Bad End
Wordcount: 3100
Summary: Carrion has challenged his old mentor to a fight to the death. When he breaks the rules, a price must be paid.
A/N: This is a birthday present for @yvilonion! This was incredibly hard to write but I liked the challenge! Happy birthday bud <3 BIG HUGE WARNING: THIS IS A DEAD DOVE FIC FEATURING TORTURE AND MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH. MIND THE TAGS, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
This is an doomed AU based on part 6 of my series, Ground Zero. If you haven't read up to chapter 54, there are major spoilers.
Tags: Major Character Death, Zayne dies, torture, snuff fic, broken bones, stabbing, mild gore, abuse, begging, no sex, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, crying, mourning, bad end, angst, trauma, sorry Downbreaker :(
Provocare. A fight to the death. The rules were simple: two people walk into the arena, one person walks out. One weapon, one fight to settle the score. No escape, no cheating. The fight would go on until there was a victor. The citizens of Diyu had crowded into the stands outside of the arena to see the current leader of the Rogue’s Collective and the presumed-dead King of Thieves face off. It had started lively enough between Phantom and Sylus; the broad, stocky woman had brought a meteor hammer while Sylus had elected for the thick Bowie knife that accompanied him everywhere.
As the fight went on they traded blows back and forth, littering each other in cuts, bruises, broken bones. Sylus went sprawling across the dusty ground, crying out as he felt the crack of ribs breaking in his chest. He gritted his teeth to get up, but Phantom wasn’t stopping. The broad, muscular warrior closed the distance between them in a matter of seconds and whirled the chain in her hands to gain momentum before bringing the spiked cannonball down hard against his head.
Pain exploded in Sylus’s face, and the sickening sensation of sticky blood from his eye socket flowed over his cheek and down his neck in waves. He choked, looked around wildly in sudden darkness until he realized that she had destroyed his good eye, rendering him completely blind. He lashed out with his knife, wildly stabbing and slashing in front of him, and yelped when he felt thick fingers around his wrist, twisting until he let go of his weapon and hearing it thud to the ground near him. Panic danced with pain in his body, and he brought up a boot to shove Phantom away from him, but missed hitting anything solid. A cruel laugh echoed in his ears among the sounds of the crowd and his own frantically beating heart.
“I wonder how Dawnbreaker’s going to react to all this…” Phantom taunted him. “He’s got such a pretty face, too. Might have to keep him around for decoration. He’d look good chained up in my office like a dog, too drugged up to say his own name…”
The panic in Sylus’ head compounded, and something within him snapped. He had to get out. He had to get Zayne out of here. All the rules and ideals that he held about dying with honor and fighting a fair fight disappeared the moment Zayne was on the line, and he used his Evol, teleporting through the nearest chain link fence that sectioned off the arena. New pain clattered through him as he crash-landed into the stands, throwing himself into people he couldn’t see. In darkness he tried to steady himself, orient himself to stand.
“ZAYNE!?” Sylus shouted, whipping around in complete uncontrolled panic. He felt hands on him, and he brushed them away as he tripped and lost his footing in the chaos. Suddenly, a flash of blunt bruising agony cracked along the back of his skull, and Sylus fell limply to the ground.
___
When Sylus woke, his eye had healed, and he was bound with his wrists behind his back. His mouth was dry and his body ached as he sluggishly looked at his surroundings. The room was empty. No furniture except for the chain and shackle attachments to the walls, no windows; simply dingy walls with rust and yellowing stains all around, as if someone had tried to scrub them but couldn’t quite get the stain out. The floor was concrete, and filthy with dust and long-dried blood. His heart stuttered in fear. He’d been here before, but he hadn’t been the one chained up. This was one of Phantom’s interrogation rooms. A place to be tortured. A place to die.
In panic, Sulus strained against his chains, but found himself unable to move. Only small twitches penetrated the haze of the paralytic Sylus knew he’d been given in his sleep. It was standard procedure. A cold ball of fear seized within him like ice. He could blink, breathe, talk, and slightly turn his head, but the rest of him was limp. He couldn’t even activate his Evol in this condition. His mind raced, trying to think his way through the situation. He grit his teeth, soul wishing once again that he still had his aethercore, which would have helped him metabolize the drug more efficiently. Now all he could do was hope that whoever put him here stayed away long enough for it to wear off.
