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His head spins as he stares at the blood. It coats everything, splattered on the floor, his face, his hands. The being it once belonged to is long gone, dragged away by sentries to who knows where. Streaks paint a trail following the alien’s exit.
He blinks. Sweat drips down his face, stinging his eyes. In the back of his mind, he realizes that he’s probably breathing too hard, too fast. But his lungs scream for air and he doesn’t have the strength to stop. The alien might have broken a rib or two when it threw him into the pillar, but he doesn’t know. Everything is hazy and confusing.
Screaming. People are screaming, but not in fear. They shout a name in an alien language he barely comprehends. Their voices all blend together in a giant cophony, yet it’s reduced to buzzing in his ears. Too soft. Too distant. He’s in a cage of soundproof walls, separate from everyone else.
Champion, they cheer.
That’s what the crowd calls him now - what she has made of him. Once, he wondered if the word held a different meaning in their language before he realized it doesn’t matter. Champion means winner, and Champion means death. Champion is carved into his skin, his bones, his very quintessence.
His right arm burns.
He closes his eyes, but the blood on his hands remains. It always remains in the aftermath. It’s a stain on his being, whispering in the innocents’ voices: Murderer, Lifesnatcher, Soulslayer. The blood on his hands never scrubs off. He feels dirty. Unclean.
This time, the blood is a sickly orange color. The alien it came from was insectile, a nightmarish blend of cockroach, pill bug, and spider that made him squirm. At the memory, his breathing picks up again. He clenches his fists to quell the shaking, but all he feels is the wet hot liquid squelching between his fingers.
Gruff hands tug his arms back, pinning them in place with electric handcuffs. With the match over and won, he’s now being escorted back to his cell. One of the sentries slips a muzzle over his head, tightening the clamps until it nearly crushes his nose. He doesn’t fight against it, even when the airflow to his nose is cut off and he’s forced to breathe through his mouth. Punishment comes to those who resist, and his back still aches from previous attempts.
When the Galra soldiers shove him, he moves along. The rattling, bloodthirsty cries of the audience fade away as they enter the prison hallways, but the voices still ring in his ears. A twisted song meant only for him.
Champion, Champion, Champion.
His body walks alongside the sentries robotically, but his mind Drifts. It happens from time to time, after the matches or her experiments, when his head becomes disconnected from the rest of him. He’s aware but not present, as if he’s watching the scene play out from afar. Sometimes, his thoughts wander to the life he left behind. Memories of Before are scattered and warped and frayed, too illegible to be useful, but the feeling of warm-safe-happy remains, a stark contrast to his current predicament.
Most times, like now, he doesn’t think of anything or anyone. The pain disappears, and time slips. It’s calm and silent and alone, but most importantly far, far away from her.
As he Drifts, the Galra deposit him in his cell, deep in the underbelly of the ship and away from the other prisoners. He waits for them to remove the electric cuffs, but it never comes. The small break from routine is enough to snap him back to reality. A hiss escapes his mouth as all the aches and pains make themselves known again.
Turning around, he sees that the sentries stepped away from the cell without closing it. The open door screams at him to escape. He ignores it. With his arms still restrained and the sentries so close, he wouldn’t get very far before recapture. And then he’d have more than a few broken ribs to worry about.
Suddenly, the air crackles with energy, sending his hair on end. A familiar heaviness stirs the atmosphere, causing dread to pool in the pit of his stomach. He wants to run away now - barrel through the guards and just run because anywhere is better than by her. He’d take the guards’ beatings, the arena’s matches, the spectators’ cheering if only it meant that he never has to be near her again.
Instead, he steels his spine. Never reveal your weakness, her voice sneered. It will always be used against you.
She appears in the doorway of his cell, blocking any chance of escape. Obscured by a hooded cloak, the only features on her face he can make out are the red streaks down both cheeks like teardrops. Although she looks hunched and frail, power radiates off of her. Dark energy is a serpent wrapped around her body, feeding on his life force. The sight of her causes the blood to drain from his face.
