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| The Last Evolution; My NaNoWriMo book. Updated weekly | |
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| Topic Started: Nov 30 2008, 07:07 PM (166 Views) | |
| Wirtjr | Nov 30 2008, 07:07 PM Post #1 |
The Train Conductor to Hell
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As the topic description says, this is what I entered for NaNoWriMo. I managed to get 13 chapters into the story by the time I reached 50k. And I've come to like how this story is shaping out, so I'm sticking with it. I'll be posting a chapter each week, or a bit slower. It really depends on how the editing process goes. But anyway, please enjoy the Urban Fantasy: The Last Evolution. ____ The Last Evolution Even Gods can die. But the God of Death is not so easily dealt with. He who rules the Underworld rules the souls of the living. - Excerpt from recently excavated tome discovered in southern Greece. Author unknown. One day man will connect his apparatus to the very wheelwork of the universe and the very forces that motivate the planets in their orbits and cause them to rotate will rotate his own machinery. -Nikola Tesla Chapter One: “Is mist supposed to be black?” Jerry asked. He sounded panicked. So panicked, that it made Caleb laugh raucously. “It’s only black because you’re night-blind you stupid ass!” He turned his flashlight on high. “See? Its just some regular run of the mill mist. Now don’t be such a coward and keep up the pace. I wouldn’t want you to fall behind and smash your head against a wall and die in a heap.” Caleb said with a laugh. He could picture in his mind that his underpaid intern was glaring daggers at him. But Caleb couldn’t grudge him that; with a paycheck that small and pathetic, Jerry had a right to be perpetually angry. But then again, so did the other interns. But they weren’t being as much of a malcontent as Jerry. Maybe it was because Caleb was constantly harassing him about all of his tiny phobias. He had spent an ass-load of money to stuff his tent full of bobble-head dolls. Everyone almost died laughing when he opened the tent, only to be confronted with an army of tiny bobble-heads. He screamed so loudly he was hoarse for the next three days. Caleb just enjoyed harassing his interns. He was infamous for it in his university, and it was why he had very little interns. Hell he had to offer special perks just to get them. The only perk that attracted his interns was the promise of flying around the world and visiting foreign and majestic ruins. It was one of the only, or maybe just the single benefit of being an archeologist. It really wasn’t a career that was high in demand like computer programmers or soldiers. They weren’t paid very well, and relied almost completely on outside funding. But few universities were willing to spend much on trips like this unless they were going somewhere big. And this was big. Something that was so big he was surprised he and his team were actually allowed to go to it. Three weeks ago an excavation team unearthed what appeared to be an underground pyramid in southern Greece. It was actually found underneath the ruins of the Delphi temple. Now both of those things were odd. For one thing, why would there be a pyramid in Greece? And furthermore, did the ancient Greeks know about it before they built the Delphi temple on it? It was what he and his highly underpaid interns, and the few professionals, like Caleb himself, were here to find out. It was a chance of a lifetime, and no matter how much he tortured his interns, they knew it was something they would probably only get to do once, and it could make or break their future. And so they found themselves going down some recently excavated stairs that led down to the pyramid. The fact that this staircase even existed was enough to tell Caleb that the ancient Greeks probably did know about the pyramid under their temple. But who knows? Maybe the ancient Greeks were just really stupid and never even noticed the stairs that led down underground. “How far down does this godforsaken thing go?” Jerry moaned. “We’ve been going down these stairs for hours.” “It’s been twenty six minutes Jerry!” One of the slightly better paid interns shouted. “Now shut up before one of us tosses you down to see how deep this thing goes!” “Bring it on Greg! You’re not smelling what I have cooking!” The malcontent shouted in a shaken voice. Apparently he really believed they would toss him over. Hell, if they decided to do it, he wouldn’t stop them. Caleb didn’t really like Jerry that much anyway. “Jerry shut up before I dock your pay even more,” Caleb sighed. That shut up his malcontent intern. It usually did. Well at first it didn’t to him, mainly because Jerry thought he was bluffing, but then Caleb actually started docking his pay, and it got the point across. And that point was simple, he could do whatever he wanted to them, they were getting college credit and something to pad out their résumé with. They continued down the giant staircase in complete silence. Jerry did have a point though. It felt like this staircase went on forever. Time felt like it had slowed down to an immeasurable crawl. And they weren’t even close to the bottom. Whoever built this must have had a love for exercise. He was pretty sure that whenever they finally reached the bottom, his flat stomach would turn into a six-pack. Some of his interns started coughing and gagging, “Jesus Christ, what’s that smell?” One of his interns moaned. “It smells like rotten eggs.” “Probably just some sulfur deposits. Breath through your mouth instead of your nose.” Caleb said with a dismissing wave. “A little sulfur never hurt anyone.” “Not that we know of!” His intern shouted back. “When we get back home, and I come down with some kind of cancer, I’m going to shove a lawsuit so far up your ass, your grandchildren will get served!” “No-one in their right mind would sue an archeologist,” Caleb snorted, “You won’t make any money that way. Sue the university if nothing else.” The interns laughed at that. It was funny because it was true. They continued on in silence after that last laugh. The less they laughed, the less they would have to breathe in the sulfurous air. Hours passed, and the smell of sulfur continued to increase. And the further down they went, the hotter it got. The smell of sulfur was so thick they actually had to pull out the gas masks they brought. Caleb only told them to bring it just to cover his ass. He didn’t think they would actually need to use them. But it seemed that the tiny paranoid voice in his head paid off this time. “Hey! I can see the bottom!” One of the interns in front shouted back to the rest of them. “Take a look, you won’t believe your eyes!” Caleb walked ahead of the group and then looked down to where they were pointing. He felt his eyes widen, and his jaw drop. He had never seen anything like it before. “Holy mother of god…” He rasped. The pyramid was down there all right, and it was much larger than the pyramids of Giza, or those Mayan pyramids. But that wasn’t the amazing thing. It was that it was floating on an island in the middle of a lake of fiery lava. Pillars of lava periodically shot up in the air like geysers. The pyramid itself looked like what the pyramids of Giza would look like if they were constructed in the ninth circle of Hell, and were improved upon in the other eight before coming to Earth. It was made of blood red obsidian. And unlike the smooth stones of the Mayan or Egyptian pyramids, it was covered in jagged spikes. “Well… That explains the sulfur smell.” Caleb said slowly. He looked down again. The staircase led to the entrance of the pyramid. Which was lucky, because if it led to the lava, they would have to figure out some way to cross it. “We’ve only got a few more stairs to go guys!” Caleb told them. “Then the fun really begins.” Some of his interns groaned. The rest were silent. They were getting too tired to make any sounds. “That’s creepy…” Jerry groaned softly. And once again, Caleb reluctantly agreed with him. It was perhaps one of the most unsettling things he had ever seen. If not the most unsettling thing he’s seen. “Well this will definitely pad out your résumé boys and girls!” Caleb shouted to them. “This will be the most important archeological discovery of the century.” That was an understatement. It would be the most important discovery since the Rosetta Stone. Maybe even more important than the Stone. “Holy shit, it is hotter than hell down here,” an intern named Jessica muttered. “If I knew we were going to be working in this kind of condition, I would have put on more deodorant… I’m going to smell like a skunk for months.” She groaned. “Yeah, yeah,” Caleb said with a dismissing wave. “Less complaining, more unpacking.” He started pulling his tools out of his pack, and also a candy bar. He sighed when he saw that it was more or less melted. But then he shrugged and popped it into his mouth anyways. Candy was candy after all. So he wasn’t picky about it. As long as it was editable, he would be happy. “Alright, before we go into the pyramid, I feel compelled to tell you to watch your step. Because if these people were anything like the Egyptians, then this thing is filled to the brim with nasty little traps.” “Isn’t that just in movies?” Jessica asked. “Could be. But still, stay on your toes.” Caleb said flatly. “You’re getting college credit, and it’s generally more useful to you when you’re alive, then when you’re dead.” Jessica rolled her eyes at him, but she did stop complaining. And that was a good thing, because there was more than enough complaining coming from Jerry. “Who the hell would put a pyramid all the way down here?” Jerry groaned. “And why would they put it on a bed of goddamn lava?” “Jerry, shut the hell up already!” The other interns shouted in near unison. “We’re tired, sore, hot, and we’re sweaty. I don’t think any of us would lose a minute of sleep if you get thrown into the lava.” “Alright guys, calm down.” Caleb said before Jerry could retort. “We would all like to toss Jerry into the lava, but it is unfortunately a felony in the form of first-degree murder.” He looked at Jerry then told him, “They have a point. Stop complaining Jerry. It was amusing at first, but now it’s just getting old. We are all exhausted, sore, and hot. But we aren’t bitching and moaning as loudly as you.” Jerry’s eyes flashed with anger, and he curled his lip in anger. But he closed his mouth as soon as he opened it. He scooped up his pack and stomped away from the others. Caleb made a mental note to dock his pay just a bit more. If this kept up, Jerry would have to start paying him instead of the other way around. And that was all right in Caleb’s book. The more money he had in his pocket put him that much closer to his retirement. He scooped up his flashlight in one hand, and he had the rest of his tools in the other. “All right boys and girls. Let’s crack this pyramid open! This is the part where you all get to unleash all your stress and frustration... Just not on Jerry. So grab your crowbars, chisels and hammers and start cracking away!” His group of interns grabbed their excavating tools and ran to the entrance of the pyramid. Caleb himself didn’t care what happened to the door. All he wanted intact was the things inside of the pyramid. In his expert opinion, it would be more beneficial if he let his workers take out their stress and anger out on a large and strong piece of stone. It was better than letting them smash some priceless artifacts… Or each other. He watched as his interns began smashing their various implements of destruction against the stone. He stood behind them impassively, as he watched them work. He occasionally stepped to one side to dodge some flying rubble. “Careful, you almost smashed my head with that flagstone!” Caleb grumbled. He doubted anyone heard him, because they were smashing their tools against the entrance so hard that it sounded like a construction site. About fifteen minutes passed before the stone blocking the entrance crumbled into little pieces. When the stone began crumbling, his interns nearly fell down in exhaustion. They sat on the ground for a while, breathing heavily and wiping sweat and grime from their eyes. “Okay up and at em!” Caleb told them. “We can rest once we get inside. Who knows, it may be a bit cooler in there then out here!” The idea of a colder area made all but the most exhausted jump to