(no subject)
It was... hard.
Hard to pay attention, to make sense of anything. He was distantly aware of shapes, people, talking and worrying and dragging him around a room, but they were behind a cloud, lost in a fog. He thought he could remember their names- Sarah Jane Smith, Maria Jackson, Clyde Langer- but they slipped and slid in his head.
“You’re okay,” someone was saying.
“I don’t think he is,” another pointed out.
The voices faded in and out, slurred and blurred until they were practically incomprehensible. His head hurt.
“No,” someone said, “Luke’s better at maths, like you said, problems. Like putting two and two together.”
Pathways opened, words made sense, the fog cleared, just for a minute. “Four,” he said.
Before he could slip back into the fog again, the woman (Sarah Jane, his Mum) asked, “What’s the square root of a hundred and twenty-four?”
“Eleven point one three five five two eight seven two five six six zero zero four three.” The fog blew away a little bit more, and he smiled at his friends (Maria, Clyde) shakily. Beyond them, he glimpsed shadowy figures holding swords, and a cold fist of someone else’s fear slammed into his stomach. He fell (knees buckled, hands holding him up) back into the fog.
“Forty-one thousand, seven hundred and fifty-nine divided by eight hundred and eighty-three.”
It was harder again, his head pounding in his ears, but he struggled past it. “Forty-seven point… two nine… one… two…” It wasn’t right, he knew it wasn’t right, but he blurted out numbers anyway, hoping that maybe he could find his way back through them anyway, follow them like a trail of breadcrumbs, but he just got lost and more lost.
Dimly, he was aware of his face going numb, of words not his own issuing from his mouth. ”Don’t think that will save him for long,” he did and didn’t say. Someone laughed, the sound ripping violently from him. "Now get me out of here if you want to save him." His hand (so cold he couldn’t feel it anymore) pointed to the exit, beyond the soldiers. "Get me away from them."
"Give him back," the woman nearest him said. "Give him back now."
"Never," he snarled.
"Geography," the younger one said. "What's the capital of- of Brazil?"
The new facts gave him something to fight with, something to warm his skin. He wrenched control of his mouth back, and said, "Brasilia, of course."
They kept talking, and he thought hard about all many facts he'd read about Brasilia, practically shouting, it was that loud. He barely heard his next assignment, "Give me the value of pi to as many decimal places as you can," and he rattled it off as quickly as he could, before anyone else could use his mouth. "Three point- one four, one five nine..."
The boy (Clyde) asked, "Is that tricky?" and he took time from the numbers to inform him, "It's been calculated to over... a thousand billion decimal places. It goes on forever. Two six five, three five..."
As he talked, he was dragged through rooms, slowly growing more and more confident as he talked, needing less support to hold himself up, able to process more of what was going on, as long as he made the numbers the most important thing.
"He's been possessed," Clyde was saying. "Taken over!"
"Yea, thanks for that," Maria replied.
"That mark across his face- it's like on the screen."
"The thirteenth stone," Sarah Jane said. "The King's stone. Was there a warrior inside that? I didn't see it break open, did you?"
His mind was slipping again, his mouth going in and out of his control. "When the time is right. Soon, very soon, I shall emerge to rule- again! The pathetic forces three, two... nine, seven... of the sentries, my seven, three... one... cannot stop me now."
It was too much work fighting for control, he was barely aware of his surroundings. They'd moved, and people were talking around him, about what to do, what about the warriors, "Not very bright, are they?" And a thought, cold and clear and hard, took over again. "They are soldiers, no more." One two sero nine zero nine one "It takes more than a simple psycho-molecular prison to keep Ravage bound."
It was too much, he realised, holding onto control and his thoughts and the same time. With his last piece of strength, he gasped out, "I can't. I'm sorry," and curled up in his own mind, hiding from the fist of Ravage's mind that was trying to crush him.
"But you must have a name. If I'm Sarah Jane, then you are..."
"All I know is I had to run."
"They thought they could imprison me! Trapped for all eternity inside the stone. Twelve warriors of Amital to watch over my prison." He laughed, triumphant. "It took the combined armies of the Republic to defeat me. And they thought a handful of sentries could stand guard, and I would not escape."
"But you can talk. Someone must have taught you that. Who was it?"
