~~~~~OO~~~~~
A/N: This time I'm making sure not to leave those little notes out. I feel kinda stupid after that last one.
Sonja: *walks in picking fruit pulp out of her hair* *grumbles and flings it at Christine*
Hey! *ducks as it flies over her head* What was that for?
Sonja: I think one of your reviewers got a little to excited over that last Song fic of yours. *gives Bloodthirsty a look* I'll get you for that you :P
Oh stop it... I'll shove you into a tiny box and bury you in a hole in the ground if you attack my reviewers!
Sonja: *grumbles softly but begins plotting evil things all the same* Do you know how hard it is to get tomato seeds out of your hair? Grrr!
Silence demon... *rolls her eyes* Anyway! have to make some comments before I allow you to read further ^ ^.
Bloodthirsty - Sonja's very defiant. Don't worry though, I'll keep her from retaliating against the fruit incident. I'm not quite sure how yet... but I'll figure it out. Thankies for the wonderful reviews *hands out a heart shaped box of chocolate Kain's* ^ ^ for U!
Roxxy-chan - Buahahaha! Aye, girl, you are very insane. *glomps* I am SOO glad you're enjoying these lil fics o mine. They're fun to write. ^ ^ I like having Sonja and Kain fight... there's so much freedom I can do almost anything. I could even have him kill her if I wanted to... Hmm... well maybe not KILL completely... but maybe a near death... I'm still deciding so don't let Seth get to carried away :p Ohoh, thank you SO much for the Evil Zephy pic and the Dumah moo cow pic. Those are hilarious. I must have more. MORE! ^ ^ You should read Ecky67, Silveriss, Elashana, Bloodthirsty, VladimirsAngel and Syvia's fics... there are so darn many good authors/authoresses... Girl I wish I was half as good as they are ^ ^;; You're far to bias go read their fics. Some good stuff...
Elashana - lol well I suppose it's possible I have a twin out there somewhere. Highly unlikely, but I've always considered myself to have an evil 'clone' if not a twin. ^ ^ Thank U for the review *hugs* I love getting them.
Silveriss - ^ ^ Sonja's glad you think so highly of her. You need to tell Rahab to relax ^ ^ he seems a bit stressed out. I don't see what's so wrong with acting crazy and bouncing off the walls. If you ask Roxxy-chan she'll tell you just how nuts I can really be. You haven't really seen anything yet believe me. *gives you fishy Rahab plushy*
Believe me, I have a whole lot of insane/stupid ideas I could turn into stories/songfics and that's part of the reason this chappy took so long to get posted. I was messing around with other ideas as well. I'm a scatter brain... ^ ^;;;
Sonja: that's putting it mildly...
¬.¬ I didn't ask you...
~~~~~OO~~~~
All was silent now that the demon had fled the Sanctuary. The six lieutenants began to unbury their master from the pile of rubble he was still trapped underneath. None of them spoke, for they were all still in shock that someone so tiny could best the most powerful being in all Nosgoth. When Kain woke, there was going to be hell to pay.
Raziel and Turel exchange worried glances as they haul the unmoving form of their Lord from the rubble. He gently slapped Kain's alabaster cheek trying to rouse him.
:Will he recover, brother?: Turel asked him mind to mind as Kain still did not stir.
:I'm sure he will... just give him some time. We should - :
Just then Kain's eyes flew open and he lunged forward blindly grabbing Raziel by the throat and began to squeeze.
"L-ord K-Kain!" Raziel choked startled.
He and Turel both began to pry Kain's claws from his throat.
Kain frowned and blinked in confusion then shook his head clearing the fog. "What has happened?" He looked around at the ruin his throne room is in and began to stand, with the help of the two eldest.
"The demon Sire - she has fled." Raziel replied as he began to dust flecks of marble and limestone off of his Lord's shoulders and cape.
Kain blinked as that bit of information registered and then turned on Raziel, "You let her escape!" he roared advancing on him angrily.
