Chapter Text
“You already know the story. You will die. Everyone you love will also die. You will lose them forever. You will be sad and angry. You will weep. You will bargain. You will make demands. You will beg. You will pray. It will make no difference. Nothing you can do will bring them back. You know this. Your knowing changes nothing. This poem will make you understand this unfathomable truth again and again, as if for the very first time.”
― The Iliad, Translated by Emily Wilson
Jayce was prepared for many things when he flung himself through the core of the Hexgate after the arcane-fueled monster making a mockery of his ex-partner's corpse. He had expected a difficult fight. He expected agony, sorrow, terror, pain, demise. Expected to have his heart re-broken in a way that somehow would fare worse than the weight of hollowing out the chest of the greatest love and life he'd ever known—of discovering that same love started this whole universe-bending-and-ending-cycle of fuckery long before he ever knew the man's face or name. Before Hextech was even an idea, let alone an industry. He expected to fall in this battle, to be beaten and battered and broken, to be defeated. None of this prevented him from an honest attempt at overcoming the odds. Jayce had already dragged Piltover and possibly all of Runeterra into this convoluted mess; the least he could do was try in vain to pull them out of it. Cost of his own hide be damned, there was a job to do—havoc on the horizon to face.
Hammer in calloused, gloved hands, hesitation had not been on the table from the moment this war began.
He wouldn't have considered sex on the table at the time, either. Nor did it make it to his list of anticipations—before or during battle. Carnal pleasure wasn't anywhere near his mind in fact, hadn't even crossed it in an indeterminable amount of time. Such things were reserved for a different hour, a different life entirely. One he had left behind the moment he was sucked into the anomaly and separated from this universe, thrown to an apocalyptic ravine with a shattered leg and forced to survive off scraps and waveriders while seeing his partner's faces shifting in the fire.
Jayce heard the buzz of the laser cutting through metal doors before anything else. There was no time for thought, no moment to spare for checking over his shoulder at what may or may not be coming through. The instinctive part of him already knew what—who—approached. He continued his efforts of dismantling the Hexgate with unrelenting focus, unwilling and unwanting to know or face the new form of what had found its way to him. His hands tremble occasionally as they work though his resolve is steady. The heavy thudding of the door falling away resounds behind him, accompanied by the sharpness of glass shattering; a metallic clack-clack-clack-ing against stone. The sound is nostalgic in a way that sickens him. A farce of a long-lost man approaches Jayce now, in the shell of something entirely other. Something changed and morphed and wrong that, somehow, Jayce still recognizes as his estranged partner.
Viktor.
No—that isn't right. This isn't Viktor, he tries to convince himself. It is a machine, the Herald. The Hexcore living in his skin, more than anything. Something of Viktor might be buried in there somewhere, but this? This is not him. This could never be the man Jayce knows and loves.
"Despite the circumstances, Jayce..."
The voice of the calamity echoes, warbling mechanically. It is otherworldly, the sound just barely reminiscent of Viktor's voice along the edges. A cold, cruel thing that stabs right through whatever is left of the rotted heart in Jayce's chest. The voice reverberates through the room; or perhaps, it sounds directly in Jayce's head. Its tone becomes warmer, softer, more familiar of what it once was as it completes its statement next: a knife twisted deeper with sickening sentiment. Jayce can't really place directly where it's coming from, but he can place the feelings that hearing it evokes. Longing.
"I am... pleased to see you."
Jayce scans the thing in front of him then, sparing a moment he doesn't have to take it in fully—mind and heart torn into shreds with the fact that yes—this is still Viktor. Somehow. Or what remains of him, at the very least. A purple, metallic mockery of the long anatomy he had as a human, different even from when he first revived: appearance godlike and terrifying in its twisted beauty. A halo of runes frame him from behind, sacrilegious yet stunning. There is no mouth to move, no mole to fixate on, no light brown eyes to stare into. His hair somehow appears the same, just longer. Little else remains that reflects his old partner in any way. The cane that once supported him has stretched in height as much as the body had, a staff now more than anything. It is still carried as though it supplies the same assistance it offered when he was imperfectly human and it was but a cane. The golden lattice along the center of him still remains visibly similar to the way it had looked when it was a brace that wrapped around him, rather than essentially a form of armored flesh itself.
Notably, the blanket that Jayce had draped him in upon his rebirth and revival—the same blanket that remained wrapped around his waist at the commune when Jayce shot clean through him—was draped around the Arcane Herald's shoulders, fastened by an elaborate gold pin into a make-shift cloak. It has tattered and ripped, two ribbons of red and blue fluttering behind the massive form like wings. He can't stomach staring at the thing's face for long; the sides of it are still horrifyingly Viktor's human face. The remnants of his partner's visage are cut in half by something flat, smoothed over like marble and crowned in gold. A face so lifeless and unsettling that it makes Jayce's stomach twist, causes the blood in his veins to grow frigid, glacial. He loathes it. His hands twitch with the urge to peel the mask straight off. He busies them again with the charges, forcing the next one out so roughly it stings his palms.
If Jayce didn't know what—who—may still reside within the exoskeleton, he would have shot the thing clean through then and there out of instinctive terror, with none of the hesitation he had in the commune. He wouldn't have even felt guilty for it. But despite the flux of rage, terror, hatred, disgust and grief that thrashes in his heart at the sight of it; love for Viktor remains at the core of it all, stops him from being able to attack head-on. It might not be Viktor but whatever may remain of Viktor may be harbored within it. For now. He really doesn't want to fight anyway, even if he was expecting one. Even if he knows it is inevitable. Some part of him is bitterly convinced that with enough time and communication he could still crack through the layers of this newfound Herald and the Hexcore's corruption; reclaim his Viktor beneath it, or whatever shards are left of him.
He has the pathetic inkling of hope that if he can break through the hardened outer edges of that mask, if he can hollow out another crater in just the right place, he may still find something of tender flesh beneath it. Viktor's natural face rests along the sides of the exterior after all; so perhaps, his authentic soul remains too in some perimeter within the abomination. Even if it is split apart, maybe Jayce can find a way to stitch it back together...? A frantic yearning grips from deep within Jayce to go back in time, to fling himself into the anomaly into another life where the end is not so nigh; to fix this, to end the insanity, to claw his way through metal plates to Viktor and get his fucking partner back. To free them all from the folly of Jayce's own hubris. To repent for the mistake he made in playing god himself, when he brought Viktor back against his promise.
Grief comes in stages. Jayce skips past the denial and anger, settles instead on bargaining.
"There must be some part of you still in there," he laments; pleading, searching.
"I am more than I ever was," The Herald retorts, a hum of power accompanying it.
Yet you lack everything that ever made you what you were, Jayce doesn't bother saying though his heart screams it. You are less, now. Hollowed. Emptied. Soulless. Not more.
The golden pin-point lights that create the impression of eyes in the mask of the uncanny being before him glow brighter with intent. It does not stop or slow its approach, steady steps breaking crystalline floors and closing the gap between them bit by bit. Jayce's adrenaline pushes him to continue his own task, even as explosions of their war echo from above and around him. He continues the work of unslotting the charges from the Hexgate with a hurry, futile effort that it is, desperate for any chance to prevent whatever may come next. This battle is meant to be lost on his end, but that doesn't mean that Jayce has to submit to his defeat. Not yet, at least. Viktor had told him once that there was always a choice: and right now, he was clinging to every word and lesson that his partner had offered before he was devoured by detachment—before Jayce merged him with the Hexcore. Which is what he assumes is likely the primary being talking to him now, through the costume of whatever it has since reconstructed out of Viktor's remains.
