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Chapter 44: In Hiding An assortment of Traced weapons lay on a Traced weapon rack beside me. I had tried out every single weapon I could think of, even a Gundam's beam cannon. Lacus would be jealous. I picked up a mace and gave it a little twirl. It dropped to the ground after a few revolutions. I was getting tired. Trace really took a lot out of me, but maybe that was because I used it so many times. I closed my eyes and all of the weapons I had Traced disappeared. When I got back to the tent, I Traced a pot and some firewood. "Hey wait, I've never cooked before!" I murmured absent-mindedly, putting some of Sevin's herbs into the pot and conjuring water out of nothing. Fighting wasn't the only thing the Dark Angel was good at. A few minutes later, I had brewed some kind of soup that smelled like honey. "What's this...?" I stared at it. Suddenly, it occured to me that my stomach was grumbling. I scooped a handful of the soup and drank it instinctively. A burning sensation dropped down my throat and my stomach seemed to fill up magically. "Hmmm. So all we need for food is this." I muttered. Alexis walked out of the tent and eyed the potion hungrily. "Just 1 handful, or else you'll start vomiting." I instructed her. Sevin had walked off to find firewood. A wasted effort. He gasped when he saw my Traced firewood. "I didn't find anything anyway." he shrugged and looked at the potion. He lifted the pot up and drank from it hungrily as I yelled at him. A few seconds later, he was vomiting. "Should have told me earlier!" he said angrily, wiping vomit from his mouth. "Ok, look. This Dark Angel thing is creeping me out." Alexis told me that night. I had traced a larger tent for us while Sevin took the smaller one. "Same here." I sighed. "Can't you do anything about your wings?" Alexis complained after I lifted a wing she was sleeping on. "Sorry." I apologized and closed my wings around myself. "Wait." Something from the Dark Angel's past flashed through my eyes. It seemed that she was able to take on a human form! I closed my eyes and concentrated. My wings, horns and claws shot back into my body and my scaly skin smoothened out, becoming my normal skin again. I blinked and my hair turned blonde. "Nice. We look alike now." Alexis smirked. The next morning was rather uneventful, unless you count Alexis scorching her finger on a cooking pot. Even in my normal form, I could use demon spells. Using the laptop I had Traced yesterday, I brought up the MapleNet website again. The front page still had a picture of my demon face on it, except now, my normal face was shown beside it. Someone had done some checking and found out my face was the same as the Dark Angel's. That someone had probably put that fact with the fact that I lived in the exact same house as the one I had escaped from in my demon form and called the police. "I guess there's no turning back now." I muttered sadly and blinked. My hair turned bright turquoise. "I could get used to this." I remarked, blinking again. My hair turned pink. I called a meeting that night and we sat around a table I had Traced on chairs I had also Traced. Alexis was obviously getting spooked. "This chair doesn't feel right." she mumbled, adjusting her position every now and then. "So what do we do now? My face is on every wanted poster on the island." I sighed. "And someone's probably caught the little episode where we busted through the roof on camera." Alexis groaned. "Try to clear your name?" Sevin suggested. "Dark Angel's dead. How am I supposed to get a non-existent person, or rather demon, to bail me out?" I sighed again. "I suppose the only thing we can do now is try to find Saevio by ourselves." I grumbled. "How do we find him then?" Alexis asked. I blinked and my hair turned red. "No idea." I shrugged, fingering my new hair. "Might wanna start off by finding out what that is." Sevin pointed at a strange object dangling from a nearby tree. "Probably an apple or...... Crap." I gasped. It was a ball-shaped object with what appeared to be a lens under it. "A Sentry. They found us." I breathed. Sentries were magical tools used to observe people from a safe distance. It was easily mistaken as a fruit. Now how did I know that? "We need to move. Now." I closed my eyes. The entire Traced camp disappeared and my hair turned black again. "That's better." I thought. However, just as the three of us turned to leave, a massive heat haze lingered in the air. "DUCK!" I shouted and pulled Alexis and Sevin down. A dozen Fire Arrows collided in the air where our heads had been a moment earlier and an entire ring of Magicians appeared out of nowhere. "Damn." I cursed. The Magicians began chanting an incantation. My demon mind automatically cross-referenced it between the Dark Angel's past memories to check for what the spell did. "Imprison." I gasped. I had no choice now. In my human form, I was almost completely defenseless. Being half-demon did have a few advantages. I closed my eyes and concentrated, hoping I would be able to fully transform before the Imprison spell was completed. Alexis and Sevin were up, staring at the Magician ring. I flinched as my wings burst out of my back, taking a bit of my blood with them. My fingernails sharpened, becoming claws. My ears became pointed and two demon horns shot out of my head. My skin became scaly. This time, something was different. My back felt slightly heavier than usual. I grabbed Sevin and Alexis and in a second, I was somewhere in the upper atmosphere. "Can't...... breath......" Alexis gagged. "Sorry." I apologized and let myself drop a few metres. I looked down. A small clearing had been blown out by the force of my wings, and the Magicians were nowhere to be seen. I looked a bit further and saw one sprawled on top of a tree. "You......" Sevin gasped. "What?" I looked around wildly. "Your wings......" Alexis pointed at my back. I looked. Another pair of demonic wings had burst out of my back. No wonder I felt heavier. "I'd say you're about 60% demon right now." the Phoenix said thoughtfully. I lingered too long in the air, waiting for Sevin and Alexis to get their breath back. I noticed a few Magicians looking up at me from the ground. They seemed eager to capture me. No doubt a few of them would plan something daring. I wasn't entirely right. One Magician brought a telescope with a strange orb for the eyepiece, and more Magicians gathered around it. Again, my demon mind checked it, but found nothing on it. I presumed it was just a watching tool. I was wrong. A few seconds later, a spell shot out of the telescope and hit my wings. "Uhoh." I started to fall, my wings frozen. "Long-range spell amplifier." the Dark Dragon noted as I hit the ground on all fours. Sevin and Alexis were shaken, but fine. "Argh......" I groaned and collapsed. My wings felt too heavy for me to move them. "Got you now, you demon." someone said. I had collapsed with my frozen wings on top of Sevin and Alexis, and they were immobilized. Trying to break the ice wouldn't work, my demon powers still hadn't completely awoken yet. I heard the Magicians chanting an Imprison spell again, but I was unable to move. A minute or so later, there was a shining web of white magic surrounding me. Just being bathed in the light hurt! I moaned in pain. "Get Grendel, he'll know what to do." someone suggested. "No need, I am already here." the familiar voice of the Magician job master rang through the clearing. "This demon...... is the one that set Kerning City ablaze?" I felt Grendel's eyes boring into me. "Yes. We must avenge our fellow maplers!" I heard a staff being stabbed into the ground and braced myself. I tried to call out to Grendel, tell him I was innocent, but my mouth was buried in the ground. "Speak, demon. I want to know where you are from." he spoke. All that came out of my mouth was a muffled "How can I talk when my mouth is buried in the ground!?" There was a cracking sound from my stomach and it felt painful. The weight of my frozen wings was starting to crush me! Grendel heard it too, for all of a sudden, the magical prison revolved and I was lying on my back. For the first time in this life, I was staring into the face of the wisest Magician in the world. He did a double take when he saw my face. "Hi, Grendel." I said weakly and passed out. |
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