A while back (about a year ago), Audland had participated in a race and two spars. He'd placed fourth in that race, just barely beat by some spindly twinkbeast despite his best efforts. In the first spar, he'd met someone special... and then pummeled their giant belly into the earth. They'd pummeled him too. It was a mutual thing.

In the second fight, Audland had lost spectacularly to someone way above his level. And then he'd gotten to see that same guy face off full throttle with someone like Audland, someone without as many advantages. She did have some neat armor, though. And she had managed to win, despite her chrysalization. Orion's stars, that had been so cool to watch.

Oh, and he'd learned two important things: gay people exist (happy pride), he might be one of them, and you can't really make Lessers give life when they don't want to. Stop counting. Look away. Wait no look back i'm not done expositing.

He'd fought with the Polaris river, met a weird bouncy ball with tentacles on it, tried and succeeded in making contact with big daddy (although it hadn't really felt like a victory), antagonized some forgettable dweebs (whose names and faces he had tattooed to the back of his eyelids), signed himself up for a weird contract or two, and... that should have wrapped up the year, or so Audland had thought. A pretty good year all in all, or at least good enough. Actually, that was more of a summary of his entire life up til this point. Was it still a good life? ...Good enough?

Some butch purple lizard lady must've thought not. She decided to spice up his life by inviting him to the big bad boss fight at year's end anyway. Even though he came in fourth. And now Audland felt... more than a little intimidated, and permanently scarred from the battle. Not that that was worth admitting to anyone. He wished he'd done more. But how could he have seen it coming? That his best efforts, while pitiful, would still be rewarded?

The fight to control one's own magic was a difficult journey for anyone. For the Corrupted, the task often proved especially counterintuitive and often deadly. And Audland preferred to keep a freeloader's heart. He had a live-and-let-live-unless-something-was-annoying-him mentality. In the inner peace and utter tranquility of his elevated mind (read: laziness), he had all but cast off the idea of ever putting real effort into understanding it.

But two things: that hyena had been faced with a death threat from a maniacal demon with a slutty waist that had completely lost his composure. And she'd won, somehow, through her training. Against an opponent Audland had faced one round prior! She lacked the advantage, she lacked the magical skill—she lacked the ability to see!! But she'd made it out with her life intact (not what Azrael had wanted), and that was a victory in Audland's eyes. If Audland ever had to face that man in another fight, would it be possible for him to do the same? More? She had shown him that the unbeatable could be beaten, if he... tried. If he didn't give up.

And the other thing was that if he'd known more, or been better, or... something, he might have survived the combat til the end. If he'd been better, he might have survived and actually won something. Not that he would have deserved it. So maybe this outcome was the most fair; but Audland wasn't partial to fairness.

He'd sought clarity. Mental clarity, and visual clarity as well. A cave he had never seen before, opened up through a passage in Ursa. It was... supposed to be dark, he imagined. But to him, it was quite pleasantly bright. He had searched further and further to find its "brightest" part. A big dish, full of whispers. Annoying as they were, Audland was no stranger to such ambience.

Here, he might just be able to think. To practice, even.

First, he would find a place in the pit to take a seat. Placing his hands upon the earth, Audland wondered what would be the easiest way to begin. Perhaps with something that he knew already liked to grow and spread. Something to set his stage. The twisted cordyceps hiding in the inner crevices of his fur—the ones that induced his constant itching and made pretty much all bathing irrelevant—rippled and coursed through his skin with delight, much to Audland's personal discomfort. Contact, with new substrate? They ate it right up, just like they had in the fight with the Champion. Maybe it wasn't about the substrate. If there was one thing Chaos certainly loved to do, it was spread.

Ah. One of the forgettable dweebs had arrived. In Audland's view, she strode through this place like a little black cloud against a sunny sky. Guess she wasn't so special with the lights on either.

Audland could trace their every detail. Audland could tell they saw him, too, from the way they would look everywhere but his direction. It might be dark for them, he realized. It might be dark, and last they'd met, he hadn't been his best. He still might not be, if the patches of void licking at her heels had anything to say about it. So it might be fair to avoid him, but Audland didn't care for fair. He only cared for getting what he wanted.

LOOK AT ME. The thought was so powerful it broke containment entirely. Eleven might feel it pierce her skull like a gunshot to the head. LOOK AT ME. LOOK AT ME. LOOK. AT. ME. The force of Audland's will would pour through the cracks of their mind like water. Leaking through the stones. Filling all her cavities. Yeah, he could do that now. Neat trick, right?

"Neat trick, right?" His eyes were pinned on Eleven with a wild glee. It was so nice, to be certain of something. Audland couldn't stop smiling about it.

"Where the hell have you been?" Audland had an inkling that he didn't need to ask. While he'd been plunging his claws into the depths of her mind, injecting all his polluted desires, he'd caught a whiff of something else going on in there. But he'd give them a chance. The chase was more fun.

First, a haughty little “Hah,” in the face of Eleven’s suffering. Seeing the fruits of what felt like such minimal labor, the grin plastered on Audland’s face crept ever wider.

Then: “Is that so? Chaos al-mighty, yer a presumptuous one. Ya leave me with so many questions. Like, for one," he brings up a clawed finger, "how d’ya know I’m not workin’ myself? And work doin’ what? You’ve never asked.” While her eyes are still affixed to Audland, he steadily draws closer.

“An' for two," a second claw; "why should I care who you tell? I don’t even know what a Vargas is, and most importantly, I didn’t attack you. Ain’t a crime to ask for a friendly greetin’. It coulda been worse.” There’s a meaningful pause where he stares at her intently. Did you know that? Did you want it to be? “But it wasn’t.”

