Chapter CLXVII: Hatred Smells Like Cinnamon ~Kyanosa
If there was any doubt in his own mind (either of them) that he was some
kind of superhero, Kyanosa abolished it that day.
After crash-landing on a planet to which he had never been, getting into a
fight with a bird more than fifteen times his size, beating down a Twilighter in one hit, venturing into the underworld,
outrunning a tentacle creature, and living through a fight with a demon
suspended by lethally sharp chains over an infinite abyss, he still had enough
in him to run away from the latest nightmare. Superheroes never suffer from
lactic acid buildup.
Running full-tilt from the giant flaming skeleton half floating behind
him (if you haven't read the last chapter, now'd be a
good time for it), Kyanosa was too busy dodging
stalagmites in front of him to check back and see how much the creature had
progressed. He could hear the monster smashing various parts of the general
area behind him, but couldn't tell from those how close it was getting. There
was no noticeable change in light, though tunnel vision was hampering his
ability to tell, and he was sweating too much to gauge heat anyway. The only
time he really got a notion of the monster's proximity was when he vaulted over
a stalagmite and a flaming, bony fist rammed through it just under him.
Deciding that he needed to do something besides run, Kyanosa
summoned the Grappling Hook before he landed and threw it over the creature's
head, embedding it in a stalactite and pulling himself beyond the creature's
grip. Once he was in the sky, he began swinging Tarzan- (or, since nobody
remembers Tarzan, Spider-Man-) style through the cave, keeping above the
creature's hands as long as he couldn't run beyond them. Try as it might, it
couldn't reach high enough to grab Kyanosa, since
floating drastically hampered its faculty for jumping. Instead, it sat for a
second and concentrated, then shot blue beams from its eyes, cutting the hook's
string in two.
Kyanosa fell to the ground and rolled, inadvertently dodging another duo of
fire beams. He got back up on his feet in time to just to the side, barely
avoiding another sailing fist. The monster tried a quicker sideways chop, but Kyanosa jumped over it, then
avoided another by leaping onto a taller stalagmite. When the creature punched
through the rock structure, Kyanosa went Cinder and
landed on the back of its hand, knowing that fire couldn't damage him in that
form. He became liquid and wormed his way up the creature's arm and to the top
of its head, reforming into a humanoid there.
Momentarily confused, it gave Kyanosa the
perfect opportunity to change to the Polished Wings. Using to his advantage the
few seconds it took for the heat to reach through his metal clothing, he took a
short run and jump, taking to the air again. By the time the monster spotted Kyanosa, he was about a dozen yards away, so it tried the
eye beams again. Kyanosa, however, had anticipated
that move, and reflected the beams to the wall with a quick swipe of his wing.
Three more unsuccessful shots later, the monster was too far away to be a real
danger to Kyanosa, so he started on his next plan.
Kyanosa grabbed onto a stalactite and turned on his Invisibility, disappearing
completely from the creature's sight. Even more confused, it approached his
position warily, trying to find some sign of the plucky schizophrenic.
Straining everything in his upper body that still worked and desperately
keeping his mouth shut, Kyanosa waited until the
demon had arrived directly below him. At that point, he let go, turned off
Invisibility, and turned on the unappreciated Molten Glass Casing. With one
palm pointed at the monster's head, he fired a test shot of glass in the form
of a ball about a foot wide. The ball hit the demon's pate and spread,
instantly cooling and forming a fire-free platform on which Kyanosa
could land to give his arms a quick respite.
When you're on fire, you notice lack of said fire much more easily than
an excess of it, so the skeleton felt the glass instantly as opposed to the
rest Kyanosa got as Cinder. It swung a fist up to its
head, forcing Kyanosa off before he was shattered as
easily as his former platform. Unable to avoid landing on some flaming bone, he
opted for the arm and shot glass at the whole appendage, forming a nice slide
that Kyanosa used to reach the ground with a minimum
of effort. Once the monster was occupied with freeing its arm, Kyanosa started firing shot after shot of glass, slowly but
surely coating the entire demon in the casing.
Knowing that the Molten Glass Casing couldn't be broken from the inside,
Kyanosa fell to his knees and breathed deeply in
relief. A minute later, he stood up and walked to the closest wall, which held
a nice little door. Kyanosa looked through it,
surprised to find a cylindrical room with a wide staircase with no railing that
spiraled its way downward, deeper into the underworld. Hoping that it was a way
to his goal, Kyanosa started down.
Along the way, he couldn't help but gloat. {There, that was easy enough.
