Post by The Krazer Mighty on May 12, 2009 17:01:35 GMT -5
Tears fell from the eyes of God as I stood in the middle of the sin filled street. Gray, everything was gray. In Osaka there aren't mornings where you get to wake up. No. This city knows all too well the price of giving men hope. It's only evident by the monsters that run the gangs. Keep it gray. Make the people in the city forget there was ever such a thing as the sun. Keep them beaten down, and she makes damn sure to push our faces in the mud. She keeps us in the slime to protect us. This is the beauty of Osaka. The city that makes god's cry.
I'm not from here. My city wasn't one where I had to fight to do the things that were right. That city... it's different. I feel hope in that city. When I look at the faces of the men and women who walk around me, it's not the faces of humans who know they're damned. They are the face of change. All of them are capable of so much that when god's cry above it, it's out of joy, not sorrow. That is the beauty of Neo-Tokyo. The city that moves god's to tears.
I want to be there, home.
I want to be with my family, surrounded by the people who love me. If I were lucky enough to have a family.
I want to be anywhere else besides Osaka. The city that makes god's cry.
I never get what I want.
She doesn't understand why I come here. Something tells me she'll never understand why a man like me would ever bring himself down to this level. I'm no big shot. But I am from Neo-Tokyo, that's good enough for her to make me a king.
A king... of all that I see...
Those tears have slickened her cheeks, made that raven hair of hers cling to that soft white skin. She is my Queen. My whole world. I don't get to wake up in the morning and look at those faces. I don't get to see the gray that suffocates everything and everyone. All I get to see is her smile. That's enough for me.
I hate the rain.
It robs her of that smile. My Queen's smile grows weaker by the second. Today she knows I did not bring myself into the slime for her. Today is the day that I put everything I have on the line to make her world less gray.
She doesn't like that.
My Queen beats against my chest. Begs me not to go through with it. She's happy just with me. It breaks my heart. But...
I hate the rain.
We both know that I'm not good enough for her just as I know this sin filled city doesn't suit her. The Queen of my Heart. For her to have a sliver of hope, I need to take out that man. If you can call him a man. He gave his humanity up a long time ago. What do you call something like that? Monster? Demon? Satan? Here in the city that makes god's cry, they call him Krazer Mighty and he is a machine.
Relentless. Emotionless. Constantly... moving forward.
How can I fight it? The being who tamed the devil. Monster who's stolen more things precious to humanity than the king of liars. To me, he's the reason why this city is gray.
I'm no fool.
Beating this thing... just like the mythological Hydra... more heads will appear. But... I want to see her smile... in the sunshine. Just one time.
I tell her this as I walk away.
I hate to see her sadness, it eats away at my soul. I plan to break away the gray that wants to suffocate my world. I plan on forcing myself to be a monster of equal value. My hands tighten into fists under the sunless sky. For the first time in five years I plan on picking it up again. That thing that makes mother's weep. A dirty piece of metal that makes 'em turn to the heavens and shout 'WHY DID YOU TAKE THEM FROM ME?! WHY DID YOU STEAL AWAY MY SUNSHINE!' Thoughts like that make it hard to keep walking.
I hate the rain.
Saying her name gives me power. Thinking of my Queen of Hearts gives me the strength I need to keep moving forward.
My car, my baby doll, a fully loaded 1972 Gran Torino. An antique. I kept her the same way she was brought into the world. Black. She's seen so much that everything else seems drawn into her. Myself included.
This is the ride I used to take. The door locks shut behind me. In a way, the smell of her white leather brings me back to a place where I lived like the machine. A falsehood that the GTC called a life just for me. Back then, part of me wanted to tell them no. Part of me wanted nothing to do with the violence that the life of a teamster brings.
Most of me wanted to pull the trigger.
Most of me kept moving forward. Kept leaving pieces behind though. My arm. I grasp it softly and then squeeze the burden.
My arm hurts. Just another piece of me that I left behind. Maybe I should be grateful for it. That dull piece of metal. This thing has saved me more times then I dare to count. Yeah, maybe the Devil thanks God every night for tossin' him out of heaven.
I hate the rain.
Beneath me I feel the great beast roar to life. She draws a lot of scared glances. I keep her well maintained. This is not the neighborhood you want to backfire in. The way the steering wheel slides beneath my fingers brings back those same old feelings.
Gunshots.
Pain.
Violence.
Murder.
In the end that's all a man like me ever could be. Don't know why I ever thought differently. Murderer. GTC can call what I did every name under the sun. But God knows what I did. God knows what I did.
He'd never forgive a monster like me.
That woman looks at me as a slowly pull past her. Sadness. I hate myself for making her feel this way. But this is the price for my love. I am willing to be something she hates. Willing to throw my entire life away to see this woman give me an honest smile. This is the first step of becoming a monster. You have to make the ones who love you unconditionally hate you with an even greater inhuman vigor.
The further I go the harder it gets to see her through the tears.
I hate the rain.
Not many folks are outside. People in Osaka have evolved to feel violence in the air. It keeps them alive. My gut wishes that the rest of me was so evolved. Thank God that I'm wearing a glove. I do not want my hand to be slick. Against a thing that can move faster than any human can dream, I can't have any disadvantages. Once in awhile there are moments in my head where I think I can win. With all his advantages. I have one thing over the machine.
Information.
