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chil-aglia · 1 day ago

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The Immoral King V. The Reaper

Summary: The Reaper has come for the King, but the King will not be so easily defeated.

Warnings: Religious references (Christianity, single direct quote), death mentions, dead body mentions

Characters: The Immoral King (Chief, @sinestrosmind), The Fire King (Fire Chief, @sinestrosmind), The Reaper (Entity, @thescribblings, brief appearance + driving force)

Wordcount: 2,252

There was the scent of death. The feeling of being watched. It put the King on edge, looking around his peaceful throne room for the looming threat. Then he heard laugher. He knew.

He had come for him.

The second he knows the source, the second he looks up directly above him and sees that creature- The Reaper, the Battle Nexus began calling him. He thought the name was quite fitting, especially as unease turns to aggression and he stands.

"Isn't it amazing?" The other asked through his laughing as darkness creeps in. The shadows are different than before, thick and heavy. Hard to see through when they consume the throne room. The King couldn't see very far when all the light was gone.

One hand rests on the sheath of one of his swords, the other crosses his body to grasp the handle.

The being appears in front of the King, startling him, eyes and teeth a bold, blinding white against the black of the void. "You'll love it here, they all do." And then the ground is ripped out from under the King.

The King wasn't worried for his life, he'd survived the Reaper once before. He could do it again. No, it was simply entering the Reaper's domain that he was most worried about.

And enter he ended up. The shadows swallowed him before he could decide he needed to flee instead of fight, his pride being his downfall. He yelps as he falls, drawing a sword- Perseverance, on his decent before he slowed to a stop. He knew something was wrong immediately; it reeked here, and he couldn't see. No- not a normal couldn't see kind of dark. An almost suffocating couldn't see- a "I think I'm blind" couldn't see. It made him focus more on his hearing than his sight, a shift in focus he was still working on when he felt himself falling again.

Already he felt something creeping up on him, and it wasn't the Reaper that had appeared in a flash, eyes and teeth the only sign he was even with him, before he had begun his descent through bodies and darkness. The King was so on edge now, so truly frightened, that the moment he felt something bump his shoulder he whipped around and sliced through it. He felt his sword connect with something, felt it cut through bone- he knows it was bone. He's cut through bone before.

A body. He'd hit a body.

And another. Which he responded the same to.

The scent was getting worse, that feeling of impending doom was getting stronger and stronger. He knew what was coming. There was one thing that lurked in the darkness that the great King of The Hidden City truly feared, and it wasn't the Reaper.

Then he felt it.

He was falling head first into the darkness when he felt the sting of a blade against his thigh. Not a normal sting- burning. Searing pain of a white-hot blade. Just a nick, just a tease, a hello, but Chief reacted as if he had just been insulted. He twists his body as he falls, tucking his legs and swinging his sword at his attacker that he'd just barely caught a glimpse of. A fleck of an ember. A hint of a flame.

He's here.

The Reaper was nothing compared to this beast. The Reaper could trap him, sure. He could take away his sight, take away the ground beneath his feet, leave him falling through the void with no end in sight. And sure, he could cut him. He could draw blood. He could even kill him.

But the one thing he couldn't do was use his own face against him.

He couldn't use his own blades.

Couldn't use his fears.

Couldn't use his voice.

The Reaper couldn't use intimate knowledge to pick and pick and pick at him. Couldn't speak his deepest fears. Couldn't torment him with his past. Couldn't make his stomach flip with two simple words that he himself used time and time again in greeting to others outside the void.

"Hello, love."

Chief turns as he falls, sharp, brows furrowed and eyes wide, lips drawn back to bare his teeth. He draws his other sword immediately upon hearing that voice- his voice. An echo to it, sure, ever so slight. But still the King's, nonetheless. "You." Chief's voice is bitter, accusing, frightened. And that entity across from him just smiles like he would and cocks his head. Chief can feel the heat radiating off the glowing creature in front of him, even though he knows it's just in his head. It's the void, the darkness, making him see things when they're not there. A waking nightmare.

"Me." He echoes. He laughs as a body strikes Chief again, and fear flashes in the mutant's eyes as he reacts violently. Blades strike bone again, cutting cleanly through another body. "Seems you've got yourself in quite the predicament, pretty thing." The creature croons, and it makes the King's blood boil and run cold at the same time.

Chief turns just enough to look over his shoulder, see that confident, casual smirk on his tormentor's face as if this was just another night. Another nightmare. Their usual routine. But they both knew it wasn't. "Leave me." He demands, though his commanding voice has an obvious undertone of fear. And of course, that twisted mirror of himself hears it. "I've enough to deal with."

The creature laughs again, amused, and the King lashes out. He strikes with Diligence, the blade cuts cleanly through the faint aura of his tormenter and it dissipates. But that was only the demon's form. He knows he's still here. His voice echoes, an eerie song.

"Seasons don't fear the reaper, nor do the wind, the sun, or the rain." Chief can feel his heart pounding in his chest. He can sense his tormentor circling him even if he can't see him yet. "Come on, baby," It's a purr as much as it was a shift in tone, darker, more of a growl. A smooth shift into a different song- he knew it was a song. Had to have been a song. "When God is gone and the Devil takes hold, who will have mercy on your soul?" The King is struck before he sees that twisted version of himself again, a searing pain that digs deep through his carapace. No wound shows for it, but he can feel it. It makes him cry out, pained and angered, and the demon just continues on.