The metal of a lock shifted as the door opened, and Sylus knew he would have no such luck. He craned his neck, and his face paled in horror. This was about to get far worse than he imagined. Phantom entered the room, dragging an angry Zayne behind her, bound in his own chains at the wrists. The enraged, pained grunts coming from his throat were muted, inhibited by his own dose of paralytic, and he couldn’t fight back properly. Phantom smirked, and the two people that followed her closed the door behind them. Zayne let out a yelp as Phantom threw Zayne across the floor haphazardly.
“Stop. That’s enough, Phantom. You have me, let him go. This doesn’t concern him.” Sylus growled, words venomous. Sylus grunted as the two guards that accompanied Phantom picked him up by his underarms and forced him to his knees. Phantom arched an eyebrow.
“Laws have been broken, Carrion.” she said with a frown. “You violated Provocare, someone has to answer for that.”
“Zayne has nothing to do with this, I tried to flee, not him!” Sylus shouted at her. Phantom turned towards Zayne, breaking through his angry glare to deliver a heavy kick to his ribs. Sylus heard the snapping of bone and the sound of Zayne’s screams filled his ears. Sylus felt his heart dip in his chest and let out a cry of opposition, but it fell on deaf ears. Phantom let out a scoff and trained her violet eyes back on Sylus.
“Do you think I’m stupid enough to let him go free so I can look over my shoulder for the rest of my life? I think not.” Phantom tutted. “Besides, you fetched a good price but now that you’re back, I can make use of you again.”
“No.” Sylus spat. “I’m not your pawn anymore.”
Zayne groaned as Phantom pulled him to the center of the room, closer to Sylus. His eyes were glazed, and his pale face was etched with fear.
“You’re right.” Phantom said with a nod. “So I’m just going to have to break you into submission.”
Sylus felt sick, his lips trembled, and his face felt numb with the stress of it all. He tried to jerk free, tried to use his Evol, Something to free himself, but merely twitched in his restraints.
“I know it’s unconventional. Normally you’d be the one up for execution.” Phantom continued, bending down to circle a hand around Zayne’s neck to pull him up. Zayne tried to gasp for air, mouth opening and closing uselessly while his body stayed limp. Phantom dragged him off the ground with a grunt, holding him off the floor with relative ease. “But the reality is simple Carrion; I can do whatever I please around here. You should have realized ahead of time that you don’t have that luxury.”
Phantom wound back with her free hand, balling her fist before driving it into Zayne’s stomach with enough force to shake his entire body. Zayne sputtered, trying to scream but was unable to push the air from his lungs in Phantom’s hold. Sylus shouted again, threats and unintelligible syllables flying from his mouth as he tried to move his body. Phantom ignored him, and carried Zayne over to the wall opposite Sylus that had several chain attachments. She lifted Zayne’s wrists to attach them to a chain on a ring installed above his head, tightening the slack in place to prop him up so Sylus could see him before she got started on his ankles.
Zayne gasped for breath, stomach rolling and fighting a wave of sickness. He groaned in pain from his ribs, eyes wide and looking directly at Sylus.
“Sylus…” he choked out, lips shaking, his pleas jumbling in his own mind as he tried to find the right things to say. Please protect me. Please save me. Please get me out of here. When Sylus had left the arena, he’d been apprehended almost instantly. Zayne had tried to run for him, tried to fire ice and spikes at the guards to free him, but then he’d been knocked out. Anger and will to fight had graced him when he woke up, but seeing the pale, abject fear on Sylus’ face was contagious. Sylus was begging. Sylus never begged.
“Zayne, I’m going to get you out of here, just keep your eyes on me, it’s going to be okay!”
Zayne did not believe him. He tried to steady his breathing while Phantom worked to chain his body up in a sick display, but was distracted by fingers on his chin to turn his head to face Phantom’s calm expression.
“He can’t help you.” she said cruelly. She turned his face again, placing his eyes back on Sylus. His shoulders were shaking, clearly trying to fend off the drugs in his veins or the people who held him. “He’s the one who got you into this. Look at him: cowering. He’s the reason you’re going to die tonight.”
