#choking warning

"It-... It burns..." Wind Archer choked out from his throat, that of which stung from the scarlet poison that he had consumed moments prior. Though his vision fuzzed around the edges, he could clearly make out the dull expression of the priestess before him. Despite his pains, she didn't seem to have any care for him nor his transition.

"This is what you wanted, isn't it?" The one who had given such a toxic drink to him... Her voice was as crisp as windchimes. For someone so stolid, there was a strange form of innocence behind it all... Perhaps he'd hold the same once this was all over with.

Without an answer in mind, the archer coughed, soon turning into a fit of them. Wind's body lost its balance for a moment, weakened. The fluid within him was most certainly killing him, wasn't it? He knew it would be painful, yet the searing sensation building in his throat that spread through his veins like wildfire was far more than he had anticipated. He could feel his leaves wilting as he fell to one knee, gaze dropping to the floor as his mind spun.

"It takes suffering to attain freedom." The voice that was now above the archer due to his crippled state chimed again, feeling more like a gust through windchimes rather than a breeze. It was the slightest bit fuzzy to Wind, all things considered. "If you are willing to last, then you can achieve the freedom from that fiend of arbor as you wished." Had he- Had he truly wished for that? It was difficult to think- yet the reminder of arbor caused a heave in his chest.

Onto his hands he went, throat once again feeling as if they'd hack out a lung or two once the toxins had reached his chest. It felt as if it was being burned alive, the carving of the Tree's image becoming a source of torturous sensation. Whatever was occurring with it- No matter how it felt- He hoped it would burn out of his skin. That Millennial Tree... Such a cowardly dictator he was-!

A snarl had mixed with the archer's coughing and labored breaths. It was forced upon him- The carving- his role- everything that he was...! He had no will, nor did that little deer that the archer himself had foolishly brought to such a horrid man of wooden, woven lies.

Of course, he wanted out.

Gentle feathers dyed themselves into the crude blackness, skin corroding to a sickening lavender... The poison would wrack his system with despair, yet it would renew him. Though Wind's consciousness fades, his fury and freedom coalesce. Above the Archer, there is a grin from the young priestess Pomegranate.

The sickening sound of a blade through flesh and metal was one familiar to Knight, but hearing it come from his own body stunned him. Punctured through the chest- the whole way through- the horrifically large blade of a dragon's might was stained red front and back. Leaking upon the valiant knight's armor, the blonde couldn't muster more than breathless grunts of pain through gritted teeth. The barbs upon the blade that was sent through him, it tore through his flesh and practically shred the muscles beneath. Agony wracked its way through his body, bleeding through and easily pooling beneath him.

In a jerking movement, the Red Dragon prompted a yelp of pain from the Knight as the blade struggled to pull itself out. The crimson-coated weapon held on to bits of the assailant, shattered pieces of bone interlaced with ripped flesh. A snarl came from them, one clawed hand gripping Knight's face to keep him in place as they wrenched the blade out. Speckles of blood flung themselves from the wound, splattering upon the floor and Pitaya themself. With their eyes narrowing in disgust, they released Knight's face, allowing the sorrowful soul to fall to one knee, barely kept up by his own lance. "Pitiful." The first word was spoken since the beginning of their duel, one dripping with nothing but malice. "You are nothing but a sssorrowful excuse for a Knight. You will pay for your hubrisss."

The injured body of the blonde's trembled, finally coming to realize the extent of his puncturing. Red and white matter coalescing in the grave portion that had been gouged out by the dragon's mighty sword. The fluid of pain, blood, it poured from him, staining the ground and steadily growing beneath his feet. There was no fear of death within Knight, but the sight of such carnage upon himself stole his breath... Though there was none to give to begin with. It was a struggle to stay up, with the lack of blood and oxygen in his system. Staring at the gaping wound with blurring vision wouldn't help his case, though he couldn't help himself at all.

