Daniel blinked a few times to get his world to stop spinning then looked up at the wraith with bewilderment.
“Wait, what did you just say?”
Cindy leaned closer to him while caressing his head, her eyes gazing deeply into his as she wiggled her chest excitedly.
“I’m going to be a good girl for you, because you love me and I love you.”
“You… what?” Daniel nervously asked.
“I’m a good girl!” Cindy cheered into the air before kissing Daniel deeply. All the girls stared in shock with open mouths while Daniel’s arms were flailing about above the love-struck sand wraith. Everyone except Apoch and Astreal who smirked at the sight with quiet giggles while standing off to the side.
“Well, this is getting interesting,” Apoch whispered glancing to her sister.
“Yes,” Astreal quietly agreed. “Very interesting indeed. This will please our master for certain.”
Alyssa watched Cindy forcibly kissing Daniel on the floor in front of everyone with disbelief and a twitching eye then reached out to the side, her hand searching about in the air for a moment before finding and taking hold of Triska’s sword that she started tugging at.
“Use it, Triska. Use it right now.”
Chapter 5
Behind the Mask
In the world of Eden there were monsters that roamed the lands, all of which resembled human women to some extent. Some were almost identical to humans from head to toe while others had monstrous features and differences that easily set them apart. Though it wasn’t just their otherworldly appearances that caused them to be feared and hated, it was because they used men like breeding tools by any means they deemed necessary. Because of this it wasn’t often for anyone to have a chance at knowing them any better, usually labeling them as lustful monsters and absolute evils by sight alone. Very few ever realized that if given the chance to actually talk to them there could be more under their outer appearance. They could be a kindhearted or even frightened young girl who wasn’t as bad as first thought.
Or they could be more dangerous than one would ever imagine.
*****
“LET GO OF HIM RIGHT NOW!” Triska roared out, the entire hall echoing loudly with the enraged cambion’s voice. Grabbing her sword she yanked it out with a swift metallic ring, the blade letting off wisps of smoke and embers before it was aimed towards a frightened sand wraith.
“No! Fire bad!” Cindy wailed as she clung to Daniel for dear life. “Save me, Daniel! Save me! Make her go away!”
“Get off of our mate!” Specca yelled out.
“He does not love you!” Falla shouted at the wraith. “And he certainly wasn’t fighting for you just now!”
“He was fighting to protect us, you dumbass!” Clover raged while waving to herself and Doku.
“Let go of him right now or else you’re going to burn,” Alyssa coldly threatened with glowing eyes. Holding out her hand towards Cindy she drew over flames and cinders that were licking off of Triska’s blade, the fires building into a swirling crimson haze that formed around her fingers and palm.
“Wait, you can’t do that!” Luna pleaded as she hopped over in front of them with her arms held out.
“Why not?” Triska and Alyssa yelled at her.
“Because you’ll kill Daniel,” Falla reasoned shaking her head. “How do you expect to burn Cindy alive without hurting him right now? She’s lying right on top of him.”
“They’re right,” Kroanette agreed. “First we must get Cindy to release Daniel, and then you may kill her.”
“And here I thought they were actually going to try and attack now,” Daniel dryly chimed in from the floor while Cindy clung to his chest shaking.
Triska and Alyssa twitched then lowered their heads with frustrated growls, their sword and hand still holding the magical flames for a moment before Alyssa flung her fireball off the side and Triska sheathed her blade. After Alyssa’s attack exploded against a wall and scorched it with smoke and haze blowing away from the impact and the girls all jumped from the loud discharge that Alyssa didn’t seem to pay attention to, Daniel sighed and looked to the wraith that was hiding her face as usual while she straddled him on the floor.
“Cindy?” he said, with the wraith slowly peeking up at him with a whimper. “I’m happy to be your friend. I really am. But you need to control yourself and behave, alright?”
“Am I being bad?” Cindy softly asked.
