ORIGIN

He felt spines and teeth and claws sink into flesh, and they were his teeth and claws and not his flesh and that was good-

A muffled bellow of satisfaction, of triumph, was pressed up against the other monster's meat. Claws rended. Oil-thick blood sprayed.

The jolt of electricity caught him by surprise, and it was a body-seizing paralytic wave of agony, one that roared through his muscles and left him spasming. He could feel it clutching at his veins, his heart-

-Instinctive, reflective, with the experience of centuries of fighting, he attempted to kick off the ground, to break the circuit. Let her shock herself--

His foot kicked off, and the agony rippling through his muscles lessened--he was no longer tearing at her, merely using her to stay off the ground, dazed and pained by the hit. But with luck, the end of her crackling magic (and shit, he'd need to be wary of this-! Her magic was strong, despite her immense physical size) would strike her, instead of him.

Through her legs, into the stone.

Through her muscles, as it had just seared him.

Already he was planning ahead, his tactical mind leaping to the next move, and the next--but already, Draconua was proving a far less predictable opponent than he would ever have expected.

A thump. A cracking shatter of rock. The glint of razor-point stones and gems beneath them. He was pitching, falling, and he had but a fraction of a second to tense against this behemoth.

Vargas attempted to leap with his falling momentum, an attempt to clear this crushing hole and land just safely to one side. If he succeeded, it would play into his plans--but there was no time to think about that now, for if he failed, he would find his flesh shredding on the meat grinder that Draconua forged below.

There was a split-second of hesitation--another plan blooming in his mind, the realization that he could try to twist her into the rock below, to land beneath his weight for extra damage. But there was no time to readjust his position, either: only to focus, keen and with sudden, pure silence in his mind--that heartbeat moment of slowed time--for the leap.

Muscles surged, shoved. Burns seared through his consciousness, raking along his nerves with pain. Claws pushed off the other monster, not to damage but to grant Master Vargas momentum--a momentum that carried him to the new pit's edge, scrabbling at it, hanging for that brief, breath-held moment-...

...and then he was up, feeling the brief cut of gem over his foot, and sprinting away. The burns had slowed him--he had barely made it clear. He would attempt to get space--to zigzag--anything that he could: for his initial attack had drawn blood.

It had drawn a great deal of blood.

Now he had to get clear, and let those wounds do their work.

To let Draconua bleed out.

Vargas spared but the briefest glances over his shoulder as he swerved, ready to circle, to sprint, to turn... his flanks heaved with effort, the scent of his own burnt skin sparking a further roar of adrenaline through his veins.

He showed nothing of his relief.

Nothing, too, of his wariness that this might somehow be another trap, though it was true he drew no closer.

She was large--too large to continue fighting head-to-head; he had already decided to avoid that, to use his speed and hope that she could not match it, to let her bleed and hope that she could not reach him with her magic. But hope was not a certain thing.

Surrender was--when it was not a trick.

But he showed nothing of it, for confidence was as much a weapon as spines and fangs and claws. Intimidation, surety. If he staggered now-...

"Mend yourself," Vargas snapped, mustering all the authority he could manage, even while his own body screamed for mending. He fought to call upon his magicka, and though he showed nothing of his doubts, he could not help but tremble slightly where he stood. His muscles had burnt, and spasmed, and every ripple of searing heat and electrical charge that jolted through them threatened to turn his limbs to jelly. The surge of magicka eased only the surface of it, and he knew that he would need time to recover, but...

So far, he was holding.

"We would not waste your usefulness. But mend yourself, if you can." It was blunt, commanding, but almost indifferent: "If you cannot, then return to your stone; I offered you aid and you denied it, and I cannot mend what I have done to you." Not revenge, nothing sneered, but simple fact. "If you survive, you may aid in the retaking of these caves and their return to productivity. You may accompany me, perhaps, to meet the Hand of the Creator, Lord Dhracia, when next she visits to check on our progress." Here Vargas paused, briefly, wondering if this creature was capable of splitting itself, of handing off a soldier to his Lord. "If you have something to offer her--all the better." Did she even know what such things were-? "Now: your name, again?" he asked, teeth gritted against the sudden seize of muscle in his forelimbs.

Vargas was in motion again--closer, now, but not too close, pacing as though his muscles weren't writhing beneath his skin in agony. As if the skin itself wasn't blackening, burning with a tracery of scars already.

The concentration honed over centuries of combat silenced this, and he focused on his magic. He did not think it would come--as he had told her--but he attempted it nonetheless; perhaps the Black Spire's presence here would bolster him. I need this one, he thought to it, with a glance upward at its always-shifting black-slick shape. It was one step off a prayer.

The Creator did not answer prayers.

It had, in retrospect, been a foolish attempt, given how badly and how often it tended to backfire; and Vargas found himself tumbling back, falling to his rump as muscles seized and twitched, as his own blood flooded and roared in response. At least he hadn't torn Draconua's blood out through her open wounds.

A growl escaped him, and he hoped she had not seen his tumble, or that if she had she'd think it some sort of... tactical... respositioning. Maybe she will believe that I just sat down, he thought wryly, and there was, even, some shimmer of embarrassment at what his servants--Overseer, hangers-on and children--at the cave entrance, must be thinking.

"The Sleepless Chaos." He said it aloud, mulling it over. Was she ironic, then-? Possessing, at least, beyond that chaotic certainty--that mad paladin's fervent dedication to violence--of amusement? Or did she truly believe that she had never slept..?

"Draconua. You are not one of mine. But you are one of his. When you are well enough, I will tell you who, and what, we are. I will tell you, if you wish to hear it, what has happened in this cave from beginning to its end, so far as I am aware--we have all slept. Your actions and choices beyond that point will be your own, and so long as they do not conflict with our goals, I expect that we will not become enemies. We serve the same Creator." A pause, then, as he considered his words--but pain, and now cramping muscles, had distracted him from whatever point he'd intended to make. Ahh, well; not all speeches could be burnished gold. This one would make do as brass. "Tell me when you are ready to speak, and we will speak! Until then I will mend the damage you have done," and this was said with amusement. "You are an admirable fighter," he added, ever honest in his words. "I am Master Vargas, the Leviathan. Once Overseer Vargas, looking over the choosing, the culling and the trials of this nest's creations." Did she know what any of that was-? Was she a new creation, never-woken, or was she like him, an old one, confused by long sleep? "Do you know what any of that means?" he asked, at last--and wondered if the dripping of blood that he could hear was signalling merely injury, or her end.

Vargas' eyes narrowed. Despite his promise, he did not yet launch into cave history, did not sit down, whip out a blackboard and put on six-eyed spectacles-... No, he stared, mind churning over this information.

She knows only what Masters are. She is new--wholly new, then?--and yet she fights like this. With magic that could shatter rocks. With the power to fight the Leviathan himself--and potentially win. She was left here, he thought to himself, as Draco's guardian, perhaps. And yet Jupiter was not stopped. Why-? Not ready, yet, then? Or perhaps it formed her itself, this Black Spire, later--beneath itself, to protect itself. Toxic gaze darted up to examine the ever-shifting stone.

"I will tell you, then, but first tell me this: do you know where you are, or how you came to be?" A pause, a grimace as he tried, and failed, to stand on cramping hind legs. "Do you know what this place is?"