As slow as time may pass, the grip around his throat was anything but sluggish. If Knight had the strength, he'd easily reach to ensure he couldn't be choked to death before he bled out, however his form couldn't dare muster it through the anguish. Instead, his arms were left limply to his sides once he was lifted from the floor, away from his lance. The blonde couldn't see more than blobs of color through his vision, but he knew that the blade that gave him such trauma was stabbed into the stone below. The red of his own blood was barely visible upon the rest of the cherry-colored blade, though everything else was just as unintelligible to his eyes.

There were some words from the dragon that held him so viciously, but they didn't quite process before Knight choked out a writhing sound of pain, claws shoving themselves into the hole in Knight's chest. He could feel it, those claws tearing through his walls of muscle and marrow, drenched in a harrowing amount of red gore. It was disturbing, feeling such a foreign and dangerous object within his flesh, but nothing could account for what he would have to endure in the next passing moments. The claw within him clenched down around... Something... And tore it out effortlessly. The splattering blood and cracking of bones barely masked the inhuman sounds Knight uttered upon having something more torn out of him.

To the dragon, tearing out organs was an easy feat, but doing such on a defeated enemy gave the satisfaction of a lifetime. Pitaya could see the fog over the pitiful cookie's eyes, the way they glazed over as if he had mere minutes to live- which was entirely the case. Even so, they'll make these last moments the most despairing they could. Teach this mere cookie a lesson to never mess with a dragon of any kind. Feeling the organ- a heart coated in crimson- beating in their mighty grip, they held it before the Knight's face. Upon their face, a wicked grin grew, and their hold tightened to a mere fraction of what it could have been.

Something was... Not right with their creation, Aloe knew that much. They should refer to Cyborg as a friend, but the more testing that was done, the less and less this half-bot became like the friend they knew and adored back then. No matter how many tries they had tried to insert memories into the other, even going so far as to fabricate them for the sake of subduing their destructive nature, nothing had gotten them to calm. There was help given to them by some friendly fellows who'd offer to fight against this 'Cyborg Menace' as they had called themself, but... The scientist groaned, a migraine forcing itself to cover the painful events that had transpired before they were promptly knocked unconscious.

Aloe would reach a hand to their forehead- or so they would try. Their hand was caught on something cold and metallic, a... A cuff? What was this? They tentatively tried the other side, yet it was still held down by the very same methods. It didn't require much inspection to realize that their legs, too, were held down and apart by these restraints. "Whuh..." As much as Aloe wished they could examine their situation further, to find some sort of solution out of this, they were then struck by the sound of engines whirring. No, not just engines, they knew that mechanical purr.

Cyborg's blaster boots.

"Awww, I didn't think you were gonna wake up so early, Aloe!" That childish voice was as deceiving as it was menacing. Aloe turned their attention to the one that surely was the one to bring them here, revealing their friend-turned-creation Cyborg. "C'mon, turn that frown upside-down! I haven't even started my fun yet!" The scientist's eyes narrowed questioningly. What was the meaning of this? "What do you mean your 'fun'? What are you planning to do with me?" As fearful as they may have been, they kept this fear to themself. What came out sounded more akin to scorn than anything else, prompting a scowl from Cyborg as the floated themself just above Aloe.

"What do you think I'm planning? I'm getting revenge on you for all of that horrible experimentation that you've done to me! Isn't it obvious?!"

"Actually, no, it wasn't until you just blatantly said so. Your clues aren't as bold as you believe them to be."

Growling, Cyborg retorted to the heckling of their attempts to be mysterious and intimidating by jabbing one of their boots into Aloe's falsified leg. The prosthetic cracked and shattered like glass, shards flying like shrapnel as the fluid within it burst from the cracks and flowed over the displacing boot. Though Aloe had flinched, the process didn't necessarily cause them any pain. "...I see," they'd murmur as it this was nothing more than just another test of sorts, "Do whatever you wish. I will accept whatever you do to me, so long as you promise me one thing."

"And why would I dare take a promise from you, the one who made me this way?! Against my will, too!!" They ground their boot into the mess of vera liquid and shards, hearing the crunch and clinking of glass breaking even further and the squelch of the material held within it smushing about. "I know what I have done, and I understand what you may despise me... But make me a promise, that once you've done whatever you will upon me, do not harm anyone else if you can help it..."