"It is the answer you and I pursued all our lives," the overlapping voice echoes out again, hardly a trace of Viktor contained within it at all now.
Only the cadence of the sentence is Viktor; the way the voice pitches while it speaks, so cruelly akin to the lyrical way he would carry his tone while discussing theory or offering lectures. How Jayce would long to be there now: in the lab, partner human and untainted by Jayce's failure beside him, pursuing answers and solving equations rather than preparing for war and situating themselves against one another on the chess board in this battle of fear and fate. Jayce checks behind him as he works, blue light of the walls that make up the center chamber of the Hexgate darkening the entire area. Confirmation that it is being dismantled effectively. He faces the Herald again as the mechanical voice continues its preaching, hands busy with their goal of removing any fuel the abomination could harbor to reign in the apocalypse.
"An end to cruelty, injustice. All of us our own authors to an unbroken saga of progress. To the benefit of all."
"People deserve to choose their own fates," Jayce retorts—hypocritically, he knows, given how he changed Viktor's own fate—before continuing to hurriedly detaching the mechanisms around him.
There are still far too many charges to go to completely dismantle the Hexgate, and the larger part of him knows it is an entirely useless attempt. He pushes forward anyway, fraught, unable to do anything else in the face of his own (and possibly, all of Runeterra's) demise. Unable to continue facing the carapace containing whatever shreds remain of the person he once knew and loved most. He can hear a ticking from behind him that moves in time with the Herald's words. Jayce glances behind himself for another second as the being continues its slow approach, sees the third arm that stems from its back between the halo of runes twitching, turning. The runes move in sync with the motion, vibrating, powering themselves up for something. Jayce wastes no further time trying to decipher what the Herald is doing—only returns to his own task with despairing urgency.
"Choice is false. It is how we clothe and forgive the baser instincts that spur us to division. Death, war, prejudice. Energy spent only to consume itself. But we can be of one mind... United."
Jayce stares in horror as every charge he's undone shakes, shivering in response to the words the Herald echoes through the room. There is always a choice... Viktor once said. Choice is false, the thing parading and corrupting his carcass says now. Jayce's head spins, lurches with both the contradiction and in a response to the sudden shift of pressure in the room. The devices slot themselves back into place, locking simultaneously, blue light of the Hexgate's charge reilluminating the central chamber's walls with a whirr of arcane energy. He flinches, guarding his front instinctively; feels the frustration and defeat rising in equal parts.
Jayce backtracks into the anger he skipped over before. Perhaps even a shred of that denial.
"Stop this insanity, Viktor," he pleads, a cloud of warm breath visible in the frigid room from the force of how harshly he expels the demand.
The Herald stands directly before him now, pauses; and Jayce steels himself against the impulse to shrink away from the imposing form. It looms over him. Jayce doesn't quite reach its shoulder in height. An odd thing, to be in this story of opposites: to look up at him physically, but down upon him otherwise. A complete 180 from the experience he'd had with Viktor in all the other time that he'd known him. A lifetime of looking up to his partner, only to end up not able to recognize him at all...
The Herald looks at him with those repulsive, resplendent excuses for eyes, unfeeling and unyielding in its resolve. Meshes of gold are settled at the base of each socket like brimming tears. Jayce can only wonder what he sees through such eyes: what the world must look like, feel like, to the twisted man-turned-machine. He can make out the features of the mask more fully now in the closeness, scans over the golden webbing along the edges of it that stretch upward into a crowning of sorts. It would be beautiful if not for what it was, what it all symbolized. If not for the fact that it is a behemoth counterfeit of the person Jayce loves. The shape of the face is reminiscent in some way of that of his own family crest, yet more intricately laid out, forming something more akin to a diamond. It is as emotionless as the words it projects outward. Each far side of it is the closed-eyed corpse of his partner's image, and with the lack of distance Jayce is filled with an untimely urge to reach out and cup at the cheeks of it: at what little remains visible of Viktor. The impulse is washed away instantly as it only serves to remind him how much he hates all of this; hates that he lost Viktor. Hates the ways in which he was lost. Hates the thing in front of him that takes Viktor's place.
Hates that his own choices led them both down this terrible, treacherous path.
"That is precisely my intention," it continues, reclaiming its stride toward the semi-circle that lays at the center base of the Hexgate.
With no more than two steps taken past him, the Herald transports them both to a new setting, walls of the Hexgate bleeding into empty white oblivion. Jayce knows they're still there, knows this is just a manifestation of the divergent force the Herald covets. Centerfold is the anomaly once more, and if it wasn't for the fact that Jayce had already been operating on full output of adrenaline and cortisol, he would have felt terrified. Disgust settles instead, taking place of what would otherwise be dread as the Herald reaches towards the corrupted, spherical mass.
"Your eyes won't lie..." it says, as the anomaly shifts and shrinks to take float in the palm of an outstretched hand, voice warbling in tune with the change. "When your mind is open, Jayce."
The Arcane Herald raises its staff, slots the anomaly in the center, and it trembles as it finds tether there. Tendrils latch out from within the thing to still it, fastening it into the curved empty space of it. The next thing Jayce knows, the white vastness that surrounded them has diminished and they are back within the bowels of the Hexgate. Both his own and the Herald's feet lift from the ground effortlessly, weightless: gravity rendered useless much as it had that night all those years prior when they first discovered Hextech. The feathery sensation, the bright blue light; all of it the same despite the circumstances being completely paradoxical.
What a cruel joke.
He tries to find footing and fails, lifts his head to see the Herald soaring upward on a dedicated path through the air to the top of the gate. Jayce pushes aside everything else, centers his resolve. He clasps the trigger of his hammer, letting the force of the energy it expels out catapult him up towards the calamity ahead of him. Sound is lost in the motion, muffled as though underwater, blue lines of powered runes blurring all around him. He remains a pace behind; realizes he has to do more as they surpass the halfway mark with none of the distance yet closed. Jayce hits the trigger of his hammer again, lets it propel him closer and takes aim, leverages his arms back and arches them over in an attempt to hit the Herald.
The monster barely moves in response, only shifting its head to address him indifferently. The mimic of an arm protruding from his spine intercepts the attack, catches the jutted end of his hammer in a blinding fuchsia ray that blocks the impact. Not that Jayce had really gotten close in the first place; he'd never really learned to wield his weapon efficiently. The motionless mask appraises him, lacking any sentiment before a hand reaches forward and clasps around Jayce's throat. He is brought over and up, held above the mechanical deity firmly, feet kicking out in an attempt to leverage space between them fruitlessly.
Jayce continues to struggle against the hold, infuriated that he has once again found himself in this compromised position, unable to resist the utter force holding him in place. They continue their ascent, intertwined, eyes locked on one another. Jayce's body is fueled solely by a heated fury and an infernal desperation. Survival instincts lashing out despite the lack of any ability to circumvent the odds. It is as fruitless of an attempt as it had been in the Council room: only Mel is not here to save him now. The third limb peeks over Viktor's shoulder, three prongs of it twitching as it charges with that same deathly ray that intercepted his hammer and cut straight through five feet of reinforced metals.
He moves away from the beam on impulse, straining against the hold and tilting his head as far to the right as possible to avoid being utterly incinerated by the laser. It almost grazes against the side of his face, and even without direct contact it is white-hot, the kind of burn that's almost cold; and somehow, the threshold for his ability to feel fear increases. He isn't sure what stops Viktor from simply forcing his head directly into the ray or adjusting the position of it to blow clean through him. But instead of meeting his demise there, they break through the ceiling of the Hexgate's center together in a bright and booming explosion. Jayce is released, flung and sent scattering across the debris that now makes the rooftop of the gate. He manages to brace himself just enough to avoid a concussive hit, but struggles to find the strength to stand, gasping for all the air he was deprived of in the chokehold on their way up.
