I just want to say thanks for your reviews. The spirit boost gives me something to look forward to when continuing this FanFiction. Plus, it helps give me a bit of confidence that I am at least writing well enough to be legible and fun to read. Anyway, enjoy this next chapter! ^~^
Disclaimer: I do not own Xiaolin Showdown or any of it's original characters (even though I would really like to.) However, any unheard of characters that appear (such as the siblings and the parents (somewhat) all belong to me. Thanks.
Chapter Seven.
Gaining Ground.
Chase stops, his smile fading into a scowl as a deep growl sounds from his throat. "I don't think I heard you correctly Spicer, what was that you just said?" I stay silent, keeping a level headed stare to his golden eyes. He comes forward and grabs the collar of my shirt, hoisting me up so that the toes of my boots barely touch the ground. I close my hands into light fists, unsure as to why I'm doing it, and this tingling sensation crawls under my skin. It's almost like energy but a little too heavy and persistent to be a small boost of adrenaline. "You do not have the right to talk to me that way, worm."
I pry his hands off of my shirt, catching him by surprise with my sudden act that doesn't include groveling at his feet. Speaking of which, now that I stand on my own our height difference is a little more noticeable. The tingling becomes a little more noticeable and I push it down, something telling me that I shouldn't allow whatever it is to control my actions. "I have the right to speak to you in any way I choose to." I keep my voice steady, hoping it doesn't quiver as bad as my shaking hands. "You do not get to treat people like trash just because you think you're better then everyone else." His surprised expression speaks volumes about my attitude change. "You may be some kind of lord of darkness, but every lord is only as good as his ruling technique and quite frankly, your technique sucks. Being all high and mighty doesn't mean that you get to have some kind of excuse to make people feel bad about themselves."
He eyes me as I finish my small scolding, if you can even call it that, looking for some kind of idea as to why I would stop worshiping him the way I used to. When he doesn't find one he settles his gaze back up to mine, his eyes flickering with anger. "You have a lot of gall to talk to me the way you just did, insect." I watch his hands twitch every now and then, expecting them to reach up and possibly snap my neck. Every time they twitch the tingling becomes insistent and ready to meet his challenge a little more head on then what I'm ready for. "However," I flick my gaze back up to his. "that will not be approached as of right now. So consider yourself lucky that I still have more pressing matters to attend to before I teach you a lesson in respect." A smile crosses my face, being able to insult him is one thing, but getting away with it for even a few minutes is one of accomplishment. The tingling dies back down.
I look over at the basement door, which is being opened by my prying father, and Chase slips into the shadows with his tiger. My dad walks in and looks around on the floor, expecting me to still be lying there either dead or in serious pain. When he finds no sign of me ever being there he starts to look around the basement, a slightly frantic look to his fast movements, until his eyes land on me still standing beside my computer desk. "How are you up and walking?" He looks me over. "Better yet, where are your bruises, cuts and broken bones?"
"Healed...I'm a fast healer..." Chase scoffs a bit from his hiding place in the shadows, undoubtedly seeing right through my lie.
My dad approaches me, stopping only when he's within arms reach. "That's not possible, no one can heal such a serious beating." His hand lashes out and grabs a handful of my hair, turning my head from side to side as he looks for the place of impact that had caused bleeding from the first throw. The tingling becomes a throbbing warmth, and something in me wants to reach out and break his hand, making it a little hard to push back down as I force my arms to stay by my side. "Are you hiding some sort of machine or concoction you've created that can heal?" He releases my head and I rub the sore spot he's created. The warmth doesn't recede, and as he stares down at me I have to do everything to force the warmth into submission before he notices, only succeeding in turning it back into a light tingling.
"N-." I stop, catching myself early before I have to come up with a quicker explanation. Still not wanting to share Intoru's secret until he allows for it. "Yes!" The sudden tone change makes him tense up and that tingling rises back into the sudden warmth, which turns into a searing hotness that feels like it's making my blood boil. "Yes, I did...it's a serum that I was testing." I push a smile across my face to look slightly excited while I force the hot feeling back into submission. "It works, haha..." I chuckle a little nervously, relaxing when it's submitted into a mildly annoying throb.
He looks me up and down. "Then where is it?"
I bite my tongue a bit. "I had to use it to heal myself...I don't have anymo-" He puts his hand out to stop me, and I have to stop myself from lashing out to meet his hand with a crushing grip. This change starts to worry me a bit but I do not let it show on the outside.
"Then make more. Something that can heal anything like what you had will sell quickly." His eyes flash with greed. "I expect to have one of those serums to take when I get back in a few weeks. If I do not," the greed is replaced with a bit of danger, and the throb flares up as if it's ready to meet that challenging look with an intense action. "then we will just have to redo the acts of punishment from last night." The throb goes back to it's hot feeling, but it reaches deep as if it's pulling me to tempt him into trying to hurt me again. But I force it to release me as he turns away from me.
