Backdated to Cycle 127

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abuse

For the whole thread

Helion arrived swiftly at the cave in the wall, a small cave deer clutched in one of its claws. It wasted no time squeezing itself into the crevice it had made just large enough for the two of them to pass in and out, but nobody bigger, and emerged in their small living space where it expected to find its spawn waiting. After all, it had told it to stay there and its arrival was not exactly subtle - one could hear the clattering of bones as it clumsily stormed its way through the cave. One could smell the corruption on its breath.

It stood at the entrance for a moment, realizing how cramped the cave was getting, now that Anteros was growing. It raised a claw to the wall and tore the stone away, corruption spilling into the rock and crumbling it to dust before their eyes, widening the walls ever so slightly.

It then tossed the cave deer to Anteros, to let it eat from the caracass first. Helion would eat what remains, preferably when it had begun to rot away.

"Eat. And then we will speak. It's time you start learning properly."

It had considered when it would introduce this, when it would start to really begin molding Anteros into what it wanted its spawn to be. It had spent the last few cycles wondering what it would do, and now that it was beginning to really grow into its own, it figured it was time.

Helion had, to its credit, been relatively gentle to Anteros in the first cycle. As much as it could ever be gentle with its demeanor and behavioral issues. It had not exploded at it or been particularly violent outside of the occasional training to defend itself. That wasn't to say that it had been a kind parent, but it had been an effective caretaker. Now, though...that sliver of gentleness would be gone. Anteros wasn't an infant anymore.

@Anteros

As usual, Anteros had been asleep before their abrupt awakening by the distinct sounds of an approaching gembound. It was Helion, of course; it wasn't like anyone else came down here. They remained slumped over on their stomach, wings splayed out to blanket them. Only peeking out to see the wall crumble away and the deer tossed toward them.

Anteros reached out to drag the deer further toward them, starting to sluggishly pick at chunks as they listened to Helion. "I'm already training," it pointed out. "What else is there to learn?" If Anteros had their way, they wouldn't be training in the first place.

@V-Ruby-One

Something hideous bubbled up in Helion's chest at Anteros's questioning and the beast in the back of its mind screamed. IT SHOULD BE GRATEFUL!! IT SHOULD NOT QUESTION!!! IT WILL KNOW TRUE PURPOSE SOON!!! Its teeth ground inside its mouth, and its lip lifted in the beginnings of a snarl. "More then you know. You think you know everything already?"

Look at them, sitting there, lounging on the stones it had broken for them, eating the food it had caught for them. Ungrateful. UNGRATEFUL. WORM. But also our spawn. Our child... Not a child. Azrael never thought of Helion as a child, nor did Scion. There were no parents or children in the forge, no beloved sons and daughters of Rrevalk. They were all Hounds. Soldiers. Tools. Weapons.

But this is not the Chaos Forge. That was a good point. But that did not make this any less of Disorder's design.

It glared at Anteros for a moment, as they picked at its food, but it was not an unusual look from Helion at this point. "It is different from training. It is knowledge and purpose. You were not created by accident or whim. There is a sickness in these caves." Its mouth fully twisted into a snarl now, not directed at the child, but at the images hovering in the back of its mind. "We are beasts of CHAOS. And to Chaos we serve. There are others that claim to serve Chaos but they are WEAK. They are FALSE. They will tell you Chaos is one way and then reject its true nature. You hide from them because they will kill you, and kill me, for daring to step outside of their structure, their RULES. Chaos does not have rules. You will learn that, and you will look our master in the eye in know true purpose."

It's blood was heating in the midst of its speech until it was nearly boiling from excitement in its veins. One hand raised and spread, as if itching to wrap themselves around Anteros's head or neck and inject the visions without preparation or their consent, but it held itself back. It said it would let them eat first.

@Anteros

"No." It didn't, but what was the purpose in learning more? Anteros was perfectly content as is.

Yet their creator spat fiery, ambitious words, talk of a greater purpose, of a master they were meant to serve. Anteros paused, strips of meat dangling from their talons as it listened with wide eyes.

Then, they resumed eating, now more purposeful in their movements. "If..Nevermind." They'd wondered, briefly, if they could be truly chaotic while still bowing to a master, but Anteros had enough sense to know such a question would not be well received.

How, they wondered, were they suppose to have reacted to this? Anger, perhaps, at the presented aberration. But all they felt was dread. This was too much all at once, it rejected the very notion outright. And that showed in the way their body shook, in the fear on their face.

"I don't understand."

@V-Ruby-One

Helion glared at its spawn and that ugliness rose up in it again at the pathetic quivering and whimpering. It is AFRAID. We were never afraid. We always had ANGER. Anger and hate, that was what had fueled Helion for so long. Hatred of its own life-giver, of its horrid corrupted lot in life. And that anger had given it life, given it strength, given it PURPOSE.