This is the Witch, Emperor’s most trusted. Matron.
His throat constricts. Bile crawls up his stomach, but he shoves it down because weakness means death. His mind is attacked with conflicting feelings of fear-love-hatred-guilt-dread. Terror comes off him in waves and she can sense it, is disgusted by it. Forcing his heart rate to slow, he meets her gaze without wavering. Matron scowls.
“You are pathetic.”
The words are a physical blow. He flinches. Her anger is palpable, the dark energy pressing down on him in tune with her emotions. His legs tremble under its weight, but he remains still as she prowls around him. Matron sends him a vision of how he looks from her eyes: a pale, wrecked mess of a human, weak and fragile and worthless in comparison to the Galra, at her complete mercy.
“I saved you from those prison slums - remade you into my Champion. And yet, you are still. So. Weak.” She emphasizes her words by clenching a fist. The magic reacts, sucking the breath out of him. It feels as if there’s a tiger sitting on his chest, sinking its claws deep into his lungs. His injured ribs protest. Nearly retching, he collapses to his knees.
Not giving him time to pull himself together, Matron grabs his bangs and yanks until they are eye to eye. From this close, he can see her yellow eyes glowing from under her shaded hood, filled with malice and possessiveness and something he can’t name. Venom drips from her lips as she speaks, “Only the strongest deserve life. Weakness is an infestation, one that we must eradicate.”
The Witch drops his hair. Without the support, his head falls to his chest. A single clawed finger tilts his chin back up. Matron observes him - sitting on his heels desperately trying to breathe - and scoffs. “You could be our greatest warrior, yet you continue to act like a disobedient child.”
Her hand shifts direction, wrapping around the muzzle. The next thing he knows, his head slams into the wall. Stars explode across his vision. He bites down on his tongue to keep from crying out, but it feels like a fire poker just entered his sinus cavity. When Matron flexes her fingers, he can’t help the choked gasp from escaping as the muzzle presses harder into his nose.
“Disobedience leads to punishment,” Matron growls. Once again, her dark magic wraps around him, electrifying his insides. He screams, but opening his mouth just puts more pressure on his broken nose. Liquid fire blazes through his veins, burning everything in its wake. His vision blacks out, yet the pain remains, searching, devouring, expanding.
An eternity later, the force recedes. He slumps back against the wall, muscles quivering. Standing tall in front of him, the Witch curls her lips back. “Just as I have made you, I can unmake you. You wear my Mark, Champion. You are mine.”
He closes his eyes, focussing on staying conscious. Coppery blood fills his mouth after accidently biting a hole in his tongue and a migraine throbs at the base of his skull, but all he feels is an overwhelming sense of terror. Matron owns him. He’s at her complete mercy. With all her power, she can destroy him with a single thought.
She already has destroyed him. He doesn’t know what he’d be without her. Matron forced herself into his head and ripped and tore and shredded until he fell apart. Then, she rebuilt him from scratch in her own image. Her own Champion.
He fights for her. He kills for her. Everything he does is to please her.
Champion bares his throat to her.
When he hears her sigh, he opens his eyes. Matron kneels, wrapping her hands around his head. Champion expects to be shoved against the wall again, but instead she unlatches the muzzle. Tossing it aside, she moves her hands back to his face, caressing his cheeks. Her fingers leave trails of acid as they glow black. Champion feels his nose shift back in place and the cuts seal close.
Despite himself, despite how much he hates and fears her, he leans into Matron’s touch. It’s nice to have her hands on him when she’s not hurting him. He rarely receives a comforting gesture, so when she allows him one, he desperately snatches for it like a starving man. All the arena offers him is coldness and blood and death. With Matron, there is a solace of warmth, however brief.
