Chronicles of Eden - Act IV (16 page)

“I’ve been waiting to make you scream,” Jacqueline taunted with a deranged smile on her face. “You’d better not disappoint me!”

Falla tried to kick free as the blonde held her hands down by her head on the counter, her wings pinned behind her and unable to move as they tried to flutter on reflex. Squeak ran over to grab Jacqueline before a pickaxe swung out in front of her and hooked her back by the neck, the ant girl squeaking loudly before Jovian threw her down to the ground. Squeak hit the floor and tried to scramble away before Jovian whacked the pickaxe down into the floorboards above her shoulder, halting her from moving forward before the dark girl kicked down on her back hard. Alyssa coughed and slowly looked over to seeing Jacqueline laughing at Falla while holding her down on the counter and Jovian keeping Squeak down on her stomach with one foot on her back. The twins slowly looked over to Alyssa and giggled, with Jacqueline grabbing Falla’s hair and pulling her head back while Jovian kneeled down and gripped Squeak’s antennae with one hand, the ant girl letting out a sharp squeak as she stared ahead with wide eyes.

“Ready to watch them die?” Jacqueline said before licking along Falla’s neck, the butterfly girl glancing to Alyssa with fright as the witch slowly started to get up.

“If you wish to join in with their screaming, please do so,” Jovian mentioned. “It makes it more fun for us.”

She sat down on Squeak’s back and shoved her onto the floor by the shoulder, the ant girl letting out a strained grunt as the dark girl held her antennae back and kept her facing the wall in front of her. Jovian leaned down and licked the ant girl’s cheek before glancing to Alyssa with a cold smile.

“Anything you want to say before we eat them?” Jovian taunted as she sat up and brushed Squeak’s hair, the ant girl trembling in fear while Jacqueline leaned back and smiled wickedly down at Falla, the butterfly girl breathing sharply as she couldn’t budge from her grip.

“Yes, just one thing,” Alyssa whimpered as she slowly stood up while holding her hands up defensively. The girls all looked to her as she closed her eyes and sniffled with a saddened expression. After a pause she then looked at the twins with a deep glare.

“Go to hell!” she yelled before swinging her hands to the side, with Squeak’s pickaxe being thrown from the ground into a sharp spin before striking into Jacqueline’s head with a crunch. She wavered a bit before Alyssa waved her hands to the side, causing the pickaxe and the impaled blonde to yank back and strike into Jovian’s skull, the two girls having stunned expressions as they coughed out blood. Squeak scrambled away from Jovian while Falla quickly darted over the counter to get away from Jacqueline, with Alyssa then walking over towards the butterfly girl and growling at the twins. Jovian and Jacqueline blinked then pushed off from each other, with Jacqueline reaching back for the pickaxe in her head as their wounds again healed up. Before they could speak Squeak rushed over and grabbed Jovian by the hair, swinging her over and throwing the girl into the wall away from them with a crash. She then grabbed hold of her pickaxe, giving a stern squeak before she threw Jacqueline over off of the tool’s end and into her sister. The ant girl backed up towards her friends while Alyssa narrowed her eyes at the twins.

“This isn’t working, they’re not staying down,” Falla pointed out while shaking her head, the girls watching as Jovian and Jacqueline got back up again and smiled bitterly at them, with Jacqueline’s wounds healing up again without a scratch.

“You can’t escape us, nobody ever escapes us,” the sisters said together in unison.

Alyssa held her hand out towards them while focusing her magic, her focuser and eyes giving off a soft glow while Squeak stepped back behind her. The sisters laughed and watched with amused smiles while Squeak and Falla glanced to each other worriedly as Alyssa just stood there in silence.

“What are you doing now?” Jovian asked dryly.

“Yeah, going to try to kill us with toys again?” Jacqueline laughed.

Alyssa kept glaring at them while holding her hand out, with all the girls watching her as she remained silent and motionless.

“What are you doing?” Falla asked frantically.

Squeak looked at her little friend carefully then towards the sisters, the two monsters just watching Alyssa with dull smiles now.

“Really now,” Jovian mocked. “You can’t kill us, haven’t you learned that yet?”

