Fandom: Bomberman.
Pairing: Zoniha/Regulus.
Summary: No, really. How much do you love me?
Rating: PG-13, mostly for fighting and the overall dark theme. And, um, apparently Abraxion is GAAAAAY for Regulus. Oops.
Notes: Reg and Zo won't leave
Also, opening quote comes from Sun Tsu's The Art of War. I'm just stealing from everything these days, aren't I?
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
These are words from a wise warrior who lived far before my time, but whose wisdom has transcended the centuries regardless.
To know the enemy and to know myself is what I strive for with every day I am allowed to haunt this mortal realm. To know myself but not the enemy is a situation I have trained myself to analyze with calm detachment and a tactical eye, for even I have recognized that there will be times where I will, temporarily at least, be unfamiliar with my opponent in some measure. To know neither myself nor my enemy...well. I barely dared to consider such a tragic circumstance. I would not let such a moment of weakness occur in my life, I told myself. If I did not know the enemy, I would at least know myself.
But I no longer know myself.
I had never intended, even for the sake of my wounded warrior's pride, to take on Abraxion alone. That would have been a fool's journey. I would have only considered it if Fate had seen fit to tear a hole in the demon's defenses that I could exploit, and even then I would look askance at the opportunity. But the demonic realm is the inverse of the celestial realm. Whereas the celestial realm will, at whim, take you to where you wish to be, the demonic realm will bring you to the things of Hell. Which is how, wandering the confines of Abraxion's palace in the demonic realm, fighting a horde of Deathmouths in the company of the other Elemental Knights, I was suddenly whisked away - alone - and dropped unceremoniously into what appeared to be Abraxion's throne room.
The archdemon, curse him, had taken on my physical form, though he retained both the pale violet pallor to his skin and his four eyes colored like a corpse's flesh, with the other two eyes resting at an inward slant just above his cheekbones. He wore a cloak of deep twilight over blood-colored robes...and in the latter I speak literally as well as metaphorically. He was barefoot, but even as he walked over a pile of sharp, broken skeletons piled around his iron black throne, he did not bleed or even wince in pain. The resulting snaps and cracks echoed off the glass obsidian walls like feeble trumpets heralding the entrance of a tyrant.
Abraxion said, in my voice, "Welcome to my kingdom, my Fre'Dashti ui Sahira."
He had addressed me using my celestial name: Prince of Shadows. "I am not your prince," I snapped, standing up - a feat that proved more difficult than I had anticipated, since it was accompanied by a sudden lightheadedness and shaky vision. The demonic energy, Abraxion's in particular, was starting to contaminate my body and mind. The process was slowed by the fact that I had opted to remain in my mortal form while the rest of the knights employed their more divine forms, but I suspected that Abraxion had been planting tiny, imperceptible seeds of his darkness in my mind, to sprout and grow once the conditions were right.
Abraxion smiled. "You will be, eventually."
"I belong to no one."
"And yet the Angel lays claim over you as one of Her knights. You will not challenge that?"
"I have defied Her more than once while She was still Mihaele, and still I live to tell you this. Isn't that proof enough that I have asserted my autonomy?" I held my head high as I spoke, but I didn't dare look him directly in the eye, for that was likely to give him a wide-open door to the keys of my soul. I stared, instead, at one of the ornamental statues near his throne, my gaze skirting the side of his face by a hair's length. "Besides, She claims Fre'Dashti ui Sahira. She does not claim Regulus Solaris and never will. Both persons are entwined in my existence; one without the other is nothing as far as I am concerned."
That was when the first wave of his persuasion hit me. It was something tangible and amorphous, throbbing in my veins like arousal with the most sinister of undertones. Yet it was more crippling than any physical blow that could have been dealt to me, for it struck deep at my already-crumbling essence. Whereas attacks from without may merely bounce off, attacks from within can and will undermine one's very core. Destroy that core, and walls will fall, for there will be nothing for them to stand on. After weeks upon weeks of being subjected to Abraxion's mindtricks from a distance, my core was quickly disintegrating under the pressure of his full presence.
