Chapter Ten - Unveiled Pasts
We came across another flesh-door, and our new companion showed off one of his talents. We watched, awed, as he formed a small ball of fire and tossed it at the door, burning it down in an instant.
"I'm guessing your a demon." I said as we stared at the ashes.
He blushed, barely noticably, and nodded.
"He's not a big talker either," Alca said as she whispered in my ear.
"Something someone else should learn to do." I said and grinned.
We stepped through only to find ourselves in a room.... completely full of Shadows.
"Oh crap." I thought outloud.
"Maybe you guys should run. I'm sure I could distract 'em long enough for you guys to get through." Arson suggested.
"No way! I've been waiting a long time for a good fight." I said, stretching and unsheathing my sword.
Alca was way ahead of us though. She bounded into the mass of black bodies. She moved like the wind, a slash here, a stab there.
"Wait up!" Arson yelled, plunging into the fight alongside Alca.
Sure enough, right when I was about to join them, I lost sight of Al. I last had seen her fighting near one of the doors, an exit I guessed, but her body had been blacked out by the Shadows.
"ARSON!" I yelled, trying to be loud enough for him to hear me. "ALCA'S GONE!"
Arson was struggling, trying to concentrate on what I said and fight. "Give me a minute!" he said, and ended the battle by using a Holy Water.
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"Geez..... we're never gonna find her!" I wailed as we finished up looking around the room for any sign of Alca. I sat down on the marble of the ground and sighed. Why had she left us like that?
Arson came back in from the hallways he had been looking through. He sat down next to me. "You shouldn't worry too much, I'm sure she knows what she's doing."
"That's just the thing though.... she doesn't! She has no clue to where she needs to go, she's not a very strong fighter, and she doesn't like violence! This is hopeless..."
A few minutes passed by while he left me to soak in the situation.
"I noticed you were doing very well against those demons. You seemed to actually.... enjoy fighting them." Arson said, out of the blue.
'Now there's a random thought if I've ever seen one,' I thought. "Yeah.... well.... I guess you could say it's because of my brother."
"Your brother?"
"Well... yeah. When I was little,... he would always pick on me, beat me up, stuff like that. My parents thought he was an angel, so they'd always think I was making it all up to get attention. I told my teachers, and they kept going on and on about how I should 'stick up for myself'. So I took their advice." I explained to him the beginnings of my past. I didn't know why, but he had some kind of aura... a pure one...one that you could trust... and I needed to get this burden off of my shoulders. I couldn't tell my friends, they'd never believe me. And I sure didn't want to go to any kind of shrink. Arson listened attentively, looking almost interested in what I had to say.
"But I... I took it too far. One day I found out he was really going to hurt me.. in front of his friends. They thought it was funny, watching the torment of others. So I took my father's gun with me."
Arson's eyes widened at this. "Go on." he urged.
"You must understand, I only wanted to protect myself. I didn't want to hurt anyone! Ecspecially my own flesh and blood. Well..... when he got me in front of his friends, I took out the gun... and pointed it at him. I said things like 'Come on, I know you want to!' and 'Do you enjoy watching me suffer?' Well, he started to turn red, and he clenched his fists. I remember ever detail of that day...." I tried really hard to hold in the tears I knew were going to come. "Well, anyways, he started to come towards me, while his friends scattered. And I.... I shot him. I knew he would've killed me if he had gotten that far. The bullet... it went straight through his lungs, shredding them, and he died the next day in the hospital. After I had shot him, I ran off home, dropping the gun by his side. His friends must have told someone, 'cause some doctors came a little while later, and took him to a hospital. I heard the next day from my parents that he had died in the hospital, suffering from a punctured lung. And it was all my fault... so I blamed myself. I started to hate myself, and I would get angry at the slightest thing. I'd always hurt myself at every chance I had. I became really violent towards everyone... so I ran away from home. Well, my parents found me about 2 days later, in a forest in our backyard. Nothing really happened though, they just acted like they always had. The lived as if I had never had a brother, and from what I could tell, they never did find out it had been me who killed him. Everyone thought that he had commited suicide since my dad's gun was beside his body. Time went on, and eventually everyone forgot about my brother. My parents never talk about him, and neither do I. None of my friends know about this at all. I didn't want to tell them, and make them feel sorry for me. I never liked feeling sympathy, or getting it from others."
