Chapter XVII: Bloody Palace

A Chapter by Oran

While our main character and his new companions are headed to somewhere the writer made-up, the soldiers of Xenovia are currently on stand-by. It's been two months since the last attack, and they've been striving to empower their Mirage Field to prevent further damage to the town. The field not only serves as concealment of the settlement, but also as protection from demonic magic. So far, there have been only minor attacks and most of the men have not yet been deployed. That could change tonight, though.

Clayton was going back to their barracks with two other soldiers. He had a box of 'good stuff' he'd hidden from downstairs with him to share with his comrades. Looks like they're talking about what they would've been if they hadn't enlisted.

"You know what I've always wanted to be?", says Clayton passing the cache filled with bottles of Akkadian Syrup to the rest after taking one.

"A potion salesman?", replies Blake while also taking a bottle to drink and passing it on to the third guy. Oh wait... that's a girl.

"I don't think there's a program for that", says De'Ann, trying to open the bottle.

Clayton takes a huge gulp, then exhales. "Nah, I wanted to be a Molecular Biologist."

"Never heard of a program like that before", said Blake after opening his bottle with the cap opener installed on the box. He then proceeds to open De'Ann's bottle for her with it.

"Thanks", she takes a little sip. "Molecular Biology, huh? I think that program's only available for the people of Berial Magus."

"Yeah, I was planning on going there...."

"Sounds like a pretty hard course, though. I'd go for something on the lines of agriculture", Blake implies.

"Isn't that program for farmers?"

"It's not just about farming, actually", he also takes a drink. "You get to explore various techniques about fertilization and such."

[1]"Sounds like a recipe for cannibalism", Clayton tries to humor them.

"You're gross", De'Ann reacts.

"What about you? You have anything in mind besides being the army's pawn?", Blake asks her.

"I don't really know...", she thinks for a second. "I guess I'd go for engineering?"

"Really? Engineering?", Clayton takes another sip. "I thought that program was for guys."

"Yeah, but I always did love playing around in my father's electronics store", she explains.

Suddenly, the siren sounds-off from the front gate as a signal for an incoming attack. The three then abandon their intimate discussion and head down to the armory to reacquire their battlements.

Like I said last time, you can't kill Demons (Not even their underlings) without magic. That's why Humans have developed weapons that can be enchanted with magical energy to be able to defend themselves. Swords, axes, arrows, and knives can all be enchanted but only a few cities are able to produce weapons like this, which includes Xenovia, luckily.

"You wanna play that game again?", Blake challenges her while browsing through the various weapons in front of him.

"You sure? If you die, you lose", she takes one of the single-edged rapiers.

"I never lose", he picks-up a jet black claymore.

"Cut the chatter; lives may be at stake here", Clayton scolds them while taking up a halberd.

"Whatever, Clay."

Rushing to the front gates, they find their commander-in-chief mapping out troops to defend the settlement. A lot of Stygians were coming out from under the bridge and pushing forward against their defenses.

"What are we up against, sir?", says Clayton.

"We're holding back against a massive amount of Stygians, and they're clustering around some sort of biological tank", the commander explains. "We could keep on this skirmish with the Stygians, but we're going nowhere if that thing keeps on erasing anything that comes close. I need someone to find a way to flank it and shut it down."

"Yes, sir!" And so the trio head out to their probable doom of being stabbed to death by a reanimated corpse outside their city.

They hack their way through the swarm of murderous dead bodies while trying to find a way around enemy lines. With every Stygian they cut up comes another eager to spill their blood.

"Four...." De'Ann has been [2]counting her kill streak as another Stygian falls before her.

"Eleven... Twelve...." Meanwhile, Clayton's been ravaging through the countless foes before him. He's the most experienced of the three, after all. He and Blake taught De'Ann how to be a soldier after her parents died during an attack. She's been looking for something to sate her lust for vengeance. What better way to release anger than murdering dead bodies that were inhumanely brought back to life?

"Seventeen...", Blake takes down another one. ".... Hey, is that thing supposed to be the tank?", he exclaims as he sees something unusually disturbing.

Slowly crawling from the bridge was a large mollusk with an external shell acting as a hull that houses some sort of gadget stuck to the nerves on its back. It had two rows of miniature legs under its body and large pivoting pincers attached to its mouth. It would be pretty awesome if it were to shoot laser beams from its eyes too, but instead the writer made it fire gallons of gastric sludge from its mouth produced from organic substances that it's digested. Humans are organic substances, by the way.

"I've never seen anything like it...", Clayton wonders in awe.

"Is that thing a Demon too?", De'Ann asks them.

"I don't know but it sure as hell's killing our friends!" Clayton and De'Ann go in for the kill.

"Hey, killing that thing [2]still counts as one!", Blake follows their advance.

They draw closer to the dreaded behemoth who was currently digesting one of their allies. It spits out the bones of its victims after it's done corroding its flesh, which is very disgusting.

"What's our plan of attack, Clay?", she asks him.

"That thing's got a shell", he remarks. "That means it's got something vulnerable under it. All we have to do is break it."

"And how do you propose we do that?", Blake debates.

