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Order of the Black Foot

Chapter 14: Meeting Her Match

Sponsored by TeryxC

By Draconicon

Day in, day out. Torture, rape, the machine, and back to his cell for a few hours. Then the cycle would start up again, interrupted only by the occasional check of whether he was still resisting. Teryx wasn't sure how long it went on, as the time between each of the different sessions varied, and he couldn't tell time when Joan was in charge. Days, though. It had to be days, or time had no meaning at all.

The dragon hung from the chains that held him against the wall as he recovered from the latest round, cum oozing slowly out of his ass from the latest fuck session. Joan continued to rage in his head, her control seeping down his arms to bunch them into fists and punch into the wall from time to time. He winced when she did that. It was hard enough to keep the pain down without her adding more.

Come on, Draconicon...come on...where are you...

He's not coming! He's not going to break through here for an idiot like you. Not when he has real concerns. Not when he should be out killing more paladins. Killing, burning, destroying...destroy them all...

Shut up...will you just...shut up...

She kept shouting, so the answer was obviously not. The dragon leaned forward, panting for breath as he tried to recover, tried to get what energy back that he could. He knew that it would only be so long until they came for him again, and despite having Joan to shield his mind, their body used the same energy. There was no way around that. If he didn't rest, she wouldn't have the stamina to keep shouting at everyone.

The dragon rested his head on his chest, focusing entirely on breathing in, breathing out, and repeating the process. In and out, in and out.

The metal around him pulsed slightly, as it did whenever he tried to reach out through the mark on his chest. He hoped that it was something like Draconicon reaching out for him, trying to get him, but he couldn't be sure. Without his magic, it was hard to be sure of anything. Joan didn't bother speaking to him about it. She didn't talk to him at all, these days, except to complain about what was going on, and about him.

But there had been that contact. One brief contact, on the first day. Draconicon had to be coming for him...he had to be.

Please...don't leave me here...don't leave me in hell...

The door opened. He looked up, saw the wolf, and barely suppressed a shudder down his spine.

"You...what do you want?"

"I'm checking on you. As usual."

The wolf reached up, forcing him to lift his head, look the canine in the eye. The paladin looked more and more like he wanted to end the experiment, these days, like the wolf wanted to put him to the sword and be done with this. There were days when Teryx almost wished for the same thing.

As the wolf checked him over, looking at his rope burns on his wrists and other injuries, Teryx slipped back into his head again. The quiet of the cell all too often left him with little choice but to look through his memories, and those memories...well, they weren't quiet.

Blood, everywhere. The blood of paladins, yes, but so much of it. So many of them dead, strewn about around him from the magic that Joan had forced him to use. They fell by the dozens at his hand, and there was nothing he had done to stop it.

There was nothing I could have done, he tried to tell himself, but it meant little. He had still done it. His body had carried out the dozens of executions, hundreds of them, breaking down the paladins until there was nothing left of their bodies but the paste of their pulverized flesh and the puddles of blood that spread all over the ground. Their armor had done nothing against the magic that Joan had pulled in from her captives and the Black Foot network. She had ripped through them like paper, until they'd burned out.

He shivered, thinking of the blood that had dripped from his hands and down his legs as he'd been made to wade through the bodies - literally - for Joan's satisfaction. She had made him kneel among them, punching faces already dead, venting her hatred for them before looking for the survivors, and dragging them beneath the ground to join her store of batteries. There was nothing that he had been able to do to stop her. He couldn't stop thinking of it, of the chaos and carnage that she had made him do.

And how...how would the Order see him now? As a victim? No, doubtlessly there were too many that would see him as a hero, as someone that had struck a blow against the paladins that they would never forget.

They can't think of me that way...please...no...anything but that...

We killed them. I killed them. We burned them to the ground, and showed them the consequences of their ways. I killed them. You will not take the credit from me! You will not take my revenge from me.

Have it. Have your damn revenge. I didn't want this. I didn't want this.

The wolf finally stopped tugging on his head and his arms, and took a step back, shaking his head a few times.

