Prologue D
CITY LIFE
After three days of walking and it being the afternoon, Dionysus had arrived at a city. Most of the journey had been in the mountains, where it was just rocks and grass.
He entered the city through the massive wooden arch, and was taking a walk through the streets.
"...!"
While taking a walk through the streets, he was looking around. The crowd was somewhat annoying to look through, but he managed. In particular, he was keeping an eye out for an alleyway with a door at the end of it, and in front of him lied one.
'It still exists…'
Dionysus walked down the alley, and arrived in front of the door. Above the door was a wooden sign that said three words.
The Magnum Bar.
Dionysus opened the door, and walked into the familiar looking area. There were wooden tables and seating thrown around, and a counter all the way at the back.
He smiled.
After seeing what he had come for, he began to walk out of the bar.
"Hold it!"
Except, he felt a hand on his shoulder. Dionysus swirled around to see who it was, but of course there could only be one person.
Or, one type of person.
"Buddy, wanna pay the bill for me? A man dressed so finely could only have money on him. Look at that vest! That where you hiding the money?"
The man began feeling Dionysus for money.
SLAP
Of course, Dionysus wouldn't tolerate it. He slapped the man hard enough to make him stagger onto a wooden table, and also take it down with him. Afterwards, he whipped out his handkerchief to wipe the spots that the drunkard had touched.
"Since you knocked him out cold, you gonna pay the tab for him?"
Dionysus looked up and saw that the burly man behind the counter was the one talking to him.
"...hmm."
Dionysus reached down to grab the drunkard with one hand while holding his nose with the other. He threw him off the table and set the table upright once again, and then picked up the drunkard and put him on it.
After feeling around him for a while, he found money. He threw all the copper at the man behind the counter.
"Come again."
The man behind the counter began to pick up the money while Dionysus walked out of the bar. Dionysus took a deep breath, taking in the air of the city. It wasn't the nicest air, but it was better than the air of the bar.
BANG
Something was shot at Dionysus who defended against it by sending the thing that was shot at him behind a curtain. After that, Dionysus' blindingly golden eyes looked up at the roof of the building that the thing that was shot at him came from.
There was nobody or anything there at all, it looked normal.
BANG
Dionysus was confused as another shot rang out, this time from behind him. However, there was definitely something wrong. Behind him was the door to the bar, and he should have dropped dead by now.
He spun around to see what had happened, and saw that there was a humongous hole in the door behind him. He searched for the thing that shot at him, only to find something that was essentially disintegrated on the ground, with a bit of black particles coming off it.
'He saved me, again.'
Dionysus began to deduce what was going on. Unless there were two people, it was absolutely impossible for him to be shot at from two completely different directions, unless it was someone's ability.
'Where?'
WOOSH
All of a sudden, everything went completely dark. Absolutely nothing was visible, as a humongous dome like thing surrounded the whole city.
As suddenly as it went dark, light came back. However, the dome was still there.
'...'
Dionysus didn't know if the dome was also related to him, but it wasn't good in any way or shape. If the dome didn't allow him to leave the city, he was trapped in it with someone that was apparently after his life.
FWISH
Out of nowhere, a curtain appeared in front of Dionysus. He walked right into it and disappeared.
--- SEQUENCE 2 ---
'...'
Dionysus was currently in the dimension that his curtain led to.
His ability, Behind the Curtain, allowed people and objects that could fit into his curtains to go to a dimension separate from the world. It took everything to the inside of a glass box that seemed to be floating through space.
It was a glass box that was thirty by thirty feet in length and width, with its height being ten feet up into the sky. Once something got in here, unless Dionysus willed it, it wasn't going to come out.
However, Dionysus could do more than just this if he was in the glass box himself. He walked up to one of the sides, and put his hand on the glass wall.
POP
He could see what was going on outside relative to where he was before. He could go anywhere he wanted in the real world that was relative to where he was before. Where he was in the real world is the center of the glass box, and he can see where he'll appear.
'...This'll do.'
Dionysus made a curtain appear, and walked right through it…
FWISH
… to appear inside of a room. The room had a window, and he could see where he was standing before right out of it.
"Get out."
Dionysus heeded the words of the curse that was constantly covering his back and walked out of the building and onto the main road.
"...hood."
"Yes."
He used the silhouette of a man that was always following after him as a hood. Since he was pure black, it actually worked quite well as one. Of course, it still had the rest of its body, which it tried to make look like a cape, though that didn't come out quite as good as the hood.
"Inspect dome."
"I know."
After walking for a while, he reached the edge of the city and was standing right before one of the sides of the dome.
'... It's someone's ability. There is nothing outside the city to keep out, so they're most likely trying to contain something, or someone.'
SNIFF
Dionysus immediately froze up, similar to a cat standing on its legs with it's fur sticking out. He started to sweat heavily, but he didn't dare to move even a millimeter.
"So you're the one we're after?"
Behind Dionysus was someone so powerful that he didn't even have to look at them to tell. Just simply being there made Dionysus understand that his life was forfeit before this person.
The person put their hand on Dionysus' shoulder and gripped it very tightly.
"Turn around, isn't it common courtesy to look someone in the eyes when meeting up with them?"
The person didn't quite give Dionysus a choice, as they took it upon themselves to whirl Dionysus around using the hand on Dionysus' shoulder. It was as if they were simply disrespecting the limits of strength.
"Oh, what a lovely face you have going!"
GULP
Dionysus didn't know that he could be more scared than he already was, but the horror and dread intensified yet more. It was a man with bright red hair standing before him, and his eyes were pure black.
However, neither of those were the things to worry about.
It was his smile.
The smile was so big that it looked as if the man's jaw was ready to fall off any second. Along with that, the teeth he had weren't human. They looked as if they were spikes that just simply happened to be there. In fact, Dionysus could tell that those teeth were natural.
"The name's Cerberus, what's yours?"
Cerberus continued to stare at Dionysus with his smile, but he was holding his hand out this time. Dionysus, understanding that he was in no position to disrespect this man, took his hand and shook it.
"Nice grip, but…"
Cerberus looked on top of Dionysus.
"I'm going to need to exterminate the vermin on top of your head for looking at me like that."
TH-THUNK
Dionysus' heart sped up the second he heard what Cerberus said.
"...Fuck you."
The silhouette immediately disappeared, and the place went completely dark.
FWISH
Dionysus made a curtain appear, and ran right through it.
He didn't even consider staying, a fight between two monsters that he couldn't compete with was about to take place.
From the glass box, Dionysus witnessed everything.
"...So, is he usually so cowardly?"
CHOMP
Dionysus heard a chomp, but he couldn't quite see what was happening.
"If you don't mind, I'm going to light the place up."
Yet, he could easily tell from this line that Cerberus was still alive. Right after Cerberus said that, the darkness was completely gone, and everything could be seen.
THUMP
Dionysus fell onto the ground after seeing the absurd spectacle in front of him. The silhouette had seemingly attempted to bite Cerberus' head off, yet the only thing that had happened was it's razor sharp teeth shattering.
"Come on now, that isn't a chomp!"
CHOMP
As soon as Cerberus said that, the silhouette was missing a whole arm. It's arm was currently resting within Cerberus' mouth, who began to chew on it.
"So, you're not quite a ghost, considering that you have flesh that can be chewe-!"
THUMP
Before Cerberus could even finish his sentence, he keeled over and hit the ground. The silhouette walked over to Cerberus and snatched it's arm out of Cerberus' mouth.
The silhouette stuck its arm back into place, and it was as if nothing had even happened. Then…
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
POUND
It immediately began to punch Cerberus' face into the soil beneath them.