Devil Ash Days (Devil Ash Saga) (5 page)

Finally Ash dropped to the forest floor onto his face. He had entered the final stage of his transformation. The pain was over, and now all that was left was numbness. Ash felt nothing as his body changed. The growths that emerged from his back popped and stretched and grew from his shoulder blades, ripping through his shirt. His glasses fell from his face and were crushed beneath his body. The skin growths continued stretching until they finally took the shape of wings. As they contorted and settled, the familiar feathers of the angel’s wings would not appear. The large, dark wings that Ash now sported were those of the devils.

The physical transformation was winding down now. Ash was completely unconscious, though his eyes were still open. With the devil wings emerged, the next thing to happen was the awakening of his soul, which happened in bursts. The first was so strong it shot him up to a standing position. Instinct kicked in, and although he was still unconscious, he remained standing upright. His eyes, still wide open, turned pure white.

He was becoming a
devil.

The Prince continued to beat Sosime into submission. It was clear that the devil royalty did not want him dead; he was only looking for fun. Though the angel’s own soul power was drained, The Prince wasn’t remotely exhausted yet. Darko assaulted his angelic opponent from all directions, beating his face and body to a bloody, bruised mess. His sword, Infernos, remained unused. If he were to use it, the fight would be over instantly. Not that it could really be called a ‘fight’ at this point. It was a slow execution.

Finally, The Prince sent Sosime soaring straight to the ground with a double-fisted slam to the back of the head. He didn’t want to, but he held himself back and did not attack any further. Doing so spared the angel’s life.

“I don’t know about you, but I’ve been in a lot of fights and I’ve taken every opportunity to harness and control my soul power. You, on the other hand, don’t seem to be able to control it at all. If I were to guess, I’d say it was brought on by a sudden surge of emotion, most likely because of your pathetic lackey dying. It’s exactly because of your inexperience and weakness that I am now standing over you, able to deal the killing blow whenever I please.”

As The Prince lectured him, Sosime barely clung to consciousness. This fight had already gone on longer than any fight he’d ever been in before. It was at this moment when something happened that changed the fight. Although he was far away, Ash’s unexpected bursts of soul power reached all the way to the angel and devil in their battle. As it washed over them, they each felt differently about the situation.

The Prince felt a sense of pride, knowing that his mission was now complete. He could care less about the human they’d just converted though. It merely served as a time marker, and he knew that their time on Earth was nearly over.

Sosime, too, knew that the awakening of the boy’s soul meant that the devils succeeded in transforming him into one of them. His own mission had gone extremely wrong tonight, and was about to be over entirely if he did not break out of this area seal at once. As a result of his frustration and despair, Sosime’s soul power activated once more. This time, however, it was much stronger. Rage and determination coursed through him, and he felt his soul awakening to its full potential.

“Oh?” The Prince remarked, feeling the renewed spark of battle power coming from his opponent. “What is this? I thought you were-”

Before he could finish his sentence, Sosime’s fist connected with the bottom of his jaw, sending The Prince skyward. He hit his head on the top of the area seal and fell back down. Before he could hit the ground, or even figure out what was happening, the angel’s feet connected with his back, this time sending him flying towards the wall of the area seal. The devil was able to flip around so that his feet connected with the wall, bringing him to a relatively safe stop. He dropped to the ground.

The angel stood with perfect stillness several feet away. His face was distorted in concentration. The Prince waited and watched.

Sosime let out a dramatic scream. With that shout came the spectacle of Sosime’s bone shooting out where his arm had been severed. It extended the length of where the rest of his arm would have been, until it stopped at the hand and separate bones shot out as well.

Sosime clenched his teeth as the flesh began to stretch and wrap around the newly formed bone. Once the muscles all settled in, a layer of skin grew over it. It was a slightly different color from the rest of his skin – more pale. And just like that, the angel had regained his lost arm. His original, severed arm that was lying on the ground dried up, becoming a brittle husk.

“High-speed regeneration,” The Prince said. “The only ability you angels possess that I would say I actually
envy
.”

“Maybe if your kind hadn’t betrayed The Lord so long ago, he wouldn’t have taken it from you,” Sosime replied.

“Completely unnecessary,” said The Prince. “I would never be foolish enough to lose a limb.” With that, he charged at his angel opponent once more.

The white, glowing eye thing Ash had been doing was over, and his regular pupils returned. He strained his eyes for just a second, looking at his hands steaming in front of him. He noticed that he could see his hands more clearly than he had ever seen them in his life. And everything else the forest had to offer: individual leaves on the trees, various insects moving around, oh – and those demons waiting to kill him. He could make out their ugly features even better now, and oh how he wished he couldn’t. Nonetheless, he was pretty jazzed about his vision suddenly becoming awesome.

The second things he noticed were the enormous wings that had grown out of his back. They were kind of hard to miss, even if they were behind him. Just thinking about the wings made them move instinctively, and after a few seconds he discovered that they were as easy to move as his own arms.

