#i scream laughed at the herzog reference

[dragonrajafanfiction]

Inner Demons

Ten minutes after midnight, Zihang felt the sudden rise in Carli’s chest that signaled another nightmare. It stirred him out of sleep and he woke up, already cradling her out of instinct, one arm curling about her shoulders under the blanket. He still hadn’t fully awakened but he could feel her pulse under his hand.

Her body suddenly jolted and she whimpered. Fully awake now, Zihang sat up slightly. Her hand was over her mouth. 

“You alright?”

“I bit my tongue.”

“You were probably grinding your teeth…” Zihang only obliquely referred to her frequent nightmares, eager to help her move her mind away from them. “Let me see.”

She looked at him with a surprised innocence and then stuck out her tongue.

“It’s still there.”

She let out a whistling laugh. “Don’t tease me when I’m just awake. It’s not fair.” She turned away, bashful.

“Do you want some warm milk?” He asked, kissing the back of her shoulder.

“Yes please.” She flipped the covers over her face.

He poked her ribs through the blanket just to hear her giggle. Once he was certain she wasn’t overly upset, he walked away. Still, he called from the kitchen. “Soy or Almond?”

“Almond!”

“Do you want cinnamon with it this time?”

“...yes.”

“...one spoon of sugar?”

“...Yes!”

Her voice sounded alright. It was a promising sign. When she’d returned from her island project, she was exhausted for three days, not getting out of bed. A sneak peek at her arm revealed a very light scarring through her tropical-sun tanned skin where needles had been inserted, likely to draw her own blood.

Her blood had special properties to suppress instability in hybrids, but the effects were temporary, at most, lasting two weeks. It was likely that she was making frequent draws and banking them.

She was giving so much of herself.

This thought filled his head as he watched the timer on the microwave countdown. Caring for her like this gave him scant comfort. Her energy was back. They had returned to their morning workouts, their training, their routine. At first, this warmed him inside to new levels. He truly had missed her. But the deeper he dove into the familiar, the more he found himself in strange waters.

Despite all their trauma, these nightmares weren’t as frequent before. Carli would find herself lost in thought more often, forgetful, and, worst of all, self condemnatory. She apologized more. She needed more reassurance that he was not angry when there was never going to be any situation that he could ever feel angry with her.

The microwave beeped and he opened it up and checked the heat. It was true that she had left him for an extended period, but he had coped. Her apology wasn’t what he wanted. 

What he wanted, he wasn’t sure he could ask of her.

He returned to her room with the milk. She was sitting up, on her phone, but quickly put it away when he entered the room. “Is Ru’Yi alright?”

“How did you know that was her?” She watched him move around the bed.  “She’s on some school vacation. Apparently a cruise.”

“Where?”

“She didn’t say. Only she was accompanied mostly by ‘neato Africans.’” Carli said, making airquotes. She accepted the milk with a quiet thanks.

He sat down next to her, dressed in nothing but a pair of blue boxers. She leaned against him and he rested one hand around her waist.  “She really has grown up well. You did a good job.”

“I did half a good job, Zihang. Team effort.” She elbowed him slightly.

“It wasn’t really effort. I enjoyed it. Very much.” He glanced at her to gauge her reaction.

“You’re a good dad.” She said, mentally lost in some memory. She tilted her head up at him. “We should visit her when she gets back. I’m sure they’ll let us back on campus.”

He hadn’t told her about his infiltration of the campus without authorization. Hopefully, it wasn’t recorded. “Probably.”

“What do you mean probably?” She put the cup back on the side table and shuffled back beneath the blankets. “You got some sort of record?”

“Not as far as I know.” He reached over to tuck her in. He then kissed her forehead. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Okay…” She whispered. “Love you.”

“Love you.” He turned out the light.

He closed the door behind him as he left and grabbed his phone from the hall charger. Then, he made his way to Ru’Yi’s old room.

She’d taken many of her belongings with her. Her laptop was no longer on the desk and her favorite pillows and blankets were gone. The night stand and many of her clothes that were in it were missing. Indentations were left in the carpet where they had been.

