Act IX

by Alexander Gordon

“You don’t know that,” Daniel shot back. “The girl we’ve seen her as is someone we all appreciate and care for. If she really is the Bloodcat of VanEllovan then I want to hear her side of the story, I want to know why she was that monster and what made her become like that, because I don’t believe for a second that her acting like a heartless killer is who she really is!”

  “She is just a heartless killer!” Reiko shouted. “She’s just like me, we’re both the same! We belong together, just her and I! She doesn’t belong with the likes of you; you’re only confusing her more with your idiotic babble about peace and acceptance that will never come true!”

  “She’s not heartless,” Daniel asserted, looking to the timid jinx who was glancing up at him. “I know that for a fact. So what do you say, Star? Will you give us a chance to help you, however we can, and tell us who you really are?”

  Star paused for a moment then nodded and looked down again. Reiko held in her snarls as Daniel mounted Kroanette with Star behind him while Clover hopped back onto Lucky. The jinx held onto him while keeping close, a small smile faintly seen on her face as she was both happy that Daniel had come after her yet fearful to what he would think once he heard everything about her.

  “Are you saying you actually don’t care she’s a mass murderer?” Reiko spat out. “Are you honestly saying even knowing she’s the Bloodcat of VanEllovan you don’t feel any resentment towards her? That you will actually accept and love her for who she is? That’s utter nonsense!”

  “I would never love someone who took pleasure in killing others as you seem to, Reiko,” Daniel retorted. “Star’s actions have yet to be explained and I will not hold judgment against her until then. As such I won’t accept being told she’s a murderer, that she’s heartless, that she’s a Darker One by any measure.”

  “She is a murderer, just like I am,” Reiko hissed.

  “You said it before, you were both following orders,” Daniel recalled. “Both of you were caught on opposite sides during a conflict. Sounds to me like she was a soldier following her orders, not a butcher on the prowl for helpless victims. There’s more to this story that we need to know first before Star can be condemned for anything.”

  “You know nothing about-”

  “Well we’re going to find out!” Daniel shouted at her. “And we’re going to hear it from her, not you. You may consider yourself a friend to Star but you seem more toxic to her than anything. You’re the one hurting her, claiming she’s nothing more than a killer just like you are. I won’t have you corrupting her like that. Be on your way, Reiko. You’re not welcome in our company anymore.”

  “How dare you speak to me like that, human,” Reiko snarled, her spectral cutters swaying about at her sides as she glared at Daniel. “I am not letting you take her away from me, I won’t allow it. Nothing will keep me from being with my soul mate!”

  She flew towards Daniel and Kroanette with a loud wail, her form returning to a giant disembodied eye that then opened its iris to reveal a monstrous mouth. Everyone tensed up as Reiko closed in before she suddenly stopped with a yelp. The harvester turned around and twitched slightly while closing its mouth, the large eye focusing on someone who had grabbed a spectral limb with one hand and halted the monster instantly.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Kitten asked with a cold smile. Her glowing blue eyes were focused on the harvester while in her hand she had held the monster’s tendril tightly. In her other was the Hellfire’s Edge, the blade giving off a bright light with its crimson flames that appeared to become much more menacing being held by this side of the cambion. Her wings were arched back while her tail was swaying about behind her from the hole in Triska’s pants that it had come out from.

  “What the hell is this?” Reiko asked moments before Kitten threw her away into a boulder with a loud crash.

  “Kitten?” Kroanette wondered. “What are you doing here?”

  “Well I am allowed to come out during the day, remember?” Kitten pointed out expectedly at her. “Just because we’ve gone through a large detour here and are wasting the day doesn’t mean I should lose out on precious time with this body, does it?”

  “Triska let you out now of all times?” Clover asked.

  “Clover, you do realize that I’m really pushing my patience and tolerance with you by allowing my master to take you as his property, right?” Kitten replied with a bitter smile at the elf. “Unless you are going to say anything along the lines of, ‘Hello, Kitten, it’s so nice to see you again. Thank you so much for allowing me to kiss your master’s feet’, I’m going to come over there and rip your foul mouth off your face then shove it up between your legs. Do you understand me?”

