Enemies with Benefits (Kefka)

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The attack had taken Elsa by surprise. She hadn't been expecting it, trudging through the mud on what used to be a neatly kept dirt road leading away from the Olympus Coliseum, her arms laden with bags stuffed full of dried meats, crumbly cheeses and a small selection of green vegetables she'd purchased from the bazaar. Hadn't had the time nor the maneuverability to escape it when it came, when they they came -- Heartless, a swarm of over fifty or so, she had guessed. Knights and Shadows formed a small army that leaped out of the shadows cast by the moonless night that hung over the ancient world, led by a creature she'd never seen before -- a massive and perfectly spherical Heartless with devilish horns and a devilish grin that lit up hauntingly small golden eyes. Golden eyes that, the moment they'd latched onto her flowing gown, marked her as its target.

She'd ran. What else could she have done? She was outnumbered, outmatched, dragged down by the weight of the supplies she clutched to her sides like lifelines, their bulks crashing against her sides painfully as she fled towards the airy forest just outside the city, where the troupe had made camp and were eagerly awaiting her return with that night's dinner. And the Shadow Stalker had its eyes on her. It led the pack over the hills at her heels, chains swinging from its curved horns, tongue out and licking nonexistent lips as a jagged mouth carved itself from pure darkness. 

For once, she hadn't been afraid to let her magic go.

Ice spilled from the bottoms of her feet onto the earth, leaving a trail behind her that they could track but they were too close to her by the time they'd decided to chase her that it wouldn't make much of a difference. Trees froze in a flash as she passed them, and the air around her condensed, snow falling as if from nowhere. The storm in her chest whirled, picking up on her surprise and her fear and her desperation to get away as her legs carried her, burning and straining, as fast as they could towards the heart of the forest. But it was in the trees she'd lost her advantage -- the Heartless used the slim limbs of the branches to slingshot their way ahead of her, cutting off her mad pursuit with dark bodies that rained down from above. 

She'd stopped, eyes wide, spinning back to retreat the way she'd came, only to find the Shadow Stalker inches from her faces, tongue swooping out of its enormous mouth. She threw the bags to the ground, was lifting her hands to throw an Ice Shield up in her defence, her ice already lingering just behind her fingertips--

The tongue found her chin, and didn't stop there. It pulled its way -- slowly, disgustingly, agonizingly -- up her face, leaving her covered in thick, oily slobber. She'd stumbled back, hissing, arms raised, finally, in her defence. The Shadow Stalker had laughed. Laughed and backed away to rejoin the ranks of its underlings before, with a sickening jeer, let them loose on her.

She'd fought them off as well as she could. Ice spikes, Snow Pillars, Flurries, and even Marshmallow emerged to fend off the horde that had, all at once, dived for her chest, after their only prize: her still-beating heart. She'd managed to take out a decent amount of them -- probably around 25, she figured -- before she'd realized what was going on. Her limbs had begun to slow down. It felt as thought her whole body was stiffening, slowly, whole parts of her eventually refusing to obey her commands. 

It was too late by the time Elsa connected the dots: too busy with fending off the army of Heartless, she'd let the Shadow Stalker's slobber set into her skin. And it was paralyzing her.

She'd tried to stumble away, kicking the abandoned bags full of food as she stomped, every step a challenge, away, leaving Marshmallow to keep the majority of them at bay. Unfortunately for her, even his massive form didn't last much longer. By the time she'd managed to get out of the thick of it, they'd found her again -- and this time, she'd been helpless to stop them. Their claws tore at her dress, ripping fabric and flesh clean off of her. Knights, smarter than the rest of the horde, used their armoured fists and boots to land heavy blows at her back and against her knees, toppling her into the mud. Downed, but still spreading frost in her panic, they'd converged. Shadows, primal in their behaviour and needs, wasted no time. They clawed at her neck, at her shoulders, at her chest, leaving long, purple marks and bloodied streaks across her front as they hungered for her heart. The Knights batted at her head and kicked at her whenever she tried to get back up or use any of her magic against them. 

When she'd been sufficiently torn up and beaten, her forehead laden with bruises and cuts, her chest a criss-crossed mess of slashes and the rest of her bearing a melange of wounds, only then did the Shadow Stalker return to the front lines, its massive tongue licking lips, bright eyes hungry.It laughed and sank its long row of jagged teeth into her side.

