Speech =``...´´
Thoughts = [….….]
ºº
There was something eerily wrong about mankind…, was it not?
It was a lingering feeling crawling beneath dusty claws, a faceless voice at the back of his mind. A sun clouded by layer upon layer of clouds in the middle of an eclipse…
Something that was easy to push back each and every time it aroused, but like the skies that remained above his head, they would be ever present.
How easy it was for simple things crafted by their small, mortal hands to be turned into something so far and different from their original purpose…
How the fire that had granted them life and protection through the first steps of those primitive tribes was then used to burn people alive in mass. How harpoons meant to obtain substance from the oceans and rivers were magnified to lance through ships and men alike just like those old fishermen did before through convoluted mechanisms. How even tools made for the extraction of wood were then turned in kind to saw through flesh and bone.
Ironic, was it not? For a species that in a more modern, social standing preached for peace an understanding at some sort of level... none had cared or found such revelations or concepts disturbing or anathema to their desires for a peaceful life. Much to the contrary, they were accepted for those who had taken notice, or vastly ignored by the rest...
Why?
Why indeed…
The answer was simple, yet so more strange to believe from the lenses of ignorance.
And the truth was that there was an inner darkness deep within the hearts of his kin…, a desire for violence, a need for conflict deeply bred into their psyche through their evolutionary process.
They demanded to be treaty with honesty yet they were willing to lie to hide their own insecurities.
They wanted to be lauded for their own exploits, yet allowed themselves to be eaten alive by their envy of others
They were willing to kill others for no reason at all, yet if those they wronged fought back it was unfair and wrong..
Perhaps the gods were to blame for their troublesome meddling, in their need to be everywhere and rule everything just like the unlucky beast men who had been made in the forms of their whims, cursed to be nothing but madden monsters in the land they trod and wondered with no purpose...
Perhaps it was just the work of their own genetics at play…, throwing down the drain the voices of thousands of intellectuals who claimed otherwise as their more primitive vestiges remained too strong to be isolated.
But looking back, did it really matter? No, life was war…, it was cruel, it was sadistic. It put everyone down through the mud and only the strong survived. And perhaps not even them managed to do so...
Conflict created struggle, struggle created suffering, suffering led to anger, anger led to bloodshed and then the cycle repeated a new. Never changing, never stopping…, even if it took hundreds of years, perhaps changing form, but never its results..
Mortals were both the marble and the sculptor of their own character...
Many had romanticized and mystify the stories of their origins, hoping to create a common background to rally behind, to make excuses for their future sins in the name of glory, justice or birth right.
History was filled with liars...
Mankind had not come out of the cradle being nice to its neighbours…, it had not decided to share the world with the monsters and creatures already lurking around, it had not opened their arms ready to embrace them and make a new path in the company of others. Nor they would have been given the chance if fate had a word about it.
Why would it…, what it had to gain from doting in some and not the rest?
They were not nice…, they just had forgotten through the passing millenniums as they spoke with words rather than acts. Putting morals and laws between them, as if they were ashamed of their origins...
He almost scoffed at himself…, a dry chuckle cut too short that it almost appeared that it had never existed before his face contorted into a furious grin, settled into an empty, flattened expression. A rippled of cold trickling down his spine, his shoulder sag...
He really was not one to start philosophising and became lost in his own rambles without reason or cause, especially when back then the voices had always kept him from doing any of it. They spoke, they screamed and he worked…
Now that they were gone, the silence inside the edges of his mind was rather telling, as-well as the fact that there was something soothing in this act of butchery. Touching a cord deep within as blood was sprayed all over him and the agony of a soul oozed from every pore of his chosen sacrifice.
A moment of relax if he ever knew of such thing as a life was been taken in the most brutal way said victim had ever considered possible, especially with the familiar, if not comfortable sound of bones snapping and flesh tearing up like wet paper as the teeth of the chainsaws dug deeper and deeper into Fenrirs body as if they were ravenous.
The blood and tissue spraying all over his body as he brought it down.., painting the black carapace wrapped around his body alongside the already dried spots of blood from before with a new fresh shade of red as the two of them twisted and rotated the weapons from one side to the other. Caving deeper, wanting to make the hole bigger and messier as the metallic teeth pushed through, to make him suffer for every passing second of the closing clock ticking in his mind.
But if there was something that humans did above all things, was to crush and stomp over every and any thing that they considered beneath them. Cattle and vermin...
And here, in this forsaken world devoid of the touch of his own misery, as he had already bathed into the souls and flesh of its inhabitants there was nothing more than vermin to be slaughtered.
He could already hear the crowds cheer in exaltation inside his mind as his memories bleed out into the frenzy of the moment, their faces unrecognisable under the tide while their voices were growing louder as they demanded more. More death, more agony, more blood...
They needed more.
He wanted more..
A just enough feeling to remind him that he barely felt anything at all but that at this point…
He slowly regarded the man or what was left of him that he was holding tightly, disgust warping underneath the mask, but rather directed at himself. If he had cared to look he would have realized that the man had fallen unconscious, his nerves having long been fried to the extreme through the constant overload to his pain receptors, the gravity of his wounds too much for him to handle without dying out of pain and prompting his body to shut down as it overcome him, while the magic inside the cultist was unable to keep with the pace it was put through.
He could feel it snapping, blowing up in small sparkles of red energy and gushes of red liquid pouring out through busted veins and seared flesh into the open. The once bright scarlet glow of energy now fickle and weak, dimming out.., darkening, dying...
And with it, the man he held like a puppet which strings he had cut...
Something to be expected with the copper like scent of life being spilled with wanton violence and without a care in the world surrounded them as much as the gears and cogs of the machine strapped to his hand roared in unison as it was put to work and cut with ease.., the blood smearing the metal components not slugging it down, but increasing its speed as it fed..
