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Balance of Power

The final part of a commission for Pipfox.

Part3: Unleashed Understandings.

I was. I am. Thy will be done, O god among the living.

How had he forgotten?

Lord Joshua. The "lord" had simply been an honorific. Josh felt the memories flooding him, choking him, too much to take in anything save the most prominent thoughts. The word men had given him was "god", and he had let it pass, for by definitions, yes, that was about accurate. He could not think, he could not breathe through the burning thoughts. He was simply one who had power enough. And such power he had. He remembered those early days in realities, playing with worlds, raising mountains and levelling oceans, forming solar systems for the sheer joy of the clockwork within them. Where he had come from originally... how could that possibly be known? Where had creation itself come from?

But then it began to spread, slowly and yet surely. "Life". Little creatures, unable to travel or even see the universes as he did: registering in the Void, and yet blind to it. They knew only their physical world. They could not manipulate the enrgies of it. They died when their mortal shell died. They were so weak...

...and yet, they had so much drive. In a few short centuries, more was done than he could have possibly imagined.

It took aeons, but life started to flourish in every universe. Every single one. And with life, without exception, there came slowly and yet surely, sentience and then... sapience.

They could think.

And he had looked upon these creatures, and thought it good.

They were so fascinating - every bit as complex and depth-filled as he was, and yet so weak and innocent. Their world could hurt them just as it could bless them. Seeds they were, tossed upon the eternal winds of the universe.

He had no name in those days, but he had thought. And he thought: he wanted to help them. These little ones. These creatures of so much potential.

It began with slightly less-than-perfect results. The youngling tribe he had helped in a nomadic migration by flattening an entire mountain in their path had... been less than overjoyed by the planet-quaking change. Of course not: he realised immediately: to them, it was simply more of their nature playing terrible and vast games. He needed to approach them on their own terms, in their own world.

Josh had gained his body then - trying to make it as kindly, as gentle, as non-fearful as he could. He had always enjoyed the litheness and softness thick-furred vulpine denizens of the world he entered now, and it seemed appropriate. A fox, an arctic fox, eyes of gold and violet, purple cresting his chest, who walked a few inches above the snow, and looked into your soul. Who tore fallen trees apart, and moved faster than the wind itself, and reshaped the world - and all to help you.

...He had not considered the reaction this would create either, but could not deny a guilty pleasure at it. A new word joined the people's language: God. And another joined his: worship.

It was addictive. He began to flit across universes, aiding where he saw fit, delighting as his little ones - always the name for them, always and ever - went above what he might have imagined again and again. Civilizations began to rise, and in each one Joshua - by then, he had grown fond of the name - was revered... and worshipped.

And it was glorious. He was -

- alive.

The fox groaned, hunching up with a feeble whimper, his body aching all over. . "G... Goldie? Wh-what was... what was that?"

Slowly, his friend cocked his head, and with movement, Josh realised that the gryphon's smile was not the usual benevolent smirk. There was something - a twitch of the beak, a set of the colossal skull -which removed the kindness and playfulness, and left only cruelty. The vulpine swallowed as that low, silky voice breathed Goldeneye's reply. "What was that? Well, firstly, Josh, let me ask you a question."

The vulpine shivered, nervous and suddenly, uncharacteristically fearful. "I-I... yes?"

"You disobeyed me. Didn't you?"

"I..." Josh frowned. "Now, hang on. "Disobeyed" is a bit of a strong word! I didn't do as y-"

Without so much as a movement, he was in the air again. Josh squealed in alarm, flailing helplessly as the horizon revolved over and over, a hard ground rushing towards him so fast that he just had time to think wait, he's going to change me again and stop it -

WHAM.

-hurting...

He hadn't.

Josh tried to scream, but the impact had driven every ounce of breath from his lungs. He could only shiver feebly, hunched over in the dirt, head ringing and entire body aching from the force. "G... goldie... ah... I'm s... sorry... I didn't..."

"Don't apologise." The vulpine's words were cut off as a single claw hooked around his arm, flipping him over with ease. Josh's skull smacked into the ground once more, provoking a sharp yelp of pain. Bleary and scared, he looked up to see those ebony talons, mere inches from his nose. Squeaking in terror, the vulpine scrambled back, but Goldeneye was so much faster. The same claw slammed down on his torso, slowly dragging his wriggling form back to the gryphon. Trembling, Josh looked up to see the same merciless grin, the one which had tormented him so much before.

"Ssh, little fox. No running. Now...ah-ah, don't you dare!" he cut across the disorientated protest with a flex of his claws, crushing his small vulpine into the dirt. "Good. Now... Josh, you don't need to apologise. Maybe a few minutes ago, I would have done anything but thanked you kindly for it... but now, I'm glad you did what you did."

Still trying to quell the memories inside his brain, the fox closed his eyes. "Wh-what? What d-did I do?"

"Simple. So very simple. You remember," he sat down, still trapping Josh beneath a claw, "how, all those long, happy months ago, I was going to torture and kill you, and you stopped me by being gentle, by being kind and honest?"

"I...y- yes?"

"Well..." the gryphon grinned. "It happened again. When you touched that ring, you broke it. Not permanently - the change would have only lasted for an infinitely small amount of time, but it was enough. You see, you're the outlet. You're where all this -" he waggled the thing, and Josh could not help but notice that the scaly flesh around it was indisputably charred - "comes from. And that means you have a powerful hold over it."

The vulpine nodded slowly, cautiously. "I... I see..."

"Good. Now, the thing is that while this ring begins and ends at you, I'm the one who controls it. I am its master." He chuckled at the fox's protesting mumble, seemingly oblivious to the blackened skin of the ring-bearing claw. "No, I am, foxie. It's indisputable - you willingly passed on control of it to me. But this gives it a conundrum. It was meant to be controlled by you - you and no-one else." He sighed wistfully, watching the sparkle as his captive squirmed feebly beneath him. "And what happened when you touched it was... you divided it. The true master, and the current master. Too much to handle. It cracked, Joshua, the shell which holds the power cracked. You and me were both hit by the discharge. In your head now lies a fraction of the memories and the power you once had. And in mine... well, in mine, the structure was unbalanced. And so I restructured."

Josh blinked. "So... I've got some of the memories? Then that... that thing I just... remembered... that was m-me? I was that... that god creature?"

"Indeed..." Goldeneye smiled, mismatched eyes staring intently at him. Somehow, the vulpine could sense that he was looking inside his captive's head once more, watching the new thoughts cavort within their bewildered host's head. "You'll be learning more, Josh. More about both of us. For a start..." without a second of warning, the fox was sent flying once more, hitting the ground with a choked wail of pain. This time, it was the same warm, firm softness which spread over his back, and as he struggled pathetically to rise, he knew that the paws of the gryphon were now taking a more active role once more. Goldeneye spoke in a whisper, as dark and smooth as oiled night. "For a start, you'll learn one thing. I am and forever will be... a monster."

The two sets of eyes, so strangely similar and yet so different, met one another. And Josh, beneath his snowy fur, felt the blood drain from his flesh.

"N-no.... no, you d-don't mean.... Not again. P-please, Goldie, G-Goldeneye, I... you were s-so... nice... oh n-n-no..."

"Hush your voice, little one." It was a soft, deadly whisper. Shivering, the vulpine locked his jaw, looking pleadingly forwards at a foreleg. The tightness of those paws was increasing again, crushing him like some helpless worm beneath his predator's paws.

He remember other things now, as if the mere process of unquenchable fear had loosened these stray thoughts. Building civilizations from dust upwards, watching people - his people - grow and prosper, ever in wonderment at their capacity for invention, ingenuity, emotion and perception. Utopias formed beneath his calm and steady immortal gaze.

What happened to me?

Swallowing back the rush of questions, he continued staring up at the massive gryphon, beseeching by dint of expression: please, Goldeneye... don't...

Wrong... both his mind and his entire body shook with the voice: the monster's cruel telepathy and the eldritch signals of the ring, working in concert. ...name.

The pads flexed, and just before one of his ribs gave up the ghost and snapped cleanly inside his chest Josh remembered all the love and kindnesses he had found himself utterly unable to resist treating those paws with before. And then the pain hit him, and his trampled lungs managed to summon a scream. Weak and feeble, but so very heartfelt.

"N-NO!"

Squealing and moaning, tears only now beginning to leak from his eyes, he wept softly into the ground as his lungs burned, stabbing agony nestling close to his heart. Above, a low, snarling purr rumbled its approval of the fox's pain.

"P-please..." Josh sniffled feebly into the ground, his tail wrapping around his legs with pure terror as the terrible pressure flexed teasingly, grinding his splintered rib until he moaned from the pain. He could remember what the gryphon had commented the first time he had found himself beneath these paws...

"I estimate it'd take very little more pressure for your ribcage to start snapping. Once that's happened, it's easy. Organs pulp, veins simply burst, muscle is crushed and effectively minced, and within a few inches, everything you are has become little more than a rather gory stain."

He wailed out loud, squirming desperately once more- a movement which had no effect whatsoever, save to increase Goldeneye's soft purrs of pleasure at the tickling sensation. "O-oh god, Goldeneye... p-please... you wouldn't, you're my friend... y-you can't..."

"Josh, my dear little Josh..." the gryphon's rumbling tones softened again, "I'm not your friend. You might as well be friends with a volcano."

"B-but..." he moaned, starting to cry, unable to stop other, more real memories dancing through his perception now - the huge gryphon, protector, friend, benevolent guardian, who had showed him such kindness, such wonders. Terrifying yes, he had been... but he had cast that terror aside, the fox's innocence inspiring his own. He wouldn't... he wouldn't just... betray it all.

And this pain hurt Josh more, somehow, than the sharp stab of his cracked rib, or the choking squeezes of his captor's soft, cruel pawpads. He slumped forwards, crying feebly, and knew in that moment that this time... the gryphon would.

***

"Sshh... that's better." Finally, the pressure was released, and the vulpine managed to clutch at a breath of air before he was whisked up, plucked by a single avian claw to nestle helplessly in the gryphon's plumage. With an appreciative ahh, Goldeneye sat down upon his colossal flank, coddling Josh into the blue fluffiness and feathers of his chest. He smiled contentedly, watching the fox wriggle up to look at his eyes, still whimpering at his broken rib. "Now, Josh... have we removed all hopes yet?"

"All h-hope?" Josh sniffled weakly, managing only with tremendous effort to look him in the eyes. His own were wet with tears, widened and full of terror. Once, Goldeneye's urge would have been to dry those mismatched orbs, to comfort whatever misery had played catalyst for them, to help and aid his little soul. Now, he only felt a lustful desire flaring deep inside to gouge them out. The sadist knew no bounds.

But no. Be gentle in your torments, kind in your cruelty. He still loved Josh - that much was not changing while an adorably small vulpine heart still beat behind a shivering purple chest 9and even beyond, whispered a certain dark inkling within his tufted ears). What had changed was simply what he desired with the fox. He smiled, flexing a set of talons - needless to say, they were not the ring-bearing set - around the little snowy waist, tickling it oh-so-lightly, and nodded. "All hope. You must understand, I am not about to be awed by a sudden display of unexpected sympathy on your part. It was before, when I did not see you as the pure, exquisite soul that you are, that I was unprepared. Now..." he dipped his beak, licking tenderly at the silky-soft purple of the vulpine's chestfur with a low snarl of approval - was there a slightly more tangy, bittersweet note to Josh's delectable flavour there? - and shivered greedily, the mere action alone sending off a dozen tangents of desire for more torments. They would get their chance. "...you see, now it's returned in force."

"G-goldie..." Josh was crying, his chest shaking helplessly. "Goldeneye, please... I d-don't... I was y-your f... your friend..."

The gryphon sighed gently, idly examining his madcap mind for even the slightest sign of compassion, but nothing greeted him there. He simply chuckled softly, and dipped his beak to nuzzle once more at the trembling little creature's silky fur. "I told you: not precisely. A creature like me doesn't have friends. Simply those who it pleases me to make happy rather than plunge into despair."

Not that it had been the same way for Josh, he mused, watching his little fox shudder at every word. Hurt and pain hummed in Josh's gaze. My, he really had feelings for me. Sentimental, Joshua... you always were. Humming softly, the gryphon raised a scaly claw, flexing it and examining the razor-sharp talon of ebony night. Without looking, he could sense Josh's fearful gaze on it.

