erudenedure

Something lodged in her throat as she considered the human equivalents back on Earth.

She had to remind herself it wasn't just the corrupt wealthy in that room.

Khravel had slid into their ranks from some unseen position. She didn't know how she missed him until that moment, since he he towered over everyone. Once more, Taliyra considered the tales of folk heroes back on her home. It was hard to ignore Khravel's own mythos in the making as he made his way through other Tivikonians.

But, oh, how young he looked! The lines of a hard life still edged his mouth and his expression was as stony and flat as it was to this day. A pale statue of a man with only the barest hint of blood-red at the edges of his horns, his fingertips. There was still soft youth in his face, though, and an energy barely constrained by his self-discipline.

From his position at the other end of the couch, Khravel openly watched Taliyra. She was too engrossed to notice his attention, leaning forward with her eyes wide and reflecting the scene. Her every breath, her every move, was observed as he tried to gauge her emotional state.

He hardly needed to watch the screen. From the sounds alone, he could tell exactly what was happening on screen, supplemented by his own memory. He'd watched the scene over often enough, especially early on into his career and, well, the court case that ended when he was elected.

Finally, someone realized this tall pale Tivikonian, dressed in plain greyish black, did not belong.

Taliyra watched the alarm ripple through the crowd. Heads turned to face Khravel, the crowd shifted away from the stranger. He didn't seem to notice as he raised a delicate glass to his lips, sipping the brilliant blue alcohol unperturbed.

Someone had gotten to Bandor. The slightly-gold Tivikonian turned, pale eyes glinting hard even in the aged footage. When Khravel tilted his attention toward Bandor, lifted his glass in greeting while his features remained impassive, Taliyra bit back a smile.

Bandor, however, was not amused. Taliyra could almost narrate the scene herself. There was a brief flutter of recognition, an almost visible flinch, but then the golden Tivikonian steeled himself. This pale interloper, though huge, couldn't have been Scorn. His coloration was all wrong! Bandor jabbed an index finger at Khravel, angry spittle flying as he said, “Who the fuck are you? Who let you in here?”

“Careful what you say, the security feeds are being broadcast live,” replied Khravel, his tone bland, as if he wasn’t about to commit murder on a mass scale.

With a jerky straightening of his spine, Bandor brought his wrist gauntlet up and nearly pounded his fingers against the interface. The screen hanging above the fireplace flashed to life. It was as young Khravel said, the security feed displayed on a channel that Taliyra had designated a news channel in current day. Bandor's fingers moved on his gauntlet, trying a different channel. The same image showed on screen. Flick, flick, flick, again and again, the same view.

Well, not the exact same, Taliyra realized. There were various angles, various hacked cameras, displaying the inside of the room. Some were obviously coming from cameras hidden in decorative plants and knick-knacks, as well.

One of the guests peeled from the crowd and made a beeline for the door, setting their drink on a side table. “Well, this has been fun, old boy, but I really must be go-"

They nearly ran into the door, obviously expecting it to open upon their approach. A low-grade dread filled the room as the other guests watched as the first tried coming at the door again. Nothing. They tried to pry it open to no avail.

By this point, the dancers on the stage had stopped. They exchanged confused looks, before retreating off the platform and hunkering down by the stage, eyes wide.

While the dancers’ survival instincts bloomed, entitlement and outrage sifted over the guests.

“What is this? Open the blasted door!”

“You can't do this to us! Do you even know who we all are.”

“Where are the guards?”

The last outrage question quieted the rabble as people glanced around, hoping to find their burly security entail parting from the shadows. However, no one was there.

“Do you feel that pit of fear in your stomach? That uncertainty biting through your blood?” Someone charged Khravel as he began speaking, though it hardly bothered the pale Tivikonian. He sidestepped them, smashing his delicate glass against their face before he grabbed the back of their collar.

“Where will salvation come from, you ask, for you always get saved, you always get bailed out.” Only the last words edged with a snarl as Khravel hoisted his opponent, slammed them into a nearby wall.

Other guests separated from the throng, charging with makeshift weapons: A billionaire warmonger with a heavy metal bit of décor; a knife brandished by a businessman that managed healthcare systems; a fireplace poker wielded by tech mogul.

Khravel continued, his voice as steady as the others approached. “You and your businesses blossom, while the average Tivikonian struggles.”

