Chapter 10! Happy reading.. ^o^
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If the ground where you're standing on is flipped 180 degrees, you will expect to fall through and arrived at the underground. Less likely, Rue found himself fall to underground, but surprisingly it had sky. Yes, sky. The other astonishing fact was that he fell into a place similar to the upper ground- the trees, the soil, the pathway- except that everything was turned upside down. He couldn't explain it really well, but in simple words, he fell from the ground to the trees and fell again to the ground. Just imagine.
His achey body didn't stop him from immediately calling for Mint, trying to find her presence there, until a soft voice called his name in return. She was standing as complete as before, without lacking of anything. Rue could hear her steps running towards him.
"What are you doing here? Did you.. follow me to the trap?" Mint herself was surprised. Nevertheless, she got nothing but the silence from Rue, though she knew it was his normal 'yes'. Shooking head, her heart sank to know that he didn't even care about the trap when it was about her safety.
"Where are we now?" Rue spread sight everywhere.
The only thing that differed the underground from the upper ground was the poem entitled 'Heaven and Hell', they didn't find it carved where it supposed to be. The wind blew through the trees which lined both sides of the pathway, it made Mint shiver for feeling the coldness. Rue decided to enter the pathway first, but he stopped as soon as he found a rectangle made from marble in the middle of the pathway. He sighed and looked forward, there was a small pillar standing steadily with purple stone floating above, at the end of the pathway- five sparkly blue ellipses surrounded the stone . So, they needed to pass through the rectangle to reach the stone?
"Wait, Rue.. Are you gonna threspass this? Might be a trap.. " Mint complained right when he was about to stomp on it. Rue turned to see her face for a while since he was hesitant too, nevertheless he had to make up the decision, "... Uhm, we have no choice."
He placed his right foot on it very cautiously and waited. Nothing happened. Feeling safer, he walked toward and Mint followed him through the rectangle. Suddenly, a black and a white light came out of the surface toward the sky, spiralling to one another with a loud buzz. Rue and Mint leapt entering the area after the rectangle together, they were puzzled by the lights which appeared without definite causes.
Those lights returned to the rectangle and left nothing, but gaping mouths from Mint and Rue for moments. Regained her mind again, Mint stomped her foot and yelled, "Grrh! What the hell was that! A welcome sign? Huh, my heart nearly lost the beat!"
"Promise you, your heart soon will stop for good, Darling.."
A deep haughty woman's voice came from behind. The two fellows turned and found three women standing near the pillar. They were not ordinary women though, everybody could identify them as angels from their white dove-like wings at the back and halos on the head. The figures were heavenly sculpted- tall, slim, and voluptous. Two angels, left and right, had ankle-length hair with different styles. The left angel braided her hair with sharp left-sided bangs covered her left part of face, whilst the right one had sleeky straight hair, bangs covering the eyebrows, and white flowers on her head. The foremost angel, who looked the most ordinary compared to the others, was the one who talked to Mint in sarcasm.
Every man in the world would fall for these angels at the first sight, but a doll like Rue wasn't attracted offhand by perfect physical appearance only. Moreover, he sensed something malicious from these angels, their eyes were full of hatred.
The middle angel swung her wavy curled hair, "Oy, humans! Are you idiot or what? Don't you read the warning before, eh? You know, that's the kind of us to warn you!" Her voice was nice, but it wasn't nice anymore after hearing the words.
Couldn't accept such statements, Mint thrusted one Dual Halo, "Get out of my way, Birdy Women! What the hell is your warning, uh, whatever it was, I don't give a damn about it!"
The three of them bursted in sinister laughter. "My, you are so confident, [expletive]! This is the Heaven- now you get it, dumbhead?- and we are Heaven Demons! Let me introduce ourselves to you, I am Ubitcha, on my right is Ubitche, and on my left is Ubitchi.. " The foremost angel, Ubitcha, used oh-so-forbidden-word as an angel and it made Mint frown in disgust- even a real curser like Mint didn't expect that coming from literally angel-like persons. Well, at least, they were Heaven Demons, their name was a privilege to curse.
