Author's Note: Sorry for not doing this sooner. I've gone through some really bad times, still am,and lost inspiration to finish the, like, last half page of this chapter when the rest was finished 4 days ago. Hope this doesn't get boring. This chapter's nearly the same as its predecessor, but now the villains have been introduced along with some minions and lesser demons, now the next chapter should now go in depth on these characters; finally the plot can thicken, the characters grow and develop, and see some actual progress. I guarantee that there'll be an... well, unusual bang in the following chapter.
Chapter 4 – Fire Destroyer
Ardor was just about to open the door that led to the basement when he felt a hand placed on his shoulder. He quickly turned around and was met by a quick punch, which caused him to drop immediately.
Ardor opened his eyes again. He looked up and saw a man with long, stone grey hair bending down towards him. By looking at his eyes, he could see that he wasn't human; where there was supposed to be white, there was a completely pitch black colour instead, and in the middle, there was no colour; just pure white. It looked as if the colours in his eyes were being sucked in.
"Get up", the moody man rumbled in a very deep and dark voice and grabbed Ardor, lifted him up and dragged him away. Ardor noticed that the man was wrapped in a red robe with a cloak wrapped further on. He wasn't wearing any shoes, either. Ardor noticed that he was outdoors now. Where he was, he didn't know. The man grabbed him again and jumped up, and landed on the roof of a building where he slammed Ardor on the ceiling floor. It hurt.
"Who-" Ardor began, but the man punched Ardor again, who quickly punched back and rolled away, got up to his feet and swiftly drew his Rebellion. "Who the heck are you?"
"Fight?" the man simply asked. Ardor had no idea what he was talking about. "Respond."
"Why should I? Get over here instead, or speak clearly."
"Fine", the man once again simply replied. "Dante dies."
Ardor opened his eyes as he saw the man looking far away. In the far distance, he could see something fiery and blazing moving. It stopped, and for a moment, he saw the light growing brighter, and then a distant noise could be heard, followed by a huge fiery fire ball rising up to the skies, and then descending towards a large building... the school.
Ardor tensed his eyes, widening them as he watched the fire ball blast away a part of the school. Another fire ball rammed the school, and the entire building exploded, completely bombarded. Ardour quickly turned to the smiling man and gave him a look filled with loathing and hatred.
"Damn you..." Ardor mumbled angrily and gripped his sword tightly, readying to kill the man. He would not hesitate. "You coward...!"
"She lives", the man stated angrily. "Your mother."
"Shut the hell up!" Ardor whispered and thundered towards them man, attempting to slash his sword against him. However, the man was quick to dodge, and then swiftly moved aside, almost as if teleporting. "Stand still, you bastard!"
Ardor attempted many more slashes, but the man moved further and further on, evading and dodging at unrealistic speed. Ardor flipped backwards and sheathed his sword, preparing to lunge at the man with his fists. Although, he never got the chance; the evil man's eyes began to glow all white, and Ardor realized that this demon was probably a truly strong demon that was out of his league; he probably had powers beyond Ardor's imagination. A power Ardor received a hint of.
The man stretched his hand forward, and immediately fired a charged energy ball at Ardor. Even though Ardor evaded the energy ball, the ball continued on forward, and blasted into four parts that became rays of energy that looped around and headed for Ardor again. He was struck by all four, and was pushed back towards the man with the white eyes, and the man flung another energy ball at Ardor, who was now struck by both sides. Ardor fell, and ached in pain as the man made a wild stomp on his stomach and chest, and finally kicked him, flipping him over on his back.
"She dies", the man said darkly before walking away. "Arachne. Take him."
Ardor looked as the man jumped down from the building, disappearing. Ardor tried to regain his strength, feeling pain all over his body. After a few minutes, he managed to get up, and he wiped dust and filth off his clothes. He took a deep breath and exhaled. He could still feel bruises here and there, and his ribs were still aching painfully. He also had a terrible headache. The man had spoken in few words, but he understood that the bombing of the school had been on purpose since Dante was there. However, why him? What did he matter?
He saw a flock of very small fiery spiders creeping up. He sighed and stepped them all to death. He loved and hated the disgusting sound of stepping on them. Then he saw some more spiders. Not as small as those ones.
"Shit", he hissed and silently uttered very nasty words indeed. A horde of sky blue, disgusting, fat spiders as large as those demon reptiles were creeping up on the large ceiling floor. Ardor pulled out the Rebellion and groaned. He was definitely not in the mood of fighting. But he realized that he would be able to kill them; he may not have the same strength as Dante, but he was certainly not a weakling.
The spiders which Ardor guessed were called Arachne hurried their way towards him. He estimated there to be at least more than a dozen of them, and he was certain that there were many more. Sighing, Ardor waited for the first one to draw near before he slashed away at the spiders.
Dante got up from the ground, watching the little remains of the Harbington Elementary School crackling here and there with small dancing flames of fire. He looked around and saw shards, bits and pieces of bricks and wood from the school. He walked across the ruins, trying to see what had caused the explosion when he heard footsteps from behind. He turned around and saw someone wrapped in red robes with stone grey hair and white eyes that glowed occasionally.
"Well, well", Dante whispered and stepped away from the ruins, walking towards the man in circles. "What have we here?"
Dante knew that the man was a demon; he sensed it, and he could see it. This man had something to do with the bombing of the school.
"Oh fine", Dante sighed and drew his handguns, pointing Ebony at him. "Don't speak. Just die."
