Chapter Eleven~ Act Two: Horror's Banquet
Escaping from the haunted house was luckily an easy task after a quick Fooportation into the nearest stairway. But fleeing to an area with a slim chance of any real protection was its own obstacle. A few fire spells, claw strikes, and bamboo slices later and the area was once again flooded with creatures craving whoever crossed their path.
How it all started was beyond Yin's understanding and she would much rather settle whatever source or vengeful magical being summoned the shadows as soon as possible.
With a primarily Golden League class, splitting up wasn't the most difficult decision. Yang was more than eager to take on the shadows head on while Manny switched to his El Tire form and tended to Frida. Dib improvised a weapon out of a fallen pipe and directed the Silver Leagues and wounded Golden Leagues into places of safety.
Yin gave herself the task of figuring out where the shadows came from. But in a school where any child could have any talent and any varying level of sanity, it proved to be a rather challenging task.
No matter, this situation was like the incident with the Fooplication charm. When she saw the source, she would know and rid of it as soon as possible. At least, she wished it were that simple.
"Mother of Foo, give me a miracle."
Yin fired through another crowd of shadows heading her way as she bounded up the steps to the D Level classes. A sickening crunch followed the sound of the elevator collapsing under the weight of multiple shadows attacking it from the inside.
According to the sobs and screaming, there were more than a few students hidden inside. Yin felt her heat sink and her feet grow heavy as she forced herself upstairs.
In her dimension, protecting simply came along with being a Woo Foo knight. She was a heroine alongside her brother, never letting anyone perish by the hands of some villain. But now she was faced with an evil not even meant to exist in this world.
With each passing second, students were dying or miserably failing to protect themselves only to be added to the pile of the deceased.
Yin wanted them all to be protected, to feel safe under the eye of an Elite Golden League student. But they probably didn't. Would they even trust her after this disaster?
Yin clutched the railing of the stairs as she hunched over. Her legs felt like damp paper and shook violently until they entirely collapsed under the weight of her torso. Gagging into her hand, sprays of blood marked her glove and dripped onto her dress.
"N-No, not now. Why now?"
Yin continued to cough into her hand which caught the attention of the shadows already following her. Claws drove into the walls and up the steps as they drew in closer at a much quicker pace. Yin released the rail and pointed her hand out to make a Foo Field, but only a mixture of black and dying blue fizzled out on her palm. She gripped the steps and attempted to crawl her way up but the pain traveled down from her hands and left them stinging.
"I knew this thing wanted to kill me." Yin whispered, glad that her voice was at least intact.
The largest shadow of the group crawled in on all fours, barring its teeth still stained with blood as it hissed. Yin held her still aching stomach as she shut her eyes and waited to be devoured.
"Please, I don't want to die this way."
"And you won't, dear." Yin opened her eyes to see a red branch growing out of the ceiling and descending down to the shadows. It curved in quickly and sliced the group in half in one quick blow. More of the branches spread from the walls and destroyed the shadows heading towards her until the stairway was clear.
A pair of hands gripped Yin's shoulders as the woman leaned in with a gentle smile.
"Are you alright?"
"Yes, thank you," Yin said. "I hope this isn't too much to ask but, can you please heal me? I don't think I can move."
"I'm certain you'll grow accustom to the magic soon enough. Then you're body will learn to heal itself."
As her red hands ran along Yin's body, Embry gave an amused smirk.
"What a lovely costume? Are you supposed to be a witch?"
Yin nodded as she stood up, still holding the stair's railing for support. "Yeah-uh, ma'am?"
"Yes," Embry sat down on the step.
"Please, take this magic or whatever this is away from me," Yin said sternly. "Anytime it's started to take effect it's only ever nearly killed me. What if next time it happens you aren't there?"
Embry's eyes widened briefly as she rested her chin in her hand.
"Yin, I'm afraid I can't do that. This magic has chosen you as its wielder. It wants you and I'm afraid it cannot comprehend the correct time patterns when it takes a full influence over your body."
"You know so much about it and yet you can't get rid of it," Yin murmured to herself. She cleared her throat as she adjusted the frilled brim around her pointed hat. "Look, you said something about how the magic would be there for me when I needed it most. Is that right?"
Embry nodded.
"Well, this is obviously a dire situation. How will this thing help me now? I need to stop these shadows from killing more students before it's too late."
Embry held a long finger to her chin as she hummed to herself. "The magic clearly hasn't made its way entirely into your system. If you're still experiencing withdrawals, using it out of your own will could be dangerous."
"What that does mean?"
"It means that the power you commonly use can still come of use. Once you're body has learned to accept this new magic, you can be trained to wield it. I assure that I will be there for that."