When he looks around him, stationed lines of white and gold marionettes posed like army men meet his gaze, heads tipping in sync as if assessing him or questioning him before tilting upwards reverently. The dread courses faster, panic settling in. He cannot take on these forces—can't even truly stand against the Arcane Herald in a fair fight, let alone all of its puppeteered followers. His mind scrambles for options, for leverage; finds none. Jayce throws himself on his back, follows their gaze upwards. Finds a God floating above him.
Or, more accurately: an angel of death.
"Do you see?" The Herald says, voice low. "The sublime intersection of order and chaos."
The anomaly is sent upward from its staff into the dark clouds above them, swirling around a storm that casts out webs of its corruption upon the land in an instant. The faceless, eyeless marionettes watch on, Jayce grasps for his hammer, uses it as leverage to haul himself upright. His legs are still too weak; instead he settles into a kneel, panting and searching both mind and matter for any out, any option. Thunder clashes overhead, sound warbling with whatever sickness the arcane is subjecting the very fabric of their reality to. The clouds are thick and green like the haze of the apocalyptic aftermath he spent all those weeks trapped in. He realizes suddenly the position he finds himself in: the same spot, same exact pose as the other him that he fell before when the Mage version of Viktor gave him this forsaken task. When he realized how doomed they really were, how his destiny would always in some way shape or form end with the demise of either himself, the world at large, or the man he loved.
Jayce knows that he is now out of options; knows intrinsically that in each plausibility, this is the final moment he has.
He submits.
Closes his eyes, readies himself for the inevitable. One shaky breath in and one slow exhale out. He senses Viktor manifest from behind. Jayce awaits certain death with a solemn acceptance that is almost peaceful, prepares himself mentally for the transformation into an empty memorial of a marionette. There isn't really any choice. Viktor was right on that, he guesses; or... wrong, and the Herald was right? It doesn't matter any more. He can only face this head on, and if he is going to die, at least it would be by his partner's side. Even if this thing is not really his partner anymore. Some part of this is still Viktor's will, he figures, and that is sacred enough of a blade to die upon. He clings on to the hope that something in whatever comes after might grant him more chances to right these egregious wrongs accumulated by countless timelines. He expects to feel some contact, to be brought into whatever destiny that awaits in this promised glorious evolution through touch. Instead, he is met only with the echoing voice of the Herald once more.
"I will allow you a final indulgence, Jayce. One last illusion of choice to cling to. Consider it a testament to the sentiments which once bound us. Come to me on your own accord; accept your destiny and amalgamate. It will be better that way. This conflict between us is but a distraction, one that betrays our flawless future."
Seems that extra chance is now, not in the after ... Jayce jumps at the chance.
"I would never choose this. And neither would you; not if it were really still you. Not if you knew the exact conditions of what you pursue. I know it's my fault. I brought you into this, brought you back when you didn't want that. I broke my promise, and you did what you thought you had to. I know that. Know you didn't, don't see any other option—but I also know you. I know my partner. I know that this isn't him. I know what you believe in, Viktor—what you dreamed of for the world, what you wanted it to be—and it isn't this. This isn't what you really want. I know that you're wrong about all of this. Please. Just... just hear me out. I can prove it to you like you did for me—"
The Herald closes the gap and moves to stand before him once more as Jayce tries to sell his point, overwhelming celestial presence rendering him silent. A metal, amethyst-toned hand is outstretched, palm up in offer. Jayce flinches away, pulse racing at the anticipation of a touch that would surely paralyze or pacify him. It is clearly meant to be a tender gesture, but it feels more like the crosshairs of an assassin falling on him. He suppresses the impulse to shiver with no idea of whether he succeeds or fails. The Herald's voice hums its response coldly.
"Ah, but it is you who is wrong, Jayce. You are clouded by fright, doubts, sentiment . You know only what I was, not what I am—and even that, you misconstrue. I chose to become this. Difficulty had no bearing, nor did danger. It was... necessary. Want, desire, preferences: fleeting concepts reflective of those innate, animalistic tendencies that lessen us. Such petty obsessions diminish our potential, diverts us from pragmatic perfection. I am not the man I was, but who I wished to be. I can make you more, too, Jayce. Let me free you from the confines of your flaws."
"You said that choice was false. Which is it, then, Viktor? Was this your choice , or something beyond your control? Something controlling you? Did you choose this, or is that what you tell yourself to excuse the cost? Are these thoughts even your own? How much is you, and how much is the Hexcore? You say you wished to be this—yet you deny me and the rest of humanity the right to their own desire?"
The Herald ignores Jayce's rebuttals. Instead, it presses forward again, coming so close that they almost touch. Jayce can feel the drone of power and arcane energy that courses through and out of his twisted, mechanical body like makeshift blood and life. He can feel the arcane surging inside and around him, feels the pull of it—especially potent in his wrist, trailing up along the webbing of scars along his forearm—the tempting call that beckons him to listen, to lean in and embrace this promised evolution. It almost feels loving , if not for how lustfully impious it is. It is appalling, alluring. Abominable. Jayce understands the fear that Heimerdinger had expressed toward their work now with a strikingly clear hindsight that leaves him riddled with remorse. The monotonous echo that poorly parrots a shred of Viktor's voice continues, compelling and corrupted.
"We created a new era together with Hextech, Jayce. A new era is here once more. I only ask you to embrace it. What was it you said all those years ago—'Why fear it, when we can master it'? Follow me now, and I will give you enlightenment in place of emotion. Together, we will conquer existence itself."
"Your enlightenment is corrupted as you are. You can't see it behind that mask, but I can. In your efforts to evolve you will replace everything—everyone—that made life unique and precious, with soulless shells devoid of meaning! This new era you seek will leave everything in ruin. You will find nothing at the end of this, Viktor. No perfection, no purpose, no peace. Only solitude and unnecessary sacrifice. All that will be left is a hollow, colorless replication of what life once was. This isn't you, Viktor, it's the Hexcore! Can't you see that?"
"The Hexcore is me, as much as I am now it. Without it, death would have claimed me. You know this, Jayce; you saw it before I did. That is why you let it combine with my body. You saved me; it is now my turn to save you. The Hexcore is humanity's transcendental catalyst."
"No—"
"You refuse me, then?"
The Herald almost sounds... hurt. Disappointed. The voice is predominantly Viktor's, less echo and more human. Jayce doesn't let it sway him, but it scorches him regardless.
"Not you, Viktor. But this? This... madness? The Hexcore, which you begged me to destroy before you lost yourself? Yes. I absolutely, adamantly refuse that. I won't follow you down that twisted path or let you pursue it any further. The consequences of letting you go through with this are too high! I've seen what future your glorious evolution brings, and it is gaunt, empty. Please. If anything is left of you in there, I'm begging you. Listen to me."
There is a flicker of something in the glowing light of what makes up the Herald's eyes, the light of it darkening for a moment before flaring brightly again. The runes behind it seem to shudder for a moment, and it is almost enough to imply that there is something in Jayce's words that resonate with whatever lingers of feeling—of Viktor—in the machine.
It is gone as quickly as it came, the words that follow remaining lifeless and layered as ever.
"No matter. Your emotions clash with reason—I can cure you of this. I cannot expect you to understand what your attachments prevent you from accepting. I, too, struggled with such things before embracing this elevated form. True change must be imposed, not offered. I have much to show you that may yet convince you of your stubborn shortsightedness."