He enjoyed this...and he hated it as-well. It was that he ever knew to do well, all he could remember with clarity to be able to do, and that vexed him.
Truly, never before the crucible of the paradox had felt so strong...
He scowled again, a pang of frustration passing by at such needless and importunate wave of sentimentalism.
Monsters need not such weakness...
With a tired sigh, both him and the after-image he created yanked the bloodied tools from Fenrirs body in a mist of red smoke and cartilage from different angles through his hip and left side of his collarbone...
Allowing the man to fall down to the ground like a broken grocery bag after a long day being pulled by an entire nursery worth of children.
He glared at the chainsaw, looking down at the reflection that the thick liquid created of himself before he tossed it aside, treating it as another piece of junk that was burning his hands. Vanishing in dark smoke before it hit the ground, just like his other reflection as he called them out from his sight.
He closed his eyes, breathing in slow, deliberated breaths. He was loathed to repress the only feeling he had left, but he did so anyway...
He had already had practise...
He glared at the broken wreck of the man whose blood he wore like a coat. Beaten and cracked like an egg, the zealot remained in the ground as dutifully as a pebble would. His heart had stopped, alongside most of his muscles and organs as-well.
A grim sense of satisfaction flowed inside him, but nothing else. He had given the man ten minutes of life…and he had squandered them too soon before the time reached zero. Even when he was holding back, he had almost killed him too soon.
The beings that lived in this world were truly made of thin paper…, weak and pathetic.
He rose a hand, clawed fingers stretching further into the air, perhaps attempting tos scratch the darkness shrouding around them, a second later he closed them into a tight fist and brought it down softly.
A beam of lightning tore through the heavens like a pillar of light a moment later, falling just before him, right onto the mortals body.
He could smell the meat being cooked, he could feel blood vessels puff out in smoke, he could hear Fenrirs heart beat again.
Only another minute remained before the time reached its expiration date, he could wait that…, but just in case. He waved his hand and threw a small healing spell towards the man.
With that done he walked away, stretching his senses forward and calling out the beast he had unleashed and the friends they had made back inside him. Looking around as he studied through their combine memories what they had learned.
And he was not pleased…
It seemed that the next time he unleashed the risen he would have to make a few adjustments to avoid unnecessary collateral damage.
``S-ssstop...´´
A weary, ghastly voice reached him. He did not need to turn around to know to who it belonged.
[So you have woken up already…, sooner rather than later I see...]
``T-this is not...over yet..fuck-! C-come back... here!´´
Spatted half whispered through blobs of blood and ghastly breath the beaten battle-master. Sadly his thoughts were a bit further away to pay him any heed. The memory of that red haired girl who possessed Auroras blood had come to mind at last.
He was sure that she had become stable after his touch, but did she perish after the debacle of repetitive demolition works they had went through, or did she still drew breath? If so...he needed to find her.
He wordlessly cast a spell to locate her, soon enough her presence appeared in a corner of his mind like a red dot. She was alive, albeit...unconscious.
[Good…, the last thing I needed was to lose a connection to that annoying woman before understanding how it came to be…]
He doubted that she was working for the cultist, nor that there was any ploy at work to make him believe so. Perhaps it was a freaky coincidence...
To bear a curse through ones own blood…., he was well acquainted with that fact.
``The cult... will never...stop fighting you´´
Funny enough, he had already heard that tale before…., the last one who share it did not fare any better than his current victim. Small world, wasn't it..?
``T-they will.., find you…, t-they will hunt you…,you will never sleep without looking what lays behind your back...scared shitless´´
If only he knew he would welcome them in their attempt…., a way to put his mind at ease in doing what it knew to do best.
Kill them all….
``We are... the peak.. of man kind…., the only ones...capable to rule this world...as gods´´
A strange sound started to echo around them, reaching out far and wide through what was left of their surrounding. Slowly and bitter like the taste of broken promises…., growing in intensity with a sickly tune that could have mirrored a pair of nails scratching the cool surface of a school board or the wheezing sound of a dying man taking its last breaths before a knife was pluck into its ribs, puncturing the lungs and allowing the air to come out like a bursting balloon.
Fenrir gritted his teeth, his face creasing with multiple lines as rage swelled behind his eyes. If looks could kill he would have died a thousand times already.
It seemed that between the choice to turn mad in a fit of brain melting rage and crawling down to cry like a newborn, he had chosen the prior.
At least he was not begging for mercy…., nor that he would receive any.
``I will…. take your heart, and make you... swallow it...´´
He stopped walking…, his eyes blinking with amusement at the meaningless barks that he continued to sputter with no regard of the struggle he put his punctured and blood overflown lungs through.
For a wolf….it appeared that he in the end was all bark and no bite, as-well as an idiot...
``I will have your head…, you..and everything you consider precious...I will take it from you. You only won because you used artefacts….cheater...´´
Artefacts..? He believed he had used….such tools in their battle..?
The hypocrisy of the statement could not be overstated…, his opinion of the man was already low. Bit this was a new record.
Distaste crawled at the front of his face, scowling deeply in the process. He really preferred him when he was not howling like a sore loser…
He set a barrier of energy around the fallen scarlet haired girl, a precaution if debris were to fall around and crush her into paste. He was not yet sure the bodies of this world inhabitants could take on the heavy burden of true resurrection.
It felt like an eternity, but he eventually turned around, his hands clenching into tight fists as eyes of red glared down at the poor excuse of a man the same way one would look at talking trash out in the alleyway...
``I am….Fenrir, I am death..!´´
He stopped. It was then that he realized that the sound that he was hearing was coming from him, he was laughing. A poor, horrible mockery of the term…, but laughter all the same..
