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- Thread starter Misery
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Misery
Moon
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- Feb 5, 2015
A Castle By the Lake
For longer than most could remember, Chastel de la Malaise had stood, its imposing figure perched atop a mountain whose name had long since faded from record, but now was referred to colloquially as 'the Mountain of Death'.
Like many of its kind, the twisted thorny spires of the castle were the stuff of myriad myths and legends, the sort that parents would whisper to their children after dark to scare them into the compliance of at least getting beneath their bedsheets, if not falling asleep outright – as had been done by their parents before them.
And while, like other tales that were told by folks in the surrounding areas, the legends were mostly falsehoods that had grown from various retellings throughout the years, the castle was somewhat unique in the fact that, at its core, there were a few solitary dark truths.
Between the tales and the truths that surrounded it, there was enough that none but the most insane would dare to have ventured there to face what lay there for themselves… with the on solitary exception of Cardinal Jean de Croix who sat in the carriage that made its way up the winding solitary road towards the top of the peak where the castle stood.
Staring at the window, the Cardinal could see the still waters of Lac de la Glace that stretched out in the shadows of the mountain. There the waters were still and clear enough that most times of day, from the right angle, the reflection of the castle could be seen, such that, when ascending the road, as the Cardinal was, it gave the distinct impression that there was a castle on either side of you, one from above and one below, with either being the more sinister of the two.
Some of the local legends said that the souls of the original owners of the castle were trapped within that lake, and that breaching its waters would cause one to fall into a mirror world where everything was backwards. It was a silly notion, for backwards people, but then, that was the providence of God, after all, the be the light in the darkness that would guide people away from the old ways of cowering from the shadows, and instead towards His divine grace.
Leaning back, the Cardinal couldn't help but breathe out a sigh of relief as finally they twisted away from the lake below to the other side of the mountain, though it would return, ultimately when one approached the entrance of the castle.
Another, in his place, might have taken this time to pray, however, the Cardinal himself found a deep and profound missing of Thomas at this moment. In recent years, the boy rarely left his side, and the Cardinal had found that he'd rather taken to the enjoyment of having the small, soft lips of the boy, intent on pleasuring him during his journeys.
Even had the Cardinal been of the mind to take someone else here, however, Thomas was the last person that he would have brought with him on this trek. For above all else, the Chastel held unique perils for one who would let their mind wander to the more carnal of pleasures, and upon learning of such a thing, the master of the castle would have certainly used the boy as a pawn in his unending game against the clergy.
No, Thomas would be missed, but he would be safer this way, and once this dirty business was concluded it would not be but a handful of days more until Jean knew his loving embrace once more.
As, right on queue, the lake became visible once again below, the Cardinal steeled himself and set his emotions aside. Such things had no place here. The only thing that could be allowed in this damned place was the strongest, most absolute of wills, when facing the master of this hell.
Slowly the carriage, as instructed, pulled to a stop outside the large gate to the manor. A moment of shuffling later, and the driver descended from his seat to open the door for his guest and allow him outside. "We're here, your Eminence," he said, with the customary bow as he held the door open.
Still, in that moment, despite his influence, Jean could see fear in the eyes of the young driver, as if even being this close, he sensed the danger he was in. Even had the Cardinal been of the mind to attempt to bribe the man into passing beyond the gates of this place, he doubted that his offer would have been accepted. A wise decision, that.
Stepping out from the carriage, the gate to the great castle stood before him. It was easily twelve feet in height, and before it stood a massive pair of what might be considered lions, were their features not distorted, twisted into something altogether unearthly, their fangs bared as if to warn any who might trespass upon these lands. In that way, they were a remarkably decent reflection of the castle's master.
While one could see above the gate, the gate itself was covered in so many brambles that no light shone through it, and on either side of it an equally tall wall kept any viewer from seeing what lay on the castle grounds beyond. This, by design, kept wandering eyes from looking upon the grounds, and perhaps finding something that might entice them to enter in to the place, in order to provide its keeper with sustenance, or worse, the means with which to escape.
"I shall be back before nightfall," The Cardinal announced as he moved towards the gate.
"Good, see that you do," the young driver said, eyeing him as he slowly began to guide the horses to turn the coach around on the narrow road. As was the custom, he didn't bother to try to peek into the gate, and Jean knew for certain that he wanted little to do with what lay beyond. What was less ideal, was the impression that he got that if he was unable to return by nightfall for some reason, that the driver would, in all likelihood, leave him in this place to deal with the darkness all on his own.
Bracing himself, he found what he thought was a tiny patch of un-thorned gate, and pulled it lightly open. As his fingertips pulled from the place, however, a sharp sting caught one of them as a thorn managed to prick his index finger just enough to draw a large drop of blood. Resisting the urge to curse, he clenched his teeth and slipped wordlessly into the castle grounds.
The aura of the place hit him the moment that he entered it, like emerging from a cool underground cave into the heat of a humid, summer day. Not only was the air hotter, stickier in this place, but the whole of the grounds themselves felt… wrong. Perhaps it was because he knew what lay within, but the beauty that stretched before him, flawlessly trimmed hedges, massive fountains lightly spraying water into their basins, wide stretched lawns as far as the eye could see… they all felt like they didn't belong here.
No, it was more than that, it was that the grounds, down to the very blades of grass on the lawns, had not changed in the more than a decade since last he'd come to this place. Nothing about it had. It was as if he had stepped into a picture of what had been, a memory of something that should not have been. It was a place that should not be, and the fact that it had such a disarming look about it made the knot growing in his stomach all the larger as he looked at this place.
Taking a breath, he resisted the urge to slap his cheeks to banish the thoughts of dread, and instead moved to take about his task. With the place unchanged, it did make things somewhat easier. There were no hedges overgrown towards the outside wall, though looking at the stonework it betrayed the mockery of this place, as well as the limits of its keeper.
While the castle itself had not aged, the stone showed clear signs of gentle wear. Mercifully, however, Jean had possessed the foresight to make certain that the important parts of the walls, the writing, were done on stone lined with steel as well as obsidian, and while the stone around it had worn, the neat obsidian script of Enochian inlaid remained flawless.
With measured steps, ignoring the castle grounds on the inside, the Cardinal slowly walked the outside, mouthing each word as he moved, reciting in his mind the spell that was inlaid there, one that, purportedly, predated humanity itself. While its origins remained a mystery, it's efficacy was certainly not in question, as it managed to keep the world inside of this place and the outside world separate, and more importantly safe.
Again and again he mouthed the words of the spell as he moved, making certain that each word was in place, each letting unmarred. The only thing that caused him even to pause from his duty was a small pond near the back of the castle grounds, that, like the lake in the valley below, was so still that it looked almost like a looking glass.
In it, he could see himself - garbed in simple black rather than the crimson that pomp and circumstance might have required - a cardinal, well into his forties, but who would easily have been mistaken on the street for a twenty-year-old. His neat cut blond hair had been untouched by gray, nor did his face bear any wrinkles. He knew, deep down, that he should not tarry, especially in the throes of indulging in vanity, and yet, for a moment, he could not help but count his many blessings. He only let himself tarry for a moment, though, getting too lost in this place was dangerous.
It took over an hour to walk the complete grounds before he had verified that everything was in place, before finally coming to the front of the gate once more, and while a part of him longed to simply leave things as they were, Jean knew better than to think that he would be able to sleep well if he did not at least verify that the monster was contained personally.
Swallowing, he went up to the main door of the castle, and paused at its arch. Here, was the only flaw in the grand painting of this place, the fact that, the door to the castle itself was ajar on one side. It was most certainly done with intention, but the Cardinal found himself wondering why… was it a twisted invitation from the monster that lay within, or had he, somehow impossibly, escaped, and this was the final joke left behind.
His blood turning to ice, Jean threw open the door and rushed inside, rushing down the long entryway into the main foyer, glancing around. Various baubles and twisted facsimiles of a opulent lifestyle that a human might have lived lay perfectly captured before him, yet nowhere did he see the monster that should have been here, snapping at the very idea of his domain being intruded upon.
Cold sweat began to gather at the back of his neck as he considered where it was the creature might have gone. If he were lose upon the world, certainly there would have been some mention, some feeling that would have tipped him off.
No, that wasn't true. If anything, the lord of this place had always acted like a spider, lurking in the shadows, avoiding the light of notice. It had been damnably hard enough to catch him here in the first place, if he was gone, then he would never be found again, at least not before he was ready, and when that moment come, there would be no forewarning, nor any mercy.
Starting to panic, the cardinal began wandering room after room, starting with the master's bedchamber and then several other rooms in the castle, each empty room causing him to move a little faster, until he was outright running down one of the halls, finally making his way through one long stretch along the rear west wing of the castle before stopping at the foot of one of the spires, looking up the long, winding staircase that disappeared into the dark above. Surely he could not be hiding in one of those towers, could he?
No sooner had the thought crossed his mind, however, then Jean noticed that the swords that lined the walls had neatly detached themselves and now were pointed at him in a circle, giving him barely a yard of room in any direction. While any other man might have wet himself at such a predicament, all Jean felt was relief sweep through him so strongly that he thought for a moment that his legs might give out.
"There you are," he said with a growl, running a hand through his hair to straighten it neatly, adjusting his robes. "You can stop with the play, Raum, we both know that you cannot hurt me," he declared calmly as he stood straight, looking around for where the demon was hiding. He'd spun around a few times before finally he noted them, a pair of crimson eyes, burning like hot embers in the darkness.
"Play? I was merely defending my home against intruders," whispered the voice from the shadows. It was soft, silken, and all too calming, like the low hum of a cello string. "I know how particular you are about me not entertaining… guests, Bishop…"
"Cardinal," Jean corrected, almost defiantly.
"My my, aren't we the go-getter?" The voice replied, somewhat bemused. "Good to see that you are making good use of your… time. But that being said, what could have possibly brought you yourself to come see me? Certainly, you have better things to be doing now that you are so important. Eyeing the papacy perhaps?"
"You know damned well why I had to come myself. After the stunt that you pulled the last time I sent another here…" Jean growled back.
A soft, melodious laugh came from the darkness as the bright eyes half lidded, and then there came a light clicking of the tongue against the roof of the creature's mouth as he chastised him from the shadows. "Mmmn, such foul language, and from the mouth of a priest. Is this about the sodomy? I would have thought, you wouldn't mind it that much, considering what your order gets up to all on it's own."
"They killed their brethren, then sodomized the dead!" Jean snapped back, feeling his anger rising at it. He could still remember the awful scene of it, the men, who had once been honorable, defiling the corpses of the men they'd just murdered, the demon's powers of suggestion somehow having wormed deep into their minds. How it was that he managed it, Jean still did not know, and it was that, above all else, that caused his stomach to churn with fiery anger.
"Ahhh, that. I suppose that was particularly inspired, yes. In my defense, it is so hard to keep up with what passes for entertainment outside of the castle grounds. You've kept me locked up here so long that I can hardly remember what's civilized… so I simply took a stab in the right direction, to get your attention…" the voice whispered.
Jean blinked as something tickled the back of his mind. It was not Raum, that was impossible, and yet… there was something that wasn't right here. Like the door that had been left ajar, there was something that he was missing, something that was on the tip of his tongue, if only he could place it…
"What is it that you're playing at, demon?" he snarled, tiring quickly of these games. He'd made certain the creature was still chained here, there was no cause to linger. "We both know you cannot harm me…"
"Certainly not… not directly," the voice agreed.
It was then that Jean realized what was wrong. In every dealing he'd had with the demon, while it had whispered sweet temptations to the clergy he'd come to this place with, the demon had never referred to Jean with anything but vitriol. Never once had there been the playful banter with which he conducted himself with others.
That moment of cold clarity, and suddenly Jean could not help but feel like a mouse in the trap, those glittering eyes akin to those of a cat looking on its intended victim. It was then that he noticed that soft, faint whistling from above and looked up just in time to see a massive slab of marble tumbling down towards him.
Diving, the Cardinal dashed past the swords, barely pivoting to the side so that they sliced at his arm and across part of his chest as he leapt out of the way, just as rock slammed into rock behind him.
"You would DARE to attack me, knowing what it would cost you?!" Jean spat as he pulled a golden cross from beneath the tatters of his tunic, a crimson gem in the middle of it that he held aloft for protection. The certainty of that protection was greatly diminished, however, given what he'd just seen. Rather than directly attack him, the demon had simply set a slab of rock to fall and let nature take it's course, a devious sidestepping of the rules.
Growling in response, the creature lunged from the shadows. Midnight hair swirled around his dark features, the stark contrast of his pale skin stark against his crimson eyes as he plunged towards his prey, cruel, jagged longsword in hand as he lunged.
Yet barely a yard from the cross his momentum stopped as if he were bound by a thousand invisible threads which held him back, even as he lurched against it. "A cost I would pay gladly to see the world wiped of your stain!" the demon hissed.
"Genua!" the cardinal snapped in crisp Latin as he held the cross aloft, and the demon crumbled down to his knees as if his weight had increased tenfold, falling to his hands and knees.
"Do it…" the dark haired creature snarled at him, unable to raise his head. "End me… or I will hunt you to the ends of the earth…" He then began to say something in a foreign language that Jean did not recognize, though it did not take much to realize that it was some sort of curse.
"Oh, I think not," the clergyman said, reaching up to touch the light cuts upon his frame. "I will have to devise a particularly just punishment, for this trespass."
