Descent into Darkness
Part 1
All those brats thought that they could look down on him! That hundreds of dopey fourteen-year-olds could treat him like some filth was absurd! He fought a war! He didn't have no magic weapons to help him out neither.
Not that he would have wanted one of those monsters anyway.
Samuel Davies, or 'Scruffy' as those little ingrates called him, ignored the aching pain in his shoulder from carrying the heavy toolbox and the dampness in his baggy boiler suit. The smell of these sewers almost seemed to be alive, and malicious. As soon as you got used to the smell and foul taste in your mouth, it changes, but don't get no better! Of course, he didn't do all this for fun: he endured this all for the benefit of those ungrateful, disrespectful little maggots!
Something soft and slimy hit him on the head and splashed into the disgusting water, knocking him onto the cold and clammy floor. Samuel leapt up and turned, shaking his fist and ready to give whatever self-entitled little brat had just thrown that at him a piece of his mind.
Little ass must have ran for it. Of all the-
Samuel gasped, it felt like someone was running needles through the veins in his hands, they swelled and pulsated, and the skin turned a sickly greenish-blue. He screamed, waving around in panic.
What was happening?! What was that that hit him?
He couldn't breathe; it felt like there was a load of sand in his throat. He coughed, and out came a fine green powder. He coughed again, and was unable to stop coughing. It was as if his insides were trying to escape his body.
He fell to the ground. No! He was a soldier! He would not die in this stinking sewer!
He-
…
Crona's POV
I woke with a gasp at the shrill screech of my Cell Phone. What was I thinking, choosing such a loud and piercing tone? I lay there reluctantly for a second, before finally convincing myself to answer before Ragnarok woke up and...
"Gah! Who would call stupid-little-you now? It's still dark!"
Too late. Still, he was right, and a look at the screen of the phone told me it was 4:02 am. All I could say was that this had better have been important. It was Stein, which I think I knew from the second I heard the ring: at this hour, it was either going to be him or Black Star. All things considered, I think I got lucky on this one…
I slid my thumb across the screen, and sighed as I said 'hello' in a wheezing voice, sighing in dread and tiredness.
"Evening, Crona. How's it going?" came the reply, sounding indifferent as ever. After a brief pause where I guess he was expecting me to say something, he continued, saying exactly the last thing I wanted to hear at that moment. "I have a favour to ask of you."
I groaned involuntarily, immediately wishing I hadn't. I winced, afraid of what he might say or do… I didn't think he heard it, so I guessed it was okay. I don't know if I could deal with those kinds of 'surprises' again.
"Are you still there?" asked Stein, and I realised that I had blacked out.
"Yeah… sorry… What's the favour?" I had to literally force the last few words out.
"Well" he replied, and I could hear the winding buzz as he turned on his swivel chair, "I need your help in teaching some freshmen students."
"Really?" I said louder than I meant to. That actually didn't sound so bad, "What would I be teaching?"
"Oh, you know, survival…"
Something about the way he said 'survival', and the fact that he said it at all to be honest, was seriously unnerving.
"So, I'll talk to you about it later then?" he said.
I sighed in relief, glad that this conversation was nearly over. Besides, now I could finish my sleep. "Okay"
"Okay" he said chirpily (well, by his standards anyway) "see you in five minutes, then"
"Okay. Bye" I said before taking huge satisfaction in pressing 'end call'. Well, as Maka says, stay optimistic, at least now I got another few hours of sleep. Ragnarok had already fallen asleep, not that this bothered me, in fact, I was really really…
"Did he say five minutes?"
…
After throwing on some clothes, I ran out of the house and through the rainy night. I remember being brought down even further by the dank and unpleasant weather. It was as if all happiness had been sucked out of my life, and all that was left was terrible inconvenience.
I was wearing my skull-themed grey hoody, and so I at least didn't get my hair wet, although by the time I got to Stein's lab it was sodden, and I was freezing. All the while, I couldn't shake the feeling that I really wasn't going to like Professor Stein's teaching job. It was Stein, after all.
I knocked on the door, simultaneously ready to get out of the rain, and really afraid of going in. After a few seconds, the door opened, and the ominous silhouette of Professor Stein towered over me.
"Come in" he said in his emotionless, robotic tone, "take off your shoes."
He turned and walked into the house, cranking that bolt in his head as he did. I tried to suppress the nausea I always got when he did that. It was that weird cracking sound, and the fact that it was coming from a human skull, that always made it so sickening. It brought back memories…
I stepped inside and took off my shoes as instructed. Stein lived in what should have been a nice house, but he neglected it, spending most of his time in his lab doing… I don't even what to know. The paint was cracked and the carpet was worn.
