[b][u][center]The Sole of the Destroyer
Chapter 4: The Fate of the Fallen
For EdgeofObsidian
By Draconicon[/center][/u][/b]
 
 
 
 
 



When Abyss awoke again, it was with a shrieking headache in the back of his head. The Destroyer groaned, rubbing one hand against his forehead while grumbling another slew of threats against the vixen that had defeated him in such a humiliating fashion.

[i]Two,[/i] he thought. [i]She’s defeated me two times…in one night…[/i]

There were few people that had defeated him once. They, at least, had had some help in order to do it. These ones…

The dark-furred hedgehog growled as he pulled himself to his feet, wincing once more at the feeling of the bite marks on the bottom of his feet. He would have liked nothing better than to cover them, but he didn’t have time to find something that would do the job. Right now, he needed to get to the –

As he looked around, he realized something. He hadn’t woken up where he’d been knocked out.

Rather than being in the alley where he had fought ‘Fiona,’ he was behind a restaurant. All around him, lumped into little bundles, were other males that had been people that lived in the city. He glanced about, seeing that they were all chained up, their arms and legs bound by slimy-looking links of…something…that held them to the walls behind them.

“What is the meaning of this? Who are you?” Abyss growled.

None of them answered. They just kept their eyes on the ground, half-closed and ignoring the world around them. The hedgehog growled, shaking his head as he got to his feet.

The alley behind the restaurant had been converted into some sort of prison, he could see that much. The air reeked of the stench of foot sweat, and every male around him had the footprint of someone or other either stamped on the center of his face, along his chest, or on his back. They seemed to mean something, too, at least to the males around him.

More than that, they were all kept nearly naked, barely more than their underwear allowed to them, and they were chained by ankles and neck to the wall of either the restaurant or the building behind them. They were on their knees, their heads bowed, as if they were waiting for someone.

Whoever had dragged him here hadn’t marked his face or his chest, and he didn’t feel anything along his back. More to the point, they hadn’t chained him up yet. Abyss growled deep in his throat at what had happened to the people around him, though. It was more evidence of the power of these creatures, more signs of their depravity that they were taking this much from the people around them.

At least when he ruled, they were left to follow his orders or die. He did not inflict them with indignities.

Abyss pulled at his rage, but as he tried to gather the white lightning, he realized that there was something more to it this time. The green that tainted it had grown stronger, and he felt it surge with every sniff through his nose.

And with every sniff, there was a surge somewhere else.

[i]…This is a joke. A grand, cosmic joke.[/i]

The Destroyer, the hedgehog that was supposed to end all that stood before him, looked down at his crotch. He was sporting an erection beneath his pants, and he could feel it pushing against the front of his clothes.

[i]Go down.[/i]

He commanded it the way that he would have commanded an underling, and just like the women that he was fighting, it almost gleefully defied him.

Unlike those women, he could not merely shock it into submission. He glared at it, waiting to see if it would go down, but it didn’t. He grunted in annoyance, pulling at more of his power, feeling just where it was.

The results were…not promising. He could feel that his power levels had dropped, and significantly for that matter. What he’d been able to bring to bear against Fiona was more than twenty percent more than the most that he could summon at that moment. It was even less than what he had been able to unleash against the woman that he’d tried to interrogate.

[i]I’m losing it…[/i]

Abyss slammed his fist against the wall behind him, both in utter rage and to test something. His hand collided with the brickwork behind him, cracked it…but didn’t quite shatter it. It didn’t break a hole through the wall the way that it was supposed to.

[i]Not just my lightning…but my physical strength, as well,[/i] he thought, pulling his hand back. [i]No injury, but less power…[/i]

They were draining him, draining him more and more with each passing minute, and there was nothing he could do but take it as it happened. If there had been any of them present at that moment –

Smack. Smack.

It was the sound of footsteps, and wet footsteps at that. The hedgehog whipped his head back to the restaurant, hearing the sound of chatter coming from inside.

“Did you see that new guy? Bit of a cutie, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, and the boner he got when he sniffed my foot in his sleep? Ooooh, that was a good one.”

“I bet you that he’s got sensitive nipples. Think we could get him off with those alone?”

“Hehehe, why don’t we go find out? He’s probably still asleep, so we could play with him a bit before the training sessions.”

Training sessions? Playing with…

The rage almost made him stay right there, all too eager to break these females down and teach them a lesson, but some hint of common sense told him that it would be the perfect opportunity for them to break him down. He was weak, too weak to fight one of the Sirens, and definitely too weak to fight a group if they came at him all at once.

