“He’s gone,” Jovian said shaking her head. “He doesn’t even know where he is anymore. His mind ran away in his heartbreak.”
“He couldn’t even handle us killing one of his stupid friends?” Jacqueline laughed. “What a fucking loser.”
Jovian knelt down in front of Daniel, holding a hand to his cheek as she giggled at seeing the broken look in his eyes. Moving his head slightly she got no reaction from him, the woman slowly breathing out and shaking her head with a bitter smile at the human.
“Oh, Daniel. We wanted to play with you more. We wanted you to scream and cry for us more. We wanted to tear you apart slowly and painfully, savoring every moment we got to share with you. But it seems the first taste of the hell we wished to give you was simply too much for you to handle. What a shame that your spirit is this frail, I would have enjoyed, no, cherished the time we could have spent together.”
“You’re such a nuisance, Daniel,” Jacqueline sneered. “You ruined our lovely surprise of razing your kingdom to the ground, you were so mean to my sister and I when we wanted to play with you again, you treated us and all our dear friends with such disrespect, and now you deprive us of a fitting farewell to our good friend by hearing you scream in agony as we peel the flesh from your bones. I really do hate you, Daniel Sorres.”
“As do I,” Jovian agreed standing up, with Daniel’s head slowly lowering while he remained detached from the world around him. “Well, this marks the end of his journey. Rather sad if you ask me.”
“Might as well put him out of his misery,” Jacqueline reasoned while admiring the blood on her sword. She glanced over to where the girls were yelling at them from across the gap, a sly grin forming on her face just as it did on Jovian’s.
“I think we can at least make them scream in agony for us,” Jovian said as they turned their cold smiles down towards Daniel. “Looks like this waste of a life can serve one last purpose before falling down to the underworld.”
“Yes,” Jacqueline agreed, the twins holding their swords up in the air over the catatonic human while Cindy and Clover turned pale with fright. The gemini looked over to the girls with devilish leers, seeing Clover unsteadily shaking her head while Cindy was doing so more quickly.
“No… Dan…” Clover breathed out.
“Don’t break him,” Cindy whined.
“We’re going to make you scream,” the gemini taunted in unison, then raised their weapons high to strike while Clover and Cindy cried out in horror. “We’re going to make you scream!”
The twin sisters turned their vicious glares to Daniel and started to swing down, both then coming to a halt with confused looks coming over them as something seemed very different now compared to what they had just seen.
*****
“NOOOO!” Daniel cried out with all his strength, echoing far into the dark void that now surrounded him. He struck his fist into the ground repeatedly, bashing clouds of dark violet haze that rolled along the floor and stretched out endlessly all around him as he screamed in agony again and again with rising fury.
“NO! SQUEAK! DAMMIT, NO!”
His words became slurred in his emotional tirade, head hung low and eyes shut tight as he cursed both the fates for their cruelty and also the ones who took his beloved ant girl away from him. The sounds of his furious roars echoed into the dark horizon as he felt a horrible pain striking into his heart, his internal sorrow and welling tears for his loss being suppressed as he couldn’t control his anger enough to stop screaming again and again in an uncontrollable rage. After what seemed to be forever he slowly quieted down, slumping forward on his arms while feeling his heart on the verge of breaking entirely from the pain that was almost too much to handle.
“Squeak… no…” he whimpered softly. “Damn those monsters. Damn them to hell. They can’t get away with this. They can’t… they can’t get away with taking her from me!”
He arched back while grabbing his head, letting loose another heated cry of agony as he felt himself becoming overwhelmed with despair.
“Jovian! Jacqueline! I’M GOING TO KILL YOU!” he shouted ruthlessly into the darkness, a strained cry escaping his lips once more before he fell forward and bashed his fists into the banks of haze under him.
“Squeak… I’m sorry,” he quietly mourned. “I’m so sorry. I couldn’t protect you, I couldn’t save you. I couldn’t… please forgive me. This wasn’t supposed to happen. This wasn’t supposed to… oh god, please tell me she’s not really gone. Please wake me up. Wake me up from this nightmare!”
