Star Rebellion (19 page)

“What’s with this all of the sudden?” Arctic asked while standing up. Arctic was by no means short, but the pope seemed to dwarf him.

“I did not feel like it could be said with the others here.” Vatican was showing no signs of nervousness, like he had everything under control. This made Arctic hesitant; people who seethed with power had a history of being dangerous.

“What about your share of the work on Earth? Who will guide the southern part of Europe?” Arctic crossed his arms and unconsciously raised an eyebrow.

“I have here written a statement to Rome, explaining everything that he will need to know.” Vatican waved the notepad.

Arctic motioned to see the notepad; he wanted to make sure that everything was as he had said, that the pope hadn’t added anything extra that was false.

After quickly scanning the statement, Arctic was satisfied that there wasn’t anything that could be incorrect. “Though I do not trust Rome to be able to handle such a situation, it is your choice. I will have Snowstar deliver this immediately.” He pressed a finger to his earpiece and called for the intern ambassador. After she had come and gone, Arctic returned to where the Vatican had stayed waiting.

“Now what is this of being an important player in the war to come?”

“I have a… history of warfare, along with a large knowledge about demons and the Underworld, even more than what you have in this packet of yours, though it is quite detailed,” the man added the last part quickly so then it was known that he wasn’t trying to criticize the Commander.

Arctic considered what he said. The pope didn’t look older than himself, which wasn’t much. That, however, didn’t mean that he wasn’t experienced, he’d just have started a lot earlier in life than most people.

“Since we’re shorthanded as it is, and if you really do have that much knowledge about the Underworld, then this is an offer that I cannot pass up, but you must understand that I will not give you my full trust immediately. There is too much on the line to risk all at once.” Arctic eyed down Vatican, wondering how the man would react. If how he was taking this conversation could say anything about him, he could be a powerful ally or a deadly enemy. Arctic didn’t feel the normal tense clenching of his gut that he would experience when someone was ill equipped to handle a cause. His gut feeling was telling him this man was valuable.

             
“I wouldn’t expect anything more from someone in such a high position. If you had given me your full trust upfront, I would be worried about where this organization was going.” Vatican smiled and Arctic started to like the man more; if nothing else, he was a more reliable and stronger person than the previous pope. All he did was spout about how with God’s will it didn’t matter if the world imploded on itself.

WATERSTAR

I vaguely felt someone pick me up, though I couldn’t really concentrate on what was happening in the outside world. Every inch of my skin felt like it was on fire, like it had been melted and then dried over again.

Some type of thick liquid started dripping onto my face. I squeezed my eyes shut tightly, even though they were already closed, but I still felt like the liquid was penetrating my skin, soaking through it and into my bloodstream.

I finally became aware of someone speaking over my body. “Damn it, Waterstar. You can’t freaking die, not now! Not ever! We're supposed to save the world,” the voice ended in a whispered cry as the speaker hit my arm.

Slowly and painfully, I cracked an eye open. It felt like layers of dust that would’ve built up over years were gluing th
e lids together, and I felt the stuff crumble away. I swiped at my eye with the back of my hand, though my muscles were extremely sore. The stuff that had covered my eyes was ash.

“Waterstar?”

I looked up to the person who had been speaking over me to see tears falling from Firestar’s golden eyes.

“What happened?” The memories slowly came back to me as I looked around. We were back in Vladimir’s cavern… wait! “What happened?” I said again, but this time I was scared. “You guys did plan Inferno, and then I completely blacked out…. Did Vladimir show up? I thought you said he was evil. How’s everyone else?” My throat was really dry, but my onslaught of questions just kept coming out despite the physical pain.

Firestar pulled his shirt to his eyes to wipe off his tears. It kind of surprised me that Fire, who acted all macho and stuff, had been crying. Guess it shows just how much he cared for his friends. “We completely smoked him! I paralyzed Lucifer with plan Inferno, though apparently we all blacked out. Kuro says that Vladimir showed up to finish off his father, but we did most of it. I will admit, I guess, that it wasn't a trap. Not that I can see. Vladimir saved our lives.” Firestar tacked on the last part grudgingly, and I smiled. If he was even starting to feel a little more benevolent to Vlad, I would be ecstatic.

I tried to peer around Firestar. “And everyone else?” I hesitantly whispered.

“Safe. Like I said, everyone was knocked out. Kuro and Vladimir brought us back here, though he’s passed out on some couch that he conjured up. What kind of magic is that? Icestar was the first to wake up, Forest is betting it has something to do with constantly being around explosions. Kuro showed him this liquid stuff that would help revive everyone else. That stuff worked like magic; nearly everyone woke up pretty fast, except you, that is. Move your shoulder around, too, the one you hit when Lucifer threw you.” Before I even had time to do as he said, Firestar continued. “That weird liquid stuff heals wounds too. You should be as good as new.”

I rotated my shoulder and noticed that he was correct. I knew it had been dislocated after Lucifer had thrown me at the wall. “How long have I been out of it?”

“Forever! I thought I was supposed to be the lazy one.” Fire mockingly punched my arm. Someone was in a good mood. I guess the thing about beating Lucifer was making him even more arrogant than usual. That's just what we needed. “But really though. Only about half an hour longer than the rest of us.”

I nodded my head and laid back on the floor, which wasn’t that uncomfortable. “What now?” I asked after a few moments of silence. I could hear the other rebels moving around the room, though it didn’t seem like anything major was going on.

“Ice is trying to wire up a system to connect us to Arctic for them to send us some back up to get out. We don’t have any provisions, and without Vladimir awake, I don’t think we could get out of here, especially in the condition we’re all in.”

