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Perhaps the emotion he felt was misplaced. From an objective perspective, he was eagerly, enthusiastically leaping into circumstances that would bash his skull against his own past stupidity repeatedly with unrelenting force, all the while keeping him on a leash, utterly helpless to stop a repetition of the scenario. It was the cruellest thing to do to a man who'd just discovered empathy for himself: The ability to see the world from other people's perspectives, without ever needing to be those people. Even the psychological ramifications notwithstanding, what he was about to embark on for the first time was dangerous. He had no doubt that he'd be found out repeatedly, and he couldn't imagine tribal Sehto to react to such a revelation with an insignificant chance of violence.
And yet, he smiled. None of that mattered, after all - he could make himself useful. It wasn't redemption, or anything so mundane. A purpose was hardly an excuse for his past actions; it merely shaped his present ones. Rather than desperately clamour for death, he could cling to life, knowing that if it was lost, he might have to be replaced. An inconvenience. Not much of one, perhaps - he didn't feel it was fit for him to judge it - but an inconvenience nonetheless, one he sought to keep from his superiors.
He didn't require love. He didn't require appreciation. He was wholly content simply knowing that he was providing an objectively useful function and preventing them the tedious trouble of having to find someone else to do the same. The fact it would gently carve into him on a day to day basis, twist knots into his gut until his innards were tightly and neatly braided, was only a further selling point, even if it was delegated to footnote status.
He was standing beside the dining room table, the room empty but for his own presence, staring pensively at the contents of his rucksack. He had to pick his inventory with care - he wasn't going to be given any money, not for his first run around the gym circuit in his new role, not for his next. He would rely entirely on the charity of gym leaders - most of which, while he had hardly been cruel to them, would probably not be pleased to see him. There was a romantic notion of living off the fruits of the earth should all else fail, revert to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle squarely homed in on the 'gatherer' aspect, but his knowledge of edible plants was minimal. It was nothing he couldn't fix, but Jagdish had no botany book (though some of the better cook books almost made a decent substitute) and so he was on his own for this first run.
A quiet part of his psyche observes that the thought of starving in the streets isn't bothering him as much as it should be.
An outrage.
That was the only way to adequately describe it. How could Jagdish possibly think this was a wise idea? How could the Council have agreed with him? Allowing him to live was one thing, but this? Setting him out on the world, with nothing but an abstraction to keep him from turning around, murdering Iris, and running free across Sehto? How was that remotely sane?
Vendetta turns the weapon over in his paws, examining it with visceral disgust. He could still recall the lancing pain he'd suffered from it during their battle, darkness lashing brutally across his fur. A shudder passes through his form. He'd like to destroy it. It would be so trivial, breaking it into pieces… But no. Destroying it would give Dakarai closure, tell him that that particular crime was forgiven. The thought of doing that revolts him far more than the weapon itself ever could.
Jagdish could have done this himself, certainly. But he'd handed the weapon to Vendetta, specified the ultimate outcome but not how it was reached. Whatever happened in between, Jagdish would do him the favor of turning a blind eye to it. It was the least he could do to try and soothe his rage at the situation in general.
The soft 'pop' behind Dakarai, followed by the faintly charged atmosphere raising the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck, are the only warnings he's given. A telekinetic grip bites into his shoulders, pressing on the inside of his skull, wrapped around his spine. ~Leaving already, human?~ the Legendary's voice sneers into his mind, that last word dripping with contempt.
A thunderstorm brews at the edge of his perception, a mere moment the canvas for the manifestation of a powerful cyclone. For a split second, he wonders how he can sense the weather. But that makes no sense, of course. Neither does searching for a cause - it's obvious the moment the question so much as occurs to him. The small triumph of realisation is quick to be extinguished by the reality behind it. Eighteen claws crush against his vertebrae - he can't count them, the number arbitrarily assigned, but clear to his mind.
For a moment, he simply holds himself still, closing his eyes, trying to calmly banish the train of thought he was having before. Some obsessive part of him clings to the task despite the imminent danger, struggling to recall whether he's packed his toothbrush. The surreality of the thought punctures through the thin haze of fear that's settled across the rest of his psyche, presenting itself for ridicule. Instead, it merely wanders amongst the scape, lost and alone, trying to prompt him to be responsible - it was going to be a long journey. Dakarai? Dakarai, where are you? Listen to me, boy!
