It’s just that we would prefer to have cleaner air. It was like a purpose we all sluggishly moved forward to, though we didn’t know the actual reason behind it. Only the NOPCW needed the clean air; they migrate from Earth to Calsh so much that they haven’t learned to deal with the ecosystem on Calsh. Foreststar had described our motive pretty well once. The grass is greener on the other side. We want what we don’t have, and we think it will be better than our current happenings.
“We’ll rest here,” Kuro said as we finally approached the rushing water of the Acheron river. Waterstar collapsed on the bank without argument and stared into the waves. They were a mucky grey color, unlike any water I’ve ever seen before. Fire stretched before joining her, though keeping his distance from the actual liquid. If there was more water than what could fill a bathtub, he usually avoided it.
I peered around us one final time, giving suspicious looks at the demons before joining everyone else by the banks of the river. Forest’s stomach appropriately groaned in hunger once more, though his complaints for food had ceased since the Sunstar incident.
I glanced over at Kuro and raised an eyebrow. She stared me down for a few seconds, blinking one eye, then the other before speaking up. “This time, if I tell you all to stay here, will everyone abide by my request?” she asked, focusing her gaze on each of us in turn. We all nodded our heads, too tired to say much more.
“Fine then, I will search for food. This place may seem strange to you, and without much to sustain life, but you would be surprised. Even the dead and decaying must eat.” The cat left after that, not explaining herself anymore. I swear she enjoyed speaking in riddles that may seem completely normal.
FIRESTAR
Soon after Kuro had left, I laid down on the path, a good ten feet from the water. Fire and water didn’t really mix, if you hadn’t figured that out yet, which is probably why Waterstar and I bicker like little kids. I shifted around a few times and stuck my hands under my head. Dusty paths tend to have rocks imbedded within the ground, and they seemed to know I was trying to sleep. I figured that if I wouldn’t be eating soon, then I might as well get some rest. Vaguely, I saw Water and Forest walk over to a side of the camp out of earshot from everyone else. I didn't think much of it.
I was just about to shift to my back again when the back of my neck started to prickle. I scratched at the skin behind my pulled back hair, but the feeling wouldn’t go away. Finally, I jerked my eyes open and peered toward my left, where the sense of unease was coming from. I squinted my eyes to try and see better in the dim lighting, and eventually I managed to make out the hulking form of some beast. It was probably close to my height and lupine in nature, but it had turned away and walked further in the shadows before I could be sure.
“Fire, did you see something?” Darkstar asked as she saw me looking at the shadows.
I kept silent for a few moments, then dismissed the beast to be a figment of my imagination. I was probably getting jumpy from the anticipation. “No, nothing but shadows.” I grinned at my friend and he rolled his eyes at the pun. You know, Darkstar and shadows.
My stomach growled in complaint at the lack of food. I was forced to remember that my rescue team had left before dinner was served, and I had no clue how long it had been since then. Time felt strangely warped in this place, which only fed my nerves. I had eaten the last of my bread before we had descended into Vladimir’s chamber, and only the angels know how long it has been since then.
I sighed and patted my stomach as it made more noises. Darkstar laughed at me, though I could faintly hear his stomach echo mine. I hope Kuro came back soon, else we’d all turn into a bunch of moodier than usual teenagers. Back at the rebellion, we all used to joke how everyone there had stomachs like black holes.
Thinking about the rebellion didn’t improve my mood much. I remembered my joke with Arctic how Dark and Waterstar were rebels of a rebellion, and I had dragged myself and three others into the same classification. One of which was now dead, because really, I was to blame for Sunstar’s death. If I hadn’t requested Icestar to come with me, then he wouldn’t have gotten Sun to accompany us.
