Chapter 12

Sheldor stepped out in the midst of a very blood thirsty horde of orcs and their Soft Kitty pets that had bows and flaming arrows pointed right at them. They were guarding the first arc that led to the path leading towards the castle.

Arcs, or Gates, were just another form of protection that the witch had cast for her castle. When you entered into an arc… it was like stepping into a whole separate world. It was useless magic, but effective for slowing an enemy down. All together there were three arcs, each, supposedly, guarded by the three most deadliest creatures of Pasadina. This one was guarded by orcs and Soft Kitties. Sheldor wouldn't have been surprised if no one ever got past just this one gate.

Three of the Skaldjilk were bigger than the bow wielding orcs and they approached him with the female he saw in the mirror giving orders to the orcs that were torturing Penelope… Alicyka. Onar, with Pryna on his back and Wolowix, stepped out and stood beside him but cautiously behind him. Onar couldn't stop his lip from rising at some of the Skaldjilk who snapped their jaws at him. They were clicking and snapping in their weird little language and Onar seemed to be returning it.

The three huge Skaldjilk each carried a different weapon. One, with a human skull and little arm bones as a necklace, had a pair of blood stained katars on each hand. He had an eye completely missing from the inside of his head and bothered not to cover it with a patch. He was the shortest of the three, but the stockiest. One, draped in heavy chains and large demi-gauntlets with spikes on the knuckles, held two very thick and overly curved bladed scimitars in each hand. He was in the middle in height, but his arms were overly muscular. The other was the tallest by far and nearly three inches taller than Sheldor himself, and he had nothing more than his slimy skin and tortoise shell on is back, but an enormous pollaxe sitting on his shoulder. The axe part, itself, was thick with the bottom half of the blade long and curved menacingly.

The long bow stuck straight out past the tall orc's arm then playing with a long piece of grass that hung out of his mouth. Alicyka moved from the crowd to standing only feet away from Sheldor as
she leered at all of them before setting her darkened brown eyes upon Sheldor's blackened eyes. She gave a very hyena like laugh and spoke in her own language with her teeth clicking and small growls erupting from her throat. Sheldor was not the bit impressed.

Suddenly, Onar's voice blared into his mind, "She is saying, 'I hope you aren't giving up. We would rather you at least run… the chase gives us our daily dose of cardio and makes your flesh more taut and makes it easier to skin you.'"

Wolowix looked over at Onar with a raised brow, "How the hell are you able to understand them?"

Onar, not taking his eyes off the Skaldjilk, replied, "They're speaking the 'Fang Language'. Without telepathy, it is the language that nerkanine's communicate with. Orcs, nerkanines, wendigos, and garms all speak the Fang Language."

Sheldor's demon voice cut in, "You can understand it… then can you speak it?"

Onar nodded his head and Sheldor spoke again, "Good… Tell her this: 'You all are going to die today.'"

Onar, Pryna, and Wolowix all looked at Sheldor with wide eyes.

Wolowix shook his head, "Look, I know you're all 'Badass Demon' right now… but there have got to be over 50 orcs staring at us in the face right now and more than a hundred up on those rocks waiting for the sign to kill us all. Maybe is NOT such a good time to be pissing them off."

The demon Sheldor snarled at Wolowix, flinching as Sheldor turned his head back to the nerk, "TELL HER!"

Pryna shook her head, "You are losing more and more of your humanity, Sheldor. You are letting your demon rule over your senses… do you think taking the lives of these orcs will give you the thrill you need?

Demon Sheldor laughed and approached the woman on the nerk's back. He snarled his smile and spoke darkly, "Listen here, Princess Peacock… there are 193 orcs aiming to kill us before we pass into the arc. We have two more arcs to pass through and there are creatures much more dangerous than these moronic creatures… and you're worried about MY tendencies? The only way you're getting to that castle alive is because of MY demon. Now, Onar, tell this little woman with no regard of sexual regression what I have said… and you…" He pointed to Wolowix and narrowed his eyes, "Be ready for their onslaught."

