Sowers of Discord


Prolog: Pain

I'm deleting.

It was such a simple thought from a mind so used to complex, grandoise thoughts. A flicker of suprise stabbed through the haze of pain.

Ah yes, the pain.

Pain had been a constant companion ever since the boy had stabbed at him wildly. The slash across his abdomen had been the first major pain he had felt in seconds. It had hurt to continue the fight with the impossibly strong young sprite. Snapping his ankle in the fall hadn't done him any favors, either.

There was no flimsy excuse about the ends justifying the means. He prided himself on out-thinking his enemies, luring them into complex traps before utterly destroying them. It had worked, too.

Never on his sister, of course. She was almost as brilliant as he, in her mad way; and her madness had given her an edge of unpredictability.

That had always been his mistake with Bob, he realized suddenly. The Guardian had been subtly unpredictable. As had the boy, though now he was merely unpredictable.

No other sprites were like that. They had been so boringly predictable, and so easy to defeat.

Did the Guardian Protocol make that much difference?

Did it matter? Did it matter that he should have known that Mouse was around? Did it matter that the Web had almost destroyed him or that Dot had completed the process?

Only if the Guardian saw him like this.

His strength was gone, his body mangled, his mind was slowly shattering, and his voice was agony to use. All he had left was his pride.

He would never let Bob pity him.

* * *

CONTINUED IN CHAPTER I. HEALING

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