by Sarah Lin
When he tried to leap away with a Bunyan's Step, somehow the creature came along with him. Rick desperately threw himself away again, which put him dangerously close to the rupture. The creature followed again and he didn't think, just struck with his best shot.
Rick reached inside and drew out his sister's void flame, slamming it into the creature's chest. For an instant he was afraid it would do nothing, then the creature exploded. The shower of fragments passed over him harmlessly but knocked back all the nearby entities. Given some space, he hastily moved to get back to the others, surprised to find that Damian was still near.
"Get out!" Damian yelled, no trace of joking on his face now. "It's going to blow soon!"
If he'd acted in that moment, Rick might have escaped, but instead he looked in the direction the other man watched. The mist was flowing more rapidly from the rupture now, and in that moment the rupture abruptly exploded open, rushing past him and completely obscuring his view of the world.
When Rick came to, he was standing on an empty, dark plain. Except he wasn't just standing, more floating. Mists like those from the rupture floated all around him, sliding over and through his body. He felt completely disoriented as he stared at the pale white sky overhead. The only thing that looked real and normal to him was Damian, who was on his knees nearby. No one else was visible.
"What... what the hell was that?" His voice was distorted as if speaking through water. Damian got to his feet with a grimace.
"We've been knocked to the demon realm."
"We what? Can we live here long enough for them to rescue us?"
"Oh, we can survive." Damian cracked his neck in both directions. "But there's not going to be any rescue coming, not soon."
Chapter 30: On the Other Side
"Wait, what?" Rick ignored all the insanity around him and grabbed the other young man by the front of his suit. "Why the hell wouldn't they come rescue us?"
"Because we accidentally solved their problem." Damian brushed his hands away with a smooth gesture. "They were trying to close the rupture without anything passing into the demon realm. But if you don't care about that, one of the ways to solve that problem is to just chuck someone in. If they brought us out, they'd just tear the rupture open again."
"But I refuse to believe they'd leave us here. When do they come?"
"When they can find a less damaging path in. I'm not sure how long that will be."
Rick turned away from the other man, his mind reeling. Now that he understood where he was, he found himself looking at the landscape entirely differently. It looked almost like a normal plain, not so different than the wilderness outside Branton, but the ground was pitch black and the sky a pale white without any sun. Everything seemed just a bit unnatural, as if he didn't belong.
Which he didn't. Though he didn't know exactly how it worked, it was as unnatural for humans to be in the demon realm as for demons to be in the human one. When Rick tried to brace himself on the ground, his feet actually sank into it as if the surface didn't exist. He realized with a start that though the mist did curl around him slightly, it literally passed through him. As if he was a ghost, except it was the world around that seemed insubstantial.
Except for Damian. Rick turned on the other man. "How did this happen?"
"It wasn't you, if that's what you were afraid of. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time." Damian closed his eyes and flattened his palms together in front of him. "You'd better get some aura together fast or you're going to be in trouble."
"What?" Rick tried to summon his aura defensively, but everything felt wrong. His lucrima soul still burned within him, yet trying to use it was like trying to move a limb that had fallen asleep. "It's not coming right... and just what's going to happen?"
"Jesus, you really don't know anything." Damian fixed him with a flat gaze. "Okay, don't look around, just focus on yourself. You don't need any special technique, it's just going to be harder than usual. Like channeling the energy through your toes instead of your core."
The advice to not look around immediately had the opposite effect. When Rick looked, he realized that there were eyes watching them in the surrounding area. Most low to the ground, many with three eyes, but others with four or twelve or even more. Demons shifted toward them, not genteel negotiators like Beelzebub but twisted spiders, reptiles, and stranger beasts.
Swallowing his fear, Rick focused on his aura. Something did seem to stir, just not enough. He risked another look and saw that the demons were getting closer. They flinched away from the red glow around Damian's body, which only meant that more were coming for him.
Rick closed his eyes and focused desperately. Just when he felt something brush against his leg, he finally managed to generate some aura. Blue light burst into existence around him and all the nearby demons flinched back. They began to rustle around the two of them, not exactly predatory, just disgruntled.
"Don't hit them, by the way." Damian had been thrown off for a while, but now seemed completely calm. He reached into his pocket and put on his mirror sunglasses again. "These things are barely conscious and don't know what they're doing. It's just a matter of shooing away flies."
With that, he took a deep breath and his aura expanded explosively. Such a general use of an aura didn't harm Rick, it was barely even pressure, yet the demons all began to flee. Soon they had all skittered to a safe distance. After a while longer, they started to disperse, as if looking for easier prey.
Now that the danger had passed, Rick cursed his awful luck. His hard work had put him into the top ten at the absolutely worst time, a normal negotiation had somehow gone bad, Jack's vendetta had turned against him nastily, and the fight had pushed him in the wrong direction. The only bit of good luck was that Damian had been taken along with him and could explain what to do...
"Here's what we're going to do," Damian said. "They will definitely come to help us, hopefully the demonic negotiators and eventually the CSLA. In that time, we need to stay safe and avoid making anything worse."