their feet. The exhausted slowly pushed themselves back to their feet, and twinged in pain. It wasn’t surprising. Most of them hadn’t ever had to do that much manual labor right after walking down several hundred flights of stairs. Caleb turned on his flashlight and led the way into the pyramid. He watched his step carefully, and kept moving his light back and forth to check for any kind of tripwire… He would be the first to admit he was paranoid, but Caleb liked being alive. He wasn’t going to die through some mishap. That’d just be embarrassing. If he was going to go to heaven or hell, he wanted to tell about how he died in an epic struggle saving a bus of burning nuns and school children. He didn’t want his story to be the three words “I hate harpoons.” “I’ll say it again! Watch your step!” He shouted. “Oh wow, look at these hieroglyphics…” An intern said softly. “I haven’t seen any hieroglyphics like these before.” “I haven’t seen this kind of masonry before,” another said. “There are no chisel marks or anything. It looks like it was just worn down by the wind over centuries.” “The architecture is different then the Egyptians…” Jessica murmured. “It’s much more flamboyant. Look at all of these different colors… Red, orange, yellow, green, pink, cyan… I didn’t know that many colors of obsidian existed.” “I don’t think they do.” Caleb said quietly. “That’s what I’m finding so odd about all of this.” As far as he knew, obsidian only came in a few colors. And only the red, orange, black, and yellow existed. “Well apparently you’re thinking wrong,” Jerry snapped from behind. “Because I’m seeing evidence to the contrary.” “Jerry, if I wanted your opinion, I would have given you one.” Caleb rumbled. “Don’t talk back to the man who controls your paycheck, and your passing grade for this class.” That shut Jerry up again. And with that, awed silence reigned. The further they went into the pyramid, the cooler it got. The smell of sulfur had also vanished. So they were allowed to take off their gasmasks. And the designs had also become even more elaborate and flamboyant as they went on. Statues shaped from precious gemstones, gold and silver ingrained into the very walls. Soon they entered what must have been the central room of the pyramid. It was strange, but the pyramid seemed to be significantly larger on the inside than it was on the outside. It seemed as if the very room they were standing in now was the width of what the pyramid looked like outside. The room was not just filled with treasures, there were hundreds upon hundreds of bookcases spread out throughout the chamber. It seemed that the room was completely intact. It was like the books and treasures were protected from the ravages of time. “Alright guys, guess we’ve got lucky. There’s not much excavating to be done here. Let’s spread out and see what we’ve got here. If you smart ones want to try your luck and give your brain a work out, open a book and see if you can translate anything in it.” Caleb told them all. His interns talked softly amongst themselves as they spread out through the room and started examining the things in there. Caleb himself went over to a bookcase and pulled out a pair of books. He sat down on the ground and flipped the first book open. He scratched his head as he saw the writing. It was as complicated as he expected…. And even odder than he expected. Strangely enough it was a hybrid of several dozen languages from all over the world… Even though these languages came into existence hundreds, or even thousands of years after the Greeks built the Delphi temple over this place. It didn’t make sense… Even assuming that this pyramid was built after the temple, these books appeared much older than the languages it derived words from. He opened his notebook and began trying to translate it. He had a sinking feeling it was going to take awhile to translate. Sitting in his office chair, a strong and lithely built man calmly examined his glass of scotch before he took a drink from it. He sighed and took another sip. He smiled and looked out the window and examined the city below. It was his city. It was his nation. And it was his world. It had been his for thousands of years. And it would be his for eternity. It was his birthright. There was not a creature alive who could match his power… Reality was his to bend and distort at his will. He crossed his office and went to his liquor cabinet to get another bottle of scotch. He opened, and then walked inside. Like so many other things he could create, it was much larger on the inside than it appeared to be on the outside. He paced through his liquor cabinet and decided on the vodka instead. He looked at the bottle, and shrank it down to the size of a cup. It contained the same amount of vodka the original sized bottle had. But now it was in a much more convenient size. He walked out of the liquor cabinet and sat back down at his desk. He took another drink, and then a wave of sensations washed over him in such a rush, he shattered the vodka bottle in his hand. “Someone’s found it.” He hissed. “Damn it I should have razed that place to the ground a millennia ago.” He looked down at his hand, and saw extremely deep lacerations in his palm from the glass. Blood dripped from his hand onto the ground steadily. He growled in frustration, and the cuts started to disappear as if it had never existed. He snarled and slashed his hand through the air. The liquor cabinet dissolved, and burned to ash at the same time. Then the ash burned into nothingness. The man took a deep breath and decided not to take his rage out on his office… He’d take it out on the people who discovered the tomb. He took another deep breath, and focused his thoughts on the pyramid and his thoughts became murderous. “They’re not leaving that place…” He murmured. “If they were to find the Twelve, then that would start a lot of unwanted questions…” He pressed his mind onto the pyramid and focused it into a death trap of such horrifying power that no one in their right mind would go back to it. But he wasn’t going to take any chances… After they were all dead, he would raze the building to the ground like he should have done eons ago. This language was, as Caleb figured it would be, a very frustrating thing to translate. The language was a mixture of Sanskrit, Aztec, and some obscure Japanese calligraphy. It was also flavored with some Latin, classical Greek, some Scandinavian, and even a tiny bit of Egyptian. He and a group of the smarter interns sat in a circle with books as they began the attempt to decipher some of the tomes. He was starting to make headway with his book. It appeared to some kind of history, or legend at any rate, that documented the actions of some ruling body called, ‘The Twelve.’ What was interesting was the fact that these people shared common stories with the old Greek gods. Or at least their stories had similar themes that were present in the Greek myths. What was even more interesting is that these outdated the Greek culture by at least six centuries. If he was right, then he had just stumbled upon the origins of where those myths had started. But he had to question the authenticity of these documents. From the tiny bit he was able to decipher it claimed that these were real events. But then again, no one could prove or disprove the Bible, and some took those as actual events, while others said they were just legends to provide people with something to believe in. In the end, no one could disprove and call any religion or myth ‘false’ unless they were there to see it for themselves. “Hey, I found another chamber!” Jessica shouted. “I think it’s an extension of this room. There’s probably more artifacts in there” “Alright, well just be careful when you open the passage.” Caleb called back to her. “We’re inside now, so we got to make sure we damage as few things as possible.” “Can do boss,” Jessica told him. The former quietness of the tomb was replaced with the steady staccato of hammers chiseling away at stone. The steady sound was occasionally punctuated with a loud curse from Jerry when he accidentally slammed his hand with his hammer. Caleb was glad for the noise. It had been getting to quiet for his taste. But then again, there was a reason they created the saying ‘Silent as the grave.’ Caleb continued transcribing the book in front of him. The more he managed to translate, the more positive he was that this was the origin of the entire religion the Greeks had created. The similarities between some of the myths, and the records in this book, shared so many common themes and elements it was astounding. There was a loud shattering sound, and cries of triumph. Caleb stood up to see what happened. The group of interns managed to obliterate the stone door that blocked the entrance. Some of them had already entered the room to see what was hidden inside of it. Seconds after entering, Jessica ran out and signaled him to take a look. “I think we’ve found some tombs!” Now that piqued Caleb’s curiosity and excitement. He walked inside of the room, and stopped awestruck. Now while the entire pyramid appeared to be quite flamboyant and flashy…it was nothing like the tomb that it held. This entire room made the entirety of the pyramid look dull and drab by comparison. The burial mounds were made of flawless diamond, with gold and other precious gems worked into it so delicately and professionally that it looked natural. The floors were of the same make. And the walls were covered in decorations and symbols. Caleb walked over to one of the tombs, and read the inscription on it. It was of the same language in the book that he was transcribing, but he recognized the epithets. “Here lies the Father of Lightning, and the Guardian of Man. May he continue to watch over us, even in death.” Caleb read. He was stunned. From the little he was able to translate, the Greeks would later call the man who was entombed in this spot Zeus. He crossed over to another tomb; “Here lies the Watcher of the Water, and the Bane of the Fleet. For as long as the tides come and go, he shall never be gone.” Once again, this man would later be called Poseidon. He looked at the other tombs. Mother of Earth. Maid of the Hearth. Protector of Wisdom. Lord of War. Nurturer of Woman. Father of Crafting. Maiden of Desire. Man of the Sun. Woman of the Moon. The Diviner of Drink. Patron of Thieves… Each of these was an epithet for who would later be considered as the twelve major Olympian gods. “Ladies and gentlemen… We’ve stumbled upon the greatest archeological discovery of all time.” Caleb announced. He was still shocked. But before any of his interns could react, the pyramid began to shake, and the lights from their flashlights all but vanished. An extremely angry voice sounded throughout the pyramid, “You do not belong here!” Caleb and his interns could not only hear the voice, but they felt it. It was so pervasive; it almost felt like they were crushed by it. “Die.” The voice hissed. The voice was cold, and dripped with arrogant contempt. And with that word… Everything began to change. |
 Formerly Wirtjr, Denny Crane, Freddy Krueger, Rodney McKay, Bruce Campbell and Ash Williams
Brawl Code: 2793-4775-6845 | |
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| +Hollie | Nov 30 2008, 07:28 PM Post #2 |
Resident Brit
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Dammit why did you have to end the chapter THERE?! It's really good. Much better than mine, in fact.  I noticed a few wrong words in places, but nothing massive. Keep posting. 
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Known as Haar on Brand of Flame. Bitch.  Formerly Margaret Thatcher, Aleksandr | |
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| Asvel | Nov 30 2008, 07:30 PM Post #3 |
Grandiloquent Panjandrum
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You did an excellent job building suspense. I like the concept of the story and the tie-in to mythology. The only things I have to nitpick about are technical details. Watch your "to"s and "too"s, and include a comma after an interjection ("Damn it," etc.) The one word choice that stood out to me as odd was "lacerations". Only doctors use that word, and rarely even then. "Cuts" or even "gashes" would have worked better. Don't use a big word when there's a simpler, more concise option. But as I said, you made great use of suspense. I'm looking forward to next week's post. Edited by Asvel, Nov 30 2008, 07:31 PM.
