Work Text:
All you know is war.
Don’t we all, in a world like this?
But you can imagine something better, something that isn’t destruction as far as the eye can see. And you’ll give it to people even if they resist. They don’t know what’s good for them.
They’re not even mad about you cleaning up. Of course they wouldn’t be. Destruction comes naturally to you all, but there’s still enough humanity left in you all to prefer when things are nice.
It was never going to last.
They don’t like that you put your name on everything and call it yours, which, in retrospect, you can understand that. You’ve never gone down without a fight, and you’re not about to start now. People can call you what they like, but no one could ever say you’re not stubborn.
You go down in the fight.
You should’ve stayed down.
But you don’t stay down. Not forever. Turns out there’s a group out there who people hate more than you. And maybe your stubbornness is just what those people need right now.
Okay, maybe your methods weren’t the best. You had that much figured out before your end. But you were too far gone then. Still, all you’d ever really wanted was to help. You wanted the server, in your image, and that image was what was best for everyone.
What a self-absorbed viewpoint. What makes your image the best one?
You just want a world that is fair, and orderly, one which everyone can live in together. Even your enemies. After all, isn’t conflict what makes life fun?
But Decimation don’t want conflict. They want complete, total destruction.
So you fight.
And fight.
And fight.
You just won’t give up.
You can’t give up, because the hopes of so many server members are on you. So many have given their hearts to your cause, and isn’t that what Decimation wants, for everyone to give up their hearts, for everyone to roll over and die, so you can’t. No matter what, you can’t give up. Your friends, your former enemies, they’re all relying on you.
So you run and you fight and you stay alive no matter what it takes.
Then an old friend asks you to talk on a mountain.
He tells you that what he’s doing is the same as what you both did, with the Cleansers. But you’ve come so far you can’t allow yourself to believe it.
And you thought you were going to fight, and you were prepared for a fight, and then he takes out his hearts and burns them, and you can’t stand the thought of losing him too, even though he’s betrayed you time and time and time again, because you’ve already lost so much.
You’re powerless to stop it. Deep down, you know you’re too powerless to stop any of this. But you can’t stop trying. Not until your last fucking breath.
Why fight, when your struggle is futile and you know it?
But isn’t that struggle why he gets brought back. Because the deadliest assassin isn’t enough to keep you down, but one last look into your former friend’s eyes, as he stares you coldly down, and you can finally admit to yourself that this is the beginning of the end. But your stubbornness requires that you give it one last fight.
A pathetic one.
Death after death, so quickly in a row, in an underground hidey-hole, as his allies try to call for him as the death messages appear. It almost feels a spectacle, if there were anyone else but your friend and his cold eyes and his cold sword.
He gets you to give up. On one heart, surrounded by obsidian, alone. Nothing left, no way out. A feat no one else has achieved. You almost admire him for it. One last, bitter word of praise for how far he’s made you fall, and his sword runs through your chest.
It’s almost poetic, how you were the one to watch as he died, begging him not to go, and all he can say, as the life leaves your body is:
I’m glad I did it.