Me: And here's Chapter 12!

Rendan: About damn time.

Zero: Seriously man. Who the fuck came to the rescue this time?

Me: This time?

AJ: Technically, the incident in the school counts as a first.

Me: Seriously? Well, I suppose that's true. Anyway, you'll just have to read and find out.

Zero: You're an evil bastard.

Me: And you're only learning this now?

Zero: Shut up.

Rendan: I'll handle the disclaimer. Azard doesn't own Hey Arnold or Silent Hill. They are the properties of Craig Bartlett and Konami respectively. The only thing he owns are the OCs, monsters he created and the fucked up monstrosity he calls a plot.

Me: Aw, you love it and you know it.

Rendan and Zero: That's besides the point.

AJ: -snickers- Read and enjoy.

Chapter 12: Return

The P.S. 118 students sat flabbergasted and disbelieving at the sight in front of them. The child who'd seemingly turned on the cultists was looking directly at them. There was only one problem with what the students saw. It should've been impossible! There is no way in Hell that the boy currently standing in front of them was actually there.

"What's wrong with you three?" The boy asked as he moved to them and sliced their bonds with the long blade in his hand. The blade was slightly curved but cut through the straps on the chairs like a hot knife through butter.

"How are you alive!" Arnold exclaimed.

"You're supposed to be dead!" Helga yelled. Lila only looked into the boy's hazel eyes before a realization dawned on her. This wasn't a trick... He was really there.

"It's really you, isn't it... AJ?" Lila barely managed to question, her tone holding its own form of disbelief and confusion.

"The one and only!" AJ proudly declared as he slid the sword he held into the sheath on the left side of his waist. He glanced to Arnold and saw that he was wearing a military vest. "Nice vest!"

"It's your vest!" Arnold shouted.

"It is?" AJ queried, clearly confused. He glanced down after removing the black robe to see the vest he was still wearing before turning his attention to Arnold's then back to his rapidly. "But I'm wearing my vest." He tried to move his left arm a bit only to grimace in clear pain as he tried. As everyone turned their attention to it, they saw a very large, visible bump sticking out of his shoulder. "Hey, Arnold, think you can do me a favor?"

"Changing the subject?" Arnold questioned.

"Only for the moment. I need to relocate my shoulder."

"Relocate?" Helga asked.

"When I used that gun I dislocated my shoulder and it hurts... a lot. Now, if you'd be so kind as to help, I can relocate it." Arnold didn't quite understand how he intended to do that, but he did want to help. After all, it was the least he could do after the boy clearly saved their lives.

"What do you need me to do?" Arnold questioned.

"Hold my left arm up." Arnold complied and held his arm nearly level with his shoulder. AJ glanced around and motioned to Lila. "Lila, find me a cloth or something I can bite on."

"Bite on?" Lila asked in confusion.

"You'll thank me for this later," AJ stated. Lila was about to grab the robe from the floor before she was stopped. "Not that, I'm going to need that as it is later." She glanced around and picked up a far from clean rag on the counter. It was bloody but was the only thing she could find. "That's fine, hand it over." Lila approached and placed the rag into his hand, watching as he bunched the rag into a ball and bit down on it. "Now hold onto my arm until I'm done," he said, his voice muffled but still understood through the rag. Arnold nodded in clear confusion of what the boy was planning to do. That confusion was quickly destroyed when AJ placed his right hand on the bump on his shoulder.

'He can't be serious!' Arnold thought. With a quick and violent jerk, AJ forcefully relocated his shoulder, letting out a muffled but extremely loud and pained yell as a sickening crack echoed throughout the hideout, proof that the bone in his shoulder had been moved. He was right about one thing, they were thankful he asked for that rag to muffle the scream, though hearing that audible crack was no picnic. Arnold released AJ's arm the second the scream pierced his ears. What person could do something like that? With deep gasps, trying to catch his breath from that bloodcurdling yell, AJ let the bloodied rag fall from his mouth and land on the floor.

"T-thanks for that," AJ stuttered out through small grunts of pain. The three students stared at him in disbelief. He just painfully relocated his own shoulder. AJ, still unable to move his left arm, reached into the left pocket on the breast of his vest with his right hand and pulled out a small bottle. He casually popped off the lid with his thumb and drank the contents of the bottle. After a moment he moved his left arm and flexed his fingers. "Nothing like a health drink to heal what ails you."

