Re: The Glorious Championship! [S3G5] [Round One: The "Denny's"]
07-07-2011, 11:34 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Adenreagen.
As “Old Greg” started to walk over, Eli started to do some serious quick thinking. All things considered, she wasn’t really sure what to do about this. Etiyr and The Convolution were both manipulators and they wanted her to do things that conflicted with one another, so she felt that no matter what she did she would still be obeying one of them.
It wouldn’t be so bad to listen to one of them just once, would it? I’m used to having a leader, but neither of them are MY leader, and I told everyone that I wouldn’t be their sidekick. Really, it would boil down to which offer was the better one, and who would still be on her side when she did something. Etiyr made a good point <font color="yellow">*snap* that Convie was making Old Greg miserable and even if…it? He? At the thought of the casual flirting Convie did through Old Greg, Eli blushed. How it “spoke” made it seem like a Him. HE is messing with the lives of the people here in ways I can’t even begin to guess, having only seen Old Greg and that guy who turned into a werewolf but I’m pretty sure he couldn’t always do that. Plus he apparently [She glanced at the letter again] is turning Gabe into a cook. *snap snap* On the other hand, he seems like a worse thing to cross than Etiyr, and Etiyr did call me a bitch. But maybe it’d be better to fight the stronger thing now rather than later or maybe it’d be better to side with it but then…*SNAPSNAPSNAPSNAP*
Eli looked up to see Old Greg’s right hand in front of her, snapping inches from her nose to get her attention. Looks like I took too long trying to think, and Convie knows it.
“Old Greg, can I ask you something about your hand? The one with a mind of its own,” She added, slapping the hand in question when it tried to grab her in places meant to be left alone. “Has it ever been any good for you? And not just recently, but have you ever been able to use it like you do your other hand?”</font>
“Well, no. Like I said, it’s alien hand syndrome so I can’t do anything to control it. I manage to get along just fine with only my left hand because it’s all I’ve ever been able to use.” He was using it right now, they both saw, managing to keep his right hand from covering his mouth to stop him from talking about how the hand was no use to him. “In fact, sometimes I think things might be easier without it, it’s always getting in the way like…right…now.” Old Greg had managed to keep his right hand and bay, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to do.
She could relate to that. After all, the black hair had lately kept her from sleeping, trying to strangle her whenever she did. Wishing she could solve her own problem as easily as she planned to solve Old Greg’s, she took his left hand in both of hers. “Let it go Old Greg, it’s going to be ok."
Once freed, Old Greg’s right hand began a series of gestures, gropes, grabs and hits, obviously trying to get as much satisfaction as it could in the time it thought it had. Eli blushed from some of the more hands-on ones and so did Old Greg: both from a confusing mix of embarrassment and pleasure.
Look at him. How can I do something to him that’ll change his whole life? I know I need to stop the Convolution from killing him, but I’ll be making myself a certain enemy. “You know, Old Greg, it might be the whole “battle to the death” or maybe it’s just you but how looking at you makes me feel… it’s something I never expected to feel about someone else.
“I know what you mean, just looking at you, the light on your hair, well, most of it anyway,” He said, beginning to run his left hand through her hair and immediately stopping when the black strand caught his finger in a death grip, “I just can’t help but feel different about you.”
“It’s passion, Old Greg, pure and simple. I don’t even think it’s truly ours. We’re being brought together by something beyond us both. Driving us together by our need for one another. And you know what? I don’t care. It’s wonderful, and I don’t want it to stop. I don’t ever want anything to come between us.” She pulled him close and grabbed his right hand in her left as his other hand cupped her chin, tilting her head back towards his while she whispered in his ear.
“But this will.”
Elimine kneed him in the groin as hard as she could, driving him to his knees while she stepped back, gripping his right hand as tightly as she could. “CADENCE SEVER!!!” She almost screamed the words as she swung her trombone in an arc onto Old Greg’s wrist, cutting his hand off so savagely that she could hear the bones in his arm continue to break.
When Old Greg’s hand hit the floor, it twitched once and started to stiffen, but not before giving Eli the universal sign for ‘FUCK YOU.’
Eli didn’t care, she had to try to save Old Greg from bleeding out through his new stump. She fumbled her music book out of her pocket, hands shaking as she tried to find a piece that might help her stop his bleeding. “Healing, healing, healing is calming, calming is soothing…Lullabies!” Flipping to Brahms, Eli took a quick glance at the page to make sure she knew the song, stuffed it back in her pocket and stood over Old Greg, angling the horn so the sound would be directed right to his arm. Concentrating on the song, she felt rather than saw her cat come towards her and vanish into the trombone. It knew her mind, and Eli was able to direct her intent through the music as she started to channel the energy. “Brahms Mend,” She whispered to herself, then began playing.
