tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40102910045935198092024-02-19T06:33:33.798-05:00Records of an ImpossibilityThis is who I am. This is what I've done. Now who wants to take on the champ?AmalgamationSagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09872769253218948198noreply@blogger.comBlogger98125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4010291004593519809.post-13595596728203441262012-06-12T00:56:00.000-04:002012-06-12T00:56:08.224-04:00The Nephilim Incident (Part One)<i>(I found Nick Dwyer's drafts about this. They were terrible. I deleted them from scratch and rewrote them. It was necessary. -Maiden) </i><br />
<br />
Nick does not talk about this incident, or any of the incidents relating to it, because there is no good explanation. Even among those who have seen beyond the edge of the world, those who run in his circles, would dismiss it as being the fantasy of a lost soul. I can tell you however, without any shadow of a doubt that this story happened.<br />
<br />
It is complicated. When this occurred is a time between when <a href="http://recordsofanimpossibility.blogspot.com/2012/04/who-is-mastermind-part-two-fourth-side.html">The Presence was kidnapped</a> and when <a href="http://recordsofanimpossibility.blogspot.com/2011/06/kays-house-and-usurper.html">Nick became fused with Usurper</a>.<br />
<br />
Nick Dwyer was ascendant. He has overcome his past self when all design was made to force him to succumb. He did not mention this, did he? He was supposed to be the delivery system through which Usurper could act upon the world. In turn, he took Usurper and turned him into just another aspect. The first of seven changes.<br />
<br />
In any case, he'd gained all of Usurpers talents. On the astral plane, He was faster, stronger, his senses were more effective, and most importantly he had become tough. Wounds that would have left him helpless with an unending migraine before would heal in minutes. There was nothing he could not defeat, at least, that was what he felt.<br />
<br />
Two days after he was fused with Usurper, The "Rogue Wizard", in his own inimitable fashion, broke through his wards on the astral plane and killed his guards. Nick stood there in his shower late in the evening, completely defenseless.<br />
<br />
This had not been the first time this would happen, nor would it be the last. If you want to put someone at a psychological disadvantage, even if you're only attacking on the astral plane, you attack them when they're naked or showering. Their mind is not focused, they've got water pattering on their skin which distracts one further, and they can't move with their physical body too quickly without causing a mess.<br />
<br />
Perhaps that last one is not so important if someone is trying to kill you? I can't say. <br />
<br />
For his credit, Nick just forced a grin and said, "I beat your thugs and broke your toys. Go home before I break you too."<br />
<br />
And that was when Rogue Wizard threw a black knife. It struck Nick with such force, that his physical body actually collapsed in the shower.<br />
<br />
For five minutes, the water pattered off of Nick's empty, lifeless shell of a body, before he breathed in sharply. Gasping for air he spent another five minutes laying there, praying to whatever gods he could think of that he might survive.<br /><br />On the astral plane, spirits went to work. What they did not tell Nick was that he'd encountered one of the ancient weapons. You see, there are weapons in the world so powerful that they have transcended mere physical construction and become ideas. Longinus, Excalibur, Mjolnir, ideas potent enough that minor mystics call on them to defend themselves or attack their enemies in difficult times. Simply invoking these ideas correctly can make you more dangerous.<br />
<br />
Nick Dwyer had been struck by Corruption. The idea wasn't invoked, it was literally picked up and thrust into his chest by someone actually capable of wielding it. You've heard the name Corruption several times over the course of all of this. Corruption would eat away at his insides, tearing him apart and rebuilding him as a monster with one purpose: the destruction of all life. At least, that's what the medics believed. That was after all, the fate of anyone struck by Corruption.<br /><br />The Rogue Wizard had finally decided that if Nick Dwyer would not fulfill his original task, that he had to be eliminated. Without any doubt, this method would destroy him and take him out of the picture. The Presence had nothing to do with this.<br /><br />This was also the first hint to everyone involved in our story that Nick Dwyer was beyond merely strange. After all, his body held the impact of Corruption in stasis at this point. As Nick pulled himself up out of the shower, and forced himself into bed, all entities prepared to kill him should he awaken as some sort of spirit devouring beast intent to feast on the world.<br /><br />They were still waiting two days later. <br />
<br />And that was when Nick Dwyer received a phone call from Alan. ("Time Lord")AmalgamationSagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09872769253218948198noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4010291004593519809.post-60567372774845667542012-05-22T16:03:00.002-04:002012-05-22T16:03:20.817-04:00ArghRainbowbitch stole my laptop. Communicating with phone. We're okay. Pissed, but okay. I owe you Presence story. We'll be back soon.<br /><br /><i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">He tries so hard. It's time to talk about the Nephilim, while he's busy, I think.</span></i>AmalgamationSagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09872769253218948198noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4010291004593519809.post-36392836483885553832012-05-17T20:37:00.000-04:002012-05-17T20:37:30.572-04:00They're Hard to Kill<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<i>I spent the last week trying to kill our mutual friends.</i></div>
<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<i>They ARE persistent. Skilled even. This is important. I think I'm done with them for now.<br /><br />I'm sure they'll tell you all about it sooner or later.</i></div>
<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">After they've complained a bit, I think I'll repost old material that Nick seems to have worked on at varying points over the years. You cannot understand the story of The Presence without it. In fact, none of what happened makes any sense unless you discuss the "Nephilim" situation which occurred before her capture.</span><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">My what tangled webs we weave.</span><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">-Good Day-</span></i>AmalgamationSagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09872769253218948198noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4010291004593519809.post-45658715801689472212012-05-01T21:10:00.000-04:002012-05-01T21:19:28.748-04:00An Aside: The End of March, When Nick Met Redlight<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/hgI8bta-7aw?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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It happened April 7th. I want you to imagine with me:</div>
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<br /></div>
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The midday light filters through the windows of the diner,
which was a hole in the wall if you've ever seen one. There's something about
the worn wood tables and the 70's tile-work that seems one part comforting, two
parts charmingly tacky. It's quiet, with the hum of the coffee machine and the
sounds of plates being washed making noise in lieu of actual conversation.
Perhaps there are two or three other diners, reading a paper or sipping at
acrid coffee, staring into space.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The door chimes, and a new patron enters.</div>
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<br /></div>
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It's almost inperceptible, but the air in the place...
constricts. It becomes stagnant, like a tomb or an old library. It's slightly
uncomfortable, but most wouldn't notice. The man himself walks slowly, hands in
his pockets, whistling a note or two of... something or other. It could be
classical. Could be Sinatra.</div>
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<br /></div>
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"<span style="color: red;">It seems that you, Mr. Dwyer, can be quite a hard man
to find.</span>" He politely offers, sliding into the adjacent seat of the booth.
Eerie, inhuman amber eyes glitter from behind a fringe of spiky, salt and
pepper hair. His voice is smooth, calm, every word measured. A familiar face,
with unfamiliar confidence.</div>
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Not Spencer Fitzgerald. Not anymore.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Nick smiles a little, and leans back in his chair. He's been
reading a book with the title of "Literacy with an Attitude". He puts
the book down and rest his hands behind his head.</div>
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<br /></div>
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"You know? I think about you, and I think more about
the Ballad of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Down he goes...Dum de dah dah, dum dah dah
dum, Der dah something Edmund Fitzgerald..."</div>
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<br /></div>
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"<span style="color: red;">Spencer Fitzgerald is dead.</span>" The grin is still
shockingly pleasant and polite. "<span style="color: red;">Not a scrap left of him. Some would think
it's a shame; I'm assuming you're not among them.</span>"</div>
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<br /></div>
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Nick considers this briefly.<br />
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"Oh, I think you're both bottom feeding scum suckers,
catfish potentially. But he was a bottom feeding scumsucker with panache. You?
You're Edmund Fitzgerald, the ballad of a ship lost at sea...Would you like me
to get you something while you're here?"</div>
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"<span style="color: red;">I think I'm fine. Though the offer is much
appreciated.</span>" Redlight’s eyes narrow, if only slightly. "<span style="color: red;">I don't know
why I expected you to treat this meeting with some sort of respect - hm, shame
on me... and regardless, here we stand. It's truly a pleasure to meet
you.</span>" His head tilts to the side slightly, as if he's picked up the habit
from a certain tall and slender man...</div>
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<br /></div>
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"Oh Edmund, do be fair! I'm giving all the respect in
the world! After all, nobody's bleeding yet. So what do I owe this glorious
meeting to?"</div>
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<br /></div>
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Redlight’s voice goes soft. "<span style="color: red;">So what do you owe
indeed... I came here, Mr. Dwyer, because I wanted to see the man that was the
downfall of my rather pathetic predecessor. To see who tried to outplay, but
was outplayed in return. And I do have to admit, I don't think I'll be making
the same mistake that he did.</span>" His voice never rises above anything but
comforting playfulness. If one didn't know better, they'd see the young man as
a polite, normal person...</div>
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<br /></div>
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"Trying to gain the measure of a man? I've always been
fond of a tape measurer for that. I find it interesting. You don't have a
network yet. You were willing to come here unarmed and running on nothing but
fumes and triumph...you're awfully confident aren't you?"</div>
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<br /></div>
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Nick sips some coffee.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Then Nick says, "They do really, really good coffee
here. Are you sure you don't want some?"</div>
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<br /></div>
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Redlight thrums his fingers on the table, once, twice,
before leaning back. "<span style="color: red;">Do you take me for an idiot, Dwyer? A fool? Some
sort of self-sacrificing mongrel?</span>" A slight quirk of a grin on the last
part. "<span style="color: red;">I do have my failsafes. Though I'm quite confident I won't need
them. This is a chance, Nick. A chance for us to... meet on equal ground before
the game truly begins. To meet the man that's going to outplay you.</span>"<span style="color: red;"> </span>Redlight said it as a statement of fact. Like 2 + 2 = 4, or 'the sky is blue'. "<span style="color: red;">I figured that I'd give you that
privilege.</span>"</div>
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<br /></div>
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"Indeed. It's good to know you know how outclassed you
are. I wouldn't have said anything about how I'd outplay you though... You see,
I'm a gentleman. I try to maintain a bit of decorum."</div>
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<br /></div>
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Nick lets his chair touch the ground, and he smiles at
Redlight.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Redlight laughs, the sound almost muted, as if they were
both underwater, returning a similar grin. "<span style="color: red;">I should've expected that.
It's a shame, Nick Dwyer. Games are never any fun when the other side seems
intent on losing.</span>" He stares up at the ceiling, thoughtful. "<span style="color: red;">People
will die. Oh yes, many, many people will die. Such is the nature of this game,
after all! Is this all still very funny, then?</span>"</div>
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"None of you ever really understood me. <span style="color: blue;">It's always rather funny to me, Edmund</span>. Everyone always makes the same old mistakes. I at least try to make those mistakes for the right reasons. <span style="color: blue;">This would have been over a long, long time ago if I'd given up on a few of my rules</span>...I think about that sometimes. But then, I need those rules."<br />
<br />
Redlight still doesn't look at the other man. "<span style="color: red;">Everyone needs rules, Mr. Dwyer. Everyone needs guidelines of how far you're willing to go into the abyss, lest it starts to stare into you.</span>" He sighs, the sound melodous. Quiet. "<span style="color: red;">There's a very fine line between a man and a monster, after all. Imagine how powerful you'd be if you played both sides?</span>"<br />
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<br /></div>
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Redlight's unblinking amber gaze is back now. And the grin spreads
wider.</div>
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Nick says "Hmmmm. I saw this coming you know. I was
afraid to tell you, after all, you already knew. Ah well. What's done is done I
suppose. You do realize that you're not actually "redlight", don't
you?"</div>
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<br /></div>
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Redlight responds: "<span style="color: red;">It's
really a… Moniker. Name. Title. Label. It makes no difference to me. It's what
I've been given, and so I intend to use it.</span>" Bandaged fingers come
together, tips just barely touching, hovering in front of his face. "<span style="color: red;">I-mor-tality.</span>” Redlight intones, “<span style="color: red;">Interesting, what
others throw away as a last bid for survival. Perhaps it was unwise to aspire
to such a thing in the first place.</span>" He closes his eyes. “<span style="color: red;">Perhaps he
didn't aim high enough.</span>"</div>
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<br /></div>
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Nick says, "What you are is the creation of a tired
beast that wanted to grow beyond it's station. It managed a few thousand
children a year, and decided it wanted more. You, that Valtiel thing, Writer,
you're all just the <span style="color: blue;">thoughtless aspirations of a Fear that wanted more</span>. You are
the desire for power made real, at the cost of a man and his soul, Edmund. An
experiment in the ways of power, with a limited purpose and limited potential.
<span style="color: blue;">This is as strong as you will ever become</span>, and unlike the rest of humanity, though your set strength is quite impressive, you will never evolve beyond this point. The original Redlight knew this, and tried to find a way to get beyond his creator and evolve as a normal human might. <span style="color: blue;">The truth is, you were dead the moment you stopped being Spencer Fitzgerald</span>, and became the doomed Edmund Fitzgerald."</div>
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Redlight grunts. His
expression falls to one of unamused deadpan. He says, "<span style="color: red;">You are not going to be hard to
impress.</span>"</div>
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</div>
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Nick says, "I've seen heaven and hell and everything
inbetween. It'll be harder than you think. And are you sure you don't want
something? I've got a Reuben coming, and they make a damn good one here."</div>
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Redlight shakes his head, standing, suddenly looking very...
uninterested. As if Nick wasn't even worth his time. "<span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: red;">I do hope that your
nonchalance isn't something you grow to regret, Mr. Dwyer. I do suggest you
watch the first few moves of this game. Because despite your
experience</span><span style="color: black;">...</span></span>"</div>
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And then, THEN, Everyone in the diner, they... change. All
their various eye colours going to amber. All of them turning to stare at the
two. Previously normal, now hallowed out, all within a second. </div>
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Unless... </div>
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A red bracelet on the waitress.</div>
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The man in the next booth is wearing a red tie.</div>
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The woman sitting at the counter has on a deep crimson
blouse.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Redlight turns his back, shoving one hand in his pocket, the
other left to wave lazily over his shoulder.</div>
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"<span style="color: red;">You obviously have a lot to learn. Goodnight,
Nick.</span>"</div>
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"Oh. There's one thing." Nick says as he stands
up, following after "Edmund", still holding his coffee. "I keep
asking myself the same question. WWMD."</div>
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Redlight just barely glances over his shoulder.</div>
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Nick continued,"Never heard the term? It means 'What
would Mitch do?'"</div>
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Nick tries to throw his cup’s worth of hot coffee into
Redlight’s eyes. But only black leaves are left where Redlight was half a
second ago. Two of them, in fact, floating towards the tiled floor.</div>
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"<span style="color: red;">You're going to have to better than that.</span>"
Redlight says as he brushes past him from behind. </div>
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"<span style="color: red;">Goodbye, Nick. And for
your sake, I hope the odds of this game are somewhat in your favour.</span>"</div>
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Nick grits his teeth a little, "Damn. You’re that good
at that now? Oh well. Let's play."</div>
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Redlight's laughing as he pushes open the door, leaving only
the sea of amber eyes in his wake. "<span style="color: red;">Soon. You'll know when the game is
on.</span>"</div>
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"Edmund
Fitzgerald, I will fucking destroy you."</div>
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Nick sits back down
at his table. His reuben sandwich arrives.</div>
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After a moment’s thought, Nick then says, "Hey! Sorry,
can I get more coffee?"</div>
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Redlight is gone. As Nick calls for coffee, the sea of amber
eyes reverts to normal, and everyone goes back to what they were doing before
the confrontation began.<br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Tell me, is my writing getting better? I sought to depict that moment from a month ago that none of you saw. How did I do? -"Maiden")</span></i></div>AmalgamationSagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09872769253218948198noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4010291004593519809.post-68410676116611963242012-04-25T02:03:00.000-04:002012-04-25T02:04:50.512-04:00<i>(Fine. Here's what I put away. It's not so bad to think about it now. -Nick)</i><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /><br />Nick has tried to
write this story many times. Started to many times. Broke down and quit many
times, swearing to try again tomorrow. And the next day. And the next day.<br />
<br />
I can't watch anymore. So I'm writing it for him.<br />
</span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://recordsofanimpossibility.blogspot.com/2011/03/17-days-remaining-beginning.html">Day 19</a>. 11pm. The first time I got to meet Nick in person, and Green Man too.
