Revival

[Kenpachi Zaraki]

No sooner had the mysterious words entered his mind than the gunslinger felt a stabbing pain at the base of his skull, his knees buckling as a familiar agony set his nerves ablaze. Agony spread like a voracious wildfire down his spine, diffusing rapidly to permeate every inch of his body. What remained of his dulled senses were promptly extinguished as Vincent flung his head back, letting loose a guttural roar. His body became corporeal once more as his scream echoed down the hallway.

Vincent!

Swallowed up and cut off from the world by a sea of torment, the ex-Turk froze in place. This voice had been different than the mocking, challenging tone he had since heard. This one was familiar and drenched in panic, pleading for his attention.

VINCENT!

Blinded, deafened, and awash in misery, Vincent’s felt the bottom fall out of his stomach as his addled brain finally placed the source of the call. For the umpteenth time today, he was forced to face what seemed to be impossible.

Mister Valentine...come to us, won’t you?

As the malevolent taunting assaulted his consciousness, images flashed before his eyes. Like a theater with a broken projector, stills flashed past haphazardly and at vary angles for but a moment apiece. He recognized a few, though familiar or not, the sequence of images burned itself into his memory like a brand. Several among them stuck out: the sterile hallways of the facility in which he now stood, the bustling streets of Coruscant, a room lined with complex-looking technology, and a young girl, her auburn hair framing pale skin and unnaturally-vibrant blue eyes.

“SHELKE!” the ex-Turk roared, deaf to his own cries. His gray matter, inundated with pain, could scarcely keep a thought in his head, save for the image of the girl. 

“Subject X-3,” came the monotone of a returning Agent. He stood for but a moment in the doorway, eyeing the oblivious, feral Prime. “Apprehended,” he muttered, drawing his pistol at once, leveling the piece at his mark, and firing.

From inside his prison of pain, Vincent felt something alien. An uptick of pain in an otherwise uniform coffin of torment. Numb to all sensation save agony, Vincent sprang sloppily to his feet and turned his attention toward the blips of increased pain on his mental radar. His body reacted without his direction, tapping into his Protomateria and summoning up a cloak of chaotic red energy that enveloped his form. Before the suited man could react to the change, the ex-Turk lunged forward, barreling into his attacker and sending him airborne. The Agent’s trip was short-lived, however, as he came to a stop abruptly against the hallway wall, spraying chunks of drywall onto the pristine tile.

Heedless of the destruction he had caused, the incensed Prime rampaged down the hallway, flailing his chaos-empowered limbs at nonexistent foes. The frenzy of devastation came to an abrupt end as Vincent made contact with the far wall, obliterating the plaster as his superhumanly-enhanced body collided with it. Deep within the gunslinger’s subconscious, he felt the sensation of falling as he tumbled through the wall, plunging toward the streets below. Once more he felt a sharp spike in pain, followed this time by soothing embrace of unconsciousness. He felt the pain finally ebb as he slipped away, cool raindrops intermingling with the puddle of crimson ichor pooling beneath his battered body.

“Shelke...” he rasped, his vision blurring. His eyes blinked slowly, futilely, as he drifted away.