Victor and Isabelle scouted over a large bluff. It was the only one leading out of the cave they’d been in. They were slowly but surely retracing their steps. Lillie knew them the best, having marked the path they’d taken along the way.

“And this is where we slept for the night. The Gate shouldn’t be far from here, I think?” she said.

“You think?” Ashley said in a disbelieving tone. A flicker of fire rose into the air with her annoyance. It startled Lillie and forced Ashley to flinch.

“Sorry, Lil, I didn’t mean to!”

“Oh, it’s fine, haha!” the girl replied nervously.

“Get those powers under control, Ash. We don’t want to burn down the forest around us,” Victor said from atop another of the mushroom trees. He stepped down from it with a weird sense of foreignness.

This was the path they had taken, right? So then why didn’t he recognize a bit of it?

“Leo, does the place look the same to you?” he asked on a hunch.

“Can’t tell, Victor. I haven’t got the best memory,” Leo shook his head after a cursory effort.

“I do! And over there should be…” Lillie stopped leading the group ahead once they reached a wall.

“It’s supposed to be here,” she said with confusion. She scratched her head and tried to prod the wall, all to no avail.

“Sure you didn’t get the directions wrong?” Amadeus asked.

“No!” Lillie said in an angered tone.

“I-I was just suggesting…” Amadeus said. He slowly shuffled over and behind Victor as he did.

“No use to it. We’ll have to find another way back. Do you remember the general area, Lillie?” he asked her.

“Yeah… I should,” she looked shaken, but it would have to do. He’d have to rely on Leo’s help to jog her memory if the need came up.

They climbed the wall ahead of them and took to the nearest tunnel. Leo said it should lead back, but it filtered through another open area. More of the same settlements and houses showed up. They sidetracked for a while, looking through those camps. There was a broken jar inside one of the rooms. On the floor of the tent were a group of jewel-like caterpillars.

They scurried around the place before Victor picked one of them. Nothing he could identify at a glance. So, he crushed it instead. It was a cruel act, yes, but Victor was in a cruel realm. They’d invaded his world, killed his people. He had no sympathy for them.

A notification played just as it was supposed to, and Victor glimpsed it.

[[Angelo Larvae]: SIZE: S THREAT: NONE ABILITIES: Hallowed Iron Consumption

A larva of what could become an Angelo. It feeds off a steady diet of Hallowed Iron before pupating into the form that many are familiar with. This pupation is a long and hard process, which is why not many make it to adulthood. Many of these Larvae are based on angels of humanity, or those who they hold in a similar regard. Some have experimented with them, and even one of the Nine claims it as their origin.]

So, it turned out worthless. Victor rubbed his hand of the caterpillar before turning to the group.

“We’re not going to get anything more out of this. Let’s go,” Victor said before removing himself from the room.

Lillie seemed to give him a sideways glance but turned away once he caught on. They continued through the holes in the ground, that were seeming less and less natural the further Victor went. But if that were true, he hated to know what was making them.

He still had the Ignistone dagger attached to his belt, just in case of such an event. They would’ve continued down that path had they not heard a sound coming from the wall beside them.

“Leo?” Victor asked. Without a word the man scanned the ground around him.

“It’s hollow behind that. Like another tunnel,” Leo replied.

Victor started moving towards it.

“Victor, the path back is down here? I’m sure of it!” Lillie told him. She seemed antsy to get out.

“But where does this lead?” he wondered. He pressed an ear to the wall. There was definitely something on the other side. Something that sounded like… a city? With the traffic lights, speakers and car noises that came along with it, except they all had an edge to it. Something he’d almost describe as cartoonishly overdone.

The car horns sounded like something out of a Looney Tunes cartoon entirely.

“Victor?” Lillie asked one more time.

“Hold up. Let’s check it out,” he proposed.

“We’ve already been all over the place, Vic! Who knows if the Gate can move or not,” Amadeus said.

Damnit, that’s a good point. But his curiosity was overpowering.

“Just a quick look, I swear.”

He had to know. What did the Angelo Larva’s description mean? Would he find the full grown versions outside, flitting about in the sky? Or was this a trap to lure him to what he wanted to see.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

A city that was still standing.

“Don’t you know what’s on the other side already?” Lillie asked.

“Huh? How?”

“It’s probably just more of the Metamorphs! Maybe something even worse!” Lillie said.

“Actually, I don’t feel anything moving close by,” Leo chimed in.

“But…”

“I swear, Lillie, just a look,” Victor said. He nudged his head towards Leo, who pulled the wall apart in pieces. The effort was more tiring now that he’d spent the entire day walking, but Leo did it without complaint.

The path ahead led up. Up and up until Victor and the others saw light. No, not light. Lights. It bolstered their confidence right up until they reached the cave mouth. There, all illusions of a standing city disappeared.

Angels flew in the skies above men. That was the best he could describe the creatures he was seeing. And they weren’t short either, despite how small they looked beside the enormous buildings. They were at least the size of a small apartment complex themselves. It reminded Victor in many ways of the giant monster he saw behind the mountains. Just the thought of it sent shivers through his skin again.

“What… what are they?” Amadeus asked.

“What those caterpillars turn into…” Leo realized.

He knew he should’ve crushed the lot of them. One of the angels dropped down not too far from their little hidden cave mouth. Surrounding it were a number of its peers. Each of them raised a blade themselves, before bringing it down on the angel. The angel was pierced in so many places it turned into a fountain of blood.