Dante charged his gun and fired a charge shot against the man who ducked from the shot and retaliated with a horde of thin, blue energy rays soaring against Dante. Dante smiled and stood still as he was struck by the energy rays. He merely winced, glanced at the man and gave him the finger.
"Let's rock, two-face!"
Dante rushed towards him and drew Force Edge, swinging it against the man who quickly evaded, and was not hit a single time until Dante made an incredibly fast swing with his sword; the blade cut right across the man's chest, causing blood to trickle down from the man. Dante smiled and pointed Ebony at the man's face.
"Embrace my bullet; it's worth more than your lousy outfit anyway", Dante said and fired a bullet. The remains of the man were a transparent image that slowly faded away. At first, Dante thought that he had killed the demon, but then realized that the man had actually managed to evade the bullet. How he had done it, Dante didn't know.
"There is no way you can defeat me, Dante", the man whispered and grinned evilly. "You're weak, human."
Dante narrowed his eyes angrily, but then widened them as three red shiny dots appeared behind the man, like a surge of energy drawing the wind to it, and space itself as the man became transparent and completely red. Then he disappeared inside the wave, and then the three red dots disappeared, and the wind turned normal again.
"Three red dots..." Dante whispered. "Where have I seen...?"
Without thinking any further, Dante ran away from the ruins and hurried back to Harlington, even though he knew it would take forever to do so.
Ardor slashed away more and more of the Arachne, watching more blue spiders crawling up to him. Since there only were half a dozen that crept up this time, he knew that the ones on the roof now were the last ones. The Rebellion was being swung in many directions, tearing through the thick bodies of the spiders, and when they were sliced and cleaved, blue blood gushed out and disgusting noises echoed whenever they were slashed apart. Ardor kept slicing, slashing and plunging his sword through them, and when the final Arachne was slain, he sheathed the Rebellion and walked at the left edge of the roof, where there were no parts of the spider demons.
"The hell is this..." Ardor groaned and sat down at the edge of the roof. If there was anything that truly upset him, it was this night. First he was attacked by a bunch of Blades, and then knocked down by a demon man who probably could've killed him. Finally, he was ambushed by a horde of Arachne right after being beaten down. Indeed, he muttered angrily to himself and hoped that the attacks would stop coming.
They didn't stop at all.
Ardor looked out and saw the fiery light drawing near. From here, he could actually see what it was. But he didn't have the full time to determine, for the entire building he stood on rumbled for some reason, and he fell down from the roof. He was falling headlong when he flipped over and landed on his feet.
A few minutes later, Ardor heard a rumbling, and turned around, looking up at one of the skyscrapers. A gigantic beast was climbing on the surface of the building, and jumped up away from it, and landed right on front of Ardor, who nearly fell when the ground shook.
The beast was really enormous. Ardor swallowed. It looked like a gargantuan mix of a scorpion and a spider made of lava stone and liquid, hot magma. It had six huge legs, and each leg had an end like a huge claw, and it had eight large, blue eyes. The beast had parts of its body that showed its flowing magma, whereas other parts like larger parts of its head, tail and legs were grey, hardened lava.
"Ah can you be...?" the beast said loudly with a smoggy and hoarse, echoing voice that reminded of ashes and stones for some reason. "You're not him!"
The beast's eight eyes turned red as the beast grunted quite angrily. The interior of his mouth was flowing magma as well. Ardor felt the heat from the fire spider's mouth. He was very sure that the best thing to do now was to escape, but he had no way to flee from the gargantuan beast. Fighting would be useless; he felt like an amateur trying to take on a veteran.
"No wait, you're...!" the beast murmured and then shrieked. "You're the son of- no, can it be...!"
"Great thanks", Ardor responded mindlessly and slowly backed away. "Good night. Bye!"
Without delaying any further, Ardor quickly turned around and ran as fast as he could away from the fire spider. He found it amusing that spider didn't pursue him. When he looked back, he had found the irony in his thought; the fire spider had been gathering some form of fire energy, and Ardor just then realized that he was going to have a fire ball blasting towards him.
And he fled. He threw himself aside as the fire ball soared by him, pierced a building and caused it to explode as it rammed a nearby house block and caused the front wall to blow away. He noticed that he had foolishly tossed himself in a back alley. He heard angry and smoggy, heavy breathing along with booming stomping drawing closer and closer rapidly. The beast finally reached the alley and slowly moved closer to Ardor, who found himself cornered.
"Now you cannot flee, and I'll crush you into dust!" the fire spider bellowed. Ardor noticed how scraps of paper had already been turned to ashes, and that the windows were on the process of melting. He was quite warm as well, feeling the hot breath of the spider upon him. He also noticed how the blade on his Rebellion was heating up. Ardor smiled and looked up at his surroundings. Today he would flee.
"No time to meddle with you, chum", Ardor said and cracked his knuckles. "I've got a place to return to."
Ardor took all of his strength, focused hard and instantly jumped as far up as he could, grabbed onto a balcony rail and swung himself further up, grabbed the edge of the roof above and flipped over to the roof acrobatically, leaving the fire spider nearly trapped in the alley; the demon tried to move out of the alley, but it was going slow. Ardor smiled as the fire spider screamed furiously. Both of them knew that Ardor had the chance to escape and he would take it.
"Feel free to blast yourself out of here, I don't care", Ardor said as he noticed that the city was deserted. "This is a battle ground, comrade; the place is deserted. I'll kick your ass later."
He knew that it was unlikely that he could do such a thing, but he smirked viciously at the fire spider and ran away as the fire spider continued to roar mightily with anger.