There was no way one sword and a set of wings can beat something that big and
powerful.}
[You laugh, but it wouldn't have been an issue for me. Your overall
ineptitude would have left you a lifeless mass sprawled on the ground, but I
could have split that thing into individual bones in sixty seconds.]
{You're such an idiot! No one power can just charge through the land of
the dead! It takes more strategy than brute hacking and slashing.}
[You're the idiot. The Archangel is the one power we have against which
the enemies here are weak. You'd have to be a total moron to bypass our best
shot at offing these things.]
{You're not listening to me. Archangel is more a problem than an asset,
and I've already given you a ton of reasons why. Why don't
you just accept that I might know more about this than you!?}
[Because there's nothing you can tell me that I haven't already disproven to myself!]
{You are not invincible! Shut up and let me do this!}
[I am invincible, and I'll ****ing prove it!]
Kyanosa fell to his knees and grabbed at the sides of his head as Brick
barreled his way through Tuesday to regain full control of the body. Once he
was secure, Kyanosa stood back up and changed to
Archangel. From not far above, he could hear glass shattering and an angry roar
from the previously confined monster.
Tuesday gaped as Kyanosa jumped into the void
in the center of the room. {How dense are you!? You've gotten rid of the Molten
Glass Casing! Now it's coming after us!}
Kyanosa went into a dive, using his wings to avoid hitting anything weird. He
smirked to himself. [Let it.]
* * *
Shinsei knew something was up the minute he entered the room where they were
keeping Grimace, probably because Josh was moaning in general pain instead of
practicing with his dagger. He quickly shoved the point of the Mattaku Blade into the lock and turned it, shattering the
mechanism and dropping it to the floor. He took a few steps in and kneeled down, looking over Josh, then raised his head. "Medic!"
The first person to arrived was an extremely bored Kaye, who at that
point probably would have responded if somebody had yelled "bread",
and she was followed by a likewise bored Mazzic,
who's in this chapter because that means he has to write the next one. She ran
into the cell, rubbed her hands together, and set about healing the deepest
scratches. After a few minutes, during which Josh regained the energy to sit
up, she stood again. "What happened?"
"The demon guy. He threw some beads and this panther attacked
me."
Mazzic blinked. "You can fight three Twilighters
without a scratch and you get mauled by a simple panther?"
Josh considered shooting him a nasty look, or just shooting him, but
simply couldn't muster it. "I had just woken up. I was tired, so I had a
glass of some stuff C.R. said kept Twilighters awake.
It's all a blank until the panther."
Mazzic nodded at him. "That'll do it. You know what caffeine and alcohol
do to humans? It has the opposite effect on Twilighters.
I wouldn't be surprised if whatever you drank had an
unusually high alcohol content. You could have just passed out."
Josh slumped back. "Terrific. Drunk on duty while guarding somebody
who summons things." He patted around his body.
"He got my dagger, too."
Shinsei shrugged. "At least he doesn't have his staff." Josh's eyes
opened wide, and Shinsei sighed. "Great."
Kaye looked around the room. "Any idea where he
is now?"
Mazzic cracked his knuckles. "Yeah, I'm bored."
Josh pressed one temple, acknowledging his hangover. "He mentioned
a blackout. I think he's going to mess with the lighting system, but I don't
know if he's going to attack or escape or commandeer or what after he does
that."
Shinsei raised the Mattaku Blade. "Okay, we'll
look for him. I know where we put the staff, and it's partially my fault anyway
for not being here. This way."
He and Mazzic left the room. Kaye helped Josh
up and the two of them went to find something soft and unoccupied.
* * *
[I was not aware that the land of the dead contained a thriving
metropolis.]
{Most people aren't.}
Kyanosa was winging his way over what appeared to be your average city, with
skyscrapers and cars on streets and everything one would normally associate
with downtown. Granted, he was still underground, but the room in which he was was so large that he could make out neither a ceiling nor
walls. Since there was no sun, the light in the chamber was provided by the
city itself, much like what happens in your local city at night. It would be a
terrific vantage point were it not for the small imp-like creatures hovering
around. Imagine a two-foot skinny red humanoid with elongated limbs, a very
wide mouth filled with small teeth, claws on its fingers and toes, tall ears,
permanently squinting eyes, and bat wings. I know it doesn't sound that
dangerous, but now imagine a hundred of them trying to claw at you from all
sides. That's what you missed while you were reading about the Spectrum. Nyah nyah.
