by Darkbringer
“I only did what I had to do,” I muttered, sad and defensive.
“Perhaps.” Crystal agreed. “But I think she’s now filled with so much fear and anguish regarding you, she’s going to bolt like a rabbit when given the chance. I may be wrong,” she admitted, “but I don’t think so.”
“Nothing I can do about it now,” I told her sadly. “I just hope time shows that I did the right thing, in the long run.”
“Me too, My Lord. Me too.” Crystal took several deep breaths and then turned and lightly kissed me on the end of my nose. “If it’s any consolation, witnessing the experience with Tiffany was just as breathtaking and inspiring as with Mongo. When the glow settled into her, her color returned, her skin shined and glittered. Funnily enough, I even noticed that her nipples perked right up! She looked so peaceful, so lively. It was almost like I’d imagine an angel to look.
“The white glow of life settled into her body. Her skin grew paler. The pinks of her lips – both her upper and lower lips,” she laughed lightly as she said it, “and her nipples all turned alabaster white. Even her fingertips and toenails were white. It was like she had so much life inside her that it was bubbling over and trying to escape.”
“That’s how it kind of felt to me as well,” I admitted. “It was almost as if it was too much life for her body to contain it. I almost felt like she might explode if I wouldn’t have drained it back out.”
“Thank the Gods she didn’t explode!” Crystal shook all over once again and looked wild-eyed at me. “I was thinking that it didn’t look like what she’d went through was that bad at that point. I guess I was wrong…”
“Well, I don’t know that she even could’ve exploded. I just know that’s how it felt,” I told her soothingly. “So what happened after that?” I asked, trying to move her away from focusing on people exploding. Crystal had enough to give her nightmares for a while; she didn’t need “what might’ve been” to make things any worse than they already were.
“After that, things got bad again,” Crystal said dryly. “Real bad.”
“Mongo regained his youthfulness, which was a good thing. At least, up until he started screaming once again. He didn’t try to hurt himself or get away this time. He simply curled himself into a ball and screamed. Raw, unadulterated, horrible scream after scream after scream.” Crystal was speaking so dryly, so unemotionally, it was like she was simply repeating the words while completely blocking the image from her memory.
“Jess tried to use her magic to heal him, but as soon as her hands glowed, she began to scream as well. Mongo was curled up in a fetal position, and Jess simply collapsed on top of him and tried to do the same. Dino tried to do something with his magic to help pull Jess out of it, and then he just collapsed and screamed as well.”
Lifting her head to stare me in the eyes, tears freely flowed down Crystal’s face. In a heartbroken sob, she tried to speak several times and failed, before finally getting out, “It.. it was awful. The looks they made. Their expression will haunt me until the day I die. Even after,” she corrected, weakly. “And their screams echoing endlessly with each other…. It was almost enough to drive a person mad!”
“And my greatest shame,” Crystal admitted, crying freely now, “is that I didn’t even try to help them. Their pain was too great. Their screams too much. At least Dino tried to help Jess. I was too scared to. Too scared to hardly even breath, for fear that I’d experience whatever hell they were going through.
“I was a coward, My Lord. In fact, I think I even pissed myself,” Crystal confessed. “No matter how much I wanted, I couldn’t bring myself to try and comfort them. Honestly, I thanked the Gods when it was all over; had it continued for even a moment longer, I don’t know what I might have done.”
So quietly I could hardly hear here, Crystal finished her story, “I simply couldn’t stop thinking, that that was going to be me soon. I… I don’t know if I can handle that, My Lord. I don’t think I’m that strong.”
Gods forbid, I don’t know if I am either – but I’ve got to be.
Miffany Tongo?
For a long time, we sat and simply snuggled as Crystal’s last words rang in my mind. If she decided that she couldn’t handle going through what Mongo had undergone, what was I going to do? Technically, she was supposed to be sworn to me; my servant, or slave, or something! Honestly, I’d never checked into it too closely, and I wasn’t exactly certain what our legal relationship was, or what rights it gave me. Legally, I might very well be allowed to force her to undertake the process no matter what.