“You’re going into our bellies, there’s no way around it,” Jacqueline giggled.

Alyssa continued to remain quiet, with Falla now backing up nervously while Squeak’s antennae twitched slightly. The ant girl blinked then glanced outside, watching as the red glow from the street started to get brighter. Falla looked over as well along with the sisters, all of them then seeing Daniel, Triska, and Specca crashing out of a second story window across the street from a home and tumbling down onto the ground. Falla gasped while Squeak squeaked loudly, with the twins merely laughing at the sight as Alyssa continued to glare at them.

“Squeak, Falla, get out of here now!” Alyssa suddenly yelled out as a rumbling sound was heard, her eyes still focused on the sisters and not seeing that Daniel had been thrown out of a nearby building. Jovian and Jacqueline looked to her curiously then around as the store started to rattle slightly while Squeak wasted no time in rushing out through the door towards Daniel along with Falla. Before they made it halfway across the road however they quickly stopped as they saw the deathmare leaping out from the building down towards Daniel and the other girls.

“What’s going on?” Jovian and Jacqueline asked before looking behind them, the building shaking more as a red light started to shine through between the boards in the wall.

“I said burn in hell!” Alyssa yelled out as a red circle of light spread out on the floor around her, the light bending to shape into an arrowhead as it pointed behind the witch with strange symbols briefly lighting up around it.

Falla and Squeak watched in horror as the deathmare lunged down towards Daniel with its scythe geared back, only for a streaking flash of blue and green fire to strike down at an angle against the Darker One and knock it to the side with a powerful bang and distorted wave of air. The deathmare landed down on the ground as its scythe struck into the dirt to the side of Daniel and the two girls, the Darker One galloping into the street then quickly looking up at what knocked it aside. Before Squeak and Falla could do the same the toy store behind them exploded into flames, the two girls looking back to seeing it erupting into a firestorm as the flames appeared to be barreling into the store from the neighboring building. They then slowly looked over and saw that four buildings between the toy store and the burning bakery had been set aflame, with the fires spreading wildly and flowing into the toy store in a fiery current. Two smaller shops collapsed with fires and smoke billowing up from them while another burst into flame from its second story.

“What the hell is going on?” Falla shouted out looking around with confusion.

She and Squeak then looked up before jumping with surprise while Daniel slowly started to sit up, the boy seeing a line of burning buildings before him that lit up the street brightly along with Squeak and Falla who were both staring up at something with wide eyes. Looking over to the side he saw the deathmare also looking up with a glare at something, the monster grunting as it held its scythe in both hands.

“What just happened?” he asked worriedly.

“Daniel,” Specca squeaked out.

He looked to the nixie and saw her staring up at the sky with fright, then over to Triska who was looking at something in the air with a similar fearful expression. Getting a very bad feeling he slowly looked up as well, his eyes widening as he saw two monsters in the air above them.

“Now now, that young kitten down there belongs to me,” Katie playfully scolded the deathmare while slowly shaking a finger at it, the succubus flying in place next to Tora who was seated sideways on her staff.

“It’s her,” Triska breathed out.

“Katie,” Daniel nervously said as they watched the Darker One and witch slowly hover down towards them. The woman touched down on the dirt while Tora dropped down onto her feet while holding her staff, both of them looking down to Daniel and the girls as the three just stared at them with stunned expressions.

“So nice to see you again, Triska,” Katie said with a wink.

Triska slowly gripped her blade and stood up, keeping on guard while Daniel and Specca scrambled to their feet and backed up behind her.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Triska hissed out with a glare at the succubus.

Katie laughed and looked at her amusedly while Squeak and Falla just stared at the Darker One between them and Daniel with fear.

“Come now, is that any way to treat someone for saving your life?” Katie mused with a smirk on her face.

Daniel glanced to the burning buildings nearby then to her carefully.

“Did you do all that?”

Katie raised an eyebrow at him then glanced over to the line of buildings that were burning brightly.

“No, I didn’t.”

From the burning toy store Alyssa leapt out through the doorway, the witch’s clothing and skin appearing perfectly fine as she stumbled along the ground before turning back towards the fiery inferno. She held her hands towards it with a loud growl as everyone looked to her curiously, forming a bright circle of red light in front of her palms and strange glyphs that glowed with an orange hue around the casting ring.

