3# [ONE SHOT] The Town in the Time of Legends
The Fortress of Ultimate Darkness loomed like a festering wound torn into the sky, its jagged black spires clawing upward, forever devouring the feeble light that dared to exist. It stood sentinel over the large town nestled below, an unwilling subject caught in its master's rotting gravity. Smoke curled eternally from the fortress’s unseen depths, painting the skies a sickly hue, like bruised flesh against a dying sun.
The town itself was a misshapen mosaic, stone towers leaning crookedly like old drunks, slate roofs patched with bones and rusted metals, and streets paved with mismatched stones engraved with forgotten languages. The buildings had grown with the town, evolving unnaturally, warped over time by the twisted magics that radiated from the fortress above.
Despite the omnipresent dread, the town was alive in its own way. Grotesque humanoid creatures, the malformed remnants of Evil’s early experiments shuffled through the alleyways and markets. Some had mouths where their eyes should be. Others walked on all fours despite having human torsos, their fingers webbed or fused. They worked, traded, bickered. They made due.
And then there were the humans, the most tragic residents. Lost to the fabric of reality, they had once been travelers, children, wanderers, even modern-day souls who had stumbled through cracks in space and landed here. At first, many had wept, resisted, or tried to run. Over time, they built meager homes, carved out lives among the beasts and failed gods. They bred, they bartered. But none forgot the Fortress, and none dared defy it.
For Evil watched always.
And on this day, the hush came early. A shadow passed over the cobbled square, larger than a bird, heavier than storm clouds. From the crest of the hill road came Amaranth. She did not ride. She strode. Her presence cut through the air like a dagger. Clad in her deep crimson and iron, her purple sleeved shawl, billowed against the harsh winds of this otherworldly desert World, lost to the annals of time. Her white hair whipped behind her like a battle banner, and her eyes glowed faintly with a cursed gleam, showing she was already plotting. Behind her, the Grotesqueries, her father’s re-animated enforcers.
Each stood eight feet tall, made of scorched humanoid skeletons stitched with iron and bone. Their heads were bovine skulls, adorned with curling, cracked horns, and shrouded in rotted ecclesiastical weather robes. From their joints hissed steam and foul whispers. The townsfolk parted in silence, their breath stolen by fear. Even the gargoyles paused their bickering to watch. Amaranth ascended the cracked dais in the center of town, where once a statue of the Supreme Being had stood, long since melted by her father's touch. Her voice rang out, not shrill or screeching, but cool, elegant, and laced with venom
“By the decree of my Father, Lord of the Time of Legends, Sovereign of Darkness, your lives are permitted to continue under new law.” She let the silence drag, like a knife across a throat. “Tribute will increase. Twofold. One from every home: flesh, bone, or dream. Choose wisely. Or it will be chosen for you.” Murmurs rippled like nervous flame. Somewhere, a man whimpered.
A voice, foolish, trembling called out. An old human woman, draped in patchwork cloth, stepped forward. Her voice cracked with decades of fear, but still she spoke. “Please... there are children. We gave everything last moonrise. We have nothing left.” Amaranth tilted her head slightly, as if marveling at the audacity of suffering speaking to her like an equal. Then she smiled. It was not a kind smile.
Then let me show you how easily nothing becomes less than nothing.” She snapped her fingers. One of the Grotesques lifted a withered limb. The air warped. A house, small, crooked, with smoke still wafting from its chimney detonated in a blast of violet flame. It didn’t just explode. It unraveled, pulled inside out by temporal heat, time howling backward as the walls screamed like dying children. The home vanished, and in its place was a crater, crackling with residual dread.
The townspeople fell to their knees. Some sobbed. Others prayed. Some only stared. Amaranth didn’t flinch. Her eyes glowed brighter now, her jaw set. “I am my father’s daughter,” she said coldly. “And I do not bluff.” The Grotesques stepped forward in perfect unison, collecting tribute. One carried a sack full of severed memories. Another dragged behind it a cart filled with broken heirlooms and weeping fragments of song.
