Texas looked up suddenly as the flowers turned red and the bell chimed. He couldn't sense it like Mirai, but he knew it meant something was going on and that something was probably an intruder. He looked at Mirai when she asked him to stay behind. He was about to argue but then she vanished, probably reappearing wherever the intruder was. He held in his breath for a moment and considered following her before letting out a sigh. Well, it was her house so it was her rules. He leaned back into the couch, folding his arms behind his head. He was a lot more tense than his relaxed position suggested and the minutes felt like hours as he waited for a response from her. He sat up quickly when he got Mirai's telepathic message. Atticus....I should have guessed... he thought to himself. Though Shira is with him so maybe... though even Shira couldn't control Atticus. Who knew what he wanted?
Still, there was only one way to find out. Mirai had asked him to come so he would. He turned and began heading towards the edge of the castle, intending to jump off the side and use his resonance force to propel him to where Mirai, Atticus and Shira were. But as he took his next step he suddenly froze in place. It felt as if his legs had turned to ice. His heart literally skipped a beat and he heard it in his chest. His eyes widened. What was happening? It felt like he was having a heart attack! He willed his legs to move. He had to go to Mirai. But they remained still as if glued to the spot by an invisible force. Then just as suddenly as it had come, it went, and Texas could lift his legs again. He looked down at himself, lifting first one leg and then the other. What in the world had that been? It was nerves, he decided. Just a little panic attack. Atticus always made him nervous, not just because he was strong and disliked Texas but because he was Mirai's brother and so his relationship with him wasn't so clear-cut. Yeah...it was nerves. He couldn't deny the thought of confronting Atticus again stressed him out a little.
He began walking again towards the edge of the castle. Only several minutes had gone by; according to Mirai he had an hour to come out. Well, he wasn't going to make Atticus wait that long! Atticus wanted to see him, then he'd go ri- Texas stopped again and stood in place despite his attempts to move. His body was fine; his muscles weren't stiff and he wasn't standing ramrod straight. It just simply wouldn't respond to him. Slowly he looked down at his feet. But he hadn't wanted to. He hadn't moved his head! Why was he looking down? Outside of his control, his head turned to the left and to the right looking over his body as if examining it for the first time. Texas watched through his own eyes helplessly. His arms raised and he flexed his hands as if trying them on for size. Why...what's going on!? He thought to himself, panic beginning to encroach upon his mind as he watched helplessly. He looked up and around again, this time at his surroundings as he seemed to be trying to figure out where he was. After several moments he stopped and whatever force had gotten hold of him let him go just as quickly. Texas was so surprised to be back in control of his body that he actually fell over and onto the ground before he could catch himself. "What the..." He mumbled aloud as he climbed to his feet. He stood still for a moment, taking a few deep breaths as he tried to figure out what was happening. It was....it was....it was nothing. Just a little panic attack was all. They could do weird things to you. Yeah.
No sooner had Texas thought this than his heart skipped another beat and he stumbled, crumpling against a nearby wall before sliding to the ground and grabbing his chest. It felt like his heart was about to explode. He grimaced, biting back a cry of pain as his heart began to race at an accelerated rate. After several moments sweat began to trickle down his forehead and he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to calm his heart down before it beat itself out of his chest. That was the last thing Texas remembered thinking about before he blacked out. He woke up sometime later; he didn't know how much. Though it had truly been only about 50 minutes. The strange thing was that he woke up in a different position. In fact, he woke up standing. He was standing on the edge of the castle, looking down off the walls and at the realm below him. What had he been doing? He shook his head and blinked a couple of times, quickly pushing the disturbing thought out of his mind. He looked off into the distance, clearly able to see Mirai's Shira's and Atticus's souls still waiting. He still had time. He took a deep breath, focused his resonance force and launched himself off the side, picking up speed with a burst of flame as he quickly crossed the distance, landing on his feet next to Mirai. "What?" He asked Atticus, his voice deeper now and his body much more mature. He had certainly grown up some in the demon realm.
The entire time Texas had been struggling on the castle walls, his soul hadn't changed even a tiny bit. No one would be able to sense by his soul or thoughts that something had been amiss for that 55 minutes he hadn't shown up.
And I just want to show them.
