Snippet #1697857

Wraith observed with what could have passed for slight amusement on his features. Thin lips pressed together and twitched up at the corners, his eyes were filled with a dark glee that could send shivers through most. They were hollow, emotionless, exempt of all except pure unbridled malice. The battle was a thing of beauty, he could almost taste the death on the air. He could imagine a sweet fragrance drifting from maimed and stilled bodies. Blood emptying from drying veins and lending the grass a lovely crimson. Hearts beating their frantic lasts and lungs failing to breathe. It was all a tapestry of glorious slaughter. Yet Xander could not join in. He could not stride among the corpses or bring delectable death to the living. Magneto restrained him, much to his great pity. So he waited, knowing that his limitless desire for death would be sated in time. He could look beyond the day, He would soon feast upon the lives of the weaker species without limitation.

So he stood, his great presence still. His heartless smile seemed to draw out the joy from those around him, just as they could feel the cold chill of his life piercing aura. The individual events of the others were of no consequence. He would not trouble himself with lesser creatures unless it is to bring such sweet pain to their fragile bodies. He so longed to slaughter them, to march like Death incarnate and wield the scythe of destruction. He could imagine it, just like so many times before. He would hear their screams of pain while he stripped life from them in their helplessness. All of flesh and blood were victims to his will, as twisted and as blessed as it was. He watched, wind whipping across his smooth flesh and lifting his white cape and hair in twists and flutters. All ought to see him and fear.

Out the corner of his eye he caught a wisp of motion. He turned to spot a young girl, no older then perhaps sixteen or seventeen. There was a steely glint in her eyes. Her right hand held a knife, deadly sharp in the reflecting sunlight. The others seemed otherwise occupied and even Magneto didn't seem to notice. His small smile split his face, the corner of his lips lifting to reveal sharp white canines. His eyes filled with a dark glee as he simply stepped forward. The girl whipped her head around, brown hair sweeping with the reaction. She was caught for a moment, uncertain whether to engage the new threat to push forwards to Magneto. She decided to late, not that anything could have saved her. A light motion of Wraith's clawed hand and she was rendered immobile. At that moment fear filled her eyes, he body was no longer hers to command. She was a mind trapped within a cage of flesh. Wraith cocked his head to the side and looked over his prey. Already he could hear the sweet screams and the taste the terrible pain he was about to bring. He lifted his hand, each fingernail filed into vicious points. Her body drifted into air, arms and legs limp. Terror streamed from her eyes, already red and sore, unable to blink. Girls were Wraith's favorite, their bodies so much more fragile and their screams of pain so much more inciting.

He kept his hand upraised as his thoughts directed her body. Against her will, although there was no signs of struggle, the hand clench a dagger moved across to hover about the smooth flesh of her left arm. He pressed the point down into the skin, the sharp heat of the point flared through him. Trickles of blood began to flow down her arm as the dagger was drawn upward slowly, slicing greedily through the protective cells. He clenched her fist, nails slicing into her palm. More pain and Xander did not flicker, his eyes filled only with elation and his smile pitiless. Blue eyes begged for release, tinged red as droplets of salty water ran down the side of her nose. He pushed the dagger in deeper, slicing into the muscles beneath the skin. It twisted, pressing through as blood flooded out of the ragged hole. He let her release the dagger and her right arm dropped limp again. He gave her back command of her voice as his mind grasped the red flesh and began to peel it from her injured arm. Her scream tore through the air, piercing and adding to the melange of noises from the battle. He drank it in, breathing deeply as if the pain he could feel was a drifting scent. Her skin pulled away from the red mass of her arm muscles, he could feel the burning agony he inflicted and delighted in it. He lifted his head back and began to laugh in his elation. It was the voice of a mad man, shuddering through the minds of all who heard. In chorus with the girls heart rending screams of pain the sound was inexplicably evil. Suddenly the screams shuddered to a stop as the flesh of forearm was torn from the muscle in one sicking ripping of flesh. The pain had run its course, her mind ruined by the incredible horror. Blood flooded from the skinless arm as the the flesh once concealing it floated between the two.

Wraith's grey eyes looked over the mutilation in glee, the beauty of it filled him. It was only a pity she could not withstand more, her mind was weak. As could be expected from a lower being. He extinguished her life, upraised hand clenching. Within the girls chest the heart rendered itself. Ribbons of heavy muscle sliced away until there was no longer an organ that could be defined as the life giving pump. With the task done Wraith turned his attention to the crimson fluid sinking into the thirsty earth. It began to condense, streaming upwards in a inverse of gravity a flowing towards the manipulator. It washed over his hand, bathing the white skin in red. Yet even as it did so he absorbed the life blood, drawing it into himself, feeling the life giving forces flood him and energy fill his body.