My head hurts. The skin on my back burns. I can't breathe with my mouth closed. I can tell by the all too familiar pain radiating from the bridge of my nose down into my front teeth and out to the sides under my eyes, it's broken.
Every breath is a struggle anyway, a sharp ache stabbing into me each time I try to inhale, even sharper when I try to let it back out.
Where the hell am I, and why am I so battered?
I can't remember. I can't remember coming here, can't remember anything before this moment except the image of a face, and a sense of urgency. That urgency still pounds inside my heart. My friend needs my help. Someone is hurting her, and someone she loves is in even greater danger.
Mixed with the urgency is a sense of helpless frustration, and behind that, a terrible, profound anger that will mean death for whoever has disabled her, just as soon as she gets free.
I have to find a way to get up and get out of here. I have to get where she is and undo whatever it is that's being used to keep her in check. If I can just do that, it'll be all that's needed to get us out of here. She'll destroy this place, and those who run it, and no one will ever be held here again.
I focus on the ring on my left hand. Through it, I can feel a channel almost like a phone line, letting me send my state of mind, my emotions, and some thoughts to those who wear the other two just like it. Trying to feel the connection, I instead run up against a wall of sheer, solid, white-hot agony.
My head explodes inside, and for what seems like an eternity, nothing exists except brightness and fiery, cutting torture shooting down my back, across my shoulders and hips, down my arms and legs, and my mind is screaming at me
no god no please make it stop make it stop make it stop
and I just want to die, stop feeling, anything to make this go away.
I can hear someone screaming, the voice slamming through me like a blast of winter wind, vibrating in my chest and ripping over my raw, dry throat. When I feel it, I realize it's me, my voice coming out of my body, completely out of my control, ending in a ragged, whining sob as a long, jagged crack splits the light, and the punishment starts to fade.
I'm cold. Freezing, shivering on the stone floor, I listen to the sound of deep hissing laughter on the other side of the bars. Sounding almost like the stage whisper of a baritone, the voice on the other side invites me to try again, praising the flavor of the energy produced by my suffering and begging me for another taste. Nausea rises in my throat, and I shrink back against the wall in despair, until a quiet answer comes through the back of my mind.
"Shhh... I hear you. Be still, but don't give up. I'm on my way."
I don't dare hope, don't dare believe that isn't my imagination. It's too much. I've been here before... not in this building, but in this place. I know that whiteness, that pain. I'm blocked. I can't call out. No one can hear me, and that voice is just wishful thinking.
Except...
Except the whiteness has never cracked like that before. 'Maybe' tries to bloom in my heart... but maybe won't do the job. Maybe is a drug, and I can't afford to be that weak, not if I'm going to help her, and if I don't, we're all sunk.
I drag myself forward, sitting up, and my tormenter laughs again. "Come on, now." The voice may come out as a whisper, but he can still sound snotty. "Did you really think I'd let you call for your friends? How many times are you gonna do that? What do you think is gonna happen if they show up? There are hundreds of us, and only a few of you. You're hopeless."
I don't think so. Defiance and rises in my chest, peppered with resentment of everything that voice represents. I struggle to sit up, push my eyes open as far as I can, glaring out at the thing on the other side of the bars, watching it enjoy my anger and hate as much as it savors my pain. The dark shadow of a robed form stands tall, barely defined against the greater darkness behind it, highlighted only by the depth of the crimson slits that stare back at me from under its broad cowl. The darkness below those narrow eyes splits into a wide, toothy grin. "Stubborn child. Why don't you just give up and come home?"
Black, bitter acrimony floods my heart. This again? I said no. I meant no.
Leaning forward until my face nearly touches the cold metal, I force my sore throat to produce one more time, then another, spitting the words through lips that feel parched, chapped, and swollen.
"Fuck."
"You."
Pushing hard with the second word, I throw what little energy I have left at the shadowy figure. It stumbles back with a surprised grunt, then laughs again, and raises an arm draped in darkness. Knowing it is probably going to hit me with something awful, I brace myself against the bars, closing my eyes against the anticipated blast just as two more pools of bright redness approach from behind my tormenter. Two of them... I can't take two. I am going to die. This is it. If they can't force me to do what they want, they'll kill me for resisting.