At the same time, across the city, a building seemed to collapse in upon itself and fall to the ground. And then the angels rose up into the air as if nothing untoward had happened.

“We have to get out of here…” Ashley told them.

She ushered the group back inside. Leo quickly patched up the hole he’d made and none of them spoke again.

Victor knew just how powerful his enemies were. But something plagued his mind despite that. If those were the Angelos, then why hadn’t they invaded themselves? He’d only seen the one giant monster. All the other people had fought only weak monsters. Dangerous for them, yes, but nothing so overwhelmingly strong like the Angelos.

Were they biding their time? If so, then for what? Those thoughts wouldn’t receive an answer when they made it back to the Gate. It looked innocent as always and yet Victor was a bit apprehensive about going through it.

There were still things he didn’t understand about the underground. What was Hallowed Iron? Who lived in the houses that they’d passed?

“Vic, are you coming?” Amadeus asked him.

Those thoughts could wait another day. He supposed it was finally time to head back to Angel Heights.

Stepping back through the tunnel wasn’t any more pleasant than the first time. And the other side looked much more downtrodden than before. Buildings were more dilapidated than before, falling off of their supports like meat stripped from a bone.

And much worse was the absence of anyone around the Gate. It was like most had gone into hiding.

“Let’s pray Angel Heights is still standing,” Ashley stated, though Victor could tell she was worried. It showed in the little ticks she did on the way back.

That was the first of the things that made Victor apprehensive. The second was the swarm of Vintarics that dropped down towards them.

****

It was over before he even knew it. In only a few minutes tens of bodies were lying around Victor and his crew. Blue flames danced on his Ignistone dagger and blood evaporated off of the blade.

Only a few days ago had he been struggling to fight them and now he was here. It was… rewarding to think about. He stuffed the dagger inside and took a head count, making sure everyone was okay. Fires winked out around Ashley and a polygonal cracked shield of glowing energy floated in front of Lillie.

If nothing else this was good practice for the three newly formed Wielders that Audrey wanted. They scrounged around the Vintarics corpses only to find nothing of note.

The rest of the trip back to the Heights was simple. No Vintarics crossed their path as they made it there. They ended up in front of the building once more and waited. Lillie went ahead of him and knocked on the door in a specific manner.

“It’s me!” She said.

A moment later he heard footsteps approaching. They stopped in front of the door and peeped through the spyhole.

“Lillie!” the man on the other side said. He opened and revealed a beard that went down to his chest.

“Come in, all of you! We were so worried!” the man said. Victor felt touched. They’d been worried for him too?

The group shuffled in quickly and the energy of the place changed. For a moment it felt much more foreboding, but with their arrival a spark had been ignited. Children ran and crowded around them, asking a million questions to everyone.

“Where were you!”

“Why are you so warm!”

“Woah, Leo, you look so cool!”

“Hey, did you get me anything?”

They asked and begged until the noise started rising in the room. That same woman that Victor had seen before came running down the stairs in a sprint. She grabbed the little tykes and started pulling them away piece by piece.

“What did I say about the noise! You’ll give me a heart attack!” she said in a whispered scream. It was kind of comical to watch her drag the entire group off.

The bearded guard looked at them and chuckled.

“They think you boys and girls heroes. Don’t let them down, okay?” he said before resuming his post near the door.

“Shame. I was kind of enjoying the praise,” Amadeus said.

“You’ll get plenty more when we report back to Audrey, Amadeus,” Lillie said, patting him on the back.

“Which we should really do,” Victor said.

He stretched his legs and dropped his weaponry to the floor, all except that same Ignistone dagger. The stairs took them to the top, where they found Audrey talking with Dean in a corner.

“You six…” Audrey stopped in amazement.

Lillie was the first to move afterwards. Audrey wrapped her in a hug and then caressed her cheek. Dean looked glad too, though he didn’t show it in much the same way. Victor chalked it up to older people and their eccentricities.

“Oh my, you must all be hungry. Dean, be a dear and go fetch some of the rations!” she told him.

Without another word the man took off and Audrey ushered them inside. She treated them in a motherly fashion, blasting them with questions while making sure they enjoyed the utmost comfort. Well, at least the most they could at the end of the world.

“Metamorphs?”

“That’s what the name I get from them. There not what you need to worry about though,” Victor informed her.

“Those Angelos sound disastrous if they ever found their way here,” Audrey said. For all intents and purposes the old woman was holding up well. Victor just hoped her blood pressure wouldn’t spike from the revelation.

“They shouldn’t be able to cross the Gate if its still in the caves…” there was a ‘but’ there but Victor didn’t voice it. Being so close to the enemy just didn’t sit right with him.

“Thank you for the information, Victor. You’ve done more for us than I can ever repay. But I’ll try to, regardless,” Audrey told him.

“We’re getting the fuel, then?” Amadeus asked.

“It will take a few days to procure. You three are free to stick around. I won’t ask anything more of you,” she said with a inviting and homely tone.

“Aww, shucks…” Amadeus blushed. He seemed to be taking the success in stride.

“I’ll make some tea. Help ease the tiredness,” Lillie told them.

“I’d fall asleep right here and now if you got me some soothing tea,” Amadeus chuckled.

“You’re free to. Me and Leo want to see what we can do, so we’ll talk later,” Ashley told the group. And just like that they began to disperse once more.

Regardless of everything he’d been through, Victor did feel content with the outcome. A new weapon by his side, new powers that he could use and he would get the fuel that he so desired. He would finally get to his family, find out if they were safe, and hopefully keep them that way.