~~Mia~~
"You know," Mia said, patting Kas's back. "I'm starting to think who or whatever pulled us down here and trapped us didn't have their plan ready. Where's the ambush? Where's the swarm of hellbeasts who're gonna eat us?" She gestured behind them. "I mean, other than that one pack that wanted nothing to do with us."
The incubi shrugged. Adron shrugged. Kas and Vin grunted. Julisa scoffed.
"You're sure someone did it on purpose?" Locutus asked. "I get that it was probably someone doing the string thing you talked about, but that doesn't mean it was on purpose."
Adron shook his head. "It happened right underneath us. It's hard to think it's anything but someone trapping us."
"Maybe. Maybe they sensed the unmarked and..." The incubus shrugged. "I'm just looking for an explanation."
"Don't," Vin said. "Be silent and walk."
The incubi cast some annoyed glares at the big guy, but his bad attitude got a chuckle from Julisa.
The chuckling stopped when Vin scooped up a remnant from the ground. The damned soul was half emerged, and pulling him out of the stone tore him in half. His guts spilled out, but Vin scarfed them down in a bloody mess of innards tumbling over his teeth and chest. That was, at best, a shred of resonance, and he'd have to eat a hundred just to put a dent in his hunger.
It wasn't the first time Vin had eaten remnants. He'd been starving then, too, but the others hadn't seen it, and for a proud boy like Vin, that was a problem.
"How the mighty have fallen," Julisa said, grinning.
Uh oh. Poking the bear. Mia squeezed Kas's back spikes a little harder.
Vin reached for her, and the tetrad didn't dodge. If anything, she leaned into Vin's grab, and smiled up at him as Vin drew her in close enough he got all four hands on her shoulders and sides.
Julisa's grin remained. "Breathing that much Hellfire drained you, child of Belial."
"Don't be a bitch," Mia said. "Vin saved our asses."
"I remember a Vinicius that rampaged across entire provinces, slaughtering waves of demons and feasting without discrimination. This Vinicius is--"
Vin yanked her closer, leaned down, and set the tip of his short dragon snout against her nose.
"I should eat you to regain my strength."
"You could. But you won't." She licked her lips, pressed her body into his, and kissed him.
And then she snuck a glance Mia's way. What a bitch.
"Vin was locked up for at least a century," Mia said. "Maybe two. Hundreds of years! He just needs to recover." She regretted the words the moment she said them.
Vin let go of Julisa, glared at Mia with one eye, and marched ahead. The silent treatment.
Adron came up beside Kas, looked at Mia with a raised brow, and she shrugged back down at him. Whatever Vin wanted to do, Vin did, and trying to navigate his idiosyncrasies was only getting more difficult since Kas and Adron showed up. He was prickly, and Julisa knew it.
Then why the fuck was she poking him?
Because Vinicius didn't want Mia's sympathy, and he probably found Julisa's brazen bullshit appealing, even if it did piss him off. No doubt the damn woman was fishing for some angry sex. But if they didn't find something to eat, there wouldn't be any of that, not from Vin, at least.
Worse, if they didn't find something to eat, the guy might die. Christ, she hadn't even thought of that. In Death's Grip, Vin had been confident they'd find a way topside; it was just a thing in Death's Grip, to explore tunnels and find one of thousands of holes that reached the surface. But they weren't in Death's Grip, and who the fuck knew where this tunnel would take them?
But there were hellbeasts down here. They had to be eating something.
There weren't any forks. Death's Grip tunnels were complex, full of alcoves and winding, forking paths, with bloodgrip vines and hiding souls around random corners. Down here in this weird cavern, it was just the one path. The roof was so damn high, and...
"Uh, what's that?" She pointed up.
Everyone stopped, looked up, and tilted their heads. Something hung from the cavern ceiling, black, tall, and spiky. The black ooze of the swamp dripped down through cracks in the rock, falling around the group like light rain, and it hadn't stopped since they'd gotten pulled under yesterday. But so far, the only things actually hanging from the ceiling they'd seen had just been stalactites, each drenched black and dripping wet. This looked more like a tree.
It was a tree, a dead one without leaves. And it had spherical objects hanging from its sharp branches.
"That," Adron said, gesturing up, "is a forbidden tree. With forbidden fruit."
"Oh. Oh! We can get that! Right?" She hopped off Kas's back and got directly under the tree. Mistake. Drops of black ooze hit her forehead, and she groaned and wiped the muck off before it reached her lips. As long as she kept thinking of it as ooze or muck, and not the endless swamp of remnant guts it actually was, it wasn't too bad. Didn't mean she wanted to taste it anymore than she already had.
Adron shook his head. "I don't see how."
