Star Rebellion

by Alicia Howell

  “Where’s Kuro? I want to ask her something.”

  Firestar pulled me to my feet and motioned to where Vlad was sleeping on the couch; Kuro was curled up by his side. “I’m glad to see you awake, Waterstar.”

  “Same here. How long has he been asleep?” I asked, glancing with concern at Vladimir; his skin had a ghostly pallor to it that made his cheeks look even more prominent, almost as if he were just a skull with the skin stretched too tight.

  “A few hours. He’ll probably be awake soon.”

  “’Kay… was there anything important that Lucifer had said in his last moments?” A bad feeling was gnawing at my stomach, like we had missed something important, like this battle wasn’t over.

  Kuro blinked one eye, as cats tend to do. “I will let Vladimir explain it.”

  That, of course, did not ease the feeling in my stomach. I knew that there wouldn’t be any other way to persuade the cat otherwise though, so Fire and I joined the others where Ice was messing around with a toolkit and a pile of wires. I could see the remnants of the casing that had held the prototype headphones.

  “Come on Darkstar, please?” I heard Ice ask as we approached them.

  “No way. My headphones aren’t becoming scrap.” Dark defiantly placed a hand on the headphones that were still around his neck. Somehow, even after all the battling, those had managed to survive. He was infatuated with them, after all.

  “I promise I’ll make you a better pair when we get back!” Darkstar still shook his head against Ice’s pleas.

  “What’s going on?” I asked finally, stepping between the two guys.

  “I need some wiring that’s in Dark’s headphones, but he won’t let me.”

  “Is there some other way you can construct it?”

  “No. My prototypes didn’t have the signal adjuster since I wasn’t planning on hooking them up to Arctic’s for a while; only Darkstar’s headphones have the adjuster, though they don’t work after what happened back there.”

  “Dark! What’s so important about your headphones that you can’t give them up?”

  Dark looked toward his side. “He lied; he said that he could make a new signal adjuster, it’d just take longer. I’ve had these babies since before we became the Mystic Team.”

  I rolled my eyes. Of course, the one thing he decides to get attached to is the thing that can help us get out of here.

  “Come on Darkstar, Icestar can probably reconstruct them later, right Ice?”

  “Probably….”

  “See! You’re just being childish.”

  Darkstar turned away from us. “Fine, but if I lose them for good, you’re not going to see the light of day for some time!”

  “Stop fighting, you guys. Dark, you won’t have to give up your headphones.”

  We all spun around in surprise; Vladimir had woken up, and even though he looked a little worse for the wear, he was walking toward us with an odd smile on his face.

  “Icestar, if I get you up in the NOPCW again, could you rummage around there to find something to connect to this Arctic guy?”

  Icestar’s eyes seemed to get a crafty gleam in them. “Hell yea,” by the way he said it, I feel like he had been hoping for a chance to get into the NOPCW’s technology systems for a while now. I doubted he got very far when he had a chance to explore back when we had originally supposed to have been retrieved.

  “It’s settled then. Water, Dark, and Fire please come with me, we will discuss what I found out from my father before he died; it will put in a halt to your plans of returning. Foreststar, please go with Ice and make sure everything is alright on the surface. There might still be some officials up there, or something worse.”

  Forest muttered something about who made Vladimir the boss before following him and Ice to the vent in the middle of the room, which they then stepped up onto. Vladimir turned on the air for the vent and they got lifted up to the ledge of the ceiling.

  “What’s this about something worse on the surface?” I asked as my friends and I stepped up to Vladimir.

  Vladimir kept his back to us as he launched into a brief story. My hand covered my mouth when I realized the severity of what was happening, that there were demons roaming on both worlds, or at least, that it was like that according to Lucifer’s predictions. Plus, it was our fault. For the most part at least. I mean, we didn't do this on purpose, it wasn't our ultimate goal to release demons to ravage everything. So you couldn't completely blame us, could you? Definitely not our fault then, but still wasn't a good thing to have. Demons, from legends at least, are pretty deadly. We haven't had to fight any yet, but I will admit I am quite excited to kick some Demon ass.