"Why don't you cast yourself on me?" He purrs as the King writhes in pain. A third song? Chief couldn't tell. His carapace burned deep, and another jab from a white-hot sword has him screaming again. "Baby, take my hand," The Fire King continues, a too-sweet coo as Chief lashes out blindly at a being does not physically exist. "Give yourself to me."

Another burning strike from the Fire King, another pained yell from Chief, and it shifts to rage. He twists and turns, trying to strike his tormentor to no avail. No- this isn't like his usual nightmares. He has no power here. He cannot wound him. The Fire King- he's in Chief's world now. No attack can harm him. Chief realizes that as another body strikes him- followed by another and another- and he strikes them. Feels his blades connect to something, feels his blades cut cleanly through dried flesh and bone, and then he spots his demon and slashes and feels nothing.

"NO!" The King bellowed, fearful and pained. "I will not submit! Not to you- not to anyone!" He's struggling, grasping at the last shreds of power he has. He's terrified- it's all being taken from him. He's in a place with no ground, an endless literal void with no way to find any footing or control his direction. He's trapped here, with an enemy he cannot see and an enemy he cannot strike. His power is slipping through his fingers, there's only one out but that means giving up something dear to him. "Then you will die." The Fire King counters, stating the fact plainly.

"I do not fear death." Chief's struggle is obvious. He knows he's not fooling the demon. He's struck again, clean through his arm, and everything below that cut falls limp. His sword- his Katana, Diligence, falls from his grasp. His demon tries to grasp it, but the handle goes right through his hand.

"Do you want death?" The demon asks after a moment, and when his real-world counterpart does not respond, he drives his sword through his plastron. The King screams, open and pained, and tears fall from his face. The air draws them away as he falls faster, not allowing them to soak his cheeks. "Answer me, sweet thing." The Fire King demands.

Remaining sword sheathed, deemed useless, a hand is on his plastron and pressing near where he sees that white-hot blade penetrating him. He doesn't dare touch it- he can feel the heat from it. He can feel his markings beginning to heat up, too. "It would be celebrated." He counters the Fire King, voice strained. He gasps before screaming again when his tormentor twists the blade. It wasn't the answer he was looking for, he knew it.

"Do you want that?" The Fire King's voice is colder, firmer. "Do you want death?" Merciful, the demon allows Chief to regain himself enough to speak. Finally, he says what he knows the Fire King wants to hear. "No." It's a choked answer, bordering on a sob. This burns worse than his nightmares, this is more frightening than his nightmares. Powerless against his enemies, unable to adapt to his surroundings. He's reduced to how he felt years ago- powerless to stop The Baron. Unable to fight back. No options, no way out.

"You know what you need to do to avoid it." Cruel as always, but Chief knows the Fire King is right. "Accept me. Give yourself the ability to do the impossible. How many bodies have struck you as you fall? How many have been ensnared by the darkness never to return? How many have been claimed by The Reaper?"

"I-" A sob cuts him off, followed by a deep breath. He struggles to speak, and he knows it's amusing to his demon. "I will not lose what's left of my humanity."

"Oh, honey," The Fire King sounded amused. Like the King just said the cutest thing. "You already lost the rest of your humanity years ago." A final shout of defiance before hours of anguish and torment. The King fell and continued to fall, found body after body. Was visited time and time again by his demonic self, by his tormentor. Each time ended the same, just like his nightmares. Hunger pains came, thirst came, and slowly the King's resolve was chipped away.

Chief didn't know how long it had been. There was no sense of time in this hellscape. His only relief from the darkness became his visions of his tormentor. He began looking forward to seeing the Fire King, getting release from these dark depths of hell. And he knew that he knew.

The King knew he'd been defeated when things didn't start the same as the last dozen times.

"We're not a religious man," the Fire King starts, and Chief knew immediately this was it. This was the end of their years-long battle. "But you do have to admit, there's a certain… Appeal to the stories, yes?"

"The power." Chief agrees in a hoarse whisper, his throat raw and sore from hours of on-and-off screaming. And the Fire King simply hummed an agreement as he circled the broken King. Silence was loud to Chief, a different form of torment. His body ached and burned, he was starving, he was parched, he was exhausted. He wanted release- more than anything. Freedom.

And then the Fire King began speaking again.

"In the beginning, when God created the Heavens and the Earth, the Earth was a formless void." For once, Chief paid attention fully to what his tormentor was saying. Interest grew. He turned to face him, confused and curious, briefly wondering if that's where they were. If The Reaper was really a god.

"Darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters." The Fire King nears, gently cupping Chief's face, and the mutant king noticed that…. It didn't hurt. The Fire King's touch- it didn't burn. The burning aches all over his body were fading faster than they ever had before. His stripes- the searing pain from being too hot soon turned into a gentle, welcoming warmth. This, he saw, mirrored The Fire King's markings as they began glowing brighter, fire flecking off of them, more color appearing to his shadow body. Looking more and more like him.

"And then God said, "Let there be light.""

And there was light.

The King felt a surge of power when the Fire King rushed into him. A new breath, a second wind. He saw his own markings light up before erupting into fire. And it didn't burn.

He didn't burn.

Hunger and thirst and exhaustion gone, life returning to him- hope returning to him, a sense of power, he understood why the Fire King said what he did. Quoted what he did.

And he won't let The Reaper's slights against him stand.

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