Idle Hands

"Idle Hands" is a [SEASON NUMBER] thread written on [IRL DATE].
==Summary==
[Write a summary of the thread's events here, including spoilers and important plot details. Check the Order of Threads to see if the thread you are placing already has a summary, to make less work for yourself.]
==Full Text==
Liam could barely hear Verdandi as she raced behind him. He pulled his scarf up to stifle the smoke out of his breath but it was still intense, and difficult to keep up his current pace. He grabbed several rebels as he passed by, demanding Nala’s location, and he managed to narrow it down to the north end of the island. Nothing short of pure, rage-driven adrenaline was shooting through him the entire time he moved.
aroleplayingcephalopod
Verdandi coughs against the smoke, her eyes stinging and her lungs burning. Still, she refuses to let Liam out of her sight. If Rhenco’s gotten control over Nala… Rhenco almost killed Liam once. She’s not going to let him make it a reality now. Or ever.
She leaps over a fallen tree. Though she doesn’t notice it, her jump takes her farther than it should, and golden light trails behind her back, almost like phantom wings in the smoke.
tree-the-cat
Liam, in contrast, was using his own powers to propel him faster, leaving streaks of shadow in his wake. He clipped his shoulder on a tree and nearly fell, but managed to shove himself back into a decently balanced position to continue his sprint. He felt a few hot tears welling up as he tried over and over again to contact Nala, to no avail.
“Do you have something?” he shouted back at Verdandi. “Anything!?”
She only managed to shake her head before he thundered forward faster, keeping his eyes sharp and wary, and when he finally caught sight of a scarlet glow in the night, facing away from the chaos of Haligan, he filled his lungs and hollered, “NALA!!”
moe-lazyeye
Rhenco took the moment of distraction like a tidal wave taking the shore. With a tearing cry of desperation, he tore himself from Nala, the contract shattering to pieces as he atoms exploded away from hers. 
-
Ruddy brown ichor exploded from Nala’s porcelain cracks, and pooled on the ground around it. Red, cracking electricity snapped around the pool as it grew and spread over the ground. It collected in and around itself, and finally began to take form. Staggering to his feet as he slowly formed, Rhenco’s form took shape as the electricity continued to crackle. It was very unlike the quiet, flame-less burn and freezing that typically took place. 
Craning his neck up as gasping as he solidified, Rhenco took in a ragged breath. He stood in silence, and slowly placed a hand on his heart. He turned around, and saw Nala, free of his influence, and the figures of Liam and Verdandi bearing down on him. Just as it had been when it all started. He felt the severance, the disconnect. 
My…red card…my ward of protection…my self transmutation….  
“Gone…” He breathed in disbelief. “Gone?!” Rhenco then let out a piercing yell as he spread his hands, red electricity flaring around his arms. I had plenty that I held back to maintain that recipe! So if I’m going to die, I will die using what little she left me with!
He turned to Nala, his face contorted. “Fuck you demon!” He screamed. “COME ON!”
tree-the-cat
The Warden was already moving past him to protect Liam, but as Rhenco threw out his arms and energy arced off of him, her body suddenly seized and contorted, and she tripped to her knees and briefly thrashed on the ground, the same arcs of bright red flashing between her joints and behind her mask. Her mind constricted as their essences burned and snapped against each other; she’d taken too much of him on. She was paralyzed.
The show of lights threw ghastly shadows across Liam’s horrified face, and he sprinted forward, a wordless cry in his throat. As Rhenco turned in reflex, the lightning thrashed across Liam’s chest and shoulder like a whip, striking his new scar, and he was thrown aside, hitting the ground in a spray of dark soil, and the storm thundered overhead, threatening to break at any moment.
aroleplayingcephalopod
As she watches Liam fly like a tossed ragdoll, horror settles in Verdandi’s chest. It’s quickly replaced by a seething mass of rage, and she lets out a wordless scream before charging at Rhenco. She draws her sword mid-stride, the steel of the blade reflecting the shimmering light streaming from her shoulder blades as the wings of gold solidify into view. In her other hand, a coil of golden chains begins to form.
moe-lazyeye
With a snarl Rhenco brought his hands together and transmutation circles flashed on either side of him, and rock and earth pulled itself from the ground to stop her blade.
His feet shifted across the dirt as he flicked out his knife and skirted around his barrier. The demon was weakened. He could still hurt her. Clearly both of these children had power, but he had power too, and for much longer.
“Verdandi! I owe it all to you! And now I can-!”
The end of the golden chain caught Rhenco in the side of his neck and he hit the ground like a dropped stone. Soft, hitching noises could be heard, and then Rhenco gave a low, agonized cry. He rolled over as his body stiffened with pain. Real pain. No longer laced with the sick pleasure that had always muted it before.
One hand slapped against the ground as he slowly rolled up, the eletricy sparked fiercely as his broken neck was healed and coaxed back in place. “What…the fuck!?” He gasped as staggered a step. He inhaled sharply, and touched his neck.
Not…dead? 