These were anything but gentle caressers or playful ticklers, Goldeneye mused softly as the dark knife of black bone glinted evilly, and though he might put them to use as such... the true nature of the Mathraxian gryphon's claw was as simple as it was ancient as it was cruel. Pain, blood and death.

He smiled to himself, greedily. They had spent so much time being misused... time to return to their original purpose.

Flexing the claw again and imagining its sweet and deadly passage through flesh and bone - a path these unnatural weapons had taken time and time again - the gryphon's grin grew and deepened, listening to his prey. Josh was as silent as the grave, barely even breathing. His eyes were still fixed helplessly upon the upraised claw his breath quivering desperately.

It was delightful. Flicking his perception playfully, Goldeneye toned out every other sound - the faint whistle of the light mountain breeze, the far off twitter of birds (his avian cousins had always seemed somewhat unnerved by him, and it was rare indeed for birds to go near willingly), and even the faint hum at the edge of his exceptional hearing which he knew was his own eldritch body, manifesting in reality through sheer will - and focused totally on those half-whimpered, quivering breaths. Such tiny lungs, such a weak heart. Adorable beyond measure. He grinned gently, closing his eyes and hugging Josh close, and the sharp exhale as fox was crushed into feather was absolutely beautiful. For a moment, Goldeneye let his captive writhe there, choking soundlessly, and then, with a shiver of delight, he released again. The fox gasped for breath, beginning to cry once again as he slumped in the fluffiness. His every limb was trembling.

The gryphon examined his own mind, dancing through the shatters, and saw a thousand times a thousand games and gimmicks he desired now. Oh, Joshua...

Ah yes, Joshua. He smiled lazily, and tickled the vulpine's chin without looking at him. There was so much more Josh had forgotten about himself.

"P... please, G-Goldeneye, p-please..."

"Hush." He felt the small body stiffen, shivering feebly in his embrace, and grinned again. "Good."A minute or so ticked past, measured only by the fox's shivering little breaths. And then Goldeneye spoke softly. "The problem with a creature like me, my dear, is that I'm mad."

Josh lay nestled close, looking up with a kind of curious fear in his eyes. The gryphon dipped his head again to watch him, flicking an ear happily. "Note that by "mad" I don't at all mean delusional. Delusions are actually impossible for a telepath to maintain, after all - we see the world through everyone's eyes." He closed one eye, then the other, enjoying the warm blackness behind the closed lids. "No. But what we can do is lie to ourselves."

A soft little crease appeared in that adorable smooth brow, the snowy fur quivering lightly. "What... what do you mean?"

"Simple enough. You see," he shifted slightly to bring his prey's warm body a little closer, "when I changed, when you were suddenly and surprisingly kind and gentle to me and everything changed... well, Josh, you shifted my entire mind around. But it is rare, really, for anything in the shifting morass of a Shard's brain to be total." He tapped his colossal skull wistfully. "So what happened was that the cruelty, the more visceral desires, and all the lusts for dominance so total were simply... overwhelmed."

Silence ruled. The gryphon purred gently, savouring it for a moment.

"However, that doesn't mean they died. Simply that they were no longer dominant." He licked the fox's belly gently, smirking as Josh squeaked helplessly. "So they hid away... and plotted their revolution, if you will."

"You mean... you... you wanted me t-to..."

"Oh, no, no, no." The gryphon smiled. "I didn't. But my darker desires did." He nodded, shaking his captive with the twitches of muscle. "That's why I let you get so close without noticing - I couldn't notice. I had blocked it from myself."

"O-oh..." Josh swallowed feebly, trying to snuggle closer into the fur and farther away from those gleaming eyes. "S-so... you thought it might be d-dangerous... and you... s-sorry, this part of you j-just... let it happen? S-so that you c-could... h-h-hurt me a-again?"

"Exactly." Goldeneye smiled approvingly at him, considering another lick as reward. Well, Josh was only living twice, after all. He took a long, slow slurp, smirking as the vulpine wriggled, spluttering helplessly. "But ah, let's not talk about me. What about those old memories of yours?"

Josh opened his mouth to utter a stammered, terrified reply, and the gryphon closed his eyes again and lunged downwards.

There was a pause. Slowly, greedily, he flexed his claw - as always, not and never the ring-bearing one because oh no, the Mr Hyde is here to stay - and felt the hot blood dripping down it. Even slower, a low, shuddering keen broke the summery silence. Goldeneye purred gently, savouring every last undertone and overtone of that little noise, and opened his eyes once more.

Josh stared up at him, tears streaming again as he pressed a paw to his fluffy little flank, just below and to the left of the ribcage. The gryphon had calculated it perfectly, and his talons had sliced deep, still buried in his prey's side.

Another moment, and the moan cracked and broke into a sobbing sound which was even more exquisite. But it wasn't quite enough. Goldeneye looked down at his prey as the red liquid trickled further, and dipped his head to kiss the cowering vulpine on the forehead. And he twisted his claw round savagely, nearly a hundred and eighty degrees of explosive agony.

Josh screamed. His mind spasmed.

The gryphon dived in greedily, watching with all his fascinated, depraved heart.

***

Speaketh ye of foes to face in war? Thusly, none shall stand, for thou art the immortal protector, the one of righteousness.

_ _

Of course, he had never been alone, nor thought that he had.

Joshua knew of his many siblings, his fellow children of creation, but never met with any. Who knew where and what they were now? Who knew what had happened to the other forces of semi-sapience who had exploded into existence with him?

Besides, the truth was that he feared for his beloved worlds, his billions of little ones. What if someone should discover how precious they were to him, and sought a cruel vindication via slaughter? So no, he decided. He would not go looking for any other outsiders, and he would hope passionately that they would do likewise. Thusly could peace be maintained.

But as always, the world treats hopes like a dice roll of fate. And equally as always, the dice will eventually forsake you.

Joshua had been distracted at the time, and then maybe a little unwilling to accept the truth of his Voidseeing. He acted on his intuitions not when he had first sensed the intruder - hoping it was simply a feedback signal looped between cosmos - but when he had at last received the emotions of one of his victims. The sensation had radiated across the realities, freezing even the divine being in place with a total onslaught of sheer, potent emotion.

Terror.

_ _

Absolute, horrific, paralysing, blood-choking dread and despair. He had felt absently amazed that none of the mortals could sense it, before realising - halfway through his raced journey to save the poor soul trapped in this fear incarnate already - that to a point they could. Unease and anxiety spread through the worlds like wildfire as Lord Joshua sprinted across universes, desperate and horrified, confused beyond measure, knowing only that he had to save this innocent. No accident could summon that sort of fear. No normal crime could hope to rival its unimaginable cruelty.

All he could think was that someone has found this world.

And then, as the god in vulpine form finally touched himself to the right place in the right world and breathed real air into real lungs once more... the terror ended.

Died.

A change so sudden, so painful, that Lord Joshua himself had been stun The sheer cruel suddenness of death, taking all the pain away and all the life, so full of potential, with it.

Slowly, he looked across at the fading soul. There was, or rather there would be, no corpse. Even now, there was simply a faint distension beneath the murderer's body - a whole life, now nothing at all but a tiny bulge. As the god-fox watched in silent nauseated horror, it twitched feebly with the last remnants of life, as if unwilling to let go.

The Lord Joshua felt his fists clench, horror maturing slowly into grief and grief into anger as he dragged his gaze upwards. Feathered wings, avian forelegs and feline hindquarters, a colossal creature who towered over him much more than twice over. And higher, up to a sleek, crested skull, crowned with some strange bronze wreath, the beak which oh, he could see with cruel, cruel clarity would accommodate a living creature with terrible ease, _no matter how much it squirme_d... and the blazing eyes.

"Ah..." The thing's voice was lower and deeper than could be imagined. Tones of pure liquid gold - rich and devastating, and molten with sheer dark desire. Josh watched the burning eyes as the resonant purr continued, moulding itself into words like with graceful cruelty. "Well, this has just became more interesting, hasn't it?"

The vulpine could only speak simply and quietly. "You killed him."

"Please..." A slick pink tongue flicked out, caressing the edges of the gryphon's beak. "I murdered him. Let's not underestimate the cruelty of this, shall we?"

"Very... very well." Josh nodded coldly, still watching those eyes. "You murdered him, then."

At that, the dark grey beak curled in a smile of approval. "Correct. You would be the Lord Joshua the exquisitely deceased individual-" his stomach quivered slightly as he took a step forwards, the extinguished life within slopping helplessly with each movement, "-was begging for aid from, then? Him and all the rest? In that case," a slight dip of the head, like a mocking bow, "delighted to meet such an... unusual entity. I am Goldeneye."

"I am he, and-wait." Not for the first time, the god-vulpine felt a twinge of alarm and growing rage. "You mean... there were others?"

His adversary looked at him pityingly, and Josh swore that the twin flames licking over his feathers from inside - both golden in colour; presumably these were the monster's namesake?- apparently empty eye sockets were glowing brighter now. "Others? Josh - may I call you Josh? - I've been here for months." He smiled greedily, a single foreclaw caressing his rapacious throat. "Oh, there have been plenty of others - each one perfect in their own special way. Down and down and down they go, and who will survive, all of us know..." a heavy swallow, saliva sloshing down his gullet as he winked, one of the smouldering flames blinking off for a moment beneath a silver lid, "...the answer is: no-one at all."

Joshua uttered a low growl, and even though the sound had been dwarfed by the gryphon's mighty rumbles, it was sufficient. The creature raised a feathery eyeridge, his huge body shifting into a more focused, poised stance. Ready to move, to slash and rend, to fight. "So..." it smiled amiably, "are you a god, then?" The flames burned curiously.

The vulpine shrugged, slowly moving forwards into his own crouch, feeling a thousand aeons of power marshalling behind his body. Rage was there now, furious and bitter. "It might be the best word for me. And you? Demon, perhaps?"

"No. Shardkind." It was a simple proclamation; no explanation seeming to be needed. Goldeneye smiled at him, and licked his beak slowly. "But you are? That's good, that's very good. You do look... delicious. And the best meals are the ones who struggle with all their soul."

Joshua was vaguely aware that had any substance on the planet been placed inside his clenched fists, it would have been crushed instantly. He shook his head, feeling tendons tighten and lock inside as the immortal power of an Old One reinforced him even further, and said flatly, "No. You're not doing this."

The burning eyes flashed their gold at him playfully. "You don't know me."

And it was enough. Joshua felt his body rise into the air, energy surging through and overbalancing physics with a breath. His eyes began to pulse and glow, until they were as pupil-less and blazing as the gryphons own. The fox flicked his purple-tip tail, hissing softly in a voice which now ignored any connotations of sound, and then he leapt in a blur, and the gryphon cackled gleefully, and came to meet him.

Oh, how they danced that day. Never tiring, never letting injury or pain befall them, tussling and roaring fifteen thousand feet above the earth. The vulpine's small stature gave him agility, letting him scramble wherever he desired, but when it came to raw power, he was even at best. Goldeneye was a storm of attacks and savage counters, somehow using his huge body with all the dextrous grace of his opponent. Each rent in his skin, each broken bone, simply flared searing purple, good as new and totally bloodless in a few seconds gory regeneration. The colour of a raw Void, bleeding into reality.

The gryphon was a monster. But he was outclassed.

Lord Joshua could only feel a kind of furious joy as he fought - finally, cried some long-repressed desire for an eternal crusade of divine retribution. Finally, a creature I can truly attack. And attack he did. Fractal shielding, dimensional harmonics, a thousand aeons' worth of tricks the god-fox had learned, all were created and sent outwards in burning trails of spiralling, impossible lethality. Goldeneye's grin first slipped twenty-four seconds after the fight began, when his ribcage was shattered into fifteen different pieces. Anything normal would most likely have simply died from sheer, horrified shock. A creature like this could shrug it off, but with that shrug came a shudder, a wince, a sensation of alarm. And unbidden, Josh felt his own smile start to form. The flame-eyed monster met the delighted gaze he offered, and now there was truly fear showing in its own expression.

