Chapter 4: The Devil Inside
Netherworld Tower: Private Quarters
Acheron sat on the edge of his grandiose bed, surrounded by the glittering gold of his private hoard, chin resting in his left hand, while his shoulder muscles received a rather enthusiastic rub down from Ghost Fay, straight through the armor he was still wearing. He would be the first to admit that he found her presence rather disquieting, but the electric jolt she sent though his muscles was beyond compare. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that she was mostly spirit, and so being reached deeper into him than fingers of flesh could, or it might have been the deceased fairy queen's total magical nature. Either way, he wasn't going to start complaining when Ghost Fay got the results she was getting.
On the topic of magic, he felt oddly guilty over leaving Soul Calibur behind on the Thousand Sunny. They might have bickered with each other like two misers over a single gold coin, but he supposed the constant company hadn't been so bad. Fay's ghostly touch might have been soothing to his musculature, but that was about as far as it went. Part of him was still quite curious about why Soul Calibur had chosen that particular moment to go insane, why not any time before that?
He closed his eyes and relaxed, trying to let his anger over the Thousand Sunny go for the time being. "Just a little lower, a little to the right…" He shivered as Ghost Fay found the sweet spot directly between his shoulder blades. "Oh yeah, right there." He let out a long sigh of contentment, and would have fallen backwards onto the bed if Ghost Fay hadn't been right behind him. Technically, he would have just passed right through her unless she for some reason wanted to be pushed down through the bed, but there was just no need for him to instigate that situation.
Just as he was on the verge of nodding off, and forgetting his troubles for a little while, a panoply of little voices shattered his peaceful state of mind. "Master, Master! Look Master!"
His eyes snapped open with what seemed to him an audible click. "What is it? I'd make some additional witty remark but it would sail right over your scabby little heads."
Three of his brown minions traipsed into view, all struggling for possession of that odd jar he had appropriated from the cabin of that red-headed girl on the Thousand Sunny. Said jar looked considerably worse for wear, especially after being pawed over by the minions, covered in pieces of rotten meat and dried patches of fecal matter. It sparked his irritation again, but mostly because the minions seemed to have taken the jar from his room without getting his permission. They really just couldn't help themselves when it came to shiny objects, now could they?
The three minions, failing to ascertain between themselves which one of them had claimed the piece of glass, dropped the jar on the floor at his feet, adding another impressive ding to the shell, and clumsily saluted. Then the one standing in the relative middle of the formation, and the only one with any visible clothing other than the rough loincloth and only sign of any field experience, spoke up. "Master, sneaky jar try to escape from Master. We no let it!"
He stared blankly at the minion, processing what he had heard several times to make sure he was getting the right message. The little imbecile was trying to tell him that the glass jar, had been trying to escape? He ran it through his head one last time and found no reason to reevaluate the statement, minute though it was, another time. Letting out a long, great sigh he stood up, took one step forward, and kicked the minion out of the window set in the far wall. Just as he was about to turn back to the bed, drift off into dreamland, and dismiss the whole matter as a delusion brought on by spending too much time around the Blue hive something about the jar caught his attention. Specifically the fact that it had moved a significant distance away and was rolling for the stairs.
He jogged three steps in the same direction and lightly set his foot on top of it. "Not so fast there, you devious little thing." He grabbed hold of the knob on top of the glass, preparing to pull. "Now, let's see what's really so special about this little trinket."
He yarded on the stopper only once, using only a tiny fraction of his great strength, and ripped the top off of the jar. Once he did, the pinkish purple liquid inside was almost catapulted out, as if under high pressure, and coalesced just to the left of his yeti-skin rug. A few moments passed when nothing changed but the steadily growing size of the puddle, but then the entire mess surged upwards in one motion and formed a shape that he was familiar with. Well, this particular one was new but the general idea was spot on.
The "shape" was a woman, and a very well-endowed one at that. Her blonde hair was cut short, about even with the height of her shoulders, and was curled inwards on the ends so as to frame her elegant face in a neat little bell shape. She had long legs, actually a little on the abnormally long side of the spectrum if he really wanted to get technical, but he didn't. And of course, the most enticing part about the whole thing was that the mystery woman was standing there as naked as a baby fresh out of the womb. He paused briefly to silently congratulate himself on such a profound metaphor, what with the jar being the womb and all from a poetic point of view.
