Forgive me when I touch you, when I kiss you, but it's the only piece of heaven I'll ever taste…
'Who are you?' she whispered, viridian eyes glazed with fear. He smiled at her, smiled at the way the girl looked- so much like her that it hurt.
'I am the Dark Lord.'
A look of understanding crossed her face as she drew a dagger- wrong, wrong, wrong! The petite hands were crafted for the elegant simplicity that was the bow, not a vicious, bloodthirsty dagger!
'You're his clone,' she deadpanned with finality. 'And I am here to kill you.'
'Why?'
'Because you are an abomination and...' she smirked at me. 'I need the Black Charm for my advancement.'
He flinched with hurt at the 'a' word - oh she sounded too like her- but a smile lingered on his lips. So that was what he'd been telling them, eh? A clone… Interesting.
He closed his eyes and drew his dagger.
'May I at least know the name of my murderer?'
'No.'
'Humour me.' He bared his teeth and the girl automatically took a step back. She glared at him.
'Clarisse. My name is Clarisse. The last name you'll ever know, clone.'
'I'm not a clone.' he whispered.
The girl, no, Clarisse made the 'W' sign with her fingers.
'Whatever, dude.'
He leapt upwards to avoid her as she lunged forward with her dagger, bloodthirsty metal seeking sanguine. She snarled at him, white teeth flashing, eyes narrowing in displeasure. He sidestepped her second pathetic attempt to kill him with a smirk. His head snapped back automatically, allowing the dagger she had just thrown at him to whistle past harmlessly. Now she had no weapon.
'So this is the best he has to offer me?' The Dark Lord smiled in delight as he favoured the offensive, sending a barrage of throwing stars her away. She ducked by hiding behind a chunk of crystal, letting the stars destroy the crystal. He frowned. Crystals here took a long time to form, but no matter.
The giant crystal shattered, piercing the pretty pretty tanned skin of the bandit. She screamed, an agonised scream that came from deep inside with great pain and dropped her dagger, collapsing onto the floor. The Dark Lord wasted no time. In the space of a few seconds, his own dagger was poised at her neck, ready to take her life. He hesitated for a moment.
To kill, or not to kill?
To carry on destroying, or not destroy?
Will the eagle not kill it's prey?
Stop being this monster!
His eyes widened, dagger scraping along the ivory flesh.
'Stop being this monster, stop it!'
Those damned pretty pretty eyes hypnotising me, brimming with tears and-
'I'm a killer too, see?' Desperately holding up bloodied hands, bloody bow, bloody hair. Reaching out tentatively to convince myself that she's real, she's real, she's real. 'I understand.'
'We don't need to kill anymore, the war's over, see?' She gestures helplessly at the destroyed remains of Ellinia. Can't even remember what it was like before. Wasn't alive when everyone else could speak of 'before'. Doesn't matter anyway.
Born into the war, know nothing else but the war. War was life and life was war. And I was happy with it.
'No more fighting...?' The question flies from my mouth before I have a chance to stop it. Tears streaking down her face, she's nodding, nodding so hard that I'm afraid her head might fall off. Puzzled, though. Been fighting all my life, why should it change now? All five of us born to fight, made to fight, know nothing else but to fight.
Grendel, Dances with the Balrog, Athena. And us. Aleksandro and Forrest Dark. The Dark twins.
All of us know nothing but how to survive.
'You see, they're going to make us the head of the jobs! Grendy's going to supervise the mages-'
'Doesn't he call them little brats? Why would he train them if he-' She interrupts me along with an eye-roll tossed my way.
'It's affectionate, Forrest. Anyway, they're going to reconstruct the towns and they're going to teach us how to… well…' she stumbles over her words quickly, eyes averted in shame. 'Be normal.'
Normal, I echo. Eyes cast down, avoiding her piercing gaze.
'I don't think I can be normal.'
'Don't be silly, Forrest. Of course you will be.'
I stared silently after her as she flounced off in a huff. I shook my head.
'I don't think you understand Athena…'
I wiped the blood off my face and trudged off to the showers to try and clean up. But the blood never came off. Never. I screamed, scrubbing my flesh so hard that it bled, blended with water and bathed the rest of my body with pale red liquid.
