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Maybe it wouldn't have come to this if it weren't for...
Well, everything, really.
Anything other than regret between Medkit and that psychotic bastard had been doomed since whatever force that dictated the spawns had decided on Blackrock.
Medkit could remember a short period of time where he had been truly happy, yet it was only born from that naive lack of awareness that he despised in what used to be himself. All Blackrockians, really, had a small moment of hope that quickly dissipated in no more than a few years.
It was an innocence marked by fluffy blankets and "puppy piles" to keep warm when the heating broke, and early schooling that was relatively normal. It was coming "home" to caretakers that he'd known as his family for the beginning of his life. It was being praised for his intelligence; how everything seemed to come naturally to him; how he stood out among the rest. He'd thought that being singled out would be a good thing for him. He loved researching and figuring out the intricacies of how things worked, maybe he could even work for the betterment of their entire society! He could do so many great things with that position, even if he despised that he was being forced into it. He always tried to make the most of it.
He did everything he could to hold onto those goals, but it was never any use. It only got him reprimanded and taken off of research teams. He learned to fit in eventually, though. He worked until he reached that sweet intersection of being one of Blackrock's most promising inventors—by whatever metric that fit him, he never came to find out—and having enough trust put in him to assign him to their newest, most highly-valued project: energy crystals.
Subspace was much like him at that time, and yet, they were complete opposites. He was loud, and energetic, and extroverted, and messy, but his vigor undeniably showed in his work. Subspace was dedicated, and any childlike nickname that Medkit hated couldn't overshadow that. He was exactly the kind of scientist that Blackrock would turn out. His edges were sharp, and his personality was more than a little grating, but his values were perfectly aligned with what their superiors wanted.
Medkit, on the other hand, was quiet, and anxious, and reserved, and organized. It was no wonder that the two argued from the day they first set foot in their shared lab. It was only petty disagreements at first—how to go about a procedure, what sources to use, what documentation was needed—but it would eventually get far too out of hand.
"I know the higher-ups wouldn't like it, but do you really think I care at this point?! I can't just–... just stand by while I watch our creations be used for that level of violence! People will die, Subspace, can't you understand that?" Medkit attempted to persuade his coworker, the research partner who he'd somehow managed to put up with for this many years despite how much he'd come to despise almost everything about Blackrock. There was everything to despise about him, too, but Subspace was hardly his biggest issue with how the place was run.
Subspace wasn't having it, though; he never did. He stuck to the ways he had been taught to think. It had managed to get him this far, after all.
"Can't you understand how idiotic you're being right now?! What are you even planning to do, walk up to 'em and go 'Oh, hey boss! I've decided that I'm not going to work on this project anymore because I can't handle a few casualties'?!! How much righteous bullshit do you have to fill your head with to think you can just quit an assignment like that?! We've been working on this for the entire time we've been partners!!" Subspace yelled to someone who was right next to him, much louder than Medkit ever prefered to be.
It wasn't a lost cause yet, surely. He could be persuaded. It wasn't seen by most demons, but Medkit knew that his coworker had some semblance of morality in him.
He saw it in the extra care to keep his creations from being used near children. He saw it in the consideration required to brew coffee for someone you fight with all day. He saw it in the filed claws after he had nicked Medkit while attempting to spook him. He saw it in the more restrained tail mmovements when he knew it would affect Medkit's focus.
Subspace would do almost anything for whatever he considered "the good of Blackrock", but he wasn't completely irredeemable yet.
"This isn't some fairytale," Subspace continued, face scrunching in frustration. "This is what Blackrock wants, this is what Blackrock needs, and what you want would betray our entire cause! If some test subjects are needed, or if the crystals are used for warfare, who cares? What did you even think we were doing this for, so that their use could be restricted to inphernals with healing gears?! Medical equipment?!"
There was a small pause while the two scientists processed what the other had just said. The tension in the air seemed to shift, calming for a second, but it grew much thicker immediately after.
