Musicbox:
Sure, there'd been many times in the young demon's life where he'd had to deal with less than desirable circumstances, but this one was beyond anything he had experience of. Even being a thousand years old couldn't save him from having run ins with scientists working alongside exorcists, especially with the newest project, Project Musicbox. The Musicbox was going to be a device that affected the demon's mind by assaulting it with multiple brain patterns and waves all at once. The hopes were to have a weapon that could subdue, and hopefully dispose of demons, but after a bad couple of test runs, the project was let go and rendered a failed experiment...
Amaimon had his feet up on Mephisto's desk, his face blank, he occasionally blinked. How did his brother sit here all day? Sure, the chair was nice, but ONLY sitting... Amaimon could never do something like that. The door finally opened, and the demon quickly pulled back his legs and flew off the chair. His brother would've killed him if he'd seen his little brother sitting at his desk.
"Amaimon! You better not be sitting at my desk, or else I'll-!" Mephisto turned around from the door after closing and locking it. The desk was empty, and Amaimon stood by the couch, looking innocent and stupid as always. There was always something about that look that made Mephisto kind of irritated and kind of happy. It was a familiar face.
"Where were you, Brother?" The green-haired boy asked, tilting his head. Mephisto gave an impatient sigh and then held up a rolled up blueprint.
"A meeting over an old failed project that the new Paladin wants to reboot, he made the project back when he was an exorcist 1st class. Now he has a better ability to call the shots, and since he got a majority vote, we're going to bring it back despite its terrible failure." Amaimon blinked, his bright, wide, curious cyan eyes never leaving the blueprint his brother held.
"What's so bad about it?" Mephisto gave a grin, and a small chuckle.
"My poor, oblivious, little brother, do you recall hearing of the massive panic attack in Gehenna caused by the Musicbox?" Amaimon twitched, he had heard from Satan, his father, of the major issues with humans playing with demon's brainwaves... Something like that.
"Yes, it seems familiar." He said, leaning closer to the blueprint, but Mephisto abruptly pulled it back before whacking Amaimon on the head with the very same blueprint.
"This is the blueprint for the Musicbox! Project Musicbox was created by Angel!" The demon blinked after having been hit by the paper. Then looked up to his brother's slightly narrowed eyes.
"You have yet to tell me why it bothers you so much. The exorcists want to kill us, so why not develop a weapon?" Mephisto sighed and pressed his hand to his temple in disappointment and irritation. "Hmm, you seemed very stressed. Maybe you should sit down." Amaimon spoke honestly, Mephisto stared at Amaimon in confusion, and then quickly shook his head and went back to his disapproving glare.
"Do you not realize the kind of risks and dangers this Musicbox posses?" Amaimon shook his head, "That's the problem. We're talking about a weapon that alters your way of thinking... And thinking of certain demons and the way they act, and how this weapon could affect them..." Amaimon glanced over to the door boredly, then back to his brother. "Maybe you could put a mute button on it." Mephisto scowled,
"Let me explain it to you, it could take a demon that knows how to behave and be good, like us," he gestures to himself and then to his brother, "And turn us into monsters that'll wreak True Cross in a heartbeat." Amaimon tilted his head, his eyes still lowered in the same bored and lazy expression.
"So you don't want the sound to affect you?"
"Precisely, and I don't want it to affect you either. You cause enough trouble as it is. Not to mention, the kind of experiments we did proved that the more intelligent beings we tested suffered worse effects. The most intelligent demon we tested even underwent a hideous transformation..." Amaimon brought his thumbnail to his mouth, finally slumping to defeat on the couch and biting his nail,
"How can it make us transform?" Mephisto shrugged,
"I have no idea, but probably has to do with the brain waves affecting the way our bodies work... I honestly don't know. I was glad when this project was closed, but now... I don't know, this whole Project Musicbox never seemed like a good idea. Even before I knew what it did." Mephisto said, unrolling the blueprint and staring at the small object on the sheet. Amaimon let his head fall back and gave a slightly aggravated sigh.
"I'm bored..." Mephisto gave a small smile and placed the blueprint on his desk and then went over to the couch.
"Don't be so melodramatic. How about a game? Ten to one I'll beat you." Amaimon quickly perked up,
"I don't care if you beat me, it's better than playing against the A.I. it beats me every time, no matter what I do." Amaimon's joy diminished as he spoke of the cursed A.I.
