Post by Non Compos Mentis on Nov 29, 2015 17:55:59 GMT -5
They hadn't razed the ruins to the ground, hadn't even touched it. In a city where money was king, leaving a whole apartment block in pieces was akin to burning dollar bills into ash. Officially it had been an accidental kitchen fire, spreading fast through dilapidated housing until it was a raging inferno of incinerated charcoal and brick. Unofficially, a clandestine enclave of Lycanthropes had torched it when The Order, and myself, attacked.
Over the many months since the building had collapsed it had degenerated into a squatters hovel. As I stalked into the derelict remains a pair of wide, vacant eyes stared up at me from the darkness. In the moments it took my eyes to adjust to my surroundings, the jaded orbs glaring up from the floor turned into a grubby squatter hunkered in a corner for warmth.
A couple of days removed from a jarring loss to Justin Kaard and the urge to remove all other human presence from this place gnawed at my mind. I'd become frustrated, not only with the quickly reducing number of matches in our series, but with my agenda against The Order.
I remembered everything, and yet little of relevance. Calder had found me, dragged me into the nefarious world of The Order and orchestrated the death of Ezra, my Guardian. And yet, he needed a higher authority to carry out these acts, one The Order didn't seem able to provide. I couldn't go to the Order to find out who Calder's superior was, so I was forced down darker paths.
Leaving the hobo to his sleep, I curbed my frustration and moved further into the burnt out remains of the building.
Room after room had fallen to the insatiable flames, collapsing under the heat so that beams of luminescent moonlight crept through to the ground floor. Why hadn't it been torn down already? The reason I was here to begin with; I suspected the previous owners were still in possession. Visions of flames passed through my mind, of Lycan's fleeing the fray and then suddenly one that stopped me in my tracks.
I reached an open area, a central stairwell completely collapsed with its ashes washed away in the elements. I saw the flames, I saw the body fall... I saw Ezra die.
“They told me you might need time to... adjust.” I turned, hearing Ezra's youthful voice from behind me and then seeing not the desolate building but the blurred interior of an Order unit. More unnerving than the vision of Ezra pacing across the room, pure white towel in hand, was the sight of myself laid supine on a single cot.
“You could say that.” I grumbled as Ezra padded the cloth against my doppelganger's temple, immediately soiling it with scarlet. I remembered the scene now, the after-effects of a training incident, a clash that left me low and doubting even more that I was the person Ezra and Calder thought I was. “One day I'm a wrestler, then I'm forced into becoming some fabled warrior. It's not a path I'd imagined taking.”
I was right, I was a wrestler and a feared one at that. A World Champion, a Hall Of Famer... and then? They treated me as a prodigy, a gifted fighter who could fulfil an age old prophecy and my actions did nothing but disappoint. Ezra dropped me with ease, what would one of the true enemies of the Order do?
I felt the same now. Returning to PCW intent on bringing Billy Sadistic to justice and removing the World Title from his grasp, all I'd succeeded in doing was wasting precious time in a best-of-five series with Justin Kaard. And for such a Hall of Fame legend, I'd given up a count out loss to let him back in.
“You didn't choose to come here, did you?” Ezra uttered from my side, softly and inquiringly. I certainly hadn't, and I hadn't chosen to become entrenched in a battle of attrition with an adrenaline junkie who had nothing to do with The Black Hand. Both of us had higher ambitions, both of us had more pressing opponents, and yet here we were at the insistence of management. Two matches down, at least two long, repetitious matches to go.
“Neither did you.” Pulling back from my brow, Ezra seemed to collect his thoughts. I'd known him to be impetuous, reckless even, but I hadn't noticed this kind of considered response from him before.
“The Order took me in when I was young and had nowhere else to go. They saved my life. Why wouldn't I want to stay?” There was more to his past than I knew, but I knew he was devoted and loyal to The Order... perhaps beyond reason.
“Because they threatened me with death if I didn't join them.” I remembered the conversation, the weighted bargaining of Calder, how could I have refused? Join us or die, he'd asked a man with nowhere else to go; there was nothing in question.
“They have to take drastic steps sometimes.” He replied and immediately took a moment, knowing that what he'd said appeared harsh. It needed some justification, and I watched him struggling to find a reason. Finally a smile flashed across his face. “At least what they did allowed me to meet you.”
Ezra replaced the towel, a clean portion mopping the wound on my brow. My mind drifted to the reasons I was there, the disillusion that I didn't believe myself to be the mythical soldier they wanted. While I thought Ezra tended to me with tenderness and warmth, a care I didn't want to betray by leading his hopes on. “I'm not everything you think I am.”
