Welcome to Gaia! ::

WARNING: THE AUTHOR NOTES KIND OF TURNED INTO A MINI-RANT. OOPS.

Title totally not stolen from a Skillet song nope.

So I decided to step outside of my comfort zone and write something not involving my usual characters. I also decided to make my side project not be a comic anymore and made it a story instead. Kind of.

I want crits. Specifically on hooking the reader (something I fail at SOOOOO much.), showing instead of telling, word choice, grammar, and other general thoughts on whether the story's interesting or not. And I'm not GETTING them in the regular writers forum because my writing is boring. I'm not even going to bother adding "non-meanish crits" to this author notes because at this point I really don't give a s**t. I want feedback. This is quite possibly the only thing I have and ever will write that doesn't include my same old flat and boring characters.

Just a warning before we begin. If you don't like violence, meaningless fluffing up of the paragraphs (kind of), cussing (later, when I continue this... The MC is kind of a potty mouth jerkass until later), thinks not making perfect sense until explained, unconventional or odd names, or if you may be offended by unconventional portrayal of angels, demons, heaven, and hell, Fantastic Racism on the MC's part (until later) against humans, (some) poetic description, bad puns, and cheese, then this story may be a threat to your mental heath and make you want to punch me through your computer screen. A lot.

This first part is 891 words. Couldn't make myself write about 200 more for it. Ah well.

On with the show.
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They thought they could defeat me. How ignorant they were, to think I was weaker than them. It was satisfying, however, to see the look on their faces as I cut them down...

One by one...

Letting their blood drip off of my tainted blade...

Watching their faces as their comrades fell.

Despite what they might have thought, I wasn’t doing this for myself. Demons were not, in fact, selfish creatures. We all searched for the good of our kind. If I had the choice, I would have drawn it out. Their misery was my delight. Their screams of agony as they bled out on the ground was my song.

“Why are you doing this?” I looked over to see a human dragging herself towards me, her legs twisted at an odd angle. The only one I had the chance to really make suffer before others arrived. “I know you from that store. You were so nice then--”

“There’s a thing you humans call acting,” I snapped. “I hated that store, catering to you disgusting creatures! You have no sense of order! It is you who should be catering to us! Her highness deems it so.”

Having been defeated and broken, she didn’t try to argue with me. I leaped out the window and escaped into the darkness of what they called ‘night’. It was a nice change from the perpetually red sky of Hell.

I had left my apartment just hours before, while it was still warm outside and the sun was still in the sky. The night, on the other hand, was frigid. A rather unpleasant contrast to my home, which I would be returning to – hopefully – soon enough.

Paying no attention to where I was walking, I had to admit, when a cat screeched at me and scurried into the bushes, it startled me. But it also brought my attention to something else. Curled up in the bushes was a young girl.

Human? No. There was something inhuman about her. Demon spawn? No. There was some kind of... Holy air about her.

I inched forward, although every fiber of my thousand-year-old being told me to run. She looked up when I finally got close enough to see her feathery, white wings. I instantly recognized her when she looked me in the eyes.

Black and white eyes that mirrored mine.

Ears that came to a point.

Icy, pale skin.

She was the entire reason I was there. Not a human, not demon spawn. Not even an angel. A mix, perhaps. I had heard rumours, but had dismissed them as misinformation.

“... Rache?”

“It’s good to see you,” she spoke softly. Her lips – painted a pale blue – curved up in a smile. “I’ve been watching your thoughtless sin. It really is disgusting. I cannot comprehend why you would continue to draw blood from innocent humans. ”

I sneered and turned away. “I should have known. Why do you continue to observe me? I have no intention of going there with you.” I refused to say the name of such a horrid place aloud. Heaven. So boring; they’re supposedly omnipotent, and yet they allow such creatures to roam freely. If they had only killed the Emperor before he spawned a bloodline, perhaps all of Hell would have never been.

How stupid.

“I have no intention of trying to make you see the light. I see now your soul is too deep within the darkness to be saved.” She frowned and stood up. She was shorter than me by a mile, but no less intimidating. She grabbed my arm.

And. It. Hurt. Like. Heaven.

Jerking away, I took a step back. “What did you do?” I looked down at my arm to see the markings missing.

“Are you sure you wish to take that form to fight me? Why not show me how you really look, Misery?” She took a step toward me and smiled innocently. “I always wondered what you really looked like, mommy.”

I winced at the thought of being that thing’s mother. “Let’s save this for some other time.”

I turned and ran, hoping she would not give chase. In hindsight, I jinxed myself on that. She quickly caught up with me (I expected as much – she did have the advantage of flight) and I turned to run the other way. However, she had already landed. On the ground, an angelic spellbinding circle appeared around me, preventing my escape.

“Come on. Pretty please? I want this to be a challenge, Misery.”

I glared at her and threw my sword at her. “I’m perfectly capable of beating you like this!”

She caught it by the blade and then flipped it. “Oh well.” She wielded my sword as her own. She was no normal angel – a blade tainted by such darkness would have burned them to the touch just like she burned me when she channeled her holy light onto my arm – stripping me of my markings there.

She released the circle. I ran for my life.

I was surprised that she just stood there, watching me leave.

And then...

My legs gave out on me. I hit the ground and faceplanted by the sidewalk (but luckily for me, not on the side walk). Exhausted, I just turned over and let myself pass out right there.

I am jumping up and down in my seat I never thought I could get someone on the edge of their seat! <3

yeah, but at least it's mostly showing, right? Eww, you should see how much telling I do with my other set of characters. I should put that story under some serious revision after I finish this. I'm surprised I'm actually motivated to work on this past the one thousand words.

