Chapter C: The Prisoner

Behind the grimy, iron-wrought bars of his cell, the prisoner's smile cut into Rykoshet like a knife. His soulless eyes burned wickedly as they looked at one another. The distance between them was marked by a stone door and iron bars, yet when Rykoshet looked into his eyes it felt like his hands were around his throat. The crushing force of the man's aura was stronger than he had ever felt it, pure murderous intent begging to be released.

"Rykoshet, for the love of Altana," Odessa was pleading with him, "don't do this. You know what he is."

"What are you going to do, Rykoshet?" The prisoner's voice was tinged with unfathomable malice. "Whatever you've got planned sure has the lady all worked up."

The two locked eyes, and Rykoshet had to brace himself to keep from stepping back. He knew the shackles the man wore bound his power, but something about the sheer weight of his presence instilled fear.

Just as assuredly as there was a monster waiting outside Oztroja in the form of Xolotl, there was another one locked within it.

"I want to make a deal with you," he said firmly, standing his ground. "We need you, you need us, this shouldn't be difficult to negotiate."

"Rykoshet," Fated was standing near the entrance to the dungeon, his young face aghast. "After everything this man has done, you want to bargain with him? We can't!"

"Listen to him," Odessa urged, "there has to be another way."

"Fated, you get out of here, and you too, Konstantine," he said to the Tarutaru at his side. "We're leaving as soon as I'm done here. I'll fill you in on the way."

"I won't let you do this," Odessa said firmly, and a surge of magic washed over him. "There is no excuse for letting him go free, Rykoshet." She stamped her foot down, hands gripping the shaft of her staff tightly as she held it forward.

Rykoshet stared at her, letting loose the shackles on his own power. A torrent of dark energy rushed out to meet her light. "This is the only option, Odessa. If there was another choice I would take it."

"This is wrong!" She shouted, pointing her staff at him. "There is no reason to involve ourselves with a . . . an animal like this . . . thing!"

"Do not stand in my way, Odessa!" Rykoshet's voice rose to a low roar, the narrow dungeon hall around him starting to shake.

"I won't let you make a mistake like this!"

"It's not your call! Let me do the job I - "

"Wait." The sound of the prisoner's voice from within his cell immediately grabbed their attention. "When did I ever agree to helping you?"

The words were like a blow to both of them, shattering their concentration. "B-but -" Rykoshet stammered, "I'm offering to let you out of there."

"I don't know if I'm ready to come out yet," he stared at Rykoshet from beneath hooded brows, his smile a grim rictus. "Why should I want to?"

Anger wrapped over him, staving off exhaustion and fear, forcing his legs forward. The next thing he knew he was face-to-face with the grinning man, staring at him through the bars on his door.

"You have continued to live at my discretion." He snarled. "They only keep feeding you because I told them to."

"Was that really you . . . ?" He wondered aloud, expression not changing.

"Listen to me!" Rykoshet was shouting now. "There's an army about to storm the gates. They're probably here already. Once they get in they'll kill everything in sight. You'll be no exception." His gaze was burning with intensity. "You'll die alone in this cell. I'm giving you a chance to defend yourself."

"What army could possibly kill me?"

The question took him completely off-guard. Not because he found it arrogant, but simply because he could not find an answer right away.

"Rykoshet," Odessa was pleading again, "let's forget about this. Xolotl must be here by now. We can fight our way through it. We're just wasting time."

"Xolotl, huh?" The prisoner raised his shackled hands up, scratching his head. "Sounds like you guys are in real trouble." Baring his teeth as his lips curled back, he turned away and laid down in the corner. "Well, let me know how it turns out."

He stared at him, a feeling of helplessness mixing with a cold and bitter anger. The man in the cell gave no indication of caring. Infuriatingly, he stretched out, turned on his side, and curled up to fall asleep. In almost the same moment, a distant clatter began to echo down to the dungeon. Xolotl's army was nearly upon them.

Hanging his head, Rykoshet let his hands slide off of the door. A long and painful silence stretched out between them.

"What do you want?"

The prisoner turned his head, eyes blazing as his grim smirk turned fierce. "A pearl," he replied without hesitation.

"Wh - oh, no," Odessa looked scandalized. "There's no way."

In one motion, he leaped to his feet. In an eyeblink he was pressed against the bars, fingers grasping them tightly. "That's the price for my service."

"Why would you possibly want a linkpearl?" Rykoshet was genuinely confused.

"Because if you give me a pearl, you're responsible for me. Everything I do from here on out is on your heads. I'm part of your group. You'll share in all that I do." His eyes could have burned through the door. "Or maybe I just want some new friends, what does it matter? That's what I'm asking, take it or leave it."