“Not dead….” he murmured. “I’m not dead…it healed.” A ghost of a smile began to touch his lips, and then it dropped as realization dawned on him. “Wait a minute.”
demon-in-the-dungeon
As Verdandi’s spectral weapon coiled in the air after striking Rhenco, the chains collided with each other, ringing and creating an unearthly tone, a deep, chiming hum. A small, almost-invisible wave of force rolled outwards from her clenched fist, a note that made everyone’s lungs shake, and the ground and even the ocean itself vibrated with its tune. The pulse struck out again, only this time, in a specific lash outwards from the chain links, in the air above and behind Rhenco and Nala, who was still twitching against the soil, inwardly screaming as she was incapacitated by the remnants of his alchemy. His disgusting blood still crept through her veins, and she could only watch as the air continued to vibrate above them, shuddering harder and harder. The dark, smoking scenery around them warped like a swath of fabric, and there was suddenly an extreme, drawn-out tearing sound, like a thousand sheets of paper, like a million threads, like the fabric of the universe itself giving way to a determined pair of twisting fists.
Liam struggled to his feet, but he was suddenly blocked by the appearance of a familiar, hooded figure almost a head shorter than him. Milae was advancing with his long weapon drawn, but he was cautious, careful. Liam saw that his scars were almost blinding with golden light.
The air finally released with a thump of intense pressure and a female scream, and a cascade of rippling lights and sparks flashed and tossed across the clearing, tumbling through the grass. When it cleared, there was a figure hovering in the air, her dirty, clawed feet dangling above the Warden. She lifted her head, and her outline traced with a flash of scarlet light as she flexed her arms, which were also equipped with massive claws. Her horns caught the psychedelic lights as she turned in place, looking down at the scene below her–or she would, if she had eyes to see. Her upper face was bandaged and bloodied, her face twisted with black markings as her incredibly long, dark auburn hair whipped around her in the storm’s wind. 
She noticed Nala. She noticed Rhenco. And she lifted her arm in a contorted position, her fingers crooked and clawed. A light sparked in her claws, and she lowered her arm to point a single finger down at Nalaagura, hunched and shivering in the night.
NALAAGURA EP’HA.
Liam gasped. Milae almost jerked forward, his jaw dropping. The Warden immediately straightened and arched her back while on her knees, her eyes wide and shining, and for a moment, everyone in the area feared for their life. The unknown demon grinned with shining fangs.
PURGE HIM.
In an instant, every last bit of magic, essence and suppression that Nala felt was expunged, and it all flooded out of her in several streaks of crimson and black and cobalt; they struck Rhenco with a force several times that of gravity and threw him back against the trees, immediately bloodied and almost hanging by his tendons in several areas across his body. The new demon lifted her hand and Nala slowly rose to her feet, but as soon as she did so, the control was released, and the Warden sagged a bit in place before coming to and realizing what was happening. She twisted around in utter disbelief at the demon, and the floating figure grinned wider, giving her an almost mocking salute while sitting with her legs crossed in the air, like she had a front-row seat to the most enthralling stageplay. Their minds locked in sudden understanding.
Have fun, O Warden Mine.
Nalaagura slowly turned in place and locked her eyes on Rhenco, and without much more warning, she drew her swords from her ribcage, their blades already heated orange and red, and began stalking towards him, one porcelain foot at a time.
moe-lazyeye
Rhenco’s screech was piercing as his body twisted and fell from the trees, his tendons snapping before sparking with electricity to fuse back into his body. He pressed a hand to the tree behind him, one of his intestines flopping out of his cut before rapidly pulling itself back up into him, and the wound sealing shut.
He threw up blood, and through the gagging, his eyes met the Warden’s, and at the sight of her scorching blades, he remembered a distant memory. One which had been lost to him for years. A memory of being cut down by those very blades in the first battle of Ragnarok.
“shit…..”
aroleplayingcephalopod
The storm breaks overhead, sheets of rain cascading down and drumming into the earth. In moments, everyone is soaked through, though it doesn’t slow the Warden down.
Verdandi, rushing past Nala, doesn’t slow down either. “Enough of this,” she growls. “You are not hurting anyone else!” she screams at Rhenco. Mid-step, her eyes blaze gold, the light filling them as the torrential rain freezes in place. 
“I will not allow you to hurt another soul. Not even one belonging to a demon.” Her voice thrums with power, enough to match the new demon’s. She lashes out with the golden chain, the magic moving as though it’s an extension of herself. The chain wraps around Rhenco’s ankle, and as it does, it seems to burn right through him. 
Her power unfurls, and in the silence left behind the storm, a strange rushing sound travels up the chain and into Verthandi’s hand as she manipulates the seidr into pulling Rhenco’s essence from every timeline but this one – until the only life he has left is the one where Nalaagura Ep’ha is ready to tear him to pieces.
moe-lazyeye
Rhenco staggered at the sudden surge of power, and then he let out an agonized yell as light exploded from his eyes. The thoughts. The feelings. The minds. It was like pouring molten glass on a cracked mirror. Millions of lives, true, other lives ran through Rhenco’s mind. It was like friction against his brain, with heat so intense it began to evaporate. The strain even demon possession caused on a single, mortal body was great. 
Every shred of a human soul from every universe placed into one body was simply too much. It was too much for the single, broken shard to mentally process, and too much for his physical body to contain.   