Zayne’s blood ran cold and his teeth chattered together in terror.
“N-no…you cheated first. You broke the law before he did, it should be you up here right now!” Zayne argued, only to be silenced by a heavy slap across the face that left him tasting blood.
“You have no proof, and no one else to tell.” Phantom spat, face drawing back into a sharp frown. “This is the end of the line.”
Sylus shouted again, trying to draw her attention away from Zayne at all costs, but it was useless. His throat burned but he couldn’t stop, howling in rage when Phantom produced a heavy metal hammer from the loop of her belt.
“Wait, no, stop! Sylus!” Zayne sputtered uselessly, and his words were replaced with a maddening scream as Phantom dealt the first blow to his knee, shattering his kneecap.
She took her time, starting with the bones in Zayne’s legs and taking breaks to make sure that Zayne stayed awake for his torture. She couldn’t have him passing out. Tears streamed down Sylus’ face and his voice had almost gone out already. Sometimes Zayne called for him, and the pain it lanced to his chest was as if Phantom was hitting him with her hammer right along with Zayne. In a way, she was.
“Please…Stop this!” Sylus begged. “I’m yours, okay? I’m yours. I’ll do whatever you want just stop! Take my legs, take my other eye, I don’t care!”
Phantom stilled her hammer from where she’s been aiming above Zayne’s collarbone, and looked back at Sylus with a hard stare. Sylus couldn’t look at her, eyes glued to Zayne’s whimpering form. His cheeks were stained with tears, eyes burning and red. His limp, broken legs were bloody and disjointed, and the strain on his shoulders threatened to pop them from their sockets at any moment. The fight was going out of Zayne little by little, eclipsed by the unimaginable pain of his body.
“Carrion, one of the reasons you get to live is because you’re valuable. You can heal yourself. Anything I do to you will heal and grow back. I need to hurt you in a way you can never heal from.” and as if to prove her point, she slammed the hammer onto Zayne’s clavicle, snapping it like a twig.
Zayne’s screams of powerlessness and torment would haunt Sylus for the rest of his life. Even if a miracle occurred. Even if their friends found them and dragged them home this instant, Sylus was changing, breaking from the inside with every call of his name and every cry of impossible pain. The force to Zayne’s torso finally did it, and a horrible crunch sounded as his arms slid out of their sockets. Zayne howled under the intensity of his joints popping, but could do nothing to lift himself out of it. The vague sound of Sylus howling right along with him like a wounded animal washed over him, but he couldn’t focus, couldn’t pause, couldn’t move.
Punctuated cries of stop! And please! Tumbled from Sylus’ lips as if he didn’t know what else to say. Phantom grew bored of the hammer and had taken to using her fists now, driving them over and over again into Zayne’s stomach until he began to wretch with the feeling of blood in his throat. He coughed, and a wave of blood spattered from his lips, running down his chin. A fresh wave of tears streamed from Carrion’s eyes at the sight. Zayne was broken, bleeding, and vulnerable. Phantom let out a chuckle at the sound of his weakness.
“Don’t…ngh…look…” Zayne wheezed out, trying to lift his head to look at Sylus, who rapidly shook his head.
“I’m here…I’m here and I’m with you. Zayne I’m so sorry.” Sylus sobbed, chest raw, mind twisting and turning to cope with what he was seeing.
It was getting harder for Zayne to breathe now, and Zayne wondered what would kill him first, the pain or suffocating on his own blood. He wondered how many words he had left to say before he died. A strange calm washed over him. This was the end. He thought of what their lives would have been like if they’d been allowed to survive, the memories they would have made together. He was no longer afraid, simply sad. Grieving. It hurt to cry, it hurt to sob. It hurt to hear Sylus calling for him. Everything hurt.
Phantom walked away from the wall, and a flicker of hope stoked within Sylus only to be extinguished when a guard handed her a knife. Thick, curved and strong. Sylus’ knife. Sylus went mad. He twitched and thrashed as much as he could, fighting through the drug to no avail. Tiny red dots bloomed under the skin of his face and down his neck, broken blood vessels from so much strain. His mind was blank, the only thing he could see through his tunnel vision was Zayne’s pale face, stained with blood he couldn’t wipe away. There was nothing he could do, nothing he could say or think to stop this.
