“I want to know EVERYTHING you are about to do to me, Little Bitey!”
Parts of that sentence bothered Kuta more than others. Mostly the fact that the yellow-plated Skyavok sitting on the bed in front of them had just called Kuta a nickname they had not heard in decades.
“I, uh, take it that you saw All-Ksa Elkay…” Kuta muttered as they approached slowly. Kayel was clearly on edge, and a quick examination of their surroundings informed Kuta that Kayel was armed and willing to use his weapon, a rather simple dagger. “Are you well?”
Kayel shook his head. “I’ve had enough damn monsters in my head. Sure, me and Teekay are alive, but getting Ayvee-En’s claws removed from my mind, I don’t know what this entails, and I’m scared.”
“Understandable.”
Wanting to ease Kayel’s concerns, Kuta removed their holstered gunstaff and a short, thin, sheathed sword from their belt and placed it by the door, covering it with their satchel. Being a highly ranked General, Kuta was almost always armed, and in multiple ways. They then removed their cape and some of their armour and placed that by the door as well.
“Uh, what are you doing?” Kayel snarled slightly.
“I am a big, scary Rethan. I want to appear to you as a less scary being. You are upset and stressed, and I wish to help you calm down before we do anything too strenuous.”
Kuta sat down on the bed next to Kayel. He noticed that Kuta’s higher caste plating, normally hidden by the large pauldrons and cape they wore, was particularly spiky and sharp. But a lot of Kuta’s natural plating had been sanded down and rounded off, and not in a natural way. Seemed to have been done rather recently as well, since Kayel remembered the first time he had met Kuta, and their armour plating had been rather sharp.
“So, Kayel, what is your favourite food?”
“Why are you asking?”
“The less stressed you are, the quicker I can go through and remove Ayvee-En’s influence.”
“Oh…” Kayel frowned. “Well, I really like chocolate. Normal chocolate though, not chocolate with nuts or fruit or anything. I like noodles too. With a sweet sauce and little bits of meat and veg. Mashed potatoes too are also nice… What do you like…” Kayel paused, then hissed. “Can we just… get on with this stupid stuff? What does this have to do with anything?”
Kuta smiled. “We can, yes, but I wanted to get you to settle first. A small baseline is needed, so I do not… provoke you too much.”
“Can you just be fucking blunt with me please? I want to know what you’re going to do with my mind!”
“Hm. I was trying to be polite. Your friend did not ask questions and just wanted me to do everything without them knowing, I find it unusual that you want the opposite…” Kuta sighed. “Very well. The first thing I need to do is put you into a temporary shallow sleep, then move you into REM sleep, so you start dreaming. Once you are dreaming, I can see into your thoughts, simulate an environment and guide you into destroying Ayvee-En’s ‘claws’, as you called them, on your own.”
“Wait…” Kayel hesitated, gripping the handle of his dagger. “I HAVE TO DO THE WORK?”
“Yes, unfortunately. It is safer that way. Admittedly, this was pretty simple to do with Teekay, it seems most of his torture was physical, because Ayvee-En knew Teekay prided himself on his good looks. You though, from a quick glance, you have been suffering from psychological trauma ever since the incident.”
An emotional spike. Kayel was getting very concerned by all of this. “You’ve seen inside my head already? I didn’t give you permission to do that!”
“I do not need to see inside your head. The way you are acting right now is proof enough that you are in pain.” Kuta leaned forward, delicately putting their hand on Kayel’s shoulder. “I understand that you are scared. But we will get through this. And I promise I will not harm you.”
Kayel hesitated, then calmed down. Kuta wasn’t going to hurt him. And if Kuta tried, Kayel knew he could defend himself.
“Alright. Fine. What do I need to do?”
Kuta smiled some more. “Please lie down and make yourself comfortable. Would you like a blanket?”
“No, no. I’m…” Kayel scooted into the bed and laid down on his back, resting his head to one side so he could keep an eye on Kuta. “So I… just go to sleep?”
