"THIS WORLD WAS NEVER MEANT FOR YOUR EXISTENCE!" A voice rang out throughout the darkness.
"DAMN!" Cursed Jin as the think black mist enveloped them like a black hole of never ending darkness. "HOW THE HELL ARE WE GETTING OUT OF HERE!" He cursed with a very crude tone. Jin was after all one of the more rough type of boys. He could never resist a fight and would always fight till the very end.
"Take this! SHINRYAKUU SENPUKYAKU!" His legs worked fast as he flipped into the air and did a full spin throttle backflip kick, after doing one in the air, he continued with a midair double arrow forward spin crush. And then as he landed a blaze of flames shot out from under his feet and enveloped the whole room with red flare. "HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT!" Jin exclaimed into the darkness. There was no reply.
"Jin! Don't waste your energwy!" Arme exclaimed as she turned to Lass. "Pwwut me dwawn fwor a momuwent Lwas." She said. Lass did so. "Evewywan! Attwack when I gwive the swignal!" She exclaimed as everyone turned to her. She took out a small handbook and flipped it to a particular page. She started chanting a short string of gibberish. And then, she pulled out her wand from inside her cape.
"TWONADWOOOOOO!"
A burst of strong wind enveloped the room. The rest of the grand chase members tried to hold onto something. They grabbed anything, from curtains to pillars to themselves, almost everything that is. Ronan was especially enjoying himself.
"GYAH! WHAT ARE YOU DOING RONAN!" Elesis exclaimed as Ronan was hanging on to her chest. "I've no choice!" He exclaimed back to Elesis. The wind started to draw a huge gust and then to a squall. Elesis could feel a heavy amount of force pushing down on both her breasts. She started to turn red all at once. And then suddenly. "AHHH!" Ronan slipped and was now holding somewhere between her belly and her thighs.
"Ku….Kuuuuuu…." Elesis almost started to nosebleed already. "You….YOU PERVERTTTTTT!" And with a great amount of strength she took one hand off a pillar and grabbed Ronan's arm. Her strength crushed his arm and forcefully made his hand retract. "GO DIE! PERVERT!" And with that, she spun him across the room, and he headed towards the eye of the tornado.
The black mist was starting to fade already. It was being absorbed into the tornado generated by Arme who was now clinging on to Lass's back. "UGUUUUU!" She tried to concentrate. She knew she had to cast one more spell. As all of the black mist disappeared into the eye of the tornado. Arme looked back and pointed her wand at the eye of the tornado.
"STONING!" A purple beam of light shot out like a giant ray gun and landed right at the eye of the tornado. The dark mist started to take shape into the hooded figure once more. And slowly it turned into solid rock, turning from a deep black into a whitish grey.
"UWAAAAHHHH!" Ronan crashed into the stone figure an it broke into a few hundred pieces. "AAAHHHHHH! OUCH!" Ronan exclaimed as his greyish figure started to take shape from the dust flying around him. He massaged his muscles. But that too did not ease the aches one bit. "WHY DID YOU DO THAT FOR! EL!" It was a short form for Ronan cause after all Ronan and Elesis were somewhat intimate in many senses other than one.
"You…YOU IDIOT! YOU VIOLATED MY BODY AND NOW I CAN'T GET MARRIED! DIE! DIIIIIEEEE!" Elesis dashed towards Ronan and gave him a flying face kick fight on his right cheek. "GWAHAA!" Of course the pain was like nothing Ronan had ever felt before, well it is Elesis we are talking about here. In any case, it seemed after some bashing and some hair ripping, things calmed down a bit, although Lire was still holding Elesis back. Ronan on the other hand was half bald now and looked like he had gotten really badly done plastic surgery, which was funny in a way too.
Lass took out a bottle of pink liquid and poured it on Ronan's head. In almost an instant his hair and facial features returned to normal, but the trauma of Elesis's power still left a deep scar in his mind.
"I told you never to mess with Elesis…." Lass warned as he shrugged with a bit of evil in his tone.
