The hallway outside Prophesy lab, somewhere else, and then the roof, 3rd period
Nadia may have been trying not to be as argumentative with people in the last few days, but she couldn't help poking at Bel just a little bit.
Why didn't anyone else see that he was a dangerous asshole?
Oh, great, just what he needed. Another session of Nadia trying to yap his ears off. He shot her a dark look, daring her to start something with him.
Well, she certainly wasn't going to back down from a dare. "Punched anyone lately? Or was hitting Cally enough to satisfy you?"
"Fuck off," Bel grumbled. "Unless you want me to punch you this time, little miss prone to violence. Pot, kettle, anyone?"
"I've hit one person in the last few months, and from where I'm standing, he deserved it. You, on the other hand. . . ."
"It was an accident," Bel growled. "And I don't have to explain myself to you anyway."
"And how, exactly, do you accidentally punch someone in the face? And how about Logan? Was that an accident? If Walter hadn't been there, you could have killed him."
Bel certainly didn't look too disturbed at that thought. "Yeah, too bad your boyfriend showed up," he said.
Nadia poked a finger in his chest. "And that is exactly the problem. You don't care about anything but yourself, do you. You're just a selfish ass who's managed to charm most of the people in this school. But I see through you."
Bel grabbed at her finger. "You just can't stand to see somebody else happy, can you?" he sneered. "What's the matter, Walter not getting it up for you or something? Phoebe and I are perfectly happy, and there's nothing you can do about it."
"Walter and I are fine. I just don't want to see Phoebe get hurt. I've seen guys like you before, Bel. Guys who think the sun rises and sets just for them and they can do anything they want, fuck the consequences. And I've seen what happens to people who get close to guys like you. And I'm not going to let that happen around here."
"Yeah, and you just fucking know me so well," Bel said. "How'd you become such an expert on me, huh? You've certainly been following me around enough, but let me tell you, you don't know me at all, you stupid bitch."
"Following you? This isn't exactly a large island, Bel. It's not hard to see what's going on. And you call me a bitch one more time, and you'll see just how much trouble I can bring you."
Bel leaned in close to her. "Bitch," he said.
Why was she not surprised? She shot her hand out, whether to smack him or shove him away, she wasn't entirely sure. "Bastard,"
Bel caught her hand. If she was going to start a fight, he wasn't going to have it right here, outside of Phale's classroom. He started to shimmer, intending to take them to the roof.
Nadia felt . . . something weird happening and tried to jerk away. "What are you--"
The world around them changed, but not into the roof. The air grew dark, heavy, and hot, and towering stone walls appeared.
"What the hell did you do?!"
Bel looked around in confusion. "I didn't do this!" he said. "I didn't bring us here. I was going for the roof!"
"Well fix it!" Nadia spotted a sign up on the wall and her eyes widened further.
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here
"Get us out. Now!"
Bel closed his eyes and concentrated.
Nothing happened.
"Oh, hell," he said. "I can't shimmer."
"I really don't need to know about your personal problems." There were shapes moving along the wall now, and screaming in the distance. The shapes were headed for them. "Just get us out!"
"I'm trying!" Bel growled. He tried to shimmer again, but for some unknown reason, his power was failing him. Somebody must've interrupted his shimmer and sent them here, then stripped him of his power. At least, he realized, conjuring a fireball, it wasn't all his powers. He eyed the approaching shadows and readied himself for a fight.
"All talk huh? Why am I not surprised?" Nadia cursed to herself as she saw him summon the fireball and started looking for a weapon.
Lots of rocks, big ass of a guy who she hated and who hated her back.
Oh, she was so screwed.
The shadows resolved into demonic creatures straight out of the medieval wood cuts, cobbled together out of bits of Earthly and un-Earthly creatures. They shrieked at the Nadia and Bel, extending claws and showing fangs.
