"Get away from me, you slimy monster!"
Cassandra continues to walk backwards, away from this abomination – she is too shocked and afraid to run. Lizardman swipes at her with his axe, and she quickly ducks to avoid his attack.
"No! Go away!"
Lizardman swiped at her again, and she had to sway to her left.
"This isn't right! It wasn't meant to end like this!"
Lizardman swipes at her a third time, and this time it's grazes her right arm slightly.
"Alright! I've had enough of this!" With a sudden burst of energy, Cassandra holds her hands out to push him away, hoping that she might get past her shock in the process and gain an opportunity to flee. However, the instant that her hands came into contact with his chest, Lizardman let out a horrific wail that pierced Cassandra's ears.
"Huh?" Cassandra looked down and saw that white smoke was billowing out of his skin, which she was still touching with her hands. She tried to pull herself away, but found that she was trapped – she could not remove herself from this abominable creature. Lizardman let out another terrible cry – it was clear that he was in considerable pain. Suddenly, Cassandra felt as though she was falling down an immense cavern – she became blind to everything except the white smoke which continued to ebb between her fingers, and she had an awful sensation of plummeting into the earth. Suddenly, she found herself screaming, and then, she and Lizardman fell to the ground, unconscious.
Some hours later, Cassandra awakens and groans slightly.
"What the hell just happened?" Cassandra tried to understand what had occurred between them, but it was so unrelentingly surreal that thinking about the situation only made it seem more perplexing. She looked over at Lizardman – he was just starting to come to as well, his tongue protruding between two of his front teet. Before too long he was fully conscious as well, and peered at her with an expression that Cassandra was unable to decipher.
"You… You are my saviour. You've given me back my soul"
Immediately he dropped his weapons and hugged her; Cassandra was now even more confused. "You can talk? What's going on here?"
"You've saved me! I can never thank you enough!"
"But why did you try to attack me earlier?"
Lizardman stops hugging her, and looks down at her youthful face. "For a long time", he began, "I had lost all sense of my former self. I had lost my soul, the one thing that tied me to humanity. For years, memories of my human life taunted me – I had almost forgotten what it was like to be human. And now… you've given it back to me. My humanity. I may still be trapped in a lizard's body, but now that I have my soul back, suddenly the world doesn't seem so hopeless…"
"You mean you used to be human?"
"Yes. My tale is a most unfortunate one. My name was Aeon Calcos, and I was a Spartan soldier. I had been sent on a holy quest to destroy Soul Edge by Hephaestus…"
"Urgh!" Cassandra interrupted. "Hephaestus! I don't ever want to hear his name again! With all the suffering that he's caused my sister he doesn't even deserve to be called a god!"
"Believe me, for a long time I harboured a hatred for Hephaestus even more intense than yours. I wanted to reclaim Soul Edge and, rather than destroy it, use it to murder him myself. But soon, even human traits such as revenge became unknown to me – I had reverted to a complete primal state. And so I sought after Soul Edge for a different reason – to regain my lost soul, which Soul Edge held within itself. So how is it that you have been able to return it to me?"
Cassandra realised that this unfortunate man was likely to be the only person she could confide in, and so she decided to relate her tale as well. "I destroyed Soul Edge. But when I returned home, it turned out that Sophitia's daughter had depended upon the sword for survival. Sophitia said that I'd murdered her, and thus I was banished from my homeland. For weeks I've had nowhere to go – how I've survived this long I'm not sure. And then I met you…"
Lizardman's face lit up. "When you destroyed Soul Edge, you must have assimilated the souls contained within it, including mine. Somehow, you were able not only to return that soul to me, but also to purify me of my evil deeds. Because of that, I've forever indebted to you. Whatever you wish me to do, I shall accomplish it." He knelt down in front of her.
There were many things that Cassandra wished for, but she knew that it would be impossible for this tortured man to fulfil them. "If you really want to help me", Cassandra said finally, "then tell me where I should go from her"
"What do you mean?"
Suddenly, Cassandra became unable to control her frustration. "Don't you understand? I've lost everything that ever mattered to me! Everyone I loved, everything I ever knew!" Hot tears streamed down her cheeks. "What's a girl supposed to do when she's lost everything?" She sat down on a nearby rock and found that her emotions were in control of her once again. Lizardman looked at her for a while, and let her shed some of her grief. After she was finished, he put his hand on her shoulder.
"Come with me", he said after a little while.
Cassandra sniffed. "What?"
"Join me as a friend. I can help you, and you can help me. Even if society can never accept us for who we are, it won't matter, as long as we can accept each other"
Cassandra was amazed. "How can you be so cheerful, when we're under such dire circumstances?"
"I don't think you realise just how important your returning of my human sanity was to me. It was the one thing that I wanted, the one thing that I needed, and now you've given it back to me. Even if I am still a lizard on the outside, that doesn't matter anymore – I know in my heart that I am human once again. We've been brought together for a reason, I know it. Come."
Cassandra was still unsure about joining him, but she realised that she had very little left to lose, and decided that having anyone for company, even a total stranger, would be better than being isolated from the rest of the world. He took her hand, and they began to walk into the sunset.
"Hey, Aeon."
He turned to her. "Yes?"
"Thank you"
The two continued walking hand-in-hand. Cassandra had no idea where they were going, and she suspected that he did not know either, but she felt in her heart that her life could still be salvaged. There would be tough times ahead, she knew that very well, but with Lizardman by her side, who periodically stroked her face to comfort her, she was sure that there would be happy moments ahead as well, and she hoped that these happy moments would turn her life into something worthwhile after all.