After 2 hours, the flying ship finally landed in the next location. They were in Dathevia, part of the Belcana Empire. Everyone got off the ship to head to their new hotel rooms and put away their things. Grust and his crew made sure they weren’t seen by Derek and the others and quickly made their way to their rooms. Everyone had a roommate, Raven somehow got paired with Feros. How ironic… She wanted nothing to do with him. Just a few moments ago, his attempt at talking with her had not really gone too well, and now, she was stuck with him. As she walked into her room, she saw him sitting on his bed.

“Oh, hi.” he said, noticing her.

“Looks like you’re my room…”

As he was talking, she immediately left.

“…mate… okay then.”

Raven quickly retreated to where Derek was staying. His roommate was Ezra.

“Dad, I’m staying in here with you two.” Raven demanded, putting her suitcase on Derek’s bed.

“Why?” asked Ezra.

“I’m being paired with that guy that dad teamed up with for his match.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s creepy. I just don’t want to be in there with him.”

“Well, it’s two to a room, you’ll just have to deal with it.”

“I’d rather die.”

“Wow, that’s intense. Looks like you’re just gonna have to go die, kid.” Ezra sarcastically said.

“Oh, shut up.”

“Dad, come on, let me stay.”

“He’s right, there can only be two to a room. Charlotte’s orders.”

“Ugh. Whatever.”

She left and decided to walk around in the hallway. Mordecai was also walking in the hallway. The faint scent of cigarette smoke on his clothes was evidence that he had been smoking outside, brooding in the moonlight. He often used the bad habit as a coping mechanism to combat the traumatic memory of his childhood.

◆◆◆

Neither Raven nor Mordecai were paying attention when they bumped into each other. They both noticed each other and Raven recognized the tall, intimidating man looking down at her.

“You… You were there when I got kidnapped!” she exclaimed.

Mordecai quickly covered her mouth, causing Raven to back into a wall. She could smell the cigarette smoke on his fingerless gloves.

“Shhh! Not so loud.” Mordecai said as he took his hand off of her mouth.

“Look… Don’t mind what happened. It wasn’t anything personal… This isn’t about you.”

After saying that, he walked away to go back to his hotel room. She wanted to follow him to spy on him, but his intimidating appearance made her think twice about that. She decided to keep walking, thinking about everything that happened over the past few days and remembering the story Grust had told her about her father. The memory wasn’t in full detail, but she remembered a few important things: Derek and Azlana used to be a couple as teenagers, his parents didn’t approve of their love, and that Mordecai and Azlana are best friends.

She didn’t know what to make of the story but she wished that Grust would’ve had time to finish the story before he stopped so suddenly. While she was in her head, her surroundings started to glitch and turn dim. She looked up and noticed the flickering of her surroundings, confused as to what was going on. She then saw herself standing before her, staring back at her. Raven couldn’t help but stand still. She couldn’t understand what was going on at all.

“Is that… Is that me?? Th-There’s another me! What the hell?!”

All of a sudden, her replica started skipping around the original, glitching every few seconds. Raven grew even more confused and nauseous as her other self continued skipping around her. As the other Raven skipped, apparitions of Grust’s face with a large eye in its center flashed quickly in front of her, along with a laugh that triggered an anxiety in Raven that she had never experienced before. Her heart began to race and she started to panic.

“What’s happening?!” she exclaimed.

“Someone help me!”

No one came, everyone was asleep. Except for one person, Feros. He had been walking the halls and looking for Raven and he found her in the hallway, seemingly panicking for no reason. He quickly ran to her.

“Raven, are you okay?!”

Raven suddenly stopped having the strange visions. She turned to see Feros holding onto her.

“When did you get here?” asked Raven.

“I came looking for you. You left and didn’t come back.”

“Oh… Okay…”

“What just happened here?”

“I don’t know. I… I was walking and all of a sudden everything went dark and I saw… another me.”

“Okay… Does this sort of thing happen often?” Feros asked, feeling like she was being a bit weird. However, he decided to ignore it.

“No…”

“Well, come on. Let’s just go back to our room.”

They headed back, Feros had his arm around Raven’s shoulder while she thought about what had just happened. This had never happened to her before. What was that strange laugh? The laugh, so oddly familiar, didn’t match any faces in her memories. All she knew, was that it struck something in her: really bad anxiety.

◆◆◆

Derek stood in a dark arena in the middle of a wrestling ring yet again. He was confused as to how he got there. He looked around and all he could see was darkness. All he could hear was whispers which confused him even more. Suddenly, he heard a voice coming from somewhere in the room. He turned and looked at the titantron. It seemed to be what looked like Raven, except she had her back turned to him. She spoke in an almost monotone voice.

