Blood Feast
Chapter 7: The Appetizers
Vincent knew insanity. He worked for an entire company's worth of loony bins. The craziest of them all took apart his body and stitched it back together in ways he might never truly find out. And the gunman had his own brand of crazy clawing just beneath the surface, complete with individual personalities and bloodlusts.
He couldn't believe Yatsui's very well. His kind was rare, might even have been the rarest. Some sort of… messianic martyr complex, this man had. Had he heard him right? That he was only meant to suffer? That couldn't have been the truth of a soul, not even Vincent, although there were times he considered the notion given how his life, the lives of those around him, had turned out. But other than that…
"Vincent, please, let me do this for you.
"Are we not kindred? We have suffered injustice, have wronged and been wronged, and lost those most dear to us, have we not? But you, you still have a chance; your life can still be salvaged yet from the shadowy void prepared to engulf you when you let down your guard, even an ounce, one day. Go on; take this chance that I proffer you. Take it and shed your pain for me to devour and make as my own." Yatsui's heavy eyes softened so that Vincent thought he'd start weeping any second now, like the beaten child his face sometimes projected. His normally very quiet voice dripped with something akin to sinister. Vincent had to avert his own eyes from the mounting debacle. He felt the potential embarrassment make his skin crawl already.
"I can't do that, whatever you're asking," he answered. "It's my pain and mine alone. It's not your decision to make what I do with it."
"… why?"
"What?"
"Why do you refuse? This is your chance, your truest chance for peace at last, all that ails you removed once and for all. This is my calling. I must pay. I must feel pain to repent for the anguish I myself had wrought." Before he could take another step closer, Vincent cocked his gun and pointed it at Yatsui's feet. The man's head hung low, his ashen pink sweep of hair obscuring his face. From those words spoken so far, a picture painted itself ever more clearly. None of it changed the fact that he was a psycho, but he did seem less likely to be a killer psycho. He spoke too much in earnest, too earnest to be an act. Although, how could he ever be sure? There were murderers that acted under veneers far sweeter and natural.
Vincent started to feel shamefully drawn to this man now more than ever, if only in an effort to find out why he acted this way, why he wanted for what he pleaded. Sure, Yatsui talked of loss and sins and needing to pay for it all with the pain of others brought onto his own being, but what he needed was background. He never did say who or what he really was, but he wasn't human, this was quite plain. He needed something more than a willing martyr in fine clothes, a voluntary victim for all the grief and agony of everyone else as payment for his own mysterious sins. He wanted history. Did this make him worse off than Vincent? The gunman's self-punishment was restless slumber in the basement of Shinra Manor, for however long repentance took to wipe the slate clean. But suddenly, everything about him seemed to pale in comparison to Yatsui. That desire to take all pain as his…
Vincent balked at the sensationalism he suffused throughout the situation.
"What say you, Vincent Valentine? Will you still deny my entreaty? If so, then you will have doomed yourself to a lifetime of dreaded running from these beasts that crave your flesh and blood, inside and out— yes, I know more than I let on. Tell me, what is your judgment, and I will understand," Yatsui said in a toneless voice, and added, "however whether it be unconditionally I cannot yet say."
"I say this is all bullshit."
"What can I do to sway you? What can I do to gain your trust that I can bear all your past, present and future agonies in place of you yourself? If it must be so, then I-"
A bellow reverbed throughout the city's earth and sky, rudely cutting Yatsui's speech short. He raised his eyes heavenward to see birds scatter to the hollows of the valley and hazy blue vault above the ghost metropolis. The air stilled following the cry that died off in equally booming echoes, only to be broken by rhythmic rumbling, seeming to get nearer every second.
"Look."
Yatsui pointed past the grand structure perched at the Forgotten City's heart. Beyond the layered disks and swirling branches of coral, dark shadows arose, glistening and writhing in the late morning sunlight. A pair of immense golden beasts had arisen, crawling out of the chasms onto the shell paths that wound through the city. Behemoth kings. But they were only found in the Northern Crater which had long since caved in. Could they have been asleep here, unbeknownst to any passersby, for years upon years, and now, thanks to whatever cried out in Vincent's blood, had awakened to quell their hunger or wrath? Or mere escapees?
The muscly horned beasts roared again, shaking the earth and cleaving the empty air. They regarded both men's presence but of course, were attracted the one that bore the most enticing scent. The largest of the monstrous couple stalked over the shell buildings towards him, reducing them to fine grit under its weight. The other trailed close in its wake, grunting and snarling and exhaling roiling clouds of steam.
Vincent teetered on a state of indecision. He couldn't immediately decide whether to fight the beasts or flee. If left to rampage, the city would be tread to powder beneath their careless feet, a priceless powder, but that was a fate best avoided for all its precious history. And he could only assume that Cloud would not like that, nor would Aerith were she still alive.
