Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Capricious Infection ❯ Act 11: Misunderstandings ( Chapter 11 )

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Capricious Infection

Act 11: Misunderstandings

By: Melissa Norvell/Revamp

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“What are you staring at?” Dante questioned, finally realizing that the blue-haired girl had been lugging that feather around since they had regrouped. It was beginning to grind on his nerves, like some morbid keepsake of the one who nearly slaughtered her. For god's sake why would she keep that thing?

“I found this at the school. It's not a normal feather. I wonder where it came from,” she said aloud. As familiar as it seemed, she could not remember for the life of her what the killer looked like. Even if it didn't belong to him, maybe it was from Chaos…However, she had never known or caught wind of him having wings. It had to be the Messiah's feather.

“I can tell you where it came from.” His voice took on an all-knowing tone. Yes, he had seen that wing many times. It belonged to a certain creepy as fuck Dius.

A Dius named Tarvos.

Lannad instantly perked up and turned to him, clutching her keepsake to her chest as she looked upon him with expectant eyes. “You can? Do you think it could be from Chaos?”

“No, I don't think so. I think it's from someone much closer than you think.” This was his way of easing Tarvos into the equation without just outright saying it and being accused to being crazy again. Hopefully, they would listen to him this time.

The girl's expression morphed into one of bewilderment as she arched an eyebrow. “Are you saying it's from Tarvos?”

“He was gone when the murders happened and he's not human. I can see that clearly.” Come on, Lannad. Surely she had to believe him. After all, she believed in that Messiah stuff.

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“But, Tarvos has been with us the whole time,” Lannad brought that point up yet again. Why would he show back up to the scene of the crime? Also, how could he have committed such a mass murder so quickly and had time to appear back with everyone? It didn't fit time-wise for her.

“There's got to be a reason…” Like he was an alien. That was the reason.

Her gaze turned serious for a moment and her voice lowered. “You think Tarvos is the Grand High Messiah, don't you?” That's what it really seemed like, what all of his hints led up to. She didn't want to believe it. Tarvos really did seem as if he were human, even if Dante didn't see it himself. Everyone had accepted him, but Dante.

To her, he was merely a thankful, homeless man who Rezzi came to befriend. In retrospect, that story seemed strange but he hadn't done anything wrong to her yet. At least, nothing that Rezzi had told her and she was not the type to simply keep secrets. Not secrets like that, if someone was bothering her, she would not hesitate to do what was right. That girl was a vigilante in her own right.

“I'm sure of it. “ He had to be the Messiah, either that or he was Chaos. One of those two bastards was Tarvos.

“Then how was he in the game and not at the computer?” That was a question that perpetually stumped her, as well as provided Tarvos with a credible alibi. From behind her, Rezzi had turned her attention to the conversation, picking up bits and pieces from her acute sense of hearing.

Dante crossed his arms. “I don't know. That's what bothers me. I can't figure out how, but I know it's him.”

“That's impossible,” a male voice intoned, causing the two to look behind them and see Oz, standing there. It seemed Rezzi wasn't the only one who had been eavesdropping.

Dante's lips curled into an indignant scowl. “Who the hell invited you into the conversation?”

“Your speculation is incorrect. The Messiah in the game is not Tarvos.” There was absolutely no way that it could be correct, not in a million years.

“How would you know?”

“Because I know the identity of every player in Twisted Land.” As master creator of the game, it was his job to know who was in it. Especially since the game was used to find suitable warriors to help save their current paradox. It was imperative that he know extensive details about even the most secretive of players.

Brown eyes narrowed. “So…you know who he is.”

Oz leveled him with his ever stoic expression, “I know who he is…in the game and out here.”

“Are you saying I'm wrong?” If it wasn't Tarvos then who was it? Could it have been one of the other screen names that they held chats with? Could it be that weird guy that Rezzi was texting? Hell, at this point anyone could be the Grand High Messiah, since Oz liked to be the shatterer of theories.

