Chronicles of Eden - Act XII Read online

  “Control?” Felucia shouted at her. “Look at what he did! How is that control? He could have incinerated us in that blast! What makes you think he has any idea what he’s doing?”

  Clover glanced behind them at what remained of the temple chamber then smiled in awe at Daniel.

  “That’s why you asked if Grace was here first. That’s why you wanted us to move aside. That whole bit you did faking your first swing.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Felucia snapped.

  “He pretended not to know how to use that to get the gemini to laugh at him and lower their guard,” Clover snapped back with a sharp grin. “He had us move to the side so we wouldn’t be blasted out the windows and thrown down to Green Haven when he did unleash that sword’s full power on those assholes. My man knows damn well what he’s doing, so show some goddamned gratitude that we’re here to help save you.”

  “Okay, first off, fuck you,” Felucia retorted, shoving a finger hard against Clover’s chest as the two girls glared at each other, with Daniel still watching something closely before them. “Secondly, he just destroyed your priestess’ sacred temple or whatever this dump is to you, don’t you care? Third, that moron has no idea what he’s doing. If either of you had a clue as to what those two bitches really are then you should know you can’t kill them! You only piss them off when you attack them! Fourth, some rescue! Sounds like your forest is burning to the ground down there and we’re surrounded by vicious monsters! How is any of this going according to your plan?”

  “Hey!” Daniel shouted, with the two girls then turning to him before noticing the gemini once again standing amidst the charred rubble.

  “We hate to interrupt you two,” Jovian mused, the woman now standing completely nude alongside her sister as they had their swords held up while casually running a hand across their enchanted blades.

  “But Felucia does have a point,” Jacqueline empathetically agreed. “Daniel here just demolished your priestess’ lovely home. Your forest is burning to the ground as we can easily hear and smell from here. Daniel does indeed appear to be forgetting that we cannot die. And, yes, you are surrounded by our dear friends who aren’t going to bat an eyelash if we lose any elves here today.”

  “Though I must say,” Jovian said with a coy smile. “I am impressed a little by your efforts, Daniel. Don’t misunderstand, you’ve made a grave error coming here, but I do applaud your bravery and ability to actually fight for once in your pathetic life. It’s not much to commend you on, but hey, at least you’ve done something noteworthy for once.”

  “You see?” Felucia yelled at Clover, waving to the gemini while Daniel continued to stare them down. “They! Can’t! Die! All that bullshit did was piss them off and strip them of their clothes! How the fuck do you plan to help anyone?”

  “A good question,” Jovian carelessly agreed.

  “I have a better one,” Jacqueline purred. “How much do you think Daniel here would cry if we murdered both his little elf and that sassy sand wraith right before his very eyes?”

  “Oh my, that is a better question,” Jovian conceded with a dark grin. “I say we find out.”

  Clover and Felucia watched in nervous silence as the gemini held their weapons at the ready towards them, with Jovian’s Hellstorm letting off crackling arcs of electricity that gleamed in her eyes while Jacqueline’s Ice Princess gave off a chilling aura that was just as cold as its wielder. Jovian and Jacqueline giggled and took a step forward before Daniel quickly stepped forth and sliced his blade down to his side while holding a hand out towards them.

  “Your fight is with me,” he firmly declared. “You wanted me, didn’t you? I’m the one you two wanted all along. Well, here I am. If you want to try and hurt me, then come after me.”

  “Dan, what the fuck are you doing?” Clover nervously asked.

  “You got a death wish, kid?” Felucia bewilderedly said.

  The twins merely watched Daniel with cruel smiles while poised to fight, his eyes glancing back to the two girls who were staring at him worriedly from behind before he glared at the gemini again.

  “Clover, help Felucia find Cindy, and get them and all of your people out of this forest. Stick to the plan.”

  “But-”

  “Do not argue with me, Clover!” Daniel shouted, the elf jumping back with a squeak as he kept his eyes locked onto the twins. “You need to get your people out of here. You need to get yourself out of here. So get going while I deal with these two.”

