1c.) First Contact

For several moments as the pairs passed, for several moments, all they would experience was a bright, white flash... surrounding them and encompassing them, a relaxing feel to the mind...

Amidst this light, out of the tamers' devices came a smooth, red light that pierced through the white; a similar phenomenon occurred with Windsor's sword. With this, the effect of memory loss acrossed the two dimmensions was eliminated.

As it was, the groups would find themselves 'opening their eyes' in another area. If they turned around, they would only see their partners, and the foiliage around them. There was no portal, and it seemed, through the transfer, that the groups were seperated somewhat.

There was a constant, though: they had arrived in a forested area, the trees vibrant with yellow flowers and red leaves, the sound of a creek running through the center of the forest. It was a thin, yet pleasant forest, relatively silent...

When they found the perimeter of this forest, their vision no longer restricted, the sight before the humans, at least, would be extraordinary, or at least unexpected: the sun shone, as if the break of dawn, lifting over the horizon, revealing several square structures: when taken into proper focus, it took the form of a small town. Between the forest and that town was a plain; mountains stood right of the forest, the plain continuing to the left until they were again blocked by trees.

Still, something seemed off... noone was around, except for the tamers and the DaCre...

Lallium kept on running directly into a tree, knocking himself over while Salem deftly leapt off and landed on his feet. Salem looked around.

"Mwahahaha! At last, back in my domain!" He looked around. "Um... where are my servants? My adoring fangirls? The swarms of Dacre who kiss the very ground I walk on!"

Lallium, rubbing his head, looked around. "Well unless these leaves are actually some deadly new A-ranks I'm pretty sure they're not here. Are you positive you actually HAD those things to begin with?"

Salem stomped his feet. "Of course I did! It's... it's just the wrong forest I'm sure of it. Mine had alot more snow..." Then Salem's eye's widened. "I remember my forest! And my castle!" Salem skipped around and began cheering to himself in a happy, sing-song voice. "I was right, I was right, I was right, I was right!"

Lallium looked around. "So... you thought you were wrong at one point?"

Salem grew irritated. "Of course not! I'm always right, it's just great to see myself PROVEN right again."

"Well then Mr. Right, where exactly ARE we?"

Salem looked proud and matter-o-fact. "We are in a forest."

Lallium blinked a few times. "Um... more specificaly?"

Salem made a nervous chuckle. "Well I didn't exactly memorize all the forests in the world..."

Lallium sighed. "Greaaaat." Then he saw the buildings. "Hey there's a town... Wait DaCre have towns?"

"Of course! For the peasants! I mean if you had a castle would you let all the peasants sleep there too?"

"...Yes?"

"Well that's obviously why YOU don't HAVE a castle. Now come on, let's see if we can find the rest of those bums."

Above Salem and Lallium, they would hear the trees suddenly rustle, as a yellow monkey hung down from one of the above branches with his tail. It didn't exactly look aggressive, but it seemed rather curious as it stared at Lallium. "Where you come from?" it asked, staring at the odd human.

Judging from the monkey's willingness to appear, this forest may have been the safest place left in this plane... something that Robert probably took great mathmatical measures to accomplish.

Lallium looked at the monkey and mentally prepared himself. "Okay... this is my first contact with a native. I have to make a good first impression..." Lallium looked at the monkey.

"We come from portal in the sky." He moved his hands in a circular motion as I to indicate a hole in the air. "My name is Lallium. Lall-ee-um." He pointed to himself. He then pointed to the monkey. "You are..."

Salem put his paw to his head and sighed. "Who CARES who he is? Let me handle this." Salem moved in front of Lallium. "Hey moron, listen up cuz I'm only going to say this once. I'm Salem, the Prince of Chaos and I'm going to personally blow up and enslave you and your entire monkey-butt family unless you tell me WHERE MY CASTLE IS!"

Lallium looked startled but thought a moment. "Wait... how can we enslave him if we blow him up?" He realized what he had said and waved his arms in a panic. "Not that we're going to! We come in peace! Peace!" He made a peace sign with his hand and gestured to it.

