Liars and Monsters - Waking Nightmares [1390 words] (Originally posted on October 15, 2015)
Nightmares are a b***h.
Chase wakes with a jolt and a thud, landing on the floor in a tangled mess of blankets and pillows. He’s hot all over, skin shiny and sticky with sweat, and his muscles ache. His skin feels rough, raw like he’s been rubbed all over by sandpaper and he thinks he might have a split lip.
Frankly, he doesn’t remember much from the night before, until he smells the metallic stench of blood and he’s hit with a wave of nausea. In a panic, he scrambles backward, kicking the blankets off, eyes searching for the source of the stench. He doesn’t find it, just sees the bruising on his skin, the scratches and open cuts already starting to heal along his body.
His head hurts and, ********, his body aches.
The memories don’t hit him until he sees the starseed, purple and dull, settled into the carpet next to one of the bed legs. The nausea builds within him again and he lurches forward, hand clamped over his mouth, to keep the bile from leaving his mouth.
(He is sick, sick, sick.)
Somehow, in a daze, he stumbles into the bathroom in enough time to expunge the contents of his stomach into the toilet.
(There’s not much in it, mostly just stomach acid. His mouth tastes bitter like ash.)
He dry heaves a couple more times and by the end of it, his sides ache like he’s been kicked repeatedly and his throat burns. It takes what little strength he’s got left to push himself off the floor, gripping the toilet seat so tightly it leaves imprints in his palms, and wander over to the sink. His intention is to brush his teeth, wash out the taste of acid and ash, but instead all he can do is stare at himself in the mirror.
He’s a hot mess, to put it gently.
The bag under his eyes are a dark purple and his face is gaunt, hollow-looking. There’s bruising on his neck, scratches on his face, and a cut along his collarbone. He looks like a shadow of the man he once was.
(He can’t remember what he used to be like.)
He sways when he looks at himself, has to grip the bathroom sink tightly to keep from toppling. (Where did all his strength go?) He searches his reflection for something, tries to will the light back into his bright eyes. They’re supposed to reflect gold, not tarnished metal.
His hair is a disheveled mess, the pink fading white and he looks a bit like a skunk, too long on the sides for the style he likes to wear. He’s too thin-- he can’t remember the last time he ate, but the idea of eating makes his empty stomach churn.
He looks like the empty shell of a person.
He forces himself to turn away, Chase can’t stand to look at himself and know that he looks nothing like the person he used to be, who he should be.
(Where did he go, what has he become?)
(Monster, the voices whisper.)
He’d done so well, gone months without blood on his hands, without death on his conscious and now? Now he is coated, drenched in his sins.
Can sinners ever really be saved?
He hopes so.
He has to hope so.
(He doesn’t have much else.)
He trudges back into his room, picks the covers off the floor and tosses them haphazardly on his bed. The starseed catches his eye again, his stomach drops, but he reaches for it anyway. Chase swallows, runs his fingers over the smooth planes of the gem.
He should get rid of it, crush it, eat it, do something with it.
He can’t bring himself to do anything but stare and try and swallow the lump back down his throat. It doesn’t work, but he pretends.
(He is so, so good at pretending.)
His head is a whirl, a foggy mess of mixed realities, jumbled time streams, and pieces of memories from last night. He didn’t mean to kill the knight, but he’d been backed into a corner and his fight or die instincts kicked in before he knew what was happening.
It doesn’t make him any less a murderer, he knows.
The guilt sits heavy on his chest when he finally closes his fingers around the starseed.
What he does next probably isn’t in his best interest, but he wants solace, redemption of some sort.
He powers up and travels to the rift.
The youma around him are antsy, restless because they can sense the starseed in his possession. It calls to them, because few things are sweeter than a powered person’s starseed between your teeth-- hard to obtain things always tasted the sweetest --and they begin to collect in a circle around him.
The youma eye him warily, hungry. The dead are gone and the living are hungry, he thinks absently, watching as they begin to edge closer, bumping each other and snarling warnings. They won’t attack him, or at least they shouldn’t.
He is a general, he has control over them, he has nothing to worry about.
Still, there is a wicked unsettling energy buzzing around him as he steps through the crowd of youma. The starseed pulses weakly in his hand, growing tarnished from being exposed for so long. Starseeds aren’t meant to be outside the body for so long.
He thought about eating it, putting it between his teeth and crushing it into fine shards.
And then he thought better of it.
Starseed addiction was an ugly thing, something he’d seen too many good soldiers rely on. He was no junkie, he was wrecked without an addition already. Besides, he’d gorged himself on too many months ago, when his starseed needed healing, and he didn’t want to taint himself further.
That was a laughable thought, so much so that the lone general barked out a dark stream of laughter with his head tilted back and his fist against his chest.
He couldn’t get much more tainted than he already was.
(Monster, the voice in his head hissed.)
He continued to walk, holding his empty hand up in a halting motion to the restless creatures behind him, ordering them to heel. He reached a desolate skeleton tree, with wicked branches that curled upwards like a grasping hands, and knelt before it. He pressed a palm against the dried bark, dragging it down until it touched the hard ground.
“May you be reborn in the right life, on the right side,” he murmured, stuffing the starseed in his pocket so he could claw at the ground. His attempts did little and the youma were edging ever closer until he sighed and gave up.
He pulled the gem from his pocket and set it at the base of the tree where his half-hearted attempt to dig a hole showed wear signs. He lingered, hesitated, and second-guessed himself before forcing himself away. “May you be recycled and repurposed,” he whispered, taking one step then two and so forth.
Everything felt wrong, but then again, nothing ever felt right anymore.
The moment he was past the gathered youma, they lunged for the treat he’d discarded. Before, it would’ve brought a smirk to his face but now, it brought a grimace.
This is the circle of life, he reminds himself, forcing his feet forward. An unsettled feeling finds it’s way into his stomach and he tries not to feel queasy. His sides ache from all of his dry retching over the last few weeks.
He looks back because he cannot help himself and sees nothing but carnage in his wake. His stomach churns.
The dead are gone and the living are hungry, he tells himself, making as quick of an exit as he can manage.
Yet the dead continue to haunt the living, he laments, when he returns home and imagines blood splattered across his walls.
There is no rest for the wicked.
He falls to his bed and laughs, desperate barks of laughter that quietly slip into sobs.
(Monster, you are a monster, the voice in his head reminds him. There’s no salvation for you.)
(You’re wrong, he insists.)
(It’s not wrong.)
Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 8:23 am
Solo Roleplay Liars and Monsters - Temporary Serenity [2816 words] (Originally posted on October 22, 2015)
In the days following his venture into the Rift, Chase fares better.
Not much better, but--it’s a start and he wants to start somewhere.
He dreams of the Saturn knight infrequently, but his despair and hallucinations have begun to fade in his waking hours. It’s not much of a victory, but the man is desperate for a win so he counts it. Hvergelmir flits in and out of his dreams; her twisted, carved up face, screaming in agony contrasting with her whole, unmarred, face smiling sweetly and offering him promises of a miracle.
Then there were the occasional drop ins from Princess Iris, which were always interesting. Only because it was never Sailor Iris with her crude language and lack of empathy, but always Princess Iris. Objectively, he knows they are the same person not two different people in one body but he couldn’t shake the feeling that sometimes, when he talks to her, there is a shift and she is someone else.
Then again, he could be certifiably insane and be making up the shift in his head because he wanted to believe there was a side of Iris who would listen before talking with her fists.
And that’s a laughable thought, that he’d rather talk to the senshi of rainbows than trying to rip the starseed out of her chest.
But he’s not exactly in the most stable of states, so he tries not to overthink it too much.
It helps that his mom’s been around him more, rather than shirking away from him like she had when he first snapped at her after his night terrors began. She’s a calming presence in his ever chaotic life, his anchor as it was. They don’t talk much, but Lara understands that he’s a broken child, just like she’s a broken woman and there’s solidarity in their silence.
Lara makes sure her son eats too, something he’s prone to neglecting even on his good days, and that helps too. It’s like he’s got his own personal rehabilitation center in his mother and since it’s not being forced upon him, he takes it pretty willingly.
And it doesn’t hurt that he hasn’t powered up since he went to the Rift and left that starseed by the skeletal tree.
He still feels it, that itch of chaos thrumming beneath his veins, but it’s easier to ignore when he keeps from powering up. It’s a simple enough concept; keep from powering up and chaos will start to loose it’s grip on you, but Chase knows it’s not that easy.
Chaos is parasitic, a symbiotic parasite, but a parasite none-the-less because chaos took more than it gave.
There’s a part of him that craves the rush of power through his frame, a part that demands splintered starseed fragments across his tongue, and he tries to resist, oh he does, but the call and thrum of chaotic power is so strong.
Chase is strong too, but the allure of General Labyrinthite is stronger.
It’s funny, he thinks, to have his life ruled by someone other than himself, because while Chase is Labyrinthite and Labyrinthite is Chase, they’re different identities. It’s not like schizophrenia or multi-personality disorder, because he doesn’t get lost in his own head and he doesn’t have another personality telling him what to do or taking over.
(He has voices that haunt him, but they’re ghosts, not other personalities.)
Labyrinthite is Chase, it can’t get more simple than that. They’re both parts of him who embrace different things. Chase clings to the scraps of his humanity and Labyrinthite cloaks himself in the darkness that blossom’s around his heart.
If they were locked in a battle, Labyrinthite would come out the victor he knows, because Chase is losing what little stability he has and is grasping at threadbare strands of what keeps him anchored.
He wonders if this is what it was like for the soldiers returning from war zones across the seas, to feel a loss of identity when they weren’t on edge ready to fight or die. To suffer from the shock of reliving every horrible thing they’d done in the name of survival or for their cause.
Chase is so, so weary.
He makes it three weeks after the battle with the Saturn knight before he powers up again. He’s riddled with anxiety and nausea with nerves when he steps from his home and briskly makes his way across the city. He walks and walks until he deems himself safe enough from prying eyes-- he knows his business partners eye him warily after his father died and more so when his mother was hospitalized --and powers up.
It’s strange feeling, to be both elated and sick at the same time. The rush of power rising to the surface is something he’s not sure he’ll ever get used to and it feels right in the moment, but once the uniform is formed and the initial surge diminishes, he’s filled with a stomach churning dread.
His mouth dries out, his hands get clammy, and his body trembles when a feeling of wrongness washes over him.
His chest hurts and he lurches forward, gloved hand digging into the fabric draped across his chest. It’s not a physical ailment, not really, because it’s not his heart or any of his bodily organs but the one that encompasses his very essence that’s grieving him. It’s a subtle reminder of the damage the asteroid princess inflicted upon him nearly two years ago. It’s a reminder of the flare of chaotic energy General-Queen pumped through her hand and into his starseed.
It’s a reminder that he has duties he’s been neglecting and if he values anything about himself, he better get on it. He’s fortunate that no one in Spec-ops has been pounding on his door wondering where he’s been or why he hasn’t been showing up for trainings or conducting them.
It’s probably because the solidarity of Spec-ops has fallen to pieces when their General-King was called to a different mission. There was only so much mutual respect among Generals, power was a tempting thing after all. And it wasn’t like he was close to any of his fellow officers, not any more.
All of his friendliness was for the sake of appearances.
He didn’t know if there was a single person that he’d trust with his life in his division.
(But it’s not like he ever really trusted anyone.
Not after Alkaid.)
He’s fortunate that Laurelite hasn’t paid him another visit, the warning in her words still echoing in his head.
So, he forces himself to breath and calm down until the feeling of uneasiness dissipates and he feels a little bit more like the Labyrinthite he’s familiar with. Confident, normal, without bloody hallucinations dancing in the edges of his vision.
He really wished that his promotion hadn’t come at such a vulnerable time.
He had wanted it as a reward, not as a punishment.
(But he was used to not getting what he wanted.)
The general sucks in breath after breath until his chest inflates and deflates evenly. Until the threat of a panic attack subsides. Until he feels comfortable sliding into the skin that used to be his natural one.
It’s only for a night, he tells himself, eyes fluttering open to get his bearings. You’re fulfilling your energy quota so you stay under the radar.
Do his duties, act like a good little soldier, fall in line.
No insubordination, no rumors of fraternization with the enemy, no rumors of deflecting.
He is not a traitor.
(He’s not.
Yet.)
Engage if necessary, avoid if possible, he reminds himself. That’ll be the hard part, he instinctively attacks on sight if he can and he’s got a lot of enemies. Probably more if they’ve got memories like he does. Only seek out correspondence with Hvergelmir, Iris, or her asteroids. Anyone else is not worth the risk.
Even if he’s got names supplied to him.
It’s not like he knows what he wants anyway. He’s still teetering precariously on the fence after talking to Hvergelmir. Iris didn’t help, she was the brash foul-mouth senshi he’s always known, not the calm, collected persona he’s interacted with.
If he’s honest, he’s avoided thinking too much about it because he’s found that not thinking about it keeps the hallucinations at bay. Sometimes. So far.
Be fast and efficient. The long you stay powered the more likely the memories will resurface, he warned himself. That had been his first mistake, when he woke up in the aftermath of his death.
It had been like waking from a long dream that twisted and turned until it was a nightmare. It figures that he would die by Iris’ hand, just like she would die by his. His journey started with her after all.
Had he been naive when he jumped at the offer Laurelite had extended to him?
Probably, but his descent into darkness was of his own choosing. He wanted to be the reliable soldier, the effective and deadly agent that they went to when they wanted results. He chose to dedicate himself to Metallia and her cause, he still, mostly, believed that what they were doing was right.
But at the same time he was conflicted about how much he knew their supposed purpose.
Yet, the negaverse had always been there for him. He had agents who’d come to offer condolences and comfort when he lost his father. Howlite had extended a hand and reassurance. Dustin helped him grieve with shitty humor and poor attempts at flirting.
Senshi killed people important to him. His head pounded from all of his over thinking and his chest constricted, breath catching in his throat.
Breathe, he ordered, demanding that his body obey him. Oxygen flooded his lungs at once and his vision cleared. Chaos itched beneath his skin, reminding him of the power lining his bones.
He needed to hurry up and do what he came out to do.
Gritting his teeth, he tilts his head back to look at the stretch of the buildings that made up the alleyway he’d tucked himself into. Backing up, he darted forward, using the dumpster like a trampoline to rocket himself into the air until his hands could grip the ledge of the building’s roof.
Hoisting himself up, he took a second to asses his location and then, he took off running.
The steady pound of his boots against the concrete surface helps keep him focused, keeps his mind off of his indecision and looming choices. He has to concentrate to keep his breathing even, something he’s unaccustomed to, and his chest aches, but he likes the pain.
It reminds him that he can still feel something and he needs that.
Labyrinthite doesn’t have much of a destination in mind, probably some seedy dive bar where no one will notice his unusual outfit or the way the people he’ll hit on seem so terribly drained after interacting. Of course, then he can blame it on the alcohol and he’ll likely avoid running anyone he knows.
Not that it’d matter much, being recognized, what with his glamour, but he’d rather not take the chance.
He’s stable-- mostly --right now and he’d like to keep it that way thank you very much. Labyrinthite isn’t sure what will set him off anymore.
So he launches himself from roof to roof until he finds what he’s looking for, an unmentionable bar with a good host of people. His heart rattles against his ribcage as he drops down, adjusts his uniform to look presentable and slips into the building. It’s been awhile since he’s siphoned energy off of someone, at least a couple months, so he’s a little nervous.
But he is General Labyrinthite and stuff like this is natural, easy like breathing to him.
(Too bad he’s been struggling with that breathing thing.)
Human interaction proves to be weird because Labyrinthite can’t remember the last time he properly interacted with someone that wasn’t his mother. He proves to be rather inept at flirting, which is a first, and he’s left wondering when the last time he hit on someone was.
It hits him that it’s nearly two years ago and he pales at the thought.
He knew he was disconnected, but he hadn’t thought that he was that disconnected.
It proves to not matter, ultimately, because a sleazy girl slink over to him and starts hitting on him instead of the other way around. It’s flattering, the way she finds his mild awkwardness endearing and her natural touchiness makes things easy for him. Before long, he’s got a nice size energy orb and a half-drunk girl he can abandon at the bar.
The interaction gives him a bit of confidence too, because his words are coming out smoother the more he talks.
It isn’t too long before he’s feeling comfortable, natural in a way he hasn’t in a long time. This is what he’s good at and it makes him puff up with pride and pleasure as he successfully drains girl after girl.
There’s still an uncomfortable buzzing beneath his skin, an itch he can’t scratch, but it gets easier to ignore.
Four drowsy girls later and suspicious stare downs by both the bartender and the bouncer, Labyrinthite decides that it’s as good of a time as any to leave.
His pockets clink with pair of energy orbs stuffed in both as he makes his way home, but there’s a lightness to his steps like a weight has been lifted from his shoulders. It’s perhaps the most light-hearted he’s felt since he woke, startled by death.
So, naturally, something has to go wrong.
Like the cloak of his uniform catching on fire, for example.
The development catches the general off-guard and in his haste to put out the flame, he doesn’t notice the senshi until there’s a fist in his face and he’s sprawling backward. Tripping over his own cloak, Labyrinthite hits the ground hard.
“And down goes the reaper-king,” the senshi says in a sing-song voice, a fake smile plastered to her face.
Labyrinthite stares up at her, gold eyes bright and with, with his brows arching upward in surprise. There’s a faint tickling of recognition in the back of his head when he looks at her, takes in her red and orange and white uniform. He can’t miss the decorative wings that peek out from behind her skirt, the tell-tale signs of an eternal senshi, and there’s no way he misses the narrowing of her ruby colored eyes or the way hatred seeps from every part of her.
Another bitter enemy from a future yet to come.
His fight or flight instinct flares and he’s on his feet as quickly as he can manage. Reactively, his fists come up and his body shifts into a defensive stance. They circle each other warily, exhaustion seeping into the general’s frame while her lips curl into a wicked grin.
“I don’t want to fight you,” he tries and she laughs in his face.
“The big bad reaper doesn’t want to fight?” She scoffs. “I thought you were always raring for a fight, or is that just when you’ve already got your hands wrapped around their neck?”
Her words sting and he visibly recoils, sweat beading along his temple when his heart rate doubles. He was having a good night, well a better night, fighting with her will ruin it. But his instinct is to fight, because he’s never been much of a runner unless he knows the battle can’t be won.
Still, he’s weary and exhausted, his high dropping like his energy levels. If he fights now, there’s a good chance it’ll end badly and he knows, knows that he cannot handle more blood on his hands. Not not.
