Well now… here’s chapter 10. I need better stuff up here.
Chapter 10: Escape of the Military
“How did you know to find us here?” Raffi asked as the three started opening their cage.
“While we were walking by the building, we overheard the Emperor hearing about how ‘Shade and the others’ got captured and said what they looked like. Hearing that you would get executed, we rushed down here.” explained Florence, getting the chains of their wrists now.
“We’re just lucky that the Lai Di vanished when we got into the building. It’s best to simply go undercover at times instead of just barging through in battle.” the blind elf added.
“I think we need to get out of here.” Kevin quickly muttered, hearing a loud alarm from above. Florence pulled out a bomb arrow and smashed a wall that they ran through. Kevin pulled out his sword, Raffi controlled moisture in the air to freeze on the back of her hand for a back-up attack, and Jake had fireballs ready in his hands.
“We have to be careful. The Emperor has probably already warned the whole building that we’ve escaped.” Raffi muttered. As they turned the corner they saw darkness, but behind them was a dead-end. Obvious, the path where they came from would have the soldiers there, looking for them.
“Toph, you’re going to have to lead, and Jake, you have to put out your fire.” Florence suggested. Toph nodded and walked ahead while Jake put out the flames in his hands.
“Everybody take the back of each person’s shirts with your free hand.” Toph told them as she slowly led them into the darkness. After walking into the next room of the dark, Toph immediately stopped, “I don’t know how to explain this, but there’s a presence in the room, have your weapons ready!”
“Right.” they added. Toph got into a battle stance and slowly kept walking until they walked into another room and Toph stopped after a while of walking in the room.
“This room is very large, and we’re on the second floor now, not the basement. I think we’ve walked into a--” the little elf voice cut off when blinding lights shined on them and they were surrounded by military men, armed and aiming at them.
“Good, you’re all here. You have made yourselves enemies of the state. Eliminate them at once.” Pride declared as he was blocking the door that they had just entered from.
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Shade let out a deep sigh and turned around when he heard the footsteps of a brunette: it was Florence!
(A/N: No, this isn’t Florence, for people who get confused by my fan-fics, RAFFI, RAFFI, RAFFI, RAFFI. XD)Shade was most likely to notice that this wasn’t Florence, mostly by his crooked eyebrows.
“You’re not Florence,” Shade immediately answered before ‘Florence’ could say anything, “I know my own girlfriend.” The brunette simply put her hands on the back of her head and sighed.
“Very perceptive, but you really don’t know who I am.” she muttered, with a serious face, but one eye winking at Shade in a bored way.
“Stand back, Josh.” Shade took a few steps ahead of his elf friend with his left hand gesturing to not move. However, this strange person was so fast that they were already behind Shade and gripping onto Josh’s arm and lifting him into the air. Josh was groaning and struggling in this person’s hand.
“Hey! Let me go!” he complained, rocking back and forth violently. What was believed to be Florence changed ‘her’ shape into a rarely seen homunculus, Envy. His Oroboros tattoo that distinguished him was on his left thigh.
“Another homunculus…” murmured the frozen dragon as his hands curled up into a fist. Envy let out a sly chuckle.
“Don’t even try, you’ll be shot down!” Envy threatened, brushing his free hand through his unruly hair. Shade controlled a puddle of water into his hand and froze it into many little icicles. They got shot at the homunculus and cut through a few of his hair strands, but missed other than that.
“Ack, I missed!” groaned Shade to the side. Envy turned away and chuckled. Shade ran to the homunculus holding the grunting Josh, but he simply kicked Shade into a box full of gunpowder. Once Shade got out of the dust, they were gone.
“MOMMY!” a shrill voice echoed through the already broken warehouse as Wrath ran onto the scene, crying out, “What happened to mommy!?” Shade looked down and sighed once he had gotten to his feet. Wrath did nothing at that point but yelled again and charged at Shade.
“Enough!” barked a stern voice that caused a shockwave of ice to pass by and froze Wrath’s arms to the large ice attack that was stuck on the ground. Bartholomew walked onto the scene and looked at his creation.
“What do you want, I have nothing to do with you.” groaned Wrath as he started to grit his teeth. The boy didn’t let anyone answer after his statement and sped away in anger/confusion. Shade slowly changed his look to Bartholomew.
