Rizor- Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE- DARK ASSAULT

TWO WEEKS LATER
         “I really am tempted,” Armada Vine growled under his breath “to take a machete to her just to get her to shut up.”
         Pede Coren couldn’t help but agree that the lesson was dull- yet Armada’s idea of shutting her up was a bit too much.
         “True, but I think that might be a little extreme.”
         “A bit. But rather effective,” Armada muttered. Pede rolled his eyes.
         The two eighteen-year old friends were sitting in their lesson, listening to the teacher as she rambled on about something that both Armada and Pede knew, asking questions they could both do in their sleep.
         Armada began to draw amazing but intensely macabre images on the back of his exercise book, allowing himself the peace of being removed from the world. Pede looked at him.
         Armada’s sharp blue eyes didn’t move, and it gave him a creepy, sort of dead look, even behind the ever-present shades that were on the unnaturally handsome face, marred only by a single scar across his left cheek. A gust of breeze from the window caused his short, shadow black hair, spiked even without the use of hair products, to rustle. His tall, thin frame was clothed in the same outfit he always seemed to wear no matter the weather- a t-shirt with an eerily accurate pattern of a skull, jeans, an ankle-length leather trench coat and light boots, all the same black as his hair.
         Pede, on the other hand, was quite different. Slightly shorter and less thin than his friend, with an ordinary face, bottle green eyes, short, messy dirt-brown hair, dressed in a grey top and black trousers.
         Pede looked at the image Armada was drawing. It looked almost like a photo, it was so perfectly drawn- yet so gruesome. Armada’s attitude was as dark as his drawings, each of which depicted death and destruction. The last one was an image of Earth burning to the ground- and he appeared to be half way through drawing a demon tearing someone apart.
         Looking at the display, Pede began to wonder if there was some meaning behind the drawings. They all shared the same destructive themes, but there seemed to be a deeper pattern. Pede just couldn’t figure out what.
         Armada looked up suddenly, and stared around the room. He looked alarmed.
         “What?” Pede frowned. Armada didn’t answer for a moment, continuing to look around. Then he relaxed.
         “Sorry. I thought I felt something nearby.”
         Pede chuckled. Armada was extremely paranoid- he seemed to jump at every slight breeze. Still chuckling, Pede remembered the time one of their friends, Lau Heist, had decided to jump out at Armada on April Fool’s day.  Armada had spun around and broken Lau’s jaw with a well-placed karate kick.
         At the next table, Alfred Coholic looked round.
         “What’s so funny?”
         “Armada’s being paranoid again,” Pede grinned. Alfred shook his head. He was a medium-built figure, with slightly gray black hair, dark blue eyes, a round face, and slightly clumsy. His name was a constant pun among the students- they kept abbreviating his name to Al and sticking it with his surname, resulting in Alcoholic.
         “You seen Jewd recently?” Alfred asked.
         “Not since last week. He back in school then?” Armada finally snapped out of his on-edge state.
         “Yeah. Moaning about his arm.”
         The three of them laughed quietly. The previous week, Jewd had decided to repeatedly ask Armada what he thought he should do about a girl he wanted to ask out. In the end, Armada had lost his temper and smashed Jewd’s arm into a railing, breaking it. No-one felt sorry for him- he was by far the most annoying person any of them had ever met. Even the teachers had insisted that he must have tripped over and crashed into the railing.
         The bell finally rang, and they all began to pack their bags. As they made their way out of the classroom towards the place they usually met their friends, Pede started up another conversation.
         “You planning on doing anything this weekend, Armada?”
         “Do I even need to answer?” Armada shook his head.
         “Not really. Just wanted to see if anything had changed,” Pede smiled. Ever since he had met Armada, he had never known him to not be busy at a weekend. Of course, Armada never gave an explanation for what he was doing, but everyone knew better than to ask.
         Armada stopped off to get some drinks and food from a vending machine in the corridor. Pede watched out of the corner of his eye. And he could have sworn he didn’t see Armada put any money in. But that was ridiculous, so he ignored it.
         Soon after, they entered the room they had asked a teacher to let them use. All their friends were already present- Jewd and Lau were playing table football, Jack Ackee was deep in conversation with Hol Uar, Gray Tomie was working on a website he needed to finish for coursework, and Bate Calore was having a game of darts with Jeff Daifrend.
         Hol looked up when he heard the door.
         “Hey Armada.”
         Jewd, who hadn’t seen Armada, jumped in fright, and Lau managed to score.
         “Why you so on edge?” Armada asked.
         “You busted my arm. Why do you think I’m on edge?” Jewd retorted. Armada smiled wryly as he put the food and drink on the table.
         As all of them had a free period next- except for Bate and Jeff, who had a general studies lesson- they sat around conversing for ages.
         Half way through, Armada, Pede, Lau and Jack were all talking to each other. Armada was lying on a comfy crimson sofa he had- well, the word he used was ‘acquired’, but Pede always had a funny feeling he’d stolen it- and had a drink in one hand. Pede noticed he had been staring into space silently for several minutes.
         “Are you alright, Armada?” he asked. Armada nodded, then sat up slowly.
         “Just tired.”
         “What lesson do you have next?” Lau asked.
         “Media studies.”
         “Theory or practical?”
         “Theory.”
         “Boring. Want to go into town instead? I hear the new girl working in the market is hot. Too young for any real fun, but still hot.”
         “New girl?” Pede asked. Armada ignored him.
         “Yeah, I have to agree. She is very hot. But you even touch her, Lau, and I swear I’ll shoot you in the nuts,” he threatened.
         “Why?” Lau asked, surprised.
         “She’s like a sister to me, so I’d rather not have you anywhere near her.”
         “You know her?” Lau gasped. Armada nodded. “How?”
         “Old friend of mine,” Armada said simply, and wouldn’t elaborate “but you’re right about one thing. I do need to go into town.”
         “You realise you’ve only been in one other lesson today?” Jack reminded him.
         “So?” Armada shrugged.
         “So that would mean you bunk three out of four lessons.”
         “Jack, I have an IQ of three hundred. I hardly need to bother listening to teachers anymore. They just end up repeating the same rubbish over and over.”
         “But…”
         “Dude, shut up,” Pede advised Jack, who seethed silently.
         After their free period ended, Armada, Pede and Lau went into town, to the market that had opened there.
         Armada went over to a stall selling electrical equipment. It was being run by an incredibly beautiful red-headed girl, about fourteen, who looked bored out of her wits. But she cheered up when she saw who it was.
         “Oh, hey Armada. I thought you had media?”
         “I do. But I needed to talk to you.”
         “Why, what’s up?”
         Armada was perfectly well aware of Lau trying to eavesdrop, so tilted his head towards the staff area. The girl nodded, and she and Armada went in.
         “You need to work on your eavesdropping skills,” Pede remarked dryly over Lau’s shoulder.
         “Just shut up, smartarse.”

