The Beast in the Darkness

“I do have to ask,” Adelyn said at the exit to the gate. “We’re leaving in the middle of the night? Wouldn’t it be better to wait until morning?”

The other three seemed to look at her with an odd expression.

“Are you tired already?” Ed asked her.

“Oh, uh. Not really,” Adelyn shook her head.

“Then it’s not nighttime yet. I’m personally fine, what about you two?” Ed looked at the other two.

“I’m perfectly dandy!” Cozy said with a smile. Teddie just quietly nodded along too.

“Well, even if we aren’t tired. It could be dangerous out when it’s this dark, no?” Adelyn asked. “Wouldn’t it be better to wait until the sun comes out?”

The three of them looked at her with an odd expression, once again.

“What’s a… sun…?” Ed asked. “You don’t mean like, a kid, right? Cause that wouldn’t make sense.”

Adelyn blinked for a second. That wasn’t the answer she was looking for. She wondered how they wouldn’t know what a sun was, isn’t that common knowledge?

“It’s like this big ball in the sky, makes a lot of light. It scares away monsters from the darkness,” Adelyn tried to explain to the others. Who kept on making that same odd expression at her.

“Uh…” Teddie walked in front of Adelyn, who kept on trying to demonstrate exactly what she was talking about and turned to the rest. “I think she doesn’t come from around here, so things are a little different.”

““Ohhh,”” the other two nodded.

“She uh… fell from that… big light in the sky,” Teddie explained. “If you two saw that.”

The remaining two realized what he was talking about.

““Ohhh!””

“So you’re really not from these parts?” Cozy inquired first. “Where are you from? What’s it like? This sun seems really interesting!”

“Do you have anything to do with the second beam of light that came towards the capital? Oh, is that why you were headed there?” Ed asked too.

“Ahah- one at a time,” Adelyn pushed the two of them away. “We can talk on the road anyways.”

The kids decided to get moving first, as they left the town behind them. Ed shone a single light from his hands that illuminated their path in the darkness forward. As they progressed, the blue lights of the flowers reflected back on them.

“Sooo-” Cozy leaned in over Adelyn’s shoulder. “No cliffhangers, tell us a bit more. Second light beam?”

“Riiight,” Adelyn responded before turning around in front of the rest. Though she continued to walk backwards as it happened. “Hi! My name is Adelyn, though you all already knew that.”

“Watch where you’re going.” Ed said.

“Teddie saw, yeah… I did fall from the… uh… sky,” Adelyn continued. “In my place, there’s this thing called the sun! It’s like this big massive ball of light in the sky, which makes things brighter.”

“That’s…” Cozy thought. “Interesting?”

“Yeah! The plants are green instead of blue, and the moon is friends with the sun too!” Adelyn said. “I don’t know much about this place though. So I need your help to learn!”

“Well, how did you end up here in the first place? Did you not like your old home?” Edward asked.

“No, I actually liked it quite a lot. But… let's just say it was an accident,” Adelyn sighed. “My friend and I both got caught up in it, and I need to find her before I go home.”

“Ahh. That’s probably the light in the capital, then,” Cozy said. “Interesting, interesting!”

“W-Wait,” Teddie raises his hand nervously. “How… uh… how do you expect to get home? Do you have a device or something?”

“...”

Adelyn paused to think for a second. She didn’t actually consider what would happen when she found Rumia, and how she was supposed to continue from that point.

“I’ll figure it out,” Adelyn said. “Finding Rumia is the most important thing right now.”

“Hey, we’ll help you out as long as we can,” Cozy said. “It’s the least we can do.”

“Thanks,” Adelyn said. “I’m glad to have met all of you already. Your world seems great too, I’d love to learn more about it.”

Suddenly, a rumble in the ground caused everyone to jump. A tremor shook through the side of the road around them. The group struggled to stay on their feet for a moment, as the rumbling trembled both the ground and their entire body.

All of the kids looked around, surprised, but not worried. All of them knew something was coming from beneath them. The rumbling finally reached its climax as a small portion of the ground split open, and suddenly…

A massive purple worm rose into the air. Towering over them with glowing white fangs out of its lone mouth. It screeches at all of them at once.

“...oh boy,” Ed said, before putting on his golden mask. “You guys ready? Seems like it’s not going to always be nice.”

“Yup!” Cozy responded with a smile. Adelyn looked at her with curiosity, though suddenly out of her back… two glowing pink wings sprouted from it.

“Woah? You can do that?” Adelyn said, seeming impressed.

“Just wait and see, I’d like to see what you can do too!” Cozy winked back.

Adelyn herself held her chainsaw in one invisible limb and book in the other. She stood in front of Teddie, who was slinking a little bit back into the back behind them.

“What about him?” Cozy asks Adelyn.

“You’ll see in a sec- though for now-! JUMP!”

On that cue, everyone leapt to the side as the massive worm drove through them with a tackle. Adelyn managed to catch herself on her feet, though Teddie wasn’t as graceful.

“Unf…” Teddie groaned, though Adelyn pulled him up.

“Okay, whatever that song was. Now,” Adelyn commanded before revving her chainsaw and throwing it towards the beast. The sweet quiet voice lingered on behind her, and a golden aura surrounded the tool. It sped up before striking very quickly!

“Nice!” Adelyn said, before dragging her tool back. “And this is great, I knew I didn’t make a mistake with this!”

