Helina K

Chapter 1: Rebels

A woman with red hair looks out of her window in her quarter, she has pale skin with blue eyes and stands at 5’11. Her outfit is a black turtleneck with a black crop top jacket, a brown belt with holsters for her pistols, black pants, and black combat boots. She also has two katanas on her back. 

As she stared out her window, civilians were chatting as if everything was normal. She smiles seeing mystical creatures and humans getting along together, but deep inside, she knows there will be a massacre beginning if she doesn’t do anything. 

“Janice come on we have to go!” 

Janice snaps out of her trance as she looks at the reflection of her window to see a man who is two inches shorter than her leaning against the door frame. He has messy blonde hair and peach skin and he is glitching everywhere from head to toe. 

“Get your ass up and close the window, it smells terrible in here!” He shouts.

Janice scoffs at her teammate's remark. Sure outside has a petrichor smell but it’s not THAT terrible. 

“Way to ruin the mood Glitch Bitch” She retorts. The man’s eye twitched as he started to glitch intensely. Janice smirks as she sees that she got under his skin (well ghostly skin). 

“It’s Guritchi not ‘Glitch Bitch’ get it right!” He snarls as he walks up towards her in anger. Janice stares down at him with that smirk on her face. She hit a nerve. 

“Oh, I’m so sorry! I’m sure I got it right though!” Janice says as she puts a hand on her chest in a mocking manner.

 She laughs as she sees Guritchi get more irritated every time she insults him. Guritchi glitches more, his white collared shirt glitching into different colors as the straps connecting to his pants started glitching to white as well as his black pants and black shoes. Guritchi starts glitching more as he puts his hands on his head gripping strands of his hair. This just encourages Janice to mock him more.

“Aww is the short man getting angry?” She says with dripping sarcasm as she folds her arms over her chest. 

They hear her Air Force blue heels clacking against the hard wooden floor as she stops right outside Janice’s room. Guritchi was about to pounce on her but luckily someone walked into the room. A beautiful woman with pale skin, blonde hair and she is wearing an Air Force blue and white medieval dress, black stockings, and her fencing sword in her hand. She glares at both Guritchi and Janice with her cold blue eyes. 

“What. What the hell are you two doing…you know better than to piss each other off, do you know how unnecessary this whole shenanigan is.” 

Janice and Guritchi freeze in place as the woman’s German accent sends shivers down their spine. The woman pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs in annoyance. She looks up and turns to Guritchi.

“You were supposed to tell Janice about the mission the boss has for us,” The woman says as Guritchi lets out a nervous chuckle as the glitches on his body disappear. 

“R-right…” He replies, then his face turns serious as he turns to Janice. Janice raises an eyebrow waiting for him to speak. 

“The boss wants us to visit Siren Cove,” Guritchi informs her, causing Janice’s curiosity to grow. Siren Cove was a pretty normal area. Even if the civilians can be a bit hostile they can be friendly if you don’t screw up. 

“Why is that? There’s nothing wrong with Siren Cove.” Janice asked. She looks at Guritchi for him to reply and he delivers. 

“There are three bodies that have been found in the train station there, all of them are Sirens. The officers might have suspected that there are Soultakers located there” Guritchi informs, causing Janice’s eyes to furrow as she bangs her fist on her nightstand not caring if the hard wood cracked. Janice hates Soultakers; Soultakers only kill people to take their souls so they can sell them.

“The train will be here in thirty minutes, so we have to hurry” The woman adds as she is about to exit the quarter. Janice sighs and her face turns into a look of determination. 

“Alright! Guritchi, Evelyn let’s go!” 

Chapter 2: Siren Cove

The train seemed to be calm, a bit too calm. There was the usual gossip between fairies and elves, while Pirates were telling their tales to the children sirens and demons were flirting with other demons. Janice kept a close eye on everyone as she tries to find suspicious activity. Guritchi was hidden somewhere in the crowd as Evelyn talked to anyone regarding the murder trying to get information that might be useful. 

“We arrived at Siren Cove, please check if you left any items before you leave, and be careful of the gap between the trains” A robotic voice announces over the speakers as the doors slide open. 