"Get down!" Bel snarled to Nadia. He shifted into his demon form to fight; he wasn't going to take any chances with these things. Two fell to his fireballs before they could reach them. A third pounced on Bel, trying to grabble him to the ground.
Much as she was loathe to admit it, Bel's shout did make sense. He was rather better equipped to handle these things right now.
When the third actually landed on Bel, though, Nadia went back into action. She grabbed one of the larger, pointier rocks and slammed it at the demon's head.
The demon on Bel shrieked in pain and struggled to turn toward Nadia, but Bel grimly snapped its neck before it could escape his grasp. "I could've handled that myself," he said, dusting himself off.
"Oh, pardon me for not wanting you to die before you can get me out of here." Nadia turned away from him to look for something, preferably a gun, but a big stick would do, that she could use as a weapon.
"Shut up or I'll just leave you here," Bel growled. "You can bitch all the demons here to death."
"Oh, and I'm sure that Phoebe would be just thrilled to find out you left her lab partner behind in--who the hell are you?"
The man who had walked up while Bel and Nadia were fighting shrugged. "Someone who's not supposed to be here." He looked at the dead demon, then back at the two of them. "And neither are you."
"Yeah, so how'd that happen?" Bel demanded. "And how the hell do we get out of here?" He managed to shift back into human form, but it was a struggle. This place was too much like home.
"How you got here?" The man shrugged. "You're alive, so I have no idea. As for how you get out . . . ." Another shrug. "Go that way." He pointed to a gate in the wall. "Try not to die first. You'll probably know it when you see it."
Nadia looked back at the Abandon all hope sign. It didn't make much of an exit sign. "You've got to be kidding."
"Why the hell should we trust you?" Bel said suspiciously.
The man rolled his eyes. "Look, I'm not even the one who's supposed to be talking to you, but he had to go deal with some old Italian in Limbo."
Nadia looked from the man, to the building, to Bel, to the dead demons. "Unless you've got some other idea of what the hell we're supposed to do, I vote we listen to him."
"You're not equipped to handle a place like this," Bel said. He looked at the sign and sighed. "All right. Let's go then."
"In that I don't have a gun, I'd agree with you. But you'd be surprised what I'm 'equipped' to deal with." Nadia started towards the entrance in the wall without looking to see if Bel was following.
Bel indeed followed after Nadia, warily keeping an eye out for more demons. This place had the feel of home, but not quite. And not being able to shimmer bothered him. If any of his other powers failed, they could be in serious trouble. Well, more trouble than they were in already.
Nadia stepped through the gate in the wall and into a graveyard on fire.
The flames licked up out of pits and across the skin of people who were sunk into them, wailing and shouting curses all the while. She shuddered and tried only to look straight ahead as she hurried through. She had a feeling what this place was, and she really didn't want to know who was trapped here.
She was so busy trying not to look at the burning graves that she nearly fell when she suddenly encountered the boiling river of blood.
She gagged and stepped back. "No one's equipped to handle this."
"I've seen worse," Bel said grimly. He stared at the boiling river of blood. Something about it called to him, like he belonged there. He tried to shake the feeling off. "Okay, yeah, let's get the hell out of here," he said. "There's gotta be some way out of this place."
Nadia shot him a confused look, but nodded slowly. "There must be . . . a bridge . . . or something we can get across on." She wasn't sure how he could have encountered anything worse than this. She looked up and down the banks, swallowing convulsively, and spotted a fallen tree that spanned the river. "There. We can use that."
Bel tried vainly to shimmer to the other side, but his power still wasn't working. "Looks like the only way," he said. "Not sure how stable that thing is though."
Nadia shook her head. "The trunk is thick, and the roots are still partly into the ground on the other side. It'll hold, if you keep your weight low." She considered tossing out some comment about how he'd have to learn to crawl then, wouldn't he, but bit it back. The coppery, cloying smell of the river made her not want to talk that much. She scrabbled up onto the tree and started to cross.
