Fiery Divergence (32.5% Complete) [Book 5]

[Maikeru D. Shinigami]

Only takuya will really be able to understand everything that's going on.


Chapter 1

Time Skipping

You don't need this chapter.

[Maikeru D. Shinigami]

Chapter 2

Ready For War

Not needed.

[Maikeru D. Shinigami]

Chapter 3

Seven Princes

Not needed.

[Maikeru D. Shinigami]

Chapter 4

Pollutant Plains

Not needed.

[Maikeru D. Shinigami]

Chapter 5

Marie’s Demons

Not needed.

[Maikeru D. Shinigami]

Chapter 6

Perception Town

Not needed.

[Maikeru D. Shinigami]

Chapter 7

Battle For The Lucifer Blade

Not needed.

[Maikeru D. Shinigami]

Chapter 8

Treasury Mines

With their defeat, the group had been separated from each other, for the most part. The dark balls they were sucked into were portals sending them to various locations in the second level of Hell; the level of Greed, headed by the prince Mammon. A few of them were sent to locations where they were on their own, but most of them were sent to areas where they formed pairs. The first two, Silyn and Patrick fell from balls of darkness onto a rock ledge. Patrick had arrived about a minute before Silyn, but he had decided to sit on the ledge to think to himself. When he saw Silyn fall flat onto the ledge he exclaimed in surprise, “Silyn, wow, even you couldn’t beat him?”

Silyn pushed off the ground to stand up to his feet and then brushed the dust off of his clothes. He then looked to Patrick and answered, “That man is much stronger than I thought he would be. The only one left when I was defeated was Alatar.”

“Even Morpheous was beaten? That’s hard to believe. It seems like we really have a lot to think about. If we continue the way we’ve been going, we won’t stand a chance.”

Silyn nodded and looked around at the environment, “Well this is quite the massive place, isn’t it?”

Patrick hadn’t really taken the time to check out the scenery until that point. When he saw his surroundings though he was in awe, “It’s enormous.”

Enormous may have been an understatement too. They stood alongside a five foot wide rock ledge which ran alongside a rock wall, which seemed to go up in about an eighty degree angle. Though with certain areas of rock that erected, it was completely eighty degrees. Looking to their left and right, they could see openings in the rock wall which seemed to lead into mines. There were wooden posts running along the inside of the openings.

The openings were probably around ten feet in height and five feet in width. Looking down, they could see that the rock wall continued down making them feel as though they were on a mountain. All throughout the area though, there were more ledges and openings which led into more mines. Across the way, they could see that the other side looked mainly the same. There were a few different angles on the walls and the ledges and openings weren’t in the same spots exactly, but it took the same appearance either way. Between the two enormous mountain-like structures there was an abyss which they could not see the bottom of.

They could see the roof of the area though which was rocky and had dripping stalactites hanging from it. Across the abyss there were several wooden bridges connecting mines from either side to each other. None were near them however. All in all, the area encompassed an area of around ten miles in height while the abyss was around half a mile across. At that point, they had no idea how much more there was within the mines of the seven level of Hell, known as the Treasury Mines.

Patrick looked to Silyn after admiring the scenery. Silyn was still observing the area when Patrick looked toward him. He seemed to be looking closely at every little detail, trying to see if there was something important somewhere. After a few more moments though, he was done looking and turned to Patrick. As he did, he noticed Patrick staring at him and spoke, “Why are you staring at me?”

“Sorry, I was just wondering what you were looking at.”

“Oh, it’s nothing. I thought there might be something around here for us to notice. I didn’t see anything however. We should get a move on.”

Patrick gave Silyn a nod and then followed him as they walked toward the opening to their left.




Elsewhere in the mines, Yulena had fallen out of a sphere of darkness into a cave. The cave was simply rounded with tunnels leading to various areas, four in total. She fell right beside Phillip who was still getting up to his feet as she did.

When Phillip saw her, he made a somewhat sarcastic comment, “So, I see you had a fun ride too.”

“If you want to call it that, sure. It was a bit of a rough ride too though. Man, my chest hurts.”

“Did that bastard drop you on your breasts? If he messed those babies up I’ll kick his ass.”

“Phillip, did you land on your head?”

“Oh, no I didn’t. My apologies, I guess I may have grown to have a desire to flirt after not really being around many girls these past five years.”

She sighed. “Well, I guess I’m okay with it then, but keep your hands to yourself. I already told you back then that we’ll never happen and my decision is still the same.”

“Whoa whoa! Don’t worry I got the message. Anyways, where are we?”

“Well, this may be a bit of stretch, but I would say we are in a cave and that those four paths lead to four different areas.”

“Geeze, I see you’ve become a bit of a smartass since we last spoke.”

“And you haven’t become a bit more of a pervert?”

“Touché Yulena, touché.”

She laughed. “I have to admit you still make me laugh just as much as you used to. At least that part about you has remained the same. You aren’t a total deviant.”

“Hmm, well I can agree with you that I’ve stayed the same there, but you may be a bit mistaken still. I am a bit of a deviant.”

“Phillip, you really are a bit of a show off aren’t you?”

“I guess you could say that. I like the attention.”

“I can see that.”

He nodded. “So anyways, now that we’ve caught up a bit, I think it’s time to continue on. We only have so much time to find our way around here after all.”

“True. Well, which direction should we go?”

Phillip looked around at each of the tunnels and tried to think of the best way to decide. There was nothing special about any of them though. After a few moments of deliberation and a few more to learn that Yulena didn’t have a preference, he gave a shrug. The two of them walked toward the tunnel closest to them and went on.




In another level of Hell, level five to be exact, there was a man who stood in a room shrouded primarily by darkness. There was what seemed to be a spotlight shooting down at an organ which the man was walking toward. As he walked, he seemed to be in a state of boredom.

The man stood around six-foot-six inches in height with massive muscles. His eyes, which had been red a few years before had turned gold since he changed the color of his contacts. He was wearing a white vest along which had a golden cross design on the left side. He wore a golden earing in his left ear and his head was completely bald over which he wore a golden fedora. Over his legs, he wore a pair of white leather pants with black stripes down the side along with a pair of golden dress shoes. On his left wrist he also wore a golden watch. Across his back, he wielded a large golden cross with a clock in the middle. He was the man known as Daniel Able.

As Daniel walked up to the piano, he talked to himself, “Why have I been stuck in here? I wanted so badly to be venturing through Hell right now. I wanted to be searching for enemies from both sides so that I could eliminate them. I have become God’s chosen prophet. It is my job to make sure the world turns out right.”

Daniel gave a sigh as he took a seat at the organ in the center of the room. He opened the covering which had been covering the keys and began to play. His skills on the organ were magnificent. The melody he played was lovely and when he sang it only became lovelier.

Dear God my master, I thank you for your love.
Though I’m not worry, I seek the land above.
I’ll venture this wasteland singing your name.
Delivering your most holy message, I’ll end this game.

My heart which was once black as night has found the light.
Thanks to your holy grace which shines so bright.
I’ll sing this hymn and hope that you hear.
For my heart belongs to you, I feel you are near.
Though many challenges I’ve yet to face, I know who I am.
I am your chosen one and if I’m not, may I be damned.
For I’ll sacrifice my life to pass on your spirit.
With this I testify, lend me the strength to properly fit.

My task is to accomplish the wish of your soul.
Allow me Lord, to fill this role.

Daniel would continue his singing for some time as he sat solitarily in that room.




Back up on the second level, Darla fell out of another sphere of darkness onto mostly enclosed cave area. The area only had tracks for a mine cart off to the side, running along a wall. The tracks seemed to come down from above like a roller coaster. They continued across the other side where the tunnel was lit by fire further down the track. As Darla landed on her feet, Bigan looked to her, leaning as he sat in a thinking position.

Bigan greeted her, “Well, it’s nice to see that the sphere was kind of to throw you down on your feet. I wish I could say that it did the same for me. It would be asking too much I guess to not be thrown on my ass.”

Darla couldn’t help but laugh. “Sorry Bigan, if it makes you feel any better I wasn’t the one who decided how you would land.”

“Yeah yeah, I know. It’s just a bother to fall like that, you know?”

“No, I can’t say that I do. As you just saw, I didn’t land on my ass.”

“Are we seriously having a conversation about the way we landed?”

She sighed. “You were the one who brought it up. I’m not exactly thrilled that the subject of asses came up myself.”

“Fair enough. So, what happened after I was beaten?”

“I didn’t last too much longer than you, but the others were meeting the same fate as us left and right. It was really quite insane. No matter what moves we tried to use on Abraham, he just continued to find ways around us.”

He sighed. “I see, well that is certainly uncomforting.”

“You can say that again. I thought that the last five years were supposed to give us a better chance against. We seem just as hopeless as ever though.”

“Actually, we aren’t quite as hopeless as you think we are. I happen to know for a fact that my son has something planned for the next time we meet Abraham.”

“Right now I’m just hoping that we get the chance to meet Abraham again. Don’t forget we still have other people to deal with. There’s no guarantee that your son will even make it to the final level alive.”

“Don’t say anything like that,” Bigan exclaimed, “My son knows what he’s doing. He understands how important his task is and that’s why he will make it to the end to see Abraham. Yes, Troy will definitely break the curse.”

“Well, I sure hope so. I know without breaking that curse, we’re pretty helpless. If he does succeed though, that will definitely help things out.”

“He will. So, what do you think is at the end of the tracks?”

“No idea. It just looks like light from a fire to me. Maybe there are goblins. We are in mines after all.”

With those words, a mine cart rolled down from above on the tracks in front of them. At that moment they felt like they were at a subway station as the cart stopped in front of them.

“Well, that’s convenient,” Darla commented.

“Let’s try it out.”

Darla gave him a nod and they both squeezed into the cart. After they took their seats, the mine cart rushed along the track toward the light.




On another ledge alongside the rock mountain, Morpheous fell out of another sphere of darkness, landing on his back. After he landed, he slowly pushed himself up to his feet and looked around to see the same sight that Patrick and Silyn saw. Though, with a large rock formation to his right, he couldn’t see them, nor could they see him.

“Great. This is just how I wanted to spend my day, stuck in some giant mines with no one in sight. Yeah right! Where’s the action Abraham? You’re a bit of a pansy to just get rid of us like that. I’m disappointed.”

Morpheous stood there for a few minutes, leaning on the rock wall, as he looked over the area closely. He didn’t see anything, so he just sighed in boredom as he walked forward and sat down on the edge of the ledge. After taking his seat, he pressed the top of the plasma filled globe on his chest. As he pressed it, a compartment opened up just about his left hip from his armor. Morpheous stuck his hand in and pulled out a pair of marbles.

“Let’s see what other people are up to.”

Morpheous looked at two marbles which had red dots on them. They both pointed upward, behind him and to the right. For some reason, that gave him a bit of a grin, though his words wouldn’t suggest he was especially happy.

“Man, why does everyone else get to have the fun? I want to fight someone already too. Yet, Cornelius gets to face that boss Beelzebub and he must be surprised on who that boss actually is. Gosh! I’m so bored. Though, maybe I should take this time to plan out how I’m going to do this.”

Morpheous sat there for a few more minutes as he continued to stare at the marbles. He didn’t look like he was actually interesting in though. It looked more like he was just staring in their direction while his mind was off in space.

“Alright, I know what I’ll do. I’ll just sit back and wait for them to finish. I can work on attacking my enemies when they are weak for now. Though I guess I can’t pass up the opportunity if I run into any of them either.”

Morpheous pulled out about ten more marbles and looked into them. They were all pointing in various directions. A few of them pointed to different areas on the second level, while another pointed upward. There were also a few which pointed downward.

“Well, I guess that settles it. I could go looking for people here, but I don’t feel like looking through a maze to find someone. I’ll just let them come to me.”

After speaking those words, Morpheous stuck the marbles back in his compartment which closed behind them. He then jumped downward into the abyss, falling quickly. He spread his arms out to feel the breeze as he fell. As he approached a bridge, he sprouted black wings and flew around the bridge before continuing downward.




Further down, on level four of Hell, Shannon walked through a large black gate designed as a gargoyle. She walked out of an opening which led down a slope behind her. As she walked away from it, she passed between glowing black rocks on either side. The area was lit by torches which hung beside the gate she had entered from. Aside from that, there was mostly just darkness in front of her, though the sounds of water could be heard. As she approached closer, she could see the ripples of the waves more clearly.

She was approaching a river which seemed to slalom randomly around the area for miles. The river itself was around forty feet in width, which was only about a third of the size of the platform she stood on. The water was covered by steam, though she could still see the most unusual feature of the river. There was nothing along the sides of the river, so it simply flowed downward into the abyss on the sides.

Shannon stepped on the water with her right leg and continued walking forward as ghostly figures began to emerge from the waves. They made haunting sounds as they spoke things like, “Kill”, “Eat” and “Bang”.

“Shut up souls,” Shannon said to them, “Go back to swimming.”

The souls heard her, but instead of doing as she said, they emerged further from the water to walk upon it as well.

One of them spoke to her, “No, we eat you now.”

“Man, you guys are annoying. I don’t understand how Charon can put up with you.”

As if on cue, another figure emerged from the ground. It was what appeared to be a hunch back man with a cane who was wearing a black trench coat. He was bent in such a way that Shannon couldn’t see his face, though she knew who he was.

“Charon, will you please tell your little prisoners here to leave me alone.”

“What are you doing on my level Shannon? I didn’t send you an invitation to come here today.”

“I didn’t send you an invitation to come here today,” she mocked him, “Honestly Charon, you should know by now that I do what I want to do when I want to do it.”

“Yes, I am aware of that. What are you doing here though? Didn’t Abraham ask you to stay on the fifth level?”

“Yeah, but that’s so lame. I’d have much more fun going out and finding my prey for myself.”

He sighed. “Very well then, go on ahead. Don’t come crying to me when you start getting attacked by the damned though.”

“Please, those poor bastards can’t even touch me.”

“Well, then have fun.”

Charon sunk into the water as Shannon continued forward. A few of the souls attacked her, but they simply were cut to ribbons by an unseen force before they could reach her. Shannon placed her hand on her forehead in disappointment, “As if I would have trouble with these weaklings.”




On the second level once more, Alatar fell on a wooden bridge beside Eric. The bridge rocked back and forth, knocking Eric over the ropes. Eric grabbed onto the ropes before he could fall though. Alatar got to his feet quickly and grabbed Eric’s hands, pulling him back onto the bridge.

“Sorry about that,” Alatar apologized.

“It’s fine. There’s no way you could have meant for that to happen. Wait, what are you doing here?”

“It would seem as though I was trapped in one of Abraham’s portals of darkness and sent here to the same area you were.”

“Wait, Abraham got you too? Holy shit, what the hell! I mean, I could have expected other people to have been beaten. How did he manage to beat you though? That’s insane.”

“Well, he didn’t beat me by the strictest definition of the word ‘beat’. Nah, instead he sent me to you. Though, that is obvious by now.”

Eric laughed softly. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

“Yes, it appears as though he has given us a shortcut to the second level. I guess there was nothing else for us to see on the first level.”

“Either that or he didn’t want us to keep our hands on the Lucifer Blade.”

“Yeah, that actually sounds more likely now that you mention it. Eric, you’re a pretty smart guy. I wonder if anyone ever tells you that.”

“Sometimes sure, but it means a lot more coming from the leader of the Magic Council of course.”

“Yes, indeed it does. My words hold much more meaning than anyone else’s.”

“Alright now Alatar, don’t go getting cocky on me now.”

“Cocky? What do you mean cocky? There’s a big difference between me and cocky people. The difference is that I actually am better than everyone else. Enough of that though. Please tell me you have some sake.”

“No, I can’t say that I do.”

“I have sake,” another figure spoke, handing Alatar a bottle of sake.

Alatar took the bottle, “Thank you small green midget man with club.”

“Not a problem. Now if you would kindly pay the fee for the sake and for crossing the bridge you can be on your way.”

“Fee? What fee?” Eric asked.

“For walking across the bridge, it’ll cost you fifty Hell coins. For the sake it will cost you 100 more Hell coins.”

“What does that come out to in dollars?”

“What are dollars?”

“Never mind him,” Alatar said to the green goblin as he finished his sake.

“Fine, you were the one who drunk the sake anyways. Hand over the coin.”

“Okay, now let’s say hypothetically that we don’t actually have coin to give you. What do we do then?”

“You can spend twelve hours with us in the mines, mining for jewels to give to our master.”

Alatar nodded and Eric exclaimed, “You aren’t actually thinking of accepting are you Alatar?”

“Eric, he gave me sake. You can’t put a price on sake.”

Eric sighed. “I swear sometimes you make me wonder if you’re actually sane.”

“Lead us to the mines!”

“Follow me,” the green goblin demanded as he walked across the bridge toward a cave opening. As soon as he turned his back, Eric rushed forward and pushed him over the rope. The goblin fell into the abyss as he screamed, “Curse you humans!”

With the sound of the scream, a group of goblins rushed through the cave entrance, angry, with their clubs held high. They ran forward at Eric and Alatar.

Eric asked, “So, what’s the plan Alatar?”

“We shall correct this misunderstanding and help them with their mining!”

“What misunderstanding?”

“The one where you accidently tripped on the bridge and fell into the nice goblin that was with us.”

“That wasn’t a misunderstanding, I did that on purpose.”

“Riiiiight, sure you did.”

Eric sighed. “Just run.”

Eric ran away from the goblins across the bridge as Alatar rushed after him, “Come back Eric. We can’t steal from them.”

Eric didn’t stop though, he just kept running as Alatar chased behind him and the goblins chased Alatar. After Eric and Alatar rushed into the cave at the end of the bridge, a large man with black wings, smashed through the end of the bridge closest to Alatar and Eric. The bridge snapped and fell downwards, as the goblins fell into the abyss. Morpheous laughed as he continued flying down.




Back on level five, a man in a black chainmail suit walked through the rocky tunnels with the Lucifer Blade in his hand. He continuously walked up to areas where he was given pathways to choose from. Though, having been a resident of Hell for a long time, he knew his way around. As he reached an opening where he could see several pathways all around, he stabbed the sword in the ground and took off the chainmail mask. It wasn’t Abraham though; the person who had carried the Lucifer Blade was Edward.

Edward stroked the blade, “It’s been a while since we’ve seen you now hasn’t it? You must have gotten upset so many times being with that small fry Johnny.”

The blade caught fire on its hilt as if to give Edward a response. Edward gave a grin when he saw it.

“You know, I was thinking of taking you to Abraham, but now I’m not so sure that I want to. I mean, imagine me with the strongest sword in existence. It’s obvious that anyone can use you, so perhaps it would be more fun to keep you to myself.”

Again, the blade caught fire. Edward watched the blade closely and laughed.

“Yes, it’s nice to hear that you’re onboard. Well then, why don’t we continue on to my chamber? I really want to change out of this chainmail. I seriously hate the way it feels.”

The sword caught fire on the hilt once more, giving Edward its response. Edward grinned as he waited for the sword to set out its fire. After it did, Edward grabbed the blade and walked down a path immediately in front of him and to his left. As he walked down the path, he cut into the wall of the tunnel on his right side. In doing so, the wall caught fire and the hole opened up revealing an area behind the wall covered in ankle high in water. Edward stepped through the hole and into the room.




Once again on level two, another person fell out of a sphere of darkness. He fell into a pile of gold in cave with several tunnels around, all of which had wooden posts lining their openings. It was Jarvis. The sound of the gold being hit, attracted the attention of someone as Jarvis heard a voice say, “Hey what was that?”

Jarvis buried himself beneath the gold as best he could, hoping that whoever was around wouldn’t see him. Moments later, a group of figures with torches rushed into the area looking around. They appeared as upright standing salamanders, in total they were around twenty. Another one of them spoke, “I know I heard something in here. Check the gold.”

Jarvis tensed up with those words as he knew there was nowhere for him to run. So, instead of running he jumped out of the gold and ran toward the creatures. He jumped forward, attempting to punch one of them in the face. The humanoid salamander just leaned backwards to avoid the attack, landing his palms on the ground as he did.

He then used his hands to flip himself around and kick at the back of Jarvis’ head. Jarvis jumped out of the way just in time though. With that though, the salamander flipped his body around again, landing his palms on the ground and then pushing off, attempting to kick Jarvis once again. Jarvis rolled to the side of the attack to avoid it as even more salamander men rushed into the area with torches.

