Angelic Ends to Demonic Dreams : Ch 1

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Chapter One

The Unsettling Arrangement




Helias had reluctantly recovered his lost counterpart. In doing so, the screams and pounding pressure within had finally ceased their grating and discordant melodies. He made a note to himself to never again try and put the devil up for adoption, for it was much more preferable to exist in endless strife than to try and suppress the devious bond that the two shared.

Struggling every inch of the way, Helias and his demonic baggage bolted from the surface of the planet Earth, going nowhere fast. Their ability to navigate was practically nonexistent as the two forces opposed every possible facet of each other.

This way you idiot!

Hundreds of indecipherable curses poured from the demon's being in response, all spoken in a rough and ancient language of the Kingdom Hell. No other defined form of communication contained so many curses.

The angel and demon soon reached a very high degree of conflict, their spiritual fibers flaring with frustration. They had made it about 20, 000 miles from the Earth before Helias began to feel the tearing sensation of his being from this world of physical weaknesses. He felt a pull from everything then, even the hellion.

Energies of a great and mysterious source warped and shot through the two spirits, engulfing them within the fabrics of space between worlds.

They had come into the Black Plane once more, though with much more enthusiasm this time around.

Floating in an almost stationary manner, Helias was very much alone as his spiritual being flickered and grasped desperately for the remaining strands of his soul. His muroken, or spiritual force, dispersed with great breadth as it passed through the planar barrier.

As soon as Helias was released from his comatose state, his senses were bombarded with a screeching resonance. He immediately looked around for his demonic spouse, reaching out to feel for the thinning muroken residue that was still within the demon's trail.

He caught on to the foulness of its spiritual stink easy enough and pursued it with all haste.

Helias's grand wings pumped furiously, pulling him along the darkness ahead. The muroken energy emitted by his wings cast a brilliant light all around him, illuminating the many strands that wavered from the stem of each appendage.

Soon enough, Helias came into sight of the demon. It had scrambled along a winding path into a crevice of a huge rotting reef, accompanied by thousands of other smaller chunks of various matter. Helias stopped just short of the copse of dead, floating material. Locked in concentration, he did his best to block out the incessant melody within that gave unsteadiness to his every movement.

Focusing from within his muroken being, Helias drew forth a large amount of mana that lay stored in a spiritual cache inside him. Using his arms to guide the mana from his form, Helias set the wavering, floating black liquid before himself.

After whipping his arms in a fluid forward motion, the rolling wave of mana spread wide beside Helias and then lurched viciously toward the reef. Helias sailed behind this propelled wall, black whip-like arms and sharp barbs flailing wildly before him. As he rode through the chaotic copse, the deadly sheet of mana began to take on a form of living armor, contorting according to its velocity.

Helias took note of the color of the mana he possessed, such a thing telling much about one's relative distance from Heaven or Hell. If mana was black, that meant that he was far from both. The dark and glossy substance glistened like oil then as Helias deftly controlled its every shape and movement.

The deadly wave of mana soared through debris, whipping and consuming chunks of meshed minerals and ore. A huge slab of crimeira was split in pieces, exploding into a mystical cloud of red. Its strange properties were caught up in the mana storm that surrounded the angel as he raged on.

Helias plowed into the large crevice of the reef, the mana before him tearing away at the walls of the deep depression. It didn't go all the way through, so the demon had to be trapped at its end.

A multitude of piercing black spears lurched from Helias's manifestation, chewing through the reef with little difficulty. It fractured the dead reef into two pieces that ran about 100 yards in length each. The angel stopped between the two halves as they drifted away from each other, the mana adjusting into defensive shapes around Helias's immediate position. With no sign that the demon had even been in the reef, Helias looked to his sides.

Black streams of spirit flesh pulsed like veins in the dead matter, seeping from within the exposed core of the reef's two sides. The demon had altered its state to evade the attack by flowing through and with the reef's spiritual substance.

The demon's muroken ripped from both sides of dead rock and reached for Helias, attempting to rake at him while joining its two halves. Helias was not so easily taken. His mana clashed with the demon's yielding, fluid form as it tried to shape itself around Helia's neck.

