Lacie: OMG OMG GUYS READ THIS: Someone told me, to be more specific, her name is Faith, (penname i love jace lightwood), that no one's come up for a ship name for Sebastian and Jace. Sace! She called them Sace! Ever since then I've been wanting to find a story about them, I don't know why, but it just made me so happy and weird and jittery like ASDFGHJKLvvhruha someone please write one, it can just be a oneshot. I would READ it. I totally would! I sound so weird and yaoi is not my thing but I have to admit I would read THIS.
Clary: MY BARKING GOSH, I'LL READ IT TOO
Faith: *magically appears beside Lacie in a spinny chair* IM WRITING ONE BUT ILL READ YOURS TOO yep I get be here too! The only person as crazy, if not crazier than Lacie. I agree with Lacie, I want Sace pairings!
Clary: HEY NEW FRIEND *squeals with Faith*
Chris: Oh my god THEY'RE MULTIPLYING! D: *stares at Faith in horror**disgusted as he loos at all three girls* You three are sadistic little bit-
Lacie: Watch it….
Chris: biiitttss of un ladylike girls.
Clary: Much better
Chris: Can I at least have a say in this?
Lacie: No!
Faith: It's not our fault we're insane
Chris: Clary he's your boyfriend, well I don't know about this fanfic anymore, but in the series he is!
Clary: *fakes a deep breath* sometimes you gotta sacrifice what you love for a greater cause
Chris: THIS IS NOT A GREATER CAUSE. I will tell Jace about this if I have to in order to put a stop to this!
Lacie: Go ahead.
Clary: we won't stop you
Faith: There's the door
Lacie: It won't stop the fans from writing their dark, twisted, desires…
Chris: You're all insane *looks at reader* all of you! *walks towards door* I'm gonna tell Jace
Lacie: Do it then
Chris: *hand on doorknob* I'll do it
Clary: Bye then *waves at him*
Chris: *about to turn knob when he remembers how much he hates Jace* *groans* We won't be able to stop you, will we?
Lacie: *pshhh* we could write porn between you and Church and no one would stop us (not that we'd do that, I think we can all agree that's a bit too far)
Faith: Nothing would stop us! However, I find it hard to choose between Claris, Sace, and Chris with myself-
Chris: Excuse me 0.o!
Clary: If you're not going anywhere Chris, do the thing, will you?
Chris: *sighs* Lacie does not own TMI. I, however, wish I owned the right to write ridiculous stories about me.
Clary: And I wish I owned the right to Naruto, but I'm never getting that. Sadly :(
Enjoy! (thanks to faith who helped collaborate on this intro)
Clary POV
Come on Clary, just a little bit longer! Her muscles strained and shook with effort, sweat running down her arms as she took in deep breathes. You can do it…..
Are you freaking kidding me! You're gonna kill us! The more sensible part of Clary's mind shrieked as she forced herself to heave the heavy piece of stone away from her chest, and then carefully lowered it back down. Her arms felt as if they would snap like twigs.
Are you insane! We're gonna die! This stupid piece of rock is going to break our arms and splatter us all over the floor! Clary's mind still panicked as she felt locked beneath the rock, unable to get out from under it.
As part of her self-training, Clary tried to exercise without the use of Sebastian's strength, because she found that if she concentrated she could turn on and off all of his characteristics from her herself. She tried not to rely on them too much, still fearing that one day all of the power would one day fade and she would be left with only her weak self as defense. However, she discovered that if she didn't use his characteristics, as well as anyone else's that she's previously turned into, they'd dissipate from her mind. Almost like how in school when you're learning something, and are using the information in classes, you seem to be able to pull out the information straight from your brain, but if your teacher asks you about it months later you have no clue about any of it (or in many of Clary's cases, forgotten that she'd learnt about it completely).
That was why Clary was currently laying on a bench with a heavy square rock that she took from the inside of the pyramid and that probably weighed about as much as she was resting on her palms as she attempted to keep it from falling down until her arms felt like lead and she couldn't take it anymore.
Was it completely stupid and dangerous and insane? Yes. Was she probably hurting herself more than helping? Most definitely. But it had some pretty excellent results, because Clary could see her biceps bursting with energy, plus she's pretty sure she's never been this fit in her whole life. Well, there was also the fact that she had Nikita's strong arms and such, but Clary could ignore that.
You're going to kill us! I mean, me. Why am I thinking like there's more people other than myself? See, you've driven us crazy! Yourself, not us, there's only one of you Clary. Oh great I'm thinking in third person…
Having enough of herself and feeling as if her bones would break, she concentrated deep into her mind, imagining that she was searching for a light switch in the back of her mind, until she flicked it on. Immediately, her arms gained strength, her breathing leveled out, and she was no longer shaking from effort and exhaustion. Tossing the rock to one side, making it thump loudly and echo around the large training room walls, she stretched herself out, cracking her back in the process.
"Wow," she sighed, rolling out her tired shoulders and speaking to no one in particular, "That felt, no, ouch, okay, maybe I shouldn't push it that much next time."
Clary reached up, pulling her straight brown hair out of its sweaty and crumpled looking bun. She was Nikita now, who had dark brown hair, so Clary shook her head and let the thin hair cascade down her shoulders.
"Okay," she spoke aloud again to fill in the empty space before her, "I think that's enough for today." And she switched her 'Sebastian mode' off.
She whistled as she stood up and placed all the weapons and such that she'd used during her training. She'd hacked up several training dummies, now only a pile of shredded straw, and had practiced her knife throwing skills. The practice was much easier now than it had been when she had first done it upon arriving at the house, and even though she couldn't do it as well as when she was Sebastian, she was significantly better now than then.