Slowly he stood, and walked over to the demon, who was groveling against the ground, laid low by the power of Jean's cross, "Worry not, though, thanks to you, all I have is time," he said, and then spat on the demon before walking down the halls, towards the exit of this place. Something would need to be done, but just what… would take some thinking.
The castle was eerily silent for a long moment as he made his way out, yet as he passed through the archway, he could hear the sounds of the thing that lay deep inside throwing about the furnishings in impotent rage.
Jean smiled, quietly as he composed himself and headed towards the castle gate. He made certain to leave the entrance door ajar, just as it had been left for him…
Like many of its kind, the twisted thorny spires of the castle were the stuff of myriad myths and legends, the sort that parents would whisper to their children after dark to scare them into the compliance of at least getting beneath their bedsheets, if not falling asleep outright – as had been done by their parents before them.
And while, like other tales that were told by folks in the surrounding areas, the legends were mostly falsehoods that had grown from various retellings throughout the years, the castle was somewhat unique in the fact that, at its core, there were a few solitary dark truths.
Between the tales and the truths that surrounded it, there was enough that none but the most insane would dare to have ventured there to face what lay there for themselves… with the on solitary exception of Cardinal Jean de Croix who sat in the carriage that made its way up the winding solitary road towards the top of the peak where the castle stood.
Staring at the window, the Cardinal could see the still waters of Lac de la Glace that stretched out in the shadows of the mountain. There the waters were still and clear enough that most times of day, from the right angle, the reflection of the castle could be seen, such that, when ascending the road, as the Cardinal was, it gave the distinct impression that there was a castle on either side of you, one from above and one below, with either being the more sinister of the two.
Some of the local legends said that the souls of the original owners of the castle were trapped within that lake, and that breaching its waters would cause one to fall into a mirror world where everything was backwards. It was a silly notion, for backwards people, but then, that was the providence of God, after all, the be the light in the darkness that would guide people away from the old ways of cowering from the shadows, and instead towards His divine grace.
Leaning back, the Cardinal couldn't help but breathe out a sigh of relief as finally they twisted away from the lake below to the other side of the mountain, though it would return, ultimately when one approached the entrance of the castle.
Another, in his place, might have taken this time to pray, however, the Cardinal himself found a deep and profound missing of Thomas at this moment. In recent years, the boy rarely left his side, and the Cardinal had found that he'd rather taken to the enjoyment of having the small, soft lips of the boy, intent on pleasuring him during his journeys.
Even had the Cardinal been of the mind to take someone else here, however, Thomas was the last person that he would have brought with him on this trek. For above all else, the Chastel held unique perils for one who would let their mind wander to the more carnal of pleasures, and upon learning of such a thing, the master of the castle would have certainly used the boy as a pawn in his unending game against the clergy.
No, Thomas would be missed, but he would be safer this way, and once this dirty business was concluded it would not be but a handful of days more until Jean knew his loving embrace once more.
As, right on queue, the lake became visible once again below, the Cardinal steeled himself and set his emotions aside. Such things had no place here. The only thing that could be allowed in this damned place was the strongest, most absolute of wills, when facing the master of this hell.
Slowly the carriage, as instructed, pulled to a stop outside the large gate to the manor. A moment of shuffling later, and the driver descended from his seat to open the door for his guest and allow him outside. "We're here, your Eminence," he said, with the customary bow as he held the door open.
Still, in that moment, despite his influence, Jean could see fear in the eyes of the young driver, as if even being this close, he sensed the danger he was in. Even had the Cardinal been of the mind to attempt to bribe the man into passing beyond the gates of this place, he doubted that his offer would have been accepted. A wise decision, that.
Stepping out from the carriage, the gate to the great castle stood before him. It was easily twelve feet in height, and before it stood a massive pair of what might be considered lions, were their features not distorted, twisted into something altogether unearthly, their fangs bared as if to warn any who might trespass upon these lands. In that way, they were a remarkably decent reflection of the castle's master.
While one could see above the gate, the gate itself was covered in so many brambles that no light shone through it, and on either side of it an equally tall wall kept any viewer from seeing what lay on the castle grounds beyond. This, by design, kept wandering eyes from looking upon the grounds, and perhaps finding something that might entice them to enter in to the place, in order to provide its keeper with sustenance, or worse, the means with which to escape.
"I shall be back before nightfall," The Cardinal announced as he moved towards the gate.
"Good, see that you do," the young driver said, eyeing him as he slowly began to guide the horses to turn the coach around on the narrow road. As was the custom, he didn't bother to try to peek into the gate, and Jean knew for certain that he wanted little to do with what lay beyond. What was less ideal, was the impression that he got that if he was unable to return by nightfall for some reason, that the driver would, in all likelihood, leave him in this place to deal with the darkness all on his own.
Bracing himself, he found what he thought was a tiny patch of un-thorned gate, and pulled it lightly open. As his fingertips pulled from the place, however, a sharp sting caught one of them as a thorn managed to prick his index finger just enough to draw a large drop of blood. Resisting the urge to curse, he clenched his teeth and slipped wordlessly into the castle grounds.
The aura of the place hit him the moment that he entered it, like emerging from a cool underground cave into the heat of a humid, summer day. Not only was the air hotter, stickier in this place, but the whole of the grounds themselves felt… wrong. Perhaps it was because he knew what lay within, but the beauty that stretched before him, flawlessly trimmed hedges, massive fountains lightly spraying water into their basins, wide stretched lawns as far as the eye could see… they all felt like they didn't belong here.
No, it was more than that, it was that the grounds, down to the very blades of grass on the lawns, had not changed in the more than a decade since last he'd come to this place. Nothing about it had. It was as if he had stepped into a picture of what had been, a memory of something that should not have been. It was a place that should not be, and the fact that it had such a disarming look about it made the knot growing in his stomach all the larger as he looked at this place.
Taking a breath, he resisted the urge to slap his cheeks to banish the thoughts of dread, and instead moved to take about his task. With the place unchanged, it did make things somewhat easier. There were no hedges overgrown towards the outside wall, though looking at the stonework it betrayed the mockery of this place, as well as the limits of its keeper.
While the castle itself had not aged, the stone showed clear signs of gentle wear. Mercifully, however, Jean had possessed the foresight to make certain that the important parts of the walls, the writing, were done on stone lined with steel as well as obsidian, and while the stone around it had worn, the neat obsidian script of Enochian inlaid remained flawless.
With measured steps, ignoring the castle grounds on the inside, the Cardinal slowly walked the outside, mouthing each word as he moved, reciting in his mind the spell that was inlaid there, one that, purportedly, predated humanity itself. While its origins remained a mystery, it's efficacy was certainly not in question, as it managed to keep the world inside of this place and the outside world separate, and more importantly safe.
Again and again he mouthed the words of the spell as he moved, making certain that each word was in place, each letting unmarred. The only thing that caused him even to pause from his duty was a small pond near the back of the castle grounds, that, like the lake in the valley below, was so still that it looked almost like a looking glass.
In it, he could see himself - garbed in simple black rather than the crimson that pomp and circumstance might have required - a cardinal, well into his forties, but who would easily have been mistaken on the street for a twenty-year-old. His neat cut blond hair had been untouched by gray, nor did his face bear any wrinkles. He knew, deep down, that he should not tarry, especially in the throes of indulging in vanity, and yet, for a moment, he could not help but count his many blessings. He only let himself tarry for a moment, though, getting too lost in this place was dangerous.
It took over an hour to walk the complete grounds before he had verified that everything was in place, before finally coming to the front of the gate once more, and while a part of him longed to simply leave things as they were, Jean knew better than to think that he would be able to sleep well if he did not at least verify that the monster was contained personally.
Swallowing, he went up to the main door of the castle, and paused at its arch. Here, was the only flaw in the grand painting of this place, the fact that, the door to the castle itself was ajar on one side. It was most certainly done with intention, but the Cardinal found himself wondering why… was it a twisted invitation from the monster that lay within, or had he, somehow impossibly, escaped, and this was the final joke left behind.
His blood turning to ice, Jean threw open the door and rushed inside, rushing down the long entryway into the main foyer, glancing around. Various baubles and twisted facsimiles of a opulent lifestyle that a human might have lived lay perfectly captured before him, yet nowhere did he see the monster that should have been here, snapping at the very idea of his domain being intruded upon.
Cold sweat began to gather at the back of his neck as he considered where it was the creature might have gone. If he were lose upon the world, certainly there would have been some mention, some feeling that would have tipped him off.
No, that wasn't true. If anything, the lord of this place had always acted like a spider, lurking in the shadows, avoiding the light of notice. It had been damnably hard enough to catch him here in the first place, if he was gone, then he would never be found again, at least not before he was ready, and when that moment come, there would be no forewarning, nor any mercy.
Starting to panic, the cardinal began wandering room after room, starting with the master's bedchamber and then several other rooms in the castle, each empty room causing him to move a little faster, until he was outright running down one of the halls, finally making his way through one long stretch along the rear west wing of the castle before stopping at the foot of one of the spires, looking up the long, winding staircase that disappeared into the dark above. Surely he could not be hiding in one of those towers, could he?
No sooner had the thought crossed his mind, however, then Jean noticed that the swords that lined the walls had neatly detached themselves and now were pointed at him in a circle, giving him barely a yard of room in any direction. While any other man might have wet himself at such a predicament, all Jean felt was relief sweep through him so strongly that he thought for a moment that his legs might give out.
"There you are," he said with a growl, running a hand through his hair to straighten it neatly, adjusting his robes. "You can stop with the play, Raum, we both know that you cannot hurt me," he declared calmly as he stood straight, looking around for where the demon was hiding. He'd spun around a few times before finally he noted them, a pair of crimson eyes, burning like hot embers in the darkness.
"Play? I was merely defending my home against intruders," whispered the voice from the shadows. It was soft, silken, and all too calming, like the low hum of a cello string. "I know how particular you are about me not entertaining… guests, Bishop…"
"Cardinal," Jean corrected, almost defiantly.
"My my, aren't we the go-getter?" The voice replied, somewhat bemused. "Good to see that you are making good use of your… time. But that being said, what could have possibly brought you yourself to come see me? Certainly, you have better things to be doing now that you are so important. Eyeing the papacy perhaps?"
"You know damned well why I had to come myself. After the stunt that you pulled the last time I sent another here…" Jean growled back.
A soft, melodious laugh came from the darkness as the bright eyes half lidded, and then there came a light clicking of the tongue against the roof of the creature's mouth as he chastised him from the shadows. "Mmmn, such foul language, and from the mouth of a priest. Is this about the sodomy? I would have thought, you wouldn't mind it that much, considering what your order gets up to all on it's own."
"They killed their brethren, then sodomized the dead!" Jean snapped back, feeling his anger rising at it. He could still remember the awful scene of it, the men, who had once been honorable, defiling the corpses of the men they'd just murdered, the demon's powers of suggestion somehow having wormed deep into their minds. How it was that he managed it, Jean still did not know, and it was that, above all else, that caused his stomach to churn with fiery anger.
"Ahhh, that. I suppose that was particularly inspired, yes. In my defense, it is so hard to keep up with what passes for entertainment outside of the castle grounds. You've kept me locked up here so long that I can hardly remember what's civilized… so I simply took a stab in the right direction, to get your attention…" the voice whispered.
Jean blinked as something tickled the back of his mind. It was not Raum, that was impossible, and yet… there was something that wasn't right here. Like the door that had been left ajar, there was something that he was missing, something that was on the tip of his tongue, if only he could place it…
"What is it that you're playing at, demon?" he snarled, tiring quickly of these games. He'd made certain the creature was still chained here, there was no cause to linger. "We both know you cannot harm me…"
"Certainly not… not directly," the voice agreed.
It was then that Jean realized what was wrong. In every dealing he'd had with the demon, while it had whispered sweet temptations to the clergy he'd come to this place with, the demon had never referred to Jean with anything but vitriol. Never once had there been the playful banter with which he conducted himself with others.
That moment of cold clarity, and suddenly Jean could not help but feel like a mouse in the trap, those glittering eyes akin to those of a cat looking on its intended victim. It was then that he noticed that soft, faint whistling from above and looked up just in time to see a massive slab of marble tumbling down towards him.
Diving, the Cardinal dashed past the swords, barely pivoting to the side so that they sliced at his arm and across part of his chest as he leapt out of the way, just as rock slammed into rock behind him.
"You would DARE to attack me, knowing what it would cost you?!" Jean spat as he pulled a golden cross from beneath the tatters of his tunic, a crimson gem in the middle of it that he held aloft for protection. The certainty of that protection was greatly diminished, however, given what he'd just seen. Rather than directly attack him, the demon had simply set a slab of rock to fall and let nature take it's course, a devious sidestepping of the rules.
Growling in response, the creature lunged from the shadows. Midnight hair swirled around his dark features, the stark contrast of his pale skin stark against his crimson eyes as he plunged towards his prey, cruel, jagged longsword in hand as he lunged.
Yet barely a yard from the cross his momentum stopped as if he were bound by a thousand invisible threads which held him back, even as he lurched against it. "A cost I would pay gladly to see the world wiped of your stain!" the demon hissed.
"Genua!" the cardinal snapped in crisp Latin as he held the cross aloft, and the demon crumbled down to his knees as if his weight had increased tenfold, falling to his hands and knees.
