[b][u][center]The Sole of the Destroyer Part 3: Beware the Sirens For EdgeofObsidian By Draconicon[/center][/u][/b] The streets of Westopolis offered many places to get lost in, if someone knew where to look. Abyss didn’t, but he could feel the shape of the city through the hundreds of thousands of different sparks in the air. The electrical fields shaped the city as much its geography and architecture, and he used that to find his way through and avoid the worst clusters of the witchlings that were spreading through the streets. Even that was changing, though. He could feel the flickers going through the field around him, the changing of thoughts and minds as normal people came into contact with members of this Paige’s flock. They were slowly warping, their brains turning into something different, something more…malicious. Normally, he craved finding that as much as his worthless vessel hated it, seeking it out and feeding on it to boost his own powers. There was something to that sort of hate that left him stronger, that left him more powerful than he had been before. But this… There was something wrong with it, something that felt almost as sickly as the green light that had infected his powers. He growled under his breath as he felt the concentrations of that corruption spreading through the city, touching on everything that it encountered and spreading through it. There was nothing that seemed able to stand in its wake, and he knew better than to throw himself into a fight that he could not win. Not when there was nothing to gain, at the very least. [i]Hmmph. In this case, it is better that I’m in charge. The whelp would be wasting his life trying to save everyone, and we’d be corrupted as surely as the rest of them.[/i] He snorted. As if he would allow the other out at this point. He was in charge, and they needed his ruthlessness if they were going to survive. Abyss paused at the edge of an alley, feeling a sudden cluster of the witchlings falling from the sky. They landed barely a few dozen feet away, down the street from him, but he could smell the rank odor of their feet, the bitter sweat and the salty heat that came from heated soles. For once, he almost wished that he had the scarf over his face, if only to filter out the worst of the stench. They were coming his way, too. He could hear the footsteps and sense the crackle of the electricity going through their bodies. He ducked himself deeper into the alley, pressing himself against a wall in the shadows. “It’s so easy to take them, isn’t it?” one of the witchlings said as they approached. “Yes. They’re so…weak.” “But so devoted after they get a hit of the smell.” “Yeah, no kidding. I thought that they’d be angry about it, but no. It’s like they’ve been craving someone to take control, right?” “I thought I’d never be able to peel mine off the bottom of my foot, heh. He was licking away so much that I thought he’d take some of the skin off.” “Yeah, and mine? God, he was humping away at my feet every time I put them anywhere near his dick.” [i]Not content with merely warping their minds, they want the bodies of their prey as well?[/i] Abyss growled. He didn’t care what others did, though he never wanted to hear about it. However, the fact that his enemy believed that it was…acceptable…to warp the bodies and leave people addicted to such things… He flashed back to the panda girl again, remembering what she had been doing to his head with her feet. There had been some sort of foul magic at work there, something that had been playing with his mind and taking away some of his independence. His rage. His power. The hedgehog looked down at his hand, curiously summoning some of his power. It was twisted, though it was mostly white. There was a streak of green through it, though not as much as there had been before. Thankfully. His mantras of hate and anger seemed to have purged the worst of it from him. But would it last if he got into a fight? He looked around the corner, seeing the various females coming his way. None of them bothered to step on the ground, each of them propelled by tiny wings that should not have been able to carry their bodies. Their toes pointed down, dangling, dripping over the stones of the street, and – Abyss pulled himself back into the alley, gritting his teeth as he felt those images passing through his head again. The possibility of putting those toes in his mouth, the way that they might feel if he pulled down his pants and exposed himself to them. They were all images of him taking control, at least, but that was still wrong. He was not interested in women. He was not interested in men. He was not interested in anything of the body. This was not him. This was their curse. A sudden pang of pain stabbed through his soles, and he bit back a grunt as he looked down. The green crack marks were arcing over his toes like his own lightning abilities, spreading up and around the digits without the slightest concern for him. He glared as his toes started to glow green, the light gradually spreading over the tops of his feet and heading for his ankles. They didn’t make it all the way there, but he could feel that something was advancing through him. Something had changed, and it was still growing. [i]I have to get to the Cathedral. Now.