We can see part of the debris of the fight.Kreutz’
mind still is battling against his enemies. We’re witnesses of a flashback: A younger
Kreutz in his middle teens with a bunch of older teenagers. He remembers those days,
hanging around with the band called the Prophets, mugging people, drinking. All the
scariest faces in that litter: Kid, Tagalong, Mite, Midget, Runt.
Young Kreutz was tolerated, not liked, as long as the band have other targets in sight,
but sometimes, when boredom came to their minds, little Kreutz was the new victim. He
remembered how much it hurt not to be beaten, but defeated. Kreutz lies out cold over the
broken pews. It hurts as much now as it did then.
Inside
Kreutz’ fucked up mind starts an impossible dialogue between Kreutz the young beaten
boy and Kreutz the adult bodyguard.
Adult Kreutz urges the kid to move. He’s urging himself, really. His
‘child-state’ refusing to move. ‘Are you admitting defeat?’ asks adult
Kreutz. ‘No’ says the younger. ‘Then, MOVE!’ Younger Kreutz is
protesting, saying that he’s trying the hardest he can, and that hurts. A tear wells
in the corner of one of Kreutz’ eyes, back in the corporeal world.
Adult Kreutz
mocks about the boy answer. The kid’s crying. ‘How much will it hurt to
lose?’ his adult state of mind asks. In the real world we see Kreutz’ hand. The fingers
twitch. Inside his mind adult Kreutz looks triumphant. ‘Good, now get up and go after
them’. Kreutz starts to move slowly, getting to his feet in great pain. His head
feeling like he’s had a train crash into it. He puts his glasses back on and promises
to himself revenge against the Assassin and his new friend.
The Gem still
has his arm locked around John’s neck and is pressing a small Walter pistol to it. The Assassin and Michael are
facing the Gem. Assassin’s pointing the gun directly on Gem’s face. Situation is
tense. Gem is menacing the Assassin:
‘Make one false move and I pull the trigger’.
The Assassin pauses for
a second before answering the gem's threat.
Eventually, when he speaks, it is in a voice that is inhuman in its deadness and cold hard
certainty. 'OK', he says, 'Kill him'. For a moment, nobody
in the room can believe their ears. In one voice, Michael, the Gem, and even John express
their astonishment. The Assassin clarifies what he had said, by telling the Gem to kill
John again; saying that he doesn't give a shit. He tells the almost confused Gem that it
is his mission to kill him at any cost, stressing this to indicate that this cost could
include John's life. However, despite the cold, dead certainty in his eyes, he still does
not squeeze the trigger.
The pain must
be almost literally incredible by now. In the past hour, Kreutz has been shot, beaten,
thrown through wooden pillars, and attacked with powers he does not even understand.
However, determination, and a singularly warped sense of duty, drives him onwards, and
somehow he is on his feet, and close enough to the Gem's stand-off to hear his employer
insist that the Assassin must be bluffing. The Assassin tells the gem, 'try me'. Kreutz
observes that in normal circumstances he'd head straight into the room, all guns blazing,
but decides to hang back, observing that 'to go in all guns blazing, you need a gun',
before taking up position close enough to the room to see in, and make his move when the
time is right. Back inside the room, Michael, still incredulous from the Assassin's
actions, asks him what he is doing, the Assassin replies that he is doing his job and
tells Michael to get out of the way.
Michael asks
the Assassin if killing John is his job. The Assassin does not turn to look at him, merely saying
'I have to eliminate the target'. Michael asks if this elimination is truly at any cost,
which angers the Assassin who says that it is at any cost, be that cost John's life or his
own. Michael then asks 'what about your humanity?'
Somehow, this
question gets through to the Assassin, but it only solves to stiffen his resolve. He tells
Michael that he has no humanity. He is the Assassin. The Chaos Gem. He is his target's
death. The look in his eyes at this moment could cut diamond, a mixture of icy
determination, and the fulfilment of what he was created to do. With one movement, he
pushes Michael to one side, all trace of human gone from his actions. Here stands only the
executioner. Behind him, shadowed in the doorway, Kreutz begins to move. Slowly, making no
sound and unseen by all, but using this stealth as a weapon as deadly as the gun in the
Assassin's hand. The Gem, using the last of his bargaining power, tells the Assassin that
if he pulls the trigger, John will die, instantly. In effect, the Gem promises to make his last act the
murder of his hostage. Even this does not divert the Assassin, who answers that this will
be the last thought the Gem ever has. His finger begins to squeeze the trigger...