"If you think you can get away with going against orders, then frankly, I think you're insane," Subspace finished off, lowering his voice as if that would do anything.
He began moving towards Medkit in a way that would have left him cornered if he'd backed away, but Medkit leaned toward him instead. He wasn't backing down now, before he even got his point across.
"I'm insane? You're insane! Are you really happy with what we've made?!"
Medkit grabbed one of the crystals that they'd been testing recently for emphasis. It was the most destructive one they'd managed to create so far, a bright pink one that was based off of how Subspace's own mines functioned. The thing was barely even a prototype, as its energy output was still far too unstable for practical use, but it did... something. He held it up between them. Subspace stepped back on instinct. Even he was frightened by what the two had created, at least on a subconscious level.
"These need to be regulated, or altered, or... or banned! Nobody's even given us a good explanation for what they're going to be used for. For all we know, we could–"
"So, what, are you just going to run away?! I don't understand what you're even thinking right now!" Subspace cut his research partner off. "Sure, let's just say the crystals are just soooo bad that we should throw away all of our work and quit everything. Turn the whole thing around. What next?!! We would be forced into hiding, or punished, or killed! I mean, you do what you want I guess, but you're not dragging me into your death wish!! And that's ignoring the fact this is such a useless thing to get hung up on!"
Medkit wanted to scream. It wouldn't get him anywhere—in fact, it would probably just prove to Subspace that he was being irrational—but the thought of hollering out his grievances was extremely tempting at the moment. His lab partner kept on with his rant before he could act on any of his impulses, though.
"I'm not backing down from our project just because you're weak. Why wont you just shut up about this whole savior thing?! Nobody cares, nobody's even in your corner!! Use your head!"
He kept lashing his long tail the longer they argued, and the more he did it, the more agitated he was getting. Medkit knew this by now, could read his body language a little too well for his liking. The two had fought with each other for so long that he knew this was about to escalate pretty quickly, but he could hardly care anymore. There was only so much he could do before his morals won over his dedication to the job, and that line had been crossed for far too long now. Something was going to have to end today.
Looking back, the only thing that had really ended for good was their tolerance for each other.
As tufts of fur flew into the air, and claws ripped deeper than just a few scratches, neither of them really seemed to be winning the fight that broke out. Not that it was really much of a fight at first, anyway—neither of them were exactly that strong when they hadn't finished all of their physical training yet. They were too evenly matched for one of them to easily get the upper hand.
Subspace had kept getting closer, with his fur sticking up all over like he was trying to seem bigger, and next thing he knew Medkit was shoved into a wall hard enough that he bumped his head on one of the shelves. Everything after that was nothing more than a blur of white and pink and green and red, with little sharp needles digging into skin and clothes, and the sounds of two demons attempting to throw each other against the floor. Well, almost everything. There were certain parts that both of them would always remember very well, like an incessant taunting that would never go away. A horrible set of memories constantly tugging at every atom inside.
The sight of a hand coming far too close and far too fast, until half of that sight was gone in a mess of blood. The feeling of the absence of any feeling where it should be, the only pain present at the point where his eye should've been connected to its socket. The blood that Medkit hoped the other felt he could never wash from his claws.
He never did manage to shake off the blame like he did with all his test subjects. It wasn't as if he wanted to.
The small click of a crystal making contact with a mine mid-air, and the much louder explosion that followed after. The feeling of half of his face burning, melting, as the pain went on completely endlessly. The scream that Subspace hoped haunted the other for the rest of his life.
He never did manage to purge that sound from what woke him in his nightmares. At least that scream had come from someone who'd deserved it.
Still, it haunted him until it was the last thing he ever heard from the demon... creature who had become the person... thing he most despised. Even after years had passed with no contact between them. Even after they'd somehow repeated the whole thing over again a decade later.