But the fury of a god was upon Lord Joshua. And that part of raging fury liked the fear.

He pressed his attack, and this time, wounds did not simply reheal, because he had cut that off as well - it was easy to see the energy bleeding into Goldeneye's form, sealing flesh and bone like wax: but no more. When the gryphon hurt, he stayed hurt.

That didn't mean he wasn't a vicious adversary, but it did mean that it was a losing battle from the start. The gryphon had the strength, but not when his bones snapped. He had the grace, but not when muscles were pulped and skin raked to shreds. Joshua felt the power looping, growing, bleeding into him as he smashed his massive, screeching opponent into the ground, cracking stone with each blow. It was sinful and intoxicating, righteous and yet greedily insidiously pleasant. He would crush this beast in immortal form.

And he did.

Oh, it took a long while, but there came the time where Joshua simply let his levitation carry him to the ground once more, and stayed there. Slowly, he began to walk towards his quarry. The gryphon lay stunned in a crater three times his own size. Many of his feathers had been simply burnt away, and his skeleton was cracked beyond repair. As the fox approached, little scraps of smouldering, flickering voidflame danced feebly in the gashes, attempting to seal them, but with a flick of his mind Joshua quelled them, leaving his monstrous foe frozen, trapped in a body which could not and would not respond.

Those burning eyes flickered as well as he approached, looking up at him with a silent, brooding sort of interest. "I see."

The fox pushed aside a boulder twice his own size, looking down at the huge beast before him. Goldeneye's muscles contorted weakly, trying to pull at bones which could not stand their weight. He moaned softly in pain, all the focus which had ridden him through the fight now gone. Joshua knelt by his head, looking at the flaming eye which swivelled balefully to meet his gaze. "I... I hope you understand," he said softly.

The beak twitched. "I understand. As long as I am, the innocent will not be safe." Goldeneye flicked his ears, one by one. "I can't say I'm sorry - my very nature defies it." He frowned for a moment, and chuckled. "But I can say that it is better this way. "

Nodding quietly, Joshua placed a hand on the creature's skull. "Go in peace, then."

"There can be no peace." replied his victim softly. "Not for the hunger. The lust to experience, to feel, to be part of it, to have it squirming within..."

And then his skull splintered and cracked, and his mind vanished from the god-fox's Voidsight. Goldeneye's body slumped silently, it's breaths no longer laboured but silent and still, and the vulpine laid his crushed skull down with a quiet murmur.

He watched the body for a moment, knowing that in moments, it would dissolve into absolute nothingness- interlopers could not hope to survive in a universe which was not their own one unless a consciousness could maintain the material form, and sighed as the soft flames of violet spread over the huge body, consuming it into absolute nothingness. The Void took back it's escaped inmate. A strange creature. Still, it was better this way. Joshua's little ones would not suffer now.

The eyes were the last to go. They always were. Windows to the soul, sigils of beautiful life - or imperfect impersonation, as might have been the case here. Josh would give the monster that much at least, no matter what he had done.

He watched as the flames reached the bloodied avian skull, swallowing beak and head in seconds, stripping away muscle and bone in the merest of moments. Eyelids stripped away like sweet wrappers, leaving those orbs of burning golden flame and devouring them whole as well... or not?

For in the second, in the moment of last life where the orbs vanished into absolute nonexistence... Joshua could have sworn that one eye was not gold, but purple. The gleaming, glimmering purple of his own.

Then the flames took that, and all that remained was a mountain shattered by the duel of two titans.

The fox-god's mind was troubled, but his spirit strong. He began to walk away.

***

-and the Lord Joshua gasped, shuddering around a mouthful of air which was undoubtedly real, corporeal and warm and filled with the exotic, musky scent of - of - of him. He slumped against the thick warmth, panting exhaustedly as each new memory settled within. "Oh... I... y-you..."

Blurry vision swam like water in his eyes and finally focused, revealing Goldeneye's beak a bare inch away from Josh's muzzle. He squeaked helplessly, cringing away, and the same cruel grin which had been so prevalent when they had first met manifested once more upon the gryphon's face.

"Well then, my dear..." Goldeneye purred softly, a single claw pressing his captive further into the silkiness of his chestfeathers. "Now do you remember me?"

"I..." the small vulpine paled beneath his snowy fur, staring up at him. There was something nagging at him about the gleaming gaze, but first came the revelations. "I-I don't... I k-killed you. I d-defeated you and I killed you."

Another rumbling chuckle thrummed through his small body. "Ah, you do. Yes, you did." With that, the faintest of a snarl entered his velvet tones, though the voice never raised itself. "I.... underestimated you, really. I thought that you might simply be another who could understand the Void as I could, and you had simply set yourself up as a deity here for your own purposes." He chuckled wryly. "I have since learned considerably more about your nature."

"I..." Josh felt, bewilderingly, a small flush of pride at that. "I... suppose... no, wait." He swallowed, wriggling apprehensively in the soft feathers. "I k-killed you. I remember it. I crush... crushed your skull with my own paws..." The sentence sounded patently ludicrous in his mouth, so much that he had to bite his tongue to cut off a laugh. Goldeneye, on the other hand, had evidently no such restraints, another low, throaty cackle making his chest quiver beneath his prey's body.

"Yes, you did. And when you did it, I truly thought it would be the finale. An end at last..." he sighed softly, hot, sweet breath washing over his vulpine captive. "But while I did not understand what you were, just the same could be said of you. Shardkind were born into a world where nothing can ever hope to possibly exist. I never had a body until I created one. And as it turns out... I can lose them with little harm done."

For a moment, there was silence. The fox snuggled closer into his predator's warmth on instinct, trying helplessly to formulate some sort of understanding of these new thoughts. It was just... unbelievable. And more, of course. He remembered the visceral, savage pleasure with which the Lord (not him, he could not hope to reconcile that alien consciousness with his own mind) had laid into his opponent, crushing Goldeneye's attacks with a kind of furious abandon. He remembered what he'd done.

But he remembered more. He remembered that unspeakable, unimaginable terror - not the gryphon's, oh no - that dread beyond all reason which had summoned him. He remembered how the shock of emotion had been tinged with all things hideous: pain, despair, loss, running all the way to its rotten core. He remembered the sudden blankness, the sheer cruelty of a life finally losing its last grasp, its last hope... a death of total misery. In... in there.

Slowly, feeling as helpless to control his own muscles as if Goldeneye was manipulating him once more, the fox turned his head, looking all the way down Goldeneye's lush underbelly. The blue feathers melded flawlessly to soft, shaggy fur, covering the lean flesh beneath. There it was, beneath that azure pelt and presumably several layers of skin, muscle and enfolding fat. The stomach of this unearthly predator. His very own prison cell, torture chamber, and murder weapon all rolled into one.

"You l-lied to me." he said quietly, looking up again at those glittering, mismatched eyes and ignoring the faint twitch of confusion he felt as they looked back. "You said I'd attacked you, hurt you, made you suffer so... b-but you lied." He gritted his teeth quietly. "You m-murdered them. M-my... my citizens. You tortured them and... and ate them... and y-you murdered them. I-I thought you were j-just a bit... maniacal. But you're... I liked you, and you... you're..."

Those gold-violet eyes narrowed slightly. "You only see it now?" He chuckled cruelly, nuzzling his squirming plaything back into his feathers. "Yes, I did commit those cruel acts - as I have done ever since my physical birth, so long ago. Josh, Joshua, Josh... I never told you that I was anything but merciless and cruel."

"Y-you said-"

"I didn't. I told you that I was bitter, that you had crushed me, and that I wanted revenge - a revenge I would have taken had you not stunned my splintered soul into changing instead. I never said it was at all right that I should do so."

Josh slumped back against the heat of his body, looking up with tears prickling his eyes. "And now... y-you're going to take that revenge?"

"No. Now I am going to enjoy you, Josh Fawkes, innocent little arctic fox with just a few pleasantly horrific revelations inside his mind, in whatever way my desires compel me to." The gryphon dipped his head, licking at him again, a soft, purring moan of delight - one which only intensified as Josh squirmed and tried to cower away. "Hush now."

"W-wait..." the fox felt more sobs crowding behind his words, slurring them until he had to stop and swallow the lump in his throat back down again. "Wait, please... Goldie... Goldeneye... Goldeneye!" The fox felt a weak sense of triumph, that niggling doubt finally resolving itself as he managed to squirm into a sitting position in the thick fluffiness, glaring determinedly at his predator. "Your eyes... your eyes were different. Golden. Golden flames." He gestured feebly. "Both gold... and then you..."

"Very good." A talon stroked his face tenderly, tickling the soft snowy fur with a horrible playfulness. "I used to change my eyes a lot, for the simple pleasure of it - Goldeneye was simply because it was a favourite colour." He clicked his beak absently. "But then, when you crushed me, placed me where I have placed so, so many others... my mind splintered again. Weight of disbelief, all the new experiences so unnerving and unexpectedly... it was a natural response to try and adapt." The gold flashed and glimmered as he winked, his violet eye blazing steadily beside it. "There's a reason why eyes are the last to go, my dear, when the Void takes back the body of one who has been touched by it. They have the greatest connection to the soul, the strongest bond with the mind which dwells inside that body. Eyes really are the windows to the soul." Another lascivious lick, followed swiftly with that terrible purr of pleasure. "So I, acting purely on the most simplistic, base remnants of instinct, absorbed some of the splinters your mind gives off and... evolved."

The fox blinked, staring up at him, and another low laugh rumbled through them both. "These eyes are yours, Josh. A fragment of your old, godly soul lives on in me." He grinned. "It defined me before I even realised - purple and gold was the colour I chose upon my first manifestation. I thought it had some metaphorical reason, and maybe it did in part, but the truth was that the choice, the loci of our connection reverberated through my timeline. I'm part you, Josh."

The vulpine felt his jaw slackening gently, delicate fingers somehow clasping together as he tried to speak. "I.... I see."

Another gentle lick, provoking an involuntary squeak and wriggle, but he was held fast. "Don't try and hide your emotions, Josh. I see all and adore every part of it." Goldeneye chuckled gently, his head now drawing back. "We both knew there was a connection. I simply knew more about it than you did."

His eyes had again begun to shine, gleaming with the horrible, terrifying sadistic curiosity which was already beginning to sear its way into Josh's soul with pure, total dread. Slowly, the cruel beak split in a smile, an obscene bloodless wound of glee. The fox whimpered, instinctively squirming further into his captor's hot feathers now. "N-no..." he mumbled, knowing how little good it would do. "P-please... Goldie..."

"Hush, hush, little one." His plea was barely even acknowledged. "Now, shall w-."

He paused, and began to smile evilly.

And it was him, it was the same gryphon who had been so kind, so tender, so loving, such a wonderful and fascinating friend to be with, now wearing that dark leer which held not a shred of mercy, a quiet moan's worth of knowledge which only made Josh's misery more intense. He stammered out a few words, lungs aching now with the need to start sobbing. "W-what? You... what i-is it now?"

The claws enfolded him firmly, crushing him into the silky fur until he could barely breath, let alone speak, his world encircled by the silky, musky warmth. The vulpine squeaked feebly, trying to wriggle or kick out, but again, there was nothing. He whimpered as Goldeneye bent his head close, his blazing gaze transfixing the trembling huddle of snowy and violet fur in his feathers. "Quiet." he said, softly and simply, and closed his eyes.

Josh uttered a weak, fearful sound which could not have any words. Was this it? Was he going to die now, snuggled and trapped in the gryphon's feathers, pleading for a life which would never be his ever again? Second by second twitched past with horrible, cautious inevitability. Which one would be his last...

A moment passed, and then, still clutching helplessly at his murderer-to-be (oh god, Goldie... why...) the fox dared - just - to crack open his eyes. "I-I... I..."

"I SAID QUIET!" The roar came from inches away, louder than Josh could have ever imagined any sound emanating from a living creature. He screamed in terror, burying himself in a heap of trembling fluff in the gryphon's feathers and nearly sobbing - but that would be too loud, that would risk stirring the monster who held him close now. Josh screwed his eyes shut to hold in the tears and pushed his slim muzzle further into the feathers, trying to comfort himself inside the silky warmth. He didn't dare make another move.

