(I don't own Supernatural or Voltron.)
The centipede thing was charging right at us, and it was gaining an impressive amount of speed for something its size.
I turned off the pain receptors and connected Lance to sight and hearing. Now he could see through my eyes and hear through my ears, but he wouldn't be able to control his own body. If I allowed him to do so, he would surely perish.
Would not.
Shush.
I braced myself for impact, having given up dodge time in favor of turning off pain and allowing Lance to see and hear what was going on. The monster clearly hadn't expected me to hold my ground, for I felt a brush of uncertainty rise from it but it didn't slow.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? IF YOU KILL ME-
SHUSH!
It slammed into me, snapping its mandibles around my midsection and tossing me into the air with a twist of its head. I spread my wings instinctively and flapped, my wingbeats frantic as my clipped wings proved to be of no help. I hit the side of the arena backfirst, the snap of my spine breaking echoing throughout the arena. Lance retreated further into the vessel, recoiling from the sound.
The crowd went silent at the sound of my spin breaking, all staring at me as I laid on the ground, limp. My vessel's legs refused to respond and I stayed motionless.
"Behold, the valiant Paladin!" a booming voice echoed across the silent arena, laugh echoing from the humanoid figure that had spoken from the fanciest seat. I assumed this was the man- er, alien- in charge.
Lotor. Lance hissed, rising up with a wave of fear before burying himself deeper, disconnecting himself from hearing and sight in his urge to escape farther down..
Lotor's words brought quite a few whoops and laughs from the audience.
Gritting my teeth in anger, I reached forward and dug my hands into the dirt. Despite the fact that my legs would not listen, I dragged myself towards the monstrous centipede-alien who had broken my spine. It stared at me for a moment, and the wave of pity I felt from it only made me angrier. I didn't stop, dragging myself towards it with an expression of determination on my face. The audience had fallen into a stunned silence when they'd seen me haul my paralyzed form towards my opponent.
It scuttled over to me and paused when it was looming over me. The crowd snapped from their silence, shrieking and howling for blood.
A wicked grin spread on my face.
And then I opened my mouth and began a verse of '99 bottles of beer on the wall' using my true voice.
The audience still howled, but this time it was in pain. By 97 bottles, my opponent had been reduced to a writhing mass, shaking and spasming like a drowning larvae.
"Haggar!" I heard Lotor cry and I could see him from here with my enhanced sight, his own hands crushed against his head, blood oozing from between his fingers.
"Tranquilize it!" I heard her voice boom across the stadium.
Something sharp pierced into my back. I turned to glare in Lotor and Haggar's direction and increased my volume. Behind me, my opponent ceased moving and I could hear the instant its heart stopped.
Did Haggar honestly expect whatever they had just shot me with to actually act... actsh...
The ground suddenly got a lot closer as I collapsed. My vision blurred, my hearing sounded like I was delving underwater. And then everything was black.
I woke up in the cell again. Tired. And hungry. When was the last time I ate something sugary?
My Grace was still healing my spine, an injury that would have permanently put a human out of commission. It had healed enough that I was actually able to support myself on my feet, which was good considering the fact that the cell didn't allow me room to sit or lay down.
My mouth felt dry and my face ached. My lips tingled, numb, while the skin around my face burned. I blinked, unable to see anything in the darkness, and reached my hand up to my face.
I tried to scream, but my mouth refused to open; the very attempt left it burning worse than before.
I trembled, from both fear and rage. It seemed they had found out something about Loki after all.
It wasn't until the wall slid open and I stumbled out onto the arena once more that I discovered that they had taken more than my voice. I could see nothing, and when I reached up I could feel that some sort of smooth metal covered my eyes like a mask, like a blindfold that didn't go all the way around my head. My stomach did a horrified churn when I realized that they had screwed it into my face so that I couldn't simply pry it off. I would have noticed it sooner if I had been connected to the pain receptors. I did a double check to make sure Lance wasn't connected to pain. He wasn't.
I moved my head around as if that would help, my heartbeat quickening at the roar of the crowd echoing in my ears as they screamed.
Lance?
I didn't receive an answer. My host had gone too deep for me to retrieve him, and the idea that he might follow in my last host's footsteps made my chest heavy.
LANCE! Laaaaaaannnnnnncccccceeeeeee! I WILL SHAVE YOUR HEAD BALD! LANCE WAKE UP!
WAH! I felt his mind rise up a little, his voice groggy and confused as it swirled around my head, wha? Whas goin on?
We are back in the arena.
Yeah, I can hear that much. Dude, give me my eyes back.
They screwed a piece of metal over our eyes. Neither of us can see.
S-Screwed? Metal screwed into my face? My beautiful face? Ooooh, I think I'm gonna be sick.
Should I not mention that they sewed our mouth shut?
