"Are storms really bad in Cosmos?" Jesse asked, the horse they were on already spurring itself into a canter as Aiden sped up.
Aiden grunted, looking as if he might abandon Jesse if they asked another question- then he seemed to catch himself and grunted again. "Kinda take a sandstorm, a thunderstorm, and like... a hailstorm or a hurricane all at once. Then throw in what happens at night in Cosmos except a lot more violent and probably seeking for living souls for a better vessel, and boom, you get a Cosmos storm."
Jesse considered this.
Then went pale.
The sheer destructive force of all those storms- and the fact that negative energy merged with things to create stuff like Endermen and zombies and who knew what else...
They did not want to be out here in the storm.
"Now hurry the hell up. We're already in a really bad place," and now Aiden was almost yelling over his shoulder as he ran, already shifting so that he was half in his shadow form, "the fact that we can already see the blue means it's almost-"
His final words were lost in a whisper of wind as he finished the transformation, wings propelling him through the air in a dark blur towards Fortrylle.
But he didn't need to finish for Jesse to know what he meant.
Bob whinnied loudly and picked up the pace, breaking forth into a gallop that made the grass around them part from the force of the movement, Reuben squealing. Jesse buried their face in Bob's fiery mane as the Cosmos horse ran, the wind already beginning to pick up around them.
The storm arrived too soon, wind slapping Jesse full-force in the face before they even knew it, screaming in their ears while they pressed into Bob desperately and tried not to be blown off.
When they chanced a look up, it was to see that the world had transformed into an almost black haze, flashes of red in the darkness around them, hiding anything that wasn't immediately around them from view like a thick black smog.
Dust and dirt whirled around them, blowing into Jesse's eyes and mouth the moment they lifted their head, the smell of ozone overwhelming them so immediately that they felt almost lightheaded.
Rain began to drip, then it was abruptly- with almost no warning- coming down in sheets, in thick hard sheets of stinging rain that burned their eyes when they kept them open for too long and had them drenched totally in seconds. It was a wonder the flame on the horse's mane didn't vanish.
They made a tiny sound- a whimper?- and buried back into the fiery mane, trying to keep their grip on Reuben and the horse and-
A bolt of red lightning exploded only a few feet away, making Bob the horse shriek and stumble in his gallop as he shied to avoid the lightning, Jesse crying out loudly and desperately trying to keep their balance- they couldn't as the horse reared and they found themself slipping off his wet back and they slammed hard into the grass, Reuben squealing as he went slipping out of their arms like he'd been greased.
"Reuben!" they yelled, already fumbling through soaking wet grass as the rain hammered down on them, barely audible over the roar of rain and the panicked whinnies of the horse behind them and the wind screaming through the grass and the sky and the dust and the dirt, black bearing down around them. The grit and stinging rain made it impossible to see, but Jesse squeezed their eyes shut and kept searching for the little pig that was their soul vessel.
Bob screamed behind them, whinnying and stamping his hooves and searching for them, but the air was heavy with the scent of ozone and dirt and grass and wet and he couldn't sniff them out, and the sound of the horse was drowned what with the storm around them, and the horse immediately lost Jesse in the screaming storm.
The horse huffed, stamping his hooves, before the horse vanished in a whipcrack and flash of light to escape the storm.
Jesse, only a few meters away, blundered upon Reuben, the little piggy whining and nosing into their arms. "It's okay, Reuben," they whispered, struggling to calm themselves as the storm howled around them and clawed at Jesse with wind and dust and dirt and hard sheets of rain that burned their skin even as he kept whining, inaudible above the thundering storm around them.
The human struggled to their feet and began to blunder through the rain back towards their horse- but of course, it wasn't there anymore, and they could only stumble through the rain and struggle to keep their balance in the thick sludge and mud that had almost immediately begun forming and churning, sucking at their shoes and their overalls and soaking their legs to the skin.
Unaware of glowing smears of energy that were beginning to emerge from the black smog around them.
Unaware that negative energy would jump at the chance to merge with a human and rip them apart.
The guards heaved the door shut as Lukas almost immediately collapsed on the ground inside the tree that made up Fortrylle. He was dripping mud and water and sludge all over the floor, but so were the guards and everyone else inside, so that wasn't a huge deal.
"That's one of the worst storm's Enchantra's had in months," one guard mumbled after spitting out what looked like a full mouthful of mud.
Aiden groaned, already shedding his muddy leather jacket to reveal that he was still soaked under that- although cleaner; he was covered in dust and grime and dirt from the storm that had spiraled up around them. "Great. So we're probably stuck here a few days," he muttered, wiping at his filthy face with his clean sleeve. "Least we finally got here."