Now his eyes bore into hers from a mere two or three feet away. He stops here, like he’s been caught on a hitch in the track rails. He wants to lean further forward, but the knowledge that she could lunge and catch him in her jaws is a taut string that keeps him in place, for now. At least until he can find a good opening.

As if to dismiss any threat Eleven had loaded to fire back at him, Audland gleefully bounces to another topic. “If you’re workin’ so hard in that shabby hole a' yours, why are you out here?” All up in his business like it was the place to be. Well, to be entirely fair, he did ask for this. More accurately, he commanded it. Maybe they’d struck a cord a little, insinuating about his laziness like that. Still, his thinly veiled self-satisfaction was all he’d let her see. He hoped it made her feel sick. He hoped just a little that she’d choke on that bile.

But something felt off here. Where was all her usual spunk? The last two times he’d met them, they’d seemed to have much more energy. Well, maybe he just didn’t know them that well.

"Ooou, harrassment, oooo he's gonna get me!!!" Audland waved his arms around and mocked some cartoonish expression of fear with his six yellow eyes that Eleven wasn't even wearing. "I'm so dang scared. Truly, I am. Quiverin' in my jimmies." Audland was an unmoving, unshaking settlement of blue. Don't ask what a 'jimmies' is, he doesn't know a thing. "Some guy I don't know, he's gonna plow me right through." A beat as Audland failed to correct his phrasing. "Are you serious now?"

Eleven's second sentiment only led to an outburst of steely, uncanny laughter. It was more of a forced bark than a real expression of joy. His glinting yellow eyes narrowed at her. This was grating his nerves into fine cheddar chees. How could anyone be so audacious, yet so bad with their bluffing? So many things fell flat on their face. The alley cat act, all spitting and hissing and fussing; training? Fresh air? Harassment?! They were valkhounds, for goodness sake. They antithesized law.

"Last time I so much as touched you, ya bit the hell outta me. Didn't ask—didn't hesitate." Would Eleven notice him shifting closer to them? "Yer not here for training. 'Cause I'm right here, and you've yet to come at me." Ever closer, one foot step at a time. Would they see it? "Yer not goin' to some war. 'Cause yer not here to train." A foot away, arm's reach. Will they move? Will they stop him? "And no one's comin' t' save you from me."

Audland reaches out quick, tries to cinch the spot just behind Eleven's lower jaw in a vice grip. With enough uncontested force, this could lock Eleven's head in place. Whether or not they ultimately allow this, Audland's eyes are still burning holes in the scars around Eleven's mouth. If they don't stop him, they'll soon realize... he's inspecting them. Like some poor, lowly animal.

"Unless whoever did that got their due."

Whether or not Eleven backed away, or bit, or whatever else they could think to do—they'd probably catch Audland's meaning. So Audland's gaze would flit to Eleven's eyes, and his voice would drop low enough to carry only to Eleven's ears. "Y'know darlin', if you don't tell me what's on yer mind, I can just take it from you. We're creatures of oil and death." Were Audland's grip around their mandibles secure, here Eleven might feel the breath of claw's edge when he squeezes. "Nobody needs to be polite."

Sweet, almost. His tone would suddenly become almost saccharine sweet. But the meaning behind his words... you couldn't wash it off your skin if you tried.

Lord, they were being so weird. It was freaking Audland out, internally. The only tell being the whiffed reaction to Eleven’s single note of humor. It was being so silent, so unreactive. All these digs and quips and it had barely said a word. Like it already wasn’t talking before, and now it was talking even less. Even though it should have so much to say. It made Audland’s blood boil. It did more than that. It…

He had gripped its jaw like a mutt at the groomer’s, beholden to him and his gluttonous, bloated ego and his stupid self-aggrandizing threat of mercy. He had studied that scar with all six of the yellow pinpricks buried in his skull, as if the different angles would tell him something new. As if the valkhound in front of him would tell him something new.

And of course, to no one’s surprise but Audland’s, it didn’t. Eleven had nothing to add. One word, and some attempt at flinging itself into him. As if that was anything at all. As if it wasn’t practically giving itself to him like a fish jumping into open jaws. Audland realized then that Eleven actually couldn’t see him. Like, no idea where he was in space or time.

And this was its response?

No. No, this couldn’t be right. Eleven couldn’t convince him. That he could just shove liters of oil and heave mountains of bile from his own chest right into Eleven’s mouth, and it would just mildly hiss and swallow it down like a pill? And live in that suffocation? No. Unacceptable. He was missing something. And Eleven couldn’t stop him from finding out.

With only a snarl to serve as Eleven’s glimpse of a warning, the phantom claw of Chaos ripped forth, piercing the walls of Eleven’s mind with spindly fingertips. They would most definitely feel it; detect it through the sickening metacognitive presence of something alien and familiar impressing upon their mind.

But the execution was clumsy, and the journey was painfully laborious. The grasping hands of Audland’s magic stumbled over the ridges and folds of Eleven’s mind. Unfortunately for them both, the giant blue mothball wouldn’t quit until he had what he was looking for. So they would have to see this arduous invasion through together.

At last, a spark of significance—a flash of passing moments; of feelings; a flurry, a furious gale. The scar, and how it was made, were suddenly no longer a part of the Chaos Forge trade secret. And that wasn’t even the most damning thing.

Audland instinctively withdrew a couple steps. He was suddenly acutely aware of the distance between he and Eleven, and so, so many clashing thoughts occurred over what to do about this. He wasn’t really sure what option(s) he preferred. He wasn’t really sure how to feel.

But far be it from a master class heckler to not know what to say.

”What… What the hell was all that? Why…”

This hadn’t really… exactly… answered his question. If anything, it had only spawned more.

He wanted to move either forward or backward, one way or another, but his feet felt like they’d been bolted to the track. The suspension of this ride was killing him.

”…are you like this?”