Reflections
by XellosAngel
What happens when the person least likely to love life meets the person most likely to love life? ...Let's find out, shall we? _______________________________________________________________________ __________________
Scene: A crowded shopping mall somewhere in America.
Enter a teen-age boy. One would, however, mistake him for a girl, due to the long braid dangling down his back. This is of no concern to him, as a cheerful smile is spread across his face. He's dressed all in black with a baseball cap pulled low over his forehead and is none other than the self-proclaimed "Great Destroyer," Duo Maxwell.
Duo weaves through the crowd, not paying much attention to their exclamations over the material possesions they just had to have. He is on a mission and it isn't a mission he's proud of: school shopping.
He sighs. The war was over, there was peace among the Earth and the Colonies and the Great Destroyer was going back to school. _______________________________________________________________________ __________________
Enter a seventeen-year-old girl and an older man with purple hair. The girl is also dressed all in black and has a messanger bag slung over her shoulder. The man, or shall we say Mazoku, grinning from ear to ear at the thought of all the trouble he could cause in a crowded place such as a mall, is wearing muted red and gray.
The girl pulls a paper out of her bag. She looks at it and frowns. "Ah, Xellos, why do I need to go to school?"
The demon, still smiling, wags a finger at her. "Sore wa himitsu desu."
She smacks him and he grins. "When are you going to learn, XellAn- Chan?" He asks cheerfully, "I like when you do that."
She smiles in spite of herself. "Baka." She mutters affectionatly. His smile widens. "Arigato."
She shakes her head. Why, she wonders, did I allow him to come along? This may be a painful experience. She watches as Xellos prances through a botique, a feather boa around his neck, wearing a set of sequined gloves and a matching hat perched atop his glossy hair. "May be?!" She smiles, Hell, it will be a painful experience... _______________________________________________________________________ __________________
Duo looks up when something plops on his head. He's not happy about going to school. As a result, his gaze is plastered on the floor. He pulls a sequined hat off his head. There's the sound of some one's insane giggling behind him.
"It looks good on you, ne?" a voice laughs. Duo looks at the source of the voice, a nutty-looking man with purple hair.
"I'm so sorry about...Duo?"
He looks at the girl that's speaking to him. She looks vaguely familiar to him.
She smiles. "You don't remember me, do you?"
He shakes his head. "No. Sorry."
"Ah, I don't blame you. It was a long time ago. Eight years."
His dark blue eyes widen. She was a child from the church, just like he'd been! "Your name....?"
"I was the one Sister Helen called 'Honey.' You know, because I had no name..."
He nodded.
"Oi, XellAn-Chan, you didn't tell me you had a boyfriend! I'm hurt!" The man bursts in. He gives her a puppy-dog look as his violet eyes fill up with tears.
She hits him. "Be quiet, Xellos!" She snaps. "He's not my boyfriend! I knew him back when..." Her voice lowers, "...You know..."
Duo looks at the two of them. The girl called "Honey" would be about seventeen then.He had no clue how old the man, Xellos, was. He could've been anywhere from in his twenties to his late forties for all Duo knew.
Xellos grinned. "Ah, I'm only teasing, XellAn-Chan! Can't you tell?"
She scowls. "When aren't you teasing?" She mutters under her breath. She looks at Duo. "What have you been up to?"
He blinks. She didn't know? He thought every one knew. "I'm the Great Destroyer." He states plainly.
It's her turn to be surprised.She stares at him. "You...? I never knew..."
Xellos isn't impressed. "Who?" He asks in a bored sort of voice.
Duo glares at him. "The Great Destroyer. The God of Death. Shinigami. Take your pick."
"The only great destroyer I know of is this one," He jerks his finger towards Honey, "When some one's been reading her journal...oh, don't look at me like that, I only read it twice...as for a god of death, Shabranigdo's got that covered."
Honey frowns. "Shabby's dead, Xellos. Lina killed him, remember? And anyway, that's not what Duo means. I'm sure you were excited when the MS war broke out back before you knew me. He and I were nearly killed beacause of that damn war. You found me after I came here. Duo, he became a Gundam Pilot. He fought in the war."
Xellos' eyes snap open. "How many people did you kill?" He asks eagerly. "A lot?"