The music was just a vessel for what she was doing, and a shimmer in the air began to spiral down onto his arm, concentrating around his wrist until it looked like his arm was the center of a haze. When she finished playing she looked down at Old Greg’s arm. The haze was gone, the bleeding was stopped and the skin had healed over. For half a minute, as his breathing calmed, Eli was hopeful that Old Greg wouldn’t hate her: that she had indeed saved him from the Convolution and his life would be improved without the hand. The healing seemed to go as planned.
Then it went horribly wrong and Eli immediately knew why.
Old Greg’s wound began bleeding again and the skin started sloughing away as it began visibly rotting, then he started vomiting uncontrollably and black fluid ran from his eyes. Through it all, Eli watched Old Greg, tears streaming at the loss of saving him like she had planned, of causing him what looked to be unbearable pain. He too was looking at her through his agony, eyes burning with hate at the treachery of what she had done to him.
It’s the energy. Dark energy can’t heal anything regardless of how it’s directed. I had time to think, I should have guessed it would happen like this. I should’ve just bound the wound. He could’ve gotten help, but now I don’t know if he’ll even live long enough for that. <font color="yellow">She could feel her heart breaking at the look in his eyes, a look she had put there when all she wanted was to save him… to love him. It was impossible now though, if he lived he would hate her to the end of everything, she could see it plain as the energy burning his skin where it ran from his eyes, rotting away his arm and burning him wherever his vomit touched his body.
Though it seemed to drag on forever, Eli never took her eyes away from Old Greg’s, couldn’t break that painful gaze. For her the miracle of it was that he was alive when the dark energy finally left his body. For him it was a curse that he hadn’t died before it did. His arm was little more than some pus-filled flesh clinging to the bones, going up to his shoulder and halfway across his chest, stopping just short of his heart. His face was in ruins, his eyes blackened, his cheeks covered in burns and his lips gone entirely. The rest of him was covered in burns of all sizes from where any of the energy had touched his skin.
She had tried to save his life, but in reality she had done worse than killed him.</font>
“Ellliiii…” Old Greg’s voice was more of a rasp than anything it had once been. “I saw what he wrote, and you broke his very first rule.” He struggled to stand up, and Elli took a step back. She wanted to help him, but knew from the look in his eyes that there was only hate and madness left in him. He was a man who had nothing left but vengeance and that made him the most dangerous thing she had seen in this battle. “You know why it’s the first rule? Because it’s the most important!”
“I’m sorry Old Greg, I’m so sorry. I wanted to help you. He was ruining your life, I only wanted to help because I lo-“
“SHUT UP! YOU RUINED MY LIFE!” She could hardly deny it, he had gotten on well enough without using his hand and she had destroyed everything he was by trying to help him. “Everything we could’ve had Eli, why did you have to ruin it? Why do you hate me? What did I do? VENISON!” The dog, which had been standing away from him when his hand had been cut off, perked its ears up. “KILL HER!"
Venison lunged at Eli, who hurriedly began backing out of the room, away from the two of them. “Cat. Get out here.” It floated next to her, oblivious to the danger and reveling in the attention. “Don’t let them follow us. <font color="yellow">Stop them, but don't hur…” Eli took a deep breath,”only kill them if you have to. Be good and you’ll get a treat.”
The cat began purring, which sounded more like the rumble of thunder than anything a cat would make, the thought of a treat from its world gave it the incentive to care for more than itself. As it raced towards the dog, claws extended, Eli turned and ran out the door, grabbing Etiyr on her way out.</font>
Etiyr quickly spat out the paper it was working on to start a new one that started “Elimine, I can’t thank you enough...” But Eli had grabbed the paper Etiyr discarded and began reading it as she ran from the room, hardly noticing where she was headed.
