Yikes, Ash thought. I was afraid he’d play this guy. I guess I should just be grateful he didn’t bring him out earlier in the game or I’d be toast.
Ash had to play the next couple of turns very smart. One wrong or unfortunate move and it would all be over. This is when it really started to bother him that he still knew so little about his opponent. There was something oddly familiar he couldn’t explain. The Noble Vashi acted like the Nobles he’d met before, but something was also different.
“Are you going to make your move yet?” Vashi Tansa asked, throwing off Ash’s train of thought. He had his arms crossed in agitation, tapping a busy foot under the table.
“You betcha,” said Ash. He looked over the cards in his hand once again. He was stuck in a dilemma. The only strategy he had left was the toughest one to pull off in his entire deck. He had two of the cards necessary, but he required one more to make his play work. Without wasting more time he drew.
That’s it, he thought as he looked at the card. The exact card I needed!
“I’d like you to meet the combatant that’s going to finish you off now,” Ash said smugly. “His name is “Angel Arthur”.” He set his new combatant on the table for all to see. Vashi Tansa wasn’t impressed however.
“You’re lying. That combatant is weak. Its attack strength is nowhere near my Beelzebub’s!”
“Sure,” said Ash. “He’s pretty weak right now. But when I equip him with this crush card combo, “Sword in the Stone”, combined with “Knights of the Roundish Table” he becomes something much stronger!”
The ref explained the rules of the two cards, which allowed Ash to search his deck for a new combatant so long as Angel Arthur was in his army. Then he could add a new champion to his army, a powerful upgrade to his Angel Arthur card.
Ash played his new combatant with glee. “Say hello to “Archangel Arthur, King of Angels!” This new card had bigger numbers on it than Vashi Tansa’s cards. That was definitely a good thing. “Would you look at that!” Ash said. “An angel that’s stronger than a devil! Did you ever think you’d see such a sight? Kinda shatters your whole world, doesn’t it?”
“Your voice annoys me!” Vashi Tansa said. “I’ll put an end to your pathetic archangel as soon as my next turn comes.” It was a tense moment, as victory laid just around the corner for one of them. Unfortunately, his next turn would never come.
CRACK!
The table they were playing on snapped down the center in an instant. Something grew from the ground underneath the table, something big, thick, and dark green. Anyone in the lower section ran for cover. The spectators in the seating sections jumped to their feet. Many fled, suspecting a demon attack. Some stayed, like Amos Draxler. He gripped his daughter tightly by her arm, protecting her from the stampeding crowd.
In the competitor area, most of the people had fled with the rest of the crowd. There were only five people left. Two of them, Ash and Vashi Tansa, stood motionless in the exact same spots they had been sitting at moments ago. The sudden arrival of a giant demonic plant did nothing to deter them from their game. The giant plant thing grew until it collided with the giant mirror ball hanging above the game table. Shards of glass rained down as Ash and Vashi dove out of the way.
“My gaming arena!” Marni wailed in distress. “That thing just cost me thousands of skorch in repairs!”
“This…thing just made a very big mistake in denying me my victory,” Vashi Tansa said, pushing himself off the ground. He stepped closer to the enormous plant, which had grown several long branches up and down its thick stem. “We will burn it down and continue our duel.” He raised an arm to strike, readying a small ball of flame in his hand.
“I’m not sure you should go near that thing,” said Ash. He didn’t like the way the plant-thing moved. There was no wind inside the arena, yet the plant swayed back and forth, its branches moving independently from its stem. It looked alive.
“This thing is clearly a demon of some sort,” said Vashi Tansa. “Best to attack it before it attacks us. That way I can get back to beating you.”
“You were not beating me!”
Vashi Tansa wailed loudly as he fell to the ground. Some of the giant plant roots popped up from the ground and wrapped around his ankles. He lowered a flame to scorch the creature, but the roots grew thicker and tighter. The flames did nothing.
“I’m coming!” Ash said, rushing in to help. He had Vashi Tansa in his sights when he came under attack himself. One of the plant’s branches turned suddenly like a whip, connecting with Ash’s stomach and sending the boy flying backward, utterly winded.
