Title: Legacy of Kain: Reincarnation
Authors: Razielim Vampiress and Varyssa
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: The LoK series belongs to Crystal Dynamics and Eidos. Varyssa and I own nothing but the plot and any original characters we insert into this story.
Summary: The year is 2005. Nosgoth is no more, subdued and subjugated to change with the passing eons. But there are still some familiar faces wandering about. So, what happens when six vampire-incarnates stumble across an ancient Chronoplast Chamber?
A/N: Just so ya know, the lieutenants are pre-evolved. That means Rahab hasn't been turned into a giant fish-thing yet, Melchiah doesn't look like a mutated version of Meatwad from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Raziel hasn't been thrown into the Abyss yet, etc. By the way, a big part of this chapter is so that you know about the reincarnations' daily lives and stuff like that.
Chapter One: A Normal Average Day...NOT!
"RAZIEL BLACKWOOD!" Kain yelled in frustration at his 'sleeping' first born. It was a Friday morning and Raziel, being the most stubborn child in the home, refused to get out from under the covers.
"No! I'm legal now! I have a choice!" Raziel growled as he tried to bury himself deeper into the blankets.
"Ah, but that's where you're wrong." With a mischievous smirk, the pale haired man grabbed what looked like Raziel's legs and jerked him, bedspread and all, off of the warm comfort of his mattress and onto the cold hardwood floor, said smirk widening as he heard Raziel yelp in surprise and slight pain, "You still live in my house, therefore you will continue to live by my rules."
Raziel simple snarled and threw himself back onto the bed and wrapped the black sheets around him tightly. His father's frown returned, "If you aren't up by the time I get back in here, you will wish you were never born!"
With that, Kain stomped back up the basement stairs, slammed the door behind him, and went to go wake the last two sleeping boys up, but not before hearing Raziel yell, "For you information I ALREADY WISH I WAS NEVER BORN!"
Kain sighed. A major migraine was coming his way. He could feel it. Why the hell did he always have to wake up the heavy sleepers?
'I'd like to see Umah try to wake these idiots up for once.'
The irritable father trudged through the dining and living rooms, then up another flight of stairs, all the while wishing he could go back to sleep. Coming to Zephon's room, he repressed a tired sigh. He hoped he didn't have to go in there. The fifth born's room was nearly as bad as Raziel's. The only difference was that Raziel's room was only scattered with clothes, a few school papers and sketches that the eldest had thought turned out badly, and a cd case or an occasional floppy disk, whilst Zephon's room was immensely cluttered with dirty clothes, empty potato chip bags and soda cans, old guitar tuners and strings, cds, the occasional cigarette butt, and other random junk that you'd find in the average fifteen year old boy's room.
Kain banged loudly on Zephon's bedroom door. A muffled 'Hmm?' was barely heard through the dark wood.
"Zephon! Get up! I already had to argue with Raziel this early in the morning and I don't think you want me to come in there so I'll say it once more: GET THE HELL UP!"
"Mmmm..."
"...Zephon, you're not in there with anybody are you?"
"Ugggghh...no…. I'm getting' up."
There were shuffling sounds from the inside of the room signaling that the boy was, indeed, getting up.
Kain was satisfied with that and was now going across the hall to get the third helpless teenager up and then perhaps he could go back to his sorely missed bed, "DUMAH!" Kain proceeded to bang on the door a few times before barging into the mess that was Dumah's room.
Dumah was still snoring loudly, obviously not hearing his dad ranting and raving at him for five minutes straight.
'Gods, he's nearly as bad as Raziel!'
He then got an idea. Kain picked up Dumah's alarm clock and, turning the volume to the loudest setting, timed the alarm to go off in the next minute. He placed it next to his son's ear. When the alarm went off, Dumah jumped nearly three feet into the air before he noticed the digital clock. Instead off just shutting it off, he simply threw it across the room and then lay back down.
Kain obviously didn't find this amusing and proceeded to shake Dumah until he got a slurred reply of, "Mmmm, five more minutes."
"Damn it!" Kain threw Dumah off the edge of the bed and had a smug smile on his face when the teenager sat up and glared at him. "I'm awake. Happy?"
"Not hardly, but it'll do for now."
Grumpily making his way downstairs and into the kitchen, Kain was slightly pleased to see that Raziel was finally up. He had his head resting on the table, but he was out of bed and dressed.