Gill was busy hacking up mud on the floor. Maya had dropped her usual pretense of swearing at him in favor of hastily pounding his back and trying to get all the mud out, looking worried sick about him as he coughed and trembled.
"You twat, be more careful in storms like that!"
Okay, forget the first part of that. She was still supporting him and trying to help him, though, despite the fact that she was pretty much soaked in mud.
Petra seemed to have avoided the worst of the storm in time, having shot ahead; she was still soaked and shaking. "Enchantra's storms are never this bad," she mumbled. "Not unless Ivor slips 'cause he's focusing on something... damn it, Ivor..."
Radar was practically covered head-to-toe in mud; Nurm had taken his glasses and started cleaning them. The man seemed to have been with Petra and, while a little muddy from the waist down, still had clean-enough sleeves to at least clean the sludge off of Radar's glasses.
Jack had cut off a small part of Mevia's robe that she'd offered to him that was remotely clean to bind Harper's hand; a blast of lightning had missed it by a centimeter while she'd reached the gates and singed it pretty bad, despite her claiming "Not hurt" to a panicked Isa. She was totally drenched, the woman's entire dress soaked in muddy water, but was otherwise unharmed, to Lukas's faint relief.
Lukas turned pale as he scanned the room, murmurs of concern and affirmation that everyone was alright filling the background and buzzing in his ears as he conducted a headcount and came up short.
"One, two... wait, we're missing someone. Who- who are we missing?" His brain scrambled; they had everyone, didn't they? Petra, Maya, Gill, Mevia, Isa, Harper, Jack, Nurm, Radar, Aiden...
Jesse.
Where was Jesse?
Lukas's heart clunked into his boots as his head snapped to the left.
To the tightly shut gates blocking out the storm outside as it howled and boomed and pounded at the door with sheets of rain and clawed at the doors, negative energy beating against the door and begging to be let in.
To the screaming storm that very few demons would survive alone.
Let alone a human who didn't even look like they could survive being shoved down.
Aiden sucked in a quiet breath and swore as he conducted his own headcount and arrived at the same conclusion. His eyes snapped to his friend. "Shit. Lukas, don't be hast- LUKAS!"
The last word came out in an actual scream as he lunged to grab the blonde half-demon, but Lukas was already throwing himself at the gate and shoving it back open and slamming it shut behind him, disappearing in a moment into a whirlwind of dust and wind and thunder and lightning and sheets of rain.
"Fuck. Fuck," Aiden cussed, tangling his fingers in his hair. "He's good with magic but not enough to purify a whole fucking storm's worth of negative energy- fuck," and now he was pacing frenetically back and forth.
Petra reached up to calm him down. "Aiden. Aiden, calm–"
Aiden whipped to look at her, rage flashing in his eyes. "He and Jesse will fucking die if they stay out in that storm too long, and you're trying to tell me to calm down–"
"There's no use killing ourselves getting them to safety," Gill croaked, gagging on mud and spitting up what looked like the last of it. "A few of us should run and get Ivor- he might be able to suppress it enough that we can go get them both out of there."
He then proceeded to gag on more mud.
Maya nodded. "Gill's right," she murmured, and maybe if the situation was any different Gill would've gloated about it, but it wasn't and he just looked worried. "I'd say you and Petra- you guys move faster than us. Plus there are some of us who are injured."
If anyone had noticed Aiden's shift of heart regarding Jesse, nobody even breathed a suggestion of it.
Aiden clenched his jaw, staring at the two, before he glared at Petra, red eye glowing in the dim light of the floating orbs that circled above their head and illuminated the front gate. "Let's get him, then," he growled.
"And when we find him, and they're both safe, he'd better have a damn good reason for letting that storm build up this much."
Lukas struggled through the storm, getting buffeted from side to side by blasts of wind that shoved him about, making him stumble through thick mud and sludge and sheets of rain.
Jesse.
God, he hoped Jesse was okay.
The storm ripped at him, wind howling and trying to tear away his leather jacket so that the hard sheets of rain could soak into icy skin and subdue him before the negative energy could. He responded by muttering a swear Aiden would've used at it and holding it tighter around him as a kind of 'screw you' to the universe.
He was shivering enough with the jacket; losing it might just prove disastrous.
A little figure was emerging from the smog before him, blundering in a path that was near his but not quite on a collision trajectory. He squinted, trying to peer through dirt and dust that flew into his eyes and rain that made everything just look like a blur.
It glowed.
Human.