"You're wearing down. At this rate, I don't know if you'll even be worth sending back to the Order. Even as a spy..."

"You...know I won't break..."

"The other you, perhaps, will. But you...no. You won't, will you?"

Teryx slowly shook his head. He hated what he had become, he hated what he had done, but he would not turn against his fellow mages. That was not an option. It never had been.

The wolf slowly unsheathed his sword. The sound of the metal scraping against the edge of its sheath sent another shiver done his spine, and he would have pulled back if he possibly could. The paladin held it up, the edge of the blade against the dragon's neck.

"There's no point in keeping you around. The Inquisitors will have my head for it, but I will not allow one of the mages to live. I will not allow one of you to think that you can earn your way into the Shining One's graces while half of you is still consumed with darkness."

It's not the half you're thinking of...

Joan finally stopped shouting in the back of his head, and he felt her lunging forward. He fought her, pushed against her force, but she was still too strong. Her presence forced him back to the rear of his head, and he could only watch through his eyes as she started grunting, opening his mouth to speak to the paladin.

"You'd give up the only chance you'd have against that dragon? Kill the only one that can match him for power?"

"The Shining One permits no mage to live. They may serve a purpose for a short time, but they will die in the end. The power of any magic user is too dangerous to be allowed out in the world. You, dragon, are proof of that."

Was he? He was starting to wonder. Even with Joan running him, it had been her using his power and abilities, as well as what she had brought in for herself, that had wrecked the world and drowned so many in death. The power of magic was beyond anything that another mortal could summon. Was it...was it wrong, for people to be afraid?

The blade lifted up, Joan shouting something, and the dragon braced himself for death.

The whistle of the sword filled his ears...and then stopped. Not in the way of hitting something, but just stopping. Slowly, he let himself look out through his possessed eyes once more.

Hovering in front of him, straining against a black wall of fire, was the paladin's sword. It strained and pushed, but it couldn't get through. Past him, in the doorway of the cell, was one person he knew, and one person he didn't. A dragon, and a cat. A cat with a hat that was eating someone, but a cat.

Who...how...

He FUCKING came?! What do you mean to him that he'd invade a stronghold to find you? Even after we've done what we've done, he still fucking came?!

He didn't know, and he didn't care. All that mattered to Teryx was that he wasn't going to die this day, and he didn't know if that hurt him or soothed him.

The wolf gave up on the sword, but too late. Even as he whipped around, trying to strike out at the mages, Draconicon was upon him. The black dragon ripped into the wolf with a fury, and even Joan shut up as claws and magic ripped the wolf in two, throwing him to opposite sides of the room. It was such a display of power and temper that the two-toned blue dragon was rendered utterly speechless.

Then, the bloody claws of the black dragon were on his restraints, pulling him free. Teryx collapsed into his arms, unable to even walk as he was carried out of the room.

"Cherri! Are we clear?"

"Clear as we're going to get," the cat shouted. "How the hell did you even do that?"

"Questions later. Grab on!"

Teryx didn't know what was going on, but he felt the familiar tingling sensations of magic wrapping around him. Teleportation, if he didn't miss his guess. He smiled slightly as he slipped away. He was getting out.

#

He woke up...well, who knew how much later, the rain dragon on his back in the middle of a circle of light. His throat hurt, and he groaned as he tried to speak.

Almost immediately, Draconicon was leaning over him, and a cup of water was pressed to his lips.

"Don't try talking right now. Joan's been shouting our ears off for the last three hours, and she's probably done a number on your throat."

He nodded, slowly sipping at the water instead. The cool liquid running down his throat was a hundred times better than the lukewarm stuff that they'd kept him alive on in the prison, and better by far than the times that Joan had spat it out. It was almost like lifting his head to the sky and being given the rain as a gift, and he wasn't about to turn it down.

Drinking several mouthfuls before he gestured for the dragon to take it away, Teryx looked at himself, taking in his current predicament. He was staked out, his arms and legs tied down to the edges of a circle of magic light, and he could see that he had been here for a while. Or at least, it felt like it. The magic felt...strange, different than anything that he had worked with before, and he looked up, cocking his head to the side.

