EPISODE XVII: THE OTHER WORLD

In Volume I...

Chaos and Lilith, two teenagers who were raised as assassins, get revenge on Louise Rentradt, Chaos's parents' killer. However, Louise managed to survive. Two years later, Chaos and Lilith are partners, and they are hired to kill Louise. After many complications and the rescue of Kirina, a girl their age who, along with Chaos, has special powers, they manage to kill Louise. However, they discover that Kirina and Chaos are brother and sister, and there are two others.

Chaos, Lilith, and Kirina begin searching for their other siblings. They find Ophelia, a girl who can drastically change the temperature of any area in the immediate vicinity at will, and Lightning, a boy who can open portals to what they think is Hell. The five teenagers go through a portal and discover three demons. The demons claim to have created them, and tell them that they have eight days before the world ends.

The group goes back to Earth and attempt to stop the end of the world. However, the way they think they can stop it ends up being the way they end it, and they regret it. The demons, called the Gregmoir, go to Earth and offer the five surviving teenagers a way to live forever. However, they manage to kill the demons, and possibly saved the world...

* * *

The universe is a strange place. In order to understand it and it's workings, one must leave behind all sense of disbelief.

* * *

My name is strange. Lightning. Who would name their kid that? Of course, according to the revelations of the past eight days, I wasn't named by my parents, but still. Fucking demons. Can't even pick a good fucking name.

But mine isn't the worst. That award goes to Chaos. Nobody would ever, in a million fucking years, name their kid a name like that. I feel sorry for him, honestly.

In case you haven't figured it out, I'm Lightning. I'm sixteen, and I, at one time, killed everyone in an entire town by forcing them through a portal into another dimension. However, my little power ended up coming back to bite me in the ass, and destroyed almost the entire world.

Which brings us to where I was after I, along with four others, managed to kill three world-creating demons.

I'll start with me waking up.

* * *

I had a terrible head ache. I didn't remember going under, but I was waking up now in a grassy plain. I was the first one. The sun was shining down, and everything looked amazing.

Ophelia, Kirina, Lilith, and I were a stark contrast to all the bright, happy colors. Covered in soot, dirt, and blood, we looked like we had just been through a bombing. In a way, we had been, but that's not the point. The point is that we were, ironically, waking up in a pretty meadow, whereas we looked like we had just died.

Ophelia, Kirina, and Lilith...I hadn't trusted them at first, but I had grown to realize that they were okay people.

Chaos. I had completely forgotten about him. He was nowhere to be seen.

“Guys,” I said as I stood up. “Guys, we need to find Chaos.”

None of them moved. I waited for a long time before, finally, Kirina finally began to wake up.

“What the hell happened?” she said as she finally woke up. “I feel like shit.”

“Chaos is missing,” I said. “He probably just went off to find food or something, but still, we should find him.”

“Okay,” Kirina said as she got up.

The others followed this pattern, and then we began searching.

* * *

The four of us didn't find him. We decided to use tree branches to spell out “Went north”, and then began walking.

We had been in a clearing in the middle of a forest, and it took us some time to finally get out. But when we did, we saw something amazing.

Less than a mile north of the forest was a giant city. Everything in it, from what we could see from the forest, was shiny. The first thing that popped into my head was “steampunk.”

When we arrived, I was proven to be correct. Everything was bronze, and it seemed to be a cross between the 1920's and the early 2000's.

However, we didn't have time to wander around in this steampunk city. We all felt like crap, and just wanted to call it a day. We had no money, so we walked into a shop and waited until we had seen someone use a gold coin to buy stuff. Then, we searched the ground until we had scrounged enough coins to rent a room in an inn. I slept on the floor, but I'm not sure about the others. I just remember falling asleep as soon as I was on the ground.

* * *

“So,” I said the next day at breakfast. “Chaos is nowhere to be found, and we have no money. We're in what appears to be another world. We arrived here just after killing three demons, and whatever made us go here blew the pink hair dye right out of Lilith's hair. I like it brown better than pink, by the way. Two weeks ago, I would have said that this was impossible, but now...seems legit.”

“We need to find a way to earn money,” Lilith said. “That should be our priority right now. If we die because we can't afford food or a place to stay, there's no way we'll be able to find Chaos.”

“I'll get somebody to give us money,” Kirina said.

The four of us waited while she concentrated. Finally, she stopped.

