(~.~ )
The darkness in the God Eater's Oubliette was not merely the absence of light; it was a physical weight, a thick, viscous ink that tasted of ancient despair and cold stone. Kaelan woke up on a floor that felt like frozen bone. His high fever had not broken; instead, it had morphed into a jagged, pulsing agony that made every breath feel like inhaling shards of glass.
He tried to push himself up, his black panther ears twitching in a frantic, blind search for sound. He reached out to touch the wall, but the moment his fingers brushed the stone, a searing blue light arced through his body. The seals on the room were designed to feed on resistance; the more he pushed, the harder the magic bit back.
"Argh!" Kaelan collapsed, his body convulsing as the shock traveled through his swollen muscles. "You... cowardly, back-stabbing lizards! Come out and face me! I'll... I'll turn your shitty dungeon into a litter box!"
But there was no answer. Only the silence, and then ,the voices.
At first, they were whispers, fluttering like bats in the corners of the dark. Then, the shadows began to warp, knitting together into figures Kaelan recognized with a heart-stopping jolt of indignation and fear.
"Look at you," a voice sneered. Kaelan looked up to see the shimmering, cold forms of his parents. Their faces were twisted in a look of profound disgust. "A monster's pet. A feline freak. We always knew you were a disappointment, Kaelan, but to be a violated toy for a dragon? You're a stain on our name."
"Shut up," Kaelan rasped, his eyes welling with tears he refused to let fall. "You're not real. You're just... bad lighting."
The shadows shifted. Now, it was Tamsin and Marcus. They were laughing, their faces illuminated by a cruel, mocking light. "Did you really think we were your friends, Kaelan?" Marcus's illusion asked, his voice dripping with venom. "We were just watching the train wreck. We stayed because the narcissism of your drama was entertaining. Now that you're gone? We've never felt lighter."
More figures appeared,hundreds of them, faculty, students, the Dragon Lords, all pointing their fingers at him, their laughter a deafening, rhythmic chant of Pet. Toy. Broken. Alone.
Kaelan curled into a ball in the corner, his fluffy tail tucked tight, his body shivering with the cold of the void. The psychological pressure was heavier than the physical seals. Every time he tried to fight the thoughts, the pain in his chest flared, a burning reminder of the magic suppressed within him.
Finally, a shadow tall and broad, wearing the silhouette of Ignis, stepped forward. "I am bored of you, Kaelan," the illusion rumbled. "The fucked time is over. I have found a more... obedient feline. You are nothing but a broken tool."
Kaelan let out a jagged, sarcastic laugh that turned into a wet cough. He looked up at the shadow, his slit pupils flashing with a spark of his old deadly ego.
"You really... suck at this," Kaelan wheezed. "Ignis... hating me? That scaly, hard headed monster? That's impossible. He doesn't have enough room in his brain for hate, it's entirely filled with his own weird pleasure and his lower body's demands. A monster like him doesn't hate his toys... he just obsesses until they break. You're a shitty illusion, Zadkiel! Tell your boss his script needs a rewrite!"
Kaelan closed his eyes, his strength finally failing. The fever was pulling him under. He didn't have the force to fight the seals, but he had his voice.
"Ignis..." he whispered, the name a raw, pained sound. "Ignis, you arrogant lizard... if you don't find me... I'm going to... haunt your bathroom... forever..."
He called the name again. And again. Ignis. Ignis. Ignis.
In the Mortal Realm, the South Lord's territory was currently being dismantled by a hurricane of gold and fire.
Ignis was no longer the gentleman. He was a calamity. He had torn through the South Lord's obsidian gates, his aura so intense that the very grass withered into ash. He held the South Lord by the throat, hoisting the massive dragon into the air as if he were a sack of grain.
"WHERE IS HE?" Ignis roared, his voice shaking the foundations of the mountains.
"He... he is not here!" the South Lord choked out, his eyes wide with the realization that he had underestimated the King's manic obsession. "Zadkiel... she used the Void Anchor! He is in the God Eater's Oubliette! It is beyond the reach of the Five Realms!"
Ignis froze. The Oubliette. A prison created by the Primal Gods to hold those who defied the heavens. It was a place where time didn't exist, and from which no dragon had ever returned without the permission of the God Realm.
"To find the God Realm... it takes an eternity of searching through the astral sea," the South Lord wheezed, a smug hope flickering in his eyes. "He will be a pile of bones before you find the gate, Ignis. You have lost your cat."
Ignis's grip tightened until the South Lord's scales began to crack. Suddenly, Ignis's head snapped to the side.
Ignis...
The voice was a faint, jagged thread, vibrating through the dragon earring he had given Kaelan. It was a psychic scream of pain and exhaustion, laced with the most deadly curses Kaelan had ever conceived.
"He is calling me," Ignis whispered, his voice trembling with a terrifying, manic excitement.
"Impossible!" the South Lord gasped. "No one hears a voice from the Oubliette!"
"My Kaelan does not follow the rules of your prisons," Ignis growled, his golden eyes turning into voids of pure power. "And I do not have an eternity to search for gates."
Ignis dropped the South Lord and looked toward the sky. He could hear it,the rhythmic, furious heartbeat of his panther. Kaelan wasn't just calling him; he was insulting the very walls of his prison.
"You think a God Realm can hide him from me?" Ignis's voice became a resonant, terrifying vibration. "I am the Solar King. Every shadow in the universe belongs to my light. If there is no gate... I will simply burn a hole through the fabric of the world."
Ignis didn't fly; he began to channel. The ground began to melt into magma. The air turned into a vortex of white hot plasma. Ignis was going to do the unthinkable: he was going to force a brute strength bridge into the God Eater's Oubliette by using the soul link of the fiancée earring as a beacon.
"Hang on, Kaelan," Ignis roared into the astral void, his magic tearing at the seams of reality. "Keep cursing me! Keep hating me! Your sharp tongue is the only map I need!"
Inside the dark cell, Kaelan felt a sudden, violent spike in temperature. The cold, mocking illusions began to smoke and dissolve.
"Is it... getting hot in here?" Kaelan muttered, his panther ears twitching. "Or is that just... his ego... arriving?"
The seals on the wall began to glow a blinding, molten gold, cracking under a pressure that shouldn't exist. Kaelan smiled, a tiny, jaded smirk appearing on his face despite the high fever.
"Typical," Kaelan whispered. "He can't even... let me... be kidnapped... in peace."