Solo Mission: Deviant

[Lenz]

54th of Summer, 514 AV
The Orphanage

Ire fled her body with resentful surrealism. She was cast out onto the sea with nothing more than a sail boat twice her size. The ocean was riling, the waves pounding against the hull of that ship and the fog settled only mere feet above her head. She couldn’t see anything whether that was with her own eyes or those eyes that were hidden with feeling in the depth of her mind.

All logic and reasoning and whatever moral standards she held with her completely dissipated into that fog. She let the sadistic and static waves pound against the hull until the wooden planks erupted and splintered into her flesh. Blood rushed from her injuries and into the sea until the waters turned scarlet red.

“You did that?” she said, the statement sounding more like a question than she had anticipated. “You did that to him?”

She dropped to the ground and began to torture the demonic creature with her fists. She berated him with knuckles, pounding them into his nose, into his eyes, into his lips like the waves as they crashed into her hull.

Like the hull, his skin splintered as his lip bust open and a couple teeth burst from their sockets in his mouth. One nicked her hand, sending a stinging sensation to crawl up her arm, but she ignored it.

Pain was only a mental epiphany crafted by the gods to give their beings reason to stop and give up because of their wounds. Lenz wouldn’t have it.

She was smarter than that and with that wit, she would neglect to give the pain any attention. Her plan was soon deemed useful as the feeling was quickly and quietly suppressed. Her hands continued to mash the man’s face to a pulp, dispelling all signs of humanoid features.

“Lenz,” came a voice precipitously. This made the redheaded woman cock her head to the right. She saw Twig with a halfhearted smile dissolving his face. Her eyebrows fell down until they touched the bridge of her nose.

“Give it up,” he finished.

If you give this up, this man will live. He will rise again only to steal more children from the streets and molest them. This is not what you want. You want to see this man manifest into nothing but ashes, but to do this you must finish what you started. Ignore him. He is a mere mortal slave without a logical thought in his mind.

It was getting much harder to tell reality from imaginary now a days. She was hearing the voice in her head less than she had the day after Ipisol died, but it was becoming more insistent. It was melting with her brain as if it was becoming a normal thing.

She couldn’t tell if it belonged there or not; whether it had always been there and whether other people heard their own voices in their own heads. Was it true? Was she becoming insane or was this voice in her head trying to change her mind and show her that she wasn’t? Was she becoming a lunatic much like those men and woman she had looked at every day in the spring season?

Was she slowly growing crazy like those individuals she had witnessed pulling at their hair or letting their hands spasm to the their stomach or head? Was she truly losing her mind like the grotesque beasts of a putrefying city of loss and lack of freedom?

She was being condemned by no one beside herself- that and the daemon that roiled inside of her.

“No,” she said. “I cannot just stop this. I do not give up on something I have started.”

His halfhearted smile quickly fell into a depressed frown as he closed his eyes. This gave the tumult in her heart a vast recovery as it expelled its emotions into the air surrounding her.

“Keep your eyes open you cretin!” she screamed at him before grabbing the brute by the hand and hoisting him to his knees.

He was still conscious, which frightened the mage slightly. She heaved him forward until he was walking under the help of her own weight. He was leaning against her side as they hobbled over to the man who laid unconscious on the cold ground.

She leant forward with both hands as the thug fell on her back. This was not helping her in the slightest, but she was a resilient human being. She pulled Twig upwards until he was kneeling subconsciously on his knees. Then, she heaved him over one shoulder before pushing him up and over onto the other.

The stress was excruciating given the aches that were already there from having to run and chase a pedophile. Once he was positioned to the best ability she had left to muster, she pulled the thug back to his feet and held him under her arm.

That was when the three of them began to trek through the city using the weight of a short girl with a fragile and frail body.

She wasn’t weak, but she wasn’t tall or muscular. She had managed to lose much weight over the past few weeks and in doing so it had caused her a great deal of pain. Every day did her stomach growl, but she didn’t feel hungry.

It wasn’t that she feared gaining weight light few in the world; it was simply that she didn’t have time to eat and that she really didn’t care about meals every day. She had lost around twenty pounds since the end of the spring season and in doing so, she had come to realise the frail ability she had come to possess.

So why was it she was able to carry around a man taller and heavier than she? Why was it that she could support a fat man under her wing? She couldn’t tell you, but to anyone who saw her from a distance- they would assume it was because she was strong mentally and emotionally and that that strength came with the willing power to survive in a world of blight and plaguing monstrosities.

She was a strong individual, but the voice inside her head urged her to continue and listening to that voice gave her some sort of comfort. Bodybuilding, she would say. She was simply gaining muscle by lugging around two men.

And that is all that mattered.

[Lenz]

54th of Summer, 514 AV
Lenz's Tent

Rounding a corner, the tree of them came to see the end of the city and the start of the mass hoarding of tents. This was when Lenz pondered the reason behind wanting to move her tent away from the Tent City and into the forest.