         “Are you alright, Linyra?” Armada asked as he accepted a cup of tea from her.
         “Yeah,” she said, not altogether able to hide the fact she was lying. Armada shook his head.
         “Of course you aren’t. But life goes on, I suppose. Is Aurora doing fine?”
         “Yeah. She’s just in rather a lot of pain. Got caught on the side by one of those wild snare plants.”
         “Ouch.”
         “That’s what I said. But never mind that. What is it you wanted to talk to me about?”
         “There’s something wrong, Linyra. I got a message from Tira the other day, but it got fragmented at some point. All I received were two words. ‘Coming’ and ‘Run’.”
         “You told me this already.”
         “Yes, but I felt the presence of something today. And I don’t mean human.”
         “Demon?”
         “I think so.”
         “They’ve found you?”
         “It’s possible. I knew they would, I just never expected it this soon.”
         Suddenly, a golden light flashed to their right. From the light stepped Aurora, the polar bear.
         “Oh, hi. Didn’t expect to see you here,” she commented to Armada.
         “We have a problem, Aurora. The demons may have found me.”
         “Already?”
         “Yes.”
         “Damn…”
         Before Armada could get another word out, the door suddenly burst open. Pede and Lau rushed in- then rushed to a halt.
         “What the hell?” Pede gasped, staring at Aurora.
         “Pet. What the hell are you doing in here would be a better question,” snarled Armada. Pede snapped his concentration back to his friend.
         “We’ve just seen smoke coming from the direction of school.”
         “WHAT?” Armada yelled. He shared an urgent look with Linyra, who turned her head so that Pede and Lau couldn’t see what she mouthed next.
         ‘Demon?’
         Armada slowly nodded. Then he looked back at Pede.
         “Come on. Let’s get down there and see what’s going on.”

