The moment Archilochus was hypnotized by Archie's bubble, the rain suddenly became weaker. It wasn't stopping, but the temperature was slowly returning to normal. All the smaller Krukins immediately looked around; they knew that if something like that was going to happen, they had to search for Archilochus and help him.
Right now, he was on top of a building, and the bubble that hypnotizes people, created by Garoo, had just been pushed right in front of him. 'Damn, I can't hit it in any way!' thought Archilochus. He didn't have time to do anything; the bubble appeared right in front of him, and he wasn't prepared.
"Now… you will answer everything, Archie," said Garoo as he looked at him. Garoo was breathing heavily; he had just run through the whole city just to search for him. The moment all the other fights started, he had just found Archilochus, who didn't even try hiding. He just remained on top of a random building, looking at the destruction of the city.
Now, he was currently hypnotized by the bubble; he couldn't do anything else besides watch it, and he couldn't move.
"First of all… have you always been in contact with the Krukins since the moment you returned to Yalemba?" asked Garoo. He remembered that about one year ago, Archie, with another girl, left the town.
Both of them were Alterids. The girl was hated in the town for a simple reason: she used to lick everything she found on the street. She licked the rocks and even tried to eat them; because of that, many people saw her as a bad person. Everyone avoided her; her parents always yelled at her and said that she was a demon. She literally ate a rock right in front of them without any problem.
Archie was one of those who avoided her too. He wanted to stay away from her; he thought that the girl was weird. But then something strange happened: the girl had killed her parents and she started to eat their bodies. With that, everyone in the town decided that she had to go away. She couldn't remain in the city, she was dangerous.
Before that, Archie had a really great admiration for the Black Planet, he thought that it was extremely powerful. No one in Yalemba had ever seen a Krukin, especially because they were extremely far away and no one was interested in going to the mainland.
But Archie had other plans. He thought that only the strongest could survive in a war. In fact, it didn't matter to him when, but he wanted to change sides, to go to the side of the Krukins. He saw the planet as a greater being than humans, and because of that, he wanted to work for it.
The girl was all alone outside the city. She was sitting down and she didn't know what to do. She didn't even feel like eating anything from the ground. Some bugs passed near her, but she didn't care.
It was late in the night and Archie went out of his house. Inside his bag, there were multiple types of fruit. He slowly walked towards the girl. "Hey, are you ready to go away?" asked Archie. The girl looked at him, confused.
"What?" The girl slowly moved her eyes towards Archie. She watched him in amazement.
"I'm saying that we have to go. Don't you want to get revenge on this city?" asked Archie. The girl immediately laughed in a psychopathic way.
With that, the two of them headed towards the mainland. Archie wanted to join a stronger force, he didn't want to lose the war. He wanted to be by the side of the strongest, while the girl wanted to get revenge on the city for how they treated her.
The travel towards the mainland was really long, it lasted around two weeks. In their travel, they were lucky not to encounter any big city.
The moment they reached the mainland, everything started to change. They had never been there; for the first time, they were actually discovering the world together. While they stayed there, the girl, who had never seen a Krukin, tried to eat one.
As the days passed by, the two of them walked closer to the Black Planet. The moment they walked too close, the word that some humans were getting closer to the Black Planet without any bad intentions immediately spread among the Nine Black Defenders, even reaching Phocylides and Anacreon.
"I've heard it too… should we go and check? It feels weird that there are only two of them," said Leobruns. There were eight Black Defenders at that moment. They were inside a room in which there was a big table and exactly nine big chairs.
Phocylides was sitting in the chair of the missing Black Defender, the one who wasn't there, while in the room, everyone else remained, and Anacreon stayed still like he usually did.
"Mhmm… if they arrived as a pair, I don't think they have bad intentions. Do we know their position?" asked Phocylides to the Krukins, who nodded their heads.
"If I've understood correctly, they must be around here…" Leobruns pointed his leg at the big map on the table. It was a perfect representation of the land on Earth right after you pass from the Black Planet.
"Anacreon, open a portal for me. I want to go and check," said Phocylides, getting up from the chair. "Okay!!!" said Anacreon as he immediately created a portal right in front of them.
The portal was transparent from the side of Anacreon, so that all the Nine Black Defenders could see without any problem.
The portal opened right in front of Archie and the girl. They immediately took a step back, scared.
"Don't worry, we don't have bad intentions," said an old voice that was coming from the portal. Suddenly Phocylides, with his long purple dress, came out of it.
"Who are you?" asked Archie, confused.
Phocylides walked closer to them to be sure that the Krukins weren't hearing him. "Let's just say that I'm the leader of these creatures…" Phocylides whispered a bit, then took a step back to make sure that the Nine Black Defenders could hear him again.
