Rain Dance

"Kimi, get back!" Voltaire yelled, spitting fire at the creature. It seemed to do some damage, but she kept her cold grip on him.

"Sooooul," the water being drawled. "Ye will give thy soul for what thy has done."

Voltaire sneered rather than balked at the threat.

"The hell do you want my soul for?" he asked, spitting more fire into her face.

(For possible future reference: how much good luck vs bad luck does Kimi have?)

(Her soul is probably as red as Voltaire's is black. I swiched the colors for her breed Red=Black and Blue=White)

"But the water hurts you!" Kimi protested. "I don't want you to get hurt!"

(I'm not sure if that's going to work...then again, it could work very well. We'll see.)

"Tell that to her," Voltaire hissed, referring to the demon lady he was fighting with.

The water being grew annoyed with Kimi's interference and tried to lash out at her, only for Voltaire to block the blow. Noting his protective behavior, she pulled at Kimi's leg, causing her foot to fall into the water. The liquid pool gave off a light glow, and much red and a little blue bled into the pool.

"Soul," the creature hissed. "I will have..."

Kimi jerked her foot away, out of the water. "What was that?" She paniced a little at seeing the colors drain into the water, seemingly out of her.

(long past ahead)

The red and blue colors swirled toward the demon and were absorbed into her through her feet. She smiled viciously.

Voltaire panicked for a moment, seeing only the red and thinking it was blood. He glanced back to see that Kimi was alright and had no apparent wounds. The brief distraction was enough for the water lady to pull Voltaire into the pool, the water just shy from touching his knees.

Voltaire hissed in pain as the water around his legs began to boil. Then he felt a strange all-over numbness as the water started to shine again and black with flecks of white filtered out of him. His soul. He felt sickened by the sight of it.

The female fiend drew this mostly blackness into herself as well, her grin becoming far more feral.

"Soul," she hissed happily. "Thy soul is-"

But then her smile vanished as she clutched herself and bent forward. Voltaire sneered. He knew this would happen.

"What the hell do you want my soul for?" he asked darkly. "It's toxic."

The demon lady let out an inhuman shriek as her form deteriorated to a swan-like creature with a red beak and red eyes. Soon the big white fiend bird collapsed and floated on the water lifelessly, black bleeding from its mouth. A few moments later the devil avian dissolved into water, and the whole pool went from clear to a murky darkness.

Voltaire staggered out of the pool, the lower part of his legs numb from the wet and cold. He noticed Kimi, and then realized that she saw everything. His heart dropped and he looked away in shame.

"What happened?" Kimi asked softly. She looked from the murky water to Voltaire in Aww. "Did you kill it?" She asked

"...Yeah," he replied quietly, still looking away. "...Look, just don't-"

He let out a cry of surprise as his half-numb legs went out from under him. He rubbed them and blew fire on them, trying to warm them up faster.

Hurriedly Kimi rushed over to him. "Are you alright?" She asked worriedly. "Is there anything I can do?"

"...No, not really," Voltaire answered, feeling strangely drained and numb inside. He wondered if this was what post-Chiaroscuro felt like for Adair. "Just have to wait for my legs to warm up. That's all."

He wilted against her, resting his head on her shoulder.

Kimi wrapped her arms around him loosely and gently stroked his hair. "Rest as long as you need to." She murmured.

Voltaire said nothing at first, simply closing his eyes.

"...Look, what happened here, what I did back there, don't tell Adair or Ava."

"...Alright, but you have to tell me why" Kimi relied softly. "It doesn't have to be know, but I want an explanation."

Voltaire paused.

"...Those colors being drawn out of us were soul," he began. "You seem to be different, maybe because you're a demon, but in general soul is a mix of black and white. White is the goodness you have. Black is the evil. And...well, you saw. I'm...not a very good person."

He paused again.

"I don't know how Adair would take that, if he knew. Ava would probably be okay with it since she's a demon and she has my heart as a power source, but she's no good at keeping secrets."

"I don't think you're bad." Kimi replied softly. "I think you're very nice. Very very nice. Maybe, maybe that's not true. Maybe the colors mean something else" She tried to sooth him. "Do you want me to try and heal you?"

"I'm out of it because I just got a bunch of soul sucked out of me. I don't think sucking anything else out will help," Voltaire replied. He wanted to believe her words, but he wasn't sure if he could. There were too many coincidences in the past where-

The cavern started to rumble. Voltaire opened his eyes in time to see cracks forming in the walls. Speaking of unlikely coincidences....

"Shit, we gotta get outta here," he hissed, pushing himself to his feet. He legs still felt stiff, but he could move on his own.

Kimi looked around but there were many passageways to choose from and she couldn't see the smoke through the falling dust. "Which way?" she asked, standing with Voltaire. "I can't tell where we came from"

Voltaire wasn't sure either, disoriented from both the dust and soul loss. A rain of rocks fell over one of the passages he was considering, an another large boulder landed near them.

"Let's go a way that's not blocked," Voltaire suggested, going down the largest free tunnel.

Kimi followed quickly. A loud rumbling caused her to look up just in time to see a large section of the roof start to cave in, right over Voltaire. "Look out!" She cried, rushing forward to shove him out of harms way.

The ceiling collapsed between them, cutting them off.

Voltaire hit the cave floor with a thug before hearing a cascading roar behind him. He got up only to see a wall of rubble behind him.

"Kimi!" he screamed, trying to dig through the debris. "Can you hear me? Kimi!"

On the other side of the rubble, Kimi could barely hear him. "Voltaire? Taire, Are you all right?" She called back. She was seated on the floor, one of her legs trapped by a huge bolder. She bit her lip to ignore the pain. She could feel her green blood dripping down her leg. "You're not hurt are you?"

Voltaire felt such relief to hear Kimi's voice, but a piece of ceiling crashing nearby reminded him that he needed to hurry.

"I'm fine," he called back, still trying to get through the rubble. Fire powers were useful for many things, but not this. "Can you summon something to smash or move the rocks?"

"No. But the cave in stabilized the roof where I'm at, so I should be alright for a little while. Go make sure Ava and Adair are alright" Kimi called. "I'll work on getting myself out"

Voltaire gritted his teeth. He didn't want to leave her alone in a confusing maze of collapsing tunnels, but his digging was doing little good. He would be trapped or buried if he didn't go soon.

"Fiery!" he heard Ava call. "Fiery come back!"

Well that saved him the worry and trouble of trying to find the other two. Adair soon wheeled around the corner...in full Chiaroscuro.

Of course he's gone Chiaroscuro. The cave starts collapsing, we're nowhere to be found and his panic peaks over the limit,Voltaire thought.But dammit, this is not what I need right now.

A couple of boulders fell beside Adair. He turned and attacked the boulders with his bright-dark flames, quickly breaking them down.

...Or maybe it is.

Back in her niche, Kimi was trying desperately to roll the large bolder off of her leg. It wasn't helping much, but she could be thankful that at least Voltaire would be safer.

"Over here, Mr. Hero," Voltaire called, catching Adair's cold attention again. "Come break these rocks."

Silently but swiftly Adair charged straight for Voltaire, black-and-white flames blazing all over. The Hunter quickly jumped out of the way, as the Hero rammed into the rocks and began to beat down on them. He was making much faster progress than Voltaire had been. The fair-haired Hunter stayed very still to the side, not wanting to shift Adair's attack away from the rocks.