She'd screamed. 

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Nanaki was shouting at her. Yelling words of wisdom -- to seek help, that Dark wounds were not like those of a blade or a magic spell, that time was of the essence. But how could she do that now? Where could she go? She wouldn't make it back to the city and by the time she did, stumbling and broken, everyone who could possibly care for her would have closed shop and gone home.

Besides, the Shadow Stalker was picking her up with its teeth. She hung, limp, in its jaws, as it faded from that world and into another.

One she'd never seen before. One she could barely see now. Her vision was blurred, images doubled and trailing as she glanced around wildly, seeking any form of escape.

In the end... as it always was, with her, she was her own answer.

Without any conscious thought or action on her part, ice (and not just any ice -- a Snow Queen's Curse, brighter and vaster than ever before) burst from her body, fuelled by her dire circumstances, pounding heart and racing mind that scrambled to find something, anything to hold onto to keep her conscious.

She doubted such magic even worked on creatures as dark as the Heartless, anyway. They didn't have hearts. 

It had scared them, though, that much was for sure. Her final act of desperation rewarded her with an unceremonious greeting with the earth once more as the Shadow Stalker squealed and fled, chasing after the legion of minions that had followed it through the Dark Corridor from which it had come, leaving Elsa, broken, beaten and bruised, to die.

Elsa narrowed her eyes.

N- No... she thought weakly, barely able to find the words to say to herself through the agony that wracked every inch of her body. I c- can't... n- not like this...

She whimpered loudly as she shuddered involuntarily, sending pain rippling through her veins. 

A- Anna... N- Nanaki, A- A- Antique... s- someone, please...

... No one was coming.

Of course no one was coming. She wasn't even in the same world as her friends anymore. On top of ravaging her, by taking her here, the Shadow Stalker had severed every chance she had of saving herself. Tears sprung to her eyes. She could actually die here, alone, full of pain and sadness and despair, in a world she didn't know, most likely to be found by people she didn't know long after she could still be saved.

No...

She frowned. Slowly, painfully, she wiped the tears from her eyes. Forced herself, whimpering, into a sitting position. Her hair, frayed and undone, tumbled messily over her shoulders in a long, blonde curtain. 

No. Stand up, Elsa. You have to find help...

She obeyed herself, even if every inch of her screamed in protest. She could barely see through the haze that had invaded her vision. Every step became a stumble as the wounds on her head screwed with her sense of balance and sent her tumbling every which way. The world spun as her wounds leaked and her remaining strength fought furiously to combat her agony and exhaustion. She crawled through a pair of towering wooden gates that stood open before her, leading to some kind of giant, brightly lit amusement park -- or at least, that's what she knew to call it. She'd never seen one before, but some of the others had... they'd explained the concept to her one night, around the fire, telling her all about the rides, the candy and the fun they'd had visiting carnivals in their own towns. 

Elsa forced herself onward. The journey through the park presented itself to her as if it were a slideshow in her mind. One moment, she was stood in front of a great, spinning wheel dotted with lights and carrying chairs around and around in tall circles up to the sky; the next, she was collapsed against a fountain, splashing water onto her face and sipping it thirstily from her palms; then she was inside a dark room full of mirrors, desperately searching for any signs of life, any breaths or whispers of people, friend or foe, she didn't care which, that might help her -- or, at the very least, witness the life leave her eyes -- eyes that weren't her own, staring back at her -- as whatever pitiful amount of strength remained would carry her to only one more place.

She didn't even remember how she found it. How she ended up on her knees before the gaping entrance to the big-top, the Pleasure Circus. The lights that flashed around the glittering name piece only seemed to daze her, her eyes unable to focus on any of the letters. The world was becoming a mess of colour and light and smeared images, with darkness closing in from the sides. The last of her strength was fading away... her wounds were too severe and she had pushed herself far too much, dragging herself around the compound in her desperate, last-ditch effort to find someone who could help her.

"H- h- help... me... p- please..."

