Drunken Arson

Working on a new fic and will post snippets as I go!

tags: kidnapping, hostage, protective jabber, rescue, hurt/comfort, torture

summary: Zodyl kidnaps Zanka and holds him for ransom, demanding payment from the Hell Guard. As his torture grows more and more severe, Jabber makes a decision:

Fuck the Raiders. Fuck Zodyl.

Zanka… I’m gettin’ you out of here.

Part 1:

It had started off as a mild and pleasant afternoon, like any other. Zanka had come into town after training to clear his head, stopping by the candy market to pick up treats for his team. He had been leaned against the alleyway, savoring a small piece of chocolate, when a cold chill suddenly ran down his spine.

Something’s wrong.

He scans across the crowd of people quickly, his heart full of adrenaline as he clutches his staff. Just as he’s about to turn around, a sharp and painful prick hits the back of his neck.

No, no, no-

His entire body freezes up with a paralyzing spasm. Soft giggling laughter rings out in his ears as he falls backwards into Jabber’s open arms.

“Caught ya,” Jabber giggles, his face flushed with glee as he drags him slowly back into the alley. “Sorry, buddy… boss man sent me to pick you up. You like the poison?”

Zanka tries to shout, but his throat only gargles in response. He tries to reach for his choker, but his arm barely twitches. The lights all around him turn into sickening rainbows. He feels his eyes lulling sideways as spit drips slowly down his cheek.

“Pretty trippy, right? Can’t move, right? I made this one just for you...”

Anger explodes in his chest, pounding viciously against the paralysis. Why is it always him!? Every ounce of strength in his blood is completely useless against the poison. But his fury quickly gives way to apathy as he feels his eyelids droop shut. His vision wavers in blackness as he feels himself being dragged slowly backwards into the Raider’s portal.

-

Zanka somehow knows, in the dark and hazy minutes before his eyelids flutter open, that whatever situation he’s in is worse than anything he’s dealt with before. His body seems to realize it before his mind.

Waking up only confirms it. As feeling floods back into his limbs, he realizes with a jolt of dread that his arms are handcuffed above his head. Handcuffed. His legs are shoulder width apart, each ankle cuffed to some kind of chain link fence behind him. He’s underground- deep underground. The air is suffocating, thick with the cloying scent of trash that clings to the back of his throat. He feels like he’s going to throw up.

Slave traders, traffickers, religious freaks- who the hell took him? Where is he? He tries and fails to break free as the sound of footsteps slowly come in from around the corner.

bonus

And when calling that novel trashy, I mean trashy.

Seriously, if anyone ever finds out that Zanka not only read but enjoyed the story- hell, he'd probably go crawl into some hole and never step a foot outside ever again. The plot is basic af, the pacing pretty much non-existent and the worldbuilding just sucks. If anything it's more of an insane power fantasy with a few cardboard cutouts trying to pass for an actual story than a genuine narrative.

The protagonist, Jabber Wonger, is a caricature of a ""complex"" protagonist. Not only is he insanely edgy and just a total freak- he also has an absurdly sad backstory to justify literally everything he does!

Not only did he lose his parents at a young age and was made an indentured servant at the king's palace, he also ended up abused by the spoiled and cruel prince! And all of that just to explain why Jabber turned out to be some horribly twisted masochist running roughshod over the continent. What use does it have to write a "morally grey" character if you're just gonna excuse all of his shitty behaviours with some over the top sob story!? If you wanna write him running roughsod over the continent in an insane murder spree, just do that and get it over with!!!! Why draw him suffer first!?!?!?! Poor baby Jabber, just look how he cried when his mother died or the prince whipped him. That's such torture porn! Such bullshit! At least give him some happy moments!!!!! Total power scaler trash!!!!

Honestly, Zanka should have clicked off that very second. The fact that the super evil, super annoying prince also just so happened to share his first and last name aside, the character alone was annoying as hell! No wonder did Jabber kill him off first chance he got during his super cool protagonist-power awakening by poisoning his food. He'd lie if that didn't satisfy him at least a bit--- but anything after was just total slop! Worst of the worst! The type of trash not even his younger schoolmate Rudo would like!!!

But Zanka still stuck around for reasons he didn't want to disclose, reading each and every chapter as they came out. And he may or may not have started simping a bit over the protagonist too, even if he was totally cringeworthy..... So if he started learning to draw and write, even if just to make an absurd amount of self-insert stuff for Jabber...well, that's between him and no one else! Seriously. He didn't even like the story THAT much!!! He was hate reading, exactly!!! Like a trainwreck he watched because he couldn't take his eyes off of it!!!! Totally, nothing more to it!!!!! Stop laughing at me, Ryio!!!!1

But not only was it enough for fate to fuck him over by dropping him right into that fucked up, shoddy piece of writing-- no, it had to make it worse. Because not only did Zanka wake up in the world of Gachi-A-Kuta after his death, he woke up in the body of Prince Zanka Nijiku specifically. Exactly said small time villain doomed to die at the protagonist's hands.

Fuck.

Alright! Okay!!!1 One giant freak out and near panic attack later (holy fUCK does that mean he'll never see any of his friends ever again??????) Zanka finally manages to gather himself and think.

If this is his new life, he wants to make the most of it- or at least he wants to avoid being murdered painfully. Good news are: The plot hasn't started yet and neither has he even met the protagonist. So that's a plus, definitely helps with the goal of "not dying." Maybe he can just avoid the protagonist, then? No reason for him to hate Zanka if they never met. It should be easy with his knowledge of the future plot.

And even if they somehow met--- he'd just need to be nice to him, right? The abuse Prince Janka put the original goods through is the main reason Jabber even turned so evil and twisted in the first place. So if he isn't comically villainous, everything should be fine even if he meets the protagonist. 'S not like Zanka is excited to meet his secret favourite character or anything either, no sir! He's just being smart!!!!

He wonders how Jabber will turn out without the canon backstory though. Surely he'll be much calmer and less insane, right? Maybe he'll stop being a poison freak or never get into it too. That would probably be for the best- both for Zanka's survival and the well-being of the general public. The dude deserves to catch a break anyway. After everything he went through in canon, Zanka is sure to be extra nice to him once he comes around! Hey, maybe they'll become friends. Jabber will 100% just end up a normal teen with normal interests and a normal personality, right?

It's not like anyone's born that messed up, right? It was just his backstory that got him so fucked in the head, right?

Each time I think I'm close to knowing

She keeps on growing

Slipping through my fingers all the time