Greystone College

[Misericorde]

This is a continuation of the threads located under Current Storylines, scrolling down to Misery loves Company.

Misericorde figured, that if he were the type of person to have a weak stomach, he would have accessorized his shoes with his breakfast by now.

"Love what you've done with the place," he uttered; a long, slow whistle passed between his clenched teeth.

The walls, ceilings, floors, of the laboratory where Minerva had extracted the Knives nanovirus hissed and burbled, spat and oozed. Covered in some leathery excresence that pulsed and squelched. Something wet and pulpy fell heavily onto his boot, and he kicked it aside, though it clung there for a moment, wetly. There were...orifices...of various sizes and...functions...that were best left unconsidered.

The worst part of the entire ordeal was, Misericorde was relatively certain that whatever covered the surfaces of this place had been alive.

Or still was.

The doorway to the main room, the laboratory itself, was covered with a thin sheet of some epidermal layer, faintly translucent. Little of the lighting remained functional; he was eternally grateful for his bodies' ability to adapt to low-light conditions. The "Door" refused to give way beneath his hand, though it did stretch slightly, rebounding when he pulled his hand away.

Misericorde frowned, though his stomach refused to turn.

The membrane parted readily enough beneath his claws, and he stepped into the room, squeezing past the shredded dermal layer.

The room was in the nearly pristine condition it had been in when he had been incarcerated here. The bloodspray remained on the walls from his attack on his captors, though the room was empty of the bodies of his fallen foes.

Except one.

He stepped across the room, next to the now-inoperative EMP generator. Minerva's slightly desiccated corpse lay there. She was quite dead. He knew these things could be faked, but he knew in his heart of hearts that this was Minerva.

"I knew it," he whispered.

As he suspected, nothing was as Scythian had stated it would be. Michael wondered if the demon-girl were here now, watching him from a dark corner.

He shrugged, and smiled. "Time to get to work," he grinned. Misericorde spent several minutes rendering the equipment useless, setting explosive charges and setting the timer for three minutes. Just enough time to clear the bunker.

He stretched, turned a corner, and was gone. He had other business in the Rogue Isles this night.

[Scythian]

The sun rose high over the glittering waters of Port Oakes, baking the small island with a mirror of still and stagnant waters. Though she did not sweat, moisture accumulating from the air flowed in rivulets down her throat and shoulders. She, who had come to be called Scythian, rested, sagging beneath the meager shade of an ash tree. Strips of moisture soaked hair clung to her forehead and cheeks, her eyes were closed against the droplets that slid along her eyelashes. The oppressive heat hung heavy over all creatures who dared to stir or not.

Soft voices drifted in and out of her mind but today, she cared not to listen. Her brief return to the Artemisian’s bunker had not pleased her. The scent of him, of Misericorde, had reached her senses even before she had moved past the door, and in the cool dampness of the air, she could almost have tasted him. But he wasn’t supposed to have been there, not so soon. The Artemisian had not been made ready. She had paused and looked about the strangeness of the underground cave. Without so much as a backward glance she abandoned her unfulfilled plan as passively as she abandoned the bunker, leaving it and its contents to be forgotten by the world.

There were other ways to fulfill her needs….

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;--
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

The blast of a ship’s incoming horn roused Scythian from her thoughts.

She was a child and I was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love--
I and my Annabel Lee--
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

The great, glimmering, tanker glided effortlessly over the unbroken sea into safe port. She rose to her feet, a few stray tatters and threads of clothing still clung to the rough bark of the ash tree.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud by night
Chilling my Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The wharf was soon filled with shouting voices and the acrid smell of the dying bounty. No one cared to see the small girl stride past them, the damp curtain of her unkempt locks shielding her face from view.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me:--
Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of a cloud, chilling
And killing my Annabel Lee.

Within moments she stood upon a deck of bolts and rust, of salt and sea. The Tiro, a cargo ship laden with goods and favors, would soon depart for Talos Island. Scythian smiled, her cloudy eyes sweeping the unforgiving blue expanse. Within a day, they would pass the Island of Circe and in less than a week she would stand upon the rocky crags of the Island of Skipio. There was a new ship to await in that desolate place. A ship that kept to no living man’s schedule, a ship no living man would ever set foot upon. But the dead could hear its night-watch bells and it’s ancient klaxon through the dim island nights. She would await it’s arrival and set foot upon the ghost ship, to follow its unending course. It would bear her hence until her goal was ever closer.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we--
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in Heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:--

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea--
In her tomb by the side of the sea.

Her gaze followed the horizon,“Yes, my love. Neither the angels in Heaven above, nor the demons down under the sea, can ever dissever my soul from the soul…..of my beautiful….”

Only the sound of the thunder echoed in the distance.