Maybe not ever, but definitely not now.
“I don’t want to fight you,” he says again, dropping his fists and inching backward. “I am not going to fight you,” he clarifies, whirling on his heel and teleporting away.
It’s a bit of a cheap trick, but it does what he needs, and he ends up in living room of his house. He wastes no time powering down, lest someone sense his energy signature and attempt to investigate-- he’s not willing to put his mother at risk like that, he doesn’t need another repeat of Samuel.
He doesn’t make it to his room, hell he’s lucky enough to make it to the ratty couch in the living room, before he collapses and passes out.
Perhaps Cosmos is smiling down upon him when he sleeps without dreaming.
Nuxaz
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Nuxaz
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Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2013 1:21 pm
TRIGGER WARNING; Gore, mutilation, decapitation, dismemberment, death Solo Roleplay Liars and Monsters - Burn the Reaper-King [4043 words]
Chase Black is used to the feeling that he’s being watched, because he’s a soldier in the goddamn negaverse who can’t seem to fall in line. So, when the prickle on the back of his neck tells him that someone is watching him, it puts every part of him on edge. When the feeling persists for weeks, he finally decides to do something about it.
It’s a dreary, wet, fall night that’s particularly cold-- a warning for a chilling winter to come --when he slips out of his house and makes his way across the cobbled streets of downtown Destiny City. He picked the night specifically, because he’d sent his mother on a trip to visit her estranged parents who’d been calling since Samuel died begging her to visit. He needed her out of Destiny City for a few weeks, in case his adventure compromised his identity and put her at risk.
He feels more comfortable going out and powering up even if he felt watched if his mother is safe. She’s the last thing he’s got and he’s holding on to that more tightly than he probably should.
He times how long it takes before he’s approached.
It’s not even five minutes after his energy signal flares that something lights on fire beside him. His gut feeling had been right; the person stalking him had waited until he powered up to confirm their own suspicions.
He sighs, pulling his cloak around him, when he felt the sugary pulse of a third-rank senshi. “How long have you been stalking me?” He asks, voice echoing off of the tall building around him. Flames shot from the darkness and he barely moved in time to miss catching fire.
“Does it matter Reaper?” The senshi remarks, dropping down from the building above. “You’ll be dead soon enough.”
He grits his teeth, resisting the urge to call forth his scythe and lash out at her. He doesn’t want to fight, not when it would lead to someone dead. He isn’t ready for that, not after last time. “I don’t want to fight you,” he says, inhaling sharply as a way of calming himself. “Can we just talk?”
“The time for talking has long past,” the fire senshi replies, rushing at him.
He turns, cloak whirling around him and his arms lifting for defense. His hands knock away the fists thrown at him and he slides his foot forward to trip the woman and send her flying towards the wall. Nothing he does is for anything other than her fists.
“That person you’re so bitter against, that’s not me,” he tries, retreating away. If he puts space between them he didn’t have to resort to doing more than defending himself from her attacks. “That person I--” He stops because she was flying at him, having vaulted herself from the wall, and her kick landed square in his stomach and sending him sprawling into the ground.
He groans, clutching his abdomen as he stands. “I don’t want to hurt you, so please don’t make me fight you.”
“You’ve always loved fighting Reaper,” she sneers, pushing herself up from the ground. “You’ve always been a liar, why would I believe you know? I know you killed Mamoreal.” Her voice drips with venom as she slowly approaches him.
“I don’t know who you’re talking about!” He retorts, panic swelling in him. His thoughts flashed immediately to the Saturn knight he’d left in mangled pieces on the street. “I didn’t--” he chokes, flashes of the horrible fight piercing his memory. “It’s not what I wanted! I tried--” he shakes his head, recoiling away from the senshi until he backed up against the wall.
The girl lifts her hand, a ball of fire filling her palm and creating sharp, contrasting shadows across her face. “I don’t care,” she hisses, red eyes narrowing as approached, hand poised and ready to throw the fireball at him. “You’re a liar and a murderer,” she states, “I would never believe a word you said.”
He swallows thickly, Adam’s apple bobbing, and he lifted his arms defensively. “I don’t want to fight you,” he tries again, knowing it was likely futile.
“Oh,” she cooes, “but death is at your door reaper.” He winces when she uses his old catchphrase against him. “Earth will be so much better without you,” she tells him, lobbing the fireball at him.
He barely manages to avoid her attack, the flames searing across his left arm when he throws himself forward, heart pounding in his ears. Panic floods him, survival instincts filling his frame as he tuck and rolls. His arm stings in the aftermath, though the flames are gone and his uniform singed.
“Please,” he begs, kneeling on the ground with wide eyes. “Please, I don’t want to fight,” he tries, panic beginning to overwhelm him as his instinct tell him to fight back and the chaos within him curls and uncurls in his stomach, daring him to do what he should. “If you continue to provoke me, I won’t--” he tries to explain, but she’s lobbing another ball of fire at him.
Dully, he wonders how many more she can conjure before she exhausts herself or her magic, but he’s too distracted by trying not to be roasted to think too much about it.
General Labyrinthite has never been good at listening to the flight part of his fight or flight instinct and when the senshi gets close enough to nearly kick him in the face-- well, fight gets the better of him.
He catches the girl’s leg before the axe kick can get too close to his face. His bright, gold eyes darken and narrow as his fingers wrap and dig into the skin of her ankle. “I warned you,” he growls. When he stands, pushing upward with all of his strength, he uses his momentum, and the grip on her leg, to throw the sailor scout into the ground. Hard.
She let out an audible grunt when her back hit the ground and he could hear the thud of her head hitting the concrete. He can tell that she didn’t expect him to be so strong and, well, he can’t blame her. He hasn’t been training in months and his cloak makes him look smaller, less muscular than he is
Still, if she knew him so well from the future then she should’ve known not to underestimate him. Underestimating got people killed.
He looms over her, shadow draping across the alleyway from the moonlight overhead, swallows and says, through ragged breaths. “This is your last chance. I. Don’t. Want. To. Fight. You,” he growls, emphasising every other word. “Either you leave now, or we fight and you die.”
There isn’t a doubt in the general’s head that if it came down to it, he’d win the fight. The girl is strong, experienced, but in it for revenge and she’s sloppy. He’s a general in the Spec-ops division and his primary motive is to fight, incapacitate, turn, or kill. He’s good at what he does and the chaos itching beneath his skill is demanding he do what he’s best at.
Engaging in combat.
“Please.” The word comes out strained and pleading. He doesn’t want this, but if his choices are survive or die, he will pick survive every time.
“No,” the senshi snarls, launching herself off the ground and driving her shoulder into Labyrinthite’s gut. He groans in response, stumbling backward before regaining his footing. His arms wrap around her midsection and he throws himself backward, hoping to flip her behind him. It works-- sorta, because she’s no longer jamming her shoulder into his ribcage and she’s crashing in the dumpster.
He hates it-- the way the rush of adrenaline feels right and how he feels comfortable in his own skin for the first time since who knows how long.
He turns on his heel to face her just as she picks herself up off the ground, hand wiping across her mouth as she fixes a glare his way. “Burn in hell reaper.” Her words slip out of her mouth in a hiss, ruby eyes dark and narrowed as she throws both hands to her sides and mutters something, her senshi magic undoubtedly, because her hands alight with a flame.
Pain flickers across his face as he exhales tiredly, arm already extending to accommodate the weight of his scythe and it materializes in his hand from subspace. “I really wish you hadn’t made me do this,” he laments as she charges him.
There is fire everywhere.
It’s on his cloak, flying past his hair, scorching his sleeves, and marking up the wall. Her flame cover hands are gripping the front of his uniform and it burns, but he grits through the pain and forces his blade between them. His weapon is heavy in his hands, feels foreign when it should feel like an extension and not like something he doesn’t know how to use.
Still, he manages to force her back using the blunter side of the blade. It still cuts into her skin and he can hear her hiss in pain, and he certainly doesn’t like the way it sends a shiver of pleasure down his spine.
He isn’t that man--creature from his future. He isn’t.
(He is. Will be. Is.)
(Monster, his demons hiss, clawing at what good is still left in him.)
Instinctively he swings his scythe at the senshi now that space is between them and he strikes her across her midsection. She cries out in anguish, blood staining the white of her fuku immediately. He can already tell, despite the darkness, that the cut is deep and would need stitches, if she managed to get away.
A dark hunger blossoms in his stomach, threatens to consume him. He tries to swallow it down, to ignore it, but he fails, miserably, because the beast inside of him overwhelms him and he can’t think past his sudden bloodlust. His mouth sets in a determined line while his bright, gold eyes darken, narrowing as he steps back, rotates the staff of his scythe in a circle before swinging again.
The girl is still reeling from the attack on her stomach, hands pressed over the wound in a sad attempt at stopping the bleeding and barely has time to dodge his follow-up. She throws herself into the ground, crying out when she lands poorly on her arm.
Labyrinthite drops his weapon, the bone-scythe clacking against the stone, advancing on her fallen form wearing a dark, sinister grin. He presses a foot against her sternum, shoving her down with his weight, and digs the heel of his boot into her chest. “Is this what you wanted?” He sneers, gloved hand slapping against his shoulders to put out the lingering wisps of fire clinging to the fabric of his cloak. “Did you want to have death looming over you so that you could validate your stupid need for revenge?”
“Go to hell!” She spits, straining against his weight.
“I’m already there,” he snaps, leaning in. “You created this,” he informs her, clenching his jaw when he shifts, reaching for her fuku. “I tried to keep this from happening, but no, you had to keep pushing. You demanded that the reaper you hate so much surface.” He shakes his head, disgusted. “You created this moment and you will suffer because of it.”
She coughs as he lifts her, feet dangling helplessly, “I didn’t create something that was already there.” Her gloved hands wrap around his wrists, nails digging at his skin through the fabric. “The wolf that grows is the one that you feed and all you feed on is death and darkness.”
Her words strike a chord within him and his grip falters. She collapses to the ground, wheezing, clutching at her wounds when she skitters backward. His dark expression slips into something vulnerable, uncertainty flickering through him.
She’s not wrong.
There has always been a seed of darkness nestled down in the core of him. He’s never been a child of light, despite how he tried. He’d given to chaos so easily, succumbed to their expectations and demands, accepted it readily into his life.
He is not a rebel, a visionary, a savior. He is a soldier, a weapon, a harbinger of death.
“I become death, the destroyer of worlds,” he whispers, stumbling back. His eyes flutter close and his chest constricts, he can’t breathe.
When he opens his eyes, the fire senshi is on her feet, swaying precariously but determination bold in her posture. “If I die here, I’m taking you with me,” she declares.
He snorts, lips curling upward in a smirk. “I doubt that. You’ve used too much of your magic to be a threat.” He steps back, stooping low to pick up the spine of his scythe. “Death is at your door seems too...redundant now that you and your friend have tried to use it against me.” The darkness is coiling around his heart and constricting, an ever present reminder that it is always there.
He moves towards her slowly, like a wolf closing in on it’s prey, dragging his scythe against the ground, the sound metal against stone echoing off the walls. Chiiiink. She retreats, shrinking into herself.
Despite all her boldness, she is afraid.
This realization makes Labyrinthite grin broad and sharklike. “Are you afraid girl? Where are your threats and all your boldness?” The shift from the Labyrinthite grasping at his humanity as it slips through his fingers to the ruthless General Labyrinthite of Spec-Ops is startling, almost like he’s someone different entirely. Or perhaps his true self is just awakening, forcing itself to a head, sharp gleaming teeth bared in all it’s glory.
He cocks his head at her when she collides into the dumpster, the metallic sound filling the night. “Or have you finally realized that you’ve made a grave mistake?” Amusement lines his voice when he reaches up and taps his chin. “You poor thing, too bad you didn’t listen when I begged you to go.”
Her hands alight with fire one last time and Labyrinthite knows this is the girls last stand, the last use of her magic, and oh, a thrill of pleasure surged through him.
“You asked for this,” he cooes at her, rolling his shoulders back and grabbing his weapon with both hands. “This reaper-king you so desperately wished to extinguish? Well he’s flaring to life because you lit the flame.” The blade comes up and the end of the staff thuds against the pavement.
The senshi looks terror stricken as she shifts her stance and raises her arms defensively. “No,” she croaks, shaking her head defiantly. “It ends here.” Her voice shakes, wavers as she glares at him with all of the hatred she’s got left. “The fire goes out, with both of us,” she boldly declares, sucking in a breath and charging at him.
The end of the fight goes like this:
He swings and she jumps, narrowly avoiding the cutting curve of his blade. She lunges for him, grabs him beneath his cloak and burning the front of his shift through until her flame-covered hands are pressed into his skin, searing heat against his flesh. He recoils backward, teeth clenched together while he hisses in pain. Her hands claw at his skin, snake upward and wrap around his neck.
The flesh bubbles and he howls, grip shifting and twisting on the staff until he grip the sharp metal and bring it towards them. He doesn’t hesitate when he tears it through her arm, dismembering her, because all he can think is that he needs the fire gone, out. The useless appendage falls to the ground and the girl stagger backward, screaming in agony.
There’s a string of incoherent words pouring from her mouth, a mixture of curses and wordless howls, as she stumbles in the alley gasping, staring, clutching at the bleeding stump that used to be her left arm.
He is unfazed, though his hand is bleeding from where his own weapon pierced his skin. A necessary evil. His advance is slow, curious as his gaze travels from her fallen, charred, hand to where she’s bleeding out. “Pity,” he cooes, lips twisting upward in a sickening grin. “Let me help you match,” he tells her readying his scythe for another strike.
“N-no, no!” She screeches, waving her hand desperately.
It’s a shame that her movements make it so much easier to lop that hand off too. Her knees hit the ground and her eyes lose their sheen as she shares up at him, hopeless. “No,” she whispers, energy seeping from her.
It’s the resignation that makes him pause, scythe poised high in the air, ready for one final attack. It puzzles him to see the senshi giving up, finally. He expected her to keep fighting, tooth and nail, with or without hands.
He’s disappointed.
He shows it by shaking his head and clucking his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Where is your fire now senshi?” He asks. She doesn’t answer and he sighs. “Death comes knocking,” he chirps and swings.
It’s a sick sound, his sharpened blade cutting through the flesh of her neck, sliding through her bones. The cut is clean, unlike the guillotines of the old days where the blade was never sharp enough and some of the skin held, because her head hits the ground with a thud, rolls across the concrete seeping blood everywhere. Her body collapses forward when there is nothing left to hold it up and he turns it with his foot, kneeling beside the mangled form.
He takes the point of the scythe and carves her chest open, exposes her ribcage and organs. It’s unnecessary, considering he means to reap her starseed, but fascinating as he break her ribs open and pulls out her beating heart. It’s barely beating at all, moved slow and sluggish when he first wraps his fingers around it, and it stops when he rips it free.
It’s likely a terrible sight to see, should anyone cross him, because he lifts the organ into the air so the moonlight can was over it and he can properly examine it. When he’s finished, he tosses it carelessly to the side, hand returning to her chest before he plunges down, into the subspace where her soul rests.
He tugs the gem free and it shimmers dully, red like the skirt of her fuku. He doesn’t bother to study it, like he did the heart, but pockets it instead-- to deal with it at a later time.
He stands, wiping at his mouth and smearing the senshi’s blood across his face.
Gold eyes rest on the separated head, lips pursed contemplatively. There’s a pang of something that resonates within him, his shoulders slumping in the aftermath, but he can’t pinpoint what he’s feeling because it’s not guilt, or remorse. Yet.
He turns on his heel, saunters out of the alley with his heels clacking against the pavement. His cloak billows behind him as he walks, the sound of sirens filling the air.
Someone undoubtedly heard her screams and called the police. Labyrinthite isn’t worried, he’ll be long gone before they arrive and if anyone sees him, well it’s at their own risk. He’s already claimed a life tonight, what would a few more matter? He could teleport if needed to, but he wants to walk.
He wants to stroll through the streets watching as anyone who catches sight of him-- with his singed uniform, burned chest, blood smeared across his mouth and staining his hands --shrinks back immediately. He walks and walks and walks until his exhaustion catches up to him and he collapses to his knees.
Something squeezes around his heart and he gasps desperately for air, fingers grasping at his chest. He winches as his nails scrape against the bubbled, burned flesh but he digs them deeper because he wants to feel the pain. To be reminded that he can feel something, even if it’s only physical pain.
He powers down, almost involuntarily, but there are no energy signals near enough for him to care. A sob rips from him, a mangled mess of a noise, lurching him forward until he’s curled into himself. It’s unexpected, takes him by surprise as the chaos leaks out of him. Instead of a loud noise in his ears, it’s retreated back to the quiet hum beneath his skin. Ever present, but ignorable.
The blood is gone, magicked away like the rest of General Labyrinthite until there is only Chase Black, the shredded remains of the person the general used to be.
He cannot keep his shirt on, the fabric scratching and irritating the second-degree burns the senshi managed in inflict before he cut off her hands. He pulls it up over his head in a hurry, discarding it on the ground even as his hands shake. He knows that there is no blood on his skin, but he cannot help but look at his hands like there might be remnants.
He stays like that, knees pressed into the gravel and fingers pressed beneath the burns and against his chest, until the n** of the cold is too much to bear and he has to stand. He picks his shirt up, wraps his hands up in it and tries to pretend that his shaking is from the cold and not the unsettlement that’s resting in his belly. He heads home, because what left is there to do?
Every day he is less Chase and more Labyrinthite.
Once, he would’ve been proud of that knowledge, worn the mantle that was his alter ego proudly, but now he is walks the line of imbalance, uncertainty. He needs to decide what he wants, quickly, because he knows that he will only burn himself into ashes if he continues the way he is.
He is both thrilled and sick to his stomach by his actions. So many parts of it felt right, natural and he knows that it is the human side of him that is tortured, crying out like a wounded animal that cannot be saved. He had tried, pleaded with the girl to give him a chance to right his wrongs and she refused.
But had he really done anything wrong?
He’d spent months in defiance, rebelling silently against his leaders, his faction when he met with Iris and pleaded for her to listen to him. He’d spent too many nights looking for Hvergelmir like she could offer him a miracle, a salvation he didn’t need, doesn’t deserve.
This reaper-kind you so desperately wished to extinguish? Well he’s flaring to life because you lit the flame, his own words replaying in his head.
He never second-guessed himself, his place, before Iris attempted to purify him, why was he doing so now?
Was it worth fighting the inevitable?
