villainy incarnate [aeson vs ingran; day 3]

[kousei ♚]

You have left behind a bloodtrail worth seeing upon the snow.

It's a consequence of what comes when you give your heart to home, a warning howl to everyone who brands your skin with judgement and presumptions; you proudly fly your banner stained with Vesper Daisy's blood and let her cannon be your battlecry. Let her corpse be your warning. "Don't fuck with me." there's a twisted beauty to taking a life that you wanted to, not one that you were ordered to take. You're carrying a war banner stained with the blood of home, but you've always been wiser than to give your heart to a place you've never cared for. This is a banner worth flying and a bloodtrail worth seeing; it is yours.

Besides, it was refreshing to strike someone down and not hear them cry for mercy or rattle on about some special place in hell waiting for people like you.

You leave the violence behind but the still corpse of the mutation and the bloodtrail left behind is evidence enough of what happened. Despite the hollow apathy sewn across your features, your chest swells with pride laced with gold. There's an unseen resiliance to your other three allies that you expect you wouldn't have found in anyone else in this frozen hellscape. Together, the four of you could form chasms through the fabrics of reality itself and split galaxies in half.

You could build things from bone if your really wanted to.

Of course, that didn't mean you were bound by blood -- only by the thrill of the hunt. You gave Vesper Daisy's weapons, now red with Isaac's blood, to Violet with nothing but a cold stare and an apathetic eyeroll, leaving everyone unaware of the twitching in the muscles holding your spear and the internal struggle seeded deep within your chest. Restraint wins out over bloodlust, for now, but when the time comes you expect to disentangle her lifeline from yours and sever her pulse with a single stroke. Together, you could shatter galaxies. However, that didn't stop your desire to shatter each and every one of them. Allegiance to violence was simply in your nature, after all.

The four of your clambered onto the sled and you watch summer's ashes fade into nothing but distant red dots in the snow. The bloodied mess you had left behind in the empty space of Vesper Daisy's body quickly begins to fade into an afterthought, despite your intense glare at the streak of red left upon the snow. Only once it's out of sight, do you turn your attention to other things; your allies as piecing Isaac back together.

Wordless, you do your part. Applying fresh stitches over torn ones and new bandages over the tears in his flesh. He's earned his keep, your district partner's severed arm sitting miles away in the snow is evidence of that. Besides, there would be very little fun in tearing down a man too broken to even lift his axe; you want them to be standing when you kill them.

Not that you're picky.

Your attention is torn away from Isaac's red skin by smoke and hot water. This frozen hellscape begins to warm and you give two quick glances to both your flanks to check for any surprises. Despite the gasoline set, there is no detonation. You come to a stop.

Your boots crunch into the snow as you leap from the sled, spear in hand. There's no stop for a thank you, no waiting for a thousand different words of gratitude to fall from Isaac's lips or a worry that Violet or Euley would try to plant one of their weapon in your back. You wander from your temporary pack with the intent to explore and then return.

Perhaps your paranoia has begin to subside, because they fade out of earshot and your line of sight. You look to the sky, a small grin flickers across your features when a parachute touches the snow next to you. A gift from sponsorship, your first since you eliminated your main competitor. You throw open the box and a pair of silver gloves greets you, more protection from whatever lies out there. Someone out there wants you alive, it's probably because they see the humanity discarded in a pointless pile behind you.

That's the only reason why anyone wants you alive; so you can quench their thirsts for blood that they're too weak to satisfy themselves.

You bury the head of your spear into the ground and begin to slip your fingers into their slots. "Did you think I was going to let you die?" You recognize Euley's voice in a heartbeat, how could you not?

You turn, your displeasure at her question evident as she loops her way around you, drawing closer. Of course, the speculation was never at the centre of your mind, all you know is what you saw and it displeased you. Your gloved hand twitches, the internal battle within your chest restarts, and at this moment there's nothing more you want more than to pick up your spear and drive it through her in a similar way you did to your district partner a few hours prior. You've killed men for a lot less. "Never would've thought you were weak enough to let a fucking goat do your dirty work."

