Chapter 140:
Laxus didn't really understand what was happening. He kept fading in and out of painful nightmare. He'd glimpse faces pushing through flesh, hands fighting to be free. He rolled his head to the side and glimpsed one of Father's many arms, hazed from the thick fog and distance. The small, broken form of Orotrushit was clutched in his massive paw. Laxus never saw him move or attempt to open his eyes.
There was motion in the swirling mist. Perhaps his vision was swimming or his mind was making shapes where there was nothing. In the distance, far below, something shifted. It took substance for an instant, slithered close and with purpose, and then vanished again. Like seeing a fairy dancing in a campfire, it was as real as his mind made it to be and then it was gone. Pain making him see things.
Drunkenly, he swung his gaze to the massive, taloned hand that held him. Blood oozed from an open wound. The rotten stench was overwhelming. He clenched his jaw. A vindictive smirk tugged at his lips.
Gajeel... he thought, find me.
He didn't know how long they'd been in the air, their direction, or if they were far from where they had started or if they hadn't moved at all, when the world suddenly pitched. Mist converged on them, making it difficult to see. He wanted to vomit from the movement, from the sudden spiral down towards the ground. He braced for impact, felt the jarring sensation of landing. Like water, everything in his vision rippled and he fell heavily onto the ground. His chest throbbed, an insistent reminder that he was injured.
His head was spinning. He struggled to his hands and knees, blinking through hazy vision. He recognized this place but couldn't quite wrap his head around how. The floor was red tile that slanted towards a large drain in the floor. There was a heavy door with metal bars over the window, and chains hanging from the ceiling sporting cruel hooks at the ends. He tried to look around him, confused by what looked to be more metal... a large metal cage, like several jail cells sitting in a line. There was a figure in one, a dark form making itself as small as possible, and it moved when he looked at it. He squinted, trying to see. Deep, blue eyes and dark hair. Irena looked shocked and then angry, running to the bars and clutching at them like she would tear them from the way if she had the strength to do so.
Clawed hands grabbed him and dragged him unsteadily to his feet. Laxus was so dizzy he nearly fell over. He was bodily thrown into the cage, the door slammed shut.
For the first time in his life, Laxus had been thrown into a jail cell... he would have laughed if his ribs wouldn't rage against him for the offense.
"Laxus!" Irena was at his side, immediately keen that something was wrong. She turned to Orotrushit, or rather, Father in his body, and frowned sharply, "What did you do?"
Laxus winced as he sat up. Pain flared through his chest, "I'm fine... I'm..."
There was a crash. Laxus snapped his head around to see Father dragging himself up by his arms. The ground around him was quickly being covered in deep color, a gaping wound still bleeding from where Laxus had stabbed him. Yellow eyes were wide and staring down at blood-covered hands that trembled. His features twisted with the bald look of disgust as if he had just drawn a hair from fresh butter, or accidentally touched a snake.
"When I envisioned my progeny, I saw strength, power, a product of my superior lineage. How has it come to this...?" he hissed, each syllable dripping with venom, disdain. His knees buckled and he fell. He dropped hard onto the ground, barely keeping himself up. Black blood leaked from his face like tears, "Not a son, merely a mistake I am forced to acknowledge."
"He's dying," Laxus said, gritting his teeth as he tried to stand, "You're killing him. He's dying!"
"And I am to have sympathy?" Father spat.
"What father leaves his own son to die in his stead?!" Laxus roared, struggling to keep his footing. He gripped onto the bars of his cell, pulled at the unyielding metal, rattling them but unable to make them bend, "You are nothing but a goddamned coward! Leave his body! You got what you wanted!"
There was a blur of movement. A hand flashed through the bars and grabbed Laxus's collar. He was dragged forward and slammed into the cage. Pain ricochetted through his face and clavicle. Where his nose hit metal, tears stung his eyes. Irena shrieked, and rushed to his side. Laxus drew in a ragged, burning breath and struggled against the hand that held him firmly. When he forced open his eyes, he found himself staring into Father's, the pulsing, glowing gold of it blazing with menace.
