Re: The Grand Battle II! [Round 4: Showtime!]
04-19-2010, 11:52 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.
Vyrm'n's interior - well, monologue didn't seem quite the right word for it any more - had been a turbulent mess even before Gestalt had opened fire on her, and all while the crowd whispered away at Vyrm'n's mind. The resentful, insidious, muttering crowd, gnawing away at the last vestiges of the Faceless' shaky grip on sanity. Their disapproval rose and fell, dragging Vyrm'n's battered mind with it, until finally the last desperate hold snapped and was cast away.
Gestalt saw none of this, save for a final tremor across the starscape before the Faceless fell still, still sprawled across the theatre seats. Like a slick, inky slurry, the beast seemed to lose cohesion, and liquified slowly down the steps and seats, pooling at the foot of the stage. Whispery screams greeted the strange sight as the spectral individuals who came into contact dissipated into nothing. The strange blend of terror and cruel amusement flowing from the crowd confounded Gestalt even as he pumped another round of bullets into an uninterested shadow. It continued to wend its way down through the crowd, who refused to flee even as their pale mockeries of existence were snuffed out in the darkness which slid underfoot. The schrotgolem's barrage paused, as an errant poker which had only moments prior been the thigh of a corsair quested forward and prodded the ink.
From that tiny point of contact, the universe exploded forth in Gestalt's mind, threatening to tear the spirit asunder and cast the scraps eons apart, had he not swiftly divested itself of the iron bar. The poker landed with a splash and clatter as the suit took a step back, the crowd forgotten. The first time Gestalt had stared into the void, he had been stunned by the sheer scale of everything. Amazed into temporary silence, perhaps, and more than a little fearful - but more like the discovery of an immutable fact; a constant like gravity or entropy or death, even. This time, though, there was nothing. Nothing but a cruel, destruction-loving grin reveling at how nothing was left, save for its own hateful satisfaction. Again, the schrotgolem's existence feared for what it saw, but the second void caused intense revulsion in Gestalt. He couldn't explain it in that infinitesimal moment, but some fundamental part of the golem's existence screamed out a warning.
This darkness... is wrong.
Gestalt raised the smoking machine-gun arm a little higher as the melted Faceless slithered up onto the stage. It seemed to be struggling into its usual effortless pillar-form, instead settling for a sludgy, starless pile at the edge of the stage. The top of the slagheap lurched drunkenly in the Schrotgolem's direction, and a slick, black grin (the toothy mouth alone, no eyes or face) made Gestalt flinch as he tried to stare the malevolence down. A voice, dark as starless night, yet with a familiar corrosive Karmic tang to it trickled into Gestalt's mind.
Allow me the humans, golem, and I may find a use for you yet.
The machinegun fire echoed through the theater just as Maxwell sat down. He leapt up again with a shocked yelp, patting himself over frantically for where the bullets had struck, the motion slowing as he realised how absurd it was. It took only one glance in the direction of the suddenly more violent proceedings onstage, before the man began clambering over boxes of props again with only a twinge of guilt. Maxwell approached the imposing wall of the backdrop, behind which he could ascertain the screechy warble of Gestalt in the power suit. Extricating his rapier in the gloom, the swordsman punched a hole as subtly as he could, and peered through. As the shivering formlessness that was Vyrm'n melted to the hiss of extinguished souls, a chill ran down Maxwell's spine.
Vyrm'n, no...
Something rushed across Maxwell's field of vision; he spun around sharply to find nothing, save for a cutout of a shrub to stumble over as he tried to figure out why the room had gotten inexplicably darker. All the man got for his troubles were afterimage pinpricks as he blinked furiously.
Vyrm'n's doing again, I can only presume, thought Maxwell as he glared through the peephole again. No, there was definitely something wrong with Vyrm'n, and though Maxwell had his suspicions that the previous gunfire was an aggravating factor to whatever state she was in now, he could see the real problem. The audience. While they demanded some kind of flimsy shell of premise to make the bloodshed more palatable, no sane setting could accommodate the Faceless' alien form. Her blunt forwardness was no match on that stage for Gestalt's capacity for trickery, or even Galus' straight human (as contentious as the definition of that was) experience.
Maxwell shut his eyes, slumped against the plywood, and took more time than was strictly necessary to adjust his trilby while he mulled over the various factors at play, then with the last vestiges of whatever insight Vyrm'n's atomic vision was granting him, worked his way round the disaster zone, laying a hand on boxes in turn, until he found what he was looking for.
"Gestalt." The lid snapped open, before a glowstick appeared, cracked, and then dribbled lurid foamy yellow all over the box. The fluid shifted about to simply spell:
yes
"I need you to... stall Vyrm'n." There was a pregnant pause, followed by another rattle of spent casings and the whine of the Nightmare. The sole, neon word was underlined before the box slammed shut and lumbered off. With a sigh, Maxwell made for the Stage Director, who was leaning nonchalantly by the main switchboard. Pulling out his notebook and scrawling furiously, Maxwell paused only a moment before tearing out a page and handing it to a disinterested Director.