With a frustrated yell he struck the ground a few more times with heavy thumps and shook his head, hands then shakily grabbing hold of his face as he struggled to steady his breathing while feeling his anger towards his mate’s killers engulfing him.
“Those accursed gemini… they can’t… they can’t do this… AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
“…who is that?” a woman’s voice faintly spoke up. “Is someone there?”
“They’re going to pay for this!” Daniel swore as he pounded the ground with his fist again. “I won’t let them get away with it, I won’t! I’m going to fucking kill them even if it’s the last thing I do!”
“Who goes there?” the woman said again. “Who awakens me from my slumber?”
“You monsters!” Daniel shouted up at the sky with eyes shut tight. “You’ll pay for taking my mate from me! I’ll never forgive you for this, you goddamn monsters! I SWEAR I WILL KILL YOU FOR THIS!”
“Hey!” the woman shouted, with Daniel jumping with a startle as he finally heard her. He blinked and looked around quickly, a bewildered look coming over him as he saw he was no longer in the middle of a burning forest but rather in the middle of nowhere. No light, no people, nothing at all but an endless void with rolling wisps of black and violet clouds drifting along the ground.
“Who… who said that? Where am I?”
“I did,” the strange voice replied. “Who are you? You’re not my handler.”
“What? Your handler? Where… where are you? Where am I for that matter?”
“How very strange,” the woman distantly mused. “You’re not my handler at all. You’re… a human? A human man awoke me? Is that even possible?”
“What are you talking about? Where are you? I can hear you but I don’t see you.”
“I’m right here,” she answered, with Daniel slowly looking down to the swirling clouds of haze beneath him. Using his hand he parted the lingering vapors, seeing glimmers of light barely escaping darker clouds that stirred further below. From within the ominous haze a silhouette of a hand reaching upward could be seen, pressing against the floor which Daniel sat upon as if a barrier separated them.
“Who are you?” Daniel carefully asked. “What is this place? How did I get here?”
“You’re not here,” the woman softly replied. “Not completely anyway. This is the ether, human. You’re inside the very river of magic that flows through Eden.”
“Wha… what?” Daniel quietly asked in surprise. “The ether? The magical ether?”
“Yes. How very bizarre that your presence of mind could reach this far. Humans are just barely capable of scraping the very essence of the ether itself with their most optimistic efforts, but you… how is it you can reach this place as you have? It’s impossible.”
“Wait, presence of mind?” Daniel repeated. “Are you saying I’m not really here, I’m just dreaming I am?”
“Oh, it’s more than that, human. Your soul… it’s able to touch this place, connect with it, call to it even. Incredible. Only my handler has ever been able to reach this far into the ether with her will, yet here I speak with a human man who has done just that. I’m almost wondering if I’m dreaming myself. It seems too good to be true…”
“Your handler?” Daniel questioned. “What are you talking about? Who are you?”
“A better question is who are you? And more importantly, what has brought you here? Tell me, I must know. How is it you came to thi
s place?”
“My name is Daniel Sorres. I… I…” he replied, words failing to form for a moment as he held a hand to his head and tried remembering how he got there himself. “I don’t know how I came here. I don’t know what happened. But if this place isn’t where I really am… that’s right, I’m still in Green Haven. I’m still…”
Lowering his head he felt a wave of sorrow hitting again as he remembered the horrific sight of Squeak dying before his eyes. Her final squeaks she made, the saddened smile she gave, and the soul-crushing moment when she was crystalized in front of everyone to fatal effect; everything replayed before Daniel in his mind while his heart struggled to hold together through the pain.
“Squeak… she… she was taken from me. They killed her right in front of me…”
“I’m sensing a great deal of anguish in your soul,” the woman mused. “However, even as fragile as it has become, it still managed to connect with the ether and bring you here. No… no, that’s not it. That’s not what happened…”
Daniel held his hands over his face, struggling to overcome the image of Squeak shattering to ice while the gemini’s haunting laughter echoed in his ears.