The salamanders all threw their torches into their mouths and swallowed them. When they did so, their bodies began to glow orange and Jarvis’ eyes went wide. The salamanders all puffed up and then blew fire out of their mouths at Jarvis. Jarvis rolled underneath the majority of the attacks, but the attacks caught the back of his lab coat on fire. Jarvis pulled out a small bottle and poured some sort of chemical on the fire which put out the fire instantly.

Jarvis then punched upward, hitting one of the salamanders in the stomach, causing the salamander to lose control of his fire. His body swelled up and he caught fire. The salamanders became angry at that point and all began to flip around wildly. One after another they used their acrobatics skills, attempting to land kicks and punched on Jarvis. Jarvis held up as long as he could, holding off the attacks.

He would avoid the attacks very well at the start, and even managed to hit a few of them, causing them to combust. However, in the end, the numbers were just too many. As soon as one salamander kicked him the face, the rest of them landed their attacked as well. After being knocked around for about twenty seconds, the salamanders stopped. Two of the salamanders grabbed Jarvis’ arms and wrapped them around their shoulders. Jarvis looked forward out of breath, “Please let me go.”

“No, we’re taking you to our master Mammon.”

The salamander man punched Jarvis in the face, knocking him out. They then carried Jarvis out of the cave and through the mines on their way to Mammon’s lair.




Clear across the second level, Kevin would meet another member of the group as he walked down a mine cart track. Out of a sphere of darkness, Vazor fell to the ground in front of him. Kevin rushed up to him, and patted his head, “Are you okay buddy?”

Vazor licked Kevin’s hand and stood up to his feet before rubbing his head against Kevin’s face.

Kevin laughed, “I guess you are alright then. That’s good. If you’re here though, what happened to Alatar?”

Vazor made a frown with his face and nodded his head side to side to show that he either didn’t know or that Alatar was in trouble. Kevin took both possibilities into consideration and sighed.

“Don’t worry Vazor, Alatar will be fine. He’s the strongest mage I’ve ever met and he can’t die. So, you’ll definitely see him again.”

Vazor made a smile and licked Kevin’s cheek.

“Geeze, you sure are being friendly today Vazor.”

Vazor nodded his head up and down before he looked down the path that Kevin had been walking toward. There was nothing special about it. They were just in a tunnel, and a little ways in front of them, it curved to the right.

“I don’t know where it goes either. I figured I would just follow it and see where it takes me. Since we’re both here now though, why don’t we both check it out? We don’t really have much of a choice.”

Vazor nodded his head and began walking down the path as Kevin walked behind him.

“Vazor, I haven’t told you this before today, but you’re a really awesome pet. You’re so loyal to your master and you are badass as all hell. Alatar is really lucky to have been able to tame a veloci raptor. I will definitely return you to Alatar.”

Vazor looked back with a happy expression and continued walking down the path as Kevin followed closely behind.




Finally, in another area of level two, Troy fell out of his sphere of darkness into a somewhat open area. As he pushed himself up to his feet he could see to his left that there was a long wall leading to a roof at least two hundred feet above. He looked down the wall to see that there were tunnels at the end of either side. The strange part of the area was to his right though. Looking up, he could see that there was a crevasse in the ceiling. From the crevasse, lava flowed down from above into a stream below. The stream ran through the walls and off to an area that Troy could see.

There was a six foot wide area of the crevasse where no lava fell through though which intrigued Troy greatly. He walked through the area across a small bridge of rock that led across the stream of lava.

After doing so, he could see that the area led to a large opening surrounded by rock. Well off in front of himself, Troy could see a rock ledge that extended from the floor. The ledge was straight and extended over another large opening. The opening was circular in size, as was the shape of the rock as the end of the ledge.

Troy walked forward and onto the ledge as he looked around. All he could see at first was the rock walls all around. After he looked down though, he realized that the ledge extended over a lake of lava which had lava flowing into it from what appeared to be sewage pipes. He stared in awe, but he wouldn’t be admiring it very long.

Seconds after he noticed the lake of lava below him, something made a clean cut right through the rock behind him. It cut off the circular area of the ledge dropping both the ledge and himself downward. Troy fell to his knee and began to write as the circular platform of rock fell into the lava forty feet below. Troy finished his sentence though he did fall onto the platform face first as he landed. Luckily for him, the lava didn’t splash.

“It seems that you’ve gotten better with your powers since the last time we saw each other,” a familiar voice said to him.

Troy stood up to his feet as he noticed the area better after doing so. He was standing on a platform of rock as he floated down the lake of lava. All around, there were other platforms of rock which flowed with the lava as well. They seemed to be coming through an opening in the bottom of the wall behind him where some lava was flowing into the lake. The area wasn’t circular though which Troy found odd since that was the shape of the area he fell from.

He then realized why though. The lava lake was larger than the area he fell from, as he noticed not far in front of himself the ceiling was fairly low. It was only about ten feet above the lava and there were stalactites in parts which seemed to poke down to between three and five feet over the lava.

“Hello, did you hear me?” the voice asked.

At that moment, Troy noticed the voice and cringed. Standing about twenty feet in front of him flowing down the lava lake on a platform of rock was a man whom he had known his entire life, literally.

“Keon!”

[Maikeru D. Shinigami]

Chapter 9

Recovered Sister

Marie was ready to begin her challenge. After having thought long and hard about her own sins, she realized that she was ready to atone for them. To do that though, she would have to face her sister in one on one combat. However, unless she could fully harness her powers of virtue, there was no guarantee that she would even survive. Kiora pointed her left hand forward shooting forth a flurry of nails at her sister.

Marie stepped backwards and kicked her foot forward. When she did, a gust of wind rushed forward beneath the nails before arching upwards and knocking the nails into the sky. Kiora kicked off the ground, rushing toward Marie with her wooden staff in hand. When she reached Marie, she swung the staff at Marie. Marie bent back under the attack and punched Kiora in the chest with her left hand.

Kiora flew into the air as Marie pushed off the ground, flying into the air at Kiora. She conjured up a whip of what appeared to be made of small particles. She swung the whip at Kiora, but Kiora noticed quickly and lifted her staff up to guard her body. When the supposed particles came within a few feet of her, they simply blew back down toward the ground. Marie dropped the end of the whip.

She continued flying upward toward Kiora however as she pulled her leg backward and kicked at Kiora’s chest. Kiora flipped forward in a somersault motion in midair to avoid the attack. As Marie flew by Kiora, Kiora swung her staff at her. Marie grabbed hold of the staff as quickly as she could. As she grabbed hold, the center of the staff eroded as if it were being eaten by termites.

Kiora tried to pull her staff away, but wasn’t quick enough. The other half of her staff began to fall toward the grab. Before it could fall too far though, Marie grabbed it. She swung the broken staff piece at Kiora, but Kiora blocked it with her own. Kiora then pointed her left palm at Marie, shooting forth ribbons at her. The ribbons grabbed around Marie’s body and Kiora swung her around before slamming her on the ground below.

Kiora then fell to the ground, pointing the broken end of her staff at the ground. She attempted to stab it through Marie’s body. Marie rolled to the side at the last second and quickly jumped up to her feet. After she got to her feet, she chopped through the ribbons with her hand and pulled her bow off of her back. One after another, she shot arrows at Kiora. Kiora flipped around to avoid them as best she could. She was able to avoid the first eleven, but the twelfth grazed her shoulder.

That didn’t matter though, because Kiora landed on her feet at the moment Marie stopped shooting. Kiora placed her hand on the ground, which caused the sand in front of her to lump up and form a boulder. Then pointed her free palm at the boulder and sent it rushing toward Marie. Marie jumped into the air and became parallel with the ground as her body pointed upward. She kicked the center of the sand boulder, sending it back at Kiora.

Kiora rolled away from the boulder along the ground as the boulder simply flew over her and into the nearby lake. Marie stood back and pulled out another three arrows, shooting them all at Kiora simultaneously. Kiora pushed off the ground and flew around ten feet into the air. The arrows landed in the sand below her as Kiora flipped in midair and pointed her left palm at Marie. She shot around fifteen nails at Marie in quick succession.

In response to her attack, Marie chopped her hand upward in front of herself. The chop created a wall of particles in front of her which rusted and ate through the nails in a matter of nanoseconds. Kiora landed on her feet and took the time while Marie was blocking her attack to shove the broken staff piece she had into the blowhole of her left palm. As it entered, her arm made sounds like a wood chipper.

A few seconds later, Kiora’s arm began to open up showing that her left arm was actually mechanical. Her arm turned from being an arm into being a metal club with wooden spikes erecting from it. From the wooden spikes, were several nails which poked out. It seemed to be attached to her arm, but that soon turned out to only sort of be the case. The club shot out of her arm and at Marie connected to the other half of her arm with black ribbons.

As the club flew forward, her arm closed back up, while the blowhole closed around the ribbons. Marie placed around twenty arrows on her bow at the same time and suddenly the entire form of the bow and arrows turned to metal. As the metal bow and arrows connected together, she pointed the arrowheads at the incoming club while holding on to the string portion. The club smashed into the new weapon, but Marie held on tight.

The arrows lodged into the club and managed to stop it. Kiora tried to pull back the club with her arm, but the arrows were lodged in the club pretty deeply. Marie slid back a couple inches, but kept her balance. She grabbed the area of the metal string on either side of the metal nocks. She quickly swung the weapon to the left pulling the club with it. With that, she slammed Kiora to the ground and dislodged the strange weapon from the club.

Kiora pushed herself up to her knees and spoke, “What the hell is that thing?”

“It’s something I can create with one of my new powers. After I learned how to control parasites, I decided to take my magical training a step further. Now I can alter the state of inanimate objects on a molecular level. With the power, I can change metal to wood, water to gas or cloth to blades.”

“Impressive, that must have taken quite a bit of training.”

“It did. You didn’t think I would just fail in my ultimate mission without finding something to use from the experience did you?”

“I should have known better than that. You’re still nothing without learning how to use those virtues though.”

“That’s why I’m going to learn how to use them in this battle. Then, I will take you away from Sinister Ambition for good.”

Kiora laughed. “You’re funny sis. Do you honestly still think you can ‘save’ me?”

“Well, it’s either I’m going to save you or I’m going to die by your hands. I can’t live without my sister.”

Marie could have sworn she saw a tear drop from one of Kiora’s eyes. When she looked again though, it appeared as though Kiora’s eyes were still dry. Upon hearing those words, Kiora thought to herself, She’s starting to unlock the powers of true virtue. Excellent. Now let’s see if she can use them and truly mean them.

“Marie, do you know how my arm turned out this way?”

“No, you’ve never told me the story.”

“I figured I hadn’t. Well, let me give you a brief explanation. About twelve years ago I was hired to go on a mission as an assassin by an unknown person. I later found out that the person who hired me was Morpheous Starsley. My job was to travel to the city of Glemhein, which is the Licharian version of Seattle. The task was simple. I was to eliminate a man known as Silyn Blackrider and the rest of his family.

“Yes, I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s the same Silyn Blackrider that is here in Hell today. When I arrived there, I was cut off by Arien Istar. She boldly asked me step off of her property because I wasn’t welcome there. I had something to do though. I wasn’t going to just let my prey get away from me, so we had a confrontation. Take a look at this.”

Another bubble fell down from the sky and floated between her and Marie. Marie looked curiously at the screen as she saw the image of what seemed to be a dirt road. On either side of the dirt road were woods. A younger Kiora stood in front of Arien Istar, who looked the same as she did the last time Marie had seen her. Kiora however was around half a foot shorter and had short brown hair. At the time, she had no blowhole in her hand.

Young Kiora was wearing a white shirt that was two sizes too big. It hung off the side of her left shoulder but managed to hang on. It revealed her red bra strap. She also wore a pair of blue jeans with black tennis shoes. In her right hand, she held her wooden staff. Over the left side of her hair, she held back part of her hair with a pink butterfly hair clip. She ran forward at Arien and swung her wooden staff at her.

Arien disappeared in a bolt of lightning and reappeared behind Kiora. She grabbed Kiora by the shoulder and squeezed. Kiora fell to her knees as she cringed in pain. Arien looked down at her and said to her, “If you promise to leave now I will let go.”

Kiora swung her wooden staff around, attempting to hit Arien in the side. Instead of avoiding the attack, Arien simply grabbed it with her free hand and squeezed Kiora’s shoulder harder.

“Please don’t try anything funny again. I have no desire to hurt you.”

“As if you could!”

Kiora kicked Arien in the shin, which caused Arien to lose her grip on both the staff and her shoulder. Kiora quickly jumped to her feet and jabbed her staff at Arien’s chest. Arien grabbed the staff with both of her hands before it could hit her. She then pulled the staff away from Kiora and smacked Kiora in the face with it. Kiora fell down to the ground as Arien walked up to her slowly.

Kiora wouldn’t give Arien a chance to talk again though. She punched the ground hard, causing the ground around Arien to shoot up around her. The ground enclosed around her, blocking her vision. Only Arien’s right arm hung out of the rock cone structure, holding Kiora’s staff. Kiora spun her hands around in a circular motion in front of herself and then jabbed them forward.

A force of wind shot toward the rock cone, crushing it completely. Kiora walked to the pile of rubble to where she could see the arm hanging out motionlessly. The staff rolled out of the hand as it opened up. Kiora went to grab the staff when she realized something disturbing. The arm wasn’t attached to a body. Moments later, Arien suddenly appeared behind her in a bolt of lightning and grabbed Kiora’s right arm.

“I warned you to go away.”

With those words, Arien released a bolt of lightning into Kiora’s left arm, causing it to go limp. Kiora screamed out in pain as the lighting burnt her skin. Arien looked at Kiora and sighed. She then began to walk away, leaving Kiora to fend for herself. She had done enough. She had no desire to hurt Kiora any further.

Kiora looked back at Arien and cried, “What did you do to me?”

“I told you to leave me alone and you didn’t listen. This is what happens when you do that. You have no one to blame but yourself.”

“I only did this because I was paid to do it though. You didn’t have to burn my arm.”

“You’re lucky that’s all I did. If you had met anyone else, they wouldn’t have been so merciful. Just be thankful you’re still alive.”

“Who’ll love me now? No one will care about me with this hideous arm.”

Arien sighed. “Take this as a life lesson girl. If a guy won’t like you for something stupid like the way you look, he’s not worth your time. If your friends are going to judge over something so stupid, I suggest you find new ones.”

“They only want me to look pretty because they care about me.”

“They couldn’t give two shits about you girl. I should know. I was in the same place you were for a while. Though, I didn’t realize for some time that there was a guy that admired me for who I was.”

Arien thought to herself, That’s not entirely true of course. Silyn and I were into each other the whole time, but maybe it’ll help this girl out.

“Just go away,” Kiora shouted, “I don’t want to see you ever again. Just go!”

“I shall. Just think about what I said. You may not realize it right now, but it’s the truth. I won’t tell my husband about this incident and if I ever see you again, it’ll be like it never happened. I’ll never bring it up to you again. If you forgive me at that time, you can show me that you do by never bringing up again too. I’m not proud of myself for hurting you.”

Kiora didn’t have another response. She simply turned her head away from Arien and got up to her feet. She wasn’t even going to think about chasing down Arien again though. Instead she simply walked away from her and down the dirt road.

I wonder who could have hired that innocent girl to kill us. We haven’t caused anyone any problems, Arien wondered.

With that, the bubble floated back into the air away from Kiora and Marie. Marie had one question for Kiora, “So, what happened to your arm after that?”

“Later that day, I ran into a woman by the name of Delilah Regine. She wasn’t yet a full-fledged member of the Council at the time, but Arien had told her about me. I didn’t find that out until recently, but she helped me. She had been working on an experiment to create a cyborg human. Since my arm was already useless, she asked if she could use me as a test subject. Naturally, I said yes.

“She knocked me out with anesthesia and amputated my arm. When I woke up three days later, I was amazed at how lovely my arm looked. It was as if it hadn’t been burnt at all. Delilah’s experiment was a success. It took me a while to fully get the hang of it, but it was nice to know that guys wouldn’t look at me with a face of disgust.”

“When did any guy ever look at you with a face of disgust though Kiora? As far as I’ve seen, every guy who’s seen you has fallen in love with your looks.”

Kiora laughed. “You’re right, but it took some time for me to understand that. Then once I started to understand, I started questioning what guys actually liked about me. Did they like the fact that I was beautiful or that I was Kiora? It became evident that they just liked my beauty. As I told guy after guy that I would not have sex with them, they all started go away one by one.”

“Truly a problem of these times; on both sides really. What about Kevin though? Didn’t he prove to you that he was different?”

“He did! He just got to me too late. I have already indulged in my sins and Kevin just isn’t enough motivation for me.”

“Why not?”

“It turns out that my greatest sin is not with lust. It’s with gluttony. Who would have thought that after seeing how flirtatious I was? It turns out that I have become so obsessed with being a tease but not actually getting involved with anyone that I can’t have a normal relationship anymore.”

“You don’t have to give up that easily. Just come back with us and we can work to help you fight against your sin.”

“You can’t help me Marie!” Kiora shouted, “You have your own things to deal with right now, don’t you? I’m not worth your time anymore.”

“But, Ki---“

“No buts,” Kiora interrupted, “Enough chatting, we were in the middle of something.”

Kiora grabbed the ribbon of her weapon with her right hand and swung it around at Marie. Marie ducked under the club. When she stood back up to her feet, she saw that Kiora was no longer in sight. Her pants, shoes and panties were lying on the ground. They were next to her mechanical arm with the club that was connected to it with the ribbons. Marie walked forward, looking around, waiting for Kiora to jump out from anywhere.

Well, Kiora jumped out, but not exactly from where Marie was expecting. Kiora, with one arm, in her bandage strapless bikini top jumped out of the water. Her lower body had turned into that of a large blue-green fin. She had become a mermaid. She floated just above the water and looked to her sister.

“Jump in Marie, the water’s fine.”

“Are you asking me to fight a mermaid in the water?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m asking.”

Marie took a deep breath and thought to herself. She knew that jumping in the water was suicide, but she had decided that wasn’t important to her. She didn’t care about winning. She just wanted to prove to her sister that Kiora didn’t belong with Sinister Ambition. And so, with that though, Marie walked up to the edge of the lake and dove in.

As she swum downward, she noticed that the size of the lake was massive. It had to be about two hundred feet deep. It had coral reef growing from the walls in a few areas, but was fairly barren other than that. She treaded underneath the water and looked forward to see that Kiora was swimming at her fast. Marie at that moment realized that she didn’t remember to bring her weapon with her.

Kiora slammed into Marie’s chest, sending her flying through the water. Marie slammed into the wall of one of the sides of the lake. Luckily, the wall wasn’t hard. It was mostly just mud, so it was even fairly soft. It still hurt a bit considering how hard she was hit though. Kiora swam quickly toward Marie again. With Marie actually having more than a second to thing that time, she was able to think of a counter.

She touched the wall behind her, turning a portion of it into a hard boulder. She pulled the boulder out of the wall and threw it at Kiora quickly. Kiora dove down just as the boulder was about to hit her. With her speed, she was able to avoid it as the rock harmlessly fell to the floor of the lake. It helped that they were underwater. Otherwise the boulder would have moved much quicker.

Marie was losing her breath, and losing it quickly. She hadn’t yet even awakened her spirit form, so she had no idea if it would even be helpful. She could only fall helplessly toward the ocean floor as her life flashed before her eyes. She could feel her life slipping away and was about to let the lake take her when she heard a voice. It spoke to her, telling her to forgive herself. Marie didn’t know how she could listen to that though.

Forgive myself? she laughed in her mind, I’ve already done that. I decided that I was over that when this battle started, she then stopped laughing at herself when she realized something, If I don’t find a way out of this, how will I ever apologize to them though? Nah, that’s selfish thinking. I’m doing this to get my sister back. Will she be able to see reason if I let the waters take me though? I trust my friends, I want to make sure that this happens.

At that moment, the water stopped affecting Marie. She didn’t understand completely what happened until she felt her neck. She had grown gills on her neck. Kiora noticed what had happened and seemed to have had a smile for a second.