[Poem Excerpts from Edgar Allen Poe's, Annabel Lee (1849)]

[Scythian]

A cool breeze wafted tentative fingers through her hair as she sat atop the warm stones of the island. The sun was already high on the third day and still the cerulean sea gave no indication of life…or otherwise. Serene waters swayed unbroken in their walled basin and Scythian rested. Here she had done so for the setting of three suns since the passing of the tanker from the port into Talos Bay. As she gazed out past the glaring water she could see vague outlines of tall buildings on the horizon and the subtle flap of flags set upon impossibly tall poles in a great circle. The city felt exhausted as it sagged upon the high cliffs of Talos, surely the heat of the summer was as unbroken here as it was in the Isles. Another drop of water trickled down her brow, over the bridge of her nose, and onto her lip before joining the ocean below. It would be many more days until her reprieve was to come but her stillness remained undisturbed.

“Beware the fury of a patient man.”

~~~*~~~

As night fell, nearly a fortnight from her arrival, Scythian became uncharacteristically restless, moving for the first time in days. The air was different, the sea was moving, and the moon itself trembled and curled on her bed of night. The demon unfurled from her post on the high stones as the waves of the tide rolled into the small island with a deafening roar. The white spray dappled her face and hair as her eyes turned to the horizon. Then she heard it, on the wind at first but louder and louder as the cries of the sea died down, the baying of a sea horn.

She turned, facing west out into the bay. There, in the distance she could begin to make out the glimmering outline of a ship, its sickly green hue a testament to its macabre nature. Her head tilted slightly to the side as she rose easily to her feet, the blade of equally ghostly energy swirling into existence clasped in her right hand. The ship approached with impossible speed quickly closing the distance of several leagues in a mere instant. As it neared the faded, rusty, letters of “Flying Dragon” could barely be deciphered from the crumbling hull. The girl smiled.

The first spirits began to pour from the edge of the great ship, falling to the island’s harsh terrain with little care. The first of them, a ragged, haggard man with the unmistakable death marks of the drowned at sea, curled his rotting lips at her in an angry sneer. His essence parted easily around her blade as she made quick work of the dead. Soon she was met with wide stares and unearthly shrieks as the dead came to see one of their own, the blade harrowing each of them in turn. Several more spirits fell to her strike and the sword in her hand already glistened with a misty grey sheen. The spirit of a woman, her eyes blackened and her face split in three places, cried out a curse towards the demon-girl before she too fell beneath the soul blade. The grey-green edge of the passing ship was nearly before her.

Scythian seemed to shudder slightly, her shoulders and back tensing, the smile on her lips began to fade into grey at the corners like some Gorey Cheshire Cat. The greyness spread into her body and the invisible energy through her form as her entire being became as incorporeal as the beings that fled before her. Her shift complete she leapt into the air, sailing effortlessly from stone to deck. A simple twist and her feet landed soundlessly onto the ghost ship. She rose and turned, the blade still clutched in her fingers, as she came face to face with him…Captain Edmund Condent.

His eyes were empty but burned with undead light. His garb was that of a man of the early 1700s, tattered and colorless now in death. A Buccaneer’s hat sat upon a mop of unruly black hair and a seaman’s coat barely covered a chest long since emptied of contents by the full blast of a run-out cannon. His boots made the only sound save for the sea, a hollow click on the slick surface of the dead ship.

Scythian cocked her head, a smirk still playing upon her lips.

“The game is done, I’ve won, I’ve won.” She chuckled and whistled thrice.

Condent growled with displeasure. “Ye not stow away on my ship, sea-witch…” He leaned in, only slightly wary of the blade, “unless ye can pay me the price of yer passage, and only the dead can meet my price.”

The form of the girl shifted as one hand raised and turned the deadly blade to her hip in a single arc. Her demeanor remained serious but tinged with mirth.

“I have your pay, my dear Captain. I shall bring you your Albatross and hang it upon your neck.”

The Captain hissed, an inhuman sound, as she leaned back on the balls of her feet. She raised her left hand and let her fingers trail almost seductively across her cheek, following her jawline to her slightly parted lips. With a wink to the dead men upon the cursed ship she curled her fingers into her mouth. With an unhealthy choke her throat spasmed and she raised her hand aloft. Clutched in her moist fingers she held up a pair of dice, their dull surface belying the bone they were crafted from, coal black marks scratched on their surfaces to give them numbers.

“Here you are Captain.” She hissed lowly and extended her arm in a formal arch. “Your pay….my passage to Independence Port is secured, yes?”

The mists of the water began to close in upon the ship, she could feel the deck beneath her begin to fade. The blade at her hip trembled and she could feel time growing short.

With a hard stomp and a convulsive snap of his arms the Captain closed on the girl, barely stopping in time not to trample her over. He stopped only inches from her nose and bent low, the acrid smell of old watery death did not even cause a flinch. For a moment he remained there, staring into the cloudy eyes of what was once Ava Paroulis. Then he smiled.

