Chapter Four: Corrupted
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Rosalyn knew two things when she woke up.
She had a bad headache.
And her arm hurt. Really badly.
She ruffled tiredly through her memories, trying to figure out what happened. She staggered to her feet, looking around the place she was beginning to call her home.
Wait...why was she in Ari's manor? Wasn't she outside?
Then all of it came back. She stared at her arm, looking at the two deep, small cuts. Smooth and perfectly round, and then she felt sick, and almost fainted again.
She stumbled, falling backward, only to be caught by a pair of cold arms.
"Still tired?" Stan smirked, holding her up and looking down at her with his fanged smile. Rosalyn glared, and pulled herself from his grip.
She really wanted to hurt him.
But being Rosalyn, that wasn't too odd. What was odd...was how she wanted to do it.
The thoughts running through her mind were barbaric...and cruel...
"Oh...no..."
Stan grinned delightedly. "That's right; you're almost just like me, woman."
She whirled around, glaring at him. "I'm nothing like you."
"Oh really? Go look in the mirror."
Rosalyn ran into the bathroom down the hall, wondering where everyone was. She looked outside and saw the sun was still out; they must be at the party. She stared at her reflection, with Stan's footsteps slowly coming down the hall.
Heck no.
Her features were barely changed, her face was a little more pointed, like Stan's, sort of like a cat. Her eyes, always golden, were glowing just so slightly. Not only had that changed...she pushed her hair back on an impulse.
And almost screamed, if Stan hadn't put his hand over her mouth.
All that came out was a muffled noise, because her ears were pointed.
"You turned me into an elf!" She shouted, whirling around and staring at him. Roasting him over a slow fire sounded really good about now...
"What? No. You're just part demon." He laughed while Rosalyn fumed, resisting the urge to murder him on the spot. Sensing, perhaps, how close she was to snapping, Stan put his hands up.
"Calm down, Rosy."
"CALM DOWN? I'M A DEMON!" She roared, grabbing her rapier with one arm and staring at it.
"You're not considering suicide are you?" Stan asked casually, but his eyes stared hard at her.
"Gah. No. Of course not. Heroes don't give up that easy."
"But you're not a Hero anymore, are you? You're an Anti-Hero!" Stan snickered and Rosalyn groaned, hitting her head on the sink.
"Why me? Okay…no more of this. Now what, we find the others?"
"First, I need you to come with me. I promised I'd show you the truth, the reason why I'm not lying about Addonexus."
That was more important at the moment. She could always kill him later. Her thoughts were clouded, something she would only realize later.
"Sure, yeah. Get it over with, then!" She grumbled, following him out of the door. They snuck out back and headed around in a loop toward the Stone Circle of Tenel, set up at the Circus Grounds, though it probably wasn't there anymore, the circus that is.
The silence stretched for a long time…uncomfortably long. Stan kept glancing back at her, and every time their eyes met he just grinned evilly.
Rosalyn crossed her arms, scowling, staring at the sky. "Done acting so childish?" She asked."I know you let the bug bite longer than it should!"
"True, I did. But I told you I wouldn't let it bite too long, you're still mostly good. Happy?"
Rosalyn kicked him down as soon as he turned back around, then she started kicked him in the side, a cowardly thing she wouldn't have done had it not been for Infectus.
"You stupid Evil King!" She hissed, slamming her foot into him to emphasize each word. "You did this to me, on purpose, so I'm going to kick you into-"
Suddenly Rosalyn realized what she was doing, and she pulled back, covering her mouth with her hands.
"Oh no. Darn it!!!" Rosalyn covered her whole face with her hands and heaved a sigh. "Sorry."
Stan got to his feet, smoothing his costume out. "What, that? Nah, I got hurt more by two year olds."
Rosalyn smirked, looking at him through her fingers. "Wow, must be some tough two year olds."
Stan bristled, but grabbed her hand and started walking. "We're almost there…"
She yanked her hand from his grip and started down the path, heading for the glowing green Stone Circle.
Rosalyn felt that familiar feeling of being lifted into the air, of being weightless, and then of that same weight appearing way too fast. She was used to it by now, and placed her feet down carefully, still feeling a bit dizzy. She broke into laughter as Stan staggered around a bit.
"S-Shut up, woman. I'm just not used to that." He growled.
"I know. You're used to hiding in Ari's shadow." Rosalyn walked past him and looked around. That's when she realized that the woman usually on Wap Wap Island wasn't there today.
"Where's…"
"Beats me. Why do I care for such an insignificant person like her? Speaking in a flat voice all the time, no wonder, she must have no life out here!" He gestured around them at the island in the middle of the ocean, the other Circles still glowing their rainbow of colors, and how there wasn't even any birds in sight.
"So," Rosalyn sneered. "Where's your so called proof?"
Stan grumbled something, walking toward the Stone Circle that led to the snow fields, Pospos, or at least that's what Rosalyn thought they were called.
"This way. And I know I said there's a temple, but I don't like to repeat myself, when we get the Slave and everyone gathered back together, we'll head over there. I have some more proof."
They warped back to the freezing climate of the snow fields, and Rosalyn extracted herself from a particularly deep clump of snow that had gathered around the Circle.
"You could have told me you were doing this, instead of letting me freeze." She grumbled.
"Shut up, it's only some snow, and you're aligned with Ice anyway." Stan stepped into Triste, the beautiful city for the Ignored, back when Classification still existed. Nowadays, people still lived here, but most had eagerly left to get back to their lives. Once, Ari had wanted to go back to visit but Marlene had gotten so terrified he had finally decided to cancel the visit.