“I… think it’s about time you tell me about Wrath.” he slowly was able to mumble to his dragon master. Bartholomew simply nodded and walked in front of Shade.
“About ten years ago, my beautiful wife and I had our first child. However, he was sick from a genetic disease and then died during infancy. We were both very sorrowful and one day left to try and bring him back after discovering that we could try, by summoning the Mirror of Spirits. Once we went through the ritual, my wife and parts of my blood and skin were taken as a sacrifice…” his voice trailed off and he showed Shade large scars all over his arms and Shade now understood the large scar that ran down Bartholomew’s right cheek.
“Our child was brought back, but it wasn’t our little baby boy… it was a monster! What he is now: a homunculus. I had no choice but to return his back through the Mirror so that he would stay at the Twilight, but I didn’t know that he would slowly age and become the Wrath you know today.” as his story finished, Shade slowly looked down.
“I have to confront the leader of the homunculi… I know once there, I can save Josh and try to stop this menace.” Shade slowly told his dragon master, who simply nodded in response.
“Your clue has to start at the Magus Bazaar, where your friends are. I’m sure that one of them knows a clue to getting to the master.” Bartholomew explained. Shade looked around slowly.
“Hey, do you remember seeing another homunculus here; she was on our side of the battle against Sloth and Wrath.” the blue dragon asked. He simply shook his head, so Shade turned past a crate of boxes and saw the second homunculus array with the ashes of Lust there. With a sigh, Shade had no choice but to now go alone.
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Having escaped from the battle, Ash went her own way to find something through Kabuto’s drawers.
“There has to be something here…” she muttered, going through a cabinet of files and pulled out each folder she found, tossing the useless ones aside. Once Ash believed that she found something interesting in a secret compartment that had notes sketched on it and it was shoved in her pocket.
“I’ve got to get this to someone…” Ash told herself, looking around and using her dragon arm to slash through a window and then hopped out of it into a courtyard and turned into a full dragon. As soon as she was in this form, she started to fly away and watched the sun slowly descending.
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Surrounded, the group of ‘fugitives’ looked at the soldiers.
“Think that we can take them?” Kevin nervously asked the others, all five of them obviously having sweat drop from the back of their heads.
“It won’t matter…” a general on one side of the room muttered slowly. Shockingly, the soldiers from that side started shooting at the other side and not hitting the group of good guys. The general and another soldier pulled all five of them to their side as a large quarrel started between the two sides. Pride was simply watching and allowing the bullets to easily bypass him because any bullets that went his way were deflected by another bullet.
“Don’t worry, everyone knows about Pride. The other side is only safe to the state because they are unaware or unsure about what to side on.” the general told them. His hat was pulled off and he showed to be Spud, his other soldier being Trixie.
“We still have to battle, though.” Raffi muttered and chuckled a little slyly. The ice from water she had on her arm was shot and two soldiers on the other side fell as she was able to control a few of the soldiers to drop their weapons, run into each other, and then slam into the wall before collapsing.
“Kevin, I’ve got an idea,” Jake told Kevin, “hold out your sword.” he pulled out his glistening blade and watched Jake blow fire all over it to make it a flaming sword, while Kevin could use his powers individually from his sword swings.
“Thanks, Jake!” he said with a grin, speeding out onto the fray. Ice was used to block bullets and he slashed at as many soldiers as he could once he got close enough. When he had gotten too close, Kevin put on a heavy, ice armor that was able to deflect all of the bullets going his way. No one could shoot him in the eye because anyone that close would have already gotten sliced by Kevin’s sword.
Florence was the craftiest in the battle. She was able to use her bombs to make smoke-screens, so that the people would fire at the smoke because they would think people are hiding there. This chance gives an opening, so this is when Florence is able to shoot her arrows at the people who are shooting the smoke.
The most damage must have gone to Toph because of her ease to shoot people with rocks from distances and then run up to them and simply destroy them in a rocky finish. Jake stayed in the back and shot fireballs/shot fire from his breath on the soldiers.
“This would be the best time for you to leave and see if Ash got that information.” Jake told his two friends while flinging two fireballs into the battle. Spud and Trixie nodded before leaving and getting their hats back on.
Walking through the streets of the magical place, Spud and Trixie finally caught up with Ash, who was sitting on a bench, out of breath. They took off their military hats so that they didn’t look like enemies.
