2b.) Unexpected Allies

Luke stood, and staggerred as he tried to push himself off the ground, not sure exactly what had just happenned. Shaking his head to try to remove the feeling of disorientation, he heard the sound of a stream, and the sounds of a forest. His eyes adjusted to the purple foliage, justifying that what had happenned before was not a dream.

"Ugh..." Luke mutterred, stirring, as he dragged himself to his feet, looking around the area, seeing Shobatsu and Carlos to his left. Still scanning, he looked to his right, seeing the other now-D-rank DaCre, unconscious in the dirt.

Suddenly remembering something important, he pulled out his device, ranking Iko up to C, as he ran over. Changing shape, Iko regained consciousness, and tried, for a second, to stand up, before he fell backward, Luke on his knees, looking at Iko's still-damaged feet.

"Damn it..." Iko mutterred, looking down at his legs as he forced himself to sit. "I can't stand up... hell, I can't even feel my legs below my knees..."

It was a slow, yet present process: even the fur on his legs had died off til about two inches below his knees, as Yitur's poison began to work upwards. Thinking quickly, Luke took a look around, and, finding a strong root, wrapped it several times around one leg, cutting it with effort, and doing the same with the other... it was all he could do until a more reasonable way to stop the flow could be found...

Iko cursed under his breath. ~Damn it... if we're attacked now, I wouldn't be able to do anything...~

Shobatsu's eyes opened. He didn't move. Instead, he focused.

A line of light extended from his head, rising up and over Carlos' face before moving down to him, widening as it reached his face. It was, in short, a spotlight. It was about the brightness of a lamp.

Carlos grumbled, rolling over, out of the light. The light moved to follow him, again shining on his face. He groaned, hands rising to his face, pressing down as though to stretch out the various muscles. He yawned, sitting up, eyes opening.

It seemed he had stopped being unconscious a while ago and had simply been sleeping. He'd been going since the morning before he fought Baniha without sleep, not counting the brief ten-minute nap he took at Alice's house, so he was entitled to this.

Shobatsu felt a vibration from his pocket, and drew out his Hardwire, focusing. The fox ranked up to C. Still, the Hardwire continued vibrating. He channeled more energy into it, almost feeling the need to fall asleep again. Shobatsu reached B rank.

The light knight stood, walking over to Iko and Luke. He focused, and a warm yellow glow enveloped all of them. Carlos and Luke would find small cuts and bruises and such healing over in a few seconds, and their fatigue melting away. Iko would find the same happening to him. Still, though, the poison seemed to be putting up a fight.

The skin had healed over almost immediately, stretching from the knee down. Still, the skin seemed slightly off-colored and thin as the poison fought to remove it again. Shobatsu concentrated, the aura narrowing to include just him and Iko. The skin began to, with less-than-vegetable speed, return to its normal color...

It would take over an hour, but the poison would be purged...

Iko winced slightly at the start of the healing process, the sting of the reforming poison being much worse than the unconscious feeling of the legs. The pain increased as Shobatsu went on, but, realising that this was necessary, he simply clasped his eyes shut and gritted his teeth against the severe amount of agony.

"Shobatsu, you may be able to heal him," Luke started, "but how does that work for poison? I mean, that kind of thing has to be removed directly from the system, or its still going to remain... even if its rended into a simpler form, that may be better or worse..."

"Just wait..." said Shobatsu as the last of the fur grew in.

He raised his right hand, and a thin, almost needle-looking spear of light formed in his hand. He brought it down gently onto Iko's lower leg, poking it in, and then pushing down.

Iko would feel a slight pinch, and then feel as though someone was running their finger repeatedly over that spot on his leg. Then, a faint burning sensation would set in, a severe desire to itch...

Then, Iko's leg would begin to sweat profusely. The sweat would look and feel normal, but have a faintly purple hue to it. As it would run down his leg, the smell of burning hair would fill the area. The aura healed the hair as it burned, however, and this time the acid was only powerful enough to cause mild irritation to the skin, not even soaking in. The aura healed this too.

This would continue for about twenty minutes.

Then, Shobatsu pulled the needle-like spear out, which seemed much longer than it had been when he put it in originally, and did the same to the other leg.

Iko clenched his teeth once more, looking over at Shobatsu. "Maybe you can watch where that needle goes in the second leg... there was a nerve about a fifth of an inch away from where you poked that thing, and I'm not exactly fond of light needles entering my body... light hurts me, remember..." Iko said, with a smile and a shaking face that suggested that he was barely coping with this pain, and really wanted to thrash out in rage against it...

Carlos watched as Shobatsu inserted the needle in Iko's other leg. He wondered what the fox's expression was behind that visor.

The other leg had the same effects, and Shobatsu withdrew the needle.

