12-27-2017, 01:57 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-27-2017, 02:14 PM by King Ghidorah.
Edit Reason: General cleanup, and the ending was weak.
)
After an interminable, dreamless age the realization that I'm awake once more weedles its way into my aching brain. It's the bumping that does it. Whatever I'm lying on, its being moved, and the ride is anything but even. I can hear men and horses, smell the mud-and-manure scent of the road and the stink of the soddenn fields; When I open my eyes I find myself precariously perched upon a makeshift wooden pallet, being dragged behind a ruggedly constructed horse-drawn wagon laden with crates and canvas bundles.
The first person I see is Chatterly, riding several meters behind me, mounted on a dusky-colored beast which seems more than a little unnerved by my presence. He's flanked by two similarly dressed men riding similarly nervous horses. Of the three only the spymaster isn't wearing his hood, though dark paint still decorates his face. His short, slicked-back hair matches the iron-grey sky.
The sheer humiliation of my circumstances is practically beyond belief: I've been rescued. Defeated by Mothra of all Primes, I've been rescued (though from what exactly I'm still not entirely clear). And to make it even worse my savior (the very concept of which is brain-twistingly backwards) just had to be him.
I draw upon my astral well, and cosmic charge rumbles within my throat; The gravitic lightning is mine again. I could blast Chatterly now, and I desperately want to, my anthropocidal hatred for him burning far brighter than it ever has before. The problem is that I don't think he'd die so easily, and as personally grating as the thought may be my loss today has driven one point incontestably home: though I have recovered some power, I'm still far from invincible. Beaten, drained and outnumbered, now is not the time.
My sinuous gold musculature shifts, glinting in the gray light, and the movement catches the spymaster's eye. "Ah," he says, pitching his voice just loudly enough to be heard over the rattle of the cart and the clatter and thump of hooves, "You're awake. Allow me to be the first to congratulate you on another successful mission."
I glare at him and croak out a question, my words dripping with bile. "What are you wittering about Chatterly?"
His blunt little smile is just one more reason to think of some special and surpassingly vile fate when the time is right to destroy him. "The caravan you were tasked with intercepting," he explains. "By miraculous coincidence, you landed on it when your colorful rival blasted you out of the sky. Seven wagons, ninety men: no survivors. And ahead of schedule, too! Accidental or not, it was very well done."
A low stone wall bumps and lurches past, the waterlogged tips of a barley-field barely visible from this unaccustomed angle. I sit up, the effort making my head pound and my chest feel tender, but no black spots appear before my eyes and no golden ichor flows from my sternum.
In the heat of my ill-fated battle with Mothra and its scandalous aftermath I had completely forgotten the reason I was out here in the first place.
"Forget the mission," I snarl. As has happened so many times before, I can't decide whether my 'handler' is mocking me or not, and given my current circumstances its got me very nearly frothing with anger. "Why were you there? And what exactly did that presumptuous invertebrate think she was going to do?"
One of Chatterly's companions signals for his attention, and they have a brief exchange in hushed private tones.
"ANSWER ME!"
My enraged roar panics their horses, setting the beasts rearing and pawing at the air, eyes rolling madly. The stupid beasts may not know what I am, but they certainly recognize that they are in the presence of a destroyer, and that he is not pleased. I watch with interest and more than a little satisfaction as the three riders fall behind, struggling to remain in the saddle while their mounts buck and wheel and try to bolt. Perhaps predictably, it's Chatterly who manages to calm his horse first, spurring it ahead in order to retake his position behind my questionable conveyance. He isn't smiling anymore. I have no idea why, but there almost seems to be disappointment on his narrow face. Still, after a moment to recompose his calm, confident mask, he does as I ask.
"Mm. In the interest of keeping this civil, I'll have ask you not to do that. As to your questions, I was there because I was shadowing the caravan. Gathering intelligence in order to better predict the impact of its loss - and to evaluate your performance, of course. Your sudden arrival so far from the agreed upon ambush-site came as a shock, but given the results not an unwelcome one."
"And Mothra?" I hiss.
"She was attempting to Banish you. There's a 'verse that's isolated from the others - the Underverse. It's a ghastly place. One can send troublesome Primes there using a banishment circle - the very device that was almost used on you - but they don't come back."
He pauses. "...Usually. There was Nealapph, but that one was something of an enigma."
I stare straight ahead for a long moment, silent. Chatterly's two companions, now far behind, finally manage to control their mounts, and gallop to join us.
I know about the Underverse, and its ruler, Diablo, a Prime by all accounts whose temperament is very similar to mine. I read - and ate - a book about his war against the Omniverse at large, but it mentioned nothing about any remaining connection between the two realms. I'll have to think about the implications; One, however, immediately stands out which raises my spirits immensely: Though I can't permanently kill Mothra, I have a way to get rid of her, and to send her to a place ruled by one with both the power and the disposition to break her utterly. When she lies beaten at my feet, I'll make sure she knows exactly where she's going.