``Gods..? Rule..? Scared…?´´
He parroted, almost mindlessly as he recollected what the fool had said not with shock, but rather disappointment that he had to suffer such ignorance at this stage. His words seething with venom to the point he was sure he could have just spit down to the ground and melted it swiftly, while not hiding the bemused tone behind them.
Truly…., would fools and wonders never cease?
``W-what..?´´
Muttered weakly the beaten dead fool, perhaps a shred of intelligence and reason had remained within the now pathetic husk...
But did it really matter..?
He took a step forward towards the man, his eyes glinting with a promise of untold pain and a plan.
If he truly wanted to taste death in all its glory...and all its horror. Then he would oblige…., wasn't he, after all...if not compassionate..?
``Only vermin would dare talk big with nothing to back it up, shameful little wretch. Don't call that pathetic form of yours and your fellow lunatics as almighty. Its disgracing those who are...´´
``You...´´
The man tried to speak, his voice weak and weary, but he would not have it.
``Borrow power and pitiful tricks can not compare with the honest, simple, broken and unfair absurdity of reality...´´
``I-….´´
`` Allow me to show you...´´
He was still speaking when the whole area around him froze in the spot, as if he had just cast a wide area frost spell, but this was far worse than that. Eve the air itself became thick and solid. Every particle of water, of dust and dirt floating in the air….frozen in time like an at his passing, an endless shower of tears that floated around him and broke as he made his way forward..
But that would be nothing compared with what was going to happen next.
``Behold….´´
He growled loudly through metal and bone, rock and stone. The rough, shaking tune of his voice echoing softly and loudly at the same time, giving prelude to a shift in the air as-well his stance. Slowly, his body started to oozed once more his natural energy, the blackness of his form becoming diluted and uncaged, every pore of his body ever expanding, ever declining, moving and wrapping around him. Throbbing and coursing with unholy power that had been left without reprieve for far too long...…
Yes...
He no longer was trying to restrain himself and block it deep inside him, no longer he cared as he became a light in the dark ocean that was this world.
Let them see…, let them all know he was here. That he had come! Becoming the bright, glowing star that shone in the horizon for anyone to see who he was. What he really was…
Like a man who had just pull out the covers from a still raging fire before the flames died out, they returned with even more power than before. The floodgates were open and the world could only watch in terror as he no longer cared for secrecy and discretion.
Allowing his essence to spread like ethereal wings from him through the world like a thick, heavy curtain. Its presence touching the minds of anyone in his path for a few brief seconds.
The anguish, the shock…., the terror it brought to the countless souls around the glove as they were made to realize the horrifying presence skulking in the shadows of their minds. It made him stronger...
He took another step, shock-waves coursing through the air as the ground shattered beneath him. A crater appearing around him.
Fenrir could only stare at him silently as he approached, gazing with no ability to comprehend where such absurd amount of magic had come from, but more so its concentration. Too thick and large to allow him to see clearly the focal point of this mana leaking cauldron with legs.
The way it wrapped around him, how lights of purple and black started to come out from within into the open from every inch his body, bleeding out like flames into the atmosphere with erratic movements, yet with a bestial, predatory finesse.
How it felt more like the world was pouring out all the energy it possessed in not a small man, but something huge, old, wise and ancient.
It was then that the ancient assassin understood that the grim reaper had not come with the storm.
He was the storm...
``I….´´
Fenrir tried to move, tried to attack him out of reflex, for even if his mind was gone his instincts were still fighting whether flight or fight should take place. But it did not mattered which one of them took place.
Nothing mattered any-more…, falling to his knees the man could only stare wide eye at the end of his days approach him.
One clawed hand stretching forward, then turning around, the open palm looking at the dark covered skies..Two clawed fingers growing eerily close to each other as they were bathed with black flames.
``AND-….´´
The last mythril sword Fenrir held simply broke as if it was hit by an invisible cyclone of power emanated from his whole figure, yet so thick that gravity was starting to shift around him. Seeing the sword crumble like ash from that contact made the last shreds of dignity and courage the cultist battle-master maintained to vanish.
``INEVITABLE..´´
And with the snap of his fingers, everything was covered in a white light.
ºº
/..Former bandit hideout../
A small blond girl stumbled out from the broken and deplorable hut she had been trapped until then by her captors...who were now laying all over the fields around the cold ground, dead. Though she had known already when he came.
She still flinched from time to time when pangs of pain coursed through her. Her wrists and legs hurt terribly, the places were the ropes they had used to keep her still had left a small mark in her skin
She had been scared…, so scared, and how could she not? She was just a child.
When those men had taken her by force she was afraid of what may happen to her, when they had tied her up and thrown her in a box as they laughed with glee at the terror and tears striking down her cheeks as she felt powerless to do anything else but that she was terrified..
She had heard stories here and there of what happened to children who wandered away from their parents, mostly about children who misbehaved. But she had been a good girl! So why!?
She did not know, nothing made sense...and for a moment she believed her fate was sealed when they attempted to pry her clothes off from her with a knife. Saying that they would be gentle when they clearly were crazed by something.
She felt dread...
And yet, her golden eyes now could only glint with hope and gratitude at the world for the chance it had given her….
She looked up, placing a small, frail hand over her forehead to cover her eyes from the beams of the sun while she felt the cool breeze of the outside world caressed her, gently playing with the loose strands of gold of her mane.
A timid smile warping around the edges of her lips when the chirping voices of the birds hanging and flying around through the forest brought memories of her times at the Oriannas palaces own gardens.
In her dirty state many would not have believed it, but she was Rose Orianna and she had never felt more happier. Why? The reason was rather simple. She had been saved, fate or the goddess had seen to it as they sent down one of their angels to free her from the clutches of evil.
