Arc The Lad Fan Fiction / Arc The Lad Fan Fiction ❯ Unholy Order ❯ Revelation ( Chapter 2 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Hoshiko Saitou 
Two worlds collide as new questions are raised.
Anime/Manga: Arc The Lad Fan Fiction / Arc The Lad Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Romance / Adventure | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 11.02.2004 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.1K | Visits: 282 | Status: Completed
Two worlds collide as new questions are raised.
Anime/Manga: Arc The Lad Fan Fiction / Arc The Lad Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Romance / Adventure | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 11.02.2004 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.1K | Visits: 282 | Status: Completed
Unholy Order
By: Magenta Fox (OMMFG, that’s so totally me!)
Chapter 2: Revelation
Author notes of psychotic weirdness: Ah, have I fucked with Kharg’s mind enough? HA! No way! No, now I must make him feel just a wee bit more worse and uncomfortable, just you watch….
(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)
When they had first arrived at Haystir Marsh, Kharg most certainly hadn’t expected a speeding ball of fire to come barreling toward them, and had almost mistaken it for a monster. It bypassed him, however, and made a mad dash straight to Darc, knocking him back and nuzzling him like an impatient lap-dog. After hearing what Kharg had a hard time believing was something akin to laughter, the mythical creature floated off its master ad awaited instructions while looking at both boys with confusion.
“We’re really going to ride this thing?” he asked skeptically.
“I figure it’s our best chance. Pyrons are mythical creatures,” Darc explained, uncharacteristically petting the creature on the head as it waved all eight of its arms happily. “If anything knows where to find a mythical continent…”
“But how do we…fit…?” he wondered, pacing around it a few times.
Darc ignored him in favor of addressing the Pyron. “Do you know where Soluna is?” In response, the fabled ‘Hero of the Skies’ flipped back in the air and clapped excitedly. Both took it as a ‘yes.’ “Then take us there, quickly.”
Seemingly full of excited energy, it took off into the sky, leaving a yellowish-orange streak in its wake.
“Ah… did that thing just-”
“Wait a second,” Darc interrupted, his eyes fixed on the sky. Within moments they were standing before a gigantic and extremely cheerful Pyron that held out its hands like welcoming seats.
“You’re kidding me…” Kharg breathed in amazement. “We just sit in its hands?”
“It’s safer and smarter than your airship,” the other brother argued, hoisting himself into position. “How did you get that thing to fly without Spirit Stones, anyways?”
Kharg tentatively pulled himself into one of those claws as he replied, “We’ve been learning to utilize and old form of energy called oil. It seems to have been collecting underground over the period of time we didn’t use it in favor of Spirit St- AH!”
Without warning, the Pyron took off into the air, issuing a shocked yell from its first-time passenger. Kharg quickly tried to right himself, bringing up his legs to tuck underneath him so he could sit back, but soon found that position uncomfortable as he opted for the stability of being on his hands and knees, looking out over the blur of land and clouds beneath him.
“This is amazing!” he called to his brother, shielding his eyes from the whipping wind as he scanned the horizon.
“We’re going to be quick about this, ” Darc avowed, bringing down his brother’s temporarily good mood in a heartbeat. “Is that understood?”
“Didn’t I already agree to that? I want to get home quickly just as much as you do. We both have a load of responsibly on our shoulders, not just you.” For a moment, Kharg had to wonder if they could ever go two seconds without arguing.
In truth, it wasn’t that hard, because all that they had to do was remain silent for as long as they wanted to go without coming to blows about something. After a good two hour stretch of awkwardness and discomfort, Kharg allowed his mind to wander in an attempt to keep himself occupied. He tilted his head and caught a glimpse of Darc (for to be caught staring would not have been in his best interest at the time), bringing his thoughts to center on his brother once again. He took in his features in that instant, leading himself to wonder what his actual age was, as his face looked roughed by time and experience and yet his eyes seemed to still hold some degree of childishness that made him seem closer to Kharg’s age. Darc had said once that it’d been 17 years since he’d seen him, and he himself was 17 at the time. The only way for that to be possible was if Darc was his older brother, which wouldn’t have surprised him all that much.
“Darc,” he said the first time, his voice so low that it was quickly carried off by the rushing wind. He always had a problem saying his brother’s name, except in times of extreme tension or anger. In polite conversation, whether with Darc himself or another person, Kharg would usually find some other sort of classifier or pronoun to replace it. Taking a deep breath, he tried again. “Darc!”
“What?”
Every time he said that it made Kharg not want to go on with what he was saying. It always came with an annoyed tone that knocked Kharg back a bit. Still, he continued on. “You’re older than me, right?”
“How am I supposed to know what time we were born?” the other snapped back, giving Kharg a look as if to call him stupid with his mere expression.
