@Crusader Lord@Rune_Alchemist
Elsewhere in Penrose…
The masked man idly checked his phone, open to that blog again. He refreshed it every few seconds, keeping his awareness tuned to the feminine figure who, on the surface, didn't seem to fit the bill of "cryptic asshole who laces half their poetry with references to Christoph Magreat."
Hell, she looked pretty damn normal. She was typing away on her laptop, occasionally stopping to stare at the screen. Looked like she was proofreading something for errors.
She clicked decisively, then closed up the computer and stuffed it into her pin-covered backpack. His personal favorite was the “You’ll wish I had pepper spray” one.
Oh, lo and behold, his latest refresh showed a brand new post on that blog.
Self-doubt tenfold, monomaniacal manifest
My death in a suit and tie, reminder of my catalyst
Operator, inspired.That bit of poetry sounded bizarrely familiar, but he couldn't sit down and give a thousand word analysis on it at the moment. The timing was spot-on, so that had to be the poster. The masked man got up, brushed off his trenchcoat, then adjusted his trilby in the reflection of the window. He could afford to give her a few seconds’ headstart. Amateurs always tore off after their targets, made themselves a bit too obvious to anyone who bothered paying attention.
“Hey!”
The masked man froze for a second, and turned around, casual as you please. Some hipster kid was staring, cellphone camera pointed right at him.
“Can I get a picture?”
The masked man paused.
“…sure, kid.” This style of mask still gave him the creeps, but between that and the hat, he got to reap the benefits of looking like one of those cyberterrorists with the good publicity - i.e, not immediately convincing people to call the cops.
One gaudy social media filter later, and the hipster boy pulled away. The scent of overpriced ‘artisanal cologne’ clung to him like a dog soaked in gasoline. “Thanks, man. Hey, any deets on the next operation?”
The masked man shook his head.
“Sorry. Too many ears, and I need to keep moving.” Think of something, something convincing. “Got a tip a surveillance satellite’s about to sweep the area. Need to make myself scarce before it catches up.” Perfect. I'm very smart.The hipster kid gave him an honest-to-God salute as he left. The masked man forced himself to nod back, and started powerwalking after the blogger.
Millennials.
Speedwagon knelt by his body, tears streaming down her cheeks. They dripped onto the Father’s forehead, his eyes mercifully closed.
“Damn it! If only we had gotten here sooner…” If it weren’t for the hole in his chest, she could have sworn he was sleeping… or, maybe even crying too. Even after everything, he couldn’t stand seeing other people cry, always did his damnedest to help them any way he could…
Joanna placed a hand on her friend’s shoulder, and Speedwagon glanced over. Her eyes were tearing up, too, but there was a fire in them the ruffian knew well.
“We’ll find out who did this. We’re going to find out why. And we’re going to make sure they don’t get away with this.”“Thanks, Miss Jo-star… well, first thing’s first.” Speedwagon wiped her tears away, then carefully extracted the phone from the Father’s grip.
“We need to see if Tattoo managed to leave some evidence.”Joanna looked at her friend in surprise.
“You think he might have taken a picture of his murderer?”Speedwagon nodded.
“I’d reckon so. Take a look. His hands were gripped tight enough to keep a hold of the phone while he died, but not enough to crush it. If that grip were just death spasms, with his strength? We’d be picking the shards out of his fingers.”“Are you sure it’s still usable?” Joanna grimaced at the sight.
“It still looks ready to fall apart at any moment.”“It lasted long enough for us to lead us to his body.” Speedwagon gave it an appraising glance.
“…though I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to fix it up.” Speedwagon reached for the familiar power of her magic. She sent a purification spell into the cracked device, focused on cleansing it of the blood that didn’t belong there. The blood dripped away from the phone easily, as it hadn’t quite seeped into the truly sensitive parts of the phone. So far so good. She wove a restorative spell into the inner workings, casing, and the screen. Even the minute scratches of everyday use faded away, and the phone looked fresh out of the box instead of freshly taken from the hands of–
Speedwagon shook her head, dispelling those thoughts for a moment. After a beat, she decided to cast a reinforcement spell over the phone. Better not risk it getting broken again anytime soon. With that taken care of, she slipped the phone into her coat pocket for safekeeping, and warded it again for good measure. She shifted her attention back to Tattoo. She knew what they had to do, but it would still hurt.
“…come on, Miss Jo-star. We should get going before the coppers arrive.”“We can’t leave him here–!”“If we try to take him with us, we’ll only implicate ourselves in his murder. And even if he wouldn’t approve of us going off in search of vengeance, he wouldn’t want us behind bars.”Joanna stared at Father Grundelson’s face for a moment.
“…do you think they’ll call this ‘gang violence,’ too?”“…I don’t know. The claw marks will be hell to explain, but if they went with that story, they’ll probably fall back to ‘close range shotguns.’ Or they’ll pass it off as a gas explosion, possibly. Easier to explain away the magic as hallucinations, the killing blows as shrapnel from the blast.”“How will they explain all the corpses being covered in sheets, though?”“…good question.”The pavement behind them cracked, and the girls whirled around to catch a glimpse of a magical girl leaping up over the rim of a rooftop.
