Soma watched Arikado leave. "He hasn't told me everything about him. But I know he's a lot more powerful than he lets on. And somehow, he's connected to Dracula."

"Dracula's a vampire," Helena said. "So does that mean Arikado is one, too?"

"...who knows."

"At least he's on our side," R.D. said, waving it off.

"Yeah, you're right," Alasea said quietly, before nodding and speaking in a louder voice. "At least he's on our side."

"Now, let's get going before something nasty gets the drop on us," R.D. said. "We don't need another werewolf to knock Matt off a tower again."

The hallway branched off into two directions, and they took the right. Immediately it paid off - when they peeled back the dusty iron door at the end of the hallway, before them unfurled a great garden, littered with arcing plants and vines that overtook fallen columns and steel ironwork.

"It's...really alive in here," Helena said. She held out her claws, as if she could feel the brimming life energy. Matt could too. "I didn't think an abandoned castle would have a place like this."

"Me neither," Alasea said, looking around. Ileyna looked about as well, stepping ahead of the group a little. She was both looking about in childish wonderment, and trying to get her bearings on the Omega Essence.

"Sense anything?" R.D. asked the girls, each of them he knew were sensitive to different things--Helena to the natural, Alasea to the supernatural, and Ileyna to the Omega Essence.

"Its brimming with magic in here," Alasea said. "I think most of this was grown with magic. We should probably tread carefully through this place."

"Or burn it," Hugo said.

Naturally, Hugo was not down with frilly girly things like plants. "They're just plants, Hugo," Matt said.

"Plants grown in an abandoned castle, with magic, in the middle of a nest of demons." Hugo's pickaxe transformed, and the end spouted a test burst of flame. "I don't trust it."

"Heeey, don't burn my garden!" someone shouted. "I worked really hard on it!"

Matt glanced up and noticed a figure, suddenly there, now balancing on a lopsided column. Damn it, it was the maid! "You!" Matt snapped, jabbing with his finger. "I figured you'd be behind this!"

The maid pouted and shook her fists. "It's not my fauuuuult, okay? If I don't try to stop you, Celia's gonna fire me! And that means I have to go back to the underworld, and I hate it there!"

"Well, at least the demons here haven't figured out how to manifest on their own," Alasea said as an aside. They still needed an anchor to the mortal plane--Celia, in this case, if her guess was correct.

"You know, girl, its not going to be pretty if you have to stand in our way," R.D. warned, motioning with the Phase Blade he had drawn. "We don't exactly play nicely."

Matt pointed to his left at Helena. "Yeah, man. She bites, did you know that?"

"I don't care!" the maid shouted. "I'm not going back!" She dug in her pocket and whipped out a brown cloth sack. "Spirits of the garden, heed my call!" She pulled a fistful of something out of the sack. "Fight for me! Persephone commands it!" She leaned back, her spine curling, then lurched forward and flung something in the air.

Hugo aimed his pickaxe up and fired a heavy blast of flame. It crossed through the air, leaving only faint sparkles of flame falling down before they vanished entirely. "No tricks."

"Alasea, see if you can ward off any summonings she might try," R.D. said as he walked forward--he looked like he was going to move past the demon and progress deeper into the castle. "Helena, if she looks like she's going to do anything else, torch the garden. Reduce it to ash."

"No fair!" Persephone whined. "You guys SUCK!" And with that, she swung the bag around in a circle, open end out front.

"They're seeds!" Hugo shouted. "Burn them!"

Helena crossed her arms and flung them out, each claw crossing in an arc of flame. The flame arcs rushed into the air and crossed through what was hopefully the path of the seeds, ashing them. Soma added to the inferno by lobbing fireballs into the surrounding plants.

"Nooooooo!" Persephone wailed, falling to her knees. Her legs slipped, and with a yell, she fell down from the column, landing face-first in the dirt. Her skirt fluttered to rest over her legs.

Ileyna winced as the demoness fell, and almost made to see if she was all right before remembering that she was a demoness. Moments after Persephone fell from her perch, R.D. had reached her, and stabbed his Phase Blade into the ground next to her head, hoping to intimidate her--he didn't have any problem killing something that looked human, as evidenced by what he tried to do to Dr. Anstine.

"Wards are up," Alasea called out, lowering her hands. "Can't guarantee they'll stop the summons completely but they'll be delayed."

"Good," R.D. said over his shoulder. He turned back to the fallen demon. "Now, if you want us to spare the garden, tell us where we can find Celia or her two dark lord cronies."