I looked down at the ground and started moving the dust around with my fingers, tracing articulate patterns in the dirt. Maybe this was a heroic mission, and would be worth the prices paid, but maybe it was a fool’s mission, impossible to complete. Why did we think that we could possibly match the strength of an angel? Because if it came down to us fighting Lucifer himself for the Mystic Animals, I don’t think there was a way we could do it. As far as I knew, no human had bested an angel, even a mutant from Calsh. I don’t think that five of us would make much of a difference when Lucifer has had millennia to become powerful, while the oldest of us was only twenty-something. I wasn't exactly sure of Ice and Forest's ages.
I sighed and laid back on the hard ground, ignoring the lumps in the dirt. My body could get used to it or go screw itself.
WATERSTAR
I'd been sitting next to Fire by the river when Foreststar came up and tapped me on the shoulder. “Can I speak to you? In private.” He looked over to the other edge of the semi-camp area we had made. I shrugged my shoulders and stood to follow him, wondering what was up. It didn't seem very Foreststar like to actually start a conversation. Must be something important.
He sat down with his chin tucked on top of his chin and stared into the land outside of the camp. I took a seat next to him and crossed my legs, picking at rocks in the dirt as I waited him for say what it was he needed to say.
“I've noticed some things about you.”
“Like what?” My eyes flickered over to him, but I kept my face toward the ground I was messing with.
“You're attitude towards others, especially those outside of the Mystic Team.”
“Yea, what about it?” I could hear the defensive tone in my voice. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him smirk in amusement.
“Like that.” Before I could say anything he continued. “You don't have to be so mean. I know you know it too. You get a look of regret sometimes, like whenever you said something rude to Sunstar, and I've seen it previously at the Rebellion. People seem to always overlook the silent people so I can watch others freely.”
“I don't regret it. I mean everything I say, and it's all true.”
Foreststar shrugged, and continued looking into the distance. “Maybe, or maybe it's your way of feeling better. Of quencing the insecurities.”
I scoffed at that. “I don't have insecurities.”
Foreststar looked at me with a smirk. His eyes seemed alight from the conversation, and with the style of his hair it actually looked pretty cool. “Everyone has insecurities.”
“I don't. You don't seem to. You're always so distant and self-assured. Try explaining that one.”
Foreststar looked at me like their was some personal joke. “I guess I'm distant and pissy all of the time because of my insecurities. Trust me, it's a flaw everyone has.”
He just looked out into the landscape without saying anything for a while, and I almost thought he wasn't going to speak again. “Mine? That's a secret for another time, but let's just leave it as the reason I haven't had a girlfriend.”
I rolled my eyes but decided to drop it. “Okay, Mr. All-knowing. What are mine?”
Foreststar lowered his knees and fully turned to face me. “Where should I begin? You are afraid of what others think of you.” He was speaking fast enough that I couldn't interject. “You are afraid of losing Dark and Fire, your two best friends. You are afraid of trusting anyone outside of them, of your position being undermined by someone else, especially another girl. That's something I have really noticed at my time in the Rebellion. You really don't like other girls.”
“That's not true!” I shot back.
“Okay, name three close friends that are girls. I'm not talking about someone you occasionally say hi to, like Snowstar. I mean friends.”
I stayed silent, and he knew he was right.
“Girls are too much drama.”
“More like you are. You create as much drama as any of the other girls.”
I promptly slammed my fist into his shoulder. Foreststar fell backwards, but managed to catch himself before hitting the dirt. He looked up at me with a quirked eyebrow but didn't seem to be mad. I looked away and he stayed silent, waiting for me to speak. “Alright, fine. Maybe I don't want them to get close to me, and through me be close with Dark and Fire. I guess I'm glad neither of them have had a girlfriend, not a serious one. I'm afraid if they do, they'd forget about me.”
Forest put a hand on my shoulder. “That's impossible. You leave an impression on someone, even if the bruises go away.” I rolled my eyes, but my mouth did curve up. “Plus, you guys are a team. Girlfriends come and go, but teammates can never be replaced.”
I consented to that and we both sat in silence for the rest of the time until Kuro returned.