  “But you can’t kill-”

  “Clover!” Daniel yelled, looking back to the elf who jumped further back with a yelp. “I know what I’m doing! You know what you need to do! Now stop fighting me and do as you’re told!”

  “Wow, Daniel,” Jovian purred. “Cracking that whip hard, aren’t you?”

  “Such a strong, little man,” Jacqueline mocked. “It’s cute you want to protect her and all, but what makes you think we’re going to let any of you go? You’re all going to play with us, until you all break.”

  “No,” Daniel corrected her. “Like I said, your fight is only with me.”

  Without pause he wound back with his sword, the gemini tensing up as they prepared for another magical onslaught from him, only to then watch as he swung all the way around and down towards the ground behind him. With a powerful strike he tore through the floor of the meeting chamber with flames and cinders rupturing from the impact, a splintering and fiery crevice streaking across the floor erratically before stopping as it hit the end where the windows were blown out. Clover and Felucia looked around at the split that was carved down the middle of the room’s floor then turned to Daniel as he was winding back with his sword again.

  “You two are leaving, now,” he ordered, then swung down into the floor again. The second crevice sliced outward and ran past the elf and sand wraith before hitting the wall to the side, with the ground below them creaking with a growing rumble. Clover and Felucia blinked then turned to Daniel in surprise just as the floor beneath them gave away, the clipped section they were on dropping down like a board before crashing into the kitchen of the temple with a loud crash. The two girls screamed as they rolled down the incline onto the ground while tables with dishes and glasses shattered under the fallen ramp.

  “Dan!” Clover cried out as she hit the bottom, on top of Felucia who hit the ground face first with a small splatter of sand. She looked up to see Daniel smiling at her with the Hellfire’s Edge flaring up at his side.

  “I’ll hold them off for as long as I can,” he told her. “Get everyone out of here just as we planned.”

  “No, Dan!” Clover screamed as she scrambled to her feet. She watched with fright Daniel then turning to face the gemini, giving the Hellfire’s Edge a quick twirl at his side before holding it with both hands as he stared the twins down.

  “I trust you’ll get the job done, Clover. Trust me that I’ll survive with you.”

  “But… Dan…”

  “Trust me,” Daniel said glancing back down to her. “I will see you again, and I will make you my woman when this is over with.”

  Clover’s eyes widened, staring in stunned silence at him even while Felucia knocked her aside and got back up with a grumble and a slowly reforming face.

  “Trust me, Clover,” Daniel repeated as he turned his eyes back to the gemini. “I will return for you. Nothing in Eden could ever keep me from you. And nothing will keep us from making a family together.”

  “Dan…” Clover breathed out.

  “I’m the only one you’re playing with here,” Daniel boldly told the twins. “Enough with your hesitation of dealing with me personally. You want to cause me pain? You want to make me scream? You want to kill me? Well, here I am!”

  With that Daniel ran towards the gemini sisters with a furious yell, his sword flaring wildly at his side as the twins laughed at his approach.

  “Dan…” Clover softly said, holding a hand tightly to her chest. She shook her head and s
truggled with her mate’s order while Felucia finished regenerating her face.

  “That guy’s fucking insane, isn’t he?” she muttered with a twitch of her nose, the woman slowly walking towards the doorway while the elf heard thundering booms above them. Clover growled furiously then grabbed Felucia’s hand, quickly leading her out of the kitchen and into a hallway that she led the stumbling sand wraith down.

  “Shut the fuck up!” Clover snapped. “He just saved our lives and he’s fighting those demons to buy us time to get the hell out of here!”

  “Like I said, fucking insane,” Felucia repeated shaking her head. Clover instantly stopped, turned, and slapped the wraith’s face that blew to the side in a puff of sand.

  “Don’t you DARE talk about my man like that!” Clover raged. She shoved Felucia against the wall, watching with rage as the wraith reformed with an annoyed look on her face. “He is risking his life to save you, me, and every elf in this forest, to stall those demons so they don’t come after us, to give us a fucking chance of getting out of this mess! If it wasn’t for him you’d be those bitches’ plaything until they decided to burn you to dust! You owe him your life just as I do, and you’d better show him some goddamned respect or so help me I will light an arrow ablaze and shove it all the way up your ass!”

