Portals & Realms

Chapter 11 - You Idiot

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Mae had forgotten what it felt like to be unable to fall asleep. She had forgotten how it felt to lay awake at night to no avail, and by how things were looking right now, she suspected that she may never feel that way again. Yet that seemed to be the only feeling she and on this adventure. It almost took up more brain space than going home. But then again, while she was now suddenly asleep, she had much more things to worry about: like the glimmer of gold by her face as a man was teaching her how to fight, as he had promised.
    "You have to dodge faster than that, otherwise you are practically just easy pickings!" Lucio ordered at Mae again as she continued fighting him in the dark empty space that was her mind, or what she envisioned as her mind. Mae rolled again to the side, but slipped on her own feet and got a small kick in her side. "If you stay this discombobulated, then there is no way you will beat any enemies. Stay on your toes and stay vigilant."
     "I am a little out of shape I suppose," she staggered back to her feet and grabbed the stick she was fighting with, was supposed to symbolize a sword. "I don't do well with this kind of combat."
     Lucio didn't even need a sword at this time, he was already acing Mae at the training. "Uh huh, says the apprentice that could've easily knocked out Elvadoer without even a second thought."
     "That was adrenaline and something else, now quit sassing me," Mae clamped her hand on her tool and looked at Lucio, her "attack" stance being used.
     Lucio rushed towards her and slid past her as she bolted to the side of him and hit him in the back, which barely even affected him due to the thick fur coat draped over him. Mae kicked at him and missed while Lucio did the same. "Don't let your enemy easily know your next move, that will be your weakness," he said while elbowing her in her side, causing her to yelp in shock.
     "Says the person who literally burned to death."
     "ExCUSE me?"
     Mae threw her stick to the ground and balled her fists. "You heard me goatman!" She laughed as Lucio gave her an offended look. His red eyes narrowed and he stuck his head up.
     "That's it, class is over," he finished and kicked the stick further away into the inky darkness that enveloped the rest of this weird world. He looked down at Mae as she dusted off her loose shirt that she had woken up wearing. He crossed his flesh arm and his golden metal one, his red eyes glaring down at her. "You better learn how to fight if you want to survive in Vesuvia, or if you want to somehow get home."
     "I'll try I guess ...do you know what magic caused me to become so strong when I fought Elvadoer?"
     "Well it was mine of course! Mine is the most powerful after all..."
     "Yeah quit with the fibbing," Mae waved a hand at him and crossed her arms back at the dead man infront of her. He rolled his eyes and looked around him as if he was scared something may hear him.
     "It wasn't yours is all I can tell you," Lucio warned as she suddenly began feeling her body rise from her sleeping state. With a final warning and a final goodbye, she opened her eyes to be back in the room that she had suddenly seemed to know so well, yet she had forgotten it. She was all alone in the room however, and.... Wait. How did I get here? What happened?
     "Hello?" She said quietly as she sat up in the bed and looked around the seemingly empty room. She grabbed her glasses off the side table and put them on hurriedly, looking around the otherwise empty room. It was deadly quiet, almost to the point where she could hear her own blood running through her head. That is until a huge figure burst through the door of the room at the first squeak of her voice.
     "She's awake! Oh thank the lord she is awake! She's awake again!!!" A huge black figure came tumbling into the room, the carpet curling under tis feet as it nearly crashed into the other wall. Mae yelled and leaned all the way back against the bed.
     "CHEESE AND OLIVE GARDEN BREADSTICKS CHILL OUT!" A loud yell came from the outside of the room that sounded like Ramille's but it was drowned out by a loud groan from whatever ran into her room.
     "チル・アウト?それは、彼女が以前に起こった何でも死んでいないおかしく奇跡です!" The creature was heard taking loud footsteps closer and closer to where Mae was currently hiding in pure terror. "私が彼女を持っていたならば、私は簡単に誰かを殺すだろう、彼女の奇妙な緑の目と極度の頭痛を与えるだけではなく!"
     The creature pulled back the covers similarly to the Indoraptor in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and was met with a hard slap to the face from a frightened woman. He wasn't even phased as he just looked down at the girl and she stared right back.
     "ONCE AGAIN, NONE OF US CAN UNDERSTAND YOUR FUCKING LANGUAGE YOU OBTUSE PEANUT!" Ramille yelled and stepped into the room and dragged the creature farther away from Mae, as to give her some breathing space. This was worse than trying to give her space from Julian, this was as if Ramille was preventing Mae's inevitable doom.
     "Ok, first off..." Mae exhaled throughout all of her words, "WHAT IS THAT THING!"
     "Oh right, I've been screeching in Japanese the entire time, my mistake." The dark furred creature sat on its hind legs and seemed to grow a million feet taller, towering over Ramille and another figure who stood behind her as well. "My name is Vetomo."
    Mae stared blankly at the demon with something deep inside of her eyes that was  indescribable, was it confusion? Fear of what was to come next? Then, suddenly out of nowhere, she chuckled. "You know what, fine. This is fine. Everything is fine. It's not like I'm in the presence of a pitch black scary creature that just came barreling into my room!"