He quickly thought up a pick-up line, drawing inspiration from an old story he had heard as a child. "Hey, I thought genies only came in lamps, not bottles. Either way, I'm ready for my three wishes."
The woman turned to face him without so much as a shred of shyness or shame, breasts swaying freely, with a completely humorless look on her face. "That was, by far, the worst line I have ever heard." She tossed her head, shaking a few strands of hair loose from her hairdo. "But, I suppose I do owe you for letting me out of that stupid jar."
He cocked his head to one side, matching the woman's sultry tone as he responded. "And, just how do you plan on doing that?"
The blonde smirked, "Clearly, not how you seem to think I'm going to repay you."
His internal response was akin to being splashed in the face with a bucket of cold water and subsequently slapped, but he outwardly managed to remain somewhat nonplussed. "Ah, I see, so what did you have in mind then?"
The woman's smirk grew more intense, as if she could tell despite his lack of reaction that she had hit a nerve. "Oh I'm still thinking about that. If you want me to hurry, why don't you shoot an idea or two of your own my way?" Her eyes flicked downwards once towards her nude body. "And while you're at it, a dress would be nice."
Fighting the urge to grind his teeth in annoyance he silently ordered one of the minions to grab one of Juno's old dresses, the yellow one with slits up both sides of the torso to the armpit, and proceeded with a different line of questioning to move his mind away from his, at least momentary, failure. "I suppose that's fair, but you could spit out a name I presume. It gets fairly awkward thinking of you as just 'she."
The woman crossed her arms in front of her, finally removing the tormenting sight of her naked top half from full view. "As you said, I think that's fair. You can call me Honey Queen if you like, simply Queen will suffice if you feel lazy."
This time, he was unable to keep a note of derision out of his voice, besides his obvious sarcasm. "Sure I'll get right on that." He noted out of the corner of his eye that Juno's old dress had arrived, and he silently told the minion to wait before giving it to Honey Queen, if that was indeed her name. He was going to let her sweat it out, both literally and figuratively, for the time being. "Next question, these devil fruits I've heard about. Say I wanted to get a hold on one for myself, where would I begin?"
This time, Honey Queen didn't even try to be subtle and openly laughed at him. "Well if you want one I hope you are either phenomenally lucky, or ungodly rich and only slightly less lucky."
He gave the blonde a flat glare and wordlessly jabbed his thumb in the direction of the literal mountain of gold surrounding his bed, a hoard that most any pirate would happily sell both family and soul to possess. His reward was finally getting Honey Queen off balance, and recovering his own.
It was his turn to flash an arrogant smile, and smile he did. "You were saying something? I was too busy trying to remember the point at which I surpassed the point of 'ungodly rich'."
Honey Queen hesitated, and the first tinge of red showed up on her cheeks. Whether the blush was from anger or embarrassment he could not say, but she was definitely rattled. "Ah, well you still need to be extraordinarily lucky, no amount of gold will change that."
He was smiling from ear to ear. "Really? Explain why, if you don't mind of course."
The blonde now seemed to be unconsciously leaning away from him, indicating that she was afraid now that she was reacting to him and not vice versa. "Well, occasionally you can find a devil fruit growing wild in the Grand Line. That is astronomically rare, so most of the time you're going to find them for sale, but vendors charge an arm and a leg for the things."
He nodded once, satisfied with his options for more power. "Good, since I have an express lane already open to the Grand Line I can start there." He waved over the minion holding the dress. "And I guess you can have that clothing you requested, because you've just been so helpful up to now."
Honey Queen did a double take, and he could assume that she had just realized he had been deliberately holding out. She certainly was giving him a glare of rage that would have made a lesser man quake with fear. "You, how dare you! How long were you planning on making me wait?"
He chuckled, long and low. "Lady, you'd best get used to it, because you aren't leaving unless I say you can. Why, you might ask? Well, technically you are booty, in more way than one, and I claimed you as plunder while on the Thousand Sunny. That means I own you right now, and I don't think I'll be inclined to change my mind any time soon." He brushed by the blonde on his way to the stairs. "Best get comfortable, because you literally can't leave unless I let you. Play nice with Fay while I'm gone."
He turned to the ghostly woman, and gave her a wink. So without saying it out loud he was giving his tacit approval for Fay to "have fun" doing whatever she wanted to Honey Queen. Some people thought that a ghost wasn't that much of a problem, those people had obviously never been haunted by a dead fairy queen. A nightmare was barely scratching the surface of the experience.