He didn’t know and the two sides of him were at war over it. Chase pited against Labyrinthite, because his foolish civilian side couldn’t cope with fact that loss was a part of war. It made him weak, it made him second guess himself. Labyrinthite was the strong one, the dutiful soldier with a deft hand. Chase was the human side, reminding him that there were things to fight for, that the war had taken things from him. His father. His mother. Himself.
But wasn’t it worth it?
There was a part of Chase Black that had been born in darkness. The wolf that grows was the one he fed and he’d always feed the darkness.
Maybe that’s just what he was, someone who existed in the darkness he created himself.
Perhaps it was time to accept that the cosmos wanted, needed him to be the Reaper.
Posted: Wed Apr 03, 2013 12:43 am
Solo Roleplay Liars and Monsters - Repercussions [2608 words]
He deals with this death better than he dealt with the death of the Saturn knight, Mamoreal he reminds himself. The knight had a name, a wonder, an identity. He doesn’t even know what the fire senshi was called, what planet or star or moon she originated from and he doesn’t know if it cares.
Identities don’t matter when their owners are dead.
He doesn’t wake up sweaty and screaming, so he counts that as a small victory. He does, however, spend at least three hours after he wakes up on his computer, seated at his work desk. The thing hasn’t been used in nearly a year, is coated in a fine layer of dust, and is covered with outdated legal documents that have started to yellow.
It reminds Chase that he should do some cleaning, or pay someone to clean his house, because the room smells like musk and he can’t remember the last time it’d been vacuumed. It’s not like his mother does housework, he wouldn’t let her even if she wanted, he thinks she’s too frail.
The stupid computer has to do a system update before he can even get on the internet, much to his annoyance, and he spends the first forty minutes splitting his time between glaring at the screen and flipping through the stacks of paper. Over half of them get tossed into the garbage, with only key pages of his father’s will kept and reorganized. By the time he can finally log into the computer and use it, the space looks less like a pigsty and more like a functional, useable work space.
He spends the next half hour googling how to properly treat second-degree burns without a trip to the hospital. His hand absentmindedly skates over the bubbled, damaged skin while he scrolls, hisses of pain slipping through his teeth now and then. He likes the feeling though, the reminder that he can feel something even if it’s just physical, because his emotional spectrum is so muted. The burns are sticky and dry, red and angry looking, which Chase takes as a bad sign when he reads up on treatments.
He goes through six different medical web pages and reads every yahoo asks he finds before concluding that, unlike regular scrapes and cuts, burns need to be kept moist and covered. He spends the other hour and fifty minutes scrolling through reddit and rolling his eyes at the stupidity. It’s the most normal thing he’s done in, ********, years and it’s oddly therapeutic.
Until he wanders into the bathroom with all the medical supplies to find that they don’t have an vaseline, gauze, or wrapable bandages. It certainly sours his mood, anger flaring hot in his stomach at the nameless girl he left in pieces in the street, when he realizes that he has to go to the store. He hasn’t done that in, ******** knows how long.
He pays someone to cook and keep the kitchen stocked, he hasn’t been to the grocery store since he roomed with Vanessa.
He’s not exactly keen on putting on a shirt, because the fabric rubs uncomfortably over his collarbones and shoulders, irritating his wounds, but he does it and tugs on his leather jacket and riding gloves. He doesn’t care that it’s in the middle of fall and too cold to reasonably ride his sports bike, but he’s stubborn and he hasn’t ridden Hermes since he picked his mother up from the hospital.
If he has to go out and public, be mistakenly taken for a drug addict because of his wiry frame and dark circles beneath his eyes, he might as well do it his way.
The ride is short and the trip inside the store is shorter. He makes a beeline for the pharmacy aisle and spends three minutes debating what type of gauze to buy-- he settles on the non-stick, hypoallergenic kind --picks up three boxes, the biggest tub of vaseline he can find, and six rolls of clean, white bandages. He’s shoving his purchases into the saddle bag he had attached when he gets the distinct feeling he’s being watched.
His head jerks up immediately, gold eyes narrowing and lips pressing into a thin line, and he looks around for someone out of place. He spots a blonde with blue eyes glaring daggers his way, but when their eyes meet, she grins darkly and waves. His stomach flips and his mouth dries up because, when he blinks, she’s gone, disappeared into the throng of people. When he turns, he catches sight of someone else eyeing him distrustfully.
It’s a tall, broad thing of a man with tanned skin with freckles splattered across his skin, with dark curly hair matted to his face. When their eyes meet, he grins dark and shark-like, mirroring the flash of teeth that the blonde shot his way.
It sends a chill running down his spine and he frowns, perplexed by the reaction the strangers are garnering from him. And then the blonde pops out of the crowd, coming to stand next to the freckled man. Chase nearly laughs at the sight of them, because she is short, stands just under the height of his shoulders yet still strikes him as the more terrifying of the two.
Something tells him that she is the blade and he is the force behind it.
It occurs to him that they’re something to be worried about, especially when they’re watching him with matching gazes, her hand sliding into his as she squares her shoulders and glares at Chase. He stares back, frowning, while he tries to figure out what they might want and when he decides to approach them, the crowd shifts and they’re both gone.
His stomach drops, his hands fumble and one of the rolls of bandages slips out of his hands and onto the sidewalk. He spends a minute and a half chasing it down the street before he manages to grab it and stuff it in his saddlebag. He zips it up, mounts Hermes and gets the ******** out of there and back home asap.
He spills the contents of his shopping bag into his bathroom sink, hands shaking all the while while he slathers vaseline onto his gauze pads and slaps them onto the angry skin around his collarbones. His bandaging job is hasty and sloppy but it works, so he leaves it like that and tries to shake off the nervousness the glaring couple had managed to instil in him.
His body trembles when he slams the medicine cabinet shut, grips the sides of the sinks and tries to steady himself. When he looks at his reflection, he only sees a shadow of himself. He sees a pale, gauntly young man with terrible bags beneath his eyes, his hair is wild, matted to his face by the sheen of sweat coating his skin. Though bandaged, his collarbones protrude and so do his cheekbones.
When he can no longer stand the sight of himself he turns his sink on, splashes his face with water, then storms out of the bathroom in a huff with his face still dripping. He storms out into the empty living room, furnished with a simple couch and nothing else, and flop face-first onto the couch. That, immediately, proved to be an incredibly stupid idea because the rough fabric of the couch cushions pressed irritably against his bandages and the already angry skin around it. Groaning he rolls over, legs dangling off of the arms of the couch he was too long for, and draped his arm over his face to block out the thin rays of sunlight peeking through dirty blinds.
He really needed to pay someone to clean up the house, preferably before he let his mom come home.
That was his last thought before he drifts off to sleep, body succumbing to exhaustion.
He woke less than two hours later to the sound of glass shattering and boots crunching the broken shards against a tiled floor. He jolts up, hissing when his burns prickle in protest, with wide eyes darting back and forth. Cautiously he swings his legs off the couch’s armrest and presses his palms against the cushions, listening as another pair of feet drop onto the glass and he catches the barest hints of whispering.
Chase curses under his breath, fingers digging into the scratchy couch fabric, then stands, adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows and inhales sharply to center himself. His fingers twitch nervously as he slinks across the expanse of his living room, presses his body against a wall and peers around into the kitchen. He only catches a glimpse of the intruders, but there’s definitely two of them and his stomach twists when he recognizes the dark, curly hair and tanned, freckled skin. He catches a flash of straw colored hair, bright light the sun in the right light, and his mouth dries up.
It’s the pair from earlier and his hands turn into fists when he jerks back, presses his head against the wall and has to remind himself to breathe.
“Come out, come out wherever you are~” A feminine voice calls, far too cheerily. “We know you’re home Reaper~”
Involuntarily, he winces at the name.
“We can play hide and seek all day long,” a gruff voice grunts and Chase knows it’s the man. “But we will find you and it’ll be easier if you just came out.”
Chase doesn’t answer, doesn’t move because his whole body is trembling and he can’t tell if it’s out of rage and irritation or panic, fear.
He doesn’t do fear though, so he suspects it out of rage this time because how dare they.
They find him easily, round the corner and come face to face with him. The man is scowling with his arms across his chest and the girl, she’s grinning broadly-- wide and shark-like with all of her teeth showing.
Briefly, Chase wonders if that’s what his manic grin looks like.
(Probably.)
“What do you want from me?” he spits, sliding off the wall and backing away.
“A lot of things,” the blonde spits, grin slipping and her expression becoming cold, stony. “First, I’d like you to bring my friends back, you know the ones you massacred and left scattered across alleyways?”
He opens his mouth to protest, to feign innocence, “I--” she cuts him off before he can get any words out.
“I know you know exactly who I’m talking about. Don’t bother pretending otherwise,” she snaps, stepping forward like she’s ready to lunge at him. The only thing that stops her is the freckled man’s hand coming to rest on her shoulder. “But since you can’t we’re here to give you a message.”
She glances at her companion, who sighs and begins to speak. “We know exactly who you are, who your dad was, who your mom is and we promise that you will feel every ounce of pain you’ve made us feel.” His tone is steady, calm but Chase can hear the traces of hurt, anger, grief lacing every word. “We know what happened with your dad, how you killed him and we can prove it.” The man smirked and Chase’s stomach twisted again. “We know that you’ve sent your dear, fragile mother off to see some relatives and where those relatives live--”
“We know that you don’t feel any real remorse for the things you’ve done, the sins you’ve committed. We know that you don’t care that Mammoreal is dead or that you left a dismembered Allie dead in the streets,” the girl interjected, advancing on him. “We’re going to make you regret not letting them kill you.”
“We’re not going to kill you,” the man said, stepping forward and using his slight height advantage and broadness to attempt to intimidate Chase.
It didn’t work, Chase just stood taller and glared right back at them. He would not be intimidated, refused to be threatened or let it show that he was nervous about his mother’s safety.
“We’re going to do so much worse,” the pair promised, words spoken in unison.
“Not if I kill you first,” Chase snapped, teeth bared and eyes narrowed.
“We’d like to see you try,” the girl snorted.
“You came as civilians, I may not know your name but don’t doubt that I’ll find you,” Chase countered, digging his nails into his palms.
The man leaned in, face inches from his, “We’re untraceable.”
“Don’t doubt the length I will go to to protect her.”
“It’s what we’re counting on,” the girl replied cheekily, glancing at her companion and nodding at him.
The man swung, sucker punching Chase right in the gut. He hunched forward, stumbling back before swinging in retaliation. The man let out a throaty laugh as he dodged easily and Chase could feel the hatred building within him. He ached to power up, to lash out at the intruders and to separate their heads from their shoulders but he didn’t.
He ignored the thrumming beneath his veins, the bloodlust curling around his heart because now wasn’t the time or the place for a fight. Not if they weren’t going to start it.
“We’ll be around, don’t worry,” she said cheerfully, seeming to take pleasure in his pain. Her blue eyes dark with something he couldn’t name but recognized. He’d seen the same thing reflected in his own eyes too many times not to. “It’ll be so much fun Reaper, we’ll play all those games on you that you liked to play on us.”
“Do you remember them Reaper?” The man asked, cocking his head slightly.
“No.”
“Pity, but it’ll still be so much fun,” he cooed, reaching for his companion’s hand. They began to back up, wearing matching grins as he watched them. “We’ll see you around, Chase.” They slipped around the corner and by the time he did too, they were ********,” Chase cursed, flexing his fingers before forming a fist and slamming it into the wall he’d been leaning against. “********!” He shouted when pain shot from his knuckles and up his arm. His hand was covered in plaster, from the jagged hole he’d punched in the wall.
He should’ve known better.
He’d been so stupid to think that it ended with the flame senshi in the dark alley way. He should’ve suspected that she’d been part of a team when she’d come after him in the name of vengeance for a fallen comrade. He’d been naive to think that the actions of his future self wouldn’t affect his present self, he’d been naive to think that people wouldn’t think he was nothing more than a monster no matter what he did in this life.
Monster, the voice in his head, that sounded eerily similar to his dead father’s, You’ll always be a monster.
He sighed, didn’t bother to argue because what was the point.
Embrace it already, the voice demanded. You’re smarter than this Chase, Labyrinthite. General, it cooed. Do something about them. Finish them.
He nodded to himself, resolve settling over him comfortingly. He would do it. He would find them before they found him, or his mother, again. No more games, to more hesitation, no more resistance.
Reaper, the voice whispered and Chase nodded.
“Reaper,” he muttered, assenting.
Nuxaz
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Nuxaz
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Posted: Tue May 14, 2013 8:45 pm
Solo Roleplay Liars and Monsters - Reaper Rising [2510 words]
He deals with this death better than he dealt with the death of the Saturn He hasn’t used the corkboard since he plotted his big showdown with Iris when he was but a new captain, but he dredges it up out of the hidden compartment tucked away in the back of his closet because it was time for him to do some planning. The board was still filled with pins and notes about the rainbow senshi, what he knew of her, and what her weaknesses were and it took him a solid ten minutes to pull all the pushpins out and to stack all of his research into a neat little pile.
He sits at his work desk, free of clutter and dust because he’d hired a maid to clean the mansion, with his laptop booted up along with the desktop. It’s been awhile since he’s done recon, and his fingers are stiff as he types but pushes through it, determined. The internet is far more useful for research this go around, because there’s no glamor protecting the pair like it was Iris.
He’s immensely thankful that his fancy prep school taught him a bunch of coding and some hacking knowledge, though most of the hacking knowledge came from some of the more mischievous students he coerced into teaching him. He briefly considers enlisting the help of Domeykite, but decides against it considering how...unhappy the lieutenant was the last time they’d interacted.
This is stuff he can handle, he’s sure.
Of course, he’s sorely out of practice and he was never very good at all this computer hacking crap which means it takes him three hours before he gets to put names to their faces.
Eliza Griffen and Robert Blake.
A twenty-two year old and a twenty-seven year old respectively who are almost always seen together, from what he gathers given the pictures he managed to find. One works in an art gallery and the other at a history museum. Neither have any type of social media, which is annoying and limits his options, but he’s determined.
They threatened his mother, he’s not the type to let that go.
After another three hours of dead-end research, Chase decides that the best sort of recon he can do is the kind where he does a little bit of stalking. So he changes into a worn t-shirt, dark jeans, and a zip-up hoodie and heads out, keys to Hermes grip tightly in his hand.
He goes after Eliza first, because while he thinks that she’s the dangerous one, she lacks the brute force that Robert has. If there’s a physical altercation, he’ll have the upperhand. And, if he gets lucky, she’ll be forced to power up and reveal if she’s a senshi or a knight and he’ll be able to better prepare for her disposal.
He gets a little queasy thinking about that, the way his immediate reaction is to kill her, but he knows it’s really the only option. She’s too volatile to corrupt and he doesn’t want to waste a General-Sovereign’s time. Especially on someone he thinks would be too much of a berserker, given her manic grin and harsh demeanor.
Of course, his true motive probably has more to do with the fact that he doesn’t want anyone else in the Negaverse involved in his personal affairs. They’re his pests to deal with, he doesn’t need help and he certainly doesn’t want it. Well, and he’s not ready to face Laurelite again.
Not after last time.
He mounts his bike, peels out of his driveway, the crisp almost-winter air nipping at his skin and he almost regrets not wearing his leather jacket over his hoodie, but the cold grounds him. It keeps him focused and with all of the other things going on in his life, he needs all the help focusing. He reaches the art gallery in twenty three minutes, parks his bike a few streets down and walks the rest of the way.
They know who he is, she’d recognize his bike easily, because who else would be foolish enough to ride a bike this late in the year? He needs to be as inconspicuous as he can manage. Which isn’t that well, if he’s honest.
When he reaches the building there’s a moving truck parked in front of it, with people milling in and out of the building caring sculptures out and painting in. A change in displays, it seems. It gives him the perfect idea, and excuse, to infiltrate the gallery between set ups. He pretends to be one of the workers, keeping his hood up to hide his stark pink hair, and starts moving pieces.
Eliza is inside with a clipboard pressed against her chest and a stern look on her face as she argues with what he assumes is the other art director. From the looks of it, they’re fighting over the placement of a stone statue-- it’s a mermaid coiled around a rock with sea foam bubbling around her tail and hands --then, she starts to turn his way and he’s forced to drop his head.
He curses under his breath when she approaches him and the other mover and he tries to keep his head down and his face obscured by the thick frame of the large, heavy painting they’re holding between them. He thanks Metallia, and more quietly Cosmos, when she directs her instructions to the other guy and stomps off, heels clicking against the tiled floor.
They carry the painting to wherever she directed and Chase makes some excuse to duck out for a minute, something about needing a bathroom break. The other guy is obviously exasperated, given that there’s still a ton of art to move, but he waves him off irritably. And, he does head towards the bathroom, taking a second to find Eliza before ducking through one of the doors marked Gallery Employee’s Only.
He never could resist a keep out sign, or it’s equivalent.
Finding her office is easy, seeing as they’re all marked with the occupant’s names on the glass. Getting inside isn’t as easy, because it’s locked like he should have expected. He hasn’t picked locks in as long as he’s done recon, but he’d used the skill more liberally and it comes back much faster than the computer crap. Between one of his unused credit cards and the bobby pin he keeps in his wallet for when he’s in a pinch, he gets the door open in no time.
He takes a second to be pleased with himself before slipping into the office and locking the door behind him, that way he’ll hear her if she’s trying to get in and he’ll have a split second to hide.
He spends the next five minutes riffling through the papers littering her desk. He doesn’t find much information that doesn’t pertain to the gallery and it’s current exhibit so he starts to go through her drawers. He’s seen enough crime shows to know that if someone’s hiding something in their office then there’s probably a trick drawer to their desk.
It turns out the Eliza has two.
One of them is beneath the big opening of her desk, where her chair sits, and it’s filled with numerous documents revolving around well, himself. Chase Black. There’s the police report for the break in and the subsequent murder case that followed. While it was ruled as a death by robbery, there are a bunch of homicide notes and his name is circled multiple times.
That’s not really a surprise though, considering he knew that he’d been the prime suspect given that he’d been estranged up until his father suddenly gained custody over his legally an adult son. Still, they hadn’t enough evidence to convict him and the case was closed.
What is shocking is how many pictures they have of him, of everything following Samuel’s death. Pictures of him and Naomi, who’d run away not too long after the picnic in the photograph, pictures of him going to visit his mother in the hospital. Worse still, was that there were pictures of him dipping into alleyways and re-emerging as General Labyrinthite.
His stomach twisted into a knot as he hurriedly stuffed the folder back where it came. This evidence begged the questions of, how long have they known and who have they told?
