The Dark World part.06

    Rhoan rose from the depths of his labyrinth, up the winding stairs passed his numerous minions from shadow black skeletons wielding scimitars to the floating labyrinth urchins, monsters with black oval bodies with seven foot long conical spikes coming off of them. Rhoan found beyond the door to his labyrinth a stone wall. With a back handed smack he sent the mortar and stone flying like an explosion into the halls of Green Kain’s palace. Like a demon lord walking from the black gates of Hell Rhoan emerged from the fire place and surveyed the lavish, brightly decorated palace.

 

    Rhoan pulled from his cape, as though pulling it from the shadows themselves, a strange metal circle with a glowing screen. He pondered over the green which appeared as he pressed various points along the side, which showed no signs of buttons, and the various blue and red dots on it.

 

   “Demons and humans?” pondered Rhoan to himself.

 

   “Well don’t want to get off on the wrong foot here.” He pressed all the dots with in the range of the palace and nearby areas highlighting them on the screen.

 

   “Aesperia Sub-Prime System, transport targets seven miles outside the imputed radius.”

 

He tapped on the screen bringing up an all too familiar to human of Earth looking keyboard design and typed in a radius equivalent to double the size of the palace.

 

    Through out the palace and surrounding grounds every living resident was caught un-aware as they were engulfed by blue and white energy that sent them far out into the fields. They had little time to ponder their situation before the ground began to rumble.

 

    Inside the Palace Rhoan roars as a shockwave of energy emanates from his body shaking the very ground and bringing much of the inner palace crashing down.

 

   “Okay warmed up!” yells Rhoan as he shakes his head and smiles.

 

    He leans forward slightly arms crossed over his chest as a spot of black fire appears in front of him three feet away from the tips of his boots. He mumbles something incoherent as the flame forms a circle around him and spirals into the air as a pillar of black fire. As the fire rises it expands engulfing the palace around him like a hellish cyclone.

 

    As it rises into the air it forms the dragon like head the spell is famous form and coils back down onto its self by Rhoan’s will circling down till he wills it to vanish. Rhoan now stands on barren scorched land where a palace once stood. The Black Dragon Fire spell leaves nothing as the black flames consume everything down to the bare rock.

 

    Arms crossed Rhoan rises into the air effortlessly. As he floats high in the air overlooking the now gone desert, replaced by irrigated fields, he spies a green dot flying in his direction. He furrows his brow and looks beyond human sight, with eyes like a hawk, zooming in to see an odd man looking like some cheesy green super-villain.

 

   “hmm” thinks Rhoan, “well that’s not something you usually see in this world. Was I followed here from my last mission?”

 

   As the figure of the Green Kain comes in close Rhoan shakes his head, “no, this is definitely a demon, one that looks to be enamored by some Earth’s old comic books or something though.”

 

   The Green Kain flies down upon this figure stopping mid-air flapping his wings.

 

   “Who the hell are you!?” he demands sneering at the dark floating figure.

 

  “I am Lord Rhoan, general of the fifth legion of Dark Word, Enforcer for the one you call the Empress. I am the ruler of this…once glorious wilderness land of Rune Stone. I take it you are to blame for my desert paradise becoming a decadent abomination filled with something as ludicrous as farm fields, which look to be farmed by humans of all things.”

 

   Rhoan opens his arms in a display surveying the land, “All of this, all of this should be desert, home to grand monsters. This is a nature preserve, one that belongs to me. And to make matters worse humans are crawling all over this place. Last time I checked this was Dark World, a planet with-in the demonic universe, between Earth-P, Other World, and Hell. Humans have no more business here than they would in the mystical lands of Other World. As soon as I kill you I plan to evict them back to their own planet.”

 

    He narrows his eyes at the very confused Green Kain, “Or is it planets? How far do your crimes reach demon?”

 

    Green Kain begins to laugh the laugh of a man gone made, “What? What kind of crazy fucking loon are you?” he says between laughs, “Earth-P? What no silly numbers like Earth-612 or Earth Alpha-Beta-Carotene? Is today the day I must confront one bat-shit crazy demon after another? Hell? Other World? This is Hell. There is no Other World, or do you mean the Land of the Dead? Oh yes that exists, but mystical isn’t something I would call my Father’s home.”

 

 

    “I see.” says Rhoan re-crossing his arms, “You’re nothing. A mere insect, a young demon war-lord nothing more, perhaps it was arrogant of me to think that you desperate children seeking your own lands would actually obey the Empress’s laws and leave this land alone. In my absence I had placed Necrose in charge of seeing over this land…”

 

    An epiphany dawns on Rhoan, “Did you say you’re father was from the Land of the Dead? Would he be Necrose by any chance?”

 

    Green Kain sneers, “so you know my father’s name, big deal, he is the only Noble in Dark World other than that bitch in the sands of the desert continent to have come from the Land of the Dead. You guessed it from what I told you. I have had enough. If you want to rule this land then just declare the death challenge for ruler ship properly instead of these cowardly lies. Then I can kill you quickly for destroying my palace with what ever the hell that was.”

