Chapter 21: The Tyrant's Eye (Drops on Me)
I stared at the bound Luquier, honestly glad that they'd at least listened to me on that front. In addition to the various bandages wrapped around her body for medical reasons, more than likely souvenirs from her encounter with Mordred, she also had a number of them blocking off her Tyrant's Eye. She sneered at me as I sat opposite her, arranging myself rather tightly in the seat.
"And here comes the coward," she snapped. "Come to laugh at me? You hold no sway, it wasn't your majesty that could break me. You have none!"
Taking a calming breath, I went to speak but paused. I didn't really have any sort of speech planned to give her, or any real idea of one. Instead, I slouched back in my seat and shrugged, "I mean, kinda? Honestly, I'm mostly just here so the Shadows don't just snap your neck and call it a day. As for cowardice… Well, sometimes, you gotta run and live to fight another day to win, and look! Here I am, sitting pretty while you're done up like Azaka wants Ren."
The look of fury within her single unbound eye and every muscle of her body promised a level of agony that had no name for a period without end if only she could slip her bonds for an instant. "You have no right! You aren't worthy to speak their names, but hers especially! I thought you possibly amusing before, but when I am finished with you… The only memory that will exist is that of the punishment that I will enforce!"
"…Nah," After a moment's thought, that was all I could really manage in the face of her threat. She started against her bonds, snarling as all I could manage was a dispassionate gaze. "See, fact of the matter is, I'm not the one who enslaved Azaka to an alien invasion force while laughing all the while and trying to get her to enslave the people she cares about. See, sweetie, I'm not the monster here, you are."
"When Dark Zone's Lord makes a command… What can I do but answer?" she murmured. "Power is the way of this nation, even a fool knows this, and I am no match for Amon." Then her singly-eyed gaze hardened, "But the power of the Яeverse… It is far beyond anything I have seen of you. If Darling wants my support, he has it. But you? You are scum not even fit to lick shit off of my boots."
"You got proof of that, missy-moo?" I inquired conversationally, looking at my nails idly before looking back up at her glaring visage. Making a show of buffing them on my coat, I swept my arm out. "My power, was what got the forces here, and stomped over your forces without things going as bad as they could have. Hell!"
I was almost shouting as I stood from my chair, pointing at the entrance to the brig that had been set up. "I somehow led Raging Form and Vowing Sword from the Яeverse that enslaved them, but I couldn't have done that without them wanting to fight it! You're not just willingly enslaved, you're lavishing in it, aren't you?!"
"I. Am. No. Slave!" she shouted, testing the limits of her bonds yet again, perhaps hoping to weaken them or that they would snap. "I have hundreds of willing thralls! My performances in the field and under the spotlight have made me the Queen of the Pale Moon! You know nothing about what I am!"
"I know that you'd rather bend over and take it from Amon and the Star-vaders than stand up to fight and protect Azaka from their influence! Look at you, you're all beat up and bound for either the slammer or the gallows," I roared back, not feeling like trying to even be gentle with this matter.
"That is a lie, you bastard! I'll drop you to the deepest pit of Relics for that slight!" she snarled. "I'd do anything for her!" There was a moment where there was nothing but the heaving of her breathe before she added, "Well, except you. You look like you'd be a lost cause," her eye sizing me up and down.
"My downstairs mix-up is neither here nor there, besides, you'd be more likely to bite it off," I chuckled as I started to come back to myself, can't go off the plot here. "And as for Azaka… Well, you certainly did something to her when you enslaved her to the Star-vaders' will. Seriously, the poor girl's probably traumatized because you decided to just roll over and take it."
"You say that like you wouldn't enjoy it," she purred, trying to keep tracks on me and not Azuka. "You look like the kind of man that would enjoy… Rolling over for me."
I thought on it for a moment, "…They'd probably reattach whatever came off. And as for rolling, you're certainly trying to roll out of the main topic here. You fucked up, and Azaka suffered for it. Face it, the egg's on your shirt here."
"And what… Am I supposed to take you seriously?" she snorted. "At the end of the day, Amon controls the largest portion of Dark Zone; Militarily, Economically, Socially, Politically. I am bound to follow my Nation."
"Yeah, and? You've worked together with Blaster Dark and the Shadow Paladins in the past-"
"It is more accurate to say that Dark Zone supported Phantom Blaster Dragon in his rebellion against Alfred," she corrected. "A divided United Sanctuary was more beneficial to Dark Zone at the time, at least that was the prevailing military theory." She chuckled as if remembering a private joke.
"-And I'd say, in the face of an alien invasion, you'd have been in the right to go and talk to the Shadows about dealing with Amon when he started making deals with the fucks invading and enslaving the planet!" I continued, noting what she said but moving past it. "Hell, do you even know what they're planning to do to Cray?"
She snorted, "I disagreed and lost the Vanguard Skirmish. The contract is binding, that is the way of Cray. I might prefer Darling's power, I might even think that he has a fair chance at overcoming even Amon, he always was the stronger… But the direction of the nation? I cannot question it. You know this."
