You gonna gimme your brother yet?
Acheron: Negotiations take time, Squirt.
Hey, I'm the one who could kill you off in my story!
Savitar: Damn! I like this one! She's a keeper!
Acheron: Stay out of this, Sav!
Alexion heard Acheron's call and brought him home. He hadn't expect his master to have company. "Uh, boss…"
"Not now. I got bit by a beast called Titan and now this Arithian girl is dying because Atlantean blood is poison to their race." Ash hustled to his room and laid her on his bed. Alexion stayed in stride with him the entire way. "Had I put two and two together earlier, when she felt me mess around in her head-then I wouldn't be responsible for ending one of the most victimized races in existence forever."
"It's not your fault, Acheron. I was the same way." Alexion reminded. He tilted his head, his eyes closed. "There's a ferret in a locker down at the morgue and it's worried as hell. Should I go get it?"
"Huh? Yeah-go ahead-no, wait…send Danger. I need you here to help me with her." Ash's thoughts were as scattered as he took off the girl's shoes and patted her down with care, favoring his left hand. Alexion grabbed his wrist and looked at the bite.
"Boss, you need to get that bandaged. If she is Arithian, then you need to get the anti-venom soon." Ash jerked his hand back.
"There is no anti-venom. As long as her heart beats in her chest, I won't die…at least, that's in theory." Acheron earned a look that clearly said what Alexion was really thinking. "I know! I know! Theories aren't fact but Arithians have been demolished down to her and that means that there is no anti-venom."
Alexion help Acheron take off anything she didn't need. Her coroner assistant badges, her watch, her long sleeved thermal shirt, her cropped sleeve scrub shirt, her shoes, her hair tie, her glasses and her necklace were all taken off but Ash's eyes froze on the gold bracelet on the girl's slender wrist. He knew the ancient Lunarian words scrawled on the smooth surface.
"…'For Thou Hath Committed Crimes Against Humanity In His Unholy Name, Thou Art Forbidden To Be Worthy Of Her Light'…" The Atlantean read in disbelief. "Alexion, check her left hip. Look for a crescent on its back and 10 small starbursts."
"Right." Alexion gently moved the girl on her side and lifted the black tank top she wore up to see what Ash had been looking for. "I see the crescent and…1 starburst. What does it mean?"
"It means that she did something very wrong in order to do something very right." Acheron had heard stories of an evil warrior using the Darkness to preserve the Light. But he had never thought they were true. After all, for someone with a black heart to betray their Master to serve under the enemy was only done once. After that betrayal, any others thinking of the same thing were destroyed instantly.
"What happens if that last starburst goes?" Alex asked now that they were on the subject. Acheron was seeing how badly his blood had spread in her arms.
"The crescent will glow and she'll, in a sense, self destruct but it's more like smashing her power together in a way that it can't conform and it destroys her body, mind and soul." The Atlantean ran his fingers over a spot on her forearm while he held her hand gently in his. "Arithians could come back from a lot but not that. They're like Apollites and Daimons in a way. While they live, their beautiful, sexy and deadly with very little to believe in but believing in it without wavering. When they die, they can come back as foul smelling creatures with acidic blood called 'Daiba'. They have to eat flesh in order to keep their bodies together."
"And the source of zombies comes to light at long last." The Greek Shade teased the Atlantean Dark Hunter, getting a smirk. "What are you doing?"
Ash smiled lopsidedly. "I've got this theory running through my mind. You know the stories of the war between the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse and the Gates of Hell?" Alexion nodded slowly. "Well, the Gates were broken into four and given Gatekeepers. These Gatekeepers were women of power and to get their Gate, a Horseman would have to take her Soul Stone. The problem was that to protect their Gate, they could take the Soul Stone of the Horseman pursuing her Gate."
"You're starting to lose me, boss." He warned, not seeing the point.
"Sorry. The thing is that the only way to open the Gate was to be a Hellguard, the combination of a Horseman and a Gatekeeper. And the only way to become a Hellguard was to absorb the Soul Stone of the opposite." Acheron apologized, catching his Defender up on the legends. "There were, in turn, 4 Hellguards but only one of those 4 was the Hellguard of Armageddon. And that Hellguard was made up of the Horseman of Destruction-the 4 Horseman in one and the Gatekeeper of Creation, the combined 4 ladies. Still with me?"
