Kismet’s Tale

      “Saw the Mrs. walking away to Lady Elea. Did you anger her?”

“I might have,” Mavin said. He sat on the chair and looked at the equipment that was extracting the poisonous substance in the sac.

“Looks like it might work. The recipe that you gave us is strangely detailed so all the work was mostly on you, Boss,” Martina explained. She pulled the switch on the extractor, the fluid entering through a medicinal filter that mixed the poison with the medicine, after the poison mingled, the purple fluid traveled through the transparent tube, finding its way inside Mavin’s body.

It was then that he felt the poison running through every part of his body. Ike and Martina looked at Mavin as his regeneration factor tried to combat the poison, and somewhat turned it against him. The poison seeped in his marrows, muscles, and before long he was leaking out fumes that made the three people in the facility cover themselves with a mask.

Mavin’s eyes were starting to transform into a devilish red. But it was only when more of the liquid was in his body that the piercing blue colors of his eyes returned. Pungent, black mass came out of his pores, dripping from every part of his body, the odor was similar to that bile and vomit that was clashing together. Mavin’s eyes, noses, and ears were bleeding and his eyes were unfocused as the vile concoction entered him.

Suddenly, Mavin’s head went limp forward, there was a moment of silence before Martina plucked a syringe and directly stabbed it on Mavin’s heart. Mavin gasped loudly as he had almost drowned. He kept on panting until he vomited a sludge of black bile that seemed to come out deep within him.

The iron that was clasped around his arms had started to dent. The veins on his body had a pinkish red color. The area around his ribs were melting, exposing his ribs, lungs, and a portion of his heart. There was a grim look on their faces, but it vanished the moment the flesh that had melted started to grow back.

For a moment they thought the ritual of renewal was done.

Then Mavin Tomas’s skin just melted, leaving only his defined muscles and a bit of bones that had remained. The sight of the skinless Mavin Tomas made them shudder. The men, who saw what had happened to his member, couldn’t help but cover their privates, shaking, and unamused by the sight of it.

If Mavin could  have screamed. He would have, but his mind was trapped in agony. There was a momentary confusion in them before the regeneration factor kicked in, renewing his skin back to normal. Mavin remained silent throughout the process of the ritual, and yet his eyes burned with a fanatical light. None of them could speak at the sight of the ever so determined eyes that still glowed like charcoal on him. As usual there was no doubt or fear in their Boss that it made them wonder if the Mavin Tomas that started treating them human would go away.

***

Mavin Tomas had finally awakened. He was in the bed that was in the facility. On the chair next to him, reading a book was Aunger.

“Hey,” Mavin sat on his bed, “did it go fine?”

“Yes. You are still breathing, Boss.”

Mavin clenched his hands. “It looks like I am.”

“Boss, with your strength, can it really be done without going through all this trouble and agony?”

“I wish,” Mavin said. “Do you expect to win without preparations? Or are you expecting me to suddenly find a new profound power and pull something out of my ass so that I can somewhat win this? Aunger, how did we manage to get to the point that we would reach this stage?”

“With fanatical preparation.”

Mavin trained his eyes on him calmly. “All what we have done today was worked on the foundations that we have set before all of this. Do you think we could have protected Lazon without the arms and the training? Without wealth there would have been nothing, and without wealth we would have not reached such a prosperous state where we can confidently become a separatist state and the Empire would do nothing but watch and grit their teeth.

“Those days where we struggled to get the right people and the right paperwork? How we had to do so many things, write so many reports, and proposals so that those people would mistake me for a prodigy? I only know how those people worked, how they go on about their lives that I was able to pull them into supporting Lazon. How many contracts, and scheming that we have to do? How much of it caused blood? We wouldn’t be here without thorough preparation, and if anything all of what we are doing now only concerns me.”

“It’s because it concerns you that I am questioning it.”

“Sometimes, I wonder why you people are so adamant about saying that. Had I not treated you like tools? Even Ike and Martina keep bringing it up to me.”

“Boss, sometimes I wonder if you ever truly understand the people around you. Why we function, and why we would even dare to follow your orders. You know how to make us go your way, but…do you really understand what motivates us to go along with you?”

Mavin sighed. “How would I know? If I had a boon that could allow me to read your minds, I would have done better than this.”

“If you had that power then perhaps it would have been far easier to make you realize how we all feel, Boss. If you haven’t offered your back back at the bottom of the pit many years ago. When the strange yet young kid didn’t offer us a hand of salvation when none would offer…do you think we’ll be living here? Do you think that we’d find something we’d want to do other than gather food for the day? Hoping that there might be more to this life other than suffering and abandoning ourselves.