“You’ve learned to use an S Rank Virtue,” Kiora said to her.

“Prudent Gils, how do I know the name of this technique?”

“It’s imprinted in your souls Marie. This is proof that you have the ability to use the virtues selflessly. I guess I should stop playing around now. It’s time to show you A Rank sins; Greedy Wave!”

As Kiora shouted that out, she absorbed water into her body, causing her muscles to grow fairly large. Not quite to the extent of a bodybuilder, but still definitely large. She swam forward at Marie and attempted to punch her in the chest. Marie went to take the punch, but when the punch landed, it had no effect. The water was sent flying upward in waves all around them, so she knew she hit Marie. She was confused.

Marie’s body had taken on light cyan color. She was no longer wearing a top, but although her breasts could be seen, she had no nipples.

“The Body of Courage!”

Kiora repeatedly punched Marie in the chest, causing tumultuous waves. It wasn’t having any effect on Marie though. After about twenty punches, Marie caught Kiora’s hand in her hand which had turned into light cyan colored webbed hands. Not just her hands had turned the light cyan color though, so had her arms. Kiora’s body lost all of the muscle it gained as she returned to her previous form.

“Webbed Hands of Restraint!”

Kiora pulled away from Marie and didn’t know what to do. If she was fighting anyone else, she would be able to use her sins with no problems. She didn’t feel those sins with her sister though. There was only two more that she could manage to use, and when she figured out which ones, she used the first one; Eyes of Pride.

Marie looked into Kiora’s eyes to see that they had started glowing red. The bright light that shone out caused her to cover her eyes. In that brief moment, Kiora smacked Marie in the legs with her tail. At that moment though, Marie’s legs also turned the same light cyan color as she also grew webbed feet. Like what happened when her body changed, she no longer wore the clothes she was wearing over her legs. Her form was exposed, but still nothing was revealed.

“Webbed Feet of Justice!”

“What? How can you be using justice at a time like this?”

“I’ve accepted the fact that you have the right to hit me because neither one of us is any better than the other.”

Kiora’s eyes turned back to their original color as she no longer was able to feel better than her sister. She still couldn’t accept what was happening though. She only had one more option. If it didn’t work there was nothing she could do. Before she could use her last ability though, Marie’s head turned to a light cyan color. Her entire body had become extremely beautiful. Of course, she was already beautiful before, but her new look was a different form of beautiful.

Her entire body was a light blue cyan color from head to toe. Her hands and feet were webbed while her physical form was exposed without being revealing. Not only that though, but her hair was amazing. She had flowing light blue hair which flowed with the water. Her hair was so thin that it looked like it was blowing backwards with wind. She had finally awakened her spirit form.

“You’re a water nymph?” Kiora exclaimed.

Marie’s voice stayed the same, but in her new form it sounded like she had two voices; one of which voiced every word she did half a second later, “Wow, after all that time of trying to unlock my powers, this is a huge accomplishment. It was definitely worth the wait.”

“No! I can’t let you do this! Marie, remember who I am. I am your sister. I have always been around for you. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten about that! I know why you’re doing this. You want to save me. You aren’t going to be able to do that. I’ve already left.”

She’s right. Marie thought to herself, Until recently, she had always been there for me. Can I really use this power on her? Is it really possible for me to save her anymore? Aren’t I just selfish to think that I could, but no one else?




Marie was sucked into her mind. She found herself standing in an area of nearly infinite darkness. The only exception was in the area she was standing the area was lit as if she stood in a spotlight. She looked before her to see a girl that looked exactly like her, at least in the face. As for the hair, while Marie had her long brown hair, this other girl had long black hair. Also, instead of wearing a light blue tank top with blue jeans, this other girl was dressed darker.

She had black painted nails and wore a black tank top with designs of splattering blood on it. Over her legs, she wore a pair of black jeans which were held down by a black belt with skull and crossbones. She also wore a pair of silver buckled boots which ran up to her knees. When Marie saw her, she asked, “Who are you?”

“I’m you Marie,” the Dark Marie answered, “Who did you think I was?”

Light Marie sighed. “I guess somewhere in my mind, I knew you were me.”

“Yes, I am the you that you abandoned before you moved to Hel. Remember what it was like back then? It was just you and me. Don’t you remember what happened with Amber and that boy you liked?”

“Harold!”

“Yeah, whatever, that doesn’t matter. They proved to you long ago that you can’t trust anyone. You’ve gone soft on me though. You’re letting people into our heart and you’re only going to get hurt again. Your sister is no different. You can’t save her now. She’s already shown you evidence that she’s not who she used to be.”

“Is that any reason to give up on her?”

“It’s no reason for you to be willing to risk your life for them! The fact that I’m still here just proves that you are questioning yourself. You’re a mess girl, don’t you realize that?”

“So what if I’m a mess? At least I care about someone other than me.”

“You’re refutations are laughable. They lack any sense of reason or logic. You’re just babbling out random words that you don’t fully mean. You’re admitting you’re a mess, but then you’re blatantly changing the subject to a personal attack on me.”

“Well, what else am I supposed to do? It’s not like I really have any other choice. I just want my sister to be saved.”

“Yes, of course you do, but look at you right now. Are you really in the condition to do that? You thought you had forgiven yourself, but I’m still here. You haven’t forgiven yourself. All you’ve done is fool yourself. You think that you’ve accomplished this feet of turning into a nymph, but where are your stripes? You may have awakened five of the seven true virtues, but there’s still two that you can’t grasp.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Light Marie cried, “I just don’t know.”

“You can start by admitting that I am right like you know I am. I know who we are better than you. Your idiotic values are going to get you killed. You tried to accomplish the task of obtaining the virtues, which no one has ever done before. You do understand why they haven’t right? Because we are human, and as humans we cannot be devoid of sin, just like humans cannot be devoid of virtue.

“Even some of the most ruthless figures in history have done what they did because they actually cared about their people. Perhaps they had every sin in the book, but they couldn’t be truly sinful because they weren’t completely selfless. This is what your sister has been trying to tell you Marie. You can’t just do that. Just admit to her that she’s right and admit to me that I’m right. The challenge here isn’t to beat Kiora, it’s to prove you are virtuous or join Sinister Ambition. It’s time that you make that choice.”

Light Marie sighed. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe in the end everything I’ve tried to do is all for nothing. Maybe I’m just not cut out to be who I want to be. It would be so much easier to join Sinister Ambition and give up on the quest of becoming virtuous. Perhaps Abraham was right. Maybe humans should have never been created.”

“Yes, it’s nice to hear that you’re finally listening to reason.”

“Psych,” Light Marie stuck her tongue out, “There’s no way I would ever join Sinister Ambition. His ideas are completely against mine. I have grown to understand him more, but I can’t agree with what he does. If I were to join him, it would be against every fiber of my being. You know who we are better than I do, so you should understand that.”

“Marie, don’t do it! You could lose your life if you continue down the road your on now. Don’t you realize that?”

“I do, but that’s fine. I know what I have to do now. There’s only one thing I can do. I’m sorry, but I’m going my own way.”

“Fine, do you what you want! If we die though, it’s on you. I won’t let you come blaming me. Just go risk both of our lives.”

Light Marie gave Dark Marie a smile. “Thanks for the talk.”

Dark Marie sighed as Light Marie disappeared. Dark Marie punched the ground.




Marie found herself back in her water nymph form as she gained another distinct feature to her form. She had gained black stripe son various areas of her body. She had one on each cheek, which would have formed a heart if they touched. She also had a stripe which curved down from her shoulders to her waist and then curved back up to her belly button. She had a stripe on either arm, which curved around her arm at the top but then slalomed back and forth on the bottom of her arm. Finally, she had two stripes on each leg which curved around and down her entire leg.

“Sorry about that,” Marie said, “But, I had something to take care of. Bear witness now to the Face of Love and the Stripes of Hope!”

Kiora smiled as she swum backwards away from Marie before stopping in the water and commenting, “Shannon was right.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Marie, I am so glad that I have the honor of being your big sister. Not many people could say that their little sister has the power to become a true nymph.”

“Wait! Explain what you were saying about Shannon.”

Kiora laughed. “This was part of her plan. I was unsure it would work, but you’ve proven me wrong and I am grateful for that. I thought you wouldn’t be able to defend against my last sin the Persuasion of Gluttony, but you did it.”

“Shannon had a plan?”

“Dude, Shannon is screwing with Abraham’s mind bad. He thinks he’s so safe in his little throne, but he has no idea what’s going on. Thanks to her, Troy was able to find the one artifact you need to have a chance against Abraham. And now, thanks to her, you have begun to understand your role in this game.”

“I have a role?”

“It’s a role that only you can play. The only reason I joined Shannon is because of her plan. For these past five years, I’ve hoped for this moment to happen. I had such a hard time leaving all you; especially you and Kevin. When Shannon told me what I could do to help though, I realized that I could finally contribute. You weren’t having much luck gaining your powers of virtue by conventional means.

“Shannon had a theory. If it was me, you could do it. She knows how close we are. My task has been to join Sinister Ambition and treat all of you like shit these past five years. Only then could you realize that you are truly capable of becoming the first person to use all seven true virtues simultaneously. You knew I was a good person at heart, and that gave you the hope you needed to earn your stripes.”

“What if it hadn’t worked though?”

“I would have killed myself knowing that I could no longer live in a world like this.”

“Wow, that’s a lot of pressure you put on me!”

“What else could I do sis? Trust me, you learning this is just as essential to winning this game as Troy’s Cursebreaker’s Quill.”

“I trust you.”

Kiora gave her a smile and then they swum up and out of the lake. They landed on the shore of the lake and returned to their human forms, clothed as they were before they jumped into the lake.

Marie looked to her sister and asked, “So, what do we now?”

Kiora leaned to Marie and whisper in Marie’s ear. After a few seconds, Marie had a smile on her face. Kiora then shouted out, “Abraham! I forfeit!”

“Let’s do this!”




On the sixth level of Hell, Abraham sat in the throne of Lucifer having heard the announcement. After hearing Kiora’s forfeit, he pressed a button on the right arm of his throne. A flat screen television emerged from the ground before him and floated there. He took a look at the screen to see that Kiora and Marie were walking through the Pollutant Plains laughing.

He grew an angry look on his face. He calmed himself down for a moment though before pressing a button on the left arm of his throne. An intercom sounded throughout Hell, as he announced the new, “Kiora Pollish has been eliminated from the game.”

Abraham took his hand off the button and then pressed another button on the left arm of his throne.




In a circular room of beauty, there maroon walls with wide yellow curving lines and flower designs on them. There was various paintings on the wall, including the Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci and the Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli. In the fairly small room, there was also a red velvet couch and rug, which had more yellow designs on it.

There was also a small table with a vase of roses on it. On either side of the room, there were windows which were covered by red curtains, one of which was next to a staircase that spiraled downward out of the room. At the other curtain, Connelly pushed away the curtains as he looked out the window while drinking a glass of red wine. At that moment, he heard Abraham’s voice over the intercom.

“Connelly, I need you to find a way to get Kiora alone so you can kill her for me.”

“Sorry Abraham, I don’t think I can do that right now.”

“What? Why can’t you?”

“Because I’m being stared down by an enemy right now.”

[Maikeru D. Shinigami]

Chapter 10

World of Games

Through the air in the Pollutant Plains, ashes flew through the sky; the ashes of Johnny MacIntosh. That wasn’t the only thing flying around though. There was some kind of green liquid mixing together with Johnny’s ashes. A bottle rolled across the ground beneath the ashes, keeping up. As the ashes merged with the liquid, body parts began to reform. It started off with a simple arm.

Within a few minutes though, the body had completely reformed. Johnny was brought back to life somehow. He no longer had numbers on his wrists, which meant he could no longer participate. As he landed on the ground, he looked around with a grin on his face, “Don’t assume that a person is dead just because you see them die. Very nicely done Edward.”

High in the air, Johnny could see a floating platform of rock moving through the air. When he looked he tilted his head, “What in the world is that?”




In another area of the Pollutant Plains, Roman and Strangel stood in the midst of a canyon. Roman had used his controller to make a metal roof close over the canyon. Strangel looked toward Roman as it closed and spoke, “Big mistake Roman. You’ve trapped yourself inside a cage with a bear.”

Roman smirked. “Do you really think so? Sora let me let you in a little secret. I know everything about your powers. I was filled in on what you could do by Bigan. You may have gained a few new powers over the past five years, but I expected that. You have no idea what I’m capable of.”

“Then let’s see which one of has prepared himself more. I’ll put your capabilities to the test right here and now.”

Strangel rushed forward at Roman with two swords held high. He went to slash his swords at Roman, but the canyon beside Roman, along with the ground itself seemed to move. The rock cliff of the canyon appeared between Roman and Strangel as Strangel simply hit the cliff with his swords. As he slashed the cliff though, several rocks broke off of it and flew backwards at where Roman was.

As they flew back though, the rocks, the canyon and the ground moved again. They moved back to their original position, as the rocks simply flew well off to the side, away from Roman. Roman stood on the ground of the canyon, motionless for a few moments. He then dropped a golf ball toward the ground. The entire area moved again, toward Strangel that time. The golf ball flew at Strangel at high speeds.

Strangel didn’t have enough time to defend himself. The golf ball struck him in the chest and sent him flying backwards. Once more, the area moved toward Strangel. The cliff that was behind Strangel moved toward him as he flew toward it. Before Strangel could hit the cliff though, he found the cliff moving away. He was still flying through the air and actually getting close to the ground, just the cliff was moving away.

On the ground, Roman ran toward him with a golf club in his hands. When he reached a distance close to Strangel, he jumped in in the air. He pulled his golf club back to swing. At that moment though, Strangel swung two of his swords at Roman. The cliff stopped moving away however, as Strangel slammed into the cliff. Strangel dropped his swords, and seconds afterwards, he was hit in the chest with a golf club.

The golf club hit Strangel hard in the chest, and made a huge hole in the cliff. The hole revealed what was outside. Roman and Strangel were floating high above the Pollutant Plains inside the canyon as rocks fell toward the ground. Strangel fell to the ground beside the wall of the cliff as Roman landed in front of him. Roman looked down with his golf club pointed at Strangel, “Give it up Sora. My powers are too much for you.”

“What the hell did you do over the past five years? These powers are uncanny. You are cutting out the entire canyon and making it fly through the air. This level of Earth magic is like none I’ve ever seen.”

“What makes you think that I’m using Earth magic? It seems that you don’t understand my powers yet.”

“How else can you explain your powers aside from calling it ultimate level Earth magic? There’s no other power that would allow you to do this.”

“Let’s just continue this for now. When you find out the actual reason why my powers are possible, you will realize just how screwed you really are.”

Strangel pulled two guns out of his jacket with a quick draw and shot them at Roman. Again, the battlefield moved, away from Roman, and the bullets flew away into the distance. Roman smacked Strangel in the face with his golf club, which caused Strangel’s hat to fly off and his bandana to unfasten. The bandana fell onto his chest, as Roman could see his face.

Strangel was definitely Sora, as Roman could see his facial features. His face had been beaten up pretty bad though. His left ear was gone and the right side of his face had scars all up and down it. His left eye was lower than his right eye, as it seemed to almost be melting into his face. His hair was also strange, as it was short, but patchy, as if there were areas where hair would no longer grow. The hit from the club caused Sora to cough up blood.

Roman was surprised by Sora’s look. So much that he left a brief opening. Sora had been hit so hard that he didn’t get a chance to take advantage of it though. Roman swung his golf club at Sora’s face, but Sora grabbed the golf club before it could hit him. Roman let go of the club as Sora kicked at his chest. The area moved again as the canyon slammed into Sora’s back. Sora lost his grip on the club as it flew back and smacked him in the face.

Roman had barely managed to get away from the attack, but he was still feeling good about his chances. That would all change though in a matter of seconds as two bullets struck him in the back and made him fall to his knees. The floating rock fell to the ground of the Pollutant Plains, making the area crack, but not break as tremors went all throughout the level.

Sora grinned. “Sure, you can use these powers to do some crazy things, but you still have to know what to defend yourself from. You can’t simply just block bullets coming in at you from your backside, and I took advantage of that. Have you already forgotten that my bullets are made out of rubber? It was a long shot, but I figured that I had a chance to hit you by just shooting bullets somewhere.”

”Not bad,” Roman complimented as he stumbled up to his feet and his eyes widened, “No, this can’t happen.”

Sora kicked Roman in the chest and Roman fell backward onto the ground. “What’s wrong Roman? Did you run out of power?”

“I can’t use that power anymore because I don’t have enough energy to separate the slab of rock from the rest of the ground. I didn’t think that the one real weakness of this power would be exposed.”

“I know your power Roman. You have the ability to move the world around you.”

“Well scouted. Though, the technical term for my powers is Dark Matter Manipulation. When Morpheous and I travelled together, we find these small black balls. Morpheous wasn’t interested in them, so I took them for myself. What I discovered about the black balls was that they were sources for which to use dark matter to your advantage. I had been training with these powers since then, but I’m still not strong enough to use it for extended periods of time.”

“Still, the fact that you were able to use it as long as you did was pretty impressive. Unfortunately, you’ve bitten off more than you can chew.”

Sora picked his swords up off the ground and swung them down at Roman who had been lying on the ground. Roman flipped his body backward and jumped up to his feet. Sora pulled out two more swords and placed them in two arms which grew from his body. Roman flipped around to avoid the attacks as he stuck his hand inside of his pocket. After a few more swings from the sword, the scene paused. Sora held his swords up in a way that showed he was swinging at Roman while Roman floated parallel to the ground with a controller in his hands.

“That was close,” Roman said, “A few more seconds, and you might have gotten me.”

“How many items do you have that allow you stall being hit?”

“I don’t know what you mean by stall. This is my game controller. It is my prize possession. It saved me from losing my mind when I was a child. Well, not this specific controller, but a controller saved my life nonetheless. When you grow up in a household like mine, you need something to allow you to escape from reality sometimes.”

“So, are you just planning to keep us paused here for the rest of the game?”

“No, that would be insane. Games aren’t meant to be paused that long. The scene would overheat and we would spontaneously combust. Why do you think games shut down after you keep them on too long?”

“So, what are you planning to prove with this stall tactic then?”

“I just wanted some time to have a conversation with you Sora. It’s been so long since we really got to hang out. Now that we are getting to hang out, you’ve been really jumpy and like ‘Rah rah, you die now’. It’s really not a nice way to treat your friends Sora.”
“What friends? My so-called friends all forgot about me after they started trying to save you. I even stood behind Phillip when I told him to save you. He forgot all about me though. You all did.”

Roman shouted. “And you think the people of Sinister Ambition are better friends?”

“No, but at least they aren’t leading me on. They don’t look at me as being all powerful or anything. They placed on the first level for crying out loud. They don’t believe in me, but they don’t lie and say that they do. They just give me the medication I need to stay a zombie and give me a chance to prove myself. That’s much more than I can say for Phillip and the rest of you. What about you? You hated them for a long time, why did you suddenly join them?”

“You should understand why I did. You were there to hear what was going on at the time. Obviously I joined up with them because they proved that they understood me. I was pleasantly surprised. After all the shit I did to Phil, there was no reason for him to care that much.”

Sora sighed. “Well, at least one of us here gets the recognition. You guys probably don’t even speak about me when you are hanging out anymore. I doubt you even think about the unneeded Sora Whitmayer.”

“You’re obsessed with the idea that you unnecessary. That is why you are on level one.”

“Right, as if you aren’t on this level for a special reason.”

“I don’t have time to listen to you anymore Sora. It’s obvious that you’ve lost all ability to listen to reason. It’s such a damn shame too because you used to actually be a kind of cool guy. I’m tired of talking to you. You’re just bringing me down.”

Roman pressed buttons on his controller as the area around them changed. It started off with Roman being pushed far away from Sora. Next, bleachers arose from the ground all around them, forming a stadium filled with crowds of people. The ground itself in the stadium would then change, as Sora found himself inside some kind of black net cage on a large platform of stone. The platform was surrounded by shark infested waters.

At the end of the platform, was a tunnel made of black nets, which ran over the water to another stone platform. Beyond that platform, there were four more stone platforms, none of which were connected to the others. The shark infested waters surrounded each platform. The bleachers had a high wall so that none of the sharks could jump up into the crowd. At the other side of the arena sat Roman.