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Asvel: The other forum pedo. fabulous banner by genn
Favorite Artist and Favorite Spriter Winter '09 :D | |
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| Wirtjr | Dec 5 2008, 10:11 PM Post #4 |
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The Train Conductor to Hell
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thanks for the comments. Yeah grammar and I don't get along too well. Anyway, next chapter up, since I may not be around on Sunday to update. (And the reason I ended there is called setting the hook. I wanna keep the reader turning pages) ___ Chapter Two: The stones all around them began to shake violently. Caleb had to keep a hold of one of the tombs to keep from falling. What in gods name was happening? “What the hell is happening?” Jerry cried. “What was that? Was this part of some kind of curse or something?” “Well whatever is happening, it’s not good!” Jessica screamed. “Let’s get out of here!” She looked at Caleb to see if he agreed. Caleb nodded, “Get out of here.” He told them. “I advise against taking anything that you don’t absolutely need.” He himself ran out of the tomb and scooped up the translations of the book, and the book itself. If he was going to die, he was going to die in an attempt to preserve some of the knowledge. The other interns ran out in suit. But they left behind everything. They just ran. The ceiling broke off in chunks, and pieces of diamond crashed to the ground. Caleb decided it would be best not to run in a straight line. He had a better chance of dodging the falling debris if he were constantly moving side to side. As he did so, a piece of diamond-encrusted brimstone fell right down on the spot he occupied only a moment ago. Other people were not so lucky. A piece of rubble the size of Caleb’s backpack dislodged itself from the ceiling and smashed a student in the head. The late Hayden Lake’s head shattered on impact with the stone, and his body fell limply to the ground. The student right behind the luckless intern slipped on Hayden’s blood, and as he landed on his stomach, another rock landed and pinned him to the ground like a bug. “Look out for falling debris’!” Caleb shouted. Two more interns’ fell limply to the ground as pieces of diamond or some other kind of stone crushed them. What the hell was happening? They should have gotten to the entrance by now. But the hallway seemed to stretch on forever. “Look out!” Jessica cried out at him. Caleb had enough time to look up. He saw a giant stalactite of red obsidian rush down to pin him down like a bug just like the others. He closed his eyes and prepared to die. He felt something inside him twist, and move. His blood began to boil, and his insides felt cold. Was this what death felt like? He thought it would feel worse. Suddenly as the rock smashed down on him, his body rippled and he stepped away unharmed. He looked down to his body in shock. He should have died. That should have pinned him to the ground like a cockroach. But it didn’t… His body somehow passed through the falling spike like it was just a mirage… He flicked the piece of debris with his finger, and it was solid. But he didn’t stop to contemplate that. He continued running. He and his smaller group of interns continued running, they each weaved back and forth as they ran. Soon the debris stopped falling, and the quakes stopped. They didn’t though. They continued running. Minutes passed without any tremor or quake. But soon those minutes were up, and the tremors returned. They shook even harder now. Debris started falling again, but even more steadily. And to top it all off, the ground shook hard enough to split some of the floor open to reveal the lava the pyramid was situated on. Two of his interns never stood a chance. They were running too fast, and didn’t have the kind of reflexes to stop in time… They ran straight into the lava, and were immolated on contact with it. Their screams drowned out the sounds of the quakes. But their screams ended soon enough… Their charred bodies slowly drifted beneath the lava, leaving nothing but a horrifying memory behind. He looked around and saw that there were only a few of his interns alive… The debris when the pyramid first started quaking must have killed the few professionals Caleb had brought with him. Only he, and five of his nineteen interns were still alive. Caleb was so stunned by this devastating turn of events, that he stopped moving. He couldn’t believe what was happening. They came here and found the discovery of a lifetime, and now they were all dying in some of the most horrifyingly brutal ways nature could devise. He didn’t notice the ground part beneath his feet. He had time to look down numbly as the floor split open underneath him, and sent him falling into the flaming death that was the lava. His feet became submerged into the lava, and he felt an intense moment of pain for a brief second, and then nothing. He felt the heat of the lava gently lick at his ankles, but there was none of the horrifying pains that the two interns had experienced. He looked down, and his jaw dropped again. The lava stopped five inches away from his skin. It was held back by something unseen. The lava underneath his feet were also being held back by something. But before he had time to ponder this rather strange turn of events, Jessica pulled him out of the crack. “Are you alright?” She asked panicked. She quickly checked his feet, and just looked amazed. “Your shoes were crisped, but somehow you seem to be alright.” She grabbed his shoulder and urged him on ahead. They could see the exit ahead of them now. They were going to make it. They would survive. As they ran towards the door, the remaining interns pulled their gasmasks on as they prepared to run into the sulfur filled air. They broke out into a sprint as they neared the exit. They dashed out of there, and slid to a stop. “We made it!” Jerry exclaimed, “That was clo-“ Jerry stopped talking when he noticed his surroundings… They didn’t escape. They were right back where they started. “We somehow circled back!” Jessica moaned. “How did that happen?” Caleb didn’t know. He was still dealing with the shock of what was happening. None of this was possible… This discovery, this pyramid, its flamboyant design… The people entombed in that section of the pyramid… The voice that told them to die. Caleb narrowly avoiding death twice in the most improbable, or impossible, ways. But that was nothing compared with what he was looking at now. The bodies of the dead interns… The ones crushed by rocks, impaled to the ground like bugs, the ones who slipped into the lava filled crevasses… They were floating in the center of the room now. They were floating like the diamond and obsidian ground was water… Jessica screamed. Jerry screamed louder. But nothing could match the sinister laughing that shook the entire pyramid to its core. “Die.” The voice said again. Its laugh was more malicious then anything Caleb had ever heard. One of the flamboyant statues that decorated the wall slowly came to life. The large ape-like man shook its head slowly from side to side. The statue leapt from the wall, and landed hard on the ground. The apes diamond eyes turned blood red as it caught sight of the terrified group. It opened its mouth, revealing row upon row of black obsidian teeth, and let out a roar louder than any of the groups scream. It was followed by another roar, as another statue came to life and fell to the floor next to the first. A roar in turn followed that one. Another followed each roar. In the end nineteen statues stood at the other side of the room. They marched lockstep formation to where the group was standing. Jessica cried and curled up. She had seen and been through too much. She could deal with falling debris, and volcanic crevasses, but living statues were more then she could deal with. She was broken. Jerry stood his ground, although he was shaking visibly. He had been pushed around enough. He had taken constant shit from Caleb, and from his other interns. He was pushed past his breaking point as well. But this was the kind of psychological breakdown that resulted in several homicides. The other three just stared at the statues in shock. This had to be a dream. It was nothing more than a bad dream, they would wake up before the statues got to them… It was all right; it was just a bad dream. Caleb fell to the ground as he felt his insides writhe and he felt like they were trying to rip themselves out of him. He screamed in pain as he felt his bones start to pull apart. His ligaments and sinew began twisting in different directions. As his vision faded to a pinprick, he saw the statues standing above him. He screamed again, and his vision went black. And he felt nothing more. As the statues crushed the remaining men and women, the man walked out of his office door, and appeared inside of the central chamber. He vaguely waved his hand, and the statues vanished and reappeared back where they were originally. The bodies were spread out along the ground. He examined the bodies of the people who somehow managed to discover this place. They were all fairly young… In their mid twenties. Only a few of them were middle aged. Twenty-five of them were dead. He tensed up suddenly; his eyes darted around the chamber, searching for another corpse. There should have been another one. “Where’s the twenty-sixth?” He murmured to himself. “There were twenty six of them in this tomb. I saw them all!” How could the last one have escaped? He sealed off the exit. Any attempts to get out would have led them back to this chamber. That was assuming that they got through the hallways. He stretched them out and slowed down all physical movement. “Then how…” He hissed. He stretched out his hand and slashed it through the air. The air his hand passed through rippled and bent. The air in front of him shaped into what appeared to be a mirror. Except instead of showing his reflection, it showed the last minutes of these people. He wore an amused smile on his face as he watched the screaming man charge his statues in a futile attempt to destroy them. But the smile disappeared when the man who fell to the ground vanished. One minute he was writhing on the ground like a pathetic worm, the next minute he vanished like a puff of smoke. His eyes flashed red with rage when he made the mirror zoom in on the book the man was holding when he vanished. One of the statues that had done the killing exploded when he directed his frustration at it. That man just had to vanish with that book. He couldn’t afford for that book to be in the hands of someone… The man forced himself to calm down and think. The only way it could be turned to his benefit would be if he could discredit the person long before the man ever showed his findings to someone. There was something he loved about the 21st century. It was the ability to influence people without having to resort to flamboyant shows of power… He looked at the corpses, and suddenly all signs of their real deaths vanished. They were replaced with a new set of wounds. Gunshots, stab marks, strangulations. There were bullet casings spread through out the central chamber, as were the bodies. There was even a pair of knives jutting out from a body or two. He would have to make sure someone found these bodies… But first he had to do something about the layout of this pyramid… He focused his thoughts again, and called out to his birthright. He twisted his hands, and suddenly the hellish pyramid condensed and was reshaped into a modest looking temple. All signs of its former glamour were completely gone. It was now a simple temple carved from granite and marble. It was very crudely cut, and the chisel marks were painfully easy to see. Even the lava faded away and hardened into rock. He turned his attention to the bookcases. His lip curled into a contemptuous smile, “I’ve wanted to do this for awhile now.” The bookcases and the books in them dissolved into nothingness. He walked into the room where the Twelve were buried and entombed. He sighed; it was the first sound of sadness he had heard in his own voice in centuries. “I’m sorry my friends, but I’m going to have to move you. I can’t let you be discovered.” The tombs flexed and twisted, and they promptly vanished like a mirage. They were now beyond human reach. He just couldn’t afford to let them be discovered… Now all that remained would be to alert the authorities of what happened… He pondered this for a moment, and then that amused smile of his crawled back onto his face. He walked back to the central chamber to where the corpses were scattered. He walked right up to the woman who had broken down and curled up into a fetal position moments before she was killed. He reached out to her mind, and impressed his will onto it. The woman’s eyes opened up, and he saw what she saw. He made the girl stand up. He paused a moment as he dug through the woman’s mind for the name of the man who had vanished into thin air. He found it, and his smile grew a little wider. The man snapped his fingers and the woman appeared up near the top of the cavern. He closed his eyes so he could see up there completely… The woman stumbled up through the door that had lead to the temple. She held her hand to her side to keep her last bit of blood in. She stumbled out of the Delphi temple and fell to the ground. A tourist ran up to her alarmed and started calling for help. She grabbed onto his leg, and whispered, “Darquin did it…” Her body failed for the final time, and the man was thrown back into his body. The man opened his eyes and walked out of the temple. Seconds later he appeared back in his office. He sat back in his chair, and stared out the window. For the first time in several centuries, he was worried. This man had the Gift. And to make matters worse, his Gift might be strong enough to rival his own. He who was a God among man now had to destroy this threat before this man dethroned him as a God. But all in good time… This Caleb Darquin would first have to deal with being the only suspect to a grisly multiple homicide… Even a man with power to rival his own could be destroyed. He killed a number of them himself. And with all of Interpol after him, he wouldn’t be posing a threat to him anytime soon. But if the man showed his face, he would try to take the pup out himself. The man leaned back in his chair and reached for his vodka again. He sipped it down, and relaxed. He didn’t give the man another thought. He would destroy him if the time came for that. He would destroy him like he had destroyed so many others before him. |
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Formerly Wirtjr, Denny Crane, Freddy Krueger, Rodney McKay, Bruce Campbell and Ash Williams
Brawl Code: 2793-4775-6845 | |
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| +Hollie | Dec 6 2008, 05:41 PM Post #5 |
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Resident Brit
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Aww. I kinda wanted Jerry and Jessica to live. Still, Caleb's pretty awesome. I wonder if the guy remembered to make fingerprints though. And the distinct lack of blood on Caleb's person. And the fact he supposedly killed 25 people (presumably much younger than him for the most part) without any of them fighting back and causing serious injury. Just stuff that jumped out at me. It was a good chapter, though.
