Gabrielle woke up at Elega, and immediately rushed to the front gates. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw his black trenchcoat. He waved at her and she shouted at the guards to lift the gate. They obliged and she ran over and hugged him.
"Get on my back, we're going to go to the hideout I frequent," Skyler said and turned around and gestured with his index finger towards his back.
She saw that the bandages on his neck were gone, and a reflective golden rose head that was in full bloom was etched into the skin on the middle of the back of his neck, adorned with golden sepals as well.
"Wow, that's pretty! So that's what the mark looks like." She reached up to touch it, but noticed that there was still a small ring of scabbing around the edges of it. She pulled back her hand and frowned, remembering how painful it was for him to get it.
"Don't worry about it, just get on already." He gestured again,
"What, you're going to let me piggyback?" Gabrielle widened her eyes a bit, she wondered if he was trying to pay her back for her kindness when he was wounded.
"No, we're flying there," Skyler said, then sprouted spiky black wings out of his back.
Gabrielle gasped, she knew he wasn't human anymore but didn't know he had wings, she put a hand up to her mouth, and forgot what she was supposed to do, and just stared at him.
"Get on, we don't have much time, Wira only has a bit of time to teach me how to use that new contraption she and Nagix worked together to make," he said, gesturing for her to come closer.
She snapped out of her trance, shook her head and wrapped her arms over his neck. The sudden jolt that rocketed them into the air scared her, and she squeezed her arms around his neck without thinking.
"Ggk, relax, arms, can't, breathe." Skyler grabbed her arms and pulled at them gently.
She realized how hard she had been squeezing and relaxed her arms, but kept enough hold on his neck to keep her from falling off.
"Why are we flying? Why can't you just teleport me there?" Gabrielle shouted over the sound of the wind.
"And miss this view?" Skyler shouted back at her.
She looked down. He had flown off the main trail, and she could see a sea of bleached white trees below her. She gasped slowly, the trees were crystalline and caught the rays of the sun and reflected them back, making the branches sparkle with speckles of all the colors of the rainbow.
"It's beautiful," She said breathlessly.
"It's only like this in the winter, any other time of year the leaves get in the way of the branches. I'll bring you back here in the summer, too. The leaves on these trees are something else as well, it's like a sea of light." Skyler turned his head towards her and flashed her a smile, then turned his head back.
She tightened her grip a little as he sped up, the ground below started to zoom past them. The trees beneath suddenly broke to plain white ground. The border came into closer view, where the white ground suddenly turned pitch black beyond a certain point. She relaxed her grip again as he was slowing back down again. The landscape of the Dark Lands was covered in a network of human sized holes a little ways back, that's where those small creatures she believed to be Darklings lived. They flew past the stirred ground, and a sparse amount of spiky looking leafless black trees that slouched over in different directions came into view.
"We're almost there." Skyler pointed forward, the abandoned temple came into view, it's two gray brick towers poking up over the rest of its cathedral-esque structure.
"It's beautiful, why are you and the others the only people using it now?" Gabrielle turned her grip into something more of a hug, and rested her cheek on his shoulder.
"It used to be a temple that the Light Side used. After the Lords of Darkness took the swathe of land it was on, it was left unused." He took his left hand and placed it on top of hers.
They continued until they reached the front of the temple, and Skyler brought himself back up and landed softly. Gabrielle let go, and felt Skyler lightly pull on her hand before it slipped out from under its pressure.
They both went inside. Wira was sitting on the last bench closest to the opposite wall. Elaine was there as well, sitting close to the door that they both entered from, her arms folded and her body language was telling, she was antsy. There was a woman standing in between the first and second rows of tables with benches. She was tall, and had dark purple hair. Her beautiful violet colored eyes reflected the light from the glassless window from high up that was filtering in light. She wore a dark purple tank top with a necklace that had a dark purple, tear shaped gem at the end. She itched her hip through her black jeans, her black loafers making a shuffling noise as she scooted her left foot in front of herself.
"Ah, he's here." The woman turned towards Skyler and Gabrielle, gesturing towards Skyler with a warm smile.
"Oh, hey, Gabrielle, this is Zlyena, she's the one who trained me to fight. She's got some scary ability to sense how much magic someone or something has." Skyler pointed to Zlyena
"She's also both mine and my mother's guardian." Elaine snapped her head towards Skyler.
"What's with you, Elaine? You seem on edge." Skyler looked down at her worriedly.
"I snuck out, and I'm hoping that Kalan doesn't notice that I'm gone." Elaine turned away with a frown.
"Well, I guess he's still concerned for you after what happened, you not telling him what was going on might be the reason why he's being like that." Skyler shrugged
"He was bad before when Pain happened, but this is a whole other level of hovering. I had him go do some errands for me so I could sneak over here. I'm afraid of how closely he'll hover if he finds out I snuck out." She meekly looked back up at Skyler.