“What does time have to do with it?”
The look on Darc’s face would have been priceless had the conversation not called for more seriousness. He chose his words carefully and made his point obvious. “We’re twins.”
Kharg nearly tipped right off the Pyron. “Wh-we-WHAT?!”
“How could you not know that?”
“I didn’t know I even had a brother until after Mother died!” he argued in his defense. Getting into the habit of calling her mother was based on a decision he’d made when left to ponder whether he should address her as ‘my mother’ or ‘our mother.’ “I mean, I look nothing like you, so I have difficulty thinking of you as my brother, let alone my… twin…” In truth, it was the extreme differences in their physical appearance and personalities that helped Kharg to feel more comfortable about his indecipherable feelings. In a way, he could almost deny Darc was even related to him, just as he denied everything else these days.
The strange new awareness brought on an almost heavy feeling in the boy. He felt dizzy from all the realizations, knowing full-well that there were, most likely, many more to come as time passed. What else was his mother hiding from him? What was his brother hiding from him? What was he hiding from himself?
“What the…?”
The confused and shocked tone in his… twin’s… voice was enough to snap Kharg from his perplexing thoughts and make him notice his surroundings. It seemed that in the Northeast there was a bright city built tall amongst the peaks of a mountain range, while in the Southwest there was a dark and shadowy city that appeared to be built into a large crater, giving the illusion that it was buried. Between the two contrasting cities lay forests and small villages, the whole continent surrounded by tall, jagged rocks along its shores. This was, indeed, the supposedly mythical land of Soluna.
Their arrival wasn’t what was holding Darc’s attention, however, and he gave the Pyron instructions to get closer to something going on underneath them. Deep within both of them, in the Deimos instincts that ran through their blood, the brothers could hear something calling out to them, telling them that it was of dire importance that they find something there…
…or maybe, someone.
(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)
As soon as Keyana awoke she wished for her own death, the pain seeping into her small, altered frame being enough to render her immobile. She could feel the burnt flesh on her back cracking and bleeding with every labored breath, probably getting infected due to her inability to clean it off. The Serifins had emptied her Charge Gauge anyways, so even if she knew a healing spell she wouldn’t be able to cast it. They’d also stripped her of all her items and accessories, very much intending for her to die in the wretched human forest where they had dumped her.
A sliver of violet out of the corner of her eye brought Keyana’s thoughts immediately off her pain as she forced herself up onto straightened arms. She dragged herself weakly over to the mass of deep purple fabric, collapsing on top of it when her nerves screamed for her to stop forcing her now-ruined skeletal system to work.
“L-Lain…?”
No response.
She brought her arm around the princess’s even paler pink body and felt around for her wrist, pulling her closer as she checked for a pulse.
No pulse.
“Lain!”
She forced herself back up as she rolled the girl onto her wounded back, not noticing that the more absorbent feathers has set a blaze large enough to burn from the Angel’s neck to her lower back. Clawed hands ignored their sharpness and frantically pressed against Lain’s neck, finding no pulse and leaving a thin wounds that barely bled.
“You’re not dead,” she insisted hysterically. “I told you I wouldn’t let you die. Don’t…don’t you dare turn me into a liar!”
Violet eyes remained closed, and the girl’s body didn’t stir an inch.
“No…you can’t do this to me,” Keyana breathed, her chest tightening. “Not you, too. You were all I had left. You said you loved me. Is this… love…?” The last word was spat out vehemently, as if it stung when spoken. She was so consumed by her disbelieving grief that she didn’t hear the slightly murmur of conversation or the tread of boots.
“Woah, I ain’t ever seen one of them Hell Spawns without wings before.”
The Morkeeth woman turned her hatred-filled eyes on to the band of all-too-familiar bandits, the will to fight dead within her. It would be a horrible way to die, but all of her internal and external pain could finally be over, and so she simply allowed herself to slump over her beloved’s dead body and thought of how tragic and romantic Lain would find the situation… had she lived to know about it.
“Looks like she’s tryin’ ta protect that Serifin.”
“Never thought I’d live ta see that.”
She didn’t even look at them as they approached her, choosing instead to squeeze her eyes shut and wait for everything to end. The entire moment became surreal as she could hear the slight clink of the weight shifting in one of their swords and see the bright reflection of sunlight off steel as it shone onto the side of her face. Her life seemed to flash by in blurs in her mind, allowing her to let go of the fear of death she’d been harboring. ‘What do I have left to live for?’ she had to ask herself, knowing the answer was nothing.
And then there is was, the sound of someone having the wind knocked out of them. It was followed by a further away, low-pitched voice that felt as if it were getting closer to her. “You jumped off the Pyron?!”
