(no subject)
Grave robbing.
Terribly nasty business. Not so much for the unpleasant fact that you handle the dead, but rather all that digging. That level of dirty stayed on your skin for days. But every so often one came upon a tomb worth ransacking, and in terms of buried treasure, I had unearthed the mother load.
The actual process of exhuming and removal had been done last night, but the act of loading the prize into my vehicle and returning to the city with it meant there was a bit of a gap between the claiming and the enjoyment.
I knew I wasn't the only one looking for the contents of the back of my van, I just happened to be the only person who knew where the right place to look was.
They all thought it was here, in their city. That's why none of them were looking too hard. They thought the location was obvious, right there in front of them all...and why? Cause that's what they had been told.
But deception is my game. No one did it like I did, and no one did it better. Take that infernal mutant Logan. All those pretty little toys packed into one person, so much potential. So much stupidity. He let himself be duped by his desires. I mention his precious "weapon x" and "Rogue" and suddenly the mighty lion becomes a desperate kitten.
Had he rescued her yet? Not my problem. True the information I asked him to bring back, the floor plans to Wolfram & Hart, would benefit me if he actually survived, and I'd gladly take it...but really to send him into their midst while they were hot on the trail of the very prize I desired...well, it was more of a MacGuffin than anything. A beserker cog in their pipes.
I was already winning, but I just liked to make sure.
Cause like I said, I know when I'm being decieved. They don't. They would soon think they had everything they needed to do exactly what I planned to do tonight, and that arrogant CEO would send one of his deadly little agents to the heart of town, to descend into the mighty monument...and look for something that wasn't there.
It never was.
Waynetech was too smart for that. When they built that tomb, it was the largest red herring in the history of the world. The body was somewhere else.
Of course it was.
That's why I had to steal the land grants from WayneTech's Metropolis office. Cause they would have shipment logs.
...shipments out of town.
...shipments to the real burial site.
That poor stupid girl at the cafe, thinking I was just there to have wine cause I was a bored British man in the afternoon. No idea that I was celebrating my greatest accomplishment.
I had the real location.
A farm, in Kansas.
So I sent my diversion to Wolfram & Hart, and I left town. It was a long process, staking out the property, waiting for the old woman who lived there to finally leave to the grocery store or wherever long enough for me to get my shovel and do what needed to be done.
But now I had it.
...and now I was back in New Metropolis.
I pull the van up to the warehouse I had rented and hit the button on the sunvisor. I wait patiently as the garage door creaks to open, resisting the urge to gun it in early.
I pull slowly into the darkened area, and press the button watching the side mirror as the door closes behind me and darkness envelopes.
I exit the vehicle and cross to the back, opening the hatch and sliding the covered body out on the runners on the built in gurney. When the portable wheels drop I push it toward the elevator. Moments later we are upstairs in the room I have special prepared. The scrolls are on the tables, and I light the candles next to them. It is at this point, I toss the cover aside, and take in the body for the first time.
Dead for years, and he still looks as if it only recently happened. I cannot help but be impressed by his alien DNA. How marvelous.
I stare only for a second more, and then reach for the item I have set on the nearest table. A knife, covered by a lead sheath. I slowly pull it from its casing, and almost immediately the unearthly green glow fills the room.
I press the green blade onto the dead flesh, and cut the symbol I have come to know and follow. The insignia of Milo Rambaldi.
It scores red across his flesh:
< O >
18th century philosopher, artist, alchemist, mystic, chief engineer for Pope Alexander VI...perhaps a madman. There were those that discounted him. There were those that followed him. I had seen both.
But I had seen his prophesies, seen what he could do. My years with Arvin Sloane had taught me that Rambaldi's work was to be revered. He did much, he developed powerful weapons years before the technology was capable. He created means to predict the future, give immortal life.
He was the unspoken genius of his time, and Sloane had devoted everything to finding all he could about Rambaldi. He thought he had, until I found the unfinished text. Rambaldi had discovered a way, to imbue the spirit of one onto another, to make a stronger warrior. Energy transference.
But it was incomplete.
...unknown to him though, and lucky for me...there was a whole world of witches and wizards and dark arts out there.
A deal or two, and I got the books, and the hole were filled.
Tonight...
Oh yes...tonight.
I unbutton my shirt and seperate it, exposing my bare chest. I left the green blade to my eyes and breathe out.
I lower it and cut into my own flesh, creating a mirror of the symbol on the fallen god before me. I feel the hot blood pouring over my belly, soaking into the waist of my pant. No matter.
"All his strength...none of his weakness...all his strength...none of his weakness..."
I with my free hand I touch my blood, and then reach out and smear it across the forehead of the corpse, drawing the ancient pagan symbol culled from the dark book I had read. The symbol of the dead.
Now the words:
"Esse est percipi. Alea iacta est. Aut vincere aut mori... Dimidium facti qui coepit habet..."
I raise the blade over the mark on the forehead.
"All his strength...none of his weakness!"
With all my might I plunge the krypton blade down, and there is a brilliant green flash.
...and everything goes dark.
---
When I wake, my body feels the ache of the blast, surely I was knocked to the floor. Something must not have gone right...but how...
...could...
...wait.
I was surely knocked unconcious.
But I was not knocked to the floor. I look down, and see the room below.
From where I now float.
Nay.
Fly.
I started this day as Julian Sark.
I ended this day...