  Clover gulped then nodded quickly with a nervous smile while Daniel, Star, and Kroanette exchanged worried looks with each other. Kitten nodded slowly then rolled her eyes and looked to the side with a shrug.

  “I am being nice to her, Triska. I’m smiling.”

  Reiko flew out from the dust and rubble towards the cambion with a ghostly wail, her spectral cutters flailing around the giant eyeball that opened to reveal its monstrous mouth. Kitten clutched her fiery blade tightly and wound back with it, the sword letting off a dark aura that seemed to radiate much more violently than when Triska wielded it.

  “Don’t make me laugh!” Kitten taunted before she swung the blade out at Reiko. A powerful explosion of flames and smoke blasted out before the cambion, searing gashes tearing apart the ground outward from the impact while a wave of fire billowed out with streaks of energy snapping through it. Reiko screamed as she flew back from the strike, her shape returning to her humanoid form while the gown she wore was burned and lit aflame. She slammed against a wall hard, the impact shattering the stone behind her, right before the wave of flames crashed against her and washed away against the cavern wall. Slumping down against the charred rock and ash Reiko wailed in pain while her spectral limbs wearily flailed about before her.

  “Ow, that really hurt!” she whined before coughing out smoke. Looking ahead she gasped as Kitten slowly approached her through the haze and cinders, the cambion’s haunting eyes, devilish smile, and demonic blade inciting terror in the harvester.

  “Stay back! Keep away!” Reiko cried while whipping her tendrils at the girl. Kitten dodged each one effortlessly before she sliced them off one by one with her sword, the harvester screaming in horror as the cambion advanced closer and cleaved off all her spectral limbs. With one final thrust of her blade she struck Reiko through the shoulder, spiking her against the wall while leaning closer to the frightened monster’s face.

  “Let’s see if we remember this correctly,” Kitten mused while the sword burned Reiko’s shoulder, the harvester shrieking in pain before Kitten clamped a hand over her mouth. “First you attacked Cindy, and then you went after Clover, and then you had the audacity to attack my master, didn’t you?”

  Reiko screamed loudly in the cambion’s hand as Kitten’s smile turned into a cold glare.

  “And then you attacked Specca, then you held onto my master, and then… let’s see here… what was the last thing you did? Oh yes, you attacked my master again!”

  Reiko shakily shook her head before Kitten drew her blade through the harvester’s shoulder closer to her neck, the sizzling flesh and cracking stone it was pierced into being drowned out by Reiko’s muffled cry.

  “Nobody harms my master,” Kitten coldly spoke. “I will not allow it. If you want him you’ll have to go through me, plain and simple. And that goes for his property too. You mess with his toys and we’re going to have a problem.”

  “Stop calling my co-mates toys and property like that,” Triska scolded in her mind. “They’re not things, they’re people.”

  ‘Triska, not now. I’m dealing with this troublesome girl and I’m going to do so my own way.’

  “Now then,” Kitten said while slowly pulling her sword out. “I’m going to be nice, because that’s the kind of girl my master wishes me to be. I�
��m going to give you a chance to say you’re sorry. Just one chance, and you’d better convince me that you really are sorry or else I’m sending you straight back to the underworld.”

  Stepping back from the harvester Kitten watched her with a harsh glare, seeing the monster whimpering while holding her scorched shoulder. A few severed tendrils twitched below her while smoke was coming from her body and eye socket. Kitten quietly growled then held her sword back, the flames brightly burning off the heated edge as a dark aura grew around the two.

  “I’m sorry,” Reiko hoarsely pleaded, hand feebly held out towards the cambion in fright. “I’m sorry, I really am. Please, have mercy.”

  Kitten smiled amusedly at the girl and tilted her head, pausing for a moment with a curious murmur before showing a cold leer again.

  “Nah, not good enough. Sorry.”

