Disbelief froze her face. For a brief, fragile moment, it looked as though the words lodged in her throat might never escape. Then, they did barely more than breath.
"Not… me…"
Raynard didn't even acknowledge it. Instead, his attention shifted to Kai.
Kai's body was still twisted unnaturally against the invisible restraints, muscles jerking in short, involuntary spasms. Raynard tilted his head, studying him like a craftsman inspecting a flawed creation.
"Did you see that, boy?" Raynard said casually. "That is your effort, your failure to protect them. Your folly for daring to rise against a god like me."
Kai's eyes moved just slightly.
And Raynard noticed it again as a slow, satisfied smirk curved his lips, "Oh?" he murmured.
Time lurched and Penny who was caught mid-scream with his mouth open and his hand reaching was suddenly yanked from the frozen air and dragged in front of Kai. Raynard smiled at Kai and seized Penny's head and twisted.
There was a sharp, final snap as his neck twisted with a disturbing crack. Penny's body slumped, his face now turned impossibly backward, with his now empty eyes staring directly at Kai.
Raynard set him down carefully, almost tenderly.
"There," he said pleasantly. "You can keep each other company."
Then he sighed and turned, "Oh… my darling Marina," Raynard said softly. "What would I ever do without you, hmm?"
He snapped his fingers.
The world snapped back into motion for her.
Marina gasped and stumbled, scrambling backward on hands and knees in pure panic. Raynard laughed, the sound rich and delighted.
"Oh, Marina," he crooned. "You and your silly little pact. Oh, how I want to rip into you and show you my love with every fiber of my being. I want to taste you so badly i ache."
Marina dragged herself upright, trembling but defiant.
"A deal is a deal," she said sharply. "And I delivered them to you on a silver platter, didn't I?"
Raynard paused.
Then he smiled.
"Ah yes… Marina. Yes, you did."
He stepped closer and then suddenly stopped.
He sniffed the air.
His expression shifted into a frown and Marina stiffened. "What?"
Raynard stared at her for a long moment, "…Nothing," he said at last.
Then, he addressed her dismissively, "Leave."
She didn't wait to be told twice and Marina vanished Raynard blinked once, then shrugged, "Weird," he muttered. "Oh well."
He then turned around.
Julia stood frozen, with terror written plainly across her face.
Raynard licked his lips slowly, anticipation radiating off him like heat.
Behind him, Kai continued to twitch with his eyes now fully locked on Raynard. Penny's body lay at his feet, unmoving.
Raynard noticed Kai watching and smiled wider. "Watch me boy," he said.
He reached for Julia and froze.
"What?" Raynard snapped, suddenly, his knees buckled. A white-hot agony exploded through his entire being, ripping a roar from his throat as he crashed to the ground. Translucent chains burst into existence, coiling around his limbs, his torso, his throat.
His magic dipped and strained without warning. Raynard's eyes widened in disbelief.
"What the hell—?!"
He tried to rise, but the ground beneath him flared with light. A glowing pentagram circle burned itself into existence, ancient symbols crawling along its edges.
"What trickery is this?!" he snarled.
A voice from behind him suddenly answered, "A trickery worthy of fooling the god of trickery, of course."
Raynard turned with effort to look behind him.
And there, Marina stood again. But not quite.
In her hand was a lamp of a sort, etched with runes, and humming with restrained power.
Raynard's eyes went wide as he felt the danger from that lamp.
"What are you doing?" he demanded. "I freed you! Why are you going back on our deal?!"
She laughed.
"Oh," she said lightly, tilting her head, "my bad." Her smile sharpened.
"You think I'm Marina?."
She laughed but to Raynard the sound echoed wrongly and felt too light, too amused and he froze mid-breath.
"What—" he started, shock cracking through his voice.
Then the world shimmered, Reality rippled like heat over glass. The air folded inward on itself, as his time freeze magic started coming aunder the reduced quantity of his magic. It went below the necessary threshold to hold the spell.
Raynard struggled back.
"No," he whispered. "That's not possible."
His bound magic dipped even more sharply.
