19 Chapter 19 - The Birth of Tentazione

Seeing my face creep up right in front of me, with a morbidly distorted expression is probably not the way I'd like to spend a Sunday afternoon. Yet, for some reason, that's exactly what I gotta do. I had no idea whether he's about to attack me, or would want to offer me tea, but I had a slight inkling that we weren't going to munch on biscuits together.

I took a few steps back, and something really surprised me. You're probably expecting some cliché situation, where he makes the exact same moves as me, but alas, that wasn't the case. The moment I released the Throne, he instantly disappeared. I quickly made sure that he wasn't moving at insane speeds, and somehow made it behind my back, but after trying to take a look at the back of my neck about a dozen times, I think I did make sure.

What an absurd thing to happen.

I walked back up to the Throne, and placed my hand on it. I looked to the other side of the stone monument, and I confirmed that my doppelganger, with the face of Los for some reason was still there. Why was it Los anyways? Like how do you make a perfect copy of me, and screw it up, by adding the face of a weird floaty thing?

'That hurts. Nyeehehee!' I heard the familiar face pop up.

'What, you don't agree?' I joked.

'My face is just way more beautiful than you could ever be! Nyeehee!' he replied.

'Anyways, what the hell am I looking at?' I asked.

'Seems to be a [Throne], that's for sure. But I still don't know about that handsome boy,' he told me.

No reason trying to work this situation out, I gotta experiment. For better or worse, 'it' seemed to stay more or less put. I raised my hand, yet it didn't seem to react. It only moved when I moved with my full body. From what I gathered so far, it probably reacts to me.

I suddenly had a weird idea. What if i tried to touch it? Like would it try to touch me? Or would it let me do it? I had to try. I slowly extended my arm towards the mysterious person, and before long my hand reached it. Nope, nothing happened. I just touched it, it felt like a human, and that's the end of the story.

This is really whack.

Like it's literally just me...

"Are you just gonna try to touch me again?" my voice mixed with Los suddenly asked through the mouth of my body double.

"You- You can talk?" I blurted out.

"Duh, literally what I just did," it replied.

'Didn't see that coming. Nyeehee,' Los tuned in.

"Of course you didn't, you don't even have a brain," he replied- to Los?!

'You can see me?' he was just as shocked as I was.

"This is confusing as hell. What are you?" I finally asked.

"More like 'who', jerk. I'm you. Well, the stronger you," he explained, "I'm you, when you decide to merge with that," he pointed at Los. Merge? I looked at Los, and he seemed to be puzzled.

'Why would I merge with a human?' he dropped a racist line.

"I hate it when you folks play the dumb-game. You know exactly what I'm talking about, and you know I know," he said, directly to Los.

"Now, wait just a minute. I'm being left behind here," I intervened, "What merging are you talking about?"

It paused for a bit, turned to me, and threw me a chill-inducing smile.

"You'll know. For now, I'll teach you how not to do that," he told me, and guided me to step in front of the Throne. I followed, and stood where he told me to, "[Temptation]. As the name of it says, you more or less control humans' temptation, as well as their greed. But that's only half the truth," he paused, and then continued, "You following? Good. You don't just control them. You ARE Temptation. To most humans, you'll just feel like the embodiment of their greed. That's what you called your effect on people. You don't sway them, or anything like that, no. You bring their inner greed outwards. You are Tempting them."

That was... unexpected? Hearing that from someone, who seems to be me and my Power's fusion, sounded legit. I looked over at Los, and he was nodding there, like he agreed to every last bit of the information. I stopped, and started to think. I thought hard, until finally something came up.

"So, if I'm Temptation itself, and I control my own greed, than will that affect others as well?" I'm not some novel's protagonist, I can think normally, like any human.

"In a sense. The more you can control yourself, the more you can control others. That is something you'll have to learn," he explained.

'You are one hell of an annoyance, you know that?' Los said in a rather ominous manner.

"Your plans are always doomed to fail, Tanta-" it started, but was cut off.

'DON'T you DARE say that name,' Los lost it.

I never saw him act like that. Truth be told, I was kinda scared for a moment. I stepped forward, touched the Throne, and I climbed up. I sat down, as both my 'companions' were looking at me in awe. As if they saw something that has never happened before.

'How--'

"What in the...?"

They both looked really shocked. I don't know what I did, that earned me that reply, but I just sat down, as if nothing happened.

"Growing up as the child of two of the worst parents in the world, I never wanted anything. Sure, I kinda hoped that they'd become good parents suddenly, but I knew that wouldn't happen. Because of that, I never expected anything good from anyone, never thought that I'd get whatever I want. But now, sitting on this [Throne] that belongs to me, I know that I already had everything I wanted. It was always just a matter of time, before I got it," I told my first ever villainous speech. For the first time in my life, I could truly say whatever I wanted. I was on top of the world.

My training literally ended in a day. Now it was time for the rest to commence. I didn't feel different in any way, and I didn't feel like I grew stronger. I think what this thing was about, is how far I can develop this ability. I took this exam, and came home with a full on One Hundred.

As I was leaving the cave, I noticed the Francis was still standing at the entrance. He did come with me when I went in, but that was hours ago, surely he should've left already? He looked up, turned my way, and looked absolutely confused.

"Tentazione? What are you doing here?" he asked, shocked.

"What do you mean? I just finished my training, that's all," I replied, confused at his confusion.

"In like five minutes?!" he exclaimed. Five minutes?

"More like five hours, if you ask me," I said.

"You were in there for five minutes. I was just about to leave, when I noticed you," he answered, still in shock.

"Nevermind that," I replied, although I was confused as well, "I finally decided."

"On what?" he asked back.

I started walking back to the rest of the guys. This was a rather important decision I made, so I wanted all of them to hear it. I signaled Francis to follow me, and he did. It took a few minutes, but we finally made it back to the rest of the guys. They were just hanging out in one of the gardens, just sort of doing nothing.

I walked up to them, followed by my italian friend.

"Hey!" I called out. They both looked surprised, but I continued, "During my training I realized a few things."

"During what training, you've been gone for like ten minutes dude," Meda replied sharply.

"Yeah, yeah. I know. Time flies," I ignored her, "I decided what my new name will be."

"New name?" Baulder looked confused.

"Of course! As a Villain, who'll change history, I'll need a good name!"

I finally made up my mind. I won't bend to those 'heroes' that everyone loves. They are fake. They are a lie. They truly are the villains.

I truned to Francis, put my hand on his shoulder.

"I'll take that name, Francis. Call me [Tentazione]!"

He almost started crying.