"Enough of that, come here." Wira gestured Skyler towards her, a single pauldron shaped contraption with wires and plates leading up to a wireless connector like Drake was given.
"Is that the thing that's going to help me kill Wrackivorn? That tiny centaur fuck is going to get it now." Skyler frowned and rolled up his sleeve.
"You have to take your trench coat off." Wira frowned, and pointed to him.
He looked down, then back at her. He took off his trenchcoat, and tossed it aside.
"There, better?" He flashed a small smile, and outstretched his arms.
"Your shirt too." Wira did a dismissive gesture with her left hand, her right keeping the machine on her lap.
"Oh, jeez... it won't work with a shirt on?" Skyler's face flushed gray, he put his arms down to his sides.
"What's wrong?" Gabrielle looked at him, he was looking straight down, she remembered that he'd only shown a little bit of the skin of his chest, enough to show his wounds. She never saw him with his shirt fully off.
"Okay, fine…" He mumbled, and grabbed the bottom of his shirt. He took it off, revealing the scars that were once wounds that were stitched up. The scars were black, like the one on his eye. He had a lightly toned six pack and his pectoral muscles were also lightly toned, and his chest was hairless.
"Wow, I didn't know you were such a beefcake." Gabrielle playfully pushed him and let out a giggle.
"I'm not though, I don't even work out, See these noodle arms?" He pointed to his upper arm that had almost no discernible muscle.
"Enough with the lovebird talk, get over here, I don't have much time, remember?" Wira gestured impatiently.
Skyler looked at Gabrielle, shrugged, turned back to Wira and walked up to her. He grabbed the machine from her lap and examined it.
"You sure this won't suck me into the Mainframe?" Skyler asked, reluctantly putting the device onto his shoulder and connecting it to his neck.
"Just turn it on with the switch in the back and see, if it sucks you in we'll know and I can fix it later." Wira folded her arms and crossed her legs.
He reached behind his neck and found the switch Wira was talking about, and flipped it. He grasped his head and his Fallen mouth came up with the familiar sound of bones crunching.
"Gabrielle, focus on the back of Skyler's neck and close your eyes." Zlyena gestured towards Skyler.
Gabrielle did just that, and felt a presence as she focused. She heard Skyler cry out, accompanied by the loud squelching sound of what sounded like a plant growing. She opened her eyes, there was raw flesh under Skyler's feet and it spread a few feet outwards.
"What happened?" She ran up to Skyler, who was in the process of slowly taking his hands off his head. She walked onto the pinkish red flesh and it made a wet squishing noise as she walked over it. She grabbed his left wrist and spun him around. His eyes looked distant, he looked ahead in a trance.
"What? What's going on?" Skyler asked as he snapped out of it and shook his head.
"Look down." Gabrielle pointed at the ground.
Skyler followed her finger to the floor, and his brow furrowed.
"The hell?" He put his right hand back on his head.
"What's that?" Elaine shouted.
Gabrielle spun to the side, a cloud of black smoke was floating two feet above the ground. A pitch black foot with four clawed toes in the front and one in the back came out of the bottom of the cloud. The second foot came with the rest of the humanoid creature, it had pitch black skin in the same areas Skyler did, with claws on her hands as well. It was a female form in a sleeveless black dress that had a wet oily texture and went down to her shins. The humanoid woman had a black mask on, her piercing eyes were black where its whites should have been, and the iris had no striations. The outer layer of color was a creamy yellow, it stopped in a perfect hard outline for the white color on the inner part of the iris. Two long thin and sharp black horns stuck out from behind the upper back part of the helix of her ear in a sixty degree angle, and was seven inches long. Her skin was a sickly gray color and had darker blemishes sparsely dotting her skin.
"Oh shit no, I'm out," Wira said, her voice trembling, she quickly stood up and bolted out of the temple.
"Where are you going? Come back!" Gabrielle shouted back at her, she hadn't let go of Skyler's wrist, to make sure that he knew that she was still focusing on him.
"Who is that?" Skyler turned towards the mysterious and woman, who was demonic in appearance.
"A friend," The woman said, her voice was smooth like honey, her slightly higher pitch made her voice sound light and unintimidating.
"If you were a friend, Wira wouldn't have bolted. I know she has a good sense of who is bad and who isn't." Skyler frowned and turned towards the woman with the sickly sweet voice.
"You should trust me, unlike that girl there. She's dangerous, you should kill her before she kills you." The mystery woman gestured towards Skyler, and he gripped his head again, a pained expression etched into his face.
