Ruinous Return

Gael knew something was off, but he didn\'t know what it was for sure. The Archer hero was just working busily and quietly, minus the occasional pass by the desk that Lyn manned to drop off items from the various warehouse orders.

The Destroyer looked tired, more tired than Gael had ever seen her even after a marathon sex session. More tired than when she had fought in dungeons. He felt exhausted, also. This monotonous and repetitive work was grinding him down. She had complained once about the speed of customers, saying "When I worked in retail on Earth, it went faster if people came in large rushes." But this rate was continuous and consistent.

Gael went upstairs for a minute and knocked on Vael\'s door. After a few moments she opened it, wiping the sleep from her eyes, "What\'s up?"

"I want to see how you feel right now."

"Tired."

"Yes, but more than that. Mentally fatigued. As if we\'ve been on watch for days straight."

"Worse than that."

Gael breathed an internal sigh of relief, "Good, it\'s not just me, then."

Vael nodded, "Anything else?"

"No, I\'m good."

Lyn was bone-tired at the end of the day. Her mind was just a foggy mess. I just want a lazy Saturday with some shitty cereal and a couch, she thought. This was the most draining experience she had had in quite a long time. Travel didn\'t bore her. Waiting around didn\'t bore her. Dealing with the same crap over and over did.

She went to Gael\'s room and knocked on the door. He opened it, "Yes?"

"I need a distraction," she said pushing him into the room. She shut the door behind herself and began to strip off his clothes. But as she saw his bare chest, she felt a wave of revulsion.

"What\'s wrong," Gael asked seeing her pause when she normally was non-stop.

"I…" Lyn shook her head and tried to lean in to kiss him passionately, to try and reignite her amorous desire…but the feeling vanished. "Fuck, I don\'t know." She sat up and sighed, "This place fucking sucks."

Gael sat up and put a hand on her back, "What can I do to help?"

She wanted to say \'let me sleep in here with you tonight,\' but that felt…wrong. Why did it feel wrong? She enjoyed sharing her bed with the twins. But it was… "I\'m sorry. I don\'t know how to describe it."

Gael nodded, "Okay."

Lyn stood up, left, and went back to her room shutting the door. What the hell is going on? She got back up, went downstairs, and grabbed Vael, "Leave the desk. I want your help with something."

Even in the worst depths of exhaustion from her shitty job back on Earth, dragging herself after school to get some cash, she was always down to have sex to escape from the monotony and misery of life.

This sudden…lack of desire? It screamed at her internally. Something was off, and she was going to figure out what it was.

Volio waited until the dead of night. It\'s time. He had performed every step of each mind spell perfectly over the past three days and nights. He was exhausted…but this would be worth it. The signs of the spells having taken effect were all there. Finally, she\'s all mine. He walked up to Lyn\'s door and didn\'t knock, just opened it gently. Silently, he stepped in and closed the door behind him.

She was – oddly enough – fully encased in her armor. But she laid still, motionless. At last, he thought as he knelt next to her and whispered the final verses of the Elenthir incantation, "En ethiel an le / o i naith lín dûr / an na madyr nin / a na pan lín / na nin ir."

And with that, he knew she was his. And she would love him just as equally. She was his thrall and would be fully subjected to his whims and desires, his anger and passion. He put his hand on her thigh and could feel the warmth of the black adamantine radiating a cozy heat. Slowly, he moved his hand up her leg towards a seam in the armor he knew he could unlatch-

He screamed with pain. The thighs clamped together like a vice as his fingers were crushed between the incredibly hard metal. He tried to pull it free, but his hand wouldn\'t move. The voice that came from behind the helmet was not Lyn\'s. And it filled him with terror.

Vael growled at him from inside the armor in Khrelardian, "I caught you."

Volio panicked. He began to incant a spell. But something heavy hit him on the back of the head.

The world went dark.

