What would you give for revenge? Your evenings, your afternoons, your days? Perhaps a couple of weeks, months, a couple of years, a decade? Maybe a lifetime.
Would you sacrifice your friends, the ones you would spend the evenings with, making a mess in the local tavern, the large-chested barmaid serving drinks, leaning forward much more than she needed to, or wanted to, intent on wrangling as many coins from the soft boys who mistook her livelihood for affection. You and your friends would laugh at the ones who fell for it, and the ones who did would splutter and wave their arms around in defense, drinks strewn around the hard wooden table, but at the end of it you all laughed at the flushed faces of the boys who thought themselves men.
Would you let go of the girl who would softly bite your neck before wrapping her arms around you, while she whispered words sweeter than the finest honey a million coins could buy into your ear. Promises of a life that could have been, that would never be.
"You worms just never give up, do you? I always wonder how you could fight so hard, and do so so little? It's kind of funny when you think about it," the voice cruelly japed, sliding a body off his hand, slick with blood. Sera. Some nights I would catch her singing to herself, even in her sleep. Her singing was out of tune, her pitch was horrible, yet she loved singing anyway. She would tell the rest of us stories around the fire on particularly boring missions.
And now she was dead.
His body flickers in and out of view, one second, I see the cherry blossom pink castle wall behind him, the next his long tree-like body. I see him walk in flickers around the large space, coming to an abrupt pause, and deliberately hopping ten steps to the left, kicking a body as soon as his boots touched the ground. Zane, he was the oldest of us, and he loved to rub it in. Sera hated it when he did that.
His daughter turns eleven this year.
I barely see the killer's brown eyes through the armored helm he wears on his face, but I know where they lie.
He stares at the orb in the center of this grand room, devoid of all, but a silver ball that couldn't have been larger than a ball of rice, it was quite a plain thing, and the room covered by blood and bodies made it even more so in comparison, but despite that it drew the eyes of us all, like the sea to a sailor.
His helm is in the shape of a wolf, a yellow substance dripping off onto the ground from each fang. He wanders lazily around the room, each step of his like the tick of a worn-down clock.
There is a grace in his steps he shouldn't have had, nor did he deserve, tall and lanky, he must have been at least 7 feet tall. If you saw him on the road, you might glance up, asking if he played a sport. Nothing else was particularly special about the man aside from the lykan that wrapped around his body like a second skin, taut, I could see every fiber on the man's body but not much else other than the color pink.
No, it was a shade of pink. Shades?
Cherry Blossom. Salmon. Raspberry? His lykan switched between shades of pink, matching the room's walls around us, erratically, there was no rhythm or motion. It didn't make sense, Lykan's didn't malfunction, they were as close to perfect as something could be. There was no such thing as a cheap lykan. Especially one from Ouroboros.
I could tell its make from a mile away, a custom piece, worth more than I could make in a hundred lifetimes, let alone my own.
Each suit was masterfully crafted, letters of love and etchings hidden in the threads and it showed in its design. A sleek, ever-changing color, made to adapt to whatever unfortunate environment the person found themselves in. Whether they were in the colds of Nyx or the searing hot depths of Vishanti, the suit would adapt using the ambient mana in the air. So why was his having trouble?
I shake away my question; I have much more important things to think about. Not many people had access to a lykan and from the acid that dripped off his hands, his name had become even more apparent.
Fenrir. I knew of the name, but I couldn't put my finger on where, guys like him didn't pride themselves on covertness. I think to no avail, cursing myself, I should have known him, there was no excuse.
I struggle to keep my eyes open, but I manage to stare at the corpse he had shoved his hand through. I watch it calcify and bubble up from the inside, a decrepit sound coming from the body, rage bubbles up within me like the acid inside of him. I spent years of my life sifting through Ouroboros's records, any lyric, page, line said about them had been committed to my memory. I felt a tinge of pain after remembering the nights where I would burn words into my skin. And that is when I remember the story of Quoth.
Sera had told this story on a particularly sad night, not that we had many days that were happy but that night, that night was a horrible one, so horrible the details escape me. I remember her face as she sat on a wet log beside a campfire, she was drunk, which was unusual for the calm Sera we knew, her face flushed red, and her curses slurred. Zane stood up, reaching to help her, a solemn look in his eyes, not fitting his usual face full of smiles, he cared about her.