The fight couldn’t have gone smoother had it been choreographed. The fire poker arced down, only to be caught by Khravel. Simultaneously, the knife-wielder jerked forward, intent to plunge the blade into pale flesh. Khravel grabbed Knife’s arm, adjusting their inertia until the blade sunk into the side of Fire Poker. Confused hollers bubbled up as Metal Décor, unable to stop the swing of their heavy weapon, slammed into Knife’s back.

In the chaos, Khravel wrenched the fire poker away, whipping it into the side of the third opponent’s head before turning to swing at a fourth that tried to sneak up on him.

Just like that, one opponent stabbed, one bludgeoned, one sprawled on the ground and bleeding, and one would-be sneak attacker thwarted.

“But that's their fault, isn't it? They lack motivation, ingenuity, direction.” Each word was emphasized with a meaty thwak of the fire poker cracking across one of the injured four. Each swing becoming harsher, blood spraying and bones crunching, as anger steeled Khravel’s tone. “Though one would say they merely lack resources, resources currently being hoarded by those in this room.”

Swinging the fire poker up, he made a slow, sweeping gesture to the others in the room as he turned to face them. They all stared at him, wide-eyed, the four wannabe heroes no more than lumps of viscera under his feet. Taliyra watched rapt as he angled his head without blinking, a predatory movement that sent hot shivers down her spine and snagged her breath.

“But that is fine, is it not?” His fingers unwound from the poker, the guests watching it drop to the floor and flinching as it loudly clanged against the wood. A sizzling sound bit through the air, drawing their gazes back to the man in grey-black.

In their distraction, they didn’t see the laser-blades extend from the gloves adorning his upper set of arms. In an X motion, he slid the laser-blades against each other, the condensed light hissing and sparking. In the nanosecond they looked up, he moved.

Long legs devoured the distance, and he sliced the dual blades against the throats of two others that he’d pulled closer with his lower arms. One victim, another tech conglomerate accused of breaching privacy and selling private data. The other, a politician whose wealth came from insidious organizations, increasingly unregulated under Bandor’s reign.

The bodies had barely dropped when reality finally cracked through the shock. Screams tore through the air as bodies flailed, aiming for escape or attack.

“All of you deserve your exorbitant paychecks,” spat Khravel, his right blade cleaving through a skull as he kicked away a smaller attacker, “- your luxurious lifestyles.”

His left blade came down and through the leg of another illicit warmonger just before his right set of arms held and decapitated them. “All the while others wither and starve.”

The longer he spoke, the more Taliyra felt his rage. Her cheeks warmed, watching as with nearly every word, he dispatched another life, bore down on another person, silenced a screaming victim. “Because you dare to pursue success at all costs. Even at the cost of those you deem lesser. Especially at those you deem lesser!”

Like a horrific, gore-dripping phoenix, Khravel rose from the destruction to turn to the last remaining figure. Bandor.

However, he wasn’t armed with a makeshift weapon or a blade, but with a heavy, military-grade laser rifle. Khravel’s gaze flicked to it and a nasty smile curled at Bandor’s lips. “That’s right, you fucking bitch. Not so high-and-mighty now that I got a bigger weapon, huh?”

Red eyes slid back to Bandor’s face, expression stony and unmoved. Pointing one of the blades at the Overseer, Khravel stepped closer and cocked his head once more. A silent challenge.

A dark, muddied yellow color darkened across Bandor’s cheeks and the edges of his being as a wordless snarl left his lips, his finger pulling the trigger.

Not accounting for the strong recoil, Bandor stumbled and slammed back into his desk. The fumble made his shot go wide and to his right. Luckily, Khravel had dodged to his ownright, but the laser plunged into his left shoulder all the same, making Taliyra gasp loudly years later.

Without pausing, he charged the Overseer, murderous intent making his eyes hard red rubies. His lower left hand grabbed the gun by the barrel, which was likely still burning hot from the prior charge and shot. Bandor yelped as his weapon was torn from his grip and the laser-blades were held to him, one at his throat and the other at his gut.

Khravel loomed over Bandor, their difference in size painfully apparent. With trembling lips, the Overseer nearly sobbed, “Please, please, don’t hurt me! I-I’ll give you whatever you want! Anything, just name it!”

He didn’t even hesitate. It was like Khravel was prepared to answer Bandor. He probably was, Taliyra realized, as she considered his living conditions while growing up. “A Tivik where no one goes without shelter, food, clean water, clothing, education, medicine, any necessities. Where our infrastructure and communities are invested in more than our wars. Where lives and livability mean more than profit.”

