Sebastien floated in an empty space. He did not know for how long he floated there. Had it been days, weeks, months? He couldn't tell. Nothing made sense to him anymore. How could it? His mind was lost in a vast space of emptiness. The darkness, the silence, bore down on him with the weight of a gammoth.
What he saw wasn't visible. What he heard was not sound. He felt nothing! Nothing but loss. Loss and anger.
His greatest failures rushed back, consuming him in this endless void in which he was trapped. A gentle reminder of who he was. Or to be more precise, what he was. The inescapable truth.
He wanted to scream. To cry. To thrash about and free himself from this torture! Why did he, despite the numerous good deeds he committed, get stuck in this situation? He was right! They were wrong.
"I'm sure you can think of some things that you did wrong."
That voice again. Booming and everywhere, yet silent and nowhere. The voice of reason, or so it claimed, had come to pester him once more. This was not a memory. No, those painful things he could take.
"Hey now. I don't mean to bother your sulking, but you need a friend to talk to. If not, you might go crazy and start talking to yourself."
Smartass, he said, or did he think it. Could he still think? Was this just a thing that was happening with no input from himself? Like the flow of a river? Why couldn't anything make sense to him in this forsaken place? At least the voice sounded familiar this time.
How he missed him. All of them. Their smiles, their laughs, their bad jokes. They protected him, saved him on more than one occasion. They made a mistake. For what did he do to repay all that love and kindness?
"It wasn't your fault. Stop blaming yourself."
How he wanted to rage. That argument again. Always the same damned argument! It was a lie. A lie he told himself. A lie he told them. He always had control. How could he not? He wasn't like those freaks who were experimented on. No, he was worse. A natural freak born from the unholy matrimony of his freaks of parents.
There was no creature attempting to take control. No struggle for power over his body. None of which could have explained his behavior. That was all him. And like the coward he was, he couldn't go back and tell their families. They deserved to know. They deserved the closure.
Instead, he isolated himself. A penance self-imposed. Another selfish decision.
"You need to stop being so hard on yourself."
Of course. He needed to hear that, didn't he. What other brilliant ideas did this voice have to offer him? Forgiveness, redemption? Those belonged to the people who wanted them. He however, did not. He could not. His sentence was life-long, not something that could be forgiven on a whim by himself. Did this voice of reason understand that?
He waited for a reply that did not come. As expected, as soon as he wanted to converse, silence engulfed him once more.
While his mind wandered through the void, its warm embrace brushed against his skin. Almost like a gentle breeze in an open plain.
Wait. That's not right, he thought. He couldn't remember the last time he felt anything. He shouldn't feel anything. Death claimed him the moment the world went dark. Unless…Was it the Kid? The Woman? No, that's impossible.
It took him a while to figure it out, but his thoughts were cohesive. He wanted to smile, to laugh at the thought that he conquered death. Alas, only his mind moved. Still a victory that he counted.
He had more chances to suffer and repent if he lived. While he suffered in the endless void, it couldn't compare to the real world. The emptiness left his suffering unfocused, broad, and, like the void itself, hollow. He wanted direct pain. He needed his hatred focused on himself.
"Com…'eck…'re"
The voice came back, like always, when his hate emerged. Except, it sounded different. It had a direction. Behind him. Did they save him? What idiot would do such a thing? Wait. Behind him? If they did save him, why did their voice appear behind him?
"Like a living statue. Or a dead one, I guess," the voice cleared up a bit. He struggled to hear what the voice said, but as he struggled he could hear other voices. The voices that were further away sounded muffled and indistinct.
What did they say? Sebastien thought. Statue? Was I not saved? Am I still stuck on the battlefield as some sort of warning?! Not worthy of being killed, not worthy of a burial. Stuck in what I thought was my death. Disgraced as a trophy for all to see!
"Look at those wings. Damned half-breed. Would be a good trophy once we get back up and running," one of the other voices said as they got closer. He sounded older than the previous. As the time went on his hearing improved. He could hear the small fluctuations in the man's voice. A particular accent, possibly one near to that of Moga.
He always found it funny that Moga, despite their close ties to nature, fell under the influence of the Black Guild rather quickly. Perhaps the frequent earthquakes caused by that large monster drove them closer. Although, in all likelihood, the fact they had no hunter or any real defensive force caused them to bend the knee when the Black Guild came knocking.
"Best to cut it down. It would be easier to carry it. And plus I think using it's part for research is a bit more important than inflating your ego," a third voice popped up. Higher pitched, but more coarse. Did she need water? No. He couldn't figure out why until he heard her voice crack. She sustained serious damage to her throat.