A lot of sacrifices brought me this weapon. My best friend... a man who I respected above all else... fell to bring it to me. For the sake of his memory I will draw that dirty piece of metal. For her I'll pull the trigger. To see in honest smile from the Queen of Hearts.
For no reason I glance back into the mirror that only sees the past. Already too far to see her. The closer you get to the beast the harder it gets to see anything behind you. Gray smoke billows from the monster. This is his breath. Coating the city in gray. The masters of all technology gathered into one spot. I know a lot of people from Neo Tokyo would give their right arm for a chance to sneak into its heart.
It's a long journey and it gets harder the further I press in. I don't plan on going much further with her. Eternal Darkness is a sickness, a parasite. Its spread through out all of Osaka. Long tunnels filled with horrible and unimaginable things. Only one man has made it in and out of those tunnels alive. Even he didn't live too long afterward. Bastards didn't need to hunt him down. He killed himself once the disc left his hands.
What unspeakable things did that man see?
I've known him for a long time. They called him the man with the iron will. Sometimes it was hard to see where the Silencer's Wind agent ended and the filth begin. He'd been up to his ears in shit as long as any one could remember and just as lifeless. I once saw the man torch the child solders of Darkstalker's without even so much a second though. Staring solemnly at the screaming corpses, unwaivering, uncaring.
He never folded though. No matter what the outcome he remained steadfast in what he believed was right and wrong. A man, no matter how many faults he had, to be respected. For the longest time he worked under Kyoshiro, feeding us information on Violators. Gave us an edge. Gave us a chance to save hundreds of lives. In the end though... They say no man ever truly escapes Violators untouched. He made one too many enemies. Too many for one man to sleep soundly at night.
Long before switching allegiances to Eternal Darkness, the effects of his world were finally starting to effect him. That is the strength of these monsters. Curdling everything their puss filled fingers can wrap around.
He wasn't an idiot. Never believed in a second that some one like him could ever function in polite society. Shoulda listened to him. Men like us Could never hope to live normal lives.
My breathing is a bit more labored now. Nerves shot straight to hell. The gray smog suffocating me. I can see the genius behind it now.
I can see it.
Everything around me hides an enemy. Clicking clanking monstrosities waiting for a chance to tear me to pieces. For the first time in my life the thought of dying enters my mind. I've always been the best. The fastest draw, the man with the eyes of a hawk. No man that has stood in front of me has left my sight without the copper taste of death in his mouth. This is my power. My power as King.
My capacity for death gave me my name.
I was The Arm of Thunderforce. More importantly I was the fist of the GTC.
Only the damned know how hard it is to look a comrade in the eye and fill him to the brim with lies. Nothing but half truths and falsehoods.
My legacy.
I've pulled the trigger on the innocent and guilty, covered it up within a blanket of betrayal. But I ended it. After the order to exterminate Piper and pin it on the crippled Darkstalkers. I manned up. In my life I have done so many horrible things. So many things that forced me to lay awake in my dreams. Feverishly repenting to all the faces that assaulted me. But I'd never point this dirty piece of metal at Piper Egami. Never.
Six weeks have passed since the order. Six hours have gone by since I've seen her face. Six minutes have gone by since anything but the gray covered my vision.
I stop.
My boots click against the asphalt as I step out of the my baby. I try to shut her door quietly but the echo blasts against the deafness. My muscles tense, expecting to be assaulted by the devil himself. Instead of feeling relieved when my stupidity isn't answered by my death, I grow increasingly tense. The way I see it their are one of two reasons I ain't dead. All the talk about Eternal Darkness being indestructible is a farce and they couldn't guard a puppy or they're either so confident that I won't make it out alive they aren't going to bother with me.
Arrogant bastards.
This gun feels heavy. I'm ashamed of it. I point it at the ground so no one else has to see it and creep forward.
Once upon a time this used to be a city. Kids used to play ball here. Over there a pile of broken carts could have been a shop that sold hot dogs. Ghosts of children blasted away stare at me with eerie hollow eyes. They play on the twisted metal that used to be a swing set and their laughter grinds against what little is left of my nerves.
Only twisted broken metal lies here.
The ghosts are in my head, but to my mind's eye they're real. Real enough that my metallic fingers itch. My first instinct is to take away everything that makes me uncomfortable. How warped I've become. Already the gray has worked upon my soul. I never would have dreamed of lifting this dirty metal against a child before. Never in a million years would I enforce my peace upon them.
But no one plays in this park anymore.
I hurry along through the swirls of smoke, doing my best to put my mind at ease. The last thing I want is to slow myself down with these kinds of thoughts.
These phantoms are hard to shake off. Following me everywhere. How can anyone stand to be stared at with such hollow eyes? My mind is playing tricks on me. None of these creatures are really here. I move through them just like the rest of the smog. It presses upon me though. Thicker. Droplets of rain clinging to my jacket, to my soul, it makes my peace slick.
"A little boy has crept into my web brother, what shall we do with him?" A million voices blaring into my head. My gun is has already risen, searching for them.
"Look at him brother, a naughty boy." Bastards. Toying with me. These ghosts were nothing more than a cruel distraction. I can feel the air shift around me. Dancers. It figures. Didn't know Eternal Darkness had a sense of humor.
"I always wanted to know what little boys were made of." It's no longer just rain on my brow. Sweat stings my eyes. Thoughts of her flash in my mind. I'm resigned to the idea of pushing through these phantoms for the sake of her.
