Ayperos

She sang with the lullaby of screams. Like a composer, the lilac-haired girl waved her hands in precise movements as her fingers dug into the core of a wispy, almost ethereal figure. The bellowing of said figure was like a unique note to Ayperos’ ears. 

The twisted malagimity called her fingers would tear into EE-Thirty’s soul. Cracks of light broke through the elf’s skin like veins bursting through a shattered dam. 

Ayperos smiled. The pain she inflicted on the proud elf wasn’t like physical pain. Oh no, what she did was more on a metaphysical level. It was downright spiritual, down to EE-Thirty’s very core.

EE-Thirty felt like an egg shaped out of pure energy. Each time that energy hit the insides of her skin, she’d feel her body about to implode like a black hole. Her soul was collapsing in on itself. 

“You know, Miss Thirty,” Ayperos whispered in her ear, “I’ve actually done this before. There was a big bad demon who decided to put me in the body of an elf~” 

Another scream, another smile. “At the time I was just a newborn baby, didn’t know much about the world. Long story short, I panicked and ate him from the inside!”

Strands of ethereal were torn out, leaving the yolk of stars visible beneath the soul. “Aw man, when I gained my first pricks of thought, I realized, I should’ve saved a bit for later! His screams were so cathartic!”

Ayperos smiled widely, “So I’m going to take my time with yo-huh?”

She looked up, dropping EE-Thirty like a broken ragdoll. A psychic link was snapped out of her. The sensation of loss was infuriating. Ayperos no longer felt the connection between her and Elsie. Her once wide smile twisted in anger. 

Did that old coot figure out how to break free of my puppetry? She bit her thumb in contemplation, No, that shouldn’t be possible. Something else happened. Ayperos looked down at the near-dead EE-Thirty and sighed, “Looks like I can’t stick around to play, little elf.”

In that moment, her nails extended into claws, expiring the soul within EE-Thirty. That raw energy converted into power in Ayperos’ fingertips. 

EE-Thirty’s once bright eyes became dull and lifeless. 

Ayperos formed a blade from the remnants of EE-Thirty’s soul and slashed open the immaterial seal with ease, like cutting through wet paper.

She dropped the dissipating sword and walked through the hole in the seal. Her mutated arm materialized a chain of shadows. Ayperos smiled. 

Freedom.

Professor Leylon

Professor Leylon had experience fighting monsters. Back in his heyday, he used to be known as a monster-slaying adventurer. Although he was no longer in his prime, he had picked up many tricks in his previous profession.

One of those was how to trick and overwhelm a monster that could tear a person in two.

He gazed over the snarling Elsie whose body was covered in black goo and flowers squirming on the ground. Leylon had seen this kind of thing before, where a human body had been subjected to the wills of a creature. 

It disgusted him to see one of his own students subjected to this sort of torture.

She lay on the ground, right on a dark bleu rune trap. Elsie’s muscles twitched, seizuring as the pool of black and flower kept spilling out of her mouth. The vines that grew from her body shrunk until they ultimately disappeared. 

A trio of elves emerged from the darkness, holding mana pistols against the twitching Elsie. One of them had been held up by one of his twins, as his foot was twisted the opposite way. Leylon sharpened his gaze at them with one hand on his wand, ready. 

After the blue mana expired from the arduous exorcism, Elsie dropped deathly still. The elves, seemingly content with this outcome, withdrew their pistols. Leylon expelled a sigh and crouched near the girl. Placing two fingers over her neck, he checked her pulse and nodded to Escee Sixty-Six, who seemed much tenser than the other elves.

Leylon carried Elsie in his arms, her arms limp. The only thing indicating her life was her slight breathing. “She’s going to need cleansing water magic. Are any of you here experienced with water magic?”

Thirty-Four raised his hand. Honestly, Leylon couldn’t tell them apart, except for Sixty-Six who had his foot bent completely out of shape. He was going to treat him, but Elsie took priority. The elf needed to wait.

Leylon was a man of many talents. He had prepared himself for many situations. As an ancient human who had fought against the now-extinct Demonkind, Leylon had seen many of their infrastructures. He also knew the likeliest place their control centers were located at. 

Unfortunately, only the cameras and a few doors were still working. 

The professor had previously woken up in one of the cavern’s rooms. This place isn’t a cavern, it’s a damn laboratory, He thought to himself. 

Thankfully, he still had his crystallized wand. 

He noticed, however, that where he woke up was unnatural. Someone or something had moved him there. In fact, it might’ve moved everyone to certain places within the caverns. Leylon felt sick thinking about the implications, thinking he might just be a pawn in a higher power’s games. 

The professor clenched his hands. He had been a terrible father to Veronica. In fear of tragedy striking again with his sister and her wife, Leylon had kept Veronica at arms-length and barred her from courting her mate.

That had been a mistake. He wasn’t going to fall here or lose his students. Leylon was a stubborn old professor, and he was going to walk out of here with a happy ending.

Moving to an abandoned medbay, he placed Elsie and Sixty-Six on decrepit beds. Zero-Two had closed the sliding door behind him by injecting mana into it, forcefully closing it. 

Thirty-Four moved next to Leylon, his hands glowing blue above Elsie’s head. Leylon did the same, pulling his own mana to cleanse Elsie’s blood. 

They were so focused in healing Elsie that they hadn’t heard the footsteps outside. 

