This isn't Highlander.
-x-
I looked upon my kingdom with my Ultimate Eye exposed, staring and observing every rooftop in sight. I turned my head and watched as light reflected and bounced, as the wind itself was mathematically plotted between the sky and the ground to paint for me a picture of everyone in my territory – sure, there were parts I couldn't see or recall, but only because it was impossible to focus on everyone and everything at once.
To summarize, I had the omniscience of god on a country that had the brightest future ahead. Yet I was limited, for I was no god and I certainly wasn't an angel. But songs were being written of me and sang in the streets as the people celebrated the stars and rewrote books on constellations that had, at this point, been exactly the same for centuries.
From my high tower, I watched the world march forward and considered every variable.
The sun would rise in a few minutes and cast its light over everything – not the fake sun, but the real thing – and from where I stood, oh what a sight it made. It was something more beautiful than any illusion, and was almost enough to make me forget that there had been a giant fake sky covering this entire island.
When I considered how large the island actually was, and how far that ceiling had to extend for such an illusion to be possible, I was always forced to conclude that something bigger was happening. When I thought of who might know, I thought of the Organization and all the terrible things they'd done.
Now they were down an island. They'd lost all their bases, which were now being converted into housing complexes and military bases wherever appropriate. They'd lost all their supplies and money and land, they had no support among the people, and their numbers were dwindling every moment.
It was no secret that people who used to work for the Organization were defecting. If anything, it was obvious. Iratus was… a symptom. He was a result. But he wasn't the face of the Organization. He was someone who believed in their ideology so deeply that when nobody else was there to take control, when he was, he revealed just how toxic it all was.
What I'm trying to say, I guess, is that the Organization died with Iratus. Not the Organization, don't get me wrong; some parts of it still remain in the north. But they'd never come out and call themselves the Organization again. They'd never use the same tactics or ideology again. Iratus and whoever supported him either died or defected when it became clear there was no hope of victory.
Because I hadn't heard a peep from the Organization since Iratus was tried and died of a seizure. He didn't even get a chance to become a martyr to whatever sick cause he believed in, so absolute and pathetic was his death.
…He deserved worse. I knew it in my gut that he deserved worse.
Following his death, so many things came to light that it just stopped being funny. The Abyssal Eaters, the multiple kill orders against rogue Warriors – because Theresa was not the first to rebel – the frequent purges he'd overseen of multiple towns, briberies amongst multiple bandit groups, personal involvement in merchant deals to distribute the poison to create Youma from people… the campaign against Riful of the West…
And speaking of Riful, for all the things that Iratus was guilty of I had heard shockingly little about her. She only targeted and ate people who came into her territory, a small area in a hollowed out mountain. She was isolationist, which meant she didn't travel nearly as often as I feared.
While she was certainly a threat that would one day need to be faced, I couldn't help but think that she was a threat that could wait. It probably didn't help that the combined efforts of several Warriors did nothing against her, that my efforts did nothing against her. So what did that mean?
…It meant that there was only one threat on the island that needed facing. It was the north. Be it Isley or whatever remained of the Organization, assuming they still called themselves that and hadn't found a different name, one day they'd need to be confronted.
The sun began to rise.
What was I thinking? Letting Isley remain a threat? Letting the Organization fester? Riful's time would come eventually, but the north was right there. I couldn't not do anything about it. At the same time, I couldn't up and declare war against them or mount an invasion.
"Are you sure about this?" I heard Medusa ask. "It sounds like a complete one eighty to what you were saying yesterday."
"I was bored, I was tired, and I wasn't thinking." I replied to her, "I've been here a long time, Meds. Longer than the last several worlds; and I want… I guess I want to make sure everything'll be alright."
"But what if you're not needed?"
"Then it's a good thing I travel through space and time. I figure there's no reason I can't come back later at an earlier point, or immediately after I left. I figure… yeah. I can do this. I can do it right."
"So what's your plan?" Medusa asked me with a smile as she rested against the balcony – and yes, I was in a balcony in an ivory tower. Fuck you, it looked awesome.
I took out the note in my pocket, written the previous night. The whole long spiel about where I'd be going and what I'd be doing, all of it… and I exhaled, feeling fire licking its corners as I clenched my armored fist, crumpling ash. "I've decided to stay. I can afford another year of side quests."
She laughed at that, "Really?" she guffawed, "When you put it like that, it almost sounds trivial."
"And I know it isn't. It's just… compared to that thing, monsters like the Organization or Isley or Riful just pale. They're not cosmic horrors. They're local nightmares. Cosmic horrors take time, they're not easily dealt with, but I can fight what's in front of me right now. Fuck waiting. I'll come up with a plan and give it my all!"
The sun finally was high enough that I could see it and I basked in its rays as my shadow was cast on the wall behind me. I grinned, watching the stars fade out of the sky and the moon set behind a mountain range. The world's colors that I'd forgotten had faded returned abruptly, and I let out a wistful sigh.
"Yeah," I said to myself. "I'll stay another year."
"Are you… for real?"
My heart thumped. Something was stepping out of my shadow, behind my back. I heard the clinking of chains that weren't there, that couldn't be there as I stepped back and spun my body to full-on face what was standing there. My Ultimate Eye watered at the sight of a scorched-looking man in a black suit.
His fedora was held over his face, covering it from view. That and the shadow of my own body as well as the something that wreathed his form made my head pulse with fresh agony. It was a new pain, and an old one. "Who are you?" I asked him.