Lyn entered the room after Gael had knocked Volio unconscious. Right, gotta wake him up within a few minutes to make sure there\'s no brain damage. Not like she cared much, though. The fucker had been using mind spells on her to try and enslave her. She wanted to kick him in the ribs so badly…but held off as Gael tied him up and gagged him.

After getting Vael earlier that evening, she used the internal regeneration spell that her Destroyer core gave her access to. That cleared her mind instantly and restored her mental faculties. They had set up this trap because, really, there was only one possible culprit with mind magic, since the twins couldn\'t do that type of external spell. Lyn wanted to have a clear conscience, as well as make sure it wasn\'t just the dungeon itself imposing some type of mental test. This was definitive proof.

Vael stood up, "Lyn? Mind taking off the armor?" She asked in Arinol.

Lyn walked over and put her hand on the suit of armor, willing it to vanish from Vael\'s form and back onto hers. The metal complied, and she was once more clad, feeling safe and secure. "Thanks for being my bait."

Vael giggled, "I\'m just happy we are so similar in build." She looked down at the now-bound Archer hero. "What do we do with him?"

Lyn pondered that. She leaned down and rifled through his pockets, finding a small notebook and flipping it open. Ah, he\'s got a spell book. It wasn\'t uncommon for mages to have spell books, in fact most of the heroes did as well. The only ones that didn\'t were Lyn, Misty, and Thomas since they could freeform any spell they needed. But the rest had the verses or, in some cases like Trisha, had all the building blocks of multiple verses figured out and could mix and match. She put the spell book into her storage choker. "First, we have to make sure he doesn\'t die. I want to see the look in his eyes when I confront him."

Vael nodded and cast a simple water spell as the liquid splashed from her palm and onto Volio\'s face. He did not move. "Damn it, Gael. You hit him really hard."

"Well, he was going to use a spell. I couldn\'t just not hit him."

Lyn knelt and applied pressure to his shattered hand. Volio whimpered and his eyes opened slightly. "He\'s just concussed," she said. Switching to Khrelardian, she pulled Volio up and set him on the bed. "Alright you fucking pervert. I\'m going to take this gag out. Cast a spell, and Gael will spear you through the fucking skull. Got it?" Volio\'s head lolled slightly, and he whimpered again. Lyn sighed. "Fine. I\'ll permit you to use a single healing spell. But…" she pulled out Cataclysm and channeled mana into the blade, igniting it and holding it aloft. Volio\'s eyes went wide at the sight of the blue lava dripping down and onto Lyn\'s body before it vanished into nothingness. "If you use a non-healing spell, I will kill you without a moment\'s notice."

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Volio nodded, and Lyn pulled the gag out of his mouth. "En ethiel an le / thalion min / leithio hain garan / a galad hain trîw," he muttered as a flush of white-pink energy flared over his body. He sat upright and his hand snapped back into place with a sickening crunch. Lyn shoved the gag back into his mouth.

She stood up and rested Cataclysm on her shoulder, "Vael, Gael…what do you think I should do to him?"

Gael pointed a spear at the man whose eyes bulged with fear, "Kill him."

Vael shook her head, "Torture first."

Lyn put Cataclysm away, "I need to think. Gael, watch him. Vael, with me."

Gael looked at the pathetic Archer hero in front of him. The man\'s eyes were running, and he was making pathetic, whimpering noises of sorrow. "Sad you got caught?" Gael asked in Khrelardian.

The Archer looked up at him and then let his head hang down.

"You thought you could manipulate the Destroyer? Our goddess reborn?"

"Mfffm. Fmhmmf!"

Gael shook his head as the man tried to talk back through the gag. "She told us all about your behaviors back where you came from. The times you, what\'s the word…perved on her at this park of skates? Peering in her windows at night? Staring at her throughout the day?"

Volio continued to sob, falling over sideways onto the bed and crying into the mattress.

"You will get what you deserve. If I had my way, you\'d be dead. Be grateful our goddess is benevolent."