"This isn't my magic," Draconicon explained. "This is Cherri. The cat you probably saw when we rescued you."

He nodded.

"She's a witch. Someone who's very good with spirit-based magic. She's going to get Joan out of you, and bind her properly."

The thought of finally having the bitch out of him was a relief in and of itself. Yet, at the same time, he could feel her stirring, feel her screaming inside of him in sheerest rage. He winced, and Draconicon patted him on the shoulder.

"She's angry, we know. She made that very, very clear while she was still the one in charge."

"How...long..."

"The ritual should only take a few minutes when we start. Cherri's just getting the last of it ready. Right, Cherri?"

"She's busy concentrating at the moment, dragon. I would suggest you do not bother her, unless you want to - BURP!"

"...what...what was..."

"That was, um, Brim. Cherri's hat."

"...It was...a hat?"

"There's talking hats in this world, yes. And more than that, besides. Many strange things can happen with magic, as we both know."

"Yes, and stranger things can go wrong with it if you are going to insist on being distracting."

"Yes, yes, I know. I'll be quiet."

Teryx wished that the big black dragon wouldn't. He wanted to know more about what was going on. How they had found him, how this would get Joan out of him. He wanted to know how the plans had changed, what was happening with the Order.

He wanted to know...he wanted to know that the world was still okay.

But that would have to wait. All that he got was silence, save for Joan's wordless raging inside of him, her battering at the sides of his psyche, at the mark in his chest, at everything in him in her attempts to get away. She shrieked for release, for him to talk to her, for him to let her stay inside of him.

Teryx ignored it all. She had done this, and she would suffer the consequences for it.

Minutes passed by, and soon, the cat returned with something in her hands. A bowl of some sort, with a black goo inside. In addition, the hat was somehow sticking out a tongue, and it carried a blue rock on it. Draconicon pointed to it, and Cherri shrugged.

"Brim insists that we have something on hand to seal her in."

"He's right."

"Really? I thought that we could just let her run off into the afterlife."

"Not so easy, when she's doing everything to hang onto life."

"Hmmm, good point. Most of them just want to die, but if they don't want to go on just yet, they are a bugger to get rid of."

"Yeah, that's why I haven't done it yet."

Cherri arched an eyebrow, and so did Teryx, for that matter, the pair of them staring at the black dragon. Draconicon rubbed the back of his head.

"Okay, there is more to it than that, but for now, let's just get her out of him. This has gone on for too long."

"There, I'll agree, big guy."

She started by dragging the goo around his body with a finger, drawing different symbols on his arms and legs. She drenched his belly in the darkness, and almost wrapped his sides in it. Everything seemed to coalesce towards the footprint on his chest, emphasizing it, making it appear even bigger in comparison to all the other things on him.

Then, the hat laid the stone on it. It was just big enough to feel heavy, but not enough to push the air out of his lungs. Instead, he stared down at it, watching it glimmer, and felt...felt something like a suction, like the stone was pulling at his chest, dragging something up and out of him.

The witch started chanting, her hands waving over him with light at her fingertips. Her eyes went from gold to green, and she seemed to become someone entirely different from what she had been.

"D-Drac?"

"She's channeling the power of the hat she's wearing," Draconicon explained. "Or, perhaps, better to say that Brim is taking over, and doing it for her."

It was a terrifying thought, that his fate was in the hands of a hat, but there was no going back on it now. He had to go through with it, and hope for the best. He just prayed that she wouldn't make a mistake, and drag him out instead of Joan.

That didn't seem to be happening, though. Every word seemed to make Joan shriek in his head all the louder, and as the chant went on, the symbols that she'd drawn on his scales started to glow, turning from black to green, and brightly so, at that. Emerald lines ran from his shoulders to his belly, and then back up again. The circle around the footprint on his chest burned brighter than ever, and he heard Joan shriek as she tried to escape through the 'hole' that was left between the footprint and the witch's runes.