"And you know what? Who cares if I'm not as good as Sebastian? I'm improving, and that's what matters. At least my arms are no longer comparable to a stick." Her voice filled the whole training room. Talking out loud had become a habit of hers, as she found that keeping her thoughts in her head while she was alone tended to drive her insane. Speaking to the empty air let her spill her every thought and feeling from her so that it wouldn't bottle up inside. Plus, no one was here to listen to how ridiculous she sounded. Clary had some pretty strange conversations with herself. Wouldn't you like to hear them?
She made her way out of the training room, the witchlight illuminating the tunnel barely assisting her anymore considering that she now knew every step and uneven patch of ground in that tunnel, and got herself cleaned up to see the warlock who had texted her earlier today.
The warlock was an ally that Clary had made a few weeks ago. They had met while Clary's home had taken residence in a forest in India, and Clary had caught the warlock in disguise as a monk, he looked no more than seventeen, but there was no denying the green lizard skin on the hands of that guy, even with a glamour.
Long story short, Clary had spoken with the warlock, telling him she needed her help, not telling him her name of course, at the time she had had the rune for being Izzy, so she didn't need to hide her appearance in case she would be recognized. She told him what she needed: A way to reach hell, and possibly take something out.
The warlock had blanched at the idea, but after some arguing about letting it slip to the monks about his abnormally dry skin, and some Izzy-influenced hair twirls and bright smiles, (having that girl's charm is a blessing and a curse) he promised he'd look into it and speak with her first thing. He had even boasted his skills to make himself seem better. They agreed to see each other in person, and that if he did anything stupid like give her away to the Clave, he'd be seeing her heels shoved through his eyes.
You know, Clary could have drawn the rune so that she was like Magnus, and then she wouldn't need to search for a warlock or someone who could help her to do the magic. However, two things stopped her. One, even if she managed to open hell, how could she be so sure it could be opened from the inside? She'd need someone who could keep it open. The other thing, was fear. Being Sebastian hadn't ruled over her mind completely, and Isabelle had been a bit more influential, but Clary had gotten the hang out it. But if Clary went down that road with Magnus, she was mortally terrified that she'd never come back.
Sometimes you'd rather not be in someone else's shoes.
Clary had told the warlock to meet her in front of the sphinx, after all the tourists have gone. Even if they were concealed in glamours, it never hurt to be too cautious.
By the time Clary had showered and changed into some black jean capris and a black tank top covered with a jean vest, it was still a little bit before she'd told the warlock to get here. To distract herself, she decided to walk out the front door of the house and have a little walk around the inside of the sphinx.
The house had placed itself right in the circular temple right underneath the sphinx, and Clary found herself staring at the walls and architecture of the ancient edifice. Egyptian myths and stories about pharaohs had always excited her in school, but to be in the actual Sphinx was another prospect entirely. This wasn't the first time Clary had gone to have a little tour on her own of the place, in fact even though this as only her third day here, she suspected the house was leaving soon, she'd been in these tunnels about five times already.
She could feel magic running through these walls, not just the magical awe of being in a tunnel that was constructed thousands of years ago, but as Clary walked past a wall covered in hieroglyphics, laughing to herself, she saw several old symbols scratched up amongst the rest of them. Any ordinary person would think that they were just another version of a hieroglyphic, but to any Shadowhunter, it was just a rune. There were plenty of them, not only here, but in several places in the pyramids surrounding the Sphinx as well. There were rumors that there were many secret passageways and tunnels hidden beneath the Sphinx, well, the mundanes were right, only they needed more than an open sesame spell to open them up. They needed an Opening rune.
Funny how the Shadowworld could live right under ordinary people's noses and no one noticed a thing.
I'm sure one to talk, she mocked, took me almost sixteen years to notice.
Touche.
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"What do you mean you can't help!" Clary demanded, her voice struggling to stay quiet in case it traveled and someone heard them. "All these weeks only to tell me you haven't found anything!"
"Forgive me," the warlock said in a not-so apologetic tone, his green hands held before him, "What you want to do requires a lot of magic, a lot of dark magic, and I can't do that!"
"So basically, your magic isn't advanced enough." She indicated.
The warlock's, who Clary was rudely starting to refer to as Lizard in her head, eye's widened and he stammered out, "What! No, my powers are as best as anyone else's, if not better!" She sincerely doubted.
"Oh please, any descent warlock has to be centuries old, you're only a baby. How old are you, eighty?" Clary randomly spoke, and almost laughed as the warlock didn't say anything in response. Bull's eye.
"Hey watch it," Clary warned him as he stomped a step backwards, "We don't want to demolish this thing." They both stood on the paws of the sphinx, Clary was currently leaning her left shoulder on the body of the sphinx, her feet planted on one paw, while Lizard was on the other paw, his arms crossed as he stepped back away from her as much as the width of the paw allowed. Clary worried that if they broke out into some fight (which has happened before with some other people) that they would end breaking the limestone that made up the Sphinx. Perhaps the Sphinx would awaken the next day without a shoulder. The sun was setting behind the structure, and Clary could just see the situation happening, her and the warlock fighting, and as Clary tried to use one of the seraph blades she had hidden in her capris or the warlock tried to use a spell, something would explode.
I wonder if that explains the fact that the Sphinx doesn't have a nose….
Briefly looking at the huge face before her, she could totally see it happen. Years ago a Shadowhunter had probably slammed or someone (or been slammed himself) into the face of the sphinx and POOF! Instant nose job.