But Sera was a stubborn girl, and she forced him to sit on his own wet log and shushed the rest of us into compliance. Irelia looked at her, with the same hardened eyes I had seen for years, but even I could see a hint of worry in them. She wanted Sera to stop, but this night Irelia couldn't muster the heart, sometimes sad people just want to wallow. So, wallow we did.
"Quoth, a quaint village on the east of the world, home of Lyra", Sera spoke, her soft voice choked up with each word, but she continued. A small girl, she couldn't have been older than fourteen. An old woman had found her unconscious near one of their drinking wells. She had tattered clothes, and no shoes upon her bare feet, which had a litter of cuts and bruises. The only thing of any value was a markless droopy bright green hat upon her head. She must have walked long and far, the old woman thought, but she held no idea of why one would walk so far to a village like theirs. The woman brought the small girl into their home and bathed her.
She had tried to wash her dirty blonde hair, but the hat would not come off, no matter how the woman would pull at it, so she left it alone in fear of hurting the girl further, content with cleaning what they could. The woman gazed sadly at the girl's body, covered in scars and blood. She stared at the ones on her stomach, underneath her breast, but her eyes lingered on the one on the girl's wrists the longest.
The girl slept for three days and three nights until eventually she woke up on a bed of rags, in a home built of shoddy wood. It was small and cramped yet the girl had never felt more comfortable. She blearily opened her eyes and in front of her stood an old woman. The girl jumped in fright and hid herself beneath the covers. The old woman simply walked away, but not before leaving bread and milk on the table.
The girl was hesitant at first. However, as the hours passed, hunger beat out her baser instincts and she took a bite. The quickest way to a person's heart was food and when the old woman came back, the girl was sitting on the bed, staring out the hole they called a window, there were stars in her eyes while she looked at the night sky. It was as if she had never seen it before, the old woman thought. The two of them continued that routine the next day, and the day after that, no words were exchanged but the two of them knew each other as if they had spoken thousands of words.
And then as the weeks flew, the old woman never asked her questions, she didn't need to. The girl started to talk to the other children in the village. She burst out of her shell like a butterfly discovering flight. She would spend her mornings doing chores for the old woman, not because the old woman asked but because the girl wanted to. Her afternoons, playing all sorts of games with the other kids, laughing, smiling, touching and learning. But she always ended up back on that same bed of rags staring into the dark night sky, each star reflecting in her brown eyes, and a bright green cap on her head.
Weeks turned into months, and the girl was just as much the village as the village was her. She learned of Jin the butcher and how every other sundown, he would sell his stock for half the coins for the people who would starve otherwise. Of Saku, who would come up with games that all the children would play till sundown, laughing the sun away. Of Jame, the village drunk, who even though spent the better part of his mornings at the bottom of his cups, was always cracking jokes, and he would never hurt a fly. He was actually scared of ghosts, how they found that bit out was a secret she would keep to her grave.
And of course, she learned of the old woman. and her husband, who died hunting during a particularly tragic winter. Her mother and father who were plagued by illnesses unknown to all and withered in front of their daughter's eyes. And eventually, she learned of the woman's daughter, Leyla, who had been a fierce warrior, uncaring of what the village thought of her.
She died, a hero, but a dead hero, nonetheless. A group of raiders attempted to pillage the village while the men were away, and her daughter, Leyla, protected the village on her lonesome. They said the old woman lost her voice because she had spent three nights screaming over her daughter's body. Lyra didn't care if the only reason the Old Woman took her in was because of her daughter. Lyra loved the Old Woman, and Old Woman loved her.
So, she wandered back into the forest on a similar night to when she had first arrived. The stars were aglow with their silver light, jittering with energy. She came to a stop upon a tree trunk surrounded by the forest, the bugs, the leaves, the quiet sounds. It was like music to her ears and she sang her song in return. Like her words were magic, all sounds ceased, as if the forest had been captured by this lone girl in the forest. And after time had passed, she opened her eyes to find a bracelet wreathed in the forest's touch. One letter was carved in wood, another in moss, the third in stone, and the last in what must have been light. Lyra smiled, and the sun began to set. So, Lyra ran, she ran as fast as she could back to the village.