Champion feels disgusting. He hates her and hates himself for loving her. His mind is a convoluted mess that even he can’t comprehend anymore. Where do his thoughts end and Matron’s begin? Does it even make a difference anymore? She protects him from horrors, shields him from the darker parts of the Galra Empire. Champion remembers when he was there, and here is much better than there.
Matron makes a sound in the back of her throat. It’s inhuman, more like a chainsaw or a jet engine than anything the human mouth can produce. The sound is a mix between a lion’s growl and a bat’s chitter that Champion thinks means pleasure or comfort.
Even after the injuries are healed, Matron leaves her hands on his face, gently stroking his cheeks with her thumbs. The acidic feeling has left with the dark magic, replaced with only the sandpaper texture of her fingertips. Champion tries to read her expression, but her hood obscures most of it.
“What am I going to do with you?” The Witch mutters to herself.
Champion wants to reach out, grab her hand and keep it to his face. She can’t give him up. He wouldn’t last a cycle without her. She fills in the cracks of his mind, holding it together like cement. If she were to give him up, he’d crumble. But his hands are still secured behind him with energy cuffs, and he doesn’t know how she would react to grabbing without permission.
Matron’s hands fall to her lap. Yellow eyes flicker over him, as if trying to assess his worth. Champion straightens up, pushing himself off the wall. Although nausea threatens to swallow him and his muscles beg for release, he squares his shoulders so that Matron won’t think him weak.
“I… I’ll do better next time.” His voice is rough from dehydration and lack of use.
Matron’s ears twitch. He knows she doesn’t like when he speaks without her say-so, he knows. But he is desperate to show her that he’s not worthless. He doesn’t deserve to go back to the dark place, please don’t send him back.
The look she sends him is disbelieving. She stands to her feet and turns around in one fluid movement, her cloak nearly hitting him in the face. Champion scrambles to his knees but doesn’t have the strength to stand. She’s going to walk out of that door, and then he’s going to be left here for who knows how long. She’ll have so much time to choose his fate. To decide that he’s not worth the effort and then toss him out like trash.
“Wait! Please, I’ll do better. I’ll do what you say, please don’t…” He’s begging, and she doesn’t like begging. Begging is for the weak and Matron doesn’t have time for the weak. But he needs her to listen to him. She needs to know that he’s useful.
Matron pauses. The dark energy around her flexes, indecisive. His skin itches as the full weight of her stare bares down on him again. Taking a single step back in his direction, she tilts her head. “You will do what, Champion?”
She wants him to say it outloud. An oath spoken is unbreakable in Galran culture. To go against their word is reminiscent of cutting off their own tongue. It’s one of the reasons the Galra Empire has lasted so long. When they swear their loyalty to the Emperor, they never go against him. Matron’s quintessence seeks Champion’s and latches on. She knows the importance of an oath, and she makes sure that he knows as well.
Champion only hesitates for a second before he continues in Matron’s native language. It feels twisted on his tongue, garbled and stilted, but the words hold a special weight. “My loyalty lies with you, Matron.”
Matron makes the pleased sound again, but this time the feeling is doubled through the quintessence bond they are sharing. Her pride brushes against his mind, making him shiver.
“What was that? I didn’t quite hear you.” The tone is teasing, her yellow eyes sparking with humor. The bond thrums happily. Like a cat kneading its paws, she sinks deeper into Champion’s consciousness.
“I belong to you.”
Bright lights, masked faces, no escape. Right arm burning. No, don’t, he doesn’t want…
But the memories dissolve back into Matron. She grabs his right arm, the exact spot from his memory. Her claws dig in possessively, gentle enough not to break skin yet strong enough that he can’t move. A wicked smile crosses her face, exposing two sharp canines. It’s a sign of dominance for Galra to bare their teeth.
“Mine,” she agrees. “My Champion.”
He submits again, tilting his head to expose his jugular.
Matron leans in. As her teeth skim the skin of his neck, his heart speeds up. The fear is still present. In this position, the Witch could kill him with one bite. Matron inhales, and he knows that she can scent his fear - probably felt the change in his pulse. Champion freezes, a rabbit caught in the jaws of a wolf.