Kain snorted as he took in his eldest's attire; Long-sleeved layered shirt with the words 'Why Aren't You Dead Yet?' on the front in oozing red font, torn jeans that seem to have gone through hell and back, and heavy combat boots. Of course, Raziel wouldn't be happy if he were seen without his black nail polish, black eyeliner, and the spiked choker around his neck. It even had a tag on it, sporting the name of a loved and lost pet of his childhood.
He had no clue why Raziel wore nothing but black all the time. The young man even went as far as getting his tongue pierced for his 18th birthday, so now he had three small silver rings in his right ear lobe, two in his left, a small onyx stone in the center of his tongue, and to top it all off, he was planning on getting some sort of tattoo once he could afford it. Whenever it was he decided to get a job again, of course. Kain certainly wasn't giving him the money for it.
Umah whisked into the kitchen wearing an attractive black, pin-striped buisness suit with black high heels, talking on the cordless phone. She paused briefly to gently shake Raziel and tell him to sit up straight and get his bangs out of his eyes before continuing her conversation with the other attorney on the phone.
Raziel just rolled his eyes and slumped back in his chair, arms folded across his chest, wearing the usual scowl that he wore when he was doing something he didn't really want to do. Kain grabbed the cream cheese and bagels out of the refrigerator, made himself some breakfast, and sat down in the chair across from his son, "As usual you look pale, sickly and anorexic. You should eat more often," Kain stated as he took a bite out of his bagel.
"I'll eat when I feel like eating."
Kain glared at him, "You know, I don't work nine hours a day just to listen to you bitch! You have everything you could ever want here, I don't see what the hell your problem is." Raziel's usual tone and attitude always seemed to get on his nerves. Nothing but sarcasm, bitterness, and what he thought was an ungrateful , senseless sort of rebellion.
Raziel just glared right back at him, his amber eyes shining eerily in the kitchen's florescent lighting, "Maybe it's your severe lack of parenting skills."
Kain gritted his teeth. He would really love to just slap the hell out of his son, but alas, Umah was in the other room and if she heard the fight that meant no nookie for a while, and more threats of being sent to anger management and being put on high blood pressure medication. As calmly as he could manage, he replied, "Just take those damn contacts out before you leave. You look more like a freak than you usually do." That really got Raziel started.
As father and son were arguing, Zephon, Turel and Dumah wandered in and headed straight for the fridge. They opened the door and just stood there, staring at the contents inside as if waiting for something to jump out at them. Kain angrily got up and threw the bagels and cream cheese back into the fridge. The only time the three moved was when they re-opened the door after Kain had slammed it shut. "And that's why the god damn electric bill is so high!" Kain yelled.
"You needed a P.hD to figure that out?" Raziel growled furiously as he went into the living room, where Rahab was finishing up on his homework and Melchiah was playing his Gameboy before the bus arrived.
Naturally they all heard the argument. The other occupants of the house just never said anything about it. The choices were shut up or get clobbered by Kain and/or Raziel. I think we all know what the choice would be.
The goth plopped down onto the couch and flipped the tv on to Sirius satellite radio. They still had about five minutes, so he figured he might as well listen to a bit of Hard Attack or Octane before he had to leave.
"Bus!" Umah yelled from the den. Raziel sighed in aggravation and flipped the tv off again.
'Stupid bus driver. The bitch comes early on the worst mornings.'
Raziel snatched his book-bag up and headed out the garage door, smirking to himself as he heard the frenzied cries of three of his brothers as they got their things. He managed to snag the seat in the very back and his brothers joined him shortly.
"Raziel, you're nineteen years old! When the hell are you gonna get your driver's license?" Zephon whined as he plopped down beside the first born.
"Why do you care?" Raziel said as he pulled his cd player out of his bag.
Zephon sighed heavily and rolled his bright green eyes, stating the answer as if it were the most obvious thing ever, "Duh! You could drive me to school and I wouldn't have to ride this shit-ass bus anymore!"
"Why don't you just ride to school with Turel?"
"'Cause he's an ass cheddar!"
"...I don't have a clue as to what that is so I'll just ignore it. What about Dumah?"
"Obviously you've never been in a car with him behind the wheel."
"Rahab goes to get his own car next month. You can ride with him."
You see, the Blackwood brothers are what some people call 'stair step kids'. Raziel is 19, Turel and Dumah are 18, Rahab is 16 going on 17, Zephon is 15, and little Melchiah is 14.
"No way! I don't want to come to school smelling like fish!" He shrieked, referring to the running joke concerning his sibling's growing fish collection.