"You had a health drink?" Helga asked.

"Yeah," he replied, once more moving his left shoulder. "I always keep a health drink in my left pocket for emergencies." For whatever reason, Arnold felt compelled to check the left pocket of the vest he was wearing. If the vest he was wearing really was his vest, there may be a health drink still sitting inside the left pocket. Arnold slowly reached into the pocket and, lo and behold, removed a health drink from the pocket. He stared at it, not sure what to make of it.

'A health drink,' Arnold thought. Helga and Lila were looking at the health drink as well.

"Hey, Football Head, Army Brat, stand next to each other," Helga demanded. Arnold, just as confused as she was, obliged if only to settle what the hell was going on once and for all. AJ, on the other hand, merely shrugged before walking next to Arnold. He was more or less concerned with just what the hell Arnold meant by the fact that somehow his vest was being worn by two people. As the two stood at the other's side, Helga motioned for Lila and both approached the two boys, examining every little detail on the vest. Lila made note of the slash on the left side of Arnold's vest, the spot where a Jilt had previously stabbed. She looked to AJ's vest to see the same exact mark on the vest he wore.

As the two girls examined the vests, they had to admit they were completely identical, marks, slashes, gashes and all. From the crude alterations at the bottom to the name of the soldier on the vest. Even the handwriting of the name was the same.

"Who's the soldier that had the vest?" Helga questioned. The three students turned to AJ for some sort of explanation and, like always, he had one.

"Sergeant Michael Dorano... at least that's what he told me. He said he was an only child and I've never seen anyone else with his last name ever come to Silent Hill, much less another person in the military." Lila stayed silent, remembering him mention that he'd seen a lot of people come in and die at Pyramid Head's hands. Especially because of how long he said he's been here, it definitely spoke volumes about how many victims Silent Hill had claimed.

"You knew him?"

"Not well," AJ admitted. "He died not long after I met him and I ended up taking his vest for protection."

"But," Arnold began, "if his vest couldn't protect him, what makes you think it'd protect you?" AJ sighed.

"Because he was stupid enough to try and kill the immortal. He went up against Pyramid Head and got cut in half. I took the vest after Pyramid Head left. Unlike him, I know when I'm outclassed." Lila nodded her confirmation to that statement, an action that registered to both Arnold and Helga. Pyramid Head certainly outclassed everyone present and even the strongest among them was less than willing to even step near him. Arnold shook his head and started to walk into the darkness.

"For now, we should find our gear and get out of this forsaken place," Arnold said. The group nodded and began to follow him out until a soft thud sounded behind them. Their fourth member had been tripped and landed hard on the floor, hitting his face. When they noticed what had tripped him they backed up in shock. The cultist that had been pierced by the odd sword AJ had was tightly grasping onto his leg. AJ quickly turned himself and kicked the cultist solidly in the face, weakening the grip the cultist had on his leg enough to pull his leg out.

AJ stood up and kicked the cultist again in the head before picking him up by the collar of his shirt. The cultist groaned as he was painfully lifted up to face the boy. However, throughout all of this, the cultist kept a strange grin on his face.

"After all this time, I now know your fate," the cultist stated to the boy holding him up. All the children's eyes widened slightly. This man knew AJ? How was that even possible? "All these years," here the cultist coughed out a fair amount of blood, "and you haven't aged a damned day. You're a lucky bastard, AJ."

"How do you know me?" AJ all but shouted, giving the cultist a cold glare. The cultist's smile changed, going from a strange grin to almost a sincere expression of happiness.

"How long do you think you've been there?" The cultist asked, keeping that smile etched onto his pained face. Arnold and Helga turned their attention to the boy. Honestly, they'd wondered about it slightly, if only because of the fact that he was knowledgable about the town.

"A few days, maybe a week or two," AJ replied. It was the same answer he'd given to Lila and it was the truth. Or at least he thought it was.

"You're wrong," the cultist coughed out with trace amounts of blood starting to run down his mouth. "You've been here far," the speaker paused to cough again as more blood poured from his mouth, "far longer than that."