Without thinking, I lashed out at Abraxion with my powers, sending claws of darkness ripping down the central carpet leading up to him. He only held out his hands and absorbed the attack, licking his lips as he did so. Immediately the persuasion tightened its vice grip on me, veiling my vision in brilliant crimson-and-black flashes. I collapsed to my knees, breathing hard and feeling uncomfortably hot.
The best way to get rid of temptation is to give into it, the persuasion whispered to me. You needn't be so stubborn. It is not so bad on the other side. Dare I say it - it may even be better than where you are right now.
Out! I mentally snarled.
"Regulus." Abraxion spoke inside my mind as well as outside of it. The deceptively mournful tone of his voice was one of the most repulsive things I had ever heard. "Why do you turn your back on what I offer you? What is lacking in it that makes you unwilling to accept something tailored especially for you?"
I answered by getting to my feet and flinging fire bombs at him. He did not deserve an answer in words. Even more, he would not understand it.
Abraxion dodged easily, gliding from side to side as though he skated on ice. Then he rushed me. I dove and rolled to the side and threw another bomb at him. I briefly considered engaging in hand-to-hand combat, reveling in the idea of crushing his windpipe with my bare hands, but decided against it. The proximity of Abraxion's presence alone was wreaking havoc upon my psyche. I dared not contemplate what his touch would do to me.
So even as he continued to unleash waves of demonic persuasion on me, I fought against him to the best of my (severely hindered) ability with bombs that missed their mark by wider and wider margins as the fight wore on. Somewhere within me, a lone island still untouched by Abraxion's mark, I knew I was fighting a losing battle. But if I could help it, Abraxion would not claim me unscathed. I would scar that salaud for eternity and longer.
All thoughts of desperate revenge shattered from my mind the moment Abraxion slammed me with a burst of energy, sending me flying nearly halfway across the room. The shock of that, combined with the impact of crashing into the ancient marble tile, destroyed most of what was left of my composure. I shivered at the force of the persuasion pulsing through my like a second heartbeat. I clenched my eyes shut in a vain attempt to focus on keeping together the remaining shreds of my sanity.
"I tire of this," Abraxion suddenly said. "I have indulged you for long enough in your contrarian whims."
And he was on me within seconds, pinning me to the floor.
The most painful of pleasure flared up within me at the contact, burning my bones and my blood. I could not help it - I screamed. My eyes flew open, and they met with his...and I saw what Abraxion could make of me.
limitless power - complete dominance - freedom from the weaknesses and constraints of my human, mortal soul - even the Angel Herself would bow before me - all realms would be mine -I would have no equal - I would stand alone
(but, the fine print: Abraxion would stand behind me with claws pressed to my back, ready to tear out my spine if I did not submit myself to him fully)
Such visions - vague in detail, but specific in raw emotion - were not new to me. They had come to me for nights on end for the past few months now, and they had never truly appealed to me. For all of Abraxion's claims about knowing the hearts of men, he truly did not understand who I was. But with my defenses little more than dust at this point, he was slowly succeeding in molding me into the person that those bloodthirsty visions would appeal to. There was little I could do: rationality was fleeing from me, and taking my sanity with it to disperse to some other needy soul.
"Notre Père, qui es aux cieux, que ton nom soit sanctifié..."
The words spontaneously bubbled up from some long-forgotten well of my memories. They were the beginnings of a prayer from a faith on a planet I knew as la Terre - my birthplace - and they had been drilled into my head from as long as I could remember. I had not believed then; I did not believe now. But the internalized words gave me something to hold onto for a few precious moments. I would need those moments if I were to find a way to bring about my own salvation.
"Que ton règne vienne, que ta volonté soit faite, sur la terre comme au ciel..."
I grimaced as Abraxion tightened his hold on me, both physically and mentally. Clearly he was not pleased by my defiance. "I know not what spell you speak that keeps you from me," he said, "but it shall end now." He lowered his head, intending to silence me in a way far too intimate for my liking.
I managed to shift my head at the last moment, but it only opened up my neck to him. He took that opening and bent down to bite gently into the flesh there, causing me to practically choke out the next few words. I barely recognized what I was saying. I could discern very little save for myself and Abraxion. My body, unable to manifest its pain into violent seizures, turned its laments inwards, clouding my thoughts with the sensations of agonizing ecstasy intensified by the close contact. If there was any doubt that I could not push Abraxion away from me without first pushing him out of my mind, it would have died at the moment his mouth touched my skin.
