keepinganimmortalworld
… Was there really no place for damn middle ground?!
Before Hark realized it, before he was even able to acknowledge it, part of him was no longer himself. Before Iblis was even to say more after being cute, sand would go flying in all direction, Hark reduced to a blob of water whose “arms” swung at the ground near Luka in hopes that both, both of them would shut up and actually think instead of spewing emotional garbage that meant nothing at the end of everything.
Death led nowhere. He’d been there. He’d been reduced to nothing, to silence, to absolutely nothing more than a vessel. He’d also been part of a system that recycled souls like a factory, producing people out of old souls after a brush-up and a restart in a new position in which they could learn nothing of their past.
But if death had been about beating someone up until they were silenced, then Hark would have gone looking and beaten the asshole up long ago.
It took a moment, a minute or two for Hark to resume a somewhat normal appearance, glow unable to go away and spots of his skin, of himself becoming liquid Chaos Energy before morphing back to normal. It took an instant, a few minutes during which Hark breathed, tried to get himself back under control, back to himself as he gave a glance to the unconscious Tikal.
It wasn’t simple. It was never going to be. You just dealt with the hand with the hand you were given.
“Children, both of you.”
Even if that hand made you something you thought you’d never live up to. Even if that hand made you do things you knew you’d never be able to live with afterward.
“Must you simplify everything? Must you ask a question that you already know the answer to, Iblis? If you are whom I know you to be, then you know that if you smell smoke, fire is never far behind. So he will burn. He will burn or suffocate by the fire he has created. Precipitating the situation will do nothing but cause temporary relief. But I suppose the title of God of Destruction is something you must live up to. War and fights will always be your domain, now, will it?”
And even if that hand was a damn mess and you had to make sense of it.
“And you, Child of Shadows, the fact that we are enemies is not lost on me. The idea that I am something atrocious that your people don’t enjoy seeing is not lost on me. But many have tried, and few have prevailed, even less with the heart that you contain. You will die engulfed in the shadows that you create, child, as I have. So enjoy the little time of Light that remains, because the Shadows that await are unrelenting.”
… He had enough of this.
He gave them both one last glare, and simply walked, made his way to Tikal in hopes of waking her up. Everything else would be ignored, met with a glare or violence. Until Tikal woke up, and he made sure she was alright, everything else would be lost to him.
… Maybe he should get Chaos. He’d want to know.
Tikal was mostly only knocked out, her body healing itself from its injuries. Meanwhile, Luka flinched and jumped five feet into the air when the ground was hit, while Iblis only laughed.
“Alright, man. Cool. Anyway, I think I’m gonna blow his eyes out first.”
The echidna suddenly arose unnaturally, like a puppet on strings lifted onto its feet. There she stood with a bizarre kind of posture, eyes stuck open but not looking at anything in particular. Iblis was nearly startled by the sight, even if it didn’t seem that way.
“Pardon. Some parts of my brain hemorrhaged, so I’m somewhat paralyzed,” she explained with a slight whisper, dismissively waving an arm with a bit less grace than usual.
“...Iblis,” she spoke with lips almost motionless, head twisted at an odd angle, “I know you very well. You did not hesitate this long when it came to wiping out your other half. You saw it necessary, knew his evil, and you erased him.
“But you are like me, Iblis. You’re too weak to immediately and assuredly destroy an enemy you don’t truly hate.”
Iblis grabbed Luka hard by the throat, readying two white hot claws that were prepared to plunge clean through the bird’s eyes at any moment. Luka was terrified.
So was Iblis.
“Ha ha! HA! That’s a good one. But you won’t be saying that once--”
“Do it.”