"What a mess you made, darling."
Oh god, no . . .
Gryffon struggling to his knees and shakily brought his eyes up to where he thought the echoing voice came from. He understood nothing, but he had heard something: a light voice, careless, cocky, and sweet. Blonde hair and green eyes, she still looked perfect, even with the blood stains over her shoulders and the cuts along her face.
It was far too fitting for a Career.
He pulled one leg up and pushed himself off the counter with the other, feeling his left leg more burned than his other, but he could still stand. He could still walk. Barely, but he still could.
"And that beautiful thing . . . " Sapphire gritted her teeth and tilted her head at him from the top of the tower of books. "Lucky you." He ignored her words and jumped to the ledge, again struggling to pull himself up to the first book. There was barely any foot room on the first couple of books, but as he neared the fourth - the fifth book - there was just enough room for three people to shuffle around. But Sapphire stood on the sixth one, a wicked smile on her face as the flame reflected off her face.
"Come on, sweetie, one more," she taunted, even going as far as to offer a hand to him. Gryffon flashed the axe up, narrowly missing her finger as she twitched it up right on time. "Uh uh, hun', be nice." Gryffon slid a foot or two away from her hand and tugged himself up once more, his gasps being whistled out between his teeth.
He couldn't feel anything and yet he felt everything.
Gryffon felt every hair, every muscle, every nerve contracting and relaxing and moving within and on him, but he could swear nothing made sense and he could see nor hear anything - and that even the book beneath his feet wasn't there and it was just his body playing tricks on him.
He couldn't understand his thought process or why he set his feet and arms up the way he did, or why he glared at Sapphire so hungrily, so furiously.
Gryffon couldn't bring himself to comprehend anything that passed through his mind, or any look the Career gave him. All he knew was that he wanted her and whoever else he saw dead.
He was just moving on autopilot then. He was nothing more but a robot or machine programed that way.
With a growl, Gryffon swung the axe in her direction, which Sapphire nimbly avoided, though landed on her left leg where she sank down a bit, the bend in her leg indicating something more than just an off-balance moment.
A limp. She was hurt there.
He side-stepped to her right and jabbed the axe forward with no intention to get her, and watched as she ducked back, leaning more onto her right side to avoid the touch. Sapphire was defenseless, but she could hear the sizzling fire as well as Gryffon could feel it burning yards behind his back.
She was simply waiting for the slow-moving fire to reach them.
She would die, but she would die with her target, and Gryffon couldn't allow that.
He jumped forward and hit her right shoulder with the side of the axe before switching hands and brought the blade against her arm. She screamed out in pain, but with her uninjured arm grabbed the shaft and pulled Gryffon toward her. A foot shot out, aimed at Gryffon's groin, but with a twist, her foot collided with his hip and he managed to pull away from her hold, taking the axe out of her arm and with him.
Sapphire pressed a hand briefly against the new wound and tried to maneuver around him, but he pushed himself to the side again and hit the blunt side of the axe against a gash just over her stomach and sent her reeling back. She growled and tried to balance on her left foot to kick out again, but just as she struck his knee and hooked her foot around his leg, Gryffon rolled the axe's head down and sliced it across her thigh, messing up her stability and sent her falling back.
Gryffon staggered forward, trying to regain his own footing from the motion, but only found himself slipping off the edge of the topmost book. His hands scraped over the backs of the books and he just managed to claw at one of the hard covers, gripping on with both hands and having to let the axe fall. He held himself close to the book and pressed his legs against it, trying to regain his breath and his focus, but the heat and the bells in his head weren't helping.
With one last inhale, Gryffon dropped down and fell clumsily onto an uneven surface, a great and unsettling growling and grinding noise blasting from behind him as he slipped down. One screech was heard -
BOOM
- before the snarling and the cutting grew louder and louder and fought the volume of the crackling flames.
No . . . No . . . No . . !
Gryffon stared at what used to be a pretty girl turned into red mush, stomach and intestines and lungs and limbs turning into nothing more but a black, red, and pink soup. Blonde strands got lost in the mess and Gryffon couldn't tell what was going on. He didn't even see her vanish . . . One moment she was there, leg impaled by one of the blades . . . Then soup.
And it kept whirring, kept slicing already minced pieces up. It splotched over the clear surface of the blender and squirted out from the top, sending chunks and drops of Sapphire all over the books, the counter, and Gryffon.
The funniest part? It was his fault. He pushed her in, he fell on the button . . . He completely mutilated the girl by barely touching her . . . Gryffon scrambled for the axe and struggled to his feet, hardly finding the energy to hold the axe, but he found the willpower to get the hell out of there.
Gryffon ran to the edge of the counter and launched himself toward the table, gripping onto the cloth with all his force. He swallowed down the bile that rose in his throat and slid down the fabric until he could just drop down, but the mere impact sent him back to his knees.
Ring around the rosy . . . Pockets full of . . . Gryffon gagged and felt his stomach convulse, depositing mostly water, bile, and whatever food he had left in his system.
So many days of illusions and trekking . . . Then this.
It's what he had wanted, though, right?
He was just left with Denim and Jay now . . . They were his only problems now.
Gryffon's hands shook as they pulled the axe back up, but he pressed it to his chest and got back onto his singed feet.
Keep going. Get out. Leave. Go.
He powered forward and with his staggering steps making him wobble this way and that, Gryffon finally reached the door. He looked up, his heart sinking at the thought of having to reach for a knob somehow, but there was none, it was just a swing-open door. A subtle sense of relief just inched its way into his mental deafness and he pushed open the door as hard he could, but that strength was way too much and he was sent sliding down a smooth surface.
"You know, you still owe me that favor," Gryffon reminded Jay a year later, his hand loosely linking with hers as they walked. "You remember that?" "Yeaaaah," she started suspiciously with a shrug and a skip, pushing herself ahead of her friend. "But what if I sell it to someone else? Do someone else a favor for you?" He eyed her for a moment, shaking his head and not getting her point. "That so does not count, Jay. I have to ask you to do it." "Naah," she sang, bouncing ahead of him with a playful flick of her hand. "We'll see, we'll see." "Hey, what does that mean!? You cheating me out of a promise?" Gryffon blamed, jogging after her to reach her side again. "Shh, don't tell your Mama," she giggled, her teasing tone evident and light and made Gryffon smile. He just had to figure something out soon before