(A/N Well, hello, hello, hello! I'm a man of my word! So, here's the next chapter. Aren't ya proud of me?! And also, no reviews yet? Aww. Here's hoping for a change.
Disclaimer: I, LaDude111, do not own Neopets. I'm really going to enjoy writing this for every chapter.
Defenders of Neopia 2: Brotherhood Chapter 3: Of Monsters and more Monsters.
What was up with Jeffory and waking up in dark places?
Once again, Jeffory lay in the Void. He was face-down and sore all over, but he pushed himself to his feet. "Strange," he muttered, rubbing his stiff neck. "I thought in the dream world, people shouldn't be in pain..." he said to himself, looking around. But then again, this was more like the nightmare world. After working the kinks out of his neck, he began trecking forward. He knew the Voice, or rather, the Voice's owner, was here somewhere.
It felt like he was walking for ages, and nothing came into view. This Void stretched on for miles and miles, and Jeffory was losing hope. What was he supposed to do in a situation like this? After what had happened in this place a year ago, Jeffory had realized this place wasn't a "Dream World". Everything here was real, and that terrified him.
Jeffory suddenly felt a chill go down his spine, and he froze, shuddering. As if in a horror movie, he slowly turned around, hoping he wouldn't meet the Voice in person. When he turned completely around, he saw... nothing. Absoloutly NOTHING.
"I coulda sworn there was someone there..." he muttered. If it wasn't the owner of the Voice, then who was it? Were there things worse than the Voice in this void?
Images of demons filled his mind, and he shuddered once more, taking a hesitant glance over his shoulder. He honestly hoped he wouldn't run into something like the creatures in his nightmares and what he had seen in those scary movies.
As he was thinking, Jeffory suddenly felt yet another chill go down his spine. This time, he did a 180 in an instant, hoping to catch... whatever was stalking him before it took off again.
What he saw instead, was more disturbing than anything his young mind had thought up.
In the middle of the Void, there was a large tank. The tank itself was connected to a large, suspicious machine. There was a figure within this tank, but Jeffory was too far to see what it was.
As he slowly moved closer to this menacing machine, he was able to study it further. There were many multi-colored wires hanging from the tank, and on the side of it was a keypad, to insert a password, Jeffory guessed. On the top of the tank, faded letters spelt, "Project D.W."
When he reached the tank, he nearly jumped out of his skin.
There was... a creature within this tank, and it looked worse than he had ever thought something could look. The creature had rough, unclean, white fur, long, black claws on its feet and hands and lifeless, black eyes. The creature was breathing heavily, revealing its many rows of long, razor sharp teeth. Its ears drooped and its face was bruised as well. The creature was naked, and its arms and legs were shackled.
Its hands were up against the side of the tank and were bleeding black blood that sizzled when it dripped off of its body and hit the floor of the tank.
Jeffory felt an urge to vomit at the sight.
Suddenly, the creature sprang to life, lifting its head to snarl at Jeffory. Before the kyrii could jump back in surprise, he froze in terror. The creature's eyes seemed to bore into him, making him feel exposed. He began to shake in terror. He had never felt such an evil emnate from something. Not even Kass was this twisted, this tainted. Never had he been so frightened he felt like he would be petrified for all of eternity.
The creature began to move its hands around, trying to wriggle them free from the sides of the tank and it did the same with its feet.
Jeffory almost died of fright, when it freed one hand, slamming it against the glass, cracking it. The rest of its limbs were freed, and if fell through the glass, landing face-flat on the ground, writhing. Jeffory could only watch, still shaking.
After what felt like an eternity, its writhing suddenly seased and it lay still. Slowly, it raised its face to look at Jeffory, its eyes once again boring into him. Jeffory took a step back, just now grasping that there was no longer anything keeping the thing from him. Around him, he could swear that the Void grew darker, colder.
With an otherworldy roar, the creature lunged at him, reaching for his throat.