Zihang leaned against the doorway, letting the thoughts run their course. No matter how good of a father Carli thought he was, he couldn’t help but regret that he’d stumbled out of the gate. Carli never blamed him for his supernatural banishment for Ru’Yi’s first few months of life, but that didn’t change the fact that he’d missed her birth, missed holding her. Her earliest childhood photos was her in the arms of another man.

Zihang wanted another chance. Would Carli allow him that? He had asked before, and her response was that it was just too dangerous. Now though, she had a breakthrough for her treatment for the over concentration of dragonblood. Was it too early to ask?

If her reaction to asking about her first child - a dull, deeply painful silence - was any clue for the answer to that question, that answer was yes. Zihang had not followed her into the red well. He’d fought his hardest to install high powered explosives to stop an influx of dead waiters into Japan. He’d blacked out, completely exhausted.

When he woke up, he found out that Carli had been horrifically injured. Lu Mingfei and Gen Chisei weren’t much better off. Everyone else that had entered that well had died. For days, Carli experienced uncontrollable bouts of crying. That’s when he’d learned about her inability to save her child. As a comfort, he offered to adopt him as his own and have a little funeral ceremony for him.

There was no body buried underneath that headstone behind Norton Hall. Just a few baby clothes, a pacifier and toys he would never get to enjoy. Along with that, they buried a note that said, “Mommy and Daddy loved you.”

Carli spent her pregnancy with Ru’Yi in terror that something similar might happen to her. She would lie awake at night, tormented by the memory of her over threshold child and projecting that onto scenarios about the future.

Recalling these things, Zihang felt that he was selfish every time he desired a son.

He looked down at his phone. Perhaps if he could figure out a little bit more about what happened, he could overcome this foolish desire of his. Carli had left him an important clue.

He scrolled down to a blank number on his phone, one only he would recognize, and dialed it. It rang once, twice, a third time. Then it picked up. There was such a long silence on the other end that Zihang started to wonder if he’d been disconnected, but then a deep voice answered him. “What happened?”

Zihang was caught a bit off guard. Was it foolish of him to call for such a petty reason? He had no reason to believe that Chisei would be happy to hear from him. They weren't particularly close. “Is this a bad time?”

“I’m assuming you were calling about your wife. I can’t imagine any other reason you’d want to talk to me.”

“Not even about the swords?” 

A pause. “Okay that’s another reason…”

“But this is about Carli. Do you have a few minutes?”

“Tell me what happened.”

“I wanted to know what happened in the Red Well.”

“She hasn’t told you?” Surprise colored his voice.

“No. It’s too painful for her. If I ask her about it, she shuts down.”

“Even after all this time…” He wondered outloud.

“You’re not subject to the rules of the Executive Department any longer as well.” Zihang added.

“I swore to non-disclosure, but because it’s you, and you’re no longer affiliated with Cassell’s Enforcement Division, I’ll make an exception. What do you want to know?”

“I want to know specifically about what happened to her child.”

“Some things are better off unknown. You saw how she reacted to the events. Your knowing what happened will affect you needlessly.”

“I have suffered enough loss to last a dozen lifetimes. I can tell you from experience that not knowing is far worse than knowing," Zihang replied.

Chisei kept a thoughtful moment of silence and then sighed deeply. “While I organize my thoughts, why don’t you tell me what you know about the child?"

Zihang tilted his head slightly. Was he hesitating? Chisei’s personality was not robotic or unfeeling. He just pushed those emotions aside. Hearing that he needed to organize his thoughts reminded him of Carli’s reaction. Her mind would immediately jump to the worst of her ordeal.

“He is of the genetic material harvested from her under duress by the Comemnus Corporation. Herzog bought it in an auction. Her egg was combined with another man’s sperm in an effort to make someone who could turn into a full-blooded dragon. Albeit a weak one. That man was initially assumed to be you, but could have also been your brother.”

“It was my brother. He was Chime’s son.”

Zihang was silent, letting that knowledge sink in. “Does Chime know?”

“No. And you’re not to tell him. It would just give him yet another reason to hate me.”

Zihang privately thought that Chime would be just as angry such knowledge was kept from him. “He was in the Red Well to harvest  the White King leech?”

