Pheww♪

La di da da♪

(“Wonderful night tonight”)

Phew-phew-phew-phew♪

“I can’t wait, I meet them.”

“If you want, I can teleport you to them,

We don’t need walk through this forest”

“No, let’s

I want to savor these minutes,

The excitement of meeting someone like me, Danté,

It’s exhilarating,”

“I understand what you mean, even though I am not like you, Brandon,

I still share your excitement,”

……..

Whistling and humming his way pleasantly through the forests of Contigo is the brother of Lyra, accompanied by his stoic friend and special confidant, Danté, the adopted son of the last Mayor of Sweepstake city, Ozymandias…..

“Get the music ready Danté,” Brandon smiles as his duo approaches the plains alit with campfires

“It’s time we made our grand entrance”

……

****

“AghhhH!”

(This buzzing!)

“Is something wrong Kage?” Apollo notices my distress

“It’s just a headache,” I lie

The unpleasant sound begins to gradually dissipate,

(What was that all about?)

“You are so fucking weird.” Lyra had her eyes trained on me the entire time,

“You were just slapping your ears like a crazed madman a minute ago, and now you go back to being normal,”

“There was a buzzing in my ear,” I say truthfully

“Hmm,” Lyra grunts but press further about it,

I can practically feel the suspicion oozing off her,

“So how did you pull of that guitar thingy you did yesterday?” Apollo changes the topic,

“Even though I don’t agree with the death you caused, it was still impressive,'

“I don’t really know how to explain it,

I guess you can say I manipulated their emotion to their most extreme using sound,”

“Is that your magic then?”

“Maybe, but it didn’t really feel like something I was doing,”

(Could it be though?)

“I was either always feel everything to their extremes or like right now where all my emotions are so low, that I basically feel nothing,

I simply gave them a taste of what I experience, except they’re lucky that it was only one emotion and not all of them….”

…..

It becomes awkwardly quiet after that

(Maybe I said too much)

……

“Just don’t go doing that to us,” Lyra says after a while

……

……

ONE, TWO, THREE, UH!♪

.…!?

“What was that!?” someone exclaims as a sudden burst of sound cuts into the quiet night

……

My baby don't mess around—Because she loves me so, and this I know for suree♪

(Music?)

“Who’s there?” Himari immediately forms her tielium guns, using them to produce a beam of light towards the direction of the sound

But does she really wanna—But can't stand to see me walk out the door?♪

“Who playing games boi” Jabari gets up

“Aye!

Take dat off and come here,

Yuh interrupting a good night!”

Don't try to fight the feeling—'Cause the thought alone is killing me right now♪

(Something isn’t right)

“Get your sword out Apollo,” I warn him

“I feel it too,” he nods

(So it isn’t just me)

Thank God for Mom and Dad—For sticking two together 'cause we don't know how♪

“Heyyyyyy!” A commanding voice shrills over the music

Hey ya!♪ Hey ya!♪

“Heeyy—yahh,” a body emerges through the tall grass near the south end of the field in perfect timing to the music

“Who are you!?”

Himari points her light at the stranger, they wear a full royal-like black robe with gold embroidery,

Their flowing hair almost touching the ground,

A color that looks similar, to…

“It’s him!” Lyra suddenly bursts seeing the man

Hey ya!♪ Hey ya!♪

“Heeyy—yaaah!” he waves at her his pale blue eyes that matches hers, dances eagerly

“Nope you’re not the one I’m looking for!” the light in his eyes no dims as he frowns displeased,

A person I have not met before, but a face I definitely have seen

(This is him–)

“—Lyra’s brother, the boss of Madvillainy” Apollo finishes my thought,

“Brother? W…w” Hiamri taken aback stutters a little at the unexpected information,

“We, must detain him at once, and if not kill him right here and now.” she immediately regains her composure

(But why has he come to us)

“Wait nah thy him forreal?”

The remnants behind us murmur getting alarmed,

Lyra has not moved an inch

(I thought she would be the first to rush at him)

Hey ya!♪ Hey ya!♪

“Have you come here to die Brandon?” growls Lyra a cold wind of diamond dust begins to swirl at her feet,

“I’m sorry who are you?

And how do you know my former name?”

“You lying piece of murdering heirless monstrous shit,” Lyra blurts out,

“Diamond meteo—!”

—Click!

“Cast that spell and your brains will be on the floor, and that is before you will even get to see if it will work or not,”

Behind Lyra another figure appears out of nowhere,

Donned in a trench coat and fedora tinted over his face he aims a gun at Lyra’s skull

(Is this one, Ozymandias’ son, or is it the one called Alexander)

“Hmmm,”

I take it you three are the magic users, Brandon singles out Apollo and I with Lyra

“Now everyone else, I have a question,

Now, what’s cooler than being cool?”