It's burning me! You can't...you can't take me! I have to finish this! I have to kill them all!

You have to give up, Joan. You're dead. You can't keep doing this. You have to give up, eventually.

I'll never give up! Not until they're all dead. You won't kill them, he won't, nobody will kill them and burn them to the ground. No one will end them the way that I can, the way that I need them gone.

And that...that is why...you have to die.

He pushed from inside, what mental strength he had going against the mouse's spirit inside of him. She screamed at him, clawing at him with everything she had, and he felt it scraping at his mind, at his soul, at his heart. Everything she could reach, she tried to hurt, but he kept pushing regardless, knowing that the alternative of keeping her inside of him was worse than that.

All the while, the witch kept chanting, and bit by bit, he felt her spirit draining out of him.

The stone started to glow as he felt the first bit of the mouse's soul leaving his body. It went from a deep, dark blue to a lighter sapphire, and continued to brighten as it was filled. As the first part of Joan's ghost left him, he felt...open again. No longer so inflamed, so tight with her rage. He could breathe again, without feeling like such a weight was on him.

No! You won't do this to me! I won't let you!

She grabbed for him, but he had pulled himself back. He let his consciousness rest in the very back of his head, far from her grasping hands. She wouldn't drag him out with her. She wouldn't turn his body into some sort of lifeless, mindless husk just so she could get her revenge.

He watched, blankly, as the gem filled with her presence, and when the silence finally came, and she was gone...he cried.

He cried, in sheer relief. It was done.

#

Cherri left after the ritual, giving Draconicon some message about where to find her for his end of the deal, and he promised that he would be there. Teryx didn't hear it, having gone to the edge of their little camp - somewhere in the woods, who knew precisely where - to think for a moment.

Joan was gone, but so was his magic. He'd half-hoped that it would return with her departure, but he was still as empty of it as any normal person would have been. The dragon sat at the edge of a river, looking into the water as he considered it.

He wanted to cry, but at the same time, he felt...relieved, in a way. The sheer pain that he'd been able to inflict on others was beyond anything that he'd ever wanted to do. The blood on his hands, even at Joan's orders, was something that he would never be able to wash away.

He looked at his fingers, and momentarily saw them as crimson rather than the blue they were. It took everything he had to not shove them in the river, desperately trying to scrub them clean.

What...what do I do? he wondered, looking down at himself. The mark on his chest was back to black, was solid and full and as strong as it ever was. He could feel the people in the network again, could feel the Order in its entirety, and this time, there was a difference to it. There was no overlying...heaviness, no rage that echoed on the edges of it. Yes, there was the pain that everyone had suffered, the reasons that everyone had come to the Order rather than keeping to the edges of the world during this conflict, but Joan's rage was no longer there.

Yet, still, he felt wrong.

What do I do? I'm not a mage, anymore...I don't have magic. And I'm not going to pick up a sword...

He looked down at the water again, looking at his reflection. Bruised, scarred, and so much more tired than he had been all that time back. On the mountainside, he'd thought himself wise in the way of the world, someone enlightened enough to stay out of the conflict. Yet, he'd been dragged in by the scruff of his neck, and even convinced others to stay. Others to join.

Teryx shook his head.

I'm not...I can't do this anymore.

"You can...but I won't make you."

He looked over his shoulder, seeing Draconicon walk over. The black dragon sat beside him, snapping his fingers and pulling a robe out of space. It was a welcome relief to the blue dragon, after spending so much time naked, in prison, being...ogled...and other things. Draconicon continued.

"I'm not Joan. I meant the mark as a means of protection. Not as a means of forcing people into things, but a way of stopping people from betraying us. I won't force you to keep fighting for me...but I can't let you leave. Not yet. You can stay in the camp, help that way..."

"I never wanted to join."

"I never wanted to fight a war. But if we want to survive, what else can we do?"

"...I don't know, but there's gotta be something better than this."

"If you can think of it, Teryx, I'm all ears. I really am."

The End