Chapter 56-Worth

Overgrown vegetation obstructed his view as Tamli paused to catch his breath, closing his eyes as he let himself feel the dark emotions rolling from the clone and which direction they were coming from as they were his guide to locating the mad hybrid. He had been traveling for nearly a week now and still hadn't found Tanui, something that weighted heavily on his mind the more time passed. Ducking under a tree limb, he grabbed hold of the bark above him and swung upward, landing on top of the branch as he scanned the area for a sense of which way to go. An intense burst of mental power caught his attention and Tamli closed his eyes, reaching his mind out towards it. He was close to the cliff facing, in a cave system looking out over the water . . . Sighing, he let the connection fade and then scrambled up the tree, jumping over to another one as his destination became clear.

Tanui's initial plan to fool Rados and Roylezn had not worked for long. Nearly four days since their children had left, his deceitfulness had been discovered, although not by an action he could control. He had learned to form a physical image of them quickly, giving the shapes some of his own energy so they could move about and act as normal as possible. It was only once exhaustion set in on him that the images flickered and faded out, and, thus, he now found himself pinned against one of the rock walls by Rados. The dragon had been too furious to speak, something that gave Tanui encouragement as he had also been plagued ruthlessly by the voices during his illusion of Tyst and Malie. Roylezn lingered near her mate's left flank, putting her right in the position of being hit if he drew his blade and swung around, given he would be allowed to move.

You chose to do this, why? What have we done wrong to you? Roylezn asked as Tanui heard Rados growl softly in anger at his mate for her questioning him.

"You have done . . ." Tanui tried to speak but Rados shoved him harder against the rocks and he cut himself off, forcing his own silence as he suddenly sensed the familiarness of Tamli close by. His vengeance was at hand and he could slaughter these two to get his point across to the hybrid.

Exhaling, he shoved Rados backwards and off of him before spinning around and drawing his blade, pointing it directly at Roylezn's throat. If Rados moved towards them then he would kill her, it was quite simple. Informing the dragon of this, he motioned them to move, still keeping his blade even with the she-dragon's neck as he led them outside, being blinded momentarily by the bright sunlight. Once his vision returned, he lowered his weapon and reached out with his mind, forcing the two to begin circling him slowly, making sure a proper distance was kept between them and him.

Tamli faltered, sensing a presence that was familiar but felt foreign to him, a possible connection he had made before his memory loss at Amia's hands. Leaping from a tree, he dropped silently back to the forest floor, spotting a rock outcropping just up ahead that could be used to find out what was going on down below. He slowly crept up to it, angling himself so that he could peer over it while only a tuft of his hair could be seen. It was spotted grey and, although crumbling to pieces, proved large enough to crouch behind and watch as he saw Tanui down below on the beach with two dragons.

Other than sensing the original hybrid nearly right above him, Tanui was enjoying torturing Rados and Roylezn. He hadn't planned on the hybrid coming so soon but it meant that his victory was ever closer to coming to completion. Tired of waiting much longer, he shoved both of the dragons back into the rock before him, the same rock that formed the base of their cave. Roylezn happened to be behind his right shoulder when he thrust them forward and so he spun, catching her directly at the top of her left shoulder and slicing down through her until midway through her ribs on her right side. He didn't hear a shriek of pain from her but, then again, her death had been instant. Using what remained of her body, once it finished sliding across the sand, as a springboard, he jumped from her right shoulder over to where Rados had gotten impaled by some of the sharper rocks on the lower portion of the stable base, his wings and back pinned into place.

Tanui landed inches from the dragon, smirking as it shrieked and thrashed about in its anger and misery. He lifted his weapon and swung it, slicing clear through Rados's neck and separating his head from the rest of his body. With the skull bouncing over the pale ground, Tanui almost didn't catch the sound of boots softly hitting the sand behind him as he momentarily glanced down at his torn robes to see the dark bloodstains left by the dual murders he had just committed.

"Welcome, Dragon-born," he hummed in mock amusement.

Tamli had originally promised himself that he wouldn't move even if Tanui did kill but he quickly rose once the first dragon had been killed, the female with the black-tipped white scales. When the second one had been slaughtered, he was already jumping over the rock wall, uncaring about how the fight would go as he knew he had to avenge those innocent dragons that had died simply because of the grudge of a mad copy of himself.