"Honestly? Only vaguely, I'm more familiar with the goings on on Earth, like the fact that Ren just spanked Azaka in a Fight. Though I'm sure she'd like a different sort of spanking…" I trailed off, letting the Elf appreciate the joke before continuing. "Now, as for the direction of the nation… I'd say that it would have been your duty to question the direction that he was taking the Dark Zone, especially given the fact that he was selling out to the Star-vaders! Hell, if Canada was selling out to aliens invading Earth, I'd probably turn traitor and help people send them packing!"
She looked at me with a slight dawning of recognition before laughing boldly. "Boy, listen to my tenses! I cannot dispute Amon's decisions. I did and lost. To think I would have to explain what the pieces of plastic and cardboard ever meant to someone of Earth… There is a level of freedom I have in helping Darling. But it cannot completely overturn Amon's bindings." Then she peered closer at me.
"...Wait, what are you? Magic flows through you as naturally as it does through any of those of Cray," she continued to appraise me as one would a slab of meat. "Ride bound tight? No… Even that shouldn't… It couldn't hold as long as it has. It has been weeks since last we met. Then what are you?"
"Hell if I know, I've been stuck on Cray for a few months now, woke up in this body since then. Been on the run from the Star-vaders ever since, dragged a Colony Maker along but that's not the point," I admitted, feeling more than a little uncomfortable admitting as much. "Got to see Raging Form throw down with Infinite Zero Dragon, but the downside was seeing Chaos Breaker Яeverse Daiyusha…"
She tilted her head as if she was trying to put puzzle pieces together. "Your Clan are Star Gate natives then. You don't have the mindset of the Shadow Paladins and no other Clan managed a campaign that deep into the Invasion's foothold. Even at the same time as when the Shadows did so. Which leaves… Not Nova Grapplers, they are straightforward and none would ever run even when they were outmatched… Dimension Police then?" she asked. Trying to probe out something that suddenly had become of the utmost importance to her. "Not the main branch, but with them willing to play both hero and villain a coward is a much smaller stretch."
I chuckled, and held my hands out in front of me.
"Didn't you realize when we first met?" Drawing them apart, I formed a small bit of Void between them, shaping it into a small approximation of Messiah's Lock before clapping and crushing it between my hands. "Not Nova Grappler, not Dimension Police.
"Link Joker."
Her every muscle went tense and the blood drained from her face. Then a fire lit behind her eye and it came roaring out. "And you dare to criticize me? You who is abandoning your own Clan? You who are that which is Invading to begin with?! What right have you to speak to me as if you had any moral high ground?!"
"Because I know what's coming, Luquier. And while I'll admit that I played Link Joker decks back on my Earth, I don't want Cray to be destroyed by Chaos Breaker's newest toy, Omega Glendios! I don't want the Deletors to slam Brandt into Cray and kill everyone off! I don't want the fucking idiocy that Aurageyser Dragon will unleash in the future!" I shouted back, none too happy with the issue she was taking with me.
"Idiot fool! Just playing a deck wouldn't make you Clan. They wouldn't have drawn you too them! You are one of them because there is something fundamental inside of you that the Clan calls to! You think the Clan you use is so simple as 'Which one suits the strategies I want to play?' Like calls to like… And more than being Link Joker, somehow you are standing against them? Impossible!"
"No, I get why I was originally attracted to Link Joker, I'll admit that I'm a sadist, that I enjoy seeing people I don't like suffer." It wasn't hard for me to admit, I knew what I was and I had my own ways of getting my kicks in without actually hurting people. "As for standing against the Link Joker… would knowing of another faction within them that stood against the Star-vaders make sense?"
It was a gamble, but if the Messian Link Joker could turn Luquier's mood…
Twice in less than thirty seconds she went white in shock. "Another faction?" she muttered to herself. "Different values within the Clan leads to fracture-if fundamentally incompatible to schism, like the Shadow Paladins fracturing from the Royal Paladins. If not… It shouldn't… But Dimension Police still somehow manage it… Though those are mostly Aliens and so could be seen as a fracture within a single race." Her mind was working furiously with the new puzzle pieces that had been added, trying to see how the picture changed. She looked at me. "How many races are considered… unique to a particular sub-faction?"
"Er, one, as it were, and as for the name of that race… I'll need to keep that one to myself for the sake of safety," I muttered, lowering my voice for the sake of keeping the information on the down low. Can't have too many people knowing about the Messiah… "Though, the Deletors also have the entirety of the Aliens in the Clan amongst them."
Her breathing was heavy as she tried to reconcile these things together. "So, what, you're acting as a representative of this sub-faction? And I'm supposed to believe that the Link Joker Clan is so philosophically diverse that it can handle two factions going to war over Cray without separation? Then that begs the question… What does this Mysterious Third faction want? If they don't want to invade Cray by force?"
"Eh, the Deletors want to destroy everything, literally. They were created due to the Star-vaders merging with the natives of the Planet Brandt. The Star-vaders just seem to be on a streak across the universe, wrecking planets for what seems to be fun," Best to give some background before launching into the Messians. "And the third group, they're essentially naturalized Link Joker. Craian Link Joker who want to protect Cray from the other two."