There was a fourth person he could hear, but they didn't speak. Did they not wish to intervene, or could they not? From what he knew of the Black Guild the last option seemed far fetched. A group of human extremists wouldn't allow for such weakness. Unless it happened in battle, of course.
The two prior voices continued to bicker. No love or gentle ribbing came from the argument. It reminded him of his old hunting party near the end of their time together. They couldn't resolve their differences. If only they had more time.
Again, anger filled his soul. Time! It was his fault. Couldn't he have done better? Just a little more hunting, just a little more time together to talk things out. Then everything would have been fine.
They talked about cutting him down. He thought he died once before, this time it could be permanent. He yearned for death, he craved death. But, alas, he needed to suffer more. His punishment could not be overwritten by a group of idiotic cult members following the dreams of a dead man.
Light began to filter through his one remaining eye. The blurry field came into focus as his eyesight returned. The field looked the same as it did before. Marred with his scorch marks and holes scattered the ground. From his estimation, the eternity of the void had only lasted a few days at most.
His eye tinged. Small amount of salted liquid pooled around it. An unexplainable tightness crushed his chest. For what reason did this field evoke such a feeling in him? He did not know, or rather he refused to believe the truth of the matter.
A strong blow smacked him in the middle of his back, almost knocking him over. Sharp electric shocks sparked through his body. His nerves burned with a renewed intensity that only a living being could experience. Blood trickled down from the wound, warming every part of his body it touched.
"Dang, I thought I could slice him in one hit. Those scales of his are damned tough. It's like chopping a tree." The old one said.
"That's what you get for using a Longsword," the woman said. "If you want a clean cut you use a Great Sword. Now, move over and I'll show you how it's done."
His back cried from the blow, pushing his mind into a flurry of needless thoughts. His muscles burned and ached to move once again. He could hear the staggered breath of a heavy weapon being lifted. The stench of sweat from days on the road, the acrid smell of blood, and the sweet scent of adrenaline wafted to his nose. Goosebumps wrapped his skin in its loving embrace as his heart banged in his chest.
With blinding speed, he just barely evaded the blow from the Great Sword. Inches from the tip of the blade he stood in place. He panted heavily, barely able to move his arms. His newly regained sight began to blur and twist. His stomach knotted up before expelling stomach acid from his mouth.
"Dang, it lives," the young one said. His voice sounded distant, as if a wall separated them. As Sebastien tried to focus on their voice, a high pitched noise rang in his ears.
"I haven't killed me one of these half-breeds yet," the older man said. "Let me do it. It'll be a good chance to try out this new gadget they gave us."
"Wait. You haven't killed a halfie or used your gun? Dang, no wonder your team got annihilated."
"Shut it kid, or I'll use this on you!"
While they bickered, Sebastien took the opportunity to face his opponents. As he turned, his legs wobbled beneath him before they gave out and he face-planted onto the ground. His arms reacted the same way. Filled with tiny little shocks, his limp arms could do nothing but flail at the ground.
The Black Guild hunters had stopped bickering long enough to watch the pathetic display before them. He could hear their snickering as he struggled to a stable position.
"Oh man. Look at that thing writhe around," The young one laughed. He walked over to Sebastien and squatted right in front of him. His face contorted and morphed into strange moving shapes right before Sebastien's eyes.
"Hey now. Even if that thing is disorientated it's best to stay away," the woman said. "They're still-"
She didn't have enough time to finish her warning as Sebastien morphed his face into that of a Yian-Garuga. At that distance, even with his current vision, he could land a killing blow. A fireball erupted from his newly acquired beak and exploded into the boy's face. While not fully powered, the blast still had enough power to rip the boy's head from his shoulders.
Idiotic.
For the briefest of moments, only the immolated skull emitted any sort of noise in the empty field. The man's and woman's screams quickly filled the silence followed by the sounds of their weapons blasting away. While the mysterious fourth member did not yell, they too joined in the firefight.
Their strange weapons broke and tore away the scales from his body. If Sebastien remembered correctly, these so-called "guns" killed his kinsect a while back. Strange, powerful weapons indeed.
He dodged to the side, but their aim remained true. His trembling legs regained some of their original strength, allowing him to continue moving without having the fall over every time. Back and forth, he tried to weave between their blasts with little success. From what he could gather though, it seemed only one of the three had a good aim on him.
If it wasn't for that, I'm sure I'd be dead by now.