The eldest son of the vampire lord flinched and stumbled back caught by surprise, even though he should have expected such a reaction from Kain. "We had no other choice, sire! She was able to fell you, how then were we to best her when we could not even use the element of surprise?" he ended up cornered his back to one of the pillars, praying to the dark gods that Kain didn't do anything rash.
Kain stopped and clenched his fists into tight balls at his sides. "How can a mere child - defeat me in combat!" he growled and his eyes flashed with a sudden urge to kill - something. "Get this place cleaned up!" he then turned on his heel and stormed from the room, deeper into the Sanctuary.
****
Raziel sighed relieved no one ended up getting killed for 'their' failure to contain such a powerful creature. He shook his head slowly as they begin cleaning up the debris cluttering the room.
Dumah complained the whole time as he carried a large boulder and threw it out through the hole left by Sonja when she fled. He stopped and looked out the opening in the wall. "You know, I just realized something." He turned towards the other five who have looked up from their duties.
Turel rolled his eyes, "And what could that be Dumah?"
Dumah, already annoyed with all the manual labor, glared at him, "I realized that no one ever asked if that creature had a name."
The other five blink in disbelief and stare at Dumah slack jawed.
Rahab began to laugh softly, "You know, he's right. I think I'm ashamed of myself." He shook his head slowly, "I cannot believe I didn't think of that sooner, I mean, I was sitting right there with her."
Zephon rolled his eyes, "You had your nose buried in a book, the sanctuary could have been burning down around you and you would not have noticed."
Rahab stopped laughing and gave him a dirty look, "I'm not that bad."
Dumah snorted, "Yes well... it is pointless now, is it not? She's gone..." He made a grand gesture towards the hole and snorted. "Some trickery - I really am not looking forward to repairing this. We should just make the humans do it."
Turel groaned softly, "Stop your complaining. The sooner we're started the sooner we're finished."
****
The wind howled angrily, whistling through the canyons and stirring up dust and debris with each gust. The sun, though hidden behind billowing clouds of brown smoke, was hot and made the ground waver from the reflecting heat.
Sonja was exhausted, the fight with Kain had nearly drained her, and she wasn't sure she could take another step forward. Her body ached slightly after being battered around like a rag doll, but she was healing and she would endure the pain a while longer, after all, she was accustomed to pain. Quite intimate with it in fact.
After she'd clambered through the opening she'd created in the Sanctuary wall she found her way to the roof, and began to pick her way along the cliffs further to the north, feeling sure, that the vampire lord and his fledglings wouldn't be interested in her any longer after she'd given him such a wallop.
Soon enough she would discover how wrong she was, but that isn't until later.
After trudging though the heat for about an hour she dropped to the ground with a heavy sigh and looked around at her surroundings. 'Does this heat never end...? I want a bath!' She groaned seeing nothing but a dried cracked landscape just beyond the shelter of a few shriveled trees.
By this time the sun was beginning to disappear behind the horizon and with it the hope of finding a decent place to shelter for the night.
She finally decided that cowering in the trees wasn't getting anything constructive done and crept forward into the open. She fervently wished she'd thought to grab her things before taking off like that but she was in no mental state to think properly. She missed having her dagger at her hip. Being barefoot didn't help much either, and this damn shirt kept falling forward a bit TOO much for her liking.
She sighed 'Perhaps I should have at least stayed till morning...?' She stumbled and stubbed her toes on a good sized rock jutting from the dried swamp bed.
"OOWWWWW! SHIT!" She whimpered softly and examined her hurt foot and cursed seeing that she'd torn off a good sized chunk of flesh with that rock. "Ow, damn it! Why did I have to do that!?" She growled and ripped a section of the tunic and wrapped it around her bleeding foot. "There that'll... help a little bit..." She glanced around nervously, and hoped her screaming hadn't drawn anyone's attention.
Not sensing anything unusual, she began to limp her way across the dry cracked earth once again and cursed silently as she stumbled over the uneven ground. She paused looking up as a large structure in the distance caught her eye. 'I wonder what that could be?'
