Spotless Blue Skies

[Clownpiece]

Back to square one I guess.

The blank canvas of the Nexus stretched around Somerled once again, as white and featureless as ever, save for the small dots of the gates off in the distance, and other, smaller dots milling about all over the place. Though they were sort of moving about, they were getting nowhere fast, for the most part, so the sun spirit thought they were probably people he hadn’t noticed before. People off doing their own thing and what not, who knows, maybe a few of them were new Primes as confused as he had been a week ago.

Somerled pushed himself up off the ground from where he had been sitting, with much more speed and force than he needed to use. Whatever was going through the sun spirit’s mind was unknown to Sonny, but he could already tell it wasn’t good news. Sighing with his nonexistent mouth, he prepared for the worst. Thoughts were perfectly fine, provided he kept them there, but Sonny doubted his other half would. No, there was a high chance those emotions would become action that he’d need to scold his other half for it later, along with the myriad of massive fuck-ups he had during their little adventure on whatever that island was.

“Hey, Prime!” words barked out from behind the monster, and the barely-visible dots on the horizon disappeared, consumed by the white blur as he swirled their shared vision around. Just around the fountain, which was now a great stone celtic cross, a pair of figures swung into view, and stopped center in his sight. The monster’s gaze settled upon them, silent and intense, not so much as a sound escaping him.

Ah shit.

There was really only one thing that could come of this, the sun spirit knew. Unless their brief stint in the land of the dead caused his other half to have a sudden and miraculous change of heart, a change that not even the Old Gods themselves could inspire in him, whatever was coming would be very sudden and violent, and most likely all over the place.

The figures in front of him, clad in some sort of white and black futuristic looking armor, shouted some sort of order at Somerled. Said order was drowned out in its entirety by a furious scream, and with as much haste as they could muster, they brought their weapons to bear. Black and dully gleaming in the ubiquitous light, they absolutely reeked of danger, especially to a monster whose demise was brought about by guns. Even with their rush, however, they had not drawn fast enough.

Somerled surged forward, his cry already gone, and he slipped just past the barrels of their firearms. A shaky hand shot out from one of the soldiers, trying to find purchase on the monster who’d closed the distance so suddenly. His own hand flew out and met theirs, closing around the wrist like a vice, and suddenly a dull clash of something between plastic and metal filled the air as one body was slammed into the other. The monster released the human bludgeon, and the two soldiers crumpled into a heap on the ground. Instantly, the monster was upon them.

CRACK

Lightning flashed, bright and blinding, as one soldier’s chestpiece was caved in and splattered red with blood from Somerled’s hand. The air now reeked of ozone.

CRACK

Another blast of thunder, and the same soldier’s head twisted much too far to the side. The storm spirit screamed absolute fury at the corpse, letting out unintelligible sounds as he tried to vocalize everything. Beneath the body of his comrade, the second soldier laid deathly still, hoping to avoid drawing the ire of the unholy abomination that screeched above him.

Brilliant red lights screeched past, flying from where the monster’s body also happened to be. His vision blurred and shook, his left eye taken entirely out as the laser burned through his skull. Somerled slouched forward, still as he could be, as the guns silenced themselves. The hush lasted for no more than a few moments, before being broken by the monster drawing in a powerful breath.

WHOOSH

A chilled wind rushed out from his body, and the monster was suddenly a few feet to the left. More shots whistled out from the soldiers weapons towards where he used to be, haphazard and panicky, as they shouted frightened nonsense, their vision snuffed out. New screaming exploded into existence, their lasers burning into the soldier stuck beneath his comrade’s corpse. Fatally wounded, it wouldn’t be long before his shouts of pain would fade away.

Somerled whirled around, three more soldiers sliding into view, and halted his spin with a firm stomp. Attracted by the powerful thump, the soldiers swiveled towards him, and unleashed their neon fury upon the sound. The monster, one step ahead of them, catapulted himself forward with the same step that drew their attention, and came to a stop just to the left of the group. His burst was punctuated with yet another stomp, and still blind, the soldiers spun again.

White filled the sun spirit’s vision as Somerled dropped to the ground, catching himself silently, but clumsily, some level of awareness hidden behind his rage. Blood, barely seeping out from the monster’s shaking, mangled hands, stained the ground as the laser light show raged above him. No longer than a second had past before the whistling of the weaponized plasma ceased, replaced moments later by two dull thuds.