<span style="font-family: Courier New">"Great, you’re reading his 'manifesto' and you’re probably being infected with his whore-powers and being turned into one of his pathetic minions. And there you go, schmoozing up to one of them like he’s the greatest thing you’ve ever seen. HELLO HE’S ONE OF THEM. Cut his hand off. Cut his hand off. BITCHCUTHISHANDOFF! Now what’re you doing? Look at yourself, you’re like putty in his hands right now. Are you blind? Can’t you see that’s exactly what he wants? Ugh, look at yourself. You two should get a room if you’re going to be like that with each other, or better yet YOU SHOULD CUT HIS HAND OFF NOT GO IN FOR THE KILL… oh wait, you DID go in for the kill. I saw what you did there, using yourself to get close to him. It makes me sick, but in a good way, really. It’s helpful to know what you’ll do to get where you need to be. And you listened to me! Suck on that Convulwhoretion, I’m more powerful than you, and only a few of my words to a lot of yours! She even had your little pathetic man-boy over there as an added bonus for her to listen to you. HA! Aaaand there goes the hand, a little bitter at knowing that she is stronger than you take her for? That I am stronger than you took me for? Bet you’ll never try to use her again. She’s… nevermind, now you’re trying to save him and… OHMYGAWD you actually think you love him! Damn, he works fast. And you’re doing what, now? Can you DO that? You actually healed him. When they said you had “psychic powers” I didn’t think they meant you could do shit like… HOLY FUCK LOOK AT THAT! Did you try to help him or kill him? Jesus, look at him go. He’s just wasting away, is that what you people do when you die or just when you die like that? Remind me to keep this between us, that way you can try to help other people when they’re hurt. I think that’d be better than telling them, but I don’t think you’ll forget what you just did since you love him so much. Oh man look at him, he’s disgusting right now, and you’ve probably forgotten that I’m even here. Oh well. He hates you now, how do you like that? You think you’re in love and he ends up hating you when you try to save him. Men, right? Who knows what they think. And now he wants the dog to kill you. Yea, as if it could. And you sick the cat on them? That’s hardly fair. I’ve heard that thing and watched it fight the dog earlier, that cat is going to kill them whether it tries or not. And now you’re coming towards me. Sweet liberation! I’m going to be moved again and, crap you’re going to see all this."</span>
Looking back at what Etiyr was currently typing, it wasn’t much more than a long string of C’s as it tried to get her attention again, then:
"Sorry about all that that you just read, but watch where you’re going! You’re going to run into…"
And she did. Eli fell down as she ran someone over. In her haste to get away from Old Greg and reading Etiyr’s paper she hadn’t paid much attention to where she was headed, and was taken by surprise when she was sprawled on the ground.
As “Old Greg” started to walk over, Eli started to do some serious quick thinking. All things considered, she wasn’t really sure what to do about this. Etiyr and The Convolution were both manipulators and they wanted her to do things that conflicted with one another, so she felt that no matter what she did she would still be obeying one of them.
It wouldn’t be so bad to listen to one of them just once, would it? I’m used to having a leader, but neither of them are MY leader, and I told everyone that I wouldn’t be their sidekick. Really, it would boil down to which offer was the better one, and who would still be on her side when she did something. Etiyr made a good point <font color="yellow">*snap* that Convie was making Old Greg miserable and even if…it? He? At the thought of the casual flirting Convie did through Old Greg, Eli blushed. How it “spoke” made it seem like a Him. HE is messing with the lives of the people here in ways I can’t even begin to guess, having only seen Old Greg and that guy who turned into a werewolf but I’m pretty sure he couldn’t always do that. Plus he apparently [She glanced at the letter again] is turning Gabe into a cook. *snap snap* On the other hand, he seems like a worse thing to cross than Etiyr, and Etiyr did call me a bitch. But maybe it’d be better to fight the stronger thing now rather than later or maybe it’d be better to side with it but then…*SNAPSNAPSNAPSNAP*
Eli looked up to see Old Greg’s right hand in front of her, snapping inches from her nose to get her attention. Looks like I took too long trying to think, and Convie knows it.
“Old Greg, can I ask you something about your hand? The one with a mind of its own,” She added, slapping the hand in question when it tried to grab her in places meant to be left alone. “Has it ever been any good for you? And not just recently, but have you ever been able to use it like you do your other hand?”</font>
“Well, no. Like I said, it’s alien hand syndrome so I can’t do anything to control it. I manage to get along just fine with only my left hand because it’s all I’ve ever been able to use.” He was using it right now, they both saw, managing to keep his right hand from covering his mouth to stop him from talking about how the hand was no use to him. “In fact, sometimes I think things might be easier without it, it’s always getting in the way like…right…now.” Old Greg had managed to keep his right hand and bay, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to do.