And she not only had regained her freedom that night, but she had learned something she did not she craved.
The power she had witnessed, the brute raw force yet unearthly finesse of a being fighting through a different sphere of time and skill….
She had never thought wielding a weapon which was only meant to cause harm could be considered beauty…, but now she did.
There was art in the way he moved, in the way the steel flew through the air even if her eyes could not even match the speed it carried.
It was not just violence, it was like a dance….a conversation.
Her heart could only flutter at the memory.
Now that she was freed she would have to find her way home. She had wanted to thank her saviour, to greet him and find the way to thank him property for his righteous deed.
For only noble knights and heroes would go out of their way to fight against the craven and help those in need. Her mind completely erasing the unhinged glow of those red eyes or his terrifying visage.
For her she was like one of those stories she read, in fact, he had even said quotes like them! There was no way she was wrong about him being a hero.
Though which archetype she was not sure….
She shook her head, it did not matter. What really mattered was that she had now something to look at for.
She had been weak and dependant of her family for protection, but she would no longer allow herself to be that way.
Even if her family became outraged by her wishes, even if people considered her a brute...she would learn the ways of fighting.
Though…., could she do it with a scythe?
She started swinging her arms around, up and down as she tried to mimic the sound the large tool for war had done.
Once she realized what she was doing she stopped, though she still felt the sting of her cheeks reddening.
No, she would not copy her saviours trusted weapon..she would pick her own blade.
The only thing she regretted was that she had not been able to speak with him. She had been tied up back then and gagged so that she could not scream.
She did not know his name, or where he acme from...just the sound of his voice and hiss appearance.
It wasn't much, but she would find him…, she would find him and she would repay his kindness that she swore on her honour.
Her thoughts were interrupted when she felt the earth shake beneath her feet, almost sending her down on back.
``W-what was that? An earth-wake?´´
She asked out loud though she knew that no one would answer her.
When she looked around she was met with a more terrible answer.
A ghastly, tide of wind was sweeping through the field and forest like a massive avalanche that moved horizontally rather than vertically.
In the spurt of the moment she ran back to the run-shacked hut and jumped down the man hole the bandits had used to store drinks, closing the small door behind her.
Just in time as the shock-wave of magic reached her and tore the feeble walls of wood from the ground as if a giant hand was pulling out weeds...
ºº
/...Somewhere in the continent.../
After the passing of the hours and the temporal breeze of cold air here and there the sun was finally setting, illuminating a ramshackle village in the middle of nowhere with the warm orange tones of dusk on the suspended dust and dirty walls.
The townspeople were already returning to their homes before the last lights of dusk began to fall above their heads, although there were still people walking from one side to the other through the now crowd-less streets.
It was a day like any other.., with the usual fit of violence and laughter after hours of people guzzling down boozes after a long day of work, a peculiar scene that was played rather well when a group of men flew off through the open doors of a bar of one of the few locals present. Biting the dust and soil once they landed with a loud thud outside..
Indeed, it was a sight as common as to say that the sand was rough to the touch...
Or it should have been had the one that came walking through the busted doors been another simple villager.
What came out instead was a slender, tall woman, attractive woman. A thick, black overcoat covering her shoulders and head with a hood, yet it did little to hid away her face, nor her exposed body. Wearing nothing but a simple white bikini top and short trousers as she approached the grunting, fallen men.
Her step were slow…, calm even to the eyes of others as she stepped down from the wooden and barely taken care of staircase.., but the piercing hawk like look her usual stoic eyes normally bore spoke lengths of what was going on inside her head.
Even though she had yet to draw out her long sword the men started to try to worm their way out, quivering and scared shitless as they saw her approach. But the pain of their bones having break put pause to those plans as they could only fell down and try to soothe the aching parts..
She reached the closest one to him, a scrawny, dishevelled man who could not be in his late twenties. He was looking at her with wide eyes, grinding his teeth as sweat started to slide down his forehead and into the dusty soil before he started speaking, his voice a weak, pitiful whining.
``L-look g-gal…I don't know what you are doing but I will call the guards on you if you don't stop. We have done nothing to warrant this treatment!´´
She stopped before him, the difference in high forcing the man to angle his head up. Their eyes meeting as he did, and he could only flinch at the sheer coldness emanating from them.
Her thin lips parted ways, yet they only uttered a single word...
``Liar..´´
Thee man blinked, confused…, perhaps having trouble to hear the whisper. A moment later his head fell down his neck into the ground with one swell cut. A large blade having found its way into her hands to the surprise and shock of everyone as they had not witnessed such thing occur..
``Y-you killed him…!´´
She ignored their squabbling as she approached the next, pointing the edge of her blade at the next mans neck. This one older and bald, his eyes not sparkling an ounce of intelligence, but rather malice..
``Where is she?´´
She asked, her voice cool and still….like a machine rather than a living being.
``W-what? Look, we can talk this through, surely we can reach a compro-´´
His head fell down next, blood pouring out from his neck like a hose while his head rolled on the ground, still alive, still trying to breath through non existent lungs.
``Oh shit.., oh shit.! Please don't kill me, I am to young to die!´´
She moved to the next one, though she had to stomp his leg into powder to avoid him running away for good measure. He had already soiled his pants in fear...
But she did not care...
``Where is she..?´´
She repeated once more, the monotony of her voice not quivering an inch. Staring right down at the crook. He shook his head.
Bad idea...
``I don't know, I am just a grunt! Please, I told you what I know-urght...!´´
His tale ends like the rest, she was growing more impatient with each and every failed attempt.
