NP: Your Guardian Angel by Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

Before Hector could reach the jagged opening, the clones tackling Vincent started screaming all of a sudden. All of them backed away from him, hissing.

Their arms and faces were scalded. Some had burns so deep, I smelled amniotic barbeque and I was inside a tank.

Vincent got up, using his lance for support. His eyes gleamed, having these black slits for pupils. Half his chest was now covered with scales. The whispers became louder, disturbing like fingernails against a chalkboard.

"You've been a bad, bad boy, Hector," Vincent scoffed, blocking Hector's way. "Playing with my Aramis while Daddy's taking a nap. Oh, he's going to freak! Looks like someone's getting a timeout."

"It's too late now," Hector answered. "Once Father wakes up, we're all going to die."

"Sorry," Vincent said. "Not in my schedule."

The tip of his lance began to warp, twitching until it formed a second spike, so that it now looked like a 'U'.

For once, Alexis left the controls and gawked at Vincent. "I'd be damned."

"Gimme a break, dude," Amyr mumbled. "The boss clearly said not to summon the damned scythe. And now he just has to summon the second spine."

"What's wrong?" I sounded panicky. "He wasn't able to summon his scythe since he used up much life force when he brought me back. This is good, right? Means he's back to his full strength."

Amyr and Alex exchanged meaningful glances.

"Okay... I'll take care of the naked girls," Amyr muttered, scratching the back of his head before charging to the clones, hence predictably shirking my question.

I gave Alexis a questioning look.

After a hesitant pause, he released a resigned sigh. "It's not that he can't summon his scythe, Aramis. It's just that he won't."

The glass door of my tank finally slid open.

I staggered out, only for Alexis to catch me before I could trip on my own foot. For the first time in a long time, I wanted to sleep. Really sleep and never wake up until all this was over.

"We..."-he swallowed-"I mean, he... thinks it's cursed."

I caught my breath and managed a smirk. "Bruce-Lee-cursed? Or Aramis-Rayne-cursed?"

"Err... Dante's-Inferno-cursed, I think."

"Okay... The game, right?"

"The epic poem divine comedy, actually." He watched my reaction through his lashes. When my forehead creased, his eyes jumped from Vincent to Amyr to Hector then to the floor. "As far as I know, Vincent had only summoned it twice before. Just two times. The first time, Adrianna died. The second time, his mother did."

I nodded, lost in deep thought. Sathariel told me the same exact thing.

"Do not let Vincent become the monster he thinks he is," I repeated the Devil's words unknowingly. I tugged Alexis' arm. "So what do we do?"

He gave me a long blank look and blinked. "We try to stop it."

"How?"

"I'm not sure," he admitted, his brows knotting in his effort to think.

"Come on," I encouraged him. "There's got to be a way."

Alexis' eyes wandered the floor for a few seconds as if the answers were written there and only he could see them. "Vladimir was telling me about this, and he mentioned something about a demon armor. As long as it's not complete, we can still stop Vincent."

I trained my eyes on Vincent.

Hector raked one of his ticklers over Vincent's chest. It bounced off the parts covered with crimson scales, but the prongs hitting his bare skin dug deep. With barely a flinch, Vincent deflected the ticklers with his lance and thrust it towards Hector's chest. Hector dodged. Still, one of the lance's spines grazed his upper arm.

"Guys!" Amyr called from the rear of the room. "When you're done getting to know each other, lemme know, 'kay?!"

He pulled his broadsword out of a naked girl's body before parrying an attack and hacking through another's chest. Although he had killed several, he had somehow gotten himself surrounded.

"Just a sec! He's about to ask me for a second date!" I yelled back at Amyr, rolling my eyeballs. "So I'm guessing those scales are the demon armor," I said to Alexis, planting my feet on the floor in my attempt to stand.

"Probably," he shrugged.

"What happens if we don't stop it?"

He pointed at Vincent's two-pronged lance. "That trident fully-forms."

"Trident. As in Little Mermaid's Dad's trident?"

His right eye narrowed. "Trident as in the Devil's."

"Huh," I took a deep breath and waited for it to sink in. "Of course. Of all things, Vincent just had to inherit that. Evil does run in the family."

Alexis was giving me this inquiring stare that made my stomach flutter. Just looking at his eyes made my brain go blank.

I shook my head. "Forget it," I whispered before heading to Amyr.

My body was slowly recovering. I could feel it. Still, I didn't want to risk waking Alessandra by summoning my weapons. Instead, I remembered Hector mentioning the twins using Helcium knives and by the way he rambled on and on about it, they seemed to be effective on dealing some if not heavy damage to immortals.

I looked for a shard of broken glass the size of a dagger and picked it up. I tore my sleeves and wrapped them around one end, like a handle.

A clone was about to lunge on Amyr.

I drove the Helcium shard into its back before it could reach him. It swayed, gurgling before Amyr spun on his heels and cut its head off. In a fraction of a second, it smoldered into ashes. No fireflies here either.

Alexis' flamberge made a strange vibrating sound that bounced off the walls as he deflected a Cataclyst. The clones nearby covered their ears and caught their heads. Alexis struck them one by one before they could recover.