The kitsune then raised his hands. The aura grew more intense for a few moments, Iko and Shobatsu vanishing from sight for a moment in the light, and then it vanished. Shobatsu was in his little kitsune form, and Iko's legs looked completely normal, if somewhat healthier than normal.

The kitsune trotted over to Carlos, curling up at his feet for a small nap to regain energy.

The wolfish figure stood up, and looked down at Shobatsu's simple, emotionless walking away from this... it seemed that he had lost some of Shobatsu's respect. However, the last battle was somewhat of a blur to Iko...

"Iko," Luke said, seeing that Shobatsu was sleeping. "I don't want to see you using that kind of darkness again..."

Hearing this, Iko turned around, looked at Luke, as if to respond, but stopped short of this, seeing Luke's frightened expression, a shadow cast over his eyes. "I sensed something other than darkness in that shadow... Iko, that was rage... uncontrolled anger... fear... all of the malice in your heart, something that if you used again, you wouldn't be able to control... rather... I fear it would control you..."

Carlos picked up Shobatsu's sleeping form, cradling him in his arms. He watched Iko and Luke, not deeming it an appropriate time for him to speak. It was obviously a sensitive moment for both of them.

~I just hope nothing like that ever happens with Shobatsu...~

Iko remained silent for several moments, not making eye contact as his eyes drifted to the ground to the right of his feet, his head held in shame, his fists clenched in frustration. Had he really been that out of line, Iko thought to himself? Still... there was something in Luke's words that seemed... forboding.

"I... I understand..." Iko said, in a regretful voice... it seemed the pride of the wolf had done more harm than good, that day.

Nodding, Luke turned around, seeing Carlos watching this whole scene. Somewhat embarassed, he asked: "Um... so, where do we go from here?"

Carlos looked around. The purple foliage almost seemed to be closing in with its surreal strangeness. There didn't seem to be any difference in any direction. He looked up, to see which way north was by the sun, but realized that he didn't know what time it was, nor could he see through the purple canopy overhead.

He shrugged. "We start walking," he said.

The voice came out of a purple bush. It was trying to sound intimidating, and doing an at least somewhat better job of it than before.

"Who dares trespass in our forest! And where the heck did you come from anyway? I mean it was like Woosh and then bang and then everybody started glowing like messed up E.T fingers and then..."

A female voice spoke out. "Do you really need to tell them this? You sound like a creepy dad taking pictures of other people's kids..."

"Shaddup! Okay you start talking!"

"Me?"

"No THEM!"

"Then why'd you say you?"

"I didn't say me I said them."

A british voice cleared it's throat. "Perhaps we should actually do something..."

"Hey, I give the orders here and I say... Attack Pattern Alpha!"

"Alpha?"

"...A"

"Oh, okay."

The five minions leapt out of the bush into a ginyu-force style formation. Jack looked appreciative.

"Wow, that went surpisingly smoothly."

Gyro nodded. "Yeah, I was worried there for a minute, I couldn't remember whether I was in the front or not."

"That's... awfully like how Salem acts..." Luke said, holding back a chuckle, looking at the few D-ranks that appeared in front of them. Iko looked down at the five in formation: that many at once could, theoretically, be dangerous...

"So... I take it you want us to leave?" Iko asked, rather curious of the elaborate appearance of the creatures. "Because we were... going that way anyway..."

Shobatsu's eyes opened, woke by the obnoxious shouts. He yawned, and leaped down from Carlos' arms. That cat-nap had restored more energy than he'd expected. He looked at each of the apparent forest bandits in turn, hazarding a guess on each of their innate abilities and fighting strategies, as well as their strength.

As he did so, he was silently amused at their antics. Judging from their displayed personalities, he had a plan for if they got violent. and padded over to Iko, leaping up onto his shoulder. He whispered something in his ear that the five wouldn't be able to hear.

(Rank up to B if they attack, and try to look as intimidating as possible)

Voyle actually looked a bit startled. He pondered to himself.

~Wow... this is the first time someone's actually agreed to do what we say. I've gotta savor this a moment. Doodeedoo... Huh. This is actually much less exciting than attacking for no reason...~

Derkholm cleared his throat and Voyle remembered what he was doing.

"Oh yeah. Of course I'm not letting you leave! Your data is ours!"

Priscilla looked surprised. "Wow. That's both contradictory and unneccesarily hostile." She looked happy and hugged Voyle. "Finally, you've become the new Salem!"

Derkholm cleared his throat again. "As pleasant as that may be, I beleive it would be much more lucrative at the moment to inquire as to why and by what means they came upon this region. Perhaps our interests might be mutual."

Gyro scratched his head. "Translation?"

"...We should ask why they're here."

"Ah."