Something pulsed strongly in his chest, abruptly wakened from its sluggish pace; his heart. He forces himself to breathe slowly, finding it surprisingly effortless… only to speak: “Don't worry, Vendetta, I'll return soon, you'll barely know I'm gone.” It's not even flippantly intoned, however cynical the remark may be; a part of him scolds him for losing his edge, but he's invested a lot into his good mood today, and it's not trivial to adjust it, even to fear.
And then, for an instant, prophetic clarity, adrenalin spiking uselessly through his body: 'He's going to kill me.' There was no buffer zone, no probability for reprieve. This was the pokémon he'd driven off the battle field with his weapon - what else would he do? He already had the twig that was his spine in his grasp - he just had to snap it.
Vendetta lets out an animal snarl. The psychic grip tenses around his throat, pressure more than enough to assert itself, but not even close to the point of closing his windpipe or cutting off blood flow to the brain. Moments later, he can feel his bones being dragged upward; weight is slowly pulled off his feet until he's being suspended in midair, hanging from his spine and shoulderblades, his arms and legs freely able to move, but nothing else.
If he's going to kill him, he's certainly not opting for the 'swift and decisive' strategy. He'd have had plenty of opportunities to do it by now. Instead, Dakarai finds his view turning to the right, skull locked forwards as it is, until the Legendary pokémon swivels into view. Vendetta's coated in an iridescent blue sheen radiating outward from his eyes, glowing a magnificent and terrifying cobalt blue. His left forepaw is held in front of him, positioned as if holding an invisible doll mimicking Dakarai's current orientation; in his right… rests an object that Dakarai is all too familiar with.
Eyes narrow, and a smirk plays across Vendetta's muzzle. ~I sincerely hope you haven't forgotten about this,~ he says, holding up the device to make it more visible to his captive. ~Because I certainly haven't,~ he hisses, tail flicking sharply to the side before resuming its usual, infinity-sign orbit.
He's not dead yet. For an instant, Dakarai is convinced that his heart has stopped beating - then it lurches back into motion as a vice closes around his throat, seeming strategically placed to simply make itself known, and to manipulate him like a doll. Reflexively, he drags in a breath, but he's hardly short of it. Not yet. A wire of nausea lashes through Dakarai's gut as he's lifted, the familiar grasp of gravity turning into distant wisps. In his clarity, he realises he's far from panic, but the list of ways this could turn into an awful, bone-snapping nightmare just keeps getting longer. Nothing he hasn't felt before. Nothing he doesn't deserve. The visceral rejection is still there, though, of course, strong as ever, petulant, unregenerate. He pleads with himself, trying to just let the whole thing run its inevitable course. Fear wasn't going to get him anywhere. A lack of fear would at least let him conserve some energy for his tri-
The part of him narrating the things he should be doing to prepare for the journey abruptly flees as Vendetta reveals the ace up his sleeve.
He wants to feel physically sick, a mixture of self-loathing, shock and animal fear constricting in his gut. He wrestles with it in silence for a moment, still holding himself still, impossibly, now staring at the item as if he had to convince himself it wasn't just some elaborate, sadistic illusion. But of course it's real. He made it. “It's difficult to forget,” he says softly, with neither arrogance not humility, just a barely tangible sliver of regret. Some part of him finds itself surprised that his voice came out sounding quite so even - the rest of him has long since scattered into dust, there's nothing in him that could lend that smooth touch to his vocalisations, but apparently it had just found itself amongst the fragments of his thought.
The Legendary's expression distorts into a scowl. ~Really,~ the psychic voice intones venomously, as he takes two steps forward. ~You think so?~ he adds mockingly. ~I think you lack the experience to judge that. Here, let me give you some context.~ With a flick of his wrist, the three prongs of the whip spill out, glowing a neutral beige.
>Crack< - The three tendrils smack against his chest in unison, stinging at him even through the layer of clothes. Vendetta shifts a setting on the device, and the glow turns red. >Crack< - The cords come down at an angle now, leaving in their wake burning lines from his right elbow to his left flank. The settings change again, the glow turns icy blue. >Crack< - Another trio of lines, mirroring the last, slice along him, spreading freezing cold through his body. Another adjustment, the glow turns a bright yellow. >Crack< - The lines whip partially along his back this time, catching his abdomen, electric shock running through his system, limbs convulsing uncontrollably for a moment before it dissipates.