By now, Tarvos had been listening in on the conversation as well. Anything about the Grand High Messiah piqued his interest. Lannad glanced to her feather, “Oz, did this come from the Messiah or Chaos?”

“Figure it out yourself,” he still refused to answer that. In fact, they were very close to solving their mystery. It wouldn't be too much longer before they unveiled the Messiah without his help if everything went according to plan.

“Why are you such an insensitive prick?” He was really grinding on Dante's last available nerve. Some guide he was turning out to be. They really could use the help, and were more than desperate to get whatever aid they could. This guy held the answer to their hopes and prayers and he wouldn't even lift much of a finger to bother to help them. Oz might as well be dead weight.

“Figure out the unknown factors about yourself first before you question me,” the alien poked at Dante's identity crisis. A man who did not know himself could not possibly begin to understand others.

“How did you know that?” The angry boy drew back, shocked. The only ones who even had that conversation were he and Tarvos. Was this guy a telepath as well?

“I know many things,” of course he'd be fucking vague about it.

“Just what the hell are you, anyway?” Were other races that advanced? This guy was straight up frightening in all aspects. Who knew some nerd who created video games was this advanced? David definitely picked a strange role model.

“Tarvos can't be the Grand High Messiah. He didn't know anything about the game and he was with me the whole time,” that was Rezzi's story and she was sticking to it. She might have been blind but she was not stupid.

“I never played that game in my life. Rezzi was just giving me a walkthrough when I watched her,” Tarvos added, rectifying his point.

They were all against him.

“This makes no sense.” It truly didn't. Everything he had deduced pointed to Tarvos. Dante had thought that he was 100% guilty by all measures and proof.

“I'll say. Everyone's just arguing,” David added his two cents to the conversation. To be truthful, he'd been listening to it the whole time. It was hard to make sense of anything anymore.

“Your false accusations are clouding your judgment,” Oz stated.

`The Messiah from my prophecies has the wing of an angel and the wing of a demon.' Lannad thought to herself as the silhouetted figure of the terror from her religion etched itself in her mind. `His feathers would be about this size. Dante says that Tarvos has a reptilian wing and a bird wing. If this is true, then he fits the description. But Oz doesn't acknowledge him to be. According to Oz we still have to find him. Does that mean it's not Tarvos who's the Messiah? Oz would know, right? I mean, he knows the Messiah or he acts like it. He also said that he wasn't the Messiah in the game. Rezzi says he was with her. Dante thinks that he is, but everything points to the fact that he's not. He's been here with us this whole time. I wonder if people are still dying even when Tarvos is around. It was kind of funny that he showed up right before all of this happened, saying he had a goal but he didn't know what it was. I'm starting to wonder if he's really human after all. Maybe he's an alien like Oz is.' Her brainstorming ended as she glanced to the blind girl. `I bet she knows about Tarvos more than anyone. Ever since she picked him up, she's been really quiet.'

“We should split up and patrol the town to make sure that no further deaths have been occurring,” Oz recommended. If they did this, they would more than likely find the Messiah and confirm his identity face to face.

“Sounds like a plan. We've trained for a couple of days now, so we should be pretty awesome at kicking ass,” David was confident, even if it was only a couple of days, he would tell that his strength had increased significantly. So, maybe he couldn't defeat the Messiah single-handedly but he could give that guy a good run for his money. That, he was sure of.

“If Chaos has awakened, then so have his extensions,” the alien pointed out this important fact.

“Extensions?” Rezzi questioned.

“Before Chaos was sealed away by human Londa, he created time rips in order to make this paradox unstable. When he caused the rips, creatures from other places in time escaped and plagued this paradox. Most of them were sealed by the Apocalyptic Priestess; the others existed as myths and legends here on Earth, throughout the course of time. They eventually died off and few remain to this day.” The various sightings of these said creatures could all be linked this event. For eons, humans questioned the validity of popular and unpopular myths and urban legends; there were the result of the opened rips in time.

“The truly evil ones had been banished back through the time rips. They were thought to be another civilization from a dying planet, hoping to make a home on ours,” Lannad further explained that event. She remembered hearing this story from Londa's descendants.

