Unbecoming

'Author's Note - This short story is set during the aftermath of the RP "A Nobel Vendetta", and is mostly for personal use. While every attempt has been made to reduce the original's graphic material, the nature the characters involved makes this difficult without removing all atmosphere.'

“How is she, doc?” Diaboli asked in a quiet voice.

“Well, I can confidently say she’ll survive, but...” an elderly man dressed in grimy surgical gear wipes his brow wearily, “...until she wakes up we won’t know the full extent of the damage.”

Diaboli nodded solemnly, eyes fixed upon the face of the deathly pale girl lying on the bed beside him. Across from him a small monitor was running, displaying a slow but reassuringly constant heartbeat – the only reminder that the girl had not yet slipped into the cold abyss of death.

Four gunshot wounds she had suffered. Combined with a broken leg, a dislocated shoulder and more chemical burns then he could bring himself to look at, it was a miracle that she had survived at all. That single fact was the only thing keeping the Mistralian kingpin from flying into a vengeful rampage. But only barely.

“Spinal injuries take time to heal, doesn’t they?” he whispered.

The elderly man nodded gravely. “I’ve done all I can, but I’m afraid time is the best healer.” He removed his dirtied gloves as he spoke. “It can take months, sometimes years, to make a full recovery. If she ever does.”

Again, Diaboli merely nodded his understanding. He had been furious when he had heard the news, as he always was whenever someone betrayed him. But this was different. Of all the people in the world, Blanc was the last person he expected to do this to him. To go on some pointless mission behind his back, and to return to him unconscious and on the brink of death. Just as he was finally about to feel normal again…

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Diaboli eventually said, forcing strength into his words as he spoke them. Rising from his seat, he leant over and kissed the girl’s forehead, before bidding a quiet farewell. With a heavy heart he closed the door to Blanc’s room and approached the group of people waiting outside, his mournful look freezing over into a scowl more fitting for a man of his reputation.

The first of the trio awaiting his orders was a large man, nearly seven feet tall and built like a brick wall, only tougher. A grey mask depicting a demon from Mistralian folklore covered his face, hiding all but a pair of dull brown eyes and a thin line of a mouth.

“How is she?” Hector Mettal asked in a gruff voice, arms folded in front of his thick flak jacket as he echoed Diaboli’s own words. He’d boarded the first flight he could find to Mistral when he had heard the news of Blanc’s injuries. Commendable, for someone as busy as him.

“She’s alive, at least,” Diaboli replied unhappily, adjusting his patchwork tie impatiently as a sudden urge to crack some skulls washed over him. “Still unconscious though.”

“Shame. She seemed like a good kid,” the second man of the group said. This one was tall – even taller than the giant beside him, though much thinner. Dressed sharply in a flamboyant pink suit, Rorie Candyman twirled his brightly striped cane in his hand idly as he spoke. “Not meant for this world, I think.”

“Is anybody?” a soft voice answered, belonging to the third and final member of the party. The owner was a woman of around Diaboli’s age, dressed plainly in finely in a long dress of black and gold that paired beautifully with her curled locks of golden hair. Around her feet was coiled a monster of a dog, grey ears raised in constant alertness for any possible threats to its mistress. Lady Chryssa, accompanied by her personal guard of three ravenous hounds, was the latest addition to the crime lord’s growing empire.

“She’ll be fine,” Diaboli growled, causing Lady Chryssa’s pet to raise its head in warning. “She’s not the reason I called you three here today. We have more pressing matters...”

The trio visibly grew more attentive at the prospect of new orders. Candy especially.

“Hector,” Diaboli began, to which the veteran mercenary stood a little straighter. “I need you to track down the bastards that did this. We need to act fast, while they are still in the city.”

“Gladly,” Hector responded, the ghost of a smile playing on his lips. “The kingdom’s still on lockdown, so they won’t be getting away anytime soon. They were a large outfit – that’ll make them easier to find.”

“Candy,” Diaboli continued, turning his attention to the brightly-dressed man. “The mastermind behind Blanc and Nobel’s ambush is dead, but the company he used to run still exists. I want you to look into them, and see if you can gleam anything regarding the remaining participants.”