There were a set of blue stairs which went up to about two hundred feet in the air. Roman sat at the top in a large red chair with gold outlines, arms and legs. Around him, he had four guards in knight outfits. Roman held a scepter in his right hand and his attire had changed to make him look like a king. He wore a fancy red suit underneath his large red cloak with white fur around the edges. The cloak covered the front of his body, including his golden shoes.

The crowd cheered loud as Roman stood up to his feet. Roman motioned his hands down to tell the crowd to quiet down as he made an announcement, “Welcome one and all to an exciting event here today. Welcome today’s challenger, Sora Whitmayer. Sora here will be taking on the Grand Challenge for the World Obstacle Championship. If he managed to make it through all the obstacles on the way to me, he will have the chance to challenge me for the championship.”

The crowd cheered louder before Roman continued his announcement, “Sora Whitmayer is an extremely skilled mage, so we should have fun here today. The first challenge of the day will be Ultimate Netball. With our five best players as challengers, Sora will try to score the most points, by being the person to put the most balls through the holes in the arena. And if he loses, he’ll be…”

“Eaten by sharks,” the crowd cheered.

“Alright then, with that we are ready to begin the Ultimate Obstacle Challenge. Begin the match.”

A buzzer sounded as five men fell from the top of the black net and landed on the stone platform around Sora. Each of them was either large and muscular or small and fast. Seconds after they landed, several dodge balls fell to the ground as Sora noticed certain holes in the black net grow larger. They started off quickly as each of the six participants grabbed a dodge ball and threw them at a hole.

The five men all made it through a hole, but Sora didn’t. When he threw the ball at the hole, the hole closed up. It then bounced the ball back at him, smacking him in the face. Sora fell to the ground, while the five men continued throwing the balls through the holes, making basket after basket. Three of them already had four points while the other two had three each when Sora got back up to his feet.

Sora jumped back up to his feet and grabbed a ball. He threw it at another hole, but the hole closed again. Sora was able to get out of the way before it could hit him in the face that time however. The other five men weren’t slowing down though. Sora hadn’t even made a single point by the time they had reached twenty because the holes kept closing up. That’s when he realized what was going on. The five men were controlling the holes.

There were only eleven balls left, so he knew he didn’t have a chance to win, but he was going to do what he could and hope that he could escape the sharks. As the five men threw the balls, Sora disappeared from sight. In a flash, he reappeared five times before the balls the five guys threw and kicked them. The balls flew back at the five guys, hitting them each in the face.

The guys were knocked out and Sora threw one of the balls through a hole to finally get a point. At that moment, Roman made another announcement, “Thirty seconds left. Every goal counts for two points now.”

Sora had a chance. He just needed to get all ten remaining balls through holes within thirty seconds. He grabbed the nearest ball and threw it through another hole. He continued that until he realized a problem. The final five balls were too far away and he only had ten seconds remaining. He had one choice. Sora extended his shadow and split it into four. The shadows cut away from him as they rushed toward a ball.

Sora rushed for the other ball. Within five seconds the shadows had grabbed their balls and pulled back their arms to throw them. As they threw them, Sora tripped before reaching the final ball. The shadows each made their goals. Sora just needed to make the final one, but he only had three seconds. That’s when he saw his chance. Sora jabbed his palm forward at the ball and shot a stream of sand at the ball. The ball flew forward and went through the tunnel to the next platform. Since the tunnel had a hole, it counted and Sora got his points, barely winning with twenty-one points.

Sora jumped to his feet and rushed through the tunnel to the next platform where he was given ten seconds to breathe. While he took that time, Roman announced the next challenge, “This next challenge is a game called Destructor. Roman will be pitted against three other men in a game that requires him to destroy more buildings than his opponents. Skyscrapers are worth 200 points. Large Buildings are worth 100 points. Inns, Hotels and other small buildings are worth 50 points. Any other building is worth 10 points. However, there is a surprise in one of these buildings. Good luck!”

From the top of the arena, three more men fell down. One of them fell directly in front of Sora across the platform while the other two fell down to the right and left, at an equal distance from Sora and the first guy. They formed a diamond shape from above. From there, buildings emerged from the ground all around as the participants found themselves standing in streets. The skyscrapers were about two feet taller than the participants. The larger buildings were about their size.

The buzzer sounded and Sora quickly destroyed a larger building. The four players rampaged through the streets, taking out building after building. Sora went as fast as he could, and was managing to stay on track with the others. As the game came down to its final ten buildings, Sora had 2430 points. That was second to a guy with 2610 points, but more than the other two who had 2190 and 1930 points.

Suddenly, the guys with 2610 points and 2190 points were skewered by rising buildings with steeples. Within a couple more seconds, the dude with 1930 points knocked out three skyscrapers, jumping him out in front of Sora with 2530 points. Sora crushed a large building to tie up the score as it came down to six buildings. Two of them were large, one was a skyscraper and the rest were small buildings.

Sora destroyed the two large buildings quickly while the other guy destroyed a skyscraper and got the secret prize. With a 2730-2730 tie and three buildings remaining, the guy found a giant hammer in the skyscraper. With the three small buildings out of reach, the hammer should have decided who won the contest. The guy swung the hammer down, but Sora slid across the ground and blocked the hammer with two of his swords.

He pushed the hammer back as the guy tried to find a way to break through. Sora got up to his feet and gave the guy a smirk as he crushed the three buildings beneath his feet simultaneously to get the win. He then pulled back his two swords and swung them forward, cutting his challenged in half. A metal bridge extended from the platform to the next platform and Sora rushed across.

The crowd cheered as Roman stepped up to explain the third challenge, “This challenge will give Sora’s body a rest, but it will test his brain. If Sora wants to find the end of the labyrinth, he will need to figure out the answers to the riddles. At each intersection, there will be at least one truth teller and one liar. Sora will have to find a way to get past them and figure out which path is right. He will receive hints and is able to ask questions. The problem is he cannot ask the same question more than once. He has three strikes, and if he loses those he will be…”

“Eaten by sharks,” the crowd cheered again.

Sora was getting annoyed by the happiness in the crowd’s voice when they talked about him getting eaten by sharks, but he continued on. The rock labyrinth rose from the ground as Roman saw that there was only one entrance. As soon as he entered, he met with his first challenge. He would either go right or left. The guy on his right side was wearing a plain yellow shirt while the guy on his left side was wearing a plain red shirt.

The guys were about to speak, but Sora stopped them to ask the guy on his right, “What is the color of your shirt?”

“Red.”

Sora turned to his left, passing the guy on that side and continued down into the labyrinth. After a few turns, he came up to another fork on the path. Both of the guys at that section were wearing all blue. Down the left path, Sora could see that there was another fork in the path in his sight. Down the right path, Sora could see nothing out of the ordinary. He gave the two a chance to speak.

“The one with the right path is the one with the right path,” the one on his right said.

“The one with the wrong path is the one with the right path,” the one on his left said.

“You, on the right,” Roman spoke, “What do you mean when you say ‘right’?”

“Both of my rights mean the same thing. They mean that my path goes to the right.”

“Thank you. You, on the left, is he telling the truth?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re the liar. You know whether or not he is telling the truth. You just can’t give an answer because either one would give away that the guy on the right is telling the truth. If you said yes, you would both have to be liars or truth tellers. The same would be true if you both said no.”

Sora turned to the right and walked down that path, avoiding the path with seeable fork. Sora continued on with his questioning of the truth tellers and liars as he used his wit to help him get through the labyrinth. Finally, he came up to an area where he had six paths to choose from, and six people to speak to. Each of them was wearing what looked like CIA uniforms.

Guy 1 spoke, “There are an even number of truth tellers and liars.”

Guy 2 continued, “I am not a liar.”

Guy 3 went next, “I am the same as Guy 2.”

Guy 4 added on, “My jacket is black.”

Guy 5 said to him, “My path is the correct path.”

Guy 6 concluded, “Guy 5 is a liar.”

Sora stood there and thought for a few seconds to see if he could come up with something reasonable. Guy 4 was definitely a truth teller, because he was wearing a black jacket. He only had one strike remaining though, so he needed to get this final riddle right. As he thought about each of their answers, he tried to decide if he could determine anyone as telling the truth or telling a lie.

He finally came out to his conclusion of who was telling the truth and who wasn’t, “First off, guy 4 is telling the truth. Next, either guy 5 or guy 6 is a liar. The other is telling the truth. If guy 2 is a liar, then guy 3 is a liar. If guy 2 is a truth teller, then so is guy 3. So, my question is for guy 4. Is guy 1 telling the truth?”

“No.”

“Then there are not an even number of truth tellers and liars. Which means that guy 1 is eliminated. Guy 4 is still the only truth teller though, so I will ask him another question. Is your path the correct path?”

“No.”

“Your path is eliminated, but I still have to eliminate some others. Guy 4, in regards to being a truth teller or a liar are you the same as Guy 2?”

“No.”

“That means that there are only two truth tellers and four liars. Now, to figure out who is the second truth teller. Guy 4, who is telling the truth, guy 5 or guy 6?”

“Guy 6.”

“So, guy 4’s path and guy 5’s path are eliminated. Guy 6, as you are a truth teller, is your path the correct path?”

“You have already asked that question, try another one.”

“Alright, is your path a wrong path?”

“Yes, it is.”

“That means that the correct path belongs to guy 1, 2 or 3. Guy 6 again, what is the name of the guy who has the correct path?”

“Joseph.”

Sora gave a grin, he knew how to find his answer. He walked over to guy 2 and asked him, “Is your name Joseph?”

“Yes, my name is Joseph.”

“The correct path belongs to either guy 1 or guy 3. Now, guy 4, what is the name of the guy that I stole this pen from?”

“Michael.”

“Since I stole this pen from guy 3 that means that guy 3’s name is Michael. The correct path belongs to guy 1, Joseph.”

Sora went down path 1 to find a rock bridge which led him from the third stone platform to the fourth stone platform. When he reached the fourth platform, Roman shouted out, “Unbelievable! Our challenger Sora Whitmayer has made it to the fourth challenge after outwitting the Maze of Truth and Lies. Our fourth challenge is a favorite of our fans. It is called Center Point. The object of this game is to reach the center tile.

“Our four players will step on a corner tile and have two other tiles right next him to choose from. The tiles have arrows on them. The contestants will be telling their tiles which way to go by stepping on the arrows. The tiles will then slide across the grid until they hit a wall or another tile. This is a game used in some form in things like the Legend of Zelda and Phi Brain: Puzzle of God. Remember, the contestant who lands on the center tile wins.”

A grid of red lines appeared on the ground as Sora stepped up on a corner tile. A buzzer sounded telling him to go first. He stepped on the tile to his left and slid across the grid into a tile next to one of his contestants. The game would go on and on as the four players would pull off some nice moves. A game like the tile slider game required a person to not only be aware of how to reach the center, but also how to block his opponents.

In the end, Sora managed to find a way to the center after a tough battle. After landing on the center, a bridge of tiles led from the fourth platform to the fifth platform. He stepped on a tile to his left and pressed the button to send him to the edge of the grid. He stepped off the grid and ran across the bridge of tiles as he reached the fifth platform and waited for the next challenge.

“Our challenger has made it to the final two platforms,” Roman announced, “Things are getting interesting in here. The fifth challenge of the game is for a game that we call Slingshot Madness. In this game, our challenger will be facing ten others in a game where they have to knock out as many targets with our giant slingshots as fast as they can. The closer they get to the center of the target, the more points they get.”

Nine men emerged from the ground next to Sora, four to his left and five to his right. In front of them, twenty wooden posts emerged with ten slings connecting to two each to make slingshots. Large buckets arose next to the slingshots with small boulders in them. Targets would then rise from the ground around the platform as a buzzer sounded. The contestants each ran up to their slingshots.

Sora grabbed a boulder and shot it at a target. His boulder was smashed into by four boulders from either side however. Eight of the guys had decided that they would block Sora from being able to reach the targets while letting guy one take the contest. Sora tried to shoot a second time, but was again blocked the eight guys. There was no way he could win without using his powers, which he was trying to avoid using too much.

Sora made nine shadows emerge from the ground, behind each of the nine guys. For the eight that were shooting at him, he had his shadows snap their necks. With the guy who had taken a 600 point lead, he had his shadow hold him in a full nelson. Sora quickly began placing boulder after boulder in his slingshot, shooting them at the targets. He managed to his five straight targets with a bulls-eye for 500 points, but only managed to get ninety points for his sixth.

At that moment, the other guy broke free of the Sora’s shadow and kicked the shadow into the shark infested waters Sora grabbed a boulder and shot it at another target, but his boulder was knocked into the water by the boulder of the other guy. Sora was tired of dealing with him and he knew his shadow tricks wouldn’t work again. With only thirty seconds, he had to try something drastic.

He ran toward the guy and pulled out a pair of guns. He shot the guns at the guy who was managing to avoid the shots. Once he reached about ten feet from the guy, he dropped his guns to the ground and jumped at the guy. They rolled around on the ground, before Sora kicked him off and into the shark infested waters. He looked up at the clock to see there were only twelve seconds left.

Sora rushed across the platform back to his slingshot. He only had three seconds to shoot and hit a target, so he didn’t have time to aim. He had to shoot and hope and he lucked out. The boulder hit near the edge of one of the targets for twenty points, giving him a ten point victory. He ran to the end of the fifth platform and across a red sling to the final platform for the final game.

“We have made it to the final challenge here today,” Roman said to the fans, “And if our challenger wins this challenge, he will have a chance to earn the World Obstacle Championship. If not, he will be…”

“Eaten by sharks,” the crowd cheered.

“For the final challenge, we have a new game called Tramp-o-Roulette. In this game of trampolines, trap doors and dodge balls, our contestants will have to avoid falling into the spikes under the trap doors under the trampolines. While they are moving from trampoline to trampoline though, they will be shot at by dodge balls. If they fail to land on a trampoline, they will smack into the stone platform and be eliminated.”

A black net arose from the sides of the platform with small cannons between the holes in various spots. Trampolines then emerged from the ground trap doors slightly larger than the size of the trampolines appeared beneath them. Nineteen other men emerged from the ground around the trampolines as they circled the entire platform. In total, there were around twenty-five trampolines.

Each contestant stepped onto the trampoline nearest to them and waited. Moments later, a buzzer rang and they were off. Sora started by jumping toward the middle trampolines to get him more options of trampolines to jump to. The other guys all had the same idea however as one guy jumped on Sora’s trampoline and bounced him high into the air. Sora fell toward the ground as dodge balls began to shoot out from the cannons.

Sora used his feet to kick the dodge balls toward the other players, managing to hit three of them. The three that were hit fell off their trampolines and out of the game. Sora was falling toward a trampoline when his eyes widened. The one he was aimed to land on had a countdown clock showing that the door was about to open. He had no chance to land on the trampoline before it fell, but no way to escape to another trampoline.

Sora came up with an idea though. He took a deep breath and fell into the trap door. He jumped off the trampoline just before it hit the spikes and hopped back up onto a nearby trampoline from beneath the trap door. The trap door would close just behind him, which made him feel very lucky. Another dodge ball shot out of a cannon as he slowed his momentum and stood on the trampoline.

The dodge ball came right after him, so he jumped over it and the dodge ball went to smack into a guy that was standing behind him. The guy flew backwards and into another guy as they both flew backwards into the net and fell to the ground. Sora took a moment to breathe as he hadn’t really gotten many chances to since the tile slider game. He needed those couple seconds.

The match would continue on as more and more guys were knocked off the trampolines and onto the platform and others would fall down trap doors. One guy even tried to do what Roman had done earlier by jumping on a trampoline as it fell into a trap door. It didn’t work for him though, as the trap door closed around him at the chest, cutting his body in half. It was a pretty intense match.

When it came down to the last three people, Sora found himself in a corner where only two trampolines remained, with another contestant. Dodge balls shot at them as the guy jumped at Sora, attempting to kick him. The countdown had appeared under his trampoline at the same time. Sora had one chance. He rolled under the guy and managed to avoid the dodge balls. He then hopped onto the other trampoline.

The guy landed on the trampoline that was about to fall at the last minute as Sora stared at the guy with a grin. The guy jumped at Sora just before the trap door opened. He landed on the rail of the trampoline though and slipped backward into the trap door and down into the spikes. That left only Sora and one other guy. The other guy was in a corner on the other side of the platform.

That guy had not moved the entire time, and any dodge ball that aimed at him was sent off target as if he had a force field around himself. Sora simply stood on his trampoline and shouted out, “Looks like this will come down to whose trampoline falls and whose doesn’t.”

The crowd cheered in suspense as the other guy closed his eyes and smirked. Dodge balls shot out of the cannons as Sora avoided while the other guy just had the dodge balls go off target when getting close to him. Sora then saw the one thing he didn’t want to see. The countdown appeared beneath his trampoline. As it did, Roman shouted out, “Our challenger is about to fall. He will fail right at the end.”

Sora saw the countdown getting lower and with five seconds decided what he wanted to do. He started jumping as high as he could while avoiding dodge balls. Five seconds later, the trampoline dropped. Just as it passed under the trap door, Sora took a big leap forward from the back end of the trampoline and flew toward the other guy. As he flew through the air, dodge balls shot at him.

Sora watched the incoming dodge balls closely as they would come in from all sides. Whenever he noticed a dodge ball, he would create a shadow figure to block the attack. The shadow figure would disappear after being hit, but they would also send the dodge balls off target. When he finally reached the other guy, he attempted to kick him. Sora was sent flying off to the left though from some unseen force.

Sora would have slammed into the net and fell to the ground if not for his shadow powers. He created a shadow figure which grabbed his arms and threw him high into the air toward the black net high above the platform. Sora grabbed onto the net and held on for his life as he saw the countdown appear below the final trampoline. He grew a smile on his face and breathed a sigh of relief.

At the last second though, the final guy shot himself forward as if he had spring feet. The trampoline had already started falling, so it fell into the trap door. That just gave the guy an extra boost as he flew toward Sora at a very high speed. Sora couldn’t defend himself where he was at. The guy struck him in the chest, causing Sora to lose consciousness and fall toward the ground.

The guy closed his eyes as he held onto the net and shut down his force field. At that second, Sora disappeared and reappeared behind the guy. Sora created a sand drill around his arm and slammed it threw the guy’s back, skewering his body in half. Blood splattered across the area the guy fell down toward the shark infested waters below. Sora grabbed onto the net with his free hand.

The other guy was dead, but when his body fell in the water, he was eaten by sharks, which made the crowd to cheer. Sora dropped from the net and fell toward the ground where he was caught by another shadow figure. The shadow figure placed him on his feet as the crowd cheered for Sora. Roman wasn’t pleased however as he got a look of frustration on his face.

Sora looked up at Roman as a blue bridge formed to reach the staircase. Sora ran toward the bridge and up the staircase. As he approached, Roman pointed his finger forward and shouted, “Knights! Take him out!”

[Maikeru D. Shinigami]

Chapter 11

Writer’s Block

Walking across the Pollutant Plains, Marie and Kiora passed by Perception Town. Kiora had gotten her arm reconnected to her body after her battle with Marie. Marie looked to Kiora and asked her, “So, what was it like spending the past five years with Sinister Ambition?”

“It was actually not so bad. Aside from Delilah and Connelly, they aren’t such horrible people. In fact, some of them, like Malakai, I could actually get along with most of the time. I still don’t agree with what they stand for of course. But, I can kind of understand where they’re coming from at least.”

“I don’t really have much experience with the members of Sinister Ambition. From the ones I have met, I can believe that they aren’t so bad though. Darla obviously was never really bad. She even decided to stay with us. Then, with Shannon, I think it’s also become apparent that she really has her own agenda to stop the world from turning to chaos.”

“There’s similar things going on with a few of the. For the most part, the members of Sinister Ambition have just been promised riches or fame. It could have easily happened to a couple of Phillip’s friends too.”

As they walked through the Pollutant Plains, they ran into Johnny. When Johnny saw them, he walked up to them and spoke, “So, I see you were successful in getting Kiora to come back.”

“Yep,” Marie replied, “It turns out she was never on Sinister Ambition’s side really. She was just helping out a friend. So, where is everyone else at?”

