Content warning: loss of family, friends, and torture.
TJ writhed in agony in the cloudy expanse he'd been returned to. Instead of comfortable and impressive, the place was now the source of his every discomfort. His body was flayed, skin and muscle hanging from his bones, but he couldn't scream. The winds that whipped him refused to give him any air. Instead, he suffocated as his body was shredded to bits. For what felt like hours, he suffered, his body recovering only slightly and only enough to return more suffering on him. Though he choked airless breaths and his lungs seized for any relief, he was denied the oblivion of unconsciousness.
Suffering was his lot in life, and it sought to break him completely.
Eventually, he was freed from suffocation, and TJ screamed himself hoarse. Whatever it was that compelled the winds to torture him, it continued. No part of him was left whole, his eyes plucked out, his tongue removed, his every inch made to suffer. There was, however, an end. The winds ceased their destruction of his body, and TJ slowly healed. He wept and sobbed, feeling like a child. He'd never been tortured like this, though the agony of Mari's death was a different, similarly visceral suffering. Bit by bit, he recovered enough to look at the world around himself. Was there any sight of what had done that to him?
Then, TJ remembered. He'd been killed by the Lightning Dogs. Was this the afterlife?
"What's going to happen to Junior!" He demanded of the heavens. "What the fuck was that? Total bullshit! You can't pull that shit! I got a bonus, but then had it taken away from me, and I die?"
His rage was too great to articulate. The sobs of pain and suffering were replaced with wordless screams of bestial anger. He'd been cheated, and now there was nothing he could do about it. Robbed by the System or by Wind Manipulation. He'd paid the price for what, curiosity? Searching for more power in a world that demanded it? There weren't words to describe it, and TJ couldn't even touch anything to destroy, to vent his fury.
"No!" He screamed, and with an internal snap, the heavens that surrounded him exploded. The calm, white clouds blackened and roiled with thunder. Lightning struck everything around him as the System spoke.
Behold the consequences of your failure.
TJ was wrenched to a vision, his eyes held captive to the sights. Pine was under assault, hundreds of pukwudgies running forward. They'd grown larger and stronger, nearly to the size of a young teen, and they threw their spears. A dozen fell to the initial volley, and though the defenders strove, they were overrun once the wendigos arrived. At least seven appeared, and as they laid into the already struggling vanguards, the Zealots and Neophytes were taken down and devoured.
Stanton and Zig stood firing again and again into the horde, but though they slew dozens, it was far from enough. TJ was forced to watch as everyone he knew was slaughtered. Granny Penny lunged to heal Connor, but both were stabbed again and again, spears punching through their bodies until they were nothing but bloodsoaked corpses. Javelinas charged through the Disciples and Acolytes, crushing the hopeful people into a sickening mountain of corpses.
Angelo stood behind Farid as he lunged forward again and again, but the two men were brought down by more of the shadowy mountain lions. One appeared behind Angelo and tore his back into ribbons. When Farid turned, he was ambushed by two more. He slew one, but a pukwudgie threw a spear that lodged deep in the Acolyte's eye. He went down as well.
TJ vomited again and again as he saw the reckless slaughter of over 100 people. He was forced to watch each individual's death, their agony, their hopelessness. Molly and Tessie tried to run but were chased down. Laura, petrified by the sight of so much blood, couldn't move as she was torn apart.
Charlie, Seth, Peter, Natalie, Rebekkah, and every other individual. TJ was forced to witness their last stand, and he himself could do anything to stop them or help. He only watched as the familiar sights surrounding the store were soaked in the blood of his friends. There were no survivors, and they didn't even see the Boss. He wept as he was forced to look over the slaughter, the corpses of his fellow Participants being picked over by the monsters he'd been unable to slay.
"Please. Let me go. Let me help them!" TJ begged. He was taken away, but somewhere else entirely.
He saw Junior, sitting at a table, all alone. He colored something TJ couldn't see, but he looked up every minute or so. TJ knew his son looked for him. Junior never saw him, and TJ couldn't reach out to him. He watched as his boy, his baby, aged. He sat at a table, nothing worthwhile to do, but nobody came. When Junior aged a couple years, he stopped crying. When he was about ten, he stopped looking at all. When he was a teenager, he was a bitter, forgotten child. Then, one day, he disappeared.
TJ saw his child, a boy who grew to a man without anyone to love him, to support him, to care for him, as he was taken to a new world. Alone, bitter, and angry, TJ watched as Junior was put in an unfamiliar land. When he saw other people, Junior's face spread in a wide smile, a happy one. When he saw their faces, though, Junior felt the wrongness there. He was immediately captured by this group of people. He couldn't resist as they put him in chains and dragged him away.
