A Tale of Two Torrents

By Dixxy

Epilogue

(Cye)

A few weeks passed since the incident with Termini and Sara's teleportation. Now that she was getting a hang of it, it wasn't abnormal for me to come home and find her sitting on the couch with a big smile on her face, waiting for my return to my apartment. Sometimes she nearly gave me a heart attack when I found her in the apartment, but ever since we found out about the whole Chosen Mate thing, I haven't been able to stay mad at her very long.

Oh, don't get me wrong- I'm pissed off at her quite infrequently and I know that she's let me have it a few times, but I think our armors are helping us get along better. Can they stop us from fighting on a daily basis? No. But they do help us kiss and make-up in the end (literally), which is a good thing.

Dash has since moved in with Sara's family. Anubis somehow taught him to shape-shift, so now if they have company or they take him out for a walk, he looks like your normal everyday husky instead of the somewhat badly scarred Nether Realm dog. He definitely sees Sara and I as his master and mistress, and takes any orders we give him very seriously. Sadly, some of Sara's orders for Dash involve eating her brother's underwear, but she seems to think Trevor deserves it.

Well. . . most of the time he does. . . I think.

Dash and Tiger Lily get along fairly well, I think. Sometimes they go off hunting together and once the two of them showed up on Ria's doorstop with a bench that HAD been bolted to the ground. She had to get help from both Kento and Sam to bring it back to its rightful place so she could weld it back into the ground.

Speaking of Kento, he came up with a "special" nickname for Dash: Sponge Ass Squash Butt. He and Sage must have been watching WAY too many cartoons (especially Sponge Bob Square Pants for obvious reasons) and came up with a song. Still, Dash seems to like the song (though how I'm not sure) and tries to bark along with anyone who sings.

Like he did at one of our last meetings at Mike's house.

"OH! Who lives in a Dynasty under the sea?" Kento sang.

"Sponge Ass Squash Butt!" Sage, Rona, and Sam all answered. Dash barked.

"All scruffy and grayish and vicious is he!"

"Sponge Ass Squash Butt!"

"If Dynasty nonsense be something you wish!"

"Sponge Ass Squash Butt!"

"Then put on an armor and beat up a bitch!"

"Sponge Ass Squash Butt!"

"Ready?"

"Sponge Ass Squash Butt! Sponge Ass Squash Butt! Sponge Ass Squash Butt! Sponge Ass. . . Squash Butt!" The quartet then proceeded to laugh hysterically as Dash threw back his head and howled. The rest of us looked at our comrades in disgust, wondering where they had come up with such an immature song.

Anubis walked in, shaking his head as he took a seat. "Cute," he said dryly.

"So what's the point of today's meeting?" asked Ria.

"Actually. . . I don't have one," said Anubis. "There's just so much information at my disposal, it's hard for me to guess what will be important and what won't be. There are no evil beings trying to take over the world right now and if there are we don't know what they are- I won't go into anything until something comes up."

"So why are we here?" asked Sage.

Anubis smiled. "I ordered pizzas. You kids deserve a break."

"Pizza!" Kento and Sam shouted in unison. As if on cue, the doorbell rang. "PIZZA!"

"Dash!" Sara hissed. Dash yipped and transformed into his more acceptable self, watching happily as the two hungry teenagers brought in the multiple boxes of pizza and Anubis paid the delivery man. With the grub on the coffee table, a horde of hungry teenagers attacked the cheese, sauce, and doughy goodness that is pizza. From there we all proceeded to talk and laugh about our normal lives- school, dating, sports, and our families.

If you looked in on the lot of us, you'd never guess that we'd gone through some of the stuff we'd gone through. You'd never expect Sage was one of the last, if not the last, survivor of a legendary race. You'd never look at Kento and think he was able to see into the future. You'd never look at me and think I was some sort of a legend in my own right. You'd never look at my father and guess he WAS my father OR the fact he was several hundred years older than the rest of us.

Once only one of the pizzas remained, Sage and Kento brought the box to the fridge while the rest of us continued whatever conversations we were engaged in. A few minutes after they returned, the "meeting" came to a close. While Sage and Kento stayed behind (they DID live at Mike's house), I found myself walking Sara down the road to bring her home.

Another result of us being promised to each other, I think, is that I'm finding myself in her company quite frequently. Knowing that the two of us now had only one possible person to choose from if we ever chose to marry, we had started a somewhat shaky relationship. Still, it got stronger as each day progressed, maybe through our armors or maybe even ourselves. If things between us didn't work out, we'd be forced to remain pretty much by ourselves unless we made up.

Which stunk big time.

"That was a nice break from the normal," said Sara.

"Yeah, my father can be a bit of a 'useless information Nazi' at times, can't he?" I said.

"Tell me about it. We had to deal with stuff that you three didn't have to deal with," said Sara. "He was the one who taught us to use our armors. And he went over some pretty darn obscure details at times. You know how he is, right? He's your dad, after all."

"I wouldn't call him a 'dad', really," I said. "It's such a personalized term, really, but I still don't know him that well. And his physical age makes it hard. That's why I call him Anubis just the rest of you- it's not from disrespect, just from not being very close with him yet."

"You'll get closer to him. That's why you live alone together, right?"

"Right, I guess," I said. "Maybe it'll happen someday. . ."

Screaming.

Energy.

Pain.

