Ashes

"Who is it?" The voice asked. It was absent of any emotion, or any interest in who I was at all.

"My name is Alexia, and I'm here to help you out. Why don't you come out of that blanket, and come with me? The bunker is a lot safer than here," I said to him, inching closer.

I felt something weird coming off of him... and the room had a stench of killer intent. I had to be careful of him.

"Alexia... why are you even here? Why don't you leave me to die?" He asked me. It kind of upset me, and it looked like he wanted a reaction out of me because he slowly turned his body from the blanket cover to look at me.

His eye peeked out while the blanket covered everything else... his eye was very green, almost more bright than Belle's.

"Don't be silly, I want to save you. Why aren't you moving from that position...? Was this your home?" I asked him. I tried to relate to him as I felt the stench of the killer's intent subside.

"No... not this place. My home is far away from here, but I found this place to take shelter and wait for everything to pass over. So far, I've been staying safe... are you here to move me to someplace not as safe as this one?" He asked me.

"No, your best interests are my only job here. You see, this is a building in the middle of the city, as I'm sure you know, and it's likely this will collapse from further damage if the fighting doesn't end soon," I told him. He nodded, as the blanket scrunched up around his neck and formed a ponytail through it.

"My best interests are in your job description? You don't know me. I could be dangerous," He told me. His eye turned back toward the window blackened with dust and ash. They turned dull in the lack of lighting.

"Everybody is dangerous in their own way. Part of being a Hero is ignoring that danger. So, you won't come with me? Even if it's safer somewhere else?" I asked him again.

He ignored the question, standing up, and lifting the long blanket into the air to cover his body.

"What's your last name, Alexia?" He asked me.

That was weird... my last name? It wasn't exactly popular... I wonder if I should tell him the truth, maybe it would help him trust me.

"Asterio, right? You're Alexia Asterio... sibling to Shike Asterio... I read about you in the report," The man said.

The blanket fell off of his shoulders and the man turned around, ponytail moving to the right side of his head and falling over his shoulder.

That man... was Cole...

"What... why... you're not... why are you here...?" I asked him. I stuttered over myself a few times as I slowly backed away from him, trudging through an unkempt carpet that kept sticking up from sticky dust.

"I told you, unlike you Asterios, I'm not a liar. This place is the safest... it's safe, away from Sky Asterio... away from the Goddess of Wrath... away from The Deity... we all have jobs, and theirs is to kill me. But, if you're only interests are my best interests, does that make us allies?" Cole asked me.

A weird, chain-link blade shot out of the wall, crumbling the stone, and came close to my face. It didn't scrape me, but if I moved, it could potentially kill me. It was sharp, I could see the gleam of the sun through the darkened window on the blade, and with it being that clean, the edge was very obvious.

"Come on... you're my ally, aren't you, Alexia Asterio? My best interests, remember? Or, don't tell me, is that another one of your Asterio lies you tell unsuspecting people?" Cole said.

He moved closer as the weird blade started to move around the room, as its own separate entity. It was capable of movement, weird movement like a worm. It scathed the edge of the room, scraping paths through the stone walls, and getting dangerously close.

"You... these lies aren't exclusive to Asterios. What about you? Deceiving me into thinking you were a person in need, doesn't that bother your morality?!" I yelled out to him.

The blade scathed across the bottom of my lip, slowly moving around the rest of the room after I yelled out.

"Why don't we keep that pretty voice down... we don't want to attract unwanted attention here, do we?" He asked me, walking closer.

"Tell me, when it comes down to it, wouldn't you trick the person trying to kill you, so you could get the upper hand? You're telling me the art of deception is completely foreign, to an Asterio?! Come on... don't be stupid now," Cole said. He looked out of the blackened window with dark eyes, covering himself with the blanket again to stay hidden from everybody else.

"That name... that name is everything to you, does anything else matter? I'm just curious," I asked him.

He must not know about my ability... I could get rid of this thing in an instant, so why is he playing so stupid?

"The Eye of Providence... you know that girl, right? Providence? You fought her in The First Trial, and beyond that my knowledge is limited... tell me, what else do you know of her?" Cole asked me.

"I know that she had a daughter that's a part of our ranks... but is that really any of your business?" I retaliated, waiting for Cole to make a snarky response.

"What about Providence's son?" He asked.

I turned my head slowly, looking at him as he smiled. His eyes went black, just as the Eye of Providence always does, and he followed the length of the blade with his hands.

"Yeah, people just keep rising up out of nowhere... you know, Providence isn't a new entity, right? Providence was just a normal girl from four hundred years ago, a girl who had a son before she was thrown into The First Trial. Now that you see her legacy, do you understand why I hate Asterios? The ones who ruined me, the ones who poisoned my sister, and the ones who killed Mom? This is more personal than you'd think, Asterio," Cole said to me with a dead stare from over his shoulder.