A Grim Bond 8 (Patreon)

A Grim Bond 8 - or ‘The Grim Adventures turns into Broken Tales’ (Grim Tales from Below, OC!Brother to Mandy)

“Are you sure Miss Helga is not going to appear anytime soon?”

Minnie nodded confidently as she led her brother into the depths of Castle Grim’s forbidden library. It’s been a solid week since she had last seen their uncle, and the thought of learning more on why her mother and Uncle Artie were so distant and cold towards each other had been stewing strongly in her curious mind.

She knew this was a bit of a stretch in terms of privacy, but what she wanted to know for now about her Uncle was what made him ‘angry’ at someone like Mandy. It was clear it was him who decided to break things off, to leave, and to no longer entertain any personal interaction with his sister- but why?

After all, it was no secret that her Uncle knew that Mandy was evil from the very beginning. Yet, something in particular had been deemed ‘too much’ and had split the two apart. What was it?

Curiosity was a dreadful monster together with the mind of someone that was taught to always know what is going on with life itself. May it be a public piece of information, or something spicy of the private kind.

Even Junior, in his cautious and nervous mood, had been hooked to the idea of learning more of someone that was worming in his heart as his favorite uncle. He was still of the idea that 'Uncle Nergal’ was better, but that’s mostly because he hadn’t spent a lot of time with Uncle Artie.

To Minnie, Uncle Nergal was nice but… something about him didn’t feel right. She was a judicious girl, and one that could pick up with ease when someone did things out of guilt.

A liar was even worse in her eyes as Uncle Nergal was clearly withholding some important truth from them. Plus, he was pushing so much affection on her while appearing quite unused to this.

Uncle Artie’s own ‘spoiling’ was a bit less forceful. It felt it was genuine affection and it was the kind of approach that felt utterly natural to her. He didn’t fear her mother, he didn’t hold back from mentioning in a rather positive way that she wasn’t her and that she could decide to be her own person…

Uncle Nergal never once gave her that chance. How are your lessons? Did Mandy tell you that you were improving in your spars? Would you like a big Plushie or maybe a full-on arsenal of clothes for your wardrobe?

Never once did he ask her ‘how are you?’ or even ‘are you sure you don’t need a break, sweetie?’, always sounding like he was reaching but never once breaking through the shadow casted by her mother.

So yes, as much as this may sound harsh on her Uncle Nergal, Uncle Artie felt like a warming thought to think of from time to time. Ah yes, sitting on the couch to rest by either reading a book or sneak-viewing some more episodes of that gruesome show that her uncle told her was not ‘meant for kids’.

But Minnie loved Chainsaw Man!

Old as that piece of media was, the arcs had her hooked and the form used by Denji was… intriguing. Due to her unique powers, that was even an ability he had tested out and she could mimic up to the main ability of the Chainsaw Devil- which was to erase other Devils and the meaning behind them.

Still, it was something she found fascinating. It was rare for this slice of the underworld to entertain such cartoons- no, anime! Yes, it was one of the first anime series she entertained and yet there were so many!

The moment she was back to her uncle’s flat, she was definitely binge-watching something else. Tokyo Ghoul sounded older but… it couldn’t be too bad.

Back on the search, Junior was soon becoming bored with the lack of progress and his whining was rekindled much to Minnie’s tiny chagrin.

“Are you sure you know where we are even going?”

“That would be the case, dear brother of mine. But it would seem like some spells have been casted to render the library a mind-aching maze.”

It was frustrating indeed. She knew her father had kept his full journal away from Junior’s reach despite the skeleton boy’s pride urging him to think it was the full one.

The Diary was an honest account nonetheless, there was no doubt in that from Minnie herself, but it was empty and devoid of many details- after all, the Grim Reaper was far more experienced in keeping track of many with far greater precision.

“...What are we looking for?”

She turned to Junior. “It should be a green orb with a purpureal hue to it.”

“What’s purpureal?” Her older brother asked in confusion.

“Purple.”

