Breaking Heart [https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AP1GczPN08EcQOtpgxmHLSI3KV2r6rJgbYyxafbRulPW78nF1bjfWi7HKJez0PrpYNb4Mxi9FJjrwTegzJqqATgDqexNp40LdXTpVqNBEl-uoW455Q7i48sE1P-lcbf4FGpDVEJr8pL1U5UynRPiJRAaMh1r=w639-h958-s-no-gm?authuser=0]
Uriel was struggling to keep his sanity as he sat huddled in the cramped cage. The earrings weren’t working fully after the second one completely cracked from his grief and panic overloading them. He normally wore five little gold cuffs on each ear, and the set as a whole was no longer functioning properly. It was an odd tingle of numbness over his mind with spikes of sensations getting through, almost like his hand going numb from sleeping on it wrong when he was younger.
With the enemy’s Silencer still firmly in place he didn’t have to worry about losing control from anger and hurting everyone at least. He only worried about losing control and becoming a completely unresponsive mess when a cool head was the only thing that kept them alive before. It was when he got too emotional or defiant when people died.
The DOD had wanted him to fight. To defy yet obey in the end. They wanted a tamed monster that could be brutal and compliant. He had done exactly as they had wanted. Fighting, torturing, and killing to keep his family safe. Even now, after all of that tragedy, he knew that he would do it all again to keep Dazien and the others alive.
The fact that Phoenix couldn’t die was the only silver lining he had.
“Senesh?” his king called over to him, breaking the silence, “How are you holding up?”
Most of the others had tried getting some sleep as the hours had worn on and they knew it was well into the night by now. Everin hadn’t been brought back yet, and Uriel just assumed he was either going through some kind of torture session like he had undergone or the Avatar was already dead by now.
“Not well,” he finally admitted, his voice trembling more than he had hoped. “I— I don’t want to kill like that again. Even if we survive here, if we’re going back to the DOD, I know that’s exactly what they’ll have me do again. They’ll take my Silencer and make me fight or die.”
“You’ll fight,” Dazien replied firmly, “You escaped before because you fought. Faelyn is still alive because you fought. We became real friends because you fought in my defense. That noble Crystal Caster would have likely killed me on the playground if you hadn’t fought and set off the monster alarms.”
Uriel winced at the memory. He had fought and lost control in his anger and almost destroyed the entire playground because some spoiled brat given Aspects had been roughly bullying Daze. He glanced through the bars of the cages separating him and his partner to meet those amethyst eyes carefully observing him.
“I know that every time you fight, it’s to save people. This time will be no different,” the Defender said with such surety that it was difficult for him not to believe it.
“But how many people will die because I fight and still lose?” he asked, looking back down at his hands and the memories of them painted in blood. His realistic pessimism was getting the better of him, “I was forced to fight my friends, too… What if they make me fight you? I’m not going to kill you, King. I can’t. Life wouldn’t be worth living if I had to live with that.”
“If you’re forced to fight me, then I’ll save you the trouble…” Dazien practically whispered the words and it caused his head to snap up to stare at his partner.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Daze gave a half-shrug as he said in a manner like it was no big deal, “I’ll just off myself for you. I assume we’d have weapons or our powers if we had to fight to the death. I can fall on my sword—”
“That’s not funny.”
Dazien leveled a calm gaze straight at him and said, “I wasn’t joking. You can’t expect me to live with killing the first person who actually believed in me. Besides, the others need you more than me.”
“How do you figure that?” he said with a raised brow, “You’re our leader. Our Defender—”
“I think we both know there are better Defenders out there,” Dazien interjected, “I’m much more of a hybrid Supporter with my powerset. Phoenix could easily lead if given enough reason and—”
“Stop talking about this like it’s going to happen,” Uriel cut him off, “You’re not dying. I’m just a bit-a-bundle mage that’s obviously too broken to—”
“I don’t care,” Dazien said, “I’ve never cared that you were broken, Senesh. I don’t care if you think you’re a worthless monster. Obviously, I wish you thought better of yourself, but you’re worth everything to me. You’re going to keep fighting and live with or without me. Even if you’re not a leader and think you’re just some mage that could easily be replaced, I know that’s a lie.”
The amethyst warrior gestured towards Phoenix, who was slumped against the bars beside him, “She needs you for who you are, not for your powers or your past.”