“Not bad,” Daniel corrected as the wraith let him sit up. She held onto his shoulders while sitting on his lap, the other girls watching carefully as he smiled gently at the innocent monster. “Cindy, you are a good girl. I’m so very proud of the way you’ve been controlling yourself around us. You are a kindhearted girl, and for that I’m happy for you.”
“I am?” Cindy eagerly asked with a wiggle of her chest.
“Yes you are,” Daniel assured patting her head, getting another giggle and wiggle out of the girl. “But you should know that the girls standing behind you right now are the ones I love so much. They’re my family. And I would like it if you could get along with them.”
“But I don’t like that one,” Cindy pouted with a glance back towards Triska. “She’s mean and dumb.”
“Dumb?” Triska snapped. “What the hell, now I’m stupid to her too?”
“Cindy,” Daniel lectured, the wraith again holding onto him closely and burying her face in his shoulder with a low murmur. “She’s protective of me because she loves me. And I love her. Please, try to understand she doesn’t hate you, she’s just cautious about you getting so close to me like this.”
Cindy mumbled something then nodded.
“Okay then. Could you please try to be friends with her?” Daniel kindly requested. Cindy hesitated then leaned back and looked at him with a frown. “It would be nice if you all could get along. She could be your friend as well, Cindy.”
Cindy turned to Triska and remained quiet, with the cambion and Alyssa keeping a close eye on the wraith. After a while Cindy showed a stubborn scowl towards Triska then stuck her tongue out at the girl, the others jumping a bit from the gesture before the wraith again clung to Daniel while hiding in the safety of his arms.
“You little…” Triska growled as the hand holding her sword clenched tightly.
“Well, he tried to reason with her,” Alyssa mentioned with a shrug. “Guess we have no choice but to get rid of her now. What a shame.”
Daniel waved his hand at the two girls to try and calm them down, doing nothing of the sort as Triska and Alyssa got ready to attack the wraith again despite Daniel being directly in the line of fire, before Apoch and Astreal tapped their staves on the floor a few times to get everyone’s attention.
“Excuse us,” they spoke up before looking to Daniel with sly smiles. “Mr. Daniel, before the event becomes an even more distant memory to you, we must ask you about something regarding our skirmish just now.”
“Wow,” Cindy said in awe while pointing to them. “How did you say all that together like that? That was so weird.”
“I told you,” Kroanette commented to the other girls. “Did nobody else notice that? It’s been bothering me ever since we met those two.”
“Um, okay?” Daniel replied with a shrug at the twins.
“Do tell us,” Astreal insisted before pointing her staff over to where her crimson swords were stuck together in a cluster. “Exactly how did you avoid that?”
The girls looked over to the swords then to Daniel curiously as he scratched his head.
“Explain, Mr. Daniel,” Apoch requested with a wave of the hand. “One moment you were standing over there and the next you were behind us. Could you kindly tell us how exactly you did that?”
“Wait, he did what earlier?” Falla confusedly asked.
Daniel chuckled weakly then looked around at seeing all the girls watching him now.
“Yeah, how did you do that?” Triska wondered. “I managed to see that part of your fight, bu
t what I saw I couldn’t believe. How did you get behind them so quickly?”
“I wasn’t able to see it, what happened?” Specca asked the girls.
“It was so strange,” Cindy said waving her arms around. The group turned to her as she pointed over towards the cluster of swords. “First he was over there, and then he was over there! I don’t understand how he did it.”
“Yeah, that confused us too,” Clover mentioned walking closer to them. “I saw you, Dan. You were surrounded by those swords, they were coming at you from every direction. And then at the last second you… were just gone.”
“Daniel?” Alyssa asked. “What are they talking about? What did you do?”
Daniel motioned for Cindy to move aside, to which she obediently did so while watching him with eyes of wonder. The two stood up and Daniel dusted off his shirt before glancing to the witch sisters with a shrug.
“Well, it just kind of happened.”