Duo gives him a queer look. Honey whacks him again. "Xellos! You don't ask people things like that!" He rubs the lump on his head. "Anno, XellAn-Chan, why not?" She gives him another whack. "Unlike you, people don't enjoy murder." He grins "I enjoy other things too. Like when you abuse me." He's clinging to her, asking for another beating. She pushes him away. "Get offa me, you sicko!" Xellos looks ready to cry again. "That's not what you called me last night." He pouts.
Duo ignores that. "Honey?"
"...Eh?" She swats Xellos once more and looks at her confused friend. "Oh, I have a name now. This Fruitcake named me after him, since he is my mentor..."
"So, what's your name then?"
"XellosAngel."
Duo raises an eyebrow. "Conceited, isn't he?"
She sighs. "It's how the Mazoku are. Both of our last names were given to us by his master. I am now XellAn Metallium, servant to Xellos Metallium, General and Priest of Zelas Metallium."
"Priest?" Duo asks curiously. What kind of priest can this deranged man be? And what the Hell is a "Mazoku?"
"Damn strait!" Xellos joins the conversation. "Priest to Juuou-Sama and don't you forget it!"
Honey...no it's "XellAn" now, burries her face in her hands. "Xellos...please..." Her voice is strained. The priest tackles her in a hug. "Have I upset you?" He kisses her cheek and she pushes him away. "I'm not kidding, Xellos." He smiles wickedly, "What're you gonna do about it?" Her eyes flash. "First, I'll stop hitting you, convert to goodness, start liking life, and being happy because I like life. Then I'll tell Juuou-Sama on you." He frowns. "Anything but that!" He's on his knees, hugging her legs. "You wouldn't, would you...?" An evil look crosses her face. "Sore wa..."
Duo shakes his head. What the Hell is going on here? Has the world gone crazy and no one informed him? "Where did you hook up with this nut job, XellAn?"
Xellos glares at him. "That's XellosAngel to you! No one, not even L- Sama, calls her XellAn but me!"
"I'll call her what I damn well please." The annoyed-teen ager growls. Xellos is beginig to tick him off.
"Ah, Duo, I'd listen to him on that one...He's claimed me as his own and he really is the only one who calls me that." XellAn says nervously. Xellos is fuming at the boy's insubordinance and she's afraid he'll kill Duo.
"What's he gonna do? He's a priest; he can't hurt me." Duo challenges. XellAn cringes. Oh, of all the things to say! But it's unlikely that Duo even knows about the Mazoku. All he's ever learned about religious life was from Sister Helen and Father Maxwell, the Catholics. Xellos is about to tear appart the unsuspecting boy, so XellAn does the only thing she can think of: she glomps him.
The priest looks quite pleased to recieve the hug. He breaks into a grin. "Oi, XellAn-Chan! I knew you cared!" He happily exclaims. He twists around and plants a kiss on her lips. She tightens her grip and kisses him back before releasing him. Duo stares at them, quite disgusted. Priests are not supposed to do that! And there was XellAn, all of seventeen years old, allowing that pervert to do that.
She glanced at him. "Oh, don't look at me like that. Neither of us have done anything wrong."
"What do you mean, 'you haven't done anything wrong'?! Like hell you haven't! He's a priest..."
"He's a Mazoku priest, not a Catholic priest. He's not even human, for Shabranigdo's sake!" She makes it sound as if there's nothing wrong with being kissed by the pervert, when only moments before she'd shoved him away. "It doesn't matter!"
"But..." Duo is confused. Very confused. "He's older than you...gotta be at least..." He trails off.
Xellos smirks at him. "Like to guess? I'm a thousand years old if I'm a day! And I'll always look this young!" He gloats. Duo frowns. Xellos, come to think of it, did look very young. He had a very childish face, his features were very soft. "I'll always get the girls!" Winking, he wraps his arms back around XellAn.
She pays no attention to him and continues her explanation. "Xellos is a demon, Duo. An other-wordly, hate-filled, masochist demon. He thrives on pain, literally; he feeds off hurt. That's why I had to threaten to stop hitting him."
"Explain to me why you're with him?" Duo's trying to ignore the fact that the priest is licking XellAn's hand. Without missing a beat, she pinches his tongue between her fingers and he wimpers happily. "I was shipped here, angry and alone, after the...tragedy...They put me in a home, a Catholic home, but I'd...lost touch...with God. I ran away. Xellos found me. Zelas needed some one to do his menial tasks when he wasn't around. I needed some place to stay. They converted me; made me one of them." She says slowly, as if she'd rather not remember, "...I was killed, reborn...She took my soul, gave it to Phibrizio...he's dead, I got it back....but, still, I belong to some one all the same. Xellos owns me. Forever."