"And how would you know that?" Helga asked, her own confusion near its paramount.

"Because I was in his elementary class," the cultist revealed. "You were one of the children that The Order kidnapped... roughly nineteen years ago." AJ unceremoniously dropped the cultist, his body trembling as his mind, based on the way his face had contorted itself, desperately tried to process the bombshell of information that just dropped on him. An eternity seemed to pass before the silence was finally broken.

"That's impossible!" AJ cried, finally finding his voice. The cultist smiled wider.

"Nothing is impossible for Silent Hill," he said. "Y-You disappeared. The teacher instinctively knew it was a kidnapping. Children had been disappearing as of late and no one knew why. Once I joined, I figured out why. They needed a child to become the Guardian. Someone that was young and could be easily integrated into The Order. T-The Order believes that you were the one that gave the Guardian his free will, though no one is quite sure how you did it. That's why, that's why you're here. That's why you're as ageless as Silent Hill. You were going to be a guinea pig for the cult's ambitions but you turned that ambition against them before they could kill it and start on you. That must've trapped you here."

"And you joined them," AJ solemnly stated.

"I was raised by a God fearing family. I believed in their vision, their view of a perfect world. A world without violence, one with peace and prosperity for all who believed in Her divine power." The cultist began to tear at the eyes. "I believed in peace. Was that so wrong?"

Arnold, Helga and Lila didn't know what to think. This man had joined The Order under the ideal that they'd soon live in a perfect world. He wanted that. And from the way he spoke, he believed in it, not in the false way, but true to his heart.

"Believing in a world of peace is not a bad thing," AJ stated, keeping his eyes glued to the floor and out of view. He raised his head, letting his dark glare lock onto the dying cultist's eyes. "It isn't wrong, but kidnapping and torturing innocent people is not the way to go about bringing that world! A peaceful world cannot be founded on the torture and slaughter of the innocent!"

"Do you think," the cultist began, his words broken by his now starting sobs, "that you could forgive me? I- I haven't done what The Order has. I only believed in the perfect world."

"You orchestrated the deaths of so many innocent people. You killed for no other reason than to support a false world the cult envisioned. You supported the slaughter of those who merely had different beliefs than your own. Whatever Hell awaits you, it's no less than you deserve."

The cultist, though crying, nodded, almost agreeing to AJ's statement, as the life finally left his eyes and he dropped his head, never to rise again. AJ sighed as he watched his former classmate die. He picked up the black robe he dropped and once more placed it over his body. Walking out of the room, AJ reached behind the door and pulled out a large burlap sack before dropping it on the floor.

Arnold, the first of the students to move after what just occurred, opened the sack to find three more robes worn by the cultists, or at least the children did, along with their gear.

"How did you get this?"

"When I woke up after the siren sounded I noticed you three being carried off by The Order. I followed them to this place and watched which room they put your stuff in, as well as the room they put you three in. I grabbed your gear and a few disguises so we can get out without being noticed. It's our best option so please save any questions until we get the hell out of here."

The cloaks that were left on the floor were quickly picked up as the students slipped the robes on. With only a nod, they followed their ally, quietly, out of the cultist base once more.

Me: And that's the chapter.

Rendan: Woah, woah, woah. How in the hell is THAT possible?

AJ: How is what possible?

Zero: I think that's obvious.

Me: Are they talking about the vest? I admit, it IS a one-of-a-kind vest.

AJ: I think they are.

Me: Could be.

Zero: We weren't talking about that and you know it!

Me: Chill out. It's Silent Hill. It isn't supposed to make sense. It's supposed to fuck your mind twenty-some-odd ways to Sunday and deny your mind the cigarette afterward.

AJ: That's a crude metaphor.

Rendan: But effective.

AJ: True.

Me: Anyway, you all have my word that Arnold and Helga are going to be doing some grilling next chapter. That should clear a few things up... or just add some more questions. Also, before anyone makes this an issue, this story is pre-Homecoming. Alex Shepherd has not yet wandered into the madness of Silent Hill.

Zero: I can't say this enough. YOU. ARE. EVIL!

Me: And I bask in it. Anyway, that's it for this week. Be good and be safe, everyone! I'm outta here!