  With a fierce slash of Kitten’s blade a terrified scream was heard from the harvester right before the wall exploded with fire and pulsating crimson energy tearing through it. Daniel and the girls watched in surprise as it seemed like a volcano had erupted right before them, the deep red light illuminating the entire cavern around them while the ground shook violently from the discharge. The side of the grotto was completely demolished as it blasted outward from the strike, a strong gust of wind blowing outward as air suddenly escaped the cave and reached the outside land.

  “Holy fuck,” Clover breathed out.

  “I think that sword is by far more dangerous in her hands than Triska’s,” Kroanette nervously stated.

  Star held onto Daniel tightly while peeking over his shoulder, seeing the wave of smoke and flames billowing outward before everything became obscured in a dusty haze.

  Slowly all began to settle, with sunlight now piercing through the cloud of dust before the group. Kitten became visible again while holding her sword down at her side, her wings flapping a few times to blow the smoke away from her and someone else. Cowering before the cambion Reiko was staring at the girl with a wide eye while slumped back against a small slab of rock that remained from the wall, the rest of which had been completely annihilated to reveal an exit out of the cavern. The harvester was shaking with ragged breaths, being stunned and unable to move as the cambion’s attack had just missed her by the hair of her head.

  “Look at that,” Kitten mused before she reached down and lifted the harvester up by the neck. “I just found the way out of here. How lucky for us, don’t you think?”

  “You didn’t kill her,” Daniel realized.

  “Would you have wanted me to?” Kitten asked glancing back to him. “Would that please you if I killed her right now?”

  “No, I didn’t want it to come to that,” Daniel said shaking his head. “Friend of Star’s or not, I didn’t want to resort to killing her if it was avoidable.”

  “And that’s why I didn’t,” Kitten reasoned looking back to Reiko with a glare. “You’re lucky my master has such a generous heart. If it wasn’t for his wishes to avoid taking your life I would have strewn your remains along the ground as a carpet for us to walk out of here on.”

  “You actually spared her life,” Triska said in awe. “You had every excuse to kill her, and yet you didn’t.”

  ‘My master doesn’t want a killer for his mate,’ Kitten replied. ‘He wants someone with heart, doesn’t he? He doesn’t want a murdering demon in his life, and as such I cannot be like that.’

  “Kitten…”

  ‘If this is how he wishes for me to be, then he shall have it. I will not fail my master or his wishes. Ever.’

  Kitten smirked then glanced over to the opening, seeing the dust having settled to reveal a valley before them with a lake near a small forest. A mountain range was seen further away that stretched out like a wall with the vale running alongside it in both directions, the sun managing to shine down onto the area as it began passing behind the tallest peak of the highland.

  “You have my mercy, this one time,” Kitten warned the harvester. “If you draw your cutters against my master or his property again I will kill you, that I promise. You got that?”

  “I understand,” Reiko choked out.

  “Glad to hear it. Well, happy landings,” Kitten said with a shrug. She wound back and hurled the harvester out of the opening, the ghostly monster’s scream echoing out and slowly falling silent as she spiraled far off into the distance. Kitten watched Reiko fly away and crash into a thicket with birds quickly taking off from the impact then started walking back towards the others without a care.

  “Is she going to be okay?” Kroanette wondered.

  “No idea,” Kitten replied carelessly.

  “You think she survived that throw?” Daniel asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “Thanks for making us an exit,” Clover said eyeing the large opening.

  “No problem.”

  Daniel smiled weakly at the cambion, seeing her lightly ruffling her hair to get the dirt out, then looked back to Star who was watching where Reiko had been forcefully ejected from the area with a worried expression.

  “You do care about her, don’t you?” he asked, with Star turning to him and remaining silent. “I can see it in your eyes. She may be a little crazy and dangerous to others, but you care about her to some extent. She’s your friend, isn’t she?”

  Star nodded slowly, a faint smile being seen on her face.

  “You’re certainly not a heartless monster, Star,” Daniel commended. “I’m glad to see my faith in that isn’t without merit.”

