Hewo :D 

So this is an interestingly cruel but also vitally important chapter.  I will have you please note some things that happen in here. Slight warning: some of this chapter is a teensy bit gruesome, but I don't think it's too much to handle. 

Anyway. 

Edit: me or lokidottir eventually 

Music: Doctor Who- Tooth & Claw        Lupercalia- Faun

Chapter Fifty-Nine

~Nobody's POV~

"NO, NO, NO, PLEASE STOP!" Thea screeches as she feels the cool blade slicing through her skin and feels the warmth of her blood trickling from yet another cut. "Please!"

"Silence!" hisses Videl, "No, actually, I want you to scream-" Another cut, another scream, "I want to hear you scream until I end you for good!"

She screams and kicks and thrashes on the chair, but he just laughs madly and continues to carve into her sensitive skin. "PLEA-EA-EASE!"

Videl cackles and then whirls the dagger around. She shrieks as it slams into her arm, but Videl ignores her and turns to check on the clear tube connected to her wrist.

Thea begins to sob uncontrollably, the pain vibrating through her entire body. She is beginning to feel the loss of her blood; her skin has turned even paler and her limbs are beginning to feel weak. At this rate, he is going to drain all of the blood from her within the hour.

"V-Vide-e-el..." she sobs, "Please....please...pleasenonononoNO!" She screams again as he once again puts the knife to her stomach, which is already bloody and sliced systematically. She arches her back off of the chair in an effort to relieve the pain, but it merely drives the point of the knife deeper. She is sweating from the pain and the blood loss, and she clenches her hands and throws her head back and sobs and sobs and sobs.

"Are you regretting it now?" sneers Videl, "Are you regretting killing my father, you little killer!?" He runs his sharp fingernail across the cuts on her stomach.

She howls.

"Oh stop...squirming," he breathes as she kicks and screams in agony, "This isn't such a big deal, is it now?" He raises his finger from her skin, and she gasps, her eyes wide and rolling.

Looking down at her contemptuously, Videl suddenly lunges and digs his fangs in her neck. Her high-pitched shrieks reverberate off of the wall as her blood trickles down to the stone chair.

"PLEASE, STOP! STOP, STOP, STOPSTOPSTOPSTOP!" She keeps screeching, "Loki! LOKI!!!"  

She screams more and more until it feels as if she is going to pass out. But she can't pass out. Not from pain, not since her powers have been formed. She is forced to endure the agony.

Videl looks up as the door opens and Thea whimpers at the slight relief, although the blood is still flowing from her wrist and the dagger is still impaled in her arm.

"What is it Khydi?" Videl snaps as a tall Velah with a pale, emaciated face, bright red, beautiful eyes, a chiseled face, and a hooked smile enters the room.

"I know you're busy," Khydi's voice is velvet, "I heard what you are busy with and I decided to investigate.?

Videl snarls, "I don't like your methods. You know this"

"Spoils of war," says Khydi seductively, looking at Thea with a ravenous look in his eyes, "She might be young, but she's still a female. A bit torn up, but she'll do..." He traces his finger from Thea's shoulder and then trails it down across her stomach. She is so petrified, she can't move.

Just as Khydi begins to move his finger down farther, Videl lunges and slaps the hand away with a resounding crack. "Get out! He growls.

Thea begins to breathe from relief, but her eyes are rolling.

Khydi looks surprised, "Ah, Videl, I know how you feel about the matter, but still, in the circumstances-"

"GET OUT, or I will decorate these stone walls with the insides of your head."

Khydi backs up, sneering. "Fine then, be that way."

Videl's lip is still curled as he watches Khydi slowly back out of the room. Then, he jumps forward and slams the door shut. When he turns around, Videl's fangs are still bared and he is breathing heavily. If Thea had been looking, she might have even noticed two tears leaking from his eyes, tears of utter fury.

But she can't, because has fainted, not from pain, but from pure terror.

Videl turns to look at Thea, and for a split second, his hooded eyes soften. For a split second, he reaches a trembling hand out and touches her sweaty, matted hair. For a split second, Videl looks at his handiwork, a bloody and practically mangled fourteen year old girl, and staggers back, screaming and slamming his fists into the wall. He draws some of his own blood, but he doesn't pay the slightest bit of attention.