But it wasn’t just about what I could do; it was about what I would do. I was happy with Crystal and I valued her as a friend. I didn’t want to do or force anything that would harm that friendship. Yet, I needed to try and remove the taint from my soul, and I had no idea how else to do such a thing, besides the crazy plan I’d came up with already. Perhaps I could burn the darkness away, but I was afraid that’d simply burn a part of the soul away and leave it even weaker and more acceptable for the corruption to spread to afterward.
I really needed Crystal to share her spirit with me. Yet I didn’t want to force the issue. But I needed to. But I didn’t want to. And round and round my thoughts went, in an endless spiral of need verse want; over what was right as a person – Who has a right to force themselves onto another’s very soul? – versus what was right for my very own soul.
Would I be able to rip apart someone else’s soul – especially someone’s that I was coming to care about --and cause them endless suffering, just to cleanse my own? Even if I did it and managed to prevent the darkness from corrupting my humanity, could I still call myself “human” after making such a choice?
I couldn’t help but wonder what others would do in my shoes. I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell I was going to end up eventually doing.
* * * * *
And, it was while I was lost in this endless circle of self-rationalization and self-doubt, that Tiffany awoke.
Stretching, she sat up, immediately giggled, and then groaned. “What the bloody damn hell hit me?” She talked slow and her speech pattern reminded me instantly of Mongo, and although it was rough and cracked, she definitely had a light feminine voice. Part of me was wondering if perhaps she was related to Mongo and that was part of his reason for going so far for her.
“I feel damn drunk. Stupid drunk.” Tiffany groaned slowly.
“Me too!” She half bounced and answered herself in a suddenly much more vibrant and chipper sounding voice.
“Where the hell are ya?” She asked, slow and gruff again.
“I don’t know! I think I’m blind. I can’t see!” She answered herself in that perky, light tone.
“What the hell?!” My jaw fell open and I stared at Crystal to see if she was seeing the same thing I was.
Wide-eyed, she simply stared back at me, looking as dumbfounded as I felt. “I don’t know either, My Lord. What’s happened?”
“Whaa!!” Tiffany stopped moving and stared down at everyone laying scattered all around the ground. “Holy fuck! That’s me!” She pointed over to Mongo’s body and simply stared at it for a moment, before falling back to the ground in a faint.
I didn’t have a clue about how to process what I’d just witnessed. Slowly, I patted Crystal on her hips so she’d get up and move out of my lap, and then I started to ease over to check on Tiffany. All at once, she jerked upright once again, shouted, “Mongo!”, and then scurried over to work her magic on his body.
“Ummm….” I had no idea what to say, think, or do. For one of the first times in my entire life since being reborn, my mind was completely blank. “Are you certain you should be using your magic right now?” I didn’t know what to say, so I simply asked the first thing that popped into my head.
“I’m doing much better now,” Tiffany absent-mindedly answered, before screaming and scooting back as far into the corner as she could. “Who are you? What’s happened to us all? What’d you do to
us? Where’s Drake? Ghost? Skeet?” She was jabbering non-stop, when Skeet came running into the room with both daggers pulled and ready for action.
“What ta ‘ell?” Skeet was staring at Tiffany’s panicked form, and glaring daggers at me, for some strange reason.
“I haven’t done anything!” Instinctively I held up both hands to show I was innocent. “She just woke up and panicked!”
Skeet continued glaring suspiciously at me -- I suppose I couldn’t blame him; after what he’d witnessed earlier. Slowly, he sheathed both his blades and then walked over and wrapped his arms comfortingly around Tiffany and hugged her. For a brief moment, she hugged him back, and then she gave him a shove away and punched him in the face!
“What the hell do you think you’re doing Skeet? I don’t swing that way!” Once again she was talking in the slow, rough voice, reminiscent of Mongo.
“Bloody ‘ell?” Skeet rubbed his nose lightly and blinked stupidly. “Since when ain’t ya liked ta hug ah man?”