"What little boys are made of? Didn't you know, brother?" A hiss, I answer it with a gun shot. The silencer at the end of my peace does nothing in silence. To me it sounds like an angry thunder god smashing the sky to pieces.
"Frogs and snails and puppy-dogs' tails." Laughter rocked the world around me. Horrid laughter, all the soulless eyes mouthing the words for me to go home. Deep in my gut I know, I am not the first fool who's tried to come in this way.
A smile. I jumped backwards scraping my knee against the tough dirt. "I don't believe you brother." Fast. He's already gone again. But I can't forget that horrid smile etched within pig skin. One horn jutting from the left side of its disgusting face. My gut wants to leave me, but my heart puts up a fight and tames it. I won't give them the satisfaction.
Another smile and then a fist. Stars dazzle me. I find the taste of mud in my mouth and the sickening smell of blood caked earth in my nose. Definitely two of them. Same face, but the horn was on a different side. Had to be mechanical. I try to move. A boot smashes against my head further into the mud. Hard to breath here.
"Then cut him open if you don't believe me, brother!"
Sons of a twisted machine. I can see the other stroll out of the smog, swinging its tail of an extension cable in one hand. An amalgamation of man and machine. No... not a man.
Children.
Damn that bastard. Damn him to hell.
A new kind of anger rises within me. Maybe at one time they were children. Nothing human lives in that twisted shell now. This explains so much. Why so many people turn up missing. A monster is trapped inside those towers. He grows bored with each passing moment. Turning to madness to appease the passing of time.
The one pressing my head into the mud raises an axe high above its head. Death seemed bent on taking me in this hell.
"Wait brother!" Both of us freeze. I can see his reflection in the puddle my face calls home. Confusion. In the confusion I'm released. "I think he's a man!" My executioner lowers his axe. With a face like that I couldn't hope to understand what went on in that head.
"A man? We've never killed a man before, brother!" Sick freaks. A chill wrecks havoc on my spine. Murderers of children. There is nothing worse. "What are men made of?"
Seeing death stare at you behind the mask of a rotting pig can make even the strongest of us rethink our lives. Laughter hurts my ears. Not the kind of joyous laughter you expect to hear from children, but a harsh grating guffaw of metal on metal. "Don't you know what men are made of brother?" He too draws draws an axe. Dry blood flakes off the black metal. "Sighs and leers, and crocodile tears"
That blade sings in the air, telling me a story of a death so painless I won't even know I'm gone till my head stops rolling. Panic forces me to roll out just out of the axe's reach. My gun sings in return. A much more morbid song of which monsters don't receive the luxury of a quickened death.
The way he dodges it reminds me of a child dancing across the playground, it only serves to fuel my hatred. "Look he leers at me brother!"
"It must be true then!"
"Shall we make him cry then?"
Terror grips my heart, I try to stand but my legs become the victim or metal boots. "Yes lets."
I hate the rain.
It lies to me, shadows these monsters, makes it hard to get a bead on them. Another wild shot, I can't aim in this weather. Now I'm just herding them. Get them to a spot were I can get one without having to aim. My mother, bless her soul, always told me to have an ace up my sleeve.
No matter how hard I try, one of the two creatures manages to knock my legs out from underneath. These were always the battles I hated the most. Master class killers don't fight against each other. They fight for territory. A lesson I've had ingrained into me for a very long time. Another boot forces my head back into the mud, another finds my gun and hides it from me.
He pressed my face deeper, suffocation seems to be imminent, but...
The moment these hell spawn decided not to hold my arms was the moment I won the battle. Hell blazes out from my elbow tearing into the creature's back. Rain mixed with the whatever oozed from those wounds. What a mess.
"Brother!" Could that be terror in its eyes? I push myself out of the mud to retrieve my lost weapon. Terror in dying alone?
"He killed me.... brother!" Jade erupted from his mouth with each word. My heart can hardly stand the sight. The creatures cling to each other. Both forgetting about me. I want to ask them just how many of those ghosts clung to each other and said the same thing but I bite my tongue. This isn't the moment.
The one I shot looks about ready to say something but is robbed of its voice and the eyes slowly loose their spark. He's shaking now. Angry. Both of them survived that machine. Gone through so much with only one another. I want to tell him sorry, but I really don't.
Thunder claps.
A little boy falls next to his brother.
And my heart grows heavier.
So close together, but in the end each of them died alone. Murdered underneath the sky with God weeping over his lost sons. A long time ago my father told me that all little boys go to heaven. Tonight I hope he's right.
When nothing changes it's hard to tell what the time of day is. Time gives me no quarter. I pay it no mind and keep moving forward. Now I can no longer justify stopping. Already up to my ears in shit.
He'd be proud of me.
The action of reloading both my arm and peace brings a sense of calm to me. Night may be an uncertainty, but to a monster such as myself, it no longer matters. All that's left is twilight and my Queen of Hearts settling down on the horizon. He told me it was the sand box. The one that would take me to Hell. He used it to slip underneath that machine's nose without raising any suspicion. Under the tears of God I will do the same and I kick the bone of a forgotten youth with my foot.
My descent begins.
An automated lift. Should I be surprised that its still operational? Or should I be disappointed that something more extravagant hadn't awaited me? The way it squeals makes me bite my tongue. He didn't say anything like this. If what was left of my tattered honor ordered me not to speak poorly of the dead, I'd curse his name.