[/i] As he waited for the females to pass by, he thought about the fastest way to get there without taking to the air. The main street of the city would take him right to the building, but it would expose him to everyone that was currently patrolling the city. His senses were not perfect anymore, and he could not feel the creatures that might be in the air. They would be able to sneak up on him, and if they did… Well, he didn’t entirely trust himself to be able to obliterate them properly. But if he waited for too long… [i]Chance it. Keep to the sides of the street, move quickly, use the alleys if you have to.[/i] Decided, he left the alley and darted towards the main street, hoping that his powers hadn’t diminished as much as he feared they had. # The hedgehog made good time on the main street, jogging along and keeping his head down as much as he could. The bats blended into the night sky all too well, and most of the time, he didn’t sense them until they were right on top of him. Thankfully, he had been near enough to a hiding place every time, but it was only a matter of time until his luck ran out. The fact that he was having to hide, that he was having to rely on luck, was a beating that his pride was not comfortable taking. He should have been taking to the skies, ripping their arms off and then beating them to death with the electrically-charged limbs of their friends and comrades. The fact that he was running from place to place, the fact that he was avoiding combat, was against everything that he was. Abyss growled as another patrol landed not far from him, blocking off the main street. They glanced around, a blend of hedgehogs, otters, and even a chipmunk as they seemed to be examining the street for something. Eventually, their eyes settled on the bar across the street, their eyes glowing as they looked it over. He sat the satisfaction set in, their mouths opening and their toes curling against the concrete of the street. [i]They’re hunting,[/i] he realized. [i]And they just found their prey.[/i] The witchlings leaped forward, breaking down the door of the bar with a strength that he hadn’t expected to see. They ripped it right off its hinges, throwing it across the street before darting into the building. Men went flying out, and the moans of women filled the air just after. Before the males that had been tossed in the street could react, the witchlings came out, each one with a different woman at their side. The woman had the same green lights in their eyes as Abyss had on his foot, crackling and sparking from the center outwards. They seemed to flash with it a few times before they suddenly began to change. The black and gray hedgehog almost wanted to vomit in disgust at the sudden transformation. The females seemed to swell, their chests suddenly expanding against their clothes until their breasts were at least double their current size, rising to a point where they could have pulled over a normal woman. Their hips expanded, giving them a more voluptuous figure, similar to that white bat that had defeated him. Worst, their feet suddenly swelled, bursting through the shoes they were wearing. As the shreds fell apart, dropping down to the street, their feet shrunk again, but he could see them suddenly shine with sweat, as if they had expelled more than an hour’s worth of sweat from their soles all at once. And then…the ‘feeding’ began. Not of the females on the males, but the males forced to feed from the feet of the females. For the first time, he had a chance to see what was going through the minds of the men as they were warped, as they were changed. He could feel their minds being messed with, the electrical signals coming from their brains being disrupted and redirected until they were unrecognizable from what they had once been. He could sense the way that they were forced to pay attention to the females, to obey the females, to submit themselves to the witchlings, their converts, and the long, broad, sweaty soles that were presented to them. He snorted in disgust, ducking into one of the alleys. Much as he liked the time he’d been able to save on the main street, there was