Heya readers!
Last place we left off, Diablo and Angela met, yet it was rather a shocking meeting, well for Angela anyway, finding she was sitting in a cave with a mutant Raven.
How will the rest of their meeting go? Well read below to find out!
Chapter Fifteen
We're not that different
After a while, Angela slowly opened her eyes.
She wasn't sure how long she had been out for, but the last thing she saw was a large black bird before her and she thought she had gone mad.
She blinked a few times and looked around, the rushing water of the falls and the rain filled her ears, and she felt under her head something soft.
"You feeling better?" a voice was heard and Angela snapped her head to the side to see Diablo looking down on her.
Seeing the raven again she shook her head and opened her mouth to scream again but Diablo covered her mouth before she could, and she stared at him wide eyed.
"Shhh! Shhh!" Diablo hissed "Listen! I'm not going to hurt you! I know you're frightened; you're maybe wondering if you've gone completely insane, but I swear you haven't, okay? I'm as real as you are!"
Angela said nothing but blinked and nodded and Diablo gently lifted his taloned hand off her mouth.
Taking a breath Angela stared at him opened mouthed and sat up.
"Okay, so we're past the screaming stage." Diablo sighed "Now, can you tell me who you are?"
Even though he already knew the answer, Diablo decided to keep it formal.
Angela blinked again yet she didn't speak.
"What's the matter girl?" Diablo asked cocking his head on one side "Cat got your tongue?"
Angela blinked again, still in shock that the large black bird she thought she had imagined was standing right there before her and talking to her.
She stared at him then opened her mouth to speak yet no sound came out.
Diablo frowned.
"Well?" he asked, "You going to answer me or just stare at me girl?"
Angela shook her head again and she frowned.
'It's Angela if you please! Angela Barclay!"
"Ah now we're getting somewhere." Diablo exclaimed.
"What are you?" Angela asked as she moved back from him a little "Who are you?"
Diablo tutted.
"Well, most would refer me to what I am rather than who I am, and I can forgive them for that!" he replied, "Who I am, I am Diablo, and what I am is a Raven, a mutant one to be exact."
Angela blinked up at him.
"And how…why…. how?" she asked.
"So many questions you have." Diablo replied, "Well if you wish, I will tell you how I came to be this, I am flesh and blood, just like you, yet I am not human, though I used to be human over a year ago."
He then began to tell Angela about how he had become to be the mutant raven he was now, yet he left out his past, only that how he had almost met death after being attacked and had to be saved by the Magical Water of Mutopia's well.
All the while, Angela just sat there gobsmacked.
"I can't believe what I'm hearing." She spoke.
"Believe it." Diablo replied, "It's all true."
Angela bit her lip then thought to herself:
"This is so weird, I've accepted that I'm talking to a human sized mutant raven, and he's told me how he used to be human, and then drank magical water…" she blinked and looked at Diablo.
"I suppose if what I'm seeing is real then his claims have got to be real, I'll go along with it…"
"Okay." She said, "I hear you; you were mutated by others like you, who drank this water."
Diablo nodded silently.
"But what's your backstory?" she asked, "Who were you before you became this?" she gestured to his body.
Diablo sighed as he had repeated his story many times to his Disciples, but he knew he had to explain his story.
After a moment he then pointed at Angela's phone.
"You got a signal with that?" he asked.
Angela nodded and picked up her phone.
"Go on the internet and look up the name Monalisa Freeman." He requested.
Angela did as she was told and looked up Monalisa's name.
She soon came across several articles talking about Diablo's missing sister, and how she had vanished in New York over twelve years ago.
"Eighteen-year-old Wisconsin student missing in New York, Police still searching for clues of young college student's mysterious disappearance." She muttered as she read the articles.
"Family heartbroken over daughter's disappearance, all of them plead for her safe return."
She looked at Diablo who looked back at her and she looked back down at her phone and scrolled through seeing the photos of Monalisa as a human, along with two young boys standing with her.
She looked up at Diablo.
"I was only a kid." She said, "I was never fully aware of the story, but now I've read it, I must ask, what has this Monalisa got to do with you?"
"She was my big sister." Diablo replied, "She went to New York twelve years ago with friends, and she never returned, I never fully got over her disappearance."
Angela stared at the Raven then at one of the photos of Monalisa with the two boys.
This one was of them standing against a snowy scene in winter clothes, Monalisa had her arms over the shoulders of the boys, and they were laughing and pulling faces at the camera.
"You're one of the boys in that photo?" she asked holding up her phone so Diablo could see, and the Raven leaned in to look.
"Indeed yes." he replied then pointed to a young boy wearing a blue coat with hood and fake fur around it.
"That's me, Callum Freeman." He informed and Angela looked back at the photo then back at him.
"You lost a sibling?" she asked, and she began to think of Nigel.
It had been heart-breaking that he had lost his life in Afghanistan, but it as heart wrenching to realise that Diablo had lost his sister and he never knew what happened to her.
"I know how you feel." She said, "I lost my brother five years ago."
"I heard you speaking about him." Diablo replied.
Angela snapped her head up.
"You listened in on my monologuing?" she demanded in shock.