"Speak another word, and you'll join him in his pitiful fate," Father snarled, his breathing having fully devolved into the wet wheezes of the dying, "Your death, just like his, will be nothing more than a merciful end. The world will forget you, even the man you so cherish, while my legacy lives on despite your pathetic failures."
Laxus refused to back down. He clung to the clawed hand that held him, forced himself to still, to concentrate. Wherever they were, he couldn't use magic. He knew this, but he remembered how he had forced Father from Davian's body in the shadow of the Temple of the Moon. He had to act fast, and he needed to be smart. If Father sucked him in like he'd done in the forest, there was no way he would survive it. He took in a steady breath, opened his eyes to the creature that burned beneath his son's facade.
"What legacy? The legacy of a tyrant? A murderer?" Laxus transformed his magical energy into something he could use, stoking a well of power in his gut just as he stoked his anger and sent it crackling between them, "A coward."
He sent his power out in a pulse. Orotrushit's head snapped back and he released his hold on Laxus's throat. Laxus stumbled back into Irena's waiting arms as Orotrushit swayed there for just a moment before he crumbled to the ground. A wounded, barely audible whine sifted out from between his lips as he lay there bleeding. Irena circled her arms around Laxus's, hugging him tightly. Laxus, having knocked himself dizzy once again, allowed her to keep him standing.
"What did you...? I thought you couldn't use magic?" she whispered, sounding scared she'd wake Orotrushit if she spoke too loudly.
"That wasn't magic," Laxus huffed, rubbing his eye to stem the inevitable throb.
"Did you kill him?"
"What? No..." Laxus said, stepping to the bars. He knelt down, trying to study the chameleon's face. Yellow eyes fluttered open long enough to roll back. His stomach clenched, "He's dying... He's... shit."
"Good riddance," Irena spat.
"Irena!" Laxus exclaimed, "We can't just let him die."
"Why can't we? He's tried to kill me twice, no, three times over," she said, backing up to the farthest corner of the cell. She wrapped her arms around herself, "Fuck him."
Laxus's chest ached, his gut twisted. He looked from Irena to Orotrushit. Reluctantly, he considered inaction. He could just… let him bleed out on the floor. But just as he had the thought he felt a pang in his gut. The memory of Bianca assaulted him: her staring at him in silent screams for help as he listened to her wet gurgles fade made him feel fresh and new the sour knot of guilt in his stomach. He thrust the image away before it could take root, ignoring the bile that welled up in the back of his throat.
Would it be better if the bastard just died? But if Father didn't care, didn't that mean he should? Would Orotrushit be swayed by a betrayal like this? And what of the vision of his death? He'd said that he was meant to be killed by the man who hated him most in order to spare Laxus's life. Certainly this wasn't the vision... was it a good thing that it changed or would it mean something worse later?
"Goddammit," Laxus growled, running his fingers through his hair.
He didn't know what the right thing to do was. All he knew was that he really, really didn't want to stand idly by and watch someone die again. Even if he deserved it, it didn't sit well with him. Not after what Gajeel had said…
He took a steadying breath.
That's right. Gajeel had told him to find a way to use Orotrushit to stay alive. He told Laxus he didn't care how. Good. Good. He would have to find a way to save Orotrushit. But... how? How in the hell was he supposed to pack and heal a stab wound to the chest? While locked in a cell?
"Orotrushit," Laxus reached out and shook his shoulder. When he got no response, he shook him harder, "Orotrushit... you need to heal. Wake up..."
Irena scoffed, "Just let him go."
"I can't!" Laxus snapped back at her, his temper flaring in his ineptitude, "I can't let him die. What happens if he could help us?"
"Him help us?" she barked out a miserable laugh, "Don't hold your pretty breath."
"Orotrushit!" Laxus tried again, this time shaking him with two hands. Again, his eyes fluttered briefly open, but they didn't focus on anything. "Goddammit! You slimy bastard, heal yourself! Your brother said you practically couldn't die! Prove him right!"
"My spirit can't take this..." Irena cursed, "It's weird blood ritual, Laxus. The knife... get his knife."
Of course. Laxus could have kicked himself. He reached through the bars, but just when he was close to grabbing that decorative handle, he could reach no farther. His forearms were too wide. He swore and tried again, pushing until pain, and swore again. Hurry, he had to hurry.