...a god.
Terribly nasty business. Not so much for the unpleasant fact that you handle the dead, but rather all that digging. That level of dirty stayed on your skin for days. But every so often one came upon a tomb worth ransacking, and in terms of buried treasure, I had unearthed the mother load.
The actual process of exhuming and removal had been done last night, but the act of loading the prize into my vehicle and returning to the city with it meant there was a bit of a gap between the claiming and the enjoyment.
I knew I wasn't the only one looking for the contents of the back of my van, I just happened to be the only person who knew where the right place to look was.
They all thought it was here, in their city. That's why none of them were looking too hard. They thought the location was obvious, right there in front of them all...and why? Cause that's what they had been told.
But deception is my game. No one did it like I did, and no one did it better. Take that infernal mutant Logan. All those pretty little toys packed into one person, so much potential. So much stupidity. He let himself be duped by his desires. I mention his precious "weapon x" and "Rogue" and suddenly the mighty lion becomes a desperate kitten.
Had he rescued her yet? Not my problem. True the information I asked him to bring back, the floor plans to Wolfram & Hart, would benefit me if he actually survived, and I'd gladly take it...but really to send him into their midst while they were hot on the trail of the very prize I desired...well, it was more of a MacGuffin than anything. A beserker cog in their pipes.
I was already winning, but I just liked to make sure.
Cause like I said, I know when I'm being decieved. They don't. They would soon think they had everything they needed to do exactly what I planned to do tonight, and that arrogant CEO would send one of his deadly little agents to the heart of town, to descend into the mighty monument...and look for something that wasn't there.
It never was.
Waynetech was too smart for that. When they built that tomb, it was the largest red herring in the history of the world. The body was somewhere else.
Of course it was.
That's why I had to steal the land grants from WayneTech's Metropolis office. Cause they would have shipment logs.
...shipments out of town.
...shipments to the real burial site.
That poor stupid girl at the cafe, thinking I was just there to have wine cause I was a bored British man in the afternoon. No idea that I was celebrating my greatest accomplishment.
I had the real location.
A farm, in Kansas.
So I sent my diversion to Wolfram & Hart, and I left town. It was a long process, staking out the property, waiting for the old woman who lived there to finally leave to the grocery store or wherever long enough for me to get my shovel and do what needed to be done.
But now I had it.
...and now I was back in New Metropolis.
I pull the van up to the warehouse I had rented and hit the button on the sunvisor. I wait patiently as the garage door creaks to open, resisting the urge to gun it in early.
I pull slowly into the darkened area, and press the button watching the side mirror as the door closes behind me and darkness envelopes.
I exit the vehicle and cross to the back, opening the hatch and sliding the covered body out on the runners on the built in gurney. When the portable wheels drop I push it toward the elevator. Moments later we are upstairs in the room I have special prepared. The scrolls are on the tables, and I light the candles next to them. It is at this point, I toss the cover aside, and take in the body for the first time.
Dead for years, and he still looks as if it only recently happened. I cannot help but be impressed by his alien DNA. How marvelous.
I stare only for a second more, and then reach for the item I have set on the nearest table. A knife, covered by a lead sheath. I slowly pull it from its casing, and almost immediately the unearthly green glow fills the room.
I press the green blade onto the dead flesh, and cut the symbol I have come to know and follow. The insignia of Milo Rambaldi.
It scores red across his flesh:
< O >
18th century philosopher, artist, alchemist, mystic, chief engineer for Pope Alexander VI...perhaps a madman. There were those that discounted him. There were those that followed him. I had seen both.
But I had seen his prophesies, seen what he could do. My years with Arvin Sloane had taught me that Rambaldi's work was to be revered. He did much, he developed powerful weapons years before the technology was capable. He created means to predict the future, give immortal life.
He was the unspoken genius of his time, and Sloane had devoted everything to finding all he could about Rambaldi. He thought he had, until I found the unfinished text. Rambaldi had discovered a way, to imbue the spirit of one onto another, to make a stronger warrior. Energy transference.
But it was incomplete.
...unknown to him though, and lucky for me...there was a whole world of witches and wizards and dark arts out there.
A deal or two, and I got the books, and the hole were filled.
Tonight...
Oh yes...tonight.
I unbutton my shirt and seperate it, exposing my bare chest. I left the green blade to my eyes and breathe out.
I lower it and cut into my own flesh, creating a mirror of the symbol on the fallen god before me. I feel the hot blood pouring over my belly, soaking into the waist of my pant. No matter.
"All his strength...none of his weakness...all his strength...none of his weakness..."
I with my free hand I touch my blood, and then reach out and smear it across the forehead of the corpse, drawing the ancient pagan symbol culled from the dark book I had read. The symbol of the dead.
Now the words:
"Esse est percipi. Alea iacta est. Aut vincere aut mori... Dimidium facti qui coepit habet..."
I raise the blade over the mark on the forehead.
"All his strength...none of his weakness!"
With all my might I plunge the krypton blade down, and there is a brilliant green flash.
...and everything goes dark.
---
When I wake, my body feels the ache of the blast, surely I was knocked to the floor. Something must not have gone right...but how...
...could...
...wait.
I was surely knocked unconcious.
But I was not knocked to the floor. I look down, and see the room below.
From where I now float.
Nay.
Fly.
I started this day as Julian Sark.
I ended this day...
...a god.