Well, it's been a while… yeah... sorry bout that XD
Hello, everybody! YES! I am back to writing ThaB! (for now. maybe.) , here is Arc 2 Pt 9, and here's a few announcements before it begins.
Thanks to neyo532, and not telling the unknown, for following the story! Once again I would like to thank you all for reading! Tell me how you feel about the story in a review. And enjoy!
"That can wait 'till later. Until then, let's go to the shop," Isaac stated as he walked into the room adjacent to the shop.
"So if this is a shop, what do they usually sell?" Cain questioned, yet Isaac just shrugged and stood by the shop door.
"We can find out through this door," he stated as they both walked in. Once again, Isaac and Cain were awed by the staggering amount of useless junk that seemed to go up for a hundred feet before reaching blackness. After a second, Isaac set his gaze upon the solidified shopkeeper, then the items with chalked numbers beside them.
"What's in store today?" Isaac said with careful curiosity, then peered around. On the very left was a blue heart, and red chalk scrawled in front of it stated it cost three pennies. Isaac fished three pennies out of his pocket. Next to the blue heart was a battery. Probably need that later… Next was a silver cube with a golden stripe crossed through the middle of each face, seemingly wrapping around it, and on its top a slot the size of a coin lay parallel with the gold stripe. While Isaac was curious of the use of this item, it cost a high 15 cents.
"Hey, Cain?"
Cain looked over from the shelf of useless trinkets.
"Want this?" Isaac asked, and Cain walked up and got a good look. He wasn't sure of its purpose, so he inspected it, picked it up, and moved it around before asking, "How much do you have?"Isaac felt through his pockets.
"Er… about twenty-two cents. Why?" Cain went into It's enough, but I have a feeling these coins have more value than we think. Yet, this item could also have value... He blinked and looked blankly at the wall for a second before sitting down and taking off his backpack. He dug through the contents; several smaller bags he would open later, a few uninteresting trinkets, some gadgets, papers... He was approaching the bottom of the backpack when a bag inside moved with the sound of shuffling metal - lots of it. Smiling, he pulled out the bag that had the metal in it. It was a faded teal bag with a coin with the penny's trademark 'c' in the center. With Isaac peering over his shoulder in anticipation, he opened the bag. A gargantuan assortment of coins ranging from dollar coins to pennies, and everything in between. He took a handful of coins and studied them, all being pennies. Isaac's jaw hung open,
"Oh my god..." was all he was able to mumble as Cain stood proudly.
"Okay...so how does this work?" Isaac nodded and took a single coin from his hands, and, using his thumb, flicked it into the air. When the coin came down, it disappeared in a golden flash of light. Cain followed in suit by lobbing the handful of coins towards the silver box, all of them disappeared in a large golden flash, and for a few seconds, nothing happened. Cain looked worried, but Isaac just smiled, Cain was about to reach into the bag to grab a few more coins when Isaac blocked him with his arm and signaled towards the box, the earth beneath the two shook lightly as a small stone pedestal rose from the ground and the box hovered above it.
"What is that?" Cain asked as Isaac walked up to it like nothing happened. They read the standard bronze placard.
"Uh...magic fingers. Magic fingers?" He read the subtext. "Pay to play." Cain picked it up.
"What does it do?" Cain asked to himself when he saw a blue flash in his left eye. Siera chimed in. "I can help with that. Just hold it still or rotate it slowly."
Cain's iris turned blue as a grid of the same color seemed to scan the box. After the grid disappeared, Siera continued. "Scan complete. I can show you the bigger picture. Would you like to see what it does?" Cain shrugged.
"Why not?" Text appeared, stating 'Look at a flat wall.' Cain motioned Isaac outside and looked at the flat wall to the left, his iris opening slightly and the laser grid replacing itself with a picture of the item. Cain held it in his hand, and some informational text floated to the right.
