Unorthodox Existence

The gang has to face one of the toughest battles they've ever fought both internally and externally

BANG!

Jamie busted the door down the next morning and rushed in, the false priest- Kassum- turning and letting a wide grin rip through his face as he saw who who entered.

"It seems that I've been caught." Kassum laughed, dropping his southern accent and using the his native tongue. Demons and angels all spoke Latin, God's Chosen students were raised with it as their first language but were just as fluent in the native language of their country. "What are you all planning to do, I hope you know that I have yet to show you my true strength. Such talented young students though.. you must have pieced as much together." Kassum walked slowly towards them.

"He's stalling." Serenity spoke in fluent Russian, every GC's student was required to learn two additional languages. Serenity opted for Russian and Japanese. She felt Russian was something the Demon wouldn't of known.

"Why would he be stalling, rationally if back-up doesn't come soon enough he could beat us. He has to know back-up is coming, stalling is just giving us an advantage." Alessio crossed his arms, he as well was speaking in fluent Russian. He'd opted for three languages, Spanish then Japanese then Russian. He was fluent in the first two but spoke in a rather broken Russian. What he said was actually more like: "Why he stall, rational if help not come he soon beat us."

"The wards, he was using the wards for something. Warding spells are usually used to ward of demons. Could they be used to ward off us? The concealment spells too, they were something." Ash said, speaking in fluent Russian as well. 

The demon seemed to be a little irritated, Serenity guessed the problem was that he didn't speak Russian. Suddenly Serenity's attention was snapped to Alessio who'd murmured a curse word under his breath. Alessio often said there were such a variety of words and possible combination of words in the English language that made curse words unnecessary. For him to randomly utter one without any clearly seen stimulation, there was a problem.

"What is it?" Serenity asked in English as a force of habit. She wasn't raised in English but it was most commonly spoken at GC. Only freshmen went around speaking in Latin. Most of the teachers taught in Latin but in private conversations English was used. Serenity liked that it was a modern, growing and changing language as opposed to Latin, most other people agreed with her which is why English was spoken in GC.

"Anybody here know pure magic?" Alessio asked, looking around as Kassum continued to cross the large church to approach them.

"I've been specialized in healing magic since freshman year." Sarah said, looking up from her book temporarily to meet Alessio's eyes.

"I can't use pure magic but I can use diluted magic." Serenity offered, diluted magic being what was portrayed in most of the ridiculous wizard shows and movies like harry potter. It was when you used an object to channel magic through. Nobody would use something like a wand though, it had no practical usage other than diluted magic. If you were going to use a wand for magic you might as well of learned pure magic.

"Anti concealment?" Alessio asked (also habitually reverting to English), he didn't know anything about pure or diluted magic so he couldn't simply make Serenity perform the action. All Alessio knew about was weapon magic which explained why all of his partners were users of weapon magic other than Sarah; and, as far as Serenity knew Alessio didn't control Sarah even though they were contracted.

"Eh..." Serenity's scythe appeared in her hands but not as large and not as gaudy. She put it on a wall and began to trace out a design. Within diluted and pure magic there was spoken and written. Written usually involved designs to be etched onto something, which was what Serenity had learned. Written, diluted, had to be etched on but with pure magic you could simply draw it in the air with your finger. Spoken was obvious, The Creator used spoken magic. A diluted form of spoken magic would be through a spell tome. 

When Kassum caught wind of what they were doing he lost his cocky stride and began running full speed towards the group. Alessio shouted, "Buy her time!" but it was unnecessary. He was in full control of Jamie within seconds who began rushing towards Kassum with his giant war hammer. Jamie soon brought it down right on Kassum, and he should've smashed him to pieces. Instead Kassum just appeared a little to the left of Jamie. the previous Kassum had simply been a shadow. The use of darkness and fire were usually things attributed to dark magic- the magic of demons. While fire could be used by GC students, the use of darkness was strictly prohibited.

Ash was up next, he was dual wielding twin pistols and rushing at Kassum while Jamie recovered his balance. He shot at Kassum as he rushed towards him, Kassum let shadows take the bullets from him and counter attacked- Ash screaming as he became engulfed in flames.

Serenity heard all this with her back to them and she began frantically sketching the spell, she could of used a simple one but if it wasn't strong enough she'd of severely wasted her and her friends' time. The spell was about as tall as her so no matter how much she tried to speed draw it, it was definitely going to take longer. Moments later she heard Jamie screaming in pain, tears began streaming down Serenity's eyes as she finished the first half of the spell.