Rhenco exploded in a ball of white, and the entire area was encased in it. A loud keening filled their ears, and as they blinked again the blinding light, they saw an odd form standing across from them. It was Rhenco…but he looked different. His clothes were strange, and symmetrically crafted, his form ethereal. He turned to face them, and then looked around as if wondering where the physical body had disappeared to. He then looked back up at them, his eyes milky as they jittered from side to side. “Leave me out of this….” He said, and then his form slowly faded. 
The light around them burst apart into millions of shards, and vanished as they shot off in every direction. Rhenco, the one they knew that is, reformed from literal atoms again. He looked…completely…and utterly…and beyond any hope of ever understanding, confused. He wasn’t even looking at them, the memories of millions of worlds still spinning behind his eyes. “I know what trucks are…” He said, as if he barely even registered that he was talking. 
[tw: some gore]
The doubling energies of the two demons plus the vibrant presence of the Norn caused the time-frozen rain droplets around Nala to shiver and hum. Her eyes were completely dead-set on Rhenco, and filled with a frigid aloofness like none had ever seen before.
You have one last trick, do you? she said, projecting her voice to everyone while she surrounded them with her consciousness as a hot, protective barrier. Heal this, then.
And Nala wound up her right arm and threw the blade forward in a pinwheeling blur, and with a ring and hiss of metal, the blade slashed right into his neck and upper chest, pinning him to the tree behind him and painting the snow with his blood. She approached with no hurry. She didn't care if he was beyond sanity or not.
When she towered above him, she tossed her other sword aside, and then she slowly lifted one of her feet and pressed it against Rhenco's chest, increasing the pressure of her ten-foot body until she heard his ribcage crunching and caving under her weight. With her face inches from his, she projected a shimmering feline snout over her mask, and it curled its fangs into a snarl.
This, she rumbled, is for thinking you needed to be anything more than a passing mortal breath. She lifted her foot, and allowed him his time to re-heal, before repeating the action, harder and faster this time.
This is for giving yourself the authority to take the innocence and love and lives of others.
Nala released him for a gasp of air before coming down again, this time grinding her heel into his flesh.
For Stonegit. Again. For Sven. Again. For Grey, and Malak, and Opie, and Farris, and Bhaem and Milae. For every name she listed off, it was punctured with another punishing blow. The bark behind him was soaked through by the time she stood back and took a grip on the hilt of her sword, shining with moisture in the cold storm.
And this is for even thinking of laying one finger on Liam and Kendra.
She tightened her hand around the saber, and then dragged it down through the center of his entire body, in the most rough, jagged, painful fashion she could muster. And then she flung the extra blood away from her blade in an arc and stepped back, kicking her second sword up into her hand and flourishing both in a maneuver only learned by her from a certain king she once knew.
moe-lazyeye
Pain.
Blinding.
Unrelenting. 
Confusing. 
The hissing gargles that emitted from Rhenco’s mouth substituted the screams that his lungs and mind demanded that he sound. For five centuries, Rhenco had made pain a source of his pleasure. Peeled skin, cuts, gouges, they had all given him a sadistic thrill. 
But that was gone now. Nala’s essence had burned away more than just his recipes and spell-craft. It had taken his tolerance as well. Now the pain was as sharp and as real as if he were a child experiencing it for the first time.
And his mind broke along with his ribs.
Surges of electricity exploded from his injuries as he was stitched back up. His legs flailed as he back arched on the ground, and scream finally ripping from his lungs. The sound was awful. It was humiliating. It hurt.
He held his middle as if to prevent himself from being harmed again as he looked up at Nala as he slowly stood up. He staggered and dropped to his knees, dry retching into the snow. “Hurt...” He gasped, his voice like a cord pulled taunt. “That hurt...” His vision blurred as his body tried to force him to throw up again. 
There were no more thoughts. There were no more feelings. It was all words now, bare, and ugly. “This can’t happen...I don’t know how to handle this...!” He looked up, his eyes wild as his eyes latched onto the distant half breed. Rhenco staggered to his feet, his neck stretched out as his teeth barred. “Milae!” He screamed, as another pulse of red, snapping electric shot away from his feet. “You can’t let this happen! I’m the only thing you wouldn’t have to protect! I’m the reason you would never be alone! NO MATTER THE TURN OF THE UNIVERSE YOU WON’T GET RID OF ME!”
foresight-botgd
Milae tilted his head up from under his hood. For some reason, he looked twice as hollow than usual, extremely world-weary and sunken-eyed. But he still felt some amount of grim satisfaction staring at Rhenco’s broken, screaming figure, along with a creeping sense of dull discontent. I overreacted. 
“You are the reason I made my last mistake,” he said quietly, “and thus, the reason I was alone for three centuries. Get. Away. From me. And don’t you dare come near mine or any other Dario in existence ever again.”
moe-lazyeye
The name was like shattering glass to his psyche. His hands came away from his face. “Dario...” He said with his shoulders heaving. “Dario!?”
He straightened up as high as he could stand, his arms spreading as he let out a yell. The crackling power laced around his fingers, and he shoved one arm out so that the electricity surged through Nala’s porcelain form, and his other arm shot out towards Liam and Verdandi. Despite his aggressive targeting, his eyes stayed locked on Milae. “I loath Dario!” His pupils shrank further into his eyes as his teeth gnashed. “If I knew Milae! If I had known! I would have tore his head from his shoulders in every time, of every universe!”