Maybe, maybe, if the different males around him were not chained up and broken, he might have pushed himself to take them down, but not like this. Not when he wasn’t absolutely sure of the result.

Abyss leaped from the alley to the top of the restaurant, leaving a crack of thunder in the air that shook the door right off its hinges.

Before he could look down, he heard the females suddenly rushing out, darting here and there. The Destroyer didn’t move, knowing that he might make a sound that they might pick up on.

[i]Prey…how did I turn into PREY?[/i]

Beyond galled by the insult to his station, he nevertheless kept still, his ears perked up and listening. The females were talking, muttering to each other. Or at least, thinking they were muttering. The thunder must have messed with their hearing, because it was shouting to him.

“Where did he go?”

“He must have powers.”

“But the only one that has them is –”

“That was the Queen’s toy?!”

“Oh god, what did we…”

“We dodged a bullet there.”

“If we’d taken him before she could…”

They sounded almost scared, which surprised him. He had thought that they would be more than eager to exert their power, even take what belonged to someone else if they possibly could. The fact that they were frightened enough of their Queen to want to hold back, to be willing to keep their hands off of someone like him because she wanted him…

Well, that might be a tool that he could use…

Abyss growled, forcing the thought back down. That was one from the Unworthy Vessel if ever there was one. He understood that there were times for tactics, but if he was in a fight, he was not about to invoke the power of someone else to win.

If he could not win on his own, he did not deserve to.

As the shouting dropped, he lowered himself into a squat and made his way back to the edge of the building. He was curious what was going on down there, and he wanted to see just what they were doing to the males that they had captured.

Unlike the females that he’d seen before, these ones all had a small set of wings on their backs. Nothing huge, but enough to notice. Little bat wings, as if they had all been injected with some form of bat genetics. The females wore little, barely keeping their underthings on, but even those seemed to have changed, as if they had the confidence and the perversity to display everything that they possibly could.

Abyss snorted at the sight of their tight black thongs, almost disappearing between their rump cheeks, and their bras had cut-outs in the chest, looking as though they were trying to display their nipples to the world. Not a one of them seemed to be less than excited, and he was sure that they were planning on taking it out on their males.

The four of them, a badger, a hedgehog, a fox, and a bunny, spread through the captured males. They each picked one, using their bare feet to lift their heads. The men looked confused for a moment, then defiant.

Then as one, the females placed their feet on the faces of their chosen males.

It took less than a second for all of them to suddenly drop, their eyes losing their fire and their expressions going slack as they sniffed at the wet soles of the women. Abyss’s rage burned all the hotter at the sight, even as the body of the Unworthy Vessel started to throb below the waist.

[i]That is your perversion, not mine,[/i] he thought, shoving a shock at the unconscious mind. [i]You are not allowed to make me hard. That is against the agreement.[/i]

Nevertheless, his erection continued to grow, getting harder and harder against the inside of his pants as he watched the females break the minds of their males. Despite the situation, he could feel his rage and lust growing in equal measure, and the fact that it was so even was what was pissing him off.

Mind control was a sort of magic that he had never accepted. It was something that needed to be rooted out wherever it took place, much like the demon hunters thought that beings like him needed to be rooted out. Who was right, he didn’t care, but this…

The sight of the eyes going so blank, the way that the men went from soft to hard in an instant, the way that they submitted and offered their mouths to toes and soles and…

[i]I am not hard![/i]

And yet he was, his cock throbbing against the front of his pants in utter defiance of his will. Abyss wanted to zap it from his body for its mortal offense, but he knew it wouldn’t help him.

So, instead, he watched, listening.

“You males, you were always so much less than us. Brainwashing us with all those commercials, trying to turn us into nothing but walking dolls for you. Society always put you on top, despite being so much weaker,” the badger said.

“But now, we’re the ones that are running things. We’re the ones that get to call the shots,” the hedgehog added.

“And from now on…” the fox grinned.

“You’ll be the ones following orders,” the bunny finished.

They ground their feet against the males in the alley, pushing them back against the walls behind them, holding them down and keeping them from moving away. They were so much stronger, and he could feel the power and corruption coming off of them.

It was like they gained power from those that submitted to them, almost as if they could pick a target. The more that they broke the person beneath them, the more power that they gained in return. Was that what they were doing? Preying on these men, pulling their power away the way that a vampire might have done with blood?

It was a strange thought, but it seemed to be about what they were doing. It was…terrifying, to put it mildly.

Abyss wanted to destroy them, and with the green lightning surging through him, pulling at his power, he knew there was a slight chance of his success…but it was too slight. The white lightning and the green were too out of balance, too chaotic for him to use both of them at once.

