Litvir shook his head, desperately trying to clear the fog from his mind. He concentrated on the floor beneath him, the weird, golden indentations on each floor tile. In the sudden conflict, Litvir must have stumbled out of the cargo bay and onto… something. He wasn’t sure, and his mind was still clouded.
Really, Litvir should have expected this. If Galyn was right and they were fighting parallel versions of themselves, Litvir should have known that both he and his twisted twin would both attack in the same way. Heck, he had already seen Retvik and his own counterpart tearing into one another. The clang of weapons was still audible, even through the dream state Litvir found himself partially trapped in. What Litvir didn’t understand though was why, despite them being essentially gods, they were fighting with physical combat anyway.
With another shake of his head, Litvir slowly tried to break free of the mind fog. He’d regained enough composure to be able to notice where the battle was going on. His counterpart had also regained their composure and was already preparing for a second attack. For some reason, this Letharus fellow had an extra pair of psionic arms, which was troubling.
“Let us see who you really are…” Litvir muttered, concentrating on Letharus. With a flick of his wrist, a beam of black and purple energy struck the Voidborn entity head on. And, of course, Letharus had managed to do the same, conjuring a white and purple energy.
Immediately though, Litvir realized something had gone horribly wrong. They were inside each other’s minds. Or at least, Letharus was. And already, he was rummaging through Litvir’s darkest memories. Litvir though…
He had no idea what he was looking at. His psionic attack was supposed to have let him go through Letharus’s memories. But all he had found was a wall. Swirling around it were definitely memories, but only recent ones. At first, Litvir assumed that Letharus’s memories were simply far better shielded than his own were, but this wall was made of gold. And it hadn’t been made by Letharus.
“Wow, Lord Theocydes was right!” Litvir could hear Letharus taunting him. “You really are a monster, just like me! How many did you torture? Yet you think you are good?”
Litvir ignored Letharus. He was perfectly aware that he was a monstrous individual. Instead, he focused on the wall. Back in reality, Litvir was only vaguely aware that he was lying on the ground, but that was fine. He felt his hands upwards until he grasped something solid, the metal railings from the platform.
“You did not even manage to achieve your goals! You fluked into them! What a colossal failure!”
Letharus’s taunts were grating, but Litvir continued to ignore him. Now he had something physical in his hands, Litvir swung blindly, hitting something both in reality and in Letharus’s mind.
Almost instantly, the wall seemed to crack. Litvir swung again. He hit air in the real world, but the wall kept on cracking. Beams of light began to spew from the cracks, nearly blinding Litvir. He kept on swinging, tearing the wall down, until it collapsed in a pile of shimmering rubble, letting out a tsunami of locked up memories.
Something smacked Litvir across the face. Only the fact that his fingers caught the edge of the narrow platform had managed to snap him back into reality. Just in time as well, as a black and red monster stood over him, spitting in his face.
“WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY LITTLE FUCKBUDDY?”
Litvir blinked, then immediately rolled over to one side, as Retvik charged into his counterpart’s back, pulling Litvir out of their fight. He watched on briefly, hesitating as Retvik dragged the armoured black monster away from Litvir, forcing them to resume their own conflict.
“Get back here, you coward!”
“Fuck you, you gold cunt, I will kill you and rape your corpse!”
“Not if you run away, you little weakling!”
Really, Litvir wanted to help, but he was still somewhat groggy from the punch he had taken. That being said, he was doing better than Letharus, who was kneeling in the middle of the walkway, just in front of the cargo bay doors, slumped over, yet still conscious. Litvir struggled up to his feet, then slowly approached his adversary.
“This is all… so wrong…” Letharus whispered, spreading his hands across the golden floor in front of him. “I called you a monster, but I let them turn me into one.”
“From what I saw, it was not your fault…” Litvir sighed. He was still picking up pieces of Letharus’s memories. He had been nothing more than a kindly therapist, wanting to help soothe the pain of others. Letharus had been good at that job, he had helped thousands of beings get past their trauma. Until he had been forced to break his medical oaths, forced into being someone else. Here Letharus was, twisted beyond his own recognition. And only just realizing it himself.
“Please, kill me…” Letharus closed his eyes, presenting his neck to Litvir. “I am a monster. And an enabler. And a hypocrite. The blood of my universe… is on my hands.”
“No.”
Letharus opened one eye, staring at Litvir. “Why not?”
“You are the victim here. Since when did we ever punish the victim?”
With a sigh, Letharus gave up and lied down on the ground. He had all but given up, the purple glow fading from his eyes, his psionic talons disappearing into nothing.
“I never wanted to hurt anyone.”
Litvir hesitated, before sitting down next to Letharus. He watched the terrified being briefly, before gently stroking Letharus across the cheek, an attempt to give the tortured soul a hint of comfort.
“I know. You are a good vok. None of this is your fault…”