Monster
When he stepped back into the clan's village, no one had bothered to stop and spare him a glance, uncaring about how disheveled and distressed he look, willingly ignoring how his spectra had all but vanished, his real arms shaking and covered in old scars and smaller, fresh scratches and bruises.
Everyone but one spectrel ignored Soren. The one spectrel he almost feared to see.
He simply froze at the sight of Samael, standing there as if he had been waiting, staring him down with that cold and merciless glare of his.
"Mh? You're alive?" For once there was genuine surprise in his tone, skillfully masking the disappointment. He fully expected Soren to be dead by now, the faulty curse backfiring on him. What went wrong? Well, no matter, he'd take care of this problem with his own hands then.
"I... I-I need help..." His pride had been all but forgotten in the face of fear, panic clouding his judgement, convincing him for one single, fatal moment that maybe, just maybe, someone would be willing to help him, to lend him the benevolent hand he'd been so desperate for since his life had been turned into his own hell.
"And what makes you think we'd want to help a cursed child?"
"I don't care if I'm cursed, I don't want to be a monster!" Now that got the others' attention, those who were previously ignoring the commotion turning to see what was going on, whispers ranging from confusion to fear as they closely observed him, stepping away as if he would kill anyone who dared get too close. The whispers soon turned into gasps and frantic talk, pointing at a confused and somewhat scared Soren like he was the devil himself- and he might as well have been for them, with the horns starting to poke from his hair, the feathers turning red and the eyes flashing grey.
"What are you waiting for?" Samael quickly snapped at the guards nearby. "You know what to do, arrest it before it tries to kill us."
"W-wait-!" Ignoring his protests and pleas, the guards had acted quickly, soon bringing the terrified child to face the entire clan handcuffed and on his knees.
To see the one he hated so much squirming in fear and confusion, unaware of how his very existence had finally become the horrible mistake it was meant to be, something forbidden that needed to be gotten rid of... few things could make him happier.
"W-wait... I-I... I'm not..." His voice was barely a feeble and broken whisper, drowned out by the discussion of the elders and the scared crowd screaming for his death. He couldn't say anything, couldn't even think of something that would spare his life. It was hard to find a reason to live when everything and everyone you knew wanted you dead.
With the situation at hand and the crowd's yells, the elders didn't hesitate to take a decision, to rectify the mistake they let slip for far too long. Soren couldn't even find the strength to scream, staring numbly at nothing.
Veredict announced, Samael calmly walked over to the chained spectrel, roughly grabbing and yanking a handful of hair to look at Soren in the eyes, not even bothering to hide his pleased grin, purring into his ear with a terrifying satisfaction.
"You're a monster now, so do me a favor and act like one before you die."
That was his breaking point.
When the spears were pointed at him to immediately carry on the execution, almost as if confirming the accusations, his eyes went wide, quickly darkening until they turned pitch black with a smear of an intense blood red, feathers turning sharp and horns growing, his spectra manifesting and breaking through the handcuffs with startling ease, in a matter of seconds turning into the beast everyone had come to fear.
There weren't any doubts in the clan's minds anymore, they wanted this abomination dead.
The guards didn’t hesitate to attack, the fear of being killed by that thing overpowered by the need to protect their clan. No one seemed to care that the monster didn’t attack first, looking around as if trying to find a way to escape. When the first slash of a daring spectrel hit him, something snapped. His claws mauled the unfortunate guy with the same ease a knife could cut butter.
It didn’t turn into a fight, it was a bloodbath.
"I'll take care of this monster." The guards seemed almost too happy to back off and let him deal with the creature; if they noticed Samael's far too wide grin at the prospect of killing a once promising kid, they either didn't care or agreed with him.
In a burst of ethereal blood red flames, his twin blades materialized in his hands, pointed at those eyes void of any recognition or humanity. Sensing the imminent threat, Soren lunged forward with a feral snarl and bared teeth, claws clashing with crossed blades over and over again, each of them trying to get to the other's throat. For a while, neither succeded, Soren's newfound strength easily making up for their gap in abilities and Samael constantly managing to keep the claws far enough to not graze him.
Despite his new strength, the monster's movements were sluggish and imprecise, unused to this new form, and Samael allowed himself to smirk, far too confident in what he thought would be an easy victory. He raised his blades, and then lunged forward, aiming for the throat.
Then, claws met flesh, and there was blood swarming his vision.
The ensuing chaos had been lost to Samael, quite literally blinded by the searing pain, clutching his face with a hand, the blood still flowing freely from the deep gashes on his face. Then everything went black.
When Samael woke up some time later, more than half of his face had been wrapped in thick bandages. Soren had escaped, injuring many others in the process, a few of them fatally. Samael's pride had costed them lives.
The wall started to crack under his punch, and his anger was enough to keep everyone away in fear of being injured- or worse. Not like Samael cared, there was only one thing in his mind: revenge. An eye for an eye is what they say, right?
"I'll make him crawl at my feet like a useless dying dog and beg for the pathetic and undignified death a mistake like him deserves."
When he managed to calm down just enough to devise a plan, Samael prepared to leave and hunt down the abomination that had escaped him, determined to not only kill him, but to make him crawl and suffer like he deserved. He needed to make a call first, though.
"Hey, it's me. I need you to make something for me- quick. I won't let that little freak escape..."