Niles // Zero (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cyclopticsadist) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
middaeg2020-05-11 12:19 pm
cyclopticsadist) wrote in middaeg2020-05-11 12:19 pm
Entry tags:
There's a reckonin' a comin'.
Who: Niles, L, Azura, Henry, Myr, Connor,
When: Backdated to the 7th, through the rest of the month.
Where: A seedy motel, then an abandoned warehouse in the refugee district.
What: Sometimes people cut off their rival's fingers as self care. Don't judge.
Warnings: Niles cuts off all of L's fingers, it's gonna get nasty.
Mello vanishing was both a boon and a tragedy for Niles' plans. Getting a live grenade out of the picture made things much simpler, but it meant he had no secondary player to keep Myr's attention. The longer that Mello was gone, the more attention would be focused on him, no matter how much he sweet talked L's lackeys. This full moon was his best chance at success, and L was ever so helpfully acting out his self destructive schedule early. The night of the full moon was the perfect time to pounce, and the moment he saw L going for the bottle he gathered his supplies.
Time to get to work.
When: Backdated to the 7th, through the rest of the month.
Where: A seedy motel, then an abandoned warehouse in the refugee district.
What: Sometimes people cut off their rival's fingers as self care. Don't judge.
Warnings: Niles cuts off all of L's fingers, it's gonna get nasty.
Mello vanishing was both a boon and a tragedy for Niles' plans. Getting a live grenade out of the picture made things much simpler, but it meant he had no secondary player to keep Myr's attention. The longer that Mello was gone, the more attention would be focused on him, no matter how much he sweet talked L's lackeys. This full moon was his best chance at success, and L was ever so helpfully acting out his self destructive schedule early. The night of the full moon was the perfect time to pounce, and the moment he saw L going for the bottle he gathered his supplies.
Time to get to work.
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His toes move and respond, though the sensation feels distant, even disembodied. His fingers do not; when he tries, a sickening jolt at the base of his skull compels him to glance down at belt restraints holding his wrists securely to the armrests of a modified dentist's chair. A crooked and swollen collection of bruised shapes greet his bleary gaze; they don't make sense, there is something deeply wrong with this picture, along with the fact that even in the context of the drug-induced haze he is still partly nestled in, they don't hurt the way they really should after such apparent mangling.
His pulse is loud in his own ears, too slow but fairly hammering against the constriction of the collar that siphons and holds his blood (and therefore his magic) through needles. Getting rid of it would be ideal; a lot of things would be ideal, but in the meantime...
Glistening tarps surround the area in his peripheral vision, reflecting a bright artificial light source in the dark warehouse. Packing blankets block the windows. L knows what this is, and there's only one person with the motives to put so much thought and care into it... even if L never quite gave Niles the credit he deserves for this level of detail, this amount of planning and foresight. That was his mistake; it should never have gotten to this point, but now that it has, his fatalistic premonitions ring even more hollow and desolate. The best that he can hope for might be a quick death, bleeding out fast if he can provoke his captor into cutting too swift and deep... and that this won't demolish his Bonded irreversibly. Is Myr even safe? Will he ever know?
His heart beats louder and faster even as his body and senses remain sluggish. There's a white-furred shape just out of range of what the light source allows him to easily perceive, toweling itself off with brisk and agitated movements. Though L's magic is largely silenced and his hands broken and restrained, there's a glimmer of hope; the magical tattoo on his back is something he can access in tight moments like these. If the spells are weakened, they could still help him.
His mouth scarcely moves, he doesn't raise his voice a thread over a whisper though his syllables slur together under his breath. Small sparks of meager lightning are at his disposal; mere shreds of control, as well. They could lay Niles out, kill him, or infuriate him, and none of those will really gain him a net positive, in the end.
The moment he starts invoking his magic, however, the collar buzzes, the sound and vibration powerfully startling to the point where he believes for a terrifying second that he's been decapitated.]
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Ah, ah-ah. I suggest you calm down. I want to give you a chance to cooperate. [He's speaking in an even, detached tone. His tail flicks back and forth along with the meter of his words.] You'll notice I've numbed your hands. I don't need to cause you any pain tonight.
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He has to remember that his best case outcome might be a pulverized and quick death. Torture can last for hours, days, or far longer; depending on Niles' motives, it could take awhile to break L to his satisfaction. And at that point... would his existence have a point? Even if Myr had been adamant that simply letting Niles kill him was out of the question and wholly unacceptable, what if it's his only choice?]