"Irena!" he whipped his head to her, "I need your arms."
She looked dismayed and then frowned. She curled her fingers to the sky in agitation but thankfully relented, rushing to his side to reach through the bars. She grabbed hold of Orotrushit's belt and dragged him close enough that Laxus could start fumbling the knife from its hilt. He saw something dark tucked against his body and his heart leapt a little.
"The Grimoire!" he said, nodding towards it, "Grab it."
She complied, wrinkling her nose when she accidentally brushed Orotrushit's side. She opened it.
"You know how to read this?" she asked.
"A little," he confessed.
"A little?"
"Just open the damn thing," he snapped.
The warmth that spread across his clumsy hands made his stomach curled in on itself and he froze. His hands were covered in blood once again, soaked to his wrists. They were stained with the old, with the new. So much dark color. Would he ever get the stains out?
"What am I looking for?" Irena asked, flipping quickly through pages. Her voice was fading away from him, growing more and more distant. Muffled, as if she were speaking from beneath a mask, "Laxus...? I don't know what I'm looking for..."
What did it mean to pledge yourself to a god?
Laxus's pulse made a misstep. The scent of blood pervaded the air. It made his head swim. He didn't like how much it made his head swim, or how it reminded him of being on the mountain with Gajeel. How it made him feel charged. A want, a desire yawned and stretched inside of him, testing its limits. Not hunger, but something just as needy that demanded to be satiated.
Laxus's eyes drifted towards Orotrushit. His face was slack, the light from his eyes fading. It glittered in the dark rivulets slipping from his body. An exodus. Like an egg broken and spilling its golden treasure on the floor. How careless to leave someone so gifted... to die...
Your god abandoned you...
Laxus had the knife and his hands were covered in blood. His eye throbbed, hitting something deep in his brain. Power welled up from an uncomfortable place, pawing at him to dip his toes into that swirling madness where he lost control. He couldn't see Orotrushit anymore. He saw his outline of life, that light of it fading as it trickled from him and over the ground. The blood slanted towards the drain in the floor, making its purpose known. What a waste… of-of life. Of life energy. Energy he could use…
Worship the ground I walk on…
"Laxus!" Irena shouted.
Laxus snapped his focus back to her. Her deep eyes were wide and alarmed. She looked on the verge of tears.
"A-Are you squeamish?" she asked, hands shaking where they floated over the Grimoire. Her eyes flashed over him, searching for injury to explain his sudden quiet, "Stay with me, ok? I need you… to stay with me…"
"I'm fine," Laxus said. He didn't know how he kept his voice level, but somehow he hid how deeply rattled he was, "I was just trying to think of what to do."
He didn't have time to dwell on it. He didn't want to.
"I think this is healing but I don't know," she said, motioning towards the page, "I can't read it."
Laxus glanced it over. He couldn't read it either, not in his current state, but he didn't think he needed to any longer. He nodded to her, though, and lied through his teeth.
"That will work," he said and watched relief melt across her face.
"What do we do? We don't have components or…?"
"Stand on the other side of the cell… and don't touch anything metal." Laxus instructed with an alien confidence.
She did as she was told, walking back from him with the same caution she would give a wild animal. She stood awkwardly in the center of the cell, wrapping her arms around herself to stem some chill, and waited.
Laxus didn't really know what he was doing, and it felt as surreal as it felt natural. He searched again for Orotrushit's light. It was like his brother's, an aquamarine sort of blue. It was dim now, hardly visible. Laxus called his own into being, and it lit up the space around them with strong yellow light that didn't pulse or fizzle. Was it... brighter than the last time he'd seen it? How strange, but he hardly knew how any of this worked.
He shifted onto the thin web he recognized. When he had attempted to align himself with Father, it had felt like he was staring straight into the sun without blinking. Now, it felt like stepping into the thin rivulets of foam on a beach; the trickle of a runlet down a hill. He felt the fading pulse of life. He had imbued Gajeel with his power, poured it straight into his chest, and like watercolor dripped along a wet surface their colors had mixed. Laxus could command it. It was this same idea that formed in his head now. The latent power in his core flexed and he extended a hand to Orotrushit's shoulder. He knew he wouldn't be overtaken like he had in the forest because Orotrushit was fading, but he was still unprepared for when their fields snapped into harmony.