She was so happy, her already large smile grew with every step. She was so happy, she didn't notice how the weather had gotten ever so colder, like the cold at the top of a large mountain. She was so happy, she didn't catch the smell of wood burning, of ash. She was so happy, she didn't think of Jin not being at his usual small wood storefront. She was so happy, she didn't think of the empty laughter in the bustling village.
Lyra ran into the Old Woman's home and dropped the once tightly clasped bracelet onto the crooked wooden floor. There Fenrir stood, the monster at the end of the storybook, in the middle of the house that Lyra had come to know as her only home. She fell backwards onto the ground in fright when he moved closer to her, tears streamed down her face, as she stared in horror at the monster covered in blood and entrails. She couldn't move her legs, and she didn't want to.
She mustered up all the courage in her body and asked Fenrir where the Old Woman was. He sat in the old wooden chair silently, the silence was thick as oak, and with every second that passed, Lyra grew sicker. She flinched as he threw his head back and began howling in laughter, he laughed so hard he fell on his back, punching the ground as he did so, leaving dents in the shabby wood floors.
Fenrir laughed until tears dripped down his wolfish helm. He stood to his unnaturally tall height and urged her to go into her bedroom. Lyra had no choice but to limply walk, the floor was covered with blood. A squelch came with each of her steps, bile coming from deep within her throat as her hand wavered on the bedroom door. Fenrir had enough, pushing the door open for her to see what laid on the same bed she had been on only a night before.
Her mind broke, falling to her knees with a thud. The decapitated, disfigured heads of all who had lived in the village, all laid out in neat, tidy rows. The ones she had talked to most, who she had played with in the dirt. And at the front was the Old Woman's head, she had more scars than the rest, her face the most disfigured of them. Fenrir had taken his time.
Fenrir whispered deeds of her travels, of how he had been watching her since she made her first step in the village. He watched her make her first friend and eat her cooked meal. He watched her and the Old Woman huddle up on the colder nights. With each word, Lyra's face withered, growing paler. He wanted her to see this place as home, and only then would he break her. It was her punishment for daring to try and leave her prison. Fenrir laughed one more time, savoring the look on her face, before knocking her unconscious with a slap, he dragged her all the way back to the laboratory. She did not resist, or fight, or even curse. The children did not rebel after that.
Sera laughed a sad laugh, before collapsing on the grass. There was more to the story, and I doubted it was even a story at all, but as I looked upon Sara's face for the last time that night, I knew it wasn't my place to ask. I could see the stain of tears across her face. Zane looked more serious than I had ever seen him as he walked over to her. I could only stare at his back while he unclasped Sera's hood, wiping the leaves and dirt from it, he clasped it once more, before picking her up, as gentle as a bird, and laying her on her bed of leaves.
He loved that girl like his own daughter. I looked back at Irelia's hard eyes, there was no love in them, or even a glimpse of warmth at the story she had just heard. They were blank, like a empty portrait. I wondered what could make a human have eyes like that. I wonder what could make her have eyes like that.
Fenrir. Fenrir, I rolled the name around in my tongue, he was nothing more than a rotten mutt, and I would make sure he would die like one, for Lyra, for Sera, for Zane. I promised on my bleeding heart.
But those promises meant nothing if I couldn't stand right now. I have a sliver of a chance before they realize I'm alive. I lift my head slowly, pushing through shards of pain, focusing on the pooling blood within my mouth. My left arm impaled by a stray sword at the bend, Irelia's sword. A hollow feeling fills my chest thinking about her as I push further. My forearm was near disconnected from my body like some sort of puppet. I pay my respects to the violet pillar my arm rests upon, another sacrifice for a coward like me. I feel my body break as I stop pushing and begin wheezing, air struggling to move through my broken body.
I was dying.
I held in a laugh. All our struggle, and for what? It hurt to keep my eyes open, like staring through a fog, and as my eyes grew heavy, memories flashing of the Fenrir's slaughter were the only things I could see.
This castle was like a labyrinth, and each room a hell even Daedalus would admire. I let out a breath in an attempt to stand, to move, to do anything but lie here in a pool of my team's blood. My blood, I realize, numerous jagged pieces of earth and rock lodged deep within my skin, likely a stray from Fenrir's brutal attacks.