"Hey! What are you doing to my nephew, asshole?" Elaine got up and went over to the woman in a stride. Once she got close enough, she shoved the woman. Elaine's lips curled in a snarl, her fangs in full view.
"Who the fuck are you?" The woman said, her voice went from sweet to a demonic growl in no time flat.
"I should be asking you the same thing, bitch." Elaine put the back of her left hand up to her breast, and her other hand directly under in a loose fist. Sigils materialized from her left palm and a bastard sword materialized. She brandished it, and pointed it at the woman.
"Fucking again? I'm sick of this." Skyler was frowning as much as he could, his hands were no longer on his head, they were balled into fists at his sides.
"Drop it." The woman gestured towards Elaine. After a few seconds of nothing happening, Elaine burst into maniacal laughter.
"You think you can manipulate me? My mind needs to be an impenetrable fortress, using the kind of magic I do. Black magic usually drives people nuts, and I've learned how to use extremely powerful black magic spells without a single thing happening to my mind." Elaine boasted, her snarl turned into a toothy and prideful grin.
"Fuck, I've had enough of this." The woman raised her hand and brought it down, a translucent white residual version of her arm where it was before she brought it down appeared, and stretched upwards and forwards in an unnatural manner.
The stretched version of the woman's arm narrowly missed Elaine, who leaned backwards to avoid it, leaned back too far and fell back onto her rear end.
"Elaine, don't! She's dangerous with that power!" Skyler shouted towards Elaine, who was in the process of getting up.
She rubbed her rear end, her smile faded as soon as the strange stretchy arm came down, it went right through her sword so it was impossible for her to defend herself.
"No, fuck that! I'll kill her anyways!" Elaine pointed her sword towards the woman again.
"No, you have to run!" Skyler put his hands out in front of himself, to gesture for her to stop.
"Stop it!" Gabrielle shouted and closed her eyes. A translucent orb of magic with golden sigils encased her, and an area of the orb that was facing the woman lit up.
Skyler pulled his hand away from the area just in time before a beam of light shot out from the orb, hitting the woman. An ear piercing screech rang out and a sizzling noise accompanied the cooking of the woman's flesh under the light magic. The beam stopped and the woman was covered with burns, and smoke was slowly rising from her body. Elaine walked up to her and pushed her over. She stepped on the woman's chest and pointed her bastard sword at her neck.
"Serves you right." Elaine leaned over the charred body below her.
"Fuck this thing." Skyler reached back and turned the machine off and promptly lifted it off his shoulder. He raised it up over his head.
Gabrielle grabbed his arms and kept him from throwing the machine on the ground. A loud screeching noise came from the woman as she dissipated into ash, Elaine's foot landing on the floor.
"No, don't! We need it!" Gabrielle squeaked.
"I've had ten lifetimes worth of that shit and I don't want to go through another second of it again." Skyler kept trying to throw the machine, but Gabrielle was pulling back on his arms, making it impossible for him to throw it.
"She's right, you shouldn't destroy it. It's the only thing that will bring you and Wrackivorn onto the same playing field." Zlyena walked up to them, and stopped a few feet away.
"Fine, I won't. But I'm not using this fucking thing unless I absolutely have to." Skyler let the machine down slowly, and Gabrielle let go of her grip on his arms.
"That's the idea. I'm thinking maybe Gabrielle needs some training to counter that Aspect's appearance." Zlyena gestured with an open hand towards Gabrielle.
"Sure, if it'll make Skyler feel safer when he uses it." Gabrielle turned towards her, and she smiled and nodded in return.
"Well, if you don't need me anymore, I'm going to slip back into my office before Kalan finds out I'm gone." Elaine turned around and walked out.
"I'll have to do the training either here or after I get off work or I have a day off, I can't forgo work for training." Gabrielle extended an open hand, gesturing with her head for Zlyena to shake it.
"Deal, Skyler already gave me your number so I'll call you sometime tonight before you go to bed." Zlyena grabbed her hand and shook it, a smile still on her face.
She let go of Zlyena's hand and turned to Skyler, who returned her gaze with a nervous smile, he turned to pick up his clothes, and put down the machine that he now hated, even though it was the only thing that could help him stop Wrackivorn.
The weird woman freaked her out, but she was glad that Elaine was there to help, and that she had enough power to stop the woman from hurting anyone. She wondered what that weird ability that woman used was, and why Skyler was able to recognize it enough to determine how bad the situation was. She was thankful that someone was going to help her out with training besides the Mystic, who she rarely saw nowadays. She wondered how one woman was so ingrained in the lives of everyone important to her. She thought about how nice it was that Zlyena helped out so many people, and thought she should try to be more like her in the future.
Read the rest of the book here: https://www.moonquill.com/book/46