"Yatsui."
"Yes?"
"I can't let those monsters destroy this place. I suggest you help me out here, because I know you will even if I didn't ask," he said. Yatsui set his lean body to more a confident and dignified posture.
"Of course," he replied, his voice as robust as it never had before.
"They're strong. Are you sure?"
The man nodded. "Yes, if it is your will, I will help you."
"Let's go."
The kings stampeded in the men's direction once their sights were clear, houses crumbling from their barreling bulks and thrashing tails. One first charged horns at Vincent, which he dodged for being the quicker than the lumbering beast could ever hope to be. He leapt up high, breezing by the giant claws slashing at his afterimage in their black beads for eyes. Holstering Quicksilver for Death Penalty and switching out its material for others, he fired bullet flares at one beast, unloading a blast dead center in its face. The monster howled, rearing up on its hind legs and slamming back down to the ground with an echoing thud. The Behemoth recovered all too quickly, fin and mane singed, and twirled its body in a circle, tail raised to strike down the gunman. He flipped backward and fired another shot into the beast's flexing hip, forcing the creature to skitter sideways and nearly off the shell path.
"Move!" Yatsui shouted. Just as Vincent turned for a glance, a vast white beam of light shot at the injured monster king, punching through its thick hide. Vincent was propelled back by the energy's sheer force that it threatened to burn away his skin and hair. What kind of materia did he have to summon up that sort of power?
That Behemoth King bared its teeth all the way back to its gums and let out the pained whine of a trampled dog, with a gaping wound that opened onto broken ribs, charred flesh and seeping intestine sucking wetly at the air. The lumbering beast struggled to remain upright. The surviving Behemoth went berserk at the sight of its mortally wounded mate, broke its sights on Vincent and went for Yatsui. With a simple jerk of his body in the opposite direction, he zipped out of harm's immediate way. But the monster kept going, gaining speed, clipping the spikes of a conch shell house along the path.
Vincent gauged Yatsui's trajectory, which arced out into the flatlands of the valley. In acting upon that attack to enrage the beast's companion, he'd managed to wrench its eyes from the prized gunman, and was drawing it from the city where less damage could be sustained.
He darted after the two. Yatsui led the chase, his thin form provoking the monster to hound him ever onward from the City of the Ancients.
Agitated further by the elusive human shaped thing, the Behemoth slowed its pace to an eventual stop, turned its creased and angry snout skyward and bellowed longingly. Yatsui brought himself to a stop as well, curious of the beast's change in behavior. But having had previous experience dealing with these creatures, Vincent knew what the monster was doing. They weren't totally mindless brutes. Somewhere along the way, they found out that swallowing materia gave them access to powers wherever tooth and nail happened to fail them.
Heat gathered in the valley air, making it feel humid and thick as soup on both men's faces. The air then rippled with the congregating heat until spheres of superhot flame materialized from all the frenzied molecules rubbing madly together.
"We have to get out of here!" Vincent cried out to the other man.
"What?"
"MOVE!" he barked, and then turned to flee the blast zone.
"We will not escape," Yatsui voiced in finality.
"What? You're wrong," Vincent asserted. But the pale man shook his head slowly.
"We cannot. But… I will take the brunt of the attack. I will protect you."
"This is one of those days where I wish I were Yuffie." Vincent scrounged for materia in spite of knowing he didn't have the one or two pieces that would've meant the most at a time like this. He turned and swapped in Quicksilver. Even though a few headshots would stop the beast from casting its flare, its death rattle would trip and summon something equally devastating. Such was the wrath of the behemoth, double-edged and crushing.
"No need to fear but fear itself."
"Some help you are."
The spheres of frantic flame and blistering air ignited, billowing from a single focal point exacted by the monster's horns. The spherical clouds of red, purple and yellow flame expanded out, taking in all the oxygen it could to grow and thrive. Yatsui took a stand before Vincent while he tried to adjust his position for the most damaging shot possible, staring up at the immense well of power head on, watching it and feeling it and smelling it. He splayed his arms apart from his body.
"I will protect. Take all the pain…" But his voice was whittled to nothing by the roar of encroaching fire.
Vincent couldn't stand the heat. This physical torture—though it'd never outright kill him, never in a hundred years, or more— had reached its limit. How could he ever make the shot now if his concentration lost ground? He hissed, his tiny cry of pain eclipsed, too, by the oncoming heat. He embraced his body in agony, sensing the Jenova cells react and wanting and constricting to save their host from unexpected doom. The demons within him roiled, but their crowned manifestation sprung to the surface, the wings of Chaos sprouting from his back, kicking up his crimson cape in wild furls. And the mind of Chaos overcame Vincent's in its distress.