“To Port!” He screamed aloud, the men suddenly sparking into action throughout the ship’s innards. “To Port you worthless dogs!”

Scythian leaned forward and placed a light and gentle kiss on the dead cheek of the rotting Captain as she deftly dropped the dice into his waiting hands.

“Oh Captain, my Captain.” She whispered.

[Scythian]

She sat atop the worn out brick building, the pose of a sinister gargoyle reflected down on the street below. Her arrival in Brickstown had been but moments before, huddled atop the swiftly tilting car of the Greenline, her tattered body barely perceptible over the rusted panels of the train’s corrugated roof. She glanced down at the small mobs of orange-clad prison escapees, shouting and swearing over the din of the dingy city and tilted her head. She didn’t really see them, her mind was drifting.

The noise and lights of the club called Pocket D irritated her sensitive perception and if at all possible, she avoided the crowded venue. But tonight, a scent she had become all too familiar with formed lilting notes on the colored atmosphere. He was here.

She scanned the garish décor for a glimpse of him, but was rewarded with nothing but stares and scowls.

The night has a thousand eyes,
And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun.

She moved silently through the club, not a difficult task all told. Her eyes darted back and forth, she didn’t like moving unhidden, but tonight, she meant to be seen.

“Scythian.”

She smiled at the unmasked anger in the young man’s voice. He was not more than a few feet behind her, and again she found herself marveling at his uncanny powers of prediction when it came to his enemies.

Their conversation was short and terse as she could recall it, as it usually was, but this night he would deal her a blow of surprise for a second time.

“I’ll tell you what you want to know.” He stated flatly in response to her interrogations. “But in return you must do something for me. When I call you, you must come. No questions asked.”

To this she had agreed after some thought. He had stated nothing about actions on her part, only that she be made known when he wished it. She figured his words for a trap, but thought little more of it, she had need of his information about the outbreak in the school. This was a deal a demon easily made.

The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.

As she rested perched aloft on the stout effigy of stone, her memories of the meeting in Pocket D were fleeting and tinged with anger but she could remember little of it save the promise made, as her very nature demand she remember. And here she sat atop a ruin in city of ruins.

The shadow of the great thing called the Ziggurat cast a gloom over the city like little else could. She watched it intently as though it would come crashing down at any moment. It was a place of pain and of anger where men were quick to learn that those who wish to find a demon on friendly terms rarely have difficulty doing so. But for the moments that passed, it was of little more concern than the shouting men below. She leapt silently to the pavement.

The moon was rising high into the night, cresting over the great height of the war walls and bathing Paragon City in the soft light of the witching hour. She passed a huddled group of lone Thorn mages whispering macabre words into the darkness. She paused but they were not calling to her or to her brethren, they were of no use tonight. Scythian crossed the short distance from the farthest walls of the Ziggurat into the nearly deserted expanse of a rotting alleyway.

She peered into the dim light, her eyes automatically seeking out what only the dead and the hell-bound can see in the darkness there. The shapes moved with purpose, some to avoid her, others drawn to her, their claw-like fingers reaching out for her now corporeal power.

“Hessian.” Her voice was raspy and dry.

“Hessian.” She ground her teeth, a crunching sound that would have caused anyone listening to shudder. “Come to me, Hessian, follow me from the darkness. So we may speak.”

The darkness of the alleyway became palpable and a voice, not born of mouth and tongue, but made of the rustling of filth and the cry of the desperate, drifted from the shadows. “Quid est rei?” (What is the matter?)

“You, Hessian, are master of the deceitful , I come for your guidance.”

“Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur.” (The people wish to be deceived, therefore let them be deceived.)

The demon-girl smiled, “I am she from the road side, who weeps with strangers on the forgotten path. I am of the arrogant and those faint with strife, who robs those of will and desires. Tell me of lies, Hessian.” She pressed, “Tell me of the robbery of the one I seek.”

“Felix qui nihil debet. Vacuus cantat coram latrone viator.” (Happy is the one who owes nothing. The traveler who has nothing sings before the robber.)

With ponderous motion, Scythian slowly nodded. She turned on her heels, swirls of darkness wafting across her face and coiling fruitlessly around her arms. As she passed out of the alley back towards the Greenline she glanced over her shoulders.

“The day is done, my brother. It is the Brother that now I seek.”

The alleyway lay silent for several minutes after the passing of the demon-girl. Somewhere in the garbage a rat shrieked its disdain, a homeless man hurried past the ominous place and the light of the moon no longer outlined the short space from wall to wall.

The voice drifted back into the shadows of the lone streetlight.

“Si fallor, Scythian. Si fallor, sum.” (If I am deceived, Scythian, If I am deceived, then I exist.)

[Misericorde]

He stood silently, hands thrust in the pockets of his jeans. It was warm, especially for the beginning of October. The sun was taking its time to set, sending long shadows across the demolition site.