“It's not working,” Kirina said. “It's not like when people were able to block it. It's more like the power's not even there. Like it disappeared when we came here.”

“I'll try to make a portal,” I said.

I drew a box with my finger while concentrating on making a portal, but nothing happened.

“It didn't work,” I said, amazed.

“Neither did mine,” Ophelia said. “Is it possible that we're...dead?”

“It's possible,” Lilith said. “But not likely. I'll get us an assassination job. That should get us enough money to buy a place to live, and some food.”

“You can do that?” I asked.

“Of course,” she said. “I've been doing it for years.”

“Excuse me,” a girl said from behind me. “I heard you're looking to assassinate someone.”

“Well, you heard wrong,” Lilith said.

“That's too bad,” the girl said. “I had a job for you. It would have given you enough money to live for several years.”

“Well,” Lilith said, “just out of curiosity, who did you want us to kill?”

“The king of Earth,” the girl replied.

TO BE CONTINUED

APRIL 18

EPISODE XVIII: THE JOB

 The four of us were sitting at a table in the back of a bar with the girl, who had introduced herself as Miriam.

“So,” I said after some silence. “Tell us about this job.”

“The king is very oppressive,” Miriam said. “He killed my sister just for swimming in a lake.”

“Where does he live?” Lilith asked.

“In a castle,” Miriam replied. “It's about seven miles east of here. I don't need to know whether or not you're going to do it, but when it's done, I'll find you.”

“Okay,” Kirina said.

Miriam got up and walked out of the bar.

“So,” Lilith said. “The world has a king now. Great.”

“I don't understand how we're supposed to get in there, kill the king, and get out without dying,” Ophelia said. “It makes no sense.”

“We don't even have weapons,” I said.

We sat silently for a moment, thinking.

“We could find a place that sells weapons, and kill the guy,” Lilith said. “We get in by requesting to speak to the king about what happened.”

“I saw a place with a bunch of Japanese shit towards the edge of the city,” Ophelia said.

“I think there's a gun store down the road from here,” I said.

“Okay,” Lilith said. “Lightning and I will take the Japanese place. You two raid the gun shop.”

The four of us got up from the table and split up.

* * *

“What would you two be looking for?” an old Asian man asked as Lilith and I walked into the Japanese weapons shop.

“Could I see some throwing stars?” I asked.

“And I would like to see a katana,” Lilith said.

He went into a back room.

“There's, like, nothing out here,” I said.

“I know, right?” Lilith replied.

The old man came out carrying the weapons we had requested.

“Can I hold the katana?” Lilith asked.

He handed it to her. She took it by the handle and swung it a few times. Then, without warning, she chopped off the Asian man's head.

“He shouldn't be a problem,” Lilith said.

“No, he shouldn't be,” I said.

The two of us took our weapons and exited the shop, not even looking back at the body.

* * *

“Whoa,” Ophelia said. “This is awesome.”

Kirina and Ophelia were in the gun shop. Ophelia had just discovered flip guns.

A flip gun, according to what the (now dead) store owner had told them, had a special, magnetic holster, and a hinge. You put the gun on the holster, which was nothing more than a metal strip, and folded the barrel down over the handle. Then, if a situation got really bad really fast, you pulled the gun off the holster. It would automatically clip to the single part of the barrel that was already attached to the handle, and you could shoot very easily. It was quicker than a normal holster and a safety, and it was more compact, so it was easier to carry.

“Then take it,” Kirina said.

Ophelia clipped the holster to her belt.

Kirina took an old, 1920's-looking machine gun, put a strap on it, and slung it over her back.

“Let's go,” she said.

The two of them sneaked out the back door and through several alleyways. They then walked through the streets to the inn we were staying at.

* * *

“So,” Lilith said as we stood around the room at the inn. “Do we understand the plan?”

“Yeah,” we all said in unison.

“Good,” she said. “Then let's go get this dick.”

TO BE CONTINUED

APRIL 25...

EPISODE XIX: THE KING

 The only person who took a weapon was Lilith. She had hidden a flip gun in her shirt. The entire plan relied on that, and if we were caught, it would not end well.

* * *

The four of us took a train to the castle. Once there, we signed up for a tour.

It looked like something out of medieval times. The only lights were torches, and the entire structure was made out of stone.