Not involved in the conversation, Rue preferred to focus on a theory about the angels' sudden coming. He was more than sure that no one was there before and that was before Mint stepped on the rectangle. A line from the poem came to his mind.
Two is not less, two is not more, two is what the Heaven needs.
So the rectangle didn't react to one pair of feet, but two pairs! It was just a wild guess on how it censored two persons, nevertheless there was no doubt about it. This Heaven needed two person to summon the angels down into the earth- not a real 'heaven' nor 'angels though, it was just how Valen named them, he guessed so.
"Uhm, Mint?" Rue called Mint who was throwing curses with the angels and proceeded to explain everything, he didn't care whether she wanted to listen or not. Though, she did listen to him.
She shooked her head, "What about Narcius? According to the [expletive] poem, 'one shall be burnt in hell', does it mean.. " Mint answered that incomplete question in her mind. Blood drained rapidly to her head, raising the tension insides. No, she wasn't angry, indeed she was extremely angry. Mint always hated everything about poem, everything! She always skipped from poem literature lesson in East Heaven Kingdom, the only subject she refused to learn after her return to the palace. And now, the poem stuffs brought them to complicated circumstances, how could she stay calm?
"Oy! What are you doing! Ignoring the three of us? How dare.." Ubitche who had been silent all the time finally spoke out loud. For a woman's voice, it was rather heavy and hoarse- somehow, Mint could catch a hint of man's voice in it. Ubitche frowned at Rue, feeling suspicious of him. "You are Doll of Valen, aren't you? You are supposed to stay at your post and do your duty! What are you doing, hobnobbing with human?"
Rue was startled by her question, "I'm not- uhm, well -how do you know I'm a Doll of Valen?" Rue didn't answer Ubitche, he asked her instead. Ubitche folded her arms, "How could you ask such things? We are Guardians, of course we recognize the Dolls of Valen! And you don't know who we are, huh? You must be the traitor Ruegia! You wish you could get this Star Stone!" Ubitche's face tensed a bit, and so did Ubitcha and Ubitchi. Rue didn't say anything, he glanced the stone, 'What is that Star Stone for?'
The only person who wasn't interested in this topic, Mint, yawned loudly as if she was a hippocampus. Arrogant as always, the saucy princess butted into the conversation and averred everything in her mind.
"Alright, Rue vs the Birdies! You, inappropriate angels, this is Rue who hampered Valen from returning to my world! My world, you hear! And my name is Mint, you better remember since I will conquer this world and you will be under my footings! Now, step out from my way and give me that stone, I will spare your life for sure, got it?" She didn't even know what would the stone for, however from the way those Heaven Demons protected it, it had to be 'something'. Especially, 'something' with the [relic] she had been longing for.
Instead of being scared by Mint's speech about her world domination plan, Heaven Demons felt really insulted. That was the first time they met Rue, though the news of their mighty lord, Valen, got conquered had spread very well. And how Mint uttered about the authority stuffs really pissed them off, even the kindest face, Ubitchi, now turned darker. Nobody could take the right to rule them- only Valen, no one else.
Ubitcha clenched her fists furiously, "So, you are that [expletive] doll? Ungrateful doll, broken doll! Was that how you returned our Lord's kindness from creating you? You both just keep wishing, I will never give this stone!" Ubitcha grabbed the stone and, stunningly disgusting, swallowed it in one quick deglutition. Mint exclaimed as Ubitcha's mouth distended as if it was made from elastic rubber and the neck did it either, yet after passing her throat, the bulge disappeared offhand.
"And you, [expletive]! You are the shameless [expletive]! Your magic is no compare to our high-level magic! Ubitche, Ubitchi, set the fire! We'll punish these bastards 'till their last droplet of blood!" the pretty Ubitcha herself turned into a demon form. The eyes changed into hollow black, supple skin became crusted and muscular, her sexy lips faded while two huge canines replaced her well-arranged white teeth, and a pair of devil horns grew from her scalp. Ubitche and Ubitchi looked worse with black flame burning their hair, each swung the hair and so the trees were burnt in one swing, didn't give a chance to escape.