Onar relayed the message with his tongue, throat, and fangs giving strange noises. Alicyka's face twisted in amusement and she grabbed her Morningstar scepter. She spoke with a fast and furious tongue and her grip on her weapon tightened dangerously, snarling and lunged at Sheldor. The demon blurred and skipped forward, his arm-blade had swung low and was now resting across his chest. Demon Sheldor slowly stood to his feet and stared cold-blooded intent at the Skaldjilk as Alicyka's Morningstar fell to the ground with a loud ring of metal while her arm and torso below her ribs began to slide off at an angle as she barely let out a whimper of pain before her severed body slid down and over in different directions. There was a moment of shock on both sides until the Skaldjilk's screams of anger for their leader's death rang out all over the rocky wall and on the ground. A slew of flaming arrows launched into the air and curved downwards at them as the three larger orcs came in swinging at Sheldor.

Wolowix quickly moved and dodged the flaming attacks as he swiped his hands at the trailer, turning it to a behemoth rhinoceros. The humongous rhino charged forward and threw its body into the massive rock wall. It pulled back, charging again as Wolowix grabbed some sand in his hands and sprinkled it over his head and created a harden shell around him and deflected the flaming arrows easily. The rhino's second charge had the 100 something orcs collapsing to the ground, crushed under the debris.

Pryna put her bansuri to her lips and played. Reality shifted a bit as high and low notes combined to make a sad melody then a huge humpback whale erupted from the solid ground and swallowed a good number. Onar shook his head in disbelief that by the time that Wolowix's rhino and Pryna's whale were done… there were only the three large orcs left. He trotted over to Wolowix in his shell and reassured him that it was safe. As Wolowix popped out of the rock sphere, he swept his hand and the rhino disintegrated then he looked over at Pryna, "Sorry… I hope you weren't too attached to that thing."

Pryna shook her head to display it held no purpose and dropped her bansuri to her side, looking over at Sheldor standing before the three orcs that were now displaying their weapons and readying themselves to attack. Sheldor's demon lips twitched in a smile as he looked at the three, then spoke back to them, "Start heading towards the castle... these three are mine."

Onar hesitated, but soon he bound forward through the arc with Pryna upon his back. Wolowix took a few steps, but stopped and turned to look at the profile of the very long, Cheshire grin of Sheldor's sharpened teeth. Wolowix swallowed deeply, he could see the black ooze almost crawl up his neck and start to engulf the rest of his body. Wolowix turned towards the arc and barely took a single step before he had to jump at the otherworldly roar and a very eerie silence before Wolowix swallowed deeply and pushed through the arc.

The arc teleported anyone who walked through it, taking them into a land that seemed to be gigantic. They were mere ants underneath a canopy of grass leaves and dandelions; huge pebble like hills, sticks like fallen dogwood trees, and lost children's toys like mysterious wonders of the world. Wolowix spun and looked around at the awe inspiring dimension with a smirk on his face. He caught a glimpse of Onar on top of a hill not too far from where he was with Pryna no longer on his back.

Wolowix jogged up a small hill of red dirt until it got too hard to continue moving at that speed. He moved into a crawl until he finally got to the top. He slowed his legs and his eyes went completely wide as his eyes hit where Onar and Pryna were staring. The arc was an old fashion wooden toy of a caterpillar for a toddler, arching like an upside down U with a butterfly clip for hair clipped in the middle of the caterpillar. It seemed like such a beautiful arc, but it was the treacherousness BEFORE that arc that had the three staring madly.

A man, a human man, stood in the midst of an army of insects. There were hornets, flies, and mosquitoes in the air with ants, praying mantises, beetles, and the all too familiar centipedes and wolf spiders on the ground. This man looked to be in his 60's and wore dark jeans, black boots, black leather jacket, and a white t-shirt underneath. Wolowix groaned as he recognized the man, "That's Lewis Crawley… but he just goes by Crawl now. He is an Entosteuern… a big name for 'Bug Guy'. He can control and summon any kind of insect. As to how he became one of the witch's little drones… I'll chalk it up to his spineless nature."

Onar turned his snout towards Wolowix, "How do you know this man?"