    "Would you prefer Sif?" Vetomo leaned closer to Mae, unknown to common sense and personal space.
    "Honestly," Mae held her head, an unknown pain began grasping at her skull and it felt as if her flesh was being torn away. The name Sif sounded familiar, yet it didn't ring a bell. She was still so discombobulated. "I don't know-argh can this pain PLEASE go away!"
     "You are seriously starting to worry us Mae, This is the second time you've been randomly possessed," Ramille exclaimed worriedly and shook Mae's stiff shoulders. "Quit getting possessed already and be semi-normal again!"
     "I was ...possessed?" Mae looked down at her hands as she continued to sweat, "I don't... remember anything after getting on Kigu after the theatre.."
     "Memory wipe, that's a smart move. Whatever bastard took you over is a smart individual."
    Mae still looked at Ramille and Vetomo in immense confusion. Possessed? Was I possessed like the first time when I tried to attack Asra and Ramille with yellow eyes? Could it have been Ein again, but why would he have tried to wipe my memory? Weren't we......this is all confusing. "I don't understand why Ein would be doing this, if this is even him behind this fiasco keeping us here."
     "Who in the- Mae who is Ein? You never told me about this Ein person!" Ramille looked at everyone, confusion written all over her face as new names were spilled.
     "That's enough Vetomo, give me a moment to speak," the demon began to shift into a more human-like stature and dissipated into a new figure. This figure wasn't very tall, nowhere near the towering height of Vetomo, but he was fit. He had on a kitsune mask to cover his entire face, and sunset colored hair filling the edges. "The name's Sif. Anyways, you said Ein correct, as in evil bad guy murderer Ein?"
     "Murderer?"
     "Well I mean... yeah?" And that's who Perri and I sent Dante to find for answers.... Dante is going to die and it's going to be all my fault. "I mean him. But I don't know if he-"
     "And I mean Ein too," Perri appeared from behind Ramille and walked beside Sif. She whispered something to him and Mae could only watch as she held a rectangular device in her hand towards Mae. The symbol on the phone case was red with two wolves. One was facing left, and the other was crying and facing the right. "He knows who these people are too Mae."
     "The Lycan Family crest," she sat upright and nervously looked at the enraged Ramille in the background. Her eyes were screaming 'Why did you all decide to keep this very important detail secret from me'.
     "Did you guys just decide among yourselves not to tell me this because I'm not magical enough?!" Ramille yelled at everyone and balled her fists.
     "No Ramille that's not it. We were. It's just that..." Mae looked at the symbol again, "we know where Dante is."
     Ramille's face shifted from anger to relief and shock, and then right back to enragement. "AND YOU DIDN'T BOTHER TO TELL ME THAT EITHER?!!
"I was going to, but as you can tell I-"
     "Well we weren't going to if you were going to act like this, especially because we might have tasked Dante to find Ein for answers on what could be happening and why this entire scenario we are living is going on around us!" Perri snapped back and Sif took a step away from Perri.
     "You sent Dante to find Ein? I met him briefly, though it may have only been a vision of him while I was escaping my crumbling world." Sif asked, confused. Perri handed him back his phone before turning back to look at Ramille, and Sif placed it back in his pocket.
     "It was the only person I figured would have answers. He can break the fourth wall... somehow.  I don't know how, but a judge creature told me when I got sent wherever I got sent to meet Dante at. It said that it's a skill few have, and he was..... I had a gut feeling he was one of those few," Perri sighed, feeling as if a whole hive of bees was suddenly dumped on the ground and now they were all over her. Mae, watching and hearing them begin to argue once again, covered her ears as Perri and Ramille bit at each other's throats. Being courteous to the servants and possible other residents of the castle, Sif quickly hopped over to shut the door, and then he hopped right back over to Mae as she rubbed her head.
     "So you just thought it was ok to not immediately tell me where Dante was and his status as soon as you woke up?"
"It took me time to differentiate if it was a dream or not!"
    "Well good job on taking an entire day to think about it, because I'm sure that Dante is just... peachy right now!"
"Y'know, you are definitely overreacting! I'll throw you in the lake!"
"Overreacting? Dante is in DANGER!"
     "SHUT UP!" Mae yelled and stood up on her own two feet, screaming at the two arguing "toddlers". They both stopped in their tracks and turned their heads to the now enraged Mae, who was close to coughing up her own lung again. She held it together and looked at her two friends. "We are going to tear this group apart by doing this! Look at you two, look at all of us! We are lost in a realm we didn't even know existed five days ago. If we continue to argue like this and overreact, we are never going to get home."
     "But you guys-"
     "Yes I understand we should not have hidden the fact of Dante's location and who we sent him to find, but if you were going to overreact like this, of course we did! We were going to tell you when Dante somehow got across another message like 'hey guys I'm alive don't worry you can tell everyone else'! We don't know where Elvadoer is, and we still have no clue how on Earth we get to either of them physically. We just need to think, and that means we need to calm down," Mae tried to explain, walking closer to her friends as Sif slightly stood awkwardly in the background. She coughed a little, but managed to somehow hold it all together."
     "We need to go to Asra, I have a feeling he has some more answers and we just haven't gotten them yet."