The sound of his steps ceases and I lift my head, what was once empty air unblurred into a single frenzied brown eye only feet away from me, there was a madness in them. His face points away from my own, I hadn't even registered in his mind. I blearily look past him, somehow managing to see six other blurs, Fenrir's team, each of them in the same garb made of souls.
All their lykans were malfunctioning as I watch them rummage through the corpses of my brethren, looting them, defacing them with their hands tinged with blood.
It was disgusting, to do that to your fellow human, it took a different type of monster.
An odd sound breaks my thoughts as I look back at Fenrir, watching him smack his lips together, loudly so. "Mhmm, mhmm!" he proclaims, his eyes close while he moans in pleasure, but there is no mouth upon his britches, nor woman in his arms. It is a sick pleasure he oozes.
I see his hands go towards a corpse and I beg any god watching to strike him down, to stop him from defacing someone whose only crime was hope for a better world. If I let this happen I might be able to hide myself and salvage the mission, but if I was going to die, at least I'd die with some good karma.
"I don't know whether to be scared or flattered," I say, shifting my body slightly, allowing the sweet cold air to blow through my nostrils, I am grateful the wheezing disappears with it.
"No, no, no, no, no. No," he mutters under his breath. There is a stillness in the room, his men have stopped moving, a good omen, I hoped, but with every heavy breath that trickled through the grand hall, my hope trickled away alongside it.
He punches the air screaming, "Where'd it go? Tell me. Where did it go, where did it go? Where, where, where?" I blink as a stray drop of my blood lands into my cornea.
I open my eyes to Fenrir's fist into what was once empty air, the outer layer of a head warps in and out, the only indication of anything occurring, the fresh blood on his hand. Then the screaming comes, as the Lykan shifts into an array of colors, unknowing of its owner's death.
The corpse blinks in and out, one second, I could see the salmon-pink colored castle wall, the next a bloodied corpse, with a hand red like wax inside his head. I blink once more, another drop of blood stings my left eye this time.
I open them, I hold a breath, seeing the same brown eye I had looked upon, his fangs centimeters from my face, I feel a burning sting as a drop of his acid drips onto my leg, burning a hole straight through my body. "Found ya," he whispers. Insanity, I could see it clearer now. "I love that sound, why don't ya make it again."
There is an unnatural silence in the room, "Well?" Fenrir asks me, an eyebrow raised, I stare at my broken body in the reflection of his eye. "Where's the begging, the struggle, the 'Oh, how dare you kill my friends!'" He says excitedly, scrunching his face and clenching his fist while looking up at the sky above, his sword outstretched in the air like he was in a play.
He waits before deflating at my lack of response, "I should have kept the other one alive. She was more fun. Looks like I got the deficient one." He grins, like he was in on a joke only he knew.
His bosses would want to know who told us. Want, I almost laughed. Ouroboros didn't want for anything. They needed to know, and if Fenrir came back empty handed… I didn't smile, not even a little. I took no joy in what they would do to him. It would be a fate deserving of a monster, but Ouroboros didn't deserve to be the ones to do it. They didn't deserve to mete out death to whoever they chose. Not even a dog like Fenrir.
To judge, to destroy, to hurt. What gave them the right?
"The useless one too now that I think about it. Whatever, the bosses are gonna want to know. So, I'll ask you once. How did Vendetta find out about this place?"
I do not respond.
He gives me a smile so wide I could see the back of his artificial white teeth. Too perfect to be real, and from the smell of his breath I doubted the man was a big believer in hygiene. "What's your name by the way? Lac, Laco? Loco? Lacosh? Somethin like that." He gestures, "I think people should know each other before y'know. Ehh, doesn't matter, does it? Thank you," he says genuinely, as if I was doing him a favor.
He takes two steps back, and tilts his head forward, I watch him start dripping saliva out of his mouth onto the floor, he digs his boot into the sizzling floor. My eyes go wide in horror when he takes two steps forward, a grin on his face.
"Hey kid, savor this for me."
And pain becomes my world. Faster than I can see, his boot hits my sternum, hard enough that the wall behind me cracks into pieces that dig into my back, breaking 2 more of my ribs, light enough so the acid can slowly eat through my stomach. It burns, it burns so much,
"Bad doggy, I said bark!"
