They stood side by side, only a thin wall of lacquered wood dividing them.
Ravyn stared down, unsure of what to think. How to feel about.... this.
Beside him, Lethane finished up and then looked over the wall and down at the focus of the ex-hero's attention.
"Damn, man."
Rayvn looked at him sharply. "Don't say it."
Lethane said it. "That had to hurt."
The snap punch caught Leth in the jaw so hard, it sent him backwards through the stall behind him, over the toilet, through the stall beside that and into the tile wall beyond. He left a small crater in the concrete, slumping to the ground before the debris of his passage had even settled.
Raven flushed, straightened his clothes, and went back out to find Mic and work out how he was going to pay the damages.
On the floor, still seeing stars, the blue elf grinned past a split lip.
"Heh... totally worth it."
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Waking Up is Hard to Do
His mouth tasted like the floor mat of a New York cab.
"Whaaaa...."
That was the best he could do. He had wanted to ask, "What happened? I don't remember anything after taking that drink." but his tongue was completely uncooperative. His lips weren't much better. They were forming the right shapes but not in the right order. The next few sounds were so unintelligible even he wasn't sure what they meant.
Across the dimly lit room, there was a vague bit of motion. It caught his attention but, because of how utterly drained his muscles felt, all he could do was incline his head and try to focus on whatever it was without being able to lift his head.
Because of this exhausted paralysis Ravyn spectacularly failed to dodge the thrown cushion coming for his aching face.
FOOF!
"Sh'up!" That was a growl from somewhere the direction of the padded projectile. The snarl with which it was spoken meant the person talking could be only one person.
"Leth?"
FOOF!
A second cushion hammered the first one, shoving both into his head. Despite how soft they were, the force behind them made the impacts almost hurt.
"Shut up or I'm throwing the couch next, Duck."
From the sound of it, his blue-skinned shadow fatale was in some considerable pain. That almost gave him the strength to get up. Almost. He did manage to summon enough willpower to move his head from side to side, pushing the pillows into the floor so he could see again.
Whispering now, he asked, "Leth? Are you all right?"
The voice that answered him was hidden and muffled, apparently coming from a pile of shredded cloth and foam in the corner. It took Ravyn a few seconds to realize the debris was the remains of a second bed, several sheets and what appeared to be a waitress' uniform. Or two. Maybe three.
Damn.
"No, dumbass. I's hunged over... Ummm... I'm hunged over. Feh. Hung overed." There was a snarl of frustration accompanied by the sleepy groans of at least two different people. "I was drunk. Now I ain't."
"Ah... I understand."
Leth's voice became a hiss. "You understand... and yet you still keep talking."
Ravyn fell silent, lifting his head just enough to regard the room more closely. There was a small pile of empty shot glasses on what was left of a table in the corner. He dimly wondered how the table could be such a wreck by the glasses still stacked neatly. He decided not to question that too much; it made his head hurt.
Actually, come to think of it, everything made his head hurt right now. His own breathing was really loud. There was a low, thundering noise that smashed painfully against his skull, making him wince in anguish.
So this was the downside of drinking. Before everything in his life changed, his incredibly fast metabolism made such things inconsequential. He could get drunk and sober in the space of a few minutes, none the worse for it. He had never experienced a hang over. This was an entirely new sensation.
It didn't take him long to decide something.
He never wanted to feel this again.
He looked around again, partially out of a growing need to do something unfortunate off the side of the bed but mostly because his awakening body - particularly his chest - was starting to send him some very odd signals.
"Leth?" He spoke as quietly as he could, only daring to make any sound because the question he needed to ask was one of dire import - one that truly had to be asked immediately.
"I will kill you. Don't doubt it, Duck."
"Just one thing, Leth..."
"Then will you shut up?" There was another groan, this one male. Apparently not all of those shredded clothes were from waitresses.
"I will."
"Good." The shredded lust nest moved a bit, eventually disgorging Leth's face from between a tangle of arms draped over him. "What?"
"I remember coming here to the bar."
The elf nodded, a black lace bra strap hooked over his right ear. "Yeah?"
"And I remember taking that drink... the Purgatory stuff..."
Leth nodded, his increasingly annoyed expression slightly mollified by the patterns of lipstick smeared all over his face. "Yeah?"
"I even think I remember passing out."
"Please, Duck. For the love of Elune would you get to the bloody point?"
Ravyn sighed, more than a little embarrassed by the next question. "I don't remember going out and getting this tattoo."
There was a slight grin from the elf now, his irritation gone for the moment. "Oh, the Anarchy symbol? Yeah. I figured you'd like it." Lethane rummaged around in the bed pile near him and lifted a sleeping woman's head up by her hair. "Beth here does good work, huh?"
Ravyn groaned. The mark, though painful, was not unattractive. It was several shades of red, fading from near black to blood red to crimson to a bright scarlet near the tips of each line. It was bigger than he'd have liked, covering his entire upper chest and extending down a little past his ribs. Still, it wasn't terribly painful. Compared to his pounding migraine, it was almost a relief to feel.
"Yes... I guess she does. Sorry, Leth. I'll be quiet now." He was getting tired again anyhow. Perhaps a long nap and a cold shower afterwards would kill the evil of this hang over.
"No problem, big guy."
Then, after a long silence, Leth added, "I was afraid you were going to ask about your new piercing."
.
..
...
"WHAT!?!?!"
"Whaaaa...."
That was the best he could do. He had wanted to ask, "What happened? I don't remember anything after taking that drink." but his tongue was completely uncooperative. His lips weren't much better. They were forming the right shapes but not in the right order. The next few sounds were so unintelligible even he wasn't sure what they meant.
Across the dimly lit room, there was a vague bit of motion. It caught his attention but, because of how utterly drained his muscles felt, all he could do was incline his head and try to focus on whatever it was without being able to lift his head.
Because of this exhausted paralysis Ravyn spectacularly failed to dodge the thrown cushion coming for his aching face.
FOOF!
"Sh'up!" That was a growl from somewhere the direction of the padded projectile. The snarl with which it was spoken meant the person talking could be only one person.
"Leth?"
FOOF!
A second cushion hammered the first one, shoving both into his head. Despite how soft they were, the force behind them made the impacts almost hurt.
"Shut up or I'm throwing the couch next, Duck."
From the sound of it, his blue-skinned shadow fatale was in some considerable pain. That almost gave him the strength to get up. Almost. He did manage to summon enough willpower to move his head from side to side, pushing the pillows into the floor so he could see again.
Whispering now, he asked, "Leth? Are you all right?"
The voice that answered him was hidden and muffled, apparently coming from a pile of shredded cloth and foam in the corner. It took Ravyn a few seconds to realize the debris was the remains of a second bed, several sheets and what appeared to be a waitress' uniform. Or two. Maybe three.
Damn.