A mocking smirk appeared on Mint's face, "Huh.. Even the beautiful angels have demon side. But, duh, this is too superficial.. " she nodded to Rue, "We have to destroy them to get that stone. I don't know what it is, but I know that the stone is really precious. My, they are too protective.." The white hair guy gazed her a while and nodded back.
Rue faced of Ubitche with her burning braid- she used it like a whip. The first trial in Stone monster form didn't result as good as expected since this black fire didn't burn literally. It burnt in a different way, black flame accelerated cells death and left dry cold black marks- unlike red fire caused wet reddish wound. Stone needed heat to get bigger, unfortunately black fire was not 'hot'. Besides the unique fire she possessed, Ubitche was tough. She was fast for her bigger form and she could whip really hard. The thickness of the braid helped her damaging ability a lot. Nevertheless, Rue was yet stronger than her.
In the other party, Mint was facing sweety Ubitchi who kept smiling even in a horrible demon form. For God's sake, Mint loathed those strands of hair! She didn't know how to describe its attacking mode, maybe rather like a razor blade, but dangerously there were millions of razor-like hair strands.
The similarities between those demons were the black magic. They used extraordinary black spells Mint had never heard of. Valen should've discovered them through his dark experiments about the [relics]. The nastiest spell was casted by Ubitcha who seemed to be the leader of the badass trio. She stayed away from the battle, yet still involved herself by casting Ground Vitamin spell- it made some squares of stony ground unexpectedly grew quickly and punched out the enemies. Sometimes, if Rue or Mint stayed too long on the same area, she would cast the Black Blades spell which sent hundreds of black sharp rings. That spell disturbed Mint so much since she didn't have wings unlike the demons or Rue who was in Alato form. Many times she had to use Restore Health to repair the slices caused by Black Blades, despite its consuming energy.
However, people's saying about 'fortune always comes after the misfortune' matched with the battle. The demons might be superb, but such high techniques consumed plenty of energy, that they needed to recharge once in awhile, and they couldn't fight or defend during the process. The chance was precious even if it happened for mere 10 seconds.
After much blood and sweat, Mint sent badly injured Ubitchi down to the ground several seconds after the same thing happened to Ubitche. Both could barely stand on their footings, they dragged themselves to Ubitcha. Instead of caring her Guardian fellows, Ubitcha would rather to grumble and kick them.
Contrast to those Heaven Demons, Rue was helping the exhaustedly laying Mint. He didn't doubt her ability to defeat Ubitchi, this was more about his concerned feeling towards her. His heart still thumped so hard from the battle until he could feel the beat down in his stomach.
"Are you alright?" he stopped as his fingers touched flowing blood at Mint's palm, "You bleed.. much." He was not phobic to blood, just psychological trauma from the past involving Claire. Mint quickly realized what was happening, then she bragged, "It's nothing! Come on, that doesn't even hurt me. Ouch!" she mumbled in pain- Rue, who had been once relieved by her confident words, gazed in worry again. Mint sighed in defeat, "Alright, that hurts. Stop your silly expression, Doll, I'll fix it right away okay? Ego restituo !" Actually, she didn't plan on using Restore Health anymore after the fight, but this doll's expression bugged her peaceful aftermatch moment. If only she had known that wasn't an 'aftermatch', but a reses before another one..
She was distracted by Ubitcha's mad voice. There, Ubitcha growled in frustration, sometimes gave kicks or punches to the other demons. Mint couldn't bear the questions in her head anymore.
"Why didn't she fight us? Ubitcha is strong, if three of them joined the forces, they would eliminate us easily.. Don't you think so?"
"..." Rue nodded, he was hypnotized by the scene before his eyes. The demons had returned to their normal forms as angels. Ubitcha pulled her sisters high above ground at the neck with each of her hands and murmured in anger.