The monkey let go of the branch, flipping and landing in the brush with little effort. "You really have been there, haven't you, kitty?" the monkey said, looking over at Salem. "At least, you don't seem aware of the situation at hand..."

It began to climb up a closer tree, hanging on with one arm, as if subconsciously making these movements. "No just DaCre owns a castle ever since the shadows... the only one around here belongs to a demon named Yitur." It said this, matter-of-factly.

"Anyway..." the monkey started, now reclining on a branch, "I wouldn't be so loud around here, else you're just going to draw attention to yourself. Especially with a human... if any of Yitur's people see someone with a human, its not supposed to be pretty..."

Lallium thought aloud. "Yitur... didn't Alice say something about him?"

Salem stuck up his nose. "Maybe, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that this Yitur guy has a castle, and considering we can't find MY castle..." Salem grinned. "We'll just have to take his!"

Lallium sighed. "I don't think it's such a good idea to just rush off and start attacking people... I mean we just got here, and we don't even know where the others are yet. Besides... if this Yitur's a demon doesn't that make him some sort of boss?"

Salem looked puzzled. "Huh?"

"Well in video games the demon is always something big and powerful, sometimes even a final boss, and you only get to him after going through all sorts of stuff and finding legendary swords... You definitely DON'T just rush off after you talk to the first townsperson."

"You play WAY too many videogames. The real world isn't like that."

"But isn't DaCre a videogame?"

"..."

"..."

"You know in Disgaea 3 they attack the final boss in Chapter 1."

"Oh yeah, I guess you're right." Lallium turned to the monkey. "Okay so where do we find this Yitur?"

"You guys are wierd," the monkey said to them, tilting his head toward them as he reclined. ~Such an arrogant cat and a simple human... if I told them that the cost of the information was twenty bannanas, that human would probably believe me, with that simple cause-effect thinking... the cat with a superiority complex, though...~

"If you really want to kill yourselves, go and check in that town over there," the monkey said, tilting his head off to the distance. "But Yitur's minions play hardball... just be sure to take care, otherwise things will turn out really bad..."

~If they really think that going alone is going to do them any good... I'm only still here due to my camoflauge...~

"Ha! Like I'd be afraid of some lame minions. I'll just barge in there, bust a few heads, and I'm sure the rest will work out."

Lallium wasn't so confident but nodded anyway. "Yeah...forgive me if I keep a safe distance. Thank you for the help Mr.Monkey."

Lallium focused and put Salem into C form and the two began heading towards the village.

Salem led the way. "Maybe we should look for those weaklings a bit more... Aw well, when they see the corpses flying they'll come running I'm sure."

Salem and Lallium would find themselves walking for a bit, before they would finally happen upon something that would fit the bill of 'a minion's foul play'.

About fifty feet in front of the pair's path, when they were cast in the shadow of a hill, they would notice a wolfish DaCre running. It seemed to be C-rank, in the shape of a wolf, a dark, sandy color to its fur. From the limp of one of its hind legs, and a scratch down its side, it seemed to be both wounded and exhausted.

A red 'whip' of energy came from the right, from a ghoul-like figure, floating off the ground, a loose, dark-blue robe covering the figure, 'vanishing' at the bottom like a ghost. It clenched its fist as the line wrapped around the wolf's back-right foot, which turned into a tight cord with a loop. Pulling, the DaCre fell on its face.

"Get away..." the wolf said, standing up, trying to tug at the rope, to little avail, as the ghost began to approach, a second red line appearing in its opposite hand.

Salem looked at the scene with disdain. "Really now what bad form. On both parts; what sort of escapee runs right into an abandoned town, and what sort of captor's can't keep watch over their prisoners to begin with." Salem sighed. "I guess we have to do something about this..."

"Wait... you mean rescue him? That doesn't seem like you Salem."

Salem rolled his eye's. "Of course I'm not going to rescue them. I'm going to blow BOTH of them to smithereens and then torture em til they tell me where Yitur's castle is!"

Lallium sighed. "Yep... there's the Salem I know and love..."

Salem shot ahead towards the two DaCre. Despite what he had said he pointed his right hand towards only the ghost-DaCre.