Matron pushes against the bond again, this time allowing him in. Tentatively, he lets himself be embraced in her quintessence. It’s large, infinitesimal, making him feel tiny in comparison.
Her breath tickles as she speaks. “I raised you from the Darkness and turned you into a star. You are my Champion just as I am your Matron. I will not turn my back on you, no matter how impudent you may be.”
Relief floods him, yet leaves him floating. Her oath is greater than any simple gesture she could have given. It’s her Truth now, and she must uphold it. Champion goes lax as the reassurance loosens his tense muscles. The Witch would never send him back to the dark place of his nightmares. She wouldn’t abandon him or give him up. A feeling of security sweeps over him. It’s an unfamiliar feeling, but the closest he’s had to the distant impression of Before that he’s almost overwhelmed.
It’s not really love that Champion feels, but it’s close enough.
Then, all too sudden, Matron leans back. He misses the contact, the intimacy, but knows not to complain. Standing back to her feet, she walks to the door of the cell. The sound of her steps stop at the entrance, pausing.
“The arena is a place to carve out the weak and unworthy. Mercy has no place here. If you continue to leave the whelps alive, then the Darkness will seem like a haven compared to where you will find yourself.” Matron meets his gaze.
Champion swallows, not daring to breathe.
“Four cycles of isolation as punishment. That shall give you ambient time to think over your choices.” With her final judgement said, Matron disappears in a flash of dark magic.
As soon as she teleports, the bond between them snaps. Champion is caught in the kickback. Shuddering, he scrambles to put his mind back together, but without his cornerstone he’s in shambles. Her absence hurts like a phantom limb. He isn’t whole without her. He hates his dependence on her. Feels guilty that he needs her.
The sentries come forward and finally release the energy cuffs before locking the cell door. Now alone, Champion’s arms fall to his sides. Both limbs are numb from being tied behind his back for so long. He clenches his fingers to get the circulation flowing, but is greeted with a sticky substance on his palms.
Right, the fight. The orange blood still covers his arms. It has dried up, clinging to his skin like rust on a machine. He remembers the last match, a little hazily as he’s still picking up the pieces of his mind. The alien wasn’t a fighter. It’s pincers clicked together in a desperate plea for survival, tears budding in its beady black eyes. He sliced off one of the pincers and nearly blinded it, but the alien still breathed as it was dragged away by the guards. It still had a chance to survive in the work camps. Safe.
Matron wanted him to kill his opponents. She believes only the strongest deserve life.
He doesn’t share that belief. He thinks that life isn’t about who deserves it or not. Life just is.
Except that’s wrong, because Matron is always right. She is so much older than him, so much more powerful. Compared to her, he’s less than a child. The Witch has seen millennia pass. She’s seen the rise and fall of countless aliens. He’s only one of the many she’s taken in. Obviously, she knows better than him. The strongest species always survive, like the Galra have for centuries.
Despite the logic, his stomach revolts at the idea of the matches. Maybe he’s been corrupted by his time in the prisons, but killing just makes him sick. It’s happened before, mostly by accident. He would hit a vital organ where he didn’t think a vital organ should be, or the alien would turn at just the right moment. The crowd loves a good death, but he avoids it at all cost.
Their faces swim in his vision. They blur and twist and dance until all he can see are his victims. A scaly humanoid, a living rock, a bear-sized ferret, and others, each one screaming and begging for help. He’s covered in a rainbow of blood, the orange mixing with purple and pink and blue.
He crawls backward until he hits a wall, trying to escape the ghosts. He’s a murder, the killer of countless innocent creatures. Even when he doesn’t complete the final blow, all he does is hurt people. He’s taken arms, legs, wings, and eyes. He tells himself it’s the lesser evil, but a lesser evil is still evil. And just because he’s forced to do it doesn’t make him less responsible.