[i]If I pushed it, they would capture me and take me to their queen. I can’t afford that. Not now.[/i]

The hedgehog shook his head, pulling away from the edge of the building and looking out towards the city again.

In the distance, he could make out the walls of the Cathedral. It stood tall over most of the city, something of a beacon for those that knew where it was. He had used it as a means of finding his way through the city before, and he knew that the Unworthy Vessel had done the same.

As he watched it, though, he could see the silhouettes of bats flying around the towers that it had on its peripheries. There were many more members of this flock there…many more than he expected.

[i]Either they knew I would go for it, or that’s the place that they picked for their lair…[/i]

Either way, it meant that they were not affected by whatever sanctity that the place possessed.

Abyss shook his head. It didn’t matter. If he didn’t find something, somewhere, that told him what the creatures actually were and what their weakness was, he wouldn’t be coming through this night with his skin and freedom intact. He needed to take them down fast, and if he didn’t make a move soon, he’d lose his opportunity.

The hedgehog took a deep breath, then pulled at the lightning, zapping across the tops of the buildings. He couldn’t afford another forced fight on the ground.

#

Crackle, crackle. The green lightning was almost as prevalent as the white, now, spreading out from under his feet and saturating the top of the library. He panted softly, feeling the exertion of this sort of travel catching up with him. He was using more and more of his energy to keep from being seen, using it to travel faster than he should. Burning through reserves that he hadn’t had to touch for some time…

[i]I need to find something to replenish what I’ve lost…[/i]

For a moment, he felt a twinge of memory, almost like something the Unworthy Vessel was trying to tell him, but once more he suppressed it. There was nothing that he needed from that one, and besides, considering how aroused that part of him was, Abyss was more likely to end up indulging with his body when he really didn’t want to.

Besides, he could at least draw something from here.

The hedgehog had remembered that the library had a certain set of experiments going on, nothing more than a school project for different children regarding energy generation and power distribution. The math kids were drawn to the library to take part in it, and there were a number of different experiments down in the building for the public to see.

That was useless to him, but some rich donor had donated a prototype of a perpetual motion machine, something that generated an infinite amount of power on a positive level. It wasn’t as good as the big batteries that he had drained at the start of the day, but it would at least allow him to tap into energy that wasn’t hooked into the city grid and avoid drawing attention to himself.

Zap-slip-zap. He jumped into the power line and rode his way into the building, reappearing out of an outlet. The building was dark, but he could see the shadows of people moving around in the distance, the wet smack of sweaty feet on tile filling the big building with many echoes.

[i]They’re here…either they know I’m coming, or they’re hunting through every single building…[/i]

That meant that he had to be quiet. He hated being quiet.

Abyss moved along the edge of the building, keeping the wall to his back so that nobody could sneak up behind him. On his journey through the shelves and the many different subjects of the library, he passed by a number of different groups of vampires and their subjects, and each time he saw them, he realized that they were doing something different, using their power to do something that he had never expected.

There was one black-robed bunny that was using her large, smothering feet to stomp down on the history books. As her sweaty feet touched the pages, the ink seemed to rearrange, changing what was written there.

He stared at that, unable to help his fascination or his infuriating erection. Abyss waited until she moved on, then walked over to pick up one of the books.

It reeked of her stench, his cock jumping in a way that he still despised, but he opened the book curiously.

It was a history book, one that was supposed to tell the history of Westopolis, as far as he could gather. Aside from the changes of footprints under every word, of the reek that came off the page, though, the actual facts had also been changed.

It talked of women that had been given the power of the Sole, who stood barefooted over the rest of society and kept them under their heels. It spoke of a queen that ruled the world from Westopolis, and how she kept the rest of the world underfoot for it was not worthy of freedom from her.

And it spoke of a Destroyer that had been their greatest threat, and now their greatest tool for keeping the peace.

Abyss snarled as he threw the book over his shoulder, sending it flying further than intended in his rage. He wanted to blow the rest of the books to kingdom come if they held that sort of nonsense…

But it would cause too much noise, and he was risking enough as it was.

The hedgehog continued, wondering why the women were trying to change history, why they were overwriting things to make for a different world. The fact that they were conquering the city wasn’t enough? They needed to make the words different…

The long game. They were going for the long game, he realized. Once they conquered the city, they would need to do something to keep their hold. Women would need to be trained as they came up through the schools to believe that they were better than those around them, and men needed to be educated in their inferiority by the women that were above them.

It was a means of keeping control not just of this generation, but of every single one that came afterwards. Brainwashing them from the moment that they came into the world until the moment they left it. They would only find out if they were duped by the time they reached the afterlife, if then.

