Michael's New Life

As Shadow melted down and slinked back to Michael, he only had one thought in that vast emptiness that makes up his semi-split subconscience.

'What the balls...'

It had taken approximately seven seconds for shadow to slink back to Michael. During those seven seconds, Michael realized where he was, and just slinked himself out through the locked door. How was he going to explain escaping a still locked room? Windows.

The first thing he noticed as he exited the room, was the paintings. Although he saw exactly what the cat saw, the cat pays even less attention to detail than even Michael himself. There were dozens of paintings of seemingly unimportant things. These were obviously priceless pieces of art. If memory served correctly, on earth there was an artist that painted single straight lines on a sidewalk, and gets painted thousands of dollars for it. The lines aren't even straight. By looking at this, he has a better mental picture of what a heavy and pointless spender whoever owns this... castle. Unless this was for charity, this would be a tremendous waste of time and money.

"Hey, You!" A disgustingly surfer-like voice asked.

Michael turned his body and faced a man wearing thin, purple armor; the color of a high ranking officer in any guard or soldier platoon or fleet. He had two-toned electric and deep blue hair hues in his short hair. He had a normal sized sword strapped onto his side, and his light blue eyes were piercing Michael's soul. This guy began to take cautioned steps towards Michael, but stopped ten feet away.

Michael found an itching urge to look for the owner of that voice, because this guy was 'not' the owner of it. The man apparently found Michael's reluctance to respond a tiny bit aggravating. He took one step backwards, and placed a calm hand on his sword. "Excuse me sir, I would like to know if you are the person with that aggravating voice."

"Wha-"

"Because if you are, and judging by your colors you are a captain, you would have to be a pretty terrible captain to not have your own voice in control. People with rank should not show any accents, or else they could be seen as weak minded. Politicians are always looking for flaws in vocal patterns and other mishaps in physical traits to try and remove those in power. These people are then replaced with people that said politician deems 'fit' for the rank. This individual is sometimes controlled by the politician by a number of means. If that was your voice, then you should work your ass off to fix it."

"You should know you insulted the former head of the royal guard, and-" The obvious surfer guard guy was then interrupted.

"Former." Michael trolled.

"You know what... I'm going to kick your ass to next week. Get over here." The man did not even have a good reason to attack. Something is off here... Unless he is just normally like this, Mike doesn't know this guy at all. This is just abnormal behavior.

There was a disorientating flash all of a sudden, like the world's most powerful camera just flashed a miniature sun into Michael's eyes. He was blinded for a moment. He couldn't even hear the rushed footsteps as his would-be attacker closed the gap between them in moments. Michael was completely unprepared for the uppercut that hit him square in the jaw. Time seemingly slowed down for him, and two more punches came at him. He could feel the air displacement, and decided to cover his jaw. As if anticipating this, the armored man grabbed Michael's right hand, and threw him in a random direction.

He didn't feel the thick glass, but he could hear the protestant scream it made as he flew through it. He opened his eyes and saw himself twenty feet away from the external wall of the castle, and continuing to gain distance fast. Michael balanced himself out and summoned his shadow crow to keep himself from making an ungodly plummet towards fifty pounds of death. Unfortunately, his attacker was nowhere to be seen. "Well that cant be-" His arm was enveloped in a pulsating and unfamiliar blue glow.

He was then yanked towards the ground, his speed doubling every second. Trying to remove the glow was futile. It was simply too strong, and it was making him feel light-headed. Any moment now, he would pass out again. His crow was trying to fly down to him, but every time it got close enough, Michael would be yanked once again. 'Damn, any second and I'll be paste!'

As if by some strange miracle, he was able to see his attacker again. The blue haired assailant was standing on the ground, his hand also encased in the same glow. 'So that's how this works?'

The man hunched over in pain, and the glow ceased. Michael continued falling, but shadow was able to catch him and halt his fall. He descended down to the courtyard, where the man was still hunched over in pain. Upon closer inspection, Michael could see something familiar. There were shadows coming up the man's body and a few of them were seeping inside of his mouth and nose. He seemed to be absorbing something external, but what it was, is a complete mystery.

Upon observing the surroundings, Michael saw they were inside of a large maze. The many passageways were constantly shifting and some of them showed strange statues through the passages. Considering the area they were in hasn't shifted, Michael guessed they must be at the heart of the maze, and the maze was pissed at the cheaters. The only things at this center was the wood-like area behind him, and the marble fountain with a cupid statue on top of it.

Unfortunately, Michael was not going to be able to see anymore of the garden. In the blink of an eye, the man had closed the distance between them, and began slashing at Michael's bird with his sword. The blade seemed to hum with an invisible, yet draining energy from Michael. The dizziness took effect, once again.

