Beautiful Erasure (Tyr)

GEAR

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#1
September 8th, OE 102
The Fabula Forest
Throne of the King of Ruin
8:10 PM


Bleak.

Inhospitable.

A black hole of despair, from which nothing could escape.

All these words and more described the Ruina's present base of operation, where the power of the Fabula Forest waxed and waned, pulsating like a vile heartbeat at the center of a realm of frost. Foul waves of Negative Energy wafted from the chained gateway, filling the air, writhing into shapes that vaguely resembled screaming faces, grasping, pleading hands, and all manner of other, unpleasant images.

What was seen in this place was unholy to most - and inviolably sacred to some.

And the prophet of these horsemen, these bringers of ruin and desolation, made this wretched seat of blasphemy his home.



The man once known as Gail rested on his throne, a wretched thing wrenched together from wreckage dredged from world beyond - a legacy of conquest, his eyes closed, his form inert, breathing shallow.

Those near knew full well not to interrupt his trance, for those near were just as likely to be pulled into his being as their enemies - the ultimate fate that awaited all Ruina, regardless of origin, was to return to oblivion. When the universe ended, it was said, they would be there to turn the lights off... but. that was not today.

Today... one of their number, for reasons uncertain, had been summoned to this chamber. To stand before the King of Ruin...

And receive benediction.
 
Aug 25, 2018
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#2
There were no humans in the DARC. Ever since the gate at the heart of the compound had briefly opened, the only human that had been present in its now silent halls was Xander, before the Ruina had openly revealed themselves. But there still was a human presence still within the Ruina base, singular and miniscule though it was. The body that had once belonged to the human known as Johan housed within it two entities, both the Melior Esse Slask, who controlled the body, as well as the aforementioned Johan.

And now, this hybrid of human and ruina had been called for by the Lord of Ruin.

Surrounded by the hum of the elevator as it descended to the depths, Slask stood in the middle, still and calm on the outside.

Inside however, there was a storm of emotions.

'What are you doing?' There was an edge of manic desperation in Johan's thoughts that intensified the closer they got to the Fabula Forest and the Lord of Ruin. 'You are marching straight to our doom! We at least should've come in with Fabularis via the new pathway there is to where we are going!'

Slask tilted his head a fraction. 'You are afraid.'

Johan laughed, a pitiful, shaky thing barely held together. It was true. As the doors opened, and they began their walk towards the throne, assailed by nightmarish phantoms, some that he could swear he could almost recognize, Johan was well and truly terrified. He had felt Its presence ever since It took over the hapless intruder but it had been far away, and terrible enough then. This close, in the heart and source of Its power, stuck a prisoner in his own body and surrounded by demons worse than those of any folklore, he could feel his faculties unravel.

Slask knelt in front of the grotesque throne. "I have come as summoned, my Lord." His voice intoned, void of emotion despite the terror of the soul that the Melior Esse shared this body with.

In this helpless position he was in, the only thing that kept Johan's mind intact, the one thing that kept it from being wiped out by the aura of terror the Lord of Ruin exhibited, unnoticed by the terrified mind of Johan itself was a tiny piece. A tiny seed of something other than the negativity that permeated every corner of this place. An ever so small kernel of positivity that pulsed more and more insistently the more terrified Johan got, the closer they were to the Lord of Ruin. All the more beautiful for how small and weak it seemed in comparison. A seed of excitement, unrealized and hidden from Johan himself for now, at the prospect of fighting against this eldritch god of terror.
 

GEAR

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#3
For a time, there was silence from the body on the throne. Naught but the gentle tumult of the Fabula Forest reached Slask's ears. It beggared the question: Had their Lord been wounded in his last battle, somehow? His return had been silent, the Fatum bearing grievous wounds unlike any seen before, and he had slunk wordlessly away to this cloistered place, to rest.

A wet, groaning sigh escaped Perfectio's lips. Like the dying gasp of a corpse, dragged out across several seconds as he opened his eyes. Those two golden pools that would have ripped the soul from a lesser being stared down at the inconsequential form of the Melior Esse.

Did he see Johan, hiding in terror behind the protective barrier of his subconscious?


"Rise, Slask." He said, slowly.​

There was something about the cadence of his voice. An unnatural, staggering drone, accentuated with movements of the features that seemed as if the flesh vessel itself struggled to contain what was within.

"Our strength... grows. I... feel it."

A slow smile, as if the corners of his mouth were being pulled up slowly by hooks embedded in his lips, snaked its way up the Lord of Ruin's face as he nodded, approvingly.

"You have served us... well."

Haltingly, jerkily, he rose to his feet. His features turned dour, and it was if the entire room stirred anxiously with them. His eyes followed the swirling spirits, until they too sank into silent, terrified obedience... and calm, or what passed for it this close to the Hellish relic from the bottom of the sea, reigned once more.

"But... our old enemy... has returned."

He took a step down towards the Melior Esse, drawing nearer with each passing moment. There was no fear in his voice. Not even the slightest hint of intimidation. No, rather he sounded... pensive, almost. As if the thought had been boiling just below the surface this entire time, and had only now bobbed to the top.

"You... sense it too."
 
Aug 25, 2018
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#4
As Perfectio bid him to, Slask rose. The act of kneeling held no meaning to him, and had been done by rote. "Serving you is our purpose."