With that he leaves, slamming the door closed as he exits the basement, and I let out a pent up sigh of relief. "You can sure come up with lies quickly." I look over to the side a bit as Chase emerges from his hiding place, and I battle the warmth back down to it's annoying throb. "But you cannot come up with one that I can't see through." He approaches me again, standing off to the side and igniting the throb again. "A serum cannot put off such strong magical attributes. So who was really here to heal you?"
"Wuya." I say her name before I even think about what I'm doing, focusing more on controlling this new feeling that refuses to leave. "Since Jellybean gave her back more of her powers she decided to come here, most likely to kill me. But when she saw that I was almost dead and that she couldn't do anything to me she healed me because she wanted to be the one who tortures and beats me to death..." The lie spills out quickly and it leaves Chase to just wait for me to finish.
"You expect me to believe that?" He does not like being lied to, that much is evident by his slowly angering tone, I groan inwardly as the throb attempts to retake it's burning feeling. When I only nod there's a moment of silence before him. "Alright." His tone is calmed back to normal and I look up at him, hoping the bit of surprise is hidden. Even the throb seems to stop at Chase's sudden submission to my lie. "I suppose that I can believe that Wuya would want to kill you herself." I search his face, nothing shows that he truly believes me, he's probably only believing it so he can leave, which is fine by me. "I now need to go have a chat with Hannibal and Wuya." He snaps his fingers and his tiger appears by his side in seconds, both of them disappearing in a cloud of smoke as Chase teleports them to another place.
I heave a heavy sigh, glad that both of the impending disasters are finally gone and I'm alone once again. Now that their both gone the throb recedes back to it's tingle which soon disappears itself and I walk to the makeshift living room that is created around the mini-fridge. I plop myself down on the stiff, sinking couch and lay back, I'm too tall to fit completely on the small couch, leaving the back of my shins to rest on the armrest and my feet to hang in the open air. As I get somewhat comfortable I silently thank whoever is watching over me that Chase has more self control then my father, or else I would more then likely be dead right now. But, I know the only reason he's keeping me alive is so that the 'disturbance' will come back and he can find out who it is causing it. I'm also glad that they're gone so that I don't have to battle whatever it was that was trying to pull itself up and out of the deepest places in both my body and soul.
As I let my thoughts take control, I let myself slip into a light sleep.
In the underworld.
No one's POV.
Sitting on a throne of skulls is a man with jet black hair, the bangs are that of fire being mainly red with the tips being yellow and only slight streaks of orange showing. His eyes are an ember color, the pupils merely slits filled with excitement as he watches a young teen battle with his inner powers. He wears a long black cloak that is tattered and frayed at the bottom, his boots are as black as the darkest shadows and his skin is the palest of whites. He wears a dark purple button up shirt with a golden collar and sleeves as well as buttons, a venomous colored green skull covers the middle of the shirt. His pants are a dark blue, much like a navy color, with black flames that go from the bottom of the leg to the knee and have a crimson trim to it. His head rests lazily on his fist and the arm is rested comfortably on the arm of his throne, the left side of his face is covered with an unknown skull, it's long faced with two sharp fangs and a long horn that juts upwards towards the ceiling. A trail of jagged cracks reaches up from the eye to the horn and down to the two lone fangs that settle as the mouth, the other half of the skull is no where to be found.
The candles that float and hang around the room flicker every time the boy's power flares up, and the man smiles as he watches the boy battle them back down. "You won't be able to hold those powers down forever, Jack. Sooner or later you will have to let them out." His voice is low and can easily travel across any amount of land to any destination it has to go. His smile is menacing as it shows a full mouth of needle tipped teeth and a forked tongue. "And I will be watching as it consumes you, whether you want it to or not."
He chuckles as the boy, known as Jack, relaxes back on a feeble couch. The once flaring power now resting idly as it waits for another opportunity to flare back up. "The last of his kind and already his potential is growing past my expectations." The man licks his lips in a greedy hunger. "It will be a very pleasurable evening when I get to bring you here to put under my control, all I need is for you to just burst out a little. Once you have an outburst, no one can stop me from taking you."
A small human-like creature cautiously approaches the skull throne, eyeing a spot behind the towering chair for something hidden among the dark shadows. "S-sire?" The youngling speaks out in a soft, shaky tone.
The man looks down at the creature, taking in it's red and black skin with a mildly annoyed gaze. "What is it now, Teren?"
The young demon swallows a lump that was forming in his throat. "The room is ready and awaiting your approval..." He lets his voice trail as the man stands, the demon shrinking and his small body shaking violently.
"Very well..." The king reaches behind his throne and draws out his weapon of choice. A double bladed scythe with a pattern of long femur bones and broken skulls that have been melded together to form the long hilt of the scythe. the blades are serrated and the silver flashes dangerously in the low candle light, a dark green swirl-like pattern flowing down the long blades. At the top is what looks like a spear tip, good for jabbing instead of swiping. "Lead the way."
The demon nods feverishly and begins to walk back down the hall, intent on keeping a good distance away from the lord and his blade. The man only smiles at the fear that radiates off of the servant and waves his hand to allow the small flame that held the image of the boy to disappear. Many ideas flowing through the mans head as he seems to hover down the hall, and a plan that's already been set into motion.
