Fool's Gold, Part 2

Well, at least there wasn't a crunching noise. The dull meaty THWACK didn't sound or feel good, but crunching would have been worse. Though the chained wrists (As Ash was now chained to a wall) made taking the fist harder, moreso that it was coated in flint.

"...Never start with the head. The victim gets all fuzzy. He can't feel the next..." WHY THE HELL ARE YOU QUOTING THAT YOU MORON DID SHE ALREADY GIVE YOU BRAIN DAMAGE.

"Shut the fuck up."

The brunette woman was clearly in no mood to take any shit. If the first punch didn't clue Ash in on that, then the second one would. That one bounced his head off the wall.

"...so is'this what basses for entertainment nyo?"

Another thump, this time to the gut, forced an "Oof!" as the wind was knocked out of him.

"I said shut up!" snapped the woman, glaring daggers. "Or do you want me to go for your fucking jaw next?"

Ash actually did not reply, mainly because he needed to regain his breath. Instead, he just stared with bleary eyes. The woman was small, compact. She clearly needed her rock fists to do any serious damage: even if she'd had some training in boxing, she lacked the proper body type to really punch with any power. She'd be better off learning a defensive martial art, like aikido, though aikodo wouldn't let you beat someone up when they were chained to a wall. Why was she doing it? Had Ivan gotten bored and delegated? Or maybe he thought he was being clever based on certain things...

She snorted. "Thank Chakravartin, I thought I was going to go mad. Now, where was I...?"

She paced back and forth, eying the body on front of her. Ash might have appreciated it, had he not known she was simply scanning for a fresh place to hit. Then again, given his current condition, he might not have appreciated any of it at all.

"Hmmm. Maybe the liver next. The boss always aims for that..."

"Is your boss' boss pissed I told him the truth or...?"

PUNCH.

"Nooopppeeee...guess nottttt..." Ash said, sucking air between his teeth.

"I said," snarled the woman, "shut the fuck up! Can't you take a Mantra-damned hint in your life, or are you literally retarded?!

"...heh, wouldn't surprise me, actually." To Ash's immense relief, she stood back and away from him, out of punching distance, to admire her handiwork. "You'd have to have the IQ of a cowpat to try and fight us. That, or a death wish the size of a small planet."

"We have found something."

Another time. No chains, no punches, instead just a seat at a table, but perhaps worse in a way. Ash hadn't liked the look in Godfather's eye the second he'd seen it.

"There are mines in the chasm we came out in. Useless minerals, or so we thought...then one of our less...intelligent members became grossly intoxicated and decided to...nasally inhale some of them once they were crushed, on a dare. The results were...surprising."

"Are they still alive?"

"They have some injuries from when their wood control accidentally caused the building they were in to collapse when they accidentally pulled it out of the ground with a thought. An object-moving process sixteen times outside their previously assessed maximum weight limit."

"...purple and blue crystals? Almost wet to the touch, found in dark crumbly clay?"

"Yes."

"...It's best used...crushed and mixed with salt...and then mixed with distilled water...and injected right into the bone marrow."

"...and why should we believe any of this?" If you quirked Godfather's eyebrow any higher here, it would fly off her face. "After all the effort I wasted in getting you to talk, suddenly you're just giving this information to us?"

"Because that's not some random magic crystal. That's the basis for Wunderwuffe you just stumbled over. And the only way you can safely use Wunderwaffe is if it's purified. Like wine, that takes years, and no Blackbird in my world is going to trade that information or service with invaders. And I know you're going to insist on taking it, because like you said. It made your stupid experimenting minion several times stronger. Has he or she started manifesting psychotic tendencies yet? Because that's sort of what happens when you ingest a high grade combat steroid equivalent."

"Kou?" Godfather laughed, and waved a hand dismissively. "Oh, whatever~! It's nice to see him be more assertive for once, instead of being a limp-worsted dork! Also, the way he threw his lab assistant through a window was funny as scheiße!"

Then her demeanor changed, as thoughts began to creep along her brain like a centipede on the prowl.

"...if it works for him, surely... Yes, I don't see why not...

"Is there any way," she asks, no longer muttering, "to speed that process up? I haven't got years to work with, you know! I'm a busy woman!"

"Please don't use it. I am asking you not just for my world's sake, but your world and your people."

In response, the Don of the Magpies cupped a hand to her ear.

"What's that? I can't hear you over the sound of money not being made! It sounds like a little blond-haired boy whining that the other kids are playing with his toys!"

"...I'm being quite serious." Ash said. "Wunderwaffe takes years to adapt to. It provokes excessive aggression, it destroys rational thought...I don't even know what it will DO to people like you. It might be poisonous. Do you want to play Marie Curie?"

"I don't know who that is."

"Do you want to hop up your people on drugs and then find them killing each other or keeling over dead of heart attacks?"

For a moment, Ash thought he saw something change in Godfather. In her eyes, the hazy cloud of self-obsessed, childish glee seemed to give way to what semblance of rational thought must have continued to drive her on the path of madness and law-breaking. She seemed to seriously ponder his words for a moment, not just casually dismiss them as though they were somebody else's problems. And, for a moment, it flared a spark of hope.

He might be getting through to her...

Then the raven-haired woman turned to an aide standing in a corner.

"Clerk," she snapped, "take a note, send it via InfoTube to Kou and Saguaro's divisions. 'Side effects of new compound reported by captive to be dangerous. Devote 50% of resources to finding a counter-compound to alleviate them. Also, broken window coming out of paycheck.'"

The aide did as told, scribbling out her message on a sheet of note paper before dashing off somewhere. After a pause, the woman turned back to Ash, clapping her hands together, and the selfish child was back in all her glory.

"So! Anything else you want to share? Or are we done with the whole 'doom and gloom forecast' routine?"

"If you start using Wunderwuffe on your troops, you will cause panic."

"You're no fun. Ironsides!"

In the corner, the sound of metal grinding against itself announced Ivan's standing to attention. "Da, madam?"

"Take the useless jerk back to his cell. Oh, and Ivan?"

Godfather's eyes flashed dangerously. Shadows swirled about her feet.

"No more 'private interrogations'. Understood?"

A brief scrape told Ash Ivan had clearly flinched or stiffened at this. Huh. So the big lug was afraid of something, after all.

"...Ponyal."

"Ma'am?" Ash said, having gone quiet. "May I ask YOU a question?"

"Stellen entfernt." (Ask away)

"What did your people tell you about my capture?"

"...that my forces overwhelmed you, despite the fight you put up. Lost a lot of good men, though. Why, is this important?"

"Is it?"

"I don't know," cried Godfather in irritation. "I thought you'd tell me if it was!"

"...just take me back to my cell."

Ivan's massive paw clamped on Ash's shoulder and began to drag him from the room. As he crossed the threshold of the room, though, the blond got a good last look of the black-haired leader turning her back on him, muttering audibly under her breath.

"What a spinös, honestly..."

And oh look, Ivan had taken that moment to enter the room Ash was currently in. His most recent abuser was apparently a subordinate of some sort. Ash just looked dully at Ivan, who towered over his female aide.

"Ash Marsello, Exa-"

Punch.

"...You suck at your job. Both of you." Ash mumbled, before hacking a glob of blood on the floor.

"Says the man with a bruised liver and maybe internal bleeding," Countered the woman with a sneer.

"Great if you just want me to suffer...oh yes, your boss doesn't want me to suffer. QED."

THUMP. That was probably the ribcage that bent horribly, there.

"Godfather isn't my boss," spat his assailant. "Ivan is. You think I take a direct order from that cuckoo? That's like if that sick fuck Muerto told me to drag you over to his place and feed you to one of his pets! And Morpheus knows I'm not doing that!"

"And Ivan's boss...is Godfather." Ash said, like he was stating 'the sky is blue'. "Ivan at least...I get. Why are you so mad at me?"

The woman looked at him as though he'd grown three heads.

"...okay, from the top." She lifted one rock-coated hand, the stone grating as she counted on her fingers. "One. You never shut up. Two. You're a fucking smart-aleck, and normally that's all the excuse I need. And three," she finished, clenching a fist, "Ivan's been getting cranky with this idiotic botch-job of an operation, and if I don't do this then he's going to take it out on me. And it's your fault for being the motor-mouth wiseacre with the mental capacity of slug shit who put him in that mood to begin with."

Analysis complete, she folded her arms and awaited whatever response Ash could devise. She honestly looked as though she thought that was enough to silence him.

"...Just let me go."

It was rare for Ivan to look goggle-eyed. Ash couldn't speak for the woman.

"I have pull in my world. We'll sign a peace treaty. We'll give you lots of supplies and treasure. You can take your people back and this can end peacefully, and Ivan can get the credit for getting what you want without wasting manpower or resources."

Hannah opened her mouth to speak-

"No."

-and was shoved roughly aside by Mr. Silver, bouncing off a wall as she went. The metallic form of the Russian loomed over Ash, glaring visibly beneath the faceplate.

"Do you think, little bastard," growled Ivan, "that we are stupid enough as to fall for trick like that? We cannot simply let you go on your worthless word! Where is guarantee you will not simply run off and bring back army to crush us?"

"But on the other hand," Hannah suddenly snapped back, picking herself from the floor, "how do we know he'd even do that?! He already got his ass kicked hard enough to bruise - he can't be stupid enough to risk open warfare with us!"

By way of response, Ivan rounded on her, fists clenched and an angry snarl building. The smaller woman flinched, but otherwise remained upright.

"I gave you my word." Ash's voice was tense.

"Word of dead man is worth nothing," snapped Ivan, rounding back on Ash. "You attack us and decimate our forces! And you think we let you go on just your word?!"

"Oh, be fucking reasonable!" Hannah moved, as if to intercept whatever the bigger man had planned. "Maybe he means it! We can beat anything he's got, surely we can-"

CRUNCH.