A few more minutes passed with no movement on the fox's part, and although Goldeneye's huge body felt like it had tensed slightly a couple of times, there was no sound from him. Josh cracked open an eye in the semi-darkness of the gryphons pelt, his vision filled with soft, thick strands of pale blue. Perhaps he could pretend that it wasn't it wasn't happening: Goldeneye was still his friend, his lover, his vast and brilliant companion. That he was simply cuddling into the gryphon, feeling the warmth as the playful gryphon, the one who would never dream of harming him, let him snuggle into there... and it was alright. His life was still bright and hopeful, nothing was wrong, nothing was wrong.

But then, the memories were shifting, spreading out into his skull (clearly unknowing of just how short a time they'd be in there f-no, don't say that, don't think that, don't you dare think that) and his illusion was shattered. For a moment, Josh could sense something vague and terrifying: pain beyond endurance, another, another thing like but not, like he but not he, and it held and crushed... but it fell back into the blur without a trace. He started to cry, concentrating all his effort into keeping the shuddered, shaking sobs silent. It was all so unimaginably cruel...

"Hush..." the claws slowly caressed his shuddering back, Goldeneye's tones perfect and gentle once more. Regardless, the fox cringed away, dreading another outburst. A low chuckle purred its amusement in response, but the gryphon was quiet again now. Josh swallowed, squirming a little into the silky warmth with an unwitting shiver of comfort, and wondered if he dared to even look up.

No. No chance. He whimpered in dread, quivering in the soft, luxuriant feathers, and just squeezed his eyes shut, trying as hard as he possibly could not to think at all about what might be coming...

The waiting was torture. Second after second ticked by, and every one brought a fresh chance for more screams to be extracted... but still, the gryphon simply held him close, humming gently to himself as he... as he what? What was he doing? What torment would come next?

He whimpered very, very quietly, and instantly the sound was reacted to, a low warning growl snarling through the gryphon's chest. His claws, still caressing the fox's body in endless looping strokes, suddenly tensed oh-so-slightly: a cruel reminder of the terrible strength inside them.

Josh fell silent instantly, biting back his tears.

The growl faded, returning to Goldeneye's usual gentle purr, and the talons resumed their tender massaging. The damage was still done. The fox squirmed as quietly as he could, trying to bury himself in those feathers until he left the cruel outside world behind, and wept, silently and hopelessly.

His dread went beyond words.

***

This will be... exquisite.

_ _

And the finest things are the most difficult to attain. With a blurring flicker of thought, Goldeneye stopped his heart again - he didn't need the distraction. It was a dance, a dance moving at a wild pace which would shatter the sound barrier of the physical, keeping twenty different plates spinning in a hundred different dimensions - and always, he danced.

Tendrils of the ring of Joshua were wrapped forcibly around his own mind, infusing his flexes of thought with their own power. The Shardkind echoed through Josh's mind again and again, each time pruning another connection. The energy in his mind-scalpels cauterised each wound instantly, ensuring the little fox crying on his chest was not even aware of his changing state. Goldeneye smirked, but managed - barely - to ignore his own flames of desire. He didn't need distractions. One wrong incision and everything would collapse.

The simple fact was that without the spars of reinforcing energy siphoned off from the ring (ah, such a magnificent thing, such an exquisite and magnificent little thing), this would have been completely impossible. Nothing could survive in this way - even he could not hope to break through without a proper physical form to take. But now... oh, little Josh...

Now, let's bring you into the open.

***

And finally, the claws fell limp and gentle, resting upon him again. Josh moaned in relief - and instantly cut himself off again, dreading another draconian reaction. Please, he whispered desperately inside his own mind. I... I'm sorry... can I-I...

_ _

"Yes..." the gryphon's low purr had returned, thrumming with brutal delight. "Yes, I think you may, my darling. It's time to wake up."

Before another word was spoken, the fox felt his world shift and twist, the soft featheriness leaning over to dump him inelegantly on the grassy ground below. Josh squeaked in surprise as his sensitive nose thunk_ed into the firm surface, sending a bolt of pain through his senses. It seemed strangely... dull, however, as if felt through a sleepy haze. The pain would normally have him rolling around groaning for minutes... but this was easily bearable. He swallowed, trying to quell the ghosts of fear residing so deep inside. _Hush... it will be okay, Josh... I promise...

_ _

"Find out." whispered Goldeneye curtly from far above, and the fox's entire body seemed to echo it again as the ring touched his soul once more: Find out. Words like that could not be possibly disobeyed.

Swallowing nervously, he placed both palms on the ground, feeling blades of grass brush ticklishly over his soft chestfur, and raised his chest and body, standing now on hands and knees with his head lowered.

Except that he didn't.

Except that he did.

"Oh my word..." Goldeneye's voice had an odd, halting quality to it now: the sound of awe. He chuckled softly, far far away. "You're... beautiful."

The fox could barely hear the cruel velvet tones. He stared down, not seeing what his arms were made of, or the smooth ground, or any part of the world around him... save for one thing. One horrific, impossible, heart-stopping thing.

Vaguely, his thoughts moving numb and slow through the shock, Josh remembered a conundrum which had fascinated him for days on end, sometime far back when he was eight: that no matter what, he would never see his own ears. Oh, photographs and pictures might show him what they looked like, but that was neither here nor there: the appendages, so softly-furred and smooth, so sleek and pretty, could never enter his own sight. Such was the... "tyranny" of his own skeletal system.

But no more. The vulpine hunched over, quivering and shaking, and stared down at his own body. Silent and unmoving, the thing which was Josh Fawkes' mortal form flopped beneath him. Corpse-like. Lifeless.

_ _

The clarity of what he saw, however, was simply amazing: every hair of the thick snowy fur now seemed discernible, rippling sleekly in the wind in tiny waves of soft white. His vision was... incredible. As if in a dream, the fox watched the back of his skull, seeing the little violet tufts which crested his ears for the first time, Josh! Isn't that exciting! No. It was eerie, and terrifying beyond measure, and horribly beautiful.

_ _

"W-what..." he paused, trying to fight back the terror-induced nausea at the sound of his own voice - soft, weak, stranger now than even the gryphon's dark tones. There was a whispering, eldritch edge to it, like the faint wail cresting an icy winter wind. It was a voice which had no corporeal tongue or teeth of lips, and by the Catalyst itself, he could hear it so incredibly clear now. As if...

As if he was no longer encumbered by mere "physical" senses.

"W-what have you d-d-done to me?"

There was no answer. Goldeneye's terrible grin did not fade a fraction as he dipped his head slightly, indicating that the vulpine should do the same. Feeling sick, Josh closed his eyes - or at least, the perception he had of sight - and slowly complied, lowering his head to face himself and his arm, now upraised, at least, his mind thought it to be so. He swallowed, suddenly unable to dare opening his eyes. "N-no... Goldie... p-please..."

Hush, Josh. Now, open. The fox could not have hoped to defy that world-shaking voice. He sniffled to himself, and helplessly cracked open his eyelids.

But he didn't have eyelids to open, or a head to lower, or an arm to stare upon. He had nothing.

Nothing but... this.

It was neither solid, liquid nor gas. Neither corporeal nor incorporeal. The closest the fox could imagine was if a flame - not the fuel, just the licking tongue of fiery heat - had been taken and transformed into this... vapour. His new form rested just over of his old body, glimmering a translucent shade of soft violet - no, oh my g-god, it rested half outside it, for just below the small of his back, where his fluffy tail melded into his spine (splattered just a little now with his own blood), the misty cloud of glowing violet simply passed straight through the fur and into his flesh.

Josh gritted the memory of his teeth, trying not to retch with fear. He could see past the horror now, see that this ectoplasmic substance actually seemed to lack just that: substance. He had no form, no skeleton, not even flesh. He was literally just a shimmering vapour of purple, hanging gracefully and mistily over his own body. The stuff glowed faintly, ripples of lavender light running across it as the remains of the fox began to tremble in horror. There were no bones, no muscles, nothing but this miasma, and the shudders merely made his new "flesh" quiver slightly, a mist beneath a light breeze.

The vulpine found his horrified gaze drifting down again, to latch once more onto the silent white-furred body beneath him. His body. Josh moaned feebly, feeling now for the first time the absolute, total void of normal sensation. He was a cloud, and he could feel it. He could feel only his ethereal form, twisting and writhing in slow-motion in the air. Limbs and tail and fur and skeleton and living body... all completely gone.

It was seeping into his flesh, though. (His real flesh, at any rate, _oh Catalyst no, no, no this can't be happening...)_The strange substance passed right through the snowy fur as if it were nothing. He flexed a tendril, horrified at the sheer effort even that tiny flicker of vapour took, and watched the shimmering violet illusion swish around inside his chest cavity with no resistance.

"You haven't got up yet, Josh."

Goldeneye was suddenly mere feet away, towering over the terrified creature like a horrifying, feathery mountain. The fascination in his eyes smouldered greedily, darker and more intense than Josh could ever have imagined, as they flitted over and over his new body, seeming to pulse with pleasure at every new sight. The gryphon smiled gently, nodding at him. "Get up."

"I-I..." Josh felt his self- no lungs, no anymore, but it knew how regardless - start to spasm, a sob of terror - the sound of a sob alone, pitiful and wretched - cutting him off until he managed, shuddering and choking, to swallow it back down. "I c... what... what h-h-have y-you... WH-WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?"

He felt himself trying to hunch over, but nothing changed save for a quiver and a mystical change in his vision. Now Josh was staring through himself at the small of his back, complete with that sickening limpness in his tail. Slowly, the yell trailed out into a keening wail of utter terrified misery. The tail which he still had in the more stubborn, less terrified areas of his mind tried to lash in fear. But... nothing.

Finally overcome, the fox squealed in horror and squirmed downwards, attempting in some terror-fevered daze to - somehow - claw his way back into his body. A desperate thrust, and his perception slipped easily into the head of the fluffy-furred body beneath him. For half a second, Josh's vision flickered and pulsed, and he felt the glorious solidness of real living flesh surrounding him, opening eyelids which were covered in snowy fur, not simply more violet translucence. The world looked right again. He tried to wriggle the rest of him in, sensation returning in a wildly hopeful rush -

His ears popped back into focus just in time to hear a soft, sadistic chuckle, and suddenly, the normalness was torn away. The vulpine rose up, his vision once again gaining the otherworldly quality of before. A terrible, irresistible force of suction was enfolding his torso, pulling him up and out - completely out - of his own body with a cold, silent slurp of plasma parting mortal flesh. The first sight he saw was that of the back of his own head once more as it slumped into stillness again: silent and empty a hollow shell which was no longer animated.

Josh wailed in torment, the sound now ghostly and smooth, and tried to wriggle out of his captor's terrifying grip... but nothing was holding him. Goldeneye was simply... breathing.

Breathing in.

That great beak parted further, drawing the horrified ectoplasmic vulpine into it like water down a plughole - and Josh's path was just as inexorable. He saw the cavernous, dripping walls of the gryphon's great maw, felt the sheer lusty heat radiating from every inch of glistening flesh, felt the new world of ridged, soft and greedy pinkness envelope him, and then there was that dark dusky throat, which led to only darkness... drawing him in with every second of eternal suction.

The fox screamed.

But wait, wait, wait... he was suspended, but not falling (yet). The pull of Goldeneye's breath had halted, leaving the soul-cloud that was Josh Fawkes spinning in a helpless little misty cloud, right inside his beak.

It was... hideous. He could feel the caress of the slick warmth, the heat of the sticky, dripping flesh. It was everywhere, surrounding him, seeping in with lustful swiftness. Tendrils of his strange body were trailing off, brushing against the pulsing walls of his container, and a shudder ran through them both. One from revulsion, and the other...

Josh didn't want to think about it. He whimpered, looking down at himself, somehow in teh midst of the terror and dripping, gurgling mawflesh, something clicked. He realised in a slow, calm flash precisely what had happened. What he was.

His desperate, writhing squirms slowed to a stunned halt. "...oh. Oh m-my god."