"Down here" said Stein. He was standing at the top of the stairs leading down to his lab. Immediately, my body stiffened like water turning into ice. I don't know exactly what goes on down there, but from what I'd heard...
"Are you coming or what?" said the Professor, and his momentary break in monotone made me jump and told me that I should definitely hurry up. So I hurriedly told him that I was coming and followed him down into the abyss.
It was filthy down there, not that I could see much, as the whole room was only lit by one very tired light bulb, which flashed on and off like flashes of lightning. The smells down there dominated my nose and mouth, one was the way-too-familiar metallic smell of blood, which was joined by smells which I couldn't identify, and probably didn't want to.
I shivered from the breezeless cold, getting more and more nervous. The staircase creaked under our feet as we went down, and it was getting harder to breath.
Stein walked over to his desk, which was behind the operating table, where the smells seemed to get almost unbearably stronger. I was relieved when they got weaker as we stood by the desk, away from that cold, metal table which made me uncomfortable when I looked at it.
It all reminded me of her laboratory.
Stein took his seat at the desk and gestured at me to sit opposite. When most people do that, it was an offer, with Stein, it was an order. I followed the order, trying to adjust into the wooden chair which felt unbearably and worryingly damp.
Then the silence was mercifully broken. "So, Crona" he said, and paused to light a cigarette, leaving me alone with the ominous aura of the room again. He took a drag and exhaled smoke, at least having the courtesy to not blow it at me, "Ready to be a revolutionary?"
I had a really bad feeling about this, "Come again, sir?"
He grinned, and a chill, below the one in the air, rushed through my body. "I need your help, Crona. See, I am not happy at all with the latest intake of freshmen. They all either severely suck, or have severe attitude problems."
I gulped, afraid to ask the question, "So what do you want me to do?"
He took another long drag on the cigarette, savouring it before blowing out the smoke again, "Well, this morning, I gave four weapon-meister teams a special mission." He leaned back in the chair, putting his arms behind his head like he was on a beach, "You'll laugh when you hear what it was."
Oh, I very much doubted that…
"I told them that you've rebelled against the DWMA, and must be eliminated at all costs."
And the really damning thing about it was that he said it with the same half laugh as if he was telling me the punch line of a funny story. "What?" I said flatly, only half meaning to.
Stein tilted his head "Oh, don't worry, I'm sure that they're not looking for you now. It's 4:20am, and besides, they're all in the sewer."
Well, that was a relief, at least. But having said that, "why are they in the sewer?"
"Because I told them you were down there" He said matter-of-fact-ly. "And you will be. But, I'm going to give you until 9:00am to get ready."
This really was getting worse and worse by the second. "Ready for what?" I said, aware that it came out like a whine. Still, I didn't care, this justified whining. I was about to be sent down into a smelly sewer with a bunch of strangers who were going to try their best to make sure I didn't come out again. And why? I don't know, because Stein woke up and felt like screwing with me? Probably.
The smile disappeared from Stein's face just as quickly and robotically as it had appeared. "Ready to knock some sense into them. Scare them into taking things seriously."
"H- how?" I asked.
"I don't know." He said dismissively. "Make spooky noises, crawl on your back like in that movie, or maybe pull your 'my blood is black' routine."
"O, okay but-"
"So you're up for it then, Great! Well, get plenty of rest, and pack some snacks and be down a drain by 9 am", and before I knew it, I was being shooed out up and out the front door back into the rain again. "Bye now!" I heard him say before shutting the door in my face.
"Well this is just great!" yelled Ragnarok, "Hours in a stinking sewer! When are you going to grow some backbone you spineless little runt?!"
I didn't need him to tell me that; I knew. I turned on my heels to head back home, and that was when I realised something.
"Professor! Can I have my shoes back?!"
...
After going home and changing, I found that I wasn't going to get any sleep that evening, and so decided to turn on the TV. After about ten minutes of flipping through channels (it was mainly TV shopping and old cartoons at that time, none of which really interested me), I dug out my Laptop from behind the sofa and flipped it on.
"Are you really doing this again?" Ragnarok sighed, coming out of my back and leaning irritatingly on my head.
I opened the internet tab as soon as the thing woke up, "Aren't you the least bit curious?" I asked, knowing that it was a dumb question: Ragnarok wasn't curious about anything other than food and the female anatomy.