"I can still help," Lizard insisted, and by this point Clary didn't even care if he could help or not, it wasn't as if she didn't have other people to help her, and despite the fact that she knew that she was being rude and mean, she wasn't doing this to make friends, she was doing it for Chris.
"Oh yeah, and what are you going to do?" Clary mumbled, "Yell 'Hocus Pocus' and hope that hell will open up?"
"I know someone, well, I don't personally know him, I've heard things of him, just some facts here and there, but I think that they are strongly true, though some people would deny it, but I've talked to people who are around that area and they are terrified-"
"Anytime this month would be nice," she said sarcastically, rolling her hand in a gesture for him to get to the point.
"There's someone else who can help you, another warlock, I've heard that he's very powerful, and very old. He's been all over the world and knows almost everything about magic. He once revived someone who was dead." Lizard stated.
"Big deal, even humans can resuscitate someone after their heart stops beating," Clary pointed out.
"Ah, but the person who he revived, had been dead for ten years." Lizard said in a voice that Clary couldn't help but lean in a bit, intrigued.
"How did he do that?" Clary wondered, "The body of the person should have decomposed, at that point all that would be left is the bones, what would the soul of the person return to?"
"I've heard that there was still some remaining tissue on the corpse, very small traces of it, and that he used that to replicate the rest of the body. It involved a lot of dark magic and many sacrifices, and perhaps he encountered a Greater demon or two, but he did it."
Clary was fully entrance now. Though the warlock sounded like someone who Clary wouldn't like to mess around with, and someone who didn't want to be messed around with, what choice did she have?
"Where is he?" she inquired, "What's his name and where is he currently?"
"Well, you see, that's going to be a problem." Lizard winced, "He's in jail."
She could have roared. "The Clave has him! I should have known, someone like that couldn't be out on the loose doing the sort of things he does." She paced the Sphinx's paw, looking like a prowling lion herself. "Now I have to see if I can get him out, that means breaking into wherever they've got him held up, but that'll take planning, days, time, I don't know how much time I have-"
"The Clave doesn't have him!" Lizard interrupted her.
She whirled towards him, "But you said he was in jail!"
"A Mundane jail." He explained.
Clary was silent for three seconds before she responded, "Mundane jail?" she scoffed, "why doesn't he just get out? Surely for him it shouldn't be too hard to break out of there."
"Unless he doesn't want to get out." He spoke casually.
"What?" Clary was beyond confused.
He shrugged, "Living for eternity can get boring, I assume. You do things to make it more exciting, try new experiences, I guess he's just trying out what being in jail is like. I heard he robbed a bank and then just walked in front of the police and dumped the cash in front of them."
"Really?" she was stunned.
"Well, I also heard that he was in a car chase, but there was also a story about how he set loose some camels from a zoo in America-"
"Okay stop," Clary held up her hand, not wanting to hear about more rumors, "So he's in jail, and doesn't want to come out. Where's the jail?"
"In America, he's in one of the most secure jails the nation."
"And that would be…." She stretched.
"You should know, you're American."
"I don't know the name of every single jailhouse, just tell me."
"Alcatraz, he's living in Alcatraz."
Again, Clary was silent for three seconds, but afterwards she didn't know whether to laugh or snort or just scream.
In the end she didn't do any of them, she simply looked at Lizard with an incredulous stare. "Alcatraz was closed in 1963." As his look of disbelief came up, Clary continued, "I don't know when the last time you were updated on the events there, but that place hasn't been the 'most secure place' in a long time."
"But," Lizard started, "Then what's that warlock doing there?"
She sighed, glancing as the sun set behind the pyramid and Sphinx, "Guess I'll have to find out." She hopped off the Sphinx, walking towards a glamoured exit that led to a tunnel from the Sphinx. She'd found it minutes before Lizard hands got there.
"By yourself?" he called out, and Clary happily noticed that he wasn't following her.
"Yep, I don't need your help anymore, thanks." She responded, not turning to look back at him.
"But, how, what are you going to do when you get there?"
Clary was about to step behind a rock that concealed the exit tunnel, but something made her turn back to the warlock.
"Isn't it obvious?" she told him, "I'm off to see Alcatraz's last prisoner."
Chris POV
"Unuaq, if you step on the back of my heel one more time I will rip off one of your toes," Chris growled at the little gremlin who was walking closely behind him. Too close. The demon was practically holding onto the back of his pant leg as they walked down a crooked corridor.
"I'm sorry Master," Unuaq gurgled in her garbling voice, "Seeing the Demon Lord always frightens me."
"That doesn't mean you get to, erf-" he grunted as Unuaq's sharp toe scratched at the back of his ankle. He shot her a dark look and she proceeded to walk two paces behind him.
They were in a dark castle that indeed belonged to the Demon Lord (though Chris only referred to him as 'sir' out loud, in his head he was just another demon) and they were currently going to report to him about a task that he had just finished for him. In fact, Chris still had wet demon ichor staining the jacket he was wearing. The Greater Demon had given Chris a wardrobe of clothes, though how he managed to get them was far from him. The Greater Demon called them small tips as a congratulant for all the things Chris had accomplished for him.
So far, Chris had been sent to places here and there, and no matter how many times he went out, just as he expected to have seen everything and to be completely unsurprised as he went to new places, he was proved wrong. It was amazing how when you thought you've seen bad, it just gets worse. Once, Chris had had to go to kill a Greater Demon who was threatening the one that he was working under, and before he had actually gotten there, he had to tread through puss-yellow ground that not only sank like quicksand but small metal tendrils reached up to wrap around your legs and pull you down. If he stood for more than two minutes on the ground, he'd look down and see the tendrils already creeping above his waist. Not only that, but a strong wind had been blowing his way, making it hard to move forward. He had gotten tired, and was ready to collapse for a break as soon as he had passed that land, when a demon that resembled a killer whale jumped out of the sand below him as if it were water, and narrowly missed him by an inch. He had to run as fast as he could, because he couldn't guess where the demon whales were hiding, especially since there were no trees or rocks to claim shelter on. And those were the easy ones places.