“So, it was like all these dying races were fighting for this place?” Tony asked.

“That's crazy. You mean, if Chaos gets woken up again, then this planet will turn into a total war zone?” This was bad. David didn't want to have to fight more people; he was doing well to even tolerate bringing this Messiah guy to justice. That would just be overwhelming.

“That's why I told you to train so much. If Chaos is truly running around then the time rips are open.” That mean that anyone would be coming their way, and not all of them had the most favorable ideas for their world or their race.

“Even if that is true, nothing can get out, right?” Tarvos inquired, with a shifty-eyed glance towards his fellow Dius.

Oz cast him a harsh glare, “only other entities may enter. We could not escape to their world.” If that was his idea, he could forget about it.

“Who'd want to? That's like suicide,” David replied before he went into a lazy mock-tone. “Here I am! Let's all kinds of appear in your world where I am outnumbered so you can kill me or do whatever you want.” No thanks, that plan was stupid. What was this guy thinking?

“Will anyone be able to see these rips?” Rezzi wondered if they had any physically defining features. She could not see them, but maybe her friends could. If there was, they could tell where they were located. That was a good first step in anything.

“Yeah, how will we know where they are? Are they like a discoloration or something?” Mae continued to add more questions to the mix.

“They are a warped area of space. Usually, they are in the sky, so you can tell where they are-“Oz was cut off.

“But we can't reach them,” Tony replied.

“How can we close them if we even saw them?” Dante added, throwing out his hands.

“You can't.”

“What the fuck?” It was going to be like that again. Son of a bitch.

“Then how are we supposed to stop them?” This made no sense to Mae, either.

“As long as this place is unstable, you cannot.”

“Is this the Messiah's way of killing people?” David wondered aloud. It sort of made sense when he thought about it. If other races came to the planet, then they would easily be able to take care of the population for him. It made genocide easier.

“No, this is Chaos himself. His very presence makes this entire paradox unstable.” The other races only helped Chaos' power grow to unreachable heights.

“Then let's kill Chaos and get rid of the rips,” Tony suggested. That was the perfect and it got rid of two problems with one solution.

“You can't.”

“For the same reason you can't kill the Grand High Messiah, right?” Mae questioned.

“Precisely.”

“How do we help this situation? How do we stop the world from ending? It seems pretty impossible right now,” Tony was on wit's end about everything and he had never felt as powerless about a situation as he did in this moment. It was like everyone was dying and their lives rode on his shoulders, but he didn't know how to help. On one hand, he felt guilty because people would only continue to die. On the other, he was frantic to search for an answer and had to disregard the loss of life and just make the best of what decision he'd come to. This was emotionally draining.

“What if we balanced Chaos out somehow?” Ringo, who had been in deep contemplation this entire time, finally spoke up with what he thought was a pretty good plan. The worst it would do was be shot down by Oz.

“What do you mean?” Mae turned to him. It sounded like a good plan to her as well.

“You guys are looking at Chaos like a person and not a force. When you have a force that's out of control, then you use an opposing force to nullify it.” When one element is out of control, the scales of balance are tipped, in order to put the balance back; one element must be weighed against another. This was his theory anyway. Ringo just hoped that it was good enough to prove effective.

“It's like spell casting,” Lannad pointed out.

“Yeah, in training we got shown that there are all different things that can counter different types of attacks we can do. For instance, water puts out fire. So, we should find something to negate Chaos,” Tony compared the vanquishing of an element to basic battle skills. When put like that, it seemed easier.

“So, you're going to use peace to nullify him? How are you going to do that?” Tarvos was a little amused with their neophyte plans. Even he knew that was not going to work.

“I don't know any spells like that. I just know basic things, like attack, defense and elemental magic,” Lannad admitted. Spells were definitely out.

“Don't look at me.” Tony shrugged. Their plan just collapsed like that. Too bad, he thought Ringo was really on to something there.

“I think it's simpler than a spell,” Tarvos said simply.