His hands began to shake and he had to press them against the cool wood until he could calm himself. Then, he rummaged through the second secret drawer hidden within the last drawer on the left. This one was filled with photographs of the carnage he’d left behind when he’d fought Mammoreal and the fire senshi, Allie, if he remembered correctly.
He hated thinking about them by their names, it reminded him that they’d been people once.
But he’d tried to reason with him and they’d forced his hand, helped create the monster they wished to kill.
(The monster who’d always been coiled around his heart waiting for it’s chance.)
He found pictures of them before their mutilation, in a joined picture with Eliza and Robert, all of their arms looped around each other’s shoulders beaming brightly at the camera. When he flipped the photo over written on the back was, don’t ever forget, or forgive, the reaper must pay. He clenched his jaw, fingers clenching slightly and creating dents in the photograph.
He dropped it back into the drawer and was about to continue his snooping when he heard the distinct sound of a key jingling around in a lock. He dropped to the ground, hastily replacing the top of the false drawer and shutting the real one before squeezing himself in the space beneath the desk.
His lanky frame barely fit and he held his breath as she rounded the desk and came to stand right in front of him. His fighter instincts reared it’s head and demanded that he grab her legs and toss her to the ground, but he resisted knowing he couldn’t get the proper vantage and the right kick to his burns would leave him writhing on the ground without the assistance of the chaos beneath his skin demanding he power up.
She is on the phone with someone when she drops her clipboard onto the table unceremoniously, the clacking of the plastic against the wood ringing in his ears. He closes his eyes, focuses on her voice and what she’s saying.
From what he gathers, she’s talking to her partner because her tone is close to hysterics and she’s pacing angrily back and forth.
“We need to strike fast,” she says and he can see that she got his back to him. “He’s dangerous Bob, I’m worried we’re in over our head.” He can hear the gruff voice of Robert on the other end because he’s yelling but he can’t make out the words. “Yeah, we should’ve had a more solid plan before we threatened him,” she snaps and Chase takes the opportunity to sneak out from beneath the desk. “You know what, it’s fine I’ll figure it out,” she growls.
It happens in a blur and he reacts instinctively. The flare of power washing over him when she turns, recognition in her eyes and her mouth dropping, poised to scream, wail, demand help. She’s fast, moving to duck around him but he’s faster, especially since he’s powered and she isn’t.
His gloved hand finds her mouth, covers it and he digs his nails into the skin of her cheek. He uses his strength advantage to shove her against the wall, pushing her head against the glass and creating a hairline crack, then forces her to turn around, pressing her face against the glass. His other hand is snaking around her frame, locking her arms into place.
“You picked the wrong man to mess with, Eliza,” he hissed into her ear, using her name as a taunt. “I don’t think you or Bob understood the resources I have, what I’m capable no matter what you think you remember.” His nails dug in deeper, hard enough to draw blood. “If your friend hadn’t attacked me, they wouldn’t be dead.”
She squirmed against him, attempted to break free and it only made him strengthen his grip on her, fingers digging into her arm hard enough to bruise. She did manage to dig her heel into the top of his foot, though and he hissed in pain. “I tried to ask for penance, forgiveness for crimes I had yet to commit but they insisted that I was nothing more than what my future told me I would be and they died for it.”
He shook his head, jerked her backward and threw her into the ground with all the force he could muster. Then, he picked her phone up off the ground and stowed it in his pocket, for later. There was a plan forming in his head and a wicked grin spread across his mouth as he stepped towards her.
“You’ll die for it too,” he told her, crouching so his face was level with hers. She scowled at him, fingers digging into the carpeted floor, before she spit in his face. He didn’t react, except to frown, as though he was disappointed in her choices. “If you’re going to scream, then you should do it now,” he suggested, wiping his face.
She did, screamed a scream worthy of a banshee. It hurt his ears, being so close to her open mouth when the high-pitched sound burst out of it, but pleasure also ran through him from the sound of sheer terror.
“It’s a pity that they’ll hear you but can’t save you,” he told her, grabbing her with both hands and hauling her towards him even as she struggled, hand swiping across his face while the other reached desperately for something on her desk.
He stood, hauling her tiny frame into the air with him. His attention turned toward the desk until he saw what she’d been so desperately grasping for. He adjusted his grip, held her suspended in the air with one hand and reached for the pale blue pen topped with a star. “Did you want this?” He asked, cocking his head at her.
Her eyes widened in panic when he twirled it between his fingers. “Don’t worry, I’ll let you use it later.”
“What the hell are you planning?” She gasped wrapping her small hands around his wrist in a poor attempt to pull herself free.
“Well, I’m sure you’re dying to find out,” he chuckled, pocketing the henshin pen as the sound of heavy footsteps reached his ears.
“That’s my cue for us to leave though, can’t have them ruining all my fun,” he chirped, tossing a wink her way.
The door to her office burst open only for the gallery employees to find it empty. Labyrinthite had teleported them away.
Posted: Tue May 14, 2013 8:47 pm
TRIGGER WARNING; dismemberment, death, violence
And so the Warehouse Crumbles [3642 words]
He takes Eliza to the old, abandoned warehouses on the outskirts of the city-- the very same ones he used to take his recruits, his soldiers, to train. There, he binds her hands above her head to one of the metal pillars that make up the structural components of the building. He ties the knots deftly, with practiced fingers and does so, so tightly that the woman cries out as the twine digs into the skin of her wrists.
Her legs are bound too, for good measure, because he can’t have her kicking at him until he wants her to.
He doesn’t bother gagging her, he wants to hear the angry hiss of words, the strings of profanity that she lodges his way. He wants to watch her suffer, to see the consequences of her actions. Of her team’s actions.
“You’re a sick, twisted, b*****d. You know that right?” The lithe blonde hisses, blue eyes dark and expression cold as ice.
“I am a product of circumstance,” he replies, lifting his head from where it was bowed when he bound her feet. “Besides, I believe you were the one to threaten me,” he comments, tilting his head curiously when he stands and smooths out the planes of his shirt.
He’d powered down once they’d arrived, lest someone other than her companion come rushing to her rescue, curious of such a large dark aura warping the area.
His fingers thread through his pink and black locks and he looks at her earnestly, despite the way she scowls in return. “Now, don’t give me that look,” he sighs, frowning when he drops his hands. “I’m not saying I’m the good guy here, just that we’re both the bad guy here.”
Eliza grits her teeth, squirms against her bonds in a futile attempt at freedom.
“How long do you think it’ll take Robert to get here, after I text him the address?” He asked, pulling her phone from his back pocket. The screen was locked, but he knew ways to get around it, like forcing her thumb against the touch pad lock. Scrolling through her contacts it didn’t take him long to find “Bob” complete with a contact photo of the guy who tried to intimidate him just a few days ago.
“He’s going to kill you,” she snarls, thrashing futily against the metal pillar.
Chase laughs, a dark manic laugh that fills the warehouse and echos off the metal. It sends shivers down Eliza’s spine. “I’m counting on his bloodlust,” he remarks, lowering the phone so the only thing he’s focused on his her. His free hand darts out, grabs ahold of her face by the jaw with his thumb pressing hard against her cheekbone. “If you think I am afraid, then you do not know as much about me as you think you do,” he warns, liquid gold eyes narrowing into slits when he slides forward, crowding her.
Her head shakes violently, like his touch is acid, but his hold is firm and does not break. “We’re not afraid of you!” She shrieks.
“But you should be,” he replies, tossing his head back to laugh that cold, dark laugh.
Eliza stills, despite the panic beginning to well up inside her, and when Chase looks at her again, he can see the fear in her blue eyes. “Didn’t you ever watch Charmed?” He asks, releasing her face and returning his attention to the phone, typing out an address into a message box. “Wyatt became the big bad because someone tried to keep him from being the big bad, because they terrorized him in a poor attempt to keep him from a dark destiny.”
“What’s your point?” She hisses, willing her voice to become steel.
He looks up at her, just as he taps the grey and blue send button, and smiles at her. It’s the kind of smile that shows no teeth, but stretches across the mouth like the person is harboring poor intentions. He can tell she doesn’t trust the grin.
He doesn’t mind, because she shouldn’t.
“He became what they feared because they were trying to destroy him instead of nurturing the good in him,” he explains, pocketing the phone and wiping his hands along the fronts of his dark jeans. “In this case, I am Wyatt and you are Gideon. You have brought your monster to life, pulled him from the depths to the surface.”
“You would have become a monster regardless of us,” she tries to counter.
He shakes his head, looks at her like he pities her when the chime of her phone receiving a text goes off. “I was on the path to redemption when your friend, Mammoreal I think, attacked me. I pleaded for a chance and he refused. He died because he would not relent.” He sighs, plays with the sleeves of his hoodie, then continues, “the girl, Allie? She was the same and by the time she pleaded for a redo, she was a good as dead.”
Allie would have bled out on the streets from her missing hand before anyone found her, beheading her had been a mercy, but something told Chase that Eliza didn’t care.
People who were out for blood, for vengeance, never cared.
He would know, he often was one.
“But that is neither here, nor there,” Chase muses, fishing the phone out long enough to read the previewed I’m on my way text. “You and your companion will be dead before the sun rises in the morning.” “He will kill you,” she tries again, but some of the heat is lost when she presses back into the cold metal.
“He is going to try,” Chase amends, tugging his hood over his hair, “but I doubt he’ll succeed. If you’re lucky, I might let him free you so that you can watch him bleed out and know you can’t stop it.” He grins again, this time with all of his teeth, menacing and sharklike, a grin not suited for his youthful handsome face.
He backs away from her, winks wryly before spinning on his heel and slipping into the dark shadows of the warehouse.
“Eliza?” A gruff, masculine voice calls tentatively, the sound of a door creaking open echoing across metal walls.
“It’s a trap!” She wails, just as his figure comes into her line of view. “GET OUT!” She screams, thrashing against her pillar.
“Eliza!” The man calls, whirling around desperately because he can hear her voice but cannot see her in the darkness.
“GET OUT!” She shrieks again when a figure drops behind Robert, Chase she assumes, “he’s behind you!”
The freckled man barely has time to react before Chase is throwing punches his way. He deflects the first three with open palms but the reaper’s knuckles catch his jaw and send him reeling. He recovers quickly and charges forward, body hunching down, catching Chase with a shoulder to the stomach.
He grunts in pain, but grasps Robert’s midsection and uses the momentum to throw both of them backward. His opponent hits the ground first, but Chase lands wrong and slams his shoulder into the concrete when he goes down. He still gets up faster than the other guy, even if his chest is heaving and he can feel the adrenaline coursing through him.
It’s been awhile since he fought someone hand to hand without being powered up, so it thrills him. He doesn’t plan on powering up until the other guy does, even if it means he’ll take quite the beating without his added strength.
Chase Black is all lean length and subtle muscle. It’s noticeable when he’s shirtless or wearing something particularly form fitting but otherwise? It’s hard to tell.
Robert, on the other hand, is obvious muscle, from the shape of his biceps to the broad expanse of his chest. His figure screams buff and if Chase didn’t have five years of grappling, fighting, and brawling beneath his belt, he’d be screwed.
As it is, Chase is solider. He knows how to fight, exploit and win.
They’re both on their feet, circling each other like angry cats when Robert throws a punch and Chase slides beneath it easy, smoothly and rams his shoulder in the the bigger man’s gut. There’s a grunt in response, then there are arms wrapping around his back and fingers squeezing his ribs but Chase pushes forward, forces Robert back. He only stops moving, because his back hits a metal pillar and there’s nowhere left to go.
Chase shifts just enough so he keep punching at his opponent’s gut even as he gets railed on in response. There’s a sudden shift in how Robert holds himself and Chase stiffens, realization hitting him too late.
He’s thrown across the room before he can even attempt to stop it.
Chase hits the ground with a thud and a groan, face and palms pressed against the cold stone of warehouse floor. When he lifts his head, he sees the red and gold uniform of a Mars knight and he swears under his breath when he launches to his feet. The change is instantaneous, power flooding through him, twisting and shaping him until Chase no longer exists and only General Labyrinthite stands in his place.
“Martian,” the Reaper growls, voice low and gravely as he turns and his cloak sweeps across the floor. “Did you know that the fire that fuels your rage is the same that the phoenix rises from?” He cocked his head, fox-grin sliding across his mouth with his dentist-white teeth glistening in the low light.
“To hell with you Reaper,” the now-knight hisses in response, fists raise and gauntlets glistening.
Labyrinthite laughs, loud and twistedly, with his head tossed back until his hood slides off. “I’m already there.” Then, he runs, scythe materializing in his right hand as he charges forward to meet the Mars knight in the middle. He swings, using all of his dormant muscle strength to lift the blade off the ground and into the air one handed.
His attack hits, sharp blade clashing against the durable gold of his opponent’s own weapon. Despite his weight and pressure, it does not bend or move like Scholomance’s cane had. Angrily, Labyrinthite banishes the weapon and jumps, twisting in the air so that when he lands, he is facing the knight’s back.
“Tell me your name Robert,” he demands, hands gripping the metal plating in the armor and yanking back until his fingers can wrap around the soft flesh of his through. “Your real name.”
The knight twists and grunts, fingers grasping uselessly at the hands cutting off airways until finally, he sinks to his knees and caves. “Salazen,” he wheezes and Labyrinthite lifts his foot to press it into the man’s back. He kicks hard when his hands let go and the knight, Salazen, hits the ground.
He retaliates quickly however, now that he can breathe, and rolls over, kicking Labyrinthite in the stomach hard enough that he staggers backwards. There is only a split second of recovery as Salazen is back on his feet, sweeping out the general’s from beneath him.
The soldier barely prevents himself from hitting the ground, uses the momentum to throw himself at the knight in a Black Widow fashion-- wrapping his legs around Salazen’s neck and using his weight to throw him into the ground. He scrambles back to his feet, scythe returning to his hand when he brings the end of it down onto the martian’s sternum.
“If you are smart, you will stay down,” he growls, digs the bone-staff deeper into man’s chest. The weight is sure to leave a bruise, but Labyrinthite doesn’t intend on letting this one live.
He pulls away, the bones clanking against the concrete before he shifts his grip and the head scythe crashes into the ground with a clang. He moves slowly, steps deliberately as he crosses the expanse of the warehouse to return to the blonde he’d tied up earlier. <******** you,” she hisses when he comes to stand before her. She even spits on his face and he sighs, looks at her like she’s a child that needs to be scolded.
“Language my dear Eliza,” he chastises, lifting his weapon until the point hooks into the start of her bonds. “I’m just releasing you.” The blade cuts through the bonds like they were nothing, like frayed thread. He drops the scythe again, unbothered by the clang and shiiink that follow, sticks his hand in his pocket and throws the henshin pen at her.
“You have five minutes,” he stated, gaze flicking from the woman to her companion who’s made his way over to them, anger bristling beneath his skin like an angered cat.
He disappears from their line of sight, teleports into the shadows of the rafters and waits.
“He’s not letting us go,” Eliza mumbles, fingers closing around her pen when she steps free of her ties. “It’s a trick Salazen.” Her voice cracks and Labyrinthite’s chest puffs with pride when he realizes, she’s scared..
Serves her right for threatening him in his own home, for threatening his mother.
No one threatens his family and lives.
The first senshi he killed is a testament to that. “Eliza,” he hears the gruff knight say. “We can get help, five minutes is enough time. We can do something else.”
“No we can’t,” she cries and Labyrinthite feels the pulse of a new aura fill the cramped warehouse. “We’re not running. I will not run from him. It ends here, tonight,” she declares determinedly.
Labyrinthite thinks that if she hadn’t made this personal, she would make a great addition to the negaverse. Especially if he could mold her into a soldier like himself. As it stands, she and her companion need to perish.
This is personal and Labyrinthite doesn’t take prisoners for personal affairs.
“Mirana, please,” he hears Salazen beg.
“It’s kill or be killed. It ends here,” she reaffirms and he thinks he hears her scaling a pillar. “Reaper!” Her voice booms, loud and clear and he rises, taps his scythe against metal so she can’t miss the distinctive chiink.
He spots her eyes, crisp blue and full of hatred, before he sees the rest of her but he figures out her alignment pretty quickly, when a flurry of icicles fly his way. He blocks the attack easily, ice splintering against the dark metal of his scythe. “I expected better of you Mirana,” he cooes, cracking his neck as he gathers the staff into both hands.
He hears the distinct sound of feet against metal and knows that Salazen has joined them in the rafters. His lips curl in a dark, sinister grin as he all but glides forward, towards the stubborn blonde glaring at him with her hands tightened into fists. “I believe death comes knocking,” he says in a slow drawl.
“For us or for you, that hasn’t been decided,” she spits back. Her eyes dart to something behind him and he doesn’t bother to look knowing that it has to be the Martian. He does not falter, continuing toward her purposefully.
“Perhaps, but I think you know how this ends,” he retorts.
All things considered, it ends like it starts, quickly.
Mirana rushes him at the same time Salazen does, but Labyrinthite ducks, leg sweeping out one way and this weapon the other and both get knocked off their feet. How they stay among the rafters, he cannot say.
He just knows that she swings around the rafter, feet catching him in the jaw and throwing him off balance enough for Salazen to regain his footing, anger flaring in his expression. The senshi is throwing punches and kicks his way relentlessly and with a practiced knowledge that only comes from being trained in a martial arts. It irritates him, but pleases him at the same time because it means that she’s a worthy opponent.
Someone who knows what they’re doing and what they’d gotten themselves into.
Her partner however is sloppy in his punches, obviously only knowing how to fight from getting into fights, which makes him easier to dodge. Still, he has more of a force behind his punches and while they hardly connect, he recoils harder when hit by one of the knight’s.
At some point, it becomes difficult to fend them off with the weight of his weapon and he drops it, hearing the clatter of the bone against concrete when it hits the ground. With both hands free, he grabs a hold of Mirana’s wrists before she can launch her barrage of icicles his way. He spins in a full circle, lifting her off the rafter despite her best struggles to break free and uses her weight to slam hard into the Martian, who immediately drops his arms and braces himself as best as he can against the attack.
Labyrinthite knew that Salazen would do whatever it took to keep from harming his partner.
Both order-aligned fighters go flying off the rafter and crash into a pile on the concrete floor of the warehouse, with the Martian coiled around the senshi in an attempt to lessen the blow.
“There are two of you and yet, I am the one standing,” Labyrinthite taunts when he drops to the floor with a heavy thud, cape billowing out behind him. “How pathetic,” he taunts, stooping low enough to pick his weapon up by the end and drag it behind him as he advanced on them.
