Heir to Gratos

[Darth Vulcanus]

Music

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And so the blood drowned the earth and turned rotting flesh to mud. Mother Gratos, culler of the weak, was writing once more with the sultry pains of war. Without the guiding lash of the Horde Mother or their Dark God, Vulcanus, the Graug tore at one another with claw and fang for the right to call themselves ruler. Not since the great bombardment by the Jedi had the tides of blood run so thick.

No hollow was safe. No temple untouched. No mercy was to be had. One clan would stand victorious. One clan to inherit Gratos.

And one girl was the key to it all.

Atriox lumbered forth, pushing aside the titanic leaves hanging from the canopy above. The rain pelted him relentlessly as he emerged from the jungle, the red drainage from his armor turning the soft soil to a crimson past. The air was salted, fresh with the scent of corpses and copper. The burning remains of Vulcanus' slave yards lay tattered before him, fires raging against the storm swirling overhead and the sounds of cracking slugthrowers eclipsing the roar of thunder.

Atriox grinned behind his horned helm, crushing the abandoned bones and broken cages littering the path to the center of the encampment. The battle below the overhanging stone was immaculate. Beasts of war howled into the broken night, warriors clashing with any weapon at hand. Broken blasters beating against bone, claws ripping open fountainous veins, beasts crushing and tearing at limbs.

A deep breath, Atriox reveled in the burning flesh and rivers of blood. Veins pulsed, muscles bulged, claws tightening around the heavy Ultrachrome shield held in his left hand. He jumped to the battle below, blood soaked dirt thrown from the impact of his boots. Several warriors turned to him, blades and broken shards of metal readied.

Atriox stared back, serpentine eyes narrowed as every pulsing artery on his foes made themselves clear. Then, his eyes shifted. Behind the bags of meat and blood lie his prize, an alien girl watching from the dirt and blood of her cage.

"Mine." Atriox's right hand lashed toward the ground, flail denting the earth with a thud that echoed the thunder.

 

[Amarthaer Saptheth]

It had gone on for days.

At first it had been only individuals that approached, each one thinking themselves worthy of the right to lay claim to her after the only one she would ever willingly bend the knee to had fallen. Each of them had paid for their mistake in full, and she made certain that each breaking was more painful than the last, until all that remained were husks of creatures that could have perhaps once been called sentient. Those fallen were slaughtered by the ones that came to replace them, and yet still the bodies piled up. She had belonged to their god and had bowed to him alone, and to claim that honor as one's own was a more complex task than most were suited for. It became evident that none were mentally sound enough to withstand all that lay at her fingertips, but nothing seemed to dissuade the abundance of hopefuls.

Then, a spark. It was difficult to say exactly how it started, but one day a simple disagreement turned to bloodshed which turned to nothing short of war. No more was she being approached with whip and blade, and instead was granted the privilege of witnessing a slaughter unfold. In the beginning it had been nothing short of euphoria, and she reveled in the inexplicable high that each death ushered forth. Very few things were capable of bringing a smile to her face, but the bloodbath that encompassed the slave arena ushered forth a twisted, grotesque mockery of happiness, coaxing a bubbling laugh from her as the carnage continued to unfold. It was beautiful in exactly the way nothing should have possibly been, especially to one so young.

But as beauty was brought about so was pain in equal amounts, and Amarthaer was forced to retreat within herself as the frenzy of sensations within the ethereal became too much for her to bear. For roughly the span of a week she had sat in a half-aware daze, dimly registering the increasing cacophony of violence slowly entombing her in its embrace. so deep was she in this trance that she didn't register as one of the hulking behemoths approached her prison for what was the first time in a long while, looking in on her with a certainty that was no different than his predecessors. The clang and crack of metal brought her back into the world of the living with a start and a sharp inhale, burning orange eyes drawing themselves in to focus on the monster reaching out its clawed hand towards her.

Her head cocked to one side, and upon him she projected the flames of hell itself, the sensation of burning alive something not even a beast like him could possibly withstand. Wordlessly she watched him fall just like all the others.

[member="Khaan Atriox"]

 

[Darth Vulcanus]

It didn't burn at first. The pain was slow, stinging across his entire body before rapidly intensifying to the point that standing was impossible. The world melted away as phantom flames engulfed the Graug warlord. His flesh bubbled, blood boiling in his veins as the hellish flames lashed out from the fabrics of reality; rising from the ground and manifesting from the air. Atriox fell to both knees, a monstrous roar and he was curling into himself in pain.

His mace was lost in the fire, his shield fusing to his skin.

Impossible. It was impossible. This couldn't be happening, this lesser filth could not have summoned the fires as Lord Vulcanus once had. She was weak.

But what if...yes. That was it.

Vulcanus had summoned these flames to test him. To test the resolve of the one who would be Khaan. The Lord of Fire was purifying the weakness in his bones through the fires of his hatred. Atriox's eyes flared to life, sharp, black slits turning to sulfuric orbs as he looked upon the lesser girl smiling in her corner. She would be his. She would be his proof that he had been chosen.

He would not fail.

Slowly, rising through the flames, Atriox stood to his towering position over the girl. His hide melted from his bones, his boots melted to the earth, the pain bringing out a zealous drive deep from within himself. He peeled the first boot from the stone, one step closer. The second, the earth came with him. Third and fourth and his shadow broke through the illusion to eclipse the lesser.

"You are weak, lesser. Vulcanus has chosen his champion." Atriox spat, shooting his claws downward to grip the lesser by the throat and raise her to eye level with him. As the claws dug into her flesh, the fire vanished, his flesh returned and all that lay between them was the blood filled air.

 

[Amarthaer Saptheth]

In the end, they were all the same. He was not the first that had thought himself worthy, nor was he the last to fall at her feet. The screams drew another smile from her, and she watched intently as he made every attempt to relieve the suffering, to no avail. Those flames her master had once summoned were deadly in their own right, but worse still was the sort of agony that was inescapable simply because it existed within the confines of one's own consciousness. While this one may have already proven his physical prowess, time had granted her the discovery that his species were far from the most mentally capable, and thusly that alone made them weak. Lesser, indeed.

Perhaps, however, this challenger was different. A curious gaze followed him as he rose from his knees, slow, staggering steps carrying him forward until he stood before her. Before she realized he'd moved that far his hand was around her throat and she was being hoisted into the air until slitted pupils glared into fiery irises. In that moment Amarthaer summoned all of the rage, bloodlust, greed and torture she had felt during her time on Gratos, and for just a few seconds languished in it, before her gaze become more honed and she seemed to once again fully inhabit her body. In that same moment, she would impose all of the previously dredged up trauma on a single focal point: the entirety of his mind. A single word would creep into his thoughts with the consistency of sweet poison, likely barely audible through his own suffering.

F̮̜̥a̝͖̰̮̭̠̫̮͝ĺ̸̶̦̝̱̝̳̬ͅl̷̵͍̹̹̻̹̀.


[member="Khaan Atriox"]