Correct. Goldeneye's voice sounded gently inside the fox's mind - of course he'd have to resort to telepathy, his mouth was... full. Josh felt the low chuckle ripple the fleshy cavern we was trapped helplessly in, the terrible beak cradling his quivering form as gently as if holding the most delicate of eggshells. Beneath, a tongue flexed slickly, pools of saliva collecting upon it. Well done, Josh. Would you care to share your revelation?

The fox shuddered at his voice and the sheer dark pleasure rumbling through it, trying to squirm his way out... but a tiny reverse sigh, barely enough to flare Goldeneye's terrifying gullet with the minute influx of breath, was able to pull him back into a horrible equilibrium quite easily. He was truly trapped. I asked you to answer, little one.

Hopeless, helpless. The mass of fox-plasma stared out of his... his torturer's maw, feeling ripples which would have been tears beginning to run through what once might have been his cheeks. He lowered his perception , staring once again in horrified, longing revulsion at the silent, unmoving vulpine body beneath them both, slumped between the gryphon's massive foreclaws, and mumbled something indistinct.

"You've... you've separated m-my... my s... my s-soul f-from m-my body."

Another low, purring laugh, and hot breath washed over - no, through him. Josh could taste the exotic muskiness now, warm and strangely delicious and utterly terrifying. Very good.

He shuddered, managing to squirm round and get his sight out of that horrible limp body. The glowing vapour of his new form squeezed and compressed with horrible ease - as malleable as smoke, and likewise just as intangible and powerless. He quivered again, brushing over the slick walls -tracing the thick streams of saliva as they drooled down the sides: so hot... "This... this is m-me, then? And th-that..." he managed to flicker a misty tendril downwards, trying not to look at the corpse-like thing beneath, "that's just... a shell?"

Yes. Yes, it is. Suddenly, the fox felt his misted soul invaded as with a squeaking of alarm, he brought his vision (no eyes any more, oh god, those eyes which had been so intimate to the both of you... gone, dead, oh god god no...) down to the cavern's "floor", watching helplessly as Goldeneye's thick, avian tongue simply rose into the air and into him. Suddenly, he could feel its lecherous caress, running through him, tasting his actual. Mmmm... you see, Josh, I'm a creature of extravagant tastes. And this... to actually bring your spirit into a physical form, make it corporeal and solid... he grinned, the beak snapping almost closed as light dwindled to a cruel line, the fox-soul inside yelping in terror. Ah-ah, hush...well, let's just say that this is an... extremely extravagant taste.

"N-no..." whimpering and trying very hard not to think about what his tormentor's words could possibly mean, the fox squirmed round, trying frantically to cower away and hold himself near the roof of the gryphon's maw. The slick wetness of copious saliva spread through his form, but now, up here, only the horrible tip of Goldeneye's tongue could bathe in his flavour. "P-please..."his voice sounded so weak, so helpless... all too apt, as well, "...j-just put me back in there... G-Goldie, I'm begging you... please..."

"Back in here?" Still holding him firmly within one of Goldeneye's avian paws pushed forwards, casually flipping the snowy vulpine form over. Josh's corpus stared blankly up, limbs flopping onto the ground again with a sickeningly ragdoll-like weakness. Even his beautiful purple chestfur (splattered with his blood now, of course), was losing its lustre. The body was dead.

The vulpine himself cringed away from those sightless heterochromatic eyes, imagining the sensation of a hot tide of bile in his throat. "O-oh... oh god..." They weren't... no, they weren't, they couldn't be looking at him. It was just his imagination. It had to be. "You... y-you m-monster..."

Ahhh... Goldeneye smiled cruelly. Accepting it now, are we? Yes, I am a monster. He suddenly jerked his powerful neck, twitching the mass of soul to within an inch of those terrible smouldering eyes. But tell me, Josh. Would you rather look at me... or at that thing beneath us?

The vulpine could have sworn that his vaporous soul went a paler shade of violet as he tried to cower away even further. "I-I... I d-don't... please, that's m-my... my damn body, f-for god's sake..."

I know... cackling gently, the gryphon took a few steps forward as the vulpine corpse vanished beneath the rim of his beak, still holding his prey close in his beak. The gentle yet intense in-out breaths - not enough to inhale a single tendril of the quivering ectoplasm, nor so gentle that Josh could hope to drift his new form out of the cruel beak - made it clear that evidently he was still intoxicated by the new, delectable scent of his poor creature. Josh whimpered as he felt the powerful movements shake his prison, trying to shut out the image swimming through his terror-delirious consciousness. Were his own eyes, his soul's eyes, merely now a spiritual way of seeing, with not even a pinprick of light? Had the beautiful, exotic gold and purple - the progenitor of those gleaming orbs somewhere above him as well, oh this is so cruel - vanished in his new lack-of-body? He felt sick to his stomach... not that he had one anymore. "Please, please I'm b-begging you... Goldie... G-Goldeneye... j-just let me b-back in th-there..."

Shhh. Goldeneye clenched his beak just lightly, chuckling as his prey squealed in alarm, his misty form trying to shy towards the light... only for a lazy slurp to pull him back to a firm seat in the middle of the cavernous beak. Josh whimpered in dread as the gryphon dipped it again, the ground appearing between those cruelly hooked edges- gleaming a very faint violet from the residue of Josh's touch - and spoke softly. You're not going back, Josh. You're far, far too much fun for me to let you leave. I'm keeping your soul. I'm keeping the ring - there's still so much power in there, and believe you me, it's going to be mine, and as for your body..._He shifted slightly, his huge form wobbling a little as if balancing itself, quivering the creature inside his maw. _Well, you've got a new, far more delicious form now - I certainly didn't think I'd say that in a long time - so it's now a little more expendable. And I seem to remember that there was a threat I never made good on with you, Josh...

The fox's small brow wrinkled delicately in confusion. "A... what do you..."

And he froze. The memory had stirred - not some unnatural thought inside that damnable ring, but simply a crooning voice, the first he had heard his monstrous predator speak to him. "No. N-no, please. Goldeneye, I'm... please... n-no... I'll do anything... P-please..."

The smile spread, as did the gryphon's forelegs, further apart to better the view. Goldeneye's skull was now upside down, entire body forced into a hunching position to let him look beneath his chest: eyes and beak alike. He shifted, and dipped himself lower, as if about to perform a forward roll... but his hind legs weren't playing along. The mighty feline legs stood statuesque and proud, and as the monster lowered his shaking, begging mass of fox to look between them (somehow, Josh's perception seemed to have shifted the right way up again, as if he was sitting upon the roof of the gryphon's open maw now), look beneath the colossal swell of his great chest, beneath the thick shagginess of fur sheathing his stomach(no no no, do not think about that, oh god please...), where Josh's body lay, slumped limply on the grassy floor of the beautiful, misery-filled mountain. And pressing down on firmly, with perhaps exactly the same level of pressure he had once felt when he was still master of that poor corpse, was the gryphon's powerful hindpaw.

The toes flexed, claws sliding in and out again in a coy wave. Josh felt his head spinning with horror.

I estimate it'd take very little more pressure for your ribcage to start snapping, whispered his mind. Organs pulp, veins simply burst, muscle is crushed and effectively minced... within a few inches, everything you are has become little more than a rather gory stain.

_ _

Charming, isn't it?

"No..." he whispered, imagining the feeling which he had once secretly loved so much - soft and warm, firm and gently dominating, holding him beneath their tender power... but now they had turned hard, turned cruel... and deadly. He know what was going to happen."Please... I-I... G-g-goldeneye... I'll do anything... I'll give you w-whatever you want... I-i... please..."

The answer was as simple as it was loving as it was cruel. "Josh. You already are."

And with that, Goldeneye flexed.

Just lightly, by the standards of those huge bands of muscle powering his hindquarters. But fox and gryphon alike heard the small, sad snap. The silent arctic fox twitched slightly, its chest shifting beneath Goldeneye's flawless blue pads. Josh squealed helplessly.

He felt no pain. And neither did the corpse down there, which barely shook this time as the gryphon added another modicum of pressure and another rib snapped like a twig. But he screamed all the same, clutching at his captor's beak with incorporeal paws, kicking and squirming like a creature possessed. A lost soul who would give up anything to be possessing again.

The gryphon chuckled, not a remnant of the once-so-bountiful kindness in his voice, and began to purr, his toes rippling in pleasure at the sensations. He pushed again, and this time the bone punctured the skin. Josh howled again, trying to close his eyes and shut off the horror, but he could not bring himself to do it. He could do nothing but watch his own torture.

Sanguine fluid started to drip down the snowy fur around the pale spar of ivory, staining it crimson. Goldeneye grinned softly, more hot thrumming running through the air as the poor vulpine was shaken inside him. Josh coiled himself into a trembling, weeping mass inside his captor's beak, still utterly unable to look away. Another flex, the body's torso no starting to distort horribly, and this time, the three breaks were slower, crunchier. No longer clean fractures. He moaned in despair with every crackle, feeling as if he could feel every ounce of the pain.

And yet he could not, and somehow that was almost in some crazy maddened way so much worse. Josh shuddered again, slumping to the tongue - much to its evident delight - of his colossal tormentor, and tried to just place his paws over his ears, stopping the gruesome noises from leaking through. But of course, he had none. He was nothing.

It was just... so divorced from the unfeeling pain: simply watching the silent twitches as the blood began to flow in earnest and the gryphon's growls of delight intensified. A slow crunching squeeeeze, and his body's flesh suddenly split at last - the furred skin upon his flanks parting as minced muscle and bone began to force its way out like pulped flesh from a squashed orange. It was sickening beyond belief. The fox hunched over in a twist of silky mist, keening and wailing, and felt his memory-of-a belly convulse. He retched, hard and then harder, somehow still watching as the first pinky-red glisten of his insides started to show. This soul had no stomach to vomit with, just the sensation of nausea and flushing terror.

Slowly, luxuriously, the gryphon crushed his body as he looked on. Goldeneye's large tongue was lolling out by now, swinging lazily beneath him and his captive, his pleasure rumbling through the air. He took his time with the luscious flesh beneath, and when the cringing vulpine's body's heart popped, the purr only peaked.

NO! NO! NO, NO, N-no... PLEASE...

Josh was barely aware of when the paw finally laid to rest, standing comfortably on the ground amidst a splattered, pulped mess of gore and hideousness. He watched slowly as the gryphon flexed it slightly, growling contentedly, and then pulled up with a repulsive squelch... only to place the bloodstained thing back down. Evidently enjoying the sensations too much to stop. The vulpine whimpered dully, staring as hard as his exhausted willpower could manage a clean, fluffy patch of luxuriant silver fur above the gryphon's powerful ankle. Don't look down. He didn't dare focus on the bloody ruin beneath, lest it simply drive him insane.

A long, long moment passed between them in silence. Josh couldn't tell how much time had gone before, in an off-hand sort of way, he realised numbly that with his body's death died any possible hope he had of returning to life. He had nowhere to return to but the gryphon's mercy, no vessel to survive in but this plasma-like ghostliness. He was dead in every sense of the word, save for the spiritual.

And even then... ghosts were not alive.

He started to cry. Quietly, weakly. More hopelessly than he could ever have imagined in all his short life, and quite possibly the long life which had come before it. A little soul, slumped and weeping, trapped and crushed in the clutches - in the very maw of his murderer, his legs kicking weakly at nothing. The sobs came endlessly.

Slowly, Goldeneye breathed out, and the fox found that he could stretch his wraith-like form out of the beak for a short distance, still tethered helplessly inside it (this could not just be the careful breathing; he had little doubt now that the cursed ring was involved in his cruel incarceration), allowing him to perch his perceptions just over the top of the gryphon's smooth beak: looking straight into the terrible eyes. Goldeneye's mad gaze met him coolly. He could see the fox staring up at him, see the consciousness within the purple miasma as clear as if Josh's body was still Josh's body, and not a gory ruin beneath his paw, dripping away to nothing with all the ceremony of a squashed ant. For a long moment, the two could do little more than simply stare, the gryphon beginning to hum a strange, otherworldly melody far, far down in the back of his throat. The fox looked at him numbly, remembering all the times he'd trusted in that maniacal, gentle gaze. All the times he'd fooled himself, just as the gryphon had apparently fooled himself: that the kindness which it had held was true, rather than a mere veneer. All the pain he'd suffered for his misconception.