When Ivan's elbow retracted, Hannah was doubled over and screaming into the hands over her face. Blood dribbled from around nose level between her fingers.

"Forgive my assistant," rumbled Mr. Silver, almost casually. "She is new, and does not understand Magpie code."

It was funny that Ivan mentioned a lack of understanding just then. There were a few things he did not grasp himself.

One was the fact that Ash's cells were prisons designed to block the powers of Ubers. The Magpies had discovered that they seemed to work on Stream users as well, to a degree. After all, Ash hadn't tried to break out, had he? So surely he couldn't.

Another was the fundamental difference on how accessing the energy of the Stream affected people from Ash's world per how superpowers worked on theirs. The downside of excessive Stream use was Immersion, a condition similar to radiation poisoning...but the upside before you got to that point was a gradual increase in a body's strength and endurance.

The third was how a human body worked. Specifically, how it operated under a certain set of limits to prevent damaging itself. Crisis situations disabled those limits, which is how you had mothers lifting cars to save their children, as went the classic example. The body could function at three to five times its maximum capacity, at the downside of the fact that doing so would actively damage the body, and sooner rather than later. Hence, it was incredibly difficult to consciously disable those limits, which is why one often needed an outside source. Like alcohol.

Or overwhelming rage.

The end result was that when Ivan, having innately turned his head to look at his handiwork (or elbowwork, technically), turned back, he found Ash had broken the chains off the wall.

He also found that instead of Ash's punch futilely breaking his fingers on Ivan's faceplate, the end result was more like someone had swung a mace full on into his face. Not normally a problem...if Ivan had been expecting it. He had NOT been expecting that, and hence even he was staggered.

Ash promptly got around him, grabbing him by the head, his hand finding a fair grip in the various shifting indentations of Ivan's armor, and began smashing Ivan's face into the also-metal wall. Hard. Hard enough to leave indentations. And with every slam, a snarling word.

"MEN-DON'T-TREAT-WOMEN-LIKE-THAT!!!!!"

Alas, snapping in rage could only do so much for Ash. It did not help him when Hannah Vallis (Codename: Rubble) instinctively panicked and slugged Ash in the back of the head with her rock-coated fist. Ash's offensive cut off like a switch, as he slumped and then finally collapsed, knocked cold.As said, not seeing punches coming made them count for a lot.

Slowly, Ivan staggered back upright, looking as though he'd just woken up from a bad dream. His eyes were wide behind his mask, wide with an almost childish fear, and for a moment he simply stood there, breathing in ragged, rapid gasps. The front of his mask was almost caved in, crumpled and fractured in multiple places.

A long pause.

"...you alright, boss?" Hannah eventually piped up. "You look like-"

"Dismissed."

Hannah blinked. "Wh-?"

"You are dismissed," rumbled Ivan, almost like his old self again, "until further notice. Clean up here, but leave at once afterwards." And whirling on his heel, the steel-clad criminal marched from the room, his footsteps heavy with barely-contained rage masking his brief vision of terror.

Hannah stared after him, hesitating.

Then she looked down at Ash's unconscious form.

-------

When Ash next awoke, he'd have found his meal of the day on the bedside table, back in his cell instead of the interrogation room. Accompanying it was a note.

"I'll bring it up with the Council. It'll be something for them to chew on, at least.
- H."

The Eternal Recurrence, Part 2

"Do you believe in time travel, Sheena?"

"No." Sheena said, not even bothering to look up at Aria Cudjoists as she fed data into her Universal Pathfinding Lattice. The purple-skinned Teemer woman looked cross, knocking on the table with her three-fingered hand. "What? No, I don't. It's impossible."

"Right to impossible. Why are you so dull, Sheena?"

"I'm dull in imagination so I won't be dull in wits. It helps me know that time travel is just imagination." Sheena said. The alien adjusted her Pinpoints, special scanning glasses that were required whenever transport was being sent through the Subtle Folds. "And don't bring up lightspeed travel. That's not traveling through time, that's putting yourself in stasis, more or less. Backwards time travel is impossible."

"Why?"

"Well, for one, it violates every law of conventional physics."

"Said the woman standing next to the gateway to another dimension we use to transport cargo."

"We don't know WHAT the Folds are. I think if they were just another dimension, they wouldn't completely reject organic matter and we wouldn't have to spend so many Ours making sure anything we try and send through is free of it." Sheena said, using a slang term for 'man-hours' or as the politically correct business term was, 'organic hours', as not every species abided by the human concept of gender. "But I digress."

"You digress all the time. Your name is a slang term for rambling in the break room."

"Go figure." Sheena finished downloading the main data and began swapping in the programs she'd be using on this mission. "My point. We can't go faster than light, and traveling lightspeed means that if you want to get anywhere, by the time you get there everyone who wanted your stuff is long-dust. Sending people the long, slow way is even worse, if you've read our company's records."

"Yeah yeah."

"My point....again. The universe is DAMN BIG. We have so much trouble getting around it without building civilization ships, which, again, have some really big risks..."

"Yes, yes, Sheena. You are aware people overstate the risks and experiences of pandorum, right? People who feel safer are more likely to take risks, and our bosses hate risks."

"Overstatement or not, pandorum exists. And it's damn ugly. It's why we don't transport things the slow way any more. Eight times out of ten, the isolation of space got into their heads. And you can't just pull a Lightning Cage out of one's rectum, so going through the Folds is equally hard. Point being, the universe is BIG."

"What does that have to do with time travel?"

"Theories follow two rules about time travel. One's the paradox theory, negating your own actions. People have no idea what could happen if someone did that, some theories go all the way up to the universe completely being destroyed. We're not here, so either time travel is impossible or the theories are overstating things. And honestly, people understate the paradox theory. It's not just about large things like killing your own ancestors. You're still foreign matter inserting yourself into a time where you did not naturally exist. Just by going back you should cause a paradox, let alone trying to change the past. So that leaves the other theory. The multiverse theory. That going back in time and changing something just creates an alternate universe where your alteration played out."

"...And you think that's impossible."

"Look at the universe, Aria. How BIG it is, how much STUFF is in it, countless COUNTLESS processes over billions of years...and you're saying that if I went back in time and killed Be'Lunge, another universe that is almost an exact duplicate would just....spring into existence? All that matters and energy and STUFF, just...appearing? Grell...forget time travel. By the logic of that theory, everything that does anything with anything less than 100 percent success and devotion is creating new universes. I can't fathom ONE new universe just popping into existence, let alone TRILLIONS. It's too big, Aria. People just don't understand the SCALE. They don't understand until you're moving forward through the void to get somewhere and for day after day, week after week, month after month there's nothing but NOTHING...so no. Time travel is impossible. The basic laws of reality can't abide by it. Some things we figured out how to get around. Some things we never will. People don't understand impossible. They apply it to things like winning a Hensworth. That's not impossible, that's just HARD. Impossible is eating a star."

"Man, Sheena, if you'd been in charge your people would still be in caves eating bugs."

"I'm giving my opinion. Just because my ancestors thought fire was magic and lightning came from gods doesn't mean they could never understand the truth. Maybe there's still walls to push through. But from what I've learned to do our job, Aria...I think this is it. So speaking of, I have to actually DO my job." Sheena said, as she hauled a backpack out of her locker and began consulting the oval-shaped black carrying case she had been given by her unnamed employers.

"You really should tell the bosses what's in that."

"Why? So they can freak out and cancel the transport and muddy my name? Screw that. We got hired, they sent me, I'm using my best judgement and concluding I can transport it. Besides, I know what it is."

"The base scans came back with nothing."

"I checked what kind of nothing. Making an educated guess, it's antimatter."

"Antimatter's restricted."

"True, which would be a problem if I could CONFIRM it was antimatter. I can't, they wouldn't tell me what it was, just that it wasn't a weapon, a toxin, or a disease. The rest falls under our discretion guarantee. Beyond that is just me guessing and the fact I want the damn commission from this. Besides, why should I worry?"

"It's RESTRICTED. And antimatter can be used as a weapon."

"It's also forbidden for use as a weapon. EVERYONE follows the Cink Accords. Everyone. They might be twisting and breaking every other rule, but Cink's laws are damn near sacred. Anyone who steals it will be assumed to use it as a weapon, and hence they'll become an instant pariah even if they don't. This war won't last forever, and whatever the Psychopomps and Cornfeds think, they don't want to be the side that everyone hates when the war's over. I'm guessing some rich twit just wants a faster ship, or a Lightning Cage. What do I care if some idiot kid splats himself against the barrier of the Folds? I have a living to make."

"So ignorance is bliss."

"People who stick those noses into things end up with spited faces." Sheena said, finally settling on a side-bag. "We only get one trip around this life, and like I said, it's damn big. People who make up stories don't have the guts to go out and make the world into what they want. So I'll do my job so I can. I've followed procedure. You can pull up the reports and sign offs and check them if you want. I've got a green light and I have to go."

"Just go, boring girl." The alien said, turning her attention back to her work. "But don't come crying to me if you end up in trouble."

"Unlike some of our agents, I take our rules seriously. I don't even carry weapons on my person, because that's against the charter." Sheena said. "If I get in trouble, it's the universe being stupid, not me."

---

"It's amusing how the ones with a little knowledge and understanding always so greatly overreach."

"We didn't select her for her intelligence. She has sufficient talent and self-interest for this job and she doesn't want to know more details. All the same, we'd best provide some surreptitious assistance. The odds of this not having already leaked are non-existant."

"The shell?"

"Oblique Focus. She won't want the package to open, so even if the carrying case breaks, the shell will hold. Even if she dies, her desire will keep the Immutable sealed until we can retrieve it. Though it would be best if she DIDN'T die...the next carrier might actually want to ask questions."

"She was right, there. Asking questions brings nothing but grief."

"Unfortunately for her, grief is not so easily thwarted, I suspect."