There were lands where he literally had to cut and slice and slaughter his way through just to kill the one demon assigned to him by the Greater Demon. Luckily for him, he had been given a sword (not seraph blade, the Greater Demon wasn't brainless) and several knifes and a machete so that he could get to job done. The sword wasn't much show, but it did what it was supposed to. It must have not broken because of some incantation the demon placed on it.
He still had his tusk though, not because he had developed any sentimental emotions towards it, but because it was the one thing that was not given to him by the Greater Demon. Though he relied on the weapons given to him on the jobs and tasks he gets, sometimes he can't help but feel that if something goes wrong, those weapons won't be of much help to him, whether they'd suddenly animate and try to stab him, or they'd burn him on contact or whatever reason, he needed something to defend himself that he knew he could count on.
The tusk was currently in the room that the Greater Demon had given him so that he could rest and eat before he was sent on another task. Yes, he could eat food. How or where he gets it from, he has no idea. When Chris had first lodged into the Demon Lord's castle, he hadn't asked for anything. He eschewed from askinf because he was reminded of the myth of Hades and Penelope, where once she ate the seeds from the pomegranate she was required to stay in hell with him for the number of seeds she ate. But then he started feeling sick, nauseous, as if a squadron of squids were wrapping their tentacle around his insides and were wrangling it as small as possible. He could have eaten anything that was at least kind of edible. Chris never liked fast food nearly as much as Clary did, but he had found himself daydreaming about cheeseburgers and fries. Once he could even smell a whiff of Clary's burnt bacon in the air, and realized that it was the smell of the putrid air.
After almost fainting while standing up, the Greater Demon made sure to him him well fed in order to not die of hunger. He was provided with dry strips of meat that reminded him of jerky, but the texture was off, and the taste was less, beefy. He didn't stop to ask what it was though, feeling better off not knowing. He was also given fruit and vegetables, which, surprisingly, he felt more wary of than the jerky.
Really, he knew that the Greater Demon could supposedly reach into Earth, but he didn't know where this food was coming from. He could be eating the dirt from the ground he stood on and not know. But at least he wasn't starving.
Anyways, he sleeps in that room for hours, appreciating every minute, considering that he tires faster in hell. The room's not much, just a small four poster bed and a drawer, but he'll take whatever he's offered.
Sometimes he feels like he's being watched as he sleeps, but once when he popped one eye open, after pretending to fall asleep, he saw a pair of feet slip out of the room. Unuaq. She doesn't sleep in his room, or at least she's not supposed to, but she claims to fear being in the castle by herself with only the Demon Lord and his servants around, therefore every once in a while she'll sneak in and sleep on the floor in the corner. He used to get annoyed, but now he's gotten used it. Unuaq has been a companion, sometimes (like this recent one) coming to tasks with him, and though he doesn't necessarily show it, he trusts her more than anyone else in the building. No matter how irksome she gets.
For example, though the little gremlin snores, he's found it useful to himself, because she's woken him up from several unpleasant nightmares.
Chris rarely had dreams on Earth, his sleep was oddly blank and uneventful, which he never minded. But in hell, his mind seemed to be amplified by the rotten energy all around him. He'd get dreams that would tire him out more than replenish his strength after sleeping, ones so bad that he even started calling them nightmares, which he's never really experienced before. He remembers once as Clary had been sleeping, she had stirred, muttering something as her forehead creased and her hands clenched into fists. He never quite understood that.
Now he did. He was cursed with more images of hell, only in his sleep he doesn't quite make it out of his journey's, as he's left re-facing demons that he has previously taken out, only to be killed brutally by them, whether his limbs were chewed off one by one by a centipede-like demon, whether his head was decapitated, or many, many other gruesome ways that simply made his sleep unbearable sometimes.
But he still preferred these dreams, than others. On night, he had dreamt about his father. Valentine Morgenstern had showed up in his nightmares, as Chris was dreaming about himself whipping several demons, only for the demons to turn into the back of Valentine Morgenstern, tied to a wall with chains as Chris smacked a heavy barbed wire into his back again and again. Deep welts rose from his skin, and by the time Chris had noticed the change in enemy, his father had turned to him.
His face was cold and cruel, and even though it was bloody was broken, it still looked as if he were giving him a lecture, "I may be dead, and suffered a horrible death, but yours, overall, will be a million times bloodier than mine. You are my son, and you bear Lilith's blood. You will die a horrible death."
Chris had stepped back, true bewilderment running through his mind at his father back from the grave. His dream voice spoke before he even knew he was talking, "I'm not your son. I may look like you, but I will never be you."
Suddenly, his view point changed, and it was he who was wrapped in the chains, his forehead leaning against the dirty wall as his shirt was cut off his back. He looked back, only to see Valentine, now completely clean and wearing fresh clean suit, holding a different whip. The one he'd always use before. The cause for the same scars he has on his back now.
"No. You're not me." Valentine agreed, "You're much worse." And down came the whip.