“They were about to kill them!” a much closer, clearer voice called back, followed by the sounds of fast footwork and weapons being knocked out of hands. Even if she had wanted to see, Keyana had begun to slip in and out of consciousness, and could barely keep herself focused on the sounds or blurs around her as everything finally faded to black. She swore she saw a warm, bright light, but she was soon pulled away from it against her will, putting up a fight she would not win.
***
By: Magenta Fox (OMMFG, that’s so totally me!)
Chapter 2: Revelation
Author notes of psychotic weirdness: Ah, have I fucked with Kharg’s mind enough? HA! No way! No, now I must make him feel just a wee bit more worse and uncomfortable, just you watch….
(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)
When they had first arrived at Haystir Marsh, Kharg most certainly hadn’t expected a speeding ball of fire to come barreling toward them, and had almost mistaken it for a monster. It bypassed him, however, and made a mad dash straight to Darc, knocking him back and nuzzling him like an impatient lap-dog. After hearing what Kharg had a hard time believing was something akin to laughter, the mythical creature floated off its master ad awaited instructions while looking at both boys with confusion.
“We’re really going to ride this thing?” he asked skeptically.
“I figure it’s our best chance. Pyrons are mythical creatures,” Darc explained, uncharacteristically petting the creature on the head as it waved all eight of its arms happily. “If anything knows where to find a mythical continent…”
“But how do we…fit…?” he wondered, pacing around it a few times.
Darc ignored him in favor of addressing the Pyron. “Do you know where Soluna is?” In response, the fabled ‘Hero of the Skies’ flipped back in the air and clapped excitedly. Both took it as a ‘yes.’ “Then take us there, quickly.”
Seemingly full of excited energy, it took off into the sky, leaving a yellowish-orange streak in its wake.
“Ah… did that thing just-”
“Wait a second,” Darc interrupted, his eyes fixed on the sky. Within moments they were standing before a gigantic and extremely cheerful Pyron that held out its hands like welcoming seats.
“You’re kidding me…” Kharg breathed in amazement. “We just sit in its hands?”
“It’s safer and smarter than your airship,” the other brother argued, hoisting himself into position. “How did you get that thing to fly without Spirit Stones, anyways?”
Kharg tentatively pulled himself into one of those claws as he replied, “We’ve been learning to utilize and old form of energy called oil. It seems to have been collecting underground over the period of time we didn’t use it in favor of Spirit St- AH!”
Without warning, the Pyron took off into the air, issuing a shocked yell from its first-time passenger. Kharg quickly tried to right himself, bringing up his legs to tuck underneath him so he could sit back, but soon found that position uncomfortable as he opted for the stability of being on his hands and knees, looking out over the blur of land and clouds beneath him.
“This is amazing!” he called to his brother, shielding his eyes from the whipping wind as he scanned the horizon.
“We’re going to be quick about this, ” Darc avowed, bringing down his brother’s temporarily good mood in a heartbeat. “Is that understood?”
“Didn’t I already agree to that? I want to get home quickly just as much as you do. We both have a load of responsibly on our shoulders, not just you.” For a moment, Kharg had to wonder if they could ever go two seconds without arguing.
In truth, it wasn’t that hard, because all that they had to do was remain silent for as long as they wanted to go without coming to blows about something. After a good two hour stretch of awkwardness and discomfort, Kharg allowed his mind to wander in an attempt to keep himself occupied. He tilted his head and caught a glimpse of Darc (for to be caught staring would not have been in his best interest at the time), bringing his thoughts to center on his brother once again. He took in his features in that instant, leading himself to wonder what his actual age was, as his face looked roughed by time and experience and yet his eyes seemed to still hold some degree of childishness that made him seem closer to Kharg’s age. Darc had said once that it’d been 17 years since he’d seen him, and he himself was 17 at the time. The only way for that to be possible was if Darc was his older brother, which wouldn’t have surprised him all that much.
“Darc,” he said the first time, his voice so low that it was quickly carried off by the rushing wind. He always had a problem saying his brother’s name, except in times of extreme tension or anger. In polite conversation, whether with Darc himself or another person, Kharg would usually find some other sort of classifier or pronoun to replace it. Taking a deep breath, he tried again. “Darc!”
“What?”
Every time he said that it made Kharg not want to go on with what he was saying. It always came with an annoyed tone that knocked Kharg back a bit. Still, he continued on. “You’re older than me, right?”
“How am I supposed to know what time we were born?” the other snapped back, giving Kharg a look as if to call him stupid with his mere expression.
“What does time have to do with it?”
The look on Darc’s face would have been priceless had the conversation not called for more seriousness. He chose his words carefully and made his point obvious. “We’re twins.”
Kharg nearly tipped right off the Pyron. “Wh-we-WHAT?!”
“How could you not know that?”