Champion, they call him. But Champion is a title meant for a hero and he is no hero. Champion isn’t his name. Matron may have given it to him, but there was the time Before when he was called by something else. However, everything before Matron is murky. She made sure to bury her claws in deep and rip out everything that tied him to his previous home. The memories are all crudely cut away, leaving behind a gaping wound. But still he digs and digs, until…
There is a face filled with terror. A human with ratty brown hair and golden eyes and missing glasses. Who is holding their leg, staring at him with such pure betrayal that his heart shatters. The same face is shouting at him, yelling, crying.
“SHIRO!”
Shiro flinches as if he was physically struck. The memory is almost enough to spur tears in his eyes. He’d hurt his friend on purpose - sliced through the man’s leg so cleanly that he couldn’t stand anymore. Shiro is a monster.
But, it was to save the human’s life. He wouldn’t have survived against the gladiator. Shiro didn’t want to hurt him, but he did anyway. Save, not kill. That’s the reason that Shiro doesn’t kill the innocent prisoners in the arena. He wants to save them, like he did his friend. The Witch urges him to kill, but that won’t stop him from saving as many people as he can.
It’s a never ending cycle. Fight for his life in the arena, win by the skin of his teeth, maim the alien prisoners enough to end the match but not enough to kill, then get sent to the druid’s labs for more tests. Always the same routine day in and day out. Shiro is the type of person always looking for the light at the end of the tunnel, but this tunnel is pitch black. Up in space against a universe-spanning empire and an all-powerful witch, there is no hope for escape.
The thought makes his chest tighten. Shiro’s never been fatalistic, but he honestly can’t see how this can end well. He is the Witch’s Champion, and she’s already priming him for something greater than arena fights. He shudders to think what Matron is planning. If it’s anything like what goes on in the arena, he doesn’t want it.
However, Shiro is no fool. When he’s not fighting his fellow prisoners, he’s fighting the gladiators. Big magically-enhanced beasts, the gladiators are Matron’s pet projects. They are the results of her crazy experiments, with mechanical augmentations and a complete lack of self. He sees the Witch’s crest seared into their flesh as he defeats them.
Shiro’s fingers tingle, and the sensation trails up his arm to the epicenter. Shakily, he looks down, rolling up his right sleeve. There, on the inside of his forearm, below the bend of his elbow, is the Witch’s Mark. A brand, burned into his skin like he’s no more than livestock. It’s the same symbol adorning her hood: a long diamond, with two lines extending from the bottom sides and an upsidedown V above it. An eye, as if she’s always watching. The flesh is only halfway healed, all welted and purple.
At the sight of the Mark, a wave of nausea swells in his gut. Shiro gags, but thankfully nothing comes up. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tries to forget about everything - the arena, the Witch, the experiments - but his head is spinning and his body aches and all he can think about is the burning memory of the Witch’s brand on his skin.
Shame tugs at Shiro like lead chains. Here, he is no more than the Witch’s bitch. He fights in the arena for her and undergoes experiments for her. More than anything, he wishes he had the strength to stand up to her, but he is powerless against her. The muzzle is a heavy reminder of where his place is in the world. She’s a sorceress with an entire empire backing her, and he’s just a slave.
With the brand on his right arm, Shiro knows that he’s another one of Matron’s pet projects. He’s so close to losing his sense of self that he’s halfway to becoming a gladiator. All he needs is a metal augmentation and then he’d be completely hers.
His eyes snap open. No, he can’t let that happen. He doesn’t want to be hers. She is comfort and safety but also pain and fear. He wants to go home, but he can’t even remember what home is because she took it from him. All Matron does is take. She took his innocence, his dignity, his very identity. Everything she touches turns corrupt.
He is so, so corrupt.
The walls press in around him. Shiro’s breathing picks up, harsh and ragged in the empty room. Guilt is a tidal wave that sweeps him under. How many lives has he ended on her behalf? How many families are torn apart because of his actions? Blood paints his arms in a rainbow of colors. Orange, purple, pink, blue. It stains his skin until he can’t wash it off. Their faces are still fresh in his mind, frozen in horror as the sword comes down.