Pale sand had cushioned his fall as Tamli landed softly behind Tanui, drawing his sword as he turned around to see the clone's shoulders slumped forward slightly as if it was struggling to rein itself in after the bloodbath it had caused. He noticed the head of the deceased beast the man had just killed rolling along the ground and felt a twinge of sorrow at the death of another innocent. Crimson blood tainted the ground around the copy and Tamli held back a gasp as the dead creature's skull was forcefully called into the outstretched left hand of the mad individual, watching as trembling fingers wrapped around one of the ivory horns.

A glimmer of light bounced off the bloody sword in the man's right hand and Tamli blinked, realizing it wasn't sunlight but instead the faint hum of electricity. So the clone had a secondary weapon then? It would certainly make the fight more interesting since they would be forcing aura against lightning. Tamli tore his gaze from the blade and paused as the lifeless eyes of the dragon Tanui held onto as a shield met his vision. An odd mix of purple and yellow yet the fusion seemed so familiar . . .

He took a step back, clutching his head with one hand as memories flooded back to him. Seeing the corpse of his son, his firstborn by Finca, had been enough to restore everything about who he was from the beginning until now. Tanui would pay for killing Rados and for murdering other faultless scale fliers. Glancing back at the oozing remains of Roylezn laying near an outcropping of rocks only strengthened his resolve and Tamli collected himself, sighing as he lowered his hand from his skull and tightened his grip on his sword.

"Welcome, Dragon-born."

The voice of Tanui was coarse and rough but still sounded so identical to his own that Tamli took a step back in surprise. He hadn't expected the clone to sound so normal after what he had felt for days radiating from the insane hybrid. It worried him but he put it out of his mind as the man turned to face him, smirking evilly.

Seeing his own visage staring back at him was confusing enough for Tamli but he noticed subtle differences since their last interaction. The clone's crimson irises, once the focal point of the facial features, were now dulled to a muted red while the center retained the bright bloody color first seen back in the ruins of Misery's lab. His hair, having been cut short during their last meeting, was now choppy, yet medium-length and long strands lingered around the back of his neck as the front was short in randomly selected spots. A shallow smile seemed to be permanently fixated on the man's face and, as Tamli watched, the faint outlining of veins crept up along the clone's left temple. Splatters of blood and dirt smudges gave the paled skin a more normal look but did little to cover up the sickly whiteness of the flesh on the throat and hands.

The clone's clothes were in shreds, barely covering up anything and revealing bulging muscles under ghostly skin. Three red marks trailed down Tanui's left shoulder until his elbow, the width of the pink scars signaling that it must have been a dragon who had left the wound. It wasn't a fresh injury as the healing flesh looked far too smooth to suggest the attack had been by either Rados or Roylezn prior to their deaths.

"Why do you treat Rados's skull as if it was a shield? He would be most disgusted at you for your mutilation of his deceased frame."

Tanui growled, tightening his grip on the dragon's horn he used to keep the object in his hand. "Your memories weren't supposed to come back," he spat, disgusted at seeing the one who had caused all of his trouble. "Master dipped the tip of his blade in a liquid-based Dragonisicm solution before confronting you to ensure those wounds wouldn't be healed by your diluted dragon blood."

"You killed your master, remember? In the lab, you destroyed him to save my life. Maybe that's where your madness began? I can't imagine it was easy for you to-"

"Slaughtered, ravaged . . . I am superior! You are nothing but a failed creation!" Tanui screamed, pointing his blade directly at Tamli as the original hybrid took a step back, bracing himself on his left leg before he forced himself forward and met the blade of the copy.

The two swords met with a flurry of force; each hybrid shifting inches in one direction or the other to try and get the upper hand. Tanui, after realizing they weren't budging from the blades' locked positions, swung Rados's head into Tamli's side, scoring a deep gash into the man's side and forcing the original to retreat with a snarl, his left hand going to the wound and coming away with blood.

"If that is the case," Tamli growled as he lunged back into the fight, twisting his wrist as he tried to get his weapon past Tanui's fierce blocking, "then you wouldn't be here, clone. I am Tamli Dragonsbane, son of the Great Protector Mirage and offspring of the vengeful spirit Szara . . . You were just grown in a vat to take my place by Amia's orders."

"No!" Tanui snarled, parrying the blow and knocking Tamli's blade away, nearly ripping the weapon from its master's grip. "Liar . . ."