“What do you mean?” Ringo asked. He wondered if this strange man had an answer to their conundrum.

“Maybe someone just needs to calm him down. If we subdue Chaos then the rips maybe stop or lessen.” That could be done without the use of any type of spell. It could even actually be done with physical action or mental prowess if they were to take the psychological route to it.

Dante was the first to shoot his theory down. Turning to the winged being, the boy frowned. “How do we do that, genius? Please, shower me with your knowledge.”

“Chaos is probably just going buck wild with rage if he woke up. Think about it. He was sealed by Londa for years. Naturally, he'd be red, hot pissed and vow his revenge on the priestesses who sealed him.” It was fool proof cognitive deduction. Why must humans think that everything has to be done with brute force? That's a primal instinct but a bad one when facing elementals like Chaos.

“Then does that mean that it was actually Chaos who killed the shrine maidens?” Mae looked thoughtful for a moment.

“That's my theory.”

“That makes sense. It also means that he's been awake longer than I thought.” As far as Lannad remembered, those priestesses have been dead for a really long time. Decay had begun to set in when they entered the shrine.

“So, we have to go and find this guy just to calm his ass the fuck down so the world doesn't go to shit? Ugh! Why? This is fucking irritating. It pisses me off,” Dante fumed as Mae cast him an annoying look. Turning to him she arched an eyebrow.

“Do you have a better idea?” It would be far more helpful if he tried to make ideas on his own, instead of bitching about theirs. At least they were trying.

The dark-haired teen sighed in frustration. “Fine. We'll go gallivanting around in hopes to find your Grand Bullshit Messiah and quell dipshit Chaos with whatever sugar-encrusted vomit we hurl at him, even though I pretty much think this plan is pointless and dumb as shit,” he rolled his eyes. They couldn't be serious, and the fact that they were was just disgusting.

“We'll split into teams and search the town for anything that could lead up to Chaos or the Messiah's location. Mae, Ringo and Rezzi, your group will go in this direction,” Oz instructed, pointing to the right. “David, Tony, Lannad and Dante, you will go here.” He pointed to the left. “Tarvos and I will go here.” His finger directed straight in front of him. “We'll meet back up at this point and report our results.”

“Whatever,” Dante huffed. He didn't even really want to go but he had no choice in the matter.

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Tony, David, Lannad and Dante walked through the demolished part of town. All around them, building lie in ruin and the sky was painted in warped shades of purple and red. It was as if a dismal sunset splattered across the clouds in grueling glory. The ruins of what used to be a mundane setting unsettled all of their hearts, even now that the broken city had become a normal backdrop to their adventures. It wasn't as if Dante truly minded that as much as he minded the fact that his memories of the past were shot, and Tarvos' round of badgering him about his roots was eating at his mentality more than he'd like to let the other's know.

Tony rested a hand on his shoulder, trying to smile through all of the horrible things they'd been through. “Don't be so pessimistic, Dante. Just think about all of the credit we'll get if we actually found either one of them.”

He jerked his shoulder from his friend's touch. “I don't care about that. Even if we calm Chaos down, who's to say he won't flip his shit again? Also, remember that there's a billion other fucking aliens out there, killing people for this god-forsaken planet.”

“Ever since you found out about Tarvos, you've been really pissy,” David glanced over to his best friend. While it was true that Dante was a little black rain cloud, he's never had this much of an attitude.

“I'm really pissed, confused and frustrated. I hate my life, I hate being here, and I hate playing this hero bullshit. This Grand High Messiah can go fuck himself in the most painful and obscene of ways.” It was all he could take to function right now. He just felt like exploding with rage.

“Since we have this sector of town, we should go to the memorial and check up on everyone there. Since it's a large gathering of people, he might attack again,” Lannad pointed out the situation at hand. Even if they didn't truly have a world of experience, they had far more than the mourners.

“Good idea. It'll take a while to get there, though,” Tony only hoped that he didn't show up until after they did.