'I can't be normal.'
'Okay, aim for the eyes and the the neck,' he commanded, trying to twist his mouth into a sincere smile. The small group of thieves looked at him, childish eyes of innocence and trust. One of them cocked his head in question.
'Why, Dark Lord?'
He smiled indulgently at him.
'Because they'll die faster that way.'
The little boy frowned and shook his head. Forrest raised a questioning eyebrow. An eight-year-old was about to correct his teachings?
'But Dark Lord, monsters die when you deal enough damage,' he explained, his big brown eyes lighting up. 'It doesn't really matter if you hit the eyes or not.'
Forrest Dark looked away.
He wasn't talking about monsters.
Eyes averted, don't look at them, they'll run away screaming at the sight of your bloodshot eyes. Normal people don't look as if they've come straight from a tumble with Zakum all the time, normal people didn't look as if the apocalypse was coming all the time.
He felt numb.
The Henesysians stopped whatever they were doing just to look at this wreck of a man, to extend their pity and, well. To make them feel damned good about themselves.
At least I'm not like that guy over there… Compared to that, making bows seems easy enough…
He knew all this. It's just that he couldn't bring himself to care. He didn't care about much. Not anymore. His hand scrabbled at the wooden doorknob of the small mushroom-like building and he cursed. Locked.
Then there was a click, and there was Athena, with her blazing intelligent green eyes and knowing smile. She held a hand out to him and he took it, entering the domed house and collapsing on a chair.
'How's life, Forrest?'
He sat there. Numb.
'Are you alright…?' Concerned eyes raked over his features. After a second or so, Athena determined that Forrest Dark was not, in fact, alright. She sighed.
'Tell me what happened.'
Before he knew it, the words started tumbling out of his mouth like gymnasts and the stupid pathetic tears followed soon after as well.
'Couldn't take the job. The friggin' orderliness of it, the incompetence of the brats.' A faint smile of cruel amusement, not missed by Athena. 'Us five… we're better. Better than them. Even the weakest idiot in the army has more to offer than the entire new generation combined.'
Athena smiled indulgently at him, as one would when speaking to a small child. She laid a hand on top of his and leaned forward.
'But the new generation is the future, Forrest,' she explained gently, brushing a stray lock of dark hair away from his eyes. 'If they are weak, so be it. The hackers will not attack us again. We don't need to be strong anymore.'
The Dark Lord did not answer but stood, sending the chair he was sitting on flying back into a dresser full of china. The plates fell and smashed on the ground, and Athena's face fell.
'Pretty, but useless,' He looked straight at her as he spat the words, inciting a gasp of surprise from Athena. 'And I'm not talking about the freaking plates.' His eyes were cold, hard, unmerciful.
'Do you like this life, Athena?' He gestured at the shattered china plates, at the walls covered with pictures doodled by young archers. At the dragon bow polished and spotless, all remnants of blood erased by hard scrubbing and soap.
'Have you laid the bow down forever?' Obsidian pierced apple-green orbs. He smirked sadistically at her silence.
'You like having a nice house, having lots of children crowding around you, not having to fight. Don't you, Athena?' he asked softly, long slender fingers trailing gently down the bow.
Athena Pierce had never been truly spooked. Not by mutilated corpses, not by being splattered with blood from head to toe. But she was spooked now, by the Dark Lord Forrest Dark.
'Yes, I do,' she responded shakily. 'And if you want to survive in this new world, I suggest you learn to cope with domestic bliss.'
'Then maybe it's not worth surviving anymore.'
He smiled sinisterly at her and shook his head. He walked towards her, so close, too close for her personal comfort. Then he kissed her.
'Why must you be like this, Forrest? Why can't you settle down?' She gripped him tightly. 'Stay with me. Please.'
He smirked at her plea and shook his head, heading for the door.
'Goodbye, Athena.'
He left her in the house stunned; speechless, a small tear trickling down her face. Before long, tears turned to choked sobs and she broke down on the polished oak table, hugging it tightly as if a survivor clinging on to wreckage in the sea. Her heart twisted in pain.
Why must you be like this, Forrest?
Athena bit her lip, as if doing so would stop the tears from flowing.
... Why?