Those footsteps sprung against the metal tiles, dancing, as the boots sang a catchy, childish tune. Three tiny, almost inaudible knocks tapped the door. They all stilled. The healing was left half-done as everyone became paralyzed with fear. 

The caverns had proved to have been dangerous. They all feared whoever was outside the doors. 

Then, they heard high-pitched giggling. The voice sounded so innocent that it was out of place. Leylon’s hair stood on its end. 

The professor had realized a disturbing truth. In his panic to heal Elsie, he had just doomed everyone by locking them in a single tiny room with potential apex predators right outside. 

What happened next could only be described as hell. 

Eleanor Deveena

She managed to track down Veronica’s whereabouts. There had been a bit of a struggle, and burn marks made from mana could be seen in an almost perfect line, as if trying to show Eleanor where to go.

The redhead reached a medical bay. She peeked into the door which was slightly ajar. Her eyes widened as she noticed a black-haired man, Michael, chant in some strange dialect with a book hovering over his hands. Behind him was Veronica with her limbs trapped in ice. 

Veronica was squirming as she tried to break free from her constraints. She glared at the boy, hatred fueling her vain persistence. 

Eleanor sneaked one foot into the door and pushed herself through the thin opening, trying not to grunt. She ignored the pain on her chest as she finally squeezed into the room.

Luckily, Michael hadn’t noticed her, and in a way, double lucky Veronica hadn’t either. If she did notice Eleanor, she would’ve subconsciously given a cue to Michael, and the redhead needed to time this right. 

She looked behind her, searching for a heavy object or a rune to absorb. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything she could use with her measly strength. What Eleanor needed was a window of opportunity. 

A large distorted portal tore through the fabric of reality in front of Michael, and in that moment, Eleanor knew she had to take it.

“Finally! Veronica, we’ll finally be-” He turned around and noticed Eleanor running towards him. In a fit of rage and adrenaline, Eleanor shoved Michael into the portal.

As he fell backwards, he instinctively held onto the redhead’s arm, dragging her along with him.

Veronica tried to scream as she watched Eleanor fall into the death trap.

Eleanor fell through a tunnel made of darkness and stars. Flickers of light and black spurned behind her as Michael screamed. 

“You bitch!” He shrieked, forgetting his wand as he raised a fist; his other hand still held onto Eleanor’s arm. 

“Let go of me!” She demanded, “Let me go!” Her nails dug into his left eye. His high-pitched scream nearly popped her eardrums as he finally let go. The momentum pushed him into one of the flickers of stars; his body phased in and out of existence as he collided against the raw energy of his ritual. 

The otherworldly tunnel started to tighten; strange energies started to scathe Eleanor’s skin when she felt a sudden force grasp her hair. Pain covered her body as she felt vertigo the moment she fell out of the tunnel and back into reality. 

“Oof!” Head first onto the pavement, Eleanor rubbed her head in pain. She was back in the medbay. For a moment, she thought Veronica pulled her out, but she saw Veronica still on the ground, limbs frozen and with dried tears. Sudden hope filled Veronica’s eyes as she saw Eleanor out of the strange, still active portal.

Eleanor wondered what pulled her out but quickly shook out of her stupor as she ran to Veronica, trying to melt the ice shackles. 

Red mana was repelled by the ice. “Tch!” She clicked her tongue, putting more force behind her mana, trying to forcefully break Veronica’s shackles.

Michael’s imprisonment spell proved difficult to nigh-impossible to crack for Eleanor, even after what had happened to him. 

She at least needed to break the ice covering her mouth. 

Something crackled behind them. Veronica pushed Eleanor to turn around. Finally seeing what Veronica saw, Eleanor gasped. The portal sputtered with lightning. 

Three silhouettes emerged from the storm. Professor Leylon and Elsie supported Sixty-Six, who couldn’t walk on his own due to a broken foot.

They were sweaty and Leylon’s forehead dripped with blood. He was barely conscious. The professor pushed forward with sheer willpower.

“Elsie!” Eleanor was happy to see her, but the sheer look of terror on Elsie’s face paralyzed her.

“We NEED TO MOVE! NOW!” The black-haired girl screamed. Elsie and her group ran from the portal as quickly as they could as four hands stretched open the shrinking tear in reality. 

Leylon knelt to Veronica, letting Elsie run with Sixty-Six out of the medbay. With flame magic, he melted the ice on Veronica’s legs and harshly pulled her up. “I’ll melt the rest of the ice along the way!”

Eleanor’s gaze was fixated on the figure crawling out of the Anomaly. What came out of the portal was an extremely pale looking girl much taller than she was. Her straight amethyst hair reached down to her lower back. Patches of red skin were splattered across her body.

She had four arms with one of them largely mutated like an oversized crow’s claw. Her mismatched red and green eyes were dull and lifeless. A smile crossed the girl’s very patchy-looking mouth. 

“Hi, Eleanor. Nearly lost you there, didn’t I?”

ExorcistJoker

Today I had a reader tell me why things were going so slow. The POV shifts. My lord that was so obvious I hadn't realized it. Well, after this chapter I'm going to stick a lot more to Eleanor. I'll still have occasional POV shifts but I'm going to limit them starting after this chapter! Anyways, Ayperos and Eleanor finally meet. I wonder if you're satisfied with Michael's demise. I wanted to show that in the grand scheme of things he was insignificant. Maybe I didn't quite push that point far enough.