“W-what the hell?”“Could it be…?”They exchanged a look, and started running towards the motorcycle. They needed to follow that girl!
The man in the mask’s name was Sergei Korchaviv. Among the blogosphere, known as “The Faceless Bastard”: infamous servant to one of the Fears and, well, overall murderous bastard. One of the old breed of servants who preferred to wear a literal mask – though frankly he had better reason than most to do so. Apart from the obvious reasons, he was kind of on the lam. Years of murdering for the Morphs kind of gives you a mild case of serious legal issues, though using the same kind of weapon didn’t do himself any favors.
And while he lost a little time physically tailing the blogger, a little birdie told him exactly which way she was headed. Right towards… an alleyway?
Unbelievable. Didn’t this yahoo ever pick up a crime novel, a horror novel… hell, even a comic book? It’s like ringing a dinner bell for every coward, bully, cad, and thief in the area. If this was going to turn into him rescuing the girl from a bunch of third-rate criminals, then being torn between poorly written desire and duty to his eldritch masters, he was going to track down whatever hack writer was narrating it all from behind a typewriter and use their blood for some proofreading ink.
…perhaps falling asleep during a movie marathon wasn’t the brightest idea. It must have given him some kind of pop-culture hangover.
The Faceless Bastard walked into the alleyway in question, where she was waiting for him. He took several steps forwards, and the chirping of his little birdy told him that the two were alone. He had a sinking feeling that he knew where this was heading.
She turned around, and it was clear that she had taken a minute to put on her own mask. It was one of those Scooby-Doo style rubber masks, but in the shape of John Petrucci’s face instead of some monster. It was… actually really well made…
Oh
fucking hell. Now he got it. She was one of those “Masked Massacrer” asshats. Ever since old Slim Shady died, they started crawling out of the woodwork, claiming the dead Fear was still giving them orders. Either they were crazy or Archangel was fucking with them – come to think of it, maybe even one of those other eldritch assholes from Lovecraft’s fever dreams? – but according to the Morphs there was no way that their master was still kicking.
“Don’t suppose you’d tell me everything you know about Magreat, and we can both walk away without any bullshit?”The Masked Massacrer reached inside the waistband of her jeans and unsheathed a long-bladed knife. And from the way the asshole was holding it, and her stance, she clearly knew how to use it. Wonderful.
“Guess I’ll have to convince you, then.” The Faceless Bastard reached into his hockey bag. Gripping the hilt sticking out of it, he pressed a button to disengage the locking mechanism. Credit due to that enterprising nerd who thought to market an umbrella with a sword handle – since those things were everywhere, he could lug his sword around in broad daylight. True, The Faceless Bastard had to jerry-rig the workings of an umbrella to his scabbard, but those few hours had paid off in dividends.
Pulling it free from the disguised scabbard, he drew his sword – which looked like the bastard offspring of a machete and a cutlass – and got into a stance of his own.
The two Servants stared down the alleyway from each other.
The Masked Massacrer twirled her knife, once, twice, three times.
Light glinted off of The Faceless Bastard’s blade.
An honest-to-God tumbleweed passed them in the alleyway, drawing their gaze for a befuddled moment. It tumbled down the alleyway towards street behind The Faceless Bastard, causing his gaze to linger after it for a moment. He turned back to his opponent, and then the Masked Massacrer was on him.
“There! A parking garage! We can use that to get up to the rooftops!”The motorcycle blazed up the garage’s ramps, hardly slowing even to take the turns. But when they got to the top floor of the garage, which was open to the darkening sky...
“Damn it! The safety wall’s too high for us to drive to the next rooftop. We might have to follow on foot from here on out.”Joanna scanned the area for a moment, her face deep in thought.
“Hey, Speedwagon. How durable have you made this motorcycle?”“I’ve laid enough long-term reinforcements on this motorcycle for it to survive driving over a minefield. Why?”Joanna pointed across the garage's roof.
“Drive us close to that empty parking spot. I’m going to get us over the safety wall.”“...I don't know exactly what your plan is, but I trust you.” But Speedwagon drove them over there anyways, bringing the motorcycle to a stop with the engine idling.
“Alright, now what?”Joanna flung her blood near the center of the parking space, and it fell into the shape of a thick line perpendicular to the wall.
“Bring us around to get us up to speed...and then drive us directly over my blood!”Speedwagon noticed the thickness of the blood line looked about that of the motorcycle's undercarriage.
“Oh, I see what you're on about! Alright, hang on!” She gunned the engine, and began circling around the top floor of the garage, gaining more speed as she brought them back around.
Joanna concentrated on her magic, and the blood on that spot began to glow with energy.
“Almost there…” She had to get this timing just right…
On the third lap around, Speedwagon steered the motorcycle directly toward the glowing blood.
“When you're ready!” They hurtled closer and closer to the spot, until-
Now!