"Don't make it sound so awful, XellAn-Chan." Xellos purrs into her ear. "You like it, you know you do." She smiles darkly. "I do, Xel- Chan. I do."
Duo feels sick. Everything she just said to him contradicted everything he'd been taught. Innocent children being corrupted by Satanic freaks...God didn't let things like that happen. Some one's soul being owned...a soul is no one else's but your own. No one else can own it! He sits down on a bench in the middle of the mall. There was no such thing as a demon! "You need to get away from this freak." He says weakly. He wants to save her, help her find God again. "You should come back with me. Help around the junk yard; Hilde'd like ya."
She blinks. "Why? Why would I wanna do that?"
"Because life can be wonderful. It doesn't hafta be Hell."
"Wonderful?" She looks at him malevolently, "You, of all people -the Great Shinigami- think life is wonderful? What makes you think you can tell Heaven from Hell?" He gets back up. His fire is returning, along with his never-say-die attitude. "I'm happy, that's what!" Her eyes narrow. "So am I."
It is only then that he begins to understand. Right at that moment, when he looks into her watery eyes and sees...the truth. She is happy. He blinks as understanding hits him like a stray bullet. Her life, everything in it, mirrors his. It is the opposite. Where he finds pain, she finds pleasure. Where he sees light, she sees darkness. Excitment and disappointment, happiness and sadness...her world was the inverse of his (author's note: no pun intended! ^_^). She's happy with that lecherous priest latched on to her, happy spending the rest of her life as a slave and happy to be doomed to Hell...because she enjoys pain. Xellos is groping her butt and she just smiles and swats him. That entices him to do more, but she just continues to stare at Duo, paying no heed to the demon priest's sinful nature.
Suddenly, she laughs. "Here we are, arguing, just like old times, ne?" Duo relaxes. The darkness seems to have passed. Xellos has released her, both the demons are smiling. They seem almost like...humans again. The boy nods. "Are you hungry?" She continues. He nods again, more vigorously this time. "Come on, I'll by you lunch." Not one to turn down free food, he agrees wholeheartedly.
She chats idly over lunch. She's not eating much, just a slice of pizza. Xellos has a cup of tea in his hand. He's not eating at all and Duo points that out. The priest shrugs. "Don't need to. Why bother?" The boy looks at XellAn. "Why're you eating then?" A shrug on her part too. "Out of habit." Duo nods. He could accept that. Another thought occurs to him. "Why are you going to school? You're immortal now, aren't you? Why're you going school shopping?...You are school shopping, right?" She nods. "Yeah. I am." He's puzzled. "Why?" She smiles warmly, "Xel-Chan wants me to know it all. There's more to the world than he can teach me and he thinks I need to learn it." The priest smiles from behind his tea cup. "The very thought of school is making you smarter, XellAn-Chan. I didn't tell you that."
Duo looks at them. There's something about this pair...something not unlike Hilde and himself. They were comfortable with one another and everything they did just sort of flowed together as if they were a single being which was conversing with itself. The fluidity of it all startles the boy, yet reminds him of the way he had been with his Gundam. They are together for only one purpose: to complete the other.
He studies the priest. Xellos isn't that unlike him. They both have a profound understanding and devotion to what they believe. They are both very cheerful individuals, very happy with their existences, and very excitable. They even both have hair longer than what is naturally expected of a man (although Duo's is much longer. Much.). It's as if Xellos is his reflection, what he might have been in another time, if he didn't believe in God. Or if he's Xellos' reflection, thriving on what was good, rather than bad.
They sit there for a while longer, while Duo has dessert. "He eats like Lina, ne?" XellAn asks her master. His head bobs up and down in agreement. "Only half as messy though." He states cheerfully.
The rest of the day goes by smoothly, despite the fact that Xellos is constantly making suggestions about XellAn's underwear. He, Duo has long since realized, has no shame whatsoever. The priest was forever making lewd remarks about his companion, hugging and kissing her, and even going as far as to try on some of her clothes. What shocks Duo is that, when Xellos comes scampering out of a fitting room wearing XellAn's black school skirt, he actually smiles. And when the priest comments, "Looks better on me than you, ne?", he laughs. It startles him to understand that he'd become comfortable with the trickster's twisted personality.