"No, dumbass. I's hunged over... Ummm... I'm hunged over. Feh. Hung overed." There was a snarl of frustration accompanied by the sleepy groans of at least two different people. "I was drunk. Now I ain't."
"Ah... I understand."
Leth's voice became a hiss. "You understand... and yet you still keep talking."
Ravyn fell silent, lifting his head just enough to regard the room more closely. There was a small pile of empty shot glasses on what was left of a table in the corner. He dimly wondered how the table could be such a wreck by the glasses still stacked neatly. He decided not to question that too much; it made his head hurt.
Actually, come to think of it, everything made his head hurt right now. His own breathing was really loud. There was a low, thundering noise that smashed painfully against his skull, making him wince in anguish.
So this was the downside of drinking. Before everything in his life changed, his incredibly fast metabolism made such things inconsequential. He could get drunk and sober in the space of a few minutes, none the worse for it. He had never experienced a hang over. This was an entirely new sensation.
It didn't take him long to decide something.
He never wanted to feel this again.
He looked around again, partially out of a growing need to do something unfortunate off the side of the bed but mostly because his awakening body - particularly his chest - was starting to send him some very odd signals.
"Leth?" He spoke as quietly as he could, only daring to make any sound because the question he needed to ask was one of dire import - one that truly had to be asked immediately.
"I will kill you. Don't doubt it, Duck."
"Just one thing, Leth..."
"Then will you shut up?" There was another groan, this one male. Apparently not all of those shredded clothes were from waitresses.
"I will."
"Good." The shredded lust nest moved a bit, eventually disgorging Leth's face from between a tangle of arms draped over him. "What?"
"I remember coming here to the bar."
The elf nodded, a black lace bra strap hooked over his right ear. "Yeah?"
"And I remember taking that drink... the Purgatory stuff..."
Leth nodded, his increasingly annoyed expression slightly mollified by the patterns of lipstick smeared all over his face. "Yeah?"
"I even think I remember passing out."
"Please, Duck. For the love of Elune would you get to the bloody point?"
Ravyn sighed, more than a little embarrassed by the next question. "I don't remember going out and getting this tattoo."
There was a slight grin from the elf now, his irritation gone for the moment. "Oh, the Anarchy symbol? Yeah. I figured you'd like it." Lethane rummaged around in the bed pile near him and lifted a sleeping woman's head up by her hair. "Beth here does good work, huh?"
Ravyn groaned. The mark, though painful, was not unattractive. It was several shades of red, fading from near black to blood red to crimson to a bright scarlet near the tips of each line. It was bigger than he'd have liked, covering his entire upper chest and extending down a little past his ribs. Still, it wasn't terribly painful. Compared to his pounding migraine, it was almost a relief to feel.
"Yes... I guess she does. Sorry, Leth. I'll be quiet now." He was getting tired again anyhow. Perhaps a long nap and a cold shower afterwards would kill the evil of this hang over.
"No problem, big guy."
Then, after a long silence, Leth added, "I was afraid you were going to ask about your new piercing."
.
..
...
"WHAT!?!?!"
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Needs
They walked in, both clad in black leather. The taller of the two, Lethane was wearing only a belt harness on his heavily muscled chest, the strap across his pecs framing his ripped upper body nicely. Blue skin moved beneath night black leather, oiled by a sheen of sweat from the warm weather of the night outside.
Behind him, dressed in a thin, torn white shirt and a silver-zipper lined black jacket and an identical set of motorcyclist's pants to the massive elf, Ravyn walked in slowly, standing in Leth's shadow in a pair of metal-plated biker boots and fingerless riding gloves.
Every head in the room turned, mostly because Armistice was not exactly the kind of bar that catered to men dressed this way. That bar was a little further down the street. Brothers, as the bar in question was called, was usually packed and would not have blinked an artfully-made up eye at their clothes.
The crowd in Armistice, being mostly white-collar types and the occasional supervillain willing to mind his or her manners, most definitely did.
One customer, a bit deep in his cups, opened his mouth to say as much as immediately closed it again. There was just something about Lethane's sudden look down at him that instilled a sudden caution, even in the most inebriated of people. Likely, it was the intense glee in Leth's glowing eyes. The look that just screamed, "Please! Please say something! I haven't killed a bitch in hours! Please oh please!"
They wanted up to the bar amid a dozen stares, a couple of which were open hunger from the establishment's female regulars. The waitress on staff, a lovely woman with a shirt two sizes too small and a smile at least one size too big at the sight of Leth's muscular chest, nearly dropped her tray and had to scramble to keep from pouring gin and tonics on her customers.
"So, what'll you have, mates?"
Lethane leaned against the bar, giving the waitress a good show as his back and shoulders rippled. "My usual and a Shirley Temple for the little lady."
Ravyn looked at Leth and sighed then back to the bartender with a shake of his head. "I need something painful. Something toxic enough that if I spilled it, I'd have to fill out an Environmental Impact Form."
Mic, the man on duty behind the bar tonight, laughed and nodded. "I know just the poison. No worries there." He went to work immediately, pulling out several bottles of opaque glass and setting them on the counter top. For Leth's drink, he just uncorked one of them, filled a glass and slid it to the big man's blue hand.
Leth picked it up, tipped it Mic's direction in silent thanks and downed it. The liquid in the double shot glass, for all of the three seconds it lasted, was lavender and steamed slightly on contact with the air.
Ravyn's drink was considerably more complex. Mic poured out several layers, one atop another, in a champagne flute. While Lethane obvious wanted to say something about the 'sissy' nature of the glass, the effort of the red-haired barkeep was holding his attention too much to do so. One by one, the layers floated over each other, a spectrum of dark and light.
"Here you go, sir. Just what you asked for."
Ravyn picked up the flute carefully, not wanting to disturb the drink. "Is it a shooter?"
Mic chuckled. "I'd recommend that, yeah. It's called a Purgatory. I really think you'll like it." Even as he spoke, the efficient Irishman was refilling Leth's glass.
"Interesting name," Ravyn told him, still obviously regarding the drink with some trepidation.
"Indeed it is. It's a little bit of Heaven, a little bit of Hell." Mic gave Leth a third round as he started setting up his bottles for another pass and wiped down the counter. "I tell you what. You down that and if you're still vertical in one minute, the next one's on the house."
"After last night, I almost hope I lose that bet." Ravyn closed his eyes, brought the glass to his lips and threw his head back in a long, quick draught. The flute emptied past his lips, each layer mingling with the others into a caustic looking black morass before hitting his tongue. From the sudden look of gastronomic terror on Ravyn's face, it must have tasted like one too.
He opened his eyes, the good one disfocused for a moment, and set the glass carefully back on its small coaster. "That..."
"Words can't describe it, eh?"
Leth looked between Ravyn and Mic, curious now. "Well, how was it? Was it good? Was it bad? Are you gonna die?"
