Chapter 47: Solitary

With a hand covering his eyes, Parc laid atop his cell bed. The soft cushioning beneath him the only sense of comfort around him. He wasn't sure how long he'd been stuck in this cell since Esdeath forced her own insemination. His only form of light being a few candles they'd given him.

So far he'd gone through at least eight of them. Which if his predictions were right lasted about six to seven hours each. Not including the time, he was asleep or just didn't care to relight it, he'd spent at least forty eight hours in here.

Adding in his current half burnt one and that was upwards of fifty hours. Going even further to add said sleeping hours and hours without light, it could very well have been nearly a week since he last saw a human.

Even Esdeath who seemed to care—in the loosest definition of the word—for him didn't come to see him after tossing him in here.

The thing was, Parc thought he could escape the room pretty easily by using his chains to dig through the stone around him, but that would just take to long and leave him running around a palace of elite soldiers and worse yet, the Jaegers. One of which was undoubtedly assigned to keep watch over him if Esdeath wasn't doing so herself.

"Haaa…" he sighed pushing himself up from his bed, "I need to do something…" It wasn't the solitary confinement getting to him. It was the lack of anything to do. He could cut a cross hatch into the walls and play tic-tac-toe. But he'd run out of space and couldn't stand being stuck in a room that made him look like a deranged lunatic in a stone cushioned room.

The only thing he could think to do was stare at the bracelet on his wrist, turning it over to look at the three golden orbs one of which remained black as it continued to control Kurome. He had felt during Esdeath's little sexcapade a fear welling up within it.

It was an animalistic fear, one of pure instinct holding little to no true sentient emotion.

It was a curious thing to him, he had heard from Bulat that the danger beast Incursio was crafted from—a Tyrant—was still very much alive and kicking within the teigu, allowing it to evolve and adapt to better suit the challenges imposed upon it.

Now he could feel a tinge of 'life' from his own.

Just what was his teigu crafted from that a part of it could even survive after being manufactured into this bracelet?

Would it also be capable of evolving like Incursio?

That was the real question he wanted answered.

If it could, then how could he get it to evolve? It wouldn't be as simple as Incursio's that much he could tell. The Tyrant was a hardy creature, it biology was what granted it the rapid evolutionary abilities.

But Parc's wasn't crafted from a tyrant, no where in any records of the Tyrant from five centuries ago was there any mention of it being capable of controlling the minds of other creatures.

"Just what are you?" He muttered.

Hard metallic clunks reverbed throughout the room drawing Parc's gaze to the door where it originated from.

Slowly the door began to open, the metal creaking as it did until a flood of light brighter than any candle caused Parc to wince and look away. Seemed it wasn't breakfast, lunch or dinner if someone was coming into the room.

"Come in," he joked as he nursed his eyeballs to get them used to the light.

In his vision soon came the appearance of a blonde haired boy with a feather hair ornament on the right side of his head.

"Run, right?" Parc commented meeting eyes with the boy.

"Indeed. I do believe this is our first proper meeting, Parc. The general requested I check on you to ensure you are in good health."

Parc shrugged, "eh, I'm as good as I can be lacking vitamin D and exercise and enrichment, and flowing water. By the way, any chance I could get a bath? I'm feeling grimy."

"I will have to ask the general before promising anything."

It was a generic answer, and it made Parc roll his eyes, "guessed as much. Haa… do you need anything else or this it?"

Run looked around the room for anything miss, any loose bricks and holes, anything out of the ordinary. "No. I believe that will be all. Pleasure meeting you Parc," Parc could see his forced smile from half a mile away.

"Yeah, 'pleasure'" Parc leaned against the wall, pulling a single foot onto the bed while letting his head hand low, his eyes shutting just enough that he could barely see Run through his eyelashes

As Run made his way towards the door, Parc slowly raised his left hand, his teigu activating and the chain from hi index finger knuckle shooting towards Run's back, the spear tip aiming for the heart. About to puncture through it when two wings suddenly sprouted from Run's back, one of them flaring and knocking the chain aside while the other spun along with Run's body sending sharpened feathers careening towards Parc, yet missing him by mere millimeters, forming a Parc shaped silhouette of white feathers in the wall.

Parc's glance to a feather besides his cheek and snorted, "little overkill, don't you think?" he snorted.

"I do not believe so," Run retorted, his wings on end as Parc's chain rapidly returned into the gem. "I do advise you not to try anything like that with the others. I am likely the most forgiving of the Jaegers. Now, good evening Parc. Perhaps I will be seeing you again soon." Run pulled open the door.

"Ah, Run, do you think I could get the books on the creation of the teigu's? Preferably anything about the various beast that were hunted down to make them."

Run tilted his head back, looking down to Parc's gauntleted hand with a frown. "I make no promises." He shut the door behind him, a hard click as he locked it behind himself.

With him gone, Parc released another sigh. His little probing attack on Run had proven effective in letting him know how cautious they were around him. While having Kurome under his control was certainly a boon, having two more of the Jaegers would be even better, Esdeath would be the best, but she was going to be the hardest to get the chains around for long enough for the energy to transfer into her and make the mark.

His body lurched to the side, falling onto his bed. Just about the only thing he could do apart from banging his head on the wall to knock him out or just shutting his eyes and going to sleep, even if he wasn't particularly tired right now.

Lighting his hand up he summoned out the thickest chain from beneath his wrist, grabbing the thick metal in both hands, holding it just above his head, the spear tip handing dangerously close to his cheek.