"Y'want this? It doesn't seem too... minimalistic?"
"It's what I need," Maxwell replied as forcibly as he could manage. Peering onstage to where Gestalt was fending off the slick beast with a glowing coilgun, he added hastily, "Sooner, rather than later, I guess. Just... work around those two, if you must."
"Alright," acquiesced the Stage Director. His agreement was accompanied by a pall of smoke as he started pulling the curtain on the sparring pair. No applause greeted the end of the act, as most of the extant audience were too bewildered by goings-on to show any enthusiasm. After ensuring his order to fetch Galus from the seats was to be executed, Maxwell took his leave, took a deep breath, and started for the door.
The sad remnants of the once-mighty Karmist huddled in a corner, the air about him chattering with the rattle of shards of stone and glass he no longer had the strength to raise. His conscience-cleansing light, the energies of the schrotgolem - they had fled this broken being, and left Samuel finally, truly alone with his demons. They sunk in like cold, replacing Gestalt's curious control with a sinking deadness. A pale hand reached out in listless desperation toward a quietening fragment of glass as lifetime upon lifetime of regrets and unatoned murder swallowed Samuel up. The screaming had stopped a while back; now the man only had the strength for one desolate sob as his long-overdue conscience ensnared him.
And then, far beyond the shroud of past atrocities, came the rattle of a machinegun - and its echo, a tone of salvation audible only to Samuel.
Unseeing, long-drained eyes struggled to focus again on the world around him, the one he'd have to negotiate to reclaim that missing light. The Karmist scrambled to his feet; fell to his knees, and crawled towards the door even as his accusing tormentors dragged him ever downward. Step by agonising step, Samuel finally dragged himself to rest by the slender crack of gloom slipping beneath the storeroom door before he collapsed, gasping raggedly, hands searching scrabbling for a way out even as the demons snarled from within his skull.
Overhead, a gentle click, and the door eased open as the man padded desperately, ineffectually, at it. Samuel, vision reduced to demons and light, was unaware of the greatcoated man gazing down upon him, one still hand resting on the doorknob, one notably less still one grasped tightly round the barrel of a shotgun.
Vyrm'n's interior - well, monologue didn't seem quite the right word for it any more - had been a turbulent mess even before Gestalt had opened fire on her, and all while the crowd whispered away at Vyrm'n's mind. The resentful, insidious, muttering crowd, gnawing away at the last vestiges of the Faceless' shaky grip on sanity. Their disapproval rose and fell, dragging Vyrm'n's battered mind with it, until finally the last desperate hold snapped and was cast away.
Gestalt saw none of this, save for a final tremor across the starscape before the Faceless fell still, still sprawled across the theatre seats. Like a slick, inky slurry, the beast seemed to lose cohesion, and liquified slowly down the steps and seats, pooling at the foot of the stage. Whispery screams greeted the strange sight as the spectral individuals who came into contact dissipated into nothing. The strange blend of terror and cruel amusement flowing from the crowd confounded Gestalt even as he pumped another round of bullets into an uninterested shadow. It continued to wend its way down through the crowd, who refused to flee even as their pale mockeries of existence were snuffed out in the darkness which slid underfoot. The schrotgolem's barrage paused, as an errant poker which had only moments prior been the thigh of a corsair quested forward and prodded the ink.
From that tiny point of contact, the universe exploded forth in Gestalt's mind, threatening to tear the spirit asunder and cast the scraps eons apart, had he not swiftly divested itself of the iron bar. The poker landed with a splash and clatter as the suit took a step back, the crowd forgotten. The first time Gestalt had stared into the void, he had been stunned by the sheer scale of everything. Amazed into temporary silence, perhaps, and more than a little fearful - but more like the discovery of an immutable fact; a constant like gravity or entropy or death, even. This time, though, there was nothing. Nothing but a cruel, destruction-loving grin reveling at how nothing was left, save for its own hateful satisfaction. Again, the schrotgolem's existence feared for what it saw, but the second void caused intense revulsion in Gestalt. He couldn't explain it in that infinitesimal moment, but some fundamental part of the golem's existence screamed out a warning.
This darkness... is wrong.
Gestalt raised the smoking machine-gun arm a little higher as the melted Faceless slithered up onto the stage. It seemed to be struggling into its usual effortless pillar-form, instead settling for a sludgy, starless pile at the edge of the stage. The top of the slagheap lurched drunkenly in the Schrotgolem's direction, and a slick, black grin (the toothy mouth alone, no eyes or face) made Gestalt flinch as he tried to stare the malevolence down. A voice, dark as starless night, yet with a familiar corrosive Karmic tang to it trickled into Gestalt's mind.
Allow me the humans, golem, and I may find a use for you yet.