“Absolutely incredible,” the woman marveled. “You didn’t reach out to the ether, the ether reached out to you. Your soul… it’s linked to the very ether itself. I can sense it flowing through you, your very spirit is one with it. The river of magic that flows through the world flows through you also. How is this possible? Who in Eden are you, human? Are you even human?”
“What?” Daniel asked, lowering his hands to reveal a heartbroken grimace. “What are you talking about?”
“You… have a gift,” the woman purred. “Amazing. Very amazing. And very fortunate. Perhaps it was destiny for me to find you here.”
“I don’t know what you’re saying. I don’t… I don’t know-” Daniel said before suddenly jumping in shock. “Clover! Pip! Cindy!”
“Is something the matter?” the woman curiously asked as Daniel scrambled to his feet and quickly looked around in a panic.
“Wait, where are they? Oh no! How do I go back? How do I get back to Green Haven?”
“Go back? What do you mean?”
“I need to go back to where I was!” Daniel desperately yelled out at the ground. “Those monsters that killed my mate are still there, they’re going to kill my family! They’re going to kill me! I have to go back, I have to… to… arrggGGHHHH! Goddammit! How am I supposed to stop them? Nothing kills them, nothing keeps them down at all! Those accursed demons, there has to be some way of killing them! I have to stop them somehow, I have to do something!”
“Sorry, but I don’t follow what you’re saying.”
“I need to go back!” Daniel shouted with a stomp of his foot. “Send me back! Send me back to my body, or whatever needs to be done to get me out of here! Please, I have to save my family before those monsters kill them! The gemini are going to slaughter them and all the elves, I can’t let that happen!”
“Gemini? Did you say the gemini are the ones you wish to kill?”
“Yes! I have to kill them, I have to stop them once and for all! I have to, even though… I’m not sure how I can do it. I need two legendary swords to kill them, but I only have one. I couldn’t use the other one if I had it, and I don’t even know where it is! Dammit! What am I supposed to do? They killed Squeak, they’re going to kill all my mates, they’re going to kill everyone if I don’t stop them!”
Hearing the woman laughing below Daniel quickly froze in his tirade, his gaze turning downward as he heard the mysterious girl bellowing in delight that had a slightly menacing tone to it. Using his foot he parted the drifting clouds of mist, seeing the darkened hand now clutching the unseen barrier between them as the woman laughed louder and louder in her merriment.
“What’s so funny?” Daniel demanded. “Why are you laughing?”
“You want to kill the gemini?” she slyly asked. “Oh, how the fates have aligned as such, it truly is… impossible. This is clearly no coincidence. But it is exactly what we both need. I wonder who we’re to thank for that… or perhaps I already know.”
“What are you talking about now?” Daniel groaned. “Nothing you’re saying makes any sense!”
“You want to kill the gemini?”
“Yes! I want to rid Eden of them once and for all! I want to avenge my fallen mate! I have to stop those monsters before they claim any more lives!”
“Well, as luck would have it, I can help you with that.”
“You can?” Daniel carefully asked. “And just how exactly can you help with that?”
“I can help you strike them down.”
“How is that possible?” Daniel argued shaking his head. He slowly lowered down onto his knees and tried parting the haze with his hands. “How can you help me do that? The only way to strike them down is if both the Hellfire’s Edge and the Archlight’s Blade pierce their hearts at the same time.”
“Good boy, you’ve done your research. If I may ask, who exactly told you about those weapons?”
“An alpha witch I’ve come across in my travels. She told me that the only way to kill the gemini is for those legendary blades to strike through their hearts together in one attack. I have the Hellfire’s Edge, but the Archlight’s Blade is in someone else’s possession, someone who I have no idea where they could be right now.”
“Ah, yes,” the woman sighed. “The Hellfire’s Edge and Archlight’s Blade. Two legendary swords forged by the demons and angels themselves, created with such power and promise, the very tools designed to harness the might of hell and heaven into… more manageable weapons that those fools so desperately wanted to create due to their own inadequacies and egos. I’ll let you in on a little secret, human. Those two legendary swords you revere so much? They’re nothing compared to the original.”