"Do it…" the dark haired creature snarled at him, unable to raise his head. "End me… or I will hunt you to the ends of the earth…" He then began to say something in a foreign language that Jean did not recognize, though it did not take much to realize that it was some sort of curse.
"Oh, I think not," the clergyman said, reaching up to touch the light cuts upon his frame. "I will have to devise a particularly just punishment, for this trespass."
Slowly he stood, and walked over to the demon, who was groveling against the ground, laid low by the power of Jean's cross, "Worry not, though, thanks to you, all I have is time," he said, and then spat on the demon before walking down the halls, towards the exit of this place. Something would need to be done, but just what… would take some thinking.
The castle was eerily silent for a long moment as he made his way out, yet as he passed through the archway, he could hear the sounds of the thing that lay deep inside throwing about the furnishings in impotent rage.
Jean smiled, quietly as he composed himself and headed towards the castle gate. He made certain to leave the entrance door ajar, just as it had been left for him…
OP
OP
Misery
Moon
- Joined
- Feb 5, 2015
What Could Have Been... (Warning: Arcane Spoilers)
You can have everything you want. Everything you dreamed of having. Not bought with blood, but handed to you, on a platter.
But it will all be undone by one little girl.
Life, tragically, had no shortage of ironies.
Since… 'losing' one eye those many years ago, if there was one thing that Silco had learned to prize above all other things it was sight. It was not enough to plan, to scheme, to have dreams of what your city could be, what the world around you could be.
You needed to be able to see it, down to its last detail. You needed to have in your mind each and every brick that lay in a foundation in order to build something more.
It only took one single piece, knocked out of the right place, to cause even the most glorious of towers to come crumbling down upon themselves to collapse into a pile of rubble. Everything needed to be meticulously crafted, and to do that one had to see with clarity where everything lay, where things might come from, to protect against what might destroy what you had built.
Yet despite it all, he had lost his sight. Somewhere amidst it all he had lost sight of the Undercity and all of its moving pieces. It was a weakness that those who lived in the undercity couldn't afford. A weakness that had cost Vander everything, and yet here he was, making the same mistake that had cost so many their lives in the past.
He could feel it unraveling, all of those plans that he had meticulously laid out.
Jayce, for all of his idiocy, truly was the golden boy of legend. Not because of his looks that caught the eyes of the women around him. Not because of his intelligence, which had managed to widen the gap of disparity between Piltover and the Undercity all that much further, to the point where they were truly now different lands between them.
No, it was the sheer dumb luck that the boy seemed to have. That one should be so blessed by the gods to stumble into everything that they needed in order to get what they want. Silco should have had him begging at his mercy… he was a pup playing a game that even an old scarred hound might have struggled at… yet none of it mattered because in his blind luck he managed to hit upon it.
He struck at the one thing that Silco could not give him. No, it was the one thing that Silco would not give him and that was the most maddening piece of it all. He could have given her up, he should have given her up. What was the price of a single life when weighed against the dreams of an entire nation? Could any man truly be looked down upon for sacrificing the life of one girl when it meant gaining all of that?
Except that… it was not a girl. Not just a girl.
From the moment that she'd come to him, collapsed in his arms… she had become… something more.
He'd lied to himself at first about it. He'd told himself that she could be an asset, that she could be something that might unify the undercity after Vander's passing. He had taken the life of one of the Undercity's most beloved figures, after all, a man who had meant so much to so many, what better show of goodwill would there be but to raise the man's daughter in his stead?
Yet, despite the statue that was erected in his honor, the effigy looking thoughtfully out over the streets of that city, the people were deliriously eager to move on with their lives rather than to dwell in the past of what had been. They abandoned Vander with the same gusto with which they embraced Shimmer, and while Silco might have wanted to attribute one to the numbing affects of the other, the truth was that the people just wanted to move past what had happened, and forget.
Denied the ability to embrace the lie that she was a ward of the city, he then convinced himself that she was merely a useful tool, something to be molded and crafted in his own image. After all, was that not the true drive behind anyone who dared to tempt the fates and sire a child. Was it not all, when truth brought forth from lies, simply the product of one's own vanity? To create something that was like oneself, that would outlive oneself, and thus embrace the lie that a legacy that would live beyond one's own years was somehow released upon the world?
And so he set forth to making her his heir, to instill her with his legacy. He trained her. He pushed her in ways that she had never been pushed before. Instead of babying her like Vander had, treating her as if she were a helpless thing that had no future for herself beyond marriage to a topsider or serving as a clumsy bar mistress to the unruly denizens of the Undercity, Silco sought to mold her into something beyond that.
He took her anger, and where Vander might have tried to smother it, Silco taught her to channel it, to embrace it the way that he had, and to make it into something more. He taught her to be vicious when she had to be, to stop thinking of the world in terms of what others thought of her, or the morals that others tried to impose upon her. Instead he taught her the true lessons of the world, that had taken him years to unlock.
There were only two moralities in the world, two rules upon which the entirety of what their existence hinged. They were the foundation upon which everything else rested, and upon which if one could not rely, then the world would truly descend into madness.
Cunningness, and Loyalty.
They were two forces, at odds with one another, yet balanced against one another as well. Through cunning, the sheer desire and force of will to grab power, to wield it, no matter the cost. It trumped natural aptitude, intelligence, or strength. If anything, to have power without the will to get more of it made you complacent, soft… vulnerable the way that Vander had been. No, one needed to always be willing to grab at the power that they could in order to maintain their hold upon what was theirs, lest it be wrested from them.
Yet at the same time, there was only so much power that a single man could wield. Despite what the cocky, upstart youth told themselves, no man was a god. It was a trap that he himself once had fallen into, during his clashes with the topsiders during the riots many years ago. He had convinced himself that he was untouchable, that his actions would make him revered by those around him…
It was a lesson that Vander had taught to him, so long ago.
His baptism.
No man was a god. No man stood alone. It was in the unity to a cause that someone remained. It could be bought temporarily, for a price, but to truly have it be unshakeable it had to be forged, one link at a time, like a great chain between two peoples. Loyalty was not something that could be diminished, or taken for granted. It was something that had to be demanded, and yet something that had to be upheld as well, it was more important, even than the drive to be cunning.
Some of the lessons she took well to, and yet most of them she did not. And in her failures, it became clear to Silco that it was not, in fact, some desire to pass his legacy into the future that drove him either. She did not perfectly mimic the lessons he had laid upon her, in fact, a great many she simply turned her nose up at, or had the audacity to forget, even when he repeated them over and over again before her.
No, she would not be his perfect prodigy, his legacy, or anything else. She did not have a value… she did not have a purpose… there was nothing about her that could be used to further his aims in any meaningful way… she should have been just a girl. And yet she was not.
…she was his daughter.
It was a simple enough word to say, to conceive of. Silco had seen many men and women with their daughters. He had seen many men and women lose their daughters. It was a word that he'd thought he understood before Jinx. Yet he did not have the first beginnings of a clue of the true weight of that word, and how much that it meant.
It was something profound and meaningful… and yet it had made him blind to so many things… to the world around him, to what might have been lurking there in the shadows as he went before the statue of Vander, and complained to the only person that he could have. He should have been off to make the delivery of shimmer that he had tucked into his inner pocket… preparing his forces for the backlash that was to come when he rejected Piltover's offer. He should have been keeping up appearances. Making himself look strong, domineering, flawless.
Yet he was here, with the last remnants of Vander.
Only in the conversations with a man long gone could he truly allow his guard to come down…
Yet he was not alone. He was blind.
Life's… little ironies.
It was a small mercy that he'd imbibed the alcohol that he had given the hard knock that his assailant had given him, and he felt himself fumble for a knife as he grabbed at their small form, spinning on them even as the world kept spinning with the motion, swirling around violently like a carousel that just could not be stopped.
The knife came up and yet… it was his daughters face that was before him, staring at him amidst a whirling world.
There was a moment, a hint of doubt as he wondered if it might be some trick of the mind, a last vision that was flashing before his eyes due to the concussion. Yet it was the way that she looked at him that revealed the truth. Never before had she stared at him with such darkness, or venom. It was a look she'd only reserved for her victims… for her enemies.
"J-Jinx?" he managed to stutter through slurred words as black spots started to fill his vision. "…wait…"
Darkness. Pain.
Neither sensation was particularly foreign to Silco. He had lived a long enough life in the undercity that he knew both of them like old friends. Similarly, the nausea that came with regaining consciousness due to a head wound, that too was not completely unfamiliar to him.
Somewhere far away he could sense it, the sensation of light, of things starting to come into focus.
"What?" he attempted to mutter, and yet it was muffled, stifled by something that was in his way. He couldn't speak… a gag. Yes, someone had pushed a gag into his mouth and had fastened it tight in the proper way, so that it couldn't be shaken loose. Not that he wanted to shake his head much with the way that it was spinning. If anything his stomach wanted to empty itself… but with the gag in place that wouldn't be possible either.
Some of that nausea, doubtlessly, was caused by what was there all around them. Food, laid out long enough ago that it had rotted and the vermin of the undercity had set upon it, lay before them. He had half expected it to be scattered and yet it was laid out upon nice little plates, organized in the mimicry of a tea party that was being held at a table which he sat at the head of… or rather, one of the heads of… along with the pink haired girl that should have died long ago.
"He took everything from us…" his daughter said, an almost mournful tone to her voice, "right here he stabbed Vander in the back… just like he planned to with me. All the time saying you abandoned me when he knew the truth."
"No…" Silco growled beneath the muzzle that she put on him, the words no more than a muffled blur of sound.
"Liar," his daughter spat in response, having clearly gotten enough of his muffled word to recognize it. But then she turned towards the interloper, towards the girl set about to ruin everything, "we're missing someone!"
It occurred to him then, through fogged, muddled thoughts that this entire display was not for him. This was not his daughter crying out to him for some form of help. This was her trying to reach out to her sister. To Vi. The pink haired girl was not gagged as he was… she was the one that his daughter wanted to speak to, not him.
"Jinx," he tried to plead, in an attempt to get her attention, but his daughter was moving on with her show, coming up holding a platter, wielding a couple of hextech power gauntlets on her arms in order to do so, implying that what she was carrying was particularly heavy.
She dropped the dingy silver platter down on the table without much care for the contents, and in the grime covered metal, for the first time Silco could see himself, hair somewhat disheveled, eyes glazed. He hardly looked like a man he might have recognized, in truth. Instead, he looked like the weak shadow of the man he once had been. A hostage, a pawn. An extra on the stage in what was doubtlessly the most important scene…
… he needed to regain control.
"I paid your girlfriend a visit this morning," his daughter said as she touched the top of the platter.
Silco could see the fear blossom on Vi's face when the enforcer was mentioned. His daughter's jealousy of the enforcer had been… warranted, it seemed. Whatever this other girl was, she was clearly somewhat important to Vi. He could see the fear there creeping upon her face as the pink haired girl managed to ask. "What… what did you do?"
"I made her a snack," his daughter replied, making a show of the way that she slowly twisted and started to lift the platter. Silco himself remained transfixed upon it, wondering what could warrant the slow reveal of what lay beneath.
He could hear Vi fidget and squirm for the reveal, which it seemed was less about the contents beneath and more about panicking her sister. His daughter wanted to prove that she was in control here… that she held power over all of them.
"Sheesh," the girl said with a roll of her eyes. "I'm not THAT crazy."
Tossing the platter top to the side she came out to wheel out the last guest to her party… the enforcer, similarly gagged.
"Powder! Leave her out of this," Vi pleaded, and despite the fact that she had clearly heard it, his daughter made no indication to that effect.
"Now… where should I sit?" his daughter asked, looking pointedly at a pair of chairs, one which had the name "Powder" prominently written upon it, while the other had "Jinx" written on it. "That's, your choice, really…"
She pressed something to Vi's hand that Silco couldn't see, but judging by the sound it was a weapon of some kind. He could also see a spark of fear in the young girl's eyes when she glanced down at it.
"Make her go away, please," his daughter said, a hint of pleading to her tone, "send her on her way and… and you can have Powder back."
Silco could see it unraveling before his eyes, and yet he was helpless to stop it. His daughter did not realize the eventual outcome of this. She wanted something that once was hers a long time ago. She wanted a childhood that she had lost, a sister that had turned her back on her. But she couldn't have any of those things, no matter how much she longed to have them back.
The ugly truth of why he'd sent Vi away… why he'd been willing to have her killed, was not because he had sought out to separate her from her sister. It was not because he had wanted to cause her that pain…
It was because Vi would never understand. Silco had realized it that day when the girl had told him what had happened. To Vi, she would always be a monster. Vi might pretend, she might look the other way and try to forget what had once been done… but in that moment whatever there was between them had died in a way that could never be brought back. No amount of 'healing' would take away the pain of having had her sister blow up her friends.
No kind words would take back the terrible things her sister had told her that day out of anguish.
Like Vander and Silco himself, a wedge had been driven between them both that day, a divide that could never be mended. His daughter might have dreamed of a world in which all could be forgiven, and yet… that was not this world. You could not forgive someone's faults away… you could only love them… despite those faults. And as horrible as it was, Vi just did not love her that much.
"I can't…" Vi admitted, presented with thought of killing her girlfriend. Of course she couldn't. She'd chosen where her loyalties lay.
His daughter moved to do what needed to be done herself… what she thought needed to be done herself. Silco dared not move while it happened. Where before he wanted to struggle, now he stood stock still. If his daughter killed the enforcer then… it would end this farce once and for all.