But he would rather have this dream a million times for a million nights than his dreams of Clary. Don't get him wrong, those dreams were easily the best he could ever possibly have, but no matter how great it was seeing her green eyes and red hair (or black eyes and white hair, as he sometimes saw her) nothing could make up for the depressing moment when he woke up and realized that it had all been a dream and that he hadn't actually seen her. Some mornings (he considered the time he woke up to be morning even though the light in hell never changed to prove otherwise) he let himself stay half asleep, imagining that the warmth he felt around him came from her body heat, and not from the heat of hell, that she was right in front of him, and all he needed to do was reach forward and she'd be there, asleep with that calm look on her face, her lips slightly parted as she dreamed of things he couldn't see. Her hair would be spread around her like a halo, her arms drawn up to her chest, and she'd wake up any moment, and they'd go to watch TV and see whatever city they were in.
They'd only been together for two weeks, a small minute in comparison to how long he'd been there, which was like an eternity for him, but they'd affected him in a such a manner he didn't even know how much. He noticed that he started doing things that she would do, little things that he'd never noticed, like eat before he trained, he started using more hand gestures, biting the inside of his cheek while he wasn't noticing, little things he'd never done before, and never really acknowledged her doing, but they were her habits.
He was just about to try to remember how Clary would place her hands to crack her knuckles (left hand above the right, or right above the left?) when Unuaq gave a little gurgle that was her version of a gulp. They'd reached the door that led to the rather large throne room that belonged to the Demon Lord.
Chris raised a large green metal knocker in the shape of a basilisk, and knocked three times.
The doors opened on their own, revealing the huge room. It was empty, besides for the large throne in which the Greater Demon sat at. As soon as the doors were wide enough, he strode in, Unuaq reluctantly following close behind.
The Greater Demon was still in the form that Chris had originally seen him in, his pear colored skin contrasting with the dark room that was lit with blue fire due to the lack of windows in the stifling hot room. His large staff glowed by his side and his ice blue eyes were half shut.
Chris gave a short bow, "I have returned." His head faced the floor. He hated doing this. Valentine had taught him how to appear civil and charming, but he despised having to submit himself to this low stature. He was a natural born leader, he wasn't used to being anyone's servant, and would never be.
"Raise your head, Chris." Chris noticed that the Greater Demon no longer hissed his 's', and he briefly wondered if that had just been to intimidate him in the dark. "How did your task go? Another success, I suspect, based off the ichor staining your clothes. Was my enemy a formidable one?"
"Nothing I couldn't handle sir, the only difficulty was that this enemy could change form, so it took longer to decapitate it. But the job is done. He and his few followers are now no threat to you." Chris explained.
"Excellent. That'll show anyone who attempts to build up against me that they will regret much. Good, if that is all, then go, I have much to do, and you have to rest before I assign you your next task." The Greater Demon raised his staff, which glowed brighter for a moment, and Chris heard the doors behind him open.
"Actually sir, there is something I would like to address." Chris spoke.
The demon fixed its cold eyes in him, "And that would be?"
"It's about our understanding, that if I be your tool, one that you could confide in to do your tasks for you, you'd send me to Earth." He began.
"Yes, I remember our pact, what of it?" The demon mused.
"I'd like to know exactly how much longer, or how many more tasks I have to accomplish for you before I'm released. I don't know how time works here, but I've been working under you as your asset for quite some time now." He explained.
The Greater Demon chuckled, which was not what he had anticipated. "Chris, do you still have the piece of my staff with you?"
He nodded, it was in his pocket as they spoke.
"Good, that's all the assurance you need. I will send you back. In fact, to prove it to you, I will give you one last task, and then after you've returned, the task completed, I will send you back to the mortal world." The demon proposed, "Does that sound like an agreement?"
It was lot more than Chris had asked for, and though he was more than content with this setup, he felt something off in the words of the Greater Demon, yet he didn't know how to confirm his doubts, so he simply said, "Yes sir, that would be it." And exited the throne room, barely noticing Unuaq as she gave a strange yelp as he walked past her.
They walked down the stone corridors to the room in which is he rested in. When he opened it, there was already a plate of dried who-knows-from-where jerky and a large helping of fruits and vegetables and two canteens of water.
He stepped in, telling Unuaq to wait outside for a moment as he closed the door. He immediately opened the first canteen, chugging down its contents.
Water can be beautiful, he thought gratefully as he drank it before the cool water heated to room temperature. His room was the only place in the whole castle that was more or less cooler than the rest of hell, and for that he didn't complain.
He then proceeded to the drawer and pulled off his disgusting clothes, threw them in the corner, and changed into clean ones. They were two sizes too big, leaving the clothes looser than he was used to wearing. He always wondered why Clary loved to wear clothes that were three times her size, and when he wore the larger clothes, he understood. They were very comfortable, loose and free.
"You can come in now Unuaq." He called over to the gremlin who immediately dashed into the room. It was obvious she didn't like being here, whenever Chris decided to go on tasks without her she'd be a complete nuisance when he got back. She'd cling to his leg like a lost puppy, which he found really annoying.
Unuaq settled in the corner of the room, folding her leathery legs until she was curled into a ball. Unuaq didn't eat much, she hated regular Earth food, even the jerky, so Chris felt nothing as he laid his back against the headrest of the bed with the food and left over canteen on his lap, chewing while lost in thought.
"What will your next task be?" Unuaq suddenly asked him.
"I don't know." He answered curtly, "I guess I'll find out when I'm told." He popped a slice of an apple into his mouth.
It didn't seem like Unuaq was done with her questions though, "Do you really think he'll send you to Earth?"
Did he really think he'd be sent to Earth? No. In truth, it was more like he hoped in the chance that he could be sent to Earth. He didn't trust the Greater Demon, not at all, but it was the only opportunity he had so far. Besides, if worse came to worse, it wasn't as if Chris hadn't killed Greater Demons like him before.
