Kasadya Hellhound Twisted (8 page)

“Abby here is quite the genius, she created a living sphere that helps connect all fallen, but most of all helps you gain access into and out of Exsilium. If you are not synchronized with her, you won’t get near Exsilium,” Lotan explained.

I looked over at the shy girl at the end of the table, so engrossed with the thing in her hand that she had no idea that we had just mentioned her name and intelligence. So, if I’ve got this right, this little girl created some sort of plug-in computer or something. Yeah, um I think I’ll wait and see this whole thing out. I turned my head back to Lotan and Lada and found them smiling at me.

“Yeah, we know. Unbelievable, right? Wait until you see, but most of all feel, it. That will have you stunned for a day or two,” Lotan finished, giving Lada a peck on the cheek that had her blushing.

“Kasadya, you and the rest need to finish up. As explained, we still have to stop at Corra for your synchronizing before we can go to the arena for the daily training session. From there we serve in Perth tonight. I suggest you all get moving or we will be late.” When Chax finished speaking he walked out of the kitchen, leaving his empty cup on the counter. Okay, apparently some things still haven’t changed, back to “Move it, Kasadya.” Sighing, I finished my cup of coffee just as Nanini planted a plate of food in front of me. We ate quickly to ensure we did as we were told. Taking a bite, I saw that Max had his eyes on Nanini. Well at least I am not the only one with a Custos problem.

We made like cheetahs to get finished. Walking out of my room, I bumped into Ryan and Ben who were dressed and ready for action. “So you guys ready for this?” I asked, sliding in my swords.

“By this, do you mean the weird intelligence stuff, or the weird people?” Ryan asked, smiling at me.

“Both, I suppose. I told you guys this place was, how did I put it?
Different,” I carried on, trying to keep my smile back.

“Yes, but you never mentioned that we would be trained by little girls,” Max piped in, joining us from the back.

“Oh come on, Max, she can’t be that bad. Thank the Lord you didn’t get Chax. In a few minutes you are going to see how lucky you are. Chax has one rule, and that’s no rules. You survive him, and you get to serve in the future. You don’t and yeah you get my point,” I finished as we reached the bottom of the stairs. The others were already waiting. No way in hell could they be finished before us. And of course Chax was standing there with his “you are wasting my time again, Kas” look. Oh just freaking great.

Joining them, I avoided his death stare and smiled at Nanini who was jumping around like mad again. “Seeing that we are all here, let’s get a move on,” Chax said and moved outside. We followed the group to an open stone circle. Engraved on it were weird symbols and stuff. They all walked to stand in the middle of it, and then turned to stare at us; little Abby’s eyes looking at the surface trying to find something. “This is called a gate, it is a direct teleport to Corra, brace yourselves,” Chax explained then closed his eyes. Holding on to his cross necklace I watched as the symbols around us came to life, each one lighting up with a colour. Keeping my eyes on them, I watched as they first started to move slowly then began picking up to such a speed that I started to get dizzy.

Shaking my head and trying to get my thoughts back in gear, I felt the earth fall away below my feet. I looked down to see only air and rays of colours; and yes I freaking screamed like a girl should and went insane. Arms encircled me and held me in place, my eyes still on the empty space below our feet, looking up I saw that the others had just as much fun as me. Little Nanini and Abby were trying to hold Max, Lada and Lotan had Ryan, and Caim was holding Ben. Then I saw the air behind them … Oh my freaking soul we were moving at an incredible speed in the air. Just as I was about to climb over the one holding me, we came to a dead stop, and I mean literally dead. The moment my feet felt earth I ended up on my butt, someone still trying to keep me upright.

Dazed and confused, I sat there
and gathered my wits. Now that’s what I called a freaking ride. Wow that’s going to take some getting used to. I looked up and saw four faces of Chax looking down at me, “Kasadya, are you all right?” I watched as the four faces asked me at the same time. Oh that’s cool. I started to giggle and tried to touch one of the faces, ending up with nothing. Picking me up and holding me in his arms, I watched him, still giggling. Man, so this is what high must be like. Freaky but cool.

“Why are they so bombed out with the teleport?” I heard Nanini asked.

“I don’t know, I have never seen anyone react to it like this. Abby, any idea?” Chax asked her, the words coming to my head at a very slow pace.

“I think it was the altitude. Perhaps they are not used to travelling so high in the air,” Abby replied.

“Well, what do we do? They won’t be able to do anything like this,” Chax continued.