(Ice cold!)

Aside from the three he singled out everyone else becomes frozen in place,

The red-orange campfires now burn bright blue, it’s light freezing everyone, once kissed by it’s warmth, in place.

“Now, shall I introduce myself?

Heya!

My name is Satan, I am the chief executive officer of Madvillainy, an ambassador of the third ring, soon to be ruler of the second, and honorary citizen of the first

I am not here to fight, but if you’d like I shall,”

“Are you here for a beating then?” Apollo challenges hoping to draw attention from Lyra

“Hmm well first of all…

Danté, could you?”

The man hooding Lyra at gun point nods,

He shoves the girl and she despairs, only to reappear crashing into Apollo,

“Firstly keep that girl away from me if you want her remain alive,

Though she has powerful magic, she isn’t the person I’m looking for………” Satan's voice trials off as he makes eye contact with me for the first time,

“It is you,

Oh… and you are a beauty as well May I ask your name?”

(Is he talking about me?

I need to choose my actions very carefully here)

“……….” His question I give no reply choosing to remain silent

Satan frowns

“Do not be this way,

I know you can feel it.

Someone just like you,”

“What is he taking about Kage!” Lyra hisses

(…….)

“Until you’ve spoken to Lyra I wont be answering any of your question.” I negotiate

“Lyra?

Hmmm, that name does sound familiar…

……lyraaa……

Oh, yeah, I had a sister, Lyra?

It’s been over, twenty years for me

You are still a child? No,

How are you even still alive?”

I can practically feel the immense hatred begin to erupt from Lyra,

Her face in crimson anger, as she stares bullets at the cheerful man.

She would love nothing more than to rush him and start beating him down

But she knows being reckless is the last thing to be right now.

Dante stands silently at Satan’s side, a double barrel shotgun pointed at the ground for now…

It’s the fact that he can teleport put’s us all at an unease..

One wrong move and….

(We have to take out that guy first)

“You disgust me, you murdered our—my parents,

Karina’s parents as well and then you scurry away like a coward to another ring,” Lyra spats

“Who is Karina?” Brandon looks around half expecting a fourth person with magic to reveal themselves

“Are you referring to when I left Soterra?

I may have killed a few people, but they were merely in my way, I had no choice,”

And when it come our parents,

I needed the hearts of the people I cared about in order to gain the power I have now,

It was for the best of intentions I assure you sister

You can’t still be mad about that?

It’s been over twenty years….then again time is different here, so half that time for you...”

“You murdered for your own selfishness!

For power!?” Lyra fumes, wanting badly to do noting more than run up and slit his throat

“I guess you can say that.” shrugs Brandon

“But on that topic of power” he turns back to me,

“What did you get ?

What did you give?

I can feel it,

You went ‘behind there’ too

The dealer, what did you give him, and what did you gain?”

(The dealer?

Is he talking about that house?

That place I woke up in…)

“I wasn’t given anything, and I burnt that house to ashes.”

“What house?”

“The one by the cliff, isn’t that what you’re referring too?”

“…….

You amuse me already,

I do not know of any Cliffside house nor did the dealer live there,

What I do know for sure however that is you did see him,

You took a ‘piece'

I can feel it from you,

Which was it?

The arms, hands, nose, eyes…

It’s got to be your eyes right look how empty they are”

“I don’t understand what you are trying to say,”

(Is this some kind of mind game he’s playing?)

“Huhhhhmmm!” Brandon sighs heavily,

(This is definitely the man I remember from Omari’s memories,

He took him to the region past the desert,

To that place I awoke in,

Now he’s telling me that place isn’t real?)

“Do you even know what is past that desert?” Brandon continues

“A small village surrounded by a thick forest, at the end of which is that place,”

(Something is not right, why do an I feeling like this right now?)

“……”

Brandon makes a face at his comrade

“Maybe their memories got lost in the process similar to how you lost your sense of touch sir” Danté suggests

(My memories?

No, im certain, I awoke in that house,

I remember how horrid it was,

That sense of hopelessness)

“Mmm, I see that makes sense” Satan mulls over the suggestion before turning his attention back to me again

“You, my new friend, are one of the lucky few people to have gotten a piece of ‘it’ and survived,”

“It?”

“The god’s corpse,

You took a piece of the proverbial pie, didn’t you?

You must have felt our connection earlier?

You are just like me,

Just like Murdoc.”