"Hold on, you're telling me Ana is one of the daughters of Alana?" Jackie asked, her rage slightly going down. "If she was why didn't I hear about her?"
"She was lost when the Dregins attacked the kingdom, the queen believed she was lost amidst the chaos."
Jackie had many questions swirling around her mind. If Ana is Alana's daughter then that means...
"She's related to...HER." she muttered. "They don't even look alike."
"Look Julie, you're going to tell me everything, right now. Then you're going to explain it to everyone else AGAIN, got it?"
Julie gave a silent nod as she stood up and dusted herself off. Her wounds from earlier started to heal.
"First, where does Ana fit into this?"
"Ana is the "eldest" child of the Queen."
"But how come she doesn't look like her sister, Penelope?"
"The Queen remarried after her husband died in the attack that supposedly killed Ana. You could say that she's a half-sister."
"Hm, that is true...I'd say Ana is in her mid-thirties. Penelope is around her late twenties..." Jackie thought.
"Ok, why now are you coming here to get the two?"
"We meant to arrive earlier, however we got caught up in other affairs back home and delayed us."
"I have many more, but here's the last one. Why are you being a dick to your princess?"
Julie looked away. "Ah...I assumed her identity. She looks exactly like me and if I tried to blend in someone would notice something."
"Wait, so where's the "real" Julie?"
"In stasis, we took her and put her under a sleeping spell."
"So being a total bitch was just an act?"
"Yes!"
"Good, cause if you WERE doing it for real. I was going to sock you right now."
"Please don't..."
Jackie put a hand on her hip. "We're going back and you're going to explain to the rest."
"Rest...?"
"Oh yeah, a spider girl, the Conaghers, and my sisters. And don't act up, my sisters know how much you and your kindgom hate shadow elementals. And they know how your ruler broke my brother's heart."
Julie nodded.
Jackie was about to open a rift to get back to the Conagher's house when she realized something.
"Hold on, something's not right." she said.
"What is it?"
"I felt an odd presence at school today, and I thought it came from you."
"And...?"
"And you're not evil, but if it's not you then who could it be? I doubt anyone else was arou..."
The two girls' eyes opened in sudden realization.
"No way..."
'Knock! Knock! Knock!'
"I got it!" Heather shouted as she went to the front door. She opened it and found someone she wasn't expecting.
Revi.
"Revi? What are you doing here?"
The other girl held up a math text book. "You left this at my house," she said. "So I came over to return it to you."
"Oh, how dumb of me..." Heather rubbed the back of her head and took the book. "Thanks."
Heather was about to say goodbye when something very peculiar crossed her mind.
"Hey, how'd you know where I live? I never told you where my house was."
Heather never got to hear the answer as she succumbed to darkness.
"This is not how I wanted to spend a Tuesday night." Trinity said with a grunt as she parried a dagger with her kunai.
"Really? This is pretty normal for me." Red said as she blocked a sword with her war hammer.
"Keyword is: for you."
The two were currently fighting off a large group of humans. Most of them wielded bladed weapons along with some blunt weapons as well. Earlier the two were relaxing on the rooftop, Trinity was meditating while Red was dozing off, when all hell broke lose. The two immediately went to see what the commotion but were met with the crowd of armed humans attacking the house.
"This would be much easier if they weren't shadow elementals." Trinity said. "I hate when they phase through attacks."
"Then fight fire with fire!" Red shouted as she crushed an attacker under her hammer which now had a blackish aura surrounding it.
"It's not that I'm worried about." Trinity said with a slash that slit a guy's throat. "I'm worried that the others aren't able to do anything to them."
Elsewhere
"What the hell is going on?!" CV shouted. "And who are these people?!"
CV, Arachne, and Dell were holed up in the basement of the house. The three were chased there and heavily barricaded the door with whatever they could find. The door would occasional rattle and threat would be heard.
"Shadow elementals," Arachne said as she straightened her glasses. "Why of all things it had to be them?"
"Shadow elementals?" Dell asked.
"They basically people that control shadows. It's pretty similar to what Ana and Heather can do but with some differences," Arachne explained. "First, they can phase through most attacks. The only things that they cannot phase through are shadow and light attacks. Secondly, they can move through shadows..."
"Like that?" CV pointed towards the other side of the room and the others followed. They saw a small group of attackers slowly appear from the various shadows in the room.
"Aw hell."
"Dell! Catch!" Arachne tossed the Texan a shotgun.
"Ah thought they can't be hurt by normal attacks?"
"They can if they don't phase through it," she said as she drew two pistols. "Phasing can take a toll if the user isn't adapt to it."
"Um can I get a weapons too?" CV asked.
Arachne tossed a large monkey wrench to him.
"Serious?"
"If I wasn't I wouldn't give you that, Pixels."
"Pixels? Really?"
"Would you rather have another nickname?"
"..."
"I hope the others are ok..." Dell muttered a he fired a round into the charging attacker. "YEEEEEHHHAAAAWWW!"
"Dregins! They must've tracked the two down," Julie said. "I can't believe we've never caught this beforehand."
"Well, no one really expected Revi to be the mole," Jackie said back. "Heck, she even fooled me."
"This is bad, this is bad, this is so BAAAAAAD! What am I going to do? I am so getting in trouble for this, and..."
'SLAP!'
"Get a hold of yourself! This is not the time to have a meltdown!" Jackie said and slapped Julie again for good measure.
"Ok! OK! I get it...ow..." she rubbed her now red cheek. "If we're lucky, we should be able to get there before they do."
"Yeah, let's just-"
"JACKIE! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?!" Red telepathicly screamed.
"OW! Red! Watch it with the volume."
"Well I would, if we weren't getting our asses kicked by a METRIC TON LOAD OF SHADOW ELEMENTALS!"