"Well, being in the same cave as you and I was trying to hide, I couldn't help but listen in, we're not that different you and I, when it comes to our grief over losing a sibling." Diablo stated shrugging his shoulders, his wings rising at the same time.
Angela looked up at Diablo and opened her mouth but closed it again like a fish.
"Tell me." Diablo asked, "What happened to your brother?"
Angela sighed, she wasn't sure whether she wanted to tell Diablo about Nigel, but in the end, he did speak about Monalisa, so she didn't see the harm in telling her story.
"My brother died in 2013 during the Afghanistan War, he was a pilot." She spoke.
Diablo sighed sadly.
"Sorry…" he said.
Angela nodded.
"Since he was a boy, he always wanted to be a pilot and he soon found his dream after getting his licence then joining the American Air Force, in fact he got given the name Light Falcon because of his skills." She sighed again.
"When he died, I was heartbroken…he wasn't just my big brother, he was my best friend." She lifted her hand to wipe away a tear as well as look at the photograph.
"He was always looking out for me, he was twelve years older than me, but he was the most affectionate and supportive brother I ever had."
Diablo sighed.
As he listened to Angela, he remembered how close he and Monalisa were and how he felt he could go to her when he had problems rather than his parents as he felt he could trust his big sister the most.
"I'm sorry about your brother." He said, "It seems we do have something in common, we both lost a sibling."
Angela nodded.
"Yet my brother died in action," she said "That was awful enough, but Monalisa…" she looked at Diablo.
"She just vanished? And you never found out what happened to her?" she asked.
Diablo frowned.
"Quite the contrary, actually." He replied, "I did find out what happened to her."
He then preceded to tell Angela what had happened over a year ago when he and Jake had visited New York, and the many events that led up to him finding his sister again yet as a mutant lizard living with mutant turtles and a rat under the city of New York and how they fought crime.
Angela said nothing as she listened.
As a young girl, along with Nigel, she had watched shows with such plots, and characters on Saturday mornings and all Diablo described was something that could have been made into a Saturday morning cartoon.
Diablo then explained about the enemies his sister and her family fought in New York and how he and Jake had been caught in the crossfire and had been gravely injured by the Shredder, thus having to be taken to Mutopia and to drink the water that mutated him in the Raven.
"No way…" Angela breathed "An underground city in Chicago? And full of mutants?"
Diablo nodded.
"But why did you leave?" Angela asked, "Why didn't you stay there, it sounds like you could have been safe there, and hidden from the humans?"
At those words, Diablo looked furious.
"Safe?" he snarled, and Angela felt slightly frightened at the Raven's look, his moonstone eyes flashed, and his beak curled into a sneer which made her uneasy.
"You think that I should have stayed there? Stayed where I had to follow rules like the humans do up here?" Diablo demanded angrily "I saw no reason to stay there! After I learnt to fly and realise my strengths as a mutant, I decided to take my own path!"
"Your own path?" Angela asked.
Diablo nodded.
"I left the sanctuary, despite my brother and sister's pleas, they choose not to follow me, so I decided to fly solo, until I found others who choose to join me."
"There are others!?" Angela cried.
Diablo cursed.
"Damn." He thought "I've said too much!"
"But that's not important!" he said quickly "I decided to take my own path in life, I have no reason to follow the laws of the humans, and I can do many things and never be suspected!"
As he said that last bit he smirked.
Angela blinked as she looked at him then her phone buzzed making her jump.
She looked at her phone and saw a message from Solomon.
She quickly clicked on the message and saw a link as well as a note.
'Check this out! Another family was attacked'
Diablo frowned.
"Who is it?" he asked, yet Angela ignored him and clicked the link which led to an online video clip of a news reader.
'….and police have found this footage from the recent attack on the Family of the young man who was found tied up and tortured, please be warned, this footage is disturbing…'
The footage of the newsreader then changed to a video clip of a husband and wife and a teenage boy tied to chairs and wearing just their undergarments and covered in scratches, bite marks, cuts, and electrical burns.
"Smile Maggots! You're on camera!"
Diablo's eyes widened as heard his voice on the video, and he realised that the news was talking about his latest attack on the Neo Nazi Family.
"I said Smile! Show the world what maggots you are! Scum! Shit! You are disgusting!"
Angela stared at the video in shock and horror, and she then gasped in fright when the video turned to the one holding the camera and saw the Raven, very much like the one who sat before her!
"See what happens to filthy sinners! All those who follow these maggots! Will suffer the same punishment! There is nowhere to hide! I'm watching you! I am tracking you! None of you are safe! Whoever you are! Wherever you are! I am coming for you!"
Angela nearly dropped her phone and she looked at Diablo as she started to piece the two and two together, about the attacks on the Straight Truth Baptist Church in Chicago, and the Neo Nazi families and how those who were interviewed, were traumatised, and said they had all seen what appeared to be a large black bird.
"No…" she stuttered "No way…. it's you!" she cried "It's YOU!"
So Diablo and Angela have started talking, Angela is rather shocked at the story as well as amazed that she and Diablo have something in common, yet now due to Solomon, she has realised who Diablo really is!
How will things go from here? Well keep tuning in to find out!
P.S. I was inspired by the scene in the film 'The Dark Knight' where Bruce and Alfred watch a news report and the Joker is seen torturing and killing a Batman decoy.