"No! Powder, listen, we… we can just go. We can leave and never come back." Vi pleaded with honeyed words as his daughter held the gun to the side of the enforcers head. Given the size of it, a single shot would have been enough to end the life of the enforcer. Vi knew it, and would say anything in order to prevent it. And it was working.
"Where… would we go?" his daughter asked, seeming to consider what was being offered. It was only for a moment, though. He could see the pain on her face as the stress started to trigger one of her episodes. "No no no, she's not saying that…" his daughter said, aiming the gun at one of her dolls.
"It's true," Vi said, "we'll put this behind us, you'll never have to see him again, Powder…"
Despite himself, Silco could feel something swell within him at those words. Rage… like a heated iron inside of his chest. This… interloper thought that she could tear apart his family? Thought that she could take his daughter from him?
He would see his dreams burn in order to keep her safe. There was no way he would let her sister trick her away from her home and leave her helpless.
"She's lying…" he muttered, trying to say something to his daughter, who paused, before seeming to consider.
"What do you have to say about that?" she finally said, moving to undo his gag at last.
He should have been calm, he should have been collected and yet he could still feel the white hot pang in his chest stirring like a beast. "Her name is Jinx!" He spat out at Vi, his eye narrowing at her with a dark rage. The audacity that she would lie to his daughter to lure her from this place.
"She's lying," he said again, looking at Jinx this time, "You'll be with her a day before she realizes you aren't that girl anymore and turns her back on you."
He could see the words killed her, and yet, they were undoubtedly the truth. No matter what lies Vi wanted to spin, both Silco and her knew the truth. She couldn't accept his daughter. Not for who she was now. She wanted the perfect, manipulatable little girl that she'd left behind years ago. She loved a memory… not the girl before her right now.
"You aren't lying… you wouldn't lie to me, not again," his daughter said, clearly struggling with the subject.
"I'm not lying. I'm on your side, I… I promise," Vi lied. It was as plain as the color of her hair that she was telling his daughter whatever she needed to hear in order to be let go.
Without warning his daughter shot one of her puppets and growled at it. "Shut up! We're talking." She was definitely having another episode… he needed to get control of the situation. He needed to show her just how much she was worth to him.
"The topsiders, they offered me everything," he said, "Independence, a seat at the table… all in return for you," he said, staring at her. He needed to show her what true acceptance was. Not for the girl she had been but for the girl that she was. "They can all burn! Everyone betrays us, Jinx. Vander, her. They will never understand… it's only us."
"You're my daughter," he whispered as his eyes stared into hers, "I'll never forsake you."
He could see it there… a hint, a moment of realization there in her eyes. For a moment he dared to hope that he was getting through to her, until he heard the sound of machinery behind her.
"Drop the gun!" the enforcer said.
Staring at the table it wasn't hard to put the pieces together. His daughter had shattered a glass with her shot earlier… a shard of it must have rolled close enough to be within her grasp, and she'd gotten up and gotten the gun when they were talking.
Everything in Silco's being wanted to grab his daughter and pull her behind him, put himself between the enforcer and her, and yet he couldn't move, he couldn't struggle even to get free from these bonds.
"No, please…" Vi whispered, clearly begging for her girlfriend's life.
His daughter growled, raised her pistol, but the enforcer was faster, shooting beside her a warning shot. Silco could feel his heart seize in his chest. There wouldn't be another warning shot. The enforcer was practically looking for an excuse.
"Drop the gun," the dark haired girl growled.
"Wait… she's my sister!" Vi said.
This… surprised him. Perhaps he had misjudged her. Perhaps she was not willing to serve up his daughter on a silver platter. But at the same time, she wouldn't accept her for who she was. What she wanted was something that could never be realized… a recipe for disaster, and she couldn't see it.
"She's too far gone, Vi," The enforcer growled, working herself up to the kill shot.
But Silco had trained her too well. The enforcer hesitated, and his daughter saw it, spun out of the way of the shot, and disarmed her in a smooth motion. The enforcer crumbled, and his daughter stood over the enforcers body, panting.
"You see?" he said to her, "now finish it."
"No!" Vi cried. She would do whatever it took to save her lover, spin whatever lies she had to in order to convince his daughter that she would have a better life without him. "Dammit Powder! Wake up! Remember who you are! I know you remember."
He wanted to scream at his daughter as well, to remind her that this was who she was and yet… he could see it there. He could see her body start to crumble in on itself. He could see her start to cower start to curl up into the scared girl that she once was. The minor episode was turning into something major.
"Picture Milo… Claggor… Vander!" Vi continued, not caring as his daughter gripped her head in pain. The damned red haired girl was willing to cause her to breakdown if it meant getting what she wanted.
"No! Don't listen to her!" Silco bellowed. The rage was starting to fill him. He could see her, in pain… but there wasn't a thing he could do to stop it. He pulled at the restraints but they barely budged. He could barely move his arms as tied as they were.
"Mom… Me!" Vi kept going. Kept twisting that knife into her. His daughter was on the ground, gripping her head, whimpering in pain. He had to stop her.
He could hear her… his daughter, crying out in pain… and… the instincts took over. The binds that held him were firm and yet he managed to wrap one fingertip around the handle of the gun and jerk it towards himself.
Terrible, clumsy fingers wrapped around it, adrenaline mixing with the need, the terrible need to stop the crimson haired girl from hurting his daughter any more than she was. He jerked himself up, feeling the restraints tug into his frame as he tried to steady himself for a shot.
He was not a marksman… knives were a tool he was far more familiar with… but there were no other options. He just had to steady himself enough… he would not get a second chance to save her…
Somewhere Jinx screamed, and the loud scream of a machine wheel whirring filled the room as something rapidly tore through the night.
It happened so fast, he didn't even feel it at first… the bullet that would kill him. One moment he was near standing and the next, his strength had left him, like an elastic band stretched too far that had suddenly snapped.
Wetness bloomed across his chest and for a moment the older man had the amusing pang of annoyance that his daughter had shattered the vials of shimmer there, costing him a small fortune… but no, no, vials of shimmer couldn't have stopped…
Strength began to drain from his legs, and from the rest of him slowly as he sagged in the chair, the motion of it causing him to slowly drift in it. Was he spinning, or was it the world? Did any of it really matter any longer?
Somewhere, through the whirring of the world, he could hear his daughter cry out in sadness, along with distant footsteps. And then, suddenly, she was there before him. His beautiful girl, staring at him, her warm hands caressing his face. When had her skin become so warm? Or was it just that he was becoming cold now?
He could see the pain there, and it hurt worse than any injury, even a bullet to the chest, that agony across her features.
Silco had always known that this is the way that he would wind up going in the end. It was an eventuality that he had accepted after his violent baptism at Vander's hands so long ago.
Dying old, warm in one's bed was the stuff for men who had lived past their prime, the domain of topsiders who could afford to grow fat and complacent. The undercity would not allow for such… it would consume any who no longer had the will to struggle in order to survive. No, he would die as violently as Vander had… he had known that much for a long, long time.
Yet, despite having told her that, he could see that look of pain on her face, of confusion. She was going to lose him and she didn't know why. She did not know that this was inevitable. He could hear her babbling, senseless words of apology and in those eyes he saw the same, terrified girl that had run to him all those years ago and thrown herself into his arms.
She was looking at him, expectantly, waiting for him to rebuke her. To demand angrily to know why she had done what she had done. To tell her that she was a failure… a mistake… a Jinx.
"I never would have given you to them, not for anything," he whispered. More than anything, he needed her to know that. To know that what she had heard were the complaints of a man suppressed by the world around him that tried to tear from him that which was most important, to tempt him with an offer of everything that he once had thought he could want…
All at the cost of the only thing he did.
She tried to smile in front of him, and yet he could still see it there, that haunted look that was bracing to be screamed at, to be issued a rebuke the way that Vi or Vander might have. She would find no such venom here.
"Don't cry," he whispered to her, looking into her eyes. He could see the edges of his vision beginning to haze, and grow dark, tiny flecks of blackness filling his vision. Not long now. Only a breath to leave her with.
"You're perfect," he said.
And then everything… faded.
Life seeping from him… mind lost to the cloud of the void, he had no comprehension of what was happening around him. His daughter moving to take one last, desperate act against a world that had always hated her for what she was. The enforcer stirring, releasing Vi from her bonds and dragging her to witness the carnage that would follow.
… the steady drip… drip… drip… of several vials of shimmer, tucked into his vest that had shattered, leaking into the open hole in his chest.
Alone there… in the darkness, the body that had been left, like so much uneaten food twitched…
A spasm at first. Beneath him the chair creaked with the movement, and spun slightly.
Light returned, briefly, to his one good eye, the iris twitching slightly, the muscle fibers there contracting somewhat, focusing briefly before relaxing. Then, slowly the eye began to twitch, to dart, to take in it's surroundings.
It was instinctual rather than thought out, the mindless processing of data that was being fed to it, images without real thoughts behind them. Colors without meanings. Dark browns, blacks, chestnuts, pale skin and Shimmer…
No, Shimmer was not a color, it was a thing, and yet he recognized it, that violet hue, unmistakable color winding it's way along the pale color of flesh disappearing into the crimson of sleeves. It wound it's way like water, flowing, spreading from unseen mountaintops towards a sea of smaller rivers and creeks there.
Yet it was not water, it was something else. Lava… born of the earth. Burning, searing, raging… filling him with pain… anger… and rage.
Beneath the purple hue of the Shimmer coursing through him the pale skin turned paler still, white like ash as it stretched and contorted around the source of life coursing through it.
Another spasm wracked him, and this time it was greeted with a loud creak and then a snap, splinters of a now broken chair arm that he'd been tied to falling slowly to the ground as his body began to shake, and twist.
Muscles that had not been moved in what felt like an eternity attempted to, and were held back. The inability to flex only caused irritation along with another sensation that was starting to fill everything that he was, pouring into him like a cup being filled.
Ah yes… pain. That's what this sensation was.
Familiar and yet not, he felt it dance along his skin like sparks as he twitched, and thrashed. The chair pitched one way then the next and then clattered to the floor with him still in it as he curled into a fetal position, to hide from the pain…
Yet there was no escape from the agony, the burning, the sensation of cells warping and burning and mutating. Twisting what he was… into something else.
His mouth opened then, this thing upon the ground, spasming and tightening into a ball as it tried to escape the torment until finally it could take no more, and burst free.
Splinters shattering across the dingy room, ropes hanging from his wrists, this thing that was both Silco and not reared back and let forth the cry of its birth… sounding almost like the bellow of a man until the twisted muscles and power within it twisted it's howl into something inhuman… a cold, violent challenge to the world that had created it… that tormented it.
Nerves ablaze, the mindless creature slammed its fists into the table before it hard enough to smash it in twain, sending plates and armaments alike scattering into the distance, glass shattering and breaking in its wake, shards rupturing into its arms with the motion.
The sudden sting of this unknown attack brought forth another roar and an additional fit of rage, its purple laced hands gripping half the remains of the table as if it were a child's toy, then threw it against the nearest wall, his chest heaving not with the effort of such work but with the emotion that roiled beneath in a cauldron of smoldering emotion.
The creature's mouth opened, poised to bellow once more as it paused then, eyeing the silver platter that had been cast aside amidst a sea of scattered candles. It bore a grim countenance of a man that the creature should have recognized, familiar and worn, and yet he didn't. There were pieces there… the drawn taught lines around a mutilated eye… the wrinkles of age worn by cigar smoke and alcohol…
Yet the familiar countenance had been shattered there, splintered by a web of purple lines that can across his eyes and down his neck, the left eye which had once been dark now glowed a violent, purple hue to match, bulged and angry as if to be a beacon to the emotions he barely contained within.
It was a hideous, horrific reflection and yet when the thing in the platter reached up to touch its face… the creature could feel something against its own… the hand was its own… the reflection was its own.
Spittle and saliva oozed from its mouth, as it stared at that reflection, and then howled in shame and fear and… more anger. The creature slammed the platter into the ground and slammed one fist then the next into the platter until its reflection was as dented and warped as the creatures was compared with what it once had been.
It was then that it heard the footsteps behind it, and straightened. Ears that once were keen had been sharpened by the pain running through its veins now, and it could hear even as the breath was inhaled sharply by the two creatures behind it as it turned to look upon the two women, one with pink hair, and one with a dark hued blue.
The creature recognized them even less than it did itself, and yet there was something instantaneous that struck it the moment that it laid eyes upon them… a violence that dwarfed even the rage with which it had come into being… indescribable and merciless that boiled in its stomach and surged forth as another, chilling inhuman bellow as it roared and began to charge them, not running as a man might, but instead some sort of simian, hunched over as it lurched on hands and feet, yet with startling speed that more than matched what the fastest man in the undercity could have hoped to manage.
But it will all be undone by one little girl.
Life, tragically, had no shortage of ironies.
Since… 'losing' one eye those many years ago, if there was one thing that Silco had learned to prize above all other things it was sight. It was not enough to plan, to scheme, to have dreams of what your city could be, what the world around you could be.
You needed to be able to see it, down to its last detail. You needed to have in your mind each and every brick that lay in a foundation in order to build something more.
It only took one single piece, knocked out of the right place, to cause even the most glorious of towers to come crumbling down upon themselves to collapse into a pile of rubble. Everything needed to be meticulously crafted, and to do that one had to see with clarity where everything lay, where things might come from, to protect against what might destroy what you had built.