Tamli spun on his heel, lashing out and kicking Tanui back a few inches as he gathered his breath, finding it difficult to fight himself as they were so evenly matched. He had gotten lucky when the clone had found him in the Compound and he used his aura to heal the wounds Amia had dealt him. Aura had been his surprise for that fight and it likely wouldn't have the same effect now, not with the man so psychologically damaged.

"Is that right?" He taunted as Tanui lunged for him, brandishing the beast's head like it was a bludgeon. "Amia thought you were the best but your mental decline had to worry him. Did he ever find out or did he even care about you?"

Screaming in feral rage, the clone slashed at his mid-section, the move blocked just barely by the hilt of Tamli's weapon. Ignoring the obvious, Tanui thrust the decapitated skull towards his prey, only for the item to get cut in half as it was aimed right at the tip of the original hybrid's blade. Passing the sword to his left hand for a moment, Tamli reached out with his mind and unused hand to toss the destroyed flesh into the ocean several feet behind them, hoping his son would forgive them for the brutal demise once everything was fixed.

Retreating a step, Tanui's eyes flared dangerously as he drew a ragged breath. "Master was proud . . . so proud . . . You are the failure! The inferior one."

Executing a complex series of moves, Tamli again locked the two blades into a stalemate to give him enough time to gaze into the rage-filled eyes of his own clone. "Let me make this clear, Tanui. You are a product of a former rider's disgust and need for vengeance. All the clones are just tools of a dead man who should have known better."

Lightning sparked up along Tanui's weapon and he pulled back, moving the collided weapons closer to his own pale face. "No."

Before Tamli could stop him, Tanui shoved him back with telekinesis and broke his sword free. Landing on the sand, the original rolled back up onto his feet and grabbed his weapon from where it had fallen next to him, inching back slowly. A second later he was staring straight into the tip of a electricity-flaring blade as the clone maliciously glared at him.

"You will not stand in my way this time," Tanui seethed as he reached out with his free hand towards Tamli's sword, wrenching it away and shattering the jewel set in the pommel by the force of the telekinetic move as it also that threw Tamli on his back. "I have plans . . . and you will see exactly why Master picked me over you!"

Other than the fact that Tanui finished his comment with a hair-raising scream, Tamli was unnerved to find the tip of the man's weapon touching his chest as he realized his own blade lay feet away and completely shattered. The clone was insane if he thought that by beating Tamli in a deadly sword fight and destroying the blade a victory would be sealed. There had been too much to happen in his life for the hybrid to submit to a failure just because it broke his normal weapon.

He opened his mouth to speak but Tanui flicked the sword up to his throat, nicking the skin in the process on his collarbone. Glaring at the deranged individual, Tamli spat at the bloody metal, smirking as the weapon was removed from its dangerous place on his neck. Still carefully watching the fiery irises of his enemy, he forced himself to clear his mind of malice and focus solely on the task at hand before his rage got the better of him and he became reckless with his actions.

The brief peace Tamli could find was disrupted by Tanui as the clone grabbed him in a telekinetic choke hold. He managed to fight off the weak attempt and staggered to his feet, backing away as he coughed. "Plans? Can your damaged mind even function enough to formulate future ideas?"

Tanui's hiss of disgust sent chills up Tamli's spine and he broke his gaze from the mad clone to glance once more at the remains of his sword. The blade was still gleaming but the center gem, the piece that tied the whole thing together and gave it unique qualities, was completely destroyed. He halted suddenly and his attention was returned to the lunatic hybrid as the clink of steel resounded in his ears and the coolness of metal scraped along his collarbone gently.

"Do not move," Tanui growled softly, placing the tip of his weapon on Tamli's neck for emphasis even as his gaze seemed to go unfocused. "Slaughter without mercy . . ."

No hint of the black pupils could be seen in the clone's eyes and Tamli suppressed a shudder, fearing the mental detachment must be further along then he had anticipated. It took him a moment to hear the next words spoken by Tanui as they were soft, almost inaudible.

"I wanted none of this," the clone whispered before turning his head to the side, snarling in rage at nothing beside him. "Leave me be and let me handle this myself!"

Concerned, Tamli said nothing at first, thinking the man was simply lost in some memory. When the copy of himself didn't respond to having the blade pushed away by a mental thought, the worry grew into realization that periods of psychosis had already begun.