Jayce has no time to question what the Arcane Herald means by this before a set of cold, white-lined-with-gold hands pull his arms back and away from the handle of his hammer, a knee to the back pressing him forward. He grunts and gasps at the forceful contact, struggling against the restraint but failing to break its firm hold. It forces him towards the Herald who takes a half step back; presses him up against his own weapon in such a way that it causes him to straddle it awkwardly, long handle pushed flush against his front. It oscillates beneath him, glitching in and out against the contact as though trying to escape, to return to somewhere else. His skin bristles under his clothes, static energy painful as it cuts through him, threatening to tear him apart and piece him back together somewhere else entirely.
That would be too fortunate a fate, though; anomalous energy rippling beneath him aside, he remains glued in place.
The Herald tilts his head as if assessing either its options or Jayce himself, hand that had been offered twisting and pushing forward fluidly. Fingertips come just short of caressing Jayce's forehead, and a current of that same arcane power pulls at the front his skull despite the lack of any actual touch. Panic floods Jayce's body once more, pushes out of him in jagged panting, the trembling he earlier repressed visibly pouring out of him now. He struggles against the hammer he's pinned against, helplessly trying to wriggle out of the marionette's hold.
"Forget your fear," The Herald offers unhelpfully. "It is a waste. It will not help you, and I will not harm you. I only aim to release you of such conditions, Jayce."
"Then let me go," he spits back, eyes slammed shut in apprehension of whatever comes next.
Death, he assumes. Oblivion and obsoleteness, the desolation of anything I am or was or know...
The Herald does no such thing. The hand that hovers near him reaches down, grabs his chin between firm, grooved digits and forces Jayce to look at him directly. Jayce shudders, the touch leaving something he can only compare to electricity coursing with an unholy divinity across each part it touches. It rakes through him like a current; and he can understand now why his words fail to reach Viktor. This is only a taste of whatever contains and corrupts him, and it is enough to wipe all coherent thought away. Jayce goes from shaken to stilled in a millisecond. It is all consuming, blinding, deafening. It gives no room for other senses, for thought, for sentience or sentiment—leaves behind something like ecstasy and misery, an all-knowing, all-encompassing numbness caused by feeling everything all at once at maximum concentration. Jayce can barely make out anything other than the whirring intoxication of illumination that it leaves in its wake, the taste of something metallic and astringent. Some kind of tense pressure builds, something that swirls in his core and burns out across his veins. The charged voice of the Herald cuts through the white noise.
"I sense your trepidation. It is to be expected; but one cannot grow if left unchallenged."
The hand on his face retracts, the trance gone with it instantly. The whiplash of it leaves Jayce breathless, and he realizes in the dizzying clarity that the pressure he felt was the beginning of an orgasm . The tantalizing touch is quickly replaced by the third arm lurching forward to pull at a handful of Jayce's hair, keeping his head locked in place, angling it upward—causing the handle of the hammer to dig uncomfortably into his neck and collarbone. This grasp offers no such enlightenment or euphoria as the caress along his chest, only pangs of sharpness where it pulls against brown strands. Jayce groans in response, pinpricks and goosebumps rising across flesh at the sting of the forcefulness and blending with the blooming heat in his belly. The puppet follower that holds him in place begins to remove his armor; peels off the overcoat his shoulders and lets it pool around his forearms while still grappling him, one firm but lithe hand clasping both crossed wrists in place. The Herald's tempting hands find the collar of his shirt. It fingers at the edges of it before bundling the fabric into hardened palms. The movement of the marionette behind him is janky, jerked and automatic; but the Herald’s movements are as familiarity fluid as Viktor’s always were.
Steady; slow but sure, sensual. It's unfairly beautiful, for such a barbarous beast.
"What are you—" Jayce starts before a sharp pull at his hair yanks his head back again, makes him choke and stumble over whatever words were coming next when his hammer's handle digs into his larynx. It strains his neck, exposed and vulnerable tendons pulled taught. The feeling is matched by a growing tightness in his pants that he tries his hardest to suppress or at least ignore, because this is definitely not the right time or place for such a faulty biological response.
"I am aware that I could simply enter your mind," The Herald starts, voice for some reason now more Viktor than before—but still wrong, layered in otherness.
"It would be quicker. Painless. Efficient. I could compel you to submit, to see; to succumb to your inevitable destiny. Pull the very essence of you into the Arcane and the liberation of its perfect embrace. But... I must admit, Jayce; though I cannot feel it now, I do remember how deeply your rejection affected me when we last met. Even if only for the sake of my old self, I would rather continue with you as partners. There is no reason for us not to; no sense in maintaining such discord between us. We can be of one mind, one purpose. I believe that an accepting approach will prove more prosperous. Perhaps, we may yet bring you into agreement with our cause."
Mechanical hands rip his shirt apart before Jayce can manage a response. He gasps, brows furrowed in confusion as the sharp wind hits bare skin and causes him to shiver. The Arcane Herald presses both hands into him, caressing his exposed pectorals; and Jayce jolts with the feeling that resounds from the contact. He expects the Herald's metal hands to be cold, but they are strikingly warm, almost painfully hot if not for the instant soothing it causes. The sensation of the strange touch sings beneath his skin, the noise he releases in response airy and light but pleased despite how much he wants to push away from this.
Every molecule within him responds again to the stimuli, shaking and shimmering with the conflicting softness and sharpness of the embrace, how it reverberates through each atom of him. His hands do not move, but Jayce feels every part within him being touched. He can feel it burning through him like liquid nitrogen, eyes rolling back as his mind blanks again. A symphony of conflicting feelings and sensations rises and rips through him until the hands are removed right as the build up he felt before returned. The sudden lack following the swell of it all shocks him, evokes a tight, involuntary whine. Jayce can barely breathe at all, chest heaving harshly; feels the cold wetness of saliva dribbling from the corner of his parted mouth. He blinks away the blurriness left in his vision, heavy-lidded eyes barely able to focus on the golden, unblinking glow that breaks through the cold masked face in front of him.
This is not panning out to be the fate he expected to meet here.
"Your passion double-crosses you," the Herald lectures in a lull as its hands return at Jayce's belt to undo it. "Distracts you. And this discordant mind plagues you, inhibits you. You need not suffer any more, Jayce. Let me in; let me fulfill these leftover longings of the past. This new body can offer you more than I ever could before. All will be clear, once I open your mind."
"Viktor—Stop —"
He doesn't listen. A hand breaks apart the metal brace on his leg easily, one touch and pulse of intent unspooling the joints and screws that keep it in place. It shatters, rendering him helpless even if he should manage to find a way out of this predicament. Jayce's trousers and underwear are pulled clean off in one swoop after, the marionette lifting him from where he sits effortlessly to allow room beneath himself and the hammer for its removal. Apparently, Viktor opening his mind starts by opening his fucking legs.
His bare body has visibly, viciously betrayed him. The sensations that lay beneath the Arcane Herald's touch have left another swollen, erect symptom between his thighs—and the phosphorescent pupils of the monster before him flicker with what he can only assume is something akin to delight or amusement when they look upon the residual effect. If the Herald is able to feel anything at all, that is. Mortification doesn't describe a fraction of what Jayce experiences at the time. It blends with rage and need, settles into a lust ridden loathing. He hates that something deep down knows that the desire pooling in him isn't just from whatever magic courses through Viktor's new veins, but something deep in Jayce's own psyche that lay discarded and dormant for far too long.
"Once your body no longer sees me as a threat, your mind will accept me as well... The willpower of man can be reshaped in many different ways. Let us run an experiment, and see how long yours can withstand me."
