Card Eleven: The Devil

Standing in the middle of an empty pit that somehow landed them directly in some sort of narrow hallway was eerie, and the moment they both made small movements, magical lights flickered on bright enough to reveal all the black ink now coating his clothing and hands. Cirrus had to smear it onto his pants, very uncomfortable with this feeling, and he didn’t have a clue how Feather could appear so calm and unbothered, almost entirely apathetic to the dark mysteries surrounding them. 

Every sensible bone in his body was telling him to leave and let his mother know about this instead, so that he could come back with more reinforcements and more people to have his back. Because as it stood, Feather was just a healer, and that was his only concept… he couldn’t make a healer fight. And yet if that were the case, why did the blond seem so uncaring, with another small, entertained smile still wrapped around his features while he walked forward, Cirrus feeling as if he had no other choice but to follow. 

It would be okay. All of the monsters had been purged from this world a long time ago. If any were left, his mother surely would have found them. That’s what he told himself as they walked through the dimly lit corridor, going what felt like deeper and deeper into the planet’s belly. He didn’t know what he was looking at, whether this laboratory was truly something leftover of Viscendant or if it had just been corrupted by reality’s collapse, but all of the black smears on the walls didn’t sit right with him, and it smelled awfully metallic. 

“Do you think something is down here?” he asked quietly, feeling slightly guilty for letting Feather lead when he was the healer and not a combatant. By all means, Cirrus was the one trying to recruit him and was a very skilled fighter who had fought these corrupted monsters before, so he should be the one leading. But whenever he tried to pass him, Feather would speed up and shoot him a glare, and he really didn’t know how to handle that.

But to answer his question, Feather just gave a small shrug, pausing slightly to brush one of his fingers against the black ink on the wall. “Yeah, I have a feeling something is down here. I mean, look at this,” he lifted his fair-colored finger that was now dripping with black ooze in front of Cirrus, who had to force himself not to back away from the gross sight. “Doesn’t this look and smell an awful lot like blood? The only difference is that it’s black and it’s a little thicker,” he remarked casually, using his other hand to prod at the black goo, stretching it in front of himself before flicking it off. 

“Ah… but if it’s blood, then blood from what…” Cirrus trailed slowly, before he saw the quick movements from something in front of him. He barely registered its pale white skin, its features not even comprehensible as it looked like some sort of slimy white leech with four sets of pudgy legs, with a mouth that took over its entire face and sharp, pointed teeth that looked like large deadly needles. His gut had been telling him they’d run into a monster, and he’d faced these corrupted foes before, but it was still a terrifying sight as he dragged Feather behind him, using his ice concept to jut spears of pointed ice right into the beast’s stomach, it’s curdling screams making his face turn clammy pale as he twisted his ice deeper into its flesh, watching as black blood leaked out of the open wounds, which he didn’t have the time to register as abnormal. The creature groaned and screeched, its legs clawing helplessly at the ice it didn’t have the strength to break, all before it fell limp, defeated and oozing that same black liquid that coated the walls. Which, once he had time to breathe, Cirrus couldn’t help but stare at it… all of these monsters he’d faced before had white blood, not black… what was this…

His breathing was heavy while he kept Feather pressed tight to his back, scanning the corridor for more movements and monsters he needed to kill, before the brat he was only trying to protect pushed himself off and carelessly approached the beast he’d just slaughtered, calm smile never leaving him as he stuck his finger into the black pool of blood leaking out from the creature’s stomach around the thick ice. “Wow! I guess we know where the black blood comes from now!” he laughed apathetically, Cirrus’ blood running cold as he took a step forward, all of his senses on high alert. 

“Does this not scare you?” he asked quietly, not liking the way Feather kept messing with the blood before the blond eventually stood up again, wiping the black blood on his soft blue pants as he stepped around the monster’s corpse, using Cirrus’ ice for leverage, continuing his leisurely pace throughout the laboratory as if nothing had happened. 

“Of course not. You’ll be able to deal with whatever’s down here, won’t you? I have nothing to be afraid of,” the blond simply smiled, as if it wasn’t something he’d had to think hard about. And Cirrus just swallowed the drooling saliva building up in his mouth as he followed suit, the eerie light still making him feel awfully afraid, as if he were being watched. 

“Ah, I appreciate that you’re confident in my abilities, it does make me feel very flattered to hear you say that, but,” Cirrus winced out, carefully removing his eyepatch as he kept looking around, moving his bangs behind his ear so that his all-knowing eye could take a look at what surrounded them. “But I want you to know that if I think there’s something going on here that I can’t handle by myself, I’m teleporting us both out.”

“Whaaaat? Seriously, what are you, a coward?” Feather turned on him, glaring at the prince like the insane little gremlin he was as Cirrus tried his best not to glare back. 

“I think I’m being wise, just as you are being reckless,” he retorted with a huff, Feather eyeing him like a ruffled cat as he finally let Cirrus walk by his side, the two of them making it to a solid metal door at the end of the tunnel, a thick glass panel stuck in the center of it before he used his all-knowing eye to take a look. 