Rhenco shoved himself forward, his body momentarily forgetting the trauma it had just endured at the Warden’s crushing foot. He practically crawled across the grass, his one arm stretching out. “You won’t go back to him!”   
foresight-botgd
Like he was injected with adrenaline, Milae straightened, picked his staff up where the butt of it rested on the ground and spun it in front of him with both hands, and his scars glowed fiercely and lit up the area as strong as a wildfire, contrasting with the Warden’s and the Pariah’s scarlet and Verdandi’s gold. Lines of aquamarine fire blasted outward from him across the grass into a massive web of wyrd with him at the center, and as its borders passed his allies, they were protected from Rhenco’s energy as though an invisible bubble surrounded them.
Milae advanced with his weapon by his side. His eyes were gleaming in the light of his own magic. “Do not filth his name with your disgusting mouth again. He will never know the likes of you, and I will die a hundred more times to make it so. I dare you to stop me.”
Behind him, there were two distinct rustling sounds, and two sets of footsteps walking through the grass towards the fight. They were tall, armored and winged women that nearly rivaled Nalaagura in height. Their power was palpable and almost burning as they walked up on either side of Milae, dwarfing him. The black-winged lady carried a huge, obsidian and gold scythe, and the other with feathers of white carried a two-pronged polearm of unusual shape, and both of them stared down at Rhenco, and then even further past him, at the girl standing next to Liam. All three of their gazes met in a soundless understanding. Sister.
Then, after taking in the scene, they both raised a free hand, and the seal on the ground pulsed, and it tossed Rhenco off his feet several feet away from Nala and Liam and Verdandi, into the edge of the clearing.
moe-lazyeye
The advancing rebels were bearing down on the scene of the fight. Their adrenaline was high as the peril of the situation was known to them. They wondered when their first glimpse of the grim scene would be.
Their answer came a little quicker than they expected. 
Grey had just set her eyes to the edge of the clearing, when a body flew by her at blinding speed. For a split second, as if he had frozen in the air, she caught a glimpse of Rhenco’s face, mouth open in a scream of shock, before he shot past her.
Rhenco’s body struck a nearby boulder sticking out of the ground. The shattering of his spine could be heard clear across the area as the force of being hurled had been so great that his arms popped out of their sockets and his neck dislodged oddly to the side. 
As the cracks of his splintered skull slowly fused back together, Rhenco rolled forward off the rock and stood unsteadily on his feet. The electricity was less dynamic now, and his healing much slowly. With blood seeping from his eyes he looked up at the rebels. 
“So where’s Sven?”
lbigreyhound13
Grey once again saw red at the edges of her vision. Yet, it didn’t show on her face. Perhaps, it was because she just saved her youngest Kari from a Night Fury looking to kill her only to know become face-to-face with the madman who kidnapped her eldest son, imprisoned him, and threatened him. Both she and Brandt were done...done with their children being threatened. 
She grabbed him by the collar of his robe...brought him down to her level so that they were staring into each other’s eyes. “You targeted the Rebellion...targeted me...the leader of this Rebellion...the very Rebellion that Haddock and I worked our butts off to lead,” she sneered with the hardest glare she could muster up, “and instead of facing me...like a man, you target an innocent 17-year-old boy...who did nothing to you. You’re not a man...you’re a coward...”
She remembered Hel’s words...
“You are finding out more and more about how to be rid yourself of him each time you encounter him. How many more times do you think he’ll get away with what he is doing before it all falls out from under him?”
“His arrogance displeases me greatly.“
“You want to go first, or should I?” Grey asked aloud. 
“You first,” Brandt said. “Our son will want to know that his mother threw the first punch.”
“Thank you, sweetheart,” Grey said with a smirk. She brought her hand back and punched Rhenco in the stomach. “You will never go near our son...or our daughters again.”
“No matter how hard you try,” Brandt said coolly as he brought his knee into his stomach, “we will be there...protecting them.”
“Take either of them...and we won’t care,” Grey said pushing him down to the ground. She went to grab her sword...but stopped. 
“If the sword did not work against the man…then quit trying to use the sword.”
She then saw a wooden stick at her foot. She grabbed it and held it to Shadow, who ignited it with a single plasma blast. There was a single flame, and she looked down at Rhenco. Brandt grabbed it holding her hand guiding it down to his chest.
“Mess with a mama bear’s cubs,” Grey said. “The claws...come out.”
moe-lazyeye
Rhenco’s leg shot out as his rob ignited and he swiped a hand across at them as he tried to wave them away. “No! Get that away from me! Fuck nO! AhAia-!”
The flaming shaft of the stick pressed into his chest and red sparks flew out from the spreading injury. He eventually turned over and lunged himself across the ground into the mud and snow as he rolled to put out the flames. He staggered to his feet, enough sense coming to him to seek an escape route. 
His eyes fearfully snapped up in the direction he knew the Warden and the other unworldly beings to being. His heel began to turn, but shame filled his body. Shame. And fear. And not just the fear of the demon. But the fear of doing something that he did not know. 
