Okay I know I haven't posted a chapter in a really long time and I will apoligize for that. See my plan was to get the next chapter up that same week as Chapter four but then I got busy with some stuff for school. Then that next week I was out of town almost all week and didn't have any acess to a computer, and then from there on I have been so busy with stuff that I'm lucky my head hasn't spun off. Seeing as it's spring break here I was planning on having this chapter and about two more up before going back to school but my family decided that they wanted to go to Indiana and I was forced to go, and then almost immdiantly after we got back we went to Gatlinburg Tennessee. But I promise I'm going to try and get some more chapters up soon. on with the show.
I stopped as soon as we had come to the end of the short passage. Richter was standing in front of Marta with his blade pointed directly at her. "Now, hand over that Ratatosk's core on your forehead."
"No." Marta stepped back and for a few moments shifted her gaze to look at Emil and me.
"Then I'll just have to destroy it along with you." I crept up behind Richter seeing as he hadn't noticed our arrival. When he raised his sword to kill her I stopped it with my own. Emil ran between me and Marta.
"Stop! Stop it please!" Emil cried towards Richter. "Richter what are you doing?"
The pressure being applied on my blade loosened as Richter pulled back a little, distracted by Emil. "I thought I told you to wait on the other side of the door."
"This was why you were looking for her?" Emil's voice quivered a little. "So you could kill her."
"That's right." Richter said in a calm tone.
"Why?" Emil asked.
"Because she is trying to awaken Ratatosk, the demon lord." Something pulsed inside of me at the name. I felt mana welling up somewhere inside the cave. It seemed familiar.
"Demon lord, what are you talking about?" Emil was incredibly confused at this point.
"I agree, it quite a foolish name, but "demon lord" is the most appropriate term to describe what he is." As Richter kept explaining the details I fell to my knees and clutched at my chest. There was a great amount of force bring pushed against it. "If Ratatosk awakens, then the world will be destroyed." Richter continued totally oblivious to the fact that I was practically not breathing over here. Does he always ignore dying people?
"No, you're wrong! Ratatosk is the lord of all monsters. He won't destroy the world." Marta fired back.
"I'm not interested in semantics." Richter turned back to look at her. Finally Emil looked down and noticed that I was no longer holding the guard against Richter and was very well struggling to breath. He shoved Richter and I watched with hazy vision as he stumbled back. "What are you doing?! Step aside." Richter shouted.
"No." Emil shook his head wildly.
"Move!" Richter shouted at him again. I clutched the hilt of my blade and willed myself to stand. Emil, who was frightened by the intensity and the volume of Richter's voice, stepped back and hung his head while closing his eyes.
"I'm not a dog! That's why I'm going to make my own decisions." Emil stepped forward again, and I stared at him in amazement, never would I have imagined that he would stand up to someone like Richter.
"Emil…" Richter began. Before he could say anything else Marta ran from behind Emil and to the door, while it was opening she turned back to look at Emil.
"Thank you." Was all she said before she hastily made her way out the door. Richter attempted to follow her, but Emil stood in front of the door to stop him.
"I don't want to kill you. Move!" Richter told him.
"I don't really understand what you two are talking about, but you can't do things like this. If you just talk this over…" Emil said.
"I thought I told you not to get in my way. Aqua, show yourself." Richter flicked his hair. The name Aqua sent my head spiraling and I felt something flow over my body. I turned my head enough to see the blue flash of light that produced Centurion Aqua; the only centurion that had turned against Lord Ratatosk. Just the sight of her sent me over the edge. The one I was sent to destroy. I could hear the voice of the winds telling me that this would be my first duty. (Okay sorry this is where things get weird)
"You called Master Richter?" She said in a sickeningly sweet voice.
"Take care of the boy. Just don't over do it." Richter commanded.
"A talking monster!" Emil cried.
"Who are you calling a monster, you human? I am a centurion. Centurion Aqua." I stood as she talked and could feel my cloths melt away and be replaced by my knight cloths. I wasn't actually aware of what I was doing; only that something was telling me to get rid of the traitor. "Now my cute little minion. Remove the boy from our presence."
