Into the Mines! (w/ Trinity)

“Wait, where are we?”

Aeron scratched her head, and irritable frown on her face. She absolutely hated when this happened, and it happened all the time. Once again, she’d gotten somewhere without really knowing how. It was like she’d snapped to reality in the middle of a new place, with no recollection of how or when she’d left the last location she remembered being at. It happened a lot because she was one of three personalities that belonged to the woman named Trinity, though Aeron wasn’t exactly aware of that.

“You’re on a job.”

Aeron turned to look at Thana, a woman with long dark hair and bright amber colored eyes. There were not enough words to describe how deeply Aeron loathed this other woman, but she could never seem to get rid of her. Thana was, unfortunately, the only consistent thing in Aeron’s life. No matter where she wound up, the other woman was almost always right there beside her -- usually getting her into trouble and drawing all sorts of attention that she didn’t want.

She held up the piece of paper that she realized was in her hand and looked at it with confusion. “A job?”

Aeron scrutinized the listing while Thana went on. “Yep. We got hired by the city to go into this mine shaft and deal with some delinquent that’s got too many explosives for his own good. We’re supposed to be meeting someone there to help us, too.”

“Great, more company,” Aeron muttered. “Ow!”

Thana smacked her lightly on the back of the head, a mischievous smile on her face. “Now now, don’t be rude. You need to learn how to make friends, my dear.”

“I don’t want friends. Having you around all the time is bad enough as it is.”

Thana only smiled and ignored her, strolling closer to the entrance of the mines. Grumbling angrily to herself, Aeron shoved the job posting back in her pocket and followed. It wasn’t difficult to figure out where they were going as they could hear someone singing in the direction they were heading. The sound grated Aeron’s ears, but Thana rather liked it. When they got there, they found a younger woman wearing all white with long white hair. She was playing with a bit of water that swirled around her fingertips while she sang and occasionally drank from it.

Thana stepped up, keeping a little bit of distance between the two of them. “You here for the job?” she asked, her voice as gruff as her expression. What Saraphina would see was a young woman in her early twenties. She had hair that was brown on one side, pink on the other, and mismatching eyes to go suit the locks. At present, there was a slight scowl on her face. Her clothes were not very nice; they were basic garments that looked like she’d slept in them for several days and hadn’t washed them in a while. There was bits of dried blood and grime in random places on the garments.

Since Thana was merely a hallucination on Aeron’s part, the other wizard would not be able to see her. This would make it especially strange when the woman suddenly flinched like someone had hit her on the head, and she turned to glare at the space next to her like someone was standing there while she rubbed her scalp. “Would you stop that?! What the hell is your problem?”

“Introduce us, you idiot!”

Growling a bit, Aeron turned back to the woman in white. “I’m Aeron. This is Thana.” She jerked her head next to her as though there were someone standing there, and even though the exchange would be one sided for Saraphina she could probably assume that whatever Aeron was seeing, that person had just chastised her for not giving a more friendly greeting.

“I wasn’t talking to you, I was talking to her,” Aeron grumbled when the girl in white started to protest being yelled at. It didn’t take the other woman long to catch on that Aeron was seeing someone and draw her own conclusions about it, however. Soon she was smiling again and introducing herself as Saraphina. She was quite the bubbly one, and it was already grating on Aeron’s nerves a bit.

““I like her,” Thana said not even bothering to hide her amusement over how obviously mismatched the two women were to work with one another. Saraphina seemed to be the exact opposite in personality from Aeron, and that greatly tickled the more psychopathic personality.

They both watched as Saraphina literally skipped to the entrance of the mine and shouted into it. Aeron groaned lightly to herself. “This girl is going to get me killed…” she muttered softly.

Thana giggled. ““Probably,” she said, not sounding too choked up about it.

Shoving her hands in her pockets with a scowl, Aeron followed after the girl. There was a torch near the entryway, and for a moment it seemed like Saraphina might take it but then she suddenly produced a glowing sword out of nowhere. Not keen on relying on this other woman for light, Aeron snatched the torch for herself.

“Your prince charming?” she asked dryly. “Why would you want to find a man in a mine shaft, of all places?” The entire concept of a “prince charming” was ridiculous to her, but to hope to find one in a place like this? Surely there were more important things to think about, like living.

Between their two light sources it was easy enough to see even small things in the staft. There were plenty of small critters that had made their way inside, mostly bugs like spiders. Aeron ignored them, not caring one way or another, until one such spider dropped down from the ceiling in front of her. She was making to just swipe it aside as she walk passed, but as soon as she was close enough it did the most unexpected thing.

It exploded.

Aeron shrieked in surprise and stumbled backward, coughing from the smoke that filled the area. Her face was covered in black soot. “What the hell?” Even Thana was coughing, though also laughing as she brushed dark splotches off her clothes.

““Exploding spiders? Now that sounds like a good time!”

