Devil Ash Days (Devil Ash Saga) (12 page)

The largest man in the group threw a swing at Shiva. She brushed his fist aside and delivered a kick to his stomach that dropped him to his knees. The mousy-looking guy came at Ash. He was slower than Shiva, so Ash found it quite easy to dodge the attack. He wanted desperately to use his fire, so he held an open palm to the man’s face to once again attempt to create a flame.

Initially, nothing happened. The man, who for a brief moment was frightened and covered his face, removed his hands after realizing nothing was happening. He smiled as Ash was finally able to produce a couple of sparks, spraying them directly into the man’s eyes. He fell to the floor, clutching his face and rolling in pain.

Shiva was having a grand time defending from a larger trio of devils. They circled her like vultures, waiting for their opportunity to strike.
The girl stood, waiting. Finally the largest, bearded man made the first strike. He came at her with a small knife that he pulled from his belt. Shiva grabbed for the hand holding the blade and caught his wrist. At the same time, one of the she-devils pounced from behind. Shiva caught her with a high kick, sending her stumbling back.

There was such a drastic change in Shiva’s behavior that Ash was only able to notice while she was locked in combat. She had a giant smile on her face, and only when she was throwing her wild punches or dodging incoming kicks did Shiva truly look happy.

“Are you just going to stand there?” Shiva yelled at Ash.

The boy
snapped out of his trance at once. This was his time to prove himself helpful. He grabbed a nearby chair that had fallen to the ground, took his place behind the man who sat on Aura’s right side, and slammed it over his head. The right-hand man flinched briefly.

“I’ve always wanted to do that!” Ash said. However, against a devil, a chair was like a piece of paper. The man turned around, readying a ball of fire in his hand.

“
Crap
,” Ash said before the ball of fire came flying at him. He dropped to the floor, narrowly avoiding it. It instead flew across the bar and caught another large man in the back of the head, causing him to spill the cup he was drinking from. It didn’t seem like he was otherwise hurt, but as he turned around and saw Ash staring back at him, it was clear that he was not happy.

The man arose. He stood at least seven feet tall, and seemed to be sculpted out of pure muscle. Those muscles flexed and bulged and generally looked pretty gross, all of which could be seen because of his distasteful choice of outfit. To his credit, he was wearing trousers. Unfortunately that was about it, aside from the pair of suspenders holding his pants up. The light from the room bounced off his bald head.

“Now you’ve done it! You went and pissed off Dunger!” Aura shouted from his seat. He had not moved since the brawl started, but was laughing and watching instead, amused. The large man known as Dunger stormed over to them. Maybe it was because he didn’t see who threw the fireball. Or maybe he was a friend of the others. Whatever the reason, he came straight for Ash.

Ash had been slightly nervous about fighting against other people. When facing a mountain of a man,
the boy figured it would be best to strike first. He wound up and threw a punch that connected with Dunger’s jaw. The man barely flinched.

“
Crap
,” Ash said. Dunger smirked as he grabbed Ash by the shoulders, picking him up and hurling him across the bar. He crashed into a couple tables, breaking his fall. The key difference between video game fights and real life fights: real life fights were as scary as they were painful! As quickly as he could, Ash was back up on his feet, covered in food and strange-smelling liquids. He was afraid the giant man would be on him as soon as he was down, but to his luck Dunger just watched him curiously. He obviously didn’t consider Ash to be much of a challenge.

Needing the power of his flames now more than ever, Ash attempted again to form some fire in his hands. A few more sparks showered the floor, but nothing solid appeared. Dissapointed, Dunger turned his focus to Shiva, who was still holding off the advances of the other goons. She wasn’t going to last much longer, not against that many. Ash had to come up with some sort of idea, and fast.

“Hey you!” Ash called to him. Dunger turned around, surprised at the straight-forwardness of the puny boy challenging him. “Let’s do this!” he said, attempting to draw him away from Shiva.

Dunger gave a look of disbelief. He shrugged his shoulders, and then smiled before charging towards Ash. Ash charged forward as well, screaming like a madman as he ran.