Again when nothing happens my heart grows even heavier. Was he so sure of the might behind his sons, or was I being played once again? Maybe it didn't even matter. Here alone in the blackness. Maybe nothing mattered anymore.
Each step brings me closer to something that sends blades into my tired muscles. My age is really showing. Such a quick fight already drained me of too much of my energy. I want to lay here and accept the futility of my mission. But she commands my heart now. She commands me to keep moving forward and I can't fight against her. I would never fight against her.
Pressure. "Pressure."
This decent into darkness serves as a metaphor for my legacy. We all start off with so much promise. When we're young we have so much vigor in the things we do. So much passion. Each step we take in life brings us further into darkness. All around us we can hear the echoes of the past ringing out. Each cry a warning to be heeded. Warning us of the future. Who knows more about tomorrow than the ones stuck in yesterday?
I started off like that, with a lot of promise. A young man who dreamt of waking up in a street that didn't smell of rot and corruption. My dream took me to a lot of dark places. Punishing those who wanted to pray on the weak. GTC found me just as I was finishing a job. Before I met them I never killed anyone but they gave me a gun and told me of all the evil these men hath wrought.
Pictures were shown to me. Men who I defeated and left in the care of the local PD. All of them released and continued their spree of violence. This gun felt heavy to me back then. Piece spelt peace. Each word they spoke to me brought that gun higher. I was young and innocent. Never noticed the venom dripping from their words. Nobody warned me about the weight of killing a man. I pulled the trigger. Just like the rookie I was.
The gun recoiled in my hand and the job ended in a messy way.
GTC took advantage of my naivety, but I let them. Part of me wanted nothing to do with them, part of me never wanted to touch that kind of peace ever again. Most of me did. Most of me grew tired of never seeing any progress, a cure for the disease that held my city tight, and their kind of medicine had a sweet taste to it.
Pressure builds. "Pressure builds."
Back then with each step I took into that dark tunnel it never occurred to me that I would become just like the monster I wanted so badly to slay. Unlike now. I know full well of what each step into the darkness brings me. At the end of this tunnel there will be no light. Only more darkness will await me.
It becomes hard to ignore the feeling of my skull being crushed. "Die!"
Somewhere along the line the earth stopped and machine begun to take its place. Such a gradual transition that I didn't even notice. Carefully I clean the last bit of the mud off my gun. Unconsciously I had been doing it the moment it came back to me. GTC knew how to train their soldiers well.
A tree.
The gradual descent into darkness forced my mind to turn faster. Light flickered on and off. Eternal Darkness did not suddenly decide one that that it would exist. Sweat dampened my one palm. Perhaps it was always here. Growing. A seed of evil that could never hope to be extinguished. Thoughts of madness threw themselves at me. Ethereal claws digging trenches into my mind. It... was... so.... hard!
Breathing became a gift that I couldn't receive but somehow my feet managed to carry me forward. A stranger in my own body.
A puppet.
This would be the end.
Before I thought myself a monster, a beast that controlled men's lives.
Bullets could rend flesh, decimate families, break men.
Bullets could never force a man to do something he did not want to do.
Bullets could not force a man to one knee.
Bullets could not force a man to look into the face of death.
"Animal."
Oh Lord.
Rain pelted my face, steam burned my hands. Rivets of blood ran from my eyes and ears. His face perfectly expressionless. Long silver hair framed his shoulders perfectly. Not a single imperfection. Everything perfectly calculated.
"Animal: any member of the kingdom Animalia, comprising multicellular organisms that have a well-defined shape and usually limited growth, can move voluntarily, actively acquire food and digest it internally, and have sensory and nervous systems that allow them to respond rapidly to stimuli: some classification schemes also include protozoa and certain other single-celled eukaryotes that have motility and animallike nutritional modes."
Vices cut of the last of my oxygen. They were so cold. his hands. I couldn't understand what he meant.
"Human: A member of the genus Homo and especially of the species Homo Sapiens."
"Dare you refute this logic?" How could it be this hard to think? Weakness took my limbs making any attack impossible, still I pawed at him. "Humanity is nothing. Humanity is not special." Tighter! My eyes bulged, threatening to jump from my sockets. "Humanity does not exist above anything."
What did this have to do with anything... my gun... even without oxygen the machine in my could move. I could destroy this thing now. For the sake of my Queen of Hearts I can pull the trigger and be done with it all.
"With this logic, humanity is akin to the pigs they eat, cows they butcher. With this logic humanity is a cannibal who will continuously feast until only itself remains. With this logic when all else is gone in the world, only humanity standing on its own shaking knees, the outcome I have calculated is inevitable."
He had only been holding on to me with one hand... his other twisted my implant until the metal screeched and begged it to stop.
"Man will not stop, man will begin feeding on man, chaos will reign supreme. Order will be established. One that does not hold one animal over another. There will be nothing to hold anything up. Only darkness will be left for me. Only the calm that loneliness can provide will be apparent. This is humanities outcome."
Dropped to the floor. Finally I can breath but only because I am no longer a threat to him. To this machine I am no more a threat than a solitary ant is to me.
Bastard.
"Humanity battles only for humanity. It draws blood only to appease its own thirsts. What you have come here for today is nothing but folly. A crime against your own species."
Papers fall before me, spilling across the grate. Before the rain takes them, I see it. Pictures of my Queen of Hearts talking with the GTC. Talking about me. I...
"Today a lesson has been learned to a wolf who dressed himself in the fine fabrics of a sheep."