She managed to blurt out the words one more time as her world spun violently. She collapsed in the entrance of the tent, her eyes staring up through the encroaching darkness in her vision as a shadow moved somewhere in the distance. Hope sparked in her chest, a smile tried to slip onto her lips...

And then, right as the darkness fired out to the centre of her eyes, she saw the face of the man who'd come to her rescue.

All hope fled with her vision.

It was Kefka.

She lost consciousness...

... with the knowledge that, perhaps, she might never regain it again.

[Deleted]

...Is it my birthday today?

And all Kefka was doing here was prepping his new devices. He was really quite lucky that he had stumbled upon this place to begin with. Drawn by the playful, colored lights and the spinning rides and attractions, Prankster's Paradise certainly seemed to fit the zany sorcerer's modus operandi quite well. Little did he know that the appearance of the place was just the icing on the proverbial cake. After hours, any naughty boys that were still here were slowly turned into donkeys by some hidden magic inherent in the place. Luckily for Kefka, it only seemed to affect youths, as the adults walked around completely unharmed by the strange effects. After their fun was done, the newly transformed asses were corralled and shipped off to salt mines and labor camps elsewhere.

What a positively delightful ring of underhanded marketing! Kefka thought it had a very devious spin. So he decided to set up a new shop here, all for himself. He didn't get bothered by any of the "workers", as he looked like he belonged to the Paradise in appearance already (and any foolish enough who said so to his face or dared to presume to give him orders quickly and discreetly found themselves impaled and burned to a crisp). His main goal was to continue to finagle with the Slave Crown controls and see how far he could push his new device for later excursions on the worlds and for new toys to play with.

Lo and behold, one of the very toys he wished to play with the most happened upon his very doorstep, wounded and alone. Like a little fawn. A bleeding, eviscerated fawn.

She barely caught Kefka's appearance before she gave a look of horror and blacked out. Oooh, how wonderful! Well, no one was looking, and opportunities like this didn't come every day, may as well-

Wait.

No, this wasn't right.

This was not right at all! She... she made this too easy! She wished to steal away his victory from him! If he just killed her now, he wouldn't be able to enact that painful revenge that he'd been dreaming about inflicting upon the little Ice Witch for these many many weeks. She would win! And leave Kefka out in the cold, deprived of his real killstreak! She had played him!

Oh no... oh no, she wouldn't get away with this. If he had to swallow this indignity, at least it was counterbalanced by the fact that he would enact revenge on his own terms later down the line. Scooping her up like an itty bitty baby, Kefka carried the unconscious Elsa back inside his makeshift laboratory in the big topped tent called the Pleasure Circus. There were a few things he had to do first: namely bolting her down with manacles onto the raised gurney he used for all his usual... guests. But he knew her ice would cut through that in due time, so as an extra precaution, he placed a Slave Crown upon her head and set the dial to the lowest level. It would ensure her powers were dampened sufficiently via a small radio signal. If she would concentrate on it for long enough, she could dislodge it, definitely, but he was betting that her recent tenure as someone's chew toy would leave her to be too tuckered out for thinking about escape.

Once steps A and B were done, Kefka finally began applying medicine to the wounds in question, along with clean bandages. He normally wouldn't have bothered having such things, but luckily for Elsa, the Pleasure Circus was already stocked with healing items, probably in case anyone got hurt on the job of wrangling the donkey children. Ah well, saved Kefka a few trips.

Her woulds tended to for the moment, all that was left to do was wait. So he waited. And waited. And waited.

After thirty seconds, Kefka sighed and gave Elsa a huge slap across the face.

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Anna… I'm so sorry…

These were the words that filled Elsa's unconscious mind. The agony of her injuries had finally become too much for her to bear and, mercifully, her body seemed to have shut off her pain receptors as she'd slipped away from the waking world. Even as her physical body lay on the doorstep to the tent, sure she was about to be subject to Kefka's dark ministrations, her mind released her mercifully from that world. She travelled the rifts between worlds in her mind's eye, swooping down over the campfire outside the Coliseum, where the rest of their troupe would all be returning, tasks completed, eager for a warm dinner of meats, cheeses and vegetables that wouldn't be ready. She wondered what they'd do when she failed to return. Would they go looking for her? Would they think she'd run away, stolen their money and bags and run off, finally following through on her desperate need for solitude? Would they find her bags where she'd left them in the woods, no doubt covered in her blood now, and think she'd been killed?