Stopping mere feet in front of his opponent, Ash jumped up and grabbed a hold of the rafters in the ceiling of the bar, and using all his might slammed both his feet into Dunger’s face.

Dunger went soaring backwards into the right-hand man, whom Shiva was struggling with, and they both fell to the floor. Trapped under the weight of Dunger, he was unable to get back up. Thinking quickly, Ash grabbed two glasses of what he assumed to be booze off the bar and tossed it on the pile of men.

“Shiva!” he said. “Fire away!”

Without batting an eye, Shiva tossed a small ball of flame at the two men.

As Ash had imagined it would, the liquid ignited. The two men burned in agony, rolling around on the floor trying to extinguish themselves.

“Nice thinking,” Shiva
said, and while she was distracted, one of the she-devils knocked her down with a shove. But she wasn’t defeated; only pissed off. She came back up from below with an uppercut to the woman, which not only lifted her off her feet but dropped her back to the floor on her ass
.

The large, bearded man came back with his knife for another swing. This time Shiva grabbed his knife hand and threw a quick open-palm jab with her free hand to his jaw, making him drop the blade. She finished him off by slapping her palms over his ears, rupturing his eardrums and stunning him. Ash joined in, jump-kicking him to the ground and ending the fight. Anyone left either crawled away in pain or lay unconscious on the floor.

Aura stood and began to applaud, having not moved an inch during the fight.

“That was pretty good!” he said.

“You’re coming with us.
Now
!”

“I didn’t want to do this,” Aura
said. “But you leave me no choice.”

Ash gasped, hoping he wasn’t about to do what he thought he might do.

“So, we’ll have to deal with this after all…” Shiva said.

Aura held out his gauntlet hand before them, grinning with malice. “I can kill you with one touch, you know,” he said in a lowered voice while gripping his gauntlet, ready to pull it off at any moment and release the horrible
power beneath it.

Ash took a step back and braced himself. He had grown stronger and more confident in his fighting ability, but by no means was he ready to fight someone w
ho could kill with only a touch. Even as the surge of adrenaline rushed through his body, calm logic told him to step away. Shiva gulped but stood firm.

“I won’t b
ack down from you,” she said. “My orders are to bring you back, and that’s exactly what I’ll do. Even if it means a fight with you!”

This is it
, Ash thought.
With his goons taken care of, all that’s left is the boss battle. If we can beat Aura, he’ll join our group! If not, game over. Only this isn’t a game, and we’ll actually die!

The room was now completely silent. The injured members of Aura’s
gang did their best to regroup, but could not fight any further. They merely watched in amazement, hoping to see their leader in action. The rest of the bar patrons were either leaving or gathering around to get a peek at Aura’s power. Everyone’s eyes were on Aura, eager with anticipation for the show to come. The tension was thick as could be.

With an exhausted shrug, Aura dropped his arms to his side and let out a bored yawn. “Eh, I’d rather not fight with you.”

The onlookers cried out in disappointment and shock at how easily Aura gave up. His gang was especially outraged.

“Sorry guys,” he said to them. “I
t looks like I’ll be going with them for the time being.” He grabbed his blue and black jacket from the booth and slung it over his shoulder. As he strolled across the bar to join Ash and Shiva, the look on his crew’s faces read disappointment and betrayal. They wanted to call out to him, but nothing they could say would change the situation. Their leader abandoned them.

With Aura in tow, the
trio headed for the exit. On the way out, Aura called to the bartender. “I’ll leave the clean-up to you, old man!” A single, trembling hand bearing a ‘thumbs up’ arose from behind the bar.  As they exited, the shocked crowd parted for them. Outside, they were greeted by stares from a fresh new crowd that, upon hearing the sounds of the tussle coming from inside, had gathered around out of curiosity. Seeing Lady Shiva and the death toucher Aura, everyone scattered and returned to whatever business they had initially started out to do.

“Lady Shiva, I’m already familiar with you.
Who’s your friend?” Aura asked.

“My
subordinate,”
Shiva corrected him.