What else can I do to defend myself? I have no weapon, no way to call, nothing left but my greatest weakness of all, the void that hurts to maintain, yet hurts more to fill. I see no other choice. If I'm going down, I'm at least taking one of them with me.
Opening myself to the blow, I lift my chin and let myself take the full force of it right in the face. When it hits, lifting me from the floor and throwing me ten feet back against the wall, I grab onto the foul, repugnant essence and pull with all of my hunger, feeling it pool inside my heart like a pile of contaminated soil. The redness within the cowl widens in surprise, and the toothy grin drops into a pained grimace.
God, this thing's energy is disgusting... feels like I'm swallowing rancid food. I struggle to stop myself from throwing it back yet, knowing I'm going to need it to save myself when the next one attacks. The monster outside my cell begins to struggle and scream, trying to pull back its malevolent attack, but I am determined to hold on. Digging in, I open my eyes to try to gage the effect of this tactic on my enemy and the potential threat of its approaching ally.
That tiny, budding hope that I'd crushed moments ago blazes through me with my second look at the other red eyes, now rushing forward as his black sword falls across the monster's shoulder, slashing through the darkness to reveal the thunderous glare I hadn't dared to expect to see. The monster's shocked face falls to one side, his body to the other, and my companion steps over the corpse, slamming that blade through the steel barrier between us and shattering the bars. I feel myself falling, prepare for the pain as my legs hit the stone, but instead, I tumble over his arm and shoulder. Darkness tries to close in on my vision, my mind ready to collapse now that the immediate danger is gone.
No! Not yet...
"They took..." I start to tell him where she is, but he interrupts.
"The others are there now. We're going," he tells me, but he's giving me an odd look, studying my aura. Setting me on my feet, he asks, "You all right?"
He's looking at my face, bruised and inflamed, my two overly respectable shiners, and my broken, bleeding nose. I can see his heart breaking yet again, just like it does every time they take any of us. Hurt pinches his red eyes, his fingertips brushing my jaw as he gently runs his thumb across my swollen, dried out lip.
No, I'm not all right. My friends are in trouble, and I'm in pain, and it's happening over, and over, and over. This is hell. We keep going through this again and again... they take her, or they take me. They do terrible things to whoever they have, while the rest of us scramble to the rescue, fighting off the darkness to bring our loved ones back to safety and home. We try to rest up, plan to hit them back so they'll know not to keep messing with us, but before we're ready, they always strike again. I'm sick of it... so tired, and so angry.
"Not yet, but I will be." I tell him, touching his wrist with the broken fingers on my left hand, totally forgetting until the pain shoots through my bones. Seeing me flinch, he draws back under the assumption that it's him setting it off, until he sees the flesh puffing out around the ring. His eyes flick back to mine, and I shrug, ignoring the daggers that shoot through my ribs when I do. "I told them no again."
Stepping around him, I head down the dark hall in the direction from which I feel her call. He shouts at me to stay back, that I've had enough. I should let my friends handle this... but I can't. I'm furious, and I've swallowed a ball of that monster's hatred and fear, and I can't get it out. My friends are in danger, and we're all stuck in this awful place until we beat down whoever it is this time that had the nerve to meddle. I reach back with my good hand, grab one of his, and pull him along down the hall, listening to him trying to talk me out of it until he realizes how pissed I am. When he stops talking, I stop walking for a moment, and look back to see that he's resigned to the situation. "It's okay," he says. "Just don't overdo it, all right?"
I nod. I'll try, at least. That's the best I can do.
In the distance, I hear a gurgling sound, and I know that's where she is. Turning back, I head for the noise, moving as quickly as my beaten up old body will allow.
