Man, did I keep you guys waiting! This chapter's just sitting on my computer all done and I kept it from you for a week XD I'm so evil. And if you didn't think I'm evil now, you probably will later towards the end.

Anyway, enjoy the conclusion to this two parter!

Reggie groaned sleepily as he slowly woke up. He didn't remember pulling over to a motel for the night or anything. Maybe he just took a nap in his car? But then, why did he feel so cold? It didn't feel like he was sleeping in the soft seat of his car; instead it felt like he was sleeping outside or on the cold floor of an old building. His eyes shot open and he looked at his surroundings. He didn't recognize where he was, but from the looks of it, he was in an old warehouse. It was mostly empty save for a few piled up boxes and leftover sheets of metal caked in layers of dust. The smell of the water told him that he was probably down by the pier. But what happened? The last thing he remembered was getting in his car to leave the city. He had come to talk some sense into his younger twin brother, but with little success.

"Oww…" he groaned, feeling a sore pain on the back of his head. He moved his hand to feel it, but found that his hands were tied firmly behind his back with rope. He pushed himself up into a seated position with his elbow and saw that his feet were bound together as well. He struggled against the binds, but they were tight and he could already feel the ropes cutting and burning into his skin.

"I wouldn't waste your energy, if I were you" Reggie looked behind him and saw a cloaked woman emerge from the shadows. "Remember me?" she asked. Reggie narrowed his eyes, focusing in on her before it all came flooding back to him. He was driving and stopped when he almost hit an old woman. Only, it wasn't an old woman.

"Wh-who are you? What are you?" he cried fearfully, his pulse racing faster with each step the woman took towards him. He tried to move away, but couldn't get far with his hands and feet bound.

"Why, I would expect a Ryder slayer like yourself to know. The red eyes should be a dead giveaway," she said, reaching down towards him and grabbing him by the collar of his sweater and shirt in one hand and lifting him off the ground.

"S-slayer? What are you talking about?"

"Do not pretend with me, human! You wear the Ryder sigil on your clothes! You are one of their slayers. You clan as contributed to the extermination of countless numbers of my kind!" she shouted.

"Y-you mean… y-you're a…?" Reggie exhaled shakily.

"A demon? Yes. I am Hou Yi, a Commander of the Shadow Legion," she said, dropping Reggie roughly on the cold floor of the warehouse.

"But… but that's impossible! Demons aren't real!" he protested.

"Are you saying I am not real?" Hou Yi accused, pushing Reggie onto his back with her foot and pinning him where with her foot on his shoulder. "I am as real as the air you breath, you pathetic little insect! Did your clan teach you nothing?|

Reggie simply stared up at this purple-skinned woman with red eyes claiming to be a demon. He could barely believe it… All those times his parents talked about demons, they were right! He always thought they were just crazy fools obsessed with old myths and legends, but Reggie couldn't deny the hard evidence right in front of him. His entire world felt like it was crashing down on him! Everything he thought he knew was wrong! All those times he called them and Remy crazy fools. Reggie felt his chest tighten as he was suddenly washed with a pang of guilt to all the things he said to them.

"Heh, can you believe this Jun? A Ryder slayer that doesn't think demons are real?" Hou Yi asked as a second figure emerged from the shadows. Reggie quickly recognised this one as the one who pulled him out of his car and knocked him out.

"P-please just let me go! I'm not even a hunter!" Reggie cried.

"Get off him, Hou Yi, it's not like he's going to get very far anyway," Jun said, pulling her off Reggie. "You wear the Ryder crest, yet you are not a slayer?" he asked, kneeling next to Reggie as he pointed to the crest on his sweater.

"Just because I was born into the clan doesn't mean I'm a slayer!" Reggie argued.

"And why not?"

"I-I didn't think any of it was true: demons, the legacy of hunting them since ancient times? It sounded too crazy to be real!"

"You didn't believe?" Jun asked and Reggie shook his head. "And what do you believe now?"

"I-I don't know," he whispered.

"A burden many share, sadly."

"Oh enough of this! Let's just kill him and be done with it! I didn't come here to make small talk with humans!" Hou Yi shouted impatiently.