"[Expletive]! Weaklings! You know that I can't move easily with the stone in me, I just need you to do me one [expletive] favor to kill those dirty humans! Can't you DO anything right!" Ubitcha didn't care at how Ubitchi and Ubitche desperately choked and gasped for air. Suddenly, she let them fall and hit the ground, both coughed badly. Ubitcha walked slowly ahead, her back curved forward like a pregger.
"I'm not finished with you! This time, I'll crush you with my own hands!" Ubitcha clenched the right fist which then released black flame toward the sun. She muttered the spell out loud, "The Holy Sun! Lend me your power, combine us in the heaven light! Neutralize the poison in my blood, keep the darkness of hell in my soul! Then the sins of mine shall be concealed!" Rue blinked in surprise, that was the first time he could see sunlight in Fire Forest. And the weird thing was, he found it in a place which was actually the underground!
'This is not good..' Mint had a bad feeling about this scene. She watched as sun neutralized the black flame into white brimming flash which then covered Heaven Demons from her sight. 'They are definitely transforming into a new form, but oh! Don't- please, don't- don't tell me they are going to..' Mint bit her lower lips in frustration. She was worried sick that the thought would come true.
Under the warm shower of sunshine, Heaven Demons took the first step after a brief process. Mint had prepared to accept the worst possibility, so here comes the bad dream. Or, maybe the worst dream since Heaven Demons finally combined themselves into their final form, Ultima Demon. At the end, she couldn't accept the fact very well.
"Alright! Now you join into one [expletive] body, and it drives me crazy! Grrrrhh!" Rue was startled because he just saw Mint sitting on the ground, yet in mere a second, she had stood up and stomped.
Ultima Demon form had appearance like a tall angel who was wearing a pure-white hooded robe covering its skin, except its white pale hands. It didn't have anything that supposed to be there on the face part, its face was a blank black and rather similar to a hole. Thirty dragonfly wings bent outward the demon's back, all was black contrast to the clothes. Mint would rather call it a spectre than an angel, eventhough none was correct- Ultima Demon was definitely a demon.
"I won't relinquish you, weak humans. This is a blunder of you from the first time you chose to walk here. You yourselves call your anguish and I'm really honored to give it, " Ultima Demon did speak although it didn't possess any mouth. As usual, Mint reacted arrogantly to its underestimating words- everything about underestimation issues kind of reminisced her to Bella and Belle.
"Do we have to show you anew our great powers, huh? Don't look down on us, screwball! I will give my best punches to you right away, and I will get that stone, and I will be one step closer to the [relic]~! Lalalala~ " For some seconds, she forgot about everything.
It chuckled mischievously, "I see.. So this is about the [relic].. Fine, your reason strengthened my will to eliminate you from this world."
Unexpectedly, it released Ground Vitamin which punched Rue and Mint to the sky. Though Ubitcha had casted this spell for countless times, they would never get used to the nasty punching-like ground. Preventing any damage of bumping the ground from such height, Rue transformed into an Alato and caught Mint before it was too late.
Ultima, who had waited patiently for his prey's landing, lambasted the ground as soon as Mint stepped on it and made severe crack creeping from its feet to her. She evaded by throwing herself somewhere else. Black flame blazed from the cracking patch as soon as it stopped moving. Well, Ultima could wear white clothes and use the power of sun, but still it possessed black magic.
This Guardian was nuts! Roundly it didn't give any chance for them to attack. She gazed Ultima Demon, who stood far away from her, in irritated look. 'I will take care of this freaky guardian and..' she blinked once, 'Oh-'
Mint gaped when she found Ultima had stood besides. That was impossible! She saw Ultima Demon was THERE, after a blink- voila!- Ultima somehow was HERE. What creature in the world could move that fast? She was frozen in her position, couldn't move anywhere else.
"Mint! Get away from there!" Rue warned Mint, but the girl was still paralyzed by her surprise. She didn't listen to him.
