The students slowly made their way through the trees to the clearing, following the older class which included Rin. "So...how long did Astarte train you for?" Drake asked. "Not for very long. There was a...incident that resulted in the training having to stop." Rin answered. "However, when Astarte-chan was training Rin, he improved greatly." Shiemi said. "So, she's a good teacher?" Noel asked. "Well, she may seem cold and distant with you at first, but that's because she's identifying where you need more training. Once you're past that she is more open with you." Rin stated. "But...she keeps chopping Drake's arm off." This got a laugh from the older students. "She might not show it, but she's actually training Drake to speed up his healing techniques." Yukio said. "What?!" "She's done this before. She used to throw blades at me to make me use my flames to deflect them. Most of the time it just ended in visits to the hospital but she managed to get me to speed up my healing abilities." Rin smiled as he thought of one visit that had occurred. He was pulled out when he heard singing and laughing.
Ponpon dashite shimaeba ii no Zenzen shinai no tsumaranai desho Headphone kakete rhythm ni nosete Wayway akete atashi no michi wo. They looked through the branches to see Astarte with her back to them as she danced for her sons. She stopped when she heard them approach. "Finally, I was wondering where you lot got to." She said as she summoned Kitsune. The multi-tailed fox grew to a larger size and placed Chikyuu and Sora on his back. "Come on let's go. I've sorted out how I'm going to train you." She said as she led them to the caves. "Ok, let's separate you into groups. Those who use the elements, go stand over by that cave there. Tamers, over on the right and those who have specialised abilities, such as yours Noel, go stand in the middle." The groups separated and waited. "Right, first off for our element users." She clicked her fingers and multiple targets appeared. "Ok, I want you to either hit the targets with the element you control or weapons crafted from that element. Don't worry about missing them, I'm setting up barriers around each of you and your targets so that you don't harm each other or anyone else. All I want you to do is focus on gaining confidence in your abilities." She said. The students all glanced at each other before starting. "Megumi, I want you in the specialised training group. Your abilities are specialised to you alone." Astarte said. Megumi nodded and joined the middle group.
Amixtri stood and aimed for the targets, her flames firing off in jets. Her eyes widened when she struck one of the targets and it burst into flames. Hotomi glanced at her before crafting a number of shuriken out of ice and throwing them at her target. Each one hit the bulls-eye. She grinned before she noticed the target started moving. "I forgot to mention that as you gain confidence, the difficulty of the task increases to multiple targets moving at speed whilst feigning attacks at you." Astarte added as she turned to the specialist group. "I want each of you to work on your ability and enhance it. So Megumi, work on crafting larger weapons from the elements. Noel, work on influencing and strengthening your powers of suggestion. Yuki, I want you to tell me what you can do and then I'll sort out your training method. Same goes for you Ame and Rei." The three girls nodded and stood to one side. "Drake, you go stand over there for a moment, I will sort out your training once everyone else has started." He slowly nodded, his nerves slowly starting to gnaw at him.
"Ok, Yuki what is your ability?" Yuki nodded. "I can manifest a aura known as the fox-cloak and enhanced senses as well as increased accuracy with throwing weapons and agility." "I take it you have the basic demon skills of healing, telepathy etc as well?" Astarte asked. "Yes." "Excellent! Now, I want you to work on maintaining control of that aura you can manifest. I want you to make sure that you can maintain it for extended periods of time without losing control. If you are worried about losing control, I will keep you in a barrier with Kitsune. He will bring you back should you lose control of yourself." Astarte said. Said fox appeared and walked Yuki over to a spot, a small distance from the others and began helping her train. "What about you Ame?" Astarte asked. "I can contort the body parts of others until they break, summon an acidic mist that can melt or deform anything and I can produce a sonic screech that can shatter objects." Ame stated. "Ok. I kinda want to keep my hearing intact so for now, we'll work on the other two." Astarte clicked her fingers and a cage filled with people appeared. Those inside moaned and cried out. The students all paused and stared in horror, as did those from Rin's class. "What...?" Bon began to say.
