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398. Last One Standing
🕑 Added 2025-05-21 01:53:16 +0000 UTCIke absorbed Llewyn. It was shockingly easy. Llewyn himself resisted, but the rest of the fragments didn’t, or maybe they couldn’t. They felt washed out, as if something had been taken from them. Ike twisted his lips, his suspicions proven right. Brightbriar had helped Llewyn acquire his fragments, and in so doing, had made absorbing them meaningless. It was as though everything Brightbriar did to help only sabotaged his ultimate goal.
Maybe that was the punishment. To have his goal in front of him, eternally unreachable, and everything he did only got in his own way. But then Ike had come along, done his own thing, and fucked up the punishment… which was a real shame, honestly, because the last thing he wanted was to help Brightbriar. On the other hand, he didn’t want to be held back in his advancement because of some random person’s random desire to punish Brightbriar. He understood it—he also wanted to punish Brightbriar—but not at the cost of his own advancement. Someone should punish him, but not at the cost of a third person who was unrelated to all of this. aka Ike.
Then again, maybe they never foresaw that Brightbriar would just sow his wild oats and avoid trying to help in any way, Ike thought. After all, even with the King, Brightbriar had tried to step in at the end and force the King to advance according to his own plans. The King had seen it as an attack, but Brightbriar… Ike suspected that Brightbriar thought he was helping, or at least pointing a wayward child in the right direction.
Even now, did this count as Brightbriar’s intervention? Ike wondered for a moment, but didn’t let the thought trouble him for long. He didn’t really care if he became the greater being or not, and he fully intended to end Brightbriar here, right now, today, if he could. Whoever had punished Brightbriar would simply have to suck it, because Ike had other plans.
Llewyn screamed. All four arms hammered at Ike with all the strength he had left, even as Ike absorbed all the other fragments out of him. Abruptly, spider threads appeared and tied Llewyn’s arms to the floor, leaving Ike to absorb him in peace.
“Thanks,” Ike said.
Wisp shook her head at him. “You tie them up first before you suck them dry. It’s just how it works. If you don’t tie them up, they won’t just sit there and let you eat them, you know? Spider basics, right there.”
Ike nodded. Compared to him, Wisp had absorbed hundreds, if not thousands, of people, animals, beasts, monsters, and insects. She was the expert absorber, not him, and she clearly knew what she was talking about. “What can I say? Sometimes you really do have superior spider logic.”
Wisp gestured at him. “He understands! I knew you could learn, Ike.”
“Problem is, I can’t create thread like you,” Ike said mournfully.
Wisp patted his shoulder. “That’s why I’m here with you, buddy. I’m here to help you with all your deficiencies.”
“When you put it like that, it’s so comforting,” Ike said sarcastically.
Wisp just grinned.
The consciousnesses flowed into Ike. Llewyn struggled mentally as well as physically, but Ike persisted. He grabbed Llewyn’s mind and dragged it into himself. Llewyn kicked and twisted, fighting like a fish on the line. Ike just kept pulling, figuring he’d stop eventually.
A fist jutted out of the darkness and punched Llewyn in the jaw. The King laughed. That should stun him.
Another hand burst out next to Ike’s and helped him pull Llewyn in. I’m here, the Prince said quietly.
The infants burst out, materializing abruptly. Ike startled, not sure whose side they were on. They rushed over Llewyn, then latched on and began to punch, bite, and kick him as hard as they could.
Ike raised his brows, realizing it even as he watched it. Someone had killed the infants. He doubted Brightbriar personally went to end each of them. Who was closer to Brightbriar, more his closest confidant, than Llewyn? Who else would Brightbriar trust to evaluate whether the children were enough fragments to be worth raising?
Llewyn probably hadn’t killed all of them, but clearly he’d killed enough that they bore a grudge against him. Llewyn vanished under a mess of tiny fists and kicks, and Ike pulled him in.
The moment before Ike absorbed him completely, Llewyn snapped his eyes open. He reached out to Brightbriar. “Please…!”
Brightbriar stared at him, his eyes empty, an empty smile on his face.
Llewyn’s eyes darkened. He lowered his gaze and returned all his energy to struggling against Ike, knowing help would not come.
As Llewyn closed in, Ike landed one final blow on his mental projection’s jaw, then yanked him into the darkness within him. Llewyn would become part of him, whether he liked it or not.
Ike took a deep breath, then opened his eyes. Llewyn thrashed around inside him, like the mental version of indigestion. The infants and the King pummeled him, beating him into place. Even Accais joined in, to Ike’s surprise, though that seemed more of the man venting a personal grudge than anything to help Ike intentionally.
Turning, he faced Brightbriar. Wisp hopped up beside him, and Mag hurried over onto his other side. The three of them faced the man who would control Ike, who gave them a placid smile and stood, tucking the chair he’d summoned back into the storage ring. As if his closest son hadn’t just been absorbed, he gestured. “There’s something I’d like to show you. Would you come?”
“Fuck no!” Ike snapped. He had no intention of following Brightbriar anywhere. He was done with playing by Brightbriar’s tune. It was time for Brightbriar to play by Ike’s tune. He charged toward Brightbriar, Wisp and Mag close at his heels.