There was a sound of chains falling through the air, swinging and jangling. With my ears, I could hear people in Compass screaming in agony, and suddenly I didn't care who was in front of me anymore. I just charged him, both swords drawn as I made to carve this monster like a Thanksgiving turkey.
With nothing but wall behind him, he stepped back and spun off of it, going above my head as he landed behind me. But my Ultimate Eye, hampered though it was by whatever protected this monster from my view, predicted the motion. I turned on my heel and swung at him, then felt a tug.
Chains reaching out from the shadow cast by my own body reached out and grasped my arms, pulling me towards the inky blackness. I pulled harder, forcing chimeric strength through my homunculus body, Yoki and raw energy coursing through my veins as I suddenly stopped being dragged and began stepping forwards.
My arm, held firmly by the chains, shook this thing's control over them as I slowly brought my sword towards it. Then, with a sudden burst of strength, I felt my arm swing forward as one of the chains broke. Vile, green energy spattered out of the way as my sword was narrowly dodged by the thing with a single step. "Idiot."
Then the scorched-black figure burst into flames. Fire coated his suit, studs forming along the shoulders as similar flames wrapped around the rest of his body. Before, I thought his skin was just unnaturally pale. But the reality hit me as soon as he took off his fedora. Green fire covered that black skeleton as it grinned at me.
"You should've left when you had the chance. Now, I've gotta force it."
My heard beat once. Then, for the first time, I felt fire coat my arms as flesh disappeared in favor of a hard set of bones. "You… You're a Ghost Rider." I marveled aloud as my movements slowly stilled. Fire, green and red, filled the tower around us. "What is this?! What the fuck–"
But the Rider opposite me tilted his head as I refused to budge, "Alright, no more bullshit!" He stepped forward and brought up a leg, "Into the portal you go, kiddo!"
A blade of fire exploded through a shut door, striking the Rider that aimed to kick me off of his feet and away. Deborah rushed out, a sword in hand as the chains around my body slackened and slithered away and out of sight. "Grand King Poe–"
"No! Get out of here!" I snapped at her, "You can't fight him!"
"I refuse!" She readied herself, "I will not stand by and allow an assassin to strike the Grand King of this land!"
My eyes widened, "Now's not the time for that chivalrous bullshit! This guy is beyond you!"
All too suddenly, I saw him stand behind her once more. Her shadow was tinged green as this new, strange Ghost Rider moved. With a single arm, he gestured and a biting chain ripped through the air and struck her from behind. She choked blood, stepping forward from the force of the strike.
When she saw him, and saw how undamaged he was, her eyes widened, "H-How…?"
"What, he never told you?" I could imagine this Ghost Rider was grinning, "We're immune to fire." Then, with a raised hand, he made a slight gesture and Deborah was thrown across the room, falling into the same spot he'd once rested. "Shit, I went a bit too far! Ahahahahaha!" Empty eye sockets glared at me, green flames illuminating them, "Now it's your turn."
There was a bang.
A single bullet, fired from a modern weapon that didn't even budge the Ghost Rider standing before me. I looked above his shoulder from where I stood, into the open hallway Deborah came from, and saw a little girl pointing a gun at him. Undine had both hands on the pistol as she aimed it; a large dagger was sheathed at her side.
"…Small fry." He stepped towards her, and I charged at his open back.
Immediately, chains leapt out and grasped my legs – they were filled with fire, leaving nothing but bone as orange flames crept up my body and converted more and more of me. Without the presence of absolute darkness, without the threat of imminent death, I was already beginning to transform into a Ghost Rider to defeat this new monster in front of me… and it was plain to see why.
Each step he made, Undine punctuated it by pulling the trigger and firing another bullet at him. Each bullet that impacted made him deliberately slow his pace, to encourage her to fire more at him. He wanted to watch her try; he wanted to watch her do everything she could against him.
This sadistic fucking monster was torturing a little girl in front of me. And I could feel the Rider in my soul having none of that shit as the flames reached my neck.
Finally, he stood only two feet away from her. Undine threw her empty gun away and drew her dagger, holding it like a sword. For her size, it was oddly appropriate.
Then he stopped. He stood there, and he waited for a good minute just watching her. "You gonna stand there?" He asked, "I really hate bullying kids…" He leaned forward, "So? Come at me! I don't have all day."
Still, Undine didn't move. One hand was out; the other was at her side as she watched him carefully with her eyes wide open. I heard Deborah begin to move from her corner as she slowly stood up again, readying her sword for a quick stab. "You sca–?"
With her other hand, Undine lashed out. A dagger hidden behind her lower back, outside of my view, swung out and dragged itself against that Ghost Rider's face. He actually stepped back in pain as Undine dropped the dagger she held; it was partly melted from the tip to halfway down the length of the blade.
"Damn it, you little bitch! Fuck!"
Deborah capitalized on that, rushing him from behind. Her sword pierced the black suit that covered his body and emerged from the other side, but he was silent as his head lolled backwards. "…Wow. Really?" Chains. So many chains. They came from every shadow, leapt from every green orifice in space, and struck them both.
Undine shouted in agony as her arms were slashed and she fell away from the monstrous Rider as he continued his work against Deborah. All at once, I felt my control disappear. I'd finally met someone so absolutely awful, so ridiculously disgusting, that my Rider was willing to break its rules to come out.
…I couldn't find it in me to even be mad about it.
-x-
One Foot on the Platform
OR: One Foot on the Train
End-288
