[h3]Xavier[/h3]

[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C-k_3dcfNY]Darkness overtaking Sanity[/url]

“Wait, what are you talking ab-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-” Xavier had been focused on other things, so he hadn’t heard Gwen’s previous order for Caroline to strip. Now he was well and truly broken, his face an intense shade of red as he saw Caroline in just her underwear, and he could help but repeatedly saying the “b” like a broken record, the cigarette in his moth having fallen out on the 20th one. Cassandra giggled at his nervousness, snuggling in closer to whisper in his ear.

[i]‘You’re staring, my prince’[/i]

Xavier quickly did an about-turn away from the artifact mage, keeping his senses open for any of the illusions that Caroline had been talking about, and trying his best to resist the temptation to turn around. ‘I don’t know if I should curse Gwen, or bless her. I think I’ll settle for doing both, this is the best and worst thing to have ever happen to me.’ As Xavier tried his best to resist temptation, he didn’t notice Cassandra silently mouthing the words of a spell, the words soft as the wind and just as coherent. As soon as she finished, the smell of cinnamon waft over to Xavier, except it seemed to rapidly grow in strength to the point that Xavier began to choke on it, yet it disappeared as soon as it had come.

[h3][color=ed1c24][b]Warning:[/b] The rest of the post could be considered to have rather graphic imagery, I’m putting this here as warning. Read on at your own discretion[/color][/h3]

[i]‘What was that?,’[/i] Xavier thought, before he felt a hand grasp at his leg. Looking down, he quickly backed away in horror at what he saw. It was Gwen, except now she had been torn in  her half, a trail of blood leading to where her legs remained. She continued to crawl to xavier, who continued to back up, until he tripped over something. Falling backwards, he landed in a warm, wet liquid. Bring his hand up, he saw it covered in blood, blood that was coming from Sable’s mangled corpse. His arms had been ripped from his body and the scarf he wore could be seen coming from his throat. Xavier screamed as he got up, backing away in terror as he saw the full scope of the nightmare in front of him.

Everyone was dead, their bodies now barely recognizable as human beings. Yuuyami and her puppet’s were hanging from a window, crucified and covered in hundreds of wounds, many of which were the skin appeared to be melted off with acid. Britz was near the carnival area, his prized golden sword stabbed through his chest. Aran’s body was in pieces, the massacre just barely concealed in a nearby alleyway. A red haired harpy, he didn’t know his name, was nothing more than burned flesh from the neck down, his face frozen in a look of intense agony and suffering, empty sockets staring at Xavier, the blackness seeming to penertrate his very soul. 

“It’s an illusion,” Xavier said to himself in a shaking voice, trying to make himself believe what he knew to be true. “Caroline said it, it's just an illusion, none of this is real. Come on Xavier, snap out of it.” But nothing he said made the horror go away, in fact it just seemed to make it worse. The putrid smell of blood, and burned flesh mixed together to form a pungent cocktail, assaulting his sense, cementing him in this reality. 

“Help. . . . . . us . . . . .” Xavier turned around slowly, whatever fear he had felt before being overwhelmed as he saw what lay behind him.

It was him, the demon from Magnolia, with his blazing red eyes with ethereal blue pupils, and his haunting skull-like mask, stained red by the blood he had spilt. His cloaked writhed and slithered around his form as if it was alive, and blood-red flames surrounded his form like the halo of fallen angel of death and devastation. In his hands, both beaten and nude, were Reina and Caroline. He gripped them both by their necks, his grip like iron and slowly squeezing the life out of the two mages. They reach out to Xavier, begging and pleading for his help, but their words fall on ears deafened by fear. In was intense fear, one that was bottomless and all consuming. He had no words, he had no thoughts, only a feeling of helplessness that encompassed his entire being.

[color=9e0b0f][i]‘Craven,’[/i][/color] he heard whispered into his mind, knowing that it was the demon in front of him that spoke, [color=9e0b0f][i]‘Weakling, Child, Pathetic, Useless, Worthless.’[/i][/color] The demon repeated these words over and over, and with each one, another demon stepped out of the shadows, holding onto another Caroline and Reina. Soon, they were uncountable in number, and moved as one. Caroline thrown in front of them, and killed in a single motion with a swift and ruthless stomp to the head. The splatter covered Xavier, shocking him from his stupor, and what he saw before him left him too horrified to scream. Tears came down in rivers as the demon moved on to Reina, gripping her head before electrocuting her, adding to the smell of burning flesh with the sounds of wet popping and sizzling. 

The demons dropped their respective corpses, and as one approached Xavier with an outstretched hand, wreathed in red energy, once again repeating the mantra., Xavier fell to his knees, unable to do anything but await his fate. The demon was right, he was weak, he was craven, he was worthless, he was the one thing that he had always hated to be called, hated be treated as such, a child. And now, he was going to die because he thought he could play mages.

Suddenly, a pair of hands covered his eyes from the horror approaching him, he felt the familiar press of a woman against his back, and heard her voice in his ear. 

“Remember, my prince,” she whispered delicately, “that if you want power. . .”

“I must take it for myself.” Xavier finished, his tone empty and without emotion, and the hands left his eyes, revealing him to be in a field of white snow that he was very familiar with. It was the snowfield that lay outside of town, and it was his favorite place to be when he was a small kid. The perfect place to practice his magic without endangering anyone. And in front of him, was Cassandra, a smile on her face and her arms open and inviting. The snow beneath Xavier began to blacken, the purity and innocence giving way to something darker, wilder, uncontrollable. . .  and filled to the brim with the power he craved, and yet he couldn’t reach it yet. He had yet to awaken that strength.

He walked towards Cassandra, his eyes shadow by his hair as he approached, the corruption spreading out around like a storm, causing the snow-laden ground to roll and writhe, tendrils rising to the sky as if to tear it down and throw the world into Chaos. He stopped just infront of the woman, right between her open arms.

“Don’t worry, I’ll always be by your side always, so please take from me the power you wish for.” 

Xavier said nothing in return, only brought up a hand to form a obsidian dagger form the cloud of blackened ash that was beginning to rise from the darkness all around them. He struck swift and true, rushing into the embrace and touching her heart with his blade. Cassandra enveloped him with her arms, accepting him, and together they fell into the darkness.

[h3]((In Real Time))[/h3]

Xavier had been staring into space for the longest time, tears falling from his eyes, and his body seeming to shiver, but it stopped as he suddenly fell to his knees. He stayed down for a time, slumped over with his feature hidden by his red hair. It slowly began to darken, however, to a deeper scarlet red that looked like fresh blood, and a dark miasma began to form around him. Deep inside of him, something was waking up, slowly but surely. The process had begun, and it would not be dormant for long. Xavier would remain unresponsive to anyone who approached him, and if they looked into his eyes, all they would see was an empty darkness, as the entirety of his eyes had become black. With each passing second, the miasma would grow, as would an increasing sense of intense magical energy from Xavier, though what kind of energy it was couldn’t be known.