Chapter 27 - Disconnected

Iris

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"Iris."
Her voice was smooth, low and sultry, coaxing and teasing.
"We knew we'd find you again, didn't we?"
A glance to her right. The male didn't seem to react, only gazing ahead. When he spoke, his voice was straight-froward, almost monotone.
"You know you have to come back, Iris."
"You belong."
Taking turns speaking, voices just barely different, bodies still, matched.
Valkyre stepped forward, seeing the two sets of ebony eyes shift to him, as if seeing him for the first time. Judging.
"...Iris is staying with me."
The angel saw the male flinch, lips curling back to show white teeth, like the start of a snarl. He could almost hear a growling under the other's breath.
The female, on the other hand, seemed calm, amused. Cat and mouse, just playing a game.
"Well, now. Isn't this interesting?"
She looked at her partner, as if again expecting a response. "Wouldn't you say, Rheis? Our little Iris, with a..." She cut off, studying him, trying to pick out a word.
"...Angel."
Rheis, the male, had spoken up, still glowering through his black bangs, sharp teeth flashing. "...An impure angel, Eire. Pay him no heed."
The female, Eire, seemed confused for a moment, thin brows crinkling, then straightening out, face perfect, unflawed.
"Iris, darling, you need us..."
"...Don't die, Iris..."
"...Come back..."
"Come home."
Their speaking, back and forth, so smooth it was but a continued, endless sentence, made Valkyre nervous, unsettled. How did they do that??
The angel glanced at Iris. The boy seemed petrified, shivering, trembling.
Valkyre stepped forward again, magic building up in the palm of his hand. He knew his battle wouldn't have any place for blades of steel. The words bit into him, shaking him, but he refused to back down now.
"He's not going anywhere," Valkyre spoke, voice low, warning.
A blur of movement, and he barely had his arm up quick enough to fend off a blow, Rheis' leg immediately snapping back, splash of dark magic barely countered as the dark-blooded male struck at him again and again, lightning-fast and relentless.
Valkyre was sent stumbling back, dodging blows that tore up the dirt and raised dust as it sank into building walls, crumbling brick to pebbles. Something crackled in the air, static.
A scream, and the angel whirled around, startled. He'd been so completely occupied, he hadn't even managed to think about the other one, Eire, across which the cable was strung, impossibly untangled and spread between the two, perfectly straight.
Iris was the one screaming, the boy suddenly alive and thrashing, fighting back. The female had her fingers clenched around the boy's arm, and she was leaning over him, holding him down by the head, looking like she was whispering something in his ear, smile on her lips.
"Iris"-
Valkyre had looked away too long, and the blow caught him in the side, sending him crashing to the ground, choking for air as a booted foot came down hard over his throat, cutting off his air. Rheis was looking down at him, head tilted slightly to one side, grinning, watching wordlessly as he writhed below, trying to push him off but unable to do anything, the pressure on him crushing. The force was impossibly strong, the face leering down at him, wordlessly mocking, his vision starting to blacken and blur...
A flash of black, and suddenly, he was wrenched free, gasping for air, momentarily paralysed as the oxygen flushed out his lungs, bringing him back to life. Someone stood over him, black.
But it wasn't Rheis. The dark-blooded one was on the ground, snarling, rising soiled with the dirt and powdered with dust, hissing between his teeth.
Valkyre tried to sit up, tasting blood mixed with the grainy earth in his mouth, side aching.
Raguel looked down at him, unmatched eyes calm and perhaps faintly amused.
"I told you I'd find you again."
The angel stared up impassively, then tried to rise to his feet, flinching suddenly and guarding instinctively as Rheis suddenly lept up, snarling.
Raguel was suddenly in front of him, fighting off the blow, striking back with one of his own, movements impossibly fast, liquid and smooth.
Valkyre stared at him for a moment, at the flawless fighting before him, both pale-skinned men nothing more than blurs, Raguel's actions calm and collected, Rheis' becoming more and more erratic, frantic and desperate. Purple eyes widened momentarily, something flashing for nothing more than a moment.
On Raguel's neck, on the back of it. Something blue-black.
"Traitor!! Get out of the way!" Rheis was snarling, hissing. Valkyre shook his head, forcing himself up and trying to ignore the words. He didn't have time to think about it now.
The angel took off towards Iris, who'd collapsed on the ground, curled up on himself, Eire's arms wrapped around him, still whispering things into his ear. Valkyre saw her long, fingernailed hand curled around the necklace. She ripped it off, and Iris jerked as if attached by a string, crying out softly.
The angel limped forward, wings outspread. Eire stared up at him suddenly, black eyes flashing, interrupted. She rose, still holding the tearstone in her delicate, thin hand, broken ends of the chain glinting silver and dangling. He noticed it now- the mark underneath her eye was a set of some type of thin, wire-like strands, melding back under her pale skin.