'He's just another delusional has-been…'
'But he's lowering citizen morale!'
'Chief Stan, he's one of the five that helped sway the war in our favour.' A remark made with irony and bare tolerance almost made Forrest giggle.
'He's an abomination.' Forrest froze with his eye to the keyhole. Dark eyes swiveled to the person who had made the remark. His heart clenched and hardened. His mirror image was sitting there, with that bastard smile all over his face, plotting the death, the death of his twin brother!
'We've learnt how to deal with this world. He is… not compatible. It's like trying to fit a square into a triangle. It doesn't work.'
'What should you suggest we do? Exile him?
'Neutralise him, I say.'
'I suggest we replace the current clone in the 3rd advancement with him, so he will serve eternal punishment, killed repeatedly by young thieves who pit themselves against him.'
'We should bind his powers.'
'Maybe a spot of torture beforehand, perhaps? Torture is always fun.'
'I believe that would be the best course of action.'
I believe that would be the best course of action, Forrest mocked. Always the little backstabbing traitor, aren't you, Aleksandro? He left the Kerning Bar as silently as he had came, twirling a steely by it's red ribbon with his index finger.
He had no doubt that he'd be 'neutralised' by the end of the day. In various painful and only after hours of creative torture, he gathered.
A fitting violent, painful end to a violent, painful life.
He strolled through Kerning, eyes straying from wannabe-thieves to hard, jaded soldiers-turned-criminals that were so prominent in Kerning. He felt bitter. Honourable soldiers who had killed and destroyed just so this new generation could discard them like rags.
He felt his blood boil and sing in that familiar, murderous way. They deserved better. He deserved better. This new generation didn't deserve anything…
They didn't deserve to even live…
They were a mistake, this entire orderly artificial town was a mistake. He smirked deviously, a murderer's insane smile hanging on his lips. An insane plan was rapidly forming in his mind. You could've seen the lightbulb lighting up above his head. He drew out his dagger, the sharp point glistening in the sunlight.
'I will rectify this... mistake.'
Blood ran freely down the hastily cemented bricks of Kerning, children, women, young thieves, old thieves. The soldiers remained untouched, and some even joined the rightful Dark Lord in his revengeful murdering spree.
A symphony of death was sung through Kerning on that scorching afternoon, composed by madmen and criminals, by soldiers and honourable people who were dissatisfied by what they had been rewarded by. A reckless symphony of death so rightly composed, each note pure and true, forming a weeping melody so wicked and gruesome and bloody that even Scania wept his tears to wash away the essence of the murdered.
Kerning, Henesys, Ellinia, Perion.
Forrest Dark swept through Victoria Island like a hurricane, and no one was powerful enough to stand between him and their destruction.
Except a pair of weeping leaf-green eyes.
'Don't do this Forrest, you don't want to do this.'
Half-lidded eyes peeked out at her and she shivered. This wasn't Forrest. This was a… monster. With lips twisted into a sadistic smile, a smile she knew too well.
'You have one minute Athena. One minute before this world ends. One minute before I leave for Ossyria, to destroy the rest of the legacy that shall not remain in the hands of the unworthy.'
Athena's striking green eyes narrowed at him and she put her hands on her hips, momentarily forgetting that she was talking to Forrest Dark, but imagined she was talking to Forrest, the Forrest subdued by the newfangled contraptions that confused and made him angry.
'Is that it, Forrest?' She spat at him angrily, disgusted. 'The world isn't the way you like it, so you destroy the world?' Her voice softened a little.
'That isn't the Forrest I know. You're an abomination. A spoilt brat. Give me back the real Forrest, and then we'll talk,' she challenged.
Forrest Dark stared at Athena while the rest of his Motley army grumbled and seethed for blood. A few seconds into their battle of wills, he looked away and dropped his weapons. Athena smiled in triumph until he spoke.
'Do you know what they're going to do to me, this world you love so much?' His tone was subdued, defeated. 'They're going to cut me up into artistic little pieces, then they're going to sew me back together and throw me in some cell. Then they're going to kill me over and over again.'
His words became sneaky, striking to hurt.
'Is this the world you want and support, Athena?' The bowmistress was silenced. The Dark Lord smiled sadistically.