Might as well listen. Might as well properly understand what it means to cooperate, before testing the limits of the collar again.]
But you need to cause damage.
[Nothing in his line of sight leaves him doubting for even a moment.]
That's... the only thing you're good at, isn't it? Your special talent?
[He makes it sound intentionally belittling, condescending. Maybe even pitying, because this relies on pushing as many of Niles' buttons as quickly as he can, as long as he can. Come on; you can snap better than that. If he can escape, he has to try for Myr's sake, but if he can't, he won't have his Bonded saddled with something altered beyond recognition that might as well be dead, anyway. Isn't that what it would take, for Niles to cease considering him a threat?]
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[If L was trying to hit a nerve he'd missed, but that was no reason to let him keep taking shots. He grabs a belt off the table, and moves in without another word, pulling it tight around his right arm for use as a tourniquet. Static shocks meet his fingers and the fur along his arms is beginning to stand on end. Niles tenses for a moment, but relaxes as the collar's alarm crackles back to life, buzzing noise more intensely this time. Henry's device was working.]
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It's valuable; it's something he can learn from, adapt to, adjust his approach to accommodate. If only he had more time.]
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Now, when I cut you open you're going to have blood to work with, and you'll be tempted to drain your body dry trying to fight back, but I urge you not to.
[The fact that his words come out alongside a plume of his visible condensed breath doesn't give him high hopes.]
That collar is built to contain and recycle your blood magic, which I can't imagine is going to be a pleasant process. [More vapor. More shocks. He shakes his head, and makes his first cut.] Let's test it out, shall we?
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(The chill, truthfully, might be on his account. Lightning isn't working; in his seeking and desperate trial-and-error approach to finding a workaround to the collar, ice is next.)
Niles' warning only makes him more determined, especially in conjunction with the glinting, grim promise of the scissors. He braces for the cut that immediately draws blood, pulls back for the kind of magical punch that only bleeding can give him power for. There's not enough, yet; he requires more. He needs Niles to get less meticulous and more vicious. A vein might be too much to hope for, but...]
Don't you...
[His own breath puffs unevenly in front of his face, accompanying the temperature plummeting in preparation for what's coming.]
Aren't you going to need a free hand? You get off to this, don't you?
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If I was looking to enjoy myself tonight I wouldn't have numbed you.
[The scissors are put down in favor of immediately picking up packing gauze and some kind of balm Henry had created to help stem the bleeding. He dresses the wound quickly, his eye flitting back and forth between his task and the collar.]
This is a preventative measure, not revenge.
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He's shaking (from the shock, or the chill?), but even with the dressing Niles is briskly wrapping his hand in, there's not quite enough to work with and draw from for the kind of magic he needs. If Niles chances a glance up at L's face, he'll notice that for just a few moments, the grey of L's eyes has given way to a frosted, clear blue, and he bites out the syllables of an incantation without really knowing what overcompensation will do with this particular spell.
The buzzing of the collar interrupts his attempt to cast, and his head drops back, as his vision blotches and blacks. Blood magic is a delicate balance of having enough to give, and enough to sustain him, and currently, he's on the wrong side of it. The frigidity in the air around them remains, but in spite of the adrenaline that should give him enough to throw something Niles' way, he's... feeble. More anemic than usual, even as he's more desperate than usual.]
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What started as a loud humming from the device slowly trails off, and as it does L should feel stronger as it does. Niles holds up his fingers into L's field of vision. The blood on his fingers seems to evaporate with a sort of shimmer. L can't afford to lose any blood, and Niles has found a way to make sure he doesn't have to, while also tamping down his source of power. He smiles, seeing it work, and promptly shifts his attention to L's face looking for signs that he'd perked up enough to start a second finger. The key to keeping the collar working Henry had said was to keep the volume low. Besides it's not perfectly efficient, (some was inevitably lost to spillage after all), so he still needed to be on top of it if L dipped too low.]
Still with me? We've got a ways to go.
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He's still with Niles, as much as he would rather be literally anywhere else at this precise moment in time. And with Niles is where he stays, hyperventilating, sweating, and trying again, twice, to launch some kind of defense as his precious digits are parted from his right hand with insulting meticulousness. For all of Niles' claims of sadism, this operation does not in fact seem to be underway for gratuitous reasons, which is inconsistent with L's beliefs, and therefore distressing. It's another layer of cognitive dissonance on top of something that should not be happening, cannot be happening, and his theories lack a true north as Niles takes the time and care to bandage the bloody stump left by each finger as the collar cycles his blood so that there's never quite enough to cast, but never so little that his heart is in danger of stopping. It's basically ideal, for any torturer who doesn't want a victim to expire prematurely.
