Korrozak flew as fast as he could over the forest. His lungs were burning and his wounds stung. He suddenly spotted an arrow flying straight towards him. He quickly stopped and raised . He looked down to see a small group of people below him. Two of them had crossbows and the other four were unarmed. The people with the crossbows shot at him again. Korrozak dodged the first easily but the other one scraped his left cheek. A third arrow struck in his right arm and he winced in pain. Distracted by the arrows, he didn't notice the fireball that was shot at him from behind, knocking him out of the sky. He crashed through the branches and fell to the ground. He lifted himself up with his arms and coughed.
"There he is!" he heard just behind him. The group of people he saw earlier were standing before him, weapons in hand. The four that didn't have weapons before each had a club or bat. To his right, another person walked out of the trees, towing a chained boy behind him. The boy was a demon just like him. He had pale blond hair and golden eyes and only had ragged clothes on him. He was very thin and covered in dirt and mud. He had cuts and bruises everywhere and his arms and neck were chained. His wings had clamps on them to keep them from moving and he wore a dull expression. Korrozak stood up as quickly as possible and grabbed his injured arm with his other hand and got in a defensive position. "Nice job!" The man in the front praised the newcomer.
"It didn't take much effort to get this guy to use his magic. Good thing you spotted this one flying carelessly through the sky." the man with the chains stood proudly. "And look! He's missing a wing! Did this punk's fireball do that much damage?" he asked, pointing at the little boy.
"He was already injured and missing the wing when I spotted him." The group of people turned back to Korrozak. He took a cautious step back. "What's your name, pretty boy?"
"N-None of your business." he huffed.
"Well, smartypants, that's an interesting eye you got there." the man observed. His look turned dark. "I hate it. If you come with us, I can fix it for you."
"All you would need to do is swear to be our loyal servant for the rest of your life!" a girl squealed. "Although you're going to come with us whether you like it or not. It would be in your best interest to come obediently before we get rough." Just great. Demon slavers. I really can't deal with this right now. Korrozak gritted his teeth and took another step back, shaking his head.
"I guess we'll have to give you a little of a beating then." the man in the front stated, cracking his knuckles and advancing on Korrozak. He pulled his arm back to punch Korrozak just as Korrozak raised his left hand. As the man threw his fist at Korrozak, a yellow magic circle appeared in front of Korrozak's hand and a barrier appeared between them, blocking the man's punch.
"So you can use magic. That just makes you more valuable." The man stepped back to let another man walk forward. This one was bigger and more muscular than the other man. He had a metallic looking bat although he wasn't sure if it was actually metal. Either way, Korrozak kept up his barrier. The man with the bat rested the bat behind his head, then twisted around, swinging the bat at Korrozak at the same time. His barrier instantly shattered, throwing Korrozak back from the impact. He fell to the ground and looked up to see the first man holding a knife to his throat.
"What a weak barrier. Let's cut off his other wing so that he can't fly away." the guy with the metal bat suggested.
"Stand up." the man with the knife ordered. Korrozak slowly rose up. Once he was standing again, he unfolded his second pair of wings and pulled out his sword. Instantly, he slashed at them, forcing them back a bit. They all smiled.
"Look, he has two pairs of wings. We might want to sell this one after we capture him." a different girl stated.
"Let's see if he can fight." the man with the sword smiled. Suddenly, a person with a club whacked Korrozak on the back of the head and he collapsed. "Seriously? I wanted to fight him." the man with the sword exclaimed.
"It would be dangerous. Double paired demons are tougher than single paired ones like the boy." Korrozak lifted himself slightly off the ground and quickly swung at the person behind him. He dodged and rejoined the others.
"Tough one, isn't he?" the man with the sword asked. Korrozak shifted backwards. The man with the sword swung at him, knocking his sword out of his hand when he tried to block and making him slump on the ground against a tree. Korrozak was extremely exhausted and his vision was starting to blur. His breathing was heavy and his head hurt a lot from the bat. The group started advancing on him and he raised his hand to cast a fire spell but the man with the sword slapped it away before kicking him in the face, knocking him out.