"I saw that smile." Xellos winks, "I heard that laugh, Duo-Kun. Perhaps I'm not so bad, ne?" The boy nods cheerfully. Although the day didn't quite go as planned, it wasn't necessarily wasted. The afternoon hadn't been too bad. _______________________________________________________________________ __________________
Exit two happy demons.
XellAn's got everything she needs for school, she's seen an old friend and she has the promise of fun when they get home from Xellos. Of course, Xellos' idea of fun involves a whip, a rabid weasel and an ancient rack that he got God-only-knows-where, but when you're a Mazoku, it's fun all the same.
Xellos is pleased by the day's events as well. He's immensly pleased that Zelas had allowed him to keep ZellAn. The part of him that had at one point been human enjoys having another ex-mortal around. She was forever hitting him, and by Shabranigdo's beard, she hit hard. (author's note: does Shabby have a beard? i've heard the expresion "Lucifer's beard" before, so i modified it. if he doesn't, oh well. it still sounds good. ^_^)
The two of them amble along together, Xellos grabbing XellAn in various places, sending her into a rage and allowing her to hit him, which put them both in a good mood. _______________________________________________________________________ __________________
Exit one teenage boy, deep in thought.
Duo's never learned more in three hours than he has that day. He's always assumed that you had to have a good life to be happy. He never once dreamed that you could have a wretched, sinful life and be happy all the same. He never dreamed that the image in the mirror could very well be living. He smiles. The images are very much alive, he tells himself, I met my own reflection today. _______________________________________________________________________ __________________
Scene: switches to a large, poorly lit room.
Enter two very happy demons, fresh from an evening of fun.
"Ah, you've been very good today" The Mazoku Lord Zelas Metallium purrs, "Xellos, you're a good boy." She cooes, "XellosAngel, you're a good girl." She holds out a whip. "Come get your reward."
Two pairs of eyes glitter with pleasure as the scene fades to black... _______________________________________________________________________ __________________
What happens when the person least likely to love life meets the person most likely to love life? ...Let's find out, shall we? _______________________________________________________________________ __________________
Scene: A crowded shopping mall somewhere in America.
Enter a teen-age boy. One would, however, mistake him for a girl, due to the long braid dangling down his back. This is of no concern to him, as a cheerful smile is spread across his face. He's dressed all in black with a baseball cap pulled low over his forehead and is none other than the self-proclaimed "Great Destroyer," Duo Maxwell.
Duo weaves through the crowd, not paying much attention to their exclamations over the material possesions they just had to have. He is on a mission and it isn't a mission he's proud of: school shopping.
He sighs. The war was over, there was peace among the Earth and the Colonies and the Great Destroyer was going back to school. _______________________________________________________________________ __________________
Enter a seventeen-year-old girl and an older man with purple hair. The girl is also dressed all in black and has a messanger bag slung over her shoulder. The man, or shall we say Mazoku, grinning from ear to ear at the thought of all the trouble he could cause in a crowded place such as a mall, is wearing muted red and gray.
The girl pulls a paper out of her bag. She looks at it and frowns. "Ah, Xellos, why do I need to go to school?"
The demon, still smiling, wags a finger at her. "Sore wa himitsu desu."
She smacks him and he grins. "When are you going to learn, XellAn- Chan?" He asks cheerfully, "I like when you do that."
She smiles in spite of herself. "Baka." She mutters affectionatly. His smile widens. "Arigato."
She shakes her head. Why, she wonders, did I allow him to come along? This may be a painful experience. She watches as Xellos prances through a botique, a feather boa around his neck, wearing a set of sequined gloves and a matching hat perched atop his glossy hair. "May be?!" She smiles, Hell, it will be a painful experience... _______________________________________________________________________ __________________
Duo looks up when something plops on his head. He's not happy about going to school. As a result, his gaze is plastered on the floor. He pulls a sequined hat off his head. There's the sound of some one's insane giggling behind him.
"It looks good on you, ne?" a voice laughs. Duo looks at the source of the voice, a nutty-looking man with purple hair.
"I'm so sorry about...Duo?"