“I’ve never wanted to hug another damn guy. I’m not like that, and you know it. You know I like Tiffany.” The slow speaking Tiffany was glaring at Skeet now, with her hands on her hips.
“Bloody ‘ell! You done wents an’ broked ‘er!” Skeet glared at me, eyes wide with shock. “T’ain’t Tiff a’tall thar!”
Tiffany looked confused for a moment, blinked a few times, and then giggled lightly. “Of course, I’m me silly! Who else would I be?”
“Bloody ‘ell…” I imitated Skeet as well as I possibly could. “I think you’re Mongo. Or at least part-Mongo… Somehow, I think you’re both sharing the same body right now. I shared your souls, and umm…”
I trailed off. There really wasn’t anything I knew to say. Finally, I simply shrugged and sat back down on the floor.
“Sorry,” It was all I had to offer at the moment.
Pushing Back
Needless to say, things were interesting for quite a while after that. Jess was, unfortunately, the next to awaken, and to say she lectured me almost to death would be an understatement. It’d almost be like saying a hurricane was a shower. She cussed me. She berated me. I got slapped, and she shook her fist at me. Even the fact that Tiffany was now up and active did nothing to soothe her temper.
All I did was somehow merge Mongo’s mind into Tiffany’s body with hers, causing them to suffer from a split personality… What’s there to be angry about with such a thing? At least the corruption seemed to be leaving her, and she was going to live now! Living a little broken is better than dying with your soul tainted by darkness forevermore. Right?
Dino was the next to awake, and he treated me like some sort of disease-ridden leper. He wouldn’t really speak to me, and often wouldn’t even talk to me. He and Skeet had both developed a simple method of needing to do things in a different room, whenever I entered where they were. Jess tried to treat Tiffany; Tiffany tried to treat Mongo’s body, and Mongo spoke up from time to time and griped about the whole situation.
If it wouldn’t have been for Crystal staying by my side, I would’ve been completely alone over the next few days. She sat with me, we held each other, and more or less we were ostracized by the others. At first, even she was a little distant with me, but she quickly got over whatever her doubts or hesitations were. We went to sleep that night and she was distant, stiff, and cold towards me. I tossed, turned, and had a terrible time trying to sleep, but when I finally woke the next morning she was snuggled up and nibbling on me from top to bottom.
To say her friendship and passion helped fill a hole that was forming in my heart, wouldn’t be a stretch at all. We made warm, passionate love, with her taking the lead for the first time, and when we finished all was right with the world once again. She snuggled and nuzzled back down with me and even though we didn’t talk much, her warm comforting presence helped give me strength to endure the other’s distant coldness.
For a total of three more days, we stayed trapped in the confines of our prison, surrounded by our jailers of the dead. Several times I thought of simply forcing my way out, to leaving this place and not looking back – others be damned no matter what – but I couldn’t. Crystal’s warm and comforting presence reminded me that there were other innocent and good people out there, people who I cared deeply and passionately about. I couldn’t take the chance on leaving and allowing the darkness that was growing in me to spread outside the barrier. No matter what, I was not going to become the bringer of darkness.
So, since we weren’t leaving, and since the others weren’t having anything to do with us, that left three whole days and nights for me and Crystal to spend alone. The first day we simply enjoyed in each other’s arms, and we must’ve made love at least a dozen times. At least, that’s how it felt to me. It was blissful in its own way and was a means for us both to heal and recover. The second day, I sat and carved and shaped on the obsidian that was left over from where I’d melted and purified the tainted stone walls that had separated the rooms and Crystal had sliced her way through with Heartblade.
I created small carvings of rabbits, deer, squirrels, flowers, and trees. Things from the surface to help bring a little bit of light and warmth back into the cold darkness that was the underground tomb we were trapped within. I used my magic to color them, to add some scent to the flowers, to make the trees move and sway slightly, as if in a breeze. They became precious treasures to help Crystal and me remember the surface, which now seemed oh so far away.
