Well everyone here is the edited version of Chapter 3 WOOT!

Hope you all enjoy and give props to my editor Pikammd for managing to get these done with her busy life. Enjoy and please leave some comments!

Chapter 3

Shi had guided the group to the very back of the large building and opened a trick door. The door had previously looked just like any other part of the wall except for a small etching of birds flying down onto a corpse. It was a chilling display with dark red streaks streaming down from the body as the birds closest pecked at it.

To open the door, Shi had tapped three of the birds, which then started to literally moved and peck visible holes into the etched out body. A sudden scream had erupted from behind the wall, letting it open and the sound drift out into the hallways.

"Well, that was a pleasant sound."

Vieta gave her brother a questioning look, wondering exactly what he had been listening to, only to shrug it off as being a part of his personality.

Shi had bowed at the waist and motioned for the group to enter before him. The group looked to one another with a slight look of questioning, only to comply and enter after Race, who seemed even more nervous then before.

Once inside, the door creaked shut behind them and torches on the wall burst to life like magic. Vieta just tilted her head watching the stream of flames come to life in the distance like a rolling wave. Vieta looked back a Shi as he approached and gave him a toothy smile.

"Don't you think the torches are a little archaic for the times?"

Vieta was trying to speak as sweetly as she could, but Shi could still feel a sense of danger deep in his gut.

"It is the way the elders like it. It is supposed to instill fear and unnerve all who enter their domain."

Vieta looked at Race, who was shivering as he glared down the dimly lit hallway as if he was trying to make the flames bigger. Anyone who had eyes could tell that Race truly feared the men and woman whom they were going to meet. Although, it seemed that with all his fear, he was still willing to go through such torment for his beloved family.

Faine smiled softly and patted Race on the shoulder, making him relax and calm down at the strong grip. Race looked to see that both Rasker and Vieta were also smiling at him; telling him with their eyes to relax. He gave a slight embarrassed chuckle as Shi moved ahead of them, shaking his head in wonder at how weak his brother had become.

The group followed Shi down the dimly lit corridor till they reached an old spiral staircase. The torches continued lighting themselves down the case as the group followed the small bursts. Vieta hummed to the sound of the flame, lightening the dreary sense within the cavern as Faine and Rasker joined in.

Race would bring his hand up to his mouth every so often in a desperate attempt to keep himself from bursting into laughter at how easy they were taking the scare tactic. He just knew that once the elders hear this they would be increasingly infuriated at the failure.

Once they were all at the bottom of the staircase, another set of doors loomed in front of them with almost blurred-out etchings of great wars that had once taken place on Dreiger. Wars that had started around a hundred years ago after Vieta had disappeared. During the time of her absence, Vieta had watched as her world had been torn apart with war, lust, and greed. The only thing that kept it together were her friends that had slipped in through the cracks. Although that wasn't much, it was enough power to keep Dreiger from being torn apart at the seams and become a desolate wasteland.

The doors opened to reveal five forms all cloaked in black with twisted masks on. They looked like statues except for the slight movement of fabric and sounds of breaths behind the masks. A flurry of angry whispers erupted from behind the five masks that stared at them with blank eyes.

Each mask had a different facial feature with eyes as blank as the clear blue sky. The first displayed a twisted smile that curled at the end of the lips. The first mask on its left side held a reverse of the smiling face of its fellow while with the mask next to it, the lips were just a single line making the mask expressionless.

The expression on the mask to the right of the smiling figure was twisted in anger as it glared down on the group while its counterpart looked as if it was cowering in fear of its fellow. Vieta could only blink as her eyes scanned the strange disfigured masks. It wasn't too long before she had brought her hand up to stifle the beginnings of her laughter.

The action only made the five who loomed before them even angrier as the one with the twisted smile lifted his hand from behind his cloak and slammed his fist against the ground. The action made Shi and Race flinch, and then shiver as Vieta looked to the man.

"Such disrespect in our court is not permitted. You, boy, should be cowering like Race. Yet here you are, completely unfazed. Either you are daft or you truly feel no fear within our presence."

Vieta looked to Race, who just shook his head in a desperate plea for her to say nothing and just let them speak. Yet, Vieta knew she couldn't do such a thing, the truth behind the matter is that Yazuru's time was running thin.

"We'll just say it's a mixture of both and call it good, but that is not the reason you called us here now is it council? Speak now or let us be on our merry way."