For centuries. He had never had to run. And so he suddenly found himself standing still, despite the immanent danger that surrounded him. 
hubwalker1
Deo sighed and walked forward, having followed behind the group, until she stood a few feet away from him. "Ah do not regret the loss of yer life here today Rhenco. Ye were a monster who did what he wanted because he could, wit' no regards for morals ethics, or life. Ah do regret the loss of what ye could have been, had ye not chosen to be what ye are. Ye had such talent fer alchemy and ye could have accomplished great things wit' it. But instead ye twisted it and made it dark and perverse just like you. Now look at ye." She sighs and shakes her head in dismay. "Ah hope ye find satisfaction in yer next life Rhenco, ah truly do. Assuming the all mother is merciful enough teh grant ye the chance." With that she turned and began to walk away.
moe-lazyeye
“W...what...” Rhenco breathed raggedly. His head swam, his thoughts scrambled. Like the physical pain, the words confused him. In every way he had lived, it had ended with people hating him, and abruptly killing him out of sheer, wretched desperation. To suddenly be physically torn asunder, and address in a way to broke what he knew, it sent his mind into a tail spin. 
But he saw something familiar, and his hand reached out to grab Deo’s shoulder. He starred at her with wide, and lost eyes. “I don’t know any more....” He breathed, and even as he spoke, his finger nails began to curl into her skin.  
lbigreyhound13
Brandt rushed in and grabbed Rhenco’s wrist taking it away from Deo’s wrist, and he forced him to the ground. He quickly stepped on Rhenco’s wrist holding him in place pressing down...hard. 
“He doesn’t deserve any of it,” he sneered, “not after what he did to our boy.”
Grey glared. “Hel will deal with him as she deems necessary,” she glared as she knelt down next to Rhenco placing her hand on his throat. “For now...I think we rebels need to teach him...not to mess with us...to fear us.” She dug his nails into his skin. The rage coursed through her body as she stared at the madman..the pathetic man, who kidnapped Sven. “You’re done...”
hubwalker1
As her fingers and nails sunk into the man's throat they are suddenly engulfed in purple flaming plasma, and while it certainly hurt Rhenco it didn't seem to affect the chief. "Ah." The Changling muttered. "Shit."
lbigreyhound13
Barely noticing the purple plasma, Grey brought up her fist and brought it down Rhenco’s face...and punched him...again...again...again. All she could think about was Sven alone in that hotel with a man who would betray him...calling out to her and Brandt...his parents...him screaming from his nightmares...her having nightmares of failing her baby boy. Tears formed in her eyes, and she barely ignored the pain in her right hand as she continued to punch him. 
The Chief screamed as she brought it up again and punched one more time in the nose before standing up allowing her husband to have a chance. This was their chance to show Rhenco what would happen if he messed with their kids, and Brandt took it. He kicked Rhenco in the stomach and punched him in the face as well...again...and again...and again. 
moe-lazyeye
Rhenco’s hands initially reached up to grasp and scrambled with their wrists as he was attacked. The strikes felt muted in their fever of anger and surging adrenaline. The strikes would have been brutal enough, but the added fire and power from the Changling only added to it. 
The sounds went from thuds, to cracks, to splitting as Rhenco felt the bones around his eyes snap and his nose get crushed into itself. His body bucked up as his stomach was once again slammed into, and then snapped back down as his face was struck again.
He was then forcefully rolled over as Brandt put a heel into his face, and through the haze they saw his jaw hanging from only one half of his face. Blood poured from him like water out of a jar, as the electricity seemed to stretch itself beyond its means to hold him together. Light patters began to show on his arms.
hookedhookless
Firkugaan gave the warden a small, friendly nudge before setting his sights on Rhenco. He gave the man some time to heal, wanting the feeling of fresh blood. This gave himself enough time to gather his focus and increase his size. His dust, seemingly if it's own accord, quickly surrounded them, spinning as though the group was in the midst of a hurricane. His darkness could be seen everywhere, specks of purple light filled their Arena like lightningbugs. Small clouds escaped his mouth like breath on a cool winters day. The cracks in his wings pulsed in an almost hypnotic, heartbeat pattern.
His wingarm stretched out as if to grab the man, whereupon he began to move, pulled towards the demon by the dust. He gripped Rhenco, squeezing until he felt the familiar snapping of bones. The demon dropped the man to the floor. Standing his weight on his legs as his mouth gripped the man's chest, his demonic energy boring in as his teeth tightened. He began to pull his head back, slowly rending the man in two. Though normally he would this this gratuitous, he wanted Rhenco to suffer, for all the lives that were left in fear of him, for the months, if not years, of unrest he had caused. He nimbly spun the man around so his head would be outside The Arbiters mouth. He slammed Rhenco into the ground a few times, ending with one final, powerful hit that left cracks in the ground. Months worth of negative energy, fear, anger, hatred, sorrow, all soaked in from haligan, was finally getting released.
moe-lazyeye
The world momentarily stopped for the alchemist as he lay in the human sized crater. Rain speckled his face and mixed with the blood. Finally. He could think without speaking. Probsbly because his brain was still being reformed and his tongue was pulled itself out from the back of his throat. But thoughts drifted through his mind all the same.
How do I run….?
I dont know how…to get away…
My mask…its gone…who…what is left?