Kyanosa, still in
Having run out of digits on which to count the number of lost comrades,
the imps quickly withdrew, but stayed at a distance from which they could
launch an assault. Kyanosa raised an eyebrow at the
sudden change in tactics and looked around to see if anything besides his
shining example of one-man warfare had prompted their decision. His gaze fell
on a number of robe-clad individuals standing on various rooftops in the city
below, thinking little extra of them and assuming that a few citizens had made
their way to a decent vantage point with the intent of watching the bloodbath.
He changed his mind when they started launching fireballs at them.
It was almost as if the sky and ground had switched places, and now a
hailstorm of fire was rising towards Kyanosa. His
speed was such that few of the fireballs were aimed well enough to cause a
problem, but enough came by that he started to worry about singeing his lovely
wings. He instigated a random zigzag pattern to throw off the mages below,
blocking the occasional stray spell with his sword and batting it back to the
rooftops. The mages would quickly dodge out of the way of the rebounded attack,
and then regroup and recast at full force.
{Just pull out the Polished Wings already! You're leaving your entirely
strategy up to how lucky you are at blocking fireballs!}
[It's not luck, it's skill. All
skill.]
{At least do something with Mirror. Toss their attacks back at them.}
[I'll do you one better.]
Kyanosa went into a dive, shooting himself like a bullet toward one of the
rooftops. Expecting an attack, each spellcaster on
that block began chanting a shield spell, but just before hitting concrete, Kyanosa pulled out of his dive, zoomed by parallel with the
rooftop and a foot above it, and at the edge dropped again and plummeted toward
the street. The mages hesitated, torn between keeping up their barrage or possibly endangering those below. Really, there wasn't
much of a decision to make; all holy-aligned creatures in the underworld had to
fall, regardless of consequences. All of the mages on all rooftops scooted to
their respective edges and reinstated chanting.
Though he lacked the open spaces of the area above the city, the
buildings provided him some cover, so there were actually fewer spells with
which to deal at any given time. He zipped about three stories over the
streets, turning as many corners as possible because he no longer had the advantage
of being able to see the fireballs coming. A quick left into an alley, followed
by another left and a slight right brought him into another street, where a
right turn led him to an intersection. He hesitated for half of a second to
choose his path, canceling the sound of wind rushing past his ears and finally
tuning him into the screeching behind him. He chanced a glance back, which was
when he finally caught sight of the remaining imps. They were following him
through his whole route. Kyanosa flapped upwards, but
was forced to come back down when a wave of fireballs flew from the nearest
rooftop. He looked around, then took off down a random
street.
You could almost hear Tuesday smirking. {Need some help?}
[Not from you.]
Kyanosa grabbed onto a streetlight and, nearly wrenching his arm off, used it
to swing himself through a tight turn down a smaller road. The sensation of
pain reminded him of three things: the bandaged cut on his upper arm, the nasty
slice through his left hand (which, though no longer bleeding, still hurt like
a beast), and that time in the forest where he nearly killed himself because he
didn't want any help from Kaye. A red flag went up.
[What are you planning?]
{Cut yourself into the sewer system.}
Kyanosa slowed down over the nearest manhole and quickly pried it from the
ground with his sword using the moment the mages took to figure out why he had
stopped. He slid into the underground (technically the underunderunderground,
but who's counting?) and landed in some surprisingly clean water that ran
through a pipe just wider in diameter than he was tall. There was a very faint
light, as if the pipe gave it off by itself, and Kyanosa
couldn't see more than ten feet away.
He backed away from the hole above him, out of the reach of any expertly-aimed
fireballs. [Now what?]
{Run down the pipe for a bit, until you hear the imps behind you.}
Sure enough, the imps were still following, and their screeches began to
echo through the sewer as an Archangel Kyanosa ran
down it.
After what felt like forever but was probably only 25 yards or so,
Tuesday spoke again: {Now turn around and pull out the Giant Laser.}
Brick gaped. [No! I'm not dropping
{Idiot!}
Tuesday gave Brick an astral backhand to the nose and gained control of
the body. He summoned his Giant Laser, which was quickly turning into his
"general annihilation" move, and aimed it down the pipe down which he
had just run. At the first glimpse he got of the glowing red eyes of the
infernal nuisances, he pressed the little button and flooded the area with an
intense beam of nondescript yellow energy. Many, many ashes fell to the ground.
Kyanosa closed the parasol and leaned back on his left foot, facing the
devastation behind him. He spun the handle twice in his right hand, let the
point fall on his right shoulder, and used his left hand to shoot a peace sign
down the pipe.
