Daeva: Black Diamond Chrysalis - Danielle Bolger (essential reading txt) 📗

fine you all go die! But I won't, I'll stay nice and alive up here on this mountain - it's the place we're meant to protect after all! I'm not going to look to a city and fight its horde of new monsters!" She waved her arms up in the air before letting them collapse back down her sides, turning she finished with one more line. "My plate's full here and I'll stick to only chewing on this type of fat. Too bad you girls haven't learnt that lesson."

"You know you'll never be able to defeat her." Rebecca's voice paralysed Vanessa's turned back. "If you can't defeat the asura you'll never be able to kill a nox. If you really want revenge then don't you think you should get a little target practice first?"

Vanessa remained there a moment as if about to come up with some retort but finally began to move away again, quickly. As she ran through the school grounds she was lost in matter of seconds and our battlefront was diminished to just three.

Lara sighed. "Damn, the girl's brash but she's a good fighter, when her head is screwed on right. I was hoping she would come around."

"It's okay, Lara!" I cried. "I know the asura is strong but with the three of us I'm sure we'll work out some way to beat it!"

Lara narrowed her eyes as they rested on me before shifting into a subtle nod. Then she laid out the creature's co-ordinates and our game-plan to us, all the while my mouth gaped in amazement.

"Can you really do that, Lara?" I exclaimed.

The brunette quipped up the sides of her mouth. "Yeah, I can, but it's useless if my team doesn't know what's going on, so make sure you keep a keen eye, alright." Sobering she added, "Pay attention to everything, your very lives depend on it."

"But yours especially." I pointed out. "Like, if this battle fails you'll receive even more crystals, right? And considering how powerful that thing is these new crystals will be bad, they might be enough like... they were for Pearl."

Lara wore a solemn expression. "You really do need to learn some more tack, Bethanie, but that doesn't stop you from being wrong either. If we fail this battle then we run the risk of all three of us dying, but the certainty is that I will chrysalise. So I'm relying on you two, now, don't get beaten."

"My revenge is meant for another," Rebecca spoke evenly, "but I want to pay respects for Pearl's sacrifice. This asura is strong, it'll probably kill me but I won't allow it. I'm not allowed to chrysalise, not before I end Ariel. So don't worry, everything will work out today, it has to."

Lara nodded and turned to gaze in the direction down the mountain. "Let's go." And in a moment she was gone, light flashing at her heels as she sped through the field and into the adjacent trees.

Rebecca followed a second later but one that I was in tune with so I flanked her side. We ran in school uniforms, white blouses and black leather shoes that were completely inappropriate for the undertaking, but at least we were not burdened by our school bags, having sealed them within our lockers.

Minutes passed in relative silence. Silence because there was no speech and no signs of civilised life close by at all for we ventured down without even a dirt path beneath us, but only relative because our feet seemed to boom with every fall just as the birds tweeted in low-high-low changing frequencies as we passed them. There were other animals too, lizards scuttling on the ground, snakes slithering through brush. I even saw a rabbit scuttle deep into a hole in the forest floor and almost wanted to join it. Maybe wonderland would have been a better place to escape to than here, the rabbit certainly seemed to think so.

"Hey, Rebecca?" I prodded as we ran. "You and Vanessa obviously have some kind of vendetta against Ariel, what's that all about?"

"And what makes you think that's any of your business?" Rebecca quipped back.

"I... I didn't mean anything by it! But, just seeing as we're working together now I think it might be important information to know. I mean, anything we can learn about a daeva-nox is useful, right? When they're out to get us?"

"You're on our side now? Well that's fast considering that you were just stalking me last Friday."

"Hey, like I told you, I was just trying to learn about you! I wanted to join with you but didn't know how or... what was really going on. But I do now, I get where the real bad guys are."

"The real bad guys, hey? Well I'm glad you've finally realised that we're not them but that isn't mutually exclusive - I have no idea who you really are yet, Bethanie and until then I don't think I'll be spilling my secrets any time fast."

I almost stumbled over the tree branch I jumped over. "Me? You're saying you don't trust me? But... but I'm just a normal girl caught up in all this, how could you be sus' about me?"

"Well alright, let's assume that you've given us your allegiance amazingly fast despite the obvious distrust you showed us earlier. Let's say you really are a daeva-lux and let's say you really give a crap about what happened to Pearl. Then I guess everything is all hunky-dory, all except for the fact that Vanessa so unwittingly pointed out - the fact that you want to kill yourself. I admit, it doesn't sit right with any of the other stuff, but it's still something that's very concerning when you're heading into a life-and-death battle."