Derkholm turned to Iko. "I don't beleive repetition of the question on our part is neccesary."

(Is lucrative the right word to use here?) Iko whispered to Shobatsu, before looking back at the five D-ranked DaCre. "To be quite honest, we were sent here by a powerful force that teleported whatever touched it to a relatively random location, which happens to be here. We fought an A-rank, we injured it, we ticked something off, and we were sent here."

Luke nodded: Iko's quick explanation was complete enough.

Shobatsu stifled a laugh, but didn't deem it necessary to respond.

After Iko gave his summation of previous events, he remained silent. He felt it was sufficient. He wanted to hear what the group of five planned to do, and didn't want to distract them with another idea.

"He was really a poor loser," added Carlos.

Dekholm seemed satisfied. "Then that would be where the disturbance at Yitur's castle came from."

Jack scratched his head... well, his pumpkin. "So... we aren't going to fry them?"

Derkholm sighed. "No Jack." He turned back to Iko. "If you were brave... or judging by the fact that you wound up here foolish enough to take on Yitur, then I suppose your the next wave..." Derkholm shook his head. "But I'm getting ahead of myself. I beleive introductions are in order. I'm Derkholm. This is Voyle, Priscilla, Jack, and Gyro."

Gyro pouted. "Why do I have to be last?"

Vole stomped. "And why am I second?"

Derkholm sighed. "It's customary to introduce yourself before others. I apologize." He turned back to Iko and Shobatsu. "I assume you'll be rushing off soon enough, but judging by the healing work Shobatsu had been doing perhaps you'd like a place to stay first. I'm afraid I can't offer anything nearly as... fancy, as Yitur's castle, but we have managed to refuge in some ruins nearby that are as secure as this region holds.

"Very well..." Iko said, in response to the leader of the five's request. "I think it best to take your offer... after all, none of us know this area... unless you object," Iko said, looking over at the other three. Luke tilted his head, apparently in favor of this.

Derkholm nodded. "Very well then. It's not far." he began walking towards the east, moving at his usual leisurely pace.

Voyle looked indignant. "And what about if I object!"

Priscilla "hmphed". "Then you sleep on the couch tonight Voyle!"

Gyro looked surprised. "Dude we have a couch?"

Jack chimed in. "Dibs."

"Darn it."

Voyle stomped his feet. "We DON'T HAVE A COUCH!"


The ruins Derkholm spoke of were indeed only a small distance away, nestled amongst the purple trees. It looked like the remains of a once industrious small town, with a large temple in the middle that was the only building even partly intact. It looked much like an ancient Mayan pyramid, though an entire corner was missing. The surrouding buildings were all made of dark brown stone, and simple in style, with a few smashed vases here and there. Nevertheless there was something a bit wrong about it; it was a little TOO ruined, as if someone had done it merely for asthetic appeal; the walkways were noticeably clear of debris, and the areas of damage that looked as if they came from conflict were at some parts painted on.

Voyle pushed open the large double doors. "Home sweet home..."


The area beyond was well lit and rather cheery looking. Fire hung on the walls; not torches but actual balls of fire hanging loose, and there was a bookshelf along one of the walls with various items upon it. There were rooms visible beyond with simple bunk-beds, and it was rather obvious by the decor in each who resised there currently.

One room had posters of various rock bands as well as a few scantily clad women with guns. There were several guitars and a drum set in the corner.

The second room had various scripts lying around, and was filled with candles of all shapes and sizes; perfect for someone who enjoyed lighting fires.

The third had unicorns painted on the light blue walls, and a large painting of Salem on which the face was disturbingly covered in lipstick marks...

The fourth had a book about motivational speaking lying open on the bed... and various teddy bears on shelves along the wall, arranged as if they were an audience. There were several self-help books also visible amongst the bears.

The last occupied room contained only a sarcophagus and a few dusty looking books, while there were at least nine other open rooms and one with a closed door.

"Its... quaint," Iko replied, looking at the rather furnished hideaway, wondering just how this area came to be untouched from the goings on... perhaps the created destruction created a confusion that made those destroying the area pass by. Whatever the reason, it was one of the few places that it seemed relatively safe to rest.

"Quite..." Luke replied, looking up at the floating fire, taking a quick glance around the rooms. "Is it... just you five here?"

Shobatsu padded forward beside Iko, looking around. It actually did looked rather pleasant. If five people knew each other well and got along, to some extent, they could probably be very comfortable here.

Meanwhile...

The piranhas were not happy. Ever since their ward had come to the DaCre world, he almost seemed to have been purposely avoiding them. It was very annoying.

Just when they'd found him, he went into a town infested with alert guardians. They'd had to deal with a few cloaked guardians before being able to chase him into the castle, whereupon some force thrust them to a completely different part of the world.

