Doctor Niles Caulder took a deep, slow breath. He locked his gaze with the unblinking eyes of Reyes's mask, refusing to so much as glance at the weapon pressed against his temple.
"It would be much easier to explain if you took that gun out of my face, boy." He spoke evenly, his eyes stalwart and steely, utterly unafraid of the alien being standing over him.
"What? What?!" Jaime felt his blood run hot. 'Disgust' could not adequately explain the churning in his stomach at the sight of the doctor's expression. How could he sit there, a weapon shoved against his head, and not so much as blink?
"You think I won't?!" Reyes snarled, the parasite's grip growing tighter around his wrist as he shoved Caulder's head with the muzzle of the cannon.
"After everything you've done, you still think- you still think I won't?" He shot a finger back behind him, pointing toward the corpse of Caulder's surgeon.
"It wouldn't...it wouldn't be the first time."Caulder crossed his hands over his lap, his neck craning as he looked up toward Jaime. The sympathy in the old man's eyes was almost enough to drive Reyes over the edge.
"You were protecting yourself, were you not? You had no other choice. That does not make you an executioner, boy. It isn't like you.""You don't know a damn thing about me." Reyes countered.
"Really?" Caulder raised a brow.
"I don't? I was in your mind, boy. I know more about yourself than you do. For instance, I know you struggle in school because it bores you. You think your teachers are old and out of touch. I know your friends drag you to the same diner after school everyday. You insist you don't mind, but they know how much you hate the food there; yet you always choose to go with them regardless." Niles couldn't see the boy's face through that lifeless mask, but he could tell he was faltering. His firing arm was unsteady and lowering with each word, and Jaime's breathing had tightened. Caulder was getting to him.
"I know your mother makes you do the dishes every night. And I know your father's struggling to make ends meet. And there's a young woman that sits in front of you on the bus- Traci, I believe, that you've been terribly infatuated with-""That's enough." Jaime snapped, though the conviction in his voice had faltered.
"Why're you telling me all this?"Caulder sighed, his hand moving up to rest on Reyes's wrist.
"Because I know that as much as you hate me, boy, you could never live with yourself if you took my life. Everything that's happened- it's already eating you up inside, isn't it?" Slowly, tentatively, Niles started to guide Jaime's hand away. He didn't force it, allowing Reyes to absorb what he was hearing at his own pace.
"I can only imagine what it's been like for you..." His eyes held on Jaime's own, though there were brief, difficult to discern shifts toward something else in the room.
Sleep had not come easily to Reyes since the incident. He'd only managed to pass out from sheer exhaustion once, while he was pulled over on the side of the road in a car he'd stolen from a stranger. Even then, the nightmares had forced him back into reality but a handful of hours later. Jaime felt weak and exhausted, his muscles burning and his mind drinking up the confusion and fear like a thirsty traveler in a desert oasis. The whole while, the only company that he had during his travels was a detached, aggressive voice in his head. After all of that- after all of the trials and tribulations- he had finally come face to face with the man responsible for it. Jaime had been so captivated by the concept of vengeance that he had never slowed down long enough to consider if he even had the will to pull the trigger.
"You said it was an accident." Jaime's arm fell to his side, limp and powerless. The organic weapon shifted back into a normal hand as Reyes took several steps from Caulder's side, returning to the operating table to take a seat on it's bloodied and cold surface. He'd hear the telepath out before he decided what to do. Maybe it would offer him some new perspective on what had happened; maybe it would give Reyes the excuse to go through with the dark fantasy that had consumed him since the moment he saw Caulder's face.
"What happened?"Caulder sighed, his shoulders falling. As much as he'd want to say that he wasn't afraid to die, Niles had never felt his heart race as quickly as it had when Jaime put a gun to his head. Was he afraid? Excited? It was hard to say; the adrenaline certainly didn't help determining how he felt in the moment. But he had swallowed down those feelings to talk Reyes off the edge. It looked like it had worked- for now.
"I only wanted to talk to it." He began, his mouth slightly agape as he search for the words. It wasn't a pleasant memory by any means.
"LaSalle and I had been working to find and exploit ancient technology since our college days. When we found the artifact in the Smithsonian, we didn't even stop to consider the implications of attempted contact. It matched the energy signature of the first...The Veteris to your Iuvenis-""The first?" Jaime interrupted.
"There's another one?" That was alarming to hear. After everything that had happened, he wouldn't wish Khaji Da on his worst enemy; on top of that, for all of the power it held, he could only imagine what would happen if it fell into the wrong hands. He wasn't even sure if it was safe in his own.
"Indeed. My colleagues and I spent years tracking it. It seemed to nest primarily in Metropolis, but rumors led us all the way up to Gotham City on one occasion. We chased it as long as we could, documenting it's every move and studying it. When we finally developed the technology, we began to scan the rest of the country for signs of others. We didn't know what to expect, but...This was so much better than anything we could have dreamed of." The corners of Niles's thin lips ran upward slightly. There was a genuine twinkle in the old man's eyes as he explained it.
That smile quickly melted away as he proceeded with the rest of his tale.
"You must understand, then, why I was so incredibly eager when we found an inactive Scarab. This creature represented everything I had been chasing since my youth. It was the proof that my research hadn't been for nothing- that I wasn't some..some wacko conspiracy theorist. And after the disaster with the obelisk...I was so eager to make up for my mistake that I ended up creating one far worse than I could have ever imagined." Caulder sighed, a hand moving up to rub the tiredness from his eyes. When he looked up, he cast his gaze over Reyes's shoulder, as if he were looking for something.