“Beware. Hearts tear. What’s done in the dark always comes to light.” shr said, turning her head so Derek could see her face. Raven’s eyes were dark, droopy holes. Her mouth was no less different, forming a very dramatic frown. The razor sharp teeth peeked through the shadows of her mouth.

“You’ll never see it coming, Derek.”

He watched in horror as she menacingly laughed. The laugh didn’t sound like hers, it was… someone else’s…

◆◆◆

In the morning, Raven woke up. Feros was nowhere to be seen. She didn’t think anything of it —not that she cared anyhow— She went into the bathroom to shower. In doing so, she remembered what had happened last night.

She wondered what that could’ve been and why it wouldn't escape her mind or even why it happened. It felt like it was engraved in her brain. She mulled it over in her own thoughts as she finished her shower and dressed herself, hoping for answers. She exited into the hallway and headed towards Derek and Ezra’s room. For some reason, the door was unlocked. She walked in cautiously. As she did, she was met with the sight of Ezra, still in his underwear. His hair was still wet from showering. Raven immediately blushed.

He turned to see her and noticed her expression.

“What?” he said, clearly not caring that she’s found him like this.

“N-Nothing. Where’s my dad?”

“In the shower. Don’t you hear the water running?”

She had not really paid attention to the sound of water after spotting Ezra.

“When do you think he’ll be out?” asked Raven not truly thinking of what to retort after his question

“The hell if I know. Just sit over there and wait.”

She glanced at Ezra for the rude tone and sat on Derek’s bed to wait for him. Meanwhile, the werewolf got dressed and chuckled to himself because Raven was trying her hardest to not look at him. In the bathroom, Derek was sitting on the floor of the tub with his hands on his head, clearly stressed.

“Why do I keep having these dreams? What do they even mean? This one had my daughter in it, I’m not sure why. I just want some peace for once, I’ve been stressed out for years…”

Derek finally came out of the bathroom. He looked very exhausted.

“Hey, dad.”

“… Hey… Good morning…”

“What’s up with you, Estelos?” Ezra asked inquisitively.

“I just… had the strangest dream.”

“About?”

Derek looked at Raven, pausing slightly. She looked back at him in confusion.

“Never mind.” Derek said, ending the conversation.

“We should go get the others, Juana was talking to me about a circus in town. She wanted us all to go.” Derek said, hoping to change the subject.

“A circus?” Raven asked.

“I’ve never been to one of those before.”

“Really?” Ezra asked, looking at Derek.

“Well, there wasn’t really any circuses in Bosneria.”

“Ah. Alright then. I suppose it’s a good way to wind down after the trip and well… everything else that happened. Let’s go get the others.” Ezra said as he walked towards the door and held it open for Derek and Raven to exit out of.

Raven and Derek followed suit. Ezra soon walked out as he shut the door behind them.

Not too far from there, in Azlana’s room, which she shared with Mordecai — He made sure of it — Azlana was still in bed. A noise then woke her up. She watched as Mordecai came in with breakfast from the hotel’s dining area.

“Uh… G-Good Morning.” Mordecai nervously forced himself to say.

“Good morning. You got us breakfast?”

“Yeah. Um… Here you go.”

“Thank you! You’re such a good friend, Mordecai.”

After hearing that, he looked down and his nervousness was replaced with a mass of disappointment. He quickly ignored the feeling.

“Yeah, no problem.” he said, forcing a slight smile.

Suddenly, Grust appeared out of thin air. He seemed pretty excited, given his body language.

“Let’s go, everyone, we have work to do!~” he said, spinning around.

“Why?” asked Mordecai.

“Derek and the others are on the move… Time to make another impact.”

“An impact?”

“Yeah, weren’t you listening?

Mordecai glanced at him, not wanting to deal with whatever high Grust was on. He then changed the subject.

“...Have any of you two seen Elizabeth? I haven't seen her since yesterday. I don’t necessarily care about what she’s up to, but she said she’d help, so she should be here instead of letting us do all the work…”

Azlana, who didn’t really have anything to say, looked curiously at Grust assuming he would have an answer.

“I’m sure she’s around here somewhere, hopefully doing something productive…”

◆◆◆

Derek and the others headed towards the circus to buy tickets for one of the many shows provided during the day.

“I wonder what a circus is like.” Raven said with enthusiasm.

“Trust me, they’re really fun!” Juana responded.

“I can’t wait.”

Behind a nearby bush, Elizabeth watched the group, as they headed towards the entrance of the circus. “He’s pretty calm for someone who allegedly murdered two kings…” she whispered, trying to not make any loud noises.