"I can get it done."
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The next day (or time after he'd woken up) he was already trekking hell yet again, his weapons strapped to him, his task and whereabouts set into his mind. His machete and sword were placed onto him so that the straps to both crossed like an x on his chest, only the sword handle was visible from behind his shoulder, and the machete lay resting on his hip. He wore them over a leather black jacket with leather hood, and a pair of dark jeans and heavy work boots, as well a backpack where he carried a smaller canteen and small portions of food.
Originally, he'd take Unuaq with him, and that was only because he needed someone who knew the land much better than he did. But now, he felt like he had the gist of where he was going, and he no longer needed someone to guide him along.
Hell was strange to describe, you couldn't just jot it all down on a map, because the land was never in the same place. You could walk past a rock and when you looked back it could still be in front of you. It came down to feel, you had to have your intentions set straight, control the land, so that it moved for you. It was all down to how in control of your mind you are, if he let his focus slip and his concentration falter he'd be in big trouble.
And that situation has happened all too much.
Before he met the Greater Demon, he was simply wandering, not having a sure destination, so the land didn't change very much, but when he has a set destination in mind, that's a different story.
Take this journey for example. He was on his way to dispatch of a demon that was starting to cause rumors for how 'frightening' it was ("I don't want anyone's reputation reaching higher than that of my own," the Greater Demon had stated) and he had passed the land in which this demon inhibited before, so he knew where to go.
But while he was thinking about the ashy ground, with thick, polluted air that sank into your lungs so fast it was instant cancer, his mind was distracted by machete dangling by his waist.
He had just been thinking about how there were several machetes in the training tower back at home, and how he they were dull from lack of use and care, when he smelled something burning.
I'm in hell, of COURSE something's burning, he thought absently, before he breathed in again, only to smell that the burning smell was coming from something a lot closer.
He felt warmth on his left shoulder, and saw a small fire on his shoulder. He had barely patted it away, when he felt something tap against his head. Heat spread across it, and he quickly swiped his hand over his head, feeling the heat of the fire go away, and the smell of burnt hair filled his senses.
What's going on?
He barely looked up in time to avoid a rather large drop of fire almost land on him. It fell to the ground, briefly burning before going out. More drops fell, and Chris had to jump back to avoid them.
Fire rain. It was raining fire. As he hastily pulled on his leather hood, he noticed that the ground was different than the one he'd been walking on before. He tried to concentrate on where he had to go, but found it difficult to do so when he was trying to avoid getting burned alive as a sudden downpour fell over him.
Leather doesn't burn easily, but that doesn't mean they don't get hot. He ran towards a towering boulder, where he slid under a small crevice and hid from the fire. His clothes were smoking, especially his jeans, which were dark with soot, and as Chris lifted them up over his knee, he saw several burns all over both legs. The red patches irritated him, and he winced slightly as he put the jeans back down.
He sat under the boulder until he could again picture where he had to go, which was hard now that there was a burning sensation pounding in his legs.
He stayed put, until he could no longer hear the sounds of the fire as it hissed through the air, and burned the ground.
No more daydreaming! His burns yelled at him.
For the rest of the trip his mind never moved two inches away from what it had to focused on, and until he finally stepped foot on the ashy ground, a piece of cloth that he had wet with his canteen wrapped around his mouth and nose, did he let himself stop.
"Now what am I looking for…" Chris remembered the brief description from the Greater Demon, about some sort of cavern, that the demon preferred the underground.
That's perfect, more underground. More underground meant 'a lot hotter' in hell.
He marched more cautiously now, his eyes and ears open for anything around him. There had been a paucity of demons around here, meaning that they either didn't want to be here, or were scared to be here, in that case he was in the right place.
A cave, a cavern, something underground, his eyes scanned any subtle changes in the ground below him, and he almost cursed himself when he took a step forward and almost fell feet first into a large crevice in the ground that hadn't been there a second ago. Bending down, he peered into the crevice, which was three feet wide, and seven feet long. It was cracked, and went straight down for several feet, before it stopped and choppy round tunnel moved forward parallel to the ground he now stood.
Making sure his weapons were well strapped, he hopped in, making sure his steps were light and inaudible. Something had formed the tunnel, based off of the crooked grooves in the walls, and the way that it seemed to grow larger and wider the deeper he went in. Soon, the light from above faded until he relied on his heightened vision to see. There were no side tunnels leading off to other areas, nor did the tunnel turn or twist in any way, but continued to go straight forward, and down. He could feel the ground slowly sloping down. He pulled a knife out from his pocket, holding it loosely by his side.
After walking for about a quarter of a mile, the walls around him now twelve meters wide and ten meters tall, he heard the faint sound of something scuttling in the walls beyond where he stood. Chris looked ahead of him, searching the shadows as far as his eyesight could allow.
He walk forward with more caution, all the while his mind poking around to see what kind of demon this would be.
What could have burrowed into the ground like this? It looks as if the thing ate its way into the ground…..
Speaking of eating, as Chris made his way forward, he passed by several corpses of demons, who had been eaten alive. All that way left was bone, or organs, as in the case that some demons didn't have bones. There was ichor spilled and stained all over to walls, ceiling, and ground, and as he made his way farther in, the stains started looking fresher and fresher. One particular blotch looked as if several hours ago it was still coursing through a demon's body.
Chris stepped up to the blotch, close enough that he could almost see its greenish tint, even though all he could see was black and white. No, he was wrong, that ichor wasn't from several hours ago. It was fresh.
Plip.