“I didn’t know I even had a brother until after Mother died!” he argued in his defense. Getting into the habit of calling her mother was based on a decision he’d made when left to ponder whether he should address her as ‘my mother’ or ‘our mother.’ “I mean, I look nothing like you, so I have difficulty thinking of you as my brother, let alone my… twin…” In truth, it was the extreme differences in their physical appearance and personalities that helped Kharg to feel more comfortable about his indecipherable feelings. In a way, he could almost deny Darc was even related to him, just as he denied everything else these days.
The strange new awareness brought on an almost heavy feeling in the boy. He felt dizzy from all the realizations, knowing full-well that there were, most likely, many more to come as time passed. What else was his mother hiding from him? What was his brother hiding from him? What was he hiding from himself?
“What the…?”
The confused and shocked tone in his… twin’s… voice was enough to snap Kharg from his perplexing thoughts and make him notice his surroundings. It seemed that in the Northeast there was a bright city built tall amongst the peaks of a mountain range, while in the Southwest there was a dark and shadowy city that appeared to be built into a large crater, giving the illusion that it was buried. Between the two contrasting cities lay forests and small villages, the whole continent surrounded by tall, jagged rocks along its shores. This was, indeed, the supposedly mythical land of Soluna.
Their arrival wasn’t what was holding Darc’s attention, however, and he gave the Pyron instructions to get closer to something going on underneath them. Deep within both of them, in the Deimos instincts that ran through their blood, the brothers could hear something calling out to them, telling them that it was of dire importance that they find something there…
…or maybe, someone.
(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)(-)
As soon as Keyana awoke she wished for her own death, the pain seeping into her small, altered frame being enough to render her immobile. She could feel the burnt flesh on her back cracking and bleeding with every labored breath, probably getting infected due to her inability to clean it off. The Serifins had emptied her Charge Gauge anyways, so even if she knew a healing spell she wouldn’t be able to cast it. They’d also stripped her of all her items and accessories, very much intending for her to die in the wretched human forest where they had dumped her.
A sliver of violet out of the corner of her eye brought Keyana’s thoughts immediately off her pain as she forced herself up onto straightened arms. She dragged herself weakly over to the mass of deep purple fabric, collapsing on top of it when her nerves screamed for her to stop forcing her now-ruined skeletal system to work.
“L-Lain…?”
No response.
She brought her arm around the princess’s even paler pink body and felt around for her wrist, pulling her closer as she checked for a pulse.
No pulse.
“Lain!”
She forced herself back up as she rolled the girl onto her wounded back, not noticing that the more absorbent feathers has set a blaze large enough to burn from the Angel’s neck to her lower back. Clawed hands ignored their sharpness and frantically pressed against Lain’s neck, finding no pulse and leaving a thin wounds that barely bled.
“You’re not dead,” she insisted hysterically. “I told you I wouldn’t let you die. Don’t…don’t you dare turn me into a liar!”
Violet eyes remained closed, and the girl’s body didn’t stir an inch.
“No…you can’t do this to me,” Keyana breathed, her chest tightening. “Not you, too. You were all I had left. You said you loved me. Is this… love…?” The last word was spat out vehemently, as if it stung when spoken. She was so consumed by her disbelieving grief that she didn’t hear the slightly murmur of conversation or the tread of boots.
“Woah, I ain’t ever seen one of them Hell Spawns without wings before.”
The Morkeeth woman turned her hatred-filled eyes on to the band of all-too-familiar bandits, the will to fight dead within her. It would be a horrible way to die, but all of her internal and external pain could finally be over, and so she simply allowed herself to slump over her beloved’s dead body and thought of how tragic and romantic Lain would find the situation… had she lived to know about it.
“Looks like she’s tryin’ ta protect that Serifin.”
“Never thought I’d live ta see that.”
She didn’t even look at them as they approached her, choosing instead to squeeze her eyes shut and wait for everything to end. The entire moment became surreal as she could hear the slight clink of the weight shifting in one of their swords and see the bright reflection of sunlight off steel as it shone onto the side of her face. Her life seemed to flash by in blurs in her mind, allowing her to let go of the fear of death she’d been harboring. ‘What do I have left to live for?’ she had to ask herself, knowing the answer was nothing.
And then there is was, the sound of someone having the wind knocked out of them. It was followed by a further away, low-pitched voice that felt as if it were getting closer to her. “You jumped off the Pyron?!”
“They were about to kill them!” a much closer, clearer voice called back, followed by the sounds of fast footwork and weapons being knocked out of hands. Even if she had wanted to see, Keyana had begun to slip in and out of consciousness, and could barely keep herself focused on the sounds or blurs around her as everything finally faded to black. She swore she saw a warm, bright light, but she was soon pulled away from it against her will, putting up a fight she would not win.
***