With the main threat now identified, he set a rather fool-hardy plan into motion. With each movement, his legs continued to regain their full potential. During the dodging phase of his plan, he took a few false stumbles and falls, always keeping the same pace. It took a while, but the bullets finally ceased. Just in time for his vision to finally refocus.
His eye fixated on his target. She reloaded her weapon much faster than her counterparts, but it seemed, to him at least, that she took her time doing so. After all, how could a weak, disorientated creature pose her any threat? Scales and monster strength reinforced his legs, and he burst out into a sprint that caught everyone by surprise. A red light trail followed him. Just before the woman, he jumped into the air with the help of his wings and performed a flip. Mid-flip his tail spurted from his back side which followed the sweeping motion of his body. The tail struck the woman in the chest, embedding the deadly poison spikes into her.
The woman, clearly a veteran of combat, reached into her pack for what Sebastien believed to be an antidote. As he landed, he grounded himself, and let out a piercing scream which knocked the woman down. A combination of exhaustion, weak armor, and the poison caused the woman to succumb faster than anticipated.
Cocky.
The man next to her dropped his weapon and then to his knees. A wet patch developed on his crotch and the urine pooled around his knees. His eyes wept and his teeth clattered. His whole body shook, as if he had forgotten to take a hot drink while exploring the tundra.
Sebastien walked over to the man. Such talk of bringing home a trophy, only to wind up a pathetic whimpering man. That bravado wiped clean in the presence of a real identifiable threat. If these people made up the Black Guild, then that Kid and his friends had nothing to worry about in their little war. Not one to let a pitiful creature continue to suffer, he reared his head back and stuck the man's head with his beak; splattered the skull like a watermelon.
Green.
Sebastien then turned his attention to the last remaining member. They had their gun trained on him, but did not pull the trigger. He did not know if they were afraid, or simply waiting for a good opportunity. Nevertheless, he morphed his beak away, which only left a bloody visage to stare at the young child. Recognition flashed in the child's eyes, and they lowered the weapon.
Upon the opening, Sebastien sprinted and morphed his hand into a claw. He plunged his arm into the young child's stomach, just a centimeter from ripping their spine in twain. With a face before them, the child didn't have the heart to kill.
Soft.
"Mr. Seb…" the child croaked out. "...how…why…"
That voice, while more mature, sounded much like a voice from the past. "John?"
In slow, careful movements he placed the boy on the ground and stared into his blank eyes. That boy, whose eyes once filled the world around them with such bright and innocent optimism, now stared at nothing. With a shaking hand, Sebastien slid the boy's eyelids closed.
Death lingered in the air, while the blood watered the ground. A scene far too familiar to Sebastien. Tears streamed down his face as he collapsed to his knees. A primal cry bellowed from within him, directed to the boundless sky above.
"Again," he croaked. "Why must you continue to do this? You damned idiot!"
After a few minutes of screaming, he rose to his knees. The monster parts dissipated, a blood covered man left behind, not even a single piece of cloth remained. Studying the scars on his body, he wondered about his next actions. He couldn't leave the bodies just rotting out in the open.
Over the next few hours, he dug graves for the four. Whether or not they deserved to be buried did not matter to him. The last time he ran away, however this time he made sure to take responsibility. Even if only one of the dead mattered to him, he needed to do better.
Once the moon had secured its spot firmly in the night sky did he take the time to rest. It could have taken him a much shorter time had he decided to transform, but that was too easy. It couldn't be a punishment if he took the easy way out.
Pain tinged from the tips of fingers. His hands, caked in dirt, were dry and cracked. He couldn't tell if his hands were covered in his own blood, or those from the dead during the burial. Either way, it mattered little to him at that point.
After an hour of respite, he chose a direction and began walking. He needed a better spot to isolate himself. While the jungle did provide him a decent hiding spot, he was eventually found. Or the more accurate version, he was lured out by his own curiosity.
The desert sounded like a good place to hide. It was large and barren, with few visitors. The downside was that there were only a few livable places which would draw visitors there. The forest and hills were far too close to plenty of villages.
Sebastien sighed, "Castle Schrade it is. It should still be livable. And well, no one has been there since its fall. At least, there shouldn't be anyone. Too many superstitions"
Until he had his anger under control, his monster form could not emerge. That was a firm rule he placed upon himself. This situation, starting from his encounter with the Kid until now, while tragic, taught him a fine lesson. One the he had to get beaten, bruised, and bloodied to understand.
"Here's to the rest of my life. May it never be disturbed."