Shiro’s body screams at him to slow down, don’t breath so fast, yet he can’t get enough air into his lungs and he’s so dizzy. He scrambles sideways until his back reaches the corner, but his hand knocks into something solid and it clatters. Fingers trailing over it, he realizes that it’s the muzzle. Matron left it behind. It boils in his grasp, so he throws the thing away, wincing as it crashes into the opposite wall.
There aren’t any lights in his cell, but the world spins anyway. The only thing he can see is the Mark, burning and bright on his arm like a beacon. Hatred boils in his stomach. The Matron cannot claim him. He doesn’t belong to her. He’s not her Champion, not a killer.
Shiro refuses to become like all her other gladiators. They all lost themselves. She was able to tear into their minds and mold them into weapons. He almost shared that same fate. He forgot his name, his very identity. He felt the quintessence bond between them and relished in it.
Matron is security and warmth and comfort. But she will be the death of everything that makes him human.
His name is Shiro, and he will not let her take anything else from him.
The first scratch is liberating, like he’s reclaiming himself. He won’t be her Champion any longer. Her claim on him is only as deep as her Mark, and that is just skin deep. His nails are longer than usual, because the druids like to keep them useful in the arena. For once, he’s grateful.
The brand breaks open by the third, and red mixes with orange. He doesn’t stop, not now. Shiro doesn’t want any remnant of her power over him left over. Matron’s Mark must be completely destroyed.
He hears their voices whispering in his ears, urging him on. Murder, Lifesnatcher, Soulslayer. Take back from her what you took from us.
Teardrops splash on his arm. Shiro doesn’t know when he started crying, but now that the dam is released he can’t close it back up. All he knows is that it’s a huge relief to be rid of the Witch, and he just wants the Mark gone.
Why can’t the Mark just be gone?
His vision is blurring, whether from the tears or lack of oxygen Shiro doesn’t know. But it doesn’t matter. His right arm stings and aches but it’s nothing compared to what the hot metal brand felt like pressed against his skin, so he keeps going. Deeper, longer, harder. The Champion needs to die; he can’t be her weapon anymore. The killer inside him needs to be cut out. He deserves this for what he does in the arena.
There’s a monster in his veins, and he needs it purged.
Suddenly, the cell door hisses open. The Witch is in front of him, yanking his hand back as it claws away her Mark.
“What did you do?” She snarls.
The dark energy returns, wrapping around his torso like a python and squeezing until his ribs crack. Red blood stains the Witch’s hand, the irony not lost on Shiro. She bares her teeth, a growl resonating deep in her chest. Her eyes flash like she’s ready to tear out his throat.
“I am not your Champion.” He grits out through the tight pain in his ribs.
The Witch grabs his right arm, inspecting the damage. The eye is nearly gone, covered in human red. Over the Mark, several bleeding lines mar his skin. Shiro smiles at her, teeth exposed.
Seething, the Witch digs her claws deep into the wound. He sucks in a breath, but the dark magic steals it from his lungs. She sends black electricity coursing through his veins. All he can do is clench his teeth together and hope not to bite his tongue off.
When the Witch finishes her punishment, she steps back. The sentries fill her empty space, roughly tugging the muzzle and handcuffs on. Shiro struggles in vain, only getting another shock of magic in return. After he’s all trussed up, the Witch glares at him. She wraps a hand around his jaw, nails digging into his neck.
“You aren’t now, but you will be.”
Her hand lights up black, and his vision goes dark.
* * *
Bright lights shine in his eyes, dragging him back to the waking world. Shiro blinks, but his eyelids weigh twenty pounds. Masked figures dance above him. They blur together every time they move as if he’s looking at them through a kaleidoscope.