“They’ve already gone onto the second level. I stayed here for a battle. When you say Kiora was just helping out a friend, what do you mean?”

“I don’t quite see why that matters,” Kiora answered, “All that really matters is that I was helping out a friend. If our friends are already on level two, then standing around talking seems like the last thing we should be doing.”

“Alright, then you and Marie can go ahead. I’m going to just stay behind and check up on the others who are still up here.”

Marie and Kiora said their goodbyes to Johnny and continued across the Pollutant Plains. They would walk for about ten more minutes before finding the exit that would lead them to the Treasury Mines. Johnny watched them as they walked away, and then walked in the opposite direction, toward where the rock fell from the air.




Back in the Treasury Mines, Alatar and Eric walked through caves, trying to figure out which way to go. They came across several forks in the path, and would typically choose any path that seemed to go down. That worked out for them pretty well, as they were getting closer and closer to the third level. As they walked, Eric sighed, “How much further do we have to go?”

“My guess would be anywhere between not much further at all to a hell of a long way to go,” Alatar answered.

“Yeah, thanks for pointing out the obvious. I kind of gathered that much on my own.”

“Well, you did ask.”

“Yeah yeah. You could have saved some breath by just saying that you didn’t know at all.”

“You’ve gotten a bit mouthy since we got down here Eric. Are you feeling tense? You could maybe take a little rest if you want.”

“No, everything’s fine. I don’t need a rest. I’d much rather just continue looking for the exit so I can get out of this confusing place. If I stay here too much longer, I think my head is going to explode.”

“Very well then, I can’t allow that to happen. Just continue you to follow me. If we just keep going, we’re bound to find a way out of here sooner or later.”

“I hope you’re right about that. This place seems pretty damn big to me. Let’s just hope it’s sooner rather than later, and more importantly that we are able to find our way out of here at all.”




Elsewhere on in the Treasury Mines, Troy and Keon floated on platforms on a lake of lava flowing under a low lying rock roof with stalactites poking down. Troy looked forward toward his brother and exclaimed, “Keon!”

“Hello Troy, it’s been a while hasn’t it? What has it been exactly now, five years? You look much better than you did the last time I saw you. You know, less bloody and all that stuff.”

“You would be the type of person to joke about that. Why are you so focused on me? I understand the whole thing about you wanting to have the status to get rid of rules entirely. I really have no interesting in ever seeing you again though. Just leave me and my friends alone. I could care less what you do aside from that.”

“Aww, but I thought we were siblings. Do you hate your brother so much that you can say that you don’t want to see me ever again with so little emotion? Have you forgotten everything we’ve been through together Troy?”

“We haven’t been through anything together, because you’re not the Keon that I knew growing up. Any memories I have with that Keon don’t exist to me anymore. He’s just somebody that I used to know.”

“Well, that’s pretty harsh. I thought we were having fun.”

“Then you have a very strange idea of what fun actually is. You beat me up so bad that I had to be sent to the hospital. If that’s your idea of fun, I’d hate to see your idea of being a jackass. Now, please, just leave me be. I won’t bother you ever again.”

“No thanks Troy. I don’t want to leave you be. Now that I know we are on bad terms, I would rather work on persuading your idea of fun to more match my idea of fun. So, if you don’t mind. I’m going to have to ask you to stick around for a while.”

“Let me guess, you’re going to want to fight me again.”

“You’re already catching on to my idea of fun. Keep it up brother. You’re proving that you’re growing to understand me a bit more. This could work yet!”

“No, it’s not. I’ll never agree with you Keon.”

Keon sighed. “I thought you might say that. So, in that case, that would mean that I have no chance in making you agree with reason. Put your hands up Troy, if you can’t agree with me, then you’ll have to fight against me.”

With those words, flesh wounded demons with horns arose from the lava lake and stood all around Keon atop the lava. Keon pointed forward and they all rushed Troy as white strings fell from the roof above Keon. Keon pulled one of the strings and a platform to the left of Troy shot up out of the lake and aimed to slam into Troy. Troy pulled off his vest and swung it forward. At that moment, notebooks flew out of the vest and surrounded Troy.

The notebooks all opened to specific pages; some of them closer to the front, others closer to the back and some around the middle. Troy pulled out a pen and pointed it one of the books. As he did, the platform that was coming toward him went off target and smashed into a group of the demons. It didn’t get rid of them all though. To deal with the other ones, Troy pointed his pen at another notebook.

Sheets of paper appeared in front of the notebooks and stabbed through the demon’s bodies, skewering them. Troy pointed his pen at another book and the roof above Keon collapsed, as the rocks fell toward him. Keon jumped off of his platform to another platform, and then jumped a couple more times to avoid both the rocks and the splash. More white strings appeared around him from the roof as he landed.

Troy pulled a string, causing stalactites to break off of the roof and point toward Troy. The stalactites all rushed Troy, attempting to stab through his body. Troy pointed at another notebook however and the stalactites broke to pieces. He then pointed at another notebook and the stalactite pieces found a giant boulder in front of his books. After pointing at one more notebook, the boulder flew toward Keon.

Keon pulled another white string and the roof extended downward in front of him, making a wall. The boulder slammed into the wall, destroying both as rocks fell into the lava. Keon would continue to pull at the white strings while Troy would continue to point at different notebooks. As they would do so, more things would happen. Keon started it off by creating a wave with the lava that rushed toward Troy.

Troy defended himself by creating a blade which emerged from the lava. As the lava hit the blade, it went off target, splitting down the middle and flowed off toward either of his sides. Troy then took the offensive as five sharks appeared in the lava around Keon and jumped at him. Keon ducked down and kicked one of the sharks in the chin. He would proceed to knock on the other sharks with kicks too. He hit one in the cheek, one in the gut, one in the side and one more in the chin.

The fins were cut off the tops of the sharks as Keon grabbed them in his hands. He then tossed the shark fins at his brother as if they were Frisbees. Troy blocked the shark fins by creating a net which shot up from beneath the lava and caught the fins inside before pulling them beneath. The next thing Keon knew, arrows were shooting out of the walls at his body. He pointed his fingers at the arrows and they were cut in half.

“Well, you’ve certainly gotten a lot better,” Keon commented.

“Thanks. After last time, I decided that just using my powers wasn’t good enough. So, I began my search for ways to make myself more powerful. I made myself more adept at fighting in close quarters and in using my reflexes. I also found more pens, knowing that the more I have the more powers I can actually use.”

“To that my brother, I say bravo. You have succeeded greatly. You’re actually fighting on par with me as I am with you. We’ve been fighting together as equals this entire time. However, the battle has only just begun. If you think that there’s nothing new about me, then you’re unfortunately mistaken.”

“I think everyone’s expected that by now. In fact, I imagine everyone who’s been involved in a battle up to this point has said something similar to that at some point in time. So, I feel like you’re just stating the obvious. Of course we’re stronger. The problem for you is that I am better prepared than you are.”

Keon laughed. “Yeah, sure you’re more prepared than me. I’ll have to put that confidence to the test. When I am done with you, I will have proven to Abraham what an asset I am, and he will increase my rank. I will acquire more riches and more power than you can even imagine.”

“I guess that explains while you’re on the floor of greed. You preach that you want to make a world without laws and that may be true. What I believe you want most of all though is the perks that come with being in charge. Am I wrong?”

“You are just as perceptive as ever brother. Congratulations! You’ve hit the nail right on the head. The bigger question here though is why are you here? What is that you wish to acquire more than anything else? We’re not so different Troy. If you look inside yourself, I think you will grow to understand what I mean.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s nothing that I want to receive.”

“Is that so? Why do you write Troy? Do you really write because you enjoy it or do you want the riches and fame that comes with it? Is there even a small portion of your mind that thinks that way?”

Troy stood there for a second in thought. He was wondering how much of his desire to write came from enjoyment and how much came from desire. After he finished thinking, he made his response, “Of course I want the wealth that comes with writing. It’s not like I can live comfortably without money.”

“Would you do anything to get it? Would you betray your friends to provide a better life for yourself? Would you steal the work of another and sell it off as your own? If you can say yes to any of those questions, you’re no better than me.”

“I would never do anything like that!”

“Would you not? Think back to the things you have done in the past. Think back and tell me if there’s anything you’ve done for your books that you are ashamed of.”

Troy thought a little harder about what Keon had to ask. While he at first had nothing he could think of, there was one specific time that came to his mind.




A few years before that time, Troy walked through the halls of a large company building. He followed behind a guy in a suit. As he followed behind, he looked around to see people working in their offices through a doorway to his left. There were a few other doors in the building, but they were all shut. The guy leading Troy stepped inside an elevator and Troy followed him inside.

After it finished its ascent, they exited to a room with a large, metal, round table. There were two seats open. The guy Troy was following took the first seat at the end of the table and motioned for Troy to take the empty seat next to him. Troy looked around to see that there was a variety of people in the room. A few of them were bulky while others were skinny. Some were tall while others were short. A couple were Spanish while others were Caucasian or African.

The guy who led him into the room was a skinny, tall white man with slick hair. He turned to Troy and spoke first, “So, Troy, how are you feeling today? My name is Kenny Clyde.”

“Pleasure to meet you sir,” Troy smiled, “I am feeling well today. How could I not when I get to talk to you today about something that I am so passionate about?”

“Yes, I understand your glee. We aren’t here to commend your work today though. We are here to speak about a couple changes you need to make for us to pick up your book.”

“Alright, tell me what you want me to do.”

A bulky short white guy with a cigar was the one to answer, “We’ve read through it and the first thing we want to speak about is chapter seven. In this chapter, you wrote in a scene of chatter between the main character and a nobody that doesn’t really fit into the book. We suggest to cut that scene out.”

“Oh, you mean the conversation with Hector and Lyon. Yeah, I was a bit skeptical about writing that scene myself. I needed a little bit of a break at the time, so I kind of just threw in a filler scene. I probably should have just stopped writing at the time, but I was eager to get to the later chapters. You can cut that out.”

“You should be careful about doing that,” a tall black man said to him, “It’s not a problem to have a scene that has one, two or even many characters that aren’t important at all. They should at least have some sort of relation to the story if you are going to do that though. We almost just sent the book back telling you we couldn’t take it. In that case, we wouldn’t have even met with you today.”

“I understand. I probably should have just played a video game during that time or something.”

The next person to speak was an average size Mexican man with a mustache, “The next thing we want to speak about is the final scene of the book. This actually isn’t a complaint about the book as much as it is advice. You have this really nice scene that ends it perfectly well. Over the course of this book and the previous two you had published however, the ending feels a little unreasonable.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“What you have to end it is fine, but your book has a bit more of a tragic feel around it. I think that instead of having this happily ever after ending, you should do something special. Make the main character win, but have something happen which causes him to no longer be able to do something. You know, like a bittersweet ending.”

“Actually that does sound like a good idea. In that case, I have an idea for what I could do there. I think I want to do a little brainstorming before going with my first idea however.”

“Now to our third problem with the book,” stated a short-haired short Caucasian male with glasses, “You have a character in here that feels out of place in the book. Throughout the entire book, you have given us a futuristic feel. The ideas were fresh and we had fun reading it. However, your character Gregory Hines, hasn’t done much for the plot and he feels more medieval than the book would allow.”

Troy kind of just sat there staring as he thought to himself, They want me to get rid of Gregory? I get the critique and everything, but this seems a bit unnecessary. Gregory wasn’t an important character to the plot, but he means something to me. I don’t know what to do about this suggestion. It’s the only one they’ve made that I’m entirely against.

“Well Troy,” the man spoke, “What do you say about Gregory? You seem reluctant to let us cut him out.”

“Is it really necessary? Gregory is a special character to me. He’s only in for a couple scenes. Having him in there shouldn’t matter that much.”

“Every decision you make matters,” the man slammed a file folder on the desk, “You can’t just walk in here with that kind of attitude. When you write a book, there is always going to be things that someone has to say about it. Maybe they love the story, but want to fix the style. Maybe they love characters, but want to nix out a couple descriptions. Every decision you make is key to putting together a successful book. What’s so great about Gregory?”

Troy sighed. “Gregory is a character I based off of my best friend Phillip. Phillip was a huge inspiration for me with my writing. When other people would tell me about how nearly impossible it was to get published, he would tell me that I could do it. He was there for me to give me suggestions. While he was too lazy or busy to read my books most of the time I could talk to him about them and he’d give me his thoughts. Gregory is that character.”

“Your reason is nice, but it doesn’t overshadow the fact that you can’t just write in characters that you feel like without considering the plot. Gregory is not essential to the plot and we agreed that he doesn’t fit into this setting. If you don’t let us take him out, we won’t publish you at all.”

Troy sat there, motionless, as he thought hard about what he wanted to do. What do I do now? It’s either cut out Gregory or I can’t get this book published. This jerk has really put my back to the wall on this one. Is having Gregory really hurting anything? I mean, I understand that some characters aren’t essential, but Gregory isn’t around that much. I wish I had a friend here to give me advice. I don’t know what to do anymore.

The man stood up. “If you have nothing to say, we’ll be leaving. I’m sorry, but your book just doesn’t live up to our standards.”

“Wait!” Troy exclaimed. “I get it. Gregory’s not important. Just take him out.”

“Then congratulations, we will publish you. We are eager to work with you on the final book in your series.”




As Troy’s memory faded out of his mind, he looked back forward at Keon, “I guess I have done something that I’m ashamed of. I let some men at a publishing company take out a character that was really special to me because I wanted the book to get published.”

Keon smirked. “It’s nice to see that you finally admit something to me. You see, you are no better than me after all. In a situation where you have to choose between riches and something special, you chose the riches.”

“I know and I regret that. Why take that character out? There was nothing wrong with him. He rushed my decision out of me and I let him do something that I told myself I wouldn’t let anyone do. I let him cut out an emotionally significant piece of the book.”

“Let it out Troy! You can tell me everything.”

“Even when I told them I didn’t want to take him out. Even when they said that they wouldn’t publish me for that reason. Hell, even when we actually put the book out there and I sold over a million copies I didn’t like that Gregory wasn’t in there. It wasn’t their place to tell me that he didn’t belong there. He belonged there because I wanted him there.”

“Exactly and this is one of those things that Abraham will change. In his new world, you won’t have people forcing you to get rid of things that are special to you. In our world, those publishers would have axed that suggestion as soon as they heard your reason. We’re not here to dictate how you live your life. We’re here to fix the problems with the world. We’re here to allow only the humans we see fit to live in this world.”

Troy sat on the platform as the notebooks he had out hovered above his head. “So that’s why you want this world without rules. It is true that because of the human superiority complex we are often held back by rules. We get told to do things that make no sense. We get complained about for the stupidest things. Oh, and you can’t make up for it by being awesome. If that was the case, I would make up for it constantly.”

“Okay, a bit conceited there brother.”

“No Keon, this time you’re right. The world is messed up. There are too many people who can’t do harmless things because others feel that it is their right to impose on them. Well, you know what? It’s not their life and they shouldn’t have any say so in how anyone else lives. I finally understand your way of thinking now Keon.”

“Maybe you do, but I don’t think you’re here entirely because of your greed. It seems to me like you have a couple more sins buried inside; Pride and Envy. Though I must say that I don’t disagree with you on what you said in the slightest.”

“Perhaps you’re right. I do have my own sins. I want to make my money off my books so I can buy things to make my life easier. That said, I also feel my ideas are better off left alone because I am special. Anyone who says otherwise is wrong. They shouldn’t be the ones in power. I should be in power.”

“Whoa! Hold back there. You can have power, but you’re still under me. That doesn’t matter though. Troy, you have finally seen reason. You understand the idiocy that is the human condition. You are fully ready. Leave and join us at Sinister Ambition. We will create this world and you will be given power. You won’t have to listen to anyone else about how you live your life ever again.”

“That does sound pretty nice. I could be special in this new world. People would look up to me the way that I so rightfully deserve. I wouldn’t be just some other fool on anyone’s mind.”

“Yes, so join us. Join Abraham in his creation of a perfect world. With your help, we can show everyone why Sinister Ambition has been right all along. We can show everyone that Abraham is more deserving of being God. With your help, we can be one step closer to victory over those damned angels.”

Troy smirked. “I think you misunderstand me Keon. It would be nice to have that power I will admit. There’s a bit of a problem with that though. To join Sinister Ambition, I would have to agree that Abraham is a better fit as God. The way I see it though, he’s just a fool. He’s not worthy of having that status.”

“So, you actually think this God we have now is more worthy?”

“Yes, I do. Keon, I am upset with this world just as you are. There are things that happen around the world every day that piss me off. There are kids who have been shot in their schools. People get robbed every day. It’s sad to me that anyone has a reason to do that. Here’s the thing though. To reach true peace, you have to overcome grand obstacles. Anything else is not peace at all. It’s just a dictator scaring people into doing what he wants.”

“What a bunch of nonsense! The people of the world don’t deserve that peace. They are despicable. That’s why we are getting rid of well over 90% of them.”

“They are, but they yet they still stand. They live day after day facing the trials of life because they understand. They know what it’s like to suffer. There’s a song called Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked from a band called Cage The Elephant. In the song the artist has a conversation with two people; a robber and a person being robbed. When the robber explains himself, do you know what he tells her?”

“No, I’ve never heard that song.”

“You really haven’t? Man Keon, you’re really living under a rock these days. Well, the robber says to the person, There ain’t no rest for the wicked. Money don’t grow on trees. I’ve got bills to pay. I’ve got mouths to feed. He also goes on to say You know I can’t hold back. I can’t slow down. Though you know, I wish I could. I may have been off on a couple words with the lyrics, but that’s really what they sing about in the song.”

“So, there are even humans who realize the crappy state that the world is in.”

“That’s not the point! I ask you a question Keon. Did anyone in that song do anything wrong? Sure the robber stole something, but maybe he wouldn’t have had to steal something if he could actually afford to live.”

“You’ve stated my point exactly right there. Now, I’m not going to say that it’s easy to keep the world from going into poverty. These people who control that have a tough job to deal with. They can’t see everyone’s situation. Why does the potential for this issue even exist in the first place though? If God was really such an awesome God, he wouldn’t have allowed this to happen.”

“I don’t think that’s the point behind God. What’s the point of creating a world of humans if you don’t let them live the way they see fit? God’s doing exactly what Abraham is talking about if you think about it. He’s letting people live their lives. He’s not interfering. Sure he intervenes sometimes, but he makes people deal with their problems a lot. I know I learn much more when I deal with my problems than I do when an answer is given to me.”

“No matter how much proof you are given, you’ll just never get it. The point is that Sinister Ambition understands the world and we desire to change it. You look at us as if we are villains, but we aren’t. We’re just people who want to see the world change. The difference is that we are actually making it happen.”

“There’s nothing else I have to say to you Keon. We’re never going to agree on this.”

Troy stood back up as Keon pulled another white string. A wall of lava emerged between Troy and Keon. Keon had left a seemingly perfect defense that could melt away Troy’s entire body. Troy rummaged through his books, looking for an empty one. As soon as he found one, he opened it and quickly wrote in his book with a pen. Just seconds before he would have hit the wall of lava, the wall split and he passed safely though.

Keon grinned. “I’m impressed Troy. You actually had a defense ready for that.”

“Of course I did. What more would you expect from me.”

At that moment, Troy noticed something. He and Keon were no longer floating down the lake of lava. Instead, they were floating in mid-air inside what appeared as the inside of a volcano. He could see lava far below and a rocky walls extending upward all around. He couldn’t see the lava lake in the direction he had entered from as the path had been closed off by a rocky wall.

The platforms stopped floating in the center of the volcano as lava shot up in pillars all around them. As Keon began to transform he spoke, “Welcome to your final resting place my brother.”

[Maikeru D. Shinigami]

Chapter 12

Hell Hounds

Kevin walked with Vazor through the rocky tunnels of the Treasury Mines as they searched for their friends. Of course, with Vazor being a veloci raptor and all, they weren’t exactly communicating or anything. They travelled through many tunnels as they journeyed for a couple hours. They weren’t totally sure if they were getting closer to the next level, but luckily they were. After those couple hours had passed, they heard the sound of two people speaking a couple tunnels ahead.

Kevin and Vazor turned down a tunnel to their right and then another to their left afterwards. When they turned down that one, they ran into two of their friends. Phillip looked to Yulena and spoke, “All I’m saying is that we’re going the wrong way. We went down this same tunnel just a few minutes ago. I left marks on the walls.”

