Payment in Blood

Introduction
Payment in Blood is the sequel to my previous fanfic, [i]Chaos Rising[/i], and was never meant to be read independently of that story. I recommend you read Chaos Rising at http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2986024/1/. It is written so that people can grasp the story without reading Chaos Rising, but both stories should be read in sequence for the full effect.

As with Chaos Rising and other fanfics originally created for the Sonic World Message Boards, this story uses characters from several other people on the forums. All borrowed characters are used with permission.

Commander Rex “Jesus” Christensen, Connie Christensen, Brian Carson, and Skamper Søderlind were created by Rex540.

Riptos Calavera (and family) and Sarko Entwistle were created by Riptos.

Lt. Daniel “Deathwish” Wishmaster was created by Tom.

Special Agent Fizetta Inverno was created by Fiz the Ancient.

Lt. Skitz “Schizo” Anderson was created by PaintGamma.

Takeo Sekaro, Bookshire Draftwood, Dexter Sekaro, and Crenshaw McCarthy were created by Chacron.

This story is not a work of pornography. It was not written to provide sexual titillation for the audience. There are dozens of stories on AFF that can give you a quick hard-on if you want one. Payment in Blood is a serious work of fiction, and while it contains material of a sexual nature, this material is not central to the story.

Prologue: Sour Dreams

“Self-proclaimed messiah
Led his servants
To their death
Eighty murdered
In the name of God

Forty sons and daughters
Un-consenting plural wives
Perversions
In the name of God”
--Dream Theater – In The Name Of God

25 years ago

Riptos's back ached as he lay on the hard stone floor of his cell, his bare feet shackled to the wall. His head throbbed from beatings, and his skin burned from the intolerably scratchy “penitent raiment” he was forced to wear, made of rough animal hair. The thick leather straps that held it on were closed with locks so he couldn't take it off and end the pain. He was a dead man, doomed to die for committing one of the greatest of sins.

He had deflowered the high priest's daughter.

Tears reached his eyes when he thought of Elena and what she must have been going through. For years Father Sarko and the other priests had drilled into his head that illicit sex was punishable by death. It was an offense to God, they said, and he should not offend God, for without Him, would he not be dead like his parents?

Fuck God, he thought as he squirmed inside his hair shirt.

At seventeen, Riptos was probably the most hated by the priests of all the juveniles in the monastery. They had taken him in after his parents were murdered by a serial killer, and he had started causing trouble almost immediately. He scoffed at the monastery's teachings, made no bones about how much he despised the priests and monks, and chafed under the authority of the monastery.

Any other institution with a ward that hated it so much would have kicked that person out. But Father Sarko enjoyed breaking people. Every time he acted up, Sarko would punish him more harshly, hoping to bully him into submission. But not this time. This time, Riptos had gone too far.

This time, he would die.

He stared at the black marble floor, his stomach torn and aching from receiving no more than a bowl of gruel for a meal. He had not seen Elena since he was caught in the throes of lovemaking with her, and he feared her father had put her to death already.

He looked up as the sound of footsteps drew closer. Two monks stood in the doorway to his cell, unlocking the door. One monk disconnected the chains attached to Riptos's shackles from the wall and hooked the ends of the chains together to form the equivalent of a pair of handcuffs.

“Get up, whelp,” the other monk said, staring down at him contemptuously.

Riptos growled at him, but did as he was told anyway, scowling.

“Still defiant, boy?” said the monk. “I suggest you repent now. What we are going to do to you is a mere trifle compared to the fires of hell.”

“I don't believe in hell,” said Riptos.

“Blasphemer!” The monk struck Riptos across the face, sending him sprawling across the floor. He got up, shaking from pain and bleeding from his nose. Yesterday they had plunged him into ice water until he was on the verge of drowning, over and over, and the day before that they had stretched him on a rack until he screamed in agony. Why didn't they just kill him already?

The second monk was now attaching a chain to the iron collar encircling Riptos's neck. Collared and leashed, like an animal. He was worth less than a dog to them. The monk holding the chain tugged on it sharply to signal Riptos to follow them.

The young hedgehog followed them helplessly, anger burning in his golden eyes, his black-and-yellow striped spines flared up. He wanted to kill the two bastards who were dragging them along, and send them back to this God that they insisted that he worship.

They led him to a large, circular, extremely cold room with black stone forming the walls, floor, and ceiling. Light shone down from the hole in the center of the domed ceiling. A massive wooden frame stood into the center of the room, and near it was a monk, robed in black, holding a long leather bullwhip. Riptos gulped.

As he was led into the room, he looked around and realized it was an amphitheater, with tiers of seats going around the edge of the room. In a private box, facing the wooden frame, stood Sarko in ceremonial robes. Riptos glared at him until one of the two monks leading him elbowed him in the side.

Sarko addressed the two guards. “Has young Riptos shown remorse for his great sin? Has he repented enough to perhaps redeem his soul from the fires of hell? Speak, men!”

“He has not shown the slightest contrition, your holiness. He is defiant, recalcitrant, obstinate, and stubborn. He will not listen to the good sense of his elders, and has embraced immorality and wickedness.”

“Very well, then. You may continue. Carry the punishment out for forty lashes, until he is ready to repent, or until the apothecary determines that he is so badly injured that any further punishment may result in his death, whichever comes first.”