The instant those three lines surface, the knot in his gut recedes in instinctive panic, nuzzling desperately against his kidneys as if hoping to escape out past the small of his back and into freedom. Tension grasps his entire form. A desperate urge to flee crowds itself against the inside of his skull, manifesting as a light vertigo in his eyes, transparent fireflies across his vision. As the first proper motion touches those strands, a curt breath is drawn in, then held as if some part of him were wholly convinced that maybe if he didn't breathe, he'd automatically submerge in enough water to act as a comfortable buffer zone.
Of course, there's no water anywhere in sight. The first strike laps at him like strands of fine needles, by themselves individually inconsequential, but in combination like a crude blade each, slashed across his ribs by someone hoping to draw blood. The shock of the strike predominates his perception, silencing him.
There's no reprieve, of course. Panic flares up his gut in the brief moment he has to become lucidly aware of that, eyes wide, only to snap shut in reflex. A low cry escapes him as the burn flares up across his perception, in part crossing over the light prior bruises, overlap point feeling like a dagger stabbing him between the ribs. His breath escapes him, flimsily and swiftly, both, expelled by a ribcage twitching itself out of the way in a futile reflex.
He barely has time to catch another breath to make up for the one he's lost. Ice bites at his skin, and a vice-like, punishing, crushing and splintering grip seems to seize his delicate bones, pinching them dangerously. His breath hitches, a single, toneless sob, without thinking. His spine twists to the side, shoulders struggling against the invisible grip that seems to gentle in comparison.
Another cry lurches from him as the yellow lines lick around his body, single, meaningless syllable torn to tatters by the effect they bring, shredded into staccato fragments as the tension of his body becomes unbearable and painful, tendons of his fingers trying desperately to tear themselves free from the joints that hold them.
Coherence has largely left him - there's about enough of it left that he's lucidly aware of that, at least, effortlessly torn back down from his carefully, meticulously constructed rational framework into the abyss of primal reactions. He wanted to divorce himself from them. This behaviour was neither dignified nor respectful. Not caring to listen to that speck of reasoning, his legs kick at the air, seeking purchase. He feels like he's been set on fire. It wouldn't be the first time, but there's no flame to go with it this time, just the realisation that he was helpless against a potential further layer of agony. There were plenty of settings to go through, and nothing to suggest Vendetta would be pleased with the application of each of them just once. Driven by some urge he can't pin down, he struggles for breath - again without any obstruction to warrant it.
There's a pause in the assault, Vendetta studying his captive victim for a long moment, judging his state of mind. He certainly doesn't want him to completely lose his conscious thought; that would defeat the entire point. It almost starts to look as if he's decided to stop, when the setting changes again and strikes him with another lash, and another, and another, each intensely painful, each distinct from the ones that came before. The whip rakes claws across his psyche. The whip slices into his skin like sharpened knives. The whip slithers under his skin, drinking a helping of his blood. The whip causes his gut to wretch and twist, his body to spasm, flushed with fever.
In that pause, the tension holding him becomes apparent - and falls apart, no one single guided thought to hold it in place, dispersing into a shiver travelling through all of his limbs, intense, not in the least camouflaged. There's enough of an interlude for reality to seep back into his senses, now hyperaware, his surrounding a uselessly sharp image, the brush of each lightest gust of air apparent against his unwittingly levitated body.
There's a brief, stupid urge to bring his arms forward and cross them across his abdomen, press his legs and feet together, minimise the surface actually struck by those lines - but from the depths of his reclaimed thoughts rages a visceral rejection. He redirects the overwhelming urge to act into a sabotage of his instincts, pushing his shivering arms behind his back, grasping at his wrists with his hands, pulling at them a moment later to hide as little of his upper arms behind him as he could, a resolute glare infecting his expression; it's not directed at anyone in particular, though.
Then it's upon him again, biting at flesh, driving a sensation like a feverish nightmare across him, a primal unease, trapping itself briefly in his skull, threatening never to dislodge. Before it can flower into a particular mental image, it's gone, leaving him to briefly gasp - then another strike splits his skin, drawing bright, crimson lines, in part destroying the fabric of his shirt. The lone part of him that's displeased with this distraction points out he was doing a marvellous job of undoing his preparations, and if he could please stop sabotaging his own mission, clearly oblivious to that none of this was his own choice.
Was it?
What level of acceptance, exactly, did one have to feel for the matter to be considered one's choice? The greatest burn he felt was still the one to endure, not out of spite, but out of sheer necessity. The longer he endured, the longer it would prevail. He wasn't sure who that served - in this case, a part of him meekly hoped it was an acceptable sacrifice to offer Vendetta for his plight, a fragment of an apology that would only insult the pokémon's intelligence if it were directly spoken.