Yet despite it all, he had lost his sight. Somewhere amidst it all he had lost sight of the Undercity and all of its moving pieces. It was a weakness that those who lived in the undercity couldn't afford. A weakness that had cost Vander everything, and yet here he was, making the same mistake that had cost so many their lives in the past.
He could feel it unraveling, all of those plans that he had meticulously laid out.
Jayce, for all of his idiocy, truly was the golden boy of legend. Not because of his looks that caught the eyes of the women around him. Not because of his intelligence, which had managed to widen the gap of disparity between Piltover and the Undercity all that much further, to the point where they were truly now different lands between them.
No, it was the sheer dumb luck that the boy seemed to have. That one should be so blessed by the gods to stumble into everything that they needed in order to get what they want. Silco should have had him begging at his mercy… he was a pup playing a game that even an old scarred hound might have struggled at… yet none of it mattered because in his blind luck he managed to hit upon it.
He struck at the one thing that Silco could not give him. No, it was the one thing that Silco would not give him and that was the most maddening piece of it all. He could have given her up, he should have given her up. What was the price of a single life when weighed against the dreams of an entire nation? Could any man truly be looked down upon for sacrificing the life of one girl when it meant gaining all of that?
Except that… it was not a girl. Not just a girl.
From the moment that she'd come to him, collapsed in his arms… she had become… something more.
He'd lied to himself at first about it. He'd told himself that she could be an asset, that she could be something that might unify the undercity after Vander's passing. He had taken the life of one of the Undercity's most beloved figures, after all, a man who had meant so much to so many, what better show of goodwill would there be but to raise the man's daughter in his stead?
Yet, despite the statue that was erected in his honor, the effigy looking thoughtfully out over the streets of that city, the people were deliriously eager to move on with their lives rather than to dwell in the past of what had been. They abandoned Vander with the same gusto with which they embraced Shimmer, and while Silco might have wanted to attribute one to the numbing affects of the other, the truth was that the people just wanted to move past what had happened, and forget.
Denied the ability to embrace the lie that she was a ward of the city, he then convinced himself that she was merely a useful tool, something to be molded and crafted in his own image. After all, was that not the true drive behind anyone who dared to tempt the fates and sire a child. Was it not all, when truth brought forth from lies, simply the product of one's own vanity? To create something that was like oneself, that would outlive oneself, and thus embrace the lie that a legacy that would live beyond one's own years was somehow released upon the world?
And so he set forth to making her his heir, to instill her with his legacy. He trained her. He pushed her in ways that she had never been pushed before. Instead of babying her like Vander had, treating her as if she were a helpless thing that had no future for herself beyond marriage to a topsider or serving as a clumsy bar mistress to the unruly denizens of the Undercity, Silco sought to mold her into something beyond that.
He took her anger, and where Vander might have tried to smother it, Silco taught her to channel it, to embrace it the way that he had, and to make it into something more. He taught her to be vicious when she had to be, to stop thinking of the world in terms of what others thought of her, or the morals that others tried to impose upon her. Instead he taught her the true lessons of the world, that had taken him years to unlock.
There were only two moralities in the world, two rules upon which the entirety of what their existence hinged. They were the foundation upon which everything else rested, and upon which if one could not rely, then the world would truly descend into madness.
Cunningness, and Loyalty.
They were two forces, at odds with one another, yet balanced against one another as well. Through cunning, the sheer desire and force of will to grab power, to wield it, no matter the cost. It trumped natural aptitude, intelligence, or strength. If anything, to have power without the will to get more of it made you complacent, soft… vulnerable the way that Vander had been. No, one needed to always be willing to grab at the power that they could in order to maintain their hold upon what was theirs, lest it be wrested from them.
Yet at the same time, there was only so much power that a single man could wield. Despite what the cocky, upstart youth told themselves, no man was a god. It was a trap that he himself once had fallen into, during his clashes with the topsiders during the riots many years ago. He had convinced himself that he was untouchable, that his actions would make him revered by those around him…
It was a lesson that Vander had taught to him, so long ago.
His baptism.
No man was a god. No man stood alone. It was in the unity to a cause that someone remained. It could be bought temporarily, for a price, but to truly have it be unshakeable it had to be forged, one link at a time, like a great chain between two peoples. Loyalty was not something that could be diminished, or taken for granted. It was something that had to be demanded, and yet something that had to be upheld as well, it was more important, even than the drive to be cunning.
Some of the lessons she took well to, and yet most of them she did not. And in her failures, it became clear to Silco that it was not, in fact, some desire to pass his legacy into the future that drove him either. She did not perfectly mimic the lessons he had laid upon her, in fact, a great many she simply turned her nose up at, or had the audacity to forget, even when he repeated them over and over again before her.
No, she would not be his perfect prodigy, his legacy, or anything else. She did not have a value… she did not have a purpose… there was nothing about her that could be used to further his aims in any meaningful way… she should have been just a girl. And yet she was not.
…she was his daughter.
It was a simple enough word to say, to conceive of. Silco had seen many men and women with their daughters. He had seen many men and women lose their daughters. It was a word that he'd thought he understood before Jinx. Yet he did not have the first beginnings of a clue of the true weight of that word, and how much that it meant.
It was something profound and meaningful… and yet it had made him blind to so many things… to the world around him, to what might have been lurking there in the shadows as he went before the statue of Vander, and complained to the only person that he could have. He should have been off to make the delivery of shimmer that he had tucked into his inner pocket… preparing his forces for the backlash that was to come when he rejected Piltover's offer. He should have been keeping up appearances. Making himself look strong, domineering, flawless.
Yet he was here, with the last remnants of Vander.
Only in the conversations with a man long gone could he truly allow his guard to come down…
Yet he was not alone. He was blind.
Life's… little ironies.
It was a small mercy that he'd imbibed the alcohol that he had given the hard knock that his assailant had given him, and he felt himself fumble for a knife as he grabbed at their small form, spinning on them even as the world kept spinning with the motion, swirling around violently like a carousel that just could not be stopped.
The knife came up and yet… it was his daughters face that was before him, staring at him amidst a whirling world.
There was a moment, a hint of doubt as he wondered if it might be some trick of the mind, a last vision that was flashing before his eyes due to the concussion. Yet it was the way that she looked at him that revealed the truth. Never before had she stared at him with such darkness, or venom. It was a look she'd only reserved for her victims… for her enemies.
"J-Jinx?" he managed to stutter through slurred words as black spots started to fill his vision. "…wait…"
Darkness. Pain.
Neither sensation was particularly foreign to Silco. He had lived a long enough life in the undercity that he knew both of them like old friends. Similarly, the nausea that came with regaining consciousness due to a head wound, that too was not completely unfamiliar to him.
Somewhere far away he could sense it, the sensation of light, of things starting to come into focus.
"What?" he attempted to mutter, and yet it was muffled, stifled by something that was in his way. He couldn't speak… a gag. Yes, someone had pushed a gag into his mouth and had fastened it tight in the proper way, so that it couldn't be shaken loose. Not that he wanted to shake his head much with the way that it was spinning. If anything his stomach wanted to empty itself… but with the gag in place that wouldn't be possible either.
Some of that nausea, doubtlessly, was caused by what was there all around them. Food, laid out long enough ago that it had rotted and the vermin of the undercity had set upon it, lay before them. He had half expected it to be scattered and yet it was laid out upon nice little plates, organized in the mimicry of a tea party that was being held at a table which he sat at the head of… or rather, one of the heads of… along with the pink haired girl that should have died long ago.
"He took everything from us…" his daughter said, an almost mournful tone to her voice, "right here he stabbed Vander in the back… just like he planned to with me. All the time saying you abandoned me when he knew the truth."
"No…" Silco growled beneath the muzzle that she put on him, the words no more than a muffled blur of sound.
"Liar," his daughter spat in response, having clearly gotten enough of his muffled word to recognize it. But then she turned towards the interloper, towards the girl set about to ruin everything, "we're missing someone!"
It occurred to him then, through fogged, muddled thoughts that this entire display was not for him. This was not his daughter crying out to him for some form of help. This was her trying to reach out to her sister. To Vi. The pink haired girl was not gagged as he was… she was the one that his daughter wanted to speak to, not him.
"Jinx," he tried to plead, in an attempt to get her attention, but his daughter was moving on with her show, coming up holding a platter, wielding a couple of hextech power gauntlets on her arms in order to do so, implying that what she was carrying was particularly heavy.
She dropped the dingy silver platter down on the table without much care for the contents, and in the grime covered metal, for the first time Silco could see himself, hair somewhat disheveled, eyes glazed. He hardly looked like a man he might have recognized, in truth. Instead, he looked like the weak shadow of the man he once had been. A hostage, a pawn. An extra on the stage in what was doubtlessly the most important scene…
… he needed to regain control.
"I paid your girlfriend a visit this morning," his daughter said as she touched the top of the platter.
Silco could see the fear blossom on Vi's face when the enforcer was mentioned. His daughter's jealousy of the enforcer had been… warranted, it seemed. Whatever this other girl was, she was clearly somewhat important to Vi. He could see the fear there creeping upon her face as the pink haired girl managed to ask. "What… what did you do?"
"I made her a snack," his daughter replied, making a show of the way that she slowly twisted and started to lift the platter. Silco himself remained transfixed upon it, wondering what could warrant the slow reveal of what lay beneath.
He could hear Vi fidget and squirm for the reveal, which it seemed was less about the contents beneath and more about panicking her sister. His daughter wanted to prove that she was in control here… that she held power over all of them.
"Sheesh," the girl said with a roll of her eyes. "I'm not THAT crazy."
Tossing the platter top to the side she came out to wheel out the last guest to her party… the enforcer, similarly gagged.
"Powder! Leave her out of this," Vi pleaded, and despite the fact that she had clearly heard it, his daughter made no indication to that effect.
"Now… where should I sit?" his daughter asked, looking pointedly at a pair of chairs, one which had the name "Powder" prominently written upon it, while the other had "Jinx" written on it. "That's, your choice, really…"
She pressed something to Vi's hand that Silco couldn't see, but judging by the sound it was a weapon of some kind. He could also see a spark of fear in the young girl's eyes when she glanced down at it.
"Make her go away, please," his daughter said, a hint of pleading to her tone, "send her on her way and… and you can have Powder back."
Silco could see it unraveling before his eyes, and yet he was helpless to stop it. His daughter did not realize the eventual outcome of this. She wanted something that once was hers a long time ago. She wanted a childhood that she had lost, a sister that had turned her back on her. But she couldn't have any of those things, no matter how much she longed to have them back.
The ugly truth of why he'd sent Vi away… why he'd been willing to have her killed, was not because he had sought out to separate her from her sister. It was not because he had wanted to cause her that pain…
It was because Vi would never understand. Silco had realized it that day when the girl had told him what had happened. To Vi, she would always be a monster. Vi might pretend, she might look the other way and try to forget what had once been done… but in that moment whatever there was between them had died in a way that could never be brought back. No amount of 'healing' would take away the pain of having had her sister blow up her friends.
No kind words would take back the terrible things her sister had told her that day out of anguish.
Like Vander and Silco himself, a wedge had been driven between them both that day, a divide that could never be mended. His daughter might have dreamed of a world in which all could be forgiven, and yet… that was not this world. You could not forgive someone's faults away… you could only love them… despite those faults. And as horrible as it was, Vi just did not love her that much.
"I can't…" Vi admitted, presented with thought of killing her girlfriend. Of course she couldn't. She'd chosen where her loyalties lay.
His daughter moved to do what needed to be done herself… what she thought needed to be done herself. Silco dared not move while it happened. Where before he wanted to struggle, now he stood stock still. If his daughter killed the enforcer then… it would end this farce once and for all.
"No! Powder, listen, we… we can just go. We can leave and never come back." Vi pleaded with honeyed words as his daughter held the gun to the side of the enforcers head. Given the size of it, a single shot would have been enough to end the life of the enforcer. Vi knew it, and would say anything in order to prevent it. And it was working.
"Where… would we go?" his daughter asked, seeming to consider what was being offered. It was only for a moment, though. He could see the pain on her face as the stress started to trigger one of her episodes. "No no no, she's not saying that…" his daughter said, aiming the gun at one of her dolls.
"It's true," Vi said, "we'll put this behind us, you'll never have to see him again, Powder…"
Despite himself, Silco could feel something swell within him at those words. Rage… like a heated iron inside of his chest. This… interloper thought that she could tear apart his family? Thought that she could take his daughter from him?
He would see his dreams burn in order to keep her safe. There was no way he would let her sister trick her away from her home and leave her helpless.
"She's lying…" he muttered, trying to say something to his daughter, who paused, before seeming to consider.
"What do you have to say about that?" she finally said, moving to undo his gag at last.
He should have been calm, he should have been collected and yet he could still feel the white hot pang in his chest stirring like a beast. "Her name is Jinx!" He spat out at Vi, his eye narrowing at her with a dark rage. The audacity that she would lie to his daughter to lure her from this place.
"She's lying," he said again, looking at Jinx this time, "You'll be with her a day before she realizes you aren't that girl anymore and turns her back on you."
He could see the words killed her, and yet, they were undoubtedly the truth. No matter what lies Vi wanted to spin, both Silco and her knew the truth. She couldn't accept his daughter. Not for who she was now. She wanted the perfect, manipulatable little girl that she'd left behind years ago. She loved a memory… not the girl before her right now.