"Everyone."
"Who are you?" the young girl asked, her voice quivering. "And what's happened to Luke?"
"What does that mean, 'everyone'?"
"I am... everyone."
"I am Ravage! I am the might and the power of Amital, I am its future and its past, its anointed king and protector, ruler and sovereign."
"Ravage," the male said. "I'm guessing they don't have elections where you're from."
"And then I had to run. A girl came- Maria. And then, you."
"I siezed the throne by force of arms. I slew those who opposed me. I cleansed the Senate and went to war against our enemies, I was the greatest leader Amital has ever known!"
"And Luke, my Luke, what've you done with him?"
"Well, think back. Before you ran, what can you remember?"
"I was born running."
"He struggles to be free within his own mind. I can feel him stirring, resisting, but soon he will sleep forever."
The eldest one lunged towards him; he easily smacked her aside, even with the diminished strength of his body. "What's eleven times fifty-seven point nine-nine-six?" one asked.
six, three "You-" seven point nine "bother me with-" five six "trivia."
"Answer the question. Luke! Answer the question!"
Like slogging through quicksand, he answered, "Six... three... seven.. point nine... five, six."
"The boy has more spark, more soul than I expected."
"That's why you chose him, isn't it? Something to do with Luke's mind, his background!"
"New, unformed, and impressionable. Soon, he will be subsumed." A door burst open. The cavalry was almost here.
"You were imprisoned inside the stone, this stone."
"The warriors sacrificed themselves, gave up their remaining life force to keep me imprisoned. Moble, heroic, but doomed to failure. The warriors were arranged to focus their energy on the stone where I was held. Over the years, their power depleted, and with the crude application of technology, mine grew. It flowed along the lines of focus, transferred energy from the warrior to me."
"But- you're still trapped. You, the real you, is still inside that stone. We can see him."
He turned, regarded his prison of some several centuries. "My body no more. It may be trapped, but my mind is free! Free to inhabit this mind, this new, unformed, impressionable mind. Your minds would have expelled me in an instant, I would have nowhere to exist, my mind would have dissipated, faded and died. But here! Here, I found a ready template, still taking on the personality it will become. And now, it will be my personality. I have waited so long for a mind like this to come to me."
The useless prattle and the marching soldiers brought his attention back from his triumph. "You will help me escape the warriors. You will get me awaay from here."
"No chance. I'm not saving you."
"Then you condemn your Luke to death. That is how they will try to prevent my escape, by destroying this new body I have taken." The first of the warriors entered the room, prepared his sword. "To keep me imprisoned, they will kill your friend. Your only chance of ever saving him is to help me escape."
"...What was pi again?"
"I'm feeling anxious."
"So am I."
"But you've been to school before."
"Not this one."
Luke- hesitantly, but surely- reached out again, regained control of his mouth, pressed back against the mind trying to envelope his own, stuttering out the numbers past Ravage's cries of fury.
"You can do it!" someone was saying. "We just need to get away from these warriors, but you can do it! You can drive him out of your mind, I know you can. We'll help you." Disantly, he heard the clang of metal against metal, and he was hauled past a fight between one of the warriors and Clyde.
"Clyde. New, too. Probably be hanging around with you til I meet some cooler people."
"How do you do? I'm Luke Smith."
"...Okay, that was a joke, now I mean it."
At some point, he'd lost his support and dropped to his knees, hands held over his head in a useless attempt to block Ravage's voice out.
"He can do it!" someone cried out desperately. "I'm telling you, he can do it! You don't need to hurt him! He just needs time!"
"You have to help him, not hurt him!" another voice yelled, voice cracking dangerously. "Can't you see that?"
The thirteenth stone pulsed in time with his head. Someone dropped to the floor beside him, arms pulling him into an embrace. "I can't do it for you. I'm sorry, but I can't."
"What have they done to you?"
"I knew I had to get away."
"Yeah, well. That goes for all of us."
"This is up to you," she continued. "I have to let go, I have to let you be yourself."
"How're you gonna adopt him, then? I mean... you need forms and things. Who're you gonna say his real mum is, the Bane mother?"
"Mr. Smith sorted that. Officially done and dusted. All he needs now is a name."
