February 22nd: Unwavering - 300 words - Why do we fight? We fight to protect them. They may be different people to each of us, but without them we wouldn't be here, we wouldn't be doing these horrible things.
"Oh, Shen," Chiaotzu said in a soothing murmur. "You didn't think that would break me, did you? After everything you put me through, did you think tearing up a picture would destroy me?" With a quick snapping motion, he pulled his arm free of bonds that had loosened, perhaps when he had relaxed his muscles, perhaps when his smile had unnerved his captor.
Time slowed to a crawl. Shen's eyes widening. Upper lip curling in a snarl. Left hand rising again. Chiaotzu dragged his arm up, like dragging a stick through treacle, and concentrated his telepathy into a shimmering blade. With a deliberate slapping motion, the crackling blue slashed through Shen's wrist. The left hand that had held him captive, that had channeled telekinetic bonds, that had tortured him for years, tilted and then fell. Landing on the floor with a thud.
Blood spurted from the stump of Shen's wrist. Arterial spray splashing on Chiaotzu's cheeks. He could feel the power that had been wrapped so tightly around him loosen and then fall away. Shen's face contorted, not with pain but with rage. His right hand clamped around the stump, slowing if not stemming the blood.
Chiaotzu staggered to his feet. With each breath a sharp pain stabbed into his side, perhaps a cracked rib. Hopefully nothing too serious. A thought turned the blade into a cage, moulding itself around Shen without sinking deep into his flesh. Watching the blood seep from between white-knuckled fingers, he also added a loop that cinched itself tight around Shen's forearm, combining with the pressure from his hand to stop the blood flow. He didn't want to kill him. Not really. He just wanted the torture to stop.
"Where do you think you're going?" Shen snapped. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"
"Leave us alone," Chiaotzu said. Made a show of closing his hands. Shen snarled as the bars of the cage didn't flicker or fade away. "Or next time I really will kill you."
"You won't get away." A moment where Shen's grip on his stump loosened, only to tighten again as blood started to flow again. "I made you. I made you both. Everything you are flowed from my generous hands."
Tien's smile flashed into Chiaotzu's head. The wide, exuberant grin of the toddler. The shy little smile of the child. The years that stretched between those two expressions, the pain and hurt, the self worth that had been beaten down. One day, Tien would smile completely unselfconsciously again. He would be able to experience his emotions to their fullest extent. He wouldn't need to hold anything back for fear of reprisal.
"We have and will thrive. Despite what you've done to us."