Chapter 5: Vengeance and Love – Wrath

Sometimes in life we make choices that we regret but are at our heart's content and in doing so we sometimes hurt the ones we love so bad that they are consumed with vengeance.

In a time filled with demons and magic, there was a couple that withstood every adversity. A young demon hunter named Torrance fell for a half-demon named Anton. Though the villages took into consideration that he was half-human some felt this should not be. A Magi by the name of Derek blinded by his love for Torrance created the ultimate stage for their relationship's destruction, pinning lover against lover in a war that would take them from death and slumber to thirty years into the future, where everything including hearts was changed.

Feeling regretful for Torrance's death Derek brought her back to life but she resented him when she found out the truth of all that happened. After finding out that Anton had survived the spell she put him under she decided to search him out only to find him in the arms of another, her reincarnation Jasmine. She tried her best to reconcile her relationship with Anton but though he loved her his feelings for Jasmine divided him in two. Angry with vengeance she decided to back to Derek and formulate the ultimate plan…

Jasmine slowly woke up and was very surprised to find the sun almost directly above her. She drowsily thinks to herself, 'Why didn't anyone wake me up? Anton usually screams at me if I am not up by the time he is.' Jasmine slowly cracked her eyes open to find Roselle, Richard, and Brenan eating breakfast around a fire.

"Good morning, Sleepyhead!"

"Roselle..," Jasmine quietly said. "Where has Anton?"

Roselle cast a nervous glance over at the other two surrounding the fire.

"Umm, well Jasmine, you see, late last night Anton caught Torrance's scent in the wind...so he woke up Cyrus and me to tell us that he was going to find Torrance and that we shouldn't go after him..."

Brenan quickly scampered to hide behind Roselle and Richard for protection, expecting Jasmine to flip out. Jasmine looked at their faces, knowing they expected her to be upset. Of course, she was, but she wasn't going to make them suffer because of her bad temper.

"Oh... thanks for telling me," Jasmine stated with a forced smile on her face. "So Roselle, can I have some breakfast?"

Roselle smiled. "Of course you can!"

-Night before Anton left-

Anton was fast asleep until he smelled something unusual. He woke up a little bit until he was wide awake. It couldn't be.

"Torrance," Anton quietly whispered to himself. He gently shook Richard awake, just in case he ran into trouble.

"Come on Cyrus, we're going for a little trip. Roselle, ROSELLE! Listen, I'm going to find Torrance. Don't follow me. I'll be back by tomorrow, the day after that at the latest."

Roselle rubbed her eyes as she tried to comprehend what he said. She suddenly realized what he had just told her and softly yelled, "Anton!! Jasmine's going to kill you!!"

Anton thought about this for a moment and said, "I know. I'm sorry. Try to break it to her softly, but I'm going to come back, even if it is just to say goodbye and see her one last time."

Almost panicking at what Jasmine would think or do if she told her that she was about to scream something to Anton but he was already gone.

'Why would Torrance just suddenly show up now? Did she mean for me to catch her scent? Could this mean that Derek is here too, but he disguised his scent?' These were the questions that ran through Anton's head as he and Cyrus made their way over to Torrance. Immediately when he saw Torrance he also noticed she had put up a magical shield.

"Torrance...please let me in?" he whispered.

Torrance glanced over to him, "Why? I have no reason to let you in."

"Please, Torrance! If you are wounded I will protect you from anything that would want to harm you!" Anton exclaimed.

"I do not need your protection," she stated.

"Please Torrance? At least let me in so we can talk?"

"You can talk just fine outside."

"Why won't you let me in?"

"That is my business, and not yours."

"Fine, I guess I will talk to you from out here," he stated finally giving in.

"If that is what you want, I will do nothing to stop you," she said.

"That's good," Anton said with relief, glad she would at least allow him to stay and talk with her.

"Anton," Torrance said hesitantly, "I have something I would like you to do..."

-Daylight at the camp-

Jasmine sat by the stream they happened to be camping by, just looking out as the water rushed over her feet. She had a troubled frown on her face, which is rare for her. Roselle and Richard sat up on a hill watching her. They hated seeing Jasmine this sad. Brenan was over in the forest, looking for food. Sighing, Roselle turned to face Richard. "Can't we do anything at all to cheer her up?!"

"Unfortunately," Richard replied. "We can't. Only Anton can cheer her up."

-Back to that night-

"What is it, Torrance? You know I would do anything for you."

"I would like for you to get rid of Jasmine," she said.

"WHAT?"

"Why do you act so surprised, Anton? You know she's been getting in my way."

"What has she been doing to you? I don't see her doing anything bad at all or doing anything to get in your way!"

