#Reblogging this as a targeted attack on one thrall in particular...

[whump-a-la-mode]

Gilded Cage - Part 6

This one is a little bit shorter, but I hope you guys still enjoy! It’s pretty intense.

Last time, our custom choice won out: Option C. However, there were still quite a few votes for both A and B. On account of the voting, Villain will attack Hero specifically.

Thanks to everyone for all their suggestions. There’s a lot, so I’m not going to name them all, but you know who you are, and thank you!

Now, let’s see our Villain suffer >:)

CW// Imprisonment, collars, shock collars, villain whumpee, (fantasy) steroids, extensive discussion of fire, torture, beating, blood, ambulances, being unable to breathe

You make fire. That was all you were, once. Before they knew your name. The pyrokinetic. The arsonist.

Villain felt their heart catch in their throat. The heat was suffocating them, now. Their breath had turned to steam. In tiny puffs, it escaped through the sides of their mouth-- though they could not be quite sure if that was real, or not.

They were Villain. Not a prop. Not a doll.

They cast their gaze, once more, out over the people looking on. The innocents that Hero claimed to work so hard to protect. To care so much about. The city.

And yet, it was Hero who had brought the firebrand to this place.

Kerosene welled up in their veins, flooding their heart, stretching ventricles until they threatened to explode. This flame, they had been forcing it down for so long. Their mouth tasted like gasoline, now. Gone were nervous, stuttering platitudes.

Heat warped the edges of their vision, now. It was not hard to imagine the stadium, torn apart by overwhelming, living heat, charred at its very core. It was harder, in fact, to see it in its current state. Unburnt and horrid.

Fixing it would be so simple.

The steam from the edges of their lips turned with such speed to licking flame.

You are afraid of destruction.

But were they? How long had they lived for destruction? How long had their name appeared in headlines next to addresses that now stood as rubble?

The pyrokinetic. The arsonist.

Villain lifted their head, heat-scarred vision gazing to the world around them.

The people.

They wanted nothing more than to tear this stadium to rubble. To leave it nothing more than a patch of scorched Earth. Nothing but bones.

But...

If warmth is not evil, then why are you? 

These people, they depended on warmth. They spent their lives in their heated homes, until the warmth of streetlights and phone lamps. In the all-consuming heat of ignorance.

They did not know. They were under Hero’s sway, just as everyone was. Caught in the thrall of pleasant lies.

The lie of a reformed villain, smiling for the camera.

But could a villain ever truly be reformed? Through therapy? Through torture?

Villain did not know. These people did not know either-- and they did not deserve to die. They did not deserve pain.

No. This villain had a much better target to pursue. For a moment, just one, the heat of their own flame made it almost feel as though their neck was devoid of collar. A split second of freedom.

It was all the taste they needed.

I thought that you deserved to understand that. Do you understand?

Yes. They understood.

The chill of Hero’s voice was no longer marred by the sun. Amplified by their microphone, it rung out:

“We all know what Villain had done. I know it better than anyone. But bloodshed is never the answer. Harming Villain would make us no better than them.”

Villain did not realize that they had seized the microphone, not until they felt the plastic begin to warp beneath the contours of their fingers. The steam they called a voice threatened to melt the device’s metal head, too, as they spoke to it:

“Then I’m sorry to see you’ve sunken to my level.”

The crowd was silenced. Hero’s smile twitched.

“What?” Villain sniped. “You say my name so much, yet you get upset when I actually speak?”

Hero’s smile fell. There had been fury below it, all that time, but now it finally lot its spotlight.

“So, do it.” The pyrokinetic, the arsonist backed up a step from the podium, turning to face the audience. “You’re so proud of having tamed me. Why not give everyone a live demonstration? Show them exactly how you did it? Go ahead! It’ll be a special treat.”

The corner of the podium, where a certain Hero’s hand had been grasping, shattered into wood splinters. A moment later, podium turned to projectile, polished oak flying towards Villain with a furious force.

It only managed to sail a few inches, before it turned once again from podium to ash.

Finally, finally, Villain’s flame escaped.

They had not so much as noticed the security personnel, rushing towards the stage, but they quickly stopped being a concern. The ring of flame, several feet in height, that sprung up around the stage’s base provided more than enough protection.

“You aren’t going to do anything? Not going to protect your precious city? Not going to show everyone just how heroic you are?”

That did it.

At last, the microphone gave in, turning to melted plastic beneath Villain’s hand. But no mic was needed to project Hero’s furious scream to the world.

Said scream was followed almost immediately by a strangled gasp. It must have taken all of Hero’s will, to grip their hand around Villain’s neck without snapping it.