 

    Rhoan shrugs his shoulders, “Very well.” He says, “What ever you have to tell yourself kid. But you are going to die as a result of this decision demon.”

    Green Kain’s fingers transform into vines and strike out like whips. Rhoan grabs them and incinerates them with a burst of flames from his hand. As Green Kain recoils in pain he begins to loose altitude. He has to flap rapidly to try and regain altitude.

 

    “Pathetic,” says Rhoan, “I can sense your weakness, oh yes you’re strong compared to humans and lesser demons; which may explain why you kept so many around. However you are weaker than a Soldier class Dark World Demon, and yet you’re aura is that of a Noble. One way or another you are going to die. Heh might as well end this now.”

 

   Rhoan vanishes from sight. Before Green Kain can contemplate how a massive pain strikes the back of his head sending him tumbling to the ground. Rhoan had in the blink of the eye at a speed unthinkable to Green Kain slammed him with a simple strike of the fist. Green Kain crashes into the rock that was once the ground of his palace. The hardness of the rock compared to the softness of Green Kain’s body doesn’t allow for a crater, rather the Green Kain has become a crumpled mess of broken bones, his wings reverted back to being a cape.

 

    As Rhoan floats down, towering over Green Kain like a triumphant statue Green Kain sneers at him. This would be the last thing he ever did. Rhoan simply placed out his right hand palm down, fingers laid flat and uttered, “Plasma Beam”. A conical beam of blue energy fired forth incinerating Green Kain, leaving nothing behind as a sign other than perhaps less rubble than had been there before.

 

     All of this went unseen and unheard by the fleeing figure of Pan, Lucy, and Big Bad. The human slaves had fled in another direction away from the towering dragon like darkness, as well as away from what they saw as two demons and a werewolf. The old man also had to flee with his people; the spy they had tied up was left behind.

 

     As they stopped to catch their breath Lucy said, “Okay, we ran, now what?”

 

    As if in answer to her question, or more likely because of the question Fira appeared in front of them, “Well,” she said, “I could send you all home.”

 

   Big Bad says, “That skinny little punk said my family and friend were here. Is that true?”

 

   Fira shrugs her shoulders, “yeah, I overheard one of them saying that to the late Green Kain.” She puts her finger to her lip as she walks around in a circle like a ditzy teenager, “Oh yeah, they said they were in the Fourth District. All you have to do is go North, it’s the border between here and the Land of Webs. Well actually it’s a three way border the Land of Webs and the Bad Lands meet at a point halfway down the border. So you’re family could be anywhere in that area. But Given that they are new slaves, and the problems this stupid SOB was having with attacks from the Land of Webs, I’d say if they were sent there then they would be on the Eastern North end of the border. You know, human shields trained harshly at the end of a lash to run headlong into giant spider monsters.”

 

    Big Bad growls, “If that’s true I will personally kill that bastard.”

 

   “He’s already dead.” Fira says offhandedly, “yep, the real guy whose in charge of this land just showed up and offed him. So right now the whole place will likely be in chaos, perfect time for a jail break. So you’d better run.”

 

    Pan chimes in, “Okay, what ever we don’t really care about who that asshole was or who could have shown up and killed him, not like we have anything to do with that shit. But I have to ask why exactly would you be helping us anyway? You show up out of no-where, you’re clearly not human, less human than we are, and we never met before now.”

 

   Lucy glares at him, “shhh, Pan, damn. Don’t have to be an ass about it.”

 

   “Actually.” Says Fira with a smile, “If I was helping you I could just send you and your family home right now. Didn’t I just say I could send you home? So yeah I’d question my giving you directions instead of offering to take you to them. The truth is I like watching super-humans go on adventures and popping in as the nifty little sign post character to point them in the right direction. So job done, go on and have your adventure. Save the trapped civilians with your special powers as you brave this treacherous negative copy demon world of your Earth and try not to get stepped on by the big bads as they have it out with each other.”

 

    Fira points her finger in the direction of north as she vanishes as quickly as she arrived with out so much as a light or wave of the air, just there and then not there.

 

   Pan says, “Still don’t think we can trust her.”

 

   Big Bad scoffs, “We can’t. But we have nothing else to go on. Trust me, I’ve met some sadistic people like that before to, folks who like to watch things go down rather than actually get involved other than to egg things on. Right now we have no way home, we’re in some sort of demon world, there looks to be some fucked up politics going on, hence the “big bads” as she put it. All I know is that if my family is here then I am going to find them and rescue them. We can figure out what next after I am certain they aren’t slaves, or fucking spider-bate like that Q wannabe said.”

 

   With a shrug of the shoulders Pan follows with Lucy in tow behind Big Bad as they walk in the direction Fira pointed.