Another strike touched him, morphing to his perception. The open wounds grasped at the tendrils as if some part divorced from his own volition begged for their attention, the twisting lines bifurcating again and again, in a split second, only to tear from his flesh, taking an airborne spatter of blood with it. It didn't work that way, a part of him insists; the whip channelled energies, it didn't possess a life of his own. His skin, his flesh, was unconvinced, feeling both freshly afire with frayed wounds and the violation of having something taken from them, something more substantial than just the droplets scattering uselessly on the tiles, as if the device had briefly seduced his biological clockwork into accepting those wires as part of its circulatory system.
His breath rasps, spine arching, teeth gritting, eyes squeezing shut, a pitiful sound suspended between a groan and a whimper wrenched from his body. Then the final lash of the set drives it home, an unwelcome, nauseating heat spiralling tightly up between his lungs, gut briefly inverting, rumbling with no care for what his self-consciousness thought of such a sound. The shivers are back, then, and it takes all of his willpower not to bring his arms around to the front again.
The the set is over, leaving him in a breathless, shallow pant, regarding the open wounds with a numb, passive horror - he was getting blood all over the place. Any of those might get genuinely infected. He might die. And yet, he didn't care, on anything but the most abstract mental plane. His animal mind decreed: All of this was just fire by another name. An invisible flame was eating him up, chest and upper arms first. It was only a matter of time before it spread like wildfire and he was reduced to ashes, surely.
A trace of disappointment crosses Vendetta's features. He's taking this all far too much in stride. No pleading for mercy, no begging for his life, just the sense of writhing in that psychic grip and cries of pain all too often subdued. 'It doesn't matter,' he reminds himself coldly. He didn't need to hear him cry out his name in agony to feel vindicated. This could do just fine.
The pause is shorter this time, before another set of lashes cracks against his broken body, in quicker succession this time. Searing white engulfs the whip, scalding against his skin, burning into his retinas. It blurs into a deep, rusty tone, coming around to crash into him with the force of a sack of bricks. It shifts again, into a brilliant emerald hue; this time effortlessly reminding of long, thorny vines hooking into his flesh. Finally, the last of the set strikes him with a brutal sting, as if someone had decided to rub sand in all of his wounds.
As the light descends upon him, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain his grip on his wrists, keep himself still. Sweat threatens to make his grasp on himself slippery, while the tension in his arms pulls at his wrists as if to disconnect his lower arms from his elbows, violently wrenching at his frame as the strikes hit him. A temporary blindness pulses up along his vision, smearing a near all-encompassing shadow across the landscape as he moves his head, desperate to see.
Abruptly, a hysteria wrenches at his gut like a passerby tugging with nervous energy at his sleeve: This is never going to stop. The panic constricts his gut tighter, pleading with him to ask for an end to this - all of this, preferably. It's like an unpredictable perpetual motion machine, going through all iterations of possible pain in random sequence, keeping him impossibly alert to each strike, monotony not forthcoming, nothing to wrap himself into numbly, nothing to take solace in.
The next lash makes him feel like it's cracked his ribs. His breath lurches unsteadily, but finds itself unobstructed still, with no torn diaphragm to sabotage that most vital function. His side feels like it's flowering into a massive bruise.
It's a shame, the distant part of him observes, that he'd never designed the implement with damage in mind. A regrettable oversight in retrospect, given this situation. It existed to maximise pain, to force obedience, not to render its victim unconscious. Between the strikes he's already felt, he'd be long pushed well beyond lucidity by now if it had been. A part of him is convinced he'd be nothing but a decaying, broken body if it were, splintered bones and raw skin.
The next strike burns like fine, cellulose hair against him, as if poison ivy had driven its invisible barbs between his cells, a fierce sensation suspended between an itch and a burn - fortunately dissipating before the urge to tear his skin off overwhelming his ability to keep himself still. Through clenched teeth, split skin aching, protesting at the impossible treatment, he gives a wavering, near-pleading whine, eyes once more squeezed shut.
His grip on his arms slips. A tone of distress escapes him, an abrupt, almost violent lash of volition jerking his arms back together, fingers angrily grasping for hold, crescents of his nails sinking into copper skin, anchoring him to himself with pinpricks of inconsequential, dwarfed pain.