"You aren't lying… you wouldn't lie to me, not again," his daughter said, clearly struggling with the subject.
"I'm not lying. I'm on your side, I… I promise," Vi lied. It was as plain as the color of her hair that she was telling his daughter whatever she needed to hear in order to be let go.
Without warning his daughter shot one of her puppets and growled at it. "Shut up! We're talking." She was definitely having another episode… he needed to get control of the situation. He needed to show her just how much she was worth to him.
"The topsiders, they offered me everything," he said, "Independence, a seat at the table… all in return for you," he said, staring at her. He needed to show her what true acceptance was. Not for the girl she had been but for the girl that she was. "They can all burn! Everyone betrays us, Jinx. Vander, her. They will never understand… it's only us."
"You're my daughter," he whispered as his eyes stared into hers, "I'll never forsake you."
He could see it there… a hint, a moment of realization there in her eyes. For a moment he dared to hope that he was getting through to her, until he heard the sound of machinery behind her.
"Drop the gun!" the enforcer said.
Staring at the table it wasn't hard to put the pieces together. His daughter had shattered a glass with her shot earlier… a shard of it must have rolled close enough to be within her grasp, and she'd gotten up and gotten the gun when they were talking.
Everything in Silco's being wanted to grab his daughter and pull her behind him, put himself between the enforcer and her, and yet he couldn't move, he couldn't struggle even to get free from these bonds.
"No, please…" Vi whispered, clearly begging for her girlfriend's life.
His daughter growled, raised her pistol, but the enforcer was faster, shooting beside her a warning shot. Silco could feel his heart seize in his chest. There wouldn't be another warning shot. The enforcer was practically looking for an excuse.
"Drop the gun," the dark haired girl growled.
"Wait… she's my sister!" Vi said.
This… surprised him. Perhaps he had misjudged her. Perhaps she was not willing to serve up his daughter on a silver platter. But at the same time, she wouldn't accept her for who she was. What she wanted was something that could never be realized… a recipe for disaster, and she couldn't see it.
"She's too far gone, Vi," The enforcer growled, working herself up to the kill shot.
But Silco had trained her too well. The enforcer hesitated, and his daughter saw it, spun out of the way of the shot, and disarmed her in a smooth motion. The enforcer crumbled, and his daughter stood over the enforcers body, panting.
"You see?" he said to her, "now finish it."
"No!" Vi cried. She would do whatever it took to save her lover, spin whatever lies she had to in order to convince his daughter that she would have a better life without him. "Dammit Powder! Wake up! Remember who you are! I know you remember."
He wanted to scream at his daughter as well, to remind her that this was who she was and yet… he could see it there. He could see her body start to crumble in on itself. He could see her start to cower start to curl up into the scared girl that she once was. The minor episode was turning into something major.
"Picture Milo… Claggor… Vander!" Vi continued, not caring as his daughter gripped her head in pain. The damned red haired girl was willing to cause her to breakdown if it meant getting what she wanted.
"No! Don't listen to her!" Silco bellowed. The rage was starting to fill him. He could see her, in pain… but there wasn't a thing he could do to stop it. He pulled at the restraints but they barely budged. He could barely move his arms as tied as they were.
"Mom… Me!" Vi kept going. Kept twisting that knife into her. His daughter was on the ground, gripping her head, whimpering in pain. He had to stop her.
He could hear her… his daughter, crying out in pain… and… the instincts took over. The binds that held him were firm and yet he managed to wrap one fingertip around the handle of the gun and jerk it towards himself.
Terrible, clumsy fingers wrapped around it, adrenaline mixing with the need, the terrible need to stop the crimson haired girl from hurting his daughter any more than she was. He jerked himself up, feeling the restraints tug into his frame as he tried to steady himself for a shot.
He was not a marksman… knives were a tool he was far more familiar with… but there were no other options. He just had to steady himself enough… he would not get a second chance to save her…
Somewhere Jinx screamed, and the loud scream of a machine wheel whirring filled the room as something rapidly tore through the night.
It happened so fast, he didn't even feel it at first… the bullet that would kill him. One moment he was near standing and the next, his strength had left him, like an elastic band stretched too far that had suddenly snapped.
Wetness bloomed across his chest and for a moment the older man had the amusing pang of annoyance that his daughter had shattered the vials of shimmer there, costing him a small fortune… but no, no, vials of shimmer couldn't have stopped…
Strength began to drain from his legs, and from the rest of him slowly as he sagged in the chair, the motion of it causing him to slowly drift in it. Was he spinning, or was it the world? Did any of it really matter any longer?
Somewhere, through the whirring of the world, he could hear his daughter cry out in sadness, along with distant footsteps. And then, suddenly, she was there before him. His beautiful girl, staring at him, her warm hands caressing his face. When had her skin become so warm? Or was it just that he was becoming cold now?
He could see the pain there, and it hurt worse than any injury, even a bullet to the chest, that agony across her features.
Silco had always known that this is the way that he would wind up going in the end. It was an eventuality that he had accepted after his violent baptism at Vander's hands so long ago.
Dying old, warm in one's bed was the stuff for men who had lived past their prime, the domain of topsiders who could afford to grow fat and complacent. The undercity would not allow for such… it would consume any who no longer had the will to struggle in order to survive. No, he would die as violently as Vander had… he had known that much for a long, long time.
Yet, despite having told her that, he could see that look of pain on her face, of confusion. She was going to lose him and she didn't know why. She did not know that this was inevitable. He could hear her babbling, senseless words of apology and in those eyes he saw the same, terrified girl that had run to him all those years ago and thrown herself into his arms.
She was looking at him, expectantly, waiting for him to rebuke her. To demand angrily to know why she had done what she had done. To tell her that she was a failure… a mistake… a Jinx.
"I never would have given you to them, not for anything," he whispered. More than anything, he needed her to know that. To know that what she had heard were the complaints of a man suppressed by the world around him that tried to tear from him that which was most important, to tempt him with an offer of everything that he once had thought he could want…
All at the cost of the only thing he did.
She tried to smile in front of him, and yet he could still see it there, that haunted look that was bracing to be screamed at, to be issued a rebuke the way that Vi or Vander might have. She would find no such venom here.
"Don't cry," he whispered to her, looking into her eyes. He could see the edges of his vision beginning to haze, and grow dark, tiny flecks of blackness filling his vision. Not long now. Only a breath to leave her with.
"You're perfect," he said.
And then everything… faded.
Life seeping from him… mind lost to the cloud of the void, he had no comprehension of what was happening around him. His daughter moving to take one last, desperate act against a world that had always hated her for what she was. The enforcer stirring, releasing Vi from her bonds and dragging her to witness the carnage that would follow.
… the steady drip… drip… drip… of several vials of shimmer, tucked into his vest that had shattered, leaking into the open hole in his chest.
Alone there… in the darkness, the body that had been left, like so much uneaten food twitched…
A spasm at first. Beneath him the chair creaked with the movement, and spun slightly.
Light returned, briefly, to his one good eye, the iris twitching slightly, the muscle fibers there contracting somewhat, focusing briefly before relaxing. Then, slowly the eye began to twitch, to dart, to take in it's surroundings.
It was instinctual rather than thought out, the mindless processing of data that was being fed to it, images without real thoughts behind them. Colors without meanings. Dark browns, blacks, chestnuts, pale skin and Shimmer…
No, Shimmer was not a color, it was a thing, and yet he recognized it, that violet hue, unmistakable color winding it's way along the pale color of flesh disappearing into the crimson of sleeves. It wound it's way like water, flowing, spreading from unseen mountaintops towards a sea of smaller rivers and creeks there.
Yet it was not water, it was something else. Lava… born of the earth. Burning, searing, raging… filling him with pain… anger… and rage.
Beneath the purple hue of the Shimmer coursing through him the pale skin turned paler still, white like ash as it stretched and contorted around the source of life coursing through it.
Another spasm wracked him, and this time it was greeted with a loud creak and then a snap, splinters of a now broken chair arm that he'd been tied to falling slowly to the ground as his body began to shake, and twist.
Muscles that had not been moved in what felt like an eternity attempted to, and were held back. The inability to flex only caused irritation along with another sensation that was starting to fill everything that he was, pouring into him like a cup being filled.
Ah yes… pain. That's what this sensation was.
Familiar and yet not, he felt it dance along his skin like sparks as he twitched, and thrashed. The chair pitched one way then the next and then clattered to the floor with him still in it as he curled into a fetal position, to hide from the pain…
Yet there was no escape from the agony, the burning, the sensation of cells warping and burning and mutating. Twisting what he was… into something else.
His mouth opened then, this thing upon the ground, spasming and tightening into a ball as it tried to escape the torment until finally it could take no more, and burst free.
Splinters shattering across the dingy room, ropes hanging from his wrists, this thing that was both Silco and not reared back and let forth the cry of its birth… sounding almost like the bellow of a man until the twisted muscles and power within it twisted it's howl into something inhuman… a cold, violent challenge to the world that had created it… that tormented it.
Nerves ablaze, the mindless creature slammed its fists into the table before it hard enough to smash it in twain, sending plates and armaments alike scattering into the distance, glass shattering and breaking in its wake, shards rupturing into its arms with the motion.
The sudden sting of this unknown attack brought forth another roar and an additional fit of rage, its purple laced hands gripping half the remains of the table as if it were a child's toy, then threw it against the nearest wall, his chest heaving not with the effort of such work but with the emotion that roiled beneath in a cauldron of smoldering emotion.
The creature's mouth opened, poised to bellow once more as it paused then, eyeing the silver platter that had been cast aside amidst a sea of scattered candles. It bore a grim countenance of a man that the creature should have recognized, familiar and worn, and yet he didn't. There were pieces there… the drawn taught lines around a mutilated eye… the wrinkles of age worn by cigar smoke and alcohol…
Yet the familiar countenance had been shattered there, splintered by a web of purple lines that can across his eyes and down his neck, the left eye which had once been dark now glowed a violent, purple hue to match, bulged and angry as if to be a beacon to the emotions he barely contained within.
It was a hideous, horrific reflection and yet when the thing in the platter reached up to touch its face… the creature could feel something against its own… the hand was its own… the reflection was its own.
Spittle and saliva oozed from its mouth, as it stared at that reflection, and then howled in shame and fear and… more anger. The creature slammed the platter into the ground and slammed one fist then the next into the platter until its reflection was as dented and warped as the creatures was compared with what it once had been.
It was then that it heard the footsteps behind it, and straightened. Ears that once were keen had been sharpened by the pain running through its veins now, and it could hear even as the breath was inhaled sharply by the two creatures behind it as it turned to look upon the two women, one with pink hair, and one with a dark hued blue.
The creature recognized them even less than it did itself, and yet there was something instantaneous that struck it the moment that it laid eyes upon them… a violence that dwarfed even the rage with which it had come into being… indescribable and merciless that boiled in its stomach and surged forth as another, chilling inhuman bellow as it roared and began to charge them, not running as a man might, but instead some sort of simian, hunched over as it lurched on hands and feet, yet with startling speed that more than matched what the fastest man in the undercity could have hoped to manage.
OP
OP
Misery
Moon
- Joined
- Feb 5, 2015
The Tangled Webs
"No matter what anyone else will tell you, there are times when you just have to look back on your life, and wonder how you got to… well, this particular moment.
I wasn't always like this, and man, did I not have any idea back then where things would be when I grew up. But I guess, even as a kid who banks on getting bitten by a radioactive spider on a field trip, and instead of it killing you, it winds up giving you super powers? I mean, sure, I had some pretty crazy dreams as a kid, but most of them were like… being the next Captain America or something like that…
I mean we didn't really know back then that Captain America was still alive frozen somewhere, but… Well, this isn't Cap's story anyway.
So, yeah, bitten by an experimental spider, and turned into the one and only Spider-man. And you know, it was pretty great at first… I became a hero, saved the city, got… got a girlfriend…"
The man in the mask paused as he pursed his lips and then glanced down over the city, staring down at the sea of lights down below, the glow of that city, his city, brighter than any light you could see from the sky anymore. On gloved hand reached up and slowly brushed along his face as his cupped his cheeks and rubbed downward, dragging it along his jawline and chin.
"You know, then… then some stuff happened. And… and I mean, I picked myself up and started… trying to do what I could. I saved the city again, became a reporter, saved the city again, and again… and… again. Got another girlfriend, kept saving the city… things got serious and… I got married.
The masked man paused and bowed his head in silence. "Kept saving the city, quit the paper, struggled to find another job… had lots and lots of fights with my wife… with my ex-wife… about money. Kind of maybe pushed her away… had more fights… admitted something awful to her… and…"
He tilted his head back and glanced up at the clouds that were forming overhead. They seemed as if they had almost come out of nowhere, a black, swirling miasma that might hurl down a thunderbolt at him at any particular second. Somehow the prospect of it seemed particularly fitting.
"Caught her in bed with someone I thought was a friend… fought some more… embarrassingly more. Got dumped, which… yeah."
He rubbed his face again and paused.
"Took some 'me' time, got back to doing what I love doing… being Spider-man. And kept… saving the city. I still keep saving… the city. And in a way that's really its own reward, isn't it? It's not like I need statues in my honor… and y'know, even if it lacks a little nutritional 'pop', pizza is still amazing. And I've got cool people to talk to, isn't that right, Pidgey?"