As the monster attacked Emil I pulled my sword from the ground and charged towards Aqua. She saw in time to move mostly out of the way, but I still nicked her shoulder.
"What the…" I raised my head and looked in to her eyes. "That's not possible. Ventus is still asleep."
"How dare you still call yourself a Centurion? How could you just betray Lord Ratatosk?" She whimpered as I pressed the blade closer. "You think that you are above the system Aqua?!"
"But how did this happen? Ventus is still in core form and yet the color of those cloths specifically dignify that it was she that gave you the power of Ratatosk." Aqua looked to Richter who was posed to attack me at the slightest opening.
"Don't think yourself superior Aqua. Because you chose to leave the power of Lord Ratatosk behind, you lost several powers. Including this one; even though I remain in core form I have enough power to create knights to stop the likes of you." I grabbed her throat and shifted her so that if Richter wanted to chop at me he would have to chop through her first.
"You have been a knight of Ratatosk for this entire time and didn't tell me." Richter questioned me.
"I don't tell things like that to those who which to destroy my master." I said in a sarcastic voice.
"Master Richter you don't understand. That is not Ilex that is merely Ventus taking on her shape. I should think however, that Ilex was aware that she was a knight."
"Ah!" I turned my head to the door to see Emil getting beaten by the monster. I looked back at Richter and Aqua.
"Don't think that I'm finished talking with you traitor." Was all I said before swinging Aqua around and slamming her against the wall before running to Emil. The monster had forced him out the door. After I had made it through I heard the door close behind me and knew that we would not be able to go that way the next time.
"Emil!" I cried as he started to get up. He didn't seem too hurt but I went ahead and gave him an apple gel.
"What was that thing? We'll never be able to catch up to Richter with that thing in the way." He said in a distraught voice. I felt my pride for him welling up. He had just taken the first step in becoming someone who would not be easily intimidated by anyone.
"Well let's just see what we can do about that thing." We walked back to door and I placed my palm on it. It was sealed as I had suspected.
"You must forge a pact." I looked to the ceiling trying to find the voice. Emil behind me shivered a little and looked around wildly.
Suddenly black smoke filtered in and a creature formed out of it. The wind told me that it was the Centurion of Darkness.
"Another talking monster?" Emil asked.
"I am not a beast. I, to, am a centurion. Centurion Tenebrae." I nodded at him and he gazed at me for a second before turning back to Emil.
"Centurion Tenebrae?" Emil asked.
"You could never defeat the monster on the other side of this door as you are now." Tenebrae stated. "Forge a pact to become a knight of Ratatosk. Then you will be able to accept Lord Ratatosk's power in battle."
Emil turned to me. "Isn't that what Richter called you?" I nodded and prodded him to listen to Tenebrae. "What do you mean?" Emil asked him.
"There is no time to explain. Lady Marta is in danger." Tenebrae looked to the door behind us with worry.
"But I mean, you're just monster- a centurion, I mean- I don't know if…" Emil continuously stuttered and crouched over holding his head. All of the sudden a howl rang out and Emil stood up. "That howl, you were the one calling me."
"Lady Marta was looking for you. You saved her life and she has chosen you to be a knight." Tenebrae replied. I wondered vaguely if this had anything to do with the fact that Marta recognized Emil.
"Me?" Emil asked.
"Now forge the pact." Emil turned to look at me.
"What should I do, I want to help Marta but I don't know if I'm ready for something like this." I crossed my arms in front of my chest.
"Well, I've formed a pact with Ratatosk and nothing happened to me, so I don't really see what could go wrong. Besides it's kind of cool because it gives you really cool powers based on which Centurion you make the pact with." Emil seemed a little less scared after I had told him about my experience with the pact making.
"I'll make the pact." He told Tenebrae after confirming with me that nothing would happen to him.
"Understood." Purple smoke swirled around Emil. "Emil, I command you. Unleash the power within yourself." I watched as Emil slumped over and grabbed his head. "Awaken "Hunter of evil"!
Emil's clothes faded and became knight clothing with the colors of darkness. When he opened his eyes they were red and his voice was deeper as he asked how we were supposed to get through the sealed door.