The three of us got together at Nick's apartment. Nothing special, to an
outside eye, just sitting there. But it was actually a lot more than that.<br />
<br />
The Presence was corrupted and out of control, and had been for the past 6
years. Green Man had finally agreed to kill Her.<br />
<br />
But... this sort of thing is complicated, especially when working astrally.
Nick has tried to put Her out of Her misery many times before, but he's never
quite been able to accomplish it. Part of it was that he always held back, no
matter how badly he wanted both their suffering to end. Part of it was that,
even if did manage to somehow nullify the Presence, they were connected so
intimately that his memories of Her, his doubt that She would ever truly leave
his life, always somehow brought Her back to him, and the torment would start
all over again. <br />
<br />
Green Man was to counter that first weakness. I was to counter the second. My
job was... to watch, basically. To be objective, outside confirmation of the
Presence's death. <br />
<br />
I wound up doing a bit more than that, but that comes later.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Nick has mentioned
before that Green Man has some kind of impenetrable armor around him, armor
that stayed with him even when he chose to give up this whole astral business.
So he would be basically invincible for the first 5 or 6 minutes of the fight.
Green Man was also, for a myriad of reasons, invulnerable to the Presence's
illusions, illusions She used to tap-dance all over Nick's mind and heart for
far too long. We took every precaution to give Green Man every conceivable
advantage possible. <br />
<br />
I asked Green Man if he was really going to kill Her. <br />
<br />
Green Man said, "Yes. I am."<br />
<br />
Nick said at the same time, "At this point, I don't have a life. I'm
basically defending myself from Her horseshit about twelve hours a day,
non-stop, for the past six years. Six years in hell. I can't go on like this,
Val, not if Stick Man's gonna be gunning for me too."<br />
<br />
I instantly felt bad for even asking, because it wasn't as though absolutely
every other recourse short of nuclear weapons and hard drugs hadn't been tried
dozens of times over. Nick loved Her. He still does. He wouldn't ask this of us
lightly.</span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
<br />
So we went to work.<br />
<br />
<br />
The first thing I remember was a lot of explosions. Both Nick and Green Man
insisted that I stay quite far away until the dust settled - near enough that
they were still within my sight, but far enough that it would be more trouble
than it was worth for Her to come after me instead. So I couldn't see a lot of
the details of the fight, but I know it was enormous. <br />
<br />
In an attempt to better understand what was going on, I tried to extend my
senses towards the fight. I remember seeing/feeling a small, intense patch of
pale light for Nick, and a smooth sort of blank spot for Green Man - or rather,
Green Man's armor - and when I found the Presence...<br />
<br />
There was a jerking sensation in the pit of my stomach, that same feeling of
panicked disorientation you get when you expect your next step to be a solid
one, only to find that the ground beneath your feet is gone. <br />
<br />
It was a complete accident. I just... fell. I fell, and fell, and kept falling
until "falling" was no longer a sensation that had any meaning.
Everything was a dark gray swamp that pressed against me from all sides, made
of nothing bug pure corruption. But no matter how much it all pushed, it was
nothing but empty, empty, <i>empty</i>. Scorched out and hollow, with nothing
but ravenous emptiness left behind.<br />
<br />
It's a sensation I'm familiar with, now.<br />
<br />
But then, for a few moments, there wasn't nothing. Inside all of the nothing,
floating right up next to me, was a tiny white spark. And the spark was a
child. And the child just looked at me sadly. She kept saying, "You should
go." Nothing but those three words.<br />
<br />
I tried asking who she was. But there was no answer.<br />
<br />
<i>You should go.</i><br />
<br />
I tried to take her hand. But she wasn't Real.<br />
<br />
<i>You should go.</i><br />
<br />
I tried to convince her to get out of this place. The corruption would destroy
her.<br />
<br />
Nothing.<br />
<br />
Just... <i>You should go</i>.<br />
<br />
I was becoming increasingly aware of the danger I was in, staying there. The
entire time, the area <i>shook</i> as though it were rocked with blow after
blow. The <i>empty</i> pushed in at me on all sides too, trying to make me
implode and become as hollow as <i>it</i>. <br />
<br />
But I refused to leave. I couldn't just abandon her there, no matter what she
was.<br />
<br />
<i>"You should go,"</i> she said.<br />
<br />
And then... nothing but intense, astonishing regret.<br />
<br />
The spark vanished. Just... blew away like dust.<br />
<br />
And then I was back. Not just back to watching, but back to myself. The fight
was over, and Green Man and Nick were both looking at me expectantly. <br />
<br />
I drew my knees up to my chest to hide the shaking. In a halting voice, I tried
to explain what happened, and I think I got most of it across.<br />
<br />
Naturally, Nick's first reaction was to apologize over and over. <br />
<br />
Green Man was a bit more practical. He asked me questions until he had a basic
idea of what happened and why it happened. <br />
<br />
"The method I used was directly linked to, essentially, a grounding.
Anti-magick, or a realer-than-real spot." Green Man shook his head. He
looked exhausted, but not as utterly <i>drained</i> as Nick. "Couldn't
touch Her any other way," he said. "Had to kill Her magic before I
could kill Her."<br />
<br />
I said, "I still don't understand how that explains it. I thought She was
supposed to be amazing. How did I get inside Her?" <br />
<br />
Green Man looked at me. "At the end, She had no defenses whatsoever."<br />
<br />
"...Oh."<br />
<br />
Nick put his head in his hands, and his voice was ragged. "I'm sorry. I
didn't think trying to see could get you hurt. I'm really, really, really
sorry."<br />
<br />
I said, "I'm not hurt. Just... stunned, I guess. I didn't know I could do
that."<br />
<br />
Nick paused for a long time. "I remember right before it all
started," he said. "Six years ago... She begged me to kill Her. I
couldn't do it."<br />
<br />
"She wanted to spare you all of this, Nick," I said. "She knew
where it was going."<br />
<br />
His hands clenched into fists. "She was <i>alive</i>. She had a full life
ahead, she'd <i>gotten</i> Her revenge. I just don't understand!"<br />
<br />
"She was completely empty inside," I said. "Utterly hollowed.
There was nothing left but that tiny spark, and... if it's any consolation,
that spark was fulled with regret."<br />
<br />
Green Man piped up then. "I have a theory that puts this all in a positive
light. I mean, if She isn't actually a human entity in entirety, She's gone for
good. However, if She does have a physical body somewhere, She may simply end
up being deeply rooted in the mundane. Stuck there, so to speak. And given
that's how I spend <i>most</i> of my time these days, it's not an altogether
horrible--"<br />
<br />
Nick growled. "[Green Man]. Just because you can't stand the feeling of
connecting to anything doesn't mean everyone does. You scare me sometimes. Not
to mention that, you know what would have been <i>really</i> easy? If you had
actually tried to help me SIX YEARS AGO."<br />
<br />
Green Man didn't bat an eye. "The entire <i>point</i> of my training these
days is about being connected--"<br />
<br />
"You have this thing where you'll notice eventualities," Nick
interrupted, "and then hide from them. I think it'll be easier if you <i>don't
do that</i> in the future."<br />
<br />
"If it hadn't been now," Green Man said calmly, "I wouldn't have
had the tools to do it at all."<br />
<br />
This was clearly an argument the two of them have had far too many times.<br />
<br />
I said, softly, "I... connect to everything, whether I want to or not. And
I don't not want to, even to Her. Even now."<br />
<br />
Finally, Nick looked away. "Fuck you for being right," he muttered.
"Fuck you, and fuck Fate for fucking us all for six years..."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Green Man rolled
his eyes. "There are other ways of being connected than astrally, and if
She's a real human, She'll just have to explore them."<br />
<br />
Nick ignored him. "Val, we both have the same feelings when it comes to
being connected. I've spent 6 years being blinded, struck with illusions, and
generally shoved through the cosmic equivalent of a garbage disposal... I'm not
trying to argue anything, really. I just... <i>really</i> needed someone other
than <i>me</i> who can sense this, to be sure that it's finally over."<br />
<br />
Part of what I do is knowing when words are meaningless. Any way you put it,
Nick would be, and still is, a long time in recovering from an ordeal like
this. There was nothing I could say to him that he hadn't already told himself
a hundred times over, and wouldn't tell himself a hundred times again, and <i>still</i>
wouldn't be able to convince himself entirely that he had done the right thing.<br />
<br />
I stood up. And I hugged him.<br />
<br />
"It's over," I promised.<br />
<br />
<br />
And it <i>was</i> over. Mostly.<br />
<br />
But... you know that feeling when you just feel compelled to do something?
Actually... I'm sure most of you reading this don't know that feeling, but
people like me, Nick, and Ellen feel it quite often. This principle had slipped
my mind at the time, but when you meet someone on that deep of a level, virtually
the level of their innermost soul... it leaves a mark.<br />
<br />
That night when I got home - over a year ago today, back before I was so
fearful of outside influences, but no less susceptible to them - I was drawn
outside, to the enormous maple tree in the center of my backyard. I didn't tell
Nick or Green Man, but... the shadows of nothingness clung like cobwebs, and I
needed to get them off. <br />
<br />
I don't actually remember much of what happened next. It might be for the best.
But when we met, the spark and I, She left a... an imprint, I guess. A template
of Herself, Her <i>real</i> self, burried deep in my subconscious. I didn't
even recognize or comprehend the ritual I found myself performing, but whatever
it was, it was powerful. Powerful enough to attract the attention of dozens of
entities all around the area, powerful enough to let me recognize them for what
they were.<br />
<br />
Powerful enough to hide my house from the gaze of the malignant? I don't know.<br />
<br />
What I do know is, I saw her again. The spark, the little girl. Only in much,
much clearer detail. She had short blonde hair that was tied partially up on
one side, a white shirt underneath a blue dress with a lace hem and a little
black string tied above her waist. She was very young, no older than twelve.
And she was smiling.<br />
<br />
She was <i>smiling</i>. <br />
<br />
I was suddenly aware that this little girl's name was Stacia, just like I was
suddenly aware of exactly what I had to do with the imprint the Presence left
on me. <br />
<br />
With more skill than I thought I posessed (skill that probably wasn't actually
mine, if I'm honest with myself), I took the template and hid it in a special
pocket of space, a sort of astral vault. Then I wove the energy around the
template itself to protect and dispell, and to eventually draw back when the
time was right.<br />
<br />
See, it was then that I fully understood what Green Man accomplished hours
earlier. What he was able to do with raw power that Nick couldn't do with
skill. In destroying the Prence's body, he had violently divorced Her inner
self from the corruption that had twisted Her, mind and heart, and completely
taken Her over. Because I had "fallen in" the way I did, an imprint
of Her latched onto me in the moment of Her death, and Her soul scattered to
the stars to purify from the distortion it had undergone. When it was healed,
She would be drawn back to the template and be born anew.<br />
<br />
Stacia promised me this, and I believe Her. <br />
<br />
<br />
So then there was only one thing left to do.<br />
<br />
The bad news was, Nick, Green Man, and I had to return to the site of the fight
and annihilate the corruption that was left behind when She died.<br />
<br />
The good news was, this was actually the easiest part of the whole ordeal.<br />
<br />
It was Day 18 on Nick's "Days Remaining" calender. We three went back
to the same place as before, and the field of corruption was enormous. From the
ground, it went as far as the eye could see. From above, it had boundaries, but
they weren't fixed. If it had been on this plane, it would have been the size
of four city blocks or more. It was dense. It was dark. It was <i>moving</i>.<br />
<br />
Worst of all, it was <i>watching</i>. It could see us there, and that's more
than can be said for most sentient entities. This thing... I don't know what it
was, and hopefully I'll never know.<br />
<br />
Nick just stared right back. "I remember the darkness," he said
softly. "Whoever they were, they took Her, twisted Her, and let Her loose
on the world. She deserved better. No one deserved the life She had."<br />
<br />
I found it sad that he didn't qualify that no one deserved the life <i>he</i>
had either.<br />
<br />
Nick scowled and said, "When in doubt, nuke the site from orbit. It's the
only way to be sure."<br />
<br />
And that's exactly what he did.<br />
<br />
And by the time he was finished, with more anger than emotion than I thought
(at the time) was possible from him... we were, in fact, <i>sure</i>. Beyond a
shadow of a doubt.<br />
<br />
That was the end of it. Forever. <br />
<br />
<br />
I told Nick afterward what I had done in my backyard the night before. About
the little girl named Stacia, with her blue dress and her smiling face. About
the promise that the Presence would be back someday, though he might not
recognize Her when he saw Her. He took it... better than I thought he would. I
think it helped that he finally had a target to blame for the past 6 years, one
he could go all out against. <br />
<br />
He told me not to tell him where the template was hidden, so he couldn't
inadvertantly bring Her back before She was ready. I said okay, and gave him
another hug.<br />
<br />
After a long, uncomfortable minute, he hugged me back, and said, "Thank
you."<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
So that's it. Now you know. Now Nick can get on with what he has to do in
relative peace.<br />
<br />
There are still a few more things that <i>I</i> have to do, though. <br />
<br />
Keep an eye out for me. Remember who I am in the times when I can't. It helps
more than you comprehend.<br />
<br />
<br />
~Hakurei Ryuu</span></div>AmalgamationSagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09872769253218948198noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4010291004593519809.post-9019953683123997162012-04-25T00:00:00.001-04:002012-04-25T00:00:21.688-04:00We just got hacked by Hakurei RyuuNick's pissed.<br />
<br />
Hakurei Ryuu got into the blog somehow, and left a post about the night The Presence died.<br />
<br />
He just got rid of the post and couldn't look at the computer. He's throwing punches and doing a training routine. And crying.<br />
<br />
I know the look. He really wants to break the world right now. It can't be a good memory for him. Or maybe it's that Ryuu just threw up his personal garbage for everyone to see. He doesn't want to talk, so I won't ask.<br />
<br />
It doesn't help that we found out that the New Redlight may have Fitzgerald's body, but absolutely nothing of his mind remains. Kind of terrifying. Nick gave a little spiel about "he didn't turn his into a synch and lock it away in his soul, he was overwhelmed by it and became the beast..."<br /><br />That needs explanation. I'm not qualified to give it. I'm just one person with no extra bits, damn it.<br />
<br />
Anyways, he doesn't want anybody to see that post I guess?<br /><br />I'm really not sure what to do right now. Or whether or not I care. "The Presence" was a fucking bitch, and she deserved what she got coming to her. Damned if I can't understand why he cares so damn much.Ellen|Noirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00410433535292622521noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4010291004593519809.post-62845252647933824102012-04-19T22:55:00.003-04:002012-04-20T12:53:38.531-04:00I don't really know what to doNick apologized pretty heavily about the other day. He said a lot about how he was an insensitive prick. We're on speaking terms again.<br /><br />He's been so lifeless since we found that building and that cage. I'm worried.<br /><br />So! People trapped in this mess, lets recap: you have a new "Redlight". This is apparently a scary thing. He's putting together a new "network" like the one <a href="http://recordsofanimpossibility.blogspot.com/2011/08/dear-redlight-open-letter.html">Nick destroyed</a> a while back. A lot of good people are dying. There's a lot of dirty shit happening to you people.<br /><br />It doesn't help that we've spent the last few months going around and finding old friends of his for a traditional suicide mission.<br /><br />He's not sleeping. He doesn't want to do anything. Ennui is NOT effective for his combat training. I need him upright and operating. He has to go out there, and cause the proper kind of mayhem that we all know him for.<br /><br />I need IDEAS people. How do I get his sorry ass motivated?Ellen|Noirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00410433535292622521noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4010291004593519809.post-4254074492751378532012-04-17T22:36:00.000-04:002012-04-17T22:36:09.754-04:00An Ellen Moment -/|\-Ellen and I were getting dinner earlier. I had decided it was time to have a discussion.<br />
<br />
"Ellen, what the hell is wrong with you?"<br />
<br />
That caught her attention. I wasn't too happy about some of the things <a href="http://somethingotherthanfootball.blogspot.com/2012/04/breaking.html">she's done as of late</a>. I was pretty sure she knew what was coming next.<br />
<br />
Ellen shrugged.<br />
<br />
"Why, whatever do you mean?"<br />
<br />
I said, "Lets see, called out an entire blog's readership because they didn't strongly advocate that someone get an abortion?"<br />
<br />
"Well gee, she decides to hold onto her rapist's baby while being chased by the embodiment of a fear that likes to eat children? Seems logical, doesn't it?"<br />
<br />
She was giving me a nasty little smirk. I had no response, I was too busy choking on my drink.<br />
<br />
Ellen snapped, "Count the months. Do the fucking math!"<br />
<br />
A few facts of the story clicked into place. I cringed instinctively. <br />
<br />
There's a question of sincerity at moments like these. Up until this point, I've told you all the truth as far as I could understand it. You've probably wondered: "Why does Nick compulsively write about all of these horrible things whenever he can?" For me, it's a penance. When I die, I want people to know exactly why I've made the decisions I've made. For Ellen, it's because Time Lord has a figurative gun pointed at her head.<br />
<br />
I don't know what Maiden's story is.<br />
<br />
Either way, Ellen gave me permission to talk about this little fracas. Normally, I wouldn't post any of this. After all, the next thing that popped out of my mouth was:<br />
<br />
"So. When did you have your abortion?"<br />
<br />
Ellen twitched.<br />
<br />
I said, "I read what you said to her. I know you."<br />
<br />
For better or for worse, having spent a few years trying to kill each other off-and-on has given us insight into each others personalities.<br />
<br />