---

Six Days Later.

If Sheena had had breath to spare, she would have run out of curse words by now. As it was, she had to focus her anger, and her breath, into flying.

She hadn't been too worried when she thought she was being followed. Even if she didn't expect trouble, anything in the life of a Twiddler that raised their hackles meant that they should treat it like incoming trouble, even if it just turned out to be paranoia. She'd invoked deceptive measures, and started popping Thousands to keep herself awake...

Then they'd come out of the star. Her transport ship was one of many generic space junks lugging more junk from here to there, her name wasn't on the transport listing for passengers, she'd crossed a few palms to ensure it...and they'd shown up anyway. Who was it? Reclaiments? Pirates? Stalkers? Maybe a Bulge or two? Whoever they were, they didn't give demands, they didn't try and board, they didn't say that their destructive acts were for one side or the other, or any of the score of sides in between. They'd just opened fire and turned the ship into outright junk. Bad enough...

But when Sheena had launched her escape pod, they'd ignored all the other pods that had made it and zeroed in on hers. Which pretty much said it all, even if Sheena had no idea at all what was going on. And who cared? They wanted her package, and she was stuck in a NS-900DI sphere-based vehicle. While the 'Nosedive' was technically a small spaceship and very much flyable in deep space and in atmosphere, it WAS designed to escape from disaster after all...disasters didn't chase you. For things that chased you, the Nosedive could have been a lot better.

Gods, the universe was so stupid.

A Love That Crushes Like A Mace

-Then-

"Alright, here's the lowdown."

Sam never was that fond of the Kingsguard. Mostly, he just found their presence annoying - which was in itself an annoyance, considering they were literally everywhere across the globe. And whenever they turned up, they had a habit of trying to ensure he did things "by the book", which was even more annoying. But he had to admit, a lot of the situations he ended up in could have gone a lot worse, had they not been around, so in that respect they were a rather big help.

Right now, listening to the bristle-chinned sergeant in front of him would be an even bigger help.

"Regenerators," he was growling in a voice like Steven Blum ate too much pepper. "We don't know how they work, and we can't say if they're Ubers. All we know is that they're damn near impossible to kill - can grow back anything in mere seconds. Limbs, organs, bone, the whole shebang. And if one goes rogue, that's bad news for us."

He looked back and forth amongst the recruits, sitting at their desks in front of him. All of them were paying keen attention - looking, in Sam's mind, like a bunch of wax dummies in over-polished battle armour. If there was one good thing that the Destined Hero position granted, it was the position of not being a faceless mook.

Nobody spoke, so the sergeant went on.

"So I want to make this very clear to you all. The only way to kill them is by destroying the brain. If you get that, they die instantly - like zombies, although Chakram knows if these guys count. Anywhere else is wasting effort, lasers, spears and lives. Simple as. If you ever encounter one of these things, a clean shot to the head is the difference between life and death."

His voice raises as the class, disturbed by what they were seeing, began to murmur in apprehension.

"You hear me, lads? What do we do?!"

The reply comes in a roar. "GO FOR THE HEAD!"

"Damn right, you do."

---

-Now-

She'd said hold back and follow her when the shadows had come. Shadows with faces he hadn't known, but she had, ones she'd tried to deal with with a grim look...

Then the ground had cracked open under him, and the boiling steam had engulfed him. Not a huge issue with starfire-based heat resistance...but when he finally got the sense of solid ground back, he'd lost Christine.

Alone again, naturally.Lost on a  place Christine told him no one went. A bad place that she was only gracing with her presence because she wanted to rescue a group that had been flying in an airship and had the terrible luck of crashing there...

"Cocking shit!" were the first words that left Sam's mouth when he realized the situation. This was getting to be more than a little aggravating, and he was starting to wish he'd never picked up the Grandius and responded to that distress signal in the first place. Ever since he'd got here, it had been a parade of cock-ups, misfortune and idiocy...

Well, minus one constant benefit. But she wasn't here.

"Christine?!" he hollered out, drawing that now-cursed blade as he scanned the area. "Where are you?!"

Silence, save for the constant low roar of a geologically unstable area.

"...fuck this."

Sam immediately turned and headed in a random direction. Outside, it looked like he was throwing an angry temper tantrum, but there was a shred of logic in this madness - hopefully, he'd run into the cause of this mess. And then he was going to ram his foot down it's throat for ruining what had already started as a shitty day and was getting even worse...

"Let's try to make it right...don't wanna start a fight..."

...Singing.

"And I'm so sorry if I give you all a little fright..."

There was absolutely no way with the background racket of Megan's Woe that he could hear quiet singing...especially since he couldn't pinpoint a direction. It seemed like the singing was coming from inside his own ears.

"I'm not so scary if you see me in the daylight..."

Shame about the situation. It actually was a pretty nice voice...

Like a siren.

"I'll be so happy just as long as you survive the night..."

Still, fuck. Singing. That was just giving Sam flashbacks to the time he'd first encountered Dallas. The blond was sure he'd drank enough beer to forget that particular memory.

Biting back a groan of frustration, Sam tried his best to pinpoint where the noise was coming from. It was good singing, he had to admit, but in the current environment it wasn't doing much for his mood.

"Let's try to make it right
Just wanna start a blight
And I'm so sorry if I
Give you all a little fright
I'm not so scary if you see me in the daylight
I'll be so happy just as long as
You survive the night..."

There was no real surprise. Sam saw the shadow through a fog of mist for several seconds before it emerged. It was female, and at first Sam hoped it was Christine. Then he realized it was too short, and didn't have her weapons.

Then she stepped through.

The thing Sam recalled later was just how impossibly perfect the white of her clothing was, white that matched the perfect whiteness of her hair. It drew attention away from her face...and the fact that her outfit didn't look like cloth. It looked like flayed skin, covering everything save her face. Her normal face...

And the brilliant, happy, void of her eyes. Sam remembered a few of the female Kobbers when they were laughing, that bright glint in their eyes...a brightness gone terribly, TERRIBLY wrong here. The hairs on the back of his neck didn't just stand up, it felt like they were trying to leap off his skin and run away. Wrong, WRONG, bad bad BAD...

"Hey there! How ya doin'? Nice to meet you, are you new in town?"

Such a normal voice, on the edge between talking and singing. A friendly wave.

"Don't think I've seen you before. It's great to see new faces around!"

"Um... yeah. Good to see you, too. I guess."

Oh, Chakram above, bad vibes. Bad vibes crawling all down the neck and back like spiders. Keep one hand on sword, keep muscles tense, look for possible ways out... What do you mean 'ways out', Sam, it's a wide-open plain! She might be able to catch you, who knows what she can do?

Alright, here goes...

"So... who are you, anyway?"

"If you like it, I can give a tour..." Wait that wasn't an answer..."Of this enchanting wonderland, new and improved, without the moores!"

She was still singing. What she was saying was rhyming...

And she was now next to him, standing to his side, one arm draped chummily over his shoulders.

"There's no escape but then, who would wanna leave?"

He felt like he was embracing the floor of an abattoir. Sam jerked away, as a distorting fog rolled over the woman.

"It's a fantastical paradise..." Her hand plunged through the fog, waving it away and solidifying her person, as if condemning any concept this could be a mirage. "And it's not, make-believe!"

...yeah, this wasn't looking good. Better nip this in the bud now, before a chorus line of demons in Vaudeville hats showed up or something. Like Disney gone wrong.

"Okay, I've had enough. Grandius: Priority Two!"

PARAMETERS RECOGNIZED.

And with a flick of the wrist, the sword was sent shrieking like a rocket towards the woman, point first.

"I'm so glad to have another member of the band..." She wasn't even reacting to the incoming blade. "You're one of them now, so let me take you by the hand!"

An offered hand. Just as she'd said. Innocent lost, like even light could not escape a black hole.

The sword went deep, piercing right through her lower chest, impaling her like an insect under glass.

...She just smiled.

"But what is that I spy, with my all seeing eye?"

This wasn't like Diana. If Sam had witnessed that, he would have recognized that her injuries still hurt terribly; she was just enduring it. But this woman?

She was happy.

Then she started pulling his sword out.

Vertically. Up THROUGH her body. The flow of blood became a shower. Blood that was so impossibly, impossibly red.

"I think I see a bit of heart inside the new guy!"

The Grandius was called back to him. That was Sam's take. He didn't like the other idea, that the sword FLED the woman's hand once it was free. It shook off the blood on the way there, the liquid boiling and hissing on the ground. Due to the heat. Sam accepted it was due to the heat...

"Maybe he isn't everything that he seems..."

She was self-cleaved. It wasn't affecting her at all. Then she reached inside herself. The snapping wet noises as she yanked out pieces of herself all at once would have normally made him sick, except the sight of it rapidly pushed him past nausea, the bones and muscles retracted forming into a scythe-like axe as the woman's horrific wound closed up, all that remained that it existed was the blood covering her form and her smile.

"Time to investigate, WHAT'S UNDERNEATH THE SEAMS!"

"...urp."

No, Sam, not the time to throw up! Time to actually do stuff! if this woman wants a fight, then give it to her!

"...if you wanted a fight, you should have just said so."

The former Destined Hero quickly took up his traditional fighting stance. But as he did so, he yanked with one hand on the handle, drawing out the concealed knife with the over-theatrical snikt he'd come to completely ignore over the years. Could never be too careful, right?

There was a very brief moment of relief when she attacked him and he fought back; she was fighting normally. She might have literally yanked a weapon out of her own body, but she was just swinging it like anyone else Sam had ever crossed swords with, as she hacked and chopped and smirked her way through an exchange of blows...

("Let's try to make it right
Don't wanna start a fight
And I'm so sorry if I
Give you all a little fright...
I'm not so scary if you see me in the daylight
I'll be so happy just as long as
You survive the night...")