He looks at the girl that's speaking to him. She looks vaguely familiar to him.
She smiles. "You don't remember me, do you?"
He shakes his head. "No. Sorry."
"Ah, I don't blame you. It was a long time ago. Eight years."
His dark blue eyes widen. She was a child from the church, just like he'd been! "Your name....?"
"I was the one Sister Helen called 'Honey.' You know, because I had no name..."
He nodded.
"Oi, XellAn-Chan, you didn't tell me you had a boyfriend! I'm hurt!" The man bursts in. He gives her a puppy-dog look as his violet eyes fill up with tears.
She hits him. "Be quiet, Xellos!" She snaps. "He's not my boyfriend! I knew him back when..." Her voice lowers, "...You know..."
Duo looks at the two of them. The girl called "Honey" would be about seventeen then.He had no clue how old the man, Xellos, was. He could've been anywhere from in his twenties to his late forties for all Duo knew.
Xellos grinned. "Ah, I'm only teasing, XellAn-Chan! Can't you tell?"
She scowls. "When aren't you teasing?" She mutters under her breath. She looks at Duo. "What have you been up to?"
He blinks. She didn't know? He thought every one knew. "I'm the Great Destroyer." He states plainly.
It's her turn to be surprised.She stares at him. "You...? I never knew..."
Xellos isn't impressed. "Who?" He asks in a bored sort of voice.
Duo glares at him. "The Great Destroyer. The God of Death. Shinigami. Take your pick."
"The only great destroyer I know of is this one," He jerks his finger towards Honey, "When some one's been reading her journal...oh, don't look at me like that, I only read it twice...as for a god of death, Shabranigdo's got that covered."
Honey frowns. "Shabby's dead, Xellos. Lina killed him, remember? And anyway, that's not what Duo means. I'm sure you were excited when the MS war broke out back before you knew me. He and I were nearly killed beacause of that damn war. You found me after I came here. Duo, he became a Gundam Pilot. He fought in the war."
Xellos' eyes snap open. "How many people did you kill?" He asks eagerly. "A lot?"
Duo gives him a queer look. Honey whacks him again. "Xellos! You don't ask people things like that!" He rubs the lump on his head. "Anno, XellAn-Chan, why not?" She gives him another whack. "Unlike you, people don't enjoy murder." He grins "I enjoy other things too. Like when you abuse me." He's clinging to her, asking for another beating. She pushes him away. "Get offa me, you sicko!" Xellos looks ready to cry again. "That's not what you called me last night." He pouts.
Duo ignores that. "Honey?"
"...Eh?" She swats Xellos once more and looks at her confused friend. "Oh, I have a name now. This Fruitcake named me after him, since he is my mentor..."
"So, what's your name then?"
"XellosAngel."
Duo raises an eyebrow. "Conceited, isn't he?"
She sighs. "It's how the Mazoku are. Both of our last names were given to us by his master. I am now XellAn Metallium, servant to Xellos Metallium, General and Priest of Zelas Metallium."
"Priest?" Duo asks curiously. What kind of priest can this deranged man be? And what the Hell is a "Mazoku?"
"Damn strait!" Xellos joins the conversation. "Priest to Juuou-Sama and don't you forget it!"
Honey...no it's "XellAn" now, burries her face in her hands. "Xellos...please..." Her voice is strained. The priest tackles her in a hug. "Have I upset you?" He kisses her cheek and she pushes him away. "I'm not kidding, Xellos." He smiles wickedly, "What're you gonna do about it?" Her eyes flash. "First, I'll stop hitting you, convert to goodness, start liking life, and being happy because I like life. Then I'll tell Juuou-Sama on you." He frowns. "Anything but that!" He's on his knees, hugging her legs. "You wouldn't, would you...?" An evil look crosses her face. "Sore wa..."
Duo shakes his head. What the Hell is going on here? Has the world gone crazy and no one informed him? "Where did you hook up with this nut job, XellAn?"
Xellos glares at him. "That's XellosAngel to you! No one, not even L- Sama, calls her XellAn but me!"
"I'll call her what I damn well please." The annoyed-teen ager growls. Xellos is beginig to tick him off.
"Ah, Duo, I'd listen to him on that one...He's claimed me as his own and he really is the only one who calls me that." XellAn says nervously. Xellos is fuming at the boy's insubordinance and she's afraid he'll kill Duo.
