Young Writers Society

*Hey guys, sorry but things are crazy here right now with school and exams, so I don't have time to post...you can either use my character or just ignore him*

*gsp, yes the person you were guarding is awake now.*

Nicarga cut the inside of her hand, letting the blood flow freely. She ran the still warm blood along the blade of her knife, and let it do its work. Suddenly, the silver blade of the knife, extended to a three foot long blood red sword. She clicked her gun on safety and rushed forward.

She struck sure and quick at the things neck, but the blade only got stuck in the darkness of its flesh. The winged beast turned its head in a full one-eighty and looked at her. Nicarga released the magic in the sword and dropped to the ground and rolled away, nearly being impaled by the beak. She looked over at Lethero who continued to point his gun at the thing, but hadn't moved. She had no clue what he was doing, but it was helping in no way.

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Even before the creature struck Lethero was already focusing his will. Everybody around him was fight while he sat there and concentrated. Even though he was given control of his Lycan abilities, it still took him time to transform at will.

Then, quickly, he noticed the changes beginning. Hair sprouted up along his body. His fingers grew into cross between human hands and wolf paws. His mouth extended into a muzzle full of razor sharp teeth. In the end he was an eight foot tall, hairy monster.

"Into the building!" he yelled at everyone, his voice sounding slightly like a snarl. Everyone made their way into the building as Lethero made his first swipe at the demon. He left four long slices on its abdomen. The beast screamed into pain. His eyes focused on Lethero, who paw was covered in his demonic blood. Before Lethero's eyes, the counds on the demon's stomach began to stitch back together. It hissed at Lethero once before leaping away, flying back into the sky.

~Jasmine~

I paused after Lethero's command, staying in Lycan form as I watched the beast fly away again. Padding into the building slowly, I looked around. It seemed deserted; the room was derelict and the dusky air made it harder to breathe. Lethero sat in silence by the corner of the room in concentration - I wasn't sure if he was recovering from the attack or transforming into human form; as a relatively newborn Lycan he lacked some of the transformation speed that would come with experience. Still, his strength aptly made up for this, as proven by his swift defeat of the demon.

Mikayla was examining the surroundings with a sharp eye, probably comparing them to her vision from earlier to find the elusive staircase. "This way," she called decisively, pointing down a hallway.

Miles

I followed Mikayla. "That was fun, wasn't it?" I said sarcastically. "Another one of those, and we'll be good."

No one acknowledged me except for a dirty look from a couple of people. Hey, if you don't have humor in these kind of situations, you don't have anything.

Mikayla kept leading us to who knows where (I was still a little confused on the whole situation, to tell you the truth).

Saphire
I closed my eyes briefly as we continued to walk whispering a detection spell. "Hey guys we may want to be careful things aren't as peaceful as they seem." I said loud enough for everyone to hear. I pulled out a dagger and kept it resting lightly against my forearm.

Jack

The hallway was black. No, literally, the walls, floors, and ceilings were all painted black. Black like the darkness that had covered the demon and black that came alive at the dead of night. Not necessarily the good kind of black. More like the kind that will hide under your bed until you're sleeping, and then take you by surprise. There were a few swinging light bulbs overhead, blinking on and off sporadically, but they offered little light and made my head hurt. Despite the fact that we were now indoors, I kept my sunglasses on.

We all followed Mikayla farther into the building. I couldn't help my eyes from darting back behind us, telling myself that the shadows there were just that: shadows. There was no ten-foot demon crow after us, and no psychotic summoner about to wave their spindly fingers in our directions.

"Hey guys," I heard Saphire's voice call out from somewhere up ahead. "We may want to be careful. Things aren't as peaceful as they seem."

"Nobody jinx it!" I cut in before another comment could be made. I lowered my voice and assumed a haughty tone. "Anything you say can and will be used against you in the eyes of the universe."

That got a scattered mix of chuckles and scoffs, but the mood shifted from tense anxiety to simple caution. The demon was left behind us as we moved forward quietly, stopping every once in a while to let the two Lycans sniff the air. I used that time to focus my hearing, trying to detect any movement within the walls of the abandoned building. Nothing. Nada. Nul. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Not one single sound besides our own breathing and occasional shuffle. Not even the faint scuttling of tiny rodent and insect feet from within the walls.

"Hold up," Lethero growled from somewhere near the front of the group. We all came to an abrupt halt for what felt like the twentieth time in the last five minutes - okay, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration - and waited anxiously for the all clear.

