Arc F1.10 | Chapter 3: They Were His

Blood splattered over Westrial and the girl didn’t even flinch—barely blinked even—and this must have been why Baylor had so immediately liked her. It reminded him a bit of his friendship with Emilia, what with its immediacy; at the same time, Baylor had a brain and he understood what had happened.

Basically, he had been in a heightened emotional state after almost killing Darrian. The mixture of that high-intensity moment, Darrian’s easy acceptance of his aid during the fall and subsequent offer of affection and snuggles, despite knowing he would receive none from him in return, had cracked open Baylor’s heart. Then, Darrian had begun to fill the crack; then, they’d met Westrial, and somehow or other, the girl had accidentally slipped inside him as well. Part of it was likely that Darrian had immediately accepted the girl, refusing to cringe away from her rancid stink. Another part was likely that she had never flinched away from Baylor either.

Not when they fought.

Not when he questioned her.

Not when he’d killed people with glee during their travels.

Now, the girl lived within him, as solid as Emilia, his brother, and now Darrian as well—that was it, though! He didn’t need anyone else!

If his heart did a little squeezy thing, seeming to reach in several entirely different directions, that was between him and his heart—also, one of those directions was definitely where Olivier was. Emilia liked Olivier, therefore, that squeeze was definitely related to her. Definitely.

The one that led up to the ceiling would not be commented upon; the one that seemed to lead him towards the holding cells…

Now, that one he was intrigued by. It wasn’t going to lead to anyone important; that didn’t mean he didn’t want to know who the fuck it led to.

Tugging, Westrial moved as though she were made to follow in his wake, shifting behind him as seamlessly as his own shadow would. Their feet spattered through blood and gore and more than a few bits of metal, tore from the bodies of the people who were fighting them—or had been.

More than a few had taken off once the boy, Curtisal, had begun using his abilities. They really were quite horrific, leaving anyone who had even the smallest bit of metal within them screaming as he exerted his abilities on them. It seemed the kid was intending to come with them and Baylor couldn’t wait to question him a bit, some of the things he was doing so gloriously sadistic.

The sizzle of roasting flesh wafted through the air, a result of the boy vibrating the metal of plates and screws within a few people until they were cooking from the inside out.

It was disgusting.

It was beautiful—orgasmic, almost.

Baylor had already received complaints from almost everyone about the state of his arousal. It was actually easier to name the people who hadn’t complained: Janie, who wasn’t communicating with anyone; his brothers, who knew their complaints would do nothing, although he was aware his arousal was somewhat off-putting to them; Darrian, and Baylor was totally going to ask him for his opinion on the subject of his violence kink later; and Simeon, who wouldn’t bother complaining about such things. Levi hadn’t complained, but he had laughed and mentioned that he hoped Gëon got to meet him, because he wanted to see the criminal’s reaction. Rafe, on the other hand, had made vague comments about how Leerin had made a face and it had started a conversation about inappropriate reactions to violence with their new bone puller ally—which, seriously? How were there so many people with cool irregular deviations in the city?

Actually, now that he was thinking about it—he was actually keeping everyone’s complaints in mind, and focusing less on the violence would bring his arousal down a bit—there were a number of locations said to birth significantly more irregular deviations that was normal. Most of them were myths, of course, although he had heard that the Zarlarson—the obscure name for the kingdom that existed within the deepest reaches of the Xarnxiar, Crishar’s basin rainforest—was such a place. Kinda hard to know for sure when no one had spoken to anyone from the place in centuries, if not millennia.

Regardless, most of them myths he’d heard revolved around places that had been significantly altered by another irregular deviation, something within that manipulation of the land leading the aether within to behave more erratically, thereby causing more irregular deviations. Although the exact cause of genetic spasms wasn’t known, it was largely assumed that exposure to strange or excessive amounts of aether caused them to occur. There were even some cultures who used specific core abilities on pregnant people, in order to trigger genetic spasms, although those tended to be small groups who were often ostracized by more mainstream cultures. Why? There was no known way to control how a genetic spasm would present itself.