He slams his boot again, screaming, "Bark! Bark! Bark!" The hidden insanity beneath his gaze fully on display. I wanted to beg, to tell him everything I knew, but the cruel truth was that he would have tortured me regardless of whether I spoke or not. Suffering was what they did best, so I could only lay here, feeling a piece of myself lost with every moment.
I can't breathe.
I can't scream.
He slams his boot faster and faster until the face of the wolf disappeared, replaced by bloody swirls. My vision turned shallow and dark like the depths of a glass of wine. Red, it was a bright red. Irelia told me it was her favorite color, her mother would craft her dresses of red silk when she was a child. Red was the only time I saw life in Irelia's cold eyes.
My arm is pinned by the sword of that righteous woman. She died fighting, she had struck a thousand blows against Ouroboros, so much so I was sure they would celebrate her death. I knew they would parade her body around, making a mockery of the kind woman, a message to the few left of the rebellion, that there was no more hope. There was no hero. There was only Ouroboros and those swallowed within its shadow.
Fenrir digs his heel into my chest, between the small of two cracked ribs, the slight pressure of his heel allowed air to move through my body once more and my thoughts to clear, but the chill remained.
"I'm feelin good today, maybe it's all this air. I'll ask you one more time. Who told you about this place?" He says, pointing at absurdity above and around us.
Here I lay, and Fenrir stood, surrounded by a fortress, I couldn't imagine the pain and blood that had been poured into its construction. The walls around us were a shifting myriad of colors, one second pink the other an azure. The roof was completely transparent, a pane of stained glass that allowed the royalty below to gaze into the sky.
And what a sky it was.
A mixture of pink and white, every cloud an explosion of color. It was bright and intoxicating, an impossible possibility. The pink burned with the passion of a thousand suns, yet there was no sun to light the skies, nor moon to pierce the dark, just a vast expanse of colorful clouds and a pink sky that showed no end. When we entered, there were murmurs of another realm, perhaps we had died and gone to heaven, one said.
I had different opinions. The more beautiful something, the more corrupt. The more attractive, the more devilish. There was no strength in beauty, only suffering and pain.
I had no idea what this place was, but I knew it was important to them. It took the life of over a hundred of Vendetta's sleeper agents, two thousand combat cells to serve as distractions, lambs to a slaughter some members whispered but in a war against gods there was no such thing as a win without sacrifice, when the price of losing was letting monsters in the skin of men rule, no one was above the cause and no sacrifice was too large.
Fenrir's face was in front of mine, faster than I could see, if I was a boy I'd imagine it would have been impressive. "You just stood there, didn't you? You watched as I ripped them apart, and you did nothing. When they sent me out here, I was fucking delighted. The chance to kill a couple of poor little dogs, biting like little rats. You all have been a pain in the ass, but I'll give you one thing. You guys just don't give up. You have no idea how many of you just fuckin blew your brains out before I could interrogate them."
His eyes lit up as he spoke, dragging a finger over his lips, as if he was trying to remember the look on their faces before they died.
I don't respond.
He growls in frustration, the lines on his face creasing as he rears his leg back, kicking with enough force to send cracks to the wall behind me. It is almost worth breaking another rib. I spat out a glob of blood onto my lap.
Fenrir wraps his bloody hand around my face, pulling me in close, "She screamed the loudest, that bitch Irelia," he whispers as my right-hand claws into the marble ground, the scent of iron goes deep into my nostrils, as does the scent of rot and death, I gag. How many people had this man killed for the stench to be so overwhelming?
"What was that bitch's title? Godslayer?" Fenrir points at her defiled corpse, the corpse I hadn't enough heart to look at, for fear of his words being truth, of this being my reality. He grabs my face with his bloody hand and forces me to look, where I see her body still sizzling from the acid Fenrir struck her with. "Some kinda Godslayer," he says mockingly, her body had been split in two from the waist, entrails lining the ground she laid upon. A gash the size of a coin replaced her once bright lavender eye, her arm had been flayed, the bone white peeking through the flood of red.
She was the best of Vendetta, she fought for the weak, she defended the innocent, she prayed to no Gods, she saved more lives than I could count, and now she was dead. Everything she had fought for, gone in an instant.
So, I can only stare, into her luminous lavender eye as it points into my soul, to think she had died looking upon one such as me. Her last sight. I could only curse her rotten luck. She deserved so much more.