Yin chewed her bottom lip. Embry seemed intelligent enough but Yin still knew little about this woman and what she wanted. For now, Embry was only a link to learning about this strange black magic. Trusting her was beyond Yin's priorities now but if it were possible, Embry could come of assistance towards the shadow invasion.
Or at least she hoped.
"Since my Woo Foo will be enough to protect myself, can you help me figure out if these shadows came from a source? That is, if you know what's going on."
Embry smiled. "All mythical beings come from a common origin, sweetie. I did manage to find a rather interesting site that might be of use to your problem. Come with me."
Before Yin could protest, a wave of scarlet swept over them both and sent them to the A Level hallway. The Utopian Resources entrance was nearly busted open by a mammoth creature possessing a deformed, clearly inhuman body.
The only blood visible was in its footsteps and the growing pile of guts dripping from its many mouths.
"Oh my gosh," Yin uttered. "Is that the source?"
"One of them," Embry said. "There is another but it will instantly come to us once its partner has been deceased."
"I'll take your word for it then." Yin lit her hands with fire and carefully flicked a spec of a flame into the shadow's direction. The fire bounced off the wall and disappeared into a steam of smoke.
After a quiet gurgling, the shadow turned its head. The remains of its last meal still slipped from the fangs of its main mouth. Plopping and sloshing into a pile beneath its pointed feet, it bent downward into a predatory stance. The hunch in its back nearly touched the ceiling even as it slowly moved towards Yin on long, disjointed arms.
"I-It doesn't have eyes."
"Unlike its offspring, the source relies entirely on hearing and smelling," Embry said. "Don't let the lack of ears or nostrils fool you. It only tempts them further to eat whoever comes their way."
Yin gulped and stepped into the shadow's direction. The sound of her boots lightly touching the marble seemed slightly louder than usual. The shadow lulled out a long, red tongue and licked the blood remaining from its mouth.
"Pellets,"
She stopped and ignited the fire on her hands. The crackling along her palm got the shadow even more excited until it was howling. Suddenly picking up speed, it rushed in with its mouth wide open.
"Pellets. Pellets. Pellets…"
Yin felt a web coiling around her shaking wrists and back as Embry's voice came in close to her ear.
"I'll be right behind you the whole time, Yin. Remember to attack from where it feeds."
The mouth was inches away from devouring her. Its deep tunnel of a throat smelling with uneaten flesh blew horrid breath into her face, but Yin stayed in place. She drove her shaking hand into the mouth and let the fire destroy whatever it touched.
The shadow let out a pained yelp as it flew back, clutching its wide, smoking mouth with its hands. With it whimpering in pain, the shadow didn't seem nearly as threatening.
Still disgusting but capable of beating.
"Burn the other mouths. Then it will disappear entirely."
"From where it feeds…" Yin ran towards the shadow and drove her leg into its stomach until it was wailing. Making contact showed that the shadow itself was thin much like its offspring and could be ripped through in a single blow.
Yin slid to a stop, driving her boot's heels into the floor as she positioned herself for another attack. Before the shadow could turn, Yin shot a Foo Orb directly into the head bulging from its left leg. A claw strike missed her cheek by an inch as Yin darted out of the way and to the third head hanging limply from its bony hip.
"Wonderful job, Yin," Embry said, her voice still close. "Now there's only one left."
Yin focused in on the last head sticking out from the creature's long neck. "Got it."
The shadow was already kneeled over as its body fazed in and out of existence. Clutching its own head with long claws and shaking, it was already too weak to fight back. Yin walked over quietly and shot a blast into the last head's open was a minute of silence before the shadow dispersed into multiple clouds of black, rushing off into multiple directions before entirely fading away.
Yin panted as she sat down on the floor. A screech sounding far deeper than the fellow shadows shook the building and echoed off the walls. "Darn it, there's still another."
"Don't worry, I'll take care of this one," Embry assured. "You settle down and this nightmare will be over in minutes."
"You all stay calm and keep the table over the top of the hole. You guys guard until this thing blows over."
"Yes Sir,"
Dib tried to fight back his smile from being addressed so formally. Sweeping back the drooping lock of his hair, he nodded briefly and bounded up the steps from the makeshift shelter he had provided for a few injured Silver League Students. Three Golden Leagues protected the entrance and were in good enough condition to still fight off whatever shadows came by.
A couple more shelters were created in whatever spacious holes ripped through the walls and staircases which made for a suitable hide out from the shadows. Under Dib's leadership, those still surviving were protecting or being protected.
Though he felt guilty for the amount of lives lost, he would try to make due with whoever was left over. From across the hall leading to the cafeteria, he noticed Frida and Manny clearing out a few shadows and safely making it upstairs. In one hand Frida had a fallen flag pole while her other held her bleeding hip. Despite the injury, she could still walk fast enough to catch up with Manny.