She could relate to that. After all, the black hair had lately kept her from sleeping, trying to strangle her whenever she did. Wishing she could solve her own problem as easily as she planned to solve Old Greg’s, she took his left hand in both of hers. “Let it go Old Greg, it’s going to be ok."
Once freed, Old Greg’s right hand began a series of gestures, gropes, grabs and hits, obviously trying to get as much satisfaction as it could in the time it thought it had. Eli blushed from some of the more hands-on ones and so did Old Greg: both from a confusing mix of embarrassment and pleasure.
Look at him. How can I do something to him that’ll change his whole life? I know I need to stop the Convolution from killing him, but I’ll be making myself a certain enemy. “You know, Old Greg, it might be the whole “battle to the death” or maybe it’s just you but how looking at you makes me feel… it’s something I never expected to feel about someone else.
“I know what you mean, just looking at you, the light on your hair, well, most of it anyway,” He said, beginning to run his left hand through her hair and immediately stopping when the black strand caught his finger in a death grip, “I just can’t help but feel different about you.”
“It’s passion, Old Greg, pure and simple. I don’t even think it’s truly ours. We’re being brought together by something beyond us both. Driving us together by our need for one another. And you know what? I don’t care. It’s wonderful, and I don’t want it to stop. I don’t ever want anything to come between us.” She pulled him close and grabbed his right hand in her left as his other hand cupped her chin, tilting her head back towards his while she whispered in his ear.
“But this will.”
Elimine kneed him in the groin as hard as she could, driving him to his knees while she stepped back, gripping his right hand as tightly as she could. “CADENCE SEVER!!!” She almost screamed the words as she swung her trombone in an arc onto Old Greg’s wrist, cutting his hand off so savagely that she could hear the bones in his arm continue to break.
When Old Greg’s hand hit the floor, it twitched once and started to stiffen, but not before giving Eli the universal sign for ‘FUCK YOU.’
Eli didn’t care, she had to try to save Old Greg from bleeding out through his new stump. She fumbled her music book out of her pocket, hands shaking as she tried to find a piece that might help her stop his bleeding. “Healing, healing, healing is calming, calming is soothing…Lullabies!” Flipping to Brahms, Eli took a quick glance at the page to make sure she knew the song, stuffed it back in her pocket and stood over Old Greg, angling the horn so the sound would be directed right to his arm. Concentrating on the song, she felt rather than saw her cat come towards her and vanish into the trombone. It knew her mind, and Eli was able to direct her intent through the music as she started to channel the energy. “Brahms Mend,” She whispered to herself, then began playing.
The music was just a vessel for what she was doing, and a shimmer in the air began to spiral down onto his arm, concentrating around his wrist until it looked like his arm was the center of a haze. When she finished playing she looked down at Old Greg’s arm. The haze was gone, the bleeding was stopped and the skin had healed over. For half a minute, as his breathing calmed, Eli was hopeful that Old Greg wouldn’t hate her: that she had indeed saved him from the Convolution and his life would be improved without the hand. The healing seemed to go as planned.
Then it went horribly wrong and Eli immediately knew why.
Old Greg’s wound began bleeding again and the skin started sloughing away as it began visibly rotting, then he started vomiting uncontrollably and black fluid ran from his eyes. Through it all, Eli watched Old Greg, tears streaming at the loss of saving him like she had planned, of causing him what looked to be unbearable pain. He too was looking at her through his agony, eyes burning with hate at the treachery of what she had done to him.
It’s the energy. Dark energy can’t heal anything regardless of how it’s directed. I had time to think, I should have guessed it would happen like this. I should’ve just bound the wound. He could’ve gotten help, but now I don’t know if he’ll even live long enough for that. <font color="yellow">She could feel her heart breaking at the look in his eyes, a look she had put there when all she wanted was to save him… to love him. It was impossible now though, if he lived he would hate her to the end of everything, she could see it plain as the energy burning his skin where it ran from his eyes, rotting away his arm and burning him wherever his vomit touched his body.
Though it seemed to drag on forever, Eli never took her eyes away from Old Greg’s, couldn’t break that painful gaze. For her the miracle of it was that he was alive when the dark energy finally left his body. For him it was a curse that he hadn’t died before it did. His arm was little more than some pus-filled flesh clinging to the bones, going up to his shoulder and halfway across his chest, stopping just short of his heart. His face was in ruins, his eyes blackened, his cheeks covered in burns and his lips gone entirely. The rest of him was covered in burns of all sizes from where any of the energy had touched his skin.