He turns when he hears Thea's screams, a signal that she has woken from her blissful state of unconsciousness. For the first time, he notices something dangling in Thea's hand. Reaching forward, he snatches the cross necklace, "Where did you get that?"

"From...." Thea heaves in a great effort to speak, hoping it will prevent further torture, "...From Mansa-a-r....told me....give you...."

Videl holds the cross up to the meager torchlight, inspecting it with drawn eyes. His eyes narrow. His lips move silently in anger as he puts the necklace around his neck, where it hangs down to his partially exposed chest..

"Please..." she gasps, "Let...me...go..."

Videl whips his head around to look at her, his golden curls wild. Tears are trickling from her eyes at an alarmingly quick rate, although her body is growing weaker and weaker. Videl reaches forward and tremulously touches her face his finger- she starts and whimpers and pulls away, causing Videl to snatch his hand away.

"Hush," he snaps as she wails when he covers her cut stomach with a wet cloth he has grabbed from one of the menacing shelves, "That should stay the blood."

She twists her head back and forth, still in agony, still sobbing. Videl stares down at her, with animalistic calculation. His nostrils flare as he stares at the blood, and growling, he turns away from the temptation. He slams his fist into the wall again.

"Wh-hy..." she whimpers.

"Why what?" demands Videl in a frightening voice.

"Why...you stopped....why...."

"Why did I not let him rape you?" he hisses, "Would you prefer that I have let him?"

"N-n-no..." Thea's voice is petrified.

Videl rolls his eyes, but he is panting from the smell of the blood, "Are you certain? Because all I have to do is call him in here like a dog, and rest assured, he will-"

"N-n-o, sto-o-p," she begs, crying.

He glares down at her, his eyes dilating, and then he can resist no further. He lunges, pushing Thea's neck back roughly and digging his fangs into her soft skin. She shrieks and kicks, jangling the chains in a brutal effort to get away, chaffing her wrists as she does so, although her energy is nearly completely spent.. "STOP, PLEASE, STOP, VIDEL, STO-O-O-P!"

"I can't," says Videl thickly and ravenously, still draining her blood, his amber eyes darkening with thirst, speaking over her desperate screams, "You are alone, and you are going to suffer until you d-" Videl trails off, and then speaks in a low voice as he continues biting and as she continues screaming, "You scream for your companions, but whatever for, you desperate child!? Where's your monster now?!"

The door slams open with a resounding boom and Videl raises his head, Thea's blood dribbling crimson from his lips and down his neck. He slowly straightens up, his amber eyes fixed on the sight before him.

Loki is standing there, with a murderous look on his face, breathing heavily with scarcely concealed fury. For a moment he just stares right back at Videl, who feels himself pale, and then his eyes fall on the torn, tortured, bloody, prone figure of Thea lying, chained to the horizontal chair.

As Loki bangs the door shut behind him, Videl backs away from the chair slowly, his eyes hooded and his lip curling.

Loki ignores him and stalks across the room. Thea's eyes are closed as she continues to writhe and scream quietly in perpetual agony. His eyes narrow as they spot the dagger still impaled in her arm, surrounded by blood, and grow dangerous as they come across the chaffs on her wrists and on her ankles- including the broken one and the inflamed bites on her neck. With an incandescent glare at nothing in particular, Loki grasps the hilt of the dagger and yanks it out of her arm. She cries out, shutting her eyes tightly, tears trickling from her eyes.

He takes her hand, "Thea," he whispers, "Kitten, open your eyes, it's me."

Her green eyes snap open and panting, she looks up at him, "L-Loki-i-i?" She dissolves into sobs

"Shh," Loki runs his fingers across her sweaty, bloody cheek, "Shh, my darling. I'm here. You're all right, you're all right." Still ignoring Videl,  Loki effortlessly breaks the chains and then rips the needle from her wrist, slowing the blood flow, "Sit up for me, darling, sit up if you can."

She makes an effort, but then collapses in agonized, heaving sobs, crying out in absolute pain. Loki's eyes dart over to her stomach, which is covered in the cloth, but still notices the blood. His hand trembling with fury, he lifts up the fabric, then hisses through his teeth when he sees it. There are letters carved into her stomach, swollen, red, and still cracked with blood.

