Author's Note: The reviews made me particularly inspired, so here's another chapter.
The Story So Far: After a successful rescue of Hiruma, the group flees into the Underground with Malhavoc, the mysterious mass-murding elf.
Hidden
By: Bar-Ohki
Chapter 28: Malhavoc of Vent, Elf of the Underground
Malhavoc was the first one to wake. The bus had landed in the middle of an alien forest. The trees were evergreen and far too thin than Malhavoc was used to. Looking around, Malhavoc discovered they were sitting on a little island in an area that was covered with about 2-3 feet of water as far as his eyes could see (which was much further than a human could). There were sounds of birds and other small woodland creatures, though none of their calls were familiar to the old elf. It appeared as though there were some bridges built to connect the trees, either over the water or up in the canopy. There were some house-like buildings in the upper canopy on a few of the trees. There was no movement from these buildings, nor was there much sound other than the wood creaking slightly in the wind.
Quickly Malhavoc checked himself for injuries and magical abnormalities. He then methodically checked all of his equipment, making sure everything was in working order. He took out a telescope and looked up at the tree houses, double checking that they were indeed, abandoned. With a frown, Malhavoc deemed the area temporarily safe and began to check on the conditions of the others on the bus.
Hiruma was still running a fever and breathing very shallowly. His heart beat was slow and struggling. Feeling Hiruma's skin it proved to be clammy and the muscles spazismed slightly under Malhavoc's gentile touch. Malhavoc put one of his sensitive ears to Hiruma's chest, listening to the sounds of Hiruma's body. Finally, Malhavoc took a big whiff of Hiruma's scent and made his diagnosis: Hiruma was malnourished and seriously ill. Getting Hiruma to a healer would be a top priority, if surviving in this unfamiliar land wasn't also on the to-do menu. Malhavoc glared at nothing in his resulting frustration, having someone die on his watch because surviving was more important was not something he particularly enjoyed living with, though it had happened before.
With some renewed vigor, Malhavoc examined Sena. The runningback was simply exhausted and didn't seem to have the energy to be rising any time soon. This was a good thing because Sena would need food the moment he woke, something Malhavoc had a very limited amount of currently. A quick check of Zork proved the Incubus to also be exhausted, which didn't surprise Malhavoc considering that the boy had cast a spell that should have been beyond his current abilities.
"He's almost grown into his powers…." Malhavoc muttered thoughtfully as he looked at Zork. Providing food for Zork was going to be a little more difficult as Zork would be needing some kind of live animal to eat. Like all Incubus, Zork ate souls through a physical medium, like a hand or foot of some creature. Malhavoc decided to add 'hunting' to the to-do menu.
A quick scan of the rest of the people proved that they were all passed out from the exposure to the extreme magical energies that had occurred when the melfin closed. Malhavoc was sure, in hindsight, that collapsing his shield spell at the same time hadn't helped any of that chaos. Malhavoc also carefully examined all the items on each person and checked the contents of the cooler and the bone bag.
Indeed, the bone bag held elfin and Incubus bones. Malhavoc growled slightly, miffed that some kind of sick human had killed one of his kin to use as a seal. Malhavoc checked Cerberus last, knowing that familiars were generally extremely robust creatures, but large amounts of magic have been known to be their undoing. It appeared as though Cerberus was fine and would wake soon.
Malhavoc decided to examine the bus a little. All the windows and doors seemed to be intact. The bus was no longer making that rumbling and loud noise, for which Malhavoc was indefinitely grateful (it had been hurting his ears a little). He came upon a funny metal box with a strange red 'x' symbol on it. The contents of the box had things written in Upground English, a language Malhavoc could speak but not read. The contents was things he wasn't exactly sure what purpose they had, but the humans on board probably knew what to do with it.
A shiny lock caught Malhavoc's eye and the elf made short work of picking the lock. The secret compartment proved to have a few strange metal rods inside and a strange metal contraption with a crank. If Malhavoc turned the crank, the contraption would get taller and thinner. Turning the crank the other way proved to make the device shorter and fatter. There was also a red case inside the compartment. Opening the case showed that it had these orange and yellow sticks inside. Each stick was connected by a simple pin and taking it out and fiddling with it allowed Malhavoc to see that you could connect the sticks into a triangle.