At least one of them was having a good time. Well, two. Thana cackled gleefully as she and Aeron watched Saraphina start smashing explosive spiders with rocks and pebbles. Though her method certainly contained the blasts well enough to keep them from being injured by the annoying things, the mine itself was shaking something fierce from all the violent popping. Thankfully, it didn’t take long before they were all out of commission.

Aeron muttered to herself and brushed off all the dust and debris that had been loosed on her head. She already hated this place. Who the hell thought it was a good idea to create spiders that exploded? Unfortunately, it was only about to get worse. Her partner ventured forward a bit, instinct cautioning her to a stop. ““What’s wrong?” she asked. The answer came as several soft beeping sounds began to fill the area, as well as the sound of running feet and someone screaming about a.. Boom stick?

Aeron shrieked in surprise as the mine rocked from a sudden explosion, one that was much larger than anything the spiders had dished out. ““WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?” she yelled angrily, already tired of the chaos. Fearing for her wellbeing, she tapped into her magic and used it to thicken the layer of her skin, so she could endure a bit more wear and tear before taking any real damage. Saraphina was busy yelling at some guy crawling toward them with a bomb wrapped around his chest, which had to be the most absurd thing she’d ever heard of. She could see now that there were actually five guys just like this one, each sporting self destructive means of fire power.

A bunch of swords appeared around her partner, who was now quite upset with the whole situation. Thana strolled right into the room, heedless of the mines on the grounds and of the suicidal men around her. ““I think I see someone up ahead!” she told Aeron with a mischievous grin. ““I’m going to go check it out!”

““No, wait!” Aeron cried out. It was too late. Thana had already scurried down one of the shafts and out of sight, leaving Thana and Saraphina to deal with all the danger, as usual. ““I swear to gods, I’m going to kill that stupid bitch some day!” she growled. A nearby explosion caught her off guard and threw her back several feet. She cried out in pain when her head smacked against the rough earthen wall behind her. Yet more dirt and debris fell on her as the mine shaft shook, leaving a nasty film of dust in the air that irritated her throat and made her cough.

She growled and shook her head to clear it, eyes laying on the weird slave that had thrown dynamite at her. ““Alright, I’ve had enough of this.” Standing to her feet, Aeron stormed into the violence. Her blood began to pump like crazy through her body, sending her into an adrenalized state that heightened her strength. At the same time, she shrank in size until she was little more than a handful of inches tall, and a pair of pixie like wings sprouted from her back.

With a furious cry, she shot herself across the room so fast and so hard that when she slammed into the chest of one of the slaves, she ran right through him and burst out the other side, coated in his blood. If he wasn’t dead when he fell to the ground, he certainly was after his face landed on one of the buried mines and set it off. Without waiting to see the results of her actions, Aeron flew forward and did the exact same thing to the remaining people that were attacking them. Soon, all of them were lying on the ground either in puddles of their own blood, or with pieces of their bodies strewn haphazardly around the room thanks to the mines in the ground.

““I’m going to kill this guy when I find him,” Aeron declared once the dust had settled and they were free to move forward. She flew over the rest of the mines entirely, landing safely just past them at the entrance of the shaft that Thana had taken off toward. Her body reverted back to normal as she returned to her proper size and the wings on her back disappeared. ““Thana took off this way. Claimed she saw someone. Maybe it’s the guy we’re looking for. If it is, I’m going to wring my hands around his scrawny neck until his head pops off!”

Waiting only long enough to make sure that Sara got past the rest of the mine field without any difficulty, Aeron pressed forward down the shaft the direction that Thana had gone. She could hear the woman’s voice echoing down the hallways, though she was entirely unaware that she was the only one who could hear it. To Saraphina, Aeron probably just seemed like she was turning randomly down corridors.

Oddly enough, she did wind up going down the right direction. Aeron discovered this when she entered a larger cave and was immediately struck by an explosive spell that sent her flying. ““WOULD YOU KNOCK IT OFF?” she yelled at the man as she struggled back up to her feet. He was a scrawny looking man with pale skin like he hadn’t seen the sun in a while -- though it was hard to tell because he was covered head to foot in soot from the mines. His dull brown hair was thinning on top and his clothes were tattered, looking like he hadn’t washed them in weeks. Thana was nowhere to be seen, unsurprisingly.

Aeron was getting real tired of all the explosions going off. Her own clothes, poor as they had already been, were completely ruined. ““You still think this little rat is your prince charming?” she asked Saraphina. As she talked her body once more started to morph. Her skin became grey and sullen, her hair thinned and turned white. Miscolored eyes faded to a glowing white as her teeth turned sharp and her fingers shifted into claws. She took on the full aspect of the Hag, a terrifying looking old woman that eyed the demolition wizard with a crazed expression as the very presence of her take over spell began to slowly siphon magic out of him.

““Because I’m thinking we should make some mince meat out of him.”