Phantom gripped Zayne by the hair, forcing his head up and eliciting a whimper from his lips.
“Anything to say now, Dawnbreaker?” Phantom said with a smile, watching Sylus for his reaction. Zayne’s stomach rolled again, and white dotted his vision as he forced his eyes to focus.
“Love you….I’ll always love you.” he murmured through the wet thickness in his chest. Phantom laughed out loud at a new sprig of tears from Zayne.
“How touching. Too bad love just wasn’t enough.” she sneered. Zayne slid his gaze in her direction before taking in Sylus one last time.
“Sylus…” he slurred. Sylus’ face and body were trembling now. Soon the paralytic would be gone from his bloodstream, but not nearly soon enough. Zayne coughed again, and mustered as much straight as he could to form his last words. “...Spare no one.”
Phantom’s glee evaporated from her face and with a petulant yell, she dragged the blade in he hand across Zayne’s throat, slashing it open to welcome a river of blood down his front and silencing him for good.
The sound that tore out of Sylus was viscous, barely human at all. He wouldn’t feel his face, couldn’t feel the strain of chains at his wrists or the pressure of fingers in his shoulders. Zayne choked, body trying involuntarily to breathe and stabilize itself, but it was no use. He bled out quickly, but to Sylus it was an eternity as he watched Zayne die, in utter agony. Zayne’s body slumped over, and Phantom released his chains, allowing Zayne’s body to topple to the floor, unmoving in the torrent of blood blooming around him on the dirty floor.
Sylus couldn’t take his eyes off of him. The man he loved. The man he swore to protect. His mind felt foggy, and whispers of his sins reeved at him from the inside, twisting his insides and clawing at his mind. In his own mental overload, he hadn’t told Zayne he loved him too. A choked sob racked his shoulders. Zayne was on his side, his sightless eyes devoid of their light but pointed right at Sylus.
Phantom stared at the blood on her fingers, coating her hands. Calmly she walked to Sylus, kneeling on the ground in all-consuming despair. Sylus didn’t move or react when she touched his face, smearing a dark mess of blood over his cheek. Zayne’s blood. Proof of his failure. Proof of Zayne’s death. His own fault.
Sylus felt his body fall to the floor as he was let go, and the two guards walked out. Phantom leaned down to look at him, and amused smile on her face as she studied how utterly broken Sylus was now. She rose and turned on her heel to walk out of the room.
“I’ll give you a few days.” she promised Sylus. “Really let it sink in. This is what happens when you bite the hand that feeds you.”
Sylus heard the words, but they didn’t sink in, and neither did the slam of the door behind her. Sylus was completely numb, unable to acknowledge the pain in his wrists and body, too tired, too rooted in despair to think much of anything.
The paralytic eventually left his system, and he was finally able to shuffle himself across the room towards Zayne, using his lifeless eyes like beacons in the dark. His face was white, sunken, lips parted as if he was still trying to breathe. Beautiful even in death. Sylus’ insides twisted and he realized that Phantom had done it on purpose; left Zayne’s face alone so that he seemed frozen in time.
Sylus strained without the use of his hands, trying desperately to move them, to touch Zayne one last time before his skin turned cold. A metallic stench of blood had ruined Zayne’s floral scent, and Sylus laid down next to him. He nudged his head forward, bringing their foreheads together like they’d done less than a day ago. Before the fight. Before he’d made his terrible, stupid mistake. His foolishness had killed the one he loved. Zayne's skin was still warm against his, but was cooling by the second, and that lingering warmth was all that Sylus had left.
“I’m sorry…” Sylus sobbed bitterly, squeezing his eyes shut. The pool of blood surrounding Zayne was cold, sticky and seeping through Sylus’ clothes. “I’m so sorry, please come back to me, Zayne. Please, I love you so much…”
But Zayne did not answer him.
Over the following days, anyone walking past the interrogation room was treated to the haunting, sorrowful cries of a man with no hope left.