"Don't you touch my boy! Keep your fucking hands off!" TJ screamed, but he wasn't heard. He lashed out with wind and fist, he thrashed and wept, and could do nothing but cry as his son, forgotten and unloved by everyone except TJ himself, was subjected to the worst of humanity. He'd known nothing but loneliness, and as soon as he met another person, he was forced to be subhuman, until, a scant few years later, he died.
As he was forced to watch the end of his child's life, the last remnant of TJ's sanity disappeared. He screeched an inhuman call to the heavens, and despite the restriction that'd seemed to be placed on him, he became a coatl. In his Divine Transformation, TJ felt his body swell, grow, and fill the space that he'd been placed in. The body of the Feathered Serpent, Kukulkan, defied the restrictions of the System.
The System would not be beaten.
Though he strained and roared and used Skills beyond his comprehension and power, Kukulkan and TJ were pressed back into a cage. TJ's raging spirit crumbled, and he wept. He lost control of the Divine Transformation. He curled into a ball, and wept.
Behold the consequences of failure.
TJ couldn't react, so broken in spirit he was. Then, the System continued speaking.
You have not yet failed entirely. There remains one additional attempt. Will you allow this to be your end?
There were no words that came to his mind, but neither were they necessary. TJ forced himself out of his huddled misery, stood tall, and forced the heavens to obey him. Whirling clouds surrounded his hands while lightning danced across his body. He swiped at his eyes, and TJ fell from the heavens.
This time, TJ knew what would come. There would be enemies, and though his newfound determination and fury drove him to slaughter them where they stood, he remembered the lessons he'd learned from the visions. He would draw on every lesson they'd presented, and he'd use his greatest strength against these dogs that challenged him. A mere Xolotl versus Kukulkan? Arrogance at its finest.
Conserving some of his power, TJ didn't fly towards the cloud cover, but he used the storms enveloping his hands and feet to propel him to speeds that he'd only ever seen in sports cars before. The featureless land blurred beneath him as TJ screamed through the air. Every one of his lightning-infused steps left scorches in the healthy green grass behind him, and TJ quickly found himself under the cover of the heavy clouds.
They were black with moisture and potential energy. More than before, TJ could feel the boiling rage contained within the clouds, and regardless of the strength of these Lightning Dogs, TJ knew he'd be able to slaughter them all. He settled himself in the center of the excited clouds' shadows. He felt their eagerness to unleash a deluge, and he could choose the form of their wrath. Winds, lightning, and rain all begged to be unleashed on the world, to blow, burn, or wash away whatever stood in their way. Though he could use all three, TJ had learned what he was most familiar with. He could experiment when his son's life wasn't on the line.
As TJ condensed his Wind Manipulation's power more completely into him than ever before, the potential, turbid energy pushed him several inches into the air. He hovered, ready for Xolotl's spawn to approach. They wished to steal from him his future? Never again. The wind begged to be released, to cease waiting, to rush and dance and play. TJ convinced it to wait just a little longer, to work together just a bit more, to let itself build into something greater than he'd ever built before. Though reluctant, the winds agreed, and a minute later, the Lightning Dogs ran sprinting into the cover of the clouds.
The same second the hounds approached, they drew on the electricity dormant and almost forgotten in the clouds above. They wished to wrest from him a part of the heavens? To usurp his dominion? TJ rushed forward, and as soon as he could see the white of the fifty canines' eyes, he unleashed his rage, fury, impotence, agony, torment, and more. A magnified, strengthened reflection of his own coatl form burst into being, its body made of solidified wind, its fangs and feathers lightning, its eyes raindrops. It hissed out a roar and tore into the Lightning Dogs.
It towered over the canines, its body thicker than theirs and well over 100 feet in length. It didn't matter if its form was made manifest by a Skill, the wind, or something else, because the coatl devoured a dozen of the dogs in the initial attack. Winds and teeth alike shredded the beasts, and TJ merely watched as he siphoned the strength of the storm into the coatl he'd created. Overhead, the clouds cleared while the coatl weakened, but by the time the storm was half spent, the few Lightning Dogs that remained were wounded and weak. TJ rushed forward, ready to dispatch whichever ones he could reach, but it was unnecessary.
The coatl surged forward, though its form was much less solid and TJ felt that, though much of the strength of this ability came from the storm overhead, he was nearly out of MP. Even so, there was more than enough for the coatl to ravage the ten or so survivors. With a final clap of thunder, it dove into a group, where it exploded into a burst of cutting winds and lightning. The creatures were mostly unaffected by the lightning, but the winds cut them into little pieces, and TJ stood still, surrounded by the dismembered bodies of tens of Lightning Dogs.
He felt nothing. Nothing but vindication, and a surety that he'd need to continue to do this. The System spoke, reinforcing his thoughts.
Divine Tribulation complete.