There was a brief silence as the green flame within the crystal flared up, illuminating the leering grin etched onto the crystal's surface, and then...
Vincent shook his head. The two tubes dangling from his helmet and under their own weight.
"Mmm...no. Are your senses getting dull now, old friend?" - he said almost mockingly followed by a light chuckle. - "For starters: who I was looking for and who you provided are different. Secondly that information was already passed along, so now you're just repeating yourself. And third? I wasn't talking about that."
The pale helmet he wore over his head leaned ever so slightly forward and to the side. A tilt, even, pointing at what he was truly looking after. A wool thread stretched and wrapped around two of his fingers. Frail and begging to be broken by an almost infantile instinct to see just how far it can go.
"And of course, Pygar. Two lovely topics. Aren't you excited, oh visitant mine?"
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"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."
It was true. His senses were dulled at the moment. He often kept his hand hidden, and there certainly was no need to explain himself. But, he reasoned, it would make things so much more interesting.
To clarify his point, he made his own threads visible. A knot of strings tied to the crystal numbering in the hundreds of millions at least. A hurricane of thread, and stretching away to the side were two great cables, bundles of these strings strung together into a greater string. In even intervals, groups of them would pull taught only to release again, not straining the crystal, but straining the man who was the crystal. And as quickly as he had made them visible, he made them invisible again.
"Careful what you wish for." - Vincent said dryly. - "You might just get what you want for the right price."
Contrary to popular belief, his words did not suggest a benevolent service. It was a mere jest done to enrich a fancy trick resting at the tip of his fingers. One string became two, then three, then four. Unlike The Gardener's way of doing things, Vincent had a direct say in people's lives. An influence some, if not most, could not easily ignore. What was most perplexing however, was that he didn't even need to lay claim on a power like the one a certain crystalline amalgam does.
Chances are that The Gardener made himself an apprentice out of Vincent's subconscious avarice. Someone to play a long and vicious game with, but from a different angle. A mere human with no real affinity to the psychic world or nomad-oriented wizardry so many Wild thralls claimed to benefit from in their pursuit of 'The Light'. Or, perhaps, Vincent has decided to expand his horizons - cross yet another line and bend the rules of engagement which he held close to his chest for so long. A strict code finally being bent in the pursuit of knowledge, survival and power. A challenger.
"But enough of that. Pygar remains an enigma that needs to be dealt with regardless of the outcome. The time is closing in - I hope you're not getting shy on me with intel."
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"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 sure are you of your own death?" - he asked, possibly empathizing with the freak before him.
Vincent threw another glance and the bundle of wool strings stretched thin within his grasp. The thought of finally attempting to claim them was tempting - if he knew how to do it right, that is. Dabbling in the occult was no strong suit of his. What was, however, was the simple action of a pulled trigger or a devastating punch into an enemy's carcass. His domain was so much simpler than what many others do.
As the riddle went on, he repeated every word to himself like an echo bouncing into a cave's every wall - or rather to his digital companion already calculating basic variables while he connected the dots.
"You could just wish to not die, you know. Looks like an obvious choice to make - let fate handle the rest."
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"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."
A black fog blew through on a wind that didn't exist. The Gardener himself didn't hold enough strength to project directly into Caliban's mind, so instead he projected the illusion onto the space around him. A single jade thread returned to being. Unlike the others, it did not fade as it stretched into the distance. It simply ended abruptly, cleanly cut. And behind the crystal body of the Gardener, a collection of gears jutted up from the fog. They turned, one tooth at a time, ticking forward like a massive clock, and the fog around them ticked forward too, swirling, whipping, and freezing in place.
Then, in an instant, the fog snapped backwards to reveal a picturesque scene: A rocky structure scoured with deep gouges, perhaps a tunnel, a cave, or a bunker. Laying against a wall, the body of the Gardener. Devoid of light, it seemed to be merely a deep indigo glass, opaque and smoky. It had been sliced cleanly hundreds of times, its limbs dissected into thousands of pieces, and the head and torso cleanly split in two from top to bottom. Hovering slightly above the ground in front of the Gardener's final corpse was the culprit. She looked like a painting inspired with only the words "youth" and "beauty". Silver hair suspended weightlessly in whatever power held her afloat, skin like fine white silk, so much that it nearly blended together with the white dress she wore. A multitude of glowing white tendrils extended from her back and coiled across the ground, walls, and ceiling.