In response, all Mic did was hold up a stop watch and press its button. Seconds began to tick past.
00:05
Ravyn turned his head to regard Lethane, his mouth still apparently chewing the taste. "It was like a car crash in my throat." He shuddered. "I can't really describe the flavor. There wasn't just one. It was like... licking a candy store after a four-alarm fire."
Mic laughed. "Good description. Best one I've heard all month."
00:16
Growling, Leth picked up the empty flute and unabashedly tried to sample what little was left at the bottom. The sight of his long violet tongue snaking down the tall glass was enough to make the waitress nearby groan and walk headlong into someone coming out of the restroom.
"It... tastes like nothing. Nothing at all." Lethane's thick eyebrows furrowed. "It's like black water in here."
The barkeep nodded and took the glass back, smiling knowingly. "The drink has a half life. A few seconds after it mixes, it breaks down."
00:29
Ravyn sighed deeply. "Well, I got the taste all right but that's about it. It felt like alcohol going down but now..." He shrugged. "There's no burn at all." He rapped his fingers once on the bar top, looking down at his hands as his eye eased back into full focus. "It was heady for a second but that's about it."
00:42
"Line us up some tequila shots, Mic." Lethane grinned. "Some bottled Mexican anger might do where your uber-drink failed. No offense, but some things are just classics for a reason."
Ravyn nodded as Mic turned his back to grab a bottle of good 15 year old agave tequila from the top shelf over Armistice's wall-length mirror. "I agree. I am just not feeling it. I suppose my body's not remotely human any more..." He trailed off, remembering what happened to him in that alley. With Fortress. And all the blood.
Lethane grinned and rubbed his hands at the sight of six small glasses, lined up in a row on the bar with golden liquor goodness pouring into each one. "Don't take it personal, Mic. He's just a freak. But I'll take his freebie if you don't mind."
Mic held up the stop watch and punched its button again, turning it around to show Lethane the dial.
00:58
"Bah!" The blue elf scoffed. "Don't go cheap on me now, man. Ravyn's fine, see?" He turned to face an empty bar stool. "Ummm... Rave?"
Looking down, he saw his drinking partner on the floor of the bar, dead to the world unconscious with a look of half bliss, half horror on his slack face. The occasional twitch shook through him, a thin line of drool running past his parted lips and down his cheek.
"Oh, that's attractive."
Mic nodded, that Gaelic grin of his getting wider. "He'll be out for a bit, mate. Perhaps we should get him upstairs to a bed for a while, aye?"
Leth sighed, looking down at Sleeping Scary. "Yeah, I guess..."
"After my tequila." He reached out, scooped the passing waitress up into his lap with only a tiny gasp of protest, and stuck the first shot glass in her ample cleavage before going face first after it.
"Ole'!"
Behind him, dressed in a thin, torn white shirt and a silver-zipper lined black jacket and an identical set of motorcyclist's pants to the massive elf, Ravyn walked in slowly, standing in Leth's shadow in a pair of metal-plated biker boots and fingerless riding gloves.
Every head in the room turned, mostly because Armistice was not exactly the kind of bar that catered to men dressed this way. That bar was a little further down the street. Brothers, as the bar in question was called, was usually packed and would not have blinked an artfully-made up eye at their clothes.
The crowd in Armistice, being mostly white-collar types and the occasional supervillain willing to mind his or her manners, most definitely did.
One customer, a bit deep in his cups, opened his mouth to say as much as immediately closed it again. There was just something about Lethane's sudden look down at him that instilled a sudden caution, even in the most inebriated of people. Likely, it was the intense glee in Leth's glowing eyes. The look that just screamed, "Please! Please say something! I haven't killed a bitch in hours! Please oh please!"
They wanted up to the bar amid a dozen stares, a couple of which were open hunger from the establishment's female regulars. The waitress on staff, a lovely woman with a shirt two sizes too small and a smile at least one size too big at the sight of Leth's muscular chest, nearly dropped her tray and had to scramble to keep from pouring gin and tonics on her customers.
"So, what'll you have, mates?"
Lethane leaned against the bar, giving the waitress a good show as his back and shoulders rippled. "My usual and a Shirley Temple for the little lady."
Ravyn looked at Leth and sighed then back to the bartender with a shake of his head. "I need something painful. Something toxic enough that if I spilled it, I'd have to fill out an Environmental Impact Form."
Mic, the man on duty behind the bar tonight, laughed and nodded. "I know just the poison. No worries there." He went to work immediately, pulling out several bottles of opaque glass and setting them on the counter top. For Leth's drink, he just uncorked one of them, filled a glass and slid it to the big man's blue hand.
Leth picked it up, tipped it Mic's direction in silent thanks and downed it. The liquid in the double shot glass, for all of the three seconds it lasted, was lavender and steamed slightly on contact with the air.
Ravyn's drink was considerably more complex. Mic poured out several layers, one atop another, in a champagne flute. While Lethane obvious wanted to say something about the 'sissy' nature of the glass, the effort of the red-haired barkeep was holding his attention too much to do so. One by one, the layers floated over each other, a spectrum of dark and light.
"Here you go, sir. Just what you asked for."
Ravyn picked up the flute carefully, not wanting to disturb the drink. "Is it a shooter?"
Mic chuckled. "I'd recommend that, yeah. It's called a Purgatory. I really think you'll like it." Even as he spoke, the efficient Irishman was refilling Leth's glass.
"Interesting name," Ravyn told him, still obviously regarding the drink with some trepidation.
"Indeed it is. It's a little bit of Heaven, a little bit of Hell." Mic gave Leth a third round as he started setting up his bottles for another pass and wiped down the counter. "I tell you what. You down that and if you're still vertical in one minute, the next one's on the house."
"After last night, I almost hope I lose that bet." Ravyn closed his eyes, brought the glass to his lips and threw his head back in a long, quick draught. The flute emptied past his lips, each layer mingling with the others into a caustic looking black morass before hitting his tongue. From the sudden look of gastronomic terror on Ravyn's face, it must have tasted like one too.
He opened his eyes, the good one disfocused for a moment, and set the glass carefully back on its small coaster. "That..."
"Words can't describe it, eh?"
Leth looked between Ravyn and Mic, curious now. "Well, how was it? Was it good? Was it bad? Are you gonna die?"
In response, all Mic did was hold up a stop watch and press its button. Seconds began to tick past.
00:05
Ravyn turned his head to regard Lethane, his mouth still apparently chewing the taste. "It was like a car crash in my throat." He shuddered. "I can't really describe the flavor. There wasn't just one. It was like... licking a candy store after a four-alarm fire."
Mic laughed. "Good description. Best one I've heard all month."
00:16
Growling, Leth picked up the empty flute and unabashedly tried to sample what little was left at the bottom. The sight of his long violet tongue snaking down the tall glass was enough to make the waitress nearby groan and walk headlong into someone coming out of the restroom.