  “Do you know if they’ve left the Underworld yet?” Firestar asked as if he was reading my mind.

  “Yes, they have. I noticed that there were a great deal of missing demons when I was taking you all back here. This is one of the few safe places now. If you want,” here he paused for a second, as if considering a decision he had already made. “If you want, we can start escorting people from both worlds here. Not many would fit, especially for a long amount of time, but until we get things under control, or have a plan, they could….”

  “No Vlad, that won’t work. Firstly, how the hell would we decide who gets the safe area? and secondly, no matter what, the demons will have to be fought. Hiding won’t do anything; let’s get back to Arctic and see if he has a plan.” I said, shaking my head. Even though I didn't really like Earth people, it really would be rude to decide who lives and dies.

  Vladimir nodded and motioned for us to step up onto the vent. He punched something into a control panel I hadn’t seen earlier, and then stepped up with us. In a few seconds of air streaming past us, my feet started lifting from the ground. I was the first one that was in the air, mostly because I was the smallest of the four of us.

  We found Icestar practically high with the joy of having so many top class electrics to work with; the floor was covered in insulators that had been torn apart, exposing wires of all metals known. Foreststar was leaning against the wall next to the door, with a revolver in his hand. His arm twitched as we entered the room, but otherwise he made no comment.

  “How long has he been messing with this stuff?” Darkstar asked.

  “Since we got here, maybe ten minutes ago.”

  I looked back at his handgun, a tiny bit envious. “Where’d you get that?”

  “Storage room to the left, second door.”

  I shot out of the room and found the door easy peesy. I let a low whistle leave my lips as I surveyed all the weaponry that was contained in the space.

  “Water’s in the Divine,” Fire said as he and Dark came up behind me.

  “Hey, Vlad!” I called over my shoulder.

  “Hmm?”

  “Can any of this hurt a demon? Or is there some fancy shmancy way to kill them?”

  “Holy water helps, but any of this would work. Also, daylight is your friend. It’s not impossible for them to go into the sun, but they usually avoid it at all costs.” Vladimir had slipped between the two guys and ran his finger across a few of the hand grenades.

  I looked over the wall on my left quickly and found a shelf of bags. I threw one to each of them and took two extra with me. “Load up boys.”

  After inspection of the bags, it became apparent that they were designed for this purpose and had specific pockets for each weapon, along with a nice little booklet explaining it all. Least the NOPCW was organized. If these had been in the Rebellion, the most you could hope for was a ‘use with caution’ notice.

  I filled up my bag first, then the extra two for Forest and Ice. We had all gone through moderate weapon lessons before we got our field class status, which meant we could all proficiently use almost every weapon that was in the room, though there were a few that I had to explain to the team.

  When we got back to the technology room, Icestar was finished with his tinkering. All the wires had been cleaned up, and now there was a
TV on a small stand that he was trying to tune with a piece of wiring that was sticking out of the side.

  I handed Forest his bag and his face lit up with a malicious grin when he saw the vast amount of guns that he could carry at once now. Remind me never to get on his bad side… he was almost as scary as me when it came to the joy of fighting. I wonder why he had become an ambassador instead of a fighter.

  I didn’t dare to interrupt Ice with his attempts at tuning the TV, so I left his bag a few feet behind him and turned back to the rest of the group. “Once he gets the connection through, we’re going to see what the situation is at the Rebellion; hopefully the demons haven’t attacked yet and just surfaced in one of the deserted areas of Calsh. Except for a few rogue establishments that were left after Earth abandoned here, I believe that we and the NOPCW are the only habited areas left. Also, no matter what he says, we’re going back to HQ. Even if he commands us to fortify this location, we’re going. Or says we’ve been exiled.” I tacked on the last part, remembering how everyone in the room had defied Arctic in some way, except Vlad.

  “What about the storm? I’ve already been through that, and it wasn’t too fun,” Fire said, his forehead creased in the memory of the acid rain he had told me about. Foreststar nodded in agreement from where he was still stationed at the wall.

