A Journey to a Hundred Worlds

The sun was brightly shining and Toldlor was nowhere to be seen when Michelle woke up. Next to her on the ground, Ryokou rolled over, still soundly asleep. Vale was lying on the bed, not having moved at all during the night, reassuring Michelle. It would be typical of him to stay in one position and place all night long.

As she watched him, Vale stirred. Carefully he sat up and swung his feet over to the side of the bed. He was visibly strained trying to remain standing, but he still tried to take a step. He crashed to the floor with a loud thud causing Ryokou to sit bolt right up, wide-awake. A shudder passed through Vale’s body as he lay there on his side. Ryokou ran over to him and picked him up, wincing because for a second, Vale was ice cold.

“Are you okay?” Michelle asked, worried.

Ryokou helped Vale get up and back onto the bed as Toldlor entered the hut.

Putting a hand over where he had been stabbed, Vale replied, “Yeah. Just give me some food and something to drink, preferably something warm, and I’ll be fine.”

He still looked like he was on the verge of death so Michelle kept herself from asking exactly what had happened with him last night.

“Here, take this money and go buy something to eat that can be cooked.” Toldlor held out a bag towards Michelle who got up and took it.

“Thank you.” Michelle left the hut, focusing on remembering her way back to the town.

* * *

Michelle returned with ham, bread, and potatoes, and Toldlor immediately started cooking the food that needed to be cooked. Michelle handed the bread over to Vale who ate it quietly. It wasn’t until they were eating the ham and potatoes that Michelle finally got the courage she needed in order to ask him what she wanted to.

“What happened to you last night?” she asked, carefully watching to see how Vale would react to the question.

Vale finished chewing the food in his mouth and swallowed. He looked way better than he had earlier. “I was dying so I went into my sub-form. All demons have sub-form they sink into when their life is threatened. For most the only downside of sinking into their sub-form is they tend to lose control. However, for my family since we control the dead, we have a connection with the dead. Whenever I take on my sub-form, I become undead in a sense, and I’m always tempted to just become one of the dead. Also, it’s very painful and it takes awhile to recover from, so I’m stuck on the brink of death for a day or so, depending on how much power I use.”

“So you almost were dying this morning and yet you still tried to walk?” Michelle demanded.

“Yeah.”

“Why did you do that?”

“It’s about time we left. I don’t want to stay here when it gets all sappy and everybody’s living in perfect harmony together again.”

“Well then why are you traveling around to other worlds if you don’t want to help them?”

Vale ignored her. “Hey, Ryokou, next time we have a fight, could you at least try to prove yourself to be useful?”

Indignant, Ryokou retorted, “Well what did you expect me to do? First of all, he came out of nowhere. One second he was a bird, then a human, and then some sort of wolf monster. Secondly, I thought you were handling it pretty well when you summoned all those skeletons. Why did you even send them back in the first place?”

“A human like you could never understand,” Vale answered, a haughty expression on his face. “I may be able to summon the dead, but that doesn’t mean that I’ll make them sacrifice themselves for me. They should be kept in peace, not pieces. If there’s a danger to them, I won’t use them. I will only use them when it is necessary, also. Abusing them is a big taboo in my family.”

“You keep on talking about your family. What are they thinking about you being gone for so long?” Michelle butted in.

“I don’t feel like answering any more questions so shut it before you really get on my nerves. However, here is a little tidbit for you about my background: In my world there were no humans, so I find that I would not feel guilty in the least if I killed a few. If your faults outweigh your saving trait, then I see no reason to put up with you any longer.”

“I only have one saving trait?!”

“Yes, and that’s your sixth sense for detecting the turning point in the worlds. Now shut up and let’s leave. Toldlor, thank you for your hospitality and make sure you return to your previous relations with humans. I’m sure eventually they’ll accept you and everybody will be all nice and happy.” With that, Vale stood up, healthy as ever, and walked out the door, Michelle staring after him with a mingled look of disbelief and outrage on her face. She regretted her part in helping him get better. Ryokou, for his part looked worried and ran after Vale.

“He might just be grouchy after the rough night,” Toldlor said, startling Michelle. “Shouldn’t you hurry up before he leaves you behind?”

Smiling, Michelle left the hut and Toldlor behind. She hoped Toldlor had a good life ahead of him. He did seem pretty nice, after all, if easily swayed.