The final strike of the set nearly peels his last resolve to keep himself together away from him. 'Don't beg.' It's not a question of dignity - the inhabitants of Taqnateh own his soul in scattered fragments, there is none he could possibly preserve - just a question of sparing Vendetta the disgust it would prompt. Disgust was not nearly as nice an emotion as precisely channelled, white-hot rage. Disorientation sinks its claws into his synapses, his breath ragged. He's not sure where he is any more - but he's still present, whatever that means.
He could easily keep this up for as long as he wished, carving into Dakarai with his own weapon. If he thought it would have any chance of actually working out his aggression towards the pitiful human, if he didn't think it would eventually get repetitive and predictable, and if Jagdish hadn't explicitly asked him to carry out the given task, he might have done just that. This had been a good exercise, but it was time to actually do what he'd come to do.
The sheen of brilliant cobalt dissipates from Vendetta, his left forepaw dropping to his side – and with that motion, the force levitating Dakarai dissolves, depositing him unceremoniously into a heap on the floor. Vendetta closes the distance between them, placing a hindleg firmly on Dakarai's back without putting significant weight on it, rolling him to be face-down. ~Now that that's out of the way,~ he says, dragging the weapon so the blood-stained tendrils rest inches from his face. ~Tell me, what do you think we should do with this fascinating little device of yours?~
The floor rushed up to meet him. The impact itself was barely perceptible on its own terms, a dull jolt through his joints, left shoulder and elbows in particular, left knee and hip enough for him to register them, delicate bones of his hand trapped in raw discomfort under the bag of flesh that had been deposited on them with downward force. The base of his thumb rests against the edge of a gash, tugging the wound ajar for a moment, until reflex saves him from further accidental self-harm. He winces through a scrunched up face down onto the tiles, a distorted keen escaping him.
The question rings through his skull, shapeless, more like an abstract blade than an attempt at communication. He grits his teeth, willing himself to assess them on their own terms. He's not going to ask for them to be repeated. But he doesn't have to - they're so viscerally connected to him that they're easy to decipher even just a few steps into the parsing process. Another mangled sound escapes him, before morphing into no more than a weak exhale.
Communication. He can do this.
“You seem to be doing quite well with it, why don't you keep it?” he finds himself asking. It's a semi-automatic response - there are many things he'd rather be saying, but none of them have won the other out. The reasonable one, the one asking for it to be ground to dust, destroyed, as that it may never be used to harm another was silenced by the one that in its masochistic solipsism begged for it to be kept and treasured as a tool to remind him, constantly, physically, of the wrong he's done. Of the crime he's committed. But no, in light of neither plea having more strength than the other, snark would win out. Snark always won out in the end; it was an inhabitant in his skull that had always moved effortlessly, after all, resilient part of his identity.
Given the irritated hissing sound spilling from above him, the Legendary doesn't find his response amusing. A telekinetic yank tugs his arm out from under him, nearly dislocating the shoulder in the process. His palm is pressed to the floor, fingers splayed out in all directions. A moment later, Vendetta's left forepaw grabs at it, taking over the pressure from his telekinesis as it shifts to a new target. Discomfort, followed swiftly by distressing levels of pain spill in from the joints of his knuckles, as his fingers are lifted from the floor, bent backwards to a horrifying degree.
Alarm signals up his arm twofold, gallopping up his senses, extinguishing the submissive streak in him for one, vibrant thought: 'You idiot, don't, I need those to travel.' It's a shout in his skull, filling the entire space of his being for a moment of sharp, angry clarity… but it's not vocalised, some miracle holding him still. 'Calm. Stay calm. Don't struggle, you'll break your fingers before Vendetta does.' He stares at the tiles, then squeezes his eyes shut, the assault mingling into the pain criss-crossing his chest and abdomen from the abuse he's gotten, making his eyes water. The sound that spills from him almost forms a word. “Ughnn,” he comments, shapelessly, the sound one of frustration and despair, both. “Please,” he says, a moment later, panting into the tiles. “Please stop this before you render me incapable of doing the task I've been ordered to do,” he pleas, words escaping him rapidly but entirely coherently, angle of approach disconcertingly authorative for someone utterly at the demonstrated whim of another sapient creature that clearly wishes him harm. His scent is still thick with fear, though - he's speaking in spite of it, not without it.