Malhavoc deemed the object fairly useless for the moment.
Cerberus loudly stood up, his claws clacking loudly in the silence of the bus. He walked over to Malhavoc and sat down behind the elf, waiting for his attention.
"Is this 'plastic'?" Malhavoc asked holding up the triangle thing he had found in the compartment.
Cerberus gave him an affirmative bark.
"I admit that this is my first time holding plastic." Malhavoc held the triangle up, trying to see if it did anything cool in the light. "Disappointing really."
Cerberus shuffled noncommentally. Malhavoc took the triangle apart and put it, the metal rods, and the funny contraption back in the compartment. He quickly shut it and locked it. Malhavoc turned and looked at the bus door, which was closed. He walked over and tried pushing the door, it did not move.
"How does this door open?" Malhavoc muttered, giving the mechanism parts of the door a puzzled look.
Cerberus made an amused coughing noise.
"You have no place to be laughing," Malhavoc gave Cerberus a flat look, "as you cannot speak."
Cerberus let out a sigh.
"Can you smell anything hostile?" Malhavoc asked the familiar.
Cerberus gave the elf a negative bark.
"I can't hear or see anything more hostile than a bird or rodent." Malhavoc told Cerberus as he walked over and looked at the steering column. Malhavoc carefully touched all of the things on the dashboard, like a curious, innocent child. Cerberus jumped up beside Hiruma and began his own check of Hiruma's condition.
"We need to find a healer." Malhavoc commented. "This boy is very, very sick."
Cerberus nodded gravely.
"Any idea how I can leave this thing?" Malhavoc asked Cerberus. "I'd rather not break a window if I don't have to."
Cerberus snorted.
"Your sarcasm hasn't changed." Malhavoc observed. "I suppose I'll have to wait until someone wakes then." Elf perched himself on top of one of the seats, keeping a watchful eye over everything.
Mamori groaned loudly and began to stir in her seat. Malhavoc nimbly jumped down from his perch and stood before her. Mamori woke up, startled by the pericing gaze Malhavoc was giving her. Though he was physically very cute and unintimidating, his eyes were fierce and wild, reminding her not underestimate the elf.
"Hi?" Mamori muttered as she rubbed the last of the sleep out of her eyes.
"Open the door." Malhavoc ordered her, pointing at the bus door. Mamori was confused for only a short moment. Though bus doors were simple and common place were she came from, Malhavoc came from a land were plastic was this legendary substance that only crazy people believed in.
"How long have I been out?" Mamori asked as she walked down the isle, knowing better than to further annoy the elf.
"I do not know." Malhavoc answered her honestly. "But only a hand's while longer than myself."
" 'Hand's while'?" Mamori muttered, not familiar with that telling of time.
"A tiny bit of time, really." Malhavoc assured her. Mamori pressed the button that normally opened the door automatically. Nothing happened. After a pause and a frown from Malhavoc, Mamori pushed the two-part door at the center and watched the door fold open.
"There you go." Mamori gestured to the open door.
"Excluding Youichi, your companions are fine and in good health." Malhavoc informed her as he passed by her to lean out the open door.
"Hiruma!?" Mamori gasped. "What's wrong with him!?"
Malhavoc stopped looking at the muddy ground to turn around and give Mamori a 'are you really that stupid?' look. "His health hasn't improved since his rescue."
"Oh!" Mamori flushed, embarrassed that she had forgotten what kind of horrible state Hiruma was in. Malhavoc turned back to the ground, looking at it very intently.
"Umm… do you know why there was all that magic right before we passed out?" Mamori asked.
"A melfin is literally a bunch of stray magic that's been laying around rotting a hole between the Upground and Underground." Malhavoc reminded her. "It takes a lot of magic heal a hole created by a melfin. Between the melfin's magic, the Door-Sealer's magic, and the closing of my shield there was an extreme magical chaos."