“Ash, we found Shade and we told him where we were going to meet him, do you have the notes?” Trixie asked before Spud said anything. Ash nodded and pulled out the note as quickly as she could, which wasn’t that long, surprisingly because she was still out of breath.
“Are you okay staying here?” wondered Spud, in case the people after her were nearby.
“Nah… I think… I stopped them… after crushing them… under some bricks… then I ran… a lot…” Ash panted and let out a little, evil grin. Spud and Trixie exchanged glances and shrugged before leaving.
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Shade was sneaking on the side of a building and looked past a wall he was sliding on. He noticed that there were many soldiers, so he had no choice but to fight his was through.
“Is this place all clear?” one soldier asked a different one. The other soldier seemed to struggle as he nodded in response, “Alright then…” he muttered curiously. Half of the soldiers were now gone. The only reason the soldier nodded was because Shade had controlled him and now decided to come out and attack them after a little bit of waiting.
“Hey there!” called out Shade, getting all of the soldier’s attention. He laughed a little and waved his hands about a little, making ice shoot out from the ground and covered a few of the men in the ice and stuck in place.
“Get him, he’s wanted for a lot of money!” a soldier called out. They all pulled out various sharp weapons, such as daggers and spears. Shade chuckled a little and shoot both arms behind him. Water that was moisture in the air formed and he whipped them at the soldiers when he could. Once he had to freeze the water and use it like throwing knives, Shade stole the water from a few bushes and attacked many soldiers, causing them to fall as he froze them on the spot.
“We can still get him!” there was still a generally good sum of men remaining to capture Shade. A second chuckle escaped his lips and he took a side-step before unleashing his penultimate attack. He blew cold air all around him and solidified it into a more snow-like substance. Surprisingly, each attack was very powerful and dealt a large blow.
“Just a few more left…” Shade whispered to himself. He decided to turn into his dragon form and started scratching at a few of the soldiers. Shade was also able to increase the speed of his flight by freezing his wings and controlling them so quickly, that when he rammed into people, they flew quite far. The last man went down and Shade unfroze his wings. With no time to spare, Shade flew off and away.
Now, Shade was in an alley that had no people around. He pushed open the large church doors of the building that was now in front of him and he saw Spud and Trixie boredly waiting for him to arrive.
“Ah, there you are!” Trixie said and they both got to their feet as Shade walked over to them. They pulled out the note Ash gave them and handed it to Shade.
“It’s part of a journal from Kabuto’s father, explaining everything that you need to know now.” explained Spud. Shade opened it up and read it silently, gasping after he read it.
(A/N: Remember that Shade still doesn’t know Kabuto is dead and everyone’s still trying to keep it a secret.)“And you’d better leave, now.” quickly added Trixie, walking to the main area of the church and waiting for Spud and Shade to come over. Placing his hands on the large statue, Shade focused and encased it in ice. After, he controlled it to shatter into multiple pieces that slowly melted.
“I… I guess I’ll see you all later.” Shade told his two friends, forcing a smile that quickly went away when he turned back to the tunnel that was now apparent once the statue was gone. Without any second thought, Shade slowly entered the dark passageway that was now ahead of him. Spud and Trixie quickly ran over and watched him.
“Just come back… Just come back alive!” yelled Spud as he and Trixie watched the figure of Shade until it was gone. After walking through a scene with water and stone statues broken and messed up, Shade went down more and more stairs. Once he had finally gotten to the bottom, he saw a horrific sight: a place that looked just like the Magus Bazaar, only with an older look.
“I can’t believe it… they were all sacrificed for the green crystal, and once their lives had been used up, the whole city was buried underground with an immense power…” whispered Shade to himself a little, “Only monsters could come up with a plan like that…”
Shade’s expression quickly turned to anger, “Are you in here, grandpa!? You did this, didn’t you; you planned the whole thing! Tell me!!” he called out with his voice echoing through the ghost town.
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The echo of Shade’s yell rang through Elaine’s ears. She was sitting on a couch with her baby brother, but her eyes seemed very different. Her pupils were dilated and huge. Gluttony, with a mumbling and sad tone, walked toward Elaine and sniffed her.