Grand Line: Netherworld Portal
Acheron sprang from the portal, this time aware of the higher exit velocity and able to compensate without falling on his face. Once again, here the sun was just rising over the sea far to the East so he should be alone for quite some time. He cast his gaze about, with an eye for greenery in particular. Close by, there was one scraggly tree that was practically growing right in the Netherworld gate, but nothing could seriously grow on that. Off in the distance, away from the town that he knew was there, he could see a stand of bright, green palm trees. As he was looking for something growing, that looked like the perfect place to start. Did he know exactly what he was looking for? No, but he could always ask Honey Queen if he thought he had something. And if she was reluctant, Fay could always have a bit of good fun wheedling the info out of the blonde. Such actions were not cruelty; they were necessity, especially if they won him an awesome power that the Old Man had never gotten his hands on. That was the true allure.
He rolled his neck around on his shoulders, eliciting two small cracks, and dashed off towards the patch of green he could see in the distance.
Grand Line: Nine hours later
Acheron stormed back towards the Netherworld gate, fists clenched tight enough to cause the metal of his armor to creak, trying with all of his will to keep himself from just annihilating the town across the way out of sheer frustration. He had picked over every piece of living greenery on the entire island with a fine-toothed comb and had nothing to show for it. Not even some crazy, messed up coconut from one of the palm trees. Now was one of the few times in his life when he felt like just throwing a tantrum despite the possibility of witnesses. He was so close, he knew it, but the object was eluding him by the width of a hair.
As he neared the Gate he again looked at the one twisted tree that had grown despite the essence of the Netherworld tainting its roots. In a way, he could feel an odd bit of sympathy with it. After all, he had grown up in the decidedly hostile environment of Nordberg and had become stronger for it. However, despite how poignant that metaphor might be, the tree looked more dead than alive, all black and twisted with no leaves to speak of. He walked over and faced the sea, taking a seat with his back against the same tree, to have a little time to think. Again, he found himself damnably missing Soul Calibur, partly because he was sure that right now she would say something witty and they would start arguing again. But he wouldn't be nearly as frustrated as he was right now. As a symptom of such, he closed his eyes and hit the back of his head against the tree.
A soft thud occurred just to his left, and he opened his eyes again but did not look immediately. If he had just wasted a whole day crawling through bushes to find what was right under his nose since arrival, then to hell with remaining calm. He slowly turned his head towards the white sand and beheld what had fallen from the magically saturated tree. It was a small semi-black orb that was slightly transparent. A hazy purple aura hung in the air around it like a flame around wood, some of which seemed to drip off and created tiny black holes in the sand that would fade after a second or two. He didn't even have to ask Honey Queen, this thing could be nothing but a devil fruit.
He plucked the object from the sand and held it up in the fading light of the evening and voiced his thoughts, speaking to the object like it could talk back. "Now, I know there is something I'm supposed to do to get whatever power you have to offer, but what exactly is that?" He tossed it up once and caught it again. "I suppose the most obvious thing to do would just be to take a bite, but I don't exactly like the look of this thing. Do I have to say something, or make a wish?" He blinked twice and spun the devil fruit in his palm. "Screw it, what's the worst that could happen?"
Aware that it was very difficult to eat anything through the faceplate of his helmet he set the black object on the ground and raised both hands to his helmet and pulled. As the metal cleared his ears out tumbled his shock of medium length brown hair, but it took a sharp eye to notice that his hair was brown and not actually black. He took a moment to think about when the last time was that he had taken his helmet off outside of the tower, and he found that he couldn't remember a single instance. It felt good, to feel the wind on his face fully. And when he really thought about it he couldn't put too much faith in his helmet, after all it wasn't nearly as effective as he wanted it to be. That said, the statement behind the helmet was far more important than just his physical comfort, so he wouldn't likely be changing anything soon.
He snatched the fruit up of the sand and raised it to his mouth. "Down the hatch, said the pirate to the tavern wench."
He bit deeply into the black skin and almost immediately he felt the almost overwhelming desire to spit it out the taste was so horrible, but despite the tears it caused to well up in his eyes he forced himself to swallow. He looked again at the now offending edible, and took interest with the fact that both the aura and weeping black were both gone from the fruit. Satisfied that he no longer had any use for it he wound up and hurled the disgusting object as far out into the waves as he could. It vanished into the sky while still on an upwards trajectory.