Was it simply for some solitary privacy or was it something more? Could she no longer take the same area she had grown with her child? Did it haunt her at night? Was it because she wandered the streets at night with paranoia looming in the distance or hovering behind closed doors and she felt no need to put her tent where others could have used it?

She couldn’t recall as to why she had moved it, but right now, when her bones were aching her muscles were quickly growing weak, she wished with all her heart that it was closer. Either way, she continued to wobble closer and closer to the city.

She soon began to pass tents with dirty, mucky and poor people inside or outside of them. She avoided eye contact at all costs as the paranoid words soon infiltrated the barrier she had set up in her mind.

”It’s her, spoke one of them.She’s the one that murderer that little girl with ruby hair. Another one spoke of more detestable vanquish. Is she coming back to kill those men? What did they do to her that they deserve the same fate as that child?

“Stop saying those dreadful insults behind my back,” she muttered as she went by yet another occupied tent.

Soon vacancy smothered her until she was prohibited to breathe correctly. Her pulse slowed in rhythm and her gait lessened in pace until she was again met with the troublesome effects of normalcy.

“Twig, you dumb petcher,” she gurgled before spitting out a glob of spit. “Look what you made me do.”

Finally, she had managed to evacuate herself from the tumbling ruins of unfriendly peasantry and into the forest of non-bothersome tranquility. Everything was at peace once she stepped over the boundary line.

The leaves of every tree brushed against her face and some twigs and small branches laced themselves into her hair, pulling at loose strands until they ripped from out of her scalp. She smirked sparsely as she hobbled through the underbrush.

Gazing up at the canopy overhead, her eyes witnessed a fairly coloured bird in midflight. She observed the shades that had been dyed in the creature’s feathers and breathed out a sigh of disbelief.

She was constantly surrounded by the various wildlife of such beauty, yet only now had she taken the time to watch them. She guessed it was because she was under stress and the pressure building up against her muscles and threatening to fracture her bones caused her to wish to seek out any other form of distraction. Namely, the introspection of flying creatures in the fly was the one she was currently observing at the moment.

Suddenly a small boulder came from out of nowhere as the tent was in sight. Lenz’s left foot collided with the solid substance, sending her failing forward.

The brute that was held under her shoulder fell back, his limp body smashing face first into a pile of leaves. Twig on the other hand, careened off the ground and curled up in a ball as if he was a caterpillar trying to transform into a butterfly.

It was a very sour sight to see- him so weak and vulnerable, but unaware of all that was happening. She knew that once he had awoken that a large bruise would take form right over his right eye. She saw the rock he had nearly missed and cringed.

“Twig, you damned fool,” she scoffed even though it was entirely all her fault.

She overlooked checking on her newfound captive and instead went to the one that held more priority. She scooped him up in both of her arms and grunted. Pain rushed from the underside of her shoulder and propelled forward so that it attacked her forearm. She gritted her teeth before taking a wobbly step forward.

Once she had reached the tent, she balanced the man on her knee and held him still with one hand whilst the other undid the straps and zippers that kept the tent’s flap fastened closed. She opened it was a large swoop of her arm before gradually positioning Twig back into a semi-comfortable position.

After she had taken a step inside the tent, she set him down as gently as she could, but in reality, she pretty much dropped him on a nearby bedroll. Sighing, she turned to tend to her other slave, the one that she would do terrible things to until his soul left his body and went to the cruelest god or goddess for judgment.

She wouldn’t even bother to bury him much less say a word or two about his passing. She would simply trek further into the forest and dispose of him in a clearing for the wolves and other predatory creatures of the wilds to feast on.

She was being considerate of others, for the animals would have a meal brought to them by theirs truly.

Lenz watched the pudgy man’s stomach lift up and down in a shallow breath. He was still alive and would continue to be until she was ready to end him.

She went back into the tent to retrieve some rope and upon finding it, she walked back out and into the forested grounds. He will suffer, she said to herself as she shuffled him closer to a nearby tree.

Absolutely marvelous, came the atrocious voice. Might I watch?

Lenz smiled for once, and although it wasn’t a happy, genuine smile of opinionated self-acceptance, it was one of horrendous crimes. But it would count for now.

“Certainly,” she replied sinisterly as she started to wrap the rope around the man’s waist several times.

When she was almost out of rope, she stopped and turned around so that she was facing the man’s back, behind the tree she had begun tying him to. With a small amount of rope in either hand, she took one end and looped it over the other, tightening it as she did.

Once that was done, she took the other and looped it through the hole she had created until she had made a knot of some sort.

It wasn’t perfect and it this brute had all his strength, it probably would have been easy enough to break out of, but because he was fatigued, weak and injured, the idea slipped her mind as neglect came into play.

“Welcome to the family,” she growled.

[Lenz]

54th of Summer, 514 AV
Lenz's Tent

The woman stood up and brushed the debris from off her slacks. She stood up tall and straightened her back to such an extent that it began to curve backwards. She stretched and stretched until she heard pops and cracks from her spine. This made her smirk in delight; the sound was so wonderful.