Jeffory woke with a yelp, clutching his throat. After staying in the same, terrified posistion for several moments, Jeffory slowly released his throat, not believing he had witnessed such a horror.
He looked around his surroundings, confused. "Wh-where... am I?" he asked himself, not recognising the area at all. Then he remembered. The monster had knocked their ship out of the sky! And he had survived...?
He looked down to see that he was still strapped into his seat. However, the inside of the ship was now tight and cluttered, making it hard to see where the others were.
Jeffory reached for his seatbelt, but grimaced at the sharp pain that shot through his right arm. Deciding to go with his other arm, he unhooked the seat belt, and got to his feet.
Now that he was out of the seat, he could see most of the ship's interior, which had had all been destroyed. Computer screens, were smashed in, leaving them sparking and with glass laying all around. The chairs that had not been occupied were dented in strange ways, making them look like something out of a Dr. Seuss book.
Keeping low as to not hit his head on the smashed in roof, he moved over to the other chairs, finding Jack and Kendra, but not Hunter.
"Where is he..." Jeffory muttered, worried. He reached out to Jack and shook his shoulder, getting a loud whine in response. "I dun waaaaaaaaana get uuuup, Mumsy..." he whined, drunkenly. Jeffory face-palmed. "Come on, Jack... get up!" he said, shaking the mynci harder.
To Jeffory's relief, Jack stirred. Jeffory didn't wait for him to get out of his seat, however, and went over to Kendra, waking her up in the same manner as Jack.
"Hey, you're up!" a voice said behind Jeffory, making him jump and pull out his sword. Jeffory let out a sigh of relief when he saw he was pointing his sword at Hunter, who was looking rather pale.
"Oh! Sorry, Hunter; you surprised me." Hunter shook his head. "I-i-it's all good...!" he squeaked, shaking. "Just put that thing away!" he squeaked. "Sorry, sorry..." Jeffory muttered, putting the sword away
After the four teens had returned to their senses, Jeffory looked over all of them.
They looked like hell.
Jeffory himself, was covered in cuts and bruises from the crash, blood leaked out of the cuts and stuck in his hair and his lip was cut.
One of Jack's eyes was swollen shut, probabaly from hitting his head from the impact, one arm was turning in an odd direction, he had a slight limp, and he too had many cuts.
Hunter had by far taken the worse beating, his nose was dented from hitting the yoke when he lost conciousness, his right eye was swollen shut, his lip was bleeding badly and even more cuts and bruises went up and down his body, all leaking blood, staining his clothes.
Kendra got off relatively easy, only having several bruises and one cut on her right cheek.
Jeffory looked around their crashed airship. "So what now?" he asked. "If we go out there now, we're gonna HAVE to fight," he said. Larx was right; it was a good thing they went prepared after all.
Jeffory nodded. "Right. Kendra, we need you to heal us so we can go out there and complete our mission," Jeffory ordered. Kendra nodded, already moving over to Hunter to heal him. Jeffory was slightly surprised that she hadn't gone to Jack first, seeing how close the two were.
Deciding it was not important, Jeffory sat back down in his seat, thinking about how they would fight an aerial monster. Jack had experiance with dragons, so maybe he could ask him...
After about fifteen minutes, the team was in tip-top shape. The only evidence that they had been hurt were the blood stains on their clothes, and even those could easily be washed off.
Kendra had sat back down in her seat, panting heavily. Feeling guilty for asking her to use so much energy, he moved over to her, crouching, so he could see her face. She was sweating, and looked as if she were ready to collapse. "Ken?" he said, and she raised a fin to silence him. "I'm... f-fine..." she breathed, the words coming out shaky.
Jeffory shook his head. "No. No, you need to rest," he told her sternly, but she shook her head, getting out of her chair. "I'm fine. Really!" she insisted, and Jeffory sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Kendra..." he sighed. What was he going to do with her?