“Like I said, you need time to adjust.” He replied after a brief sigh, as if he was getting tired of the questioning of his masters.
“You trust them too much, Ezra. You forgive them for everything, refuse to question Calder's actions. Can't you criticise anything about them?” Head trauma did nothing to stop me, whatever connection we had I knew I needed to warn Ezra about the people he'd become devoted to.
“And just why would I do that?” Ezra questioned back with a playful grin, though his eyes told me there was an anger behind it.
My head ached, but I leant forward on my elbow and stared directly into Ezra's naïve eyes. He knew what I knew, but over the years he'd been indoctrinated to ignore it and I needed to confront it for him. “Because there shouldn't be another Seeker for centuries and Calder's abducted a second before Murdoc's done a damn thing?”
“The Order continues to exist because it changes over time, people like Calder are the vessels of that change.” The childish grin was gone, replaced by the resentment of having his idols slandered. He threw the towel down and climbed to his feet. “We have enemies gaining in power, a Seeker that the Heirophants don't trust and nothing to replace him if he goes rogue. So maybe the rules needed a little bending... does that criticism satisfy you?”
I slumped back, suddenly exhausted by the inability to reason with the man I'd been so intensely paired with. “No.”
I'd gone too far, been too cold. Ezra uttered a sigh of irritation once more and made for the door to leave me with my pain.
“Ezra...” My heart wouldn't allow him to leave like that and I suddenly grabbed his wrist, pulling him back. “I know we're as different as we could possibly be, but we have some kind of connection; stronger than anything I've felt before. Like intuition on steroids.”
“Intuitoids!” Thankfully an infectious smile crept onto his face, no all was lost. He quickly looked down to his feet as if ashamed he'd found it so funny. “Sorry...”
“The point is, if I can feel it then I'm sure you can too. You know how serious I am about keeping an eye on Calder and The Order. He keeps us locked away from the rest, doesn't tell us a damn thing about what we're meant for.” I finally released his wrist, allowing him to leave if he wanted but he simply stared back at me with care and concern. “You know there's more to this than he's telling us, so trust him if you want but... just be careful.”
“Well aren't you just sweet. Get some rest, Sean, he'll want us back out there as soon as possible.” And so he left and the image in my mind left with him, replaced by the obliterated stairwell.
”You're the Seeker?” I turned on my heels, the voice foreign and jarring. In the blackness of the charred insides of the building and the shadows of night shined those two jaded eyes I'd seen before. In tattered clothes and exhaustedly slumped, he extended his arm and a scrap of paper. ”It told me to give you this... the wolf.”
Over the many months since the building had collapsed it had degenerated into a squatters hovel. As I stalked into the derelict remains a pair of wide, vacant eyes stared up at me from the darkness. In the moments it took my eyes to adjust to my surroundings, the jaded orbs glaring up from the floor turned into a grubby squatter hunkered in a corner for warmth.
A couple of days removed from a jarring loss to Justin Kaard and the urge to remove all other human presence from this place gnawed at my mind. I'd become frustrated, not only with the quickly reducing number of matches in our series, but with my agenda against The Order.
I remembered everything, and yet little of relevance. Calder had found me, dragged me into the nefarious world of The Order and orchestrated the death of Ezra, my Guardian. And yet, he needed a higher authority to carry out these acts, one The Order didn't seem able to provide. I couldn't go to the Order to find out who Calder's superior was, so I was forced down darker paths.
Leaving the hobo to his sleep, I curbed my frustration and moved further into the burnt out remains of the building.
Room after room had fallen to the insatiable flames, collapsing under the heat so that beams of luminescent moonlight crept through to the ground floor. Why hadn't it been torn down already? The reason I was here to begin with; I suspected the previous owners were still in possession. Visions of flames passed through my mind, of Lycan's fleeing the fray and then suddenly one that stopped me in my tracks.
I reached an open area, a central stairwell completely collapsed with its ashes washed away in the elements. I saw the flames, I saw the body fall... I saw Ezra die.
“They told me you might need time to... adjust.” I turned, hearing Ezra's youthful voice from behind me and then seeing not the desolate building but the blurred interior of an Order unit. More unnerving than the vision of Ezra pacing across the room, pure white towel in hand, was the sight of myself laid supine on a single cot.
“You could say that.” I grumbled as Ezra padded the cloth against my doppelganger's temple, immediately soiling it with scarlet. I remembered the scene now, the after-effects of a training incident, a clash that left me low and doubting even more that I was the person Ezra and Calder thought I was. “One day I'm a wrestler, then I'm forced into becoming some fabled warrior. It's not a path I'd imagined taking.”