"What's he gonna do? He's a priest; he can't hurt me." Duo challenges. XellAn cringes. Oh, of all the things to say! But it's unlikely that Duo even knows about the Mazoku. All he's ever learned about religious life was from Sister Helen and Father Maxwell, the Catholics. Xellos is about to tear appart the unsuspecting boy, so XellAn does the only thing she can think of: she glomps him.
The priest looks quite pleased to recieve the hug. He breaks into a grin. "Oi, XellAn-Chan! I knew you cared!" He happily exclaims. He twists around and plants a kiss on her lips. She tightens her grip and kisses him back before releasing him. Duo stares at them, quite disgusted. Priests are not supposed to do that! And there was XellAn, all of seventeen years old, allowing that pervert to do that.
She glanced at him. "Oh, don't look at me like that. Neither of us have done anything wrong."
"What do you mean, 'you haven't done anything wrong'?! Like hell you haven't! He's a priest..."
"He's a Mazoku priest, not a Catholic priest. He's not even human, for Shabranigdo's sake!" She makes it sound as if there's nothing wrong with being kissed by the pervert, when only moments before she'd shoved him away. "It doesn't matter!"
"But..." Duo is confused. Very confused. "He's older than you...gotta be at least..." He trails off.
Xellos smirks at him. "Like to guess? I'm a thousand years old if I'm a day! And I'll always look this young!" He gloats. Duo frowns. Xellos, come to think of it, did look very young. He had a very childish face, his features were very soft. "I'll always get the girls!" Winking, he wraps his arms back around XellAn.
She pays no attention to him and continues her explanation. "Xellos is a demon, Duo. An other-wordly, hate-filled, masochist demon. He thrives on pain, literally; he feeds off hurt. That's why I had to threaten to stop hitting him."
"Explain to me why you're with him?" Duo's trying to ignore the fact that the priest is licking XellAn's hand. Without missing a beat, she pinches his tongue between her fingers and he wimpers happily. "I was shipped here, angry and alone, after the...tragedy...They put me in a home, a Catholic home, but I'd...lost touch...with God. I ran away. Xellos found me. Zelas needed some one to do his menial tasks when he wasn't around. I needed some place to stay. They converted me; made me one of them." She says slowly, as if she'd rather not remember, "...I was killed, reborn...She took my soul, gave it to Phibrizio...he's dead, I got it back....but, still, I belong to some one all the same. Xellos owns me. Forever."
"Don't make it sound so awful, XellAn-Chan." Xellos purrs into her ear. "You like it, you know you do." She smiles darkly. "I do, Xel- Chan. I do."
Duo feels sick. Everything she just said to him contradicted everything he'd been taught. Innocent children being corrupted by Satanic freaks...God didn't let things like that happen. Some one's soul being owned...a soul is no one else's but your own. No one else can own it! He sits down on a bench in the middle of the mall. There was no such thing as a demon! "You need to get away from this freak." He says weakly. He wants to save her, help her find God again. "You should come back with me. Help around the junk yard; Hilde'd like ya."
She blinks. "Why? Why would I wanna do that?"
"Because life can be wonderful. It doesn't hafta be Hell."
"Wonderful?" She looks at him malevolently, "You, of all people -the Great Shinigami- think life is wonderful? What makes you think you can tell Heaven from Hell?" He gets back up. His fire is returning, along with his never-say-die attitude. "I'm happy, that's what!" Her eyes narrow. "So am I."
It is only then that he begins to understand. Right at that moment, when he looks into her watery eyes and sees...the truth. She is happy. He blinks as understanding hits him like a stray bullet. Her life, everything in it, mirrors his. It is the opposite. Where he finds pain, she finds pleasure. Where he sees light, she sees darkness. Excitment and disappointment, happiness and sadness...her world was the inverse of his (author's note: no pun intended! ^_^). She's happy with that lecherous priest latched on to her, happy spending the rest of her life as a slave and happy to be doomed to Hell...because she enjoys pain. Xellos is groping her butt and she just smiles and swats him. That entices him to do more, but she just continues to stare at Duo, paying no heed to the demon priest's sinful nature.
