Crystal Sides

Chapter 9: Snakes and Sympathy

--POV = Virgil--

I brushed the crumbs off my hoodie. That was the best thing I'd ever eaten. The others looked just as satisfied as me. For the first time the entire morning, everybody seemed to be at peace. Even Roman and Logan had stopped awkwardly glancing at each other.

"Wow Patton," Logan said, leaning back and placing his hands on his stomach, "I usually only eat crofters, but that was a really good batch of cookies!"

Patton grinned, showing dark splotches of cookie stuck to his usually gleaming teeth.

Everything seemed happy, until Roman spoke.

"Uh, Logan?" he said.

Logan sighed impatiently, as if he knew what was coming, "Yes Roman?"

"I... I'm sorry for what happened yesterday..." his eyes darted around the room.

To my surprise, Logan smiled, "It's okay, Roman. I'm sorry for getting angry. You didn't know about-" he cut off, flinching.

We all stared at him.

"About what?" I asked.

He started to go red and looked down at his lap. He muttered something I couldn't hear.

There was a pause.

"You know, you're going to have to tell us eventually," Patton urged softly.

Logan glanced up at him and sighed, "You're right." he shuffled in his seat, "I'll tell you now."

"It was eons ago, before you three were even created, I'd bet. I was part of a trio. I don't know anything about before the three of us. We were just created together, I suppose. It was me, Deceit and Noah." he averted his eyes, "Although we agreed when we first met that we were a team, with no leader or understudies, Deceit was the obvious overpowering leader of us both. Although he had no weapon, he was the most powerful of us all. It was his idea to come up with code names for the three of us. A bit like last names, but they were emotions - or characteristics; something like that. Deceit was, obviously, Deceit, I was Logic and Noah was Sympathy."

"What was Deceit's real name?" I asked, feeling the darker tones of this man seeping into me.

Logan shrugged, "He never told us. He was secretive, Deceit was. As I said, he was more powerful than both me and Noah combined. For one, he could shapeshift for as long as he wanted without getting worn out. He could summon snakes; as many as he wanted, for as long as he wanted." he reached into his gem and took out his hand guards. Then, he created a hologram of a snake. It was big and it's scales were defined. 

"They were like his spies," he continued, "they'd follow you and find out what you were doing. He can see through their eyes if he wants to. You were never alone: there was no privacy if you were allied to Deceit."

"That's horrible!" Patton squeaked.

I felt dread creep up into my bones as I took in the full nature of this man.

"That's not the worst of his abilities," Logan continued making the snake hologram disappear, "his most prized and most infamous ability..." he opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. To my surprise, I could see tears filling his eyes.

He stared into space, as if he could see some horrifying scene we couldn't.

"What?" Roman whispered, "What is his most prized and infamous ability?"

He glanced up at him, fear wide in his eyes, "He can... he can corrupt gems..."