``You bitch! You are going to kill us all as if we were vermin!?´´
She cocked her head to the side as she met the man's own wrathful expression. Her eyes unblinking, remaining still like a lifeless doll though in truth she was confused about why they had to ask such question in the first place.
Wasn't it obvious..?
``Exactly…´´
The man stared at her as if she had grown a second head before he snapped out of it, his face growing red and filled with veins.
``Y-you little shit!´´
The man rose from the ground, ignoring the aching taste of bones scratching his lungs as much as he could while he pulled out a short knife from his holsters. Running towards her with a feral or foolish battle-cry.
Two more of his fellow slavers joined him, perhaps inspired by the mans approach. Confusing stupidity for bravery.
Or perhaps that one was the smartest...
She cleaved in half the first attacker, sending his torso flying through the air and crushing against one of the buildings, tainting the zone of landing in deep arterial red. The other two were cut in four pieces each the next following second.
``…´´
Now only one remained…, the last slaver was sweating buckets and his pants exuded the foul oudor of excrement through and through, but instead of quivering in place he rose from his seat on the ground and started tossing away the dust from his trousers.
``Alright, I just got to tell you where she is…, right?
She stopped.
The man took that as his clue to continue.
``I don't know who you are talking to, but perhaps you are searching someone we sold, right? Right..?´´
She scowled, eyes closing to an accusatory half lid. It was a start….
``Young, elf...blond, like me..´´
He started rubbing his head, his fingers flinching with abject nervousness.
``Like...you?´´
She rose one of her hands, the one not holding the blade and pulled down her hood, allowing the light of the twilight to bath her pale, smooth features in its light. The man could only stare dumbstruck at her while she did.
``By the goddess…., ain't fate a bitch?´´
Was the only thing he could muster the will to say..
``Where is she..?´´
The seriousness of her voice seemed enough to break him off his stupor, albeit not completely.
``Ah, right..we sold her..´´
Anger started to swell inside her, her grip over the smooth handle of her sword growing stronger.
``Where is she…´´
``We sold her, or at least that would be what I would want to say…., but in other words..she was taken from us by a bunch of bandits that were searching for the same staff than us´´
Confusion dawned inside her, but it did not impaired her to press on.
``Where is she..?´´
``With them…, if they have not sold her to the church already…´´
She took a step forward, swinging her blade forward yet stopping a second before cleaving his head from its place. Though not from leaving a small, aching cut in his neck. A slim, sticky trail of red curling down the sweat glistening skin.
``Where..´´
``Midgar.., perhaps? They could have gone anywhere though…, the church has a lot of pull after all..´´
He replied as confident as he could, but she could feel and sense the fear and terror moaning behind each and every word.
And yet...he spoke the truth, or believed he did.
``…´´
``I am…. free to go?´´
``...´´
She closed her eyes, sighing loudly as she lowered her blade from the man's neck. That seemed to put the man in higher spirits as some colour started to return to his pale countenance. He started smiling, grinning even as he understood that he would live.
His joy was short lived when the back side of the handle of her blade struck mercilessly against the side of his head. Cracking it upon contact if the sound her ears managed to grasp were anything to go by.
His body falling limp to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut on the spot and then abandoned by their master.
She had spared him from the edge of her blade, no matter how much of a scum slavers were, one should always be lenient when the times demanded from it.
Now it was up to him to survive that…, whatever brain damage he gained from it did not matter to her.
Looking back she knew that the people off the town were looking at her through the windows, countless eyes staring in either fear or shock at her.
She knew she would not be welcomed after this.., but it did not matter.
She hardly had wasted much time here, just like all the other places...
But before she could get well on her way towards Midgar something happened.
She..felt it….
A pulse in the water, a shudder crawling at her back and the endless, head splitting shrieks of agony of a thousand voices racking at the back of her head from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
She could feel her skin grew a few shades more pale, her breath hitch and stall each and every attempt to restart at a normal pace. Sweat sliding down her head like thick drops of blood. The air seemingly growing thicker with mana for no reason apparent.
She fell to her knees, only avoiding falling face first into the ground as she used her blade as a clutch. It was….a horrifying experience, one that she did not know long it lasted, whether it were merely minutes or hours her senses couldn't tell..
But there was something that felt awfully familiar about it.., even though she was sure she had never, ever felt anything like this.
ºº
/..Some underground facility in Oriana…/
There few words to describe what he had just felt in that moment, things he had not thought possible.
Feeling his skin crawl as if prey of a sudden cold was not one of them...
``Lord Mordred, is there something wrong?´´
What on earth had that been? He had not imagined…, the fact that his heart was throbbing more and more loudly inside his chest was all the proof he needed to know it was real.
``Lord...Mordred?´´
``What do you want, filth?´´
He spatted as he finally was able to snap out of his own thoughts. He would never say it, but he was glad that for it. He had a persona to uphold after all.
The man who had decided to intrude in his personal space was a slender, young man with black, greasy hair that fell down his back in a ponytail, revealing the ugly and sharp, hollow features in his face, a pair of glasses over his face covering those pig like eyes of his...
A scientist of the cult…
He was good at his job.., at least better than the others in his line of work, obsessed with his duties and with the blood of the heroes, perhaps a bit too much. And though he liked diligent pawns... he could not help but really despised his face.
What mother in their sound mind had decided to spare such ugly thing he did not know, but he would curse their name for as long as he had to breath the same air as this myopic cockroach that drooled and barked when he spoke about his work.
For a moment he was all too tempted to just remove his head from his shoulders, especially when he felt the man had dared to grab him by the arm.
He instead decided to end it with a mild punishment, by knocking some of his teeth off..
``M-my teeffth!´´
[Great…, he is even uglier than before..]
