The Power of Empathy
By: CrystallicSky
Disclaimer: I don't own Xiaolin Showdown or any of its characters, nor do I make any profit or attempt to with the writing of this or any of my other pieces.
Warnings: Language, sexual situations/implications, masturbation, slight gore, homosexuality, etc.
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"Spicer…certainly you must realize just how close I am to murdering you in cold blood right now."
The goth standing before the everlord showed no external reaction other than red eyes going just a smidgen wider.
However, Chase Young felt something he hadn't felt in a very long time, just then: a thrill of bone-chilling fear piercing his heart.
He snarled, furious at being made to feel such a thing and glared daggers at the thick, diamond collar locked securely around his captor's neck; knowing its twin was locked around his own.
To this moment, he still wasn't sure how Spicer had managed it, but the Evil everlord had woken up here, in a holding cell of some sort; his wrists bound behind his back with something even his supernatural strength couldn't break and his magic somehow negated.
And, of course, the collar: the Tóng Qíng Torques. Chase had always thought it a stupid and unnecessary Shen Gong Wu, with the ability to connect two people in emotion; forcing empathy for the user upon the victim.
A monk had crafted it way back when for a sort of sensitivity training for those new to the Xiaolin ranks: after all, it was a good deal harder to be wicked or have Heylin thoughts if you knew precisely how what you said and did affected those you associated with.
Naturally, when the Tóng Qíng Torques had gone active, Chase had not attended the Showdown for them. He had no use for them, certainly, and the Xiaolin monks (who would invariably win them) could not use them against him in any way because of the manner in which the Torques functioned: they would have to get a collar on him for it to have any effect, and that, he simply did not see happening.
The everlord had never imagined that Spicer would've won the thing, or, for that matter, that he could've managed…this!
"That's right, Spicer," he growled low in his throat, glowering at the redhead just outside his containment cell, "I will kill you for doing this to me."
The fear ripped through him again, and though it made the man feel nervous and edgy, he took comfort in the fact that it was simply a reflection of what his captor was feeling. That snot-nosed brat was frightened by his threats? Good. Perhaps the little idiot had some brains in his head, after all.
Chase abruptly felt the terror being forced away, replaced with a cool, calm…nothingness.
"Kill me if you want," Jack said, and his captive could feel pure honesty filling his heart. "I don't care. But it's gonna be after this; once we finish here, I'll let you go and you can do whatever the hell you want to me."
The elder man snorted, writhing in his bonds for discomfort. "And what is this?" he demanded, annoyed that his intimidating snarl did not once more elicit fear in the goth. "Why have you brought me here and so foolishly invited your own doom in caging me?"
Jack gave the dragonlord a look and Chase was both shocked and infuriated to feel disdain for himself! "The collars?" the albino matter-of-factly reminded with a tap at the one encircling his own neck. "I guess you just used up your one blond moment for the century, you perfect bastard."
Chase suddenly found himself hating every last inch of…well, himself. His every triumph and achievement seemed worthless, now, and all he could think about was how disgusting his utter flawlessness was. Could he do nothing wrong?
Immediately, the everlord realized it was Spicer's disgust he was feeling and snapped out of it. "I worked hard to become the man I am today, Spicer," he growled, "something I wouldn't expect you to understand!"
The blank feeling of nothingness returned to him.
"You think I don't understand hard work?" Jack inquired, his voice cold and icy.
Slowly, Chase felt anger begin to pool in his heart.
"You have no idea how hard I've worked, Chase," the youth informed, the slight edge of a growl to his voice. "But, I guess that's why you're here: to learn about the stuff you've never bothered to learn about me."
"That is what this is about?" the dragonlord scoffed. "I hurt your delicate feelings and now you want me to 'feel your pain' or some other such drivel?!"
"No!" Jack nearly roared, and Chase honestly found himself startled by both the fury in the youth's voice and the spiteful hate that filled his own heart. "You always try to make it about you, Chase, and y'know what? It's not about you, this time. It's about me, and you're gonna understand that even if it has to come to this. You won't listen to me in civilized conversation?" Black-clothed arms crossed over the goth's chest. "Fine. I'll resort to this: I have no problem with that."
"What are you going to do to me, Spicer?" Chase inquired casually, not a drop of fear in his voice.
Jack frowned and took a seat before the dragonlord's prison cell. "Well, you seem to be under the impression that I'm a lazy brat who has no idea what hard work is," he began. "Why don't we start with that?"
Abruptly, Chase found himself exhausted as his captor began to remember a certain instance in his past. The warlord fell limply to the cool floor of his cell as his bones ached, his muscles cramped from overuse, and still, still an inability to stop and rest dwelled within him. If he stopped, he thought, the monks would win, and he couldn't let them win, not again.
