Mark my words.
Heya! BIG ol' trigger warning on this one. It's got a lot of violence and descriptive depictions of gore. Normally I'm less aggressive with my TWs but I want you to know what this has.
Eliza walked along the dirt path, there was no one else within miles of this place, yet she was here on foot. She didn't really need a driver after all, a goddess could travel anywhere she wished by just wringing space around her. She knew what waited for her as she opened the rickety old gate, stepping onto the driveway in silence. Straightening out her white button up and tie, she stepped toward the barn.
The goddess didn't get two more feet towards the barn before the crack of a rifle rang out. A bullet, in and out of Eliza's skull, splattering brain onto the dirt and wooden gate behind her. She took one step back, her skull reforming as she reached for a handkerchief from her pocket. By the time her head was back intact, she was wiping blood from her forehead.
The barn door shattered outward, prompting Eliza to sidestep a wooden plank flying dangerously fast at her. A smart maneuver that was rewarded with a cacophony of gunfire from the figure slowly walking out of the barn. With every bullet embedded into Eliza's chest, 23 stepped out of the darkness of the barn, PM in one hand, two spare magazines in the other and hellfire in their eyes.
She heard 8 clacks, felt 8 thuds into her human-like body before just a moment of silence as the rageful beast approached and reloaded. Then 8 more shots, 8 more hits, 8 more steps. Eliza didn't fight back, allowing them to pointlessly riddle her with ineffective bullets.
As 23 reached the last bullet, they tossed the gun aside and closed one eye. Reaching one hand out, they grabbed at what seemed like nothing, but Eliza tensed up, as though her whole body was being grabbed by an invisible hand and squeezed. They kept squeezing, blood beginning to trickle from their eyes, ears and nose, but pain wasn't important to them. Eliza needed to pay, she needed to hurt.
The crack of bone was audible even from where 23 was standing, an uncomfortable sound followed by more as Eliza's body was pulped by a mortal. Then just as fast she was released, practically immediately reconstructing into a fully functioning body once again, but by then 23 was upon her, face to face.
In a flash, the red-headed mortal grabbed the goddess' face, slamming her head into the ground so hard it splattered like a watermelon. With their other hand, before Eliza's body even settled on the ground they jammed a suddenly clawed hand into her belly, ripping out her intestines before clawing at her over and over again.
As they settled for a moment, the two laid in a pile of viscera, their entire bodies drenched in blood from Eliza's constantly reconstructing body. 23 looked down at their hand, holding an eviscerated heart, they leaned down and took a bite. In moments they scarfed it down, wiping their mouth before finally speaking to the goddess for the first time since this began.
"You feel no part of our mortal struggle." They grabbed her newly formed neck and lifted her. "Your body is flawless. You don't feel pain, you don't suffer like us!" They slammed her back into the ground, taking thumbs to her eyes. "You see everything yet you do nothing. And when people die you have the NERVE to show up to their funeral like you cared."
Eliza reached out for the first time since the start, as if to resist the notion of her not caring. 23 sliced at her tendons, making her arms fall limp. "No, you don't fight me, you don't push back, you sit here and you listen you fucking monster." At every 'you', they brought a fist down onto her face.
"You don't get to pretend to care, not for me, not for her." The blood trickle from 23's eyes had stopped courtesy of their sister's dying gift of regeneration, and the trails of crimson were washed away by tears.
"That's enough 23-," she couldn't even get into a full sentence before her throat was ripped out by the mortal's canine teeth.
They spat the shredded viscera at her face. "IS IT!? I DON'T THINK IT'S EVEN CLOSE TO ENOUGH. NOT TILL YOU FEEL EVEN A FRACTION OF A FRACTION OF THE AGONY GALE FELT WILL I EVEN CONSIDER STOPPING." They began to rip her limb from limb, pulling her arms from her torso, her legs from her waist, her head from her neck.
As Eliza's body began to rebuild, 23 squatted down beside her. "Don't act like you care about self destructive anger Eliza. You and I both knew Tom, and he's dust now, courtesy of your reckless crusade against the demons because what's one man? Just a pawn on your board right? YOU let him stew in that rage for so long he destroyed any chance he had at finding a new life."
In a moment, Eliza was good as new, the goddess simply recreating her physical form. "Then hate me, fine. Just don't ever drag anyone else into your pit of anger. Because you're burning what life you can have happily on your reckless pursuit of violence. I tried to convince Tom to walk away."
23 laughed bombastically. "Oh big deal, EVERYONE told him to stop. But you had the power to make him, you just knew if you let him he'd be an asset. That's the only time you ever allow feeling, empathy, rage, to further your own goals. I'm better than that you monster. I'll never drag another person where I'm standing, you just assume I would cause that's what a monster like you would do."
They stood, kicking Eliza hard in the ribs. "Mark my words, I'll make you feel what she did. And I won't burn people to do it. I won't hide like a coward because all kings are monsters. You gods and masters are one in the same." They sank into the ground, as though swallowed by shadows, leaving Eliza in a pool of her own blood.
Eliza sat up, beginning to use magic to reconstruct her shredded clothing and clean the blood from it. It was hard to see what she was doing through her tears though.
~
WAAAOOOOW. Okay, more intense than average. Had a feeling and I ran with it, didn't proofread, we die like Gale.
Righty, who next?
Scotty
Grey
MORE 23???
