It felt as if he was wandering this field for hours on end, alone in the thick smog that was engulfing him no matter which direction he took. His own mind was clouded by denial of his own nature. What he used to be fighting what he is now, resulting in a constant stalemate. That is who Ego is.
But he wouldn't know. He couldn't see what future has reserved for him, and he couldn't see who he is meant to be. A Scientist? A Mercenary? A symbol of apathy? The victim of all of his actions. The smog eventually cleared, letting him see what was ahead. War raged in his world. Faceless figures tearing one another to pieces, led by two silhouettes towering over the land. A blue giant whose' smile has long vanished, crying as its territory slowly turned into a hellish landscape. Corrupted by the thing on the other end, whose appearance evolved the more it progressed. A raging fiend hellbent on eradicating everything it did not already own, then tear itself apart.
There was a small Temple between the shifting territory. Neither blue or red; neither evil or good; neither alive or dead. A symbol of apathy in a world where it did not belong. The constant thumping of drums beckoned Ego to approach as the faceless figures fought around him, tearing eachother apart desperately to advance. With a hand on his revolver and another ready to unsheathe his knife he pushed on cautiously. His heart was beating rhythmically with the thumping noises echoing across the landscape...
...and then they stopped. His heartbeat became rapid. The faceless figures had stopped mauling one another. Hundreds of them as if stuck in time, all turning heads at the one being who stood out. Neither blue or red; neither evil or good; neither alive or dead: Ego. They twitched, screamed with mouths they did not have; stared with eyes that did not exist; moving with the will of someone who created them to serve.
His breath was muffled in by the helmet he still wore. A sense of claustrophobia was building up as the silhouettes approached, and as one of them had raised their sword he snapped. A bullet pierced its faceless head leaving a wide hole through which he could see the other hundred figures running towards him. He did not have the ability to take on all of them, so he ran away. He ran towards the Temple as if nothing else mattered. He couldn't see because of the moisture building up on his visor. He couldn't hear because of his own heavy breathing.
Hundreds of thousands behind him. He could not stop running. He didn't want to stop running.
"Test the sharpness of your sword against another. And when that is not enough, unsheathe your cunning as the hidden dagger that ends the fight."
Fear of death was something Ego had long forgotten. To him, death would have been a luxury he was never rich enough to afford. No matter how many has he turned against him. No matter how many has he provoked to end his miserable life. But here; here it felt so intense. It was the most real thing he could feel in this world fabricated by his own subconsciousness. He ran across the landscape towards the Temple - whispers beckoning him to approach. A gate stood between him and his destination. Made of twisted metal and creaking with every move forced upon itself by the wind blowing through the holes, until one last whispered forced them wide open.
Ego was exhausted. His breath running out as the faceless figures were closing in. With one last leap he managed to pass the gates, falling on the ground with a loud thud and dust rising from the decaying dirt. He wasn't followed, however. They just stood there, chattering their bones as they retreated in the cloud of dust.
The gates had closed and the whispers who brought the man here had gone quiet. There was only the howling wind, building up an eerie atmosphere Ego could not ignore now. He was left speechless in front of the Temple with no other goal but to advance. If there ever was a point in which he could have turned back and left this world, he missed it.
The doors opened inwards giving no clear image of what would lie within, only pitch black darkness despite the two suns shining bright on the horizon, soaking the structure with their light. One sun was always moving, the other was not. Ego looked back and it felt as if someone stared back patiently, waiting for something to happen. His eyes turned back to the Temple. Each step taken towards it made his heart beat faster and faster. A fear of the unknown crept up on him, because he didn't know what lied ahead. Faking bravery had gotten the fractured mercenary so far. Tricks such as these were of no use in a world where few things made sense. With little steps and a wary attitude, he fully opened the doors with both hands. Light did not bass the entry to the Temple.
With gritted teeth and a gun in hand, Ego stepped into the dark. Losing himself in the nothingness lying ahead.
"Test the sharpness of your sword against another. And when that is not enough, unsheathe your cunning as the hidden dagger that ends the fight."