“Crap! Hang on guys!” Aura said, dashing forward.
Lorin charged in leading her small security team of a few men equipped with swords. Ash struggled to climb to his feet after colliding with the wall all the way across the arena. Aura couldn’t make it to Vashi Tansa in time. He reached her just in time to witness the bizarre plant beast wrap it’s roots up Vashi Tansa’s body, stretching up his body, underneath his clothing. The demon plant worked it’s way up his face and found the access point: his mouth.
It was like a tape measure rewinding. The plant suddenly shot into Vashi Tansa’s mouth as if he were sucking the creature in like a strand of spaghetti. Vashi Tansa froze, unable to move a finger as the demon forced itself inside of him. Before the last of the plant could enter his body, Aura grabbed a hold and pulled with all his might. He thought he could simply pull it back out of her, but the plant could not be stopped. It tossed Aura aside as the last of its green tendrils concealed themselves inside Vashi Tansa’s body.
“Hehehehehe!” an alien voice rang out from behind Vashi Tansa’s lifeless face, which had turned a dark shade of green.
“Devils! So interesting!”
Chapter Five: Demon Days
Vashi Tansa rose from the rubble, his skin turning dark green. His arms stretched and morphed into tendrils that swayed in the nonexistent wind. His body, still clad in white Noble’s robes, slimmed into a stem-like figure. Despite a fragile appearance, the creature immediately demonstrated its strength by whipping its tendril-arms at any nearby seats or spectators.
“What the heck is going on?” Ash screamed. “Did that plant just go into Vashi Tansa’s body? What the actual hell, man?”
Aura backed off just in time to avoid taking a whipping. “He’s been possessed by a greater demon!” he said.
“Hehehehehe!” the alien voice squealed from Vashi’s mouth. “That’s right! You devil scum! So interesting!”
“Get the heck out of that man’s body and fight us like a normal demon!” Ash said.
The creature whipped its entire stem around to face the boy. “Just now, you were playing a game, no?” it asked.
“Uh, yeah,” Ash replied. “So?”
“That’s interesting!” The thing started waving its tendrils around frantically, stretching far enough to wreck seats in the upper audience section. Cards and scraps of wood flew everywhere.
“Dad! Get Nora out of here!” Aura shouted to his father. Amos and Nora stood watching the chaos from the upper seating area, not far from where the monster just attacked. Amos looked conflicted, torn between protecting his daughter and helping his son.
“But what if…” Amos began to say.
“Don’t worry! We’ll be fine!” Aura replied, removing his gauntlet. “We’ve still got this. We’ll be okay!” With his blackened death touch hand he gave a thumbs up and smiled. “Get going!”
Amos complied and led Nora to safety outside. Aura breathed a sigh of relief and turned his entire focus to the monster at hand. Ash was on the move trying to tackle it.
The boy rushed forward dodging the tendrils as he got closer. When he reached the stem of the creature, Ash threw a weak punch. He didn’t want to accidentally put a hole through the possessed man’s body. He had to be careful how he went about beating this thing. That’s why he didn’t outright attack with fire.
His punch did nothing, and the possessed Vashi
Tansa easily batted him away with another whipping from the stretchy tendril arms. Ash got knocked back with some force, but Aura caught him before he could fall to the ground.
“This is going to suck,” said Aura.
“Why didn’t you just kill it with your power when you had a hold of it before?” Ash asked.
Aura bobbed his head in shame. “I’ve only tried separating a demon soul from a devil’s soul one time,” he replied. Then, his features graven, he said, “The time I killed my mother.”
The somber moment was interrupted by another painful lashing from the crazed plant-demon-man-monster. The boys rolled to safety taking great care to avoid any extra whippings.
“Interesting! So interesting! Tell me more!” the demon said as it twisted and convulsed, grabbing any building wreckage in sight and tossing it around.
“Get out of here Marni!” Lorin cried, rushing in to defend her master’s establishment. “Let me handle this!”
Lorin and her security team battled away with the demon’s many whipping appendages, but it didn’t go well. The tendrils were thick and surprisingly difficult to cut. Most of her men were disarmed quite easily by the enemy and forced to flee, while Lorin fought on despite terrible odds.