Before they were able to go in, everyone started running out of the circus tent, screaming. Derek and the crew grew confused as people pushed past them. “The hell’s going on in there?” Ezra asked.

“Should we go in and check it out?” Allison asked.

“Not sure…” Elisha responded.

Their questions were answered when they were finally able to see inside. Grust was in there controlling a big, horrifying monster as the circus members tried to fight it. The monster was blue with eight small red eyes, a big mouth full of razor sharp teeth, and had six legs.

“What the hell is that?!” Raven exclaimed.

“It kinda looks like a nucora.” Juana said.

“A nucora?”

“Yeah. A nucora is a creature only native to the demon world.”

“How did one get here?”

“That orange and black thing must’ve summoned it.”

“Orange and black thing…?”

Raven turned to look and immediately recognized him. “That’s Grust…”

“What?” asked Derek.

“That ghastly creature… His name is Grust Natcliff. He’s one of the people who kidnapped me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, and that tall man in there, too. I saw him in the hallway last night. That woman, too. She was there when I got kidnapped, too! There was a third person, but… I don’t see her anywhere.”

“What? Tall man? A woman… A third person?”

Derek looked in the tent and to his surprise, he saw Mordecai and Azlana.

“Azlana… And… Is that… Mordecai…? I never thought I’d see him again…”

“Estelos? I can tell by your expression that you know these people. Who are they?” Wess asked, seeming pretty fed up with everything that’s been happening recently.

“Well, that’s Azlana Kallis and Mordecai Riktor… I’ve already explained who Azlana was. But, Mordecai is her best friend. He absolutely hated my guts ever since Azlana and I split. To be honest, looking back, I feel like he hated me before that, too. He was always… glancing at me… I had no idea what I did wrong.”

“The guy seems like a weirdo anyway. By the way, while you were monologuing, you let them kill a lot more people and escape. Great job.” Ezra said in a mocking tone.

“What?! I… I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

Before he could finish, a girl came up behind him and tapped his shoulder, she seemed to work in the circus. “Hey, do you know where those bastards ran off to?” she asked, seemingly in a hurry.

“Yeah, we were headed there ourselves. Right, Estelos?” Ezra butted in.

“Right…”

“Cool, take me to them. I’m not letting them get away with what they did.”

They headed off to where they are. While they did, Ezra decided to bring out his extroverted tendencies.

“Hey. So, what’s your name, man?”

“You can just call me Gio.”

“Eh, I’ve heard weirder names.”

“The hell is that supposed to mean?” Her eyes grew dark as they narrowed and her eyebrows furrowed as she thought about hitting him, but decided against it because it would only cause more problems than there already were.

“Nothing, I’ve just been coming across a lot of strange names recently.” he said, glancing at Derek.

“My name isn’t strange…”

“Whatever you say.”

Gio glanced at him with pure death in her eyes. Once they finally arrived, they were met with only the nucora. No Grust, no Azlana, and no Mordecai.

“Where did they go?” Gio asked, looking around. They were nowhere in sight.

“Looks like we’re just going to have to only take down this beast.” said Allison.

“Why do they always get away? This is getting very annoying.” Ezra said, clenching his fists. He really wanted all of this to be over so that they could go about their normal lives and sell the red maiden.

“Well, are we gonna fight this thing, or are we just gonna stand here?” Juana asked with a big smile on her face. “Just leave it to me!”

Juana ran towards the creature at high speeds, looking as if she was a pink blur. She quickly used her sweat to create a sharp blade of water and sliced the beast’s tongue off. Blood squirted everywhere as the Nucora let out a loud blood curdling screech.

“Well, we might as well help. Lupus Bracchium.” said Ezra as his arms grew larger. Blonde fur protruded out of his skin. His hands turned into large werewolf paws with long, sharp claws. He jumped up and wall-jumped off of a tree to get even higher and he landed on the giant beast, ripping its flesh with his long claws. The nucora then regurgitated acid in an attempt to get Juana and Ezra away from it. They quickly got out of the way to avoid being burned. The acid burned holes in the ground expelling, an awful stench as it did.

“What the hell?! That thing spits acid?!” Ezra exclaimed.

“Yeah, didn’t I mention that?” Juana asked.

“No!” retorted the werewolf as he dodged yet another projectile from the beast.

“Iridis Filum!” Juana said as a rainbow goop substance came out of her eyes and flowed through the air like a strand of a spider’s web, making its way toward the nucora. The goopy, sticky threads wrapped around the nucora and lifted the giant beast into the air. She used the threads to fling the beast into a tree. It hit the tree hard which only angered it further. It spat out a giant glob of acid at her and she quickly got out of the way once more. It hit the ground and splattered everywhere, some of the droplets landing on Juana’s arm, burning her flesh a bit.