He threw his head back and shouted to be heard over the swords and the fear and the King. "RAVAGE!"
"You can choose your own."
"I like yours."
"Maybe not."
"GET OUT OF ME, RAVAGE!"
"Luke!" (Sarah Jane, Mum) "Luke, you're still there! Come on, Luke, you can do it!"
Over everything, he announced louder: "I- AM- LUKE- SMITH!"
"NO! I AM RAVAGE! THIS- BODY- IS MINE! YOU CANNOT EXPELL MY MIND FROM IT! I WOULD- DIE!"
"How about... Jack? Josh? Nathan?"
"I WON'T LET YOU!"
"Harry? Alistair? Luke?"
"YOU CAN'T STOP ME!"
"I like Luke."
"I-"
"If you like Luke, I like Luke.
"Am-"
"That's the name I was always going to choose if I ever had kids. Except it has. Luke Smith. You're a mum!"
"LUKE! I have my own life, my own mind!"
"I am."
"Not yet! It is incomplete, unformed, mine for the taking!"
He shook his head desperately. "Go back to your stone!"
"I cannot return! I would die if attempted it, my mind scattered and lost! So I shall have your body, it will be mine!"
"Help- me!"
The arms around him- he'd almost forgotten, almost stopped feeling them- tightened. "I can't. I'm so sorry, but I can't. I'm here, I'll always be here, but you'll have to do this yourself, be yourself."
"But what if I make more mistakes?"
"Myself?"
"Then you'll never make the same ones again."
"Yourself. You don't know who that is."
"How do you do? I'm Luke Smith."
"I do I am- Luke- Smith." He stood, a public declaration of himself, defiance against Ravage and the warriors standing by. "I am Luke. I know who I am. You can't take that away from me. I have my own life. My own friends. My mother."
And Ravage-
-Was gone.
The pressure in his mind ceased, and he almost stumbled to his knees again with relief. The warriors lowered their swords and knelt to him, slowly turning back to stone.
"He's dead," Clyde whispered. "The stone- the light's gone out. Is Luke-"
"He's-" Sarah Jane started, but Luke finished for her. "I'm fine, thanks, just... tired."
Hard to pay attention, to make sense of anything. He was distantly aware of shapes, people, talking and worrying and dragging him around a room, but they were behind a cloud, lost in a fog. He thought he could remember their names- Sarah Jane Smith, Maria Jackson, Clyde Langer- but they slipped and slid in his head.
“You’re okay,” someone was saying.
“I don’t think he is,” another pointed out.
The voices faded in and out, slurred and blurred until they were practically incomprehensible. His head hurt.
“No,” someone said, “Luke’s better at maths, like you said, problems. Like putting two and two together.”
Pathways opened, words made sense, the fog cleared, just for a minute. “Four,” he said.
Before he could slip back into the fog again, the woman (Sarah Jane, his Mum) asked, “What’s the square root of a hundred and twenty-four?”
“Eleven point one three five five two eight seven two five six six zero zero four three.” The fog blew away a little bit more, and he smiled at his friends (Maria, Clyde) shakily. Beyond them, he glimpsed shadowy figures holding swords, and a cold fist of someone else’s fear slammed into his stomach. He fell (knees buckled, hands holding him up) back into the fog.
“Forty-one thousand, seven hundred and fifty-nine divided by eight hundred and eighty-three.”
It was harder again, his head pounding in his ears, but he struggled past it. “Forty-seven point… two nine… one… two…” It wasn’t right, he knew it wasn’t right, but he blurted out numbers anyway, hoping that maybe he could find his way back through them anyway, follow them like a trail of breadcrumbs, but he just got lost and more lost.
Dimly, he was aware of his face going numb, of words not his own issuing from his mouth. ”Don’t think that will save him for long,” he did and didn’t say. Someone laughed, the sound ripping violently from him. "Now get me out of here if you want to save him." His hand (so cold he couldn’t feel it anymore) pointed to the exit, beyond the soldiers. "Get me away from them."
"Give him back," the woman nearest him said. "Give him back now."
"Never," he snarled.
"Geography," the younger one said. "What's the capital of- of Brazil?"
The new facts gave him something to fight with, something to warm his skin. He wrenched control of his mouth back, and said, "Brasilia, of course."
