Post by Non Compos Mentis on May 23, 2016 17:34:04 GMT -5
”I'm actually quite impressed with you Sean. The pain, the hate... you kept yourself from rushing in like a fool for so long.” The Angular man stood in front of the two of them, cradling one hand in the other behind his back. He'd kept himself in the shadow when, hours earlier, the man known as Non Compos Mentis had walked up to his gates.
”A yet here I am.” With chains shackled to his arms and legs, the lights glaring down on him with ruthless intensity, he was indeed there. Where he wanted to be. Right next to his Guardian.
”It took quite considerable effort to make you believe he was dead, to drive you to vengeance... but you stayed away even then. No, pain doesn't affect you anymore, does it Sean?” Arrogantly Calder stood mere inches away, close enough for Sean to smell the aftershave on his perfectly groomed neck. And yet he couldn't touch Calder. The chains would grow taut, his anger constrained and nothing would be achieved.
Mentis swung anyway and shackle cracked against his wrist painfully.
”It took hope to drive you to desperation. Hope that he was alive. Do you really believe I didn't know Altman smuggled a man in her to prove Ezra was still alive? I let him.” Barely. Barely alive. Beside NCM slumped the man he has spent many months searching for. For the first time in over a year he was next to the man he had devoted himself to, but it was not the man he knew.
Ezra shrank into the black Order robes that had been draped over his ravaged body. His wrists had become too small for any shackles Calder and his minions had at their disposal. Instead they were held by ropes, tied tight and tearing against his unhealthily grey skin.
Hope, Calder said, had brought Sean here. The will that Ezra was alive had been enough to sustain him for months on end, and now part of Sean wished he could end Ezra's misery even if it meant putting him out of it.
He had bargains to keep, though, missions to undertake. Ezra was the end of which he had yet to achieve the means.
Altman had asked for two things, the destruction of two pillars of evil that had infested the world. One had infected the Order, the other had run roughshod over PCW for months with no care in the world. Calder and his branch of the Order, and 'The Black Widow' Alexa Black.
Whatever Calder pretended, whatever language he spoke, it didn't change that inherently he was not of this world. He was an otherworldly malevolence, and Sean grinned in his face in spite of his surroundings.
”What do you really want? Power? Things like you always want power, that's what I remember from my time in the Order. The darkness clawing at the walls of reality, from this world and others. I thought your were the light once, now I see you're just another shadow.” Mentis cackled with sick enjoyment at his words, as if he didn't care about the pain that could be inflicted upon him.
Once upon a time he'd hoped he could become a two time World Champion. He'd hoped to get an opportunity to dethrone Billy Sadistic from his hellish reign as PCW's figurehead. He'd won the Icemann Invitational Tournament one year ago, and then he had fallen to The Black Hand. Forced to fight for the International Title instead, he won.
When Mikey Wryght had screwed him out of that title, he still survived and continued to win. The North American Title came next. A five match series against the Adrenaline King and it was The Born Psycho who unanimously emerged the victor. Three to one, there was no doubt who the greater competitor was in the end. And yet just months later, Justin Kaard walked out of Mass Destruction with the World Title while Mentis was lucky to leave with the North American after a war with Alexa Black.
Hope had driven Non Compos Mentis for over a year, in and out of the ring, yet hope had got him nowhere. Those he'd beaten now rose, unjustly, above him and those he'd sought to protect now sat beside him on the precipice of death.
Hope was nothing. He needed to do what was necessary for once. Calder needed to die. Alexa Black needed to be eradicated.
”Is that why you brought this...” That was when Calder produced the seed. That alien pod that no longer projected it's kaleidoscopic colours around the room. In the Cleric's hand it was black as coal. ”I'm afraid to tell you, Sean, but this trinket is may as well be dust for all the good it will do you.”
And yet the Cleric held it carefully in his palm, as if the slightest movement would turn it into ash. The seed had held its own for millennia, projecting the myriad colours of its world across realms Sean could scarcely imagine. And yet in the hands of evil it withered. Ezra, the brave young guardian who had trained bitterly with The Order, was the same. And Sean... he remained as he always had. Pain, Calder said, didn't affect him anymore.
In this moment, he was as cold and savage as he had always been.
”You had such promise, Sean. You could have been a great Seeker for our new Order but you grew weak with... what? Love?” Calder let out a snigger of contorted laughter at the mere concept of care.
”I wouldn't expect you to understand. There's nothing human left in you, if there was anything to begin with. You think it's weak to feel love? To care, to hope, to dream?” Sean spoke as his nemesis scoffed. ”I might not have been the Seeker you imagined, but I'm far from powerless.”
”It will take more than hope for you to get out of this, Sean.” And as Calder spoke he signalled with his hand to the guards outside. The invisible, yet impermeable walls of this modern prison allowed Sean to see the armed soldiers turn toward the door. With a swipe of a keycard, the guards dressed entirely in black entered the room and flanked Calder, their custom rifles clasped tightly in their hands.
