Chapter 3:Sand and Lightning

Present...Kuoh Town...Adrians' House...

Most of the ORC that were present gasped, and Rias stood up,

"What exactly is the Dark Prince?"

"I only heard stories of him from my father, but in later years, I learned he was for sure a dark soul that resided inside my father from before I was born. A manifestation of his anger, hate and general darkness, and evidently he passed it to me with my conception."

"So when you fell on your knife you released some sort dark soul? That's some heavy shit," said Issei.

"You think that's bad?" Asked Darius. "What happened next was even worse."

Babylon...Thousands of years ago...

As the Dark Prince stood at the top of the stairs, and Darius stood at the foot, the forementioned tossed something down for Darius to catch. He held out both hands, caught the medium sized object, and saw it was the bloodied severed head of the King, causing Darius to shout and drop the head, leaving blood in his hands. He whipped his head back up towards the Dark Prince, but the evil being was already gone, leaving him to watch his fathers palace burn.

The Dark Prince? He thought to himself, Impossible! A shrill scream broke him from his thoughts, and he turned to see an old homeless woman was pointing at him in sheer fright, seeing the Kings' severed head on the ground and blood on the Princes' hands. Darius held one hand up and pointed at the head with the other,

"That's not my doing!"

"You killed him!" She screamed, and Darius saw more people were beginning to fill the street, coming to see what the commotion was about, each and soon everyone saw the burning palace, the severed head and the bloodied hands as well. Darius began to back away, and one of the citizens even pointed at him,

"Look! He has the Kings Sword!"

"He must have killed the king for it!"

"Traitor!"

"Murderer!"

Before more could be said, Darius dashed away from the crowd before they could truly form together and grab him, and he began running through the streets of Babylon, avoiding anyone and everyone he saw, even going as far as to begin scaling a four story building, latching onto window ledges with his fingertip and keep climbing until he reached the rooftop, stopping to overlook the city, and saw his one chance to avoid a beheading; a merchant ship just barely leaving the docks. Darius looked around, and on the very building he was standing on he saw one of his fathers banners on the side, barely flapping in the wind. He took a deep breath, drew out the Dagger of Time, and with a little faith he jumped, turned, and plunged the blade into the fabric of the banner, sliding down the side of the building safely and landing gracefully without being spotted. He put away the blade, then ran as fast as he could for the docks, no longer caring if he were spotted, and before too long he was finally at the docks, seeing one ship was barely leaving port, but now loud bells from the city could be heard, sounding an alarm. Darius exhaled, and running as fast as he could he ran for the ship, not stopping, and with every ounce of strength he had he leapt from the dock to the ship, and with one hand he barely managed to grab the side of the ships hull, and he pulled himself aboard. As he lay gasping for air he looked up above himself, seeing several of the ships crew were now standing over him and staring, including the ships captain; an older Middle Eastern man in a turban and dressed in a white shirt, dark pants and boots.

"And what do you think you're...your Majesty?" Most of the men backed away and took a knee as Darius rose to his feet, "What are you doing here?"

"I need to get as far away from here as possible..." said Darius, quickly digging into the side of his belt, and procurring a sizable coin pouch, "...as far as a hundred pieces of gold can take me." The captain took the bag of gold, weighed it with his hand, and nodded,

"We'll take you as far as we can, my Prince. But I am curious. Why? Why leave the city? Your home?" Darius turned to the city, letting a sigh escape his lungs as he turned away, facing the open water,

"Let's just say my father was right..." he then closed his eyes as a tear fell, "...he was right..."

Present...Kuoh Town...Adrians' House...

"...He was right..." said Darius, letting another tear fall in the present, and he felt a hand on his shoulder, and saw it belonged to Rias, "...after I got onto the ship and we made our way to open water, I threw the dagger into the sea, hoping to never see it again."

"I'm sorry about what happened to your father," said Rias, showing honest sympathy for the prince.

"What I don't get is how are you still alive after so many years?" Asked Issei, still confused. Darius chuckled,

"Well, it turns out that when I fell on the Dagger of Time, I not only released the Dark Prince, but I also made myself immortal by accident," said the prince, "and the bitch named irony is that the only way to reverse it is with the same exact dagger I threw into the ocean." Most of the ORC gasped, and Issei took in a sharp breath,

"Oh that's messed up."