She looked at me with her single eye trying to figure out where the bullshit was. "Impossible. They couldn't have been here long enough to Naturalize. I've seen their Sleeper Agents. They don't have any loyalty to the Nations they might have well been born into for ten generations. And more importantly… That allows for no unifying philosophy. Destruction, Invasion… Living? That should have long ago caused Schism and broken at least the last from the first two. Impossible."
"The third group hasn't formed yet. They… They have something of a backer upstairs, as it were," Well, maybe I count as a part of the Craian Link Joker given my predilections, but that's not really the topic of the day. "As for a unifying philosophy, well, for the Link Joker, it's the Void."
I take a deep breath and sit back in the chair I'd all but leapt from, leaning back against it. "The Deletors see the Void as a final destination, an ideal state for all things and themselves as the shepherds. The Star-vaders much the same… The third group… Well, the Void's more like something to be filled, if you catch my drift."
"Philosophical differences on Magic… I suppose that might provide a framework," she admitted. "So what now, Link Joker? I am still bound by Craian High Magic to not directly act against Amon or… Link Joker…" Her face broke out into a smile that was more a mouthful of fangs than anything meant to be pretty. "That might just be a loophole. I cannot act against, and must at least try to aid Link Joker, or at least you."
"I mean, sure, but have you considered using the Void infecting you via Яeverse for your own benefit? Like seriously, cast the High Magic binding you into the metaphorical Void inside you," I advised, trying to reason with her on this. I didn't need more people bound to me at this point.
Especially Luquier in her current state. I'm already afraid of her enough as it is… "Seriously, I don't know what the Void is, but it's closer to some sort of universal force or constant rather than actual magic."
"That is what Magic is, a force unto itself," she said. "The Laws of the Vanguards are ancient and powerful. They are meant to be absolute. To throw that away… would mean throwing away what it is to be Craian. And by what you say of this third faction that is paradox. Why would you even think that would work?" she asked staring at me hard.
"Because the Void's fucking wild. Seriously, it can do some absolutely ridiculous shit when properly used. Like, look at what happened with Raging Form, he has gone back to being a Cosmo Dragon!" I exclaimed, waving my arm at the entrance again.
"Redemption?" the elf asked in shock. "That is impressive, but within the realms of what the Laws of Vanguards can do. That on its own wouldn't release my obligation."
"Except for the fact that he seems to be both Shadow Paladin and Link Joker now, and the same goes for Vowing Sword too apparently," I shrugged, trying to explain it.
"You think it could make me Link Joker?" she asked. Then her eye lit up, "Wait, that sidesteps the entire problem! If I was Link Joker, then I could aid myself in acting against Amon. Maybe not completely directly, but enough…" She looked back to me and smiled, softer this time. "I think you misapply where certain Laws of Magic lay, boy. But I cannot offer that binding… What did the others offer?"
"Well, I know Vowing offered his Loyalty, but Raging Form kinda… Wanted more power and didn't care where from, just that he could get Revenge. I advised that he use the Void thrust upon him, turn it back upon his oppressors, and most of all… He didn't want to be alone." It probably wasn't fair to say that, to tell that to her… But I needed to get through to Luquier.
"He offered his Vengeance then," she sighed. "Offer your soul through what matters most, and it might be returned to you, I see. Ancient Magic. Adoption Magic…" Her breath hitched and her eye watered. I thought I heard her mutter, "Azaka, I'm doing this for you." And then…
Her eye locked on to mine, gaze resolute as she declared, "Well then, Link Joker, I'll offer my Eye to you, to control those who would step in the path you're leading me down."
I sucked in a deep breath, and reached out, "I'll accept, welcome to the family, I suppose. It's not a big one, though we've got a particularly yippy dog."
"Lovely," She remarked wryly, looking not very impressed at the welcome. After a few moments of silence, she shrugged the shoulder with my hand on it, letting her gaze fall to her lap. "Please, could you just… Leave me be for a while? I… Need some time to process this…"
I stood from the chair and moved toward the entrance, willing to leave Luquier to her thoughts. Still, I feel that I should say something… "Luquier, I'm not the best with words, or at least, speaking them. But… I'm sorry about what I said, if only for the fact that it really seemed to get under your skin. Though I'll admit that was my goal at the time."
She just nodded, seemingly descending into her silence, but I can only hope to have been some comfort there. The flap fluttered to a close behind me and I saw Charon standing just far off enough to seem polite. As if he hadn't been much closer listening in until I had turned to leave.
Bloody runt. He tilted his head in a silent question.
I shook my own head at him, and murmured, "I succeeded, but give her some time."
"Far more efficient than last time," he noted. "Though you did meet her before, could that have had something to do with it?" Then he shook himself free of that train of thought. "Once she's ready, we'll discuss how we will deal with Amon."
"Wonderful, I'm gonna go and see to my squad." With that, I walked away. Damn slave driver midget…