Shadow, being a shadow construct, was always in the condition Michael was in at the moment he summoned it. While flying through the window, his adrenaline surged, and he was able to see things extremely slow. Given the previous fact, the crow was also in adrenaline. Being in this state, Shadow was able to effectively dodge most of the sword swipes without being affected by the magic in any way. But a few tears in the misty fabric that is his body made him convulse slightly. "Shadow, return!" With that verbal command, the shadow was gone.

Without the shadow present, Michael would have to outmatch the man without a elevation advantage. That was the only advantage he had considering just standing up in this world made him want to pass out, and the glowing hands only tripled this effect, although it only does so while the glow is near him. Michael wasn't sure if the nausea is halted completely once the glow is gone, or if the nausea is that much closer once it's removed.

The man was unaware of Michael's condition, so he attacked with the sword.

The first swipe was an immobilization swipe; a strike with the blunt side of a blade aimed at a joint or the head. Michael dodged it easily and pulled out a sword from his jacket. As if anticipating this, the armored man sent a swipe in his direction again, this time aiming for the wrist. Michael did a back-flip to get away from the attack. By the time he was upright, the man had once again closed the distance, and was prepared for another slash. This was no disarming swipe, for the blade was about to slash his chest open.

Michael was prepared for this, as this was one of the twelve likely attacks that he thought of in his head. He parried the weapon and begun to twist it out of his attacker's hand. What he hadn't expected was for a glow to appear on his sword and throwing it halfway around the battleground.

Several bolts made of the glowing energy whizzed past Michael's head, and several times he felt like throwing up. It would appear that the man had figured out his weakness. He seemed much more reliant on using his powers than swordplay. The barrage continued until Michael noticed something odd; there was a darkening glint in the man's eyes. Michael was familiar with this glint having seen it a few times. His best friend was ripped apart from the inside by that same glint. This was no magic or power, for this was possession.

Very few demons could possess another human being, but there are non demons that could use that trick. Michael himself could use a bootlegged version of possession by hiding in a shadow, and controlling one's body. His way allows him to hide in a mirror, and control the original image like a puppet. Unfortunately, demonic possession is harder to pull off, and they are almost impossible to detect unless you are looking for the specific indicators of possession. One is the black glint in the eyes, another would be a constant twitch the victim develops to try and break free of the grip.

Suddenly Michael felt pity for this poor soul, and decided not to execute him because of the possession.

Now, he was fighting with more intensity and more care for his opponent's well being, as opposed to his evade only tactic. He held his arm out, and the possessed man stopped, waiting for a beam to shoot out of them. After waiting five seconds, the possessed man decided to charge, but it was too late. He was being held still by shadows. "I took you down in ten seconds, you coward demon."

The possessed man chuckled in a voice that was different than his own. It seemed older, and had a no bullshit tone to it. Michael wasn't even sure no bullshit even was a tone. "Little fool, you shouldn't meddled in my business."

Michael felt as if he had been punched, and his inner logic demon decided to jump out. "Me? Meddle in your business? I wouldn't even have known if you were even a demon if you hadn't decided to throw me out that window! I don't care if you want to be Little Miss Actor of the Mountain of Awesome, you don't do that if you're spying. Since i'm about to rip you out of that poor soul's body, would you mind telling me why you're here?"

The demon laughed in his raspy and gross voice. It sounded like a meat grinder just had a giggling child with a broken record player. "Since you are going to die, I might as well tel you. I was here to find and kill the princesses."

"Hey, why are bad guys so full of themselves that they just reveal their plans to whoever they are talking to, even when they themselves have the under hand?"

"Joke all you want, but this world will fall by my hand, and the princesses will beg for their lives."

"Seriously, I really hate it when the whole plan is just thrown out there like that. Since you're obviously a demon, do you mind telling me if Draven is alive, and if I he is, could you tell me where he is? I'm going to die anyway right?"

The possessed man paused, as if wondering if this was some trick. "Draven?"

'Damn, if this demon doesn't know who Draven is, then that means there must be a whole race of demons indigenous to this place... Michael held his breath for a moment before releasing it. "That doesn't matter, but you are going to die." As soon as those words were said, the demon left his host's body, and disappeared in a flash of smoke. 'Damn, he got away. At least I'm sure that Draven didn't survive the explosion. But that demon can cause problems if I leave him be for too long. I better tell the princess about this or something.' A couple of seconds passed, and Michael walked up to the now unconscious, but not possessed man. Immediately, a bunch of heavily armored guys wearing the armor of the royal guards came to the courtyard. They pulled out a multitude of weapons, and aimed them at Michael. "Step away from the royal." one of them commanded.