The back of his mouth taste like iron. Shiro brushes his tongue over his teeth and is greeted by a metallic gummy substance. Gagging, he brings his hand up to wipe his mouth, except-
-He can’t move. Shiro tugs his arm again, but there’s something holding him down. He - he’s…
The lab. He is back in the labs.
His vision clears, and the skeletal masks of the druids come into focus. His heart freezes. There’s not enough air in the room. With all the druids crowding around him, they take up all the available space and it leaves Shiro heaving for breath. He tugs at the restraints. He knows it’s useless, that it hasn’t worked the last hundred times and it won’t work now, but he needs out . The rooms thrums with power and it’s crushing him.
His lungs protest. He can’t breathe! He can’t -
“The Champion awakens.”
The druids part, and then she’s suddenly right there. Matron. She leers from above, her eyes like acid.
Memories flash through his head.
Her Mark. He scratched into her Mark. Turned his claws against his own skin to dig out her influence. To erase her Claim. Now the Witch is angry. She doesn’t like it when her pets turn against her.
Shiro struggles to lift his head but can’t even manage that. His throat feels torn to shreds, his head throbs with a migraine, and his right arm stings where he scratched himself. Despite that, he licks his lips and speaks anyway, the words rasped and garbled but spoken with a strength that resonates through his entire being.
“‘M not ...your Champion.”
Her golden eyes flash, but underneath the anger is something else. It’s a sinister thing, like a beast prowling in the darkness, waiting for the perfect time to pounce. Matron smirks. “You don’t have a choice in the matter anymore.” Purple lightning engulfs her hands, turning her expression demonic. The red markings on her cheeks morph into blood.
Shiro’s throat constricts as the druids move around him. There are five, each cloaked and wearing a mask that brings up strange thoughts of plagues and death. He tries to move his head to follow them as they form a circle with him and Matron in the epicenter.
“What’re you doing?” He asks. He doesn’t know who he’s aiming the question at. They all ignore him anyway.
A new person walks inside the druid-formed circle. Shiro recognizes this one. Unlike the druids, his mask only covers the lower-half of his face, exposing his yellow eyes and the tips of his ears. He’s the guy that Shiro goes to if he breaks a bone or gets heavily injured in the arena. A medic, of sorts.
But, Shiro isn’t broken. He’s nowhere near injured enough to need a visit from the medic. Why is he here?
What does Matron want from him?
As the medic gets closer, Matron steps back. Shiro stares as the Galra comes up to his right side, but the medic never meets his gaze. Instead, he messes with something on the slab that Shiro’s been strapped to. A click echoes loudly in his ears, and then his arm starts moving.
His eyes widen. The section of table that his right arm is strapped to disconnects from the main slab. The medic pulls it away. Shiro tries to keep his arm safe against his side, pulling down as hard as he can. Despite his efforts, he’s no match against Galran strength.
The medic locks the section back into place once his arm is perfectly straight. Unlocking the cuff, the medic flips his hand so that the palm is facing up, and then relocks the clasp.
Shiro’s brow furrows, now thoroughly confused. With his arm strapped like this, his destruction of the Witch’s Mark is completely bared. The sight of his bloody forearm surprises him briefly, before he realizes that his sleeve has been cut away at the shoulder. His breath hitches. “What do you want from me?” He asks, desperation and panic slipping into his voice.
“Poor Champion,” Matron leans closer, stroking his bangs. “You cut into your own arm. Now you need a replacement.” Her voice is as thick as molasses dripping down his throat, choking him. “I can’t have a disfigured Champion, after all.”
The medic places a hand over his right shoulder, pressing him further into the hard surface.
Shiro panics. “No, don’t-”
Ignoring him, the medic uses his other hand to clasp another cuff around his bicep, mere inches away from his shoulder. Shiro tugs at the restraints again, but Matron just tuts him, pulling his bangs.
“None of that.” She moves over to his arm, standing opposite of the medic. “We’re ready to begin.”