no point in sticking to it now. Not when there were that many converts and enemies that he’d have to deal with. Better to fight his way through the alleys if he had to, particularly when there would be fewer of them than what he was seeing on the roads. [i]Ugh…they are fouler than I thought. Breaking minds, breaking bodies…Fagh…[/i] He spat on the ground, growling and pulling the anger that it gave him to the front of his mind. He let it burn there, let it sear through his mind, scouring away any lust that might have tried building up at the scene. That…that was not in any way arousing. That was theft. Theft of what was his, and worse… Theft of choice, theft of freedom, theft of what was the natural order of things. He growled louder at that than anything else. For all that he was the Destroyer, for all that he planned to conquer and rule, he allowed everyone a chance to fight him. He allowed them the chance to prove that they had the right to resist destruction. He didn’t throw their minds under the bus and make them serve, make them [i]want[/i] to serve in a way that defied the deepest corners of their minds. He made them serve because he was strong. Because he was powerful enough to claim it. Everything that he saw them doing only reinforced his determination that this flock needed to die, and their leader, this queen, Paige, needed to be taught her proper place beneath his heel. That spark of pain didn’t make him flinch, this time. It only fed the determination bubbling beneath the surface of his thoughts. His fists were clenched tight, and bits of electricity flowed from them to the walls around him, arcing about like the center of a tesla ball that was striking the edges of its containment. He swore that he was trying to control it, but the angrier he got, the more violent the streams of electricity became, until – “My my, aren’t you the violent one?” Abyss stopped in his tracks, slowly turning his head towards the rooftop to his left. There, standing at the edge of the building, was the same red vixen that had kicked him in the throat. She pulled down her hood, smirking down at him as she looked down her nose. “And here I thought you’d stay put until morning. Would have been the smart move; we are Vampyres, after all.” “Hmmph. As if I would act like a coward.” “Heh, so instead, you’ll act like the fool?” “Come down here and call me that.” “With pleasure.” She shifted, becoming nothing more than a cloud of bats. They darted from the rooftop to the space directly in front of him, and only a quick jump backwards let him avoid the sudden grab for his throat. The red fist clenched down where his neck had been only a second before, and the vixen blinked at his speed. “Hmmph. Faster than I expected, I’ll give you that. But you’re cursed now, Destroyer. There’s nothing you can do to escape your fate.” “There is [i]everything[/i] I can do to escape that. I will not become a pawn, a toy, a lover, or whatever it is your queen wants.” “You’ll become whatever she wants and like it.” “You’ll have to kill me to make that happen.” She glared at him, shaking her head. Her robes seemed to be a bit different, now. There was more cleavage on display than there had been last time, and he could see that there was more of a tight cut to the clothes, as well, something that brought them in to her hips and clung there, rather than flaring out and leaving it vague. The robes fluttered about, still, but that was something that seemed to happen independently of the wind and her movements. She cracked her knuckles as she looked him over, smirking as she rose up on her tiptoes. “Well, you obviously have a lot to learn. Let’s see if I can beat a couple of lessons into you.” She was fast, but she was only supernatural. He was lightning. Abyss ducked under that first punch, sweeping his hand up and punching her in the armpit. She shouted, flying over his shoulder and into the building beside them. He followed it up with four quick lightning strikes, two of which missed, one of which hit a hastily constructed barrier, and the fourth – “AAAGH!” She screamed as his bolt hit her in the shoulder. As the vixen grabbed at her arm, he charged her, swinging his chain forward and around her neck. She grabbed at it with her free hand, but he was, again, faster. He yanked her off her feet, right towards him, and conjured his lightning into a hammer. [i]Have to end it fast, have to end it fast![/i] He could still remember how the other woman had messed with him, how she had forced his attention elsewhere as soon as he got a good look at her feet, and that had been by pure accident. She hadn’t known about the curse. This one, however, did, and she would be able to fuck him over as soon as