"It... tastes like nothing. Nothing at all." Lethane's thick eyebrows furrowed. "It's like black water in here."
The barkeep nodded and took the glass back, smiling knowingly. "The drink has a half life. A few seconds after it mixes, it breaks down."
00:29
Ravyn sighed deeply. "Well, I got the taste all right but that's about it. It felt like alcohol going down but now..." He shrugged. "There's no burn at all." He rapped his fingers once on the bar top, looking down at his hands as his eye eased back into full focus. "It was heady for a second but that's about it."
00:42
"Line us up some tequila shots, Mic." Lethane grinned. "Some bottled Mexican anger might do where your uber-drink failed. No offense, but some things are just classics for a reason."
Ravyn nodded as Mic turned his back to grab a bottle of good 15 year old agave tequila from the top shelf over Armistice's wall-length mirror. "I agree. I am just not feeling it. I suppose my body's not remotely human any more..." He trailed off, remembering what happened to him in that alley. With Fortress. And all the blood.
Lethane grinned and rubbed his hands at the sight of six small glasses, lined up in a row on the bar with golden liquor goodness pouring into each one. "Don't take it personal, Mic. He's just a freak. But I'll take his freebie if you don't mind."
Mic held up the stop watch and punched its button again, turning it around to show Lethane the dial.
00:58
"Bah!" The blue elf scoffed. "Don't go cheap on me now, man. Ravyn's fine, see?" He turned to face an empty bar stool. "Ummm... Rave?"
Looking down, he saw his drinking partner on the floor of the bar, dead to the world unconscious with a look of half bliss, half horror on his slack face. The occasional twitch shook through him, a thin line of drool running past his parted lips and down his cheek.
"Oh, that's attractive."
Mic nodded, that Gaelic grin of his getting wider. "He'll be out for a bit, mate. Perhaps we should get him upstairs to a bed for a while, aye?"
Leth sighed, looking down at Sleeping Scary. "Yeah, I guess..."
"After my tequila." He reached out, scooped the passing waitress up into his lap with only a tiny gasp of protest, and stuck the first shot glass in her ample cleavage before going face first after it.
"Ole'!"
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Uncomfortable Conversations
There was no delaying the inevitable. He had to tell her.
Teravolt reached for the rarely used button on his overhead console. His hovering chair revolved to bring it into easier reach but that did not make it any less of an effort to actually push. How long had it been since he'd last seen her? Two weeks? Three?
Did it matter? Everything was threatening to fall apart, no matter how hard he tried to save it. It was ironic really; he could manipulate electricity down to affecting the subatomic charges between quantum particles but he couldn't control the people in his life. He hated having no control. He hated it with a rage he only reserved for one other thing.
HIM.
Even all but dead and forgotten, Ravyn had dominated the last decade of his life. Of all their lives. No matter what he accomplished, no matter how much Teravolt did for the world or for himself, nothing ever quite measured up. This immortal life was a worse hell than the one he'd escaped all those years ago. If he'd known then what the Beast's bargain would cost...
No matter. He pushed those thoughts out of his head. The past was gone. And soon enough, he'd dispose of its sole remaining legacy.
But for now, there was a call to make. He pushed the button.
As usual, there was no video. She never showed him her face any more. He didn't care if she was burned, he didn't care about the scars. He only wanted to see her. But Anthem... he corrected himself... Requiem never let anyone see her now. He did not even know where she was. That had been part of the divorce settlement.
"What is it?"
He sighed, knowing that was as polite as she would be. "Hello to you too, Ann." He used her real name, a slight dig at her to make himself feel better. He knew she hated it. Probably as much as she hated him.
She disconnected the call. He called back.
"What is it?"
"I wanted to talk to you."
"I don't want to talk to you."
"It's important. Please hear me out." He hated how much he bent for her, how deferent he acted in her presence. He had dozens of lovers that he used like toys but her... She was always the one who could make him crawl. Make him weep. Damn her for that.
"Fine. Be quick."
It was better than getting hung up on again. "Bulwark's gone. He's been killed." Of all the answers she could have given, the one he expected least was the one she gave.
"I know."
"You... you know?" He didn't like surprises. Especially not from her.
"He and I still converse on occasion. He has not returned one of my calls. The only reason for his delay would be illness or death. Since we cannot be ill, it follows that he is dead."
Still stunned, he asked quietly, "Do you know how he died?"
There was a long pause before her reply, long enough that he began to question her eventual answer of, "No."
"I have the incident recorded on surveillance. Do you want to see it?"
"Yes." That came quickly, almost too quickly. Ann had never hidden the fact that she was closer to Bulwark than him but he had never had cause to suspect they were working together against him. Now... no. That made no sense. Ann might have been that sneaky but Bulwark did not have a subtle bone in his huge, crippled body.
He was being paranoid again. Time to up his dosage. Again.
"All right. I'll upload the footage now." A few mental commands to his computer and the send was complete. "Done."
"Received."
He sighed again. "Ann.... Dammit, Requiem?" He hated the name, mostly because he knew why she'd chosen it. And for whom. It did make him smile a bit to know that as soon as she saw the data feed, she'd see the bastard kill Bulwark. That should nicely hurt her. He loved the woman but part of him wanted her to feel like he did. Hollow. All the time.
"What?"
"I mis-"
The connection terminated.
By the time the lightning storm finished raging through his office, there was virtually nothing left of it. Only a smoldering room, a hovering sphere and a man within it shedding crackling tears for a life he could never regain...
Teravolt reached for the rarely used button on his overhead console. His hovering chair revolved to bring it into easier reach but that did not make it any less of an effort to actually push. How long had it been since he'd last seen her? Two weeks? Three?
Did it matter? Everything was threatening to fall apart, no matter how hard he tried to save it. It was ironic really; he could manipulate electricity down to affecting the subatomic charges between quantum particles but he couldn't control the people in his life. He hated having no control. He hated it with a rage he only reserved for one other thing.
HIM.
Even all but dead and forgotten, Ravyn had dominated the last decade of his life. Of all their lives. No matter what he accomplished, no matter how much Teravolt did for the world or for himself, nothing ever quite measured up. This immortal life was a worse hell than the one he'd escaped all those years ago. If he'd known then what the Beast's bargain would cost...
No matter. He pushed those thoughts out of his head. The past was gone. And soon enough, he'd dispose of its sole remaining legacy.
But for now, there was a call to make. He pushed the button.
As usual, there was no video. She never showed him her face any more. He didn't care if she was burned, he didn't care about the scars. He only wanted to see her. But Anthem... he corrected himself... Requiem never let anyone see her now. He did not even know where she was. That had been part of the divorce settlement.
"What is it?"
He sighed, knowing that was as polite as she would be. "Hello to you too, Ann." He used her real name, a slight dig at her to make himself feel better. He knew she hated it. Probably as much as she hated him.
