Disclaimer: still no own.
Warning: Violence in war-style. The usual language.
CHAPTER 19 : DREAM OF CHAOS
He sat on his father's throne, his chin resting in one hand, while his other hand was lying on one of the dragons' head, who formed the arm rests of the throne. Except for the ticking of his claws on the cold black stone, everything was silent in the large chamber. The throne room of his late father… Several years ago, so full of life… now it more resembled a tomb than a king's hall. A tomb his father never got…
The Prince sighed and closed crimson red eyes. Why did he have to die… In the most crucial moment of the war. He remembered it vividly.
The sounds, the scent, the sensation, the entire feeling of battle was thick in the air, entered your body and filled your soul completely. Screams of agony, war cries, the clashes of metal against metal… and the sounds of steel going through flesh and bones. Everywhere around lay corpses, rotting in the cold light of the red sun shining through the fog of war, while on top of them demonic creatures still battled against more humanoid ones, some of the latter could even be called angelic, with their golden armour and feathery wings. The Prince's wings were draconic, like most of his race had, but those of the royal bloodline tended to be larger, darker and more intimidating when spread to their full, impressive span.
His gaze was torn from the warriors around him to the sky, where two majestic, powerful creatures combated with each other. One was larger than the other, with hellish black wings that seemed to fill the sky with every move they made, ebony hair cascaded down past large horns, eyes like hell fire and lethal claws and fangs. He wore a heavy armour rimmed with some kind of smooth black and grey fur, and the metal glowed in the fiery aura the creature possessed. He wielded a large axe that sent sparks everywhere when it crashed into the shield of his opponent. In his other claw he held a fiery kind of whip, that seared the other's skin every time it snapped and bit into his skin. Daimoon. The Lord of Demons. His father.
The other was the Hero of the Gods. He never bothered to find out or remember his name. The God looked like the ideal of an angelic warrior, and the complete opposite of Daimoon. His armour was silver and lined with gold and several jewels. He held a tower shield in the same fashion in one hand, while the other held a large sword, which looked just as fantastic as its wielder did. The perfectly white metal reflected all light that fell upon it and it blinded the enemy before it was struck down. However, this time most of the light was blocked out by the Demon King's wings.
The Prince followed the battle closely, while his Four Horsemen, who were always around him, took care none of the Gods attacked him or distracted him from watching his father fight against the hero.
He found it hard to suppress a cry of joy as the whip pulled the silvery sword out of the angelic God's hand. Daimoon smirked wickedly as he held his axe up high to cleave the God in two, but suddenly stopped in his action…dropped the axe and grabbed for his stomach… where the Hero had stabbed in a hidden dagger from his shield. The large demon coughed up dark-coloured blood, his eyes wide in shock and pain, and fell from the sky; the God, after retrieving his sword, going in pursuit for the finishing blow.
"NO, FATHER!" He screamed out, and ran through the war scenery towards the place where he saw Daimoon fall. He came just in time… to see the Hero drive the holy sword through the Demon King's heart.
"No… NOOO!" The shock and sadness of seeing his father die before him was quickly replaced by boiling rage, and his demon blood pumped like liquid fire through his veins. He drew his sword and ran forward, letting out a war cry.
The God looked up, obviously having noticed the young demon charging at him. With a confident smirk, he pulled his sword out of the corpse lying under him, the metal leaving the flesh with a satisfying wet sound.
A haze was in front of his eyes, he couldn't think straight but only one thought whirled through his head "Revenge!" He could just vaguely make out the form of the Hero raising his sword…Then a fiery red blur appeared in front of him, and a pair of strong arms held him, stopping him from running into a certain doom.
"This must be my lucky day…" remarked the Hero, as he now had the chance to destroy the last of the Demons' Royal bloodline, and after that he only had those four Knights to kill. His glorious thoughts were stopped short when suddenly a glowing blade cut through the air with a horrifying screech and drove through his chest armour into his flesh. "No… this can't… be! I can't be killed, unless…" He stammered, shocked and horrified, and gazed from the clawed hand holding the sword to the demon's face, shaped like a leering hellish black wolf. His eyes widened in recognition "… u-unless… by… Death itself."
"Exactly." The smirking demon replied.
The Prince's rage subsided and he looked to the one holding him. The demon had discarded the form of the fiery lion, standing before him in his more humanoid form. The mane of scarlet flames had calmed down to a waterfall of ebony silk. "War…"
"We have to retreat now, my Liege… we can't win this battle anymore."
But he kept staring at the body of his father, lying in the pool of his own blood. He barely registered the cries in the distance, indicating a lot more of the Gods were on their way.
War glanced to the black creature standing over the Hero's corpse, and looked back to the Prince "I'm sorry, my Lord…" He grabbed the smaller demon in his arms, and ran. He was soon joined by the other three Horsemen, and they disappeared in the shadows of the battlefield.
It felt like it had been an eternity since they were banished to this realm, after the loss of their King. Yes, the castle did resemble the old one, it was actually the same, though he didn't really know how the Gods had managed to transport it on the whole, but the realm was a horrible parody of their former habitat.
It should have been the Demons ruling over the universe, and the Gods being trapped in a place that made hell resemble a nice holiday resort.
But when the day of his revenge is there, he won't be so merciful, that he promised. He would destroy all of them, just as their bastard of a hero killed his father.
He was pulled out of his reverie as the heavy doors that gave entrance to the large chamber turned on their hinges to reveal the form of one of the few people he still trusted completely. The second of his Four Horsemen.
The Prince stood up from his throne as War stepped forward and bowed before his lord. "Are we ready?" He asked after his knight had straightened up.
