Chapter 10: The Loop Closes
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Crim
"Attention!" the synthetic, echoing voice of That Bitch shouted in his ears. "Iteration Five-Five-Seven-Six-Three has concluded. Beginning Iteration Five-Five-Seven-Six-Four!" His eyes opened, and he was there again; the emptiness of virtual space that collided with reality. Once, over a hundred years ago before the start of the Iterations, he had heard that the master of the Devastation, Fear, had developed his own private space to absorb Magicae from relics and living beings alike; Pandora's Box, he called it as a jab at ancient Earth culture. This Place was what Crim had always imagined Pandora's Box might have looked like; empty, amorphous space.
Except it was completely empty. As soon as his eyelids broke apart, he saw That Bitch everywhere. Hundreds, if not thousands of Her "stood" in the empty space around him. Their eyes didn't match hers, though. They were hollow and emotionless, staring blankly into what was left of his spirit. "I-is that all you've got You Bitch?" he asked defiantly, though he could feel his fighting spirit beginning to break. "I've lived billions of lives! Billions of billions! I was a god to mortal kind! You are nothing! The play thing of betters! An empty, useless doll! You can't harm me!"
"Iteration start!"
Thousands of floating ethereal blades sprung forth into existence and rocketed towards his feeble body. He braced himself, unable to move or dodge out of the way as they all pierced his body, killing him. He let out an empty sigh as the breath escaped his lungs.
Mere seconds later the air filled his lungs once again as he sat on the floor of his cell, with the Black Rose and That Bitch standing over him. "And I'll be standing here in your cell after every death you experience, completely oblivious to the time loop that you're in. You'll beg me to break the curse, but I won't listen. I'll let you suffer for all of time." She smiled at him as the panic set in once again. "Goodbye."
"You Bitch!" He shouted as the rainbow flames engulfed him, and his eyes opened in the emptiness once again.
"Attention! Iteration Five-Five-Seven-Six-Four has concluded. Beginning Iteration Five-Five-Seven-Six-Five."
He swallowed hard. He had no sense of time. He didn't know how long it had actually been since she placed him into this pocket dimension. "Bitch!" he shouted. "Please make it stop!" he begged before he realized what he had just said.
"No," the legion of voices echoed. "Iteration Start."
Thoughtspire
Weiss
"Where are we going?" Weiss asked, a true sense of curiosity overtaking her for the first time in centuries. Never before had she seen such an impossible structure, let alone walked its halls.
"Patience," Ouroboros muttered, poking his serpentine head out of her collar. "I sense that this will be...pleasurable."
"To someone it will be, I suspect," Penny muttered under her breath."
"Is this a good idea, Penny?" Rose asked. "She's...she's more likely than not going to kill him."
"After what I've done to him, that would be a mercy," the automaton answered grimly. Spiraling upward an impossibly tall set of stairs, the three of them passed many a Shifter, and each one gave Weiss and her snake a curious gaze. Some of them, due to her stark white-almost-silver hair must have assumed she was a moderately practiced magic user who's eyes simply hadn't gone amethyst yet. She paid them no mind as she focused on Penny and Rose, trying to surmise what it was that they were doing.
After what must have been thirty or forty minutes of walking a maze, they stopped in front of a pale red door. Crudely painted with white paint, it read with just a single word. "Crim?" Weiss asked. "Is it a name?"
"Yes," Penny answered. Procuring a key from her pouch, she unlocked the door and opened it, motioning for Weiss to enter first.
Obeying, Weiss glanced around the empty room trying to understand what purpose it served. "It's completely empty," she said, confused.
"Not for long." The orange haired girl raised a single hand, casting an almost identical spell to the one that freed Weiss from her loop. A red hexagram lit up on the floor, and those same rainbow flames that Weiss saw earlier sprang forth. When they died, a thin and feeble man lay sideways on the stone floor as the hexagram faded.
His body was sickly thin, his eyes sunken and hollow, and his hair was long and white, though Weiss could see trace amounts of red in the roots still yet. He was positively revolting, and Weiss felt a shred of pity for him. He looked up at Penny and stared at her with wild eyes. "Say it," he said. "Say it like you always do. Ignore my please and send me back. Send me back or kill me for real, you Bitch!"
"No," Penny said flatly. "I've pulled you out of the Backyard, Crim. We have something to discuss."
He glanced at Rose before his vision drifted towards Weiss. "W-Weiss Schnee!? Heh! Hahahahaha!" His whole body shook as he laughed, occasionally pausing to cough and hack grossly. "What a beautiful sight! How is my latest social experiment coming along, dear? How many lives have you lived? How many different ways have you died? Which was your favorite? Stabbing yourself in the jugular was quite spectacular! Unfortunately, after Ruby was fixed I lost my ability to watch you, but I knew you'd be great!"