he took a look if he didn’t take her down, now. The hammer hit her across the face, sending her crackling and spasming into the kitchen next door. The walls crumbled around her, but Abyss had seen her go down just as hard two other times. He knew that this wasn’t going to be enough to kill her. So, he reached for the heavens. The lightning crackled around his arms as he sent his energy to the skies, pulling at the clouds and sending streaks of violent thunder out from his body. The walls cracked as he pulled at the power of the approaching storm, hoping that there was enough. Before he could finish, though – “Hon, if you think that’s enough to stop me, you’ve got another thing [i]coming![/i]” And that thing, apparently, was a chunk of drywall. It had been kicked out of the pile in front of him, sent flying at terminal velocity right for his forehead. He had been so intent on the storm that he had forgotten to protect himself. BANG! The chunk of wall slammed against his forehead, sending him flying off his feet. The vixen yanked herself free of the rubble, leaping up in the air. “Ha! Think you can stop me with a few punches? Let’s see if you can take this!” She came down like a bolt of lightning herself, only a quick roll saving Abyss from being crushed beneath her feet. Just as he leaped to his own feet, though, she gestured at him. Red light burst from her fingertips, extending out in five chains, almost an imitation of his own move. They wrapped around his arms and his legs, and even his neck, pulling tight enough to choke him before yanking him forward. “Why don’t you try a taste of your own medicine?!” Fiona swung her leg up, almost as if in slow motion. Abyss saw the underside, red and damp, a stirrup-ending of leather leggings swinging up towards his face. It divided her foot into two sections, visually, the red ball of the foot and toes on one side, the lower arch and heel on the other. And then it collided against his face with thunderous force. Abyss was spun right round, going head over heels backwards. As he hit the wall behind him, Fiona yanked him back, kicking him again, sending him flying backwards once more. Forward, kick, back, thump. Forward, kick, back, thump. She kept going until he was sent flying through the rock, landing in the bathtub of the bathroom on the other side. He groaned, feeling like her footprint had been stomped right into his face. Before he could get up, more and more little red hands, ghostly things that were barely the size of his own, grabbed him by the wrists and neck. They pulled him up, forcing him to his knees as the vixen stepped into the room through the hole he’d made. “What…what is the…meaning of…this?!” he managed to growl through the choking grip around his neck. “Fight me fairly!” “Heh, no.” She sat down on the edge of the bed, her robe sliding up her legs, showing off her long, slender limbs and the larger feet that ended them. Sweaty, dripping red toes dangled over his face, and the curse struck. Abyss groaned as he smelled them, feeling the arousal forcing itself into his brain again. He strained against the grips on his wrists and neck, against the ones that were pulling his legs further apart, forcing him to push his hips forward and show off the erection that was pushing against the inside of his leather pants, but they seemed stronger. [i]The corruption. The curse. It’s…it’s…[/i] The lust. It was overpowering the worst of his anger, making it so that he didn’t have to think, didn’t have to fight. It was making him into one of their lustful pets, making it so that his power wasn’t as pure as it needed to be. Even as he growled, forcing the power out, the lightning was no longer pure white. It was equal parts green and white, and the former seemed to swirl and empower the other woman more than it did him. Fiona smirked down at him, and the hand around his throat squeezed all the tighter. Abyss gagged as his air was cut off, his eyes rolling back in their sockets as he tried to rage against her. But…it was so hard…with that foot… [i]Foul…foul thing…get that…out of…my face…[/i] He tried to turn his head, but more of the hands pressed down against his cheeks, forcing him to look at her as if he was some disobedient child. He couldn’t turn away, couldn’t do anything except stare at the foot coming back to his face, like a slower, gentler version of the kicks just a moment ago. “Heh, think you understand your situation just yet? You still think you can fight against our power, hon?” “I can fight…anything. Beat…anything.” “You aren’t doing a very good job of proving that.” She clicked her fingers, and suddenly he was yanked forward, his nose smashed and flattened against the bottom of her foot. He