"Face me, Mint. You are forbidden to blink in the middle of my battle!" Ultima spoke coldly. That Guardian grabbed her by the collar and pulled her up above the ground. This damn tight grip at her collar rather choked Mint. Her feet kicked in the air desperately.
"Let me go, [expletive]! Oh, Rue! Help!" She tried to punch and claw Ultima's pale hand, but it felt nothing like she expected. Ultima laughed horribly- Mint imagined the whole empty face did the laughter, well, in this case it was true. Ultima now began swinging her from one side to another, it was frolicking with Mint before destructing her into bloody pulps.
"Release her, demon!"
And, one perfect swing from the holy Arc Edge at Ultima's arm stopped it at once from swinging Mint. Finally, Ultima let go of Mint, it groaned while grabbing the injured arm and temporarily took distance from them. Meanwhile, Mint landed on the ground spunkily on one of her knees, then she quickly joined Rue who was ready to attack the badass Guardian.
She clenched her fist, "Now, you'll get nicey whack from me, idiot demon, or angel, or monster, or- NAH! Whatever!" Instead of replying her threat, Ultima bursted in laughter. It swept the sleeve upward on a arm where Rue slashed it moments ago and revealed shining hole in the middle of its arm. Heaven Demons had borrowed the power of sunlight, so Ultima's body was basically built from indestructible light. The skin was merely a cover, injuring the skin didn't mean anything.
"Puhleaase! Don't judge me by the vulnerable skin of mine.. My body consisted from a substance of the strongest star in this galaxy, thou too underestimated me.." Ultima's wings fluttered faster, "I'm not forgiving that indescent attack, by the way.. Lucea de Ultima !" Flashily shine erupted from every inch of Ultima's body and covered the whole arena. Rue could hear Mint call for him in horror, but all he could do was covering his eyes. This light beam attack happened for several seconds and those seconds really tortured since Rue could feel his skin heaten madly as if he was burnt.
As soon as the spell effect was diminished, Ultima dashed with half of light velocity and emptyhandedly whacked its enemies who were completely unaware. Rue's awareness was better than Mint as he could still identify the whizzing sound, then quickly opened his eyes and dodged on time. On the other hand, Mint was tossed far away until at the end, she bumped roughly to the ground.
Without wasting any more time, this Doll of Valen whacked Ultima and so they both enganged in a tough physical fight. Ultima changed its hands into two huge light swords which were still covered by skin. Mint got up and watched the fight- and something was wrong with her eyes. She didn't have it before Ultima's spell, but now light was filling her sight and made her hard to see clearly! She rubbed those eyes several times, yet the intervention worsen it. Everything was bright, too bright maybe.
"Mint!" Rue yelled right after he slouched from one dangerous slash, "Do something- argh!" He leapt backward, if he were late a mere second, Ultima would have torn his face apart. Yet, Ultima still succeded in ripping his skin a little.
Mint stuttered herself, "Oh, [expletive]! How the heck I could cast spell promptly if I can't see anything?" Tear was flowing down her cheeks, her eyes were piercing hot. It was the light derived from the sun, no doubt it would burn, though slightly, just like every sunlight does.
Rue fell to the ground and defended by using the gripping curve of Arc Edge while Ultima eagerly pushed him.
"Weak humans.. Die.. Just die!" Ultima mumbled viciously, hands kept pushing against Rue. Rue glanced from the corner of his eye, only to find Mint do nothing about this. He couldn't hold it any longer. Mint had to help him or Ultima would cut off his head.
"Mint! Help me! Now!" he yelled once again to the fiery orange haired girl. Mint nervously bit her lower lips. She couldn't tell Rue offhand that she had lost her clear visibility. Yes, she was able to see two wrestling creatures in front of her sometimes . But, the view quickly blurred before appearing again in the next few seconds. Nevertheless, getting frustrated by his scream for help, Mint decided to help Rue, even if that meant she'd possibly attack him instead.