Mobs of creatures and humans walk out of the train station as Evelyn, Guritchi, and Janice exit last. The train station is submerged by water, which is affecting Guritchi’s ghostly body as he starts glitching. Ignoring the fact of how it affected him, the train station looked alluring, the colorful barnacles on the roof as the seaweed flowed from side to side giving a soothing feeling towards Janice. Once everyone has left Janice looks at Guritchi giving him the command to set up a veil. 

Guritchi nods as he places his hand on the wall he starts to glitch as he commands for a veil to appear. 

“Special Veil: Reconstruct” Guritchi recites as the water starts to drown out from the veil appearing, veil surrounds the train station so no civilians can trespass on their investigation. The veil made the room look dark but dark enough for the person to still look around.

“Alright, Guritchi, Evelyn, find the bodies, I’ll see if there are anything more suspicious,” Janice commands. 

Evelyn was a bit uneasy that Janice was going alone. She could never trust her on investigations alone because of her immaturity and recklessness. Guritchi places a hand on Evelyn’s shoulder reassuring her that she can trust Janice and Evelyn reluctantly agrees. The two leave Janice alone to explore. Janice looked around then she noticed a small crack in the wall. She unsheathes one of her swords, she gets into a stance once before she runs towards the wall slashing the concrete.

The concrete on the wall falls apart leaving a hole. Janice sees a red glowing light that is almost blinding. The glowing light gives off an unsettling feeling but Janice persists and walks into the secret room. The grimy substances on the floor stick to her boots slowing her down but she is determined to find out what’s in that room. She walks towards the source of the light. Even if the substances make it hard for her to walk, her determination doesn’t.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       die as she keeps walking towards the light and stops when she sees a brown table that has a drawer. She sees the glow coming from the drawer as she grips the handle and pulls it open revealing a glowing red knife…and a notebook? 

The notebook was just any old spiral notebook with its red cover, but the notebook was covered in strips of seaweed and bits of sand. Curiosity took over her as she slowly picked up the notebook and placed it on the surface of the table. She picks off the strips of seaweed feeling the cold slimy texture and quickly throws it on the ground as she blows off the sand. The innocent notebook was drenched with water and smelled like salt water as she opened it. The paper absorbed all of the water and the red ink was smudged. She can only make up four words; Souls, creation, space and surface. The other pages were either blank or unreadable. 

Janice decides to keep the notebook as she holds it in her left hand. She picked up the red glowing knife with her other hand, The knife's handle felt warm, it was at first soothing..but then the heat increased as it started to burn the tips of her fingers. Janice yelps in pain as she quickly drops the knife, the grimy substances from the floor slowly swallow the knife until she can only see the light from the knife. Janice stares down at the floor until she feels something drip onto her shoulder. She feels the grimy substance as it creates a hole into her jacket burning her, no it wasn’t any random substance, it was acid. She has to get out of here before she disintegrates. She started to run towards the hole she created as the acids continued to fall faster from the roof, the hole was about to close. It seemed like all hope was lost…she was able to make it out.

After she made it out she lands on her knees panting from that life or death situation. She stands up as she looks back at the notebook in her left hand. Thoughts kept running through her head before she hears a yell.

“JANICE YOU DOOFUS ARE YOU DEAF GET OVER HERE!” Evelyn shouts

Janice snaps out of her train of thoughts as she quickly regains herself before she takes a picture of the pages in the notebook before running to Evelyn and Guritchi’s direction.

“I’m coming!” Janice replies and she hurries over to their location. Janice stops when she sees the three bodies, all of them are sirens…and they had the glowing red knives stabbed in their fins, and heads. Of course, Janice was not creeped out by this since she has seen worse as she looked closer, seeing that there was no blood flowing out of the wound. Janice was a bit skeptical, how could there be no blood coming out of the wound, then she looked at all the dead siren’s left arms. 

“Hey did you guys check this while I was gone?” Janice asked as Guritchi and Evelyn looked closer to see a triangle with a circle around it. 