“Aye aye, boss,” Candy replied with a grin and a salute. “Their paperwork won’t know what hit ‘em.”

Diaboli nodded. “Lady Chryssa,” he said lastly, “these people weren’t working alone. Trago tells me they had two mercenaries working with them. I want their names and their faces. Get your people on it.”

The young woman frowned. “I’ll cast out some nets, but I doubt the fish will bite. Finding two people is a lot harder than an entire mercenary company.” She sighed. “I’ll talk to your robot – see if he remembers anything useful.”

“Tragoedia’s memory is perfect,” Diaboli replied, eyes narrowing in annoyance, as if he were personally insulted. “Hook him up to a computer, and you’ll be able to see what he saw. Whatever you do, just don’t link him to--”

“If you don’t mind me asking,” Hector suddenly interrupted, earning himself a glare from crime lord. “What will you be doing during all of this?”

Diaboli frowned as three sets of eyes fixed upon him. With a grimace, he eventually nodded.

“This was obviously not a coincidental event,” Diaboli told them, gaze turning back momentarily towards the door he had just exited, beyond which Blanc lay, crippled and near death. “This was a trap. Somebody fed Blanc and Nobel false information – someone who has access to our communications network. I need to find out who it was.”

He didn’t say what he intended to do once he found the traitor in their midst, but everyone present knew. When Diaboli finds a the mole – as he frequently does – their ends are rarely quick. It would be slow. Methodical. And unbearably painful.

This time, however, things would be different. He could feel it.

“And there’s one more thing...” he continued, hand idly tracing a fading scar on his left palm as he spoke. “...Trago mentioned that a fixer is on the loose, who’s apparently been ordered to kill everybody that was there that night. Whoever it is, I need to get to them first.”

“You mean to say that one person has been paid to hunt and kill a homicidal maniac, two dangerous contractors, and a legion of heavily-armed mercenaries?” Candy enquired with a puzzled expression. “Seems somewhat unbelievable, no?”

“I thought so to,” Diaboli replied. “But I know people who are more than capable of inflicting that much suffering...”

Diaboli trailed off. He was suddenly feeling very, very weary from all of this – and he had yet to begin to search for the mole. But a moment later a familiar rush of suppressed anger began to course through him.

“I’m done delaying,” Diaboli told himself, enthusiasm renewed as his mind cleared once again. He realised now what he had to do.

I need a fixer of my own.

As the largest of the kingdom’s cities, Mistral was seen as a safe haven by the populous’ wealthiest members. Or, at the very least, for those who acquired their riches legitimately. Council crackdowns on criminal activity throughout the city was making it increasingly risky to operate, and for Diaboli, that meant the narcotics that kept the Lien flowing were having difficulties reaching the crime lord’s clients. As a result, the need to stockpile was becoming more and more essential for the efficient running of Diaboli’s ever-expanding, drug-fuelled empire.

Finding a safe place for storing illegal substances in a city full of thieves and vigilantes was problematic. Finding somewhere untouchable, meanwhile, was practically impossible. And yet, Diaboli had found the perfect place.

On the edge of a cliff, high above the heaving slums at the mountain’s base, stood a lonely mansion. It had once belonged to a powerful and wealthy Mistralian family, feared and respected by even the city’s proudest denizens, but they were long gone. Now, the grand structure stood alone and desolate, slowly crumbling from the ceaseless march of time. But not, the locals soon realised, was it wholly abandoned.

When the first looters set their eyes on the seemingly undefended fortune within, their corpses were soon found blowing in the wind, lynched from the great oak that stood outside the mansion’s door. When Huntsmen and Huntresses ventured inside to find the creature responsible, few returned. Even those that escaped unharmed met cruel, vicious ends shortly after – cursed by whatever creature had made its nest there. That was the story, at least.

For many years this continued, and it was no surprise that the building was soon deemed haunted by an entity more fearsome and bloodthirsty than any Grimm. Soon, not even the most courageous Hunter dared step foot inside the mansion’s unhallowed grounds, even after its vicious inhabitant departed.