His tiny mouth made a brief ‘oh’ of understanding and, surprising Minnie a bit, Junior pulled his skull out of his body, held it close a bit and then hurled it up in the air, causing it to go well over the limitations of the many shelves around. Soon it was back on the boy’s hands as he fixed it back correctly, Junior smiling victoriously.

“I saw it. I will lead the path now.”

Minnie opened her mouth, ready to push back on this idea when her thoughts were utterly crushed by the pure inner swelling of love at having her left hand suddenly squeezed by her brother’s right palm, the caring touch despite the bony texture providing the kind of brotherly warmth that made her… submissive for a moment.

Her cheeks flared scandalously and yet she smiled eye-to-eye as Junior eagerly took charge of the situation and, after a few more turns, actually brought her to what they were looking for.

The Orb of Grim Recollection- the real journal of the Grim Reaper, their father.

“It’s not a book,” Junior pointed out the obvious. “So, how does it even work?”

Minnie stepped closer to the orb, cleared her voice and-

“Arthur Endswell.”

The name was given, and the orb was soon rapidly spinning before a mighty green light bathed their bodies and ‘pulled’ them into an ethereal recreation of what the Grim Reaper had on the name.

Soon their father’s voice came through like an echo, providing them with a narration as the world around them shifted to properly manifest the past from the true eyes of the Grim Reaper.

Arthur ‘Artie’ Endswell. Former Master of me together with Amanda ‘Mandy’ Endswell and Bill ‘Billy’ Uglio.

The two siblings were now standing in a normal-looking living room. It was bigger than the one in Uncle Artie’s home but it was also quite devoid of the people to fill it up. At the time, only three individuals were there beyond Grim- Mandy, with her pink dress and the same black hairband, Billy, who their father had many times described as a ‘terrible moron with some rare redeeming qualities’, and… Uncle Artie as a child.

There is much to say about Artie, however. The boy was nothing like I had expected compared to these two others- He was not as cruel as Mandy, and far from stupid like Billy. No, Arthur was far from normal too, but he was… also sane.

They both tilted their heads when the scene showed Artie speaking with the Grim Reaper to ask him for help with his… homework? Not once, but many and many times at that.

Sane but hurting. It was something that wasn’t too deep and, at first glance, it didn’t sound too much. Yet, Artie had a thing to ask for help with his homework or any particular question in regard to life.

More times where, in a rather odd circumstance, their dad acted… as a dad to their uncle. It was quite perplexing of a logic on a general perspective, but at the time it could have made sense. After all, the trio had ‘enslaved’ the Grim Reaper when they were 9 (Billy and Mandy) and 10 (Artie).

There are many ways one can lose their parents. In most instances, it can be about either not meeting them or the adults dying in some freak accident… but Arthur had something else that shaped him as a child and then as a growing boy- realization that they will never try to defend him or his sister.

“Wait, what?” Junior spoke up, voicing the surprise at that very notion.

Despite how passive Grim and Mandy were to defend them, they would still rely on them to save them in a situation beyond their capacities and… the scene that was brought up looked to have happened well before Grim was an element in the Endswell Siblings’ life.

It was an afternoon in a park in Endsville, Minnie recognized it as a place she had visited before with her uncle and… and the scene was perhaps the most stunning possible.

Philip and Claire Endswell- she remembered their names as something that Uncle Artie had loosely mentioned in some stories he had about their mothers- were shivering in terror while staring at a pack of wolves approaching the picnic towel where a baby Mandy had been left to rest.

Lil’ toddler Artie was close to his sister, eyeing his parents in confusion and then at the wild animals approaching the youngest child. Seeing that the scary beasts were coming closer, lil’ Artie struggled to crawl but ultimately put himself between Mandy and the wolves.

The tiny toddler clapped his hands, eyeing the animals with anger, still suckling from his pacifier and appearing genuinely furious at the animals. That shouldn’t have been enough to stop the deadly wolves, but the yanking and pulling made by the toddler’s feet on the towel dragged an air horn that had been brought for the occasion closer for him to unconsciously step on and activate.