"I've never really looked into it before," he told me. "The Scarlet Beast."

"Scarlet Beast? Wait. I've heard that before."

"I thought it was just a myth, a false rumor spread by my brothers to ruin Vincent's reputation. Vladimir is already our father's favorite and they didn't want Vincent getting the same treatment. I... I've read of something like this before. The scriptures were mentioning something like a 'great dragon'... or an 'ancient serpent'. Since he isn't any of those two yet, I think we're good."

"What? Like in the bible?" Amyr raised an eyebrow.

"Revelation, yes," he answered casually. "Of course, it may just be a metaphor. Or some coincidence."

As an enemy jumped me, I kicked it the stomach and slashed its throat. Then I looked at Alexis to see if he was kidding. He clearly wasn't.

"I'm loving the optimism already," I groaned before turning to Amyr. "Wait, I thought you're a Muslim. How'd you know so much about the bible?"

Amyr gave me one of those shrugs. "Hindu, actually. But that was a long time ago."

As soon as Hector's clones were either reduced to ashes or amputated to a certain extent that they couldn't harm anyone, we set off after Vincent.

He and Hector were in the lobby, having quality brother time. And by that, I mean Hector was all bloody and stuporous as Vincent picked him up by his neck and flung him to the glass panels.

The crash of shattered glass and crackling live wires from the broken up ceiling made me cringe. But what scared me more was the lack of hesitation in Vincent's face as he began to make a punching bag out of his brother.

Blood spattered on his face and he didn't even blink.

"You think you're better than me, huh?" Vincent growled, snatching Hector's collar. "Just because Father likes your experiments!"

Hector just moaned, his head lolling backwards. His face was barely recognizable despite the instant healing.

Vincent's lips twitched into a shaky smile. "But they're all gone now. Destroyed every one of them myself. What d'you say we"-he lifted Hector's limp hand and dug the tip of his double-bladed lance over it until it bled-"just get rid of these for good? Then let's see you do your precious experiments."

Letting out a cry of pain, Hector's eyelids fluttered open. "No... b-brother."

"And now I'm your brother?" he chuckled, nodding to himself. He threw Hector on the floor and raised the lance over his head, the spines aimed on Hector's throat. "Moving, Hector. But it's too late for that."

I scrambled through the hole as fast as I could and ran towards them.

"Vincent! No!" I shouted.

His head whipped to my direction, his crimson eyes wide as if he just woken up from a very bad dream. He stared at his own bloody hands, at his lance then at Hector.

As if realizing what he was just about to do, he took a step back looking terrified out of his wits.

"Don't come any closer!" he warned, his voice shaking.

"It's okay, Vincent," I answered, taking a careful step towards him. "It's just me. Everything's going to be-"

Before I could finish, he draughted out of the room and disappeared in the hallways.

Alexis and Amyr went after him.

"He's too fast," Alexis panted.

"Ugh," Amyr groaned, kicking the air angrily. "Why do I have to be Vincent's babysitter? The boss is gonna freak!"

As quick as we could, we wound out into what now remained of the castle's foyer. Pillars and walls had collapsed, blocking our way. The enormous double-doors were now but scraps of twisted metal.

Death was everywhere; from the piles of ashes and the black burnt traces left by smoldering immortal bodies. Fireflies loitered around the room in large swarms, spiraling through the holes in the roof.

"What happened here?" I asked.

"Vincent," Alexis answered. "Vincent happened."

My mouth opened and closed twice. "H-he did this?"

Amyr began climbing over the ruins, offering me a hand. "Well, you saw what he's capable of back there. Honestly, I didn't think I'd see him like that again since... you know, the Madame died."

I reached out for his hand and pulled myself up, panic looming over me. "How did he..." I bit my lip.

"What? Turn into a monster?" Amyr said it like a compliment. "He passed out right after we got him. The boss tried to heal him, but his body was giving up. It's the torture, I tell 'ya. Getting opened up and healing over and over 'til you're too worn-out too give a damn. If it were me, I'd want to die too, y'know? He'd been burning up for weeks-didn't even know you could get a fever in this realm-but somehow, he woke up looking for you."

"Me?"

"No, me. He was looking for me," he groaned, his brow arching. "Of course, he'd look for you. Whad'ya expect? D'you think he'd sit around 'til the troops recover and the boss could plan out a decent counterattack? He ran off the minute we went out for a toilet break."

Alexis rubbed his chin. "To use this kind of power, he must really be desperate to save you."

"And stupid," Amyr added.

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Hi, y'all! So there's been a little delay. Power outages. Third world country. Ugh. That aside, expect another update on Wednesday! It's my 6th anniversary in Wattpad! *hurrah* Having said that, I invite you to make a REVIEW of any story I've posted. It doesn't have to be a long one. Just let other people know what you think about them. If you have time, please, post your reviews in my Facebook page (/ShimSimplina) or (/ReapersChronicles), Twitter (@Simply_shim) or simply post it on my profile page here! I would be truly grateful for your effort!