Would they care about what had happened to her at all? And even if they did, how would they ever find her? She'd been abducted, brought to an entirely different world, already on death's doorstep by the time she'd found herself at Kefka's feet.

Kefka.

His face plagued her mind. Even as she flew away from the campfire, she saw the look on his face she'd caught in the split-second before she'd passed out in everything: dotted in the night sky above, twisted into the bark of trees, woven into cast-iron clock faces and, as she descended upon Arendelle, imprinted into the snow and darkness that blanketed her fair kingdom. Even now, even in her darkest hours, her mind couldn't penetrate the marble walls of the Arendellian castle. She tried to approach some of the windows, desperate for a glance inside, for a chance to find Anna perhaps still scouring the halls for her sister.

Oh, Anna… please be alright… I'm so sorry… I'm not going to be able to sav--

SMACK.

Elsa gasped involuntarily as the strike jolted her out of unconsciousness. Her head moved of its own accord to the side as the force of the blow whipped her face down and into something cold, thick and hard beneath her. Her cheek stung. It tingled painfully, only adding to the symphony of agony playing inside her. She moaned, closing her eyes, her head, still tilted to the side from the slap, resting where it lay.

After a few seconds, she forced her eyes back open. The inside of the tent was dark. The only light came from a bare bulb that hung from a fraying wire above her, blinding her and forcing her eyes into slits. The pain of her injuries wracked her whole body. Unlike before, where her whole world had just been consumed by agony as she'd struggled to drag herself through the near-empty compound, now it was though she was reliving every scratch, every rip, every tear, every blow. She could feel each pulsing bruise on her forehead, every slender cut claws had made along her arms and legs, deep, jagged fissures digging into her core, the damage left by those Heartless who had tried to rip out her heart. Each and every little wound seemed to scream with pain, and Elsa was nearly overwhelmed as her brain slowly began to readjust into a conscious mode, allowing all that pain back in to be processed.

She let a horrible, shaking, moaning, whimpering, desperate sound escape her lips as the pain came flowing back. Like a river that had been dammed, what had been calm and slow only a moment ago was suddenly rushing forth, unhampered by the haze that had settled over her mind in her body's own attempts to protect her from the creatures' assault. In addition to that, her back ached, and she realized it was probably because of whatever it was she was laying on.

Groggily, she tilted her head forward, trying to see over her chest as to where she was. What met her eyes only reminded her of why she'd been so afraid when she passed out. And it was no wonder her back complained as much as it did: she was laying on a long, metal gurney, her dress splayed out across the surface and her glitter cape knotted in a bundle at her side. Her wrists and ankles were pinned beneath thick, iron manacles bolted to the gurney, forcing her into a rather compromising spread-eagle position.

Elsa's mind began to race. She knew the clown was standing right there, beside her, his hand having been the instrument of her rude awakening, but even with such an imminent threat looming above her, she couldn't help but panic at the sight of her rather merciless restraints. She could feel tingling behind her fingers and beneath her feet, and knew what was coming.

Yes. Her ice. She needed it now, she needed it desperately…

She closed her eyes and tried to release as much of it as possible.

But nothing happened. The tingling continued. Nothing but frost, weak and moist, escaped her pores, and even then it only melted in seconds under the crude light and heat of the bulb swinging above.

Horrified and confused, she glanced down at her hands, trying to figure out why she couldn't use her magic -- not even noticing or even feeling the silver band tightened around her forehead -- when she caught a glimpse of something white wrapped around her chest. She looked down at it, eyes wide. Bandages, long, spiralling lengths of them, wove down her chest, her arms and she could even feel the embrace of the cloth on her legs as well. Something sticky plastered them to her skin as, when she tried wriggling vainly beneath her restraints, the bandages didn't move or chafe or come undone. They were, however, no longer white.

Already, so soon after he must have applied them, a combination of red and striking purple stained the pristine fabric, no doubt leaking out from her Darkness-infested wounds.

But Kefka, of all people, should love to see her like this. Restrained, of course, because that had been his doing -- but beaten and ripped up, weakened, unable to fight back.