Ellen grunted, "2008. Human man, demon spirit, kind of like me. The negative energies were comforting, and he was nice. Turned out to be a vicious bastard in contact with the downstairs who wanted to create the next generation of soldiers to try again. After I missed my period, he gave me a spiel about how it was foretold, and how I would lead a revolution."<br />
<br />
We were quiet for a minute or so.<br />
<br />
I said, "Must have been one hell of a charmer."<br />
<br />
"I was done with revolutions, I told him no. Then he tried to tell me we were doing it anyway. You know Nick? I was a legendary, ruthless warrior from a warrior race. Suddenly, I've got two breasts and people think they can push me around. Somehow, I'm less effective because I bleed once a month? Fucker."<br />
<br />
I just stared. It couldn't be that simple. How was she so calm?<br />
<br />
Then she said, "Told me it was the greater good. Suddenly my dream guy has a gun and a thing for handcuffs."<br />
<br />
I could feel my heart beating. What did he do to her? What happened?<br />
<br />
She said ,"I played along for about five minutes, took his gun, shot him, made the corpse unidentifiable and destroyed it", she paused briefly to glare at the table, "Then I had an abortion, cried myself to sleep, and spent the next week or so at the bottom of a whiskey bottle."<br />
<br />
I relaxed a little.<br />
<br />
Ellen said, "He talked about how they'd already warped and twisted it inside me. How it would be the perfect little warrior. How I should be honored. They went inside me Nick, I was supposed to be the finest warrior, I was supposed to be their champion...I was a man then, why can't I just be a man now? Suddenly I have a womb, and it changes everything."<br />
<br />
I just stared.<br />
<br />
Ellen said, "You were a woman up there. How did that affect you?"<br />
<br />
We were quiet for a little bit.<br />
<br />
Then I told the truth: "I don't know. My memories conflict. I was a man. I really was. And here my astral form...is not that. I'm starting to get other memories, from a different life. It's confusing."<br />
<br />
I have started getting other memories. I don't want to talk about it yet. <br />
<br />
Back in the discussion we were having, Ellen nodded.<br />
<br />
"We need to look into that. This could be bad."<br />
<br />
"Ellen..."<br />
<br />
She continued, "After all of that happened to me, I ended up meeting Detective (Redacted) in New York. I started as his secretary, and then moved up to apprenticing under him. I found a new life, and a new...well, everything."<br />
<br />
I tried to take her hand. I could see a movie playing out on her face, and she was desperately trying to change the channel.<br />
<br />
"Don't touch me," She said as she pulled away, "Not today."<br />
<br />
She stood up and walked outside. I know she was crying. She does a good job of hiding it.<br />
<br />
Ellen, I know you're going to read this sooner or later. I just wanted you to know that I don't judge you for what you did. When my universe exploded, I had a family and friends to fall back on. You didn't. The world beat you down, and you beat it up in return. You survived. <br />
<br />
You're the same berserker demon samurai I faintly remember. Just a bit more lost. I just hope you can realize: we're not all bastards.<br />
<br />
I don't want to hurt anyone else.AmalgamationSagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09872769253218948198noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4010291004593519809.post-83793794769363588622012-04-12T21:55:00.008-04:002012-04-13T02:08:10.472-04:00I hate your enemies.Fucking people, with their eldritch abominations.<br /><br />The last few days have been bad. We were trying to get the full scale of the scope of Mastermind's operation, and everything started clicking into place. We found some abandoned papers in the abandoned apartment which lead us to a gutted office building.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><object class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" src="http://2.gvt0.com/vi/LUEIn9ZFy-4/0.jpg" height="266" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/LUEIn9ZFy-4&fs=1&source=uds"><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/LUEIn9ZFy-4&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height="266" width="320"></embed></object></div><br /><br />The office was a thin place. It had seen this kind of thing before. Someone had meddled too hard, and too fast, and a war had erupted. Burn marks from fire brought from beyond the veil, hacked walls from fists and blades that defied physics, it was all pretty standard to me.<br /><br />Nick though? He'd been here before. He was the one who'd caused it. After years of not knowing whether or not what he'd seen and done was real, and having no way to prove it, he'd grown used to the idea that he'd never know the truth. He finally made peace with knowing he'd never see The Presence's physical body, that he'd never meet Mastermind in person, and that he'd never ever have proof that the conspiracy he thought had existed was real.<br /><br />I pitied him. He could not die a warrior's death. Now he was trapped, knowing he could have fixed this and failed.<br /><br />We explored the dark, bloodstained and devastated offices, finding scattered remains of papers throughout. While Nick was wandering around like an alcoholic, I was looking through progress reports, statistics, and casualty numbers. This was where Mastermind's organization was born. This was where it should have died.<br /><br />Nick dropped to his knees when he found the cages. There was one that looked like it had been sheared in half. He stood there in front of it, and began crying.<br /><br />I gave him some space. I never thought I'd be here either. He saw where his loved one turned into something else, something twisted and foul. I lost my loved ones long before he did, but I didn't think I'd ever see someone else doing what I did.<br /><br />Maiden told you how I left my "family." Knowing I could never go back was like what Nick was going through in that building. It took me years of counseling and an honest-to-god decent father figure to get me back on track. Nick had so many years where he just had to pretend it never happened, it must have hit him like a train wreck.<br /><br />Then I heard it.<br /><br />Papers shuffling from the stairwell we arrived from. I couldn't see anything in that direction, but I felt it. The same thing I felt when people were dying at Hope.<br /><br />I ran to Nick, and tried to pull him up off the floor. He wouldn't move.<br /><br />I shouted, "Damn it Nick, The Slender thing is here, we've got to go!"<br /><br />He whispered, "Leave me here. Let me die."<br /><br />I slapped him. He was shocked, but not moving. I could feel it getting closer.<br /><br />He said, "Even if I get all the allies I can find, and even if we survive long enough to kill the bastard, what's the point? If we destroy Mastermind, what's left protecting the world? I'm done. I've got nothing left, Ellen. I'm done."<br /><br />I lifted him bodily off the floor and slammed him against one of the intact cages.<br /><br />I have a Voice. It affects people when I use it just right.<br /><br />I screamed in his face, "Maybe there IS something left. You won't fucking know unless you try, now MOVE. I know you can see him, and I know this isn't how you want me to die."<br /><br />He stared, he didn't get it.<br /><br />"Ellen, what...?"<br /><br />I screamed in his face, "I will fucking die here with you, do you want me to be a corpse?"<br /><br />For better or for worse, I said that. My old rival is the only thing I have left from my past. It's one last thing, and I just don't want to lose it yet.<br /><br />He started moving. I could feel it after us, and the stories are true, you know? I don't think you can outrun it if it doesn't want you to. Except that I confused it. After all, I'm not afraid of the unknown. I've lived and trained to be as ready as possible for anything. It makes sense that I can't see it, I'm not it's food.<br /><br />Nick though? Nick was plagued with fears and doubts about his lost love and a world that might just be in his imagination for the last few years. He's like a Slendy-buffet, if you believe in the whole "Fears can only target people who are susceptible to them thing."<br /><br />Of course, The thing could probably tear me in half for being between him and it, and I know it's done that to people unrelated to all of this on several occasions. I've determined that the reason I pulled him along was that I was crazy. We'll leave it at that.<br /><br />Down the stairs we went. I'm busy dropping wards and traps and the thing's plowing through they like they're paper. Well, they WERE paper, but spirits aren't supposed to be able to treat wards like that.<br /><br />We hit the bottom of the stairs, and the doors were wide open...except for the massive brick wall.<br /><br /><a href="http://recordsofanimpossibility.blogspot.com/2011/07/operation-willy-nilly-hours-19-15.html#comments">That</a> <a href="http://recordsofanimpossibility.blogspot.com/2011/04/time-lords-house.html#comments">bastard</a>. <a href="http://spotlightonstageleft.blogspot.com/2011/07/act-five-scene-one.html">Fucking Barry</a>. He'd bricked off our damn exit. We saw him wave to us, and put in the last brick at the height of his mask. So the THING is at the top of the stairs, and Nick is running like a madman, and I'm wondering "What the fuck is he thinking?!"<br /><br />So then we jump into the brick wall, and I realized EXACTLY what he was thinking. He was thinking: "If Barry's setting the last brick in now, the cement can't possibly be dry yet."<br /><br />We crashed through a pile of bricks and cement, and he drew his little bag from his side. I drew a knife from in my coat. We were ready for a fight.<br /><br />I don't know if he's mentioned his little bag. It's black, and covered in old runes. I asked him what was in it once.<br /><br />His exact response was: "There are things in this world man was not meant to know. Some of them are in this bag."<br /><br />I knew it was behind us. And he turned around as he stood with that bag and...<br /><br />Boom. I was blinded. Nick was thirty feet behind me in the street, and there was no sign the bricks or cement had ever been anywhere near the building. Nick slowly picked himself up. His knuckles were bleeding. Whenever I encounter this THING, I always find myself feeling inadequate. I can't see it, I don't know what magic works on it, and the magic that does is usually what I don't use. I need to find something that WORKS in this scenario.<br /><br />I didn't feel it around us though. That was a start. Nick looked like he'd been put through the ringer though.<br /><br />"Nick, are you okay?"<br /><br />He said, "Nope! It's all real! All of it. I didn't save the day, I made it possible for Mastermind to take over the goddamn world. I'm the goddamn reason the world's going to hell in a handbasket-"<br /><br />I cut in, "You AREN'T. You couldn't have-"<br /><br />"-I COULD have just violently killed things and kept this from ever happening. But I didn't. And now here we are. TELL me that this could have been averted by me being a goody-two-shoes, I dare you."<br /><br />"Honestly Nick, I would have killed all the sons of bitches I fought when this started. But that's me. You don't WANT to be me."<br /><br />"Maybe I do, Ellen. Maybe that's exactly what I need to be. Maybe it's time to stop scaling up as the problem does, stop acting like a wonderful person, and start KILLING THE FUCK OUT OF EVERYTHING!"<br /><br />That's when I punched him in the face. Nick rolled with it, and came back up in a defensive stance. He looked shocked.<br /><br />I said, "And does killing the fuck out of everything actually FIX the fucking problem?"<br /><br />Nick looked away. He rubbed the side of his face where I decked him.<br /><br />"No. No it doesn't."<br /><br />I said, "Good. Now lets get out of here before IT shows up again."<br /><br />How did I become the voice of reason? In conclusion, I hate you all, and the faceless enemy you've made. He is a many-tentacled piece of invisible shit, and he's making our lives MUCH more complicated. Mastermind is a big enough problem as it is without THIS shit going on.Ellen|Noirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00410433535292622521noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4010291004593519809.post-74888371524359805832012-04-11T01:21:00.009-04:002012-04-11T02:10:45.622-04:00Who is Mastermind? Part two- The Fourth SideBeing in Philadelphia should be more fun.<br /><br />I won't tell you why we're here. It's all part of our secret plan to take care of business. Nick is currently traumatized, and you bloggers aren't helping matters.<br /><br />So why did Nick disappear? Why all the Stealth? Why is he being so quiet, and doing his best to not tell you anything at all about "Mastermind", and what his continued existence means?<br /><br />Pay attention:<br /><br />It began when we reached <a href="http://recordsofanimpossibility.blogspot.com/2012/04/who-is-mastermind-part-one.html">this apartment</a>. I was in Philadelphia for some time when I was younger. You all know this already. Now, even after I left my home and escaped from my fellow spiritually demonic brethren, I still stayed in Philadelphia for a while and kept an eye on things.<br /><br />Nick desperately wants to tell the world everything, but like anyone who's been traumatized, his emotions are a bottled up mess that he just won't let loose. Angry, bitter, confused, he's going through all the stages of his loss all over again.<br /><br />There are stories. The historians will pick apart what happened in Philadelphia for years to come, but there is a reason why they fear Nick Dwyer: the lengths that he will go to protect someone he cares about would make the devil crap himself.<br /><br />I can't say I liked "Maiden" very much. She and Nick are worried about telling you a lovely story for posterity, but how about I cut to the chase?<br /><br />There were five rogues. Rogue Wizard (The Presence's Father, Our Original Villain), Rogue Nemesis (Mind fucker, considered Nick a rival), Rogue General, Rogue Assassin, and Rogue Duelist. Those weren't what I called them, but they're the labels Nick used.<br /><br />Rogue Assassin and Rogue Duelist don't matter to us. Time Lord ended up dealing with them around New York. They're another story's problem.<br /><br />So at this point, you know of three sides in this war. The Rogues, who wanted to take control of the Upstairs, the Upstairs normal army, which was trying to deal with them and my people, and of course the Downstairs and demon-kind. Under normal circumstances, this would be considered extraordinary. Nothing like this has happened in hundreds of years.<br /><br />There was a fourth side though. Nobody saw this coming. I didn't.<br /><br />There were a lot of people like Nick and Time Lord in the world at one point, game pieces on the board, but what you might not realize is that there were a lot of game pieces on the board that were meant to "wake up" and support the Rogues. Nick was one of them, but he was made to forget that fact. There were pieces for my side, and for the Upstairs, and that was supposed to be the game. Then some other people put pieces on the board. And a whole bunch of pieces for all three sides decided to take a fourth option.<br /><br />Nick believes that people are basically good. He believes that if Humanity understood the world around them, and knew the stakes and that they were being used as pawns by otherworldly forces, they could rise up and gain some kind of cosmic harmony. Maiden talked about that a little while ago.<br /><br />That's exactly what humanity did. When they did, the first decision they made was to take care of the game pieces in play that they couldn't control. The Rogues were a threat to Humanity, the Higher Planes were a threat to Humanity, and the Lower Planes were a threat to Humanity. It was basic math really: subtract enough problems, and the world is your oyster.<br /><br />When a young girl suplexes a wannabe combination murderer and rapist into the ground, cracking the concrete and breaking his skull, people take notice. "The Presence" had been on a hit list for a while. After all, Mastermind was one of Rogue Wizard's friends. They knew his daughter had some power to spare, and now they knew that she was one of those very rare people who could manifest it and affect the physical world. At least, that's what they THOUGHT happened. That made her a risk they couldn't afford to let run around.<br /><br />So Nick, The Presence, and Time Lord began to deal with the next major threat: a group of "Celestials" as Time Lord called them hellbent on taking something in Philadelphia for their use.<br /><br />I'll let Nick handle that particular white lie, but I want you to imagine dealing with that particular mess, and then waking up one morning to discover that the person you are connected to across space and time by an irrevocable bond of love is also waking up... handcuffed to a radiator in an abandoned apartment in Philadelphia.<br /><br />Humanity rose up, and they faced all the monsters in the world, even if they were the kind, gentle, human loving and protecting monsters.<br /><br />I hate you all. Humanity is a bunch of shortsighted, ignorant, hateful beasts on two legs that think they know honor. They name an entire trait after themselves, call it "humanity", and then proceed to ignore it. You're all bastards, and even now, Nick Dwyer will defend you.<br /><br />These bastards let all three sides kill each other, and when nobody had anything left to give, they attacked with all the cunning and political bastardy they could put together on short notice.<br /><br />You want to know why you've got the Slendershit breathing down your neck? Because humans like you destroyed all the great armies that kept the Fears and other great monsters in check. There are things popping up all across the world that used to play nice and clean, because they didn't want an angry demon or righteous angel to drop their asses for causing trouble on their turf.<br /><br />Humanity's greatest heroes fought and earned their independence from the natural order. And now the world's coming closer and closer to destruction, and there's nothing left to hold it together, now is there?<br /><br />But whatever, I'm not a historian. I'm a detective. And I detect the end of the fucking world. The barrier's collapsing, people are getting eaten, and an entire generation of shamans and mystics died trying to save you, or became the monsters that destroyed the fighting forces of heaven and hell. There are a couple independents, like that bunch that Nick keeps in contact with over the internet...but they're a bunch of amateurs.<br /><br />Face it humanity. You fucked up. Nick and Maiden are probably going to spend weeks telling the whole story, but you know what? It's your imperfect, mortal choices that caused every bit of pain you're feeling right now.<br /><br />Who is Mastermind? He's the hero that took control of the world for humanity, and doomed you all to being the victims of the Fears and the legendary monsters held back for centuries. Welcome to Earth, <a href="http://recordsofanimpossibility.blogspot.com/2011/03/we-are-in-so-much-trouble-2nd-rogue.html#comments">when the barrier breaks</a>, it'll make hell look like a picnic.Ellen|Noirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00410433535292622521noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4010291004593519809.post-81210498875425807252012-04-05T02:50:00.001-04:002012-04-05T02:52:28.509-04:00Who is Mastermind (Part One)<div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div>Maiden's been writing the history I've been neglecting. Whose side is that thing on?<br />
<br />
I don't know what's going on out there anymore. Ellen and I are holed up in Philadelphia. I don't know what to feel right now. We're in an abandoned building, and I've been here before. It was as an astral projection.<br />
<br />