“These don’t
look
like angel wings…” said Ash.

“
Angel?
” Goddard said, offended. “No no no my boy, you are
far
superior to the angels! You may not be able to see the changes right now with your clothing hiding your body, but believe you me: your body has changed! Gone is the
fat
that you’d acquired from your easy-going lifestyle, replaced with sheer muscle mass for fighting! Your eyes, weakened by your years spent in front of the television screen, are now a hundred times more powerful! You’ve become an
unstoppable
creature of the night!”

“What now?” Ash asked, growing skeptical. His health had recovered and he felt better than before, but he was still doubtful about everything Goddard claimed. Still, something within him compelled him to fight.

“
Tear them to shreds!
” Goddard said.

Ash obliged.

Chapter Five: To Another Abyss

There were five shriekers. Before Ash could really get moving, the flame barrier extinguished entirely and one of the demons rushed at him, desperate for a bite of him
.
Ash reacted on new instincts, moving his hands to grab the demon’s neck and outstretched arm. With the demon only inches away bellowing in his face the boy-devil tightened his grip on its neck to silence it. He accidentally moved his other arm a little too fast and tore off the sinister simian’s arm.

The demon would have probably screeched louder if Ash weren’t still choking it. Another shrieker attempted to sneak up behind him (well, as sneaky as one can be whilst shrieking). Ash spun around faster than he’d ever been able to pivot before in his life, holding the one-armed demon out before him. The ‘sneaky’ shrieker instead took a bite out of its comrade. Did it care? Not really. It continued to bite away at its fellow demon until Ash grabbed it by the neck as well. He held the two creatures as far apart as possible and then banged their heads together so fast their skull-like faces shattered into tiny fragments. Both demons went limp. Ash dropped them to the ground.
Three left.

The remaining demons were rampaging around the area. Two of them were up in the trees swinging about, and one remained on the ground. The grounded demon ran in figure-eights until Ash no longer cared to watch. He decided to pursue. It didn’t take much effort. While it seemed like the demon got slower, it was actually Ash who had become faster. With a nimble dash and a quick swipe of his arm, he caught the monster by the back of its neck. The monkey thrashed and tried swatting at Ash, but even with its long arms it couldn’t reach him.

What now?
Ash thought before coming up with an idea. He pulled his leg back and then shot it forward, digging his knee into the shrieker’s spine. It stopped moving. The other two demons in the trees began circling closer, gaining the courage to finally attack. Suddenly the dead demon in his hands turned into a projectile weapon as Ash turned and lobbed it at the nearest tree-born demon. It didn’t do much damage, but it did knock the shrieker out of the tree. It fell to the ground only feet away from where Ash stood.

He zoomed over to where the demon was with speed that surprised even him. Ash kicked the creature in the side of its head, sending it shooting over to a nearby tree and either knocking it out cold or killing it.

There was just one demon left. It remained up in the trees, seemingly safe for the time being. It was no longer making high-pitched, ear-piercing shrieks anymore. Its wild animal behavior was replaced with dire caution. The demon was stupid, but it wasn’t so stupid that it didn’t realize it was now completely on its own. This new foe had just killed several members of its pack. This was a bad day to be a shrieker.

With the demon just hanging there watching him, Ash came to realize that if his strength and speed had been boosted to ‘superhero’ proportions, then why the heck not his jumping abilities too? He crouched low and then shot upward. He ended up wracking his head against a tree branch several feet above where he was standing. It didn’t hurt though, and he was able to grab hold of the branch and hang at eye level with the last demon of the night.

The shrieker, in what could only be labeled as ‘demon logic’, decided that if he was safe before when he was up and Ash was down, now saw that Ash was up and up was suddenly not safe anymore. This could only mean that down was the new safe. So he let go of his branch and dropped to the ground. Ash followed. Suddenly, the demon didn’t want to be down anymore. Now it only wanted to back off. Ash strolled toward it, but it continued to retreat. The boy-devil almost chuckled at what a non-threat it had become, until it got closer to his unconscious mother.

The demon bumped into Grace’s sleeping body. It turned around and saw that it was now standing over a delicious, vulnerable human and all its primal instincts kicked back in. With an eardrum-rupturing shriek, it decided to gorge. This would not fly with Ash. He was at the demon’s side before it even lowered its head and opened its mouth. Ash blasted forth his arm and connected his fist with the demon’s face. It was the first of many awesome punches the boy would inevitably throw during his life as a devil.

The hard, skeletal face sank in all around Ash’s fist, and when he removed his hand he saw that he had shattered the demon’s face in. It was quite the unpleasant sight. To Goddard, who had been watching attentively this entire time, it was possibly one of the greatest moments he’d ever seen. Here was this Earth-boy-turned-devil, someone who was utterly pathetic only hours earlier, suddenly shattering demon’s faces without breaking a sweat.