He was in a darkened room. There was a baby crying. A woman had sweat on her brow as she held a tiny bundle in her arms. Laxus didn't recognize her face but at the same time knew it was familiar. Her long, midnight hair was a mess, her eyes bloodshot and weary as she looked down on him and smiled from her bed. He approached slowly, cautiously. The maāko gave him a sharp look when he tried to pull himself onto the bed. He curled up next to the woman, resting his head on her shoulder.
"His name is Davian," she said, adjusting the blanket so he could see, "Your baby brother."
"I thought Father said his name was Orthinos?" he replied.
"Davian… his name is Davian." She said quietly.
"Oh," he replied, looking back up at her, "What does it mean?"
"Beloved," she smiled gently, and brushed the baby's cheek. Davian continued to cry.
"What does my name mean?" he asked. His mother smiled gently down at his new brother and spoke distantly.
"Your name is special," she said, nuzzling his nose with her own, "It means two things. Destroyer of peace and proclaimer of peace."
"I like beloved better."
"It sounds scary, doesn't it? But you need to remember, change can't happen unless there is a reason. Isn't that what your father teaches you?" she sighed, her eyes fluttering closed just for a second, "They are two sides of the same coin. It means peace will return again."
"I still like beloved better," he muttered.
"But you're the first born," she chuckled tiredly, "So yours is the stronger name. That's how it works."
"Because I'm stronger?" he asked.
"Yes," she smiled, "Which means you have to keep your little brother safe."
He looked down at the crying baby, now beginning to settle. He had a shock of black hair. His small fists were balled tightly.
"I'm a kid. How am I supposed to keep him safe?"
"Oh, you'll keep him from falling into the reflection pools, and keep him from eating yucky bugs, and when he's old enough to play with your cousins, you'll make sure they're not too rough with him... things like that."
"Sounds like a lot of work," he grumbled.
"It is," she laughed, "but he'll think the world of you for it. He'll want to be just like you."
"He will?"
"He will," she smiled, "That's not so bad is it?"
"Yaretzi," the maāko said, a worried frown on her face, "are you well enough for a visitor?"
"Hm? Who?" she asked, and the silence that descended after had a weight to it he recognized immediately. She looked down on him, then, her brown eyes hiding their own muted fear, "Why don't you head off to bed? I need to speak with your Father."
Something foul twisted in his stomach. He looked down to Davian, and then back up again to his mother. She leaned down and kissed him on the forehead.
"Go on. Be good for your mama. I'll see you in the morning,"
She smiled at him. He was an obedient child, and so he did as he was told. He slipped off of the bed and headed towards their humble kitchen.
"Casimir," she called. He stopped and turned to look at her, "I love you."
He glanced once again to the quieted baby in her arms. The softness, he could sense it from where he stood there. Softer than he was. He looked back to his mother and smiled the way he knew made her happy.
"Goodnight, mama."
As he walked away, he heard the whispers seeping in from the corridor beyond.
Laxus snapped back to reality as the memory turned murky and cold. It had worked, they'd been entwined. Frantically, he called out to the pulse of light, his own now transformed into something slightly different. He grabbed hold of it with his mind's eye, centered his strength on it, and like a spool of thread unraveled, he began setting it back to rights. But it was like trying to fill a bucket with a massive hole in the bottom; the more he spindled back into the dying form in front of him, the more just slipped back out again. He was too broad, not focused enough. This wasn't going to work.
Laxus was growing dizzy from the concentration, from the energy he was using. With shaking hands, he pulled his shirt from his body and balled it. He thrust it through the bars and against the wound, applying as much pressure as he could from the angle he was at. He had to heal Orotrushit but... how? He tried to think of the times he'd watched Orotrushit heal. The ritual circle that opened up around him, that was carved into his skin. The day that Orotrushit had replaced Davian's heart with another…
Laxus's stomach dropped.
…corpse medicine. He'd gone on and on about corpse medicine. What had he said? Human parts could be used to treat ailments. Ground up skulls to cure dizziness and… powdered blood for bleeding?