“Oh wow. There’s definitely monsters behind there, haha,” Feather laughed, leaning forward to take a peek through the window, all the growling and screaming coming from the inside sounding awfully disturbing, even for him. But he didn’t let that show and merely smirked at Cirrus, grinning as he gave a light knock on the door to taunt the monsters before he turned around and raised his fist to give the same knock to the prince’s forehead. “Haha! Your forehead looks so big when it’s not being covered by your hair!”

And Cirrus was very tempted to snap back at that, already feeling as if his limits were being pushed, before he decided that Feather's rude remarks weren't worth his time and turned back to the door, his all-knowing eye taking what he could see and analyzing it for him without him needing to really think all that hard. That, at least, was a relief. “It does look like there are more than at least ten monsters in there, but they’re all stuck in cages,” he remarked, pointedly ignoring Feather’s teasing as the blond continued smirking at him. 

“Yeahh, they’re all stuck in cages. I wonder what that means!” the other laughed, before carelessly taking the door handle and pulling it open without warning, Cirrus gawking at such utter recklessness as he prepared to attack anything that might come out. Except, true to what his eye had told him, when they stepped inside, all the monsters were in cages. There were thirteen of them in total when he took the time to count, and Feather looked around with his casual bright smile never leaving him, although for some reason, Cirrus could tell he was deeply observing their surroundings, especially when he knelt down in front of one of the cages. 

It held a smaller monster that looked similar to a monkey with no ears or tail, its skin a pale, ugly pink as dark black veins bulged through its thin, shriveled body. It had long, spindly limbs that looked too big for its small torso, and the moment Feather sat down in front of it, it hissed to reveal round teeth that looked… oddly human. 

“Hm… what does this mean, indeed,” Feather hummed, Cirrus frowning at him as he took another look around at all of the monsters clawing at their cages. All of this felt so disturbing... it wasn’t right. And when Feather stood up once again and walked over to the desk by the back of the wall, Cirrus followed his gaze to all of the papers and scrolls that were laid out on the desktop and pinned above it on some sort of flat board. It looked like several diagrams of monsters, and when he looked to the side that had been hidden behind all of the cages in a nice, compact corner of the room, he nearly flinched when he saw a pale white monster corpse in the middle of dissection on an autopsy table, its stomach split wide open with its black blood filling vials laid right next to it. 

“Mister pushover prince sir, you're being awfully quiet, but I’m assuming you can at least gather that someone has definitely been here before us, and has probably spent many hours in this place. I think it’s likely they were here very recently,” Feather grinned as he picked up a book with black blood smeared all over its leather cover, and his smile widened as he immediately opened it to see what knowledge would be inside.

“So… you think they found a way to break through the bone?” Cirrus asked smally, saliva already beginning to pool back up in his mouth before he forced himself to swallow all over again, feeling awfully sick as he wiped his mouth with his sleeve. 

But Feather just laughed at him, easily spinning around to give him yet another unhinged grin, shrugging widely as the book he was holding shifted. “Of course they did! Did you really think breaking that bone was impossible? Nothing is impossible! After all, you yourself broke it too!” he pointed out gleefully, opening the book again and flipping through random pages as he skimmed over the handwritten text. “Hahh, this looks like a manual on what all of the monster corpses look like, and how their bodies are formed. Whoever wrote this says their skin and flesh are most similar to whales or seals, as if it were blubber, and that if you were to mix humans and whales together, you’d probably get something similar. Wow, isn’t that cool?”

“I find it more disturbing, actually,” Cirrus retorted, eyes still hooked on that dissected corpse as he took a hesitant step closer to it. Its mouth was split wide open, with long, sharp fangs splayed out every which way, and he imagined that this creature must not have been able to close its mouth very well. But still, while Feather might be acting too unhinged for his liking, all of his deductions were very likely correct. Someone was using this as a laboratory, and it was very likely they’d been here recently and that this had been going on for possibly centuries. “But… how is this person getting all of these monsters to experiment on? My mother exterminated everything here… she made sure of it…” he mumbled, taking another scan of all the monsters clawing and biting at their enclosures as they screeched at the two strangers. 

“Well, how long ago was your mother here?” Feather asked flippantly, not beating around the bush as Cirrus finally turned to face him again. “Queen Nadia was very efficient I'm sure, since she's known to be. But it's been over four hundred years since this planet was first corrupted, and, at least from the outside, nothing notable has happened to it since. Do you really think she's kept vigilant and watched over this planet since then? I'm not surprised someone is using this as a base of operations, because it's essentially undetectable. Especially since you're right about one thing, most people indeed can't break that bone,” he pointed out cooly, Cirrus only giving a deep frown as he let that sink in. “It's easy to assume that this person just smuggled monsters from elsewhere, even if we might not necessarily know where that would be... and that also means we can deduce that we're dealing with someone who at least knows how to teleport, and who can likely open portals, as well,” Feather added, and Cirrus looked at him curiously as he tilted his head to the side.

