The Unknown RP

Chapter 45- Kairys

Kairys

I sat with my back pressed against the uncomfortable stone wall, trying not to breathe too heavily. The air was rancid, and I wanted to disappear.

The entire cave was quiet. My wrist was either sprained or broken, and my ribs throbbed with pain from when I had fallen against the cave wall. The commander sat a few paces away, rolling her wrist absently, like she was twisting an invisible whip.

Two hours. It had been two hours since Rahne had fallen through the Portal, two hours that Gil had been trying to wake her up. The mood was quite subdued. I glanced at the commander out of the corner of my eye; she looked peeved, probably because she couldn't do anything...neither of us could. I could see Charlie's slumped form on the shelf. I didn't know if she was asleep or just faking, and I didn't want to check, seeing as all of our weapons were gathered behind her.

The demon's bonds couldn't hold me. I supposed it was my Angel strength--after a bit of tugging and biting back more than a few swear words, they were loose, and I was off to free Gil and Seraphina, ignoring the curious way Charlie was glancing at me. No sooner had I freed Gil than he had rushed to Rahne's unconscious form.

And so we had remained, frozen in this charade, for two hours.

The air shimmered, and buzzed, and our heads snapped up at once. A grey Portal swirled into existence with agonizing lethargy.

It expanded into its full size, and...

Nothing happened.

Bit of an anticlimax. It hung there, in the cavern, like an oversized translucent moon, and we glanced at each other in slight confusion.

And then the mangled body of Simile and Metaphor's combined form was tossed through the Portal, landing with a thump on the hard ground, and then finally rolling to a stop before my feet. The body brought on an even more rancid stench.

We stared in shock for a moment, and then Charlie stood up on the shelf, stretching her arms, and then picked up Seraphina's whip and haphazardly coiled it together, and jammed it into her belt. She yawned, and gracefully leapt from the shelf, rolling to a stop before the Portal. "I guess this changes-"

A blur of movement, the Portal disappearing with a snup, and Charlie was suddenly crashing into the jagged rock on the far wall, and slumped to the ground, barely moving. I barely had time to register what was happening but the commander was already moving, sprinting towards Charlie's unconscious form, and her whip was in her hand and with a crack it ignited, meeting the ground where the demon had just been. The demon launched itself towards Rahne's unconscious form, but she wasn't unconscious, she had rolled herself out of the way, and Gil reached for his knife but then stopped as his hand met nothing but the fabric of his jeans.

The demon was a whirlwind, unstoppable, and the four of them-it, Gil, Rahne, and Seraphina were locked in a deadly dance that blurred and shifted before my eyes. But we were losing. The rocks couldn't catch fire, and the demon seemed to regard the whip only as an annoyance, darting around it to give the commander a neat incision up her stomach. Gil was on it in a second, bringing a piece of rock down on its neck, but it was clever and unpredictable, hissing something in another language as it darted around. Like a coward I was backed against a corner, torn between wanting to help and wanting to survive the day. I owed these people something, after all, they had saved my life. I couldn't just stand here as they battled to their deaths...

As it turned out, the fight came to me. Cornered from three sides, the demon hurtled straight towards me.

Panicked, I shoved my hands out, and the demon stopped abruptly, spitting something out in that strange language. I was aware of Rahne, muttering something in the same tone, almost like they were having a battle of words alone...terror flowed through me and my heartbeat throbbed and pulsed, and shadows ebbed and flowed through the cave like a shifting river, twisting themselves around the demon and into the shape of a noose-

The demon laughed and with a sharp incantation, the shadows disappeared, and it dropped back onto the ground. "I'm delighted," it chuckled. "Finally you start to prove your worth...however small that is, but we can always improve..."

I shoved my hands out again, glared at the shadows, tried to force them into shapes and coil around the demon, but they wouldn't move. "What are you talking about?"

The demon snorted. "Of course you wouldn't know, you're a daft one-who else uses their magic on the colours on their head-"

"Hair dye-"

"But the point is..." it turned to Rahne. "Your group is just full of surprises, isn't it? Consider me impressed, but I am going to have to dispose of the rather expendable ones." And then, quick as lightning, it had Charlie in one claw and Gil in the other, one unconscious, the other incensed. "So, which one would you rather die a faster death..."