"She stole my soul, broke the spell I put on you, and brought the Athenian Necklace back here after I had worked too hard to rid this world of it."

"Jasmine didn't have a choice in getting your soul; the black dragon would have killed her if she didn't break the spell and had no control over bringing back the necklace."

"Just get rid of her if you still care about me at all." And with that, Torrance left.

Although Anton tried to find her, he couldn't. She had used her shielding powers to conceal her location. Anton slowly made his way back to Jasmine and the others. While he walked back he kept wondering why Torrance wouldn't let him inside her shield, and why she had to ask him to get rid of Jasmine, instead of doing it herself.

'Maybe she was wounded, and couldn't use her powers? No, that can't be it, since she concealed herself well. Perhaps she used all of her strength to hide herself? That could be what happened. Who would be able to hurt Torrance though? I don't know anyone except maybe Derek who could hurt her,' Anton thought. Before he knew it, Cyrus had guided him back to the camp. 'Great,' he thought, 'now I have to deal with an angry Jasmine.'

Anton cleared his throat before quietly saying, "Umm...hello...Jasmine."

Jasmine glanced up to find Anton gently staring down at her. She thought a while before replying with, "Hello, Anton. Did you have fun last night with Torrance?"

He knew she would be upset, but expected her to show she was really upset, so this surprised him greatly. "Jasmine," he whispered, "I promise you that nothing happened last night between me and her. She wouldn't even let me inside her shield."

"Sure! Then why did it take you so long to get back?"

"She had to ask me to do something, that's all."

"Really, Then what did she ask?"

"...I'm sorry, but I can't tell you that just yet."

"I wonder why."

"I don't even know if I'm going to do it yet."

"Fine"

With that, she stomped off to Richard and Roselle, who had been watching the whole thing but were unable to hear the conversation.

"What happened?" Roselle asked.

"Apparently," she replied, "nothing." Richard and Roselle exchanged worried looks as she walked away.

Jasmine and Anton had not talked since Anton first returned, and although they had a lot of things they needed to tell each other, one wasn't going to break the silence until the other had. Suddenly, everything was quiet. Roselle and Richard had stopped talking and were staring at the sky. Jasmine and Anton looked up there, too. What they saw was probably the last thing they needed to see at that moment. Torrance did look very different from the last time he saw her. Her eyes were glistening in anger, her hair was a mess, and her skin was paler than before. Torrance would only glare at him. Anton looked at her a little frightened of her and asked, "Torrance, what happened to you?"

Torrance replied, "That is not important. Anton, may I speak with you in private?"

"Of course you can," he said. "Jasmine, I'll be right back."

Anton and Torrance walked over to an isolated corner. When they got there Torrance angrily said, "Anton, I remember asking you to get rid of my reincarnation. What is she still doing here? Do you care about her more than me?"

Anton thought about her question before answering with, "Torrance, of course, I still care about you, but I care about Jasmine too. I still haven't decided. Also, will you please tell me what happened to you?"

"Fine," Torrance said, giving in. "If you must know, my hair is a mess because I just finished purifying a demon, but he was stronger than I thought."

"You also look angry, are you mad at me?"

"Of course I am. Now I must go. I have other things to do. I will be back in a few days to see if my reincarnation is gone. Good-bye," suddenly, she disappeared into the forest surrounding them. Anton slowly walked back to the others.

"So, Anton, what did you two do?" Richard asked.

Anton glared at Richard before answering, "All we did was talk. That's all."

"Aw, come on, there is no need to lie to us...," Richard replied.

"I'M NOT LYING!!" he yelled.

He heard a chuckle and turned to see Jasmine sitting far away from him, staring into space. She didn't believe that he was telling the truth. "Jasmine, I'm not lying, I can explain why she wan-" She cut him off.

"NO! The only thing you going to tell me is lies! I can't trust anything you say about what happens between you and her anymore. I wish you would just tell me the truth! If she asked you to do her a favor, Tthen what was the favor? I DOUBT SHE ASKED THAT," Jasmine screamed, her cheeks flushed red.

Roselle and Richard were slowly backing away from Jasmine and Anton, not wanting any part in this fight.

"Nothing I have told you has been lies! Why don't you trust me??" he inquired.

"Um, let's see," she said, finally calming down. "Because you have lied to me before on the subject. Ugh, I don't want to hear any more excuses. I'm going to sleep."

"Fine, Whatever," he replied.

Jasmine set up her sleeping bag in a secluded corner on the outskirts of their camp. She slowly drifted off to sleep, dreaming of a nice, feather bed and a world without Torrance to mess things up. As Jasmine slept, Torrance showed up at the edge of the forest that the others were staying at. She was disguising her scent, so Anton wouldn't know she was there. Following closely behind Torrance, was Derek.