Riptos gulped again. So either he would be whipped 40 times or until they thought he was about to die. The monks proceeded to remove his clothes, leaving him wearing only a loincloth, the rest of him exposed to the terrible cold. He shivered uncontrollably. The monks grabbed his arms and secured them to the frame with straps, and the lictor, the man with the whip, turned a crank to lift the frame and suspend him in the air. His mind raced with terror. His heart pounded, his vision contracted into a tunnel, his breath came in gasps, and his mouth became dry. Sarko smirked at him.

“Well, child, are you ready to atone for your sins? You look frightened,” said the high priest.

“I will be dead before I grovel at your feet, you so-called Father,” said Riptos. “Have you butchered your daughter yet?”

“Enough!” shouted Sarko. “If you're going to repent, you had better do so now, as this will be your last round of punishment before your execution. You are going to die no matter what, but if I were you, I would rather make sure I go somewhat pleasant after it happens.”

Riptos said nothing, merely glaring at him.

“Begin,” said Sarko. “One!”

The lictor stepped back and raised his whip. The leather thong made a loud crack as it streaked through the air and gouged into the flesh of Riptos's back. The youth screamed as flaming agony filled his body.

“Two!”

The whip struck again, knocking Riptos's body forward as it hit. His black fur was slick with his own blood as he howled in pain.

“Three!”

The third stroke brought even more pain as the lictor brought the whip low to slash the backs of Riptos's thighs. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he bit his lip until it bled to hold back a scream.

“Four!”

This time, Riptos could not stop himself from screaming. The floor beneath him was splattered with bright arterial blood, and three raw, red streaks crossed his back.

The whipping repeated, every lash bringing a new wave of pain through Riptos's scrawny body. He lost count of how many times he had been hit as everything merged into a continuous, burning pain. Eventually, it came to be so much that he struggled to stay conscious. The apothecary shouted something, and the monks released him, letting him collapse into a pool of his own blood.

--

Present Day

Riptos awoke with a start, crying out as the monastery's torture chamber was replaced by his own bedroom and his youth replaced by a time decades later. Elena, who had been asleep beside him, was now awake, putting her arms around him and trying to console him. “Calm down, Rippy,” she said. “It's only a dream. You're safe now.”

Riptos breathed heavily as his panic slowly subsided. Elena ran her hands through the fur on his back, feeling the quarter-century-old scars from the lictor's whip and the newer, larger scar from where Riptos's back had been broken by the support strut of a fighter cockpit in a combat engagement that had left her husband paralyzed four months ago. She already knew what Riptos had been dreaming of. He had had these nightmares ever since they had escaped from the monastery.

Elena kissed Riptos, sliding her tongue into his mouth and stroking Riptos's own tongue. She held the kiss for around thirty seconds before breaking off and resting Riptos's head against her bosom. Satisfied that Riptos was calmed, she fell asleep to her own dreams of the past.

--

Adrian lay awake in his bunk, never having had a nightmare to wake up from. In fact, he hadn't slept a wink this night. He had gotten maybe a few hours of sleep a night for the two weeks he had been in naval academy. Whether it was homesickness, worry over classwork, or the extremely uncomfortable mattress, there was always something to keep him up all night.

But at least he had a decent roommate.

Her name was Bianca, and she was a lithe, pretty gray hedgehog whose outgoing energy contrasted with Adrian's shy, aloof demeanor. As he was a medical student and she a nursing student, they had a lot of things in common to talk about. And with the brutal classwork and training and obnoxious, cruel instructors, a good roommate was like a gift from the heavens. He looked down and noticed she seemed to have a bit more success than he was at sleeping. He climbed out of bed, putting on a bathrobe, and went into the bathroom. He closed the door, turned the bathroom light on, and looked into the mirror. He always found that doing so helped restore his sense of reality when stress was getting to him. He looked haggard, dark blotches under his blue eyes, his rusty-colored spines pointing every which way, his eyes bloodshot. He was thankful to even have a bathroom. Naval cadets who already held college degrees when they joined went into a fast-track training program where the only hygeine facilities were group showers and latrines. As Adrian still had to get his degree before he could become an officer, he had some of the meager comforts of military college—a dorm instead of a cot in a barracks, slightly better food, and the ability to spend his off-time in relative peace and quiet.

He heard the door open and saw Bianca standing there, coming over to him. “Couldn't sleep, huh?” she said.

“Yeah,” said Adrian. “I haven't had a good night's sleep since I got here.”

“You get used to it eventually. It took me about a month to adjust to life here.” Bianca had been in military college for a year and a half already. “Come on, I have something that can help you sleep,” she said as she rubbed him between the ears. She filled a small cup with water from the sink and bade him to follow her.

Adrian watched her take a bottle of pills from her bag in the compartment under her bunk and hand it to him along with the cup of water. “Take this. I haven't needed to take one in a long time, but I think it will help you a lot. It's a sleep aid.”

“Thanks,” said Adrian as he swallowed the pill.

“It should kick in in a few minutes. Just go back to bed, and you should be asleep soon.”

“I guess I'll see you in the morning then,” said Adrian as he removed his bathrobe and climbed the ladder.

Adrian got under the sheets and curled up, waiting for the pill to take effect. Two weeks down, three years to go, he thought to himself. Jesus Christ, I'm going to die like this.