For a long moment, nothing changes, Vendetta's psychic grip still holding Dakarai's fingers at the same painful angle. Aside from the slowly steadying sounds of his breathing, the Legendary pokémon is silent. It's true, he certainly couldn't get away with completely crippling the human's hand; Jagdish wouldn't stand for it. A single finger, perhaps, but even that would likely involve a talking-to that he's not sure he wants to deal with.
Still, Dakarai's attitude has only dug him a deeper hole as far as Vendetta is concerned. With a snarl, his forepaw releases its grip, only for the telekinesis to reassert itself along the length of the entire arm. In a single motion, his arm lifts off the ground, twists, folds at the elbow, and presses against his back, wrist dragging its way up his spine until it comes to rest pinned just below his shoulder blades. Vendetta's foot shifts down to Dakarai's tailbone, pressure increasing subtly. ~Are you really going to make me repeat the question?~ he inquires venomously.
The cool of the tiles stings against the cuts from the bladed whip, tension holding Dakarai borderline painfully still. As his arm lurches around, his face scrunches up, shoulder aching furiously at the mistreatment, but not bothering to do something obvious like dislocate. His legs shift, motion born of some instinct, knees angling outward slightly as if some part of him was hoping to discover some leverage to push himself up - but no chance, of course.
Usually, Dakarai was not one to go back on a statement, however ill-conceived or -timed it might be; he'd uttered it, he had to stay true to it. Normally, his disregard for his own well-being wasn't balanced out by a desire not to be a pain in the ass, however. Vendetta might not be in charge of his life, but he was a good friend of Jagdish's, which meant he deserved significantly more respect than any one run-of-the-mill thug.
Dakarai snorts into the tiles, abrupt sound the result of a mangled gasp, eyes squeezed shut for a moment. “What are you fishing for?” he asks, part accusatory, part warily. “It would be selfish, were I to advocate you keep it simply for the-” He winces at an inconveniently tightly bundled cluster of barbs of pain. “For the poetic justice of suffering that infernal thing's bite. So why ask? Destroy it.”
A soft, coldly amused snort escapes Vendetta's nostrils. ~'Destroy it,'~ he repeats, mockery in his tone. ~Of course, what an obvious answer, why didn't I think of that before,~ he adds, as he drags Dakarai's trapped and twisted arm up a centimeter or two. ~Destroy the last visceral, physical reminder of all your atrocious crimes. You could put the past behind you and go about doing whatever chores Jagdish asks of you, and never again have to dwell on what led you here. Wouldn't that be so nice and easy.~
Vendetta's left forepaw reaches down, digits interlacing with Dakarai's hair and gripping at his scalp. ~Not that you would, of course,~ he adds, anticipating Dakarai's reaction to that accusation. ~No, not Dakarai N'Sehla; you're far too fond of torturing yourself in the vain hope it'll lead to your eventual redemption. Your pride couldn't stomach the notion of giving up such a perfectly good opportunity.~
Somewhere in between the indivisible fragments of sound making up the brief yelp of protest, on an altogether more fine-grained mode of existence, a numb realisation punches into him like a brick: He's made a mistake. It's wrapped in disorientation: Where did he misstep? Where's the flaw in his logic? What has he overlooked, what has he not said? He feels dangerous out of touch with the reality around him all of a sudden, the sting of the shallow, open wounds background noise. He remembers the last time he felt this way - the last time he questioned his fundamental understanding how the clockwork of everything around him functions.
His eyes close, a feeble part of him directing its attention to his aching shoulder. It's barely a distraction, though. Perhaps if he didn't consider Vendetta's word more valid than the average person he stumbled across, this would be trivially resolved, but as it is, he's simply acutely aware of the discrepancy between his line of reasoning and that of Vendetta's.
And yet…
“…is that a personal or an official opinion?” he asks, numbly.
A low growl resonates in Vendetta's chest at that question. His left forepaw tightens and grips at Dakarai's hair, twisting his head to the right. The right forepaw, still gripping the weapon, comes to rest its knuckles on his right shoulder as he looms over the corner of Dakarai's vision. ~Whose good graces are you so desperate to be in?~ he replies venomously. ~The Council's? Jagdish's? Solalon's? Mine?~ He scoffs at that last option, and the unsettling sensation of claws dragging lazily across his synapses grips his psyche. ~If it were my decision, I'd have ground both you and your toy to dust by now.~ The trapped arm slides up another centimeter. ~If you want everyone else's opinions, ask them yourself.~
Staring at the weapon is like staring at a train wreck - he can't quite bring himself to look away, despite the pang of revulsion it prompts in his gut. The grasp at his skull throbs lazily with the beat of his own heart, providing a rhythmic discomfort. As his arm is twisted up a little further still, however, instinct overwhelms him long enough for a cry to escape him, and a spasm travelling through his pinned body, struggling to relieve the alarming strain of his tendons. A thin whine follows almost instantly after, result of the rake across his synapses, twisting the rhythm of his breath into something erratic and hastened.
