#astrapi

the leaves overhead cast speckled shadows on the four elementals. barons of light, darkness, ice, and lightning marched along the trail that had brought them out of the city. fos's palace - one of her many props to flash her status as the baron of light - grew ever smaller in the distance. no matter how much she longed to return, to hide in its golden halls, to continue her dark ambitions, she could never return. she was nothing but a puppet now. astrapi had studied biology. you see, the muscles of animals such as elementals are commanded to flex and relax by electrical signals throughout the nervous system. as the baron of lightning, this opened up incredible opportunities for him. hold still the signals headed to her arms, periodically direct currents into her legs... astrapi pulled fos's strings. even her power over light itself, one of the strongest elements out there, was switched off by a simple blockading of the electricity headed towards the portion of her brain responsible. the downside? nerves are hidden underneath the skin, and they are intricate. thousands of electric currents to command, all at once, without even seeing them. and the slightest mistake to seriously injure his little puppet. it was a delicate act. hunched over, hands outstretched, he did everything he could to help him focus on his control. it was as though he was reaching out to feel the currents throughout her body. tense this muscle. relax that one. together, they walked behind skotadi, the baron of darkness, and his lover pagos, the baron of ice. leaving the city was laughably easy; with fos completely trapped and surrounded by two barons, including the one commanding darkness, what could the citizens do? darkness was comparable to light in sheer power. infinite possibilities as long as a shadow existed nearby. astrapi couldn't have been a threat, however. he could not lose his grip on fos. he had to let the world blur and fade away, focusing only on the electricity beneath her skin

she wasnt making his job any easier. through the blur was incessant noise... she kept yelling, pleading, threatening to pagos, to skotadi, to astrapi. he gritted his teeth. the voice was getting clearer; his hold was getting weaker. "shut up!" astrapi snapped with clenched jaw. he felt fos turn her head to look at him. shit! he thought. she was screaming now, no doubt with a wide grin on her face. how could he focus on his mission with all this fucking noise?! he had no choice. splitting his attention even further, he commanded electricity into her face, forcing her jaw to clench itself up tight. great. another thing to focus on. tense this muscle. relax that one. astrapi wasnt entirely sure where they were headed. all he knew was that fos had to be stopped, for skotadi and pagos's sakes. they just wanted to live in peace with the dark spirits. they were skotadi's creation, he saw them as his own children. fos overstepped. she had forsaken their millennia-old treaty, and brought an army to skotadi's planet. the risk of war, of seeing their planets and peoples ravaged by the immense power of the barons, it all meant nothing to her. for her own idiotic justice, she had seized the dark spirits. not even their own wants could stop her. when astrapi realized they were perfectly content with skotadi, he defected from fos's posse. but her desire to be the righteous hero, to "fix," "save," or "release" them, blinded her to what was truly just. astrapi wasnt entirely sure where they were headed, but he didnt care. a prison, some exiled world, even a torture chamber... she had to face justice. real justice.

his focus was stretching too thin. tense this muscle. relax that one. he had to sacrifice something... he needed her legs to move where he commanded, he couldn't risk letting her regain the use of her arms, and returning her powers would be downright idiotic. he groaned, and released her jaw. "stay quiet." he commanded. she obliged; she must not have liked having more strings on her. the four were completely out of view of the city now. in a clearing, skotadi stopped, signaling that the others should do the same. astrapi was still staring intently at fos, leaning close and stretching his arms towards her. though no longer having to control every muscle in her legs at regular intervals anymore, he still needed to focus on keeping her inert and incapacitated. despite letting himself relax a bit, he couldnt risk looking up to see skotadis grim face as he pulled pagos aside to whisper with him. "...speak simply?" fos asked cautiously. astrapi grunted. even if he could let the world return to more clarity than before, he didn't want to take any chances. besides, why would he ever listen to her? nevertheless, he didnt tune her out as much as he did when they were walking. he couldnt help but pick up her words. "theyre whispering," fos informed him. "without you. why?" "not my problem," he muttered in return. holding her was getting difficult. "lots of trust. they plan without you. you really dont care?" what is she plotting this time? is she trying to divide us? astrapi wondered. she did have a way with words... after all, she had tricked him into hatred and ignorance once before. he shut her out again, this time for his own sake. he was sick of hearing her voice. everything else was drowned out, and astrapis entire universe was the electricity he commanded. in the blur he could hear her fall quiet. guess she got the message.

her voice didnt cease for long. astrapi soon heard her mutter something in the background of his mind. he tried to tune it out, to focus solely on his mission without distraction, but it was getting louder. something about it was letting it cut through the curtain he had put up. was it... panic? "astrapi." huh? my name? "astrapi! let me go!" ugh, not this agai "ASTRAPI! PLEASE!" what is... "ASTRAPI! LET ME RUN! PLEASE! ASTRAPI! HELP ME! LET ME GO ASTRAP-" he lifted his head just in time to see a cloud of gold begin to rain down on the grass, accompanied by a thunder of ripping sounds. a massive, pitch-black construct of darkness in the shape of a spike had pierced straight through fos's torso. everything within astrapi plummeted. he lost all control over fos; the shock was too great. she stared in horror at the spike as golden blood dripped from it and her mouth. shakily, she slowly fell to her knees and looked up at astrapi, eyes still shot wide. he felt that he had the same expression as her. then she turned to skotadi and pagos, and constructed a blade with the light that shone through the nearby trees. losing consciousness, she swung the floating blade downward in their general vicinity. skotadi threw his arm in front of his face on reflex, meeting the blade. it embedded itself in his forearm, and he cried out in agony as his hand fell limp, nearly severed. astrapi barely noticed. the sound of the slice couldnt replace the terrible squelch of the spike as it shot into fos's now dead body. her blood, colored gold by the power of the baron of light, spread throughout the grass beneath her. astrapi stood, eyes fixed in a shape of pure horror as he stared at her. she had called out to me. she couldnt even fight back. she had no chance. she was my puppet, i brought her here... and they brought me here. he slowly turned his attention to pagos and skotadi. they stood, disturbingly calm, looking down at the corpse.

"...what did you do?!" skotadi screamed "oh, right... you were too busy focusing on your job. you must not have heard her," skotadi replied. "during the trek, she was yelling insults and threats. she said that, no matter what we do, she will come back and finish what she started. we could imprison her, beat her, anything. shes immortal like us, after all. pagos and i then realized that, as long as she were alive, our family could never be safe..." "so you USED me?!" "you needed to focus!" pagos added. "if we distracted you, she could have escaped and killed us on the spot, or even run off to come up with some other scheme!" skotadi spoke slowly. "besides... werent we in agreement that she had to be stopped?" "not like this!!" astrapi could feel he was shaking. trembling with terror... and rage. "i didnt know this was the plan! i didnt know what i was set up to do!" he put his face in his hands. how could they? how COULD THEY?! he had never intended to take a life! she wouldnt have even lost her life if he hadnt been there! he was the one that pulled her strings. she was his puppet. and yet... he brought her right where they wanted him to. he held her in place exactly how they wanted him to. they say they came to this conclusion just recently, but... had he really been the puppet all along?! he felt something sticky on his cheeks. quickly pulling his hands away, astrapi looked down and saw flecks of gold. reaching out to help him visualize his control and channel his focus had brought his hands close enough to...