"Which knocked everyone out." Mamori understood enough to know what the conclusion was. Malhavoc nodded and poked the ground.
"What are you doing?" Mamori couldn't help but to ask.
"Look out the windows." Malhavoc advised her. Mamori looked around the outside and saw the endless sea of trees and water.
"Oh my god…." Mamori muttered, running over to look out the open door. She now knew they were sitting on the only bit of dry land as far as her eyes could see.
"Where are we?" Doburoku muttered sleepily as he looked around from his place at the wheel.
"Ominous." Malhavoc muttered, his ears going flat.
"Ominous?" Mamori was confused.
"Malhavoc, do you recognize this place?" Doburoku was fully aware and now standing behind the elf. Malhavoc chose to say nothing as he stepped onto the ground.
"Cerberus and I don't sense anything hostile," Malhavoc began, "we are safe for now."
Doburoku didn't say anything as he looked around at the unfamiliar landscape. He looked up at the huts in the trees.
"Abandoned." Malhavoc informed Doburoku. "…I don't feel any sort of unpleasantness with the air here, whoever once lived here moved away slowly."
"That's a cold comfort." Doburoku remarked.
"How are we going to get out of here?" Mamori asked, eyeing the water.
Malhavoc responded by walking over to the nearest tree and setting his hands onto the large groves in the bark. After placing one of his small feet between one of the groves, Malhavoc hoisted himself up onto the tree and began climbing. Mamori noticed that the elf was wearing leather bags on his feet, rather than proper boots, which allowed the elf to get all sorts of good foot-grips as he gracefully scaled the tree.
"He's not seriously going to climb that?" Mamori asked, Malhavoc was a good 10 yards up the tree and his pace didn't seem to be slowing.
"I think he's going up to where the huts are," Doburoku pointed out wisely, "to try and figure out more about where we are I presume."
"It's that simple?" Mamori blinked. "I thought he would be doing something more complicated…."
"Malhavoc is a complicated fellow," Doburoku agreed, "but right now we're just trying to survive in an unfamiliar part of the Underground."
"Malhavoc doesn't know where we are!?" Mamori gasped.
"…If he did I don't think he'd be climbing that tree." Doburoku pointed out. "I'm sure he would have found a more normal way up."
"Normal?" A sleepy Yukimitsu asked as he walked over to where Mamori and Doburoku were talking.
Cerberus barked loudly and jumped out of the bus, having just now had a look outside.
Malhavoc was about 65 feet off the ground when he heard the barking. Carefully the elf turned and looked down at the barking dog. Yukimitsu rushed over and touched, Cerberus, trying to figure out what the dog was trying to say.
::That's an Succubus Roost! He needs to come down now!:: Cerberus told Yukimitsu firmly.
"It's a Succubus Roost!" Yukimitsu called loudly, scattering the birds and forest creatures, making an ill silence fall over the forest.
Malhavoc shivered unpleasantly, silent forests never spelled good news. He let go of the tree and began to fall, making the humans bellow gasp. As he fell, Malhavoc closed his eyes and muttered an Old Word, slowing his fall just before he hit the ground.
"What's going on?" Kurita had left the bus, Shin and Alya at his heels.
"Back in." Malhavoc pointed at the bus, his eyes deadly serious. "We're in a lot of danger."
"But Zork-!" Yukimitsu began to protest.
"Is an Incubus and holds no authority here. Having him unconscious with us doesn't put us in the greatest light. Not to mention how potentially angry they might be about Youichi." Malhavoc began ushering the others back onto the bus.
"We rescued Hiruma!" Kurita protested.
"Do they know that?" Malhavoc pointed out. "They might well assume that we're the ones that kidnapped him!"
A loud snapping of wings startled everyone. Malhavoc turned and saw a green-haired woman with purple bat-like wings glide down from one of the huts. She was was clothed in a blue wrap of some kind. She landed infront of them, staring at them with angered yellow eyes.
"Good day my fair Succubus." Malhavoc bowed deeply, standing in front of the others on the bus.
"You woke me." The Succubus hissed. "And for that you will be punished!"
_=_=_=_=_=_