"There's really nothing we can do?"
"I'm going to search for any quicker way back, since I hate being gone as much as you do, but since you're inexperienced here, you should stay put. The good news is that our bodies don't properly exist here. You won't need to eat or drink anything. It's actually a bit like how demons exist in our world."
"How does that make any sense?"
"It's complex theory, okay? Our world is built mostly on matter, while the demon realm is built mostly on energy. Or in lucrim terms, our world is ether and theirs is aura." Damian spoke without thinking about it, already beginning to scout around them. "In our world, they grant us aura, but in return they want matter. So that's why our bodies are a prime target here, because matter like ours is so rare."
Rick nodded in vague understanding - he might not be an expert in this, but he knew enough of lucrim theory for that explanation to make sense. It was bizarre to think that the roles were reversed here, yet that was easier than thinking he was in an insane realm filled with monsters. No, this was just the demon realm, which was a normal part of reality.
He was surprised at how little it looked like popular visions of hell, despite Lord Beelzebub's diabolical appearance. Just another show put on to meet human expectations, he supposed. That thought stuck in his mind, combined with an earlier thought, and twisted into a realization...
"Looks like you have your aura steady," Damian said, "so I think I'm going to scout quickly. You stay here while I find a safe place."
"You planned to come here, didn't you?"
Rick's accusation made Damian whirl around to face him, which was answer enough. A split second later the other man scoffed and gave him an incredulous look, but it was too late. "Okay, I think moving between realms must have messed with you a lot harder than it seemed."
"Everyone else seemed to think a rupture wouldn't happen, and they were shocked when it did. But not you." It might sound like an insane theory,
but Rick remembered Damian's expression quite clearly. As he spoke about it, he became increasingly confident. "I don't know why, but you wanted to come here."
"Think about what you're saying for one goddamn second. You think I walked into a negotiation with a Beelzebub and a GLA rep with a fucking half million generation rate, then just wrecked what they wanted? Even if I could do something like that, it'd be suicide."
"No, I think it makes sense. From the very beginning you've been presenting yourself as showy and ridiculous, hiding in plain sight. But you were waiting for this moment. Hell, maybe you set it up."
All the false laughter fell away from Damian's expression and in that instant his mirrored sunglasses looked ominous instead of ridiculous. A split second later he had crossed the distance between them, his hand closing around Rick's neck.
Yet he just felt a strange weight, not his throat being crushed. Rick lightly kicked off the other man and drifted back through the mists before gliding to the ground. "Nice threat, but you said before that our bodies don't exist normally here. You might want to kill me, but you can't."
Damian glared at him, slowly folding his arms. Eventually he shook his head. "You're wrong about that - we might not be able to brawl here, but you're far from invincible. But it doesn't matter. I'm not going to threaten you, not if we can talk this out."
"So I was right? You wanted this for some reason?"
"Oh, I'm not going to talk about my reasons." Damian took off his sunglasses and put them away. For the first time, the movement didn't look like he was trying too hard to be badass. No, his gaze was deadly serious. "I can tell you this: I didn't intend for you to come along and I have absolutely nothing to gain by you not making it back. Actually, I have a lot to lose, since that would bring more suspicion on me."
Rick nodded, glad that he wouldn't be fighting in this strange place. His mind was now overflowing with questions and he struggled to pick out the important ones. "So whatever your grand master scheme is, it doesn't involve murdering me?"
"Would I tell you if it did?" Damian grinned with a bit of his old pretension, but the expression slipped away almost immediately. "No, what I wanted was to do my work here without interruption or surveillance - the nature of the rupture took care of that. You're a complication, but not an impossible one. I'll teach you how to take care of yourself here, then we can coordinate the rest."
"If you stick to that, you have a deal." Though Rick wanted to figure out exactly what the hell Damian was trying to do, he recognized that he didn't have a lot of leverage. He eyed the other man, then stuck out his hand. "If you can tell me that your plan isn't terrorism or something, we can work together."
"Nah, not like that. Just business." Damian smirked and shook his hand firmly. "Now first, what you need to understand is that here, you're an asset, just like the demons are in our world. You don't need to eat, but you'll be feeding off your lucrim. It runs out, you starve - and don't expect to find much you can use here, because the demon realm has even greater lucrim inequality than ours. So you need to consider your portfolio and use it very carefully."
Nodding, Rick reached for his phone on instinct. It was still in his pocket, but the screen was completely blank, as if it had no power. Maybe electricity just didn't exist here. Instead, he just did his best to remember his portfolio.
[Name: Rick Hunter
Ether Tier: 14th
Ether Score: 340ish
Lucrim Generation: 50,000
Effective Rate: 48,500
Current Lucrim: Full]
[Rick Hunter's Lucrima Portfolio
Foundation: 3100 (Lv IV)
Offensive Lucore: 8400 (Lv V)
Defensive Lucore: almost 20,000 (Lv VIII)
Bunyan's Step: 8600 (Lv V)
Graham's Stake: 9000 (Lv II)
Lucrim Mass: 1300 (N/A)
Aura Leech: -1800 (Stage I)
Gross Lucrim: 50,000
Net Lucrim: 48,500]
He was surprisingly unsettled not to have exact numbers - he really depended on the app to keep track of everything for him. Would the remaining aura leech drain him here? Was his Graham's Stake developed enough to support him? There was no way to do any precise calculations, leaving him adrift.