“Do we know where he is?” Kirina asked as we walked through the castle.

“He's probably in his office on the second floor,” Lilith said. “I picked up a map at the front door and looked over it.”

“Let's go,” I said.

Without being noticed, the four of us slipped away from the tour group. We hid around a corner, and waited until they were gone.

We followed Lilith to the stairs, and went up. However, we never made it to his office.

“What are you four doing?” a guard said from behind us.

We turned around.

I said, “We were lost. We were looking for a guard to ask for directions.”

“I don't think that's true,” he replied. “I'm afraid I'm going to have to detain you.”

He grabbed Lilith and I, and a second later, another guard had appeared to grab Kirina and Ophelia.

We were taken to the dungeons.

Just as we had planned.

* * *

“How long are we going to be here?” I said. “Can't we just get it over with?”

“No,” Lilith replied. “We have to be taken to see the king. He will see us.”

“You four,” a guard said as he opened the door. “King Julian wants to see you.”

“Speak of the devil,” Lilith said.

The four of us followed a guard through several hallways until we finally entered a throne room. There, sitting on a giant throne, was who we assumed to be the king.

We approached.

“I hear that you have been breaking into my castle,” he said. “What have you to say for yourself?”

“I'm very sorry,” Lilith said as she slowly reached under her shirt. “But I'm afraid we have done much more than that.”

She quickly pulled out her gun and shot the king in the face. The guards all came towards us.

“Stop,” said a very familiar voice. “They are pardoned in full.”

It was Miriam. We had no idea what she was doing there, but we were grateful, because all of the guards backed up.

“Now,” she said to us. “You four are to go to the bar where I first met you in a week, and I will have your payment. Go.”

The four of us ran as fast as possible.

* * *

When we arrived back in the city, everybody looked depressed. That was abnormal, since almost everybody was happy in this world.

“Excuse me,” I said to one of the people. “Why is everybody so depressed?”

“Didn't you hear?” she replied. “The king has been assassinated, and Miriam has taken over.”

“So?” I said.

“Miriam is the worst ruler this world has ever had,” the woman replied. “She is the opposite of her father. Whoever killed him made the worst mistake in history.”

TO BE CONTINUED

MAY 2...

EPISODE XX: RETURN

 The four of us were barely able to scrounge enough money to stay alive for that week. By the time we met Miriam at the bar, we were starving.

“I'll get you food,” Miriam, who was now dressed in a black dress and a huge hat. “Once you've eaten, we'll talk payment.”

The four of us received our food within a few minutes, and we ate it even faster.

“I know about you,” Miriam said once we were done with our food. “I know you aren't from this world. In fact, I realized that I have been the one keeping you here before I hired you. Now, I am willing to let you go back to your world.”

“How did you keep us here?” I asked, suddenly getting extremely pissed off.

“I, too, have a power,” she replied. “Mine is to stop anybody else's from working.”

“You bitch,” Kirina said.

“Don't worry,” Miriam replied. “I've already stopped using it. You're free to go.”

I stood up and opened a portal. This time, it worked.

“See?” she said. “I told you.”

“Come on,” I said. “Let's go.”

The four of us climbed through the portal, and found ourselves in, surprise surprise, New Chicago. However, it was full of people.

“Holy shit,” Lilith said. “It actually worked.”

With the Gregmoir gone, the world had reverted to before the disaster.

“I think Chaos is still here,” I said. “We should find him.”

“Can we go see my parents first?” Ophelia asked.

“Of course,” I said.

The four of us headed towards New York.

* * *

We all stole Skybikes in order to get to New York faster. As soon as Ophelia had seen her parents, the four of us were going to find Chaos.

However, the reunion didn't go as planned.

* * *

Ophelia knocked on the door as we waited on the sidewalk. After a couple of minutes, a woman answered the door. The spoke for a few minutes, and Ophelia walked back to us, looking dazed.

“Was it not her?” I asked.

“No,” Ophelia replied. “It was her.”

“Then what's wrong?” Kirina asked.

“She didn't remember me,” Ophelia replied.

* * *

The four of us flew back to New Chicago. We sold our Skybikes once we were back, and with that money, we bought an apartment, along with some food.

After we were settled in, I went out to catch up on what had happened since we left.

I bought a newspaper and walked back to the apartment.

“What's it say?” Lilith said as I sat down.

