CHPT 208: Heroes Avenged.

Claude held Rikah's life in his unrelenting grip. Her blood red beating heart felt like a flesh bag full of fire in his hand. It was ironic that someone such as her had a heart so warm and powerfully beating, while her victims— the Heroes and so many more, were in a forest underground. Cold, lifeless and decaying. The thought angered him deeply, causing his grip on her heart to tighten.

After she realized the hold he had on her life, she went wild. No longer caring that she was going to die anyway, she began to kick and stab her single arrow into his shoulder repeatedly in an attempt to be freed.

He stayed still. He wanted her to know he was going nowhere. He wanted her to feel helpless in his presence— much like how he felt when her band of Raiders killed the Heroes he only barely knew.

He continued to watch her unflinchingly and ignorant of the pain until her stamina bled dry and she was left breathing raggedly in his grasp. Her once long and pretty eyelashes she used to bat at Chadwick flirtatiously were now dirty and clumped together by tears and blood. The same for her mouth that leaked the crimson liquid continuously. Her old self— her fake self, was long gone. No more pretty and youthful brunette who knew her way around a bow. Only the heartless and fraudulent Raider queen of Skyhaven's wild lands.

His glare in silence continued.

After a while all she had left to do was look up at his horrifying maw. He no longer snarled or snapped at her— merely holding her while his bright green eyes ripped holes in her once pretty and delicate face. The face that brought long repressed memories to the surface.

Memories of her dainty yet battle hardened feminine fingers dipping into the Mage, Oliver's, punctured chest to use his blood as face paint. Memories of her screaming at Brenda in a flash of her true nature breaching the surface of the feigned cutesy Archer Hero she pretended to be. Memories of him and Chadwick being the final survivors of the attack, fighting for their life while surrounded by their dead teammates. All the memories of that night came back in better detail than his mixed and mashed night terrors, leaving him raw and reminded of what it felt like to be this way.

He'd been in this state before. Usually being higher on the emotional spectrum in times of violence. He was now much different. His hatred had burned to an intensity so high that it entered a realm of something akin to coldness. Cold as ice. There was no need to physically show her what he felt. She could probably feel him from a mile away at this point while he looked at her from above his snout like a higher being casting judgement down on a lowly imp. Only she was no imp. She was far more important. Far more wretched.

She was the cause of his first human kill. She was the one who changed him from a boy— infected by something monstrous that wanted to be a Hero, into a Monster that often questioned if he could even wear the name.

"W-what…do you…w..ant?" Rikah forced out weakly, attempting to use her usual snappy and authoritative tone.

Claude squeezed tighter.

"I want you to apologize. Apologize to Brenda and the woman she loved….apologize to Oliver….apologize to the Tank whose life you took when he was simply trying his best to enjoy it…..apologize to the father you took from his son…apologize to me."

A tear streamed down Rikah's face in response to the inhuman rumble of intensity in his booming voice. He watched the tear run it's course down her face, smearing the blood as it went.

"I-I'm...I'm sorry— th—….this is all..I know.."

"Lies." Claude didn't need superhuman senses to know so. Maybe she was raised knowing only this life. But Rikah is deceptively smart. Smart enough to enter a Guild and fool a team of Heroes into believing she was a totally different person for weeks. There was a time when it was all she knew. But that time passed long ago. She was just rotten, cold and uncaring. So much so that she'd rather be a Raider than a Hero. She'd rather wait outside of Tangents and murder injured Heroes after they risked their lives to better the world and feed their families. All for profit, something she'd try to make even if the world around her was crumbling. She was a cancer to society. They all were.

Claude brought her closer to him, leaning down to press his snout to her forehead until his hot breath threatened to melt her skin.

"You lie….even in the face of death."

Rikah's jaw clenched in anger, yet the continuous beat of her heart slowed as she looked up and spoke.

"F….fuck yyou. You t-think I'm the…..t-the lassst of the….Raiders? M-more will c-come."

Claude growled, "Good. I'll erase you all."

The female Raider shivered but held her angered expression, eyes low with fatigue and hands fisted weakly, "I hope…t-they skinn y-you alive….you monstrous b-bitch…ergh!"

The young Lupine expressed a vicious smile as his black lips peeled back to reveal his fangs while he casually squeezed even tighter on her heart. He could feel it's fire dying out. She was dying out. This was the end of her. He only had one thing left to say before ripping out the fast fading beacon of life in her chest.

"I hope that the beings you meet wherever you're going are as unkind to you…as you were to everyone in this life. Goodbye Rikah, you won't be missed….and tell your fellow Raiders I said fuck you from the other side!"

FWOOSH!

"UUUGH!"

CRSHHHH!!!!'