The masked man turned and looked over across the ledge he was sitting on, towards the pigeon with massive eyes that had tilted its head towards him, and then went back to driving its beak into the pizza slice that he had tossed over a few feet towards the creature.
"I mean, not exactly 'people' in the strict sense, but y'know… I feel like you and I, we've sort of developed some sort of bond, and…"
The bird unceremoniously shot up into the air and flapped off, leaving a few feathers floating down in the air.
"Hey! We shared pizza, you know. For a New Yorker, that's a sacred bond," the masked man muttered as he pushed open the box and noted nothing inside but crumbs, sighing as he reached up and pulled his mask back over his nose and over his face, stretching it down along his neck to the point where it attached inside the chest piece of his outfit.
"Well, Peter, you've just been ghosted by a pigeon," he said as he brushed the crumbs off and stood up on the ledge, "I wouldn't call it an all-time low, but…"
The thought was interrupted as, across Times Square one of the billboards that had been on a dark advertisement suddenly flickered to one that was a bright white, attention getting amongst the night sky, enough that Peter's eyes couldn't help but glance towards it, and then instantly away from it.
The movie poster that was emblazoned upon it was an all too familiar one, the stock figure action hero standing, his shirt hanging at his waist in tatters, large assault rifle dangling carelessly from one hand, distracted of course by the pale arms wrapped around his back and the single shapely thigh that hugged his waist and came around. It would have been just like any other, had it not been for the face of the redheaded actress who stood there, looking over his shoulder.
"I miss the days when running into a twenty foot photo of my ex wasn't a concern while on patrol," Peter muttered under his breath before he took a step forward and let himself plummet off of the building towards the ground below, feeling the air whistle past his ears as the ground came hurtling towards him, narrowing his eyes for a moment as he gritted his teeth and then…
Knowing the last minute was coming he flicked his wrist in a certain direction, activating the webshooters on his wrist, a string of fluid arching out, the ends of them webbing as they stuck to their target in the distance.
His body snapped out of the dive as he hurtled along the ground, barely skimming it a few feet from impact, his shoulder stabbing slightly in complaint at the lack of planning as he gripped the webbing and arched along the ground, a few people gasping and pointing before the force of the pendular arch that he moved in shot him back up again.
At the height of the swing he let his hand go from the webbing, flicking his other wrist towards another point on a separate building, his hand reaching up to clasp the web as his momentum carried him up and then pulled him down slightly, swinging from building to building. Down below he could see people wave at him now and again, some of them, probably Jameson fans, shaking their fists.
But most, really, didn't even bother to look up, staring down at their phones for the latest update from their social media feeds, the latest text from their friends, to watch a ten second video on tik tok or just to play a game to forget. In a way part of it was sad… not because he particularly wanted anyone to notice him specifically, but just… to notice something, anyway.
What did cause them to notice, though, was the sudden blare of a horn, the same thing that caused Spider-man's head to snap downwards mid swing and let go of the strand of webbing that he'd been holding onto, diving down towards the street below as his eyes took in the scene unfolding before him in a heartbeat.
In the space of an instant his eyes brushed over a dozen cars below him, locking on the source of the noise, a car trying to make a left hand turn recklessly, probably expecting that opposing traffic would – rather than cause an accident – be inclined just to get out of his way. Or at least that's how it looked on its face, a New Yorker being inconsiderate.
And were it not for the glowing patch of 6 inches or so of LCD screen, Peter might have thought the same thing.
Body reacting before his brain had a chance to process the scene, his hands reached out as both webshooters fired simultaneously, adhering to the ground and then retracted, tugging him violently towards the road in an attempt to close the distance faster than his body could actually fall. But all it did was give him a closer view of a scene of inevitability.
The driver, head focused on the glow of the screen veered further into oncoming traffic, his head only snapping up after a few heartbeats as seconds passed before his reaction time kicked in. The drivers in opposite lanes reacted faster, veering out of his way. But the tanker going the opposite way didn't quite manage it, the driver no doubt debating between whether veering into traffic to his right was less dangerous than letting the convertible hit him outright.
In the end he tried to pull to the right, only to have a panicked car attempting to get out of the way rear end him, the force of it enough to wedge the front of their car just slightly under his tire as he tried to turn.
By the time Peter landed, the tanker had already steered the wrong way into the turn and was lurching forward, the red "flammable: Grade 3" signs catching the street lights as it turned and started to lurch onto its side.
Somewhere in the back of Peter's mind it registered that a tanker like this weighed likely well over 10,000 pounds if full. But you couldn't think of those sorts of details overlong in the heat of the moment. Instead his eyes flicked to the building behind him, even as his other hand moved to shoot webbing at the top of the truck itself.
Barely a fraction of a second passed as Peter evaluated all of the options of points to tether to, gritting his teeth as he picked the best one and shot his webbing towards it. It wasn't ideal. Not near a major bridge, he didn't have much in the way of hard steel he could adhere to. There were light poles, but being made of lighter and lighter weight materials, they would bend and rip out of the ground long before they would stop a truck, by design.
The best he had to work with was to web the side of an office building with a wide burst, hold on, and hope that this truck was on the end of its run.
Come on, empty truckload… Peter thought as his forearms clenched and he gripped the webbing as tightly as he could manage in either hand.
Experience told him by the way he was jerked off the ground that it wouldn't be enough. There was too much weight hurtling down the street at this point, but the webslinger was committed as his hands gripped he web ropes, the sound of stretching filling the air around him right before screeching metal, like nails on a chalkboard began to permeate the air.
It wouldn't be the web that gave out first, though, nor would it be Spider-man himself. Grunting, Parker watched as several bricks tore loose from the building, the only real precursor to the webbing in one hand going slack as what it was tethered to pulled free.
With no anchor, plans had to change mid-air as the hero was shot forward by the momentum of the tanker lurching over and slamming onto its side, his body twisting in the air as he kicked his feet up towards the sky as he tugged at the webbing and pulled himself skyward, arching up over the tanker, his now free hand webbing the door to it to jerk him down onto the top of it as it began sliding along the road to a stop.
Sparks showered around the bottom of it, even as his hands sunk into the side of the door frame and jerked it loose, tossing it to the side as he shot into the cabin. Mercifully, even if stupidly, the driver of it wasn't wearing a seatbelt at all, which made it all the easier to pull him free from the cabin, toss him out into the air and web him to the side of a nearby building.
It would take the cops to get him down, but Peter had bigger problems at the moment. The convertible that had initially caused the accident was speeding off, but the car that had hit the truck was in bad shape, having flipped onto its top, the frame crumpled in such a way that there would be no crawling out the windows for the passengers trapped inside.
Oh yeah, and there was that small matter of the fluid from the tanker spilled all over the road with sparks showering down over it, a dozen small lights of flames coming to life. There wasn't any way that he could put out that many fires before one of them caught… and the second they did, those people trapped in the car were as good as dead.
Webbing himself over to the side of the car away from the spill, he eyed the door, gripping the plastic and metal as he tore it free, glancing at the passengers inside. One scrambled out of it even as he started tearing the second door off its hinges to free the passengers in the backseat. The way that things had bent, though, there would be no way they were getting out at the angle they were, unless…
Bracing against the ground his hands pressed to the frame and he pushed, rocking the car up onto one side with one hand, as his other moved to try to press against the frame and open it slightly wider for the people trying to scramble out.
"C'mon, move, move, move," Spider-man said, abandoning his normal calm as he noted the sparks that had littered the fluid on the street racing along the fluid towards the tanker, as his Spidey Sense, which had already been tingling, rose to an almost nauseating crescendo in his mind. He had a few heartbeats left, enough that the last person got free, and just enough to turn towards them and shoot a ball of projectile webbing at them hard enough to jerk them off of their feet and web them to the side of a building right before there was a flash.
He didn't see the tanker explode. He didn't feel the car between him and the tanker shoot backward from the blast and connect with his body, or the way that it connected with him, and like a glorified cue call send him flying towards the bumper of a building.
The world came back into focus in a haze of black spots, ringing, and pain.
Groaning, he noted that he did not hear the sound over the ringing, and his hand went to the back of his head, feeling at the mask. There wasn't much in the way of the bump, meaning that if he had a concussion it was likely due to the impact physics of his mind rattling around like a walnut inside of its shell, which while it didn't sound great was better than if there had been intense swelling.
As he blinked the spots from his eyes he could see the glow of the fire in the distance being doused by the NYC fire department as some of them spread chemical agents around to slow the spread of the fire. The fact that it appeared it was only a single alarm fire meant that it hadn't spread, at least.
Gritting his teeth he pulled himself to his feet after the ringing in his ears stopped, a fireman whirled around when he saw the movement. "Woah, easy there, Spider-man, we've got an ambulance on the way," the fireman said, moving to steady the super hero.
"No, need," the masked man said, trying to brush it off, "not my worst tussle with a brick wall."
The firefighter paused, and frowned. Peter recognized the look, it was the look everyone got when they knew they were being lied to by an authority figure, but didn't quite know how to respond to it. "You sure, Spidey?"
"Yeah, you should feel the sort of hits that Rhino throws at you when he gets really worked up," Spider-man responded lightly, and then paused, "actually on second thought, you shouldn't. I really would never recommend that at all…"
He paused, midway through his rambling, and added, "Is everyone else okay?"
"Few minor injuries, but it could have been a lot worse if you hadn't been here," The fireman offered with light smile, "It's not true what Jameson says about you, you know. This city is a better place with you in it."
It was times like this that Peter was glad that his mask could hide the frown on his features. Jameson was the last thing he wanted to think about now, no doubt by morning this would be a premier segment on his new… podcast, radio show, whatever he was calling it these days.
"Uh, thanks," Spider-man muttered, reaching upward as he gave the fireman a kind of awkward salute and then shot into the air.
Come to think of it, why DIDN'T firefighters have some sort of official salute?
The thought was disturbed by the sensation of the world lurching a bit as his body, still not quite ready to be web swinging again, protested as he landed on the side of a building and pulled his way up it. He waited until he was out of sight before he stumbled back down onto his hands and knees and took a long moment to breathe.
It was nearly a dozen minutes before he could actually move without the world seeming to lurch the second he tried it.
Swinging wasn't exactly fun, after that, but manageable at least, and the small mercy of the location was that he'd been fairly close to home. When he landed outside of his window he gave an extra moment to close his eyes and really feel to see if there was any tingling at all from his Spidey Sense before slipping into his apartment and tugging down the blind there.
As he stepped inside he felt his webshooter buzz and glanced at a seemingly broken clock in the corner, which turned from 12:00 to 12:01, and indicator that he'd been the first movement detected in the apartment since he'd left. A fairly simplified security measure, but… the last thing he needed in his life right now was to come home and find Electro hiding somewhere in the corner waiting for him.
The place safe, he finally let out a breath he'd been holding since he'd entered his apartment and reached down to finally tug his mask off, and then his chest piece, tossing them both on the couch in the middle of the apartment as he felt around the couch cushions for the remote and turned on the evening news.
Coverage of the Mets game was on, and so Peter made his way towards the bathroom to inspect the damage, glancing in the mirror at the reddened skin that would probably wind up being bruises within an hour or two.
Pausing, he went to lean on the sink to get a better look at himself, then remembered just in time that leaning on the sink would undoubtedly cause it to come loose from the wall entirely, given the state of quality of his particular apartment. At least he didn't have an eviction notice looming over this one.
Stripping the rest of the way he took a quick shower, just to get the chemical smell off. The normally unwelcome iciness of it, which took several minutes that Peter didn't want to spend before it would even heat up to lukewarm levels at least helped distract a bit from the bruising, and the ringing still in the back of his head.
When he emerged a few minutes later, he dried himself off, tugged on some clean boxer briefs and a robe and made his way out into the main room of his place again, where the news was still going on.
A shooting in Hell's Kitchen. Some sort of unexplained explosion in Midtown. A break-in in Queens.
He'd managed to save a couple of lives tonight, but there was always something else, always something he wound up missing. He told himself that he couldn't be everywhere all the time, but… some days, like today, it wound up feeling like what he did was a drop in the bucket compared to what the city could dish up.
The thought was just as sobering as the icy water from the shower, but far less comforting, he reflected as he slowly sank down onto the worn couch as he watched the news flicker from one story to another, leaning his head back as he stared up at the equally worn ceiling and let out a sigh before tightly closing his blue eyes.
I wasn't always like this, and man, did I not have any idea back then where things would be when I grew up. But I guess, even as a kid who banks on getting bitten by a radioactive spider on a field trip, and instead of it killing you, it winds up giving you super powers? I mean, sure, I had some pretty crazy dreams as a kid, but most of them were like… being the next Captain America or something like that…
I mean we didn't really know back then that Captain America was still alive frozen somewhere, but… Well, this isn't Cap's story anyway.
So, yeah, bitten by an experimental spider, and turned into the one and only Spider-man. And you know, it was pretty great at first… I became a hero, saved the city, got… got a girlfriend…"
The man in the mask paused as he pursed his lips and then glanced down over the city, staring down at the sea of lights down below, the glow of that city, his city, brighter than any light you could see from the sky anymore. On gloved hand reached up and slowly brushed along his face as his cupped his cheeks and rubbed downward, dragging it along his jawline and chin.
"You know, then… then some stuff happened. And… and I mean, I picked myself up and started… trying to do what I could. I saved the city again, became a reporter, saved the city again, and again… and… again. Got another girlfriend, kept saving the city… things got serious and… I got married.
