The Creatures Series

Thirteenth Dark

Thirteenth DarkCreatures of the Dark

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##### Thirteenth Dark #####

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Those cold hands are just full of lies and hatred. I will never be tricked with such boldness deadfall.

“Lack of energy and respiratory distress, you said? I say we use Frozen Lily,” suggest Marianne, breaking the cold silence. The others are nodding in approval, including Coralw that’s sitting at my side stiffly.

Frozen Lily. Such a reminder. The Rainfold family.... The late Anthone.... The final execution for those who break the rules of underworld creatures and manipulate another against one’s will.... Then suddenly the last memory before I retrieved from the doll enters my mind. I’ve left a note to Valline’s bedside just before I headed downstairs.

I’m not dead. Yet.

And I will try to visit you as soon as I can. What you need to know mostly is that I’m fine and you don’t need to think about me too much.

Thank you for all your help.

From,

Arsene Noirmelns.

Written in black ink instead of my dark shadow (in case if his family members find the note), it was short and concealing, but I did my best to explain my latest situation, as far as the rules of being a Court can take me. He was asleep, with traces of dried tears on both of his cheeks. I felt a little uneasy when I placed the note and tried to erase the stains from his smooth skin.

“What about you, Arsene? Any thoughts on our discussion?” A male voice snaps me back to the current situation. His gradual purple shades of eyes delve on me like how thick honey can be when dripping down candidly. His black long hair his framing his face like dark silk curtains. His voice can be very kind and forthright in front of the populace, but as deadly as a poisonous snake when in demand. Lelouch Sullivan, indeed.

And just as if everyone thinks I’ll nod my head along, I do the opposite.

“I do, actually. Despite the fact that it has saved many lives of many different kinds of creatures, including humans, and is very effective for instant revival result, Frozen Lily contains aggressive trituration. Fairies are very sensitive towards trituration. Especially for virile trituration that consist approximately 57% of Frozen Lily, which will cause overdose on them if we try to shed it on them. So, I will have to disagree at this suggestion. Why don’t try Frozen Rose instead? It’s free of trituration and virile.”

Echoes of realization and agreement fill the secret room. I think everyone think that this will be the final conclusion, until a question ring before Lelouch can close the discussion.

"What is a Frozen Rose?"

All heads turn to him at once. But it is Coralw that fills his unacknowledgement.

"Frozen Rose is a rose that no matter how many times you take the coldness away and replace it with heat, it will resurrect back to its original state ─ baby pink and fresh. It can cure any respiratory diseases and expedites the air circulation, which automatically will also balance the energy inside one ’ s body."

Lelouch waits for a moment, waiting if there are further questions, before announcing our next steps. But before I can hear him starting to speak again, I can feel something flashing from the distant.

"Then it's all obvious. We're going to sneak into the captors' territory and find out where they hostage the fairies. Give the Frozen Roses to them, get the fairies out and get to the bottom of this kidnapping while handling this mission,” he says, sealing the plan.

"We'll divide into two teams. Team one includes Coralw, Nayth, and Marianne. First of all, Coralw, you search and gather the Frozen Roses. Nayth, you are in duty to create a distraction at the entrance once your team arrives at the captors' territory. While the captors are busy, Marianne, you find where the fairies are with Coralw's help, and cure them. Team two, which includes Arsene, Malice, Lloyd, and Vido Laberthon, will be the backup, in case something unexpected happens."

Vido Laberthon. The newbie's name.

I avert my gaze at my team members.

Malice Aliciano has her magenta-purple hair combed tidily straight like a curtain that veils her round head perfectly; short bob haircut style. Her deep blue eyes are narrowing in excitement like a happy cat as she catches my glance in time, tightening her hug for her black red-eyed teddy bear. And the Necromancer Queen is wearing her usual gothic lolita clothing that covers her petite figure.

To her left, Lloydio Evergreen is looking as reserved as he can be. His verdant eyes are matching his long golden-bronze hair. And there are only three words to describe his body posture: Tall, thin and muscular. The opposite from Malice, he likes to wear bright and wood colors. But I always assume that he ’ s as ready as ─

So overheating. I can feel it traveling around the maze of corridors inside this trapping scaffolding.

Interruption, I see.

Roaming innocently free, as if it has no idea where it is. So careless, letting me spot it. Or is it because it’s so weak, that it even has no idea that I already detected it from miles away?

When no one has noticed it, or at least doesn’t look like so, I grab a hold from one shadow at far away and pulled it into my control zone. It’s not hard to slam the lost, little intruder with a whip of my darkness. The shadow obeys me like a hypnotized snake, locking it with every thousand, threadlike tentacles inside its strong embrace. Suffocating it in the slowest and most painful way, until it reaches a half alive-half dead point.

The intruder is still trying to fight my shadow, of course. There’s nothing wrong in putting a fight. But one must know when one is losing.

My lips managed to twitch slightly when I can feel a snap from afar, which makes the intruder falls unconscious.

I turn my attention back to the meeting as if nothing has happened.