I would kill him, skin him, rip his heart out of his chest, and even then, it wouldn't be enough. He would die screaming.
"You gotta be confident of somethin. The fact you haven't started begging makes a guy like me think. Well, it would if you weren't... you. I can't even sense a hint of mana in you. Who are you? No chance Irelia Le Lune brings someone like you here. I've seen newborns with more mana. Some kinda trick?" He looks me up and down, what I would give to rip his eyes out. "Nah, you wouldn't be letting them fuck with your buddy's corpse. I see the murder in your eyes. You're just weak aren't you, your team is dead, and you're about to get tortured in ways you can't even dream of kid." A moment passes. "Ahhhh," he jeers, a light of understanding in his eyes.
"That reminds me. Guys, get those bombs outta their head, before they blow us all up into meat." I watch while his team cuts the head off of Sera and Zane, they scour their bodies with a clinical efficiency. "What? No, wait let me guess, that was your big plan, blow me and rest of this place up. RnD department cooked up these sweet things, freezes the mana inside a corpse. No idea how it works but." He slaps me with the back of his hand before raising it, there was a button on his wrist. He presses it, nothing happens. He lets out a rough laugh.
"Oh cmon. You're that much of a coward. At least your team had the balls to die for their greater good!" He snorts. "You couldn't even do that. How pathetic are you.
A giggle escapes me, turning into full on laughter. I laugh and laugh, enjoying the sudden confusion on Fenrir's face.
"Got something you wanna share dead man?"
I laugh harder, until tears stream down my face, joining the mixture of blood and bile on my lap. I turn my face up, making sure to look deep into his eyes and give him a wide smile, blood drips through my teeth. I hope he sees my contempt, my hatred, my pain, and above all I hope he sees my promise.
I see a glimmer of fear in his eyes.
"Irelia Le Lune always had a strange penchant for bombs."
"BOSS, her entire body is a-!!!"
I feel a sudden weightlessness as my body is flung through the room. I land on the opposite end of where I once was with a thud. I feel my bones crack and shudder from the weight, but I am still alive. Fenrir's body had covered my own from the explosion; my smile grows wider as I hear the moans of pain across the room.
With my unbroken arm I push myself to my feet, surveying the chaos from the explosion. I am on my last minutes, yet my mind is stuck on her. I think about what she would say, "Get up." And I would, one look at her eyes could cow an army. One look at her eyes could make a man fall in...
The grandiose room is covered in a thick fog; I can only hear the ringing in my head and muted groans from dying men. Despite everything, all I can think of is the small metal orb. It draws me as if it were a siren and I was nothing more than its prey, but still, I craved.
I lift myself up with my sword arm, my left arm had been severed at the bend. My left arm had been severed at the bend. My left arm had been... I scream. Pain fills me like a well, and my screams join those around me, forming a twisted symphony. I tear my shirt off, attempting to wrap it around the wound, but the mere contact of the two only prolong my suffering, my shirt limply falls to the ground.
I want to give up. My eyes are lifeless and I feel them begin to shudder. I sway as I realize the inevitable fact, I am dying. I stumble onto something, landing face first into the marble floor. I blearily look back; the ringing stops and my head snaps up. "Irelia?"
"No, no, no." I whisper to no one but myself, her body is under my legs as I scramble away, the pain is an afterthought, she didn't deserve to be under me. She didn't deserve to die before me. The state of her fills me with enough anger to carry the skies, the only thing left of her is her tattered torso and disfigured head. Chunks of earth are lodged into her neck, and deep holes scatter throughout her body. She is still as beautiful as the day I saw her, the curve of her jaw, the dimple on her cheek, the scar under her eye. She was without blemish, and she is beautiful.
I clench my jaw and stand, I can't give up, not after what I had done. Besides, I made a promise.
I look at her one more time before walking into the center of the room, the orb, it was important and I'd be damned if I let all the sacrifices be for nothing. My pulse quickens as I move, assuring me of my direction. I stumble over the bodies of Fenrir's men, molten lykans melting into their bodies. It's an odd sight, I had watched lykans shrug off enough artillery to blow a kingdom, but the bomb had killed them. I feel a twinge of pity, seeing one man with half their mouth melted with the lykan, he still screams, or tries to, it comes out like a choked wheeze, reminiscent of water through a broken pipe.