All the same, I was curious, very curious. A few days ago, I had been sent on another special mission by Professor Stein to rescue some freshmen, Janine LaGrande and Ivy Plant, from a gangster, Damien Leopard. It was weird, it felt like it was about a year ago. Anyway, the Professor had given me a secret mission as well, to get information about someone called Hernandez Pablo. I failed, of course…
I had searched the name on the internet at least a dozen times since then, and nothing of interest had popped up. This time was no different. There was a soccer player by the name of Pablo Hernandez, but not much else. According to the Internet, Hernandez Pablo didn't exist.
It bothered me. It always bothered me when the Academy kept secrets. Again, it made me think of my time with… her. She would never tell me why she ordered me to do things, like murder people, kill my pet rabbit which she practically forced me to get attached to…
I shook my head violently. Those times were over. She's dead now. She's gone…
Why did I never quite believe that?
…
At 7am, I got out of the house, trying to get away from the latest pit of paranoia I had dug and focus on the task at hand… this totally insane and stupid task…
Anyway, the rain had stopped and the sun had come out, which was comforting, I guess, so I thought that I should maybe get some food, and so made my way down to the Café on Graveyard Boulevard. I had some great memories from there: mostly involving just getting invited there by friends. I remembered getting an invite just after I started my new life in Death City to get a Coffee with Kid, Liz and Patty. I smiled, it was the first time I really felt… popular… you know, like people really liked me, and not just one or two people either, but a whole lot of people liked me.
There was a moment on that day that really stuck out to me. It was a really small thing, and nobody else remembered it, but I did: the waitress had brought the coffees, and Kid suddenly froze, like he had just stumbled on a corpse. It was because they had covered one half of his coffee with those cocoa sprinkles, but not the other. He fell backwards over his seat, his head landing in some sophomore's tea. I yelled out that I thought he was having a heart attack and urging somebody to call an ambulance, and Patty started laughing.
Of course, now I know that Patty will laugh at almost anything, but at the time, it just felt really good. I made somebody feel good that day. She wasn't afraid of me, none of them were, and I was reminded of that every time I walked in here. Just walking in and smelling the coffee made my eyes damp with nostalgia. It was stupid, I know, but I really, really loved this place.
Just then, my smile grew as I saw three of my friends: Maka, Soul, and Kid. I went over to them, still slightly hesitant to approach. Even despite all the good times, scars never fully heal. The possibility of rejection still festered in the back of my mind. I guess that I had gotten used to it, accepted that it was there and wasn't going away. It was sad but true, but a small part of me expected rejection.
Most of me, though, knew that these friends would never do that to me.
They seemed deep in their conversation, and I started to feel concerned. They had stern looks on their faces; what they were talking about must have been important. Maybe I should leave them to it.
"Hello Crona" Kid said to me, cracking a small forced smile. "Come, sit."
"Oh, thank you" I replied, and took a seat next to him, opposite Soul. It was obvious that something was wrong with them: Kid sighed heavily as soon as he told me to sit down, Soul was staring down at the table, only glancing up at me for a second in acknowledgement, and Maka was just staring out the window. Half her face was reflected in the glass, she was sad, concerned. I hadn't seen them like this since the Kishin was around.
It really killed me to see them like this, "Is, is everything okay, guys?"
Kid and Soul nodded almost in unison. It was robotic and automatic. Maka stayed silent. I felt so helpless: they could each make me feel better any time I felt down, and now I could do absolutely nothing when they needed cheering up.
"Hm?" Maka suddenly said, spinning her head around to look at me. "Oh, yeah, Crona, everything's just fine" she said with transparent cheerfulness.
Why were they doing this? "Have I done something, guys?"
Maka shook her head. "No, Crona." Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Soul's brow furrow, like what I said annoyed him.
The next few minutes were overtaken by a colossally heavy silence. You know when you really, really want to say something, just so there would be some sound, but can't think what to say?
"Well…" said Ragnarok, pretty much the only person here who I did not want to break the silence, "these guys aren't giving us anything, might as well go home."
"Ragnarok, no" I said wearily.
"I wanna go home!" ranted Ragnarok, the spoilt brat that he was. I looked up at the others in embarrassment, and they were mercifully ignoring him. "And you are not looking up that Pablo guy! We are watching TV. Preferably something with ladies in it!"
I was about to tell him to shut his trap and remind him who he relied on to feed him. But then, finally, one of my friends broke the silence.