"Don't worry about that, I can take care of it." Tenebrae levitated to the door and forced smoke through the seam before it pushed the door open for him. We walked inside to see Aqua floating around in the middle of the room.
"Spiteful Tenebrae; what are you doing here?" I got the feeling that she didn't like Tenebrae that much.
"Let's go." Tenebrae replied in a nonchalant voice.
"What? You want to fight me? You'll regret this." Aqua put her, um….flippers on her hips.
"The only one who's going to regret this is you." I stepped back a little when I say Emil eyes flash a bright red. He stepped forward. "Now, come on."
A water spirit rose up out of the ground and cried out. Emil rushed it and starting attacking with demon fang. He must have learned it when he accepted the pact. I thought to myself. I shook my head when he tried to use it again and nothing happened.
"You might want to slow down there a bit. If you use too many artes at once your body's mana is thrown out of balance and you can't use them anymore." I called out to him. He acted like he hadn't heard but he didn't try to use demon fang anymore. I grabbed my blade and ran out to help him as he was getting pummeled by the water whip that the spirit was throwing around.
"Riot strike." I circled the spirit and watched as a spear formed out of wind where I had stepped. When ten spears had been formed they rained down on the spirit and I saw it flinch as the spears pierced its liquid body. Emil flew through the air and finished it off with a single demon fang. At the same moment that the spirit disappeared Aqua fell to the ground unconscious. I walked over to look at her while Emil talked with Tenebrae; I kept an ear on their conversation.
"What just happened?" Emil asked a little confused.
"Lord Ratatosk's power took hold of you." Tenebrae responded.
"It felt like I became someone else." I could feel with Emil on that one. Even though I was only being possessed by Ventus and not Ratatosk I too felt as though I were becoming another person.
"Yes, that was Lord Ratatosk's power." Tenebrae sounding like he was talking to a child. Emil finally noticed Aqua on the ground in front of us.
"Anyway what happened to Aqua? I didn't even touch her." Emil said a little bit concerned for the Centurion.
"Don't worry about her. Centurions don't fight; they deploy monsters to fight for them. However because Aqua's monster was defeated she has also lost her powers temporarily." I stated standing back up. "She'll be right as rain after a little while."
"Oh, that's good. I didn't want to hurt her." Emil sighed in relief.
"I wouldn't worry about her Emil. She seems to be the kind of person that would betray someone. That's why Ventus told me to attack her."
Tenebrae allowed the comment to roll off his shoulders. "Come, we must go after Lady Marta." I placed my hand on the wall and let myself lean.
"You know as well as I do that Richter wouldn't make it this easy for us to catch up to him." I told them lightly. "I bet twenty gald that he sealed that door." And low and behold when Emil approached the door it wouldn't open.
"It won't open." I made a strangled laughing noise when he only confirmed me right. "What should we do now?"
"I can feel a draft from the passage over there. I'm sure that there is another way around. It will just take longer." I said pointing to the passage on the other side of the room. When Emil rubbed the back of his head I knew that he hadn't noticed it there.
"How do you know?" Emil said sticking a finger in his mouth and then raising it up in the air to feel the draft.
"Ventus is the Centurion of wind therefore when I accepted the pact that I was offered by her it gave me the power to feel even the slightest shift in the wind." I said raising my shoulders half way before letting them drop. I said no more on the matter and walked down the passage in front of them. I jerked my sword out as we rounded the corner only to see an imp in front of us.
"Let's forge a pact." Tenebrae said as soon as he saw the imp.
"Pact?" Emil asked in confusion.
"Your powers as a knight of Ratatosk are granted to you by lord Ratatosk himself." Tenebrae explained. "However he is currently in a deep slumber. As a result the power he grants you is very weak."
"So would that be like you and Gale, Ilex?" I shrugged my shoulders at his question. I had never used magic to have Gale follow. "Where is he anyway?"
"Oh yes Emil, I'm going to bring a 7' foot tall gryphon inside the tiny little passages in here." I snipped sarcastically. Emil smiled apologetically at me, knowing that he had asked a stupid question.
"Anyway, at this point in time Lord Ratatosk is very weak, as is your power." Tenebrae brought us back on the subject.