         When they got there, Pede couldn’t believe his eyes.
         The school was in ruin. The entire building was on fire, and much of it was no more than rubble. Endless bodies- students and staff alike- lay dead. Strange colours floated in the air, looking disturbing like portals.
         But that was ridiculous…
         Suddenly, Pede noticed creatures scavenging through the ruins. And he yelled out.
         One of the creatures looked up. It looked like a genetic experiment between an elephant and a tiger gone wrong. It also had four arms- in one of which was being held a girl, who Pede and Lau recognized as a fellow sixth form student, Ailia Moor- fortunately still alive, if unconscious.
         The creature roared, and another one which was some sort of rat-human-dog-lion hybrid looked up. It saw the humans and charged.
         Armada took a step forward, but the creature managed to grab Lau in one of the deformed hands growing from it’s head. Before anyone could react, a lump of coloured light appeared before the creature, towards which it jumped.
         And vanished right through it.
         Armada swore. Pede looked round at him, and froze.
         In one of Armada’s hands was an intricate sword, in the other a pistol. The girl- Linyra- had hold of a sword with a trigger of some sort built into the handle. And the polar bear, Aurora, was wearing unusual metal paw gloves.
         Linyra pointed her sword at the demon that held Ailia and depressed the trigger.
         A huge beam of orange light shot forth from the tip and struck the creature in the chest, but it merely absorbed the blow, shaking violently. Ailia’s eyes jolted open.
         “A minor demon lord,” Armada muttered. Pede had no clue what Armada was talking about, but was too stunned to care. Armada aimed his gun at the demon and started firing bullets at it. The demon dodged each one with ease.
         Pede suddenly decided he wanted to help. Without any thought, he rushed towards the demon.
         “NO! GET OUT OF THE WAY!” Armada shouted. The demon, with Pede blocking any chance Armada had of shooting it, quickly rushed towards one of the lights and leapt through it- with Ailia.
         “Damn it…” Armada snapped “Linyra, Aurora, take care of that bloody idiot Pede. I’m going after the demon.” Then he ran towards the light and leapt through.

         On the other side of the portal was a land of mere desert. Armada saw the demon about to jump through a second portal, and started firing.
         The first bullet missed completely. The second hit it in the shoulder. And both the third and forth hit it straight in the back.
         Screaming, the demon made one last desperate bid and threw Ailia. She went screaming through the air, through the portal- and then both she and the portal dissipated.
         Armada swore and walked over to the demon.
         “Unless you want to die an extremely painful death,” he threatened “tell me what you just did.”
         “I don’t know,” the demon gasped through the pain “me and the others were just asked to kidnap some human kids from that school and others and send them through portals. In return, we could kill the rest of the people we met.”
         “Who sent you?”
         “`I don’t know. But soon, Armada, very soon… lord Potec will be free,” the demon finally smiled. Armada growled, and shot the demon three times in the back of the head.

         Armada came back out of the portal and returned to find the area clear of demons. Linyra, Aurora and Pede were all waiting.
         “It got away?” Aurora asked. Pede knew he probably should have been shocked by a talking polar bear, but he had just seen a demon kidnap a fellow schoolmate. He was willing to bet a lot of money that little would shock him from now on.
         “No. But it threw Ailia through a portal first.”
         “Damn it,” growled Linyra. Armada turned to Pede.
         “I should shoot you in the head for being so stupid. But right now I need to go after those students. Go back to your life Pede.”
         “No,” Pede suddenly decided.
         “What?”
         “I said no. I want to help you. Teach me how to kill demons. I want to help get our friends back.”
         Armada was silent a moment. Then he laughed grimly, the dark smile not reaching his eyes.
         “Do you have any idea what you’re asking? If you want to commit suicide, Pede, try a drug overdose.”
         Linyra, however, stepped forward.
         “Armada, I think you might as well send him to the Chaos Realm. If he survives, then we could use the help. If not… well, everyone on Earth will just assume he was among the un-recovered or dead.”
         “Chaos Realm?” Pede asked.
         “Oh, all right. No skin off my back,” Armada sighed. Then he began to mutter strange words.
         “What Chaos Realm?” Pede managed to say before he vanished from Earth.