Shimmer: Journey To Death

The Orders

     We woke up in the morning being suffocated by Shimmer and Marmalade. I shoved Marmalade a little and she grumbled, moving even further over the top of Ley and I. Ley was still asleep somehow. I tried saying, "Marmalade get off. You are suffocating us," but it came out closer to, "Mermilay het uf. Oo arr sufrcaytng ufs." I groaned when she didn't move.
     Then Ley woke up; she was obviously used to being crushed by Shimmer, because her eyes started blazing. Shimmer immediately woke up when she felt Ley's eyes burning into her chest. Shimmer stumbled off and into Luna, whose snake tail snapped at Odysseus, which woke up Goliath and all the rest. Then Marmalade deigned to move. I glared at her angrily.
     I apologized to everyone for waking them so rudely and they waved it off and started getting ready. We all put on the new travel clothes we had gotten yesterday. We divided the food and water between the five of us. I put my quiver on my hip and put my bow on over my satchel. Ley strapped her knives all over; they were on her hips, arms, and legs. Just everywhere basically. Teigra put her backpack on with her harp in it and let her guitar hang off her shoulders so she coyld strum with her left hand, being a left-handed person. Jay curled his whip around his wrist and put his sword in it's sheath on his belt. Ajax put on his brass knuckles, which still intimidated me.
     We walked towards the entrance of the town as I observed everyone in the group. There was Teigra, the sun making her gair olive and silver, her crimson eyes shining with the joy of walking next to Jay, his black and blue-tinted white hair a stark contrast to Teigra's, his pink amber-ringed eyes laughing at some joke of hers. They were followed by Goliath and Odysseus, completely different from each other. Where Goliath was all electric blue, Odysseus was black, blue, and white. They were about as big as each other. Behind them was Ajax, his hair white and his blue-green eyes calm. His hand was on Luna's back. Her heads were obviously happy. The bull was leaning into Ajax, the wolf was cracking a wolfish smile, the snake twinning around his arm. I looked down at Ley, her hand intertwined with mine. The sun light made her hair a mercury waterfall and her silver eyes were swimming with happiness. I was sure my own bloodstone eyes were just as happy as hers. Shimmer was covered with mercury fur and silver feathers. Her ruby eyes looked at me with curiosity before playing with Marmalade. I watched the white and silver-streaked black blur of Marmalade, liquid gold eyes flashing with excitement. We were outsude of the town as I finished my observations.
     I looked down at Ley again as an idea popped into my head. I swiftly picked her up and put her on my back as she laughed and yelped from shock. She barely weighed more than a leaf right now. I carried her for hours as we walked. Not really sure where we were going, and not particularly caring either. But I stopped dead in my tracks when we saw a line of demons in front of us as it was getting dark. I dropped Ley and grabbed my bow. I strung an arrow on the string and shot one of the demons. The others immediately noticed that I had shot and grabbed their weapons.
     Teigra played a song on her guitar. I could feel the music coursing through me. It gave me strength and courage. Ley changed into her beastia and leaped at the demons. Jay turned into a huge peregrine falcon about the size he was in his humanaria. His flames were white with blue and black around the edges. He dove at the demons carrying them high and then dropping them. Ajax changed into a large white wolf. I kept shooting arrows, downing the demons as they came too close. Goliath grabbed demons from a pool and Odysseus shot colored flames at them. Shimmer and Marmalade attacked demons together. Luna ran at demons and bit them with the snake and wolf and gored them with her horns. Soon all the demons that had charged us were dead. I thought we were safe until I noticed the one that had been in the center of the line of demons. My heart sank it was a greater demon.
     Greater demons looked almost like someone in their humanaria. But something was alway off. This one had pitch black eyes.
     "I am Barbados. Colla Biron. You will come with me, or I will kill all of your friends." said the greater demon. He was evidently "gifted" with some form of mind control because I started walking towards him. If his strength was his mind then his weakness was his body. My mind raced. Where was his bodily weakness? My mind focused on an image of the part of your neck where the base of your skull and your neck met. There. That was it. I transformed in a sort of tornado of darkness into my beastia. I ran towards him. I signaled to Ley with my eyes to get on my back.
     I connected my mind to hers. Get out a dagger and be ready to stab him where his skull and neck meet, I said to her mind. As I galloped towards him, I connected my mind to the others as well. I told the others to run east as Ley hopped on my back with a graceful ease. They did what I had said as I leaped over Barbados. I felt Ley jump backwards with her knife hand outstretched. I turned as her knife hit him and severed his spinal cord. He crumpled to the ground and fell away to ash. I spotted a piece of paper.
     The others came back as I picked it up. It was a sheet of orders from someone named Hades. It said bring back the boy. The others are to be killed if they resist. I felt anger rush blood to my face. I saw Teigra holding out her hand. I looked at Jay and Ajax. I had forgotten to give them their rings. I pulled out the red bat and gold hawk and gave them to Jay, and I gave the brass bull and grey wolf to Ajax. They put them on their index fingers. I showed the paper to them.
     We made camp since it was now dark. After I had made a fire we started talking about what to do.
     "What do we do? Should we ignore this," I asked.
     "If we ignore it then more demons will just keep coming. Maybe someone more powerful than Barbados," Ley said.
     "This Hades tried to hurt us. He wanted to have Colla brought to him in the underworld. Let's go to him since he wants us so bad," Teigra said, looking at Jay as she talked about Hades trying to hurt us.
     "If we go to him, we will be giving him what he wants. We can't do that. We should report this," Ajax reasoned calmly.
     "Report it to who! Who will believe us! More importantly who will help us! No one. We are on our own. We have to help ourselves and deal with the issue. If he wants us, he will get us. But on our terms. And we won't go down without a fight," Jay yelled.
     "Are we going to go to Hades in the Underworld? Or are we going to keep on and hope they leave us alone? I think we should go to Hades. Not to give ourselves up, but to get rid of a problem," I told them. Eventually I persuaded them to start on a quest towards the underworld and Hades.
     Suddenly Ley changed into her beastia in a splashing ring of mercury. Her silver eyes glowed with an inner light. She started talking.
     "To the east are the reasoning dead. Trust them to lead you to the darkest deeps of the world. Be cautious in the abyss, for there even Ra, the sun, must battle his way through in the night above. Offend him not and take your place as Lord over Death, King of the Dead. And remember this above all other things. Bring with you no ducks, or you will have no mercy." And with those words, she collapsed into her humanaria. I caught her before she hit the ground.
     When she woke up, the first thing I asked was whether she was okay. When she nodded her head saying she was, my second question was why I needed to remember not to take any ducks with us to the underworld.

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Hello Readers! So this is early but there is a reason. I have decided to update this on Monday. This is because I have decided to start the side story, which you can find under Hopeless Love, on Wednesday, as well as a collection of random stories based on prompts or songs you guys suggest to me. The random story this will be Friday and can be found under, you guessed it, Random Stories. I don't know if you noticed but I also changed the story description for Shimmer. Whoo! I just thought of something better than the previous so... Anyways hope you enjoyed and see you back bere on monday