``Silence, vermin...or there would be more where those came from..´´
``I-I waff jufft explaining to you the refffults of our previoufff tefft with the body of Freya before you froze in the spot.´´
Another fist dug into the mans face, this time breaking his nose and burying it deeply into his skull, shattering those ugly glasses in an instant. The shards digging deeply into the scientist face.
His screams of pain would have been amusing to behold, but they just sounded like the shrieks of a pig.
[It is hard to believe he is actually a human being...]
``Whff-yy...´´
The man cried out, kneeling on the ground as she put both of his hands to cover his face from further punishment. Blood slipping down from those fingers into the ground and staining the already dirty and grime covered lab coat the idiot bore for work.
``I felt a disturbance…, as if thousands of voices cried out in pain before they were snuffed out from existence..´´
`The look he received from the pig told him that he did not understood in the slightest.
Well, it was not like he expected him to.
``It doesn't matter, accelerate our work here. I want results before the end of the end of the first half of the decade. I want Freyas blood pumping and running, we may soon need it..´´
``B-brrruffff...´´
A simple glare was enough to silence the wretch for good, making him whimper away like the coward he was.
``Do. It...I don't care how many of you die to rein that thing in. I don't care if the Hero is proving a lot more difficult to handle with each session, more volatile and brutal, you will bring me what I want.
He said before he turned around, ready to leave this ghastly place behind...
`` Or I will find someone who can...´´
ºº
/...Velgata Empire../
``You can not be serious..´´
``I am.., I thought I made my point already´´
Spoke a young woman with short blue hair and matching eyes, her tone guarded, even polite at times though no less annoyed of what she considered a triviality she had believed already behind her..
The source of her troubles in question being a young dressed with the scribes uniform of those working for the royal army of the Velgata empire.
A man she had the misfortune to meet once by happen-stance rather than anything else. He had been a source of information once, given his open nature to speak anything he came across as interesting, and his less than hidden affections for hers..
But he was really obnoxious when something got in his head...
[Always the same with him.., I should have just left without giving further notice instead of just staying to say goodbye in an attempt to not be rude..]
Yes, no good deed goes unpunished..
Speaking of which, the man looked flippant by her response, jumping into the air as he graved his head with both hands.
``Your point? You just made a mockery of a point!´´
She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.
[Can this man speak any louder..? People are looking at us already..]
``If the answer you received was not the one you wished to hear, is not my problem´´
``But why!? It doesn't make any sense! If I were you I would never leave such dream like position like that. Is a dream come true..! A. Dream!´´
She sighed once more, this time a bit more irritated. Did he really need to wail his arms around to make the point clearer? She was not five...
``Then is good we are not the same.., that would have been the death of my soul..´´
``But why, why Annerose? Did you not wanted to become one of the Seven Blades? Did you not wish for the glory? The honour..?.
Honour..?
Glory...?
If only he knew what she had seen...
``You are projecting your desires on me, do I need to remind you that we are not the same? Or you are just too stupid to get it through your head?´´
``Urgh.., there is no need to be so hasty. Whatever it is, I am sure you can get it over with if you give some time´´
This is not temper tantrum, and I am insulted you would even consider that of me´´
``But I-, look...I just don't understand´´
``You have made that point….painfully clear´´
`` You were one of the youngest beings in the empire to achieve that goal, why leave it so suddenly..?´´
Why..?
Why indeed...
She bit her lip, fighting down the urge to look behind her back in case someone else was tailing her. Finding nothing, but that did not mean much, she had seen what the empires budget could do.
A single sweep would not be enough.
``Believe me, you don't want to know…´´
She replied as she walked away from him before he could reply back. She hoped that would be it and he would get the memo..
Alas that would not be it as he heard him trail her down as fast as his legs could carry him, which was not much with that horrendous robes he bore.
Who in their right mind would wear such cumbersome things to a coast city? No, she did not need to know. Some things were best left alone...
But just as he reached her..he stopped. The tirade she had been waiting to come out again from those dry lips gone as he rose a thin, pale finger forward.
``What is that?´´
It took her a moment to realize he was not talking to her, but rather something beyond. Turning around she was met with...with something strange.
Although the Velgata's empire was one of the largest nations in the world, that didn't mean it wasn't used to the coastal scenery, with its beaches and lapping waves that crashed upon the shores time and time again.
So..so why was the water retreating from the coast? Why was it vanishing? Retreating back into the depths of the ocean while leaving hundreds upon hundreds of once covered land exposed to the eyes of all the onlookers.
``The water is retreating…? Have you ever seeing something like that?´´
She didn't reply, though her silence should have been telling of her answer. No, she had never seen something like that. Never believed it to be possible, nor she had the time to search and investigate something like this.
In a way...it felt like she was witnessing something incredible. A glimpse to an event she would not have ever seen had she not come here.
So why did it felt so wrong? Why did she felt her body screaming at her, begging to move, to leave!
She did not know, but her guts had never betrayed her before.
She took a step back, then another.
``Everyone, run….
``Annerose? what are you talking...-´´
``I said RUN DAMMIT..!´´
She screamed so loudly that had she had time to waste she would have been surprised by it, but not this time. She did not wait for a response as he grabbed the man by the arm as tightly as she could and pulled him alongside her as she ran as fast as she could away from the coast.
ºº
/...Holy city../
In the depths of a temple a lonely girl clad in white and with her eyes covered with a black veil was praying for the goddess mercy to take care of the sick that visited their holy grounds in search for hope.
Templars and priests mingled around peacefully as they fulfilled their duties or gave praise to the righteous words of the goddess to any soul willing to listen.
The time for visits was over, though she was still able to hear the voices of those who had yet to leave the premises.