His mind retreated back towards the depths.
WAIT WAIT WAIT COME BACK.
I could feel him rise back up, much to my relief.
So, do you have a plan for us to not die, then? Because I really don't want to die.
You'll be fine. But I need to disconnect you from the vessel's senses.
Haha.
I'm serious. Things might get... nasty, kid. I don't want a repeat of yesterday.
I could sense that Lance was about to argue, but I sent a wave of comfort towards him and he grudgingly obliged, not struggling when I disconnected him from the vessel and left him anchored to nothing but my Grace. I couldn't spread some Grace out to get a read on my surroundings thanks to the purple stripes and symbols they'd tattooed onto me that kept all of me trapped within the confines of this vessel, so it was through hearing alone that I tried to figure out what was around me.
But the crowd was way too loud. I went to scowl, but stopped immediately at the pain from the metal that kept my mouth sewed shut. They must have gotten their hands on an angel blade and melted it down to use to wire my mouth shut. I didn't let myself think about just how they would have managed to get their hands on an angel blade.
I stretched my wings out before wrapping them around myself, so that anything coming at me would move through the wings that would be as intangible to them as air. But I would feel them phase through.
It didn't take long.
I felt the uncomfortable feeling of something moving through my wings behind me and I whipped around to face them with my fist already swinging. My fist smashed into metal.
A human would have broken the fragile bones in their hand, but my Grace lent me strength, and instead of broken bones it was my opponent who received damage. The metal gave way under my power and I heard my foe cry out as, suddenly, the breastplate that they thought would give them an advantage now kept their chest horribly compressed with how dented in I had left it.
With little space for their lungs to expand with the bent metal pressing into them, I could hear my foe's breathing over the roar of the crowd. I would have grinned if I could.
So they were humanoidish, then, from what I could tell, with lungs in the same place. The disturbance through my wings informed me that they were larger than me, but I had still managed to hit high enough to crush the breastplate against their lungs.
I darted away, wings outstretched so that anything I could run into would be noticed before I did so, and put some distance between my opponent and I.
Are we winning? I can't tell.
I punched it.
Is it still coming?
Yes.
Well, obviously you didn't hit it hard enough.
I rolled my eyes but quickly stopped at the feeling of my eyelashes brushing against the metal blindfold.
Okay, I might require some help.
You expect me to help... how exactly? You kinda stole my body, Gabriel.
I'm going to kind of kick you out.
...Come again?
Don't worry, I'll keep enough of your soul in here still so that you're still connected. It's an odd process, but you'll be able to kind of be my eyes in that you'll be able to see what's going on. You'll pretty much be a ghost. Except that you're still alive.
Your rambling is not assuring.
Ready?
Can we maybe rethink this?
It might hurt.
Could you give me a couple minutes to come up with a better plan?
I'll basically sew your soul into my Grace to make sure you don't fade off. Then you'll float your little butt outside the vessel and let me know what's going on and where the monster is. That's my plan.
No. Absolutely not. Being stuck like this is like... like that book series Animorphs, where they describe what it's like having a yeerk in your head except for the fact that I DON'T EVEN GET TO SEE OR HEAR OR KNOW WHAT'S EVEN HAPPENING! Sewing my SOUL into your GRACE does not sound reversible! I'd rather make out with Keith!
Interesting example of something you'd rather do, I told him, also interesting that such a specific thing is the first thing you came up with.
Shut up.
I let out a mental chuckle, well, I guess you're not up for it?
No.
I almost let out a remark, but I had allowed myself to get distracted by my conversation with my host. Whatever I was fighting caught me unaware and something cold and slimy wrapped around my ankle and yanked. My face slammed into what felt like the dirt ground, and then I was flying through the air (and not in the good, look at me being a little bird way either) before getting a face full of dirt on the other side of the beast. Something dislodged in the back of my mouth, but I was forced to swallow it because I lacked the ability to spit it out. It wasn't until I tasted blood in my mouth that I realized what it must have been.
I think I just lost a tooth.
OH MY GOD
Don't worry, I think it was a wisdom tooth. Man, I could go for some ice cream or something right now, you now?
How can you be thinking about food!? You just lost one of MY teeth! That's my body you're getting beat up in willy nilly! I have good looks to uphold! And you're ruining them!
I'm a Trickster, kid, and it's been a while since my last sugar fix.
Please please please don't break my body
I can't make any promises.
I reached down and grabbed onto the thing curled around my ankle. My hands nearly slid off it a couple times.
Ah, I think it has tentacles! Groooossss!
Ew, Lance echoed my disgust.
I tightened my grip, rewarded with a scream as my hands tightened onto the monster's appendage until I heard a crack come from it.
I was released and my opponent retreated.
If I could only get that crowd to shut up! How am I supposed to hear this thing if all I hear is them!?
