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[indent][indent][indent][color=gray][sub][right][color=dc143c][b]Location:[/b][/color] City Streets -- City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria[/right][/sub][/color]
[hr]Graves' skull was a pressure cooker seconds from exploding. A high-pitched, piercing wail filled his ears. It felt like someone was pressing their thumbs into his eyes from [i]in his head.[/i] Every inch of his body shook from the overdose of adrenaline flooding his veins. When his assault began the look on his face was one of indignant rage: a desire to get one back on someone that had hurt him. Now, as he wheeled on Seele, marching toward her with malicious intent, his face was a mix of confusion and sheer, unadulterated rapture. Every strike from Siegfried sent a pulse of delight through him. Every time Graves blade kissed flesh he was practically giddy with glee. The smell of blood filled his nostrils, urging him onward.

It was the best high of his fuckin' life.

This was how Graves' magic worked in practice: he needed to either cause or endure pain enough to make blood flow. No sane human being would ever throw themselves into harms way like that without radically altering their natural instinct toward self-preservation- so that's precisely what Graves' mentor taught him what to do. Dark magic turned what ought to have been pain to pleasure. It sent waves of dopamine and serotonin into his brain every time it registered the scent of blood. Most pedestrian drugs with this level of intensity would've fried his nerve clusters eventually.

Most of those drugs didn't come packed with a healing factor.

The strength was stripped from his arms as Seele desperately worked her magic. He could hear the unnerving, unintelligible whispers that came with her hexes. That ravenous thing in his chest saw it as further excuse to...[i]neutralize[/i] her.

Somewhere in the depths of his mind Andrew knew this was wrong. He needed to stop himself. Needed to fight the urge to fill his base, ugly needs before he hurt someone. Before he hurt Missy.

[i][color=dc143c]'Please, God, stop. Please.'[/color][/i] 

[sub][i][color=dc143c]Let it happen.[/color][/i][/sub]

[i][color=dc143c]'Just fucking stop yourself already.'[/color][/i]

[sub][i][color=dc143c]It'll be over sooner if you just let go.[/color][/i][/sub]

[color=dc143c]"P-please..."[/color] Graves managed the barest of whispers, stiffled between sucking coughs.

[sub][i][color=dc143c]Not like they'll forgive this anyway. Might as well let it ride.[/color][/i][/sub]

For the briefest moment Graves stopped swinging down at Siegfried. He held the knife in the air over him, staring down into the boy's eyes with a glassy, indeterminate ecstasy. His hand shaking nigh-uncontrollably, he turned the blade around in his palm until it was facing inward- and jabbed it down into his chest, just under the clavicle. A pained roar ate at his throat as he pulled the weapon free only to slam it back into place in the same place again, and then a third time, until finally he struck the right section of nerves for his fingers to go limp. The knife clattered to the floor and Graves stumbled onto a knee. 

He couldn't even look Siegfried in the face as he muttered to him: [color=dc143c]"E-end...it."[/color]
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