Chapter 12 Away from the Darkness
The anatomy of a demon differs vastly from that of a human. Internal organs are used mostly for refining and transporting the demon's arcane lifeblood; organs like the stomach and the digestive system are not present, as most demons do not eat in the traditional sense. Skeletal structure is as different as each Tribe, if it, or for that matter a physical body, is even present. Some are more ethereal, like whispers on the wind, while others have bodies as frail as a human's. Some, still, have carapaces tougher and stronger than any armor a human could forge. And there are some demons still that can even regenerate lost limbs and recover from ordinarily mortal injuries in an instant. These kinds of demons, these "devils," tend to be the most powerful. Some have lifespans of a mayfly, others though…
Sparda had been living for almost three millenia already. He was well into his "adolescence" at the Battle of Argosax, some 2000 years ago. In his extensive demonic life, a little over middle age, he had seen and experienced so much, but he had never actually felt. Demons do not have feelings in the way humans have them; they have dark souls. But Sparda was transforming, in ways that no demon had ever even contemplated. These changes to the very fabric of his dark being all started that night when he locked eyes with the human Anna. Since then, he had been caught in a torrential rush of all kinds of emotion, the most prominent of which was burning curiosity; curious as to why he feels now, what he feels, what makes him feel, why different things trigger different sentiments. But most of all, the one feeling that's always there, is a strange yearning for something, something he's not aware of….
He had spent weeks in the human world considering all of these things, safely removed from the ever-present influence of Mundus. During his time in the human world, he'd also been secretly surveilling a group of humans that were part of the resistance. He began to see definitive differences in the humans as well; he was now able to tell them apart by face as well as personality. When he first arrived in the human world, they all looked the same: simple, clumsy flesh-ridden beings. They all looked the same, except for…
"Her…" Sparda whispered in his demonic tongue. A rush of exhilaration surged within him at the sight of Anna, tinkering around a mud-hut, doing this and that. She moved around the camp, doing things Sparda didn't pay particular attention to. Sometimes she needed to move away from the trees and bushes Sparda hid behind, and sometimes she moved closer to them. The times when she moves closer are the moments that Sparda embraced; the jittery excitement pumps through his body like adrenaline. Excitement: one of the emotions Sparda doesn't quite know how to control yet. His smooth gray face was almost protruding through the bushes he was behind; either he did not notice or did not care.
She was dressed differently than she was in the monastery weeks before. On this night, she looked more like a battle-ready soldier than she did in her simple, white peasant dress. She now wore tall black boots with gold buckles on the side, over brown pantaloons bound by leather straps, decorated with assorted knives, Holy Waters, and the pistol she had become accustomed to over the past few weeks. A brown book was latched to her hip and small cases of iron pellets lined her waist like a belt. Upon her slender frame she wore a white, three-button blouse that hung off her shoulders, revealing her collar bone. Her long dark hair was now pulled into a ponytail, and swayed as she walked. And around her neck, she wore the now polished white gold necklace, fitted with that strange amulet, that Abel had given her over two years ago. What stands out most about her are her deep blue eyes, shining in the moonlight. As she walks away from the trees Sparda immerses himself in every detail of her.
Across the camp, he notices two children kicking a ball around. To him they are simply, smaller, weaker humans, like a separate subs-species rather than developing beings. A little girl with short brown hair kicked a ball over to a little barefoot boy. The boy kicked the ball hard and it flew into the bushes where Sparda was hiding. The ball rolled and hit Sparda's foot. He looked down and picked it up to examine it. Suddenly, the little girl dashed into the bushes, apparently looking for the plaything. Sparda saw her coming but, for some reason, he could not get himself move. He simply stood in the shadow of a tree, holding the ball as she approached, his red eyes narrowing in the darkness.
The little girl saw the Sparda's menacing silhouette as he held the ball, but she was not afraid. She smiled and held out her hand, waiting for Sparda to give her the ball. Still very young, the little girl had no idea that she should probably fear this being. In her imaginative world, everything was fine, and the war between humans and demons was non-existent.
Sparda saw the girl holding out her hand and realized why she was doing so. He slowly reached out with his clawed hand holding the ball and the little girl grabbed it. She gave Sparda one more look, giggled, and bolted back into the camp to play with her friend. Becoming a bit wary of this encounter, Sparda ponders…..will she warn the others?
