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Post by HungryHunter on Apr 28, 2021 0:37:13 GMT
Yuu shivered. What she lay on was hard and cold, sucking the warmth from her body. Nothing stood between her and the damp air, making goosebumps stand out all over her skin. But that wasn’t what confused her. Memories floated in her head, but none about herself. She knew her name, but not who she was. Her eyes opened in the hopes of finding out more about her world. What she saw told her everything. There was a girl standing over her, blinking away tears through thick glasses. “Marika…” Her arms reached up and held the girl. Purpose. People might go their whole lives without finding it, but she knew hers in the moment of her birth. Her purpose was to love and to protect. This child needed her and she could never say no. She pulled her to her chest. “Marika… why are you crying? I’m here. And I’ll never leave you.”
She looked down at her now, fast asleep in her bed. The blankets slowly rose and fell with her every breath like a ghost haunted the sheets. Yuu felt that same love swell again. She took her child’s hand and held it for a moment. Soon, she would have to let go. She might never hold it again. So for a few minutes, she held on until at last she could delay no longer. She pressed a little bead into Marika’s palm and stepped away. In a minute, she was gone. It was only a few minutes later that the effects of the bead took effect. Marika simply vanished with a tiny, nearly-inaudible pop, the sheets fluttering down into the empty space left behind. In the same instant, Martha burst into the room and grabbed the shoulders of Marika’s sleeping companion. “Miles Miles Miles! Get up, you gotta get up! They’ve got Marika, they’ve got Marika and they took her!” She shook him violently.
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Post by Vapovile on May 2, 2021 9:52:49 GMT
Miles lay sleeping in the bed next to Marika, his medium length blond hair already showing signs of being disheveled by the bedrest. Inside his dream, he was in some of the most peaceful times he had experienced mentally. For many years, the fiery words of his demonic parents called him a failure for only wanting one partner, and their sheer abandonment of their child had grown a profound obsession for being loved into Miles. But who would love a demon like him, a demon that saw art in the human form?
His plight was soon worsened when his parents did the one thing Miles feared; they gave up on him. They had banished Miles from their abode in Hell, and being alone made you a target. He distinctly remembered the pain of spells crashing against his back as he flew toward the surface, trying to find anywhere that wasn't full of demons. When he finally emerged onto a rocky outcrop inside a volcano's crater, Miles was on death's door. He only avoided his pursuers further by squeezing into a tiny opening between two rocks before they crossed the spirit barrier. His eyes watched with terror until they returned back to Hell.
For several days, he only wandered. Then Miles started his craft once more, picking ideal targets and turning their flesh into art. Humans wouldn't understand him either, so why hold back his art? That was until the day Miles smelled a distinctly inhuman scent.
Marika's visage stunned Miles. The wiry hair, commanding aura, group of clearly loyal followers...she had to be his. Things were rocky at first, but now he lay next to the love of his life...a place he finally belonged. Two artists having finally found someone that understands their craft.
His eyes bolted awake when Martha began shaking him. The incubus's turned his head and saw that yes, Marika was gone. Rage boiled in Miles's eyes. "And WHO is THEY?!" He seethed, trying to shake off the sleepiness. He bolted for the door. "TELL ME ALONG THE WAY! I WILL HAVE THEIR SKULL AS A SOCCER BALL!" Miles roared. He nearly lost his girlfriend to her worthless, traitor of a doll, and more recently held hostage by their apparent future son. He was through being unable to help Marika! Anyone who hurts her deserves death in the worst way possible!
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Post by HungryHunter on May 3, 2021 16:21:31 GMT
“Them! The blonde lady and the cops!” Martha rambled, keeping him tense as she led him to Yuu’s door out of the kaspa. In the haze of panic and sleep, he was pushed through and Martha slammed the door behind him. He wouldn’t recognize where he stood. He hadn’t known Marika when she lived here, and the house was nearly unrecognizable now anyway. He was in the midst of a burnt out husk, scorched and moldy from years of exposure to the rain, coming down now in a light drizzle. The ceiling was gone, burned away in places and collapsed in the rest, simply more rotting rubble on the ground. Trees swayed in the background, visible through the half-toppled walls. He wouldn’t even have a second to question where he was before Yuu’s short sword stabbed at his back, trying to impale a lung in one strike.