Edited by RisingDragon on May 24, 2010 at 19:08:04.

Persephone pushed herself up, leaning back into a kneeling position. Tears mixed with the dirt clumped to her pale cheeks. "In the clock tower." A loud sniff. "Next to the other tower."

"Are those the candidates or Celia?" Hugo asked.

"The candidates," Persephone said. "They're waiting for you. They wanna kill you." She wiped her face with the side of her hand.

"... the clock tower again," R.D. muttered as the demoness gave him the information he wanted. To hell with deja vu, things seemed to be following a pattern in this world and it was beginning to bother him.

"And what about Celia?" Alasea asked the demoness as R.D. prepared flows of water to douse the burning plants. Matt could restore them with his own power over nature after they were done burning.

"I dunno," Persephone said. "She never tells me where she is."

"Well, at least we know where the candidates are," Matt said. He twiddled the fingers on his right hand - a recent habit he had picked up, purely on an experimental whim. "Got anything else we should know?"

"No."

Hugo's pickaxe transformed again into its gun form. "Don't lie."

Panic erupted on the maid's face. "I'm not, I swear! Please don't kill me!"

After a moment, R.D. nodded and waved his hand back, throwing the water he had conjured at the flames eating away at the garden. Steam sizzled as the water doused the fire and soaked the ground, and R.D. then pulled his blade back up from the ground.

"Let's get going," he said to his friends. "We don't want to keep our hosts waiting."

With an outlandish wave, Matt released life-giving energy into the plants, and they regrew, spawning even more leaves and flowers than they previously had. He glanced back at Persephone - the demoness's face was lit up. Well, didn't that feel good? Oh, sure, she was a demon, but maybe she really one of the better ones, forced to serve Celia without any ill will to their crew. Hey, Arikado was a good guy, right? Perhaps Persephone was the same.

"There you go," Matt said, finishing things off with a final chop in the air. "Just be glad I'm doing this for you, okay?"

"Oh, thank you!" Persephone said, clapping her hands together. "It's even more beautiful than before!"

Matt smirked. "No problem." He was the last to walk past Persephone, and as he did, he gave a curt salute. "Stay frosty. See ya later."

But he hadn't even gone five steps before Persephone called out to the group. "Wait! There's something I have to tell you!"

R.D. stopped, falling back to the back of the pack as Persephone called out to them. "What is it?" he asked, looking back at the demoness.

Persephone stood up, dusted off her skirt. Then, with a deep breath, she yelled, "Eat giant venus fly-traps, you JERKS!"

Behind her, where the group had previously stood, a massive vine exploded from the wet dirt. Immediately it branched into multiple paths, and on the end of each vine burst open a red bud lined with killer teeth.

"Holy-!" Soma cried out, only managing to get in the first word of his curse before the massive plant lashed out with a thorny vine. He leapt aside, but the impact was so thick and powerful that massive amounts of dirt were expelled to both sides by the attack.

"Shit!" R.D. coincidentally finished the swear for Soma. "Look out!"

He dove out of the way of the offending vine, coming up out of the roll with his Phase Blade held at the ready. Pushing off, he threw himself at it, cutting down with the Isle-crafted sword.

The vine burst in two pieces with a display of green ichor, and the massive flytrap screeched.

"Traitor bitch!" Matt shouted. His hands burst into flame, and he punched with each one, unleashing a pair of curving fireballs. "Double Crossfire!" The first one smashed right into the flytrap's head and erupted into a crawling inferno, while the other one blew up in front of a fleeing Persephone, startling her for a moment.

Now Helena leapt in, rushing towards Persephone. "Get back here!" The venus flytrap bared down with a surging jaw attack, but the weredragon cleanly leapt over it, gliding over before landing in front of the demon maid.

And, stragely enough, getting rewarded with Persephone unloading a roundhouse kick into Helena's face.

As the venus flytrap shot forward at Helena and missed, R.D. was waiting for it. He ran at it, skidding to a halt beside it as his Phase Blade glowed gold--using both hands, he slashed upwards at the carnivorous plant's side, and flames exploded upwards along the swing.

As Helena went down with Persephone's attack, Alasea was there to take her place. Free of the long green and white skirt, she was now much more nimble, and it allowed her to cross the distance and slash down with her sword.

Now the flytrap was in immense pain, screaming and screeching and all of that. More buds erupted from the unburnt areas of its form and snapped at anything moving. One came at Soma again, but this time he was ready - with an artful roll, he avoided the attack.