“By the time I arrived, the baby had already been given dragonblood and converted into a monster. There was no way to rescue him from the start. But Carli couldn’t control her maternal instincts. When I tried to kill the baby, she fought me with all her strength. The wounds I received were inflicted by her. Not Herzog. Thanks to her interference, Herzog was able to get the upper hand.”

“He pinned her to the ground with my sword through her. He drained the child’s blood right in front of her eyes... while she screamed at him.” He paused. “That’s all I remember.”

Zihang leaned against the wall, the phone held to his ear, finally understanding why she was rendered so speechless, the heart ache, the nightmares, the deep and unrelenting grief. “How did… how did she escape?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is the child’s body still down there?”

“Even if it was, what would you do with it?”

“We didn’t have a body to bury. She seemed very heartbroken about that. I want to help her.”

Chisei laughed softly. “Closure, huh?”

“If not closure… I can at least grant her a means to move forward.”

“That’s not something you can grant Zihang. When I agreed to assist her in ending the inherent cruelty when it comes to handling hybrids like her child, I thought she meant the human experimentation required to get someone overthreshold. This need for greater and greater purity, pushing that threshold between human and dragon, is what creates these people in the first place. Treatments were an attractive option as well, but I never really bought into it. A cure for the madness that turns them into a Dragon’s servant would cause the opposite effect -- The deliberate creation of hybrid monsters with the sole purpose of using them as weapons.”

The tension rose even as his voice lowered in a growl. “You know what happened in Japan, how threatened Tokyo was when Erii got out from under Hydra supervision. Can you imagine a world filled with monsters like her? But Carli didn’t listen to me, because I had no other solution than death for them. She thought she could do better. She’d made her mind up. If you want to help her move forward, help her let go of that fantasy.”

Zihang felt himself growing colder and colder inside at these words. The hope of ever having a second child grew more remote.

 “That’s all I want to say about it. I hope you call me again with a more pleasant subject.” 

Zihang found his voice. “Thank you. I will think on your words.”

“You’re a logical person, Zihang. Clear eyed. I’m sure you’ll be able to succeed where I failed. I understand her feelings, but I can’t tolerate them. Not on something as crucial as this. She wasn’t born or raised as a hybrid. And, if I’m to understand correctly, neither were you. You’re better able to sympathize with her without losing sight of the truth. I hope you get her to understand. If she succeeds… I can’t imagine what she’ll unleash on to this world.”

---

In the Atlantic, on the opposite side of the churning clouds that signaled the awakening dragon, another vessel bobbed in the waves. It was much smaller than the Aido-Hwedo Aircraft carrier and it’s presence was lost in the massive radar noise caused by the dragon’s stirring. The anomaly had grown to hurricane size but unlike a hurricane, it was completely immobile. The waves it was kicking up tilted and tossed the boat like a bath toy, but it stayed afloat.

Tom had to lean against the wall to keep from falling over as he made his way to the mess, that is, the kitchen. He didn’t know anything about nautical terms, but he was learning bit by bit, coached by Ms. Sakatoku and Zero who were captaining the ship. 

He heard a sound, a single foot fall on the metal step. He whirled but she was already on him, like an attacking shadow with terrifying eyes, blue irises with red pupils in a face that was completely black as though covered in ink. She hit him like a battering ram, slamming him into the metal wall of the ship.

  He closed his hands around her neck and held her teeth away from his face. Her hot breath hit him, she was so close. He could scarcely breathe for fear. He pushed upward with arms made powerful by hours of flight time until she fell all the way back slamming her head to the floor.

Her claws flashed by his neck and he ducked away  but they caught his collarbone and dug in. He scrambled off her, bleeding down his torn shirt. 

She didn’t attack again. She turned and ran up the stairs, leaving Tom trembling. 

Appetite gone, he stumbled back up to the deck, whimpering and bleeding, casting nervous eyes behind him. She must have been waiting for him on the stairs to come down to breakfast. “Mr. Lu! Mr. Lu! Cadance attacked me again!”

Despite the morning light, the skies above were as dark as early evening. Mr. Lu was standing on the deck in a long trench coat, staring out over the water. Tom’s nose caught the scent of tobacco. A curl of smoke rose up from a cigar in his mouth. Tom paused. He’d never seen Mr. Lu smoking before. Mr. Lu shook his head slowly. “Attack her back. She only does it because she knows she can get away with it. You don’t see her attacking Kasio...”