Hadn't that been why he had cultivated an interest in her after all? Because she'd fought back that one day in the woods?

Well, she certainly couldn't fight back now.

She was his.

So why had he bandaged her, why was he seemingly trying to heal her, trying to help her?

She frowned. She didn't even look up at him as a question sprung to her tongue, only let her head fall back into place on its side, one sapphire eye staring up, past the ugly bulb, at the darkness.

"… W- why are you d- doing this? W- what's… w- wrong with you?"

[Deleted]

Ah, finally the little Ice Queen decided to grace Kefka with her lucidity. Took her sweet time. But Kefka did enjoy the initial show of her discovering her whereabouts, seeing her arms and legs chained, and then attempting to summon her ice powers to aid in her escape. Of course, Kefka wouldn't have any of that, not with the Slave Crown attached to her head. It had done wonders at controlling Terra back in the day, thus a little snowflake like Elsa shouldn't be too much of a hassle. Indeed, all her efforts accomplished was a weak covering of frost that quickly evaporated as soon as it was summoned. That look of despair was priceless...

But then, her even more overpowering look of confusion overrode it, and Kefka was reminded exactly what he was doing. As much as it pained him to do so. As much as it violated every single desire in his addled brain to bring her back from the brink of death and nurse her back to health so he could just kill her all over again. But... he had to remind himself exactly why that was needed in the first place. Bah, how droll...

Of course, the question she voiced in her ever-so-frightened tone did offset the frustration quite nicely. He was healing her, but that didn't mean he couldn't play a few mind games in the meantime.

"Oh Elsie, Elsie, Elsie," he chuckled from the side, finally moving into the light, showing off his painted, grinning face, "You of all people should know... there's plenty wrong with me!"

He brought his leering, smiling face a little closer, eager to put her off. He knew that Elsa disliked the proximity of most people, and Kefka was even less in her esteem. So to have her chained on a lab table, unable to move away, unable to cast her powers to force him back, just to stand there and take it... he would savor her every move. Until their faces were inches apart, Kefka stopped and brought a finger under her chin to turn her baby blue eyes towards him, tracing the red claw up her cheek, dangerously close to her eyes, and finally dragging it up to her forehead, to the silver hoop that adorned her like a tiara. Such a fitting piece, like a crown that chained a monarch to her office, this Crown was chaining Elsa to him...

"And I wouldn't start getting any ideas about escaping, Cold-ilocks," he grinned, showing off his yellow-stained teeth, "cause this little number keeps you effectively under my thumb for the duration of your stay. And that's only a minor setting! Imagine what I could do at the higher levels... but then I suppose you'll just have to wait!"

Giggling to himself, he skipped away and brought back some fresh medical supplies, wheeling them up on a silver side table, and began to reinspect the wound. "Aw, you done gone and opened your scratches back up. Not helping at all, dearie... now I need to sew them back up and reapply the potion." Kefka tutted and began to get back to work. The dress had already been torn around the waist, so he was basically working with her exposed midriff as he began to fix her back up and staunch the bleeding.

"Really, so very troublesome... one might question your upbringing, if you carry on like this..."

[Deleted]

The darkness above her wasn't darkness anymore. The clown had stepped forward, the glare of the bulb eclipsed by his shining white face and bright, twisted make-up. She could see his unnaturally wide smile, painted on as if it were a joke, though it only made him appear even more mad than she knew him to be. The red flares under his eyes that rose to the top of his forehead made him look like some sort of wild creature rather than a man, rather than a clown, and she thought that she might not be so off the mark. If she was the monster she believed herself to be, he was a full-time demon.

Then he laughed and spoke, calling her by that sickening nickname, as if she was his pet rather than a queen, rather than a witch whose powers had defeated him once before. Rather than a woman he should fear. Rather than a woman the worlds should fear. She hated how he degraded her. Anger mingled with the fear in her chest as she allowed her eye to meet with his, brow curled into a frown, the look in her eye reflecting only the hatred she harboured for him. She breathed through another wave of pain as he continued to speak. Every word assaulted her ears and widened her eyes.

"You of all people should know... there's plenty wrong with me!"