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Known as Haar on Brand of Flame. Bitch. Formerly Margaret Thatcher, Aleksandr | |
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| Psiwri | Dec 11 2008, 12:42 PM Post #6 |
Too Many Words
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Now, I didn't actually read (=/) but I still made an observation while scrolling. Lots and lots of paragraphs start with "he" or "his" all over the place, now this is minor at best but you might want to think about starting them with a little more variance or something. ... I'll go away now. |
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| Wirtjr | Dec 13 2008, 12:45 PM Post #7 |
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The Train Conductor to Hell
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(Yeah I suck at beginning paragraphs. I've been going through it and trying to reedit the first words in various paragraphs) __ Chapter Three: Blood colored Caleb’s dreams…. Blood, and chocolate. That was a wickedly kinky combination. It made him think of chocolate covered cherries… Mmm, cherries. Caleb liked cherries. Almost as much as he liked chocolate. Caleb rolled over with a groan. The dreams of blood and food were a little too much for him. Consciousness was a much better alternative. Maybe he could actually eat when he woke up. He opened his eyes and groaned again. “Where the hell am I?” He could barely see. It was really really dark. Something fell into his mouth, and he started gagging. Christ what was that smell? And what the hell just fell into his mouth? Was that a sock? It sure tasted like one… And then he put two and two together. He had opened his eyes and expected hell, or heaven. But what he saw was a complete surprise. And not the fun kind of surprise, like a stripper emerging from a cake at your twenty-first birthday. This was more like a gay midget stripper jumping out of your chocolate cherry cheesecake on your thirteenth birthday. Which is a way to say horrendously creepy, and more than a little scary. He was lying in large dumpster that was filled to the brim with garbage. To make matters worse, he wasn’t on top of the garbage. He was at the very bottom of all of it. If it weren’t for the fact that his day had already gone to hell, this would have surely ruined it. Now the only thing going through his mind was how the hell he got there… And how the hell to get out of there. And as if on cue, he felt something twist inside of him again. He silently screamed inside of his mind, as he felt his brain twist itself into a pretzel. His brain continued to twist tighter, and moments later the garbage was enveloped in a bright light, and it became translucent. Against his wishes, he started to laugh hysterically. He crawled out of the dumpster, and his brain immediately untwisted itself. The garbage appeared again, and his laughter abruptly stopped. What the hell just happened? Was he simply going insane? Caleb looked up at the sky in exasperation. It was nighttime now, it seemed. The full moon was out and shining brightly. There were no clouds in the sky, so even the stars were shining brightly. It almost appeared to be daylight. He walked back towards the dumpster he crawled out of, and leaned against it while he trying to collect his thoughts. What happened? He racked his memory, and he couldn’t remember. Hell, the last thing he remembered was… Christ, he couldn’t even remember that. He knew his name, and that was about it. He looked around, trying to find something, anything, to give him a clue as to where he was. Street signs were in Greek. So was the architecture. What the hell was he doing in Greece? Also, how the hell did he wind up in the bottom of a filled dumpster? And how in the hell did he make the garbage disappear? There were so many questions, and he had no answers. He searched for some money in his pocket. He sighed with relief as he found his wallet in his pocket. He had enough cash to buy a hotel room. It was the first good thing to happen to him since waking up in the bottom of a dumpster. He flipped through his wallet to see what else was in there; he found his passport, his drivers’ license, and a pair of credit cards. He hoped like hell that he had good credit and that these things weren’t close to being maxed out. Because if they were, he would be well and thoroughly screwed. He walked out of the alley, and into the empty streets. It must have been late in the night, because streets in Greece were normally quite crowded. He crossed the streets, and grimaced at the sounds of his footsteps echoing through the night air. He stopped dead in his tracks as he heard the distant sound of running. Caleb pressed his back against the wall to avoid being seen. He didn’t know why he didn’t want to be seen, but he just felt like it would be for the best if people didn’t notice him. Six people ran down the street. The one in front was a woman who appeared to be in her late twenties. She had dark red hair, and a slim and athletic build. It was that trait that was keeping her ahead of the men chasing after her. The five men behind her were the thuggish type. They were large and physically imposing men. Each looked like the stereotypical thugs that they were. They had scars, broken noses, and some had cross-eyed, or otherwise vacant, stares. The one thing that wasn’t stereotypical about them though, was the simple fact that they were fast. It was the only way they’d be able to keep up with that woman. But whereas the thugs looked like they had the endurance of an elephant on steroids, the woman appeared that she was reaching the end of her limit. She ran into an alley on the other side of the street. And soon enough the five men followed her in. That couldn’t end well. His body seemed to move on it’s own accord. He broke out into a sprint and ran into the alley the six people vanished into. He felt something smack against his leg as he ran, from the inside of his coat… It felt like a book. But he didn’t have time to ponder that. As he ran, he felt something inside of him twist, and writhe. He would have screamed if he could. But all he could do was laugh hysterically. His laugh twisted as it left his mouth and became distorted. It sounded strangely hollow, and echoed more than what it should have. The pitch also vibrated and seemed to change with each echo. That made it sound even creepier… Which was saying something, because the laughter issuing from his throat was already completely insane and deranged. He kept running. As his laughter faded away, he heard someone shout, “What the hell was that?” The man sounded a tiny bit panicked. That made Caleb smile. It sounded as if someone were about to answer, but the voice was cut off by a dull wet sounding smack. There was a grunt of pain, and the sound of someone landing hard on the pavement. “Damn it you’re going to pay for that one bitch!” A man with a thick gargling sounding voice shouted. “Doubt it,” a soft and calm feminine voice said. She must have been an extremely placid woman, because she didn’t even sound startled by the sound his laughter. The voices were close now. Just around the corner. Before he stepped around the corner, he felt something twist inside of him again. And as the feeling became more and more intense, one of the men began to scream. Soon another scream joined the first. And then another. And another still. Soon all five men were screaming. But the woman was strangely silent. Caleb turned the corner as the screaming reached its crescendo. He was expecting something horribly bloody or something else that was horrifyingly disgusting. But he was surprised to see that all five men were miraculously intact….More or less at least. They were all on the ground, twitching and screaming. They were frothing from the mouth, and their eyes slowly began to turn milky white. The woman just stood there, staring at the thugs impassively. She was bleeding from a blow to her mouth, and her face had some scratches on them. They were courtesy of her attackers, or so Caleb believed. He could be wrong. Who knows? Maybe she was actually a sadomasochist who loved doing those kinds of things to themselves. Or maybe she was just completely insane. The thug’s screams became more frenzied as Caleb approached them. When Caleb crouched down to examine the loudest of the five, they started screaming in unison. Their pitches and volume match each other. Then they screamed two simple phrases, “Just kill us! Please just end it!” Their screams turned incoherent again, and soon they fell silent. Their twitches came to a stop as the froth along their mouths turned red with blood. At the same time some gray liquid began to drip out from their noses. And when the last of them died, Caleb let out another hysterical laugh. He was laughing so hard that tears were pouring from his eyes. Then the twisting sensation inside of him vanished, and he was left with his sanity again. And when he returned to his right mind, he smiled at the lady. “You don’t see that every night.” Caleb could tell right away this woman wasn’t a laughing type. She casually wiped the blood from her mouth and looked at him. Her eyes were completely devoid of happiness… And most other emotions. They were the cold predatory eyes of a gunman. Someone whose allegiance went to the highest bidder. And even then, the highest bidder could very well end up being prey to the very person they hired. The woman scowled at him, “I don’t know what you did to them, but I could have handled them on my own.” She pulled a gun out from under her shirt and pointed it at him. “But now I have to decide whether to add another body to go with these guys.” Caleb put his hands up placidly. His headache came back with a vengeance, and he could feel that unpleasant writhing sensation again. Maybe he did cause these deaths. It was an awfully strange coincidence that the sensation occurred moments before they died… But it was an impossibility. There was no way that he could have killed them like that… And even if he could, it was also equally impossible for him to do it with his mind. Wasn’t it? True, he had somehow made a bunch of garbage disappear and then reappear… But that was nothing like killing someone with his mind. “I didn’t do it,” he said earnestly. It may have been a complete and total lie, maybe he did do it, but Caleb didn’t accept that train of thought. “How could I have killed them without even seeing or touching them?” The woman looked at Caleb levelly, and took a small breath. “Maybe you’re a freak,” she hissed. “Maybe you’re one of those… anomalies that have been occurring every few years.” Caleb couldn’t help himself. He broke out laughing. The writhing in his mind warped his laughter into a laugh that belonged to a man in an insane asylum. “You’re joking right?” He said after he was able to stop laughing. “I mean you actually believe what those garbage tabloids publish? What’s next? Are you going to tell me your partner is Elvis?” She thumbed back the hammer of her gun. Caleb finally saw a sliver of emotion flash through her eyes. Unfortunately for him, that emotion happened to be rage. “You have a funny way of trying to convince me not to shoot you and leave your corpse in the alley with these bastards.” She growled. Now it was his turn to get mad. The rage that began pounding through his mind sped up the twisting sensation in his body. He lost control of his mind again as the rage joined forces with the alien sensation going through his body. His body began acting on it’s own accord again. He snarled at her and raised his hand. A split second before the woman pulled the trigger, the gun turned cherry red. The woman let out a pained yell, but before she could drop the gun, it turned white hot, and then it broke apart like a piece of charred wood. She fell to her knees, and clutched her hand. He could smell her charred flesh from where he was standing. Christ… Maybe she was right. He did it… He had killed five men with as much trouble as it takes someone to crush a mosquito. He did it with his mind. Worse. He killed five men with his mind, in cold blood… He didn’t feel any kind of regret that he killed them. Even with the faded insanity. He felt strangely content with that fact. He didn’t even feel bad about what had happened to the woman’s hand. She was right… He was a freak… And a monster. |
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Formerly Wirtjr, Denny Crane, Freddy Krueger, Rodney McKay, Bruce Campbell and Ash Williams
Brawl Code: 2793-4775-6845 | |
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| Wirtjr | Dec 19 2008, 06:43 PM Post #8 |
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The Train Conductor to Hell
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Chapter Four: Unlike the other times, the twisting sensation didn’t go away after one of those oddities happened. His body moved forward on its own accord and knelt in front of the woman. He grabbed her hand and gripped it tightly. She let out a pained howl, and whipped her unharmed hand around in a fist and decked him in the side of the face. It impacted him, and Caleb grunted inwardly, but he didn’t even acknowledge the punch. His grip tightened on the woman’s wounded hand, and the temperature of his palm increased by several dozen degrees. She continued punching him, hoping that he’d let go. But he only let go when the heat from his palm faded away. Once the heat faded back to its normal temperature, he let go and fell back and away from her assault. The twisting sensation vanished, and he was left in control of his body. And because of that, he could feel all of the blows to the head the woman dealt him. Damn she was a strong woman. He was going to have one hell of a headache later. The woman got up off her knees and stared at him. Her gaze turned down to her hand, and her face had a mystified expression on her face. She looked back up at him, and backed a few steps away. Her severally burned hand was no longer burned… All the damage to her hand had vanished like it was just a bad dream. You couldn’t even tell that her hand was burned. The skin tone was the exact same as it would be before it was hurt. It was his turn to be shocked again. How the hell was he doing all of this? Was he able to do this before he woke up in a dumpster without any memory? He tried to create the sensation on his own, hoping he could repair his own shattered memory, but it refused to work for him. He turned to look at the woman’s hand again, but she had run off. His lip curled into a sardonic smile. “You’re welcome!” He yelled. His own voice was still shaken, but it sounded firm enough. It carried a long way. “Freak!” The woman called back. The voice dripped with scorn. And judging from the sound of the voice, she was already a few blocks away. His smile turned sour. That was uncalled for. He fixed her hand, and was called a freak for his troubles. True, he was the one who caused her hand to be seared to the bone in the first place, but that really didn’t matter in the end. Caleb turned to walk away and to go find a place to sleep for the night. But as he did, the five men began to twitch again. Slowly