Bonds of Blood - Chapter 4
Fandom: Xenoblade Chronicles 2
Characters: Malos, Amalthus
TW: references to chirurgy
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Malos was woken up by a buzzing pain in his shoulder. Ugh, not again. He tried to roll over and relieve it. Only to find out he couldn't move an inch.
A feeling of dread washed over him like a bucket of cold water, jolting him fully awake. His eyes opened to meet a painfully white ceiling, clearly not belonging to the Monoceros. Indol, he remembered, as his mind began to retrace what had happened.
That bastard Amalthus. He should have expected his old driver would try to retrieve him under his grasp. Never thought he could actually succeed, though.
Mythra... And here he thought she’d never fall for the Praetor’s tricks. He’d be curious to know how he managed to convince her to help him. There was that other Blade, too. The one Mikhail called Haze. He recognized her, from five hundred years ago. She used to have the same Driver as Jin. Before Amalthus got them both. And now he finally got Malos too.
As the familiar sharp pain in his shoulder began to fade, he became aware of another, dull pain eating his whole body. It burnt. He could feel a power such as he hadn’t known since the Aegis war. But while the power he had back then was exhilarating, this new power made him sick. He could feel its filth coursing through his veins, seeping into his every cell. He had never felt more tainted.
Flesh-Eater.
He was an Aegis. He was created to destroy humans. Not to be fused with them. And yet, he could still remember the masked faces of those Indoline scums as they stood over him, tearing him open to implant human parts in him. Mostly blood. A lot of blood. That was now boiling in his ether veins, fighting against his Blade body and granting him unknown power.
A hoarse sound escaped his lips as he tried to gasp for fresh air to dull the burn. Without success.
A shadow fell over him. He tried to focus on the silhouette cutting against the white ceiling. Amalthus. The last person he wanted to see right now. He snarled at him, but the Indoline was unfazed.
“Now now, is that a way to greet your Driver?”
“You don't have any control over me.”
“Don’t I, now?”
A glint of self-satisfaction passed in the Praetor’s eyes as he reached to unlock the Ether Chains that were binding Malos, then took a step back. Wary, the Aegis tentatively moved an arm. Then a leg. He sat up. Amalthus did free him... He eyed his Driver. Cocky bastard.
He was just a blur as he jumped at the man’s throat. That new power coursing through his body was disgusting, but real. The Indoline gasped for air as Malos’s hands tightened around his throat. He’d never really thought about killing him before. A Blade didn’t kill their Driver, even someone like Malos, even a Driver like Amalthus. Though the end of the world would probably have meant his end too. But after being defiled into a Flesh-Eater, having witnessed the endless suffering he inflicted on Jin, now that he had him in his hands...
Fear flashed in the Indoline’s eyes for a short second, before being replaced by the same smug confidence as before. What the..?
Bright noise sparkled in Malos’s vision as he crumbled to the floor, his energy suddenly drained. He didn’t realize he’d hit the ground until his senses cleared again a moment later. What was that..? Lying on his side, he looked up, trying to analyze what had just happened. Amalthus... was still there, dominating him with his full height.
“Fascinating how we never thought to apply the technology so commonly used to bind Titans on Blades before. Well, I must admit it would be a waste to risk damaging the Core Crystals for that. But on a Flesh-Eater... It can work wonders, don’t you think?”
Malos closed his eyes. So that was it. He was to be his Driver’s tool. The Aegis was but a Blade. Powerful, yet still bound to a human.
I’m sorry, Jin. I couldn’t fulfill your goal after all. I guess I should have known I’d break that promise. All I know is how to destroy things.
He didn’t move when he heard Amalthus leave the room, abandoning him on the floor. There was no point in trying to find a more comfortable place to lay. He just had to wait until he was needed to unleash his power again. And what destruction he would bring to this world! Such was his Fate, wasn’t it? Then he would embrace it fully.
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Watching how two dogs who love each other will sometimes still nip each other on the ear, bug them while they sleep, etc... watching how cats will snuggle with their buddy all day and then paw-smack 'em in the face, chase them, play-fight...
Makes me, as a fellow social mammal, feel better about my urge to be incredibly annoying to another human sometimes. Like, yeah. Of course I wanna bug you. Of course it's fun to annoy you. We're social creatures and annoyance can be part of play, something we all need. And I watch these dogs who get their ears nipped, cats who get smacked out of a nap, and despite BEING annoyed, they don't stop loving their packmate. After they finish play-fighting, they're back to snuggling and grooming and sleeping together. BEING annoyed is also just part of being in a social group and having relationships... and that's okay. It doesn't erase love or necessarily make them mad or affect them in the long term... a loved one being annoyed with me is a temporary feeling that's normal for social creatures. An annoyance that wouldn't be possible WITHOUT that love
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My sort of maybe embarrassing “late to the game” thing I’m learning now is how to tell if oil has gone bad.
I feel like most other foods have obvious visual tells like mold or they end up smelling foul and obviously bad. But I was googling about oil and the internet says “if it smells like crayons, it’s bad” which would not have been my first guess. And I tested it out on my somewhat old sesame oil and was like “by god, I would describe this as smelling like crayons”
Anyway protip if your old oil smells kinda like crayons it’s probably no good 🖍️
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