I was right, I was a wrestler and a feared one at that. A World Champion, a Hall Of Famer... and then? They treated me as a prodigy, a gifted fighter who could fulfil an age old prophecy and my actions did nothing but disappoint. Ezra dropped me with ease, what would one of the true enemies of the Order do?
I felt the same now. Returning to PCW intent on bringing Billy Sadistic to justice and removing the World Title from his grasp, all I'd succeeded in doing was wasting precious time in a best-of-five series with Justin Kaard. And for such a Hall of Fame legend, I'd given up a count out loss to let him back in.
“You didn't choose to come here, did you?” Ezra uttered from my side, softly and inquiringly. I certainly hadn't, and I hadn't chosen to become entrenched in a battle of attrition with an adrenaline junkie who had nothing to do with The Black Hand. Both of us had higher ambitions, both of us had more pressing opponents, and yet here we were at the insistence of management. Two matches down, at least two long, repetitious matches to go.
“Neither did you.” Pulling back from my brow, Ezra seemed to collect his thoughts. I'd known him to be impetuous, reckless even, but I hadn't noticed this kind of considered response from him before.
“The Order took me in when I was young and had nowhere else to go. They saved my life. Why wouldn't I want to stay?” There was more to his past than I knew, but I knew he was devoted and loyal to The Order... perhaps beyond reason.
“Because they threatened me with death if I didn't join them.” I remembered the conversation, the weighted bargaining of Calder, how could I have refused? Join us or die, he'd asked a man with nowhere else to go; there was nothing in question.
“They have to take drastic steps sometimes.” He replied and immediately took a moment, knowing that what he'd said appeared harsh. It needed some justification, and I watched him struggling to find a reason. Finally a smile flashed across his face. “At least what they did allowed me to meet you.”
Ezra replaced the towel, a clean portion mopping the wound on my brow. My mind drifted to the reasons I was there, the disillusion that I didn't believe myself to be the mythical soldier they wanted. While I thought Ezra tended to me with tenderness and warmth, a care I didn't want to betray by leading his hopes on. “I'm not everything you think I am.”
“Like I said, you need time to adjust.” He replied after a brief sigh, as if he was getting tired of the questioning of his masters.
“You trust them too much, Ezra. You forgive them for everything, refuse to question Calder's actions. Can't you criticise anything about them?” Head trauma did nothing to stop me, whatever connection we had I knew I needed to warn Ezra about the people he'd become devoted to.
“And just why would I do that?” Ezra questioned back with a playful grin, though his eyes told me there was an anger behind it.
My head ached, but I leant forward on my elbow and stared directly into Ezra's naïve eyes. He knew what I knew, but over the years he'd been indoctrinated to ignore it and I needed to confront it for him. “Because there shouldn't be another Seeker for centuries and Calder's abducted a second before Murdoc's done a damn thing?”
“The Order continues to exist because it changes over time, people like Calder are the vessels of that change.” The childish grin was gone, replaced by the resentment of having his idols slandered. He threw the towel down and climbed to his feet. “We have enemies gaining in power, a Seeker that the Heirophants don't trust and nothing to replace him if he goes rogue. So maybe the rules needed a little bending... does that criticism satisfy you?”
I slumped back, suddenly exhausted by the inability to reason with the man I'd been so intensely paired with. “No.”
I'd gone too far, been too cold. Ezra uttered a sigh of irritation once more and made for the door to leave me with my pain.
“Ezra...” My heart wouldn't allow him to leave like that and I suddenly grabbed his wrist, pulling him back. “I know we're as different as we could possibly be, but we have some kind of connection; stronger than anything I've felt before. Like intuition on steroids.”
“Intuitoids!” Thankfully an infectious smile crept onto his face, no all was lost. He quickly looked down to his feet as if ashamed he'd found it so funny. “Sorry...”
“The point is, if I can feel it then I'm sure you can too. You know how serious I am about keeping an eye on Calder and The Order. He keeps us locked away from the rest, doesn't tell us a damn thing about what we're meant for.” I finally released his wrist, allowing him to leave if he wanted but he simply stared back at me with care and concern. “You know there's more to this than he's telling us, so trust him if you want but... just be careful.”
“Well aren't you just sweet. Get some rest, Sean, he'll want us back out there as soon as possible.” And so he left and the image in my mind left with him, replaced by the obliterated stairwell.
”You're the Seeker?” I turned on my heels, the voice foreign and jarring. In the blackness of the charred insides of the building and the shadows of night shined those two jaded eyes I'd seen before. In tattered clothes and exhaustedly slumped, he extended his arm and a scrap of paper. ”It told me to give you this... the wolf.”