A tense silence lingered in the scorched air after the detonation...Until it was broken by a sharp cry of desperation.
From within the crowd, a man lunged.
Tattered cloak fluttering behind him, he leapt forward with a rusted blade held high. A former blacksmith by the looks of him, gaunt and mad-eyed, fingers trembling not from fear, but fury. A human. Brave, or foolish enough to think he could end this terror with one clean strike.
The crowd gasped.
But Amaranth did not flinch.
She turned on her heel with unearthly grace, her movements like a windblown ribbon on the cusp of a storm. Her hand extended, fingers spread like claws and from her delicate tips surged a cascade of black lightning, arcing through the air with a shriek of tormented souls.
The man never reached her.
He didn’t fall.
He burst.
Chunks of bone, bursts of blood, a final howl of anguish, all were reduced to a vapor of crimson mist, staining the cobbles in a perfect radius around the crater that was now his grave. Only the blade remained, sizzling at her feet.
Amaranth exhaled slowly, adjusting a curl behind her ear as if it had been nothing more than a breeze she brushed away. She gave the crowd a lazy smirk. “Anyone else feeling brave today?” There was a hush… and then...
Clap.
Clap.
Clap.
Slow. Deliberate. Velvet and thunder. A voice followed, thick with pride and wicked amusement:
“Impressive. Most… effective.” The crowd parted without being told. They knew.
There, strolling with infallible poise and impossible confidence, was Evil himself.
“I expect nothing less from my precious flower,” he purred.
Amaranth froze, her hard façade softening instantly. “Daddy Dearest!” she squealed, lifting the hem of her gown, making hast to him upon her suede laced boots.
She ran to him graceful, eager, like a smitten girl at a lover’s return. The crowd stood in horrified silence, many averting their eyes. A few made loud, exaggerated gagging noises.
Evil welcomed her with open arms, and she threw herself into his embrace. His hand cupped her cheek, his skin burning with unnatural warmth. She leaned into it like a kitten to a sunbeam, purring audibly.
“I had a feeling something was off,” Evil said softly, nose brushing hers, “and I was proved right. But it seems, my darling, that you had matters... well in hand.”
He leaned in.
Their lips met.
The kiss was brief but charged with the electric pulse of shared corruption. Amaranth melted into it like sugared rot. Around them, there were dry heaves. One creature retched into a bucket and whispered, "Not again…"
Evil broke the kiss with a satisfied hum, stroking her cheek with a clawed thumb.
“You've made me so proud, my dear.”
Amaranth giggled, her voice coy and warm with affection. But even in her softness, she did not lose the chill of command.
“Is it wise, Daddy, leaving the Fortress unattended?” she asked, coyly pawing at his chest. “You know how our minions get when left unsupervised...”
Evil waved it off with a casual flourish, the air crackling with displaced darkness.
“Let them. If they ruin anything, it simply gives us an excuse to torment them later.”
Amaranth’s grin sharpened into a thing of black delight. But to Evil, it was beautiful. It was pure. That grin, wild and crooked, gleaming with inherited cruelty, was his little girl’s sweetest smile. He gave it right back.
“Come now,” he said, turning to address the terrified townsfolk. “I think it’s only fair I have my own turn at fun. After all, it’s been so long since I mingled with my loyal subjects.”
“Yes,” Amaranth whispered beside him, slipping her hand into his, her eyes gleaming. “Let’s.”
They walked into the square together, their laughter sounded lethal.
Behind them, the Grotesques followed.
Around them, the crowd scattered.
Above them, the sky dimmed in anticipation.
And beneath it all… the town trembled, knowing that Evil, Amaranth, ' His Precious Flower ' had only just begun.
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4# [ONE SHOT] There will never be another you
The wind outside the obsidian spires of the fortress whispered like lost souls, but within the bedchamber of the Lord of unadulterated malevolence, and His Precious Flower, all was still.