A large drop of ichor fell from the ceiling, several meters away and as he stepped close, his grip on the knife clenched.
A large, centipede like demon clung to the top of the tunnel, its body coiling across the top of it. On its back, enormous shells like the scaled of an armadillo protected, and beneath those, there were dozens and dozens of talon like things that it used to hold onto the tunnel.
He couldn't see the front of the demon, it had itself curled into itself, but from where he thought the head was, another large drop of ichor fell.
Plop.
The creature slowly moved, the sound of its scuttling feet as it clicked across the tunnel walls moving with it, and Chris saw another demon corpse, still fresh with ichor but picked clean, as it had been stuck to the ceiling.
Chris, not wanting to have to climb the walls to get to creature, took his knife, and threw it towards a chink in the scales that covered its long back. As the knife was just about hit it directly where he threw it, the creature moved, so quickly that all he saw was a fast scuttle of feet as the thing shifted its position, coming lower to the ground.
Perfect, he pulled out his sword and ran at the long expanse of the demon, deciding to just cut the thing in half instead of decapitating it. He wasn't even sure if it had a head. His hand was a blur as he slanted his sword point so that it sliced right into the chip in the demon's armor.
The sound that the creature made was nothing at all like what Chris expected. The sound was high pitched, all too clear, not all like the gurgled screeched that demon's usually mad. This scream was too familiar, too normal.
It was human.
Chris stepped back, leaving the sword embedded into the centipede's back, as the creature gripped onto the tunnel wall with only half of its body, and the rest of the body loomed over him, the scream still going on.
The centipede drew its front directly in front of him, and where there should have been antennae, fangs, large eyes and teeth, was a human face.
The face was a female's one that he didn't recognize, and her mouth was gaping wide open, her scream pulsing in his eardrums, her face covered in ichor from where it had been feeding. As Chris stared, in horror, the face seemed to morph, contort itself, and Chris was mesmerized in complete shock. Suddenly the tunnel walls around him disappeared, and he found himself standing in the living room of his house. The scream was gone, but he could still feel its intensity vibrating in his ears.
He turned, his hands twitching towards his machete, when he saw someone by the front door.
"Hello Chris."
Clary.
Clary was at the front door. She was dressed in Shadowhunting gear, her flaming red hair looked ablaze, her emerald green eyes shone brighter and more beautiful than he could ever remember. His face broke out into a smile, and as he was about to step forward, he stopped.
Clary was not smiling, in fact her face was pinched into a frown, her hands by her sides were clenched into fists.
"Clary," his voice sounded off, "What's going on?" how was he here? What was this?
"I'm leaving Chris." She spoke suddenly, making his eyes widened. "Or should I say Jonathan, that's your name, isn't it?"
"It's the name I gave up. Chris is my name, the one you gave me, but why are you leaving?" he was so confused.
"You left Jonathan, so why should I stick around? You're gone now, so I don't need you, in fact, I never did." She twisted the front door knob, which revealed the front steps to the Institute. He could see the shapes and figures of the Lightwood siblings, of Jocelyn and her werewolf, the warlock, and many others that Clary knew.
Jace stood in front of all of them, and Clary stepped out of the house, her toes past the threshold as she faced him.
"I'm going now Jonathan." The way she called him Jonathan pained him. It hurt, deep down it hurt. The way her eyes were cruel to him, like she wanted nothing to do with him, the way her chin seemed set upon her choice and she wasn't about to look back.
"Wait Clary," he reached for her hand and she flinched away from him. Just like she used to before they spent time together. He felt as if one of his whip scars had just burst open again.
"Don't touch me!" Clary snarled, "I'm only here to say goodbye, and that I never want to see your face again!"
"You can't leave, the Clave might think you were involved in something with me, that I hypnotized you or something," he desperately tried to reason with her. She couldn't leave. She just couldn't.
Clary scoffed, and as Chris looked up, he saw Jace coming behind her. Clary took several steps towards Jace, and they embraced each other, greeting each other with a lustful kiss.
When they separated, Chris felt empty, a vague sensation like he was falling through hell again.
"Don't be ridiculous." Jace laughed at him, "They won't do anything to Clary. She's not the demon around here." Chris's blood burned within him.
"Wait, Clary, don't leave." Chris's voice fell into an almost pleading tone, which would have sickened him, but at the moment he didn't care.
Clary turned her back on him as she walked hand in hand with Jace back towards the Institute. Her voice laughed with Jace. Chris stared at their retreating figures, as the door closed by itself, and disappeared so that he could no longer see either of them.
Black.
Everything around him was black.
And he felt the ground shaking.
Or was that just him?
Was he shaking?
From what though? Fear?
Was he scared? Terrified?
He couldn't see. All of his senses shut off, and all he could think about was Clary. Leaving him for the people he had taken her from. And he hated it. Hated that it made him feel like this.
Made him feel weak.
Weak.
He felt weak. What he saw made him feel weak. But what did he just see? How is what he just saw possible?
Was it even real? It felt real. Completely and utterly real. But what happened before that? There was a tunnel, a black tunnel, and then he had seen Clary. But what made him see Clary?
The ground shook again, and he heard something this time. A faint scuttling again. An image took place in the darkness. A large centipede. He had been in a tunnel, with a large centipede, and then he saw Clary. His ears hurt, and then he realize with a jolt that a scream was still going on. When he heard this scream, Clary came back to mind, as well as that horrible feeling. He didn't want that feeling, so he tried no to listen to the screaming.
Then everything clicked into place.