"That was tougher than I thought. He sure put up a fight. If he wasn't so badly injured before we found him, he probably would've won." the man observed.
"Alright doggie, tie him up and drag him back to our base." the man with the chains ordered. The boy nodded and pulled out some rope. He tied up Korrozak and dragged him with the group as they walked through the forest.
~ * ~
When Korrozak woke up, he was in a dark room, lit only by little torches perched on the wall. The room was made of cold stone with one wall made of iron bars. He was laying on a pile of straw and when he sat up he saw a bucket filled with water on the other side of the room but other than that the room was completely empty. He remembered what happened to him and examined his body. He was covered in bandages and his arms and feet were chained together. Both of his pairs of wings had clamps on them, keeping them from spreading out. His clothes were tattered rags, which he found disappointing. He switched his clothes into slightly tattered regular clothes. He stood up and walked over to the bars and looked out of them. Opposite his cell was another cell with the boy in it. There were two other cells along the hallway, both of which were empty. At the far end of the hallway to the right was a door and to the left was a dead end. The door swung open and the guy with the sword, although he didn't have a sword any more, walked in with a wooden plate. On the plate were five red apples. Korrozak took a step back and waited for the guy to walk over. He turned and tossed four of the five apples in the little boy's cage. He turned to throw the remaining apple when he caught sight of Korrozak.
"Well lookie here. The cat's up and running. Or should I say demon?" the man snickered. "The name's Vytal. You are going to either address me as 'Lord Vytal', 'Master Vytal' or I guess just 'Master' is good enough." He tossed the apple to Korrozak, who caught it. Vytal smirked at him before turning away to leave. As he was walking away, an apple suddenly flew at him from behind, hitting him on the back of the head which startled him enough to drop the plate he was holding. The plate clattered on the floor and Vytal turned slowly around with a menacing look. Korrozak was sitting down, munching on his apple. He turned to the boy and saw he still had his four apples. Korrozak noticed Vytal was giving off an evil aura and turned to face him.
"Ith ther a proleh?" Korrozak asked through a mouthful of apple.
"Did you happen to see who it was that hit me with that apple?" he asked, trying to contain his anger.
"What apple?"
"That apple right there!" Vytal turned to point at the apple that hit him but there wasn't anything there. He looked around but the only apples he could see were the ones Korrozak and the boy were eating.
"You can use magic, right? Can you duplicate or make things?" Vytal asked.
"Yeah." Korrozak examined Vytal after finishing his apple. "You seem stupid enough for it to work."
"What? Are you saying I'm stupid!?" he roared.
"At least negative IQ." Korrozak determined. "Even so, I can only recreate things I have seen or come in contact with. It would technically be possible to recreate a living creature but they wouldn't be able to do anything except stand around since all animals require a soul to animate them. Therefore, any duplicate of a living creature would either be dead or lifeless."
"Dead and lifeless are the same thing." Vytal muttered.
"Not how I think of it. I think of 'dead' as a plant or animal that is damaged in a way that prevents them from harboring a life. I think of 'lifeless' as never or no longer having a soul to animate the body. Technically, that would mean they are still alive but they are basically dead." Korrozak retorted. Vytal just stared at Korrozak with a weirded out look. Korrozak stared back cluelessly.
"What?"
"What."
"You're going to be a pain to deal with." he sighed.
"You bet I am." Korrozak gave a dark look and smiled eerily. He then pointed at Vytal. "You caught me, literally, when I was in a bad mood. Now I'm going to make your life mis-er-a-ble until you let me out of this hellhole."
"Ha! Like I'm ever going to let you leave. Double paired demons are really valuable." Vytal smirked proudly.
"If you're trying to look cool or pretty, stop. Your normal looks are hard enough to deal with as they are, I don't need you looking more like the swine you are." Korrozak complained. Vytal didn't lose his smirk, but he was seriously straining himself to keep his smile. Korrozak didn't seem to notice and continued. "I noticed you lost your sword. What happened? Made a scarecrow with it to keep the crows away from your living corpse? I'm pretty sure some of the other twigs that were with you would do a better job. Although you already look kinda scary by yourself so I don't understand why you'd need a scarecrow in the first place." Vytal clenched his fist tightly and held it up.