He stared down at the knife and realized he needed a ritual circle, and not just that, but that hastily writing symbols in Orotrushit's blood wasn't going to be helpful. He needed to give blood.
He gripped the handle of the knife, pushed the blade to his palm. It took him one try to break skin enough to scoop the swollen bead onto his finger and smear it into familiar shapes on the ground. The pattern taking shape was vaguely circular, as much like a magic circle as he could make it. But he didn't really know what he was doing.
Power. Heart. Blood. Strength. Virale. He wrote any he thought would be helpful, repeated some, until he got to the portion where he knew he had to reference a god. He paused. What god was he supposed to reference? Oros? Oros wasn't a god of healing. But the sun, was, wasn't it? That was why Orotrushit could heal, because he called upon the power of the sun? But there was no sun here. Intrinsically, he knew that where they were, calling to it would do no good. Why else would Orotrushit need the midday sun to heal him so many weeks ago unless it was essential?
Unless, perhaps, he was his own sun.
It was a quick thought. Fleeting. His mind cobbling his and Gajeel's little games together with the strange sensation he'd had earlier and the "promise" Gajeel had said they'd made. Just as Gajeel had been some strange conduit for a witch in the middle of a barren field, could he be his own sun? He drew a circle on the ground in his own blood.
He felt something inside of him twinge. A flex of power deep in his core was stoked to sudden life. He tried to align his thoughts, to keep his spell fixed on the body in front of him. Why was it so... difficult? He tried to concentrate on healing, on undoing damage that had been done to flesh. Orotrushit had told him to at the temple to envision sunlight which burned the rest of the world around it to white light, and now he felt like he was blinking past the glare and trying to see. He could do it... he could do it...
The twinge became more like a snap of energy. He felt it building rapidly, spreading through his limbs. His electric field surged, grew brighter, wilder. He felt like he was holding down a struggling animal, forcing it to bend to his will. Something in the back of his mind, his thoughts he kept tightly sealed away, slipped loose without his permission, startling him.
Now, you belong to me.
Light burst around him. He felt electricity snapping up his arms and his field disrupted. Power zipped up and down his spine and then suddenly rushed from him, leeching warmth from his very bones. He had expected the pain in his eye at this point, but not he ferocity of it. His ears were ringing as if there'd been an explosion and he found he could see nothing but blinding white for a long moment. He felt dizzy and he wanted to throw up.
Slowly, he began to make out the outline of his hands before him. They were bleached white and shaking. The bleariness of his vision faded and he was able to see the creases of his palms, the dirt beneath his nails, the dark metal of the band around his finger. There was no blood. There was no blood on his hands or on the ground before him. The red tile was immaculate aside from dark streaks dragged across the room that were quickly turning white and flittering away like ash before completely disappearing. Dark streaks that followed a body now pressed against the far wall, arms splayed wide as if desperate to dig through the stone and disappear.
Orotrushit's singular exposed eye was wide. He looked stricken, almost terrified. His chest rose and fell swiftly, as if he'd just been running for his life. He looked at Laxus like he feared he'd reach over and snap his neck.
"You did it," Irena said. Laxus glanced towards her. His head swam with the action and he had to take a breath through the vertigo. She was awestruck, as if she'd just witnessed a miracle, "You actually did it."
He shrugged at her in response and felt a numb-like tingling rush through his limbs. He shook his hands, opening and closing his fingers experimentally. All of his body's grievances were back tenfold, and he winced at a sharp pain in his chest. Laxus felt nothing short of miserable as he pressed his palm to his eye. The pain was digging all the way down his throat, a throbbing that made it nearly impossible to think.
"You are a fool." Orotrushit's voice struck him with how coated it was in malice, "You would have done better to save your pity for yourself."
Laxus hadn't thought for a second that Orotrushit would have shown appreciation for what he'd done. The chameleon didn't exactly strike him as having the same humility that Davian did, and Laxus didn't take him for a man who'd accept kindness from a stranger, let alone someone who was perceived an enemy. Still, the unbridled hate he saw in those yellow eyes when he gazed over at him was a cold shock. Had he wanted to die?
Laxus reached through the bars and grabbed his soiled shirt. He tore a strip from it and wrapped his hand. Irena came to his side to help him to tie it. He rolled his words around in his head before he replied.