Rahab hurled a balled up piece of paper at Zephon's head from the adjacent seat, "I do NOT smell like fish!" Zephon glared at him and flipped him the bird. Raziel just ignored this and continued with the conversation, even if his patience was reaching its limit. Actually, to tell the truth, his fuse wasn't as short as it usually was, which was rather surprising considering how off his morning had started. Maybe he was maturing a little...nah, "Okay. Why don't you just get your own license next year and then you won't have to worry about it?"
"Because I probably won't have the money to get a car and mom and dad won't let me mooch off them."
"Then go get a job!"
Raziel put his headphones on and dug out Wages of Sin by Arch Enemy, ignoring Melchiah and Zephon's bickering about who should ride to school with Raziel.
'Pretty dumb considering I might not even be in the same state next year.'
The rest of the day went by as slow as possible. Especially the bus ride home, although the brothers spent the time shooting spit balls and throwing paper at other students and at each other. They were dropped off a few blocks from their house due to some construction on their street.
"Stupid construction workers. Why do they have to mess our road up?" Zephon grumbled to himself, raking his fingers through his blood-red hair, trying to get it to spike up a bit more.
"Well, unless you want raw sewage to be shooting out of our toilet , then they should probably fix the problem. Unfortunately, they have to dig up nearly half a friggin' block to do it!" Rahab paused, casting a critical glance at his younger sibling, "And you really should dye your hair back to black, Zephon. Your natural color's starting to come back in and it looks a little odd."
Zephon merely rolled his eyes, "Yeah, yeah."
The four of them were about a block away from their subdivision when they saw the huge hole, no, the seemingly bottomless pit, that the construction crew had dug. The machinery was there, but there was nobody in sight so they just guessed the workers were on a break.
"That's a pretty deep hole," Melchiah said while looking over the metal railing that was put up around the area, "Somebody throw something down there. Maybe we could figure out how far down it goes. AHHHHHHHHHH!" Zephon had picked up Melchiah and was dangling him over the railing.
Rahab hastily kicked him in the shin, "Put him down!"
Zephon dropped the boy and begun holding his abused shin, glaring furiously at Rahab. "You think you can find something more useless to throw in then!" Melchiah punched him as hard as he could in the shoulder., "Ow! Christ, what the hell is this? Rag On Zephon Day?" Zephon was about to hit Melchiah back, but stopped when they, and probably the people half a mile away, heard Raziel scream, "WILL YOU BOTH JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP?"
The goth picked up a rock and hurled it down the hole as hard as he could in a sort of attempt to vent some pent-up frustration. The four teens were awed when they heard the very faint sound of the rock finally hitting the ground. Zephon then got a crazy idea, slid under the guard rail and started climbing down the ladder that led down into the pit.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Raziel said as he jumped over the railing and grabbed his younger brother by the collar of his t-shirt.
"The Quadratic formula. What the hell does it look like I'm doing?" Zephon retorted as he tried to squirm out of Raziel's grip, "And stop pulling! You're stretchin' my shirt out!"
"Are you crazy?" Rahab came and joined Raziel in trying to pull Zephon off the ladder, "We could get in big trouble if you go down there!"
"Oh come on! It'll be cool to look around. It'll only take a minute."
"Can I come?" Melchiah asked, crawling under the railing.
"No!" Rahab and Raziel yelped as they shoved the youngest back behind the barrier.
"Can't we go down for just a minute? Unless," The fifth born grinned wickedly, "You guys want me to tell dad about the washing machine incident last weekend," Earning death glares from both of his older brothers, Zephon sighed and began to step up off the ladder, "I guess I'll just go tell dad then."
"Wait!" Raziel growled, "I'll climb down there with you."
"YES!"
"Raziel!"
Raziel sighed and turned to Rahab, "Look, I know if we get caught we'll be in serious trouble, but in either outcome, I lose, so why not have an adventure come out of it? But I'll make sure that we're out of there in thirty minutes tops. Okay?"
Rahab sighed deeply, "Fine. Whatever. But may I point out one thing?"
"What's that?"
"How do you expect us to see?"
At that moment Melchiah pops up between them with two flashlights and glares lightly at them, "Ta da."
Raziel took a flashlight and tossed the other to Rahab. He rubbed his little brother's bald head 'for good luck' and smiled a little, "Thanks Mel. Turns out you're good for something after all."
Melchiah just flipped him off before climbing down the ladder.
