Living Shadows

After their first clash, Uncle and Janus both moved at sonic speeds. My eyes couldn't follow the action at all. They both just looked like blurs repeatedly striking one another.

"Woah…"

Fireworks were shooting everywhere. It might have been pretty if it wasn’t a life or death battle.

Samael was getting scared by all the action and hid his head under my hair. I gave him a few good head pats hoping he'd calm down.

Well, I saw why I needed to leave now. That battle was like a video game tournament on high speed. But unlike a game, it was way too possible to get hurt, or maybe even worse.

I started to crawl deeper into the vent, trying to find somewhere I could stand up and explore a little.

My hope was that maybe I could manually get the tower defenses back online. Janus should have been swarmed by hundreds of bees, but he must have hacked the system and shut down the defense mechanisms. There had to be a central computer somewhere that I could access for that. I tried to connect wirelessly, but my signal was being jammed. Probably because of Janus's powers.

There was a small problem though. To get to the top, I was going to need to find a map of the tower. Otherwise I’d be going around without a clue. I tried my luck at connecting to the tower again to download the schematics…

-Download complete. Updating memory-

What's this? I was able to download it. I thought my signal was being jammed.

I tried again to connect to the tower, but this time I was blocked out, like before. Even after a few more tests, I wasn't sure exactly what just happened.

Wait a minute, is it possible that Janus's jammer powers were weakening for a moment since his crystal heart was damaged? That was just a hunch for now, but something to keep in mind.

Anyways, it looked like there was a path through the vents leading up to the top level of the tower. From there I could get access to the control center and manual bypass Janus's jammer.

I made it to a small chamber in the vents. It was lit up a red colour, as opposed to the mostly dim blue lighting everywhere else in here. A really big inactive fan was on one of the walls.

A spooky wooshy sound startled me. At first I thought it was the fan starting up, but it came from the corners of the room. Something about that was giving me an icky feeling in my stomach.

Without warning it happened again. But when I turned to see what it was, nothing was there.

“What the heck…?”

This was super spooky. Something was moving around in here and it wasn't clear what it was.

Out of the corner of my eye, a shadow rushed across the walls. I barely saw its ghastly red pupils.

Then I saw another one, and another, and another! Before I knew it, all the shadows in the vents were dancing around the walls.

-WARNING! THREATS SIGHTED!-

-Shadow Glider Demons tagged; Foe-

-Enemy count = (4)-

They looked like spooky dark ghosts, all swarming around me. One jumped off the wall and made a snatch at me!

I started running across the chamber and crawled back into a vent to evade.

With ease they glided through the shadows, as their names implied, swimming the dark distances like a fish in water. I barely escaped each of their grabs by sliding down slopes and manually closing emergency grates.

Closing those grates bought me some time. But somehow even with those barriers they’d always find a way past them and cut off my escapes.

I had an idea to light up the walls so they wouldn’t be able to use the shadows of the vent to move. That's what shadow gliding meant, right?

Time to pull out more of that stardust stuff!

Twinkling haze formed around my hands again, this time it covered my hand in a thin layer of crystal. Rays of light shot through the dark air and brightened up all the shadows around me. Just as I did that, those demons got caught in the light.

Stardust wasn’t just making the place brighter, it was actually destroying the little pursuing demons. When one of them got too close, they would just dry out and turn to ash. It was a much less violent death then that Krampus jerk.

A few of them took the hint and tried to avoid me altogether. My light was scaring them off.

“Yes!” I cheered. “Fear me, evil ghosts!”

“Ssss…” Samael was cheering too.

Now since I managed to temporarily ward them off, I could get back to finding my way up the tower in peace. Well, whatever counted for peace in this awful situation.

-☆☆☆-

Going up the tower might have been easier if there weren’t tons of steep slopes I kept sliding down by accident.

"Weee!" It was kinda fun, but not very productive. “I guess I have to find another way around.”

Actually, maybe I didn’t. I had the ability to magnetize my hands and feet, letting me stick to metal surfaces.

*Vvvaap!* Went my hands and feet as they clung to the metal.

It worked pretty well, at least better then I expected. I was able to move up steep slopes without much trouble, aside from it being a bit of a slower method of travel. Safety before speed, I suppose.

while making my way up one of the vents, I suddenly heard some beeping and the sound of wind pick up. Then the whole vent lit up green.

As I peeked my head over the top, I saw a big fan start up and spin stupidly fast.

Huge gusts of air overpowered my magnets and sent me flying back down. I rolled down the thin shaft and right into a grate leading to the outdoors. I slammed into it so hard that the grate came loose and nearly fell out.

“Uh-oh!”

The wind was hitting me hard, hot air too. This must have been a heat ventilation shaft.

My body was durable against extreme heat and cold, so I didn't have any issues. Samael on the other hand wasn't a synthetic life form, and needed to shelter himself under my dress. He might have done alright in the heat as a snake, but even this was too much.

I couldn’t really move since the wind was barreling at me, but I had to come up with a way to escape this mess. I still didn’t have the full ability to access the tower's systems, so shutting off the fan wasn’t possible.

There was another option. If I could reach the outside surface of the tower, I could climb my way up there. That would only work if I could get this grate out. It was already loose, so a few good kicks would get it knocked out. I just had to make sure I didn’t kick it off and go flying out from the wind along with it.

“Here we go…”

I positioned myself so I could both kick the grate with my right foot, and stay put with my magnetized left foot planted firmly. My hands were holding little pipes on the sides as extra leverage.

“Now!”

*KICK!*

*KICK!*

It was coming loose, but not enough for me to get through.

“Okay, put everything you’ve got into it!”

I reeled back my foot and gave it one heck of a hit!

*KICK!*

*CLANK!*

Half the grate flew off the tower. A huge opening to the outdoors was made.

"Yeah!"

I could see forever from up here. Well, at least to the other side of the inverted planet, that is. I had to be a ton of stories high.

Since my hands and feet were still magnetized, I latched onto the side of the tower and started climbing up it, escaping the ventilation shaft for good. It was a shaky time trying to climb out of the opening, especially with the wind still blowing, but I managed it.

What would be great is if I could fly. That would be awesome. People kept calling me an angel, so why can’t an angel fly yet?

Oh well. Not like I could just grow wings or anything, since I didn't know how.

Any-who, I crawled my way up the side of the tower, trying not to look down at the fifty plus stories below me. Yikes, that would be a fall I didn't want to make.

Finally I reached a hallway that wrapped around the tower and had an open window. I climbed in through there and raced to find a way to the top.

-☆-

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