"Donne-nous aujourd'hui notre pain de ce jour, et pardonne-nous nos offenses..."
He suddenly sat up a little, though the force of his persuasion barely wavered. "What's this?" he asked curiously. He traced a line along my skin, sliding a finger under a slender chain that I wore around my neck. With great deliberation, he lifted the entirety of it out from beneath my shirt.
I froze.
Abraxion was now gazing contemplatively at the silver wedding band dangling off the chain. It was ordinary enough to mortal eyes, but at this range there was no chance he would miss the power that hummed in the metal - power that Zoniha had, in a whirl of creativity one day, infused into it to create a makeshift amulet against Abraxion's influence. It was the only thing now that kept me aware enough to utter an outdated chant that I didn't even believe in.
The archdemon tried to hold the ring in his hand, but it hissed in his palm. He flinched and dropped it. "So this is what you hang onto still," he spat, grabbing hold of the chain instead and avoiding the ring. "A silly little trinket like this?"
I knew then that I was lost. But I spoke out regardless, for I would at least finish what I had started.
"Comme nous pardonnons aussi à ceux qui nous ont offensés..."
He tore the chain off with enough force that it almost snapped my neck in the process. My head smacked back onto the tile, filling my vision with sparks of white, but that was nothing compared to the complete hell that overwhelmed me now that I was left without even the barest of light to shield myself against Abraxion's persuasion.
"Et ne nous soumets pas à la tentation..."
Abraxion finally pressed his lips to mine, his hands clutching at my face. The flood of torturous pleasure that it thrust upon me shoved me, headlong, into my end, and the last line of the prayer faded with my consciousness.
Mais délivre-nous du mal.
When I regained my senses, I had no idea where I thought I would be. Prior to blacking out, I hadn't thought of anything beyond trying to vainly fight off Abraxion. As far as I had been concerned, I was going to die there and consequently nothing else mattered.
I certainly had not expected to find myself lying in Zoniha's arms feeling entirely relaxed - if quite weak as well.
She hummed sweetly. "Oh, so you're awake now," she said, stroking my hair.
I looked around as far as I could from my current position. We were still in Abraxion's throne room...or what was left of it. Bare shards of the obsidian walls and part of the throne were all that remained standing, and the hall now opened up onto a cliff that overlooked a barren wasteland under a murky violet sky. The air smelled faintly of smoke and crinkled with dead energy. "What happened?" I asked.
"You did, of course."
I sat up and glanced at her for clarification. I noticed that she was in mortal form. That was odd; the other knights had kept their knight forms as soon as they entered the demonic realm, simply as a precaution of anything that might decide to accost them. In this situation, doubted that Zoniha would have voluntarily made the shift back into mortal form...which meant that she had been drained of enough energy to force her back into it. "What do you mean? And how did you get down here, besides?"
Zoniha smiled thinly. "We'd just finished dealing with those Deathmouths, and we were trying to figure out where you'd gone. Your door was barred like a motherfucker, so there was no way we could locate you by peeking through. But suddenly...well..." She shrugged. "You know how the demonic realm likes to take outsiders and plop them smack dab in the middle of nightmares? That's pretty much how this Zoniha got down here."
With cobwebs of sleep still obscuring my thoughts, I did not fully understand the implications of her statement. "Zoniha...what happened?" I repeated.
"You...don't remember anything from the fight?"
A fight? "I blacked out when Abraxion...overtook me. This is the first time since then that I have been aware of anything."
There was a long silence stretched to its breaking point. And when it snapped, it snapped like a serrated, acid-covered whip.
"You were transformed, Reg," Zoniha said quietly. "I don't know what the hell Abraxion did to you, but...you weren't yourself. You weren't there at all."
Cold fury surged through me as I came to realize what Zoniha was describing to me.
It was the very thing I had spent weeks upon weeks fighting...what I had spent the whole of my energy on. I had lost what little I had of my normal sleeping hours as a result of his invasions. I had been restricted in battle because my own element would turn against me as a result of his essence poisoning it. All of my efforts had gone to waste.