they stumbled drunkenly to their feet. The remaining gray liquid gushed straight out of their noses, and a bit more dribbled out of their ears. The biggest of the thugs cracked his neck, and then in a thick and hollow voice, he said, “Diiiiiie.” Caleb stumbled back in a dead panic. He recognized that voice. He couldn’t place where he had heard it… All his mind would let him know is that it had something to do with him winding up in the bottom of that dumpster. The fact that these guys were dead, yet still moving around didn’t bother him… Well it did, but not as much as the voice did. That voice was what scared the hell him. Caleb stepped back, but found that his back was to the wall. Goddamn it, this would have been a great time for the sensation to come back and do something miraculous. But he felt nothing. The only thing he felt as the corpses advanced on him was the knowledge that he was going to die here. Helen ran away from the alley, and away from the freak. She had no idea how that freak managed to do any of those things. She didn’t know what he did to the thugs that were sent after her. She didn’t know how he made her gun crumble up like burned up coal… And she didn’t know how he fixed her hand. The only thing she knew was that he was one of those anomalies that the tabloids always warned about. Once she was a couple of blocks away, she felt the ground start shaking. Shortly afterwards a voice with more malice than anything she had ever heard uttered a single word so pervasive that she felt it even from where she was standing. “Diiiiiie.” The voice came from the same general area that the freak was standing at before she ran off. She stopped in her tracks, and ran back to where the freak was. Why the hell are you going back to help that freak? She snarled silently. Because, she answered herself, one good turn deserves another. He helped her out, and fixed her hand. She could repay the favor by checking to see if he was alive or dead. And if he turned out to be alive, she’d help him… If he turned out to be dead, she’d go along her merry way. Plus if she helped him out of a potentially fatal situation, she could charge him for it. Just because she was willing to help him, it didn’t mean she would do it for free. She had to make a profit somehow, since that last job went south. She stopped in her tracks again. The freak should be around the next corner. She drew another gun, this one happened to be made of Plexiglas, and took off the safety. She slipped a clip into the gun and cocked it. She took a deep breath to steady her hand, as she exhaled, she ran around the corner with her gun in hand. What she saw was probably the second or third most disturbing thing she had seen today… If not her entire week. Or her entire life. The five goons, who were sent after her and who were subsequently killed by the freak, were standing over the freak and were punching and kicking him to death. Their faces were bloodlessly pale, and their eyes were milky white. And if their collective stench was any indicator, they were quite dead. But then how in the hell were they walking around, let alone beating the shit out of somebody? She didn’t really have time to ponder that. She aimed for the side of the nearest thugs’ head and put two bullets through it. The dead man fell down, but soon enough stood back up. There was a hole blown clean through his head. In fact Helen could see clearly through it. What was really odd was the fact that his skull was completely empty. When the bullets blew out the other side of his head, there was no blood or brain, just shattered bone. Helen decided to try a little lower. She did not care in the slightest if they were dead or not. If they could still stand with broken kneecaps, she’s run away screaming. She trained her gun on the kneecaps. She pulled the trigger and sent a bullet into both of them. She heard the things bone shatter. It tipped back, and then fell over. This time it stayed down. Helen reloaded her gun and aimed at another corpse. Now she knew how to take these bastards down. For some reason the corpses never turned around to deal with her. They just kept wailing away on the freak on the ground. So much the better for her. Helen aimed for the back of their knees and pulled the trigger again. The creature went down without a sound. She repeated the process until each and every one of those thugs was flat on the ground. She bent over the freak to check his pulse. It was still there. So she figured the man was merely unconscious. It wasn’t all that surprising. If she was getting the shit kicked out of her by five goons, she’d be knocked out too. What was surprising was the fact that he survived that much trauma. Helen put the gun back in its holster and made sure the safety was on. She didn’t want to make it this far, and then be accidentally killed by misfire. She swore under her breath when she heard sirens approaching. Damn, this wouldn’t end well if they found her, or the freak, at the scene of this. She hauled him off of the ground, and then lifted him over her shoulder. She broke out into a dead ass run as the sirens got closer. She’d take the freak to her room at the hotel, then wait for him to wake up, force him to pay her, and then kick his ass out. It seemed a solid plan to her. The minute the corpses legs shattered, the man withdrew his mind from them. They were useless to him if they were crippled. He waited for the wench to drag off Darquin before he focused his mind on the ground underneath the corpses and bid it to swallow up the corpses. He left the signs of violence, but he made the bodies vanish. He couldn’t let the police find bodies that had their brains liquefied and their central nervous systems scrambled. He snarled and debated what to do next. He took a chance when he sensed Darquin’s power. He had expected that the mercenary would not return, so he could have dealt with the man when his powers wore out. But to his surprise, the mercenary showed some heart and came back. Chance, it would seem, was not on his side today. The man had always been able to read people like a book. He had sensed that the mercenary didn’t have that much heart in her… But it seemed that a page that was torn out of the book was taped back in at the last moment. The man took a sip from his vodka and tried to calm his mind. Anger was not his ally in this situation. Unlike in the past, he could not trust his rage to fuel his power. He had to use his power tactfully, and with the finesse that Darquin lacked. Unlike the past, where all of his opponents were equal in skill but could not match his rage or power, this man… This child could match his power, but he couldn’t match his skill… He had lifetimes to master his gift, whereas that pup only had his power for little more than four hours. The man calmed himself and took another sip. As the police arrived on the scene to check on reports of gunfire and screams, they would find the scene strangely devoid of bodies. They’d see plenty of blood, but no bodies to go with the blood… In fact, all there was to find at the scene were the same kind of bullet casings that were found in the tomb, and Darquin’s passport. Now with Darquin linked to a second set of crimes, each of them grisly homicides of one degree or another, there was no chance at all that he could be taken seriously even if he managed to translate the book, and give someone his findings. Whoever he gave it to would call the police to arrest him, and simply laugh off the “ridiculous story.” The one thing that was as effective back in the past, and now in the present was something that he had turned into a fine art lifetimes ago. Intrigue. He had toppled as many foes with intrigue as he did through brute force. It was the one tactic that worked just as well as then as it does now… “Christ…” Jacob groaned. He looked at the two paramedics who came with him to the scene. “Get your mops and buckets boys, ‘cause the only thing there is blood. A lot of it.” There were no bodies oddly enough though… There were all the signs that there should be bodies though. Because judging from all the blood, someone or multiple someone’s had to have had bled out. He looked at the two other officers who were arriving on the scene. “You know the drill guys, block off the crime scene. Make sure no one gets in or out of the crime scene. One of them immediately followed his orders. The other one just smirked and leaned against the wall. “That was an order.” Jacob snapped. The officer shrugged, “We ain’t in the Marines,” he snorted. “He’s taking care of it. But this wall isn’t going to get leaned on by itself.” “You’re going to get your pay docked,” he warned him. That just brought an even deeper and more callous smirk to his face, “Well that’s a shame. Your mother is going to lose her best customer. Her rates are so expensive, I can hardly afford her with an undocked paycheck.” “Are you calling my mother a whore?” “Well I can see you didn’t make lieutenant by being dumb.” He said, “And let me add, you’re an inbred hillbilly who looks like a cross between a sheep, and a large piece of elephant shit. I gave your mother syphilis, your Labrador Retriever beat your old man upstairs the night you were conceived and your father spanks it to pictures of his father in his old boy scout uniform.” The lieutenant’s blood began boiling as he crossed the alley and lifted the arrogant bastard up by the neck. He pulled his fist back and slammed it into his face. He felt his hand break and white hot pain shot throughout his body. “What the fuck?” Jacob gasped as he stumbled back. The officer still stood there, but he just casually waved at Jacob as he dissolved into thin air. The only thing left was the brick wall. There was an embarrassed cough. Jacob spun around and saw the police officer he sent to close off the scene. “Sir, was there any reason you were talking to and punching a brick wall?” “Bu-but…” Jacob sputtered, “There was another officer with you. He started insulting me and my family.” “There’s no one else here but me and those two paramedics… And you, sir.” Jacob shook himself, “It’s been a long night.” He said with a shrug, “I guess the lack of sleep is catching up to me.” “If you say so sir…” The man said slowly, “The paramedics found something with the blood. It was a passport. The kicker is whom it belonged to… One Caleb Darquin.” That caught Jacob’s attention, “Isn’t he the suspect for the Delphi massacre?” The officer nodded, “The very same sir. We don’t know if it was his blood left on the scene, or that of someone else. But we know he was connected to it. There was fresh blood all over the passport.” Jacob had all but forgotten the pain in his broken hand. He had trained himself to block out pain on the job. He could still do most of the things he was expected to do with one hand. And now that they found some evidence that tied this Caleb Darquin to not just one, but two crime scenes, he was able to ignore it completely. “Alright, put an ABP out on Darquin. We may be able to set a world record for ‘fastest capture of a mass murderer’.” “On it sir… You should get some ice for that hand, sir.” And with that the police officer sprinted off to the car to radio it in. “You can run, but you obviously can’t hide Darquin…” He murmured. He put the hallucination out of his mind. It had happened to him over the past few days. But like he said, it had been a long night. All of those nights have been long nights. Jason smiled grimly as he walked away from the crime scene. He was happy he made Jacob’s hand bust against the wall. The bastard had tried to arrest him three days ago. But with some quick thinking, he took the ‘appearance’ of a new police officer. It wasn’t the perfect illusion by any means. All he did was make people think he was so natural looking, people wouldn’t question the reasons he was there. But sooner or later one of the police officers would remember that they haven’t recruited any new police officers in over seven years. But Jason planned on being long gone by then. All he had to do was raid the police station and steal everything not nailed to the ground. But until then, he simply did what seemed natural. He helped with the crime scenes, he followed orders, and he stayed away from people as much as he could. The less time he was with people, the slower it would take for them to see through the ruse he put in place. But it didn’t stop him from fucking with Jacob’s head. For he past few days, he had been making him see things. Last night he had him beating up a vending machine, because Jason made it look like it was a nudist thumbing his nose at him, and insulting his penis size. Needless to say, Jacob was a cop with a very short temper. He had been on the force for over twenty years, and his temper got shorter by the year. He didn’t take well to being baulked, and he just hated to be insulted… So Jason went for a combination of the two. Being baulked at, and insulted at the same time. He continued musing what he’d do to Jacob later as he called the APB. This was all the better for him. The more police out in force meant there would not be as many of them at the station when he stole everything in it. Oh life was great. He didn’t understand why people with gifts like these hated their lives. If he didn’t have this ability, he’d probably be doing something legitimate. Such as selling weapons to war criminals. Or shooting war criminals… Or something that had something to do with weapons. “Attention all available units! We have a lead on Caleb Darquin. He is in the company of a woman who is on the top ten of the worlds most wanted list. Units request immediate backup. I repeat, immediate backup!” Jason sighed, damn that didn’t take them that long to find him. He wasn’t going to have as much time to rob the police station. “Jacob!” He shouted, “Someone’s found Darquin. They’re requesting backup.” The lieutenant came running back to the squad car. “Already?” Jason nodded, “Yeah. Apparently he’s hanging around with a killer. Some woman who’s one of the most wanted fugitives in the world.” Jacob’s went as wide as dinner plates. “Darquin and Helen DeGradi? This is going to be a great night for us. Let’s get a move on.” The illusionist nodded. “Alright. Let’s get rolling.” They hopped into the squad car, and drove off into the night. With sirens screeching, and lights flashing they headed off to capture a pair of killers… Well Jacob wanted that. All Jason wanted was to steal the valuables on the crime scene. It was a great way to make a living. |
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Formerly Wirtjr, Denny Crane, Freddy Krueger, Rodney McKay, Bruce Campbell and Ash Williams
Brawl Code: 2793-4775-6845 | |
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| Wirtjr | Dec 23 2008, 12:52 PM Post #9 |
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The Train Conductor to Hell