"With brute force, Blake", he takes out a satchel charge.

"I don't think explosives work on Demons."

"Then we'll test whether or not that thing's a Demon."

The three begin to surround the Reaver (Couldn't think of anymore nouns, so I just called it the way Orion calls it) while barely dodging the large spikes that thrust at them from its mouth. Blake took charge of eliminating any Stygian that got close while Clayton sets up the explosives on its shell. In the mean time, De'Ann tries to distract the beast as she gets assaulted by its pincers.

"Where the hell are the others?", Blake complains.

"Don't bother! They're too busy dying!", De'Ann tells him.

"Hurry up, Clay! We're on our own here!"

"I know! Just keep it steady, De'Ann!"

"Easy for you to say!", she dodges another attack. "Why don't you try to avoid getting fingered by this b*stard!" That was a joke, right De'Ann?

"Got it!" Clayton finishes setting the charges. "Get back! I'm gonna blow this idiot!" If you have a dirty mind like me and the writer, you'd be laughing your a*s off right now.

Once they make it out of the blast radius, Clayton screams at the top of his lungs as he detonates the charge: "FIRE IN THE HOLE!" Seriously, if you have a dirty mind please don't hesitate to laugh.

The bombs placed on its shell explodes, blasting and leaving a large crack on it, giving them a prompt to exploit its vulnerability. It came with a price, however. It's gotten agitated now, and its beginning to seep out more sludge on its mouth.

"Take him out, now!", Clayton commands them.

The three charge in unison to take it down. Clayton went and tried to go for the interior of its shell, but that was the last mistake he could ever to make in his life. Apparently, its agitation led it to release more spikes from its body, and one of them ran right through Clayton's neck. Blood from his vessels get sucked like a straw to what stabbed his throat as the life in his eyes slowly fade away. This creature likes to probe on the things that it's not familiar with, especially the ones that could potentially harm it, and once its done, it just drops the lifeless body.

Of course, De'Ann was able to watch all of this.

"Clayton!", she howls in agony. Seeing your teacher fail on his own subject has never been more painful. Unfortunately, her scream catches the attention of the Reaver, so it launches one at her.

"Watch out!", Blake tries to protect her.

Splat.... He was facing her while a large claw was driving through his abdomen, causing all that blood to sputter on her face. His lungs were gushing with torrents of blood due to internal bleeding. He was slowly losing grip of his weapon, while his other hand was struggling to reach for her, just to be able to hold on someone who still has life in them before he loses his. De'Ann's mind was in the verge of imploding by now. Her hand sought to hold his and her eyes were completely focused on his, both in the verge of tears. He was... smiling. Blake coughs up the blood stuck in his larynx, and it starts to drip from his chin as he starts to talk.

"Looks like... I lost...." He huffs his dying breaths. "Make sure...." He slowly loses the warmth on his hands. "... you win... for... me...." The Reaver sucks away his body fluids, then pulls off its claw, leaving him to drop dead before her. Death took away the smile on his face, but I guess it's better to die smiling at your friend than glaring at your enemy.

It's nightmarish enough to lose your family, but to lose your friends too. That's probably a good reason to make anyone go insane. But no.... She's not going to let go of her sanity. "You're alive for a reason", Clayton used to tell her. If God wanted her to go insane, He would've made it so before she was born.

She holds fast her weapon as she recovers, with even more fury than ever. She stands before the monstrosity, eager to take its life without losing her own.

"My turn...."

De'Ann firmly holds the blade sideways, running and shouting with all the spirit that's left in her to redeem what she lost, at least. Deadly blades try to pierce through her, and she keeps avoiding them at the same time. She takes a leap and lands behind the Reaver to see if she can still capture its weak spot. Inside the broken shell was a machine acting like an inhibitor digging into its back. Before she could investigate further, it suddenly started to spark and explode with smoke coming out. This made the beast roar in a painful manner.

"What the...."

The behemoth stops on its tracks and begins to breathe heavily. Its exterior starts to deteriorate as it slowly loses life. Eventually the machine started acting up and exploded spontaneously inside the cracked shell. What? Why is it dying?

De'Ann was left in perplexity of what happened.

Don't worry. I'm sure Naiya's got something to do with this, according to the writer, that is.

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Meanwhile, in one of the chambers of Geno's dungeon....

"Are you ready, Maria?", Naiya asks. I don't see anyone she could be talking to in her prison cell, though.

"Let's do it."

That voice came from a cat who just turned visible with a snow white glow and a horn on its spacious forehead. Now, this explains a lot. That cat is Naiya's Anima, Maria (Too much assonance!). Her skin is made-up of a material that can both phase and reflect light waves, meaning she can either shine brightly or turn invisible. The pair have been waiting for the right time to break out of that prison cell, and now that Naiya is eager to meet her twin brother, they're ready to cast everything asunder to get out of there. It also would be better to run the hell out of there since Lycomedes is ready to "bathe in her blood".

They start by breaking down the magically enchanted iron bars with 0.5 micro-decibels of antimatter, causing the alarm to go off. Naiya casually walks out with Maria riding on her head. Actually, all she was wearing were pink pajamas, making her look like a girl who got lost at night with her cat. She was also holding in her right arm some kind of orb that illuminates the seemingly bright vestibule for prisoners. As she walks, she notices that she's the only one who was locked up in there.