Wolowix cringed and was about to answer until a huge thump rumbled from behind them and all three spun and looked up at an ordinary field cricket… or a Snowy Tree Cricket… neither could tell the difference. The three were shocked at how huge the cricket was. Suddenly, the cricket raised its wings and rubbed them together to let out a high pitched stridulating and grabbing the attention of all the insects and their master. Crawl looked up and a gleam lights up the lenses of his glasses, giving a smile. With a wave of his dramatically exaggerated hand movements, he spoke to his insects, "Kill them… Kill them all."

There was, suddenly, a very sickening snap and a clear flow of thickened ooze cascading to the ground from the cricket's body, dividing into two halves and fell in different directions. As the cricket's halves tumbled down the hill on either side, Demon Sheldor revealed himself with a sickened smile.

He was nearly consumed by the blackened miasma coming from his arm. The darkness had most of his face entirely covered with rough, fur-like scales that made a crescent shape from his hair line above his right eye, circled and cut down the bridge of his nose, and followed his cheek bones until it fell down to his jaw line. His left eye was full crimson red while the one not covered in the darkness was still blackened out, yet it still smoked and looked to be soon spilling out, covering the rest of his face with the ooze.

A long thin salivated tongue and almost lizard like as it whipped around out of his jagged mouth as a thick, black tail seemed to slither and move on its own accord. He looked positively supernatural and it made the three have a fear not only for them, but for anything that stood in his way.

Onar's feet felt a tremor of a marching quake and he turned his head from the demon to see an army of Maricopa harvester ants quickly moving to surround him, Wolowix, and Pryna. When Onar looked up to where Sheldor was, he was gone. Onar growled at the highly venomous creatures and snapped his jaws as he spoke telepathically to Pryna, "Get in the air and head towards the arc… we'll meet you there!"

She had gripped her bansuri to her chest with a determined look, but she didn't question the nerk. She nodded and extended her wings; making the ants close to her flinch and back up in shock. With a strong flap of her deep red and white wings; she was up in the air and just below the zigzags of the winged bugs above.

Onar snapped his jaws in the direction of Wolowix and speaking to him telepathically, "Get on my back… we need a direct line to the bug guy… can you make a walled in path through these things?"

Wolowix gripped the fur and got on his back, looking around at the almost wet looking features and the small hairs that darted off their red bodies and swallowed, "I can try, but I can't keep it up long… just enough to surround us and when we pass, it'll go down."

Onar bared his teeth and spun around full circle as the ants seemed to be getting closer, "That's going to have to do!"

Wolowix slapped his hands together in a loud pop, making the ants react to it with a flinch, and he began to utter something under his breath. The land underneath their feet began to quake and rumble with a low bass. The ants began to back up as if anticipating the attack, suddenly, a thick, red clay wall shot up beside Onar on both sides of him and nearly cleared over 10 feet above him and shot out down the hill about 30 feet long towards Crawl. Onar gave a grin and took a few trotting steps before stopping and watching complete chaos unfold in between the opening from the space between the two walls.

Wolowix gasped and spoke with shock, "What the Frakk?"

Onar's eyes narrowed and his ears went back in a sign of not liking what he saw. There was a wall of fire emanating from the blackened palm of Sheldor's right hand while his left was formed into a whip that was wild, long, and thorny. The ants struggled to save their master, but were cut down and burned mercilessly. Demon Sheldor sprinted forward towards the old man, but a praying mantis swatted him and sent him flying and diving into the dirt. That was Onar's queue and he bolted down the center of the wall that the ants were beginning to climb over.

Wolowix held on tightly to the black fur and glanced at the shadow of the flying woman above them. He looked up, momentarily, and saw her keeping low enough from the bugs above and high enough from the bugs below. Her bansuri was tight in her grip as she stared out at the scenery playing out. Wolowix kept his concentration, then, on the walls around them. It was becoming a barrier between them and the creatures trying to attack them. The wolf spiders leapt on top of the two walls, but Onar's speed didn't allow them anytime to strike down.

