Chapter 8: Rael's Tale

Once again the two brothers struggled through the dense forest, on their way to the ruins of Baba Yaga Castle, in complete and utter silence. Rael glanced at the trees all around him and blew out his breath in a quiet sigh. Wasn't there anything out here that wasn't green and covered with leaves?

He could hear the birds and monkeys in the canopy up above but he wasn't able to see them. The only animals he could see were a few little creepy crawly things on the path in front of them and a frog in the leaf litter off to the side. Rael wasn't really crazy about bugs. They were kind of gross but he could handle them. The frog only made him smile as he thought about Eruka. All the same, he was a little uneasy as they pushed further and further into the jungle. There was one animal that Kess knew lived in the area and that creature did scare him. Thank goodness he hadn't seen any!

Rael was considering whether or not to open his mouth and try to start another conversation with Giriko, or at the very least, ask him how much further this stupid ruin was supposed to be. The silence was getting to him, as it had before. No matter how angry he was, he just couldn't stand getting the silent treatment. He frowned as he glanced over at his older brother. Giriko knew that Rael would quickly crack under the weight of a heavy silence. It was a trick he used to use when they were kids. The chainsaw wasn't very good at dealing with the quiet either but he somehow managed better than Rael and was considerably better at it when he knew it would annoy his little brother. He's a sadist, Kess thought to himself with disgust. He then vowed once again not to let Giriko have the satisfaction of seeing him crack. He was tough! That trick might have worked when he was ten but not now. He could be silent just as long as Giriko could.

Suddenly, a snake that had been clinging to a low hanging branch over the trail, dropped to the ground directly in front of Rael. He let out a yell and jumped backward, tripping over an exposed tree root, and landing on his backside in the dirt. "Shit! Where the hell did that thing come from?"

Giriko spun around at the sound of Rael's cry. His adrenaline was pumping. Was it something dangerous? Something to kill perhaps? Better yet, maybe it was something that would eat that annoying little freak. What he actually saw was even better yet, his kid brother on his ass in the dirt. The demon weapon laughed uproariously but finally was able to wipe the tears from the corners of his eyes and said, "What the hell are you doing down there?"

Rael glared at him furiously as he struggled to his feet and began to brush the dirt from his gray jeans. "I tripped," he said quietly. Being too embarrassed to look Giriko in the face, he began to inspect his clothes for tears.

"Yeah, I can see that," the light haired man said between soft chuckles. "What startled you or do you always walk backwards so you can trip over what's behind you?" He was staring at the tree root by Rael's feet.

"Uh," Ace mumbled as his brain raced for a good excuse but was unable to come up with a thing. The truth would just have to do. "A snake."

Giriko looked a little surprised. "Since when are you afraid of snakes? We used to catch them when we were kids. Never bothered you then."

"Those were little tiny garter snakes," Rael protested. "Those couldn't hurt you. These things out here are poisonous or big enough to strangle you! I got plenty of good reasons to be a little wary." Yeah, that was good. Let Giriko think he had a legitimate fear. Maybe then he'd leave him alone.

"Wait a minute," the chainsaw muttered, shaking his head as he grabbed hold of something making a break for the leaf litter where it would have disappeared in seconds. He held it up by its tail and dangled it in front of Rael's face. "Is this the snake?"

"Oh shit!" he yelped, jumping backwards again but this time missing the tree root. "Damn! Giriko don't do that!"

"Oh relax. Unfortunately," he said with a disappointed frown, "this one can't hurt you. Too bad," he added with a malicious grin.

Rael only looked a little relieved. His face was still quite white except for the angry flush in his cheeks. He sighed, taking off his hat and wiping his hand across his forehead.

His brown-eyed brother stared at him for a moment in silence. What the hell was wrong with that kid? He sure was acting weird over a stupid little snake. The question though was did Giriko really care enough to bother asking about it? Not really, he decided, but he was getting extremely bored. If nothing else it would pass the time… not that listening to Rael was much better. Still it was quite a ways to the ruins. Oh fine, why not?

"Alright," Giriko said with a little sigh, "you going to tell me what's going on with you?"

"Huh?" A confused look crossed Rael's face. Was his brother actually concerned about him? Couldn't be. He was just nosy or more than likely there was just a long way to go and this was Giriko's way of having something to talk about without having to admit that he couldn't take the silence. Ace thought about telling him to mind his own business but even as he opened his mouth to say so words came tumbling out and not the ones he had intended.

"What's goin' on? I'm scared shitless by snakes even when I didn't use to be, that's what's goin' on!" Giriko opened his mouth to say something but Rael cut him off. "You wanna know why? Okay, I'll tell you. 'Cause you ain't the only one who used to work for a witch, you know!"

"Arachne's sister? She's the only witch I've ever heard of with power over snakes.

"Yeah, that's right.."

"How'd you get mixed up with her?" Giriko asked in surprise. Maybe this would be an interesting story after all.

"Why don't we just start at the beginning?"

"Fine by me. We've got a long way to go. You got something to say then start talking."

