Re: The Grand Battle II! [Round 4: Showtime!]
02-16-2010, 01:49 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Sruixan.
What had he done? Well, he'd done a bad thing, that was for sure. A bit too hopeful, a bit too arrogant, a bit too reliant on the misplaced belief that somehow, things could turn out alright. On the other hand, Maxwell had achieved his aims, hadn't he? Samuel was with all likelihood a dead man thanks to that conversation. That man was perhaps the last person he'd want to be lugged with power over life and death, but (and this thought intruded quite undesirably), was it perhaps the case that such an ability had warped the mind of the man? No, no, no; could he not have chosen to ignore it? Could he have steered clear of the opportunities for evil control over his "karma" gave him? Were he a man wrought from good, surely. But he manipulated it for his own personal gain, and that, that was what sickened Maxwell to the point where he believed he had to die. Life, no matter from what perspective you might choose to view it, was precious indeed. He'd had that drilled in to his mind a long time ago and he saw no reason to pull out and destroy that ideal.
"Ideal". Pah. It wasn't ideal in the slightest. It meant that he just couldn't quite face the daunting prospect of murdering another person... well, more like entity in this case, but the point still stood, towering counterproductively over his conscience, a sentinel seeking any misdemeanour he might try to slip past. The past few minutes, for example. He was guilty, plain and simple. He hadn't done the deed himself, but he'd willingly unleashed Vyrm'n upon Samuel and there was nothing he could do to stop her. Having felt the sheer strength of her ability to slaughter, having perceived the vigour with which murder filled her, he knew he'd only gone and sealed the fate of anyone who dared get in her way.
"And, sooner or later, that someone's going to be me, isn't it?"
That had most certainly been spoken aloud. It had needed to be said. At some point, hopefully either very far in the future or relatively soon, Vyrm'n wasn't going to have much choice. She could kill; he couldn't. Therefore, one had a distinct advantage over the other...
"Now what the hell are you doin' on the floor there?"
That voice, to the best of Maxwell's knowledge, belonged to the director of the sombre drama. He wondered how much the poor bugger knew...
"That's actually quite a good question... to be honest, I'm not so sure qui-"
"Honestly, you thespian types... I should have hired a bunch of cats instead, they'd be easier to work with than you lot. Do you not realise the trouble you and your friends are causing me at the moment? One of you, one of my cast, has gone and locked himself in the janitor's closet and's crying his bleedin' heart out as we speak. That's not how you entertain an audience! It never has been and it never will! For goodness sake, do me a favour and get out there and act! At least one of you has enough sense, but I'd like it better if you all could, you know, do what you're here to do, alright?"
With noticeable embarrassment, Maxwell rose and saw fit to dust himself down before engaging in any form of contact with the presumed director. The man was dressed in a manner that was perhaps a tad too tidy, with an surreally clean suit and... well, any attempt at describing his head and hair and the way he styled those would be somewhat thwarted by the lack of it. Or at least, the illusion that he lacked it. Obviously he'd made a sound or two, but was that proof of the existence of a mouth behind the substantial shroud of smoke that surrounded the place where one would seek it? Of course, the rational explanation was the cigar securely grasped in his hand, but that was not at all rational when Maxwell considered the vast quantity of the haze...
...woah, woah, hold on there. Pay attention to the man, Maxwell!
The genius and improptu actor steeped his fingers, and, with a slight tilt to his head, put on his best inquisitive look. His best wasn't actually all that good, being silly enough to sometimes make the person he wished to question burst out into laughter, but then the stage director was probably not the type of person to chuckle at anything lacking in several coatings of thickest irony.
"You say someone's holed themselves up somewhere? I guess that's Samuel, right?"
"How the hell should I know? I only know someone's in there because of the racket they're making... if he's the one most capable of shrieking his heart out, then yes, most definitely..."
"Look, where's the closet. I... I might try, you know, having a word..."
There was a palpable sigh from behind the cloud.
"Do you need directions, really, when all you have to do is head towards the biggest noise in the building that isn't on my stage?"
"No... I suppose not... one last question... how much have you got this place insured for?"
On that feebly cryptic note, Maxwell fled flawlessly in a direction picked not entirely at random, leaving the director thoroughly confused about the sanity of his last minute cast and suddenly rather aware to the fact that he hadn't had any SMG's given out to any of the actors...
-~-~-~-~-~-
There were three assumptions that Maxwell was currently surviving on. The first was that Vyrm'n was quite reluctant to kill Samuel - this seemed a relatively safe bet, considering the amount of trouble the Faceless was going to to create havoc en route. The second was that Samuel was not the sort of person to kill on sight, evidenced by the way he toyed with him in the previous round in the manner that all good villains are obliged to.