"This is insane," Odessa threw up her hands. "How can we even think of - "

Her words were cut off as Rykoshet grabbed the shell he had strung around her neck, channeling his chi into it. A candy-colored pearl fell out of it and into his grasp.

"Rykoshet, no!"

"I give you this," his voice was deathly serious, "you give your word to help us through this. You don't harm anyone living in this castle. Otherwise I leave you in there to rot."

For the first time, the prisoner's smile disappeared. Rykoshet and Odessa both were startled at the sudden stark intensity on his face. "You have my word," he promised. "Hand me that pearl and I'll let you take my shackles off."

"That's - " he shook his head. "Alright."

Reaching into his belt, Rykoshet removed the keyring he had kept on his person at nearly all times. On it was the only key that opened this particular cell. Odessa turned away as he turned the lock, and with a resounding creaking sound, the door fell open.

The prisoner within stepped into the light. His hair was long and shaggy, matted from lack of care. He wore only simple prison clothes, a tattered set of loose-fitting shirt and pants which revealed the taut and pronounced muscle of his torso. With eyes like two gleaming sapphires, he extended his chained hands towards Rykoshet, the smile slowly returning to his face.

Bracing himself for what he was about to do, Rykoshet chose a second key and slid it into the shackles. With an audible click, the restraints came loose, falling from his wrists and clattering onto the floor.

A moment passed between the two as they stood, staring at one another, neither one moving an inch.

Then Odessa's scream shattered the stillness as Rykoshet's body smashed against the thick stone wall.

Groaning, he slid to the floor, the prisoner's hand snatching the pearl he had held out of the air. He smiled wickedly as it gleamed in the torchlight, and then his attention snapped towards Odessa. "Hello there, pretty," he drawled as he advanced upon her.

"No!" She shouted, raising a barrier of white magic. She might as well have been using damp paper. Before she could react, the ground was flying by as the prisoner snatched her off her feet and hurled her over his shoulder.

The dungeon was beginning to shake. Stones were crumbling from the walls and a feeling of crushing dread was overtaking her. This, she realized, was the prisoner's chi unleashed after untold years of being constrained. The castle was groaning beneath his feet, the air growing hot. She could swear that his body was swelling, growing bigger by the second. Fated, still at the door, was shouting something as he drew his sword. The next thing she knew, they were bounding up the stairs, the Paladin laying face-down on the dungeon floor.

His energy was like a battering ram, and his laughter a terrifying warning bell as they sped through the halls. Odessa was trying to scream in protest, to stir her magic and free herself, but the man's crushing aura was preventing her from doing much more than breathing. The ground suddenly grew smaller very rapidly, and she realized he had jumped, breaking free from the constraints of gravity. Brick and mortar rained over her, and she knew they had broken through the ceiling of a lower floor. His laugh was intensifying, an insane, endless laughter that drowned out every other noise around it. The force of his power kept increasing, impossible as it seemed that he might yet grow stronger, with every passing instance he did just that. People were being thrown back by nothing more than his presence. Magic users were crying out in anguish as they passed by. No one made any attempt to stop him, to even get close was to be hurled carelessly aside.

She saw stairs blurring beneath her as he ran ever faster, ever higher into the castle. She felt disoriented, helpless. She hated the feeling, and fury welled up inside of her as she redoubled her efforts to break free. Railing with all the might she had, Odessa forced up the magic within her, drawing it out to strike down the man holding her captive.

And then, just like that, she was free.

An icy wind struck her in the face, and she gasped as she looked down. They were on the highest parapet in Oztroja, overlooking all of the surrounding area. Darkness enveloped the sky, and reanimated bones held the land. Oztroja was adrift in a sea of evil, and she stood at its peak, with only the wild-eyed prisoner beside her. He set her down, surveying the area with hawkish eyes. The man was smiling again, looking out at the vast and horrifying ranks of the undead closing in on Oztroja. They were at the gates now, hammering upon the unyielding iron doors, climbing over one another in an effort to reach inside the castle. Hovering in the distance, behind where the first conflict had already begun, Xolotl watched with a hunger for death emanating from him.

If Xolotl exuded the cold touch of the grave, then standing next to the prisoner was like walking upon the sun.

"Stay here," he barked at her, turning his fierce gaze upon her. "Keep me standing."

"What are you doing?" She demanded.

"I made a promise," he held up the linkpearl, still in his grasp, baring his teeth. "Now do as I say."

And with that, he hurled himself over the ledge.

With a shocked cry, Odessa ran towards the edge, watching him slice through the air, plummeting to the ground below.