I nodded my head and looked around the room again. It looked almost exactly like when we had been here a few hours previously, except for the black couch that was kind of scary with the curving patterns in the metal; I think it was showing different ways to torture someone.

“Arctic will be pissed.”

Firestar chuckled and looked me from the corner of his eye. “I think that we can handle that. I’m sure the rescue of the Animals will help gain us his favor.”

I nodded and looked at the makeshift coral that had sectioned off a fourth of the room. All five of them seemed content with staying inside the confines of their pen, though I’m sure the dragon could just as easily step out of the short fencing.

“Where’s Kuro? I want to ask her something.”

Firestar pulled me to my feet and motioned to where Vlad was sleeping on the couch; Kuro was curled up by his side. “I’m glad to see you awake, Waterstar.”

“Same here. How long has he been asleep?” I asked, glancing with concern at Vladimir; his skin had a ghostly pallor to it that made his cheeks look even more prominent, almost as if he were just a skull with the skin stretched too tight.

“A few hours. He’ll probably be awake soon.”

“’Kay… was there anything important that Lucifer had said in his last moments?” A bad feeling was gnawing at my stomach, like we had missed something important, like this battle wasn’t over.

Kuro blinked one eye, as cats tend to do. “I will let Vladimir explain it.”

That, of course, did not ease the feeling in my stomach. I knew that there wouldn’t be any other way to persuade the cat otherwise though, so Fire and I joined the others where Ice was messing around with a toolkit and a pile of wires. I could see the remnants of the casing that had held the prototype headphones.

“Come on Darkstar, please?” I heard Ice ask as we approached them.

“No way. My headphones aren’t becoming scrap.” Dark defiantly placed a hand on the headphones that were still around his neck. Somehow, even after all the battling, those had managed to survive. He was infatuated with them, after all.

“I promise I’ll make you a better pair when we get back!” Darkstar still shook his head against Ice’s pleas.

“What’s going on?” I asked finally, stepping between the two guys.

“I need some wiring that’s in Dark’s headphones, but he won’t let me.”

“Is there some other way you can construct it?”

“No. My prototypes didn’t have the signal adjuster since I wasn’t planning on hooking them up to Arctic’s for a while; only Darkstar’s headphones have the adjuster, though they don’t work after what happened back there.”

“Dark! What’s so important about your headphones that you can’t give them up?”

Dark looked toward his side. “He lied; he said that he could make a new signal adjuster, it’d just take longer. I’ve had these babies since before we became the Mystic Team.”

I rolled my eyes. Of course, the one thing he decides to get attached to is the thing that can help us get out of here.

“Come on Darkstar, Icestar can probably reconstruct them later, right Ice?”

“Probably….”

“See! You’re just being childish.”

Darkstar turned away from us. “Fine, but if I lose them for good, you’re not going to see the light of day for some time!”

“Stop fighting, you guys. Dark, you won’t have to give up your headphones.”

We all spun around in surprise; Vladimir had woken up, and even though he looked a little worse for the wear, he was walking toward us with an odd smile on his face.

“Icestar, if I get you up in the NOPCW again, could you rummage around there to find something to connect to this Arctic guy?”

Icestar’s eyes seemed to get a crafty gleam in them. “Hell yea,” by the way he said it, I feel like he had been hoping for a chance to get into the NOPCW’s technology systems for a while now. I doubted he got very far when he had a chance to explore back when we had originally supposed to have been retrieved.

“It’s settled then. Water, Dark, and Fire please come with me, we will discuss what I found out from my father before he died; it will put in a halt to your plans of returning. Foreststar, please go with Ice and make sure everything is alright on the surface. There might still be some officials up there, or something worse.”

Forest muttered something about who made Vladimir the boss before following him and Ice to the vent in the middle of the room, which they then stepped up onto. Vladimir turned on the air for the vent and they got lifted up to the ledge of the ceiling.

“What’s this about something worse on the surface?” I asked as my friends and I stepped up to Vladimir.

Vladimir kept his back to us as he launched into a brief story. My hand covered my mouth when I realized the severity of what was happening, that there were demons roaming on both worlds, or at least, that it was like that according to Lucifer’s predictions. Plus, it was our fault. For the most part at least. I mean, we didn't do this on purpose, it wasn't our ultimate goal to release demons to ravage everything. So you couldn't completely blame us, could you? Definitely not our fault then, but still wasn't a good thing to have. Demons, from legends at least, are pretty deadly. We haven't had to fight any yet, but I will admit I am quite excited to kick some Demon ass.

“Do you know if they’ve left the Underworld yet?” Firestar asked as if he was reading my mind.

“Yes, they have. I noticed that there were a great deal of missing demons when I was taking you all back here. This is one of the few safe places now. If you want,” here he paused for a second, as if considering a decision he had already made. “If you want, we can start escorting people from both worlds here. Not many would fit, especially for a long amount of time, but until we get things under control, or have a plan, they could….”

“No Vlad, that won’t work. Firstly, how the hell would we decide who gets the safe area? and secondly, no matter what, the demons will have to be fought. Hiding won’t do anything; let’s get back to Arctic and see if he has a plan.” I said, shaking my head. Even though I didn't really like Earth people, it really would be rude to decide who lives and dies.

Vladimir nodded and motioned for us to step up onto the vent. He punched something into a control panel I hadn’t seen earlier, and then stepped up with us. In a few seconds of air streaming past us, my feet started lifting from the ground. I was the first one that was in the air, mostly because I was the smallest of the four of us.

We found Icestar practically high with the joy of having so many top class electrics to work with; the floor was covered in insulators that had been torn apart, exposing wires of all metals known. Foreststar was leaning against the wall next to the door, with a revolver in his hand. His arm twitched as we entered the room, but otherwise he made no comment.