Bandor’s throat struggled to swallow as he minutely shook his head. “I-I can’t-“

“You won’t,” corrected Khravel with a growl. His lower arms grabbed Bandor, swinging the other man around and onto the ground. As Bandor tried to scramble back up, off the bodies he’d been thrown atop of, Khravel brought his foot down hard on the man’s back.

Taliyra’s breath caught in her throat, watching the Overseer slammed to the ground, Khravel’s large boot pinning him down.

“This is my campaign promise fulfilled, before I’m even considered a candidate.” Red eyes stared straight into a camera, pitching his voice louder to drown out Bandor’s yelling. “My name is Khravel Iedro and I've displaced the corruption festering in our government.”

That was one way of putting it, Taliyra thought as her gaze flicked to the room at large, the destruction of bodies. Knowing this stunt had won him a seat as a Delegate weighed down on her shoulders, realizing she could watch this monumental moment as she looked back to the Khravel on screen.

He still stared unwaveringly at the camera, continuing his speech. “In this room, I have proven I’ll do whatever it takes for the people of Tivik. I promise I’ll make life better for all.”

Then his blades plunged down into Bandor’s back, the man sputtering and coughing up blood the instant the lasers cleaved through him. Khravel did not let him suffer for long, pulling one blade free and savagely slicing across the back of Bandor’s neck, freeing his head from his body.

As the now-former Overseer fell completely silent, the footage still rolling and watching Khravel as he quietly stood and surveyed his work, Taliyra pressed back into the cushions of her couch. She blinked as she focused on the here-and-now, trying to recalibrate her sense of being.

She was on Tivik-4 herself, in her room, meant to procreate with the very man she watched kill. Her eyes flicked to Khravel on the far end of the couch. He watched her steadily, waiting.  

“You actually did kill all those people,” she whispered, the reality still hard to grasp.

“I did. It wasn't simply me, however. We had people infiltrating their staff and there were people with unknown sentiments that could have stopped me.” They didn't, of course, or else he wouldn't have been sitting there as a Delegate. When he thought of those individuals who could have upended his whole mission, who allowed him to continue, a flare of pride roused inside his chest. They were part of the reason he could help Tivik, wholly and fully. And for those – and his followers who aided him – he was always thankful.

However, he didn't know where Taliyra's own sentiments lay. He turned to the screen, watching his younger self approach the dancers and help them to their feet, reassuring them they would be all right. “Are you frightened of me now?”

She pursed her lips, realizing it wasn’t fear simmering inside her thoughts. Oh, it was a quivering sensation, tinged with uncertainty and a hint of confusion. But it was not fear, she realized as she shifted awkwardly. “No.”

Slowly, like the younger version of him in the security camera had done, Khravel turned his face toward her. His red eyes flared, but unlike the younger recorded version of himself, it wasn't anger heating his gaze.

“You shouldn't lie, Taliyra,” he breathed, an unstoppable emotion flaring through him.

The way he moved, the way he looked at her, made Taliyra tear her gaze away, too flustered to meet his eye. “I'm not!”

Unable to help himself, he moved toward her and she, instinctively, turned toward him. One hand landed on the back of the couch, the other passed over her to grip the arm of the couch. His lower two hands braced on the furniture, bracketing Taliyra’s sides. “Then why are you trembling? Why won't you look at me?”

“You're right.” She groaned as he boxed her in, his body heat sinking into her and making her lower stomach twinge. Dragging both her hands down her face, she took advantage of being obscured and forced her words out through an embarrassingly tight throat. “I feel like I should be afraid, but I'm not. I'm kind of turned on, really, and I didn't really expect that.”

Khravel stared down at her, consternation furrowing his brow before a snort left him. Lowering her hands, she peeked up at him as a deep chuckle left him, the ghost of a grin tilting at his lips and only aiding in making the heat rise inside her veins.

“Of course, you would be turned on. You're truly incorrigible.” Khravel shook his head, his voice verging on a vague laugh.

Frowning, Taliyra fully lowered her hands – revealing blushing cheeks – and pointed to the exit. “If you're complaining, the door is over there. You're free to leave whenever.”

Baring his teeth in a vicious smile, Khravel lowered his head toward her. Against her ear, his voice fell dangerously soft and smooth, “If you wanted me gone, you should have said you were scared of me.”

She didn't get a chance to question him before he was on her.

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