Your words are barbed, aimed to cut deeper than your spear, and perhaps that's all you need. You know Euley Sarasin doesn't care about you; she doesn't want to hear your stories or see scars that are deeper than surface level. And she knows the opposing case comes into play. When the time is right, your blade will be against her skin and her blade against yours; the two of you simply wait for the right moment for the detonation of the tranquiliy shared between you. Interdependance and lust can only withstand winter for so long, after all.

You've never strained to get pleasures that never reached below the surface, you've lived a life of murder and empty sex, but if the last thing Euley Sarasin wants to hear is the sound of your cannon then she must look into your fucking eyes.

She doesn't recoil at the barbs surrounded your words, she embraces them with an eyeroll not too disimilar to yours and a fearlessness you admire in few. She knows there's a very real possibility break the tension with her skin without hesitation and yet she moves within your gravitational pull with intent to compromise and your gloved hand in hers. She pulls them off, exposing your whitened knuckles kissed by black and blue, and doesn't flinch.

She brings them to her lips and plants a seed of lust along their surface. "You're not trying to live up to what Twelve said, are you? You're not a drama queen." You scoff and roll your eyes at Stella's words being brought back up. Ignoring her as she secures the glove tighter than it had been before. "And I don't want you to die. Not yet, Aeson."

She repeats the sentiment you shared in the training centre but you simply shrug your shoulders in response. You're ready to turn and walk away but her hands don't let go as she sighs. "Let's talk about what happened. No, I didn't notice where the goat was charging. And, no, you didn't need my help. Just look at you. What can't you face on your own?"

Yet that's not the reason for the volcano trapped beneath your skin. You've been a man who worked better beneath the shadows by himself, you've never needed someone else. You've never known interdependance until now, and for a split second you could see that failing you. There were no words of warning and had you noticed a split second later, you would've been nothing more than a bloodtrail in the snow. Still, the attempt at gentle flattery isn't lost on you and you appreciate her fingers against the dried blood on your cheeks. Restraint wins, this time.

"If you think I'd let something take you away, then you're mistaken. I'm the only person who can steal you from me. Isn't that our rule? We live for the other and we die just the same." Her fingers runs across your lips, her face hovering inches from yours distracts you from the familiar taste of dried iron finding you again. You won't die for her, just as she won't die for you. You'll die to her though, just as she will for you.

But you've barely opened your mouth to say anything before she closes the chasm between the two of you faces and presses her lips against yours. Passionate enough to ignite a burning hunger at the back of your throat yet somehow not harsh enough to shatter the illusion. An eon passes and you break away, your heart rate no more accelerated than it was when her hand was against your lip. There's an urge to wrap your fingers around her throat and bring her closer to reignite the lust between you. Just to give it another chance to quicken your slowing heartbeat.

But you don't.

Nothing more needs to be said, between the steam that wraps itself between the two of you. You take your spear, bag and turn. You decide she can stay, for now.

Come night time, you've lost yourself. Starvation scrawled upon yellowed pages finds you again.

---

You are awoken by psuedosunlight.

No longer tangled with your pulse, your heartbeat rests easy in your chest. But the same cannot be said for you, something grips itself around your torso, too gentle to be a kill attempt but too close to be simple coincidence. "What the fuck?" You manage a low groan, too quiet to wake everyone else up in your tent. You hoist yourself up, a sudden movement and you've jerked Euley's arms from your torso but she still doesn't stir. "Get the fuck off me." You're too groggy to shout. She's not woken by the sudden movement and not stirred by the noise you suddenly make. No one is. It was probably an accident, not that you're complaining.

Besides, you have more pressing matters.

Spear in hand, you step from the tent and run your hand through your hair and your eyes search for a quiet spot. You walk, leaving a trail of footprints in the snow, and find the best spot furthest away from the tent before unzipping and standing by the closest tree.