"I'm not someone who will just sit by and watch someone die," Laxus replied gruffly, finally able to concentrate now that the pain was ebbing away.
"Aren't you?" Orotrushit said tersely. Again, Bianca's dying face surged into his mind's eye. He clicked his teeth, shoving away the image.
"If you want to be pissed at someone, be pissed at your dad for dropping your body close enough that I could help."
Laxus rose to his feet. His vision blotted out with colored static and he stood blinking dumbly as Irena fussed about him. Pins and needles spindled their way through his shins. His chest still ached. His hand was wounded and throbbed angrily at him. All-in-all, he definitely could have been worse.
"You should be happy," Laxus said, shooting him a sideways glare, "Imagine if I had let you die. All you've accomplished would really be for nothing then."
Orotrushit narrowed his eye at him. He had dropped his arms but was still pressed against the wall with his knees against his chest, his feathered tail curled protectively around his ankles, constricting like a snake.
The Grimoire was still on the ground. Laxus picked it up and hesitated when he noticed the knife. It grinned up at him wickedly. Irena watched him warily as he walked towards the bars, a gasped objection dying on her lips when he pushed them both through, sliding them across the floor to the chameleon.
Orotrushit flinched. He had the same lack of understanding on his face as an astronomist working through the puzzle of a singularity. Verbal fencing was typically his strong suit and yet he seemed to be speechless. That was... good, Laxus thought. He'd been rattled.
"Your god, you own father, has abandoned you, Orotrushit." Laxus said, leaning his forearms against the bars to look down on him, "Now what will you do?"
A wry grin tugged at the corner of his lip, "The fact you think that bothers me is terribly amusing."
"The thing you devoted your life to just left you to die. Twice," Laxus replied tersely, "I think that would bother most people."
Orotrushit rose to his feet. With an amount of sinewy grace that Laxus was almost relieved to see, he scooped the tome and his knife off the ground. It was as if a curtain was dropped. The mask was firmly back in place, and Laxus counted himself lucky to have been able to see under it. That meant there was a chance he could pry his way back under it again if only he hit on the right spot. But he had always been so bad at these things.
"You know nothing of this world, dragon slayer," Orotrushit said, his voice slick and toxic, "You are out of your depth."
"Explain it to me."
Orotrushit scoffed. The sound bounced off every hard surface in the chamber. The red floors, the cold table, and every harsh glint of metal echoed the chameleon's laugh back at him.
"Why?" Laxus demanded, "Why help something that doesn't give a shit about you? What do you get out of this?"
"To be part of something bigger than myself," Orotrushit replied slickly, without looking at him.
"There are a million different ways you could accomplish that," Laxus spat, "Marinus said-"
"Marinus is a grifter and a con!" Orotrushit spun on him suddenly, rage flashing in his eyes, "What he says means nothing."
Laxus's temper bubbled up inside of him, spilling over. He gripped the bars in front of him, seething, "Well at least he doesn't resort to petty kidnapping to get his way."
Orotrushit wrinkled his nose, disgust written across his face. His tongue slithered through his teeth. He didn't grace Laxus with response, deciding to turn on his heel and head for the heavy metal door.
Laxus realized his window of opportunity was vanishing. As soon as the chameleon left, who knew when he would return? In an hour, a day? Or possibly not until the equinox was over? He couldn't let that happen. He needed to somehow needle his way back inside...
"If you think Gajeel is just going to hand himself over to you and Father, you're wrong," he seethed, "He'll kill anyone in his way to get to me-"
"Let him come," Orotrushit snarled, snapping his head back around to grin wickedly at him, "Let him come in blood and vengeance... it wouldn't be the first time, would it?"
Laxus glared at Orotrushit, "That's what you want... you want him to murder people, your people...?
"And here I thought you were clever." he simpered back at him, unimpressed. It wasn't derision. It like a teacher disappointed in their student. It sounded like he was goading him in a direction. I bet you won't.
The realization was a slow but apparent one once it fell into its proper place. It was one of those things that he had known all along but hadn't been able to articulate. It came alive the way fireflies do in the night, always there but only revealed under the cover of darkness. A smell that you recognized but escaped you until you finally saw the name and went ah, how could I have forgotten?