"Wait— Ahmnff—! "
Viktor still doesn't listen, doesn't falter. The grip in Jayce's hair tightens. One metallic hand meets his erection and the other forces the length of its fingers past lips and into his mouth as he speaks, pressing down firmly against soft tongue and preventing him from finishing the request. He grunts unhappily around it, instinctively goes to bite down on the digits before stopping with the realization that the only result that will grant is shattered teeth, rather than a retraction. Viktor's other hand works down the length of him gently, just barely touching him enough to coax a strained noise from the mouth full of beveled, bruise-toned fingers.
The hand is removed from his groin for a beat, only to revisit with one finger placed pointedly at the crease between his balls, pressing firmly between the sack before cupping it reverently. The initial pressure causes Jayce's hips to buck, biting them into the handle of the mercury hammer; then the touch grows softer, fingers fluidly joining together as they stroke back upward along his cock, tracing the thick vein resting along the underside of his shaft. Jayce shudders, squeezes his eyes shut tightly against the way the sensation sends every emotion known to man flaring through his body. Feelings fester then fade faster than his mind can keep up with. Tears threaten to spill from the edges of clamped lids, a kaleidoscope of colors painted in what would otherwise be darkness if not for whatever drug Viktor pulses out of amaranthine palms and bleeds through Jayce's skin. It would take nothing to release like this; he bites at the inside of his own lip hard enough to taste blood, forcing a tether to something other than the intoxicating digits stroking along his dick.
"There is no reason to controvert it, Jayce. You cannot hide this—I sense it, see it," the echoing voice warbles. "Your unrelenting desire for me... You have wanted this for so long that it clouds your judgement. That is my error, for leaving you without ever acknowledging it. Allow me to release you of it now—without such carnal cravings haunting you, your mind will be made lucid once more. You will be left with one want: to relinquish yourself to me. To transcend, to see beyond this feeble imprisonment of self-corrupting humanity. You will, like me, wish only to become united with all things, in all forms."
Jayce moans around the digits in his mouth in a defeated attempt of denial, straining against the hold of the follower that restricts his movement, head shaking in defiance despite the fact that Viktor is right . He wants this. God, he fucking needs it. Badly. Terribly enough for it to hurt and ache, pathetically enough to feel deeply, thoroughly ashamed. Enough to nearly forsake his resolve at escaping and preventing the all out apocalypse entirely, if it weren't for the fact that the Herald's sermon makes him spiteful. He shouldn't still want this; he knows he should be repulsed, should be using every bit of energy he has to fight out of this hold and stop the Herald's ambitions. And he certainly doesn't want it to happen like this , with the calamity brewing in the cloudbursts above them, bloodshed of those warring against the impending doom broken out among the masses beneath them. What remains coherent outside of the rhapsody he's entrapped in is indeed disgusted with himself for succumbing to such depravity while the whole world around him battles against the very force that he finds himself reveling in—rendered a yearning, horny, desperate mess beneath.
Fighting the war that he and Viktor started, while their bodies become intertwined together.
Yet, he is helpless to it—weakened and worn down with every reverberating word, every resounding touch, every fantasy he's ever had for his partner ringing through each beat of his heart. Monster that he is now, it's still Viktor in front of him. Viktor who is bringing him this subjugating salvation. That is unavoidably true. And deep down, Jayce still wants nothing more than that: than his partner. Monster or not, there is nothing that he covets more than Viktor. Not even the safety or sanctity of the world itself.
Some defender of tomorrow I am.
Viktor grips at Jayce's length fully then, hands susurrated with synergy and adamantine against tender, swollen flesh. For some inexplicable reason Jayce makes the decision to open his eyes—meets the twin suns of eyes that pulse with solar flares of passion. When he blinks, the mirage of Viktor's human eyes appear in their place for just a second, burning through him with an exhale and a tremor only to be replaced again with those glowing orbs. He bats away the tears that rise and threaten to spill over, forcing his body to go rigid in a half-hearted attempt to reject the way it wishes to melt beneath the Herald's. It is a splenetic effort that does little for him. Viktor moves his hand steadily, thumb sliding over the tip of him and tracing precum in its track. The fingers in his mouth press down further, as if motivated by the eye contact, forcing his lower jaw further open with a pained noise. Spit pools and then dribbles down Jayce's chin and neck dishonorably with the hold, and Viktor hums mechanically, seemingly pleased.
There is another whirring noise from behind him then too, and Jayce's heart rate quickens with recognition: the all-too-recent memory of that deadly ray he was almost struck with had sounded just like that when it charged. The very source of that now holds his skull in place, and tears brim at his eyes again. Anxiety is unavoidable, as impossible to escape as the Herald's grasp. He is petrified, yet somehow that only pumps more blood to his hardened cock. Viktor seems to take notice of that; grip on him tightening possessively. Jayce cries out. A current of energy is sent through him from the top of his head; enough to shock him again, though it is an entirely pleasurable sensation.
The weight of a hundred people's pleasure crashes into him; desires that he knows are not of his own making flooding through mind and matter, sending him teetering quickly over the edge towards a climax before all contact with the Herald is removed entirely. He is both devastated and appreciative by the abandonment; humiliating as the situation already is, it would be ignominious to fall apart so quickly. He's already almost done so thrice over, which is pathetic on its own. Even under the hands of what was essentially a cosmic deity, he still felt a need to at least feign some stamina and decorum. Only his own rasping breaths fill the space between them for some time, Viktor seeming to give him the space to recollect himself before pressing on. When his breathing calms again, Jayce tries again to fight against the hold of the marionette and—unsurprisingly—fails, breathing once more rapid from the effort.
"Do you see now, Jayce? It is not a lack of feeling that afflicts me. Rather, it is the accumulation of all feelings combined. Pragmatic understanding of them is that which fuels my purpose; not malice. We could share in this, even more than we do now. More than you are able to fathom. Imagine yourself, perfected; freed from the restrictive weight of your flawed humanity..."
"All I see," Jayce manages to rebuke between heaving, broken breaths. "Is how contaminated you are from the pursuit of your own misguided passion."
"I have no such vanity to indulge," Viktor retorts, apparently missing Jayce's point entirely.
Whatever Jayce means to say next is lost on quivering lips when Viktor rakes his grooved fingers up from hips, tracing over abdomen and bosom, thumb purposefully grazing a nipple on the way before settling on both shoulders. The way he holds them is much like the way Jayce used to embrace Viktor for reassurance in their old lives. It brings a pang of yearning again, another reminder of how drastically different this present is to the fonder days of their past. A reminder of everything Jayce lost; everything he gave up when he broke the vow to destroy the Hexcore. Implanted it in his partner's body like the world's worst pacemaker instead. The marionette's hold on his arms is released for just long enough to readjust positioning as the Arcane Herald digs his nails into Jayce's shoulders then pushes suddenly, forcing him flat onto his back, kicking away Jayce's mercury hammer and sending it crashing back down the Hexgate's chamber.
Wonderful. There goes my chance at plans of landing a sneak attack...
Jayce's head finds its station between the spread faux-thighs of the puppet follower now seated behind him. His arms are brought above his head and now held in place by the long porcelain legs, pinned behind the heavy hinges of its hough. Its hands have found new purpose: one replacing the third arm's station in his hair to keep him faced forward, the other sprawled flat and pressing firmly against scarred lips, quieting him from voicing any further refutations. Or anything at all besides muffled protests, really. Jayce tries to leverage his legs to kick himself away, soles of his boots scraping along the floor feebly, head thrashing to remove the hand that muzzles him with no success. He can feel the burning on his scalp where some hair is undoubtedly ripped out in the struggle. The Herald drops his staff along his ankles and presses it downward, locking Jayce in place, basically spread eagle beneath him. In a moment, two more porcelain soldiers crawl their way forward to keep the rod in place against him, confining him to the position.