The group could hear the scratching of the masked man's nails against the wooden floor. It was evident he was not pleased with Vieta's attitude when speaking with him. Shi could only watch in amazement as the young boy Vieta stood against the council. The haughtiness of his attitude was similar to that of the androgynous race before their family would break them of their will.

"Yes, it has to do with the fact that Race left to pursue a breeder and when we next saw him, he already had three children with him. That is unacceptable within our society! It displays no discipline and complete disregards to our laws!"

The man had slammed his fist down to emphasize his point but the slam had only made Vieta give a angry smile as she stared daggers into the masked man. She was not pleased with the way he was speaking about her son and grandchildren. She especially didn't like the fact that he had the audacity to call her precious creatures measly breeders; almost like they were worthless except for continuing the bloodline.

Vieta stepped in front of Race and approached the elders, her eyes never veering from the man with the smiling mask. She finally stopped just a few feet in front of the man and spoke, her voice filled with malice and poison.

"What makes you so high and mighty as to choose the fate of someone other than yourself? Tell me what is it that you know about this world and its creatures. About the androgynous race?"

Vieta's words and eyes challenged the elder who flinched back, now feeling somewhat fearful of the young boy that stood before him.

"I know plenty enough to know that they have no other merits then to be used as the tool that they are!"

Shi could not watch as Faine had moved in front of him while Rasker had moved in front of his brother, who looked up at the man with a bewildered expression. The air in the room was becoming thicker, darker, and full of malice to the point of being suffocating. Shi tried to swallow his fear, only for it to catch in his throat and sit painfully in his chest. All his efforts to keep a strong, composed form, only to have it be broken by a loud cracking sound coming from in front of Faine.

Shi finally caved to his fear and gripped Faine's shirt, shivering as he peaked out the side of Faine's large body. What he saw was the young boy Vieta slowly changing from a male to what used to inhabit their world. Shi watched in both fear and amazement as Vieta showed her true colors and gender. The thick energy flew from her and collided with the walls, the elders, and bounced off of Faine and Rasker, who stood still, protecting Shi and his brother.

"A tool? You're saying that the androgynous race is merely a tool? That's big coming from a family line that is close to extinction."

The elders couldn't do anything as Vieta's spiritual pressure built up and sent fear through them. The masks they wore had begun to crack under the pressure as Rasker stepped forward and gently wrapped his arms around Vieta.

"Love, please calm down. At this rate, you're going to tear open a hole to those things and place everyone here, including our sons, in danger."

Vieta tapped her forehead lovingly against Rasker as her energy weakened and became calmer. Race watched as the air became lighter and the electricity that was previously running along the ceiling dissipated into nothing.

Shi could feel Faine relax and looked up to see the young man smiling softly down at him. Shi quickly looked away as a small pink blush started warming his cheeks. He was still shaking when a loud, ear-splitting scream came from above them. Faine, Vieta, and Rasker all looked up, their eyes turning into slits as a strange, deformed, wormlike beast slithered in through the wall opening. Its drooling mouth opened to reveal rows of sharp teeth. The saliva dripped from its teeth as it growled looking at the elders, its tongue licking out, thirsting for them.

"Not good. Rasker, Faine go above ground! Take Race and Shi with you!"

Faine nodded and grabbed Shi by the waist and started his way up the spiral steps with Rasker and Race close on his heels. Once out of sight, Vieta turned her attention to the worm that was currently licking its lips at the elders.

"Well, it seems that the thin line between limbo and this world just tore wide open. What you men are looking at is a soul eater and you are its main dish. They eat the souls of damned beings who have done a sin that can never be forgiven by neither heaven nor hell."

Vieta looked to the slobbering beast and spread her hand wide as her violet eyes glowed and blasted the worm back into its world. She then looked to the now cowering men and just shook her head as she walked up the stairs, calm as could be.

Faine leapt at the bright light ahead of him, dragging Shi out into the open sky where the screams of terror erupted from the lungs of citizens. What appeared before them was the people of Yazuru running in terror from even more of those strange wormlike creatures that were appearing from thin air.

Shi yelped as one of the worm creatures lunged for him, only to be grabbed by Faine and crushed into a strange powder that fell to the ground and disappeared. The crushing sounded like clay pottery being smashed against a wall and continued in the grounds. Faine, Rasker, and Race followed the sounds to see Shiro and Kuro crunching the worms in their jaws, protecting a group of young who had surrounded Shade and the rest of their group.