"How the mighty 'perfect' clone has fallen," Tamli scoffed as he stepped to the side, readying a sphere of aura to use to blast the clone backwards into the rock facing that had been the backdrop for Roylezn and Rados to be killed.

Red irises blazed back to life and Tamli gasped, losing his fragile grip on the surge of aura he had been trying to build up in his hand. He discovered, fearfully, that Tanui had come back to his senses and was now strangling him in a much stronger choke hold then before, one that actually hurt his neck and was trying to crush his windpipe. The clone faltered for a moment before lifting him into the air, hand upraised to keep a focal point for his telekinesis as he lowered his blade to his side.

"I will make sure you remain conscious enough to feel every single minute of the agony until I decide to kill you. Your death will be . . . most torturous and I will ensure you feel the same pain I have, if not mental then physical."

"Why didn't Amia kill you in the lab?" Tamli questioned, whispering his question softly as he fought for a way free from the strong mental hold. "If your skills are as even as mine then why weren't you destroyed?"

Tanui let out an elongated hiss as he glanced away, dropping Tamli back onto the ground as he moved his sword to his left hand. "You were weak," he muttered as a wisp of black hair fell into his face. "Burdened by memories that kept invading at the worst . . ."

Red irises flared, blazing bright as Tanui let out a startled gasp before taking a step back, raising his free hand to cushion his skull. Tamli got back onto his feet as he watched the clone break down under his own eyes; the man retreating into himself and descending into silence as he closed his eyes and crouched down, dropping his sword to the ground to use both hands to press into his head.

"Spoke too soon about the memories, huh? They plague you like they had once evaded me," Tamli commented as he noticed the clone tremble and more veins creep up on the man's face, giving the already unnerving features a sense of true detachment and mental collapse into complete psychological decay.

"No," Tanui rasped, snarling softly as he lowered his hands and reopened his eyes to stare directly at Tamli, gaze wavering and very unfocused. "Too soon for demise. My plans aren't done yet."

"Fragments of shattered memories break your fragile conscious. How sad to think you were once the idealized copy."

"You don't know . . ." Tanui whispered quietly as his gaze finally fixed darkly on Tamli, the irises glistening as sparks of lightning arched from his fingertips.

A soft chuckle rose from Tamli's throat as he made a telekinetic grab for the clone's blade, sending it smashing into the rock wall behind them as it shattered into tiny pieces. "Let us end this petty fight, shall we?"

Snarling in disgust, Tanui jumped to his feet and reached behind him with a single hand. The ghostly white flesh returned curled around the center of a large ivory bone, the shape too curved and pointed at one end to be the cartilage of a deceased dragon. From the degree of arching, Tamli guessed it was either a horn or a claw that the clone had found sometime since their last encounter.

"My destiny shall be achieved. I will kill you and regain my Master's favor."

Tamli laughed, glancing at the new weapon in the hands of his foe for a moment longer before his gaze returned to the bloody irises. "With that excuse for a blade? I keep telling you that Amia is dead. You ended his life, thus he cannot praise you for whatever dark actions your mind may consider."

Branding the bone like it was a sword, Tanui lunged for him, grazing Tamli's chest before he could escape the reach of the object. Again and again the new weapon scored hits on Tamli but he continued to ignore the injuries, puzzled by why the clone hadn't just used the tool as a dagger and stabbed him. Evading one slash that would have nearly torn his arm off, Tamli twisted behind Tanui and grabbed the man's wrist, making him drop the deadly ivory piece at his feet.

It was a claw, polished to a razor-thin point and shaped to fit directly into Tanui's hand. The perfect backup weapon for the delusional clone in case his sword was lost or broke. Tamli thrust a knee into the man's lower back, forcing a scream from Tanui and leading to him crumbling to the ground.

Using the momentum he had built up, Tamli took the opportunity to drop his grip and seize Tanui by the back of the neck, slamming the clone's face down hard onto a pile of rocks nearby. The insane hybrid tried to roll away afterwards but a quick jab by the toe of his boot into its wounded side by Tamli brought out a ragged scream and it ceased to fight against the movement. Rolling the man over with a kick, he could see that the copy's face was slick with blood from a gash that trailed across a clearly broken nose. He hadn't expected the combination of recent blows to do that much damage, he realized as the claw slid into his hand by a subconscious telekinetic pull.