The monster sprung to his feet, and met the gaze of the last soldier alive. Four bodies lay scattered about the area, one felled by Somerled’s hand, the other three burned through with their own bolts. Though he couldn’t see nor feel it, Sonny was quite sure that Somerled’s mouth was sporting his usual, terrifying grin as he stared down the last enemy alive. One hand lifted up, slowly and deliberately, and the monster tapped his forehead, right between his eyes, challenging the soldier to shoot right there.

A single shot whistled out, a deadly, glowing projectile fired with near perfect accuracy, and Sonny’s vision shuddered. The sickening scent of scorched flesh now completely suffused the air, inescapable with the two new holes in Somerled’s head. Giggles escaped the monster, as menacing as the smile on his face, a small laugh which quickly escalated into a full blown cackle as he surged forward. The lone soldier, perhaps guided by his training, never screamed as the monster’s hand closed around his throat.

Well that’s enough of that.

Sonny tuned out the extremely gorey sounds of his other half tearing apart the soldier, as he turned his consciousness inwards and concentrated. Magic stirred from Somerled’s body, no doubt noticed by him, and forced outwards. Light stirred and coalesced, at the same time throwing the sun spirit’s consciousness out from his other half’s body, and into the new one he was creating. The veil of light that made up his body drowned out his vision, white light masking the featureless white of the Nexus. Then, everything finally fully formed, his glow slowly faded away. Once his eyes adjusted, the hunched and blood-soaked form of Somerled was revealed to him, holding onto an armored, disembodied hand, and dismembered corpse sitting in front of him.

His hands, shattered by the two lightning-guided strikes he had delivered, were covered in blood, both his own and that of the soldier he had been ripping apart when Sonny had so rudely interrupted him. Four holes that he was not born with were seared through his body, one took out his left eye, one clean through his upper forehead, one center through his gut, and one which had clipped his chest. Each wound, big enough to fit a thumb through, had been cauterized by the plasma shots that had created them. That didn’t stop the injuries from releasing mist, however, as dead and useless flesh and blood dissolved away into the air. The skirmish, having been more of a slaughter by the hands of a raging monster than an actual, left his clothes incredibly intact. The few holes it had corresponded with the wounds he had received. They were, however, blood-stained beyond belief.

“You look like shit,” the sun spirit said bluntly, gingerly stepping over a corpse as he made his way slowly towards his other half.

“So do you,” he growled, voice hoarse and unsteady, pointing out what Sonny had expected. Somerled’s injuries had carried over to his own body. “Stop doing this shit, it gives me a migraine.” The monster straightened up, words absolutely dripping with venom. This shit, of course, being the sun spirit creating his own body. There was no doubt in his mind that Somerled wasn’t ready to cease his tantrum yet, simply putting it on pause because of Sonny’s intervention, an omen that never boded well for the storm spirit.

“This shit was entirely necessary,” Sonny shot back, his own voice starting to match Somerled’s in emotion. “I would have intervened sooner had you not attacked these soldiers so rashly.”

“So?” the response came in the form of a shout, the monster pushing himself up into Sonny’s face. “They deserved to die!”

“For what? For fucking being there? For rounding the corner at the wrong time? You’re the one who brought on your death, not them! If you hadn’t been so fucking irrational and gods damned impulsive, you wouldn’t have ran into that clusterfuck and expected me to bail you out!” His words rang out into the stale air, hanging there for a moment as he regained his breath.

“That’s not-”

“That’s what you always do,” Sonny’s shout drowned out Somerled’s easily. “You fucking pull shit like that all the gods damned time! Guess what? You don’t always have the comfort of diplomacy. I talked the Council out of killing you for a long-ass time, but you can’t talk your way out of a psychopath with a chainsaw. Just ask these soldiers,” he gestured to the crumpled, white-armored figures littering the ground. “Could any level of smooth-talking get them out of this? Fuck. No.”

“That’s not what this is about!” Somerled barked, his voice powerful but not loud.

“It doesn’t change the fact that you fucked up,” the sun spirit retorted. “You melodramatic piece of cactus cock. Three fucking days is nothing to you! That wasn’t your hunger taking over you, that was you throwing a tantrum because you couldn’t eat the two humans. All those wishes that I was the one involved? Blatant. Fucking. Lies. I can guarantee that if I was actually the one chosen, we would still be here, and you’d be complaining your ass off that I got to do all the exciting shit while you were the one trapped.”