I rear my leg back to end his suffering, and then I think of how he killed them. How many others had this man murdered. Women, children? How many villages had he razed.
"Pl--eesh," he begs, unable to even say the word. I look at his disfigured body, his hands contort in the air, as if he's trying to grab on to his life.
I offer no condolences or platitudes, I just want to see the light leave his eyes, and eventually it does, his arms drop to his side limply.
I feel nothing from his death, "come," a whisper. I walk ten steps without thinking, and in front of me is the metal orb hundreds have died for. Nothing is etched into it, "come" there are no markings or blemishes, the orb is a silvery color, but I cannot see any reflection. "come"
The whispers assault me from all sides, soothing my pain, I feel like I am floating, weightless. I think not of Irelia, or Vendetta, I think of my mother when she sung, I had forgotten what her voice had sounded like, it was angelic, I didn't care if memory had distorted my perception, it was beautiful in the way you couldn't stop listening. My father and I would stare, enamored by her hum, I would sit watching at the table and watch him sneak up to her to hold her, she would yell but I could see her smile coyly beneath it, eventually she would threaten him into helping, I watched him bumble around the kitchen looking a fool, but he was her fool.
I stretch my finger towards the ball until it reaches, snapping it back as if I had spilled hot water over my hand. The orb's solid exterior began dismantling, the edges of a pure pink light creeping into my vision, so bright I felt the sting in my iris, forcing me to look away.
"I'm gonna melt you into a fucking puddle." I tilt my head to the right, narrowly dodging a boot to the head. I turn my body, catching Fenrir with an elbow to the helm, I brace myself for the pain but instead Fenrir gets sent flying into the fog.
I stare at my lone hand, bewildered by my own strength, wondering if I had been deceived by my own eyes. There were many things I was in this world, strong was not one of them.
"I'm gonna kill you just like how I killed them. Chest, head, legs, so many options, so little time." Fenrir's voice echoes from within the fog, dragging me from my thoughts, I can hear the snarl on his face, the anger on his lips. I cannot tell which direction he speaks from, his voice comes from all around.
I flip off the ground, a straight line of acid where I once stood, I see my death clear, it would have burned through my knees, legs first huh. He was a cruel bastard.
I see every seaweed colored drop with a hawk's precision. A silver glint catches my eye, my world moves slower and slower, like the world was a play and I the playwright.
"What do you think's gonna happen here kid? Even if you kill me and that's a very big if, you think Ouroboros is gonna let you get out of here?" He says, sending two vertical and horizontal lines weaved together, an expert proficient in his blessing, he expects me to recoil. I leap through the square opening in the center head first with little hesitation. I pick up a sword off the ground and send it through the air, my balance is off with half a missing arm, but my sword leaves my arm with a boom, dissipating the fog in its path. I delight in the mixed expression of surprise and fear in Fenrir's eyes as he frantically attempts to dodge, the sword clips him, ripping his arm off.
Fenrir howls in pain, grabbing the stump where his arm had once been. "I don't think about tomorrow, I haven't in a long time. I think about today, and today Fenrir, today you die." His body is in tatters from the explosion, liquid metal dripping off his burned skin onto the ground below, his lykan fully destroyed, he was completely bare besides for the wolf helm he wore.
I had no doubt even in my new condition, he would have ripped me to shreds if it weren't for his injuries.
"You scream quite loud," I say mockingly, if looks could kill, I would have been dead a hundred times over.
"Trust me kid, I'm gonna enjoy this." We are separated by only a few meters, both of us missing an arm, he spits on the ground and rushes towards me, and I towards him. I jump carrying the momentum into my fist, I expect him to meet me straight on, he feints to my surprise, sliding past me, my punch goes wide into the ground, causing a small crater.
I quickly turn my head back, I can see the grin on his face, "You don't live doing this as long as I have without being smart kid."
The metal around the ball has nearly finished dismantling, the pink ball covers the hall in its glow, a pink so pink it drowned out every other color in the hall.