"P-please..." he whispered dully, helpless to caress the fleshy door of his cage as it tightened slowly and sensuously around him. "Y-you... I... I'll..."

But there was nothing left to offer. The vulpine's shuddering pleas trailed off, replaced by only a silent weeping. His soul could not create tears, it seemed... but no matter. The sobs just came on and on, choking whatever supernatural process created speech until he gave up on begging and just gave himself over to the pain.

Goldeneye looked at him, twinkles of hideous amusement glinting darkly within the twisted recesses of those beautiful eyes. How could mercy and kindness ever have existed in there?

The nodded slowly, watching the shuddering mist of fox, and through his shaking and psychic crying, Josh just managed to meet his gaze in return. Looking utterly pathetic, he knew, but that didn't and couldn't matter now. He wetted his lips, or rather he ran a the tongue some parts of his mind managed to fantasise that he still possessed over lips which were just as imaginary. "I... I... j-just... just make it q-quick."

The gryphon watched him, and his feathery eyeridges crinkled slightly. Softly and carefully, he closed his beak just a little: enough to form a single, pitiless word. The velvety tones were alight now, burning with the same molten desire as those terrible, terrible eyes.

"No."

The fox moaned in total, absolute despair. Slowly, lovingly, gluttonously, his torturer opened his maw once more... and breathed in.

It was irresistible.

A simple breath. That was enough for all of Josh's struggles, enough to overpower him so, so completely. The pull dragged his misty, vaporous form from the top of the gryphon's beak and immediately into it, ignoring his reedy squeals and uselessly intangible attempts to struggle. Josh's world was suddenly hot and dripping again. He looked round, sending his vision spinning everywhere in his body in a hopeless search for something, anything, anything at all...

Nothing. The suction peaked again, and suddenly his form was huddled, almost nestled against the greedy flesh which surrounded Goldeneye's dusky throat. And he had thought the rest of the gryphon's mouth was hot. The fox whimpered, his vapourous form quivering as it made contact with the sweltering softness all around, held helplessly. A few feet and a million miles away, the outside world glinted at him. Now, the sky was showing: the gryphon must have arched his neck, ready to... do it. Frantic and terrified, the vulpine felt himself unconsciously drinking in the sight with all his strength: the hot, rippling flesh and smoothly curved beak were stripped away, leaving just that last glimpse of sky, an outside world would never see. It was a beautiful shade out there, a rich, summery pale blue, almost reminiscent of the gryphon's own soft wings and underbelly.

It could have been so... so wonderful. He was crying again, wriggling helplessly, trapped inside.

I know. Again came Goldeneye's voice, its smoothness a little shaky now with pure pleasure. That, my darling, is the most exquisitely delightful part.

_ _

The fox wept.

And the gryphon... slurped?

It was halfway between a swallow and a breath, a sort of gluttonous, gulping gasp, and it sucked almost a full third of Josh... in. He felt the powerful, rippling spasm of greedy flesh run around him and latch on lustfully to the mist of his soul. In an instant, the squeezing tunnel of flesh had claimed most of what he thought of now of as his "lower body". The pressure would have crushed bones if he'd had them, but as it was, all Josh could feel was the endless heat and tight drippingness, pulling him further in with tiny dragging gulps.

The fox's terror and desperate, panicked hope returned with a vengeance. He could not help but struggle and try to squirm now, screaming in horror and lashing all over his fleshy prison. The heat grew and pulsed, a constant in-draught lazily seeming to slurp him further. Josh wailed, suddenly acutely aware of how unbelievably frustrating it was to have no arms. He wanted to struggle. He wanted to writhe until he simply eroded this monster completely, surviving via sheer bloody-mindedness. Above all, he wanted to feel his wriggles, his mark on the world: his last hope, even if it failed him.

Hush... Goldeneye was laughing, even as he inhaled and swallowed him. Hush now, and simply try to squirm.

_ _

There was a quiet click from above, and suddenly Josh's eldritch glow - that pure, pulsing violet, iridescent and shimmering in every particle of vapour, oh Christ what has my body become... - was the one and only source of light. He squealed in horror as the illumination showed the dark truth above: Goldeneye's beak was sealed shut totally.

Trapped. Trapped and absolutely doomed.

The fox wailed, feeling another hot, squeezing bout of breath swallowing more of his sobbing form. His amorphous body must have been squeezed out by the slender tunnel of heat and flesh to a whole six or so feet already (how could this monstrosity have swallowed someone whole, let alone alive? It must have been so tight...), and while there was no pain to the stretching, the terror and exhaustive, all-pervading heat more than made up for it. Josh moaned feebly in despair, wriggling his pathetic form inside the hot, hungry throat.

He felt the gentle rumble peak again, just before another swallow gently took yet another small cloud's worth of him down the cruel tunnel with a horrible squelch-slurping noise. The soul-fox whimpered, kicking his legs uselessly as the ripple passed further, stretching his poor abused form again: now nearly eight feet of pearlescent matter, trapped so deep inside the gigantic body of his monstrous predator that he'd cause not the slightest of bulges.

"P-please..." he mumbled feverishly, the sopping, musky heat sapping his strength even without muscles. "I... G-Goldeneye, y-you've g-got to have some mercy..."

...you've got to... you were my f... my fr... I... look, y-you can't be like this, PLEASE...

_ _

Weak but desperate, Josh felt his miasmic form trying to snuggle up to the fleshy walls around him. He even managed to brush some trailing violet tendrils over the repulsive tongue which still twitched and swished below, trying to suppress his feelings of sickening terror as it squirmed with delight at the taste. "P-please... Goldie, please... I... you don't have to do this..."

The muscles around him clenched, and the vulpine cringed away, expecting the last slurping breath, the crescendo of death which would herald his end... but it did not come. Slowly, he looked up at the roof of the cruel maw he was trapped in, feeling his soul wriggling helplessly, deep inside the hot, dripping, seemingly never-ending throat. The pulsing seemed to slow, and he realised in terrified slowness that the gryphon was standing utterly, totally still. For just a fraction of a second, Josh felt a tiny glimmer of hope sprout and blossom in his chest.

Then Goldeneye spoke quietly inside his skull, and just for one moment, his voice was filled with a sadness deeper and more profound than Josh could ever have possibly imagined.

"Wrong, Josh. I do have to."

And he drew in a beakful of warm, summery air, scented with the outside world which was now lost forever, and swallowed.

Hard. The fox squealed, terrified and disorientated, feeling the crushing ripples and powerful suction pull him inside completely. For a moment, the inside of Goldeneye's beak dripped and glistened at him, lit by the light of his own soul, and for an even shorter moment, he managed to just catch the tiny crack of light as it opened slightly, the final farewell of the outside world. Josh tried to claw at it, desperate for even another half-second of that blessed sunlight... but with a passionate, lustful breath, it vanished.

No more was Josh's world one of sky and land, sun and horizon. His universe began and ended here, in this clenching, squeezing tunnel of flesh. Nothing existed outside the boundaries of the gryphon's red-hot, drippingly humid body. He was inhaled straight of sight, the walls of the throat closing over instantly with gluttonous efficiency. The fox quivered inside as he felt himself sucked deeper... was it suction, precisely? Would he end up in the gryphon's lungs? Or was the cruel drag downwards, further into this sweltering new world powered by a different, more eldritch source?

Down and down and down he goes, and where he'll stop, no-one knows...

_ _

The world around him rumbled with Goldeneye's cackle. Did you like that? he whispered softly, his mental voice as intimate and tender as if his beak had been right next to his prey's ears. The fox quivered again, his misty form still sliding deeper in, and another growl of pleasure shook his prison's clenching walls, as if in some perverted gesture of solidarity. Goldeneye began to purr again.

Ah... I've never had a meal quite like you, you know. He groaned, and josh could suddenly feel a pressure against the long tunnel: a claw, tracing over the outside form of it as he slowly slid down deep inside. Mmmm... such a smooth morsel... and as light as air. Another sadistic laugh. And your terror... I could taste it. I could feel it, a physical wriggle of pure delicious emotion. You are... heavenly.

_ _

The fox wept.

The edges of the cloud of him were suddenly and blissfully free of their terrible captors, and Josh could not suppress a pathetic groan of relief as his fog-like form was finally able to spread out somewhat. The slick, dripping chamber inside was hot - oh, heaven's teeth, it was even hotter than the rest of the gryphon had been! A furnace, designed to stew him away to nothing...

The belly of the beast.

Weak with terror, disorientation, heat, and a strange pressure in the back of his mind, a sort of wiggling, Josh only managed to summon a few feeble squirms of his amorphous body as he was slowly - tauntingly, or was the gryphon simply taking his time to savour the slow slide? - inhaled into the pit of Goldeneye's stomach. His head seemed stuck in a loop, alternating between visions of his bloodied broken body, sightless eyes glistening with (NO! YOU IMAGINED THAT PART, I SWEAR IT) the slightest of tears as it was crushed utterly beneath the gryphon's terrible paws, the gryphon's own eyes: violet and golden, such an exquisite combination... gazing into his own with nothing but that all-consuming hunger and cruelty... and the real world: his own soul illuminating the flesh that passed by as he slid down and further into the hot chamber, already awash and sticky with fluids.

_ A pity,_ murmured Goldeneye inside his head. _ A god's deathbed should be more... regal. But personally, as humble as it may be... I think my belly is where you belong. Hmm?_

The fox wept with tearless sobs, trying not to answer: saliva had built all around him, cloying through the mistiness of his form. Still, he could not help but wriggle his misty tendrils, helpless and useless. How his predator, his murderer, could hope to feel the soft, airy caresses was beyond Josh, but he still felt the gryphon shudder around him, almost casually inhaling the rest of him.

Considering his massive size, Goldeneye's stomach was probably average, but even then Josh's miasmic body was compressed briskly into a dense fog, deep inside, drifting and wretched inside the body of the gryphon. His inner light illuminated the walls, slick and glistening. The soul whimpered to himself, tried feebly to coil up, feeling juices wash through his gaseous form, and waited to die.

Of course, it wouldn't be that simple.

***

Oh, Josh... Goldeneye grinned evilly, feeling the heavenly tingle as the warm globule of pure consciousness and energy trapped deep within his innards quivered fearfully. Of course, it won't be that simple.

_ _

He examined the ring again, musing for a moment on all it had created. Such a small thing, such a small and precious thing, to bring so much cruelty and pain. The monster smirked. In all but the size, it was his equal.

But he, at least, knew his own origins. The gryphon felt his smirk fade a little at that thought. When Josh died, when he squirmed his last (the acids would begin soon, oh, yes) any hope of answering his question would likely die with him. As would much of the power - the fox was still its favoured conduit, after all, and once he was gone he doubted that more than a fraction could be siphoned off for any other purposes..

Goldeneye chuckled wistfully, feeling Josh twitch inside him and sink to the fleshy floor of his prison again, sobbing amidst the pools of gastric juices. A pity... he knew there was so much more in there. More power, more knowledge... after all, the amount sluiced off into Josh himself had... been... just... a... tiny...

He froze, unintentionally clenching his belly muscles, a movement which squeezed out a little more of the air Josh was squirming inside in the form of a faint, rippling belch which filled his maw with the delicious taste of vanilla. Josh. Josh had Joshua's memories.

Maybe we can find the answers, now that I've got total control of your entire soul...

Energised already by sheer glorious anticipation, the gryphon leapt into the Void with both claws outstretched. This time, the darkness seemed pure and clean, free of any echoes and distractions. Goldeneye felt his beak drooling again, even though it had recently sent a delicacy into its hungry throat. It didn't matter: only the power mattered now.

He focused on the ring - his ring - in an instant, diving straight into the inferno now without a second thought. Oh, yes... Grunting slightly in effort, and slumping onto his flank to let him toy with his belly's contents at his leisure, the gryphon warped the unearthly power to fit his own mind. It came easier this time, slipping around his own like a corona of burning stars. He grinned, flexing the mental tendril of pure starlight, and stabbed the thing, now enhanced beyond measure by his toy, straight into Josh's mind.

