Ranger
Chapter 222: Demon
By Wanderer D
Bongani coughed, wrapping his arms around himself and making his way across what remained of the settlement where he lived. He waded through the debris, coughing in the smoke and dragging himself out of the muddy, treacherous waters. As soon as he was out, he cleaned the soles of his feet, painfully pulling and removing the sharp things that had pierced them.
He then started to stumble upwards, sidestepped around the dead, burnt bodies, too tired to think of what to do, only aware of how hungry he was… and when he smelled something sweet in the air, he scampered over to the metal-sheet ruins of a former home, ignoring the pain in his feet, or the sting and blood when he cut his arm on a sharp edge when he made his way in.
He dug around, pushing a burnt human hand out of the way until he found it buried under other things: a small, wrapped piece of something… it looked edible. Was this what he had smelled?
"Don't eat that."
He froze, fearing for his life. When he didn't die, he slowly turned around to face the woman who had spoken. She was tall, with red and gold hair and red eyes that glowed almost like flames. She was dressed in something dark, he couldn't say what it was. It was not the rags of what he and others wore.
She smelled like blood.
"Eat this," she said, not caring about the distrustful look he gave her. Somehow, although she was too far for it, a dark hand opened closer to Bongani that it could have possibly been. On the palm of the hand, there were several wrapped items of food.
Real food. The stuff sometimes his parents would bring at great expense from traders. Treats to be enjoyed once every few months.
Bongani was tired. So tired. "Is it poisoned?"
The woman shook her head. "You just look like you need it."
Hesitantly, he picked it up, watching her warily as he slowly unpacked it. It smelled so much better than the shit, burning meat and gas and death...
He took a bite, and then another, dragging the back of his hand over his face, trying to get rid of snot, tears and soot as much as possible without stopping his eating. His eyes turned to the ADVENT city nearby.
"What's your name?"
"B-bongani," he managed to say in between bites. He swallowed, the pieces of food feeling almost too big and pushing their way down his throat uncomfortably, but it was delicious. When he looked up, she was holding a bottle of water, from which he drank deeply.
His body ached.
"What happened here?"
"The rains had started earlier this year," he said, sitting down once he had finished the food. He threw the wrappers on the floor, next to the burnt hand. "There was… a river of mud, it killed a lot of people… my sister…" he swallowed. He would not cry.
She didn't say anything, simply watching him.
"They watched." He pointed at the city, coughing. "They watched. The elders went to ask for help. ADVENT came, but not to help. To burn. To kill. Everyone else died."
"You don't know."
Bongani shook his head. "Know what?"
The woman shrugged. "Nothing. So they watched?"
"Yes." Bongani turned to the city. "They watched as we drowned, and did nothing. They watched as we burned, and they did nothing. They watched as we were murdered for asking for help and did nothing."
The city had watched as they were butchered.
"That town has about… a thousand people," the woman said softly. "None came to help?"
Bongani shook his head once more. "No! None of them did."
The woman tilted her head and it was then that he understood something within his soul. This woman was not human. He didn't know how he knew. It was just something in the way her body had moved. The way she had watched him.
"What do you think their punishment should be?"
Bongani's body shook. "Aicha Kandicha," he whispered. "Why are you here? Why do you talk to me?"
"I am hungry," she replied and turned her attention from him to the city. "But I was wondering if I should eat or not. My food is in that city." She turned back to him. "So I came to ask you, Bongani, if I should show mercy to my food."
It took him a moment to understand that she was not here for him. He turned to look at the city.
"What do you think?"
A sudden sense of anger and frustration filled him. He looked around, he had never been in this house, but he knew it from outside. He never knew the people that lived in it, but he knew what they looked like. There were houses outside, including his own, buried under mud. Burning.
The only sounds outside were collapsing houses or flames or the slushing of waters or the sounds of predators coming in to feast on the dead. The ADVENT city glistened in the full moon. White and black and red. Shiny and square and oblivious.
"They do not," he whispered.
"There are almost a thousand beating hearts there, Bongani. ADVENT, men, women, children." She looked at him. "They are your own."