Finished with his act of petty revenge he turned his eyes on himself, and he found that the aura that had clung to the devil fruit was now hovering around both of his hands, but it was fading slowly. Curious, he lifted his right hand, palm out, and simply tried to exert his will over the haze that he could see. The result was a small black hole in the air in front of him, but that seemed to be all. He tried again and achieved the same result a few feet further to his right. Now though, now he could see something really interesting. Through the first hole he could see a patch of sand and ocean vista that looked quite similar to the spot of to his right. Cautious, but emboldened by his solid theory over the course things had taken; he reached out with his right hand and stuck it through the first hole. He was shocked to see, even though he suspected as much, his hand now sticking out from the other hole several feet away. The sight was disconcerting to say the least, but off the top of his head he could think of just so many possibilities.
On the surface from another person's perspective this power didn't seem like much, especially when he could already make portals home to the Netherworld on a whim. But now, he could cast portals to anywhere, at least he thought so. If he was right though, he need not ever set up a Netherworld gate again. He would only have to be able to visualize where he was going. It was, well, in his mind he saw it as being as close to omnipresent as he could get. And that wasn't even considering the other fully applicable uses he could think of.
His open palms snapped together into fists and he looked off over the sea. "Now, who gets first dibs on retribution? The Straw Hats? Clayton? Or do I take down the World Government?" He leaned forward and scratched his chin with one hand while reaching for his helmet with the other. "Not really much of a debate there, two out of those three choices are just nuisances. One betrayed me and deserves a real whipping."
He thought for a moment about what would be the best place to find his former business partner, and he immediately came to the conclusion that the Grim Angel was his best shot; because a captain would never stray too far from his ship. But he stopped before he tried to open a gap directly to the deck, wondering for a moment if what he was trying to do was within his capabilities. He only speculated that this power was not limited by distance, so, what if he tried something too far away and wound up floating in the endless void? He shook his head and jabbed a finger into his forehead to emphasize the idiocy of these doubts.
He raised both hands and focused, cursing his target as he did so. "Clayton, fuck you and your metal ass."
He exerted his will; doubts banished, and was rewarded with what he had been hoping to see, the forward deck of the Grim Angel. He smiled, a fierce demonic sneer, and dove through to the shocked cries of the deckhands.
Drunken Privateer: Back Room
Captain Clayton Steel threw back his head and downed the last dregs of his second flagon of rum, but found that his conscience would still not be drowned. Over his internal monologue, in which he viciously attacked himself over his call to ditch that Acheron boy to the mercy of the Straw Hat Pirates and Marines, he could hardly hear Captain Whitebeard outline what they knew about Portugas D Ace's situation. Not that he didn't care, far from it, he admired and respected the boy a great deal. And considering that he was the son of the last pirate king, Gol D Roger, that made the boy more important than most of the treasure in the world. Of course, the World Government knew that, that's why Ace was due to be executed.
He turned his gaze towards Whitebeard, the man at the head of the table that was the de facto leader of the assembled pirates. The giant man that did not, in fact, have a white beard, was built like a bear. Whitebeard was tall, indeed the pirate towered over most everyone here and through Whitebeard's open shirt he could see that the old man's chest rippled with sinew. He thought it no small stretch that, if not for his logia-class devil fruit, Whitebeard could tromp his ass handily. After all, the title 'strongest man in the world' was not granted lightly.
Whitebeard leaned forward onto the table, causing the wooden slab to bend and creak, and his white mustache twitched ever so slightly as the great pirate finished his speech. "…And that's what we know so far." Whitebeard looked around at each of them individually. "Anyone got any bright ideas?"
He simply stared silently into his rum, able to offer nothing but his best wishes to the rescue effort.
A crash resounded through the establishment that raised the heads of all in the room, but what really got him was the voice that accompanied the noise, a tone that was utterly unmistakable as it demanded one thing, "Where is Captain Clayton?"
All eyes in the room turned to him, but he simply smiled and stared down into his flagon of rum, and he muttered a single phrase. "Karma really is a pain in the ass."
He glanced up only once as the door was kicked in, framing the person of his former business partner in the dingy light pouring in from the bar proper. The boy stood like the embodiment of wrath, armed with nothing but fists. But considering how the glow-eyed boy had been able to hurl him around like a toothpick when he was made out of solid metal, a punch was liable to hurt as much, if not more than getting shot, and with the intensity of the glare he was receiving he would likely have plenty of opportunity to decide for himself what those fists felt like.
