Wakfu and its characters do not belong to me. All rights go to their respective owners.

A bit of a scene exploration from S2 episode 4. Rubilax was one of my favorite characters from the very first time I watched the show and eventually I suppose it was inevitable that would translate to fanfic

The idea from Season 3 that a Shushu Guardian's death means the Shushu is freed is borrowed here, but the OVAs and S3 are otherwise pretty much ignored in other matters (read: Tristepin being the current incarnation of Iop is not touched on here at all, so it comes down to how it's interpreted by the reader whether it's OVA/S3 canon compliant or not).
Minor warning for mentions of violence, destruction, and death, because Rubilax. Also for Rushu being a terrible boss.

When she said it, his first reaction would have been to laugh. Why not? If the Cra was being genuine, then it was an ironically stupid joke said out of blind naivety. If it was meant to be sarcastic, then it was rather more biting than he'd expect from someone like her. And at the wake of speaking with Rushu and how poorly (the understatement of a lifetime) that had ended, the way it poked the same sore spots as the Shushu king had was almost hilarious as well.

Instead of laughing, Rubilax stayed frozen in place. Shaking there, with anger and strain and the sheer pressure of how much had just gone wrong. He'd never imagined that he would insult the king of the Shushus at any point in his life. The dimensional difference between them kept him from panicking yet, but- well, life never ended well for Shushu traitors.

Everything was well and truly collapsing on him and he'd just wanted to strike at the one who'd caused this, who'd ruined his chance to earn Rushu's respect. And he couldn't even do that.

(Especially not considering it was really him, wasn't it? He'd ruined it with halfhearted planning and with failing to commit to anything. Dug his own pit and jumped down, no matter if he'd rather think the meddling archer pushed him)

Tristepin's body was unable to complete the strike and his fist still hung in that spot after she had oh-so-confidently tried to call a bluff that wasn't there.

You're just a good guy who pretends to be the villain.

What a joke. Hah! Unamusing. It made him want some violent catharsis even more and yet it was what froze him up so completely.

Evangelyne could say it all she wanted, but there was no way she believed it. Before barging in on this meeting with the Shushu king, she'd no doubt planned merely to rescue her idiot and return him to his body. What happened to Rubilax himself in order to do so mattered not to her. Undoubtedly, it still didn't. This sympathy act was just to play him, sway him. She only wanted him to swap his soul with Tristepin's once more and, seeing how he stood here mind fraying, knew the statement uttered and comfort it was uttered with would cut his defenses enough at the moment to get what she wanted. Or-

or she did suddenly think it was true. Forgotten everything he'd done. Everything he'd done that very day to try to kill her, for Rushu's sake! Forgotten...because of seeing his meeting with Rushu. And wasn't that a more humiliating option to believe?

It wasn't just the nosy Cra who could think that. All of the self-named "Brotherhood" (a part of him briefly wondered if he'd ever been considered one of its members, but he knew the closest he could have been was through Tristepin's proxy) had barged in on his meeting in one way or other. The princess and Enutrof, at least, would hardly remember the details with clarity. A ghoul could remember about as well as a vague dream could. But Yugo the Eliatrope- the prize being offered up to Rushu during that call, a prize no Shushu had managed to offer before-, the meddling Evangelyne, and his former guardian himself…

The embarrassment alone made him tempted to return to his sword prison. There, he could drift about instead of being forced to be stuck in the temporal moment-by-moment of this human body. He could ignore all their faces and stupid words. Ignore that they had witnessed him not only sign his own death sentence, but hear the words preceding it. The treatment. The insults.

The insults that the Cra now repeated while her hand sat fearlessly on his human cheek- except the way she called out his weakness was in a different note than Rushu would. They said the same. The both claimed he was too "good" to be a Shushu. They accused such even while he stood in Rubilaxia, built of ruined towns and carnage, over the trampled guardians whose Shushus he had stolen, at the very site where he had offered Yugo up in order to allow this small-scale carnage seen at Rubilaxia to envelop the entire world as Rushu returned to destroy it. What a joke, for them to call him soft! Such a title was deserved for the weaker Shushus, like the map Groufon, so willing to help his human Yugo, so desperate for a feeling of importance. That weak Shushu would never bother trying to offer a portal to Rushu, not when it was content with its place in imprisonment. Not when it was so content with Yugo's respect. So friendly with-...the thought soured. He stood in Rubilaxia over the ruins of human cities and bodies, yes, but that third aspect he had considered disproving the accusation of his weakness…

Yes, he had offered Yugo. Offered a way for Rushu to resume his rampage of this realm. He had known such a thing would mean this world would end up as dead and empty as Shukrute was. He had known...but still bothered to leave not only the required living Eliatrope unkilled, but Amelia and Ruel. And, most blatantly, Tristepin. Despite that all would die anyways if Yugo was used to connect Shukrute to the World of Twelve. This plan and their deaths involved in it seemed so dissociated to each other. Ignored. What, denial? It always was so hard to commit with denial at play.