Five minuets, and an endless amount of cursing, later Sonja stood before the crumbling ruins of a once great estate. She frowned slightly looking this way and that as she tried to figure out what might have happened to it's owner.
She shrugged, 'Well I suppose it's shelter...' with that she limped up the stairs and pushed at the doors.
They gave a loud groan of protest, the hinges nearly rusted shut, and finally shuddered open about a foot, just enough for her to squeeze through. Once inside she held up her up her hand and a small ball of light formed in her palm, then expanded to light the path ahead. Once it was of the proper size she let it hover above her head as she crept deep into the estate in search of some place comfortable to sleep.
After finding a suitable room she found an old blanket and spread it out over the floor in the corner of the room away from the windows and doorways. It wasn't long before she fell asleep curled snugly underneath the old tattered cloth.
****
Four female figures are gathered around the abyss cliffs, standing silently and peering into the swirling waters below.
Shinrei(1) stood at the very edge of the cliffs staring down into the vortex. 'I stand before the lake of the dead.' She sighed deeply and looked across the space before her, ice blue eyes resting on another figure, swathed in shadow it's features hard to make out from this distance.
Standing on the other side was Akurei(2), also staring into the water below. She looked up facing Shinrei, her red eyes glowing faintly in the darkness. 'Why do we stand here before this churning whirlpool?'
Shinrei frowns faintly looking back at the water, 'We could easily step over the edge and forget everything...'
Shugorei(3) frowns, her violet eyes filled with worry, She put her hand on Shinrei's shoulder, 'That would not be wise... there is still much for us to do with our life.'
'Such as?' Akurei leapt the gaping maw between them and landed lightly on the other side, behind them.
Zareru(4) embraced Akurei tightly, her green eyes focused on her companion's red ones. 'Such as our quest for happiness and perhaps love too?
Akurei laughed her eyes darkening a shade, 'Love is over rated. We know all to well the pain of love.'
Shinrei nodded slowly, 'It's far to painful for us, always getting hurt the way we do.'
'That's only because we aren't trying hard enough!' Zareru piped up energetically.
Akurei shoved her away. 'Only you would say such things. Shut your mouth else I shut it for you.' she growled softly.
'Don't be so hard on her Akurei, she's still very much the child. And her mind is still far to innocent to understand how life works.' Shugorei scolded the shadowed one.
'My goal is not to obtain love, guardian. My goal is - the elimination of all who have hurt us before. That's all I'm interested in... They must all suffer as we have. Including that crotchety old vampire Kain.'
Shugorei made a frustrated sound and grabbed Akurei's ear pulling gently, 'Kain is more powerful then us, don't you see that yet? He will destroy us if we are to careless. We have been lucky till now...'
Akurei snarled and swung at Shugorei sending her sprawling backwards and landing at the very edge of the cliff, 'Do not presume to order me around the way you do the others! I will not go along with your will as meekly as they do!'
'Akurei...' Shinrei turned from the abyss to lock eyes with her darker companion. 'We are safe here from our past... can we not just concentrate on finding our way home instead of seeking revenge for such minor hurts? We have already healed in body. If we keep searching we're bound to find a portal to our proper dimension.'
'Then we can finish off that fire demon that sent us here!' Akurei crowed triumphantly.
Shugorei climbed to her feet again and began to guide the other three away from the edge of the cliffs. 'Come... the night is cold... we must return to our resting place... I am seeing shadows in the night that give me cause for concern.'
'What kind of shadows?' Zareru asked a tinge of fear in her voice.
'We'll soon see...' was Shugorei's reply.
****
Sonja woke with a start, something tingling at the edge of her senses. Something that caused her to shiver in fear. She stood slowly and crept towards the window, peeking out and seeing nothing. She then crept towards the door and halted inches from it her ears perked forward, listening carefully to every tiny sound.
"I swear to you I saw something come in here at sundown." a deep voice growled, this voice didn't seem human, nor did it seem to belong to any of Kain's vampire sons.