Mirana is quick to her feet, but her knight is not. He groans as he struggles to sit up and somewhere, he is bleeding. Still, he managed to stand and the gold of his gauntlets begins to glow while her hands go blue. There is a part of the soldier that knows that this is their final stand.
It makes him grin, wide and sharp, with all of his teeth.
“To hell with you reaper!” The girl shouts, charging towards him swinging her arm at him to unleash the flurry of ice that nicks his cheek, tears at his uniform but does not deter him when he lifts his scythe and swings.
The senshi does not have enough time to react, but her faithful Martian registers what is about to happen and throws her out of the way, his gauntlets only managing to catch the barest edge of the blade. His feet skid across the concrete and he activates his aspect of Mars, determined to be a little more durable if it means getting his senshi out of the way and to safety.
It fails him as his legs give out beneath him and his block slips.
Mirana’s scream fills the warehouse when the scythe sheers through Salazen’s flesh and bones-- cuts him in half.
The Martian’s death comes quicker than Labyrinthite had expected, but the knight had grown sloppy in his desire to protect the senshi. A mistake that cost him his life.
“You’re a b*****d, you know that right?” She shrieks, sharp blue eyes glossy with unshed tears.
She runs at him, flips acrobatically in the air until her legs wrap around the general’s neck and she flips him to the ground black widow style. She summons her magic one final time, this time taking the form of a large, sharp icicle and has it poised over his heart about to sink it in when he moves too quickly for her to block, as she is blinded by her grief.
His fingers wrap around her throat, cut off her airwaves until she’s forced to let go and the ice shatters against the floor. Her fingers claw futility at his hands, desperate to free herself, until she can no longer fight and her eyes go dark, her body limp in his hands.
He tosses her off of him, onto the dismembered body of her partner, and climbs to his feet. When he stands, he goes over to their corpses and plunges his hands into their chest, collects their starseeds then brushes the dirt and blood off his uniform.
When it is all said and done, Labyrinthite powers down-- the glittering starseeds chiming against each other in his palm --then gathers the gasoline that he’d stored in the dark corners of the warehouse. He is meticulous in the way he pours the liquid across every part of building until the smell burns his nose and he doesn’t think he’ll be able to inhale without smelling gas for days.
Three gas cans later and he’s satisfied, pouring the remains over the two bodies he’s piled in the center. “The fire that grows it the one you feed,” he muses allowed, amber eyes raking across their fallen, mangled forms. There’s a sting of something in his chest-- guilt he thinks --when he looks upon them because they’d both had such potential, they would’ve made great additions.
But they threatened his mother.
And that was unforgivable.
So he lights a match from the matchbook he fishes out of his hoodie and drops in over their gasoline soaked bodies. “And so it ends,” he says, when the bodies light up, fire reflecting in the bright gold of his eyes.
The rest of the warehouse begins to go up in flames as Chase exits with his heart hammering in his chest and his hands shaking.
This might not have been what he-- or they -- wanted, but it was the same result in the end. Two more dead, blood on his hands, and no guilt on his chest.
And so the Reaper burns on.
Nuxaz
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Nuxaz
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Posted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 6:22 pm
Reminders: A Mysterious Phonecall (1,200 words)
The phone call comes on a Wednesday, approximately thirty minutes after he gets off the phone with his mother. Lara’s coming home, much to Chase’s frustration because it’s still not safe and he has so much unattended business that he’s trying to deal with. The new phone call only serves to aggregate his already sour mood.
“Hello?” He answers in a clipped tone which appears to entice a chuckle from whomever is on the other side of the line.
“Mr. Black?” A woman’s almost sultry voice asks and Chase swears he can hear the smirk in her voice.
“This is he,” he replies cautiously, whiskey-gold eyes narrowed and his jaw sets, ticking when he swallows.
“This is Nurse Ellis, from New York,” she says and he feels like the world tilts beneath his feet when she emphasises New York. His stomach churns and silence stretches between them before he’s stumbling to take a seat. He collapses into one of the kitchen chairs with the phone pressed against his face and his other hand grasping the back of the chair so tightly his knuckles are white. If he weren’t so preoccupied with the mysterious call he might’ve been worried that that the wood would splinter in his fist.
“I - “ he stutters, swallows because it’s so hard to focus past the rapid pulse of his heart. It’s a roaring sound in his ears and the woman’s voice sounds faint when she repeats his name. “I’m sorry. I don’t - “ New York had been at least a year ago, longer than that even.
He’d first gone there when he was still a captain and then again when he was newly minted general. At least - that was what he thought. It was hard to tell with the mix of memories of a timeline that did not exist.
“Yes, we required your assistance, don’t you remember sir?” There’s a hint of something else in her tone that Chase isn’t quite sure of. Her voice is like ice and he can feel it sliding down his spine.
I want to see you succeed, Laurelite’s words were echoing in his head as he shook it, trying to focus on the person on the phone.
“The hospital right?” He answers carefully, releasing the chair so he can bend forward, pinch the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “I had come to see how the business was running.” Among other things but he didn’t know what he could and couldn’t discuss over the phone.
How had they even gotten his personal number?
Chase that thought that he’d kept it off the negaverse records. Just another subtle reminder that it didn’t matter what you did, they were watching, they had access. Once a soldier, always a soldier. He was a good soldier, loyal and efficient.
Or at least he tried.
“Yes Mr. Black, the hospital,” the woman practically purred, like a predator who’d squared it’s prey into a corner just like it wanted. “We’re thinking of opening a branch in Destiny City, you were so helpful,” she paused as if to allow him a moment for it all to sink in, “that we would like to request your assistance in bringing over some of our assets. Get us up and running like a smooth machine.”
Chase didn’t know if he could say no or if he wanted to say yes. If the call had come at any other time, if his mother wasn’t returning and risking being put directly in the line of danger again because he was getting involved in something -
“We could really use your business expertise. It was incredibly useful last time.” His fingers threaded into damp pink and black strands of hair, tugging on them as he listened to those loaded words. He knew what they meant and after everything - after the fight with the girl from Skaikru, the failed attempts to corrupt the transcendent knight and his senshi friend - he didn’t know how ‘capable’ he was to fulfill their requests but -
He couldn’t say no. He’d risk his mother and himself.
So he answers like the good little soldier boy he presented himself as.
“Of course.” The reply came out more smoothly than he expect, rolling off his tongue without a hitch. “What ever you need,” he says because that was the right thing to say.
“Excellent,” the doctor lady purrs and Chase has to clench his teeth to keep from letting the sound of her voice send shudders down his spine. “We’ll be in touch with you soon, expect our calls, keep your schedule open and free. There’s a lot to transfer once we pick our new location.” There was the sound of sharp nails tapping on a desk. “You should expect news within the week then, you’ll need to fly out here obviously.”
“Of course,” he forces out between gritted teeth, a slow hiss of an exhale passing through the spaces.
“Actually - I think it would be best if you can get here in the next few days or so. You should assess what we want to move and help us pick a new place. You know the city well don’t you?” Her words came too quickly, in a rush of let me get my train of thought out before I’ll even consider letting you speak and Chase found it hard to find his voice throughout it all.
He wonders if it is because he’s reverting to the man he’d been at the beginning of last year, when he’d been lost confused and conflicted. It’s hard to remind himself that he is no longer that person, that he is strong and confident General Labyrinthite.
A force to be reckoned with.
He has strength, loyalty, a foundation. He has the pack and he is himself, who he is always meant to be, the Reaper.
“I know it well enough. I also have enough connections I can reach out to in order to ensure that we find whatever you need.” He could utilize Fiona and her family’s company as he was prone to doing. He didn’t know anyone that knew the city the way she did.
“Perfect,” the woman coos sounding terribly pleased by his answers. “Well, I expect to see you soon then Chase.” There’s a pause that extends so long that he’s not sure if she’s hung up or not and is about to peel the phone from his cheek when her voice cuts clear and crisp across the line. ‘Oh, before I forget. Echo misses you. Until you’re in New York, ciao~”
The line goes dead right after and Chase jerks up, nearly flings the phone across the room before he stops himself last second. If he’s going to New York in two days, then he needs to call his mother and inform her. If he’s lucky, then he’ll manage to convince her to sit tight until this ‘business’ venture is cared for.
Chase leans back in the wooden chair, head tipped back and gazed fixed on the ceiling, then calls his mom.
“Hey mom, so it looks like I’ve got to go to New York for business in a couple of days, think grandma and grandpa would mind keeping you longer?”
Posted: Thu Jul 25, 2013 2:23 pm
TRIGGER WARNING; dismemberment, death, violence
Liars and Monsters: Blood Must Have Blood (1520 words)
With the warehouse going up in flames and what he assumes to be the leaders of Skaikru to be dead, Labyrinthite foolishly thinks that his war against the White Moon team to be over. Unfortunately, he learns very quickly that he is wrong when a girl - no woman - confronts him several weeks, no months later.
He cannot tell if his sense of time is lost or if he’s been swept up in so much other nonsense that he doesn’t have time to stop and think about the knights and their senshi. Things have been going smooth for him lately, he’s got a wonderful team building and growing together and -
He’d been so foolish to think it was over.
“Blood must have blood,” the girl hisses when she corners him one night while he’s out making his rounds. He hadn’t felt her approaching and he chalks it up her having waited for the right moment before powering up because the signal flare of an eternal senshi is upon him before he realizes it.
He only has half a second to respond or react before rocks are being thrown his way. One clips his jaw and another slams into his chest, but he manages to avoid the rest of the barrage after one hits him hard in the shoulder. He does not, however, have the chance to summon his weapon and launch a return attack before she lunging out of the shadows and using her weight and momentum to throw him into the ground.
He hits the concrete hard, the pair of them skidding backwards from the force of her magically enhanced strength. They only stop before they should because he’s digging his gloved hand into a cracked piece of the street and they whirl to a stop. His back stings from the force but his cloak and uniform layers protect him from the road rash.
They don’t, unfortunately, protect him from the punch the senshi lands on his face. His head cracks against the concrete and he audibly groans because, hood or not, it ******** hurts. As painful as it is, it’s enough to orient his senses and allow him to take charge of this surprise fight.
Both hands, the glove frayed and torn at the fingertips, push flat palms against the senshi’s collarbones with enough force to throw her off of him. She’s quick to rise, but so is he and this time, she doesn’t have the element of surprise on her side. They both charge each other and for a moment it’s almost a dance, the way they throw punches, dodge kicks and twist around each other.
By the time they’re both stilling, their muscles are screaming in protest and Labyrinthite is certain he sports a bruise along his jaw. His nose might even be bleeding, and he suspects it is, just like her lip is split and blood is trickling down her chin.
“Marmoreal was right about you,” the woman laughs brightly like they’re not probably fighting to the death but like they’re merely companions who decided a spar was in order. “You certainly live up to your name.”
Labyrinthite doesn’t bother to respond, instead he summons his bone scythe and wastes no time slicing across her midsection. He only managed to catch her side, which blossoms red immediately, because she quick and obviously well trained.
She retaliates with another rock based attack and they slam into him with more force than before. It’s expected, the distance between them is minimal.
The wind is knocked out of him when he’s also knocked off his feet. He hits the ground with an audible thud weapon flying from his hand and shattering the concrete where it lands, and the girl is upon him instantly, legs straddling his hips as she lands punch after punch on him.
With great effort, and with help from his enhanced strength, he manages to flip them and turn the tables. When he stands and retrieves his weapon, the blade glistening in the moonlight with her blood staining the metal, she barely manages to rise to her knees.
He has to commend her for her spirit and the determination in her bright blue eyes. “Get knocked down, get back up,” she hisses, the words obviously painful for her to say. He probably cracked her ribs, if the gash in her side wasn’t doing her in.
“Then get up and walk away,” he growls, offering her a chance to leave.
“My fight is not over,” she gasps.
In the end, she does not get up and leave because she can’t her body protesting even sitting on her knees as she glares at him.
Their gruesome fight ends like that, with Labyrinthite giving her one final chance to walk away and live, it’s after the woman’s spits in his face, blood trailing down her chin from where her lip was split. “Blood must have blood Reaper,” she snarls, struggling to stand but her body is too beaten, worn to do anything but kneel before him.
The general can tell that it takes all her strength to remain upright, with her knuckles clenched so tightly against the ground that they’re white. He clucks his tongue and sighs at her, shakes his head slowly as amber eyes trace the outlines of her fuku which is stained red from the gash in her side.
“You wanted revenge so badly that you, and your friends, are willing to die for it?” He asks slowly, letting the words roll of his tongue like he’s testing them. She’s the only one he’s left alive long enough to have a conversation with, or at least, she appears to be the only one who seems to have enough wits about her to give him answers.
Eliza and Bob had been too dangerous to even consider it, but this girl, this senshi has a fire in her eyes that Labyrinthite recognizes as being the same, if not at least incredibly similar, to the one he carries.
Her body had been pinned to a wall messily, the severed parts hastily tacked up and put up against weak points in the building’s structure. A messy scrawl written in her blood above and around her.
“It’s not revenge,” she spits, literally spits at him again this time with a mix of saliva and blood that smears across the white of his card themed shirt, “it’s justice.” And she says it with such conviction it quite literally shakes the reaper-general to his core.
Her words remind him of his youth, of the days when he did nothing but relentlessly hunt down Sailor Iris and all the information he could gather about her. The scar on his ankle burns with ghost pains, as it does whenever he thinks too much of times long since past.
The burning sensation makes him wonder if the rainbow senshi would give him the time of day if she knew what he’d been up to. How he’d been unable to commit to abstaining from killing, how he’d once again allowed himself to be soaked in chaos, to let it run rampant through his veins like it was in his genetic makeup.
But Shaikru has proven time and time again, that no matter what General Labyrinthite does. He’ll never be anything but the loyal knight of Metallia’s because blood will always stain his hands and once again, his resolve is strong.
For now.
No, his resolve is permanent and his faith is strong.
Perhaps Iris’ view on him was never wrong. There’s no salvation for the damned.
“Pity, but I suppose that’s why death comes knocking,” Labyrinthite replies stepping back and hefting the head of his scythe off the ground, grasping the bone shaft with both hands. There’s a glimmer of pity in his gold eyes as he swings.
The senshi gets out one more sentence before the metal sinks into the skin of her neck, “Blood must have blood!” It comes out in a garbled shriek, blood filling her mouth just before the blade slices through cleanly. There was little resistance.
Labyrinthite’s heart is not as heavy as it’d been with the others.
He rips her starseed from her chest, the crystal already dimming in his hands, and tucked the precious thing into his pocket. He’ll dispose of it later, he has her body to attend to now.
Methodically, he separates her limbs and finds ways to pin her disassembled body to the crumbling wall near by. Then in her blood, he writes;
Who’s next?
Who’s looking for me?
Come find me. I’m waiting.
Beneath that, was a general location, the roof of one of the taller buildings near the outskirts of the city by an abandoned bakery. Then, there was a poorly drawn scythe as the signature.
Satisfied, the general takes his leave opting to venture into the rift and visited that skeleton tree where he’d left all the other starseeds at.
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Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2013 11:59 am
Reminders: Once Upon a Visit (1,585 words)
He leaves two days later, arriving in New York on a Friday with just a duffle bag packed with the necessities after catching the soonest flight possible. He briefly considers teleporting to the hospital but decides against it because he had no idea how long he’ll be needed there. The expenditure of energy too massive to be considered a viable option in the long run.
Besides, he could picture the hospital but could not remember the exact location. His memories are fuzzy and he doesn’t know why - but he’s concerned enough about startling anyone in the hospital that might be normal. So, in the end, it’s written off completely.
He sends two texts after purchasing the plane ticket; one to James informing him that he’ll need to check in on Just Add Coffee and another to Katrina, letting her know that she’ll need to look in on both cats. The others would receive messages upon his arrival informing them that he’s in New York for a a bit.
Except Archer, he gets told nothing because Chase wants him to think that his general could appear any time if he continues to step out of line.
The trip from the airport to the hotel he’d booked a room in is uneventful and he goes to the hospital the following Saturday, escorted by what he thinks are two low-level agents working for Doctor Ellis.
“Ah, Mr. Black how delightful it is to see you. Echo’s been asking for you non-stop since your name was mentioned by one of the interns,” the woman explains, turning on her heels and sauntering towards the elevators with a clipboard clutched tightly, protectively, in her hand and pressed against her chest. “Once we get to the lower level of the hospital, you’ll need to change of course. Some of our…” the woman pauses, clearly deliberating over her word choice, “patients are a bit more hostile if you aren’t dressed correctly.”
They reach the metal doors where she scans her keycard and turns her attention to the much taller man behind her, sharp eyes narrowing when they darted over to the man and woman flanking his sides. “You’re dismissed,” she says curtly, waving them off with a perfectly manicured hand, nails painted a deep red and filed to a subtle sharpness.
She swept that same arm towards the now open doors of the elevator. “After you, General.” The sharp grin makes him stiffen even as he nods and steps in beside her. Almost immediately he’s hit with a wave of nostalgia and for a second, he’s transported to the first day he’d been at the hospital.
”Mr. Black.”
It’s a woman in her thirties calling his name and his attention goes to her immediately. There’s a split second of observation on his end, as his fingers drum against his thigh, where he takes in the sleekness of her blonde hair and the sharpness of green eyes. From the way red-painted lips quirk upward, Chase knows immediately that she can tell that he’s nervous - afraid even.
“Yes ma’am,” he answers, fingers stilling and sweaty palms pressing against dark jeans.
“We are so thrilled to have you here,” the woman cooes and Chase wonders if all women in labcoats appear as menacing as this one. The fake sweetness has him on edge immediately, certain that she knows of his record.
This is all a test, he reminds himself. “It’s an honor to have been selected,” he forces out, offering her a well practiced smile that is utterly fake but seems genuine enough. This is a business meeting, he just needs to be polite and professional enough to survive until he can return to Destiny City.
“I’m Doctor Jennifer Ellis, but you can just call me Ellis,” she introduces, offering him a slender and perfectly manicured hand. Chase takes it, but doesn’t miss the way her nails are filed to sharper points. “Right this way Mr. Black, there’s much to show you.”
Without another word, the woman is sauntering off at a brisk pace and the young man has no choice but to follow.
The place is like most hospital’s Chase has been inside, smelling clean and sterile in an uncomfortable way. The walls are too white and the florescent lights often cast an eerie glow in the less well-lit corridors, which only serves to make the pink and black haired man feel like he’s in the makings of a horror film.
Then again, considering where he is it very well could be.