The masked man paused and bowed his head in silence. "Kept saving the city, quit the paper, struggled to find another job… had lots and lots of fights with my wife… with my ex-wife… about money. Kind of maybe pushed her away… had more fights… admitted something awful to her… and…"
He tilted his head back and glanced up at the clouds that were forming overhead. They seemed as if they had almost come out of nowhere, a black, swirling miasma that might hurl down a thunderbolt at him at any particular second. Somehow the prospect of it seemed particularly fitting.
"Caught her in bed with someone I thought was a friend… fought some more… embarrassingly more. Got dumped, which… yeah."
He rubbed his face again and paused.
"Took some 'me' time, got back to doing what I love doing… being Spider-man. And kept… saving the city. I still keep saving… the city. And in a way that's really its own reward, isn't it? It's not like I need statues in my honor… and y'know, even if it lacks a little nutritional 'pop', pizza is still amazing. And I've got cool people to talk to, isn't that right, Pidgey?"
The masked man turned and looked over across the ledge he was sitting on, towards the pigeon with massive eyes that had tilted its head towards him, and then went back to driving its beak into the pizza slice that he had tossed over a few feet towards the creature.
"I mean, not exactly 'people' in the strict sense, but y'know… I feel like you and I, we've sort of developed some sort of bond, and…"
The bird unceremoniously shot up into the air and flapped off, leaving a few feathers floating down in the air.
"Hey! We shared pizza, you know. For a New Yorker, that's a sacred bond," the masked man muttered as he pushed open the box and noted nothing inside but crumbs, sighing as he reached up and pulled his mask back over his nose and over his face, stretching it down along his neck to the point where it attached inside the chest piece of his outfit.
"Well, Peter, you've just been ghosted by a pigeon," he said as he brushed the crumbs off and stood up on the ledge, "I wouldn't call it an all-time low, but…"
The thought was interrupted as, across Times Square one of the billboards that had been on a dark advertisement suddenly flickered to one that was a bright white, attention getting amongst the night sky, enough that Peter's eyes couldn't help but glance towards it, and then instantly away from it.
The movie poster that was emblazoned upon it was an all too familiar one, the stock figure action hero standing, his shirt hanging at his waist in tatters, large assault rifle dangling carelessly from one hand, distracted of course by the pale arms wrapped around his back and the single shapely thigh that hugged his waist and came around. It would have been just like any other, had it not been for the face of the redheaded actress who stood there, looking over his shoulder.
"I miss the days when running into a twenty foot photo of my ex wasn't a concern while on patrol," Peter muttered under his breath before he took a step forward and let himself plummet off of the building towards the ground below, feeling the air whistle past his ears as the ground came hurtling towards him, narrowing his eyes for a moment as he gritted his teeth and then…
Knowing the last minute was coming he flicked his wrist in a certain direction, activating the webshooters on his wrist, a string of fluid arching out, the ends of them webbing as they stuck to their target in the distance.
His body snapped out of the dive as he hurtled along the ground, barely skimming it a few feet from impact, his shoulder stabbing slightly in complaint at the lack of planning as he gripped the webbing and arched along the ground, a few people gasping and pointing before the force of the pendular arch that he moved in shot him back up again.
At the height of the swing he let his hand go from the webbing, flicking his other wrist towards another point on a separate building, his hand reaching up to clasp the web as his momentum carried him up and then pulled him down slightly, swinging from building to building. Down below he could see people wave at him now and again, some of them, probably Jameson fans, shaking their fists.
But most, really, didn't even bother to look up, staring down at their phones for the latest update from their social media feeds, the latest text from their friends, to watch a ten second video on tik tok or just to play a game to forget. In a way part of it was sad… not because he particularly wanted anyone to notice him specifically, but just… to notice something, anyway.
What did cause them to notice, though, was the sudden blare of a horn, the same thing that caused Spider-man's head to snap downwards mid swing and let go of the strand of webbing that he'd been holding onto, diving down towards the street below as his eyes took in the scene unfolding before him in a heartbeat.
In the space of an instant his eyes brushed over a dozen cars below him, locking on the source of the noise, a car trying to make a left hand turn recklessly, probably expecting that opposing traffic would – rather than cause an accident – be inclined just to get out of his way. Or at least that's how it looked on its face, a New Yorker being inconsiderate.
And were it not for the glowing patch of 6 inches or so of LCD screen, Peter might have thought the same thing.
Body reacting before his brain had a chance to process the scene, his hands reached out as both webshooters fired simultaneously, adhering to the ground and then retracted, tugging him violently towards the road in an attempt to close the distance faster than his body could actually fall. But all it did was give him a closer view of a scene of inevitability.
The driver, head focused on the glow of the screen veered further into oncoming traffic, his head only snapping up after a few heartbeats as seconds passed before his reaction time kicked in. The drivers in opposite lanes reacted faster, veering out of his way. But the tanker going the opposite way didn't quite manage it, the driver no doubt debating between whether veering into traffic to his right was less dangerous than letting the convertible hit him outright.
In the end he tried to pull to the right, only to have a panicked car attempting to get out of the way rear end him, the force of it enough to wedge the front of their car just slightly under his tire as he tried to turn.
By the time Peter landed, the tanker had already steered the wrong way into the turn and was lurching forward, the red "flammable: Grade 3" signs catching the street lights as it turned and started to lurch onto its side.
Somewhere in the back of Peter's mind it registered that a tanker like this weighed likely well over 10,000 pounds if full. But you couldn't think of those sorts of details overlong in the heat of the moment. Instead his eyes flicked to the building behind him, even as his other hand moved to shoot webbing at the top of the truck itself.
Barely a fraction of a second passed as Peter evaluated all of the options of points to tether to, gritting his teeth as he picked the best one and shot his webbing towards it. It wasn't ideal. Not near a major bridge, he didn't have much in the way of hard steel he could adhere to. There were light poles, but being made of lighter and lighter weight materials, they would bend and rip out of the ground long before they would stop a truck, by design.
The best he had to work with was to web the side of an office building with a wide burst, hold on, and hope that this truck was on the end of its run.
Come on, empty truckload… Peter thought as his forearms clenched and he gripped the webbing as tightly as he could manage in either hand.
Experience told him by the way he was jerked off the ground that it wouldn't be enough. There was too much weight hurtling down the street at this point, but the webslinger was committed as his hands gripped he web ropes, the sound of stretching filling the air around him right before screeching metal, like nails on a chalkboard began to permeate the air.
It wouldn't be the web that gave out first, though, nor would it be Spider-man himself. Grunting, Parker watched as several bricks tore loose from the building, the only real precursor to the webbing in one hand going slack as what it was tethered to pulled free.
With no anchor, plans had to change mid-air as the hero was shot forward by the momentum of the tanker lurching over and slamming onto its side, his body twisting in the air as he kicked his feet up towards the sky as he tugged at the webbing and pulled himself skyward, arching up over the tanker, his now free hand webbing the door to it to jerk him down onto the top of it as it began sliding along the road to a stop.
Sparks showered around the bottom of it, even as his hands sunk into the side of the door frame and jerked it loose, tossing it to the side as he shot into the cabin. Mercifully, even if stupidly, the driver of it wasn't wearing a seatbelt at all, which made it all the easier to pull him free from the cabin, toss him out into the air and web him to the side of a nearby building.
It would take the cops to get him down, but Peter had bigger problems at the moment. The convertible that had initially caused the accident was speeding off, but the car that had hit the truck was in bad shape, having flipped onto its top, the frame crumpled in such a way that there would be no crawling out the windows for the passengers trapped inside.
Oh yeah, and there was that small matter of the fluid from the tanker spilled all over the road with sparks showering down over it, a dozen small lights of flames coming to life. There wasn't any way that he could put out that many fires before one of them caught… and the second they did, those people trapped in the car were as good as dead.
Webbing himself over to the side of the car away from the spill, he eyed the door, gripping the plastic and metal as he tore it free, glancing at the passengers inside. One scrambled out of it even as he started tearing the second door off its hinges to free the passengers in the backseat. The way that things had bent, though, there would be no way they were getting out at the angle they were, unless…
Bracing against the ground his hands pressed to the frame and he pushed, rocking the car up onto one side with one hand, as his other moved to try to press against the frame and open it slightly wider for the people trying to scramble out.
"C'mon, move, move, move," Spider-man said, abandoning his normal calm as he noted the sparks that had littered the fluid on the street racing along the fluid towards the tanker, as his Spidey Sense, which had already been tingling, rose to an almost nauseating crescendo in his mind. He had a few heartbeats left, enough that the last person got free, and just enough to turn towards them and shoot a ball of projectile webbing at them hard enough to jerk them off of their feet and web them to the side of a building right before there was a flash.
He didn't see the tanker explode. He didn't feel the car between him and the tanker shoot backward from the blast and connect with his body, or the way that it connected with him, and like a glorified cue call send him flying towards the bumper of a building.
The world came back into focus in a haze of black spots, ringing, and pain.
Groaning, he noted that he did not hear the sound over the ringing, and his hand went to the back of his head, feeling at the mask. There wasn't much in the way of the bump, meaning that if he had a concussion it was likely due to the impact physics of his mind rattling around like a walnut inside of its shell, which while it didn't sound great was better than if there had been intense swelling.
As he blinked the spots from his eyes he could see the glow of the fire in the distance being doused by the NYC fire department as some of them spread chemical agents around to slow the spread of the fire. The fact that it appeared it was only a single alarm fire meant that it hadn't spread, at least.
Gritting his teeth he pulled himself to his feet after the ringing in his ears stopped, a fireman whirled around when he saw the movement. "Woah, easy there, Spider-man, we've got an ambulance on the way," the fireman said, moving to steady the super hero.
"No, need," the masked man said, trying to brush it off, "not my worst tussle with a brick wall."
The firefighter paused, and frowned. Peter recognized the look, it was the look everyone got when they knew they were being lied to by an authority figure, but didn't quite know how to respond to it. "You sure, Spidey?"
"Yeah, you should feel the sort of hits that Rhino throws at you when he gets really worked up," Spider-man responded lightly, and then paused, "actually on second thought, you shouldn't. I really would never recommend that at all…"
He paused, midway through his rambling, and added, "Is everyone else okay?"
"Few minor injuries, but it could have been a lot worse if you hadn't been here," The fireman offered with light smile, "It's not true what Jameson says about you, you know. This city is a better place with you in it."
It was times like this that Peter was glad that his mask could hide the frown on his features. Jameson was the last thing he wanted to think about now, no doubt by morning this would be a premier segment on his new… podcast, radio show, whatever he was calling it these days.
"Uh, thanks," Spider-man muttered, reaching upward as he gave the fireman a kind of awkward salute and then shot into the air.
Come to think of it, why DIDN'T firefighters have some sort of official salute?
The thought was disturbed by the sensation of the world lurching a bit as his body, still not quite ready to be web swinging again, protested as he landed on the side of a building and pulled his way up it. He waited until he was out of sight before he stumbled back down onto his hands and knees and took a long moment to breathe.
It was nearly a dozen minutes before he could actually move without the world seeming to lurch the second he tried it.
Swinging wasn't exactly fun, after that, but manageable at least, and the small mercy of the location was that he'd been fairly close to home. When he landed outside of his window he gave an extra moment to close his eyes and really feel to see if there was any tingling at all from his Spidey Sense before slipping into his apartment and tugging down the blind there.
As he stepped inside he felt his webshooter buzz and glanced at a seemingly broken clock in the corner, which turned from 12:00 to 12:01, and indicator that he'd been the first movement detected in the apartment since he'd left. A fairly simplified security measure, but… the last thing he needed in his life right now was to come home and find Electro hiding somewhere in the corner waiting for him.
The place safe, he finally let out a breath he'd been holding since he'd entered his apartment and reached down to finally tug his mask off, and then his chest piece, tossing them both on the couch in the middle of the apartment as he felt around the couch cushions for the remote and turned on the evening news.
Coverage of the Mets game was on, and so Peter made his way towards the bathroom to inspect the damage, glancing in the mirror at the reddened skin that would probably wind up being bruises within an hour or two.
Pausing, he went to lean on the sink to get a better look at himself, then remembered just in time that leaning on the sink would undoubtedly cause it to come loose from the wall entirely, given the state of quality of his particular apartment. At least he didn't have an eviction notice looming over this one.
Stripping the rest of the way he took a quick shower, just to get the chemical smell off. The normally unwelcome iciness of it, which took several minutes that Peter didn't want to spend before it would even heat up to lukewarm levels at least helped distract a bit from the bruising, and the ringing still in the back of his head.
When he emerged a few minutes later, he dried himself off, tugged on some clean boxer briefs and a robe and made his way out into the main room of his place again, where the news was still going on.
A shooting in Hell's Kitchen. Some sort of unexplained explosion in Midtown. A break-in in Queens.
He'd managed to save a couple of lives tonight, but there was always something else, always something he wound up missing. He told himself that he couldn't be everywhere all the time, but… some days, like today, it wound up feeling like what he did was a drop in the bucket compared to what the city could dish up.
The thought was just as sobering as the icy water from the shower, but far less comforting, he reflected as he slowly sank down onto the worn couch as he watched the news flicker from one story to another, leaning his head back as he stared up at the equally worn ceiling and let out a sigh before tightly closing his blue eyes.