Yulena turned to her left to see the mark on the wall, “Oh, well I guess we have come this way before.”

“Yes, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“Will you two stop bickering?” Kevin exclaimed.

Phillip turned to Kevin and said ecstatically, “Kevin, finally we found someone.”

“Actually, I prefer to look at this as a case of me finding you, not you finding me. You see, I was the one who heard the two of you talking, not the other way around. So, yeah, I found you.”

Yulena intervened. “Who cares who found who? What’s important is that we all have found each other now and that since we know which tunnel Kevin came from, we can rule that one out.”

“Well, not really. You see, the tunnel I just came from was from another area where there was a fork in the tunnels. So, that way could still be good.”

Phillip sighed. “Great, you know, I’m really not that fond of this level of Hell. It’s confusing. I don’t know where I am.”

“Tell me about it,” Kevin agreed, “I almost wish that whole idea of Hell just being an eternal lake of fire were true right now.”

Yulena nodded her head. “You know, I was hoping not to have to suggest this since I want to hold back on using my powers for an actual fight. It seems to me though like it’s the only sure way to find anything. So, who wants me to search the tunnels? I can find us a good path in a matter of minutes.”

As soon as she finished saying that, Kevin spoke up and pulled out an Etch-A-Sketch, “That won’t be necessary. Instead of having you have to look through these tunnels for God knows how long we could take a much easier route. I’ve been working on building up my magical capabilities and with this I can generate a map of this entire level. Of course, it might be a bit confusing still with all the tunnels.”

“So let me get this straight,” Phillip interrupted, “Yulena, you can use your powers to scope out paths. Kevin, you can use your children’s toy to get a map of the entire area.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“So, why are we not the third level yet?”

“Good question. I guess I just didn’t consider using my little mapping toy until now.”

“Then let’s get going,” Yulena suggested.

With that, Kevin used his Etch-A-Sketch powers to generate a map. It looked like a maze, but it was better than walking blindly. Kevin, Phillip, Yulena and Vazor navigated through the maze of tunnels as they search for the third level of Hell.



About an hour earlier on Earth, just as Johnny was revived, something strange happened. Sitting on a couch in a lovely living room with white walls was a woman with her son. The woman was in her mid-twenties with long light brown hair and blue eyes. She had grown to be around five-foot-six over the years, but she could still be mistaken as an older high school girl or young college student. She wore a short sleeve green shirt with blue jeans and white and red shoes.

The boy was around six years old. He was three-foot-eight with short spiked blonde hair and blue eyes. He wore a red shirt with the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers on it along with a pair of blue jeans and black shoes. He was playing with action figures at the time as his mother was watching television. It was at that moment, that the two of them both had a sudden twitch. Their names were Clarise MacIntosh and Blake MacIntosh.

As she twitched, Clarise felt like something strange had just happened to her. She definitely knew she was right when she looked down and saw Blake in her living room. She looked at him with an odd look on her face and asked herself aloud, “Since when do I baby living in my house?”

Clarise was close to freaking out. She didn’t remember who Johnny MacIntosh was. It was as if his apparent death in Hell completely destroyed his existence from her memory. She tried to take a deep breath, but nothing she did was helping her out at all. She still was puzzled by who exactly the little boy standing in her room was. As she stood she did remember one person who could help her. She picked up the phone and dialed in some numbers.




In another house, about sixty miles away, lived another woman. She was a couple years younger than Clarise and she appeared around the same age. She had long dirty blonde hair with auburn streaks, green eyes and a cute face with round cheeks and eyes that could captivate. She was wearing a black tank top designed for the band Alter Bridge. Over her legs, she wore black pants held down with a studded belt and black boots. Her name was April Harris.

As she heard her phone ring, she headed into the somewhat messy living room of her small apartment and looked at the caller ID. When she saw the name she smiled and answered the phone, “Clarise, it’s been a while. How have you been?”

“Honestly April, I’m freaking out right now. There’s a baby in my living room.”

“Yeah, you had the baby about six years ago. What’s so freaky about that?”

“I don’t remember having the child. I don’t remember who I had sex with that could be the father of the child. I don’t know how the baby’s here.”

“Well, that is unusual. Now that you mention it, I can’t remember the name of his father either. I just remember you having the baby.”

“There’s only one explanation then. Something must have happened in Licharius. Someone doesn’t want me to remember who this child is.”

“This is a problem. Clarise, I am going to make my way over to your place. We’ll figure this out together.”

“Thanks April, I can always count on you.”

“That’s why we’re BFFs.”

April hung up the phone on her end just before Clarise hung up hers with a smile. She then realized something. If she couldn’t find the name by remember, maybe she could find out her last name and that would spark something. She dug around in her purse until she found her ID and spoke to herself, “Clarise MacIntosh, where have I heard that last name before? Must be someone I went to school with. Maybe Principal Barnes could help me out.”

Clarise picked up the phone and made a phone call to Principal Barnes.




Back in Hell, Darla and Bigan rode along in a mine cart on some tracks as they rushed through tunnels. Bigan had his eyes closed and Darla chuckled, “What’s wrong Bigan? Is it going a little too fast for you?”

“It’s nothing,” Bigan lied, “Just felt like meditating and have you ever tried meditating with your eyes open? It’s madness, absolute madness.”

Darla responded sarcastically, “Right, so you’re not afraid, just trying to keep your mind calm and clear.”

“Yes, that’s exactly right.”

“Yeah, you know in the world I am from which shall henceforth be known as Reality Land, we call that being afraid,” Darla spoke as the cart slowed down until it ceased movement entirely, “It’s alright Bigan, you can open your eyes now.”

Bigan opened his eyes to see that he shouldn’t have listened to Darla. They had exited the caves with its speed and everything to get to a much worse location. They were in an area surrounded by rock in every direction aside from the one direction Bigan wanted to see rock, down. They were in open area with giant stalactites sticking down from the roof and an abyss where they could see no bottom. The cart tracks didn’t just end there either, they spun around inside the area like a wacky rollercoaster and they were gradually inching forward as the cart was close to taking a near 90 degree drop.

Bigan closed his eyes as he exclaimed, “Oh hell nah,” and the cart went down the tracks faster than ever.

Darla looked over at Bigan and tapped his shoulder, “Don’t worry, if we fall off we’ll die on impact.”

“I’m not worried. I just, I don’t know. Leave me alone.”

“Wow, whatever world you come from is really weird. I’d like to visit some time so that I can understand your language.”

“Oh stop it Darla! So I’m afraid of heights and speed. Why is that so funny to you?”

“Oh, so you were being sarcastic then. I’ll remember what you sound like when you’re sarcastic for the future,” Darla said before writing in a notebook, “First note of Bigan’s Land of Unreality, the sound of frustration is actually sarcasm.”

“First rule of Reality Land, people are amused and enjoy being sarcastic whenever you are scared of something.”

As the two of them exchanged sarcasm, they came closer and closer to something strange. The track was set to have the cart slam into a rocky wall. The wall didn’t look normal however. It was large and square, kind of like a computer monitor. Also like a computer, it had what looked like a wire extending downward and twisting around into the wall. Though, the wire was also made of rock. Darla tapped Bigan’s shoulder, “I think we’re going to crash.”

Bigan opened his eyes and screamed, “What the hell?”

Instead of smacking into the rock formation, the cart and Darla seeped into the wall while Bigan fell through the cart into another cart below the rock formation. The cart then sped off and into a tunnel out of the area. Inside the rock formation, the cart dropped downward and slammed into nothingness as it threw Darla out. Darla found herself in an area of infinite blackness as she pushed herself back up to her feet.

She walked forward a few steps and felt herself step on some kind of button as two images appeared in front of her. They appeared as two open file folders. She tilted her head, trying to figure out where she was but then just shrugged it off. She walked toward the file folders and jumped inside the one to her left as she was transported to what seemed like another world.

“What is this?” Darla asked herself as she stood on a floor of white surrounded by small walls of black. She looked upward to see what looked like a paint bucket dropped purple paint down onto the area she was in. Darla quickly ran a few steps and jumped over the wall of black as the purple paint filled in the entire area between the black walls, “It’s like I’m in a computer program.”

As if on cue, an image appeared flickering above her. It was a large image showing the face of Delilah. Delilah looked down at her impressed and paid her a compliment, “Right you are, little genius. Yes, the world you are in as a computer world. You are in a Paint document right now.”

“Well, that explains the white floor, the black walls and the paint bucket. I just have one question for you though. Why trap me in a computer world?”

“Why wouldn’t I? I mean, it’s fun for both us isn’t it? Who doesn’t like playing on a computer?”

“Yeah, well I’m sorry to tell you that the feeling of this being fun isn’t exactly mutual. It’s interesting sure, but not fun.”

“Oh, what’s wrong Darla? Not a big fan of PCs? Are you an XBOX girl? Playstation? No, maybe you just enjoy playing some Nintendo. Have I caught on yet?”

“Look Delilah, having your little computer powers is all fine and dandy and everything, but I’m really don’t feel like playing around right now. Do you think maybe you can just let me out of here and we can settle this woman to woman?”

“Darla, you know I can’t do that. You’re still seventeen years old. Physically harming you is illegal isn’t it?” Delilah laughed, “Come on girl, calm down. We’re just having a little fun aren’t we?”

“You say that you’re just having fun, but I know the real reason you’re doing this. It’s much easier for you to trap me inside a computer than it is for you to fight me yourself. It’s fine I understand why. You see, the thing is you don’t believe you can beat me. I guess my name precedes me. I get it, believe me I do. I mean I have extraordinary talent and your powers just can’t compare.”

“You think you me Darla. Do you really think I’m that easy to figure out? Do you think that I believe that I can’t beat you with my own strength? Really, that’s actually quite amusing. I guess you can still make jokes. Well done.”

“Nice, more sarcasm, I think I’ve heard my fair share of that today. Your snarky remarks don’t fool me Delilah. So why don’t you just stop playing stupid. I know you’re afraid of me. Hell, if I were you, I’d be afraid of me too.”

Delilah sighed. “You just don’t get it. Darla, talking to you is starting to bore me, so I’m going to have to cut this conversation short. If you really want to battle me one on one, then just find your way out.”

With that, the image of Delilah disappeared and Darla was left to find her way out. At that moment, a pen descended down onto the page and began drawing walls on the floor. Darla ran from the pen as fast as she could. When the pen came close to reaching her, she jumped to her left and the pen disappeared. Seconds later, a circular wall of black appeared around her as a paint bucket filled with orange paint poured down toward her.

Darla rushed away and jumped over the black wall just in time to avoid be drowned in the orange paint. She then saw a pair of scissors started cutting the paper near her and ran as fast as she could. The scissors closed in on her. As they got within a foot of her, they stopped being able to move forward as she had left the art board. That’s when she got an idea. She ran to her right beside the art board until she could see the toolbox above. She saw a pointer try to click on her and jumped out of its way. Within about ten more seconds, she had found her way to an X button. She jumped on it and the document was closed.

Darla reappeared on another white space where she was surrounded by images depicting different programs in a computer. The pointer grabbed her and threw her into an image that appeared as a calculator. As she reappeared on top of a calculator, Delilah’s image appeared again above her, “Hello Darla, are you having fun yet? Let us play a game now. I hope you are good at math.”

Darla watched as numbers began to appear on a screen off to her right. They were combining with symbols to form mathematical equations. Darla didn’t need to be told what to do, she understood well what was going on. She watched the screen as she saw an equal sign appeared behind the equation 42 x 3. Darla did the equation in her head and quickly jumped on the numbers 1, 2 and finally 6 to make 126. Darla sighed, “Is this all? I was in honors Math.”

She watched as more numbers and symbols appeared to give her another equation to solve. It came up with the equation 13 x 6 – 17. It took Darla a couple more seconds to figure that one out, but she knew the answer. She started off by jumping on the number 6 and then the number 1 to make 61. Delilah laughed as Darla again got the answer right. Delilah put up another equation for Darla to answer which required a bit more though.

Darla looked at the screen as the equation (41+13)–31x5(6-3). It took Darla about four times as long to think of the answer for that one, but she again got it right. She started off by pressing the positive/negative button and then went to the numbers. She jumped on the numbers 4 and then 1 twice to come up with -411. The answer was right yet again. Delilah was impressed, “Well, I don’t think I’m going to have much luck beating you at this game.”

Delilah clicked on the X button with the pointer and Darla reappeared on another white space surrounded by program images. The pointer button then clicked the X button again so that she was standing back in the area of infinite blackness with no images in the area. At that moment, green numbers started appearing in the area as if the area was being hacked into. Within a minute, the screen swirled around before the imagery changed.

When the image finished changing, Darla found herself in the center of a circular room with statues of figures from Greek myths in it. Some of the figures included the Greek Gods while others included lesser figures like a Cerberus and a Gorgon. As she stood in the middle of them hell hounds emerged from the ground, surrounding her completely. They were large. Standing on all fours, they were about four feet tall and they had plenty of muscle on them. Their fur was black and bloody as they bared their teeth. Fire rushed from their bodies as they stared Darla down with piercing eyes.

Darla looked at them as Delilah spoke, “What can I say, we don’t really have any particular sin to torture you with. You’ve been getting clean ever since you met those Council members. But, I can still give you a bit of a trial to overcome. Those hell hounds are real. Good luck fighting them all by yourself.”

Darla stared down the hell hounds as she waited for them to make a move. Within seconds, two of the hell hounds jumped at her. She pulled a pair of spinning tops out of her pocket and flicked them at the dogs. The dogs jumped out of the way, but she then stabbed them with sewing needles which she controlled with threads. She pulled back on the sewing needles, making the two hell hounds smack into each other. As they did so, they fell to the ground, but quickly got back up to their feet.

Darla proceeded to jump forward at them and created a bubble which in her hands. She slammed her hands down on the hell hounds as they were caught inside the bubble. The two hell hounds floated into the air and increased rapidly in size until they popped both the bubble and themselves. More and more hell hounds jumped at Darla, but she was finding ways to defend against each one. Three jumps at her first, each of which she wrapped a thread around. Pulling on the thread, she beheaded them.

Two more jumped at her and smacked them in the face with her bladed umbrella, smashing their heads in. The hell hounds appeared to be no match for Darla as she combined some fancy acrobatic skills with her weapons and bubbles to knock them out one by one. After defeating four hell hounds by trapping them in bubbles and having them pop however, they finally caught her. Six hell hounds jumped her as about twenty more quickly followed. She was on the bottom of a literal dog pile trying to break free when the scenery changed.

Darla found herself in a very dreary place standing atop the roof of a twenty foot tall building made out of metal. There was a ladder on the end of it which led down to what looked like a small, empty parking lot. The building and the lot were surrounded entirely by water with lily pads floating in the water. There was no sun in the sky and the area all around was grey and somewhat foggy. Darla squatted and held her eyes speaking to herself, “No, not real. Not real. Not real.”

She was facing some of her greatest fears. Something about being stranded by herself made her feel uneasy. Darla had always been the type of person who loves attention. It wasn’t just that though, she feared being alone, especially in an area she didn’t recognize. She hated storms also, so she feared that at any moment the grey sky would turn into a storm. The fact that it wasn’t was more torturous to her than it would have been if it was.

As she squatted down, she felt her clothes begin dampen which also bothered her greatly. Darla never got along well with water because when she was young she had a near death experience where she almost drowned in a pull. It was as if the area was made to scare the crap out of her, which is exactly what it was. What made hell hounds dangerous was not their ability to devour people. It was their ability to trap their foes in a world of their deepest fears.

Even the lily pads she had difficult being around because she associated them with violent water creatures. After a few minutes, she realized what was going on and let out a deep breath. She stood up to her feet and walked over to the ladder, climbing down it to stand in the parking lot area. As she stood, she looked off in the distance to see that there was a golf cart floating in the water. It was literally the only thing in the area that didn’t make her feel uneasy.

She wasn’t sure what to do. How could she possibly escape in a place she knew nothing about? After she asked herself that question, she spent about a minute to think before speaking to herself, “Maybe this just about finding a way out. Perhaps this is about facing my fears. If I want to escape this area, I need to reach the one thing I’m not afraid of. If I can reach the golf cart, maybe I can escape back to reality. Or, virtual reality I guess. I have to swim though. Not too fond of that.”

Darla shuddered at the thought and looked behind herself to see something worse. The area behind her was slowly being shrouded in darkness. In the darkness she could make out something she couldn’t quite define until it got a little closer though. Just in front of the approaching darkness, was a swarm of giant insects. Not just any insects though, but wasps. Wasps were yet another thing which Darla feared greatly. In fact, they were her greatest fear.

Their look was even more intimidating than ever though as she caught a glimpse of them. They were giant green wasps and their shine made them appear kind of metallic. They must have been about seven feet in height, definitely not your average size. When Darla saw them flying at her with their deadly gaze, her eyes widened and she froze up for a few seconds. When she managed to regain her composure, she knew her suspicions were correct.

Darla ran toward the water and jumped in as she began to swim toward the golf cart. She swum around the lily pads and hoped that there were no creatures in the water waiting to eat her. After swimming about half way to the golf cart, she noticed the wasps were getting too close for comfort and that she probably wouldn’t be able to escape them. She wasn’t exactly a marathon swimmer, so she tried something. She climbed up on a lily pad and realized that the lily pad was hard enough for her to stand on.

As she stood to her feet however, she saw sting rays ascend as their heads popped up out of the water. They all stared her down as her brow began to sweat. Of all the sea creatures in the world, there was none she feared more than sting rays. After what happened to the crocodile hunter Steve Irwin, she was no longer able to even look at sting rays. Darla breathed heavily, “Oh gosh, sting rays, really?”

Darla was being chased by giant green wasps from behind and would have to pass sting rays in front if she wanted to reach the golf cart. She took a deep breath and decided that the only thing she could do was go for it. She jumped from the lily pad she was on to the next one and landed safely on it. The sting rays weren’t trying to sting her, they just stared at her. She looked to the next lily pad and jumped, landing safely on it too.

The next one for her was frightening though. The lily pad in front of her had the tail of one of the sting rays lying atop of it. Darla froze up when she saw that and tried to find another lily pad she could jump to. None of them were in jumping range though and she didn’t have time to jump back and go around. She closed her eyes and crossed her fingers for a second before reopening them. When she did, she saw that the sting ray had moved and his tail was no longer on the lily pad.

With a sigh of relief, she jumped to the lily pad, but didn’t land safely. She landed on the edge and began to slip off toward the water. Luckily, Darla caught herself before she fell and safely returned to her feet. The wasps were getting closer and she still had a few more lily pads to jump to. She jumped to the one directly in front of her and landed safely on it. She then jumped from that one to the next safely. The sting rays all turned to stare at her, remaining motionless.

She had one more lily pad to jump to before she could jump to the golf cart. She made sure to set her feet and then quickly jumped to the final lily pad. The next part would be the moment of truth. If she was wrong about the golf cart, she would sink into the water. The sting rays and giant wasps would have her right where they wanted her. There was nothing else she could do though.

Darla jumped off the final lily pad into the seat of the golf cart. She was hoping she would automatically reappear in the circular mythology room, but it wasn’t that simple. She began to sink down in the water as the sting rays swum toward her. They got closer and closer as Darla’s fear grew. Within a few more minutes, rain began to fall and lighting struck the metal building causing it to set fire in the midst of the darkness.

The darkness was getting closer and closer, but more importantly, the green wasps were within about twenty feet of her. They all flew around, trapping her between them just as the sting rays were doing. Darla was in deep fear as she thought to herself, Of all the times to be wrong, this is the worst time. I can’t believe I’m going to die sinking underwater in a storm while being stung by giant wasps and sting rays.

She then realized something though that gave her one final hope. There was a key in the ignition of the golf cart. She spoke to herself, “Here goes nothing”. As she turned the key, the golf cart rushed forward and the scenery around her changed back. She returned to the circular mythology room as the hell hounds held her at the bottom of the dog pile. They tried to bite her, but she maneuvered away from each bite and muscled her way up, knocking them all off of her and onto their backs.