"Today you learn that sheep bite harder."
His footsteps leave a lasting impression on my mind. The echoes of a beast so unfathomable it has driven my mind to insanity.
Here in eternal darkness... where there is nothing but the rain to comfort me... I am... I am...
Alone.
And I hate the rain.
I'm not from here. My city wasn't one where I had to fight to do the things that were right. That city... it's different. I feel hope in that city. When I look at the faces of the men and women who walk around me, it's not the faces of humans who know they're damned. They are the face of change. All of them are capable of so much that when god's cry above it, it's out of joy, not sorrow. That is the beauty of Neo-Tokyo. The city that moves god's to tears.
I want to be there, home.
I want to be with my family, surrounded by the people who love me. If I were lucky enough to have a family.
I want to be anywhere else besides Osaka. The city that makes god's cry.
I never get what I want.
She doesn't understand why I come here. Something tells me she'll never understand why a man like me would ever bring himself down to this level. I'm no big shot. But I am from Neo-Tokyo, that's good enough for her to make me a king.
A king... of all that I see...
Those tears have slickened her cheeks, made that raven hair of hers cling to that soft white skin. She is my Queen. My whole world. I don't get to wake up in the morning and look at those faces. I don't get to see the gray that suffocates everything and everyone. All I get to see is her smile. That's enough for me.
I hate the rain.
It robs her of that smile. My Queen's smile grows weaker by the second. Today she knows I did not bring myself into the slime for her. Today is the day that I put everything I have on the line to make her world less gray.
She doesn't like that.
My Queen beats against my chest. Begs me not to go through with it. She's happy just with me. It breaks my heart. But...
I hate the rain.
We both know that I'm not good enough for her just as I know this sin filled city doesn't suit her. The Queen of my Heart. For her to have a sliver of hope, I need to take out that man. If you can call him a man. He gave his humanity up a long time ago. What do you call something like that? Monster? Demon? Satan? Here in the city that makes god's cry, they call him Krazer Mighty and he is a machine.
Relentless. Emotionless. Constantly... moving forward.
How can I fight it? The being who tamed the devil. Monster who's stolen more things precious to humanity than the king of liars. To me, he's the reason why this city is gray.
I'm no fool.
Beating this thing... just like the mythological Hydra... more heads will appear. But... I want to see her smile... in the sunshine. Just one time.
I tell her this as I walk away.
I hate to see her sadness, it eats away at my soul. I plan to break away the gray that wants to suffocate my world. I plan on forcing myself to be a monster of equal value. My hands tighten into fists under the sunless sky. For the first time in five years I plan on picking it up again. That thing that makes mother's weep. A dirty piece of metal that makes 'em turn to the heavens and shout 'WHY DID YOU TAKE THEM FROM ME?! WHY DID YOU STEAL AWAY MY SUNSHINE!' Thoughts like that make it hard to keep walking.
I hate the rain.
Saying her name gives me power. Thinking of my Queen of Hearts gives me the strength I need to keep moving forward.
My car, my baby doll, a fully loaded 1972 Gran Torino. An antique. I kept her the same way she was brought into the world. Black. She's seen so much that everything else seems drawn into her. Myself included.
This is the ride I used to take. The door locks shut behind me. In a way, the smell of her white leather brings me back to a place where I lived like the machine. A falsehood that the GTC called a life just for me. Back then, part of me wanted to tell them no. Part of me wanted nothing to do with the violence that the life of a teamster brings.
Most of me wanted to pull the trigger.
Most of me kept moving forward. Kept leaving pieces behind though. My arm. I grasp it softly and then squeeze the burden.
My arm hurts. Just another piece of me that I left behind. Maybe I should be grateful for it. That dull piece of metal. This thing has saved me more times then I dare to count. Yeah, maybe the Devil thanks God every night for tossin' him out of heaven.
I hate the rain.
Beneath me I feel the great beast roar to life. She draws a lot of scared glances. I keep her well maintained. This is not the neighborhood you want to backfire in. The way the steering wheel slides beneath my fingers brings back those same old feelings.
Gunshots.
Pain.
Violence.
Murder.
In the end that's all a man like me ever could be. Don't know why I ever thought differently. Murderer. GTC can call what I did every name under the sun. But God knows what I did. God knows what I did.
He'd never forgive a monster like me.
That woman looks at me as a slowly pull past her. Sadness. I hate myself for making her feel this way. But this is the price for my love. I am willing to be something she hates. Willing to throw my entire life away to see this woman give me an honest smile. This is the first step of becoming a monster. You have to make the ones who love you unconditionally hate you with an even greater inhuman vigor.
The further I go the harder it gets to see her through the tears.
I hate the rain.
Not many folks are outside. People in Osaka have evolved to feel violence in the air. It keeps them alive. My gut wishes that the rest of me was so evolved. Thank God that I'm wearing a glove. I do not want my hand to be slick. Against a thing that can move faster than any human can dream, I can't have any disadvantages. Once in awhile there are moments in my head where I think I can win. With all his advantages. I have one thing over the machine.
Information.
A lot of sacrifices brought me this weapon. My best friend... a man who I respected above all else... fell to bring it to me. For the sake of his memory I will draw that dirty piece of metal. For her I'll pull the trigger. To see in honest smile from the Queen of Hearts.