“Original?” Daniel repeated. “What do you mean original?”
“I mean those two paltry excuses for butter knives were created because neither the angels nor the demons could handle the original weapon they derived from. They couldn’t do it, none of them could wield it, it was simply too powerful for even the strongest angels and demons to control. So you know what they did?”
Daniel peered closely at the dark clouds that billowed below the invisible barrier, using his hands to keep the rolling mists away as he tried to catch a glimpse of the hidden speaker.
“They cast the original into the depths of the ether, banished if you will, out of fear that it couldn’t be controlled by them, and created two sister blades in its image as replacements. They forged them with all their knowledge and ability, split the incredible power the original possessed between them, and relished in their own hollowed victory of creating such weapons in the shadow of their successor. I’m sure you’ve heard wondrous tales about those two swords, they’ve surely been praised to the highest peaks of heaven and the lowest pits of hell for their amazing power. But trust me, they’re nothing but cheap replicas that could never hold a candle to the real deal.”
“How do you know all this?” Daniel carefully asked. “Who are you? You keep calling me human, so am I to understand that I’m speaking to a monster?”
“Monster? Me?” she innocently replied. “Oh my, no. No, no, no, no. I’m no monster, nor am I human. I’m something… far more powerful.”
“And what might that be? What are you?”
“Weren’t you paying attention to what I just told you? I already gave you that answer.”
Daniel saw the woman’s hand slowly rub against the barrier beneath him, with one finger gently tapping on it a few times before she murmured coyly as she awaited his reply. He slowly glanced around at the dark void that was the magical ether he was now in before shaking his head and questioning the only answer he had to give.
“You’re… the weapon?”
“Yes,” she slyly answered, much to his surprise. “The one and only. But please, don’t call me Mama Hellfire or Auntie A
rchlight, I really don’t like having any connection to those lowly scraps of steel or being reminded of such.”
“Then… what is your name?”
The hand traced its fingers across the clear barrier below him before slamming hard against it, parting the clouds with deafening thunder as light erupted behind them. Before Daniel could shield his eyes the piercing glare suddenly died down, the beams of light cutting through the haze turning red and white while a frightening aura washed outward against Daniel and smothered him like a suffocating cloud. Stunned by both the ominous feeling hitting against him and what he saw beneath his feet Daniel fell silent while unable to move or even blink.
Floating within the void with faint red and violet casting rings drifting through the endless sea of darkness behind her was a woman, or at least it resembled one while at the same time clearly not being human or even monster in any traditional way. Her feet and legs were clad, entirely, in black plated armor that had crimson engravings set throughout them, so precise and formfitting that it appeared the metallic limbs were naturally a part of her. The woman’s torso, hips, and even breasts looked to be made of the same polished steel shell, with her arms having ridged shoulder guards that also seemed to be part of her very person. Her hands moved and flexed like they were made of flesh, though looked to be made of the same strange metal as the rest of her body, red neon glows coming from the fingers and armor that moved so naturally yet appeared so unnatural all the same. Her long black hair flowed freely behind her, a red gemstone headdress was worn across the forehead that bared an unsettling resemblance to not only the same steel that her body appeared to be made of, but also her face, which drew Daniel’s attention to very quickly. Her crimson colored eyes had an unnatural, almost crafted, look to them, not just by the cold and slightly lifeless gaze they held within but also the strange white notches that were placed all around the irises. What skin she did reveal had red streaks placed across them, overly sharpened teeth were seen within her wide, menacing smile, and the aura she gave off being nothing like Daniel had ever seen or felt before in any living creature he had come across. And her voice, that then spoke to him with just one word, sent chills down Daniel’s spine as he realized very quickly he was not speaking to just another monster in Eden; he was speaking to something that he honestly couldn’t classify as the very nature of her aura and being felt overwhelmingly peculiar.
Chronicles of Eden - Act XII Page 37