"I'm honestly trying." Alexion nodded. "So, let me get this straight. 4 Gates of Hell, 4 Gatekeepers, 4 Horsemen, 4 Hellguards, 8 Soul Stones-assuming each one had one-and yet there are 3 Master positions. The Gatekeepers are women and the Horsemen are portrayed as men but they're opposites who try to steal the Soul Stone of the other instead of working together. Which makes no sense whatsoever."
Acheron laughed at Alexion's reaction. "It didn't make sense to me when Savitar told me either. But he kept telling me to rethink the wording. The word 'opposite' is used so often that it's absolute and that means if the Horsemen wear black and evil-which every story says they do, then the Gatekeepers wear white and goodness. And then you have to factor in their personal colors, weapons, powers, the Gates and wherever they're all from because none of them are from the same place but they all live in a mutual world or culture."
Alexion could feel Acheron was trying to get his power to do something as he knew that Acheron was also trying to give him some background information but Alexion couldn't honestly see the point. What did it have to do with the girl? Unless…
"Are you thinking that she's a Gatekeeper?" He said getting his master to look up and nod with an honest look on his face. "Then what are you looking for?"
"Gatekeepers have an Alpha on their right forearms. The legends say that the sign bleeds on to the skin with the sensation of being pricked by many needles. And that they always show when the Horsemen are around." Ash answered. "And I'm trying to stimulate the area where it's supposed to be so we can see the damn mark but it's being stubborn."
"Boss, perhaps if we can get an antidote for the poison-" Alexion put his hand on the girl's left forearm and a shock was delivered to both men. They jerked their hands back and exchanged very curious and shocked looks. "What was that?"
"I have no idea." Those weren't the words Alexion wanted to hear from the Atlantean-EVER. It wasn't good when he said those words. "Ias, look-the mark came up. Damn, it's purple. That means she's the Gatekeeper of the Tombs of Silence."
"This one's black." Alexion looked at her left forearm. "Black omega, what does that mean?"
"It means that she absorbed the Horseman of Death." Ash looked at the black mark. "She's the Hellguard of Oblivion. Gods above, I poisoned the Hellguard of Oblivion."
"They all have names?" The Greek Shade asked skeptically. "Where is all this written? Savitar should have told you that much."
"Oh, he did. But it's not written down anywhere. He was told by one of the Gatekeepers but he never knew which one. She was in a white cloak and kept it up the entire time they spoke." Acheron nodded as he brushed the girl's hair out of her face. "I'm going to need leaves from the Tree of Life in Kalosis. It'll be the only way to save her. Get Kat to get them and then go get that ferret you mentioned earlier."
"Otto has it. He went to go check on Francis's 2 underlings for him and found the ferret in the locker." Alexion got a look of pure shock. "What's wrong?"
"Francis works in a morgue and I chased a daimon into a morgue. The daimon killed one of them but she was going to…give me her tag!" Acheron ordered. Alexion gave him the girl's badge. He looked at the photo and information. "Tomoe, Hotaru…Assistant Medical Examiner. Fuck. She's one of Francis's assistants and the other one had his brains splattered all over the wall behind him for saving her. Dammit! I can't believe I let that happen!"
"As much as I understand how pissed at yourself you are, can I remind you of Ms. Tomoe's dwindling life force?" Alexion reminded. "What are you going to do?"
Acheron ran his hands through his hair as he pushed his tired brain to think. He tried to figure out what he had for options. But his mind only came up with one answer again and again. He didn't like it but it seemed like he had no choice.
"…I've got to let her die…"
Alexion looked at him. "Excuse me? You're going to let the last of an ancient race die when you could do something?"
"I'm going to let her body die and then I'm going to use the leaves from the Tree of Life to heal it. She'll wake up a little stiff and unused to her body but that's the way it has to be done." Acheron elaborated. "The leaves'll need to be made into a tea. She'll be talking in a different language for a while and you might not know what she's saying half the time but this is the only way this'll work."
"Whatever you say, boss." Alexion nodded, leaving Ash alone. Acheron stroked Hotaru's hair out of her face and then stepped back to await her death.
Acheron: I don't care WHAT Sasuke says--you're fucking EVIL!
I have NOT slept with Orochimaru or Stryker! I'm a one Kazekage kinda girl.
Acheron: (words click) Your mind's in the gutter.
(Sticks tongue out) You're just jealous b/c I wanted your brother an not you.