He slowly rolled over as his bones lazily pushed themselves back into place. An eye, which had been closer to his nose that his socket, shifted back to where it needed to be as his caved in face corrected itself.
I’ve been screaming…I’ve been saying no…
I’m been telling them to stop…I just realized it…how could this have happened?
They told me to stop…they couldn’t have been feeling this…I dont want to think of what it was like for them…
Rhenco coughed and shifted onto his hands and knees as the rebels stood around him. His forehead pressed into the mud as the rain caused patterns of blood to decorate his hunched form. “Milae…” he said again, as his fingers gripped into the soil. “Please…”
The last word was almost a whisper. Rhenco lifted his weary head as thunder rumbled over the hills. For once his eyes had life to them. A confused life, one that didnt know what it wanted, one that only knew very few things for a terribly long time, and now had no other recourse. “I want…I…I want…”
His shoulders began to heave as his breathing became uneven, and his eyes flickered with fear as he realized he didnt know what to say. Had no means to articulate what he felt. Lost.
“Please…” he said again.
The deer could make out some horrific sounds emanating just ways away from the two. It sent a chill down his spine; the fear of the unknown ruled his thoughts, even with the synopsis previously given to him by Milae. The stories he was told of Rhenco, most notably his crimes brought up during his altercation with the goat, did not paint a kind picture.
“I… see.” He tapped his fingers against one another in a rapid motion. Curiosity told him to instigate the issue further, but self-preservation was desperately trying to take over control. “Well, you understand the dangers of him better than most. Is he down for good?”
foresight-botgd
“He will be. He killed me several dozens of times in the past. We are returning the favor.” He steeled his jaw and held Dario’s hands tightly. “If you wish, we can leave the Rebellion to it. He is a pitiful mess right now.”
dario-the-deer
He was giving Dario an out – a chance to spare deer the graphic horror of what transpired. With the events of the day, it almost seemed like mercy. His instincts as prey overwhelmed his thoughts, nearly begging him to accept the grace if ignorance… however, he couldn’t forgive himself if he sidelined his potential.
“…I have to go. I need to be there, in case… I can be of use to someone.”
foresight-botgd
“They would be grateful to have you. They should be.” 
Milae carefully led him to the site of Rhenco’s punishment, as the battered man looked up and begged from the goat.
“Please…”
“What could you possibly want from me?” Milae said coldly. He could see the Norns out of the corner of his eye, and his anger was simmering again. “You are beyond help. Mercy is no longer mine to give.”
moe-lazyeye
“No…” Rhenco croaked as his one elbow buckled. The magic was now clearly struggling to try and patch over all of his injuries. “Not mercy…not…help…just…I…I…”
His shaking form turned so that his eyes rested on Dario. It was his first time really, truly seeing the stag, and in many ways he looked stunned at his appearance. “Dario….” He said in a tone that held far more familiarity than it should have. In many ways it was unreadable. But there was never the less a tense prickle of danger than ran through the area like static as he uttered the word. 
dario-the-deer
The way that Rhenco spoke seemed as if they’d known one another prior to this encounter, but Dario could safely say that he never interacted with this being shrouded in stories of horror. Milae’s talk of him couldn’t have prepared the stag to hear his name coming from Rhenco’s mouth.
“…do not speak to me.” He felt a temporary shake in his voice, but quickly corrected it. “I may not know of you, or what you have done to earn this punishment… but if those I love are united in opposition, I stand with them.”
moe-lazyeye
Rhenco crouched still. His breathing became harder…and harder. His finger jammed into the soft mud around him as he spat words of insanity from his lips. “You’re an ignorant, spineless, passing mortal breath undeserving of what’s in front of you!” He raised his head as rain streamed down his face, his eyes locked on Milae. “And you…I gave a promise! I would hurt someone, and I did, and then I would hurt many, and I did! And now, Yun MIlae! I will hurt everybody! I will take your timeline, I will take you!” 
He  then spread his hands as the scream that tore through his throat was so harsh, that blood flexed his lips. “This is the turn of the universe! I may not have much, but there is at least this!” 
His hand reached down and slapped the alchemic circle he had created, and it glowed once briefly. There was a rumble, and then a distant, muted explosion…
In the distance, rising up over the mountains and spreading over the sky, was a massive cloud of red. There was another burst closer to them to the east, and then a third, and final one, just in the forest behind them.
The clouds of red card mixed with the rain around them and fell over the area, and all those in it, like blood…
Rhenco slowly stood up, and starred wildly, and nearly expectantly at Milae. 
foresight-botgd
Do something!! Milae screamed inwardly, where he knew the Norns could hear him. But Urðr and Skuld merely watched, their weapons at rest, their movements idle.
Milae wanted to kill them.
The crimson rain steadily, slowly covered the forest in strips of liquid scarlet and crystal drops, and everyone around Milae turned to look at him as he slammed his staff into the ground, and several lashes of teal, amber and gold energy sizzled and flashed as they struck the ground, the trees, and even the rain, tracing bizarre patterns upwards into the sky. But it was still too late.
The Pariah, still hovering over the encounter with a watchful carmine glow, looked up at Milae, her bandaged eyes still somehow finding his through the glistening stillness that lay before them. His fur was already soaked through. He could feel the sickly sweetness crawling down his lungs, and his arms began to tremble, and he looked at Rhenco stalking towards them like a hungry predator, sure that he was about to fall to the same disease that inflicted so many before him. 