"I think you're losing your mind, Zerion. I see no traces of life in this dilapidated ruin." another voice, this one of higher pitch. Both sounded demonic to her ears.
Sonja peeked out through a crack in the door into the hallway and saw two figures making their way towards the room she was currently in. One figure was a hulking black beast with red fiery eyes and great horns atop it's head, the second was much shorter, it's skin a white/gray it's limbs about as thin as her own only much longer and it's eyes were a creepy phosphorescent green.
"Black demon..." Sonja gasped under her breath and ran to the far side of the room where a small hole had formed in the plaster of the walls, just barely large enough for her to climb into. And climb in she did, with just enough time to spare before the two forms entered the room.
Zerion, of the black demons, shouldered the door open and it crashed to the floor with a hollow thud, sending up clouds of dust causing the more frail looking creature to cough and sneeze. "I heard something scuttling about in here, Defalon..."
The frail one, Defalon, backhanded him, "You imbecile, you know how harshly this world affects my system!"
Zerion stood tall and snarled down at Defalon, "Do not strike me Hylden! I can end your suffering here and now if you like?"
Sonja frowned and scooted back farther into the hole, she could now barely make them out from the distance, 'Hylden? Where had I heard that name before?! Something my grandfather told me once... but I can't remember now... damn it!'
Defalon snorted, "Silence you stupid brute, I think I hear something!"
Sonja bit her lower lip. 'Oh shit, they heard me...!'
Defalon crept closer to the wall and looked down at the small hole where Sonja was hiding, "Hmmm, curious.." he began to lean down when Zerion stomped over.
"You can't seriously think it's in there? I mean, the only thing that could be in that hole would possibly be a giant rat of some kind." Zerion stopped just behind his Hylden companion and sneered down at him.
Defalon narrowed his hellish green eyes and stood upright again, "You really don't know anything about what I'm looking for do you?"
Zerion blinked and shook his great black head, "No. Nor do I really care."
"Ah, but you should. The creature I am searching for belongs in this world about as much as you yourself do. It is a demon... The only difference between it and you, besides it's small size, would be it's brain. It has a remarkably large brain for a demon and I have a desire to capture it for research. If this small creature can get to this world without the aid of the gate..."
"You think it can aid is in the destruction of Nosgoth?" Zerion interrupted his red eyes flashing with anticipation.
Defalon gave him an annoyed look followed by a curt nod. "Yesss, that is the assumption. However, it is only a theory. I would need to capture this creature for study before it could be proven."
"Well, what are we waiting for then?" Zerion grunted and got onto his knees in an attempt to peer into the hole in the wall.
Sonja looked around frantically for an escape, but there was only one, and it was blocked by the demon.
~~~~~OO~~~~~
A/N: (1)Shinrei: Devine Spirit. (2)Akurei: evil spirit. (3)Shugorei: guardian spirit. (4)Zareru: playfulness.
Each of these words make up a separate aspect of Sonja's personality.
Shinrei is her true self, it is also her last name.
Shugorei is the part of her personality that usually takes over when she's afraid or hurt very badly, blocking unpleasant memories from her true self so as not to harm her further. But this also tends to make her true self unaware of a lot of things later on when they could be useful to her.
Akurei is her dark side. This is the part of her that wants to kill and destroy everything she encounters, it's also the part of her that urges her to fight with everything she's got. A lot of times this part will appear when she's very hurt in order to fight off her attacker(s) and preserve her own life. And it'll also appear when she's seriously pissed off.
And finally Zareru is her playful side. This part is very rare, mostly because Sonja's life is filled with difficult and unpleasant events or memories and Zareru only comes out when things are calm and peaceful, not only in mind and body, but also in the world around her.
Sonja: You had to tell them all of that? *looks embaressed*
Yes... otherwise that part of the chapter wouldn't have made any sense
Sonja: Gods I hate you sometimes...
*shrugs* Hate me if you must... but it's not going to cause me to remove any of this :P
Sonja: Grrr!
