The Creatures Series

Fourteenth Dark

Fourteenth DarkCreatures of the Dark

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##### Fourteenth Dark #####

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A silver blade; Rave of the night. Blood, shudder and death.... Who’s your company now? Pretending not to know even though the answer is right in front of you. Just a turn away.... Just a glance away.... Playing in the dark.

"Your cousin? Why would she want to take revenge on you?" Vito asks loudly when the full moon rises, without being able to hold his curiosity inside. And when he finally realizes that he just opens his mouth, he closes it immediately with a slap of his palm.

Eleanor. She still hates me, I see. But to go this far.... is a little bit beyond the limit.

Hasn't trying to put me down when I was a baby is dangerous enough? Surely, that was absolutely my turning point. And I might not be as strong as I am today if it weren't for her attempt to murder me.

She was even able to escape her real punishment, because she was a child herself back then. Only seven years older than me, but already spitting poison and wanting murder. If it weren't for her parents, she would have been put in prison.

Suddenly, there is something wrong at the other line.

"I'll go check it out," offer Lloydio.

"I'll come, too," beam Malice. "There's no way I'm staying here until my soul gets bored to death and missing all the fun at the same time," she exclaims, spiritedly reaches to Lloydio's side like a child.

He doesn't say anything and just leave, while Malice trails behind him like a happy cat. This leaves only me and Vito in the post, and me alone to keep the communication among the Courts to stay connected through my small clouds' links.

Vito starts again when I stretch my back. "Listen, I'm sor—" I cut him off, know what he wants to say.

"No need to and let's focus on the mission more", I tell him from the corner of my eyes.

Silence.

Then noises from my little black cloud interrupt again.

What are these noises, actually? Rubbing plastics? Tearing carpets? Stretching rubbers? None of us can understand.

"Malice? Lloydio?" I try to call them. But no reply. The background interruption is now invading my communication system. The noises are following everywhere when I try to reach, even when I move from channel to channel.

"Nayth?" No reply. "Coralw? Marianne?" No reply. No reply.

The connection is not right. The link is not fine.

"It looks like we have to go in as well", I announce to Vito. He nods and follows me into the South side gate quietly. And we are able to pass the corridors full of the factory's rusting old machines flawlessly. That is, until a giant serpent appears behind a licking, foggy gas from across the corridor.

"Who are you people, to be able to sneak in without turning the alarm on?" He asks, his tone holds curiosity. "Surely you're not just some curious kids that want to have some adventure inside this ex-factory in hope to find something interesting."

Kids? I don't think I'm that young anymore to be call that. Sure, I've missed a few years of my life. But my body kept growing while I was tricked into thinking that I was somebody else and was forced to life a doll's life. And Vito doesn't look that childish himself.

Maybe it's just because of the serpent, personally. He has a body as tall as a street light. It makes him automatically address those who are way shorter than him as the term 'kids'.

"You are wise enough, serpent," Vito mutters while eyeing the pale blue creature carefully. "And if you are as wise as how you appear to be, then I suggest you better cooperate with us."

"Or else what?" He teases.

I answer him. "Or else...." I tone intentionally drifts off with a low, dangerous vibration. "The ending is going to be bad."

The old serpent explodes with laughter. His voice is booming practically the entire building. I would have been thinking that he's signaling for backups or to warn his fellow minions about our arrival, if he hasn't said these words soon after that. "I....can't...hahaha....believe it...." He says between loud laughter. "She is....hahaha....threatening....hahaha....me! She really....hahaha....has a good....hahaha....humor!"

I arch my eyebrow. Did my words really come out as a joking tone?

"Enough. Let's end this soon," I say, bored already.

"Oh yeah? With you and what army?"

Vito let his powers flow out when I gather all the shadows I can find in the room. They all come out as tentacles to me. Most are too personalized that I'm starting to think of them as better tails. But one is too active, I catch it in my hand roughly in an instant.

"To innocently think that," I start squeezing it until it is drained out of energy, "I wouldn't have noticed." I turn myself slowly to my behind, only to find a double-dark figure.

Long hair as wild as the crazy night. Skin so uncared it resembles an old yellowish paper. And both eyes so black because it’s already too full of hatred, red glints are appearing on each surface as reflections.

"Hello, Eleanor...." I greet her expressionlessly.

She charges at me violently, slashing her angry, tangled shadows through the air at my direction in uncontrollable forms, yelling ancient language's curses with several mixtures all at one eardrum-tearing scream. Neither Vito or the serpent is even thinking of interrupting us when I disarm her in a heartbeat once she reached me, breaking a couple of bones inside and pressing a few sensitive areas, before letting her drained body drop to the floor loudly.