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Post by Vapovile on May 6, 2021 0:47:21 GMT
Miles stood in the husk of the house, hearing the door slam behind him and cursing loudly. "You are just going to leave?!" He screamed, reaching for his Kaspa key...but only finding boxers. It was only by the grace of his demonic sense of smell that he could detect the stench of Yuu and blast his single remaining wing out of his back.
He gave one hard downward movement to move away, but the sword still pierced his side, though Miles was able to get away and singe the wound with fire. He glared at Yuu with a burning hatred in his eyes.
"YOU!" He flipped out the knife he always kept attached to his side. "You TRAITOROUS WENCH!" Miles screamed. "So this is it? You can't win Marika back from me, so you decide to betray everyone?! You were made to be her mother figure, and yet you can't even do that correctly, you filthy backstabbing bitch!" He continued.
Strangely, Miles began to laugh. "I...guess I have nothing to lose. I'm done being helpless while Marika suffers." Miles flashed the flat of the knife toward Yuu. "One of us will die tonight, Yuu. No more petty clashes when Marika's not here. YOU crossed the LINE, and now will be tossed out with the rest of the garbage!"
Miles waved his right hand and summoned a flurry of petals that blew toward Yuu in a wave. He would detonate them all at once when they got close, trying to hit her with the explosive impact even if none of the petals touched.
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Post by HungryHunter on May 12, 2021 2:26:19 GMT
Her chance to end it before it began was gone, wasted. Measuring by the blood on her sword’s tip, she hadn’t penetrated more than a quarter inch. Not even immediately lethal to a regular human. She didn’t respond to his taunting. No reason to. Any accusation he chose to throw at her was probably true. She simply ignited her body and jumped. She landed on the crumbling top of the nearest wall and lunged off of it, throwing herself right over the petals. Instead of launching herself high to chase him in the air, she stayed low and threw a kunai attached to a string. She hoped to get it in him, sticking it deep with her tacky tears so that she could yank him down. The incubus needed to be on the ground.
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Post by Vapovile on May 14, 2021 10:37:08 GMT
Yuu's silence was only frustrating Miles further. "What, too good to talk to me now?!" Miles roared. He flapped his wing to dodge the kunai, but the move threw him off balance and sent him spiraling down to the ground. He managed to right himself and perch on a crumbling stump, staring at Yuu with a death glare. The rest of the world seemed like a blur at this point. Nothing mattered more to Miles more than protecting Marika and killing Yuu as painfully as possible.
Summoning another storm of petals in front of himself, Miles charged forward and attempted to stab Yuu directly in her flaming eyes. The petals would fly in behind him, exploding around the two if the strike hit home. If she dodged backwards, he'd mostly escape the explosions.
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Post by HungryHunter on May 20, 2021 0:11:11 GMT
Yuu didn’t back away when Miles closed in. It was the worst move he could make, and she would let him. She couldn’t dodge entirely, but she moved her head and let his blade slice her skin to the back of her skull. With one hand, she embraced him. Her tacky tears stuck tight. “I am not too good, Miles. I deserve this just as much as you.” The explosions rocked them both, point blank this time. Sweater in tatters, Yuu’s fires danced now on bare muscle and fat along her flanks. Holes were blown in the floor as well, revealing the basement below, dark but shimmering in the moonlight.
Yuu teetered, nearly fell into Miles. She could barely stand after that. But instead of falling forwards, she forced herself back, thrusting a hand into the blighted wall. Where parts had blown away, there was a chord, and one odd tube now showed. Her flames sputtered out when she yanked the chain, and three shotguns went off in a rough semicircle around them. The one directly behind Yuu pierced her and the other two caught her in their spread, but she knew Miles would be hurting all the more. She had done a lot of work on the shotguns, knowing bullets wouldn’t be enough. They were carefully loaded up with rosary beads, enchanted for resisting the impact of their launch. A dozen holy pellets came from each direction to strike Miles.
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Post by Vapovile on May 30, 2021 4:15:31 GMT
The world became a red haze when Miles realized his mistake. The flames melted into his body like the fires of Hell he tried to escape so long ago. This resistance made Miles resistant to the flames, but he still screamed in agony as the flames seared his flesh. The petals rocked both of them, opening up dozens of tiny welts into his skin and taking a small chunk out of his head that quickly began to bleed.
When the two crashed into the ground, Miles groaned with rage as he tried ripping himself free of Yuu through sheer determination, yelling as the burned skin began to tear away. "I...AM...NOT...ABANDONING...MARIKA!!!" He screamed as the shotguns ripped through the air.