His fingers caressing the hardy silver metal dyed a faint orangish yellow from the candle flickering on his nightstand. He hadn't really inspected the chains this closely before, taking in the flawless links that looked to have been formed around one another. The exquisite, almost ornamental spearhead that flared out at the base forming jagged edges. A few swirls of ink like darkness along the blades for aesthetics as far as he could tell.

Other than those few things it looked just like an ordinary, polished chain. And yet, these ordinary looking chains were one of the forty seven most dangerous objects in possibly the entire world, crafted from monsters that could bring kingdoms to their knees.

He wanted to know more about it.

Just what it was.

Retracting the chain and spear back into the gauntlet, Parc turned his hand over, tilting his hand back to get a better view of the largest gemstone. His other hand raising to stroke along it.

"Hnn?" he frowned stoking it again, feeling the orb spin in its socket, "It's loose?" he hadn't noticed that before. Then again, he had never really felt the orbs themselves. Using his index and thumb, Parc tried to pinch the orbs, but found it too deep and slick to get any proper grip on it.

Curling the tip of his finger down, he began to scratch his nail around where the orb was connected to the gauntlet, finding a small gap to press his nail in deeper, the idea of him accidentally breaking it flickering through his mind. Soon disappearing that it wouldn't be an imperial arms if a simple fingernail could break it.

His nail dug deeper until Parc heard a sudden *pop* and the orb came loose from the gauntlet nearly falling off his hand and onto the bed had he not caught it in time.

"It actually came out…" he muttered pinching the orb between his fingers, seeing that it really was just that, an orb of gold. "Is that it?" Parc pointed the orb towards the door and put in the order to summon the chains, nothing came out.

"So… I've made it weake…r… the hell?"

Between his fingers Parc could feel movement, the orb undulated and shifted within his fingers. Letting it roll onto his palm, Parc silently observed the strange occurrences.

Watching as the orb opened in an almost flower like manner, separating into four petal like structures that curled down and pressed into Parc's pals, creating a form of stand for the small black orb that was hidden within the petals.

"Okay, that's a first," just as Parc's gauntleted finger got closer to the orb, it shifted, the four petals bent and twisted, lifting from his skin and scuttled away from his approaching finger, travelling to the back of his palm like a spider.

Flipping his hand over, the construct had come to stop at the centre of his palm, "It… moves?" not only that, there in the very centre of the black orb a purple ring was forming. Growing thicker and thinner as the ring spun around the small orb.

Parc's vision grew hazy and a searing pain forced itself into his head as new images forced their way into his mind. "Gah," he groaned shutting his eyes and cupping his head.

Yet darkness didn't meet him when his eyes shut, instead what he saw was himself, the world around him had turned a dark purple, while he himself was lit up in a much brighter shade. Not just that, he looked ginormous with his hand on his head as if he were nursing a headache.

'Wait,' Parc opened his eyes, meeting the normal world once again. Shutting them, he returned to the violet hued world and back to viewing himself as if he were a giant.

His eyes shot open, lips trembling as they quirked up, locking onto the spider orb on his hand. No… not spider… Eye.

In his hand he held his third eye and what amounted to a miniature camera drone.

Turns out his teigu was hiding more secrets than even just mind control.

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Been a little stumped with writing this, so I'm going to take a break for a day or two and focus on something else, you'll all still get updates, but there probably won't be anything new on patron for a few days.

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Haaa... Now to deal with Parc's race of being a Nephilim.

While yes, I do agree that a crossbreed between a Valkyrie and a demon, two contradicting species, one that is 'holy' and one that is 'unholy' should technically make Parc stronger (ffs I'm getting tired of that word) I'm going along the lines of 'perhaps interbreeding species is not a particularly good thing,' at least, initially.

To this extent I think about Parc's race as two opposing forces.

His holy, Valkyric line which grants him his Rush of the Nephilim, a powered down version of the Rush of the Valkyrie ability that Valykries have. Which I will denote as white in my explanation in a bit.

And his unholy, Demonic line which grants him his [Scent of Attraction] ability. Which is a powered down version of a true lust demons [Scent of Attraction] ability. And thus will be denoted as black in the explanation.

Imagine this, you have hotwater dyed red, and cold water dyed blue. Cold water is heavy and sinks, while hot water is lighter and thus will rise forming two seperate layers, the cold, blue water on the bottom and the warm, red water on top with a tiny sliver between them of purple where the water starts to blend together. But still, there are two seperate layers.

You can compare this to Parc, currently he has these three layers, black, grey and white. The black and white grant him his abilities, but the grey where the two opposing forces blends together corrupts and damages said abilities. He is neither purely black, nor purely white. He has a bit of grey inbetween that parasitizes the black AND white.

But let me throw you a hypothetical, say at some point in the future Parc discovers, I don't know, a way to remove the corruptive grey and get his black and white parts into a pure equilibrium, each existing as one in their own, yet not blending together. Would that not mean he has two pure, undamaged energies inside him living in perfect harmony thus making them more powerful? Would that not also mean his abilities would become a true comparison to his parents abilities? Could they not also grow stronger?

I am treating Nephilim and various other races in Parc's homeworld as essentially humans, but more. They aren't these overpowered godkin. Just humans with wings and special abilities. They can be weak. They can be strong. They can interbreed. And that comes with downsides.

You can breed two different species of dogs with one another, but there will always be some underlying sickness inherited by the child from both the parents. But there will also be inherited strengths and resistances that fight against sicknesses that the other parents have.

Crossbreeds are not stable existences. They live life on a precarious edge between health and sickness. All it takes in one issue that neither parent's genes can fight to drastically lessen the lifespan of the child. And Parc is currently on that edge

Rant over but I will add a little more.

Have patience.

This is only the beginning.