"Why did you tell me this?" Arson asked when I had finished up. I didn't really know what to say, so I hid my head between my knees.
"Well..... I just really needed to tell someone. I feel like I can trust you."
"After we just met?"
"Well.... yeah." I tried not to cry, but the tears ran silently down my face against my will.
He looked at me with concern in his boyish features. "And of all the people you could tell, you told someone who could relate to you." he replied, with evident sadness.
I looked up abruptly, forgetting the tears that stained my face. "What are ya talking about?"
"I'm like you. I was... well.... ill-treated as a child." he choked out after a few minutes had passed after my question. "Except it was my mother who did it.... and she died because of that abuse like your brother did."
I knew this had to be a one-chance meeting. Two people actually willing to give up their pasts to one another. I never would have thought it would be anything like this.
"Well.... it started when my father left my family behind. I had a sister at the time. He left without telling me or my sister why. I didn't think my mother knew, but later on I found out she did. He had went out to do a job, but she told herself that he had left her. And that's what she always believed. So she started to blame me for it. She would constantly hit me, make me work, and let me get sick without trying to help me get better. She never did any of the sort to my sister. My mother would often call me a "curse" and she hated herself for ever giving birth to me. During this I never di have good control.... of my powers that is. And because I'm a demon, I have the ability to manipulate fire. But that makes me innatly weak against water. Mom would make me dunk myself into a tub full of water, or she would just pour it on me. Well, one night, I was having a nightmare, one of the ones I usually got back then, about my mother. The nightmare made me.... afraid... so I lost control of my powers. I burned the house my family lived in while I was asleep. I awoke in time enough to get out before it was completely burned. What made me really afraid was that no one had made an attempt to save me. That was the first time I did anything really serious. Later on she tried to kill me directly. Well, my grandfather saved me from her, and I came to live with him and his partner. Well, to cut a long story short, I met up with my father some time later. My mother found me and my mother, right after our reunion. Since she thought my dad had left her, she hated him. So she attacked him. My grandfather was there with us at the time too, so both him and my father attacked my mother. I again, lost control of my emotions, and changed into my demon form. I then killed her. I killed her with my own two hands..." he started to slow down, while he looked at his hands with deep sorrow.
"Go on," I urged, just as he had done. I was very interested in his story.
"I've always have nightmares about her since then. That she would come back.... my father and grandfather would tell me that what I did was for the best. Well, we lived together for a while back then. Me, my sis, my dad, my grandfather, and his partner. My father left us again to go on a journey. I started to live with my grandfather for a while.... but he disappeared. I sensed that he had come here, so I transported myself here. When I do that... I become really weak. I guess that's how the Infestant got a hold of me."
"So that's how you came to be here..." I said to myself. He nodded.
"Man... talk about depressing. Childhood wasn't so bright and happy for us, was it?" I sighed exhaustion. "I bet you have no idea how much better I feel now that I've told someone that."
He grinned slightly, despite the emotion in the air. "I'm sure I do," was his response.
A few minutes of silence passed.
"This is the most awkward situation I've ever been in." I said with a laugh. "By the way... I was wondering... what's your grandfather's name?"
"Uhm... well... his name's Dante. Dante Sparda."
"Oh crap," I cursed outloud. Arson looked up.
"What's wrong?"
"Uh.... its nothing. Let's just say.... I had a bit of a run-in with him."
Arson immediately jumped up with ectasy. "You did? Then why are we waiting around here?! We need to find him!"
"Well, we were trying to look for two of my friends! Are you saying that Dante is more important?!" I started to get a bit angry with him and his selfishness.