With their soul.
Which meant-
"Jesse!" Lukas shouted to them through the rain, noticing with a shudder of apprehension that there were thick black clouds of glowing substance- negative energy flitted into his brain and out just as fast- swirling around them both, having narrowed its sights on its two targets.
The only two living beings unlucky or stupid enough to still be out here.
They couldn't hear him- he couldn't blame them, he could barely hear himself over the roaring rain.
"Jesse!" Lukas yelled louder, raising a cracking voice to be heard, and Jesse heard, because their little head came up to look at him, but it also caught the attention of the negative energy and it began to swirl around them both more threateningly, like the eye of a hurricane except the center wasn't safe, it was just as full of rain and dust and dirt and wind and lightning as the rest of the storm, and the two of them were in horrible danger right now.
He thought he could hear a thin cry from Jesse, but the little figure was struggling closer through the storm regardless of if they'd actually made any sound and undoubtedly enough mud to drown them if he shoved their head under, and he could catch a little oink, so he picked up his pace to go grab them and run them both in before the storm killed them both and the others were left to find their bodies after the fact. "Jesse!" he called out, relief blossoming in his chest.
A bolt of lightning abruptly illuminated the area around Jesse- literally, because the smog was blasted back from the force of the strike and it skimmed Jesse's shoulder.
Jesse screamed- louder than the storm- and jerked, as if in pain, and the negative energy began to buzz more excitedly, having spotted a clear glimpse of their probably more appealing target, flitting about in zigzags that made blots of black shoot across Lukas's vision as it flitted about excitedly.
His heart leapt into his throat. "JESSE!" Lukas screamed-
A whole mouthful of negative energy shot past his lips and down his throat.
He heaved, gagging and choking on the thick black substance even as he could hear Jesse's thin cry of "Lukas!" as he stepped back, desperately trying to gag it back up and throw it up and feeling it grip the inside of his throat with iron-tipped claws that sent pain shooting through his entire neck.
He could feel something- parasitic, desperate, clawing to make its way into his body and make him its permanent host- scratching, clawing, fighting.
He gagged harder, falling to his knees as he tried to squeeze it out with his hands, almost strangling himself, but it wouldn't come out, it wouldn't come out and it wouldn't go in and he was left helplessly choking and gasping for air that wouldn't come as he shook, trying to get it out.
A sticky strand of black oozed out of his mouth but never broke; like some kind of gooey wormlike object it began to curl back past his lips, into his throat, into his shaking body that was fighting it as hard as he damn could.
He was seeing Jesse's terrified face down a long, dark tunnel now, black clouds seeping into his vision and overtaking it so that he could barely see any of the dust or dirt or lightning or sheets of hard, stinging rain or negative energy whirling around him.
He could barely see anything; he could barely even feel anything except radiating agony through his throat and his body and sneaking into his chest, even as Jesse screamed something that never made it past the buzzing in his ears.
And then he saw nothing.
A/N: 2,500 words in one chapter! Don't become used to it, this is a treat. Thanks Silver! I'm super motivated now xD
I updated real quick this time, very few people actually reviewed the last chapter.
Okay fine, one person reviewed the last chapter. xD
RQTC: How many of my readers are legal adults?
If you're not comfortable answering no problem! Instead, just tell me if you could own as many cats and dogs as you could without hygiene, space, or time consumption being a problem, how many?
My answers are, I am a legal adult (not specific age though), and I'd own 1 dog and 2 cats. Because I'm slightly allergic so I think more would possibly hurt me xD
Roses are red,
violets are blue,
I got one review,
Though I expected at least two.
Responses to review!
Syra Nyth: Welcome to the review section! I'm really glad you're enjoying the story- and yes, Jesse is awesome. xD Here's another update! I am probably going to cause pain though xD
That's all for now! See ya, so long, and enjoy.
x.X. A.L. X.x
"I need you to bring Jesse back here by seven tonight, but otherwise you can do whatever you want with them," Romeo told the October Children, though he still seemed to be halfway occupied with his glaring contest with Aiden.
Maya stared at Jesse.
They blinked up at her innocently.
Then she looked back at Romeo.
"Did... did you just set them a curfew?"
Romeo blinked.
Then looked back at Jesse, giving them a mock-squinty look. "I expect you back here by seven, young one," he said, in a mock-serious voice, though the way his lips twitched betrayed how amusing he'd found the statement.
"Yes, Dad," Jesse replied without even skipping a beat.
Cue everyone on set dying of laughter for ten minutes while the director yelled "Cut" repeatedly in an annoyed tone.