She disconnected the call. He called back.
"What is it?"
"I wanted to talk to you."
"I don't want to talk to you."
"It's important. Please hear me out." He hated how much he bent for her, how deferent he acted in her presence. He had dozens of lovers that he used like toys but her... She was always the one who could make him crawl. Make him weep. Damn her for that.
"Fine. Be quick."
It was better than getting hung up on again. "Bulwark's gone. He's been killed." Of all the answers she could have given, the one he expected least was the one she gave.
"I know."
"You... you know?" He didn't like surprises. Especially not from her.
"He and I still converse on occasion. He has not returned one of my calls. The only reason for his delay would be illness or death. Since we cannot be ill, it follows that he is dead."
Still stunned, he asked quietly, "Do you know how he died?"
There was a long pause before her reply, long enough that he began to question her eventual answer of, "No."
"I have the incident recorded on surveillance. Do you want to see it?"
"Yes." That came quickly, almost too quickly. Ann had never hidden the fact that she was closer to Bulwark than him but he had never had cause to suspect they were working together against him. Now... no. That made no sense. Ann might have been that sneaky but Bulwark did not have a subtle bone in his huge, crippled body.
He was being paranoid again. Time to up his dosage. Again.
"All right. I'll upload the footage now." A few mental commands to his computer and the send was complete. "Done."
"Received."
He sighed again. "Ann.... Dammit, Requiem?" He hated the name, mostly because he knew why she'd chosen it. And for whom. It did make him smile a bit to know that as soon as she saw the data feed, she'd see the bastard kill Bulwark. That should nicely hurt her. He loved the woman but part of him wanted her to feel like he did. Hollow. All the time.
"What?"
"I mis-"
The connection terminated.
By the time the lightning storm finished raging through his office, there was virtually nothing left of it. Only a smoldering room, a hovering sphere and a man within it shedding crackling tears for a life he could never regain...
Dreams of Avarice
At a touch, he opened the sliding door and stepped into the huge office beyond. As he expected, the room was lit with the eerie electric glow of the Ambiance Chamber high above his head. His employer was awake, even at this ungodly hour.
"Sir, one of your surveillance probes is back. Shall I..."
The micro-speakers embedded in the sensor nodes of the Chamber all echoed Teravolt's voice at the same time. The reverberations and volume made the man sound like some kind of wrathful god. Of course, Randall had been here when his boss requested that they be installed for exactly that reason but knowing Teravolt was an arrogant ass didn't make the man any less impressive.
"Upload it."
Impressive or not, his employer's habit of finishing his sentences was as annoying as ever. Randall moved quickly though; he was well acquainted with the fact that when Teravolt become agitated, "uncontrollable" arcs of static sometimes jolted people in his office. Randall had some personal issues with just how uncontrollable these arcs were...
...but nothing he'd say aloud. No one had ever died from them. Well, there had been that one maid, but she was old and she'd had a heart condition. His boss had even directed him to send cheap flowers to her funeral. Touching, really.
Reaching the main console of the room's computer array, Randall extended a spooled lead from from the probe's spherical casing and attached it quickly. The rest was automated. All Randall had to do was wait for the audio/visual to upload and stand near a large metal object in the hopes that it would ground out his boss's displeasure. Just in case.
As the minutes crawled past in total silence from above, Randall creeped inches closer to the steel computer console. When the calm lasted far longer than the length of data on the probe, Randall seriously began considering getting behind the console instead. Even the Ambiance Chamber was motionless; its inner rings stationary.
It was never a good thing for Teravolt to be this quiet this long.
Never.
"Randall."
He looked up from his near-hiding place. "Yes, sir?"
"Has anyone else seen this footage?"
Oh, hell. He'd been with Arachnos long enough to know that question and what tended to happen to people moments after answering it. Not good. Not good. He started surveying the room, plotting out exits and how much cover he could get on his run out.
There wasn't a lot. He was pretty much screwed. No sense keeping the boss waiting.
"No one, sir."
"Good."
As the word thundered through the room, one of the Chamber's emitters began to glow, building up what Randall well knew was a lethal charge. It could hit him no matter where he stood in the room, even blasting through the computer console if it powered up long enough. He was going to have to make a break for it. In his years on the Rogue Isles, he'd only seen one person answer that question and live. Everyone else had ended up as Snake food...
Wait. One person had lived! What was their answer again?
Randall cleared his throat. "Not even me, sir. I brought it to you unaccessed. I thought you'd want to be the first to see what it contained." He held his breath, not sure if that would stave off his boss' obvious intentions.
It wasn't a lie. Randall treated everything at TeraCorp on a need to know basis and as often as possible he made sure he had no need to know.
The emitter discharged, sending a massive arc of lightning straight down into the office's mirror-bright platinum collector array. From there, the captured current would be channeled into the building's underground capacitors and stored for use. The Ambiance Chamber released its charge that way four of five times a day, but had that been his employer's intention this time?
Randall honestly didn't want to know. He was alive and intact. That was enough for him. One doesn't work for TeraCorp without a certain amount of "flexibility".
"Will that be all, sir?"
"Not quite. When you get back to your desk, I need the following things handled immediately. Consider them EOD priorities."
Randall sighed. It was already 6:21 AM. His night shift ended twenty minutes ago, technically. Since EOD stood for End of Day, it looked like he'd be here a while. Oh well, as they said at6 Fort Darwin, "Sleep is for the weak."
"Find out if out contract cancellations with Fortress 500 have reached Legal. If they haven't, make sure they don't. Immediately reassign any F-500 personnel we have to the facility in Terra del Fuego."
"Very good, sir. Anything else."
"I want every available share of Fortress 500 purchased and in my control by Market Close. There's a dossier on your desktop now. That person has a 5% margin of stock. I need those shares. You know what to do."
Randall sighed. This was going to take all day. "Very good, sir. Shall I make sure we send flowers after the body is discovered?" He was already walking out, making notes on the PDA mounting in his artificial arm.
"Of course. Cheap ones."
"Sir, one of your surveillance probes is back. Shall I..."
The micro-speakers embedded in the sensor nodes of the Chamber all echoed Teravolt's voice at the same time. The reverberations and volume made the man sound like some kind of wrathful god. Of course, Randall had been here when his boss requested that they be installed for exactly that reason but knowing Teravolt was an arrogant ass didn't make the man any less impressive.
"Upload it."
Impressive or not, his employer's habit of finishing his sentences was as annoying as ever. Randall moved quickly though; he was well acquainted with the fact that when Teravolt become agitated, "uncontrollable" arcs of static sometimes jolted people in his office. Randall had some personal issues with just how uncontrollable these arcs were...
...but nothing he'd say aloud. No one had ever died from them. Well, there had been that one maid, but she was old and she'd had a heart condition. His boss had even directed him to send cheap flowers to her funeral. Touching, really.