“Ash Kaplan,
” the boy introduced himself.

“Aura Draxler,” Aura
said and extended his gauntlet hand. When Ash hesitated, Aura added “It’s okay, it won’t kill you! That’s why I wear the gauntlet.” Ash, still not quite convinced, took the hand anyway and shook. He was pleased to discover it did not kill him. “You put up quite the fight, pal. I’ve never seen anyone best Dunger before. And your quick thinking with the alcohol was genius!”

“Thanks,” Ash said.
“Shiva taught me everything I know.”

“Not a bad job for a human,” Aura said, testing his theory.

“You
knew?
” Ash asked, afraid his human stench was overpowering.

“I didn’t before, but you just confirmed it,” Aura said, sounding rather fascinated. He whipped his jacket around and wrapped it over his shoulders. The collar had a button that he snapped together so that it stayed snug on his neck. Without putting his arms through the sleeves, he wore the jacket like a cape.

“This should be interesting, to say the least,” he said. “So what exactly are the two of you dragging me into?”

Chapter Ten: Show Me Your Moves!

Shiva and Ash marched behind Aura, keeping a close eye on
the boy in case he made an attempt to flee. Aura strolled along casually, arms behind his head, as if it were a typical afternoon walk through the market. As they strode by, onlookers couldn’t help but drop what they were doing and watch the spectacle: Lady Shiva Satan, the notorious death toucher Aura Draxler, and the rumored half-human Ash Kaplan. The group together was history in the making.

Any beautiful ladies they passed by were subjected to waves, winks, and catcalls from Aura. The ladies weren’t helping his ego any, as most of them blushed and swooned and generally reinforced his chauvinistic behavior. Ash was amazed at how popular he was; Shiva was disgusted.

“Do you really think I’d fly off?” Aura asked.

“I don’t trust you,” Shiva replied. “If we walk, I can keep a closer eye on you.”

“What reason do I have to run? I’m already on your ‘most-wanted’ list. Attempting to escape would only by a serious risk to my health. You should know I plan on staying healthy.”

“I don’t think he’d try to escape. Did you see how quickly he gave up back there? He didn't even try to put up a fight,” Ash said.

“It was never my intention to fight,” Aura said. “My friends got a little carried away, that’s all. Honestly, sometimes those guys can be so reckless.” Aura came to a stop and turned around, facing the two. Shiva stopped and tensed up, expecting trouble. “Unless you truly value giving your legs a workout, I suggest we fly.”

“It’s probably best not to keep Goddard waiting,” Ash
said. Truthfully, South Hell was beginning to depress him. He’d never go walking through a dangerous, gang-fueled neighborhood back on Earth. Why start doing so in Hell? That, and he also wanted to continue working on his wing strength.

Shiva thought it over for a moment. She sighed in defeat, and agreed with them. “Fine. We will fly straight to the castle,” she
said. “Ash and I will be right behind you. If you try anything funny, we won’t hesitate to take you down.”

Her threats bounced idly off Aura, as he replied with a ‘thumbs up’. “You got it,” he said.

The three of them brought out their wings. Ash was amazed at how easy it was to do now, and his speed had already reached the standard for devils. It was now as simple as stretching out his arms. Staying airborne was still a struggle for him, but he was getting better at it. He could at least keep up with Shiva in the air now.

Together, they flew in formation: Aura in front, Shiva and Ash behind keeping watch. Despite Shiva’s suspicions, Aura kept his word and flew straight to the castle with no deviations or odd behavior of any sort. Ash was just pleased that he didn’t attempt an escape, as it would mean extra work for them trying to catch him. He wasn’t very fond of the idea of being on the receiving end of that death touching hand either.

As their flight to the castle came to an end, the three of them landed outside the castle gates. Aura apparently had never been this close to the castle in all his life, resulting in behavior similar to that of a tourist on vacation. Upon touchdown, he admired the size of the castle and began sizing it up as he would before a heist.

“So I finally g
et to go inside the castle, huh…” Aura said.

“If it were up to me you wouldn’t be allowed inside,” Shiva replied.