Dual Haloes revolved around each other and whirred. Ultima turned its attention to Mint, somehow Rue believed the guardian did it behind the black hollow face, Ultima was smirking.
"Enjoy, Rue.." the guardian suddenly flew away from Rue. The doll boy was confused of the sudden change- that was when Mint shot Blowup Rocks spell towards Rue, without realizing who would be hit by the spell.
"Mint! What's she doing?" Rue gazed Mint with widened eyes. Whatever it was in that girl's mind, Rue only knew something was wrong and he had to escape from the raging rocks that was gliding towards him. Ultima took the chance to cast Ground Vitamin to the off-guard Mint, since Rue was busy himself. Poor Mint, she was thrown high up to the sky as if she had jumped on a giant trampoline. Flying might be nice, the problem was always how she'd land from such height without wings or other appliances.
Meanwhile Rue had done with plenty Blowup Rocks when he heard the ground had elevated irregularly at where Mint just stood before. His heart stopped one second to realize her misfortune.
"NO! MINT!" His words were cliche for that type of situation, though nothing better to say. He changed himself into a Grendoa and extended his tongue to catch Mint. Unfortunately, he forgot about Ultima. That Guardian quickly caught his tongue, with cowboy style, it spinned Rue like a lasso before letting go of the tongue and launching Rue to the sky. It wasn't helping him to catch Mint, the plan was to make them bump badly in high velocity. Ultima was utterly playing with its 'new toys'.
"RUE! WAATTCCHH OOUUUUTTT!" Mint screamed as Rue got closer to her. They were about to crash! On the other hand, Rue didn't seem to worry about it. He stucked out his slimey Grendoa tongue, wrapped it around Mint who was closing her eyes, and took her with him. He didn't expect that Ultima launched some Gimmick Balls- another black magic with black fireballs- to the point they were about to hit, though fortune was still on his side since Rue had flew away.
"Oh, yuck! Why the hell did you have to use this monster?" Mint grumbled as they landed safely. Rue who had transformed back to human form, frowned, "Mint, why do you shoot magic to me? Is something wrong with you? Well-" He froze when Mint turned her face, "your eyes are white.."
Though she didn't catch it that way, "Of course! What colours do you expect? Pink? Hah!"
The doll boy shooked his head, but Black Blades disturbed the conversation. Quickly Rue pulled Mint away, on the contrary Mint didn't realize what was going on.
"Your eyes are WHOLE white, Mint!" Rue yelled since he had to overcome the noisy sound now resulting from Ground Vitamin- Ultima never stopped attacking them. He brought Mint running from those continuous attacks- Ground Vitamin, then Black Blades, then Gimmick Balls, then back to Ground Vitamin again, and so on.
Mint shrieked hysterically, "Is that so? [Expletive]! That's why I can't see clearly! Everything is too bright!"
Some Black Blades were so low from the ground that they had to jump over. "Mint, JUMP!" Rue gave the instruction. Mint was a bit puzzled because she didn't see anything, she heard many sounds though. Three first blades were okay, but the next six were troubles- Mint almost tripped over them and got cuts at her legs.
"Oh, [expletive]! These things really piss me off!" curses came from her mouth in the middle of panting breath. Rue turned to hide behind a tree. He asked something to the princess, yet he sounded as if he had been talking to himself.
"What should I do to defeat a creature consisted of sunlight? How in the world can I destroy the light? For heaven's sake.."
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TO BE CONTINUED..
Alright, I didn't update for three weeks coz I lost my mood! Duh... Never mind, I always want to accomplish this fanfiction. ^^ I'll stay faithful until I completely lose my inspiration.. XD
I was confused but using Old English, maybe not old, but the English which Shakespears used in his scripts. I tried to make Heaven Demons use that antique accent, but my God, that's complicated! =,=
Alright, my buddy readers, please review my story.. Tell me everything, whether it's satisfaction, or dissatisfaction, or disgust, or compliment, or complain, or what else? Oh, everything! XD See you in next chapter, I hope it won't be long.. =)