I was breathing heavily, more so than I usually would be on a run through the bush. I was definitely travelling at a faster pace than I had been used to weeks prior but it was not one that I should have felt flustered over. No, it was easy in fact, so easy I could have carried my blade with me if I so chose and yet, I couldn't stop puffing.

Finally I responded to her accusation. "Vanessa has no idea what she's talking about. I'm not suicidal." 

"You know, I believe you. You seem to fight too hard to want to die, but still you do seem to throw yourself into battles that you can't possibly win on your own. It's as if you want to ensure, maybe not your death, but your suffering in the least. It's like you want to be punished, you want it so desperately that you place yourself in harm's way, accept it even as if it's your fate. So that just leaves the question, why do you deserve to be punished?"

I was starting to side with Vanessa in disliking this girl. "During your analysis of me did you ever stop to think that my acceptance of suffering was for another reason? That maybe I have been through so much of it in my life that I began to just expect it? God, I don't know what Sigmund Freud act you're trying to pull but all I know is that I'm used to crap going wrong in my life, okay? People I care about dying? That's normal, long before any of this daeva BS. Suffering isn't what I seek, it's a way of life so when it's thrown in my path I don't run away like other petty little school girls, I see it for what it is and fight! It's my life and I won't run away, I'll run straight towards it!"

"I see." Was all she murmured.

"Whatever." I muttered. "I guess I shouldn't have expected a robot like you to understand." I started to sprint ahead of her but Rebecca called out before I could lose ear-shot.

"Bethanie, just make sure you don't deviate from the plan. You know that Lara's very existence depends on it."

"I know." I groaned. "Don't worry, I've learnt a few things. I won't stuff up and..." I added as I touched my wrist with the black flower pattern. "Besides Lara and besides Pearl, I have my own agenda out of this battle. I need healing too."

I didn't wait for her acknowledgement, partly because I felt certain I wouldn't receive it but also I just wanted to get away from the daevas. Pretty tough though when you travel through a forest of them.

The remainder of the journey was with that same relative silence and hitting flat land I stopped behind Lara. Rebecca followed a moment later.

"It's made it all the way down, damn it!" Lara commented.

"I thought you could sense the strings it disturbed over any distance." I queried. "So why are you so surprised by its location now? Can you not even pin point its location in relation to the mountain?"

Rebecca glared at me from my flank as the girl ahead responded. "Strings vibrate like waves. That's how I can feel things over great distances but also like waves once originated the source can be hard to pin-point, especially where there are other mediums in the way. So, the greater the distance, the greater the objects blocking my path and the harder it is to narrow down and so even my sensing capabilities are limited."

"Everyone's erosreavers are limited." Rebecca interred. "The biggest advantage we have is not allowing our adversaries to learn of those and our greatest advantages involve discovering theirs."

"Yes, that's true." Lara agreed. "But better yet is to destroy your enemies before they can learn of such intelligence. Best thing is to destroy them as soon as they spawn."

"My sentiments exactly." Rebecca agreed.

"That's why we need to get this asura before it does any destruction. We learnt yesterday just what a handful of shades are capable of now, we can't let this beast do any more. It has to end, tonight."

"But will it?" I asked. "Will all the destruction end with just this one asura if we kill it? Will there not be more shades coming into our world? Is there no possibility that more asuras will step inside also?"

Quivering, the crystals on Lara's form shaking likewise the girl responded. "I know, it all looks pretty pointless, doesn't it? The world is destined to end but we, we're going to chrysalise before even that. I know that it looks like a fruitless effort." She smiled as if she remembered something else, something happier. "But despite the crap going on in our hearts we have reality to deal with and that says that the world is being attacked by Noein, one that's intent on collided with Earth. Sure, Gaia doesn't care about us, it'll just as soon see us evaporate as those dark bastards, but the world is still here and we're still a part of it! So, no matter what else is going on, I still believe that's enough of a reason to continue fighting because, if we can defeat Noein then we can save the daeva fate! But also, I just so wanna kill this asura scum!"

I was nodding. "Right, so the asura today, then whatever is allowing Noein onto Earth tomorrow."

"That's..." Lara answered with exasperation. "The loose plan."

"But we're on a bigger time limit than we realise." Rebecca explained even-voiced. "Sure we might chrysalise soon, but the fourth daeva-nox may emerge even sooner and when she does this world is doomed. Three, well we couldn't exactly handle but they couldn't do too much damage on their own. But four, well then they can access all our world's dimensions, then they can destroy it."

"Right," I almost whispered. "So we'll stop them. We'll protect Earth."

"Starting with eliminating this monster." Lara declared as she walked forwards. Nodding she indicated towards that same direction. "It's only a couple a hundred meters that way onto that golf course down there and from the feel of things I'd say it's already locked onto a small group."

"It's started draining aura from people?" Rebecca enquired as if receiving a