"Ok so I framed some guy, I killed some people. Allegedly. What are you gonna do about it," Nero asked.
"I'm going to arrest you," Oz proudly declared.
Nero and Adonis glanced at each other.
The sound of an angry hissing snake and various insults Leofric shouted sprinkled in the air.
Nero and Adonis looked back at Oz.
They laughed.
"Stop it! This is serious! You are under arrest!"
"YoUr'E uNdEr ArReSsT," Nero said, mocking him.
They continued laughing, mocking everything from his hair to his Defense Program gear. Oz started to feel embarassed the more they continued. He knew it was ridiculous. He knew they shouldn't get underneath his skin.
And yet.
When they started to insult the sound of his voice, the long forgotten Ray grabbed Oz's hand. With pleading eyes and a raspy voice he begged for salvation. Oz couldn't look away from the broken man. He chose pain everyday, but couldn't stand the thought of hurting an innocent, even if it would make him stronger.
Until Ray opened his mouth and spoke.
Oz couldn't understand every word that came out of his mouth. His Ionadian wasn't the greatest. At first he heard the words help repeatedly. But then came the slurs, that he knew too well thanks to his aunt at family dinners, complaining in Old Ionadian. Finally, Oz let go of his hand when he heard Ray repeat the word kill over, and over...and over again.
"You know what he's saying? You're a kinsman," Nero asked.
"Me? No way. Like he said, I'm just a mutt, a dirty blooded, animal," Oz replied.
"Oh...someone has hit a nerve!~"
"Quiet. I'm just going to arrest one extra person now."
Nero relayed the message to Ray, who now let out even more insults and threats, now toward Oz. With a blank stare, Oz pulled Ray by his long, green hair, pulling so forcefully that it made him stare into Oz's eyes.
With the little Ionadian Oz knew, he made his feelings known.
"Quiet."
Ray was finally quiet when the fight in the background ended.
The menacing, giant reptile crashed to the ground, sending a mix of snow, dirt, blood, and ice into the air. The smell of copper surrounded them, as a red miasma seeped out of Leofric. The snake had lost, quickly, and Leofric looked bored —but also dissapointed.
He landed, hanging onto the snake, covering himself in a wierd, grey dusty mixture.
When he got up and saw Oz threatening Ray, the monsters heart was no longer warm.
It was cold.
He ran at them, and everyone tensed, preparing for his brutal indignation. The closer he got, the less afraid Oz became, but the more terrified Nero became. Oz could feel Leofric's terror, his confusion, and his pain was delicious. Oz looked at the one-handed devil next to him and realized the truth.
That he was someone important to someone else, as much as it disgusted him.
He let go.
In one fell swoop, Leofric grabbed Ray by the waist, jumped into the air, and his dark black cloud flew off into the sky with the two of them.
"Are you serious," Nero screamed. "Look what you did! You should have killed him!"
"I can't kill a guy with one hand crying for his life! I have no idea who or what he's doing," Oz explained.
"Tell that to the bodies in that fucking warehouse!"
Oz's body glowed, shifting between black and green, tired of being told what to do by a criminal.
"I shouldn't believe a word that comes out of either of you. How do I know you didn't kill those people in there?"
Adonis and Nero looked at each other and then knew that he had a point.
But it wouldn't stop them from trying to kill him.
Right before another body was going to be added to the pile inside the warehouse, another body was born.
A filthy, fetid crackling noise came from the snake. The three of them turned to look at the shifting mass. One could see a small bulge from the midsection of the snake. It slowly worked its way up, growing as it reached toward it's mouth.
The crackling intensified, and in a moment of clarity Oz understood what the sound was.
Bones.
It was the snakes bones.
With morbid curiousity, Nero got closer and looked inside the snake's open mouth. A wet, sticky noise could be heard inside of it, even though it wasn't breathing. With apprehension he got on his knees, and his eyes widened as he got a better look inside.
Small, pale hands slipped and slid around at the back of its throat.
They tried to grab at whatever they could, but it was a difficult endeavor. One of the hands finally grabbed the side of the mouth, pulling the rest of itself slowly out. Nero saw the face looking at him, and then he looked away.
It was a child.
A child.
A child with his face.
A strange noise came from somewhere. Nero couldn't understand where it was coming from. From behind, Adonis pulled him away from the mouth, and next Nero's mouth was covered by Adonis' hand.
He was screaming.
He understood that he was screaming.
The pale hands grabbed onto one of the fangs, and finally, the entire body came out. He slid out its mouth, and tumbled onto the street, covered in a red, sticky goo. He was naked and confused, and wierdly enough, slowly growing.
With every second passing, his body seemed to go through all stages of puberty. By the time he wobbly stood up, he was a full grown man.
A naked one at that.
"Ace?"
Ace turned to look at Oz, who then closed his eyes and turned away.
A monster was born.
"Yeah? Sorry that happened... just...got a little upset there for a moment," Ace mumbled.
Nero clutched Adonis tighter and thought of the many ways he could kill the monster in front of him.
But the sword wouldn't have it.
"Dear Acheus...how I've missed you," Unas drawled.
Oz looked around, trying to find the source of the voice, and his eyes finally settled on the sword as it called out for him.
"You're new...but you smell nice. You smell like hurt," Unas said.
"You gross fuck, stop hitting on the cop," Nero snarled.
"I do not need you to approve of my actions. Take me to Acheus," he commanded.
"Never!"
Never was a very short three seconds.
Nero's eyes rolled up into the back of his head. He clutched the sword, and awkwardly put one foot in front of the other. It was clear his body was trying to fight whatever force was compelling him to do it's bidding.
Ace backed away, but the more steps he took back, the faster Nero moved. He finally stood still, opened his palm, and received the gift.
The warm embrace of a hug he dearly needed surrounded him, and he sighed, knowing it would all be okay.
Then it was taken away, replaced by a deep anger in his soul. Angry with Levi that he didn't treat him the way he wanted to be. Angry that his family was dead. Angry that his body was doing things it didn't understand, scaring him and everyone around him.
Angry that Nero had ruined the past week of his life.
All he felt was anger, and it didn't dissapear when he dropped the sword to the ground.
"I'm gonna fucking kill you," Ace screamed.
"I've killed more men than you've seen," Nero replied. "I'll kill you, bring you back, and do it again!"
Adonis and Oz awkwardly watched as two men fought each other in the dirt. Ace's slime got onto Nero's nice, white clothes, making even more dirt stick to the both of them. It wasn't a clean fight. It wasn't even a rough fight.
It wasn't even a good one.
They kept hitting each other, and the fists came faster, they came harder, but nothing happened. After several minutes of nothing happened, they laid in the street in defeat and confusion.
"Why...won't...you die," Ace asked.
"Die first," Nero barked.
"Please don't make me arrest you too, Ace," Oz pleaded.
Ace got up from the ground, squeezed his eyes shut, and was about to let it go, when he accidentally touched the sword again.
His rage returned, twicefold.
"I'm gonna fucking eat you," Ace screamed.
"That's what your mom told me in bed last night," Nero taunted.
Again, they hit each other, not a single scratch showing on either of them. Oz started to consider that maybe he really did have to arrest Ace. The fight was starting to seem a little one sided as Nero was curled up in a ball, covering his head.
"This is police brutality! Somebody do something," Nero wailed.
"Shut up! I'll show you police brutality."
The one-sided beating continued, the screams attracting over two people.
It was Levi and Harmonia.
Levi found his boyfriend choking his doppleganger while covered in goo while two other people awkwardly watched unsure of what to do.
He broke up the fight.
Then he arrested everyone but Oz.