With a roar of defiance, Helias drew forth more mana and focused on entangling the malleable demon.

A flurry of black tentacle-like extensions clashed about, the demon's probing eagerly for an opening and striking hard when one was found. Helias's constricting and stabbing vines began to impede the demon's movement, however, its strikes coming less and less often.

While the demon made progress with joining its two separate halves, Helias skillfully formed a cutting edge from mana and drove it into the beast's split torso. The make shift blade gleamed of an ethereal aura as its tip formed dozens of piercing ends that curved back and extended into the demon's back, arms, and legs.

Very much skewered and nearly helpless, the dark beast threw a fit of rage. This outcry of frustration was only evident on its face, for the rest of its body merely twitched.

Helias held steady the shape of the mana pinning the demon, staring into its wild features. He noticed that it to began to twitch involuntarily, making the demon look more crazed than ever before.

Still holding the blade of mana, Helias pulled it out of the dark creature, leaving the pinning formation behind. Helias then bade inactive mana around him to spear the demon's body further, ensuring that it stayed incapacitated. This left the thing slightly illuminated, enhancing its sinister appeal.

"Well well...not feeling so great now, are we?" Helias taunted. The mana blade waved threateningly in front of the demon. Helias could see the glint of it in the thing's glassy form.

The demon just continued to tremble and twitch with anger. As it opened its wicked maw to utter a foul curse, Helias met it's long, snake-like tongue with the sharp tip of his blade. The creature welcomed the penetration, furthering the press of the blade into its head. The tongue wrapped around the edge, presenting a taunt in itself. The demon then bit down on the tempered mana, only to crunch sickly upon the unyielding sword.

Helias whipped the blade out roughly and brought it around to slash the demon's eyes horizontally.

Its head thrashed wildly, whipping left and right. Helias stayed for a minute to watch the creature's reaction play out. At that point, Helias wondered deeply what he could do to keep the creature incapacitated. Eventually he would tire from wielding mana for so long and in such a great quantity. Helias would have to rest at some point to allow his strength to recover.

Regaining some of its composure, the demon tilted its head to face Helias. Though its eyes had been cut, the wound would only leave a scar upon the dark being's complexion, not any type of infirmity.

"Stupid angel, " the demon spat unexpectedly, "ye cannot....see...that Demroku sees!"

Helias's eyes widened and he quickly placed the tip of his blade at the thing's nasal cavity. If the beast had a nose it would have been gored deeply.

"What do you know of the inner workings of that bastard titan?" Helias shouted incredulously.

The demon only grinned knowingly. A slight, grating chuckle sputtering from the foul thing.

"You know nothing but what its bowels contain, filth!" Helias slashed across the demon's forehead, leaving a deep opening.

After a strained writhe of agony, the demon howled loudly. Helias quickly tightened the pinning restraints by curling the long barbs upward and closer together, ending the annoying howl with an awkward and squeaky noise.

With a snort, Helias spat, "I didn't know demon filth squeak when you squeeze ‘em!"

The demon just responded with a glare of utter animosity.

"I think I'll call you Scritch, my irritating little tumor."

The demon did not falter in its sinister gaze. It wanted to gnaw every feature off of Helias's form. Instead of falling to a fruitless barrage of insults, however, the quick learner held its sore tongue for now. It was ever confident that it could weave a twisted array of lies for the angel to believe in time. As long as Helias remained ravenous for information on Demroku, the demon felt it had a chance for freedom.

"Come on you worthless imp, we've much distance to cover."

Helias wove strands of mana throughout the demon's limbs, while at the same time, constricted the mana binding it even more. With the demon now totally locked down and under Helias's control, he ushered the stiff form to lead the way.

While navigating through the littered zone, Helias occasionally propelled the bound demon into large objects to bat them from his own path. The disapproving grunts of Scritch only fed Helias's mirth, for he was enjoying this arrangement with the demon much more than their last.

The lone angel was soon traversing blatantly across the stark wasteland known only as the Vapids. This vast expanse is the only thing separating the Kingdoms Heaven and Hell. Though it may not seem like much of a barrier for these two places of grand stature, the Vapids are wrought with treachery and an almost limitless size and distance.