So what if it meant he would exhaust himself further and possibly hurt himself due to that damn Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome that kept him constantly prone to sprains and dislocations? So what if it meant another four or five gashes that he'd have to sew up himself in front of the mirror later; leaving once-pristine white flesh littered with more scars to match the bruises that never really seemed to heal because of how often they were augmented?
No, it didn't matter, he thought as a sharp dagger of agony tore through his leg: this kind of thing happened every Showdown, so what was the fucking difference, anyways?
Chase inhaled sharply as the feelings and thoughts dispelled quickly and he sat upright immediately. Mildly shaken by the experience (how long had it been since he'd last felt so weak and hurt?), golden eyes flickered to the youth whose feelings and thoughts had just been foisted upon him.
Jack sat very calmly before the containment cell as if absolutely nothing had happened: one leg was crossed elegantly over the other and red eyes stared coolly down at the man. "Well?" the goth prompted. "How'd you like it?"
The warlord briefly considered lying, but nothing would've come from it except perhaps an annoyed Spicer and in all honesty, he did not want to be made to sit through that feeling of pain and frailty again. "I didn't," he answered truthfully.
A smirk twisted the albino's mouth and a decidedly more familiar feeling took Chase: Evil. "Good," Jack replied. "In case you're wondering, that was the Showdown for the Tóng Qíng Torques."
A white hand reached down and yanked up the pant leg of loose black jeans, revealing a long and angry-looking gash upon the goth's right leg; jagged and inexpertly sewn up in a way that must have been painful.
"Clay," Jack said by way of explanation. "He didn't mean to actually catch me with a boulder, I don't think, but when you're tossing around giant chunks of rock and aiming in the general direction of somebody, I can't help but wonder what he thought was gonna happen."
"You worked hard to win that Showdown, then," Chase declared.
"I did," the youth confirmed, a very slight measure of pride leaking into the warlord at the acknowledgment, "thanks for noticing. I nearly got myself killed that time, but I won. I won and I fucking deserved it."
The thought struck the man that Spicer was not acting as he usually did. He seemed…darker, more mature than he'd ever been. Could it be that the boy had finally been pushed over the edge due to his constant failures?
Had Spicer been broken?
"Don't go thinking we're done here just yet," Jack interrupted the dragonlord's musings, "because we're not. We're not done by a long shot." The goth smirked again and inquired, "What would you liked to explore next, Chase?"
"I'm not partial to anything in particular," the man said.
Jack laughed. "Then, I guess it's up to me, isn't it?" He put a hand to his mouth, humming as he pretended to think it over. Then, he grinned, a black and wicked thing that (were he a lesser man) would've sent shivers up and down Chase's spine for the thrill of sadism that went along with it. "How about I show you what fear is like from my end of things?"
Golden eyes went just a bit wider. Oh, gods, no, not that… He did not want to be subjected to fear, one of the weakest feelings that existed; not to mention one he'd hardly felt in his many centuries of living!
Unfortunately for him, the younger man caught the subtle reaction and chuckled softly. "I guess we have a winner, then," he said.
Chase gasped aloud as terror ripped through him of a caliber that, even as a human, he had never felt. He could see in his mind the worst of the elements inches away. He could feel the heat of an inferno licking at his flesh; the moisture of a tsunami about to overtake him; the wind of a tornado heading his way; and the tremor of an earthquake beneath his feet.
What made it different from anything he'd ever before experienced was that he knew for a fact that he could not compete against this. He had no elemental training of his own to combat it, no martial arts skills that would help him evade this onslaught, and worst of all, no magic to simply teleport himself away from the situation.
All he had was a staggering intellect, and the most it could do was think up last-minute strategies to keep him from getting outright killed: the fire would still burn him, the water would still drench him, the wind would still cut him, and the earth would still crush him.
The only difference was that he got to live to suffer through his wounds, and that fact was one of the most horrifying things the man had ever felt.
Chase snapped back to reality once more in an instant, the chilling fear quite suddenly gone. His eyes fell upon the goth that'd made him experience it and, still shaking ever so slightly, he informed, "Since when did you become so adept at torture, Spicer?"
Jack laughed at him. "Torture?" he questioned. "This isn't torture." The youth appeared unsure for a moment. "Or at least, it isn't supposed to be…But maybe you're right: maybe I have been a little rough on you."
The everlord stared cautiously at his suddenly pensive captor, not entirely sure he liked where this was going.
"I've got a couple more things to show you from my perspective," the goth said, "so maybe…I should make you feel something you'll actually like…"
The manacles that bound Chase's wrists behind his back abruptly unlocked, and the man realized with a start that Jack had released them with a thought.
Chase had no time to reach up and tear the collar from his throat or attempt to break out of his cell: all of a sudden, he felt…hot…
Quite abruptly, his head was filled with steamy thoughts and images and the warlord fell onto his back with a soft, barely audible groan.