Michelle had to sprint to catch up to Vale who didn’t bother to wait up for her while Ryokou did pause and turn around until she reached them. She couldn’t help but wish that Vale would trip over a tree root. It was high time he made a mistake. That would keep him from thinking he was so much better than everyone else. Unfortunately she wasn’t lucky enough for that to happen.

They made their way back to where they had first run into Toldlor, and here Vale stopped. Michelle waited for him to do something, prepared for him to push her, but she had no clue where he would push her. They weren’t standing on a ledge or anything, and they weren’t near a body of water.

“So you did come,” Vale said suddenly. “That makes things a lot easier for me. Just don’t interrogate me anymore, okay?”

Michelle was about to retort, distracted by his words, when he pushed her into the wall of a building. Flailing her arms out in front of her, she passed right through the portal she couldn’t see into nothingness.

She strained her ears and heard the whisper say “Synkka.” Then she found herself in the next world.

Instantly, not even bothering to look around her yet, she complained to Vale, “Why is it that portals are either off the side of a rampart, in the middle of a pond, or through a wall? Why aren’t they ever somewhere less stressful to have to go through?”

Vale shrugged, grinning. “I guess it’s so that less people end up just wandering around from world to world. Speaking of which, I think I like the feel of this world already, even if it is a bit over the top with its theme.”

Michelle looked around to find that it was nighttime in this world right now. The full moon illuminated black trees with knotted and gnarled bark and leafless branches twisting up towards the sky. A breeze shook the branches and caused Michelle to shiver. The breeze also blew the long, dead grass, startling her as it brushed against her.

“It’s not bad,” Ryokou remarked. “It has sort of an eerie nighttime feel. It brings back some memories.”

“Glad to know you guys like it here,” Michelle said in a small voice. This world was already giving her the creeps.

“Well, let’s go try to find the sentient beings of this world if there even are any,” Vale said cheerily.

“Wait, ‘sentient beings?’ Not ‘humans’?” Michelle questioned warily.

“Well, the way I see it, this world could have any number of things in it. Vampires, werewolves, the undead, zombies…” Vale trailed.

“Oni?” Ryokou suggested.

Michelle could feel her confidence fading away. “Do I even want to know what all of those things are?”

“You always ask me questions,” Vale answered matter-of-factly, “so I would have to assume that yes, you do, unless your personality has had a dramatic shift in the past minute and you no longer have to question why the sky is blue.”

“I never questioned why the sky is blue, although that is a good one… But besides, what I want to know are important things that you just refuse to tell me. So really, you bring it all upon yourself.”

“Oh look, it seems there are fairies of all things in this world. Oh joy. There goes all my hopes and dreams for this world.” Vale sighed.

Following his gaze, Michelle saw a blue, glowing thing flying towards them. It looked like a miniature human with beautiful butterfly wings attached and sparkly, glowing bits of what looked to Michelle to be similar to magical dust. It definitely didn’t look harmful to her; instead, it looked quite nice.

The bright blue speck zoomed right into Vale’s face, causing the demon to narrow his eyes. Without warning, the fairy suddenly flew in circles around him, and the magical dust coated Vale.

“There, you evil person, you are now good,” the fairy said in a tiny, high-pitched voice.

A tremor filled the air, whether imagine or actually there, Michelle couldn’t decide, emanating from Vale who looked more enraged than she had ever seen him before. His eyes had become a blue that should’ve been calming, his hair had gone from silver to light blonde, and his ears had elongated and become pointed, but in a nicer way than they had when he had sunk into his sub-form.

“Did you just turn me into an elf?” Vale threatened in a low voice that scared Michelle into being unable to move. “Did you? I am not an elf, I should not be an elf, yet now I am. So, I would assume you turned me into and elf, correct?”

Seemingly oblivious to the overpowering sense of impending doom, the fairy grinned and replied brightly, “Why yes I did! Now you can be happy and nice and stop being mean and evil!”

“That’s it fairy, I am going to kill you,” Vale snarled, lunging forward towards the little happy-go-lucky speck.

Ryokou restrained Vale just in time. “Wait, you can’t just kill the fairy.”

“I am an elf. I’m supposed to be a demon. I hate happy nothing-could-ever-be-wrong things like this. So now I am going to go rip that fairy into shreds.”