Back where she wanted to be, Darla enclosed a bubble around herself and floated high above the hell hounds to where they couldn’t reach her by jumping. As the bubble she was in popped, another one appeared below her which she landed on. The bubble floated up as she stood on it and pointed her hands outward tying threads around them. The threads attached to sewing needles which she stuck in the head and limbs of one of the hell hounds, turning it into a puppet.

She used the hell hound to attack the other hell hounds. She made the hell hound smack two of the others into the statues of two of the Greek gods. One of them was skewered by the trident of Poseidon while the other was stabbed by the blade of Athena. The hell hounds all then began to attack the one that Darla was controlling. She used the hell hound to knock out a large majority of the hell hounds.

Three of them jumped at her hell hound simultaneously, but she made it smack them all in the face with its tail. The tail caught their faces on fire which was apparently fatal, as they instantly died. She then systematically had her hell hound jump at seven in quick succession, biting into their jugulars as they fell lifeless as well. Four more jumped at her hell hound simultaneously, but she pulled back on his head and the hell hound shot a fireball at all four of them, burning off their faces.

There were only eight more hell hounds to take out aside from the one she had control of. She made hers jump at one that was by itself and had it bite into the jugular of that hell hound. Three of the others jumped at hers and tried to the hell hounds out. She made her hell hound smack them in the face however, smacking them each into a golden thread which connected to the statues of the sisters of fate. The thread beheaded each of them. That was all she would get to do though as the final four jumped her hell hound devoured it.

She only had four more to defeat though and she confident she could beat them. She jumped off her bubble as it popped and then threw spinning tops at each of them. The spinning tops smack them each in the face, causing them to lose focus. In that moment, she quickly smacked two of them in the face with her bladed umbrella, smashing their faces. The final two hell hounds jumped at her as she stabbed herself in the heart with her bladed umbrella.

As she stabbed herself, the hell hounds fell to the ground lifeless. She pulled her shirt down a little bit to show that the area around her heart was straw. With about forty hell hounds dead all around her, she stood with a grin and looked around. Darla yelled out, “Alright, I’ve passed your stupid test now Delilah. Why don’t you be a good girl and let me out of here already so I can kick your ass you pansy.”

The scenery changed and she was back in the area of infinite darkness with two open doors in front of her. They each led into a field of white as Delilah’s image appeared above her again. Delilah laughed, “You’ve been quite amusing girl, but if you think that I’m going to be easier than what you just went through, you’re going to be disappointed. Which door are you going to choose now? One of them leads to me but the other leads to the recycle bin. Go into the recycle bin and you will be permanently deleted.”

Darla gritted her teeth in anger, “Oh, so that’s how you’re going to play now. Are you really so scared of me that you are trying to get rid of me without having to fight yourself? That’s low girl, really low.”

“I’m not here to be lectured by you Darla. Regardless of what you say, reality is reality. It’s not going to change the fact that one of these two doors leads to the recycle bin. Now choose or I’ll just throw you into the recycle bin.”

Darla was really frustrated by Delilah, but she had to sit there and think. There was no way that there wasn’t some sort of hint as to which one was which. She shot threads with sewing needles attached to each hand through the doors. Each thread began to pull her in so she quickly grabbed a pair of scissors from her pocket and cut both of the threads. Darla sighed, “Well, that doesn’t work.”

“You didn’t really think it would be that easy did you? I’ll give you thirty seconds to figure it out before I destroy you.”

Darla used ten of those seconds to think. With that, she decided that there was one way she might be able to figure something out. As she was in a computer world, the recycle bin shouldn’t have any reaction, but the door that leads out of the computer world should. She shot a bubble at each of the doors and they popped. The two doors got wet. The one on her left had no reaction, but the one on her right did exactly what she wanted. It caused lightning to start shooting around in the dark area.

Darla ran forward quickly avoiding the lightning strikes as she ran for the door on the right. Delilah was counting down from ten as she did so with lightning striking in her area too. With about five seconds left, the lightning stopped. At three seconds Delilah made the pointer start approaching Darla. Finally, at one second, Darla jumped through the door just before the pointer could reach her. She found herself sliding down a black tunnel until she was dropped into an unusual area.

Darla found herself in what looked like a small play town made entirely out of a computer chip. Everything was green with different colored lines flowing through it. There were even a few spots, where it looked like currents were running through the lines. The walls and ceiling were no exception. As she looked forward, Darla saw Delilah sitting atop the largest building in the small town; that building being only fifteen feet tall. As she looked up at Delilah she smirked, “Your stall tactics end now Delilah.”

Delilah chuckled, “No matter how much you call me a staller or accuse me of being scared of you, I’m denying the accusations fully. I must give you a round of applause for finding your way out of my little computer world without dying in the process though. Bravo girl, I say, bravo! Did you enjoy your time? If you want season passes, they’re on sale now at 40% off. What do you say?”

“I say shove them up your ass.”

“Aww, that hurts. And here I thought after our time together today you would have grown to realize how fun it really is.”

“No, all I learned today that was actually of any use is what hell hounds actually do.”

“Ah yeah, they really trap you in your own personal Hell, don’t they? Tell me Darla, did you have fun playing with them? Our pets needed some time for fun.”

“Yeah, I’d say they had plenty of fun. They had so much fun that it killed them, quite literally.”

“Indeed. It’s really going to be a pain to clean up all the mess though. You could have been nice and done it for me.”

Darla gasped. “And spend extra time in there when I could come meet you? Never!”

“You sure are one sarcastic little girl Darla. I think I’m going to have to teach you to respect your elders. What do you say we do what you’ve wanted to do this entire time and settle this right here, right now?”

“I thought you’d never ask. Let’s get this started.”

[Maikeru D. Shinigami]

Chapter 13

Seductive Greenhouse

An Hour Earlier [68 Hours Remain]

Morpheous flew down the abyss of the Treasury Mines with his vampire wings spread out. He crashed through a bridge on his way, knocking a group of goblins down into the abyss with him. It also allowed Alatar and Eric to move on into the tunnels. As he continued to fall, the goblins weren’t far behind. Instead of speeding up, Morpheous slowed before flying back upwards toward the goblins.

When the goblins noticed that, they laughed. They pulled their clubs back, ready to strike Morpheous. When Morpheous reached the first goblin, the goblin swung his club at him. Morpheous flew around the goblin and continued to fly upward toward the other goblins. One after another, the goblins swung their clubs at him. Morpheous maneuvered around the attacks as if they were nothing. The goblins realized they were in trouble in that point as their brows began to sweat.

After Morpheous had flown past the last one, he stopped in mid-air for a moment and then flew down toward them. The goblins swung their clubs wildly hoping to hit Morpheous but to no avail. Morpheous dove quickly between the goblins into the abyss, avoiding every strike. After he had passed every goblin, he stopped again and looked back up at them with a grin. A second later, each goblin split in half as the clubs and goblin bodies fell down past Morpheous to the bottom of the large chasm.

With the goblins all defeated, Morpheous took a moment to survey the surrounding area. When he noticed nothing of interest however, he flew down into chasm. He flew quickly looking for the bottom. After about a minute of flying, the bottom of the chasm came into sight. After another half of a minute, Morpheous had reached the bottom chasm and landed on the ground in between the fallen goblins and clubs. The ground he landed on was made out of stone.

The ground wasn’t the only thing in the area made out of stone either. As Morpheous looked forward, he saw that in front of him was a stone staircase that spiraled downward. He took the stairs down and as he did, he saw more and more plants covering the walls. Morpheous looked at the plants and thought to himself. Well, this is odd. I was under the impression that the deeper into Hell we get, the hotter it would get. How can plants grow in a place like this?

Morpheous didn’t care enough about the answer to think about that question for more than a few seconds. He shrugged his shoulders and continued his way down the staircase. It took him about two minutes to completely walk down the staircase and reach the next level. When he did reach, he found himself in a stone hallway covered in more plants with square openings in the walls to his left. He walked up to the first opening and looked outside it to see a glimpse of the third level of Hell.

What he saw was probably the largest greenhouse ever. The greenhouse itself was made mainly of dark brown steel, though there was a rectangular building connected to greenhouse made of black stone. The rectangular building was connected to one of the long sides of the greenhouse. Morpheous would have been able to get a clearer of the connected building if he were to walk to the end of the stone hallway. Instead though, he took a few more moments to look over the area. As he did so, he noticed something that seemed impossible.

The greenhouse was situated on a huge platform of red rock. The greenhouse itself had to be about four miles long by two miles across. Adding on the extra area outside the greenhouse, the red rock platform must have been about four and a half miles long by three miles across. The rectangular building was about one fourth of the length of the greenhouse by one eighth the width. The steel walls of the greenhouse curved upward until flattening out at the top.

On the top flattened area, there were also glass windows where Morpheous could see some of what was inside the greenhouse. Of course, it was more plants. The greenhouse appeared to be covered in plants, almost as if it was more of a wild jungle than a greenhouse. Surrounding the red rock platform was a large lake of lava. Most people wouldn’t have been able to notice all of that, but Morpheous had the aid of his heightened senses as a vampire.

His senses were so advanced in fact, that he could see another building connected to the greenhouse on the far end of the greenhouse about four miles away. The building was a large tower which extended into the air twice as high as the greenhouse. It wasn’t nearly touching the rock ceiling above, but it was large nonetheless. It seemed to be built from black stone, just as the rectangular building was. On the top part of the tower, Morpheous could see the symbol of an arrow. Morpheous couldn’t tell what was beyond that aside from the lake of lava.

The last thing he noticed was that there was one more circular tower on the side closest to him. Unlike the other however, the closer one had a flat town instead of a pointed top. Morpheous had a smirk as he looked out over the area and continued to walk through the hallway. He saw that there was another plant covered stone hallway to his left and turned down it. Morpheous continued to walk through a maze of plant covered stone walls until he finally reached a pair of black copper-alloy doors.

Morpheous opened the doors and found himself in a tower with a large column of gray stone in the middle. Morpheous looked to his right to see a metal staircase going down and a wall of gray stone part way around. He then looked to his left to see that the there was a metal walkway that curved around the central column. He turned to his left to walk around the column and saw another pair of black copper-alloy doors on that side. He walked through the doors and found himself walking onto the steel roof of the greenhouse.

Morpheous walked forward and over the steel frames of the windows as he looked down to see that although the inside of the greenhouse was like a wild jungle, there were still pathways throughout. Morpheous walked over the frames and to his left where he sat on the steel roof beside the windows. He pressed a button on his armor which caused another compartment of his armor to open up.

Morpheous pulled out another marble and stared at it. As he did, he sighed. He pulled out another marble and stared at it for a few moments. Again, he sighed as he spoke to himself, “Great! I’m really bored right now. There are only a few people nearby, but they don’t interest me. It looks like I’m probably going to be sitting here by myself for a while. I really wish I had brought a magazine or something.”




Elsewhere in Hell, Shannon walked up out of an opening in a wall of rock after climbing up another set of rock stairs. She looked around to see that she was on a four foot wide red rock ledge that curved with the wall. The ledge was surrounded by lava, though the lava was a few feet down. The ledge didn’t extend very far to her right, so she walked to her left. That was where she wanted to go anyways.

She looked up as she saw a large black stone tower connected to the greenhouse and stared upwards to an area around the top of the tower. The look in her eyes was that of fury and disgust. She sped up her pace as she looked to reach the tower more quickly when enemies sprouted from the ground. In front of her, she saw plant monsters literally grow in front of her. When they finished growing, they were about the size of a human.

Their heads were covered in various different colors of flower petals while the rest of their bodies appeared to be made of thorny vines. They appeared as humans, except for in their lower bodies where their lower halves looked more like green thorny dresses. There were holes in their bodies where eyes, nostrils, a mouth and ears would be on a human. Shannon looked forward at the creatures and yawned, “Please, do you pathetic creatures really think you can stand against me? You biljkas are idiots for real.”

The biljkas were apparently infuriated by the insult as they showed an angry expression on their face. None of them said anything however, since biljkas weren’t creatures who could actually talk. Instead the biljka closest to Shannon punched its arm forward at her. The arm extended like rubber as the biljka attempted to hit Shannon in the face. Shannon leaned to her right and flipped her body backwards holding her body up with her limbs as the extending arm went over her.

The blijka’s arm then snapped downward and toward Shannon’s stomach. Shannon avoided that attack too however as her body split in half. She walked away from the attack with both parts of her body. She walked away on her hands for her top half and with her legs for the bottom half. Within seconds, Shannon showed a new addition to her ability as her top half and her bottom half grew a new bottom half and top half. It made it appear as though there were two Shannons.

The Shannon walking on her hands created saw blades on the soles of her boots while the Shannon walking around on her feet pointed her palms forward. The blijka attempted to snap its arm at both Shannons but failed. The Shannon on the left cut through the blijka’s arm with the saw blades on her shoes as the other Shannon had spikes extend from her palms. The spikes went through either end of the blijka’s severed arm and nailed them down to the rock wall.

With the blijkas unable to pull its arm back, it instead shot forward like a rubber band, attempting to slam its thorny body into the two Shannons. The two Shannons turned to the blijka and pointed their palms forward as they began to move their fingers. As the blijka reached a distance around two feet from the Shannons, it was cut to ribbons. The thorny vines flew harmless past them and into the lava where they burnt. The blijkas grew even more enraged as the entire army of them punched all of their arms forward at the Shannons.

The two Shannons pointed their palms at the lava and moved their fingers again. A large chunk of lava flew out of the lake and jumped in front of them to form a large wall of lava. The arms of the blijkas all hit the lava wall and their arms caught fire. As the Shannons placed the lava from the lava wall back into the lake of lava, they saw that the majority of the blijkas were on fire. Those that were, were burnt completely. There were only six blijkas left afterwards.

The two Shannons walked toward each other and touched hands as they recombined to make a single Shannon. With that, the blijkas all slid forward across the ledge at high speeds as they rushed Shannon. Cockily, Shannon closed her eyes and created a pair of saws, one for either hand. She held the handles and jumped forward between and around the blijkas swinging her saws at a speed that made it seem wild and random. When she finished jumping forward, she passed by all the blijkas without a scratch.

The blijkas were all cut to ribbons as some of the pieces of their bodies fell onto the ledge while other pieces fell into the lava. Shannon continued to walk forward on the ledge as she followed the path, getting closer to the tower. At the end of the path, there was a wooden ladder that extended up to a large red rock platform which connected to the tower. Shannon was about to just fly up there, when an unwelcome visitor showed itself.

A six foot tall being with black curly hair appeared atop the platform. He had red eyes and was wearing a black toga with a red heart design in the top left corner. It was held down by a piece of rope. He wore a pair of wooden sandals and his toga seemed to be covered in blood. He looked down at Shannon and spoke, “Turn back now, I will not let you hurt my master. It is not your place to do battle with him and you know that.”

Shannon laughed. “Wow, and who’s going to be the one to stop me, you? You do realize that we aren’t even in the same league don’t you? It doesn’t matter if you try to talk tough with me, you’re nothing. You’re just a fallen cupid. Step aside demon.”

“I warned you to get away, but you leave me no choice. Your confidence will be the death of you Shannon. Do not underestimate my power.”

“I’m not underestimating your power. You’re weak and you know it, Amorek. You’re just a low level demon. You’re the equivalent of a hair that I find in my cereal.”

Amorek had no more words to say to Shannon, he was past the point of talking and had decided the only way to make understand was through force. Shannon pointed her palms at the lava and created another wall of lava before Amorek could make his first move. She then put the lava back into the lake and stared up at Amorek. Amorek smirked as he pulled out a red bow and placed an arrow with a black heart shaped tip on the string. He pulled his bow back with a smirk, “You’re block was too rushed Shannon. I haven’t shot yet.”

Amorek shot forth his arrow and hit Shannon in the chest. Shannon fell to a knee as she coughed up blood and pulled the arrow out of her chest. She threw the arrow in the lava but it was too late. Before her, she saw the image of Roman and walked forward toward him. As she did so, she saw Roman’s eyes begin to bleed and cried, “Roman, no! What’s wrong with you? Tell me love.”

Roman fell to his knees as Shannon slid forward and caught him in her arms. She cried as Roman cried on her shoulders and Amorek flew down in front of Shannon. He laughed, “Honestly Shannon, I can’t believe you. I thought you were supposed to be special or something. I expected more of a challenge than this. You’ve really disappointed me.”

Roman held a knife in his hand behind Shannon’s back and stabbed it in her back. He let go of her and looked down at her with a smirk Shannon fell flat on the ground. Amorek cheered as he began to celebrate his victory, but his celebration was short lived. The very next second, he felt something stab into his back. Shannon had shoved her hand in his back and quickly pulled it back. As Amorek turned around, he fell to his knees lifeless. His last vision was that of Shannon holding his heart in her hands as it stopped beating.

The image of Roman disappeared as Shannon crushed Amorek’s heart in her hands. She took one of his arrows and placed it in her pants. As she looked down at Amorek, she grinned, “Did I really disappoint you Amorek?”

Shannon then turned her head back to the tower and stared up near the top as she flew up toward it.

Two And A Half Hours Later [65 Hours Remains]

Back in the sixth level of Hell, Abraham sat in his throne looking at a set of televisions before him. The televisions displayed images of everything going on in Hell. As he watched, he grew more and more angry. Around every corner, there seemed to be something going wrong for him. Abraham didn’t like that. He was supposed to be the gamemaster. Frustrated, he yelled to himself, “These damn bastards, what is wrong them? Can any of you worthless fools defeat a single enemy?”

As he sat there thinking about the situation however, he was able to calm himself down. He realized that it wasn’t so bad. He continued to speak to himself, “Actually, now that I think about it, what do I have to be worried about? Sure I’m the gamemaster and I’m supposed to make the rules of this game. However, these are just the weakest of the weak. None of my princes have fallen yet and none of my big players have fallen. It’ll just be that much more fun when we win in the end.”

As Abraham continued watching the screens though, he still hoped for one good thing to happen. It wasn’t coming to pass though. It’s not as if his followers weren’t putting up good fights either. He was just bothered because they hadn’t gained a win or really even a clear upper hand in any of the battles. As he watched the battle between Darla and Delilah though, he finally found something worth cheering about. As Darla destroyed the last hell hound, she saved herself, but also gave Abraham his first real smile.

The real hounds of Hell had been locked up for a long time. Their essence was stored away inside the walls of Hell, as they were unable to be released for thousands of years. By defeating the virtual hell hounds however, what Darla had done was break open the lock on their cages. Abraham stood up from is chair and walked to the back wall of his lair. He pulled three levers on a wall that had six and went back to sit in his seat.

As he sat in his seat, he began to twiddle his thumbs while he hummed to himself. He stared at the screens waiting for something to show up. When what he was waiting for finally did, he smiled. Throughout the first three levels of Hell, real hell hounds were emerging from the walls to walk throughout Hell once more. There were hundreds of them on each level and they all had the same goal; hunt down and kill all of Abraham’s enemies.

Abraham looked forward at the screens as he watched the hell hounds walking through caves, through greenery and across deserts. Abraham picked up a fountain drink from beside his throne and began to drink. After a few seconds of drinking, Abraham placed his drink down and began to laugh, “Take this you damn Council. Take this Phillip Pragmer. Take this all you jackasses. My hell hounds will feed on you as you are stuck in greatest nightmare for all of eternity.”

Six Hours Later [59 Hours Remain]

Alatar and Eric walked through the tunnels of the Treasury Mines as they were getting really close to the bottom where they would be able to escape. As they walked the tunnels, they had gone into a state of silence for some time. Eric had gotten a bit bothered by Alatar’s ‘lack of common sense’. As for Alatar, he had more important things on his mind. He was trying to decide what to do once he actually ran into something bad.

The two of them continued through the tunnels as Eric thought a lot about how he had been bothered by Alatar. After a few minutes of thinking, he sighed and broke the silence, “I was a bit rude to you earlier, and I wanted to say I’m sorry. I’m a bit stressed out right now knowing that my friends are down here and any of them can die at any time. I just am afraid for them and I hate that I’m not with them. The way you said the things you said made me wonder if you cared at all.”

“Of course I care. What would make you think that I don’t care? I’m sorry for acting like an idiot earlier. Even an old wise man like me has his weaknesses. When I get around sake, I sometimes lose my ability to think things through. The less of it I’ve had to drink the more it messes with me. I have to make a suggestion to you though. Don’t worry about your friends.”