"They are not my own!" he countered. "If they were they would have helped! If they were they would have done something! How can they watch us die? And simply go to sleep?" He sunk into himself. "Have you come to judge me, Aicha Kandicha? Or kill me?"
"I have come for enlightenment. To see what humanity at its worst can say."
"What is humanity at its worst?" Bongani asked, waving his hand at the ruins around them. "Is it someone who suffers because those he loved, those he knew, are taken away? Or is it those who watch from their towers, uncaring about the fate of others? You asked, Aicha Kandicha. I have answered. They deserve to suffer, because they would let others suffer without lifting a finger!"
The woman seemed to contemplate his words.
"I am hungry," she said. "Are you sure you don't have a single reason why these humans would deserve a better fate?"
Bongani looked down at his hand. In better times, he would lift his hand and enumerate reasons to be kind and forgiving, using his fingers to count them as he did, much to the chagrin of his sister.
But he didn't raise a finger this time around. He balled his fists.
Later that night, still cold, still coughing and hurting, Bongani sat on the roof of the single remaining building in all his settlement.
Aicha Kandicha … woman or demon had left earlier, simply melting into the darkness. Feverish, he had later on thought back on the conversation, telling himself that he had imagined it all. That his anger and resentment had fed his imagination.
Then the screams had started. The sounds of gunfire, the alarms. And as he had walked, it had started raining again. But it was odd, foul smelling rain, that burned his eyes and seemed sticky… under the light of the nearby fire, he saw his arms and hands being covered in blood, just like the buildings and streets. Just like the white and black walls of the ADVENT city.
The screams and noises had lasted for hours until finally the whole city had gone black. Not a single light remained. Not a single sound. Not a single patrol or siren or anything. Just silence and blood.
Now, as he looked up at the white-blue moon, Bongani started to weep. He wept for his dead family and friends. For his ruined home. For his destroyed settlement. And he wept too… for the city of uncaring people that—for the briefest of moments—he could have saved.
But he hadn't lifted a finger.
o.0.o End Chapter 222 o.0.o
...Oof.
Well, at least that gives us a sense as to where sunset is currently at.
What we are at our worst.
Saints and sinners. Angels and demons. We are everything and everyone on the best and worst days.
But when we are human? Truly human?
We are something to behold for a greater good. Something that can move the heavens, and shape the world.
Okay, first of all. Wow.
Second:
city of uncaring people, that for the briefest of moments, he could have saved.
This. This right here is why I like this story. Among other parts that are just over the top supremely written, of course.
9458754 The first comma properly belongs after "that".
9458771
Why yes, yes it does. I mistyped
Evil wins
When good men
Do nothing
Om nom nom.
Clever play on words, there, at the end.
That's the trouble with dealing with demons: They give you exactly what you think you want.
Well, so far Sunset doesn't seem too demon-esque.
Wait, I was wrong, this could go badly.
Oh no.
Yikes. Gonna be hard to find redemption for Sunset now that she has started killing cities. Even if they use that fancy fish sword to break the curse and pull her out of Fugue, she's going to remember what she did to an awful lot of civilians.
Though all that said, it's interesting that she was able to hold a conversation with someone without just instinctively killing him because of the blood magic.
Well, as sick as this is to say, it's nice to see that Sunset isn't completely gone inside if Fugue.
Yes, she just used someone else's pain to gain permission to kill and drain 1000 people, but she went out of her way to ask, before doing it.
This means she isn't fully lost, it also means she is much more dangerous than if she was just a natural disaster on legs.
Blood for the Bloodwitch! Food for the Demon!
How much of this will Sunset remember? If she can be rescued will she cry out for those bullets?
9458754
Almost correct.
But that's just me being nit-picky. Amazing writing, and I always cheer up when this gets updated.
9458810
it is sad but true...
That's deep.
And then the saying rears its head and punches you in the gut!
Wait... Wrong saying...
Well sunset is at the point where she can turn a city into a Carin...fuck blood magic.
Ouch.
Honestly, I think it would have been more poetic, if at the end, she came back for him, because he became the same as them, not lifting a finger, and if they deserved to be 'eaten', then so should he.
9458944
Perhaps... or perhaps it is more appropriate she leaves him to suffer in his revelation...