He officially sees no way out of this, whatsoever.
Still, he refuses to submit again—at least not outright. Out of spite; or perhaps, simple selfdom, he steels his mind to resist in whatever few ways he still can. Submitting to what he thought was certain death was far different than readily accepting the prurient sacrament he was now subjected to.
"I do not have any qualms with indulging your ostentation, however," Viktor continues. "It appears to be a necessary condition for your own evolution. You must purge yourself of these inadequate impulses. Neither friendship nor love will stop what is necessary, Jayce."
Jayce watches in equal parts awe and alarm as Viktor steps over him, legs spreading. The flat, blunt surface that made the crotch of the Herald's body transforms in real time above him. It cuts itself in half, orchid plasma leaving thin lines of wetness in the wake as it splits open like a maw. It creates a slit that pushes outward from itself again, creating the pulpy, alien-esque replica of a swollen cunt. Though it looks more like some kind of flora than anything of flesh, the strangeness of it only makes Jayce's own crotch twitch in apprehensive arousal. Beneath the hand that covers his mouth, Jayce releases a moan, unable to contain the throbbing need the sight settles in him. Feels the mix of exhilaration and repugnance with himself settling between his ribs with each shaky, ragged breath. Even while aghast and appalled with himself, the want he has for Viktor manages to reign supreme. This new anatomy only fuels the fire more, despite the pinpricks of presentiment that follow.
Viktor lowers himself to level against Jayce, impossibly long limbs bending to straddle near Jayce's hips but hovering right above him rather than meeting him. The twin strands of his blanket-cloak claddening brush and cover Jayce's legs, and he shivers, uses what little leverage he can get beneath his restraint from the marionettes to inch closer towards Viktor. A low rumbling, almost like a laugh, hymns from above him.
"Impatient as ever. An expected, albeit disappointing outcome," the layered voice lulls.
Viktor brings one hand to Jayce's sternum, pressing him flat down and bringing the phantasmagoria of rapture blowing through his cells, crystalizing them. His body contracts. Something is different, now; as though Viktor is controlling the current, channeling it in a lesser dose so that Jayce is not entirely numbed or displaced by it as he had been prior. He is still rendered motionless, vision blurring at the edges, but he remains otherwise clear and coherent; his thoughts are lessened, but not completely overridden. The beast atop him leverages its hips, scooting down to slide the wetness of its newfound genitalia against Jayce's. His eyes roll, and his cock tingles in the wake of the touch, an aphrodisiac effect lingering in its wake that brings every sordid desire he's had straight to the surface of his mind and skin. His body trembles with the sacred need to move back against it, to chase after his release; repentance for the sin found in the restraints that pin him.
Viktor continues to slide against him, but does not allow him to penetrate the new opening. The only proof that the Herald is affected is the increased flickering in the golden light of his eyes, the way the runes behind him seem to scintillate in response to the quickening of his movements. The hum of his energy seems to be a pitch higher, but it's hard to tell if that's actually how it sounds or if Jayce's hearing is just going out from the pure exhilaration of it all. Thick, warm stickiness coats him as the slit is brought over him again and again but never around him, and each fluid stroke against him causes him to writhe beneath the constraints that pin him to the ground. He's grateful now for the hand that at least muffles the pitiful noises spilling from his mouth; he might die from shame if he could hear himself fully.
The body above him cruelly lifts away from all contact points the second he's about to cum, tanned hips convulsing, waves of almost completion rattling through him. A single finger presses down into his abdomen, holding the feeling and his form in complete stasis. Jayce lingers there, in the just-about-to-climax-but-not-allowed-to that is so forceful it is almost nauseating. The climax does not come, the load of his lust concentrated in his solar plexus painfully. He would sob, beg if he could move anything at all. Time has no significance, nor does setting, or thought, or the spite he so firmly clung to prior.
When Viktor's finger retracts, he does not find release as he hopes. The feeling fitters out slowly, not without a great deal of shaking and sobs. The hand that covered his mouth parts between ring and middle finger ever so slightly, only enough to allow for the release of noise... Just as Jayce expels an utterly plangent pandemonium. He gulps in air now that his mouth is allowed to, inhales forlorn and exhales choked. That same low warbling sound manifests above him, and the back of Jayce's mind settles on the fact that it is laughter. Or the closest thing to it that the Herald can supply. He is infuriated by it, but too incapacitated from the aching swell of his need for relief to make any remark on it.
Viktor repeats this act twice more: slotting himself down against Jayce but only rutting against him, wetting him with slick, shimmery discharge but never allowing him inside the enticing plush folds. Jayce lasts marginally longer the first time, teeth gritted and nails digging into the rubble of the rooftop to ground him. The marionette moves in accordance to its idol's subconscious command and will, fingers holding Jayce's mouth open so the sordid noises falling from his lips can be heard. Some part of him considers whether or not anyone below can hear him, if they're even still tethered to their own consciousness or if they've been taken by the entrancing tendrils of golden strings that seem to keep popping up in his peripheral vision. The thought is removed as fast as it appears, any consideration for others overridden by the fervor of another wave of pleasure about to crest.
A palm grips his bicep, freezing him and the feeling again. Jayce lingers there against his will, suspended in the wash of pleasure, body lodged in place but spirit heaving and thrashing against the edge of elation. His mind begs for the break that never comes. It is enough to drive anyone insane, and if he had any autonomy over his anatomy at the time he would scream.
The noise that comes when he is released from the imprisonment is instead, impossibly airy.
"Viktor, please—" he stutters, pushing against the bodies that restrain him in an attempt to sit up and close the distance, only for the hand to be shut over his mouth once more. His partner is apparently uninterested in whatever he has to say for now, unaffected by the plea.
"A poison that runs so deep must be brought fully to surface to be expelled properly," Viktor offers as though that even remotely begins to explain anything about the absolute torture he's putting Jayce through. "We have only just begun. Prepare your mind; all will soon change."
Once more the flowery anatomy is brought down upon him. Viktor teases him with the idea of letting him enter, head of his cock sliding inside of the tight slit with a loud moan before it is removed. The Herald hovers over him, assessing the pliant and pathetic reaction Jayce has, almost appearing to admire the pleading noises that are stifled behind the golden hand that mutes him. Then he returns to gliding against him with graceful malice. Jayce's breathes hitch repeatedly, and he barely lasts a minute before his climax comes crashing down on him—
Only to again be stopped by Viktor grabbing his face roughly, the hand of the marionette released to make room for its god's grip.
It doesn't seem as though he is kept there for as long this time, but that only makes the return to his body all the worse. He is sweat-ridden, body quaking with tension and tears. He's reduced to a babbling mess, doesn't even try to form words past swears and begging that falls on uncaring ears. Well... lands on no ears, more accurately; Viktor's new form lacks such features.
This time, Viktor does not merely lean back and create space but instead stands, stepping away entirely. The followers that keep the staff pressed against his ankles suddenly move, length of the stave replaced by hands that hoist him from the feet and angle him upwards. They move sideways, spreading his legs apart with the motion, wide enough for him to feel the pull at his inner thighs. All the slick that's covered his front slides down him, gravity causing it to run in rivers along the curves of his balls and ass as he's rendered diagonal. There's enough coming off him that he can hear the soft plop, plop, plop of some of it dropping to the floor like sinful raindrops. The one that before held him in place beneath its legs repositioned in sync, coming to an awkward kneel that allows it to support Jayce's lifted weight, hands locking his arms at a bent angle that keeps his hands against his own shoulders.