“What’s the big deal?” Ash asked.

“For devils like you and her it’s an ordinary occurrence,” Aura
said. “But for riff-raff like me, this is a once-in-a-lifetime event!”

“Get used to it. You’re on the team now,” Shiva said without even a small inclination of enthusiasm. She trudged forward through the gates and into the castle.

“And what exactly is our function?” Aura asked her, matching his pace with hers to keep up.

“I’ve been wondering about that too,” Ash
said. “Are we just doing odd jobs around town or what?”

“You should know I don’t do physical labor,” Aura
said.

“
Shut up
. We’re going to report to Goddard. He’s the one that’ll give us our orders.”

“Goddard von Gosick, Royal Advisor to the Satan Family,” Aura said in an encyclopedic tone. He had heard Goddard’s name many times since his inauguration as the Satan’s Ro
yal Advisor several years ago.

“Way to be up to date on politics,
Draxler
,” Shiva replied.

“It’s kind of hard not to be,” Aura told her. “It was a huge deal when he was appointed your family’s advisor. A lot of people thought it a foolish move appointing someone so young to such an important job.”

“Appointing Goddard was the best move my father has ever made,” Shiva said. At her dangerous tone, no one said anything to challenge her.

“Didn’t he write a book, too?” Aura asked. “What was it called? ‘The pocket guide to Hell’, or something like that?”

Ash pulled out his copy of ‘Hell in My Pocket’ and held it up. “You mean this?”

“That’s it!”

“Wow. The guy gave me
his own
book. He even called it ‘the most comprehensive book’ about Hell. What a tool.”

“Let me just make one thing clear,” Shiva said. “Goddard von Gosick is a genius. Everything he has, he earned through hard work and dedication to my family.”

From that moment on, Ash and Aura knew not to insult Goddard while they were in the company of Shiva.

They traveled down the usual halls and staircases that lead through the castle to Goddard’s conference room, and this time Ash was surprised to realize he actually knew the way. When they arrived at the door, Ash made a mental note of which room number it was: 42. They entered to find Goddard waiting behind his usual stack of papers. As they filed in, Goddard didn’t even bother to look up.

“I presume you’ve brought the young death toucher with you,” he said.

“You’d know that if you just looked,” Aura said.

“Sit.”

The three of them took their seats across the table from him. He parted his stacks of paper so as to clear off the space between them.

“Show me your hand,” Goddard said to Aura.

“I don’t really like to show it off.”

“That was not a request, it was an
order
.”

Aura hesitated a moment, exhaled in defeat, and then gripped his metal gauntlet with his free hand. Slowly, he pulled it off. Ash was half-expecting to see a ‘skeleton hand’ or something a little scarier.  But it looked like any other hand, except it was black. Not just ‘darker than usual’, it was black as night from the wrist up. Even his fingernails were pure black. It looked like he had dipped his hand in a bucket of black paint.

“It has the power to remove a soul from a living body with only a touch,” Goddard whispered aloud, yet it seemed like he was not saying it for anyone’s benefit but his own. He continued admiring it until Aura finally couldn’t take it anymore. He slipped his gauntlet back on, ending Goddard’s trance of admiration.

“Shall I assume
this
is the reason I’ve been recruited?” Aura asked, waving his hand.

“One of the reasons,” Goddard said. “The other being that it would be foolish to allow anyone with that ability to remain unwatched
.”
Goddard then scribbled down some notes on one of his papers.

“Great, I just
love
having people watch me,” Aura said. “Usually its just pretty girls, though.”

“Can we move on now?” Shiva asked.

Goddard put his pen down finally and gripped a small, wooden box that sat before him. He slid it across the table to Shiva, who caught it clumsily.

“Open it.”

Shiva unlatched the box and flipped the lid open. Inside were three small, metal objects. They were a little larger than a coin, and had an odd shape to them. Despite the lack of detail, the group could tell what they were supposed to be: a fireball, with devil wings sticking out the sides. Shiva picked one up and saw it was a pin.

“What are those?” Ash asked, picking one up and inspecting it.