The clone's eyes had gone unfocused again as Tamli gazed down at his enemy and heard a repressed growl rise from him. "Failure cannot be superior." Snarling, Tanui pushed himself up onto his elbows, digging his fingers into the coarse ground around him. "Never would stand for it . . . Master is to be obeyed despite feelings. Feelings mean nothing and only show weakness . . ."

Placing a foot on Tanui's chest and shoving the man back onto the pale earth, Tamli pointed the weapon down at him as pity rose within him at seeing how low the clone had fallen from grace. It had once been the best of the copies but now it was little more than a raving lunatic devoted to a dead master. Despite his desire to kill the insane individual, he felt sorry for just how miserable its life had to have been.

"Weakness is what makes us human, Tanui. Without admitting our failures, we lose the humanity that gives us the compassion for mercy-"

"No." Tanui hissed, grabbing hold of the leg that held him to the ground. "Mercy isn't real . . . We don't ask for mercy . . . Master says mercy is just a tool of the weak to make themselves seem strong . . ."

With a surge of strength Tamli hadn't thought Tanui still had, the clone let loose a current of electricity along the limb that kept him grounded. Recoiling in shock and pain, Tamli drew back and gripped the new tool in his hand tighter, watching as lightning sparked along the man's arms and elicited a shriek from the copied individual. Even with the move having been done at close range, hadn't Tanui realized it would just flow back into him and inflict damage?

"You are the inferior one. Do you hear me? Inferior!"

Tamli took a step back, blinking in surprise. Somehow even with that lightning tormenting the clone, it was able to continue to rave about its mad fantasies. His memory trouble had paled in comparison to this. Shaking his head, he thrust the tip of the claw into Tanui's leg as it lay beside him, making the clone squirm and jerk back, thus leaving a jagged tear that almost completely tore the limb off.

Suddenly Tamli was shoved backwards and he collapsed against the rock facing that had been his high vantage point for watching the murders of Rados and Roylezn. Reeling from the telekinetic surge that had knocked him off his feet, he glanced up to see Tanui had regained his footing and was limping towards him with a malicious smirk. Feeling the warmth of blood ooze down his neck slowly, he lightly ran a hand across the back of the questioned area to come away with the deep crimson color that confirmed his fears that he must have injured himself after crashing into the abrasive stones.

A roar of malice from above them drew Tamli's attention and he glanced up to see a black dragon leaping off one of the surrounding cliffs towards them, its murky yellow irises filled with rage while the figure on its back unnerved him as he released who it was. Nethial had returned to life somehow, although not in the condition he had left her if her new legs were any indication. The dragon landed inches away, allowing Nethial to get off as Tamli noticed the shredded wings and thus understood the lack of flight, snarling and hissing as it eyed each person individually.

"Tanui! You." Nethial's cry of worry for the clone quickly turned to seething anger as their eyes met. "Stay away from him!"

Tamli staggered back onto his feet, feeling his aura heal the wounded area and leaving him panting for breath. It looked as if she had never aged past a day since her death, her beauty still radiating even though he knew she wanted to murder him for all he had done to her by leaving her alone to raise Raoul. He glanced at Tanui to see that the clone had stopped, puzzled as much as he was over the two showing up, and yet also fearful of the dragon that had brought Nethial. Being as winded as he was from just fighting one person alone, he knew he couldn't take on two at one time and so he reached out for the broken pieces of his sword before jumping into the air, shifting in mid-leap into his dragon forme and taking flight back towards where the other were that could help him make sense of what he had seen.

Nethial glanced after Tamli's fleeing form, eyes narrowing with disgust as anger burned in her veins. The coward had fled to avoid a fight with her, she was sure of it. Snarling under her breath, she forced herself to calm down and turned her gaze to Tanui to notice his normally white skin was paler than it should have been, bordering on a greyish tint.

Going to his side, she noticed the amount of blood pouring from his leg, staining the ground around him a dull crimson and leaving him weaving unsteady where he was. Ladetis growled softly as Nethial placed a hand on his shoulder, startling him and bringing his attention to her to see his irises were dull and lacking their usual shimmer. A brief smile rose on Tanui's face but, as he turned to face her, he collapsed into her arms.

