School has started up again so I don't know how that will affect update speed but I'll do my best. Enjoy chapter 7.
Angel
Temperatures were dropping fast as the party traveled closer to the Frostlands. Everyone except Angel had warm fluffy coats. Angel sighed and was able to see her breath. She had always hated the cold. And now she was off to the coldest part of Valencia without a coat to make things worse. Angel wrapped her wings around her arms just as snow started to fall. Up ahead she could see could see the green grass turn to barren dirt and then snow as far as the eye could see.
Half a mile further and the temperature had dropped below zero. How lame would it be to freeze to death? Angel thought to herself as Streak began to speak. "We will split up and look for the seal. Keep your eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary and work as swift as possible. We don't want to be any longer then we have to." No kidding. "If you find anything fire one of these." Streak handed everyone a single shot revolver loaded with a green flare. "Good luck."
Streak flipped his hood over his head and disappeared into the plains of white. Angel was the last to disperse. Her teeth clattered together and shivered. The freezing snow aching against her face. Deciding to use the cold as motivation she brought her wings to flight position. It felt even colder with her arms out in the open.
Angel jumped up and pushed her wings down, sending the snow beneath her feet flying, and took to the sky. The falling snow made it nearly impossible to see so Angel flew barely above the ground. Kicking up snow behind her. The sooner they found this damn seal the faster they could get out of the Frostlands... or die of course. But why think negatively.
For miles the terrain didn't seem to change at all. Endless fields of pure white. No signs of life. Nothing different at all. And of course freezing cold. By flying Angel tried to keep her mind off the fact that she could barely feel her hands or arms for that matter or that ice was freezing around her eyes. Angel hated the cold more than ever.
Finally after seemingly forever Angel spotted a fault in the endless white. A single patch of grass, short but still alive, sprouted from the ground. With a flash a of light Angel's wings disappeared and she landed in the soft ice cold snow and trudged through the snow towards the grass. As soon as she stepped into the grass the temperature rose sharply to a cool fifty degrees. It felt much hotter after the freezing cold. Angel lay down in the grass "Thank the gods!" She hollered to no one in particular. Angel listened to her voice echo.
Why was it so warm here though? Angel took one step out of the grass patch and it was back to freezing cold. She jumped on and off the grass patch a few times astounded by the temperature change. Angel has been so happy about finding this oasis that she forgot to question its existence. Chances are it was related to the seal. she reached for the flare gun. No why bother the others before making sure. She got down to her knees and ran her hands through the grass. Maybe a latch or a switch some kind of button. She waved her hand over it and conjured an air current. It pushed aside the dirt and dug a few inches down.
Looking into the fresh hole Angel saw...metal? She dug away the rest of the dirt. Sorry grass. A black metal plate was now in plain site looking painfully out of place against the white snow. Consumed by curiosity Angel forgot about the signal flare and placed her hand on the metal. It was strange. She couldn't quite decide if it was cold or hot. When she removed her hand she had left a golden handprint behind. Moments later the seal glowed bright red and began hissing and steaming. This time it was absolutely hot. Sweltering even. Before she could get away the plate vanished into thin air and Angel fell into a dark room.
Using the air Angel landed like a cat. On her feet. Torches all around her lit themselves one by one illuminating her surroundings. The room was spherical with four doors. One red, one green, one blue, and a gold one. Unlike the other three the gold door had intricate carving of a man and three locks one for each door color. The man held a red sword above his head and all the scenery around him was in ruins. People kneeled at his feet wearing rags while he was in dark armor. The man must be Helix. The god of destruction and Hex's father. Thinking of Hex Angel remembered the flare. She flew out of the hole and the torches went out behind her.
Angel snagged it out of the snow and loaded the flare. Covering her ear with one hand to shield her from the noise Angel shot the flare. It launched into the sky leaving a green trail in its midst. In turn three other flares went off. Two farther off and one relatively close. Those flares meant the others had seen her flare and were on their way. All there was to do now was wait.
Not wanting to stay in the cold Angel went back into the hole. She didn't like being in the hole either. Every instinct told her to run and hide. To get as far away from this place as possible. She hugged her knees to her chest and waited in the center hoping someone would come soon. Seconds felt like minutes. Minutes felt like hours. And the carving of Helix seemed to stare at her. Wanting her to kneel before him like the others in the picture. Angel shut her eyes and kept them shut not wanting to see the carving.
"Angel?" asked a familiar voice. She looked up to see Hex looking down at her.
"Hex!" Angel yelled. "Ive never been more happy to see someone." Hex dropped into the hole and looked around. His eyes stopping at the carving.