You stick your spear in the ground next to you and sigh, relief sudden but needed. Ripred, you love a good piss.

You smirk, zipping back up and taking your spear back from the ground. You begin walking, your slow journey back towards tent won't be quick and you can't even see camp's outline out here and through the smoke. You've taken a couple of steps before you freeze in your tracks, a figure you can barely distinguish. You raise an eyebrow. "Euley?" You call out for a second before scowling. "You followed me out here you perverted bitch?"

Except in a moment of clarity, you realize its hair is too short to be Euley, its skin is too inhumane to be Isaac and it's too bruised and tattered to be Violet.
It's a vaguely familiar face, you're surprised you even notice a ghost that's been dead for three years. Of course, Ingran Ansgot was your kind of man, as ruthless as you but a lot more savage based on his display in the arena. Of course, his death was barely a harsh breeze through the wind, you didn't know the fucker. Only slightly admired him.

Yet he's dead; and this is shown by the unnatural color of his skin and the inhumane way he moves. It's like looking into a mirror that reflects something deeper than the flesh.

You face him, spear in one hand and a disregard for fear worn on your sleeve.

"I wonder if killing a deadman's a better relief than pissing."

Your body moves to find out.

[aeson kight attack ingran ansgot; spear]

Keps|5VSspear

[3068 -- Shallow Cut on Left Calf -- 3.5 damage]

spear

[✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ]

He was in death as he was in life as he was in undeath, fucking starving for flesh. His hand opened and closed in the fresh snow, twisting slowly, with cricks in his wrist, turning and turning to twist the knife into Jano's chest. Butterflies stormed past his head, beautiful and twisting, biting, eating him alive until he was nothing and there was nothing at all. Everything gone, even his brain.

His bones.

The memory was an implant, a spark to bring the flesh to a standing position and nothing more. Ingran Ansgot was dead now for three years but his memory lived on in the hearts of those that remembered him, that watched him crush the skull of that tribute between his two hands as if it was nothing.

There are those that remember him and those that welcomed him in the afterlife with open arms, if only that they could get their revenge to the cruel deaths he'd dealt them in six.

Cruel he'd been, insane they said and insane he was. If there was a hell, then Ingran was certainly burning in it.

The flesh staggered up in the early morning, frostbitten fingers tugging a spear from his back with some effort. A target had been programmed into his skin as certain as the slowly rising sun and Ingran had far to walk from the high peak. He paused for a moment, no breath leaving blue lips, eyes covered by cataract aimed at the yellow leaking across the horizon, seeing nothing at all. He sniffed for a moment, trying to catch his successor's scent.

There, below.

He was there.

Ingran staggered slowly down the mountain, legs controlled by someone else.

It was pitiful, an indecency, to turn this boy into something so rotten but perhaps now his outsides finally reflected the boy that had been on the inside all alone.

Yet here he was, with the opportunity to kill in front of him again and even if this was no longer Ingran, never had been at all, the zombie would do as he was told gladly.

He came across his target with his pants down.

the dangling bit looked especially tasty.

"Shitstain," the zombie garbled.

And then it lunged.

[Zombie Ingran attacks Aeson Shitstain Kight with Spear]
1f22KbSespear
[Deep Gash on Left Forearm -- 8.0 damage]

spear

[kousei ♚]

Leaving a shallow scratch along the mutation's leg did nothing to sew a chord of discourage in your heart. In fact, it left a seed of elation in your chest, made your blood boil and a war horn sound in the back of your mind -- this will be a clash of monsters not men.

You see yourself in that decaying form, a personification of a man who's been sent to the depths of hell and somehow made his way back. Someone who's joints click with every movement and groans with every twitch in his jaw, he wields that spear like an extention of his rotting hand and looks at your with a bloodlust in his eyes. You see yourself in him; a clear personification of the madness left to fester deep within your soul.

Perhaps this is that hell they rave about before you send them there.

