Original Stories Fan Fiction / Realism Fan Fiction ❯ Aqua ❯ Unbreakable ( Chapter 15 )

 

There came the sound of something heavy being dragged across a metal floor. Arisan clamped her hands over her ears and curled up in a ball, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. She was on a Letrangra ship and she would die a painful death, never to see her parents again. Tears slid down her face in anguish and despair as the sound increased in intensity and penetrated her sensitive eardrums.

 

She screamed in real pain as something inside her broke, never to return. It was more then her six-year-old body could handle as it painfully throbbed in time to the thing as it was dragged across the metal flooring, the same floor that she was laying on. The grating sound stopped as suddenly as it had begun and she rolled over onto her back and gasped air in by the lungful, not even realizing that she had previously forgotten to draw in breath in between her screams.

 

A deep-seated chuckled seemed to vibrate through her cell and only helped to worsen her trembling. “Well, well. What do we have here?” a smooth, icy voice asked, sending shivers of fear and revulsion down Arisan's spine. She had never heard such a…a deadly voice in all her life.

 

“This is the little Night-n-Gale female that we captured in the midst of our patrol. She was a tricky little thing to catch, had all sorts of tricks up her sleeves as much of her race depend on to survive, but in the end, she was put in her place by the rapid fire missiles that that one battalion is so proud of,” another, smoother voice responded to the first.

 

“What will we do with her?” the first asked.

 

“Perhaps she will make good sport before we kill her,” the second offered.

 

“I heard our superiors talking about something called the `living weapon.' Perhaps she will be raised to be this `weapon of sorts.”

 

“Imagine, a Night-n-Gale fighting on our side against their own race. The other weaklings would hesitate to attack their own kind and that hesitation would cost them their lives. What fun that would be.”

 

Arisan heard no more as she fell into cold, clammy darkness. She fell so deep into slumber that she could see nor hear nor feel anything.

 

~End Flashback~

 

Arisan bit back a scream of fright as a hand clamped over her mouth and another hand closed around her upper forearm. Two people pulled her into a small, cramped closet, their faces barely distinguishable through the shadows, but she recognized them as Jonathan and Terald.

 

Not even a moment after she had been pulled into the Letrangra guards sprinted by, talking in low hushed voices. “…headed for lower levels…” and “…ex-captain…” were the only things they caught as their enemies whipped by.

 

Terald and Jonathan released Arisan as soon as the Letrangra's footsteps faded into the distance. They looked down at her and Terald asked, “Why did it seem as though they knew you were coming and where you were headed, Arisan?” Arisan flinched at his accusing tone as she replied, “Not now, but later. We have to get to Captain Lackardel before they get a chance to get him on one of their ships and take him back to their planets and begin torturing him.”

 

Her long time comrades glanced at each other and nodded. They had known her long enough to know that she wouldn't refuse to answer any of their questions, even if not right away. Arisan quietly slipped out of the closet and cautiously led Terald and Jonathan to the lower levels by following the scent that the Letrangra guards had recently followed.

 

Jonathan and Terald kept their ears open, eyes alert, and bodies tense and let Arisan do the tracking. They both knew that when it came to tracking any scent of any kind that Arisan was the best tracker in the entire Royal Guard. She was the one that Lackardel turned to, to find their stealthiest of enemies.

 

* * *

 

Lackardel groaned as he sat slowly up. His head throbbed painfully and his back burned from where he had been struck by Arisan's blow. Arisan…He was jolted back to full coconsciousness as the memories of what had happened flooded into his mind.

 

Betrayal…

 

The very word left a bitter test in his mouth, but actually having been betrayed by someone he trusted left an even worse taste, as though it were the taste of bitterness and betrayal combined. He had been fighting to protect her and she had turned around and fired one of the Letrangra's signature spells at him while his back was turned. She truly was a despicable woman and he found that he wished he had never met her.

 

Footsteps rang through the dark, flickering passageways just beyond the bars of his dank, dark cell. Three figures he recognized as Letrangra stopped outside his cell and glared in on him. They spoke in hushed hisses, but he heard enough of what they said to figure out what was going on.

 

Jonathan and Terald had discovered he and Arisan were missing. They must found one of the underground passageways and were searching for them. Briefly he wondered if they had run into Arisan as of yet and what they would do if she attacked them. He knew that they would hesitate because she was their long time comrade and that moment of hesitation would cost them their lives.

