Brimstone

"Are you alright?" Uncle asked as he powered down his bubble shield.

"Yeah," I nodded, glad we defeated that demon. "I can use super cool stardust!"

He smiled. He must have been really proud of me. I know I was! We just beat a demon, and I played a big role. That felt like some of the crazy cool stuff a character in an anime would do.

Janus was caught in the blast, flying backwards and losing his cloak. His pixel mask also came off and scattered into bits.

Not only did we see his face, kinda' young, but it was saggy, like he was melting a little bit. But on the back of his bald head he had a second face! No wonder he had two distinct voices.

What happens if the second face wants to eat? Does he have two stomachs too?

That wasn’t the only revelation, because Janus also had a crystal heart embedded in his chest, just like me and Uncle! His was red though, and covered in cracks and scratches. He certainly wasn’t an exceed, so what on earth was he?

“Terrific,” his downer voice announced, which came from the face on the back of his head. “I tried to warn you about this, but you were so confident she wouldn't know stardust.”

“Opps, my bad!” his main, uppity voice said as he shrugged. “Guess dealing with the kid is going to be a lot harder than we thought!”

“How did you get that heart?!” I pointed

“It was a gift from our patriarch. Relics like these are handed out to special people in our family.”

That meant there were more crystal hearts out there, but only exceed were supposed to have them. How did this meanie's family get those?

Now I figured I understood why he was able to manipulate this tower. Not only did the heart likely give him access to systems it shouldn't have, but maybe his power was to hack things too. He already showed he could use his powers to disable bees, and he messed with the towers lights and sound systems like it was nothing, so that had to be it.

"Uncle, is it possible that he's a hacker?" I asked.

“Smart, kid. You figured me out," Janus exclaimed. "But those smarts will only get you so far.”

Uncle stood forward with confidence. “Knowing our enemy is the first step to beating him.”

He said something so cool. I have the coolest uncle!

“Knowing won’t win you this battle if you can’t catch us…”

A wall of rippling black pixels opened up in the air. Janus stepped right back into it and disappeared.

What the…?!

Moments later, Janus popped out of an identical dark pixel wall behind Uncle and kicked him down.

He dove back in, performing the same maneuver.

He kept diving in and out of those shadow pixel portals and attacking, quickly getting an advantage over Uncle.

"Oh no!" I cried.

Something literally smelled stinky before and after one of those portals would appear, like rotten eggs. There was some vapor residue left in the air for a few seconds after he'd use a portal. Come to think of it, I could smell the same thing from the gunk on the wall after the demon exploded. Was this sulfur?

I took hold of some of the shadow gunk and analyzed it with my hands…

-…Analyzing materials; complete…-

Yeah, sulfur. The only other element on the periodic table was carbon. Everything else was in a so-called Occulat Element category. That was for weird elements that didn’t exist without magic.

Sulfur must have been what I was smelling. Every time one of those portals were about to appear, that smell also popped up. This gunk and his pixel portals must have been made out of the same thing.

I synced up my nose with my eyes and specifically tried to detect where the sulfur would burst out in the air first.

Everything turned greyscale, helping the colour contrast better. The moment something appeared, I'd see it.

There it was! A big stinky cloud of yellow!

“Uncle, behind you!”

With my callout, uncle was able to slash in the air and cut Janus before he fully stepped out from his portal.

“What!?” Both Janus’s voices exclaimed in shock as he fell to the ground.

He tried teleporting again, but I called out his position and Uncle got a critical strike to his chest, right on the crystal heart! The cracks in it grew twice as large, causing red energy to spit out of it in waves.

Janus flew backwards and landed on the ground, convulsing like he was having a heart attack.

This might have been it! Uncle could deal a coup d'etat and finish this!

But the crafty villain wasn't done. He summoned shadowy arms from the black gunk on the walls and smacked Uncle away from him.

The arms waved around in the air until dissipating away into a lingering dark haze.

"Good hit, but I'm not done yet." Janus stood up, clenching at his crystal heart. "I'm not sure how the kid figured out my teleporting, but Player 1 is a lot more interesting than I thought."

Little black stitches filled the cracks of his heart and did a very unique repair to the damage. It must have been more of his dark energy at work.

Then he shouted, "Time for things to get serious!"

Some of the dark haze gravitated over his nails and formed pixelated claws of darkness, replacing his voxel sword. His appearance turned more feral as demonic energy coursed through his body.

Uncle's brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed with frustration.

“Your family, who are they?” he asked as he had the upper hand.

“The Family of Sai." Pixelated wings appeared behind Janus and allowed him to slightly hover in the air. "I’m here on orders of our patriarch to secure all the mana energy in this place. Then bring it back to him in the form of a lovely demon.”

"It seems your plans now lay splattered on the walls. You failed, so leave.”

He chuckled, flaring his teeth out in a grinching smile. "Nope, not without the kid!" He tilted his head toward my direction. "I think bringing home a little angel might be a good apology for messing up."

“Creep!” I said.

Uncle's eyes narrowed even further on Janus, realizing more of the threat we were up against. He let out a sigh and clenched his free hand until his knuckles cracked.

His fist lifted up into the air and his suit turned bright blue, then it transformed into crystal knight armour. His hat changed into something that looked a little like a cross between a helmet and music headset.

Then he said, “I see how it is. So, your patriarch was the one who installed that heart in you?”

“He gave it to me, but didn't install it.” Janus put a hand over his heart. He took a deep breath, like he was struggling to breathe. “That was the work of some guy named Dr. Asamo.”

I shivered at the name. That was my last name. No way was I related to anyone who would have given him that heart.

It definitely couldn’t have been daddy either, because he wasn’t evil, like Janus. And he was a scientist, not a doctor. Doctors were the people who checked your temperature and did surgery. Scientists invented things and made life easier. Clearly a difference.

So, who could it have been? Maybe a distant relative, or another exceed we didn’t know about? Maybe I had a sister? Or a brother? I always dreamed of having a brother personally, but not if he was a bad guy!

“I was afraid of this development,” Uncle mumbled to himself, then he turned back to me. “Yalda, you need to find shelter.”

Uh-oh…

There weren’t many places for me to go. I could hide inside that crevice in the wall again, but I had a bad feeling that wouldn’t protect me from the crazy battle they were about to start.

“Kid, go in the vents.” Janus wirelessly opened up one of the air vents on the lower part of the wall. It was big enough for me to crawl in. “Get out of our hair, why don’t you let us adults talk in peace?”

He had a very evil smirk on his first face. His second face seemed more relaxed, but with a mischievous grin as well.

I snuck into the vent and crawled a few meters in. The grate slammed shut with a crash, then I heard him and Uncle talking a bit more. I couldn’t hear what they were saying over the hum of the vent.

Curiosity made me want to look back. I twisted my way back around and peeked through the vent grate. I tried to shove it forward, but a forcefield spawned and kept it from opening.

"...then I thank you for this information," Uncle said. "It is pleasing to know he's still alive."

Who was still alive? What were they talking about? It couldn't have been about da...

"Whatever! we’re sick of you! Let’s un-pause this game!"

*BOOM!*

An explosion of pixels jet Janus forward! Loud thunder crackled through my ears! He moved so sonically fast that he broke the sound barrier!

*BOOM!*

Uncle did the same thing!

Their weapons clashed, sending blue lightning and pixel fire scattering all around the room. It was as mesmerizing as it was deadly.

-☆-

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed, please support me here on Honeyfeed! :)