First Demonic Dragon - Chapter 1193: Violence In All Forms
Chapter 1193: Violence In All Forms
Odie skipped out of school with a light, happy air about her.
The rest of her day had gone by swimmingly.
School, towards the end of the year, was always a delight. Teachers placed much less emphasis on the curriculum and more on keeping students in their seats and quiet.
Most didn’t even care if you were in their seats. They preferred it if you weren’t, actually.
With most of the final assignments were already turned in and teachers, like Abaddon, were busy focused on grading them while recovering from a semester-long parade of internet words that made no sense, the body odor of a teenage boy, the libido of a teenage boy, the hormones of a teenage girl, a diminishing literacy rate, and the eternal adolescent plight of discovering one’s identity.
…And they were preparing themselves to deal with it all again after a three-week winter break.
Odessa floated down the steps to the carpool lane like a fairy.
She hadn’t confirmed who exactly was going to be picking her up today, but she figured she’d know who it was when she saw one of the many cars in the garage.
Silently, she hoped that maybe it would be Courtney who’d come.
Odie hadn’t had very many chances to get to know her older sister. Or rather, Odie was too intimidated most of the time.
Courtney was perhaps the first person Odessa had ever met whom she thought was ’cool’. It was something that made the naturally bubbly and chatty Odessa worry about saying too much and diminishing her image in her sister’s eyes.
But she couldn’t be scared forever! If Courtney were the one to pick her up today, then she would definitely set aside her fears and strike up the most exhilarating conversation yet!
Odie clenched her fist inside her pocket. The fires of her determination smoldered intensely like hot coals.
Curiously enough, as she became more determined, the music in her earbuds became louder without her doing anything.
She took one bud out, curious whether or not it was becoming defective and that was when she realized that the music wasn’t coming from her earbuds at all.
It was coming from a large black pick-up truck in the back of the carpool lane.
It wasn’t a vehicle that Odie recognized, but she did recognize the man who rolled down the window and bellowed for the entire outside world to hear.
“HEY! PUMPKIN-HEAD PRINCESS! GET IN THE DAMN CAR!”
Odie had spent extensive time with most of her extended family after they returned from their journeys.
She liked to talk, and they were all rather adamant on getting to know her.
However, she noticed that her great-uncle Satan was the one who made everyone tense up whenever she talked to him.
It was like fearing what a young, violent heathen might say to an eighty-eight-year-old nun with a heart condition.
Odessa didn’t understand this logic, as she figured he couldn’t be completely bad if he were living in the house. Since he had been home, she hadn’t really seen him do anything but drink, yell, and occasionally quote lines from violent movies and shows.
“Hurry up! Moving slow is what got Ricky shot!”
Odessa could feel everyone staring at her. Her cheeks and ears felt hot from the embarrassment.
She shuffled towards the truck with her head down and her shoulders tense.
She practically ripped the door off it’s hinges so that she could jump inside and hide her face behind the illegally tinted windows.
“Wouldn’t it be funny if I jumped the curb right now and hit all these pansy-ass kids??”
’What?! No!’
Odie was horrified. For those to be the first words Satan said after getting in the car, she could not so easily tell if he was joking or not.
“No, no, you don’t get it! See, it’d be funny because the holidays are coming up, so the whole country would be all joyful and stuff and then- BOOM! A giant metaphorical punch to the gut! And since I’m not using a gun to mow ’em down, they couldn’t even frame it as a political issue!”
’U-Uncle Satan, I really don’t think that’s very funny… These kids haven’t done anything to deserve that. Neither have their parents.’
Satan’s expression soured as he placed his hand on the wheel. “Jesus, I didn’t say I was gonna do it… just said that it’d be funny.”
’I think we have slightly different definitions of what’s funny and what isn’t. Have you ever seen Chris Rock?’ Odie asked with a cheerful smile, trying to change the mood.
“…I do enjoy Everybody Hates Chris. The episode when his mother wouldn’t let him use the stove filled me with such a delicious rage that I wanted to break her body into segments and stuff her inside-”
’Okay, comedy is a bad idea… Have you tried Caillou?’
Satan snorted as he pulled off abruptly.
Odie sat in silence as he drove like a literal bat out of hell.
When Courtney drove fast, it was fun. Cool, even.
When Satan did so, it was a threat to public safety and the most nauseating experience of Odessa’s life.
’Y-You can probably slow down a bit…!’ Odie’s face began to turn green like her eyes.
Satan let out a disgruntled sigh. “Woof, you kids today and all of your PC nonsense… I don’t even recognize the world I’ve tormented for so long anymore. Since when do humans care about the lives of others so much? The fact that you didn’t was the only thing that made you likable!”
Odessa ignored the churning in her stomach and put on a nervous, ’I almost died’ kind of smile.
’That’s… one way to look at it. But I like to care about as many people as I can and hope that they can live long, happy lives. Even you, Uncle Satan.’
Satan fell silent at her words. It was unusual, considering his voice hadn’t even been drowned out by the blaring music coming through the speaker.
He reached to turn the volume down for the first time since Odie had gotten into the car. Her ears rang with thanks.
“Listen, kid. Eventually, there’s going to have to come a time where you stop all of this nice stuff. It won’t do you any good, especially if you’re giving it out to people who don’t deserve it.”
’I don’t need it to do me any good. The point of being nice is for it to do others good, and that is my hope for you. Kindness should be the norm for every man, woman, … and demon.’ Odie giggled at the end, but Satan didn’t seem to find her words convincing.
“You have no idea what I am, do you?”
Odessa began executing poorly rehearsed kung-fu moves. ’The book said that you are Dad’s master and the avatar of harm. The greatest fighter the multiverse had ever seen until my mom and dad came around!’
Satan snorted. “Not untrue. But more than anything else, I’m a bloody architect. A monarch. I am the founder of the evils humanity pretends to abhor.
Every bit of their weaponry was pissed from my mighty hose into their minds. The craven idea for a man to set his eyes on another man’s wife and violate her was dumped from my arse into the minds of the vile and destitute. The idea for one man to enslave another was also one of my greatest hits.
My siblings and I were created as proof of just how low humanity could go. And every time I came up with a new low and inserted it into their tofu-brained minds, they had no trouble proving my father and mother right about them.
So no, I don’t believe you should waste your damn ’kindness’ on me, or anyone like me. If you continue to do so, you’ll only end up getting yourself hurt, and your father will-”
’Do you… hear that?’ Odessa suddenly questioned.
“No… What?”
Odessa wrinkled her brow as she stuck her ear to the window.
’It sounds like… hooves.’