This man really knew a lot. Or at the very least, he was smart and good at coming to plausible conclusions. Poor emotional regulation aside, Cirrus could see why Ruba would want him on their side of the war. He remembered when he’d asked his grandmother if he should ever need to choose between recruiting Feather or the miracle worker, who he should choose to chase… and she’d said that he should choose Feather. It was starting to make sense now why she’d said that. It felt like if this unstable, yet extremely intelligent man wasn’t on their side, they’d be in danger. Of course, he would still search for the miracle worker as diligently as he could, but he knew it would feel incredibly relieving to officially get an insane genius such as Feather on their side of things. Because this… all of this right here was very unsettling. 

“What do you think their purpose is? Dissecting all of these monsters can’t be for nothing, right?” Cirrus asked solemnly, Feather’s smile only widening as he let out another giggle. 

“Ahahh, well, think about it this way,” the blond grinned, turning smiling eyes towards Cirrus that looked far too sinister for his own good. “I’m sure your mother and the rest of the Central Domain Alliance have probably already done autopsies of these things. After all, it’s important we understand what we’re fighting against, right? There’s no shame in that. But this person, whoever they may be, has chosen a corrupted planet and is doing all of their research in secret… as if there’s something here they’re trying to hide. I think while their purpose itself is unclear, the type of purpose they have is clear as day,” Feather hummed, slamming the book shut as he tossed it back onto the desk without a care. 

And Cirrus nodded deeply, taking those words to heart before he wrapped his eyepatch back around his face, his eye already throbbing from the exposure it had received. “I agree, this person definitely isn't up to anything good if they’re choosing to act in secret. Which means we should leave before they come back or are able to find traces that we were here, so we don’t alarm them and are able to catch and interrogate them later when we send better prepared reinforcements. Come here, I’ll teleport us out.”

“What?! No way, I’m still reading all of these good books! Look, there’s more here!” Feather protested loudly, quickly going to grab another leather novel from the stacks of books on the desk. “See, this one looks like a journal! It might tell us who this person is!”

“...okay, just take a quick look,” Cirrus conceded, his arms stiff by his sides as he kept a close watch on Feather’s face. He seemed so interested in information, and while he really wanted to leave, he agreed and thought it was a good idea to check and see if this person had written their name anywhere. 

But Feather just kept flipping through pages, swiftly scanning without reading everything there as he started to frown. “This one is just a journal on all of the ingredients he uses and where he finds them. It says here that apparently mixing the black ash into people’s drinks can cause them to lose their immortality and increases aging. It also has all the doses linked to how quickly they kill people.”

“That… that’s not good,” Cirrus frowned, though Feather just laughed at him and waved it away. 

“Of course it’s not, silly! We already determined that we’re dealing with a pretty shady guy! Don’t you wonder how he even figured out the black ash did that when ingested? I do wonder what poor soul he tested it on, don’t you?”

He said it so nonchalantly, like the words didn’t hold such a heavy meaning, but Cirrus immediately froze upon hearing them. Because while he’d said it very carelessly, Feather was absolutely correct… whoever this person was, some of the things they were talking about in these journals couldn’t be learned without doing some form of human experimentation. But that… who would ever do something like that? It was just so wrong. Cirrus was so caught up in his doomed, spiraling thoughts that he didn’t even register it when metal creaked in the background, cage doors slowly flipping open as Feather looked up from the book, eyes suddenly widening. 

“Cirrus!!” he snapped, throwing the book right at the prince’s face before he flinched and came to his senses, Feather’s wake up call doing the trick to wake him from his clouded negative thoughts. 

“I… huh?” he turned around, one of the freed monsters pouncing on him in an instant, jagged claws digging into his stomach and torso while long, razor sharp jaws sunk deep into his shoulder, his vision blurring white for just a moment before ice exploded off his body. His instinctive attack thrusted the monster away from him as he gasped, choking on his saliva as he coughed and wobbled on his feet before collapsing entirely onto Feather, who was about to use his concept of anything to just kill all of the monsters here in one burst. He supported Cirrus with all of his strength, ready to target a hand at all of the approaching beasts while he began generating an explosive amount of charged, condensed energy that would rip apart the entire laboratory, before he felt the prince’s arms slowly wrap around his back, mangled shoulder barely attached to his body while red blood seeped into Feather’s white cloak. 

In the end, he didn’t have the chance to kill any of the monsters like he wanted to before Cirrus teleported them both out of the lab with the rest of his energy. And just when they appeared, he collapsed right on top of him with labored breathing and gross black drool seeping from his lips while him and Feather appeared right in front of a game of charades, the mangled and bloodied form of Crown Prince Cirrus Aixon the only thing he could see as he felt his instincts take over, the smell of blood and the sight of a deadly injury flipping a switch in Feather's mind. Because in the end, if he was going to play healer, then he was going to play it right. So long as he was here, no one in this group would be dying, he wouldn’t allow it.