The city was impatient, eager to swallow up the space once occupied by the cathedral. Replaced with a bank, or perhaps a new apartment building.

His eyes crept over the pools of darkness that surrounded the ruined church, the bits of masonry and foundation that still stood. Most of the charred wood from the firebombing had been removed by the demolition crew. His eyes could picked out the church, room by room, memory filling in details. Hyperattuned senses drew in the scent of smoke from that evening, and the odor of death that had settled over the place in a foul miasma.

She was close.

His eyes passed over a shadow, but he knew she was there. Right there. Watching him. Did she know he could see her, could locate her as easily as she always found him? Perhaps.

"Not yet," he said softly, and he felt her stir there, in the dark.

She was a demon, a creature of magic; her thoughts consumed by vengeance...a revenant hell-bent on revenge.

Misericorde was a thing of science, governed by a law that was not so dissimilar from her own; "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."

Action.

Reaction.

Revenge.

[Scythian]

Prayer is the little implement
Through which men reach
Where presence is denied them,
They fling their speech.

By means of it in God’s ear;
If then He hear,
This sums the apparatus
Comprised in prayer.

The dark basement was still and cold. A lone bulb flickered over the stark staircase disappearing into the recesses of the long neglected storage unit. At the base of the stairs, a metal door propped slightly open spattered light onto the concrete floor, a small waft of air disturbing the spiders. Only the faint remnants of what was once a Longbow symbol could be seen in the smear of red spray-paint marking the door jamb.

Inside Scythian sat hip-deep in yellowed folders and musty stacks of paper, her back to the door. The old Longbow files held little of importance but her eyes scanned each item in turn before discarding it into a nearby water leak. She knew it was here.

Her mind drifted for a moment. It held to the image of Michael Corde. There were fallen stones all around him, the remnants of a church, a crumbled seraphim. His clothes torn by wind, his dark eyes lost in thought, his hair splashed across his face. It was beautiful. She felt him watching her in the darkness, his eyes raked the shadows. Could he see? Please let him see…..Not Yet..... She could feel his anger, his heart break, could feel….something….

A grey tear splashed against the papers in her hands.

Scythian snarled, twisting her neck, dashing the image in her head, harshly lashing out at the sobbing, whispering girl within her mind. She had no interest in the ramblings of a girl-child, her cries fading into the recesses of her psyche, the specter once again in control.

Somewhere in the corner a rat scurried past, excitedly squeaking over a stolen, moldy French fry. She watched it briefly then returned to the task before her. Her hands slid past a tattered manila folder to close coldly around a thick file folder closed with string. She threw the last of her pile to the floor next to her as she tore into the rotten paper and pulled out the sheaf within. Her cloudy eyes glittered in excitement as she held the top-sheet to her face and read the neatly type-written words.

NARA: Holocaust Era Assets Reclamation and Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act.
Investigation begun 17 November 1968
Ms. Efrat Schade-Corde. Last Seen December 1943.
Codename: “Elusory”

A smile crept over her ruined face, causing the skin around her eyes and mouth to wrinkle slightly.

“I will miss the winter, my dearest one. I will miss your world of frozen memories.”

A flicker of white caught her eye, her hand instantly darting out to snatch it from the air. Moving the folder to her lap she narrowed her eyes at the small square of brownish cardboard in her hand. It was a photograph, its corners curled with age and moisture, but the face that stared sadly out from the cluttered grey background was unnerving.

A slight sound on the upper stair caused her head to snap over her shoulder at an angle that would have been nearly impossibly by a living girl. She heard the sound again and growled lowly. Apparently, she had not gone as unnoticed as she had thought and now, there was no more time. LongBow was close.

By the time the young guard reached the bottom stair, there was nothing to be found. Only echoing footsteps heralded the darkest messenger the streets of Paragon would see that night.

Because I could not stop for Death
He kindly stopped for me,
The Carriage held just ourselves,
And Immortality.



Poetry by Emily Dickinson: 1830-1886

[Misericorde]

Misericorde flattened himself against the wall of the alleyway and gave his body a moment to catch up. He wasn't in the habit of running from most foes, unless he was leading them into a trap.

There were just so many of them.

He counted the bullet fragments clicking upon the pavement as they were slowly extruded from his body, rejected as unusable by his omnivorous metabolism. Someone had done their homework; crafted slugs from heavy metals his body wouldn't immediately reuse to fuel itself. He was forced to admit that things might have gotten a little out of hand.

His focused senses detected the overpressure of their jets seconds before they swung into view and slowly descended upon him from above. His reflexes were spiked on a self-generated cocktail of amphetamines; his aggressors aerial formation slowed to a crawl. He selected the squad leader and his vision blurred slightly, his body hyperaccelerating. To his foes, he simply disappeared, ordnance impacting on the walls uselessly, sending dust and chips of brick into the garbage cans and refuse in the alley. The squad leader grunted, losing some altitude and lurching drunkenly in the air as Misericorde landed in an impossible perch atop the apex of his rocketpack.