"Is that Helix?" Hex asked slowly. Angel nodded in response. He kept looking at the picture. "It feels like he's challenging me. Daring me to open that door." He took a step back from it "I'm not doing anything he wants me to do." Hex scowled. Angel didn't want to think about fighting Helix. Since they set off on this journey she knew she would have to but it was always just something yet to come. And now the time has come and the fear is real.
"Hey are you listening?" Hex tapped her shoulder.
"Huh?" Angel realized she had been lost and thought and felt a little embarrassed. Hex rolled his eyes at her and she looked down at the ground.
"Anyways I was saying it looks like each door will hold a key to one of the locks. And behind the golden door..." Hex didn't need to finish the sentence they both knew the answer. Hex wandered over to the red door and pulled it open.
"Hey! Don't open that!" Angel ran up and grabbed his arm. Suddenly the door spun and pushed the two of them through the door. The door slammed closed with a sickening slam behind them. Hex stood up and offered a hand to Angel. She pulled herself up cautiously. Similar to before torches lit up the corridor. The walls were predictably red as were the floors. Angel tried the door even though she knew it was locked.
"Only one way to go now." Hex said withdrawing the short sword Streak had given him. It was still pulsating with energy from Streak's sword. It looked a lot like the sword Helix had been holding but Angel tried to ignore that. Tried. She gulped and followed Hex down the hallway until they reached a stadium. There were rows of deserted seats overlooking a central sand filled area where they stood. Hovering in the center was a read key. It spun and bobbed up and down. Angel raised her hand and the key flew into her hand. As soon as it did the gate behind them closed and the key began to burn in her hand. In panic she through it across the room. The key began to shake a grow. Once it grew to the size of a person the rungs of the key started to warp into legs and several sets of arms. The abomination stood up and clanked its various sized arms together.
Angel shot a jet of wind at it pinning it to the coliseum wall. Hex pulled a glowing red arrow from his quiver and dropped it into Angel's jet stream. The arrow flew across the room and detonated on contact with the mutant key. The key's metal scattered around the room and reverted to the original red key. Hex took a few weary steps towards it. A the scraping sound of metal against metal sounded from the surrounding seats. The metal seats warped into key beasts just like the first. Hex fumbled with his bow and arrow but managed to fire an arrow into the crowd. It didn't go where he wanted but it hardly mattered there were so many. The four it hit exploded like the first. But the hundreds of others flooded down the isles screeching and clanking away. Hex fired arrows into their ranks and Angel smashed them together with the air currents but they were advancing too fast.
"Time to go on defense!" Angel yelled to Hex over the sound of the keys. Once the keys would have reached them Angel pushed her hands out and formed a bubble of air blowing at the keys. Whenever one touched it it flew backwards. The shield was hard to maintain and she couldn't do anything else. Hex could tell by the look on Angel's face that he needed to hurry. He hacked at the nearby keys while still staying within protection. His fully charged blade detonated explosions where ever it touched. It was amazing to watch as metal flew around the room and the sound of explosions echoed in her ears.
Angel felt the barrier slipping away. A single key pushed its way through and lunged at Angel screeching and clacking. She was too busy holding the others off to defend herself and it slashed at one of her arms leaving five cuts one for each hideous metal arm. The part of the barrier the wounded arm was controlling vanished and a wave of keys flooded in. With a final effort Angel pushed the barrier out pushing back all the keys away. Angel felt consciousness slip away from her. Her view of the keys clamoring down the rows faded to black.
When Angel woke her head ached and her arm heart like hell. It was wrapped in bandages soaked with blood and only after seeing that did she remember what had happened. She sat up quickly and looked around for Hex. Kayla and Streak were in the central chamber with her but no Hex. "Don't worry." Kayla said "He's just outside." Angel let out a sigh of relief. She brought out her wings and flew out of the chamber. They fizzled away into white light by the time she was out in the cold. Angel fell into the snow on her wounded arm. With a grunt of pain she sat up and brushed the snow from her hair.
Hex was sitting a few meters away "Your best landing yet." He said. His words dripping with sarcasm. Angel crawled over and sat next to him. The cold Frostland air already chilling her to the bone. She noticed a bandage wrapped around his chest and his bloodstained shirt. "What happened in there?" she asked feeling guilty about not being able to do better. Maybe if she took her training at the academy more seriously she wouldn't have fainted. Hex noticed she was looking at the bandage.
"Its no big deal. Just a scratch."
"Doesn't look like a scratch."
"You should go inside its cold out here." Hex said changing the topic.
"That goes for you too." Angel replied.
"I'd rather stay out here... I get this horrible feeling down there. And that carving..." Angel could hear worry in his usually emotionless voice and knew she should just go. Angel went back into the chamber with one last look at Hex.
She noticed that the red key was in place in its lock on the golden door. The next day they would probably go for the next key and probably hear a lecture about how stupid it was to go into the red door. But all that could wait because right now Angel just felt like sleeping. So thats what she did.