The bullets shot through Miles's skin, the rosary beads making them sting extra hard. The pain would be unbearable for most humans, but Miles was running on pure hatred and adrenaline now. With one last sickening pop, he managed to free himself from Yuu and stumble backwards.
His body was in tatters. Burn marks scorched his front, while his back was filled with craters made by his own petals and larger ones made by the shotguns. He twitched in pain, but the slowly-fading light in his eyes was still trained upon Yuu.
"Hah...haha...you think I would die...and leave Marika in your hands...you murdered your own daughter..." He spat. Tears were now streaming down his face. "Unlike you, I have...no future! Rejected by humans, rejected by demons...I won't let you rip love from me." With a death glare, Miles flared out his wing once more and summoned several more petals.
"Goodbye."
Directing his hand downward, the petals moved to blast apart the ground Yuu stood on, and her with it.
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Post by HungryHunter on Jun 1, 2021 5:14:26 GMT
It was sickening to feel Miles tear himself apart in her hands. It didn’t matter how much she hated him, she felt his pain. But it hurt more to hear his accusation. “I had no choice. It was her or Marika...” Her composure broke for the first time. Emotion crept into her voice. She was actually trying to convince him. Trying to convince herself. In that moment of weakness, Miles caught her. The floor was gone beneath both of them, and her ragged form fell into water. It was deep enough to break her fall, cold water threatening to throw her directly into shock as it infiltrated every agonizing wound. It was almost a relief that she couldn’t feel her legs. Miles would not feel the chill of the water when he struck it. For him, it would burn, for every drop was consecrated; holy water. Yuu wiggled more than swam, trying to pull herself to the basement stairs. Her sword was lost in the water. Her body was broken. If he survived this, it would be her who saw hell today.
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Post by Vapovile on Jun 6, 2021 3:04:28 GMT
Miles barely registered that the floor had fallen when he was already airborne. He weakly tried to flap his wing to avoid the water, but couldn't muster the strength...and splashed down into the holy water. Instantly Miles's body ignited in pain, every exposed nerve burning with holy magic. Without even the strength to scream, the incubus flapped his wing and tossed himself out of the water and onto a stone perch to the side.
He hit the ground unconscious, the pain finally overloading his brain. Miles laid on the ground for several seconds motionless, not even drawing a breath. His body was now charred, as if the entire thing had been set on fire and left severe burn scars all along his figure. Suddenly, his eyes began to stir...looking down with complete bloodshot eyes as he leaned against a rock to sit up.
"Where...get so much...holy water...?" He asked in disbelief, before glaring. "It doesn't matter...perish..." Waving his hand, Miles summoned a single rose above Yuu's head. It then slowly began to float down...ready to detonate at the first surface it touched.
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Post by HungryHunter on Jun 8, 2021 17:34:48 GMT
Yuu only made it up a few steps before Miles was upon her. She rolled over and looked up at him. She knew immediately that this house would be their tomb. He would kill her, and then he would succumb to his own wounds. Marika… would be alone. “Miles… stop just for a moment. I have a confession that you must hear. Marika really does need you.” She could barely speak above a whisper, but she hoped that Miles would stop and listen. “Martha worked with me. But so did Haven. The minute we left, she called the HWIC and met them. Marika… we let them into the kaspa to capture her.” Painfully, awkwardly, Yuu pulled her kaspa key from her pocket. “You can’t save her, not as you are now… but you can join her.” It was released to clatter down the stairs, resting on the last step above the water. “We couldn’t save her from herself. So I betrayed her. She could never forgive me… so be with her, Miles. Please, Miles. I can’t handle the thought of her alone.” Yuu wept. It was not her power in action, just honest tears of agony.
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Post by Vapovile on Jun 12, 2021 5:49:46 GMT
The rose stopped midair when Yuu brought up Marika's name. Miles stared down at her with hollow eyes as she explained the plan. "...so it's already too late..." The rose disappeared and Miles fell to his knees, soaking them in water as he stared at the Kaspa key. If he stayed here, the one who ripped love out of Miles's heart would die along with himself. But if he used the key...he would be thrown into prison, but be able to see Marika one last time, possibly. This was assuming he could trust Yuu didn't set up another trap to kill him once the key is used.
"...I have no reason to trust you..." He seethed. Miles could barely think at all. Thoughts were clouded by sadness, vengeance, and searing pain. Glaring down at Yuu, he grabbed the key.