If Tristepin had died, Rubilax could well enough have acted on a plan to take Yugo and hand him to Rushu. There was no guardian lined up to succeed the Iop that Rubilax would pass to. Goultard may live again, but that chain had still officially broken when the demigod died the first time. If Tristepin had fully died, he would have been freed to act anyways. And he hadn't. He hadn't allowed his guardian to die. Not when they'd just begun to work together as he and Goultard once had. Oh, but better- Goultard was the one who had imprisoned him upon his own request in exchange for avoiding death. He respected the demigod for that and more. But Goultard's humorous personality aside, Rubilax had always been a servant of fearful respect rather than open to speak or tease the guardian with ease. They were clearly on different levels and their conversation never entered companionship for that reason. Neither had likely wanted it to. When Tristepin managed to defeat him, there was a new respect added to his opinion on the Iop but still the former casual nature towards him as well. It was comfortable. They'd fought the Xelor's puppets together with Tristepin at the reins instead of Rubilax and it had been- no matter what a Shushu should have thought otherwise- better than those times he possessed the Iop for his own control. He couldn't lose that so fast after gaining it. That Tristepin's death would mean freedom occurred in his mind while he watched the other's life fade out and was tossed away in fully conscious decision.

Ombrage and Rushu had cut to the core flaw in his plan here by demanding explanation for saving Tristepin's life.

The reality of it was, he didn't commit, couldn't commit, to the plan of allowing this realm to be invaded because - as delightful as the carnage would be- it would mean the deaths of his guardian and that guardian's friends. If he could accept that happening, then he would have watched Tristepin die to the Xelor's machine without any grief, been freed, and killed those fool humans when given the chance rather than let them live as he had here.

If the plan was so flawed from the start, then, why had he tried it at all?

Rubilax knew. He did not want to admit it, but he knew.

As Evangelyne said her piece and offered accepting touch and Tristepin stared from Rubilax's sword just as he had while insulting Rushu and defending Rubilax in front of the king, he- he- (could not escape that he) knew.

That he had spoken aloud that the humans in this group treated him better than his king- that they approved, if only because he rescued their friend and not at all for his sake-, and more than that, he realized that it was true. They approved, as Rushu did not. But he had beforehand imagined the king would.

Building Rubilaxia had been enjoyable. Killing or defeating guardians had been entertaining. That much he did for himself and his own pleasure. But offering Rushu an Eliatrope for his desired invasion? That had never been done for the invasion's sake. It had been done to see and hear Rushu offer approval for his hard work. To receive the praise his pride knew he deserved. After so long spreading destruction, he ought to have gotten the approval that Rushu instead offered Ombrage. After everything he, Rubilax, had done, it went to her instead.

And these humans watched him flounder and smile and act so foolishly desperate for that praise. He wanted their eyes off of him. Their hands and hugs, intended for Tristepin, away from him. Wanted them to view him as a truly fearful Shushu instead of in any way soft.

Except...

Except the humans here were rather thankful for his weakness. They were ecstatic over Tristepin's life (as he'd well enough felt when attacked by Yugo flying towards him and the rest following suit to try to squeeze the life out of this borrowed body in what he'd identified as an uncomfortable hug) and that ultimately was due to him and his being 'soft'. Rushu mocked, Evangelyne reassured. Rushu insulted, the human said it as a compliment. Stupid, yes. Stupid, stupid- this whole ploy, all these words, he himself for signing a death warrant with his treason to Rushu. They all were as much idiots as the Iop that Rubilax was tied to. He was no good guy. They knew he was not. Causing problems for them before Tristepin had defeated him in the desert had never been out of a ploy to pretend he was a villain, it was out of purely selfish decision to have a little fun. They had to know it. Tristepin and Evangelyne, at least, had to- they'd been there when he possessed Amelia's doll to try to kill them, when he had tried to trip them up at other times. She had watched him break her bow and he had never once found that to be anything but a loss she could get over even as it cut Tristepin to the core with guilt. Even then, even there, when he was enjoying ripping apart the Sadidas that had made a mockery of his guardian and by proxy insulted himself for being the Shushu strapped to that guardian, he would have continued if Tristepin had not wrestled control away from him. No, perhaps he had not considered killing Evangelyne when she stood against them or any of the others from the brotherhood by then. Perhaps he was already a little too attached. But that did not dispute that the rest of those present did not register as important valid life to him and that he would have torn them all apart if not for being stopped. By their sad human standards, that was pretty villainous and all of them here knew it. Knew him. (Knew him too well, he traitorously thought, now that they had watched him dance for Rushu's approval and heard instead the common insults his king levered onto him for his efforts.) No, he was not good by their little human rules. But by a Shushu's standards…

Tristepin was speaking in worry that the Cra was overdoing it. True, that. She was. She was and he ought to go back to throwing bricks at her and the rest. Remind them of who he was. Not continue to be frozen in this pose stuck mulling over the bite of Evangelyne's incorrect words.