The moment it did, the time-freeze shattered completely. Julia moved instantly, retreating from him in a blur of instinct and fear. At the same time, Kai straightened, rolling his shoulder with a faint grimace.
"Ugh," Kai muttered. "That was unpleasant."
Behind him, the space immediately became occupied as another Penny appeared with his eyes wide and his face pale as he stared straight at himself.
At the version of Penny there on the floor with limbs twisted at impossible angles, his posture bent wrong and his body locked in a grotesque distortion.
"Oh," the newly arrived Penny said faintly.
"Oh that is disturbing. Kai, what the fuck?"
The mutilated Penny suddenly moved. Bones snapped back into place with sharp, unnatural precision. His limbs rotated, joints correcting themselves as if rewound by an unseen hand. At the same time, Kai casually twisted the neck back into position, setting it back into place with a soft crack.
The moment it was done, the second Penny that just arrived gagged.
"Oh my god. I'm gonna be sick."
Raynard looked between them, horror dawning. "What the hell is going on here?"
Kai glanced at him.
"Oh," he said mildly, "you went against your pact that's what."
Raynard's heart stuttered.
The woman behind the shimmered and his breath hitched.
"No…"
Her image collapsed inward, the illusion unraveling itself to show
"Kady," Raynard whispered in shock.
Then he looked down.
The figure with a broken neck on the floor shifted.
And it wasn't Kady but rather it was Marina.
Raynard in shock shook his head violently.
"No. No, no, no—"
Kai hummed thoughtfully.
"And who said you can't trick a god?"
The words came out sing-song, playful, as he began skipping toward Raynard with deliberate slowness, every step came in light and almost cheerful like that of a horror clown 🤡.
Tap.
Tap.
Kai stopped and nodded. "There we go."
Penny swallowed slightly and looked at him weirdly. "What did you just do?"
Kai smiled.
"You'll see."
He stepped closer to Raynard slowly.
"So," Kai said, voice calm, almost bored, "you told us it was impossible to deceive a god of trickery."
There was silence as more translucent chains erupted from the sigils beneath Raynard's feet, wrapping around his limbs, forcing him further down. His knees dug into the ground and shattered the floor, pressed hard against the glowing pentagram that drained his magic relentlessly. His head bowed under a weight that wasn't physical but absolute.
Kai crouched a few feet in front of him.
"Tell me," he continued softly, "what just happened?"
There was no answer.
A faint smile curved Kai's lips as he continued, "You said we were insignificant," he went on.
"Mosquitoes. That was the word, wasn't it?"
He tilted his head, eyes razor-sharp, "Remind me, Raynard," he said gently,
"who proclaimed that?"
The god trembled.
Kai rose to his full height while looking down at the god. "You warned us never to raise our hands against gods."
A pause.
"And yet… who decided that rule?"
He stepped forward moving closer to the god.
"Was it you?" Kai asked.
"Was it fate?"
"Or was it simply convenient for gods to believe it?"
He stopped directly in front of Raynard. "Look at you now," Kai murmured.
"A god. On his knees. In front of what you called an insect."
His voice dropped into something quiet and merciless.
"Tell me," he said,
"if gods are untouchable… why are you bound?"
The shadows tightened. Raynard gritted his teeth, muscles straining uselessly.
"You said mortals cannot oppose divinity," Kai continued.
"And yet here you are, restrained, silenced and reduced."
Kai leaned in close, presence pressing like a blade at Raynard's throat.
"Perhaps," he whispered,
"you mistook eternity for supremacy."
He straightened, "gods do not fall because they are weak," Kai said calmly.
"They fall because they forget who decided the rules."
Raynard gritted his teeth as his breath came out ragged due to the strain of the pact punishing him and Kai's pentagram restraining him and draining his magic.
"And now," he finished,
"you will remember."
Then he gave in the Final Cut, "gods do not rule because they are superior," Kai said.
"They rule because no one corrects them."
Kai turned away from the god and moved to where Marina laid on the floor.
"And now," he finished, voice utterly empty,
"you are corrected."
PATREON.COM/FREDOZY