In my line of work, there are a lot of things that you see and sense where you wonder to yourself: was any of that actually real? Is that the world, and was that the truth? Often it isn't. You question yourself, and everything you do, every impulse, every thought, and eventually you do it in the background. You stop consciously asking questions, because you live and breathe the question in everything you do. The minute you stop questioning things, you go insane, or you die.<br />
<br />
I had my moment. I decided to believe in myself after a run-in with an insane Portuguese shaman. I'm not going to link the mess, because if you've come this far you know about it. I had an answer, so I kept asking the questions, kept moving, and finally decided to do SOMETHING.<br />
<br />
I gained something back after that. My battered will, my desire for victory, it had been restored. When did I lose it though? Here's the question for the hour: Who is Mastermind?<br />
<br />
After Ellen escaped from her "family", I ended up having to spend a lot of time covering for The Presence. We had one advantage: the demon infused sons of bitches burned like candles if you had the eyes to see them. So I acted as her well armed and armored protector. Of course, an astral entity interacting with the physical world is a crapshoot at best: I was shooting at the demonic energy around her, and hoping to all that was holy that it put them down.<br />
<br />
For the most part, it did. The war continued as normal, except now I wasn't just getting woken up at 4 AM or attacked when I was getting in the shower. I had to be aware of The Presence's situation 24/7.<br />
<br />
The Demons weren't the only ones who'd organized. During all this, I'd gathered that The Presence and her close family were actively organizing with anyone they could find involved in this mess.<br />
<br />
The Presence's father was <a href="http://recordsofanimpossibility.blogspot.com/2011/03/green-man-is-wounded-things-i-am-no.html#comments">Rogue Wizard</a>.<br />
<br />
I haven't written about him much, the son of a bitch.<br />
<br />
Anyone who has been paying attention is probably wondering why I didn't use the "army" I had at the time to protect her. I didn't because they head-fucked me, and made the idea of using the army in her defense never occur in my damn brain. As much as I go on about how they were all traitorous bastards, some of them weren't. If anyone determined the connection between The Presence, Rogue Wizard, and myself, with the suspicions surrounding me already... well, we'd all be dead.<br />
<br />
The Presence, Rogue Wizard, and their small cabal, trapped in conflict with Ellen's old Hell-bunch and the forces up the "Good Guys", and me in the middle. There was of course, one member of the Cabal that no one noticed. This was because he had every intention of hiding himself until just the right moment.<br />
<br />
Mastermind.<br />
<br />
It's not his real name, but I've already code named everything else. So who was he really? I'll get there eventually.<br />
<br />
The Presence was a high school student in our world. One day when The Presence was in class, one of the demon-infused puppets attacked her when she left the room. I could feel all of her pain as she felt it. The attack was brutal, fast, and vicious.<br />
<br />
I remember her injuries, I felt them on my body as she felt them, and I remember her being pulled off balance by the neck and her head slammed into the wall. I remember her being elbowed in the face, the head was important to this thing. It didn't want her thinking or fighting. It slammed her through a door, and discarded her on the floor.<br />
<br />
I could feel her panic. I remember being in class at the time and feeling my heart pounding in time with hers, adrenaline flowing through my veins like liquid dynamite. All it needed was a match. I excused myself from the room.<br />
<br />
I could feel her mind, weak, frazzled, unable to focus. I could see him drawing the knife. I knew he wasn't just going to kill her, he wanted her to feel this well into the afterlife. I don't know why, but I always find the psychos that really hate women. Why can't I find a normal, run-of-the-mill murdering bastard? Why is it always some sick fuck with mommy issues?<br />
<br />
I remember being inside her skull, screaming at her, "Get up. Fight. Kill him!"<br />
<br />
She screamed back, "Help me!"<br />
<br />
And then I was her. I felt her shocked, injured mind recoil in surprise as her arms gripped his hand and slammed it against the wall, breaking it and forcing the psycho to drop the knife. I felt the shape of the psycho's pelvis as I inserted her boot into his groin. I felt the underside of his jaw as I brought her skull up into it, breaking his jaw. Then I gripped around his body, and drew him close to us. To someone who didn't know better, it would look like a loving hug. The mind of the Presence was active again, and she helped me get the proper grip for our next move.<br />
<br />
We German suplexed that motherfucker. Our combined strength lifted his ass, brought his head back behind ours, and slammed it hard into the ground.<br />
<br />
And then she was The Presence again, and I was Nick Dwyer. She sat down, nearly in shock, barely alive after a confrontation with what turned out to be the last of Ellen's demonic brethren. The police came to interview the Presence and figure out the situation. I fell asleep on my bus ride home, exhausted. It's hard work, taking over someone else's body and giving them all the energy in yours. But you know what they say: Sons of bitches need suplexing.<br />
<br />
Okay. Nobody says that.<br />
<br />
One of the people there was a "Special Agent". He was Mastermind. The Presence knew him as a friend of her father's, and thought she'd be okay.<br />
<br />
When you're dead tired and your body is a broken mess, you wake up after a full day of sleeping and think sunset is sunrise. God help you when you hit that point. Before then, I thought I'd known pain. The show was just getting started.AmalgamationSagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09872769253218948198noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4010291004593519809.post-38407851252508724692012-03-27T15:17:00.000-04:002012-03-27T15:17:34.268-04:00Who is Ellen?<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Ellen Knowles is 24 and deeply disturbed. She was born in a hole in the ground, and taught the ways of warfare from the time she could walk. Her duties were simple: Hell would come to earth, and she would lead the way.</span></i><br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Both the "Upstairs" and the "Downstairs", the Higher Planes and the Lower Planes, made use of Proxies to do their fighting in the physical world. They were not unlike the flawed shells that your faceless nemesis employs in concept, except the idea was to take a soul and enrich it for your purposes, as opposed to breaking it down into a fighting, terrorizing drone. </span></i><br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The truth of the matter is that Nick is a Shaman, like any other Shaman on earth. It's just that anyone who took part in the conflict that we keep coming back to was on some level changed and altered to better suit the "side" they found themselves on. Nick received the most changes on record, six that he is aware of, and a seventh that he is not. Well played Ben and Amy. Can you guess which one is the one he is unaware of?</span></i><br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">To return to the point of this discussion, Ellen Knowles was changed into something brutal and dangerous. Unfortunately, despite her enhancement, she was not made any less human.<br />
<br />
The first kills were the easiest, as always. After all, she did not have to perform them. Ellen was a young, cute girl, and made the perfect distraction for a number of operations. She reminds me of my youth in fact.</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The first person she killed for the purposes of her masters was an elderly priest in North Philadelphia. She had gotten to know him by posing as a young drug addict at a homeless shelter that he had worked in. She had grown to like him. She killed him in the confessional using a knife. She moved through the screen separating them and slit his throat in one smooth motion. </span></i><br />
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</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Ellen Knowles spent the next day crying into her pillow, pretending that she was sick. She was not supposed to know fear, pain, or remorse. This display would be catalyst for her departure for the ranks of the demons. After all, subordinates around her had found out about her weak heart. That meant that she was weak, and that meant that she could be replaced by someone ruthless enough. One of them in particular had his very specific opinon about her. This underling there was born without conscience or humanity. </span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Throughout all of this, Ellen's life only made sense on the Astral Plane, where she met her old nemesis Nick Dwyer and found peace in her conflict with him. When they fought to the death again and again, they felt the conflicts of a different life where the world made sense. It was a release, and that was supposed to be that.</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Ellen was not with her comrades on the day they went to collect The Presence. She had awoken that morning, bound to an operating table. The underling without conscience I alluded to had smelled weakness in her, and known that her immense power could be a boon to someone willing to take it. Nothing a ritual involving heart surgery without anesthetic could not accomplish.<br />
<br />
This underling, this weak little gremlin, was mere inches away from taking power from a legendary warrior. But there was one thing he didn't know: this was after Ellen had saved Nick Dwyer from Rogue Nemesis. And Nick had been seeking a good match after that.</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Imagine Ellen, laying on that table, sluggish from drugs and livid with fear. She knows she was the strongest person in this group of hell-bound men and women, and she knows that all of those years of cooperation, friendship, and backstabbing have finally lead to a knife in her own back. She knows she will die, and she knows that the underling will take his time. He wants Ellen to suffer slowly, to know that she was not worthy of the power she wielded, to know that he was truly superior. The truth is, that gaining her power was merely a side benefit. The underling just wanted an opportunity to tear into her piece by piece.<br />
<br />
The first cut is a slow, shallow thing along Ellen's arm, barely enough to prick the skin. The underling wants her to anticipate. He wants to see her slowly become more and more frenzied as she realizes that there will be no one to save her. He wants her to know the power he has in this moment, and that he will slowly, carefully exercise it on her again and again until she is nothing.</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">As the underling warms up to the task and begins the second cut, he does not notice the amalgamation of armor and weapons behind him. It does not see the thing in the patchwork armor. Nothing is uniform, and everything is sharp and bleeding something black. Ellen sees it. She smiles up at underling like the predator she is.</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Underling is shocked by this, he steps back uncertain as to what is happening, and the restraints on Ellen suddenly come undone.<br />
<br />
Ellen hears Nick's voice in her head say, "Now we're even."<br />
<br />
There is not much else to say. Ellen killed the underling slowly, and precisely. She slowly broke his fingers, one by one. She did everything to him that he wished to do to her. And then she discarded him.</span></i><br />
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</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">She left her "family" of fellow killers and monsters, aware that she was also a monster, but a different kind of monster. One that wanted a normal life.</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">She would never have a normal life. What she would have is ten years of psychological counseling and an inability to connect to others around her. She is not demon or human. And she is not at fault for the fate of The Presence.</span></i>AmalgamationSagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09872769253218948198noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4010291004593519809.post-1704893098377905202012-03-18T23:46:00.000-04:002012-03-18T23:46:45.998-04:00Who is The Presence?<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Nick Dwyer grew up as an over-privileged white person outside of Philadelphia. When dealing with his potential insanity, he didn't have many problems worth noting. I find nothing of interest in his story. </span></i><br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"The Presence", as he calls her, is different. Her real name is completely unknown to him, lost to the sands of time and the actions of Mastermind. That truly is what aches at his heart: so much anguish, and so much loss, and yet he will never know her name. He mourns her this year, but if he was logical he would have begun mourning her eight years ago on a very different month. If he survives to old age he will mourn The Presence every year. After all, <a href="http://recordsofanimpossibility.blogspot.com/2011/03/17-days-remaining-beginning.html#comments">she died</a> last year about five days from this date. </span></i><br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">What he has not said is that he is the cause. What might have been The Presence was killed at his command. There were reasons. You may even understand them when our story is through.</span></i><br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">What he does know of the Presence is simple: she existed within one hundred miles of Philadelphia during the conflicts that occurred from 2002 - 2004. She lived in North Philadelphia, better known as the bad part of town. North Philadelphia was once a center of manufacturing and business, gutted when companies came across the concept of "outsourcing." </span></i><br />
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</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Philadelphia is a hard town at the best of times. She and her family lived as best they could on the edge of the hardest part, an inch from any number of hives of scum and villainy. I do not understand such places in this world, they move differently than they did in mine. But what can one do?<br />
<br />
The Presence and he, as I communicated previously, came together in spirit. They could interact with each other over a connection they shared, and through that connection they could feel the others thoughts. They couldn't always understand them, but they always knew what the other was feeling, and could exchange general ideas. They often exchanged the idea of finding each other, and finally knowing each other in the reality they knew for fact was real. </span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">More than any truth you must gather from this story, is the disconnect between what is there and what is here. The astral plane is a confusing place that could well only be the imagination of those who go there. It is ephemeral, like the wind or the future. It may well never exist at all. What is the loss of a person in such a place? Ideas made real, lost forever without ever having felt real at all.<br />
<br />
I digress. The two wanted to see each other, and exchanged ideas and thoughts and love and caring and hope. They were very real to each other.<br />
<br />
So when someone began hunting The Presence in her very real, physical world, Nick Dwyer knew. When the Presence began watching over her shoulder and going to and from school in new and varied routes to avoid detection, Nick Dwyer knew why. He could feel her aching fear, and she felt his concern. It was touching to her. He could help her against demons and spirits, but this was not something that an ephemeral, surreal creature like Nick Dwyer, who she knew could never exist in the physical world, could ever possibly help with.</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">You might wonder why Nick <a href="http://www.blogger.com/posts.g?blogID=4010291004593519809&searchType=ALL&txtKeywords&label&page=2">jumps</a> to the <a href="http://recordsofanimpossibility.blogspot.com/2011/04/5-days-remaining-regarding-giant-bruise.html#comments">chance</a> to <a href="http://recordsofanimpossibility.blogspot.com/2011/04/3-days-remaining-shootout.html#comments">rescue</a> <a href="http://recordsofanimpossibility.blogspot.com/2011/04/missing-29-hours.html#comments">anyone</a>? We could spend all day desperately searching through your primitive "Hyper-links" and determining how many times he's foolishly stuck his nose into someone else's problem. This entire blog is Nick Dwyer leaping to one person's defense or another, desperately trying to save anyone he can. </span></i><br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">It is in keeping with his flaws. He's always trying to save the person he's lost.<br />
<br />
When the attacker finally revealed himself, Nick and The Presence both determined that he was a problem on every level. He was a human, his mind had been corrupted and co-opted by one of the ancient demons they dreamed of, and he had desires that needed sating. The Presence was always at Nick's level. she utterly crushed this monster.<br />
<br />
Having investigated the situation myself, I know that this was not the only one that had been possessed. The monster was carted off by the police, who called it a clear case of self-defense, and praised The Presence's skillful handling of the situation. The reprieve would not last long. There was a group in Philadelphia, a collection of monsters. They were demons in human guise, who had long since been tracking down those like The Presence or Nick. They remind me of the one he calls "Ellen." One by one, they had hunted down each of the others in Philadelphia like Nick and The Presence. After her attacker was arrested, The Presence came home to find written in spray paint on her door two simple words:<br />
<br />
<b>FOUND YOU.</b></span></i>AmalgamationSagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09872769253218948198noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4010291004593519809.post-30464275827824735942012-03-16T00:40:00.000-04:002012-03-16T00:40:32.323-04:00Who is Nick Dwyer?<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Who is Nick Dwyer</span>?</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>He has told you stories. They are the ramblings of a man who has seen too much. The study of him is the study of time and pressure. We start with a piece of coal, a child that can see far too much.</i><i> Most pieces of coal burn bright, and then turn to ash</i><i> after briefly shielding the world from darkness. They last for an hour or so, and their time passes. Hardly the tool needed by the forces at work here. Something more was needed. Outside forces mold and twist this coal into something sharp and hard. Pressure makes diamonds, as many will attest. A diamond can cut through anything, and many devices use them to cut what otherwise cannot be pierced. However, a diamond is also very easy to destroy, hard yet brittle, a paradox in their strength and their weakness.</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>He has told you of a war. This history has been pondered, and he spends much too much time trying to pursue a miasma of death and decay that allowed our current situation to exist. Let us cut to the heart of the matter.</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>Imagine these dark times, the ones he's spoken of from nearly ten years ago. This is not a man, but a boy, and a lonely one at that. He remembers feeling the presence of others like him, but he has felt them fade. The coal is burning out, and he is surrounded by darkness.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><br />