"I reached out to Khaji Da telepathically using the language we had deciphered from the obelisk before it was destroyed. I foolishly believed I understood their connection. But the moment I did, it awoke and...well. It struck out. I'm still unsure why, if I'm being honest with you Mr. Reyes." Once more, the doctor's gaze flickered passed Jaime, looking to something beyond their current conversation.
Reyes felt his heart drop into his stomach.
"Bullshit!" He pushed himself off of the operating table, taking several steps toward the doctor. Khaji Da had been convinced that foul play was involved. Caulder had outright kidnapped him in an attempt to steal away the suit; why should Jaime believe him now? What incentive did he have to think Niles wasn't just lying to save himself from Jaime's wrath?
"You wanted the Scarab for yourself, and you'd do anything to take it.Including killing those people!" He was done sitting back and listening to Caulder lie to him. He could see the weasel was squirming, desperately trying to find an out that kept him from getting what he deserved. Jaime brought forth his talon, the razor held close to his chest as he approached the doctor. It was time to end this.
"I wouldn't recommend that, Mr. Reyes-" Caulder's warning was cut short when Jaime brought the blade swinging through the air, it's tip passing less than an inch away from his scrawny throat. He jerked backwards in his wheelchair, throwing himself back in a desperate bid to escape a gory death. He wheeled himself as far back as he could until he felt himself smack up against the far wall.
"This isn't you, boy. It's- It's the Scarab. Don't let it- WARP!"But Jaime wasn't listening to reason. Whether or not the anger was his own, he didn't quite care. It burned so hot that he felt nothing but the need to throw himself at his enemy and tear him apart. He had all but dreamt of ending this man- of ending the nightmares- and he had finally had enough of Caulder's attempts to weasel out of what was coming to him. Reyes drew his blade from within, lunging for the man's throat with every intent to-
There was a sound akin to a blister popping through an old microphone. Before the Scarab could plunge his talon into Caulder's heart, a hand had taken him by the arm and thrown his weapon off course. It impaled through the wall, cutting apart tile and drywall in a spray of ceramic and dust. Reyes spun around to see who had appeared to stop him, only to be greeted by a fist to the face.
He barely felt it, all things considered; but Reyes was disorientated enough to stumbled backward, tearing his weapon from the wall.
"Who the hell-" Before he could finish, another flurry of blows was sent his way, though this time it appeared his opponent was wielding some sort of piping as a makeshift baton. A metallic clang sounded as each blow connected with the chitin, the living material reverberating loudly with every hit. Jaime was more annoyed than in pain as he lashed out, attempting to slice through whoever was assaulting him.
"-llǝɥ ǝɥʇ oɥʍ" A man draped in darkness stood in front of Reyes, the piece of lead piping in his fist sliced in twain by Jaime's wildly swinging blade. His cloak of stars danced with his every agile movement, ducking and weaving passed Reyes's unsure attempts to skewer him.
Jaime hadn't a clue where this guy had come from or what his deal was, but he was only getting angrier by the second.
"I'm not done with you yet." He snarled, taking a quick step forward as he attempted to bat away this new enemy.
"Warp, please escort Mr. Reyes off the premises-""No!" Jaime roared, wheeling back around on a dime. He was too close. He'd finally found all the pieces of the puzzle. Finally found himself face to face with Caulder. It was too close for him to simply lose it all now.
"You- you were stalling- you played me!" Jaime wanted to leap at Caulder again, but he found a pair of strong arms wrapped about his chest, pinning his arms to his side.
"Damn it, no!" He pushed back against Warp's grip, attempting to break his hold so that he could finish what Caulder had started.
"We're far from done, boy. Do not worry about that. But until I find a way to get that monster off of you..." He looked over toward his partner, nodding slightly.
"...We will have to part ways."Jaime threw his shoulders back, snapping Warp's hold like a twig. He threw an arm upward, metal shifting and squirming around it as an organic weapon began to take shape. The shinning barrel of a plasma cannon whirred to life, even as Warp scrambled to put his hands back on Jaime so that he could teleport the boy away before he could cause harm to Doctor Caulder.
The last thing Reyes heard was the thunderous sound of his weapon discharging as he was thrown into a hemorrhage in reality. He began to fall, his vision turning into a sky of swimming, crimson blood. Voices echoed all around him. The sound of carefree laughter mingled with the screams of the tortured and the damned, thundering over the quieter talks of lovers at a park and the hovering whispers of betrayers in a dark alley. A single, low hum undercut the entire cacophony; a beat of two short, one long, two short, two long repeated over and over like the rhythmic sounding of drums.
...
And he fell.
"...What is this place?"
And he fell.
"...What's happening to me?"
And he fell.
"...I- I wanna go home."Darkness consumed the bleeding sky, devouring it's bright redness and replacing it with a space that was blacker than black. No light touched it. No eyes could perceive what lay within or beyond it. It was like an inky void, quickly chewing it's way through this twisted reality that Jaime found himself falling through.
This place between dimensions where the rules were not the same and where the walls between what was real and what was not were thinner than anywhere else before them. It was an equation without numbers. A story without words. A life without death. It was antithetical to the nature of existence. It was the nonsensical ramblings of a mad, dead god.
Member
Emma
Captain Uni
xVampire3go
Byrd Man
shylarah
Ezekiel
Antlers
Memoria
Natty
Eddie Brock