"No, you came here because I promised to keep your deception to our master a secret. If you wish that to still be so, then you will do as I say, Hou Yi! Or did you want master to find out that you lied about what happened to the Gemini Sign and have been keeping it for yourself?" Hou Yi inhaled sharply and swiftly turned away, leaving the situation rather than acting out. "That's what I thought."

"Well, I'm tired of waiting around. I already sent your message to the slayer! What is taking him so long? Maybe he's not coming?" she suggested.

"No, he will come. Even if there is nothing between them, Remington will not allow an innocent to die by my hand. Honor will demand he comes."

"Remington? What do you want with my brother?" Reggie shouted, sitting up.

"Brother? I suspected you two had to be related. The resemblance between you both is uncanny," Jun remarked.

"We're twins," Reggie muttered with a glare. "Why do you want my brother?"

"Simple: I wish to fight him. I have battled many warriors in my lifetime, even one of your slayer ancestors, but none have proven to be as resilient and challenging as your brother."

"Then why not just walk up to him and ask? Why go through all this trouble?" Reggie shouted.

"Heh, were it so easy. I needed to get Remington alone. Circumstances so far have been largely unfavorable and I cannot get a fair duel with him when his friends will always be around to interfere. Rest assured, you will remain unharmed. Once I've had my battle with your brother, you will be released and free to go, regardless of the outcome."

Reggie was about to shout something in protest, but all three were alerted by the sound of an approaching vehicle. "Someone's coming," Hou Yi alerted, readying her bow.

A black and green motorcycle came into view through the open warehouse doors with a rider dressed in the same colors. The hum of the motorcycle died down and the rider stepped off, angrily tearing off his helmet and tossing it aside as he walked into the warehouse. "Kidnap my brother, Jun? Kidnap my brother? Now you've gone too far!" Remy shouted, pulling out his collapsible jian and katana.

"Relax, I never intended to hurt him. I simply needed something to draw you away from your friends so we could fight uninterrupted."

Remy turned to Reggie and his expression softened. "You ok, Reg?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm ok," he exhaled.

"We'll, I'm here now, aren't I? Let him go!"

"No," Jun said, "We fight first and then I release him."

"For someone who's been spouting about their honor every time we fight, this has got to be the most dishonorable thing you've done! But then again, I suppose I should have expected this kind of act from someone of the Shadow Legion."

"I am not here as the Shadow Legion, Remington."

"My brother didn't choose the life of a hunter like I did! He's just a civilian!"

"I did not wish to drag your family into this, but I needed to get you alone. You have my apologies," Jun said sincerely.

"I don't want your apology! I want my brother!" Remy shouted, pointing at them with his sword.

"And you may have him, but only after we've had our duel."

Remy inhaled sharply and sighed, glaring angrily at Jun. "Fine!" Remy and Jun charged towards each other as their swords clashed with every strike. Reggie was nearly taken aback by what he saw. He knew that out of the two of them, Remy was superior when he came to swordplay, but he never imagined to see this level of speed and dexterity in his brother! He kept watching as Remy pushed Jun's blade off him with his own pair before stabbing one into the floor. Remy quickly reached for one of his blood vials and emptied onto his katana before picking up his other blade and charging once more. Reggie had remembered that one lesson about their family: that the blood of someone descended from the ancient Ryder hunters would be able to harm a demon on contact. It was just another thing he brushed off as a silly myth, but now… now he didn't know what to think. He watched as the two pushed away from each other and Jun waved his sword, summoning his starbolts. One by one each little blue orb flew towards Remy. He was able to slice through or deflect the first wave, but one slipped through and struck him in the shoulder. His balance compromised, Remy couldn't raise his swords back up time to block the last three hits, one of which hit him right in the chest and knocked him back roughly onto the floor. His swords fell to the ground with a sharp clang as Remy quickly gripped his chest. The hit from that starbolt didn't hurt too badly, but it did reignite the pain from his almost healed injury from when he was punched by the Cancer Sign's armor projection.

"Remy!" Reggie cried, leaning forward.

"Quiet!" Hou Yi hissed, pulling him back by his hood sharply.