  “I’ll go check to see if it’s still raining; if it is, then we’re going to have to figure out some way to cover Cerberus.”

  I marched out the door without waiting for them to agree with that plan. There was a stunning lack of windows throughout the building, even though I was pretty sure that I was walking along one of the exterior walls. I made my way back up to the front, and after a few dead ends, I found the door that Fire and I had broken into what seemed like forever ago.

  I cracked the door open and peered outside. Silver sheets of rain were pouring down at what looked like a deathly speed. “Well fudge,” I muttered as I started to close the door. When there was an inch gap left, a boney hand shot through it and grabbed my throat, lifting me off the ground.

  A demon rushed into the room and I faintly heard the door slam close after rebounding off the wall. The demon’s grip on my throat tightened as it brought me even with its eyes, which meant lifting me almost a foot into the air.

  “Why hello, pretty little girl,” it rasped out, licking its chops afterwards. The demon had scaly, muddy green skin and bloodshot eyes. At least he was in possession of both of his eyes, even if they were mismatched. A lot of its once sharp teeth were chipped or missing and all of them were rotting, lending partially to the pungent scent that permeated the air around us.

  I started getting light headed with the lack of oxygen, and I felt pathetic. I hadn’t even tried fighting back.

  Somewhere distant a gunshot was fired, and the demon threw me behind it. I thudded into the wall and dropped to the floor. I felt my knee made a cracking sound on the floor as it took all the weight from falling. I crack a lot it appears.

  I rubbed at my neck and started coughing. The air seemed to burn as it traveled to my lungs, and my head started to hurt really badly.

  More shots were fired, and bleary eyed, I looked up to see who had come.

  Vladimir was kneeling on the ground, firing shots at the demon’s legs as Firestar ran forward with a long knife in each hand. The demon jumped in the air to dodge a bullet and seemed as if it was going to land directly on Fire. Its teeth were bared and its clawed hands were outstretched, but Fire slid underneath it while holding his knives up, barely slicing into the belly of the demon.

  Vladimir cast aside his gun and ran forward to join the fray. His left hand seemed to glow as he summoned his hellfire and punched the demon straight in the chest. His hand didn’t really connected with the demon, it more so slid through its chest before coming back out with a handful of mushy stuff that I really didn’t want to know about.

  I pushed myself to my feet and staggered over to them. It was taking a while for all my muscles to get the air back that they had been deprived of, even for such a short time.

  “Waterstar, are you okay?” Firestar asked as he rushed back at me, both of his knives sheathed on his arms.

  “Yea, yea, I’m okay. Just a little winded. I don’t think we’re leaving here anytime soon though; it’s still raining, and I’d bet almost anything that there are more demons out there. They must’ve sniffed out the scent of humanity fairly quickly.”

  Vladimir had joined us and shook his head. “Doubt it, they all have really dull senses. It probably was just running around outside and when it heard you open the door it attacked, finally finding some prey.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Either way, there was definitely one out there, who knows where the rest are, and how many have even escaped the Underworld already. Has Ice gotten through to Arctic?”

  “Pretty much, that's what we were coming here for. I guess it's good that tall-dark-and-Demon followed me, though I totally could've handled that demon alone!” Firestar said while shaking his head. “Let’s go back; Arctic will need to hear of this, if he hasn’t already. I'm sure the others can figure it out with the gunshots and all.” He slammed the safety bar over the door.

  I nodded in agreement and followed the two of them back to the room. Icestar was standing to the side of the TV and Darkstar was talking to Arctic, whose face was projected for us on Ice’s wonderful, last minute video connector, though it was a bit on the static-y side.

  “What was the commotion?” Arctic asked. Yup, leave it to Icestar to have extreme sensors for both video and audio, even if the connection on our side was crappy.

  Dark turned to us for the answer. “A demon got in, you know about them yet?” I asked.

  “Yes, if Fire hadn’t run off without notifying someone, we would’ve told him, but it seems like we can’t undo what has been done, and so far no harm no foul.”