FIRESTAR
I don’t know how much later it was that Darkstar awakened me. I was surprised to find that I had actually managed to fall asleep, though the areas where the rocks had been poking me in the back were sore. I slid my fingers through the back of my pony tail, hoping to dislodge any dirt that had found a home there. I walked the few feet to where everyone was sitting in a misshaped circle, passing around fruit that was in a bowl made of wood. It didn’t look like anything I had even seen on Calsh, but I was starving so I took a hesitant bite anyways. Juice rolled down my chin and coated my fingers as I ate with gusto; the strange fruit was strangely delicious. When Forest asked Kuro what its name was, she said there weren’t any words to describe it in any human tongue, so we all just called it the magical fruit of yumminess. Waterstar was the one who came up with the name, which isn’t much of a shocker.
Once the bowl was emptied- no one had asked where Kuro had gotten it- the cat demanded everyone sleep. We would make the journey across the river on the morrow, and she assured us that the path we would take to the room with the Animals would be much shorter than the trip to the river. That enlightened our spirits a bit, and I fell back into an uneasy sleep, my dreams filled with the beast hidden in shadows I had thought I saw earlier. Why couldn't I be a normal guy and dream about sexy ladies?
The morning light that I woke to was no different than the light from a couple of hours ago, messing up my sense of time even more. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and looked around to see who else was awake. Waterstar was cheerfully whistling over a bowl of fruit though her hair looked like Medusa’s, and Foreststar’s hair was sticking on end. The negative side effect from hair gel, probably. Darkstar looked like he was meditating, which didn’t surprise me, and Icestar looked like he had been awake for a while, except for the yawn that gave him away.
I took out the hair-band that kept mine back and brushed it out with my fingers. Waterstar would sometimes tease me about this one girly tendency of mine, but I couldn’t stand short hair. After I was pleased with my hair, I pulled it back and kept it tied at my neck before joining Water at the fruit bowl. It looked like the same stuff from yesterday, but tasted differently, like it was sweeter. I asked Kuro about this, and she explained that food in the Underworld tasted different depending on the time, which I found to be incredibly peculiar. It seemed like this place was defying all rules of nature that I used to think were unchangeable.
It didn’t take much longer before Kuro was ushering us all to the banks of the Acheron River. I was uneasy about the prospect of crossing such a large body of water, especially since Kuro still hadn’t told us how we would be doing it. It looked to be at least a solid hundred feet to the other side.
“So, how precisely is this going to happen? I mean, Waterstar could probably just swim across by herself, but the rest of us are slightly screwed in that aspect. The water is too fast.” Darkstar voiced the worries for all of us.
Kuro looked over at Icestar, then the rest of us. “How long does it take for you to rest after using a special?” she asked.
Icestar groaned and crouched down at the water’s edge. “Depends how much I need to exert myself afterwards.”
“Not much. Waterstar will be able to feed you small bits of energy, though I don’t want her absorbing too much of the demonic energy down here. Not until it is necessary.” Kuro looked at Water next, almost daring her to argue the cat’s claim.
Water shrugged and looked off to the other side of the river. “Yea, I could manage that.”
Well that was something I hadn’t heard of before. It probably was difficult if she hadn’t shared it with Dark and I. Kuro nodded her head once, the bell around her neck tinkling. She looked over at Icestar until he sighed and rose from his crouched position. Ice held his hands over the water for a few moments and then a silver sheen started to frost over the fast paced eddies. Within a minute, Icestar said that the ice was thick enough to walk across.
“Well that was fast,” Foreststar said, hesitantly putting pressure on the slick surface. Icestar only grunted in return, the edges of his eyes wrinkled with the effort. After a few moments, Forest judged the ice solid enough and walked out toward the center. Waterstar briefly touched Ice on the hand before she too journeyed across the frozen river.
I watched as Icestar seemed to regain his energy and also made the passage. That left just Dark and I, since Water had ferried Kuro in her arms.