Primarily a wasteland, the Vapids have forever felt the effects of conflict waged by minions of Heaven and Hell.

When large-scale battles erupt in the upper Vapids, anything that has managed to survive within this wasteland is put to the ultimate test. Representatives of these opposing forces do not clash lightly.

With this in mind, Helias felt fortunate that the legions of Hell were currently at a freeze in activity. To the best of his current knowledge, Helias knew that no sizable numbers had risen from Hell for quite a few years. But such a thing could only mean that more devious schemes were in the works beyond the roving gaze of angelic outposts.

Agents of the opposing Kingdoms were constantly serving within Heaven and Hell and everywhere in between. Knowing this as fact, Helias disregarded the caution needed to evade such agents. He grew in confidence with every pump of his mighty wingspan that he would find what he needed soon enough, and that nothing else mattered until then.

Helias soared hastily onward toward the central Vapids, plowing through hazardous and desolate expanses with Scritch unwillingly leading the way.

* * *

"Ever flowing yet never knowing , what seamless existence is found between the light and through the dark? Be it a curse for not caring or a course for more craving, how can one be sure of purpose or reason in an endless hollow haven? Have I truly escaped but with fragments of my soul? Or is this just a hell that taunts those with dreams of one day being whol-"

"You could probably go on forever with that, eh Marrus?" The seemingly malformed creature known as Marrus didn't bother snapping his sights in embarrassment toward the shadows behind. With a grin he turned and regarded his fellow muroken-ji.

"Forever indeed, I do believe. And only because few others seem concerned with their fates."

"Concerned?" The intruding muroken-ji known as Bala then put his thumb to his chin and seemed to be considering something deeply. In truth, he only planned to appear as if he was considering the over-philosophical words of Marrus, the Outsider, for his sake. But then he wondered why he had finally bothered to follow him out to this secluded spot after all these years. He didn't seem to make a clear connection at that point. Perhaps it was simply instinct that guided his movements.

"This is our fate, is it not?" Bala spoke, referencing their obvious and mysterious disposition.

"One day I hope there will be an answer to that, " Marrus considered then that Bala had actually left the haven, something that he did not do often in a coherent manner. Usually he spent his time in a near comatose state, probably from shock or scars from the past, which was not uncommon to those who fell from the bowels of Hell.

"Well, if you ever discover anything other than what is here, do tell me." With that curious statement, Bala turned and jumped from the large stationary rock to several other smaller ones on a path that ventured farther from where the haven was.

Marrus watched him go and wondered what had gotten into Bala so suddenly. As his path of floating rocks drifted apart, Marrus turned his gaze to the vast blackness that lay above, and below, and all around depending on how far one could see. Life, if this could be considered life, was quite empty here. The spinning remaining pieces of sanity and knowledge can be deceiving to those who have lost it all. Marrus tried to chase each emotion down as soon as he felt their weakened graze upon his soul. In doing so, he believed that he may yet find himself again, as it had once been long ago. So long ago, before the emptiness and the torment.

Not every one of the lost souls here shared that method. Most could not, Marrus believed.

It was in that he felt the need for coming out here, far from where the rather large group of muroken-ji had holed up. He was not called the Outsider for where he had come from, but for where he had gone, and continued to go. Fear and confusion had guided their movements since he could remember, and that is all that seemed to be found in the haven for quite a while.

As Marrus explored farther and farther, he usually found nothing of substance within the wasteland, but the more he continued to search, he began to regain his self. As an infant becomes aware of its being, so too did Marrus become aware of his gravity, his scarred spirit and shattered mind.

He brought these thoughts and ideas back to the haven, and tried to urge others to consider their own.

In those first moments of rediscovery years ago, it could not have been more difficult to garner trust among the rotted fruit that had been shaken from a blazing tree. But gradually Marrus had reached a few of the wayward souls and he eventually dared to believe that a sense of community may be possible.

How far they all seemed to have come over the years, Marrus thought, especially Bala, whom Marrus had seemed to have little to no effect on.

"Ah, and what, I wonder, does Miru know of your leave?" Marrus spoke aloud, turning to make his way back to the haven, where Miru was bound to know something about Bala's sudden, and decisive, rise to action.