"Leave him, angel. You don't know who he is," she hissed, eyes narrowed. "You don't understand."
Valkyre shook his head. "I don't care," he replied, voice drawn taunt, magic spreading and thickening around him, power flickering between his fingers. "I won't let you hurt him."
Eire pulled away from the boy, steps graceful like a feline's, one foot in front of the other.
She laughed. "It's not about pain, angel. You could never know. You don't know anything!"
She darted forward, suddenly flaring pure, fallen-snow white wings, neon-bright magic lashing out before her. Somewhere else, Valkyre heard another set of wings unfurl.
He dodged the blow, striking at Eire's exposed back, but her wings blocked the hit, the black angel's magic like water on a lily leaf, splattering in droplets, bouncing right off and leaving no trace. Impossible.
Eire struck back suddenly, bared fingernails barely missing Valkyre's face, negative-imprint trail left dissipating in the air.
The black-winged angel lashed out quickly, blow catching the female in the stomach, sending her doubled-over onto the ground, choking. Far off, Rheis stumbled.
Valkyre brought his wings forward, pinning the other down against the ground, struggling and scrambling at the crumbling dirt. She was fast, yes, but not quite as fast at Rheis. This he could hold, maybe.
...But it wouldn't work. He realized it as he looked back at where Raguel and Rheis were still fighting, endless and untiring, blurs of white and black in the slowly lighting sky, perfectly matched, like a new-born set of twins.
They'd tire. This wouldn't be able to end in time.
Valkyre slammed his wing into Eire's back again, her sharp scream threatening to pierce his ears, painful and shrill. Siren.
The angel lept away, then stopped suddenly, something brushing against his leg.
The cable. Whatever it was, the tie between the two, still there, now resting against the ground, trembling and jumping as Rheis' end continued to flit back and forth, jerked sporadically, unpredictably.
A link between them. Connecting the differences.
Pain across them, they both felt each other.
Valkyre brought his boot down quickly, pinning down a length of it to the dirt, a sudden yank at the male's end almost pulling it out right underneath him. The angel unsheathed the blade from his boot, only shift from blade to hilt in the light leather wrapped around the end, grip slicked with sweat. The cable, string, quivered beneath him.
Valkyre steadied his leg, holding the cord down. A sharp cry to his left. "Rheis!"
The angel saw the male suddenly become a blur, darting towards him, Raguel staring at him wordlessly, frozen. He had no time to think.
Valkyre sent the blade straight down through the center of the cable, hands slipping too heavily, too quickly over the guardless hilt, palms split open by the blade's edge.
He screamed.
Like fire and ice coursing, crackling through his veins, the electricity slashed through his being, unbearably searing and white-hot, flooding out his mind and body, leaving him empty and full of nothing but the pain, the endless agony that came through him and rushed out again, leaving every nerve shattered and broken, disintegrated.
Around him, he heard the other screams, echoing his own. Broken, shattered.
And then the images came.
Darkness. Steel. Neon red lights. Bubbles, water and tubes. Filtered green. Glass and metal and slabs of stone.
And the electricity, coursing through him. Another being, twin and self, linked. Two minds, together in the darkness, contemplating, chained, whispering softly without words. Eternity, waiting.
Purity, flash of white, then stolen away again. Pain returning. Unbearable. Digital, numbers everywhere, flashes and sendbacks. Neon green and white on black, blinking. Screens and static.
Ended.
Darkness.

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AN: Tsk tsk. And that, my friends, is why we DON'T try and find out what wonders wait us on the other side of the mystical electrical socket. :)
Yuuuuuuup. Well, a lot of action and some rather crappy dialogue, but this chapter's okay, ne? ...Is it? o_o
Great. Now we have Raguel as... ...some... helper-kinda... guy... ...I guess he gets upped a bit in my personal ratings. :) Just a little.
And so charries!
...But they're not so cool. I just like the idea. Digital, yum.
[In case any one can't quite figure it out, Eire is the 'light' half of all beings, and Rheis is the 'dark' half. ...Of a sort. Like, 2 opposite types, one would be perhaps considered lighter...?
And they are, apparently [ehehehe] of all types. Just 2 peoples. ...Yup. Don't know what I was thinking when I came up with this. :) Ignore the impossibilities of the wire. I... like... ...wires...]
One more charrie intro, I think, and then that should be all. I'm not good at making up [and then having to keep track of] multiple charries, so I reuse them. XD
Give me just a little bit of a break. Next chappie should be long. [The end of this chappie reminds me of what happens to my comppy occasionally... ehehehe...]
Well, thanks for reading, and keep up with the comments, please! See ya!

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