A hand fell on his shoulder, fingers splayed like claws, which made a lot of sense when he looked at the fingers on the gauntlet and saw that they were made to look exactly like that, claws. "I'm sure that I don't need to explain why I'm here, especially to you."
He shut his eyes and set his mug down in anticipation of the impending hit. "Yeah, I know. But if you think I'm just going to sit here and let you beat the stuffing out of me you better think twice. I'm the "heavy metal pirate' remember?"
His answer was a punch to the jaw that shot him through the back wall of the bar and out into the street and hurt more than any blow had a right to. He skidded the length of an entire ship before he stopped against a sturdier building, what he guessed to be the gunsmith if he remembered the town layout correctly.
Acheron stepped through the hole in the back of the bar, cracking his neck and slamming one armored fist against the palm of his other hand. "Oh I haven't forgotten, but I'm going to beat you so hard that you will." An extremely dark, purple haze formed around both of the boy's hands. "And I think you'll find that I have a few new tricks that put anything you've seen to shame." A black void opened in the air to glow-boy's left. "Speaking of which…" Another hole opened in front of his face just as Acheron shot a fist through the first one, and somehow the fist wound up slamming him right on the nose. "…That one was for ditching me on the Straw Hat's ship."
He sat up, cupping his crushed nose, and spoke, though his words were garbled. "I'm sorry alright, you sick fucker! My boys couldn't handle that much crap and you know that!"
Acheron's golden eyes narrowed ever so slightly, but it was a relief that another punch was not thrown. "I remember, especially how they would scream in panic at the slightest threat to their lives." The aggressor took a few steps closer. "I guess that's why it felt so good to kill each and every one of them."
He was dumbstruck for the shortest of moments, and then his outrage erupted like a volcano. "My crew? You think you can just get away with that?"
Acheron simply shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not, but I seem to be doing a damn fine job of getting away with it right now."
The flagrant disrespect cost him what little calm he had left and he surged to his feet, reaching for that little switch in his mind that activated his devil fruit. "Not so long as I'm still breathing."
Acheron's eyes narrowed into a glare. "That can easily be remedied."
Another voice joined in, one which bellowed out only one word, "Enough!"
He glanced towards the source to find Whitebeard standing in the hole they had made in the back of the bar, and the look on the great pirate's face was enough to send a shiver down the spine of the hardiest sailors.
Acheron shifted his glare to Whitebeard, as arrogant as can be. "And who are you to tell me what to do? If you want to be next that can easily be arranged."
Whitebeard did not seem to react, at least from his face, but the man's burly arms had tensed up like the rigging of a ship in a storm. Then it hit him what was going on, Whitebeard was going to use his own devil fruit, the Gura Gura no mi. When Whitebeard clapped, the arrogant upstart Glow-boy was going to find himself several miles out at sea. He felt himself smirking like a fool for the imminent moment. Whitebeard started to draw his hands…
He stared straight at Acheron, anticipating an erasing. "Prepare to say goodbye to the ground, asshole."
Whitebeard's hands crashed together with the force of a tidal wave, creating a sound that echoed through the air for a full five seconds, and that was it. No shockwave, no flying Acheron, no revenge.
Acheron blinked slowly, and then glanced back and forth between Whitebeard. "So, what, you're going to applaud me to death?" Another hole in the air opened and Glow-boy punched him in the jaw again. "That was for calling me an asshole."
Whitebeard stepped between him and Acheron, holding a hand up with the obvious intent of preventing further hostilities. "Would you give us a minute?"
Acheron shrugged in a grand fashion. "Sure, whatever, take as much time as you like."
Whitebeard pushed him with one hand, backing a large distance away from Glow-boy. The great pirate's face looked completely neutral, but he had spent enough time around Whitebeard to recognize when the giant man was deep in thought.
Once they were significantly out of earshot he stopped allowing himself to be drawn backwards. "Ok, what's this about? That bastard killed my crew, as a captain I am owed a life debt to that man. One for every man that sailed with me."
Whitebeard smiled sadly. "True, but you also claim that you owe him for the broken promise you made. That's beside the point I'm thinking of though." Whitebeard shot a glance towards the subject of conversation, who was idly scratching a design into the back of the tavern. "You know how hard of a head Impel Down will be to crack and-"
He interjected a pointed objection. "No, no, and hell no. I don't care if you shoot me at the place out of a damn catapult just to knock the door open. I am not going to work with that boy again unless I have no choice."
