“I DON’T WANT TO HURT YOU!” Arkadin roared as his friends inched closer, all of them armed with gunstaffs. “PLEASE, JUST LEAVE!”
His friends all steadily approached, all of them looking uneasy. Between them, there was everything from grizzled veterans to younglings. While Retvik and Tenuk had been dealing with the gods for decades, Ct’Era never thought she would meet the Thantophor in person, and this was Talok’s first time seeing any of them.
Yet they all knew that there was nothing they could do if the Thantophor decided to kill them. They all knew they were a distraction, a setback. The last line of defence while the gods worked on their plans. If they fell, then the Thantophor was free to act, free to kill the universe.
With another roar, Arkadin created a shadowy shield around himself, pushing the mortals away. Part of him wanted to simply kill these fools, but Arkadin shoved those thoughts away. They were mortals. They had done nothing to him. They had helped him in the past. But the darker thoughts fought back as the mortals began to fire on him.
“Arkadin, please, don’t do it!” someone shouted. Arkadin wasn’t sure who.
“Don’t kill this universe? It deserves it! All this universe brings is pain and sorrow!”
“You know that’s not true!”
The Thantophor growled, summoning another shield to push the mortals back again. He couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t stop approaching. They weren’t trying to kill him, just hurt him.
“You’re all working for HER, aren’t you!” Arkadin suddenly roared, slamming his fists into the ground. The earth began to shake and crack, separating the mortals. “You’re working for THEM! You were never my friends!”
“If we were not your friends, we would not be trying to stop you from hurting everyone!”
“NO!” Arkadin snapped. “It is nothing but self-preservation! What SHE programmed into you all!”
“If that were true, then we would have run already. But we are still here…”
The mortals continued firing. Arkadin noticed that they didn’t seem to be aiming at him. Were they herding him into a trap? Arkadin didn’t know and he was starting to not care. The mortals were beginning to annoy him.
“I don’t care! Just leave already! Go join the rest of the universe and die peacefully in your sleep!”
With a flick of his wrist, Arkadin sent the mortals flying. They all clambered to their feet, not sure whether to fight or run.
Suddenly, one of the larger mortals charged at him from behind, claws and teeth flailing. While the mortal managed to scrape a claw down his arm, they were unable to do much else. Arkadin grabbed the mortal by the horns and arms, inspecting it up and down.
“Even your kind, the race I designed, you’re all against me as well?” Arkadin growled.
“We worshipped you because you were kind…” the Banikan gurgled, struggling to breath. “Because you were not like them. But you are. You are worse. You kill us all.”
“They hurt me!” Arkadin bellowed. “YOU hurt me!”
“You hurt us!”
The Thantophor flipped the Banikan over and threw them to the ground, snapping off one of their horns. One of the other large ones (a Temthan maybe?) dragged the Banikan away. Two of the staff-using ones covered the larger mortals while they rushed to safety.
Arkadin stared at the two mortals. They weren’t firing. None of them were. They were all acting defensively. With a sigh, he gazed down at his arm, where the skin had been clawed away. Rather than blood, bone or muscle, underneath the black scales and flames, there was rubbery skin and yellow armour plating.
“That is who you really are. Not a monster.”
“Unless you make yourself into a monster.”
The mortals’ words did nothing to sway Arkadin. He raised his arms into the air, decreasing the gravity around them, before violently slamming the mortals back into the ground. “I always was a monster! This is what the gods want me to be! This is what I want to be! This is what I am!”
For a moment, it seemed that the mortals weren’t getting up. They were still breathing, but their strength was fading. Arkadin stomped over to one of them, a gunmetal and green Rethavok and picked them up, clutching them by the throat.
“I am death.”
“I thought you were a friend…”
The Thantophor snorted as he lifted the mortal off the ground. He was enjoying this almost. “If you were a friend, you would have left. You wouldn’t have tried to hurt me. Now you’re nothing but pathetic little mortals.”
“Sometimes… sometimes friends have to hurt each other, to help them face uncomfortable truths… but we never wanted to hurt you, we never wished to see you hurt or tortured or killed. Friends may hurt each other but they never kill each other…”
Arkadin hesitated, then put the mortal down.
“You’re… right…” the Thantophor finally admitted. “I’ve not been a good friend. I’m just as bad as they are.”
With a grunt of pain, Arkadin began tearing his skin off, revealing his normal, much smaller form. He turned to the mortals, who had all gathered around him. To his surprise, their weapons were all lowered.
“I’m sorry…” Arkadin sighed as he disappeared. “I never deserved any of you…”