"We are, my Lord Chaos." War's alternate form, the magical demon armour of the lion of fire, was activated. They were indeed prepared to leave.
"Very well." He nodded, and followed the fiery creature out of the hall. Once past the doors, he could see his other knights; Conqueror, Pestilence and Death. All with their lieutenants, after War's red-skinned companion had joined him. 'All except for…'
He looked to the first Horseman "Where's your lieutenant?"
"He's been gone for days…" The white-armoured knight replied "I've searched everywhere, but I couldn't find him."
"We'll have to leave without him then." But a strange, awful sense of foreboding crept over the Prince's mind. He shook it off mentally. "Let's go then."
His warriors nodded firmly and followed their Lord… to the end of the world.
Vegeta jumped awake, the blanket that had covered him had already been kicked off somewhere during his troubled sleep and was lying at his feet. He was breathing heavily while sitting straight, his eyes looking down to his hands lying in his lap 'That dream again… No… I only saw fragments before… more every time, but … not as clear as it was now. It felt like… I've really experienced that. That I was really that person… And …' He suddenly realised something and turned his head.
Raditz was lying asleep near him, the blanket covering him from the waist down, not that it was really necessary as his mane of hair formed a veritable blanket of onyx silk. Vegeta just felt like reaching out to touch it and … Vegeta shook his head. It wasn't really the time for that right now, unfortunately.
He was probably still wearing those pants, but the chest armour was placed against the wall. Vegeta's eyes were immediately drawn to the armour piece when that thought crossed his mind 'Masaka… It … truly is the armour from…' His eyes widened, and he gave a short gasp
"Who are you people…"
"Raditz?…"
"… Who's Raditz?"
"…. Oh no… he's got amnesia!"
"I don't have any amnesia…"
"Oh? And why don't you remember your own name then?"
"I do… my name is War."
The person in his dream… 'War was his name, I'm sure of it… but then… Raditz called himself that way. Maybe it wasn't amnesia… maybe it really was someone else… someone else that controlled him?…But what do the people in my dream have to do with us? This … just can't be coincidence anymore.'
His eyes wandered to Raditz' sleeping form 'That black creature was in my dream as well… and then … that fire creature that destroyed Cold… And who's this… Chaos?… What the hell is going on here?'
"My Prince? Are you alright?" Turles' deep voice broke the thick silence of the room. It was low enough not to wake up everyone, but it sounded pretty loud to Vegeta who was caught up in his thoughts.
"I… er…" His confused and upsetting train of thought must have been evident on his face. He gave a soft sigh "So many strange things are going on around us… I just want to know what's happening to us. It … seems like this is all some kind of twisted game, and we're pawns some kind of higher powers are playing with."
Turles kept silent for a moment and nodded solemnly "Exactly my sentiment, Ouji-sama…" He glanced to his younger brother "I have a feeling Raditz knows more, but he doesn't want to say anything for some reason… He was evasive earlier tonight on my questions when he came back from… well, he said he had gone on a hunt."
"He seems very tired anyway… We'll have to ask a bit more persistenly when he wakes up." Vegeta replied, "But … I had a strange dream."
"What, you too?"
Vegeta blinked "You have weird dreams too? About … horsemen and demons?"
"That… could be… The Plague… illness, famine… Pestilence." Turles muttered to himself.
"What?"
"Remember that guy who's tongue was ripped out? He spoke of famine, death, plagues and… well, lots of other things, but … maybe that's another clue as to what is going on here."
Vegeta glanced down as he searched his memory for what exactly that strange old man had said to them "The Four Horsemen… They were in my dream as well…"
"Yeah, they just keep popping up everywhere… we don't even really know what or who they are."
"We have to try and find out anyway…"
"Wait… that's it! Chikyuu-sei!"
"Huh? Yes, that's where we are, but what has that got to do with this?" Vegeta raised an eyebrow in confusion, looking to Turles, who had a strangely excited look on his face.
"Chikyuu-sei! That was where the legend of the Four Horsemen came from! From the Apocalypse! We've got to find that book or … whatever it is."
"That might be hard…"
Turles sighed "I know…"
"How about this?" The two Saiyans looked to Piccolo, who apparently had followed their entire conversation without letting them know, as he was looking clearly awake.
"How about what?" Turles asked the Namek.
"This." He held up a very thick book that had been lying on a chest of drawers in the room they occupied. None of them had paid attention to it before.'
Turles blinked, took the book from Piccolo's clawed hand and looked curiously down to the thick volume. It seemed a quite old book, which must have been opened and read a lot by the people that used to inhabit this house, because it looked quite used. There was a cross standing on the front cover, along with signs of Earthen language.
'Why would those Earthlings regularly read a very thick book?' He opened it, and blinked as he noticed the paper was rather thin and the letters were printed quite small. "How much text can there be put in one book…"
"Quite a lot, apparently…" Vegeta said as he had moved closer to the other Saiyan to be able to see this strange thing as well.
"What is this book? … And what does it have to do with anything?" Turles asked finally to Piccolo after figuring out he really couldn't make anything out of the Earthen language.
"It's a book called the "Bible". Almost every 'christian', as they call themselves, has a copy of it."
" "Bible"? Is it some kind of rule or… political… or religious book?"
"Religious."
Vegeta was getting a bit annoyed, what did he care the people here believed in some kind of thick book "What the hell does it have to do with us?"
"Try the last chapter."
"What about it?" Turles asked, remaining calm. He didn't bother to check it as he couldn't read it anyway.
"It's called Book of Revelations or … the Apocalypse."
"No kidding…" Both Saiyans looked down to the book Turles was holding.