"What did you say?" said Soul, his attention now fully on Ragnarok, with a flare he hadn't had until Ragnarok spoke.
"What is it Soul?" said Maka, also now interested.
Ragnarok fidgeted a little and tugged on a lock of my hair, "I said that I want to go home and look at girls in bikinis! Why? You wanna come with us? GET YOUR OWN GIR-"
"Not that, you idiot!" exclaimed Soul, breaking his usual calm and cool way of speaking. I had only really heard him this intense in a fight, it was pretty jarring, to tell you the truth. "You said something about 'Pablo'. What was it?" Soul was getting really agitated. My throat went dry and it was even more difficult to say something to say.
But then it hit me: he was asking about 'Pablo'…
Before Ragnarok could answer, I leapt in, "Pablo? Soul, what do you know about Pablo?" I asked, louder than I meant to, making other people look at us, I was slightly embarrassed, but too distracted by the question for it to bother me, "Where did you hear that name?"
Soul looked down at the table for a second and scratched the back of his head, "The werewolf…" he said, "The werewolf said it! He said that that was who he was working for."
"What Werewolf?" I snapped without meaning to, suddenly deathly afraid. This was all starting to sound deathly familiar.
"Why? Where have you heard it?" asked Soul, and I explained about my special mission.
With that, they told me about the ordeal that Maka and Soul had just been through: being abducted straight out of Death City, and threatened to sacrifice them to bring back… and they stopped after that, but I knew who they were talking about.
My throat was dry. Even from beyond the grave, that Woman still found ways to hurt me and the ones I care about…
"Well, are you guys okay?" I asked at last.
"Yeah…" breathed Maka, "we're fine." She gave a small smile. It was obvious that she was hiding a load of fear behind it. I couldn't help but sigh in awe; it really was wonderful how she would force a smile for me… for everyone… whenever she was going through pain. Maka Albarn truly was the bravest person I'd ever met.
Soul was, of course, almost as brave. He would have had to have been, if Maka chose him as his weapon. I found that I had a lot of respect for him, and a lot of affection for him too. He hid his fear too, not by smiling, simply by not showing he had it, putting up his usual cool demeanour.
He was devoted to Maka… and her to him… they would die for each other…
I blinked, bringing myself back to reality. "So… this Pablo person…"
Kid, until this point, had listened silently. He stared knowingly into space, nodding every so often. Finally, he said, "This academy keeps a lot of secrets" he said calmly, but with an obvious hint of bitterness in his voice. "And those secrets are almost always dangerous. If there's no record of him, it's because Father and the other staff don't want us to know about him. Much like with Ashura and the magic tools."
Maka nodded in agreement, "We know nothing about him, but Professor Stein sure seems to know who he is."
"We should ask" said Kid.
I groaned, knowing that even if I didn't go with them, the Professor would know I had told them. Still, it only took me a second to dismiss those thoughts; after all, I was as curious as any of them.
Speaking of the Professor… "Hey, what time is it?" I asked.
Soul looked at his watch, "8:40" he said.
It was time for me to get going. "I gotta go guys."
Maka looked concerned, and I had to make a conscious effort not to blush, "aren't you coming with us?"
"Yes" said Kid, "Our complaints will carry more weight if there are four of us."
"Sorry, guys" I said, and I actually meant it. To tell you the truth, I kind of felt I was letting them down. "I have a job to do, training the freshmen."
"Training the freshmen?" said Soul, raising his eyebrow, "what are you teaching them."
"Uh…" I never realised how bad this sounded until I was about to say it out loud, "actually, I have to… scare them…" I rubbed my arm, hoping that they wouldn't think less of me.
The solid thirty seconds of silence didn't help my confidence. I could feel myself shrinking in my chair. I said goodbye to them and begrudgingly went on my way, to the entrance to the sewers, where the freshmen meisters were waiting for me.
…
The entrance to the sewers, a pot hole in an alley way, was everything I had expected to be: smelly, dirty looking, and very uninviting. I didn't even want to touch it, much less go down into the sewers underneath.
"We are not going down there…" said Ragnarok, unknowingly voicing what I was thinking.
I sighed, "We have to… Professor Stein gave us a job to do, after all."
"Who cares? Damn that Doctor Strange wannabe to hell and go home and watch movies with hot chicks!"
He really didn't think of anything else, did he? "Look, Ragnarok, we are students, he's a teacher, we've got to respect his authority." But then I wondered by the hell I was telling Ragnarok this. I doubted that letting down someone in authority was something he really cared about, what with never actually having any concept of shame.