groaned and grunted, trying to pull back, but the pressure was impossible to escape. “Go on, show me what the power of the Destroyer really is. Zap me. Kill me. Burn me to a crisp and dance on my corpse. Show me that there’s any real power there.” He wanted to. He really, really wanted to. The lightning flared all the higher around him, but it was more and more green, and less and less his power. It almost seemed to tickle at him rather than burn the way that it should, and he could feel her power rising. Worse, there was something to the stink of the bottom of her foot, to the powerful reek of sweat and foot and musk. He could feel it affecting him, stirring his shaft between his legs like a physical touch. The scent had him harder than he had ever been for literally [i]anything,[/i] harder than his worthless vessel had been for a woman ever in his life. And it was so hard to think when the damn body was so horny! He squirmed, trying to pull his focus forward, trying to bring his power to bear on her, but she kicked him. Not hard. Not enough to hurt, but enough to shatter his focus and grind her toes over his nose, trapping it between her toes against the sweat pools between them. “Mmmph!” “I knew you were just a little squirt, waiting to make little squirts under our feet. I saw the way that you were staring. Only a helpless little foot pervert stares at feet like that.” “Mmmph! Mmmmph!” “Quit protesting, hon. I can see that boner of yours.” One of the red hands formed around it, cupping his bulge. Abyss’s eyes went wide, and he strained all the harder, pulling his arms, trying to yank them out of the grip, particularly as that groping hand started to squeeze and rub him, getting him harder and harder. “Heh, don’t bother fighting. You can’t beat me. I’m not like that other one. Oh, maybe she has stronger magic, but I was always the better fighter…” She leaned in, looking over her toes to stare him in the eye. “And if you can’t beat me, you have no chance against our queen. She can squash me without even trying. And if you can’t even get me to stay down, you’re even less than that, you pathetic little foot-humper.” He was nothing of those things. Not pathetic, and not a foot humper. Or anything else. Abyss growled, opening his mouth – POP! Only to have a sweaty toe popped right between his lips. His eyes went wider than ever, and he tried to bite down on her – Only to have her grab his balls, squeezing them just enough to remind him of his position. “Ah ah. Don’t you start thinking that you can fight back now, hon. You better let me have my fun, or I’m going to have to give you to the queen in pieces.” He glared, but he couldn’t find a way out of the situation he’d found himself in. Sure, there were ways to fight while on his knees, but most of them were out of his reach, or had been corrupted. His chain might have been viable, but he would need more freedom to use it, and her hands were keeping him in place. And that musk… He groaned. He swore there was something to the foul, too-hot smell that was weakening him even more than the curse was. He could feel it running through his veins, making him feel overheated, stupid, slow. It made his cock hard, and it made him… He realized he was licking the toe in his mouth, and he had to force himself – [i]force[/i] himself – to stop. His cheeks burned, and the vixen laughed. “Oh, you shouldn’t fight it, you know. It’s not going to make it any easier for you, foot-licker.” She brought her other foot to his face, grinding against his cheek, rubbing against his forehead, smothering him beneath the reeking stench of her feet. He couldn’t pull back, and her magical hands kept turning his head this way and that, giving her infinite ways to grind her soles against his face, marking him with her stink. “This will make sure that the flock knows who you are. Wouldn’t do to have you taken for one of their thralls before the queen can have her chance, would it?” The vixen laughed at him, even as he was forced to breathe in her stink again and again and again. Her sweat, her musk, felt like it was imprinting permanently on his brain, burning away all the other thoughts that were lingering in there. He groaned, his body going more and more limp, save for that one part between his legs. [i]Foul…traitorous…appendage…[/i] The hand down there had disappeared, leaving him with nothing but the constant throbbing. The need that didn’t belong to him. The need that he would never accept. [i]I am…Abyss…the Destroyer…[/i] he kept telling himself. [i]I will…never…bend…[/i] But he was. Something was shaking through him, a sense of…a sense of need. Something that had never been there before. Two big toes pushed past his lips, pinning his tongue, smearing it with a coating of foot sweat. “Take the second part of the curse, hon. And consider it my revenge for tossing me through those buildings, earlier.” He growled as he felt the layer of foot sweat spread through the inside of his mouth, coating his tongue and leaving it painted with that ‘flavor.’ No matter how many times he swallowed, the taste of feet lingered on his tongue, forcing him to keep thinking about where he was. “Mmmph…you…” “Heh, you really want to insult me, foot bitch?” “Grrrrr…” “Hey, no growling at your betters.” It would have been a slap if she used her hand. He wasn’t sure what it was called when someone smacked their sole across your face like a slap. Panting and shaking his head, he slowly looked up at her from inside the bath tub. He spat, half-hoping that it would clear his mouth of that almost-rancid flavor, but it did nothing but look defiant. Good enough. “I will…kill…every last one of you.” “…You know, I’d find that a lot more believable if you weren’t sporting the biggest boner I’ve ever seen.” “Doesn’t matter. Will kill you all. Burn you. Shatter you into tiny pieces with the storm. It’s coming, vixen.” He smiled, smiled in the way that only the Destroyer could. A powerful, crafty, determined, half-mad smile that showed every single one of his teeth, his eyes going wider as the corners of his mouth turned up in an impossible grin. “You have no idea what you’ve started…who you’ve pissed off…I am Abyss…The Destroyer…Do you know what that means?” “Yes, yes, you’re part of the prophecy.” “Forget…the prophecy,” he panted. “There is far more to it…than that…I am the bringer of the ultimate fate…the obliterator of worlds…the Herald of Ruin…the power that brings all others to their knees… “The storm is coming, vixen…and when it arrives…you best hope I can’t find you…because you…you will burn…You will burn to ash and dust…and I will laugh as I throw your remains before your queen and do the same to her…” Either what he said had gotten to her, or he looked more crazy than he imagined he did. Either way, she stared at him, pulling back by half a foot from him rather than immediately kicking him through a wall as he had expected. The vixen almost looked unsure of herself for a second… But only for a second. “Whatever powers you have will belong to the queen by the end of the night. Stop your boasting if you value your life.” “Heh…and what makes you think I value that?” “…” “MMPH!” She yanked him forward again, this time blocking his nose and mouth with her feet. She pressed down, hard, keeping him from breathing. Her hands squeezed tighter around his neck, and for a split second, he thought that she was really going to kill him. His vision went hazy as he stared up between her toes, keeping his defiance high. It was only when she suddenly looked away, as if hearing a voice from a far distance, that he was allowed even the slightest air. Tainted by her feet, admittedly, and thicker and stronger than it should have been, but still air. “…You’re lucky…very lucky…that the queen wants you alive. But that doesn’t mean I have to play nice.” K-kick, kick! Three rapid blows of her feet, one to each side of his neck and one to his forehead, knocked him right out. Abyss tumbled back into the tub, falling on his back as the world faded away, dropping him into the darkness of the dream. # [i]The dream stirs around him, the hedgehog floating over the storm of green lightning that is slowly consuming his core. Abyss glares at it, his eyes narrowing at the curse that is spreading up from his feet through the rest of his body.[/i] [i]Under him, he can feel the worthless vessel, the sleeping idiot that would not be a help here, anyway, but he wishes that he could push the lust over to him the way that he has always done. At least then, he could think clearly.[/i] [i]He takes a deep breath, trying to think of a way around the corruption spiraling through him. It has gotten worse, there is no denying that. There is something that has been implanted in him, something that the vixen left behind before knocking him out. She plans on breaking him, forcing him into service, and the more that the green lightning devours his white, the more that it will weaken him.[/i] [i]“I have to hold onto hate. If I lose anymore…”[/i] [i]He shakes his head, letting the dream continue. He will wake again soon, and he is close to the Cathedral. Soon, he will be able to walk again, and claim what he needs to finish this whole mess. Soon, he will know how to take care of this…Paige…and her minions, and then, he will get back to doing what he was meant to be doing this whole time.[/i] [i]He closes his eyes, and waits.[/i] [b][u][center]The End[/center][/u][/b]