“Sanguine Springboard Overdrive!”And the blood beneath them exploded upwards, sending the motorcycle and the girls flying clear over the safety wall! A second passed before they touched down on the neighboring rooftop, and they shot off like an arrow when they did.
“Amazing, Miss Jo-star!” Speedwagon quickly clocked their position, and shouted,
“And look: there’s the magical girl we saw! We’re only a few rooftops away now!”“! Speedwagon!” Joanna pointed off into the distance, over Speedwagon’s shoulder.
Speedwagon looked, and immediately slammed on the brakes.
“What the hell?!”
The two disengaged, taking a moment to catch their breath. Clearly this fight was going nowhere fast if they kept dicking around in melee.
The Faceless Bastard
closed one eye stepped to the side. “You know what? Fuck this.”
The Faceless Bastard took off his hat and removed his mask, and the Masked Massacrer flinched.
Creatures that were birds in name alone pushed their way out from the scarred absence of flesh between his forehead and lips, the jagged edged wound carved by his own hand years ago. This convocation possessed wings and feathers, true, but no ‘bird’ forsakes a beak for gaping holes, nor does any ‘bird’ possess feathers sharp and shiny like a well-maintained set of knives. And surely no bird nor its plumage crackled with such electricity, leaping across members of the flock like thoughts between neurons. As they arose into the sky, the Masked Massacrer saw Fear blot out the rest of the dwindling light.
The Faceless Bastard swung his open hand downwards, as if to try and cleave the air with the sound of a one-handed clap.
“Say goodbye!”The Morphs swooped down at once, and true to their name, Morph. They became a living lightning strike, the sonic boom shaking the air with the force of a thunderclap. The Masked Massacrer crumpled to the ground, twitching in agony.
The Faceless Bastard, witness of the murder, strolled over to the smoking carcass, witnessed by the murder. He was used to the smell of burning flesh by now. He stood over the body and knelt down.
“So, are your vocal chords fused together, or do you want to finally tell me what you know about Christoph Magreat?”A dry chuckle drifted out from under the ruined mask.
“How will you handle the world crumbling around you?”The Faceless Bastard shifted, his knee now firmly atop the Masked Massacrer’s arm.
“Sorry, I must’ve ruined your ear drums. Because that doesn’t sound like anything useful about Magreat. So, since I’m so forgiving, how’s about you try again?”More of that damn chuckling. That John Petrucci mask looked more punchable by the second.
“Even if I could, what could you do? All you can do is stare at the world through those eyeholes.” A pause, and another fucking chuckle.
“You and I have been reduced to mere Glass Prisoners in this passion play, watching the time tick away as the Lamb frees or damns the world page by page.”The Faceless Bastard simply stared for a beat.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”A sigh.
“How familiar are you with the Topography Genera Center?”“No, I know what a fucking Glass Prisoner is. I already found your blog, it’s how I found your cryptic ass in the first place. I meant the other half of that sentence.”Another motherfucking chuckle. And then for once, that soft, smooth voice actually sounded serious.
“Are you ready? Hey. Are you ready for this? Are you hanging on the edge of your seat? Christoph Magreat needs to go to 'a specific place' in Penrose to complete his ritual, to deliver ‘it.’ When the time comes, he needs to go to–”She was interrupted by a .45 to the head.
The Faceless Bastard immediately tracked the angle of the shot, and saw the silhouette of the shooter in a nearby doorway. Completely unclothed, their skin the odd supple green of a tree stripped of its bark. The revolver, still smoking, was clutched in fingers that ended in tiny trees. In different circumstances, those treefingers would almost look comical. Capitalizing on the moment of surprise, the Treefingered… man? Woman? Whatever the hell it was, there was no time to see what kind of dangly bits it had, or even if it had any, because it was fleeing the scene.
The Faceless Bastard abandoned the body, bolting as soon as his body would let him. He gestured with his hands, but the birds already begun to give chase. They reached the end of the alleyway, and –
“What the fuck. How?”There was no sign of the shooter.
The Faceless Bastard spared a moment to convene with the Morphs, but they were as baffled as he was. He went back to check on the body, but there was only the long smear that comes of a freshly dragged corpse, and it lead into a solid wall. So whoever this asshole was, they could teleport, or they weren’t working alone. Or even worse, both. Great.
He lifted his mask to let the Morphs back inside to nest inside. He could have opened more wounds for them to enter from, speeding up the process, but that meant the cops would have a better chance of getting DNA samples. For some reason, he was a wanted murder suspect in several states. Couldn’t imagine why that was.
And besides, if you've got a giant hole in your head, it's always better to use it for
something.
He spotted the Masked Massacrer’s backpack tucked behind a garbage can, and paused. She must have shed it before they started fighting, and it looked like whoever took the body didn’t notice it either. Looks like this mess would have a silver lining after all. A small one, but it was something.
He shouldered the backpack across from his hockey bag, and slipped his ‘umbrella’ back in.
“…tch. I need a freaking drink.” The Faceless Bastard adjusted the trilby on his head and walked down the alleyway and back into the street.
‘I heard O’Brien’s moved to Penrose. Let’s see if it’s still standing when I get there.’