"They are the souls of the damned. Forever condemned to serve as entertainment to the royal family of the demons. We of royal blood can summon and dismiss them as we please. Most of the time it is only for entertainment purposes. You know, watching them fight with ravenous hell-hounds, throwing them to the Manticores, going on human hunts. But these ones shall fulfil your needs today I think." She explained before turning to Ame. "I want you to select one and then focus on breaking every part of their body and melting them with your acid." Ame looked at her. "Don't worry, they will simply go back to Gehenna when killed. Besides, they are already dead and damned." She said before turning to Rei, who bounced on her feet whilst chewing gum. "Now for you." She said. Rei smiled. "You can summon small worm holes correct?" "Yep." "I want you to practice summoning larger ones. Each one has to be bigger than the previous one understand. And to motivate you." Another click of the fingers and a large hound appeared beside her, bowing to Astarte. "Everytime you fail, this hell-hound will light part of your clothing on fire or bite you." She said. "That's cruel!" Rei cried. "Ah, but you are family. So I can be cruel to you." Astarte said with a grin. She then turned to the tamers.
"Ok, for you lot, I want you to practice summoning your familiars and maintaining your control over them. If you feel like you are going to lose control, tear the paper or smudge the symbols. I will have several nagas surrounding you so that they can smudge the symbols should you appear to be getting into trouble." She said. The tamers all nodded and summoned their various familiars. "If you want, build a stronger relationship with your familiar. The more they trust you, the more likely they are to avoid attacking you." She added. Finally she turned to Drake. "Now, as I said before, you need to work on speeding up the transition from one form to another as you leave yourself open to attack when doing so. Especially if you are shifting from your armour to blades. Now, I want you to shift from your armour to blades whilst still blocking my attacks." She drew her katana. From the sides, there came the united cry of "Go Mummy!" from Sora and Chikyuu. Drake swallowed his fear and took up a fighting stance, his body covered in black armour. "Begin." Astarte called. He focused on turning his arms to blades and his armour slowly receded. Astarte ran towards him and aimed for his left arm. He spun to one side, sparks flying where the steel of the blade collided with his armour. He grinned, thinking he did well to avoid her.
"You need to move more gracefully." She said, as she spun on the ball of her left foot and came at him again. Sora and Chikyuu cheered from the sidelines where Ben and Eric also stood. "Should we really be letting her do this?" Ben asked. "I think so long as she doesn't kill him...or maim him too badly, then we can allow it." Eric responded. In the shadows, Daniel Bond watched silently, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. "Come on...make a mistake." He murmured. He felt nerves grip him slightly when Astarte stopped feigning attacks at Drake and paused. She turned to face the direction he lay in and stared. He thought she had spotted him when he heard it. A distant revving sound. Movement made him look to see Yukio had moved beside her.
"What do you hear?" He asked her, guns drawn and ready. She shushed him and then growled to several hob-goblins who had emerged from the trees. The creatures huddled around the two small demon princes and waited as Astarte let her flames embrace her form. She crept closer to his hiding spot, making him rest his finger ever so gently on the trigger of his gun. "Astarte, what is that?" Yukio asked again. She held a hand up for silence and crouched, her eyes glowing faintly as she saw what they could not. She blinked once and her eyes glowed more brightly as she used her demonic sight to see further than any of them could. Her head raised and she stood before hopping to one side as a motor-cycle roared through the trees and landed in the clearing. Astride the mechanical monster, for it was like no motorcycle any of them had seen, sat a figure whose entire form seemed to consist of a fiery skeleton, complete with skeletal tail that coiled behind them. The creature stepped off the bike and stepped towards Astarte.
"I see your wrong-doings, demonic angel. I have come to punish you and all those who stand with you for all have committed wrong." The creature said. Astarte glanced around before looking back at the creature. In the midst of the hob-goblins, Sora whimpered for fear that he could lose his mother. Rin and the others stood, ready to battle but did not attack. The stance Astarte had taken suggested that she would sort this out herself. The students all stopped in their training, staring at the scene before them whilst the familiars of the demonic princess voiced their anger and motioned their protective instincts. It was then Astarte let out a laugh.