A shake of the head dispels the thought and he focuses on letting his gaze sweep across the place, take in the general layout as Dr. Ellis leads him through multiple hallways and, eventually, down a flight of stairs and into a wing that requires a keycard to access.
It’s peculiar, considering she won’t tell him much about where they’re going just tidbits of what to expect when they finally enter a large room with multiple beds and over a dozen patients lying in them. Even from a distance Chase can tell that they’re in different stages of, well, dying.
Not for the first time, does he wonder what on Earth he’s doing at the hospital until Dr. Ellis taps his shoulder and gestures to a particular bed and patient combo. “She’s the one under my specific care,” the woman explains, painted lips twisting into a cruel smile. “She’ll be the one you and I will be...observing and testing things with.”
Her words are vague but Chase knows exactly what she means and all of the rest of the puzzle pieces click into place. “Of course, my services and abilities are at your disposal,” he says like a good little soldier boy.
“Come, let me introduce you,” she decides, striding over towards the woman’s bed with staff hurrying out of her way like the red sea did for Moses.
When they reach the bed, Chase can see that it’s an older woman, white peppering dark strands of hair. She looks to be in better shape than the rest of them but -
He knows that doesn’t mean much in the end.
“Mr. Black, please meet Miranda.” Dr. Ellis introduces, gesturing to him with sharp eyes going back and forth between the pair.
“I wish it were because of different circumstances, but it’s a pleasure Miranda.”
When he slips out of the memory, he realizes that he’s been quiet for too long and that the oh-so-kind doctor is staring at him expectantly. He fidgets in place, swallows hard and lets whiskey gold drift across the elevator.
“This is new,” he comments carefully, watching her as she scans her keycard then presses her fingertips against a reader. “Security is much tighter.”
“Of course, this operation is by far the most successful run we’ve ever done. We wouldn’t want to compromise any of it. Now change, we’ll be arriving in two minutes.” Nails tapped along the faux-wood of her clipboard impatiently. “There will be no teleporting, just like the infirmary, that I heard was ransacked a few months ago.”
A hiss of a sigh slips between clenched teeth before he unclenches the hands at his side and let chaos wash over him, his cloak and uniform replacing the business attire he’s chosen to wear for the meeting. “It did and smart decision, creates a more...controlled environment for the assets.”
“Exactly, we took all of your suggestions to heart,” Ellis purrs stepping into his space and tapping his chest with the metal clip before stepping out the doors the second they opened. “Follow me.”
It isn’t until he’s certain that she can’t see him that he glares at her back, jaw clenching as he reigns in his irritation. Of course he’s going to follow her, he doesn’t know his way around this part of the hospital.
She leads him down the hall and into another hallway where glass windows stretched along the length of it broken up by metal doors that required a keycard to open and walls that separated the rooms - cells, he realizes - with various creatures and even people still dressed in their hospital gowns in that between stage of human and something else.
Boy, had they been busy.
Amber eyes drift across the windows, watching as creatures milled about in their glass prisons until he spots a familiar one. The greenish tint of her skin and her elongated insect-like limbs are hard to forget.
Impossible even, when they’re his fault - a result of his cooperation and action.
The churning in his stomach worsens when those silver eyes locked with his gold and he can see her mouth moving. He can’t hear her but he can tell what she’s mouthing, his name. His face pales even though his legs carry him forward, pressing his gloved hand against the glass of her cell. “Mir - “ he stops, because that’s not her name anymore. “Echo,” he breathes instead, hearing Ellis’s heels come clicking in behind him and the beep of her keycard against the panel to unlock the door.
“After you,” the doctor says, arching a brow like she was daring him to say no.
So, naturally, General Labyrinthite steps through the door with his back straight and his head held high. He will not show weakness here, not anymore. He swallows hard then says, with an incredibly even tone of voice, “Long time no see Echo.”
Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2013 11:59 am
((Directly follows Retribution and is backdated to reflect that.))
Wreck Havoc Word Count: 1321 words
Labyrinthite fails to anticipate any of this and perhaps that’s why he feels like he suddenly suffocating. His chest is constricting, airways closing until he’s struggling to breathe and he’s grasping at his throat while gasping for air. His knees buckle beneath him and he drops, knees crashing against the cold stone, grasping at his chest. His fingers curl into the fabric, digging in and twisting like it’ll do something to alleviate the sharp pain that shoots through him.
I messed up, I messed up, I <********> up, his mind chants to him as his body rocks forward and a hand shoots out to catch himself, to keep him from collapsing into the ground and a fresh wave of pain shoots through him from his palm and up his arm. Foolish boy, he chides himself because, like the fool he is, he’d caught himself with his injured arm. His broken arm. <******** you Iris, he curses while he grits his teeth and tries to calm his breathing.
His heart pulses rapidly, skyrocketing his heart rate until it moves at the speed of a hummingbird's wings.
He can still taste the starseed on his tongue, imagines the splintered shards stuck between his teeth and littered on his tongue. It makes his stomach churn, the feeling of vomiting crawling up his throat as he attempts to choke it back down.
Stupid, stupid, stupid boy. You’re so stupid. His mind coos at him all while racing rapidly in a poor attempt to devise some solution for the situation he unwittingly tangled himself up in. You’re a disgrace, the voice in his head tells him and it sounds startlingly familiar. Sounds like the stern, ever disappointed tone of his father.
Even in death Samuel haunts his son.
It’s all your fault, the voice whispers in his ear and Chase closes his eyes as tightly as possible like it will block out the words. His teeth clash together in a nasty grind and the fingers of his injured limb curl into the casted palm all while he tries to breath.
He’s suffered panic attacks before, but this one is the worst in a long while.
She’s dead and it’s all your fault, the voice is no longer a whisper in his ear but a full fledged snarl screaming in his mind. Both hands shoot up to cover his ears and he ignores the stabs of pain that shoot through him.
“SHUT UP!” He screams, voice carrying farther than he meant and echoing off of the stone walls of the building they’d left him before.
First you killed me and now you’ve killed your mother, his father’s voice taunts, what a terrible son you are.
“SHUT UP!” He cries again, eyes squeezing tighter as he rocks his body back and forth. His father’s voice doesn’t listen as it says, this is all your fault. You did this. You don’t deserve anything better than rotting here in this dungeon your so-called cause left you in.
“It’s not like that,” he mumbles, rocking himself onto the balls of his feet. His eyes open slowly and his breaths are shaky. His chest still feels like it’s constricting and breathing hurts from the squeeze. “I-I messed up,” he stammers shakily. “I can fix this.”
You can’t bring her back. You can’t bring me back. You killed us. We died because of you. It’s all your fault.
It’s all your fault. All your fault, the voice chants and he shakes his head.
“I didn’t mean it. This wasn’t supposed to happen,” he protests weakly, victim to the taunts in his head. They don’t tell him anything that he doesn’t already know. He’s the reason his father’s dead and now, now he’s the reason his mother’s dead. He’s the reason everyone he loves, loved, leave him. They’re better off without him.
He’s a monster and there’s no going back.
A snarl to his left brings him out of his inner torture and he reacts instinctively as something lunges at him. He throws himself forward, out of the way, in a tuck in rolls and a flare of chaos bubbles within him. It pools in the center of his chest and spreads itself throughout his lanky frame, washes power over him as magic melts his clothing into a familiar uniform and cloak.
His heart's still racing and breathing remains difficult but his attention is distracted by the creature that prowls it’s way towards him. He inhales sharply and twists on feet to face the beast, good arm extending to hold the scythe that begins to materialize in his hand. His fingers close over the shaft of the weapon and a wave of calm washes over him.
Suddenly, his lungs expand and he can breathe again. Fight, combat, calms him immediately.
This is familiar, this makes sense, this is normal. (The adrenaline that pulses through him quiets the voice in his head for a moment.)
He straightens, eyes narrowed and lips curling upward at the edges as he slides forward just as the beast lunges again. He drops to his knees, skidding beneath the belly of the beast, leaning his body backwards even as he lifts his too-large blade and slices into the underbelly. The monster collapses to the ground with a thud and Chase--no Labyrinthite rises as his heart rate calms.
You will apologize to me with blood, sweat and tears. The Rift will be kinder to you than I will be, and perhaps you will learn your manners there. As you are now, you are expendable, he hears, remembering the terrible conversation with the Queen. I will destroy you if I must. Even the imaginary voice makes him shudder, chills and terror running down his spine. I strip you, Labyrinthite, of your status. You have no authority, no privilege, no favor. If you cannot serve the Negaverse, it will not serve you. You will keep your weapon. Perhaps you will keep your life The punishment was cold, cruel and perhaps he did not think he deserved it but, the guilty never did, did they?
Labyrinthite had known that he’d be held accountable for the treachery committed against the Dark Mirror Court, he’d been the only one to come out seemingly unscathed by his decision to participate in White Phoenix. Failing to removed the senshi princess would surely cost him too, but he’d been trying.
Princess Iris was one of the only people he’d never been able to read or manipulate or use. She held a strength that far surpassed anyone he’d ever met, even the sovereigns that ruled over the Negaverse. There was a curl of something that burned white-hot in his chest, the flames wrapping around his iron-heart; hatred.
He should have known better than to use blood and violence to make a statement, but he’d been so tired of that pack of white mooners who’d been ambushing him and now….now he’s potentially risked the safety of his pack.
He should have known that they were watching him, they were always watching. What a foolish leader he is.
His arm aches as the adrenaline fades and he’s reminded that, in his powered state, the cast that’s keeping his broken arm no longer exists. A hiss of pain eases through the space of clenched teeth and he inhales deeply, dragging his scythe behind him with his good arm.
He needs to find a place to rest, lest he burn up too quickly and not live to survive this punishment.
Labyrinthite was nothing if not strong, capable, adaptable. He would survive, he was certain, and when he returned he would be remade, stronger. Better. A force that even Laurelite could not deny.
Or so he would dream.
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Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2013 12:00 pm
Conviction Word Count: 1630 words
He loses track of time pretty quickly in these parts of the rift. There’s no sunlight or equivalent to mark the passing of days and it’s not like he’s ever worn a watch, not as Labyrinthite anyway and it’s foolish to power down for something so trivial as checking the date and time. Though the ache in his wounded arm makes it tempting as the makeshift sling fastened out of his cloak and whatever materials he could scrounge isn’t doing enough for the broken bone. It’s one of the few instances where he wishes that glamour and magic didn’t take away as much as it gave.
It’s night time, he thinks because there’s a quiet hush that’s descended upon the area.
Truth be told, the reaper general hates that there’s still so much of the Rift that he’s unfamiliar with. This particular stretch is a perfect example, it’s foresty in a way most of the parts he knows aren’t. Trees sprout from cracked Earth and stretch upward until branches are bowing beneath the ceiling. There’s moss on rocks and he thinks he can hear the babble of a brook as he walks, good hand pressing against tree trunks for support.
Every part of him is on edge, it has to be, because he has no authority, no respect from the creatures that haunt the foliage. He has to earn it, respect, and that’s not something he’s had to do for years now. It’s unsettling but he’s capable. He has to be if he wants to survive..
Foolish boy, hisses the voice that sounds like his father. You deserve this, it tells him and Labyrinthite cannot even argue. He does and he was arrogant for thinking he could act as he did without consequence.
Shame creeps up his neck and stains his ears red when he thinks too much about the conversation with Laurelite. She’d once been proud of him, pleased with the work he was doing with his team, and he’d made the mistake of growing complacent. Of thinking that he was the golden child, a favored one who could not do wrong.
But even the favored make mistakes. Even the mighty fall and he knew better which is why it all feels like a blow to the chest with a weight that sits heavy on his shoulders.
You killed her, his father’s voice hisses and Labyrinthite grits his teeth and pushes forward, begins a trek through unfamiliar woods.
“I know,” he croaks, voice rough and scratchy from disuse. “I killed you too.”
Monster, the voice hisses and the general can only sigh as he pushes a branch full of thorns and leaves out of his face so he can go deeper. The air is humid with all of the trees and he beneath all of his layers he’s sweating. He doesn’t stop moving forward though, wincing when his broken arm knocks against something.
“I’ve never denied it,” he says, stepping over an overgrown root that breaks the mossy surface and extends another fifteen feet. He misses the city.
There’s a rustling from above and the general barely moves back in time when a mantis-like creature drops from above, mouth appendages chattering at him while big reflective eyes look at him curiously. Inhaling with a hiss between his teeth, the man prepares for an attack.
It does not come, the bug creature observing him for another moment before it’s mouth clicks again and it’s bounding through the forest. He is apparently not worth it’s time and he cannot decide if he is offended or relieved.
Eventually he sets up in a hollow of a tree he’s found. It’s barely big enough for his frame to fit, let alone give him space to summon his scythe if need be, but it’s secluded enough to give him a place to hide and hopefully sleep. It’s been a long time since exhaustion has seeped into his bones so readily but he thinks he hasn’t slept in days. It isn’t hard to figure out that he’s a candle burning at both ends if he doesn’t get some sort of rest.
It takes awhile, but eventually he falls asleep.
Drip, drip, drip.
Labyrinthite wakes to the sound of rain.
Or what he thinks is rain, which is a surreal thought in itself because the general can’t begin to understand the ecosystem of the Rift. It’s so incredibly complex that he’s marveled, and horrified, by it at the same time. Then, he thinks of course it rains because how else would one explain the foliage that blossoms and blooms throughout the vastness of it all.
He tries not to think about how it rains because while he is logical, he is not a scientist and he knows that overthinking magic of all things is a bad idea. So he doesn’t, he pushes thoughts of the mystery rain and the way vegetation grows, thrives, in the bowels of the rift life like in the depths of the ocean.
Drip, drip, drip.
The sound is jarring, startling him from sleep in that way only nightmares do. His eyes are bright and wild, his heart beating with the force of a fast rift drum solo. Arms flail and the broken one slams into the bark of the tree’s hollow and he hisses, regretting the wild action immediately.
The broken limb is still tender, half-healed and possible to damage too easily.
With difficulty, Labyrinthite pulls himself out of his resting place.
Long legs maneuver around roots and foliage, an arm reached out to steady itself against bark, and there was a hiss of pain that slithered between tightly clenched teeth as the wounded arm scraped against his hide-away’s opening. There is, ultimately, something very grounding about the painful throb of his limb.
As someone who’d more or less become desensitized, pain reminded him how to feel and it reminded him of what had led up to this.
Monster, the venomous voice in his head sneers. You’re nothing but a worthless monster, no good at protecting your family and worth nothing to the people and kingdom you’ve pledged yourself to.
Despite his efforts, Labyrinthite struggles to ignore the dark curling whisper of his father’s voice. “I am not worthless,” he snaps, tension in his body pulled tightly like a string ready to snap. “This is a lesson.” Everything was a lesson.
Tell me how you’ve failed me, Laurelite had said to him. Even now, Labyrinthite can feel anger simmering beneath his skin at the memory.
Anger, pain, and pleasure. Those were all things that he still understood with ease and now, now he can feel the rage bubbling beneath the surface of the front he’d so carefully constructed. He could feel the dull aching pain in his chest, a sizeable hole created the moment the life went out of his mother’s eyes - it sat nicely next to the fissure that’d been created when the shards of glass had punctured his father’s heart.
Laurelite sent him to the Rift to be punished, to be reminded of his place in the pecking order despite his efforts and his accomplishments. How foolish he’d been, to think himself invincible after Metallia praised him, after Laurelite had looked fondly at him.
Even the favored are not exempt.
He should have known and yet he’d chosen ignorance.
Now, Labyrinthite can only hope that he’d cautioned his wolves well enough to know better. They were a force to be reckoned with and he knows he can put his faith in them.
They’d survive until his return.
And he was going to survive, if only to return to spite Laurelite.
When he moves across the foliage, leaves crunch beneath his boots and the sound of wet grass squishing beneath his heels is too loud in his ears. His chest rises and falls slowly, each breath inhaled cautiously; this part of the rift is unfamiliar, dark and must and new in an unexpected manner.
In truth, he’s not even sure how he ended here. There had been so much wandering in the first few days mixed with delirium and exhaustion from skirmish after skirmish with youma that deemed him right for the picking.
And he wonders if they’ll return. If they’ll rise from the pile of dust they’d collapsed into and seek him out again, or if one battle was enough.
Then, he wonders what else awaits him in this hellish prison.
Once, the Rift had been more of a home to him than anything in the city, anything above ground and now - now it’s become something he’s starting to loath.
But wasn’t that the point? For Laurelite and her subjects to take the few things he cherished and to twist it? To strip him of everything but his loyalty and what strength he can muster until he is broken and remade as they saw fit.
It was no matter, Labyrinthite has more strength than what the Negaverse has given him.
He will bend, but he will not break and he will use his punishment to prove that.
If his Queen expects him to learn a lesson, it will be that he has the strength of a phoenix. When he burns and falls to ashes, he will rise; remade and reborn anew.
I will take this lesson, he thinks, teeth gnashing against each other as he picks his way carefully through the forest, and I will turn it into a legend. A legacy that is mine.
Because Labyrinthite is nothing if not a survivor.
Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2013 12:01 pm
Strength (1,269 words)
The trials of the Rift prove to be endless.
Labyrinthite spends more time fending off youma than he expects, but he’s not surprised by it. Not really. There’s no such thing as authority here in the bowels of the Rift, there is only respect and strength and those are both something that need to be earned or displayed. As it stands, Labyrinthite has not earned the respect of the youma that populate the area he’s come to frequent.
But they’re beginning to learn of his strength.
The fights are long, grueling even and by the end of the day, or night he’s still not sure how to tell how time is passing, his body aches in the same ways it did when he was young and just getting his feet under him. It’s been a long time since he’s struggled in combat, but the demands of the Rift and the creatures inhabiting it are starting to wear on him, chipping away until he’s raw and exposed.
Then, they sink their claws in him and try to tear him apart.
Labyrinthite struggles to meet their demands, but he’s never been one to give up, so he fights back and bares his own teeth and claws. It’s increasingly difficult, with his broken arm still healing, and his general weariness. His body is running on fumes, which is not completely abnormal, but the Rift is unkind in ways that the city is not.
At some point, the six-eyed raven finds him.
It’s after a long day (could it even be called a day when he was uncertain of the passage of time?) of one battle after another. The general has reached the stage of bone-weary, broken arm aching and crying out at him, and there’s a flesh wound on his side from where a feline youma got their claws into him. It stings, aches, and bleeds but that only serves to give him a sharpness and clarity he knew he had been lacking.