"....Goodbye, Eleanor," I finish. “It looks like my darkness is stronger than yours. Again.”

The communication link is back instantly like a light that’s suddenly flickered on and off. Voices rush in through the little cloud next to my ear.

“─ Arsene! Where are you~? ” Malice sings.

“ What ’ s going on? I ─” Lloydio ’ s voice is stricken by another ’ s.

“ Hello ─ ? Is anybody there? We ’ re done, you know, ” Coralw tell us.

No report coming from Nayth, though.

“Sorry for the cut. Let’s meet back at the Court Palace, everyone.”

“So, what are we going to do now? We already caught all the serpents from Cobra inside this blue orb. Their sentences are 10 years of being sealed inside it, and will be able to get out once they repent. And the last remaining fairies have been saved and secured. But what of Arsene’s cousin, Eleanor? She’s not a serpent, and she’s a girl. We can’t just put her at the same trapping device as the other Cobra members. We can keep her inside another orb, but her parents will start the same thing they did again once she’s about to be put into jail. I feel like what we’ve done is just wasting time here, and I don’t like my time being wasted by her at all. No offence, Arsene, but I don’t like prisoners that got away easily without going through their punishment. And I’m sure that we all are agree on that one. So what do we do now? Sentence her for real?” Malice asks once the seven of us are sitting back on the meeting room.

Each and every one of us got back unscathed. Lelouch is absent, though. But the meeting will have to continue without him. And when it comes to the tough decision like this, everyone have their own ways of doing things.

“Just kill her already. That will be fine, everyone will be fine. Happy ending,” Nayth mutters lazily. Apparent he didn’t like it when we told him that the fight was over and that we need to get back to the Court Palace after gathering every serpent in the old factory along. He still wanted to give them a couple more lessons, but Coralw stopped him.

“I don’t know. Ending lives aren’t always the answer to everything, you know. What about my underwater prison? I’m sure she will not be able to do anything down there,” Marianne suggests. I wince inside myself in the mention of that. Underwater prison . I almost got killed the last time I went there. I could hardly move. I didn’t have my power. But at least the effect will work the same way on Eleanor.

“Too light, too light,” Malice sings. “You need to be more creative than that. I say we turn her into an old, smelly tree, place her on a deserted island full of terrifying looking ghosts, and let her be haunted by those lost spirits for life. That should do it.” What Malice just suggested is pretty sadistic and detailed.

“That’s still too easy. Why don’t we add a couple more wild beasts just to make her feel more scared?” say Lloydio. All heads turn to him. He can be pretty scary as his childhood friend, too, sometimes.

“Wild beasts? I like the way you think, Lloyd. I will voluntarily bring a few heads of psycho wolves if we all agree on this one,” Coralw offers.

My turn.

“That’s okay, guys. I will personally handle this one, if you don’t mind. I have some issues that I need to finish with my family, anyway.”

When no one seems to protest, a violet butterfly flap into the meeting room. There’s no fissure for it to fly in, so it must be him.

It lands on the table in front of me, moving its wings eventually like heat beat. I am mesmerized by how detailed and beautiful the patterns on its wings. Tendrils, hearts, and flowers. How lovely.

I move my finger out for it to alight. The purple butterfly switched place and descended to it, and a message instantly ring in my mind.

“Arsene, I need you to do something for me....”

After listening to it, I rise from my chair and approach the unconscious Eleanor at the corner. I call a small amount of shadows to me with a flick of an eye. I call it in a form of a gulp. And with it, I carry her out of the room.

“See you sometime again, Courts,” I bid by goodbye to them from outside before I close the only door.

The road I take next, once I exit the building, is back to my original home.

Everything is at its place, at its own position, like everything never change since the day I left. The road back to home is dark, sprinkled with thorns and dark matter. The New York City is at peace, full of beautiful variety of lights, like if all the lights go off then everything will shatter. Each detail builds familiarity to me, as Eleanor begins to shove from behind. I clinch her once more inside the hold of my dark shadow, presses the top back of her spine until she falls to a slumber. She looks better this way, too.

My boots clack against the asphalt when I reached the first security post. I lift my head to take in the full view of it. So many posts to go and explanation. So many causes will arise. So much trouble ahead, yet so many to reunite. Magic will clash once more. But the cold scaffolding in front of me is called through silent whispers, begging me to come back again.

The Sorcier Tower.