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Updated early due to Christmas __ Chapter Five: He was dreaming again. He seemed to be doing that a lot. Caleb dreamt of a pyramid steeped in blood. Hundreds of bodies were spread along the base of the pyramid. All of their blood rained down onto the ground in a tsunami. But it seemed that no matter how much landed on the ground it didn’t pool and flood over the pyramid. Caleb stared at the pyramid, but it wasn’t the bodies or the blood that scared him. The entire structure, seemingly the entire world, was overshadowed by a great shadow. It was seemingly man shaped, but at the same time it was monstrous. It had a sinister air about it. The shadow seemed to be drawing energy from its surroundings and gaining more power from it. It drew strength from death. Caleb watched as a manifestation of himself walked up to the pyramid. The shadow drew back as if it were afraid of him. But moments before Caleb reached the entrance of the pyramid, the shadows rose up and condensed itself into an apparently physical form. The shadow was much taller than Caleb, and much more stalwartly built. The shadow stood its ground against Caleb. But before he got to see the outcome of the conflict, he felt something slap against his face. “Wake up!” Hissed a cold feminine voice in his ear. “GODDAMN IT WAKE UP!” The hand whacked him again and he flailed his arms in the air for a moment before jerking to a sitting position. The room he was in was very dark, but he could make out scant details of it. From the smell of it he could tell it was a very cheap room. He also thought he could feel bugs crawling up his legs. He looked at the woman who was slapping him, and he just froze. It was that woman. The one who denounced him a freak… Did he just use the word “denounce” in a sentence? Caleb mentally slapped himself. Argue with yourself about grammar later. Right now talk to the bitch that’s been slapping the shit out of you. “Why am I here?” He growled. He stood up and towered over her. She wasn’t an extremely tall woman. So it wasn’t really that hard to do. “I saved your life you ungrateful freak.” She snarled. “One good turn deserves another.” She took a piece of paper out of her pocket. “Speaking of which, here’s your bill.” Caleb stared at her for a second, and then grabbed the piece of paper. “Six thousand dollars?” He choked out, “I didn’t ask you to save me. And also why should I pay you for saving my life?” “I wasted several bullets on those things.” She said softly. “That also covers the gun you melted. That one was expensive.” Caleb stared at her incredulously. She was serious. She actually expected him to pay her for doing a good deed. He shook his head, “I don’t have that kind of money. Even if I did, I still wouldn’t pay you.” Caleb grabbed her hand as she lashed out to punch him. He applied some pressure on her wrist and held her at bay. “And I’ve also had enough punching for one day.” Which was true. Those things had punched and kicked the hell out of him. It was a miracle none of his bones were broken. “Let go of me, freak,” she snarled. “Because unless you want me to rip that hand off and sell it back to you, it’s probably in your best interest to let go.” Caleb looked the woman in the eyes. She scared him slightly, if truth was told. But if he had learned anything since waking up in the dumpster, it was that he could be scary too. And more than a little insane. “Is it wise to threaten a freak?” He murmured. “Remember what I did to the guys chasing you.” She snorted, “Yeah, and look at what they did to you in return. If you could use effectively, they wouldn’t have gotten up and started kicking the shit out of you.” “Maybe it was all part of an elaborate ruse to get you to come back so I could deal with you for the insult,” Caleb bluffed. It wasn’t a convincing bluff, not even close to one, but he was just stalling until that sensation kicked back in. He had to figure out some way to control it! And as Caleb suspected, she wasn’t convinced in the least. She thumbed back the hammer of the gun, and continued staring at him. “I’ll give you until the count of three. Figure out some way to pay me. One.” Caleb closed his eyes and tried to create the sensation again. “No,” he grunted. “Two.” “No!” He grunted again. He could feel a tiny twitch inside of him. “Three.” “NO!” He howled. The sensation came as if called. The writhing feeling throughout his body became stronger than he had felt it previously. It appeared that this power would come into action if there was a powerful enough emotion to drive it… Be it rage, fear, anxiety… It didn’t matter so long as the emotion was strong enough. And right now he had plenty of rage. The woman had a quick trigger finger, but not even bullets were quicker than thought. He imagined the bullet in his mind, and as the bullet shot out of the pistol it broke down into little grains of material. The grains were no bigger than a tiny bit of sand, and he didn’t even feel it when they smacked into his chest. And as the sensation started growing stronger, and with it his rational part of the mind growing weaker, all hell broke loose. Police sirens erupted through the quiet and placid background noise, and there were flashes of light pointed at the windows and doors. “Caleb Darquin, Helen DeGardi, you two are hereby under arrest. Come out with your hands up, or we will come in there and take you down forcibly!” A voice shouted from outside the room. What the hell? Why were the police after him? He didn’t do anything. He wasn’t all that surprised they wanted that bitch. She seemed like that type of violent sociopath. The ones who couldn’t stay under the radar and attracted a whole lot of bad attention from the police wherever they went. “You have one minute!” The voice shouted again, “If you do not come out with your hands up, we will break down that door!” Well they can try… Caleb thought darkly. His serpentine feeling had not faded away yet, and was in fact reinforced by the jolt of fear the police just gave him. The woman seemed to be stunned in fear… She didn’t seem to know which was the lesser of two evils… Being arrested, or being in the room with an insane freak. Caleb ran to the door and placed his hand on it. He didn’t know why. While he may have been in complete control of his body, he was not in control of his impulses. Something inside of him, his power perhaps, told him that it would be in his best interest to move like that. As he touched his hand to the door, the door shuddered. The cheap wooden door slowly dissolved, and faded away to reveal a door of shining silver steel. He walked to the windows next and ran his hands against them. Though nothing appeared to have changed, Caleb was almost positive it became stronger. He ran on his impulses and ran to the nightstand by the bed. “Don’t just stand there like a dead hooker, get ready to get out of here!” He snarled at… They said her name was Helen DeGardi, so he guessed that’s what he’d call her too. “We’re going to have to work together if we’re going to not get arrested!” The woman snapped out of whatever was wrong with her, and gave a rigid nod. He gave a tiny nod of his own and reached inside of the drawer of the nightstand. There was a bible lying unopened in there. Caleb sighed and brushed his hand against it as well. He felt it change as he rushed back to the newly metal door. By the time he placed it on the ground, its paper changed into metal, and now looked similar to a car battery… Complete with jumper cables. He attached the cables to the knob of the door, and retreated backwards. That’d hold them back for a while. They had about fifteen seconds left before they began trying to break down the door. Caleb brushed his hands over the beds and then he ran and grabbed Helen by the arm. “Keep a hold of me.” He warned her. Before she had a chance to reply, he jerked her away and sprinted into the bathroom wall. The sensation was starting to fade away, but it lasted long enough for him to pull them both through the wall like it was just a veil of mist. A split second before they escaped the room, he heard the police officer shout, “Alright, we’re coming in!” But that was all he heard before they were in the south parking lot of the hotel. There was a lone car parked there. Caleb glanced at Helen, “You thinking what I’m thinking?” He asked wearily. It took all of his remaining energy to stand up straight. Helen nodded silently. Caleb watched as the mercenary subtly broke into the car. Caleb had to admit that she was impressive. She didn’t even trigger the car’s alarm. Within moments, they were rocketing away from the hotel. The sensation vanished immediately and he became too exhausted to stay conscious. Before he passed out, he heard himself say, “I’ll pay you.” But then consciousness vanished, and he passed out again. Jason bursted out laughing as Jacob fell to the ground without so much as a cry. The minute he touched the door, he was electrocuted instantly. There was the occasional twitch, but he’d be out for the rest of the night… Hopefully. “Bring out the rams!” Harris Bey shouted. Moments later two police officers came charging at the door with their battering rams. “Break the windows too!” He ordered. Police officers ran up to the windows and smashed their rifles against the windows. They grunted and realized that the windows were shatterproof. “Damn, Helen was prepared this time…” Harris murmured. Soon the door was however knocked down. “Move move move!” He shouted. Jason watched as Jacob actually stirred and got up. Jason was actually surprised. Jacob was a lot tougher than he thought. It appeared that the shock didn’t do much more than knock him out for a few moments… Which was odd in a few ways… But he didn’t dwell on that, because after a few moments of entering the room, Jacob was smashed against the wall by the bed. Jason howled with laughter again. Somehow the woman rigged the bed to a springboard. It looked like it came from a bloody cartoon. Jacob was smashed into the wall repeatedly until he fell limply to the ground again. Some of the police officers jumped back in surprise. Some of them just took it in stride. You see a lot of crazy stuff when you work for the police after all. “They’re not in here!” Someone shouted. “They have to be!” Harris said. “There was only one way out of here, and we just busted that door down.” And on that note, Jason decided to leave. They’d be tearing the room apart for a while as they tried to find a where they were hiding. Jason knew they wouldn’t succeed however. It may have gone unnoticed by the others, but there was no possible way that that door could turn from regular wood into reinforced steel… The windows couldn’t suddenly be shatterproof. And mattresses didn’t just fly through the air and slam people into walls…. And people couldn’t just disappear from a room like that. It took a very special set of gifts to do any of that. And Jason didn’t want to be near anyone with that kind of power… From all he learned about people like himself, the most startling was the fact that their gifts twisted their personalities and fed their darker aspects. It would change people in different ways, and in different kinds of strengths. The weaker the gift, the smaller the change. Jason himself had a relatively weak gift in the grand scheme of things, so he wasn’t much affected by the change. He just had the urge to steal more things. He had that urge long before his powers developed though. Now it was only increased to an extremely annoying level. But of all of the gifts, one of the most dangerous he had ever heard of would be the talent of reconfiguring substances at a subatomic level… The things he could do would only be limited by his imagination. That kind of change would drive all but the most strong-willed into raving lunatics… And assuming the person had that kind of strength of will, the trip into lunacy would always be a constant threat. Jason wasn’t an expert in this by any means, but he did do some research into it. There were a few groups who had made a study of the Mutates, and they did manage to figure out that much about the mutate gene before someone wiped them out… Whoever did it was almost certainly a Mutate at the higher caliber of strength. But if there was one thing Jason was an expert in, it was simple natural ability of knowing when it was best to stop digging. He wasn’t really in the mood to get attacked by someone who could turn his insides into chocolate pudding and his bones into chili. Jason jumped back in the squad car and drove off. He focused his mind and made an image of the police car sitting there like it should be. It would last as long as no one touched it. Once someone so much as brushed against it, the illusion would be dispelled. As he drove off, he found himself pondering the two fugitives. He wondered which of the two really had the mutation. He really doubted it was that Helen… If she had that kind of power, she wouldn’t be on the top ten fugitives list. She’d be in a category all of her own by now. So he figured it had to be Caleb… especially since the multiple homicides in one day, and him being connected to each of them. What was odd was that he had no prior arrest record, or any record at all. So if it was him, that’d mean the change had to have occurred almost immediately. His thoughts continued down that route until he got to the police station. As he parked, he began chuckling to himself. They really did empty this place out in order to catch Helen DeGardi. Jason didn’t know much about her, but the little he did know was that she was a dangerous gunman. She had contacts all over the world, and she had ties to a lot of governments. It made her hard to touch, politically speaking at least. Hell in certain countries, she was completely impossible to touch. She had her base of operations in one of those countries… Greece was one of the few countries she could actually be apprehended in. So the Greeks had standing orders to arrest her the minute she showed her face. Jason moved silently and methodically through the police station. He had spent the past couple of days learning the ins and outs of the place. Plus he also knew where some of the senior police officers had hidden stashes of expensive booze and cigars. He smiled to himself as he raided Jacob’s station. There were plenty of fun things in there. A lot of Elysian Corporation energy pills, a pair of illegally modified revolvers, three different types of jackknives, and some Elysian Corporation cigarettes… Those things were deadly and addictive as hell (more so than regular cigarettes)… But damn they fetched a nice price. So Jason shrugged and put them in his pocket. Then he quietly skipped over to the evidence room. They really needed to get some better security at this place. And the last stop for the night would be at the safe. As Jason went to work on the combination, he focused his mind and made it appear that he wasn’t there at all. But like the rest of his illusions, if someone brushed against it, it’d be gone instantly. Christ, this was one hell of a complicated combination… It was going to take him awhile to crack it. But luckily for him, he had plenty of time. “Son of a bitch,” Jacob growled as he pushed himself off of the ground. “Anyone get the license plate of the truck that hit me?” He muttered. “Better than that, we got it’s tag,” Harris chuckled. “You got smashed against a wall by a queen sized