You withdraw your hand, blood staining the edge of your spear, and this this groans something barely caught by your comprehension. "Shitstain." You shrug your shoulders, you've been called worse anyway. It is barreling towards you, lunging with its spear outstretched and eyes trained onto marring your skin. You don't have faith in your own ski pole to block his, his speed matches yours, and a brief look of surprise registers on your features as you do your best to sidestep.

Yet you do not manage to avoid the explosion of red that tears across your forearm, blotting the apathy trained in your voice. "FUCK-" you stumble and shake. You shove the pole towards the snow and just about manage to catch yourself before you fall, an angry red sneer looks up at you. A red moon tears itself from your mouth, a mixed shade of agony and rage, and eclipses the previous composure that had carried you through the past two days.

The past twelve years.

You bite the inside of your cheek, the soft pain does its best to distract you from the harsh one but to no avail. You twirl on your heels, remembering never to turn your back on the enemy, and find a red mass dripping from the edge of his spear. You look down at your own arm, the crimson soaking into the sleeve of the sweater but leaving nowhere near the initials EA branded upon your chest. You sneer, hefting your spear and circling the mutations groans and growls as it watches you, tracing your movements as you do the same. This is a clash of monsters, not a battle between desperate men.

The sight of your blood forming a blood trail in a similar fashion to Vesper Daisy's does not strike a fear chord in your chest, little things never struck a chord deeper than hollow, but it ignites a burning desire. You are no Ingran Ansgot, you never have and you never will be, because your beginning comes from black scripture scrawled upon yellowed pages while his comes from ambiguity -- you knew nothing about the fucker past the cannons he fired and the life of his he threw away.

You remember watching, at fifteen, with Ava and Aeryn as he pinned that boy to the ground and crushed his skull between his hands like he was nothing but an ant. With ease and pleasure; Ava saw the captivation in your eyes. Two years later, given the opportunity, you tried to do the same. Pinning the next man, buried up his neck in debt, after breaking his knee and doing your best to replicate what you had seen on television. Despite his cries and his writhing, his skull never shattered and his lifeline never stopped. You had the heart, you had the malice. But you never had the strength; you couldn't replicate the actions of a ghost and the realization struck you as your grip loosened.

So you decided you would create your own brand of brutality, unrefined and wild. You stomped his face into the concrete.

You could never replicate the actions of a ghost, so you decided to make your own red smear on the world. "Don't fuck with me."

And here you stand, your blood forming droplets into the snow because of the shadow of a red phantom that's decayed for over three years and counting. Your beginning came from dark scripture scrawled upon yellow pages, but your end will be in hellfire, not the hands of some wannabe dead man. You heft your spear, gritting your teeth and moving your muscles to the rhythm of agony. This is a clash of monsters, after all.

If Ingran wanted a fight, you would bring a war.

[aeson kight attack ingran ansgot; spear]

A80dWG3xspear

[3053 -- Deep Gash on Left Calf -- 8.0 damage]

spear

[✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ]

He couldn't feel anything, neither pain nor pleasure. It was the same, moment after a moment, a corpse reanimated for the pleasure of the Capitol and given the face of Ingran Ansgot. The movements too, it seemed.

His spear ran true and tasted flesh. The smell of blood in the air, sudden and spotting and craving attention. His clouded gaze flicked up, intent on the gash in his prey's arm. The zombie's head tipped back, nose working slowly in the cold air. He smelled good, warm. He wanted to eat him. Not because his body willed him to but because the spark of Ingran that existed there wanted it.

To taste warmth once again.

How sweet.

The spear split through his calf but did nothing more than tear rotten flesh. no blood spilt from there. There was no blood left to lend. He was built, a creation, not a man or a monster, just a beast. He was in death as he had been in life.

It was a pity that someone so beautiful had been made so ugly. It was something the Capitol would deem a waste, yet here they were, destroying beauty still.

Aeson was a beautiful thing, a soft moving, fluid thing that struck with ease, a hunter like how Ingran had been. There was something in the movement that caught the zombie's eye.

A game.

The prey wanted a game.

Ingran had liked games.

