Family Begins With You

by Jmaster49

Arc XXVII Episode V: Painful Sacrifices

Outside of the room…

Both Aidon and Starswirl had fired off everything they had at the door, but their magic simply couldn’t pierce through. Whatever Tatsu had programmed into the doors really did keep their magic from getting in.

“I fear the only thing that could pierce through would be the magic of the Elements,” Starswirl lamented. “We need to find those young ladies as quickly as possible.”

“I was afraid of that,” Aidon huffed, “I loathe the idea of leaving my students behind…so we’ll have to be swift.”

Both men hurried to the other side of the building where Twilight, Sunset, and the others were…

---

Inside the room…

When the boys finally came to, they’d find themselves strapped to chairs similar to the one that Wallflower was bound to. In fact, they were all next to each other in these contraptions of death.

“...What…what’s going on?” Flash muttered as he opened his eyes, “How…what??”

“Where…where is he?” Micro groaned as he awakened, “I’ll kill him myself.”

Tatsu was standing in front of them with a baseball bat.

“I know when I’m beat. My time is almost up. But I’m not about to let you bitches get off scott-free without sacrificing something. So we’re gonna even the score a little…”

“Wait…what are you saying?” Flash asked as he became aware of how stuck he was. “What the--?!”

Micro also tried to move, but couldn’t. Once he realized this, he tried to control his nanomachines…but realized he couldn’t as they had been removed from his body. “Agh…dammit! What do you want from us, you cretin?!”

“For you assholes to suffer as much as possible before I’m put away,” Tatsu replied plain and simply, “I think…I’ll smash your head in one good time to screw with your brain,” he threatened Micro Chips by pointing the bat in his direction, then did the same to Flash Sentry, “Then I’ll smash your kneecaps in to screw with your athletic skills. Since you’re taking away my livelihood, it’s only fair that I take away something that you both value.”

“You wouldn’t!” both boys screeched in unison.

“Okay then,” Tatsu complied maliciously as he aimed the bat at the bruised Wallflower, “Then I suppose I’ll just kill her instead. Unless you guys wanna make a decision. You got ten seconds before I merk all of ya. So what’s it gonna be?”

In his fit of desperation, Tatusya presented the boys with a devious choice. SInce the yakuza gangster knew that he’d be taken into custody regardless, his final stand would involve an act of spite that would radically change their future in some way.

But without hesitation, Flash willingly gave himself up.

“Alright, fine! Take me, you coward!” he screamed as he shook his arms within the restraints, “Do it!”

He approached Flash with the bat, seemingly ready to attack him until… “You really think I’m stupid, don’tcha?”

Micro turned to the unconscious Wallflower and quickly muttered, “Don’t worry…I’ll get you out of this, and we’ll go to that museum togeth--!”

CRACK!

Before anyone could even think to blink, Tatsu swung the bat upside Micro’s head hard enough to knock him out instantly and shatter his glasses as blood ran from his nose and mouth.

“NO! You piece of shit!” Flash wailed as he thrashed about in his restraints, “I’m gonna feed you your own heart! Undo this shit so I can kick your ass!”

“...And that’s exactly why I made my choice,” Tatsu replied coldly, “Even if I am beaten, you’re not getting away without suffering.”

CRASH!

At long last, Twilight and Sunset had combined their magic to overpower the anti-magic mechanism on the door.

“We’re here! We--!” Sunset’s expression immediately dropped when she saw the state that her friends were in. “...”

Tatsu tossed the bat aside and held his hands up with a smug, shit-eating grin on his face. “I surrender. You wouldn’t hurt an unarmed guy, wouldja?”

“You monster…” Twilight muttered as she stepped forward as Sunset violently seethed with a fiery disposition, “I’m gonna--”

Aidon stepped in front of them both. “No. You need to escort your friends out of here. Starswirl--use whatever healing magic you’ve got locked away in that centuries-old head of yours and fix my students. Please.”

“...I’ll do what I can,” the wizard replied as he teleported Micro, Wallflower, and Flash out of the room. “Come, young ladies. Let the demon exterminate the demon.”

Sunset wiped tears from her eyes as she silently left the room with Twilight in tow--though not before the purple girl spoke to her teacher one last time.

“...Show him no mercy.”

“I feel no mercy,” Aidon replied with a smile, “You go meet up with the rest of your friends. I’ll take care of him myself.”

As soon as Starswirl left with the girls, Tatsu mouthed off one more time.

“Ya know, I expected students taught by you of all people to be a bit smarter,” he scoffed and shrugged his shoulders, “Guess I was expecting too much from some dark old guy.”

But little did he know…

The second Aidon turned around, he was no longer himself. His entire body had transformed into a billowing black miasma of smoke that filled the room and increased the pressure which essentially made gravity feel five times as dense around Tatsu’s body.

“...What the…?” he muttered, caught by surprise for the first time since the siege began. “...what the hell is thi--argh!”

He screamed as he was impaled by dark spikes that jammed themselves through his body and caused a burning sensation that never dulled or lost intensity.

“...h-hey man…I-I was just following family tradition!” he yelped defiantly.

But his words fell on deaf ears. All around him, rows upon rows of jagged, pointed, serrated teeth would rise up out of the floor towards him--as if a mouth had risen from the depths of Tartarus itself. Then another identical mouth appeared on the wall in front of him, behind him, beside him, and the ceiling above.

The mouths would speak in an inhumane, guttural tone. A voice that only one could hear in their nightmares:

“You will not be spared. You will not be saved.”

“No…nonono…wait…hold on I….SHIIIIIT!”

Comments

[Shady Nail]

Seems a decent story, I just can't get into it though.

[Jmaster49]

11389903
That's fair. Not everything is for everyone. Thanks for the comment.