Back in the Cathedral of San Alaya; the cathedral Julio and his parents went to, the cleric that Julio met was just getting ready to go to bed. After saying goodnight to the abbot and locking his room, the cleric looked at the mirror.

As his gaze fixed at his reflection, his masculine features refined as his jagged jawline straightened, his waist grew smaller and his eyes became clearer. His once tuft, brown, rat’s nest hair turned to a glowing yellow as it cascaded down his back. Predictable? It was Felicity all along! And the bell she was carrying, the same bell Saint Dunstan made all those centuries ago.

The bell of St. Dunstan was originally created to call churchgoers to Mass. Now, as its forger beatified and it’s wielder, a holy entity; the bell can be used to call upon the consciousness of anyone to the wielder. The called upon consciousness where to appear as if they were in the same room as the wielder.

It’s more disruptive effects, though minimal, can at worse cause deafness and scare away minor demons. Apart from that, the bell is just like any other bell.

~~~

The chuckling would not stop in Julio’s room. He had already opened and closed the bag, back and forth, denying him sleep and widening the black bars under his eyes. When morning broke, he awoke from what little sleep he had into a wry and emotionless state.

“No one’s going to be searching…” an ominous voice said. It talked, Julio thought. It talked!

Not a neuron’s pulse in his mind before the voice started talking again. This time, it was if it was calling him in.

“Those boys were homeless, orphans…” the voice said. “You might as well have been innocent…” the voice cawed.

Julio put his hands together and prayed that the voice would stop. It did not. The voice would only grow louder and louder as it called out to him more and more.

“No need to pray for forgiveness, child…” the voice said. “You did a good deed.” The voice reassured. “By letting me feast on the young delinquents, you have plucked the community of its many parasites…” the voice said.

Wary and untrusting, he turned around to catch a glimpse, praying to all that was holy that it was not the bag talking to him. Lo and behold, as his pupils dilated in fear, the monstrous opening lined with teeth and protruding from the dark depths, a tongue black as tar.

“Julio?” his mother beckoned as she opened the door. As she entered the room, the voice stopped and the bag appeared as a normal bag again.

“Julio, go to school now…” his mother said. “There’s no breakfast today… Come back home this noon to see if your father brings something…” she said in a sad, monotone voice.

So with less energy than ever, put on his wrinkled white shirt and made his way to school. He assumed that the voice, the teeth, and the tongue was just all a part of a bad dream. He took his bag, packed the flimsy sheet of paper and half-worn pencil in and walked to school.

~~~

The school was just as draining and placid as the barrio. Whatever discipline the school tried to impose the students would always find a way. One time, Julio found a fetus in the toilet bowl. This scared him so much, more so the fact that it was in the boy’s restroom.

When he arrived, the prefects came out to greet him. No different than the rats they corral, they were as greasy and cruel as their power allowed.

One prefect, Samuel Diamante ser Alas, came up to Julio to taunt him. “The Adder” as he was known, for a school full of rats takes a snake to rule over them. It was evident that the socio-economic gap between them was like a ravine. Samuel knew this gap, and he acted like it.

“Surprised you’re still able to drag yourself to school, Ramirez….” he hissed. “Last time I heard, all of the ‘rats’ came from your side of town…” he taunted.

He was a tall, pale basic rich kid with an oily pompadour and a smug accent that can make any decent person want to sock him.

“Anyways, I am far too busy to bother with you now.” He said, pruning his fingernails. “Run along before I change my mind…” he told him sneering viscously at him.

“Whatever...” Julio angrily shrugged aside, clearly and quite literally having more serious issues on his back.

~~~

As Julio walked away, Samuel’s smug smile and din fell into a disheartened and regretful frown as he turned to his advisor, Layla.

“What hell did I just do?” he sighed as he turned to Layla. “I keep on pestering him, but there’s this thing inside that says I shouldn’t, and it starts pounding painfully…” he said.

Layla, not one to talk much, turned to Samuel and gave him a piercing glare.

“No, no! That can’t it!” he denied. “That’s preposterous! Two men can’t…I mean… it’s forbidden… isn’t it?” he sheepishly discussed.

Layla rolled her eyes and gave a sarcastic sigh.

“You’re probably right… this might just be some phase I’m going through…” he calmly resolved as he retook his breath

Layla, a stout, bespectacled young woman, ruffled her matte black hair and fixed her glasses in confidence. She said very little, yet with only her eyes, she could converse with Samuel. And only Samuel could understand her.

The two then walked off into the campus, just as the clock struck eight and the bells rang in a synchronized cacophony.

~~~

School work is hard, and that difficulty is amplified when you’ve got a demonic entity licking your notebook. Still, if you can forgive the wet pages, you can sharpen your pencil with its teeth.

“Hey, Julio…” a feminine voice called out. “Can you sharpen my pencil for me?” an attractive young girl in front of Julio requested.