"The congregation..." Laxus said.
It was the same as when Bianca had been killed. There were only two chameleons then, the rest were human wizards employed as body guards, researchers, clientele. Orotrushit had built his own private militia, inspired them with Marinus's words, and was ready to have them stand in the way of Gajeel's knife. The power of his bloodlust a tool to empower Father. Their dying screams would add to the symphony which lauded and decried the spirit of rot and decay.
Orotrushit was like his sister in a terrible way. Orotrushit smiled at Laxus, and his smile voiced a horrible truth. Who do you think she was emulating? Don't you remember who it was that she sought out for advice?
"You built that congregation... from the ground up," Laxus objected, "And you're fine with him destroying it?"
"I care not for the sacrifice of men. Even less the sacrifice of wizards," he replied flippantly, again heading for the door.
A personal appeal then, to his obvious labor.
"He's destroying what you worked so hard to build!"
Laxus was grasping at straws and he knew it, but what else could he do? Gajeel had told him Orotrushit could be swayed but saving his life had done nothing to change allegiance. What would if not that?
He thought of swaying Davian. Their long conversation in the Sinlin Hills. Davian had told him that Orotrushit had taken the Rite of Healing, and had changed overnight. Turned malevolent, sadistic. Davian had loved his brother once, it was obvious, but he now he only feared him. What could cause a change like that if not the Rite of the Body that Davian was so terrified of? What did becoming a fullblood do that bound Orotrushit so tightly to Father? That kept all the others silent and complacent?
He didn't have the time to contemplate it.
"You care about your people, Orotrushit, I know you do," Laxus said, "You opened a hospital, a school. You built a small army so they wouldn't get hurt when Gajeel came for revenge. You employed a water demon to save them from a fire. Do you think Father will care for them like you have?"
He didn't respond. His hand was reaching towards the door. How many times had he done this? Locked someone down here in dim light, somewhere below ground? The metal table was sterile and empty, with straps meant for arms and legs. Gajeel had told him Krew had been skinned alive...
"You don't want this. Why would you pour so much care into something just to let it burn? He'll destroy everything. He doesn't care about you, or Davian, or anyone other than himself."
Orotrushit pushed down the latch. The door screamed on its hinges as it eased open. Laxus wanted to rage. What in the hell was he supposed to do?!
"You're supposed to protect your brother, Casimir! Not lead him to the slaughter!"
The weight of what he had just said dropped like the pressure of a growing tide. It was suffocating, smothering him and Irena both as if they'd been dragged under. Orotrushit had turned, his good eye slicing towards him.
"He's going to kill your brother, and then he'll kill you," Laxus continued, gripping his lifeline for all it was worth, "What will running back to the father who abandoned you do? You'll be lucky he doesn't strike you down for the insolence of surviving! Assuming he doesn't make you watch him destroy all you care about first."
"And if It does, then so be it," he snapped, his tone spiraling askew. He sounded like he was barely holding it together, even though his body language and face told otherwise. It was the strangest thing to witness, a statue that betrayed nothing and yet Laxus knew he was shattering somewhere, "I am expendable. We all are expendable! If that is the will of Father then it shall be so!"
"You manifest Father's will. Change it!"
"Ha!" he flicked his wrist to the side, an oddly jittery, nervous motion, "Tell me, dragon slayer, do you control the storm?"
"I control lightning." Laxus stated, confused by the turn in subject.
"But do you control the storm?!" he demanded, stepping towards him. Energy snapped between them, something building that Laxus couldn't fight in his current state.
Through gritted teeth he spat out his answer, "I control lightning."
"And the wind?" Orotrushit continued, each syllable sharp and precise, "The rain? What of the sky, dragon slayer, do you control the storm?!"
"No."
"And you would expect that of me?" he grinned, baring his broken-glass teeth.
Orotrushit's careful emotion was unnerving. His words were strong and steeped in devastation and yet not a bit of it showed on his face. His face was a death mask.
"I am God's Hunger. I am the drive to survive, to eat, to thrive. I cannot control the storm though perhaps...!" he chuckled breathily, pausing only to take a swift breath, "Perhaps under certain circumstance, I might control the lightning strike."