"Skeleton Archers!" he cried, and with a raise of his hand, long-dead warriors manifested at his flanks, drawing back bows. They fired in unison when Soma dropped his hand, and the arrows embedded themselves along the flytrap's flank.

Persephone, having noticed Alasea cross over to her, yelped as the sword chopped down and narrowly cleaved her chest. The maid took the opportunity to bolt, running up to the garden door and pulling it aside.

"Get back here!" Alasea yelled as she darted after Persephone. She pumped her legs hard to catch up, and as the demoness tore open the door, the Daughter of Dawn leaped at her, trying to tackle her right through the open doorway.

R.D. backpedaled away from the snapping appendages until he was back with Soma and Matt. "Why is everything imaginable always trying to kill us?" he complained as he readied his weaponry. "Seriously, this thing's like a giant one of those carnivorous plants from Hyrule."

"Stay focused!" Hugo said. He had been charging his pickaxe, and now, swerving in front of R.D., unleashed the full blast. "Blazing Shotgun!" The fireball splashed all over the flytrap - that was the deciding blow, as the monster finally slumped over, its roots tearing as it collapsed underneath its burning mass.

Alasea's tackle landed and the two fell onto the hallway floor with a whud. "Get OFF me!" Persephone cried out. Unexpectedly, the hose of the vaccum cleaner manifested in her hand, and the end morphed into a set of slathering teeth, chomping at Alasea's hair.

As the two girls landed in a heap, Alasea quickly fought to gain the advantage by planting her knee right between Persephone's breasts, pinning her to the floor--but the counterattack was swift. With a shriek, Alasea grabbed the vacuum nozzle behind its mouth, and was soon fighting in a contest of strength against the demoness to keep the vacuum hose away from her.

"Heeeeeeelp!" Persephone screamed. "I need HEEEEEEEEEEEELP!"

Down the hall, a spiralling gate of symbols expanded, and out jumped four monstorous women - appearing human, but with green skin and bare feet ending in talons. And carrying rifles, which they now aimed at Alasea's head, guided by laser sight.

Alasea went still at the surge of magic and the appearance of the new monsters. Then, with a shriek, she flung herself to the side off of Persephone, just as the rifles fired. The loud bangs of four rifles going off in an enclosed hallway were deafening, and she was forced to cover her ears so she wouldn't lose her hearing.

"Alli!" R.D. shouted, hearing the gunfire. He leaped over the shuddering mass of the defeated flytrap and charged into the hallway, spotting the monsters. A bullet caught him in the shoulder, causing blood to explode out of the back of it and staggering him, but he shut himself off from the pain and attacked--with a swipe of his Phase Blade, he launched an electrified Shinkuujin arc at the creatures.

Edited by RisingDragon on May 25, 2010 at 21:27:01.

The arc wiped out some of the snipers, but more beamed in, firing in lines that riccocheted bullets across the walls and floor. Meanwhile, Persephone took her chance and bolted for the corner.

Helena, now standing back up, glanced over her shoulder as Matt and the others ran up, moving around the smouldering corpse of the flytrap. "Watch out, there are snipers!"

"Snipers?!" Soma cried, though now he heard the bullets dancing about.

R.D. pulled Alasea up to her feet, and the girl quickly reoriented herself before helping him get out of the hallway.

"You're hurt," she said as they got out of the hallway.

"I'll be fine," he said, but she moved over to him and took his hand away from the wound before readying her healing magic to try and ease it up.

"I know you'll go after her, so let me stop the bleeding," she said, concentrating. After a second or so, she stopped. "There. Best I can do."

He nodded, grateful that the wound was at least healed up inside and was now only throbbing instead of burning. Alasea stepped back as he summoned the Dragon King Armor. "Keep me covered," he said before the visor and faceplate slammed shut, and he dove into the hallway.

The snipers kept firing, bullets pinging uselessly off of the armor.

R.D. stood up, ignoring the bullets as they ricocheted harmlessly off of him and the walls. Suddenly, light blazed out from the center jewel in his cuirass, and chunks of stone were torn from the walls and floor. All of the bullets disappeared, consumed by the matter converter, and the particles streamed around his right arm. They merged and took form into the same shielded blaster sword from Hyrule.

"Yeah we're done here," he growled, swinging the weapon up and aimed it at the heart of the snipers, and fired. Emerald rays tore through the air and impacted against the creatures, destroying them and causing the hallway to shudder with the force.