"Fine," he relented, though not happy about it in the least. Then, as an afterthought, he said: "Jack, keep an eye on her." The mynci in question flashed him a cheesey grin. "My pleasure," he responded, and Jeffory rolled his eyes while Kendra turned an interesting shade of pink. Satisfied, Jeffory was tghe first to climb out of the mangled remains of the Air Slasher.
Even with his heavy coat, Jeffory was hit with the full force of the bitter cold. The wind howled, whipping his hair about, but he did the best to scan the skies, hoping to catch a glimpse of the monster. He let out a low sigh when he spotted nothing. Had the monster presumed them all to be dead, lost interest and flew away?
Before he could muse further, a dull "thump" caused him to whirl around, sword drawn again.
The source of the "thump" was (surprise) Jack. He was laying face-down in the snow, and letting out a string of curses that were muffled.
"Stay on your guard," he warned them all. "It could be anywhere."
The shadow of Fairy Land floating above them, made the area feel darker than it really was. Jeffory couldn't help but be slightly over-whelmed by the memories of being out in this plain only a year ago with his best friends.
Although, they didn't really have a plan for what they were going to do to defeat Kass, and they were hot, tired and thirsty, Jeffory had found a strange sense of enjoyment in those days. He couldn't help but grin a bit at the memories of the three of them, gathered around a hastily-made camp fire, laughing at Jack's stupid ghost stories.
Jeffory's train of thought was broken, however, when someone let out an ear-splitting scream behind him, causing him to whirl around, once again.
"Kendra, what's wrong-" he started, only to stop dead in his tracks. Kendra was perfectly fine, so was Jack, but not Hunter.
Said kougra, was wailing at the sight of his ruined "baby", not caring that the snow was getting in his clothes as he rolled around, sobbing. Jeffory surmised the screech had come from Hunter, and turned around, looking around the area again. His only mistake was sheating his sword.
Suddenly, the hair on Jeffory's back stood up, and he dove to his left.
The dragon had returned!
It swooped down at them, attempting to catch them off guard. Jack pulled himself off of the ground, teeth chattering. His attempt to escape from the dragon landed him face-flat in the cold snow. Again.
"I-I-I-I-I th-think, we found our monster!" he informed them through his chattering teeth. "Thanks, Captain Obvious!" snapped Hunter, crouching down into a pouncing position.
Jack eyed the dragon as it circled above them like a hawk. "Hey!" he exclaimed. Jeffory, risked a glance over at his friend. "What?" he responded, his eyes returning to the monster above them. "That looks like the same dragon I fought last year! Y'know on Mt. Legend?" he told them.
Kendra looked at him funny. "What? But you said it exploded into crystal shards!" she reminded him, confused. "Yeah, crystal shards don't come back to kill you!" Hunter agreed with Kendra.
Jeffory called out to his friends, "NEVERMIND THAT!" They all stopped their bickering to see the dragon strike once again. "It's comin' back!" Jack shouted, as it swooped down again.
The Silverwing dove at them in a downwards spiral, catching most of the team off guard. Fortunately, almost all of them were able to move out of the way at the last minute. ALMOST all of them.
Mid-dive, Jeffory felt something seize him around the torso. The Silverwing managed to catch Jeffory whilst swooping over them! "Ah, crap!" Jeffory cursed, watching the ground disappear as he was lifted into the grey sky.
"Drop him!" Jack yelled at the air-borne creature, pointing his gun at it. Above him, Jeffory shouted down: " 'Drop him!?' " outraged. Jack immeadiately changed his strategy. "DON'T drop him, don't drop him!"
Hunter called out to Jack just as he was about to pull the trigger. "Wait!"
Jack groaned. "Now he's outta range!" he complained, lowering the gun to his side. Hunter ignored the mynci's complaints and trudged through the snow over to him. "He's moving too fast! By the time the shot gets to him, he'll have moved out of the intended area!" he explained in a single breath. "In the worst case scenario, you could hit Jeffory!" he finished, now panting.
Jack sighed loudly.