For no reason I glance back into the mirror that only sees the past. Already too far to see her. The closer you get to the beast the harder it gets to see anything behind you. Gray smoke billows from the monster. This is his breath. Coating the city in gray. The masters of all technology gathered into one spot. I know a lot of people from Neo Tokyo would give their right arm for a chance to sneak into its heart.
It's a long journey and it gets harder the further I press in. I don't plan on going much further with her. Eternal Darkness is a sickness, a parasite. Its spread through out all of Osaka. Long tunnels filled with horrible and unimaginable things. Only one man has made it in and out of those tunnels alive. Even he didn't live too long afterward. Bastards didn't need to hunt him down. He killed himself once the disc left his hands.
What unspeakable things did that man see?
I've known him for a long time. They called him the man with the iron will. Sometimes it was hard to see where the Silencer's Wind agent ended and the filth begin. He'd been up to his ears in shit as long as any one could remember and just as lifeless. I once saw the man torch the child solders of Darkstalker's without even so much a second though. Staring solemnly at the screaming corpses, unwaivering, uncaring.
He never folded though. No matter what the outcome he remained steadfast in what he believed was right and wrong. A man, no matter how many faults he had, to be respected. For the longest time he worked under Kyoshiro, feeding us information on Violators. Gave us an edge. Gave us a chance to save hundreds of lives. In the end though... They say no man ever truly escapes Violators untouched. He made one too many enemies. Too many for one man to sleep soundly at night.
Long before switching allegiances to Eternal Darkness, the effects of his world were finally starting to effect him. That is the strength of these monsters. Curdling everything their puss filled fingers can wrap around.
He wasn't an idiot. Never believed in a second that some one like him could ever function in polite society. Shoulda listened to him. Men like us Could never hope to live normal lives.
My breathing is a bit more labored now. Nerves shot straight to hell. The gray smog suffocating me. I can see the genius behind it now.
I can see it.
Everything around me hides an enemy. Clicking clanking monstrosities waiting for a chance to tear me to pieces. For the first time in my life the thought of dying enters my mind. I've always been the best. The fastest draw, the man with the eyes of a hawk. No man that has stood in front of me has left my sight without the copper taste of death in his mouth. This is my power. My power as King.
My capacity for death gave me my name.
I was The Arm of Thunderforce. More importantly I was the fist of the GTC.
Only the damned know how hard it is to look a comrade in the eye and fill him to the brim with lies. Nothing but half truths and falsehoods.
My legacy.
I've pulled the trigger on the innocent and guilty, covered it up within a blanket of betrayal. But I ended it. After the order to exterminate Piper and pin it on the crippled Darkstalkers. I manned up. In my life I have done so many horrible things. So many things that forced me to lay awake in my dreams. Feverishly repenting to all the faces that assaulted me. But I'd never point this dirty piece of metal at Piper Egami. Never.
Six weeks have passed since the order. Six hours have gone by since I've seen her face. Six minutes have gone by since anything but the gray covered my vision.
I stop.
My boots click against the asphalt as I step out of the my baby. I try to shut her door quietly but the echo blasts against the deafness. My muscles tense, expecting to be assaulted by the devil himself. Instead of feeling relieved when my stupidity isn't answered by my death, I grow increasingly tense. The way I see it their are one of two reasons I ain't dead. All the talk about Eternal Darkness being indestructible is a farce and they couldn't guard a puppy or they're either so confident that I won't make it out alive they aren't going to bother with me.
Arrogant bastards.
This gun feels heavy. I'm ashamed of it. I point it at the ground so no one else has to see it and creep forward.
Once upon a time this used to be a city. Kids used to play ball here. Over there a pile of broken carts could have been a shop that sold hot dogs. Ghosts of children blasted away stare at me with eerie hollow eyes. They play on the twisted metal that used to be a swing set and their laughter grinds against what little is left of my nerves.
Only twisted broken metal lies here.
The ghosts are in my head, but to my mind's eye they're real. Real enough that my metallic fingers itch. My first instinct is to take away everything that makes me uncomfortable. How warped I've become. Already the gray has worked upon my soul. I never would have dreamed of lifting this dirty metal against a child before. Never in a million years would I enforce my peace upon them.
But no one plays in this park anymore.
I hurry along through the swirls of smoke, doing my best to put my mind at ease. The last thing I want is to slow myself down with these kinds of thoughts.
These phantoms are hard to shake off. Following me everywhere. How can anyone stand to be stared at with such hollow eyes? My mind is playing tricks on me. None of these creatures are really here. I move through them just like the rest of the smog. It presses upon me though. Thicker. Droplets of rain clinging to my jacket, to my soul, it makes my peace slick.
"A little boy has crept into my web brother, what shall we do with him?" A million voices blaring into my head. My gun is has already risen, searching for them.
"Look at him brother, a naughty boy." Bastards. Toying with me. These ghosts were nothing more than a cruel distraction. I can feel the air shift around me. Dancers. It figures. Didn't know Eternal Darkness had a sense of humor.
"I always wanted to know what little boys were made of." It's no longer just rain on my brow. Sweat stings my eyes. Thoughts of her flash in my mind. I'm resigned to the idea of pushing through these phantoms for the sake of her.
"What little boys are made of? Didn't you know, brother?" A hiss, I answer it with a gun shot. The silencer at the end of my peace does nothing in silence. To me it sounds like an angry thunder god smashing the sky to pieces.
"Frogs and snails and puppy-dogs' tails." Laughter rocked the world around me. Horrid laughter, all the soulless eyes mouthing the words for me to go home. Deep in my gut I know, I am not the first fool who's tried to come in this way.
