Chapter Text
'Follow me.'
‘Nuh uh,’
‘Or you die.’
‘Fuck you.’
Spoke dawdled behind him as ‘_________’ led him into the floating base at the center of the destroyed arena. It was quiet, except for the lava churning below them and his own heavy breathing. The air felt as thick as cream, even though they were higher in altitude.
'What do you waaaaant?' he complained stupidly. The Commander wasn’t even listening as he walked briskly.
Jamato had stolen everything that he had. The underscore guy was just one of Jamato’s followers, a dog for him to play with. Like Spoke was to him.
He had only lived this long because Jamato believed that he was deserving of a long, torturous death rather than a quick, painless one. That pain was preferable to ‘mercy’. But he knew Jamato well enough that in his eyes, there was no mercy. Only justice.
Tap, tap, tap.
His worn iron boots dragged wet dirt onto the red carpeted floor. He could sniff out the faintest warm scent of Mapicc on his hoodie. That smell lifted him like a firework through the longest walk of doom to meet…whoever the Null Commander wanted him to meet.
He was almost taken aback, as if his manners forbid him from dirtying the carpet. He wouldn’t take off his boots anyway. He couldn’t lift his feet, as though gravity had doubled just to watch him suffer in his own body. Even if the Null commander told him to stop dirtying the floor.
‘Stop dirtying the floor,’ The Commander scolded.
‘You’re not my mother,’ he retorted.
He mumbled some very harsh things, and the Commander pretended not to have heard.
‘Bow.’ The Commander swept into a deep bow to the person who was standing at the head table, admiring the gruesome paintings on the walls. Paintings filled with skulls, candles, screaming people and death, death, death.
Would he ever escape death? Was he doomed to a life of killing?
Spoke didn’t move. He would never respect a person who hadn’t earned his respect. Which weren't many people.
The Commander firmly held Spoke’s shoulder, and he winced from the pressure.
‘Bow.’
He bowed stiffly, under the iron-clamp grip.
The person turned around, their navy fur cape billowing out slowly. Their expressionless white mask and their tall stance didn’t betray any emotion, but their void-black eyes smouldered with anger.
‘I told you not to come back.’
JamatoP’s hand tightened around the totem.
‘I did anyway. What’re you gonna do, send me back to Spawn? It’s in RUINS, Jamato. I’ve seen it myse-’
‘But I knew you would come back. You always come back. Your persistence is annoying me.’ he continued smoothly.
‘Well you have Map-’
‘And,’ Jamato interrupted. ‘Your greatest weakness are your friends. No matter how much you manipulate them, you’d do anything for them. That’s why I knew you’d come back.’
‘Of course I’d come back! They’re my friends! Mapicc’s my best frie-’
‘Best friend, I know. That’s also why you should join us.’
‘Never,’ Spoke hissed. ‘I am never going to become one of you.’
‘Let me rephrase,’ Jamato stated calmly. ‘You will join us.’
‘No-’ he started.
‘You don’t have a choice. This, or Mapicc AND Jumper and all of your pesky little friends will die. And once I’m done with you, you’ll be my puppet enough to kill them yourself, with your own hands.’
Spoke glared at him. He stared back calmly, until Spoke sighed and looked away.
‘Munificence.’ Jamato pronounced slowly. ‘Do you know what that means?’
Spoke shook his head. He didn’t know. Nor did he care, for that matter.
‘It means,’ he continued. ‘“The state of being very generous”. I believe I am being very generous with you here. I haven’t killed you or Mapicc.’
The unspoken ‘yet’ hung in the air like a fragile bomb.
Jamato had cornered him at a dead end. As selfish as he was, sometimes others mattered more than he did.
How heroic, he noted dully to himself. If someone had told him a year ago that he would be all self-sacrificing and honourable and stupid, he would’ve laughed, then killed the bearer of the message.
‘I don’t have a choice here,’
‘Glad something got into that thick skull of yours. I wouldn’t’ve been surprised if you had chosen your own survival over theirs. You’re usually more selfish than this. Or has this-’ He cocked his head to the destroyed arena below them. ‘-gotten something into you?’
He could feel the rage build the more and more he listened, but he forced himself to calm down.
‘Bro, I literally have no choice here. But I will also promise one thing: One day, one way or another, I will kill you.’
Jamato snorted. ‘Sure bro, try your best. Commander, take him away. Gear him, feed him, train him, break him, I don’t care. But make sure that when he is put in my sight again, he will be obedient and eager to fulfill my bidding.’
‘At least take care of Mapicc for me. Please,’
He didn’t even care that he had just begged his enemy, his greatest opponent, to take care of his best friend. It was shameful. It also proved to Jamato how important Mapicc was to him, and that probably made it statistically more likely for Jamato to kill him.
‘Unlikely,’ Jamato replied. ‘Commander, take him away.’
The Commander nodded and marched him away until he was out of earshot.
‘Oh, and Commander?’ Jamato paused, looking at the blank black skin of his second-in-command. ‘Take a stack of golden carrots to Mapicc and ensure he is safe and comfortable. Put one of the nicer guards outside his cell. And,’ he hesitated. ‘Be kinder to Mapicc. It wasn’t his fault that he landed here.’
Pity coloured his voice. Jamato clapped him on the back. ‘Good kid, Mapicc.’
The Commander raised an eyebrow at him but nodded and left.
‘Spoke.’ Jamato spat his name like it was poison. ‘I’d like to see you try killing me.’