"H-hey!" Jayce barely manages in a huff before being silenced by the scene in front of him.
The Herald's anatomy is changing once more. The opening he was denied closes, the fleshy excess of the fauna-like crotch blooming and stretching outward into something more... phallic. It takes on a tentacle -like appearance, almost resembling a thick vine more than anything if not for how erect it stands. The color has deepened, giving way to a lovely blend of maroon and magenta shades. Jayce swallows at the dryness it brings to his throat.
The Herald says nothing, only approaches between his legs. One hand is leveled atop a thigh, the other hand returning to his soaked length, stilling him with that same current of energy that keeps refusing his release. He is given enough lax to be able to stare on, wide-eyed, as Viktor uses the hand previously on his thigh to spread wetness against fingers. Fingers that are then pushed inside of his own hole. It isn't rushed, but it isn't patient either. His body is frozen against his will, but the feeling still rises in his core, a weakness in the knees and tightness in the shoulders somehow managing to break through whatever calculated hold the intoxicant of the arcane has on him.
One finger, two, then three are slotted into him, stretching him. Wet squelching noises accompany the motion as they are worked in and out, find the soft spot of his prostate and press against it. Jayce could probably cum hard enough to stop his heart then and there if only the asshole working his own would let him. Viktor doesn't, instead only releasing the hold on him right as he removes the fingers entirely, leaving Jayce shuddering all over again.
"Y-you're sick, " he spits out. "Cruel fuck. Let me go and f-fight me fairly, you damn coward."
"Insults will not win you any favor or freedom. Only your own surrender can grant you this."
Viktor places his own hand over Jayce's mouth now, and his lips are lit abuzz with the dizzying effect of that same paralyzing aphrodisiac of the arcane that lives underneath sacred, stannic skin. It doesn't render him entirely still for now, but it still contains him. The newly made phallic anatomy is pressed against his entrance, a swear mumbled under palm and hips jolting in reaction. Viktor doesn't slow or stop at the reflex, only slides himself into Jayce with a careful, leisurely motion that makes his head fucking spin. The sharp edges that jut out from where the Herald's form shifts from pelvis to thigh bites into his flesh. It topples him right towards an orgasm that, of fucking course , Viktor prevents him from completing again.
Jayce is removed from that secondary state of stasis again, but Viktor makes no movements away or toward him. Jayce waits for it: for the slow retraction and thrusting return, for a hand to meet his weeping cock once more, for anything at all . It (much like him) never comes. The sensation he is given next is somehow far worse and far better than anything he could imagine: the member inside of him grows . Not in length, but in width; pulsing and filling him further.
Worse still, is what erupts from Viktor's abdomen. Right beneath the impression of his navel, a void is formed; a gaping wound of nebulous stars. From it spawns lilac coils that uncurl into wet lengths like thick strings. It is horrifying, and all the while the anatomy inside of him oscillates him closer to another likely-to-be-denied orgasm. Jayce makes a noise halfway between a cry and a whine, stammers out a half-question that is interrupted by a stream of fuck, fuck, fuck, fuuuuuck - 's that apparently warrants Viktor's... tentacles? Tendrils? Janna help me, please don't let those be his intestines or something... Whatever they are, the reaction Jayce has to it causes the strange anatomy to wrap tightly around the base of his own length, cirrus's encircling his cock. A hand is placed over his mouth again, hushing the hysteric noises it releases. The appendages against his erection move in hurried motions, each of them providing a different direction, all of it saturated and sickening.
His mind hums, his body sings; he can feel it, the foot that hovers in empty air past the edge and the one that remains on the ledge, wanting to come with it. A step away from freefall. Then, time is lost to him again. The relief, the freedom offered up in Viktor's sermons is just an inch, a second, a mere vestige away. Jayce is about to lift that heel, plunge into its depth in freefall—when it is all ripped from him again painfully. He cries out, tears finally spilling over. The hand on his mouth moves down, holding his chin but allowing him the chance to speak.
"Vi-Viktor," he gasps out, chest and shoulders heaving roughly with his cries. "Please , stop tormenting me, I—"
"What I am doing is not torment," he echoes in response, cutting Jayce off, motions unrelenting. "Torment is allowing the mind to corrupt the soul. What I give is an awakening, a chance at ascension."
"J-just let me—just m- move , damnit, let me come. Please, I ca-can't take anymore—"
"You can. And you will," the Herald's layered voice interrupts, the demand a booming threat. "I offer you no choice, for there is none. You will do this, and then you will accept my gifts. Do not resist. Understand. Become."
Jayce bites down hard on the blasphemous rebuttal and begging that his tongue tries to form, knowing that fighting back at this point will only break him further. He releases a sob when the slick tendrils return to his throbbing length. His body gives out; but willpower remains. To survive this he needs to focus, to center himself; to look carefully for any fracture point of weakness he could use to cut his way out of the stupor.
Easier said than done.
The Herald refuses to move—refuses to let Jayce move on his own accord, either. He just stays there, one hand tracing nails up and down Jayce's abdomen, the other just tightly holding his dick with tight fingers that almost give the effect of a cockring while his not-quite-a-cock sits heavy in Jayce's ass. He can feel it shrivel in size before it blooms again inside of him, shrinking and stretching his hole, pressing up against just the right spot. Little snakes slipping up and over each inch of his groin, like a dozen long, little tongues licking him clean.
He's never felt so fucking indecent. Obscene. Dirty.
The thought of that alone sends him barreling toward the edge again. Both sets of mulberry palms press into thick, tanned inner thighs, clamping down the rising climax just as Jayce begins to sense it budding. Endless points of contact, empirical sensations of euphoria maintain movement but offer nothing other than unending build up. Jayce feels something in his mind shatter, something sharp and sudden and exactly like the way it felt to be pulled apart by the anomaly and reformed elsewhere. A thread in him has been pulled, and it unravels the weft of him, frays the edges and hems of his psyche.
Viktor prevents Jayce from reaching any state of gratification again and again and again. It is repeated enough that he's lost count of how many times he's almost reached satisfaction. Lost count of the various ways he's begged or bitched out the monster that meditates on his suffering. Jayce can taste the tears that roll into his open, hyperventilating mouth, can smell the musk of all the sweat that's poured out of him with the excruciating exertions. Feels the salty streaks dry, the sweat growing cold leaving him shivering.
Little else remains except for the pathways of paradise that Viktor's hands leave, the pain of them stopping his pleasure over and over and over in the world's cruelest time loop. However much time passes is a mystery better left unsolved; there is no longer any sense to what he experiences, nor the world around him. He is no longer sure what actually occurs to his body and what are just figments of the fantasies brought forth while held in halt to keep him sane. Jayce is confined in limbo long enough that he now finds himself calm, compliant. The body continues to convulse, but hazel eyes are glazed over, his mind carved out with overuse and left hollowed by the Arcane Herald's overwhelming power.
Tenacity isn't really on the table for Jayce Talis anymore. Viktor precognitively seems to sense this, finally taking on the role of a savior rather than a sentinel.
"You are almost there," the voice sings, melodically and miraculously Viktor in all ways. There is barely anything mechanical, almost completely one voice. It is a harmonious splendor that makes Jayce's breath hitch, wells tears to his eyes once more. "I will not thwart you again. When you are ready, Jayce, you may release yourself from the confinements of your desires. Escape your imperfections."