In other words, fetuses that experienced genetic spasms could pop out with any irregular deviation. Something terrifying, like a lavender code. Something debilitating, such as an extremely troublesome variety of Dyadism. Something that made them a target, like Emilia’s silverstrain. Something useless but pretty, like Olivier’s eyes.

There was no way to tell what would come out with a fetus who had experienced a genetic spasm; so, understandably, most people didn’t approve of such purposeful attempts to create irregular deviations, knowing it was as likely to create a monster as a severely disabled child.

Regardless of all that, Falmíer’s cavern was created by a Lowdouran—presumably, anyways. At this point, given how strange the cave system was, there were more reasons to assume it was than that it wasn’t. In addition, several of Emilia’s messages to Halen—Baylor was trying to not hate Halen for getting so many messages from her, although in this case, he understood why she was messaging him—about how strange the aether in a few places had been.

These messages had only been relayed to him after it had been revealed that he knew Emilia was no longer with her group. Even when it came to that little fact… Baylor could understand why she’d told Halen about it: someone had to know, and Halen wouldn’t feel as obligated to tell the rest of them as almost anyone else would have.

Still didn’t mean it didn’t annoy him.

This was all beside the point that apparently the reason Emilia hadn’t wanted any of them to go down into the dungeons in particular was that the aether down there was weird. As she’d worked her way towards the subterranean river she had used to get closer to Xavier—and thank fuck she’d managed to get out of that fucking thing by the time he’d found out that was her stupid plan—she’d come across yet more spots that weren’t quite right.

So, yeah. Baylor was almost positive that something within this place was weird, and it was likely due to the Lowdouran’s power lingering within the rock, and it was likely something that affected every other Lüshanian city created in such a way. There were a lot, and while the aether out in the city itself felt fine, maybe it was off enough to encourage more irregular deviations to pop into existence?

He had no idea.

He was also a little bored, Curtisal having killed or scared off the majority of their attackers, while a number more were behaving… strangely. Pressing his awareness outward, Baylor passed Westrial back to Darrian—also covered in blood, and fuck was he hot when he was killing people. In the end, his awareness didn’t contribute anything in his search for who was doing something to some of their attackers: it was obvious enough that every person Westrial’s eyes flickered towards would start to act oddly within a few seconds or minutes.

Good to know she was responsible; also, the kid needed more training in controlling and hiding whatever that ability was. Fortunately, no one would be escaping this massacre, Taelor and Bireth sweeping through the surrounding streets, taking out anyone who dared try to run.

Every one of these people was complicit in the kidnapping and torture of a handful of people, including several children, who were now theirs. No one hurt what was theirs.

“It’s possible,” Halen replied, Baylor having sent him a bunch of his thoughts on how many irregular deviations existed within the city because, again, he was bored. While he would definitely prefer to chat with Emilia about this, she was unavailable. So, bothering Halen it was. “It’s hard to say, given we’re only seeing a small portion of the population, and obviously, our circumstances are going to skew things towards people who are powerful… but for this many people with such dangerous irregular deviations—including at least one that I’ve never heard of—to be found in the same place?”

“It’s weird, right?” Baylor commented, slitting through the femoral artery of someone who had been too focused on activating their willbrand.

Out of all the things Curtisal could do, that one—his ability to render willbrands effectively useless—was by far the most terrifying. In theory, were they fighting the boy themselves, they could activate defensive skills around their bodies to block his abilities—not that any of them had metal within themselves, Doctor Vickers being really big on regrowing bones and reattaching muscles properly rather than relying on plates and screws. That said, none of them had lost a limb, and prosthetics were a whole different thing. Given how strong the prosthetics Curtisal created were, his willbrand shuddering with effort every time he slammed into one, if the kid were their ally and one of them lost a limb…

Well, if the boy turned out to be trustworthy, Baylor would opt for something created by him, regardless of the risk of the kid later tearing it off with his abilities or turning it into a device that could kill its owner—one person’s arm had turned on them and gouged out their eyes. Seriously, the boy was deranged and Baylor loved it.