In the end, Abraxion had made me his unthinking, unfeeling slave, to be used at will - to be unleashed on his enemies like an attack dog.
For his conquest, I hated him. For my weakness, I despised myself.
"Abraxion made his getaway while he sicced you on us," Zoniha continued. "The other knights are tracking him down now. They left me here to wait for you to wake up after we managed to exorcise you. Don't feel bad about being left behind - they just thought they might be able to make better time. Anyway, I've got a link with Zhael that I can use to teleport back to the group once you're feeling up to it. Last I heard, they weren't having much luck in their search, but Ashtarth has a hunch that Zagranist might know where the hell Abraxion is."
What did any of that matter? I had lost miserably in battle. No, this was beyond losing, for not even my defeat at Shiro's hands matched the humiliation inflicted upon me by knowing that not only had I lost, but I had been used against my allies...against Zoniha. And that I lived to learn of it.
Zoniha pressed a hand to the side of my face. "How are you feeling?"
I did not meet her eyes. I had no fear that I would find pity in her gaze, for Zoniha knew me better than that. At the same time...she reminded me, sharply, of where my weakness lay...where I had failed. None of this was any fault of hers, of course. It was only another weakness of mine.
"It would have been wiser and more productive to leave me," I said. "Your element is the most effective defense here. The others are left unguarded."
Zoniha shrugged again. "Maybe, but in the meantime, Baelfael's a suitable enough substitute. Fire produces light, right? Either way, this Zoniha doesn't think that anyone would want to be on the receiving end of Dragonflare. Besides, I didn't want to leave you alone."
The initial fury had subsided now, leaving behind a charred sort of numbness. Surprised though I was at having survived such a direct encounter with Abraxion, I nevertheless pulled together ideas for my next steps from this point onwards.
Whatever injuries I might have acquired from the battle Zoniha spoke of, she must have healed them herself, for my body was fine. But only rest would restore the drain on my energy, so that would be the first order of business. After that...what? Join the rest of the knights, even when everyone knew firsthand what a liability I was? No, if they were to have the best chance of defeating Abraxion - and I knew well enough how important this was - it would be best if I stepped aside, much as I loathed the idea. But I could not return to the mortal realm on my own, and even if I could, what could I do? The weakness Abraxion had exploited in me was not something that could be remedied by mere training. I could only come to terms with it...and that was not going to happen anytime in the near future. I was left, then, wishing that I had died. Quel pitoyable.
Before I had even remembered that I had lost it, Zoniha presented me with my silver ring, strung on its broken, dirty chain.
I glanced at it, startled by its existence. What did I need such a thing for at this point? It was as Abraxion had said: a silly little trinket. Still, it would likely upset Zoniha if I didn't take it. I held a hand out to take it.
Instead, Zoniha leaned forward and tied the broken ends of the chain in a thick knot behind my head, then put her arms around me tightly as she kissed me in a manner that was simultaneously chaste and passionate.
How odd: what had transpired earlier between myself and Abraxion suddenly didn't seem to matter to me so much. For that reason, I was instantly suspicious even as my body acted on its own and I pulled her closer to me, wanting more of her warm, familiar tranquility. This calm I felt could not be natural, I thought, not in the wake of how my personal autonomy had been breached, leaving my pride to die. If I believed it would matter even one iota, I would have pushed her away for the thought that this Zoniha in front of me - whose lips were warm and sweet on mine and whose fingers were tangled pleasantly in my hair and whose tenderness dissolved the tension and despondency within me - was simply another one of Abraxion's illusions whose sole intent was to seduce me.
But at the moment, my will was such that I reasoned that, since I had already lost so much, it would not matter if I happened to lose a little more. I discerned this destructive line of logic in my mind almost immediately. And yet, I did nothing to contradict it. I did not care.
"I don't know exactly how you're feeling or what you're thinking right now," Zoniha said when she pulled away. "Even after all these years of knowing you, I don't claim to know what goes on in that head of yours. So" - and she kissed me again - "I'm just here to tell you that I'm here if you want me or need me. You don't have to do things alone anymore. Isn't that why you married me?"
