Title: Bloody Magnolia
Summary: Prompted by the Evil Brin challenge over at deviantArt. Something goes awry during 'Cry Wolf' and it can't be taken back. One-shot, character death, lot of blood.
Disclaimer: I make no money off of this.
Warning: Blood, character death, Londo being himself, murder, all the good stuff. Also, I couldn't quite make Brin evil—just really, really immersed in being a mindless agent of evil.
Dedication: Done for the Evil Brin contest registered by CharmedSerenity over at deviantArt. I haven't been in this channel of fandom for a while and it felt right to get into it for this.

-:-
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited.
-Ambrose Bierce.

All he could remember was a name.

"You have to choose. You—ah!"

The teeth in his mouth felt too sharp and too heavy as he turned in the barren bed he'd been given almost a year ago. A small part of him knew that he always got bigger and scarier when he woke up from dreaming or even within nightmares, but he forgot it soon after his eyes caught the light of day leaking into his room and then his sentience waned with just knowing that he was supposed to go to his father's (leader's, handler's, keeper's) study and receive orders about what he was supposed to do that day or where he was supposed to go. He'd get up, get dressed in his general's uniform—Oblivion Black, skin tight suit that seemed to mock leather, but was sturdy and had single Kingdom Red stripes from shoulder to wrist, from hips to his reformed heels—and skip breakfast to go and do his duty. He never brushed his hair because it was no longer needed for him to seem socially acceptable; his tresses had turned to filthy dreads soon after he'd left…

He didn't remember what he left a year ago. He remembered faces, vaguely, and had seen them in battle often since coming to the small, plant thriving moon his father had claimed and used as a base of operations. They were angry and sometimes they tried to talk to him, but talking didn't mean anything. Talking would not accomplish their deaths that his father often ordered; the soldiers sent with him useless in that area, but able to inflict brilliant damage on the ones that tangled with Brin for too long and who were distracted in their talking when he couldn't hear them (blood ran rampant in his ears with his eyes wild and blazing, mouth wide to snap at their limbs, claws always drawing their blood).

(His hand, in his dream, had not been moving underhand; it had moved overhand. Underhand it was defensive and meant to remove obstacles; overhand as he had decided in a split second that might have changed if he had been more…in control…was offensive and full of sharp claws that found their mark easily to destroy the obstacle in the form of a black haired beauty with a sad look. She'd been saying something, like those people did on his missions, but not yelling even though it was obvious to him she might have thought her words were urgent…)

His father seemed displeased, often, when Brin was called back to base, "Oh, Brin, I was hoping for more casualties than just the Science Police. I realize the Legion is actually getting stronger, but you're better than that."

Brin couldn't say anything to Londo's words. He hadn't really been able to use his vocal chords since the fifth month he'd been with the man and most of his muscles had grown to compensate for any weaknesses he (Londo believed; otherwise he wouldn't keep injecting him with substances that quite often burned like fires that consumed whole buildings) still had from before he'd started wearing his general's uniform. But, still, he nodded to his father and when Londo dismissed him, Brin went back to his barren bedroom to change out of his ruined clothing (there would be a replacement in the morning like there always was) and then go wander the outside area. His father preferred him to fulfill his true nature without human clothing and Brin was obligated to abide by the man's wishes.

(The girl, with the name he remembered and tried to call out to before he woke up every morning, had smashed into a wall but had probably died before the impact caused by him. She'd fallen on her side onto the cold cement floor, blood—dark and smelling not of iron but of something that, at the time made Brin secrete tears before his father had transported him away from the fighting all around the room—pooling and gushing from the gaping wound he'd inflicted across her ribs and right through her stomach. He'd tried to move from standing over the body, her warm blood like ice and fire at the same time dripping in little rivulets from his claws and fingers; he'd heard the smallest person in the room (orange with brilliant green eye) cry out his name before the suction of leaving one place and transporting to another took place and then he was facing his father with the biggest smile on his face ever witnessed. Brin thought, for a moment, about killing him… but his brain seized and he obediently accepted the pat on his shoulder, "Welcome home, my boy.")

Running along the forest floor before he was exhausted—his body only, as his mind was practically useless—and had to go in for his single meal of the day was so commonplace that he didn't even think about it when he fell to the ground, rested silently panting for a moment ('killer, monster, animal, wolf') and then got up again to head back. He didn't taste the food when he ripped into it in the kitchen (meat, always meat and always barely cooked) and barely flinched when some of the bones got caught in his throat; he'd just bring his clawed hand into his mouth, find the obstruction and pull it out to toss it to the ground. Once done with that and if his father had no further requests, he'd go back to his bed and stare into nothingness until he felt himself shrink and go lax on the mattress; his hands would get smaller as his consciousness dissipated, his eyes gleaming yellow that wasn't that of a crazed monster that felt pain in his head all the time and the corners of his eyes secreting fluid that he no longer had a word for as his world went black and he felt nothing anymore than a pressing weight that had been there as long as he could remember.

("Brin, please, you can understand me—please listen to me! You don't belong here—Tinya wouldn't want you to do this—!")

He didn't have the ability to feel surprised, but he supposed that if he did, he would have been completely awestruck that on the next mission his father assigned him (anniversary to the day of when Brin had forgotten words and feelings and had been consumed by a throbbing in his head that he couldn't get rid of no matter how much it dissipated if he killed an enemy or even a drone father gave him to practice fighting with) and the drones that came with him—"A favor for Imperiex; a real honor."—that it would be his last mission and he would be greeted by his death at the hands of the only one in the Legion that tried to talk to him every time they engaged in battle. The smallest and the weakest, his father often described him as.