Suddenly,
everything is happening at once. Kreutz tackles
the Assassin to the ground, skewing the shot, and as these two resume their fight, John
makes his move, breaking away from the Gem and running, to be caught by Michael, who pulls
him to safety. As the Assassin gets the upper hand, the tables seem to have turned again.
As quickly as
he can, the Assassin turns his attention back to the Gem, but before he can do anything,
it's too late. With a slight smile on his
face, the Gem raises the gun to his own head, and says the simple phrase 'I win'. Before
the Assassin can do anything more, he pulls the trigger. His blood - or rather the blood
of the man who became Dean of Saint Paul's by virtue of the strange inhuman being seeing through his eyes,
splatters onto the curtains behind him.
The
lines of force that form the webs that Gems cast over the universe... tremor somehow.
The forces embody stillness and stasis, unmoving, unthinking, power in their permanence. A
change sweeps over these forces, a profound change in powers where the slightest
alteration is a lit match in a sea of gasoline. The nature of these forces fluctuate, and suddenly... the center, the
strong center, that which the powers flow through, can no longer be felt. The strength of
the web disintegrates outwards, in implosion that turns into a multi-dimensional explosion
of catastrophic proportions.
Barely has the body of
the Gem's host hit the carpeted floor when a bolt of pure energy, unbelievable powerful,
shoots upwards, stunning the remaining occupants of the room. High above them, the dome of Saint Paul's glows, almost as
if it is being struck with lightning, only somehow in reverse. The stonework of the
building glows with the energy being released, glows as if the energy were saturating the
very masonry.
In a split second, the
energies flowing through the building prove too much for the structure to bear. With a
burst of energy large enough to vaporize most of the dome and send the rest of it flying
in all directions, the powers crack the cathedral like an eggshell.
Viewed from the astral
plane, the Gem seems to glow impossibly brightly for a split second, and then vanish,
leaving lights scarring the void like marks on the retina of the mind's eye. This image
dissolves outwards to mirror the view from the inside of the cracked dome of Saint Paul's,
majestic in its ruin. In the destroyed office, bodies lie, for a moment neither dead or
alive, with smoke still peeling from the barrel of the Gem's gun. The silence is broken by
a groan from Michael. Like the others, he
had been concussed by the power emitted at ground zero by the death of the host. However,
he is a swift healer, in some ways almost as swift as the Assassin. He has the presence of
mind to ask if everyone is all right, and is greeted by the Assassin's sardonic assertion
that if not all right he is at least alive. Michael's eye alights on the still huddled
figure of John, and asks if he is OK.
John is still, almost
catatonic. As Michael approaches he speaks in a small almost broken voice, saying 'he was
in my mind'. As Michael touches his arm, he flinches, terrified, and his voice starts up,
high and terrified, telling the Assassin and Michael that the Gem had been inside him,
able to see hear and feel his thoughts, taste his every sensation, an experience he
describes as having his brain raped. Michael pulls him into a hug to comfort and calm him,
telling him that he is all right, that the Gem is gone.
John does not believe him, saying that the Assassin needed to take the Gem's life himself
in order to kill him and asking the Assassin if he had done so. The
Assassin, still in pain, grudgingly admits that he did not.
Kreutz’
mind still is battling against his enemies. We’re witnesses of a flashback: A younger
Kreutz in his middle teens with a bunch of older teenagers. He remembers those days,
hanging around with the band called the Prophets, mugging people, drinking. All the
scariest faces in that litter: Kid, Tagalong, Mite, Midget, Runt.
He
remembered how much it hurt not to be beaten, but defeated. Kreutz lies out cold over the
broken pews. It hurts as much now as it did then.
Adult Kreutz urges the kid to move. He’s urging himself, really. His
‘child-state’ refusing to move. ‘Are you admitting defeat?’ asks adult
Kreutz. ‘No’ says the younger. ‘Then, MOVE!’ Younger Kreutz is
protesting, saying that he’s trying the hardest he can, and that hurts. A tear wells
in the corner of one of Kreutz’ eyes, back in the corporeal world.