“This wasn’t on the siren's arms before they died” Guritchi implies saying that this was a doing of a soul taker..but which one? Janice kneeled to the body's level to see if there were any more details but there was none. She takes out her phone and takes out her phone and takes a picture of the knives and the symbol on their arms. As she stands back up the three hear the veil glitch. Guritchi curses to himself, “Damn it I thought it would stay up longer.” 

As the veil continues to disappear, the water starts to flow into the train station and Guritchi’s body is not handling it well as he starts to glitch more intensely than when he was arguing with Janice. Janice needed to find a way out. They hear the sound of the train arriving and Janice takes this opportunity, she grabs onto both Guritchi’s and Evelyn’s wrists and starts dashing towards the train when the train doors slide open she quickly jumps into the train as a swarm of sirens and mermaids enter the siren cove train station. 

The three rebels were drenched in cold seawater. No one was on the train beside them since all of them had left. Evelyn turns to Guritchi seeing that he is still glitching

“Guritchi are you alright?” Evelyn asks, and Guritchi vomits a black liquid that has white glitches all over it. Evelyn and Janice flinch as Janice is the one now trying not to vomit. Evelyn quickly regains her composure as she tries to ignore the black vomit on the ground. Janice scoots to a different seat on the train not wanting to look at the black glitching vomit. She looks back at the notebook and all she thinks about is, What was written in the notebook? The question fogged her mind as she drifted to sleep. 

Chapter 3: Nightmare

Janice woke up to what seemed to be a dark void, there were no signs of life or any objects around as she kept floating aimlessly in the air. 

“Why hello there,Janice”, a voice echoed in the void. 

Janice turns her head to the voice as she spots someone with a regular human body but their body is a whole galaxy, same as their fluffy hair. Their eyes were just white and they had a smile on their face. There was no meaning behind that smile, it wasn’t a kind smile or a sarcastic smile. Just a smile. 

“W-Who are you?” Janice asks in a hesitant voice

The person smirks as they float towards Janice with that blank smile on their face. 

“Call me ‘the universe’” the being replies. 

Janice’s fear quickly shifts to curiosity, ‘the universe’ was an odd name, not remarkable, just odd. ‘The universe’ smile turns into a calm smile as they snap their fingers and Janice sees what seems to be the surface. Gotham, Metropolis, Dakota City, and her home city, Central City. Janice grew more curious as she looked through the portals. 

“Why are you showing me this?” Janice asks. 

There was no context behind it, it was like the being just suspected Janice to answer quickly. Janice started asking the same question to the being, it turned into begging, then to irritation. 

“STOP BEING SO DAMN QUIET AND ANSWER MY QUESTION” Janice snarled as she felt a vein bulge into her head. She yelled at them before her throat started to go dry to the point where it was hurting and her voice started to disappear. ‘The universe’ smile turns into a sinister smirk, til the last thing she remembered is a sadistic inhuman smile and there was a red flash. 

Janice wakes up in a sweat panting. She looked at her surroundings, she was still on the train. Guritchi was asleep, the black glitching vomit still dripping from his mouth as Evelyn was reading a book, it was in German so Janice couldn’t read the title. Janice just sighed as she gripped the notebook and realized that the paper on the first page of the notebook was dry and it was easy to read the text. 

Janice sat up and scanned through the text.

“Souls are an important aspect of our life, without them we are nothing, that’s why ‘the universe’ created seven crystals to bring souls personality.

Red ⇒ Love White => purity

Yellow => Energy Black => Fear

Green => Rebirth

Blue => Serenity 

Purple => Ambition

These crystals must be sealed deep inside neon city before people corrupt them. Without them we are nothing; no purpose in life; that’s why we have to make sure the light keeps shining before it corrupts and we fall into a never-ending darkness.”