Jamie had been stabbed by some sort of shadowy sword that appeared out of nowhere which is why he'd screamed. He'd taken the hit for Alessio whom the demon was actually aiming for. "We can't do this much longer." Alessio growled under his breath, his fists balling up to the point he was almost drawing blood. If there was one thing Serenity knew about Alessio it was that he hated being pushed around.

Sarah was busy healing Ash which left Jamie stuck battling with a wounded stomach. The Creator was the only one who stood a chance and even he was loosing. He'd dealt a couple blows to Kassum but they'd been more like small burns and scratches than anything. Alessio quickly figured they needed to go into the defensive. He drew Jamie back into a defensive stance in front of him. The Creator caught wind and took a defensive stance as well. Kassum took a moment to look them over, trying to formulate what the idea was.

Ash was soon healed enough to fight, Serenity could tell because she'd heard him mutter a sarcastic comment about the situation they were in. Ash soon went into a defensive position as well. Kassum surveyed them for only a moment more before rushing toward them at full speed. Jamie couldn't react fast enough and was flung violently to the side, hitting a wall and falling to the ground with a few audible cracks. The Creator and Ash were able to inflict damage on him while he was attacking Jamie. The pain slowed Kassum down but not slow enough. Sarah scrambled to damage control a bleeding Jamie and Ash was launched into the air then slammed into the ground, rendering him unconscious. Alessio was shoved out of the way by The Creator who was soon forced to face Kassum without support. 

Kassum assaulted him with various shadows but The Creator managed to hold his ground, quickly dodging and counter attacking. Serenity's vision was completely screwed because of the uncontrollable large sobs that wracked her body. She'd heard of casualties but she'd never seen one. She'd never experienced people getting beaten so badly before. She finished the design and light filled the room, Serenity whipped around and felt here scythe grow into the large and gaudy proportions Alessio kept it at. 

When the light cleared, there were people everywhere and they were all dead. Corpses lying on the floor, on the benches, leaning against the wall. The room was a massacre. "How......." Serenity fell to her knees and looked up at Kassum in fear. Her grey eyes met Kassum's dark black pits of despair and misery. After a few moments of the silence Kassum began cackling loudly, he bent over in pure ecstasy at the situation. It was only when Alessio cleared his throat that Serenity realized that she'd forgotten to breathe.

"The shadows weren't shadows. They were people. He was sacrificing people to take his blows. We just killed..... all of them." Alessio said, his voice shaking slightly- causing him to loose his superior demeanor. Serenity looked at him, Alessio's dark brown eyebrows were furrowed intensely and his lips pursued tightly. His fear only made Serenity more afraid, her head pounded the beat of a million drums and her vision seemed to come frame by frame. 

"Murder is a sin." Serenity suddenly whispered to herself as what Alessio told her finally sunk in. She shut her eyes tightly and covered her ears as if that would end it. As if this was all a dream that would just go away if she didn't believe in it.

"We were tricked by a demon, it absolves our sin. We can't be blamed for this." Alessio said a bit more firmly, looking at everyone in the room. He seemed to realize the gravity of the situation was only made worse by him not being able to keep is calm. Allen and Lucas simply looked away, trying to distance themselves from the calamity. Serenity hated them for it, she hated them because they weren't responsible for it. They just stood there completely useless while her friends were getting demolished. 

"What does it MATTER ANYMORE?" Serenity once again broke out into uncontrollable sobs, dropping her scythe. "God's abandoned us anyways. Because of some SELFISH A*****E WHO DECIDED TO GO AROUND PLAYING GOD!" Serenity screamed, pressing her hands over her ears even harsher.

"Serenity....." Allen walked over to her and sat down beside her. Serenity simply shook her head in refusal to listen. When she felt Allen's thin body collapse on her she screamed again, backing up and scratching at her skin. How dare he hug her, no matter what the situation was. After a few moments she looked at him, she blinked and she looked at him again. He was dead. Kassum was standing over him with a blood covered hand. He'd just killed Allen. He'd ripped the man's beating heart right out of his body and he was dead.

"I'll let hims serve as a reminder. This is my territory and I'm not letting mere children ruin it. Leave. Leave and never come back." The demon said, his Latin was beautiful like a song but his words were more painful than anything Serenity had every experienced.

That moment their back up came, Serenity couldn't comprehend any of it. It was just a blur. A blur of blood and pain and misery. 