No demon chorus line. Just the singing, in his ear, when he wasn't hearing the sound of his own breath...

...He was starting to tire.

Oh, he could still go for a while if he had to, Sam had excellent stamina (Chastity could attest to that)...but he was still STARTING to tire.

And she wasn't. In the slightest. Just as every wound he inflicted closed up. In the deepest coldest part of his stomach, Sam rapidly realized he was facing a perpetual motion machine. There was no end to this.

("Let's try to make it right
Just wanna stain the white
And I'm so sorry if I
Give you all a little fright...
I'm not so scary if you see me in the daylight
I'll be so happy just as long as
You survive the night...")

She didn't want him to live through any period of time. She wanted him...to last.

For who knew what horrors lurked in those bright, consuming eyes.

Sam did not want to know what those horrors were, He just wanted this whole thing to stop so he could find Christine and get out of this wretched hell-hole. But he was going to tire himself out at this rate - it was obvious that a straight-up sword fight was not the answer here.

Okay, then. Time to cheat.

Parrying another swing of the axe, Sam leaped back to get some distance...

"Hey, how about you sing one of my favorites?"

Let the power flow...

"BURN, BABY, BURN!"

And let fly with as much solar fire as he could muster, sheets of blazing death...

Which she wasn't around for. In the moment of his declaration, she'd vanished and appeared by his side again...

Putting an arm around him again. This time, Sam felt like he was embracing a porcupine. His body didn't actually get hurt, it wasn't an attack, but his mind and soul revolted at her touch.

"Forgive me for being suspicious, mischief's not on my brain..."

An elbow to the face to drive her away. A jaw shattering and dislocating, cheekbone snapping, eye popping. He hadn't hit her that hard, he COULDN'T hit that hard...

A hand to pop the jaw back in, the damage fading away...

"I'm inclined to be dramatic, if someone messes with the frame..."

"What the hell are you?" Sam said.

"It's not that I don't trust you, I do! (I love you, too.) It's just that, as an Elite...We have a few rules."

"The hell is an Elite?"

Her response was to go for his throat.

Sam's response was to show she wasn't the only one who could pull the blink style dodging.

He also promptly demonstrated some of the tricks he'd learned since he'd ended up here. A month ago, one of his missed attacks would have been a waste.

Now...he'd literally slammed on the brakes with, leaving the sheets of fire burning in mid-air as soon as he realized he'd missed. There was a satisfying sense of release in his brain as the woman, no longer having him as a target flew into it and he could stop devoting extra effort to maintaining it. She burned...

She smiled, even as her flesh was ravaged under the fire...the fire that turned as black as her burning form, swirling around her.

"And if you BREAK them, we will have to BREAK YOU, like you broke our hearts." Oh god that SMILE..."SO WHY DON'T I JUST LAY YOU OPEN, AND PULL OUT YOUR DAMAGED PARTS?"

Damn it, quick, before she made another weapon or worse, in Sam's soul he knew she was capable of SO MUCH WORSE...

"Now, you wouldn't want that...and frankly, neither would I..." Her arms were open, like she was offering a hug, even as flesh sloughed off her form like candle wax. "But sometimes to do some good, you've gotta be the bad guy!"

The Grandius caught her right on the crown of her head. Sam felt his guts twist as the sword plunged down, through bone and gristle and burning, stinking meat, carving through it like a turkey, Sam only stopping from a full bisecting cleave due to a last second retreat. Brain cut, hacked in two...

...the corpse swayed like a snake...

"...In this world we play...I hope that you will stay..."

THE SONG DIDN'T EVEN STOP.

She was growing back. The rules didn't apply. She reaching up and literally pushing herself back together, and despite every trained instinct he had, Sam felt the chill go from his stomach to his knees.

"And we will throw a most electrifying soiree..."

She pushed her head back together. The line Sam had crossed her smile with faded away.

"Formal attire is required for you to take part..."

The flesh was peeling from her fingers, knives of bone sprouting from beneath the burned, ruined flesh, blackened wings of stabbing death peeling out from beneath her body, the black fire she'd tainted his power into settling on them, the ground hissing like a wounded, terrified animal as her blood dripped down onto it, poisoning it...

"YOU'VE GOT SOME SKIN THAT NEEDS REMOVING BEFORE WE START."

The hands grabbed Sam. Twisting his head around.

From behind him.

...

Not her. Christine. Though Sam nearly had a heart attack anyway, first from the shock of the surprise grab...

Then she kissed him, and his eyes nearly joined his heart in bugging out of his body, the sheer contrast and unexpected confusion slamming into his mind.

"Gurryyyhhyyyyerrrh?"

He twisted away, his eyes snapping back to the woman...

She was fading. The fog was washing over her. She looked...disappointed.

Yet the song...

"Let's try to make it right
Don't wanna start a fight
And I'm so sorry if I
Give you all a little fright...
I'm not so scary if you see me in the daylight
I'll be so happy just as long as
You survive the night..."

Still echoed, one last time.

"I'm sure you'll survive...just don't break the rules...and play nice...and we'll be the best of friends...forever..."

Gone, like the shadow she'd been born out of.

"...Sorry Sam. I needed the biggest shock possible. To break the lock you'd stumbled into." Christine said, wiping her mouth. "Your lips are bleeding, by the way."

Sam blinked.

There were a lot of responses on his mind that he could have used. They ranged from asking if Ash had been lacking recently to several bewildered takes on "what the fuck was that", with a standard "thanks" somewhere in between. But all of them were fighting for position like a bunch of screaming fangirls at a gig, and for a while he had a job to think of a proper response.

So he settled for fishing out a handkerchief and wiping his mouth whilst he tried to put the pieces together.

"...give me fair warning, next time," he finally mumbled as he dabbed at his lips. "I might be able to appreciate it, then."

"Sorry about that. The battle that happened here...just damaged...everything. Reality itself. Things...bad things walk here...they're real and they're...not. Things that were, things we fear are...bad things. You didn't know that was just an echo, so it existed...but it needed focus. I broke it, so it faded. I've located the survivors, we'd best get out of here before something else decides to...come. Or come back."

"...so where were you, whilst I was flailing about like a drunken dickhead?" Sam asked, once he was done wiping. It had clicked at this point just what had happened, and whilst he wasn't sure if it was anything to do with the hallucination he had prior, he was starting to feel like an idiot for falling for it twice.

Then it occurred to him.

"Wait... you saw it, too? That wasn't a gas-induced fever dream?"

"No."

"...what WAS that, then?"

Christine's look was the most solemn he'd ever seen her.

"Evil."

That was all she said.

It was all that was needed.

---

Song adapted from Mandopony's FNAF2's song "Survive The Night".

All That Glitters

The Blessed and Holy City of Embrace, also known as Per'Shorn Jot, whose ancient name cast in a virtually dead tongue means 'To Embrace'. Population; 4 million. Head seat and spiritual center of the Rystianizm Branch And Blade Of The Enduring Faiths, known to non-practitioners as 'Risers' or 'Raisers'. Primary shrine and seat of worship known as the Nine Jewels, a temple overseen and guarded by three central and six surrounding towers to match the primary names of worship and their six most known aspects that blessed the world with their presence. Temple capable of seating 30,000 comfortably.

Current Arkhierei: Diana I, blessed speaker for the nine and mother of champions, healer of the sacred blood who the foulest hands could not spill without consequence or taint. Commands an army 500,000 strong who will ensure the safety of her, her chosen, and her flock. Speaks with the voice of God and his glory, and his mercy, and his love, and his wrath. She who saw demons and foul liars attempt to twist the words of the Nine to bring ruin to all who heard and believed them, who tore down the walls of Embrace and laid the towers low, and who raised them back not only in ever-greater glory, but made her people see their brothers in the other Enduring Faiths as such, and allowed once-closed hearts to build their own temples to their own words and worship of God....

And so on, and so on. Hyperbole was always important in religion. But actions spoke louder than words.

This was not the Nine Jewels, the central temple of Embrace, or even one of the larger temples that surrounded it. Embrace had nearly two hundred seats of worship for Rystianizm alone, let alone the other faiths that worshiped there, and to Diana, each was as important as the last. Some members of her higher Ecclesia would disagree with her, in that polite yet somehow non-understanding way; for the most part, she believed it was because they feared for her safety. They had feared for things before, and been proven wrong more than right. When the Twilight War had dissolved the feared tension of allowing the other Branch and Blades into their city, all speakers of their own words uniting to declare they would not die willingly or easy, they had been amazed to the point of stupefaction. It simply went to show that no one, no matter what, had a limit to what they could learn.

So she did not perform her service at the Nine Jewels, but at this small church, the seats only half full. Diana did not tell anyone where she would be performing her services, lest she provoke mobbing and riots, and her lone rule was that once she had entered, she preferred that no one leave lest the secret get out. They did not have to hear her preach, but until she had left, neither could they. So far, her request had not been tested; the church may have only been half full, but everyone there was hanging onto her every word.

But faith existed to be tested. If not one way, then another...

For instance, the construction of this church happening to provide good natural soundproofing, which kept her from realizing anything was wrong until her soldiers got thrown through the main door. The words from the Clasp, the main book of her Branch, grew quiet as everyone either turned around in confusion, froze in surprise, or both.

"You the one sticking shields on these assholes?"

The Magpies had some odd rules. One was that you couldn't take a 'special' name that described your powers unless you did something to earn it, and giving yourself one outside of your own head before you got official permission would get you anything from dirty looks to violence, depending on who found out. The four people who entered the church, as a result, were stuck with their birth names, though the speaker, one Horace Scott, suspected that would change soon.

"Because it REALLY! MAKES! THIS! A! CHORE!" Horace said, as he slammed the piece of limestone he'd pulled out of the street onto the soldier, something that should have crushed the soldier to pulp, but only made him groan and try and crawl towards the front of the church. "I hate doing my chores."