"Besides…" I added, hoping that I could appeal to what senses I knew he did have, "do you really want to piss off Stein, after what happened in Italy."
Ragnarok tugged painfully on my ear, something he always did when he wasn't getting his own way, but was no less painful the more times he did it. "I am not scared of that screw-headed Raggedy Ann!"
I managed to open my eyes, which were watering from the pain in my ear. "Oh look, here he comes now."
Ragnarok disappeared faster than I thought was possible, and I couldn't help but laugh a little. I tried to hold it in, because Ragnarok would kill me if I didn't, but I was afraid I might burst.
So, in an effort to take my mind off of it, I took a flashlight out of my coat pocket and placed it under my chin to hold it against my chest as I removed the cover of the hole and climbed down the ladder.
The smell filled me up like I was drowning in it. The murky stench of I-don't-even-want-to-think-what was pretty much all I was experiencing for a few seconds. It was in my nose and in my mouth, completely consuming my senses.
It wasn't much better once I got down there and even after I got used to the smell: there was this damp feeling, which almost felt dirty on my skin, like my hands and face were covered in a layer of grim. On top of that, it was cold. Cold like that room…
I gasped as images of her came back to me… and that room… and the darkness…
The creak of the door in the complete blackness was deafening, overwhelming-
"CRonA! WHy DiD yOU GeT US tHrOwN IN HeRE AgAIn! crONA!"
"FIVE DAYS! CRONA! YOu WilL sTAy IN HeRe FoR… DAYS…"
"nO fOoD-"
"NO WaTEr"
"THIS…. NO! THIS ISN'T REAL! No mOThEr PleaSE!"
MAKA! MAKA!
I tried to picture her face, the good times we've had. Slowly, my breathing calmed down, and so did I…
"It's not real…" I whispered aloud.
I staggered forward, and stumbled over something squishy. I jumped back and almost fell over. My heart was still beating like a jackhammer.
I fumbled around with the flashlight, and eventually shone it in front of me.
My eyes widened as the light revealed a bloated, discoloured corpse. But it wasn't so much that which made me want to throw up. I mean, I've seen plenty of corpses in my life.
But this was the first one I'd seen with sickly looking grey mushrooms growing out of its eyes and out of rips in his skin.
…
Kid had been unable to sleep since the incident in Hunsbury. All the same, he was perfectly alert now: now that the possibility of getting some answers presented itself.
This Pablo person, the secret missions, the Cult of Medusa, and the wiping out of the Succubi and Incubi. Kid was certain that they were all connected: the DWMA does not keep secrets willy-nilly. There was something going on, and he swore on his honour as a Reaper that he would find out what.
Just then, Maka and Soul, who had been walking silently and purposefully in front of him until now, suddenly stopped in their tracks. Kid looked up, and saw that a crowd had gathered around. He rolled his eyes at how people got hysterical about the smallest things. Things that were insignificant, and whose symmetry did not offend.
But then he saw, to his horror and sadness, what they had gathered around to see: he was almost sick from the mere sight of it.
The crowd was gaping in horror at a fungus-infested corpse of a young man.
…
Franken Stein growled in frustration, gripping the edge of his swivel chair as if to thrust the life out of it.
How could he have been so foolish? It was his job to protect the students from the horrors of the Kishin, a job which Lord Death, to whom he owed no less than his life, had entrusted him with. He had failed again.
The box. The Concrete box that Maka and Soul had brought back, the one with a pulsating wavelength of madness, with the terrible screaming coming from within, lay before him.
It was open, and the Kishin inside was loose in Death City.
…
Before the sick feeling had gone away, I heard light footsteps behind me.
It was hard to take my eyes off the corpse, but all the same, I turned around. It must have been one of the freshmen, one of those I was down here to scare. That didn't matter, though: something bigger was going on here, something which had killed, and would more than likely kill again.
"Look…" I started to say as I turned.
"It's you!" exclaimed the incredibly scared voice.
It was Ivy Plant, one of the freshmen I rescued, holding a long, rusty looking Halberd with oddly shaped barbs at the ends of the blades which I assumed to be Janine LaGrande. Ivy looked at me with wide, horrified eyes, "Did… did you-" suddenly, she gave a truly terrified scream.
I turned back to the corpse. My mouth went dry. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It had to be another hallucination, it just had to be.
There's no way that that corpse was sitting up by itself!
To be continued…
Part 2; same time next month.