Tears.

Then, bittersweet silence.

I hung motionless in my tiny prison, tears still streaming from my eyes. "No. . . make it stop!"

"Cye, calm down!" I heard Sage's voice say from somewhere. "It'll be all right."

"Yeah, Ryo and Rowen will come for us- they haven't let us down yet," Kento reassured me.

"But it's been so long!" I said. "What if Talpa's captured them already? What, what if they're dead or something? Then we can't use the Inferno and there will be no one left to protect the Mortal Realm! We're stuck in here and you both know Talpa must have more up his sleeve!"

"CYE! Cool it," said Sage. "Panicking isn't going to help us."

"He's right," said Kento. "Even I have to admit that."

I sighed heavily. "I suppose you're both right, but. . . we're being tortured!"

"Gee, you just figured that out?" Kento snapped.

"Kento, shut up, this is hard on all of us and getting crabby won't help any!" said Sage.

The sound of footsteps echoing in the distance told us our captor was coming. . .

"NO! GO AWAY! TALPA, GET AWAY FROM-"

"Cye! Calm down! It's all right, you're home now!"

I blinked. No longer was I in Talpa's torture chambers. No. I was safe and sound in my own bed, Anubis hugging me tightly as he tried to comfort me. Tears were still streaming down my eyes from the disturbing dream, and I returned the embrace, looking to my father from comfort.

"It. . . it was awful. . ." I said.

"It's all right, Cye. It's over now. You're safe," Anubis returned.

"But the nightmares make it come back," I said.

"They're only dreams. Dreams can't hurt you, even in your case," said my father. He pulled away looking me over. "Come on. Let's get something to drink, all right? Having a glass of water always makes me feel better after a bad nightmare. Washes my fears away, so to speak."

I nodded dumbly, forcing my legs onto the carpet as I padded after my father through the dark apartment. "Thank you," I said. "Even after all this time, it's still so hard to live with. Knowing all that I've put my body through, and what Sage and Kento went through with me."

"I understand," he said. We were now in the kitchen, Anubis filling two glasses with water. He handed one to me and I followed him out into the living room, where the two of us sat down on the couch. "There are times that I have nightmares, too. When I began to question Talpa and he used the Nether Spirit's powers on me, it was very much like torture as well."

"Talpa tortured you? His most prized Warlord?" I asked.

"Yes, he did," said Anubis. His eyes were narrowed solemnly as he wandered into deep thought. "I was verging on treason, though." He looked at me, smiling. "Sometimes you remind me of myself, Cye. You look a little bit like your grandmother, you know. It's sad that you two can never meet, though- she would have adored you, I think."

I smiled weakly. Part of the weirdness involved with Anubis being my father is that his entire side of my extended family really couldn't get involved- any of the ones he knew were long dead and buried. At best I had a few very, very distant cousins, and they would be impossible to track down after so many hundreds of years of marriages, births, and deaths.

I curled up in the corner of the couch, feeling better as I placed the glass on the coffee table and hugged my knees. "What were they like?" I asked. Anubis looked at me in curiosity. "My other family. Your family. My grandparents, any aunts or uncles I had, cousins maybe? What were they like?"

Anubis closed his eyes. "I had two older brothers, Yamato and Kenji. They both cared little about me and spent most of their time in training. They never married- killed before either had a chance to. My father was a rich merchant and supplied the army with many of their weapons and forging materials, which is how my brothers and I enlisted. My mother was, in fact, one of the shogun's daughters, a present of sorts to the popular merchant that my father was." He smiled. "Real sweet woman, she was. Never wish to hurt a fly and was upset as all three of us enlisted into the army. Always told us all to be careful and, if we did kill anyone, to keep our honor."

"That's why you wouldn't kill Ryo when you had him and Rowen like sitting ducks."

"Exactly. I didn't keep honor for many, many deaths. Talpa's influence pushed my mother's influence out of my mind for a very long time, but her memory was able to work its way into my thoughts long enough to spare his life. Maybe even my own soul," he said. He sighed heavily. "My parents were brutally murdered by the opposing army shortly after my brothers were killed. That was why I originally began to gain so much power- I wanted to bring honor to their names and deaths, but I forgot about that with time and became more concerned with power. That was how Talpa seduced me." He looked at me. "Don't you EVER do anything like that. You hear me?"

I shook my head. "You know I'd never do that."

Anubis laughed, putting an arm around my shoulder. "Yes, I suppose you're right. You're not much of a fighter, but you can be deadly if someone angers you of hurts one of your friends. And your elemental magic skills are quite impressive, too- I think you handle that better than you do your sure kill. That, I must say, is something I didn't expect. It's hard to control the type of magic you weren't supposed to have. If they are ever freed from their brainwashing, ask one of the other former Dark Warlords- they'll tell you how awful I was with MY elemental magic." He laughed. "I couldn't do ANYTHING with my powers. I have no idea how the other three managed to handle their magic so well." My father looked down at me, a twinkle in his eyes. "You've done me proud, Cye."

I blushed. "Thank you."

He finished the last of his water and stood up. "All right, time for bed," he announced. He looked at me. "Will you be all right?" I nodded, brining my now drained glass into the kitchen to put it into the sink- I'd get it into the morning. My father placed his cup into the sink. "Good-night, Cye."

I smiled, turning to my father. "Good night. . . Dad."