Needless to say, it hurt the soul-fox. The gryphon moaned again, soft and throaty, as a pathetic series of squealing, wriggling swirls tickled his stomach from the inside. He wondered idly how bright Josh was growing now, and how much pain he was in... but no, no distractions. Goldeneye only kept burrowing onwards, through the thick miasma of soul (it was strange now, and almost cloyingly heavy to move through, reverberating between the physical and the impermanent simultaneously: ah, what have I done to this little spirit?) searching, feeling the throb of hot blood in his mortal ears as he drilled his way through the cascades of thought, barely avoiding lethal trauma to little Josh's poor soul...

Searching.

The memories implanted in Josh were not completely shown yet... there was more. He could sense it. There was another revelation hidden away somewhere, and somehow, the ring-enhanced telepathy was telling him: this one seemed... strange. Different.

What's your last secret, Joshua?

_ _

Inside, the mist was churning frantically as Josh's head split itself around him, the fox's weak keens of pain nearly audible to his sharp ears. Goldeneye grinned: it's only a taster, my darling. He felt the essence of the fox shudder again, tickling his stomach walls, and that was when, quite unexpectedly, a trailing tendril of thought struck something... new.

Secreted inside Josh's mind, a little star of consciousness cocooned in the waves of fear and pain. This one had hidden itself well, alright... but the single caress of telepathic power sprung it from its hiding place. The pure light started to flex and distort, waking up now, ready to reveal its truths. Goldeneye swerved sharply in anti-space, flipping round in a delighted, glorious instant to examine. What would it be, Josh, what would it-

_ _

The little nugget of emotion, memory and concept moved in a burst of sinuous, blinding speed, and before its unwary releaser could hope to even twitch in surprise... it slammed forwards, and burst open in a blossom of psychic power.

But not in Josh's mind. The thing had leapt into his.

_ _

Goldeneye choked on the sweet taste of vanilla, trying to pull back instinctively - but too late, too late - as the thing wormed its way in, diving through his mental defences with horrible ease, and struck at the heart. Everything it had hidden exploded into his mind.

He froze.

And slowly, he started to laugh.

***

The pain had gone. Josh lay panting - or at least imitating exhausted pants - and groaning, pooled in the floor of his murderer's stomach. Th-thank... thank g-g-god...

_ _

Or was this just the beginning? Had Goldeneye's monstrous cruelties only paused for a moment? Could you digest a soul? He whimpered, trying to huddle away from it all: the pain, the terror, the slow-burning heat which engulfed his amorphous body...

...and it worked.

The fox froze in shock, squinting as the shock of white blinded him after the dark, dank innards of his predator. Slowly, he managed to crack open his eyes, looking around in feeble alarm at his surroundings.

Or rather, his lack of surroundings. Josh frowned nervously, looking around himself. The world was white. Not the snowy white of his fur, not the shimmering, iridescent white of the ring's pearly band, just... white. The white of a blank page, and_-_ "Slowly, he managed to crack open his eyes."

_ _

Eyes.

_ _

Gasping, he clapped a paw to his skull, feeling one half of vision cut off in darkness as it impacted on soft, silky, beautifully solid furred flesh. He was real again, and a glance down at himself confirmed it absolutely: he was real again. His body was whole, unblemished, not a trace of the blood or gruesome injuries. Josh felt a smile slowly inch onto his small lips. He was alive...

...No, wait. Was this death, then? Had he died at last, trapped in that horrific stomach? Was this... what came afterwards?

"Is it? No, Josh." The voice came from behind, deep and resonant and smooth, and before Josh could turn, a savage kick sent him crashing to the floor. He could certainly still feel pain - the sensation a little odd and almost artificial, but far more than enough to make him shriek nonetheless. The vulpine tried to writhe to his feet, but then the same smoothness and warmth was on him again, crushing him beneath those beautiful, monstrous paws. Josh groaned in terror, wriggling feebly as the pressure tightened, his ribs beginning to creak...

...and it was over. He hunched, gasping and groaning, as Goldeneye stepped back and let him kneel. The gryphon was just as he had always been.

Oh g-god... is this hell? Him and me forever? Oh no... this can't be...

_ _

"That is rather tempting, actually..." murmured his tormentor, sitting down with his massive flank resting on what appeared to be nothing, right behind his whimpering vulpine plaything. Josh flinched away, slowly turning to face him, and the gryphon smiled. "Hello there, little one. Now, while it is tempting, I have other plans for you, Josh. But first..." he spread his claws apart, the old hollow of warmth and silkiness beneath his throat looking so inviting, even in this unnatural white light, "no, you're not dead. Come. I want to explain this."

Josh swallowed, realising now that the smile on his predator's beak was more than merely polite: there was a mad, gleeful edge to it, a sense of joy barely restrained. He tried to move away, blinking back the stab of tears. "I... I don't understand.... Wh-what have you d-d-done to me?"

The smirk only spread. "Here? Oh, Josh, here isn't the interesting part at all. Here is just a brief illusory construct I placed your soul in. None of this is real, you see - you're still a soul, trapped exquisitely in my stomach." A low purr began to hum forth from deep within his chest - or at least, the illusion of his chest. Josh whimpered.

"Oh, yes," the gryphon went on, "I let you have your body back for this - it is, after all, much more satisfying when the tears are real." Before his captive could say a word in response, he went on, "Now, Josh... you could at least thank me, by coming. Here."

It was a command, not a request, and it was all too clear that it was also very, very nearly a threat. The fox looked at his tormntor, trying to mouth a protest, thinking numbly that before all this had began, before he'd been crushed like an ant before this wonderful, hideous monster's power... he would have refused. He would have stood up against the gryphon.

But now, now that you know the value of agony...

Josh sniffled, and slowly began to crawl the few paces towards his tormentor. He could feel the terror now, writhing inside him. He knew that he kept trying to tell himself the unbelievable truth: none of this is real, you're not really here, it's j-just... you're really, er, trapped in h-his... um...

_ _

... and then he found himself trying to believe that it was real after all.

He reached Goldeneye swiftly, trying to keep his head down and not provoke another horrible surge of cruelty, and felt a claw instantly enfold his waist, tugging him into the soft embrace of the gryphon's feathers. This time, Josh could only quiver as the exotic muskiness filled the air around him. The gryphon's feathers certainly didn't seem any less real...

"H-how... how are you m-making this feel l-like it's..."

"Josh..." Goldeneye dipped his head now, nuzzling at the little vulpine's purple belly again, the warm smoothness a sharp contrast to his feathers, "My dear, as I have said before: that isn't the interesting part." He grinned, the sharp pull of feathery muscles tickling the edge of Josh's cheek. "I'm simply affecting your perceptions, nothing more. You see what I want you to - and hear and feel likewise. Hush, hush. Now, the interesting part. It's..." the laugh was returning to his voice, gleeful and sickening, "...well, it's just... exquisite." Chuckling, he squeezed his little captive until Josh couldn't even whimper, simply choking feebly beneath those claws. "Mmm... oh, I just adore being insane."

"What..." Josh felt his own shakings coming: but these were nothing but tears. Get them out while you still have tear ducts. "...what is it, th-then? J-just let me..."

"Hush." Goldeneye smirked again, his joy never fading from his smooth voice. "Very well, my dear. Do you remember your new memories? Where we met, and we fought, and you beat me?"

The fox blinked, confusion thronging amidst his terror. "I-I... yes?"

"Good." One eye shimmered at him, pulsing with manic pleasure as the words fell smoothly from that horrific tongue. "Well, the truth is... you didn't."

Josh stared at him, the golden orb before his own meeting his gaze with cool ease. "I... what? What do you mean? I... G-Goldie, I... Joshua, he... he beat you. He killed you!" He burst out laughing at that, the sheer absurdity finally relieving the tension, and that in turn set off a few quiet sobs. "G-Goldeneye, I don't... I don't underst-"

"Silence." It was sharp and curt again, and the vulpine flinched away, trembling all over. "Yes, you were stronger. And yes, you - or at least, Lord Joshua - did succeed in defeating and... culling me." He smiled. "But that, ah, Josh... that was how it was supposed to go."

This time, there were no laughs. Josh felt his jaw slackening slightly, and tried to gulp back the rising fear. "You... w-what?"

"Did you really think," hummed his torturer, "for one instant, that I would enter a world without knowing about its protector? You were the supreme deity, Joshua! You were worshipped! Of course I knew - I knew everything I could possibly have known about you." He smirked. "And I knew that you were more powerful. And just as men desire what they cannot have... the taste of true victory, triumph against the odds, is a enjoyable, if rare, pleasure. And besides," he shrugged lazily, "you looked... incredibly tasty."

"S... so... you came, and you..." Josh frowned, trying determinedly to ignore the comment. "B-but... I thought you were..."

"This is the heavenly part." Goldeneye whispered, delight now positively throbbing in every syllable. "What I did was just... genius. I knew you'd kill me, you see. I knew someone like me would never be allowed to live with your adorable "peace and happiness" ethics. So I set my plans and - I can't express how hard it was - I then... wiped my own memory of them. I needed to ensure you could never know - no telepathy, no confessions... nothing left behind when you killed me. I needed to ensure Lord Joshua knew nothing of what I'd done to you."

The fox swallowed. "And what? Wh-what did you do to hi... to m-me?"

"Well, I got these eyes out of our confrontation." The glimmering golden orb winked at him, deep silver lids fluttering playfully over it. "And very nice they were too, but you, ahh, you..." The gryphon smiled. "You received a part of me as well."

"I... what?"

The blood was draining from his face with every word he heard.

"Oh, yes. A dagger of pure thought, so finely crafted and so minute and complex that you could not have sensed it. Hidden inside my own head until you crushed it. And then... it was set free. Straight into your head."

"It was..." The little fox instinctively tried to huddle a little closer. "...it was in my..."

"In your soul. Invisible and undetectable - it is nigh-impossible to look into one's own mind, lest the truth of yourself drives you mad. I knew you'd never think of searching for it." He hummed a few notes, seemingly at ease now, in this absolute void of background, with the illusory body of his divine prey huddled against him. "So, the little particle of myself was safe, and I was merely banished back into the Void - there is only one way a creature like me can die, and it will never happen as long as life exists. Everything was ready."

"Ready f-for what?" Josh swallowed back another sob, quivering with terror now. The gryphon shrugged lazily, rolling onto his flank (at least, the fox thought it was so - was gravity included here?) and gestured idly, the same twinkling gleam in his cruel, cruel eyes.

"The infiltration. It would have taken several years at least, and I left it enough instructions to be very careful. But slowly, my little piece of thought took you over."

"I... I... no, no, that's... that's not.. not true..." Josh felt sick. He shuffled round in the cushion of fluffiness, slumping against the gryphon's foreleg and beginning to cry quietly. Goldeneye summarised the truth alongside a tender, gentle lick.

"But it is."

He started to purr again, soft and deadly. "You know it, somehow, even if the memory isn't part of you anymore. You didn't sense it, but... it was there. Stringing its web, making it's connexions. It's nigh impossible to describe in the terms of the real world, but long story short... a few decades have passed in our memory, I've reformed and have gone on my merry way, bitter and unknowing of my plan, but still playing my games, and you... well. It tells me," he tapped his skull lightly with a talon, snickering as Josh whimpered, "that you barely even fought when it finally struck. Pathetic, really."

"I..." The fox felt his gorge rising again, and paused, trying to swallow down the perception of hot acid (it's not real, please god, can't i-it all just be not real...) before speaking. "I didn't... that's a lie! I would have... I..."

The gryphon chuckled, licking him again. "Mmm... oh, yes, you did. You folded in a split second. It was easy. The thing contracted, following my instructions, and it constricted your consciousness totally: crushing it into submission. The subtle method, you see. You were mine in moments." Josh looked out at the whiteness, trying to hide the hot sting of tears. He knew it was true. It simply was.

It was a while before he managed to mumble a weak response: "S.. so... w-why d-didn't you k-k-kill me, t-then?"

"Josh, Josh, little adorable Josh..." His torturer was crooning now, snuggling his faux self close as his soul churned in the real belly of the real gryphon. "I told you. This is nothing to do with revenge. It's to do with you, and your delicious, wonderful, perfect little self. I didn't kill you, because I wanted to make it much more than that." He blinked, and cackled softly, nuzzling him again. "Oh, and also... I didn't know, remember? I was totally innocent of everything happening here, until a few moments ago."