The screams were silenced as soon as they started, albeit not for any reason on behalf of the screamers. It was because of Doreen Shaw, whose lower-class command of sound allowed her to literally shut down the wavelengths human beings made their louder noises at. The last two,  Brett Wilkerson and Greg Holland, who respectively controlled chromium and rock salt, brought up the rear.

"My lady..." The soldier groaned, before Horace just dropped the stone onto him. Behind him lay the fallen, beaten forms of the forty soldiers the four lower-ranked Magpies had beaten to get into the church.

"You the Ark hearing?" Horace said.

"...I am Arkhierei." Diana said. Horace was not impressed. The stories he'd heard on his way here had all been about this woman's voice, but she sounded like any old woman to him. Her robes were a simple purple with a white sash and hood that covered her head, her black hair going to gray and crows' feet having long taken up residence on her face. She didn't even have any jewelry, a far cry from the yahoo they'd beaten the location out of, whose hands were so covered in rings he had trouble using them.

"Great! You're the bigwig hotshot here! You probably know how to use the Steam better than these losers! Tell us everything!"

"...You wish for me to...train you in the healing arts?"

"Fuck no! I wanna know how to blow things up! Like your loser soldiers! Except, you know, not a bunch of losers!"

"...my people. Let them go, then." Diana said, indicating those she had come to speak to, who had begun to back away and look for the exits.

"...we don't need them, Horace." Brett said.

"Like hell! What we NEED is to be taken seriously! Or the second we don't have any leverage this old fart's going to..."

"You should not do that." Diana said.

"Huh?"

"Draw such judgments. You're angry. All of you are angry. Is this what you want?"

"What is this, truth or dare? I want you to know that if you don't start talking, this is going to be even more of your people!" Horace said, and shattered his limestone block before hurling the pebbles outward like a thousand bullets.

It was an eerie thing, watching people scream in mortal terror without making a sound.

The limestone bullets proved equally impotent, impacting on empty air and stopping. Horace frowned, and then growled when his repeated efforts to make the rocks go forward was completely blunted.

"OH FUCK THIS SHIELD SHIT! HOW ARE YOU DOING THAT?!" Horace said, not noticing how Diana's hands were gripping the alter before her. "You know what, I changed my mind! Brett, go kill her!"

"What?!" Doreen said, her blonde hair flying around as she snapped her gaze towards Horace.

"What?!" Brett said in a near-echo. "Horace, Saguaro told us to get stuff, like magic things! Info! She didn't say go around killing people willy-nilly!"

"You don't get it, do you? Don't you see what this place IS?' Horace said. "It's a churchtown! A super mega church town! This is Chaktown with a different paint job! This is where all the assholes gather up and decide who should die and be tortured because they think God wants them to take all their money in between wanting them dead for being gay!"

"That is not true." Diana said.

"Like FUCK it's not! How many damn kids YOU raping, bitch?"

"...If those who claim to speak for God have done you harm, then I am sorry. Please...rage is a poison, you do not need to suffer in its grip here..."

"Suffer THIS! Brett, go stab a bitch."

"...I don't know, Horace..."

"Hey asshole, I'm TELLING you."

"You are NOT my superior!"

"Yeah, you can't give us orders, Horace." Doreen said.

"We aren't here to relieve YOUR grudges." Greg said.

"Hey, asswipes, you forgetting whose side we picked?"

"I felt Kou was being timid, that doesn't mean I'm now a mass murderer, Horace." Greg said.

"We're the MAGPIES, Holland. Morality is for OTHER PEOPLE. You think Saguaro is going to think you wanting to play nice is good? No, she'll kick you back to the Nest, and since you turned on Kou you'll get stuck with one of the other Seven. Probably Muerto."

"You are welcome here." Diana said.

"What?" Brett said.

"Oh don't fall for this! Brett go kill her before I have to just tear this whole place down and see what happens."

"Anger shackles you, it blinds...it is not something easily borne, and you all bow beneath its weight...if you feel trapped, you are welcome here, all are welcome...there is no suffering that cannot be endured and learned from togeth-"

Brett went for center of mass. He still couldn't look as he threw the blade of metal he formed, and he hoped it would be quiet and quick.

It wasn't. But not for the reason he expected. He felt the mental feedback as the blade struck flesh and impaled deep. The silence became even deeper. In the corner of his eyes, Brett could see the shock and outrage of the semi-trapped congregation, some actually bursting into tears.

"...If you wish it, there is no door here closed to you."

The voice was pained, but strong. Brett vaguely was aware of Horace's shocked face before he turned back to see the woman, her hand on the long thin blade of metal sticking out of her chest, her purple robes staining red as she began to slowly withdraw the blade.

"Rage is a part of you...but just...one part. Those who let it be their whole...cannot be whole. Whatever torments your soul...will not be found in anger, or hate...if that is all you know...then my door is open..."

"ARE YOU SERIOUSLY FUCKING KIDDING?!" Horace said. "WE DON'T NEED YOUR DAMN RELIGION!"

"You are hurting. We...bring peace, to those who desire it...no matter what their reasons may be. We are all...loved...we merely have to decide by who...to see it ourselves."

"For the love of...Brett, get her damn heart this time!"

"I..."

"NOW! YOU THINK SHE'LL TAKE YOU AND MAKE YOU ALL SHINY HAPPY? THESE PLACES EXIST FOR ONE REASON ONLY! THE EXACT REASON WE DO! EXCEPT WE DON'T MAKE UP STORIES!"

"I..."

"YOU WANNA BE FED TO THE FUNERAL KING?!"

Brett's face paled, and he recalled his blade and threw it again. This time, he hit the heart. He knew. He felt it.

...Her face barely changed. There was pain there, and sorrow. Yet...she did not mirror the hostility directed at her.

Instead...she reached up and began to draw the blade back out. Brett somehow went even whiter. Her heart was still beating, around the impalement. Brett knew enough about anatomy that even if that worked, it must have been agony...

"They suffered for our sins. As their voice, if I must suffer, then mine pales..." Diana said, as she again worked the blade free. It dropped to the ground.

It was around then that Brett realized that Horace hadn't stopped slamming his pebbles against the shields erected against them. And he hadn't gotten anywhere, even now.

"...guh...wuh..." Horace said, before he finally regained his fire. "YOU SUCK, BRETT! Doreen, pop her head!"

"And if that doesn't work?" Greg said.

"Then we'll break things until it does! Doreen!"

"No." Doreen said.

"What?!!"

"No! This is wrong, Horace! We...she's right, why are you so mad?"

"MAD HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. I'M JUST THE ONLY ONE OF YOU HERE WITH STONES." Horace growled. For a moment he debated re-directing his limestone bullets, but ultimately decided he didn't want to risk some trick. Instead, he stalked over to the fallen soldier he'd bashed into the floor and relieved him of his sword.

"Horace, come on! Stop! We can just go...!" Brett said.

"The doors remain open."

"YOU LET THE WRONG ONE IN, BITCH." Horace said, as he drew close and raised the sword. "GO TO HELL!"

The blade came down.

The blade bit deep.

The blood flew.

Then it landed on Horace, and it all went wrong. Suddenly he felt like every single part of him was having red-hot needles jammed into it, and even as he recoiled and screamed, the sword flying from flaming fingers, he had a sudden second, and worse, revelation. He was not on fire. His skin, his combat clothes, didn't have a mark on them. Save the blood.

The pain vanished as quickly as it came...and his energy went with it, Horace Scott suddenly feeling like he'd run the whole way to this city at a sprint. Within a second, he couldn't stand. Within another, he couldn't move.

"...Hell is not just a final fate." Diana said. Once again, she hadn't taken one step back, even as the blood soaked her.

Then Horace was gone, carried away by the dark.

----

The dark he came back out of. No one was more surprised than Horace.

He was back outside the city...and there was about three thousand or so VERY angry troops glaring at him. He was also soaked in water.

"I cannot have you put my people at risk."

Her. That damn woman, a simple white cloak over her robes, primary to hide the damage...and there were his three 'fellows', looking dully at him.

"You do not have to be alone. For no one behaves this way if they're alone." Diana said. "Is solitude your will?"

"...you ASSHOLES! You know what the Magpies do to traitors!"

"We're not defecting. We resign." Doreen said.

"Hostile work environment." Brett said.

"Screw you. SCREW ALL OF YOU. These shits will screw you, and SCREW you, and then we'll come back, and we'll skin you fucks alive, and I'll stick YOUR HEAD ON A POLE TO WATCH!" Horace said, pointing at Diana.

"I will pray for you."

"Save your breath." Horace said, getting up and stalking off. He expected every step for the next ten miles to be the one that triggered the ambush. It was hard to say if he was more surprised or angered that it never came.

"Some need more time. Some..." Diana said, having turned away. "We can shelter you for a time, but it would be best if you could discover a means of employment so you can have freedom. You will, however, have permanent sanctuary from those who would wish to prosecute you. The door is not open for revenge or hatred. Any who wishes to bring it to our gate will find our shields firm and our blades terrible and swift."

"...Our guys...they're strong, miss...and we found some stuff..."

"They shall reap what they sow." Diana said, heading in through the gates of Embrace, passing the statues dedicated to her son and daughter and their allies who had crushed the vile evils of Schwarz Spinne. "May some break off their shackles and turn to the light and the way, or a better path for them. Thanks be to God."

"Amen." Said the legions surrounding the three ex-Magpies.

Perhaps the most astonishing thing was there wasn't a single angry eye when they did not echo it.

Fool's Gold

Once upon a time, the isolation would have been the worst part. The lack of contact. Hell, that would have been the smart thing to do...

But people didn't always do the smart thing.

"Okay, let's start from the top."

Godfather idly swirled her wine, keeping her back to the prisoner. Keep them guessing, that was the trick. Keep them nervous. If they can't see your face, they can't tell what you're going to do, and nobody likes an enemy who's predictable...