"You . . . Why follow me? I am nothing," Tanui muttered as Nethial dragged him over to a rock so he could sit and she could figure out what to do with his wound. "Broken failure . . . Inferior was right . . ."

Nethial growled in protest, squatting down before him to get a better lock at his leg wound. "That isn't true, Tanui. You are who you are-"

"You said that before. Back in Tel-var when I revealed what I had kept secret. I believed you back then but now . . ." He moaned in protest, wincing in pain as he jerked his leg accidently.

Now your faith is shaken in her and in yourself. Oh, Master, you've been through so much since we first met . . . Ladetis growled, speaking through Nethial as Tanui still wouldn't allow them to restore their mental connection to the level it had been before the hybrid's mental collapse.

Tanui shuttered under Nethial's touch as she gingerly examined his injury. "Have I changed so much since then? I think back to our first meeting under Arxa's cavern, Nethial. You were so broken so . . . distraught then. Look at me now. I am no different."

That's not true, Master-

Red irises flared up as Tanui's gaze narrowed on Ladetis, a flicker of lightning sparkling up along his fingertips in disgust. "I am not your master. You are nothing to me, dragon. Nothing."

From the tone of the hybrid to the painful shriek of protest a minute later, Nethial quickly figured out that Tanui had finally taken the liberty to break his bond with the dragon. Silently, she was glad Ladetis was free of having to speak through her when he wanted to communicate with his, former, rider. While she was pleased, another part of her ached with the pain the hatchling had to be going through as it fell silent and backed away a few feet.

"Tanui, he is your ally, your friend," Nethial hissed, feeling it important that she voice her own opinion on how he had just destroyed a powerful friendship. "Don't turn your back on him, please. Ladetis was bonded to you for a reason-"

"He was bonded to me to limit my potential. Don't you see that this another test from my Master? The inferior one had a dragon and fell from grace because of it and now Master tests me to see if I will crumble as the original did. I will not be seen as worthless in his eyes, not anymore."

Nethial chuckled, amazed at just how far Tanui had himself convinced he knew the truth. "You killed your Master, remember? Before your mental collapse, you gave subtle hints that you had dealt with your creator. I refused to believe your words until I met with Gregal and discovered the truth. Killing Amia destroyed the last bits of sanity you had left, clone."

Limping to his feet, Tanui stood with his back to her, his hands collected behind his back. "I cannot deny you that. I saw things you would never be able to imagine. Countless clones dying before my own hands just because my Master wished it to be so." He paused, sighing as Nethial rose to place a hand on his shoulder.

"Gregal told me you came back changed," she commented, moving her hand down to rest over his. "None of this-"

"Is my fault?" Tanui hissed, whirling around and retreating a step. "Innocent dragons are dead and I continue to harbor a grudge with the one whose genetic material created me. Gregal may have told you some about me, but not all of it."

Ladetis snorted, exchanging a glance with Nethial before Tanui spoke up. "Leave," he commented softly, his gaze going to the bloody bandages on his side.

"But Tanui-"

"I said leave." Unrestrained venom poured from his words and Nethial took a step back, uncertain what he might do to prove his point.

A soft growl from Ladetis, one of sympathy rather than anger, echoed through her mind as the dragon came up behind her. Nethial patted his snout in reassurance before sighing and doing as Tanui wanted. As she climbed up on Ladetis, she reasoned that his mental decay was simply to blame for him pushing away the only help and support he had ever known. He would regain his senses given time, she figured as Ladetis turned and scaled the cliff facing Tamli had been injured on when they had first arrived.

I assume you have a plan? Ladetis questioned once they were out of earshot of Tanui, a lingering sadness present in his voice even as he tried to mask it.

We follow after Tamli. He should lead us to the others and we can earn their trust. She paused, glancing back the way they had come as Ladetis shoved his way past trees. I fear he may never come back to us as he was. Gregal might be right in saying the only thing we can do to help is to kill him. Giving him time may be an option . . .

It could also strengthen his hate and make him see us as enemies that have alined with the one he has sworn to kill, Ladetis commented as he slowed down, catching his breath.

Nethial forced herself to sigh, running a hand over his black scales. Time will tell, Ladetis. I hope there is still a chance for any redemption of him. The years spent under Amia were not kind and now . . .

Now he is to decide what the next path he will take will be. We can only watch from a distance if he is to spiral further into ruin.