”I've give up on hope. Sometimes you just have to win, anyway you can.” To some it was a worthless sentiment. The idea of winning when all his arms and legs were shackled to a wall was, to most, lunacy. But the Born Psycho had never been accused of sanity.
The seed was dormant in Calder's hand, by request. As Adalina Gatti had taught him, Sean controlled the alien seed now. Suddenly the blackened husk flickered into life, the colours igniting within its core.
”It can't... you aren't strong enough...” Calder babbled, panicked as the effervescent light began to cast itself over him, revealing what lay below his skin as if it were mere saran wrap. What bubbled and boiled beneath the surface was a maelstrom of black smoke, the same monstrous substance that Sean had seen months earlier, infecting Nathan Saniti and Dollface, only now if was concentrated into the form of a human being.
Calder was the manifestation of hate, and if he was then there was just as much chance that Alexa Black would be too. The seed beamed its light toward Calder as Sean willed it, and as the light grew the darkness fled it.
Altman had told him a story once, the night he had given him the seed, of a young scribe on the Order who dared to touch the seed. In a moment she had disintegrated into dust, fading until only a voice persisted, hanging in the air weeks, months, until it faded away. The seed had been scared then, a child encountering a new being. It acted out of instinct then, now it acted under command of a vengeful warrior.
At first Calder's skin burnt away to reveal only the billowing figure of smoke in its place. The non-corporeal form attempted to escape, to flee, but the light contained it. As the darkness pushed against the light it burnt and dissolved, while wisps of magical ether spread to the henchmen on either side. Their weapons turned from Ezra and Sean as they tried to fight the magic that flooded their senses, but the lesser evil of their forms gave scant opposition as their entire beings were absorbed in a fireball, their screams haunting the air for a moment before it too dispersed into nothingness.
All that was left was the slowly dissolving presence of Calder, the superior evil fighting against the light but losing. Even as all traces of humanity were lost, the distorted voice of Calder screamed, the suffering he'd inflicted coming back to haunt him in his last moments.
Eventually, the light encompassed everything that was once the Cleric and no trace remained. The powerful individual remained only as a memory, and an unsettling quality in the air, a scream with no substance that existed only on a level no human being could fully comprehend.
Silently the seed levitated, courtesy of some unseen magic that was not controlled by Sean. The powers unseen had control of the seed now, its use drained for now. As its lights lessened, Sean hesitantly plucked it out of the air and, with the other arm, untied the motionless Ezra. He had not moved, had not said a single word in the whole proceedings, but Sean knew he was still alive.
Altman was want to see him sooner or later, but for now he had other business to take care of. The horrific sights he had witnessed just moments before, moments he had dreamt of for over a year, were now in the past. Calder was a mere memory. He now held Ezra, his love, and carried him from his prison. He walked toward the one thing that stood between them and their ultimate freedom; Alexa Black.
”A yet here I am.” With chains shackled to his arms and legs, the lights glaring down on him with ruthless intensity, he was indeed there. Where he wanted to be. Right next to his Guardian.
”It took quite considerable effort to make you believe he was dead, to drive you to vengeance... but you stayed away even then. No, pain doesn't affect you anymore, does it Sean?” Arrogantly Calder stood mere inches away, close enough for Sean to smell the aftershave on his perfectly groomed neck. And yet he couldn't touch Calder. The chains would grow taut, his anger constrained and nothing would be achieved.
Mentis swung anyway and shackle cracked against his wrist painfully.
”It took hope to drive you to desperation. Hope that he was alive. Do you really believe I didn't know Altman smuggled a man in her to prove Ezra was still alive? I let him.” Barely. Barely alive. Beside NCM slumped the man he has spent many months searching for. For the first time in over a year he was next to the man he had devoted himself to, but it was not the man he knew.
Ezra shrank into the black Order robes that had been draped over his ravaged body. His wrists had become too small for any shackles Calder and his minions had at their disposal. Instead they were held by ropes, tied tight and tearing against his unhealthily grey skin.
Hope, Calder said, had brought Sean here. The will that Ezra was alive had been enough to sustain him for months on end, and now part of Sean wished he could end Ezra's misery even if it meant putting him out of it.
He had bargains to keep, though, missions to undertake. Ezra was the end of which he had yet to achieve the means.
Altman had asked for two things, the destruction of two pillars of evil that had infested the world. One had infected the Order, the other had run roughshod over PCW for months with no care in the world. Calder and his branch of the Order, and 'The Black Widow' Alexa Black.
Whatever Calder pretended, whatever language he spoke, it didn't change that inherently he was not of this world. He was an otherworldly malevolence, and Sean grinned in his face in spite of his surroundings.
”What do you really want? Power? Things like you always want power, that's what I remember from my time in the Order. The darkness clawing at the walls of reality, from this world and others. I thought your were the light once, now I see you're just another shadow.” Mentis cackled with sick enjoyment at his words, as if he didn't care about the pain that could be inflicted upon him.
Once upon a time he'd hoped he could become a two time World Champion. He'd hoped to get an opportunity to dethrone Billy Sadistic from his hellish reign as PCW's figurehead. He'd won the Icemann Invitational Tournament one year ago, and then he had fallen to The Black Hand. Forced to fight for the International Title instead, he won.