Posted: Tue May 06, 2014 7:05 pm
The Demon of Life Partner: Texas
I wish you could see The bridge that leads from you to me But every time you try to cross You always manage to get lost
Without a second glance you left me stranded I climbed I slipped I fell but at least I tried If you turn your back, I'll burn that bridge
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mirai said nothing still despite what Atticus said. "Yeah... you go ahead with that then..." she muttered finally, looking at the ground. Why was everything so bad? Everything was never good for her for long, there was always something that came up that made her feel crappy. She felt an attack coming on if the stress she was going through continued but she continued doing her best to stay strong and now show her weaknesses. Her thoughts were interrupted when Texas finally came over. "They want to talk again about the Machinist Order and you." ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
As the minutes ticked away, Texas had about a minute left, until Atticus would act on his own and charge into Mirai's mansion, knowing full well that Mirai would attempt to stop, thus resulting in a battle between the simply. Then without any words, Atticus began moving towards Mirai, Texas' hour was up and Atticus was finally on the move. "Sorry, Mirai." he stated. As soon as Atticus took one step forwards, Atticus stopped and looked up as Texas would be seen coming down towards them, leaving a small streak of flames in the air. The boy would then land next to Mirai and question Atticus. Looking down at him, Atticus would admit that Texas had indeed grown stronger, he was much more mature then the last time they had met, but all of that meant nothing, not now. As Texas questioned him, Atticus crossed his arms and let Mirai answer. Once she was done, he would finally speak up, "We came here to retrieve you." he said. "There are some questions we need to ask you and as an extra measure, we are going to have to take you somewhere secure. That is not here." Atticus told him, "So, I will ask this nicely. Texas, would you please come with us?"
Texas folded his arms, his eyes narrowing as he looked at Atticus. "This place is secure," he told him confidently. "Mirai created it and she knew the second you were here. We can talk without anyone overhearing." He didn't want to talk about The Machinist Order, but it seemed there would be no avoiding it. Atticus wasn't just someone you could ignore. "Shira already asked me a lot about them. What more do you want to know? Other than that they're people you really don't want to mess with. Even you, Atticus. They make things that kill people like us for a living. And they're really, really good at it." He stared confidently back at Shira and Atticus. "If you're still thinking I'm some kind of sleeper cell, you're wrong. It's not me. And if there is someone in Death City who's a Sleeper, it's really bad news because it means that The Machinist Order has taken an interest in it. You don't want that."
I wish you could see The bridge that leads from you to me But every time you try to cross You always manage to get lost
Without a second glance you left me stranded I climbed I slipped I fell but at least I tried If you turn your back, I'll burn that bridge
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Shira glanced at Atticus "It is best to stay here, Atticus. This place is isolated." she told him. She thought for a moment "Texas... I know you don't think you are... but a lot of the evidence points to you possibly being it. When I was talking to you, after I asked about your designation, you blanked out for a moment or two, it was like you were standing there but someone else was talking." she said "At the moment, with everything we've got, it is really looking like you are the sleeper cell and you could possibly kill Mirai at any time. We want to take precautions in case that does happen." she said calmly. She looked at Mirai for a moment "Oh... what if Mirai tries using her telepathy to see if she can find anything. Memories can't be erased completely, only covered. If anyone here can confirm if he is a sleeper agent, it is Mirai." she said. Mirai stood there quietly before glancing at Texas. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Atticus really didn't know what to say to Texas, one wrong and both Texas and Mirai will become upset and only make things worse. Sighing, Atticus placed his hands in his pockets and glanced at Shira as she spoke up, stating that it would be best for them to stay there. He wouldn't argue with her, but it was obvious that he did not agree with keeping him there. He is unpredictable, not to mention, if Charlotte was able to locate her, then whose to say that others couldn't as well? As Shira brought up the idea to have Mirai look into Texas' mind, Atticus just looked away. "To tell you the truth. I don't think I can trust her to do this job. She is too emotional about it and might lie to us, in order to keep her partner safe. As cruel as it may sound, it is the truth." Atticus told Shira, but he didn't really seem to be his normal calm self, his face seemed flushed and his body began to become pale, "We really need to hurry this up." Something was off about Atticus.