But what was a curse on the locals was a blessing for a man like Diaboli. What better a place was there to serve as an emergency storehouse than a place nobody in their right mind would ever consider entering, for fear of a brutal, agonising death? It was a perfect setup. At least, until Diaboli’s own people started disappearing.

“I wouldn’t go in there if I were you, sonny,” an old crone croaked, snapping Diaboli out of his thoughts.

“Hmm? Excuse me?” he said distractedly, tearing his eyes away from the greying building to face the lady who had spoken.

“That house,” she said, pointing a gnarled finger at the mansion gates. “Step through those doors, and you’ll end up like all the others: hanging up on that tree over there.” She moved her hand to the blackened oak tree within the mansion grounds. “Everybody around here knows it…a demon walks those halls. Anyone who enters ends up either dead or missing.” She told him in a low voice. “I’ve seen the bodies.”

Diaboli returned his attention to the task ahead of him, face set in a determined expression at the woman’s words. “I’ve fought demons and devils before,” he told her. Walking forward, he took the lock chaining the wrought iron gates closed in his hand. “There’s only room for one of us in this city.”

After a second of pressure the steel lock warped and buckled between his fingers, before cracking and falling away completely. With a light push of his hand, the gates swung open for him, almost invitingly.

“Nice trick,” the elderly lady noted behind him, before sighing and walking away. “I hope it serves you well.”

Diaboli ignored the woman’s words as he began walking up the path to the mansion’s sliding doors, stopping briefly to examine the old, withering oak that served as the demon’s bloodstained gallows. Indeed, even after all these years, Diaboli could still see the markings left behind from previous victims.

He tested the doors, and was surprised to find them locked. Only two people had a key to this place, and Diaboli was one of them. Deciding not to batter the door down and alert the creature within to his presence, he opted to simply use his own key instead, and nodded approvingly when the lock opened with a satisfying click.

The lobby he entered was dark and, much like the building’s exterior, was falling apart. The faded wallpaper was peeling and moulding, and great gashes decorated every surface. The carpet beneath his feet was stained dark with multiple puddles of what had to be long dried-out blood, which he stepped over gingerly as he made his way down the main corridor. The floorboards below creaked quietly with every step, but in the deathly silence it seemed to echo loudly throughout the building.

Diaboli quickly swept the first floor’s rooms, each more ruined and defiled than the last. The most notable amongst them was a side room of ambiguous purpose, which was covered from floor to ceiling in what the crime lord hoped was red paint. Needless to say, he didn’t linger in that one.

Finally, he came across what he recognised as the living room. Passing by a family painting of two young boys and their parents, Diaboli’s eyes were drawn to a dusty bookshelf in the corner of the room. Without a second thought he gripped the corner of the bookshelf and pulled it forward with a grunt, slowly revealing a hidden doorway behind.

The secret study beyond was small and cramped, filled only with a small desk and several shelves of books and ornaments, with a large plain-looking rug being the only source of decoration. To any other investigator inquisitive enough look behind the bookcase, the hidden room would likely prove disappointingly empty. But Diaboli knew it was all a ruse – a clever facade designed to redirect one’s attention away from its true purpose.

“…and its purpose is...” Diaboli began, reaching down to roll back the decorative rug, which slowly peeled away to reveal a large steel trapdoor, “...to hide this.”

Diaboli looked down at the metal portal hesitantly – momentarily gripped by the doubt that had been slowly working its way into his bones with every second he spent in this accursed place. As he reached for the latch he felt the palm of his left hand begin to burn fiercely. He’d felt the scar itch and ache in the past, and had since recognised it as a warning. A dark omen of pain and suffering ahead. But never had it hurt as excruciatingly as this.

When the pain finally began to recede, Diaboli steeled himself for the task ahead and heaved at the trapdoor’s sunken handle. For the first few seconds it didn’t budge, but after focussing the strength of every muscle fibre in his body, the metal slowly began to creak. And then, with one final effort, the trapdoor lifted.

Diaboli was practically floored by the stomach-turning stench that belched from the door’s opening, and he quickly wondered whether or not he had made a serious mistake in unlocking this hellish portal. The still air within rushed from the bowels of the earth with the sickening smell of a hundred rotting corpses, almost causing the man to retch in disgust. Shaking his head and trying his best not to breathe in the vapours, Diaboli fished a small flashlight from his coat and began his descent into the underworld.