"Yes...so with no other option, I kept running, and eventually running turned into wandering, and unless you include two specific events, I basically layed low for all these years." Finally, when it seemed like everyone in the house was present, one voice spoke up from the back, causing everyone, consisting of Darius, Rias, Akeno, Issei, Asia, Kiba, Xenovia, Koneko and even Gasper (who simply poked his head out of his box), and they saw an Egyptian girl in brown robes with her hood down, brown leather pants, and a red sash belt,

"I have a question," she said, "what were those two specific events you were talking about?"

"Those events, miss...?"

"Cleo."

"...Miss Cleo, were the two times I decided to do something. The times I decided to help someone. The first was during World War II, when I decided to help an Irish saboteur take the fight to the Germans in France. And the second..." Darius chuckled, "the second time was in New Marais, where I met Calvin..."

"I was waiting for this part," said Akeno with a smile. Darius frowned at the Priestess of Thunder,

"It wasn't exactly the greatest of times when I first got to New Marais. Several conduits were running amock, and not all of them were handsome like Calvin. In fact, some of them were more like...well..."

New Marais...one year ago...

"...Fucking monsters!" Shouted Darius, using the Kings Sword against several creatures that mostly resembled humans, but the arms were like large blunt blades, the feet were like that of a bird, and mandibles sprouting from the sides of their mouths. Upon cutting down several of the swamp monsters, Darius swirled around, taking the head off of a large lizard-like creature, and finally, when it seemed like the prince could catch a breather, a large ice monster began to charge at him, "Can this day get any worse?!" Before the ice monster could make an actual attack, a bright light shot into the sky, followed by a loud BOOM of thunder. Then, starting with the ice creature near Darius, the monster conduits began to fall, one by one, letting Darius breath a sigh of relief, but then he felt a pain in his chest, and he could hardly breath, causing him to bring a hand up, clawing his chest, and soon enough he stumbled into an alleyway with sand for a road, and fell to his knees, and soon he fell onto his face, seemingly dead...

Present...Kuoh Town...Adrians' House...

"It turns out that boom was Cole MacGrath activating some device that killed off most of the worlds conduits, but at the same time, it also awakened others, one being Calvin, and another being...well...me." The others in the room gasped, and Rias rose to her feet,

"You're a conduit? Like Calvin?"

"No, not like Calvin," said Darius, "for Calvin had power over electricity like MacGrath before him. As for me, I have the power of this..." Darius held a fist over the table, and as he opened it, the ORC and Cleo were surprised to see sand drop, and drop, and continuing to drop out of the princes' hand until there was a decent amount on the table in front of him. Once there was enough sand he swirled his index and middle finger, and the sand began to swirl into a small twister, spinning faster and faster until all of a sudden it stopped, and in place of a twister there was now a perfectly made, decent sized sand castle on the table. Then with one last snap of his fingers, he made all the sand retract back into his hand, leaving no trace.

"So you're basically the Sandman from Spider-Man 3?" Asked Issei.

"Never mention that movie!" Shouted Darius, "Especially when they ruined Venom."

"...And how long have you had these powers?"

"From when I woke up. The problem is I can't remember how long I was asleep. An hour? A week? Hard to say. But when I woke up..." Darius paused to let out a chuckle, "...that's when things got a little interesting..."

New Marais...one year ago...

Darius grunted, groaned, and slowly picked himself off the ground, rubbing sand off his face and the back of his head, and quickly heard a slap sound next to him, seeing it was a brown leather wallet, his wallet, heard a quick pitter-patter of feet behind him, and in front of himself he saw a boy about a year younger than him in appearance, dressed in a white tee-shirt with a blue lightning bolt, black cargo pants, blue and white DC shoes, and a black ski mask. The masked man was saying something to someone behind Darius, but he couldn't quite hear, so he tilted his head to the side and with a couple of smacks to the side of his head, he let a small trail of sand fall out of his ear, only to hear a gunshot as soon as he was able to and see the masked boy clutch his shoulder. The prince then whirled up, seeing it was a New Marais police officer. Darius then snatched his own wallet off the ground, ran to the ski mask man and ran down the alley, veering off to an adjecent alley, and out of the officers line of sight. He then had the masked man pinned to the side of a garage with one hand, and his wallet in the other,

"Were you trying to rob me?"

"Wha-? No! I was trying to stop the robber!" Darius put away his wallet, and snatched the mask off the boys head, seeing a bald head and electric blue eyes,

"What's your name kid?"

"Kid?! You're barely a day older than me!" Darius glared, and he rolled his eyes, "My name is Calvin Hicks...and you're welcome for still having a wallet..."