Eroded
Content Warning
Graphic descriptions of murder and the effects of child abuse.
Terrandus stood in the dead of night. So, so many things had happened at once recently.
It started with the horrors he experienced in that castle. Having to be pieced back together after attempting to end things peacefully with the owner and his horrible walking bodies. He still felt a twitch in his eye every so often from the torn nerves knitted together. He can remember the dazed, horrified look in Saiyel's eyes as he rounded the corner to find her. But as damaged and hurt as they had been, they had been escorted out by the big light adept and his little demon.
Then, he learned long after the fact that his once-bitter rival, the knight known as Windallus, had been lied to. Fervently and shamelessly, he'd been tricked into turning against his own home, and in a maddened frenzy upon the realization, Terrandus had to kill him. He can still hear the choking. Seeing those glistening yellow eyes fog over. Feel the last desperate pull of the man's very soul trying to cling to his body.
It was then that the final straw had been drawn. In the midst of a fight with the leader of the evils he'd faced, and the several duplicates he had manifested, he heard a loud, guttural scream as Terrandus looked past the one he had locked blades with.
He saw the fear in Laddegus's eyes as he witnessed a cursed blade stabbed through his phylactery. He saw Gieg desperately smash the construct away and try to keep Laddegus stable.
He saw the light in that man's eyes die as his soul shattered. And he heard a roar of pure grief and rage.
That demon stood by him now, shaking with what could only be described as trauma and yet glee. Because he held within the claw on his tail, a special key rune he and Terrandus had obtained from the Embermaw camp.
Oh, the Embermaw camp.
That's where Terrandus is sure he finally lost himself.
He had tried, one final time, to do things without hurting anyone. Gieg even tried to humor it.
But Inferna would not, refused to, listen to reason. She merely kept sending her people to their deaths as the combined might of a demon scorned and the most dangerous stone adept born yet were forced to cut them down. However, Inferna's agitation turned to fear as she began to see the look in the two's eyes, and saw the demon's aura growing with every kill. She attempted to use her true form to batter the two into submission, but Gieg had gained far too much strength. He matched her size and wrestled her to the ground. Terrandus stabbed her in the throat. Over and over, until neither of them could feel the heat of her dying breaths. The remaining dragons fled, and the unlikely duo raided her tent.
Which brings them here. To Gieg's plan.
He had sensed through one of Mezmerane's constructs that he was heavily protected in a pocket realm all his own, controlled by his own thoughts. However, with a key to his front door, they had the ability to alter where that door opened up provided they had enough power. And Gieg had just gained some of the strongest souls there were.
Terrandus motioned stiffly with his hand as he made a doorframe-like structure infront of himself. Gieg slotted the key into place above it, but did not let go of it. It turned from sickly green to burning red as he forced it to open in a specific spot. As he did, Terrandus was met with the sight he would have once considered ghastly. A torn-up, barely living corpse that one could only assume was the real Mezmerane. And assume he did, as he dragged the surprised, gasping figure through and tossed him to the ground behind him.
The man stood, cackling through his pain as he gripped his mask.
"So... you got tired of pla-"
Terrandus and Gieg rushed to close the gap as Mezmerane pulled another cursed implement from beneath his cloak. Up close, Mezmerane realized something.
There was barely any life in the boy's eyes. None of the adorable idealism he had so longed to break.
He'd broken him. But did it so utterly, that he was left unlike shards of dirty glass. And now, like him, the boy was ready to make anyone who tried to step on him bleed, suffer and rot.
The battle was one-sided. Not only was Mezmerane nowhere close to being in proper condition, but it was a battle on two fronts. He collapsed to the ground after being stabbed by two of Gieg's detached claws. He crawled away on his back. The smile faded from his face as Terrandus grabbed him by his singed antennae, holding him up as Gieg kept him pinned.
Terrandus raised his free hand, planted his boot on Mezmerane's torso, and wedged his fingers inbetween the mask and Mezmerane's forehead. And began to pull.
An unearthly scream, two voices combined into one, was let out with every inch. With so much resistance, Gieg had to chip in yet again, holding Mezmerane's head in place and clawing away at the spikes digging into the old man's skull.
Eventually, however, it gave away.
Terrandus pulled the mask from the cleric's face with the loud snap of over-worked metal and the dull rip of tearing flesh. In its efforts to stay attached, it tore away most of Armerane's face above his jaw.
The man's unlidded eyes kept staring into those of the boy he had destroyed. Gasping, choking as he felt all of his injuries kick in at once. He felt his skull, barely held together by the remaining fragments of metal spiked through him, pounding harder than ever as Terrandus and Gieg held him still as a stone.
The boy spoke for the first time in days. His voice was hoarse, and his lips pressed so tightly together he clearly strained to get them open at first.
"You wanted this. You told me yourself. I wanted to do something right for once."
And for the first time, in a long while.
The boy smiled.