“And stay down this time!” she yelled before clapping her hands together in front of her, the casting ring shattering with a flash and triggering a violent explosion of fire to blast out from the building and up through the roof, causing the burning remains to collapse down with a loud crash as the fires swirled around wildly from the witch’s magic. Alyssa slowly backed up while breathing heavily, watching as the flames incinerated the store, then wiped her forehead while slowly exhaling.

“So much for saving up my magic tonight for Daniel,” she moped shaking her head.

Turning around she started to run towards the others then stopped in her tracks as she saw Katie and Tora standing among them.

“W-What? What are they doing here?” she cried out, pointing to them with surprise.

“Alyssa,” Tora hissed with malice. “Why am I not surprised that you would be responsible for yet another village being burned to ashes?”

Alyssa stared at her with disbelief then looked to Katie, the succubus having an amused smile on her face as she slowly shook her head.

“You really are a troublemaker, aren’t you?” she mused playfully.

The group looked to her then to the deathmare is it wailed and charged towards them again, with Katie holding in her grunt of annoyance as she waved her hand sharply towards it. A streak of red haze blasted against the Darker One, the monster using its scythe’s handle to block the attack as it skidded back along the dirt road which sizzled and lit aflame briefly.

“Triska,” Katie lectured while glancing to the teen. “I thought I told you before to take care of yourself for me, remember?”

Triska growled at the monster before looking towards the burning toy store as two figures leapt out from the blaze.

“Alyssa, behind you!”

Alyssa turned to see Jovian and Jacqueline standing behind her, the two sisters hunched over as their burnt flesh was slowly regenerating around their skeletons.

“Are you kidding me? Why won’t they die?” Alyssa cried out as she stumbled back onto her rear before scrambling away from the sisters, with everyone watching as the twins slowly reformed again with naked bodies that were clean of any blood or ash.

“Dammit, how did that not kill them either?” Falla cursed out loud.

“Who… or
what
are those two?” Tora asked dryly.

“We have no idea, but whatever they are they won’t die,” Specca said shaking her head.

Alyssa slowly stepped back towards them, paying no mind to Tora and Katie now as the group watched the sisters smiling coldly at them.

“Cute trick, too bad it didn’t work,” Jacqueline teased with a shrug.

“Oh my, looks like we have more meat on the table,” Jovian said with a dark smile on her face as she eyed over Katie and Tora. Alyssa shook her head and clenched her fists with frustration as the twins giggled in unison.

“What in Eden are they? My fire doesn’t kill them, impaling them doesn’t do anything to them, a deathmare can’t kill them, the Blight Witch couldn’t stop them, I don’t get-”

“The Blight Witch?” Tora asked suddenly. She grabbed Alyssa and turned the girl to face her while holding onto her shirt tightly. “Did you say the Blight Witch was here?”

Alyssa tried to pry free while nodding at her with a confused expression.

“Yeah, she’s the one who summoned that deathmare in the first place. She even tried to use her magic to melt those two monsters with some toxic goo, and neither did her any good in stopping them.”

“The Blight Witch was here?” Tora yelled out while shaking the girl. “Where? Where is she?”

Alyssa struggled for a moment then broke free from her grasp and pointed down the street behind Tora.

“What’s left of her is over there,” she spat out, with Tora going wide eyed then looking back. The group looked over to where Emily’s corpse was in the road, the body being seen easily as the burning buildings nearby lit the street up with a warm glow.

“What?
WHAT
?” Tora yelled before she ran towards the body. She raced over towards the remains of Emily then gasped as saw the alpha witch’s corpse lying in a pool of her own blood.

“Does she know Emily?” Daniel asked.

“MOTHER!” Tora shrieked out with wide eyes, the group then looking at her curiously as the witch started crying and shaking her head. “No! NO! MOTHER!”

“Mother?” Alyssa said softly.

“Tora?” Katie asked with a raised eyebrow.

The group then looked over to the twins as they laughed while watching Tora crying over Emily’s body.

“Oh that’s so cute, we killed her mommy,” Jacqueline laughed.