"Okay, there's good news and bad news," Frida said. "Good news is mostly everyone is inside a shelter or going solo on defense. Bad news is that the jet parking can't be unlocked so making a quick escape to Utopia won't be part of the plans."
"Not to mention the entrance has become some sort of dining room for the shadows," Manny added with a grimace. "And you obviously already know about Frida."
"I'm fine. Besides, this makes for a pretty cool battle scar." Frida smiled as she admired her own wound.
"No problem, glad you guys did what you could," Dib assured. "Where's Yin and Yang? And since they're part of our group: are Zim and Yuck still alive?"
"Yin went off to find the source and she hasn't come back yet," Frida said. "Yang's still outside and Yuck and Zim are wherever. But with their track record, I'm pretty sure they're okay."
"So out of the seven us, there's a definite chance that three are actually alive." Manny said with a forced smile.
Dib sighed, "Not the best statistics but they'll have to do for now."
The building shook with another blood curdling scream. The shape of something long and lanky crawled up the walls until entirely disappearing with another howl echoing in its wake.
"I don't know what that thing is but there's no way I'm getting near it." Frida said.
"Did you build any shelters in the B through D levels of the school?" Manny turned to Dib.
"I got a few Golden Leagues to take care of the kids trapped in their dorms. They'll be fine if that thing avoids them."
"It's already gone past those levels Dib-stink. The same with the last one I saw." The clinking of metal legs traveled up the stairs. The spider like contraptions sprouting from Zim's PAK sunk back inside and dropped the noticeably uninjured Irken.
Dib and Manny were sporting at a least few scars and Frida was obviously in the worst condition, but Zim had managed to come out of the disaster with rarely any scratches. Only a button or two misplaced along his dress shirt and an arrogant smirk barely forming along his mouth. Gir tagged along behind him, covered in candy and something Dib hoped was spilled juice from the red punch bowl.
"There's another one of those things?" Frida asked.
"Yes, though I'm not sure where it could be now," Zim said, narrowing his eyes at Frida's wound in disgust. "Possibly on this school's A Level."
"The A Level is only reserved for the Elite so I'm pretty sure no one's up there," Manny said. "About all of the elevators are broken any way."
"Maybe we should all go together," Dib pulled out his Academy Phone from his pocket and scrolled down to Yang's name. As an Elite, those in Utopian Resources all had a permanent contact list of their comrades. "I know the phone service is hazy right now but I'll try to call whoever's missing before we head up. From now on, the point is that we stay in a group."
"Man, you shadow creeps don't know when to quit."
Yang propped his sword against the floor and leaned against it as he panted for breath. His nearly endless stamina was definitely a life saver. But after hours of battling off the shadows that always seemed to be crawling out of new corners, his general thrill for fighting was eventually outweighed by exhaustion. A part of him said he should be glad he had more than a few challengers while the other side-his more logical half he often ignored-realized that fending for his life all night would most likely end tragically. And maybe with the shadows satisfying themselves with rabbit flesh.
Throughout most of the fight, his sword continued to glow out of its own will. The sign was familiar but Yin insisted that she could find the source herself and needed Yang to cover the school entrances. As much as he protested, he figured he'd let his sister take on the task on her own. She could very well take care of herself and the continuous glow of the sword proved it.
After slicing through another pair blocking his path, he escaped the depths of the woods and ran full speed into the Halloween Festival. The arrangements were now shambles with real guts and gore lining the attractions.
The Haunted House no longer held a sickly sweet aroma and stunk of actual bodies rotting away in tunnels and ceilings. Yang shuddered but kept running until he was up the steps to the back of the school and through the busted auditorium doors. This area was in the worst of conditions with details Yang's limited vocabulary wouldn't be able to manage. He was up the nearest set of stairs and down a currently clear hallway, stopping in his tracks only to respond to the buzz in his pocket.
Still struggling for even breaths, he grabbed his phone and answered without hesitation.
"Hello?"
"Yang, you're alive," Dib's voice came out in crackling static but was understandable for the most part. "Do you know where Yin could be?"
"I'm heading up to her now. My sword does this thing that helps me find out where she is whenever I need to. The glow's still going, so she's definitely alive, but I'm not sure exactly…"
The unintelligible murmuring of the sword caught his attention. "She's on the A Level?"
"A Level," Dib repeated. "So it's official, we're all heading there. Is there any way you can find Yuck too?"
Yang rolled his eyes. "No, and I don't need to. The poor sap can become shadow chow for all I care."
"Yuck could come of use for defense but…ugh, whatever. Head up to the A Level as soon as possible and we'll meet up there."
"'Kay," Yang shoved his phone into his pocket and followed the sword's lead down the dimly lit hallway.