For a brief moment there was only silence. The powerful doll was merely regarding the body of the recently deceased. Then her head snapped to the side, as if she could see the pair within the illusion. She raised a single finger to point at them, and a horrible chill set in. Just as quickly as she acted, the black fog that supported the illusion collapsed, revealing the walls of Lab C of the Wayfarer once again.
. . .
"...Asadrowningmanlovesthesea,Caliban...", he reminded him.
"Oh, fuck off." - his words were neither radiating with finesse or a characteristic sass. They were like a battering ram landing the final hit on a brick wall - breaking it down in an avalanche of rocks.
He only turned away to leave after removing his hand cannon from the holster. A proud gun whose bullet gnawed at The Gardener's crystalline form, then quieted down with a starved, dying bellow. It barely left a mark yet the message was sent: frustration. In the wake of his footsteps a foul miasma rose. An oppressive presence nested within the partially mended mind of a once innocent scientist.
Its ascension happened with a certain fluidity as it rose from the floor's microscopic cracks and scratches with The Gardener's beastly appearance at its side - a small pet to be caressed with a gentle hand. Those who knew the presence would call it 'The Watcher'. One who sees all and mimics all - a distant witness and enforcer of Harbinger's will.
It laughed with a thousand voices, and with it, The Gardener. For the provided amusement it was offered a piece of information in return. One known to its host for a long time, not yet manifested because of a simple truth: only Harbinger decides when. Smog engulfed the laboratory once more. Any fetid smell the real amalgam could imagine, it sensed, and before his crystalline shell stood Caliban. Held by the neck with a body ravaged by extensive damage, then cast aside into a bottomless pit - life drained long before. The one who did this vile deed was eerily familiar with a certain libertonian sporting an Elder's miasma.
A most abrupt wind waved this vision away, then brought another: Caliban holding his dearest, begging an almost celestial, godly being for salvation only to find out too late that no help would come. In return he would face the same fate at the end of an inconceivable weapon that hardly resembles anything made by either human or alien hands. Such dramatic end made The Watcher shed a crocodile's tear and flick away the vision before it could end, only to let a third take shape. This one was more real than the others, and so much simpler. Almost as if it were an ideal dream.
Caliban stood tall, smiling at Sho'zak's gentler form with a gun raised against her small, fragile skull. A bright flash painted the wall behind with her insides, thus ending a story before it even began. Behind the merc stood a beast most vile - Gardener himself. Claws digging deep into Caliban's circuitry, tearing in his torso and enraged by a fate stripped away. A fiendish bellow shook the cave to its core while a humble witness stood in the distance, accepting oblivion knowing that they can finally close this book and join the void with a smile on their face.
"Asadrowningmanlovesthesea."
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"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."
A ghostly excitement spread through the Wayfarer no matter how hard the Gardener tried to mute it. If he still had a heart, it would be racing. He had tried to keep tabs on Caliban's parasite, but with his low psychic power, it had proven difficult. All the information he had on it was that which Sh'ozak had made known to the mindshare. She thought it was a split-voice, an effect akin to a growing pain when Nomads engage in cognitive mitosis. But Gardener knew a parasite when he saw one. After all, he was the perfect parasite. Often times, he thought about consuming Hans or one of the lesser Lights, but there were far too many drawbacks for it to be worth it. Mindshare connection was too fast, they'd notice a betrayal in an instant, and destroy him as quickly as he acted. He needed something unconnected. Powerful, but inexperienced. Perhaps cut from the cloth of an Elder. And now, that opportunity finally moved in a visible way.
A lesser parasite; a perfect prey.