Almost thirty minutes later, Melchiah was getting a little worried. The bit of sky that he could see when he tried to look past Raziel told him that it was getting late. What if the construction guys climb down there and find them? What if they get lost down there and never get out? What if they get mauled by a pack of rabid rats mutated by the intake of toxic waste?
'...Where in hell did that thought come from? Geez, I'm starting to think like Zephon! Must be a sign...'
"Dammit Raziel! Thirty minutes is up! Can we go back to the surface now, please?" Rahab asked grumpily.
"No. We've climbed down this far and we're not just gonna go back. Besides, I can see the bottom. Just chill. It won't be but a few more minutes."
Zephon just whined, "Well I hope a few minutes'll hurry up and pass. My hands are startin' to hurt!"
"Would you like cheese and crackers to go with that whine?" Rahab replied bitterly, "And if memory serves me correctly it was your idea to do this stupid shit in the first place!" He'd been holding a flashlight for a little over half an hour and his hand was starting to fall asleep.
"Well your memory's for shit so shut the fuck up or I'll kick ya in the head!"
After a minute or two of pointless arguing, the four finally reached the bottom of the hole. The ground was littered with piles of rocks and dirt. There were three tunnels that lead even deeper underground, ancient braziers lining the walls of each passageway, cracked mirrors caked with layer upon layer of dust in between each one.
The tunnel on the left had already caved in and the one to the far right looked like it was going to collapse any minute. The thick wooden beams that supported the ceiling looked rotted and slightly tilted, ready to snap like twigs. The one in the center looked fine except for the large cracks and potholes in the ground.
"You think the construction workers built those?" Melchiah asked softly, gesturing towards the tunnels.
"No way. If they did there would have been some electricity down here. And look at this," Rahab stated, shining his light on some of the incredibly faded artwork carved into the stone walls. A seraph, holding a sword before him, looked upwards reverently, "Do you think they would have done that? This place looks ancient. When the workers were digging underground they must've hit a shallow spot in the earth and brought the roof of this cavern down. If that's the case then I'm kind of surprised these tunnels are still standing."
"I think we should go down this one." Raziel said quietly as he stood in the archway of the tunnel that was nearing collapse.
"Are you crazy?" Zephon's loud voice echoed sharply off the rock walls, making Raziel wince. "We all know that you have a death wish, Raziel, but I think I can speak for Rahab and Mel when I say-"
"Just shut up, okay? I don't know why I want to go down this way, but I have this really weird feeling and it's pulling me in that direction. So you can either follow me or go off down the other tunnel and get even more lost than you would with me." With that said, Raziel walked down the tunnel, quickly swallowed by the darkness ahead.
"Damn you, Raziel." Rahab growled and ran after his brother, his younger siblings quickly following him.
When they finally caught up with him, Raziel had stopped in front of a large door. It obviously once had a large intricate design carved on the front, but like many of the other carvings, it was all nearly worn smooth from age.
"It won't move. Either something's stuck behind it or it's sealed shut."
"You probably weren't shoving hard enough." Zephon growled as he slammed himself against the door. It barely budged an inch.
"And you just made excellent progress." Melchiah mumbled.
"I heard that! Maybe if all of you would help me we might be able to get this damn thing open!"
So, they all started throwing their weight against the door, moving it little by little until the door finally burst open, unleashing more darkness... and a terrible smell.
"Gods, hold it in next time, Zephon!" Rahab teased as they walked into the huge space.
"Oh piss off!" Zephon growled as he kicked a nearby object. Bright light suddenly burst into the room as a large pendulum-like spinning structure on the ceiling began turning faster and faster with each passing second.
"Zephon what the hell did you do?" Raziel yelled.
"I don't know! It was an accident!"
The light got so bright that the four teens were nearly blinded, but it finally dimmed before it did any damage. When they looked back up, they were in for quite a shock...
Raven: Well Raziel, do ya like the first chapter so far?
Plushie Raziel: A cliffhanger...again...
Raven: Yeah well, I thought I'd let Varyssa handle the second chapter how ever she wants, so of course I made it a cliffy. Besides, I want the readers to make an inference in their review.
Chibi Kain: (still wearing his t-shirt that says 'Varyssa Rules') A what?
Raven: (throws a dictionary at him) Look it up. Readers, I hope ya likes. Please give Varyssa and me some support here. It's our first fic together and we hope to have no flames, so please, don't flame. Constructive criticism is wonderful, but flames just suck. Thanks in advance!