{The Kyanosa Canopus
victory pose.}
[That's spectacular. Give me back the body so I can kill things.]
{Shut up for a minute. They could track up this far, so there's probably
something after us right now. I'm not giving our location away.}
[Then I will. Anything but sit here and listen to you babble further.]
{Ooh, Ratch would love you.}
[Everyone would if they hadn't met you first!]
{Hey, that's your fault, not mine! Don't go blaming your inadequacies on
me!}
[I'll blame what I want on whom I want, you child!]
A spiked chain shot through one side of the pipe, sliced through the air
less than an inch from Kyanosa's face, and plowed
through the opposite wall. Kyanosa blinked.
{Let's discuss this later.}
Kyanosa turned and ran down the pipe, but stopped about four seconds into it.
In front of him was another kyton, standing very
angrily and swirling its chains about itself in the same way that a medusa's
snakes would writhe. This would not have been an issue were it not for the
second kyton behind it and slightly to the side. And the six others behind that. Kyanosa
glanced behind him to check if the path was clear that way and froze. Remember
that giant, flaming skeleton from earlier? Granted it,
was too tall to fit in the pipe, but only as a whole. One fiery hand was
crawling down the pipe towards the nine humanoids standing there, trailing its
arm behind it. Sure, one arm was nothing, but behind that was the other one.
And, all the way back, Kyanosa could see one blue eye
peering through the manhole he had opened.
Kyanosa's head flipped in between both threats, trying to think of a single power
that could help. [Do that fireman thing from before.]
{They'll be on guard for that one, though. I wouldn't be surprised if
they're waiting for it so they can douse us with water.}
[More laser.]
{I can only take out one side, and that'll take so long that the other
one will get us.}
[
{I'll kill us both if you say that one more time.}
There was silence for a second, save for the clink of chains, the
scratching of two approaching giant arms, and Kyanosa's
breathing.
[There's one more option.]
Kyanosa grinned. {I hope we live through it.}
[We've lived through everything else.]
Kyanosa unsummoned the parasol and activated a
different power. A faint dark blue aura began to surround him, granting some slight
illumination to the area. He held his arms out to each side, one towards each
threat, and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath, preparing to speak the word
that would trigger it, and he let it out.
"What do you think you're doing?"
Kyanosa caught himself, a split second before using his power. He was pretty
sure that wasn't his voice. He hadn't sounded like a woman in at least a day,
which was only strange if you don't know Kyanosa.
This voice was certainly not his, and none of the monsters trying to kill him
had even spoken words today. Well, except for Nictem.
He looked around, confused, and heard it again.
"All of you, get out of here. Kytons, you know full well that mobs of the same type of
devil containing more than six members have been disallowed. It's been law for
weeks. And you, Uvnunu! You know better than to
attack people, regardless of alignment, without alerting a superior!" The
distant skull growled in reply, after which the voice returned. "Don't
give me that! You get back to your cave right now; we'll deal with you later.
That goes for the rest of you. Get out."
The flaming hands began to back up, receding to the manhole. All of the kytons turned to something behind them, then slowly
shuffled back, parting around a group of people who were standing just behind
them.
Kyanosa blinked. There were three of them - a man on the left, a woman in the
middle, and on the right a girl who looked roughly six years old. The first
thing that Kyanosa noticed was that even in the
diminished light, they all looked very pale, and the second was that they were
all dressed almost entirely in black. The girl wore a black dress that reached
to her ankles and seemed like it would fit better in the nineteenth century,
complimented by black shoes. Her straight, black hair reached down to her
knees, and the only real color she seemed to have on her was a bright red rose
in her hair. The woman sported an open leather jacket and a black leotard that
ended in boots, the tops of which came nearly to her knees. She had short black
hair that came a bit forward just below her ears, wore a bright green choker,
and was more beautiful than you'd expect from an upper demon. The man's
dangerously thin frame towered over the other two, giving him a more ghastly
look, and was covered by heavy pants and shoes and a black sweatshirt with the
sleeves rolled just above his elbows. His hair was a desperate tangle, only
held out of his eyes by a bright blue headband.
The woman smiled. "Sorry about that. A whole bunch of new rules just
came into play, and everybody's having some trouble adjusting. Granted, you're
supposed to have some sort of permission or guide before entering, and the holy
alignment was a bad idea."
{I told you so.}
[I could kill them too.]
Kyanosa nodded. "Sorry, I just wanted to talk with somebody. I kind of
know my way around, so I just tried to find my way." He held out his hand.