Thinking his cover would be blown soon, Sparda was preparing to fly away but was suddenly halted by a loud explosion coming from the camp. He turned back to see orange flames leaping into the sky. Several people around the camp scattered, thinking that the demons were attacking again.
"What the hell was that?" Called a man armed with sword-in-hand.
"It's ok. It's ok. My apologies."
The people looked on to see Ivan appear from the smoke and debris of the explosion.
"It's ok, it was my fault. It's just a small glitch, no need to worry…"
"What in the world did you do, Ivan?"
"Well, I managed to cultivate a very….powerful material. It was extremely hard to extract and stabilize. At any rate, as you saw, its effects are very …destructive"
"Good. This will work well against the demons. How much of it do you have?" Anna inquired.
"Well…that's the thing; I have only managed to cultivate it in its raw state. It is extremely volatile in this form, to say the least…It would put you as well as the demons in grave danger. However, if I can manage to, hmm, harness it in some form, maybe you would be able to carry it with you into battle…If I could only find a way to condense the Eagle's Blood within the Lion's mouth…"
"Alright, but until then no more surprises ok?"
"—On that note, I have a new weapon for you" Ivan hands Anna a sleek metal pistol, "I combined the basic idea of your crossbow with the properties of the volatile compound I was just telling you about…"
"Wait a minute," Anna interrupted, "didn't you say the material was dangerous and unstable?"
"Well…yes, but that's why I gave the pistol a metal barrel, and I only used small amounts of the compound. The combustion is necessary to propel the ballistic projectiles in the chamber. Now you do not have to fire the arrows with your own power, you can simply pull on this trigger, and the strength of the, hmm, explosion will do the rest of the work. It's controlled chaos..."
And smiled as she admired the new weapon, "I don't know what we would do without you Ivan."
"No, you give me too much credit. I would not be able to do this without our collective effort, and people bringing me specimens from the battlefield. Incidentally, if by some minor miscalculation on my part, your hand is blown off by the blast, I have been working on rudimentary, functioning prosthetics…"
Anna grinned uneasily and hooked the pistol on the back of her belt. As she walked back over to a small den, Sparda watched her intensely. Suddenly, a shriek, like none ever heard by Sparda before, startles him. He observed Anna carefully and noticed her pick up another, smaller human wrapped in cloths. The baby continued to cry, waving its arms back and forth. Anna then begins to rock the infant up and down very gently, and whispered softly in its ear. Confused by the gesture, Sparda surveyed the camp once more.
Then it finally sunk in, he started to actually see things, details to everything; the colors of the grass and leaves, the lights from the stars hanging in the sky. The way the air moved over his face, the way the dirt felt on his feet. It almost knocks him down, it's so much to take in, but his gaze turns back to the group of humans and he takes in the particulars of what they are doing.
"They're making weapons…"
Like the ocean beating against a cliff, bad news continues to hit Sparda. He remembers about his "check-ups" with Mundus. His wings snap, and with tremendous power, he barrels through the air and blasts through the gate to Hell……
Deep inside the Temen-Ni-Gru, Geryon and his new rider, the evil-obsessed Architect of the Devil's Tower, now consumed by the soul and essence of the Dark Rider, sit majestically surrounded by hundreds of slaves. Geryon's power radiates from his eyes, shining like sapphires among the pale, washed-out, inverted luminance caused by his limited power of time control. The Rider's smile stretches from ear to ear, teeth contorted and twisted in his rotting face. The "disobedient" workers hang lifelessly in mid air, as long metal arrows jut through their sternums.
"Excellent, slaves...."
From the point-of-view of The Rider, the slaves move at rapid speed, due to his effect on time. For the slaves, however, time moves at a painstaking crawl, with days passing for them in the mere blink of Geryon's eye; Time moves so slow as to drive even a dead man out of his mind. Unlike his steed, Geryon, who can only null time, The Dark Rider's powers null the mind as well, causing anyone within range to do his bidding. The lifeless bodies in the air scream of involuntary self-mutilation….
"Now, the final piece!!!"
Hours seem to pass for the slaves as they slide the largest piece into place. Before them, a gift for their Master, stands a statue of awesome dimensions: a rendering of Mundus himself.
"Good. Lord Mundus will be pleased……"