“Now that’s not very nice,” the fairy pouted.

“I’ll show you what’s not very nice when I rip those tiny little wings from your back and—”

“Vale! Calm down and think for a second!” Ryokou cut him off.

“It seems my attempt to help you didn’t work,” the fairy said aloud to herself. “I’ll be back with reinforcements, though, so don’t you worry!” With that she zoomed away.

Angrily, Vale shook off Ryokou’s hold on him and started to stalk away at a rapid pace. Despite his change in appearance, his personality was still preserved, much to Michelle’s chagrin. Not wanting to be left behind again, she hurried after him along with Ryokou.
When a cloud passed over the moon, it was almost pitch black and Michelle had trouble seeing Vale a few feet ahead of her. She paused and waited for the cloud to pass over.

“You’re not really an elf, are you?” a voice asked from a few feet in front of her.

Michelle almost had a heart attack when the moon’s light revealed a youth with black hair that covered up his left eye but was short elsewhere that was standing upside down on a tree branch. He had pointy ears, but their tips had a flame-like pattern that was a crimson color that matched the color of his eyes. The figure had cause Vale to stop.

“I can tell you’re evil,” continued the upside, gravity-defying youth. “You seem pretty interesting. Anyways, good luck on returning to your normal self.” The youth faded into the darkness without a trace.

“Weird…” Ryokou commented.

“Yeah,” Michelle agreed,

Vale just continued onwards, possibly with even fiercer determination than before. As soon as they finally came across someone, a person with very pale skin and glowing red eyes, Vale grabbed them by the throat roughly and held them in the air.

“Corrupt me now before I kill somebody,” Vale snapped. “Change me back into a demon or I’ll just let myself loose control.”

Eyes wide in fear, the pale-skinned person gasped, “Okay, just let me down.”

Vale dropped the person who landed on their feet just fine. The person then bit the tip of their thumb with a fang, causing it to bleed before offering it over to Vale.

“This should hopefully do the trick since my blood is evil, after all, and it’s worked before,” the person told him.

Vale licked the drop of blood, and instantly his appearance reverted back to what it normally was. It was kind of a relief to Michelle to see him looking the way he normally did. He also seemed to have calmed down, now that the crisis was over for him.

“Thank you,” Vale said to the person. “I almost summoned the dead and started a massacre. I just can’t believe that fairy had the nerve to change me into an elf. An elf, the embodiment of light, harmony with nature, peacefulness, and perfection. Makes me sick, just thinking that I was just one.” Vale spat.

The person seemed to get over the oddness of the party and replied, “That’s been a common occurrence, lately. The creatures of light are trying to changing the creatures of darkness because ‘it’s the right thing to do.’ Sometimes they are entirely successful, and then there are cases like you where it’s only halfway. We are about ready to just start a war with them before this gets much more out of hand. It’s just wrong that vampires like me along with demons like you are being turned into elves, trolls into fairies, and dragons into unicorns. Just thinking about it makes me want to cut them all up into little pieces slowly so they can feel the pain.”

“Hey, Vale…” Michelle said, taking special note of the vampire’s monologue.

Vale nodded, understanding lighting up his face. “So how bad is it right now?” he asked the vampire.

Biting his lip carefully, probably so as not to gouge a hole in it with his sharp fang, the vampire replied, “Actually, it’s been getting pretty bad lately. The creatures of the night are losing respectability at this rate. We’ve been too soft with the light creatures because of our treaty which they of all people broke. They beat us to the punch line. We were intending to bide our time until we could bring about the apocalypse, an Armageddon when it was the right time. Or, at the very least, bring about enough destruction for this world to start over.”

Vale nodded, actually showing interest which Michelle hadn’t truly seen him doing ever before. It made sense, though. He had said that he was sick of happy endings, so an apocalypse seemed to be his preference.

‘How morbid,’ Michelle thought to herself.

“Is there any place we can stay for the night?” Vale asked the vampire.

“If you continue walking in this direction you’ll come across an inn you can stay at for free since you are obviously evil and quite powerful,” the vampire informed him.

“Thank you again. Hope you don’t get defiled,” Vale said.

“I hope you can help us strike back at those horrid self-righteous creatures of light,” the vampire replied.

“Oh, don’t worry, I will,” Vale grinned.