"Puppeteer Dance!"

The familiar blades shot out, crackling with electricity, to bind the ghost much like he bound the wolf though hopefully around both arms instead of the leg.

The ghoul saw the oncoming blades, and wasn't about to let such a straightforward attack prevent him from doing his job. It outstreched its hand at the blades, a red mass forming from his hand, encompassing the blades and blocking their movement; after a moment, the mass of wire and blades fell to the ground. These wires, however, were not jumping; it seemed this data attack didn't conduct electricity as it would seem.

Ignoring the assailant at the moment, the ghoul turned its hand red again, pulling at the wire, beginning to painfully draw the wolf back. "Damn it..." the wolf whispered to itself, turning around, and blowing at the wire; after a moment, it was coated in stone, beginning to petrify.

Salem swung his blades around to get them back in a swinging fashion and spun them heli-copter blade before retrcting the strings to the point that the blades were more like claws.

"Deluge, Freezing Mist."

Salem fired out a large ball of ice and froze it in the air, launching it towards the ghoul as it took flight up and to the right, launching his string-blades again at the ghoul from a different angle so it had both attacks and the wolf to contend with.

"Pay attention to the real threat ya bedsheet!"

The ghoul tugged at his rope, ripping the wolf off the ground, bringing the creature into close range. In the shock, it was grabbed in the opposite hand, near the neck, to which the ghoul used the creature as a shield, taking the ice attack in full. Wires shot out of the grabbing hand, countering the electrical wires as they came through.

When the mist of the ice settled, Salem and Lallium would see a more-weakened C-rank, coughing as a collar was added to what was restricting him. The ghoul looked over at Salem, a sense of malice under its hood... it pointed its hand at Salem, as if preparing an attack.

When Salem's blades fell to the ground they stuck in the ground, and Salem used them to pull himself incredibly quickly down and out of the creature's immediate aim.

"Freezing Mist!"

Salem let out a large wave of mist towards the ghoul, aiming from near the ground. With such a wide spray the wolf-sheild wouldn't protect the ghoul from much, and ff both DaCre were frozen it would be an easy matter to kill the ghoul and worry about pulling the two apart later.

The ghoul pulled the wolf back, out of the immediate range of his next attack: it stared into the oncoming mist, a ghoulish white mist forming out of its hood.

When the mist touched his robe, the white mist was thrown outward, the poisonous gas thrown against the icy mist, the two momentums cancelling out. However, the poison itself still hung in the air for a moment. It wasn't lethal; however, after a time, it would knock out an opposing DaCre, C-rank or lower, and throw off the timing of higher DaCre. As it did this, it extended its free claw forward at the oncoming Salem's head, while it was still pulling on the grounded wires.

At this moment, about fifty fireflies zipped out of the forest, and paused, hovering in the air beside Salem and the ghoul's battle. Recognizing as one of the targets, the fireflies all rushed toward the ghoul from in front to the right, the right, and from behind.

Salem lashed up with his still free left hand and caught the ghoul by the wrist with the blades on that hand.


"Gotcha." He then let loose a surge of electricty into the ghoul, as much as he can muster. Meanwhile he pulled free his other hand and intended to use it like a helicopter to blow away the lingering mists.

"Freezing mist!"

Salem also as a more immediate measure sprayed out more freezing mist to hit the ghoul at close range and furhter disperse the poison. He also helped it would hit the fireflies, which he saw swarming and assumed were allied with the ghoul.

The fireflies fell due to the refracted poison, so they remained irrelevant.

The ghoul's red glow expanded from that hand, near-instantly bounding the hand with wires. It would have been more wise to find a way to avoid this DaCre's hands...

As Salem attempted to blow the mist, he pulled the wire hard in the direction that would cross Salem's body, making the mist fly uselessly off to the side. Now off balance, the same hand controlling Salem's hand again went for the head...

As the other DaCre attempted to breath out a petrifying gas, the wire choked the attack, causing a useless sputter that effected his own teeth.

Salem pulled his head and arm back back and let out another jolt through his claw as he thrusted his claws forward (letting them slightly shoot out on their strings). The force would easily be enough to touch the ghoul itself and zap it, and with the ghoul holding so tightly onto the electrifying claws he could repeat the process with ease.