Above, Jeffory could've sworn the two were conversing. What was there to talk about?! He was about to be a pancake if the Dragon continued to squeeze him. "Can't... breathe..." he wheezed, struggling in vain. The Silverwing responded by squeezing even tighter. Jeffory could feel its talons digging into his skin, causing him to groan weakly as blood leaked out of his wounds, dirtying his clothes farther.
Jack pointed his gun up at the monstrosity yet again. "Alright, ugly..." he muttered, clearing his mind as he lined up the shot. He fired a shot a little before the Dragon reached the area he was aiming for.
"BAM!" he cheered, jumping for joy.
The Silverwing flew straight into the shot. Caught off guard by the sudden pain, the creature began flailing in the air, causing itself to lose altitude. As it continued to panic, its grip on Jeffory began to loosen. Jeffory, barely breathing, managed to pull himself out of the beast's massive foot and he fell towards the ground.
His vision was blurred. He had lost alot of blood and he was having trouble catching his breath. The cold wind whipped his messy hair around and hit his face hard, forcing him to close his eyes as his speed increased.
Kendra, however, was fully alert. She pointed her fin at Jeffory and concentrated; focusing her mind on slowing her leader's decent. After several agonizing moments, Jeffory's decent slowed to a halt, before he was placed gently on the cold snow, staining it with his blood. Kendra made a beeline for him and immeadiately began tending to his wounds.
Jeffory vision returned to normal and he sat up, holding his head. "Thanks, Kendra..." he told her, appreciatively. She nodded, helping him to his feet. "Anytime, Boss," she responded. But then she faltered, falling out of the air, and Jeffory caught her. She wormed out of his grip, muttering, "I'm fine," and he sighed.
Jeffory looked down at the now-red snow. "Nice color..." he muttered. He pulled his sword out of the sheathe and turned to see Jack and Hunter running over to him, the latter shooting several warning shots at the dragon circling overhead.
"You all right, Jeff?" asked Hunter. Jeffory nodded. "Yeah, thanks," he said. "Don't worry about me, though. We have to stop that dragon!" he ordered. The rest of the team nodded. "Right on time!" Jack said as the Silverwing began diving at them again. Jack opened fire at it, Jeffory and Hunter moved out of the way, circling behind it.
As soon as the Silverwing was close to the ground, Jeffory made a running leap, successfully grabbing onto one of the scales on its tail. Hanging on with one hand, Jeffory put the handle of his sword in his mouth, working his way up the tail.
Below, Hunter let out an outraged cry. "What the hell are you doing?!" he squawked, wide-eyed. Jeffory, mouth full and hanging on for dear life, ignored his friend and continued climbing up the Dragon's long spine. "What am I doing up here, again?!" Jeffory thought to himself, furious.
Below, one of Jack's shots missed his intended target and flew at Jeffory. Eyes widening, Jeffory ducked, the shot flying over his head. If his mouth wasn't full, he would have shouted at Jack to watch it. "I can't belive I'm doing this!" he thought bitterly, forcing himself to continue climbing. By now, the Silverwing had realized that it had a stowaway on its back and began trying to shake this insignifigant little pest off.
Jeffory had to hang onto one of the scales with all of his might as the dragon did a loop-di-loop, nearly shaking him off. At this rate, Jeffory would fall off before he could reach the dragon's head! He needed a distraction. Below, Jack must've read his mind, as a bullet hit the Silverwing clean in the face, stunning it long enough for Jeffory to continue his desperate climb.
The cold wind pounded against his body, whipping his hair in his face, making it difficult to see where he was going and what he was reaching for. Even so, Jeffory perservered, determined to stop the winged menace. By some miracle, Jeffory succeeded in reaching the Sileverwing's large, ugly head.