Down and down Diaboli walked, footsteps echoing for an eternity in the darkness. The close walls around him were made of rows upon rows of rusty steel plates, held together by the occasional reinforcement here and there. The deeper he delved, the worse the rotten stench became, and yet still he pressed onwards. He grimaced when the flashlight’s beam revealed a series of dark stains on the steps before him, as if something had been dragged down into the darkened depths.

After an indiscernible amount of time, the steps finally ended. At the bottom Diaboli found a long metal corridor, almost like one found in a Atlesian airship. Like the staircase it was pitch black and oddly warm, with the floor covered in some disgusting, half-dried oily substance that Diaboli did his best to avoid stepping in. The still air itself seemed choked by noxious fumes, and the underground chambers carried a dreadful aspect that Diaboli had only experienced in his most haunting nightmares. At the end of the corridor stood a single closed door, through which the faintest slivers of light bled.

With careful steps Diaboli advanced down the corridor, pausing at every unlocked door to peer inside. The first two were uninteresting, containing nothing more than some broken furniture and a mouldy old cot, but the third brought a smile to his face despite his dismal surroundings.

In the third room, to Diaboli’s pleasant surprise, he found the merchandise he had ordered stored here. Crates upon crates of purified and packaged psychoactive chemicals, from ability-enhancing combat stimulants to recreational highs, all ready for collection and distribution. A fortune’s worth, and seemingly untampered with.

After securing the door upon exiting, Diaboli moved onto the fourth room, but stopped before he entered. A strange noise emanated from within. A constant drone, almost like buzzing, leaked from the thin gaps between the door and its frame, accompanied by the unmistakable stench of decay. It wasn’t hard to imagine what lied beyond that door.

Moving swiftly along, Diaboli entered the fifth room, and was amazed at what he saw. Piles and piles of weaponry lay scattered on the floor, many of them unique and hand-made – dozens of them. Diaboli could picture their previous owners, lovingly caring for their tools as if they were extensions of their person, having spent months upon months planning, assembling and optimising them. All of that work, only for them to be discarded without a second thought by their new master, while their makers rotted away to nothingness a few rooms away.

Turning to leave, Diaboli noticed something green hanging in the corner of the room. Upon closer inspection, he realised it was a suit. Or, at the very least, the upper half of one. The pieces looked new and bespoke in design, and were suspended from a rusty coat-hanger with unexpected care. The sight caused a torrent of memories to flood Diaboli’s mind, but he tried not to dwell on them as he made his way to the final door.

Pressing his ear against it before he entered, Diaboli could just make out the sound of movement coming from inside the room. At first it was little more than the faint sound of footsteps and the brush of fabric against metal, but then a sudden, violent chopping noise could be heard, accompanied by a meaty, cracking sound. The noise continued in an inconstant rhythm – its creator seemingly unaware of Diaboli’s presence.

Diaboli realised this was his last chance to turn back. He had no idea what would happen if he crossed this boundary. Would he be successful? Or would he end up like all the other visitors?

He shook his head in annoyance. This was important – more important then anything he had ever done. The outcome of this meeting would decide the fate of hundreds. He could not back down now.

Reaching forward, he knocked on the door.

All noise beyond the door immediately stopped. Straining to hear, Diaboli failed to pick up even the quietest of sounds. He did, however, feel a sudden presence that hadn’t been there before. Something dark, and angry, and very, very hungry.

“Come in.”

A raspy male voice welcomed Diaboli from beyond the door, with all the hospitality of a dragon ushering a naive thief into its lair. Even so, Diaboli obliged.

The room he entered was more of a makeshift butchery than a dungeon, Diaboli was unpleasantly surprised to find. Indiscernible pieces of meat hung from the ceiling by rusted hooks all around, and a dozen sharp instruments covered one of the walls. In the far corner a large table stood, upon which a fresh victim was in the process of being cut into by a hooded figure.

The creature didn’t turn as Diaboli entered, and instead kept his back to him. Little of him could be seen behind the thick black cloak draped loosely over his shoulders. And yet, Diaboli felt the man knew him the second he had arrived.