Adult Kreutz
mocks about the boy answer. The kid’s crying. ‘How much will it hurt to
lose?’ his adult state of mind asks.
In the real world we see Kreutz’ hand. The fingers
twitch. Inside his mind adult Kreutz looks triumphant. ‘Good, now get up and go after
them’. Kreutz starts to move slowly, getting to his feet in great pain. His head
feeling like he’s had a train crash into it. He puts his glasses back on and promises
to himself revenge against the Assassin and his new friend.
The Gem still
has his arm locked around John’s neck and is pressing a small Walter pistol to it.
The Assassin and Michael are
facing the Gem. Assassin’s pointing the gun directly on Gem’s face. Situation is
tense. Gem is menacing the Assassin:
‘Make one false move and I pull the trigger’.
'OK', he says, 'Kill him'. For a moment, nobody
in the room can believe their ears. In one voice, Michael, the Gem, and even John express
their astonishment. The Assassin clarifies what he had said, by telling the Gem to kill
John again; saying that he doesn't give a shit. He tells the almost confused Gem that it
is his mission to kill him at any cost, stressing this to indicate that this cost could
include John's life. However, despite the cold, dead certainty in his eyes, he still does
not squeeze the trigger.
The pain must
be almost literally incredible by now. In the past hour, Kreutz has been shot, beaten,
thrown through wooden pillars, and attacked with powers he does not even understand.
However, determination, and a singularly warped sense of duty, drives him onwards, and
somehow he is on his feet, and close enough to the Gem's stand-off to hear his employer
insist that the Assassin must be bluffing. The Assassin tells the gem, 'try me'. Kreutz
observes that in normal circumstances he'd head straight into the room, all guns blazing,
but decides to hang back, observing that 'to go in all guns blazing, you need a gun',
before taking up position close enough to the room to see in, and make his move when the
time is right. Back inside the room, Michael, still incredulous from the Assassin's
actions, asks him what he is doing, the Assassin replies that he is doing his job and
tells Michael to get out of the way.
Michael asks
the Assassin if killing John is his job.
The Assassin does not turn to look at him, merely saying
'I have to eliminate the target'. Michael asks if this elimination is truly at any cost,
which angers the Assassin who says that it is at any cost, be that cost John's life or his
own. Michael then asks 'what about your humanity?'
In effect, the Gem promises to make his last act the
murder of his hostage. Even this does not divert the Assassin, who answers that this will
be the last thought the Gem ever has. His finger begins to squeeze the trigger...
Suddenly,
everything is happening at once.
Kreutz tackles
the Assassin to the ground, skewing the shot, and as these two resume their fight, John
makes his move, breaking away from the Gem and running, to be caught by Michael, who pulls
him to safety. As the Assassin gets the upper hand, the tables seem to have turned again.
As quickly as
he can, the Assassin turns his attention back to the Gem, but before he can do anything,
it's too late.
With a slight smile on his
face, the Gem raises the gun to his own head, and says the simple phrase 'I win'. Before
the Assassin can do anything more, he pulls the trigger. His blood - or rather the blood
of the man who became Dean of Saint Paul's by virtue of the strange inhuman being seeing through his eyes,
splatters onto the curtains behind him.
The nature of these forces fluctuate, and suddenly... the center, the
strong center, that which the powers flow through, can no longer be felt. The strength of
the web disintegrates outwards, in implosion that turns into a multi-dimensional explosion
of catastrophic proportions.
High above them, the dome of Saint Paul's glows, almost as
if it is being struck with lightning, only somehow in reverse. The stonework of the
building glows with the energy being released, glows as if the energy were saturating the
very masonry.
Like the others, he
had been concussed by the power emitted at ground zero by the death of the host. However,
he is a swift healer, in some ways almost as swift as the Assassin. He has the presence of
mind to ask if everyone is all right, and is greeted by the Assassin's sardonic assertion
that if not all right he is at least alive. Michael's eye alights on the still huddled
figure of John, and asks if he is OK.
John does not believe him, saying that the Assassin needed to take the Gem's life himself
in order to kill him and asking the Assassin if he had done so. The
Assassin, still in pain, grudgingly admits that he did not.