And that's when he started descending on her. Suddenly, what little strength her anger had managed to fill her with fled as his face, bearing a horrific, hungry and malicious leer, inched closer and closer to her own. She reeled, eyes widening as far as they would go, until she realized she couldn't. She was already pressed flat against the gurney by her restraints, held in place beneath the thick manacles. Desperate, she pressed the back of her head as far down into the unyielding metal as she could, trying to distance herself from the clown, though she knew it was in vain. Instinctively, ice tried to rip from her fingertips, from her feet, from any pore it could find in her body, but all she could manage to do was soak herself as thin layers of frost continued to form and melt on the gurney, drenching the bottom of her dress and only making her even more uncomfortable.

Nothing worked. She had no weapons she could use against him. No way of keeping him away. She couldn't move. She couldn't stop him.

She could see the joy her realization was giving him as he bent forward, his face pressing so close to hers that his forehead alone conquered her entire line of vision. She fought to keep from closing her eyes, but she couldn't keep them from drifting away, trying to avoid eye contact as he parked himself barely inches away from her. Their noses almost brushed as she turned her head away slightly. His breath left his nose and settled on her lips, which sent a shiver down her spine and made her squirm beneath the manacles' unbreakable hold on her. But he wouldn't allow that.

That's when she felt his finger press against her chin. She jumped, only to writhe in pain beneath his touch as her body fought against everything that held her down. She had always dreamed of this: for someone to be able to touch her. For someone to be able to meet her skin and not meet their own death in the process. But not like this. And not with him. And it only got worse. He wasn't just pressing on her now, he was tilting her head back, forcing her eyes back up to stay locked on his own, sapphire orbs peering into the depths of bright, devilish green ones. Her narrowed her eyes again, breath hitching. She hoped enough defiance shone through the fear and desperation that had gripped her to show him that she wasn't just going to take it lying down. Even though she was barely alive, bound and at his mercy, she wasn't going to submit. She couldn't. Not to him.

Then began the torment. His finger was moving, tracing her jaw line until it rose, and she realized it was his nail digging into her cheek. She shuddered against the gurney. It rattled noisily at her movements, though that didn't seem to stop him. He continued upwards until he was pressing alarmingly close to her left eye, the tip of his claw flirting with her temple. Her breath hitched again and she slammed her eyes shut, pressing her head against the table again, willing herself away from the gurney, away from him, away from all of this.

"Stop," she demanded, every tortured muscle in her body tensing painfully.

He ignored her. She felt his finger rise again, away from her throbbing temple and up to something she hadn't noticed before. No doubt she'd been too panicked and too afraid earlier to feel the slim ring of metal fastened around her forehead and caught in her hair. He slips his finger between the space that separates the ring and her skin, tugging lightly, no doubt ensuring she understand exactly what it is he's put on her. She only glares at him through the bright, blinding light as he explains the nature of the machine, threatening her even further with the possibility of raising its power level. She pursed her lips, pulling her gaze away from his and staring defiantly up at the ceiling, trying to ignore the remnant tingling that trailed across her skin at his touch.

He bounded away suddenly, lost to the darkness, and she leaned forward over her restraints to try and follow him. Feeling was slowly flooding back into her. She noticed -- rather, she felt, thanks to a breeze that blew in from somewhere amongst the tent's fabrics -- the tears in her dress now, the bits of her that lay open and exposed to the world, her skin pale and torn. When he came back, wheeling a little side-table along with him, he didn't hesitate in gazing down at her exposed midriff, eyes crawling across her skin. Elsa turned her head away. She wouldn't look at him while he...

"Aw, you done gone and opened your scratches back up. Not helping at all, dearie... now I need to sew them back up and reapply the potion."

Elsa's head snapped back up, eyes trying to pry over her pinned chest at what he was doing.

"Really, so very troublesome... one might question your upbringing, if you carry on like this..."

She couldn't see the contents of the side-table, but after a few moments it was the last thing on her mind. All she could feel was something piercing her. She yelped, unable to stop herself shuddering a little as yet another prick of pain joined the chorus of others. And then another. And then a mighty pull, and she gasped. She could feel the thread in her skin. He was indeed sewing her up.

"... What aren't I helping?" she asked between deep breaths. "You healing me? This isn't like you at all, Kefka... I had expected you to kill me."