"You've never ever said anything to me about her." Replied Ronan who was thankful that Lass had brought such a potion with him.
"Oh, yes I forgot to mention. You'll grow another four kilograms heavier later on, it's the side effect of the potion." Lass put the cork back into the bottle and then kept the potion back into his bag.
Ronan grunted he had never liked the word 'side effects' it played a major role in his life. It was like a dating sim game, every move will have a side effect. He recalled how many wrong moves he had made in the past 6 years with Elesis and the amount of bruises he obtained from her and her ALONE. Not even fighting giant Gorgos could cause him that much damage, only Elesis was capable enough to make such a thing happen.
And as the Grand Chase were preparing for their journey once more, something echoed in the hall way, something evil but almost kind in a way too.
"Bravo…..bravo….you've made it this far…."
The voice said. Everyone was stunned and shocked in some aspects too.
"W…WHO IS THIS!" Lire pointed her crossbow into thin air, of course she knew it would do no good with close range attacks, but it acted as a tool to scare the enemy away, if it, she or he was scared of pointy arrows.
"SHOW YOURSELF!" Lass shouted next. Ryan was preparing his giant axe as he looked around cautiously. "Damn! I've not appeared for some time now." He whispered under his tone, referring this directly to the author who went on hiatus for a few months. "Is this the god damn author speaking here! If so, you better know who you're dealing with! YOU GET IT!" Ryan was furious. But of course, the author, me, could not do a thing about it.
Jin realized something then. "Ryan, you keep talking to yourself recently….are you alright?" He asked, half concerned but mostly it was a half assed question. But it was true, during the hiatus moment Ryan had been somewhat complaining most likely because he was after all cluster phobic and had been sitting in the dark stairway waiting for an update from the author to continue their journey.
"No…this is not the author…."
I, the author gave a sigh, thanking whoever who cleared my name earlier.
"I am the shadow within your nightmares. I am the grave of destruction that lurks in the darkness."
A pair of eyes appeared in the darkness. One was red, the other was blue. The figure, only a meters away, hidden in the shadows of the oncoming hallways walked slowly towards the group of seven.
"Gaikoz has sent me to greet you." She said walking towards all of them. Her face was now visible as she walked under the moonlight glimmering from a small window directly above her head. The grandchase did not recognize who she was, not even the slightest. Who was she? Nobody knew, but the chains of fate between her and someone within the GrandChase was about to have a permanent solder to it.
"I….am….." She said dramatically.
"Mari…."
Everyone each exchanged looked. "Ku….HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Ryan started laughing at first, then Ronan. And it quickly spread to Lass, Arme, Lire and Elesis. They just couldn't stop themselves. "YOU DID IT SO DRAMATICALLY! HAHAHAHA! BUT YOUR NAME! IT'S SO COMMON!" They laughed from the lameness of her name.
"You guys really have no manners huh?" A tone of calmness rang in the air. They turned to Jin, he was the only one who did not laugh one bit. "She's a lady, and we as gentlemen should treat her as one." He said in a cool and collected tone. It was Jin after all, he was quite the ladies' man. Suddenly a pail of water came tumbling on Jin's head. "AHAHAHAHA! SAYS THE BIG SHOT LADY KILLER!" Ryan was the one who threw the water on him. From where did he get this? It was his WHOLE supply of clean water from a stream near the outer walls of Serdin, and it was the only supply of water he had, and all was lost now. In any case, everyone burst into laughter again.
"I really hate you guys…" Jin grumbled in a rather unhappy tone.
"You people…." Mari was angry at all of them. She looked at them in the eye as she did making each of them shut their gap immediately.
"I am the servant of my master…Gai…" And she suddenly chocked on her words. Her eyes were on Jin's face at that time. She started blushing. It was quite obvious she had the hots for Jin, although nobody really noticed all that much.
"Ga…Ga…Gai….Koz….He…He….is…is th…the master…o….of…a…all…ee….ev…evil…..ahahahaha…."
Her words were tense and unbalanced.