After enjoying the little time of rest she had to endure, her mind wandered back to Twig and his injuries. Her stomach did summersaults until she stepped onto the canvas flooring of the shelter.

He was lying on his side, one arm underneath him as if he was supporting his head and the other tossed carelessly over his body. He looked pleasant in a way only the mind of a pacifist could understand, and to anyone who had seen Lenz today, they would guarantee that she wasn’t a pacifist.

She took one look at the limp body and rolled her eyes, although something fairly latent began to roil inside her chest. It pinched her sides and dared to tear through her flesh, threatening to penetrate the breach.

“Come on you,” she whispered, rolling him onto his back. “You give me qualms that are beginning to become fatal.” Was that a hint of empathy hidden in those words?

She lifted up his arm, the one whose palm had been massacred by the edge of a knife. She undid the cloth that was wrapped around it and looked at it, squirming from the sight.

Jealousy arose from the hiatus pits of her esophagus. She felt like upheaving whatever last she had eaten. Only she was allowed to hurt her slaves, so when someone else did it made her angry if not a little vengeful.

“You are most definitely earning punishment when you are conscious again,” she breathed before reaching into her backpack and retrieving the other piece of fabric that had been torn off from her dress.

It was still damp from the last time she had used it and although it was partially covered in blood, she didn’t want to waste any time with re-wetting it; not when she needed to take care of Twig’s wounds before they got infected.

She urged on, brushing up her techniques by first grasping her sewing needle and then the couple: flint and steel. She took the flint and scraped it against the steel.

The metallic sound grated against her eardrums, but when a spark ignited, she smiled. It fell from the flint and steel and allayed the germs that were wrought within the previously used needle.

Satisfied, but only slightly, Lenz disregarded the flint and steel and went for the thread. Extracting it from out of her knapsack, she took the end and stuck it in her mouth, wetting the strings so that they meshed together. Now it was easier to stick through the needle.

Concentrating, she forced the end of the thread through the eye of the needle and tied the ends around the hole. She took the extra thread and ripped it off with her front teeth, putting back what was left so that it was out of the way and unburdening.

She then took Twig’s hand in her lap, palm up and began to get to work. She first pulled one flap of skin that had been torn away from the other and stuck the needle through the flesh.

She then took the other side of the injury and raised it from the mess of bloodied tissue. She crossed over the injury and stuck the tip of the needle through that before repeating several times.

Always tightening her stitching as she went on, she ended up with a decently stitched pattern. There were hardly any mistakes, for she was getting better at tailoring- even skin!

With contentment boiling inside her, alongside many other savage and rampant emotions, she bit off the excess thread and threw it to the side. Then, she took the damp cloth and began to dab at the red liquid that had soon began to dry to his flesh. As encrusted as it was, she was able to clean most of it away to reveal a flawless, tan tone.

She smiled before taking the cloth and folding it so that the crimson spatter was no longer visible. She then wrapped it around his laceration, now fixed and stitched. Lenz grabbed the other fabric, now sopping with scarlet residue, as she made her way out of the tent and for a nearby stream.

Once she had arrived, she dipped the material in the water and watched as the rouge colour fled from the sky blue cloth. It bled with the otherwise clear liquid until it flew down stream.

This was when the girl stood up and returned back to her campsite. She checked in the tent and found Twig still sleeping, his chest rising with steady breaths. She exhaled, surprised that she had been holding her breath.

Finding the ruffian still held secure by the rope against the tree, she waltzed over to him. His eyes were now open and his mouth was ajar, screams threatening to burst from out of his throat.

She clapped her hand over the hole, silencing him on the spot. She wouldn’t be assuaging his current wounds. Instead she would be increasing the pain that was already stirring around inside him.

Knowing that the belly button was a very sensitive area, and her fingertips extraordinarily long, she opted to cause him torturous pain for the night by sticking her index finger into his stomach.

She lifted up his shirt and prepared to hear the muffled outbursts. With her hand still clamped over his mouth, she used her other hand and its fingers and thrust her index finger into his bellybutton.

Expectantly did he cry out in pain. She felt his tongue lick the palm of her hand as spit attempted to flee the scene. She continued to dig her finger into his bellybutton as blood soon oozed out.

It secreted onto her hand and dribbled down her arm until it fell to the forest floor. She didn’t let up, however. She was quite enjoying herself and the pleading that was venting out of the hooligan before her. Torturous pain was her game as well as her gain and she would make proof of that.

Finally, she stopped her sentence of punishment. She released her grasp on the man’s lips and let him sob for a while. He dropped his head against his chest and let the tears escape from behind his eyes and flow down his cheeks.

Lenz smiled maliciously with malevolence not even the god of pain could compete with.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she crowed before turning on her heel to sleep in the tent.

Tomorrow will be rather fun, do you not think?

“I agree,” she murmured perversely.