Suddenly, she laughs. "Here we are, arguing, just like old times, ne?" Duo relaxes. The darkness seems to have passed. Xellos has released her, both the demons are smiling. They seem almost like...humans again. The boy nods. "Are you hungry?" She continues. He nods again, more vigorously this time. "Come on, I'll by you lunch." Not one to turn down free food, he agrees wholeheartedly.
She chats idly over lunch. She's not eating much, just a slice of pizza. Xellos has a cup of tea in his hand. He's not eating at all and Duo points that out. The priest shrugs. "Don't need to. Why bother?" The boy looks at XellAn. "Why're you eating then?" A shrug on her part too. "Out of habit." Duo nods. He could accept that. Another thought occurs to him. "Why are you going to school? You're immortal now, aren't you? Why're you going school shopping?...You are school shopping, right?" She nods. "Yeah. I am." He's puzzled. "Why?" She smiles warmly, "Xel-Chan wants me to know it all. There's more to the world than he can teach me and he thinks I need to learn it." The priest smiles from behind his tea cup. "The very thought of school is making you smarter, XellAn-Chan. I didn't tell you that."
Duo looks at them. There's something about this pair...something not unlike Hilde and himself. They were comfortable with one another and everything they did just sort of flowed together as if they were a single being which was conversing with itself. The fluidity of it all startles the boy, yet reminds him of the way he had been with his Gundam. They are together for only one purpose: to complete the other.
He studies the priest. Xellos isn't that unlike him. They both have a profound understanding and devotion to what they believe. They are both very cheerful individuals, very happy with their existences, and very excitable. They even both have hair longer than what is naturally expected of a man (although Duo's is much longer. Much.). It's as if Xellos is his reflection, what he might have been in another time, if he didn't believe in God. Or if he's Xellos' reflection, thriving on what was good, rather than bad.
They sit there for a while longer, while Duo has dessert. "He eats like Lina, ne?" XellAn asks her master. His head bobs up and down in agreement. "Only half as messy though." He states cheerfully.
The rest of the day goes by smoothly, despite the fact that Xellos is constantly making suggestions about XellAn's underwear. He, Duo has long since realized, has no shame whatsoever. The priest was forever making lewd remarks about his companion, hugging and kissing her, and even going as far as to try on some of her clothes. What shocks Duo is that, when Xellos comes scampering out of a fitting room wearing XellAn's black school skirt, he actually smiles. And when the priest comments, "Looks better on me than you, ne?", he laughs. It startles him to understand that he'd become comfortable with the trickster's twisted personality.
"I saw that smile." Xellos winks, "I heard that laugh, Duo-Kun. Perhaps I'm not so bad, ne?" The boy nods cheerfully. Although the day didn't quite go as planned, it wasn't necessarily wasted. The afternoon hadn't been too bad. _______________________________________________________________________ __________________
Exit two happy demons.
XellAn's got everything she needs for school, she's seen an old friend and she has the promise of fun when they get home from Xellos. Of course, Xellos' idea of fun involves a whip, a rabid weasel and an ancient rack that he got God-only-knows-where, but when you're a Mazoku, it's fun all the same.
Xellos is pleased by the day's events as well. He's immensly pleased that Zelas had allowed him to keep ZellAn. The part of him that had at one point been human enjoys having another ex-mortal around. She was forever hitting him, and by Shabranigdo's beard, she hit hard. (author's note: does Shabby have a beard? i've heard the expresion "Lucifer's beard" before, so i modified it. if he doesn't, oh well. it still sounds good. ^_^)
The two of them amble along together, Xellos grabbing XellAn in various places, sending her into a rage and allowing her to hit him, which put them both in a good mood. _______________________________________________________________________ __________________
Exit one teenage boy, deep in thought.
Duo's never learned more in three hours than he has that day. He's always assumed that you had to have a good life to be happy. He never once dreamed that you could have a wretched, sinful life and be happy all the same. He never dreamed that the image in the mirror could very well be living. He smiles. The images are very much alive, he tells himself, I met my own reflection today. _______________________________________________________________________ __________________
Scene: switches to a large, poorly lit room.
Enter two very happy demons, fresh from an evening of fun.
"Ah, you've been very good today" The Mazoku Lord Zelas Metallium purrs, "Xellos, you're a good boy." She cooes, "XellosAngel, you're a good girl." She holds out a whip. "Come get your reward."
Two pairs of eyes glitter with pleasure as the scene fades to black... _______________________________________________________________________ __________________