However much he really had, that was it. Before that day, he'd been quite proud of his portfolio, but one experience after another had raised doubts. Now, it was all he had keeping him alive.
Chapter 31: Demonic Branton
Exploring the demon realm was not something Rick had ever expected to be doing, yet there he was. His instincts were to hike the way he did in the Peakless Wildlife Refuge, yet instead it was easier to just push off the insubstantial ground and drift. They were almost like spirits here - and increasingly so, as Damian taught him a more elaborate aura technique.
"The demon realm might look superficially like our world, but don't be mistaken." Damian waved a hand below, where demons occasionally crawled across the landscape. "One of the largest differences is that most of the lesser ones aren't really using their eyes, just their aura senses. So we can make ourselves practically invisible to all but the stronger ones."
"By matching the ambient aura of everything around here?" Rick tried to shift his, but wasn't sure what he was aiming for. "I get the concept, but this place doesn't feel like aura to me."
"Because a world of aura different than the isolated pieces you're used to. I'm already matching it, so focus on me instead and copy."
Though Damian put little more effort into teaching him, it wasn't so complex that Rick couldn't mimic what he was doing. When they next drifted to the ground, he was surprised to see that they were completely ignored by nearby demons. That was a useful skill.
Of course, there was a problem. "I can't maintain an aura while I'm asleep."
"You don't need to sleep here, so it will be fine." Damian paused to cock his head to the side. "Or maybe it won't, since this is a bit rough for your first time. The thing is, you need to maintain concentration the entire time, and you can get tired. So you might need to set up an alternative option."
"An alternative? Like what, another technique?"
"I mean like getting a room at a hotel. Float higher and pay attention when you look east."
Puzzled, Rick did so, pushing harder off the ground. His legs pushed rather deep into the ground, but then he rebounded high into the air. Once he had some height, he was able to see exactly what Damian meant. For a moment, he just stared.
Ahead of them was clearly the demonic mirror of Branton, yet the city was completely different. It was much smaller overall, with only a single unnaturally tall spire in the place of the skyscrapers downtown. There was a large block of normal-looking buildings, but right beside it lay a region of strange and crooked buildings covered in large cobwebs. The entire south side of town was a series of open pits that glowed with blue light. Even from a distance, he could see demons moving about, including what appeared to be mining operations to the south.
When he came back down he glanced over at Damian. "So this is Demonic Branton? Is it like a mirror of us, or...?"
"Nah, they're just here because we're here. Some of the demonic firms have secondary offices on this side, for example. It's more like another neighborhood of Branton - most human cities have them, unless they've taken steps to prevent it."
"So they followed us... are there any examples where it went the other way? A human city built because of the demon city on the other side?"
Damian shot him a strange look that was impossible to read, then began pushing forward faster. "You never stop asking questions, do you? Well, I'm not here to lecture, just to get you set up as quickly as possible. I needed to go this way regardless, so it's no issue so far, but we'll head our separate ways soon."
Though Rick wanted to object, suddenly feeling a low level of panic to be left alone here, he didn't think it was wise to push Damian. In fact, he found himself staring after the other man with new eyes. It was one thing to mak
e an accurate accusation as he put all the facts together and another to consider exactly what it meant.
Whoever Damian was, he'd been planning this for a long time and had both resources and skills to back up his efforts. Thanks to the shell around his portfolio, it was difficult to judge his strength, but Rick guessed that he was a middleweight like Emily, since he'd sparred with both of them. The bigger question was what exactly Damian was aiming for... something to do with the demon realm? The Central States Lucrim Authority? The Global Lucrim Authority itself?
Distracted by his thoughts, Rick didn't realize that they were getting closer to the outer limits of the city. There were two tall spires that might have been trees with a spiderweb in between them. He realized he was heading toward it and tried to move away just out of instinctive distaste for spiderwebs, but he was already in the air and couldn't change his trajectory. Well, most likely he'd just pass through.
Except that he hit the web and stuck there. Rick lashed out automatically and his arm caught on another incredibly sticky strand of web.
He calmed down and didn't thrash anymore. Okay, so he was stuck in a giant spiderweb and Damian was stuck too, cursing irritably. The strands felt extremely sticky and stronger than the rest of the demon realm, but it was probably aura just like the rest. So if he focused...
There was a spider the size of a car climbing onto the web toward them.
"Oh gosh, I'm so sorry about this," the spider said. "Here, let me just... whoops... okay, just a bit..."
All at once the web disappeared, as if it was just an aura construction instead of a solid object. Rick drifted downward, a bit taken aback. The spider skittered down a building wall faster than he floated, so it was waiting for them. Since Damian landed and just brushed imaginary dust off his suit, Rick decided to play it cool as well.