"Something doesn't smell right," our leader said, speaking low and quiet. I heard his words and lifted my head, inhaling deeply. He was right. Even with my enhanced senses, the Lycans had a better sense of smell than I did. But even I could smell the stench of blood and something more dark and sinister rising up out of the floorboards.

Mikayla looked down the hallway and then up the other end; a vision flashed and the hallway was lit up by an eerie glow, a low hum reverberating through the walls.
"Guard my body," she said, and was gone before anyone could argue. But she had to be careful... something wasn't right. Definately wasn't right.
She passed through the wall into a room beside the hallway. It was boarded up; there was no way in, and no way out. But maybe... Mikayla pulled herself down to the floor and slowly pushed her head in through the boards.
Yep. A staircase leading under. A vision came to her.
And at the end of a large hallway off the staircase, a doorway. Into a large cavern. And that's where the inter-dimentional portal was.
Bingo.
Mikayla returned to her body and rubbed a bruise on her elbow, getting up from the floor. Although dramatic, passing out suddenly from a standing position hurt. Yeowie.
"Through that wall." she said, pointing. "There's a few boards to be pulled apart, and under them a staircase. Another hallway; turn left, left and there's a doorway. Into a cavern." She coughed. As some rushed right into it and others waited for Lethero's say-so, Mikayla fell beside the smart-arse guy who'd made the deamon-fighting crack just before.
"Probably more deamons. Fun. Let's go play." she said under her breath, so that only he could hear. She wasn't sure, but she thought she detected a smile.

Saphire
I kept myself lightly tensed caution gently guiding me. I felt myself walking in a casual crouch my feet barely making a sound. It was the first thing I had learned when I joined the A.P.O.S.F. always be ready but don't give yourself away. I was ready to pivot whenever the need was presented. I felt a dangerous smile creep onto my face. I knew always that there was a chance that I would not get back alive but here my smile grew more dangerous I would take as many as I could down with me. I shook my head chanting inside my head to myself 'Focus control that's what it's all about. I continued to chant this to myself the familiar words soothing.

Jack

"Probably more deamons. Fun. Lets go play."

The muttered words reached my ears and I looked down, a small smile tugging at the corner of my lips. Though new to the team, the girl had a sense of humor, and seemed as at ease with the whole situation as many of the veterans did. For those reasons - and quite possibly the fact that she had fearlessly drawn the demon's attention away from me during battle - she had my respect.

Her weight rested heavily upon my leg as she sat on the floor, rubbing her temple and watching as some of the others began work on tearing through the wall. She didn't look to be in pain, just tired and uncomfortable if I was any sort of judge on the matter. I had seen a few of the other seers back at HQ do astral projections, and many had had the same problem as what I suspected her to have: headaches. Though I guess really thinking about it, being in APOSF, headaches were bound to be some of the least of your problems.

As if sensing my eyes on her she looked up with a wan smile. "Guess I should get up now, huh?"

Without a word I reached down and offered my hand. She took it and I helped pull her to her feet, drawing my hand away once she was steady. "You wear gloves?" I asked, having noticed her own covered hands. "We're in a New Mexican desert in near-summer."

"You're one to talk," she retorted, though not unkindly. She held one hand up and splayed her fingers. "It's just that I get cold easily is all."

I shrugged. "To each his own, I suppose."

The sounds of splintering wood reached my ears and I winced against the sound in such a close proximity. If the girl - Mikayla, I believer her name to be - noticed, she didn't comment. I glanced over to where a few of the others were working, ripping and tearing at the wall while Finch used his ability to move all large pieces of debris off to one side. The hole in the wall was growing at a rapid rate, but the room on the other side was pitch dark.

Demon hunting. Psycho summoner catching. Yep, I'd say Mikayla nailed it: fun.

*Some of you guys are making pretty short posts. The Word minimum is 150 words, not characters. If you type using normal words 150 words is about 1500 characters if you go by that.*

Lethero reached into his pack, pulled out a flare, and lit it. Even though he didn't need it to see, he assumed the others wouldn't be having the same advantage. The flare cast shadows everywhere. Lethero could sense everyone's tension as they walked in.

"I smell death," Hayes said. Lethero took a deep breath of air and he could smell it too.

Lethero continued walking, and kicked something he didn't see. He knelt down to examine it, and found it was a human bone. Picking it up, he threw it to Nicarga who caught it disgustedly.

"How long ago was this?" Lethero asked the blood mage.

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"How long ago was this," Lethero asked Nicarga. Nicarga examined the bone, and then with one quick motion she broke it over her knee. Everyone cringed in disgust as Nicarga stuck her finger into the still red marrow. Suddenly, a vision came to her through the blood.