Abyss had to commend them for the thoroughness, even if he hated what they were doing.

Finally, he found the science section, where the perpetual motion machine continued to swing and sway, its low-level power output read through a wire attached to a meter. He pulled the wire free, holding it between his thumb and forefinger, and sat down to let it fill him. The slow drain of power was little more than a little boost to him, but if he took his time, he would soon be back to a point approaching full power.

And he would need that against the Sirens. His pride was not high enough for him to deny that.

The hedgehog closed his eyes, savoring the slow hum of the electricity as it poured through him, filling him with the energy that he had come to love ever since he had entered this world. Lightning had always been his preference, had always been part of him, but the artificial energy and the harnessing of it by the mortals of this world was…creative. It was the closest he could come to actual love, knowing that they had found a way to create his means of destruction, and given him a means of harnessing, harvesting, and savoring it.

As it poured through him, it was akin to the way that a mortal might have enjoyed a large meal. A good, hearty thing that filled the belly and left one satisfied. That was how the electricity pouring into him felt, like a long, slow tap of it, flooding through his guts and spreading through his head and mind.

It didn’t quite push the green lightning of corruption out of him, but it stopped it from spreading, at least for now.

More than that, he could feel his energy reservoirs filling again, his body no longer feeling quite so drained as it had been. At a guess, he imagined that he had been at a level approaching about fifty percent of his power, little more than half of his energy remaining. Now, he was probably at sixty percent after about ten minutes of draining.

He didn’t like the idea of waiting that long for a full charge, but he didn’t have much of a choice.

He was about at 75% when he heard someone coming.

The hedgehog put the wire down slowly, turning his head to look back the way he’d come at the door to the exhibit room. The doorknob was turning, which meant that someone had finally come to see what was going on in here.

He lowered himself to his hands and knees, keeping behind the various exhibits as the door finally opened. He caught sight of the edge of a black robe, and he knew that it was the re-writer that had come in. Glaring, he snuck around the side of the perpetual motion machine, keeping his eyes on the bunny as she made her way towards him.

She didn’t seem to realize that he was there, all of her attention on the machines around her. Her footprints left wet marks wherever she trod, and he had little doubt that she was smearing her corruption as traps for anyone that might come by.

Abyss felt for his power, wondering if he dared to use it against her. The chance was there; she was alone and he could strike from the shadows, pulling a surprise attack. As long as she wasn’t too strong, he could at least deal a blow to the flock. Something that would teach them a lesson.

[i]Yes…they deserve that for this humiliation,[/i] he thought.

Committed, he moved behind her, keeping a step back as he prepared his attack. One good bow would be enough to send her flying, he was sure. She seemed to be more focused on all the different experiments, after all, than on her surroundings. Likely, she thought that this place was completely safe, somewhere she could use her power with impunity without anyone fighting back.

Well, she was about to get a rude awakening, in that case.

He was just pulling his chain upwards, preparing to choke her out, when she suddenly leaned forward, standing on one foot. That foot was fine. It was the one that came up behind her and right into his crotch that really, really wasn’t.

Abyss froze, his eyes going wide as he gasped from the feeling of the long, sweaty sole pressed right into his crotch. His cock throbbed as hard as it was capable of doing, and his eyes just about bugged out of his head as he felt like he was going to cum right then and there. The feeling of [i]pleasure[/i] was not one that he was familiar with. It was one of the Unworthy Vessel’s feelings, and it was damn-well supposed to stay on that side of the barrier!

It seemed to surprise the bunny just as much as it did him, but she was quicker to react, already turning to face him while never pulling her foot away from his crotch. She pushed down, hard, shoving him to the ground with a dull thump.

“Well, well, what do we have here?” the bunny said, smiling as she looked down at him. “Not one of the townsfolk, I’m sure…and not one of my old students, either.”

There was a feeling from the Unworthy Vessel at that. This woman…she was one of the teachers. One of the schoolteachers at the high school in the city. Someone that had worked at the library, too? Not that it mattered, but as the slightly older woman dragged her foot up and down his bulge, he groaned, feeling it teased to a harder point of erection.

Abyss grunted, trying to pull himself up again, but the bunny pushed down harder, the ball of her foot almost grinding into his balls. It was just enough pressure to keep him pinned right where he was.

“Ah ah. I didn’t say you could get up.”

“I didn’t say you could push me down.”

“Such hostility, young man.”

She chuckled, pushing her foot further up his body until she was standing on his chest, holding the other foot suspended over his face.

It was a positively soaked sole, her foot looking like she had been soaking it in something rather than just sweating. There were large droplets running along the bottom of her foot, dribbling from the toes all the way down to the heel, each one the size of a fingertip. He watched them fall, saw them land on his scarf.