I burst off the ground in hopes of stopping him but I know I am too slow, and so does he as he forces his hand into the ball, I expect to see the triumph on his face but instead he screams. I slam my fist into the jaw of his helm so hard I hear it crack across the room, the hair on my skin rises and goosebumps litter my body, I have seen kings betrayed, heard men tortured till the skin on their bones rotted, seen the written scrambling's of children slaughtered by their family, and I had never heard a scream like that scream.
I watch his body shake and froth come out in waves out of his helm, he looks like a rabid dog. I look behind me after hearing a crash, and I stare incredulously at the multiple corpses floating in the air. They rise inch by inch, it's not until I look down at the ground I realize, my boots do not touch the floor.
I turn too late, Fenrir's sword lands true, I see the tip of the blade through the center of my chest, the same one I had torn his arm off with, ironic. "Tomorrow isn't for people like you," he says. I grit my teeth as he tries to drag it down, we float in the air towards the hall's wall as a bleak plan forms in my addled mind.
I take my small victory as gravity flips again, we are sideways now, I take the change in stride, wincing as I use the wall to push myself off the sword. I turn to face Fenrir, making sure to smile, the wounds on him piled to make quite the sight. He was near naked, the wolf on his head looking more like a runt than a god. I have the advantage.
Had, I realize belatedly, I am falling fast, downward, and I see the same realization in Fenrir's eyes, his grip on his sword tightens as he dives down, attempting to plunge the sword into my heart.
If god is real, they are in the corpse that smacks into Fenrir, saving me from being flattened, I brace myself as I crash into the marble flooring, so pristine, you couldn't even tell people died here.
I lean on my elbows, throwing up enough blood to fill a small pond, I can see my reflection in the red. It is an ugly red, not bright and sharp like Irelia's, nor bright and dazzling as Sera's. Despite the newfound strength, I hadn't changed, I was still rotten, to the core.
If I am a rot, then my enemies will share my disease. It's that that conviction that forces me to steady myself into a crouch.
"You are one tough bastard," he says raspily, as he struggles to pull the sword out of his chest, he was unused to his lone arm, a weakness. "Fuck i'm antsy. You don't wanna know what's going on in my pants right about now. Maybe your corpse'll find out." He stands up on unsteady knees, one blow and he would topple like a glass house. One stare at my reflection told me the same thing.
I limp towards him, he limps towards me, I greet him with swift kick to the stomach, he catches my leg, not expecting me to strike his head with the other. I think him dazed before he spins around rushing towards me and slamming his battered helm against my head. I feel my nose break as he pulls me forward and throws three punches to the same side of my body in what feels like seconds, they feel like hammers to my skin.
I trap his fourth punch with my only arm, leaving us trapped like we were in a tango, "Forward, aren't ya." I don't bother to respond, dodging his headbutt, and kicking his legs out from underneath him. We grapple on the floor but neither of us is used to grappling with one arm, and it shows with our wild movements. He gnaws off a piece of my shoulder off as I elbow his neck in return, for every blow he lands, I land another. We roll and roll until we are where we started, I see Irelia's sword, and the puddle of acid Fenrir had dug his boot into, one more time we roll, he ends up on top of me, slamming his fist into my face, "Just fucking die!" he roars. I hold up my forearm, blocking as many of the blows as I can, he does not tire or waver as he unleashes punch after punch, one finally connects, sending me into a daze. He uses to the chance to reposition himself, pressing his knee onto my throat.
I see him reach for the sword upon the broken pillar and my body fills with rage. "You don't have the right to touch her blade!" I throw my hand into the acid, screaming in pain as the skin dissolves, I throw as much as I can grab onto his helm.
He presses his knee harder, "Dumbass," he cackles, "trying to use my own blessing against me? That takes a different kind of stupid. What? Did your shitty parents not teach you blessings don't affect the person using them. Congratulations, I'm looking forward to seeing your head on my wall."
I point at his helm, "It's a shame I won't have a head to put on my own," I choke out, he looks at me confused, until he hears a sizzle, and horror fills his eyes. "H..how?" I thrust into the air, pushing him off me and sending him face first into the ground. He screams as the acid burns his helm into his face, attempting to unclasp the helm, I slam his head on the ground, watching his arm flail in the air. It's almost cathartic, I think, as I slam his head over and over into the floor while he screams. I do so until the screams stop, and the only sound remaining is the sound of his skull cracking into bits of dust.
Fenrir dies screaming.