“How the hell can I not worry about them? My friends are all out in different areas of hell. They could be off fighting anyone. Sinister Ambition is full of strong people and there are certain people with us that I’m not sure can beat them. Hell, even worse, any of them could be facing one of the seven princes. I have to say, the seven princes don’t exactly sound like they’ll be a cakewalk. How can I not worry?”

“Look Eric, I understand your concern. Really, I do. Your worrying isn’t going to change anything though. It doesn’t matter whether you’re worried or not. If one of your friends is in a dangerous situation, they are in a dangerous situation. If one of your friends dies, they die. It’s not something that we want to happen. We have been separated though, so some people are going to die. We should be prepared for that.”

Eric sighed. “I don’t want to be prepared. I just want everyone to be safe. I want us all to be together again. I want us to fight together and take down our enemies together. I know you are right, but I hate to admit that you are. I want to know what’s going on. I want to know my friends are alive. I want to know where the hell Ian is. I fear more that he is dead than anyone.”

“Stop thinking so much Eric. Ian came here of his own free will. We can’t change what he did in the past. He rushed in not realizing what he was getting himself into. He didn’t have the patience he needed. Eric, I’m truly sorry that all your friends are in trouble, but you need to get over that. You need to be prepared for when something comes after us. Do you understand me?”

Eric gave Alatar a nod as they continued walking through the tunnels. After they went through a few more tunnels, they came across a frightening sight. In front of them, was a hell hound walking straight at them. They wanted to try to hide, but they had already been spotted. The hell hound seen them and had already caught their scent. Eric looked at it in fear, “What the hell is that?”

“It’s a hell hound. They’re very fierce and dangerous creatures. They are strongest of the hell creatures. Be very, very careful around them. If you aren’t you were end up dead. That can smell fear and they can trap you in a world of your worst nightmare.”

“Well, that certainly doesn’t make me feel any better about them. I have a good feeling that I hate hell hounds.”

The hell hound gritted its teeth as it growled at Alatar and Eric. The hell hound jumped forward at them as Alatar pointed his staff forward at him. The hell hound was wrapped up be chains and nailed to the ground of the tunnel. Eric sighed in relief as Alatar began to walk forward to the hell hound. Eric stayed back, but that wasn’t a good idea. A second later, he was jumped by another hell hound from behind and sent to his own worst nightmare.

Eric found himself in a room of complete darkness by himself as he was trapped in a cage. There was a lock on the door which made Eric uncomfortable from the get go. He had been afraid of being locked up for a long time. He feared that his past would come back to haunt him and that he would be locked away or sent to the loony bin. Eric grabbed the bars as he yelled for help and asked to be released. He didn’t even realize there was a key on the floor inside the cage. As he looked all around, he saw his friends fighting masked men in black cloaks.

He saw Roman press the buttons on the controller, but nothing happened. Roman’s controller wasn’t working for some reason. The guy in all black pointed a gun at Roman’s head and shot it right through his skull. Roman fell lifeless to the ground. Eric cried out as he saw Roman die before his eyes, “No, please! Don’t kill my friends. Please, don’t kill them.”

To the left, Ian fought another man in all black as he used his martial art skills to try defeating him. The man in black was blocking everything though. Ian couldn’t get a punch or a kick in. His martial arts skills were completely outmatched. Ian went to punch the guy, but he sidestepped the attack and grabbed Ian’s head. He twisted his arms and snapped Ian’s neck as Ian fell to the ground. Eric continued to cry out.

Johnny held a sword in his hand as he and another man and black fought with their swords. They swung them at each other trying to gain the upper hand. Johnny wasn’t good enough, and Eric could tell that by how difficult it was for him just to defend. The man in black knocked Johnny’s sword away and then pulled his sword back. He stabbed the sword through Johnny’s chest and Johnny caught fire.

Next he saw Marie who knocked down her opponent and tried to help him up. The man in black slapped away her hand and stood up to his feet. He punched Marie in the face and then grabbed a wooden staff. The man in black swung the staff at Marie, turning her around completely. He then placed his palm behind her heart, shooting forth nails from his hands through her heart.

Next was Troy who knocked his opponent away and tried to use that time to write in his journal. Before he could finish though, the man in black stabbed himself. Instead of the man in black falling over, Troy fell over, covered in blood. Cornelius was next as he pulled out a giant key and tried to stab that man in black in the chest with it. The man in black teleported behind Cornelius though and whipped out his wings. Cornelius fell as his deep wounds killed him.

It continued on with Darla, who shot forward sewing needles at her man in black. The man in black quickly maneuvered around all of the sewing needles and rushed forward to avoid the attacks. She then pulled out a ring sword which shaped like a ring with blades on the outside but was the size of a hula-hoop. She slashed the ring sword right through Darla’s chest.

He saw Phillip, Kevin, Yulena and all the others as well, but he didn’t continue watching because he couldn’t. Eric cried profusely as he asked for everything to stop. When he opened his eyes again, he saw all of his friends dead on the ground and the darkness closing in on him. The man in black walked up to him and pulled off his mask. He saw Abraham and fell down. Eric screamed, “No you can’t be real.”

Abraham pulled out his Lucifer Blade and went to stab it forward at Eric. Before he could do it though, his neck was snapped and he fell over dead. The darkness stopped closing at that moment and Eric looked around. He was still in tears, but he saw a hand reach down from above. Finally, he noticed the key on the ground and unlocked the cage. Eric stepped out and grabbed the hand as he was pulled out.

Seconds later, he was back in front of Alatar, in the middle of the tunnel with a hell hound lying dead beside him with a twisted neck. Eric had tears in his eyes and he was still scared as he spoke, “Where are they? The man in black killed all of them.”

“You were the victim of a hell hound attack Eric. You’re lucky I was here, but you might not be so lucky next time. The hell hound attacked you in your nightmare. The darkness was closing around you, but I put my hand in and set you free. You’re going to half to stop being scared. Otherwise the hell hounds are going to feed on you like crazy.”

“I’m sorry Alatar. I want to do that, but it’s so hard.”

“Then just try to. I don’t want to lose anyone either.”

Eric wiped tears from his eyes and gave Alatar a smile. He nodded his head and they continued through the tunnels.

Three Hours Earlier [62 Hours Remain]

Silyn and Patrick found themselves in a circular cave area of the Treasury Mines. Around them, they saw six tunnels and were not sure which way to go. Silyn walked forward and tried to get an idea of which one to go through when Patrick sighed, “What are we supposed to do now? These Treasury Mines are too complicated. Even if we find our way through here, how are we supposed to make it through the rest of the levels in time?”

“I don’t know,” Silyn answered honestly, “I would like to think that we will definitely be able to get out of here without too much trouble. I’m not sure which way to go either though. The harsh reality is that there are what seems to be an infinite number of paths here and only a few that actually will lead us anywhere useful. I don’t think this level is built as much for us to not be able to beat it. In fact, I actually believe that the first two levels are not for us to beat. The first level was just their way of separating us and the second level has been forcing us to waste our time.”

“Then what do we do Silyn? I can’t stand being stuck in these tunnels, not knowing which way to go. I want to see my daughter and know that she’s okay. We need to find a way out of here. Isn’t there any kind of power you have that can help us out here? I’ve tried my powers, but they don’t seem to be able to do anything about this.”

Silyn didn’t answer right away. Instead, he looked at the caves and tried to find something that would make one of them stand out more than the others. Maybe one of them was so short that they’d be able to see a dead end or something. He hoped it was that simple, but it wasn’t even close. In the ground, he found words carved into the floor of the third tunnel which said ‘Don’t Come Silyn!’.

Patrick noticed that Silyn’s demeanor changed even though he didn’t know what Silyn had seen. He looked over at Silyn and asked him, “What is it? Did you find something?”

“Yes, I found a message telling me not to go down this tunnel,” he looked at the other tunnels, “In fact, now that I look closer, I see more carvings. Aside from this one, all the other ones tell me to go this way. Then there’s another carving by the fifth tunnel which says, ‘To Stay On Level Two’.”

“What does this mean? It tells you to go four different ways, but how can you travel all four routes at the same time?”

As Patrick said those words, the realization of what these words meant hit him. As he thought about it, his blood began to boil. He knew what he had to do. There was only one person who could have set it up and he knew who it was. Silyn turned around and looked to Patrick, “I know what I’m supposed to do. It all makes sense. Patrick, this is a battle that I have to fight myself. You take the fifth tunnel, it’s the way out. I’m going to go down the third tunnel.”

“Wait, you’re doing exactly the opposite of what the carvings say to do. Are you really sure about this.”

“Positive, you can trust me on this one. Patrick, if you run into anyone, tell them I said hello and that I was happy to have them as my friends.”

“What do you mean ‘was’? Silyn, I don’t understand what’s going on here.”

“You don’t need to understand Patrick. Just trust me. When I am finished up here, I will probably be dead, but I won’t die alone. I’m going to finish this off once and for all. Now, just take the fifth tunnel.”

“But we’re still doing the exact opposite of what the carvings say to do.”

Silyn smiled. “Exactly!”

It was then that Patrick finally understood. The carvings weren’t there to be a riddle; they were there to tell them who was nearby. They were there to test Silyn, not Patrick. Silyn turned away from Patrick and walked into the third tunnel. Patrick wanted to follow Silyn, but the path closed up behind him as a large rock emerged from beneath the ground. Patrick worried about Silyn, but he had no choice but to move on. He turned to look at the tunnel that Silyn went through and spoke, “Good Luck!”

Patrick walked through the fifth tunnel and followed it as it spiraled its way down to the bottom of the deep chasm. As he walked out, he saw stone walls in front of him and dead goblins on the ground. He walked toward them and found himself in a stone hallway shrouded with plants. He walked down the hallway and the stairs, just as Morpheous had done. He then continued on to go through the maze of stone hallways until he found the entrance to a black stone tower.

He went through the black copper-alloy doors and turned right to go down the stairs. When he reached the bottom, he found double plastic doors with a rectangular window around his head. Patrick walked through the doors and found himself a greenhouse. Plants were running up the walls of the greenhouse and growing all over the place. He saw many different flowers and even some smaller trees.

He walked along a cement path that was only big enough for one person to walk through. Patrick continued to look at the plants around. He just about every plant to have ever existed and it fascinated him greatly. He took a minute or two to observe a few of the plants, but walked through fairly quickly for the most part. After about a half hour, he walked through a hole in a stone wall which appeared to separate two halves of the greenhouse. As soon as he entered, he noticed lights to the right.

The whole greenhouse was lit up pretty, well, but the lights he noticed to his right were different. The greenhouse had a green lighting, while the lights he was seeing were white. He followed the lights through an area of tall grass until he found an ornate door in the wall of the greenhouse covered in plants. He opened the door and walked in as he closed the doors quietly behind himself.

He walked through a small hallway to another pair of ornate doors and opened them. Again, he closed the doors quietly behind himself. He looked around to see that he was in a large chapel with pews lined up in six columns. The chapel would have been able to hold thousands of people. On the walls he could see stained glass windows with depictions of demons on them.

Patrick walked into the chapel and turned right to walk between two columns of pews toward the front of the chapel. As he looked around, he admired the lighting and continued to be uncomfortable with the demonic depictions on the wall. As he got closer to the front, he noticed a pentagram symbol on the wall at the front. Beneath it they had a depiction of Satan with his arms spread out as if asking for someone to come forward.

At first, Patrick thought the chapel was beautiful. The more he saw the demon stuff though, the more unnerved he got. He was about to turn around when he noticed a masked woman standing at the front of the chapel looking up at the symbols. Patrick turned back around and began to walk toward the woman. The woman heard the Patrick walking up behind her and briefly looked over her shoulder. Patrick looked forward and asked, “Who are you?”

“My name is Apophis,” she answered, “May I ask for your name in return?”

“The name’s Patrick, Patrick Ursley.”

“Well Patrick Ursley. It is nice to meet you. It’s been a while since I had any company down here. This chapel is quite lovely. I doubt you can understand its beauty though. You probably see the demonic symbols and want to turn tail and run. We aren’t that bad though.”

“I never said I thought you were. Though, I do admit that the symbols do bother me a bit. Not because you’re demons, but because I prefer Heaven.”

Apophis laughed. “Well, at least you’re not stereotyping us. I can respect that. Unfortunately for you though, now that you’ve seen this chapel, you have to die.”

Four Hours Later [58 Hours Remain]

Bigan rode the mine cart along the track for what seemed to him like hours. When he finally stopped, he found himself in a large circular cave. He looked around to see that there were only two ways to go. One was back the way he came, while the other was right in front of him. Bigan shrugged his arms and stepped out of the mine cart. He walked forward through the tunnel and worked his way through it.

The tunnel he was in had no more forks. It curved around a few times and started going downhill, but there was nothing confusing about it. When he reached the end of the tunnel, he found himself right next to the stone hallway with the dead goblins at the front of it. Bigan had a sigh of relief as he finally found the way to the third level of Hell. He walked through the stone hallway and down the stairs. He made his way through the maze of hallways and walked into the black stone tower.

As he entered the black stone tower, he turned to his left to go around the column where he found the black copper-alloy doors. Bigan opened the doors and walked through them to find himself on top of the greenhouse. He took a few steps and then saw something that he found absolutely crazy. On top of the greenhouse were about two hundred hell hounds. All of them were bloody and beaten, but most of all, all of them were dead. Bigan wondered to himself who could kill that many hell hounds.

The answer to that question came pretty quickly as he saw Morpheous sitting within the semicircle of dead hell hounds staring at a marble. Bigan walked toward Morpheous. As Morpheous heard the sound of Bigan stepping on steel, he turned around. When he saw Bigan, he put his marble back in one of his armor’s compartments and turned to Bigan. Morpheous stood to his feet and smiled at Bigan, “Finally, a friendly face.”

Bigan was happy to see Morpheous, but he couldn’t get his mind past the hell hound graveyard he was walking through. Bigan looked back to Morpheous and replied, “Yeah, it’s nice to see you too Morpheous. What happened here?”

“Well, apparently Abraham has set hell hounds loose on us. All these little bastards showed up about five hours ago. They all surrounded me. They were growling and I think they wanted to bite me. I told them to go away, but they didn’t listen to me. So, since they wouldn’t listen, I killed them.”

“Wait, what, you killed all of these hell hounds?”

“Yeah, are you surprised or something? They’re just hell hounds. They’re nothing to fear when your name is Morpheous Starsley.”

“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at all. It’s still quite the feat though and you never cease to amaze me. What is this, like 200 hell hounds? That’s pretty insane.”

“Actually, it’s 214 hell hounds. They thought they were big and bad but they were just cocky. They came after me. They tried to trap me in my greatest nightmare. Their little special power backfired though. The hell hounds were more scared of me than I was of them. So, instead of trapping me in my personal Hell, I trapped them in their personal Hell. Pretty crazy I know, but it worked. While the hell hounds were busy playing in Nightmareland, I carved them all up.”

“That is utterly insane Morpheous. Who ever heard of a hell hound being afraid of anything? I didn’t even know they were capable of fear. How did you do it?”

“Do you mean what did I do to make them fear me? I didn’t do anything. I was just sitting up here, minding my own business when they came to play. I was going throw them a fetch toy or something. When I turned my head and looked each of them in the eyes though, they all began to back off. I walked toward them and then they started attacking each other. It was really odd. Before they could do any damage though, they trapped each other in nightmares. As I said, that’s when I killed them all.”

“Well then, that’s a job well done. There are 214 less hell hounds to deal with now.”

“Yep, and we definitely don’t mind having less of those bitches. So, have you seen anyone else since we got separated?”

“At first, I was placed with Darla. We stuck together for a short while, but she was sucked into battle. I believe it was Delilah who got to her. I was sent away from the battle and now I’m here.”

“Well, it’s just nice to know that I’m not the only who’s okay.”

“How about you, am I the first person you’ve seen or has someone else came by here yet?”

“Well, nobody else has come by here,” Morpheous answered, “But, Patrick walked through the greenhouse earlier. I paid close attention in case anything happened, but he seemed fine to me.”

“Well, there’s someone else I can worry a little less about. Mind if I sit down next to you? I need a little rest.”

“Nah, go ahead man.”

Bigan walked up to Morpheous and sat down beside him. Morpheous followed by sitting down as well. The two of them sat there in silence for a few minutes. After those few minutes were up though, the black copper-alloy door shut itself as Bigan and Morpheous turned to check it out.

Bigan spoke. “That’s odd. Has that happened since you came up here?”

“Nope, that would definitely be a first.”

Bigan walked up to the door and tried to open it as Morpheous stood to his feet. The door wouldn’t budge though. He tried slam through the door, but he wasn’t strong enough to do that either. The door had just itself and locked them atop the greenhouse for no reason. Bigan turned to Morpheous and sighed, “I can’t get through the door.”

Morpheous walked forward toward Bigan as he looked at Bigan and then the door. When he came to a point around ten feet from Bigan, he responded, “That’s because you can’t. The door is locked.”




Back in the Treasury Mines, Phillip, Yulena, Kevin and Vazor all walked through more tunnels. Kevin led the way as he followed the paths he decided were the correct paths on his Etch-A-Sketch. After a few more minutes, the four of them had finally reached the end. They found themselves at the bottom of the chasm with the stone hallway in front of them. Like the others before them, they also followed the stone hallway, went down the stone stairs and through the maze to the black stone tower.

Kevin put his Etch-A-Sketch away as they opened the doors and walked down the stairs to their right. Phillip, Yulena and Vazor all followed closely behind. They walked through the double doors at the bottom and entered the greenhouse. As they did, Yulena looked at the plants and gasped in awe, “Oh my, this place is absolutely lovely. How in the world can something so beautiful be in a place like Hell?”

“I don’t know,” Kevin answered, “But, as beautiful as it is, I’m not sure taking the time to admire it is the best idea. We are in the middle of a battle with Sinister Ambition after all and don’t forget what Abraham said at the beginning of the game. The third level is called the Seductive Greenhouse. This is the level of lust. I have a feeling that if we take too much time to admire the sights that bad things will happen.”

Phillip nodded. “I agree. I know you love plants and nature in general Yulena, but Kevin is right. We’re in Hell. We have no idea what we’re going to deal with on this level. None of us were really tested too much on the first couple levels, but that could change any minutes. It’s best for us to just keep going forward. Maybe we can come visit this place again one day after the bad guys stop trying to kill us.”

Yulena sighed. “When you’re right, you’re right. There’s no way that this place is called the level of lust with such a beautiful greenhouse for no reason. They said they were going to test us and temptation is probably the greatest test anyone can face.”

All in agreement, Phillip, Kevin, Vazor and Yulena walked one after another as Kevin lead the way and Yulena took the rear. As much as Yulena admired the plant life in the area, she knew it was best to not let herself be overtaken by its beauty. The four of them walked through the greenhouse as they found the opening that led to the second half of the greenhouse. Phillip, Kevin and Vazor walked through the opening but Yulena gave into her love for plants.

She walked over to one of the plants on the left side of the path. When she saw it, she exclaimed ecstatically, “Guys, come look at this plant. It looks magnificent. I’ve never seen or heard of anything like it.”

“Yulena, don’t mess with it,” Phillip told her, “It’s dangerous.”

Yulena wanted to listen, but she couldn’t help herself. She touched the plant as she tried to see if she could figure what kind of plant it was or see if it really was a plant she had never heard of. As she observed the plant though, a vine shot down from a nearby tree and grabbed her around her chest. It pulled her into the air as she screamed and yelled for help. Phillip and Kevin ran back toward the greenhouse, but they were closed off as a black gate closed off the opening.

“Damn,” Phillip shouted, “Yulena’s in trouble. We need to break this gate down.”

Kevin gave Phillip a nod and Phillip backed away from the gate. Kevin and Phillip gathered their energies and shot them forward at the gate. Kevin shot a giant boulder at the gate while Phillip sped the boulder up further with fast stream of water. The boulder was about to hit to the gate when it completely deteriorated. Not a single piece of the boulder remained nor did a single drop of water. Kevin went to harness more of his energy, but he was tapped on the shoulder.

He turned around to see Alatar and Eric standing behind them. Alatar nodded his head, “You won’t be able to break that gate down. The gate is magic proof. Yulena will have to fight this battle on her own.”