They kept talking, and he thought hard about all many facts he'd read about Brasilia, practically shouting, it was that loud. He barely heard his next assignment, "Give me the value of pi to as many decimal places as you can," and he rattled it off as quickly as he could, before anyone else could use his mouth. "Three point- one four, one five nine..."
The boy (Clyde) asked, "Is that tricky?" and he took time from the numbers to inform him, "It's been calculated to over... a thousand billion decimal places. It goes on forever. Two six five, three five..."
As he talked, he was dragged through rooms, slowly growing more and more confident as he talked, needing less support to hold himself up, able to process more of what was going on, as long as he made the numbers the most important thing.
"He's been possessed," Clyde was saying. "Taken over!"
"Yea, thanks for that," Maria replied.
"That mark across his face- it's like on the screen."
"The thirteenth stone," Sarah Jane said. "The King's stone. Was there a warrior inside that? I didn't see it break open, did you?"
His mind was slipping again, his mouth going in and out of his control. "When the time is right. Soon, very soon, I shall emerge to rule- again! The pathetic forces three, two... nine, seven... of the sentries, my seven, three... one... cannot stop me now."
It was too much work fighting for control, he was barely aware of his surroundings. They'd moved, and people were talking around him, about what to do, what about the warriors, "Not very bright, are they?" And a thought, cold and clear and hard, took over again. "They are soldiers, no more." One two sero nine zero nine one "It takes more than a simple psycho-molecular prison to keep Ravage bound."
It was too much, he realised, holding onto control and his thoughts and the same time. With his last piece of strength, he gasped out, "I can't. I'm sorry," and curled up in his own mind, hiding from the fist of Ravage's mind that was trying to crush him.
"But you must have a name. If I'm Sarah Jane, then you are..."
"All I know is I had to run."
"They thought they could imprison me! Trapped for all eternity inside the stone. Twelve warriors of Amital to watch over my prison." He laughed, triumphant. "It took the combined armies of the Republic to defeat me. And they thought a handful of sentries could stand guard, and I would not escape."
"But you can talk. Someone must have taught you that. Who was it?"
"Everyone."
"Who are you?" the young girl asked, her voice quivering. "And what's happened to Luke?"
"What does that mean, 'everyone'?"
"I am... everyone."
"I am Ravage! I am the might and the power of Amital, I am its future and its past, its anointed king and protector, ruler and sovereign."
"Ravage," the male said. "I'm guessing they don't have elections where you're from."
"And then I had to run. A girl came- Maria. And then, you."
"I siezed the throne by force of arms. I slew those who opposed me. I cleansed the Senate and went to war against our enemies, I was the greatest leader Amital has ever known!"
"And Luke, my Luke, what've you done with him?"
"Well, think back. Before you ran, what can you remember?"
"I was born running."
"He struggles to be free within his own mind. I can feel him stirring, resisting, but soon he will sleep forever."
The eldest one lunged towards him; he easily smacked her aside, even with the diminished strength of his body. "What's eleven times fifty-seven point nine-nine-six?" one asked.
six, three "You-" seven point nine "bother me with-" five six "trivia."
"Answer the question. Luke! Answer the question!"
Like slogging through quicksand, he answered, "Six... three... seven.. point nine... five, six."
"The boy has more spark, more soul than I expected."
"That's why you chose him, isn't it? Something to do with Luke's mind, his background!"
"New, unformed, and impressionable. Soon, he will be subsumed." A door burst open. The cavalry was almost here.
"You were imprisoned inside the stone, this stone."
"The warriors sacrificed themselves, gave up their remaining life force to keep me imprisoned. Moble, heroic, but doomed to failure. The warriors were arranged to focus their energy on the stone where I was held. Over the years, their power depleted, and with the crude application of technology, mine grew. It flowed along the lines of focus, transferred energy from the warrior to me."
"But- you're still trapped. You, the real you, is still inside that stone. We can see him."
He turned, regarded his prison of some several centuries. "My body no more. It may be trapped, but my mind is free! Free to inhabit this mind, this new, unformed, impressionable mind. Your minds would have expelled me in an instant, I would have nowhere to exist, my mind would have dissipated, faded and died. But here! Here, I found a ready template, still taking on the personality it will become. And now, it will be my personality. I have waited so long for a mind like this to come to me."