The man thought of himself: of his devilishly handsome face, his thick, silky mane of dark hair, and good gods, his body…! His body was a thing of Florentine beauty; a regular Michaelangelo's David but in flesh instead of cold, unfeeling marble!
Before Chase was fully aware of it, he was in lust with himself.
The dragonlord was eternally grateful, just then, that his armor had been removed; leaving him in just the black suit of clothing he wore underneath. This fact made it much easier to run his hands along the length of his body, his broad palms gliding warmly over toned flesh hidden beneath a thin layer of silk.
Soon enough, even the silk became intolerable, and he dipped his hand beneath the hem of his upper garment. He moaned aloud as his fingers made blissful contact with the quickly-heating skin of his chest and stomach. Wanting…no, craving…no, needing more, the man allowed for his other hand to slide beneath the waistband of his pants and take firm hold of his cock.
Never before had he been so elated to simply touch himself; not since he'd been twelve and first discovered masturbation!
With fervor, the dragonlord began to fondle himself in the manner of a horny, desperate teenager: with quick, firm strokes designed to bring him to the swiftest orgasm possible. Chase moaned and groaned to the thought of how fucking SEXY he was, jerking himself off and just loving that it was he who was touching himself!
He'd completely forgotten that there was someone else in the room with him and he'd completely failed to care that he was being watched.
That was probably why it came as a complete surprise to Chase to suddenly find himself thinking not of masturbation, but of sex as his captor became incredibly turned on by the show.
Images rushed through the everlord's head; images of him fucking Spicer!
To his great surprise…it was hot…
He thought of himself above the goth, pounding mercilessly into the joyous and shrieking teenager whose white-white skin was flushed a reddish-pink all over. He imagined bending the youth over and fucking the living daylights out of him while Jack sang his praises, telling him he was a drop-dead gorgeous, nine-and-a-half-inch god. He thought of scratching and biting and sucking bloody welts into that pale flesh, marking it all over as his; let any man try and take this delicious sex-toy from him, now!
Unconsciously, his hand tightened on his throbbing erection, deviating from his usual favored pressure and attempting to duplicate the unique tight feel of a virginal youth's ass. Of course, it wasn't perfect; could never be perfect, but for the man's purposes, it was more than close enough.
With a hoarse roar of pleasure, the dragonlord came into his own hand for the first time in several hundred years, sullying his expensive silken trousers immediately and not even given half a fuck about it.
Vaguely, he heard a stifled grunt as Jack came, too, several feet away; soiling his own clothing with his come, but he found no real will within himself to care.
All he could think about, as he lie there catching his breath, was that that was one of the best orgasms he could recall having in his long life and that it'd been yielded from simple masturbation.
It was somewhat disturbing for Chase to find himself wondering how good it would feel to come while actually fucking Spicer instead of just fantasizing.
The moment he got his breath back, the dragonlord was on his feet and at the bars of his enclosure, absolutely furious.
"How dare you, Spicer?!" he snarled, enraged. "How dare you make me come all over myself like some horny little adolescent?! Like you, you disgusting worm?!"
Still a bit winded from the force of his own orgasm, Jack shakily forced himself to his feet (though he still remained a good distance away from Chase's cage; he was by no means foolish enough to get too close). "All I did was make you see yourself how I see you," the goth pointed out. "I didn't make you touch yourself. I'll admit, I did make you think about fucking me, but I didn't make you like it, and I didn't make you come: you did that on your own."
Chase growled, a wordless noise of anger and humiliation. "Insolent brat," he rumbled.
The albino laughed, a sound expressing a dark mirth but with a very clear hint of something not quite sane; something distinctly unhinged. "Thanks," he said, "I know."
Catlike eyes watched in a glare as the goth finally wandered nearer to the everlord's cell and, the very moment he was close enough, one powerful hand shot out and caught the boy by the throat.
Jack seemed oddly unfazed that he was being choked, even as Chase snarled, "You shall pay for this, Spicer… You will suffer for what you've done to me…"
Face beginning to flush from lack of oxygen, the youth simply said in a halted voice, "I'm…already suffering…"
And then Chase's hand released his throat. Not from some last minute mercy, but from the staggering feeling that crashed into him from out of nowhere.
The dragonlord found himself with weak knees, much too weak to support his own weight, and so he collapsed to the floor of his cell. His body was shaking all over from the force of whatever emotion had its vice-like grip on him and his chest felt dangerously tight, making the simple act of drawing breath a challenge. Chase's head spun, refusing to focus on any one thing and it made him feel dizzy for the intensity of it.
Most prominently of all, however, was his heart, which felt as if squeezed within powerful hands; threatening to fall apart under the pressure any moment.