Milae waited.
And waited.
He grabbed Dario’s arm, not wanting to lose what had to be the final sensation he wanted to take in before–
The Warden slowly rose to her feet, holding her hands out to catch the thick, bloodlike rain in her palms. It is…void, she said in disbelief. It is nothing.
She was astonishingly right. Everyone stood around, blinking both in bemusement and horror as the rain soaked them, but did not affect them. Milae turned back to Rhenco, the energy lashing around him slowly dying away to several multicolored flickers across his scars.
“What an eventful turn of the universe,” Milae said dryly.
moe-lazyeye
Thunder rumbled over the hills as Rhenco stared wide eyed at them, his feet rooted to the ground. He lifted his hand in numb shock to his face, and saw the red running down his hands. His focus then shifted, and saw the Warden’s towering form just past his red stained hand. 
“No…” Rhenco said, and his time there was a crushed despair to the words. He turned his head to look back at the snow on the ground, and once again the vision flashed in his eyes. “No, no, no…” he staggered back a step as his hands came to his face.
The destruction the Warden had laid to his transmutations had severed his connection with the red card. None of his essence remained, none of his control. It was but dust in the wind now.   
The crackling electricity faded down into his arms, revealing a series of highly detailed tattoos of alchemist circles and recipes in his forearms.  
demon-in-the-dungeon
The Warden snatched his forearms, and Milae winced as he recognized a very familiar hold that she had used in the past to keep him from jumping timelines. I don’t think so, she rumbled.
moe-lazyeye
Rhenco gasped, and his knees bent as he attempted to pull away. He may as well have tried to pull his hands from hardened metal. “No…no! Let go! Let go! Ah-!”
He gave a cry as the felt the Warden’s foot plant down on his, the motion pinning his feet to the ground. The energy coursing through the demon was blazing, and his mouth slowly began to gape as he felt it beginning to burn. And then red electricity exploded around his shoulders as the Warden’s arm lifted up, and the tendons inside his arms stretched and snapped.
He screamed as the rest of his body struggled to get away, anything to get away. His cries became more frantic as the, formally, subdued magic seemingly burst into overdrive to keep up with the damage that was being done. “Let me go! You can’t! You-! A- AH-!” 
Rhenco’s words cut off into hitching gasps as the Warden’s energy turned her hands red hot in combination with the continued upward pressure she placed on his arms. “S-…s-! Stop! Stop it! You’re burning me! Please! This can’t-!”
He let out a strained, angry yell as his body hunched over, and his forehead pressed to the Warden’s middle, his forehead grinding into her porcelain. “Please don’t take this from me it’s all I have left!”
Then there was a final tear and snap, and Rhenco’s arms were pulled clean from his body. Energy erupted out of the sockets as the alchemist screamed and reeled away. He hit the snow face first and he writhed on the ground in agony. 
The electricity sparked for a few moments more, and then slowly died away, having healed the man just enough to close the recently vacated arm sockets. He turned on his back, his body jerking as his eyes starred up into the rain. His voice was much weaker now as he rambled. “don’t kill me…don’t-…I…don’t…”
There was a gust of wind across the trees, the pattering rain almost causing a ghostly whisper to roll across the field. 
‘leave him…’
hubwalker1
“Fine wit’ me.” Deo said. During all this she had retreated to the back of the group. As much as she hated to admit it, she felt guilty for all of this. He deserved it though… At least that’s what she kept telling herself. But it felt like… Like they weren’t any better than him. Like all this pain and suffering they were causing him, is something that Rhenco himself would do, and at the very least it made her sick to her stomach. “Ah’ll leave et wit’ you ma.” She says as she walks back towards the village.
lbigreyhound13
Grey breathed heavily as she held Brandt tightly. There was something about thinking that you’re about to be infected by Red Card and wanting to hold on to your husband for as long as possible before falling under Rhenco’s horrible disease…only to feel utter relief realizing that it didn’t work. She looked at Deoiridh as she headed back toward the village and then back at Hel.
“So…that’s…” Brandt began.
“Yup…that’s Hel…” Grey said. “Hel, what are you doing here?”
moe-lazyeye
There was no response though from the diety. Just the sound of the rain as it began to slowly clear away from the sky.
Rhenco had managed to sit up, and cracked an eye open as he saw the rebels beginning to disperse. His gaze flickered in confusion, momentary relief, and then a gradual fade into concern.
Everything was gone. Every last ounce of his power no longer existed. Down to even the most basic, simple transmutation. He was nothing more than a man now.
“W-wait…” he breathed as he shifted himself unsteadily to his feet, his balance greatly off in light if his missing arms. “No…you…where are you going?”
tree-the-cat
Milae shook his head and gently pulled on Dario’s hand, following Grey and Brandt back into the treeline. Liam, shivering slightly in the rain, reluctantly stepped back as Nala moved away as well, a hand outstretched in front of him. Let’s go.
“But–”
His mind was abruptly shunted backwards, and he looked up in shock at his caretaker, who looked away, seeming almost ashamed. He slowly reached a red-soaked paw up for her hand, and took it. “What did he do to you?”