Of course, what’s a good protagonist without a love interest? Every hero has one, a fact that Forneus knows, upon observing Julio’s nervousness when conversing with her, and a fact he plans to capitalize on. The girl’s name is Anya. She is a short, slender girl with hair that runs down to her buttocks.

Julio admires this girl well for her good looks, gentle attitude and prowess in history and the humanities. And her shortcomings, say, her incapability in sports and dry humor are just as appealing to Julio. He finds these characteristics rather precious.

“Yes...Yes, I can…” he fumbles. He takes the pencil and lightly grazes her hand while doing so.

Little did Anya know that this little graze, this slight sensation would overwhelm Julio. Women often don’t know how much they can overpower large burly men with their sweet and sensuous graces.

“Oh, enough this…” Forneus seethed just from under Julio’s table as he extends his ghastly tongue and thrusts it deep into Julio’s backbone.

Before Julio could even react, a surge of fiendish energy bolts up within him. Looking no different on the outside; inside, however, he has the suave and confidence of a dashing debonair.

After class, he leads on Miss Anya to the back of the campus building, where he (Forneus) plans to seduce her. All goes as planned and Anya is completely in his spell when all of a sudden, the metal rosary receives an unknown telepathic tug. Like a prisoner whose chains have dug deep into his flesh, the tug wreaks havoc in Forneus’ weakened state and the spell drops off.

~~~

As the demon is harnessed back by divine shackles, he loses control of Julio, whose body couldn’t handle the fatigue of demonic possession and falls to Anya’s arms. 

“Oh, my…” Anya said as she held Julio against her bosom like an infant. “You were always in my mind, now get ready to be in me…” she said, almost drooling on him as he passed out.

“Hold him tight, his slipping off!” Forneus cawed from the bag. “You’re not the big-bosom, buxom whore you think you are!” he cursed.

“My, my! I say whatever you are; do turn yourself into a weapon for me…” Anya said in a devious tone as she walked towards the strange talking bag.

“And why should I bend to a mere human like you?” his familiar, nasally accent struck out.

Anya stepped closer, laying Julio to recline against a wall. As she came closer to the bag, Forneus threated to skewer her.

“Come any closer, whore!” Forneus said as his demonic hand stretches out in front of her. “And I’ll turn you into a slut-kebab!” he threatened.

Anya, wise beyond her years, was also very observant. She knew Julio was not acting normally. Her sweet, timid knight would be too chivalrous to make a move so daring on her, it was as if he was…possessed, mayhaps?

As Anya stood unshaken by the demonic hand, she grabbed the rosary attached to the handle and pulled on it like taffy. Forneus quivered as his hand shuddered in pain. Anya took note of the reaction and thought that she could control the entity by using the rosary as a tether.

Just as an elongated claw was about to impale her from behind, Julio woke up and witnessed the imminent danger his princess was in.

Not too dull himself, he rushed to Anya to pull her way, just in time for Forneus to stab himself with his own nail. With one final tug on the rosary, the hand finally retracted into the bag. Julio then ran up to it and zipped it shut. The nightmare forced back in.

“Oh!” Anya screeched as she pretended to be afraid. “Thank you so much…” She says as she thanked Julio, her voice, back to its bubbly, kind tone.

He sounds evidently far different from the devious and intimidating tone she had a few moment ago to the kind and soft tone she had now.

“I’m just relieved you're safe…What were you doing?!” he said as his relaxed voice suddenly rose into a worried din.

“Well…” she said as she feigned innocence. “The bag was coming for you…” she said in a cutesy voice.

“You should’ve run away! You could have gotten yourself killed!” Julio lectured frantically.

“And leave you behind?” she said as she came closer toward Julio.

Julio, who only had a slight crush on her, never thought that one moment he would be making pathetic small talk on her and the next moment he has her sitting on his lap.

“Before we go any further, what was that thing?” Anya asked out of the blue.

“I’ve been asking the same thing…” Julio said as he turned his face towards the bag…

~~~

Shenanigans like such can be heard an earshot away, and a pair of eyes were the audience to the ghastly spectacle. These eyes belonged to a certain greasy, rich kid whose tempt was for the boy in the epicenter. He knew his obsession was immoral, but if he didn’t act now, he would have to give up his hard earned catch to a disguised courtesan.

Of course, Samuel was not one to let go so easily. Wealthy, spoiled and naïve, he often got want he wanted and often threw nasty tantrums when he didn’t.

This has only gotten worse as he grew older…

~~~

Unbeknownst to him, Julio has become some sort of a trophy, fought for by a Black Knave and an Empress. With Samuel being the Black Knave for his authority and cunning over the students and Anya as the Empress for her reputation and large following, they will soon face each other over a white elephant.

With two combatants in the field and the opposing forces of the Divine and the Damned, Julio’s life would be chained to the events thereafter. Of course, the God in this universe loves a good drama…