She had tried to save his life, but in reality she had done worse than killed him.</font>
“Ellliiii…” Old Greg’s voice was more of a rasp than anything it had once been. “I saw what he wrote, and you broke his very first rule.” He struggled to stand up, and Elli took a step back. She wanted to help him, but knew from the look in his eyes that there was only hate and madness left in him. He was a man who had nothing left but vengeance and that made him the most dangerous thing she had seen in this battle. “You know why it’s the first rule? Because it’s the most important!”
“I’m sorry Old Greg, I’m so sorry. I wanted to help you. He was ruining your life, I only wanted to help because I lo-“
“SHUT UP! YOU RUINED MY LIFE!” She could hardly deny it, he had gotten on well enough without using his hand and she had destroyed everything he was by trying to help him. “Everything we could’ve had Eli, why did you have to ruin it? Why do you hate me? What did I do? VENISON!” The dog, which had been standing away from him when his hand had been cut off, perked its ears up. “KILL HER!"
Venison lunged at Eli, who hurriedly began backing out of the room, away from the two of them. “Cat. Get out here.” It floated next to her, oblivious to the danger and reveling in the attention. “Don’t let them follow us. <font color="yellow">Stop them, but don't hur…” Eli took a deep breath,”only kill them if you have to. Be good and you’ll get a treat.”
The cat began purring, which sounded more like the rumble of thunder than anything a cat would make, the thought of a treat from its world gave it the incentive to care for more than itself. As it raced towards the dog, claws extended, Eli turned and ran out the door, grabbing Etiyr on her way out.</font>
Etiyr quickly spat out the paper it was working on to start a new one that started “Elimine, I can’t thank you enough...” But Eli had grabbed the paper Etiyr discarded and began reading it as she ran from the room, hardly noticing where she was headed.
<span style="font-family: Courier New">"Great, you’re reading his 'manifesto' and you’re probably being infected with his whore-powers and being turned into one of his pathetic minions. And there you go, schmoozing up to one of them like he’s the greatest thing you’ve ever seen. HELLO HE’S ONE OF THEM. Cut his hand off. Cut his hand off. BITCHCUTHISHANDOFF! Now what’re you doing? Look at yourself, you’re like putty in his hands right now. Are you blind? Can’t you see that’s exactly what he wants? Ugh, look at yourself. You two should get a room if you’re going to be like that with each other, or better yet YOU SHOULD CUT HIS HAND OFF NOT GO IN FOR THE KILL… oh wait, you DID go in for the kill. I saw what you did there, using yourself to get close to him. It makes me sick, but in a good way, really. It’s helpful to know what you’ll do to get where you need to be. And you listened to me! Suck on that Convulwhoretion, I’m more powerful than you, and only a few of my words to a lot of yours! She even had your little pathetic man-boy over there as an added bonus for her to listen to you. HA! Aaaand there goes the hand, a little bitter at knowing that she is stronger than you take her for? That I am stronger than you took me for? Bet you’ll never try to use her again. She’s… nevermind, now you’re trying to save him and… OHMYGAWD you actually think you love him! Damn, he works fast. And you’re doing what, now? Can you DO that? You actually healed him. When they said you had “psychic powers” I didn’t think they meant you could do shit like… HOLY FUCK LOOK AT THAT! Did you try to help him or kill him? Jesus, look at him go. He’s just wasting away, is that what you people do when you die or just when you die like that? Remind me to keep this between us, that way you can try to help other people when they’re hurt. I think that’d be better than telling them, but I don’t think you’ll forget what you just did since you love him so much. Oh man look at him, he’s disgusting right now, and you’ve probably forgotten that I’m even here. Oh well. He hates you now, how do you like that? You think you’re in love and he ends up hating you when you try to save him. Men, right? Who knows what they think. And now he wants the dog to kill you. Yea, as if it could. And you sick the cat on them? That’s hardly fair. I’ve heard that thing and watched it fight the dog earlier, that cat is going to kill them whether it tries or not. And now you’re coming towards me. Sweet liberation! I’m going to be moved again and, crap you’re going to see all this."</span>
Looking back at what Etiyr was currently typing, it wasn’t much more than a long string of C’s as it tried to get her attention again, then:
"Sorry about all that that you just read, but watch where you’re going! You’re going to run into…"
And she did. Eli fell down as she ran someone over. In her haste to get away from Old Greg and reading Etiyr’s paper she hadn’t paid much attention to where she was headed, and was taken by surprise when she was sprawled on the ground.
Spoiler