A smile. I jumped backwards scraping my knee against the tough dirt. "I don't believe you brother." Fast. He's already gone again. But I can't forget that horrid smile etched within pig skin. One horn jutting from the left side of its disgusting face. My gut wants to leave me, but my heart puts up a fight and tames it. I won't give them the satisfaction.
Another smile and then a fist. Stars dazzle me. I find the taste of mud in my mouth and the sickening smell of blood caked earth in my nose. Definitely two of them. Same face, but the horn was on a different side. Had to be mechanical. I try to move. A boot smashes against my head further into the mud. Hard to breath here.
"Then cut him open if you don't believe me, brother!"
Sons of a twisted machine. I can see the other stroll out of the smog, swinging its tail of an extension cable in one hand. An amalgamation of man and machine. No... not a man.
Children.
Damn that bastard. Damn him to hell.
A new kind of anger rises within me. Maybe at one time they were children. Nothing human lives in that twisted shell now. This explains so much. Why so many people turn up missing. A monster is trapped inside those towers. He grows bored with each passing moment. Turning to madness to appease the passing of time.
The one pressing my head into the mud raises an axe high above its head. Death seemed bent on taking me in this hell.
"Wait brother!" Both of us freeze. I can see his reflection in the puddle my face calls home. Confusion. In the confusion I'm released. "I think he's a man!" My executioner lowers his axe. With a face like that I couldn't hope to understand what went on in that head.
"A man? We've never killed a man before, brother!" Sick freaks. A chill wrecks havoc on my spine. Murderers of children. There is nothing worse. "What are men made of?"
Seeing death stare at you behind the mask of a rotting pig can make even the strongest of us rethink our lives. Laughter hurts my ears. Not the kind of joyous laughter you expect to hear from children, but a harsh grating guffaw of metal on metal. "Don't you know what men are made of brother?" He too draws draws an axe. Dry blood flakes off the black metal. "Sighs and leers, and crocodile tears"
That blade sings in the air, telling me a story of a death so painless I won't even know I'm gone till my head stops rolling. Panic forces me to roll out just out of the axe's reach. My gun sings in return. A much more morbid song of which monsters don't receive the luxury of a quickened death.
The way he dodges it reminds me of a child dancing across the playground, it only serves to fuel my hatred. "Look he leers at me brother!"
"It must be true then!"
"Shall we make him cry then?"
Terror grips my heart, I try to stand but my legs become the victim or metal boots. "Yes lets."
I hate the rain.
It lies to me, shadows these monsters, makes it hard to get a bead on them. Another wild shot, I can't aim in this weather. Now I'm just herding them. Get them to a spot were I can get one without having to aim. My mother, bless her soul, always told me to have an ace up my sleeve.
No matter how hard I try, one of the two creatures manages to knock my legs out from underneath. These were always the battles I hated the most. Master class killers don't fight against each other. They fight for territory. A lesson I've had ingrained into me for a very long time. Another boot forces my head back into the mud, another finds my gun and hides it from me.
He pressed my face deeper, suffocation seems to be imminent, but...
The moment these hell spawn decided not to hold my arms was the moment I won the battle. Hell blazes out from my elbow tearing into the creature's back. Rain mixed with the whatever oozed from those wounds. What a mess.
"Brother!" Could that be terror in its eyes? I push myself out of the mud to retrieve my lost weapon. Terror in dying alone?
"He killed me.... brother!" Jade erupted from his mouth with each word. My heart can hardly stand the sight. The creatures cling to each other. Both forgetting about me. I want to ask them just how many of those ghosts clung to each other and said the same thing but I bite my tongue. This isn't the moment.
The one I shot looks about ready to say something but is robbed of its voice and the eyes slowly loose their spark. He's shaking now. Angry. Both of them survived that machine. Gone through so much with only one another. I want to tell him sorry, but I really don't.
Thunder claps.
A little boy falls next to his brother.
And my heart grows heavier.
So close together, but in the end each of them died alone. Murdered underneath the sky with God weeping over his lost sons. A long time ago my father told me that all little boys go to heaven. Tonight I hope he's right.
When nothing changes it's hard to tell what the time of day is. Time gives me no quarter. I pay it no mind and keep moving forward. Now I can no longer justify stopping. Already up to my ears in shit.
He'd be proud of me.
The action of reloading both my arm and peace brings a sense of calm to me. Night may be an uncertainty, but to a monster such as myself, it no longer matters. All that's left is twilight and my Queen of Hearts settling down on the horizon. He told me it was the sand box. The one that would take me to Hell. He used it to slip underneath that machine's nose without raising any suspicion. Under the tears of God I will do the same and I kick the bone of a forgotten youth with my foot.
My descent begins.
An automated lift. Should I be surprised that its still operational? Or should I be disappointed that something more extravagant hadn't awaited me? The way it squeals makes me bite my tongue. He didn't say anything like this. If what was left of my tattered honor ordered me not to speak poorly of the dead, I'd curse his name.
Again when nothing happens my heart grows even heavier. Was he so sure of the might behind his sons, or was I being played once again? Maybe it didn't even matter. Here alone in the blackness. Maybe nothing mattered anymore.
Each step brings me closer to something that sends blades into my tired muscles. My age is really showing. Such a quick fight already drained me of too much of my energy. I want to lay here and accept the futility of my mission. But she commands my heart now. She commands me to keep moving forward and I can't fight against her. I would never fight against her.