"So you'll let the rest of it just rake you down?" Laxus asked.
His head twitched to the side, "The hubris of wizards astounds me."
Laxus's fists tightened around the bars. He could hear his knuckles creak. Orotrushit stepped towards him, tome tucked neatly under his arm. His head fell to one side, owlish as he approached, observing him for all he was worth.
"What happened when you stood against Father?" he asked, eye glinting animalistically in the dim light, "Did you succeed?"
Laxus didn't answer, mostly because they both already knew. He was trapped in a cage, wasn't he? He had fought and he had been overwhelmed and he had lost. Laxus was a powerful mage and even now considered himself stronger than the man before him and so of course he understood this line of questioning. If Laxus could not stack up to the raw, unbridled power of Father, how in the hell could Orotrushit?
"You cannot fight a god." Orotrushit said coldly, his eye wandering past his shoulder as if gazing at something in the far distance, past the cell and out into the world beyond, "There is no future where you and the man you love make it out of this alive. Invite in this new era with grace."
He turned, heading for the door.
Laxus was struck by his own helplessness. That was it, then? He would be used as bait for Gajeel. Gajeel would fight his way towards them, spilling blood that fed Father, and ultimately be sacrificed for whatever grand plan awaited him, and there was nothing he could do about it. All he could do was accept it? Laxus wasn't one to believe in happily ever afters. Life was far more complicated for neat bows on the tail ends of storybooks. But he'd be damned to be some damsel in distress.
There isn't a future where Gajeel and I make it out alive...
He had been coming at this wrong the whole damn time.
"He's done a good job of brainwashing you," Laxus snarled, the corner of his lip twitching upward, "He's really got you convinced, hasn't he? Damn, indoctrination is some crazy shit."
Orotrushit stopped, "I am not brainwashed."
"How do you know where you end and Father begins? You've been bound to him since you were... a child?"
"My will is my own," he replied icily.
"Did he ask you to possess your body? Or did he just... take it?" Laxus asked Orotrushit's back. The chameleon didn't look at him, but had resumed walking towards the door, "The hunger isn't yours. That's Father's. Which I bet means your proclivity to blood ends with him too."
"I'm done humoring this."
"I bet you actually want to save your brother, all of your people. You want to stop Father. You want to lead the Temple." Laxus persisted, "You want to be in a future where you're in charge, your brother at your side."
Orotrushit didn't respond.
"You like games, Orotrushit," Laxus said, "How's about a bet?"
"Laxus!" Irena hissed, grabbing his arm. Her blue eyes were wide and frightened, "You don't make deals with him!"
Laxus shrugged helplessly, as if it truly couldn't be helped. When he looked back over to Orotrushit, he could see that the chameleon had once again turned. His good eye was trained on him, his body twisted.
"Father wanted my power to make a body, and if he had a body, he wouldn't need to take yours anymore," Laxus said, "Let's put it to the test. Use my power to give him his own body. Break what binds you to him."
"And why would I do that, dragon slayer?" he said, sounding more annoyed than anything.
"Because your brother still hasn't taken the Rite of the Body," though his words were steady, Laxus felt his heart hammering in his chest. He struggled to keep his breath even, to hold Orotrushit's suspicious gaze, "You need a willing offering."
"No!" Irena gasped, "No! Absolutely not, Laxus!"
Orotrushit's eye darted to the side as he thought the idea over. Laxus knew this was his angle. He pushed harder.
"I'll volunteer, on the condition you use my power to make Father a body. Regain your free will, Orotrushit. Think for yourself."
Orotrushit's gaze centered back on him, his lip curled with derision, "And when you see that this is my free will? When you realize that you cannot sway my mind? What then wizard? Shall you run when your own friend puts the knife to your chest and eats your heart?"
"I don't run," Laxus replied evenly, suddenly very aware of the sound of his own heart in his ears, "I won't run, you have my word. But it won't come to that."
"Oh?" Orotrushit sneered, "Prideful, are we?"
"I know you'll change your mind. You've seen it in the future already." Laxus said, exuding more confidence than he truly felt as he leaned towards the bars, "You're going to save my life."