I frowned at her. "I married you so that I would have a suitable, trustworthy second-in-command for the Obsidian Phoenix. I thought this was made clear."
"That's what I'm saying - you don't have to deal with that by yourself anymore." Another cheerful kiss. "Anyway, since I'm here, you might as well make use of me. I don't mind." Zoniha laid her head on my shoulder, and her arms slipped down to encircle my waist instead. "That's why I'm sticking around."
Where had I heard these words from Zoniha before, practically verbatim? Ah, yes - when she had first come to live with me not long after I had bought her freedom from the brothel she had worked for. Back then, she had been referring to satisfying my sexual needs. Now...as troubling as it was...it seemed that she was referring to satisfying my emotional needs.
I wasn't fond of the idea that I needed anything emotionally from someone else. I saw no true need for such things, so I kept any feelings of mine on as controlled as possible. Something as unpredictable as emotions had no place on the battlefield for me. But clearly something must have slipped at some point, for how else would Abraxion have been able to get so easily to me?
...no. This was wrong. One of the things that Abraxion had never acknowledged in his visions to me was the presence of Zoniha in my life. Somehow, he had not accounted for her. It made no sense. But I found myself mildly relieved that, at least, he had never tried to use her to get to me. Perhaps he had underestimated her; perhaps he simply did not want to be anywhere near the Purifying Light, even if it was just her name. But now that Abraxion had lost me to her, it was likely that he would risk her element and more to get me back. I was a liability...and by proxy, so was Zoniha. I would have to abandon her soon.
You cannot stay, I mentally told Zoniha, though I hadn't gone anywhere near her door. I ignored the comfort she brought me now with the weight of her slender form against mine. You make me weak. I cannot afford to be weak now, no, not even for you. Especially not for you.
"You don't have to tell me everything," Zoniha spoke suddenly. "Maybe you don't have to tell me anything at all, like you usually do. That's fine. I'm used to your silences." Her voice lowered, and her fingers clutched at the back of my shirt. "Just...please. Remember me." She sighed. "Mihaele help me, but I love you, Regulus. I know that what Abraxion did - has been doing - to you bothers you to no end. But please don't let it destroy you. I can't stand to see you be destroyed by it." She sounded as though she wanted to cry.
Sapristi. What was it about this woman, truly, that when she became upset I only wanted to soothe her, even though such an action tended to be foreign territory for me? How had things come to this, that her problems would eclipse any of mine?
"I don't know where you are getting such ridiculous ideas," I said, letting one of my hands rest on her lower arm. "I will admit that I have lost, rather miserably, but you speak as though I will forever be traumatized by it. That will not be so, and I am offended that you are suggesting that I am so weak as to fall into such a pathetic state. To do so would complete Abraxion's victory. Even if I cannot directly fight him, I will not let him complete his victory by wandering around broken by what he did to me today."
And as soon as I spoke those words to her, I found that I had made them true.
Zoniha rubbed her cheek against me. "I won't let him do that, either," she said.
I realized, then, with startling clarity, that Zoniha was not merely a weakness. It should have been obvious to me earlier, considering that it was her element that shielded me from Abraxion. But her significance to me went beyond simple power balances. Her strength, her power over me, was such that I could stand up and walk forward in the face of humiliation for her - something that my own personal rationalizations, which had worked before, had failed to do this time. Had they succeeded, they would not have convinced me with the grace and ease with which Zoniha's distress had convinced me. Certainly no amount of hard logic could have convinced me to think of my loss to Abraxion as being secondary to the matter of tending to a woman's fears.
What an interesting development this was...and not an entirely bothersome one. I would have to consider the full scope of its implications later, however. For now, there were other things to attend to.
"Perhaps it is time that we join the rest of the knights," I suggested.
She looked up at me then. "Are you sure you're feeling up to it?"
"I can keep myself alive well enough, though it will be very inconvenient should the realm decide to play toss-up with me once again."
"Mmm." Zoniha kissed my cheek, and tightened her arms around me as she prepared for the teleport. "Just keep your door open and this Zoniha should be able to trace you."
I sighed. The rest of this journey was going to be subjected to far too many variables and unknowns for me to be comfortable with, and I did not like being at the mercy of an entire realm.
But at least there was always Zoniha.