“....so that we can start our plan after Coralw has found the location. Team two is supposed to hide at least 10 kilometers away from target to avoid being exposed.”

Lelouch knows what has happened, surely. But he’s always putting a great silver mask on his still-flawless face. My shadow is currently taking ‘care’ of the intruder when he let his eyes fall on me only for a fragment of a second.

“Get your leader out here and face me like a real man, or I will burn this whole place to the ground, bringing down every single one of the souls in this place into a hot, eternal flame,” with a vibrant dangerous voice, I can hear Nayth threatening the captors from the other line. I think his appearance is already threatening enough for most creatures without even him to create fear in their hearts. But it seems like the captors aren’t normal creatures as well.

“Like hell we will,” spat a heavier voice from the other side. “Who do you think you are, daring to say those words in front of our faces? Do you know who we are? You must really hate your life to even try on threatening us, kid.”

Mocking Nayth with the term ‘kid’? Now those guys are really going to get it. I can hear Nayth’s heavy, angry breath from my cloudy headset already.

Then an obviously severe snort is ringing from the other line.

“What? You want to fight us now? You wish you’re going to win! A kid like you is still way too green to overcome us. So I suggest you keep your big mouth and proud soul to yourself, before we smack you down into rotting pieces. Now get lost, dirt,” say a raspier male.

“Say that again after you get a taste of my laser-scalding fire, lizards,” Nayth replies, but lowly so that only us can hear him.

Those blue-skinned reptile monsters should really be careful about an angry Nayth. His fire, just like what he just said, really is as hot as laser. Deadly and cut anything easily. If they’re not being careful, then he will lose control before we can get anything from them. But I’m pretty sure he won’t just plainly exterminate all of the scaly creatures.

He is not supposed to kill them, anyway.

Clearing his throat to regain a better mood, Nayth starts to speak again with a too-much-of-a-pretending politeness. “ Well, since you all approve yourselves to be very strong and tough, I ’ m starting to wonder of who exactly you are. Maybe your group ’ s name will remain to me of something, so that this lowly dirt will realize his place and run along, ” he says humbly by forcing himself to admit that he ’ s weaker ─ something that he really hate to do but have to since he ’ s responsible in finding out about their organization.

I’m sure that those serpent guards also noticed Nayth’s sudden change in his behavior, since they stand eight feet tall in front him. But they seem to like being ‘praised’ more rather than noticing his insincere words.

“Huh? You don’t know how we are? Where have you been living in these past few months? Are you lost or something? You are currently inside the territory of Cobra , the world’s most dangerous and fiercest underworld organization. In what nonsense way can you miss that?”

And despite the excessive and exaggerating way of describing ‘Cobra’, along with the very conceited tone, Nayth’s patience has finally made it.

“C. O. B. R. A. Got it,” Malice mutters from my side. She busies herself soon by using her lost-souls connection as a source to identify more of ‘Cobra’. The remaining members of Team Two, the backup team, can only wait patiently as the Queen of Necromancy work in her field as quick as an interval in a buzzing African-American bee.

It helps more when she closes her eyes. So when she has finished and opens her eyes, all heads lean on her in curiosity.

“Oh, this is so exciting, yet so annoying at the same time,” she starts, at the same time when I finally noticed noises of fighting creatures coming from the headset near my left ear.

Nayth must be knocking those heavily-muscular serpents down and slowly now, enjoying every slow motion as he can get for getting back at them. He’s not really supposed to take care of them quickly, anyway. According to my calculation, he should be fighting them until the next nine minutes, before the serpent guards are able to call in more backups to the front gate. That’s when the guarding around the side doors and back doors will lessen, giving Coralw and Marianne a chance to sneak in.

So he doesn’t need to rush things, since another dozen of serpents that are bigger and stronger than the front guards will come to satisfy his burning blaze’s hunger.

“What is it?” Vito gives her look that says it all. She passes him an individual glance, before returning to the rest of us with such starry eyes.

“Cobra was formed around three months ago on this same land, making this place automatically their base and territory. There are more on what it looks like once you reach the inside part of the metallic fortress. It used to be a nuclear gas factory, but now it’s just a place for the Cobra members to gather. The place isn’t that much renovated or taken care of, but safe enough to be around. Although some parts in lower levels are still too dangerous that no one ever dares to step into those places, the ex-factory is actually pretty crowded with over five hundred occupants.”

“What’s next? There’s got to be more. What things that you still haven’t tell me?” Vito looks like he really want to ask those questions, but persistently still keep biting his curiosity in with his lips.

As if reading his facial expression, too, Malice continues. “The leader is the one that makes me feel very contracting. Do you know who she is? I can now understand His Majesty’s words when he said ‘weird’. She’s the one, Arsene dear.” All heads turn to me now. “Your cousin. She’s the leader of Cobra, and now everything makes much more sense,” she announces, beaming.

She? So it ’ s ─

“Eleanor!” Sing Malice. “She created Cobra to take revenge on you, my sweet Arsene.”