The hero screamed into his gag and stared at Gael. Gael felt the hatred, the pain, the absolute utter disgust and anger emanating from those piercing eyes. It shook him to his center. He had never seen such level of anger in a look.

I can\'t just kill him, Lyn thought as she walked downstair and out into the brisk night air. I can\'t just kill another hero outright, is what one side of her said.

But another part of her wanted to obliterate the wanna-be rapist. If he had his way, or if she didn\'t take the reasonable action of using Vael as a body double, then she would be his thrall and possibly never able to escape.

He was going to imprison you, Lyn thought. Not a literal prison, but she would be a prisoner in her own body. Breaking free of a mind spell after it had been fully applied was extremely difficult if not impossible. And who knows what type of sick, nasty, demented, perverted shit he would have forced her to do.

She sat down on the small bench outside the shop as Vael joined her. "What are you going to do?" Vael asked.

Lyn leaned forward, resting her arms on her legs and letting her head hang low. "I don\'t know," she muttered. "In the dungeon atop Shiverburn Summit, I faced a challenge where I had to kill every remaining hero still alive."

Vael\'s eyes widened, "All of them?"

Lyn nodded as she recalled the sounds of what she assumed was Trisha\'s children screaming. "And more." She looked at Vael, "I don\'t know if I can do it. I want to take over this world but doing that I\'m going to make enemies. Enemies like Volio up there." She looked back down, "Even innocents will die," she whispered. She knew the cost of war; the heroes had fought in a rebellion that put down King Kristoph\'s father. Innocents died. Every time people went to war…people suffered.

She felt Vael\'s hand on her shoulder, "I\'ve not been in a war," she stated. "I was born after the great wars had ended, and we did not intervene ten years ago; the Conclave of the Fortress was forbidden from engaging anything outside of our stronghold inside dread fortress itself." She pulled Lyn closer into her and brushed her hair comfortingly, raking her fingers through the snowy strands. "I know one thing. You are Lyn. But you are more than that. You are more than just a Destroyer." She lowered her voice to a whisper, "You aren\'t just someone who wants to let the world persist. You want to make something new. Something grand. To do that…" she let the thought trail off.

Lyn nodded, I\'d have to accept certain losses, she thought. People would die. Some would be innocent. Many would be those standing in her way. Was the price worth the payoff? A few hundred or even a thousand deaths, in exchange for an eternity of a peaceful empire that would doubtless affect billions over the millennia she would rule. She knew she was effectively immortal thanks to the internal regeneration spell. That, coupled with more body enhancement, acquiring more mana cores, and the fanatic devotion of being seen as a reborn goddess…

The losses are acceptable. She stood up and drew Cataclysm. "Tell Gael to bring the Archer hero outside."

Vael nodded and ran off. Lyn walked to the center of the road and planted the blade point-down into the stone, feeling the sizzling and bubbling of molten rock under her feet. A few moments passed before Volio was dragged out, lifted in between the twins. They set him down in front of her, and put their spears against his back, poking him to kneel upright. Volio made eye contact with Lyn, and threw himself down, groveling.

"Look at me," Lyn commanded. Volio did so, and she willed more mana into the blade. It flared with the neon-blue lava as the other elements she had acquired flowed around within. "I charge you, Volio Mori, with the crime of using mind external spells to forcibly thrall an individual. Do you deny this charge?"

Volio whimpered and nodded. Lyn reached into the storage choker and pulled out the spell book, throwing it on the ground next to him. "This is your spell book, taken from your person, as my two witnesses can attest to." She looked at Vael, "Did the accused attempt to use a mind-altering spell on you?"

"Yes."

"And did he then attempt to violate you with his own body?"

"Yes."

"Take out his gag. And if he starts to say anything in Elenthir, you are to stab him."