The machinegun fire echoed through the theater just as Maxwell sat down. He leapt up again with a shocked yelp, patting himself over frantically for where the bullets had struck, the motion slowing as he realised how absurd it was. It took only one glance in the direction of the suddenly more violent proceedings onstage, before the man began clambering over boxes of props again with only a twinge of guilt. Maxwell approached the imposing wall of the backdrop, behind which he could ascertain the screechy warble of Gestalt in the power suit. Extricating his rapier in the gloom, the swordsman punched a hole as subtly as he could, and peered through. As the shivering formlessness that was Vyrm'n melted to the hiss of extinguished souls, a chill ran down Maxwell's spine.
Vyrm'n, no...
Something rushed across Maxwell's field of vision; he spun around sharply to find nothing, save for a cutout of a shrub to stumble over as he tried to figure out why the room had gotten inexplicably darker. All the man got for his troubles were afterimage pinpricks as he blinked furiously.
Vyrm'n's doing again, I can only presume, thought Maxwell as he glared through the peephole again. No, there was definitely something wrong with Vyrm'n, and though Maxwell had his suspicions that the previous gunfire was an aggravating factor to whatever state she was in now, he could see the real problem. The audience. While they demanded some kind of flimsy shell of premise to make the bloodshed more palatable, no sane setting could accommodate the Faceless' alien form. Her blunt forwardness was no match on that stage for Gestalt's capacity for trickery, or even Galus' straight human (as contentious as the definition of that was) experience.
Maxwell shut his eyes, slumped against the plywood, and took more time than was strictly necessary to adjust his trilby while he mulled over the various factors at play, then with the last vestiges of whatever insight Vyrm'n's atomic vision was granting him, worked his way round the disaster zone, laying a hand on boxes in turn, until he found what he was looking for.
"Gestalt." The lid snapped open, before a glowstick appeared, cracked, and then dribbled lurid foamy yellow all over the box. The fluid shifted about to simply spell:
yes
"I need you to... stall Vyrm'n." There was a pregnant pause, followed by another rattle of spent casings and the whine of the Nightmare. The sole, neon word was underlined before the box slammed shut and lumbered off. With a sigh, Maxwell made for the Stage Director, who was leaning nonchalantly by the main switchboard. Pulling out his notebook and scrawling furiously, Maxwell paused only a moment before tearing out a page and handing it to a disinterested Director.
"Y'want this? It doesn't seem too... minimalistic?"
"It's what I need," Maxwell replied as forcibly as he could manage. Peering onstage to where Gestalt was fending off the slick beast with a glowing coilgun, he added hastily, "Sooner, rather than later, I guess. Just... work around those two, if you must."
"Alright," acquiesced the Stage Director. His agreement was accompanied by a pall of smoke as he started pulling the curtain on the sparring pair. No applause greeted the end of the act, as most of the extant audience were too bewildered by goings-on to show any enthusiasm. After ensuring his order to fetch Galus from the seats was to be executed, Maxwell took his leave, took a deep breath, and started for the door.
The sad remnants of the once-mighty Karmist huddled in a corner, the air about him chattering with the rattle of shards of stone and glass he no longer had the strength to raise. His conscience-cleansing light, the energies of the schrotgolem - they had fled this broken being, and left Samuel finally, truly alone with his demons. They sunk in like cold, replacing Gestalt's curious control with a sinking deadness. A pale hand reached out in listless desperation toward a quietening fragment of glass as lifetime upon lifetime of regrets and unatoned murder swallowed Samuel up. The screaming had stopped a while back; now the man only had the strength for one desolate sob as his long-overdue conscience ensnared him.
And then, far beyond the shroud of past atrocities, came the rattle of a machinegun - and its echo, a tone of salvation audible only to Samuel.
Unseeing, long-drained eyes struggled to focus again on the world around him, the one he'd have to negotiate to reclaim that missing light. The Karmist scrambled to his feet; fell to his knees, and crawled towards the door even as his accusing tormentors dragged him ever downward. Step by agonising step, Samuel finally dragged himself to rest by the slender crack of gloom slipping beneath the storeroom door before he collapsed, gasping raggedly, hands searching scrabbling for a way out even as the demons snarled from within his skull.
Overhead, a gentle click, and the door eased open as the man padded desperately, ineffectually, at it. Samuel, vision reduced to demons and light, was unaware of the greatcoated man gazing down upon him, one still hand resting on the doorknob, one notably less still one grasped tightly round the barrel of a shotgun.
peace to the unsung peace to the martyrs | i'm johnny rotten appleseed
clouds is shaky love | broke as hell but i got a bunch of ringtones
eyes blood red bruise aubergine | Sue took something now Sue doesn't sleep | saint average, day in the life of
woke up in the noon smelling doom and death | out the house, great outdoors
staying warm in arctic blizzard | that's my battle 'til I get inanimate | still up in the same clothes living like a gameshow
clouds is shaky love | broke as hell but i got a bunch of ringtones
eyes blood red bruise aubergine | Sue took something now Sue doesn't sleep | saint average, day in the life of
woke up in the noon smelling doom and death | out the house, great outdoors
staying warm in arctic blizzard | that's my battle 'til I get inanimate | still up in the same clothes living like a gameshow