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

the new lines sprouting behind her. From behind me I heard Lara grunting and wincing as she struggled to create these new platforms in time, but I also heard wheezing, as if she was getting very tired.

Then it happened, a big meter wide fist sprouted from higher up on the monstrosity and, like a battering ram, bashed Rebecca from the side. As she sailed through the air there was a terrifying crunch. I wanted to close my eyes, hide myself from the horrible fate that was about to ensue but I couldn't help but watch with horror as she arced limply towards the far green. She soared first high and fast, then slow and almost still, before falling back down again fast. She travelled far, at least twenty meters in distance before that all came to an end.

I gasped in both shock but also relief as I witnessed the red coil wrap about the girl. Four feet suspended in the air a snake like body reached out and claimed hold of the teen and with its flexible form cushioned the finale to the daeva's flight.

"Damn it!" Vanessa snarled, fiery whip extending toward Rebecca's suspended body. "What the hell am I doing saving the girl that pisses me off? I must be retarded!"

"Vanessa!" Lara smiled. "You came!"

"Yeah," She rolled her eyes as she lowered Rebecca's stiff form to the ground. "I did just say that I'm retarded."

Then I saw black to the side of my vision and straight after dodging it I recognised the meter and a half diameter of leg that had just tried stomping on me. "Yeah okay, but I think we have more pressing matters than Vanessa's intelligence right now!"

Backing away the asura made another stomp, splashing golden freckles through the scene, then I backed away again and again from no fewer than ten pounding feet. The last of which followed me onto the green where it made a meter long indent that would have filled big-foot with fear at the sight of it.

"What the hell is this thing?" Vanessa's voice murmured behind me.

"It doesn't matter what it is." Lara reported. "Because soon it'll be no more than crystal dust!"

Another foot barely missed me but since I was so close I flew my blade lengthways at it, severing the appendage from its body. That made the empty ankle collapse amongst crystals on top of the lush green ground. However, almost at the instant it made contact with the terrain the black limb shivered and created a new foot right there. Identical to the last the asura it walked on unperturbed as if the shiny dust around me was no more than decoration.

"Let me sort this out!" Vanessa's voice proclaimed before the girl soared into my vision and whirled her whip across. Twenty centimetres from the ground the red coil soared laterally before colliding against ankle upon ankle. It was only then I realised how incredibly long her whip was, totalling no less than ten meters in length and covering the entire width of the dark being. Its foundation wrenched backwards the phantom's body slumped forwards and just before colliding front on with the ground its face bore a mask of sorrow. Once flat on the ground it was still for the barest of moments which the red-head used to sail her external tongue and wrap itself around that exposed neck.

I ran forwards for it, eyes intent on the space beneath that melancholic mask but before I could carry out the intended separation I felt a rushing through the very centre of me. Paralysed my eyes wandered down to my chest where through the very centre protruded a long demonoid spike fifteen centimetres in diameter.

It leaked a shade connected to itself. I realised too late. And because I was so busy with the battle I never realised the silent assassin approaching behind me.

"No..." I murmured before a red liquid spilled from my mouth.

Wanly I looked about the scene. I was about to call out for help but finding the metallic flavour in my mouth I managed to emit no more than a gurgle. So then all I did then was perceive my surroundings. Vanessa's red curls flying around her as she wrestled the masked beast head. Lara erect new strings that collapsed from all sides straight into the massive body. Then a wave of ebony hair that parted from in front of my vision just in time to reveal a girl cleave through the fallen being. Left, then right she swung and then all movement ceased. All but for a solid rounded object that flew into the air that first showed black before rotating to reveal white. It cracked, the darkness solidified and shattered all around and behind it. Within moments the house-sized beast shimmered into nothing but as the blackness from the head collapsed away the white remained. And without even a rustle an ivory mask of with red-streaked tears fell atop the short-cut grass.

Then, with the last image of my ill-defined sight, I perceived the narrow, sharp and long spire within me shatter before everything fell to blackness.

I was gone, fading into oblivion but strangely I still heard things. Sound and the desperate emotions of someone who cared.

"Bethanie! Damn it, wake up! You're not dead yet - you're not!"

My eyes opened where astonishingly life seemed to continue in front of me. The golf field stretched many meters in front but to the sides it was caved in by dense trees. Then there was a red-head girl smirking proudly and another one with black hair who bore a smaller one. Then there was a brunette girl right in front of me who was grasping my shoulders. I thought she was holding me upright until she exhaled in relief and allowed her hands to fall by her sides.

"Christ, Bethanie! That was a close call!" Lara cried as a giggle entered her voice. "That was close for all of us but we managed, we won!"

I had to blink a couple of times and as I did I noticed the senior's unblemished skin. "You're crystals, they're all gone! That's great, we won!" I cheered but then girl only fell to a frown with my enthusiasm.