The next part is after a time-skip of around twenty-four hours. 800 more words, it feels so short. O__o
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Pain was the first thing that I was aware of when I awoke. Mind still in a tired haze, I took an assessment of my surroundings.

I wasn’t collapsed by the sidewalk. Instead, I was on the bed in a hospital room. For a minute, I considered the possibility that everything that happened was just a silly dream. No. That’s wrong. If it were a dream, I wouldn’t be in a human hospital. If it were a dream, I’d still have the markings on my arm...

I sat up in bed, and the stinging sensation in my side flared up. I immediately laid back down. To no avail, I tried to see over my own shoulders and breasts without lifting my head what the reason for it was.

“s**t,” I said to myself, letting my head fall back onto the pillow. “No. I’m a demon. I can take a little pain.”

It’s funny. Words of encouragement said to yourself don’t exactly make anything more bearable.

Hissing sharply, I sat up and got out of bed. I waited until the pain in my side subsided before moving again. I dug through drawers and searched for a mirror before finally finding one in the bathroom.

I was a mess. My ebony hair was stuck to my forehead and the back of my pointed ears (very uncomfortable, by the way) with no rhyme or rhythm, and my hair was flat on one side (the side I assumed I had been laying on when I passed out). Mud was caked on to one side of my face, covering one of the black lines extending from the bottom of both of my monochromatic eyes. I was wearing nothing except a human hospital gown and a matching pair of paper pants.

Peachy.

I pulled off the gown. The room was cold, but I could deal with it (at least it wasn’t freezing). I stared at the bandage covering my entire midsection in the mirror – the first thing that caught my attention was the dark red stain on one side.

Was it blood?

Of course it was. What else could it possibly be – strawberry jelly?

I carefully put the hospital gown back on and hopped back in bed. Relaxing for a bit wouldn’t hurt, right? And besides, maybe humans here would cater to me like they should. As soon as my wound’s healed, I’ll be back on the road, I thought.



The next few days went by quickly. The humans did everything they could to keep me from getting out of bed (even when my wound has already healed to the point when it would not be life-threatening for me – I guess humans have different standards.) and bugged me for what felt like hours every so often each day. They did not seem to appreciate my orders for what they were worth (they should have been delighted to be serving one as superior as I!), but they got some of the jobs I had assigned them done.

I made sure that no one was coming down the hall before changing into my clothes that they had washed and brought up to my room along with some nice and warm blankets (which I decided I was going to keep, even if the heat did wane after a while, I could always just heat them up again, right?) only a few hours prior.

It felt nice to be in my own clothes again. I was beginning to hate hospital clothes as much as I hated my old peasant clothes (Her Royal Highness would not allow me to wear my silk robes in this world, and made me leave them behind) with holes in them I wore before I saw these in the window of a store, which they required me to buy with useless slips of paper and metal coins not even made of gold, so I had to actually do work there until I had enough of it and try not to get “fired”, as they put it.

When I was dressed, I gathered up what I wished to keep and walked out of my room. I had no idea what time it actually was (although the sky was already pitch black – just the way I liked it), but I managed to sneak past the desk worker (in a way, I kind of felt sorry for her. Poor sap, working late hours) and to the elevator. When I was on the bottom floor, no one really paid any mind to me, either typing away on a computer or having a late-night snack.

They didn’t see me leave.

In my mind, I made a list of what I was going to do next.

Firstly, I’ll hunt down Rache and get my blade back. Secondly, I’ll kick her a** from here to heaven and hell and back again. Thirdly, I’ll think of something past the second option.

A plan that wouldn’t possibly fail, right?

… Right?

Really short filler chapter ahoy. GOSH I WISH WE COULD USE FONTS I NEED A SCRIPT FONT you know like one of those handwriting fonts in the word processing programs? I would kill for those, because in Google Docs there's a perfect one for Misery's handwriting and dfdfgadsfshgj I want handwriting. Also Times New Roman. Actually, the ability to choose a font in the first place.
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It was sunrise before I made it back to my apartment. I was planning to sell it, but I had held onto the keys because I wanted a few things from it...

And now it looked like I would be staying there a bit longer.

I plopped down onto my bed, and then stared at my right arm, which now lacked my trademark marking that defined myself. Sure, I still had them on my abdomen and face.... But those didn’t define me as much as my unique arm marking. Not even Her Royal Highness had such an intricate marking on her arms. My abdomen marking – in the shape of a sun – was something that many other demons had markings similar to. My face markings (the lines extending down from the bottom of my eyes) were something everyone in my clan had.

Damn that Rache, I thought. If she hadn’t turned up this never would have happened. I thought she died – I wish she did! A disgrace to my name, and to my family’s name! I’m surprised I even put up with her for a year.

I wished so much to take out my anger on the innocent, helpless wall beside my bed. But then I’d have to pay for repairs, and I didn’t have money for that.

I opened my drawer and pulled out my notepad, not bothering to close the drawer when I had gotten what I wanted from it. In my usual half-cursive handwriting, I wrote:

Plans for capturing Rache:
-Set loose the 7DS and have them search for her?
-Face her in true form and eat her intestines?
-Face her in true form, kick her a**, and let the 7DS eat her intestines?
-Actually, no intestine -eating.
-Get the 7DS to team up with me?
-Go to Heaven and ask nicely?

I would, of course, need to get my markings to return and obtain my blade. I had no idea in Hell how I was supposed to do that, either.