"Maybe one day I'll teach you some of my skills." Mephisto said, putting the game in. Amaimon stared at his back,
"That'd be nice, then I could actually beat you. I could actually be a challenge for you." Mephisto laughed, coming back and sitting on the couch.
"That's flattering, Amaimon, but you're already enough of a challenge to deal with... Besides, I'd never teach you to be as good as me." Amaimon felt his face heat up slightly, it was strange...
"No, I'd force you to teach me." Mephisto looked at Amaimon with a look of superiority.
"You could never teach me anything, besides, I'm the one who knows all, and you're the idiot who knows nothing." Amaimon blushed again and said nothing. He lost seven times, but the eighth time, he won. The younger demon was certain it was because Mephisto had let him win. His gaming had changed in the last round, but of course, for the last two rounds Mephisto went back to kicking his ass. A final score of 9 to 1 made it apparent that Amaimon was still a worthless player at this game.

"You let me win Round 8." Amaimon said once the console had been shut off, Mephisto placed his wireless control back on the shelf and then turned back,
"And if I did?"
"You never let me win at anything."
"You just got lucky with my patience, I took pity on you for once, you should be quite happy."
"But why?"
"Why what?"
"Why did you let me win?"
"Like I said, I pitied you, so I let you win for once." Amaimon frowned,
"Fine, don't be honest." Mephisto turned back and crossed his arms,
"Why can't you just accept that I let you win for once?" Amaimon looked up at him, and then looked back down,
"Because you never let me win anything." Mephisto frowned and swiftly made his way over to his little brother,
"Don't be that way, lift your head, what's the matter with you?" Amaimon didn't shift, but he did blink, and then replied stubbornly.
"No. Tell me why you're letting me win." Mephisto reached out and paused his hand in front of Amaimon's face, then tilted his chin up so that he could see his younger brother's eyes.
"I let you win because it's the nice thing to do." Amaimon narrowed his eyes slightly, Mephisto hid his smile, it was so fun to watch his little brother try to decipher if he was lying or not.
"Is that your final lie? Or is there another still?" Mephisto was taken back, he still was saying that he was lying...
"I'm not lying. I did it because it was an act of kindness." Amaimon blinked, clearly unamused with the same reason being used twice.
"You don't do nice things for me. You'll do nice things for Rin, but not for me. So stop lying, something's bothering you. You're guilty for some reason." Mephisto grinned,
"So you do learn from your older brother, huh?"
"Of course, I live with you, I should know you better than anyone else."
"I don't know if I agree with that."
"Stop lying." Mephisto narrowed his eyes, and forced Amaimon's head up more, to which the demon gave a slightly uncomfortable face before resetting his face to his default of emotionless.
"If you'd like to play this game, I'll play. How about first you tell me what has you so worked up? Because this CLEARLY isn't the normal dumb Amaimon." Amaimon blinked, playing a poker face and saying nothing. "C'mon Amaimon, you wanted to play this game, now we're playing it. You've been hounding me with questions, how do you like it?" Amaimon blinked again, his eyes just staring at Mephisto's. They continued to stare at one another before Amaimon gave up and spoke,
"I think you're eyes are real pretty." Mephisto blinked, quite shocked, he took this long to answer to say just that?!
"Nice try, but you aren't going to smooth talk yourself out of this. This time I want an answer." Amaimon just blinked, looking a bit annoyed. "If you answer my question, I'll answer yours. That sounds like a good deal does it not?" Amaimon stared blankly for a bit, then seemed to accept,
"Sure, but I get my question answered first." Mephisto gave a slight groan,
"Since when have you gotten so picky with your arguing, it looks like all the phone calls in which I made deals with people you've paid attention to." Amaimon gave a small smile,
"Of course, I'm always sitting around bored, the only useful thing I can do is listen or watch." Mephisto smiled,
"I take back my statements of you being a stupid little brother, instead I've raised one hell of a stubborn, clever and deceiving little brother, much like me." Amaimon seemed quite happy, but quickly blinked and restored his serious face.
"Don't get me off topic. Tell me why you let me win, and answer truthfully." Mephisto smiled,
"The truth is, I wanted you to win for once because I knew it would restore faith in the hopes that you could beat me one day. I did it because I wanted to be nice to you, after all, I'll be busy with this project so I won't be able to do much with you. I did it to play with you, because you always ask me to, and because I hardly ever have time to. I did it because I knew it'd make you happy, and I like to see you happy. There, there's all the reasons for why I let you win." Amaimon blinked, looking like he was still absorbing all that information. Finally he gave a playful smirk and jumped off the couch and behind it,
"Good, I'm happy that you like to make me happy. Now... I'm gonna take off." He rushed for the door, but Mephisto snatched his jacket's ripped ends, and yanked him back.