There's no pain; it makes no difference. This is still torture, L is still watching someone slice him to pieces. And he promised Myr that he wouldn't just let this happen, or use it to hasten his own death, so he pays attention to the collar's cycling, his own pulse, the way his strength ebbs and flows. If he times it just right, his effort won't be futile.
He just has to wait for the right chance, save his strength, fight every instinct that screams at him to react as Niles cuts, bandages, moves on, repeats.]
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As L accepts this, calms, stops struggling and starts strategizing, Niles can concentrate on making the cuts even and straight, not leaving any flaps or dangling bits as he bandages him up. It'd be so much easier, so much more fun to just rip them off. If this was for his pleasure he'd really relish the feeling of tearing flesh, he'd want to be holding L down with his own weight, feeling him struggle underneath him. But no, this was an operation. L didn't deserve that kind of gratuitous punishment after what he'd gone through with Mello, so this was going to be quick, and clean, and courteous.
The pinkie gives Niles the most trouble where that's concerned. It seems that he'd broken it earlier rather than properly dislocating it, so there's more mess to deal with, and more attention needed to healing and bandaging that stump. Once it's done however he sets his tools aside and stands. He unbuckles the belt acting as a tourniquet then steps out of the well lit radius for a moment before returning with a pitcher and a glass of water.]
Almost halfway there. How difficult are you going to be about drinking this? I have a funnel and a ring gag if I need it, but I don't think either of us wants that.
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His breathing is shallow, his complexion ashen. Niles confirms that he wants to take both hands' worth of his fingers, the collar's levels are approaching an equilibrium he can exploit with enough focus and force.
He just needs the bastard to come closer, position himself in front of the restrained detective. The lightheadedness he feels when Niles removes the tourniquet is tempered by the rush of suddenly available magic flowing to the bandaged ends of his mutilated hand, and his dark eyes are wide and beseeching at the mention of water.]
No... not difficult...
[Though his hand is numb, the blood coursing to the area is vital. He remembers what it's like to have fingers; he can have them again. He just has to get this right on the first try.]
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He's managed to trip up the collar; it doesn't seem to know how to handle the sudden surge, at least immediately. The result is gruesomely beautiful: L's frozen blood splits through his bandages in lethally sharp spires, piercing through heat and tissue as it's his turn to cut into his foe.
He'll pay dearly for this, whether or not his limited range managed to hit something vital. By turning his blood into a set of impaling weapons ejected through his wounds, L's ensured that it's outside his body, and Niles can doubtless feel every tremor as chill and shock begin to set in.
It's fine; if this kills him, all I have to do is survive long enough for someone to find this place. Myr will assume the worst; Myr will make it in time.]
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Dropping the cup, he brings his arm down and back, smashing his forearm into the rigid icicles, shattering them. He steps back, reaching for the same healing products he'd been using on L a moment before. The wounds were deep, and potentially quite lethal. Niles' saving grace was the angle he'd been at. Instead of piercing directly through the body wall and into the meat of his organs, the frozen spears had cut obliquely through abdominal muscle. The wounds were bleeding profusely and quite painful, but nothing vital had been hit.
The icicle daggers were starting to melt within him and he could feel the collar sapping at his own blood where it mixed with L's. Disgusted, Niles does his best to flush L out of his wounds and patch himself up. All the while the collar diligently hummed as it started to draw back in the icicles, incrementally replenishing L once again.]
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Of course, Niles is going to fight back. Why wouldn't he? It wasn't a killing blow, L realizes with a plummeting sensation. Maybe more than the son of a bitch can just walk off, but not what he needed, not what would have helped him. As Niles shatters the icicles, L feels the shock through his forearm, and cries out involuntarily at the rending pain that he's sure will split through his own bone and muscle... but as his vision blurs and grays from his own significant blood loss, he is able to note that it never happens. The blood is diligently recollected by the collar, along with some of Niles', and while it's liquid once more, it's cold in his veins to the point where he pulls at his restraints with only the impulse to curl and preserve his body heat. His latest effort spent, it'll be some time before he can try again, if he even wants to put himself through that punishment once more. Half-conscious, he's winded and panting, shivering uncontrollably as the collar regulates his blood with a slight, dulled catch. Is the difference due to the intermingling of Niles blood in his system, or...?