"Wait...what?!"
"Yeah, get your ass back here and fucking help us!"
Jackie blinked. "You know, belay the first plan."
"Why?"
"Cause they are attacking right now," Jackie drew two knives. "So you better get fired up cause we're going in HOT!"
Julie nodded and drew her dagger, in the process her hair turned red and the blade caught fire.
"Ok, kill anyone who doesn't look friendly, got it? Good."
And with that the two hopped through the rift and landed back at the Conagher's residence, which was currently a war zone. The house was still standing, surprisingly, but suffered some damage as indicated with the broken windows and holes in the walls. Several bodies lie dead on the ground, fortunately it was none of theirs.
"Two coming in front and one in back!" Jackie shouted.
"Got it!"
Jackie dashed towards the two elementals while Julie handled the one behind them. The first swung a large mace at the girl, while the other readied a sword. Jackie sliced through the mace's wooden handle and threw her second knife at the man's throat. She then lunged towards the second man and plunged her hand into his chest. Her hand came out with his heart, still bleeding.
Juile fought against a woman that had a knife similar to hers. The woman lunged at her with her knife, but Juile easily sidestepped it and rapidly slashed at the woman. After a brief moment, the woman fell to the ground...in pieces.
"Must be amateur elementals, they never phased through our attacks," Julie said.
"Maybe, or they could be fodder." Jackie said as she picked up her knife. "Peons these days..."
"Now where's your sisters...?"
"Well, well, well, who do we have here?"
Juile almost fainted when she turned around to see who it was. It was probably the last person she wanted to see right now.
Red.
"If it isn't the twerp that serves that self-egotistical bitch," she said. The younger twin was covered in blood and her war hammer was covered in it as well. Her mouth was in a twisted grin. "I wonder what she'll think after I crush her under my little mallet here."
Juile was absolutely pale now. Even her red hair drained to white.
"Red," Jackie said as she moved the frozen girl behind her. "We don't threaten people who are on our side right now."
"...are you drunk again?"
"Heather and Ana are related to that egotistical bitch, so that makes her on our side for now."
"...no really are you drunk again?"
Trinity suddenly appeared next to Red and smacked the enforcer in the head.
"OW! Whose side are you on anyways?!"
Trinity ignored her. "I have to apologize for my sister's rude behavior Miss Julie, she can be rather expressive when dealing with hostiles."
"I-I see..."
"But don't push your luck too far," she warned as her eyes flashed purple.
"Y-Yes ma'am."
Trinity turned to Jackie. "So I assume you know what's going on already?"
"Yes, Heather and Ana are decendents of Alana and their "mortal enemy", the Dregins, decided to come here and...wait a minute..."
"What is it?"
"Have you two seen Heather or Ana?"
"No, we were stuck outside dealing with these shits." Red answered.
"..."
"I am so dead..." Julie said as she paled even further.
"I thought you said they were hard?!" CV said as he dropped the wrench on the ground. "These guys were pushovers!"
"As I said, they MAY be hard to deal with," Arachne said. "Maybe only one of them was a shadow elemental and the others just regular humans."
"Well, at least we weren't slaughtered," Engi said. "I'd take this over anything else any day."
Arachne walked up to the basement door and listened to it. "The fighting outside sounds like it died down. Want to go see if everyone else is ok?"
Before she even touched the doorknob, the door was ripped off its hinges, by none other than Jackie.
"Is Ana or Heather down here?!" she said in-between breaths.
"Um, you know you could've opened the door...ah never mind, no they're not there."
"God DAMMIT!" Jackie threw the door and it crashed somewhere, possibly breaking something in the process.
"What's wrong? Are they not up there with everyone else?"
"No, if they're not with you...where are they?"
"Here is the last of your baggage sir," the bag man said as he plopped down a second large trunk on top of the first one. The cart that the two trunks sat on groaned from the weight. "Good lord, what's in these thing?"
"Vell, to be honest, medicinal tools," the German said. The said person wore a red colored vest over a white dress shirt, and beige pants. "I am a man of medicine after all."
"Ok, whatever," the bag man waved him off and walked back to the train.
The train gave a loud whistle before steaming into the night, leaving the man and his baggage at the Teufort station.
It was particularly late at night so not much people were around. The man opened the top trunk and reached inside. He made sure no one was around before pulling out a large beaker containing a weird cyan colored liquid.
"I'm sorry you had to stay in zhere, little one. But it vas the only way I could get you here without anyone noticing." He said as he put the beaker on the ground.
After he did, the liquid started to move. Upon closer inspection, the liquid was more gelatin-like than liquid-like. It crawled out of the beaker and started to grow. It stretched until it was slightly above the man's waist and stopped. It then started to mold itself into a shape.
After it was done, the liquid(?) was shaped like a small girl with her "hair" going down to her waist. She opened her "eyes" and looked around.
"Velcome to Teufort, mein little...ah...vhat were you again?"
The "girl" shrinked back from the man and hid behind the luggage cart.
The man sighed. "I am not going to hurt you, Skyla. I am not a scientist. I lost that title years ago..."
"Ah, that was my medical license...bah same thing."
The man knew that the "girl" was going to have a hard time getting close to him. But then, something came to his mind. "Skyla, if you come out, we can find the person who likes hugs..."
Skyla poked her head out from the side. "H-hugs...?"
"Yes! I have a friend who is a good hugger. If you can come out, we can find her."
"Yay! More hugs!" Skyla said and latched herself onto the man's leg.
"Gah! Don't...'sigh'...never mind."
A/N: Goddamn this is short. I've been saying that a lot these days. Next one sssssssshhhhouuuullllld be longer...I hope...?
Till next time,
-D.W