* * *

Leaping across a rather large expanse , the lone figure made surprisingly easy work of the broken and chaotic terrain. Among the varying chunks of black rock-like material flying to and fro, some so large as to encompass one’s full range of forward vision at only about fifty yards, there did not appear to be a promise of much more to the obvious senses.

Still retaining a familiar but distant connection to the five senses used in his past life, Bala found it difficult to accept at first that these vague memories of function seemed to only work against him in his current state. Only recently, when the strange creature called Marrus began to really question and prod him had he began to come to an astounding discovery within himself. It was something he could not fully explain, something that had to do with the utterly raw world in which he was in, for he was definitely in a world of some sort, Bala understood that much now.

Before it was possible to do so, to simply understand ones relative location in the mass schemes of an existence, even on the basest of levels, the dismal gray blurs that had rolled over Bala’s core of being disrupted much of his perception. They even threatened to push and pull apart his will to the point of obliteration.

Scars, he eventually realized. They were scars upon his soul driven into his own self by his own hand…and something else. Something else for certain.

After the blinding and twisted torment he had known for so many decades, he came to realize that the scars on his soul were more than that of flesh. They were, in themselves, blinding and suffocating. Something that slowly oozed over him in a sticky, sluggish way. They served most vividly as a reminder of who he had once been. A warrior. A leader. A father.

But even to conjure up those memories remained a grand struggle.

Throughout the great haze that marked the entry of his spirit into this strange stage, Bala had found, in the smallest fraction of his remaining will power, the ability to choose to act once again.

It had come to him more easily attainable when a violet surge of energy had approached him, all the while circulating throughout the space before him but always scampering back to a central point. Upon its appearance, the silver and purple static bounced across his petrified form, sparking sensation as clearly as a cold rain on charred and smoldering skin.

Remembering clearly the kindness and curiosity he had felt then, Bala’s detached mind flitted around and spiraled before that wondrous energy once more. During this reconnection he felt the words that had been aimed at him.

“It’s time to wake up. Can you hear me? We’re all here to help, we all trust in you. You have the strength to rise and find your self. Please. Take a stand, feel the warmth your spirit can provide. Don’t let it go.”

Pondering all of these recent events, Bala sat motionless atop a curiously blue fragment that was a bit larger than he. Slowly spinning where he sat, he felt the pull of the materiel. There didn’t seem to be any gravity except where the mind willed there to be. Even then, he wasn’t so sure that it was like the gravity he was used to dealing with.

He thought of the moment when he had truly awakened, the experience of that caring being named Marrus in the fullest spectrum of his senses. He knew then that he had been clued in to something greater than ever imagined before, though he showed little reaction.

How he seemed to unfurl now as an orchid reaches for the sun and sky!

Being so utterly naked and bare to the place he now occupied felt so vivid and compelling, as if in place of individual sensations, his entire being was being pelted with all that there was around him in every fathomable facet.

Bala knew that he was one. A single whole entity driven purely by will.

But this simple and inescapable truth also instilled within him the greatest levels of fear that he had ever known.

Having to constantly stifle that massive panic, he took in his surroundings more fully once more, stretching the tendrils of his will outward and pulling back an intimate knowledge of those surroundings, as if they were simply one and the same.

The more he focused on such a thing, the more detailed his scanning became. There were so many strange and curious things all around him, things that could not be noticed by taking in face value.

Bala sensed an oddly wavering energy, something that came back to him as a kind of red mist with silver-white glimmering throughout its form. It rolled strangely like a fog but lunged occasionally.

Somewhere behind him, through a vast copse of grey and black debris, he felt keenly a prickle. A cluster of small, black unstable spheres that constantly spiked outward, dancing around wildly as if trapped inside something. Every so often it felt as if one of the many jutting spikes really jumped in a spasmodic path for him, even though he judged them to be quite far away.

Often he lost track of what was really above him and below, and all other sense of direction for that matter. Though some large chunks of material seemed to remain completely still, he sensed that everything around him drifted to some degree according to its own properties.