Upon the wound being inflicted, the creature immediately dug underground. However, before it fully did go under, a golden rope wrapped around the end and began pulling it right back up.

“None of that!” Ed shouted before the creature used its tail to smack him to the side, though he managed to keep his grip on. Until descending from the skies, a pair of glowing wings lands on the monster’s back.

She raised two of her fingers in an L-shape and pointed her index finger towards the monster.

“Pew! Pew!” Cozy smiled before shooting a pink blast into the monster. This caused it to flip around and knock the two of them to the side along with Adelyn and Teddie.

The beast was injured, but it was still angry. Instead of tunneling, it turned towards the group of four and screeched. Before, out of its single mouth, a very long tongue came out and wrapped around Adelyn’s waist.

“ACK-! Ew, ew, ew-!” Adelyn said before raising her hands. She commanded her chainsaw to cut through the tongue. The blade began doing so, but the tongue was surprisingly resilient.

“You have more things to worry about than it being gross, Ade,” Ed said, running alongside her. Suddenly, a second tongue came out of the creature’s mouth and attempted to grab him too!

However, Adelyn saw that Ed was prepared for this already. He flipped to the side as the tongue bent to chase him. He dashed away with it in close pursuit before he looked at Teddie.

“Give me something here!” Ed shouted before Teddie nodded and began singing another tune. Ed’s own movements began to speed up, outmaneuvering the big worm even more so. A golden light filled his hands before he struck with unimaginable speeds. Then, he turned around and sliced STRAIGHT through the tongue. The monster screeched in pain as the blows struck its body.

“H-Hey, Teddie. Give me something too!” Adelyn called out.

“Uh, give me a second. I need to…” Teddie said before changing his song once more. Adelyn felt a massive surge of strength into her physical body. With that she called back her chainsaw and sliced through specifically the tongue holding her.

The two, now free, figured it was time for aggression. Adelyn opened her book and summoned out a spirit, made out of pure flames. Igna, the caller of flames. The humanoid figure came out and spat fire straight into the creature’s open mouth. Ed followed it up with an orb of light energy, which he threw in after!

The creature attempted to shut its mouth tight, but suddenly Cozy appeared from the skies, descending on top of it.

“Ah-ah! It’s time for you to eat!” Before stomping into the ground. A sharp dark crystal pierced through its mouth, making it keep it open and consuming the fire and light!

Cozy jumped off of the creature’s head and landed next to her companions. The beast’s head turned red and yellow, damaged from the attacks of the other two. Shortly after, it eventually faded and stopped moving.

“Phew!” Cozy wiped her brow with a smile. “How are you guys doing?”

“I’m fine,” Ed responded.

“I… I guess I’m okay,” Teddie also nodded.

“Ew… my dress… it’s so sticky…” Adelyn stumbled in behind them, with wet slop dripping down on the lower half of her dress. “I need to clean…”

Ed looked at her casually. “There isn’t anything between here and the capital, so it’ll have to be a day of traveling at least.”

“Ah…” Adelyn sighed. “Well… we probably do have to rest soon. That and the walking is pretty tiring.”

“That’s fair, I think there’s a pond coming up ahead,” Cozy suggested. “Though, it’d obviously be a shame to leave all of this meat lying here.”

“Yeah, that would be quite a good haul,” Ed said.

“Hey, Adelyn. Can you gut this thing for us?” Cozy immediately snapped back towards Adelyn with a cheeky smile.

“W-What? Why me?” Adelyn said. “Come on, I’m already sticky.”

“And that’s why you’re the best candidate,” Cozy walked up towards her with a sincere and warm smile. “You don’t want the rest of us to get dirty too?”

“She does make a good point.” Ed added.

“Now guys…” Teddie said. “I-I’m sure we can just…”

“She also bought the chainsaw as well, now that I’m thinking about it. It’s like she was built for this job,” Cozy looked at the expensive tool that Adelyn was holding. “Might as well get your money’s worth out of it.”

“Nngh…” Adelyn could not really argue with that. “Fine, I’ll do that. You guys go to the pond and set up camp. I’ll… I’ll catch up with you guys.”

“Thanks a bunch! You can have a bit extra of the share as compensation,” Cozy said, giving a thumbs up.

“It really can’t be that bad,” Ed said. The two of them began to move along. However, Teddie stuck behind the two of them.

“Are you sure you want to do it?” Teddie asked. “Being gross isn’t fun.”

“Yeah. I can do it, really, don’t worry about me,” Adelyn responded. She didn’t like being gross, but you can’t really beat those arguments.

“Uh. If you want to clean up after, then I think there’s some plants around the lake that can melt into soaps,” Teddie responded. “Isn’t that right Mr. Bear?”

The teddy bear did not respond.

“Yes. There are a few,” Teddie seemingly confirmed himself. “I can probably help you… pick out some… uh… soaps to wash your clothes, if you need it too.”

“Oh, really? That would actually be super helpful!” Adelyn said. “Thanks a bunch, Teddie.”

“I-it’s no problem… I just know… about these things… a bit,” Teddie said, tensing up a little bit. “O-Okay, sorry for bothering you. I-I’ll go now and you can do your thing.”

And with that, Teddie began to step away, following both Cozy and Ed. Adelyn then turned to the body of the fallen beast and raised her chainsaw.

“Bleh. Let’s try and make this as easy as possible.”