The Gardener's vicious psychic nature had a single major drawback: it required participation from his target to make full use of it. Although he had honed his craft to a state that blurred the lines between psychic effects and rewriting reality and the future itself, he did not have the power bank necessary to start his technique on his own. The rattle that started up when he began speaking was the universe's unspoken warning to his victims that they had engaged enough to empower him, that they had given him the momentum needed to move. And now, in this moment, by responding in kind, by including itself directly, The Watcher had fallen for the same trap that so many before have, and so many after would.
In a snap, a space-between-spaces was established between the Watcher and the Gardener, locking itself to the two of them. An under-developed bridge between minds, exactly how he needed it. Expanding it into a true mindscape runs the risk of Order scanners detecting Nomad energy, so a mere expanse of grey rock and black sky made up the horizon here, the ground plagued with wisps of the same black fog that the two of them used. More importantly, this null-space gave Gardener a direct access to the Watcher, bypassing Caliban's mind and Caliban's notice.
In the silence, the wisps of fog crawled together to make an inky black pool. From it, a single hand thrust up from the puddle of fog, and came crashing down to grip the ground. Following this, the manifestation of the Gardener, the form he held in his own mind, dragged himself from the darkness: A brolic Rheinlander in baggy white pants, tied to his waist with a red ribbon. He stood up straight, and whipped his golden-blonde hair back to reveal eyes that gleamed the signature blue of the Nomads. He held off on displaying his aura, as it was better to keep his cards face down until he needed to use them. Unlike in his own mind, where the Nomad overlay of himself smoothly swirled across his skin in marbled moats, here he had glistening blue and purple tattoos that crisscrossed their way up his arms and legs, across his chest and torso, around his jaw and face, and a single line that formed a circlet around his temple and forehead. The circlet tattoo had a gap in the exact center of his forehead. The ordered, organized display of his two-part self was a result of focusing, not allowing his mind to wander.
As the fog clung to his pants, all he did was cross his arms and laugh. It echoed in the empty realm, a taunt, loudly proclaimed. When he had finished, he simply stood there, grinning with equal parts malice and arrogance. He had heard the claim "only Harbinger decides when". With this act, he gave his rebuttal and challenge:
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The Watcher's gaze glazed over this amalgam's chosen form, then over the room he was "contained" in. It could not reply with the same kind of excitement that The Gardener had. That fire was merely sizzling on the surface of its chosen form: a being made of thick, sickening smog whose lower torso faded as its feet reached the floor it stood on and a set of pale, absent eyes, meant to capture every small move rather than focus on one singular thing. Horizontal strings glittered with a sickening teal glow. Its hands split into a myriad of smaller tendrils flowing against a wind that was never there while the legs could almost join into one singular limb behind smog of the same color as the frail strings stretching out like a web.
"You misunderstand this one's purpose, fiend." - its speech had a notoriously sporadic cadence which altered between fast and chaotic to slow and calculated on a whim as it held a stoic posture. - "Your victory lacks a guarantee or benefit. Father's ambitions extend far beyond your own, so much so that you will never meet Him the way you expect to, if ever. As for This One..."
Harbinger's servant took a minute to ponder. The possibility of active conflict was a concept not far from reality, so further thought had to be put into every move. Every word measured to befit one worthy to serve Harbinger himself.
"...is a mere witness to your grandeur, your ambitions." - The Watcher caressed once more the small "pet" beside it. "After all. You are such an enriching companion to have. A trove of diabolically fine topics."
Once it stopped speaking, the intoxicating smog began to fade from existence - the connection they had until now was being severed slowly but surely. The ship shook yet again - this time with a low hum. It wasn't long until one of the droids entered the Lab C to pick up some of the pre-existing projects tossed away in what was humorously dubbed as 'the trash pile'. Before The Gardener knew it, this droid was already done emptying the room of what was of value, thus leaving only the large crystal and a bunch of failed experiments. Among such failed "batteries" still emanating a wiff of nomad energy and the three droids that were tortured by Caliban for reasons yet to be disclosed.
The Watcher had no mouth, yet one could almost see a smile run across what could be perceived as its face as soon as the lab's door closed.
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"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."