"But you're right...she will never forgive you. What kind of a mother throws their child to the wolves?! I...wish you nothing but misery and guilt for the rest of that life which Marika gave you." He spat. Only the tiny ember of hope in seeing Marika again was keeping him alive right now. Activating the key, Miles disappeared into the Kaspa, leaving Yuu alone.
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Post by HungryHunter on Jun 16, 2021 7:03:31 GMT
“What else would I feel?” Yuu whispered at nothing when Miles left. There was nothing to dwell on but her failures. That’s all that there ever was in her short life. She couldn’t help Marika. She only made her worse. Her other children, she failed to even recognize as such. Always secondary to Marika. She told herself she loved them, but she doubted a single one believed it. Regrets coursed through her and she began to feel the pain as the adrenaline wore off. A hoarse cry went up, bouncing back to her from every wall. She bit down on the thick cloth of her sleeve, choking down her pain. Couldn’t she at least have the dignity to face her fate? To take what was coming to her without weeping and crying?
But she couldn’t help it. Her body shuddered from her tears, and her shuddering only made it hurt worse. Through the tears, she apologized to nobody. “Marika, I failed to save you… Haven, I couldn’t protect you… Marceline, I could have done so much better…” “You still can!” A voice called from the top of the stairs. She thought she was hallucinating until a white blur shot by, skidding across the top of the water and returning to her. Something was roughly shoved against her and she cried out, but whoever it was ignored her and unfolded far too many healing scrolls. In a blinding flash, her body began to remake itself. Bones grew and connected, tendrils of muscle lashed out to bridge gaps. Skin came last, an agonizing crawl over most of her body.
She was left in a heap, barely in less pain than before. Her clothing hung in rags from her body, revealing her motley patchwork of new and old skin. That was covered when her savior knelt by her side and wrapped her in a blanket. She was helpless to resist when she was picked up. Only now did she see her savior. “Mar...tha…?” She mumbled. “Yeah, I… I didn’t want you to die.” Martha said. She set Yuu on what was once a bed, now a moldy lump. Another blanket was thrown over her. “Sleep tight and get better.” Martha told her. Yuu didn’t want to, but she felt sleep pulling at the corners of her mind. For once, somebody else was looking out over her. It was an alien feeling, and not one she had fully processed before she drifted off entirely.
She didn’t know what time it was when she woke up. The sun was past its zenith, clouded by tree branches as it slowly lowered. She was still pained and stiff when she leaned up, but nowhere near to the extent she was before. Her body was back in one piece, but permanently changed. Scars riddled her form, especially where her legs and one of her arms met her torso. She wanted to believe that it didn’t matter to her, that she was above such physical vanity, but as she looked over her body, she felt a new sense of loss. She quickly covered herself up with the new clothing left at the foot of the bed. Her own. She wondered when Martha took it. Then she wondered where Martha was. It didn’t take much searching to find a sort of anwer. Set up against the wall was a backpack with a note stuck to the front. She could tell Martha had spent hours on it from the thousands of eraser marks all over it and the clean handwriting, something Martha normally had no patience for.
“Yuu,
I didn’t think I could say any of this in person. My tongue gets tied up and my brain doesn’t work, so I’m writing it all out now to get it sorted out. Even here I don’t think I can make it totally clear, cause it isn’t clear to me. I knew you wanted to die, because you can’t live with what you did to Marika, but I think that’s because you’re selfish. What about us? What about everybody else in the kaspa? You want to just leave us without making anything you did up to us. So I didn’t want to let you die because that’s not how you make things better, it’s how you avoid the hard work you really need to do.
But I also just don’t want you to die. I needed a mom, Yuu, and sometimes, you were one. But most of the time, you were only Marika’s mom, and nobody else mattered at all. I can’t forget the times you did what was right, but I also can’t forget the times you were wrong. So I don’t know how I feel about you, and I’m super scared that I can’t know because I’m just not smart enough to figure it out. There’s food and a compass in the bag so you can go to a town. Don’t try to see us. Just find a new life, and if I want to see you I will find you.
Please be good.
Love, Martha.”
Sticky tears stained the letter before she was done reading, and she had to stop multiple times to wipe her eyes so that it would be preserved. Gently, she folded it and placed it in the backpack for safekeeping. With her compass in hand, she set out to find her way in a world she no longer knew. She still had children to live for, and maybe one day, Marika would understand why she did what she did.
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