Cyborg blinked, lifting themself from where they were in order to contort themself and be eye-to-eye with Aloe. It was more visor to scouter, but neither of them would acknowledge the difference, just as the scientist wouldn't acknowledge the difference in their attitude. Internally, the prayed this would not lead to their death, that they would have failed their most important project and lost their closest, perhaps only friend, but... They always needed to remain calm on the outside. This is precisely what Cy would be scrutinizing. "What? Are you afraid that I'll wipe out the entire world? Rule it like some sort of robotic dictator?" The gaze of the half-bot would press further against the researcher's own, yet nothing cracked. "I am not afraid of either. I am... The only fear I have is that you will never be able to recover and find a place to start anew."

The eyes upon that visor would flicker and widen for just a moment, but not before such a soft expression would be replaced by seething anger. "You already took away any chance I had at recovering!! All that I can do now is SUFFER because of you!!"

"...Or so you say."

Upon a bench in a nearly empty park, a squad of four spent their time with one another joyously. Lime took selfies of herself and Orange, Grapefruit milled around in Orange's phone for games to play, and Lemon sat to the side... Listening to music on his own, as per usual. Why he stayed with this group was something even the statically charged cookie asked himself often, especially since they were all content without him.

"Ohhh my Millenial, look at this filter!!" Lime spoke with a laugh, shoving her phone in her best friend's face, "It makes you look like there's flowers growing from your eyes!!" Curious, the tennis player looked upon the filter with a grin. "Woahhh! That's actually kinda creepy if you think about it! Flowers from the eyes? What's next, from the mouth?" The two shared a laugh, and in the midst of such, gained a glance from Grapefruit. Though the rollerskater wasn't noticed, the attention was certainly there.

Though the two photo-takers were laughing with one another, their conversation was certainly turning. Orange gasped to herself, a slightlt gruesome revelation in mind. "If you had flowers growing from your mouth, wouldn't you like? Choke?" Lime's mouth certainly was agape, though with a grab of the shoulder on Orange, she only added on to the idea. "Roses!! Those thorns would prick the inside of your neck, right?? That's even worse than choking!"

"Yea, yea! But consider, you can feel- like- this stem in your throat probably? And leaves inside of it?? And you'll have absolutely no idea why!" Grapefruit gulped, looking back to her game in an attempt to ignore it, to no avail. In the stead of something ineffective, Grapefruit couldn't help but gently reach a hand to her throat. Unpleasant memories were beginning to fill her thoughts. It didn't help that the conversation continued, only worsening.

"What if, like-" Lime stuttered over herself, attempting to get some sort of comprehensive statement out of her jumble- "Stems, around the neck- like- a chokehold from a plant!! Now that's gonna be made worse with rosethorns!" The gentle grip around Grapefruit's neck became uncomfortably tight, and her hold hadn't changed. Why? Why was the thought of such constriction burning in her thoughts to the point of afflicting her like this? She just wanted to play some games, chill with her friends, and-

Throwing caution into the wind was the worst action Lemon could have done. The air around him crackled quietly as he laid upon the ruined, colorless tiled flooring.

All his energy used up from sprinting, he could barely keep his sight from blurring as someone- no- something pulled him from the ground and promptly slammed him into the wall by the neck... The surface is just as cold the soul that threw him there.

As if it had a soul.

"You really had me going there! A great game of Cat and Mouse, wasn't it?" The cyborg's voice, digitized as it was, still held the same sickening tone as their creator. The way they spoke could fool someone into believing this thing has sympathy- precisely what made them so dangerous. "What a great fight! Too bad for you that the Cyborg Menace never loses!"

Lemon could feel his electricity being drained by the metallic hand at his throat. He felt a squeeze, the grin of Cyborg before him- the way their hair drifted upwards with the last of his power- his body growing as cold as his surroundings. He barely mustered a growl, but all he earned was a laugh from his rival.

"Oh, how cute! You lab-made cookies always surprise me, as inferior as you are!" Cackling. Paralyzing laughter. "Now, let's clean up that dough of your's and start again!"