You've got angely powers! Can't you make it so you can only hear the alien you're fighting?
Angely? Kid, you and I need to have a talk about angels-
My mouth burned with agony when I instinctively cried out in shock as one large slimy tentacle thing smashed into my gut. I landed chestfirst, grateful that the wind that was just knocked out of my vessel didn't affect me. I couldn't sense the thing's emotions without being able to spread my Grace outside of my vessel, so I hadn't even known how close it had gotten.
Turns out it had some sort of claw spike somewhere because I most definitely felt the pressure of it stabbing that spike right down into my back.
Perfect.
I latched onto the tentacle with my Grace.
It placed some sort of large clawed foot onto my back and pulled on its tentacle, probably planning on dislodging the spike and stabbing me with it again to finish me off. I held onto it and, with my Grace holding a physical hold on it, I could feel it's confusion. It pulled again to no avail.
It then proved to be a spectacularly genius individual because its next course of action was to stab another tentacle through my back. I held onto that one too.
I could hear its heart from this close, beating quickly. It was getting scared.
It panicked even more when its tentacles began to freeze. My Grace may be trapped within my vessel, but my power as Loki most definitely was not. It screeched and cried, pulling and pulling. But I had frozen the tentacles solid, and the creature screamed when its tentacles snapped off.
Okay, whatever you do, don't connect to the senses. ANY of them.
What? Why?
I'm about to get us a weapon.
I dug my hands into my own chest, ripping and tearing through flesh and muscle and bone until I reached something that wasn't supposed to be there. I grabbed onto it, freezing my hands to it since my hands were too slick with my vessel's blood to get a good hold otherwise. The crowd had gone utterly silent. I heard a couple screams.
I pulled, throwing my hands away from myself. I ripped the tentacles straight through my body and out the other side.
The crowd was clearly screaming now. I heard screams of pain. Some of them were trampling each other in their haste to leave. I guess that this was too much blood and gore, even for them.
I dropped the tentacles at my feet and reached down, carefully gathering up my guts before they could hit the dirt and get dirty. I put them back where they were supposed to be, hands warm and slippery from the blood that covered them. I could feel my Grace seeping from the wound, and my Grace burned where it touched the air. Even with such a large opening in my vessel, I was trapped. But my Grace was healing the damage to my vessel already, and the gaping hole in my chest was already closing and fixing itself.
My opponent was the one putting distance between us this time. I could tell exactly where it was because its screams were the loudest whenever my vague stumbling around brought me near it.
I twirled the tentacles, finding the sound of the claw on the end of each one cutting through the air to be quite satisfying. The audience hadn't stopped screaming, but my opponent's heart was so loud and frantic that I could still hear it even over the noise all around me.
It screamed again and I struck out, whipping one of the tentacles in that direction like a spiked chain. It hit home with a thunk and a squelch and the creature howled in pain. I pulled sharply, yanking it out and striking with the second one. This one hit too. After I yanked this one out, I heard the creature collapse to the ground.
"Please," a voice begged, "please, Paladin. No more."
I froze. The tentacles made a thudding sound when they hit the dirt.
This thing... is sentient?
Duh. Aliens, dude. What's going on?
I was horrified.
If this thing was sentient... was the thing I killed yesterday sentient? This whole time I thought that I had been fighting monsters. Not.. not animals or- or whatever these human sentience level things were. Aliens. Lance had called them aliens.
A low whine escaped through my sewn shut mouth. I dropped to my knees, unable to keep myself up anymore. I crawled forward slowly, hesitant, and the alien stiffened under my touch as I rested my hand on it. Once it felt my Grace flowing through it, fixing it, making its pain cease, it relaxed under my hand.
I let out another whine, hoping my apology got across as much as I could get it to.
I was a Trickster.
That much was true.
But the people I punished deserved their punishment. I knew now that this alien was no monster. It was a prisoner, just like me, forced to fight in this arena for the sick enjoyment of a twisted audience. He, she, they, whatever it was, didn't deserve this.
I could feel the shock emenating from the alien. From this close, with my Grace moving through it, I could sense it now. The wards did more than keep me trapped within this vessel; they had kept me from sensing that the beings I was fighting weren't monsters.
Haggar must have forced angels to fight before. She knew what to do to make us fight. The idea of my siblings being forced to fight to the death made me burn with rage. Instead of acting out on my anger, I finished healing my opponent.
Slowly, they got themselves to their feet. The new tentacles my Grace had regrown for it moved slowly through the dirt as it swayed.
"Mercy is not- not something you s-see much of here, Paladin," the alien told me. It paused for a moment and I waited. Waited for it to strike.
But slowly, so slowly, it turned. I could hear the sound of it walking away.
Something sharp pierced my back.
And then I knew no more.