  Felucia stared at her in stunned silence before they looked up to the sounds of thundering clashes of steel and crackling energy erupting above them.

  “He knows damned well he can’t kill them,” Clover stated with a stern glare the sand wraith. “Yet he’s up there right now, fighting those two monsters, all so we can get away from them. If those two get down from this tree they could kill anyone they want, every elf they see, and even your own daughter who’s here helping us evacuate this forest because unlike you she actually gives a damn about other people!”

  “Cindy is… what?” Felucia bewilderedly asked. Clover grabbed her hand and again quickly led her down the hall as the wraith stared at her confusedly.

  “And for the record I’m only saving your ass because my man told me to!” Clover barked out. “Anyone who dares speak ill of him in front of me would have more to worry about than gemini coming for their skin, and don’t you forget that!”

  *****

  Up above on the exposed floor of the temple Daniel sprinted towards the gemini while trailing a fiery wave behind his sword beside him, running right up to the monsters before he dodged to the side and swung his weapon around. Jovian quickly jumped forward and clashed her blade against his, a backlash of flames and electricity firing off at an angle as the Dark Queen held his weapon in place. With a hearty laugh Jacqueline merrily twirled around her sister and swung at Daniel with her sword, the deadly-cold blade freezing the air it sliced through as Daniel lunged to the side away from it, albeit still feeling a painful chill streaking across his arm from the near-contact it made with her runestone weapon. The freezing blade struck the Hellfire’s Edge on its way down, knocking Daniel’s blade and himself off-balance while a flash of steam and frost blew from the impact. Spinning around her sister in a dancing motion Jovian swung her sword at him, with Daniel anchoring himself with one foot and throwing all his weight into an upward block with his own. He clashed against Jovian’s Hellstorm, knocking it away just as Jacqueline followed her sister’s motion and repeated her attack. Daniel yelled out as he parried one sister’s strike then another with sharp downward and upward thrusts, the two girls constantly twirling around each other and never letting up on their attacks. Smoke billowed in the air behind them, electricity snapped at the ground with sharp pops, steam and frost flowed away in the wind, and Daniel growled in rising anger as he backed up more and more with the twins always keeping him on the defensive.

  “Well, since you’re so insistent, Daniel!” Jovian laughed as she pushed Daniel back further. “We’ll enjoy some quality playtime with just you. Your dear friends can scurry away like fearful rats for now.”

  “It doesn’t really matter,” Jacqueline giggled as she spun around her sister and clashed blades with Daniel, this time engaging him in a power struggle as she literally pushed him back along the ground. “We’ll kill them later anyway. It’ll be lots of fun, I’m sure.”

  Jovian darted to the side and swung down at Daniel, forcing him to jump back and near the edge of what remained of the temple they were standing on. Looking behind he saw a very long way down to the ground and a burning forest, then ahead at the gemini laughing in unison as they held their swords towards him.

  “Oh, Daniel,” Jovian sighed, holding a hand to her cheek. “You know, we originally weren’t planning on killing you right away. We wanted you to watch as we crushed your dreams into the dirt first. We were going to save you for last.”

  “We wanted you to see Rockhelm falling to monsters,” Jacqueline said. “We wanted you to see your dream of humans becoming friends with monsters fall into flames just as the kingdom did. And then we were going to kill your friends.”

  “Lovers now, right?” Jovian mocked. “That’s right, you took them all as your mates. Honestly, I’m surprised they agreed to that, but whatever. They are utter morons such as yourself after all. Morons that we were planning on killing right before your eyes.”

  “With them being your lovers, I’m sure that would have been even better to watch,” Jacqueline dreamily sighed. “Oh, you would have cried and cried, and then cried some more. It would have been a magnificent sight.”

  “But now the surprise is ruined,” Jovian pouted. “And here you are, challenging us to a fight that you’re destined to fail with. Seems we have no choice but to skip right to the main event, and kill you as slowly and painfully as we can. We have to try and make it last now, thanks to you cutting to the finale so abruptly.”