Look at this thing. PATHETIC. USELESS. SCARED. WEAK. What did it need to succeed? What did it need to become a valkhound, to accept its corrupted heart? To rise to the purpose in which Helion had created it with?

Well...it needed to be stronger, for one. That would continue. It needed to see what it had seen, it needed to understand. AND IT NEEDS TO HATE!! That had worked for Helion. It would work on Anteros.

It waited a bit longer. Until Anteros had eaten a little more, in silence, but then it couldn't wait anymore. It grew excited, hot with anticipation. They had put it off long enough. It reached forward to snatch the kill out of its arms and snapped, "Enough of that, prepare yourself!"

It didn't give it time. After all, Helion hadn't had time. It thrust its mind forward towards Anteros and made to engulf it. And into all its senses it poured CHAOS. The vision of Rrevalk in the Spire, the voice that had boomed so loud, its eardrums had collapsed. Anteros would feel the hot oil on its skin as if it, too, were melting apart, and then it would see the memories of the nightmares that Helion had seen, cut up into sections and fragments. Blood. Death. Oil. Chaos. The shattering of a rainbow sky. A bellowing voice in the storm of war. Thick salty metallic red flooding into the jaws as life was ripped from another hapless victim, the crazed chaos of slaughter ringing in its ears. It felt its own teeth sinking into its own flesh in the absence of another victim. It ripped the stones right out of the ground. It ripped a heart right out of a chest.

It was horrific. It was Chaos. It was war. Helion did not hold back. However long it maintined the spell, it would flood Anteros's mind with its own horrors. The horrors that had become its own lifeblood. Purpose. YOU ARE MEANT TO DESTROY END.

@Anteros

There hadn't been time to recoil or react before their mind received the outpouring of visions. At once they collapsed to the ground, digging marks into the stone with their claws as they thrashed, nerves burning with secondhand agonies.

Each burst of stimulus was both agonizingly slow, they felt each new, painful sensation with as much intensity as Helion had. Facing Rrevalk and being melted down and remade within the oilstone spire, and then at once it is wild and it is chaos and it is nothing but a beast of ceaseless destruction and violence is all it knows. No matter if they pleaded it ripped them apart all the same because that is what they were made for and what they must do.

Destroy end.

Black spots danced in their vision, still shaking on the caves floor. Anteros' did not remember collapsing or know how they had screamed and sobbed. But they could still hear the sounds of war and slaughter ringing in their ears.

Just as Helion had wished, they felt it, that hatred, the adrenaline of tearing themself and anyone in their way to shreds. And it horrified them, Anteros understood their purpose and hated it all the same.

Half-digested meat splattered against the floor as they vomited, oily tears rolling down their cheeks. Anteros shivered like a newborn fawn, even as that seed of hatred settled into their heart, they were still just as horribly weak as before.

Too weak to stop Helion, too weak to protect themself, too small and insignificant to stop their purpose. A sniveling worm writhing in the dirt, just a thing to be stepped on and used by those above them.

Yes, it did hate.

@V-Ruby-One

Helion let it go on for a while. Perhaps it should have predicted the vomiting, but it didn't seem to care, just stepped to the side as it continued to pour unfiltered Chaos into its child's mind. The whining thing mewled and tugged at its arm, begging it to stop. Look at it, please! You're hurting it, you're killing it! Please stop, you don't want it to lose its mind too! Is that what you want? Another slave?! That actually had it pausing for a moment. The spell flickered out as on arm retracted from where it had been holding its magic stable. It stared at Anteros, shivering, mewling, pathetic, and felt genuine pity. Just a moment of it - for it was its parent and wasn't it supposed to be protecting it? Raising it to be strong? Not ripping it down when it was barely grown at all?!

NO. WE MUST MAKE IT STRONG! IT MUST KNOW PURPOSE!! It roared in, so much stronger then either of them, filling Helion's blood with fire once again. The shivering thing bowed back and disappeared again, overwhelmed by the force of the beast's conviction. LET IT SUFFER AS WE SUFFERED!! IT WILL COME OUT STRONGER, AS WE HAVE!!! Yes, yes that was true. Helion had suffered, much more then Anteros did now. It had suffered the bodily damage, the nightmares, the face of Rrevalk ripping it apart, and it had come out the other end with its eyes open.

It sat down, the spell long gone, but it didn't make to start it up again. "And that is our truth," it snarled. "Although we don't bear Oilstone, we are valkhounds. And that is our fate, our purpose. That is why you are trained, why you were CREATED. Give into your nature - it is CHAOS, true and pure!!"

@Anteros