"I'm Kyanosa Canopus."
The woman shook it. "I'm Murmur. The girl is Bifrons,
and the tall man is Bune."
Kyanosa's jaw would have hit the floor if it had the energy to travel that far.
"You three are Bifrons, Bune,
and Murmur?"
Murmur smiled and looked back at the others. "He's heard of us! Booya!"
"Of course I have. I love the occult. Murmur takes the souls of the
dead. Bune doesn't speak, but haunts cemeteries,
leads demons throughout the underworld, and gives crazy riches to his subjects.
Bifrons is an expert at astrology, geometry, herbology, mineralogy and botany." He blinked, then looked at the small girl. "He's also a male demon
of monstrous visage who commands multiple armies of undead."
Bifrons shrugged and spoke in a voice that befit a
small girl. "Nobody wants to be a scary demon any more. Everybody's trying
to blend in. I like hiding power personally."
Murmur crossed her arms. "Speaking of which, you've got some power,
too. How are you hiding your alignment? I'm not reading any holy...or anything.
What are you?"
Kyanosa grinned. "Expertly nondescript."
Bune, the gaunt man, nudged Murmur and signed something Kyanosa
didn't understand.
Murmur nodded and looked at Kyanosa. "Bune wants to know why you're here."
Bune nodded.
"Oh, right. I came to talk with somebody I think works down here.
I'm not certain of his name, but he carries a scythe, never shows his eyes, stand a few inches taller than I do, dresses in
purple..."
Murmur grinned. "Oh, him! He's out, but he
told us you'd be coming!"
"Dude, you guys rock."
"He said to give you this." Murmur reached into a pocket on
her jacket and pulled out a white amulet with a chain just long enough to
fasten around Kyanosa's neck. "He didn't explain
it, but he said that you can use it when you need him and he'll see what he can
do."
Kyanosa held it up, looking at it. "Rock on."
Murmur looked Kyanosa over. "Wow, you're
in bad shape. Come on, I know a place where we can fix those nasty cuts and
everything. Then we'll get you back to the surface, but you'll need your own
ride home."
Kyanosa patted the Creation Weapon spoon, which was still tucked in the waist
of his pants. "I think I can manage." And with that, he followed
three high-level demons deeper through the very clean sewers of a city that had
momentarily banded together to kill him.
* * *
The Spectrum stopped long
enough for Kyanosa to board again, and after unsummoning Gundam Cutiepie he found Kaye and Mazzic
waiting for him. He did look a bit different, though. For one thing, he was
wearing a small white amulet on a chain around his neck. He seemed to be
sporting a new shirt, one with an intricate gold and silver design on the lower
three or four inches of each sleeve. From the way they reflected light, they
were either very light armor or poorly placed jewelry. His pants and shoes
remained the same, largely because nobody could get him to change his trademark
outfit too much, though he now wore a thin black headband that tied at the
back, leaving a bit more material to trail down his neck.
He looked at them both. "Fun trip. What
did I miss?"
Kaye spoke up first, since Mazzic, who hadn't
changed his clothes in years, was still trying to take the new look in. "Josh
is resting after accidentally getting drunk and being mauled viciously by a cat
summoned by the demon who appeared here, the latter of whom is currently trying
to sabotage the ship."
Kyanosa took out his yellow book and flipped through it, resting his eyes on a
page and giving it a quick look. "So he is. Why didn't he use...oh, okay.
Backup."
"What?"
"Nothing." Kyanosa shut the
book. "If he wants to show us, he will. Now what?"
Mazzic looked around. "Shinsei's not here, so
he's probably still looking for the demon. We should join him, I guess."
"Grimace."
"Always." Mazzic blinked.
"What?"
"The demon's name is Grimace. All of his information is in my book,
along with all of the info on the Twilight Council and C.R.'s
latest venture."
Mazzic held up a hand. "How long had that book actually worked?"
Kyanosa though for a second. "Remember when we left Zolott? Immediately after that.
But this is beside the point. Let's find Grimace so I can play hackeysack with his head."
Kaye sighed. "I miss the happy personality."
Kyanosa pointed to his headband. "I am the happy personality. The headband
is reversible. Black is for Kyanosa, white is for
"Kyanosa and
"It was Murmur's idea, since she was confused and the other
personality likes the wings and all. And it sounds a lot better than Brick and
Tuesday. Moving on, let's kill some dead guys." He summoned his yo-yo and
swiftly left the room, leaving a very confused Mazzic
and Kaye to stare after him.
And with that, the setup for the real fun was complete.