  “And we were working so hard to give you one hell of a show before you died,” Jacqueline sneered. “All that work, gone to waste now all because of your recklessness and foolishness. Honestly, Daniel, you’re nothing but a bother to those in this world.”

  “Are you two done yet?” Daniel dryly asked. The gemini blinked then looked at him curiously while tilting their heads as Daniel was holding his sword before him and staring them down with a harsh glare. “Are we going to fight, or did you two want to just keep running your mouths? No offense, but just staring at you, even when you’re naked, is incredibly boring. There’s just nothing before me that’s worth seeing or listening to.”

  “My sister’s body is anything but boring,” Jacqueline scoffed. “She’s perfect from head to toe.”

  “My mates are the definition of true beauty, both on the outside and within. You and your horrid sister couldn’t hold a candle to them no matter how hard you tried.”

  “What makes you think you’re in any position to speak to us like that?” Jovian coldly asked him.

  “Actually, I’m in a pretty good position now,” Daniel reasoned with a shrug.

  “Really?” Jacqueline dared as the sisters got ready to thrust forward.

  “Really,” Daniel answered, with him then surprising the gemini by hopping back and falling down from view. The sisters paused for a moment then smiled awkwardly.

  “Did he just jump to his death?” Jovian laughed.

  “That damned fool,” Jacqueline mockingly sighed as they walked over to the edge. Looking down they blinked before jumping in surprise as they saw Daniel standing on a terrace from the floor below them, the human glaring at them with bared teeth while having his sword wound back behind him. Without pause Daniel shouted with a furious swipe of his blade, casting out a nightmarish eruption of flames and dark electricity that carved through the building at an angle and engulfed the sisters from below. Flaming debris and smoke blasted high into the air while more rained down further away across the ravaged temple. Quickly scrambling up along the collapsed palace chamber he demolished Daniel got back to the top and looked around quickly as his attack finally dissolved above in the air. He saw flaming chunks of stone and wood scattered everywhere wh
ile burning leaves were drifting down from the tree all around, his eyes then catching sight of the two runestone blades of the gemini further away. Sure enough Jovian and Jacqueline were getting back onto their feet, which slowly reformed to have flesh covering their bones again, while pushing themselves up with their enchanted weapons. As Jovian’s eyes formed in her skull she saw Daniel rushing towards her, following up with another vicious slash through her body and knocking her sword out of her skeletal hands. Her remains were thrown back along with flames and raw magical energy from the strike while her weapon bounced away and struck into a pile of rubble with a sharp strike. Turning his attention over to Jacqueline he saw her lunging at him with her weapon. Moving quickly, he darted to the side and parried her sword away, following through with bashing her head with the Hellfire’s Edge’s hilt before spinning around and striking his sword down across her front with a fierce yell. As she splattered to the ground while feebly holding onto her sword Daniel glanced back and saw Jovian rising again, having reformed once more and glaring at him with her multicolored eyes.

  ‘Need to keep them separated. If they double-team me again I might be finished. Fight them one-on-one the best you can and keep them here as long as you can. Do not let them go near your mates!’

  “I must say,” Daniel mockingly retorted before swinging his sword around and into the ground, tearing through the rubble and knocking Jacqueline’s sword away. “I thought you two would be able to give me a good workout. I know my mates certainly do. Especially Triska, she’s definitely become more of a lustful monster in the sheets. Sad to see you’re both quite lacking when it comes to satisfying others, let alone this man. How pitiful for monsters of this world, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “You little…” Jovian hissed with anger.

  “You’re dead!” Jacqueline yelled as she lunged at him with her hands. He quickly stepped around and jammed his sword through her gut, halting her as she was run through down to the hilt, then spun her around to face him before giving a hard slap to her cheek. The girl gasped and looked back to him in surprise just before he yanked his sword upward, slicing through her body with its heated edge and out her shoulder with a crunch. He swung around and sliced her head off, following up with a swift kick to knock the falling severed girl’s skull straight over to Jovian. The girl caught her sister’s head with a startled jump and stared at it with rage and disbelief before glaring with a furious growl at Daniel who was smirking bitterly at her.