“We’re going to need more than that, Mr. Daniel,” the sisters countered while tapping their feet expectantly. Daniel nodded and looked to his hand while thinking back to the unique event.
“I was trapped. I didn’t know how to evade Astreal’s attack. So I focused on anything I could that would help me. All of your spirits, I reached out to them all in hopes that something would allow me to defend myself from her. And that’s when it happened.”
“How?” Apoch and Astral questioned. “What happened?”
“I felt something new,” Daniel recalled. “It suddenly appeared in my mind, a new aura that gave me more power.”
“A new aura?” Specca wondered. “Daniel, you felt another monster’s energy with your magic?”
Daniel nodded with a small smile forming on his face as he looked towards the cluster swords and replayed the event in his head.
“I saw the light in my mind, just like I do with all you girls. It was silver, shining so brightly and so abruptly out of nowhere. And when the light flowed into me it… saved me.”
“Silver?” Triska questioned.
“How did it save you?” Falla asked. “What did it let you do?”
Daniel turned to Apoch and Astreal with a smirk on his face, the twins watching him with curious smiles as they were eager to hear his answer as well.
*****
The crimson steel longswords shot towards Daniel from every direction, streaking through the air at their target who strained with everything he had to figure out a way of avoiding becoming a pincushion in the next few seconds. Focusing on all the auras he felt from his mates he frantically brainstormed on what to do. He couldn’t move fast enough to weave through them, couldn’t block all sides at once, couldn’t knock them all away, couldn’t stop them by any means; he was trapped and about to be in a world of hurt very soon.
Until a new light and insignia flashed in his mind.
He couldn’t make out the emblem clearly, couldn’t take notice of what the color was, he only felt something guiding him and decided it was his only hope. As the swords neared their target in a sphere of steel Daniel reached out with his mind and grabbed hold of the newest monster energy he felt radiating towards him.
His body then reacted on instinct and sheer will to win the fight. Without thinking he raced towards the twins, feet moving swiftly along the ground as the swords closed in… and then went right through him. However he kept running, both shocked of what he saw happen and also something else. The world around him had shifted to a dull color spectrum, sound was almost nonexistent except for his heavy breathing and the muffled thump of something behind him, and the witch sisters didn’t seem to be looking at him anymore. They were watching something behind him, paying no mind to the sword wielding human that ran towards them and then right through Astreal as if he were a ghost.
Coming to a quick halt Daniel looked back in surprise, seeing where the longswords had struck together in a tight cluster in the court. He then noticed he wasn’t torn through in his chest, having not a scratch on him after the swords had raced through him earlier. He looked himself over in awe and then the witch sisters, both of the girls still watching where Astreal’s swords had collided together while failing to notice he was standing right behind them. It was then a smirk briefly came across his face before his expression turned serious again. He knew what he did, and he knew how he did it. But all that mattered to him was freeing Clover and Doku from the witches, and that’s all he wanted to focus on. And with that he let the newest aura in his mind go, releasing himself from its power so that he could again confront the sisters in the normal plane of existence.
*****
“You became a ghost?” Luna gasped.
“Did you die?” Cindy asked fearfully. “And then came back to life? Is that true?”
“No,” Daniel chuckled shaking his head. “I didn’t die, Cindy. I’m perfectly alive and well.”
“You ran through the swords?” Specca wondered. “And then Astreal as well? How did you do that?”
“I don’t get it,” Pip said shaking her head. “What happened?”
“Daniel, whose monster energy did you feel?” Kroanette asked curiously.
“The light was silver,” Daniel recalled. “The amount of love behind this aura was incredible, it felt like a powerful surge of energy being given to me all at once. And the emblem I saw in my mind, I remember it very clearly now.”
“What emblem was that?” Triska asked. “What did you see?”
“A feather,” Daniel answered, with the girls then slowly looking over to where Doku was still asleep with Pip wedged between her breasts. “A silver insignia with a feather inside it.”
“A feather?” Clover slowly repeated.
“Doku,” Specca softly said in awe.