mattress.” He helped Jacob over to the chair. “Before you ask, we have no idea how Helen managed that… Or how she managed to make the door appear to be wood when it was actually steel… Or how she managed to convince the owner of the hotel to replace her windows with shatterproof glass.” “Why don’t we ask her?” Jacob grumbled. He had one hell of a headache. “We did catch her, right?” Harris shook his head, “No. She escaped somehow. We’re combing the area for ways she could have gotten out. The owner claimed that he never put shatterproof glass in this room, or had a solid metal door installed anywhere but his office.” “Then how the hell did they get there?” He shoved his hand into his pocket and drew out an Elysian Corporation energy pill and popped it into his mouth. It dissolved instantly, and he felt a wave of energy hit him. It gave him enough energy to block out the pain again. “He’s either lying, or Helen did it very discreetly. I think he’d notice if he saw a woman unhinging the door to her room and replacing it. Not to mention how hard it is to replace panes of glass… He’d notice someone doing that too.” Jacob stood up and looked at the room, “Do we have any idea how she managed to rig the bed to attack me?” He asked darkly. That was probably the second weirdest thing to happen to him tonight. Harris shook his head, “None at all.” He looked down at Jacob’s visibly broken hand. “Go to the hospital Jacob, we’ll handle it. She couldn’t have gotten far.” “Right…” Jacob muttered. He walked out of the room and back to his squad car. The minute he touched it though, it vanished! “What the hell?” Jacob shouted. He ran back to the room. “My car’s gone!” He roared, “That bitch must have taken it when our backs were turned!” Harris stiffened. “Well luckily we have GPS trackers installed into the police cars.” Harris motioned for Jacob to follow him. They went to his squad car, and turned on the tracking device. “Son of a bitch, she’s at the police station.” Jacob groaned. Harris got on his megaphone. “All units, back to the police station!” He shouted into it. “We’ve got a pair of fugitives at the station. We’re going in hot.” The officers all ran back to their cars, and the night came alive with sirens. Jacob rode with Harris. He popped another energy pill as they pulled out of the parking lot. This was the end of the line for Helen… And hopefully the end of the line for that Darquin too. Assuming that he was still working with her. When Caleb passed out, his dream resumed at the point where it left off last time. He was still standing there, getting ready to confront the deathly shadow. Neither of them would back down… They couldn’t. They were opposing forces… Shadows and light. Life and death. Creation and destruction. The shadow brought up it’s hand and lightning roared down from the sky. It stopped millimeters from Caleb’s scalp. He felt the intensity of its strength, but it did not hurt him. Caleb gritted his teeth and the bolt of lightning changed into a sphere. He thrust his fist forward, and the ball of lightning rammed straight at the shadow. The ball stopped bare inches from its face, the shadow dispersed the energy with a wag of its finger. As the finger wagged back and forth, the torrent of blood came down harder. When it touched the ground it started boiling. But it never touched him; he focused his mind and kept a solid wall of hardened air molecules over him. The shadow didn’t seem to care about the blood burning him away… In fact the acidic blood was burning the entire dream away. The scenery burned away to reveal nothing but darkness. Caleb fell through the darkness. Instead of hearing wind whip past him as he plummeted, he heard screams of pain… They sounded so familiar, but he couldn’t place any of the screams. Caleb felt something slap against his face. Once more he woke up. “Was the slap really necessary?” He groaned. “Your screams were really getting on my nerves,” Helen supplied. “Any signs of us being followed by the police?” Caleb asked with a yawn. He rubbed his face and winced. Damn she had a good arm on her. “None at all,” Helen said flatly. “I think they’re still trying to figure out how we escaped the room.” The tone of her voice said clearly enough that she’d like to know how they did it too. “I have no idea,” he told her. “I just went on instinct.” “Well it was useful, I’ll give you that,” she muttered. “So what’s this I heard about you paying me?” Caleb paused for a moment… He knew he didn’t say that, but since he wasn’t in full control at the time, it could have been the power saying that. “Well it seems we’re both wanted by the police.” He didn’t know why the police wanted him, but he’d figure it out eventually… The fastest way would be to get arrested, but that did not sound like fun. He’d prefer to wait until his memory came back. Though he would probably be arrested before it happened. “Plus,” he added, “It seems we can both help each other.” “Because you can save my ass with your freaky abilities, and I can save your ass when your freaky abilities decide to leave you high and dry?” Caleb chuckled quietly. “That, and I’m the quiet peaceful type of guy. Violence upsets me, you see? You on the other hand seem to be a very violent woman. You can do all of the things I’d prefer not to do.” Helen snorted, “I need to know a couple of things. First is what are you going to be doing, and why exactly do you need my help. And the second thing is do you even know what I charge?” Caleb scratched his head. He was about to open his mouth when he felt the sensation twist through him. The muscles in his mouth moved on its own, and his vocal cords worked on their own, “Need your help to find a place I’ve got the coordinates to.” The muscles in his arm twitched and his arm reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick and ancient book. He tapped it. “Coordinates, map, and everything.” “What exactly are you looking for?” Helen asked slowly. “Gaia Tumulus. The Earth Tomb… You may have heard of it as Avalon.” Helen stared at him sideways for a few moments, trying to see if he was joking or not. “Avalon?” She repeated. “As in the Arthurian Avalon?” “The very same. There’s something there that I need to find.” “And what would that be?” “A cache of artifacts,” and with those last few words the sensation vanished and he was left with the control of his body again. He opened the book and looked at it…The language was odd as hell, but his mind allowed him to remember the tiny fact that he had translated most of it. He looked at it and flipped through it… It was a map. “Alright…” Helen said with a shrug, “Now for my other question. Do you know how much I charge?” “I’ll be good for it.” Caleb assured her. “If I’m right, what we’re about to find will pay your fee ten times over.” “Alright, it’s a deal.” Helen said. “Sorry for calling you a freak by the way. I’m just really not used for those kind of freaky things to happen.” Caleb waved his hand dismissively. “You and me both.” Caleb muttered. As they kept driving, he saw police lights coming up from the rear. Seconds later their sirens began blaring. “Oh shit.” Helen took a quick look in the rearview mirror and then floored it. “Don’t worry, you just hired me, and luckily enough for you I’ve done my fair share of high speed car chases.” Caleb looked behind the car and saw at least twelve squad cars coming up. “I hope you’re not all talk,” he muttered. Because if she was, he’d finally figure out why the police wanted him so badly. Because they were going to be visiting the inside of a jail soon enough. |
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Formerly Wirtjr, Denny Crane, Freddy Krueger, Rodney McKay, Bruce Campbell and Ash Williams
Brawl Code: 2793-4775-6845 | |
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| Wirtjr | Jan 5 2009, 09:23 PM Post #10 |
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The Train Conductor to Hell
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Chapter Six: The car they had stolen had a nice accelerator. Because for the moment they left the police in the dust, much to Caleb’s relief... But the moment was soon up when the cops showed them that they had better accelerators. They caught up to the car, and, much to a bewildered Caleb, passed them and continued onwards. “What the fuck?” Caleb exclaimed. “They’re not after us?” “Apparently not.” Helen said with a shrug as they slowed down. “I’ve never given the Greek police much credit for being smart… And now you know why.” He let out an insane laugh, and with it the twisting sensation that came with the jolt of fear. He clamped his mouth shut to prevent the insane laugh from continuing. He was getting a bit of control over the power now, but every time it activated, he felt his mind slip away just a little more… He was more or less sane when the power wasn’t doing its job, but when the writhing serpentine feeling came he felt more insane than Charles Manson. There had to be a way to keep his sanity intact when he used his power. But then again he needed to figure out a way to use his power without some high emotional charge to jumpstart it… If he could do that, he could probably figure out how to keep his sanity. “You okay back here?” Helen asked cautiously. She still seemed a little edgy…The insane laugh probably didn’t help. “For the most part,” Caleb said with a cough. “You don’t have to worry about it.” They were silent again for a time, and then Caleb decided to break the silence. “So why do the police want to arrest you?” “I’m a highly paid world-class mercenary.” She said proudly. “You hire me, and you can be sure you that I’ll get the job done. I’ve been hired by a lot of world leaders to do various jobs. Greece is one of the few places I can actually be arrested in. So I have to stay on my toes here.” She glanced back at him, “And how about you? Why are the police after you?” “I have no idea actually.” Caleb said with exasperation. “About three minutes before I met you, I woke up in the bottom of a filled up dumpster with absolutely no memory. I must have done something bad though, because I really doubt that they would send that many people just after you.” “You’d be surprised actually.” Helen said. “About three years ago I was hired to kill the Prime Minister. I had to blast my way through a few cops to get to him though. But these guys hold a grudge, so when they hear I’m around they respond with overkill.” Caleb shook his head. Great, he just had to hire someone who the Greek police would follow to the ends of the earth. Oh well, at least sounded capable. “Any ideas where they’re heading if they’re not after us?” Caleb asked. “I don’t know actually,” she said. “Maybe someone thought they saw us and they’re going to investigate. Or maybe someone broke into the police station.” “Who’d be dumb enough to break into the police station?” Caleb asked dryly. “Once again, you’d be surprised,” Helen told him. “They’ve got a lot of valuable things in there. Ranging from the things they keep stashed in the evidence room to the stuff various officers keep in their desks for special days.” “But how would you even go about stealing things? The place is filled with cops.” Helen laughed, “Look ahead of you. They emptied the place out to catch me. They even put pistols in the hands of the pencil pushers. If there was a time to raid the station, it would be now.” “But they can’t seriously be stupid enough not to have some kind of security system installed.” She laughed again, “You really don’t know anything about being a thief. A good thief knows how to deactivate the systems so they can loot at their own pace.” “Then why would the police be heading back to the station if the systems were deactivated?” Caleb asked softly. “The thief got cocky, probably.” Helen said with a shrug. “Relax, it has nothing to do with us, and it actually helps us.” Caleb shrugged. “Good point.” “So where are we heading?” Helen asked. Caleb opened the book and flipped through it. He stared at the symbols for a few moments, and then said “Norway.” Helen arched an eyebrow. “That’s quite a long drive. So is Avalon in Norway?” “Not quite.” Caleb said as he read the book. “But in order to get to Avalon, we have to find something in Norway. It’s supposed to ‘open the way’ to Avalon for us.” “Where do we go after that?” “I won’t know until we find what we’re looking for in Norway.” Caleb replied. “According to this book the next part of the map will be revealed once we open the way.” “Christ…” She muttered. “This is going to be a fun trip.” “Misery loves company.” Caleb agreed. “Do we at least know what we’re looking for?” Helen asked. “Because that would be a very nice thing to know.” “It’s an artifact.” Caleb murmured as he read through the book. “It’s some kind of key… It could be a literal key, or a metaphorical key. I’m betting on the metaphorical kind.” “Do we at least know what this key looks like?” “All I know is it’s heavy enough it requires both hands to hold.” Caleb told her. “The book says when you see it, you’ll recognize it.” “If you say so.” Helen said. It was obvious by the tone of her voice that she had some doubts. “But first, do you want to see what the police are doing?” “If we get caught and arrested, it’s your fault,” she warned him. The serpentine writhing started again, fueled by curiosity and the fear of being caught again. “Don’t worry,” he said with an insane little smile, “We won’t be.” Jason had almost figured out the combination to the safe when he heard the police sirens in the distance. “Son of a bitch,” he snarled. They were coming back much faster than he expected… But why did they have their sirens going? “Goddamn it. They think those two took the police car that I took… Fuck I forgot all about the GPS trackers.” He had to get out, and he had to get out fast. Jason focused his mind on the police station itself. He needed to keep them out of it for as long as possible… He snapped his fingers as he got an idea, and the idea began manifesting itself. Suddenly the place seemed to go up in flames. Some of the walls were already crumbled and more appeared to be crumbling as the illusion began growing in detail. Soon the entire building was on fire. Only it wasn’t actually on fire… But the cops didn’t know that. Hopefully a burning building would keep them out of it long enough for him to make his escape. He just needed a ten-minute head start… He was going to be on foot, because he couldn’t take the squad car… They would track that thing to the ends of the earth so long as they believed DeGardi and Darquin were the ones who stole it. He left the safe, deciding it would take him a few more minutes to open and those few minutes were better used for retreating. Jason peered out a window and saw squad cars park all around the parking lot. Crap, this wasn’t going to be fun… Oh well he was more or less sure that he wasn’t going to be able to go through the front anyways. Jason ran to the back of the building and peered out that window. “Shit!” He growled. There were police gathered out there too. “Someone get the fire department on the line!” One of them shouted. “Already done, they’ll be here in five minutes.” An officer