She attacked independently of Ash and Aura, refusing their help. She even stopped to yell at them at one point, dropping her guard long enough for the demon to wrap a sneaky vine around the girl and squeeze tight. Winded and restricted, Lorin dropped her blade, helpless in the monster’s clutches.
By this time the Royal Guard finally showed up, flooding into the room from every entrance blowing their whistles of alarm. The foot soldiers filled the arena, some wielding long spears, swords, or even metal bows and arrows. No one quite seemed to know how to approach the monster. The soldiers paused to view the battle taking place between the two boys and the greater demon.
“We have to beat it without hurting him!” Ash called to Aura as they rolled around on the ground. “Remember: that’s still Vashi Tansa’s body, even if there is a demon inside him!”
“I know, I know!” Aura replied. “It’s just-” He was too late to dodge an attack from the demon and tried to catch the speeding tendril arm instead. He gripped it easily enough, but could not stop the advancing limb. He was flipped onto his back and then tossed across the room, landing near the Royal Guards. “Ouchies…” he gasped.
“Why didn’t you do the thing just then!” Ash said. “You’re not gonna get many more opportunities like that before this thing kills us!”
“Tell me more about the devils!” the plant squealed in delight. It seemed to be enjoying itself. “Come on! Show me the power of the devils!”
“Aura, you’ve got to use your power on it! It’s the only way!” Ash said. “Don’t be scared! You can-” Ash got smoked by a low-flying limb that tripped him to the ground. “You’ve gotta-” he tried to repeat himself before the end of the tendril wrapped around his leg. It quickly wound the rest of his body in thick vines all the way up to his face and covered his mouth.
“This one smells funny,” the plant demon said, turning what was left of Vashi Tansa’s face towards Ash. “Funny smelling things are interesting. They almost always end up tasting interesting, too! I eat now.”
“Crap!” Aura said. He looked at all the useless Royal Guards, standing idle watching the disaster unfold. “Aren’t any of you going to jump in and help!?”
“This is a very delicate situation,” said a man that stepped forward through the throng of Royal Guard. He wore spikier, cooler looking armor than the other guards. That meant he was a Royal Guard Captain. “That’s a greater demon we’re talking about. None of my men have ever encountered one before. And it got itself inside some poor guy, too. No, this won’t be an easy situation to just go charging in to.”
The demon split apart, revealing an opening in its torso that resembled a nightmarish mouth. It lifted Ash off the ground, moving him ever closer to that gaping mouth.
“We don’t have time to screw around!” Aura said. He was about to dash in when someone else rushed by, beating him to it.
Everyone was shocked to see it was none other than Aralia. The spunky punk girl charged forward bravely and leapt at the limb clutching Ash. “Give Ash back you stupid plant!” she shouted, clinging to the creature’s limb. The demon’s attention shifted to trying to shake Aralia off, but the resilient girl held on for dear life.
“Now men! While the girl’s got it distracted! Charge!” the Royal Guard Captain commanded. Without a moment of hesitation the Royal Guards obeyed their Captain and attacked. The spearmen jabbed at the plant’s wild movements, striking the air more than the demon. Swordsmen didn’t do any better as they hacked and slashed away at the fast-moving vines. The demon landed far more hits on them with its whipping appendages.
The archers kept their distance while shooting steel arrows at the creature. The archers lit their arrows on fire, making their weapons all the more dangerous. The arrows pierced the demon’s skin and stopped dead. Foul smelling water gushed out of the wounds, but also ejected the arrows and then quickly dried, sealing the openings.
The demon continued to rage, laughing like a child playing with dolls. It swiped at anyone who got near it, sending the soldiers soaring across the room with a single lashing. Aralia clung to the limb that held Ash captive. She managed to climb higher as the creature shook, until finally she was clinging to the vines that concealed the boy.
She ripped the plants away, tearing off layer after layer of living, squirming vines. At last she peeled back a vine and saw Ash’s mouth gasping for air. With one last handful of weeds, Aralia ripped away the rest of the vines hiding Ash’s face. The boy wasted no time delivering his message to his friend.