For the prisoner, every jet of frigid air against his skin was invigorating. He could feel his muscles stretching out for the first time in years. His body ached with the desire to be used again, to be given that which it had been denied. Try as he might, he simply could not stop smiling. A fit of laughter overtook him again as the ground quickly rushed up towards him. The power he had been made to keep in check for so long as now surging through his veins. A blazing streak of his chi cut the air like a knife as he passed through. Beneath him, he could see eyeless skulls beginning to turn upwards, looking at the meteoric energy heading their way. Again, he could not help but laugh.

He struck the ground, and there was a moment of utter stillness which lasted the length of a heart's beat.

Frozen dirt and caked mud exploded into the air. The undead surrounding the immediate area of impact were pulverized in an instant, bone dust swirling together with the untold tons of sediment torn free by his landing. A shockwave rippled through Xolotl's legions, and as one they turned towards the cataclysmic disturbance. The noise was unbearable, an explosion which rocked Oztroja to its foundation, shattering glass well within its walls. The winds stirred the explosive outpouring into a vast cloud, obscuring all within it.

It lasted only moments, until a blazing white light dispelled the entire mass, spreading it into the ether. Where the prisoner had landed, a crater now marred the ground, deeper than any man stood, wider than a grown dragon. At its heart, fist down, the prisoner stared at his hands, watching the power race through them.

Slowly, he stood, clenching and unclenching his fingers before taking a deep lungful of winter air.

"Finally," he said, looking at his unchained wrists, "free at last."

With that, the light flowing off of him changed from bright white to violent red, spiking through the air with a force which threw back the skeletons gathering near the crater's mouth.

He was laughing again, he realized. He made no effort to contain himself. This was more than he could have hoped for. Let loose from his shackles, with an army waiting for him to test his strength on. He could see, he could hear, he could feel everything around him. The bones of the assembled undead surrounding him, some coarse, others smooth, all varying shades of black and white. Some he could taste magic on, flaring within the empty confines of their cursed skulls. Others there was only steel to contend with, some weapons worn and tasting of rust, some well-oiled and sharpened. There were monsters in this army, hulking bones of creatures which had not existed in mortal memory, and beastmen of all kinds, for Xolotl made no distinction between one corpse and another.

There was an explosion behind him, consigning those charging down the crater towards him to spend eternity as dust as he launched himself from the crater. He came down just outside its mouth, his red aura stretching towards the sky, shattering rocks as it came in contact with them. Dust stirred at his feet as his presence warded off winter's touch, freeing the sands of Meriphataud hidden beneath the frost. By now, it was clear he was an immediate danger to the invading horde, and its full attention was being focused on him. Even those which had begun to scale Oztroja's walls were dropping back down, rushing towards him with single-minded focus. Their numbers were overwhelming.

He smiled again, and his aura went from red to black.

The explosive release of power shook loose the stones of Oztroja, throwing people within its confines from their feet. Bones broke and shattered all around him as the air turned blacker still. He opened his eyes wide, tendrils of dark chi swirling from between his teeth as he smiled. The laughter he could not hold back was suddenly deeper, almost demonic, as the form of a death's head took shape above him.

Atop Oztroja's highest tower, Odessa watched in disbelief. The man was using Soul Eater.

"I am . . . free . . . " Absentmindedly, he smashed his aura forward like a battering ram, crushing a column of skeletons rushing towards him. "I am . . . " he brought his eyes up, and they were glowing hotter than any star anyone had ever seen. "I am hungry!" He snarled, laughing again. "I want to grind your bones endlessly beneath my fists! I want to rend the earth under my heel! I want to fight! Do you hear me?!" He clenched his fists, the fury of his aura screaming around him. "I want to fight FOREVER!"

The ground buckled beneath his feet as he pressed down upon it.

"I - "

At the touch of his fist, an undead warrior burst into so much powder, weapons melting into hot scrap. In droves they fell as he pushed forward, and Vana'diel trembled at his every motion.

"AM - "

An earthquake began in Meriphataud Mountains, a constantly increasing tremor with a roving epicenter. At his every motion, the ground shook, the air quivered, and his aura scorched all it touched. There was so much he wanted to shout out, to remind the world he was here, to let out years of pent-up violence. He was the deadliest outlaw in the world. He was the greatest fighter who ever lived. He was unstoppable, untouchable. He was back, let loose to bring down brutality unlike anything ever visited upon his enemies. Yet all those things, he decided, could be summed up in just one word.

His towering aura devoured everything in his path as he launched forward, fists-first, the long and shaggy locks of tangled, fire-red hair blowing back past his Elvaan ears. Even above the tumult of the man-made disaster he was creating, everybody heard when he shouted his name.

"XAIJIN!"