At her words, a saw descends from the ceiling. Ice freezes Shiro’s heart. His eyes flicker between the glowing saw and his vulnerable arm, Matron’s words finally sinking in. As soon as the realization hits, his struggle increases ten fold.
“No, no, please! You don’t wanna do this - no!” He pleads, trying to catch the medic’s eyes.
The Galra spares him a glance before turning back to the Witch. “Perhaps we should sedate him.”
“No,” she replies. “I need him awake.”
“As you wish,” says the medic. He grabs the saw.
Shiro closes his eyes.
The pain is excruciating. He can’t hold back the scream, his head lifting from the table. Matron shoves it back down. She says something, but the words are lost under his scream. The entire right side of his body burns, as if he’d stuck his right arm in a fire. Tears stream down his face. He’s been bruised and cut and broken, but nothing like this before. His scream sputters out when he runs out of air, leaving him heaving for more.
Like a magnet, his eyes are drawn to his arm, except it’s not there anymore . It’s gone, already taken by the medic. As he watches, the medic returns, something metallic gleaming in his arms under the harsh purple lighting. It’s only when he sets it down next to what’s left of Shiro’s arm that he sees what it truly is.
A perfect metal copy of his arm sits innocently in front of him. A cyborg arm, like the metallic augmentations the gladiators in the arena have.
Shiro is going to be sick.
The medic lines the port up with what’s left of his arm. A weak sob slips from his lips as the freshly cauterized flesh rubs against metal.
Through some unspoken signal, the five druids begin chanting. The power emanating from Matron doubles, her eyes glowing purple with quintessence. She adds her chanting along with the rest, echoing in his ears as if she has multiple voices.
The Witch wraps her hand around the port. Shiro sucks in a breath, feeling that same beast hovering at the edge of his consciousness, perfectly poised. Then, her hand lights up, and the beast pounces.
A thousand volts of energy surge through his veins. His back arches, yet she keeps his head pressed firmly into the table. It feels like he’s been dunked into a vat of acid and then electrocuted. Shiro screams again, his throat tearing from the force of it.
Her quintessence merges with his. She’s like the ocean, drowning him in her vastness. He can feel every inch of his body as if it’s dying and being reborn again.
The chanting gets louder, but it just floats in one ear and out the other. Blackness threatens the edges of his vision, yet each time his mind tries to Drift, he feels a sharp tug from Matron before he’s slammed right back into his body.
He’s - he can’t take this. He thought he knew pain, but this is far worse. This is agony . It envelopes his entire existence. He’s a supernova, dying and being reborn at the same time in one fiery, galaxy-spanding explosion.
The chanting stops. Matron’s power recedes.
“It’s done.” She says.
Shiro turns to the side and vomits.
A clawed hand grabs his jaw, roughly turning him back to face his right. He whimpers.
Shiro feels like he’s on the edge of a cliff, ready to fall off. His arm is gone. Human skin and bone is replaced with Galra metal and energy. Shiro’s vision swims. He’s barely holding onto consciousness, body still shrieking in pain.
“My Champion,” Matron purrs, caressing the side of his face. “I gave an oath to never turn my back on you.”
She places her other hand on the piece of metal. His nerves light up, as if she’s touching his own arm. Except, it isn’t his arm; it’s a metal imitation of his arm - a weapon. She reaches out with her quintessence, like a cat pawing at string, and the arm thrums in tune with her.
What has the Witch done to him? She took a part of him and replaced it with something of her own creation. He’s nothing more than a pawn in her games.
Of course he can never hope to escape. She’s all-powerful and ever-expanding, her quintessence dwarfing his own. She takes and takes and takes until there’s nothing left. He can never be free of her influence. The one piece that he claimed for himself, she took. He’s hers; he’ll always be hers.
She leans down. Her bared teeth brush against his throat. “I never break my oaths.”
Shiro closes his eyes as Matron dives into the quintessential bond, cutting and tearing and shredding until Shiro fades away once more.