Janice couldn’t understand the meaning. She knew that these crystals existed but she never knew that they were the ones keeping everyone in Neon City alive. If that’s the true meaning, why were the soul takers trying to corrupt them? She tried to see if she could read the other pages but they were still readable, she sighed as she tried to fall back asleep but she was still logy from the mission. As the train arrives at the main plaza Guritchi finally wakes up. He lets out a glitchy yawn before turning the Evelyn and Janice

“We’re here,” Guritchi informs as she forces both Evelyn and Janice to get up, Janice pouts wanting to sleep more but despite Guritchi being the shortest among them, he definitely has the strength as he drags the two women out. Evelyn closes her book and tosses it at Guritchi who teleports it back to their base. 

As the three rebels walk out of the train station they see two familiar faces, one is a boy who is 5’6 with white short hair, and light olive skin and he has green and white spiral eyes. He is wearing a white turtleneck with a brown crop top jacket, a brown belt, and brown baggy pants with red sneakers. He also has brown goggles on his head and the man next to him is 6’0 with pale skin, red eyes, black hair that is styled into a wolf cut with a ponytail, red and black goggles on his head, a white collared shirt with the left sleeved ripped and a black suit jacket that’s left sleeve was also ripped as a bandage is left to cover it. He has a black tie, a red and black gas mask that covers the lower part of his face a black belt, black pants, and black combat boots. 

“Hey you two are alive!” The shorter male shouts as he runs towards the three with the taller male following behind him. 

Guritchi chuckles as he ruffles the shorter male's hair “yeah yeah, it’s good to see you again Ashford, and you Jacob” Guritchi says as he looks up at the taller man. Jacob, the taller man, just gives a thumbs up. 

“Are you two on a mission?” Janice asks.

Jacob shakes his head as Ashford speaks for him. “no we just came back from a club!” Ashford replies leaving Evelyn to roll his eyes. 

“What were you guys at a club for?” Evelyn asks as she crosses her arms over her chest, not wanting to hear the answer. 

“The 666 club!” Ashford exclaims causing all heads to turn at him and Evelyn groans in frustration. 

“ARE YOU TWO SERIOUS?! HOW COME YOU DIDN’T INVITE ME?” Janice asks. 

Jacob just shrugs as he uses sign language to tell them that they should head back to base. The four follow Jacob, then Janice quickens her pace so she's next to Ashford and she scratches the back of her head. 

“Hey Ashford um..I need your help with something” Janice says as she scratches the back of her head. Ashford turns to her, it was the first time Janice is asking him this month. 

“Sure what do you need?” Janice sighs as she shows him the notebook. 

“Do you think you can read the other pages?” Janice asks as she flips through the wet pages, Ashford looks at the wet pages and takes the notebook as he lowers his goggles. His goggle lenses turn green as it tries to take a closer look at the red ink trying to decode it but he shakes his head

“No, I can’t, but I can probably make an invention to decode it.” Ashford replies as he opens a portal and throws the notebook in his room. His room was filled with gadgets and many tools that were scattered on the ground. 

“How long will it take?” Janice asks as the five keep walking through the crowds of creatures in Neon City. Ashford puts a hand on his chin trying to estimate how many hours it will take. “34 days, if I start when we get home it will take thirty-three days.” He replies with a smile on his face. Janice groans she is impatient with things but she remembers that they have missions every day so that’s probably why. Maybe the missions will take her time off of everything. She looks back at Ashford with a small smile, she doesn’t want to put any more pressure on him. 

“Alright, I’ll try to wait, don’t stress yourself out short fry.” Janice jokes, causing Ashford to pout. “I’m not that short!” He exclaims, but in reality, he knows he probably is the shortest since Guritchi is taller than him. “Okay maybe I am..” he pouts as Janice laughs. When they head back to base it is their time to rest. 

The five go into an alleyway where they see a metal door with a keypad on it, he enters the key and the door opens and the five walk in. 

Chapter 4: The demon and the clown

It’s been a week since Janice first looked at the notebook. She was bombarded with missions and side quests. As Janice was relaxing on the couch just wearing a white loose tank top a black shorts. She heard someone walk towards her as Janice was taking a swig of beer. 