"No way, this is weak?" Emil stared at his hands in shock.
"Lord Ratatosk is very powerful. As you gain experience and grow you abilities, it's crucial you continue to unlock more of his strength." Emil turned to look at me.
"What about you?" he asked.
"It doesn't really apply to me. Ventus had an ulterior motive when she turned me into a knight a Ratatosk; one that she has yet to tell even me. I don't really care, I only did it for Luke, and he's too little to be on his own." I replied thinking of the small boy that I had left in Palmacosta.
"Getting back on topic, you may form a pact through the use of a centurion's power. If power is restored to the centurions, Lord Ratatosk's strength will return as well. We can accomplish this by forging pacts with monsters."
"So the more monsters we have on our side the stronger I'll become?" Emil asked.
"That's correct." Tenebrae nodded at him.
"But how do you make a pact?" I opened my mouth to answer that one, but Tenebrae beat me to the punch.
"Like this." Was all he said before he charged the monster head on and forced it to the ground. I smacked my forehead in frustration.
When Tenebrae turned to run back to us the imp turned to look at us with a sinister look. I posed my blade ready to fight it if need be, but Emil charged at it before it could get close to us. I could feel the familiar mana of Lord Ratatosk's power that had taken him over once again. I stood in the background watching him fight as someone else.
"Hello, you have to dodge sometime; you can't just expect it to miss." I called out to him. Although he began to dodge he still wasn't doing what he needed to do in order to set up pact magic. "You have to set up the magic so Tenebrae can have something to start out with."
"I don't know how." He replied back.
"Most artes that you use will have something called an elemental attribute. If you use enough artes with the same elemental attributes you can set up pact magic with a monster of the same element." I explained.
"Demon fang would work right, cause that's all I got." He started thrusting out demon fangs before I could tell him that it would be fine. In this alter ego form he was really reckless. I watched as he pounded them out until his body's mana was to out of whack to produce anymore.
The imp fell to the ground with a yelp from its wounds. I had to say that he may have over done it just a little bit.
"Well the idea was just to prove that you were stronger than it. Not beat it half to death." I said jokingly as Tenebrae formed the pact ring around the monster.
"What's the difference." He replied. "You beat em' half to death guess what, that still proving you're stronger."
I felt my hands twitch. I don't think that Mr. Alter-ego and I were going to get along very well. I saw his hand move towards the hilt of his blade as he stared me down. I realized that I must have said that aloud. Whoops.
"You want to start something with me?" He asked in a dangerously low voice.
Now normal people would have decided that it was a good time to shut up, but he didn't scare me. "No, but if you could stop being an ass it would be highly appreciated." I looked at his hand as it tightened threateningly around the hilt. "Don't even think about it. I don't care who you're being controlled by, you don't have enough experience to fight me and win."
"Do you realize who you are talking too?" He asked as I picked the dirt from underneath my very short fingernails.
"Yeah, some snot-nosed, self-centered alter ego that has officially taken over my friends body." I heard Tenebrae sigh behind us. I turned to look at him. "Listen, I'm going on ahead so that this doesn't turn into something that nobody wants it to turn into."
As I walked away I could hear Emil cursing behind me. I could only hope that he didn't stay in that form for long otherwise the two of us would be at each others throats and battling it out before the day was over.
Okay once again I'm really sorry for not updating sooner. Please tell me what you think via comments and reviews. Thank you very much. If anyone has any questions about this chapter please feel free to ask. I know it got a little confusing there in the middle. But be warned. A lot of the truth about why she is a knight won't come until closer to the end and god knows how long that could take, but maybe if you guys are nice I might give you some foreshadowing.
Anyway I know that I'm supposed to put up some random useless fact right now, but unfortunatly somewhere between the last chapter and this one I cleaned out my inbox for my email account and deleted it before I could remember I needed it. So instead I will tell you one thing you may not have known, well actually shouldn't have known about Ilex. She grew up in Hima. Now this place holds a lot of the dramatic parts of the story but I'm not going to tell you why. BYE BYE.
oh and sorry for typo's I was trying to get this up so fast that I almost completely skipped trying to find mistakes.