The corridor was covered by the pitch black darkness. A tight space with no beginning or end through which Ego had to squeeze through. Several meters in and he had already begun to feel claustrophobic, caught in a trap with no way out. He looked everywhere, but there was nothing to be seen.
A feminine giggle echoed its way to Ego. Distant, repeating itself over and over like a broken record. It was so familiar though. A memory itching to click and reveal itself to him. "Raven?" he told himself. There was both sorrow and anger building up in his heart. That moment of hesitation would cost him dearly, he thought to himself. With a single squeeze of the trigger he let go of a bullet in the direction he last heard the sound come from.
Its muzzle flash lightened up the corridor, letting him see for a brief moment ahead of him. The trap indeed had an end, so he kept shooting. Five more shots, five more moments in which he could see the path laid before him. There was a sudden drive to press on. Stay and do nothing, be nothing. Or push on and do what he was meant to do.
A sensation of wonder washed upon Ego. A door presented in front of him, and with a gentle push a bright light shined upon him. The corridor opened up into an altair. Shattered shards floating elegantly in the middle of it, surrounded by figures weaved in what seemed to be a layer of spider web from the top to bottom, yet tendrils fell down, slithering across the ground. The shards were so high up he could not have reached them even if he tried. He hoped there was a mechanism to lower them, but to his disappointment there was none. Everything was static, unmoving.
One entity in particular stood in the far reaches of the altair, mimicking Ego's every movement to the letter. The two noticed eachother after getting closer to the towering pillar which held the shards so high. That was when the mirror broke, and the two approached one another faster than before. The entity was floating above the ground, almost motionless if it weren't for the limbs flowing against the wind which blew from above. Ego, however, was hesitant. He loaded six rounds in his gun's chamber, one by one as he approached the entity then raised it slowly against It.
"We were expecting Vincent, not his repulsive creation."
The entity spoke with many voices resonating almost at unison. Small orange and blue lights across its torso lit up as it addressed the one before it. Ego could only reply with silence as he stared upwards at the being towering over him. It was almost twice his size.
"You have not come to wear the face of a quiet sellsword. There is no money for you to gain here. There is nothing for you to gain at all. So do us all a favor, and return to your own decrepit reality, or we will--"
The entity paused just before Ego had begun to speak as a means to show its dominance over what it knows. He spoke with an almost defeated voice, stuttering at first before it could lay his thoughts bare towards the unknown. His gun thrown aside, and his helmet slowly fading away like dust blown off a table.
"I-...I-...don't want to. I don't want to go out there anymore. It hurts. It hurts so much!"
His words turned into pleads for forgiveness. A futile attempt to make himself look innocent, desperate in front a being that saw through his very eyes from the start of his putrid existence. He caused endless suffering where there was no need in his crusade against the Nomads who had wronged his creator, and now wanted an easy way out of the mess he created.
"Of course it hurts. It hurts to feel your mind crumble into pieces until there is nothing left, does it? It hurts to see everyone cast you away, because you are utterly inept of feeling anything but anger against a force you cannot defeat. Your fate has been sealed long ago. Yours, and Vincent's.
You came back, because the Harbinger told you to. He told you to become whole, but can you? There are three sides, and in order to achieve that you must sacrifice two.
But you already know which one must rise, do you?"
Ego's heart sank as he looked down upon himself. His neck grew stiff as he lifted his head back to the corridor he had come through. It was clear as day now, aimed at the one unmoving sun which stared back at him. The unblinking eye of the Observer overseeing this world as He does many others.
"T-There has to be another way-"
He was cut off the same way he interrupted the entity he conversed with. It spoke the only truth there was.
"There isn't."
"Test the sharpness of your sword against another. And when that is not enough, unsheathe your cunning as the hidden dagger that ends the fight."
Ego leaned against the pillar with crossed arms, staring back at the unmoving sun through the near opaque shape of the entity. It felt like hours. Conflicting thoughts pushing him to one of the three choices laid before him.
One Vincent longed for getting behind the wheel and do as he did before: help humanity in his own way together with Raven. The other one wished to destroy everything by letting the Sentinels loose upon Sirius. Both fought to take control for months, years, maybe decades in this twisted world under the two suns.