“What? What are you talking about? You’re her brother now.”
Dazien gave a soft smile, “Sure, but you’re her Pillar.”
He fell silent at that, unsure what to say, but his partner continued, “Don’t think I’ve forgotten when you told me about how they manipulated you by keeping your most important people hostage. You told me they called you a Shield because you protected your Pillars —your family. You told me that the newlywed Rand was Cassy’s Pillar. I’m quite certain that you are Phoenix’s now.”
“We all are,” he tried to point out, “She’d be just as much a Shield for any of us, including you. Especially you. You’re her closest family now, Daze. After what happened with Paul, she’s not going to handle losing you.”
“Neither of us will handle losing you either.”
“Please stop talking about dying,” Saiya’s voice said from the cage directly across from Dazien, “I know you’re both just trying to say how much you care about each other, but there’s a simple word that begins with an ‘L’ that does that without the depressing images of my friends both dead.”
Uriel was startled by the Defender’s chuckle, “Forgive us, Lady Saiya. Sometimes it feels like that single word wouldn’t be enough to convey those feelings.”
“You could try to be more poetic than morbid about it, at least,” she replied with a wrinkled nose that reminded Uriel of Phoenix. He wondered if the habit might have been wearing off on Saiya.
Another chuckle came from Dazien’s cage, but the door opening again interrupted anything he might have said.
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Their captor walked in again, that electric rod in his hands and no Avatar in sight. The sound of the door slamming behind the man startled the others awake, and Uriel wondered who the white-haired cinderen was planning to torture and take next. He was surprised when the large Emerald Caster instead hopped up just enough to sit atop the empty cage that Everin had occupied previously directly across from him.
“You know, it was botherin’ me earlier,” the man began saying to him, “Your face, that is. You see, I thought I recognized it at first. Then just shrugged it off thinkin’ it was in passin’. But after seein’ that mark, rune scars, and thinkin’ on it more, I remember who you are now.”
Uriel felt his blood cool as the man gave a vicious grin and announced, “You’re the Annihilator.”
“Don’t call him that!” both Dazien and Phoenix retorted in his defense, and he felt the tingle of some emotion in his heart at their words.
“That’s what they called him, though,” the captor replied with a shrug, “On them Sense Stone recordings the boss let us watch when he used to run the gamblin’ houses.”
The man pointed at Uriel for emphasis as he added, “You were younger then. I remember bettin’ against you the first time I saw ya and losin’ a lot of Bits. You were brutal with that fire and ice.”
“He didn’t have a choice,” the Defender spat.
“Sure he did,” the older cinderen said with another shrug, “Everyone in the Rings chooses whether to try and win or not. I thought for sure the scared-lookin’ lad covered in rune scars was gonna keel over to that elfin mage woman, but he burned her to a crisp.”
Uriel started when the man hopped back down to lean closer to his cage door and asked with that vile smile, “In some of the later recordings, I saw you goin’ berserk… killin’ with a smile as some poor sap tried crawlin’ away… I bet you learned to like killin’, didn’t ya?”
“Piss off,” Uriel mumbled, turning away from the man. He remembered those kinds of taunts from Elanor, one of his torturers who liked to rile him.
His current torturer laughed, “I never bet against you again after seein’ that. I knew then that if they didn’t put you against a higher Caste, then you’d never lose.”
Then the man lifted a runekey and asked, “Want to try killin’ again? Consider it a gift from a fan.”
“Leave him alone!” Padma shouted, causing Uriel to look over at her in surprise, “He’s not some vile murderer like you!”
“Oh? Are you his girlfriend or somethin’?”
“N-no,” the runeforged woman sputtered, and Uriel wanted to smack her for looking towards Dazien as she admitted, “I— I couldn’t win his heart like someone else.”
Even without saying it outright, she had made it too obvious as their captor followed her gaze, and his grin grew wider, “Ooo, a love triangle, eh? How romantic,” the man looked back towards Uriel as he added, “You know some of the best romance stories end in tragedy, right?”
“No,” Uriel replied with a defiant glare that belied his rapidly beating heart.
“Oh, yes.”
Then their captor began unlocking his cage as he went over the new Rules for Uriel to follow, “We’re gonna find out if you still have that killer in ya. The door’s locked, so no point in tryin’ to run. You fight me or disobey, and I’ll kill all these red shirts while you watch.”