'I knew it,' he whispered bitterly. 'Always them over me. Always.'
A tear rolled down Athena's cheek. Forrest stepped closer, closer, as close as he was when he kissed her. He wiped the tear away and smiled.
'Cry for me later, Athena,' Godmasters began to appear and started dragging him away from the scene.
'Cry for me later, when it's too late.'
He didn't scream when they tortured him, when they ripped at his flesh and when they burnt his face. They turned him into a monster, a hideous, repulsive monster, but he still didn't cry in agony. No tears slid from his eyes, no muscles were tense. They were almost convinced they were torturing a corpse.
They were almost half right, they were torturing a body that even that the soul had left. No brightness in his eyes, no sign of life, this was the corpse of one Forrest Dark. He did not cry, he did not have emotion, for his heart was finished and dead inside. Even if the body existed, it didn't matter, because this body was devoid of life.
'It isn't hard to be dead.'
Sometimes the crystals would show something. A little window into the outside world, courtesy of his dearest, scheming, betraying brother. Not that Forrest Dark didn't appreciate it- his beautiful prison got horribly dull. Short of holding a thief hostage and forcing him or her to tell him everything about the current events, which he did, he knew nothing.
Sometimes it showed him places he had never seen before- a temple guarded by strange bears of white and black. Sometimes it was nothing more than an enigmatic flash of light. It made him curious and kept him sane. But sometimes, he wished he was blind and could not see the things his brother wished to share.
Like his wedding.
Vivid viridian eyes, shining with happiness. bright red lips whispering poisonous little words...
'I do.'
He smashed his fist into the crystal, not caring when the shards pierced his skin and when his knuckles were raw. He punched the crystal repeatedly until he hit the freezing ice wall. At least it numbed the pain. He shouldn't been there. Not his brother. His eyes narrowed.
Always a true thief, huh Aleksandro? You've stolen everything of mine.
My job.
My future.
His heart clenched painfully.
My reason for living.
Forrest Dark returned back into his bleak world of crystal and ice, his dagger ready to cut, ready to kill. His captive looked at him with horrified eyes, pupils dilated with fear. He clenched his teeth.
'Please don't kill me,' she whispered.
He gazed at her expressionlessly, eyes dull and heart weighing down.
Then he did what his brother would have wanted him to do. His dagger sliced down, lodging in the windpipe of the girl, crushing, cutting, killing. Her hand loosened and the dagger fell to the floor with a clatter. Blood splattered the crystals. He had used so much force, he wasn't surprised if the girl had been decapitated.
'You aren't supposed to kill me...' she whispered. He marvelled at her desire to live, but couldn't envy it. 'You're just a....'
Her words trailed off into silence. She hung limply in his arms. He dropped her.
'I'm just a clone.' His eyes dimmed. 'I know.'
I've freed the world of one more weak, useless thief.
So...
Why do I feel like crying?
He leant his arms on the crystal and sobbed, tears frozen to his face by his proximity to the ice. He sobbed even more, not caring if he went blind, because there wasn't anything else those eyes were worth seeing.
And the Symphony of Death carried on, notes of viciousness spreading madness and destruction. Yes, it was painful, yes it slowly killed him but it had to be endured. He wanted to die, he wanted to die, he wanted to let himself be killed again. For only then, in a space of a heartbeat, he could finally see pure goodness and her again. Criminals weren't evil and madmen weren't insane, they had just strayed from the goodness and couldn't find their way back again.
And they gave themselves, to the sorrowful music, the sorrowful music played by the victims of death. His heart is dead, reflected inside his eyes. There's no vital spark of life, not anymore. That bright energy has been snuffed out forever more. He wished he could die, he wished he could die. He wanted nothing else to do with this world.
But the symphony of death, it carries on, notes of sorrow that could kill any man. It's composer lives on, so the symphony lives on-
'I want to die.'
-FOREVER!
'Kill me, Athena. Let me die.' A/N: Quick moodbreaker here. The Dark Lord Clone thinger is a boss. StrategyWiki says so. D; He's a Job Advancement Boss. I'm not usually a fan of romance and not a good writer of it (as you can see. D;) but… yeah. x_x Disclaimer: I don't own Maplestory.