Upon trying to climb as high as possible to gain some type of vantage, such a task eventually became pointless. What he originally perceived as up became many other directions while leaping and climbing over the chaotic environment. Trying to depend solely on the way his mind connected with his surroundings to navigate remained a foreign, difficult thing. He thought only briefly about how he would find his way back to the haven and the other gray creatures he had known.

In utter awe and sheer terror Bala continued to explore the exotic realm of the spirit, thinking that at any moment some divine judge would appear suddenly and punt him back to the depths of Hell. Fearing also that some terrible demon might tear him away from his apparent freedom and digest him bit by bit in a cage of sorrow and doom.

He did his best to not let such thoughts hinder his progress toward a truth. Any truth at this point to take the place of madness.

* * *

Focusing on every movement and detail, Miru continued arranging some crystal-like shards into a pattern before the empty space in front of her. She didn’t know what exactly she was forming, but simply allowed her will to guide the placement of the shards. There were many different sizes and shapes, some of which were tinted slightly in red and blue. Most were white or even clear, some sharp and narrow while others remained as more of a chunk.

She saw that her arms were out before her and that they worked smoothly in arranging the pieces, hands slightly caressing each detail no matter how small. Yet seeing this, Miru knew that no muscles, bones or ligaments were in any way part of this desire of her will. She would see before her slender and delicate arms only slightly pale, muscles working in accordance with their movements, but any other source of will would see her how she really looked.

An almost ghostly image of a deformed human, darkened and textured with black scars and various other marks and defects. With no absolute outline, a wavering sort of mirage replaced that sense of definition of form. There kneeling was clearly a unique shape, but one you would more sense than witness.

With her emanations of will clearly felt by those around her, she appeared as a wondrous thing. Miru’s state of curiosity and expression reflected her emotions, drawing thin ribbon-like strands of dancing light from within her core, adding to the myriad of shifting colors and shape that was the spirit of Miru.

Another muroken-ji that lay nearby caught the spectacle across the cavernous enclosure. Though its attention was on Miru, it showed little recognition or desire to express anything at all. The spirit-being appeared as barely a twitch of energy, a nearly formless and black thing that only slightly moved occasionally. Its expression blank as it seemed intent on Miru’s direction, the muroken-ji shuddered in a spasmodic way then remained as still as it had been for quite some time.

Miru was surrounded by dozens of such spirits, all of which possessed a varying degree of abnormality about them. She thought about how she must have seemed in that state, for she had been no different at first. Her earliest memory after the vast stage of Hell wiped her sense of self away had been Marrus. She had always assumed that he had somehow risen from such a pitiful lump by himself. How he inspired her in that light of strength and sheer willpower!

Marrus had been the first to boldly rise and explore this horror-filled place after the great blur between Hell and this existence. He then shared in his discoveries, helping others rise from the misshapen abominations they had once been.

Collectively, the few spirits to recover such transition had come to the conclusion that this mass of tortured souls had somehow been allowed to fall from Hell. Whatever could have possibly guided such a large and delirious group of souls to end up here is a mystery to all.

Miru often thought of one possibility. What if there were other souls lost and stranded in this nightmarish realm just like they were? Or maybe they hadn’t really even left Hell. It was hard for her to exclude that as a reality.

For now, Miru pushed such thoughts away and focused on the abstract image that was coming together before her. The longest and thinnest shards were placed in a semi-circle at the top right, spiking out as brilliant light would from a singular point. Horizontally, different shards of blue and white ran interconnected with red ones fading in as Miru scanned downward. Some emerald-like formations sat sprinkled about the work almost as stars would be on an open and clear night sky. Then, jutting up from the base were various colors and shapes that plugged in neatly to blend with the left-to-right patterns.

Not quite finished, but lacking material, Miru expanded her will to take in her surroundings, hoping to find more of the strange crystal within the dead walls of the haven. Her mind’s eye reached out and felt every unique detail of her surroundings, much like an expanding ghostly sphere, probing and seeing and feeling.

There wasn’t much left to be found in the entirety of the huge hollow chunk, Miru had been at her collecting for what seemed like weeks now. So she continued her meditative search beyond the haven’s boundaries and into the mesh of material and madness that constantly surrounded the muroken-jis’ shelter.

(I am still trying to wrap up the end of this chapter!)