I studied the frozen expanse of river. It was only ten feet wide and at the two end points, the ice reached out like a finger until it was as thin as the edge of a dagger. The most solid part was obviously in the center, and I looked with concern at the rushing water at either edge. This wasn’t something I was going to enjoy.
As if realizing this, Darkstar said, “Come on.” My comrade grabbed me by the upper arm and dragged me like that across the frozen waves. My feet threatened to slip out from underneath me at any moment and I dreaded the prospect of what would happen if the ice suddenly caved in. Tormenting thoughts of drowning beneath the surface of the dark liquid plagued my mind, but before I even realized it, I was back on solid ground once more.
“Pansy,” Waterstar joked as Kuro leapt from her arms and continued down the path, her tail flicking in the air.
I punched Water lightly on the arm and the procession of semi-mutants followed the cat. I tried not to think about how silly we must look; a band of teenagers following the black cat, as if we were some cult.
DARKSTAR
I had tried not to humiliate Firestar too much after he looked at the ice as if he were about to have a panic attack. I knew Waterstar would give him enough grief about it once we were all back on the surface instead of in this half dead, half living state of being.
This place was starting to creep me out. The lighting never changed, and I bet I would have a difficult time trying to make it dimmer in this cavern. I didn’t know where the light was coming from anymore- we were far from any wall that would hold the mysterious, flameless lanterns. There was no sun, and I still couldn’t make out the roof of the cavern. It was like the light just existed in the particles of the air, never moving, never changing. It made shadows look peculiar and threw off my depth perception.
It was with relief that Kuro finally announced that we were about to enter the hall that would lead to the chamber for the animals. She hadn’t lied when the cat had said that it wasn’t far from the Acheron to the next pathway. I doubted that we had been walking for longer than half an hour, so thankfully we were all still pretty refreshed when we reached it, except Icestar. From my position in the group, I could see that the tunnel we were to enter was even dimmer than the outside. Light still permeated the area, but it was so faint that I could only see mere feet into the entrance.
“Let’s stop here before going inside.” Kuro said, already sitting.
“Why? We might as well go in there and get the Animals now so then we can get home sooner,” Firestar was normally the one who’d question every order, but there was something different about him this time; he seemed on edge.<
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“Because something may be lurking in the shadows.” Kuro shot back. It was clear that she wasn’t going to be persuaded on this sense. The shadow cat probably needed time to revise the plan she had in store for us, for we would be relying on her past knowledge of Lucifer. It was a risky thing to trust her, but we didn’t have much choice. If her loyalties proved false, then I would bet almost anything that we would be falling back onto one of Waterstar’s improvisations.
As Fire angrily stared at the tunnel, I edged my way over to him. I pitched my voice low enough that I doubted that anyone besides Fire could hear me, not even Kuro. “Fire, did you see anything?”
My friend gave me a look that said that he couldn’t say it for everyone to hear. I nodded my head since he was like Water and didn’t posses the skill of quiet. “Foreststar, Icestar, and Kuro,” I looked each of them in the eye as I said their name. “Would you be so kind as to not think about the rest of us? Think about your favorite place, dream about what you would rather be doing right now. Ignore what is happening around you, just for a few moments.” They’d be pretty confused when they woke up, but it was necessary.
Waterstar watched in anticipation as I put the rest of the group into a trance. I wasn’t sure what Fire’s motives were for wanting them kept in the dark, but I would respect it. He waited a few more moments and we all kept an eye on the others. Not even their eyes so much as twitched as they stared off into the same space, daydreaming about who knows what.
Firestar coughed to clear his throat, and then started. “I didn’t want them to hear, because I think Kuro is traitorous.” Waterstar gasped but Fire ignored her. “And for the other two, I think it best to keep this between us. I don’t know how well they could act as if they were unaware, and I’m not about to let something as simple as poor acting reveal what we know.
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