It sat against the wall of Canis, oddly pensive for the moment. Three of its arms were curled around its midsection while the fourth held an oddly shaped stone in its hand. It had found it attached to one of the skulls here and it could feel the magic pulsing under the surface. A horrible, horrible idea had occurred to it when it had picked the thing up, a thought quickly dashed by a strike of fear. The thing inside of it uncurled and hissed, Vargas will kill us! And that had been the end of that.

But it hadn't been. Because not long after, like a delayed reaction, it froze as it screamed through its brain. WHO CARES!! And logic: He said he'd only kill us if we lost control again. This is not losing control. Like it needed to justify its own decisions against fear of Vargas. Stupid STUPID STUPID thing. Just for that, the ideas came rushing back, full force, full stop.

It wasn't that it had never considered it before, but the rules of the Chaos Forge wouldn't allow it. Some of those rules had been so ingrained in the ruby that it hadn't even thought about it, but now it seemed to be peeling back those rules one by one by one.

Vargas was not omnipresent. He wouldn't know because Helion would not tell. It wasn't his business. This wasn't his FORGE. Not here, on the other side of the caves were the bones held their secrets and its lies would echo. It gave Helion a strange thrilling joy to know that it was rebelling again. Stupid rules. Stupid laws. This was a nest of CHAOS. It should not be punished.

Mind made up, it stood suddenly and began searching along the walls of Canis for a suitable place, claws running over the stones until eventually it stopped. A small divet. A good place to start. Its claws dug into the stone and chaos shot forward, shattering the wall at its command. It opened to a small, enclosed cave, the entrance, streaked with corruption, just wide enough for Helion to squeeze through.

Once it was crouched inside, it opened its palm where the agate was held. It shuddered as it pulled its own magicka out of its body, feeling it like a warm drink rushing through all the wrong places. Down from its skull, across its neck, over its shoulder, and through its arm to thread its way into the laces of the agate. Dark streaks began to make themselves known across the surface of the stone as corruption spilled into it and took root.

Helion's face split into a grin as it set the stone down. Already, it was beginning to fuse itself into the putrefied rock. It would grow and it would rot, just as Helion had been ruined in its own formation.

Chaos would emerge here. Not Vargas's faux chaos, but true chaos. And Helion would ensure that it remained that way.

Helion observed this small shard of chaos beginning to grow, something flickering in its eyes as it did. This was...not just a piece of chaos, but a piece of itself here. Legacy. Its ground its back teeth. Is this how Azrael felt when he placed my stone before the Spire? The thing uncurled and reached forward, as if to touch Helion's arm. What do you feel? Helion blinked, an arm reaching over and ghosting over the place where it felt that phantom touch.

Nothing.

It reached forward towards the back of the wall, claws placed upon a jutting stone. For a moment, nothing happened, but then the smallest tremble in its body and a flare in its eyes gave away the rushing turmoil within the creature. Things were mounting in it. Emotions it couldn't name. Others it could - anger, fear...and was that...love?

No. It was oddly quiet, but as forceful as ever, filling its head and reaching through its bones. Responsibility. We were not made to be loving. We were made to DESTROY END! And that is what we will DO. Perhaps this one will be with us, perhaps it will destroy as we destroy! This is US!! We will ensure its survival! Its claws gripped the stone harder as pure corrupted magic began to flow from its body. It snarled, it groaned, it poured everything into it, in the way it hadn't poured everything into the agate. The surface of the rock began to peel away like burning flesh, revealing oil-slick black beneath, glistening in the darkness, roiling with its own innate Chaos.

Rrevalk's radiation began to flood the room, and Helion basked in it, like the sun too close to a freezing body. It stayed there for a while, staring at the agate, watching as it made its roots, and then removed its claw from the miniature Black Spire, and exited the cave without another sound.

*exit