“Anyone notice Tarvos and Oz paired themselves to get and shoved four people in one group?” The short-haired male continued to fume to himself. It was more of an accusation than something that was being pointed out as a fact. However, it was pretty damned suspicious. Of course the two Dius would go together. Those fuckers didn't even really want to help them.

“I wondered what that was about. It was sort of weird.” The thought passed through David's head, but he really didn't question Oz much. He trusted his opinion but it seemed illogical to go off with Tarvos when they rest of them really did need his help. Not to mention no one else went with them.

“I thought we weren't doing conspiracy theories anymore, guys,” Tony butted in before that debate could even go any further.

Dante flipped him off, “fuck you, I'm suspicious.”

“I am as well,” Lannad agreed.

“You've got to be kidding me,” David threw his arms out. He was just throwing stuff out there, but he didn't really think there was that much behind the two of them going off together.

Dante turned and put his hands on his hips as he stared down his friend with a disapproving scowl, “David, you're a dumbfuck.”

“That's harsh. I just don't think Tarvos has anything to do with this. He could be a victim of circumstance just like we are.” Really, it wasn't fair to judge him.

“By the way, your idol is a rambling, self-centered prick.” His friend continued with his onslaught of insults as he walked backwards over the torn and tattered street.

“He's sort of always been like that,” the black-haired boy admitted.

“Hope you're happy, your ass-kissing got us here.”

“It's not like I saw this coming. I honestly thought he was fucking with us or being a troll,” Dante couldn't hold that against him. David was actually getting a little miffed at him, but he remembered that marring his face with anger gave him an uncouth appeal.

“If we die, let me die on top of you so when my organs give out, I'll shit on your corpse.”

“That's sick!” Tony exclaimed as his face twisted in disgust as they approached a section of the town that had recently been destroyed. They could still hear the hissing of broken gas and water lines and the crackle of downed power lines.

Stopping in front of a building that used to be an arcade, they stood and examined their surroundings. Any people that had been there were buried in the rubble or they had been slain in the streets. “It seems something has been here,” Lannad's voice turned dreadful.

“Man, everything is destroyed,” Tony stated the obvious.

“Just great. I'm fucking loving this scenery,” as Dante continued to complain, the sky warped above them in a long line that resembled a blurred crack. It looked like an awful smudge in a perfect painting of a dismal setting.

“Hey, it's a time rip,” Tony pointed above him, causing everyone's sights to be directed to the abnormality.

“There are a few of them here. That explains the destruction,” David noted as he spied about two of three of the discolorations in the sky.

“I think we should split up and see if we can find survivors,” the priestess advised. If anyone was alive, then they would have a clue as to what transpired.

“Fine,” Dante was more than unenthused as the four split up and wandered through the rubble, entering partially destroyed building and digging through the debris for any sign of life, or even someone who was clinging to life.

“If something jumps out at me, I'll scream,” Tony swore as he lifted large pieces of walls and searched in a giant pile of twisted metal and pieces of buildings.

“I don't see shit here. What an astronomical waste of my time,” Dante stated as he glanced around inside of an abandon ice cream shop that had remained intact.

Lannad ventured our far beyond the guys. She managed to find an old building that she thought used to be a small church. At least, it had a tall steeple like a church. Everything inside was dingy and covered with a layer of dirt. The booths or pews, she couldn't make out which they were had been broken and smashed. They lay in disarray and the eerie red light that shone through the window gave way to just how think the dust was in the air, illuminating the particles in a sea of red. The girl glanced around as she took unsure footsteps in the darkness.

Suddenly, she stepped on something.

“Huh?”

Looking down she moved her foot to the side to see that another feather, just like the one that she had in her possession appeared. “This is the same feather,” the girl picked it up and took out the one she had been carrying around “,as the one I found.” A few feet away, there was another feather and another after that. Picking up the trail of feathers with her gaze concentrated on the ground, she managed to collect five of them in all. There was one more that lay partially encased in a shadow. Lannad bent down to pick up the light object when a foot slammed down upon it, startling her enough to make her jump.

She gazed up at the figure, shrouded in a cloak of black and gasped when she realized who it was.

…To Be Continued