"No offense, but to me, he is. I agreed to help you find your friends. But I'm gonna need your help to find Dante."
I got up off of my spot on the floor and sighed. "Well.. alright. Let's go. I can't stand being in this room anymore... too many bad memories." He nodded once and grinned. Together we walked out the door, entering a long corridor. Somehow we had managed to get ourselves back into the castle. "Oh great!" I said, asperated. I looked behind me to the door we had just entered, only to see a wall. "ARGH! What the hell? How are we supposed to get back to the Underworld now!" We had found ourselves back in the Pride of Lion room.
"You won't need to." Maria said, looking back at us with a knowing glint in her eye.
"Maria! Your alright!" I ran towards her and snagged her in a friendly embrace.
"Of course I am! I only had to walk away from blue boy while he wasn't looking. Looks like you guys just came out of that corridor though. I've been waiting hours for ya here. Looks as though there isn't a corridor anymore though...." she said, scratching her head. She turned back to Arson. "Who are you, anyways?"
"I'm a friend of Xyphos'. I'll tell ya more later. We don't know where your friend is... but we'll find her." Arson piped in. "So no worries, even though we got a new mission. We're gonna find your other friend, but we need to find Dante too."
"That old senile bastard? Why?"
I could hear a growl when Arson replied. "Because he's my grandfather, and I came to find him."
"Oh." was all Maria muttered, before blushing a blood red.
"So why won't we need to go back to the Underworld?" I interrupted.
"I know neither one of them is there. I can sense both Alca and Dante, and they're somewhere in the castle."
"Fun, fun" Arson added sarcasticlly, "A hunt."
"No, no hunt." a voice said, out of the shadows in a corner of the room catching the three of us by surprise.
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YAY! Cliffhanger! Ok, seriously guys, did you think that was a good chapter? I really tried to make it sad and depressing, and I don't think its that good... -_-' Anyways, bonding is good, yes very good. Ok, anyways, please read and review, and tell me what you think of it! Thanks a lot to Bustahead again for the ideas and using Xyphos! ^_^ *Hug*
We came across another flesh-door, and our new companion showed off one of his talents. We watched, awed, as he formed a small ball of fire and tossed it at the door, burning it down in an instant.
"I'm guessing your a demon." I said as we stared at the ashes.
He blushed, barely noticably, and nodded.
"He's not a big talker either," Alca said as she whispered in my ear.
"Something someone else should learn to do." I said and grinned.
We stepped through only to find ourselves in a room.... completely full of Shadows.
"Oh crap." I thought outloud.
"Maybe you guys should run. I'm sure I could distract 'em long enough for you guys to get through." Arson suggested.
"No way! I've been waiting a long time for a good fight." I said, stretching and unsheathing my sword.
Alca was way ahead of us though. She bounded into the mass of black bodies. She moved like the wind, a slash here, a stab there.
"Wait up!" Arson yelled, plunging into the fight alongside Alca.
Sure enough, right when I was about to join them, I lost sight of Al. I last had seen her fighting near one of the doors, an exit I guessed, but her body had been blacked out by the Shadows.
"ARSON!" I yelled, trying to be loud enough for him to hear me. "ALCA'S GONE!"
Arson was struggling, trying to concentrate on what I said and fight. "Give me a minute!" he said, and ended the battle by using a Holy Water.
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"Geez..... we're never gonna find her!" I wailed as we finished up looking around the room for any sign of Alca. I sat down on the marble of the ground and sighed. Why had she left us like that?
Arson came back in from the hallways he had been looking through. He sat down next to me. "You shouldn't worry too much, I'm sure she knows what she's doing."
"That's just the thing though.... she doesn't! She has no clue to where she needs to go, she's not a very strong fighter, and she doesn't like violence! This is hopeless..."
A few minutes passed by while he left me to soak in the situation.
"I noticed you were doing very well against those demons. You seemed to actually.... enjoy fighting them." Arson said, out of the blue.
'Now there's a random thought if I've ever seen one,' I thought. "Yeah.... well.... I guess you could say it's because of my brother."