"You have information I want. Information about your world and the way it works. I could use some of that, and save myself a lot of time in messing about with technology only half my men understand. And, obviously, I can't just beat it out of you, because I'm not a hired thug."

Turn, slowly... perfect. Flash those pearly whites...

"So... How about it? A cosy draft job with any of my boys, hourly wages and all the clams you can eat. In return, you tell me anything and everything, and I only listen to the good bits. Sound fair?"

"No."

A brief pause.

"That's in regards to the offer, by the way. Though it's also an answer to your last question."

That was the problem with a giant organization, after all. Too big, too complicated, too many moving parts. The left hand stopped knowing what the right hand was doing. Really, the smartest thing to do would have been to keep doing this. The cell, sealed off in a box, barely able to touch the outside world. Isolation was hell on social animals...

But mankind, and especially its evils, rarely understood the subtleties...

Eh, they always refuse the first one. No matter. Keep calm, keep smiling.

"What about a management position, then? Don't even have to go out to earn your pay, and you get somebody to press your suit! And you get discounts at all the fancy restaurants!

"...although all the waiters get nervous when we show up. Really, what's with that?"

"No."

Metal, and thick at that. Even if whatever weirdness they'd hacked together wasn't crippling him, he probably couldn't have punched his way out. Even if he COULD have, it would have taken time, and time was not on his side, especially in the heart of enemy territory. The only way in was a handprint scanner...

The smart thing would have been to let him stew in the isolation.

The human heart and mind were often at loggerheads that way.

Alright, arschloch. You're making it hard to keep composed, especially when we can feel the wine glass cracking in our grip. Those things are expensive.

"How about this? Joint leadership, with me. Half of the criminal underworld would stab their own mothers to share my dinner table, and that's just on a professional level."

"...Since it is clear I have to spell it out, NO. I will NOT betray my world, my friends, my PEOPLE, for you, even if you offer me everything in this world, the next, and throw in every single damn star in the sky. GO. TO. HELL."

The funniest thing (but not ha-ha funny) was, that hadn't earned him this. You would expect otherwise...

Crack. Aaaaaaand there it goes.

If Godfather was capable of it, she would be jetting steam from her ears. As it is, the gathering shadows were enough to make the two armed soldiers present take a nervous two steps back.

"I don't think you realize," she hissed through gritted teeth, "just how lucky you are. If you had been who my men thought you were, I would have come up and killed you myself. And just in case you mistake me for the average brain-dead tyrant, I have done my best to make you at least adequately comfortable. The least you can do is give me this one favour."

She let the glass shards trickle from her hand. There wasn't a drop of blood on them.

"Am I going about this wrong? Please, tell me! Am I asking too much, when all of this has practically gift-wrapped itself and all I need is the price tag cut off?! Do I have to start singing?!"

"...You could have treated me worse, yes. Thank you for that."

A pause.

"...but no. If you're not the average brain dead tyrant, you'll understand that I won't betray my world and its people. I...won't. No matter what. Singing? Fine. Do it."

Did she notice the tremble? It was definitely there. But...how could he give any other answer?

"You don't wanna do that, man," piped up one of the guards. "It's like if Niki Minaj-"

Too late. Godfather threw back her head and what came out of her mouth was worse than Niki Minaj with a head cold. It was more akin to a very bad impersonation of Kylie Minogue, if the impersonator was an elderly crow with a throat full of nail files. The guards actually cringed and covered their ears at several points.

Thankfully, it was over in a scant minute. A minute that probably seemed like an hour, especially to the shaking soldiers, who picked themselves up and exchanged nervous glances.

Perhaps the reaction from the stranger surprised them.

"....um...look, I'm a shit liar. That was terrible, but I can't sing either, so I'm not one to judge talent. If you were going to brainwash or break something in my head, it doesn't work. Plus, I endured being near the queen in yellow...that's kind of a step down."

Godfather snorted, clearly unimpressed. "Whatever. But you do realise, of course, that you don't have any other options? It's not like I'm going to let you wander all around my top-secret headquarters and stumble upon all my deadly secrets, like in Dracula. And my boys aren't going to release you even if you ask nicely. So either you tell me what I want, or you stay here and become part of the furniture."

The shadows around her dispersed slightly - a sure sign she was regaining her composure again.

"...is this really necessary? Is the only way to get what you want pillage and conquest?"

"Oh, really!" Godfather huffed, tossing her hair over her shoulder. "You make it sound like that's all we do! No, mostly we're in the shady deals and smuggling business, like any good criminal empire. Just think of this as us branching out into new markets, that's all! But to answer your question...

Her eyes flashed dangerously.

"It's a start. Then I was thinking of kicking back and watching half the world retcon itself whilst the money and booze rolls in."

"Then why am I here?"
 
"Wrong place, wrong time. Besides, that was only a trial run! When we get this thing going, we're going to do it properly!"

"Then please. Please. Just let me go and leave my world alone."

Godfather paused, raising a finger to her lip.

"Well, you know, I'd love to... Except. Point one. You put down fifty of my boys without breaking a sweat, and why would I let someone that dangerous out when I've got him under control? You might try to warn people about us, even, and that would just make things complicated.

"Point two. Saguaro's a bitch and cut off all communications in the name of building a facility. So I just have to take what I'm given, at this moment in time. Once she stops goose-stepping for five seconds, I'll try and whip her into line... but at the same time, might as well make use of these weird minerals we're getting from the feed pipes, right?"

"...fine. Lock me up, then."

"Heh. You'll see it my way, soon enough. You've got all the time in the world to think this through!"

Godfather turned and began strutting out of the cell, the soldiers reluctantly following. At the fame, she paused, causing the other two to screech to a halt, and turned back, flashing a grin.

"Or, should I say... my world?"

Then she left. As did the guards. The door hissed shut as though it were an audience member in a pantomine, and the lock beeped and clicked into position.

Just as it opened now.

"...You again." Ash said.

The godslayer had seen better days. True, that was his natural state half the time, but at least it was tied to getting something done. Now here he was, stripped of everything, Erdrick AWOL, wearing dull black prison clothes.

A contrast to the suit of metal of his visitor.

"Ash Marsello. Ceremonial Knight-Glorious of The Realms. 12, 12, 12...I honestly no longer have a serial number if I ever did. You ARE aware your boss ordered humane treatment and isn't always going to be asleep at the switch?"

Behind the metal faceplate, Ivan Vanko, codenamed Mr. Silver, cracked a dry grin.

"You assume too much, little man."

The classic haymaker. Dangerous even if done by a normal man. By a large man in armor? That could even be fatal.

Ash didn't IGNORE it, but the fact that he only took one step back was notable. The second one managed to knock him down, but he was already off balance.

"You know, you really shouldn't have a problem. You came crashing into my town and I defended it. It's not like I pantsed you in front of your buddies."

An ugly chuckle, muffled by the mask.

"Oh, so you forget the part where you humiliated me? Denied me my target? Please, allow me to refresh memory!"

A vicious kick for the ribs. Felt, but Ivan distinctly didn't feel certain things. Like bones breaking. Or air exploding out of lungs.

"And what did Sam ever do to you, anyway? Why care so much if you were just hired?"

"I could ask same of you! You have no stake! Nicodemus was my target, and my only target! You did not know him, yet you interfered!"

Rage taking over for a moment, Ivan thumped the wall with one massive fist. The clang echoed for quite a bit, even as the metal-clad Russian kept ranting as Ash got up.

"It is my job! My life! And I was happy! Then you come and make me look like pathetic weakling! Just like my father and Stark thieves!"

This time, a massive swinging clothesline.

"...if this...is how you handle it...then they're still making you weak...and you...beating on an unarmed man incapable of fighting back...will not restore your lost face..."

Ivan snorted, a harsh grating sound.

"You think I am weak? Loyalty is weak. That is why I take job - I survive by taking what comes my way. It is you, who defend complete strangers based on childish morals, who are weak."

"Oh really? Then why are you here?"

Ivan firstly responded with a sharp jab to the face. Mostly out of spite.

"You are not listening!" he snapped. "To survive! I care not for Godfather's idiotic plan! But better this than cold streets with no bread and being beaten with sticks! And if I must work for mad woman, then so be it, but will not march in step to her tune!"

The next thing Ash knew, a massive paw of a hand clamped around his throat and lifted him up into the air. From the angle presented, he could clearly see the flickering, repressed anger in the man's eyes.

"I work here for as long as it suits me. And when I have what I need, I take leave of Magpies. I illiterate this from memory and be Ivan Vanko again. Not Mister Silver."

"...Obliterate."

"What?"

"...I think you mean obliterate."

"What?"

"Obliterate. You said illiterate...that means you can't read. Props for trying to increase your word power, though." Ash said. "Ivan, you want peace? It's not..."

That's as far as Ash got before a roar of anger nearly blotted out his hearing altogether. Next came the sickening lurch, and the world span crazily for a moment before he impacted, shoulders-first and quite painfully, with the floor of the cell. Such was the force of Ivan's throw that the poor warrior actually folded up accordion-fashion, before he properly collapsed to the ground completely, head ringing and spine complaining vehemently.

There was a long, awful pause, punctuated by the rattling of Ivan's breathing.

"...I will have my peace when are dead. Presumptuous brat."

And it came as something of a mixed surprise and blessing when the footsteps moved away instead of towards him. Evidently, the fun of beating up an old enemy had been lost to the now aggravated Russian.

Ash, with some effort, managed to crawl up onto his bed. He was vaguely aware of them on the other side of the door.

"...you'd best get that locked...no sense...getting him mad at you too."

And so the door did close.

"...Name...rank...serial number..." Ash mumbled.

 Ash Marsello.

Would-be hero.

Prisoner of the Magpies.

The Eternal Recurrence

Sine knew how easy it was to get ahold of some things, but even she surprised herself sometimes.