“The Rift is no long a home now is it?” The raven asks, perching upon one of the strange trees that grows in groves here, something Labyrinthite still cannot comprehend. One set of eyes remains unblinking as the bird tilts it’s head at him, many wings folded into their large body.
This is the closest the youma has ever strayed to him and he’s startled by it’s size.
“The Rift is as it always is,” Labyrinthite replies, an answer that is not an answer at all. His voice is hoarse, rough and scratchy from underuse because who has he had to speak with since he was banished?
If birds could grin, Labyrinthite would think that this one surely was, because at least one of set of those devilish looking eyes, who’s red is deeper than any that has ever stained his scythe, looks mirthful at him. “Tricky general,” the bird sneers, snapping its beak together in a series of chatters. From somewhere in this forest, Labyrinthite can hear branches creak and leaves rattle.
“Do you think that you will survive?” The raven asks and Labyrinthite wants to scoff, angry and bitter, at the question, gold eyes flashing with something akin to fire.
He wants to say of course I will, but something makes him hesitate. Things are different now; he no longer has the authority to demand that the youma scatter, there is no reprieve from the long, grueling battles, and he cannot leave. There is no possibility for him to nourish himself here, not that he has found yet.
“It is the goal,” he says instead, an answer that implies his intentions but also is realistic. Labyrinthite is not foolish, he knows better than to assume that he will survive. But he plans to, even if it is merely out of spite.
“Curious and curiouser General,” the raven chirps, smaller similar looking youma coming out of the forest to gather on the branches of the tree the six-eyed one has taken roost in. “What kind of wonderland have you found yourself in?” The youma’s expression is neutral and the way one set of eyes always remains unblinking is unnerving, but the tone is mocking and Labyrinthite wants to grab the bird by it’s throat and choke the life out of it.
“The hellish kind,” he responds, standing a little straighter and trying not to wince from where he knocks his wounded arm against the trunk of a nearby tree. “But not an impossible one.” That is most important, to assert that the rift may try to break him, but he would not let it succeed.
As long as Labyrinthite is still capable of standing, then he is capable of pushing forward.
He didn’t survive this long, nor carve a name for himself out of blood and sweat and flesh, to be broken inside a place full of shattered, hungry souls.
Laurelite must think he fits right in, because his teeth were bared and his soul screams, I am hungry, feed me.
“What purpose do these inquiries serve?” He asks, stepping forward boldly.
“For what other purpose?” The bird asks, cocking its head and blinking each eye separately but in a row. It’s a weird shutter of eyelids and red, like someone was thumbing through a flip book. Around the raven, the rest of the bird youma begin to clatter in unison, speaking some sort of language Labyrinthite lacks the energy to try and understand. There’s a puff of feathers, with the raven’s chest inflating and it’s four sets of wings spreading in a manner that he can only describe as a shushing gesture.
All around him, youma go quiet. There’s no sound outside of the steady inhale, exhale of his own breath and the drip, drip, drip of left over water falling down an array of leaves from the rain that had fallen across the terrain.
“To test, of course,” the bird said, voice loud and booming. “Your strength cannot solely rest in the physical.” It sounds more cryptic to the general than it is, and it has his mind whirling, but he nods as if he understands anyway.
If he doesn’t now, surely he will later.
“They look for you, you know,” the raven says, one eye darting to the left, making eye contact with another avian youma. It pushes off its branch, then circles Labyrinthite in a low flight pattern before dropping something glistening at his feet. “They suffer,” the bird taunts, before there are too many flapping wings and gushes of air created by them for Labyrinthite to question or demand answers of his own.
Many of the bird youma shriek or squawk as they fly way, some of them dare to get close enough to the general, with their beaks snapping when they’re close enough to n**. None of them actually touch him and slowly they disappear from his immediate vicinity, leaving only the raven, who’s head is twisted upside down as it stares at him.
“They will survive,” Labyrinthite says firmly, refusing to consider the possibility that they won’t. His wolves are well trained, armed to the teeth with all of the knowledge he had been able to teach them and, while he knows that there was too much he hadn’t taught them, he is confident in their survival instincts.
Wolves were stronger as a collective, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t survive on their own.
“That does not mean that they will not suffer,” the raven replies.
Labyrinthite shoots back, “they will be stronger for their suffering. As will I.”
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Nuxaz
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Posted: Mon Sep 02, 2013 8:03 pm
Discovery Word Count: 2,575
Labyrinthite wears exhaustion like a heavy cloak across his shoulders and it shows in the way he holds himself once the raven has left his presence. Finally, he takes the time to examine the glistening gem that one of the birds had left behind in it’s wake. It nearly sinks into the blue-purple grass that is soft and pliable beneath his feet, just out of sight if it were not such a starkly different color. It was a starseed, brilliantly orange, with the shine relatively dulled, but still so terribly bright.
His mouth salivates at the sight of it, to his dismay, but it has been so long since he has anything rife with energy.
It will not provide him true relief from the gnawing of his belly, but it will provide temporary relief and allow his body to heal enough from his scrabbles to be able to engage in more, without the fear of burnout. Labyrinthite sways in place unsteadily as he considers the gem that glitters in his hand.
In truth, he is surprised that the raven, or it’s flock of underlings (and Labyrinthite wonders how a hierarchy of youma works when one is not a greater youma), had managed to hold onto such a thing without giving into the temptation to devour it. But the creature had been watching him for some time, perpetually circling the skeleton tree, and being a constant presence in any of his ventures into the rift prior to his banishment.
It had been there when he had deposited the knight’s starseed, then the senshi’s, and so forth.
Labyrinthite wonders if this starseed was one of the many that Laurelite claimed he wasted. Perhaps the bird was saving them for him, but for what purpose, he cannot discern. That thought alone is troubling, but he tries not to dwell on it for fear that it will only draw out his thought process.
In the end, the general closes his hands around the starseed and thinks of his mother.
While he knows it is impossible, for there has been too much time that has passed, he thinks he can still feel the splintered shards of her soul on his tongue.
It makes swallowing this one that much easier, the delicate gem shattering against his molars and scattering across his tongue. The shards don’t cut up his throat as much as his mother’s, but still manages to burn on the way down anyway.
The energy from the starseed seems to last him three days, or what he approximates is three days.
At first, he thinks that consuming it is a mistake because the energy thrums through his veins like a bad case of the shakes, leaving him shaking and on edge. It has been weeks, he thinks, since he has eaten anything of value, but somehow, he is still functional and while the starseed leaves him high strung and slightly anxious he knows that the energy is better than nothing.
He needs something to keep going.
So Labyrinthite takes advantage of the strength it provides him and pushes himself until he feels like he might collapse from the exhaustion. His body is used to used to going for long periods of time without food or sleep, but still struggles when pushed to the extremes.
No amount of training would have been capable of preparing him for this.
Trudging through the forest, Labyrinthite keeps his eye out for that bird he knows is likely always watching him. Sometimes, as he moves between trees and foliage and steps over gnarly roots that break free of the stony ground to grow despite there, realistically, no reason or explanation for how things grow here in the heart of things.
Of course, his travels remind him of the time they, a group of agents on a retrieval mission, had ventured deep into the rift and had found a village whose youma villagers had demanded that they prune unruly plants.
Was it the same concept then, here?
Then again, Labyrinthite thinks that perhaps a touch of magic and the rain that seems to fall every few days is enough to grow a forest and house a myriad of creatures who slither about and hiss in his ears.
Monster, they tell him from time to time. One of us, they’ll demand when they think he is at his most vulnerable, but then he will snarl Monster I may be, but one of you? Never.
Labyrinthite thinks himself to at least be strong-willed enough to not break beneath the hands of youma.
He would shatter his own starseed before he would allow himself to become a youma.
Join us, the birds will chatter, the very same, he thinks, that the six-eyed raven had summoned. He wonders if they watch him for it, if those glowing eyes masked behind the shadows and heavy leaves, are merely there to keep tabs on him.
“Never,” he snarls, all teeth and the sharp jagged edges of himself that the Rift and it’s trials have torn open, exposed him for the broken mess that he truly is.
One of us, the youma will chatter as they snap at his heels, force him to wield his scythe despite its weight and the strain it puts upon his still healing arm.
I will never be one of you, Labyrinthite thinks defiantly, as his blade glistens in the weird dim lighting of the forest, the arch of the curved blade singing brilliantly when he slices and cuts and destroys.
I will be wild, untameable, and malleable, but never breakable enough to be like you, he thinks before he continues to trudge on.
As he travels, the general discovers that something is tugging at his chest, drawing his feet forward despite the way they throb with each and every step he takes. His face is scratch, early signs of stubble around his jawline, and his hair is slick and greasy from going days without washing. Labyrinthite even thinks that there is a film of dirt that’s smeared across his skin and clothing. If not dirt, then crusted blood and dusts from the numerous youma that he’s slain and the injuries he’s sustained.
The cut on his side has healed nicely, a side effect of the starseed he knows, but he’s received many more since he’s begun to seek a path outside of the trees. And his arm aches in that dull manner that’s felt in his bones and he wonders if it’s healing properly. While he attempts to refrain from thinking about it too much, he cannot help himself. The arm is in a makeshift sleeve derived from his cloak that is far from perfect but all he can do until he can find a place safe enough for him to rest and be Chase, not Labyrinthite. That’s a risky gamble in itself, because he lacks the strength, power, threat of superpowered alter ego but -
He wants to wear the cast for a bit, to see how it feels and to make sure he’s getting better in a constructive way.
And maybe he’ll draw less attention when he lacks an energy signature. The thought is laughable, foolish in a way that he knows would make him seem idiotic, but Labyrinthite has slowly, but surely, been worn down by this place. His resolve is astute as ever, but his body can only take so much.
If he doesn’t find something edible soon, then it won’t matter how much strength he has.
So, he travels.
There’s a stretch of time where youma do not approach him, but he is overtly aware of how some of the quadrupedal youma stalk behind him, low growls in their throats and hunger in their eyes. Lizards crawl across the bark of the trees that he passes and he can hear the relentless buzzing of some that are insectoids.
The chattering of the birds, however, are what keep him most alert. For reasons he doesn’t quite understand, they send shivers down his spine, leave goosebumps visible on the exposed skin of his arms and the back of his neck. He can understand the angry growls and hisses, because those are warning signs, unmistakable if he has learned anything but this, the chatter and chirps are not malicious in nature or sound.
Instead, he hears a constructed melody that vibrates him to his core.
There is only one word he can think of to describe what he is hearing, symphony.
At some point, and he is incapable of deciphering when, Labyrinthite finds himself following the song the birds are singing. It becomes some twisted game of hot and cold, their loud squawking voices growing only if he continues upon the correct path, a sudden hush befalling all of them when he takes a wrong turn or he stands still for too long.
It’s unnerving, in a way that is unfamiliar to him.
The tugging in his chest is growing stronger too and the general cannot decide if the feeling is a pleasant one, but he cannot seem to deny it, allowing his feet to lead them wherever the tug, and melody are strongest.
He passes a tree as he walks and unlike the rest of them, that were full of nothing but leaves and vines, this one is abundant it...what appears to be fruit. It’s enough to make him pause mid step, stomach rumbling as he looks at it. Instinct tells him no, but the hunger and the slight desperation tell him otherwise and before he can stop himself, Labyrinthite finds himself reaching for the fruit.
Despite the overwhelming desire to bite into it now, to determine if it’s edible, Labyrinthite sticks one, two, into his pocket and keeps a tight grip on a third. Soon, he thinks, when I reach somewhere…safer.
As if such a thing might exist.
Content, and semi-confident that he could find the tree again, or more like it, Labyrinthite carries on.
The forest would end eventually, even if he didn’t make it out of the woods any time soon. The last dregs of starseed provided energy seep from him, with Labyrinthite feeling as though the ground beneath him, the one that hums with the life of the Earth and the threat of the youma that lurk in its depths, is draining it from and reclaiming it much like he might from some hapless victim if he were in the city. His movements grow sluggish, like he has a lead weight strapped to either ankle and he can feel the hunger rumbling within him, no longer a quiet nag but something loud and angry.
The bird’s symphony has grown loud enough to be almost deafening when he finally discovers a light at the end of the row of trees that he’s been winding through. It takes him more willpower than he’s willing to admit to trudge those last few yards, but he makes it, with his bare hand pressed against the rough bark.
Frustrating as it is, Labyrinthite’s chest is heaving, those bright eyes of his glassy and unfocused as he stares ahead of him.
At first, he thinks he’s hallucinating, it would make sense when he considered the fact that he hadn’t slept for however long he’d been running on starseed provided energy nor had he eaten something notably safe for consumption in so much longer than that.
But before him is a large, partially sunken building.
The sight of it calls to life something within his very core, a humming that explodes from within and spreads itself from his chest to his veins and to the tips of his fingers and toes. Were he not on the verge of collapsing, Labyrinthite might have felt reinvigorate, instead he is filled with enough of something that allows him to stand on his own, no longer needing the tree trunk for support, and for the shine to return to his whiskey colored eyes.
Resting atop the entryway is none other than the raven, with its many wings folded against its body and those unnerving eyes blinking in sequence at him. “I am surprised you made it this far, general,” the bird coos, sounding horribly smug.
Labyrinthite opts to ignore the bird, instead redirecting his attention to crumbling structure, half sunken into the ground and, upon a third sweeping glance, he can see that it is merely a section of what was, very clearly, a much larger building with enough intact that it is, perhaps, uninhabitable.
“Now where are your manners Labyrinthite?” The raven asks, clucking in what he thinks is an imitation of laughter. The sound it hollow and bitter and Labyrinthite thinks that he could go his whole life without ever hearing it again, because it sends a shudder down his spine that he blames on his weariness.
Were the circumstances normal, the general is confident that he would have none of his weariness, the weakness, bared as he is now. “General Labyrinthite,” he sneers in response, golden eyes on the ornate wooden door that sits inches below where the bird’s claws extend. “Where are your manners, bird?” He asks in a mocking, gaze flickering up as he steps forward.
“I have led you here, have I not?” The youma asks, head twisting so that it may look at him upside down, beak split open for a round of terrifying laughter. It’s manic sounding in a way that he thought only existed in fiction and film.
“Perhaps, but not without a calling,” he replies, opting for something as cryptic sounded as he gets from the youma. “I would have found this without you,” he says, certainty bone deep because he knows that this place has been tugging at him since the moment he got close enough.
On the door is an insignia he doesn’t recognize, but knows that he knows in that nagging, deja vu sort of way.
“Reeeeaaaaper~” the raven calls in a screeching, high pitched voice, “what do you see when you look before you?” It asks, laughter ringing in the air, followed by a chorus of chirps and chatters from what he can only assume is the flock lurking in the trees. “Do you see things for what they are or do you see past?”
It’s the emphasis on the word past that has Labyrinthite curious and he steps, feet heavy as he forces them to comply. “I see them for what they could be,” he answers, brows knitted together as he lifts his gloved, wounded arm and presses his palm, glove and all, against the symbol etched into the wood. “I see opportunities,” he says, more clearly and firmly than before.
The carving shifts beneath his palm, the wood feeling warm and alive against the fabric of his glove, and something glows so brightly that he must squint against the harshness of the light. There are mechanisms he can hear slotting into place, the whirling of gears as the symbol shifts beneath his fingers, the thrill of adrenaline crawling across his skin.
There is a click, followed by a harsh slamming and the door creaks open.
Labyrinthite looks triumphant when he steps through the door, raven cawing loudly behind him.
Posted: Thu Sep 12, 2013 9:18 am
Sanctuary Word Count: 2608
Behind the door is a long, narrow hallways littered with many doors, or doorways filled with rubble. Stepping inside, Labyrinthite wonders if the youma will follow him, be some sort of twisted guide in this demonic form of wonderland. It doesn’t and the building’s door slams shut behind him once he’s just past the entryway. On the other side of the door is yet another sigil he doesn’t know, but feels that he should recognize.
A whirl of turning gears and clinking clogs has the door mechanic’s locking into place, but something inside Labyrinthite tells him that if he presses his hand against the door again, it will swing open on it’s creaky hinges just like before. This place, whatever it is, is safe, which is a startling thought in itself but one so powerful that General Labyrinthite does something he did not expect to be able to do; he powers down.
All of the pain is much fiercer, spreading through him in a manner that is almost crippling, as Chase but, with much difficulty, he remains standing.
Slowly, with every part of him aching, Chase walks forward, shoulder pressed up against a wall and his hand cradling the cast of the other. It feel strange, having something solid wrapping around his injury again, but he’s grateful for it because he’d been worried that...like Zircon, it would heal incorrectly.
As far as he could tell, it was stable and healing correctly, for now.
He makes it to the first door, fifteen yards away from the door he entered through and when he attempts to open it, he find that it only pushes open a crack and then stops. Leaning his weight against it does not help and he lacks the strength and energy to do much else, so he moves on instead.
There comes a point where he shuffles his feet instead of lifting them to walk properly, choosing to do so when there is an obstacle he must step over. After three doors that will not open on the left side, Chase drags his weary body over to the right side of the hallway and is pleasantly surprised to find the first door he tries gives way.
The creak of hinges is harsh on his ears, though less so than the clinking locks and grinding gears of the entrance, but the sight before him makes up for all of it.
It is a room, with a strangely well preserved bed inside, among other things, such as a chest at the foot of the bed, a disassembled suit of armor, and the tattered remains of a tapestry on the wall. It’s a pale purple, faded too much to be considered lavender, with a trimming of what he thinks might have been a gold fringe. The symbol in the center is one that he recognizes, albeit barely, because it looks like it might pass for an h, but the curve of the foot is too long.
Seeing it stirs awake something in his chest, his eyes of gold shining too brightly as he looks upon it, one foot sliding in front of the other until he’s teetering beside the bed, torn between collapsing upon it or making is way to the tapestry. The thrum of his heart sings familiarity and his pulse beats do you remember?
He doesn’t, but he could, he thinks.
In the end, he careens forward, exhausted body no longer capable of keeping him upright. The bed is harder than he expects, filled with dry straw that pokes through the bare fabric of the mattress. Luxurious, it is not, but it is far more than anything he has found since he arrived in the rift.
Every part of him hurts, muscles twitching beneath him as he lays, face first into the bed. He barely has the strength to properly lay upon it, groaning as his muscles pulse painfully when he lifts his arm to drag himself on the straw mattress. The pain is not enough to keep him from falling asleep.
Pain is something he is accustomed to after all.
Growling from his stomach and hunger pains are what cause Chase to jerk awake, heart a fluttering mess in his chest. With a headache in the making and throat too dry, the man struggles to make sense of his surroundings, nor can he tell how long he has been asleep.