Imperiex had ordered Brin and some others to engage the rest of the Legion while he fought the odd scented male with glowing green eyes and soot black hair. He did not argue, but even though he could not fight them all, he felt even more pounding in his head when the iron-copper-rust scented male that seemed to be one of the alphas of the Legion (in dreaming, this one seemed too passive and it made Brin angry)was engaged by the tall green haired, green attired woman Brin had been ordered to help a few times before; the scarred ginger throwing lightning at Brin before engaging the ax wielding drone to the green woman. The son of Londo had been left with the shapeshifter of the Legion and for the life of him there was no way the tiny male should have been able to take him out. At least, that's what Londo would say later while in his cell after being located and captured by a psychic blonde and a size changing girl that would mourn the loss of another who they called friend.

The fighting went on for a while, but Brin had felt the pain in his head worsening the entire time; his eyes getting darker and his form getting larger with sharper points that he wasn't used to. His ears became too sensitive to the child's (Brin recognized the word but felt a wet heat in his temple when he acknowledged it) constant chattering and it got harder and harder for Brin to breath as his throat tightened because of the words and the nanites in his head at war with each other. The words were pulling Brin closer to the sentience he lost (ignored, was incapable of considering anymore) and the microscopic machines were trying to keep his subservience to his father in check.

(Every time he killed someone, he felt the blood and the crack of bone. He was an animal that was obedient and, really, it was just like hunting in the forests and killing his food—though he had been ordered by his father not to eat his kills that were able to talk and often made their way on two legs. If the kill had family, friends, feelings, Brin wasn't able to make a connection that would mean anything. Before he killed them, they made noise and gave off the scent of health; after he killed them, they were silent and bloody and he wanted to swallow their organs like grapes, their hearts like the breasts of poultry.)

"You know…I know you didn't mean to kill Tinya. You were never like that."

When Cham—Brin did recognize the name, but he only knew it belonged to the boy as he'd often flinch if it was called across the battlefield to draw him away from Brin—finally said something that made a connection in Brin's current mind, and the one he left behind, the war in his head caused a genocide among his synapses. It overloaded him and he made a noise not unlike a wolf and a lion and a bear all dying in a slaughterhouse. He breathed in once, wet and heavy, and then fell to the ground with his blood (smelling the way a penny tastes inside the mouth and on top of the tongue, looking almost black under the moonlight in which they fought, on a world that Brin didn't even know the name but recognized by the trees hanging overhead that smelled of cotton and a flower—Magnolia—he recalled in his dreams with that girl he'd killed a year ago to the day)leaving trails out of his ears, his nostrils, his eyes and his mouth.

(It had been Brainy's idea to provoke Brin into remembering the events. He had hypothesized that the next fight with Imperiex would require the warlord to ask for help and that, if that happened, things would get too far out of hand if Brin was not either captured or put out of his misery. Capturing him, while ideal, had only had a chance of success of about twenty-seven percent; and even if they did manage, Brainy said he would have to be turned over to the Science Police or locked up for the rest of his life—whatever humanity they hoped was still there had been eaten away into almost nothing by the nanites, no matter what the Legion individuals wanted to believe. The blonde genius, as well as Cosmic Boy, had asked if anyone was willing to make the attempt to capture or euthanize—such a pretty word when everyone in the Legion knew it basically meant murder—Brin. Cham and Superman X had both raised their hands and, by default of Kel-El having to always fight Imperiex every battle, Cham had been given the order. He was to talk about what happened to Phantom Girl and get an extreme emotional response that would lead to death or capture. Brainy and Cosmic Boy had wished him luck, but he knew as everyone looked at him with emotions ranging from sympathy to silent disgust, that neither of them really meant it.)

Brin died under a Magnolia tree with flowers in full bloom or dying on the vine, petals creeping in and swimming like sailboats in blood; Chameleon Boy crying over his prone form and hiding it from sight of their enemies until the rest of the Legion had locked them up or driven them off. The only good thing to come from that day—aside from Lightning Lad helping Cosmic Boy capture Emerald Empress and Kel-El seeing Cham in his quarters (bringing the sobbing boy a stolen glass of Rimbor wine and a pudding cup in an offer of something like understanding) later to comfort him as best as the clone knew how after a whole year of trying very hard to actually be there for Cham when few others were—was that Brin had died quickly and hadn't killed any of his former allies and friends.

Brin hadn't even scratched Cham before dying. His eyes had been left open until Kel landed beside the body and closed them so Cham wouldn't have to see them anymore.

(Cham, months later, sometimes thought, in the dead of night and when he was distracted enough from that part of him that wasn't unimaginable guilt tucked far into itself to hide from grief and pain and not caring anymore, he could see an angel—the ghost of an angel—in the stone garden outside the Legion headquarters that Violet and Imra and Luornu started to honor everyone the Legion had ever lost. A happy phantom in white clothes with a knowing smile just for him as she waved and hugged the tall figure beside her that sat on the top of his headstone that was a perfect three inches from hers. The man wasn't angelic, but he wasn't shadow and when Cham blinked, they would be gone and there would be nothing but a slight decrease in the ache he'd been left with for a year, three months, two days, four hours…)