"Shira! Come ON!" Texas replied, his unnatural anger seemed to trickle to the surface. "I know who I am! I'm NOT a sleeper!" He jerked his thumb backwards, pointing it at himself as he spoke. "And there's no reason to go poking around in my head. There's personal stuff in there you know?" What Texas had said was true, but normally Texas would have most likely agreed as long as it was Mirai and not someone else. He looked over at Atticus as Atticus seemed to begin to turn pale. "And what's YOUR problem?" He asked him, subconsciously attempting to deflect attention away from himself. "If you need to sit down go ahead. There's nothing to "hurry up" about!" He looked from Shira to Atticus before looking over at Mirai. "Mirai, you can't possibly believe these guys? Atticus probably put Shira up to this to screw with us!"
And I just want to show them.
Posted: Tue May 06, 2014 8:33 pm
The Demon of Life Partner: Texas
I wish you could see The bridge that leads from you to me But every time you try to cross You always manage to get lost
Without a second glance you left me stranded I climbed I slipped I fell but at least I tried If you turn your back, I'll burn that bridge
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"And you get unnaturally angry.... Psychologically that means you are trying to get us to back off using anger." Shira said. "Come on, Texas! Let Mirai do it. If she can't find anything, we will go away and never come back." she told him before glancing at Atticus, moving over to him and feeling his head "Are you alright?" she asked quietly. Mirai stared at Atticus, focusing more on him than his hurtful words. She looked over at Texas "Just to get them out, can I? I know how to sort memories so I won't look at anything too personal." she asked calmly. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Atticus looked over at Texas, his face serious, "I really don't have time for this. Either come with us peacefully or resist and have me personally take you back." Atticus told him, before putting his shades back on. Atticus was putting on a brave front, but what he wasn't telling any of them, is that the longer he stays in the Netherworld, the longer he is exposed to such an incredible amount of madness, the quicker his body deteriorates and his life is shortened. As of now, his life has been shortened two more hours, which is why he wanted to hurry things up, but clearly this was taking too long and he was beginning to suffer a form of madness overload. Feeling Shira's hand, Atticus smiled, "I'm fine, lets just get this over with." He looks at Mirai, "I really don't have time for this. Either come with us peacefully or resist and have me personally take you back.""If you insist on doing this, then I want you to allow Shira to see in his mind with you. As I've said, I can't trust you to handle this, not alone."
Texas glared at Atticus for a moment before his anger slowly seemed to fade away. Texas took one more deep breath as he calmed down. "Alright. If that's what you want, fine. I'll do it. Just don't get into my personal stuff," he told him. It was strange. The anger seemed to fade away as if whatever had been directing it found it no longer necessary to employ. Had it just been stalling for time? Texas stood up straight, lowering his hand. "Alright Mirai, do what you have to do. You won't find anything in there. Then you can go back to looking for whoever the REAL sleeper is. I'll even help you if you want. Maybe I'll recognize them." He looked back and forth between Shira, Atticus and Mirai. "What are you even going to be looking for anyway? I'm not sure what would be inside a sleeper's mind that would give them away. I honestly don't know a whole lot about the internal process of it."
I wish you could see The bridge that leads from you to me But every time you try to cross You always manage to get lost
Without a second glance you left me stranded I climbed I slipped I fell but at least I tried If you turn your back, I'll burn that bridge
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Shira and Mirai nodded. Mirai looked at Texas and smiled slightly "Thank you." she said before walking over to him and pressing two fingers against his forehead. She looked back at Shira "You need to take my hand. I need physical contact for this..." she said. Shira blinked "Oh... alright." she said before taking Mirai's other hand. Mirai looked back at Texas and closed her eyes, her wavelength quickly going up and going through Texas before she activated her telekinesis and began looking through his head. "I'll do this as quick as possible, Texas, Shira." she told the two as the memories from Texas began appearing. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
As Texas agreed to let Mirai enter his mind, Atticus would sigh and sit down on the ground, "Make it quick." he told her before she went and started the whole procedure. While all three were connected and exploring Texas' memories, Atticus closed his eyes and began breathing slowly, he would do this as a way to focus his breathing and enter a state of calmness, which would actually help him control the madness, easing the pain a bit. However, little drops of blood would be seen coming from the corner of his mouth, clearly, he was suffering.