I feel a vicious smile creep across my aching, battered, ugly hominid face. My lips curl back, exposing my fangs. For all that the events of the day have gone against my expectations, my pride and the very order of nature, it seems that something good may have come of it after-all.
The first person I see is Chatterly, riding several meters behind me, mounted on a dusky-colored beast which seems more than a little unnerved by my presence. He's flanked by two similarly dressed men riding similarly nervous horses. Of the three only the spymaster isn't wearing his hood, though dark paint still decorates his face. His short, slicked-back hair matches the iron-grey sky.
The sheer humiliation of my circumstances is practically beyond belief: I've been rescued. Defeated by Mothra of all Primes, I've been rescued (though from what exactly I'm still not entirely clear). And to make it even worse my savior (the very concept of which is brain-twistingly backwards) just had to be him.
I draw upon my astral well, and cosmic charge rumbles within my throat; The gravitic lightning is mine again. I could blast Chatterly now, and I desperately want to, my anthropocidal hatred for him burning far brighter than it ever has before. The problem is that I don't think he'd die so easily, and as personally grating as the thought may be my loss today has driven one point incontestably home: though I have recovered some power, I'm still far from invincible. Beaten, drained and outnumbered, now is not the time.
My sinuous gold musculature shifts, glinting in the gray light, and the movement catches the spymaster's eye. "Ah," he says, pitching his voice just loudly enough to be heard over the rattle of the cart and the clatter and thump of hooves, "You're awake. Allow me to be the first to congratulate you on another successful mission."
I glare at him and croak out a question, my words dripping with bile. "What are you wittering about Chatterly?"
His blunt little smile is just one more reason to think of some special and surpassingly vile fate when the time is right to destroy him. "The caravan you were tasked with intercepting," he explains. "By miraculous coincidence, you landed on it when your colorful rival blasted you out of the sky. Seven wagons, ninety men: no survivors. And ahead of schedule, too! Accidental or not, it was very well done."
A low stone wall bumps and lurches past, the waterlogged tips of a barley-field barely visible from this unaccustomed angle. I sit up, the effort making my head pound and my chest feel tender, but no black spots appear before my eyes and no golden ichor flows from my sternum.
In the heat of my ill-fated battle with Mothra and its scandalous aftermath I had completely forgotten the reason I was out here in the first place.
"Forget the mission," I snarl. As has happened so many times before, I can't decide whether my 'handler' is mocking me or not, and given my current circumstances its got me very nearly frothing with anger. "Why were you there? And what exactly did that presumptuous invertebrate think she was going to do?"
One of Chatterly's companions signals for his attention, and they have a brief exchange in hushed private tones.
"ANSWER ME!"
My enraged roar panics their horses, setting the beasts rearing and pawing at the air, eyes rolling madly. The stupid beasts may not know what I am, but they certainly recognize that they are in the presence of a destroyer, and that he is not pleased. I watch with interest and more than a little satisfaction as the three riders fall behind, struggling to remain in the saddle while their mounts buck and wheel and try to bolt. Perhaps predictably, it's Chatterly who manages to calm his horse first, spurring it ahead in order to retake his position behind my questionable conveyance. He isn't smiling anymore. I have no idea why, but there almost seems to be disappointment on his narrow face. Still, after a moment to recompose his calm, confident mask, he does as I ask.
"Mm. In the interest of keeping this civil, I'll have ask you not to do that. As to your questions, I was there because I was shadowing the caravan. Gathering intelligence in order to better predict the impact of its loss - and to evaluate your performance, of course. Your sudden arrival so far from the agreed upon ambush-site came as a shock, but given the results not an unwelcome one."
"And Mothra?" I hiss.
"She was attempting to Banish you. There's a 'verse that's isolated from the others - the Underverse. It's a ghastly place. One can send troublesome Primes there using a banishment circle - the very device that was almost used on you - but they don't come back."
He pauses. "...Usually. There was Nealapph, but that one was something of an enigma."
I stare straight ahead for a long moment, silent. Chatterly's two companions, now far behind, finally manage to control their mounts, and gallop to join us.
I know about the Underverse, and its ruler, Diablo, a Prime by all accounts whose temperament is very similar to mine. I read - and ate - a book about his war against the Omniverse at large, but it mentioned nothing about any remaining connection between the two realms. I'll have to think about the implications; One, however, immediately stands out which raises my spirits immensely: Though I can't permanently kill Mothra, I have a way to get rid of her, and to send her to a place ruled by one with both the power and the disposition to break her utterly. When she lies beaten at my feet, I'll make sure she knows exactly where she's going.
I feel a vicious smile creep across my aching, battered, ugly hominid face. My lips curl back, exposing my fangs. For all that the events of the day have gone against my expectations, my pride and the very order of nature, it seems that something good may have come of it after-all.