"Don't you touch him!" Remy shouted, throwing three of his sun blades at Hou Yi, who easily deflected them to the ground with her bow.

"Why you!" she shouted, reaching for an arrow and preparing to draw back her bow.

"Stop! You will stand down, Hou Yi!" Jun ordered with a serious glare. Hou Yi met his glare with one of her own before exhaling in annoyance and putting her arrow back in her quiver.

"Remy, are you ok?" Reggie cried in worry.

"Don't worry about me!" he quickly shouted, pushing himself off the floor with one of his swords. Reggie gasped in worry when he saw blood dripping down from the corner of Remy's mouth. Remy noticed it too and wiped his mouth with the back of his glove. "I'll get you out of here," he promised.

"You're injured…" Jun noted.

"Yeah, so?"

"Not from my attack, but from a previous encounter."

"Oh, don't feel guilty on my account, especially when you went through all the trouble to kidnap my brother! You wanted a duel, right? Then let's go!"

Jun thought for a moment before smiling, "Very well then. Do not expect me to go easy on you."

"I don't," Remy responded seriously. The battle recommenced as their swords met again and again. With one swift movement, Jun managed to knock the katana out of Remy's hand, but he still had his jian. Remy leapt back to put some space between them again before pressing a switch on the jian handle. The blade suddenly broke into pieces, each connected to one by a thin cable. Remy waved his arm and slashed the chain sword against Jun's blade. He moved his arm differently, causing the sword to strike from the side. Jun quickly turned to block it with his shoulder armor before sending another wave of starbolts at Remy. Remy retracted the sword and rolled out of the way of the starbolts. He whipped the sword at Jun again, who raised his arm, causing the whip to wrap around his gauntlet. He held his sword down over the gauntlet to keep the whip in place and prevent Remy from retracting it for another attack.

"Ugh, enough of this. I'm getting bored," Hou Yi huffed. She reached behind her beneath her dark cloak and pulled out the Gemini Sign. She held out the Sign towards the two dueling swordsmen and activated its power. All of a sudden, copies of Jun appeared all around them.

"What are you doing?" Jun shouted at her.

"Isn't it obvious? I'm making this go along faster!" Hou Yi called back with a cheeky grin. On her command, the Jun copies drew their swords and attacked. Seeing this, the real Jun released his lock on Remy's whip sword, allowing the slayer to retract his blade. Jun ducked to the floor as Remy waved the sword around them in a circle, striking each of the clones and knocking them all back.

"So that's how you want to play it?" Remy accused.

"This isn't what I want," Jun assured him.

"Then maybe you should reevaluate who you work with!" he shouted, moving to attack the clones that advanced once more.

As Reggie continued watching them, he noticed something shining to his left. It was one of the circular blades that Remy had thrown at Hou Yi. Reggie quickly looked at Hou Yi and sighed in relief to see that she was far too engrossed in watching Remy and Jun fight the latter's duplicates. Slowly and carefully, he inched his way over to the blade. His hands were still tied behind his back so he had to slowly feel for the blade. He hissed when he felt the blade slice his right palm, but bit down on his tongue to quiet himself. He couldn't risk alerting Hou Yi to what he was doing. As he felt the blood begin trickling out from the wound and coating his hand, he reached for the blade carefully and without cutting himself or making too much noise, was able to pull it out from the floor. He fiddled with the blade in his hands, trying to position it in a way that he could hold it to start cutting through the ropes without cutting himself too.

As Reggie struggled to cut the ropes, Remy dodged an attack from another Jun duplicate and wound up backing into another Jun. Remy quickly whipped around to strike the duplicate with his sword, but Jun blocked it with his own. "Hold! I'm the real one!" he shouted.

"And how do I know that?" Remy argued.

Jun narrowed his eyes at Remy in annoyance before noticing a duplicate advance from behind. He raised his sword and Remy ducked instinctively as Jun held out his sword and a bright blue beam shot out from the tip of the sword and struck the duplicate. When Remy noticed the duplicate that almost caught him by surprise being knocked back, he looked back up to Jun - the real Jun - with surprise.