Then the sadist moved over to unlock Padma’s cage, dragging her out by her hair when she tried to resist. Uriel had moved to help and ended up catching her as she was unceremoniously shoved against him, making him fall back against his cage before righting both of them.
To his dread, Dazien’s cage was opened next.
“You said white was going to your High Priestess!” Phoenix yelled at their captor, “You’re not going to kill—”
“I’ll have you know that I love the taste of amethyst gemite and will absolutely lie about what’s happening in here if the Annihilator here picks him.”
“Picks?” Uriel repeated as his heart sank into his gut. He had played twisted games like this before, and they always ended with him mopping blood off the floor.
“That’s right,” the cultist said with a nod as he dragged Dazien out by the collar around his neck, his antlers catching on the top bars of the cage since the Silencer wouldn’t normally overpower Transfigurations like that. The cultist didn’t seem to care, though, as he just yanked the antlers free and moved Dazien towards the far wall of the aisle where the pile of blue ashes still lay.
“You’re gonna pick and show this girl exactly what kind of vile murderer you are. I get dinner either way, though I’m really hopin’ you kill the gemite.”
There was no way he could. He was fairly certain the remaining earrings were all going to shatter in a moment as the man withdrew that same dagger that had murdered Snowbelle and flipped it, gesturing for him to take it.
“This is my own Emerald Caste ability,” the sadist explained, “Cuts through Sapphire skin and bone like butter,” he glanced down at the Familiar’s ashes, “As I’ve already demonstrated. It can’t hurt me, though, so don’t make this more annoying for me, or I’ll pick for you.”
Uriel stared at the dagger, frozen in fear. Dazien was the one that moved, lunging for the dagger only to get backhanded into the wall by the much stronger and unsilenced Caster.
“Stop!” Uriel yelled, getting between his partner and their assailant, “Don’t hurt him.”
The man held the dagger out to him again, “Then you best kill the girl there,” Uriel reluctantly took the dagger, causing the sadist to grin again and say, “Here, I’ll help make it easier for you.”
Uriel was pulled forward by the gray tunic he wore now and was shoved out of the way as the Emerald Caster moved to grab both Padma and Dazien by the backs of their collars, using the metal bands to move them to stand side by side in front of the cultist whose back was now to the wall.
“Should I put them on their knees? Do you want to see them beg for mercy like so many others in the Rings did?”
“No. They— I’m not going to hurt them,” he tried to sound confident in his determination but even he could hear the waver in his voice.
“Look, I’m gonna eat tomorrow night one way or another, so you better pick someone to kill, or I’m gonna have a buffet tonight. So choose, Annihilator: Friend or Lover?”
Uriel stared helplessly at the cultist, and the dark part of him already understood that Padma would not be leaving this room alive. He learned early on that not all lives were equal to him, and currently, nobody was worth more to him than Dazien.
“Please, Uriel,” Padma whimpered at him, and he realized that he had been staring at her, “Please, don’t do this. I’m sorry for everything I did, but—” her voice broke as she started to tremble, “I don’t want to die. Not like this…”
“I’m sorry, Padma,” he replied. He meant it, too. He was sorry that it had come to this.
“Senesh,” Dazien’s voice drew his attention as he looked at his king, “Don’t do this. Don’t kill Padma.”
“I’m not killing you, Daze.”
“You will if I order it.”
Uriel’s eyes went wide. Dazien had never… his king would never… There was no way his partner would give a command that would hurt him. Daze had never abused the power he gave over him like that.
Then he felt a tug on his tunic and looked back to see Phoenix’s arm stretched through the bars of her cage in range of him, “Uriel. You can’t kill them.”
“He don’t got a choice, Wayland whore,” the cultist said, “He’s either killing one with his own hands or all the rest because he chose to be a coward.”
“Senesh,” Dazien said gently, causing him to look back as the beautiful gemite gave a reassuring smile, “I love you, Uriel.” The tone of command in Dazien’s next words broke his heart as the Familiar-empowered order invited him to obey, “Now, kill me and shield the others.”
Another earring broke; the pieces of metal falling to the cold stone ground.
He took a step forward to obey his king, and the dagger in his hands found itself plunged into a still-beating heart as his own shattered into pieces.