The hall opens into another, wider corridor. At the other end, through a set of double doors, we hear that gurgling getting louder, and then there's a tormented scream. His eyes widen, and he grabs me around the waist. "No time!" he growls, and suddenly the walls are a blur, then the doors are in my face. I hear him slam them open, and we're standing in what looks like the operating room of a hospital from hell. Blood cakes the floor, and is splattered across instruments on the walls that seem to serve no purpose but to inflict pain; twisted hooks, long, sharp blades, tweezers with strangely shaped points, bone saws, and circular blades with jagged teeth and dark, mysterious stains.
I see my friends struggling against smaller shadows, and people in dark clothing with knives and clubs, trying to beat their way through guards and lab assistants to rescue those they've taken. In the midst of them, I find that one set of wide blue eyes, flashing angrily at the shadows, turning her power into charm, mesmerizing, and then tripping them into defeat, each attack moving like an exotic dance across the dark and slippery floor. She falters when she spots me, almost failing to dodge the strike of a shadow's blade, and then she is spinning away, blue eyes darting back to give me an uncertain glance before sinking her own dagger into the creature's hidden throat.
In the middle of the room standing next to a dark metal table with a supine figure on it is a shadow like the one from outside my cell, looking bizarre in the white coat and green scrubs of a hospital surgeon. On its cowled head is a band with a mirror to reflect the light down onto his 'patient,' my distraught and writhing friend.
Laying on the table in a pool of her own blood, she is split open from her jaw to her groin, and that monster has his hands inside that opening, pawing at her heart like it belongs to him. We've gotten there before he could take anything out this time, but just barely. On the other side is another of those monsters, probably an assistant, emitting a dark, liquid energy from his hands into her head. That must be what is keeping her alive and awake.
Beyond her there is a cage hanging from the ceiling. Inside is the kid, clinging to the bars, screaming and sobbing that she'll be good, she'll be good... just please stop cutting and let her go. She is as battered as I am, and I can see burn marks on her skin from trying to use her own power to stop this. I know that cage, and I know the blinding torture that has hit her every time she tried. I know what they're doing. They think she's theirs, and they want her back, want to make sure she doesn't run again, so they're teaching her a lesson. Don't love people; if you love people, we'll have to hurt them. And they've hung her up to watch, made her helpless, subjected her to this. She's battered herself against the bars and the block so much that she's barely conscious, exhausted and in obvious pain, but she's still begging these monsters to spare our friend.
Suddenly, the whole of existence is shifting sideways in front of me. My vision snaps, blurs, darkens, then disappears for just a second as cataclysmic fury boils up through my gut, over my chest and throat, to fill my head with pressure and heat. When I can see again, everything is deep, searing red. I can feel myself getting taller, my teeth scratching against my lips, my head getting heavier, my limbs twisting and churning as my body tries to hold in whatever shape the rage is taking. My fingers, my ribs, and my nose unbreak, the bones lengthening and fusing, claws extending from my hands, and a low growl building up in my rapidly expanding chest.
I look at my companion. He's actually looks like he is going to back away from me for just a moment, but he doesn't. "Get them out of here," I try to say, but can only manage to growl the words. Understanding slowly makes its way across his startled face. I glare around the room, taking in the battle and the injuries my friends have once again suffered, and move forward, ready to address the monster with his hands inside my friend's chest. My head pounds with stored energy that was not there before, and I feel myself drawing more, sucking it out of everything in the room; the floor, walls, and ceiling, the equipment, the monsters... this place is going to come down.
My treasure glances back at me as our companion shouts at everyone to grab our friends and get out. Her blue eyes fill with dread and tears, and she stumbles away from me, grabbing the one we call the Doc by the arm to keep from falling. Seeing me, then her, he turns away and launches her toward the iron cage and the kid, telling her to bring it down and get the girl.
The monster hurting my friend lifts his dripping hands and turns toward me, head cocked in confusion and surprise, unaccustomed to being interrupted or challenged, and the Doc takes that opportunity to grab the table and pull it toward the cage. My companion puts his hands on the other end, as the rest of the team rushes to their aid, everyone avoiding the sight of my warped and still-changing form. It looks like the monster, my friends, the tables and equipment... everything in the room is getting smaller. Or maybe I'm growing, I think... that must be it.
