◈ Chapter 86:

Rain gradually opened his eyes. The world was a blur, a mess of indiscernible colours and shapes. He squinted trying to make sense of it, or trying to make something come into focus. A green blob moved closer to him and waved an appendage blob in front of his face.

“Hey, are you okay?”

Rain put a paw to his face and rubbed across his eyes. He flinched as his paw pads touched bone. Pain. So much horrible Pain. His entire body felt like one big injury. Rubbing his eyelids seemed to help a bit and when he opened his eyes again he was able to see the blurry green shape was a blurry green Goblin.

“What happened?” he managed to get out. He noticed his voice sounded ragged, guttural, the combined destruction of his throat and lip.

“Goddam you sound like shit.”

“...Thanks Opal.”

With a struggle, he sat up, but still couldn't see much. He blinked rapidly to try and clear his sight. To his surprise, it worked, and things came into focus.

He was still in the square but… the demon bits were…

“Where did all the demons go?”

“Huh? Oh, you mean all that nasty bloody stuff? It started turning into green fire and disappearing after a while. Took a long time, there was a lot of it.”

He looked around in dismay, the square was just empty, as though no great battle had been fought, well, that is if you didn't count the flattening of Lynthia. He had been hoping to eat some of the demons if only to heal, even if they tasted vile.

Speaking of healing, he looked over his body. It was in a sorry state, he could even see his intestine poking through his stomach wall where a spear had cut into him. Pain was an understatement, but he almost felt as if all the pains together were working against each other. Hard to have a point of reference of what wasn’t pain if everything everywhere was pain. He noted that his mane had changed and wasn't so dark and shedding of the light anymore, although it was definitely still longer than it had been. He was fairly sure his eyes were back to normal too since that was the case.

“The others?”

“Uh, they saw the streets filled with blood and were too scared to come closer.”

Rain nodded. At least they lived.

His eyes shifted across the ruined town square, rain still drizzling, until they came to rest on the body of a man. Rain’s eyes narrowed. He could see him moving, shifting, gradually awakening.

“I have potions for healing, you ah, look like you need them rather a lot…” said Opal, gesturing at her hip where a number of vials had been strung around a pair of shorts she had apparently acquired somewhere. He noted that she was standing too, and was mostly balanced, only the occasional wobbled leg or sway.

“No.”

With a gruelling effort Rain managed to slowly, laboriously get his feet under him, then even more slowly he rose until he was standing. He nearly fell there and then, staggering to keep his balance. Setting what remained of his lip he made his way toward the Ranker.

The man saw him coming and began to struggle, trying to move, to escape, but to no avail. Rain advanced and then fell on him, falling to all fours and slamming his paw down on his neck. He snarled into the Ranker’s face.

“I promised you a hateful miserable death Ranker. Did you think I lied?”

The Ranker who was now armourless looked up at him warily. His body seemingly had taken the brunt of the explosion and his occult scars had been torn up by metal shrapnel, disfiguring his body, the orange-red glow that normally suffused the scars was simply gone. He was noticeably weaker too, very very weak in fact.

“Y-you won’t do it. You won’t,” he managed to croak out.

Rain stared at him with luminous yellow eyes. Then he moved his head over to his arm, and then he began to eat.

The Ranker screamed as Rain’s teeth bit into his bicep, his remaining teeth incising into his skin, then his muscle, eating away at his flesh, swallowing, then biting down on his humerus until with a wet crunch the bone split apart. Rain ate, steadily making his way down his arm until the Ranker’s fingers were going into his maw.

He turned back to the Ranker to find a pale sweaty face, staring at his arm which was simply gone.

Rain understood that look. Magic and healing and potions couldn't bring back entire limbs, nor eyes, if something was gone it was just gone. The Ranker knew that first hand with the loss of his eye. The Ranker’s dread was a dread born of experience.

“He’s gonna bleed out with a wound like that,” said Opal.

He turned to find the Goblin girl watching him.

“No, he’s not. Give me the potions.”

Opal blinked at him. “Oh. I see, so that's why...”

She reached for her side where a small vial was strung and pulled it free. Crouching down she unstoppered it and began pouring it over the Ranker’s stump.

“You don't have to do this, this is something I need to do, but you don't have to be here, to be involved with what I’m about to do. It’s wrong, I know that, but I can't stop myself.”