But Ego was nothing. He had no final goals to give him meaning beyond survival. Yet in this Temple he felt some form of purpose. The Shards floating several dozen meters above his head called to him, beckoned him for action. For a decision he had fully to embrace and commit to the consequences that would follow.
"You are afraid of death, despite wishing it for so long."
The entity had broken the silence between them. It appeared confused as it saw through Ego's mind. In truth, he knew the costs of dying. He would kill the very thing he had tried to obtain. To him this was not a choice.
"And if I choose you?"
The entity left out hundreds of chuckles into one. It spoke with a voice similar to Raven's, yet distorted by an endless stream of whispers which followed every word. It spread its upper tendrils around Ego akin to an embrace. Enveloping him with the same pale green hue It had.
"You will become not only whole, but your own identity at last. All it takes is one word."
Become The Key."
It paused as it reached for Ego's ear. A cold whisper sent shivers down his spine. A bright flash of light followed.
"Bring me to the Great Sphere's Entrance."
"Test the sharpness of your sword against another. And when that is not enough, unsheathe your cunning as the hidden dagger that ends the fight."
"How long have I languished here, staring back at the one unmoving Sun and wanting to gouge out its Light and make it my own? Probably for too long, some might say. But I'm alone here. I watch as the battle unfolds. This dead landscape of His is engulfing the others. Their presence drowned by His own."
Caliban, Ego, Vincent. Names and nicknames standing on the edge of nothingness, clinging to their bearer's own ability to be remembered whilst his own body dissolved over the course of a century. A faded presence bending the knee to act as the executioner of His plans. New purpose given at the cost of free will torn painfully from its vessel. The memories plaguing Caliban now surgically extracted and reapplied for the pure enjoyment of a higher being, vaguely reminding him of how his rebirth took place. Faceless figures flying husks of metal shrouded in black smoke and dripping toxic venom from their wings. Hot metal cutting and cauterizing his wounds at the same time. Pain made reality over and over again.
His cracked helmet revealed nothing but the void of space staring through the visor back at the sun. The same smoke originating from within, turning from a bright orange hue to a teal merging with its surroundings. A long tendril with its tip splitting into three laid over Caliban's shoulder. A gesture of reassurance, no less.
"How do you feel, Hireling?"
He did not respond. His legs were nothing more than stumps floating above the ground, slightly bent as the mist fell touched the ground in his stead. His head bowed slightly forward. He looked down on a puddle of water spanning what seemed like several meters wide. Like a movie about himself. Through his own eyes he watched Planet New Tokyo from the comfort of his Valkyrie. Moving his hands off the controls, staring at his own palms in what seemed to be both shock and delight. He responded as the last few drips of orange essence fell on the ground with an echo, parting away the mist as they touched down.
Idon'tknow...better?Timeflowsdifferentlyhere.
Caliban's muffled voice left the shattered facade that was his helmet with a low pitched echo. His anger made his limbs shake slightly. He tried to grasp his head with hands he no longer had. Instead it was the same tendril previously laid on his shoulder that tapped on the empty insides of his visor like a pen hitting a ceramic cup.
"It does. And you have all the time in the world to explore. All the time in this world."
With one of its other tendrils it held a bright spherical object. Radiating with comforting warmth in contrast to Caliban's cold aura. In near-mockery, It held the object before Caliban's visor, blocking his view to the puddle of water.
"Two more. Surprise us."
"Test the sharpness of your sword against another. And when that is not enough, unsheathe your cunning as the hidden dagger that ends the fight."
The Mindscape had drastically changed since Caliban had initially arrived. Everything was quiet - dead. The land was no longer a mix of orange and blue, but a sickening hue of green. Constantly spreading with tendrils growing from the ground, strangling figures from either side before turning them into a material not unlike stone. The sky clouded, pierced only by Unmoving Sun who had now grown five appendages. Its gaze now of a bright cyan and shining upon a Temple in the outskirts of the Mindscape.
The two giant figures resembling the man they once were had not stopped fighting, yet the possible outcome has changed. They were both losing. One's sobbing echoed across the landscape, while the other one's wrath struck like thunder in many places.