He hadn't seen Clary, because the image he had seen was an illusion. The demon had caused the illusion. He'd read about demons like this. Ones that would search into your soul and pick something that frightened you, then it would scream its strangely human scream to distract the feeling that you were being hypnotized. The when you were so far gone into your fear, it would kill you.
He was about to die.
Chris felt for something around him, and his hands came down on the handle of a knife in his jeans, and he pulled it out, stabbing it into the darkness in front of him. Something popped and he felt the handle slip away from him.
The screams subsided, and suddenly Chris could see. He was backed against a wall of the tunnel, his hands cold and clammy, and only inches in front of him, the enormous centipede writhed around, his knife buried deep to the hilt into the throat of the face of the women. It gurgles, trying to scream, causing more ichor to bubble up and gush out of it throat. It thrashed wildly, its many talons clawing here and there, trying to get the knife out.
Chris felt cold, something he hadn't felt since he landed in hell. Slowly, he pulled out his machete, and with one hard and fierce strike, the first three feet of the centipede crashed down, ichor pouring out like a fountain. He stared at the corpse for a moment, then summarily headed out of the tunnel.
He didn't know how he made it back to the castle of the Greater Demon, doesn't remember much of the journey. All he could think about was that he had to go, that he had to leave back to Earth. Now.
He had to get back to Clary, and the longer he waited the more the horrible seed that the demon had planted into him grew. What if the Clave completely forgave Clary? What if she was living her life the way she was before?
What if she had forgotten about him completely?
In that case, there'd be no point in going back, if she no longer wanted him. You could take her again, just like last time, his inner demon cooed, but his demonic voice wasn't as strong as it once had been. That wasn't who he was anymore. He couldn't find it in him to do it.
Nevertheless, he had to get back. If not just to see her, how she was doing, and if he had to, to say goodbye.
It was this constant matter of thinking that led him back to the castle quickly. He would have gone straight to the Greater Demon that he had completed his task, but he was still so unnerved that he couldn't bear to speak to anyone about anything. Instead, he locked himself in his room, and he lay awake on his bed, still in his clothes that smelled like demon blood. He always smelled of demon blood.
He didn't know how long he laid there until he had fallen asleep, and he had fallen asleep for so long that he didn't hear when Unuaq knocked and scratched loudly on the door. Didn't hear that she had overheard the demon lord talking to a servant that his intentions were never to send him to Earth, but that his last task was supposed to kill him so that the Greater Demon could dispose of him. He didn't hear how the Greater demon would kill him later since he didn't die.
Chris slept, because at least in his dreams, he knew they weren't real.
Lacie: Sorry for the long wait! I just felt so uninspired. Plus, I have internet access, so whenever I type one sentence for the chapter I'm like, 'hey look this up!' *goes online for about thirty minutes* 'what was I doing before this? FRICK my fanfic D:!' and yeah. Pretty much. Plus, when you try to do homework, type your fanfic, read other fanfics, read the Harry Potter series (I'm re-reading it!) AND satisfy your mother because you spend too much time in your room and not enough with family so you have to spend time with your family which takes time from this, well, things can get complicated.
Now that my rant's done, back to our scheduled program:
*meanwhile, at the New York training room*
Jace: *shudders*
Alec: Are you alright?
Jace: Yeah, I guess, you know the feeling when someone's talking bad about you? I feel like someone's writing something bad about me.
Alec: Probably just Lacie
Jace: That witch had nothing to do with this, I know when she writes about me, I read the updates-
Alec: You do?
Jace: Don't ask. Anyway, I feel like someone's going to write something bad. Like dirty bad. Like you and Magnus bad.
Alec: That's not bad!
Jace: it is for me! I can feel like someone's pairing me up with a non-female.
Alec: -_- Male. We are called males. Unless you are referring to a worm, which is neither a male, nor female.
Jace: Worms don't have genders?
Alec: *gasps* you don't know something O:
Jace: Oh shut up, I mean it, I feel like I'm being put into something dirty.
Alec: You think someone's writing about you paired up with a guy?
Jace: DON'T SAY IT SO CASUALLY THIS IS A SERIOUS MATTER *waves a seraph blade around*
Alec: Who do you think they paired you up with? Cant' be me, because everyone wants me to be with Magnus.
Jace: How do you know that?
Alec: I read the fanfics. You could be paired up with Jordan.
Jace: Nah, though Jace and Jordan does have a nice ring to it, we don't pair up.
Alec: Simon?
Jace: THE DAYLIGHTER?! I WOULD COMMIT SUICIDE.
Alec:….what about Sebastian?
Jace:…
Alec: Jace?
Jace:….
Alec: Oh gosh, are you broken? Should, I , should I just go? Do you want me to get someone?
Jace:…..where's Lacie's recording studio?
*back to Lacie*
Lacie: Thanks so much everyone for reading!
Faith: Well I gotta go! See ya!
Clary & Chris: Bye! *Faith opens door only to see a very red faced Jace* Oh no 0.0
Lacie: Hey what are you doing here? You're not supposed to be here!
Jace: *points to Chris and seizes microphone* HELL. NO. NOT WITH HIM. ANYONE. BUT. HIM! *breaks microphone and storms out*
Faith: *frozen in fear*
Clary: O.o
Chris: Glad I'm not that only one who feels that way
Lacie: *bursts into maniacal laughter* Well then my lovely readers, all of you, I guess I'll just say goodbye. Please review! That's what that wonderlovely button down there is for. We should all avoid Jace for a few days now, shouldn't we?
Faith: I'll just, I'll go now.
BYE MY FRIENDS SEE YOU SOON. HOPEFULLY. MAYBE. I REALLY HAVE NO CLUE.