The fox tried not to look at him. "I-I... no, hang on..." he frowned. "The... this... this memory... it was in the... in the ring? But that means... no, that doesn't make sense! The ring w-"

"Very good..." the purr grew again, now a low snarling throb which shook Josh's make-belief fur with every vibration. "Yes, Josh. This nugget of knowledge was in the ring - your ring. The ring supposedly containing all your power, and all your old memories. And then my commanding influence, on top of it all. And why is that?" His eyes were closed now, his grin one of utter madness and glee. Slowly, the predator dipped his beak forwards, now mere inches from his prey's frozen, trembling ear. "Simple."

"Because it wasn't you who created this. It was me."

_ _

Josh stared at him. He seemed to have a stomach as well now, or at least felt like he had one: because it had just twisted itself into a screaming knot.

"W... you... n-no, it's not..."

"It is." Goldeneye chuckled softly, a single talon stroking the fox's back in an almost comforting manner. "The little part of me that I left... once it subdued you, it had more orders. You see... your consciousness was too damaged - a god, after all, is not supposed to be brought low by a little creature like this was. You were too fragile - you'd break too... easily. That's not how we want things to go, is it?" He nodded softly, transfixing his victim with a smouldering gaze. "No. So it had its orders. Split your consciousness from your powers and memories, and implant it in a safe place. Let it grow. Let it blossom... into you."

This time, there was no stopping his jaw from falling open. "I... you... you're lying, please... you've g-got to be lying..." He was begging it. The gryphon couldn't... he couldn't mean...

"Say it." Goldeneye's hunger rumbled through him. "Say it now."

"You... you c-created me?"

The gryphon's grin grew again. Slowly, with all the grace of a creature savouring every movement he made, he nodded.

Josh felt the tears rising, and this time there was no escape. Sobbing in earnest, he fell against the chest of his torturer, burrowing in and trying frantically to hide his terror. "I... no, no, no... I... Oh g-god.,.."

"Hush..." Goldeneye stroked him again. "Well, it's not exactly correct. I didn't create you, but this part of me, this telepathic assassin... it did. It implanted your sleeping little consciousness into that of a little arctic fox, still in the womb of his mother. It let you twist this new form to suit yourself - hence those gorgeous eyes, that soft, delicious violet fur... hence you. And the power? Why, that was locked away in a safe bank vault, wrapped up snug and warm in a mortal guise of my own designing." He winked, and in front of them suddenly sprang into existence... the thing of sparkles. The ring revolved slowly in mid-air, gravity ignored in this world of theory and concept. Goldeneye chuckled. "Honestly, Josh. Did you ever wonder why it looked so fabulous on my talon?"

Josh couldn't speak. Through the blur of tears, he looked up at the thing, sobbing weakly to himself. It was so beautiful, so perfect, so full of potential... and it was just another symbol of the lie which had governed his life. He wept at the elegant amethysts.

"Aww..." There was no kindness of any sort whatsoever in the crooning tones as, with a playful snap of pressure, the holograph-like projection of the ring of Lord Joshua vanished instantly. "Shhh, little one. It's too late to do anything more than suffer now. Much, much too late. It was all set out years ago, by the little part of me which even I knew nothing of." He began to hum again, the low sound carrying under his voice in thrumming bass tones. "Clever, really: the moment it sensed me arriving in this universe - I travel quite frequently, and this one especially was popular, so it was only a matter of time, it was to reveal itself to you, and thusly let me notice it. A thing of such power will not go without my awareness."

The fox said nothing. He felt more tears flowing.

"And then... well, it seems it happened. So the wheels were set in motion, and the song found its master... and then its true master found it." He smirked. "It was a work of genius, don't you think?"

Josh opened his mouth this time, but no sound could come. Silent, he merely lowered his gaze again. Deep, deep inside himself, he felt something crack and break.

The gryphon smiled.

"Yes. It's inevitable, little one. You're mine. You were for so long, and neither of us knew it. But now..." he grinned, shutting his eyes for a moment, and when they opened they were searing golden flames. "...now, let's claim you forever."

And then, his temporal prison of pure white was gone. He was suddenly once again in that searing belly, no body - no body! - merely a roiling, groaning mass of mist and soul-fragments. The dripping heat washed over his gaseous body once more as he squealed in panic, disorientated and terrified. There was a faint ripple of the gluttonous walls around him, and Josh whimpered.

It was... it was over.

It had always been over. Ever since his very life began. He curled in the centre of the gryphon's belly, weeping with despair.

But now another thing was beginning. Something gleaming in his swirling mass of soul. Something prickling in his consciousness... starting to burn.

He began to whimper, and the stomach responded with a coy, almost playful churning squeeze. It wasn't digesting him: no acids, and besides how could they hope to render down a thing of pure emotion? Oh, no. This was something else. Something more.

Something much, much more.

***

And it began.

Goldeneye swallowed down a sticky gush of saliva, chuckling as the cloud of spirit in his stomach rippling at the warm shower. He was drooling now, his every nerve throbbing with anticipation. This would, technically, be just as an old myth. From "mortal" to immortal. His Ascension.

Godhood.

He smirked, raising the ring-bearing talon once more to watch it. Such a pretty little thing... and such immense power. And now... oh, and now it was easy. The gryphon smiled, caressing his little servant inside his own mind as it settled back into its core The thing had guided Joshua all the way to his maw.

He had been a sneaky creature back then, hadn't he? Examining and observing for years on end before he made his move on Josh, seeking ways to bind the soul of a deity, ways to hide within minds, ways to preserve an intention through decades of work without the mind behind it for guidance... all leading to this. He knew how to unlock it now. He knew how he could absorb every one of those blinding, pulsating energies inside it.

Well, almost. He knew how. But it couldn't happen... yet.

After all, the connection between ring and original was still there. And as long as that happened, Josh was still holding it back.

But take Josh out of the equation, and it would follow him.

So... he quivered slightly, flexing his newfound skills with anticipation... let us begin.

Ready, my darling?

_ _

P-please... came the reply. Ahhh. Deep deep inside, Josh was still pleading. No matter what he suffered. I... I don't... n-no...

_ _

Hush now. It'll be over soon.

_ _

And with that, Goldeneye began his task. Consuming the soul.

Not merely swallowing it, as he had done before. Slowly, he felt tendrils of his own mind reaching out, starting to engulf the fox's precious consciousness. Devouring it whole. The galaxy of lights started to ripple, then crack, then split beneath his brutal caress. Contact immediately began to break down the fragile cascades of emotion and thought. The mind itself was being crushed and every fragment was swallowed instantly by his cruel desires.

It was... beyond sensation. It was godlike.

Appropriate... He felt his tongue loll from his beak, shuddering all over and even thrusting his colossal hips a little - all out of pure instinct as the rocketing, sadistic pleasure soared through every nerve at once. This was power. This was power beyond power beyond power.

Oh_, YES!_ He felt the ring burning on his fingers, white-hot and searing. A good pain. The pain of pleasure too great to be understood.

And now... the soul even began to squirm, both Josh's gaseous form and his mental self wriggling and thrashing howling in agony. The gryphon moaned gently, starting to crush his prey's mind with an even firmer, even crueller grip. How much must it hurt, to have your very soul digested alive by the mind of another, Josh? How much must it hurt?

***

It hurt. Beyond anything Josh could have ever imagined in his entire life.

He screamed. Again, and again, and again. The pain was everywhere - it was every_thing._ Every part of him had been consumed utterly, in flames of utmost agony.

Your soul, said a voice coolly - his voice, the monster's smooth tones - inside the inferno. Your very essence is being absorbed by my own. They cannot coexist, and so you are being... eradicated. Everything you are digested and crushed to nothing at all. Goldeneye chuckled, a million miles away, and the hellish prison shook with his laughs as he stroked his stomach. Does it burn?

_ _

The fox could not hope to answer. He uttered a scream which would have surely stripped the very flesh from his throat if he'd still had one, thrashing frantically. Yes. It was pain. It was pain beyond anything physical, beyond even anything mental. The excruciation searing every atom... oh, it burned, alright.

He sobbed somehow through the howls, choking on himself, twisting against the walls of the gryphon's belly. The horrific pain was only growing, his soul slowly flaking off: layer by searing layer. And every second, it raged further. He could not stand this... he'd die! Surely he'd die!

But not yet.

His mind was being devoured, and he could sense it all. Everything. Suddenly, through the inferno, a horrific thought smacked into Josh: he could no longer remember his hometown. The place where he had lived for most of his life. His HOME. What was it? M... ch...

_ _

Marchway? Mochen Sar? Meltoch? WHAT?

_ _

Mel... ches...

_ _

Gone.

_ _

He'd lost it. His memory, his thought, a tiny splinter out of his whole mind - all of it now just the plaything and the food of a monster.

The pain built again, and Josh screamed once more, every atom in his body seeming to stand on end. NO! PLEASE! P-P-PLEASE! More was being consumed, lost in the flames. Names, dates, births and beliefs and facts and figures and a thousand threads in the tapestry of life. He was dying, in agony beyond belief. Everything was fading in the firstorm.

Please... he whimpered again, realising that he no longer knew what the word meant, only that he had to say it, he had to utter it with his whole heart. Just...just let it end...

_ _

No. The lust in the gryphon's snarl went beyond a scream or a laugh. It was desire incarnate. The fox-soul choked on his pain as the final crushing, squeezing, searing, screaming contraction of psychic jaws began. Agony was everything.

But not enough. Never enough. It peaked, rose, peaked again. Josh's form was nothing but a scream now, gurgling in the belly of his torturer of torturers. He was excruciating. There was no beginning, no end, nothing but pain in eternity. In that moment, he begged the world to let him die, to never have made him born. To erase him totally.

The universe, and the new god who held him in his belly... obliged and long, long last.

The soul of the vulpine: everything he was, everything he could or might have or had or should have been... simply imploded. Josh felt a second in which the universe itselfwas filled with pure, total agony, pain beyond comprehension, and then he burst. Gone in a shower of sparks and fire. The soul inside the sadist's tortuous belly vanished instantly, digested in a split-second.

He was gone. Gone, utterly. Nothing left of the creature Goldeneye had once loved.

Finally... oh, yes...here we are, here we-

And the ring burst open in dazzling, white-hot flame. The power had no focus now, nothing to siphon itself into. Except... for... one.

_ -ARE._

_ _

***

REST IN PEACE, LITTLE JOSH.

_ _

The gryphon felt every bone in his body shatter, then melt. His feathers caught in a blaze of purple. His entire body shook itself into a million different dimensions... and he was there.

Goldeneye. Shardkind. Gryphon. Murder, sadist, maniac, abomination...

DEITY.

_ _

He stood, feeling the power coiling within. No longer just a simple toy. It was his. All his. The gryphon had done it at last. Goldeneye moaned softly, shuddering as another crackling bolt passed behind his eyes. This was godhood? No wonder Josh had fought so hard to retain it...

The gryphon smirked, examining the bloody mess which still stuck, dripping and gory, between his paws. The last remnants of the mighty god-fox Joshua. The last remains of the innocent Josh Fawkes.

Both of them were his now Part of him, part of his power. He stroked the taut, empty stomach where the fox had screamed his last. Such a delightful treat... and such fun they'd had, too. The pain, the tortures, the reveal, that squirming fox between his paws, the pleading... so delicious. I can taste it.

_ _

But then there was the happiness. The times before, when they had been content together. The gryphon and the fox, cuddling close in the warmth, chatting, lazing, being... being who they could have been.

Another creature might have flinched from these thoughts, might have cast them aside. But Goldeneye was no-one but himself. His greedy smirk only grew.

Emotion is all. What it is doesn't matter, as long as I'm getting my pleasures... There was little difference. The fox's joy and his despair were equally delectable.

But always, it had to end. Always, the little one must become mine.

He shivered lustfully. Such a meal. And such a change. The power... the godliness...

Oh, he had so much to do.

Goldeneye twisted his pawpad, feeling the gory corpse squish and squelch delightfully beneath his pads, and leapt away with a smile on his beak.

Mortals, immortals, gods... you're all mine in the end.

_ _

Goldeneye 21/01/2013