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A sudden crash, the ground shaking, and a hole in the ground. Malevola knew what happened.
“I’m going after him”, the demoness yelled as she impaled a Red Ring goon.
“Mal, don’t! We need you”, Blazer yelled, but she didn’t care.
She ignored the hero as she bolted towards the hole and jumped in.
Already she saw Mecha Man standing. Already, she heard Sonar’s voice.
“Robert Robertson the turd”, he taunted, his voice deeper than it should have been, “I fuckin’ warned you cutting me was a big mistake, bucko!”
There was a sigh from Robert as he responded, “I’m sorry, Sonar, I really am.”
It sounded as if he genuinely meant what he said, which somehow made Malevola even more morose.
Then he appeared. He was in his beast form but much bigger than she remembered, and he had a glowing red collar around his neck, which made Mal seeth with rage. He was a person! A man! He wasn’t a goddamn animal! He wasn’t a pet!
“Mecha Man, get outta here”, she said as she jumped between them.
“Mal, don’t-”
“Go. Now”, she growled, “I’ve got this.”
Mecha Man seemed to hesitate for a moment, but acquiesced, flying out of the hole to join the fight up top, which left her and her Sonar alone. She stared at him in his monstrous form, his eyes glowing red as he snarled at her, looking at her as if she was nothing. As if everything that they had was nothing. He looked at her like she was a complete stranger.
“Mal”, he growled, “What’s the matter? Not happy to see me?”
“No, mate”, Mal said, more hurt leaking from her voice than intended, “I’m not.”
What could she say? She really was hurting. It was bad enough Robert cut him, but now? Seeing him like this, trying to go full villain? It tore her soul apart seeing him actively trying to embrace his inner monster.
“Son-...”, she started, taking a deep breath as she stowed her sword on her back, “Victor, this isn’t you.”
The bat monster bristled at the use of his name, the fur on his neck standing on end.
“Don’t call me that”, he snapped, “You lost the right to call me that the second you let that shithead fire me.”
“It was a bottom line decision, mate! He didn’t have a choice!”
“Yeah, he did! He could’ve just cut Visi like everyone else wanted, hell like she wanted! But nooooo! He had to fire me! Well guess what, I don’t need him anymore! I don’t need you anymore, Gibb.”
Malevola winced, feeling her heart shatter at the way Sonar spat out her last name, like it was a curse. The name she adopted from her human father.
“You don’t mean that”, she breathed out, trying to reach her hand out, “Look at what that fucker did to you, Vic! He put a collar on you! Turned you into his pet!”
“I am NOT A PET!”
As he screamed this, he screeched at her, a red beam of energy shooting out at her. Quickly, she portaled out of the way, drawing her sword.
“If anyone treated me like a pet, it was you! The second Robertson fired me, you forgot about me!”
“You never came home”, Mal pleaded, tears welling up in her yellow eyes, “I tried to look for you, but I couldn’t find you! You disappeared! Without a word to me! I never forgot about you! I’m your friend, fuck, your sponsor!”
“I was your charity case! You’re the one that dragged us into that shitty job in the first place”, he yelled, launching another deadly beam of energy at her, making her roll to the side. She had to end this, but how? She spied something that looked like a button on the collar. Hopefully it was.
“I wanted to give us a better life”, she retorted, feeling the tears stream down her face now, “I wanted to give you a better life!”
“Well, congratu-fucking-lations, Malevola! Look where that ‘better life’ got me!”
Malevola couldn’t hold her tears back. Normally, she made others cry, not the other way around. She was used to being the stoic one, the strong one, the Devil from Down Under. She had read about situations like this in fiction, and had always found it so stupid. That was, until she found herself in this position, until it was real. She thought it ridiculous until she saw her friend, her love, become the very monster everyone accused him of being.
They weren’t dating by any definition of the word, but she did love him. She had hoped one day, when he sobered up and got clean, that she could tell him just how much he meant to her. How much his happiness meant to her. How much she wanted to tell him that, where others saw a monster, she saw a man. A beautiful, flawed, silly man, but a man. He wasn’t a monster, no matter what anyone said, and he helped her see that she wasn’t a monster either. She had once dreamed of the day where she could tell him how much better her life had become since the day they met.
It was why she pushed so hard for him to get clean, not to change him, but rather to make him the best version of himself.