As Perfectio spoke, the body in front of him was still and silent, minute swaying and the steady rising and falling of the chest as it breathed the only real signs of life. Once the Lord of Ruin was finished, the body of Slask nodded. In contrast to Perfectio's jerky movements the motion was even and measured, with both the down and back up movements being even in speed like a mechanical piston. "Zan-El? Most of us have noticed it by now."

Slask's brows furrowed. What was the point of his Lord bringing it up like this? But more than that - 'Your fear and panic is distracting. Get a grip on yourself already, or at the very least continue it in silence instead of screaming into our head.'

"My Lord, do you want me to hunt Zan-El down and eliminate it?" That at least would bring a halt to Johan's panicking and sulking both.
 

GEAR

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#5
The Lord of Ruin listened to his servant - no, it was more as if he were absorbing the words, like the sound was dragged out of the air and into him, like a black hole devouring light. Even Melior Esse were not safe from his touch - and so it was that a distance was traditionally kept between them. Yet... Perfectio leaned forward at the mention of Zan-El.

"What care I... for a flickering ember?" He said, with uncharacteristic dryness.

"When her advent draws closer with every passing moment?"

Whether he registered Johann's suppressed terror or not was uncertain, as he slowly began to pace, eyes lowered, as though focused on some point before him that was just out of reach, yet tantalizingly close.

"Her shadow. Its presence... grows more defined. It sees me... and I, it. Soon, we shall meet... as we were always fated to."

One hand came up to his face, briefly touching his temples, as though to relieve some phantom ache. As though the body that now housed the incarnation of terror and destruction itself faintly remembered that it was, in fact, once human.

"Our destiny has always been that of ruin. We do not fear it. We embrace it. Embody it... and yet..."

He paused before Slask, those yellow eyes boring into his own. For the one lurking behind them, what followed must have been the most unimaginable of nightmares, as he said gently - like a spider being crushed in the softest velvet:

"Destiny stirs in you... Johan."
 
Aug 25, 2018
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#6
The body stilled, the Lord of Ruin's words freezing it more surely than even Fabularis would. Likewise, stillness and silence reigned in their mind, Its gentle words cutting through the terror felt by Johan - and bringing in a new, fresh kind of terror with it. Slask closed his eyes and withdrew himself as the one controlling the body, halfway shoving, halfway dragging Johan into being in temporary control.

A heavy, intense shudder ran through Johan's body, and even though his eyes were still closed the heartbeat became to climb up rapidly, and the shudder turned into intense shaking, the breathing likewise quickening into shallow, rapid, audible breaths. Already terrified, the intensity of the bodily reaction - something Johan was unaccustomed to now, feeling his body for the first time since they left the Moon - only fed into the fear. Were it only those two, they would have continued to feed from one another, creating a feedback loop that eventually would have killed the body out of fear alone.

But instead, the intense emotion and the flood of adrenaline awoke the instincts of the body that had lain dormant for a long time, as Johan's fight-or-fight instinct reared its head and, tasting the adrenaline, bared its teeth.

It was a volatile mix that by all rights should have taken the last shreds of Johan's control over the body, if any still remained. But that did not happen. Rather, whether it was because of its familiarity to Johan or because of the changes his body had gone through since the Fabula Forest opened (and how well could he still claim it to be his body when he did not know how much or little had changed?), it was what finally released Johan from the prison of his fear and terror.

The fear receded, and though there were still tremors on the body, it was the reaction of the muscles to the adrenaline, nothing more or less as the body was geared for a fight.

Rolling his shoulders, Johan opened his eyes to meet Perfectio's gaze, however fragile it made him feel. Projecting an exterior of confidence was something he could do - no matter how fragile.

"Wh-what-" His throat and mouth were so very dry, forming the words was hard. "What do you mean 'destiny'?"

Clearly and audibly, he swallowed. "Up until DARC I did not survive what I have... because of some destiny. It was skill."

There was a spark of indignant anger in his eyes, but it soon dulled away, ground into oblivion by the inexorable inevitability before him. "And now - now its just a stream of misfortune."
 

GEAR

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#7
Perfectio seemed to... study Johan, much in the way a bored child might observe an insect crawling on their window. Those golden hues moved slowly up and down him, as he paced, slowly.

"So... small." He said, wetly. "So frail. And yet..."

It was terribly, bitingly cold. Johan's breath came out before him in white puffs, and it was as if all the warmth, all the kindness that had ever existed in his entire life, was being drained away from his very being with each passing second he spent in this abomination's company.

"Within you, as all humans, rests... limitless... possibility."

The Lord of Destruction spoke these words, yet they were almost an aside, almost to himself, as his gaze passed over Johan. Finally he stopped in front of the young man. His head lolled up gently, shaking itself in the meager light, which seemed to grow dimmer and dimmer, throwing strange shadows over his features.

"You who are of two worlds. Two souls. Trapped between the darkness, and the light. An aberration that should not exist."

He nodded to himself, as though affirming something.

"Yes. It was your destiny to be led here... where your path... where the safety of certainty... ends."

Were Johan able to feel it through the numbness spreading through his body, the ground would have felt teribly... uneven. An icy sensating was gripping his ankles, dragging him down - and were he to lower his gaze, he would have seen the floor, covered in that bleak, churning pitch, like the blood of a thing so foul that not even death would take it, pulling him away, deeper...

Into the depths of the Fabula Forest.

Perfectio watched, silhouetted against the dying light, only a single gleam of gold as his words seemed to echo in Johan's mind as all went black:

"You... shall do."​