There was a lake in the middle. Sacred, where neither side could ever take hold. It was there when a bright flash pierced the water. Bubbles emerged from beneath and a hand emerged trying to grasp for solid ground to climb on. She had been pulled from her own vessel through unknown means. Stranded in a place she did not belong to.
"Test the sharpness of your sword against another. And when that is not enough, unsheathe your cunning as the hidden dagger that ends the fight."
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After emerging from the ethereal water, her mind attempted to refocus, feeling faintly disorientated as her mind was pulled from her own scape as she was resting back in the Steiner estate within the private quarters. Feeling greatly disassociated, it was uncertain as to whether she could perceive this as a dream or something... more. Yet, there was a distinctive wrongness about it all. Standing there, her form swayed a little, drunken on the disorientation, slowly trying to garner focus.
Drawn to the sound of a familiar voice sobbing, her instictual reaction was to investigate it with caution, yet such a familiar sound brought a sensation of care and concern. Sluggish making her way over to the figures that fought, she aimlessly glared up, investigating it whilst inebriated with confusion.
Tilting her head curiously, her eye fixated to the vassal before her,
The two figures took jabs at one another as the ground beneath them constantly shifted. On one end was a horribly scarred version of Vincent. Flames erupting from the ground he controlled. His voice of reason had long extinguished, now fueled by wrath. On the other end was a whimpering version of the same man, covered by a cold blue aura, acting defensively towards his other iteration. Every step taken back represented a shift of color on the territory their so called "troops" were fighting on. Those troops, smaller versions of their "leader", were carrying the same fight. It was a war with no winners and Raven was held off at the edge of it. The two were many times larger than the stranded technocrat, and their aura sent mixed feelings of fear, anger, sadness and confusion towards her.
Yet she just couldn't reach them. A barrier kept her away. Invisible, yet solid to the touch not unlike a giant wall. Raven could only stare as the two carried on with their fight, yet their minions. They noticed her. It didn't matter which is which. Both sides sent a handful towards her, hitting the same massive obstacle she did.
Unknown to them, the pale ground beneath Raven's feet had advanced a few more meeters, pushing the wall further and letting the crowd through. Tendrils pierced through what seemed to be dirt and attached themselves to the manifestations of both combatants sucking the life out of them, rendering almost all to nothing but inanimate stone. All but one. A blue Vincent, pierced through the abdomen with the same affliction as the others slowly taking over.
Agh, nuts-... he barely managed to wheeze a few words out before falling on the ground, forced on a kneeling position while holding tightly against the wound with both hands. His blue aura beginning to fade away.
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Cowering as the two giant figurines swung in at her own manifestation, peering up after the metaphysical shield that seperated the sides. She reorientated herself, standing up, trying to walk over to investigate. She bellowed out as recognition settled in to affirm that it was him, that sound of desperation and loss of recognising their lost fellow friend being penetrated by the unknown force that lurked around,
"...Vincent! "
Hopelessly yelling out, she tried to gather his attention. Truly hoping that there was a way to reach out to him, one last time. But there was nothing to be done - there was no way to stop such petrification. A sense of hopeless, regret and betrayal plagued her aura.
Vincent straightened his back, whimpering in pain as the affliction slowly took over. He looked at Raven as he extended his right hand, exposing the rot growing inside his wound. With long breaths between his words he shouted out loud. She was relatively close to him, yet his vision was blurred. He lacked any depth perception in this state at this point.
That is- ... really- ... you!
His arm was extended towards her. Palm wide open as if he wished to feel her skin one more time despite knowing he won't have the time for it. It didn't take long before he had been fully petrified. He smiled at her before crumbling into pieces. A tear dripping from his left eye on the cheek.
Her presence in this realm had not gone unnoticed. The ground has begun tear itself apart. Pale green tendrils with pitch black and partly transparent ends emerged, wildly flailing themselves around to reach for anything in the vicinity. They erupted like a wave starting from the invisible wall and towards her, almost pushing Raven towards what was behind her. An imposing Cathedral which has outgrown the meager Temple it based out of. Metal fences with sharp endings circling its perimeter.
"Test the sharpness of your sword against another. And when that is not enough, unsheathe your cunning as the hidden dagger that ends the fight."
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