The pair swooped near two members of the pursuit team; Misericorde took the opportunity to disable their packs with a swipe of his claws; they careened into the alley walls heavily. He shifted his weight to compensate for the sudden movement, and accelerated again, leaping backwards from the rocketpack onto the roof of the building behind them. He imagined that remaining entirely on the defensive was going to lose him this round. Still, it couldn't be helped. Can't let the civilians see him fighting agai...

Something struck him squarely between the shoulders, hard enough to send him skipping like a ragdoll across the roof; he twisted his body , claws kicking up pebbles and digging light furrows in the roof as he skidded slowly to a stop on all fours, back arched like an angry feline.

Misericorde tensed to spring at his foe; a flurry of flashbangs and tangle grenades disoriented him enough to give him pause. Despite the mayhem, he tracked twelve separate targets, metahumans to the last. They moved into a formation designed to contain him.

For a moment, he considered his options.

They probably didn't realize those tangle 'nades and flash-bangs had minimal effect on him. He could run...vanish...no one need ever find him again. Fortunately for his pursuers, he had promised himself not to run anymore.

"Misericorde! We have you now! You..."one of the fliers yelled.

"...are under arrest, I am aware. I'll come quietly," he replied.

Longbow had one thing going for them; they sure were persistent.

[Misericorde]

Misericorde sat at the table, hands laid upon the table, fingers outstretched.

The room he currently occupied was seamless, sterile, and furnished with only a table and two chairs...all three of which were not bolted so much as integrated into the room itself. He had sat at the table for several hours since his in-processing to Ziggursky Prison. He glanced down at his "Brickhouse Orange" jumpsuit.

They had respected him enough not to utilize the Police Drone teleport system. Of course respect never gave way to trust, and he had spent the majority of his bureaucratic journey to this place in solid-alloy leg and arm shackles and some type of head restraint that blinded him and smelled like flatware. Someone had informed him that he had been picked up for Parole Violation. Why they had sent a detachment of the multinational Longbow to corral him was something of a mystery.

Technically, since he had not been formally charged, he should have simply been take to PPD HQ; due process and all that. Obviously, he had been noticed by someone with a few connections. But whom?

He stared at his deceptively delicate fingers against the cool metal of the table. His medicom patch was confiscated, his comm jammed, although his teleport beacons were safely stashed in the Crash Site while the Longbow recovery team had been chasing him down. Michael wondered if the kids at school missed him yet. Or if everyone had been fed some story.

A man appeared in the far corner. Well, that explained the lack of doors. Teleport beacons must be in the floor. The man wore the suit of a bureaucrat. Everything about him was forgettable; from haircut to his wingtips. The only thing noticeable about the Bureaucrat was that he was so...unnremarkable.

As the nondescript man sat at the table, he steepled his forgettable fingers and regarded Michael cooly. He was so easy to overlook, even sitting directly in front of you. He could be in the same room, and you might never know...

But Misericorde knew. His lips thinned, and he drew Michael Corde inside. It was time...again. The Michael-mask dissolved, and the silent, impassive face of Misericorde was all that remained. He wondered inside his emotional shell if this would be the last time. He hoped so.

"Do you know why you're here now, Michael?" The man did not intone so much as monotone. Misericorde nodded an affirmative. "Welcome to Ziggursky Prison. Now, here is what I need you to do..."

[Misericorde]

Regardless of how any prison seemed outside, it's physical presence, the spirit of the place was defined solely by it's residents.

Ziggursky Prison...the "Brick House", as many called it, was no different. It seemed more imposing to some, but this was an illusion. The statistics of the prison population presented a a similar demographic in number and types of crimes, which might have surprised some. Even so, if you could remove the plasma cannons, cutting-edge cybernetics, mutant "powers..." their motivations appeared to be the same as those of any other inmates in prisons across the nation.

Even this was untrue.

The residents of the Brick House had, at their core, the same passions and sinned like any other human. However, these prisoners reflected the extremes of humanity's vision. Rarely was a "normal" human incarcerated here; unless they showed a capacity for "evil" that left them unsuitable for even the "undesirable" inhabitants of a mundane prison.

There was a culture here. The Freakshow, bizarrely denuded of their cybernetics, piercings, extreme hairstyles; often withdrawing from Exelcsior addiction. Likewise the Trolls, desperately seeking Superadyne fixes. Hellions and Skulls were no different. Those with connections could easily manipulate those dependent on contraband to perform certain tasks. The Family often stepped in as brokers for these transactions. Council ubermensch, Arachnos flunkies and Sky Raiders often acted like POWs, defining "closed ranks." The list went on and on.

There were pariahs among the pariahs here. The "Lost," no longer human were avoided by anyone but themselves. Similarly the Vazhilok, with their perpetual cadaver-reek. A certain category of prisoner, however, was treated with a mixture of disdain and respect.