"Your brother?"
"Well... yeah. When I was little,... he would always pick on me, beat me up, stuff like that. My parents thought he was an angel, so they'd always think I was making it all up to get attention. I told my teachers, and they kept going on and on about how I should 'stick up for myself'. So I took their advice." I explained to him the beginnings of my past. I didn't know why, but he had some kind of aura... a pure one...one that you could trust... and I needed to get this burden off of my shoulders. I couldn't tell my friends, they'd never believe me. And I sure didn't want to go to any kind of shrink. Arson listened attentively, looking almost interested in what I had to say.
"But I... I took it too far. One day I found out he was really going to hurt me.. in front of his friends. They thought it was funny, watching the torment of others. So I took my father's gun with me."
Arson's eyes widened at this. "Go on." he urged.
"You must understand, I only wanted to protect myself. I didn't want to hurt anyone! Ecspecially my own flesh and blood. Well..... when he got me in front of his friends, I took out the gun... and pointed it at him. I said things like 'Come on, I know you want to!' and 'Do you enjoy watching me suffer?' Well, he started to turn red, and he clenched his fists. I remember ever detail of that day...." I tried really hard to hold in the tears I knew were going to come. "Well, anyways, he started to come towards me, while his friends scattered. And I.... I shot him. I knew he would've killed me if he had gotten that far. The bullet... it went straight through his lungs, shredding them, and he died the next day in the hospital. After I had shot him, I ran off home, dropping the gun by his side. His friends must have told someone, 'cause some doctors came a little while later, and took him to a hospital. I heard the next day from my parents that he had died in the hospital, suffering from a punctured lung. And it was all my fault... so I blamed myself. I started to hate myself, and I would get angry at the slightest thing. I'd always hurt myself at every chance I had. I became really violent towards everyone... so I ran away from home. Well, my parents found me about 2 days later, in a forest in our backyard. Nothing really happened though, they just acted like they always had. The lived as if I had never had a brother, and from what I could tell, they never did find out it had been me who killed him. Everyone thought that he had commited suicide since my dad's gun was beside his body. Time went on, and eventually everyone forgot about my brother. My parents never talk about him, and neither do I. None of my friends know about this at all. I didn't want to tell them, and make them feel sorry for me. I never liked feeling sympathy, or getting it from others."
"Why did you tell me this?" Arson asked when I had finished up. I didn't really know what to say, so I hid my head between my knees.
"Well..... I just really needed to tell someone. I feel like I can trust you."
"After we just met?"
"Well.... yeah." I tried not to cry, but the tears ran silently down my face against my will.
He looked at me with concern in his boyish features. "And of all the people you could tell, you told someone who could relate to you." he replied, with evident sadness.
I looked up abruptly, forgetting the tears that stained my face. "What are ya talking about?"
"I'm like you. I was... well.... ill-treated as a child." he choked out after a few minutes had passed after my question. "Except it was my mother who did it.... and she died because of that abuse like your brother did."
I knew this had to be a one-chance meeting. Two people actually willing to give up their pasts to one another. I never would have thought it would be anything like this.
"Well.... it started when my father left my family behind. I had a sister at the time. He left without telling me or my sister why. I didn't think my mother knew, but later on I found out she did. He had went out to do a job, but she told herself that he had left her. And that's what she always believed. So she started to blame me for it. She would constantly hit me, make me work, and let me get sick without trying to help me get better. She never did any of the sort to my sister. My mother would often call me a "curse" and she hated herself for ever giving birth to me. During this I never di have good control.... of my powers that is. And because I'm a demon, I have the ability to manipulate fire. But that makes me innatly weak against water. Mom would make me dunk myself into a tub full of water, or she would just pour it on me. Well, one night, I was having a nightmare, one of the ones I usually got back then, about my mother. The nightmare made me.... afraid... so I lost control of my powers. I burned the house my family lived in while I was asleep. I awoke in time enough to get out before it was completely burned. What made me really afraid was that no one had made an attempt to save me. That was the first time I did anything really serious. Later on she tried to kill me directly. Well, my grandfather saved me from her, and I came to live with him and his partner. Well, to cut a long story short, I met up with my father some time later. My mother found me and my mother, right after our reunion. Since she thought my dad had left her, she hated him. So she attacked him. My grandfather was there with us at the time too, so both him and my father attacked my mother. I again, lost control of my emotions, and changed into my demon form. I then killed her. I killed her with my own two hands..." he started to slow down, while he looked at his hands with deep sorrow.