Evil and Amaranth lay entwined. His arm was heavy around her waist, her cheek resting on the curve of his bare chest, fingers absently tracing his flesh, the flesh of her creator. Her pale hair spilled like moonlight across his chest, and his hand lay tangled in it, possessively.
They had long since finished talking about plans, schemes for retrieving the Map, shattering time anew, corrupting the folds of fate. Such ambitions now floated loosely between them, their voices hushed, as sleep's encroaching tide sunk upon Amaranth. Still, she fought to remain awake.Now, just lovers and conspirators lost in each other’s silence. But Amaranth was quiet in a way that unsettled him.
Evil blinked slowly, then dipped his chin just enough to peer down at her. “You’re thinking too loudly,” he murmured. She didn’t answer. Her fingers kept moving, but they had slowed, stilled, and he could feel the tension, the hesitancy, the coil of something unspoken. He raised an eyebrow. “Don’t make me drag it out of you.” Amaranth hesitated, and then softly, too softly, she asked without looking at him, “Do you… ever intend for me to bear you children?” The air in the room turned heavier. Evil’s eyes narrowed, but not in confusion, he understood the question all too well. Her voice had trembled, the faintest hint of a possessive jealousy laced behind the trembling curiosity. He could feel it. Her strange anguish. The clinging dread not of motherhood, but of being displaced.
The idea struck her like a betrayal, even as it lived only in her imagination. He let the silence stretch, then said with sternness, “ I hear the resignation in your voice. You would deny your Lord and Master a lineage? A thousand heirs to rule in my image?” Amaranth flinched. Her breath caught, as she shrank against him slightly, as if wounded. “I—I didn’t mean—” A low chuckle rumbled through his chest. “Ah,” he sighed, releasing the cruel tension he’d built. His hand stroked her hair in long, indulgent passes. “Forgive me, My Precious Flower. I couldn't help myself. You make it too easy to tease.”
Her body relaxed, though her face was still guarded. She looked up at him, lip trembling. He noted the displeasure in her face, brought on by his wicked taunt. He touched her lip, with a single taloned finger. “No, of course not,” he whispered. “I have my only child, right here, in my arms,” he said, voice dropping like silk over daggers. “My creation who burrowed her way into my black heart, until I could no longer deny that I was far more than your maker, far more than your father. Until we became… what we are now.” She looked up at him fully, her crimson eyes brimming with the love only the damned could understand. “You are my Creation. My Daughter. My Heir. My Love. My Empress.” His words soothed the burn in her chest. Her possessiveness, once a choking vine, loosened just enough for her to breathe again. Evil exhaled and let his gaze drift to the dragon skull’s mock canopy above. “Besides,” he added with a wry smirk, “I’ve lost count of how many times we've lost ourselves into one another, if children were bound to happen, they’d have happened by now.”
Her cheeks flushed, but she didn’t look away. Her hand lay still on his chest. “You’re infertile,” he said simply, without cruelty or sadness. “Of course you are." He said, with sudden realization himself. "You were never made for that.” He turned his eyes to her again, not cold but sure. “You were not forged to breed, Amaranth. You were made to rule. To hold dominion in my absence, should that celestial fool strike me down again. You are my weapon, my vessel, my voice.” His voice softened. “...But you were also… the flaw in my plan. That beautiful, terrible flaw. The one that made me feel.” She clung to him tighter. “And so,” he said, brushing a kiss to her forehead, “whether you can, or cannot bear children, matters not to me.”
His lips trailed down her temple, to her jaw, voice low and certain: “But it does matter to you, doesn’t it?” She didn’t respond, but he felt the twitch of pain inside her. It was confirmation enough.“You fear,” he continued, “that if you gave me a daughter, one born from our flesh, not formed from the void, that I might love her more. That she would be more real than you.” Her silence screamed louder than any confession.
He tipped her face up to his and kissed her, deep and sure, until she melted into him again.“You will never have to worry,” he promised against her lips. “That is impossible.” He rolled her gently beneath him, covering her body with his. “There will never be another you.”
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