Sitting up hurts, spine cracking as he arches his back, vertebrae slotting back into place at the movement. Whiskey eyes blink several times, surroundings blurry and unfocused, with the room spinning around him. Another rumble of his belly and Chase is forced to clutch at it, head throbbing too much to think properly.
He needs to find something edible soon -
Oh.
He’d forgotten about the fruit.
The transition is quick, fleeting, with that rush of power as chaos climbs over his skin and replaces his mundane shirt and jeans with the familiar uniform and cloak. The second skin is gone nearly as quickly, with Labyrinthite pulling out the fruit and spilling them upon the bed.
One of the nearly rolls off the edge, but he snatches it up by the leafy top, pulling it into the air and suspending it above him as he drops his guise and glamor and reverts back to Chase. Being unpowered in the rift is a dangerous idea, but he can only sustain himself for so long as the fearsome general he projects without supplies and, from what he has been able to tell, the place if devoid of life, monster or human.
The raven hadn’t followed him in and Chase has begun to suspect that it can’t.
He cannot shake the eerie familiarity that coats his skin as he sits on this straw stuffed bed, nor can he ignore the itching that crawls beneath his skin whenever he glances that the symbol embroidered into tattered fabric. Still, there is a humming, a melody that coils around his core and calls to him.
Whatever this place is, it calls to him, and he knows that he is meant to be here.
The fruit twists and swirls as it hangs in the air, leafy top pinched between two fingers and a thumb. It is colorful, green and pink like a dragonfruit, with many rough triangular points littering the surface. It fits in his hand, though he cannot wrap his fingers around it completely and he cannot tell if it is edible just by looking at it.
But then his stomach rumbles again, pain hot and tight in his belly enough that were he standing, the would have been brought to his knees.
Chase knows that if he does not eat something, he will die. It’s hard to push that logic against the idea that if he eats this, he could die from it too. The room spins, his arm aches, and his belly screams feed me. So, he takes a bite.
Juice explodes into his mouth, dribbles down his chin and his eyes go wide in surprise. He did not know what to expect, but it hadn’t been that. The fruit is sweet on his tongue, the juice a welcomed, pleasant, feeling as it sides across his tongue and down his throat. Chase finds it far more difficult than expect to keep from devouring the fruit, and the other three he had the foresight to grab, immediately.
The fruit could still be made up of poison or some sort of compound that is not digestible by humans, simply eating it had been quite the gamble, if he’s honest, and Chase doesn’t want to push the risk any more than he has. What small amount he’s eaten has certainly aggravated the hungry beast inside him, but he’s still trying to be cautious.
He needs to make it out alive. (The reasons come unbidden and Chase attempts to force them away while also struggling to resist shoving the rest of the food into his mouth; Outside of the rift awaits his wolves. He must make it home, if only for them.)
While he waits for time to pass, for the signs of poison to manifest, Chase eases himself off the bed, still clutching the fruit too tightly in his hand. Standing gives him a headrush, with the man feeling as if the world will tip out beneath his feet but it passes as quickly as it comes.
Still, he has to brace himself against a bedpost, chest heaving, because the hunger makes him feel like he might vomit. It takes several breaths, inhaled through the nose and exhaled from his mouth, before he feels capable of moving.
The rift-fruit has fallen from his hand, juice leaking onto the straw mattress and staining it with a greenish tint.
With his eyes squeezed shut, bridge of his nose pressed between thumb and forefinger, he wills himself to still have enough strength to be capable of wandering. If he were the religious sort, this would be where he dropped to his knees and prayed, but the world has shown him that there is no such thing as a god.
Or rather, that there is not a god who cares.
(Would his parents still be alive if there was? It’s hard not to wonder what if.)
Chase had hoped that sleep, true uninterrupted sleep and not the half-awake, always alter sleep from his time in the rift tree, would help his weariness and it did, but it also showed him how he’s slowly deteriorating too. The body can only take so much before it begins to shut down on itself and if the man cannot find true substance, if these fruits he’s collected are not nourishing enough, that will be what breaks him.
Not the youma and their trials.
The possibility serves to alight his cheeks aflame with shame, because Chase thinks himself better than a demise at something so mundane. When he goes, he wants to go out in the glory-filled blaze of battle, not some slow withering death brought about by starvation. That would be pathetic and he believes himself to be anything but.
His legs are stiff as he forces them forward, back towards the doorway. His muscles cry out in agony and his arm throbs beneath it’s cast, feeling swollen and angry from all the time spent without. Chase has probably slept on it poorly too, too worn to be aware of the way his body tossed and turned throughout sleep.
Getting into the hallway is a slow process, with a long pause beneath the door frame where he has to clutch his angry stomach and focus on breathing until the pain dissolves.
Three or four doors on the left will not budge open again, nor will the three across the hall, which he finds peculiar but carries on, carefully counting doors to ensure that he doesn’t lose track of the door he left open. The building is clearly one built of magic because much of it is preserved in an eerie sort of way even if it has been touched by the passage of time.
His feet slow at the fifth door on the left, head dizzy and Chase must lean against the solid wood, hand wrapped tightly around the metal handle, to catch his breath and keep from keeling over.
Everything must be a slow process and Chase is incredibly frustrated by it all. He is used to being in control of his body, his strength, anything and to feel it all slipping through his fingers is enough to make him want to put his fist through a wall. He doesn’t, because he can’t expend the energy, but he wants.
Leaning his weight into the tarnished metal handle, it dips and the door creaks open.
The room is much like the first one he had found, decorated with a simple bed that has been pushed into the corner of the room, a trunk at the foot of it, with a nightstand within arm’s reach. Upon the nightstand is a candle and a book of matches and Chase crosses the room, to grasp the book with his bad arm and a match in the other. The match head slides across the flint easily, scraping sound reverberating in the small room too loudly in his ears, but the flame is bright and comforting because it is so normal in a place that is full of twisted versions of things.
He lights the match and the white and gold tapestry shimmers a pale blue and purple that reminds him of Hvergelmir. Upon it is a symbol that he does not recognize, despite the nagging sensation that he should. He pushes the feeling away when he blows out the match, sliding it upside down back into the book and continues to survey the room.
A drawer is visible within the confines of the night stand, along with a cupboard looking component and there is a closet in the corner opposite of the bed that is barely wider than the expanse of his shoulders. There is a no door and it appears to be empty, dust coating the floor, walls, and the bar that’s built into it.
Yanking the drawer open, it’s pulled free from the track and the contents spill upon the floor. There is a book, some sort of guide that reminds him of a bible, a fountain pen and ink well that breaks open and stains the floor with an ugly blob of black. He pays it little mind because there is a satin pouch, the color of a dark purple with a gold tie keeping it closed.
Immediately he is drawn upon it, kneeling upon the ground, barely mindful of the ink as it seeps into the knee of his jeans. Long fingers pick the pouch up gingerly, satin feeling too soft against his skin compared to anything he has touched in days (weeks?). Sitting back on his calves, Chase undoes the tie, two fingers slipping into the opening and easing it apart.
Once he can fit more of his hand inside, he carefully eases out the contents which turns out to be a vial filled to the top with a liquid the color of untarnished gold. At first, the glass feels cold in his hand, the satin bag discarded to the floor while he inspects the vial.
That tugging in his chest is demanding that he pop the cork and drink it. Hesitation flickers across his face for a brief second before he’s grasping it in the fingers of his bad hand, grip clumsy, and tugs the cork out. The lip of the vial is pressed to his lips when he pauses, heartbeat erratic, and thinks this is a bad idea.
Then, he thinks what do I have left to lose?
So, Chase tips his head and the vial back, eyes closing as he swallows it down in one practiced gulp from his days of taking shots like a pro. It tastes sweet, in the honey tastes sweet, with no other distinguishing flavor as it slides down his throat, easing the sore, scratchy ache.
Unsure of what will happen as a result of drinking the potion, Chase waits, vial lowered and hand smoothing across his jeans to rid himself of sweaty palms, when the glass seems to splinter when it heats in his hand, fractures littering the vial without shatterig it.
Peculiar, he thinks, before his vision goes black.
Quote:
Using the Golden Vial obtained during the Holiday Event of 2016, memories to be obtained in the next couple of solos.
Golden Vial - A vial, roughly the size of a finger, filled with slow moving golden liquid. The vial will always be in an unmarked pouch of any color or fabric and can be found discarded or hidden on Homeworlds or Wonders, within the depths of Mirrorspace, or within the Dark Kingdom. To use this item, you must uncork the top and drink the full dose at once. Splitting the dose will yield no effects. The golden liquid tastes sweet, but has no identifiable flavor. Once emptied, the vial will heat up and the glass will appear covered with a dozen cosmetic golden hairline fracture; the vial is not damaged in this process. Drinking this liquid guarantees that you will have some memory of a past life, regardless of your affiliation or faction. Even civilian characters will have a short memory of their past life. Only one memory may be recovered clearly, but that night you may also have vague dreams of up to three other partial memories. Mauvians can also use this but should not have memories on Mau; youma can use this item but the memories they receive should be them as a human in their most recent life. The vial can be kept as a memento.
Nuxaz
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Nuxaz
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Posted: Wed Dec 11, 2013 8:11 pm
Castle Word Count: 2063
The force of the memory is overpowering and it clouds his vision, dark and patch until he can’t see anything before him. Chase isn’t even certain if he is still kneeling or if he passed out on the wooden floor. He supposes, if this is how he goes, then there are worse ways to die.
Except -
He can feel the beat of his heart in his veins, the thump, thump that pulses steadily in the confines of his ribcage.
If this is not death, what is it?
Chase realizes that he is not awake, but not asleep either. Instead, he’s in an inbetween state; something that is hazy and foggy. When the memory comes, it hits him with enough force to topple him over and leave him gasping for air.
Before him is a man clothed in dark purple, gold sigil of Saturn emblazoned on his uniform and Chase - no Labyrinthite...no this is someone else entirely….- stares him down, dark brows knitted together and dark expression on his face.
“I have no quarrel with you, Marmoreal,” he says, though his sword is unsheathed and gripped fiercely in his hand. Jaw clenched, his chest rises and falls with each harsh breath he takes, and there is sweat beading on his brow.
The knight, Marmoreal, doesn’t seem to care for his expression is twisted and angry, the promise of conflict and a quarrel lining every tightly strung muscle of his body. “Aye,” Marmoreal sneers, a twisted grin on his lips as he steps forward, “but I have quarrel with you.”
Ticking jaw, this not-him knight flexes his fingers around the hilt of his weapon. “Did you not learn from last time?” He finds himself asking, brilliantly gold eyes flashing with something, that dark coil in his heart surfacing briefly.
“That senshi of yours is not here to save you,” Marmoreal taunts and not-Chase can feel his stomach twist.
“Iris is not mine.” He snaps, spinning on his heel as Marmoreal lunges, point of his blade aimed for his gut, but he dodges it with a practiced skill. “People are not possessions.” He snarls, which is laughable, because he’s referred to a few as his behind closed doors.
But the majority of his life has knighthood has been spent liberating people from their shackles. Not-Chase cannot begin to regret what paths he’s chosen since he abandoned his castle.
“They were too soft,” Marmoreal growls, blade crashing against his own. It’s a struggle to push back because he is not at his full strength, still recovering from the last attack. “You risked the entire galaxy for a single person.” There’s no hiding the disgust and disdain in the other knight’s voice.
“Her star needed her, knights are replaceable,” he snaps in kind, aggravated by the poor opinion Marmoreal appears to have. “What purpose does this have?”
The clang of metal echos across the courtyard as he swings the sword over his head and it collides with Marmoreal’s parry.
“If they won’t punish you, I will.”
“I would like to see you try,” he replies, mouth twisted in a shark-tooth grin.
He doesn’t know how long the fight drags on, with so many clangs and crashes of steel slapping against each other. At one point, he’s certain that he sees sparks from the way the swords slide against each other when he parries and shoves Marmoreal back.
A well aimed swing and he slices through the front of Marmoreal’s uniform. The cut on the skin is shallow at best but it’s enough to leave the man reeling, hissing as he presses gloved fingers against the wound.
“This isn’t justice Marmoreal,” he points out, eyes narrowing when he advanced on the knight, leg lifting to kick him squarely in the chest. The force of impact is enough to send Marmoreal sprawling to the ground, gasping for the air kicked out of him.
“This is vengeance,” he snarls, pressing a foot against the man’s chest with enough weight to keep him from talking. “And vengeance will do you no good.”
The battle over, he turns his back on the fallen knight, head shaking and dark mop of hair brushing his forehead, and walks away. His chest heaves, breathing irregular and the thrum of adrenaline buzzing in his veins. “We are done here,” he states, pausing in his gaite to look over his shoulder at the knight clad in dark purples. “If you ever step foot on the grounds of my wonder again,” there is something dark in his expression, an ugly coil of the beast that dwells within wrapping around his heart, “there will be no mery.”
It is impossible to miss the threat. If he sees Marmoreal again, the knight will surely perish. He is not so pure that blood doesn’t stain his hands, he is not one of the senshi he keeps dear to his heart.
He has always been a little too ugly for that inside.
Perhaps it is naiveity, or the mercifulness of his good heart that has his turning his back on the fallen knight. He should have known that the battle was not over as long as one of them lived.
He falls before his wonder, knees crashing into the concrete before the steps that lead to the castle door, with a sword in his chest and blood dripping from his mouth. He can feel his life flash before him, a series of fond and brilliant memories mixed with horrible ones he’d rather forget but all of the details are distorted and fuzzy, full of things that he cannot make out no matter how hard his mind tries.
The strike of the blade is smoother than he expects once it pierces his back and tears open the soft lavendar of his knight garb. He feels foolish immediately, because, how could he not have expected this?
Marmoreal is more jaded than any of the other knights, having taken personal insult to the lax sentencing the runaway knight received upon returning to his station.
The sword slides in cleanly between his shoulder blade and through one of the gaps of space between his ribs. Easily, he feels the way his lungs will with blood, an inaudible gasp leaving him in the wake of the attack. Behind him, Marmoreal pants in his ear, weight thrown into the sword to pin him in place.
“You endangered us all with your selfishness,” comes the hiss in his ear, blade sinking hilt deep into not-Chase’s chest.
In the edges of his blurring vision, he can see the grim reaper standing with open arms, calling to him. Your time has come knight of saturn.
No, he pleads, eyes of liquid gold unfocused and shaking with each ragged breath he takes. I am not ready, he thinks, but death does not care.
It does not matter if he is ready or not, death comes to collect when the sand’s run out.
With considerable effort the jaded knight pulls his blade free, the point catching and tearing not-Chase’s lungs when it breaks loose and his strength starts to leave him.. More memories he cannot hold onto flash by him, but he at least, recognizes the faces.
Iris, Elu, Ahe, Nephthys...members of his...crew?
His lungs fill with the copper liquid and all he can taste is metal in his mouth as his body careens forward, hands futile shooting out in an attempt to catch himself. His palms scrape against the rough stone steps and bleed. It does not hurt.
Death is painless, he realizes.
“I-- I do not r-regret--” Crims wheezes, words coming out in stuttered gasps as his fingers grapple at the steps. Black dots are swarming his vision and things keep blurring around him. The world is spinning around him and his thoughts are scattered, incomprehensiable. “M-my c-choices.”
“You are a disgrace,” his killer hisses. “Perhaps the next knight will not be such a failure.”
Not-Chase blinks and the world goes black.
When he come to, the steps of his castle greeting him, Marmoreal has left and he is alone. A raven shimmers into existence beside him, cawing angrily at him. It is his summon, he realizes, looking at the bird with a pained expression. He might not hurt, but his body is failing and frustration bubbles within when he realizes that the clock is ticking and he is running out of time.
Reaching for the bird, who hops out of reach, with something grasped tightly in his fist, gold chain scraping against the concrete when he stretches his arm too far. “I n-need--” he croaks, body shaking when he succumbs to a coughing fit. Blood splatters across the stone and his shirt is soaked with blood. The edges of his vision are fading out and he struggles to cling to the last shred of life within him.
“You must - “ Thinking is hard, with thoughts disappearing just when they’re within reach. “G-give this - “
“As you wish, Tarren of - “ The raven’s voice fades out, but he can feel the way they tug whatever he’s holding tightly in his hand. It’s round, smooth, and metal and he thinks it might be a pocket watch but...
His head falls, pressed against the cold stone and that’s when he knows, this is the end. No princess will be rushing to his aid that he might reward with a kiss of gratitude, there will be no knight who fights to keep others away from him as he sails through space. There will be no more second chances.
For all his luck, not-Chase has reached the end of his story, with death knocking on his door.
I am a rebel-made king, he thinks, thought pressing against his temples, before he takes his final breath.
When Chase comes to, gasping for breath and eyes fluttering open with a heartbeat too fierce rattling in his chest. The vial is still held in the hand of his broken arm but in his right hand, there is something new, cold metal pressing into his skin.
It is the pocket watch he grasped so tightly in his - it was his wasn’t it? - memory.
Upon it is the sigil he recognizes as the same one upon the door. This time, Chase knows that it belongs to the knight from his vision even if he cannot place the name.
The watch opens, exposes a glass face and a ticking hand. There’s a button on top, disguised as the twist in which to wind the top. The tugging in his chest encourages him to press it, thumb sliding across the gold when he hesitates.
Closing the watch, he slides it into his pocket, picks himself up off the wooden floor with his legs trembling as he forces himself to stand. Stomach rumbling, he makes his way back down the hallway and to the door that he’d left swung open. The fruit remain on the bed, which he crawls and sits cross-legged upon.
Pocketing the vial, he retrieves the watch, thumb rubbing the indents on the metal while he reaches for the bitten fruit.
It’s now or never, he thinks, because he isn’t dead yet so even if the food turns out to be poison...it doesn’t matter.
He eats it all anyway.
It’s delicious in that way food always is when you go too long without eating and he savors each swallow like it might be his last. When he’s done, he feels a little stronger, reaching for another when he decides that it’s time to go back to be Labyrinthite.
His injured arm aches less now that it’s free of it’s cast confines and Labyrinthite thinks that, perhaps, it is healed enough that he won’t have to worry about it healing wrong or needing to be in the cast again. If his new food source proves, well, fruitful he won’t need to revert back to Chase any time soon.
Which is what he prefers, because he cannot stay in this sunken sanctuary forever.
Whiskey eyes glance at the watch still held tightly in his hand. It hadn’t disappeared when he went from Chase to Labyrinthite. Interesting.
The face opens and the general presses down on the button. It flashes a bright and blinding purple.