“You used us. We saw how you acted like a programmed machine. How you acted and yet in the end, do you know what we felt?

“You gave us salvation that we didn’t mind being used. Even after being used we found that your ‘unreasonable’ is more than ‘reasonable’ enough for us to do it. So think about seeing it from our side. Our generous benefactor, who has given us education, home, and a purpose in life, who had suffered through war, schemes, and now self-mutilation, so that he could hope to win, and he doesn’t even think of those around him. Do you think of us so little?”

Mavin stared at Aunger who said bitter words. He looked at Mavin as if he wanted him to understand. Mavin thought for a moment and sighed.

“I’m doing this because I am leaving the hardest part to all of you. Truthfully, even with this, I don’t know if it would be possible, but that is the purpose of that sac in the first place. I understand if many of our Hounds are eager to be part of this. But they will only be a burden to me. I need them manning the artillery, the machine-guns and the anti-tank rifles that we have procured from Holmia. I need the ‘evil’ saturated enough that I could face this evil in the ground. I needed the protection of the black-iron clad Vulcan and the weapons that could face it.

“I am not thinking of you all so little. You insult me by saying that at all. It is because I know that you are all here that I could even dare to try doing this. Or are you not willing to pay back the home that you have grown up in? The one that saved you? From the start, this has been an exchange. I will carry out this goal, and in exchange you will be the guardians of Lazon. The Hounds that bite on the intruders and chase after them. I took you all in for the sake of that single purpose.”

“That’s what you always say, Boss. That we are nothing more than tools to you. That all of this is just your ‘goal’ and ‘purpose’ so that you can do this self-imposed mission. It worked when we were children who were ignorant, unaware, and dumber than a rock. But the more time you spend with a person, the more you see them as who they are. We’ve spent long enough to know who you truly are inside, Boss.”

“Do you?” Mavin said with an inquisitive tone. “If you truly know who I am inside, then you understand why I am doing this in the first place. Why would I go to all this trouble of putting myself into a coma, fighting a dragon that could melt me, and fuse myself with a goddamn poison that skinned me alive?”

Mavin suddenly took the glass on the side, before Aunger could react, he tore his wrist, letting blood flow in the glass. Aunger watched the blood, and noticed how it was boiling. Aunger looked back at Mavin’s wrist and saw the wound that he inflicted close up,  his regeneration factor seemed to have slowed down as well.

“Your blood…”

“It has turned into acid blood. Because of infusing myself with the same poison. My whole body is currently filled with poison.”

Aunger stared at his Boss. Although he was hiding it pretty well, he could see that the Boss was barely hiding the utter agony that he was feeling. Every inch of his body was still burning because of the acid-like poison. 

It was a poison that could melt the tough skin of their Boss.

And yet he was still keeping it in his body. The medicine that they infused, what was it?

“What was that medicine?”

“It dilutes the acid-like poison. If I am right then that abomination should have the properties that will cause the poison to return to their acid-like state. If things go as planned, then it should be one of my cards that might pave the way for our victory.”

Aunger’s eyes turned gloomier. He clenched his hand. “Do you need anything else?”

“No, I just needed to be away from anyone. Any physical interaction might be harmful to anyone now. Besides, I made my wife angry so it would be the best excuse for why I am staying away from her.”

“Did you plan to do that from the start?”

“For once, I didn’t, but this will work in my favor. I need some time alone until my condition is stable enough that I wouldn’t worry about my spit causing harm. Oh, I do need a lot of painkillers now and then. It’s painful as I thought it would be,” Mavin flinched.

Aunger had seen his Boss and benefactor suffer injury, but he had always remained steadfast. To see him weakened, flinching, and so sickened made him reconsider his thoughts for a moment. He was asking too much from Mavin Tomas. From the start there was no way that they could save this land by letting their emotions get the better of them.

From the very start he was already set on achieving this goal. Aunger understood it, but yet he couldn’t imagine how hard it was to hold on to such determination. It was useless to convince someone who had been toiling for this path.

Aunger felt stupid. No, he felt like he was undermining all the suffering and pain that his foolish benefactor was going through in order to succeed in defeating the coming ‘evil’ that was upon them. And despite all that he truly wanted to tell this foolish benefactor the truth.

That despite all the steadfastness that he was showing.

He was continuously melting inside.

Their benefactor was starting to crack from the self-imposed burden that he carries.