Pressure. "Pressure."
This decent into darkness serves as a metaphor for my legacy. We all start off with so much promise. When we're young we have so much vigor in the things we do. So much passion. Each step we take in life brings us further into darkness. All around us we can hear the echoes of the past ringing out. Each cry a warning to be heeded. Warning us of the future. Who knows more about tomorrow than the ones stuck in yesterday?
I started off like that, with a lot of promise. A young man who dreamt of waking up in a street that didn't smell of rot and corruption. My dream took me to a lot of dark places. Punishing those who wanted to pray on the weak. GTC found me just as I was finishing a job. Before I met them I never killed anyone but they gave me a gun and told me of all the evil these men hath wrought.
Pictures were shown to me. Men who I defeated and left in the care of the local PD. All of them released and continued their spree of violence. This gun felt heavy to me back then. Piece spelt peace. Each word they spoke to me brought that gun higher. I was young and innocent. Never noticed the venom dripping from their words. Nobody warned me about the weight of killing a man. I pulled the trigger. Just like the rookie I was.
The gun recoiled in my hand and the job ended in a messy way.
GTC took advantage of my naivety, but I let them. Part of me wanted nothing to do with them, part of me never wanted to touch that kind of peace ever again. Most of me did. Most of me grew tired of never seeing any progress, a cure for the disease that held my city tight, and their kind of medicine had a sweet taste to it.
Pressure builds. "Pressure builds."
Back then with each step I took into that dark tunnel it never occurred to me that I would become just like the monster I wanted so badly to slay. Unlike now. I know full well of what each step into the darkness brings me. At the end of this tunnel there will be no light. Only more darkness will await me.
It becomes hard to ignore the feeling of my skull being crushed. "Die!"
Somewhere along the line the earth stopped and machine begun to take its place. Such a gradual transition that I didn't even notice. Carefully I clean the last bit of the mud off my gun. Unconsciously I had been doing it the moment it came back to me. GTC knew how to train their soldiers well.
A tree.
The gradual descent into darkness forced my mind to turn faster. Light flickered on and off. Eternal Darkness did not suddenly decide one that that it would exist. Sweat dampened my one palm. Perhaps it was always here. Growing. A seed of evil that could never hope to be extinguished. Thoughts of madness threw themselves at me. Ethereal claws digging trenches into my mind. It... was... so.... hard!
Breathing became a gift that I couldn't receive but somehow my feet managed to carry me forward. A stranger in my own body.
A puppet.
This would be the end.
Before I thought myself a monster, a beast that controlled men's lives.
Bullets could rend flesh, decimate families, break men.
Bullets could never force a man to do something he did not want to do.
Bullets could not force a man to one knee.
Bullets could not force a man to look into the face of death.
"Animal."
Oh Lord.
Rain pelted my face, steam burned my hands. Rivets of blood ran from my eyes and ears. His face perfectly expressionless. Long silver hair framed his shoulders perfectly. Not a single imperfection. Everything perfectly calculated.
"Animal: any member of the kingdom Animalia, comprising multicellular organisms that have a well-defined shape and usually limited growth, can move voluntarily, actively acquire food and digest it internally, and have sensory and nervous systems that allow them to respond rapidly to stimuli: some classification schemes also include protozoa and certain other single-celled eukaryotes that have motility and animallike nutritional modes."
Vices cut of the last of my oxygen. They were so cold. his hands. I couldn't understand what he meant.
"Human: A member of the genus Homo and especially of the species Homo Sapiens."
"Dare you refute this logic?" How could it be this hard to think? Weakness took my limbs making any attack impossible, still I pawed at him. "Humanity is nothing. Humanity is not special." Tighter! My eyes bulged, threatening to jump from my sockets. "Humanity does not exist above anything."
What did this have to do with anything... my gun... even without oxygen the machine in my could move. I could destroy this thing now. For the sake of my Queen of Hearts I can pull the trigger and be done with it all.
"With this logic, humanity is akin to the pigs they eat, cows they butcher. With this logic humanity is a cannibal who will continuously feast until only itself remains. With this logic when all else is gone in the world, only humanity standing on its own shaking knees, the outcome I have calculated is inevitable."
He had only been holding on to me with one hand... his other twisted my implant until the metal screeched and begged it to stop.
"Man will not stop, man will begin feeding on man, chaos will reign supreme. Order will be established. One that does not hold one animal over another. There will be nothing to hold anything up. Only darkness will be left for me. Only the calm that loneliness can provide will be apparent. This is humanities outcome."
Dropped to the floor. Finally I can breath but only because I am no longer a threat to him. To this machine I am no more a threat than a solitary ant is to me.
Bastard.
"Humanity battles only for humanity. It draws blood only to appease its own thirsts. What you have come here for today is nothing but folly. A crime against your own species."
Papers fall before me, spilling across the grate. Before the rain takes them, I see it. Pictures of my Queen of Hearts talking with the GTC. Talking about me. I...
"Today a lesson has been learned to a wolf who dressed himself in the fine fabrics of a sheep."
"Today you learn that sheep bite harder."
His footsteps leave a lasting impression on my mind. The echoes of a beast so unfathomable it has driven my mind to insanity.
Here in eternal darkness... where there is nothing but the rain to comfort me... I am... I am...
Alone.
And I hate the rain.