Star Rebellion (12 page)

When he continued, his voice was choked, as if he was holding back tears. “Sometimes, she would brush the hair out of my face, and she was always saying that I had needed a haircut. For a demon, she was nice, and a wonderful person. I only wish that I had seen that before. If you had asked me before her death if I was attached to her, I would’ve easily said no way. When I saw her die though… I realized that she had grown on me. Replaced the memory of my true mother. It wasn’t love, but loyalty. When she died, I wanted revenge.” When Vlad had spoken of revenge, his voice became hard and deadly.

              “Because I am half human, the murderers had mistaken me to be a captive. They took me with them and asked me where and who my parents were. I hadn’t said anything in reply, and they took my silence as trauma. They took me back to the military base, or what was left of it, and put me in an unguarded room, which was a big mistake, as I’m sure you could have guessed.

That night, I was able to sneak out of my room easily enough. I wandered the halls, completely lost, until a guard found me. He asked what I was doing, but again, I stayed silent. After a few moments, he put his hand on my shoulder and steered me down to the General’s Office. Despite the late hour, the general was still there. The two men talked for a bit, and had concluded that I had had a nightmare. The general said I could stay with him until I felt better.

“That was their second mistake. It took me seconds, and I literally mean seconds, to kill the general. I was prepared for alarms to go off, but nothing came. Their security was very poor… that or either my mother or I had disabled it the previous night.” Vlad’s voice was starting to scare me. It had taken on a sharp edge and he said everything as if he was reliving that night.

“Vl-Vladimir?” My voice shook as I said his name.

His head jerked up as he returned to the present, hair getting into his eyes. The darkness of it contrasted greatly with his pale skin. “Huh?”

“You were starting to get a bit scary,” my voice was hesitant and unsure, but that didn’t really surprise me. I’d take a huge, poisonous monster any day instead of a teenage demon that was slightly bipolar.

“My bad, I guess I haven’t fully recovered from four years ago, but it’s alright, don’t worry.” His gaze was sure and steady, but I think he was lying. I guess he could tell what I was thinking. “I’m serious, it’s all good. Don’t worry about it.” Vlad had taken a few steps toward me and his hand was slightly lifted. When we were only a few feet away from each other, he seemed to change his mind and dropped his hand.

But of course, me being the idiot here, I got this sudden impulse to close the distance between us… and that is when hell broke loose.

FIRESTAR

Everyone had ended up following me, and between you and me, that was a big relief. The further we went, the more maze-like it became. Gods am I glad that I wasn’t claustrophobic. Even with the memories from that creepy guy, I wasn’t one-hundred percent sure we were going the right way, but we finally did reach a ladder that led only to darkness.

“Well… this was one of the last parts in the vision,” I said aloud to everyone as we circle around it. “Did anyone bring a rope by chance?” I asked the question even though I already knew the answer. My three new teammates all shook their head no. If Waterstar was here, I’m almost positive that she would’ve had a rope. “Okay, here’s the plan, we’ll descend the ladder but no one will go too far from the bottom, then we will join hands at the bottom.”

Ice and Sun nodded their heads but Forest was choosing to be a smart ass, which wasn’t too surprising at this point. “Will we then build a fire and sing Kum Ba Yah as we dance in a circle?”

“Well of course!” I said in a sarcastic voice. I think the snarky exchange between us really lightened the mood, or at least got a few non-forced grins.

I went down the ladder first. I carefully tested every rung before I’d put my full weight onto it; if we were lucky the ladder wasn’t too long, if we weren’t lucky, there wouldn’t even be a floor underneath it.

I heard the others start following me down the ladder. It was a long process to get all the way to the bottom, a process that included my head being stepped on. Twice. The second time, I grabbed the person's leg and I heard the deeper voice of Forest cry out in surprise. I smiled into the dark and continued down, satisfied with that revenge. The ladder was a large one, but thankfully there was a floor at the bottom. “Roll call.” I said into the darkness when I was pretty sure everyone was down. “Sunstar.”