Please, Liam.
The half-breed dropped his gaze down to glare at Rhenco, but having seen all the damage that was already done to him, he finally let it drop, and made to leave with Verdandi.
moe-lazyeye
An ever increasing look of panic began to fill Rhenco’s eyes as he watched. Why were they leaving? Why was Dario looking at Milae so…strangely…What was he going to do?
Rhenco looked back at the expanding land behind him and he suddenly felt very real fear. The concept of a life without his powers, a life of vulnerability and uncertainty terrified him. It was perhaps the most frightening concept he had faced in all the years of his life.
“I…” He said, and then looked down in dismay at his missing arms. “I can’t live like this…I…I don’t know how.”
He took a cautious half step forward but stopped, the threat of death still weighing over his head. “Demon?…Milae?…” he looked back again and the land before him swam in his, now, lightheaded vision. “Don’t make me go out there….”
foresight-botgd
Nala ignored him, but Milae paused, and tilted his head back towards Rhenco without fully looking at him.
“You deserve this.” There was little else he had said in his life that he truly meant more than those three words.
Dario heard Milae’s hollow words escape with aim at Rhenco, and the deer couldn’t help but look behind him to the helpless man as his partner pulled him along by the hand. There were so many emotions present, but one he hadn’t expected to feel was pity. Milae was right – he deserved this… but one thing was certain. Dario wouldn’t be forgetting Rhenco any time soon. None of them would forget this night for the foreseeable future.
hookedhookless
The Arbiter sat and watched, a small smile crossed his mind as he witnessed Hel. He reached and gave a gentle thought. Hello, mother. He stayed still and focused on calming himself. His dust returning slowly to his body, drawn to him by an invisible force.
lbigreyhound13
“I cannot tell you of a way to harm another child of mine. No matter how vile he may be.”
Those words rang through Grey’s memory as Milae stayed behind while she and Brandt led everyone back to the village. What Hel told her was true. She could not tell them how to harm a child of hers, but she would surely deal with him as she saw fit…a just punishment for the madman. 
“I think this will be the last we see of him,” Grey said to Brandt.
“Good, Hel can take care of it,” Brandt said wrapping an arm around his wife, “and we can focus on other things from now on.”
moe-lazyeye
Rhenco didnt realize how long he stood, frozen in place, as the rebels dispersed. He gave a light gasp as he came to his senses again. He looked back towards the woods, fields, towns, everything he never knew. He gave a shakey exhale, and took a single, light, step away from the rebellion.
It was like physical pain in his heart, but he began to walk anyway. A tear ran down his cheek that he at first didnt notice, and then another. He hissed air in through his teeth as he realized what was happening, and his shoulder moved to bring up an arm that no longer existed to brush at his eyes.
Rhenco gasped at the all too frequent, bitter reminder that his arms were gone, and gave a soft cry, and then a regular one.
His head and body hunched over and he cried. They were tears of fear as he walked into a dark unknown. They were frustration at how when it had all, truly counted, nothing had worked. It was bitterness at his own wasting of a life much longer than others. He felt hurt, by rejection, by the blows against him, by everything. All at once, he wasn’t so dead inside anymore, and he had left himself no recourse to deal with it.
foresight-botgd
As Milae and Dario walked, there was a sudden eddy of scarlet energy in front of them, and Milae came up short as a face formed in front of his. He grimly looked on the demon hovering before him, and squeezed Dario’s hand in comfort before greeting her with, “Pariah.”
Vessel. She crossed her arms, tapping a long talon on her forearm, which Milae saw was marked with scars mirroring his own. His eyes flicked over them as his thoughts moved rapidly. He also became aware that the Pariah was not using actual words to speak–she was using a mix of images, impressions and feelings that were abstract and difficult to follow, even for a demon. Our contract.
“It was broken, yes.”
She curled her lip. Of that, I know. The Pariah jerked a chin at the trees behind them. He loses, so I shall take it. Still. A heavy price was paid.
“What are you doing here?” he said, as he continued to walk with Dario in tow.
Made my way back here, no thanks to you. She dissolved into an amorphous cloud, following them as they talked. Here she is, minding her own business, back in the wasteland, when… Her mind imitated a ripping, tearing, painful sound, and her essence scattered into pieces in the trees as part of her re-enactment of past events. She re-formed and glared at him, her eyes still gone. My contract ruins me. And I escape my pain, and have no name, no voice, no time. I have seen everything. And now I see you.
Milae shook his head wearily. “Do you want an apology?”
I want… Her being buzzed, momentarily growing brighter. She was quiet until Milae spoke up again.
“Perhaps you should think on it,” he suggested.
I shall. The Pariah rolled over in the air, losing shape again. We will speak. Later.
Milae waved a hoof through her essence like it was a bad smell. “Go on.” 
The demon disappeared, and the two of them continued on their way home.
Category:BOTGD 2
Category:Events
Category:Act I
Category:Liam Arnason
Category:Verdandi Østergård
Category:The Warden
Category:Rhenco
Category:Verðandi
Category:Yun Milae
Category:Dario Hjort
Category:Grey Bergman
Category:Brandt Felman
Category:The Changeling
Category:The Pariah
Category:Deoiridh Tuathanach
Category:Hel (deity)