To sing.
It was a guttural, multilayered song, a call.
Problem?
Chaos gripped the gun tight, making it pop under the stress of his unfettered strength. His arm clicked into position against its target. Despite the heat still burning blisters into Vincent's skin—they healed and healed and healed without fail—the demon weathered the nuisance.
This peashooter needs a bit of juice.
The Quicksilver crackled with black energy. Chaos squeezed the trigger with gingerness, once, twice, three times in patient succession.
The behemoth's head jerked on impact, the spell dimming and flaring madly like lights before an outage. The snout bloomed open across the side, the horns splintered away with fluttering golden rags of scalp, the skull broke off in chunks of purple mane and dark red brain matter. When three more shots had reduced the monster's head to no more than a stump on its shoulders, the gigantic flare lost its shape, dissipating on the wind. With the bulbs of flame went the smoldering heat.
If there wasn't a brain to send and receive the needed impulses to call out its death rattle, the skies would remain clear once the monster breathed its last.
The Quicksilver shivered, blackened, let out a puff of smoke and crumbled to ash in Chaos's hand, having overtaxed its usefulness.
Just as well, the demon Chaos acknowledged that his borrowed time had passed and then settled back into his personal recesses of Vincent's flesh, wings, consciousness, and all. Vincent fell hard to his knees, depleted from having sustained the demon for even those few short moments.
Coral Valley hushed, retaining the calm it had celebrated for years and years before the disturbance.
"Vincent Valentine… Just, what was that just now?" Yatsui asked, his wonder unrestrained as he approached the exhausted gunman.
"My…" Vincent clutched his claw close, recovered his breath in a few deep gulps and carefully got to his feet. "It's nothing."
"That was more than nothing. The stench became so strong when from your back sprang those wings. That is a part of your pain, is it not?" he inquired.
Vincent grunted, dusted off his knees with some well-placed slaps. Anything other than answer.
"Your body houses such vicious power, a power you must fear and loathe at the same time. You dread that it may one day devour you whole, finally making you the monster you never wanted to become. At last, in all its terrible glory. Is that not so?"
"Don't bother." Vincent spun from Yatsui and started away, abandoning the other man to his own devices.
"Vincent… What an admirable heart. What I would not give… to have a bit of it for my own."
From Another Sixth, 20xx: I can't bear to delete this long, old ass author's note. Fragments of the past? Yeah…
From Sixth: I know I added some details here and there with Satan Impact, because I didn't remember what it did exactly, but it sounded equally nice, no? And what about Yatsui? Slowly, his past is being revealed more and more. Soon you'll know what he really is, which will be no more different than how I originally designed him, but just a few particulars changed that won't dare detract from my OC's intriguing persona. And what'll you think Vincent will do when that time comes? Will he succumb to Yatsui's plea or won't he? It's sorta up to me, sorta not, I dunno. The story's all in the fingers.
Oh, and, Narukye, I'd been thinking of advice to give on writing. I'm not very good when it comes to doing that, but I'll do my best. Ahem.
First of all, some of these things may apply to just me, unless you or anyone else has the same problem. Okay, now, one thing is that it never hurts to proofread, as eyes have the tendency to play tricks on you. The computer itself may neglect a few things regarding grammar, too, so you have to be extra careful when proofreading.
Second, it always pays to study other people's writing in learning what and what not to do when it comes to writing stories. Me? I've read a lot of Anne Rice, though not calling myself avid fan of her writing, but something of a fan nonetheless. I've also read a lot of Elizabeth George's detective novels and a whole bunch of other books of varying styles. I also watch a good deal of television, listening to how people talk.
Third, and I will admit this, I have several thesauruses and dictionaries. Whenever I pass by a word I'm not too sure of, I check it out. In taking the time to do that, I've built up my vocabulary very high and have the ability to easily describe things in more ways than one. I'm not saying you should have to do the same thing, I'm just saying what this did for me. Heh, right…
And, then, of course, there are games. They're the main reason I started writing more than I did in junior high. That and because my junior high gave me creative writing class when I really wanted computer lit. Yeah, I don't regret that anymore. Anyway, back to games. So far, I believe the series with the most sophisticated dialogue is the Xeno series. Grandia 2 was pretty good. Lunar has been known for its humor, which I enjoy. Final Fantasy is perfect for drama, romance and adventure, always. Vagrant Story I should mention for its medieval air and dialogue. And who shouldn't forget all the other greats that…
I'm talking too much again. This is all I can think of as good advice and sources toward better writing and whatnot that isn't really in books or hasn't been said already. Sorry if this wasn't what you were looking for in advice, but it's all certainly helped me out. So, with that said and done…
TO BE CONTINUED