“Present.”

“Icestar.”

“Alive.”

“Foreststar.”

“Spiders suck.”

We all turned in the direction of his voice. I think he could tell that we were befuddled by his response. “A few crawled on me on the way down, didn’t you guys feel them?”

We all replied in the negative. “Maybe it’s your name; spiders tend not to like fire, ice, or sun, but I’ve heard that they love forests.” The joke had come from Icestar; we were all so surprised that he actually said something without being asked that it took a second for anyone to laugh.

“Okay, enough of that,” Sunstar had been the first to stop laughing and immediately took the leader position again. “Come on everyone, hold hands.” We all fumbled around in the dark until we were all connected.

“This reminds me of a little kids show on Earth,” Forest stated in grim amusement. We started forward with me in the lead. Sun was directly behind, slightly pissed that she was second, and then it was Forest and Ice. Our progress was slow, which was annoying me. Who knew how much time my teammates down below had. However, something about holding hands in a long line didn't make moving that quick. If the hall had been wider, I'd have us walk side by side but that unfortunately was not an option.

After close to half an hour, our footsteps started to echo. “I think we’re getting close to a ladder or staircase,” I said just loud enough for everyone to hear me, but my voice still echoed like the footsteps. I slowed down even more so that I wouldn’t accidentally step off of a ledge. But of course, whoever controls these type of things had a different plan or simply hated me.

My foot tried to step on mid air, and lemme tell you something, it is extremely hard to float and I don’t suggest trying it. I'm not sure if Waterstar could even float on air with her weird energy manipulation. I think Sunstar tried to keep me from falling, but she wasn’t exactly prepared for my sudden weight to be pulling her down, nor is she that strong. After that it was a domino effect until we had all fallen.

“Nice going Fire,” Forest said, or at least I think that’s what he said, but the sound of air rushing past my face was a little too loud to be sure. It sounded like a very Forest thing to say. Anyways, something didn’t feel right about this wind, it felt like it was pushing against us, not the other way around like it would be if we were truly falling. Trust me, there is quite a large difference, and due to Water's mad ideas, I knew that difference.

“Is it just me or does this feel wrong?” I tried to shout over the wind, hoping they’d be able to understand.

They all answered in what sounded sorta like an affirmative. Sunstar grabbed my hand and motioned for the others to connect theirs. She then rolled to the side and we started dropping
really
fast. And when I say fast, I mean
fast
. If you haven't noticed, I mean what I say.

“Oomph,” we all let out a gasp as we landed in a four-person dog pile, me on the bottom. As I stood up I checked for any serious injuries. Nothing was too bad, but man would I be bruised in the morning. Foreststar was rubbing his shoulder and moving it in a circle, but he didn't seem too bad either. The other two had landed toward the top of our pile and were also fine. Great, so far no casualties. Take that Arctic, I could totally be commander. I surveyed the room we were in and noticed two things immediately. One, Darkstar was unconscious on the floor. Really bad. Plus there was blood drying on his face. Just wonderful that was, but hopefully it was only skin deep. Nothing like brain damage, because that would suck with Darkstar.

The second thing was Waterstar and a guy that looked similar to the one in my vision, except he looked a bit younger and less evil. But that’s not what sounded my internal alarms. He was holding Water in a freaking headlock, as if he was planning on snapping her neck sometime soon.

Damn, that is not the way to get a girl's attention.

Also, he is dead.

Chapter 8: Underworld Gates and Shadow Cats

DARKSTAR

You know what really sucks? Being able to hear everything going on around you while you sit in a dark chasm and can’t say
anything
to the idiots outside.

Yes, I did just call Water and Fire idiots. Water shouldn’t be listening to that guy ramble on about his past. It was stupid and a waste of time. Sure his past was sad, but unnecessary to hear. And Fire should’ve stayed at the HQ. It also sounded like he had brought others into this stupid mess too. Real smart, Fire, real smart. Oh angels…I’m starting to sound like Waterstar; that’s just dandy.