"When you play the game, you pay, there's no escaping and no cheating. We had a deal, one question for one question. Two truthful responses." Amaimon flinched and turned his head,
"Um, I'm fine now." Mephisto smirked,
"Exactly, your fine now, but tell me, what WAS wrong? I think you overreacted about that win a little bit too much." Amaimon glanced away, quickly trying to think of a response... Mephisto reached out and turned Amaimon's head back to him,
"If your response requires you to look away or think then it's a lie." Amaimon frowned, games like this when he was the interrogated person weren't any fun.
"I don't know why I was acting like that." Mephisto smirked and shook his head, leaning closer to Amaimon, shaking his finger in his face.
"Uh-uh, I'm quite sure you had something going through your mind." Amaimon swallowed, his face starting to burn again. He blinked and found himself with a lump in his throat and with an empty mouth and mind. He was usually good with things like saying the first thing that came to his head, but nothing was coming, and he felt like if he said something wrong that something bad would happen.
"Um..." He blinked, his emotionless facade quickly failing him. What was he supposed to say?! "I had a dream something bad happened." He finally blurted out. His eyes were squeezed shut, like he was expecting to be hurt for saying that.
"Go on. You had a dream, I'm assuming this dream was a nightmare if it was bad?" Amaimon nodded, looking away from his brother. It had been a dream only a few nights ago...
It involved a strange high pitched noise in the background, that sound made him want to pull his ears off and scratch away his hearing. All he could hear was that sound... It was deafeningly loud, and all around buildings were collapsed with torn up bodies that lined the burning streets. A feeling of dread had come over him, a feeling of guilt, like he'd been the one to kill of these humans. Typically Amaimon didn't have any reason for killing humans, if anything he just didn't care about humans, but he cared this time because they were dead even though he was certain they hadn't done anything to make him mad. The only time he killed humans was if they disrespected him, made him mad or made him unhappy. While it happened often, in a way, he had a point of realizing that if he killed a lot of humans that it was bad. Probably because of all the things Mephisto had threatened him with, he'd been taught that killing humans was wrong. So this was absolutely unacceptable. There was another thing though, when he had looked down at himself, he was covered with blood. At first he assumed it was from all the people he had killed, but then he'd suddenly feel the pain shoot though his whole being. Everything hurt so intensely, it was shocking, it made him freeze and want to roll around and scream like some pathetic little child. The dream would then end, but the whole time, he could still hear that sound, the sound of the high pitched screeching, it would typically blend into the distant sounds of humans crying, screaming for help or simply shouting in distress. Either way, the night he had had it made him wake up in a sweat.
"Sounds like quite the dream, but I'm sure it's nothing to worry about. You know what they say, it was only a bad dream." Amaimon looked a bit freaked out, and that made Mephisto feel bad, it was obviously something that he had been very scared and freaked out over. But the thing that concerned him the most was the sound... The way Amaimon described it, a high pitched screech, much like the sound the Musicbox made when it had been played. Mephisto remembered that sound, not only because of how harsh it had been, but because the way it had instantly drained him of any sensibility. He had been totally blank the first few seconds, finally he forced himself back, those few seconds were enough to last him a life time. He didn't need to hear anymore ever again.
"I was a monster, and I don't want to kill anybody unless they're mean." Mephisto gave an awkward laugh,
"Even if they're mean they should still live, Amaimon. But, I know what you're saying." He gave Amaimon an awkward hug, "But it's late. Go to bed and try not to think about it." Amaimon became stiff when hugged, but still replied. His voice muffled from his head being stuck between Mephisto's neck and chest.
"Okay..." Mephisto let him go and watched him walk down the hallway to his bedroom. The older demon's eyes wandered to his large desk, the blueprint was sprawled out on top.
The purple-haired man approached the blueprint, and touched it, his head twitched. He so badly wanted to just crinkle the blueprint up, but Angel was quite adamant about the project getting complete. He stared at the 2.0 at the top of the paper, this was going to be the prototype for the Musicbox 2.0, hopefully it'd be different. He picked up the small bag of parts, since his part in this was merely the assembly of the prototype, he was hopefully not going to have to do much work with this. Even if it was a redesigned prototype, he still disliked the context of the Project Musicbox. Pulling out the silver metal body, he dumped out the other parts and sat down; it was going to be a long night...