“She’s the only one of us with feathers,” Falla mentioned.
“It had to be her,” Alyssa reasoned. “Then that means the magic Daniel got from her was…”
“Her spiritwalk,” Triska realized with amazement. “Daniel, you used her spiritwalk technique.”
“Her what?” Cindy confusedly asked.
“Is that what happened?” Apoch and Astreal questioned. “Ms. Doku is the one to thank for your surprise reversal in that fight?”
“Yeah, it was her,” Daniel admitted with a gentle smile at the sleeping harpy. “Her love for me saved me during that. It allowed me to use her special magic that she knows and has shown us from time to time. With it I was able to jump into the ethereal plane, body and all, and avoid your attack, Astreal. I walked right through your swords and even yourself just like a ghost before coming back out behind you.”
“Amazing,” Specca breathed out while adjusting her glasses. “Daniel, you… you actually shifted into the ethereal plane with your entire body. You didn’t just draw your spirit out like Doku could; you jumped completely into that realm with all your being.”
“I’m still confused,” Cindy said raising a hand. “What happened with Daniel?”
Daniel smiled amusedly at seeing Cindy looking around at everyone with a curious expression and hand held up high then patted her head, much to her delight as she smiled happily at him again.
“Tell you what, Cindy. How about we go back into the dining hall and have our lunch together, and we can talk some more then. We have all that food still waiting for us, how about we go enjoy it? Let’s see if we can find something you would like to eat other than people.”
“Okay, Daniel,” Cindy timidly replied wiggling her chest a little.
“You seem to have her under control now,” Astreal mused. “I don’t believe a sand wraith has ever acted like an obedient puppy with anyone before.”
“You appear to have quite a way with monsters, Mr. Daniel,” Apoch mentioned looking around at all the other girls. “They all seem to care about you greatly.”
“Well I would fight to the death to keep them safe,” Daniel reasoned, seeing all his mates smiling lovingly at him in return. Even Clover was showing a bashful expression, of course she
was trying to hide it with a hand held over her cheek and attempting to avert her eyes from Daniel entirely.
“We figured you would,” Astreal admitted with a shrug.
“Sorry again about being rather rough with you,” Apoch added with a weak smile. “Just wanted to help with your problem of being so hesitant.”
“You two could have seriously hurt him earlier,” Triska argued, crossing her arms in discontent. “And the way you were treating Clover and Doku was uncalled for.”
“We did what we needed to for Mr. Daniel to start taking action,” Apoch and Astreal replied with identical smirks and head tilts. “The end result was worth the effort in our opinion.”
“That’s so weird,” Cindy softly said.
“I have to agree with you on that one,” Kroanette added with a disturbed look at the twins.
“Still,” Daniel spoke up while looking around at the damaged court. “I think we’re going to have to speak to Twilight about your behavior. Not to mention all the damage you caused to her study.”
“Mr. Daniel,” Astreal giggled. “No need for such threats. As we’ve said we did what we needed to for your own good. We are after all here to help you.”
“And don’t worry about the study,” Apoch assured waving her hand. “We can fix this little mess no problem.”
“Still going to tell her you nearly killed me,” Daniel mentioned.
“But that was an accident!” the twins pleaded. “We didn’t think you would be harmed so easily!”
“He could have been in there!” Alyssa yelled pointing to where Astreal’s swords were struck together. “He wouldn’t have been harmed, he’d be dead!”
“But- but- but,” the twins stuttered with nervous smiles. “He’s fine now, isn’t he? Better than fine actually, he’s much more prepared to face trials that may threaten those he loves. We helped him!”
“That’s really creepy how they do that,” Cindy mentioned with an uneasy frown.
“I agree,” Kroanette mentioned shaking her head. “Isn’t anyone else finding them doing that unsettling?”
“Not to mention you broke Star’s clock,” Luna said pointing to the grandfather clock that was run-through with a crimson longsword. “She really likes that clock.”
Act IX Page 16