It wasn't until Pryna's scream filled their ears from behind them that stopped them dead in their tracks, merely yards away from the bug man. Onar slammed on his brakes and spun as Wolowix's concentration broke and the walls fell. A wolf spider had sprung and pounced on Pryna; bringing her to the ground where a few other spiders began to pile on top of her. Onar gave out a very animalistic snap of his jaws and a growl before he sprinted full speed towards the spider gang. Before they could get within a few feet, Onar slid to a stop as a flurry of feathers whipped and huge deep red and white wings exploded into a thrust and the spiders flew everywhere

In the place where Pryna had been pinned was now a huge Roc swirling with a red electric energy that soon zapped into the bird's body, sending a majestic call that made the fearless bugs pause. Pryna had taken her true Garuda form. Her bindi was the source of the red energy and was still surging as the Roc flapped her enormous wingspan. The bird was 55 meters high with the longest wing span at a total of 200 yards long from the tip of the longest feather to the other and the second wing span right below that was only 90 feet long from tip to tip. The bird had maroon dots under its eyes as the rest of its back looked to be dyed in dark red while the rest of its body was a pristine white. The beak was a deep vermillion but the tip was black. The tail was mostly the deep red, but the tips were white. The Garuda stomped down on some of the bugs before taking a run and taking flight.

The seeds of the bloomed dandelions took to the air and tried their best to follow the large bird, but soon just took to the breeze. The bird did a swirl around and took out as many flying insects as it could until it swooped down and snagged Onar with Wolowix on his back right out of danger.

Sheldor was floating on the surface of a pool of nothingness. His thoughts were drowning, but he struggled to stay afloat. He just stared up at the small dot of light that seemed so far away from where he was. He was having a hard time remembering why he was here or even what his name was as the cool, suffocating mass started to swallow him whole. Before the ooze could take him over completely, he could hear a familiar voice calling to him a pulsing vibration that quivered the pool around him. His one eye that had yet to be engulfed shot open and looked up at Chrsnyght just simply standing on top of the blackened water, "I never took you for the quittin' type, there, handsome."

Sheldor's lonely blue eye tried to focus on the demon above and he tried to move his body back up, but the blackened mass had become sticky and clingy.

Chrsnyght sighed loudly, crouching down to talk to the solitary eye, "I usually don't get involved with the demon/human struggle, but… I need you to be in your own when you face the witch so we can get OUR revenge… so…" The demon reached into the gelatin darkness and gripped the front of Sheldor's Minotaur vest and yanked him out of the ooze to stand beside her. He struggled to get his air as she kept a tight grip on his shirt. When he finally filled his lungs with a perfect amount of air, he swatted the demon's hands off him.

She smiled, "You are a very smart man, Sheldor and that's a compliment coming from the mouth of a demon… but you and your brain will NEVER comprehend the demonic proclivity of any one demon. It is incomprehensible to try and elucidate a demon. The more you try… the deeper you'll sink. Look down, Sheldor… that… that is the emotions that you've pushed and pushed and PUSHED into the back of your mind until it rotted and decayed into this pool of Destruction."

Sheldor looked down at the sludge trying to crawl up his leg and managed to pull it out with a quick jerk of his leg. Chrsnyght couldn't stop the grin on her face as Sheldor looked at her with an unknown confusion. She snorted through her nose, knowing what it was that was baffling him, "The demon you saw in the Garuda's illusion was in fact YOUR demon. Every human on this plain of existence has their own demons deep inside, but it's because of your current situation of being a man from a family of powerful magic AND being heartless that has you on the verge of becoming a true demon. I guess now you know where demons come from."

She smiled, but it wasn't shared by the witch hunter. She shook her head and looked up at the light as she kept talking, "The Chimera was a symbol of death and destruction. The three headed monster… a lion, a goat, and a snake… they embody Life, Love, and Death… the three most unpredictable things on this plain of vitality. Your science… your magic… your mind… they all fail under these three. That failure… it's your demon. You are the Chimera… the demon of Destruction. If you let this thing take you over… you WILL be strong enough to destroy the witch… but you'll have no control over what happens after that. Is revenge really worth losing who you are? Think about that… Think."