"Daniel, for the LAST time, get over here. I need to make sure your fillings aren't ferrous metal."

"Fuck no," growled Daniel, hunched in a corner. "I'm not letting you stick lasers in my mouth! I had enough of that shit at Rutledge!"

Carol rolled her eyes. "Ugh, here we go. You want me to go fetch him?"

"Yes. I'd rather be sure that when we do the MRI scans, we don't accidentally pull his teeth out."

Carol nodded, and then walked over to where Daniel was crouching, hackles raised and spikes drawn. She knelt down next to him and looked him dead in the eyes.

"Look, Danny," she began, in her sweetest voice. "If you be a good boy and let Sine check your teeth-"

"Keep that shit up," snarled the older man, "and I'm gonna-"

"-and I'll pay for next week's Jack. Interest free."

The spikey-haired mutant was in the chair in two seconds. The process was, thankfully, just boring.

"There. See? Now, if you want to be REALLY safe, you'll get in the MRI machine and lay there still for...three hours." Sine said, flipping through some papers. "...hmmm. A sedative might be the best way..."

"Ugh, sedatives." Daniel shuddered. "I mean, it beats being strapped to the table, but I always wake up feeling like a car accident victim."

"Got any other alternatives?" was Carol's response. Daniel paused to consider this, then shrugged - an obvious no.

"I'll be honest with you, Daniel...this isn't NEEDED, but...the thing with mutations, you might be stable today, but five years from now you wake up and find you're melting. Trust me...I lived in a world with mutations that gifted superhuman powers, and was witness to a few very considerable scares. A clean medical bill NOW means something to compare it to down the line. Or if you wake up and find yourself turned into a sweater." Sine said, as she kept flipping through pages.

"...fine." Daniel got out from the chair and headed over to the MRI. And for once, he had no snarky 'but' to add to this as he lay down on the mat.

"What's our current delivery list?" Sine said, activating the machine.

"Hmmm... A crate of peanut sprouts to Pachyderma Major, fifty gallons of salt water to the Finneous system - poor guys are having a drought - some pizzas to Mr. Harold Finklemann and his family on Colony Beta and a consignment of Green Spice for the Screebles on Willus.

"Also, a rubber chicken, no name given."'

"Simple work. Simple is good. You should have been here when I had to deliver a meme. Took me seven weeks to scrub it out of my brain. Daniel, breathe deep, I'm administering the sedative." Sine said. "Well, now for three hours of nothing because he has to stay stock still. Any ideas how to pass the time?"

Carol blinks. "...how does that even work? Like, did you have to put it on a floppy disc or what?"

Daniel does as told, but grunts a little as the sedative is administered.

"Movements scrambles the image, beyond the most basic twitches. It needs to be clear. Since Daniel has such compact bones, it takes a really long time. In a few days I'll be getting my biyearly brain scan...I'll need to be under for seven hours due to the house of cards this grey matter is." Sine said, tapping her head. "At least whatever changed me was considerate enough to give me proper equipment for it."

"...well, good luck with that. Can't imagine having to sit still for seven whole hours, myself. Yeesh!" Carol said.

"Price of being...whatever I am. And having no clue what it is." Sine said.

Carol shrugs. "Well... Could always watch a movie. Wanna see what's on Sky Box Office?"

"Probably porn."

"SBO doesn't show porn!"

"Based on its most popular shows you could have fooled me."

"Hey, Danerys is cute," Carol retorted. "Sue me. Or don't, because that would be a legal nightmare."

"But since I...don't...oh dear...leak...Carol hold your breath...the sedative...drifted over here..." Sine said, sitting heavily into a chair. "Go ahead and watch TV...just watch Daniel too...this is gonna put me out for...mgrgrgfurrr..."

"Ugh, why do you do this to yourself? Wear a mask, at least! Special brain, my butt, dozing off so easily..."

"Illmakesur du complanesoonis I remember whodithuissssshhhhh..."

---

????

"The Immutable. Yes, for the sake of convenience, we'll go with that word layout."

"This is beyond foolish. Using it at all, let alone..."

"We have gone long beyond our basic behavior and even our aberrant behavior. Lunacy is now the defining norm. This is no longer a scenario where failure can be tolerated."

"But a random number?'

"Will be as likely to fail as our best agent. Show him in."

"Her, my liege."

"Whatever. She has the capabilities?"

"Last we checked..."

"Then get it in motion."

A door opening.

"...stop."

Footsteps coming to a stop.

"Remove your helmet."

Hesitation, then obediance.

"Sheena Traverse, of Triangle Delivery. You have something you want to deliver, sirs?"

Blush: Super Human

An opening note: I am writing a fair bit of this in a vague way in due to the small chance of not spoiling Watchmen if you have not read or seen it. Just so you know.

So what kind of person wants to be a superhero?

Sorry Kamala, you don't count, I'll get to why in a bit.

There are some supposed real life examples...

Words. Picture. Number ending in three zeroes. Something about value.

And their deeds are commendable, if not admirable, but half the people on the list are more colorful community activists than anything else. Only a few of them actually attempt to 'fight crime' in a vein their comic book counterparts do (I won't count wandering up and scaring people as FIGHTING crime, though it's still attempting to stop crime and that deserves credit) and you won't see them trying to throw down with criminal gangs. So, the question of applied realism is, what kind of a real life person would want to try and be a superhero in the vein of how superheroes and vigilantes are presented in comics?

This is why Kamala Khan, nee Ms. Marvel II, doesn't count. Beyond being fictional, she's an aspiring superhero in a superhero-based universe. She has legions of real life (for her) data to call on when considering such a thing (not to mention, you know, actual superpowers). Someone who lives in such a world is not going to be faced with the same developmental mindset. Watchmen asked the question of 'What kind of a person would think, want to, and be successful in such a profession in a real world scenario?'

You probably already know the answer, but let's break it down.

First of all, to seek such a position, one would have to have no faith in society's actual mechanisms to prevent crime and injustice. Fair enough, plenty of people have that. You then have to have the willpower to teach yourself how to 'overcome such things' where society itself failed (and if you lack physical talent or resources, you have to compensate with willpower EVEN MORE), as well as overcome basic fear instincts, and you have to do it under amateur trainers or, more likely, by yourself. You then have to dedicate yourself to constantly facing dangerous people, fighting through injuries, fatigue, and mental weardown, the fact that both the police and the criminals will be opposed to you if not outright after your head, and that odds are all it will take is one bit of luck from one random punk to get yourself killed (after which you'll likely be condemned and dismissed, and anyone connected to you subjected to misery and harassment, if not worse). And if you're actually successful, you have to have done all this with physical and mental gifts, explicitly the mental ones, to realize that there was probably a better way to make fuller, long-term changes, and have instead dedicated all that talent and effort to going out and fighting the scum of society in the name of making the world 'better'.

The answer, of course, is that a person who would want to be an actual comic book superhero would have to be insane, whose talents are overridden by a series of logical fallacies and emotional issues. Cut away from a world where extraordinary events are far more ordinary than our world, a superhero is pretty much a lunatic, working through their own issues rather than helping society with any great cause. If Lee's characters were human, Moore's Watchmen concept had characters who were super human, with all of humanity's traits magnified to excess. Considering how human brains can be wired, it's not surprising the negative is presented first and foremost.

But if Watchmen was solely about 'normal' people on costumes, it would be a very different story. The crux that Watchmen turns on is the other half of the superhero coin. Specifically, having superpowers, and how reality would work if applied to them. Hence, Dr. Manhattan.

Dah ba di, dah ba die.

Dr. Manhattan is the lone person with actual superpowers in the Watchmen world, and in some ways he's actually very admirable, in terms of human strength and willpower. He does not end up corrupted by his powers (and they're immense), and then there's the fact he exists at all, showing a human will so strong that he was able to survive being disintegrated (under very specific circumstances) and rebuild himself a whole new body. Moore, however, chooses to apply realism another way; Manhattan may have survived (and never become evil) because of the best of human traits, but Manhattan is no longer human. His senses have been expanded in ways incomprehensible to us; plot points suggest that Manhattan no longer experiences time in a linear fashion and is experiencing all of the events of his life at once, and even if that's not wholly accurate, his viewpoint had completely changed from interpreting light waves to being able to perceive everything in between, and at a scale no human can match. A theory about the dangers of artificial intelligence is that a lot of people think that an evolving AI evolving past humanity means 'a very smart person building a fancier gun' if the AI turns hostile towards us. What is more likely based on our own evolution and the advantage it gives us over animals, goes the theory, is that to us, the AI would be using MAGIC, as we would as incapable of understanding what it was doing as the average animal is of understanding a gun. Manhattan is a god trapped within the framework of reference of a normal man, and unlike Superman, his senses are even more potent, and worse; he can't turn them off. While a lot of inhuman god types immediately swing towards misunderstood Nietzschean concepts, Manhattan perhaps manifests as a more realistic result; incapable of caring about anything. It eventually gets to the point where Manhattan, outside of public appearances, doesn't even wear clothes, walking around naked. He simply does not see any point in doing otherwise. To him, everything is the same. Equal. There is no more adventure in life. No discovery. Everything that is and will be is all for hin, all the time.

A tragedy...and at this point, human nature will make it worse.

This fact is what the third part of the triangle of Watchmen's plot revolves around; what would happen to the world if a superman (hell, a GOD) appeared...in the middle of the Cold War, his ascension having left him with no real desire to do much of anything himself because by the nature of his perception, he's already doing everything he will ever do all at the same time? While this is a sort of a plot device, one only has to try and apply realism to that degree of superhuman power (and the effects it would likely have on the mind) to realize that such a path is the most likely one such a world would take. If Watchmen had other superhumans with lesser powers, it would be a very different story. As it stands, it is an examination of what would drive people to be 'superheroes', what it would be like to really be powerful enough to make a difference, and how the world would respond.