Monster.

Loki slams the dagger down on the ground and whirls to face Videl, "Oh, you've done it now."

Videl just stares at him with barely a discernable smirk playing on his lips.

Loki walks slowly in Videl's general direction, "You tried my patience when you threatened her with a mission that was scarcely attainable. You tried my patience when you frightened her with your nightmares. You tried my patience," Loki grabs Videl by the neck, who looks to be at the edge of fear and amusement, "You tried my patience when you bit her in the middle of the night and sent screams through the camp. You tried my patience when you forced her, by your hand, to kill her own sister. But now," Loki chuckles without any humor, with hardly concealed malice, "But now, Videl, you have crossed the line. You have crossed a line so adeptly, there is no going back."

Videl screams as Loki throws a glittering dagger into his arm, pinning him to the wall. Another throw, another scream, and Videl's arms are fixed to the wall as if on a crucifix. Videl grunts in pain as he breathes loudly.

"L-l-Loki," whimpers Thea.

Immediately, he looks away from Videl and at Thea who is still lying on the chair in agony, and his voice is filled with concern, "What is it, kitten?"

"Don't...kill...don't...kill...him...pleaseeeeee," she begs.

He glares at her and then continues that glare to Videl, "You see this? You torture her and now she begs for your life!"

Videl curls his lip, then appears to try to spin around in space. Then, he cries out in pain and snarls at Loki, "What did you do? I can't- I can't Jaunt!" Loki just smiles, and Videl spits out, "Sorcerer!"

"You call me a monster. You slice those same letters into the skin of an innocent girl. But the real monster is you, Videl, and you know it! You tortured a young girl, and no ordinary child, you tortured the child who captured my heart and who means worlds to me!"

"She killed my father," hisses Videl.

In response, Loki whirls another knife at Videl, and this one pierces through the Velah's thigh. As Videl squeezes his eyes shut in pain, he grunts, "Are you going to kill me? If so, I'd rather you get it over with now."

Videl cries out as another dagger pins his other thigh to the wall.

Loki growls, "If you ask for forgiveness, you are asking the absolute wrong person. I have no soft heart, I have none of that weakness, none of that vulnerability!"

"Except for...her..."  Videl nods towards Thea.

"And now you've tortured her. Now what do you possibly think that means for you?"

Videl smirks, "Haven't the slightest-" Another dagger in the arm- "...clue."

"L-L-Loki," Thea sobs, "Please...stop!"

Loki whirls around to look at Thea, "What do you want? For him to live?"

She nods weakly.

"Why?" he spits at her, "He has tortured you for months, not just now!"  

"Because...he's...not...all bad," she manages to say, her eyes rolling as she attempts to stay conscious. "Just like...you..."

Loki snarls and flings another dagger into Videl's other arm. Both his and Thea's screams ring through the building.

Ignoring them both, Loki stalks up to Videl and presses one of the daggers farther into the trembling Velah's body. As Videl winces, blood running across his body, Loki growls, "Know that the only reason you are alive," he pushes the dagger farther, and Videl cannot resist gasping, "Is because I do not want Thea to have to see another murder."

"Then turn her around," quips Videl weakly.

"Do you want to try my patience any further, you moron?" Loki slams another dagger into Videl's leg- by the cracking sound, it's evident that Videl's leg is now broken.

Videl closes his eyes and raises his eyebrows while suppressing a groan, "Not...particularly."

Loki turns away from him in disgust and walks back over to Thea. Leaning down, he kisses her sweaty, tear-stricken, blood-stained forehead, "All right, darling, put your arms around me."

"I...I can't..." she sobs. Her arms are too weak.

"All right, shh, shh," Loki murmurs, putting his arms under her neck and legs. She cries out despite herself as he lifts her up and begins to cry into his armor. Loki glares furiously at Videl, and the Velah realizes that it is only the girl in his arms that is protecting his life.  

---

Guys, I struggled mightily while writing this chapter, partly because it's cringing and partly because I couldn't decide whether or not to kill Videl. I decided not to, and you'll find out why later. 

Please VOTE and COMMENT :D 

Love, Sierra