answered. “Shit, shit, shit, shit.” He grumbled. He had five minutes to think of a way out of here. Because the minute a firefighter sprayed his fire with water, it’d all vanish like a puff of smoke and reveal an intact building. He had one chance. But for it to work, he’d have to be right by the door when the firefighters came to put the ‘fire’ out… “Well will you look at that…” Helen murmured softly. “Their station is burning to the ground… Wonder if it was faulty wiring, or someone finally snapped and tried to burn it down.” “Neither…” Caleb told her. Their car was parked several yards behind the police. Caleb’s power was bending light and air around the car and rendered it invisible to the naked eye… Though it was a fragile working. All it would take would be one solid smack, and the cloak would shatter like a diamond hit at precisely the right angle. “The fire doesn’t really exist.” Caleb explained. “I don’t know how I know it, but it’s like a hologram. It looks like it’s really happening, but in truth nothing is really happening.” “So someone put a giant hologram around the police station just to fuck with them?” “It seems like it.” Caleb agreed. “Here comes the fire department. Watch what happens when they hose down the fire. The instant something physical touches it, it’s going to fade away.” Jason stood at the front door and got ready to run. The minute his illusion was dissipated there’d be a moment of confusion long enough for him to throw an illusion over himself and run off. He couldn’t make himself invisible, but he could make himself look like a puff of smoke. No one would question why a puff of smoke came out of a door that was previously on fire. As the firefighters approached the building, he took a deep breath and crouched down. This was going to be chancy, but it was his only shot. He really wasn’t in the mood to get arrested right now… Not when he had his pockets filled with all of these different types of goodies. As the water streaked toward the illusion, the illusion rippled and began to vanish. And at that moment, Jason wrapped the new illusion around him and sprinted out of the door. He sprinted past the police who just stared at the building with equal amounts of amazement and disbelief. They were no doubt thinking what the hell just happened. They were also wondering why the front door was thrown open the moment the fire vanished. But they were too confused to do anything else but stare. Jason chuckled silently to himself as he slipped away. He was actually surprised it worked. He was expecting his plan to fall apart somewhere. It almost always happene- His train of thought was cut short when he slammed into an invisible… something. He fell to the ground with a curse. He clamped his mouth shut, but it was too late… The police saw him… And they saw what he had slammed into. A formerly invisible car, holding Helen DeGardi, and Caleb Darquin. “There they are!” Jacob shouted. “Get them!” When the illusionary puff of smoke slammed into the car, and revealed it to be a man in his late twenties, the twisting sensation in his chest became even stronger. Christ they were going to be arrested… They needed a way out of it… That’s when Caleb, or maybe the insane part of Caleb that took control when his power began working, got an idea. It would just cost him a bit of his soul… He opened the door of the car and picked up the windshield wiper. It warped and shifted in his hand until he had a very large hunting knife in his hand. Before the illusionist, he was pretty sure that’s how he caused all those things to happen at least, could get off of the ground, Caleb was on him and he wrapped one of his arms around his neck and placed the knife to his neck. The man went limp in his arm. He was expecting him to put up some kind of fight, since his life might have been on the line… “Don’t move.” He warned the police. His voice came out in that creepily insane and disturbed voice. It sounded hollow and it warbled and changed pitch and tone erratically. “Make one more step forward and I’ll slash this man’s throat open.” Caleb remembered taking a peek out the window and seeing this man’s face. There was a chance that if he had one of their own held hostage, then he could get away. The police stopped in their tracks. But one of them, a sharpshooter by the looks of it, tried to fire a shot at his head. The twisting sensation made his blood boil, and soon the air in front of him hardened. The bullet plowed into the air, and it started chipping away as it worked its way through the hardened air. By the time it finally broke through it was nothing but some fine filaments. They stung Caleb’s face, but that was about it. “That won’t work.” Caleb assured them. “Now my associate and I are going to be taking a little drive. We’re bringing your friend along as an insurance policy. If you follow us, or try to impede our escape in any way, you’ll be peeling pieces of him off of the highway for the next few months.” Caleb heard another shot, and once more the bullet crashed into the wall of hardened air. Once more tiny filaments slashed his face. “Fire another shot, and I’ll fire one in return. Only it’ll be in this man’s head!” Caleb shouted. “Once my associate and I are safely out of here, we will release him. He will not be harmed… So long as you listen to what I said.” He watched as the police looked at each other uncertainly. They obviously couldn’t tell whether he was bluffing or not. He let his face show impassiveness. He was pretty sure before his memory loss he must have been a good liar. The scary thing though, was the fact he knew he wasn’t bluffing. He’d kill this man if they tried to stop him from leaving. He was hoping it wouldn’t come to that though. Luckily, it didn’t seem it would have to come down to it. Slowly but surely, one by one the officers stood down. Most of them lowered their guns. Only three of them kept their guns up, until their friends came and forced their arms down. Caleb nodded tightly to them, and he backed slowly into the vehicle. He dragged the man inside, and before he even slammed the door Helen floored it and raced out of the parking lot. “Are you nuts?” She yelled at him. “Do you know what kind of shit you’ve just caused?” Before Caleb answered, the hostage started laughing. “He didn’t cause much actually… The police will realize it in about twenty minutes.” After he said that, his face rippled and changed. He wasn’t a man in his late twenties… In fact he couldn’t have been more than nineteen. He had dark brown hair that covered a widow’s peak. His eyes were an odd color of purple. He also wore a callous smirk on his face, as if he knew some kind of joke that no one else did. “Oh great… Another freak.” Helen growled. “Freak is in the eyes of the beholder Helen.” The hostage said. “My name is Jason Voren. I’m a career thief. And as you can tell, I’m also a Mutate. Much like you, Caleb… Except nowhere near as powerful.” Caleb was confused. He had never taken a hostage before, but he knew one thing about it… Hostages were supposed to be scared shitless. They weren’t supposed to be chatting up a storm with his kidnappers. “So you’re not a cop?” Caleb asked him. “Nope. I had to pose as a cop for a while though… Almost got arrested three days ago. I just finished stealing things from the station when they came back. I made it appear that the building was on fire to buy me enough time to think of a way out… And you provided me one.” “You knew we were down there?” “Actually no.” Jason admitted. “But the minute I smacked into your cloaked car, it ruined my illusion and ruined my chance of getting out of there. But thanks to your gambit, I’m out of there now.” Caleb relaxed the knife in his hand. He put it back on the ground and it began shifting back into a windshield wiper. “I see…” “That means we can toss him out, right?” Helen asked. “There’s no need to bring him along.” “No… He stays.” Caleb said. “I would rather go my own way. I won’t say anything about you two.” Jason said quickly. “No,” Caleb said firmly. “I might need a man of your talents.” “What will happen if I refuse?” Jason asked coyly. “I’ll make good on my promise to the police. They’ll have to scrape your pieces off the highway.” Jason shrugged, “Alright, you really know how to convince a guy.” He laughed, but it sounded really shaken… Caleb could tell that he scared the man. But Caleb scared himself even more… Of that he was sure. He couldn’t scare anyone as effectively as he was scaring himself… But necessity required scare tactics. He didn’t know why he needed someone who could create illusions. But the twisting sensation in his chest didn’t fade away until the man agreed… Which meant that the illusionist might come in handy. Caleb let out a quiet insane laugh as the twisting vanished. Jason looked at him and edged away a bit more. Helen just shrugged. “Why do you keep laughing insanely periodically?” She asked him seriously. “It’s a little creepy.” “It’s his power,” Jason explained before Caleb could open his mouth. “The mutation gene warps peoples minds in different ways. The stronger the talent, the stronger the change. Only people with strong willpower can keep their personalities completely intact.” “How did your power warp you then?” Helen asked. “I steal things more often then I used to,” Jason said with a shrug. He looked at Caleb again, “But don’t worry. You’ll figure out a way to control yourself.” Caleb kept his expression indifferent. He also kept his voice from shaking as he said, “Well good thing you’re with us then. I wouldn’t know about that little tidbit of information.” “I’m glad you’re so calm about this,” Helen muttered. “But I have a question for you… Since the kid is coming with us, the police are going to be pissed that you didn’t live up to your end of the bargain.” “Yeah… That’s where I have no idea what to do,” Caleb admitted. Jason sighed and closed his eyes. He was silent for a moment, and some blood started to trickle out of one of his closed eyes. He opened them and sagged in his seat. “It’s taken care of.” Jason gasped. “I’ve never had to make an illusion that far from me before. They’re getting a phone call now. My voice is saying I jumped out of the car and you guys kept going.” “Great,” Helen growled, “They’ll be following us so closely they’ll drive up our asses.” “Don’t worry,” the illusionist said after taking a deep breath, “My voice gave them the wrong directions. You’re currently heading for Bulgaria. Or at least that’s what I said. It’ll keep them off of us for a while… But once we cross the country border we’re going to have Interpol hounding us.” “But we’re heading for Macedonia. Interpol can’t touch me there.” Helen informed them. “And as long as you two are with me, my protection extends over to you as well.” “Oh right,” Jason muttered, “I forgot I’m now traveling with one of the most infamous fugitives in the world.” “Damn straight.” Helen said with a quick smile. “It’s a great way to make a living. I wouldn’t have it any other way.” “How many hours until we reach the Macedonian border?” Caleb asked. “Five hours, give or take. Hope you don’t need to go to the bathroom, because we are not going to be making any stops until we get across the border.” “What if we run out of gas?” Jason asked. “We won’t.” Caleb replied. “Wake me up if we need gas, or when we cross the border… or when the police catch us.” “No can do Caleb,” Helen said. “I need you to stay awake. Just in case the police decide to head this way just in case.” Jason rifled through his pocket and picked out a pill. “Here, take one of these. It’s an energy pill. Elysian Company, so it’s almost guaranteed to work.” Caleb eyed it for a second, and then took it. He sniffed it, and then popped it into his mouth with a shrug. It dissolved on his tongue instantly and he felt a burst of energy. “Whoa.” He shook his head for a second as the pill started taking effect. “These things work quickly.” “Yeah they do,” Helen agreed, “But they’re also addicting as hell. Plus if you take them long enough, they cause a whole bunch of long term side effects.” “Why did the FDA approve of the drug then?” Caleb asked. “Come on, we’re talking about the Elysian Company,” Helen said with a snort, “They get away with anything they damn well want to get away with. Their contacts run even deeper than mine.” She let out a sigh, “Much deeper. They manufacture drugs, weapons, and domestic products. You name it, and the Elysian Company more than likely have their fingers in it. No one wants to mess with them.” “Well someone did a few years ago,” Jason said idly. “It was a law firm who wanted to sue them for the hazardous side-effects to some of their more addictive drugs.” “And what happened to them?” Caleb asked. “The firm was found dead. They died in what appeared to have been a hit and run drunk driver.” “Appeared?” Caleb asked. “Meaning that’s not really what happened?” “They found the drunk driver three days later… Actually, he found them.” Jason told him, “He came stumbling into the police station and confessed to the slaying. He also said he was hired by Elysian to do it. But before they could give him a lie detector test, he died from a heart attack. Some Elysian Corporation nicotine pills induced it. What they found odd was that the man had never smoked a cigarette in his life. Or so the mortician said.” “And they just let the matter rest?” Jason nodded, “What could they do? They had suspicions, but they couldn’t act on it. Even if they could act on it, they didn’t want to end up like the stiffs at the law firm, or the driver. But then three months later Elysian made a generous donation to the police station, and the suspicions faded away too. Everyone has their price, and the price of that police station’s silence was six million dollars.” “So long story short, if you argue with Elysian, they’ll whack you.” Helen said with a chuckle. “Even shorter story, ‘stay away from Elysian Corporation drugs. Stick to the safe and honest drugs like heroin.’” “Well thanks for this little history lesson…” Caleb muttered. He clutched his chest. “Damn. I don’t think energy pills and I get along too well.” “You’re not having a heart attack on us are you?” Helen asked dryly. But she behind the dry tone, she did sound slightly concerned. “I think I might be…” Caleb groaned. He felt the twisting feeling in him again… Most likely fueled by the energy the pills gave him. “Hold on, I’ll see if I can find a hospital or something.” Helen said. Caleb shook his head, “Don’t bother…” He muttered. “I suggest you hold on to your seatbelts, we’re about to go for a wild ride!” He began laughing insanely as his power wrapped itself around the car. The car began accelerating quickly. Caleb began laughing harder, the harder he laughed the faster the car went. “What’s happening?” Helen yelled to him. Caleb laughed louder and the car became a blur. He never answered the mercenary. He just continued laughing for twenty more seconds. He heard an audible crunch, but he passed out long before he felt the pain of the crash. The last thing he saw before he lost consciousness was snow… It was snowing. |
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7:23 AM Nov 8