Reaching the main console of the room's computer array, Randall extended a spooled lead from from the probe's spherical casing and attached it quickly. The rest was automated. All Randall had to do was wait for the audio/visual to upload and stand near a large metal object in the hopes that it would ground out his boss's displeasure. Just in case.
As the minutes crawled past in total silence from above, Randall creeped inches closer to the steel computer console. When the calm lasted far longer than the length of data on the probe, Randall seriously began considering getting behind the console instead. Even the Ambiance Chamber was motionless; its inner rings stationary.
It was never a good thing for Teravolt to be this quiet this long.
Never.
"Randall."
He looked up from his near-hiding place. "Yes, sir?"
"Has anyone else seen this footage?"
Oh, hell. He'd been with Arachnos long enough to know that question and what tended to happen to people moments after answering it. Not good. Not good. He started surveying the room, plotting out exits and how much cover he could get on his run out.
There wasn't a lot. He was pretty much screwed. No sense keeping the boss waiting.
"No one, sir."
"Good."
As the word thundered through the room, one of the Chamber's emitters began to glow, building up what Randall well knew was a lethal charge. It could hit him no matter where he stood in the room, even blasting through the computer console if it powered up long enough. He was going to have to make a break for it. In his years on the Rogue Isles, he'd only seen one person answer that question and live. Everyone else had ended up as Snake food...
Wait. One person had lived! What was their answer again?
Randall cleared his throat. "Not even me, sir. I brought it to you unaccessed. I thought you'd want to be the first to see what it contained." He held his breath, not sure if that would stave off his boss' obvious intentions.
It wasn't a lie. Randall treated everything at TeraCorp on a need to know basis and as often as possible he made sure he had no need to know.
The emitter discharged, sending a massive arc of lightning straight down into the office's mirror-bright platinum collector array. From there, the captured current would be channeled into the building's underground capacitors and stored for use. The Ambiance Chamber released its charge that way four of five times a day, but had that been his employer's intention this time?
Randall honestly didn't want to know. He was alive and intact. That was enough for him. One doesn't work for TeraCorp without a certain amount of "flexibility".
"Will that be all, sir?"
"Not quite. When you get back to your desk, I need the following things handled immediately. Consider them EOD priorities."
Randall sighed. It was already 6:21 AM. His night shift ended twenty minutes ago, technically. Since EOD stood for End of Day, it looked like he'd be here a while. Oh well, as they said at6 Fort Darwin, "Sleep is for the weak."
"Find out if out contract cancellations with Fortress 500 have reached Legal. If they haven't, make sure they don't. Immediately reassign any F-500 personnel we have to the facility in Terra del Fuego."
"Very good, sir. Anything else."
"I want every available share of Fortress 500 purchased and in my control by Market Close. There's a dossier on your desktop now. That person has a 5% margin of stock. I need those shares. You know what to do."
Randall sighed. This was going to take all day. "Very good, sir. Shall I make sure we send flowers after the body is discovered?" He was already walking out, making notes on the PDA mounting in his artificial arm.
"Of course. Cheap ones."
Sunday, October 14, 2007
A Rage of Brothers
He looked up from the impromptu metal coffin surrounding him, closed as it was by a lid of meat. The taste of blood was in his mouth but it wasn't his. Not entirely his, at any rate. It was human and it was still warm.
With a testing shrug of his broad shoulders, Lethane forced his way, light finally streaming in on his face once he threw the heavy sacks of flesh off him. "Why are there bodies on top of me?"
While there were no immediate answers to why two men dressed in Penumbra uniforms were dead over where he'd crashed through the wall of the warehouse, their faces bleeding from every pore and their ears leaking, he other things to worry about...
Like ducking the incoming piece of burning metal before it ripped through him!
Diving to the alley street and rolling out of the way, he came back up in a shadowed corner and shook his head. Not usually one to hide, he was still disoriented by the shock of the attack that had flung him like a rage doll. Again.
Again!
Leth snarled and clenched his hands, letting his sharp nails rake the air in quiet fury. That was the second time in as many weeks he'd been jumped from behind. Watching after the boy scout was obviously dulling his survival instincts. He was getting soft, something he was damned well not going to let happen.
He knew who was responsible for this. Thus, he knew who was going to die. Fortress was a walking corpse. The cripple just didn't know it yet. As soon as Lethane got his claws on the big bastard, the CEO of Fortress 500 was going home 'some assembly required'.
Another shard of burning steel, this one melting even as it hissed through the air past his hiding place, got Leth's attention and snapped him out of his violent musing. Following the glowing streak of plasma and metal vapor backwards, he caught of sight of what was making such a flaming mess...
-------------
The main stretch of alley between the warehouse and whatever sad, incendiary building was being gutted by fire across the way was cracked, glowing and utterly ruined. In the middle of the destruction, two massive figures were locked in vicious combat, blood and lava flowing in equal parts down the battling titans.
One was mostly clad in metal, alloyed plates that had once been silver but were now blackened and burned. What sections of flesh could be seen through the rents in the powered suit were nearly ashen, seared and cooking from the superheated metal shoved violently into every jagged breach. Very little was left intact on Fortress' steel outer body; every limb was missing panels and much of his reinforced chest was either caved in or melting away.
And glad as Lethane was to see the 'hero' in such distress, his pleasure was tempered with surprise by the other... thing... in the pit with Fortress.
Whatever it was, it was wearing Ravyn's armor. Or, more accurately, pieces of it. The creature was easily as tall as Fortress, placing it at nine feet with its legs slightly bent. Feet and hands both ended in talons of black bone, razor sharp if the rents in Fortress' chest and helmet were any indication. Rising out of the fiend's back, huge leathern wings arched like scythes overhead.
They weren't the only things sharp about what was fighting the ex-paragon. The crimson scaled beast was completely reptilian but still humanoid, like a Snake but far more dangerous-looking. It had a tail with dark, sweeping blades at its end and a row of night-black spines piercing out the back of its barely fitting chestplate. Its head, which Leth could only describe as draconic, was crested with similar edges of bone and obsidian, both as black as a void, and it had at least two rows of wickedly sharp teeth, many of which were trailing blood from the savage bites it kept taking out of its prey.
Prey. There really was no other way to describe the combat. The battle looked to have been incredible but it was nearly at an end. The thing wearing Ravyn's red shell had obviously taken a pounding but it was still standing. The same could be no longer be said of Fortress.
A massive swipe with the beast's left hand sent flaming talons down through the front of the hero's chest armor, shredding steel and servo systems from neck to stomach. Blood and oil gushed from the wound, sending the monolith of metal to his artificial knees. A second blow with the back of the creature's right hand struck Fortress in the side of the head and tore his helmet off, ending it like a comet through the brick wall of the burning building nearby.