Really your proposed ending amounts to Fugue beating him (and us the audience) over the head with the moral of the chapter, which is rendered redundant anyhow by him figuring this out all on his own.
He has realized that he condemned a thousand people to death. Assuming he survives all this, he will have to live with that knowledge for the rest of his life.
Shocking what happens when you perform the same thing you despise.
9459059
True, but it shows Sunset as being 100% corrupted, evil, and unredeemable. Where as if she judged him as well, and gave him the same punishment, it seems less like being evil, and more a.... Not sure the right word. A Tool? A Fair Judge?
She didn't kill those people out of fun, food, or hate. She did it because he wished her to, he unleashed her, he punished them for a crime. Then he commits the exact same crime he blamed them for. Her not going back to kill him, letting him live, shows her to be unfair, uncaring, and evil. Where as killing him the same way, as he too was now guilty, shows her being more of a Warning, a form of 'Use her to get revange, but make sure you don't become that which you are getting revenge against'. Give and take, fair, and thus more likely to be redeemed.
If she is 100% evil like shown in this chapter, it will probably have to be a Deus Ex Machina that can cure her, pulled out of Wanderer's ass, and be a massive plothole that will ruin the story, just so she can be saved from the corruption.
9458754 9458771 fixed! Thanks!
9459138
100% evil? I didn't get that impression. Rather, I see an individual struggling heavily against a corrupting force and only managing the compromise of "do they deserve it", with her own ability to make the call negated. Had this guy preached any mercy, I doubt the slaughter would've happened (or, if he specified groups that were guilty, it would be limited to them), yet he did not. This is... bad, because it sets a precedent for future judgements, thus hurting Sunny even more. But even now, she is NOT 100% corrupted!
Dark. The deepest Abyss
Wonder what the advent response will be after all an entire city just went dark with only a few reports.
Wonder the xcom response when they get this detail.
Oooh will sunset get close to alucard lvl of power as her consuming a city reminds me of alucards #lifehack
Beautiful and terrifying.
Also I wonder whether Fugue is gaining power by draining people. If she's levelled up by eating that many people... that sounds even more terrifying.
Well, Sunset hasn't completely lost herself to the orgy of violence and other activities... but "looking for an excuse for ten kiloexsanguinations" is not a good place to be. Even if they do manage to pull her out of her Fugue, will she even be able to live with what she's done?
9458821
But what people want is so very rarely what they actually need.
9459404
Well, canon Princess Luna totally distinguishes strongly between her identity as Nightmare Moon and Princess Luna. "It's fine, I didn't do that, Nightmare Moon did" reasoning can apply to "It's fine, I didn't do that, Fugue did". I guess? XD Of course Sunset can always make a Tantabus to mess with herself if she wishes.
9459138
There is so much wrong with your logic and reasoning here, that I won't even bother disputing it, lest I catch your imprudence
- Thunder
Holy shit... "I am become death"
Nice to see that Sunset has made past the first rush of blood lust and power trip. She reminds me a bit of the blacklight virus in the state.
9459404
The last part of your comment reminds me of a Dumbledore line from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
"The Stone was really not such a wonderful thing. As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all – the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them."
All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
You don' messed up Bongani.
9466156
Is it equally wrong I want for her to SEE the other world to understand what's really going on?
9459138
Her asking him had nothing to do with justice or good and evil. She was already planning on doing that. But now, as an immortal Siren, part of her M.O. is toying with mortals. Nothing changed by her stopping and speaking to that guy, just that she crushed his soul. And best of all, now he has to live with the idea of “I sent her there.” If that’s true or not he’ll never know. And that’s why it’s such a perfect setup.
It was not a gaze into her corruption or feeling of good and evil, but a look into her new predatory nature. Like a cat toying with a mouse.
Damn. I procrastinated continuing this for far too long.
This was the perfect way to frame this chapter.
This chapter would have actually made for a decent short story. But it's made that much more powerful with what we know from the story already.
And this is the perfect way to show the depth of how far Sunset has fallen without making it hurt to read.
9490506
It also shows that she still has a little good in her, however.
How ironic that he become what he hated... From a victim to one of them...
She had given him chance to made a difference, he chose to do nothing...