Now, they'd found him again. They saw him walking toward the ruins with some others in the far distance, and had poured on the speed. Muscles rippled under their black, scaly bodies. He'd entered the ruins. They went even faster, excitement overruling caution. The double doors had closed.

Thump. Thu-thump thump thump... thud.

Priscilla shrugged. "Well it's no castle. We used to have more, but one thing led to another... Lack of leadership and everything."

Voyle stomped. "Hey!"

Priscilla continued. "But we manage."

Derkholm walked over and pulled out an ancitnet looking tea-kettle and a few cups. He had to blow dust out of the cups and flicked a spider out of the kettle, but cleaned it out with a faucet in the corner thet let out water.

"The castle artist was the last to leave; he helped us set this all up but he decided to go chasing the fangirls. His room's the closed one. Feel free to go int but it's honestly just stacks of paintings. Might I interest you in some tea? None of us really drink it after the artist left... they hate it and I'm sort of lacking a way, but it's better than nothing. The water's from a river running beneath here a ways, it's clean enough."

"Thank you," Luke said to the offer. With how times had been, it was nice to rest up a bit.

Meanwhile, Iko walked down the hall, taking a look at the rooms decor, and even going through and looking at a few paintings... there seemed to be one common theme, in all of them.

"You guys really depend on Salem, don't you..." Iko said, as he was checking the empty rooms on the opposite side, walking back to the foyer. Though the quintet seemed somewhat odd, it was somewhat nice to know that this cat had at least given them hope... something drastically missing in this world.

Carlos walked into the room, and looked around. He walked over to a corner barren of paintings, slid to his knees, and passed out, dropping the rest of the way to the floor.

That had been two battles with A-Ranks, five rank ups, three times to B, so, so many spells, so many spells, two teleportations, running and hiding through the streets, expending all that energy to heal Iko, all without sleep...

He'd been running on empty for longer than was probably healthy. He deserved a rest.

Shobatsu smiled as he glanced into the room after his tamer, padding back out afterward. He did feel weary, but he'd gotten a few cat naps in between all those events, and could go for a while longer.

On the subject of energy... neither he nor Carlos had had anything to eat since breakfast the morning before they fought Baniha...

Derkholm put the tea in the kettle's lid (for it had a holder on it's inside roof) and filled it with water, holding it out to Jack to boil it.

Priscilla corrected Iko. "Depend-ED. He was booted off to to your world right before we lost the castle."

Derkholm corrected Priscilla. "Actually Salem has already returned to this world. Jikon was not trying to deceive you; Salem arrived at the same time as these young men and their DaCre."

There was a general moment of shocked silence and then unanimous breakouts of "Who!?" "What!?" "Huh!?" and "Ow" (for Jack had overheated the tea with enough force for the lid to fly off and hit Gyro on the noggin). Voyle composed himself first... sort of.

"Why didn't you tell us before!"

Derkholm seemed unperturbed and cleaned and reaffixed the tea lid. "It never came up. Gyro, fetch something to eat."

Gyro, who had already managed to forget the drama of the situation a few moments ago, complied, bringing out a large stash of power-bars, various candies, and in direct contrast corn, potatoes, and broccoli. Derkholm unfolded the chairs of a table which had been on the floor and set out the food at the table with a bit of help from Gyro, followed by wooden utensils and pouring each seat tea or water accordingly, while the others remained fuming over the sudden revelation.

Priscilla was darting about frantically. "But we have to find him NOW! Oooh how much my Saly-waly must be missing me!"

Jack took his seat, starting a fire on and off between his hands. "We lost the castle... woe is us; lord Salem will be most displeased by this development." He then saw the vegetables. "And now we resort to CANNIBILISM! Will the madness never end!"

Gyro looked at Jack curiously. "It's corn... normal corn. Besides your a flaming pumpkin, does it really count?"

Derkholm sighed. "Must we go through this every time? These are all plain, nonliving vegetables. Even a corn DaCre... if such a thing exists, would be willing to eat it. You're being silly."

Jack sighed dramtically. "I suppose..."

Gyro looked at Jack with minor irritation. "You just do this argument to annoy us don't you?"

"Maybe..."

"..."

Voyle sat at the head of the table, pondering. ~Does that mean I can finally get a day off? This leader stuff is tough... Then again I sort of like being in charge... Grrr. Huh what was that? Oh, just my stomach, thought I was growling at myself for a second...~ Voyle straightened himself. "Right then, we can discuss this later."

The group, with Priscilla at last wiggling into her seat, sat down and bowed their heads. Derkholm looked over to Iko, Luke, and Shobatsu, assuming they would be wondering at the bowing.

"Er... I'm not sure exactly how things work by this point in the human world but we've established it as customary to pray before we eat. I hope you don't mind."