For a moment, he squeezes his eyes shut, trying to think despite the pain and despite the disorientation. “Just,” he comments, abruptly, before pausing briefly and awkwardly as if uncertain how to conclude the statement. A breath escapes him, eyes fluttering ever so slightly as he pries them back open, gaze trying to find Vendetta. “I just wanted to know if you were being serious or spoke purely with insult intended,” he explains, words more of an exhale than anything else, physiological strain distorting his voice. By the looks of things, a fine layer of gooseflesh is creasing his skin, as if his body were struggling with the hints of a fever, perhaps some reaction of his biological machinery to perceived inflammation, knitting the discomfort in his skull and gut together with the physiological pain of shoulder and chest and misinterpreting the symptoms as something it had a chance of dispelling. “I respect both but can only act on one in good conscience,” he adds across a shallow pant.
Vendetta bristles at the implied question, visible tension threading into his grip on the weapon. The air surrounding Dakarai seems to adopt an oppressive aura, every square inch of his skin suddenly keenly aware of just how easily the psychic pokémon could crush him to death. The thought of it dances at the edge of his psyche, vivid images of the breath being forced from his lungs, of his blood pressure rising to the point his heart can't keep up with it, of bones and muscles crumpling under their own weight…
No such grisly fate comes, of course, but the images are difficult to ignore, and impossible to shake entirely. ~I'm not one to make hollow insults,~ he replies, psychic voice no louder in tone than usual, but carrying much more mental weight, echoes of the thought spreading through his psyche.
For a brief moment, Dakarai finds himself wondering if it was possible for the psychic Legendary to crowd out his thoughts entirely and simply replace him as the spark of consciousness that inhabited his skull. Without the pressure to do so, his breath nonetheless finds itself squeezed out like of his lungs at a speed befitting a soft paste more than a gas, motion born of tension. Non-existence clung to his skin as a palpable threat, as if he'd merely have to twitch to undo himself in his entirety. “Okay,” he acknowledges thinly, any further speech seeming physically implausible. His shoulder and chest are both still on fire, each pulse of his blood willing him into motion, infecting him with a rhythmically returning urge to squirm out from under Vendetta.
They weren't going to destroy the weapon. It's still a foreign concept to him, bringing with it a sudden, near-overwhelming urge to crawl over to Jagdish to have it explained. If he were someone, if he could claim social connections or influence, he might understand the decision - anything hovering over him as a tangible reminder of his deeds would only shackle him to good behaviour all the more, or at least his captors would think so, but there's no one he can impress with it, no one he could pass the knowledge onto. In fact, in a roundabout way, he's forbidden from passing it on - the only people he'll be coming across regularly either already know or need to figure it out by themselves.
What good could it do? What was he missing? His recurring chore alone was a potent reminder of everything he'd done - it might not carve into him quite so viciously, but surely it sufficed? A sound balanced somewhere between one of panic and one of frustration spills from him, barely audible in its own right, but plainly apparent in the silence he's holding himself in. “Can I- can I talk to Jagdish?” he asks, tone the closest to pleading that Vendetta has likely ever heard him speak.
A spike of increased pressure flowers into existence at the small of his back as Vendetta shifts more of his weight to that leg; a moment later, the psychic grip on his trapped arm gives it a violent twist. Muscles and joints scream abuse to him, the bones in his forearm and wrist twisted as far as they will go, fingers crushed together, the entire arm pressed against his spine, pinning his chest to the floor. ~No.~
For a moment, it looks as if that's the only reply Dakarai's going to get, before Vendetta elaborates: ~Not until you've given me an answer to what to do with this thing…~ - he gives the weapon a small jerk, causing the tendrils to swerve closer to Dakarai's face - ~…that I deem acceptable.~
The wrench is enough to make him cry out, some part of him worn impossibly thin from the continued assault and now petulantly claiming control of his vocal chords. He wrestles with it through the haze of pain, wail trailing off into a stutter of sounds, only to end up reduced to a mere laboured breath. He's not sure if cold sweat is beading his forehead or if it's just his imagination supplying the light chill it would bring with it, but he feels a rapidly onsetting weakness he could do without. He can't stem himself against this forever - though he's far removed from lacking the lucidity to reflect on his speech.