  Star smiled softly at him while blushing, a quiet meow being made as she tried to speak while apparently losing her voice from his words. She leaned closer and gently held Daniel’s waist, her tails slowly waving behind her as she hoped he wasn’t lost to her yet. A mere moment later she was grabbed by the leg and thrown down onto the ground with a thump, the cat yowling in surprise from being snapped back to reality before seeing Kitten sheathing her sword while standing over her.

  “By the way, Triska and I caught the whole part of you taking an arrow to the eye and coming out just fine,” Kitten mentioned with a raised eyebrow. Star gulped and slowly sat up as the cambion drummed her fingers on the handle of her blade.

  “That and learning you apparently love my master. Is that true?”

  Star shakily nodded as the cambion stood over her, faintly meowing something in response as Kitten watched her with a cold stare.

  “Seeing as how my master wishes for you to return with us so you can explain yourself, I’m not going to skin you alive for having such thoughts of being his newest toy. However you’ve got some explaining to do when we get back, as well as giving me a very good reason why I should allow yet another girl to become his property.”

  “Stop calling everyone property!” Triska yelled in her mind. “But yes, she does have some serious explaining to do.”

  Star slowly nodded to that before Kitten hopped up onto Kroanette’s back and held onto Daniel tightly, pressing her bosom against his back and holding her arms around his waist.

  “Kitten? What are you doing?” Daniel asked as the cambion snuggled closer to him with a giggle.

  “I’m spending quality time with you of course,” she playfully replied. “It’s been forever since I got to be near you. You don’t mind, right? It’s fine if I just ride with you like this, isn’t it?”

  “You shouldn’t have thrown Star down like that,” Daniel scolded. “She could have gotten hurt.”

  “She took an arrow through her fucking eye,” Kitten dryly replied. “I think she can handle falling off a horse.”

  “Hey!” Kroanette shouted. “I’m not a horse!”

  “Fine, centaur. Whatever.”

  “That’s not the point, Kitten,” Daniel argued, then looked down with a dull stare at something Kitten was holding onto with a murmur of delight.

  “Are you grabbing his crotch?” Clover flatly asked.

  “Just holding onto my master so I don’t fall off,” Kitten sweetly answered
.

  “Let go of him!” Kroanette shouted.

  “I don’t take orders from my master’s property,” Kitten hissed.

  “Kitten, move your hands,” Daniel ordered. Kitten shuffled her hands about, with Kroanette and Clover then glaring at her while Daniel sighed and shook his head. “Move your hands out of my pants.”

  “You never specified where to,” Kitten pouted while moving her hands up to hold onto his chest.

  “Just when I was starting to think you were changing,” Triska sighed in her mind.

  ‘What? I’m not doing anything bad here. I’m being a very good girl for my master.’

  Daniel took a moment to renew his patience with his feisty cambion then looked to Star with a weak smile, the jinx glaring at Kitten for obvious reasons as the demon was gently rubbing her breasts up and down against Daniel’s back now.

  “Let’s just return to the others and get out of this cave. Some fresh air will do us all some good and-”

  “Stop pressing your fucking boobs against Dan like that!” Clover barked out.

  “Watch your tongue,” Kitten hissed at her. “If you want to even touch my master then you’d best learn to speak to me properly and with respect. What I do with my master is none of your business.”

  “It is when you’re humping against him, while on my back!” Kroanette yelled out. “I can feel you back there, you know!”

  “Then maybe you’ll feel it if I whip you with my tail,” Kitten snapped. “I bet you’d love that, wouldn’t you, you perverted horse!”

  “I’m not a horse!”

  “Stop rubbing against Dan like that!” Clover shouted.

  “Stop being so jealous I actually have a bust size he can notice,” Kitten smugly retorted.

  Star meowed and shook her head while pointing at the cambion in anger.

  “You want to go flying through that hole next?” Kitten barked back. “Shut your mouth and be grateful I’m even allowing you all near my master to begin with!”

  “Clover,” Daniel said looking forward with a loss of patience for his cambion. “Please give Star a lift on Lucky. Kitten, watch your language with the girls and keep your nature under control or I swear when we get back home I’m taking Clover into the bedroom, bending her over, and I will give her my seed right then and there in front of you.”