“Don’t worry, just give them some time. They will be back with us in a little while,” Abby replied again, and at her last words my stomach decided it was time to kick things into high gear.

“Kasadya, look at me! Focus on my eyes, just focus for Heaven’s sake!” Chax blurred into my face. Focus seemed to be the last thing my mind and body wanted to do.

“O-h-h m-y soul …” I tried to reply, to tell him that now was not the time to go Mr. General on me.

“Kasadya, you are not focusing on my eyes. Look at me,” he went on. I was trying as hard as I could, but his freaking eyes didn’t want to work with me, they kept moving around and it just made me even dizzier. Crap I am going to puke; yes puke might be the solution to this. “No, no keep your eyes on mine,” Chax demanded again.

“Hellooo … I am freaking trying, but your eyes are moving around the whole time,” I replied grabbing his face in my hands to keep his eyes still so I could focus.

“That’s it, just keep looking at me. Keep your focus,” Chax said, smiling at me. Wow, Chax De Luca can smile, who knew? Slowly but surely, the world stopped spinning and I finally got to focus on his eyes. With my mind returning to me, my world finally kicked back into place, and with my face inches from Chax’s it kicked in double time. Yelping, I was out of his arms and on my own feet in one second flat.

Brushing off the whole freaking episode, I took back control. That was so not cool. I hit him with a death stare to emphasize the message, but he just turned around and looked at the others, who slowly started to return one by one. “Okay, what the hell just happened?” I asked the moment we had the other three back from lala land.

Chax looked at me for a moment then continued to walk on. “It would appear that none of you have ever travelled far from the Earth. Something we will be correcting with training,” he replied as he walked off.

Looking at Max and the others I could see that I was not the only one going MIA when he plans on that little training exercise. That was cool and freaky, but not on my top ten things to do when you’re bored to death list. Catching up with Chax, we walked to some sort of tower thing on the edge of a cliff, a million colours of light bursting from it. Nice, more colours. Chax opened a huge door and indicated for us to come in; with my first step in I stopped dead in my tracks, Max joining me.

When they mentioned sphere, I was thinking of some sort of computer thingy. But in front of us was a huge ball moving around in the air at what I must guess was the same speed we were. Turning around and around, rays of colours burst through the tower, hitting the cliffs below and the sky. A small buzzing sound was coming from somewhere. It sounded like a million insects buzzing around us.

“Well, guys, this is Corra.” Nanini gestured to the ball. Abby was moving past her and reaching for the thing. Scared for her, I moved to stop her, but Chax stepped into my view and indicated I should back off.

I watched as the shy little girl placed her hands into the ball, afraid that the thing was going to rip off her hands, I cringed. But the moment her hands were submerged in its surface the ball stopped. Wow, now that’s something new. Abby moved the ball in her hands, from one to the other holding it like a play thing.

“What is it?” Ryan asked next to me.

Abby turned and looked at him. “This is what happens when you unite the powers of not only the fallen, but the world,” she replied, releasing the ball back on its spot. Immediately it started up the hyper speed, turning and throwing colour rays over us. Her soft, innocent brown eyes gave the illusion of a child, but if you looked deep enough you could see the hidden talent she hides away. Her brown curls were neatly tucked away in a ponytail, making a puffy tail at the end. Her small frame and petite size can really throw someone off.

“What do you mean?” Max chimed in, moving to stand next to her looking at the ball.

“When the attacks happened we had no way of communicating with each other. Human technology was of no use because of our shifting scrambling the signal. So one night, when all of them were out, I walked into the lab Chax had built for me and created her. Using what I know about human technology, I took fallen and earthy elements and infused her with all of the fallen powers. Chax helped me by bringing each and every fallen still alive to ignite it with their power. From there, everything was pretty simple,” she answered as if we would have a freaking idea what she just said.

“If you mean ignite, do you mean they infused it with their abilities?” Max asked, now trying to be brave and touch the thing.

Abby reached for his hand and gently took it in hers. “She was born from us, yes. She uses the same technology human computers do. In other words, a hard drive,” she finished, placing his hand slowly onto the ball. His face lit up instantly, followed by the biggest smile I have ever seen on him.

“Kas, you must feel this, there are no words for it,” he said, looking at me, who was taking a step back ready to get my butt out of there. Like I was touching a sphere thingy moving at the speed of a jet plane. Um, no thanks.