The ones who went alone. The Black Masks. They had Names like Doctor Radiac or Destructrix or Gravito. Those who had become somehow more than human, and had assigned themselves an agenda, seeking revenge or wealth or power on their own. They were the extreme. Polarized, they either moved to the top quickly or sank into ignominity.

Those on the top were rarely disturbed by the morass of sub and post-humans they floated upon. To be assigned that dubious rank required a test, violent and merciless.

Misericorde intended to spend his time here at his new school...his "Greystone College"... unmolested; in every sense of the word. He saw the eyes on him as he moved from his cell to the dining facility. They knew his rank, and many of them, perhaps hundreds had been sent there by his own hand. The time for his test would be soon.

He couldn't wait.

[FrancisCross]

Nothing could have prepared her for the ambush, the hail of bullets eating into the corroded dock metal and choking out the meager light of the late afternoon sun. With some fast footwork Francis dodged left before unceremoniously tossing herself to the sandy beach below, scrambling against slick seaweed and the slime of rotten sea life. With fractions of a second to spare she managed the short climb up the warf side before the trickle of bullets rained down into the wet sand. With a tentative sideways maneuver she leaned out and in, catching enough of a glance at her attackers to answer the most obvious question.

The crease in her brow grew deeper. “Malta? What the fu…”

Another splatter of bullets forced her further back.

“Well, crap on a crap cracker.” She hissed, digging quickly into her jacket pocket. She could hear the thumps of approaching footsteps. Wrapping her hand around the small packet of salt she stepped out suddenly, glaring her attackers down.

The hapless front-man never had a chance to react as the full blast of the electric arc met first the metal end of his gun followed by his torso.

“Vis unita fortior!”

A bullet exploded a wooden crate plank near her right arm.

“Immedicabile occurite morbo!”

Shouts and cries erupted from the small group of agents as the massive blast of energy sent over half of their number into painful twists and shudders. The pop of the magical energy loud in their ears.

It was her chance. Francis darted out from the crates and yelled to the Longbow regiment walking back towards their post near the ferry. The glaring red and white could simply not be missed.

Just her luck, justice was unusually swift this evening.

As she helped the Longbowman haul the last of the Malta agents into the Portal Corp truck he suddenly wrenched forward, almost throwing the small girl off her feet. The Longbow Agent was nonplussed and dealt the man a sharp blow with a muttered grievance. Francis grimaced again, this time as something small and smooth was pressed into her palm. It was the last she saw of the Malta for some time.

She left the van bouncing away, screaming its righteous anger through the streets of Peregrine as she raced through the sky to the Portal Corp teleporter to be transported back to the school’s main MECCa room.

She fumbled as she quickly switched on the last terminal in the dark computer lab and pulled the tiny flash drive from her clenched fingers. Careful to plug it in without accidentally shocking the fragile electronics in her haste, she sat down in the chair and clicked her way through to the drive.

Francis couldn’t help but smile as the familiar voice came over the screen through the soft hiss of the recording. If only she could see him soon. She missed him so much. She could almost see his dour, serious face through the words that comforted her. She paused in her reverie as the recorded voice took a deep breath.

“This is what I need you to do…”

The look on her face couldn’t be faked as she scurried the flash drive back into her pocket and nearly careened down the hallways to her dorm room. Clothes, books, and other items went flying through the room and Francis dove into the first pile. With a heave she hauled a massive, red leather bound, book into her lap, coughing as the dust cloud settled into her hair and on her eyelashes. The cracked and yellowed pages groaned in protest as the leather creaked with age. Her nose buried in the musty tome, alone late in the night, the young mage began to read.

“Et Sceleratis Sol Oritur, Chapter One….”

[Misericorde]

Six weeks.

Incarcerated within Ziggursky Prison and six weeks had gone by so quickly. Six weeks of the ritual. The pattern, weaving himself a cocoon of familiar behaviors in this place. Sequestered from the other inmates near the solitary wing. They let him mingle with the other prisoners only twice a day. At morning chow, and during his free hour in the Yard. He had a guard assigned to him at all times. The Zigg didn't exactly have a "juvenile wing" and even if it did, he was seventeen and a parole violator, on paper anyway.

Right now was chow. Breakfast, to be precise. He slid the tray along in a lockstep, seemingly on autopilot. He spoke to no-one, not even the guard that shadowed him, and no-one spoke to him. They stared, though, stared hard at him and everyone wondered when it would happen. Instinctively, he sat at the row of tables closest to the wall, with a good view of both doors and the dining area.

The dining worker, also an inmate, served him up a bowl of oatmeal. He always had oatmeal for breakfast. Always. He knew that someone had been putting ground glass from the machine shop into his oatmeal every day. He could taste it, the subtle variation in texture, designed to turn his digestive tract into tripe. Each day he ate the tainted meal, unharmed; his body metabolized the silica. Misericorde noted the watchful eyes, filing them away as possible conspirators. He would force their hand, maneuver them into making a more direct attack upon him. Eventually, they would become impatient, complacent.