Faine removed one of his feathers and as he swiped his hand down, the feather changed into a sword which sliced through the worm closest to him. He finally put Shi down and told him to stay near him as the worms continued to spill out towards them.

Shi watched as one of the worms leapt onto one of the older men that had just retired and bit into his neck, tearing out a strange gray orb. The core of the orb was a rotted green color that made Shi want to hurl as the worm lifted its head and let out a loud screech like scream. As soon as it let out its horrific scream, it swallowed the strange greenish/gray orb whole.

The worm looked to Shi with thick drool dripping off of its curled back lips and nostrils flaring. Shi couldn't bring himself to move even as Faine slice one worm after another into pieces. On closer inspection, Shi could see that the worm had a pair of arms that at the end had hands with only three claw-like fingers. It was nothing more then a large head and jaws with no eyes and a long body that slid back into a tail.

The worm lunged at Shi, who had turned to stone as the color drained from his face. He could feel his blood pulsing in his ears as his feet and hands turned cold. Shi closed his eyes tight, waiting for the bite that never came. After a few tense moments, he finally braved a peak to see Vieta standing next to him, completely calm with the worm in hand.

She half-heartedly tossed the worm back into the air as it screeched and ran away in terror. She moved slowly into the middle of the discord while the worms ripped orbs from bodies that lay still as stone. Once she was in the middle of the town, she looked around as the worms continued to poor out like water from a hose.

Vieta sighed as she lifted her hand in the air to reveal a silver staff with jewels encrusted in the top with intricate etchings. The very tip of the staff held an orb that swirled with colors while the bottom was carved into a rounded end. She twirled it in the air, causing the orb to glow for a moment then slammed the end of the staff into the soil.

The staff hummed and vibrated before it sent out a wave of energy, blasting the worms back and making them calm down. The whined as they sank to the ground, watching Vieta in fear as a more humanoid being came out from the hole.

Sand dripped from his long sand colored hair as he walked down the steps somewhat with ease as his washed-out, gold colored eyes looked out at the beasts. The man's face had chunks of his skin missing, almost like a clay mask that had pieces falling off of it. As he moved, his skin cracked and chipped, falling to the ground and broke into piles of sand. In his hand he held an old fashioned scythe that he tossed to the ground as he jumped from the portal in front of Vieta. He was a good half head taller the Vieta as he came to his full height.

"Long time no see, Purgatory Guardian San of the Sands of Time and Space. I take it you're here for the worms?"

San smiled, making the flesh on his face to the side of his lips crack and break only to re-form once his smile disappeared as he nodded.

"Yes, I must thank you Vieta for keeping them under wraps long enough for me to make it here. Looks like this town escaped the fate of its fellow borderlands."

San's voice sounded raspy as if he had been screaming for hours in a sandstorm just to have his voice be permanently damaged. He picked up the scythe only to slam the tip back into the ground causing an explosion of energy. The energy ricochet off the walls of the buildings and shot the worms back into the portal, back into Limbo.

"Thank you San, It must be tough on you who guides and guards Purgatory."

San shook his head, sending the sand that was falling from his head out in a spray around him.

"It's nothing. It is better then having to retrieve the broken soul once it has passed through the soul eaters. Now that is a sad day when a innocent soul is torn to shreds by one of these things. I pray that soon a new god or goddess is born to take charge of the unruly world or Limbo."

San slowly picked up a light gray orb that had a small crack in it as the light inside flickered in and out. The orb had come from a small child that was just barley two years old who also lay at his feet. San gently breathed on the orb, making the light glow softly as the crack healed and the orb drifted back into the child's body. The body spasmed a bit, then gasped for air as San nodded and left back through the portal. The child curled up into a ball and cried out in fear as tears stained his face while the elders had crawled out from their hole in the ground.

Everyone's eyes were now on Vieta, who was in her full female form, still standing next to the rod in the ground, staring down the elders as they ditched their black cloaks and masks. Vieta just crossed her arms and smiled, knowning that she now had them hooked.

Well Looks like Vieta is up to her tricks and giving off her usual sadistic plans!

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter and look forward to the next installment.

On another note soon we will be having a new story! It was a challenge issued by my editor as a birthday present for her! It will be up on the 23rd so everyone hope you are excited to read it!

Although it most likely will NOT be yaoi but it will be good!