Three lines dance across his vision, like a trio of impossibly thin serpents dancing not from the charm of a flute, but to spirit his own grasp of reality away in their stead. He resists the compelling call, prompting him to refuse all cooperation and egg Vendetta on until he thoroughly regretted it; it's a desperately appealing notion on some level, but it's not constructive, and it would only undermine his desire for loyalty. Vision swimming slightly from the continued pain, he tries to relax as much as instinct lets him, accepting his state as a puppet in the hands of the psychic Legendary.
He stares at the wires.
He stares at the wires… and doesn't know what to say.
Surely he's used up his quota of being able to decide anything about the component parts of that machine? Surely he's used up his quota to decide anything at all. Rasped: “I don't know what you want to hear. Why don't you spell it out for me? You know I'll accept whatever you decide.” But of course, it's not a game, then. It's more fun to thread the clues into his synapses and then tear it back out of them, isn't it? More compelling. More just. But he's disoriented and he doesn't know what course of action would be best - owing to that his genuine belief of the best course of action was simply demolished.
A hiss spills from Vendetta, and a moment later, his fingers release hold of his captive's hair, and his posture straightens. He raises the whip high into the air, and a moment later red wires strike against Dakarai's face, burning across his cheek. ~Why should I care!~ The words scream through his mind in white-hot rage. ~If I had something specific in mind, do you really think I'd waste my time playing twenty questions with you?!~ The whip strikes him again, fire lashing through the shallow cuts. ~Who knows? Maybe I might even feel generous enough to keep it in a box on the mantle with your name on it, if you ask nicely enough.~ The thin layer of venom in his tone suggests that by 'ask nicely' he really means 'grovel and beg'.
Eyes squeeze shut in protective instinct, but that's the full extent of how much he knows to brace himself, and it doesn't suffice. It feels like his face is being alternately seared and torn off, a nauseatingly intense sensation driving into his cheek bone, digging itself into his perception with sharpest claws. Reflex yanks his tenuous control away from him with an inner shout, tearing his free arm around to shield his face in disregard for any notion of 'deserving' the onslaught. He can thank it later, it informs him.
For a moment, coherence finds itself wholly crowded out, making him only distantly aware of the words spoken - but their meaning isn't lost to him, only slow to seep through to his conscious perception.
A knot of helplessness ties itself into his gut, erratic shiver seizing him, making his shoulder weep fresh agony, but he can't bring himself to hold still - it's self-reinforcing. He wants to shout at Vendetta, to demand a path that would prove to the Legendary's satisfaction; but to at least equal part, he has no desire to upset him further. Perhaps right at this moment, that's in part self-preservation, but it runs far deeper than that.
Then, abruptly, something abstract that feels like an inconsequential, acorporeal fragment nonetheless entwined with his spine snaps. “I don't know! I don't know what to do with that stupid contraption! It shouldn't even exist. It has no right to exist; but apparently it isn't going away. What do you want to hear? You told me you won't destroy it. Do you want me to? Or do you want me to beg for Jagdish to keep it as some sort of compromise?” He's not even sure what that would be compromising with, but he's ranting desperately, he's not as stubbornly set on making sense as he would normally be. “I've no interest in upsetting or insulting you, but if you have an agenda, you have to tell me. If you want to play some game, you have to tell me. I can do whatever you want me to, but I cannot read your mind.” Despite the meaning of his words, his tone is pleading, hovering just shy of a sob, subtly distorted by the shiver. “If you just want to hurt me, go ahead - but drop the pretense, then I can shut up and leave you with a blissful silence but for the cries of pain you evidently cherish.” He's shaking, the tension that's trying to keep him still falling short of its goal.
And then it's one motion too many. The shoulder of his pinned arm jerks from its socket; a instant later, through gritted teeth, he howls, sound once more born from unbidden instinct. “Fuck,” he comments, like someone who'd broken some item of importance as a form of collateral damage while acting, at wit's end, huffing a breath. “I'm sorry,” he tacks on, struggling not to let his voice distort to some desperate whine, though the sincerity of the phrase is gut-wrenching, doubly so given that it was so rarely spoken. “I'm sorry for being such a thorn in your side, but I don't know how to stop. I don't know; I genuinely don't know.”