It groaned and sighed, and not in a tree-like way, whenever she moved. Her foot slipped, scraping at the bark, and drew blood.
"Dios." She bit her lip and hurried across, trying not to think about what was making her hands and the bottoms of her boots slick.
The blood didn't bother Bel; he'd seen enough over the years to make him pretty much immune to the sight of it. He started to crawl across the tree trunk, but over the middle of the river, something made him pause. He looked down at the churning river of blood and was suddenly struck again by the feeling that he belonged here.
And as if to prove he didn't have a choice, something invisible reached up and seized his leg, trying to pull him from the tree. He flailed, trying to hang on, but it pulled him over the side. He managed to catch hold of a branch and clung to it, dangling over the boiling blood.
Nadia froze, an instant moment of indecision over whether or not to help roaring through her mind before she remembered that Phoebe would be equally annoyed at her if she left Bel here as she would if he left her. She cursed and looked around for something that could help.
This side of the boiling river was a forest, filled, as everywhere in this place seemed to be, with screams and moans. She hurried over to one of the trees to pull off a good sized branch.
The tree screamed as she broke it off, and spit blood across her face. "I'm sorry," she said hurriedly, turning back to where Bel was dangling.
"Bitch," said the tree.
"Oh, fuck you." She tucked the branch under her arm and crawled back out onto the tree-bridge, wrapping her legs tightly around the trunk as she stretched the branch out to Bel. "Grab on!"
Bel grabbed hold of the branch. He was able to swing his legs up and wrap them around the tree trunk, then slowly pulled himself back atop it. For a moment he clung there, panting.
He sat up and looked at Nadia. "Thanks," he said gruffly.
Nadia nodded. "Let's just keep moving and get the hell out of here." She made her way back off the tree and started into the forest.
Some how the trees, the way they bled and screamed and feel silent, bothered her more than the river or the graveyard had.
"I hope there's a big door with a neon sign that says 'EXIT' over it," Bel grumbled, climbing off the tree after he crossed the river. He continued to keep a close eye out. Screaming trees and rivers of blood? Was this place going to get any worse?
Nadia didn't respond. It seemed to be getting harder for her to walk, as if the bushes were reaching out to coil around her ankles. She fell behind as she tried to untangle herself. "Caray,"
Bel turned around. "C'mon, hurry it up, I wanna get out of here," he said.
". . . trying," A root sprung out of the ground and wrapped over Nadia's foot, sending her tumbling forward. More roots sprung up and started to wrap around her legs.
Bel instinctively conjured a fireball, the quickly extinguished it when he realized he couldn't throw it without possibly harming Nadia as well. Cursing he summoned his athame instead, then moved forward and grabbed Nadia, alashing at the roots, trying to get them to release her.
Nadia kicked out at the roots as her legs were freed, using Bel's grip on her to pull herself to her feet. The roots continued to grab at her, so as soon as she was up, she was running. "Thanks," she gasped. "Run now,"
Bel kept a hold of her arm, pulling her with him as they ran. He didn't stop until they were well clear of the trees. "What the hell is this place?" he said, trying to catch his breath.
Nadia doubled over when they stopped to try and catch her breath faster. At Bel's question, she reached up a hand to the cross Walter had given her that summer. "Exactly. I think." She glanced back towards the trees apprehensively.
Bel looked around and suppressed a shudder. "Maybe that's why I feel like I belong here," he said, half to himself.
Part of Nadia couldn't agree more. "Well, you are rather evil. . . ."
"Shut up!" Bel snarled. "You don't know anything about me!"
Nadia just stared at him for a moment. "You're the one saying that you feel at home in Hell."
Bel wasn't about to take criticism from Nadia. "You wouldn't understand," he muttered.
"Coleridge Benjamin Turner!" a voice called out.
Bel froze and turned around, staring at the man who was approaching them. It had been years, but he still recognized him. "Father?" he said hesitantly.