Ash let out a relieved sigh. His ordeal was done and his mother was safe. The happy moment was interrupted by a clapping sound. It was Goddard, slowly approaching Ash and giving him a round of applause.

“You performed magnificently!”

“What happens now?” Ash said, quick to get to the point. He wiped the demon-face goo off his hand on his pant-leg.

“Now, my boy,” Goddard said, “I collect on the debt you owe me for giving you the power to save your mother.”

“
Already
?” Ash asked. “I thought you said we’d worry about it later!”

“It
is
later,” Goddard said. “I held up my end of the bargain and gave you what you needed, and now I would like to be repaid.”

“So what do you want, exactly?”

“I want the new soldier I’ve created. I want
you
, Ash.”

Ash’s heart skipped a hundred beats and his stomach turned. He became cold but sweated at the same time. His adrenaline rush wore off, and even though his body had miraculously healed in the transformation, he felt weak all over again. Although Goddard was only standing feet away, his face became blurry.

“Want me for what?”

“We’ll have plenty of time to chat about that when we get to Hell,” Goddard replied. The word ‘Hell’ rang in Ash’s mind.

“Hell? But…I don’t want to go to Hell…” He was barely able to argue as his eyelids became heavy. He felt himself about to pass out. He had to check on his mom first. He could see her still laying where he’d set her down. She looked peaceful now. Everything was starting to turn fuzzy. Lightning struck. Or maybe it was daylight? Nope, definitely lightning. Everything went dark again. Time was all messed up. Stupid
time
.

“I’ve gotta take my mom…” Ash tried to speak, but his words fell flat. He had a general idea of what he wanted to do, but his body wasn’t cooperating anymore.

“Shhh, shhhhh my boy,” Goddard said, laying a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I forgot to mention that while the transformation gave you a nice power rush, it also drained you of all energy in a few minutes. Everything will be fine when we get to Hell. You’ll see. It’s quite lovely.”

“No, I gotta…” Ash was barely awake now. He’d won against the demons, but he was losing his battle with the sandman.

“Don’t fight it,” Goddard said. “Night night.”

Ash fell over, succumbing to unconsciousness.

Goddard wasted no time reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small stone shaped like an old iron gate. He held it in his palm and stretched out his arm, closing his eyes in concentration. Within seconds, the gate key activated and generated a red electrical current. The power shot off the stone and went into the ground, where the strange electricity surged and swirled until the earth cracked and split. Up from between the fault line shot a massive iron gate.

Goddard collected his prize, the devil boy, into his arms and stepped towards the gate. The elegant gate doors swung open automatically for him. Even though the rest of the forest could be seen through the gates, the second they stepped through they disappeared. The earth put itself back together exactly how it stood before, and there was no trace they had ever been there. Except of course for all the bodies littering the ground.

“You feel that?” Prince Darko asked Sosime as their swords clashed again. They were in a dead heat and had been for a while. But Sosime’s strength was running out, while The Prince was still fresh. “I know you felt that! That was victory!” And with that, The Prince withdrew his sword. The battle was over.

“About time, I can finally do
this
!” The Prince inhaled a big breath of air, closed his eyes and exhaled. The area seal that had been their prison for the last hour flickered into sight and then disappeared altogether. Without the constant adrenaline pumping, Sosime’s soul power vanished. The fight was truly over for him.

“I guess I’ll be taking off now. Goddard has
big plans
for that boy,” the devil taunted.

“You
will not
get away with this,” Sosime said. “Sooner or later, you
will
be punished.”

“What are you talking about? We already
have
gotten away with this. This is me, getting away!” With that, he pulled out a stone similar to the one Goddard had used only moments ago. With less concentration than Goddard had needed, The Prince made the gate appear almost instantly. “I’ll leave the
clean-up
to you!”

This is it
, Sosime thought.
This is going to be the only chance I have… I may have failed everything else here tonight, but I can at least do some good and kill him!
He gripped his light blade tightly and leapt forward. He came within five feet of The Prince, with his blade held high above his head. All he had to do was bring it down, just one swing and Prince Darko was done for. But he couldn’t.

“I should have you know,” The Prince said without so much as turning to face the angel, “holding the area seal in place for all that time used a large chunk of my concentration and power. About half, I’d say.” The angel blinked, and with tears forming in his eyes, he knew he could not go on. “What I’m trying to say is that without having to hold that area seal in place, I am now at my
full
strength. That’s practically
double
what you were fighting before. It is
impossible
for you to kill me now.” Without so much as looking back, the devil walked through the gate and disappeared forever.

Two angels died that night. One human lay unconscious, and another one was taken to Hell. The devils had won, and Sosime was left with the clean-up. Overcome with grief and fatigue, he dropped to his knees, tears rolling steadily down his cheeks. The evening storm finally broke, dumping rain down on the Earth in such a rush it appeared as though the Heavens themselves were crying out for their loss.