A flash of crystal blue stuns the guy blocking the mechanism that raises and lowers that cage, and controls the block on her power. One of the guys beats the machine to shards and chunks, and the door of the cage is opened. The group grabs both of them and then there is a flash of deep, golden light, and they're gone, out of my way so that I can let go. Turning back to the monster, who is now fully facing me and beginning to advance, I drop my jaw as far as it will fall, take a deep breath, and howl at him, letting the rage, pain, and hatred flow into that sound.
It strikes him right in the chest, throwing him through the wall full of torturous gadgets, several of them stabbing through him on the way by. Chaos descends upon the room as the guards and assistants scramble, some to escape, others to attack, but they're too late. They should have hit me before I had the chance to see their crimes. As the monster slams through the wall, I reach out again, breathing deeply and drawing in more of the ambient power, making the whole building brittle and cold. We were all together before they disappeared. We were all at home, minding our own business, just being us. We hadn't done anything to these freaks. The fury burns into the energy, growing as I reach out and drain the ones nearest me until they drop to the floor, dead.
Outrage fills my being, and I let it burst away from me in all directions, feeling the heat move against every object in my sight. Flammables begin to ignite, slowly at first, until the second wave goes out and everything bursts into flame. Screams erupt from the living, the men beating on themselves, and the shadows falling to the ground, writhing. The monster caves in on himself, howling in agony and pulling at his clothes, trying to get out of the burning fabric, but it's too late. I let the third wave out with a scream, "Stay out of my HOUSE!"
The blast that follows propels every single thing away from me; bodies of the dead, the living, the still flaming monster with the bloodstained hands, the tables and stands, tools, and the stones that made up the floor, walls, and ceiling. Everything blows out, flying away, falling away, and I drop through the space where the floor was just in time to avoid the backlash from that last boom. The sound of thunder over my head reminds me that there is more building above, and I look up to see it falling toward me.
Not there... no, there's not a building. I don't want it. I want it gone. The thought sends out the last of the power I absorbed, and I watch as the stone disintegrates into dust, taking the support from beneath more of those shadows and rough looking men, dropping them past me onto the ground below with a horrible round of solid, wet, smacking noises as they hit the rubble of the building's bottom floor.
I feel myself falling, the ground floor and the debris gaining size rapidly as I begin to diminish, the distortion of my form fading along with the rage and the power that I no longer need. It's over, and I'm done, spent and exhausted. I want to go home, crawl into my house, snuggle up to my companions, and drop out of all awareness.
In that second, I'm hit with the pain of seeing her last look at me - eyes wide with terror and rebuke - before she was sent away to help our friends. It had taken a huge leap of faith for her to accept me the last time I went off like this, and the only reason she'd come back was that she couldn't bring her self to hurt someone she loved. She told me she was still afraid, but she couldn't tear my beautiful heart. My mind latches onto that memory, but it doesn't still the growing fear. Will it be enough that she thinks that way of my heart... enough to keep her from hating and fearing my ugly, twisted soul?
Instead of landing in the rubble, I fall face down onto the beach outside my house, longing having brought me as close to home as I dare to go. From inside, I can see two golden lights, one from the Doc, and the other belonging to the little girl. I know that my friend will be all right. They're healing her wounds now. Doc must be teaching the kid how to do what he does. She's certainly capable. Glad, I rest my face on the sand. I'm here... I plan to go in when my courage returns.
I don't get a chance to make that choice. Running out into the sand, my companions fall beside me, turning me onto my back and rising with me, pulling me to my feet. I am surrounded by the two of them, his patient, long-suffering sigh, and her sobs. Surprise and aching relief keep me silent, spilling over my will and onto my face. She draws back, using her thumb to wipe away my tears. I try to tell her I'm sorry, that I didn't mean to get so mad, but she shakes her head and pats me on the cheek with her fingers. I don't know if that means it's okay, or that I shouldn't bother, but with exhaustion taking its toll, I don't have the strength to ask her. I let the two of them turn me to face the door and guide me inside to rest.
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