“No, Gluttony, you’ve had lunch.” an eerie voice told the homunculus. Dante, being the one who told him, walked into the area as Gluttony whimpered and ran off. After a little walking, Dante sat down next to Elaine, with a little smile as she looked at her, “Why must I always remind him that you’re too important to eat?” Elaine sat still and it was clear that she was hypnotized.
“Exquisite…” Dante murmured as she brushed her hand across the ends of Elaine’s hair and looking at her facial features, “No wonder Shade loves you so much. He does, you know, and you love him, too.”
“Will someone tell me what happened to my Lust?” complained Gluttony as he started to shake a table and the candle on it fell off.
“I don’t know, maybe she’s lost.” suggested Dante to her creation. She turned back to Elaine, “Now we must make sure to wear our finest dresses, I want everything to be perfect for him.” A knock came from a door.
“He’s here.” Envy’s voice said. This caused Dante to get a sly smile on her face.
“My, my, sooner than I thought.” she walked with Envy into a new room and saw Wrath speeding out from a door, “What now?” Wrath was sobbing and crying and ran into Envy’s chest.
“Get off of me!” groaned Envy to the other homunculus.
“What is he doing here; I clearly told you I wanted Wrath to keep track of Shade.” Dante told Envy with a serious look on her face.
“It’s not my fault that he can’t follow orders.” Envy muttered with an odd grin on his face.
“Please, master, I need the crystal now!” whined Wrath as he rocked Envy back and forth.
“Wrath, if you can’t behave properly then you’ll have to remain a homunculus.” Dante explained to Wrath with a smile on her face that faded when Wrath said another statement.
“There’s no time! My mommy, mommy’s gonna die!” Envy’s arm was blocking the crying Wrath who was still struggling.
“Mommy?” wondered the master with a puzzled face.
“I don’t know, I think he’s talking about Sloth.” answered Envy as she pushed Wrath off of him with his arm.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Sloth isn’t your mother. Homunculi do not have mothers, understood?” but after Dante said this, Wrath shot up again and cried out more.
“No, please, I need it to revive her!”
“You’re not a human, Wrath, stop acting like one!” Dante told Wrath, now with an angered tone.
“Mommy, mommy!...” Wrath continued to cry out, causing Dante to lose patience. She let out an annoyed sigh.
“Envy?” she asked, making Envy push Wrath vigorously forward and he walked close to Wrath when he got up, kicking him when Wrath ran over to him.
“Please!” Wrath called out one more time. After smacking a door, Wrath was about to fuse his arm with something on the floor, but let out a yelp when Envy stood on Wrath’s arm. Dante simply watched while Envy continued to beat up Wrath.
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“We can make it out of here if we can get past the door Pride is guarding.” Kevin explained to the little group. They were behind a rock slab to avoid being in the line of fire. But they turned and saw the Pride was done and the door was very slightly open.
“He’s trying to escape!” Toph called out. She could still feel his vibrations in the building. Kevin, Toph, Jake, and Raffi ran out of the door Pride had tried to escape from, Kevin leading the way.
“Is he nearby?” Jake asked as they were running through the one hall.
“Yes, he’s on the left of us in the hall and past the door when you keep going straight.” Toph explained as they turned left at the point Toph told them about. Being close to the door, everyone got a weapon or attack ready.
“There’s a huge lock on it!” Kevin called out when they got to the door and stopped.
“I’m on it!” Jake answered, raising one of his hands and made a small fireball. He chucked it at the door and it slowly singed on the metal door, but Jake made everyone step back when he controlled the fire to expand and explode the door. They all ran through and made it into an outside room, a large courtyard with only the tile as a path and grass. The courtyard was very, very large.
“Give up, we know that you’re a homunculus!” Raffi challenged to Pride.
“And you’re outnumbered, we can beat you easily.” Kevin glared at the homunculus and aimed his sword at him. Pride let out a little chuckle at them and took off his eye patch, revealing his homunculus tattoo on his right eye.
“I have the Ultimate Eye, I could defeat you all if I wanted to… but I’d rather watch your downfall.” Pride said with an evil look on his face, “There are a few people looking for you…” he moves his right hand up and from the buildings around them, Lai Di agents surrounded the place, but only four went down. Pride took a few steps back, as the fight would start soon.
“This is going to be harder than I though…” Jake muttered, turning into his dragon form. Everyone else got into a tough battle stance.
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