   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When she came to, she was in the nurses office at her school. She'd hoped she'd fallen into a coma and it was at least a year later. She was wrong, it was the same day- just later. Alessio sat at her bedside and looked at her coldly when she opened her eyes. She knew the coldness wasn't towards her, it was simply towards everything and anything. She knew because she felt the same coldness was in her eyes. 

"Jamie and Ash don't know yet." Alessio said, pushing up his glasses and looking away.

"Lucky." Serenity said in a word, sitting up. She moved a hand to her bright red hair, and clenched her teeth. Allen had red hair. She knew it was senseless to let every single aspect of the world to remind her of him. She also knew it was senseless to blame herself for his death. There were casualties in any war and God's Chosen was in an eternal war against demons. There were ceremonies held every month for the people who'd fallen in battle. It was just, never real to her. They were like people you read about in history books- you didn't cry over the death of kings and queens. You just acknowledged it and moved on. Allen wasn't a character in a history book. He was real. He was her friend.

"I need to go." Serenity muttered under her breath

"You're going.....?" Alessio asked her, a small smile slipping onto his face. It was that typical kind of Alessio smile that made him seem like he knew more than you did at any time.

"To tell his girlfriend.... and then I'm going to sleep." Serenity said, crossing her arms tightly. "What if you'd died? I'm not saying his death is any less important but... what if it had been you?" She looked at him with a fiery intensity in her eyes. "I can't just stop here. I have to grow stronger. I have to grow stronger so it will never be you." 

"I guess you've never experienced a casualty firsthand before. That's expected, people usually don't take on missions of this level unless they're in college. You don't really begin experiencing casualties until you're an upperclassmen. You know, in the Book of Mormon...." Alessio began telling her a story. She'd heard the story a million times before, but presently she didn't mind hearing it again. She simply looked up at Alessio's dark brown eyes through his wire-rimmed glasses. She then took in his wavy dark brown hair that was pulled into a loose ponytail behind his back. Finally, she reached her hand out to him, she felt around on his neck for the string to his necklace and pulled it out. She then fingered the stone attached to it. In that moment she felt so lucky, lucky that she wasn't with someone who just saw her as a weapon- she'd contracted with someone that actually cared. It made her want to protect him, and everyone else, so much more.

They were allowed the rest of the day off but the next day they had to go to school again. Jamie and Ash were told about the event the night before and seemed to be handling it much better than Serenity had. The Order of the Phoenix called a meeting after school for obvious reasons. Alessio warned her in advance to be prepared because Cynthia took every death personally.

She sat, very antsy, against the wall at the back. They was a low murmur of conversation but their group so far had been quiet.

"Did Arissa not help at all?" Arai asked them, trying to figure out just how they could of been beaten so badly.

"Arissa? What are you talking about? That's Dan's partner." Serenity crossed her arms. She wouldn't of minded if Arissa had died instead of Allen, but that was another many of Serenity related stories that would be saved for another day.

"Yeah, I know. He went with you guys right?" Arai asked, looking up briefly from a worksheet. Knowing Arai it was probably college level calculus, and it was probably next weeks homework.

"I remember that he was supposed to be there, I was waiting to see if any of you would notice." Alessio pushed up his glasses intelligently.

I bet he won't wait to see if we notice when I throw him out of a window.

"So, Jamie." Alessio looked at him expectantly, Serenity was completely confused. Ash and Sarah would be as well but Sarah was reading a book and Ash just didn't care either way as far as Serenity could tell.

She wasn't confused for long when Dan came over and sat in their group, exclaiming: "Guys! I could have helped but somehow I got the wrong ticket. I was in Germany this whole time!"

"Jamie.... f*****g Germany?" Serenity asked, immediately knowing that it was Jamie's fault. It was surprising that Jamie disliked Dan more than Serenity did. Though if they were being truthful Serenity didn't dislike him, but Serenity chose never to be truthful in that matter. Jamie smirked and raised an eyebrow at her as if to imply that he knew she wasn't actually upset about it. He was right, she wasn't. She could want him to have never existed without disliking him. Dan didn't catch the exchange thankfully.

Cynthia soon walked in, The Creator followed behind her along with five other of her team members. "Thanks!" Serenity called out to the creator in a whisper. He turned his blonde topped head to look at her with a bored expression. "For standing up for me." Serenity explained.

"I would of stood up for Hitler if it meant I got to burn something to the ground." The Creator said, entirely uninterested in the conversation. Serenity gave him a teary eyed look and The Creator sighed, "It's not personal." he said before walking off to follow Cynthia.