Before Sheldor had a chance to speak; Chrsnyght was gone and he was standing all alone, under the small light, and on top of the coagulating crepuscular mass and shut his eyes tight. The demon was confusing him, he couldn't tell which side she was on… was she wanting him to become a demon, or was she wanting him to BE himself? He tried to rack his mind through it, but the more he thought… the angrier he got. The thought of the witch killing his family then bringing them back to life, just to attack HIM… turning Wolowix into a watch after making him witness his wife's death… Onar walking up to find his human girl with a hole through her chest and dead on the ground… Penelope forced to watch her family burn to death then being beaten senselessly while creatures laugh at her pain… it was enough… it was enough for the collocating darkness to swallow him whole and suck him down underneath its demented surface.

Something flashed and the huge praying mantis was cut into shreds and sections as its body fell, rolling across the large grass leaves and red clay. Onar and Wolowix sat down by the arc as Pryna's red energy flew around her, placing her back into angelic form as they stared back at the falling tower of the dead insect. Pryna gripped her bansuri that she conjured from the red energy out of thin air and she looked terrified, Onar could feel his fur tingling and he understood her fear. Wolowix hopped off Onar and took a few steps forward to see the black blur slam into the Entosteuern and he swallowed feeling the huge surge of power flowing from the black mass before the bug man.

Demon Sheldor's hand slammed into the face of Crawl, the speed and power that emerged caused a loud crack and a ripple of momentum of his draft. It flung all the little insects away leaving only the two in the center of the collision. Crawl's eye was visible at the bend between the index and thumb of Demon Sheldor's hand. Crawl's glasses shattered, falling off the man's face as his visible eye went wide in practical fear.

The last little bit of Sheldor's humanity was swallowed up and twisted into a curvy, diabolical grin. Two bulges bubbled on top of his head and two pairs of bronzed horns rose up and ripped through the darkened bulbs and curved wide to loop behind his head a stop parallel to his jaw line. His eyes were beaming a fire engine red and began to drain a deep crimson from the far corners of his eyes. His nose flattened out, expanding, while his mouth got bigger and wider to correlate with his new grin. His jagged shark-like teeth thicken in his mouth and elongate as his tongue grew long, thinning out at the three foot long tip. His blackened body formed all over until he is the slender, tall, lion headed, goat horned, clove footed, snake tailed demon from his illusion. His hand was brought upon the Entosteuern's face as his newly rough skin rubbed against the man's flesh.

A wicked snap rang out as Demon Sheldor's fingers curled into the man's skull, lifting the man's limp body before him. The satanic grin on the Chimera's face was the last thing that Crawl saw before Demon Sheldor pulverized the man's head in his hand. The body fell like the severed stringed marionette and Demon Sheldor let out a harrowing scream and the insects scattered as if running for their lives.

Wolowix stared at the horrific killing of Crawl as Pryna yelped and turned away, tears in her eyes. Onar walked to her and nudged her gently with his snout. She wrapped herself around it and he could sense her fear.

There was a slightly low humming sound coming from the arc and the center of it rippled into water. They stared at it for a few seconds before a thunderous clap sung out right behind them. All three turned to see the Chimera demon standing right in front of the arc's portal… it just stood and stared.

Wolowix moved slowly till he could see the monster's face as he took in a deep breath, "Sh… Sheldor… are you… you still in there?" No reply.

He swallowed deeply and took a step forward, "Sheldor… hey, buddy… you still with us?" No reply again. Not even a single movement other than the snake tail. Wolowix knew this idea was stupid, but he was convinced that his friend was still in there somewhere. He took one more step closer at the looming Chimera and reached his hand out. He was so content on watching his hand as it inched closer and closer the roughened, black, furry-scaled skin of the demon. Before his finger touched, Sheldor's lion-padded hand snatched his wrist and pulled him up until Wolowix's face was even with his.

The demon's face was not curved with the terror that it did with Crawl, but it had content pulsing on his face. There was a demonic growl emanating from his throat as those fire engine eyes bore deep into his gray-blue eyes. Suddenly, he extended his arm, dropping Wolowix to his side as he spoke in a very deep voice still staring towards the watery portal.

"If any of you stand in my way… I will not hesitate to cut you open and eat your innards. THAT will be your last warning."

With that, the demon leapt into the portal, leaving a flow of wrinkles spreading throughout the arc.