"But we need it. We have to figure something out." Forbidden fruit had lots of resonance and essence, good for anyone to eat.
"There's a reason the fruit are untouched," Faust said. "It's gotta be... three hundred feet up?"
"Probably around a hundred meters, yeah," Mia said. Everyone looked at her. "Shut up. Metric is better."
"We can throw our weapons at it," Oudoceus said, "but that's a hard target to hit. And meera metal isn't aera metal. Our swords could break when they land."
"Or just get stuck up there," Gallius said.
The incubi nodded, got into a small huddle, horns together, and brainstormed, complete with lots of mumbled whispers.
"Throw a rock?"
"I'm not seeing any rocks."
That was true. The cavern walls were smooth, the ground too, which meant not many small rocks, with only a few enormous boulders here and there. Nothing easily thrown.
"Let the unmarked solve the dilemma," Julisa said.
"Solve?"
"Yes. Solve. You controlled the ground and sky and slew hundreds of angels. You have already committed acts that no demon has managed since the First War. Surely you can tell that tree to release its fruit to us?" And because she just had to embody manipulative bitch as much as possible, she folded all four arms across her chest, and grinned.
"I can't! I... um..." Mia looked at her hands and gently squeezed the air. "I mean, I haven't tried for a bit, because it hurts. My fingers, the inside ones, they're really bruised from when I... did all that stuff."
"But?"
Mia frowned. "But... I think they're healing. So, I mean, I can... try?"
Without breaking her grin, Julisa took a small step back and gestured to the spot directly under the tree.
"By all means, unmarked. Impress us." Jackass.
Mia peeked at the rest of the group. All of them watched her now, dark eyebrows raised and glancing between the tree and her, as if they couldn't fathom the idea Mia could somehow actually do what Julisa suggested. But, much as Julisa was trying to get under Mia's skin, she had a point. Maybe Mia could? Ever since the battle with the angels, Mia had noticed she could feel Hell, as if it were attached to her somehow. Maybe she'd healed enough to try something?
She reached up with her sixth sense; as good a term to use for it as she could think. She could feel the cavern and the ground, but not the demons around her, or the swamp of black guts above. She could feel the remnants, but not in the same way. They were like insects crawling on the skin, but not something she could directly feel. The tree, though, she could feel that, and she could feel its note, the string that would affect it, the sound that would make it move.
She very, very gently plucked the string. It hurt. And the tree didn't move.
"The battle with the angels was different!" Mia clenched her fists and stomped around in a circle. "That time, something... something..." No, don't share any more details than needed. Just keep trying.
She wasn't unused to pain. Anyone who'd lifted weights to failure knew what pain was, the deep, uncomfortable kind that had your limbs shaking, muscles turned to acid, and lungs burning. This felt kinda like that, and also the annoying pain of sore fingertips from learning guitar. She'd given up on guitar, but this was too important. She plucked again, and bit down as the pain ached through her fingers up into her arm. The parallels between her inner soul fingers and her actual fingers were too strong, and the inner pain shot up her real arm, too.
But she plucked the string, and the tree moved. Barely. A tiny shake of a branch, but it was something.
"I'm getting somewhere."
"I see nothing," Julisa said.
"It's too high up, but I can feel it."
"Or perhaps you are simply lying to hide your--"
Mia plucked the string as hard as she could, and bit down the urge to yelp. The tree shook hard from trunk to tips, and several fruits fell free. Flung free, problematically.
"Oh shit! Got it!" Faust ran to the side, and the other incubi did the same, spreading out in perfect formation. One of them did a running jump onto their stomach, and the other three managed on quick feet, each catching a fruit. Faust caught two.
Fruit was a weird word to describe them. They looked more like human hearts than anything, but at least they weren't covered in blood and dripping. And there were still more on the tree.
Julisa eyed Mia. Mia eyed Julisa. Yeah, fuck you. She aimed her hands up at the tree, gently plucked the air, and hit the string again, softer this time, but harder than the first time. A different pitch, too, like bending a guitar string on the fret.
Don't just move, tree. Release the fruit.
Release it did. Instead of shaking violently, the tree released its grip on the fruits, a tiny tearing of where the dark, dead wood connected to the not-flesh. The fruits fell, and Julisa and Adron caught them. It was a lot of fruit, enough for everyone.
Kas grunted and sat beside Mia. "How did you do that?"
"Uh, it's... it's hard to describe, but I can feel Hell, I guess. It's like music. Everything is attached to the music, and I can play a note and make things happen."
"Anything?"
"If it's connected directly to Hell, yeah. I think. The fire sky, the ground, things growing out of the ground. It's all Hell, right?"
The incubi joined them, each munching down a heart fruit.