When Tom didn’t answer, he faced him fully. “You’re still suppressing it. That’s good in a way but in the end, unless you embrace that side of you, you’re just going to die.”

Tom lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“Don’t apologize to me. Apologize to the people who will mourn you when you’re gone.”

Tom lifted his head in shock. Mingfei Lu’s tone was warm but his words were like a winter wind.  

Mingfei made no attempt to comfort him or even check on his injury. He merely stood there, watching him with copper colored eyes. “Let me tell you a story, about when I first got onto Cassell grounds.” He tapped his ashes over the railing of the boat. “I was completely overwhelmed. They had just opened up the Day of Liberty and all around me was gun fire. Everywhere a bullet hit a person, they would fall, stained with red, just like a dead man. I thought the people around me were dying. I laid down, hoping to pretend to be among the dead.”

He chuckled. “I didn’t fool one person… the person I was in love with. She stood over me, recognized me, smiled at me. I thought I was saved. And then…” He simulated with his hands, a gunshot. “She was taken out.”

“But she was still alive right…?” 

“Yeah but I didn’t know that!” The amber in his eyes faded but then came back with glowing brilliance. “I burned inside. I thought they’d killed the only person I… Even now.” Mingfei’s chest rose and fell.

“I took the gun from her and killed the person who had shot her. Then I turned it on the two people in front of me. Caesar Gattuso and Chu Zihang, the top students in all of Cassell College and presidents of the most prestigious clubs. Caesar I didn’t know, so I shot him first. Zihang…” He paused briefly. “He recognized  me, called my name. Even though he was stronger than me, faster than me… even though he knew I was the weakest of the weak in high school and he had faced down the strongest in Cassell and beyond. He met eyes with mine, he dropped his weapon and surrendered, even though he knew my weapon was fake. Why do you think that is?”

Tom stood quietly.

Lu Mingfei puffed his cigar. “I shot him anyway. The past didn’t matter, the future didn’t matter.” He turned back to the waves and leaned against the rail. “Carli… Carli… you can’t sleep and it’s making me upset.” He muttered.

Tom wondered if perhaps Lu Mingfei was losing his mind. Tom’s concern certainly wasn’t pressing at the moment. “Alright.” 

“When you get breakfast, be sure to bring some to Kasio as well. Ask Zero where he is on the ship. Probably in one of the maintenance crawls.”

[dragonrajafanfiction]

I think you can, if possible, you can describe the scene where the MC (from the game who survived the events in Siberia) kills Herzog in front of Anjou, Johann, and Caesar using a powerful Ex Skill out of a desire for revenge ... (I would wrote why I asked this, but this is a big spoiler of the story in the game lol sorry)

(Okay I’m going to tackle this as best as I can! This will be a little long so please bear with me)

----------------------------------------

He taught me how to whistle.

I refused to take my medicine, instead, running away into the cold and dangerous wilderness surrounding the orphanage. The trees rose up like columns around me. There were no points of reference, no landmarks. Everywhere I turned, it was just more trees.

I wasn’t able to see the sun going down. The shadows just grew longer and longer,  until the dark enveloped the world. I should have frozen to death out there. I would have but for the melodious whistling that drew me out. I saw Herzog with a lantern and a dog sled. He wrapped me up and took me home. Whistling all the way. 

That horrible Christmas night, I was again hiding but from the gunshots, the explosions and the screaming. I’d found an old groundhog burrow and held my breath as the boots marched by, clapping my gloves over my ears. The raw fear deepened into a burning numbness, like I was freezing to death, but from the inside out.

Until I heard the whistle, I lifted my head, I ran to it, ran into the open.

I don’t remember anything else. But it stood to reason, given the fact that I woke up at Cassell blinded in one eye, that I’d been shot in the head.

Ever since then, I’d been trying to find him, but there were no records of any Herzog, any Black Swan Bay no matter how hard I searched. 

I didn’t bother studying. I didn’t care about Cassell. One thing I did care about was honing the dragon power that allowed me to survive both of those frigid nights. It was a mystery to most. I couldn’t seem to trigger it on command. So instead, I focused on martial arts, shooting, and military tactics. I excelled at them. 