It had an eerie feel, even though now it was populated, some of the inhabitants had gone insane from being ignored and were still living in the city. The air had a sharp, eerie feel and bittersweet music played from somewhere, but Rosalyn couldn't track it down. A seemingly abandoned Hero's Club rested to the side of the road, and the door was open though no one was inside.
"Why are we here?" She asked Stan after they walked in silence for a bit. She kept trying to ignore the dark thoughts that entertained themselves in her head.
"We're heading for the library. Some of these books have never been read before, naturally, since the Ignored lived in this city, and people like you never got to read stuff like that."
"Can you even read?" Rosalyn teased.
Stan huffed. "Yes, of course, Hero woman. I went to the World Library unable to read."
"Must have been hard after three hundred years in a bottle."
"Nonsense, you insignificant pig! I'm the Great Evil King Stanley HiHat Trinidad XIV; everything and all things are easy to me."
"Oh really? That must include being stupid."
They bickered back and forth before reaching the pristine but still eerily empty library. It was small, but very crowded, and the odd part was the absence of dust.
Rosalyn ran her finger over the table, watching it smear the wooden surface, and glanced around. No spider webs, no dust. How could that-
"Rosy, I said something to you. Are you deaf as well as fat and stupid?"
She snapped out of her trance, and several dark thoughts came to mind before she shoved it down. "Didn't I say don't call me Rosy?"
"Tch, whatever…woman." Stan dropped a brown book on the table; the leather so cracked and worn it looked in danger of dropping off.
"This isn't the one from the World Library; in fact, there's some kind of spell that prevents me from taking it out. Darn that Beiloune. Regardless of that imbecile's spells, which I could probably break in time, this book has some info."
Stan tapped the page, and Rosalyn saw the whole book was handwritten. The page was yellow and crackly, and the ink was dark red.
"Please don't tell me-"
"It's blood all right. That's not important either, going off on tangents now? By the next morning, the sky should be really cloudy, and then it'll start to rain, but it'll fall up. That's the best translation I can give for non Diablerie speaking humans."
Rosalyn noticed the text was written in some strange, jagged looking writing that made absolutely no sense to her.
"Falling up?" She said skeptically, pushing her hair back to examine the picture on the next page better.
The picture was hard to see, since it was stained and slightly blurry, but it depicted a tree started to slowly disintegrate, pieces flying toward the blackened sky.
"Yeah, you heard me. Apparently Addonexus's clouds are going to suck up a lot of the nutrient here, but don't worry, the world will still live. Problem is, once the clouds get going no one knows how to stop them." Stan scratched his head, scowling. "We'd have to find Addonexus, but the problem is he'll probably be in the Diablerie, trying to find the Spiritus, which I have reason to believe Beiloune has, or had."
Rosalyn stared at Stan, and then laughed. "No way have you figured this out by yourself!"
Stan smirked. "Sure I did. I'm a Great King of Evil after all."
Rosalyn thought of several ways to get him to talk, and before her Hero side could react, she grabbed Stan's head and slammed it onto the table, drawing her sword and poking her throat. He tried to get up, and then froze when he felt the cold blade.
"For real, did you really solve this by yourself?"
Stan grumbled something and Rosalyn just poked him again.
"Okay, fine! I had some help."
"From who?"
"That clown scholar, Kisling."
Rosalyn let him up, sheathing her rapier. "I knew it." She said smugly, and Stan growled.
"Not important! Details…who needs them…point being before I was so rudely interrupted, we'll have to find a way into the Diablerie, if the guy is there, or we'll have to hope he's here somewhere on this realm looking for the Spiritus. I'm not sure what the Diablerie is even like now."
Rosalyn nodded. "I see. But is a book much proof that he's here, that and your nightmares?"
Stan nodded, tapping the desk with his claw-like fingers. "You said you trusted me. After all, Epros must have had them before me, that's why he saw this fore coming danger, and most likely broke up with Linda because of that, not wanting her hurt. I just guessed that…"
"You're not about to tell me Epros is a king or something are you?"
"Of course not, you brain dead Hero! The Spiritus is more closely connected to the guys who made it, phantoms, and no, Epros did not make it. He's the son of someone who did."
"Wait, what?" Rosalyn was slightly confused. "How did he get Addonexus connected with the-"
Stan smirked. "Well, it appears some things are beyond you. Let me explain. It seems that Addonexus, who has the Necomortis, is getting closer. The closer he gets, the more the Spiritus reacts to being near it. Get it?"
"Yeah, okay. Whatever. Now what?"
Stan snapped the book closed and tucked it under his arm. "We go back to Ari's manor and bite the others with the Infectus, and then we need to find Epros."
Rosalyn shook her head. "You're so stupid! We could have done that first!"
"If that necklace is what I think it is, the one Linda had, none of the minions Addonexus has can touch Linda if she has it on. And unless she took it off at some point, it should hide her from them too."
"What minions?" She asked as they headed out of Triste, and passed the spot where K.T. usually stood.
"Hey, I don't know. I don't even know if Ari can handle them, or the others. Enough chit chat, let's go."
Rosalyn walked silently, following Stan, and wondering if…no…this couldn't have been planned…because she saw no reason why they couldn't have bitten the others, and then gone to Triste…
Something irritated her. Her dark thoughts screamed he had set this up, and Rosalyn vaguely wondered if it was right.