</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>But another yet remains, and the boy loves this girl. Whoever she is, she is closer to him than anything else in the world. At night, the boy and the girl wrap themselves around each other in their minds and hearts. They will never meet in person, but on the Astral Plane, their minds will connect and they will feel whole. They know they will die any day now, but in these moments they think nothing of it. They have found their peace in a mad violence that no one around them can see. When heaven and hell go to war, and the shamans and priests take part, there is no quarter and no haven. This is the eye of the storm, built on love and despair.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><br />
</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>At times, Nick will consider the rest of humanity outside their temporary peace in a war none can see. They do not see what seeks to end them, and could not hope to understand or oppose it. He dreams of a time when they can. When humanity will rise up and own the world, in balance with the heavens and hells and everything in between. He dreams of a time where the world will know peace, and all will be in harmony, and he dreams of this.<br />
<br />
The world will know peace, and all will be in harmony. These words haunt him now. You should always be careful what you wish for.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><br />
</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>The eye of the storm would not last. Six months after they first held each other in spirit, they would be thrown into the fire as yet another two pieces of coal might be. The world would soon know the terror brought by diamonds.<br />
<br />
Call me Maiden. It is a sobriquet you've already used. It will serve.</i></span>AmalgamationSagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09872769253218948198noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4010291004593519809.post-85513769583913354112012-01-10T00:18:00.001-05:002012-01-10T00:26:26.608-05:00Stay TunedThe holidays never last, and there's always a new problem.<br />
<br />
<i style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Yes.</i><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/P1Gj4npqnr0?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>AmalgamationSagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09872769253218948198noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4010291004593519809.post-47104517771073714192011-11-24T04:07:00.002-05:002011-11-24T11:11:55.841-05:00Riding with Nick Dwyer -/|\- Hope is Dead, Long Live Hope, (Somebody Set Them Up The Bomb)<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZX-7WqsaqKVLnUFiqgC0SRu_iqLnt9YS2ghYcYEmmqkEtk3QXWwZWg7OJXVKCe8NRyi7Jg9bTh0mbDFc87ffsY6KDXOe5V9stlJZrJBv0vPSnDSEXMFCdiotBxC9sRHvXTbunLciTfiZr/s1600/everygreatherohasasidekick.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5677706262503358930" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZX-7WqsaqKVLnUFiqgC0SRu_iqLnt9YS2ghYcYEmmqkEtk3QXWwZWg7OJXVKCe8NRyi7Jg9bTh0mbDFc87ffsY6KDXOe5V9stlJZrJBv0vPSnDSEXMFCdiotBxC9sRHvXTbunLciTfiZr/s400/everygreatherohasasidekick.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 341px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">Riding With Nick Dwyer<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">In that picture, I'm definitely the cat. He insist that I use one of those, giving me some nonsense about psychological warfare. I think it's a pointless gesture, but I will respect his opinion in this matter.<br />
<br />
After he pulled me out of that hole in the ground, we rolled along in his car for a few miles without a word. We both just glanced at each other now and then, with no idea what to say.<br />
<br />
You need to remember, I remember him as a weird, almost mechanical thing that I engaged in battles to the death with as some kind of Demon Samurai. Simply by conversing with each other, we "won the internet" by virtue of existing. Even after we came to this world in our respective fashions, war was what we knew.<br />
<br />
You know what? I'm saving our conversation in the car for later. We didn't talk about anything particularly important.<br />
<br />
That said, Nick wants to talk about Hope.<br />
<br />
<br />
-----Ellen<br />
<br />
-/|\-<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih52vFWbwZJ1SGZ6Fw5OxAVUAgO_Z-_b6SQ5ESpffHlIj2CERBGf5a0eAO8JXXN5nFd5ZV8EVEvt7BIqAXQBKY1SQhgP96SsZXjfptEXGblV6EHLBy16rYSdSepwOSi7u4PpQcPySerdSp/s1600/demotivational-posters-hellhound.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih52vFWbwZJ1SGZ6Fw5OxAVUAgO_Z-_b6SQ5ESpffHlIj2CERBGf5a0eAO8JXXN5nFd5ZV8EVEvt7BIqAXQBKY1SQhgP96SsZXjfptEXGblV6EHLBy16rYSdSepwOSi7u4PpQcPySerdSp/s1600/demotivational-posters-hellhound.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">Hope is Dead, Long Live Hope, Somebody Set Them Up The Bomb</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Two days of preparation, three cans of black paint, about five hundred dollars in miscellaneous small items (Tongue of Dog and Wing of Bat are out of season after all), and a whole lot of annoyed Sage and Ellen had lead to this moment.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">She and I, sitting with the rest of the Hope-goers for a final lunch. The ill-fated Johnsons and that <a href="http://www.twosidestoallstories.blogspot.com/">Ray</a> guy among others. (did NOT get a chance to talk with him. Ah well.) <a href="http://youpaywedeliver.blogspot.com/">Steele</a> was present, <a href="http://simulati0n.blogspot.com/">Rivers</a> was present (I should have talked to him too), <a href="http://23secondecology.blogspot.com/">Elliot</a> was there with his pal <a href="http://23secondecology.blogspot.com/">Alex</a>... damn it, I have to put another quarter in my Ellipses jar. Honestly, I didn't know a lot of the people there, and I didn't have time to talk to them either. I don't know the names of the dead. That worries the shit out of me. Shouldn't I be able to remember them? If we don't, who will?</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;">I had finished drawing a little something in the same concoction I'd prepared around Hope for the last two days on the table we were eating on. I wasn't taking any chances. The attack could come at any time, and I didn't want to leave anyone in the lurch.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Ellen and I, sitting around these people, eating and chatting a little, having a good time. It didn't last very long. Ellen was curious, she'd never met anyone besides me who'd been "stalked" before. So when reality twisted and the first bodies hit the floor, I popped out a cigarette lighter I'd purchased for this moment, lit it, and threw it on the table. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Ellen was a demon. She knows other demons. Stage one of this little fracas was to put us in a position where we could drop a whole mess of hell-hounds on Slendouche. Now, so you all know, proper Hell-Hounds are pack hunters. They're vicious. They come in large groups with flaming red eyes, an affinity for the hot stuff, and a tendency to breathe fire at people. And Ellen's Hell-hounds have tentacles. By all the gods, does EVERYTHING have to have tentacles these days? I suppose they're the new fashion accessory for the inhuman and murderous. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">At least that was the first part of the plan for keeping everyone safe for long enough to get them out of there. That's about the point when everything went to shit. The world changed, and suddenly that circle I'd set up on the table was aimed to ricochet off the wall, and summon those hounds in such a direction that they would literally warp into our reality from an angle that would involve exploding through my body.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">There is exactly one reason I'm alive right now, and that's because Ellen is the fastest goddamn woman alive. Suddenly, I find myself being shoved away from the table, away from the terrified citizens of Hope, and away from the IT. through the doorway. The universe shifted, and when Ellen and I blinked, we were suddenly at the main entrance door to Hope, outside the house.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Ellen immediately blurted out, "What the fuck was that...there was nothing there! I couldn't see anything! And then...Christ Nick, it killed those two like they were made of tissue!"<br />
<br />
I hadn't noticed. I was too busy trying to sucker-punch it with Hell Hounds, and then try to redirect said Hell Hounds from exploding through my body on the way to their target. And then I realized that somehow, Ellen COULDN'T see IT. But that wasn't our problem right now. Our problem was the fact that the house was shifting. It was no longer a single, stable physical location. The house had gone Eldritch, and going out the window could take you to the roof, the basement door could lead to the bathroom, and the bathroom door could lead you to the lunchroom. Everything was fucked. The people in Hope were going to get massacred at IT'S leisure. Well we couldn't have that, now could we?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Your turn, Ellen.<br />
<br />
------</div><div style="text-align: left;">To understand the psychology of Nick Dwyer, one must first understand that he spent a lot of time watching Looney Tunes cartoons as a child. That is my only guess on the matter. What I know for sure is that at that moment he just wrote about, two of my loyal hounds arrived just behind us. They'd not ended up where they were supposed to be. And that was when Nick had them tear the door off it's hinges. He then dropped it lengthwise across their backs, and leaped on top. There is only one reason he wasn't instantly eaten alive, and that I think was the confusion of my brethren. No one had ever tried anything like that before, so they did not know how to go about destroying him for the insult yet. Rather than let them figure that out, I leaped on the door with him.<br />
<br />
Nick shouted, "Keep the dimension's stable! We need to actually go straight!"<br />
<br />
I did my best. It made sense. As one solid object, our small group had a far greater chance of maintaining cohesion and sticking together as we moved through the warped and twisted floors of hope. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
What did not make sense, was him repeatedly shouting, "YAH MULE! YAH! YAH! YAH MULE! YAH!"<br />
<br />
The Hell-hounds kept running. I think I heard one of them mutter about devouring his undoubtedly delicious spleen.<br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">To avert this, I told Nick, "Stop demeaning them."<br />
<br />
They slipped. I do not begrudge my comrades this. The door we were on fell off the bodies of the Hell Hounds as they charged into a broom closet. Based on my understanding of the flow of dimensions, that would take them back through a confusing chain or rooms that would eventually lead to the "Slender Man", dropping both of us to the floor.<br />
<br />
Nick brushes off his clothes calmly as I got my bearings. I had my sword out from under my coat, and my hands were shaking. What was this madness? This was no war that I had ever known.<br />
<br />
Nick says, "First priority! You grab Elaine I...need to go make this mess even MESSIER! And maybe hold the house intact so that everyone can actually get out of here the direct route."<br />
<br />
I paused for a moment, feeling the world around us normalize as Nick started chanting something. He pulled out his new staff, and started stumbling around in an awkward circle. He was going to give them a way out, one way or the other.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, I had to get everyone out as best as I could, as fast as I could. I dived into a closet...taking me back to where Elaine and the others were. This is what happens when time and space get screwy. The door that takes you in one direction may actually take you somewhere else. Nick was maintaining a normal path to the door, but anyone who decided to take a detour would be in serious trouble if they didn't have the kind of senses he and I played around with.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
The moment I arrived where we had been having a peaceful lunch previously, I saw Elaine get flung against the wall by thin air. I could feel the presence of this "Slender Man" there, but I could see nothing. Two people died instantly after that. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">And that's when the Hell Hounds arrived, leaping onto his tentacles and biting down, hard.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">I could feel the anger of all the beasts in that room surging through my skull. I started shoving people at the door. I tried to focus my energy and put some kind of barrier between it and them. I don't know if it worked. What I do know is that everyone I shoved out that door managed to make it to one of those cars from the regular walk that Nick had set up for them.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">And after that, I insist, is Nick's story to tell.<br />
<br />
------<br />
<br />
I watched a redheaded gent pour gasoline on the grand piano. Fire was filling the house, exactly according to my plan. Everything else had gone cockeyed, but THAT had remained unaffected. I watched the flames lick the gasoline, and set the entire thing ablaze. I had spent two days preparing this trap. I wanted to appreciate it.<br />
<br />
He saw me, and his green eyes sparkled. He was enjoying his work. I knew who this guy was, based on all the information I've put together recently: <a href="http://measuredliveswithcoffeespoons.blogspot.com/2011/11/it-is-unofficial-force.html">Writer</a>.<br />
<br />
Of all the things he could have expected however, me dressed as Sherlock Holmes, complete with the oddly checkered hat and overcoat, was probably not one of them. I held up a magnifying glass, and shouted at Writer:<br />
<br />
"ELEMENTARY, my dear Writer! Just remember: Fire is the devil's only friend, as the old song goes!"</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
How I ended up here, dressed as Sherlock Holmes during all of this, is a tale for another time.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Writer chuckled in response. "And this is indeed the day the music dies! I advise you to stay out of the sitting room, mon bon détective. The one with the piano. Unless you want to be knocked right off your feet!"</div><div style="text-align: left;">I slowly ambled in Writer's direction, twirling the magnifying glass in one hand, "Well... No angel born in hell, could break that Satan's spell...but I have to ask. What have you got against Pianos? That was a lovely instrument, damn it."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Honest question. I'm a music lover, don't you know?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"Oh, but think of how well it will burn!" Writer returns, as if the thought should be obvious. "Thank of the chaos, think of the wonderful havoc it'll cause! Think of the strings breaking and flying across the room, lashing out and destroying whoever and whatever is unlucky enough to get in their way. Think of the wonderful crash the body will make when its legs give way! Marvelous, marvelous! I'd stay and watch the show, but I'm afraid this area is... eu, beyond my control, and thus I have no intention of remaining. You do enjoy yourself though, Nick."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">I just smiled. It's not every day that I actually get to gloat at somebody.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">I actually laughed, "Oh you pyros are all the same. I suppose I'm here for a very specific reason though. I just wanted to thank you guys. You see, Writer, the mystical significance of fire as a purifying force has existed in cultures throughout the ages. By the same token, I also knew that anyone who wanted to destroy Hope would comically enough, purge it with fire. Which is why me and Ellen were up all night painting out the place into one giant circle of power. Effectively, Writer, we turned Hope into one giant purifying, banishing bomb on crack. And you just pulled the trigger. Don't worry, it won't kill your sick and twisted boss. We'd need a MUCH bigger circle for that. Thin Guy will spend about a week in hell...and then he'll be back, and BOY will he be pissed. But you know what? Now our friends have time to run. And boy do I feel bad for the proxies who'll wonder where the piss your boss is. Some of them might even think normally for a while! Now, that said, I think we should make our escape, shouldn't we?"</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"...Ohhh!"</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">And there was a moment there when Writer's grin widened further, and seemed to extend to both of his ears, twisting and curling and distorting, showing off a full set of... sharpened teeth? Even those bright eyes seemed to grin now. He seemed completely and utterly pleased, giggling madly under his breath.And then he began to clap.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"Good show, sir, good show!" He giggled. The grin gradually died down."I'll be taking my leave now. You know how it is; things to do, lives to ruin and whatnot. Au revoir, mon petit chou~"</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">And he was gone.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">When I walked out of Hope, and I could vaguely see a tentacle reaching toward me as the fire reached a certain point in the house. Symbols all across Hope all fired off, and the fire burned bright white.That super hot flame engulfed the tentacle, and pulled it back into the dying house. Me and Ellen hit the Slender Man with the biggest fucking bomb the two of us could pull together with two days of work. It was designed to purify anything in it's area, and then launch whatever was left right into the bowels of hell, the home of those Hell Hounds.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Ellen and I have been driving ever since.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Don't get your hopes up, people. He'll be back. We didn't kill a damn thing with that. And something like the Slender Man can HANDLE getting out of hell. But I'm pretty sure this one hurt him. I'm pretty sure that a lot of people are going to get a good, solid breather. Best case scenario is what I gloated to Writer about. Wouldn't it be fantastic, if proxies that don't have his voice in their heads started thinking for themselves again? If it jarred his process enough that people randomly stop getting stalked? How about that for a curtain call on the sanctuary known as Hope.<br />
<br />
More likely it'll only help one or two people, and there won't be any change in the lives of anyone who is currently stalked. But that's the point: we have to have hope.<br />
<br />
For all the bad shit that happened at noon today, I can say that Hope lives on in all of us. And the legend continues.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