"We're alive, but..." She trailed off as her eyes fell upon my chest with concern.

I followed the gaze down and discovered flower upon flower blooming right beneath my chin. To the left I saw the ebony foliage travel right across to my wrist and to the right I saw a perfect reflection. Then down, beneath my school skirt more black beauties bloomed, all gorgeous in design, all calamitous in their herald.

"What... what's the deal with all this...?" I murmured as small pin-pricks were issued from just about every inch of my skin.

"I'm afraid..." Lara turned her unbesmirched expression aside. "That you almost died."

"But... but these crystals!" I stammered as my eyes flickered over to the empty ground where our foe had just lurked. "They shouldn't exist if we destroyed the darkness that created them, right!?"

Lara winced and just opened her mouth before Vanessa excalimed almost happily. "My... bloody... God! Did you see yourself just now? You were frickin' speared by that shade minion - your heart was gouged through!" Vanessa walked towards me shaking her head in awe. "I can't believe that you're not dead!"

I looked back down and this time registered that the dark crystalline flowers did not just reach out from the V of my blouse, but also from the numerous red stained edges of my once white shirt.  I staggered back a few steps before gaining the courage to contact one of many firm rocks and there, upon its contact, I received a chill possessing a pervasive quality.

A hand quickly grasped mine away from the terrifying touch. "It's okay," Lara counselled. "You're not all crystal yet."

"But you were almost!" Vanessa shouted. "As soon as that asura-shade thing got you they were growing like... well, not weeds, they were faster than that! It was more like someone took to a paintbrush with you and went gun-hoe!"

Then Rebecca made her stiff appraisal in conjunction. "Another second with that shade arm in you and you most certainly would have chrysalised."

"You killed it..." I frowned. "And that meant I was saved just in time, right? But then... why didn't these crystals erase?" I couldn't help the quiver in my voice.

Vanessa provided the answer. "Because you weren't involved in delivering the final blow. It is a cruel game, isn't it? That even though you fought it any crystals you received don't disappear with the death of the phantom that made them. And that's, because you didn't put its existence to an end yourself."

Observing the poisonous foliage on me I murmured shakily. "But I still don't understand, I helped to destroy it. I did! I was a part of killing it!"

"You don't believe that." Rebecca stated evenly. "Deep down inside it had defeated you, it was killing you and as you were aware of your life passing away the darkness grew rampant through you. The flowers stopped spreading when the asura was killed and your body was allowed to heal itself, but in your heart you knew that you were beaten by it. That's why the darkness remains within you."

"Oh..." I breathed. "So because I was almost killed by that thing my body won't reject the scars it leaves."

Then Lara grasped my hand. "It almost killed all of us, Bethanie."

I nodded. "But I couldn't beat it, if it weren't for the three of you working together then it would have surely killed me. I get it now, these crystals I carry are because my soul lost in the battle against darkness."

"The battle maybe, but not the war. You're not all crystal yet." Lara assured. "But I am afraid that the amount of crystals you have puts you in great risk. If you're overwhelmed by darkness now..." She trailed off but Vanessa finished it off.

"Then you'll chrysalise and disappear!"

Rebecca finished the thread. "Then it will all come down to what memory you leave behind."

My eyebrows furrowed deeper and I was about to ask her what she meant until clapping resounded over the top of the bare grounds. We all turned at once and viewed a platinum-haired young man walking by the distant putting hole and there he shone a resplendent pop-youth smile.

"You killed it!" Raziel shouted happily. "I knew you'd get it eventually. I mean, considering this asura was the first taste of the many to come I knew you'd be competent enough to eradicate it between you lux girls. Though..." He added with mock regret. "I didn't think any would have actually been beaten by it. Poor Pearl... she had at least another couple of months before those wondrous flowers would have taken full bloom."

"Damn you!" Lara roared as she left me to speed along the golf straight. Flicking her fingers out ahead strings shot through the remainder space swiftly but just as they appeared to cut into the boy he was gone from there and in an instant was tsking only meters away.

"You of all people, Lara, should know that a move like that is useless. Your ersoreavers are useless against me considering I was the one that provided the seed to their births..." Raziel's speech ceased, open-mouthed he turned his gaze to his torso where, right through the centre of him was a violet sword.

At its other side was Rebecca as she focused on forcing the steel in a twisting motion. This was stopped however as Raziel, with humoured eyebrows raised, gripped the blade with one hand. There he clenched just as the erosreaver suddenly turned to white dust.

"I don't appreciate being interrupted." He stated as an invisible force knocked Rebecca hard and caused her to crash into the grass.

Raziel suddenly changed his location again as instantly he was transported meagre feet from Lara. "I suggest..."He stated calmly."That you use your weapons on something you can actually damage. Like for instance, the two hundred shades running rampant