"You come to punish those who have committed wrong, kin of Zarathos. But tell me, what will you do with those who have committed no wrong?" She asked. The skeletal figure said nothing. "I have two sons present with me. Whilst they are demon in origin, they hold some angelic blood from me and they have committed no wrong deed. So will you punish them as well?" She asked. All the students glanced at each other when Megumi noticed something and nudged Noel before whispering to her. Noel looked and saw what Megumi had noticed before passing on the whisper to the others. Megumi watched as Astarte's tail drew a symbol in the ground, hiding behind her body so as not to be noticed by the skeletal rider. "You would at least grace me with your name so I know who to curse when I am returned to my father." Astarte added. The skeletal figure remained silent, leading them to believe that they were not going to respond.
"Cassandra Martin" The skeleton said. They all blinked. It...was a girl? Astarte chuckled. "I figured as much from the feminine build of your skeleton." She said. Cassandra merely clenched her fist and ran at her. The others began to move, aiming to help when Astarte looked up, a grin on her face. "Mizu. Put her out." A light blue dragon, whose body shimmered in the light and moved as if made of rippling water, appeared just above Astarte's head and created a wave of water that crashed down upon Cassandra. As she went to stand, more water struck her until the demon was forced back. In its place, lay a rather wet girl, with pale skin and dark brown hair as well as grey eyes and a skeletal tail. Astarte stood over the girl as she groaned in pain. They all stared as silence ruled for what seemed like an eternity before Astarte stood and whistled. Everyone looked sky-wards, expecting Baphomet to come and answer the call. But instead, the sound that answered was that of a horse.
They all stared as a black horse with a mane and tail of purple fire and a skeletal mask galloped to Astarte. "Tikbalang, I need your swift feet to help me get this half-child back to the hospital at the academy." The horse moved as if to nod its head. Astarte sheathed her blade before picking Cassandra up and placing her on Tikbalang's back and climbing up herself. "I will leave my familiars in charge for now. Until the sun is nearing its rest on the horizon, you will continue training." She turned to Kitsune. "I want updates every hour understand?" The fox demon bowed. "Sora, Chikyuu. Come with me." The two boys ran forward and climbed up onto the horse, with aide of a lift from their mother's tail. "Oh and Rin? Try not to light the forest on fire." She added before nudging the horse with her heels and galloping of through the forest.
"Well...that was interesting." Shima muttered. In the shadows, Daniel growled to himself. There had been a perfect opportunity to strike but he had missed it. "No matter." He thought to himself. "I will simply wait until I can make the experience all the more painful." He smirked before turning back to the class, calculating how his plan would play out and ultimately, lead to the demise of this unholy class.
Quick note. Submissions for characters will remain open for the next two chapters before I close them temporarily. Also, can I request more exorcists as the class will be taking a slight field trip to another branch. Which one? You'll just have to wait to find out. However, to keep you interested, a sneak peek.
"Demoness Astarte, it would seem Sir Pheles was right to suggest you train tamers and demons more control. We have heard that you are managing to gain results of some minor improvements, even with the most difficult of cases. Therefore, it has been decided that, upon request by the head of the branch, you and your class will travel to other branches of the order of the true cross and train others." The Grigori stated. Astarte remained waiting for more. There had to be a catch, there was always a catch with this lot. "However, due to you no longer being under the confines of a heartbind, you must be accompanied by at least one fully trained exorcist." She rolled her eyes. There it was. "For this first mission, you will be accompanied by the following. Shura Kirigakure, Yukio Okumura and Sir Pheles." Silence ruled amongst the gathered and then in perfect unision. "EH?!"
So yes, we will be on the move soon dear readers. But if you have a character you want submitted, please submit them within the next two chapters otherwise they will not be included until I open submissions again. Aside from that, there are no further notes and I'm so happy so many people have submitted characters and keep sticking with these really long chapters where very little seems to happen. It's all leading up to several events people, believe me. All reviews are appreciated and welcomed. Also, a new chapter of Heaven's demon will be uploaded soon, either today or tomorrow, depending on when I finish the chapter. So, until next time this is sayonara from the psychotic author