DOOT!

The noise was brief, but it was loud enough to make the animals jump. Then Artie did it over and over again, until the growling wolves decided to retreat, confused by the noise.

That wasn’t the end of it however.

“What is he doing?” Minnie muttered quietly, seeing the toddler waving off at his parents while his right hand patted at the gurgling Mandy’s own hand, the baby having tightly grasped it with her left on while staring intensely at her brother.

The parents tried to get closer, but lil’ Artie kept on waving at them and even started to press again against the air horn. The noise was enough to stop the mother and father from getting too close, creating a standoff that felt absurd to the core.

But Junior’s words were… true to what was going on.

“He is protecting his sister. From their parents.”

As if nodding in agreement to this thought, Grim’s voice came through and added context to the situation.

Stupidity had led them to face a deadly situation and their parents had left them to die. It was the defining memory that both Artie and Mandy had forgotten about, but that their parents remembered vividly. It was so defining that, even in forgetting it, they knew that their parents weren’t to be trusted. And that’s where… I came to appreciate little Arthur.

The scene shifted to a curious circumstance, this time it was a conversation of sorts that they could both hear properly.

“So, why did you refuse my offer? A day as the Grim Reaper in exchange for me living a full day in your shoes,” The tall Reaper inquired, the boy currently busy reading some comics on his bed as they were chatting privately in his room.

Arthur huffed. “But why? I mean, you know how my day usually goes, plus I think your job is still tougher than what Billy and Mandy went through- they didn’t have all the powers honed and all of that. You told me that.”

The sharpness of his mind, which I had helped him hone for a year or so, was showing incredible awareness of the situation. And it made the awkwardness of keeping Mandy’s lie difficult as the boy was not as selfish and devious as his sister.

I had made plans to tell him later that night and just push that burden off my back as quickly as possible.

A lie? Minnie was curious if this was it- the breaking point. But it was… too early at this point?

And her confusion soon turned into shock with the next scene.

I was ready to do that, to just tell him and be done with it when I was greeted by a strange sight in that planned nightly visit. The first clue was the half-open door leading to Arthur’s room. He always had it closed shut. The next clue which, in truth, damned a single conclusion to the situation was Mandy leaning down on his brother’s face with her lips and planting kisses over his own mouth.

Some were brief pecks made by an inexperienced girl, but then those devolved in lengthier and steamier encounters that seemed to truly define the incestuous connotation of that sight much to my growing horror.

“T-They are- They are kissing!? But they are siblings?”

Minnie opened her mouth, then closed it. Her first instinct was to whine back at opposing that blood-related kiss. After all, as a young maiden that was smitten to her clueless fool of a brother, it was fair to say she could reason a bit with her mother’s interest but then there was the fact her uncle was unconscious.

That Mandy was doing this while he was unable to say yes or no and she didn’t seem even so slightly guilty by this decision…

“It’s disgusting.”

Junior nodded in agreement, but missed the point where his sister was truly ashamed to be looking at.

The event was not a singularity. I was stunned to find out that Mandy would frequently do this. Wait for those nights where her brother was the most tired and thus prone for deep sleeping, and use this to take advantage of his ‘weakness’.

It was surreal considering how Mandy despises even now how intimacy works but… it was clear that something in her mind had her set to claim her brother. And that she would react brutally when it came to me telling the truth.

So, I waited, patiently so, and I allowed the guilt to keep on gnawing at me before I ultimately found the chance. At 16, dropping out of High School, Arthur was planning to go live alone.

For a normal kid that was wrong, but for someone that made plenty of money by working with a Genius schoolmate of his for a sizable pocket money for three years, he was ready to venture the world with a lot of money to his name.

A few hours before the feast to confirm his departure, I decided to strike and… it was one of the most unpleasant conversations that I had to ever deal with.

“What is so important that I have to stop packing my things, Grim? Seriously, can’t it wait?”

“No.”