But of course Chax was there to stop me, stepping behind me and giving me a push forward. “Come now, Kasadya, I thought you were this ultimate fallen? Scared of a ball?” he mocked me. Oh I need to kill this guy.

Toughening up, I glared at him. “No I just prefer to play with things I have control over, or that at least can die by my hand,” I threw back, watching his eyebrows lift at my words.

“Well now, Kas, I think you are scared,” Max piped in, so I turned my icy stare on him.

“Don’t push it, Max, you know I can hurt you real bad,” I rubbed in, his smile dropping instantly. From a tipsy ride to touching a ball thingy that spins faster than a rocket … hell, welcome back, Kas. Not showing them they had the upper hand, I walked over to the ball nodding for Max and Abby to move out of my way. Okay, just touch the damn thing, Kas, and get it over with. The sooner the better, then you can go knock the living hell out of someone.

Reaching out slowly, I gently placed my fingertips on it. I expected a lot, but what slammed into my brain had my jaw dropping open. I could hear fallen talking, giving orders, and reporting back to others. Vulcan’s voice popped up and he was telling Maia about a little girl that needs some attention. Wow, this is freaking awesome!

“How is this possible?” I asked, looking at Chax and lifting my hand from the ball.

“It acts like human radio waves. The moment you touched her, something on you was synchronized with her. You are now able to use that and communicate with any other fallen at any given time,” Chax replied, leaning against the wall like all of this was old news.
Oh yeah I forgot, for him it is. I turned to look at Abby, who was shying away from everyone again. This young girl created this? Double wow.

“All right, my turn. I also want to find out what has you guys so stunned,” Ryan said, moving forward towards the ball followed by a smiling Ben. I watched as they placed their hands on it and saw their reaction.

“How would I know what was synchronized with the ball?” I asked Chax, still looking at the two school boy’s enjoying themselves.

“She chooses objects like necklaces, bracelets, and other more personal yet mineral based objects. It would seem that she prefers to work with metal based objects to amplify her waves,” Chax explained, looking over at everyone there.

I reached for my necklace and touched it, immediately more fallen voices were received in my brain. “We also use it to synchronize our shifting locations, or to move info between the groups. We can communicate with each other without saying a word to one another,” he continued. Well that can come in handy, especially if you’re sneaking up on a few demons.

“All right, let’s get to the arena and start our training,” Chax blurted out, having me and the other new guys stepping back with speed. Oh no, I’m not ready for the fun ride back again. Seeing our reluctance to fall in and get to the arena, he shook his head and started to return to the gate we used to get here. “It should be easier this time around. Come on, time is wasting,” he shouted, halfway to the gate. Looking at Max and the rest I could see I was not the only one so not ready for this again.

“Look at it this way, Kas, it doesn’t get any better than this,” Nanini said, jumping away to catch up with Chax.

“Come on guys, let’s get this over with,” Lotan said, gesturing for us to get a move on. Damn no escaping this. I hate this fallen technology crappy travel thingy.

C
hapter 5

And of course we were back on our butts when we landed at Chax’s home. Sitting, hugging my head between my legs, I tried to regain my sober mind. “Why couldn’t we just shift to this ball thing?” I whined, my stomach doing a flip over.

“Corra is protected against any shift, demon and fallen included. The only way of getting to her is by using this gate,” Chax replied, sitting down on a bench and looking at us sprawled all over the gate circle.

“Oh, but it still sucks,” I continued on. Complaining seems to be the right thing at the moment.

“As you explained this morning, not everyone in Exsilium can be trusted. When Corra was designed, the council decided that the only gate would be this one. It’s guarded by me, and if Abby needs to go to Corra for something it’s right here to use,” he explained in detail.

Well it kinda makes sense, if the traitorous fallen get their hands on the ball, bye bye communication. Suddenly I heard Chax’s voice in my head. “We need to get a move on, Kasadya, suck it up and let’s go,” came his dominating demands. Looking up, I gave him a death stare.

“I hope you had the same effect when you used it the first time,” I replied, still trying to keep my head from spinning.

“I am afraid I did not. I am used to such heights and speed,” he explained, a small smile forming at the end of his lips. Oh that does it, I was up and shaking myself back to soberness. I can’t believe he would rub it in like that. So I don’t go upstairs that often, don’t need to. Demons are pretty much Earth bound. Max and the rest followed my lead and in a few minutes we were back in action.

