Artificial 3: The Valla Chronicles

Chapter 27: The Semi-Final Layer

(Seth's POV)

Approximately a few minutes after we parted ways from Terra and Sora in the cave,
we navigated our way out,
and unfortunately,
fell out of the cave tunnel entirely down to a U-shaped island,
we all panicked as I attempted to use aura to fly,
but nothing came of it,
so I focused, closed my eyes,
visualize the shadow rune and fire a shadow off,
attaching it to the U-shaped island and swinging towards a lower island with a single mideval fortress,
the twin Oni's catch my legs,
Chace catches Reina and focuses enough to actually glide alongside me,
and I faceplant into alongside the Onis into the dirt.

"Ow." I jerk my legs away from the Onis and look at my scrapes as they start to gradually heal,
shit, that felt like my face was grinded against a cheese grater.
"Thanks for the save Chase, can I have my hand back now?"
Chace, let's go,
and puts his hands in the air,
backing away slightly while still being somewhat clingy,
I have no clue why he's acting like this, but it definitely shakes the image he gives off,
Chace is always this indestructible demon that isn't a sensitive touchy feely kinda guy,
he never displays emotions well other than his usual blank expression, annoyance,
or anger,
for the first time,
I'm seeing worry,
desperation,
and sadness.

I shake my head out of my thoughts and raise the kunai that Flecia gave me,
I channel my energy into the servant seal only for nothing to happen.
Am I not using enough?
I channel a little bit more,
and within a moment,
I picked up someone's murderous intent, their aura visible if only for a few seconds.
"SCATTER!" We all leap away right as a loud explosion goes off where we were,
I land and look at our aggressor only to see a tall,
slim,
thick woman with short blue hair,
clad in a mage,
or witch attire.

"Please finally meet your aquantinace. Welcome to the semi-final layer above my lord and god, Valla. My name is Allerga Alecto-!"
Reina punches her in the face mid monolog,
Alecto stumbles backward,
holding her nose despite wearing a witch/mage Roman style helmet.
"You little shit st-!"
Chace now punches her the nose as well. "Ah! Don't you know it's-!"
I join in on the fun and let out a smile while trying to surpess my laughter. "Fuck buckets! I'm trying to be-!"
The Oni with T.J combo hair gut punches her in the stomach,
knocking spit out of her and making her wheeze on the floor.

"Hey lady, not to tell you how to be a villain, but ummm, you kinda fall flat at the being evil shtick, can we just skip the introduction and move onto the part where we kill you?"
Alecto looks at me,
gives us the middle finger and wheezes out a fuck you before propping herself up and teleporting away,
too bad for her,
I have her scent.

More zombies spawn in from runes, but unlike the ones we encountered from the cave,
these were buff,
had chaines wrapped around their wrist,
a helmet of some sort,
and had body builder bodies.
"This is so my dream body right there." Everyone puts their hands up for a brawl,
and I incase my arms in shadow runes, darkness coats my hands,
and I turn my right hand into a drill three times my size,
the left hand gets morphed into a sledge hammer.

I look up above,
and I notice my sisters and Niel descending from the sky,
and they land right on top of Alecto's scent,
followed by a loud sqeal and electricfying explosion,
the next big surprise was Keiko,
no lie,
I kinda forgot she tagged along.
Keiko explodes a zombie with a palm strike and says to Chace if he missed her. "Keiko! Where have you been?!"
Chace huggs her,
and while this is a happily ever after type of moment,
the rest of us made bloody fireworks with the zombie slaying,
a part of my mind was screaming KISS YOU DUMB FUCKS!

So while they were busy mid hugs,
I waited,
kept my guard up,
kept an eye on them,
and then I used a shadow rune to get them to kiss.
They kissed for like a second,
maybe two at tops,
then part,
Chace looked confused and surprised in a non romantic way,
and then Keiko turned into a stuttering mess and managed to blurt out sorry for invading his personal space and Chace brushes the kiss off sadly,
damn,
sorry Keiko,
I tried to help you win my brother's heart.

Perhaps that wasn't the best time,
and this is not the best place.
Oh well,
I'll apologize to them both later for that. "Yo Seth, our sisters are over there, I'm going to take Keiko and toy with the witch chick."
I give him the thumbs up,
and they go on their way,
I spin my drill arm and get the drill sound effect,
smile then evil laugh as I jump into the hord body builder zombies.

(Sora's POV)

I clash my spear against the witch's staff, and she poorly attempts to push me back,
whereas I barely used any power to keep her stationary,
a spear bind,
so to speak.
"Is this all you got? If so, I am sorely disappointed, I happen to know a witch the same age as me, and she is vastly superior to you."

I turn the tables and hit her with the shaft of my spear then slash her cheek, the witch backs away from me,
blood dripping down her cheek,
she looks at me angerly and grits her teeth.
"Don't you dare speak like you're superior, little girl!"

She wildly swings her staff like a bow staff and forms a light blue energy blade as a make shift spearhead,
I grin from ear to ear and cross spears with her,
spin my spear as a perry,
making her magic spear hit the ground.
I whale on her with my spear,
trying to get a rise,
trying to see the full power that this magic has to offer,
only to be disappointed with her for only using half assed spear techniques.
I yawn,
dodge,
grab her by the throat,
and pull her to my face.

"Hurry up and show me your magic,
or I'll end you as slowly and painfully as possible."
She obliges and zaps me with probably lightning magic as I fly into the fortress's courtyard.
I look up as the witch looks down at me from the hole she created,
electricity popping from her hand,
I look higher than her and see a flame descending from the sky,
I sniff the air and notice that's my brother's scent!
Took him long enough!
The witch looks up,
and by the time she noticed,
the fortress explodes from Chase's drop kick.

The flames consume my body,
but don't burn.
That's my brother for you,
near perfect control over his flames,
the knowledge that our mentor and friend,
Penny, bestowed upon him.
The flames die down,
and the smoke clears.
Chase,
Terra, and Keiko are visible a few feet away from me,
the witch visibly injured from his aura and shockwave of the kick,
her bleeding worse.

Her barrier dispells and crumbles like broken glass,
I stand up and dust myself off,
hardly injured,
though I will say,
getting blasted by lightning certainly was a treat.
Dark energy becomes visible over me, Chase and Terra's right eye like a scar, and our demonic power gets a drastic increase in power.

My voice gets slightly more demonic as I let out the most demonic chuckle ever, my voice just slightly more deeper pitched.
"Yes, that's more like it. Show us more before we break you, kehehehe."