We looked at the front page and froze, all at the same time.

On the front page, there was a picture of the President, with the headline, “President Rentradt gives amazing speech.”

The President was Louise Rentradt.

Us disappearing had changed more than people's memories.

“We have to find Chaos,” Lilith said. “He'll be able to explain what happened.”

“Maybe,” I said.

We had absolutely no idea what was going to happen.

To Be Continued

May 2...

EPISODE XXI: PRESIDENT

The story so far...

Lilith, Kirina, Ophelia, and I, Lightning, had found that we were in a completely different world after we killed the Gregmoir. Our powers didn't work, and Chaos was nowhere to be found. We found an assassination job, and after completing it, we were given our powers back. We then returned to Earth, only to find that nobody remembered that we existed, and that Louise Rentradt, instead of being killed, had become President.

* * *

“How do we even know that she's still bad?” Kirina said once the shock that Louise was President had subsided. “Other things have changed, maybe she did, too.”

“I don't think it works that way,” I said. “Even if we weren't in her life, she is still the same person.”

“Then we have to kill her,” Ophelia said. “There's no way around it.”

We were silent for a moment. Finally, Lilith said:

“That's never going to happen.”

We all stared at her.

“What?” she said. “It's true. She might still be able to stop Kirina's power, and if anybody gets too close to her, they will have a bullet in their face before they can even think of killing her. It's impossible.”

“She's right,” I said after a moment. “Right now, the best thing we can do is wait until she isn't President anymore, and kill her then.”

Just then, my phone rang. I picked it up.

“Hello?” I said.

“Come to the White House as soon as possible,” said a man on the other end. “President Rentradt would like to see you.”

There was a click, and then silence.

“Who was that?” Kirina asked.

“I think it was one of Louise's guards,” I replied. “They want us to go to the White House.”

Right then, there was a knock at the door. Lilith went to answer it. She came back holding plane tickets.

“It says the flight leaves in an hour,” she said. “We'd better go.”

The four of us left the apartment.

We were going to Washington.

* * *

A guard had picked us up at the airport and taken us to the White House. We were nervous; it was possible that Louise remembered Lilith and Kirina. If that were so, then we were all dead.

“Hello,” Louise said as we sat down opposite. “Lilith, Kirina, it's been a long time. Oh, and just so you know, I remember everything.”

We were silent for a moment.

“Where's Chaos?” Ophelia asked.

“He's in the asylum,” Louise replied. “But you aren't getting out of here alive.”

Then, she pulled out a gun and pointed it at me.

“Open a portal,” she said. “Or I'll kill you.”

I obeyed, and through it stepped...

...Miriam.

I realized something as soon as she had stepped through: she and Louise looked exactly the same.

“I slipped a note through when you left, in case you were wondering,” Miriam said. Then, turning to Louise, “are you ready?”

“Yes,” Louise replied.

The two of them grabbed each other's hands, and they began to...merge into something that looked like one of the Gregmoir.

“Shit,” I said.

The four of us began running.

“Not so fast,” the new demon said in a voice that sounded like Louise and one of the Gregmoir were talking at the same time.

It shot a fireball at us, but we moved to the side fast enough to escape. It burned a hole in the wall big enough for us to escape through. We ran, and didn't stop running until we were several miles away from the White House.

To Be Continued

May 9...

EPISODE XXII: CHAOS

“Chaos,” my mother said on the night before her death. “Your father and I are going to be killed soon. I know you will kill our murderer. You always knew how to get revenge. Please, kill Louise Rentradt after she kills me.”

“Why do you have to die?” I asked her.

“Because,” she said. “It's what must happen for the world to be made right. If we don't die, you won't stop what will happen.”

It wasn't until I was locked in the asylum in Old Chicago for the second time that I realized: she had known what I would go through, even years before they had happened.

It was January 1, 2085, almost two months after Lilith and I had set out to kill Louise for the first time.

* * *

I was locked in a padded cell, wearing the same clothes I had been wearing for the past two weeks. I couldn't seem to break the door off of the hinges, so I was trapped. A guard came by every day to hive me food.

Suddenly, the door flew open.

“Chaos!” Lilith said as she flung herself towards me. I barely dodged her, and she hit a wall.

“Hey,” I said. “What took you guys so long?”

They told me their story.

“Jeez,” I said. “So we have to kill another demon?”