A grin formed slowly across his gaping maw, pulling flesh up into strange corners. He tipped forwards slowly in the snow, moving too quickly, too strangely for a zombie to move.

He was undead and he wanted to play.

[Zombie Ingran attacks Aeson Shitstain Kight with Spear]
8QZpl7dYspear
[Deep Gash on Cheek -- 8.5 damage]

spear

[kousei ♚]

Your spear tears through his calf and draws nothing but emptiness; he doesn't feel.

He shows no signs of slowing, no signs of weariness or pain. He defies human nature for he has been given the gift of not being human in the first place. You remind yourself that this is not Ingran; Ingran has been dead for over three years. His body torn apart by Capitol mutations in retribution for his last act of cruelty towards his allies, it's not possible that this is Ingran. Just a thing wearing his face, mirroring his movements and mocking his language. Despite the black heart that beat in his hollow chest, Ingran was barely human; Ingran could still bleed.

This thing doesn't bleed.

Fear was never a black cloud that hung heavy above your head, that was overtaken by starvation and black scripture, and the idea of mortality never made you stop to think. Death was simply a promise, something that came at the end of a cycle -- your mother and father saw it as a reward, a forbidden fruit to be grasped at the end of their suffering through this sinful plane. Suffering through a sinful existence just so they could meet their father in the sky. Despite your age, they made sure you understood that nothing could truly be deathless, people couldn't lose their humanity. They could only shed its layers.

Perhaps that is why the sight of something as close to deathless as this should send a chill down your spine. Something that wears the face of dead men and doesn't bleed when you try to kill it. Something that still has the twisted bravado to pull its rotting lips into a disgusting grin despite the wounds you have carved across its skin.
You've never been fearful, not truly.

But this is something that lies outside the realms of your comprehension; something your reasoning cannot piece together. Ingran Ansgot has been dead for three years, yet here he stands. Moving with a speed that matches you and a striking with a ferocity you could only ever dream of possessing. Despite his rotting self, clearly a reflection of your soul or whatever, and the gash you've left into his calf.

He surprises you with his speed, his spear glints red in the orange sunlight and arcs straight towards your face, you hold your breath.

(oh, motherfuck--)

And you release it in the form of another harsh scream. You're stumbling backwards, hand pressed against your skin and fighting back against the bloodflood spilling down your face and dripping down your chin like juice from forbidden fruit. And had you lost enough blood, you might've mistaken the layer of snow for white sheets back home and let yourself fall, expecting to be caught and curled into a soft embrace. "Fucker," you mutter, steadying your blurring vision and focusing on the layer of life coating your fingers.

He's scarred your fucking face.

However, this is an atlas curse you're not unfamiliar with. You've paid the price for your allegiance to violence a hundred times over, tendrils of pain wrap around your limbs and torso, and this is a scar you can learn to live with.

The colors of a monster swim before your eyes; you can't bring yourself to smile like it does. You've never seen a that black cloud known as fear hover above your head, it was something you never truly understood, and your icy composure in even the direst of situations was never seen as a cause of concern. It was seen as a sign for something great; a spontaneous delivery in waiting. You've never been cursed with that black cloud, not when you see that damned wheel slow and certainly not at this moment. It may not bleed, but nothing can be truly deathless.

So you heft your spear and narrow your vision on the nearest opening.

You never claimed to be a rational man, you never even said you were a good one, but let it never be thought you weren't a fucking fearless one.

[aeson kight attack ingran ansgot; spear]

3|mCZUqRspear

[3044 -- Deep Gash on Left Bicep -- 8.0 damage]

spear

[✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ]

Blood spilling rich and red, signifying the end of an era with a signature across willing skin, proclaiming he'd been there. Ingran Ansgot's name would live on in the scar on Aeson's Kight's face, despite never have touched him himself, despite being long dead, his name owuld be remembered now. Thus he lived again. In the scream behind Aeson's mouth, in the delight of those watching and the horror, Ingran lived again, haunting as he was in this state, as he'd always been.