Now, Subspace was just this twisted, scared creature in front of him. An injured animal on the ground, who surely must've had rabies, or some other disease, if he had hurt so many people in such a short lifetime. All those demons who could've been saved if he'd had just a little more sympathy back then. If the pleas of "We can't keep hurting people like this" and even "I'd take you with me" had been heard more clearly. If the Korblox brainwashing hadn't started so young.
But that was all done now. The only thing that mattered was that Medkit had the thing cornered, and apparently he was running low on energy to use his gear properly. He didn't turn into a trail of poisonous gas to avoid his fate, and he certainly didn't detonate a mine—he wasn't in any shape to hurt himself with his own weapons at such a close range anymore, and it seemed that he was at least rational enough to know that. He'd already tried that earlier. Surprising for him really; Medkit was half expecting any sense of reason to have left him by now. He couldn't see reason back then, after all. Maybe it was his survival instincts finally kicking in, but it was already too late to save himself now.
Medkit was going to do it for him.
Maybe it wouldn't have come to this in some alternate universe, some better universe...
But that wasn't the one they were in.
They were in the timeline where it had all went wrong, where the antagonism between them had only continued to escalate, where Blackrock's greatest mind had a craving for violence, and these were the future repercussions.
Except, Medkit wasn't living in the future. He was living in the now, and the only future he could see was one where this net negative on the world had pleaded his goodbyes to him.
He didn't really plead anything, though. He didn't beg for his life, or say anything about how much he still had left to do, or use any words at all. He didn't even really scream like he had on that day. Everything about him matched the pitiful wail that perfectly captured what he was under the surface, what Medkit knew that he was deep down. It was worse, really, that he didn't have any more of that cockyness left in him. At least then this would feel familiar; at least then it wouldn't feel like he was targetting a defenseless innocent. Subspace wasn't anywhere near innocent, though. The rational part of him still knew that. The emotional part could wait its turn.
... Now Medkit was just a spawnling toying with their food. The thing was hurting, and practically crying. He'd probably been hurting on some level for all of his life, feeling his own poison sting down his throat with his saliva while his body slowly ate at itself. This wasn't exactly a mercy, no, but it was the closest thing he would get. It was the closest thing anyone could give him.
...
It was a terrible sound, really, even if it wasn't very loud. There was no one around to hear it, though. No one was around to witness the death of the most prized scientist of an entire region. No one was around to hear that final gunshot, or see the liquid spill from his head. It really was for the best that he wasn't heard. Medkit wanted to end all of this, not humiliate anyone. He just wanted it to be over.
He had expected to feel... maybe a sick sense of joy, or relief, or even sadness, but he found that he didn't feel much of anything. He felt cold, but not in the way he still remembered Blackrock's snow icing his skin through his fur, or the chilling nights of the Lost Temple. Not even in the way he felt when hearing about one of Scythe's victims, or the constant chill down his spine back when he had been forced to use living inphernals as test subjects.
There was nothing that could've prepared him for this feeling, like he would never feel anything again. The hand that took ahold of his heart and just held it there, softly, but with no ounce of affection in any movement it made.
He couldn't even feel relief at knowing that it was finally over, looking down at the still-warm body of someone he could've known better than himself. There was some sort of strange apprehension he had to just walking away. Someone would come find the dead inphernal eventually, anyways, but he couldn't just leave him there yet, for some odd reason.
... Maybe he was feeling something, actually, however nonsensical it was. It wasn't sadness, even though it brought him the urge to cry. It wasn't anger, either. It was close to the bitterness he always felt when looking at the lifeless inphernal between his feet, but it was different in some way. It was something that he couldn't quite place. Something that whispered to him that there shouldn't have been a world where he felt he needed to do this to who should've stayed as his other, opposite half. He should've been able to help him from himself, he should've been able to make him see that his own ideals were hurting him, but the Blackrock of this timeline only raised inphernals to be cruel.
Just one more little voice to shut out for the foreseeable future, he figured, until he met his own end.
Then, at least, they could be equally pitiful.