Even down, Fortress was not completely defeated. Tortured motors screamed within his suit's arms, bringing up the one working cannon he had left. It was sparking down its crystalline barrel, most of its containment shroud torn away, but it was still functional. Before the scaled beast could react, it blazed to life and unleashed a point blank barrage of charged cryonic particles, slamming into the dragon man's chest in a sub-zero blast of sound and cold.
A sub-zero blast that did terrible damage to the beast's chestplate and none at all it its wearer. With a roar of rage so loud it actually hurt to hear, it opened its fanged maw and unleashed a torrent of pure magma.
The force of the glowing gout sent Fortress flying backwards, sprawling him against the street in a pool of instantly slagged asphalt. The sheer heat ignited Fortress' hair, scalding his suddenly bared face and blistering his blood-slaked skin. The man's cry of pain was drowned out by the low growl of the creature in Ravyn's clothing as it descended over its fallen foe.
It drove talons into Fortress' shoulders, the wet noise within making it painfully clear that at least one on each side found its way into flesh and bone. The crackle of cut power lines sent arcs of blue lightning across the ruined chestplate before grounding out in the beast's scarlet scales. With a snarl of savagery, it lifted Fortress up off his mangled legs. In the moonlight, the thing's scarred face could be seen clearly. One eyes burned while the other was a dark, ravaged hole but both stared directly into Fortress' face.
Past a split lip and a burned face, the ravaged man stared back. Despite his injuries, Fortress managed to whisper something through a broken jaw.
"This... is why... we had... to kill you... Ravyn."
The creature growled and raised its bladed hand, dripping talons poised to strike. Its one eye blazed like the sun while its missing eye was as dark and deep as an abyss. At the back of its blood-scaled throat, a rumble of fury given voice echoed up. It was a nightmarish voice, dark and forbidding, forged from the very essence of hate itself.
"You tried. You failed. You die."
Fortress closed his eyes, the look on his face somehow becoming peaceful despite the tortured state of his body. "Of course, my friend... I... I am sorry for... for everything. Forgive me." He leaned his head back, exposing his burned throat without another word.
Bloodravyn, fangs bared, flexed his talons high over his old friend's head, muscles trembling in anticipation of the killing blow. Antipication...
...or hesitation? A long moment passed, then another. The only sound now was the slow drip of blood and lava onto the sundered street. Even their haggard breathing had slowed, the tense second of battle's end stretching on into a quiet stillness with neither foe moving at all. What remained of Fortress had ceased to struggle and what might still remain of Ravyn within whatever his body had horrifically become was poised to strike yet holding back.
Gazing down at the metal-entombed man impaled on the claws of his left hand, Ravyn's draconic eye slowly dimmed, its flames burning lower and dimmer until there was merely a glimmer of heat surrounding the slit pupil.
"M... Markus..."
It had been so long since Fortress had heard anyone use his real name. The sound of it made him open his tired eyes and look once more into Ravyn's bestial face. What he saw there he had never expected to see. It changed everything. In an instant, resignation became hope. Not for himself, but for the terrible wrong he'd done so long ago.
The Beast had not entirely won. Something of the Man still remained. But for how long? Fortress closed his eyes again and sent a final command to his armor's core. It was time to do what he should have done a decade ago.
"Goodbye, Ravyn."
It was time to die.
The central controller of the Fortress-One armor turned off, killed by a master override from the wearer. When it did, all the feedback from the suit's many breaches and ruined neural receptors flooded unchecked into Markus' brain. The result was a massive, instantaneous cerebral hemorrhage. He was dead before the word "Ravyn" had escaped his lips.
There was no regret in him for this. It was not suicide so much as sacrifice. He had been living a lie on borrowed time. Now, at last, he could let go of the guilt. There was something within that did not belong to him. His last thought before oblivion embraced him was to give it back.
As his world fell into darkness, everything else became light. Fortress' body instantly became a flare of brilliant energy, blinding in its sheer intensity. A wave of power flooded outward in all directions, an explosion of the spirit. It engulfed everything in its path, consuming Ravyn and the now-empty armor in his grasp as it blossomed into a blazing column of radiance reaching all the way through the clouds overhead and into the heavens above.
When, a few seconds later, it burned out and faded away, all that was left in its wake was a steaming alley street and a single, naked man collapsed on his back. Unconscious and unharmed, Bloodravyn looked completely healed and returned to normal. His only wound was the old one, the scars around his lost eye. Those remained, the ruined orb slowly seeping a line of red in a single crimson tear...
-----------------
Leth winced, blinking to clear his vision.
"Yeah. That was subtle." Then, under his breath as he slipped out of his hiding place and moved to Ravyn, "Quick, Darkwing, let's fire up the Come Eat Me signal as bright as we can!"
He hefted the unconscious man over his shoulder, noting with a low grunt that whatever just happened hadn't made the big guy any lighter. "Come on, Duck," he grumbled to the sleeper in his arms. "Let's grab your stuff and go. Every villain with eyes is going to be here soon to throw us a little going away party."
Slinging a bag and packing everything within easy reach, he added, "You know, that sounds fun... but you're in no shape to dance."
With a testing shrug of his broad shoulders, Lethane forced his way, light finally streaming in on his face once he threw the heavy sacks of flesh off him. "Why are there bodies on top of me?"
While there were no immediate answers to why two men dressed in Penumbra uniforms were dead over where he'd crashed through the wall of the warehouse, their faces bleeding from every pore and their ears leaking, he other things to worry about...
Like ducking the incoming piece of burning metal before it ripped through him!
Diving to the alley street and rolling out of the way, he came back up in a shadowed corner and shook his head. Not usually one to hide, he was still disoriented by the shock of the attack that had flung him like a rage doll. Again.
Again!
Leth snarled and clenched his hands, letting his sharp nails rake the air in quiet fury. That was the second time in as many weeks he'd been jumped from behind. Watching after the boy scout was obviously dulling his survival instincts. He was getting soft, something he was damned well not going to let happen.
He knew who was responsible for this. Thus, he knew who was going to die. Fortress was a walking corpse. The cripple just didn't know it yet. As soon as Lethane got his claws on the big bastard, the CEO of Fortress 500 was going home 'some assembly required'.
Another shard of burning steel, this one melting even as it hissed through the air past his hiding place, got Leth's attention and snapped him out of his violent musing. Following the glowing streak of plasma and metal vapor backwards, he caught of sight of what was making such a flaming mess...
-------------
The main stretch of alley between the warehouse and whatever sad, incendiary building was being gutted by fire across the way was cracked, glowing and utterly ruined. In the middle of the destruction, two massive figures were locked in vicious combat, blood and lava flowing in equal parts down the battling titans.