 

Pain clawed at his insides and he curled up into a ball and let silent, angry tears slip down his face one by one, leaving a trail of pain and self-loathing in their wake. He hadn't been strong enough to save her, he hadn't been smart enough to see that she was really a backstabbing liar that deserved nothing less than the deepest pits of hell for her crimes. Everything he had ever felt for her washed away in his darkest moment and a small part of him whispered words of vengeance that would be wrought by his own hand against the traitor whom he had had the utmost confidence in. He really was a fool to not have seen it coming.

 

There came a loud thump as the Letrangra guards hit the ground. Without even realizing it, Lackardel had reached out with his powers and knocked them out. Slowly, he got to his feet and bent the bars with his newly acquired powers born from rage. He made his way out of the hellhole that he had been trapped in for the last week, killing or rendering unconscious any guards that dared get in his way.

 

He blinked as a sudden vision of an auburn haired girl cradling the prone body of his prince in her arms invaded all his senses. He gave an irritated growl and shook his head violently and succeeded in ridding himself of the unwanted vision. Lackardel shoved the emotions that always came with his visions back to the deeper recesses of his mind for later evaluation and continued on his way.

 

Echoing footsteps that were coming his direction made him pause and consider what he could do. He pressed his back against the wall and allowed the darkness to be his cover and shield him from the eyes of his oncoming enemies.

 

As the footsteps approached, hushed voices accompanied them. “This should be where they're keeping him,” came Arisan's distinct voice. Rage blossomed in Lackardel's chest as he heard her voice once again, only to be turned to fear as he heard Jonathan ask, “Are you sure his is the right place, Arisan?”

 

“Yes. As a matter of fact, the captain is right up ahead,” came Arisan's hushed reply. They stopped dead in their tracks when Lackardel's hand shot out of nowhere and grasped Arisan around the neck, brining her up to stand on the very end of her toes and proceeded to choke the life out of her. Jonathan and Terald surged forward and grabbed Lackardel's hand and arm and tried to pry it away from Arisan's neck.

 

Arisan tried in vain to draw a breath and clawed at Lackardel's hand that was slowly choking the life out of her. Fear settled in the pit of her stomach as she realized that the man she loved was going to be her executioner. I don't want to die in this hellhole. Not by his hand, she thought desperately. Sound was beginning to fade as her vision tunneled.

 

Lackardel didn't feel his men tugging on his arm and hand, but he could distantly hear them as time seemed to slow down and his world narrowed in only Arisan. Their gazes met and held as Arisan struggled vainly against the death grip he had on her. “Why?” was all he could ask before a blinding pain spread from the back of his head. Lackardel stumbled forward some and dropped Arisan to the ground as he fell to his knees, clutching his head.

 

Auburn hair whips in the wind as a single scream rips through the air…Prince Darain's prone body cradled in her arms…Blood pooling slowly…Thousands of Night-n-Gales sit silently in the stands…The king and queen hold each other, not daring to look at their son…Letrangra shout at the girl to get up and finish what they have begun…Tears drip from red eyes…A fist quickly rises into the air, but hesitates in striking the final blow…Blood squirts everywhere…

 

Lackardel passed out from the intense pain that his vision caused him. Arisan caught him before he could hit the ground and slowly got to her feet, bringing Lackardel up with her. She ignored the throbbing pain of her throat where Lackardel's fingers had recently been tightly wrapped only moments before. “Lets go,” she managed to rasp out before setting off back down the corridor the way they had just come.

 

Terald grabbed Lackardel's other arm and wrapped it around his shoulders and helped Arisan drag him up towards the surface. Halfway up, though, they met some serious resistance by the Letrangra forces.

 

Arisan stopped them dead in their tracks and faced those who had once been her captors and, though her voice was still raspy, she bravely said, “You'll have to find a new `perfect weapon,' because I have no intentions of ever killing for you again.” Then she raised her free hand and blasted the dirt blocking their escape away before flying out with Jonathan and Terald on her heels. They landed just off to the side of the hole that Arisan had created.

 

No words passed between them as they landed. Letrangra landed a few feet away from them, grinning and talking in their native language. They obviously thought that they had just pulled in an easy kill. Despite what they had heard about the former weapons abilities they were still confident in their own, especially when they worked in a group.