With their scents masked by the shield, their plan was in effect. Derek had been waiting for this moment for a long time. He gently picked her up so as not to disturb her sleep, and followed Torrance into the forest. Torrance glanced over at Anton nervously; she had no reason to. Anton loved her. Not that bitch, and even if he did love her reincarnation more than her, she had a plan anyways. Soon she would lead Anton to the room where Jasmine was held and the truth of his loyalty would come out.

Jasmine looked pretty good for someone who had just spent nearly a week with Derek and Torrance. Her skin had grown almost as pale as Torrance's, her eyes were bloodshot, her hair was let down and in a huge mess, and the white parts of her clothes had turned to a light gray. Jasmine slowly moved her head to look at Anton, and winced while doing so, as though someone had hurt her neck. When she saw Anton staring back down at her, she quickly turned her head around, but immediately regretted it.

"Hello, Jasmine," he said, stiffly. He wanted so badly to just take her and run out of this hell, but he had to keep up this act a little longer.

"Anton. Good to see you," Jasmine said sarcastically. She had given up all hope long ago that he would choose her over Torrance.

Torrance tapped her foot impatiently. "Come on, Anton! Tell her why you're here!" The eagerness in her shrill voice made it clear that she thought, no she knew, that he would choose her.

"Okay," he took a deep breath, getting ready to tell Torrance what he had been waiting to tell her since he got there.

"Jasmine, come on. We're getting out of here. Sorry, Torrance, I am not going to kill her, and I will not allow you or anyone else to hurt her either." Jasmine jumped up, even though it pained her to do it, and ran over to him. Before she could get there, Derek jumped in front of her and made sure she couldn't even see him.

"Sorry, Anton," Torrance said, not in the least bit sorry. "I had a small feeling you would choose her instead of me, so we had a backup plan. If you happened to choose her over me, then we'll kill her and you. Capturing her and luring you here to kill you turned out to be very... successful. You fell for it. Now we can kill you both. You're both powerless. Jasmine without her bow and you are too weak to kill either of us. "

"Why? I thought that you still loved me," he whispered, shocked at how evil she had become just from being with Derek.

"Hah! I stopped loving you the second you betrayed me!" she screeched.

"Why would you also go through so much trouble to capture me anyway?" Jasmine piped up, genuinely curious as to why she had to suffer.

"We thought it would be easier since we thought Anton still loved Torrance," Derek explained. "It's clear now, that we should have just killed you all while you were sleeping. Enough talk. I would like to get this over with. You see Torrance I told you no one could love you like I could I was the only one you could trust. We have more pressing matters to take care of let's get this over with."

With those as the starting words, Anton pulled out his enchanted sword and started toward Derek, but he quickly jumped out of the way. Perfect. Anton merely used that as a distraction to get him away from Jasmine. He grabbed her and she jumped onto his back. This way they wouldn't be separated while they were fighting, though it would be a little dangerous and a tad of an inconvenience.

Torrance aimed one of her poison arrows at them. If she was lucky, she could kill them both with one arrow. Anton decided on the need to protect Jasmine. His eyes turned from a bright green to a fiery red. Jasmine knew what was coming as he tensed up, but chose not to run away. She was going to stay with him until the end, even if the end happened to be right then and there. He let out a piercing screech as his demon blood took over.

He took one look at Torrance and ran over to her. She wasn't scared; she thought that even though he chose Jasmine, he still had feelings for her. She was dead wrong. He could barely tell right from left but knew that she was the one who had taken his Jasmine. He quickly struck Torrance through the heart, turned, and cut off her head. The shock was the last thing that was seen on Torrance's face. His sword was pulsing and turning blood red.

Anton turned around to face Derek. Seeing what Anton did to Torrance, he immediately put up his strongest shield. Anton unleashed his shield-breaking attack. His attack flew through the air. It was going straight towards Derek, who didn't even attempt to dodge it. Derek started laughing like a crazy person, and just as the attack hit his shield, a blinding purple light appeared. Derek had vanished.

"Anton!!" Jasmine screamed as she jumped off of his back. "You did it, you killed Derek!"

As the red in his eyes faded away. "No," he mumbled. "I didn't. Not yet. This is just a vanishing act. So is Torrance, but she's gone for good. I can't believe I did that"

"It's okay. She wasn't the Torrance you knew thirty years ago. That was only her body," she was doing her best to comfort him.

"Yeah. Anyways, are you okay? Did they do anything to you?"

"They didn't hurt me physically, all they wanted me was to believe you were coming to kill me."