His thoughts reflected the pain: he hates me, he'll never feel the same, I would die for him, and he won't even look at me without disgust!
In a moment of clarity, Chase realized that the feeling Jack was transmitting to him via the Tóng Qíng Torques was that of unrequited love; a powerful unrequited love from the feel of it.
What felt like decades later, the feeling subsided and the warlord's hands shot up to his neck, soundly shattering the diamond torque upon his throat open with one, deft wrench.
He did not want Spicer to put him at such disadvantage with emotion again.
Chase was surprised to feel wetness upon his cheeks and raised a hand to his face, inspecting the liquid that came off onto his fingers. Tears, he confirmed, how strange; he hadn't even been aware that he'd been crying. Perhaps the pain he'd been made to feel was the reason for that.
Glancing up, he saw his captor still standing right at the edge of the cell, clinging to the bars. He didn't move or make a single sound for a good five minutes, a very concrete tip that something was off.
"It hurts, doesn't it?" he suddenly asked, his voice sounding dull and dead. "To feel that strongly about someone and know they'll never feel that way back? It's…debilitating," the youth opined, "crippling to have to be so fucking in love with someone that you can't even function right when they're around…"
Chase was surprised and yet not surprised in the least to see Jack abruptly fall to his knees with a hoarse sob. The bars of the cell suddenly retracted into the ceiling and walls at their creator's telepathic command, allowing the goth to cling desperately to the warlord he'd imprisoned.
"Oh, god, I'm so sorry, Chase," the boy, suddenly seeming much younger than the eighteen years he was, whimpered brokenly. "I…I didn't mean to…I'm sorry that I…" He broke off with a heavy sob, his tears soaking the everlord's black silk clothing thoroughly. "…I just wanted somebody to know how I felt…"
Chase remained stoic and still as Jack held onto him and cried.
It was just as he'd suspected: Spicer had been broken. That last battle with the monks had brought him to his psychological breaking point and deftly pushed him past it. The poor boy had taken all the physical and emotional abuse he could take and finally, much longer than the warlord had expected him to last, he'd snapped under the pressure.
Slowly, his arms came around the crying youth, offering warmth and a bit of comfort. Jack took it well and, with relief, began sobbing even harder.
"Spicer…" Chase began when the tears slowed enough for his voice to be heard.
The goth sniffled, which the everlord took as an indication that he was acknowledged.
"You have been broken," he informed.
Jack whimpered and clung harder to the man, assenting that he was aware of it.
Chase held the boy a few moments longer, pondering his next course of action.
Spicer was essentially a blank slate: a psychologically ruined creature possessed of raw potential and untapped skill. After all, had he not crafted material of a strength which even he, an immortal dragonlord could not break? Had he not found a way to make shackles and prison bars respond to his mental commands without the use of wires or a remote? Had he not managed to nullify the man's magic with his science? And for that matter, he'd achieved the feat of capturing the everlord in the first place, something no one in the history of Chase's long life had ever done.
Aside from that, Jack clearly felt deeply for the warlord. Chase had known that even before this little incident, but now…after having been made to feel it, it was yet clearer how deep that affection ran.
Chase could make use of that affection, certainly; through the lust Spicer had sent his way, the warlord had acknowledged that the goth would be an interesting bed-partner. Of the thoughts the youth had put in his head, the man had seen some of the filthiest and most enjoyable things he'd ever had the pleasure of doing with a whore, and even some things he'd never even considered doing in all his centuries of living! It would be a grave mistake to pass Spicer up as a consort, if nothing else.
The beauty of it, however, was that Jack's potential encompassed more than just as a simple whore: with his skills in technology he could become quite the excellent minion with a bit of work. Very little work would have to be done, as the boy's will was already broken: all Chase would have to do would be to build him back up again, but with a full subservience to him, something no one who had never been broken could have.
After all, what was a minion without complete loyalty?
"Spicer," Chase began softly, having made his decision, "I can fix you."
Jack looked up immediately, his red eyes teary as he hastily wiped snot from his nose. "Y-yeah…?" he hopefully inquired.
"Yes," the man confirmed, "but to fix you, you must fully submit to me. You will have to give yourself over to me: mind, body, and soul." He purposefully left out 'heart': he knew he was already in possession of that. "Will you become mine, Spicer?"
The goth sniffled, thinking on it only briefly. "Yes," he agreed, his voice low and raspy, "yes, please…"
A black chuckle escaped the dragonlord's lips and he stood, pulling Jack to his feet along with him.
Had a third party been present, they likely would've choked upon the suddenly oppressive spike of Evil magic in the air; thick and stifling so as to make breath difficult.
For the first time in centuries, the Heylin side had a genuine apprentice.
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A/N: I posted this over on dA as Silvarbelle's 2nd birthday gift. Thanks for reading, and I hope you all liked it! :D