“Yeah,” Kirina said.

“Well, I know how we could do it,” I said. “After all, I don't think cutting them in half through a portal would work twice.”

“How?” Ophelia asked. “And when did you find out about it?”

“We do it by combining, and becoming more powerful than them,” I replied. “And I found out about it when we were trying to figure out how to stop the apocalypse. The only issue is that we might die.”

“At this point,” Lightning said, “I don't think I'd mind. Anyway, what's happened to you since we left?”

And I told them my story.

* * *

The other four had been sent through the portal. However, I managed to stay behind. With the world regenerated and the Gregmoir dead, every person who had been affected by us lost their memory. The people we killed didn't come back to life... except Louise, who also kept her memory. Everything changed since, because, to some extent, we didn't exist, and Louise was president. This made it easier for her to track me down. Because she remembered everything, she made me tell her everything that had happened. I didn't think it would do any harm, since the others were gone. However, she deduced from my story that they were in another world. She then managed to gain contact with Miriam, and they made their plan.

Then, the others came back and rescued me.

* * *

“We should go now,” Lilith said.

“Yeah,” Kirina said.

The five of us ran out of the asylum. They had gotten Skybikes, and they had even brought one for me.

“Let's go,” I said.

We climbed aboard the bikes, and left the asylum behind.

TO BE CONTINUED
MAY 23...

EPISODE XXIII: FIN

There were five of us. Lightning, Ophelia, Kirina, Lilith, and me. We had become closer in the past months than any other group of friends could. Technically, the only one that wasn't a sibling was Lilith. However, she was like a sister to all of us.

In short, we had become a family. But, there hasn't been a family in history that didn't go through loss.

We were all afraid to die. That much is true. However, we knew it was for the good of the people. If we didn't, nobody would. And we had all changed since that day when Lilith and I had received our assignment. We weren't killers anymore; we wanted to save lives, not take them.

We had to die. If we didn't, the world would end.

Death was the only way to atone for our sins.

* * *

“So,” Kirina said as we hid behind a building in Washington, D.C. “How do we do this thing?”

“We'll have to weaken them,” I said. “We need our powers. The only one who doesn't is Lilith, since she's normal. Once that's done, we join hands, and concentrate. I brought the Orb from the sewers, I collected it from my apartment, and hid it just before Louise kidnapped me. I'll need to smash it. Then, we kill them, and we die.”

“Sounds easy enough,” Ophelia said. “Let's go.”

We ran out. I had stolen two shot-revolvers, and as soon as we were out there, I immediately began shooting Miriam/Louise. The others were slicing them, shooting them, or throwing broken glass and knives at them. They were shooting fireballs at us.

They were also talking.

“Good, you're going to complete what you set out to do,” they said, in the creepiest voice I've ever heard. “Please, we have no control. We're tortured. You must put us out of our misery.”

“If you're tortured,” I began, “why did you do it?”

“We didn't know,” they replied. “We thought it would just give us more power. We didn't know that, since we didn't have powers, we would lose control.”

I shot them, and they flew back and hit a wall.

“Now!” I said, and we all joined hands.

I took out the Orb, threw it up in the air, and shot it with my gun.

* * *

I don't remember what happened next.

The last thing I remember is standing, exhausted, in front of the dead bodies of Miriam and Louise, who looked exactly alike. I felt something slowly creeping up my leg. I turned around to look at the others, and they were all exhausted. However, they were smiling, and Lightning gave a thumbs up. They were all slowly turning to stone, starting with their legs, and creeping up their bodies. I looked down, and saw that the same thing was happening to me. I looked around, and could see that we were no longer in the same place we had started. There was smoke and fire in the distance, and I could tell that the city had taken some major damage.

And then, it occurred to me why Louise had come back to life, while none of our other victims had. I don't know why, but that's what I thought about. She had died because Kirina had sent somebody to kill her, meaning it was our existence that got her killed. Everyone else would have died anyway, just by other assassins.

However, that wasn't my final thought. My final thought was:

I, Chaos, the unbeatable Chaos, the unbroken Chaos, have not lost. Yes, I am dying, but it was my choice. And I will never regret it.

And, for the rest of eternity, I never regretted my death even once.

Our bodies completely turned to stone, and people finally realizing what had happened, we died; however, we will always be together as statues.

And so ends the story of The Unbroken Chaos.