“You can do it, Aura! You know the difference between devil and demon! You know how their souls feel! You can find this demon’s soul and remove it without touching the devil’s soul! Do it! Do it now!”
Aralia released her grip on the creature to pull out her switchblade, but lost her grip and fell. She dropped to the ground and rolled away from the frantic demon, happy to have been some help at least. “I’ll let you take it from here, Mister Aura Sir!” she said as she crawled to safety.
“Fine, I’ll stop being a pansy and just do it,” Aura said, fed up with his own cowardly behavior. “Ash was right anyway. I should be able to tell the two souls apart. That is, if I’m to believe there’s any difference at all between demons and nobles.”
Aura charged. It wasn’t easy, as the demon’s whipping vines continued to pound away at anything that got close enough. The death toucher zigzagged around a group of Royal Guard spearmen as the greater demon sent them all flying. Another team evaded and fired off blasts of flames, which didn’t seem to have any effect on the near-indestructible plant monster.
Marni’s gambling parlor wasn’t holding together well. There were holes in the walls from where people had been tossed by the demon. The giant mirror ball, cracked and breaking, fell to the ground and rolled independently, getting in many of the Royal Guards way. Aura barely rolled to the side in time as the demon’s whipping arms sent the mirror ball flying towards him. It instead continued rolling at full speed, flattening Marni’s throne chair in her private box, and smashing a brand new doorway between the arena and the rest of the gaming parlor.
“This is the strength of devils?” the greater demon cackled. “Pathetic! So pathetic it’s interesting!”
For once its too bad Shiva isn’t here, thought Aura. She’d make a great distraction while I get in close. The boy dodged around another group of Royal Guard swordsmen, doing their best to slash away at the vine-like appendages but getting nowhere. These guys are a lousy distraction. Guess I’ll have to do this the old fashioned way, by myself!
“Alright you annoying plant bastard, Aura’s here now so let’s rumble!” The death toucher created a fireball with his left hand, making it larger than a car tire. With his ball of flame raised over his head, Aura
split it into two and fired both in different directions. The demon easily whipped the flaming balls apart, but in doing so raised its appendages enough to leave itself wide open. Aura concentrated a little soul power on his feet, making him fast enough to get in close in no time.
“Go Aura! You can do it!” Ash screamed from his viney prison.
Aura slapped his death touch hand across the demon’s plant-like stalk. The boy concentrated, closing his eyes and activating his power. An electric blue current emanated from his black hand.
“Back up the death toucher!” the Captain of the Royal Guard screamed at his men. “Do not allow the demon to repel him!”
Aura’s power activated as the remaining Royal Guard forces rushed forward to further distract the demonic Vashi Tansa. Archers fired more flaming steel arrows; swordsmen gave their lives trying to keep the demonic whipping vines busy. Spearmen jabbed and prodded and dealt minor damage, all of which was easily repaired by the creature’s natural juices. While not directly successful in stopping the demon, they did manage the important task of keeping it distracted.
“Death toucher?” the demon said. “So the devils have a death toucher! My oh my! So interesting!”
Aura ignored the demon’s musing and tried to concentrate. This was only the second time he’d ever tried removing a single soul from a body that held two souls. The first time ended in the death of his mother, so it was a still a little bit of a sore subject for him. He used his own soul power to search the man’s possessed body, feeling around for that pesky demon soul. He first found a soul power that felt wild and dangerous, but housed several other complicated feelings and emotions.
Probing a little further he could feel the presence of another soul. This one gave off an entirely different vibe from the previous soul. There were no devil emotions there, only a desire for destruction, chaos, and hunger. This, he knew, was the demon soul. With his target in his soul’s sight, Aura had no problem concentrating on and rejecting the vile soul.
The blue electricity consumed the possessed Vashi Tansa, momentarily putting a halt to its wild whipping. All attacking soldiers retreated, backing away as far as the ruined remains of the building’s crumbling walls could offer. At ground zero, Aura found himself violently tossed back as the demon shot out of the poor Vashi Tansa’s mouth just as fast as it originally entered.
Devil Ash Disarray (Devil Ash Saga Book 3) Page 7