To see him try so desperately to embrace his monstrous side, to see him try to prove everyone right, it was shattering her heart to pieces in real time. All of his ‘alpha’ talk would have been funny to her, hell it probably should have been, if it weren’t for the circumstances. He genuinely believed every word he said, and not in the ironic, funny way of once upon a time, but fanatically, religiously.
“Victor”, she yelled, “Please don’t make me fight you! Please!”
“Sorry, Malevola”, Sonar growled, “But I’m done being your pet. I’m done taking orders. From now on, I decide what’s best for me.”
He then tried to grab her with his claws, but Mal portaled again, this time onto his back. He screeched and roared as he tried to use the talons on his legs to scratch her off. It took some time, but she remembered how to hold onto him in his monster form, grabbing a fistful of fur and stowing her sword. She reached for what she assumed was the button, struggling to get to it, until eventually she pressed it. The collar then deactivated, much to her relief.
However, Sonar had reached her this time, grabbing her and angling her in front of his face. He stared at her for a moment, hesitating, watching. He then growled, as if trying to remember he was a monster, and opened his mouth to shoot her with his beam of energy.
Except nothing happened, which seemed to confuse Sonar.
“Oh, man”, he whined, which would have been amusing, should have been, again, were it not for the circumstances.
Malevola took the opportunity to kick him in the nose, an act that shattered her demonic soul, even as she landed perfectly.
She watched as he screeched from the pain and as he roared with anger, but his monstrous form was already shrinking down as the augment wore off. She took out her sword, looking at it for a moment, seeing her sad and twisted reflection on the blade. Is this what she had been reduced to? A crying, sobbing mess?
No.
She hadn’t been reduced to this. She had been pushed to this. She tossed her sword away, letting it be lost in the dank and dark corner of what once was the SDN gym as she approached the seemingly rabid bat.
“Victor”, she uttered.
“Stop it! Don’t call me that”, he yelled, trying to muster up strength to maintain his larger form, but failing.
She continued to walk toward him, her heels clicking audibly as she drew closer. He tried to swat at her with his wings, but missed.
“Get the fuck away from me! I hate you! I hate all of you! THIS IS YOUR FAULT!”
Mal didn’t think it was possible to shed more tears, but she did. Damn her human half.
She finally cornered him, getting within arms reach at this point. She reached out her hand, trying to get to his face.
“Victor”, she choked out as she touched the monster, no, the man’s face, feeling his fur bristle and move at her touch, “Please. Please come back.”
“There’s…”, Sonar started, trying to find the monster within him, “There’s nothing to come back to.”
“Yes there is”, she insisted, “Don’t say that! You’re not a monster, Victor, no matter what bullshit Shroud gives you! You’re not a villain!”
She saw Victor’s face start to fall, start to break, and so she kept pushing, getting closer and raising her other hand to his face.
“Come home”, she pleaded, “Come back to the Z-Team, come back to me!”
Victor looked at her, his red eyes slowly morphing back to their milky white as he repeated, “There’s nothing to come back to. Damage is done.”
“DON’T say that. It’s not done”, Mal insisted, now caressing Victor’s head as he slowly morphed back into his hybrid form, “Come back home. We miss you. I miss you. And if the Z-Team won’t take you, then we’ll go somewhere else, anywhere else, but I’m not leaving you alone. Not again.”
Victor tried to put up one last ounce of resistance, but it was thoroughly quashed by Malevola fully embracing him, stroking the fur on his head and between his ears.
“Come back to me, Vickey”, she pleaded, using the name she used whenever they were closer or more personal with each other. Vickey. He had always secretly loved it when she called him that, and she knew it, no matter how hard he tried to hide it.
He finally shrunk down to his hybrid form, having been dropped to his knees, still in Mal’s embrace. She could feel him shaking in her arms. She began to plant small kisses on his head, feeling him shake even more with each one.
“You’re not a monster, Vickey”, she whispered, “So don’t be one. Come home. Come back to me.”
That was the last push needed.
She felt him continue to shake as he returned her embrace, felt her shoulder become wet as her Victor cried.
“Mal…I’m…I’m sorry! I’m so fuckin’ sorry!”
The demoness embraced him even tighter, even using her tail to wrap around him.
She hoped that this would be enough, that it would convey what she just couldn’t say with words.
Malevola then made a silent vow to herself.
If Robert didn’t kill Shroud, she would. She would rend his flesh from his bones, gouge out his eyes and feed them to him, rip his throat out with her bare hands, and many other things.
She then made another silent vow.
No one would hurt Victor again for as long as she lived.
No one.