She was looking through the eyes of a young child. His arms where tied together with a chain that was pulled by a cruel man who wore dark red robes. They were in the same cavern they were in now. The man led the child deeper into the cavern to an altar they couldn't see in the darkness.

The man laid the child out. He lifted the child's shirt up revealing his shrunken belly. "May the gods of the abyss accept my sacrifice, and allow me to open hell's gate so I may control the world." He plunged the blade in the child's chest, and while he was still alive, pulled out his still beating heart. Nicarga's world quickly went dark as the child died, but she managed to catch a glimpse of the man throwing the heart into the flame, opening a demonic portal.

Nicarga gasped as she came back to her sense. She touched her hand to her face, and realized she had cried through the entire ordeal. Through sobs, she managed to tell everyone what she had saw. She knew that she would never forget this, even up till the day she died.

"Did you see how old this was? Lethero asked.

"About few days," Nicarga replied, trying to calm down. "Demons that escaped through the portal must've eaten the flesh."

Mikayla held her hand over her mouth in disgust. But that was deamon hunting - hard buisness. And nothing but that.

She looked around the room, scouting for the part that covered the stairway. She found it, and took out her katana. Others looked like they'd rather open the trap door, but Mikayla ignored them and chopped into the wood, bringing the katana back up again. She jumped on the floor, and broke through it, starting to slide down the steps. She threw her hand out and grabbed someone's wrist; she hoped it was someone who didn't mind human contact, or she was screwed. Oh well.

She cleared more debris with her hands, chucking them away. The stairway was surprisingly small, but in the dark she couldn't see the bottom. Lethero held his flare higher; Mikayla's shadow was thrown into the bottom of the hall.

The floor lit up with a golden, inhuman glow.


"They know we're here," Lethero said.

"That or the floor does," Jack pointed out.

They all paused at the broken floor.

"I'll go first!" Mikayla said brightly.

"No you won't." Lethero contradicted her. Mikayla ground her jaw moodily. "No arguments," he snapped.

Mikayla sighed, and moved out of the hole in the floor to stand beside the others. The shadows were spooky, thrown into the dark with every jagged splinter showing in the flare. From this view, it looked almost to small to get through without being speared by the splinters.

What was at the other end was probably worse.

Oh, joy. Mikayla grinned.

Corry

What went through Nicarga's mind when she tasted the blood was something terrible and dark, but it wasn't new to me: I'd seen far worse when I rooted through the great criminal minds around the world. Somehow, it didn't seem right for someone who regularly shed their blood to be shaken by the death of a single child. Something was showing through her face as she relayed what she'd seen, something far more different from what we all knew her to be.
I pondered what I'd seen, and, given the properties of my mind, reviewed the scene over and over again in my mind like a video tape.
Something Nicarga had failed to tell us...or maybe she had simply kept it from us.
The recognizable sigil of the blood-mages was clearly tattooed to the back of the man's hand. Did she know him? Why-
A stunning blast of hot air and golden light lit up the room. Darn it! Why couldn't I be more careful! Why did I wander like this?
I tried to seize hold of the situation with my mind, but it was then that I realized something I'd dreaded all along: my headband was gone. Somewhere in the black corridor, I thought I heard it clunk noisily against something metal, but only half my brain registered the noise. The other half was scrambling around, trying to deal with the mess my mind was without the band.
I'd only taken the band off twice since putting it on, and both times my brain went through a power down. It wouldn't knock me unconscious if I fought against it, but I'd never had to do so under stress.
A claw on the tip of a golden wing suddenly burst before my eyes. I could only throw my arms up in alarm and wait for the blow...

[Can someone please explain whats happening and/or bring my character into the story? I'm confused on the whole plot in general right now.]

[We're going into a hallway under a house and the floor has lit up gold. Your character isn't doing anything specific at the moment, but he could have been scanning the environment and not noticed anything because he was immersed in the mind of some deamon]

Carolyn

Carolyn had followed along quietly, ignoring the blood dripping down her legs, arms, ect. The pain was slightly harder to ignore, but she was used to it by now. When the floor lit up gold she blinked, shocked. "What the...?" Then something slammed into the small of her back. She cried out as she was shoved forwards and into someone else. She felt stabbing pain in her back, and warm blood rolling down her spine. She groaned.

Great. Another injury to deal with.

She whirled around, trying to get a glimpse of whatever was attacking, but the light was too bright.

It slammed into her again, shoving her into the wall. She felt incredible pressure on her ribcage.

No, no, no, I can’t break my ribs… That would end in disaster. She shoved against whatever it was, but it was very powerful.

**Hope this works!**