Someday, and it did not matter how long it took because eventually that day would arrive, he would die for what happened here. Someday, Rushu would manage to invade or another Shushu would do the work for him and kill Rubilax for treason. He could delay that fate or rush it on. Rubilax always chose to delay death, however. He had with Goultard, he had with Tristepin in the desert, and he would now with Rushu's warrant for his head. He would delay it best with allies. Allies that weren't the Shushus here he'd collected. Even if they also felt like being treasonous, they were hardly trustworthy. That left the inevitable. The side he'd already thrown his lot to. The people who treated him with more respect and sometimes amiability than Rushu bothered to.

The ones who'd watched him fail so spectacularly here and who'd heard all the mocking that Rushu and Ombrage and the rest here in his castle had spoken. Watched it, heard it, watched it, heard it, -stop-

It was no surprise, between Tristepin's gleeful proclamation that Rubilax had saved his life out of friendly reasons (and, since freedom would have come with his death, Rubilax knew he couldn't actually deny it to the Iop) and Rushu's loud insults and disrespect in front of an audience, that they stared at him with- with something. The normal caution, but tampered down. Confusion, for the two that had recently been ghouls. Pity, maybe, from the Eliatrope and the damned Cra that dared to speak with such soft confidence about his nature to him as though she was correct. It was all unwanted, all of it, hah! and yet he wanted it all because it was better treatment than Rushu bothered to give him.

He supposed that he could do as Evangelyne was trying to trick him into doing. Could release Tristepin and return to being a sword with biting edged commentary on them all. Join them again like that even though they'd seen him at his lowest moment here.

Well, he could always play-pretend for them. But he didn't want to pretend for their sake. No more than he wanted to play at being a loyal Shushu accepting of insult for Rushu anymore. He wanted what Tristepin had started to offer lately: acceptance with the knowledge of what and who he was. The Iop may have been dense enough to mistake any brawling as friendly and normal when it was not, but he still had been possessed enough to know the sort of damage Rubilax was guiltless in causing. And still took his side in front of Evangelyne and told off Rushu for him, for his "buddy". And it both left Rubilax more free to be satisfied with his company than any before while also cutting him to the core for how he reciprocated the amiability with a mere human instead of his own kind.

They were still all staring. Waiting for his move. On guard, but not as tensed as they should have been. Not as threatened as they should have been. Because they agreed with Evangelyne's statement? Or because they had lost their fear of him after watching Rushu's disrespect? Some mixture of the two? Neither were good. Neither were wanted.

You're just a good guy who pretends to be the villain.

He'd never be good in a human's perspective and they couldn't accept him because of that anymore than a Shushu could accept him as fully chaotic. He was lost somewhere in between, too murderous for human acceptance and too soft for Rushu's.

You're just a good guy who pretends to be the villain.

Shut up! Shut it off! He didn't want to keep hearing it over and over and hearing too all that lay inside such a statement.

She had said the same thing that Rushu and Ombrage essentially had, but rather than being an insult, it was...an offer? An offer to return everything back to normal and, in return, be accepted as a part of the group he'd told Rushu treated him better than his own kind did?

And…

Well, there was no choice when he had a death sentence now.

But there was more than just resignation for pragmatics sake.

He-

He would like to belong, somewhere. And he'd chosen the where rather irreversibly, hadn't he? All he had to do was return Tristepin's soul to this weak human body so that they could undoubtedly crush it in their weird hugs once more. It could be a ploy. It could mean going back and never being noted again. Or it could be genuine and, in a prison or not, his existence would be respected with them.

It was confusing. Identity itself was confusing in this conundrum. But if he returned, at least he would not be watched by humans he could have killed with ease and instead received too little fear in the eyes of now.

Something about their witness tipped him over an edge.

Rubilax fell into his mind, found the magic that had given him the power of this city and body, and tore it apart in order to flee back into the confounds of his guardian bindings.

It was not until Anathar stole him and the threat of Rushu was inescapable that he would shake off enough of that confusion to speak again.

AN- Thank you for reading!

Also did I make this in part because it always cracked me up that Eva said that line while they're all trapped in a mountain/city made of destroyed cities Rubilax presumably ghoulified at the least and more likely killed? Perhapsee.
I do love a character that is a part of the heroes party but also is...not a good guy by most standards, even if they are likeable to the heroes themselves (Rubilax did toss Grany, shown to be a sentient person, to Rushu in order to escape Shukrute without blinking an eye, so my thoughts are that he cares for select people and just doesn't really give any thought to those he doesn't personally know)