Watchmen is not a world in a good state. While Manhattan's presence has had positive aspects (battery-run cars due to him being able to play philosopher's stone and synthesize rare elements easily, which means less pollution), the insane advantage he has given the United States in the Cold War has left the Soviet Union feeling cornered and angry. Considering studies show that each side of said Cold War (released after it ended) fully expected the other to wipe them out and that said other side would strike first, and with a literal godly being hanging over the Russians' head who could theoretically blunt if not completely neutralize their offensive efforts and aid the return fire to completely annihilate them, the Soviet Union is rapidly approaching the point of nothing left to lose, where pride twists into the insanity of M.A.D. The old saying went 'Better dead than red'; in Watchmen, it is more accurately 'better dead than impotent red' (It will not be the only point in the story that allegories about impotence will be made; heck, one of the most famous black comedies about the Cold War revolved around impotence). As a result, the Watchmen world (set in the mid 80's) is a world of passive fatalism, as most of society has concluded on some subconscious level that Manhattan's disruptive presence is eventually going to  overturn the boat and cause everyone to drown. Its 'heroes' are either neutered and broken dolls, or black and white absolutists, with no agency to save anyone, let alone themselves. Its 'villain' might very well be its greatest hero, and the events that play out suggest that the world should just be grateful the costs were so low and that the villain was completely right. And that maybe it was all for nothing. Watchmen, as per one definition, is about failure.

And yet...

It's very easy to dismiss Watchmen as a purely cynical 'The world is fucking doomed because we're all fucking broken stupid apes' type of story; the elements that support that type of view are very strong. But what a lot of people tend to forget is that to see humanity at its best is not to always look at the Mother Teresas or the Oskar Schindlers of this world (as it is very easy to scratch the surface and discover their unfortunate traits, which has a weird effect on human brains where it will make them go 'They're not a saint, ergo they're nothing'), but to look at humanity at its absolute worst, and see where it still shines (The Christmas Truce is a good example). To dismiss Watchmen as wholly cynical nihilism is to ignore that the story is also about two damaged people finding each other, or a lunatic seeing what cast him in his form and holding back his more-than-justified urge to scratch the rage and hatred itch, even if just one time. It's to ignore a man looking into humanity at its most warped and lost, and despite being floored and metaphorically bloodied, refuse to let it change him for the worse, or a man finally realizing just how wrong his path has become and accepting the consequences of it. It's a man who's not a man who briefly remembers aspects of being a man. It's a man who in many ways has cut away everything for the sake of greater things realizing this does not mean he is no longer human (for better or for worse). Like Stan Lee's work, it is a story about human beings, at their very brightest and at their very worst, and all the myriad ways this intersects. Hell, the most prominent aspect of the story of about how complicated human beings are straddles the line between 'amazing' and 'horrible' so thoroughly that it might be impossible to tell which one it really is, beyond personal assessment. Watchmen is a dark work, it has many nasty elements, and it pulls out a few aspects of the enjoyment of comic book superheroes and shows up the things behind them we many not want to admit are there, but in the end, it's still the story of the sacrifices to try and save the world.

Hell, it even has some of the silliness, like the background minor plot point of the main character's issues with a robotic exo-suit he built (which ends in a joke so subtle most people probably need it pointed out to them), or the scene in a jail where one of the main characters is visited by The Big Figure, a crime boss in prison...and a midget. It wouldn't be out of place in any average comic about superheroes. Watchmen has its issues, but I would not consider it a wholly cynical work. It is deeply layered. It speaks of all aspects of the human condition. It is the human part of a 'super human' story (I may talk about a 'super' type later). It is, in my own opinion, be it ever so unimportant, Art.

A side note on art, while I'm here...

You cannot create art.

This opinion is about as valid as what I would consider a Jackson Pollock painting to be (as in, wholly arbitrary and personal), but this is my blog, so I'm going to write about it. I do not think Art can be created, at least not intentionally. Art just happens. Art just IS. All you can do is try and create a good work, maybe even a memorable work, and while I would normally suggest hoping for the best, in this case I think such things would be counterproductive. You cannot go into creating a work trying to make art, on any level. In my opinion, it will cause whatever artistic merit the work might have to ring false. And god knows there are enough 'artists' running around, radiating smugness and myopic arrogance about their brilliance, surrounded by sycophants and clueless hangers-on who might as well be calling a random messy room 'art', as they probably don't understand or trust themselves to try and figure out what art REALLY is. A person who does their best to craft a great work might create art. A narcissist in love with their talent can only produce works with no soul.

And hand in hand with the idea of trying to make 'art' is the idea of trying to create a work with a message. I believe such a thing falls under the same purview at art; it cannot be intentionally done without rendering the message less effective. Here, I turn to an old latin phrase I like: res ipsa loquitur, ie 'the thing itself speaks' (or 'the thing speaks for itself'); while technically a law term, I believe it also applies to virtually any argument or creative work. One should simply create a story and let any message come through organically; while it is true that there are cases where one cannot be subtle, I honestly believe they do more harm than good, especially to the message.

I took a jab at comic writer Judd Winick earlier, mainly because he's a prime example of someone being so enamored with his message he undercuts it. Winick's defining life moment of his early life was being a contestant on MTV's The Real World, where he became close friends with his roommate Pedro Zamora, a gay man afflicted with HIV which later developed to AIDS. Zamora would die less than six months after the show wrapped (and one day after the final episode of the filmed season aired). Winick would later write for DC Comics, and would place his experiences with Zamora (among other places) into his work on Green Lantern and Green Arrow, and just like with 'Hard Travellin' Heroes', it would not turn out well in the long run.

Winick's flaws, in the end, is the classic insecurity of not allowing a work to speak for itself. In Green Arrow, Winick would create the character of Mia Deardon, who would become the latest Speedy, and was also HIV positive. Fine by itself...except Winick would write Oliver Queen, a grown man, a millionaire crime fighter, who at this point in his life had actually died and come back to life, as utterly and completely clueless over what HIV and AIDS was when this was revealed (perhaps acceptable if this was written in the 80's or early 90's, but this was written in the mid-00's). Before that, Winick would write Green Lantern, where a secondary character and friend of the then-sole-Lantern, Kyle Raynor, would be revealed as gay, and several issues later become the victim of a vicious hate crime. Again, 'fine' by itself...except the assault (which Kyle would personally avenge) would affect Kyle so deeply that he would abandon Earth (his primary protective sphere, other heroes aside) and drift off into space, lost in his crushing shock and despair over the evils of humanity. While hate crimes are exceptionally vile, the fact that an experienced superhero (who had just briefly achieved godlike power and perception in a storyline just before the attack, and given it up) would be so deeply affected by it that he would basically wash his hands of his chosen heroic responsibility and wander off to try and 'make sense' of it all (never mind Kyle's other experiences as a hero by this point) is a bridge too far. While the human mind is complicated enough that the most arbitrary things can set it off, there is also the fact that Kyle was the secondary victim of the infamous event that created the 'Woman In Refrigerators' noted aspect of comics, and this was when he had just STARTED as a superhero, and that did not drive him to fly off to soul search slash brood. Kyle had not even gone through a series of events that the gay bashing could count as a 'last straw'; in fact, the immediate event before this was an act of rebirth and creation, as Raynor would begin the rebirth of the Green Lantern corps. Yet this attack drove Kyle into space, seeking answers for the great evils of humanity, and unable to face the world of his birth. All because of a hate crime.

Does this strike you as good storytelling? Or does it strike you as what Hard Travellin' Heroes was; clunky, a square peg being forced into a round hole? Winick would raise valid issues that deserve attention, but his writing would denote a fear that these issues would not be noticed unless they were shoved into the readers' face, and perhaps more irritatedly, if the main heroes of the work were  not reduced to the author's mouthpiece in complete disregard for what their characters logically should be like. The stories could still be just as easily told without such character alteration, but Winick desired above all else to get the message across, and in doing so, he provoked equal parts annoyance to any understanding, which is the absolute worst reaction a message can receive. People do not like to be lectured, and they dislike being lead around even more. The worst thing you can do for a message, in the end, is to shove it in someone's face, or worse, do so under manipulative circumstances. There are many stories of people listening to organizations like D.A.R.E make presentations over drugs in a vein only a few steps below Reefer Madness, only for young people to later experiment with minor drugs, discover the immensely negative effects do not occur, and completely dismiss DARE's still-valid message in feeling they have been lied to. A message should speak for itself, and the best way for a message to speak is for it to naturally occur in the framework of a story. Attempting to push in a message will ultimately just damage both story and message, just as attempting to create art will just ensure you don't. Moore simply attempted to do his best to explore his idea and its layers, and he would create Art. He'd do pretty well on the Message front too.

He would also destroy comics, because as I have said repeatedly, the main thrust of these articles is that everyone has their own personal interpretation of things, and that many comic-book types are insistent, maybe even desperate, to prove they are not childish. In Watchmen, they finally got their golden egg from the goose. Watchmen was not only Art, but ADULT. It was not a story for children, and by the basis of what was to come, it was not a story for a lot of comic book fans either. Unfortunately, just like how Gordon Gecko inspired legions of people to get into stocks, and how Walter White from Breaking Bad would be admired and cheered on while his wife Skyler (a FAR more sympathetic and put upon character) would be reviled, many comic book fans, and writers, would embrace its 'adult' nature...while completely and utterly misunderstanding what the hell was 'adult' about it.

And in the way of addicts, they would decide what the comic book world needed was more of it.

In reality, this is much more what comics needed. Both the character, and many people needing a giant fist to be applied to some part of their bodies.

The worst part is, even if done well...the concept was doomed to begin with. In the final column on Watchmen, how it tainted comics and how, just like Gecko and White, why so many people couldn't even begin to grasp why taking anything from Watchmen was a bad idea.