She did not mind…, the fact that they continued to remain within their walls spoke of their faith and adoration for the goddess. She would have come and welcome them in person if she could, but the order had told her that she had other duties to attend, and now she had to give her respects to the goddess Beatrix…
Perhaps this time she would not be able, but she swore her patron would smile back at her and grant her the opportunity to meet such enlighten and wonderful people once again.
She could only grin happily at that, humming to herself as she basked with delight of those future memories in the making.
None interrupted her, nor they would have dared try to as she was at least for the moment.., alone in the personal area for the oracle.
The room was large and wide, even for a place located deep underground, but not too much... The walls were vastly decorated yet there was a tinge of pragmatism and normalcy, contrary with the more opulent and glinting surfaces in the main body of the church…
There were no carpets or chairs to seat either, though it was not expected for more than one person to remain within the confines for the room for long.
Before her.., illuminated by the purity of a dozens of candles stood a painting of the goddess. Standing in all her glory and kindness. Flying through the air in the company of her angels with a serene and loving expression, one of her slender arms stretched out forward, wanting to touch the waiting hand of a mortal man laying on the ground.
Their fingers barely a whisper away from each other..
It was a painting of the creation of man kind, speaking of the sacred union between the two sides.
The bond that existed from immemorial times, and that would continue to be long afterwards her time.
It was a visage that she could find herself lost in…, the peace it brought to her mind.
So it was all the more startling when she felt the ground shake, dust falling down from the ceilings into the ground.
Cracks started to appear all around her, breaking the smooth surface of the stone as lines started to mangle and spread out like the roots of a tree.
She could only witness with horror while her blood run cold as she watched the cracks read the painting of the goddess….and break their holiness in two when the cracks stood between the two figures.
Creating a barrier that would forever stand between both of them...
``Goddess preserve us, what calamity have befall over us...´´
ºº
/...Midgar.../
By the time he woke up everything had changed.
For the world, for the capital city of Midgar...and for Fenrirs himself.
Terror and mayhem had taken root everywhere as the world shuddered the presence of what it could consider a malignant tumour taking residence. The capital of Midgar now had miles of unoccupied terrain, houses, streets and even districts swallowed whole by a massive hole, the left overs from the explosion that had spread out from a single snap of those fingers.
And he? He had been cut in half, his lower end vanished, leaving nothing but his open cauterized guts into the open, the rest of his body was naked as the day he had come to the world, though only a bit extra crispy as barely anything than molten bones and thin layers of overcooked muscle remained..
He should have died…
He should have been killed, but his survival was not a miracle of the goddess, but rather the work of the devil.
He was denied..
He denied him.
He would die only when the soulless monster decided he would, and there he stood, the monster of his nightmares...standing tall just above him.
He would have soiled himself if he could….
Before he could do anything, the monster seized him by his last remaining arm, its sudden grip crushing the limb into a bloody pulp in the process, blood gushing out in all directions as veins and blood-vessels were ruptured like a popcorn bag while the bones and flesh were flattened into a mockery of a sheet of paper.
Though given his current state it was not that impressive any-more...
But the worst part was what came next…
Something that would have made the agony that his last remaining arm was experiencing be considered a heavenly, loving touch.
Like the sudden thrust of an unexpected lance, the thing pierced his mental defences with so much ease that they may as-well never had been there to begin with, an attack..if only briefly, enough for it to touch his mind and connect it to his own.
As weak and beaten as he was.., he still tried to move to protect himself. Not fiscally as his body had already gave out but pushing his will to fight back this intrusion.
He was no stranger to mental trials or mind warfare. Centuries of experience flaring up once more alongside hatred, loathing and the cold edges of terror that lurked still around his mind.
But he could not have prepared himself for what would assail him…
Images, thoughts, sensations….
Unlike every time before, this mental attack was not intended to render thoughts, steal his memories or alter his perception of beliefs
Instead the monster created a burning brand composed of memories, sensations, experiences and PRESSED it hot and bare to the metaphorical flesh of his mind, uncaring of the mental agony that such an act would inflict through not just his mind, but also his soul..
His eyes open wide, bleeding profusely. His skin grew a shades more pale than the deadest of corpses, his body shivered without control.., trapped under the mercy of an arctic cold that had gripped his heart while his mind burned from within and without.
All of it as it reflected the trauma of his minds vision that he could not stop, not even slow it down…
His mind no longer his to control, but a plaything of clay under those cold, clawed hands of the monster.
He wished he had died long ago…
He wished he had never wished to seek immortality.., at least it would have spared him what was gnawing at his sanity in this very moment.
He had seen millions, untold millions marching in forlorn trails...each step dragging screaming minds closer to their deaths.
He had watched the poisonous ground from thousands of years of warfare gash and break into nothingness as bombs wiped out what little remained of it.
He had seem the skies bleed, filled with teeth and inhuman claws…
He had witnessed the entire expanse of a world become stuffed to bursting with ravenous mouths and pincers and worse, fires and misery consuming everything else in an ocean of blood.
He had seen the horns and the eyes of monsters which parodied existence itself.
Death and war and the promise of unending pain! A universe ruled by the dead, the violent, the scheming and the mindlessly obsessed!
He watched cities and worlds burn and burn without end…! A death a thousand years long, dragged slowly out…, tasting the ashes made from ashes.
And in the last instance, he could even hear it.
The laughter…
That horrible laughter…
By the time the visions ended it was over for him.
What little strength had remained in his body was now all but lost, gone.., leaving behind an empty husk of flesh and blood as he laid on his knees. Only unable to fall down to the ground for the fact that he was still been held up by the hand gripping his broken, useless limb.
He could not close his eyes…, for they were stuck forever in a horrified expression. He could feel his soul start to erode, to chip away and fall apart around him, shattering on the ground like a piece of glass by what he had witnessed.