"And you? Why did you come here all by yourself? Is this some sort of attack?" asked Phocylides playfully. Knowing that there were no other people, he could easily tell just by reading their faces.
"We want revenge… we want to destroy all of humanity and help you," said the girl as she kneeled down. All the Nine Black Defenders gasped in surprise the moment they saw what she had on her head. It was a horn, a black horn, like the ones the Krukins had.
Phocylides, seeing that, smirked, but he still played it dumb. "So, you want to become our allies?" he asked. Archie nodded his head, took something from his backpack, and threw it at the feet of Phocylides.
These were the heads of the girl's parents. "Is it good proof to make you understand that we want to be your allies?" Phocylides, without any problem, as if he were used to it, grabbed both the heads of the two lifeless people.
"Guess we can't push you two away… c'mon, tell me more about yourself." With that, Phocylides brought them inside the portal. The Nine Black Defenders remained a bit shocked, it was almost impossible for other species to get inside that room. Phocylides and Anacreon had been there for many years now, so it wasn't a problem anymore.
Some Krukins were looking at the humans with bad expressions; they were Rhihamr, Liztawul, Garwhole, and Eyrunik. Eyrunik first watched the expression of Garwhole; it felt like he was copying his expression.
While Leobruns, Banaikuj, Poisudonom, and Mantblast were neutral, Poisudonom and Mantblast felt amused.
"I'm Archilochus. We hope to become your allies and help you in this war," said Archilochus, as he decided to present himself with a different name. He wanted to have two different personalities: the one in Yalemba, where he was Archie, and the one on the Black Planet, as the villain, where he was Archilochus.
"And I'm Sappho," said the other woman. She decided to use the same name. Archie told her about creating a new personality so that if the Krukins said their names while fighting against humans, no one would connect them, but Sappho decided that there was no need for that.
Both humans kneeled in front of the Krukins. Phocylides looked amazed at the sight of that. He didn't think he would ever be able to work with other humans differently than he did with Anacreon, but now it was happening.
"I think that we can trust them, especially because they're going to be helpful against the humans…" said Phocylides as he immediately slammed his hand on the table with strength.
"DON'T FORGET WHAT THEY DID TO YOU!" shouted Phocylides. The four who were already convinced shouted happily, while Garwhole changed his expression. "Maybe he's right… but we will keep an eye on you two. If something bad happens, we will immediately kill you both," said Garwhole towards them. Eyrunik changed his expression and nodded.
"Sappho will remain here… while I was thinking of doing something else…" said Archilochus. All the Krukins looked over at him and listened. He explained the fact that he had simply run away and that he could return to his city at any moment. At that, Phocylides' eyes immediately sparked.
"So you can do a secret mission and prepare the battlefield for us!" shouted Phocylides as he was slowly getting excited.
Archilochus nodded. "Exactly. Just so I know… are there Krukins who can swim in the ocean and follow me, right?" Poisudonom nodded.
"I'm here! But you know… we can't enter the desert because of the temperature… if you can prepare the terrain for us…" Archilochus nodded, closing his eyes. He created a small cloud over his finger; the water coming out was extremely cold.
"You can't resist high temperatures, right? So, what if it becomes cold enough for you to walk there without any problem?" asked Archilochus. All the Krukins immediately had sparks in their eyes, but not as much as Phocylides; it felt like he was happier than them.
With that, the Krukins accepted the alliance, and Archilochus headed back to Yalemba. It took around three weeks for him to return. Everyone in the town thought of him as a traitor because he ran away with Sappho, but the moment he explained the situation, everything changed.
"YOU NEED TO BELIEVE ME! I CAME OUT OF THE HOUSE FOR A SHORT WALK AND THAT GIRL THREATENED ME WITH A KNIFE! SHE FORCED ME TO GO WITH HER! IF I DIDN'T, SHE COULD HAVE KILLED ME!!" shouted Archie in tears. With that, the mayor and the whole city decided to forgive him, in one condition, if he entered in the Tideflares, Archie still in tears could only accept. Also if inside of him he wanted to laugh, he was able to fool an entire city with his perfect act.
The only one who had any suspicion was Garoo. But it wasn't just a suspicion, it was reality. He had seen Archie walking towards Sappho of his own initiative, because of that, he always had suspicions about Archie, but he was never able to prove them.
"So this was the whole story…" Archie had just finished explaining the whole story to Garoo. The bubble was still there, but now a small Krukin spotted it and immediately rushed towards the bubble.
"I promise that I will kill you, Archilochus! You don't deserve to be called Archie anymore!!!" shouted Garoo. He got ready with his flute, but a krukspy jumped and destroyed the bubble.
Garoo gasped, not out of fear, but ready to fight against him and protect the city!