She glanced up at him out of the corner of her eye as she worked.

“I wasn't joking when I said I’d like to see all the levelers die. Levelers would never ever let a surface town like this for the few peaceful monsters exist, they’d hunt it down and destroy it. They want us all trapped together tight in spiralling hateful little dungeons where death and violence is around every corner and they can come in and do what they like. And this leveler, well, he’s part of what keeps monsters in the dungeons right? He’s killed a lot of monsters right?”

“Millions he says.”

Opal scowled, her hands lifting as the Ranker’s stump healed over, becoming fresh smooth skin

“Do it.”

Rain nodded and moved to his other arm, still holding him in place. He leaned down and began to eat, quickly biting away the Ranker’s flesh and bone. The Ranker screamed again, thrashing beneath Rain’s paw, unable to do anything but take it in his weakened state. Soon it was done and the Ranker was left armless. Opal moved and began pouring potion over the ragged stump even as Rain moved down to his legs.

By this point the Ranker had started babbling, “S-stop, you need to stop. I- I command you to stop. M-my arms, no, I deny this is happening. This isn't- this- this can't be happening to me!”

“Be quiet.” commanded Rain.

The Ranker’s iris danced madly between them, eye as wide as it would go.

“You can't do this, you’re just a monster! Monsters don't win against me! They don't!”

Opal spat to the side and produced a knife from her clothing.

“You’re wrong. Monsters can win against anything, no matter how many goddam levels and no matter how much power you leeched and stole from killing us it doesn't matter. We’ll find a way.”

“Mutants? What? No, that doesn't count, those aren't-

Opal stabbed him in the mouth.

She rested one small green hand on his forehead and thrust the knife between his teeth, sawing back and forth, cutting bit by bit as he shook his head side to side. It didn't matter, with one last grunted thrust she cut through and the Ranker’s tongue fell from his mouth.

Face a mask of seriousness she took the last of the potion she had used on his stump and poured it between his lips. Then she tossed the bottle aside pulling a pair of fresh ones as she moved to the Ranker’s legs. Rain had eaten them both leaving a quickly widening puddle of blood around the stumps. She quickly poured out the potions and his stumps healed over.

The Ranker was now just a helpless torso and a head on the ground, making strangled hissing noises as he tried to speak.

Rain leaned down and grabbed his long back hair and then hauled on it, striding unsteadily across the destroyed square as he dragged him to the remains of the bell tower, its fragmented walls sticking up like broken teeth. With a snarl he slammed him up against the stonel. Then he took a step back.

Opal looked between Rain and the Ranker. “What now?”

“...I- I need him to feel what I felt, at least in some small part.”

The Goblin girl tilted her head to the side in question.

“Just watch.”

Rain lifted a paw and then after a moment of focus darkness started to ooze from his fur and then form into a shape, a dark mirror of his paw, larger, with scythes for claws. He rolled his digits experimentally, watching carefully as the dark paw moved in tandem. Opal stared at it with wide eyes.

“What's that?”

“I... don't know. It’s just something I feel I can do now, it... comes naturally, instinctively.”

He looked at the stone above the ranker, then stepped forward, curling his other digits and leaving his index straight he began to carve words into the wall with the outstretched scythe, slowly at first and then more confidently as he got used to it. Five minutes later he was done, an angular message written above the Ranker.

HELP THIS MAN AND I WILL KILL AND EAT YOU.

-- THE ONE WHO DESTROYED THIS TOWN.

“I don't get it.”

With a wave of his paw a dozen powerful wolf teeth poured from his mane and slipped into the shadows around the Ranker, hidden from sight, instructed to watch and kill.

Rain sighed, he was suddenly feeling very weary, sick even. Maybe it hadn't been such a good idea to bring out the dark so soon, his injuries seemed so much heavier now.

“It’s what he did to me,” Rain dropped down to one knee, voice low, “Everyone was terrified of helping me, I want him to know what that is like,” He found himself moving closer to the ground, his words a whisper, “To see someone come towards you then stop as they recognise the danger, leaving you to suffer.” His head came to rest on the cobble. “It hurts so much, I just wished and wished, all my life, for him to know, what it was like, even for a moment.” He found his eyes drifting shut, but only for a second, of course.

“Rain? R-Rain?! Are you okay? J-just w-wait I have more potions! Hold on!”

He didn't reply.