Jayce almost tries to speak, to say that he isn't sure he could physically cum anymore if he wanted to at all, psychologically scarred from however many times he's been deprived of it right before completion. But then everything changes: the marionettes release their hold entirely. The Herald leans back, purple palms catching the limp weight of Jayce and leveling him into his lap in a smooth, sudden motion. Viktor finally moves, narrow hips agilely sliding the fluctuating length out of him. The anatomy shrinks again as it does, swelling again when it is thrust back in. The movements are still fluid but quick, hard and intentional, as though the creature pommeling into Jayce now chases a release of its own. He cries out, moaning and gasping and hic'ing with each move—lurches forward to fold in on himself and grasps at the cloak across Viktor's shoulders for dear life.
If anything remained of his prior resolve, Jayce would use this moment to find a way to counterattack or crawl away somehow. But nothing remains of that desire to escape or overcome the odds; it is all replaced by the promise of finally obtaining some merciful, miraculous release. He clings. The closeness and their repositioning keeps the tentacle-spilling void level to Jayce's length, the feeling he is met with is indescribable. Sparks and stars spill out over his skin, pressure building from his knees, low and deep and his belly. He feels his toes curling in, braces himself to be restrained in the feeling once more.
It doesn't happen. The orgasm continues to build, far slower than he wishes for it to, as if tiptoeing to not be contained by the one who has so repeatedly been its captor. The Herald is pressed firmly against him, steely shape cutting into the contours of Jayce's flesh, grip harsh on his hips as they're slapped down then forced up over and over against the strange, swollen member. The pulse of arcane that fuels him glows brighter under its plum casing, casting additional waves of light and static over Jayce's whole body. Refracting amber eyes that Jayce stares into are nearly blinding with how bright they've grown, the halo behind Viktor interlaced with more complex, shifting runes. It creates shapes and colors he isn't sure he's ever seen before, sharp lines reaching towards the darkened skies. The split sections of his cape flutter and flow like feathered pinions.
An angel of death indeed.
Something further shifts in the Herald's body again, this time stemming from within. The susurration that has become staple background noise from the internal power in the mechanical framework of his body changes pitch, lowers an octave but becomes pointedly louder , purring. It sends vibrations through not only the air but the flesh of the human pinned and being fucked against it. Viktor's nails dig into the hips they're planted on, the pace of his thrusts going from steady to a speed and precision that would be impossible for anything even remotely human. It is surprisingly animalistic for something so apparently machine. The wet tentacles surrounding his cock stretch further, wriggling frantically and encompassing not only his length but the base around his pelvis.
Jayce comes unraveled within seconds.
He thought he'd experienced an orgasm before, but this is unlike anything he's even dreamed of feeling. Though, that may just be what happens when an orgasm is caused by something a half-step away from a god , but he doesn't have any intelligible thoughts to spare on such matters. If anything is said, it is lost in the resonance of the symphony of undefinable noises that breaks into song in Jayce's ears. No thoughts remain in Jayce's mind; only the consonance of reaching his tipping point a moment before Viktor's. He didn't realize that the Herald's form could even meet him in that act; isn't sure what exactly spills into him, or out of him when it happens. His eyelids flutter closed, head thrown back, body shaking violently as every taste, every hue, every insight and reflex and belief he's ever held or had cascades over then out of him. His voice breaks as he cries out Viktor's name, hands holding on so firmly to some hardened part of the Herald that he can sense it cutting into fleshy palms.
The pain is lost on him before it registers; only intense throes of pleasure remain, resounding throughout his nerves and neurons.
If the feeling weren't enough as is, the visual when his eyes reopen is candescent enough to throw him right back into coming. Viktor's metal form has been consumed with nebulous, chimerical patterns that spill from the void in response to his own form of release. The eyes on the sides of the mask—the part that still resembles Viktor's face—shoot open with the same light umber irises that Jayce fell in love with before. It would be horrifying if it were not so beautiful. The halo around him is no longer made of runes, but instead a perfect, closed circle that sends out random webs of color from its edges in soft rays. It reminds Jayce of the warm sunbeams that would wake them after overnights in the lab, except more splendorous, more vivid. Not confined only to the warm hue of sunlight but to an endless chromatic of psychedelic pigments.
The matter of Viktor's metallic exoskeleton that was once was dulled dioxazine is now a rainbow of iridescence; the former shade is still present underneath, but covered in splotches of other colors and light. Pretty prisms of what Jayce assumes is some form of pleasure capable only for the ethereal being leaks out of the void in the communion of the climax, baptizing them both but clinging only to Viktor. Somehow, the Herald's figure grows, every bit of him expanding slowly as though evolving once more. He enlarges to twice the size he was—including the parts of him still sheathed in Jayce, which only serves to throw him right back into the rift of relief. The eyes within the mask shine so brightly that they cast auras and halos of their own, nearly blind Jayce from seeing anything at all.
Whatever pours out of Viktor and into Jayce is liquid ebullition, euphoria. It circles him into orgasm after orgasm, well before any afterglow can even set in, with the god he clings to unrelenting in its determination to fuck the utter life out of him. Jayce lets himself be taken over, body thrown about in the motion as the angel relentlessly plows into him, pulls out; dives back in further, deeper. Lets his mind turn to mush and melt right out of his ears, body going rigid then limp in loop. For every countless time he was denied relief, he was granted it tenfold. Anything else fades to black, the only value and meaning found in the chromatic climax they are christened in.
Jayce isn't sure when it ends. He loses track of all things relating to endings or beginings: time, thought, the borders of himself where he ends and Viktor begins. At some point his strength gives out entirely, and he is left weightless, lost in the surreal serenity of it all. His mind breaks. Eventually Viktor shrinks, still larger than him but only in the way he had been when he first appeared in the Hexgate. The gracious deity remains inside of him for some time, until eventually he peels his way off and out of a silent, pliant Jayce. The Herald's still bathed in different colors; his touch gentle as he removes Jayce from his lap, turns him away and wraps the length of his versicolor arms around from behind. For some time nothing is said, and nothing comes to Jayce's mind in the silence. He is stilled, but this time, it is welcomed and serene. When the Herald breaks the silence, his voice is layered again, any hint of Viktor nearly gone.
Jayce finds it perfect nonetheless, angelic and worthy of awe. No part of this thing could any longer be considered oppressive or odious. He is left with nothing short of admiration, an understanding having settled that the only thing that caused him to hate it so was the inability to comprehend its impeccable preeminence.
"Your mind is clear now. I can sense the change in you. What of your decision, Jayce? Will you join me of your own accord now?"
"There was never a choice," Jayce whispers, sentience fading into the gold luminescence afterglow, all feelings fizzling into the peaceful emptiness. He doesn't know whether or not the words will make sense, they sound jumbled as he speaks them: but he releases the truth of them with every bit of conviction he has.
"Only you, Viktor. There has only ever been you . Here, now; there, before, after. The choice I make—always and forever—will only be you..."
There is no need to question whether the response is a yes or no. The Herald is all knowing, all consuming, more aware than any lifeform. Holistic, heliotrope hands reach from behind him, four fingertips returning to cradling the crown of him. Rutilant rays fill every sense, every speck and mote of his essence.
Jayce feels a single tear roll down his cheek. There is no fear, no agony; no joy, no euphoria. There is only this endless convoluted cosmos: the calm and chaos, the evolution beyond ego and id. Ataraxia meeting alarum; advent bridging annihilation. Viktor was right: the evolution is glorious. It is graceful, gallant. It is divine release and retribution, savior and synthesis all in one. It opens its jaw to him, yearning, starving for him; he is wanted, he is warm, he is without any wants of his own. The last sensation Jayce can place is the feeling of those four fingers reaching deeper, embedding and engrossing themselves in his forehead with a hungry, harrowing love that feels like its own form of worship. It salivates for him, the hungry stomach of the soul that scours over his body growling with a need for the nourishment that only he can provide.
He lets himself be consumed.