“Your badges,” Goddard replied. “They will grant you special permissions to access some restricted areas, as well as symbolize your team status.” As he talked, Aura and Ash pinned their badges on their shirts. Shiva pocketed hers temporarily. “I’ve already given word to the Royal Guard to honor your team’s authority, so you can expect their cooperation in your endeavors.”

“Why not just make us join the Royal Guard?” Aura
asked.

“The Royal Guard falls un
der Commander Stryd’s lead. You three will be
my
team, as allowed by King Satan.”

“And what do we get out of it?” Aura asked.

“You will be paid, of course, for every successful job.”

“
Now
we’re talking!” Aura said.

“
Jobs
?” Shiva repeated, dejected. “I thought we’d be taking on important missions!  Vital assignments to the safety of Hell! Imperative operations for all Devilkind! So what do you mean ‘
jobs’
?”

Goddard raised a single hand in an effort to quiet her. “Of course you’ll be undertaking
missions
as well,” he told her. She seemed to calm down a little at that. “But when there are not vital missions for you to undertake, you will be doing any miscellaneous jobs that come my way.”

“So what’s the difference between a mission and a job?” Ash asked. He was somewhat relieved at having jobs to do, hoping this would mean less training time with Shiva. Also, the thought of carrying out missions and jobs reminded him once again of his beloved video games, in which it was commonplace for his characters to accept ‘quests’ from in-game characters.

“Jobs are simple, low priority, and non-vital. They will occupy most of your time. But every so often, something of utmost importance will occur, and I shall require the three of you to undertake a mission. They
cannot
be failed.”

“Just for the sake of asking,
what happens to us if we do fail a mission?” Aura asked.

“Should you fail a mission, Lady Shiva will be dishonored,” Goddard
said. Aura flashed a quick smile at Ash, who returned the sentiment. It didn’t seem like too bad of a punishment, at least not for them. “The two of you will also be
disciplined,
” Goddard added. There was a certain tone to his voice that gave Ash the creeps, and he knew it had to be worse than it sounded.

“I can assure you,” Shiva
said, “that we will
never
fail you.”

“See that you don’t,” Goddard
replied. “Now, I’m just dying to see my new team in action. Let’s go to the private yard for a little ‘team building exercise’.”

On their way down to the private yard, a member of the Royal Guard caused quite the stir when he collapsed in the hall. This caused Goddard and his team to pause for a moment and see what was happening. Several other Royal Guards that were nearby rushed over to the man, now lying face-first on the palace floor.

“Quick,” One of the guards who’d rushed to his side sa
id. “He needs medical attention!”

Another man removed the collapsed guard’s helmet. Underneath the headwear, his face was beet red. Large cuts and gashes covered his face and neck, and presumably continued down his entire body. “What happened to him?” the helping guard asked in shock.

“He finished last in this morning’s training drill. The Commander had him
disciplined
…”

Ash barely noticed that Goddard and Shiva were once again walking, and sprinted to catch up. Aura paced next to him, lost in thought.

“That does not bode well for us,” he whispered to Ash.

“We’ll just have to bring our A-game for the missions,” Ash replied, attempting to sound more confident than he actually felt.

One by one, they entered the private courtyard where Shiva had previously beaten Ash to a pulp in an attempt to teach him the art of combat. Goddard stopped short of the center, and Shiva paraded in front of her two subordinates until they reached the center.

“Impressive,” Aura said. “A big grassy area with nothing in it.”

“Goddard,” Shiva said, turning to her superior, “If I may, I would like to see what
Draxler
here can do.” She glared at Aura. He smiled back at her, convinced she was checking him out.

“That would be splendid. Let’s have a little sparring match between Lady Shiva and Mr. Draxler.” Ash
felt a bit left out, but he was okay with that at the moment. He, too, wanted to see what Aura could do.

“I’ll have you know that I do not fight with ladies.”

“Tough,” Shiva said, dashing forward in an attempt to attack him. With zero effort, Aura pivoted on his feet and patted her on the back as Shiva breezed by unharmed.