[ 1v1 ] the world is a beast of a burden ( ash vs rep )

[Baneful]

"He was a demon. He is a demon. Just better." Rep snarled.

Tracey was frantic, hissing every word. But there was no room, he'd been stupid, he hadn't brought runic weapons with him, swinging Tracey was just as likely to harm him as it was this creature, there weren't an enormous number of options open to him. It had him cornered, all there was to do was to hope that he didn't realise this fact.

"Your kind break. They break eventually. They ******** shatter and die. It just takes patience and I would kill you a thousand times for what you ******** did. Kids of your kind vanish so easily." but he latched onto the other snippet of information, a name stated with pride, a foolish mistake as far as Rep was concerned. Nothing was off limits for revenge, nothing at all.

"Maybe I don't ******** need to." he hissed, his smile all teeth and no pleasantness. "Maybe I'll go after your demon instead. Maybe they'll make a weapon a fraction as perfect as mine."

He laughed, bristling and defiant.

"Or maybe he'll ******** break. I hear some of them do, when they can't handle the strain."

 

[its me debz]

Something clicked in his mind, then, at the fact that the human's weapon had been.

It had been a thing of Halloween, once. A demon. One of theirs, long gone.

A shudder ran up his spine, and it was his turn to be perturbed, and he was-- oh, how he was, deep in his core. A creature of Halloween that ate away at his very lifeblood-- the extended arm of the chaos hunters called law--

"Everything dies." Ashford dragged his blade along the ground before raising it, swiping at a nearby cart, sending metal tools flying through the air before they clattered to the ground. "But humans do it best. And if they're lucky, they return to us, an undead or ghost brought back. Won't it be a beautiful thing to know that, one day, you'd be fighting that which used to be your friend? Your lover?"

He opened his mouth for another tirade but was swiftly cajoled into silence by a threat. It was hardly an informed one, for Ashford had revealed a name and little else, but it was enough. He had flown too close to the sun, and now his feathers would melt as Icarus' had. He saw red pulsating through the black darkness of his helm, and he merely clenched and loosened his fists for a moment.

There were no words.

He had saved Thackery from himself only to doom him to a fate just as bad, all because he had been so mindlessly enraged (engaged, focused, obsessed) with Rep's suffering that he had revealed--

The thought of Thackery pulled into pieces, reconstructed from nothing but fear particles and human-stuff, his bone melted away and is replaced by metal, his bright laughter replaced by the glow of strange and primitive runes, the warmth of his skin (his hope, his happiness, his love) replaced with a drive to destroy.

Oh, he would not have it. Not in this life time or any other, not without the flesh from his back, the words from his throat, the blood from his veins, the strength from his core. He would not see it, he would not let this horrific event come to pass.

When the reaper spoke again, he was quiet. The words were diced (calculated, abrupt, and he licked his teeth in between each one, like a tasty morsel) "I would bring this world to its end," he said simply, mind focusing in on the singularity of his existence, the strength of his guilt, the power of his kind.

He would use this power for evil, if he had to. He would bring the world to its knees. "To save him." From you. From me. From himself. From everyone.

The guilt soared out of him in a wave, heavier than the air-- but it was a struggle to maintain, coming in brief flashes, ebbs and flows as he sank to his knees with the strength of a fearling and little more.

"I won't let you," he repeated, mostly to himself, "I won't let you, you can't take him because he is mine, I will rend the flesh from your bones and devour it before I let you, before I let anyone, you can't--"
 

[Baneful]

The thought of Harrison or Jordan as some creature, like the monsters had crossed his mind, dark things often did when times were rough, and he'd considered even if some secondary life would somehow be preferable to the dark unknown beyond mortal life when neither option came to pass. In the end it was something he couldn't know, couldn't truly consider until the day he had to deal with it.

There was a twist of satisfaction, as his words prompted a reaction, the silence telling and potent. His enemy was a creature of words, dark ensnaring and captivating words and he had robbed him of them. He would find this creature, this Thackery and would make this monster wish it could die so easily.

You are a monster

The words were stronger this time, his own voice, judging, cold and disdainful. So many had told him it. Reminded him he was nothing but a mad feral creature, a danger to them, a danger to everyone he touched. And he wanted to be, to rip off his flesh and be more than human underneath, to be a thing of dark black hatred feared across all of their boundaries. To be the creature he felt stir in its shackles when he fought Sasha.

You became what you hated. Those men who were practically animals, all libido and brimming violence with nothing that could be called human underneath. You want to be like them. You would hurt her like they did, and you want to feel no guilt

He shook his head and cried out somewhere between anguish and pain. He couldn't hear Tracey, couldn't hear him at all.

He resurfaced as if for air, on his knees himself, panting and seizing for breath. But there was no time, no time to breathe or recover.

They don't need you.

Harrison and Jordan, on the training fields, before he'd mattered. Happy without him. They could be again, it said, talons of doubt getting into the cracks in his mental armour and pulling him apart

You want to fight monsters. Fight YOURSELF.

He shook his head again, no. No he wasn't, he was human, he loved, he bled, he hurt.

Prove it.

"I'm not. I'm not." he snarled, pulling Tracey closer, dragging the blade across his arm. The blood flowed readily, but in his delusion, unhinged and in a freefall of panic, it twisted into black bladed feathers, and back to blood as the waves of guilt ebbed and flowed.

"I'm ******** HUMAN."

Bleeding even as Tracey fought back the injuries, he snarled.

"And because I am YOU WON'T STOP ME."

HP:17
DMG: 2
Target: Self :l  

[its me debz]

Ash's fingers flexed, tendons tightening, nails digging into flesh so hard that they drew blood. It dripped slowly, viscously, each drop gently splashing against the grubby tile that his hands were pressed against. His knees ached from the impact, and in a corner of his mind he was sure this pair of pants would need to be repaired, stitched together again at the knees.

The thread of guilt wrapped around Rep was tenuous at best, wavering. He was taxed, nearly at his limit, exhaustion shuddering in his bones.

On this day, he had set a timer on Thackery's life.

On this day, he had doomed the boil to a fate full of pain and death or worse.

"What does that mean, that you are human?" he asked, gravel in his words, teeth grinding like stuck gears, a vehicle's engine revving as it's stuck in mud. He slowly rocked back onto his knees, swaying with the weight of his helm as it threw him off balance.

A callous bark of laughter.

"You are a bag of meat. Vindictive, petty, a collection of bones wrapped in sinew and muscle and fat and meat, swimming in a sea of blood."

With a fluid motion, Ashford removed his helm, revealing a crazed face, blond hair matted to his feverish face, massive fangs peeking out from between his pale lips. He surged forward and lunged for Rep's arm, yanking it close to him, twisting it so that he could drink the blood that spilled.

"You are full of life, but life. Is. Short."