The latter struggled to gargle out a few more words, but their voice had been already stolen. The solid ground below them, too, was taken, as the hand about their neck lifted them nearly a foot from it.

“You ungrateful piece of shit!”

The two met eyes, brutal flaming gazes, for only a second, before the stage’s facade was shattered by Villain’s body, flung like a ragdoll through it. They filled their lungs with panic croaks, attempting to clamber to their hands and knees, but there was no time.

All around, news cameras zoomed in as a single kick from Hero flipped the broken Villain onto their back. The boot did not wait to make its next attack. To the panicked crowd, the snapping of ribs sounded horribly like a gunshot.

A shot that sounded, again and again, until the flame spilling from Villain’s mouth was thoroughly replaced by coughed-up blood. Any feeble attempt at a counter-attack was quickly and utterly destroyed by yet another stomp.

Every snap, every break, filled Hero’s victim with utter, frigid cold. Heat spilled onto the stage’s floorboards in the form of scarlet, seeping through the cracks and dripping to the grass below.

The audience was screaming. At first, Villain thought it to be cheering. They expected it to be cheering. But it was not.

All those people, thousands of voices, all mixed together in terrified choir, all sounded off:

“Stop!”

Villain was afforded no time to think about this development. The second kick in their side was worse than the first, shifting already shattered bones and sending them flying to the lip of the stage’s front. Far too close to their own flame that still raged, yet had begun to flicker.

Sidekick had wanted a show, after all.

The absence of the next attack was almost as painful as if it had struck.

Had Villain’s eyes not been sealed closed by agony, they would have seen two of Hero’s teammates, grasping them by the arms, holding them back with all the might they could muster.

Sidekick had wanted a show, and Villain had given it to them.

There, on the floorboards, skin feeling to be ice, they gasped. Their lungs screamed for air, air that they could not provide. Instead, any particles of oxygen that could be brought in were accompanied by a rush of crimson.

Pain wasn’t enough to describe the feeling.

When they at last managed to open their leaded eyelids, they found their ring of flame, protecting them from the world around, to have shrunk to half its height, revealing those who tried to breach it.

They were not soldiers. Not guards.

No. They were civilians. Citizens. The city. Teenagers and teachers and office workers and mechanics. Some beat at the flame with spare articles of clothing, while at least one had managed to acquire a hose.

Villain could not let them in. They would ruin the show...

But their eyelids were so heavy. Every blink carried with it the effort of pushing a boulder uphill.

A coughing fit was what finally sapped that last shred of their energy, leaving the ring of flame as only a memory and a ring of burnt grass.

They closed their eyes.

The hands that laid upon them, now, were not those of newspeople or torturers. They were so kind. So unimaginably gentle. Truly kind, more than the facade of a plush duvet. Moving them to their side, opening their airways. Hastily removed sweatshirts, pressed against their bleeding wounds, all accompanied by quiet voices:

“I’m a doctor. It’s okay, they’re breathing.”

“Can we get an ambulance?”

“We already called one. I sent my wife out front, she’s going to bring the medics back here.”

“Am I pressing hard enough?”

“A little harder. We need to stop the bleeding...”

“Are they going to be okay?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.”

All indistinguishable, but all so terribly kind.

By the time Villain heard a voice they recognized, they finally felt as though they could once again breathe. Constant pressure on their wounds had turned to quickly moving hands, deftly wrapping their injuries with torn shreds of clothes.

The voice they heard... they did not know if they were glad to hear it or not.

“Villain.” Sidekick muttered, nearly whispering to their ear. “You did good. You did so, so good. Are you ready to go with us? Are you ready to be free, again?”

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What should our Whumpee do? It’s up to you to decide!

There are two options, each one leading to a separate story branch. Alongside each option is a question specifying what exactly will happen. Answering this question is completely optional, but it is great if you have any particular ideas! Otherwise, feel free to just put a letter.

To vote, feel free to use any means you would like to contact me. Replying or reblogging this post works just fine, as does PMing me directly or sending me an ask. I am unsure when I will be writing the next part, so as long as the next part hasn’t been posted yet, voting is still open!

I will choose the story path based on which option has more votes, and will choose whichever answer I find the most interesting to base the next part upon. The choices and questions for this part are as follows:

A) Yes, you are ready. Go with Sidekick - Even if going with Sidekick, should they be trusted? B) No. Going with Sidekick is not freedom. Go to the ambulance - Where should Villain go afterwards?

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact me. This is my first time doing anything like this, so I apologize if it’s odd or confusing ^^