One was mostly clad in metal, alloyed plates that had once been silver but were now blackened and burned. What sections of flesh could be seen through the rents in the powered suit were nearly ashen, seared and cooking from the superheated metal shoved violently into every jagged breach. Very little was left intact on Fortress' steel outer body; every limb was missing panels and much of his reinforced chest was either caved in or melting away.
And glad as Lethane was to see the 'hero' in such distress, his pleasure was tempered with surprise by the other... thing... in the pit with Fortress.
Whatever it was, it was wearing Ravyn's armor. Or, more accurately, pieces of it. The creature was easily as tall as Fortress, placing it at nine feet with its legs slightly bent. Feet and hands both ended in talons of black bone, razor sharp if the rents in Fortress' chest and helmet were any indication. Rising out of the fiend's back, huge leathern wings arched like scythes overhead.
They weren't the only things sharp about what was fighting the ex-paragon. The crimson scaled beast was completely reptilian but still humanoid, like a Snake but far more dangerous-looking. It had a tail with dark, sweeping blades at its end and a row of night-black spines piercing out the back of its barely fitting chestplate. Its head, which Leth could only describe as draconic, was crested with similar edges of bone and obsidian, both as black as a void, and it had at least two rows of wickedly sharp teeth, many of which were trailing blood from the savage bites it kept taking out of its prey.
Prey. There really was no other way to describe the combat. The battle looked to have been incredible but it was nearly at an end. The thing wearing Ravyn's red shell had obviously taken a pounding but it was still standing. The same could be no longer be said of Fortress.
A massive swipe with the beast's left hand sent flaming talons down through the front of the hero's chest armor, shredding steel and servo systems from neck to stomach. Blood and oil gushed from the wound, sending the monolith of metal to his artificial knees. A second blow with the back of the creature's right hand struck Fortress in the side of the head and tore his helmet off, ending it like a comet through the brick wall of the burning building nearby.
Even down, Fortress was not completely defeated. Tortured motors screamed within his suit's arms, bringing up the one working cannon he had left. It was sparking down its crystalline barrel, most of its containment shroud torn away, but it was still functional. Before the scaled beast could react, it blazed to life and unleashed a point blank barrage of charged cryonic particles, slamming into the dragon man's chest in a sub-zero blast of sound and cold.
A sub-zero blast that did terrible damage to the beast's chestplate and none at all it its wearer. With a roar of rage so loud it actually hurt to hear, it opened its fanged maw and unleashed a torrent of pure magma.
The force of the glowing gout sent Fortress flying backwards, sprawling him against the street in a pool of instantly slagged asphalt. The sheer heat ignited Fortress' hair, scalding his suddenly bared face and blistering his blood-slaked skin. The man's cry of pain was drowned out by the low growl of the creature in Ravyn's clothing as it descended over its fallen foe.
It drove talons into Fortress' shoulders, the wet noise within making it painfully clear that at least one on each side found its way into flesh and bone. The crackle of cut power lines sent arcs of blue lightning across the ruined chestplate before grounding out in the beast's scarlet scales. With a snarl of savagery, it lifted Fortress up off his mangled legs. In the moonlight, the thing's scarred face could be seen clearly. One eyes burned while the other was a dark, ravaged hole but both stared directly into Fortress' face.
Past a split lip and a burned face, the ravaged man stared back. Despite his injuries, Fortress managed to whisper something through a broken jaw.
"This... is why... we had... to kill you... Ravyn."
The creature growled and raised its bladed hand, dripping talons poised to strike. Its one eye blazed like the sun while its missing eye was as dark and deep as an abyss. At the back of its blood-scaled throat, a rumble of fury given voice echoed up. It was a nightmarish voice, dark and forbidding, forged from the very essence of hate itself.
"You tried. You failed. You die."
Fortress closed his eyes, the look on his face somehow becoming peaceful despite the tortured state of his body. "Of course, my friend... I... I am sorry for... for everything. Forgive me." He leaned his head back, exposing his burned throat without another word.
Bloodravyn, fangs bared, flexed his talons high over his old friend's head, muscles trembling in anticipation of the killing blow. Antipication...
...or hesitation? A long moment passed, then another. The only sound now was the slow drip of blood and lava onto the sundered street. Even their haggard breathing had slowed, the tense second of battle's end stretching on into a quiet stillness with neither foe moving at all. What remained of Fortress had ceased to struggle and what might still remain of Ravyn within whatever his body had horrifically become was poised to strike yet holding back.
Gazing down at the metal-entombed man impaled on the claws of his left hand, Ravyn's draconic eye slowly dimmed, its flames burning lower and dimmer until there was merely a glimmer of heat surrounding the slit pupil.
"M... Markus..."
It had been so long since Fortress had heard anyone use his real name. The sound of it made him open his tired eyes and look once more into Ravyn's bestial face. What he saw there he had never expected to see. It changed everything. In an instant, resignation became hope. Not for himself, but for the terrible wrong he'd done so long ago.
The Beast had not entirely won. Something of the Man still remained. But for how long? Fortress closed his eyes again and sent a final command to his armor's core. It was time to do what he should have done a decade ago.
"Goodbye, Ravyn."
It was time to die.
The central controller of the Fortress-One armor turned off, killed by a master override from the wearer. When it did, all the feedback from the suit's many breaches and ruined neural receptors flooded unchecked into Markus' brain. The result was a massive, instantaneous cerebral hemorrhage. He was dead before the word "Ravyn" had escaped his lips.
There was no regret in him for this. It was not suicide so much as sacrifice. He had been living a lie on borrowed time. Now, at last, he could let go of the guilt. There was something within that did not belong to him. His last thought before oblivion embraced him was to give it back.
As his world fell into darkness, everything else became light. Fortress' body instantly became a flare of brilliant energy, blinding in its sheer intensity. A wave of power flooded outward in all directions, an explosion of the spirit. It engulfed everything in its path, consuming Ravyn and the now-empty armor in his grasp as it blossomed into a blazing column of radiance reaching all the way through the clouds overhead and into the heavens above.
When, a few seconds later, it burned out and faded away, all that was left in its wake was a steaming alley street and a single, naked man collapsed on his back. Unconscious and unharmed, Bloodravyn looked completely healed and returned to normal. His only wound was the old one, the scars around his lost eye. Those remained, the ruined orb slowly seeping a line of red in a single crimson tear...
-----------------
Leth winced, blinking to clear his vision.
"Yeah. That was subtle." Then, under his breath as he slipped out of his hiding place and moved to Ravyn, "Quick, Darkwing, let's fire up the Come Eat Me signal as bright as we can!"
He hefted the unconscious man over his shoulder, noting with a low grunt that whatever just happened hadn't made the big guy any lighter. "Come on, Duck," he grumbled to the sleeper in his arms. "Let's grab your stuff and go. Every villain with eyes is going to be here soon to throw us a little going away party."
Slinging a bag and packing everything within easy reach, he added, "You know, that sounds fun... but you're in no shape to dance."
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