“Well well drinking again are we, I thought you stopped.” A person was standing over her, they were 5’10 with short brown hair, bleached bangs, black eyes with pale skin. Their outfit consisted of a black turtleneck tank top crop top, with fishnets underneath, a black belt, light brown baggy pants, and black sneakers. Janice rolled her eyes as she took another swig of beer before she placed it down on the white coffee table. 

“What do you want, Azzy?” Janice asked as her voice was slurred, she was already very intoxicated by the alcohol as it burned her throat. They chuckled as they handed a ticket to Janice. 

“Here, I thought you might want to come to my concert tonight.” Asriel says. Janice snatched the ticket and looked closely at it. The ticket was red and yellow and it was labeled in bold blue letters that spelled out ‘Deathrow’. Janice squinted her eyes to read the additional details, the alcohol was already blurring her vision. She handed the ticket back to them and then she laid back down on the couch. 

“I don’t know Azzy, I won’t be able to sober up on time since I drank like..my third bottle of beer” Janice replied as she took her last swig of beer and she placed the bottle on the table. Asriel rolled their eyes before they walked off. Before they left, they turned towards Janice. 

“The concert is tomorrow so I think you will make it Jan.” They replied before they walked out of the living room. Janice stared up at the ceiling, her mind went blank like she forgot everything that happened the past week. Janice groaned as she lost her vision and she blacked out. 

The next day, Janice woke up with a throbbing headache. She looked at her surroundings, she was still on the couch. She yawned as she grabbed her phone and turned it on. 

“8am..” she mumbled to herself as she got off the couch. She wobbled to the kitchen to see if anyone was there. She kicked the door open to see everyone casually enjoying their breakfast. Janice ignored the stares as she opened the medicine cabinet to get painkillers. She took a handful of them, tossed them in her mouth, took a bottle of water from Evelyn, and chugged it down. 

Evelyn and Guritchi were flabbergasted at Janice’s behavior while Asriel just chuckled seeing their best friend being careless. Asriel walked up to her and placed a hand on their shoulder. 

“So are you coming?” Asriel asked. Janice stared at them with confusion before her memories came back to her and she nodded. Asriel smiles at her before they give her a sandwich. Janice hesitated but grabbed the sandwich and took a big bite like she hadn't eaten anything at all. Evelyn pinched the bridge of her nose and she got up and grabbed her plate before putting it in the sink. 

Janice just shrugged before turning back to Asriel. “So..what time will the concert be?” Janice asked with her mouthful of food. “8 pm at the graffiti underground,” Asriel informed as they finished their can of soda. It was abnormal to have soda first thing in the morning but of course, no one cared.

Time flies fast as Janice is busy doing missions with the rebels as the clock strikes eight at night. Janice was alone as she stood outside the entrance of the Graffiti Underground. She took a deep breath as she held the doorknob and swung the door open showing to a dark stairwell. Janice took a deep breath as she walked down the stairwell. 

The grey walls were filled with spray paint that has neon colors on them, some of them were just splattered out of carelessness while some had nice designs like people with TV heads that had adorable faces or spirits guiding a werewolf to a forest. Janice tried to absorb the atmosphere that shes in, even if it smelled like smoke and rotten mold. As she walked deeper she started to hear music and singing. She picked up her pace until she sees a large stage, and a crowd of civilians dancing or singing along to the music. 

Her eyes widen as she sees Asriel and their team performing on stage. One of them was a woman who is wearing a black leather jacket, bandages as a tank top, a black belt with black ripped leather pants and black boots. Her brown hair shining from the hot pink neon light as she keeps playing the bass guitar. Then a man with light blue dyed short hair, dark skin, black eyes is playing the drums. He is wearing a black t-shirt with a white satanic symbol, black fishnet under the sleeves of his shirt, a black belt, blue baggy jeans with patches of smiles and hearts, and black combat boots. 

Janice recognized them as Helmsley and Michael, Helmsley being 5’7 and Michael being 5’10. Janice leaned against the wall behind the loud crowd. Asriel was singing on the stage, their voice was loud and had plenty of confidence as they kept singing. Janice looked back at the crowd, Sirens and mermaids were in the pool enjoying a nice cocktail and vampires were fist-fighting elves. 

To be continued...