"I didn't tell her to do that. One-on-one is all I want."

"What do you propose then?" Remy asked cautiously.

"A temporary truce. We take care of these duplicates together and then we return to our duel," Jun suggested, turning sharply to block an attack from one of his copies.

"And how do I know you'll honor your word and let my brother go?" Remy asked, doing the same as another clone came at him from behind. Soon enough, they found themselves back to back facing the army of Juns.

Meanwhile, Reggie still struggled to hold the blade correctly and almost dropped it. Thankfully, he didn't and Hou Yi remained focused on the fight in front of them. He felt the ropes slack and pushed harder to slice the blade through the rest of his bindings. He pulled his wrists free and moved the blade to cut the ropes around his ankles. He scrambled to his feet, alerting Hou Yi to his escape.

"Where do you think you're going?" she shouted. She moved to reach for Reggie, gripping his sweater in her hands. Reggie instantly reached for her arm to pry her hand off him. To his surprise, she immediately released her grip on him and stepped back, screaming loudly in pain as she held her forearm. Reggie stared at her with wide eyes, questioning what she was screaming about. He looked at her arm and noticed the blood from the cut on his hand had gotten on her. It was true… All of it was true and never had it been more clear to him before now that everything he believed was wrong. Reggie took his chance to get away as Hou Yi dropped the Sign, causing the duplicates to vanish.

Remy saw his brother free and quickly pushed himself away from Jun. He reached into the pouch on his belt and threw down three smoke bombs. The warehouse was suddenly filled with thick, grey smoke and Jun lost sight of Remy as he disappeared within its depths. Remy ran through the smoke and reached out to the obscured figure in front of him.

"Relax! It's me!" he cried, feeling his brother struggle under his grip, only to relax once Remy spoke. Without another word, Remy pulled his brother towards the exit of the warehouse where his bike was parked. He handed Reggie the helmet and motioned for him to get on. Jun dashed out of the warehouse and the smoke when he heard the engine start, but the motorcycle was already far away. He glared angrily as his rival rode off before turning back to Hou Yi as the smoke began to clear. The archer was still hunched over, on her knees grasping her hand as she hissed in pain. Jun moved up to her and lifted her up by the collar of her cloak.

"You interfered!" he shouted.

"Make it stop!" she cried. "It hurts!"

Jun looked at her arm and saw blood on it. It wasn't hers since it was a deep red and since Remy never got close to her, it had to be from their captive. He glared angrily at her before picking up the Sign and dragging her off to their way back to the Netherworld. For a moment, he considered telling Tzan Ren that Hou Yi had kept the Gemini Sign from him, but up until halfway through, she had technically followed his commands. He should have expected her to pull a stunt like this, but she was more than paying for it now with the hunter's blood burning her skin. As he dragged Hou Yi away while she still screamed in pain, he looked back to the city. He lost his chance again to get a full fight with Remy, but he would not rest until he got what he wanted, what he deserved in the end.

After a trip to the hospital to get Reggie's hand sewn up and Remy's injuries checked out. Thankfully, it was a quick visit and the brothers sat in the park as the sun began to rise.

"So…" Reggie started.

"So…" Remy repeated.

"This is really still a lot to take in."

"Take your time," Remy mused.

"Why didn't you ever tell me about all of this?" Reggie cried.

"Reg, I've been telling you about this for years."

"And I never believed you…"

"Yeah."

The two brothers sat next to each other in silence, looking around and avoiding eye contact while trying to bear through the awkward silence that had settled between them.

"I'm sorry," Reggie spoke.

"Huh?" Remy turned to his brother with a look of confusion on his face.

"For all those times I called you and mom and dad crazy. I'm sorry."

Remy smiled, "It's ok. You didn't know any better."

"But I should have! I should have believed you guys! I shouldn't have called you all those awful things!"

"Reg, it's all in the past," Remy said, placing a reassuring hand on his brother's shoulder.

"Your… oddly ok with all of this."

"Reg, I accepted a long time ago that I would probably never be able to convince you of our family cause and that demons are real. You believed what you wanted to believe and I believed what I wanted to believe. We just… chose different paths."