 

Arisan glanced at Terald and Jonathan before smiling sadly at them. There were too many of them for her to handle on her own and escape alive, but if it meant her old comrades and first love escaping alive, then it would be worth it. She unlooped Lackardel's arm from around her shoulder and pushed him towards Terald and Jonathan. Before they had a chance to even comprehend what she was doing, she blasted them into the air with her remaining magical abilities and set up a barrier around the battlefield so that they couldn't stop her.

 

The Letrangra smiled dangerously as they lazily watched. Whether they wanted to die one by one or all together was all the same to them. Either way their blood would end up staining the ground by the end of an hour.

 

* * *

 

A shadow stepped forward into the light of her dying soul and gently ran a hand down her face. “Oh, Aqua, how could it have come to this? You were supposed to be happy, to live a life of your choosing, not end up dying of the same thing that consumed me,” the image of her fiery haired mother said to her. She might have believed the person before her was her mother if not for the coal black eyes in place of her green ones. A feral growl left her lips as she swatted the hand away from her face. She added magic to the blow and disintegrated the demons arm.

 

An insane smile crossed the things lips as its black blood spilled from where its arm had once been. “I've never met one so resilient as you, young one,” it said, taking the form of her father. A sudden hatred seized her like no other she had ever felt before.

 

Everything bad that had ever happened to her in her life could be traced back to the man that stood in front of her. She had been forced to close herself off from the rest of the world to keep her sanity and escape the pain he brought to her daily. He had been the one to drive her mother away with his constant drinking and threats. He was the one that had made her heart freeze over with an icy hatred so intense that it seared her soul.

 

It had been Darain that had helped her to forget what her father had done to her, for a time. For a brief period, she had been happy, she had been able to experience everything. It almost killed her to know that she would never have the chance to experience it all over again. Darain was most likely long gone from Earth and her father would be waiting at the school to take her back to her old life.

 

He was the one that always ruined everything. I hate him, she thought tears burning at her eyes as she stared into the demons mocking ones. “I hate you. First you take my emotions from me and now you take my love,” she screamed at the demon that impersonated her father.

 

“Tsk, tsk, child. You really must learn your place when you are in the presence of your betters, though we will have all eternity together to teach you that,” he said, his eyes suddenly flashing from their usual cold black to the red ones that had been haunting her the entire time she had been ill. “Soon, you will be nothing but a fleeting memory to those you once knew and you will be stuck here with us,” he taunted her.

 

Her eyes suddenly flared a dazzling silver as a riot of emotions broke through and boosted her remaining powers. Silver power flowed around her like a molten river as she screamed, “I decide when I die, not you. I won't die, not here not now, not ever. I will live my life as I see fit and love as I have always dreamed of. I won't let father hold me back, nor will you stand in my way.”

 

The demon never got the chance to respond to her outburst as a pure, silver beam cut a hole in his chest and blew the rest of his body away. The silver blast cut a straight line through the other demons leaving a visible line through them. She could see a forest and a boy with black hair and white ears sitting beside a lake idly watching his reflection on its surface as it rippled.

 

The sight of Darain was ripped away as her vision was restored in a flurry of pain and screams. She had never felt anything more painful, except maybe being torn away from Darain, the first and only person she would ever love. As the screams died down in her throat she slowly became aware of her surroundings and saw Cora, Cota, and Auntie bending over her, each wearing a concerned look.

 

“I don't believe it,” Cora whispered as Aqua shakily sat up and looked around. Her skin and clothes were completely drenched with sweat and blood, her hair plastered to her ashen face. “I…have to get back to my own…to where ever it is I came from. I have someone waiting for me and…something to tell them,” she said shakily.

 

“Can you not stay a few days?” Auntie asked with a frown. The girl had just recovered from the brink of death and now she wanted to return to her own place. It was most unacceptable, she had to at least sleep an entire day and eat a decent meal to begin her recovery process.

 

“No, I-” she began before she blacked out and fell back onto her bed. Cota smiled some as relief came crashing down on him. She would be alright for the first time in several days and she had apparently worked her way through whatever problems had been weighing her down since she first arrived at their village.

 

He had never met anyone so downright stubborn, or so…well, unbreakable. Not even the Sickness could break her soul.

 

* * *