"Magic Fingers, or Catalytic Currency Converter (3C), was co-developed by Oddball Combat corporation (part of the NT league), as a tool for destruction. It was designed to be both accurate and devastating, with options ranging from long range to CQC to tank to sniper, and more. It was designed to be efficient against everything. One of the main reasons it was mostly developed by Oddball was because of it's ammo type; currency of any type. Its versatility and efficiency in its designated field: warfare."
After reading the text, Isaac smiled at Cain.
"And you ask me what I can do with fire, huh?"Cain ignored him, too interested in this new object.
"How much damage does it do?"Siera replied,
"It depends on the value of the coin." Cain nodded in understanding and motioned for Isaac to follow him as he left the shop. They traversed a few rooms until they found one that had a pacer in it, a room they obviously hadn't cleared. Cain reached into his bag and pulled out a handful of change, and he took a penny, putting it into the coin slot. As if it had not been used in a while, the golden band glowed orange for a second and shook, before a futuristic muzzle flash came out and shot a bolt of orange energy at the pacer. The pacer stumbled back and turned towards Isaac and Cain. Cain grinned evilly, gingerly placing another penny in the box. Another orange bolt flew out and slammed into the pacer, knocking it backward.
"Let's try something more interesting," Cain stated mischievously before putting a nickel into the box. The box, now cleared out from being used, glowed for less time before shooting a bolt 5 times the size of the one generated by the penny, and with seemingly double the speed. It slammed into the pacer, wiping everything clean off and leaving its arms and legs. Cain walked back towards the shop in satisfaction, yet Isaac looked at the remains of the pacer, slightly mortified.
"eugch" Isaac spat out as a disgusting taste caught in his throat, and he shivered before turning and following Cain.
Back at the shop, they decided to get a look at the rest of the items, yet nothing piqued their interest, so they left. Isaac felt in a talking mood.
"So. where do you come from?" Isaac asked.
"A rich family, believe it or not. You?" Cain looked to Isaac as they walked. Isaac shrugged, but as he spoke, it was somber.
"Just a small, pretty average town. Nothing interesting aside from the fact my mother tried to kill me." Cain stopped, a wide eyed grimace plastered on his face. As Isaac turned to look at him, Cain smiled simply to be polite.
"What?" Isaac scoffed in slight anger. Cain waved him off, laughing as he spoke.
"Nothing, I thought that detail was interesting, but who am I kidding! I was nearly killed for money." Isaac looked to Cain in anticipation as they continued walking again.
"How much?" Cain smiled and paused.
"One hundred thousand dollars." Although Isaac stared in astonishment, Cain shrugged.
"One hundred thousand dollars is more like hundred dollar bill in comparison to what our family makes total."
Isaac shook off the fact that he'd been walking next to a millionaire and thought about what else to say, when the ground abruptly began to shake lightly but ominously. The duo froze, but the shaking went away. Cain remained still, but Isaac continued to try to talk. Cain put his finger to his mouth and shushed him in annoyance. Cain wiped his arm across his forehead, then gently put his arm in the air. In curiosity, Isaac did the same, and immediately the nerves in his arm picked up what felt like a draft. Cain nodded slowly and pointed to the left.
"Come on."
Before Isaac could protest, he ran off. Isaac shrugged. He seems to know more than I do, so who am I to question him? He sprinted to catch up. Isaac and Cain cleared more rooms toward the draft until they felt the inevitable drag of exhaustion and the tug of tiredness on their eyelids. They found a room with high rocks and reluctantly fell asleep.
Their sleep was not peaceful.
Both Isaac and Cain stood in a long, blank, dark hallway. Isaac shrugged and looked to Cain, who shrugged back. A good distance away, light showed on the floor below a doorway. Isaac pointed and they strode towards it. As they approached the doorway, distant whispering could be heard, sadness in the voice. As the doorway became a stone's throw away, white filled their vision. Cain was the first to awake from the short lived sleep, and his eyes narrowed, focusing on something. Isaac got up and stood beside him, his ears picking what Cain was focusing on.
"Hear that?" Cain asked, still attentive to his surroundings.