Whatever pity Weiss had felt for him dissolved in an instant. "Is it him?" she asked knowingly. "Is he the one who did this to me?"
"Yes," Rose and Penny said in unison.
"What is to be done with him?"
The two Shifters glanced at each other. "I believe Lady Lia intended that to be your prerogative," Penny whispered.
Weiss nodded. "Leave us." Without so much as a glance, the pair turned and left the room, closing the cell door to give Weiss privacy. "Tell me," she began once alone with the hideous man. "What was your favorite way that I died?"
He laughed. "So...oh, so many to choose from in the two hundred thousand or so that I saw. Dismemberment, mulitple suicides. Oh, how about that one time you were captured by brigands looking for supplies to survive? That one was pretty early! Which life as it? Huh? Which one?"
Weiss' eyes narrowed in disgust. "That was somewhere in the four hundreds. I forget which one specifically."
"Yes, yes! Four hundred and thirty second, I believe! Hahahahaha! They beat and raped you over and over before feeding you to their dogs!" Weiss kicked him in the ribs with her boot, but he just laughed. "After what the Bitch put me through, you are a treat! Perhaps you are even my salvation! My way out of this wretched place!"
"Not a chance in hell, bastard!"
"I'm not so sure," Ouroboros whispered seductively. "Something about him tempts me, Witch. Something that elicits...hunger."
The heiress smiled. "You haven't eaten anything since before I killed you, have you?"
"Gluttony isn't my thing," the snake clarified. "That would be Cerberus. But still, I am...tempted."
Weiss kneeled down to be on Crim's level; it was now that she noticed how badly his body reeked. It was as though he hadn't bathed in centuries. "Then that is how I'll end your miserable existence, Crim." She reached forward and placed her right hand on his left shoulder. "You'll leave this place after all...as a part of Ouroboros."
The snake slithered into her shirt, down her arm, and poked its head out of her winter coat sleeve. Crim smiled, madness completely dominating his mind. "Sounds...amazing." Hissing, Ouroboros struck Crim on the neck, embedding his serpent's fangs deep into the tissue. Crim's smile faded as the pain washed over his entire body. Weiss had expected Ouroboros to grow in size and swallow the man whole like a python, but instead his fangs remained stuck fast in the flesh. A white light began to pulsate through the snake and into Weiss, and she felt a sense of ecstasy, not too dissimilar from an orgasm. The light pulsated faster and faster, and Weiss' breath quickened as Crim's body began to fade from existence.
Just as his form was about to completely dissolve the white light faded into the rainbow spectrum in one final pulse, knocking Weiss and Ouroboros backwards into the door behind them. Penny opened the door in a panic. "Weiss! Are you okay?"
Weiss lay on the floor, laughing with glee. "What just happened?" she asked. "My blood feels like a warm fire."
Ouroboros shook his head. "We've just...taken something from him. That fire wasn't there before. Something ignited it."
"A spark?" Rose asked.
"Exactly!"
"They've...they've taken his spark!" the gunslinger said, shocked. "Weiss...you're a Shifter now!"
Slowly she stood back on her feet, getting a feeling for her body. "Good," she muttered. "Let's go kill Nidhogg."
Song: The Loop Closes - How To Destroy Angels
Author's Notes
Getting close to the end! I made a bet with a co-worker that I would finish this story before August 1st, so I'm trying to do just that! The final notes and ideas that I've compiled for the story are already ready for use, I just need to find the time to write them as quickly as possible to make this bet a sure win! Barring that, the end will almost definitely be next month at the latest. This may be one of the shortest chapters, but that's just because I didn't want to jump from the Thoughspire straight into the Nidhogg fight in the same chapter. The Nidhogg chapter should be a decent one in length. Not as long as the Cerberus fight from The Longest Night though...maybe. I'm not sure yet. I won't know for sure until I write it.
Also, this chapter was, according to my original layout of the plot and chapter titles, originally going to be called Phantom Bride by Deftones, but I have since cut that song from the list and replaced with the eternally more fitting The Loop Clsoes by How To Destroy Angels. Why? Because it's Trent Reznor (guy behind Nine Inch Nails) and his wife. Always a great sound from him.
And I don't usually do this, but the name of the next chapter is My Immortal by Evanescence. It should be pretty great!
(Not) Fun Fact: I have to work tomorrow (7-29-2017) for a few hours before my department shuts down for the weekend. I'm not happy about it, but at least it's going to be nothing but Overtime.
Till Next Time!