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</div></div></div>Ellen|Noirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00410433535292622521noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4010291004593519809.post-34844761396279679272011-11-17T21:30:00.005-05:002011-11-18T00:01:02.536-05:00Tuesday and WednesdayI was reading through some of the financial documents for "Club Suspect", as Nick referred to it, the other day. I was sitting in my car, flipping through them as I took some quick notes. Yes, THAT <a href="http://recordsofanimpossibility.blogspot.com/2011/04/regarding-recent-events-club-suspect.html#comments">Club</a> <a href="http://recordsofanimpossibility.blogspot.com/2011/04/current-status-club-suspect-escape.html#comments">Suspect</a>. Figuring out exactly which club it was had been something of a headache, but at the end of the day I made a guess based on the simple question: "Which one looks like it'd gotten a massive amount of mystical restructuring as of late."<br /><br />What I found was a classic case of Shell Companies used for a Shell Game. You've seen them before, that old game where you hide the little ball under one of three cups, and then start spinning them around. At the end, you guess which one it's under. Except that if the guy running the Shell Game knows what he's doing, it won't be under any of them.<br /><br />Getting the full documentation had cost a lot of money and time, and someone wasn't all that happy about it. So as I was walking with these documents, I had the unfortunate realization that yes, I was being followed. That or the guy in the brown coat talking to someone on the phone had needed to walk in a full circle around the block with me bringing us back to our point of origin. Oh deary me, a young, frail lady like myself being pursued on the streets of Buffalo. How terrifying.<br /><br />I sidestepped into an alleyway, and pressed my back against the wall. And I waited. He was bigger than me by about a foot, and thick. Not fat thick, mind you. Muscle. It was obvious he was a tough guy, used to tough fights, brawling, shooting, you name it. So imagine his surprise when the knife-edge of my hand impacted against the side of his throat. That wasn't intended to hurt him mind you, just to stun him. Completely off balance, his breathing off by a mile, he didn't resist as I gently tugged him in my direction and pulled him across my body for a hip-throw. The big man collapsed on the ground in front of me, his ass facing me as I maintained control of his arm, and I stomped on that unfortunate ass, finishing his collapse to the ground.<br /><br />Then I tweaked his arm. Just a little, just enough to let him know that he had no way of unlocking it from the hold, and that I could break it any time I wanted to.<br /><br />This was old-school Jiu-jitsu my dear readers. You don't see very much of it anymore. But I learned from the best. We were quiet for a moment, he and I.<br /><br />Then I asked, "Who do you work for?"<br /><br />He said, grunting as I tweaked his arm a bit more to let him know of my intense displeasure:<br /><br />"If I told you, I'd have to kill you."<br /><br />I said, "So you're not going to tell me anything?"<br /><br />He grunted in affirmation.<br /><br />I stepped around his arm, careful not to break it by accident, and stomped on his head. He went limp. I stomped again with the same amount of force, just to be safe. Then I checked his pulse. He was fine. I checked his wallet. No identification at all, just a money clip flushed with fresh twenties. I took them, shoved them in my purse, and continued on my way. I continued down the dark, scary alleyway, confident that I was the meanest thing in there.<br /><br />I exited out the other end of the alleyway, only to run into two other people that did not like me. And one of them had a gun pointed at me. I held up my hands, and the other one tasered me.<br /><br />You know. Getting tasered is always something of a wakeup call. The lesson here: don't get cocky.<br /><br />I spent the rest of Tuesday with a black bag over my head. I was thrown into a van, and bounced around like a sack of potatoes in the back of the damn thing. After that, standard procedure was followed. I was zip-tied to a bunch of piping in some kind of industrial area. I didn't know where I was, I couldn't see anything, the only reason I knew it was piping was because I could feel the cold metal on my wrists. I could feel it rising to the small of my back, and I knew that I had plastic zip-ties around my arms and legs on this pipe.<br /><br />Finally, the bag on my head was pulled off.<br /><br />I could see the golden rays of sunset out a door behind the person in front of me. That was a good detail to remember. Then my eyes met the old man in front of me. Here's a fact: you never want to go eye to eye with some practitioners. Seeing what lies behind their eyes is a terrifying thing. I saw conviction. I saw passion. I saw the aching void and the stars within. I felt it choking me, and I saw the thing that he desired most: to command and control each and every one of those burning stars that dared to shine in his night. I couldn't breathe.<br /><br />I gasped for air and he pressed my head back against the piping, bringing his face closer.<br /><br />And then I remembered who I was.<br /><br />He recoiled as my eyes narrowed, and he saw that little smile that I'd had just before I'd clip an angel's wings. The one I'd have whenever I had a chance to go to war with the thing that Nick Dwyer used to be. My eyes bored into his, and I could feel my sword somewhere, in my heart, slicing into the depths of that void.<br /><br />I sometimes dream of cutting infinity. The concept is a paradox. A wonderful, beautiful, awful paradox. He stumbled backwards, surprised.<br /><br />And then I saw behind him. There was darkness in the doorway. I must have had my eyes locked with him for at least twenty minutes. He pulled out a tape recorder, and started speaking to it. He told the tape recorder my life story, from birth in this world, to living in an Apocalyptic Cult dedicated to the destruction of the reality that you know, to the moment that our eyes met.<br /><br />And I knew his name as he told my story to the tape: This was Mastermind.<br /><br />Mastermind said, "Nicely done. Some people never fight their way out of my eyes. Sad too. You know, I could use someone with your strength in the world I will create. We need people like you. Would you like to discuss salary arrangements, or are you set on...well, who are you working with?"<br /><br />I could breathe again, and I took the chance to do so. I kept my eyes pointed on his neck. I didn't want to meet that gaze twice. How did he not know who I was working for? Oh right, Perception Filters. Gods above and below, it's getting hard to keep track of who can see what at this point. Wait a minute though. Didn't he just see my entire history?<br /><br />He cut me off before I could say anything: "Oh right! You're working with my little blue friend, Mr. Dwyer! Fantastic to know... you're quite good at the whole detective thing, aren't you? You probably understand my operation quite well at this point. I'm wondering what you think you'll accomplish with this knowledge, however."<br /><br />I managed to say, "I don't know. I just don't know. I was just supposed to gather it."<br /><br />He nodded, like a kindly uncle. He smiled, and said, "I'm very sorry to have you all tied up like this, but for the moment I think I'd like to have you where I can see you. I'm going to give the old recruitment drive another shot when I get back though! Don't you worry about that. I think I have a use for you...but for now, try to relax. My men are going to keep an eye on you. Good job whipping Stephens, incidentally. That boy is far too confident for his own good, I almost wish you'd have broken his arm..."<br /><br />He trailed off, and walked toward the door. Then he stopped and held up a single finger.<br /><br />He said, "Oh! Before I forget. There are at least six men with silenced submachine guns upstairs, and only one direction you can come out of this hole from. If you DID somehow got loose from your restraints, you'd find yourself being gunned down rather quickly. But if you relax and try to remain calm, I might upgrade you to a proper cell with a warm bed!"<br /><br />He seemed happy with himself, and he started up the stairs.<br /><br />-/|\-<br /><br />Wednesday started, and I have to tell you, breaking the zip ties against the piping wasn't all that difficult. I was in some kind of substation for one utility or another, but the problem was exactly what Mastermind had said it would be: There were at least six men with guns looking in the direction of the only exit from the station the moment I tried to peek out the door.<br /><br />One of them shouted at me, "Get back down there, damn it. Which shithead fucked up the ties?"<br /><br />I didn't tell him that no one fucked up with the restraints and that I have a talent with that sort of thing. What I did was walk back down stairs and not get shot.<br /><br />They tossed me a bagged lunch at some point during the day. It was quite nice of them. Tasty Drugged PB&J! I woke up later in the evening zip-tied to the piping again. There were twice as many zip ties. I was okay with this. I broke them, although it took much longer. This time, as I walked up the stairs to check on the guards, something unexpected happened.<br /><br />The thick door to the substation opened, and one of the guards ran inside. He didn't even look at me. He just slammed the door shut and started trying to lock it. He looked horrified I took the opportunity to slam his face against the door twice and toss him down the stairs. Then I looked out the door. There was the figure of someone I drugged and tossed into a coffin not too long ago, holding a suitcase.<br /><br />Nick waved, and said, "Sorry I'm late, I had to cause a bastard of a distraction."<br /><br />I glanced at the briefcase. Then at his other hand, which was bleeding.<br /><br />I asked, "Where'd the guards go?"<br /><br />Nick said, "Four went to look into the reactivation of my cell phone in a strange house. One went to the bathroom where he was rudely ambushed. The last one was yours."<br /><br />I said, "He looked terrified. What was he running from?"<br /><br />Nick said, "You don't want to know."<br /><br />I decided he was right.<br /><br />It was strange being around him. Keep in mind, before this we'd only known each other as astral projections. In our minds, we were moving differently, reacting to the person we used to know. Except that we aren't those people anymore. Fate is a mysterious thing.<br /><br />He drove me to where they were keeping my car. I'll write about that more tomorrow. It's been a very strange couple of days.Ellen|Noirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00410433535292622521noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4010291004593519809.post-22341991796711576952011-11-16T23:28:00.000-05:002011-11-16T23:28:07.862-05:00Fixing a Mess With A Bigger Mess -/|\- A Bigger Bang<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Fixing a Mess With a Bigger Mess</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicum50PHWm6xKCs3KvSH6oMEwhAgRAfSsUFk2Hb5U1XY0jbGiHJahRP77kIo5-Tkp4sqQD8h8WSM50MNr6uL3sQqgUND4wfNMCJbVtrvJ94ZmED9yUsTbbtnIpPmDEg064Xd8YUxPk5cvB/s1600/becausefuckyouthatswhy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicum50PHWm6xKCs3KvSH6oMEwhAgRAfSsUFk2Hb5U1XY0jbGiHJahRP77kIo5-Tkp4sqQD8h8WSM50MNr6uL3sQqgUND4wfNMCJbVtrvJ94ZmED9yUsTbbtnIpPmDEg064Xd8YUxPk5cvB/s400/becausefuckyouthatswhy.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>Ellen's gotten herself into a bit of trouble. Similar to some certain dwarves, she got too greedy, and dug too dark and too deep. Rather than let her get herself served up as dinner as per the classic case of Balrog v. Moria, I decided it was time to apply my own particular brand of insanity to the situation at hand. Specifically in a manner that would allow me to achieve several goals all at once.<br />
<br />
I broke into the <a href="http://knightofthemorning.blogspot.com/">New Morningstar's</a> fine house. My goal was simple: sneak in, steal a certain suitcase full of world ending syringes from when Redlight was having his last gasp, get out. Now, I have had several conversations with Time Lord at this point, and I knew that the best way to help Ellen out was to get a whole lot of people looking in my direction all at once. That was where my old cell phone came into play. I plugged in the battery, and watched it power up. Mastermind wouldn't be willing to spend a whole lot of resources on it. Any idiot who could locate the phone with satellite tech would know that I wouldn't be stupid enough to plug the damn battery back in after all this time. But he'd send somebody, just to see what kind of trap I was springing.<br />
<br />
And I only needed him to send out a couple people.<br />
<br />
I cracked open a side window into New Morningstar's fine residence. You wouldn't think that this was the house of a mass murderer. In the act of climbing inside, I lost my footing, slammed my groin against the window sill, and fell inside. <a href="http://knightofthemorning.blogspot.com/2011/11/vengeance.html">I landed on the corpse of the priest he'd been talking about killing the other day</a>.<br />
<br />
There is a smell, to the corpse of a man. Like rotting meat at the butcher's, until you turn your head and see the eyeless face of something that was once a man. In with the new boss, same as the old boss. I puked in the corner of the room, and then remembered what I was here to do.<br />
<br />
The suitcase was easy enough to find. The one with <a href="http://recordsofanimpossibility.blogspot.com/2011/08/eternity-versus-immortality.html">Redlight's old apocalypse juice</a>. I dropped my old cell phone into the closet it had once resided in. In another half hour or so, the New Morningstar would have some friends to deal with. May they murder his sorry ass and send it to the depths of hell.<br />
<br />
I really, really wish I hadn't been busy running a rescue operation. I really want to hurt this son of a bitch. But after a few long, painful hours, I turned six vials of Redlight's Apocalypse Juice into plain water. There are still three vials out there though. I'm worried.<br />
<br />
-/|\-<br />
<br />
A Bigger Bang<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAf7tliQjG54MPlJ3_861o2GtgMnXYWI5KQ9wNOAvQHtVPjbz-Xoi7dEy3XD-5m2gTBcsjxqnu0_3_jsez2dkXX6LoFeEATsuY7UupO7Vk_vCqM02iYnOOThbs0DFmNrmOfbhXQQ74fzPP/s1600/demotivational-posters-preparadeness.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAf7tliQjG54MPlJ3_861o2GtgMnXYWI5KQ9wNOAvQHtVPjbz-Xoi7dEy3XD-5m2gTBcsjxqnu0_3_jsez2dkXX6LoFeEATsuY7UupO7Vk_vCqM02iYnOOThbs0DFmNrmOfbhXQQ74fzPP/s1600/demotivational-posters-preparadeness.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<br />
Figuring out where Ellen would go in Philadelphia after she escaped while her guards were busy was pretty easy. As per some sticky notes from Time Lord, I left her a small stack of her OWN sticky notes.<br />
<br />
I love it when a plan comes together. And I think you guys will too.AmalgamationSagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09872769253218948198noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4010291004593519809.post-68111254054069377952011-11-09T02:28:00.004-05:002011-11-09T02:37:48.905-05:00Something I Observed while Projecting<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves/> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:donotpromoteqf/> <w:lidthemeother>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:lidthemeasian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:lidthemecomplexscript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:splitpgbreakandparamark/> <w:dontvertaligncellwithsp/> 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mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]-->When some men dance, titans tremble. <span style="display: block;" id="formatbar_Buttons"><span onmouseover="ButtonHoverOn(this);" onmouseout="ButtonHoverOff(this);" onmouseup="" onmousedown="CheckFormatting(event);FormatbarButton('richeditorframe', this, 8);ButtonMouseDown(this);" class=" down" style="display: block;" id="formatbar_CreateLink" title="Link"><img src="http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif" alt="Link" class="gl_link" border="0" /></span></span>Let me tell you a story of recent times. What happened <a href="http://11minutestomidnight.blogspot.com/2011/10/choosing-sides.html">before</a> Mitch <a href="http://11minutestomidnight.blogspot.com/2011/10/admitting-to-omitting.html">encountered</a> Valtiel?<br /><p class="MsoNormal">A Tall man in a black coat, with a red scarf draped around his shoulders was standing in the midst of a Chaotic Void. He appeared to be middle aged, with dark hair that was graying slightly. His Eyes were a deep Amber color, with slitted pupils. He smiled as his pursuer drew near. Again.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Let us take a moment to discuss a chaotic void, shall we? A nexus of destruction created to convert the energy of the dead into new life. This is not a place for the living, and not a place for the sane. There is nothing quite so disturbing as to see the process of life and death exchanging places without warning or reason.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">After a moment, Nick walked into this place, smiling brightly, "Hi there Valty, you big mean son of a bitch you! How're you doing? Indoctrinated anyone interesting recently?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Valtiel said, "Nick Dwyer. Don't you ever get tired? We have been doing this little dance for how long now?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Nick said, "It's only been a few weeks. By my reckoning, hardly enough to count as one of my more ambitious projects."</p> <p class="MsoNormal">He pulled out a notebook.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">"You've caused a lot of trouble. You like Psychopaths, like Morningstar...but between the clown and the fop, I'm not sure where to start. So how would you like to get this started? Witty banter followed by the purging of your soul? Or would you prefer to skip to the pain? Some people like going out for lunch before this kind of thing, actually. What's your style?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Valtiel said, "I suppose this is the part where I say something along the lines of 'your puny mortal mind cannot comprehend my powers" or something so Cliché. It's all Good Fun isn't it? But you really have become quite an inconvenience for me..."</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Nick said, "I hate it when they say that. I'm not some petty conjuror of cheap tricks you know. I'm the Tolkien White Guy, there's one in every fantasy story. That makes me dangerous."</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXTT35QBHu2p5wqjZ69eMx-1o1v4UmzJdtmYkQPTlyldiP3YwCkSU8coS_ES4EbJDcd9J3UJhZou7gFZnBcS1AZCQldqDpnsj7XaDsncRzXx9zD6M6kkHh67BrKd2JMSZ1azuWRziWKnRF/s1600/demotivational-posters-tolkien-white-guy.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 429px; height: 524px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXTT35QBHu2p5wqjZ69eMx-1o1v4UmzJdtmYkQPTlyldiP3YwCkSU8coS_ES4EbJDcd9J3UJhZou7gFZnBcS1AZCQldqDpnsj7XaDsncRzXx9zD6M6kkHh67BrKd2JMSZ1azuWRziWKnRF/s320/demotivational-posters-tolkien-white-guy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5672895369862435458" border="0" /></a></p><p style="text-align: center;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">Nick here. Ellen can't see this. She stuck her boot in the proverbial hornet's nest, and now I'm going to run a bit of interference. Oh my lovely demotivational posters, how I missed you! What fun we will have together! :D</span><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Valtiel extended his hand into the Chaotic Mass, revealing the one you know as Hakurei Ryuu, in a hotel room by herself.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Nick said, "Good picture. Have you ever thought of taking up a career as a color TV?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal">He did not look amused anymore, however. In fact, he seemed ready for a fight.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Valtiel said, "Cifer always said you were something of a White Knight. So here's how this is going to work, Nick. You leave me alone, and I won't personally strangle the life out of your friend here. I normally don't bother with the hands on approach anymore... But as I said. An Inconvenience."