“Let’s go, the day is almost over and we haven’t even reached the arena. If I knew it was going to take this long I would have taken you to Corra this morning,” Chax complained, taking his cross necklace in his hands and closing his eyes on the last words. Without any warning, he shifted all of our butts to the arena, right in the middle of training. Like the first day in Exsilium, there were a lot of fallen training in the arena. But unlike that day they now trained in packs against each other.

“Hurry up, the others are waiting,” Chax said, pushing past me to take the lead. Oh boy, here we go. Shaking my head, I joined the others following Chax as we moved around the arena, watching one fight after another.

“So this is your training facility?” Max asked, looking around as we moved.

“Not the one I started with, but it would appear to be the new one,” I replied.

“It looks unorganized and underdeveloped, you have no weapons section,” Max continued on. Yeah, it was a totally different scene from our training facility. With all the human technology we had available this looks a lot more … old style. “And how do they keep track of the demon’s activities if you don’t have the necessary resources?” he kept on. Now that was an interesting question, how do they keep track of the activities if they don’t use human technology?

Smiling at Max, Caim answered the question, “Unfortunately, it is difficult to shift human communicators to Exsilium. The moment the shift takes place the device becomes unusable, it would appear that the shift destroys the entire device.”

“I see, but how do you keep track of things?” Max asked him.

“At this stage, it would be on what is reported back to us from other fallen,” Caim replied and came to a stop. In front of us, Chax had stopped next to Don and another female in the middle of a discussion. As we waited for them to finish, Max, the others, and I looked around to see what activities and training was going on. The fallen was still on the pack training thing.

“Okay, we will train with Nina’s team today, start falling in,” Chax said next to me so I turned around to look at him, and only then did I see the female he was speaking with. Oh crap, it’s freaking Nina the werewolf, and she was giving me the “hello there missed you not” smile. Yip, back to square one it would seem. “Kasadya, you and the half-breeds would need to learn to combine your training into ours. Unfortunately, it has to be fast,” Chax continued on, walking to make a stand against Nina and her team.

I watched as a still smiling Nina and her team made their way to stand in front of us. Already pissed off at this session, the picture finished itself off with my good old buddy, Marcus, joining her side. “Oh this is just perfect!” I snarled out, unlocking my body to start the fight.

“What’s wrong?” Max asked in concern.

“You see the female standing there? Well we hated each other when I first started to train here, and the male next to her is the reason I was punished before I ended up in Hell,” I explained.

“Why? What did you do to him?” Max asked as we started to take formation for the fight; Chax was in front, taking lead, with Nina and her team countering the same formation.

“He didn’t understand the word no and continued touching me, so I fetched a sword and stabbed him,” I finished as Nina and her team transformed in a second, and two werewolves were heading straight for me.

I transformed in a nanosecond and together Max and I engaged them. I grabbed Nina first, taking her snapping mouth out of the equation by punching it with all my force. She was up and back at me again in a split second. Crap, she got better at this. As she leapt towards me, I turned and sent my wings out hitting her in mid-air. Turning back, I moved to keep her down.

As she landed on her back, I was on her hitting her like mad. “Still … haven’t … learned a th-thing,” she stuttered through it all. Confused, I just kept going. Suddenly I felt roots start to engulf me, and then tighten their hold on me, squeezing out the air.

“Ben!” I yelled, trying to tear off the roots. I heard the light bomb go off behind me and suddenly the roots went slack. Getting back into action Nina was already missing. Okay, that’s it, no more nice Kas. Getting up I could see Max and Ryan were engaged with two werewolves.

I stormed forward and grabbed the one out of Ryan’s grip, lifting it up into the air I grabbed whoever the werewolf may be and fell straight for the earth, werewolf beneath me. We hit the ground with a huge bang, and the werewolf was lights out. Right, one down, and one to go. Getting up, I could see pink and purple light all over the place. I turned and found Nanini and another light fae in the middle of a light war. Captivated, I watched as pink and purple lights hit each other, then burst away in tiny sparks. Wow, that’s kinda cool. Looking around I found Max and Ryan giving the last werewolf hell. Just as the werewolf would swipe, Max or Ryan would hit it back.

I moved forward to assist and to get the last werewolf when the earth fae made her appearance again, wrapping my feet in roots. I was hit with a million thorns, the roots wrapping around me were covered in them. I covered my face in an attempt to spare it from the spikes, but I could feel the thorns digging in past my fur. Still struggling, I felt arms around me and tried to retaliate. “We have to work together, Kasadya,” Chax said behind me.