giving me, a protector is a human being with amazing powers that travels throughout the galaxies to maintain peace. If anything dreadful was to happen in a galaxy, then that protector would go off to said galaxy and destroy whatever was causing the dilemma. Now since my plan involves…..dreadful things….then this girl would have likely come to stop us."
"Actually I don't think she would have," Akhos interrupted. "When I went to kidnap her, she seemed clueless about all of that. She didn't know who I was, or what my purpose of kidnapping her would be. In fact, she looked rather terrified." Ahriman was pleased to hear that their one and only threat was afraid of them. This caused him to smile for a short second.
"Hmm, that's quite interesting. However, now that she has been brought here, she knows too much. She must be killed whether she knows of what she is or not."
"You don't want me to kill her, do you?" Akhos asked while pointing a finger at himself. He began thinking to himself, "I'm sure glad I didn't tell him that she caused her own escape. Ahriman would've had my head for that one. On the bright side, now I might just get my revenge on that little pest."
Ahriman sighed and said, "Sadly, you're the only one capable of the job." Ahriman looked behind Akhos to see two minions fighting over weapons. One was holding a pitchfork; the other was holding a scythe.
"It's mine!" said the one holding the scythe.
"No I want your weapon! It looks way scarier. My weapon just makes me look like a ridiculous fleshy farmer," yelled the minion holding the pitchfork. Both demons dropped their weapons and began a 'fist fight', which actually looked a lot more like a cat fight.
Ahriman shook his head in despair. "How did I get stuck with such child-like stupidity?" he thought to himself.
"I won't let you down this time Lord Ahriman." Akhos exclaimed while bowing to his master.
"You better not. This is your last chance to prove to me how competent you really are." Akhos swiftly got back up on his two feet and headed for the door. Before he could open the large wooden obstruction, Ahriman continued to speak. "Just to make this more interesting, I want to add a little deal to this. If you do not return with the human girl, then do not come back at all," he said in a low voice. Ahriman clenched his fists tightly in irritation before opening up the door and leaving it to slam shut behind him. The sudden slamming of the door caused a loose stalactite on the cave ceiling to fall directly on top of Ahriman's head.
*Thump!*
Ahriman looked up at the cave's ceiling and started sulking while rubbing his head in pain. "This is such an off day for me," he mumbled to himself.
Author Note: I had loads of fun writing this chapter…..mostly because I got to make Ahriman hurt himself so many times. :D Evil people, sometimes they just deserve it.
At first, I was gonna make this chapter tell the reason why Ahriman wants to control Angel Land, but I'm deciding to save that for later…..well….that and I couldn't find a spot to fit it in. ;) I am also just figuring out how ironic my chapter name is. "Evil Is Rising," should be "Evil Is Falling," because they were pretty much hitting the floor every two minutes. XD
Well, you know the drill. Please review, keep reading (even though I've become such a pain at getting my story updated. Again, I'm sorry!), and have a nice day/night/evening/breakfast/lunch/dinner/supper/dessert…..oh great, now I'm hungry. *runs off to the kitchen*
Next Chapter: haven't come up with a name yet...but I'm working on it. :P