Both Junior and Minnie’s eyes widened at the sharp tone adopted by their father.

Arthur merely raised a confused brow and nodded. “Well, what is it? It’s clearly important so… spill it.”

Grim sighed. “Artie… I didn’t tell you anything about Mandy. Something she has been responsible for seven years ago.”

“That’s a long time ago,” Arthur remarked, frowning and shaking his head. “I mean, what kind of crazy thing did she-”

“9/11.”

Junior blinked, failing to understand the response. “Yeah, he mentioned that in his journal but-”

“Brother, please tell me you’re joking about not knowing that event,” Minnie interrupted abruptly, sparing her sibling a wide-eyed look of shock.

“...I don’t? Why is that important?”

Before Minnie could have expanded on it, the conversation in the background ensued.

“...Grim, that surely is a bad taste joke-”

“She planned this in conjunction with the War in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thousands of deaths for the sake of a war that ravaged two countries and more in its wake,” Grim interrupted, sharply cutting through the skepticism. “The Indian Earthquake that followed in 2004- millions lives lost to an ‘unpredictable natural disaster’.”

“W-What?” Arthur muttered weakly, sitting down on his bed while Junior seemed to understand what was going on.

“M-Mom did what?”

To be fair, Minnie was shaken too. Uncle Artie had not mentioned this to her and… she could tell why. The pure disasters their mother caused… those were nothing to joke about. So many people had died and were still dying due to this.

It was one of the many topics disliked by the current generation of the Underworld due to how vicious it all was which was reminiscent of the time when the Underworld actively pursued those attacks against humanity to expand their domains centuries ago.

“...Why did you wait until now to tell me this?”

Grim was quiet, and Minnie was uneasy at the prospect of her uncle knowing what their mother had done to him while unconscious. But their father was steadfast about this and merely sighed.

“I had my reasons.”

“Th-that’s a shitty deflection,” Arthur murmured, the crass word weakly pronounced as he truly looked shaken. “This- This has to be a joke.”

“It is not. I am sorry.”

From the sight of a young man ready to explore the world, to a crooked youth holding his head and clearly going through hundreds of thoughts all at once. It was a reasonable sight, but one that still terrified poor Minnie.

That was… what her uncle actually knew? He didn’t know what Mandy did to him? That he- that he…

“...Tell her, I know.”

Grim raised a surprised look. “What-”

“Tell her that I know what she is. And that she is no longer my sister,” Arthur muttered numbly, retrieving more of his stuff to put in his luggage, packing faster than before as he was driven now by shame and disgust for what his sibling had done.

“Arthur-”

“No. I… I can’t forgive or ignore that. I am sorry.”

Grim’s efforts to stop the young man’s early departure were thus ceased as the Reaper watched as the one he took care of as a son walked off to his car and left without uttering a single word to anyone.

Mandy’s reaction was… a strong one. I had long sealed away that memory by her own order, but it was the most unexpected one yet. This talk would usually haunt my dreams from time to time, before it ultimately got me to make a check on Arthur when it was time for him to die.

I wanted to check on him and see how he would perish so early in his existence and waste his one chance out of death- but… My sight was clouded as Fate prevented me from seeing the full situation. I only knew he survived and that he was somewhere in his world to last for far longer than most-known human beings.

Something… was off about him.

The echo was soon over as the blinding light was back and the two siblings were brought back to the library. Both were stunned, unable to do much but think on what had happened.

Yet, Junior seemed to shake the surprise off his bones the earliest and got Minnie to rush out of the library before anyone could find them. But as the duo left silently to go back to their respective rooms…

Minnie was curious to know what her father meant with ‘Fate’ having clouded his sight as a Reaper in regard to her Uncle. What else was left unsaid by that caring and yet mysterious relative of hers?

—---------d-d-d-d—-------

AN

Minnie and Junior discover some of the hard truths about their mother and their uncle. Yet, a lot has yet to be unraveled and…

Next time, Arthur takes Mimi to see an old friend of his in the hope of helping her deal with the Devil Essence.