Rather than just dampening it, they changed the design. Soles started appearing, almost like he was wearing a scarf that depicted various different types of feet rather than a plain cloth. The hedgehog growled at this near-rewriting of reality.

“Stop this! Stop this at once!”

“Why? You should show your loyalty to the Sole, shouldn’t you?” she asked with a smile. “Let me give you proper attire.”

If her sweat droplets were doing this much to his scarf, he was furious to think of what it might be doing to his crotch. Knowing that it wouldn’t be quiet – and no longer caring – Abyss screamed at the top of his lungs, sending the power of thunder with his voice.

The bunny retreated, covering her long ears, and he jumped to his feet. The chain came at his call, and he swung it around, wrapping it around her throat. He pulled back, yanking the bunny off her feet and slamming her into one display after another, beating her against wood and glass and concrete. She coughed and gasped as he pulled the chain tighter, and tighter.

“You dare to demand respect from me? I deserve it from you, witchling! See the power that you’ve set yourself against!”

He swung her down, slamming her into the floor, and sent a charge of lightning right through the chain. She seemed to glow with the green and white energy, then –

“GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

The scream filled the air before it was suppressed by the thunder that followed, the bunny completely consumed by the lightning that he flooded down the chain at her.

Yet…it came at a cost. Two costs.

The first was that he was harder than ever, his cock feeling painfully needy, his pants feeling completely constrictive compared to before. He swore that both had grown, somehow, that the green lightning that he’d channeled had done something to him.

Looking down, he could see that the green crackling lines in his flesh had climbed higher, up to his knees already through his clothes and climbing higher the longer that he held onto the energy. He forced himself to release it, the bunny unconscious in the crater that he’d left in the floor.

[i]60%,[/i] he thought after a quick internal measure. [i]I gained 25%, lost 15%. Not great…not great…[/i]

The second cost, unfortunately, prevented him from continuing with what he was doing. The shouts of other females in the building were getting louder. They’d know what he had done, and would likely be running up here to take him down.

“Hmmph…whatever your purpose here was, you succeeded at this. I will mark you for destruction…later,” he muttered to the bunny before disappearing into an outlet.

#

Sitting on top of the library, still groaning at the pleasure that had been forced through his body, Abyss glared across the city. The Cathedral loomed tall in front of him, and while he had been hoping to get more power before making his approach, he knew that he couldn’t delay for long.

The downside, of course, was that the old building did not pull in power from the outside world. If it did, he could hop onto a power line and infiltrate the building without being seen. Perhaps that was why the flock had picked it; they could control all methods of access, from the windows to the rooftops, from the doors to the basements.

But he was lightning. As long as he moved as fast as he could, he should, should, be able to get in with a minimum of fighting.

[i]Ugh. The great Abyss…looking to avoid fighting…[/i]

Had the corruption spread that far? Was he really [i]afraid[/i] of the women that had been corrupted and changed?

After a few moments of legitimate introspection, the Destroyer shook his head. He was not afraid of them, but rather afraid of his own limitations. They were becoming ever more starkly apparent, and the fact that he had to stop and charge himself after merely a single fight meant that he was up against creatures that were beyond the normal foes that he often tested himself with.

It was merely common sense to preserve his power so that he could get a good run at the Queen, or at least, her Sirens. If he didn’t take them down, then the rest of the flock would just gather around the survivors and wait for the chance to keep fighting.

[i]If I can take her down…then it doesn’t matter what happens next,[/i] Abyss thought. [i]If I take out her Sirens, then the Queen lacks some of her power. If I take out the Queen, then the flock loses their strongest leader.[/i]

Once that happened, he would be safe. Break the triangle, break the flock, break the threat.

They could come after him as much as they wanted, then. He would be able to handle them. He would be able to take anything that they could throw at him.

The hedgehog looked down at his crotch. The bunny’s foot down there had done a similar warping to what her sweat had done to his scarf. That part of his pants had become entirely formfitting, almost like the latex of a speedo, save that it was blended into the fabric of the rest of his clothes.

It made his seemingly-perpetual boner stand up in the most shameful way, pushed forward like an obvious lance that was impossible to miss. The fact that he had been made to look like a pervert only made that bunny stand out all the more in his mind.

[i]I will slaughter her. Just as I will slaughter the rest of them. They will all die in the most miserable way that I can imagine.[/i]

Decided on his course of action, he lunged forward, riding a line of lightning towards the Cathedral.

 

 

 

 




[b][u][center]The End[/center][/u][/b]