“Definitely something to keep in mind, especially if the conflict in Lüshan spreads. I know Baalphorians tend to hide their irregular deviations far more aggressively than many nations, but I wouldn’t want to be at war with a nation that has so many powerful people—we might not have anyone similarly terrifying to match them,” Halen replied, some echo of hesitation coming through the relay before he was adding on that he actually knew of a place that definitely had higher instances of irregular deviations. “I was actually thinking of mentioning it to you when we got out of this place,” the other boy asked, and that was fucking weird, right?

“Baylor,” Halen sighed—actually fucking sighed, and actually, why the fuck had he defaulted to audio-mode for this conversation!?—“you were able to pull up over a dozen examples of myths that included locations that increased their residents’ likelihood of experiencing irregular deviations. On top of that, every time you talk about myths regarding the will of the aether, it is clear you have neither a firm belief in it nor are an ardent denier of its existence.”

“Why does that matter?”

There was a beat of hesitation before a memory slipped into his relays—a memory of a fucking prophecy Halen had received in the Grey Sands. Cool? Also, fucking weird. Also… yeah, okay. Halen had some points, and since they had all involved how great he was, Baylor would let them stand as examples of how, every so often, Halen could say reasonable things.

It was rare, but it happened.

Swivelling, Baylor swung his willbrand up, letting several blasts of aether shoot out of it. The shots slammed into three people who had been coming up behind Curtisal, having appeared from an alley opposite where Taelor and Bireth were currently hunting. He’d seen a few of their enemies messaging people on their xpherns a while ago, Codeth relaying what those messages said, as Vantril had taken over messaging with Clemence in order to get intel on what was being said in the group’s encrypted chat—only Clemence was currently in a position to give highlights on Fräthk’s group chat, Vtraní busy driving, according to a short, screamed-over-the-battlefield conversation with Curtisal, while no one in their group was inclined to try taking a moment to look at their own hacked xphern. Every so often, Valor looked over something on their own hacked xphern, but that had only started after most of their enemies had been killed.

Regardless, Clemence had confirmed that several people in the battle had messaged for backup, a handful of nearby people promising to come. It was unclear how many would actually come—a few of the people who had attempted to get away had also messaged, telling people to stay away, and that the 18th was a lost cause. Baylor had still been keeping an eye out, especially after another message had warned everyone of Curtisal’s betrayal and included a warning about what his abilities could do—apparently, until this moment, no one had thought him much of a combatant.

A short conversation had occurred, in which everyone with any metal in their body was recommended to stay back, while several people had volunteered to sneak up on the brat and slit his throat.

Even if they hadn’t had access to the secret chat, the plan wouldn’t have worked: Valor was running recon skill after recon skill, marking the area and all the combatants, while they were definitely focusing more of their attention of the members of their group who were younger and without Censors. Bireth, Curtisal, and Westrial were by far the most protected members of their group, and no one was going to be touching them.

“We’ll discuss this more later,” Baylor told Halen, his stomach flipping over with the reality that, somehow or another, it seemed like he was going to end up cooperating with the fucker on something. “Don’t tell anyone else, else I won’t help you.”

“Alright, Baylor,” was all Halen said as Baylor surged forward, willbrand spinning and sliding through the soft flesh of one of the people who had brutally ripped their prosthetic off, attempting to avoid Curtisal’s abilities—it hadn’t worked, the lingering tubes and wires that hung from their arm spasming and pulling the poor sucker right into his path.

When he glanced over at the Lüshanian boy, Curtisal wore as deranged of a smile as Baylor knew his own face had cast over itself. How strange it was, this reality that he was possibly leaving this place with far more friends than he’d ever thought he’d have—far more than he needed, not that such a thing would stop his black knot doing what it wanted.

In the end, he had no more control of his black knot’s obsession than when he had been six, and immediately known that Emilia was his within seconds of meeting her silver-shot eyes.

His.

They were all his, and fuck anyone who tried to take them from him.