And from the zombie's gaping mouth there came a garbled laugh.

The sun was finished rising and snow fell around them. It was beautiful, like the splash of red in the snow, where the heat from his opponent's blood melted the ice and sunk lower, spreading outwards in pink pools. If Ingran could know peace, this would be it, this moment of heaven before his eternal damnation would be here in this slice of time.

Aeson, unbeknownst to him, had given his elder a final gift before he was truly laid to rest and if a zombie could know happiness this would be it here.

But it wouldn't last; he could feel himself tearing apart with every move that he made, the speed at which he did it only serving to tear his muscles faster. He was slowing and it was proven by the new tear in his body, courtesy of the living.

His time was coming again but there would be no final satisfaction.

Just a return down to from whence he came, back to hell.

He wouldn't go down easy, Ingran Ansgot had never been known for that. Even in life, his death had come by more of a fancy than anything else. The chance to kill Jano had proved too tempting and Ingran had died in the process, always intent on his prey.

This new prey was no exception.

[Zombie Ingran attacks Aeson Shitstain Kight with Spear]
8x|it_n7spear
[Deep Gash on Stomach -- 9.0 damage]

spear

[kousei ♚]

The wound you leave is a trademark, one part spelling rage and another part with an underlying tone of desperation. You're a fearless man, an evil monster with darkness in his chest and hellfire burning strong in his core but in the back of your mind plays the possibility that he may not even be able to be killed. That every scratch you leave across his rotting skin adds nothing to the deterioration process, only another wound to mark the surface level. What if you've finally met a man who's soul has festers as much as you have? An unstoppable force meets an immovable object; Ingran Ansgot could've been a man of legend in your world.

Yet, you see beneath his twisted smile behind his gargled laughter and see a small sign of weakness. The sun rises above the horizon and you see him, every inch of him behind the crimson spatter leaving melted patches in the snow. Behind the snow falling around you like ashes in the wake of a forest fire, you see beneath notations for death and a tale of resurrection. He's weakening, as if he's ready to rest. You smirk.

In the back of your mind, you wonder if this will be you when your time comes.

When the hellfire finishes with your core and spreads from organ to organ, hungry flames licking your skin and exposing you for what you are. What you truly are. No pretty face to hide behind, no cloak of humanity to slowly shed. Just. Truth.

Despite the agony biting at your forearm and the tear in your cheek, you manage a laugh. "Is there a special place in hell waiting for me?" You ask, despite knowing there's no way he'd know. This isn't Ingran, you saw the real Ingran lose himself to blood lust. Plunging his blade through his ally's skin and letting a personification of all his mortality devour him until he was nothing but bone. Every bone is buried back in Six, despite never giving it a second thought, you've seen the tombstone in simple passing. "Have you seen it?" You ask him anyway, out of irrational habit and false hope.

You always send people there before they can show it to you. You question if it's even real sometimes.

Maybe if you went there, you could meet whoever constructed it and make them bleed ichor gold. Then you can find your parents, your real parents, and do the same to them; you still remember learning to count your ribs as you withered at their whim.

Instead of a resolution to the question that's burned your core brighter than hellfire, he decides to answer your question with a spear to the gut. Except the song of metal against metal rings clear through the morning. He tears the armor clad around your chest almost clean off of your torso and you stumble.

(but you will never fall.)

Somehow, he strikes too low to tear the EA initials stitched to your sweater. You grunt, looking down at your ruined armour before sneering and looking up. You meet his eyes, decayed, dead eyes for a moment as the two of you stand there; two hunters desperate to drink from the bittersweet nectar of bloodshed.

"Nevermind!"

(you'll have to keep chasing it yourself)

Your spear arcs towards him, point sharp and bathed in sunlight.

[aeson kight attack ingran ansgot; spear]

rzT|TZZAspear

[3001 -- Deep Gash on Left Forearm -- 8.0 damage]

spear

[kousei ♚]

filler flee (I'm writing a thing rn)