On the third day, I decided that my magic was strong enough; that the others could be damned with their hateful glares and snarky attitudes! It was time for me to start the preliminary steps to getting out of this place eventually.
Telling Crystal my plan, I used my magic to harden the air between our little chamber and the one where Skeet and Mongo slept in. No sound would come from our room and bothers the others, who seemed lost in their own little worlds of blame and hatred. I’d saved Tiffany! With Mongo’s strength and spirit, the taint was fading from her more and more every day! I’d warned them that there may be consequences. That the outcome wasn’t going to be all gold and roses.
And yet, they all acted as if I was a demonic madman! We didn’t need their help for what I was going to do, and I didn’t need their interference or judgmental glares. Crystal and I were enough for this job.
With the wall of silence between us and the others, Crystal gripped Heartblade tight in her hands and forced open the door which leads out from our room and into the hallway. With a screech of stone scraping stone, she yanked the door wide; revealing an endless swarm of dead outside which immediately tried to rush in.
The skeletons that got in range of Heartblade’s aura crumbled and fell where they stood, but flesh-rotting zombies quickly tried to climb across the corpses to rip and tear at our soft warm life. As soon as the first ones crossed the threshold to our room, I released my anger, frustration, and worries upon them. Pulling in flows of pure, uncorrupted flows of fire energy from the deeper depths of the earth below, I blasted them with an inferno of heat and fire that instantly incinerated flesh and bone alike.
A small portion of my magic was used to wrap Crystal in a protective layer of natural warmth and comfort, to keep the hellish inferno from obliterating her as it was the dead, but that still gave me a lot of reserve strength to unleash. I’d had days to rest. Days of sitting and whittling, worrying and fretting. Days of being treated like I was a monster by those that should be my friends.
If it wasn’t for Crystal, the corruption probably would’ve completely taken over my soul, and I would’ve melted the others as I was erasing the dead now from existence. Corruption. Taint. Whatever the hell it was! Let’s see what it can do with there’s nothing but scorched ashes floating on the wind!
Taking step by deliberate step, I walked past Crystal and out into the hallway, surrounded by a raging inferno. Frost began to form on the walls to counter the intense heat I was generating once more, but the walls weren’t my targe
t this time. With a roar of power, I stretched out my arms to either side and unleashed a hellish blaze of blue-white intensity down both sides of the corridor. Skeletons crumbled instantly. Zombies burned like a match in the midst of a forest fire and swiftly crumbled and fell, burning and smoldering till there was nothing more left of them than scorched ash like the skeletons.
In moments, the hall was clear once again. My magical reserves were much lower than before, but I still wasn’t satisfied. I could sense ever more dead being drawn to fill the gap I’d created, and I walked down the hallway to the next intersection to greet them.
As I entered the next intersection, I obliterated utterly everything that moved up and down the hall. And then I did the same for the next intersection, and the one after that, and then the one after that. Still, I could feel numerous dead marching to fill in the hole I’d created, and I finally backed off.
My reserves of energy were getting lower than I was comfortable with, and the number of dead seemed almost limitless. I felt like I was at the bottom of a pond, striking a match underwater and trying to evaporate the water all around me. Surely there were fewer dead than before – probably hundreds less – but what were a few hundred when it felt like there were millions more to replace them?
Frustrated, but feeling much better in some ways, I retreated back to the hall where we’d been staying with the others. Much to my surprise, the door across from ours, on the opposite side of the wall, was pushed wide open. Fearing some new, undetected threat, I eased myself into it, expecting to have to blast whatever was there – and the room was empty.
A simple square stone storeroom, much like the ones we were staying in on our side of the hallway was all I saw, with one obvious exception – the wall between this room and the one that was adjacent to it had several large square holes sliced and carved into it. Obviously the work of Crystal and Heartblade, the holes weren’t large enough for anyone to travel through, being no more than a forearm’s length and height, but I couldn’t divine the reason for them at all. The stone was cut, pulled out of the wall, and removed completely, and there was perhaps a half dozen to a dozen gaps where the wall had been sliced to put such “windows” in it into the other room.