[Misericorde]

He knew it was time when his guard stepped back into the crowd of prisoners around him. It was over quickly; pinned against the fence of the yard and one, two, three times the improvised knife slid into his kidney, his attacker dropping the shiv in a smooth motion and attempting to slip unnoticed into the crowd.

Misericorde spun about snake-quick, slender hands and arms coiling about the man's forehead and neck, and twisted. Just enough pressure to hear the snap, and drop the man to the ground. Heightened senses told him the convict was still breathing. He folded his arms and regarded the crowd stoically. "Holy Shit," someone said, and then the guards were all over the place, yelling at everyone to get down and gas canisters sailing over them all like streamers at a parade.

They moved him to Isolation Unit the same day. The next day with breakfast, the guard mentioned that Misericorde had really got the prisoners going. They were really after him now, and he's lucky he hadn't killed that guy. A "Hero" murdering a black mask? The whole prison might've gone batshit if he had.

"Yeah," Misericorde said. "Let's hope he makes it." The guard shrugged, puzzled by what the boy meant. With the state of medical technology since the war, there was no reason the man couldn't recover from a broken neck. The kid hadn't even paralyzed him. The only way the guy could die now was if someone killed him in the medical unit.

Before he left, the guard tossed an opened envelope into the cell. "Oh, that came for you today. No return address. Poetry and some coin or something."

Misericorde thanked the guard, and took the envelope into his hands. He committed the letter to memory and destroyed it. Upending the envelope into his hand, a tiny round medallion falling into his palm. He closed his fingers about it tightly and closed his eyes.

[Misericorde]

When the prisoner died in the medical ward, the prisoners rioted, managing to seize control of the Zig. It happened more often than anyone would like to admit, but when supers were involved, it was tough to consider all the angles. It never lasted long; procedures had been implemented by Longbow to minimize escapes and curtail collateral damage.

The wail of the general alarm and the ringing of the fire suppression system had echoed down the hallways of Isolation for roughly an hour before they came for him. It took them almost another hour to get the door to his cell open; the power units to all the doors in Iso had burned themselves out once the general alarm had sounded. They stood in his doorway, now, and there was murder in their eyes. In their hearts was cowardice, however, and they paused in the doorway, as he sat on the edge of his bunk, fingers steepled, regarding them silently.

"C'mon, let's get him," one of them urged. His voice shook. Another blurted out, "He's alone, and the drainer is still on, look!" A green glow still suffused the room, leaving the young man sitting on the bed awash in an eerie light. "With that drainer on, he ain't got powers, he can't take all of us," another intoned gravely. "Looks like you are out of time, kid."

The boy looked up at the drainer expectantly. His captors looked at each other, confused, then up at the sickly green glow of the device.

The lights in the hallways went first, darkness racing down the corridors hungrily, before the room itself was blanketed in blackness. Independently powered battery-operated lights slowly flickered into life along the ceiling at regular intervals, altering shadows, multiplying them. When the prisoner's eyes adjusted to the light, they noticed the boy on the bed was standing now, stretching. "The drainer," one of them uttered weakly. He turned towards them, and they stumbled over each other in the doorway.

"Exactly two hours after a riot of the Ziggursky Prison prison population, SOP dictates that all power and water provided to the facility be severed," Misericorde quoted, as he stepped towards them. "Those drainers take a lot of juice to function....more than can be provided by a battery backup. That's why the doors in Isolation burn out their power supply when a General Alarm is sounded. To keep us in when the power goes out."

He let it sink in.

[Misericorde]

The hallways were deserted in Isolation wing now.

He had allowed his tormentors to flee, warn the other prisoners of his presence on this level; minimize delays. He put on some speed, and wove through the corridors, unerringly accurate. He arrived at the proper cell door, and raised his hand to key in the proper code sequences...when the door opened itself, a near silent hiss-and-moan that bordered on the ecstatic, the massive portal begun to swing and grind and slide open...

...he was hit with a sense of deja-vu so vast that it he staggered in the doorway, as he stepped forward, the light changed and revealed a cloister fifteen feet square, with ceilings that ended only in a cloying darkness above, swathed in shadow. In and of itself, the cloister was sparse; a bed with a light sleeping mat. A wool blanket and hard pillow. A roughly hewn wooden nightstand and chair. A chamber pot, a porcelain bowl, a washcloth. A Bible. A candlabra burned in a corner, illuminating the cloister in a soothing yellow light.

Confused, he stepped inside, feeling his face hot and wet with tears. The cloaked and hooded figure stood inside, and Misericorde felt the fury rise within him, the venom. "You killed her," the boy stated flatly. His lips hardly moved. The words felt hollow as they left his lips.

"I did," Brother Hood nodded, unrepentant. Again, the feeling that something was wrong with this tale, that it was happening again and...