But when my fellow classmates invited me to hang out, I always declined. If I wasn’t training to fight, I was looking for him.

My first assignment to Japan annoyed me, forcing me into close contact with people I honestly cared nothing for. Fortunately, they knew by now that I’d rather be left to my lonesome. I buried my head in my laptop, doing google searches about Siberian shipping routes.

It wasn’t until we got 8,000 meters deep and Caesar handed me the recorder for my last words that the truth came out.

I spoke with a thick Russian accent into the communication link. “I would awfully like to have a sweet message for a fiancee or a mother or father. Any loved one. But I don’t have those any more...”

Caesar glanced over at me. This was the first time I’d spoken about anything personal.

“Sergey... you named me that. You brought up. You made me trust you. When I was lost in woods you whistled to bring me back, so I wouldn’t freeze to death. You taught me how to whistle. And then... when I was lost and alone watching the people I loved die?” A smile came to my face. “You whistled.”

I chuckled. “Oh... I thought I had made it. You going to come and save me.”

My voice grew cold. “You shot me in the head.”

Johann Chu turned to look now.

“I lost everything. And now... I’m stuck bottom of the ocean, but you can bet, that I won’t stay here.  Oh no... there’s no way in hell, I’m staying down here.”

I began to whistle into the recording, it was a beautiful haunting melody, a lullaby. Then I said. “I’m going to kill you....” And ended the recording.

Of course, we escaped the Trieste and had all manner of adventures afterwards, but none of the team ever forgot it. They all realized my goal in life didn’t involve dragons or anyone else. Only that one person.

When a random street thug tried to kill Lu and was interrogated by Caesar. He mentioned the name Herzog. Caesar turned to me, expecting me to say something. That gave the man the opportunity to inject himself with something that turned him into a ferocious beast.

My EX had triggered. My shadow stretched forward with grasping hands and wrapped his ankle. It dragged him down into my shadow like it was an abyss! The shadow swallowed him down. His screaming cut off as soon as his mouth went into the black. He was gone without a trace. My eyes went from yellow, back to their tranquil brown. 

I thought Lu Mingfei was going to piss himself. It was funny as hell. I started to laugh. “Well, I didn’t expect to hear that name here...” I said.

Days passed and my obsession only grew, I was less and less willing to follow orders. I no longer cared about the mission or the Hydras. I snuck out at night, looking for the Devil Clan, people who had access to these drugs and asking for Herzog. Some of them survived my interrogation. Some people didn’t.

One night, Caesar caught me out. He followed me on the trail of a prostitute who was likely a Devil. My plan was to ‘hire her’ for information. Caesar pushed me against the wall and pressed a gun to my head.

“You’ve gone too far this time Sergey. I’m reining you in, stay in the Takamagahara. If you leave one more time, I’m gonna put a bullet in you.”

I smiled at him. “Be sure to whistle when you do it.” It’s not like I hadn’t been shot before.

But I took the hint and behaved for a while. And it was fine because Herzog came to me.

Deep in an underground cavern, surrounded by death. That’s where he hid, like some troll. I wasn’t scared of him. I’d been hunting for him. I stood surrounded by these crimson colored rocks. I whistled to draw him out. Just like he did to me. I knew he would recognize who it was.

I heard him laughing before I saw him. He was this a grotesque flesh monster in a mask swaying under the weight of his own ambition and ego. “You’re still alive! Your song is beautiful.”

I still didn’t have any control over my EX. As soon as I saw him, it went out, full force. My eyes flashed yellow and the darkness grew to envelop the entire cave in black. I just kept whistling. I watched him fight the shadow hands as they pulled him down. Eventually, you didn’t see him or hear him.

The shadows went back and I finished whistling.

I lit a cigar and turned around. Anjou Johann and Caesar, were behind me. But especially Anjou, a man who could truly understand me. You see: both of us know what it’s like to be driven by revenge, not to care about anything, except getting back at the person that wronged you. Anjou knows I don’t care about dragons or whatever.

But he helped me kill Herzog, so I told him. “Okay. I’ll help you kill your dragons now.”