“You’re late,” the butcher told him, slowly returning to his work with the rise and fall of a well-worn cleaver.

“You were expecting me?” Diaboli replied, standing motionless a safe distance away in the centre of the room. His eyes never left the man as he hacked mercilessly into his expired victim.

“It was only a matter of time,” the man told him, fixated on his work. Eventually, after a long pause, he left the cleaver in his expired victim with a ragged breath. “You here to kill me?”

“Perhaps I should. Finish what I started last year,” Diaboli told him, but then he sighed. “But no, I’m not here to kill you.” He took a single, cautious step forwards. “I’m here to make amends.”

“Amends?”

“Yes.”

The crime lord’s words seemed to have an effect on the man, for he froze in his tracks. After a few seconds, he reached for a dirty rag hanging nearby and began drying his metal hands. Diaboli could sense a storm of emotions raging within the man’s heart from several meters away.

“You...” the man eventually whispered with an iconic rasp. “You dare try to deny me my vengeance, after everything you’ve done to me?”

The man whirled around in anger, causing the cloak to slip from his shoulders.

Veneni Sitis strode up to Diaboli until they were standing inches away from each other, hellish fury radiating off of him as he stared daggers at his former friend. His entire upper body was bare, revealing a muscular torso racked with scars beyond counting – some were old, fashioned by claw or blade, but many more were surgical in nature. Most notably, a festering zipper-like wound stretched down his body from collarbone to navel, as if he had been sawn in half and stitched messily back together. His lower arms were gone, replaced with poor metallic copies that looked old and were melded gruesomely with the remaining flesh. His signature smile was gone, however. Replaced with a twisted snarl.

“Do you have any idea what they did to me?” he hissed, anger and pain in his voice in equal measure. “In the asylum...? What I had to do to survive? What I had to...” he stepped away, looking around the room with a horror-struck expression. “What I...what have I done?” he whispered, eyes wide.

Diaboli could only watch in confusion as the killer began clawing at his head, face twisted in barely-contained agony. Blackened veins bulged on the side of his neck as he stumbled over to the table, barely managing to stay upright. The episode only lasted a few seconds, but once the apparent suffering had faded it was clear it had taken its toll on that man. Sweat poured down his face as Veneni forced himself upright, still holding his head in one hand as he staggered back over to Diaboli.

“It never ends...” he rambled disjointedly, frustration apparent in every detail of his face. “It’s like a rat is gnawing at the inside of my skull, like...” Realisation swept of his face, and suddenly his attention returned to Diaboli. “Why won’t you just kill me?” he asked with exhausted eyes. “At least then I’d have one happy memory.”

Diaboli regarded his former friend guiltily, fully knowing that he had been the one to set Veneni down the path of insanity. It was that very guilt that gave him the courage to tell the truth.

“Because I need you, Ven,” the crime lord admitted. “I’m...sorry...for what I did to you. You didn’t deserve it. Any of it.”

Veneni gave Diaboli a strange look, as if he couldn’t quite understand the words coming out of his mouth. The raw fury in his eyes eventually dissipated, only to be replaced with a tempered anger forged over the course of many years.

“You’ve got some real nerve, you know that...” Veneni told him, stepping forward to punch Diaboli hard in the shoulder, “...buddy?”

Diaboli began backing away as Veneni strode forward. “Remember Borbeck Tower?” Veneni pressed. “You could have just escaped. Instead you did this to me!” He pointed a grey finger against the network of blackened veins spreading across the side of his neck and face. “Then you dropped a building on me! Now I can’t sleep...I can’t eat...I don’t even remember doing any of this! And it’s all your fault!”

He waved his hand at the gruesome display around him, only confirming Diaboli’s suspicions regarding his friend’s mental state. Once he had realised Veneni had survived his fall from Borbeck Tower nearly a year before, he had hypothesised that without the psychoactive drugs impairing his mind he’d eventually return to normal. Now, he realised, the side effects of the Darkening Veneni had been subjected to were far more devastating than he had originally anticipated. His former friend’s apparent lapses in memory and dramatic personality shifts were evidence of that. But as long as he remained passive, Diaboli figured he still had a chance at getting through to the friend that he knew was drowning beneath the oceans of madness.