The tears dropped, and the boy and Brother Hood moved in a blur, met, and the pair slammed into far wall inside the cloister with such force that a fine patina of dust covered them as it fell from the unseen limitless ceiling. Brother Hood found himself pinned to the wall by his hood and cloak, the boy's claws driven into the wall itself.

"You killed her!" he cried, and tore the hood from the one who had tormented him as a child, had claimed the lives of so many...and saw the face of the one person responsible for his pain. It was himself.

He felt....sluggish. Confused, and he knew that something was wrong, that he felt...

The room spun, and blackness crept into his vision.

[Misericorde]

Voices.

It was dark...scratch that, he was blind. He felt...thick. He could tell he was face-down, prone in some type of table with a hole for his face, like that of a masseuse. There was a coldness invading his limbs, his mind. He lay prone upon the cool surface. Unable to move, to act. React, he corrected himself. He heard voices, and smelled their fear.

"Christ, alphas are off the chart. What the fuck did you do?" This voice sounded young. Impulsive. Scared. Michael decided to call that one "F-Bomb." Another voice, elevated an octave with stress, much older. "We were losing control before completing the meme retrieval. I tried an emergency dub, but this one isn't...."

"...fuck," the younger voice interrupted. "Fuckfuckfuck. Hit him with the virals again, I think he's awa..." Michael decided not to find out what would happen if he "got hit with the virals again." He struggled against his bonds, realized he didn't have the strength alone. He gritted his teeth and willed himself into the battle-fugue, the Engine, the Hunter that protected his mind from harm that thing that would not let him die, no matter the odds.

Only it didn't come. It wouldn't come. He was simply...Michael. Michael Corde, age seventeen. He tried again, and cried aloud this time, summoning the grey blanket, willing it to cover him and shield him from what had to come next, to take his pain. But it didn't. Somehow, michael knew it was gone, that something had happened and it wasn't coming back. He was alone. Michael was alone, and he had to do it himself.

"Ten seconds to virals," he heard F-bomb say, and there was a finality in his voice that implied that whatever they had hoped to gain from him would be lost. A niggling voice in the back of his head told him that the virals were going to make sure he stayed very still for a long, long time. He was scared. "Five seconds."He struggled, a panic response, and felt his claws engage; although his arms were restrained, he could still move his wrists; he felt the claws encounter some slight resistance, then heard air escaping smelled hydraulic fluid in the air as the table canted crazily forward, his left arm free now and instinctively reaching behind him, felt a bundle of tubing and metallic devices attached to his skull, his spine, the base of his neck. Virals. He severed the connections, and raised his head, blinking in the harsh green lighting that flooded the room. A moment later and he was free, standing shakily and surveying his surroundings.

An operating theater of sorts; lit by a harsh green light that he realized was coming from him. Two men in lab coats; one frantically speaking into a red phone, the other fumbling with what looked like heavily modified Crey Cryo Pistol. He tried to accelerate, but managed only to trip himself, banging his chin on the metallic floor. Michael stood again, and swayed. He realized the glow was his body devouring whatever tailored viruses they had introduced into him to slow his reaction time.

The younger lab tech (Michael imagined that would be "F-bomb") lowered the cryo pistol at him and fired the weapon; fortunately, the shot went wide and Michael managed to dodge by throwing himself to the floor clumsily.

The situation was dire. Again, he tried to summon the Killer inside him, to protect himself from harm. He had to run, to hide inside himself from...from...from what? What was he hiding from? Taking shelter behind the table he lay upon previously, he covered his head with both hands. F-bomb levelled the freeze blaster at the table, hitting it with a sustained ray of cold, layers of ice creeping over the structure, threatening to envelop Michael. He heard the older scientist yelling into the phone for containment, "now, dammit, right now, he's awake!"

Time seemed to stand still. His mind dimly registered the metallic clinks and tinkling of the devices that had been implanted within his spine and skull hitting the floor. He was unsure how he knew what he knew, but it was somehow clear to him that there was no "Hunter." There was no "Engine." There was not now and it would not come because there never had been. The world spun again crazily, and he felt something "give" inside his head.

He found himself standing inside an immaculate white room with no exits. He faced four figures:

A small boy, that he recognized as himself.
The stoic, inhuman Misericorde.
The Crimson hooded Brother Hood.
Sophie. Beautiful, smiling Sophie.

"It was me all along," the little boy said calmly.
"It was you all along," Misericorde uttered grimly.
"It was us all along," Brother Hood intoned coldly.
"It all happened," Sophie said to Michael. "It all happened, but you remembered it wrong." She smiled at him, and the white room became impossibly whiter still...

...he was back in the lab, and felt the cold of the creep over him, attempting to contain him, restrain him. He felt his skin grow hot, hot as the sun and the room filled with a green light, blinding and burning. The scientists covered their eyes and stumbled backwards from the room, fleeing as the boy stood.

Michael saw only whiteness, yet he saw for miles, for years. Tears burned his cheeks, as he wept. "I remember now. It was always me."