"Ah, she's just another small fry." Ryan said almost nonchalantly. Suddenly a bullet flew by his ear, shaving off part of his side burn, yet missing his ear entirely. Mari gained back her composure, she was the one who launched the shot. Everyone was shocked and knew the shot was definitely a performance of one of the finest gun man skills they have ever seen.
"I could kill of you here right now…" Her voice was menacingly calm as she screened across the room. She skipped Jin however or else she'd skip another beat again. "Yo…you be…better be careful…y..you ge…get it!" Her voice turned raspy again as she saw Jin.
"We don't want to fight with you. Especially not with a lady." Jin replied as he calmly put his hands up as a gesture of surrender. "However, we would like to settle this problem diplomatically with your leader Gaikoz if possible." His tone was like music to Mari's ears. She wasn't concentrating on the content for a moment there as her heart was swayed by Jin's youngish and fluent voice. The melodious tune made her heart flip 360.
"H…He….sa…says he…w..will ne…never…d…deal with you lot!" Mari screamed and then ran off into the darkness once more.
"AH! WAIT!" Jin exclaimed, but her footsteps were getting fainter and fainter by the second.
"There is no point chasing her…" Ronan said. "Let's just get ready and move on. Gaikoz is not a person who likes to talk, I can guarantee you this." He said as he started checking his armor once more.
Everyone nodded and then got ready their equipment. After everything was settled they got moving. The passage before them was a dark but wide one. Their voices were echoed back by the walls which were thick and made out of solid rock. Small candles lit the hallway, but it was not bright enough to fully illuminate the middle path. They walked down slowly and noticed shoe prints on the carpet below them, most likely they were from Mari's shoes. As they walked slowly, they spotted something in front of them. It was a single red light in the darkness. They slowly approached it and looked at what was emitting the red light.
The first they noticed was a pad of numbers, and above that was an electronic input device which read
-Please Insert Password-
They examined the device, then they noticed a giant door sitting right beside it.
Jin kicked the door. "Damn! It's shut!" He shouted looking at the giant wooden door which was carved out from granite. He examined the door and then the pad and notice something stuck underneath. It was…..
…an electronic bomb.
"I…IT'S A BOMB DAMMIT!" He exclaimed looking at the mechanical device under the number pad. Everyone noticed it all at once and backed away from it. Only Lire, the professional locksmith stood there examining the key code input device. She got a rough idea how it worked.
"We need a password…." She said looking at the door. None of them knew anything and everyone just turned away. Lire knew what that meant, they had to find another way to get around this door. She looked for windows hoping to climb across to the other side, but to her dismay, there were no windows at all. She looked at the pad once more, this time she noticed something weird and small near the pad. It was a carved writing on the granite wall.
"Hey guys! See this!" She said pointing to the writing. Everyone gathered to read it and they read it clear. It read.
'To unlock this door, solve the riddle.
Imagine 2 rows of numbers, similar, yet different. 7 on one side is 1 on the other. 3 on one is 9 on the other. But 5 remains 5. Now then, what would '8947 6231' be? It is an eight digit code. Good luck! The bomb will explode after 5 unsuccessful tries, so be careful.
-Love Mari."
Everybody was wondering why Mari, their enemy had left a riddle for them, but that didn't matter at all. The fact is they had something to follow. They didn't exactly trust it, but somehow it looked legit. They had no other tracks so they decided to go with this one
Now, Lire knew the lock was possible the break. They just needed the right numbers. Lire smiled and with her ego exclaimed.
"I see…..Leave this to me guys! I'll solve this!"
-Mission: Get the password-
"I just have to solve the riddle…Could the pad have something to do with it?"
'Imagine 2 rows of numbers, similar, yet different. 7 on one side is 1 on the other. 3 on one is 9 on the other. But 5 remains 5. Now then, what would '8947 6231' be? It is an eight digit code'
Just getting a rough idea how the pad looks like. It looks like this.
7 8 9
4 5 6
1 2 3
Good luck figuring out!