“I know we have our differences, but we need to work past that,” he said in a soothing voice, forcing himself to use his manipulative charm on his former friend. “I’m tired of fighting you, Ven. I don’t want this feud of ours to end in our deaths. Work with me again, as an equal, and I’ll find a way to fix you. I swear it.”

Again, Veneni looked at Diaboli weirdly, clearly confused by his words. Eventually, his eyes narrowed. “You need my help?” he asked uncertainly, to which Diaboli nodded enthusiastically.

“Yes. Admittedly, the Patched hasn’t been the same since you left,” he began, speaking as if Veneni had merely retired, rather than turned traitor. “Nobel has betrayed me. Others as well. One amongst them is working with my enemies. Help me punish them!”

Veneni was visibly engaged now, his suspicion beginning to fade. The look brought a small smile to Diaboli’s lips, which he quickly masked.

“And why shouldn’t I just kill you now?” Veneni suddenly wondered with casual malice, gaze turning briefly to the cleaver embedded in the body next to him. His eyes flicked back to Diaboli. “Who knows? It might make me feel better.”

“You’ll get your chance, but for now, wouldn’t you prefer getting revenge on the people who did this to you?” Diaboli asked, stepping forward to place a comforting hand on Veneni’s shoulder. “Something is trying to destroy us, Ven. Something powerful. It’s time we fought back. Not as Smiler and Patcher, but as Veneni and Diaboli.” He put on a welcoming smile. “What do you say?”

The internal conflict was evident from Veneni’s face. He looked at Diaboli, and then down at his metal hands. They were still stained with blood and grime.

“How many?” he asked.

Diaboli pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket, upon which a list of names were scribbled. He handed it over.

“This will get you started.”

Veneni gave the list a once over, face clouded in thought.

“That’s a lot of names,” he observed with a grunt. “A lot of graves to dig.” He pocketed the list. “I’ll do it, on one condition.”

Diaboli nodded enthusiastically, but frowned in concern when a long smile spread across his face. Slowly, the hitman turned to his vast array of tools, before picking out a long, thin knife. He ran a finger across the blade, noting its sharpness, before pointing it handle-first at Diaboli.

“Payment in advance,” he grinned.

Veneni watched in satisfaction as Diaboli staggered away, throwing open the door he had come through as he clutched his head in a futile attempt to staunch the river of red flowing down his face. At Veneni’s side a figure of dark green smoke slowly began to materialise, and while its surface lacked detail he could see the jagged outline of an inhumanly large mouth smiling at him.

“Kill him,” his doppelgänger screamed, mouth unmoving as its words rang in Veneni’s head, accompanied by a horrendous stabbing pain in his brain. “Kill him now!”

“No…” Veneni growled back, massaging his temple painfully. “…not yet...I need him...”

“Pathetic,” it spat in a mocking voice as the clone began to circle its creator. “He’s playing you for a fool.”

Veneni shook his head angrily. “Leave me be. I need to do this alone,” he asked the silhouette, which reared back in frustration at being challenged. With an inhuman screech, it finally backed away into the shadows.

“''So be it. You’re on your own now. But just remember, I’ll be waiting,”'' the ghost’s sneering voice reminded him as it retreated back into the darkest corner of Veneni’s mind. “I’ll always be waiting.”

And with that, the shadowy figure disappeared, leaving Veneni alone once again. He stood in silence for what felt like forever, slowly processing everything that had transpired. This ceasefire was only temporary – he knew that well enough. Eventually the two enemies would have to settle things permanently. But, for now at least, the constant migraine seemed to have receded. Perhaps there was an alternative to vengeance after all...

Then, suddenly remembering what he needed to do, he turned and strode over to a nearby shelf, upon which stood a dozen jars containing his growing collection. The mere sight of them brought a macabre smile to his face, though he wasn’t entirely sure why. Opening a ‘fresh’ container, he opened his fist and let his latest specimen fall into the greyish liquid within, patiently waiting until the icy-blue iris floated around to face him.

“Perfect,” he whispered.