"I'm disappointed in you, son," Benjamin Turner said. "I thought I raised you to be better."
"What do you mean?" Bel said, taking a step back.
"I tried to take you from your mother," Benjamin said. "But you became everything I feared anyway."
"I didn't want to!" Bel protested. "I didn't have a choice!"
"There's always a choice, Cole," Benjamin said, shaking his head.
A young boy appeared, huddled against a stone wall. He was shaking and crying, and his face was bloody from recent blows. His hands were also covered with blood.
An older man in black robes rounded the corner and stopped in front of him. "Stop crying, boy," he said coldly. "You did what you had to do. What you were born to do."
"I didn't want to kill her," the boy said between sobs. "I didn't want to kill any of them. Why did you make me do it, Raynor? Why can't I just go home?"
Raynor reached down and seized the boy's wrist, yanking him to his feet. "You're a demon, Belthazor. A killer. And the sooner you learn to accept that, the easier it will be."
"No!" the boy say, trying to squirm free.
Drawing back his hand, Raynor savagely struck the boy across the face. He then seized him by the throat and slammed him against the wall. "You have so much promise, Belthazor," he said. "So much potential. The Source has seen great things for you. But the longer you fight it, the harder you will make it for yourself. Accept what you are."
"I can't," the boy said pleadingly.
Raynor squeezed his hand, and the boy began to choke. "Don't force me to teach you another lesson, boy," he said. "I doubt Vornac would be as patient with you as I have been."
The boy managed to shake his head. "Please, no," he said. Older Bel closed his eyes, flinching at the memories of all he'd suffered at Vornac's hands.
"Then stop this foolish struggle and accept what's inside you," Raynor said, releasing his hold on the boy. "Let evil make you strong. Then all this pain will end."
Sniffling, the boy wiped his eyes and nodded. "I'll be strong," he whispered.
Benjamin Turner shook his head again as the image of Raynor and young Bel disappeared. "I thought better of you, son," he said.
Bel dropped his gaze, unable to face his father and the disappointment in his eyes. He felt himself growing cold and dead inside. His father had given him a soul and died trying to save him. For what? For nothing. He did belong in this place.
Nadia looked back and forth between the strange vision and Bel. If this was all true. . . . "What the hell? Bel?"
"Get out of here," Bel said dully, looking back toward the river of blood. "Find the way out."
"Okay, I don't think so. First, I can't do that," she waved her hands around. "Shimmery thing you do. Secondly, I am not explaining to Phoebe why you're stuck in Hell." She grabbed for his arm. "Now. Let's. Go!"
The warmth of a human hand on his arm jolted Bel from his despair. But not completely. "You're a clever girl, Nadia," he said. "You'll find the way out. You know what I am, don't you think I belong here?"
They didn't have time for this.
I swear, if this is some deus ex machina crap to get us to get along, I will punch someone, she thought, then yanked on his arm again. "Right, asshole, I thought you said you loved Phoebe. What do you think it will do to her if you never fucking come back?"
"She'd be better off without you, Cole," his father said. "You don't deserve her. She deserves better." He held out his hand. "Come with me. You belong her."
Bel felt trapped between his father's words and Nadia's pressure on his arm. He could feel himself sinking further into despair as he struggled with his feelings of guilt. Even his own father was condemning him. Maybe he was right. No, his father loved him. His father tried to save him. His father wouldn't give up on him like that.
Bel stared at the shade. "You're not my father," he said through clenched teeth. "You're not real."
Benjamin Turner shook his head and disappered. Bel turned to Nadia. "Let's go," he said shakily. "We gotta get out of here."
[ooc: preplay tbc in comments on this post. Locked to Bel, please. That they are arguing in the hall, disappear, and then eventually show back up on the roof is fine for broadcast. Where they disappear to and anything that happens there is NFB, please. Thanks to sogothcally for giving us the idea for our "Virgil"]