a/n: Hello everyone!
This chapter was written in between taking my abuela to hospital and doctors visits, dealing with nosy neighbors, and renovating my abuela's house to sell (her idea btw, she thought it would be a fun bonding project and it is! the only thing is i have inhaled so much paint fumes it can't be healthy lololol)
Anyway.
This chapter has technically been beta read by my abuela. There was originally a whole lot more torture and a lot lot lot more darker stuff than this but she said, and I quote, "i will not be having my grandchild post a ten page manifesto about the murder of a fictional character."
So, uh, she kinda made me cut down on the violence and I have to say, it's much less horrific and much more readable now lol.
Anyway.
Here's the chapter you all have been waiting MONTHS for!
Ambrose was immediately assaulted with the stench of copper and ammonia and the pungent odor of human shit and vomit the instant Beacrox led him and the black dragon into the villa's dining room that Cale, Beacrox, and Ron had repurposed into Venion's personal torture chamber.
He choked back his gag, his eyes watering from the sheer scent of the tortured former noble. He blinked hard, trying to focus his eyes on the horrific sight in front of him.
His stomach churned.
Venion's wrists were chained to the ceiling, the chains just short enough to force the petite blonde to stand on his toes. His wrists were red and raw, bleeding slightly from the harsh edges of the cuffs digging into his flesh. His clothes had been removed, leaving the noble in only his undergarments, and his flesh was marred with a colorful bouquet of purple, blue, and black bruises. Blood dripped from his broken nose. His eyes were bruised and swollen, and he stared unseeingly at Ambrose and the dragon.
"I hope you don't mind that we had... a little fun," Ron said smoothly, adjusting his white gloves in the corner of the room. The retired assassin looked even more intimidating in the thin line of light that came through the covered windows, and Ambrose was positive that he could see a rusty brown stain on the butler's overwise impeccable suit.
Ambrose swallowed. "You and Beacrox went hard."
"Oh, no," Ron said with a benign smile. "My son and I barely touched that filthy thing. It was all Young Master Cale."
Cale?
Cale had done this?
Ambrose had to resist the urge to vomit.
He had spent his entire time in bedrest fantasizing about torturing his sadistic kidnapper, the violent visions being the only thing preventing him from going insane while wrapped in those heavy blankets.
But Ambrose wasn't a torturer.
He had been a simple office worker in his past life, working a stressful but relatively peaceful job, and here he had spent most of his time sleeping and lazing around. It wasn't like he was used to the idea of blood and guts and gore and torture.
As much time as Ambrose had spent imagining his kidnapper's torture, he hadn't been prepared for just how disturbing it was to be just a meer four feet away from the half-alive body of a man covered in bruises and blood.
And, he hadn't been prepared for the knowledge that his best friend, the man who Ambrose cared about more than anyone in this weird video-game world, had been capable of reducing a man to that state.
Ambrose's eyes darted over to Cale.
The redhead was glaring viciously at the blonde noble, his reddish brown eyes gleaming with a hatred that made Ambrose's stomach churn. Ambrose was now able to see the cuts on Cale's hands, which he must've gotten from punching Venion, and the faintest rusty brown coloring on Cale's shirt cuffs. There was none of the warmth in his face that Cale usually possessed around Ambrose, and instead there was just a cold smile promising violence and bloodshed aimed towards Venion.
Ambrose took a deep breath.
"Okay," he said calmly. "Cale had his turn."
The three men turned their heads from the blonde to Ambrose.
He stood straighter. "It's my turn now," Ambrose said, forcing any nerves out of his voice.
"You sure you're up for it?" Cale asked, the cruelty in his expression giving away to concern and loving worry as he studied Ambrose's pale face.
No.
Ambrose smiled, channeling all of his acting ability into acting like he was okay with this level of violence.
"Yes."
~
Venion was a loud screamer.
This was something Ambrose had already known, seeing how he had been able to hear the noble's cries of pain from his chamber during bedrest.
But, just like with seeing Venion's state, he hadn't been prepared for just how loud the man could be when he was in the same room as him.
"Please, please, please, please," Venion begged, the pleas falling from his bloodied and swollen lips, his voice strangled and dry.
Ambrose forced back the nausea.
"You kidnapped me," he whispered instead. "You starved me, you drugged me... You tortured a child..."
With every word, he buried a sharp piece of Stick into Venion's flesh.
A large part of him hated using his precious cane like this, in such a cruel and violent manner. His heart ached with each inch of the shattered cane's wood that stabbed through Venion's body. But the other part, the part that kept him doing this, the angry and vengeful part that had begun filling his body back in that awful wagon, felt the action was poetic.
They broke his cane.
They shattered Stick into pieces when Venion's minions kidnapped him.
Now here Venion was, impaled with hundreds of tiny little wooden shards, bleeding sluggishly around the dark oak of Ambrose's most prized possession he had shattered.
"Not a child," Venion gasped, somehow possessing that spark of cold haughtiness and self-righteousness that had led to this moment. "Just a... just a fucking dragon..."
The dragon reared himself up in the air, his blue eyes flashing with fury. "Just a dragon?!" he screeched. "There is more power in half of my smallest claw than there is in his entire body!"
Ambrose laid a calming hand on the baby dragon.
Then, with a cold precision that made Ron smile and Cale step forward worriedly, Ambrose slammed the largest and sharpest piece of Stick into Venion's shoulder.
"You're disgusting," Ambrose snarled, the anger forcing back his discomfort and nausea.
"Amby..." Cale stepped to his side, letting his hand fall on his shoulder.
"I'm okay, Cale," he assured his friend, staring at Venion, a sharp smile spreading across his face. "I'm not quite... done... with him yet."
And as night began to fall, casting the forest surrounding the villa in sunset pinks and oranges, yet another scream of pain and fear echoed through the trees, and a flock of black-feathered birds shot out of the trees, startled by the sheer volume of the shriek.
Venion Stan was getting what he deserved.
a/n: thank you all so much for all of the supportive comments! i literally cried reading them, they were so sweet and supportive and love all of you! <3
and to everyone in my discord- and to the mods i had to make do to my absence- i'm so sorry i hadn't been messaging in there, things have just been super hectic and all, but i do occasionally pop in and read your messages, and i'm glad you all are chilling and having fun in there by yourselves!
and to the posting of the next chapter... well. i'm not exactly sure *when* exactly that'll happen, hiatus isn't *exactly* over. but i will try to write and update as soon as I can!
thank you again to everybody, i love you all <3 <3 <3
join the discord! we'd love to have you! https://discord.gg/ctUZeXAJdQ