He's dimly aware of the chimera attending to his wounds. He's dazed and fighting to retain consciousness, when it would be so much more easier to let the darkness flirting with him just melt his torment away.]
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Well, if you can pull that off and stay...mostly afloat I guess you don't need that drink after all.
[While L is this low, why not keep him here for a while. He's proven he can take it. Niles puts the tourniquet on his left arm and starts again, working faster now that he's had some practice. He takes his time with the bandaging however, letting the collar replace whatever had been lost, and no more. Not until he was done with the final finger. With both hands fully bandaged, Niles knew he'd have to wait a bit before his final move, so he starts cleaning up. The fingers get packed neatly into a chill enchanted box, and he can't help but smile at the sight of them. He takes a deep, deep breath. The smell of blood is overpowering, the pain in his stomach is progressing to an all too enjoyable ache, and L's sharp, beautiful scream was echoing in his head now, after the fact.
He shuts the lid of the box with a snap, and sets it aside. Those thoughts were for later. He puts his attention back on L himself, forcing himself back on task.]
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Reality fades, then shudders back into focus. His hands are symmetrical again, bandaged, fully lacking and wrong. Niles has left his side; there's a sound like a distant gunshot that echoes throughout the spacious warehouse in the darkness, and then Niles starts advancing again, bringing with him an implement he'd mentioned earlier, felt no need to use due to L's feigned compliance. He won't be making that mistake again, it seems. Does he intend to try to get him to drink again? No... if that was the case, he'd probably have the funnel in hand, too.
A chime somewhere in the darkness catches his attention, dulcet compared to the collar's now-despised buzzing, but the reaction from Niles indicates that it's anything but good for him. Meaning, it could be excellent for L. That hope gives his flagging morale a second wind even as Niles' movements grow more rushed and panicked. The ring gag is tossed aside and forgotten, and Niles reaches instead for L's nose, restricting the airflow, forcing him to open his mouth and shoving a clawed finger inside. It's even sharper than it looks, somehow, and L feels its bite immediately when Niles gouges it through his tongue. It pulls another sharp sound from him, but... one strangled and drowned, this time, because there is so much blood. A fast and gushing flow of it, that the collar responds to nowhere near as efficiently, and he can work with this.
His body, like Niles', is meat, blood, and pain. It's also a live wire, writhing under the chimera's hands, a conduit for vengeance and fury and good old-fashioned electricity. L snaps back the moment Niles tries to withdraw, too, his teeth finding fierce purchase in Niles' hand. As long as Niles is here, getting fried at the electric chair of his own construction? L would pull the lightning from the sky if it meant finally managing to stop the monster's heart, hearing the thud of a sizzling body on the tarps beneath them.]
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The fur on his forearm caught fire, and rolling to extinguish it is his first move, but when he gets to his feet he begins to realize the extent of the damage. Even after escaping from L's clamped jaws and breaking the flow of lightning, his arm is singing with crackling, spasming pain. He tries to move his arm and instead of obeying his wishes the limb curls against his chest in an unnatural, tight, contorted pose. He can't use it, and any attempts to do so simply aggravate the burns on his skin and the tension in his muscles.
But there's no time to address it. There's no time to stop, or to spit insults or curses. The alarm rang, which meant he only had a few minutes to escape before Myr or perhaps Connor, or someone sent by the two of them, would show up and he did not intend to be here when they arrived. He snatches the box of fingers on his way to the gaping hole in the floor where a staircase should be. It was a two story jump. If he'd had use of both his arms it would have been easy, but with one carrying his precious cargo, and the other a useless twisted mess, he just has to fall and roll and weather the consequences.
To his surprise there are none. He springs up after hitting the ground without losing a step. He'll have time later to pick apart whether that was due to adrenaline or some shock absorbing power of his goat legs, but for now he doesn't bother questioning it, instead ducking under some collapsed debris, dropping down one more level into the basement, and heading out a shipping exit one block over.]
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Well. What's left of them, anyway. He falls back, spent and winded, gasping past the blood drowning his mouth and throat as Niles reels away, smoldering and seizing. It's by this point that he truly has tried everything; every spare drop of blood and magic has gone toward the purpose of killing Niles, and the chimera fucking lives. His vision blurs and dims as the beast rises, then vanishes through a hold in the darkness.]