Whitebeard gave him a no-nonsense stare. "That's what I'm saying, I don't think we have a choice. You know how hard the World Government's been pushing lately. My fleets have taken a real beating, enough so that I think it would be a flat out miracle if we got anyone inside. You saw and felt what that boy did; he somehow nullified both of our devil fruits at the same time, punched you from twenty feet away without moving his feet. If we can convince him to help us free Ace, then I think would be worth biting the bullet to our pride."
He ground his teeth against each other as Whitebeard's words hit him, as the cold logic sank in. And no matter what way he spun it he couldn't deny that it made sense, both the aspect of them needing Acheron's help, and of how Glow-boy had become something of a dead zone for devil fruit users.
He grudgingly threw out an admission. "I guess, and he did practically take on the Straw Hat's all by himself, even without that fancy black hole trick."
Whitebeard nodded once. "Fine, then I'll try to talk him down."
He grumbled as they started back towards Acheron. "Please do, he wants to kill me and is more than capable of doing it."
Acheron barely acknowledged their presence, not taking his glowing eyes off of the etching on the back of the tavern. "So, are you done with your little chat so I can get back to kicking Clayton's teeth in?"
He unconsciously moved a hand to his mouth while Whitebeard spoke. "Actually, about that-"
Acheron's hand fell to his side and he glared at the both of them. "What do you want?" A slight pause followed when neither answered, so the boy continued. "Oh please, that's obviously what you were talking about over there. You want to turn my aggression towards your enemies and away from yourselves. I'm hearing you out because I'm bored, but you better have a damned good reason for me to leave this degenerate alive." This was punctuated by a damning finger pointed directly at him.
Whitebeard remained somewhat nonplussed, which irked him a bit considering that it was his life on the line, and began his argument. "Clayton here tells me that you probably hate the World Government just about as much as you hate him right now. The saying is 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' after all right? We're trying to take them down, and we could really use you on our side."
Acheron didn't take the bait. "The World Government will get its due when I feel like it. It's part of my prerogative as an Overlord, I dominate. And if those idiots are standing at the top then I'll kick them off and stand on their corpses."
A tiny glimmer appeared in Whitebeard's eyes. "And do you plan on walking there? Swimming? Their HQ is quite a ways out there."
Acheron shrugged once. "Well, I'll have the Grim Angel, considering that its captain will soon lie in a broken mess at my feet."
Whitebeard smirked, pulling upwards on the corner of his crescent moon mustache. "So, you'll have one ship. The World Government has an armada. Fine ship she might be, the Grim Angel will be sunk inside of five seconds if you charged the HQ alone. You need us, just like we need you."
Acheron was silent for a good deal of time, but his withering glare never faltered. "Fuck. Fine, what do you need me to do?"
Whitebeard smiled, but it was not a snobbish one like you would see on a World Government admiral. "We, that is to say my pirate friends and I, are staging a rescue for a very important person, the son of the last pirate king, Gol D Roger. Ace is locked up in Impel Down, the toughest prison in all the seas, and is due to be executed. I'm quite sure we can muster the numbers to breach the naval defenses, but those of the sea herself are beyond our abilities."
He jumped in and offered some information. "Sea kings, the most dangerous bloody animals you can find, anywhere. They'll rip a ship to shreds in seconds if you piss them off, and the ones around Impel Down are pretty much perpetually pissed."
Whitebeard finished, "I'd like you to go to Fishman Island and talk to King Neptune. Perhaps the fishmen will have some way to turn those sea kings against the World Government, or at least keep them away from our ships."
Acheron was clearly unhappy, but at least seemed content to go along with them. "Fine, but I'll still be taking the Grim Angel."
Taking a risk, he took a step forward and got in Acheron's face. "Not without me you ain't. You need me to navigate at the very least, so you can kiss thoughts of killing me goodbye."
The pair of golden eyes glared back at him with feverish intensity, like two cauldrons of boiling metal, for an exceedingly long while. Without warning a spike of pain exploded upwards from his groin, and he crumpled backwards to the ground while clutching for his brutalized nether regions.
Acheron's voice carried no particular emotion that he could discern, nor was it exactly a priority of his. "Hey, I didn't kill you. But I'll bet you wish I had."