"Who wouldn't? It's the loudest whispering I've heard," Isaac responded harshly in his tired voice.
"Exactly. Ready?" Cain requested with almost a warning tone as he grabbed his backpack and slung it over his shoulders. After shaking himself awake, As Isaac responded,
"Yep," they both took off, yet quietly and cautiously. Though the dungeon was lit like normal, it seemed and even felt darker. With the sad voice slowly growing louder, Isaac began to feel uneasy.
-=elsewhere...=-
A girl sat huddled in a corner sobbing, her senses blocked out by the betrayal piercing her heart. Eventually she managed to quiet down a little, and her ears picked up the sound of voices in the distance calling out. The torches abruptly put out from a burst of wind the cave-in caused, and she huddled tighter against the rocks despite the uncomfortable poking of them. The voices grew closer, until they seemed right outside her door. Are they here to kill me? Who are they? How are they here? Why are they near me? She snapped away from her thoughts when she heard footsteps enter the room, only a few yards away, and she froze completely.
"I can't see a darn thing in here." The voice was male, and it sounded uneasy.
"I'm covered." Another male voice, this one deeper, laughed heartily.
"Shut it, Cain," the higher voice spoke playfully, but the uneasiness made his voice waver. She peeked out from behind the pile of rocks she hid behind.
"Well, I don't have night vision, so I'm lighting up the area," he continued. She stared at the boy through the darkness, but his face was hidden behind the blackness of a hood, when an ember erupted from his hand. He held it higher as it glowed brighter, revealing the two boys. The one with the black hoodie and higher voice also had beige shorts, and was shorter than the other boy. The other one, who she had heard was named Cain, was maybe 4 inches taller than the boy with the hoodie, had a basic burnt orange color shirt on, black shorts, and seemed to have a thicker frame. She immediately noticed the shiny silver box held tightly in his right hand, and the unnatural red glow from his left 'eye'.
"What happened here?" the boy with the hoodie began quizzically. Cain responded.
"Looks like another cave-in." The boy with the hoodie asked after a second,
"What about the voice we heard?" Me… they're talking about me, the girl thought.
"I don't know," the hooded boy asked with genuine worry.
"Do you think the pacers got them? I mean, if we heard and felt the cave-in… who's to say they didn't, too?" Cain turned to the hooded boy and sighed. Pacers? What are pacers? the girl thought. Cain paused.
"Isaac, I know we need as many people we can get to help get out of this place, whatever this place is, but we may not be able to save all of those that we meet." He paused again, then continued in a downcast tone.
"Who knows, we may be the only two people here. Or the two living ones, at least."
Isaac nodded sadly, then the duo turned towards the door and walked slowly. This may be my only chance. I don't know where I am, my only path back is blocked, and I need to survive… and what about the 'pacers'? As the war raged on in the girls mind, she quickly decided it was now or never, even if she didn't know the outcome, or even whether the people wanted to kill her or help her to freedom. She bit back all of her fear and quietly called.
"Hello?"
The two froze in their tracks, and turned towards the source of the noise slowly; from behind a pile of rocks, she peeked out. She had tear-stained eyes and blonde curly hair that fell to her shoulders. Isaac slowly inched his way towards her and spoke quietly.
"Hello...we're not here to hurt you." Trying to be friendly, the girl spoke with a hushed yet polite voice.
"Who are you two?"
Isaac smiled with the knowledge that she wanted to be friendly. With a burst of excitement, he spoke. "I'm Isaac! That's Cain over there," he stated as he pointed to Cain, who smiled and waved. Cain seemed more curious rather than excited.
"What's your name? How'd you get down here?" he questioned. She looked to the ground, but smiled and looked up again.
"I'm Magdalene, or Maggy. Getting here..." She sighed.
"...is a long story."
Once again, sorry for the extremely long wait. all the same, i hope you enjoyed this new part of To Hell and Back. Review Fav, and follow, it means a lot, and it gives me great motivation to continue. thank you all for reading, when I get the chance i will write part 10.
until next time!