“Well, we have several options. Either I can let you fall asleep naturally, I can use a standard sedative or I can knock you out telepathically.”
“Ugh. I want this over quick. Guess… I’ll take the telepathy…”
Kuta’s smile faded. They held their hand out in front of Kayel’s face, then snapped their fingers. Immediately, Kayel’s eyes closed, and he started gently snoring.
In Kayel’s mind though, things were… weird. Kayel normally struggled with his dreams, he’d always end up in the same old tortured memories, in the same old place. The villa in the middle of nowhere. Lying on the floor, bleeding out, stripped naked and…
Kayel blinked. He was in that same villa. He was just seeing it from a different angle. He’d never realized that the dark lump on the wall was the mounted skull of a Banikan, that the dressing table had golden inlays, depicting the emblem of the Panelix, that the bed was round and there was someone in it.
Something flickered by Kayel’s side. He immediately twisted round and reached for his dagger, only to find it wasn’t the one he remembered. In reality, he had been carrying the dark blade that the Thantophor had given him. In his dream though, he was carrying a standard Phantasma dagger.
“I am sorry, I did not mean to scare you!” Kuta held their arms up, showing that they were not a threat. Kuta though also looked different. Their fangs were shorter, barely visible, their vampiric looks were gone, and their plating was a completely different colour, black, darker than their already black skin, with thin purple lines running up their arm plating. Kuta’s eyes now glowed red and purple. But they were not the Shadow, they were still a Rethan. “Take some deep breaths, take a moment to orientate yourself.”
“Why do you look different?” Kayel asked, before doing as he was told.
Kuta glanced down at themselves. “This is… how I used to look. Back in the universe I was originally born in. It is… I will tell you more later, you are more important right now.”
“I guess… what am I… Did I recreate the room in which I was tortured?”
“You did, yes. We are going to use this room to kill Ayvee-En.”
“For real?”
“Sadly, no.”
Kayel sighed. “That’s a shame. But I assume killing Ayvee-En in my mind will… set me free?”
Kuta nodded, then stepped back, away from the door. “Remember, this is in your head. Ayvee-En has dug his claws into you via your old trauma. You kill him, you reclaim your mind, and he fades away. Understand?”
“I… I think so…” Kayel glanced to where Kuta had been standing, only to find that the dark Rethan was gone. Before Kayel could say anything though, he heard a creaking sound. The door opening. Revealing a monster.
“Hello, little Phantasm-”
Kayel didn’t hesitate. He drew his blade and immediately charged at Ayvee-En. He didn’t care that he was naked, that he had bullet wounds across his body, that he was bleeding and exposed. Kayel’s blade cut deep, straight into Ayvee-En’s neck. He kept on stabbing at the abruptly lifeless corpse, slicing ribbons of flesh from Ayvee-En’s arms, cutting large gashes into his legs and stabbing the blade repeatedly into Ayvee-En’s stomach and orifices. Every way Ayvee-En had hurt Kayel, he was hurting Ayvee-En back.
“I, uh, think you did it…” Kuta whispered as the world around Kayel started melting away. “Did that feel good?”
Kayel took a sharp breath, then smiled, wiping blood from his face. “That… felt… AMAZING! Can I do it again?”
“Uh… perhaps? But it will not feel as good. You were killing Ayvee-En’s influence on you, now that influence is gone, it will not have an impact.”
“Oh. Shame…” Kayel shrugged. “Well, I was fucking terrified, but I didn’t need to be. Thank you, Kuta, for helping me. And putting up with my being an angry, mind-raped bitch.”
“Your anger is understandable and justified. I am just glad I was able to help you!” Kuta smiled weakly. “Do you want to wake up now, or do you want to have a quick nap?”
“I… I think I’ll take a nap. Can you, like, wake me up in fifteen minutes or something?”
Kuta bowed, then vanished. “Of course, friend. Sleep well.”
Kayel smiled once more, then closed his eyes, drifting off into an even deeper slumber. A slumber where, for the first time in years, he wouldn’t be tormented by his past.