After letting loose the zap and cutting off the flow so he wouldn't be hit by his own elctricty, Salem kicked out with his foot, so instead of grabbing Salem's head if he continued to push forward the ghoul would get a metal foot to the chest.

Salem then intended to use the fact that he was pushing the ghouls' body backwards (with his foot) and it's arm forwards (via the connected hands) to slice the ghoul's vulnerable arm clean off with his still unbound hand's blades.

The ghoul slammed his hand downward, sending the hand out of alignment, as he caught the oncoming foot with the same hand, trapping it with a somewhat longer wire. To the other hand, the ghoul raised his hand, blocking with the two taut wires used to keep down the wolf.

The wolf coughed, and looked up at Salem... with both a wrist and an ankle caught, this was not going to be an easy match...

But of course limbs weren't everything. And by distracting the ghoul with his various leg maneuver's he had set the stage for a more cunning plot. While the ghoul blocked the air and itself from freezing via the mist, it did not stop the ground; which was further frozen from the large quanities of mist that had been knocked away to point downwards. And so Salem had via his manuevers and the binding of the ghoul to himself ensured that he made a realtively immobile target that was an easy target for an ice-based barrage from below.

Very tall but somewhat thin ice spikes rose directly under the ghoul, extremely sharp at their point and easily capalbe of piercing through. With the ghoul being so distracted with Salem and the ice below his nonexistent feet he would have no way of knowing he was about to be skewered until it was too late. In addition if the ghoul was able to go airborne high enough to avoid the spikes he would be forced to drop Salem (for Salem could simply pull him back down onto the spikes once more), and would likely not be able to hold the wolf either, for it would slow him down too much to evade in time with a struggling captive.

Sound.

The sound of cracking ice, ice sliding against other ice. The sheer change of temerature below the ghoul as the wind changed with the altercation of ice... as well as a sheer battle sense when looking directly into Salem's eyes...

When the ice was beginning to change shape, the ghoul slammed hard down on the wires, which would likely knock Salem off his feet and fall on his face forward, below the ghoul's non-existant feet, with arms, palms, and face down, straight into his own icy creation. Granted, he could probably limit the damage on himself, but this prevented the ice below him from being manipulated.

Meanwhile, a second, more familiar DaCre presence seemed to be approaching from the air... it was still a good distance away, though...

Salem let his body shift downwards with the flow of the ghoul's downward motion but due to the fact that he was only being held on one side would vring the ghoul holding onto that side right down with him. He changed the ice under his own body into a soft, near liquid state so that the blow was cushioned to a point that it didn't affect him. He also made the ice under the ghoul soldify further and strengthen making a full circle of spikes on the ground. He continued with the flow of the motion, intending to pull the ghould down with his own wire (which didn't seem too difficult as the ghoul was using one hand to hold onto two limbs which could both pull against it) and skewer him on the still icy area.

"Now you're starting to make me mad..."

The fireflies were not hurt by the poison, however, not being able to inhale it. They were confused by Salem's attempt to attack them, however, and retreated some twenty feet to consider the situation.

The commands in their data were to find a set of certain DaCre, then protect them and lead them back to their creator. One of the DaCre they were supposed to protect had attacked them, however. This posed a terrible problem.

They remained outside of the battle, mulling over the turn of events.

There was, however, no space or water between Salem and the ghoul. In fact, the ghoul was as over Salem as possible: the last pull had brought Salem prone to the ghoul's forearm, the ghoul looking down at Salem, floating from above as Salem lay below, shielded from the floor-blow by his puddle of water. For, in this moment and movement, Salem could not focus on the ghoul's movement, defend himself, and attack at the same time.

The ghoul's arm glowed red, new wires forming ON Salem's torso, quickly attempting to wrap around and restrict his arms, and keep him prone to the ghost's arm with several different coils. This would prevent the motion in his arms, and prevent him from manipulating further attacks.

"Silence, kitty..." the ghoul said, looking at Salem. "You're our prisoner now..."