Derek bit his finger through his black gloves and blood came rushing out. He swung his arm out to the side of him, causing the blood to come off of his finger and float in the air. A magic circle appeared behind him. “I have to make sure I don’t use too much blood in this fight, but I will if I have to… Sanguis Gladius!” he said as his blood formed a big red sword that had a red blade that was about 122cm long and 30cm wide. He ran toward the monster as Raven’s wings glowed bright. A shadowy mist formed around her hands and she made her way to the nucora. Meanwhile, Allison, Gio, and Elisha also prepared for battle. Allison’s eyes and fist lit on fire as Elisha’s eyes glowed a bright white and his fists were surrounded with electricity. Gio, didn’t prepare for battle with magic, she was one of the many people who refused to use magic. She made sure to make up for it with her mass amount of physical strength. The battle fully began, everyone attacked the Nucora simultaneously as it attempted to defend itself with acid, force fields and spawning smaller nucoras by doing a similar reproduction technique that single-celled organisms use. Gio knew right away how to stop the acid, she had to somehow get to the top of the nucora and put something in its mouth. As she punched the smaller nucoras, causing them to squish and die, she saw a big rock that she could use. She just had to figure out how to get it up there. As she looked at the trees, she had an idea. But before she could bring her plan to fruition, the giant beast grabbed her with its long tongue, attempting to swallow her whole. She held its mouth open the best she could. Derek saw this and frowned. His sword turned back into liquid blood and floated around, waiting for his next move.

“I’m gonna need more blood for this… It’ll leave me in pain and exhausted but… I have no other choice.”

Derek squeezed more and more blood out of his finger as Gio continued to keep herself from being eaten alive. Once Derek had enough blood, he was ready. A big magic circle appeared behind him with the Valtaheim Family Crest on it. It shattered to pieces and each shard made its way to Derek’s chest and was absorbed. Derek’s irises glowed bright. “And now, to finally end this! The signature of the Valtaheim Family: Acuti Sanguis!”

Allison and Elisha quickly turned to Derek. They’ve heard those words before. They immediately remembered a time when they were younger. They were walking in the woods with Derek and Raven as two men approached them. They seemed to want Derek’s money, to which he refused, and they attempted to kill him. He told Allison, Raven, and Elisha to hide behind the nearest bush as he murdered them with the Acuti Sanguis move. They didn’t know what to make of the memory, but it didn’t matter now, they had to get rid of the nucora. The big floating glob of Derek’s blood formed into a bunch of icicle shaped shards as they quickly zoomed towards the nucora one by one, each quickly penetrating the flesh of the beast, causing it to let go of Gio. She jumped off of the head of the beast, high in the air and put all her weight in her fist. She then started to fall with her fist headed straight toward the nucora’s head. The impact caused the beast to explode into a mass of goop. Everyone got out of the way to make sure they didn’t get soaked.

◆◆◆

And at last, the nucora was finally dead. Everyone tried to catch their breath. Derek fell to the ground from pushing too hard and using too much of his blood in the battle.

“Estelos… You… You okay?” Ezra asked, still panting.

“Yeah… I’m fine. Just used a little too much blood.”

“W… Why not use the blood of others… like other vampires…?” Wess asked as he sat down on the ground.

“I don’t like the idea of that. I’d rather use my own.”

Gio slowly made her way to Derek. She was holding her side from being injured.

“Thank you for saving me.”

“No problem… I couldn’t just sit there and let that happen.”

“Well, I have to go check on my friends. Bye, everyone.”

After everyone said their goodbyes to Gio, she made her way back to the circus tent.

After the battle concluded, a woman came out from the bushes, she had been following them the whole time.

“Derek! Are you okay?”

“Petra? What are you doing here? And why were you hiding in those bushes?”

“I… I followed you here. I heard about the murders of the kings and I couldn’t believe you’d do that. I didn’t wanna believe… You’d never hurt anyone unless you have to, and even then, you’re hesitant.”

Derek’s eyes bucked, he didn’t expect her to know about the murders or mention it in front of everyone else.

“Derek, what’s wrong?” Petra asked, as her concern and curiosity grew.

“Wait a second. Who is she and what is she talking about? And why is everyone calling you Derek? Isn’t your name Estelos Astelira?” Ezra questioned. He’d been ignoring his growing suspicions for a while now, but with Azlana and the announcer calling him Derek Valtaheim, his neurotic nature, and now this? He needed to know exactly what was going on here and he needed to know now. Derek stood there, frozen and at a loss for words. He didn’t know what to do, his heart was beating out of his chest. He was truly trapped now…