As Shira and Mirai entered Texas's mind, the most recent memories would appear first. He and Mirai sitting on the couch, a flash of Mirai hovering in the air as her realm began to form. Their first date after they returned from the demon realm. The demon realm itself and their different training. It spun backwards faster, through the second trip in the Book of Eibon. Texas as a girl and Mirai as a guy. There seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary as time continued to travel backwards. The missions they went on together; the fight against Sanctum, the fight against Nique, their abduction by Herald, Texas meeting Mirai for the first time. All the while, there seemed to be something else watching. Something just out of reach. Trying to grab it would be like trying to grab wet soap with one hand. It would easily slip out of reach as soon as it was reached for. It seemed to know how to pass through Texas's mind much better than Shira or even Mirai. All the while nothing exuded from it. No resonance force, no wavelengths, no madness, nothing. Time spiraled backwards as Texas fought Divine while Mirai was being born. Texas's first and second partners leaving him. Texas going through the Book of Eibon for the first time. Texas meeting Shira for the first time in Death Park, holding his romance novel upside down in an attempt to convince Shira he wasn't reading it for fun....
Texas first stepped into Death City well over a year ago, looking around at the massive buildings before him. "Well it's certainly not like home..." he muttered to himself as he lowered the top of his baseball cap to shade his eyes. He seemed a bit darker than when the others had known him. "Guess I'll enroll....what's the worst that could happen? I don't get in. I live in a gutter. Not much different than back..." he trailed off as he began walking into the city. Unlike when the others had seen him, there was something a lot darker about Texas. Not darker as in evil or insidious. It became apparent from the dull expression on his face as he walked through the city, not bothering to look up at the passing residents. He was very sad. And very lonely. He scratched the back of his head and let out a sigh before walking into a nearby alley. He looked around before leaning the one pack he was carrying against the back of a dumpster. He didn't even bother trying to go into one of the inns; he had no money. He leaned his back against the wall of the alley and slowly slid down into a sitting position. He stared blankly at the wall across from him not looking at the many silhouettes that passed him by.
Time went backwards slightly further and Texas was sitting in the back of a white pickup truck looking up at the sky. His pack lay next to him and aside from the driver there was no one else in the vehicle. He and the driver didn't talk and Texas definitely didn't seem in the mood. He shifted position slightly and raised his hand, causing a small fire to appear in it. He watched it for a moment before it faded and he leaned back looking up at the sky. Death City was far off in the distance.
Further back Texas was walking with his pack. He didn't seem to be going anywhere. He was in a strange city though it definitely wasn't one associated with the Machinist Order. He was carrying his pack on his back as he came to a crosswalk and stopped. He turned his head to look at the traffic light post as he waited for his chance to cross. A small flyer with a picture of Death's face fluttered in the wind. Texas seemed to blank out for a moment as he stared at it before he suddenly turned and walked away, heading towards a bus stop further down the street.
Further back there was nothing to see. Only voices. Only flashes of light. No faces. No surroundings. The voices were muffled and the words were hard to make out but there were many of them. Some of them were male and some of them were female. There was the sound of machinery all around, whirring a clicking a grinding. There were gun shots, clanging of metal on metal, the roar and hiss of flames....screaming....then it went dark. It was as if there was a wall in front of Shira and Mirai. A large black wall that cut off Texas's thoughts from his conscious mind. All the while the strange presence seemed to watch the two girls from the darkness in the background.
And I just want to show them.
Posted: Tue May 06, 2014 9:25 pm
The Demon of Life Partner: Texas
I wish you could see The bridge that leads from you to me But every time you try to cross You always manage to get lost
Without a second glance you left me stranded I climbed I slipped I fell but at least I tried If you turn your back, I'll burn that bridge
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Shira and Mirai stared up at the wall quietly before Mirai stepped back slightly. She was honestly afraid of what may happen if she tried to break through the wall. Shira was silent and looked around, taking note of the presence. Mirai stared at the wall a bit longer before walking over to it "Should we try and get around that?" Shira asked, unsure of what to do. Mirai didn't reply and stared up quietly as she was thinking. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The wall remained silent before Mirai and Shira, not giving the slightest hint or clue as to what was behind it. The presence in the darkness did not move either except to withdraw slightly. Several memories of Texas floated around the two girls but they were more recent and none of them seemed relevant to what they were looking for.