The creature let out a low growl, fixing its red eyes on the figure atop its head. Within an instant it wished it hadn't. As soon as Jeffory reached its noggin, he had taken his sword out of his mouth and stabbed it into the creature's right eye. The Silverwing let out an ear-splitting screech, thrashing about wildly. Jeffory, no longer able to hold on, was knocked off of its head. Arrow of Life was shaken out of the Silverwing's eye and plummeted towards the ground.
As he fell, Jeffory caught sight of his sword falling towards him. It would counter-productive to be skewered bu his own weapon, huh?
He caught it as it got close enough to him, and pointed it at the massive dragon charging at him. As his speed increased, Jeffory desperately hoped he could get out of this one alive when all of the sudden, his body burst into flames.
Below, Kendra was in an uroar. "What the hell is happening to him?!" she screamed, panicking. Hunter and Jack just stared. "Just like on the Station..." Jack muttered. Hunter just nodded dumbly. "I think..." Hunter muttered. "The odds have turned in our favor," Jack finished for him, getting a slow nod from said kougra. Kendra looked at them as if they were insane.
Jeffory, just like last year, was a red blur. Rushing upwards in the Silverwing's direction. The dragon just continued its dive, speed increasing, as did Jeffory's.
"They're gonna crash!" Jack exclaimed, grabbing Hunter's ears and squeezing them. "OUCH!" the kougra screamed, wrenching his head away from the worried mynci's hands. "Quit it! I am not your personal stress-ball!" he scolded, hiding behind Kendra.
Jeffory and the Silverwing were about to collide, when the dragon suddenly swerved away, as if it knew it had no chance. Jeffory, however, was going to finish the battle, whether the Silverwing liked it or not. Jeffory followed his target, approaching from the rear. They began climbing, higher, higher, higher...
Soon, his companions could no longer see him, as he, and his target disappeared into the clouds above. The Silverwing, believing to be out of danger, straighted itself, now flying forward. It focused its good eye on the sky ahead, wanting to leave this area far behind it.
We can't always get what we want.
Jeffory, appearing out of nowhere, sped downwards through the Silverwing's spine, coming out of its stomach. Blood poured out of the gaping hole in its stomach as its lifeless body fell towards the ground. Jack, Hunter and Kendra scattered out of the way, avoiding being crushed by its massive body.
Snow flew through the air from the force of the Silverwing's landing, covering the scrambling trio in it. Said Silverwing's landing could be heard throughout the entire plains, causing the wildlifee around the area to scatter in a frenzy, frightened by the deafening boom.
The area around the downed dragon seemed to be empty for several moments, when a head appeared from beneath the white blanket. Jack let out a loud scream, pulling himself out of the pile of snow and running around flailing his arms. Hunter soon made an appearence as well, followed by Kendra. These two's reactions were nowehere near as erratic as Jack's, however.
Said mynci continued running in circles screaming, "SNOW DOWN MY SHIRT! SNOW DOWN MY SHIRT! SNOW! DOWN! MY! SHIRT!" As usual, the other two ignored him. "Where's Jeffory?" asked Hunter, shaking the snow off of his clothes. Kendra, who was brushing the snow out of her black hair looked up at the sky. "Found him," she said, softly.
Jeffory descended towards the ground slowly, still surrounded by crimson flames. As he neared the ground, the snow around him melted away almost immeadiately, revealing dead, charred grass. The flames disappeared from Jeffory's body as soon as his feet touched the ground, and he collapsed onto his knees, panting heavily.
The team, astounded by his incredible feat, just stood staring at him before regaining their senses and running to his side. "Hey, hey, hey! You all right, Jeff?" asked Jack, placing a hand on his friend's shoulder. Jeffory attempted to nod, but just continued panting. His vision was getting blurry and his exhuastion was getting the better of him.
His friend's concerned voices were becoming garbled and distorted as his vision grew (if possible) blurrier. With a weak groan, he collapsed, face-first onto the ground, losing his conciousness.
(A/N Man, I should really stop with the cliffhangers... But they're fun! Thanks for reading, and please, please, please leave a review! I'll see you all next Friday!
LaDude out.)