  “No harm no foul, eh?” I could feel my temper rising, even though this was kind of mine and Dark’s fault to begin with when we ran off without warning. “We just set loose the entire Underworld upon humanity!”

  “And if you had obeyed my orders, that could have been delayed. Now, I told Firestar that you were all exiled,” Arctic gave me a look that made it clear I wasn’t to interrupt, “but I have changed my mind. Right now, we need all the help we can get, and I never was going to fully exile you. Once this is all said and done, however, you can bet you won't be seeing past the Rebellion's walls for a while. You'll be put on cleaning duty and won't have any missions until I deem your punishment fulfilled. Until then, however, we will need you to fight.”

  “This battle would have came to us either way. It was just a matter of time before Lucifer decided he wanted to attack humanity, given his past with it and all,” an unfamiliar voice in the background said.

  A guy who was about Arctic’s age stepped into view of the camera. He had black hair, almost as dark as Darkstar’s, wore shades, and had tan skin.

  “Who’s he?” Fire asked. Newbies and Firestar didn’t mix too well. Exhibit A, Vladimir, because they were definitely best friends now. Hah, right.

  “This is a man named Vatican for all intents and purposes. He is the pope of the Catholic Church of the Earth world, one of the leaders that are called to our meetings. He says that he will be able to help us in the Purge.”

  “Purge?”

  “Yes, that is what we will be calling the banishment of the demons. Vatican has been telling me that it will be impossible for us to completely eradicate them, but making sure they go back to the Underworld and never come out again will work just fine,” the way Arctic said this made it seem like it wasn’t up for discussion, or entirely easy.

  “Why is it impossible to kill them all? Doesn’t Earth have bombs and stuff?” Of course, I was still going to discuss it. Why would we even consider letting these insert-choice-swear-words live?

  Vatican smiled through the TV, as if he thought I was amusing. “There are simply too many of these demon
s. These bombs would make Calsh even worse than it currently is, along with powering the demons. Destructive forces will hardly make them weaker. You may kill a hundred with one bomb, but the residue left afterwards would make five hundred even more stronger. Demons thrive off of destruction.”

  “Then I guess Water isn’t gunna be fighting,” I heard Fire snicker behind me. I spun around and jabbed him in the stomach. He, of course, flipped me off in return.

  When I had turned back, Arctic was rolling his eyes. “Is your car still working?”

  Icestar nudged his way into view of the screen. “Yes, sir. I had modeled it so that even the acid rain couldn’t hurt it, though I’m not sure if the demons can do anything, if they even had an interest in it.”

  “On the second floor of the NOPCW HQ, there should be windows that will let you overlook your entire surroundings; go there and try to do an analysis on your car. If it is in shape, call me back and I’ll send a squad to escort you back, and this time please follow them instead of going off on your own adventure!”

  We nodded our heads in agreement and right before Ice was about to shut down the connection, Vatican spoke up, “Beware! Demons like to-”

  The static had gotten too bad and the image cut out, leaving a buzz in the air.

  “Guess we’ll never know what demons like to do,” Forest said as he pushed himself off of the wall.

  We did a quick scout of the bottom floor before anything else, though we were jumping at every sound incase some demon had gotten in again. In one of the supply rooms, we found tarps that we could put over ourselves to keep out most of the rain, along with a larger one that could be tacked onto Cerberus.

  The stairs were a pain in the butt for me; I hadn’t realized how bad my knee had gotten jacked up until I was forced to climb. After the third time that they had to wait on a landing for me to catch up, Firestar motioned for me to get on his back and carried me up the rest of the stairs. I almost felt bad for him. Almost.

  Walking wasn't as much of an issue, though, and I demanded to be let down instead of being babied. The top floor was way different from the bottom, and I couldn’t help but open random doors here and there. It seemed like this was the living quarters for everyone who stayed permanently at HQ. When I opened the door into a room that was pink, frilly, and full of stuffed animals, I joked that it was probably Maegan’s room while nudging Darkstar. The scary part was that I noticed a sign over the bed frame that spelled out Maegan in a bunch of little bows.