"I guess the last thing you remember is waking up that morning nineteen years ago and finding me gone. Well, there's not a lot to tell at that point. I got through the forest easy enough since that's where we used to play. After that there's a little village by the Elbe River. You've probably been there. You follow the river long enough, hitching rides or whatever, and eventually you go through Germany and then to the ocean. It's a pretty long way to start with but when you're just a kid, it seemed like it took an eternity. It was worse yet 'cause I didn't really know where I was goin'. I was just tryin' to go someplace where the old man couldn't find me and bring me back.

"Anyway, I eventually made it to the port city in Germany. Didn't seem to be any further I could go. I could've stayed there and it would have been fine. The old man wouldn't have bothered to go all the way through Germany lookin' for a kid he didn't care about. For some reason though, I was scared anyway. I had to keep movin'. So I managed to sneak aboard a ship, which is not as easy as they make it look in the movies, let me tell you! Didn't know or care where it was going. Turns out it was headed for the U.S.

"Well fast forward however long we were on that miserable ship. Still get nauseous thinkin' about it," Rael added sticking out his tongue with disgust. "Anyway we docked on the east coast. I'd never seen cities as big as they were out there. I…"

"Yeah I get it. Little boy gets his first look at the big world. Just get to the part where you meet Medusa."

"I thought you said you weren't in any hurry," Rael said with a frown. "Oh well, it doesn't matter. Long story short, I ended up living in one the big cities in Jersey. Now if you remember, I was just startin' to learn about my weapon powers around the time I left. I still couldn't control 'em very well or anything."

"Yeah, I remember. You almost killed me a couple of times trying to figure some of that shit out."

Rael laughed quietly with embarrassment. "Oh yeah… s'pose I did. Uh, never mind. The point is that while I was livin' on the streets out there I kept getting' into scrapes with other kids. I thought I was good at wrestlin' and fightin' cause of livin' with you. I was wrong. I had to learn different ways to scrap and fight just to get by. Those kids didn't have weapon powers to rely on like you did. They weren't in danger of accidentally killin' me like you were. This meant that they sure as hell didn't hold back though. They might not have been able to kill me but they were definitely gonna beat the shit out of me!

"Only thing was that since I couldn't really control my powers a couple of kids got hurt real bad when they jumped me in an alley one time. That meant that I had their parents and the cops lookin' for me. So it looked like I was gonna have to leave another city and I was only thirteen or fourteen at the time.

"Fortunately it wasn't probably a week before this happened that I heard about Death's school down in Nevada. I thought it was neat that there was such a place but I didn't think too much else about it. Suddenly headin' down there to see if I could get in and learn to control my powers sounded like a pretty good idea. So that's what I did." Rael stopped to wipe the sweat off his forehead again and see what Giriko had to say.

The demon weapon noticed his younger brother staring at him. "What?"

"Just waitin' to see if you had anything to say."

"How can I say anything if you don't finish the damn story? Never seen anyone take so long to get to the point in my life!"

"This sounds familiar," Rael said as he shook his head.

"That's because you were a loudmouth chatterbox back then too. Some things never change, I guess."

Rael ground his teeth together. Why was his brother such as asshole? Still, Giriko's smile wasn't as malicious as usual so that likely meant that he wasn't really angry and was just trying to provoke Ace. Oh well. It wasn't worth getting into another fight over it.

"Where was I?" he asked as he cleared his throat. "Oh yeah, I was gonna tell you what happened when I finally hitch-hiked all the way to Nevada from Jersey. Well, I found out everything I could about the school and what you needed to get in. Turns out what you needed were parents and money for starters. There were a bunch of other requirements that I don't remember but the bottom line was that I wasn't gettin' in.

"Now what was I gonna do? I was pretty much screwed. Couldn't go back to Jersey. Couldn't go back to Europe. There really wasn't anywhere else to go so I just stayed in Death City. Lived on the streets again, tryin' to work at this or that, takin' charity when I had to. It sucked but I survived." Rael saw that Giriko looked like he was about to say something. "Oh yeah," he said quickly before he could be interrupted, "Medusa, right? I'm just gettin' to her."

"It's about time!"

"So one night I'm in a little side street behind what I found out later was the witches' chapel thingamajig. I'm practicin' creatin' and throwin' blades when all of the sudden this woman steps out of the shadows. Now I'm frozen in place. I can only guess that I'm not supposed to be out there unsupervised. It was around 2:00 AM or so. I didn't want social services or some weirdoes called in. I wanted to run away but I couldn't. It was like my feet were rooted to the ground. I could never figure out if it was a spell she used on me or whether it was just something in her eyes that told me I didn't need to run from her. Either way, I just stood there, blade in my hand and waited for her to walk over to me." Rael swallowed and looked down at the trail as they walked, a frown etched deep into his youthful face.

Giriko glanced over at his little brother for a moment. He'd gone silent. That wasn't like Rael. He noted the thoughtful look and pained expression in the gray eyes. Whatever the story was with him and this witch, it must have really affected him. Giriko shook his head. Rael had always been too sentimental. When would that boy learn that you never trust anyone, no matter what? People only hurt you! The big question was what had Medusa done to hurt Rael? "Well, what are you waiting for? Finish telling your damn story, already!"