Gael nodded and took out the gag. Volio sputtered for a moment before his face turned to a mixture of rage and sorrow. "You bitch!" he screamed in English. "I fucking loved you! I\'ve always loved you!" he wept and groaned in emotional agony. "You lied to me! Used me! I just wanted what I was owed!"

Lyn had been holding back her anger and trying to approach this situation as a neutral judge. But she felt the anger boil up within her, and the Destroyer core resonated with this, as the blade she held exploded with renewed fury, and Volio shirked backward – as did her Duskari companions. "You think you are owed anything?!" she shouted back in their shared language. "You aren\'t owed shit!" She knelt and grabbed his chin, pulling him up to face her. "You\'re not owed a single. Fucking. Thing."

Volio\'s eyes were full of anger and outrage, but Lyn saw the defeat hidden behind that façade. She stood up as his shoulders sagged. "I…I…" he looked at her once more, and all fight and anger had left him. All that was left was a sad, pitiful, sorrow-filled hollow void of a man. "I…I love you…"

Lyn raised the blade. "Volio Mori, I sentence you to death." The Archer hero began bawling and put his head down, his shoulders heaving with sobs. She felt the anger replaced with a feeling of righteous justification. She wasn\'t doing anything wrong. She was distributing justice. She raised Cataclysm and willed even more mana into the blade. The Destroyer core seemed all too eager to enforce her will.

"When you see the doors Zack mentioned…don\'t return to Ghomar. Go back to Earth. Live out your theater dreams." She cleaved right through his neck with a single chop and knelt a second later as she harvested his hero core. She held the sphere in her hands and squeezed it, shoving it down her mana channels where it was consumed by the inferno of the Destroyer core.

Volio felt the brief, intense, searing pain, and then nothing. He saw a pair of doors in front of him. Both were open, and a white light shone beyond. He felt warmth behind him, and glancing back, he saw neon-blue lava slowly approaching him. I don\'t have much time, he thought.

One door was labeled EARTH. The other was labeled GHOMAR.

What do I do? He felt the heat closer behind him. If he went back to Earth, who knows how it would end up? If he went through Ghomar…he could maybe be back with Lyn. Get another chance at seducing her. At controlling her. Making her his.

He went toward that door, but it closed in front of him. He slammed his fist on it, pleading. "Please! I just want to be with her!"

A growl sounded behind him. He pushed his back against the door as he saw the lava form a face. A woman. Not Lyn, not the Demonic Dragon…someone else. An amalgamation of faces. And voices. "I am Raevan, the deity of destruction. I am the Demonic Dragon, Yheron. I am Lyn Rivers the Destroyer."

Volio whimpered and curled up into a ball. "I just want to be with Lyn."

"We have forbidden you to return to Ghomar…unlike Zack Daermont, however…you will not be able to leave behind any messages or thoughts. Now…leave."

The heat assailed him, the lava slowly creeping towards him. He pounded on the door to Ghomar over and over, "No! I need to be with her!"

"Then you will die. This is your last chance. Return to Earth…or have your soul be annihilated."

Volio laughed and stood all the way, drawing up to his full height. I\'ll convince her. This thing is still Lyn. My Lyn. I just have to remind her of my love. Music, right? Her favorite song? Yeah. I\'ll do that. I\'ll win her heart.

He lifted his voice in song, channeling all his prowess from performing theatre, practicing musicals, singing unrequited love songs in the shower as he daydreamed of Lyn, his beloved. Finally, here, on the brink of his last chance…he felt his confidence of being on stage despite having only a single audience member who would listen. His spirit soared as he sang his heart out, finally unafraid to be himself as his soul was bared to Lyn\'s.

"In your house, I long to be / Room by room, patiently / I\'ll wait for you there / Like a stone / I\'ll wait for you there / Alone."

The amalgamated face in the lava shifted to a look of dismay, before shifting rapidly to one of determination. "Annihilation it is, then."

The neon-blue lava surged forth, and Volio screamed in agony as his soul, his consciousness, his being was burned away.