Evil plots by night

The darkness of the night covered us. With my ninja training I was very stealthy and the teleporting signature of Nikolay was perfect for the mission. Not far away we could see the Altar of The Poet. It was around a prairie, completely open to the sky. It had eight pillars around it, but now I was focusing on the four people right in the middle of it.

Firstly, the traitor. Once I admired that woman. She had long purple hair and a sharp beauty. She was lying down on a rock table while one of the others was holding a shining purple orb over her.

“Oh no,” said my partner. “That is Dr. Fritzroy. He was a doctor who performed Stanza surgeries, like taking a Stanza out of one person and putting it in another. He was locked up!”

“Elvira has been busy building her little entourage. And do you think that floating orb is the Original Poem?”

Besides the one above her, there were orbs of other colors: orange, yellow and red farther to the side, while another of her partners had the green one by his side.

“That is the hunter, Foraz,” this time it was I that had the information. “He is a hunter with the Nature Stanza, hunting both dangerous animals and strong people.”

It even took me a minute to realize it, because the creature was the same color as the grass and in the night, it was hard to see, but by his side there was the huge body of the Green Demon, curled up like a sleeping bunny.

The only one neither of us had recognized was the fourth. A man wearing all gray and with a metal mask covering his face. The mask had a zigzag creepy smile and angry eyes carved on it.

We stayed quiet, trying to understand what was happening. Our mission was to wait until Ember returned to attack them, but we might have to act if things got out of hand. Markus and the others were waiting not too far away and with Nikolay’s signature, we could contact them easily.

“Don’t you want to do the surgery on me first? I think it would be quickly than what you are doing to Elvira,” said the masked man impatient.

“Elvira brought us together and this was all her idea, I think it’s only fair we do her first,” answered Dr. Fritzroy.

“You are crazy,” Elvira said to the masked man “a rare user of hybrid Stanzas wants them removed? I know that I didn’t make this group thinking about the sanity of people, but still…”

“I realized that the ‘nothing’ is better than any power, Nina alone proved that by consuming the Elemental Demons.”

The way he talked about Nina sent a shiver down my spine.

“The power of Void is interesting, but once I became the new Purple Demon not even that will work. I will become the most powerful being in the world.”

Nikolay squeezed my hand after hearing Elvira’s words. So that was really their plan, a surgery to make a Human Demon hybrid, like they did with Agnes’s brother, but this time probably in control.

“Ha, that is a good one. Maybe with the surgery and the Original Poems, I can be nothing but still use the other elements, then I will be the strongest. You can do it, right, Fritzroy?” asked the creepy masked man.

“With enough time I can do anything,” he answered while using an ice scalpel trying to infuse the Original Poem of Alchemy into Elvira’s body.

We had heard enough and they had to be stopped, but Foraz, who until then had been quiet, spoke.

“You want me to deal with the intruders? I smelled the scent of two nearby and four more far away.”

“And you just say that now? Of course we have to stop them!” scolded his companion and my heart froze.

All this time he knew we were here and he was so calm that clearly, he didn’t see it as a threat.

“I can’t stop the procedure in the middle of it, one of you have to stay behind and protect us.”

“I will hunt them,” answered the hunter making the masked man stay behind. The Green Demon woke up and followed Foraz in the direction where our allies were.

“Go, warn them, quick!” I gave the order to my partner.

“What about you? I can’t leave you behind.”

I had already gotten up, ready for a fight.

“You heard it, this is the only time Elvira will be vulnerable. You can come back later and help me.”

I didn’t stay to hear his reaction. I jumped in the direction of the Altar and extended my dagger, aiming for Elvira’s head, unfortunately, the masked man stepped in front of her using his arms to block the attack, but I still cut his skin.

“Aaaaah! Damn you! Elvira, I still haven’t used my Stanza since the incident.”

“You better start now! I don’t want everything to go awry because of a kid!”

They were underestimating me. I approached the man and kicked his shoulder, making him scream in pain again. I prepared my blade again, but then I felt my feet burning.

I jumped away and rolled in the ground to make the flames go away as the masked man shot small fireball in my direction. His movements were slow and even before I made a cut in his arm he already was acting weirdly.

“So, an injured Fire Stanza user. This will not be hard.”

“If I were only driven by passion… I’ll have you know that I’m very ambitious as well.”

After saying this a purplish cloud came from his arm, covering a much bigger area than the fireballs. I would be able to dodge it, but I felt a gust of wind, and Nikolay came, hugging me and taking me away with his teleportation.

We reappeared over one of the pillars and that masked man was getting so much on my nerves by stopping me from executing the traitor in the doctor’s table.

“I warned them, but fighting a hunter and an Elemental Demon will not be easy,” he said to me, but I was completely focused on what was in front of me.

“We have to kill Elvira, help me!”

We started our teleportation dance, dodging the masked man’s fireballs and purple mist.

“What are his powers?” asked Nikolay.

“He is a hybrid. He has both the Fire and Alchemy Stanzas.”

Even with his sluggish movements the masked man was strong enough to stop any of my attacks to get close to Elvira. And during all this fight, the doctor kept doing his weird Stanza surgery.

“Change of plans, we kill this guy first,” I told my partner. With the enemy gone no one would stop me from killing Elvira.

(…)

I was exchanging blows with Foraz. Even with my extra stone arms, the hunter could match my skill.

“I’m stronger than last time, Markus,” said the hunter.

“This will end the same way!”

I threw him away with a stone block from the ground, but he landed gracefully.

We already fought before. He wanted to kill all the strongest Heroes in the land, but I won back then. His signature made him the perfect hunter; all his senses were improved, as was his physical strength. Even if I had defeated him once before, he really was stronger.

But the truth was that my real fear was for my apprentices. I knew I could defeat Foraz, I just didn’t know how long it would take and during all that, Agnes, Helia, and Rita were facing the Green Demon.

The giant made multiple trees appear from the ground, trying to block and smash the three of them, and to make matters worse, their powers were not the best for that fight.

“Ember… come quickly…” I whispered, fearing for them all.