"I'm..," Anton hesitated, "I'm sorry I scared you, Jasmine. I was going to, but then I realized what an idiot I would be. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I did that."

"Was that the favor that she asked you to do before?" Jasmine asked.

"...Yes. But Jasmine, before you say anything, I chose you in the end. Not her. I loved her thirty years ago, but that was then. I love you now, and not just because you're her reincarnation. I love you... for you," he whispered.

"Anton...," she said. "I love you too. I have for a long time."

"I'm so sorry," he said. "This will never happen again."

"Yeah because she isn't here," Jasmine retorted, clearly still upset about what happened, and trying to hide the fact that she was genuinely... happy that he finally said that he loved her.

"Even if she was here, I would choose you. I chose you in the end, didn't I?"

"It took you long enough to figure it out, though," she retorted. As sat down on the soft, dark green grass and he followed.

"I still did..," he said quickly, edging closer to her.

"W-What are you doing?" she stammered, wondering why the hell he was staring at her like that.

"What are you talking about?" he asked, knowing perfectly well what she was talking about.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" the girl yelled, almost scared of him now.

"You'll see..," he whispered. With that, he leaned in and gently touched his lips to hers. She was surprised by this and immediately pulled away, though she regretted it. Right after she realized what she had done, she pulled him into her and gave him a more passionate kiss. Anton grabbed her and carried her in toward the field where he knew the rest of the group was. She fell asleep in his arms about halfway through the journey, extremely happy she could finally get some sleep after all that happened.

When they got back to the others, the couple was happily greeted by Richard and Roselle. Brenan and Cyrus had already fallen asleep. They ran over to Anton to see if Jasmine was okay, and a relieved smile immediately appeared on their concerned faces. When Roselle saw Jasmine, she started screaming with joy, which woke Jasmine up.

"Roselle!" she screamed, instantly happy when she saw her best friend.

"Jasmine! I thought I would never see you again!" equally thrilled she screamed.

While the two girls were hugging and catching up, Richard and Anton were talking about the past week's events.

"So...," Richard started.

"How's Torrance? You two didn't do anything that I would think of, did you?"

"NO!" Anton screamed.

"You are such a perv! All we did was talk... then I killed her..," he said as casually as he could.

"You killed her?!" Richard was stunned. "That was the last thing I would have thought of..."

"Well, I did it. I was in my demon form... I didn't know what I was doing... but I am kind of glad that I did," he said.

Richard was still getting over the shock of Anton killing Torrance and didn't have time to respond before Jasmine and Roselle walked over.

"Wow Anton," Roselle said. "Of all people, Torrance would have been the last person I thought you would kill!"

Anton glared at Jasmine. He didn't want many people to know, and if he did want them to know he wanted to tell them so the story would be told right!

"Yeah, yeah," he grumbled. "Well, I didn't know what I was doing." He looked around, trying to find Jasmine.

"Hey...where'd Jasmine go?" he asked.

"I think she went into the forest...she said something about being dirty?" Richard said.

"Well, I should probably go find her before Derek does... again,"

Anton frantically looked everywhere. He wasn't going to lose her again, especially after he just found her. Finally, after two minutes of looking, he caught her scent on the wind coming from the east, by the hot springs.

'Damn....' he thought, clearly not wanting to find her in the hot springs, but going on anyway. He wanted to be sure that she was safe. Anton caught Jasmine just before she got in.

"Hey, love!" he yelled. "Why didn't you tell me where you were going before you left?"

She glanced up before continuing her walk into the spring. "Sorry," she said sarcastically. "I had no idea I had to check in with you before I went to bathe."

"..Well you do," he said. "Derek could have captured you again!"

"You're too overprotective," she mumbled. "As you can see, I'm fine. Also, without Torrance, you would be able to sense him, wouldn't you?"

"Well...yeah..," he said.

"Okay, now can I go bathe? I haven't bathed in over a week."

"Yeah, but first, are you still mad at me? I told you I was sorry..," he said, the fact that he didn't know if she was mad or not had been bugging him ever since she got back.

"I'm not mad! We have already gone through this. I forgave you. I'm just...confused...about what happened after you found me," she said.

"Well...," he began, "I found you, I rescued you, and we proclaimed our love for each other, and then I carried you back. What's confusing about that?"

"You are so arrogant!" she exclaimed. "The confusing part is... does this mean that we're ... together now?"

"Well I love you and you love me...do you want to be?" he asked.

"Okay," she smiled.

Anton smiled back at her. He had wanted this for a long time, and she said yes! They were both happy for now, in that moment, neither of them cared that Derek wasn't dead yet. They were just happy that they had each other.