"But wouldn't it have been so easy for you to just show me the proof that demons are real? Like one of your kills?" he asked.

"Maybe. Or maybe I was satisfied knowing you were happy living the life you chose even if it was in ignorance. Let's face it, Reg, out of the two of us, you're not a very good fighter."

"So, you were trying to protect me? By pushing me away like that?"

"I guess you could call it that. How did you track me down, by the way?"

"It wasn't easy. You moved around a lot and you moved fast. I got in touch with Ren and she told me you set up shop in Los Angeles. I won't lie, I was wondering what made you stop moving around and I can see it was probably those friends of yours."

"Ha, yeah. Funny thing, I came to this city because of them."

"Why?" Reggie asked.

"Well, I was actually here to hunt them," Remy admitted, nervously scratching the back of his head.

"You mean… they're demons?" he exclaimed, but quickly quieted down when Remy hushed him.

"Not all of them, just Liam, Mala and Drago, uh, the two guys with black hair and the brunette."

"Wait, wait, wait, if they're demons, then why-"

"Am I hanging out with them?" Remy finished. "Well, it's a long story. When I got here in fall of last year, I relentlessly hunted them. But, then they saved my life when they could have easily left me to die. I realized that just because they were demons, it didn't make them bad people. Not all demons are bad, just like not all humans are good."

"That actually makes a lot of sense. But hang on, I spoke with Mala yesterday and why didn't she just show me that she's a demon? Make this whole thing a lot easier?"

"They did ask me why I didn't just tell you which of them were demons, but their secrets aren't mine to give away, even if it's to you. And maybe deep down, if someday you were to start believing, part of me was hoping that I'd be the one to convince you."

"Well, after being kidnapped and held hostage by a pair of demons so that one of them could fight my little brother in a swordfight, call me convinced," Reg said as the two laughed. "The way you fought, it was really impressive."

"Thanks."

"Those, uh, circular blades you used earlier. I didn't recognize them from the usual Ryder arsenal. They new?" Reg asked.

"Yeah," Remy said, pulling one out and handing it to Reggie to show him. "I got it off of a Demon Sorcerer we defeated earlier this year."

"You guys fought an actual Demon Sorcerer?" he exclaimed.

"We've actually fought four and that was at the beginning of the year. You saw those news broadcasts about those ice pillars, right? We took down the guys who caused that."

"Wow, you really have been busy since mom and dad died, haven't you?" Reggie asked, handing the blade back to Remy.

"Yeah, we're actually dealing with an entire demon army right now, the Shadow Legion. Those two that kidnapped you, Hou Yi and Jun, they're two of its commanders. Their leader is Liam's father."

"His father?"

"Yeah and I know what you're thinking and don't worry. Liam hates his old man. If I remember correctly this would count as the second time his father's tried to kill him. They've got a complicated relationships."

"Speaking of complicated relationships," Reggie said, changing the subject, "What about us?"

"Us? Well, I imagine we'll have less to argue about now," Remy chuckled.

"Ha, yeah. So you're going to stay here, I imagine?"

"Yeah, my friends need me and honestly, I need them. I like it here."

"You've got some good friends."

"I do," Remy nodded with a smile. "So what are you going to do then?"

"Well, I've gotta head home. I enrolled in some summer courses and they start next week. But maybe after they're done, I could come for another visit?" Reggie asked, standing up.

"Yeah, I'd like that," Remy said, standing up and facing his brother. Reggie held out his right hand for Remy to shake, but remembered the bandage wrapped around the cut on his palm and instead extended his left hand. Remy took his brother's hand and gave it a firm shake as they exchanged smiles.

"Shit, I just remembered," Reggie suddenly exclaimed.

"What?" asked Remy.

"My car! When those demons kidnapped me, they ripped off one of my doors. It's probably been towed by now."

"Don't worry. We'll find your car and we can fix up whatever damage those two caused."

"How?" Reggie asked.

"Again, a long story."

Awww, isn't it nice how the two brothers have reconciled? :3

Next chapter: The Strikers face the third Commander of the Shadow Legion, Wei Gong, in a place they'd never thought they'd have to go.