"Go on," I urged, just as he had done. I was very interested in his story.
"I've always have nightmares about her since then. That she would come back.... my father and grandfather would tell me that what I did was for the best. Well, we lived together for a while back then. Me, my sis, my dad, my grandfather, and his partner. My father left us again to go on a journey. I started to live with my grandfather for a while.... but he disappeared. I sensed that he had come here, so I transported myself here. When I do that... I become really weak. I guess that's how the Infestant got a hold of me."
"So that's how you came to be here..." I said to myself. He nodded.
"Man... talk about depressing. Childhood wasn't so bright and happy for us, was it?" I sighed exhaustion. "I bet you have no idea how much better I feel now that I've told someone that."
He grinned slightly, despite the emotion in the air. "I'm sure I do," was his response.
A few minutes of silence passed.
"This is the most awkward situation I've ever been in." I said with a laugh. "By the way... I was wondering... what's your grandfather's name?"
"Uhm... well... his name's Dante. Dante Sparda."
"Oh crap," I cursed outloud. Arson looked up.
"What's wrong?"
"Uh.... its nothing. Let's just say.... I had a bit of a run-in with him."
Arson immediately jumped up with ectasy. "You did? Then why are we waiting around here?! We need to find him!"
"Well, we were trying to look for two of my friends! Are you saying that Dante is more important?!" I started to get a bit angry with him and his selfishness.
"No offense, but to me, he is. I agreed to help you find your friends. But I'm gonna need your help to find Dante."
I got up off of my spot on the floor and sighed. "Well.. alright. Let's go. I can't stand being in this room anymore... too many bad memories." He nodded once and grinned. Together we walked out the door, entering a long corridor. Somehow we had managed to get ourselves back into the castle. "Oh great!" I said, asperated. I looked behind me to the door we had just entered, only to see a wall. "ARGH! What the hell? How are we supposed to get back to the Underworld now!" We had found ourselves back in the Pride of Lion room.
"You won't need to." Maria said, looking back at us with a knowing glint in her eye.
"Maria! Your alright!" I ran towards her and snagged her in a friendly embrace.
"Of course I am! I only had to walk away from blue boy while he wasn't looking. Looks like you guys just came out of that corridor though. I've been waiting hours for ya here. Looks as though there isn't a corridor anymore though...." she said, scratching her head. She turned back to Arson. "Who are you, anyways?"
"I'm a friend of Xyphos'. I'll tell ya more later. We don't know where your friend is... but we'll find her." Arson piped in. "So no worries, even though we got a new mission. We're gonna find your other friend, but we need to find Dante too."
"That old senile bastard? Why?"
I could hear a growl when Arson replied. "Because he's my grandfather, and I came to find him."
"Oh." was all Maria muttered, before blushing a blood red.
"So why won't we need to go back to the Underworld?" I interrupted.
"I know neither one of them is there. I can sense both Alca and Dante, and they're somewhere in the castle."
"Fun, fun" Arson added sarcasticlly, "A hunt."
"No, no hunt." a voice said, out of the shadows in a corner of the room catching the three of us by surprise.
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YAY! Cliffhanger! Ok, seriously guys, did you think that was a good chapter? I really tried to make it sad and depressing, and I don't think its that good... -_-' Anyways, bonding is good, yes very good. Ok, anyways, please read and review, and tell me what you think of it! Thanks a lot to Bustahead again for the ideas and using Xyphos! ^_^ *Hug*