Chapter Text
Lucio had died. Skewered upon that mutated arm of Gregor's. Valencina screamed and shouted at Lucio's body, her anger melting into something else that would not be named. She watched Lucio's body twitch a few times, and then his head lolled to the side, his violet eyes looking faded and blank. She knew he was dead.
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Lucio woke up with a gasp. Quick, heavy breaths followed. He had not a clue where he was. He was laying on his stomach on hardwood floor, the room lit by yellow light. He was looking around when he realized that there were people here, staring at him in silence, occasionally whispering to eachother, looking at him as if he had just been sent to be publicly executed. Looks of sympathy. No, he didn't deserve any of that, he didn't want it either.
He suddenly remembered something.
His heart
In an instant his gloved hand went to his chest, clawing at it as if he was trying to shove his hand in there, and he noticed that there was a massive hole in his clothes where he had been stabbed. There was no hole going all the way through his chest though. His lungs and heart were intact, though he would have believed otherwise, speaking how hard it was to breathe.
After making sure his heart was still there, he stood up as fast as someone who literally just died could and unsheathed his blades, looking at each of the people in the room. He couldn't stop the trembling in his body, he couldn't focus, and his eyes kept falling onto his shaking blades, his master would beat him for this. "DO NOT SHOW WEAKNESS ON THE BATTLEFIELD!!" He could almost hear her shouting.
"Yo, the new guys violent!" A voice shouted in astonishment, it came from a person wearing a pair of sunglasses and a fedora. He could hardly hear them with the blood and adrenaline pumping through his ears at record breaking speeds.
He could feel his heart quicken, he stumbled, feeling lightheaded. In that moment of his weakness, he felt a pair of arms wrap around him from behind, trapping his arms and preventing him from moving, much less defending himself. He obviously struggled, kicking and lashing out.
"Someone take his swords." A gruff voice behing him said.
He craned his head back to try to see the person, and he caught a glimpse of blue hair before his head shot back when someone tried pulling his swords out of his grip. The man had curly brown hair and a smug grin, staring at Lucio as he managed to take the larger blade out of his hand.
"One down." The curly haired man said with satisfaction, twirling the sword in his hand. "Nice sword, where'd ya get it?"
He didn't give Lucio any time to respond before trying to pull the smaller blade out of his grasp. It took quite a while, and also with the the man holding him tightening his grip around his neck, the sword finally slipped out of his hand. "NOW LOOK AT THE MESS YOU'VE GOTTEN YOURSELF INTO. You're supposed to be an EXAMPLE, stupid Textbook." He could hear his master yell at him.
He now had nothing to defend himself with, so he did what any kid raised in the Backstreets would do. He started struggling in the blue-haired man's grip, trying to free himself, ignoring the stabs of literal agony that shot through his heart and lungs. He was going to fight with every tooth and nail. He was so desperate that he'd barely registered what they were saying until it was too late. Something bonked him on the back of his head and...
Down
Down
Down he went.
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patter patter
It was raining.
He was caught in the middle of it.
His master had picked him off the streets when she found him, he could remember clearly that he was starving, prepared to let the Sweepers take him. He remembered that he was zoned out, his mind drifting through fog before ste had stood infront of him, casting a shadow onto him.
"Hey, kid." Her voice had snapped him out of his thoughts. "Get up. You're coming with me."
She grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and held him above the ground when he didn't move. She smelled like alcohol and cigarettes. He had fought weakly, but it was futile. She had dragged him to a door. Going through it was... it was like stepping through a portal. Well it really was a portal, but is was unsettling and it made him feel sick. There, she sat him down at a table, gave him something to eat, and introduced herself. Valencina. That was her name.
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Lucio sat up with a sharp gasp that sent jolts of pain through his chest. He doubled over, wheezing and clutching his chest. Holy Wings. Dying really hurts. He sat there for a moment, trying to recover. He's been through worse. Textbooks don't cry out in pain or need to take breaks.
It took a moment for the pain to fade from his chest. He glanced around the room, noting that this obviously wasn't his room. He was lying on a soft mattress and a poofy blanket covered him, it was softer than anything he'd been permitted to lay on. Most of the 'beds' in the Thumb Corridor felt like wooden boards, and the blankets were thin sheets, Wings he didn't even get a pillow. He grabbed his hair and pulled the ponytail to his front and started messing with it, wrapping his hair around his hand and squeezing it, a habit he picked up when he was stressed. It helped. A bit.
He looked up around the room. As much as he wanted to go back to sleep, he was... anxious, for a lack of a better word. There was a pit in his stomach, it made him feel sick. He was alone, had neither of his swords, and he was exhausted and weak. It reminded him of the many times that he nearly died during his training with his master. Every time it was because he'd been sloppy and was constantly taking brutal hits, both from her fist and her swords. He's never had time to heal properly, so one day his body finally gave out.
The room he was in was dark, faintly lit by moonlight that filtered through the curtains. He glanced around, his eyes landing on a mirror on a shelf on the left side of the door. Wings, he looked like he'd just gone through hell. Maybe he did actually. He pulled the blankets off his body and released his hair, throwing it back over his shoulder. His shoes made heavy taps on the floor as he limped to the mirror, picking it up and sitting back on the bed.
His face was covered with blood and bruises and he had heavy bags under his eyes. He was still wearing the bandages he had gotten prior to the raid on the House of Spiders, and they were fairly dirty. His light grey hair had dried blood crusted in it, and his violet eyes looked dead. He didn't need the mirror to see that his clothes were pretty much ruined. There was a giant hole in the front and back of his shirt and vest, where he had practically been turned into a kebab, and it was covered in just straight red. It was gross, he wouldn't doubt it if there were stray chunks of his lungs and ribs on his clothes.
He jolted and almost dropped the mirror when someone knocked on the door and entered. He almost flinched when the light was flipped on. Textbooks don't flinch from something as simple as a light. The person who came in was the blue-haired man. The one who had held him in a death grip. The man was tall and was fairly muscular. He wore a white t-shirt and dark brown pants. He also had something in his hands.
"So, uh..." The man said awkwardly. Lucio regarded him with a blank stare. "i'm just gonna say it- i'm sorry for earlier."
Lucio put the mirror aside and stood up, putting his hands behind his back. He cleared his throat.
"I would also like to apologize. My... behaviour was impolite and..." He trailed off, his fatigued mind unable to come up with anything else, so he finished with "I'm sorry."
The man stared dubiously at his unsteady, wobbling form. Lucio felt like fainting. Maybe he shouldn't have stood up so quickly, his mind felt like it wading through wet concrete.
"Well my name is Guest 1337, or just Guest. What's yours?" The man- Guest, asked, folding his arms over his chest.
"My name is Lucio, sir." He answered. It felt odd to say his own name to a stranger. He realized that he's only ever introduced himself to a minimum of fifteen people in the past five years, and still then, his real name was overshadowed by the nickname 'Textbook' that his master referred to him by.
Guest nodded. "Some clothes spawned shortly after I knocked you out, so we assumed it was for you." He said, carefully approaching Lucio and holding out the clothes.
He took the clothes, staring at the soft fabric that sat in his hands. "Thank you, sir." He said, nodding politely. Carefully masking the gratitude that he felt. He couldn't trust anyone yet. He didn't have his swords, and his body felt significantly weaker than it had been.
"Wait-" He blurted when Guest turned to leave, flinching as the word slipped from his lips. "Uh- Where... am I?"
"Oh, right. Welcome to... what we call Forsaken." And after Guest said that, he turned and left, shutting the door behind him, leaving Lucio with unanswered questions and a level of confusion that he'd never experienced before.