"You looking for a knuckle sandwich?" he asked as his voice trembled.
"I would love a sandwich right now, especially if it was made out of your knuckles. But unless there's a door I doubt you could fit into my cell. Pigs that feed off the misfortune of others can't fit in tight spaces. You do seem heavy enough to make a dent in the bars so I guess you could manage somewhat." Korrozak observed. Vytal only got angrier. Korrozak continued to ramble on until Vytal slammed the cell door open and grabbed him by the back of the brace that was around his neck, dragging him towards the door at the end of the hallway. An apple core bounced off the top of Vytal's head and he paused.
"Whoops, my hand slipped." Korrozak said, sounding more bored than sorry.
"Oh, you're going to get it now. I'm gonna torture you 'till you drop dead." Vytal hissed through gritted teeth.
"You need strength to torture someone for that long." Korrozak countered. Vytal turned around and stared directly into Korrozak's eyes.
"Speak another word and I'm going to cut out your tongue so you never speak again." he threatened. Korrozak just shrugged indifferently. Vytal continued to drag him through the door. Beyond the door was a spacious cylindrical room with a spiral staircase in the center and five more doors leading out of it. The guy who had been with the boy the other day walked out of the first door to the left and spotted Vytal and Korrozak. He placed a hand over his face and sighed.
"Vytal, it hasn't even been an hour since we got him. What happened to make you take him to the torture room? Is he refusing to talk so you want to beat some sense into him?" the guy asked.
"You have no idea how much this guy won't shut up! He managed to make everything he said an insult and he was well aware of what he was saying. Not only that but he kept throwing stuff at me when my back was turned." he complained.
"I told you already, my hand slipped!" Korrozak complained.
"A 'hand slip' doesn't get an applecore from the floor onto my head. AND I SAID NOT ANOTHER WORD OUT OF YOU!!" Vytal yelled. His face was beet red with fury. He turned to his friend. "You may be the calmest and most composed of all of us here, Keshay, but even he would get on your nerves." Keshay looked down at Korrozak, who shook his head innocently.
"He doesn't seem too bad. I think we would get along pretty well." Keshay smiled.
"But he spews trash with every word speaks! He's like an overflowing river of insults."
"He seems pretty passive. I mean, he's hardly said anything since I last saw him." Vytal looked down at Korrozak, who looked back with a murderous smile that made him shudder.
"Tell me you saw that."
"Saw what?"
"That look he gave me. He really wants to kill me." Keshay looked back at Korrozak. Korrozak frowned and gave him puppy eyes.
"He looks innocent to me."
"What!"
"He might be messing with you. Newbies are always like that." Keshay noted. He then sighed and turned towards the starwell. "You have fun torturing our new prisoner! Just try not to kill him. He hasn't finished recovering from his old wounds." he called as he ascended the stairs.
"Oh, I will have lots of fun." Vytal muttered as he dragged Korrozak towards the door on the opposite side of the room. Inside was another huge cylindrical room. To the right was a passage leading to some sort of control room. In the middle of the cylindrical room were two sets of chains attached to braces that were bolted to the floor. Once the door closed behind them, Vytal connected the ends of the two chains to the braces around Korrozak's wrists and walked over to the little room. Suddenly, Korrozak burst out laughing.
"That was so hilarious! He thought I looked innocent!" he wheezed. Vytal walked back to Korrozak with a whip in hand.
"I'm going to torture you and starve you until you call me 'Master'. Then I'll let you go back to your cell." he smiled. "See, I'm being generous. It's just a few words."
"Words can be more powerful than your whips."
"Should I verbally torture you then?"
"You need brains for that, which you're obviously lacking."
"What's so bad about saying a few words?"
"Sometimes, words hurt more than daggers. Whether it's your mind or pride, it will still hurt." Korrozak replied. "As a free citizen of this country, I refuse to call anyone, except myself, 'Master', especially if they are undeserving of the title." Vytal looked at him like he was a crazy person.