When Cynthia got to the front of the room she was absolutely pissed. "Alessio. Are. You. All. F*****G. IDIOTS!?" She yelled. Alessio glared at her in response but didn't speak. "When you figured out he was a demon you should of KNOWN that you couldn't HANDLE him and called for BACK UP first and only moved in to fight AFTER we came!" She paced around the room, her tan colored skin glowing red with anger.

"If we hadn't then he would of escaped. He knew we were onto him. If he didn't know he would've in a few more hours. Besides, he escaped from you all anyways so what good did back up really do?" Alessio snapped at Cynthia. "Besides," he continued, "We wouldn't of known a single thing about his plans if it wasn't for us. Don't blame our team for this, why don't you blame yourself for not knowing the guy you were sending us to was a demon. It took Serenity less time to deduce that than you." 

Serenity didn't have time to take that as an insult because Cynthia completely exploded.

"DO YOU REALIZE SOMEONE IS DEAD BECAUSE OF YOU?"

"The blame could lie in back up not coming fast enough. The blame could also lie in Lucas and Allen being sent even though neither could use their partners."

"IT'S BECAUSE NONE OF YOU WERE SMART ENOUGH TO MAKE THE RIGHT DECISION OR STRONG ENOUGH TO COVER FOR THE DUMB ONE YOU MADE!"

"We're not strong enough?"

"YEAH!"

"Why don't you fight me and we'll find out, my team versus and equal number of yours."

"Wow, you really are stupid. I only need The Creator, I could beat you in under ten minutes."

"I only need Serenity, and I could beat you in under five."

The two stared at each other, the tension in the room rising to levels unheard of. Nobody challenged Cynthia to PVP. It was insane, she had The Creator and on top of that plenty of other strong people. Cynthia was also an amazing strategist and leader.

"Well, I'll see you at PVP." Cynthia broke the silence, crossing her arms over her huge chest. She then made a few announcements about missions that would be made in pursuit of Kassum before ending it.

Alessio stomped to the assignment board with his team in tow, signing them up for a mission next week that entailed helping protect a research team that was supposed to go to New Mexico to gather information about a few contacts Cynthia knew the priest had.

"I can't do that, I need to be on that research team. Research teams always need chemists for forensic analysis." Serenity complained.

"Fine, you'll be on the research team but the rest of us will still come as guards." Alessio searched for the sign up sheet for the research team and wrote her name on it.

"Yeah, and I have another problem with you. Why am I going up against The Creator? I can't defeat him in five minutes. I couldn't defeat him in five hours!" Serenity whined, she didn't like PVP in the first place and only did it as required. Losing this battle would drop both her and Alessio's grades. PVP is a school wide event, and every school participates in it. It's how individuals and teams are ranked. It's only required you participate in the school wide event so you can be ranked accurately and you only have to participate until you lose for the first time. School wide PVPs are hosted every Wednesday and Friday afternoon and all you have to do is sign up. International PVPs are hosted the last week of every month and signing up is a lot more complicated because killing is allowed in international PVPs; and unlike schoolwide PVPs, international ones couldn't drop your grade.

"I believe in you?" Alessio stated, but it ended up sounding more like a question.

"So you're not sure?" Serenity complained, tugging on the sleeve of his jacket.

"Irrelevant. What's now relevant is that we're going to train more often. We're going to the dungeons after school from now on. Jamie you're too slow and clumsy, Ash you need to develop the strength to summon guns that can fire in faster succession. Serenity you're simply not strong enough." Alessio said, leaving Sarah out of it because she'd closed her book. From experience Serenity knew Sarah closing her book was a bad sign... for Alessio's well being anyways. 

Serenity was a little upset about being called weak but the girl had an extremely slender form so it was undeniable she lacked a lot of the raw strength the broadly built Jamie boasted. Unlike Ash who was also slender, and even had the disadvantage of being short, her skill-set demanded she have a certain amount of raw strength. At the same time, she couldn't get mad. She had to live up to her promise to Alessio. She had to protect everyone she cared about and to do that she had to get stronger.

"I swear Serenity if you wear a cape..." Alessio muttered under his breath, not finishing his threat. Probably because he knew it was pointless. This was proven when the met up the next day after school in the dungeons beneath the school and Serenity was proudly wearing a silver cape.

"Capes are cool." She said, striking a heroic pose by putting her fists on her hips and looking up at where the sky normally would be. Needless to say the cape was quickly disposed of by Alessio.

Author's Note

Thank you to Crazed Flame for ideas and motivation.