"Where do you think is the exit?", Maria asks her thoughts.

"We can make an exit, you know?", she answers with her voice still faint as ever.

By now, Lycomedes was already on the way to her cell. Two lesser demons were sent in advance to inspect what happened too; they never came back. He was very eager to put her back in her cage, but he thought it would be better if he killed Naiya with his own hands.

He made his way to one of the three corners of the palace. The leftmost part contained resurrection chambers where all Demons that have been slain get revived and empowered again, which also includes The Desert's Embrace and the Harem King; in the middle was the tower where the king's throne room resides and a hidden door that leads underground where they keep something... monstrous shackled in chains; and finally, at the right side of the citadel, was the Mound, a facility used to create Stygians, Reavers, and a lot of other unspeakable horrors all headed by Geno. The prison cells under the Mound that Naiya escaped used to be for observing Human test subjects.

Did you guys figure out where Lycomedes was headed? That's right! He's headed for the Mound! As a reward, here's a [3]virus:

http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/36900000/Ene-mekaku-city-actors-36909597-500-300.gif

Once he gets to the main door of the dungeon, he sees it opened and discovers what happened to the two Demons. It wasn't really just two of them. He also issued an entire battalion of Acolytes that was closer to the Mound to keep the Void Elemental from getting out. There were about 147 of them that got there and tried to subdue her. All that's left of them now are their freshly singed ashes.

She was almost out of the Mound. She just has to go through Geno's research facility where they augment the Reaver''s ability to survive in the surface because they breathe a different type of element which can only be found underground. They use some sort of inhibitor that converts the air it breathes before it gets to its lungs; however, this inhibitor is powered by a long range beacon found within the facility. You see where this is going yet? I hope so, because a lot -and I mean a lot- of Stygians just came pouring in the facility to find her.

Yay! That means we get to see her powers now, right writer?

Naiya finds a metal platform that ascends upward like some sort of elevator that leads to the exit, but she won't be using it. Instead, she sees something else that she can blow up with her Void Elemental powers. Remember the beacon? The tip of its stem is dipped in various smoking chemicals that make it light up in a blue sparkling flame. You ever get that feeling when you see something smoking, you just wanna watch it combust and burn-out like fireworks? She's got the same urge.

Before the endless waves of Stygians get to the other side where she's standing, she puts out both hands while holding onto the orb as she faces the beacon.

"Defabricate..." Damn! Her voice is too damn cute!

A white hot flash engulfs the vat and ignites what's inside. BOOM! BANG! CRASH!!!!! Hahahahaha! The facility is ruined! All the Stygians get caught in the blast, disintegrating them into nothingness! YES! This is the power of the void! *coughs*

...Whoops.... Sorry about that.... I got a little too excited.

That highly intense destructive energy was enough to make an exit for them, if exit means a large gaping hole in a mostly distorted research facility. Now, the entire palace is in full alert, so she hurriedly runs out with Maria.

Once she's completely out of the facility, she begins walking through the red forest that surrounds the Demon's domain. Nothing wrong with that, right? Wrong. As you can't see, she's totally dirty and naked! Her powers burned off her pajamas!

What the hell are you doing, writer! Why is one of the main characters naked!

Leaving that aside, Naiya walks upon the forest with leaves crushing beneath her and the cold breeze of night blowing against her delicate and exposed body. While she keeps going forward to nowhere, Maria licks her neck while riding on her shoulder to clean it up. Eventually they make it to a wooden cottage that seemed to have only one window.

They make it inside, and it looks like the place got ransacked since a lot of books were toppled off their shelves and the drawers and cabinets were left wide open. There's also a picture of the Hunting Guild's Trinity symbol with a cracked frame laying on the table spilled with chocolate syrup.

"You feel that?", Maria asks her.

"Yeah. An Elemental must have lived here."

"Let's see if there's any food!", Maria enthusiastically suggests.

"How about some clothes?", Naiya counters her proposal.

"Oh, right. But I'm gonna have to clean you up first."

The two rummage through the open containers for any clothes, but all they could find were male clothes, until they come upon a box with a heart symbol.

"This looks interesting...", Maria opens it.

Inside the box was a cloak, a school girl's uniform, a skirt, a pair of white knee-high socks, doll shoes, and... a pair of panties. How did that get there?

"Maybe the owner of this house is a cross-dresser!", Maria exclaims.

"Let's not be quick to judge", she takes the uniform. "It's possible that this belongs to his little sister or anything the like."

Once Maria's done cleaning her up, she puts on the uniform as well as the panties then proceeds to wonder why it fits her so perfectly. Maybe she and the past owner were long lost twins. Maybe.

The cottage door pries open with her walking out of it, with Maria resting on her shoulder. There's only one thing on her mind:

"I'm coming, kuya..."

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1. Quote from Plankton from Spongebob Squarepants.
2. Lord of the Rings reference when Legolas and Gimli were competing on their kill streak.

3. Anime character from Mekaku City Actors.

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