Nerves fried beyond recognition, his organs starting to convulse, bloated with blood before dying in their own by the shock of what he had witnessed as if he had been there...
The agony that he was experiencing should have rob him both of his voice and mind, he should be rolling in the ground with silent shrieks, his thoughts distracted by the sound of his body dying and taking its last breaths
Yet he did not, like a madden man only able to focus on a horrible truth that had been revealed through this nightmarish experience. One that now echoed slowly, yet repeatedly inside his broken mind as it rotted and turned into mush.
The cult….
The cult knew nothing of power...!
Of pain..!
Of true darkness...!
They in their hubris had thought themselves masters of the universe, yet they were anything but.
They were nothing, amateurs.., children playing with buildings blocks...painfully unaware that the cruel adults were laying just around the corner and that their survival had only consisted in the fact that they were so insignificant and small that they had yet to realize they even existed in the first place...
He slowly rose his head up, trying to met those crimson stars one last time. The attempt a titanic endeavour that he barely managed to accomplish had he not being strung up like he was...
``What...what are...you?´´
He spoke out, his voice broken and weak, barely a whimper that slipped through the very last breaths of a dead man. A stark contrast with the proud, arrogant killer that he was...
He did not expect an answer though, even as maddened as he was…, with the notions of reality and madness mixed together in an ugly pot he knew how impossible it was for that to happen..
It had been silent like the grave during their battle and it would probably continue to be long afterwards, its silent glare being the first and last thing he would see.
It was wrong..
So wrong…
Nothing alive should be so silent and cold…
The shock in his mid and the explosion having rob him of the fact that it truly had spoken before if only briefly. The only thing that had been imprinted in his memory now tangled with those memory's not his own the threatening aura around the monster.
And yet, instead of curling up into a ball and spent the last seconds of his existence before his mind shut down forever something pushed him. he needed to know..
A primal need that even he did not understand. A necessity to understand this...this aberration before him.
It was not a human…
Not a machine….
It was beyond such meagre primitive notions.
Its sight and the memory of all those burning moments where it glared at him took away the rest of his voice. The last threads of sanity and life he had left melting down his throat in a puddle of fear and terror. The anguish he felt by its sheer proximity burning him, eating him whole from the inside.
He would not close his eyes...he knew he would not be able to escape those terrible visions.
The monster stood still..
Its unblinking eyes glared at him silently, not an ounce of emotion that was not rage could be seen through them.
Cold, calm raw rage….
Uncompromising and uncaring...
Fitting for a god of death.
The cold sound of the sharp, empty breaths coming in and out through those tubes being the only thing he could hear outside the roars of monsters and the screams of millions inside his skull...
So that was why he was extremely shocked when it spoke. The rough, brutal gargling of metal scratching the air from an ancient throat reached him.
And he immediately regretted his request at the deepest core of his shredded soul as the words continued to pile up, one after the other...
``I am the eye that watches from the darkest shadows…´´
Said the creature, glowing red eyes glinting...pausing a moment, allowing the heaviness of his words to settle like a dome before it decided to continued. Growing louder, crueller in his tone.
``I am the hand which commits the sins that saints dare not consider….I am the mouth which questions silently for those answers which must not be known. I am the judgement of the righteous and the bane of the wicked, the warden of man kind and the foe of those who dare threaten it…´´
Each sentence grew in power, the voice bellowing with unending rage that would shook the stars, and yet there was a finesse to his tone, a steadfast.., mechanical control that separated the passionate words of an orator from the squabbling yells of a mindless brute.
It was as if he was reciting a poem..
And the poem was violence.
``I am the first and the last, the brightest night and the blackest day… the death wail of a billion souls in torment and the nascent vessel of a bright new day for another chance to live in an uncaring universe´´
It leaned closer to him, the fires in its eyes growing wilder and bigger. Scorching his retinas, yet he was unable to look away.
``I am everything and nothing, the father and the son….the blade and the shield, the revenant of the battlefield and the curse of a dead past..´´
A pause settled between them once more, once so brittle and yet so heavy that he could feel his body crumbling and breaking down on its own. Shaking as he became prey of an uncontrollable cold.
``I am death…., and you are mine´´
The last sentence carried sorrow with it at the end, as it pained him to speak it, but perhaps it was the numbness that was taking over him that was making see things that were not truly there...
He would not have much time to ponder as he was pulled up a little more from his position, his arm flatten like a used socket before the other, clawed hang descended on him.
Breath robbed from him in an instant, spit and blood spilling out his mouth and dripping down his chin as an entire arm puncture through his chest. Clawed fingers wrapping themselves around his hot, beating heart and then ripping it out violently.
Severing and tearing apart all the veins and parts connected to it was pulled out from his body.
His lips moved, opening and closing repeatedly yet no words came from them but a gush of fresh, steaming blood.
His eyes, misty and blurry were all but claimed by the darkness of the other side...yet he could still see with dread the way he rose his fist above his head, the bleeding, yet still throbbing organ still prisoner of those clawed fingers that held it tight.
``Remember what you said…..´´
The words were cold, chilling him to the bone as those red stars glared at him without mercy or compassion.
And then he slammed the arm down, tearing through his teeth, jaw and throat like they were made of clay as his fist and a quarter of his arm buried itself inside him. Rupturing every organ in its way until it reached his stomach.
Freeing the heart it had been carrying and depositing it in what was left of the utterly ruined and mangled digestive organ before pulling back, yanking the arm without no regard of the fact that he created a bigger hole through his victims body in the process..
``Now swallow…´´
ºº
A/N
This chapter was far too long…, but it felt wrong to cut it. See you next time, and sorry if you find grammar mistakes