The third was that he could either conjure up or steal a kettle as soon as was humanly possible.
What had he done? Well, he'd done a bad thing, that was for sure. A bit too hopeful, a bit too arrogant, a bit too reliant on the misplaced belief that somehow, things could turn out alright. On the other hand, Maxwell had achieved his aims, hadn't he? Samuel was with all likelihood a dead man thanks to that conversation. That man was perhaps the last person he'd want to be lugged with power over life and death, but (and this thought intruded quite undesirably), was it perhaps the case that such an ability had warped the mind of the man? No, no, no; could he not have chosen to ignore it? Could he have steered clear of the opportunities for evil control over his "karma" gave him? Were he a man wrought from good, surely. But he manipulated it for his own personal gain, and that, that was what sickened Maxwell to the point where he believed he had to die. Life, no matter from what perspective you might choose to view it, was precious indeed. He'd had that drilled in to his mind a long time ago and he saw no reason to pull out and destroy that ideal.
"Ideal". Pah. It wasn't ideal in the slightest. It meant that he just couldn't quite face the daunting prospect of murdering another person... well, more like entity in this case, but the point still stood, towering counterproductively over his conscience, a sentinel seeking any misdemeanour he might try to slip past. The past few minutes, for example. He was guilty, plain and simple. He hadn't done the deed himself, but he'd willingly unleashed Vyrm'n upon Samuel and there was nothing he could do to stop her. Having felt the sheer strength of her ability to slaughter, having perceived the vigour with which murder filled her, he knew he'd only gone and sealed the fate of anyone who dared get in her way.
"And, sooner or later, that someone's going to be me, isn't it?"
That had most certainly been spoken aloud. It had needed to be said. At some point, hopefully either very far in the future or relatively soon, Vyrm'n wasn't going to have much choice. She could kill; he couldn't. Therefore, one had a distinct advantage over the other...
"Now what the hell are you doin' on the floor there?"
That voice, to the best of Maxwell's knowledge, belonged to the director of the sombre drama. He wondered how much the poor bugger knew...
"That's actually quite a good question... to be honest, I'm not so sure qui-"
"Honestly, you thespian types... I should have hired a bunch of cats instead, they'd be easier to work with than you lot. Do you not realise the trouble you and your friends are causing me at the moment? One of you, one of my cast, has gone and locked himself in the janitor's closet and's crying his bleedin' heart out as we speak. That's not how you entertain an audience! It never has been and it never will! For goodness sake, do me a favour and get out there and act! At least one of you has enough sense, but I'd like it better if you all could, you know, do what you're here to do, alright?"
With noticeable embarrassment, Maxwell rose and saw fit to dust himself down before engaging in any form of contact with the presumed director. The man was dressed in a manner that was perhaps a tad too tidy, with an surreally clean suit and... well, any attempt at describing his head and hair and the way he styled those would be somewhat thwarted by the lack of it. Or at least, the illusion that he lacked it. Obviously he'd made a sound or two, but was that proof of the existence of a mouth behind the substantial shroud of smoke that surrounded the place where one would seek it? Of course, the rational explanation was the cigar securely grasped in his hand, but that was not at all rational when Maxwell considered the vast quantity of the haze...
...woah, woah, hold on there. Pay attention to the man, Maxwell!
The genius and improptu actor steeped his fingers, and, with a slight tilt to his head, put on his best inquisitive look. His best wasn't actually all that good, being silly enough to sometimes make the person he wished to question burst out into laughter, but then the stage director was probably not the type of person to chuckle at anything lacking in several coatings of thickest irony.
"You say someone's holed themselves up somewhere? I guess that's Samuel, right?"
"How the hell should I know? I only know someone's in there because of the racket they're making... if he's the one most capable of shrieking his heart out, then yes, most definitely..."
"Look, where's the closet. I... I might try, you know, having a word..."
There was a palpable sigh from behind the cloud.
"Do you need directions, really, when all you have to do is head towards the biggest noise in the building that isn't on my stage?"
"No... I suppose not... one last question... how much have you got this place insured for?"
On that feebly cryptic note, Maxwell fled flawlessly in a direction picked not entirely at random, leaving the director thoroughly confused about the sanity of his last minute cast and suddenly rather aware to the fact that he hadn't had any SMG's given out to any of the actors...
-~-~-~-~-~-
There were three assumptions that Maxwell was currently surviving on. The first was that Vyrm'n was quite reluctant to kill Samuel - this seemed a relatively safe bet, considering the amount of trouble the Faceless was going to to create havoc en route. The second was that Samuel was not the sort of person to kill on sight, evidenced by the way he toyed with him in the previous round in the manner that all good villains are obliged to.
The third was that he could either conjure up or steal a kettle as soon as was humanly possible.