When Mikey Wryght had screwed him out of that title, he still survived and continued to win. The North American Title came next. A five match series against the Adrenaline King and it was The Born Psycho who unanimously emerged the victor. Three to one, there was no doubt who the greater competitor was in the end. And yet just months later, Justin Kaard walked out of Mass Destruction with the World Title while Mentis was lucky to leave with the North American after a war with Alexa Black.
Hope had driven Non Compos Mentis for over a year, in and out of the ring, yet hope had got him nowhere. Those he'd beaten now rose, unjustly, above him and those he'd sought to protect now sat beside him on the precipice of death.
Hope was nothing. He needed to do what was necessary for once. Calder needed to die. Alexa Black needed to be eradicated.
”Is that why you brought this...” That was when Calder produced the seed. That alien pod that no longer projected it's kaleidoscopic colours around the room. In the Cleric's hand it was black as coal. ”I'm afraid to tell you, Sean, but this trinket is may as well be dust for all the good it will do you.”
And yet the Cleric held it carefully in his palm, as if the slightest movement would turn it into ash. The seed had held its own for millennia, projecting the myriad colours of its world across realms Sean could scarcely imagine. And yet in the hands of evil it withered. Ezra, the brave young guardian who had trained bitterly with The Order, was the same. And Sean... he remained as he always had. Pain, Calder said, didn't affect him anymore.
In this moment, he was as cold and savage as he had always been.
”You had such promise, Sean. You could have been a great Seeker for our new Order but you grew weak with... what? Love?” Calder let out a snigger of contorted laughter at the mere concept of care.
”I wouldn't expect you to understand. There's nothing human left in you, if there was anything to begin with. You think it's weak to feel love? To care, to hope, to dream?” Sean spoke as his nemesis scoffed. ”I might not have been the Seeker you imagined, but I'm far from powerless.”
”It will take more than hope for you to get out of this, Sean.” And as Calder spoke he signalled with his hand to the guards outside. The invisible, yet impermeable walls of this modern prison allowed Sean to see the armed soldiers turn toward the door. With a swipe of a keycard, the guards dressed entirely in black entered the room and flanked Calder, their custom rifles clasped tightly in their hands.
”I've give up on hope. Sometimes you just have to win, anyway you can.” To some it was a worthless sentiment. The idea of winning when all his arms and legs were shackled to a wall was, to most, lunacy. But the Born Psycho had never been accused of sanity.
The seed was dormant in Calder's hand, by request. As Adalina Gatti had taught him, Sean controlled the alien seed now. Suddenly the blackened husk flickered into life, the colours igniting within its core.
”It can't... you aren't strong enough...” Calder babbled, panicked as the effervescent light began to cast itself over him, revealing what lay below his skin as if it were mere saran wrap. What bubbled and boiled beneath the surface was a maelstrom of black smoke, the same monstrous substance that Sean had seen months earlier, infecting Nathan Saniti and Dollface, only now if was concentrated into the form of a human being.
Calder was the manifestation of hate, and if he was then there was just as much chance that Alexa Black would be too. The seed beamed its light toward Calder as Sean willed it, and as the light grew the darkness fled it.
Altman had told him a story once, the night he had given him the seed, of a young scribe on the Order who dared to touch the seed. In a moment she had disintegrated into dust, fading until only a voice persisted, hanging in the air weeks, months, until it faded away. The seed had been scared then, a child encountering a new being. It acted out of instinct then, now it acted under command of a vengeful warrior.
At first Calder's skin burnt away to reveal only the billowing figure of smoke in its place. The non-corporeal form attempted to escape, to flee, but the light contained it. As the darkness pushed against the light it burnt and dissolved, while wisps of magical ether spread to the henchmen on either side. Their weapons turned from Ezra and Sean as they tried to fight the magic that flooded their senses, but the lesser evil of their forms gave scant opposition as their entire beings were absorbed in a fireball, their screams haunting the air for a moment before it too dispersed into nothingness.
All that was left was the slowly dissolving presence of Calder, the superior evil fighting against the light but losing. Even as all traces of humanity were lost, the distorted voice of Calder screamed, the suffering he'd inflicted coming back to haunt him in his last moments.
Eventually, the light encompassed everything that was once the Cleric and no trace remained. The powerful individual remained only as a memory, and an unsettling quality in the air, a scream with no substance that existed only on a level no human being could fully comprehend.
Silently the seed levitated, courtesy of some unseen magic that was not controlled by Sean. The powers unseen had control of the seed now, its use drained for now. As its lights lessened, Sean hesitantly plucked it out of the air and, with the other arm, untied the motionless Ezra. He had not moved, had not said a single word in the whole proceedings, but Sean knew he was still alive.
Altman was want to see him sooner or later, but for now he had other business to take care of. The horrific sights he had witnessed just moments before, moments he had dreamt of for over a year, were now in the past. Calder was a mere memory. He now held Ezra, his love, and carried him from his prison. He walked toward the one thing that stood between them and their ultimate freedom; Alexa Black.
