Re: Journey to the Center of the Dome (Hito and Ciro graduation)
Everywhere he looked, the picturesque landscape never wavered. It stretched far into the horizon, a sea of green grass that swayed on a warm gentle breeze. Spots of color in the form of wild flowers grew abundantly, the rainbow blossoms almost joyous as their fragrances mingled to create a bouquet of smells that made the mind think of summer days. Above, the sky was a blue that was nearly piercing to look upon, the clouds floating across the vista fluffy and harmless.
“I don’t trust it,” the words hung in the air with foreboding, a dark counterpoint to the perfect day.
Aleena, still affected by the gas as was Joker, looked at him blearily before spinning to look around, “I don’t see what your problem is, everything looks fiiiiine to me~!”
Purple eyes cut to hers, the eyes nearly slitting in their annoyance, “Milady, after being subjected to that noxious gas earlier, I must admit I am a tad wary of what this place might hold – especially as we are currently underground and yet there is a sky above us!”
The demon refused to care, clinging to that bliss that still permeated her mind, “It looks harmless to me!”
A hand stabbed forward, narrowly missing her nose as it pointed into the distance, “Perhaps, milady, you failed to notice THAT.”
Seeing her glare at his finger, Joker could almost imagine her contemplating biting down on it, and quickly pulled it away, not missing the way her mouth pulled down in a pout before she finally turned to see what had upset him.
Her eyebrows rose, and she stared in what seemed to be awe. Joker couldn’t be sure, he still doubted her ability to think clearly and indeed, what he mistook for awe could indeed be something more akin to incomprehension.
“There are bubbles. In the air,” Aleena said this triumphantly, almost as if to prove Joker wrong on his derogatory imaginings of her mental faculty.
It was true, there were bubbles all over the landscape, each one surrounding a bit of land or air and piled together with their sides connected. It reminded Joker strongly of his times as a lad, playing in the bathtub and making piles of bubbles and seeing them become square when another was surrounded. What he never had, was land within those bubbles. Nor was he ever inside one of them with what looked to be a giant eel floating high above with nasty looking barb at the end of its tail.
“How you failed to see that giant… snake… amazes me!” Joker nearly snarled at her, his eyes focusing on the said snake.
“Wha- oh! I saw it. Just because I didn’t say anything about it doesn’t mean I didn’t see it,” Aleena frowned; her eyes also following the sinuous path the serpent wove high above them. What happened next was something that was all too predictable.
“Milady…,” Joker gripped her arm tightly, ignoring the hiss that came from her direction. His eyes were transfixed as the monster casually nudged one of the bubbles, separating that piece of land from all the others. It circled it almost lovingly, rubbing its whole length against the clear surface.
Then with a whip like motion it slid away, its tail zigzagging in the air to slice faster than comprehendible. The bubble burst, and that piece of land within became frost white before disintegrating. Even as it fell, Joker could see the light bouncing off the dust, making the scene of horror almost beautiful.
“It… froze?” the question was uttered softly, and Joker glanced at the girl to see her watching the scene avidly. Her features had lost that vacant look and her eyes were slit.
“It would appear so… the bubbles protect us. That thing… destroys them,” Joker clenched his fists, his eyes now looking everywhere for a means of escape. The staircase from which they hadn’t strayed far from was behind a thin wall of transparent bubble skin; Joker had not even realized they had passed through one of the invisible boundaries.
“Perhaps we should go back and find another way…” he passed a hand through the bubble, and found it went through easily.
“MOVE!” Aleena’s yell was swift, her hand grasping him from the back of his shirt and pulling him with more strength than he would have given her credit for. She threw him back, just as the black and orange scales of the serpent slid into view just a meter away. It nudged the bubble with their exit, pulling it away and both Dream Weaver and Lunar Demon knew what would happen.
“We have to find another exit, before it destroys it!”
Almost as if that was a signal, the land beneath them shook. The serpent snake had rippled and as a result the bubbles all quavered beneath its influence. Many of the bubbles separated, floating freely from one another.
Joker cursed, falling to one knee as he lost his balance. One hand automatically clutched a dagger and he looked at the demon beside him.
“I have yet to fully recover from the gas. I’ll have to rely on you until I can at least portal us to the next bubble we see which has the exit in it, especially if it’s separated!”
He paused and his expression lightened abruptly, regardless of the situation they were in, "From here on, Joker is depending on you, senpai!"