</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Valtiel's smile became twisted and distorted briefly before returning to normal</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Nick’s eyes narrowed. He said, far calmer than I would have, "You think that I won't pile a mountain of skulls and let loose a river of blood in the name of vengeance if you do?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Valtiel said, "I am willing to find out... How about you?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Nick said, "You’ve got nine chances to end the world lying around. Do you really think I'm going to let that slide?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Valtiel was amused: "Those things? This is about Redlight's Syringes?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Valtiel shook his head with a sigh, still smiling.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Nick said, "Those and Val's location, and you've got a deal. Anything less, and the war starts."</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Valtiel laughed. It was a very pleasant sounding laugh filled with friendliness and joy.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Valtiel said, "Why have you assumed that I have the Syringes. They are right where Cifer left them. As for Valerie..."</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Valtiel pointed to Valerie inside the Chaotic Mass.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">He said, "She's right here."</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Nick said, "Now you're just being a dick."</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Valtiel said, "I'm just telling you the quickest route to your dear friend."</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Valtiel put his hand in the Mass further, reaching out and touching the back of Valerie's head briefly, pulling away quickly after.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Nick, I think, was stalling at that point. He said, "You can't just point at a picture of her and say 'Here'. Doesn't work that way."</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Valtiel sighed once more</p> <p class="MsoNormal">He said, "You are wasting my time Nick. I have an appointment with a dear friend of Cifer's in a few minutes. Valerie is right there."</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Nick muttered a curse and walked through the hole.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Valtiel opened another exit within sight of Nick. It showed Mitch.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Nick said "What's your game, Valty?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Valtiel simply smiled in response</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Nick just gave Valtiel a blank expression. Valtiel walked through the exit he created near Mitch</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Nick actually said, "Oh you son of a bitch."</p> <p class="MsoNormal">He considered his options. For one, long, long moment. Then he muttered a curse and leapt into the hole that lead to Ryuu.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Was Nick actually, physically in this place between worlds? I can’t tell you. When this was happening, I was a passive observer elsewhere. My own life has gotten extremely complicated as of late, I can assure you.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And to my audience, I request no further riddles. I have too many in my everyday life as it is.</p>Ellen|Noirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00410433535292622521noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4010291004593519809.post-30115707116539636752011-10-19T16:05:00.007-04:002011-10-20T00:31:55.555-04:00Pain and PerspectiveNick has made numerous posts where he's mentioned, "Okay, I need to tell you guys what happened." And he never tells you.<br /><br />There is a reason for this. After and during World War I, there was a vast influx of great literature and poetry as soldiers tried to comprehend the madness of what they believed to be the last Great War in history. Art was the method for many to cope with things as they happened.<br /><br />After World War II, it was many years before anyone wrote about their experiences in poetry or in fiction. I'm probably wrong about this, but I remember an English professor telling me about this at one point. His theory was that there were things in World War II so terrible, that trying to describe them was impossible for the people who lived through them. At that time, anyway. Some years later, they would write about it?<br /><br />This is not a great metaphor. I just can't be sure about that fact. I'm pretty sure it's true though. In any case, Nick can't tell you this story, because it would kill him to do so. So while he's occupied, I will try and tell it.<br /><br />At the point where Nick last left you all, <a href="http://recordsofanimpossibility.blogspot.com/2011/04/need-another-drink-rogue-nemesis-round.html#comments">I had recently intervened on his behalf against Rogue Nemesis</a>. And then Rogue Wizard made the foolish error of <a href="http://recordsofanimpossibility.blogspot.com/2011/06/kays-house-and-usurper.html#comments">letting Usurper out</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://recordsofanimpossibility.blogspot.com/2011/08/now-i-know-score_25.html#comments">I've said my piece on what Nick is now</a>. And on what he became. But he wasn't some kind of legendary destroyer at this point in his career. He was a tired, lonely little man trying desperately not to die. And I very much wanted him to survive.<br /><br />To segue into my own past for a moment, I want you to consider the option of being born in a hole. From day one, in this underground bunker, you are told you must fight. Battle is your purpose, war is your domain, and you will fight to the death when you are told. This was not in some third world country. This was in the American Midwest. For as long as there have been people flinging their minds into the aether for understanding, there've been Demons there to manipulate them. I had been reincarnated in this place, and my duty was clear: ensure that the coming demon invasion during the 2003-2004 period would be a complete success. All throughout this time though, I have another pressing memory. I had lost an eye you see, once long ago. And I could remember the man who took it. I knew somehow that I would see him again, and I would sometimes tell the story of the swordsman who took it to the others. I wasn't the only one who'd incarnated with this group of people, but for the most part, they were a bunch of ordinary people who wanted to grasp for power. They did not understand why I wanted to find this one person so much. But my fellows who'd remembered their past life beyond our world understood completely.<br /><br />To remember the Other Side of the Veil so fully is to remember a place that feels like perfect freedom. And to relive the past with an old enemy like that...there's nothing like it. Not even sex compares. Except maybe sex you've had with someone who'd been in one of those lives. The matched euphoria of a wonderful memory in the past matched with the euphoria of the present. It's a tickling sensation of Deja Vu and wondrous pleasure that I can't really describe.<br /><br />Of course, the older people who'd incarnated here would tell you that you need to get beyond such memories and live your life in the present. They're right. But no such older, wiser people were with us in that bunker built by ancient and mad survivalists who'd found the path of the demon appealing.<br /><br />When I felt "Nick's" presence as his mind found our war, I had to find him. So I projected to his <a href="http://recordsofanimpossibility.blogspot.com/2011/03/notes-from-present-in-which-i-finally.html#comments">nearest possible location</a>. What I found was depressing. I had lived for projection and the unearthing of ancient secrets. "Nick Dwyer" had lived for video games and dreams. I had lived for War. He had lived for silliness. Had we done battle then it would not have been even close to fulfilling. It would have been like crushing a child. I was driven by my emotion back then, not by my reason. Reason would be something I would understand later.<br /><br />And thus, I have explained why I saved him when I did. It was one of the smartest decisions I've ever made, when I think back on it. It had been made for all the wrong reasons, but what can you do?<br /><br />And now you're wondering: Usurper WAS who "Nick" was in his most recent lifetime. Why didn't I just attack after "Nick" let him out of his cage? I'll explain THAT after my next post.Ellen|Noirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00410433535292622521noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4010291004593519809.post-6291987463369413712011-10-10T12:42:00.002-04:002011-10-10T14:36:55.512-04:00We Were BastardsThe title says it all. We were a bunch of vicious bastards when it came to fighting. At the end of my last post, in the comments, I described one of the terrifying creatures that we captured and domesticated for our use.<br /><br />During our first campaign against the Higher Planes and the Astral Plane of Earth, when we encountered our enemy's superior force, we unleashed all of those creatures I described, (We will refer to them as Shock Weapon A,) at the exact same time. All of them. Some were deployed much as you would deploy a landmine, others from the air, and some were just launched forward into their ranks. Enemy casualties were light, and we lost almost all of our Shock Weapon A's, but having never encountered us before and suddenly seeing a number of female troopers and officers ....well, you know. So after that battle, the Higher Planes reorganized to meet us with all of their female troopers and officers away from the front lines. Now, the reason this is important, is because Higher Planes armies tend to go for a utopian ideal of equality whenever they can, which means that the gender ratio is about 50/50. They basically rerouted about half their force away from us.<br /><br />It was very stupid of them. In a massed army formation, Shock Weapon A is effectively useless as it can be easily overwhelmed. Attempts to implant its eggs in others end up being almost worthless, as it basically has to blind fire a very specific tentacle and hope to whatever it's mindlessness hopes for that it hit a female target in the right place before it dies. And AFTER it hits, any one of their medics could easily remove the Shock Weapon A spawn if they had their brains screwed on right. But the image of someone having that THING explode out of some woman's body was trapped into their minds. This was good terror. We'd changed their line of battle completely without ever losing a useful asset.<br /><br />Because then, we attacked them with the entirety of our stock of Shock Weapon B. Shock Weapon B was a small, eel like creature that specifically targeted men. Specifically, it would go through a man's urethra for the massive protein creating stores inside their testicles. When it was done eating its way through, it would go through the target's body and out the nearest orifice to either find it's next victim, or go home if it was full. And keep in mind, their entire front line at this point was made of male troopers. And all of this was happening at the same time that we performed a conventional assault.<br /><br />They beat us in the end. They even found spells that made them invisible to Shock Weapon A and B. But they couldn't destroy us, and they learned very quickly to respect our power. As I mentioned, we were complete bastards.<br /><br />So how DID I end up as a human alive on Earth? The same way Nick did. He hasn't really talked about all of this, or if he did he spent a lot of time glossing it over.<br /><br />One of the major criticisms of the concept of reincarnation that I have heard is the idea that if we all constantly reincarnate after death, with the sheer dramatic increase in the amount of humans and other life forms on earth, there's no way that you could make up the difference in the amount of souls. Too many "new" souls have come into play for a wide variety of souls constantly reincarnating to make sense. What I would say to them is that they fail to take into account the possibility that souls from OTHER places than Earth might jump back and forth. This is the reason that groups pop up with memories from other places, times, and worlds.<br /><br />Before the 2002-2004 conflict that Nick and I were involved in, both sides determined that they needed an edge. Having people bound to the earthly plane of existence, and thus having a direct plug into the natural energy of the planet, and thus having a lot more firepower that they could deploy on the astral plane...seemed like a damn good idea. And it was. It was this decision that decided the way the war would end for both sides.<br /><br />Nick is the Outlier. Most people from other worlds who reincarnated on earth did not become Shamans. They became Sorcerers, or other mystics whose sole desire was to garner power for themselves. They remembered the sheer amount of cosmic FORCE they could unleash in other worlds, and feel constrained by how little they can unleash in this one. I myself, am best described as a Mystic whose chief vocation is Sorcery. The majority of us are grasping for what we used to be. What we wish we could be again. We want to break free of this earthly shell called a "Body" and shake the pillars of heaven with our might.<br /><br />Based on the notes that Nick left behind, I'd say that this lust for power is the majority of the reason we are where we are now.<br /><br />The reason I'm saying all of this, is because while I previously believed that us Demons were the Lord and Lady Godking and Godqueens of Bastard/Bitch Conduct...reading Nick's notes has forced me to consider handing the crown to someone else.<br /><br />We were bastards. They are worse.Ellen|Noirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00410433535292622521noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4010291004593519809.post-78765909605836700602011-10-05T14:22:00.004-04:002011-10-05T14:59:53.105-04:00Who Am I?I want you to disregard everything you think you know about the world for a moment. Imagine a world that exists alongside, possibly above and below, but mostly parallel to this one. Forget what you learned in the Abrahamic Religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) for a moment, and briefly ignore everything that modern science tells you. Except maybe <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_Theory">String</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstring_theory">Theories</a>. Those might help you.<br /><br />I suppose the point I'm trying to get across is that this isn't about religion. You'll find your share of old men in robes spouting dogma, but religion doesn't cover it. This isn't about science and the people who think that everything can be quantified, proven, and tested with one hundred percent accuracy, although you'll find people who'll say that there are universal concepts you can get behind. This is about Magic. I'm not some goth chick who'll throw a "K" at the end of it to make it sound more mystical and dignified. There are hard and fast rules, but for the most part it's a crazy cosmic turkey-shoot of give and take and hit and run. Not necessarily in that order, but lets cut the pseudo-philosophical bullshit, shall we?<br /><br />My story begins in deepest pits of hell. Not fire and brimstone, goat-men with pointy horns hell mind you, I mean an actual cosmic location that exists alongside the religious hell we all believe in. At the end of the day, the hell of religion is something that exists because all of us believe it exists. The hell I'm from exists because we fucking live there, and there's nothing metaphorical about it. It was somewhere in the great scheme of dimensions below the planet Earth, and a little to the south.<br /><br />Some of the greatest warriors in history came from places where it should be impossible to survive. The Mongol Hordes came from a place in Mongolia where the ice consumed them from the moment they were born, and lived on horseback until the moment they died. They took over half the planet because at the end of the day, you can only live on nothing for so long before you'd kill to have SOMETHING.<br /><br />And so it was with my people. We lived in a barren wasteland, where crops barely grew and there were monsters that would laugh if you shot them. How does anything survive in a place like that? I wonder sometimes. What I know for certain is that reality was not nearly so rigid as it is in this world. Magic flowed freely, and survival comes easier if you can flash fry something with your mind. There were never a lot of us, but the ones that survived were warriors beyond compare. We were versed in magic and the fighting arts, and the beasts of our world became our tools and weapons. We were what Nick has referred to throughout as "Demons."<br /><br />People think of "Ivan the Terrible", the Russian Czar and conqueror whose alternating madness and genius transformed that nation into a force to be reckoned with, and they don't realize that "Terrible" is a bad translation into English. The proper translation is "Ivan the Awesome." Awesome is a much misused term in our day and age. It means to be filled with Great Awe at something. Awe relates to being overwhelmed with emotion, positively or negatively. This is why they mistranslated him as being Ivan the Terrible. English-speaking scholars from beyond Russia only remember his evil, but none of his good. They forget that often, old Ivan was quite Amazing.<br /><br />I was a demon. And I was awesome.<br /><br />Any questions? Because I'd like to move on and talk about how I ended up on earth as a human when I can.Ellen|Noirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00410433535292622521noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4010291004593519809.post-29612375790938284512011-09-29T21:10:00.003-04:002011-09-29T21:27:05.477-04:00Who is Nick Running From?Simple question. I don't have an answer for it.<br /><br />I've been tracking his movements over the last month or so. He's been posting on various blogs using a smartphone. None of the material he's posted relates to him or his situation, so there's no point in me linking to it.<br /><br />Since he started running, Nick's been shadowed by several people who've been identified to civilian authorities as "Secret Service", "FBI", "Department of Homeland Security", and other such federal agencies. The supposed "Agent Fisk" I keep hearing about has nothing to do with this.<br /><br />A friend of mine in the Philadelphia Police Department informed me point blank that I should stay the hell out of this. His exact words were:<br /><br />"Ellen. You stare into the abyss, and the abyss stares back. And it isn't a hole, it's a mouth. Walk away."<br /><br />That detective is quite the bibliophile. Sadly, I can't walk away. I've given up on tracking Nick. He'll show up again when he wants to. In the mean time: I can tell you the story of why we're here now. And that's what Time Lord has told me to do. I'll pick up where Nick left off, from my perspective.<br /><br />Some of you may be friends with Nick Dwyer, the AmalgamationSage. Don't go looking for him. Don't make a scene trying to find him. This is only going to get worse.Ellen|Noirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00410433535292622521noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4010291004593519809.post-81469280158934611922011-09-18T14:23:00.002-04:002011-09-18T15:26:05.947-04:00The Buffalo Interrogation<span style="font-style: italic;">(This post took MUCH longer than I thought it would. Verifying it was a bitch. In the mean time I've been investigating a lead in Harrisburg.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I love your comments by the way, everyone. I just haven't had time to respond to them. I'll comment on the backlog when I can. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">In any case, while I was investigating the situation in Buffalo, I ended up being pulled off the street by Green Lady and some of her friends. This is basically what I remember from the interview I had afterwards.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I was sitting in a dingy basement opposite of Green Lady, zip tied so I wasn't going anywhere, and tied to the chair. They weren't taking any chances.)</span><br /><br />Green Lady: "Two knives, pepper spray...I'd say we were very lucky to get the drop on you. Your wallet says you are Ellen Knowles of New York. Ellen Knowles, you've been looking for information on a very narrow, and specific set of topics that very few people should be looking for. I'd like to ask you to stop."<br /><br />Ellen: "You've had some practice at this. The Zip Ties are tight enough to hold, but not so tight as to cut off my circulation."<br /><br />Green Lady: "Why are you asking all of these questions regarding the last year or so, anyway?"<br /><br />Ellen: (In my best Godfather Impression) "They made me an offer I could not refuse."<br /><br />Green Lady: "Who made you the offer?"<br /><br />Ellen: "So it's you, versus a guy in a Red Mask, versus a bunch of secret agents of some kind. Some kind of shadow war over the fate of fucking Buffalo, a renowned shitstain across the panties of New York?"<br /><br />Green Lady: "Do you want me to kill you?"<br /><br />Ellen: "I'd like to know why. Don't cut my throat please?"<br /><br />(We were quiet for a minute. I'm fairly certain she was seriously considering slitting my throat.)<br /><br />Green Lady: "Well, since you ask nicely? It all comes back to a war a few years back. The Upstairs versus the Downstairs for the fate of the world. Traitors and spies and people like me in the middle trying to profit. The guys in the suits made it out ...effectively in control of the world. And nobody knew it at the time. And guys like Red Mask and the creature he represents want a piece for themselves. And I...find myself as one of the 'good guys' for the moment. The OLD good guys left some things laying around, and somebody has to keep them away from everything else."<br /><br />Ellen: "Where does (Time Lord) fit into all of this?"<br /><br />Green Lady: "He and his friends formed another faction in all of this. The 'old heroes, trying to stem the tides of darkness'. It's funny to think about. They don't matter any more. One way or the other their pieces are off the board. It's sad to think about, Ellen Knowles. The old heroes are gone and dead, and we all had a part in killing them. I did it out of greed, the Suits for ideology, and Red Mask out of fear."<br /><br />(At this point, I noticed the glass of whiskey on the counter. Green Lady had been drinking, pretty heavily I'd say. My favorite kind of witness.)<br /><br />Green Lady: "I have a brother you know. He stayed on the sidelines, except to help out this guy from Philadelphia. The War Without End and the Defiling Druid. What strange bedfellows ... how do I tell my brother that I killed his best friend?"<br /><br />Ellen: "You killed him? How?"<br /><br />Green Lady: "Mmm...Did a working that would completely rip reality apart, and let it loose on the hotel you visited a few hours ago. Then I dropped a ton of lava in this area without Veil. Then I reestablished the veil making everything look like it used to be as everything that was living burned to a crisp. We confirmed that (Mastermind), the slippery fucker, made it out. But The War Without End has ended. Nothing could have survived that."<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">(One of the unusual facets of the </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://recordsofanimpossibility.blogspot.com/2011/08/tried-to-get-away-didnt-take-missing.html">last of the Missing Hours posts</a><span style="font-style: italic;">, is that the actual amount of material covered doesn't cover more than the first five minutes of the last set of missing hours. It confused me greatly when I read it, and I'm surprised no one said anything. But to translate what she said in her above statement, Green Lady has basically said she sundered the Veil around the Hotel. Seeing as she had a thousand-odd murderous mantis with her at the time, and had dropped a whole lot of magical lava in an area that had nothing to defend against magic anymore, that basically meant that anything in that area would be burned to nothing and THEN hacked into a thousand pieces, not to mention the psychological effects of having the veil shattered in an area. There are still traces of the damage, as seen in entries like "</span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://recordsofanimpossibility.blogspot.com/2011/06/jade-dragon-hotel-room-hours-19-15.html">Hotel Room.</a><span style="font-style: italic;">" Except that NONE of this explains how Nick managed to reappear at his home, in his room, with his car, and... well, on the other hand, EVERYTHING is explained if Time Lord was nearby when the veil break occurred. The kind of power that people like Nick and Time Lord have on the other side of the veil is ridiculous. But Time Lord would have STILL needed a similar break to occur at Nick's House for any of this to make sense.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Believe me, I haven't even BEGUN to cover how insane this is. She literally shattered the veil in an area JUST to make sure that both Mastermind and Nick died. Risky, Ballsy, Dangerous, and there are a MILLION possible outcomes when you break the veil. Needless to say, I'm looking into it.)</span><br /><br />Ellen: "...Huh."<br /><br />Green Lady: "I need to go figure out how to dispose of you. I'll be back."<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">(After that, I got the fuck out of dodge. I'm not a smooth talker, I'm an escape artist. I'm about ninety percent certain she WOULD have killed me if I was still there when she got back. In any case, if I couldn't break a chair and slip out of the zip ties, I wouldn't have any right to have survived for this long. See you next time.)</span>Ellen|Noirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00410433535292622521noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4010291004593519809.post-43572280166516174912011-08-31T02:27:00.015-04:002011-09-08T02:49:23.716-04:00Tried to get away. Didn't take. -/|\- The Missing Hours: 14 - 7 -/|\- the Missing Hours: Final 6 hoursI tried to get away.<br /><br />I'm not some hero, and I don't have a dog in this fight. When I started driving up to Buffalo to verify the leftover Missing Hour posts, I realized I wanted out. I wanted out right the hell now. Getting acquainted with "Nick" and his "Friends" (IE: You guys) and your blogs was possibly the creepiest thing I've dealt with in some time. Yes, I've heard stories of the "Fears" and similar entities. They're up there on the list of things you do not fuck with, and about 99.9% of people worldwide will never, ever have to worry about them. If you know about them, you don't even say their names out loud, in case doing so attracts their attention. Like I said though, for most people the Fears are purely academic.<br /><br />Not for "Nick" though, and now I'm stuck in the middle of this.<br /><br />I stopped for gas at the same gas station that the whole "Missing Hours" debacle began. I know this because when the guy was filling my tank, he said:<br /><br />"I should go into Sticky Note delivery. More money well earned."<br /><br />And he handed me the stack. The top sticky note said:<br /><br />"You wouldn't happen to be thinking of running, would you?"<br /><br />I reached into my glove box to pull out my lighter from when I smoked. On top of it was another sticky note that said:<br /><br />"Read the damn stack."<br /><br />That got my attention.<br /><br />I said to the stack, "Well, I was thinking about it."<br /><br />I tore off the top sticky, "Don't."<br /><br />I said, "Look, it was nice to find out who he really was, but this is out of my league. I'm no hero."<br /><br />I tore off the top sticky, "You want to watch Nick, me, and everyone else die? Go ahead."<br /><br />"Fuck you."<br /><br />"You are cute. I'll think about it."<br /><br />"Go to hell you son of a bitch!"<br /><br />I looked up at the guy who was pumping gas. He was giving me a weird look.<br /><br />I said, "Haven't you ever seen someone talk to a bunch of sticky notes before?"<br /><br />He shook his head slowly. I shut up, handed him his money, and tore off the top note to reveal the final message:<br /><br />"Stay on the case. Or else."<br /><br />I really hate Time Lord.<br /><br />Incidentally, does anyone know what "-/|\-" means? "Nick" uses it for all his breaks between segments, and I still don't know what it means. In any case, here are the rest of the Missing Hours information, with edits where necessary. I did some poking about in Buffalo during the last week or so. Found a lot of things you wouldn't expect.<br /><br />For those of you who need a refresher:<br /><br />1st: <a href="http://recordsofanimpossibility.blogspot.com/2011/04/missing-29-hours.html">5 of the Missing 29 Hours</a><br />2nd: <a href="http://recordsofanimpossibility.blogspot.com/2011/04/tao-and-sage-discuss-tarot-time-lord.html">Hours 24 - 20</a><br />3rd: <a href="http://recordsofanimpossibility.blogspot.com/2011/07/operation-willy-nilly-hours-19-15.html">Hours 19 - 15</a><br /><br />This took MUCH longer than I thought. There were complications. I'll explain later.<br /><br />-/|\-<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnDZ_hbZkEOQHmKL9dcBKjIimHrbVSGNw6YPJzWzaUrfHyJ0mIJEYzoI1vRp4ag8DEH3jouLuxUBs_bWqjhBEVBDecsS0wgFdPBxDq0W7NVRBYMopvVrm1X2567NQq9NkRotejB5MDafPx/s1600/tumblr_lqhlq0m4bY1qc3wjlo1_500.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnDZ_hbZkEOQHmKL9dcBKjIimHrbVSGNw6YPJzWzaUrfHyJ0mIJEYzoI1vRp4ag8DEH3jouLuxUBs_bWqjhBEVBDecsS0wgFdPBxDq0W7NVRBYMopvVrm1X2567NQq9NkRotejB5MDafPx/s320/tumblr_lqhlq0m4bY1qc3wjlo1_500.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649864463557835570" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The Missing Hours: 14 - 7<br /><br />Hours 14 to 7. I'd love to say some kind of action packed extravaganza occurred, but no. For the most part, me and Weaver spent that time trying to sleep. I was an arrogant fucker, wasn't I? We'd kicked Crouching Tiger the fuck out, I felt like I was some kind of badass. And I was tired and filled with the wrath of almost an entire day of migraine.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">(Editor's note: Okay. Something is seriously wrong with this post, AND </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://recordsofanimpossibility.blogspot.com/2011/07/operation-willy-nilly-hours-19-15.html">Hours 19 - 15</a><span style="font-style: italic;">. If this post was written during the time frame I had it in, then that would mean that Nick knew Crouching Tiger was referred to as Crouching Tiger. Crouching Tiger didn't actually appear on any of the blogs for at least two months after this incident. Maybe Nick just updated it when he reposted it? That seems unlike him somehow.)</span><br />I didn't sleep peacefully. I remember walking down the streets of Philadelphia with an old revolver and a leather duster with cowboy hat. The streets faded, and I was in The Desert again. The Desert faded, and I saw Tallsuit McMotherfucker. He faded, and I saw myself in the mirror. I looked like I did when my astral form was female briefly.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">(Editor's note: This is obviously before he found out that it's always been Female. Except that it hasn't. That one is something of an odd story that you probably already are aware of.)</span><br /><br />Me and this female me pointed our guns at each other. And suddenly I WAS her, and I shot the real me down. And now I was this woman walking along, and then I heard Weaver.<br /><br />She said, "Oh fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck...Wake up!"<br /><br />I woke up, and felt Weaver rushing me away from the bed. I complied as best I could, banging my head against the bedpost on my way out of it.<br /><br />Weaver said, "Guys with guns outside. Lots of them!"<br /><br />I said blearily, "The Police?"<br /><br />"The police don't wear suits and carry submachine guns!"<br /><br />That woke me up. We grabbed our stuff and ran for it.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">(Editor's Note: Finding the hotel they stayed in wasn't hard. I just had to find the only hotel in town with a manager who'd had his brain brutally fucked in. "Nick" might not tell you this, but he's always been something of a joke with the mental manipulation aspect of things. Me, not so much. I checked room 215, I checked local police records, and I checked with the staff. Apparently, the US Secret Service was looking for counterfeiters. I believe that about as much as I believe in Santa Claus.)</span><br /><br />-/|\-<br /><br />The Missing Hours: The Final 6 Hours<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizdtNcT0sjjDOLtfGIbFW2wlJkqu5OgfPRBQI5HUFxiNpFC-H1F0pRMmwdNbNpsCxqxMUAQEfwJB-Mb4qBHZObgkDNjTVZGYHiziCAL5dbKKeh9yAKa9M-xGknihC_1APpyslSLv74WQSa/s1600/demotivational-posters-tension-filled-the-air.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 457px; height: 372px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizdtNcT0sjjDOLtfGIbFW2wlJkqu5OgfPRBQI5HUFxiNpFC-H1F0pRMmwdNbNpsCxqxMUAQEfwJB-Mb4qBHZObgkDNjTVZGYHiziCAL5dbKKeh9yAKa9M-xGknihC_1APpyslSLv74WQSa/s320/demotivational-posters-tension-filled-the-air.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649864956927343362" border="0" /></a><br /><br />There comes a moment, when you realize how absolutely fucked you are. Me and Weaver were running through a hallway, trying to come up with a way out, we heard the door to the outside of our motel room quietly open as we tried to vacate the fuck out, and then had the joy to round the corner to the stair well, where I saw a guy slowly starting to look up to the top of it as we started to go down it. Weaver was more alert than me, and smart enough to pull me out of his sight. So we were standing at the top of this stairwell in a crappy motel, effectively surrounded on all sides, completely unarmed.<br /><br />Ladies and Gentlemen, your hero, right before he decides to do something completely fucking stupid.<br /><br />I whispered to Weaver, "Listen. I'll be back. TRUST me. Just remember to put some shell casings under your pillow. The Reinforcement Fairy comes to all little boys and little girls who have big fucking enemies that need a whuppin."<br /><br />She had just enough time to say, "Whaaaaa-?"<br /><br />Then I had leaped over the railing and onto the guy coming up the stairs. My weight, plus the impact of his head against the stairs, meant one unconscious gun-toting asshole. And then I was face-to-face with Mastermind.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">(Editor's Note: The timing of this feels strange. The guy sits at the bottom of the stairwell looking up. Weaver pulls Nick out of his line of sight. WHY does stairwell guy wait so long? And how did he not hear any whispering? There's a Flatscreen TV near the Manager's Desk, which is near the Stairwell, which as near as I can tell the Manager watches pretty damn near all the time. It might have covered the noise? Distracted him while it was at it? That's my guess on the time lapse.)</span><br /><br />He reached for his gun, I threw an elbow into his face and spun him around. Suddenly, we weren't fighting anymore. What was happening now was that I had a hostage in a chokehold as two other men in suits with guns in the lobby pointed them right at me. I don't even remember HOW I got him into that hold so quickly, but I did. I finished drawing Mastermind's gun from behind him, and jammed it into his side and said:<br /><br />"One wrong move, and douchey gets it."<br /><br />So. Picturing this scene: A bunch of suit wearing assholes with guns aiming at me and shouting for me to put my weapon down as I hold the key to this ENTIRE fucking thing hostage, as Weaver scampers down the stairs behind me.<br /><br />I say to her, "You heard me. Get out of here."<br /><br />She just gives me this look, taking a moment to marvel at the scene, and think about what action movie I had jumped out of. I have to admit, I was feeling nervous as hell, but pretty good about myself.<br /><br />She started to say, "I'm not going to-"<br /><br />I cut her off, "Shut up. Go."<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">(Editor's note: "Nick" does a shitty job of describing how this must have worked. Then again, like everything else saved on this blogger, this appears to be a first draft. After examining the Motel where this happened, Here's how things probably worked. If "Nick" was standing in the doorway to the stairwell, there would be a partition that would have kept the gunmen from seeing Weaver behind him. There was a back door just a little ways from said partition. "Nick" tried his best to keep everyone who showed up on this blog anonymous, but if Weaver is who I think she is, she's short enough, and "Nick" with a hostage is big enough, that their bodies could screen her until the point that she was about to exit out this back door. The gunmen couldn't have threatened her until AFTER she was gone. And gods know they must have been focused on "Nick.")</span><br /><br />The Assholes start to point their guns at Weaver for a brief moment as she headed out the door, and tried to fire off a shot at them. I pointed MY gun at them for long enough to distract them, and then back at Mastermind.<br /><br />Mastermind said, "Well, this is a surprising turn of events."<br /><br />And I had just enough time to realize EXACTLY who Mastermind was. Having experienced that revelation again recently, I can tell you, it sucks doing it twice. There is only ONE reason I did not immediately jam the gun into him and unload the clip in the most violent and brutal fashion that I could manage.<br /><br />The safety was on.<br /><br />Mastermind stomped on my foot, pulled it out of my hand, and kicked me in the face. For an old guy, he's an awfully spry motherfucker.<br /><br />And this is where the story should end. I should be shot dead or executed in a backroom by Mastermind and his goons. I shouldn't be talking to you now. But that's when I got lucky as fuck all.<br /><br />Between the Jersey Devil, the Slender Man, and everything else I've run into over the years, this was bound to happen sooner or later. But the next thing I know, we're knee deep in Giant Mantis trying to pierce the Veil and tear us all to shreds. Mastermind's a canny operator, and loves him some Necromancy I think, because the spirits of the dead started swarming them. Mastermind's men formed up around us, and pulled out salt packets. In seconds, we were in a circle of protection.<br /><br />And with that, Green Lady entered the room. You don't know her, because I haven't talked about her. You see, Green Man has a sister. And she is a manipulative, nasty, murderous bitch when she wants to be.<br /><br />Her exact words were: "I'm here for what I'm owed, (Mastermind.)"<br /><br />And then the world was an explosion of pain and light.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">(Editor's note: I've been held up for so long because I was the Green Lady's prisoner for a few days. I'll tell you all about that in a little while. For now...lets say that he's not lying about how much of a bitch she is and leave it at that. She ripped the veil, time, and space a new one. My bet as to how "Nick" ended up back at his apartment? Because Time Lord was watching, and pulled his friend out of trouble. Beyond that, I'm still investigating.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">So far, there are three factions in all of this: The Proxies, Mastermind, and Green Lady. I'll have something more concrete for you soon. After I've healed up a little.)</span>Ellen|Noirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00410433535292622521noreply@blogger.com6