“You’re completely forgetting something!” Somerled took the chance Sonny’s pause for breath created.

“What could possibly be more important than escaping this hell!?”

“Kasumi!” The monster’s voice rang out over the blank Nexus, silencing his other half. Sonny remained rigid in the silence for a few seconds, before letting out a heavy sigh, and stepping back. “We’ve been dragged here and she’s been left alone and how could I have forgotten about her?” Somerled stepped back as well, mutilated hands ruffling his hair as he began pacing. “I knew there was a gap in my memory but I didn’t bother trying to uncover it. Now she’s been back home for at least a week and I’m not there but both the Council forces and the squirrel are.”

“The Council has nothing against her,” Sonny responded quietly, hoping to assuage some of his paranoia. “Just like they had nothing against me. They’ll leave her out of it. And you know as well as I do that Chip wouldn’t harm her. His only grudge was against you. Hell, he met her before you and she came back unharmed.”

“But what about others?” His voice was strained and panicked. There would be no end to his paranoia, the sun spirit thought. No matter what he said, Somerled would keep on being anxious. It didn’t matter that she was a monster like him, that the Council or possibly even the GoN could have taken her under their protection. Unless she was with the storm spirit, he would panic. Sonny sighed once again, and quickly stepped towards his other half.

“Sorry about this.” The sun spirit’s hand, as mangled as Somerled’s, shot out and pressed onto his other half’s face, and forced him to his knees. Quickly, the storm spirit’s body began dissolving, starting with the extremities, into mist, and flowed towards Sonny. The dissolving monster could only thrash violently for the few seconds it took to vanish, soon becoming the trapped consciousness that the sun spirit had once been. “I know tha- WHY THE FU-”

Sonny’s attempt at an explanation was, unsurprisingly, cut off by his other half’s rage. As he doubled over in a fit of violent coughing, he wondered why he had even bothered to try and get through. He really should have seen something like that coming. Hell, he’d been the source of it several times, and he considered himself much calmer that his other half.

Fortunately, since the fit was only caused only by the stress of trying to say two things at once, it subsided quickly enough. Hoping that was enough deterrent to keep his other half silent for long enough, the sun spirit launched into his justification.

“Yes, that was hasty.” Though it had subsided quickly, it left a catch in his throat, and his voice came out raspy. “No, I won’t forget or disregard Kasumi. She means a lot to you, but we won’t get anywhere if you just... be you. I’ll figure something out, just don’t fuck it up.” They were harsh words, but he hoped it would persuade Somerled to be silent for a while. Honestly, Sonny wasn’t quite confident in the storm spirit not fucking whatever their plans would end up being.

For now though, the lack of outrage spewing from his own mouth was good enough, and Sonny slowly lowered himself to a sitting position. In order to get to one of the gates in any reasonable amount of time, he’d need to create a mount of some sort, and truth be told, he sort of wanted to try out that whip given to Somerled during his little adventure. With that in mind, the sun spirit crossed his legs and began concentrating.

Minutes passed, and with it, the rainbow coalescence had become two items useful for achieving whatever he would set out to do next. First, the bullwhip, exactly like the one his other half had used earlier. A three meter long, musically enhanced tool made of kangaroo hide. An item which would be vitally important to their end goal. And the second, a generic brown horse with a saddle, something significantly less useful. With these now created, Sonny pushed himself back to his feet, and strapped the whip to his side with as much grace and speed as a single-eyed, mangle-handed monster lacking a sense of touch could. It was an effort that took longer than the creation of the weapon itself, but eventually it was finished, and the sun spirit saddled up.

Wordlessly, he spurred the chestnut beast into action, steering it towards a random gate and hoping for the best. Behind them, the scene of destruction remained. The corpses of the soldiers would be quite the surprise for the next group or individual to pass the fountain, an unsettling and bewildering picture. Two dead from an outsider, three from their own comrades. Sonny briefly wished that he had intervened sooner. He perhaps could have gotten some information from one of them, and would know where to start. For now, he’d just have to make do with the nothing he had, and hope for the best. Perhaps the gate of well-cut stone he was making towards would have some answers.