The useless prattle and the marching soldiers brought his attention back from his triumph. "You will help me escape the warriors. You will get me awaay from here."
"No chance. I'm not saving you."
"Then you condemn your Luke to death. That is how they will try to prevent my escape, by destroying this new body I have taken." The first of the warriors entered the room, prepared his sword. "To keep me imprisoned, they will kill your friend. Your only chance of ever saving him is to help me escape."
"...What was pi again?"
"I'm feeling anxious."
"So am I."
"But you've been to school before."
"Not this one."
Luke- hesitantly, but surely- reached out again, regained control of his mouth, pressed back against the mind trying to envelope his own, stuttering out the numbers past Ravage's cries of fury.
"You can do it!" someone was saying. "We just need to get away from these warriors, but you can do it! You can drive him out of your mind, I know you can. We'll help you." Disantly, he heard the clang of metal against metal, and he was hauled past a fight between one of the warriors and Clyde.
"Clyde. New, too. Probably be hanging around with you til I meet some cooler people."
"How do you do? I'm Luke Smith."
"...Okay, that was a joke, now I mean it."
At some point, he'd lost his support and dropped to his knees, hands held over his head in a useless attempt to block Ravage's voice out.
"He can do it!" someone cried out desperately. "I'm telling you, he can do it! You don't need to hurt him! He just needs time!"
"You have to help him, not hurt him!" another voice yelled, voice cracking dangerously. "Can't you see that?"
The thirteenth stone pulsed in time with his head. Someone dropped to the floor beside him, arms pulling him into an embrace. "I can't do it for you. I'm sorry, but I can't."
"What have they done to you?"
"I knew I had to get away."
"Yeah, well. That goes for all of us."
"This is up to you," she continued. "I have to let go, I have to let you be yourself."
"How're you gonna adopt him, then? I mean... you need forms and things. Who're you gonna say his real mum is, the Bane mother?"
"Mr. Smith sorted that. Officially done and dusted. All he needs now is a name."
He threw his head back and shouted to be heard over the swords and the fear and the King. "RAVAGE!"
"You can choose your own."
"I like yours."
"Maybe not."
"GET OUT OF ME, RAVAGE!"
"Luke!" (Sarah Jane, Mum) "Luke, you're still there! Come on, Luke, you can do it!"
Over everything, he announced louder: "I- AM- LUKE- SMITH!"
"NO! I AM RAVAGE! THIS- BODY- IS MINE! YOU CANNOT EXPELL MY MIND FROM IT! I WOULD- DIE!"
"How about... Jack? Josh? Nathan?"
"I WON'T LET YOU!"
"Harry? Alistair? Luke?"
"YOU CAN'T STOP ME!"
"I like Luke."
"I-"
"If you like Luke, I like Luke.
"Am-"
"That's the name I was always going to choose if I ever had kids. Except it has. Luke Smith. You're a mum!"
"LUKE! I have my own life, my own mind!"
"I am."
"Not yet! It is incomplete, unformed, mine for the taking!"
He shook his head desperately. "Go back to your stone!"
"I cannot return! I would die if attempted it, my mind scattered and lost! So I shall have your body, it will be mine!"
"Help- me!"
The arms around him- he'd almost forgotten, almost stopped feeling them- tightened. "I can't. I'm so sorry, but I can't. I'm here, I'll always be here, but you'll have to do this yourself, be yourself."
"But what if I make more mistakes?"
"Myself?"
"Then you'll never make the same ones again."
"Yourself. You don't know who that is."
"How do you do? I'm Luke Smith."
"I do I am- Luke- Smith." He stood, a public declaration of himself, defiance against Ravage and the warriors standing by. "I am Luke. I know who I am. You can't take that away from me. I have my own life. My own friends. My mother."
And Ravage-
-Was gone.
The pressure in his mind ceased, and he almost stumbled to his knees again with relief. The warriors lowered their swords and knelt to him, slowly turning back to stone.
"He's dead," Clyde whispered. "The stone- the light's gone out. Is Luke-"
"He's-" Sarah Jane started, but Luke finished for her. "I'm fine, thanks, just... tired."