And to continue my freaking pissed off ranting, no one was helping me become conscious. No one. At all. Yea, yea, Water checked my injuries an hour or so ago, but that’s it. They’re all just like, “Oh hey, there’s Darkstar, he’s not dying or anything like that so we’ll just temporarily forget all about him and have fun being without him.” Haha, awesome guys, just real freaking awesome.

Yea, you might say I’m getting pretty worked up about this, but have you ever been stuck in a dark chasm without any outside communication that’s somewhere deep in the back of your mind? Didn’t think so. Trust me, it isn’t as fun as it sounds. My apologies to those who have been in my position.

WATERSTAR

My mind was in a frenzy, a really huge, really confused frenzy. Seconds before I was about to hug Vladimir (in a helpful, comforting way… I really think I should stop watching Earth movies) he’d spun me around and placed me in a headlock. This guy was no joke. I was in the most defenseless position that I’ve been in since forever. I couldn’t even figure out
why
I was in the headlock, much less get out of it. Just freaking fabulous.

I heard a few thumps hit the ground and I tried to look up. Not the best idea in the world, but I did manage to get a glimpse of red hair and a short pony tail.

Firestar.

How the hell did he get down here? I’m surprised Arctic had let him leave… ehh on second thought, Arctic probably hadn’t.

“Sorry, instant reaction,” Vladimir started to say as he loosened the headlock. I felt his muscles tighten behind me as he assessed the newcomers. I was just straightening up when Vlad pushed me behind him and stood in an attack stance.

“Oh angels, Water!” Firestar shouted from the other side of Vlad.

“Don’t touch her,” Vladimir snarled.

“She’s my best friend, and you sir are screwed.” Fire replied, his eyes narrowing. Oh wonderful, both of their voices were deep and menacing and death threats were flying left and right. Guys are such idiots!

I tried to get a word in but that wasn’t going to happen. They were about ten feet apart and if they could’ve been circling each other like wolves, they would’ve. However, Vlad didn't want to expose me to the others, which kept him firmly planted in front of me.

I finally noticed the other three people behind Fire. I recognized Icestar, but the other two were complete strangers, wait, I take that back, the one with the green hair looked a bit like the guy who had picked Fire up… and should’ve picked me up too, though that didn’t go as planned, now did it? I think his name was Foreststar… I think.

Either way, the girl with the bumblebee colored hair was motioning for me to sneak over to them. I shook my head no and held up an index finger in the universal “one second.”

I seriously needed a plan, or at least an infamous Waterstar improvise. I watched as Fire lunged for Vlad but the latter easily evaded it. They exchanged a few more blows, but neither of them had an advantage, hopefully they wouldn’t fight fire with fire any time soon, and I mean that quite literally.

I guess this would be a good time to intervene. I quickly stepped to Vlad’s right, his weaker side. While watching them, I had noticed that he led with his left. I saw Firestar’s eyes flicker toward me; I think he thought I was trying to move to his side so he launched himself at Vlad again, probably trying for a distraction. Hah, jk. New plan, Firestar.

I spun into his line of attack and held my right hand against Fire’s chest while letting my elbow act as a spring when his momentum collided with me. I used Vlad as a cushion when I was pushed backwards by Fire. I also faintly felt energy surrounding me, as if it too were acting as a cushion. Energy couldn’t be a solid, despite some other occurrences where I had thought so. It had to just be my imagination.

“STOP IT!” My voice rang out in the sudden silence.

On both sides of me there was heavy breathing. I could feel the two boys still glaring at each other like little kids; I had a feeling that I only had a limited time to explain that neither was an enemy.

“Vladimir, Firestar is a good guy, he’s my friend.” I slightly turned my head toward the half-demon, still keeping Fire in my line of sight. Then I turned to Fire in the same manner, “Fire, Vladimir is good,” I hesitated at the word ‘good’, that wasn’t exactly the right word. “Or well, he isn’t going to hurt us.” I amended.